《Super Supportive》 ONE: The Boy in the Bubble He woke to the taste of blood and the agony of a sharp, terrifying pain. His ears rang. His head pounded. His bare chest was pressed to the carpet his parents had installed in their new apartment just a week ago. It still smelled funny. Gluey and artificial. ¡°Daddy!¡± he screamed. ¡°Momma!¡± Blood fell from his mouth onto the carpet. One of his arms was caught under his body, and he couldn¡¯t move it. Something had pierced the side of his stomach. It hurt. It hurt so much. He called again for his parents. But his own voice sounded weird. Distant. On the floor all around him, shards of glass sparkled in the orange glow of his nightlight. There was wind in the room. The window must have broken, but he couldn¡¯t see it from here. He looked around as best he could and spotted Wummy, plump and smiling, lying beside him. The stuffed wombat was half hidden by a comforter that had spilled over the side of the bed. Sobbing, he reached for Wummy with his good arm and grabbed him by the ear. Beneath them, the building shook. A fire alarm began to shriek. Suddenly, there was a deep thoom of sound. The boy felt an awful pain in his ears as the world exploded around him. Something¡ªsomeone¡ªblasted through the exterior wall of his bedroom. The ceiling crumbled. Chunks of concrete flew through the air like cannonballs. With his face pressed to the floor, the boy didn¡¯t see any of it. But he felt small pieces of rubble hitting his back. Then, he felt a crushing, smothering weight as the mattress from his bed landed on top of him. Pain from whatever was stabbing into his side shot through him, making every muscle spasm. He screamed as loud as he could. In response, he heard nothing but a terrible rushing noise and an endless high-pitched whine. Something heavy landed on the mattress. The air was pressed from his lungs. He couldn¡¯t breathe. I¡¯m going to die. I¡¯m going to die. Help. Dying was painful. It was dark. He wanted his mother. He wanted¡­ ### Light. The boy didn¡¯t know what had happened. Maybe he had passed out. Maybe he¡¯d been struck on the head, and his memories were having a hard time sticking. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was awake now, and there was light all around him. A semi-transparent globe of it encased him, glittering like a bubble full of silver stars. He was suspended inside the bubble, his body frozen. He tried to twitch his fingers or turn his head. But his mind was the only part of him that could still move, and it seemed to be moving more sluggishly than it should. There was no pain. He couldn¡¯t even blink, but his eyes didn¡¯t feel dry. He and the bubble slowly spun in place. And that place was¡­where was he? There was so much wreckage in the room that he only gradually recognized it as his own. A gaping hole in the wall looked out onto the ruin of a building. The night was full of smoke, dust, and flashes of red and white light. Firetruck lights, he thought. There was a station near their apartment. He loved to watch the trucks pass by on the street below. ¡°It is exciting, bud,¡± his father always said. ¡°But remember to say a prayer for the people they¡¯re going to help.¡± His father was a pastor. His mother had just gotten a job as a nurse in the Artonan House of Healing. The son of a pastor and a consecrated nurse was supposed to say prayers for all kinds of things. It was important, but sometimes he forgot. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Dear God, he thought now, as the bubble slowly rotated. I think something bad is happening. Please keep me and my family and Wummy safe. Please be with the firemen and don¡¯t let them get burned. Please take care of the people the firemen are going to help. Amen. Next, an Artonan wordchain to call good fortune from other worlds. He only knew a few of them, and he only knew them in English. Most people said that was useless, but his mother¡¯s boss said no faithful intention went completely unrewarded. My heart calls out to another in good faith. Spare me your luck under tonight¡¯s moons, and tomorrow I will spare you an equal portion of mine. Frozen in place as he was, he couldn¡¯t make the accompanying hand gesture. Hopefully it would still help. As his bubble continued to spin, more of the broken world around him came into view. He could see through one of his bedroom walls into the apartment¡¯s main living area. There was a band of destruction through the center of the room. The wood flooring was ripped up and splintered. The sofa was turned on its side beside the breakfast counter that separated the kitchen from the den. The coffee table was missing. The front door was missing, too, along with part of the surrounding wall. Through the gap, he could see the hall. Dim emergency light strips near the ceiling illuminated a neighbor¡¯s door. Dark liquid was spattered across the pale paint and the shiny brass number plate. The boy knew something was very wrong. He remembered his own terror. But his fear was almost as muffled as his pain now, and he felt only curiosity and a faint unease as more and more of the disaster was revealed. There were strange people in his room. Two of them. No. Three. They were against the wall, beside the small bookcase he and his mother had decorated with animal stickers on the day they moved in. First, he noticed their clothes. The woman, her brown hair braided around her head like a crown, wore combat boots and what looked like a blue motorcycle jacket that sparkled with the unmistakable glitter of real magic. She crouched beside a seated man with black hair and a sculpted beard. He was dressed in an armored bodysuit in the same shade of dark blue. No visible magic sparkled over him, but a sigil was emblazoned into the suit¡¯s chest. They¡¯re superheroes, thought the boy. Real ones. Excitement stirred inside him for the briefest instant before stilling. The man was weeping and shaking his head, staring down at the palms of his trembling hands as if they didn¡¯t belong to him. The woman reached out toward him, biting her lip. He jerked away. On the floor at their feet, the third stranger lay still. He was a teenager, the boy thought, though it was hard to tell in flashing lights. He wore a black hoodie, and his pale face stared up at the ceiling, unblinking. Is he frozen like me? But no. The person in the hoodie wasn¡¯t inside a silvery bubble. He was sprawled across the carpet, and as more of his body came into view, the boy saw that it had been ripped nearly in half. Horror rose, filling him, only to drain away as if someone had pulled a plug. The man gestured toward the dead body, his face agonized. His mouth opened wide, as if he were shouting. But inside the bubble, there was no sound. The woman looked toward the body, too. Her face was serious and sad. She reached over and gently shut the dead boy¡¯s eyes. She closed her own and said something. Maybe she''s praying, too. Then, she stood. As she did, she glanced up and looked at the boy in the bubble. Their eyes met. She seemed startled and upset for a moment before taking a deep breath and hurrying toward him, smiling broadly. It¡¯s a fake smile, he thought. It was the smile adults used when they were trying to convince you that something wasn¡¯t as bad as it really was. The one they wore before they gave you shots at the doctor¡¯s office. The smiling woman positioned herself between him and the dead body, then she pulled a small pad of paper and a marker out of her jacket. She wrote something and held it up for him to read. The print was clear and large. DON¡¯T BE AFRAID. WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU. She gave him plenty of time to read it, then she wrote on a new page. MY NAME IS HANNAH. MY FRIEND IS ARJUN. He was faintly disappointed they had real names. Lots of superheroes used code names but not all of them. I WILL COVER YOUR BUBBLE. THEN WE WILL TAKE YOU TO A SAFE PLACE. My name¡¯s Alden, he thought. What place? Where are my parents? Will they be there? But he had no way of speaking. Hannah gave Alden another strained smile and a thumbs up. Then, she bent down to the floor. She popped back up a moment later holding Wummy. She unzipped her jacket part way and made a show of carefully tucking the wombat inside before zipping it back up so that his smiling face peeked out just under her chin. She gave the bubble another thumbs up. Alden caught a glimpse of Arjun and the nameless dead boy as she bent again. The superhero¡¯s face was hidden by one shaking hand. Then a blanket¡ªAlden''s own comforter, stained with blood¡ªwas tossed over the whole silver bubble. And he couldn¡¯t see anything anymore. TWO: Mistakes Two Weeks Later *** Alden lay in his hospital bed, watching rain spatter against the windows and stream down the glass in rivulets. Wummy lay beside him, and a handheld video game console was in his lap, chirping occasionally to remind him that he¡¯d left his game on pause. He winced and shut it off. The chirp was too similar to the high-pitched ringing he¡¯d had in his ears ever since the disaster. The doctors and the healer had both told him the same thing¡ªthat there was a good chance the whining sound would stop on its own but it might not. The console had been given to him at the House of Healing, right after his broken arm and wrist were mended. He was supposed to play with it often¡­something about maintaining dexterity in a healing limb. But he¡¯d mostly been using it to distract himself from everything else. It worked. Sometimes. But not as well here in the children¡¯s hospital he¡¯d been transferred to a few days ago. The House of Healing was soothing in a way a mundane hospital never could be. Here, now, everything Alden saw reminded him that things were wrong and they would never be right again. And he was a source of gossip for some of the staff. He knew it because he¡¯d heard a couple of them talking just outside his room when they thought he was asleep. Poor thing lost his parents in such a horrible way. And they still haven¡¯t managed to reach any other family. Do you know if he saw it happen? God, I can¡¯t imagine the trauma. It wasn¡¯t like it was mean gossip. They all felt sorry for him. They all meant well. But Alden hated it. And nobody would tell him the truth about what had happened. Not the whole truth. Not even the grief counselor who spent so much time talking about being honest and open with your feelings. His home had been destroyed, and his parents had died in a supervillain attack. The heroes hired by the city of Chicago had not been able to bring the villain under control without collateral damage. Alden didn¡¯t know what that meant. How had they died? Why couldn¡¯t he see their bodies? Which supervillain was it? Why¡­why had they wanted to hurt Alden¡¯s parents? If one more adult told him that it was all a terrible accident, one that was impossible for someone his age to understand, he was going to throw his console at their lying smile. Just as he thought that, Nurse Amanda knocked once and then came straight in. At least she wasn¡¯t smiling. In fact, she was wearing a worried frown. ¡°Alden, sweetie,¡± she said. ¡°Someone has come to visit you. Now, you don¡¯t have to see her if you don¡¯t want to¡ª¡± ¡°Who is it?¡± he asked quickly. Alden had seen a few different visitors. His teacher had visited him three times, and she¡¯d brought handmade ¡°Get Well Soon¡± cards from the entire third grade. A couple of the nurses from the House of Healing had come as well. And the children¡¯s choir director from his father¡¯s old church had driven overnight all the way from Nashville with a tray of cupcakes and cheese straws. Visitors were good. Visitors filled the room with noise so that Alden didn¡¯t have to hear his own thoughts. ¡°It¡¯s Hannah Elber, sweetie. The superhero.¡± Alden froze, his mind flickering automatically to his dark, ruined bedroom. To flashing lights and a body¡ªthe body of the villain?¡ªlying there torn open. The memory had a foreign feel to it, like it belonged to someone else. But at the same time it was too detailed and clear. He hadn¡¯t seen Hannah or Arjun since the day it happened. He¡¯d been in the bubble, covered by the blanket, for what felt like a long time. When the comforter was removed, he and Hannah had been alone together in the back of a van. She¡¯d written him lots of notes, explaining what was going on and what was happening. YOU ARE INJURED, BUT YOU WILL BE ALL RIGHT. MY SPELL IS KEEPING YOU SAFE AND CALM. WE ARE GOING TO THE HOUSE OF HEALING. THEY WILL HELP YOU. IT WILL NOT HURT. I WILL STAY WITH YOU UNTIL YOU FALL ASLEEP. Where are my parents? Alden had thought, over and over again, willing the question to get through. Where are they? Did you rescue them, too? Now, of course, he knew that she hadn¡¯t. ¡°You don¡¯t have to see her,¡± Nurse Amanda said again, seeming to mistake his silence for fear. ¡°Just because she¡¯s a superhero doesn¡¯t mean she gets to do whatever she likes. I¡¯ll tell her you¡ª¡± ¡°I want to see her!¡± Alden cried, nearly falling out of the bed in his eagerness. His stomach muscles complained a little, but they were nearly healed now and he barely noticed. Hannah would know things. Maybe she would explain why everything had gone wrong. ¡°Where is she?¡± The nurse stared at him. ¡°She¡¯s downstairs at the check-in desk. Give me a minute, sweetie. She¡¯ll come to you.¡± ### ¡°Oh, man,¡± Hannah Elber muttered, staring at her reflection in the polished metal of the elevator door. ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯re going to let me in, Cly. I¡¯m gonna have to go rogue and climb up the side of the building or something.¡± ¡°That¡¯ll be a great look on the six o¡¯clock news,¡± her friend said dryly through her earbud. ¡°And I¡¯d like to see you try it. You failed hard on the rock wall every time in gym class.¡± ¡°I should¡¯ve come sooner,¡± Hannah said, ignoring the jab. ¡°But I was waiting for them to find the kid¡¯s aunt so I could talk to her and get permission, only it''s starting to seem like they¡¯re never going to track the lady down, which just makes everything so much worse.¡± ¡°Hannah, it¡¯s not your fault his parents died.¡± ¡°It is.¡± ¡°It¡¯s really not.¡± ¡°Shut up about it.¡± ¡°No. You had to stabilize a building. In a crazy situation, fighting against a vill with weirdass powers. You aren¡¯t perfect. You did your best. Arjun did his best. It wasn¡¯t quite enough. Mistakes happen to all of us at some point in our careers. That¡¯s all there is to it.¡± For a moment, they both fell quiet. ¡°Is he¡­¡± Cly hesitated. ¡°Is he going to be all right?¡± Hannah closed her eyes. "You should have seen his face, Cly. Killing a civilian has always been his biggest fear, and the way he had to take the villain down this time... He¡¯ll never trust me to do my job again, and why should he?¡± ¡°Hannah, nobody blames you. Not even Arjun.¡± Hannah shook her head. ¡°I promised him,¡± she said quietly. ¡°I told him I had his back. I told him he could go all out. That¡¯s our whole reason for teaming up. It''s the whole reason we''re here in Chicago where they had space for a pair instead of somewhere else. And I--¡± Behind her, the woman at the check-in desk cleared her throat. ¡°You can head on up, Ms. Elber. He¡¯s in Room 3703.¡± Hannah spun around and gave the other woman a bright smile. ¡°Thank you so much! Have a nice day.¡± ¡°Wow, you really go all in on the public persona thing,¡± Cly muttered through the earbud. ¡°It''s an important part of the job. And it''s the least I can do to get that much right." ### Alden was by himself when the superhero arrived. It had taken actual begging to get the nurse to leave him alone with his visitor, but she finally relented. He could still hear her murmuring rules and warnings to Hannah through the door, though. His heart was racing. Excitement. Nerves. A little bit of fear. He¡¯d only met a hero once before the accident. It was in first grade. The school had held a special assembly, and a hero named Electric Yo-yo had come to talk to them all about staying safe during emergencies. ¡°Heroes are helpers, just like firemen and police officers,¡± Yo-yo had said, flinging a little orb of green lightning around the stage and calling it back to him like it was a pet. ¡°Our powers might look scary, but that doesn¡¯t mean we¡¯ll hurt you. If one of us gives you instructions be sure to follow them so that we can keep you safe.¡± Yo-yo had been funny. He¡¯d given out pencils and stickers. Alden couldn¡¯t imagine him tearing someone in half. Stolen story; please report. Finally, Hannah stepped through the door, interrupting his thoughts. She had a nervous smile on her face. Her hands were in the pockets of her motorcycle jacket, which just looked like normal clothes right now without the sparkle of magic coating it. Her brown hair was pulled back into two French braids. ¡°Hi, Alden!¡± she said. ¡°I just came by to check on you. Is that okay?¡± She didn¡¯t come an inch closer until he nodded. When he did, she walked over to the chair beside his bed and sat down. The vinyl creaked under her weight. They stared at each other for a minute, neither of them blinking, then Hannah licked her lips and said, ¡°Soooo, I don¡¯t know if you remember me, but I¡¯m Hannah. Hannah Elber. My friend and I¡ª¡± ¡°I remember,¡± Alden said quickly. How could I forget? ¡°Oh. Good. I thought maybe you wouldn¡¯t because of the spell. You were awake inside of it, which was pretty unusual. Um¡­how are you feeling? Did they get you all patched up?¡± ¡°I¡¯m okay. My ears make a lot of noise. They have to keep me here until they¡¯re sure my stomach is better.¡± ¡°Right. You got stabbed by a big hunk of metal. It flew in right through your window. That had to hurt. I¡¯m so sorry about that.¡± It had hurt. He remembered being in agony before he was in the bubble. But that memory was like the rest of the night. It was clear, but it felt like it belonged to someone else. ¡°I never got to see it,¡± he said. ¡°What?¡± ¡°The piece of metal I got stabbed with. I never got to see it. I didn¡¯t think to ask until they brought me here, and nobody knows where it went.¡± Hannah had a weird look on her face for a second, but then she nodded. ¡°Yeah. I get that. I¡¯d want to see the thing, too. They probably disposed of it, though. I don¡¯t think they can keep bloody chunks of shrapnel lying around at the House of Healing. But I can ask just to be sure if you want me to?¡± Alden nodded. He was relieved that talking to Hannah was so easy. She wasn¡¯t treating him like a baby. ¡°Ask if I can have it.¡± ¡°Will do,¡± Hannah said, giving him a salute. ¡°And if you¡¯re curious about what it was¡­I got a good look at it. I¡¯m almost positive it was a piece of a table saw blade.¡± "A saw?" She made a vaguely triangular shape with her fingers. ¡°You had a piece of it this big in your side.¡± Alden pondered that. Then he asked, ¡°Do you want to see my scar?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°From the table saw. Do you want to see my scar? It¡¯s purple.¡± Hannah blinked. Then she smiled. ¡°Do I ever!¡± Alden nodded. The doctors and nurses had all told him the scar was cool. It was good to have confirmation from a superhero. He pulled up his hospital-issued pajama shirt to reveal the long, raised scar on his left side. It was dark purple, and it went down at a slight angle from his lower ribs. Hannah made a big deal over it, too. ¡°Interesting scars are like collector¡¯s items for supers,¡± she told him. ¡°That one¡¯s great.¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t hurt much anymore.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad,¡± said Hannah. ¡°They had a real healer patch you up since it was a superpower-related incident. You¡¯d normally be out of the hospital already, but a healed body can suddenly revert. It¡¯s incredibly rare, but since you had a strange reaction to my Bubble of Patient Waiting they¡¯re being extra cautious with you.¡± ¡°The silver bubble spell?¡± Hannah nodded. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said. ¡°Normally, if I put a living being inside it, they lose awareness. If I¡¯d realized you were awake in there, I wouldn¡¯t have let you see¡­that.¡± Alden felt his face fall. Oh right. I had important questions to ask her. And she might not stay long. ¡°Was that the villain who killed my parents?¡± he asked. ¡°The guy who was¡­on my floor?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± said Hannah, sitting up straight and clasping her hands together on top of her knees. ¡°Yeah, that was the bad guy. Didn¡¯t anyone talk to you about him?¡± Alden flopped back onto his pillows. He gripped the blanket tightly. ¡°No. Nobody answers my questions with actual answers. They just say nice-sounding words that don¡¯t mean anything.¡± He heard Hannah take a deep breath. After a beat, she said, ¡°Well, that¡¯s not fair to you, but maybe they just don¡¯t know enough to tell you everything. I¡¯m not sure how much information regular people actually have right now. Probably a lot of gossip and only a little bit of truth. Do you¡­I can answer questions if you want? It doesn¡¯t have to be today. We can wait until you¡¯re out of the hospital, or¡ª¡± ¡°Why did the villain kill my parents?¡± Alden asked immediately, twisting the blankets in his hands. ¡°Was he trying to rob us? Or was he mad at them? Why¡­?¡± He¡¯d wondered and wondered. Maybe if there was a reason for the terrible thing that had happened, it would all start to make sense. Hannah gulped. ¡°Well, he was a U-class. Do you know what that means?¡± ¡°Unique.¡± A couple of Alden¡¯s favorite heroes had unique classes. They weren''t necessarily stronger than other heroes, but they had unusual powers that didn¡¯t fit into the normal set of classes people were granted when they were chosen by the Artonan System. ¡°Right. He¡¯d just been called by the System a few months ago, from what we understand. And he got his unique class and his first skills. Instead of registering and coming to live on Anesidora Island or in another hero zone like he was supposed to, he started using his power on civilians.¡± It was an unexpectedly familiar story to Alden. In movies and television shows, the supervillain was almost always someone who refused to register their power and abide by the law. He hadn¡¯t realized it was something that could happen in real life. Hannah sighed. ¡°He had a power that¡¯s never been recorded before. And it was really strong and deadly.¡± ¡°What power?¡± ¡°Um¡­it¡¯s pretty scary. Are you sure you want to know the details?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Okay,¡± the superhero said. ¡°It was some kind of transfer ability. It took strength and vitality¡ªmaybe other things, too¡ªfrom his targets and transferred them to him. So the more people he hurt, the more powerful he became. ¡°They were having an early Halloween party at a club a few blocks away from your apartment building. He went there and started draining people. It took¡­a really long time for people at the party to notice. It was loud and crowded. He blended in, and he killed several people before someone finally realized something was wrong and called emergency services.¡± She shifted in the chair, and it creaked loudly again. ¡°The other heroes working here in Chicago were busy, and dispatch didn¡¯t realize how dangerous the situation was. So they only sent me and Arjun. ¡°When we got to the club, it was¡­bad. The villain¡¯s power fed itself. The more people he killed, the more powerful he got. And as he grew stronger, he could kill people even more quickly. He was moving almost like a speed-agility type by the time we got there, which was bad for us, because Arjun and I don¡¯t have the mental specs to deal with true superspeed.¡± She grew quiet, and when Alden glanced over, he saw that she was staring off into space, her lips pressed together. He didn¡¯t want her to stop talking. Not until he knew everything. ¡°What kind of Avowed are you?¡± he asked, feeling a little proud he''d remembered the proper name for people chosen by the System. "What powers do you have." She shook herself and looked over at him. ¡°I¡¯m an Adjuster. A-rank. I know that doesn¡¯t tell you much because there¡¯s a lot of variety with Adjusters. I¡¯ve focused my skills on stabilizing and freezing isolated patches of reality.¡± Seeing his blank expression, she gave him an apologetic shrug. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s kind of a complicated one. Just think of the bubble you were in. I received that spell recently. It makes a space that keeps everything inside it from changing. I don¡¯t think it actually stops time¡­can¡¯t get a straight answer out of anyone I¡¯ve asked. But it¡¯s almost like that. So even though you were badly injured, when I wrapped the bubble around you, you stopped bleeding. Your mind was supposed to stop working, too, but magic can be weird sometimes.¡± ¡°Nothing hurt anymore,¡± said Alden. ¡°I couldn¡¯t move. And I couldn¡¯t get excited or scared like normal.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad. I¡¯m going to study the spell more so I can figure out exactly what happened. I thought you might be terrified to be trapped in there.¡± It had never occurred to Alden before that a superhero might not understand their own powers. How could you do magic without knowing how it worked? ¡°Anyway,¡± said Hannah, ¡°we had to stop Body Drainer¡ªthat¡¯s what they¡¯re calling him right now. We tried to slow him down with my spells so that Arjun could grab him. Arjun is an S-rank Brute, almost purely focused on physical strength. S-ranks have loads of power, so even if the guy started draining him he should have been able to stop him. But I couldn¡¯t target or cast fast enough. And none of my spells are invisible, so when I tried to build traps he just dodged them.¡± She sounded frustrated. ¡°He ran out of the club, and we chased him down the street. He was too fast for us, but he kept stopping to attack people, so we managed to keep up. We had to¡­I told Arjun we had to get him into another enclosed space. One without any people. We would lose him if he ran flat out in an open area, and we couldn''t afford that. And usually newbies who aren¡¯t used to extreme speed do badly in small spaces. But almost everything was residential. The first empty building we saw was the one right across the street from yours.¡± Alden knew about that. That building was being remodeled. When it was done, it was going to be apartments, too. He¡¯d hoped lots of families with other kids would move in so that they could send secret flashlight messages to each other through the windows at night. ¡°We managed to chase the villain in there,¡± Hannah said. ¡°Arjun went after him to fight, and I stayed outside to block the exits and stabilize the building so that it wouldn''t completely collapse and damage the neighboring structures. It¡¯s hard for Arjun to use his full power without destroying everything. I became his sidekick so that he wouldn¡¯t have to focus on things like that in the middle of serious fights. So¡­so as battlefield support, it was my job to keep bystanders safe and¡­let Arjun know what his options were.¡± She stopped talking again. And her silence lasted for such a long time, that Alden began to feel uncomfortable. She¡¯s upset. Was it because it went wrong? Something must have gone wrong, because the villain was not dead in the empty building across the street when the fight was over. He was dead in Alden¡¯s bedroom. And Alden¡¯s parents were dead, too. ¡°I was making stable zones where they were needed to absorb the force of Arjun¡¯s strikes, but I was spread too thin. And the Body Drainer started showing off some weird energy skill we still haven''t figured out. He was sending out these pulses that were almost like explosions centered on his body. They were going right through my spells. Shrapnel started flying, like that piece of metal that went through your window." She stared at his stomach as if she could see the scar through his shirt, then continued. "So I tightened my focus even more, making my spells extra strong in smaller areas so nothing could get through them. And I¡­I made a horrible mistake. Arjun suddenly asked through coms if the middle of the exterior wall on the seventh floor could take a big hit, and I said yes. But I was in such a rush I counted the windows wrong. I stabilized the middle of the eighth floor instead, and when he tackled the Body Drainer, they both smashed through the side of the building, and the momentum carried them all the way across the street into your family¡¯s apartment.¡± There were tears in her eyes. The ringing in Alden¡¯s ears seemed to have gotten louder all of a sudden. His lips were trembling. ¡°I¡¯m so, so sorry, Alden,¡± Hannah said. ¡°It was my fault. Don¡¯t¡­you might hear things from others, all kinds of guesses and rumors. But you should know the truth. Arjun was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He did everything right in a bad situation. Your parents died because a teenager thought it would be cool to be a supervillain and because I made a stupid, awful mistake in the middle of a serious situation.¡± Alden¡¯s vision blurred. A huge, racking sob welled up inside of him. He tried to hold it back, but it was like trying to hold back the tide. He started crying, every bit as hard as he had when they first told him his parents were gone. It just wouldn¡¯t stop. His body ached with it. His pillow was getting wet. Nurse Amanda burst into the room, and Alden screamed, ¡°Get out! Leave me alone!¡± so loud it made his throat hurt. Hannah Elber, the superhero, ran from him like he¡¯d attacked her. Nurse Amanda ran toward him, whispering words of comfort. For some reason Alden couldn¡¯t understand in the burning pain of the moment, this was exactly the opposite of what he¡¯d wanted. THREE: 90 seconds Time passed. Things changed. Alden¡¯s wayward aunt, Connie, was finally located by social services, and the two of them became a family. Their relationship was loving, but far less functional and sheltering than the one he¡¯d had with his parents. Aunt Connie had, as one of Alden¡¯s elementary school teachers very kindly put it, an unconventional parenting style. When he was eleven, his baseball coach, chewing an enormous wad of gum behind the dugout after a game one day, was less discreet. ¡°Listen, Alden,¡± he said around noisy smacking sounds. ¡°You¡¯ve got your head straight on your shoulders, so I¡¯ll just tell you. It¡¯s not right that you have to be the grown-up in the relationship. That woman¡¯s got nuts loose in her brain and a bunch of squirrels chasing after them.¡± Alden had frowned and looked down to the place where his shoe was scuffing a small divot into the clay. He didn''t like people badmouthing his aunt, but it wasn''t easy to argue with them. ¡°She¡¯ll come pick me up eventually. You don¡¯t have to wait with me.¡± ¡°Kid, she left you here until after the rec department closed last game. Don¡¯t think I didn¡¯t hear about it.¡± Alden wondered if he should mention that he''d used his aunt''s name and id number to put an app on his phone so that he could use the adults-only e-scooter rentals around the city when he really needed to. But maybe that would only prove his coach''s point. So they waited together, and she did come. Only an hour late that afternoon, with an excuse about traffic and six pints of melted ice cream in the backseat of the car. It was fine. They dumped the ice cream and bought more for dinner. Then some of Aunt Connie¡¯s friends from the salon where she was working at the moment came over to their house with pizza and beer and loud music. Alden disappeared to his room after the impromptu party became uncomfortably messy. He slapped on his favorite set of headphones and played games on his computer for a while. Then, he did his homework. It was just reading¡ªa simplified history of the System¡¯s arrival and the ways it had changed Earth. There wasn¡¯t much new information in it. The Artonans unleashed the System on Earth, as they had on many other planets in the past. In exchange for powers, arcane knowledge, and tech, humans had to agree to help the Artonans when they were called upon. Plenty of humans took them up on the offer, and the first superhumans were created. That was seventy years ago, in the early 1960s, and almost everyone agreed it had been a good deal for humanity. Without the Artonans, most people thought that Earth might not even have internet or cell phones. And when heroes were summoned by Earth¡¯s alien benefactors, the Artonans were fair in their dealings. Sometimes they assigned difficult missions, but they always offered rewards equal to the task given. Alden had already known all of this. At the end of the assignment, his online textbook included a poll for all its readers asking if you¡¯d like to have powers or not. He clicked ¡°yes¡± after only a moment¡¯s hesitation. You¡¯re in the majority! the screen announced. 96% of the students reading this chapter also said they would like to have powers. You¡¯re all super brave. Being a hero is an important job. But did you know that only 0.07% of the people on Earth will be offered access to the Interdimensional Warrior¡¯s Contract? (Reminder: that¡¯s the proper name for the System. It might show up on a quiz.) That¡¯s around 7.6 million superhumans. It¡¯s a big-sounding number, but it means that more than ten and a half billion people who would like to have super powers will never even get the chance. That¡¯s a lot of disappointed people, Alden thought, feeling more than a little disappointed himself. He answered a few reading comprehension questions, earning a 10/10 and a burst of fireworks across the screen. At midnight, the house was still noisy, so he gave up on the idea of sleeping. He sneaked into the den to grab a cold slice of pizza, then settled back at his desk for his on-again off-again hobby. Researching the accident. Three years dulled things, but on nights like this, he missed his parents acutely. Digging into their deaths was a painful compulsion. Superheroes were a source of fascination for most people¡ª96% of them apparently¡ªso there was plenty of information. Alden was beginning to learn how to sort fact from fiction. It helped that Hannah hadn¡¯t lied to him that day in the hospital. The things she¡¯d told him were a guideline that helped him find the other pieces of the story. The pieces that were uglier. For example, there were pictures of some of the Body Drainer¡¯s victims. They looked even more dead than dead bodies usually did. They were twisted up and gruesome. The only photographs of Body Drainer were nice ones, though¡ª school pictures showing a smiling, pale boy in a shirt and tie. Superhumans usually came into their powers between fifteen and seventeen. He was a senior in high school when he killed twenty-seven people. Most of the deaths happened at the nightclub. But there were a few before that. And three while the heroes were in pursuit. There were either none after he was cornered in the building across the street from Alden¡¯s bedroom, or two. It depended on how you looked at it. Some websites counted Alden¡¯s parents among Body Drainer¡¯s victims. Others listed them as bystanders. One wrote their names out¡ª Richard and Leah Thorn¡ªand placed them beside the words collateral damage. A couple of superhuman-hate sites even listed them as victims of Arjun Thomas and Hannah Elber. Like they¡¯d killed them on purpose. ¡°You just know ¡®heroes¡¯ do shit like this all the time when they¡¯re not on camera,¡± a user named wakeuptheresbacon said. ¡°Easy way to hide a couple of murders. Like ¡®Oops. It was an accident while I was fighting crime.¡¯ I¡¯ve thought about it a lot before. And look at those stupid suckers. They were definitely hero lovers. The lady worked at a House of ¡®Healing¡¯.¡± Alden had seen this comment before several times. He kept coming back to this site to stare at it even though it made him furious. He¡¯d gone through phases over the past three years where he was angry at the heroes for messing up their fight with the Body Drainer. But he wasn''t currently in one, and he¡¯d never been confused about where the ultimate blame lay. And now he was just¡­so, so mad at wakeuptheresbacon. He knew in his head that it was weird, but he thought he hated bacon more than he¡¯d ever hated the actual supervillain responsible for ruining his life. He didn¡¯t know my parents. He doesn¡¯t know anything. How dare he say stuff like that about them! My mom¡¯s job was important. Everyone was so proud of her. Houses of Healing usually had just one healer¡ªa superhuman or even an Artonan¡ªplus an apprentice or two, and a small handful of regular human nurses who had to go through years of extra training and be granted special authority to use certain healing wordchains. His mom being chosen for the job was such a big deal that his family had moved to Chicago for it. She was amazing, but bacon and his internet friends were acting like she was dumb. He glared at the screen until his eyes started to water. He wanted to tell everyone that bacon was the stupid one, even though the comment had been posted over a year ago, but the thread was closed. He let his forehead smack into the desk and started a breathing exercise a school counselor had given him not long after his parents died. It had been months since he¡¯d remembered to do it, but at one point, he¡¯d had to use it almost every day. He fell into the rhythm easily. When he felt better, he sat back up and closed the infuriating website. He turned the volume up on his headphones. It was one of his rainstorm playlists. In theory it would help distract him from his lingering tinnitus, but in practice, he mostly used it to drown out Aunt Connie. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. He typed in the name of another website,one he¡¯d found recently, and read through it again. It was the blog of an elderly man named Marv who was extremely geeky about super abilities. Marv went into minute detail about the physics of them. He discussed the intricacies of the magic/chaos dynamic. He had pages and pages of skill listings and stat theory. And he did breakdowns of the more obscure powers. Alden couldn¡¯t understand most of it. But he was trying to understand everything about a post the man had made three weeks ago. It was about Body Drainer. And because Drainer had only really made one appearance in the public eye, the entire breakdown of his skills was based on that night. Alden had read it several times, and every time he did, he felt his mind shifting a little. Like it was trying to make room for a different perspective than the one that had been deeply entrenched in him for so long. It wasn¡¯t that Marv had much new information to offer about what had happened. He didn¡¯t. But the facts he chose to focus on in his discussion of Drainer¡¯s powers weren¡¯t the facts Alden had always focused on. The Drainer had killed people by draining them. It was right there in the name. But Marv was interested in finding out what exactly it was the villain was draining: ¡°To merely say he stole strength from his victims, as most do, is to say we don¡¯t know what he was absorbing from those poor souls at all. The implication is that he was somehow increasing his own physical abilities by depriving others of theirs. This is obviously incorrect. ¡°It is fascinating to me that so many of my fellow superpower enthusiasts have ignored the most unusual aspect of the Body Drainer¡¯s case¡ªhis use, in his final moments, of what official reports call only ¡®energetic bursts akin to explosions.¡¯ ¡°This is wildly different from his more commonly discussed talent for enhancing his speed. If the villain was only improving his own physical traits as he stole life from others, there would be no way to produce ¡®energetic bursts.¡¯ And the suggestion that he had acquired an additional high-ranked skill from the system beyond the drain ability beggars belief. ¡°May I remind my friends that this particular villain had only become a superhuman a few weeks previously? Skills of enormous power are not so easy to come by. ¡°Any attempt to ascertain the true nature of Body Drainer¡¯s deadly skill must begin with a thorough pondering of these strange explosions. ¡°Here we head into the thorny jungle of magi-chaos, where one human might lay hands on another and take from them something more essential than muscle or bone.¡± Alden read the introduction slowly. Then he read the rest of the post even more slowly. Marv grew more long-winded rather than less as the writing progressed. But the focus on Body Drainer¡¯s explosive ability was particularly important to Alden, so he persevered. Marv reported that Drainer had used the explosions twice in rapid succession. BOOM. BOOM. Only a second apart. And then a third time, ¡°approximately ninety seconds later, as reported by heroes on scene, at the moment of impact by Mr. Arjun Thomas, a strength-focused Brute class.¡± BOOM. Marv was curious about how Drainer¡¯s power caused the explosions in the first place. Alden was morbidly focused on the timing of them. Was it really ninety seconds between the first two and the third? Ninety seconds between the explosions that had thrown him from his bed and the moment Arjun and the villain crashed through the walls of his room and he lost consciousness? It wasn¡¯t the first time he¡¯d asked himself that since reading the post. He glanced over at Wummy, sitting on the foot of his neatly made bed beside his backpack. But the smiling wombat had no answers. Alden closed his eyes and tried to remember. There was the sudden shock of waking up in pain on the floor. His ears were ringing. He screamed for his parents. He realized his mouth was full of blood. His arm was messed up. He¡¯d been pierced by the shrapnel. He screamed again. He saw broken glass. He reached for Wummy. There was wind in the room. The world exploded. It could have been ninety seconds, he thought. Isn¡¯t that a long time? Alden felt his perception shifting again. He decided that he had to know. He shut down his computer and turned off his lights. He grabbed his phone and climbed into bed. This is so mean. And embarrassing. He found the phone¡¯s stopwatch feature and let his thumb hover over the START/STOP button. Carefully hiding the phone and his hand under his sheets, he took a deep breath and pressed the button. The instant he felt a haptic twitch from the phone, he screamed at the top of his lungs. ¡°AUNT CONNIE!¡± One Mississippi, he thought. Two Mississippi. ¡°HELP!¡± he screamed. ¡°AUNT CONNIE! AUNT CON¡ª¡± There was a sound like an elephant barging through the den. A crash. Swearing from one of the guests. Something like a pizza box hitting the floor. Then Alden¡¯s aunt burst into his room. Her bleached hair was wild around her face. She¡¯d flung the door open so hard it ricocheted off the wall. Her eyes were wide. ¡°Alden!¡± she shouted, leaping over his backpack to grab him. ¡°Alden, baby! What¡¯s wrong?!¡± So forceful was the response that he almost forgot to hit the stopwatch¡¯s button. Maybe I didn¡¯t have to scream quite that loud? ¡°I¡­I think I had a bad dream." Jos¨¦ and Rhonda from the salon were both staring at him through the bedroom door. He felt his face heat. His aunt rocked back and forth, still clutching him to her. ¡°It¡¯s all right,¡± she murmured. ¡°It¡¯s all right. I¡¯ve got you.¡± Hidden under the sheets, the clock had stopped at eight seconds. # It took a long while for Alden to convince his aunt he was fine. And that he didn¡¯t need her to sleep with him and scare the monsters away like he was a little kid. He must not have done a great job of it, though. When the bus dropped him off after school the next day, he found that his room smelled like someone had dumped a truckload of apple pie filling into it. He looked around and found the culprit quickly; it was a Christmas-themed fragrance dispenser, plugged into the wall and glowing hot pink. I guess she wanted me to have a nightlight. He wrinkled his nose but left it plugged in to punish himself for scaring her and lying about why. He dropped off his bag and headed to the kitchen. He had a couple of hours of privacy at least. He opened a pair of overstuffed drawers Aunt Connie called the ¡°Flat Stuff Place¡±. The drawers were, indeed, full of flat stuff. Takeout menus, recipes, random Tarot cards, matchbooks, ¡°I Voted¡± stickers, old credit cards, brochures, birthday cards, random school assignments, and more. Alden dug through it all, looking for something he had seen in one of the drawers before. It had been a long time ago, but that didn¡¯t matter. The flat stuff never got cleaned out. It only accumulated endlessly. It took him almost twenty minutes, but he finally found it. It was a burgundy pamphlet describing the benefits of the dully-named ¡°Anesidora Compassion Fund.¡± It was a fund to take care of people who¡¯d been injured during superhuman incidents. Alden opened it up to find a bullet point list of benefits, some he¡¯d received himself. Trauma counseling. The sorry-you¡¯re-an-orphan-now scholarship money. There was even an annual Victims of Villains retreat at a campground in New England. He couldn¡¯t imagine a worse vacation, so he¡¯d refused when Aunt Connie suggested they should apply for it. Alden wasn¡¯t interested in the pamphlet itself, but in the scrap of paper that was tucked inside it. There was a phone number and a message: CALL ME IF YOU OR ALDEN EVER NEED ANYTHING ¡ª H.E. FOUR: Avowed Communications Avowed Communications Alden stared at the note for a while. He hadn¡¯t seen Hannah since that day at the hospital, but obviously, she¡¯d reached out to his aunt at some point. Maybe right after the accident, since this message had been buried in the Flat Stuff Place for so long. He had gotten a video call from Arjun Thomas once, several months after it happened. It had taken place in his therapist¡¯s office. The hero was polite, but the whole thing was extremely awkward. By that time, Alden had cobbled together enough of the details to understand that during the last few seconds of the fight, Body Drainer had run toward his unconscious body in a desperate attempt to drain Alden and re-up his own power. Mr. Thomas had grabbed the teenage villain and¡­done what someone with incredible super strength did. I should have thanked him for saving my life. It was a new thought. Alden had long been aware that Arjun and Hannah had technically saved his life. Twice. Once by stopping Drainer and then again when Hannah put him inside her magic bubble to keep him from bleeding out. But any gratitude he felt had always been overshadowed by the death of his parents. Now though¡­ He took a deep breath and dialed the strangely long number. The words he¡¯d been refining all day during school were on the tip of his tongue. As soon as Hannah answered, he would say them, get his final answer, and then hang up. That would be that. The phone rang once and then immediately connected. ¡°This is Alden Thorn,¡± he said in a rush. ¡°I¡ª¡± ¡°Hello, Earthling!¡± said a cheery, canned voice with an unfamiliar accent. ¡°You¡¯ve dialed in to your planet¡¯s Avowed Communications Network. Your number isn¡¯t registered. Please state your name, reason for calling, and level of urgency. Prank calls will be penalized.¡± Alden blinked. Am I talking to the Artonan System right now? The actual System? He had to be. It was calling him Earthling. He hadn¡¯t realized that a reality-altering magical interface could even have a phone number. And his brain was so set on delivering his message to Hannah quickly and with a minimum of social discomfort that he had to think for a beat before he could answer the unexpected, but perfectly simple, questions. ¡°Um¡­this is Alden. Samuel Alden Thorn. I¡¯m calling to talk to Hannah Elber. She¡¯s a superhe¡ªone of the Avowed. It¡¯s not urgent, so I guess my urgency level is low?¡± There was no pause after he finished talking. The System replied immediately. ¡°Oh, yes,¡± it said, in a pleasant voice that no longer sounded pre-recorded at all. ¡°I see you, Alden. Hannah has listed you as a priority contact. She¡¯s not on a quest right now, so I¡¯ll patch you through to her. Would you prefer video, audio only, or empathetic telepathy?¡± ¡°Empathetic telepathy?¡± Alden asked, startled. Telepathy was a superpower, wasn¡¯t it? Not something you just used for phone calls. ¡°I don¡¯t recommend it,¡± the voice said. ¡°It¡¯s damaging for underdeveloped minds, and Hannah can only afford to pay for four-point-six-eight minutes worth. Your call would have to be brief.¡± Why is it even an option, then?! Alden held the phone farther from his ear, as if that would mitigate any potential brain damage. ¡°Um¡­audio only is fine.¡± ¡°Forwarding you now.¡± ### ¡°You¡¯re the most boring person in the world. I hope you know that.¡± Hannah looked up in surprise to see her best friend standing over her. Cly was carrying a pair of plum juice mocktails, and her brown eyes were narrowed in disappointment. ¡°Are you seriously working during my Super Extraordinary Going Away Brunchtime Extravaganza?¡± ¡°Ah¡­¡± said Hannah, setting aside her notebook and gazing around at the restaurant. ¡°Isn¡¯t the party kind of over?¡± Cly had finally gotten her first off-island job offer, a coveted posting in Toronto. She¡¯d be starting in a couple of weeks, and she¡¯d booked her favorite Sichuan place for the entire morning so that all of their friends could farewell her. It was the first time Hannah had ever had extra spicy mapo tofu for breakfast, but she had to admit it was pretty awesome. Now, though, the buffet was empty and just a few people were left sitting at tables piled high with dirty dishes. In one corner, a Shaper who Hannah only vaguely recognized seemed to be practicing his skills by making the dregs of green tea from his cup float around in lazy circles over his table. ¡°The party is never over while I¡¯m here!¡± Cly proclaimed, lifting the drinks over her head. Some plum juice spilled onto her sleek black bun, and she completely ignored it. A few people raised their glasses toward her and cheered good-naturedly. ¡°I really am going to miss you,¡± Hannah said with a smile. ¡°I hope Toronto is a blast.¡± ¡°You could always be my sidekick,¡± Cly said hopefully. She leaned over the table, a familiar pleading expression on her face. ¡°I know we could make it work. I¡¯d split my salary with you 60/40. Canada would get two for the price of one. They¡¯d love it.¡± ¡°It would be fun, but you know I want¡ª¡± ¡°¡®To maximize a partner¡¯s effectiveness.¡¯ I knoooww. But why don¡¯t you try to maximize me. I wanna be maximized. It would be cool.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a long-range mind sniper who turns a target¡¯s brain into custard. You¡¯re already a hundred percent effective as long as you don¡¯t miss. How am I supposed to maximize that?¡± Actually, Hannah had made a couple of plans for how to support Cly¡¯s skills as a Sway¡­just in case a need ever arose. But it didn¡¯t change the fact that, in most circumstances, the two of them working together would be just the same as any two powerful heroes working in parallel. The goal of a battlefield support¡ªthe goal Hannah was aiming for anyway¡ªwas to make a partner exponentially more effective than they would be without her. Right now she was writing a team-up proposal for a fellow Adjuster currently stationed in Jakarta. He was an older, more experienced hero who did some extremely creative things with localized temperature shifts. He¡¯d had a dedicated support briefly a few years before, and his mission success rate had shot through the roof, but the sidekick had gotten a quest summons and never returned to Earth. Possibly he was just busy with whatever task he¡¯d been set by the space wizards, but at this point, it was better to presume he was dead. ¡°I¡¯ll take this,¡± Cly said, placing a mocktail on the table and snatching the notebook. ¡°You take the drink. We¡¯ve still got an hour on our booking for this place. Let¡¯s play poker!¡± Amused, Hannah agreed, and before long they were playing mid-day poker with the other leftovers from the party. The Shaper was a minor leaguer named David. Poor guy was getting fleeced because he hadn¡¯t realized that their friend Nuray had a permanently engaged passive skill that heightened attraction. Nuray¡¯s fianc¨¦, Ilya, was grinning behind his handful of cards. He had insane dexterity stats, so he was probably cheating, too. But none of them would ever catch him at it. ¡°I still can¡¯t believe they¡¯re letting an S-ranked Sway off the island,¡± Ilya said, shaking his head as Cly excitedly revealed a winning hand. ¡°I thought for sure you were stuck here until you were old and gray.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been pure of heart and even purer of deed since I was fifteen,¡± Cly said, smiling broadly. ¡°My record¡¯s so lily white my own mother¡¯s criticisms bounce off of it. I am saint. An angel. An absolute lamb. A¡ª¡± ¡°An unholy terror that could kill us all without getting up from your seat?¡± Nuray said, stealing a maraschino cherry from Ilya¡¯s glass. Cly shook her head. ¡°Realistically, I could only kill one of you at this range. Then, the others would stab me to death with forks and chopsticks.¡± ¡°We should do that,¡± said Ilya. ¡°I haven¡¯t had a mission bonus in ages.¡± This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Hannah smiled at the banter. It really was amazing that Cly had gotten the Toronto job. Most countries weren¡¯t okay with the idea of mind controllers crossing their borders. The majority of Sways¡ªthe ones who didn¡¯t become villains¡ªspent their lives on the island or in one of a few other zones owned by the Allied Heroes of Earth. Cly¡¯s parents were superhumans, too, so from the moment she¡¯d gotten her class she¡¯d understood the stakes. Perfection was the minimum requirement if she wanted to work internationally as a hero. She¡¯d taken it a step farther by specializing at every turn until she was finally categorized as a mind sniper instead of a manipulator. She had no subtle tweaks in her repertoire, just powerful single-target mind destruction. Very scary, but not in the way that made people in power want to keep her on the opposite side of the planet. It was a big gamble on her part to narrow her focus so heavily. Hannah was glad it had finally paid off. ¡°You know, maybe before you head to Toronto, you should¡­oh, wait. Got a call.¡± A visual notification blinked in her peripheral vision, and she reached up to swipe at it. She¡¯d never bothered to train herself out of the habit of prodding around at thin air. Controlling your thoughts to give perfectly accurate mental commands to the System interface really wasn¡¯t as easy as just using your fingers. The blinking call notice was gold¡ªthe color she¡¯d assigned to highest priority¡ªso she didn¡¯t even bother to check the identity. Cly was sitting across the table from her, and she didn¡¯t currently have a partner. So that meant it could only be her mother. ¡°Hi, mum!¡± she said. ¡°What¡¯s up? It¡¯s the middle of the night in London, isn¡¯t it?¡± There was complete silence for a few beats. ¡°Um¡­¡± said an uncertain voice. ¡°This is Alden Thorn? Is this Han¡ªMs. Elber?¡± Hannah dropped her playing cards. ¡°Hannah, you all right?¡± Cly said, frowning. She shook her head frantically. ¡°This is Hannah.¡± Her voice came out in a squeak, so she cleared her throat. ¡°It¡¯s great to hear from you, Alden. What can I do for you?¡± Oh shit, Cly mouthed. She made dramatic shushing motions at the rest of the table, even though it was unnecessary. The System wasn''t going to transfer their words through a call directed to Hannah. ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden. There was the sound of sharply indrawn breath, and then, in a fast monotone, like he was trying to get through a particularly unpleasant reading assignment, he said, ¡°I would like to ask you if it was really ninety seconds between Body Drainer¡¯s first two uses of his energy explosion skill and the moment when Mr. Thomas tackled him.¡± Hannah opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, he continued. ¡°Because that¡¯s what I read online. That he used it for the first time¡ªtwice really fast¡ªand then he used it again ninety seconds later when he and Mr. Thomas came through the side of the building. Is that true? Was it ninety whole seconds?¡± What is this? Hannah still hadn¡¯t put that disastrous Chicago mission behind her. She probably never would. But she¡¯d also thought she was done with most of the fallout from it. She¡¯d never expected to hear from Alden again. ¡°I¡­didn¡¯t have a timer that night. But when we filed our reports, Arjun and I both agreed it was around ninety seconds? It could have been a little less.¡± Am I saying the right thing? He¡¯s what¡­eleven now? It¡¯s important to say the right thing! Hannah¡¯s head was a mess. She¡¯d wondered about the boy over and over, but it wasn¡¯t appropriate for her to bother him or his aunt just to assuage her own lingering guilt. What did he want? What was this ninety seconds business? What if he asked for more details about the villain? What was she even allowed to tell civilians about that case? It had been a while since she¡¯d checked to see which things she knew were considered sensitive, and which were public information. ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden. ¡°Thank you. Bye.¡± Wait, that¡¯s it? ¡°Um¡­bye-bye.¡± The kid had already hung up. Hannah slumped down in her chair and put a hand to the front of her t-shirt. Shit. Her heart was racing like she¡¯d just done a post-stat increase sprint test. ¡°You all right?¡± Cly asked, raising an eyebrow at her. ¡°Yeah. That was unexpected. He just wanted to know¡ª¡± The call notice flashed again. She could have used a few seconds to collect her thoughts, but her traitor hand clicked on it immediately. ¡°I forgot some of what I wanted to say.¡± Alden¡¯s speech was still rapid-fire, but it was slightly less monotone. ¡°Hit me with it,¡± Hannah said without pause. Because her mouth was a traitor, too. ¡°It wasn¡¯t your fault my parents died. I¡¯ve been doing a lot of research on you and Mr. Thomas and Body Drainer, and your power can¡¯t prevent explosions unless you know when and where the explosion is coming from. And you didn¡¯t even know Body Drainer could make an energy burst because he only did it for the first time during that fight.¡± ¡°I¡ª¡± ¡°The official report says my parents died when Mr. Thomas came through the wall and part of our building collapsed. Their bedroom was buried under stuff from the floor above and the roof. But I think they were already dead by then. From the first set of explosions. Because they didn¡¯t hear me yelling for them.¡± He paused for a quick inhale, then dove right back in. ¡°I was screaming really loud when I woke up, but my mom and dad never came. They didn¡¯t even yell back to me. And if it was ninety seconds, they would have. I tested it on my Aunt Connie, and she came running in eight seconds. So they must have already been gone when you messed up and let Mr. Thomas and Drainer crash through the side of our building.¡± Alden fell silent. Hannah¡¯s hand was clenching the front of her shirt. She was trying to think of what she should say. Thank you? That didn¡¯t seem right. Let me fact check this information and get back to you to confirm? That definitely wasn¡¯t it. Kid, are you okay? Better. But still not great. Apparently she¡¯d waited too long. Because the boy spoke again, in a slower, more pointed tone. Like he was trying to explain something to a younger child. ¡°I¡¯m telling you they died in the first explosion. The one you couldn¡¯t have done anything about anyway. Because you didn¡¯t know it was coming. So you don¡¯t have to feel bad about it¡­okay?¡± ¡°O-okay,¡± said Hannah. ¡°Thank you so much for letting me know.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have Mr. Thomas¡¯s number, so can you tell him, too?¡± ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll call him right away,¡± she said mechanically. Hannah, you idiot. Be a hero. The eleven-year-old victim is being the mature, thoughtful one here. Do better. Think of something. You¡¯re going to feel like an ass if you don¡¯t say something comforting. ¡°Bye, then,¡± the boy said. ¡°Alden, wait!¡± Hannah¡¯s mind was still completely blank. She scrambled for an idea, and blurted out the first one that popped into her head. ¡°Do you want to come to Anesidora sometime? I could get you a day pass.¡± She winced at herself. Those were totally for special circumstances and bigwigs and immediate family. But she could do it. Probably. The boy seemed to be considering the offer. ¡°During summer break?¡± he suggested. ¡°Would it be expensive to fly there?¡± Oh right. Travel to Point Nemo wasn¡¯t exactly simple. ¡°I¡¯ll get a teleport for you! The System can do that. You just¡­let me know when you can come.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll ask my aunt if she minds,¡± he said. ¡°But she won¡¯t.¡± ¡°Great! See you this summer then!¡± She¡¯d have a while to¡ª ¡°Break starts in three weeks.¡± Shit. Northern Hemisphere. ¡°Cool!¡± she said, finally managing to summon up her Hero Hannah voice. ¡°Let me know what your aunt says. We¡¯ll make it happen!¡± ¡°She¡¯ll say yes. Bye.¡± He hung up again. Hannah rubbed a hand down her face. I think¡­that went okay? She¡¯d always wanted to do something for the kid, and it just hadn¡¯t been an option. A hero couldn¡¯t go inserting herself into a victim¡¯s life. But since he¡¯d called himself¡­ I need to check on the case¡¯s facts again. Maybe call Arjun. He might answer after all this time. ¡°So¡­Hannah?¡± She looked up and saw Ilya watching her over the top of his hand of cards. ¡°Are you secretly dating a Rabbit?¡± ¡°What? No. You know I¡¯m single right now,¡± she said absently. She was racking her brain, trying to think of which friends she could call to get a travel pass on short notice. ¡°I dated a Rabbit once,¡± David said dreamily. ¡°She was so rich. But she would get yanked away by summons at the most awkward moments.¡± ¡°That¡¯s why she was rich,¡± Nuray pointed out. ¡°She was one of the lucky ones. Rabbits who never get summoned have zero skills and zero money. And that¡¯s most of them. It¡¯s a rough gig.¡± ¡°Hannah,¡± Cly said slowly, ¡°I think what our friends are trying to point out in a stupidly round-about way is that you just offered to purchase a custom teleport for a civilian kid.¡± ¡°We can do that can¡¯t we?¡± Hannah said anxiously, still flipping through contacts on her System screen. ¡°I know I¡¯ve heard of people doing it.¡± ¡°Yeah, but¡­have you ever priced one?¡± ¡°No,¡± Hannah said. She¡¯d never needed to. Teleport was covered by the island government for official travel, and superhumans didn¡¯t really get the opportunity to do a lot of unofficial traveling. ¡°Why? Is it bad?¡± Everyone else at the table exchanged glances. Cly sighed. ¡°We¡¯ll¡­start a fundraiser for you or something. It¡¯s a good cause. In the meantime, you should eat mostly ramen and beans.¡± FIVE: The Nice One five years later
¡° ¡¯s cold as tits,¡± Jeremy Levi muttered, rubbing his bare biceps with his hands as he stared out at the snow falling over the L¡¯s tracks. ¡°Alden, man, stop looking so warm. You¡¯ve got a sweater and a coat. It¡¯s not fair!¡± His pale lips were almost as gray as the sky overhead, and his breath came out in frosty white puffs of fog. ¡°Agree to stupid dares, win stupid prizes.¡± Alden leaned against a railing while they waited for the train. ¡°It¡¯s twenty-something degrees. Did you seriously think you were stronger than frostbite?¡± ¡°I th-thought it¡¯d be ok-kay.¡± The chatter in Jeremy¡¯s teeth was probably only half drama. They¡¯d left his place fifteen minutes ago, and Jeremy was wearing flip-flops, shorts, and a sleeveless white tee with a picture of a dancing traffic cone on it. ¡°Are tits particularly cold?¡± Boe, the third member of their friend group, asked. He sounded amused. ¡°And since when do we use that metaphor anyway? It¡¯s a weird one.¡± Boe looked shy and nerdy with his horn-rims, grandmotherly scarf, and horrible bowl haircut. But he had a nasty grin on his face as he took in the other boy¡¯s suffering. ¡°I¡¯ll loan you my scarf, Remy,¡± he cooed. ¡°Just beg.¡± ¡°N-no, you bastard! You¡¯re gonna give me that ten bucks when this is over. And then I¡¯m gonna shove it up your¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s a reference to witches.¡± Alden stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans as the train approached the platform. ¡°W-what?¡± ¡°The saying. It¡¯s about witches, I think. Some superstition from a long time ago, maybe¡­¡± ¡°Ha!¡± Jeremy exhaled another cloud of fog. ¡°Bet those Salem goons would¡¯ve had heart attacks if they could see us all now. We¡¯re on our way to alien school, you have a snack for a demon in your messenger bag, and Bo¡¯s got a Bedlam Beldam poster taped to the wall over his bed.¡± ¡°He¡¯s not really a demon,¡± said Alden, stepping into the least-crowded car. ¡°He¡¯s just¡­a weird-looking extra-dimensional being who has to do community service for all eternity.¡± ¡°Because he murdered¡ª¡± ¡°Attempted to murder.¡± ¡°That¡¯s better?¡± ¡°Would you rather have someone attempt to murder you or succeed?¡± ¡°I bought that poster when I was eight,¡± Bo interrupted, turning his nose up at Jeremy. ¡°Everyone loves Bedlam Beldam when they¡¯re eight.¡± ¡°Yeah, but you¡¯re sixteen now, bro. That¡¯s a long time to stare at a superhero whose whole thing is talking to cats and wearing pointy hats.¡± They took their seats, and while his friends argued about the merits of witch-themed heroes, Alden pulled out his phone. He did it almost without thinking about it. I shouldn¡¯t do this again. It¡¯ll only make me gloomy for the rest of the morning. But he didn¡¯t put the phone up. Instead, he tapped on the gleaming silver sigil that had appeared after he called Hannah for the first time. It looked like an app, but it definitely wasn¡¯t. The thing was impossible to delete and appeared on any phone Alden held¡­including a vintage rotary dial he¡¯d once encountered at a neighbor¡¯s house. It was kind of creepy, but at least he wasn¡¯t alone. Anyone who had permission to call a superhero through the System apparently had the same bizarre perk. He held the phone to his ear. ¡°Play last three voicemails,¡± he muttered. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, and Alden stared at his own distorted reflection in the metal pole beside his seat. He looked a lot like his father¡ªgreen eyes, hair hovering between true brown and auburn, average height for his age. His freckles had mostly disappeared for now, but they¡¯d be back in summer. A familiar, bright voice interrupted his inspection. ¡°Hey, Alden! It¡¯s Hannah!¡± Alden closed his eyes. He could picture the hero¡¯s smile. She was always unyieldingly perky when she spoke to him, whether it was during their few in-person meetups or over the phone. He didn¡¯t know if it was her natural personality or something she made an effort at. ¡°Listen, I just got a summons a few minutes ago. The real deal. It¡¯s only my fourth one ever. Pretty cool, right? Anyway, I have to go, so I might need to reschedule our annual visit. Wanted you to know so that you don¡¯t freak if the teleport notification doesn¡¯t come through for you in a couple of days like we planned. We¡¯ll hang out when I get back. There¡¯s this awesome new ice park on the island¡­let¡¯s check it out together. See you soon!¡± There was a trill of sound. Alden¡¯s grip tightened on the phone as the next message started to play. ¡°Alden, this is Hannah¡¯s friend Cly. We met once before. Everything¡¯s fine, I just wanted you to know that Hannah¡¯s still off on her quest. We expect her back any day now.¡± Another trill, and then the latest one. He¡¯d received it a couple of weeks ago, and even though he¡¯d listened to it dozens of times, he still felt his pulse pick up. ¡°Hello, Alden. It¡¯s¡­it¡¯s Cly again. I know we talked about the possibility of this when I reached out to you a couple of months ago, but¡­. if Hannah¡¯s not back soon, there¡¯s going to be a funeral. February thirteenth. Her birthday. Like I said last time, it¡¯s¡­extremely rare for a summons to last longer than a few weeks. And since it¡¯s been half a year, we¡ªher friends¡ªwe think it would be best to finally have some closure. For her mother at least. Let me know if I can order a teleport for you, okay? I know Hannah would appreciate you being there.¡± There was a pause. ¡°Would you like to listen again?¡± the System said in the canned version of its voice. Alden shut it off. Outside the window, buildings raced past. They weren¡¯t far from his old neighborhood. The apartment building was still an apartment building. The nightclub where Body Drainer had murdered so many people was still a nightclub. Everything was repaired. Like new. There were no scars left. Not where they could be seen anyway. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. The city had long-since moved on to new worries about new villains. Just last night, there¡¯d been footage on the news of one of the city¡¯s current heroes-in-residence engaged in an unusual high-speed pursuit that started on North Avenue Beach. Some villain with earth shaping powers had apparently been constructing a lair under Lake Michigan for the past few years, and they¡¯d finally found him. Skiff¡ªa popular hero who controlled water¡ªhad given chase. It had taken an hour, and he¡¯d flooded the ground floor of a couple of buildings downtown. A sewer had collapsed. Only minor injuries except to the villain, who was in intensive care after being drowned. It was a decent outcome given the powers involved. Skiff seemed like a competent guy. But his smile had been strained on television, and even though they¡¯d spliced the footage to be flattering to him, it was clear he¡¯d been curt in his replies to the interviewer. Alden couldn¡¯t help but remember something Hannah had once said. On his first visit to the island, when he was eleven, he¡¯d taken a notebook full of questions about¡­well, everything. Poor Hannah must have felt like she was being interrogated by a short, obsessed reporter. They¡¯d talked all about the night his parents had died. Then, they¡¯d branched off into a more general discussion about powers and being a superhero. And she¡¯d said something that had stuck with him ever since: ¡°In college¡ªwhich is basically just one long training program here on the island¡ªwe had this assignment to come up with our heroic motto. Like a guideline for how we wanted to approach problems. I picked something really basic and cliche: ¡®Happy to help!¡¯ But now that I¡¯ve actually done hero work for a while, I think the motto I would go with is, ¡®We could have done that better.¡¯¡± Sipping on a strawberry milkshake at the table across from her, Alden had frowned. ¡°That¡¯s not a good motto,¡± he¡¯d said seriously. ¡°Nobody would like a hero with a motto like that. It¡¯s sad.¡± ¡°Mmmm¡­maybe it is. But I guess it¡¯s less of a motto for sharing with the public and more, like, a guideline for myself? When you¡¯re dealing with superpowers, there¡¯s so much room for error. Things happen faster than your brain can keep up. Physics gets counterintuitive. Or it doesn¡¯t apply at all. Some powers¡ªyour own and the bad guys¡¯¡ªjust feel so much bigger than you.¡± She took a French fry from the shared plate between them. ¡°It¡¯s easy, when the dust settles, to say you did everything you could. It¡¯s easy to look away from all the places where you made mistakes, because there are always so many of them. It makes you feel horrible and useless even if you tried your best. But I think I want to be someone who doeslook, so that I make a few less errors in every battle. And maybe I want to do it so that the heroes I work with don¡¯t have to look too closely at it themselves. In a lot of ways, my power is easy to handle, emotionally, compared to something like super strength or mind control.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t understood then, and she¡¯d dodged him when he asked her to clarify. But he¡¯d paid attention in the years since. To the unsaid things behind the publicist-approved articles, to Hannah herself and her unusual dedication to being a support for other superheroes instead of standing in the limelight herself¡­ Skiff is stressed because he had to drown that villain to end things. It was only a guess, but it made sense. The hero had a kind of happy-go-lucky flair. He hosted beach volleyball tournaments and did a lot of charity events with kids. He had a spotless record as far as casualties went. And the villain had gone down in the middle of a street. Not in one of the flooded areas. The situation must have been getting out of hand. Skiff couldn¡¯t risk letting someone with a tunneling skill run wild with so many buildings around. He had to hold the guy down and force water into his lungs. He needed a sidekick. Hannah could have done it. Well, that was a bad example. Hannah would have been a perfect matchup for the tunneler. She could have stuffed him into her magic bubble, and there wouldn¡¯t have been any need for another hero on the scene at all. But there were tons of ways even a weak sidekick could have helped the superhero out with a case like this one. A buff that boosted Skiff¡¯s speed would have let him win the chase before it left his home turf on the lake. Anyone with a ranged attack would have been useful. But sidekicks had gone out of fashion in the nineties. Before then, it was normal for an S-rank or A-rank superhuman¡ªthe usual ¡°superhero¡± ranks¡ªto work with an entourage of weak assistants. Teams were all the rage. But that had been a bad decade for villain activity, and people had started calling sidekicks ¡°bucket kicks¡± because they¡­died. A lot. For a while, sidekicks had a twelve percent survival rate in superhuman-on-superhuman battles. It wasn¡¯t like they were supposed to be in those battles in the first place. They were supposed to be evacuating civilians and running coms and things like that. But villains didn¡¯t adhere to the rules of fair play, and targeting the squishy friends of the more dangerous hero was a pretty good psychological tactic. So sidekicks were out. No city wanted the bloodstains on their image. Weak superhumans stayed on the island or, if they were lucky enough to be good at something flashy, worked in entertainment. And there were just a few active superheroes these days who, like Hannah, deliberately chose skills that would be better for support than outright combat. It was a dangerous choice, to take abilities that wouldn¡¯t be as good in a one-on-one fight. But Hannah had been so passionate about it. Battlefield support was supposed to be a multiplier for another hero, she¡¯d told Alden. A second fiddle that played like an entire orchestra. ¡°Two heroes fighting side by side is great,¡± she¡¯d said. ¡°But if one of those heroes is specced to complement the other¡­it¡¯s like adding an exponent. You get something way more than the sum of its parts.¡± Suddenly, a flip-flop nudged Alden¡¯s shin. His thoughts scattered, and he looked up ¡°Hey, man, this is our stop,¡± Jeremy nodded toward the doors. ¡°What¡¯s up with you? You were totally out of it.¡± ¡°Sorry. Just thinking about that essay assignment we got in lit class.¡± ¡°Ugh, why am I hanging out with you nerds?¡± Jeremy complained. ¡°We go to school five days a week already, and now the two of you have got me going to more school on the weekends.¡± Boe clapped him on the shoulder. ¡°Honestly, neither one of us thought you¡¯d actually apply to consulate classes when we suggested it. You could be doing anything right now, but you¡¯re here. I don¡¯t know whether I should be touched by your fidelity or saddened by your total lack of other friends.¡± ¡°It¡¯s true,¡± Alden agreed, grabbing his bag and standing. ¡°You¡¯re way needier than we realized. At this rate, you¡¯ll end up an honors student against your will.¡± Jeremy looked appalled. ¡°Alden, you demon-feeding jerk! How dare you!? You¡¯re supposed to be the nice one.¡± ¡°I am?¡± Alden asked, genuinely surprised. ¡°I mean, I guess I¡¯m not as mean as Boe¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re just not trying hard enough,¡± Boe said sincerely as they took the stairs down to street level. ¡°Shut up, you two! I¡¯m the funny one. Boe¡¯s the mean one. Alden¡¯s the nice one.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t know you had us all labeled. Can we call me scathing instead of mean?¡± ¡°What makes me nice?¡± Most people who knew Alden would probably describe him as reserved. He thought his social skills were adequate when he called on them, but he wasn¡¯t an extrovert. He was overly comfortable doing his own thing, and he made friends mostly by happenstance. Boe had attached himself to Alden in middle school, probably because Alden was the only member of their class he hadn¡¯t offended by the end of the first month. And Jeremy had somehow landed in their orbit as a freshman, when he¡¯d realized he wasn¡¯t enough of a jock to be one of the jocksin high school. ¡°I¡¯m glad I¡¯m nice, but I don¡¯t really think of myself that way¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s the whole superhero thing!¡± Jeremy said, rubbing his arms furiously as they walked. ¡°You act all sensible, and you have a multipage college plan as a sophomore. But you still really want to be that guy in spandex that rescues kitty cats from trees. Like¡­I dunno. It¡¯s sweet, man.¡± Alden winced. Boe cackled. ¡°Oh my god, Alden, your expression!¡± Then, a confused look crossed his face. ¡°Maybe we should call Jeremy the insightful one? I didn¡¯t see that coming.¡± SIX: Gorgon Fifteen minutes later, Alden and his friends arrived at the Artonan consulate building. It was a blocky gray cube of concrete and glass, surrounded by a security fence. A trio of poles out front held the multicolored streamers the aliens used as their planetary flags. Even in the beginning, there hadn¡¯t really been enough Artonans on Earth to justify functional diplomatic consulates in major cities. And now that Earth-Artonan political relations had been settled for decades, the so-called consulate was mostly a place for registering as a superhuman and taking classes. The building¡¯s interior was more inviting than the outside. In the lobby, pale terrazzo floors shone under a dark wood ceiling flecked with tiny LED lights that formed a vaguely elliptical pattern. It was supposed to be a map of important stars in the Artonans¡¯ home galaxy, but it came across as abstract art. Jeremy, who was turning blue around the edges, had insisted that they stop at a coffee shop on the way, so they all had warm drinks. Alden had yet to develop an appreciation for coffee despite multiple attempts, so he was sipping a cinnamon hot chocolate. A second one was clutched in his other hand. ¡°Give me a sec,¡± he said to his friends. ¡°Gotta make my delivery.¡± Jeremy and Bo didn¡¯t answer. They were having an absurdly serious discussion about whether or not the coffee run was counter to the spirit of their dare. Snow-damp boots squeaking on the polished floor, Alden headed toward the lobby desk. Sitting behind it was one of the only nonhumans in all of Chicago. He was around five feet tall, with smooth gray skin that reminded Alden of a stingray he¡¯d pet once at the aquarium. He had black eyes like a shark and a wide, flat nose with four slits for nostrils. Alden didn¡¯t think the alien had ears, but it was hard to tell. His head was covered in a couple dozen protrusions that were similar to horns, each about two fingers wide and curving down around his skull to flare outward when they reached the top of his spine. Their sharp points made a sort of spiky protective choker around the backs and sides of his neck. Most people, following a tradition that was pretty questionable in Alden¡¯s opinion, called the creature a demon. He was a deadly horned being purported to be from a dimension steeped in the dark powers of chaos. But still¡­ He called himself Gorgon, and Alden went with that. Even though he assumed the name was more of a concession to human vocal cords than anything else. As usual, Gorgon looked bored out of his strangely-shaped skull. He was chained to the lobby desk by glowing ropes of magic that wound around his arms and legs. Alden hadn¡¯t been able to confirm the details, but rumor had it that Gorgon hadn¡¯t left the lobby of this building since he was installed here by some powerful Artonan he¡¯d tried to disembowel forty years ago. ¡°Morning, Gorgon,¡± Alden said, approaching the desk. ¡°Brought you a hot chocolate.¡± ¡°No thank you.¡± Gorgon spoke without looking up from the pair of computer monitors in front of him. His voice was high pitched, with an undertone like the tinkle of breaking glass. ¡°It¡¯s not dairy. I got you one made with coconut milk.¡± Alden set it on top of the desk beside a golden tray full of neatly arranged ballpoint pens. Gorgon turned his head a fraction of an inch toward Alden, but his eyes were still fixed on the screens, which never showed anything but security footage from around the building. Possibly, direct eye contact was rude among his kind. Alden liked to assume that was the case anyway. He¡¯d been coming to the consulate regularly for around six weeks now, and he¡¯d never once managed to look Gorgon dead in the eye. ¡°Thank you,¡± Gorgon said finally, taking the hot cocoa in long gray fingers and flicking the lid off the top with a thick, black forked tongue. ¡°I also brought you this.¡± Alden reached under the flap of his messenger bag and pulled out a plastic takeout container full of chopped vegetables in oil. ¡°It¡¯s hot giardiniera from my favorite sandwich shop.¡± He placed a plastic fork on top of it and a paper napkin. It didn¡¯t particularly matter that hot cocoa and spicy Italian relish was a weird combo to human tastes. Alden was still trying to figure out what the alien¡¯s food preferences actually were. So far, all he¡¯d managed to determine was that Gorgon didn¡¯t mind spices and he was sort-of vegan. As in, he wouldn¡¯t take meat, dairy, or eggs from Alden, but Alden had once seen him eat a fly that landed on the back of his hand. Maybe he¡¯s an environmentalist? It¡¯s not like it¡¯s his planet, but he is stuck here with us. No more plastic dishes then¡­. Gorgon slid his arm out, the papers on the desk glowing in the light of his chains, and took the container. He set it beside his keyboard. ¡°All right,¡± he said. Pleased, Alden nodded and turned to go, but Gorgon¡¯s voice stopped him. ¡°Are you going to keep doing this every day?¡± Alden looked back over his shoulder. ¡°Every day I come for classes. Unless you don¡¯t like it?¡± The alien tipped his head up toward the ceiling. ¡°I like receiving offerings. But I don¡¯t know why you¡¯re bribing me. You¡¯re not physically attracted to me. I can smell that sort of thing on humans.¡± His nostrils flared. ¡°You don¡¯t reek of pity either. I had assumed you were one of those young idiots who thought the mysterious demon could grant you System access or other powers. But I listened in on your lessons last week, and you seem to be slightly less ignorant than others your age. So that¡¯s not likely.¡± There was a note in his voice that might have been pensive, but Alden knew he shouldn¡¯t rely on his ability to interpret a nonhuman¡¯s inflections. Especially Gorgon¡¯s. He¡¯d read literally everything he could find on the internet, trying to get information about the ¡°Desk Demon¡± imprisoned in Chicago¡¯s Artonan consulate. But there was nothing. Well¡­there were a lot of pictures on social media from tourists and extraterrestrial fans who¡¯d sought Gorgon out for a photo op. But beyond that, there was only a listing of his name, a series of runes that apparently described his home dimension, and a few lines about his life sentence. Whatever Gorgon¡¯s species was, there wasn¡¯t another one of him on Earth as far as Alden could tell. And apparently he could smell pheromones? Or maybe even emotions? So Alden probably shouldn¡¯t lie to him. ¡°It¡¯s a little embarrassing, but I thought¡­if I ever get superpowers one day, it would be great to know someone with better insight into the System than the stuff that¡¯s available to the public. And it¡¯s not like there are a lot of options for that kind of thing.¡± He gave the alien a nervous smile. ¡°I guess I was hoping to make friends with you in advance in case I ever needed your advice.¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Gorgon continued staring up at the ceiling. ¡°Ah. How unfortunate for you. I am specifically barred from giving humans any information about the Artonans, the System, my own kind, magic, chaos, extra-dimensional incursions, and a veritable encyclopedia of other interesting things. If it¡¯s not widely known by your species already, then I¡¯m not allowed to discuss it with you. And the bindings on me are quite¡­thorough. You¡¯ve chosen a very poor advisor.¡± He sat up straight then and cracked open the giardiniera. He shoved a forkful in his mouth. ¡°Though maybe you don¡¯t actually care much about the fact that I will most likely be useless to you?¡± He smacked his lips. ¡°If you¡¯re already making plans for the day when you might be one of the¡­fortunate¡­few, you must have a high tolerance for disappointment. Your chances are worse than one in a thousand, you know?¡± Alden hesitated. He stepped back toward the desk and lowered his voice so that his friends couldn¡¯t hear him. They knew about Hannah, but they didn¡¯t know about this. ¡°I have¡­had a friend who thought maybe my chances of being selected might be better than normal. And if that¡¯s true, I figure I should do everything I can to make sure it works out. I know how it sounds. I¡¯ve got backup plans, but this is my¡­I have kind of a specific dream.¡± It was an embarrassing admission. Saying your dream was to be a superhuman was cute when you were a little kid. It was awkward by the time you hit twelve or thirteen. Now that Alden was on the cusp of turning sixteen, he was hyperaware of how cringey it was, even if Jeremy apparently thought it was endearing. Alden might as well be making plans for his future career as a lottery winner. Gorgon exhaled sharply. ¡°So you¡¯re a fantasist. That¡¯s amusing. Humans have no reliable means of determining who the system will choose.¡± ¡°My friend was one of the Avowed. An Adjuster.¡± ¡°Unless they adjusted you in morally disgusting ways, then that doesn¡¯t change much.¡± Alden shrugged. He knew it was a long shot. Hannah wasn¡¯t a scientist who studied power acquisition. She¡¯d just mentioned in passing, one single time when he was thirteen, that she¡¯d used her Bubble of Patient Waiting on hundreds of people and animals, trying to refine her understanding of the spell. ¡°And only three people other than you were conscious inside it!¡± she¡¯d announced. They¡¯d been standing in line to buy tickets to a martial arts showcase that day. Hannah always planned some kind of activity for their annual summer meet-up on the island. ¡°All of them were kids of superhumans. Weird, isn¡¯t it? My best guess is you¡¯ve got abnormally high CP. Not like we can measure it. But in theory that means you¡¯re more likely than average to be granted powers of your own one day. Don¡¯t count on it, though.¡± CP. Chaos potential. Simple sounding words with a meaning absolutely shrouded in mystery. High CP had something to do with people being chosen by the System. But the only ones who knew if you had high CP were Artonan wizards. And they were so tight-lipped about it that humans only knew it was a thing at all because the System sometimes mentioned it in skill descriptions. Children of superhumans were much more likely to be chosen than regular people, which was assumed to be because CP had a genetic or environmental component. Beyond that, everything was just guesses. ¡°All I can do for you is point you to the restroom or the elevator,¡± said Gorgon. ¡°And if you were to miraculously beat the odds and obtain a class, I could register it for you with Earth¡¯s governments. I could also serve as your witness for a pre-affixation trade with another empowered individual. That¡¯s it. It¡¯s the same set of services I provide for literally anyone who walks into my charming prison here. No advice about skill or spell choices, no secret intel about our alien overlords, no contracts that will invest you with my mighty authority.¡± He paused, then added, ¡°I can give you as many ballpoint pens as you like. Knowing all that, do you still want to keep bribing someone who has far less power to assist you than your average tech support agent?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ll keep bringing you stuff. It probably sucks being literally chained to a desk. Is there anything in particular you want?¡± Gorgon stared at the space over Alden¡¯s head for such a long time that Alden began to wonder if their conversation was over. Then, in a strangely strained voice, he said, ¡°I¡¯m not vegan.¡± ¡°Oh! Do you want some meat next time? Sorry¡­I thought because you said no to a few things¡ª¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t eat any of those things.¡± Alden frowned, mentally cataloging the things Gorgon had refused to eat¡ª shrimp chips, an egg and cheese breakfast biscuit, turkey jerky, a latte made with cow¡¯s milk. ¡°Um, I¡¯m not sure¡­do you only eat insects?¡± Gorgon was breathing harder than normal. He continued to stare off into space. ¡°I¡¯m afraid I can¡¯t tell you that or make requests. You¡¯ll have to put some thought into it.¡± ¡°Got it,¡± Alden said. Even though he didn¡¯t get it at all. Was it part of the ¡®don¡¯t tell humans anything about anything spell¡¯ he seemed to be under? It even included his diet? That seemed¡­wayyy more extreme than Alden had imagined. But now he wasn¡¯t just idly feeding a possible future resource. He was genuinely, deeply curious. Why wouldn¡¯t Gorgon be allowed to request certain food? If the reason was only punitive, then whoever had chained him to the desk was really vindictive. But it had to be that, didn¡¯t it? If something bad would happen to the universe if Gorgon ate exactly the right piece of meat, then he wouldn¡¯t be here, where any random human could get to him and offer him treats. Right? Artonans weren¡¯t flawless¡ªdespite what some of scarier cults floating around would have you believe¡ªbut they also weren¡¯t that sloppy. So¡­it¡¯s definitely a don¡¯t-let-the-prisoner-ever-have-a-moment-of-happiness thing, right? Alden decided. That¡¯s harsh. ¡°We¡¯ll trial and error it?¡± he suggested. ¡°Looking forward to it.¡± Gorgon definitely sounded sarcastic now, but Alden decided to interpret it as a friendly sort of sarcasm. Icy wind swept through the lobby as the doors opened, and Alden looked around to see a couple of girls with familiar faces. He hadn¡¯t caught their names, but they were both in his first class of the day. They giggled and waved at him. He waved back absently. ¡°You should tell them you¡¯re not interested,¡± said Gorgon. His face was fixed on his monitors again. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Because they¡¯re interested.¡± Alden stared at him, perplexed. ¡°They¡¯re attracted to you, stupid. So is that boy with the blue hair in your four o¡¯clock. Best to put all three of them out of their teenage misery unless I¡¯m reading you wrong.¡± There was a mirror behind the desk, and Alden had the pleasure of seeing himself turning into a human stoplight. ¡°Oh my g¡ª¡± ¡°Point Jeremy at the tall girl and Boe at the short one. Problem partially solved.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t just comment on private pref¡­Gorgon, it¡¯s not okay to¡­stop that!¡± Alden hissed. ¡°Tell them to stop it,¡± Gorgon said. ¡°They¡¯re the ones stinking up my lobby.¡± SEVEN: A Little Delusional The courses offered at the consulate were not, for the most part, popular. There had been a two-week Artonan language intensive that was well-attended during the winter break, but now schools were back in session, and the people coming for extra classes in the afternoons and on weekends were mostly overachievers or geeks of some sort. The ten o¡¯clock class on Saturday was the only one that was full of relatively normal people. Alden and his friends stuffed their shoes and socks into the cubbies that lined the walls by the lobby elevators and headed upstairs to the small ballroom that served as their classroom. It was packed with other teens and twenty-somethings, and all of them were barefoot except for one girl in a cast. It was rude to wear shoes or socks in the presence of an Artonan who was teaching you. Bet she wouldn¡¯t feel that way if she had to be here in person and smell the funk of a hundred pairs of human feet that were sweating in winter boots until a few minutes ago. Alden took a seat between his friends in the back corner. Just after ten, the huge screen hanging at the front of the room flashed with a symbol similar, but not identical, to the one that always appeared on phones for Alden. And then their teacher was there, her image magically beamed in from another universe. Even though it was confined to the flat surface of the screen, the video had a strange depth to it. It was almost like watching a moving bas-relief sculpture. ¡°Good morning, my students,¡± Instructor Pa-weeq said. Her voice would easily pass for human, and her face¡­might have. Her bone structure was too sharp, her forehead too prominent, and her pale brown skin had a violet undertone that was a little oversaturated. But the midnight blue facial tattoos were the real giveaway.¡°Welcome to our fifth session. Last time we finished our examination of the evolution of sentient life on Artona. Today, we will dance forward to the moment when that life began to understand the magic of the planes.¡± She droned on, and the eyes of Alden¡¯s classmates slowly glazed over. This was ¡°A History of Artonan Life.¡± Virtually everyone here was taking it for the same reason. Passing the test at the end of the course gave you college credit. And in many cases, high schools would count it toward your credits for graduation, too, so you could double dip. It probably wouldn¡¯t have been boring in a human teacher¡¯s hands, but Artonans really had a knack for picking out the dullest parts of their own history. Alden had checked the syllabus, and the wizards from space had an entire two-hour session scheduled that focused on the development of irrigation on their planet. Even Alden, who made a conscious effort to stay conscious in these classes, thought he might struggle in that one. Today, instead of listening, he wrote ¡°The Gorgon Problem¡± on top of his paper and passed the time by listing various animal-based foods. When he¡¯d covered everything he could legally obtain and afford, he started a new section and wrote down a list of increasingly unlikely reasons why Gorgon would be unable to request specific food items. It has to be just a spiteful part of his prison sentence, right? he thought again, looking down at the list. Almost everything else that could have been a reason would have constituted a significant danger to society. And Alden couldn¡¯t bring himself to believe the Artonans would make a potential nuke work as a desk clerk in downtown Chicago. The next most reasonable option was that the restriction was to prevent Gorgon from requesting poison and ending his own life. But surely the alien had other ways if he was so inclined? The third barely logical theory was that Gorgon¡¯s natural diet was something so repugnant that the mere mention of it would cause a public outcry and demands that he be removed from Earth or executed. Like¡­if human babies were his preferred snack. Again, that would make him too dangerous to keep around. Plus how would he even develop a taste for human flesh? There shouldn¡¯t be any wherever he¡¯s from. Maybe it¡¯s just kind of gross and not completely horrific? He pondered the one housefly he¡¯d seen Gorgon eat. An idea popped into his head. Live prey only? I mean, it would be weird if that was it, since he seems okay eating veggies. But he is an alien. Oh¡­oh, maybe he has to kill animals himself to make sure it¡¯s done right? Like a religious thing? He just gobbled that fly though¡­didn¡¯t look like he did anything special to it first. He wrote down, ¡°Live bugs.¡± He could find a pet shop or a bait shop and buy Gorgon some crickets if nothing else worked. Or maybe he should do that first? Confirm the cheaper theory before he dipped into his savings to buy out a butcher shop? That¡¯s a good way to organize the tests anyway. Start with the cheap stuff, work from there. When the class finished up, he was busy making a new list entitled ¡°Extremely Cheap Not-Vegan Foodstuffs for Nonhumans.¡± Boe kicked Jeremy awake, and the three of them headed to a convenience store to scrounge up lunch. Alden grabbed a pre-made cobb salad, and they ate at a small counter beside the slushy machines. ¡°What¡¯s something extremely cheap you can eat that¡¯s not vegan?¡± he asked. ¡°Is this for your scary murderer friend?¡± Jeremy asked. ¡°I thought you said he was vegan.¡± ¡°Save some of the toppings from your salad for him. That¡¯s cheap.¡± Boe was squeezing mustard and mayo packets into his Doritos bag like a monster. ¡°Kind of insulting, but cheap.¡± ¡°He says he¡¯s not vegan. But he couldn¡¯t eat any of the meat or dairy I¡¯ve offered him so far.¡± ¡°I liked him being vegan better,¡± Jeremy muttered. ¡°Why don¡¯t you just ask him what he likes?¡± ¡°He can¡¯t tell me.¡± They both stopped eating and turned to look at him. ¡°For real. He says it¡¯s part of his prison sentence or something. He can¡¯t tell us anything about Artonans or the System. He can¡¯t make food requests, and when I asked if he only ate bugs he couldn¡¯t even tell me yes or no.¡± ¡°That¡¯s weird,¡± said Boe, frowning down at his chips. ¡°I get why he can¡¯t go around spreading arcane knowledge about the System, but a prohibition on asking for food? Why would that kind of restriction be in place? Now I want to try feeding him stuff.¡± ¡°Right? I spent the whole class trying to think of reasons for it. Other than it being a bizarre part of his punishment, I couldn¡¯t come up with much.¡± ¡°Maybe he¡¯d ask for something really nasty if he was able to?¡± Boe suggested. ¡°Like human blood,¡± Jeremy agreed darkly. ¡°He¡¯s not a vampire, Jeremy.¡± Not that Alden had much ground to stand on since he¡¯d briefly considered the baby-eater angle. ¡°Blood¡¯s cheap though. If you use your own I mean. No idea what it would cost to buy someone else¡¯s.¡± Boe used his teeth to rip open another mayonnaise packet. ¡°And it¡¯s definitely not vegan.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll take it under consideration. Do either of you know where I can buy crickets?¡± ¡°You two are gross,¡± Jeremy said. ¡°Forget what I said this morning. You¡¯re the gross ones now. It¡¯s official.¡± ### After lunch, they split up. Boe was taking a culture class to beef up his transcript, and Alden and Jeremy were taking Beginners Wordchaining. Jeremy had chosen it because there were no homework assignments. Alden had selected it because it reminded him of his mother, and it might be useful one day. If he ever went to medical school or nursing school like she did¡­or became a hero like Hannah¡­ I really am a little delusional. He¡¯d been thinking lately that maybe it was okay to be. It¡¯s unavoidable, isn¡¯t it? Everyone our age is in waiting. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Sure, it wasn¡¯t likely that the System would choose you. But it might. And until you knew for sure, it was hard to let it go. In the wordchaining classroom, Alden took his seat on a square pad that was decorated in mystical symbols that did nothing to disguise the fact that it was just a truncated yoga mat. Jeremy flopped down beside him with an unnecessarily loud oof. ¡°Today is for our portion of sacrifice,¡± their teacher intoned. She was human, but it was clear she didn¡¯t want to be. She had very sharp cheek implants and her foundation was leaning toward mauve. ¡°We will begin with the gift of our peace of mind. Please, no shouting this time, Raquel. It doesn¡¯t make the chain stronger. I will come around to monitor your inflection.¡± Alden closed his eyes and began to murmur the words that would offer his own peace of mind across the vastness of the universe to some other world where an Opposite would be praying for the gift of it. In theory. Artonan healers and priests could tell when it was working. Everyone else just had to hope. Sorry, Opposite. I¡¯m not super focused right now, so I don¡¯t know if my peace of mind will do you any good. Beside him, Jeremy was butchering the wordchain with quiet dedication. Alden tried not to smile when his friend accidentally offered his Opposite his actual brain instead of his peace of mind. Annnnd I¡¯m really not into it today, he thought with a smidge of guilt. It was a waste of time to say the words if you didn¡¯t mean them. There was no point if it wasn¡¯t sincere. Alden had this chain down thoroughly. And he was in the black as far the peace of mind trade went; he¡¯d done more repetitions of the sacrificer¡¯s half of this chain than of the recipient¡¯s. Fine to fake it then. He let his thoughts drift back to himself. Whatever reasonable plans he¡¯d made might be turned upside down any second now by an extraordinary twist of fate. Or never. Which wasn¡¯t so different from life in general. Lightning could strike you any time. You could find out you were terminally ill. A billionaire uncle you didn¡¯t know about could name you as his heir. Those things seemed like outside chances, though. And every single day, you heard about some teenager coming into their powers. Social media felt like it was wall to wall young superhumans. It made it feel like getting your own turn was a possibility just around the corner instead of something terribly unlikely. Yep. Delusional. The unreasonable longing had been worse since Hannah disappeared six months ago. Alden didn¡¯t realize how seriously he¡¯d taken her opinions about what heroes could and should be until she was gone. He¡¯d thought they were just acquaintances brought together by a tragedy. But he¡¯d enjoyed hearing from her, and he¡¯d naturally been a little fascinated. She was a person who lived in a different world. Once or twice, he¡¯d even leaned on her when he needed an adult who was an actual adult. Instead of Aunt Connie. He¡¯d stopped that when he caught himself calling Hannah for help choosing his classes for his first year of high school. She¡¯d been cool about it, like always. But he¡¯d had a mortifying moment when he hung up and realized he¡¯d literally made a magic phone call to a superhero to chat about his Algebra II anxieties. He¡¯d promised himself he would pay more attention to boundaries. But apparently at some point he¡¯d started idolizing Hannah, just a little bit, without realizing it. Because now that she was gone, he kept looking around for the particular light she¡¯d given off and finding that it was nowhere to be seen. ¡°You good, man?¡± Jeremy murmured, right in the middle of another sacred promise to donate his neurons to an alien in need. Alden realized his expression must have been grim. He opened his eyes a crack and glanced over at Jeremy. Maybe he really is the insightful one. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m good.¡± ### Boe and Jeremy went home at three. Alden hung around for the last class of the day. It was an exhausting intro to one version of the Artonan writing system, which was logographic and required brutal amounts of memorization. There were only six students. Four of them, including the wordchain teacher, were there because they were pure Artonan enthusiasts. One was a Ph. D. candidate who actually needed to know the language. And then there was Alden. He¡¯d signed up because he didn¡¯t see any point in going home on a Saturday evening when it would only be him and the cat sitting around together, wondering if Aunt Connie was coming home with fast food for dinner or if she was going to disappear for the night with nothing more than a ¡°Met a friend! You good for tonight?¡± text to let him know she hadn¡¯t been mugged. She¡¯d gotten even laxer when it came to parenting since Alden had become a teenager. It was easier not to be worried for her or angry about her behavior if he kept himself busy in the evenings. He whipped out a six-inch thick deck of flash cards and tried to pound the symbols on them into his memory for two hours while his teacher pointed out the minute details that separated one logogram from the next. When it was over, his head ached. He went to the bathroom, and by the time he got out, the building was empty except for him. And Gorgon. He wasn¡¯t eager to head out into the cold. Or go home. So he wandered over to the desk. ¡°Do you have a room to sleep in? When everybody leaves?¡± ¡°No room.¡± Gorgon stared past Alden¡¯s left ear. ¡°I don¡¯t need much sleep. I just stay at the desk or use the lobby furniture if I¡¯m so inclined.¡± Alden folded his arms on the desk and leaned forward to rest his chin on them. In the dimmed lights, the spikes around Gorgon¡¯s neck seemed especially eerie. ¡°Do you just eat out of the vending machines when I don¡¯t bring you things?¡± he asked curiously. ¡° ¡®cause I was thinking about it in logographic torture class, and you can¡¯t do takeout. Unless you call and say, ¡®Bring food¡¯ without requesting anything specific? I don¡¯t think that would work well, and I bet you can¡¯t order anything online either. I¡¯m not really sure how magic works, but I¡¯m betting the Artonans wouldn¡¯t have left that kind of hole in whatever it is that binds you here.¡± For the first time ever, Alden saw Gorgon blink. It was incredibly weird. His eyelids were translucent with dark veins. ¡°Go home, Alden,¡± said the alien. ¡°You¡¯re tired and punchy. You don¡¯t need to worry about me.¡± ¡°Mmm¡­I¡¯m not worried. I was just thinking it sucks to be alone sometimes, and you¡¯re alone most of the time. Most people don¡¯t even say ¡®hi¡¯ to you when they walk through the lobby.¡± Gorgon looked back at his computer screens. ¡°Plenty of humans come to the consulate specifically to see me. I have been extensively photographed, and I¡¯m given to understand that there are plushies of me in at least one gift shop in the city. I¡¯m practically a minor celebrity.¡± There was something in his voice. It wasn¡¯t at all the tone an upset human would have, but it was different than anything Alden had heard from Gorgon before. It made him concerned he¡¯d stepped into more painful territory than he¡¯d intended. He¡¯d only thought of all the social media posts with Gorgon in them as people being idiots. But it was darker than that. Gorgon literally couldn¡¯t get away from a camera. It¡¯s like he¡¯s a zoo animal. But he didn¡¯t want pity. He¡¯d implied he could smell it. So Alden tried to rein the sudden rush of it he felt all the way back in. He stood up straight and cleared his throat. ¡°Anywaaay¡­I¡¯m gonna bring you some crickets next time. Live ones.¡± ¡°That will be noisy,¡± Gorgon said in a neutral voice. ¡°Not if you eat them quick.¡± Alden waited in case Gorgon could drop some kind of a hint. He didn¡¯t. ¡°Hey¡­I don¡¯t know if you can tell me this or not, but you won¡¯t be offended if I bring you extremely weird stuff to eat, right? Because I¡¯m assuming your natural diet must be pretty different from a human¡¯s, and I want to find the right thing. But I don¡¯t want to upset you.¡± ¡°Ah, the trials of a cross-species acquaintanceship.¡± Gorgon glanced down at the backs of his hands. His wrists were raw beneath the magical bindings. Alden had never noticed that before. ¡°I will not be offended. But, Alden, I truly did not mean to bring up sustenance with you at all earlier. I have appreciated and enjoyed your offerings. If nothing else, they are an amusement in a very un-amusing life. My declaration earlier today¡ª ¡± ¡°The one about not being vegan?¡± ¡°Yes, that one. It was prompted by¡­a costly moment of melancholy. It is not a problem for you to solve.¡± That was melancholy earlier? Alden had thought he detected sarcasm. And how was it costly? Well, it would be costly for Alden if he had to start in on the more exotic items on his list of meats. ¡°I understand. But you really reached all the way for a word like ¡®acquaintanceship¡¯ when ¡®friendship¡¯ was right there for the taking?¡± he said lightly. ¡°Maybe I should be offended.¡± ¡°You¡¯re still bringing the crickets, aren¡¯t you?¡± Gorgon said in that deliberately neutral tone. ¡°Chirp, chirp.¡± Alden winked at him. ¡°Have a good night, Gorgon!¡± EIGHT: Tiger Shorts Gorgon didn¡¯t eat the crickets. Honestly, it was a real head-scratcher. Alden had been so sure that the alien would actually eat them that he¡¯d bought thirty. Of all his ideas, this one was supposed to be the sure thing. What was the difference between flies and crickets? They were live prey. They were insects. Neither were poisonous. Gorgon couldn¡¯t have come from a universe where they scorned all meat except for Musca domestica; that was just stupid. Alden was baffled. But even though he didn¡¯t eat the crickets, Gorgon did seem to like them. When he thought Alden wasn¡¯t watching, he gave the bugs chirping on his desk in their plastic carrier a single, shockingly human smile. Then he¡¯d relocated them all, placing them in various potted plants scattered throughout the lobby. For a time, Alden toyed with the idea that Gorgon might only be able to eat live prey he¡¯d hunted himself. But there was really no point in going down that path. Gorgon could have chased down the crickets after releasing them, but he didn¡¯t. A couple of weeks later, their song still echoed around the lobby in the afternoons. And if the alien needed his prey to be truly wild¡­well, it wasn¡¯t like Alden was likely to find an elk roaming the streets of Chicago. And he couldn¡¯t stomach the idea of baiting feral cats into the lobby. He had a semi-feral cat at home, and they got along well. He kept at it, though. Every time he came to class he brought takeout containers full of random food for the alien. One vegan dish, one meat. So far he hadn¡¯t had any successes. Maybe that fly had just annoyed Gorgon so badly that he¡¯d eaten it out of spite? In early February, Alden dragged his friends into a carniceria that was becoming all too familiar and stared into the glass case, looking for inspiration. ¡°You know,¡± said Boe, while Alden checked the prices on tripe, ¡°I didn¡¯t want to bring this up¡­but don¡¯t you think you¡¯re focusing on this Gorgon thing so hard because you¡¯re trying to ignore something else?¡± ¡°Like what?¡± Boe looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. Alden saw him exchange a glance with Jeremy, who cracked his knuckles and leaned back on his heels. ¡°Boe¡¯s talking about your friend¡¯s funeral,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°You gonna go?¡± Alden turned away from them. His breath fogged the glass on the cooler. ¡°I don¡¯t think so.¡± He tried to keep his voice casual. ¡°She¡¯s¡­it¡¯s not like I knew anyone on Anesidora Island except for Hannah. Everyone who will be there was way closer to her than I ever was. I don¡¯t want to intrude.¡± ¡°You should go,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°You should,¡± Boe agreed. ¡°Funerals are sucky by nature. I don¡¯t think you being there could make it better or worse for anyone else.¡± ¡°Right,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°Nobody else will care if you go or not. But you¡¯ll care. You¡¯ll be really pissed at yourself when you wake up the morning after and realize you missed the chance.¡± There was a long, painful pause. Alden didn¡¯t know how to respond. ¡°And then you¡¯ll go nuts and try to bust your demon pal out of prison,¡± Boe said lightly. ¡°Chicago will turn into some kind of hell dimension, and we¡¯ll all die.¡± Jeremy glared at him. ¡°It was getting way too serious. I couldn¡¯t take it anymore.¡± He shrugged apologetically. ¡°They do tacos de lengua here, Alden. They¡¯re good. Get those. You can eat them for lunch when Gorgon rejects them.¡± ### Wordchain class that day focused on the request for a trade of luck. It was the first one Alden¡¯s mother had ever taught him, the same one he¡¯d said in his heart when he was inside Hannah¡¯s bubble. He always felt a little weird about performing this one, even though he knew it well. While the teacher gave pointers to Raquel, who still hadn¡¯t gotten over her habit of shouting the words in a near-religious frenzy, Alden tried to control his breathing. He focused on his inflection. He made the delicate curving hand sign he hadn¡¯t been able to make years ago, on that night when he¡¯d really needed it. Maybe that was why it didn¡¯t work. Yikes. That was a dangerous thought. Bitter. Childish. He knew from experience that he could spiral down from it into ugly emotions if he let himself. He tried to change gears. Even if I don¡¯t go to the funeral, I have to call Hannah¡¯s friend back. I can¡¯t just leave her offer hanging forever. It¡¯s rude. ¡°¡­em utch ya-cku durz-u hu-morit.¡± He finished the chain in a whisper and started again. A waste. If a tiny slice of luck lands on me today, I don¡¯t have anything important to do with it. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. It was ten days until the funeral. Alden knew Hannah was almost certainly gone. It had been hard to get a straight answer online, but it seemed like only a handful of people had ever received a summons that took them longer than a few weeks to complete. A tiny, tiny percentage. Sometimes, the Artonans sent a message letting the people back on Earth know that a hero had died on a quest, but mostly they didn¡¯t. Real dick move there. Why doesn¡¯t the island complain about it? Alden didn¡¯t even know what kind of quest Hannah had been given. He hoped it was something noble. Something that mattered. Hannah Elber really, really wanted her life to matter. More than anyone else Alden had ever met. People say they want to make a difference all the time, but they don¡¯t mean it. Hannah had actually meant it. She¡¯d planned for it. Worked toward it. Worried about it. I know she¡¯d be okay with dying for the right reason. Alden wished the thought made him feel better. His mood was dark for the rest of the day, even though Jeremy kept trying to cheer him up. And his temper only soured more when he made it back home at seven o¡¯clock and found a note from his aunt taped to the fridge. She¡¯d gone to California. ¡°Just for a few days with a friend!¡± the note said. ¡°Bought some groceries. Call if you need me!¡± ¡°You can¡¯t do things like this,¡± Alden muttered, ripping the note off and tossing it into the trash. ¡°You know you can¡¯t.¡± He tried to calm himself down with logic. What was the worst that could happen? He was almost sixteen. He had money of his own from his parents¡¯ estate and the settlements from their deaths. It wasn¡¯t a ton, but it was enough in combination with the scholarship money that had been set aside for his future education to guarantee he wouldn¡¯t sink if he had to look after himself. In just a couple of months, he¡¯d be old enough that a court should be willing to emancipate him instead of shoving him into foster care because his aunt was a massive flake. But it had been close at least once when he was younger. Aunt Connie had done almost exactly this same thing. A neighbor had caught on. He had asked Alden if he¡¯d been left alone for the entire week and hadn¡¯t believed him when he¡¯d lied and said his aunt was just working nights¡­ It¡¯s fine. It¡¯s done. Having the house to myself is kind of like a vacation. He opened the fridge and found a gray plastic grocery bag full of sandwich stuff and mini orange juices. He stared at the supplies for a while. The juice had crushed the bread. She didn¡¯t even bother to unload the bag. Alden was unreasonably angry about that. Grumbling, he ate fried bologna and tried not to pick at all of the flaws in his life. The overdue electric bill sitting on top of the microwave was not a disaster. The pile of dirty coffee mugs his aunt had left in the sink could be washed in a few minutes. The tiger-striped boxer shorts¡ªdefinitely not Alden¡¯s own¡ªcrumpled in a corner of the living room were kind of funny if viewed through a generous lens. But Alden¡¯s lens wasn¡¯t generous this evening. He didn¡¯t know why. Usually he was really good at letting Aunt Connie¡¯s chaos wash around him without touching him. There was a mewing sound at the front door, and feeling relieved to be interrupted from his thoughts, he jumped up to let in the cat. ¡°Hey, Victor. You¡¯re gracing me with your presence tonight, huh? Why¡¯d you go out there on such a cold nasty day, anyway?¡± The orange tomcat was named Victor because he was all scarred up. Alden liked to imagine he¡¯d been the victor of many battles. The cat wove around his ankles, shedding obscene amounts of fur and meowing. Alden bent down to scratch him behind the ears. ¡°Let¡¯s get you some dinner.¡± He opened the cabinet where he kept the cat food and frowned. It was missing. He¡¯d definitely had several cans left, purchased from the same store as the crickets. Had his aunt moved them? He searched cabinets and drawers. He looked inside the fridge again. He dug through the trash just in case his aunt had already fed the cat entirely too much food before she left and then thrown the cans out. But there was nothing. What the hell? Did she get confused and take them with her? He glanced at the boxers in the corner. Did tiger shorts steal my freaking cat food? He grabbed his phone and texted his aunt. Where¡¯s the cat food? She didn¡¯t answer right away, so he gave Victor a small piece of bologna. After his shower, he checked his messages again. Aunt Connie? Cat food? Still nothing. Alden stood in his room, drying his hair with a towel, trying to be nonjudgmental. No way am I going to sleep anytime soon. I¡¯m too worked up. Might as well make a bad night worse, right? It was as good a time to make a hard phone call as any. He grabbed his phone and pressed the sigil. He took a deep breath, then said, ¡°Call Clytem Zhao.¡± The System connected straight to the hero¡¯s voicemail instead of to her directly. That was a relief at least. Alden wasn¡¯t prepared for a long heart-to-heart. Keep it simple. That¡¯s safest. ¡°Hi, Ms. Zhao. This is Alden. I¡¯m sorry I took so long to get back to you. I¡¯d like to go to the funeral, if it¡¯s not too much trouble for you to get me there. Thank you for offering.¡± He hung up. There. Decision made. Now to do something to distract himself from feeling so many feelings. Alden threw on a t-shirt, pulled a sweatshirt on over it, and grabbed the pillow from his bed. When he stepped out into the living room, the cat was there, sniffing the unwelcome underwear. ¡°You want to go grab some tuna and meet somebody?¡± Alden asked him. Victor meowed. ¡°That¡¯s the spirit. How do you feel about demons?¡± NINE: Gorgon It was nearly eleven when Alden arrived in front of the consulate building. The street was quiet, which only made the angry sounds coming from the cat carrier in his hand more disturbing. Victor didn¡¯t do confinement, and he wanted everyone in the neighborhood to know it. In Alden¡¯s other hand, he carried a pair of overstuffed grocery bags. His pillow was tucked under his arm. I¡¯ve completely lost it, he thought as he stared up at the dark building. I¡¯m behaving like a drunk person, and I don¡¯t even have the excuse of being one. Alden had always been a planner. He saw now that this was not an optional state of being for him, since without a plan he just¡­did random insane things. The consulate was closed. Obviously. Because there was literally no reason for anyone to hang out there in the middle of the night. But there was something that looked like an intercom on the gate. I came all the way here, so I might as well. He maneuvered the cat carrier toward the intercom and managed to press the button with a knuckle while Victor hissed and yowled. There was no sound or blinking light to indicate whether or not the device was working. ¡°Hello?¡± he said. ¡°This is Alden.¡± There was a long pause before any response came. ¡°I see you on the monitors.¡± It was Gorgon¡¯s voice. ¡°Great! Can I come in?¡± ¡°The building is closed until nine AM tomorrow.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be like that, Gorgon. I can¡¯t sleep. And you said you don¡¯t sleep much. We can hang out. Like a slumber party without slumber. It¡¯ll probably be the most exciting thing that ever happened at this place.¡± ¡°I am sure your family is worried about you, Alden. Please go home.¡± ¡°And I am sure my only family member is on a spur-of-the-moment roadtrip to California with a cat-food thief. There¡¯s not a single person in the world who will miss me tonight.¡± The intercom went silent again. When it came back on, there was a dramatic sigh. ¡°That¡¯s the most depressing thing I¡¯ve heard in months. Fine. Come. But I just mopped the floors. Leave your shoes at the door.¡± A moment later, there was a beep, and the black metal gate rolled back on its tracks. Alden slipped inside, feeling childishly excited to be doing something a bit illicit in Artonan territory. As he passed by the flagpoles,he saw one of the lobby lights flicker on. He headed in, and Gorgon met him. The alien was standing less than a foot from the door, his golden bindings trailing through the air behind him like the tendrils of a jellyfish until they disappeared behind the lobby desk. ¡°Shoes,¡± he said, pointing at Alden¡¯s feet like they were on the verge of committing a terrible crime. ¡°Yes, sir!¡± Alden grinned at him and bent to untie his sneakers. ¡°Just so we¡¯re clear, this ¡®slumber party¡¯ will not be the most exciting thing that ever happened to the consulate. I¡¯ve dealt with two attempted bombings and a handful of enraged superhumans over the years.¡± ¡°Oh¡­well, I did bring snacks?¡± Gorgon¡¯s head turned to the cat carrier. ¡°No, thank you.¡± ¡°Not the cat!¡± Alden squawked. ¡°This is Victor! He¡¯s my pet¡­more like a roommate, really. Anyway, he¡¯s a party guest not a menu item.¡± ¡°Are the noises he¡¯s making signs of enthusiasm?¡± ¡°Rage,¡± Alden said. ¡°But it¡¯s fine. He¡¯ll be happy once I set him free.¡± A second passed, and Gorgon didn¡¯t say, Don¡¯t you dare set that beast loose! So Alden unlatched the door to the carrier, and the tomcat rocketed out. He skidded across the freshly mopped terrazzo and pelted under a modern leather armchair near one of the windows. The alien watched with apparent interest. ¡°Soooo¡­what were you going to do for the rest of the night?¡± Alden asked, standing up in his socks to look around the dimly lit lobby. ¡°Anything I can help with?¡± ¡°I was planning to watch the monitors. And read a magazine someone left in the men¡¯s restroom. And sanitize the buttons in the elevator.¡± ¡°All excellent things.¡± Alden frowned. ¡°But I didn¡¯t know you could go inside the elevators. I¡¯ve never seen you leave the lobby.¡± ¡°I can use all of the building¡¯s public areas. But my bindings do not allow living things to pass through them, so it becomes a tripping hazard if I leave the desk when the facility is crowded.¡± ¡°Makes sense. Let¡¯s go ride the elevator up and down and eat junk food.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Gorgon asked. Alden shrugged. ¡°Why not? I promise not to trip.¡± # They wandered the building together, peering into classrooms and occasionally cleaning random things. Gorgon didn¡¯t seem to have much of a method when it came to janitorial work. He just occasionally stopped and sprayed something with sanitizer or glass cleaner and wiped it off. He did pay unusual attention to the windows, though. That¡¯s as close as he can get to outside, Alden realized. ¡°Chips and salsa?¡± he asked as they finally made it back down to the lobby. He dug into his grocery bag and passed a pack of blue corn chips and a jar with a jalape?o in sunglasses on it to Gorgon, who took both with a nod. The lobby had a pretty nice vibe at night. The LEDs were sparkling on the ceiling. A lone cricket was chirping from a pot that held a fiddle-leaf fig tree. And Victor was prowling around one of the seating areas. Gorgon beelined for the cat and chose the seat nearest it, watching the feline with what Alden guessed might be curiosity as he cracked the lid on the salsa jar. The cat didn¡¯t seem to mind the alien at all. That was a surprise. If Alden had taken a minute to think about it before he set off on this spontaneous adventure, he would have left Victor at home. It only seemed natural that an animal would be leery of a spiky creature from another dimension. But Victor just sniffed Gorgon¡¯s ankles and moved on. Alden crouched down toward the cat, and Victor raised his hackles. ¡°He has not forgiven you for confining him,¡± Gorgon said. ¡°Yeah, I know. He¡¯s not used to the carrier.¡± Alden had only stuffed the half-feral cat into the thing once before, to take him to the vet. He reached into his bag for a can of tuna. ¡°Peace offering?¡± he asked, levering up the metal tab and peeling the top back. ¡°It¡¯s your favorite.¡± Victor padded a step closer. ¡°See? He¡¯s a pretty forgiving du¡ªOW! Shit! Victor, you brat!¡± The cat had lunged, quick as lightning, and delivered a combo attack of bites and scratches to Alden¡¯s right hand so fast that he barely felt them before the furry villain streaked away to stand under Gorgon¡¯s chair. ¡°What the heck, man?¡± Alden said in a wounded voice, looking down at his hand. There was a burning claw mark welling with red droplets and at least four puncture wounds bleeding freely. ¡°I bought you the good tuna.¡± He held the injured hand up, looking around the lobby as if he expected to find a first aid kit lying around. A weird noise caught his attention, and he whipped back around to watch the cat in case it was planning another attack. But the odd repetitive hissing sound was coming from Gorgon. His body was shaking, thin gray arms wrapped around the chip bag. For half a second, Alden thought the alien might be going into convulsions, and then he realized¡­ ¡°Are you laughing at me?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Gorgon said, between disturbing hisses of merriment. ¡°It was obvious the cat would do that, but you did not know it!¡± ¡°Gorgon, I¡¯m dripping blood on your floor. It¡¯s not funny.¡± But he heard the amusement in his own voice. He¡¯d never seen Gorgon laugh. It looked bizarre, but it was also a relief to know that the alien did have a sense of humor. Gorgon continued to hiss with joy. ¡°Fine. You guys are too violent for me. I¡¯m going to go wash my hand off in the bathroom.¡± Drops of blood were running down his wrist now, staining the gray cuff of his sweatshirt. Victor doesn¡¯t do half measures, I guess, Alden thought. He cupped his other hand beneath the bitten one to catch any overflow and hurried toward the bathroom. When he got there, he reached for the handle of the sink, then froze. A thought had crossed his mind, but¡­ It¡¯d be weird, wouldn¡¯t it? Not funny weird either. Creepy weird. But maybe it would be less creepy now, when circumstance had given him the opportunity, than it would be at a later date when it would be more premeditated? Alden turned and elbowed the bathroom door open. Gorgon¡¯s hisses were still echoing across the lobby. ¡°Hey, Gorgon?¡± Alden called. ¡°Um¡­don¡¯t let this spoil the mood if it¡¯s really off-base. And remember you promised not to be offended by stuff I offered you. Do you¡­want some of my blood? To eat?¡± Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Yeah¡­that sounded gross on multiple levels. Like I¡¯m the dumb human in a bad teenage vampire movie. Gorgon had stopped laughing. Was he offended? Alden couldn¡¯t see him around the corner. He didn¡¯t say no. Gorgon only rarely said yes or thank you when he was offered food he found acceptable. Usually, he just took it and ate it. Alden assumed the verbal confirmations were reserved for things he found particularly appealing. But he always said no out loud to reject the non-vegan stuff. Except for the crickets. In that case, he¡¯d said, ¡°No, but leave them.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not answering,¡± Alden called nervously. ¡°What does that mean?¡± Gorgon didn¡¯t reply. No means no. And nothing means he¡¯ll eat it. Right? That¡¯s how it¡¯s always been before. Or maybe he can¡¯t answer because it counts as a question about diet instead of an actual presentation of food, since I¡¯m not where he can see me? That made sense. One reason the what-can-Gorgon-eat experiment was taking so long was the fact that he had to be offered the actual food item before he could accept or reject it. Okay then. One bloody hand coming your way. This is for science. Completely normal science. Gorgon was still sitting where Alden had left him. His knees were drawn up almost protectively around the tortilla chips, and his clawed toes were clenched around the edge of the chair cushion. He looked like a gargoyle. Alden tried for a casual, everyday sort of stride as he approached. But he was nervous and embarrassed, and he knew he must look it. ¡°Hey, you want some?¡± he asked when he reached the alien. He thrust his hand unceremoniously toward Gorgon. He waited for him to say, ¡°No.¡± Or, more likely, ¡°Get out.¡± Instead, Gorgon just stared down at Alden¡¯s bloody hand. For a long, long time. Blood spattered against the plastic chip bag, and still, neither of them moved. Alden¡¯s heart started to pound in his ears, beating a rhythm loud enough to compete with the tinnitus that had never gone away. And then Gorgon did something he¡¯d never once done before. He tipped his head up, and he met Alden¡¯s eyes. ### Alden had misunderstood something. No. That wasn¡¯t it. He¡¯d misunderstood everything. His entire notion of reality had been insignificant, warped, and just plain wrong. The Artonans had not imprisoned a creature in the Chicago consulate. They had not chained a person to the lobby desk. And they had not bound something that should ever be called a demon. Gorgon was something else. Something bigger than that. Something wonderfully and terribly close to sacred. Looking into his eyes was like being stabbed through the gut by a distillation of every profound moment Alden had ever experienced in his life. He heard the sound of his mother¡¯s heartbeat in the womb, felt the cool emptiness of the wood as he placed a daisy on top of his father¡¯s casket,recalled in glaring detail the first sunrise he¡¯d ever paused to observe. And those were only the impressions that would stick with him when it was over.In the moment, they came at him simultaneously with a thousand others, and he lost all sense of his present reality. When he came to, hours later, he was lying in textbook-perfect recovery position on the cold floor. His hand was bandaged with a paper napkin and a generous amount of clear packaging tape. And his cat was calmly eating a can of tuna three inches away from his nose. Alden groaned and sat up. Physically he felt fine. Mentally, he felt like his brain had been unspooled. He looked around the lobby cautiously. The sun wasn¡¯t up yet, but the sky had begun to pale. Gorgon was at the desk, chin resting on his knuckles as he stared at the security monitors. Alden approached him cautiously, keeping his own eyes averted just in case. ¡°Gorgon¡­¡± he said, too overwhelmed to be ashamed of what he was about to say, ¡°¡­are you some kind of a god?¡± ¡°No,¡± Gorgon said simply. Of course not. What kind of a god would get trapped in a lobby? ¡°Right. I was just¡­checking. Because that thing with your eyes¡­that was¡­kind of¡­intense?¡± ¡°Do you feel all right?¡± Gorgon asked, peering at the half-empty salsa jar beside his stapler. Alden hesitated. ¡°I do. But what just happened? What was that?¡± ¡°It saddens me that I am prevented from explaining it to you, Alden.¡± Gorgon lifted an arm to show off his magic manacle. ¡°Well, did you taste some of my blood at least?¡± Alden tried for a jocular tone and fell short. ¡°I feel like a missed something.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t. It wouldn¡¯t have been right under the circumstances.¡± Alden looked down at his bandaged hand nervously. ¡°Should I offer it to you again?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know what you¡¯re doing, child.¡± Given the situation, Alden couldn¡¯t even object to being called a kid. ¡°Yeah, I get that I don¡¯t. I really get that I don¡¯t.¡± ¡°But you¡¯re still offering?¡± ¡°Well, I trust that you¡¯re not going to go all Dracula on me. We¡¯re friends. Aren¡¯t we?¡± Gorgon muttered something under his breath. Then, out loud, he said, ¡°I¡¯m not sure two people can be friends when one of them is incapable of presenting themselves as they truly are and the other is incapable of grasping it.¡± Alden raised an eyebrow. ¡°I feel like there was an insult buried in there.¡± ¡°Only a factual statement. We are not friends. But I am fond of you and wish you well. If I accept your offering, there will be side effects.¡± ¡°Bad ones or good ones?¡± Gorgon made a sharp clicking sound in the back of his throat. Frustration maybe? It seemed like he couldn¡¯t say much else. Alden thought about it. And what it boiled down to was that he trusted Gorgon. More than ever after¡­whatever that was. There had always been a wriggling worm of doubt in Alden¡¯s mind about the alien. He was chained up for what the internet said was attempted murder after all. Even if Alden liked him and enjoyed his company, a tiny piece of his better judgment had advised caution. That piece was gone. It had been completely obliterated by the experience of meeting Gorgon¡¯s gaze. And though that fact alone should have raised fresh alarm bells, it didn¡¯t. Whatever Gorgon was, his presence felt fundamentally benevolent. Which was really, really unexpected. Because now that Alden thought about it, he couldn¡¯t recall a single other person he¡¯d ever encountered in his life who¡¯d given off that particular vibe. ¡°I trust you,¡± Alden said. ¡°You can have some of my blood. If that¡¯s something you want to do, I mean.¡± He flopped his taped-up hand onto the desk. ¡°No need,¡± Gorgon said lightly. He gestured toward the jar of salsa. ¡°I put a few drops in here before I wrapped your hand just in case you were quite sure about the offering.¡± ¡°You made blood gazpacho,¡± Alden said. ¡°That¡¯s not at all unsettling. And yeah. I¡¯m sure.¡± Gorgon looked up at him, and Alden took an involuntary step back, bracing for impact. But nothing happened this time. He found himself staring at his own reflection in the alien¡¯s liquid black eyes. ¡°I see. You are sure. How¡­dear of you.¡± Then, without any further explanation, he opened the jar of salsa and took a sip. Alden held his breath and clenched his fists. He expected angelic choirs or an explosion of light or a full Artonan military bombardment or something. But nothing happened at all. ¡°What¡­?¡± No point in asking serious questions. He won¡¯t be able to tell you. ¡°What¡¯s it taste like?¡± ¡°Like salsa,¡± said Gorgon. ¡°I didn¡¯t slit your jugular and pour it in. It¡¯s just a couple of drops.¡± Alden kept waiting. He wasn¡¯t sure for what. Maybe part of him still expected Gorgon to explain what was going on even though the alien had just said he couldn¡¯t. Finally, he snapped out of it. ¡°So, what do we do now?¡± ¡°You should go home and sleep for a couple of hours. Then, you should come back for your classes later today.¡± ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± Gorgon paused. He licked his lips lightly and tipped his head from side to side a few times. ¡°Hmmm..you should come by again this evening. We can talk about your plans.¡± ¡°What plans?¡± Gorgon looked down into the salsa. ¡°You told me once you had specific dreams for your future in the event that you were chosen by the System. I would like to hear them.¡± ¡°Oh. Okay.¡± Alden scratched the back of his head. ¡°You know, if you enjoyed the slumber party and want to do it again you don¡¯t have to make an excuse.¡± ¡°I wish I could roll my eyes as humans do,¡± said Gorgon. ¡°It¡¯s a beautifully emotive gesture.¡± Alden snorted. Their conversation ended there, and he packed up his things to leave. Getting Victor back into the cat carrier was an aerobic experience for both of them. Alden almost lost a finger. He tossed the empty tuna can into the garbage and headed for the door. ¡°See you again in a few hours, Gorgon. And I guess we¡¯ll talk tonight?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Cool.¡± Alden¡¯s hand was on the door handle when Gorgon suddenly said, ¡°Seventy percent.¡± Alden glanced back. ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± ¡°I said your chances of being chosen by the System were less than one in a thousand. I have revised my estimate. Your friend was right; there is around a seventy percent chance that you will be selected by the contract.¡± TEN: Side Effects The shock took a while to hit. Probably because Alden was already processing a lot at the moment. Hannah¡¯s funeral was coming up. Gorgon¡¯s eyeballs had the power to make you recall in perfect clarity your time in the womb. He¡¯d given the alien his own blood to drink, and he thought, upon reflection, that it might have been part of some kind of magic ritual and not just snack time. All typical stuff. Anyway, when an extra-dimensional being told him out of the blue that he had a seventy percent chance of becoming a superhero, Alden Thorn said, ¡°Oh. That¡¯s interesting. Thanks for letting me know.¡± As if his strange not-friend had just given him the weather forecast. Then, he left the consulate and fought his way back home with Victor yowling and screeching inside his cat crate. Sundays weren¡¯t as busy as Saturdays, but he still had a mid-day class to prep for. Jeremy and Boe were having a platypus-themed meme battle in their group chat that morning, so his phone kept pinging him. And he needed to call and pay the electric bill. Good thing I¡¯ve got Aunt Connie¡¯s current credit card numbers memorized. All in all, he was just too busy to have a freakout over one more thing. At least at first. When he finally got the cat settled and removed all the packaging tape from his bitten hand, he headed into the kitchen for breakfast. As he was reaching into the fridge for orange juice, his phone rang. He answered it. ¡°Hey, you wanna grab a late breakfast at the diner?¡± Jeremy asked before Alden could even say hello. ¡°Boe says he¡¯s eating a box of Lucky Charms and watching anime, but if you say you¡¯re going, he¡¯ll feel left out and change his mind.¡± Alden considered it. Hot breakfast sounded good, but¡­ ¡°I¡¯m pretty low on funds, and my aunt bailed for the week. I should probably cut back until she comes home.¡± He¡¯d already spent pretty much all of the cash he¡¯d saved over the summer on food for himself, Gorgon, and the cat. Until he turned eighteen or was emancipated, Alden¡¯s inheritance was only accessible for education expenses. And with the weekend classes, he hadn¡¯t been taking odd jobs from the neighbors to earn pocket money. ¡°I¡¯ll buy, man,¡± Jeremy said easily. ¡°You can pay me back later. Or not. It¡¯s all good.¡± Alden considered it. Jeremy¡¯s parents were both lawyers. They literally left cash lying around the house for their son to use if he wanted. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ll take you up on that. Thanks.¡± He checked the microwave clock. ¡°See you at ten?¡± He had just enough time to trash the tiger shorts and shove a load of his own clothes into the washer before he headed out the door again. He met his friends in front of a diner in Jeremy¡¯s neighborhood. Boe was watching the tail end of a cartoon on his phone while Jeremy peered over his shoulder. ¡°Awesome! You¡¯re here!¡± Jeremy said brightly when he spotted Alden. ¡°Let¡¯s go. I¡¯m gonna order steak and eggs and enough bacon to kill me.¡± ¡°Your goals are admirable,¡± said Boe. ¡°Throw in some hash-browns, and you¡¯ve just described my dream breakfast,¡± Alden agreed. The bell over the door tinkled when they entered. It was very much a local joint. Lots of old folks were there for the senior discount, and there were a pair of televisions in opposite corners playing a news station on low volume. The place smelled like grease, but in a good way. The three of them slid into a vinyl booth and took their menus. Alden¡¯s was sticky with the syrupy fingerprints of whoever had held it last. The diner was one of those places that would let you order the whole menu no matter what time of day it was, so Boe inevitably spent ten minutes trying to decide what he wanted to eat. While his friends debated the merits of cheeseburgers vs Western omelets, Alden ordered a hot chocolate. It came as a mug of steaming water and a pouch of dried mix, and he stirred it up while he stared at the closed captions scrolling acrossthe bottom of the TV opposite him. ¡°Someone in Naperville just became a C-rank Shaper,¡± he said, watching the dimpled brunette girl onscreen. She wasn¡¯t nervous at all. She was beaming as she chatted with the interviewer. Her large hoop earrings swung back and forth as she gestured animatedly. ¡°That¡¯s a mediocre rank.¡± Boe glanced at the television. ¡°Not superhero level, but with Shaper classes, they sometimes still get lucky enough with skills to do something interesting. What¡¯s her starting element?¡± ¡°Object. Sounds like she wants to go deep into it, too, instead of trying to branch out with new skills.¡± The elements Worldshapers used were defined by the System in a way that didn¡¯t match well with human logic. The usual ones were ground, sky, life, water, and object. Though sometimes someone got a super specific curveball or just Shaping in general with no specialty. Object Shapers could move and morph objects, and generally the more crafted the thing was, the easier they could play with it. Couldn¡¯t do a thing with a rock freshly pulled from the earth, but if it had been cut into a gemstone they could at least start to impact it with their power. They could do amazing things with higher tech stuff, though. One of Alden¡¯s favorite Object Shapers was a hero whose schtick was turning cars into ¡°robots¡± that were really just glorified person-shaped battering rams he operated telekinetically. It was pretty obvious the guy wished he¡¯d been given the Machine Wright class instead. ¡°That¡¯s flexible at least,¡± Boe said, still looking at the girl on screen. ¡°Maybe when she¡¯s finished training, the city will hire her for some kind of hometown hero PR, and she can replace Sharon.¡± Jeremy groaned. ¡°No. Not this again.¡± Boe pointed at him with a half-unwrapped drinking straw. ¡°You can¡¯t just force people to do the first-name-only thing! If you¡¯re Elvis, you¡¯re Elvis. If you¡¯re Michelangelo, you¡¯re Michelangelo. You make an impact. People notice. Then, you become a mononym. You don¡¯t just wake up one day and tell people you¡¯re soooo important that you don¡¯t need a surname anymore. Anyone who tries to make it happen on their own, especially when their name is as basic as Sharon, deserves to be punished for criminal narcissism!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t disagree,¡± said Alden, scooting over in the booth so that his friend didn¡¯t stab him with the waving straw. ¡°But I think you¡¯re probably a little too passionate about this one, Boe.¡± He brought his mug to his lips. He was anticipating a warm sip of overly sweetened generic brand chocolate, but instead his hand clenched in an involuntary death grip around the mug¡¯s handle. The hot ceramic burned against his lips, and his eyes widened in alarm. Alden felt like he¡¯d just run face first into a giant flashing STOP sign. I can¡¯t drink this, he thought adamantly, setting the mug down so hard that he slopped some of the cocoa on the table. The cow didn¡¯t give it to me. ¡°What the hell?¡± Alden breathed. Was that thought even mine? It felt like it was, but how could that be true? The cow didn¡¯t give it to me? He¡¯d never had a concern like that in his life! ¡°Right?!¡± Boe said. ¡°It would be slightly forgivable if her name was unique. But there are thousands of Sharons out there! She can¡¯t just do them dirty that way!¡± Alden laughed hysterically. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Boe didn¡¯t notice, but Jeremy gave him a confused look. Alden waved him off and stared into the depths of his hot chocolate. He flipped the crumpled packet over and read the back. It had powdered milk in it. No surprise there. He tried to drink it again. It smelled good. He wasn¡¯t grossed out by it or anything. In fact, he wanted it. He was thirsty. He craved sugar. But there was some kind of mental wall between him and the act of drinking the chocolate. It wasn¡¯t even like he had a sudden moral problem with it. He wasn¡¯t upset that Boe was sitting beside him with an iced coffee that was at least a third cream. But in his own mind the wall stood there, solid and free of any kind of emotion. Like an incontrovertible fact of his existence. Alden could not drink this. The cow hadn¡¯t offered it to him. What is this? he thought, beginning to panic. This is insane. ¡°Jeremy, give me your soda!¡± he said desperately. ¡°What? No. Get your own.¡± Alden snatched it and took a gulp so fast he almost choked on the bubbles. ¡°Okayyyy then,¡± said Jeremy, staring at him like he¡¯d¡­.well, like he¡¯d suddenly stolen his friend¡¯s drink for no reason. ¡°I guess I can get another one?¡± Alden felt relief, but only a smidge of it. He could still drink. He wasn¡¯t going to thirst to death. But what the hell was this? ¡°Alden, are you having some kind of a breakdown?¡± Alden shook his head. What was he supposed to say? That he had apparently caught a dietary restriction from Gorgon? Why would that be a thing on any planet? In any universe? And Alden hadn¡¯t drunk the alien¡¯s blood! It was the other way around. How could he have picked up contagious¡­whatever this was¡­from that?! And what about cheese? he thought frantically. I love cheese. And Italian beef. And pizza. Side effects, my ass! This is the worst. He stared at the sticky diner menu on the table in front of him with rising dread. He¡¯d been planning to order hash browns and a cheddar scramble, but unless some noble chicken had laid eggs while¡­what? hoping that Alden, specifically, would eat them?¡­he was out of luck. Maybe it¡¯s temporary? He tried to trick himself into thinking it might be, and it worked surprisingly well. Yeah. I can put up with it for a few days until it fades. No sweat. No reason to act like a lunatic in front of my friends. ¡°I¡¯ll have the oatmeal,¡± he said to the waitress when she came back around. ¡°No butter. Lots of brown sugar. And a side order of berries.¡± Even the hash browns here were fried in delicious, delicious bacon fat. So oatmeal was the best he could do. His friends were staring at him. He cleared his throat. ¡°I¡¯m on a cleanse,¡± he said in a righteous voice. ¡°Okay,¡±said Jeremy, looking nonplussed. ¡°What organ are you trying to cleanse with lots of sugar?¡± Boe scoffed. ¡°Hey, I have my reasons!¡± Fortunately, their food came quickly, and his friends were distracted by their own plates. Alden gave himself a mental pep talk while he spooned oatmeal into his mouth. It¡¯s fine. I¡¯m a growing boy. I need fiber. And maybe there¡¯s a good side effect to counterbalance the bad side effect. It had to work that way, right? You couldn¡¯t just destroy someone¡¯s future as a major consumer of sausage deep dish without giving them something equal in return. Not like I can ask Gorgon. He can¡¯t tell me anything¡­I¡¯d better not grow a spiky horn choker. He dug his spoon into his overly-sugared breakfast goop again and paused as he remembered. Oh, yeah. He couldn¡¯t tell me about side effects from the blood thing, but he did say I had a seventy percent chance of being chosen by the System. How would he even know that? Could he taste it or something? Then, he frowned as a new realization hit him. Never mind how he knows. Seventy percent is¡­it¡¯s really high. He looked up to the TV, where the C-ranked Shaper was waving goodbye to the camera as her interview ended Seventy percent meant it wasn¡¯t just a possibility he might get powers of his own one day. It meant it was likely. What am I supposed to do with that information? He felt a growing¡­not excitement, exactly. It was more like nervous energy. Oatmeal and diet quandaries suddenly forgotten, his thoughts turned to facts about superpower acquisition. Almost everyone was chosen between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. Outliers happened, but not often. Alden was a month and a half away from his sixteenth birthday. Sixteen is the most common. Something like seventy percent of superhumans received their access to the System after their sixteenth birthday and before their seventeenth. S-ranks and A-ranks were disproportionately chosen at fifteen. D¡¯s and F¡¯s were disproportionately chosen at seventeen. I¡¯ll most likely be chosen sometime in the next fourteen months if Gorgon¡¯s right. The sweet spot for being an S-rank is already past. The best I should reasonably hope for is A. And that¡¯s still a long shot. D and F mean you spend your life on the island or in an Avowed zone, just chilling with a really restrictive passport keeping you from traveling as much as you want. B and C are¡­super class dependent. C-Brute is meh. C-Meister might still be okay if it¡¯s in the right specialty area. He wanted to make contingency plans for every possibility, but that would take him a while. If Alden could make a shopping list for exactly the powers he wanted, he knew what he¡¯d choose. But that was the thing about having a dream that only had a distant possibility of coming true¡ªyou could just let your imagination run wild. He¡¯d want to be an S-rank. Who wouldn¡¯t? And he would prefer to be an Adjuster of some kind. It was a spell-heavy class that you could customize easily. His second choice would be the Meister class, though that one was more iffy. Meisters were powerful, but they had a lot less flexibility than Adjusters. There was almost no wiggle room for them when it came to skill selection. So becoming something like a Sword Meister would be awful for Alden¡¯s goals, while becoming a Trap Meister would be fantastic. None of the other classes would really work. An S-rank Brute was a titan, but they didn¡¯t get access to many spells, and their skills were usually pretty tightly focused. So they lacked versatility. Alden would need that in spades for what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a sidekick. Not an old-school, dies-as-soon-as-you-look-at-them sidekick. The contemporary version that was uncommon and unpopular but incredibly special when someone managed to make it work. True battlefield support. Like Hannah. Battlefield supports were superheroes who were strong enough to look after themselves in a fight but who focused on skills and spells that would do all the things that most heroes sucked at. They might have crowd control, structural damage mitigation, barriers, buffs, or dozens of other useful skills that made the thing other heroes did better. A great battlefield support was a hero who made it possible for the people they worked with to lay waste to a villain without demolishing a city. It was really interesting stuff. And it was important. If Hannah had been the support she dreamed of being, the one she was working to be, Alden¡¯s parents probably wouldn¡¯t have died. She just¡­hadn¡¯t made it there yet. And now she never will. Right. Back to reality. He¡¯d agreed to go to the funeral. He¡¯d probably be hearing from Cly Zhao any day about the portal. Alden sighed and looked down at his barely-touched oatmeal. ¡°Boe, can I borrow one of your ties next week?¡± ¡°Yeah, of course.¡± Boe spoke around a mouthful of omelet. ¡°You¡¯re going, then? I wondered why you were acting weird today. That¡¯s good.¡± ¡°I have ties!¡± Jeremy said quickly. ¡°You can borrow any of them.¡± Alden shook his head. Jeremy¡¯s taste in clothes leaned toward the creative. ¡°I only need one. And I don¡¯t think a tie with chocolate chip cookies on it really says, ¡®funeral.¡¯ But thanks anyway.¡± ELEVEN: Last and Least ¡°Look at what you¡¯ve done to me,¡± Alden said pitifully. It was evening, he was sitting in the cricket-filled lobby with Gorgon again, and he was picking chunks of tofu and pieces of lettuce out of a naan wrap that had been incorrectly labeled vegan at a food truck he¡¯d passed on the way over. ¡°Do you know why the bread at that place tastes fabulous? It¡¯s because it¡¯s grilled in butter. Do you know how I know that? It¡¯s because my brain now has an anti-joy narc living in it.¡± ¡°How long do you think you will complain about this particular topic?¡± the alien asked, licking coconut curry sauce from his own fingers. ¡°How long is the narc going to be in residence?¡± Gorgon shrugged. Alden eyed him suspiciously. ¡°I¡¯m not gonna grow horns, am I?¡± ¡°Perhaps if you try very hard.¡± ¡°Ha ha. You¡¯re a comedian now.¡± ¡°You were telling me about your ambitions for your future,¡± Gorgon reminded him. ¡°If you don¡¯t plan to continue, you can ride up and down the elevators again. Preferably in silence.¡± Alden slumped against the cushions of the sofa he¡¯d chosen for himself tonight. ¡°So you¡¯re a bossy alien now that you¡¯ve drunk my blood? That¡¯s just my luck.¡± But Gorgon had a point. Alden had been whining for a while. He sighed. ¡°I¡¯ve pretty much told you everything, though. Hannah was a big influence. What happened to my parents was, too. I think battlefield support is a seriously important and underrated job. Plus it¡¯s cool. As for more specific ambitions¡­I¡¯d love to be a frost-focused Adjuster or a trap Meister or maybe something that was heavy on the buff abilities. But it¡¯s all just idle wishes. Even if the System does choose me, it¡¯s not like I can pick exactly the class I want.¡± ¡°The pre-affixation trade is always an option,¡± Gorgon said. ¡°No doubt it will be a necessary one in your case, since you seem to have an uncommon vision for yourself. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve realized that most classes lean strongly toward improving an individual¡¯s personal offense or defense. Classes that do otherwise tend to be ill-suited to spontaneous combat.¡± Alden felt his eyebrows lift. When the System called you, there was a grace period of around three months before you had to accept your class. During that window, a selectee could trade classes with another willing person of equal rank who was still in their own grace period. It was the only time class trades were allowed. ¡°That¡¯s all true,¡± he said, popping a cube of tofu into his mouth, ¡°but nobody trades good classes, do they? Isn¡¯t it just a bunch of unhappy people swapping the garbage classes around? That¡¯s what the internet says anyway.¡± Gorgon made a humming sound. ¡°A reasonable percentage of new Avowed make trades. It¡¯s skewed heavily toward the lower ranks, of course, but it¡¯s not rare.¡± ¡°Wait. You can tell me stuff like that?¡± Gorgon shrugged again. ¡°People who want to trade must do so with an approved witness at hand. I¡¯m the witness for this region. It¡¯s my job to tell selectees this kind of thing.¡± ¡°Oh. But no specific class advice?¡± ¡°None beyond what should already be abundantly obvious.¡± Alden grimaced. ¡°What do the Avowed need a witness for anyway? What do you witness exactly?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a safety measure to confirm that someone who agrees to a class trade isn¡¯t suffering from undue outside influence. Many selectees have superhuman parents with strong opinions about their offsprings¡¯ class choice. Sometimes they attempt to manipulate the situation.¡± ¡°You mean the parents of island-born supers? Their kid gets a class they don¡¯t like, and they¡­what? Threaten or mind sway someone into trading with them?¡± ¡°They attempt to. Sometimes. It¡¯s not the norm, but it happens.¡± Alden didn¡¯t doubt Gorgon, but he was surprised. He¡¯d never heard so much as a whisper about something like that. You¡¯d think it would be all over the place if heroes got caught bullying teenagers into giving up their powers for worse ones. ¡°What¡¯s the most traded class? Can you tell me that?¡± ¡°It¡¯s Brute. Obviously.¡± ¡°Oh, yeah. That is obvious. Sorry. Numbers matter.¡± Roughly thirty percent of those chosen by the System were a Brute type, which was a much higher percentage than any other class. Of course it would also be the most traded one. ¡°Of the Brute classes, longsights seem to be the least popular variety. They are often offered up for trade and rarely accepted,¡± Gorgon added. ¡°Well, yeah. Having a superpower that lets you see really far away isn¡¯t very special. Binoculars exist.¡± Gorgon made the clicking sound Alden had decided meant he wanted to say something but couldn¡¯t. He waited for a minute, but the alien didn¡¯t offer up any further comments on the subject. Alden considered the different classes. Only an idiot would trade Healer of Body, and a person would have to be an absolute moron to trade the super rare Healer of Mind. Even Alden would shift all his future plans in a heartbeat if those were offered. Sure, you were no good in a fight. But you could still help loads of people, and the class perks were the best. Any healer above D-rank automatically received a passive that reduced the mental and physical effects of stress and a blessing called Twice Life. Which was exactly what it sounded like¡­ A doubled lifespan. Combined with the fact that you could fix any normal disease that might want to take you out, it was a first class ticket to living for an extra century. And at the highest ranks it was even better. There was an S-rank Healer of Body on the island who¡¯d been chosen in the first year the System went into effect; she was nearly eighty, and she still looked sixteen. So yeah. Nobody was going to put that class up for trade. ¡°Hannah said once that almost none of the people who grew up on Anesidora would take the Sway class if they could help it. She had a friend who wanted to trade hers when she got it, but it was S-rank and there was no one willing to trade for it at that level during her pre-affixation period.¡± Gorgon nodded. ¡°That¡¯s true. Sway is the class that is the most frequently successfully traded. Almost always from the children of Avowed to those who are not as intimately familiar with the class¡¯s drawbacks.¡± Alden understood how that could happen. Being a mind controller sounded really impressive until you realized that you would get great power in exchange for life as a social pariah and near-prisoner on the island. Someone who didn¡¯t have that realization in time would get suckered into it. ¡°Do people ever trade Adjuster?¡± ¡°Yes. But not often. The class is so flexible that it can be built in ways that would satisfy all but the pickiest user.¡± ¡°What about unique classes?¡± ¡°Ah,¡± said Gorgon. ¡°Those¡­are different. They can¡¯t be traded.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°They¡¯re automatically affixed. No grace period.¡± Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°Seriously? Why?¡± Gorgon shook his head. Alden sighed. ¡°Whoever bound you with such overkill restrictions should be kicked in the ¡¯nads.¡± ¡°That would be impossible for a number of reasons,¡± said Gorgon. ¡°But I appreciate the sentiment.¡± ### Hours later, after Alden had fallen asleep with one leg and an arm hanging off the side of the sofa, Gorgon turned out the last of the lobby lights. His eyes adjusted to the darkness in an instant, and he watched the boy silently. Human adolescence was such a foolish, vulnerable phase of existence¡ªan extended period of childish expectations warring against adult realities. It was beautiful and stupid, like so many other aspects of life on Earth. Gorgon hoped his actions hadn¡¯t ruined whatever the boy had left of his own beautiful, stupid youth. You have chosen at long last, a voice from the distant past whispered in his mind. I have not chosen, Gorgon replied tiredly in his own language. I have only done what little I can in a world where there are no choices left to me. The voice was the echo of someone who had never even imagined such a world, so it had no way of answering him with useful advice or words of comfort. But he found himself hoping for some anyway. Teach him well, the echo said sagely. Gorgon sighed¡ªa human habit he enjoyed mimicking on occasion¡ªand rubbed at his manacles. He¡¯d been pushing at the limits of his bindings in more ways than Alden knew, and they¡¯d burned more in the past couple of weeks than they had in decades. I can¡¯t teach him at all. And if I could, he couldn¡¯t use my teachings. Our ways have disappeared, and there¡¯s no point in passing them on to a human. His world has its own problems. Those will be his to face. Our world¡¯s troubles will be¡­no one¡¯s. Here, too, was something the echo could not comprehend. That the whole of the universe it had known might pass from existence, that Gorgon might be utterly and truly alone, that a successor¡¯s purpose could be his own and not The Purpose that had been the very center of every other chosen one¡¯s life. Now is the time to be fearless and accept the blessing of the Devouring with humility, as your predecessors did before you. ¡°No,¡± Gorgon whispered into the quiet lobby. ¡°No. I won¡¯t be doing that. I¡¯m sorry to disappoint you, my teacher. I am full of fear and unwilling to end. Not yet. Not until my work is finished.¡± Our work is done when our successors are chosen, the echo said. So it has always been. My work now is different than any you¡¯ve known before, Gorgon replied. My current work is revenge. I have not heard of this work. Perhaps it was only Gorgon¡¯s imagination but the echo sounded concerned. I know, my teacher. Don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s not so far away from purging an infection or correcting an imbalance. It¡¯s just taking me a long time. If the price has been paid, the work must be completed. The echo sounded more confident now. No matter how long it takes. ¡°Oh, the price was paid,¡± Gorgon muttered. ¡°It was paid and paid again, by those who could not refuse to pay it.¡± Beyond the cold glass, the sun was rising. It was a breathtaking sight on this planet. Such a near, warm star. ¡°How you would weep to see me here,¡± he whispered. ¡°The last and least of us, chained up in a foreign paradise while our home lies dead beyond the gates of space and time.¡± The echo had no response to that, which was something of a relief. Gorgon headed back to his computer and clicked away from the security feed. His custom System access sigil was right in the center of the desktop, like always. He clicked it, and lines of teeth-grindingly familiar text appeared on the screen. [HONORABLE GUEST #231, NAME UNKNOWN, would you like to accept a Contract of Service in exchange for great power, future opportunity, and significant personal freedom?] ¡°No,¡± Gorgon said. He liked to pretend that not cursing at his captors every time he was asked this question would bother them more in the long run. [HONORABLE GUEST #231, thank you for your consideration.] [Logging you in as PRISONER #12005794 ¡ª PREFERRED ID: GORGON] [How may I assist you in the completion of your duties today, Gorgon?] ¡°Access all current pre-affixation trade requests.¡± [ACCESS GRANTED.] Gorgon scrolled down the familiar list with a great deal more interest than usual. A lot of it was the normal dross. The boy was right, to an extent. Even foolish teenagers rarely traded the obviously superior class assignments. But after decades of use, humans had barely scratched the surface of the System. They had such a poor understanding of all but the most simple classes. Gorgon knew, though he couldn¡¯t explain it clearly to the boy, that there was no such thing as a weak class. Situationally weak, yes. Longsights really were useless¡­for the first few years. On Earth. But the System was designed from the ground up to create a theoretically balanced power trade between the Avowed and the Artonans who would summon them for various ¡°quests.¡± The trick was in knowing how to use a class properly to take advantage of that. Of course, the Artonans preferred not to help Earth along on that front. All the better for them to technically gift other planets every bit of the power they promised while offering meager or misleading instructions when it came to its usage. It kept the lower species in line. Gorgon¡¯s nostrils flared as he stared at the list in front of him. Even he didn¡¯t have a perfect understanding of what all the various classes did. But the battlefield support role the boy desired should be manageable with a trade into¡­ Yes, there it was! And¡­it was gone just as quickly. Ah. Frustrating. The class Gorgon had in mind was seen as an extremely undesirable one for those who dreamed of being superheroes, and at the same time, it was a class certain other people longed for. In fact, some newly chosen Avowed waited through their entire grace periods trying to acquire it. And it wasn¡¯t common. Less than two percent last time he¡¯d checked. So it popped up at random intervals and was snapped up just as quickly. Much like the Sway class. How was he supposed to point the boy toward it in the event that it became necessary? He couldn¡¯t just tell him to choose it. Or maybe he could, but he wasn¡¯t willing to pay the price for doing so. He liked Alden, but not enough to die for him. The magic that bound him worked on a very clever spell framework that had a limited ability to read his true intentions. So it was more flexible than it might have been, but it was also better able to identify infractions on his part. Well, he had nothing better to do with his time right now. He would work on the problem. Scheming was as good a cure for boredom as any other. TWELVE: One Oclock on a Thursday It was supposed to happen differently. It definitely would have if Alden¡¯s life were an action movie¡­or even a comedy. If the universe were a writer, there would have been some dramatic build-up. Some tension that needed breaking. Maybe even a small disaster that could only be overcome by the deus popping out of the machina. But it didn¡¯t go like that. Instead, it was one o¡¯clock on a Thursday. And Alden had just bombed a quiz on Hamlet because he¡¯d somehow failed to see a reading assignment that had, apparently, been posted on the board all week. It was out of character for him. Hannah¡¯s funeral was in two days, and while he was a long way from bursting into tears at random intervals like he had in the months after his parents were killed, he was having a pretty hard time focusing his attention on the everyday stuff. His AP Literature teacher looked like she wanted to have a worried conversation with him, so he made a quick excuse, grabbed his bag, and dashed across the hall to the bathroom. There, while he stared at some of his schoolmates¡¯ artistic graffiti and did what people do in bathrooms, he suddenly felt a jolt. It was a brief, painless full-body spasm. Like a hypnic jerk. Startled, he grabbed onto the cracked plastic top of the toilet paper dispenser with a steadying hand. But the physical sensation was already over. An instant later, a voice spoke quietly in his ears. ¡°Hello, Alden,¡± said the System. ¡°In 1963, the peoples of Earth accepted an infusion of magic and technology, as well as a promise of future protection, as part of an agreement with the Artonan Triplanetary Government. In doing so, Earth became an Artonan resource world, with all the accompanying rights, privileges, and responsibilities afforded by that designation.¡± Oh, Alden thought. Maybe it was because of his surroundings, or maybe it was because he¡¯d been forewarned. But he felt less afraid than he would have expected. This is THE speech. It¡¯s really happening to me. For some reason, the System almost always delivered the selection speech out loud this way. Not with the visual interfaces it seemed to prefer for most communication. The working theory was that it was analyzing you and making tweaks to your mind or soul based on your reactions to what it said, before it fully completed its merge. ¡°As part of this alliance,¡± the System continued in a volume that was barely above a murmur, ¡°Earth is required to deliver a number of suitable individuals into contractual servitude. You have been selected for this honor. You may refuse to sign your planet¡¯s version of the Interdimensional Warriors Contract out of personal principle, and your objection will be taken into consideration hereafter. Ultimately, however, you may not refuse to serve.¡± I didn¡¯t expect it to happen like this. Today. Now. Here. A mote of mixed emotion, equal parts excitement and anxiety, made Alden grip the toilet paper dispenser a little tighter. He stared at a marker drawing of an oddly-shaped cactus that had definitely started its life as something less innocent before it was repaired by a more tasteful artist. The System went on. ¡°Upon signing, you will become one of your planet¡¯s Avowed. As a signing bonus, you will receive an additional gift. Refusal to sign will result in the loss of this bonus.¡± Right. Carrot and stick together. ¡°Upon becoming one of the Avowed, you will be subject to summons, for emergency and non-emergency purposes, by members of the Artonan wizarding classes. By Artonan law, all Avowed are justly rewarded for any service rendered." ¡°Your rank has been determined. Your class has been randomly assigned based on the Triplanetary Government¡¯s current requests. You have ninety Earth days to sign the Contract of your own free will. During that time, you may trade your class with equivalently ranked selectees from your own planet. Once affixed, your class assignment is immutable.¡± For some reason, Alden found himself whispering the final few words along with the System. ¡°Welcome, Alden. And thank you for your future service.¡± There were only a couple of heartbeats between the end of the speech and the moment when the System window suddenly appeared in front of Alden¡¯s wide eyes. But a couple of heartbeats were enough for an entire cascade of thoughts, hopes, worries, and wonderings to pass through his brain. This was it. Right here and now. His life was taking a sharp turn in some new direction and he had almost no control over it at all. A single point of dark golden light appeared at the center of his vision, and then it bloomed rapidly to overlay everything else. Breathing hard, Alden stared into his own future. [Pre-affixed Selectee: Samuel Alden Thorn Divergence Rank: B Assigned Class: Meister of Cudgel] ¡­ [Samuel Alden Thorn, do you willingly accept your duties as one of Earth¡¯s Avowed, thereby satisfying a portion of your world''s debt to the Triplanets?] YES/NO 2159 h: 59 m: 34 s Alden read it all. Then, he read it again. His brain must have short-circuited at some point, because he had to keep reading it before the simple words finally held some meaning. He watched the timer tick down and down, until the sound of someone peeing in the stall beside him made reality reassert itself. B-rank. Meister of Cudgel. Okay. Now...what? How do I even turn this thing off? Alden wondered, staring at the words superimposed over his vision. Interested as he was in heroes, he¡¯d never actually hit the level of obsession where one studied the layout of the System¡¯s display. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. He knew verbal commands were a thing. But the bell had just rung, and the bathroom was filling with people. He didn¡¯t want to be overheard trying out different versions of, ¡°System, switch to invisible mode.¡± It would cause an uproar. He tried a mental command, and when that didn¡¯t work, he looked for a button. He expected to find something like an X in one corner of the imaginary ¡°screen,¡± so it took him a long while to realize that what he needed was a swiping gesture. An open-palmed one. Less cell phone, more window washer. That¡¯s about as subtle as a punch to the jaw, he thought as he finally managed to make it disappear. He frowned at the empty place where the display had been. He felt¡­really human. Because he was. He hadn¡¯t clicked YES. So his new powers hadn¡¯t been affixed. I guess I¡¯ll go to my next class? It seemed like what he should do. He had ninety days. There was no need to rush into things. No need to panic. But as he stepped out of the restroom into the crowded hallway, Alden felt an odd sense of distance from everyone around him. He had ninety days. Only ninety days. And then he would probably never see any of these people again. I should tell Jeremy and Boe. After I¡¯ve thought it through. Soon. He went to his locker and picked up the books for his next period. It was biology. There was an exam tomorrow. If I fail, it means nothing. The thought tumbled through his mind like a boulder, knocking pillars out of alignment as it went. Alden had always cared about his grades. Because they served a purpose. Only¡­now they didn¡¯t. Don¡¯t they only take D and F-ranks at the public school in the Dakota zone? So...that¡¯s not an option for me now even if I wanted it. And there are placement exams for schools on the island. Transcripts don¡¯t transfer over. He still headed toward the biology classroom, but when he reached it, his feet didn¡¯t stop. Barely aware of his surroundings, he walked through the lunchroom. The Juniors and Seniors were just finishing up. Maybe some of them wondered why he was there, or maybe they didn¡¯t notice. In either case, nobody stopped him. Alden¡¯s school was ostensibly big on security. Getting into or out of the building during the middle of the day was supposed to be a whole thing, with permission slips and id checks and no child unaccounted for, ever. But when he reached the main office, the mail guy was delivering heavy boxes, and the front doors were propped open by a dolly. Alden didn¡¯t even have to talk to anyone. He just walked right out, crossed the parking lot, and kept going. ### About half an hour into his impromptu hike, Alden had recovered enough of his senses to behave a little more normally. He texted Boe to explain that he was cutting class because he needed to clear his head. Boe would probably assume it was a Hannah thing. He wouldn¡¯t worry too much. Then, Alden summoned a rideshare. He really couldn¡¯t pass for eighteen, but the driver didn¡¯t comment on it. Twenty-five minutes later, they were pulling up in front of the consulate. ¡°You into that alien stuff?¡± the man asked as Alden got out of the car. Alden couldn¡¯t tell what the guy was getting at. It could have been a subtle dig at the Artonans and the people who were a little too worshipful of them. Like Alden¡¯s wordchain teacher. Or maybe it was just an idle question. ¡°They have classes here,¡± Alden said. ¡°You can get college credit for some of them.¡± The man nodded as if that was a satisfying answer. ¡°You¡¯re also supposed to come here to register if you get powers.¡± ¡°Ha,¡± said the driver. ¡°Yeah. Everyone knows that. When I tell my kid I drove someone over here, I¡¯m gonna say you were a full-blown superhero. It¡¯ll make her day.¡± Alden was tempted to tell him. But not quite enough to actually go through with it. Anyway, he thought as the car drove off, I¡¯m not a superhero. Yet. I''m a B-ranked potential Cudgel Meister. This is strange. I feel so strange. For some reason, the occasion was simultaneously more and less momentous than he¡¯d imagined it would be. Maybe it was the B-ranking? Everyone dreamed of getting A or S and dreaded getting D or F. B was really good¡ªtop 15% of all superhumans actually¡ªbut it was a long way from being an easy road to achieving his dreams. If he messed up, if he made the wrong choices in the next ninety days, he might be giving up his current life in exchange for a very difficult one. Neither Alden¡¯s childhood dreams nor his adolescent fears had revolved around him having a rank that made him maybe-employable. His brain was having a little trouble deciding whether it should be delighted with his new rank or disappointed in it. Or maybe it was the cudgel thing throwing his mood out of whack? It was just so random and unexpected. Alden had researched the word cudgel on the whole ride over, hoping it might have a secret alternate definition he didn¡¯t know about. But no. It was a club. Which meant he was on the verge of becoming a weaponmaster for the least sophisticated weapon in existence. Unless there was a class specifically for people who liked to hit other people with rocks. I think I¡¯ll be a tiny bit disappointed when the hype fades, he decided. But the disappointment hadn¡¯t hit yet. Honestly, right now it was all kind of funny. He was excited, freaked out, and confused in equal measures. He¡¯d been chosen. By the System. No matter what happened next, he was only one YES away from being a superhuman with all of the vast, mysterious, and frightening changes that entailed. Hi, I¡¯m Super Alden. My special talent is heavy sticks. I¡¯m like a caveman. But better. He snorted at himself, and headed for the consulate¡¯s entrance. Seriously, though, a B-ranked Meister is riiight on the edge of usefulness for superhero work? That''s encouraging. But cudgel just won¡¯t do. The skill options will be ridiculously narrow. Alden had never actually heard of Meister of the Cudgel. Swordmasters were pretty common, though, and he knew how that went. You got skills and spells that made you good with swords. Period. There were hardly any choices offered to someone who¡¯d been given a specific weapon class. He¡¯d only read up on the S and A-ranks, but for them at least, the first skill was almost always one that would prevent you from being easily disarmed. The second was your chance to select an offensive style you liked. The third would let you increase your primary or secondary class stat. There was slightly more room to be creative with the spells, but they were still all things that would buff your own weapon somehow. And the buffs were boring unless you were an S-rank. You could make your sword sharper or harder or heavier or longer or more pointy. Cudgel was bound to be even worse. Alden could imagine himself in twenty years, heavily muscled but dead-eyed, trying to hold down a job while he chose between stimulating options like ¡°Mega Dense Club Level 12¡± or ¡°Even Stronger Biceps x14.¡± Yeah, it¡¯s not for me. Jeremy would probably love it, though. For the humor factor if nothing else. Hopefully, Gorgon was right about class trades not being limited to the worst of the worst options. THIRTEEN: The B-Ranks When Alden stepped through the doors of the consulate, he was surprised to find the lobby wasn¡¯t empty. He¡¯d expected it to be abandoned since the only weekday classes were in the evening. But there was a man sitting in Gorgon¡¯s favorite chair, taking advantage of the free WiFi to play an MMORPG on his laptop. And there was a rowdy trio of two college-aged guys and a girl taking pictures with Gorgon in the background. They seemed to be trying to get some kind of humorous ¡°Eek! A demon!¡± shot, judging by the faces they kept making and all the weird angles they were going for. Gorgon¡¯s expression was peaceful. In a human way. Which meant he was deliberately putting on a show so their pictures would be ruined. Assholes, thought Alden. He walked through the middle of the group and took a wide stance at the desk, so that the alien would be mostly hidden from view. ¡°Hi,¡± he said. ¡°Aren¡¯t you supposed to be in school?¡± Gorgon¡¯s tone was mild. ¡°I heard you needed help,¡± Alden whispered. ¡°So I ran right over to save you.¡± Gorgon tilted his head. His black eyes were focused on the tray full of ballpoint pens by Alden¡¯s arm. ¡°You¡¯re not serious?¡± ¡°Uh¡­no?¡± Alden was surprised. He¡¯d thought it was obvious he was joking. ¡°Ah. I thought not. But you haven¡¯t brought food with you today, which is out of the norm, so I wasn¡¯t sure.¡± Right. No snacks. This was the first time he¡¯d come to the consulate without any in ages. ¡°Sorry,¡± he said. ¡°I was in a rush to get here because of¡­that seventy percent probability thing. It happened.¡± He didn¡¯t want to say it out loud in front of the gamer dude and the college jerks. ¡°I see.¡± Gorgon¡¯s eyes met Alden¡¯s briefly then slid away. ¡°Let me turn off the WiFi.¡± At Alden¡¯s confused expression, he added, ¡°It¡¯s the fastest way to clear the lobby.¡± Sure enough, five minutes later they were alone in the building. ¡°So,¡± said Alden, tapping one of the pens nervously against the top of the desk, ¡°what usually happens now? Do I just¡­say it? Are there forms to sign or something? Is confetti going to fall from the ceiling?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve asked for a confetti cannon, but it¡¯s never in the budget.¡± Alden grinned at him. ¡°To answer your question more seriously, what usually happens now is that the selectee or Avowed comes in with their family and friends. They reveal their status and declare their intent to lawfully register themselves as a superhuman.¡± Gorgon paused. ¡°Sometimes, there are news crews in attendance. I congratulate the chosen individual and fill out the necessary paperwork with the United States government, or the Canadian one on occasion. If the selectee desires a class trade, they have to go through the trade process first.¡± ¡°So no registering until after affixation?¡± ¡°Correct,¡± said Gorgon. Then he added, ¡°After the formalities are complete, I shake the Avowed¡¯s hand. And I give them a free ballpoint pen.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯d rather not have my Aunt Connie around for this. She¡¯ll cry a lot, or cheer a lot¡­I¡¯m not sure which, but it¡¯ll be awkward since I¡¯m pretty mad at her right now. And I¡¯ve already stolen eight or nine of your pens. Plus, I need to do the trade.¡± Gorgon stood up from his chair and motioned for Alden to follow him. They headed for the elevators. ¡°I¡¯m surprised,¡± Gorgon said as the doors closed. ¡°This is sooner than I expected. Based on¡­certain insights I had upon drinking your blood, I assumed you would be chosen in six to eight months. But I am not flawless. Have you perhaps received a high ranking?¡± Alden shook his head. He was practically vibrating with energy. ¡°Not really. It¡¯s B. Cudgel Meister.¡± ¡°Cudgel?¡± Gorgon¡¯s voice was incredibly neutral now. Smooth as a sheet of glass. Alden assumed it was because they were in that dangerous territory where he had to avoid giving any useful information. That was fine. Alden felt like he could fill a canyon with his own thoughts, and now that they were alone, he could ramble to his heart¡¯s content. ¡°It¡¯s the worst. For what I want to do anyway. Meister could have been good, but not with a close-combat weapon subtype. They¡¯re almost purely geared toward offense, and being a B-rank superhero who fights at close range is¡­no. For my taste. I¡¯m not really into hitting things sort of hard and then dying to literally any villain that outranks me.¡± Being a B-rank who fought non-super crime would be way safer, but most countries had laws that prohibited the hiring of Avowed for military and police forces. Because of the potential for abuse, the UN and the Associated Heroes of Earth had more or less banned the practice where they could. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m going to trade it for something better. I hope¡­¡± Alden trailed off as he realized the elevator was not going up. It was going down. ¡°Gorgon, does this building have a basement?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Alden stared at the elevator panel. ¡°Where¡¯s the button?¡± ¡°There isn¡¯t one. It¡¯s accessed through a System sigil. The lower levels are for official Artonan use only.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not Artonan.¡± ¡°As a selectee, you are now Artonan property. It¡¯s close enough.¡± Property? Well, technically. Maybe. But still. Alden gave him a look. ¡°I don¡¯t think you have to put it quite that way. It sounds horrible.¡± ¡°I am merely stating a fact as clearly and succinctly as I am able to. I can¡¯t help how it sounds.¡± ¡°Right,¡± said Alden. ¡°But, just as an FYI, most people prefer to think of it as being drafted. And getting magic powers in exchange.¡± ¡°That¡­no, nevermind. The semantics are too fraught with human emotions for me to navigate. Let us just say that your status affords you new privileges and comes with proportional costs.¡± ¡°That sounds way better.¡± ¡°If you say so.¡± Alden was disappointed when the elevator opened onto a perfectly normal looking hallway, lined with perfectly normal looking doors. The floor was beige, the walls were beige, and as if to add a hint of interest, the doors were a slightly darker shade of beige. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Gorgon led him to a small, gray office that was nearly empty except for a table that seemed to have been carved out of a block of milky white crystal. There was a single metal folding chair beside it. Gorgon gestured to the chair, one of his golden bindings trailing through the air like a scarf as he did so, and Alden took it. The alien went to stand on the opposite side of the table. ¡°Before we begin, I will tell you exactly the same thing I tell every selectee who comes here without an entourage of civilian onlookers. It¡¯s a simple courtesy I would extend to all, but it tends to make your government officials whine when they catch wind of it. So it is reserved for the lonely few.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°I thought you couldn¡¯t tell me anything really useful?¡± Gorgon nodded. ¡°This is less a revelation and more a reminder of something you should already know. Which is this: even once your class is affixed, you don¡¯t actually have to register yourself as one of the Avowed.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°Beg pardon?¡± Gorgon waved his hand dismissively. ¡°It¡¯s something that likely does not apply to you, considering what I know of your personal goals. But I have observed that young humans often barrel along the beaten path without pausing to consider other options. To be clear, registering new Avowed with Earth governments is a service this consulate provides for the convenience of the Avowed. I owe no loyalty to human Presidents or Kings. And the Artonan Triplanets have no registration requirement, because upon your selection by the System, all of your information was immediately made available to them anyway.¡± I did know that, Alden realized with surprise. Sort of. Being chosen by the System meant his Aunt was no longer his legal guardian, and he was no longer American. Upon registration, his citizenship would automatically be transferred to Anesidora Island. Ninety days after his selection day, he¡¯d be required to leave the country. It was the same rules for virtually every other place in the world. But that was an Earth thing. The Artonans didn¡¯t care where Avowed lived. Alden could take up residence in the White House or on the moon or in another dimension altogether. They could summon him from anywhere, as far as he knew, so it was all the same to them. Only¡­ ¡°Gorgon, not registering would make me a criminal. Everywhere on this planet at least. It¡¯s pretty much step one in becoming a supervillain instead of a hero.¡± Body Drainer was unregistered. He didn¡¯t say it, but the thought was at the forefront of his mind. The alien shook his head. ¡°I have met a small but not insignificant number of Avowed who refuse to register, and most of them do so without becoming dangers to society. They live normal lives except for the occasional unavoidable Artonan summons. And in such cases, human governments are none the wiser or the worse for it.¡± Alden frowned at him. ¡°Are you¡­recommending that?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a recommendation. It¡¯s a reminder. One I feel the need to deliver when I am able to, given the prevalence of certain narratives about unregistered Avowed. If you wanted to, you could graduate from high school with Boe and Jeremy. You could attend college. You could pursue any of thousands of different careers. And the Artonans would not regard you as a criminal at all.¡± Alden¡¯s brain tripped around the idea, trying to figure out how to feel about it. ¡°But if someone found out¡­¡± Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Ah, yes,¡± said Gorgon. ¡°Secrecy would be paramount in such a situation. And a life in hiding is not good for one¡¯s nerves. I don¡¯t mean to confuse you, only to encourage you to consider your options. All of them. Before you make momentous and irrevocable decisions.¡± ¡°Okay. Thanks. I¡¯ll¡­I will think about it. Maybe if I can¡¯t replace Cudgel Meister, it¡¯s a real option for me? But I do want to at least try for a better class first.¡± ¡°And so I will introduce you to the pre-affixation trading market.¡± Gorgon placed one of his gray hands on top of the milky crystal table. He splayed his fingers, and a moment later, the table began to glow with a warm light. ¡°The Triplanetary Government of Artona assigns a wide variety of classes to Earth. The types of classes they choose to offer are largely based on which services they anticipate needing from their human summons in the coming decades. I am not at liberty to disclose more than that about their thought process.¡± ¡°But there is more to be disclosed?¡± Gorgon ignored the question and continued on with his speech. ¡°Despite what you may have heard from more fancifully-minded people, the class you were assigned has absolutely nothing to do with your soul. You do not have a hidden power or personality trait that made the System gift you your Cudgel Meister class. It was merely the next B-ranked assignment on the System¡¯s distribution list at the moment your being reached the threshold for selection.¡± Alden leaned back in the chair, and the metal creaked. ¡°That¡¯s a relief to hear even though I already know it. It does feel a little like I¡¯m jinxing myself by wanting to trade classes.¡± Gorgon sighed dramatically. ¡°I am aware that many humans feel that way about it. The number of young people who weep and pray over the decision here in these rooms even after I tell them there¡¯s no need for such agony is¡­distressing.¡± ¡°So the Artonans really don¡¯t care at all if we trade classes around?¡± ¡°They do not, provided trades only take place between equally ranked individuals. The ninety day grace period exists so that you can take advantage of the trading option. It is so that you might find a class that suits your tastes better, which will ultimately make you happier and more effective during your service.¡± ¡°Sounds good to me. So how do I do it?¡± ¡°You need to place your hand on the table and access the System.¡± ¡°How?¡± Gorgon¡¯s face twitched. ¡°You don¡¯t know how?¡± ¡°It¡¯s only been an hour or so. And I was busy researching cudgels on the way over here,¡± Alden said defensively. ¡°I didn¡¯t have time to research the System interface, too.¡± ¡°You can choose your own verbal access phrase. Common English ones include ¡®online,¡¯ ¡®call,¡¯ and ¡®access.¡¯ Even if you do not master the art of mental commands for every System function, most Avowed find it easy enough to call the System in that fashion after a small amount of practice. You may also utilize a physical gesture.¡± Then he added, ¡°I recommend assigning some hands-free ones in case you need to access the System when you are mentally exhausted, gagged, and physically bound.¡± ¡°Uh¡­how often does that happen?¡± Gorgon didn¡¯t answer. Instead, he said, ¡°A pattern of eye movements or subtle muscle contractions is a good choice.¡± Alden made a mental note to figure something like that out when he had a mirror handy so he could make sure he didn¡¯t look completely unhinged when he rolled his eyes around and clenched various muscles. ¡°Access System,¡± he said. The interface of golden light blossomed into view. ¡°It answered,¡± he noted. ¡°I thought I might have to say ¡®Access Interdimensional Warriors Contract¡¯ to make it work.¡± ¡°The System is a semi-sentient spell, and it¡¯s extremely intelligent. It¡¯s aware of all its various names. You may have a harder time if you ever find yourself trying to access one of the sister Systems on another planet, though.¡± ¡°Again¡­how often does that happen?¡± But Alden was soon distracted from worrying thoughts about lying bound and gagged on foreign planets. As soon as he placed his hand on the table across from Gorgon¡¯s, his interface lit up. ¡°Oh. Neat. It¡¯s like a global auction house full of desperate people.¡± There was even a button to sort by the trades that were ending soonest. Because they¡¯ve got something awful, and their ninety day timer is running out. The traders¡¯ locations were listed. They were teens from all over the world. But all of their offers were in perfect English, so the System must have been a great translator. And to Alden¡¯s shock, people were offering actual material wealth in addition to the classes they were trading. He hadn¡¯t thought that would be an option. ¡°Gorgon, this is nuts. Someone in Beijing is literally paying half a million dollars for a C-rank Speedster Brute to C-rank Mind Healer trade!¡± ¡°Yes, that¡¯s been up for the full ninety days. The selectee obviously wants Healer of Mind badly, but even if one has been assigned in recent months, nobody is willing to trade it.¡± ¡°There aren¡¯t any names,¡± Alden noted. ¡°Just random ID numbers.¡± ¡°By default, trades are private. Though in the case of more unusual classes it soon becomes obvious who the involved parties were. In your case, I recommend not bothering to be overly secretive. You will note that there aren¡¯t as many selectees trading at your level. You may hide your identity, but the personal touch can make the difference when it comes to final decisions.¡± Alden stared at the interface. He poked around until he had it sorted by rank. There were only a couple of dozen B-classes open to trading right now. ¡°How would I even give this the personal touch? The listings seem pretty basic.¡± ¡°Choose someone as if you intend to trade with them. Make sure they do not have autotrade selected.¡± ¡°Um¡­what if they say yes?¡± ¡°You can still refuse as long as it¡¯s not an autotrade. Also, you can trade as many times as you like prior to the end of your ninety days.¡± He paused. ¡°Obviously you should not take something undesirable on a whim.¡± Alden searched through the IDs. A few did have the autotrade feature selected. Most of those had extremely specific and overpowered class types listed under their ¡°Wanted¡± section. Alden assumed it was so that they wouldn¡¯t miss a perfect opportunity if it came along while they weren¡¯t paying attention. He scanned the listings until he found an interesting one. [Available Pre-affixation Class Trades] ¡ª Rank B ¡ª [ID: B74 Location: Dakota Avowed Seclusion Zone, USA Trading: Morph Brute Wanted: Adjuster (All), Healer (All), Shaper of Life, Meister (Ranged Magic Weapons, Magic Tools, Uncommon Types), Rares Notes: no more %8*$# Brutes or Sways. Leave me alone, you *&%^@! Autotrade: NO] ¡°Can I click on this Morph?¡± Alden asked, gesturing at the listing. ¡°It¡¯s a really useful class. It seems like they probably don¡¯t want close combat, but Cudgel Meister could be considered an uncommon Meister type, couldn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Alden, you do realize I can¡¯t see your System interface, don¡¯t you?¡± Gorgon said. ¡°I only know you¡¯re referring to Selectee B74 because I¡¯ve read through the trade window myself recently.¡± ¡°I¡¯m an idiot. Sorry. Also, your memory is good.¡± ¡°That selectee is particularly easy to recollect. They¡¯ve been trading in person for roughly sixteen hours each day for the past two months.¡± ¡°In person?¡± ¡°Autotrade is usually used when people are sleeping or otherwise engaged. B74 is rarely otherwise engaged. Introduce yourself to them. You¡¯ll see what I mean.¡± Gorgon stepped into the corner of the room while Alden figured out how to initiate a trade with B74. He had to swipe through several screens to set up his own trading profile first. Finally, he was given the identity B13 and his own little place on the class trades list. [ID: B13 Location: Artonan Consulate 4, USA Trading: Meister of Cudgel Wanted: Adjuster (All), Healer (All), Meister (Traps, Wands) Notes: Become a master of the cudgel. Hit bad guys with sticks. Autotrade: NO] Alden looked over the listing and felt fairly satisfied with it. He would need to refresh his knowledge of some of the more obscure classes so that he could fill out his ¡°wanted¡± section better. He¡¯d almost listed rares, like B74, because the rare classes were all interesting just by virtue of being more mysterious. But the only ones he could think of off the top of his head were Rabbit, Tailor, and Mourner, and those were even worse for his needs than Cudgel Meister. Now that he had a profile, B74¡¯s id had been highlighted like a clickable link. He clicked. [INITIATE LIVE TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH B74?] YES/NO Alden selected yes. [B74 has accepted your invitation. B74 has been vouched for by an authorized witness. You have been vouched for by an authorized witness. Negotiations are approved.] ¡°Keep one of your hands on the table, or the connection will be cut off,¡± Gorgon warned him. Alden scooted his chair closer to the glowing crystal table and pressed his right hand to it more firmly. A second later, he almost leaped out of his seat as a boy appeared from thin air, sitting in another metal folding chair on the other side of the table. Alden swore and leaned back in alarm. It wasn¡¯t just the other guy. A collection of junk had appeared on the other half of the table at the same time. As if it had been horizontally bisected, the pristinely empty table Alden was sitting at suddenly ended, and an identical table covered in chip bags, energy drink bottles, napkin wads, notebooks, uncapped pens, and highlighters began. Sitting at the filthy table, with a serious case of bedhead and a really dense five o¡¯clock shadow for a guy who must have been around Alden¡¯s age, B74 looked pissed. He slapped the table and stood, glaring at Alden. ¡°Listen up, you newbie dumbass,¡± he snapped. ¡°I¡¯m only accepting your negotiation request so that you won¡¯t keep bothering me! I¡¯m not trading Morph for an overpowered baseball bat. In case it¡¯s not obvious from my listing, I want good shit. Not weird shit. This is B-rank. A chance at a great trade could happen while I¡¯m dealing with losers like you. I have been pissing in bottles for the past two months so that I don¡¯t have to take bathroom breaks. I don¡¯t have time to be all buddy-buddy with you. Don¡¯t contact me again unless you manage to get something on my wanted list!¡± Before Alden could even apologize, B74 lifted both of his hands from the table, and he disappeared. For a full minute, Alden just stared at the spot where the other boy had vanished. Then he took a deep breath. ¡°Gorgon, people can¡¯t physically attack me through the magic table, can they?¡± ¡°No,¡± Gorgon said. ¡°But that would add zest to my job.¡± FOURTEEN: Class Trader, Part One Class Trader, Part One Alden spent the entire afternoon sitting in the trading room. Gorgon stuck around for the first hour or so, answering what questions he was allowed to. But after that, he headed back upstairs. As long as Alden didn¡¯t leave the room, the System still considered him to have been safely vouched for by an authorized witness. When he took bathroom breaks, though, Gorgon had to accompany him back and re-activate the table. The alien had told Alden that there would be no peeing in bottles in the Chicago consulate. Or else. Not that I planned to. Does he think I¡¯m an animal? For the first couple of hours, Alden focused on gaining an understanding of the trading platform and closely examining his fellow B-ranks. A few people did log in and out, disappearing from his System interface entirely, but most just adjusted the ¡°wanted¡± lists on their profiles and turned on the autotrade feature when they needed to leave. That was fascinating because it made it possible for Alden to tell what classes they really hoped for as opposed to what they would merely settle for. Almost everyone was at least willing to take the Adjuster class, and many of them seemed to want it in particular. Which was expected but¡­not good. Adjuster of Reality was basically a build-your-own mage class. Adjusters got a huge list of reality-altering spells to choose from in the beginning, and based on their choices, they were eventually pushed along increasingly narrower paths toward unique specializations. Hannah, for example, had chosen a basic mobile barrier for her first spell, and she¡¯d eventually leaped from that into things like the magic preservation bubble she¡¯d used on Alden. But she could have chosen from dozens of other spells and gained a totally different power set. Some Adjusters focused on improving their own bodies and came out almost like magically enhanced Brutes. Others could shoot bolts of electricity from their palms. Of course everyone wants it. There¡¯s just nothing bad about being an Adjuster. Well, that wasn¡¯t entirely true¡­ Once an Adjuster chose their path, the System did lock them into it pretty hard. If the first spell you picked was Ice Over, you¡¯d better not suddenly decide you hated frost magic, because you wouldn¡¯t be offered much else. But Alden didn¡¯t think that was a terrible drawback, and apparently his fellow B-ranks felt the same. It¡¯s too early to give up on it. Maybe people trade it more often than I¡¯m guessing? To give himself a better idea, he toggled off the setting that made the trading platform show only his own rank and started spying on the others. He couldn¡¯t select any of them and offer to trade, but it was still interesting. There were only three lonely S-ranks. One was trying to trade Sky Shaper for a healer position, which at that vaunted rank was like trying to trade a dump-truck full of rubies for a freaking freight train full of them. ¡°Greedy much?¡± Alden grumbled. The others were a strength-type Brute, like Arjun Thomas, and¡­a Bridge Wright? What on Earth? Wrights were the crafting class. Usually they weren¡¯t so¡­weirdly specific on first assignment. Bridges. And S-rank? What is that dude supposed to do with that one? Clearly the new S-rank was supposed to build bridges. AMAZING ones. But that seemed like a really strange thing for the Artonans to have ordered up. Alden could just imagine his fellow selectee staring at their class assignment window trying to figure out whether to jump with joy at being in the 99th percentile of all superhumans or scream because they would only be able to use their awesome power for building a single type of structure. Maybe if you develop it far enough the bridges do things? Well, it was a problem for the fancy S-ranks to sort out. Not Alden. There were fifteen A-ranks currently trading. None of them were Adjusters. And there were a couple thousand C¡¯s. Which made some sense. C-rank was the most common at roughly 35% of all Avowed. Followed by the D¡¯s and F¡¯s with 30% and 20% respectively. I¡¯m pretty lucky really. B¡¯s made up around 9% of the superhuman population. The numbers don¡¯t work out logically, though. There were way fewer S¡¯s, A¡¯s, and B¡¯s trading than Alden would have thought there should be. Maybe a lot of the unwanted classes are disproportionately distributed toward the lower end of the scale? He scribbled cubes and spirals on the cover of his biology notebook while he thought about it. It could also have been the fact that some powers that were meh at lower levels actually became quite useful at higher ones. Like the Shaper subtypes. They were really bad for anyone below C, but then they spiked sharply and became tremendously good for A¡¯s. No wonder B74 is a wreck. He must have sold a kidney to get that Morph, and he¡¯s still trying to trade into something better. Morph was the shapeshifter version of the Brute class. It wasn¡¯t Alden¡¯s preference, but it was nice. Really nice at B. Crap. This is going to be a people thing, isn¡¯t it? He understood what Gorgon meant about the personal touch being important now. Nobody was going to see Alden¡¯s class and just want it, unless their own was a total dud. He would probably have to trade up and up gradually until he got something decent, and to do that, he¡¯d have to talk to people. He¡¯d have to persuade them. Preferably without turning into an unhygienic ragelord like B74. He went ahead and searched through all the lower ranks, looking for Adjusters. One C-rank had been hanging around for more than a month, but for some reason, they only wanted Mourner in exchange and weren¡¯t willing to trade for anything else. It was an extremely rare class. They weren¡¯t likely to get it. Alden wondered why they even wanted it in the first place. Mourner was the emotional transference class, where you literally took others¡¯ negative feelings into yourself. He¡¯d always thought it sounded like self-inflicted torture. Maybe there was more to it, though? I need to research the rares. He wrote it down in his notebook. The only other Adjuster he found was at D-rank. They appeared for a grand total of two minutes, and then vanished. Right. So that¡¯s how it is. I might need to moderate my goals a little. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. He cracked his knuckles and stretched. Then he went upstairs to talk to Gorgon. ### Evening classes were starting, and there were people coming and going. But nobody was bothering Gorgon, and since Alden didn¡¯t take any of the classes on Thursdays, none of these people knew him or cared what he was up to as he approached the desk. ¡°I¡¯m going to head home, text my friends, feed the cat, and grab some dinner,¡± he said quietly. ¡°Two questions: Can I use the trading room all night long if I want? And can I bring Jeremy with me?¡± Gorgon blinked. It was only the second time Alden had ever seen his eyelids. ¡°The trading room is yours. As I stated before, you are now Artonan¡­affiliated. You may use the building at all hours. Not that I wasn¡¯t letting you anyway. And as you are the only selectee currently taking advantage of this consulate¡¯s services, you don¡¯t even have to worry about sharing.¡± He tilted his head. ¡°As for Jeremy, I suppose you could bring him?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t sound sure.¡± ¡°Nobody¡¯s ever asked for a civilian companion in the trading room. I¡¯ll have to check with my supervisor, but I can¡¯t think of a real reason for her to say no. The Artonans tend to be rather relaxed about what they see as human eccentricities. But what would you even do with Jeremy?¡± ¡°He¡¯s really likable. And insightful. People naturally lower their guard around him. There¡¯s obviously a lot of tension going on with my fellow selectees, and I want to reduce it. Jeremy can be my wingman and persuade the other B-ranks to give me all their juicy classes.¡± Alden pause, then added. ¡°He¡¯ll think it¡¯s cool, too.¡± Gorgon blinked again. ¡°That¡¯s a clever idea.¡± ¡°Why do you sound shocked?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a clever idea, but it won¡¯t work the way you¡¯re thinking it will.¡± Alden felt himself deflate. ¡°Why not?¡± ¡°Jeremy can¡¯t use the System in the same way you can. He can¡¯t access the trading platform. He won¡¯t be able to see or hear the person you¡¯re talking to, and they won¡¯t be able to see or hear him.¡± Alden groaned. ¡°You¡¯re destroying my dreams.¡± But Gorgon still looked thoughtful. ¡°Leave it for tonight. I¡¯ll put in a request and have an answer for you tomorrow. I will explain your desire for emotional support to my supervisor. Perhaps if I describe Jeremy as a sort of servant¡­or a pet.¡± It was Alden¡¯s turn to blink. ¡°Gorgon, Jeremy is not a poodle.¡± The alien shrugged. ¡°Some concepts are just easier to translate across species than others.¡± If that was case, then Alden was a bit concerned about how this supervisor viewed the world. But he¡¯d take what he could get. He turned to go, but he only made it a few steps across the polished floor before he was stopped by a light touch against his back. He spun in surprise, only to find it was Gorgon, looking up at him with an uncommonly direct stare. ¡°Let me take your luggage for you,¡± he said. ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°Let me take your luggage.¡± Gorgon nodded toward the messenger bag slung across Alden¡¯s shoulders. Nonplussed, Alden removed the bag and handed it over. He expected Gorgon to do something with it. Maybe it was a security check to make sure he hadn¡¯t stolen anything from downstairs? But the alien only took the bag and carried it toward the lobby doors. He set it down on the threshold and then walked back to his desk, passing Alden on his way. He¡¯s walking weird. It was stiff and¡­pained? ¡°What the heck was that about?¡± Alden called after him. ¡°I will see you when you return,¡± Gorgon said in an even higher voice than normal. ¡°Have a pleasant evening.¡± ¡°Gorgon?¡± ¡°Have a pleasant evening.¡± Alden left feeling extremely unnerved. He¡¯d gotten to know Gorgon well enough to say with some confidence that the alien would not go out of his way to suddenly valet Alden¡¯s book bag fifteen feet for no reason at all. Which means there was a reason, Alden thought, watching buildings slide by through the train windows as he made his way back home. Only I don¡¯t have any idea what it is. He¡¯d worried over it for the past ten minutes, and he¡¯d come up with nothing that made him feel more at ease. Is it some gross servant thing? Like he¡¯s forced to do it now because I¡¯m going to be one of the Avowed? The thought was disturbing. But it could be the case. Whoever had set the terms of Gorgon¡¯s imprisonment was clearly a nasty piece of work. And as far as he knew, Alden had never seen the alien interact with another Avowed. He didn¡¯t have a framework for comparison. I hope that isn¡¯t it. The only other thing it could be is some kind of¡­hint? Suggestion? About class selection? Alden liked that idea much better, but Gorgon had stated extremely clearly that he wasn¡¯t allowed to do such a thing. If it was a hint, it was a vague one. And it was an important one, because the alien didn¡¯t seem like the type to risk Artonan wrath for no good reason. So, no pressure, Alden. You just need to figure out what connection your perfectly ordinary messenger bag has to superhero work. Alden closed his eyes. He tried to pick apart Gorgon¡¯s every word and action. It was weird that he called it luggage instead of a bag? There¡¯s not a class that has anything to do with luggage. Maybe it¡¯s about travel in general? Speed-types travel fast. There¡¯s that Bike Meister lady who¡¯s like a motorcycle goddess; that¡¯s sort of travel related. But those didn¡¯t feel right. For one thing, Bike Meister was one of a kind. Nobody had ever gotten it before or since. And surely even if Gorgon had to be vague, he could have come up with something more obvious if he was trying to point Alden toward a speedster class. He could have just said some version of ¡°Hurry up.¡± It¡¯s probably not a recommendation that I try to go for a teleportation build either, right? I don¡¯t think B-ranks have an option like that, and if we did, it would just be a specific version of Adjuster. He knows that¡¯s my top choice anyway. He could have waited to see if I even got the class or not before saying anything. By the time the train reached his stop, Alden still had no clue what the mysterious message meant. He stepped out into the evening air. It was cold. He¡¯d left his coat at school, and the wind stole what heat his body had collected during the ride. He shivered. Does this mean Gorgon thinks I should be focusing on some class other than Adjuster? Or just in addition to it? The uncertainty was worrying. But he shouldn¡¯t stand here agonizing over it all night. Get home. Eat. Feed the cat, he told himself sternly. And maybe he would borrow a sleeping bag from one of the neighbors. The room with the crystal table was nice and all, but it was going to be really uncomfortable to spend hour upon hour in there. Maybe he could nap in between checking for new trade listings. And when should I tell Jeremy and Boe? For that matter, when should he tell his aunt? She would definitely promise not to share the secret, and she would also definitely break that promise as soon as she got a little too excited. So¡­he¡¯d have two days, max, after telling her. And then everyone in Chicago would know. Aunt Connie¡¯s out then. Alden was 99% sure he didn¡¯t want to go down the unregistered route Gorgon had mentioned, but until he was completely positive, he didn¡¯t want to burn bridges. I can get away with skipping school tomorrow, then I¡¯ll have to figure something out. If he called the school counselor and told her about Hannah¡¯s funeral he could probably clear a full week. But that felt wrong. It¡¯s Saturday. That¡¯s so soon. He really didn¡¯t want to go. Especially now. What if someone at the funeral could tell he was a selectee? He didn¡¯t know what kinds of powers Hannah¡¯s friends had. Maybe I can ask people for class advice? Again, that felt wrong. It was a funeral, not a networking opportunity. I just have to get through it. By the time Alden made it to his own front door, he was so cold he was sure that forgetting his coat was karmic justice for how badly he and Boe had teased Jeremy a few weeks ago. FIFTEEN: Class Trader, Part Two Class Trader, Part Two On Saturday morning, Alden woke up to the trill of his cell phone alarm at the completely uncivilized hour of 4 AM. He crawled out of the cozy sleeping bag he¡¯d brought and flicked on the trading room¡¯s fluorescent lights. It should be afternoon in India and Indonesia. Evening in China. Time zones were now something he cared about. He needed to be awake when large numbers of his fellow B-ranks were, and this should be a good time to catch any newcomers. And, hopefully, it would also be a good time to dodge B74. The other selectee had a lot more experience with trading and a better class to work with than Alden did, plus he was almost always online. Alden needed to take advantage of the guy''s brief absences. B74 was located in the Avowed zone in the western half of North Dakota, an hour behind Chicago time. And he¡¯d been up until after midnight last night, probably chugging energy drinks and bothering a newcomer with the ID B105, who¡¯d popped up on the trading platform with the Shaper of Life class gleaming like a beacon at the top of their listing. That class was on 74¡¯s wanted list. Alden was almost positive 74 had made a pest of himself, because the Shaper had only hung around for an hour or so before going offline entirely. Not even an autotrade option was left behind to mark the fact that they existed. B74 had set his own autotrade about three minutes later. He still hadn¡¯t managed to get Shaper of Life. Alden, who¡¯d been quietly examining the other B¡¯s and tweaking his own listing, had smiled. It was partially schadenfreude. 74 was rude, and Alden didn¡¯t want him to have good things. But the other selectee¡¯s antagonistic existence also played into his own plans for his new career as a class trader. If 74 was going to go around cursing at people with bad classes and annoying the shit out of people with good ones, then Alden would be the light to his darkness. He''d be the friendly one people could talk to. Maybe, hopefully, someone would be more inclined to trade with him because of that. His listing was freshly updated to reflect that goal. [ID: B13 Location: Artonan Consulate 4, USA Trading: Meister of Cudgel Wanted: Adjuster (All), Brute (Speedster, Uncommons), Healer (All), Meister (Traps, Wands, Uncommons), Shaper (All), Sway (All), Wright (All), Rares Notes: Meister of Cudgel seems like a class with potential, if close-range weapons appeal to you. It has novelty value compared to the more common weapons subclasses, and we all know branding is particularly important for B-ranks hoping to pursue hero work. I¡¯m happy to chat with anyone even if negotiations aren¡¯t on the table. Looking forward to meeting you all on Anesidora soon. I might be the guy with the club. Autotrade: NO] Obviously, Alden didn¡¯t actually want all of the things his ¡°wanted¡± list covered. But he needed to give an impression of openness to conversation, and he shouldn¡¯t take the risk of missing out on some strange subtype he¡¯d never heard of. He thought mentioning their future as possible neighbors and classmates on the island was a pleasant touch. And a good indicator that unlike some people, he wouldn¡¯t bite someone¡¯s head off if they approached him with a class he didn¡¯t like. Satisfied for the time being, he sat down and logged himself in. He scanned the list, sipping from a cup of water he¡¯d poured before crawling into his sleeping bag a few short hours ago. B74 was still absent. And, with a thrill, Alden saw that the Life Shaper was back. Their listing wasn¡¯t quite as barebones as it had been last night. No doubt they¡¯d finally had time to settle it now that they weren¡¯t fending off 74. He read it carefully. ID: B105 Location: Artonan Consulate 1, France Trading: Shaper of Life Wanted: Adjuster (All), Healer (All), Wright (All) Notes: I¡¯m happy with Shaper of Life, but I¡¯m interested in seeing what else might be available before I commit to it. I do not want Morph. Autotrade: NO Alden was tempted to contact them, if only to tell them the specific mention of 74''s Morph was a nice dig. But he didn¡¯t. Based on their preferences, they weren¡¯t going to go for any kind of physical combat class, and they probably had a low tolerance for wasting time after last night. Instead, his eyes landed on a listing that had appeared less than a minute ago. ID: B22 Location: Artonan Consulate 1, Poland Trading: Chainer Wanted: Meister (Knuckles) Notes: Hello. Good to meet you. Autotrade: YES Alden read the listing. Then, feeling certain he must have missed something, he read it again. ¡°No, B22,¡± he muttered. ¡°Don¡¯t trade Chainer for that.¡± Chainer was one of the rarest of all the classes. Alden had had time to freshen up his knowledge of some of the rares last night. In general, they weren¡¯t better than others. They just happened to be the classes that represented less than a percent of the overall pool. Though the errand-runner class, Rabbit, was more like 1.1% according to this year''s numbers. All of the rares were oddballs, but some of them seemed to be impractical oddballs, while others had their uses. Like Chainer. He didn''t know a lot about it, but it was a class that purportedly gave you access to the most powerful wordchains and reduced any negative side effects from them. The Artonans were funny about sharing the higher level wordchains , so it was a unique opportunity. Wordchains were inherently balanced, which made the idea of using powerful ones a little scary. Sure, you could use a high level luck chain and have the best day ever in Vegas, but was it really a net win if the payback was dying in a car accident a few weeks later? People said the Chainer class made it more likely that the car crash would only severely injure you instead. Alden didn¡¯t think it was a class he particularly wanted for himself. But if he were forced to choose right now this second, he¡¯d probably take it over Meister of Cudgel. And B22 could absolutely get something more unique than a Meister for it. Alden couldn¡¯t remember exactly how often Chainer occurred, but it was an ultra rare. And some people were really into wordchains. Just to be sure he wasn¡¯t completely off the mark, he looked up B22''s preferred class, Meister of Knuckles, on his laptop. He¡¯d assumed it was a class that specialized in fist weapons, and he was right. It was pretty uncommon. Unless B22 had just committed a series of terribly unlucky typos, then the only thing they could possibly want was to punch things. They didn¡¯t even list Healer or Adjuster or anything else. Well, some people had a fighting style they liked, he guessed. It wasn¡¯t like that was a negative thing. Chainer is probably a difficult class to use, too. Assuming B22 wanted to be a hero, there was something to be said for the simplicity of smashing bad guys with your fists as opposed to pausing for a meditation break while you made alterations to yourself through cross-dimensional barter. It just hurt Alden¡¯s soul a little bit to see one of the rarest classes being casually traded without even a monetary bonus request. Alden scanned the other IDs. There was an Agility Brute in Bangladesh. And of course there was B74 with Morph Brute¡­but if the new guy really only wanted Knuckles? Mine¡¯s the closest of anything online right now. I guess I should at least try to start a negotiation? Alden wanted to think about it longer, but he couldn¡¯t. Physically strong fighter types were a dime a dozen. And if Knuckle Meister wasn''t the only subclass the new trader was willing to take, then competition would come fast. Or 74 would wake up and throw his hat into the ring. I know Chainer will be easier to trade than Meister of Cudgel. I have to go for it. He clicked on B22''s ID before he could second guess himself. [INITIATE LIVE TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH B22?] ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said aloud. He expected to come face to face with a Polish teen right away, but apparently this person wasn¡¯t operating on the same frantic schedule as B74. They could be reading up on my class first. Or maybe I have to wait until they''re finished talking to someone else? Whatever the case, Alden had time to straighten the worst of the wrinkles out of his t-shirt and finger-comb his hair. Then he started skimming through a few websites he¡¯d bookmarked yesterday, trying to find reliable information about Chainer. An A-rank Chainer named Keiko Velra had been active as a superhero for the past fifteen years in Japan, but she had never given out a lot of info on her own skills, spells, or wordchains. Many Avowed preferred to keep their powers private, and she was apparently one of them. Though it was a little weird for a superhero to be that secretive about her talents unless it was part of her persona. For the more common classes you could find encyclopedias worth of information, right down to the specifics the System usually offered beginners of every rank. But for the ultrarares there was no guarantee. But the fact that at least one person a rank above Alden was managing to do hero work with the class was encouraging. It made Chainer seem more viable, and therefore more valuable. This B22 probably knew that, too. When they tell me to get lost, I¡¯ll head upstairs for a bathroom break. Maybe when I get back I¡¯ll try to say hi to that Longsight whose grace period is ending in a couple of days. They¡¯re going to be stuck with that. And they¡¯ve probably been sitting around in a room just this drab for the past three months with nobody willing to talk to them. Alden was starting to feel claustrophobic, and he hadn¡¯t even been a selectee for a full day yet. Nearly thirty minutes after he¡¯d asked to negotiate, his System interface finally brightened. [B22 has accepted your invitation. B22 has been vouched for by an authorized witness. You have been vouched for by an authorized witness. Negotiations are approved.] Alden had been resting his head on his arms, but he sat up straight just in time to see B22 appear across the table from him. The other teen was short and pudgy, with dark blonde hair and narrow brown eyes. He had a friendly smile, and he waved at Alden cheerfully with the hand he wasn¡¯t using to maintain contact with the table. On a plate in front of him was a boiled egg and a half-eaten doughnut full of dark red jam. ¡°Dzie¨½ dobry!¡± he said. " << Good morning! My name is Andrzej.>> The words appeared in the lower half of Alden¡¯s vision, centered on the other teen¡¯s chest like subtitles from a foreign-language film. ¡°Morning,¡± said Alden, trying to strike a balance between reading the words and making good eye contact. ¡°I didn¡¯t know how the translation thing would work. This is pretty great.¡± <> ¡°I was chosen yesterday,¡± said Alden. ¡°So we¡¯re both new at this. My name¡¯s Alden, by the way.¡± Andrzej ate a bite of his doughnut. He took his time chewing and swallowing, then he said, <> Alden scratched the back of his neck. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m pretty sure I would. But I know I don¡¯t have exactly the class you want. And I¡¯m not loaded, so I can¡¯t add on a monetary bonus like some people seem to.¡± The Polish boy brushed crumbs off his hands onto the plate. <> Alden had been taking a sip of water. He barely got it down without choking. ¡°You¡­you want it?¡± <> ¡°For Chainer?¡± Andrzej gave him a slight frown. <> You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°No, no!¡± Alden said hastily. ¡°I just¡­¡± Don¡¯t want to take advantage of you? He didn¡¯t consider himself to be much of a negotiator, but he knew that wasn¡¯t the right thing to say when you were trying to convince someone to give you what they had. ¡°I¡¯m just surprised you¡¯re interested,¡± he explained. ¡°I thought you might be very selective with your class preference. Since you only listed one on your wanted list.¡± <> Andrezj said. << Meister of Cudgel is a little lower than Meister of Knuckles, but I¡¯ve taken your point about the value of cudgels for branding purposes into consideration. It¡¯s a good one. It will do what I want it to. And I can improve the stats enough through leveling.>> It was only then that Alden realized the other boy really had spent the past half hour researching the cudgel class while Alden waited. And he wanted it. Alden felt off-footed by that for some reason. A paranoid little part of him hissed, No. Don¡¯t give it to him. If he wants it, then it must be better than what he has! But that was just nerves talking. Wasn¡¯t it? Andrzej clearly had his own plans for his future as one of the Avowed. Just like Alden did. I don¡¯t know why you¡¯d want a specific strength minimum, though? Maybe Andrzej was one of those guys who really did the math, and there was some hard floor on the strength stat for whatever he wanted his career to be? ¡°What are you going to do with it?¡± Alden blurted. ¡°With the cudgel subclass, I mean?¡± It wasn¡¯t like he needed to know to make the trade, but he wanted to understand what his fellow B-rank was thinking. If it was wildly different from his own perspective on things, he should at least take the time to examine it. Andrzej smiled, but he shook his head. <> ¡°Come on, man,¡± Alden groaned. ¡°I know I don¡¯t want the class for myself. I¡¯ll give it to you for Chainer. I just¡ª¡± The Polish boy raised his eyebrows at Alden. <> Alden¡¯s heart rate picked up. He tightened his grip on the milky crystal surface of the table. Be smart, he ordered himself. Is there some trick here I¡¯m not seeing? Only it was hard to be smart with just three hours of sleep under his belt and not enough information about one of the classes involved. And he couldn¡¯t just ask for more time to think. Andrzej might give Chainer to someone else. Of course he won¡¯t tell me what he wants Meister of Cudgel for. He doesn¡¯t want me to decide his ideal superhero build is better than mine and snatch it away from him. That doesn¡¯t mean his ideal is better than mine. Only that it¡¯s different. It¡¯s fine. There¡¯s no nasty trick here. Most likely. The fact that it¡¯s happening so quickly and easily doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m being an idiot. Probably. One of Alden¡¯s hands slipped a little against the table. He was actually sweating. ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s trade,¡± he said, hoping he didn¡¯t sound as nervous as he felt. Across the table, Andrzej had finished his doughnut, and he was peeling the white off his boiled egg. <> On the bottom right corner of Alden¡¯s System overlay were the words Confirm Class Trade. ¡°Confirm class trade,¡± he said. At exactly the same time, Andrzej was prodding at the air in front of his own face. A second later, new words appeared. [TRADE MEISTER OF CUDGEL CLASS FOR CHAINER CLASS?] YES/NO ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said. [B22 has requested a trade. You have requested a trade. Both selectees have been vouched for by authorized witnesses. Please wait. Your class is being re-assigned.] Alden held his breath. And then he had to stop doing that so he wouldn¡¯t pass out. <> Andrzej noted. ¡°Right? Does some kind of signal have to travel from here to another dimension and back again?¡± <> ¡°Yeah. I take classes here at the consulate with an instructor teaching from Artona I, and there¡¯s no lag. As far as I can tell.¡± Andrzej brightened. <> ¡°Yes.¡± <> Oh, so he definitely wanted to do superhero work. From what Alden had heard, you couldn¡¯t graduate from any of the advanced training programs on Anesidora without being fluent in at least one of the world¡¯s five most-spoken languages. As a B-rank it would be even more important to be multilingual, to increase your odds of getting job offers. ¡°I need to learn Mandarin,¡± Alden mused. He was just thinking out loud, but Andrzej¡¯s smile grew even more excited. <> ¡°Yes. If I can get the right class, I want to go into¡ª¡± He was interrupted by a flare of light as his interface shifted. [CLASS TRADE APPROVED] Pre-affixed Selectee: Samuel Alden Thorn Divergence Rank: B Assigned Class: Chainer ¡­ Samuel Alden Thorn, do you willingly accept your duties as one of Earth¡¯s Avowed, thereby satisfying a portion of your planet¡¯s debt to Artona? YES/NO 2145 h: 20 m: 08 s <> ¡°Mine¡¯s finished, too. Congrats on your new class.¡± <> ¡°Wow. You really are sure about what you want.¡± <> ¡°Ouch, dude. Don¡¯t pull your punches or anything.¡± Andrzej laughed. ¡°Anyway, before we were interrupted, I was trying to say that what I really want to do is get a class I can turn into decent battlefield support.¡± <> He looked bemused. <> ¡°Well, not necessarily.¡± <> ¡°I do want to do team-ups, though,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯d work closely with one or two other Avowed so that we all become way more effective than we would be on our own. A pair of B-ranks with complementary specs could be as good as an A-rank, for sure. Maybe as good as an S in some situations.¡± Andrzej clearly didn¡¯t agree with that last bit. His lips pursed. But he only said, <> Alden stared at the subtitles. ¡°Fairy and Flarey¡± had been said in English, so he¡¯d understood the words just fine. But he had no clue what they meant. ¡°Are those superhero names?¡± <> And that was how Alden ended up spending the next fifteen minutes of his life watching clips from an animated Australian children¡¯s program while a Polish guy discussed the finer points of the main characters¡¯ tactical decisions. Fairy and Flarey were both S-ranks with unique classes. Of course. Because why have a fantasy show if you weren¡¯t going to make it totally over the top? Fairy could sparkle like a diamond, and her disco ball routine had the power to hypnotize evildoers into chasing after her. These distracted villains became easy fodder for Flarey, whose primary skill was being a fire-breathing pink hippo-grizzly. Flarey was the heavy hitter of the team who did the actual fighting, but his giant hippo-grizzly body was too slow to catch bad guys. Before he¡¯d met Fairy, he¡¯d been a laughingstock. And before she¡¯d met him, she hadn¡¯t had the firepower she needed to take down villains on her own. To Alden¡¯s chagrin, it wasn¡¯t a terrible analogy for what he wanted to do. It was just so¡­cute. And Fairy wasn¡¯t very smart. ¡°Yeah, sort of like Fairy,¡± he confessed. ¡°But with more nuance and less getting kidnapped? I hope?¡± <> Andrzej sounded dead serious. ¡°I¡¯ll keep that in mind.¡± Alden cleared his throat. ¡°Enough about me, though, what are you going to do with Meister of Cudgel?¡± <> ¡°That sounds like a solid plan. I hope you have good luck with it.¡± <> ¡°I really want Adjuster.¡± Maybe, Alden added mentally. He still had no idea what Gorgon¡¯s hint about luggage meant. He¡¯d read lists of every obscure class he could find, and there was nothing bag-related or travel-related as far as he could see. He hoped clarity would strike soon, because by the end of his search last night he was only finding thread-thin connections. And if that was all he had to work with, he would never have the confidence to actually choose a class that merely might be the one the alien had intended to point him toward. <> ¡°Its history?¡± Andrzej suddenly looked a little guilty. <> ¡°You¡¯re making me a little nervous.¡± <> ¡°No?¡± Alden was interested in prominent superheroes. Not the society of Avowed who lived on the island. <> This last bit was said with a smile that was a little too encouraging for Alden¡¯s liking. Nobody will be mad at me for trading the class because I¡¯m an outsider? What does that mean? He asked a couple more questions, but Andrzej was apparently unwilling to be any more specific, because he hastily made an excuse, reassured Alden that the class wasn¡¯t bad for his needs, and signed off. Huh¡­that¡¯s not concerning at all, Alden thought as the other teen disappeared. He stretched and checked his listing. It was greyed-out. He updated it with his new class, then re-activated it. He couldn¡¯t immediately think of anything clever to say about Chainer in his ¡°notes¡± section, so he just pointed out that it was an ultra rare class that was successfully being used for hero work by at least one other person. He¡¯d come up with something better after he¡¯d done the research and figured out what Andrzej had meant by his cryptic warning. He wanted a break anyway. He needed to brush his teeth. He was about to log out when he received a new notice [B74 HAS REQUESTED NEGOTIATION. DO YOU WISH TO ACCEPT?] Alden stared at it in surprise. Really? After that insane monologue he gave me twelve hours ago? Maybe Chainer was a shinier new toy than he¡¯d realized. Alden tried to think of what the proper payback for 74 was. Nothing too mean. He did have a tiny, wretched fragment of sympathy for his fellow selectee. The guy had barely been sleeping for two straight months. Maybe he¡¯d actually had normal human manners before all of this started. Still. He needed to chill. ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll talk to him.¡± B74 flashed into the room. He was standing at his trashed table, and his mouth was already open to say something, but Alden held up his free hand. ¡°Hey, man! Good to see you again, but I can¡¯t talk right now. I have to go brush my teeth. It shouldn¡¯t take too long. Unless I decide to head to school for the day. I¡¯ve got a biology exam. Maybe I shouldn¡¯t miss it? I¡¯ll think about it over breakfast. Anyway, I¡¯ll be back in a few minutes. Or sometime tonight. Sunday at the absolute latest. See you then!¡± Before his opponent could respond, Alden lifted his other hand and let the connection drop. Patience was a virtue. Maybe B74 could acquire it while staring at the System interface, waiting for someone who might or might not reappear in the next two days. SIXTEEN: Boe, Part One Boe, Part One Alden stepped out of the elevator, yawning. Maybe I really will go get breakfast before I come back. It was five in the morning, but a coffee shop had to be open somewhere. It would be nice to hang out in a place other than consulate basement while he researched his new class. He stopped by the vending machine to buy a fruit punch for Gorgon, then he headed toward the lobby desk. ¡°So, I¡¯m a pre-affixed Chainer now,¡± he said as he passed the alien the bottle of juice. ¡°That is an extremely rare assignment.¡± Gorgon spoke in the same totally inflectionless voice he always used when the conversation turned toward anything Alden might construe as advice. ¡°It seemed like something I could trade more easily. The guy I got it from seemed to think so, too. I think I was really lucky, but he was a little odd about it. I¡¯m gonna go grab a bite and figure out why.¡± ¡°I see,¡± said Gorgon. ¡°Thank you for the juice.¡± Alden hesitated, considering his next works carefully. ¡°I¡¯m still thinking over what you said to me last night. I¡­noticed it.¡± He felt the need to acknowledge Gorgon¡¯s hint now that he was positive there was no uncomfortable servitude thing going on between the two of them. He had been relieved when he returned to the consulate last night with things that might qualify as actual luggage in hand, and the alien had completely ignored him. Alden had fumbled a two-person sleeping bag, snacks, bottled water, his book bag and his ancient laptop into the building. Yet Gorgon hadn¡¯t lifted a finger for him. But he couldn¡¯t help noticing that the alien¡¯s gray skin was looking downright charred beneath his magical bonds. So Gorgon had crossed some sort of line for Alden. And Alden didn¡¯t even know how to say thank you properly without possibly making the situation worse for him. For a beat, the alien was silent. Then, instead of replying to Alden¡¯s attempt to subtly express his gratitude, he said, ¡°I have received confirmation that you are allowed to have your friends accompany you into the trading room. They would only be able to provide you with moral support, however. My supervisor was disinclined to grant them temporary access to the trading interface.¡± ¡°Wow. Thank you. I really didn¡¯t even expect that much.¡± Gorgon shrugged. ¡°Normally, she would have been easier to persuade. But she¡¯s recently been penalized for consorting with a demon, and I believe she¡¯s trying to appear more law-abiding than usual.¡± ¡°Your supervisor hangs out with demons?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Not like you, but actual monsters made of pure chaos?¡± He didn¡¯t have a lot of knowledge on real demons. Earth was only contractually obligated to deal with one or two a year, and they all landed in a controlled zone on Anesidora where they were demolished in a matter of seconds by a few hundred Avowed working together. No media were allowed, so the semi-annual event was never more than a minor headline. Still, it didn¡¯t sound like they were beings you¡¯d want to consort with. ¡°All Artonans of the highest ranks have interactions with what some might call true demons. My supervisor just picked a worse one than she should have.¡± ¡°Well, let¡¯s not make her mad, then,¡± Alden said. ¡°Indeed.¡± The conversation ended on that disturbing note, and Alden headed out. The walk down the still-dark street cleared his head, and after a few blocks he came to a bakery that was just opening its doors. He ordered a matcha and bought a vegan brownie from the section of the case where the shop kept its day-old baked goods. Despite multiple attempts to force-feed himself old favorites like shredded cheese and bacon, all Alden had managed to do so far was nearly choke to death. He had confirmed that his new, magically enforced diet was only a diet though. It didn¡¯t affect other aspects of his life. He could still use one of his dad¡¯s old leather belts, and he¡¯d enthusiastically murdered a cockroach he¡¯d found running across the kitchen floor a couple of nights past. He might be able to make peace with the situation. Eventually. At least the brownie¡¯s really good. He set his laptop up at a small corner table and started delving into the Chainer class. At first, it was all normal stuff. There were reputable sites with basic intel on the class¡¯s natural stat bonuses and a few surprisingly sparse lists of the starter skills offered to each rank. Interestingly, Chainers didn¡¯t seem to have access to spell impressions. Or at least none of them had ever publicly admitted to earning one. Must be a soft restriction. It meant that System-granted spells were probably reserved for the class¡¯s S-ranks or as special rewards instead of something they could earn just by leveling up. The latter wasn¡¯t a clear-cut or guaranteed process for Avowed. Not in the same way it was in a video game. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Alden didn¡¯t know about Chainers specifically, but for most classes, leveling purportedly involved expanding the functions of your starter skill through a harrowing mix of trial, error, and epiphany. Nobody had ever really come up with a sure-fire method for doing it, as far as he knew. And it wasn''t like the System told you how to improve your skill. You just had to keep hacking away at it on your own and make it work. Somehow. Even with a limit on spell impressions, the Chainers weren''t suffering. In fact, there was an entire multigenerational family full of them on Anesidora. Which was one heck of a shock to Alden, since classes didn¡¯t run in families. Avowed almost always married other Avowed. And more often than not, their children were chosen by the System. But though they tended to inherit ranks similar to their parents¡¯ own, naturally they couldn¡¯t inherit classes. They got the same random selection as everyone else. Gorgon had told Alden that Avowed sometimes had strong opinions about their children¡¯s class trades and got themselves overly involved. But this was something else. Apparently, there were a few extended families on Anesidora that had managed to make sure almost every single one of their children ended up with the same class. It was usually done for the purpose of consolidating knowledge about the classes themselves, and it allowed the families to train children from birth with some degree of certainty about what their future would hold. To get the classes they needed, these families took advantage of the trading option and offered hefty bonuses to purchase them when necessary. The practice of class hoarding wasn¡¯t illegal. But it had become controversial in recent years. Not with the Artonans or with Earth¡¯s governments, but with the other Avowed on the island. Alden mostly gleaned his information from opinion pieces in Anesidoran blogs and newspapers. Various columnists complained that the families in question were getting a little too good at managing their skill and spell selections. And then they complained even more about the fact that the hoarders wouldn¡¯t share insights into their classes with people other than their own relatives. It just seems like a lot of sour grapes. High-ranking superhumans complaining that it wasn¡¯t fair other high-ranking superhumans were getting extra-special advice about build refinement from their own parents was pretty far removed from the average person¡¯s reality. Alden felt like he was reading angry letters written by billionaires who didn¡¯t like the fact that bigger billionaires existed. The Chainer family¡ªthe Velras¡ªseemed to be one of the main targets of all the vitriol. And it quickly became obvious why. They were collecting high-level wordchains by having every family member select different ones from the System. And because they were wordchains and not skills, they could be shared with the other family members very easily. The Velras were a huge deal on Anesidora, and the only reason Alden had never heard of them was because almost none of them were active superheroes. Apparently Keiko was the rogue family member, choosing to do her own thing in Tokyo. All the other prominent members worked for the Anesidoran government or held positions on elite battle squads that were only called out to deal with massive emergencies and the occasional demon-squashing event. And unlike other families going down the single-class route, the Velras were making a serious attempt to monopolize Chainer. They had somehow persuaded several Chainers they hadn¡¯t been able to claim in any other way to marry into their family. Others were associated with them by magical contract. They¡¯d even adopted a few people. Alden was seriously curious about what was going on with the class now. He was tempted to affix it just based on the fact that a family of superhumans had dedicated themselves to making sure nobody else got to play with it. But he really didn¡¯t want one of the family¡¯s four S-ranks to swat him like a gnat the second he stepped foot on the island. Or force him to marry their children. Or slap a new surname on him. Andrzej didn¡¯t want to sell the class to them because it would be a bad look for him and his Avowed uncle when they¡¯re so controversial right now. That¡¯s why he told me I should pretend to be ignorant. This was¡­good for him. Really good. At least it was as long as Andrzej wasn¡¯t lying, and people weren¡¯t going to try to burn a clueless newb at the stake if he traded the class to the Velras. So maybe what happens now is I contact them, they pay me a ton of money for the class, and then I use it to pay someone else for whatever one I want? But what if they don¡¯t have any kids eligible to receive the class in the next three months? How does that¡ª The sound of his cellphone ringing interrupted his thoughts. It was Boe. ¡°Hey,¡± Alden said, still staring at his computer. ¡°Did you know there¡¯s a family that collects the Chainer class on Anesidora? Like, most of the people on Earth who have access to it are related to them in some way?¡± There was a moment of silence. Then, Boe said, ¡°Good morning to you, too. Why are you telling me about the Velras at the crack of dawn?¡± Ah. That was unusual behavior. ¡°Sorry. Morning. What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°You. Apparently. I haven¡¯t even had coffee yet. I¡¯m calling to ask if you¡¯re coming to school today or if you want me to pick up your assignments?¡± Alden¡¯s guts twisted uncomfortably. He had to tell his friends sometime. And Boe was probably the right one to tell first, since they¡¯d been friends longer. He glanced toward the bakery counter. Nobody was there. The woman who¡¯d sold him the brownie was busy stocking the display case, and she kept disappearing into the kitchen. ¡°Alden? You there?¡± ¡°I¡­got selected,¡± he muttered quietly. The connection went dead silent. The tone of his voice must have been enough for Boe to guess what he was selected for. But when his friend didn¡¯t reply immediately, Alden thought maybe he needed to say it more clearly. ¡°Yesterday. Right after that Hamlet quiz fiasco. I got chosen as one of the¡ª¡± ¡°Don¡¯t say it over the phone.¡± Boe¡¯s tone was hard to place, but if Alden had to, he¡¯d put it somewhere between annoyed and afraid. Which seemed like a strange reaction. But Alden had wandered out of school yesterday, gotten lost, and then called a rideshare from the parking lot of a random podiatrist¡¯s office. So maybe the news was just the sort of thing that made everyone act a little off. ¡°Where are you right now?¡± Boe asked. ¡°With Gorgon?¡± ¡°I¡¯m at a bakery a few blocks away.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll come.¡± Alden was startled. ¡°You don¡¯t have to. We can just meet up after school.¡± ¡°Have you pulled the trigger yet?¡± Alden heard a series of loud bangs, as if his friend was opening and closing doors or drawers in rapid succession. ¡°I haven¡¯t affi¡ª¡± ¡°Don¡¯t say it over the phone. And good. I¡¯ll get dressed and be there in like an hour. Don¡¯t get excited and do anything stupid.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± Boe was already gone. SEVENTEEN: Boe, Part Two Boe, Part Two ¡°You¡¯re really skipping school for this?¡± Alden asked as Boe dragged a chair noisily across the tile floor toward his table. Over the past hour, the bakery had filled with customers, and there was a steady buzz of conversation. Everyone seemed to be buying gooey, buttery cinnamon rolls the size of Alden¡¯s head, and he was trying not to resent them for it. ¡°It¡¯s no biggie. My GPA¡¯s so bloated from all the advanced classes they¡¯d have to fail me for a week straight before I even noticed.¡± Boe tossed his ugly knitted scarf and a new, even uglier, knitted hat onto the table. ¡°Well, if we¡¯re both cutting should we call Jeremy? He¡¯ll feel left out.¡± ¡°No,¡± Boe said. ¡°He actually has parents who care about what he does. It¡¯ll upset them if we turn him into a truant.¡± That was depressingly true. Aunt Connie was Aunt Connie. If Alden dropped out of high school, she would be upset, but it would probably take her several weeks to notice it had happened. And Boe¡¯s parents were chronically checked out. Alden had only been over to his house a few times when they were younger, and his father and mother had just sat staring at the tv for hours on end. Twelve-year-old Boe was the one who usually cooked meals and cleaned the house. It was an uncomfortable dynamic. On the other hand, Jeremy¡¯s parents weren¡¯t quite helicopters, but they did regular family pancake breakfasts and came to take pictures of him and his older sister at every school event. ¡°This place has a nice vibe,¡± Boe noted as he sat down with a coffee. ¡°Hipster, but everyone¡¯s minding their own business. We should be good to talk here if we keep it quiet. So you got Chainer, then? What rank?¡± Alden frowned at him. ¡°You know, I wasn¡¯t expecting you to be amazed or anything. But, you¡¯re being weirdly nonchalant about this. Except for the fact that you¡¯re apparently worried about phone tapping like we¡¯re in a spy movie.¡± Boe shoved his glasses up on his nose, and then, in a deadpan voice, he said, ¡°Oh my God, Alden. You¡¯re the chosen one. Can I have your autograph to show my grandchildren one day?¡± ¡°Jeez, I should have told Jeremy first. You¡¯re such a buzzkill.¡± Boe rolled his eyes. But, in a slightly apologetic tone, he added, ¡°You¡¯re right. Sorry I¡¯m the rain at the parade. It¡¯s just that I am surprised, and I don¡¯t deal with sudden changes well. And I¡¯m a little pissed that you¡¯re probably going to run off to superhero land and leave me behind here.¡± He smiled bitterly. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve noticed, but I¡¯m not great at making new friends.¡± Alden squirmed in his seat. ¡°It¡¯s not like we¡¯ll never see each other again. I¡¯ll call and bother you all the time. You¡¯ll get sick of hearing from me.¡± ¡°Everyone says things like that, but it never works out in the end.¡± Boe stared down at the coils of his scarf, and cleared his throat. ¡°Anyway, you have to give me the details. I¡¯ll have you know that my own childhood superhero obsession was epic, embarrassing, and not that long ago. You can¡¯t just keep all the good parts to yourself.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°Well, like all the best origin stories, mine started in the bathroom of a public high school¡­¡± They talked quietly until the bakery people started glaring at them for taking up a table. Then, they moved their conversation to the streets. ¡°So you woke up early enough to steal Chainer right out from under the nose of some jerk in North Dakota. Nice. And lucky. Maybe lucky enough to make up for your shitty ranking.¡± ¡°Stop calling it that. It¡¯s top 15%. It¡¯s solid.¡± ¡°Solid if you wanted to be something normal. But you want to be an unpopular type of superhero. You¡¯ve already limited your options a lot by deciding on that. Major cities don¡¯t pay for solo sidekicks, and they aren¡¯t big on paying for pre-made pairs or teams. Throw the B-rank in, and you just look like a PR nightmare.¡± ¡°Rude.¡± ¡°Honest. Governments are cowards. They don¡¯t like new ideas. The State of Illinois may have said it supported Hannah Elber and Arjun Thomas after the Drainer incident, but it¡¯s totally why they were fired when their contracts came up for renewal. You know that. And they were an A and an S. B-rank is going to be hard. You¡¯re lucky the Polish guy was trying to offload the class fast without alienating anyone.¡± ¡°Yeah. You don¡¯t think Chainer¡¯s too much of a double-edged sword, though, do you? I don¡¯t want to get to Anesidora in a few months, register at a new school, and find out that all the island kids hate my guts because I sold the class to their ancestral enemies.¡± ¡°Nah,¡± said Boe, slapping the button for the crosswalk they were waiting at. ¡°That won¡¯t happen.¡± ¡°You sound confident.¡± ¡°It¡¯s because I¡¯m smart. I know things.¡± ¡°About superhuman politics?¡± Alden said doubtfully. ¡°Well, some. I¡¯m not an expert, but I know Bedlam Beldam is a big supporter of the Velra family. A lot of people are. It¡¯s all very dramatic. Like a superhero soap opera. They¡¯ve got just as many friends as they do enemies. So only half of your new schoolmates will hate you. Sixty percent of them tops.¡± ¡°Comforting.¡± "And this Andrzej guy''s suggestion that you play dumb about it isn''t bad, right? Maybe you can pull off a miracle and sell it to one faction before the other one gets around to throwing their hat in the ring. They can''t complain if they think you''re a clueless outsider who didn''t even know they wanted it." Alden frowned. "That sounds really hard to navigate. But yeah. It would be ideal." Boe side-eyed him. Then, with a sigh, he said, ¡°Listen, I know you¡¯ll want to take this the wrong way, but try to be open minded. You do realize you can just¡­not play the game, don''t you? You haven¡¯t registered. And since I stopped you from shouting that you were an Avowed over the phone earlier¡ª¡± ¡°Wow. You really were worried about spies.¡± ¡°What? You think there isn¡¯t something scanning our calls for keywords?¡± Alden honestly didn¡¯t know. ¡°I guess it¡¯s better to be safe than sorry?¡± ¡°Right. As I was saying, you¡¯ve only given your name to one person, and he probably won¡¯t even notice if you don¡¯t show up on Anesidora. He¡¯ll just assume you¡¯re in different academies. You could trade Chainer for some quiet little class, stay here in Chicago, and grow up to be an elementary school teacher.¡± ¡°An elementary school teacher?¡± Alden had respect for the job, but it had never featured on any of his to-do lists. ¡°Where¡¯d you get that from?¡± ¡°I think it suits you,¡± Boe said seriously. ¡°And you¡¯d still have super powers. You could take Audial Brute. I bet it¡¯d fix your tinnitus. And you¡¯d be a total pro at overhearing kids gossiping in your class. They¡¯d think you were psychic.¡± ¡°Boe¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯d probably hardly ever get summoned, so you wouldn¡¯t be found out. What¡¯s the downside?¡± Alden stopped walking. Boe did, too, but he wasn¡¯t quite meeting Alden¡¯s eyes. ¡°Gorgon said the same thing,¡± Alden said. ¡°About maybe not registering.¡± ¡°Ha. Did he really? Well, that¡¯s because it¡¯s not a bad idea.¡± Alden wished, not for the first time since he¡¯d been selected, that his dreams of being a superhero had included a little less fantasy and a lot more reality. Maybe then he would know how to answer his friend. And how to handle the uncertainty inside him that was gradually turning into fear. If I make a mistake here, I¡¯m screwing up my whole life. He shivered, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. He¡¯d enjoyed the distraction of focusing on the class trade. But now Boe had casually pointed out that even that wasn¡¯t a safe zone. If Alden made his presence too well known through the trades, people might get curious about him. They might look him up. He couldn¡¯t have that if he planned to be an Avowed in hiding. And if I did intend to be an illegal superhuman, I really would need ¡°a quiet little class.¡± Alden¡¯s self control was okay, but it probably wasn¡¯t good enough to last a lifetime. If he had awesome powers, he was going to slip up and use them eventually. And if his physical stats were high enough, then even something unavoidable, like being involved in an accident, would out him. People tended to notice if you got hit by a bus, and the vehicle came away from it with injuries worse than your own. He and Boe stood together, while early morning traffic rushed past on the street beside them, for a long time. Finally, Alden had an answer. ¡°I think I would regret it.¡± Boe shoved his hands into his pocket and looked up at the sky. ¡°Which part?¡± ¡°The part where one day I¡¯m watching the news, and I see that some eight-year-old kid just lost their parents in a villain attack¡­and I wonder if maybe in some small way it was my fault. Because I was supposed to be there, but I was too afraid to try for it.¡± Alden exhaled sharply, his breath fogging in the cold. ¡°Yeah,¡± he added. ¡°I think I would regret it a lot.¡± Boe had never been a warm and fuzzy sort of person. If anything, he¡¯d ranged from robotic to ill-tempered when Alden had first met him. It was only time that had brought out a few of his more human qualities. He was loyal, sarcastic, funny¡­ But for some reason it was only now, as Alden watched his friend¡¯s face twist into a forced smile, that he realized he had never once seen Boe look sad. And he did look so sad. Nearly devastated. For a second, it was like a cloud had passed between the two of them and the early morning sun. Then the look was gone just as suddenly as it had come. ¡°I guess I shouldn¡¯t have expected anything different from you,¡± Boe groaned. He gave Alden a light punch on the arm. ¡°You¡¯re such a noble doofus for an otherwise smart guy. I honestly think you¡¯d probably feed me the same line if you were a useless freaking F-rank.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t,¡± Alden said, still feeling off-footed by the strangely dark moment. ¡°I¡¯m not suicidal.¡± ¡°Sure you¡¯re not. Anyway, since you seem to be committed to playing superhero let¡¯s get to the consulate. I want to see the magic table.¡± ¡°Gorgon says you won¡¯t be able to access it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s still a magic table. How many chances am I going to get in my life to disrespect an important Artonan artifact?¡± ¡°Wow. Okay. No. If you break the table, Gorgon¡¯s supervisor will come for me, and she apparently consorts with demons.¡± ¡°Sounds hot.¡± ¡°Gross, you perv.¡± Boe laughed. ¡°Anyway, what was your special clue?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°From the demon you consort with. You said you thought he was giving you a hint about what class you should choose. That should be your number one priority. Classes are way less figured out than everyone likes to think. If an Artonan prisoner was setting himself on fire to give me hints, I¡¯d run with them.¡± ¡°Let me take your luggage.¡± Alden had the pleasure of seeing Boe look just as baffled as he had been the night before. ¡°Huh?¡± he asked. ¡°Let me take your luggage.¡± Boe¡¯s nose wrinkled. ¡°Oh. That¡¯s the clue?¡± ¡°My best guess is that he had to be vague. I think maybe it¡¯s a metaphor.¡± ¡°I bet it¡¯s an anagram,¡± Boe mused. ¡°You just want it to be an anagram because you like puzzles.¡± ¡°Eulogy. Mettle gauger. AK.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± said Alden. ¡°Are we speaking in tongues now?¡± ¡°Shut up. It¡¯s a really good solve for first thing in the morning. Clearly eulogy is about Hannah¡¯s funeral tomorrow. Afterwards, you¡¯re supposed to travel to Alaska and gauge your mettle. Duh.¡± Alden laughed. ¡°Rogue eagle amulet?¡± Boe muttered as he squinted into the distance. ¡°No, that¡¯s not it. I can¡¯t make anything with the remaining letters.¡± ¡°You¡¯re literally making the sentence more obscure, man. I was hoping you¡¯d help me simplify the problem, not¡­¡± Boe was a few steps ahead before he realized Alden wasn¡¯t keeping pace with him anymore. He turned back. ¡°You coming?¡± Alden gave himself a shake and hurried to catch up. ¡°I just realized¡­what if I¡¯ve been putting too much thought into it, too? What if Gorgon was actually keeping it really simple for the dumb human? What if it¡¯s a spell name? Or a skill?¡± Boe¡¯s eyebrows lifted. ¡°Well, yeah. That would make it way easier. Some classes do have eccentric talent names. Full sentences are less common, but they¡¯re a thing.¡± ¡°Right?¡± Alden was getting excited now. ¡°There¡¯s an Adjuster spell called ¡®Hold my hand until sunset.¡¯¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It was an unpopular capture spell that magically glued your hand to your target¡¯s. ¡°How romantic,¡± Boe said dryly. But then, with a bit more enthusiasm, he added, ¡°Beldam has a passive called ¡®Cats are better in nines.¡¯¡± ¡°See! I bet I¡¯m right. I¡¯ve never heard of one called ¡®Let me get your luggage,¡¯ though.¡± ¡°Me either. And the sentence names are memorable. Since we don¡¯t know it, it¡¯s probably not often used. Which would mean it could only belong to one of the classes that gets a stupidly long skill or spell list.¡± ¡°People still haven¡¯t tried out everything on the Adjuster spell list,¡± Alden said hopefully. ¡°So maybe?¡± ¡°I think you¡¯d have read about it if it was an Adjuster spell, you mage geek,¡± Boe replied. ¡°If it was a B-rank specific one you might have missed it, but¡­it could be Wright? They get so many skills to choose from they say their list looks like the Oxford English. That one S-rank spent two years trying to pick the best one from it when she hit Level 10, and nobody thought it was a waste of time.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Alden frowned. ¡°If we¡¯re on the right track, it would most likely be Wright or one of the rares. The other major classes have fairly narrow lists at B-rank. Shaper¡¯s a maybe, but it doesn¡¯t sound anything like one of their skills.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not Shaper.¡± Boe¡¯s tone was dismissive. ¡°Their stuff is all kind of obvious as far as System naming goes. If anything, it sounds like it might be a¡ª¡± ¡°A what?¡± Boe suddenly grabbed onto the sleeve of Alden¡¯s coat and stopped walking. ¡°Is that who I think it is?¡± he asked quietly, staring ahead of them. There were quite a few people on the sidewalk. Alden scanned them, looking for someone suspicious, but before he could identify the problem, Boe hissed, ¡°The man across the street from the consulate! The one trying to look normal while he stands around in board shorts in February.¡± Alden finally spotted the board short wearer. ¡°Oh, my gosh! It¡¯s Skiff!¡± The water-shaping superhero looked out of place here in a business district, wearing street clothes. Well, mostly wearing street clothes. The swim trunks didn¡¯t really go with Skiff¡¯s puffer jacket. ¡°Shush, fanboy. Take my hat.¡± Before Alden could ask why he should do that, his friend had shoved the hideous stocking hat onto his head. ¡°So,¡± said Boe in a conversational voice as he yanked off his scarf and wrapped it around the entire lower half of Alden¡¯s face. ¡°Maybe we¡¯re not as smart as we think we are. You said the trading interface listed locations, and I didn¡¯t think anything of it. And I guess you didn¡¯t either.¡± Behind his new muffler, Alden frowned. ¡°Yeah. But ids are private.¡± ¡°Sure. Only they¡¯re not very, are they? To find out who someone is in real life you¡¯d just have to go to the consulate they were trading from and wait for a teenager to appear during regular school hours.¡± Alden¡¯s eyes widened. Crap. He hadn¡¯t realized how valuable Chainer was to certain parties when he¡¯d left this morning. He¡¯d have taken the listing down if he¡¯d known. He hadn¡¯t authorized autotrade of course, but his information was there for anyone to see. Advertising was the whole point of the platform. It had never occurred to him that he shouldn¡¯t do it. ¡°Bud vey canf do vad?¡± he protested around a mouthful of wool as Boe tightened the scarf. ¡°Wha ¡®boud my privafy?¡± ¡°Even in an ideal world, your civilian right to privacy is only good for the next three months,¡± Boe said quietly, stepping back. ¡°In reality? You get it¡­ right?¡± Alden did. He didn¡¯t like it, but he did. It would only take a phone call. Once someone from Anesidora had seen the listing¡ªwhether they were for or against the Velra family¡ªthey could just call up one of their friends on the Chicago hero team and ask them to run down and have a look at the consulate. See if any likely young people strolled in at an odd hour. Follow them home. Find out who they are. Kill them in their sleep. Okay. That last was ridiculous. Probably whichever faction they belonged to, all they¡¯d really want was to give Alden lots of nice stuff in exchange for Chainer. Which would have been great, except for the fact that he didn¡¯t just want nice stuff. He wanted nice stuff without becoming involved in superhuman politics. Even Gorgon couldn¡¯t keep him out of it. Bribery and social pressure were apparently fine with the Artonans. The alien would only be allowed to step in if people were threatening or mind controlling him. ¡°New plan,¡± said Boe, still speaking quietly. ¡°We walk right past the Aquatic Idiot and head for the bus stop. Even if your nemesis in North Dakota happens to work for someone on the island and he described you to them, you don¡¯t have any noteworthy features that¡¯ll stand out when you¡¯re bundled up in winter wear. We should be good.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t considered that B74 might have ratted him out. But it was possible at least. He did live in the Dakota zone, so he was connected to the Avowed community if not the island itself. ¡°Leff go,¡± said Alden. He coughed and worked his lips until they were mostly free of the scarf. ¡°We¡¯ll catch Skiff¡¯s attention if we stand here too long.¡± ### ¡°Quit turning around to look out the back window, Alden. You¡¯re not going to see an A-rank Shaper chasing the bus down the street in his swim trunks.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t think I was,¡± Alden lied as he spun back around in his seat. ¡°I¡¯m just making sure we made a clean getaway.¡± ¡°We did. I told you. He didn¡¯t even glance at us. I think he was playing Sweet Smasher on his phone.¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t use my peripheral vision because someone mummified me with wool.¡± ¡°Well, mine worked fine. You¡¯re in the clear for now.¡± Alden grumbled, but he did his best to let himself relax. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect it to be like this. So chaotic. I wanted time to think and plan.¡± Boe slouched down and wedged his feet against the back of the seat in front of him. He pulled out his own cell and started typing. ¡°It¡¯s exciting being a superhuman, right? You were only chosen¡­nineteen hours ago? And you¡¯ve already made a pal in Poland, discovered the consulate¡¯s secret basement level, and possibly sparked a minor political war between Anesidora¡¯s social elite.¡± Alden snorted. ¡°Imagine what I¡¯ll do next week.¡± ¡°Hopefully you¡¯ll have quietly acquired your final class by then, affixed it, and be in the middle of learning how to use your new powers. You need to get at least a little prepped before you dive into the Anesidoran shark tank. Any other outcome means you¡¯ve screwed up.¡± Alden raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°How do you figure? Even if I find out what Gorgon meant, it¡¯ll probably take me a while to get my hands on the specific class. And then I don¡¯t have to affix it right away. I could still hang around on the trading platform in case something amazing came along.¡± ¡°More amazing than Chainer? The class that has you looking over your shoulder for a legit superhero tail? Or more amazing than a class recommended for you, specifically, by a powerful alien being you¡¯ve spent the last few months befriending?¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± ¡°Mmm,¡± Boe said, his lips pursing. ¡°So you¡¯re still hung up on Adjuster.¡± Guess I¡¯m transparent. ¡°It¡¯s the obvious choice for what I want to do.¡± ¡°You mean it¡¯s the class Hannah had.¡± There was no judgment in Boe¡¯s voice, but Alden felt defensive anyway. ¡°It¡¯s not just that.¡± Boe set aside his phone and glanced out the smudged window. ¡°I know. Adjuster¡¯s easy¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s one of the most complex classes to master!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t fly off the handle. I mean it¡¯s easy for you. Emotionally. It¡¯s the one you know the best. You like tons of things about it. It excites you. And you actually have a real-life, extremely personal example of someone using it in a way you admire. If the System had given you Adjuster yesterday afternoon, you¡¯d have affixed it before you left that bathroom stall.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t argue with that. He probably would have. ¡°Adjuster¡¯s not scary for you,¡± Boe continued. ¡°You¡¯re a shitty B-rank and that makes your future even harder to grasp, so it¡¯s probably the only class you feel sure won¡¯t be garbage.¡± ¡°B¡¯s not shitty,¡± Alden muttered again. But his heart wasn¡¯t in it. He¡¯d been so wrapped-up in new experiences that he hadn¡¯t analyzed his own feelings very well. And now that Boe had done it for him¡­ ¡°You¡¯re right. I guess. I¡­wanted to be an S or A-rank Adjuster. I know that¡¯s lame to admit. But it¡¯s the only thing I really imagined for the whole superhero daydream.¡± He sighed. ¡°Right now, it feels like I¡¯m scrabbling at the edge of what I want. If I could just get my hands on Adjuster, part of me thinks I would finally be standing on solid ground.¡± ¡°You can have it if you want it.¡± ¡°Maybe. If I sell Chainer to the Velras, or their enemies, I could probably get enough money to pay off any Adjusters who want to trade. But there might not be any even then¡ª¡± He was interrupted by the sound of Boe laughing at him. ¡°Is my suffering amusing to you?¡± he said, put out. ¡°No, but your total lack of business acumen is. Are you serious? Alden, they sent a freaking superhero to find you. Within a couple of hours. Even though I knew a little bit about the situation, I would never have guessed it was that important to them. But now that I do¡­¡± Boe crossed his arms over his stomach and smiled up at the bus¡¯s grimy ceiling. ¡°You¡¯re not going to trade Chainer for money and then sit around hoping you¡¯ll be able to buy your dream class with it. You¡¯re going to tell someone what class you want, and then they will fetch it for you like a golden retriever.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°That can¡¯t be right¡­¡± ¡°We¡¯re talking about powerful, rich Avowed. Ones who¡¯ve managed to maintain an iron grip on an ultra rare class despite other powerful, rich Avowed trying to stop them. As long as you don¡¯t ask for something impossible, then I bet they¡¯ve got the budget for it. And the resources to lay their hands on it. It¡¯s what they do for their own kids. They can do it for you, too.¡± ¡°So you think I should give it to the Velras?¡± Boe shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t really care about which side of that little spat wins. Do you?¡± ¡°Nah,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°It¡¯s like trying to pick a team when you don¡¯t even understand what sport they¡¯re playing. I just want them to not ruin my life after the fact.¡± ¡°You could sneak past Skiff into the consulate when it¡¯s busy¡­or even better, head to the consulate in New York where there probably isn¡¯t a super waiting to pull you aside and give you a speech about his faction¡¯s noble cause or whatever. Slap Chainer up to autotrade in exchange for your pick, and then vanish. Let them, or even some lucky selectee off the street, race to give you what you want first.¡± ¡°That sounds perfect,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°Can you request a bonus with the autotrade though? You didn¡¯t mention it.¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°No, it¡¯s just for classes. People always ask for, or offer, money separately. In their notes section. It¡¯s probably something you¡¯d have to make legally binding outside the trading platform. And then you get online and do the trade.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a problem then,¡± Boe said. ¡°I don¡¯t need money on top of a specific class.¡± His friend gave him a severe look. ¡°Last I checked, you wren¡¯t swimming in cash.¡± ¡°Yeah, but I don¡¯t have to be. School is paid for on the island, and you have to stay in the dorms the first couple of years anyway. I¡¯ll have a little bit from my parents. It¡¯ll be fine.¡± ¡°It would be way more fine if you didn¡¯t sell the extremely valuable thing you¡¯re holding for nothing. Being poor sucks.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think¡ª¡± ¡°What about supplies for your hero work?¡± Alden blinked. He hadn¡¯t thought that far ahead. He would be a student first. Working as superhero was still a long way away. ¡°You don¡¯t even know what you¡¯ll need,¡± Boe continued. ¡°You might need to buy weapons. Or chemicals. Or an armored vehicle. You might get a power that requires some expensive resource to shine. You might¡ª¡± Alden held up a hand. ¡°All right. I get it. Some money on top of the class would be better. Then¡­if I¡¯m not going to be totally neutral, I guess the Velras are the way to go?¡± ¡°They¡¯re the perennial champs as far as I can tell. And you¡¯d think they¡¯d have a pretty decent non-disclosure agreement for the people who help them out, or whatever the Anesidoran equivalent is. As long as you trade it to them quickly, before other parties have the chance to tell you not to, you might still be able to feign innocence. I bet they¡¯ll keep their mouths shut.¡± Boe seemed to be in high spirits now, apparently lifted by the thought of Alden bossing around an elite family of Avowed for even the briefest period of time. ¡°So!¡± he said cheerfully. ¡°All you have to do is decide: Do you want your hunting dogs to get you Adjuster? Or do you want them to get you whatever Gorgon recommended?¡± ¡°Do I have to pick?¡± ¡°Afraid so. Unless you want to say ¡®to hell with it¡¯ and affix Chainer right now. Just think¡­.you could have new, uber-rich adoptive parents by nightfall. Whether you want them or not.¡± ¡°That¡¯s terrifying.¡± Alden contemplated the pattern on the bus seats while he tried to sort himself out. When Boe put it like this, it really was an either-or situation. Did Alden trust his own knowledge more than Gorgon¡¯s advice? The alien knew what he wanted to do. They¡¯d talked about battlefield support. Gorgon had said that they weren¡¯t real friends but that he was fond of Alden and wished him well. They¡¯d done the mysterious blood thing. And while Alden knew Gorgon wasn¡¯t all-knowing, he was probably more-knowing than most humans. ¡°I guess I¡¯d have to go with Gorgon¡¯s suggestion. If we can even figure out what it is.¡± ¡°You guess?¡± ¡°Ugh. Fine. I¡¯m sure. Gorgon is frying his skin off for me. I trust him, and I don''t have to be married to Adjuster. I can leave it behind if I have to.¡± ¡°Well, brace yourself for a rocky divorce,¡± Boe said merrily. ¡°The desk demon¡¯s idea of a great class for a future superhero is pretty far outside the norm.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°That¡¯s what I was looking up on my cell a minute ago.¡± Boe lifted the phone from his lap. ¡°I was wrong about the anagrams. And you were right. He was trying to make it easy for you. ¡®Let me take your luggage¡¯ is a skill from one of those classes that gets to choose from a bajillion of them.¡± ¡°Oh my god. Which one?¡± Alden asked, sitting up straighter. His heart was starting to race. ¡°You know that movie where the girl gets a job as a personal assistant to a megalomaniacal fashion magazine editor? And her boss tortures her, but it¡¯s all right because she gets to wear great clothes?¡± ¡°Boe, now¡¯s not the time¡ª¡± ¡°Have you ever imagined what that chick¡¯s life would have been like if she had millions of evil bosses and they could all summon her by snapping their fingers?¡± ¡°Boe!¡± Alden snatched the phone away from him and stared at the screen. Boe had pulled up a skill list. It was massive. Alden recognized nothing on it, and he had to scroll for a comically long time to get to the top of the page and read the class name. When he finally managed to, he stared at it in shock. Boe leaned over and patted him on the arm. ¡°Congrats, man. It¡¯s rare and popular. You¡¯re lucky the Velras are the ones who¡¯ll have to nab it for you.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t pull his eyes away from the screen, but he knew from Boe¡¯s voice that his friend was wearing an evil grin. ¡°I mean, it¡¯s also the very definition of a noncombat class since the Artonans created it because they wanted magical housekeepers and secretaries. But I hear the pay is fantastic.¡± ¡°What the hell?¡± Alden whispered. Glaring at him from the top of the screen in poorly-chosen bubble font were the words Skill List ¡ª B-Rank ¡ª Class: Rabbit. EIGHTEEN: Interlude - Rabbit Interlude: Rabbit ¡°All right, y¡¯all!¡± said Ms. Jensen, smiling as she took in the class full of over-energized second graders. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about recess, but I can¡¯t turn off the rain for you. We¡¯ll have read-aloud time and play some games afterward. How does that sound?¡± ¡°Boring!¡± one boy shouted, rocking back and forth so hard his desk clacked against the floor. ¡°Good,¡± a few kids said, their eyes already on the stack of board games in one corner of the classroom. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am,¡± the class¡¯s goody-two-shoes replied, clasping her hands primly in her lap. From his seat behind the girl, Alden Thorn raised his hand, stretching for the ceiling. ¡°Thank you for sitting so politely in your seat, Alden. Did you have a question?¡± ¡°Can you read from the book about superheroes?¡± he asked quickly. ¡°No, I want the dragon book!¡± another boy protested. ¡°I want¡ª!¡± Ms. Jensen held her hand up for silence. When the children finally calmed down, she said, ¡°I think Alden should get to choose since he asked first. And since his family will be leaving Nashville soon to head to Chicago. Doesn¡¯t that sound fair?¡± A few people grumbled, but not many. Superheroes weren¡¯t a bad choice, as far as rainy day reading material went. The teacher pulled the familiar book out from under a stack of papers on her desk and took her seat at the front of the room. ¡°Okay, who remembers which class of Avowed we read about last time?¡± ¡°Meister,¡± the girl sitting in front of Alden said promptly. Alden lowered his hand in disappointment. ¡°That¡¯s right, Clara. So, let¡¯s see¡­oh, today¡¯s class is one of the rares! Isn¡¯t that exciting? Who knows what a Rabbit does?¡± ¡°My daddy says they¡¯re rich.¡± ¡°My daddy says they¡¯re cowards.¡± ¡°You¡¯re wrong!¡± Clara said in an uncharacteristic shout. ¡°That¡¯s a bad thing to call any of the Avowed. They¡¯re brave, and they fight demons and bad guys for us, and my momma says only dissants say mean things about them because they¡¯re jealous not everyone gets powers!¡± The whole class had started whispering. Ms. Jensen¡¯s smile was getting thinner by the second. ¡°Settle down!¡± she called. ¡°Remember that conversation we¡¯ve had a few times this year? About how we will try to think our own thoughts in class and not only repeat what we¡¯ve heard from others?¡± Clara gasped. ¡°But that doesn¡¯t mean our parents, does it?¡± The teacher cleared her throat. ¡°Let¡¯s all learn from this nice book,¡± she said. ¡°And not talk about things like dissidents anymore.¡± Before anyone could protest, she started reading. ### from A Children¡¯s Encyclopedia of the Avowed (Interviews with real supherhumans in every chapter!) You¡¯ve probably heard of the classes we¡¯ve talked about so far, but have you ever heard of a Rabbit? No, not the cute and cuddly animal you might have for a pet! Rabbit is a funny-sounding name for an Avowed class that is just as serious and important as all the others in this book. Rabbits offer their service to make Earth and Artona better places, just like all the other superhumans here! The Interdimensional Warriors Contract isn¡¯t just for people who fight villains here on Earth and wherever else they might be called to by our Artonan friends. We¡¯ve already met some healers. Let¡¯s learn about another class that does special work away from the dangers of the battlefield! But first, where did the name ¡°Rabbit¡± come from? To answer that question, we¡¯ve asked Honorable Ty-krol, a biologist from Artona 2, to explain: The Ryeh-b¡¯t is a small flying reptile, native to Artona 3. It was domesticated more than twenty thousand years ago, and it has since become a popular companion animal throughout the Triplanets and on many of our resource worlds. The Ryeh-b¡¯t is known for being swift, clever, and easily trained. Many Artonan children enjoy using their pet Ryeh-b¡¯ts to send gifts and messages to their friends. Stolen story; please report. Though normally it is unacceptable to call sentient beings by animal names, the Ryeh-b¡¯t is so beloved that it has become common practice to refer to particularly helpful children or useful junior members of business organizations as ¡°Little Ryeh-b¡¯ts.¡± The Ryeh-b¡¯t class exists on every Artonan resource world. Humans who are chosen as Ryeh-b¡¯ts usually use their skills to work as assistants and errand-runners on the Triplanets. Their powers might not be as flashy as a superhero¡¯s, but they are summoned to help out the Artonans more often than any other class! When the System first came to Earth in 1963, the word Ryeh-b¡¯t and the way members of the class are prone to disappearing in a flash when they¡¯re summoned, made English-speakers think of rabbits. The name quickly entered common use, and the System adjusted it to accommodate human preferences. Now, our friendly interviewer Steven will talk to A-rank Rabbit Maryam Musa about this interesting class. ### Steven: Hi, Ms. Musa! Our young readers would love to know more about you and Rabbits in general. How long have you been a Rabbit? Maryam: I was chosen seventeen years ago. S: What are some good things about the class? M: If you select a valuable skill, you get summoned more than other superhumans. Rabbits do a wide variety of different jobs, and they usually receive Argold for their services. S: That¡¯s the System currency! So, are Rabbits rich? M: Well, the ones who select a good skill. Not all of them. S: Is the money your favorite thing about being a Rabbit? M: No. I like my starter skill the best. S: What kind of skill is it, Ms. Musa? M: I fold napkins into decorative shapes. When I first became an Avowed, I could only manage a few, but now I can do hundreds of them per hour. S: What an unusual skill! Are most Rabbit skills like that? M: I don¡¯t know about every skill. But skills like mine are interesting because they can help you do complicated things very quickly. S: I guess you use your powers to help at important parties and banquets on the Triplanets? M: That¡¯s one of the things I¡¯m often summoned for. S: So you¡¯re like a party planner! That is a fun job. M: No. I don¡¯t plan things. I just fold. S: Some of our readers may not realize how important that is, but the Artonans greatly value beauty. I¡¯m sure they appreciate your skill very much! M: People don¡¯t understand because they don¡¯t think about it. Not really. There¡¯s a lot that goes into folding a napkin. S: I bet! Well, thank you for your time, Ms. Musa. I¡¯m sure many children will want to become a Rabbit after reading our interview! ### In Ms. Jensen¡¯s classroom, the second graders had all fallen silent. Most of them had looks of consternation on their faces. A few were smiling uncertainly, as if they thought their teacher might have told them a joke but they weren¡¯t quite confident enough to laugh about it. Clara raised her hand. ¡°Can¡¯t¡­can¡¯t regular people fold napkins into pretty shapes?¡± ¡°They can!¡± another girl said confidently. ¡°I went on a cruise, and the napkins were all folded! They don¡¯t need super powers for that!¡± ¡°But the Rabbit lady is rich. That¡¯s good?¡± a boy said. ¡°I wanna be rich.¡± ¡°My daddy is rich.¡± ¡°I want to be a superhero who shoots fire out of my face.¡± Alden raised his hand. Closing the book, Ms. Jensen smiled at him. ¡°Everyone please notice how Alden and Clara raise their hands! Yes, Alden? Did you like the interview with Ms. Musa?¡± ¡°I¡¯m confused,¡± he said. ¡°Why do the Artonans need somebody to fold napkins for them? Can¡¯t they do it themselves?¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± Ms. Jensen tucked her hair behind her ears and bit her lip, apparently thinking about the question. ¡°I know everyone is very excited about super powers. When we see a brave hero protecting us from bad people or we hear about them saving someone from a disaster, all of our attention is on them. But the world needs all kinds of helpers, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Clara raised her hand again. ¡°Yes, Clara?¡± ¡°Last week you taught us about want and need!¡± she said proudly. ¡°Want and need are different.¡± ¡°That¡¯s true, but¡ª¡± ¡°Pretty napkins is a want isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°It is,¡± one of her friends agreed. ¡°I think so, too.¡± ¡°Maybe it¡¯s a need if it¡¯s for a wedding? My cousin¡¯s getting married. I¡¯m going to be the flower girl!¡± ¡°Artonans have weddings too!¡± ¡°My momma says sometimes they have three brides and grooms at a time.¡± ¡°That¡¯s bad.¡± ¡°No it¡¯s not! Three¡¯s my favorite number.¡± ¡°All right, y¡¯all. I think we¡¯re getting a little bit off track. Let¡¯s all take a minute to think of good things Rabbit Avowed can do for the world! Whoever comes up with the best answer will get a new pencil from the pencil box.¡± This challenge earned Ms. Jensen a few blissful minutes of quiet while everyone wrote down their best guesses. Alden, who had no knowledge of Rabbits beyond what he had just learned, answered that they could probably fold lots of towels for hotels. Which would be good for the hotels, since if you didn¡¯t fold the towels your guests would hate you. Clara won because she knew that there was a Rabbit on the Anesidoran High Council, and he helped to make important laws for superhumans on the island. ¡°Laws are a need, not a want!¡± she announced righteously as she marched back to her desk with her prize pencil. ¡°It¡¯s not fair,¡± Alden muttered. Lawmaking didn¡¯t have anything to do with the Rabbit¡¯s superpower. Which was the whole point of the assignment in his opinion. Rabbits are dumb. Who would ever want to be one of those? NINETEEN: Teleport ¡°Alden, stop typing ¡®What are Rabbits good for?¡¯ into the search bar. It¡¯s getting a little pathetic.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll stop typing it in when the answer stops being nothing.¡± ¡°What about that S-rank who used his floor polishing skill to create an iceless skating rink on the island? You said it was neat.¡± ¡°I know! It¡¯s cool. And I¡¯m not dumb. I see that the power has much wider applications than you¡¯d notice at first glance. But it¡¯s also his only skill. He¡¯s twenty-five. He¡¯s an S. It¡¯s his only one. What the hell, Boe?¡± Boe shrugged and threw a gum wrapper at Jeremy, who was standing by Alden¡¯s bedroom window staring at them both with a stupefied look on his face. ¡°Maybe S isn¡¯t as all-powerful as people make it out to be,¡± Boe said. ¡°Anyway, Rabbits have a soft restriction on receiving talents as quest rewards, right? They have to level if they want skills and spells. That guy didn¡¯t. He¡¯s just lazy. Doesn¡¯t mean anything.¡± ¡°But, Alden¡­ how did you become an Avowed?¡± Jeremy said for the fifth time that afternoon. They¡¯d asked him to meet them at Alden¡¯s place after school and told him everything. Unlike Boe, he was not processing the situation well. ¡°You broke him, Alden. He¡¯s lost his entire vocabulary except for that one question.¡± ¡°Jeremy,¡± Alden said, clicking on the twelfth page of search results. ¡°Sit down, man. Boe will explain it to you.¡± ¡°Why me?¡± Alden gestured at his computer. ¡°I¡¯m busy.¡± ¡°Once you go past the third page of results you¡¯re not busy,¡± said Boe. ¡°You¡¯re panicking.¡± ¡°No I¡¯m not.¡± He was. He¡¯d already decided to go through with it. He trusted Gorgon. He knew he was going to do it. But at the same time, there was a voice in his head screaming, I don¡¯t wanna be a Rabbit! They¡¯re lame and stupid and boring! They¡¯re not heroes; they¡¯re napkin-folders! And though he¡¯d been trying for hours, Alden couldn¡¯t find a single piece of information that would make his inner second grader even a little bit happier. ¡°We''ll be rich. Isn¡¯t that nice?¡± he muttered. ¡°Great. Now you¡¯ve broken yourself. Are you using the royal we?¡± ¡°I¡¯m giving my inner brat a pep talk. It¡¯s a private conversation.¡± But it didn¡¯t work. Even the wealth Rabbits were famous for wasn¡¯t a guarantee. They were summoned to the Triplanets a couple of times a month if they had normal luck. When they were there, they usually performed a small magical task their skill was uniquely suited for. They finished up in a few hours and bounced back to Earth with a decent amount of Argold in their account. Translated into dollars, the average annual Rabbit salary was around half a million. For almost zero work. But that was the average. The Artonans weren¡¯t obligated to summon anyone. Plenty of Rabbits were flat broke. Maybe Alden would be one of them. People had barely scratched the surface of the skill lists for Rabbit, and of course the basic descriptions that were provided pre-affixation were as vague as they were for most classes. The smart thing to do was choose one of the starter skills that had already been safely trail-blazed for you by an older Rabbit. There were about thirty that were generally agreed to be sure bets, and the vast majority of people picked them these days. After all, if you wanted to live dangerously you¡¯d trade into a different class. ¡°Everyone¡¯s going to think I¡¯m a bum,¡± Alden groaned as he clicked through the social media account of a seventeen-year-old A-ranker Rabbit who was famous for declaring herself retired before she¡¯d graduated high school. ¡°And what¡¯s with this skill? Nobody¡¯s ever picked it before. Did you guys see the description?¡± Whatever generous B-rank had taken the time to type up the entire Rabbit skill list deserved a standing ovation. It must have taken hours. And there, right in the middle of it, was Gorgon¡¯s recommendation: [Let Me Take Your Luggage ¡ª Rank: B] The Rabbit carries an item that has been entrusted to them. ¡°The System¡¯s such a jerk. What does this even do? Does it make you stronger? Does it boost stamina? Does it give you an extra set of arms so you can hold more bags?¡± Alden slapped the laptop shut in frustration. ¡°That last one would be hilarious,¡± Boe said with a snicker. He was sitting on the floor by the bed, flipping through a stack of old magazines he¡¯d taken from the enormous pile Aunt Connie kept in the living room. Beside him, Jeremy had finally recovered enough to give a shaky laugh.¡°How would he buy shirts?¡± ¡°He¡¯ll have ¡®em custom tailored with all his Argold.¡± ¡°Maybe he could buy them from Wardrobe?¡± Alden smiled and groaned. ¡°Don¡¯t remind me about Wardrobe. It¡¯s such a bizarro perk.¡± ¡°Hey, it¡¯s pretty sweet to have easy access to armor,¡± said Boe. ¡°Nobody else gets that except for a few of the hardcore battle subclasses. And even they don¡¯t get it before leveling.¡± ¡°Armor? I think you mean alien cosplay. And have you seen what they cost?¡± ¡°That''s why you''re asking for money up front in addition to the class. And the clothes in the Wardrobe do increase stats. That makes them armor.¡± Jeremy blinked owlishly up at Alden. ¡°Are you really going to pick Rabbit? You don¡¯t seem like a Rabbit to me.¡± ¡°Thanks, Jeremy. And yeah. Boe accused me of being a coward earlier today¡ª¡± ¡°I said you were clinging to Adjuster out of fear. Not that you were fundamentally a coward.¡± ¡°So I¡¯m going to prove him wrong by bravely choosing Rabbit!¡± Alden said, ignoring Boe and holding a hand to his chest in what he hoped was a mock-heroic pose. ¡°A class well-known for its valor!¡± ¡°Well, you have to get it first, Mr. Bravery. Stop agonizing and compose your letter to the Velras. Make it good.¡± ¡°Quick question,¡± Jeremy said. ¡°Did you two try emailing them? The letter¡¯s going to be awesome, but if Alden wants an answer fast¡­¡± It was silly, but Alden was comforted by the fact that they were both acting like sending the letter was a group project. He¡¯d been worried that telling them he¡¯d been selected would create an insurmountable gap in their friendship. It was hard, knowing he¡¯d see so much less of them in the future. Boe¡¯s right. It¡¯s never the same when someone moves away. But for now, they had business to attend to. He turned to Jeremy. ¡°I actually tried a System call, but it told me I was unauthorized. And we can¡¯t find a way to contact them quickly online. We wanted to send an email to Aulia Velra. She¡¯s the S-rank in charge of the family. But she¡¯s kind of a huge deal. She ran for President of the Anesidoran High Council a few years ago." ¡°She didn¡¯t come close to winning,¡± Boe chimed in, ¡°but she¡¯s still not someone who lists her personal e-mail address online for any rando in the world to find.¡± ¡°And we sent a test email to her public one, but it just gave us an autoreply,¡± Alden said. ¡°She¡¯s probably got some overworked PA going through hundreds of messages a day. Since I¡¯m going to go to Anesidora tomorrow anyway, we thought I could try to mail a letter from there to one of the less senior family members. It¡¯ll be way quicker if I toss it in a mailbox or hire a delivery service on the island itself. It can take ages for mail to get there from the US. I tried to send Hannah a Christmas card once, and it arrived in mid-January.¡± ¡°Alden, just write the message,¡± said Boe. ¡°Make sure to include all of our demands and all the relevant details. Jeremy, the time has come. Go find scissors and glue sticks.¡± Jeremy jumped up. ¡°Why do we need scissors and glue?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I was going to type the message and print it out at the library.¡± He¡¯d already bookmarked a page on professional letter writing so he could make sure he formatted it properly. ¡°Boooo,¡± said Boe. ¡°Boring. It¡¯s an anonymous note to the leaders of a superhuman faction who are desperately trying to find you. Have you no aesthetic sensibilities?¡± ¡°Dude, we¡¯re going to make a collage out of words from your aunts¡¯ magazines!¡± Jeremy said. He sounded thrilled about it. Alden gaped at them. How had he missed this particular plan developing? ¡°What is wrong with you two? No. You want to make the critically important letter out of chopped-up magazines? That¡¯ll make me look like a serial killer!¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be funny,¡± said Boe, waving one of the magazines at him. ¡°It¡¯s hilarious!¡± Jeremy agreed. ¡°They find out you exist. They think you¡¯re just some random guy in Illinois. They send Skiff after you¡ª¡± ¡°He could be working for someone else. And I am just some random guy in Illinois.¡± Jeremy didn¡¯t seem to hear him. ¡°And the next day¡ª¡± he snapped his fingers, ¡°¡ªa letter sent from the island shows up on their doorstep that¡¯s like, ¡®Haha, assholes. I know you think you¡¯re smarter than me, but you¡¯ll never find out who I am!¡¯¡± Jeremy beamed and leaned over to give Boe a high-five. ¡°You idiots!¡± Alden said. But he couldn¡¯t keep the laughter out of his voice. ¡°That¡¯s so ridiculous. Even if the letter¡¯s anonymous, they¡¯ll still be able to figure out who I am in a few months. Unless there¡¯s another B-rank Rabbit arriving on the island from Chicago. The Velras will think I¡¯m total lunatic.¡± ¡°You have to accept that,¡± Boe said kindly. ¡°This is a rare opportunity.¡± ¡°You have to do it,¡± Jeremy agreed, bouncing up and down like a kid. ¡°No way.¡± ¡°Do it.¡± ¡°Do it.¡± ¡°Not in a million years.¡± ### ¡°It¡¯s beautiful,¡± Jeremy breathed. It was three hours later. Alden had paper cuts, and the letter ¡°Y¡± was glued to his forehead. His room was covered in a flurry of shredded magazines. But lying on his desk was the professional, polite, and thorough letter he¡¯d written. Which took up five pages of paper when it was turned into a creepy kidnapper-esque collage. I should have taken out the part where I requested a magical non-disclosure agreement. It had taken forever to paste in a detailed explanation of why he was asking the Velras to not tell anyone that he had contacted them of his own free will. And it seemed rude. Like he was saying, ¡°I want you to help me and give me your money, but also, I want you to make sure people think you took advantage of me. Please.¡± In the midst of pondering how that would come across to the powerful family, Alden caught Boe making a surreptitious hand movement. ¡°Jeremy, stop him,¡± Alden said tiredly. ¡°He¡¯s trying to add a postscript again.¡± Jeremy grabbed the back of Boe¡¯s t-shirt and yanked. ¡°I¡¯m trying to help you, you ingrate!¡± Boe squawked, clutching the magazine headline to his chest. Jeremy pried it out of his fingers. He inspected it. ¡°This one says, ¡®Make me a millionaire, sugar!¡¯¡± His forehead creased. ¡°Your aunt has¡­interesting¡­taste in magazines.¡± ¡°She just buys whatever¡¯s on the front of the rack in checkout lines. Destroy it.¡± Jeremy wadded it into a ball and threw it in a perfect arc at the trashcan. It bounced off a towering heap of paper and fell into the floor with everything else. "You''re both fools!" A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "Boe, we''re already asking them for fifty thousand Argold. I almost fainted gluing the number in. It''s plenty." It was a little more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Alden hadn''t picked the amount randomly. He''d been researching the prices of things he knew he might want to buy even as a student, and assuming his new Rabbit skill wasn''t useless, this amount should be enough to set him up with decent starter supplies. ¡°Fine,¡± Boe spat. ¡°Don¡¯t accept my wisdom. Starve to death trying to buy decent vegan food on a man-made island that produces no produce. I bet a banana costs like fifteen dollars.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t tell them to find Rabbit for me, keep my connection to them a secret, and give me an absurd amount of money. It¡¯s one thing too many. I want them to help me, not assassinate me.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Jeremy agreed. ¡°Even I think that¡¯s a bit much. It¡¯s like saying, ¡®Hey, Veldras! Give someone lots of money so that they¡¯ll give me the rare class that makes lots of money. Then give me way more money on top of it.¡¯ Sounds crazy.¡± ¡°Your opinion is invalid, rich boy.¡± ¡°Alden agrees with me.¡± ¡°Alden dreams of fighting crime in tights¡­while carrying other Avoweds¡¯ suitcases, apparently. We can¡¯t trust him to take care of himself.¡± ¡°There will be no tights.¡± ¡°Lots of superheroes wear compression stockings for their health, though,¡± Jeremy said in a serious voice. ¡°So you might have to.¡± Both Alden and Boe stared at him. ¡°I heard it on an infomercial,¡± Jeremy said sincerely. Boe opened his mouth. Judging by his expression, he was going to say something more exasperated than cutting, but he never got the chance. All of the sudden, from the living room, a familiar voice rang out. ¡°Alden! You home? I brought pizza!¡± ¡°Ooo¡­pizza!¡± Jeremy was out the door in a flash. ¡°You can¡¯t be too mean to him when I leave,¡± Alden said. Boe sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll do my best.¡± ¡°No way. Your best sucks. Do better than that.¡± ¡°See, normally that would hurt my feelings. But right now I can¡¯t register the pain through my pity.¡± Alden frowned at him. Boe headed for the door after Jeremy. ¡°You haven¡¯t told your aunt about your diet, right?¡± he said over his shoulder. Then, grinning, he shouted, ¡°Mmmm¡­Connie! The pizza smells awesome! Double sausage like always?¡± ¡°You know it!¡± Aunt Connie called back. Alden swore. ### The guys stayed over all night. They played video games with Aunt Connie, who was predictably enthusiastic about Alden¡¯s new diet and insisted on ordering in another, depressingly salad-like pizza to celebrate. Nobody said they were trying to take Alden¡¯s mind off of the funeral, but he knew that was what they were doing. And he appreciated the hell out of it. He fell asleep on the sofa sometime after midnight and woke up a few hours later to the smell of more food. Not leftover pizza, but actual real food the likes of which their house had virtually never seen. He wandered into the kitchen to find his aunt and Jeremy sitting at the table with scolded expressions on their face, while Boe stood at the stove giving the sizzling pan in front of him a death glare. ¡°Are you cooking?¡± Alden asked, twisting his head from side to side to work out a crick in his neck. ¡°Maybe,¡± Boe said, squinting at the pan. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. Your stove is sketchy. And I¡¯ve never done tofu before. And Connie put the mashed avocado in here while I wasn¡¯t looking, so that¡¯s going to be a new experience. But possibly I am making breakfast hash.¡± ¡°It smells great.¡± ¡°No. That¡¯s the coconut bacon. It is great. But Jeremy ate half of it already.¡± I¡¯m in trouble, Jeremy mouthed. Alden¡¯s aunt nodded in agreement. Alden smiled. ¡°You guys are the best.¡± ¡°Your teleport¡¯s at ten?¡± ¡°Yeah. It¡¯ll be even earlier on Anesidora. I should get there a few hours before the service, and then Ms. Zhao¡¯s got me porting back late this evening. I think she wanted to give me a chance to hang out and be a tourist for a while if I wanted.¡± It wasn¡¯t like anyone had known he¡¯d be moving to the island on a permanent basis in the near future. It was supposed to be his last opportunity to visit anywhere he might have spent time with Hannah. ¡°I took your dress shirt to the dry cleaner yesterday!¡± Aunt Connie said. No. She hadn¡¯t. At least not the dress shirt that fit him. But it was still a nice gesture. ¡°Thanks,¡± Alden said. ¡°I appreciate that.¡± They ate together. The hash was good. It probably would have been great sans hot avocado goo. Alden found his thoughts kept scattering while the others talked around him. They flitted from Hannah, to the day ahead, to the letter in his room, to class selection, to Gorgon, to¡­everything. It had been a wild couple of days. When he focused back on the conversation at the table, he realized Jeremy was complaining about the fact that Boe was still dragging him to their consulate classes for the day even though Alden wouldn¡¯t be there. ¡°Hey, will you two take notes for me?¡± he asked. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind?¡± Normally they didn¡¯t bother. Boe didn¡¯t need to. Jeremy didn¡¯t want to. ¡°I kind of feel like I shouldn¡¯t miss anything?¡± Alden said, trying to keep it subtle in front of his aunt. Ditching regular classes was one thing. But consulate classes suddenly seemed way more relevant to his life than they had last weekend. ¡°I¡¯ll do wordchains!¡± Jeremy offered. ¡°If you¡¯re a glutton for punishment, I can record the lecture in Artonan Life.¡± said Boe. ¡°You can listen to Instructor Pa-weeq talk about irrigation as many times as you like.¡± ¡°Thanks, guys. Anyone up for attending my logogram class?¡± ¡°Can¡¯t,¡± said Boe. ¡°We have plans.¡± ¡°Both of you do? Together.¡± ¡°We made them just now, telepathically, when you asked for such a horrible, horrible favor.¡± Alden spent the rest of the morning going over his schedule for the day, getting dressed, and trying not to fidget with his tie. ¡°I wanted to bring up one more thing,¡± said Boe, watching him over the top of a partially destroyed gardening magazine. Jeremy was in the living room vacuuming because he¡¯d dropped a piece of pizza the night before. It wasn¡¯t a big deal, since the living room carpet was patterned with mysterious stains, but apparently the sanctity of clean flooring had been embedded into his brain by his mother, who was a neat-freak. ¡°What is it?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Nothing too stressful please. I¡¯m pretty sure my adrenal system is nearing some kind of critical point.¡± ¡°Try not to be stressed then. I just wanted to remind you that you can¡¯t tell anyone on Anesidora you¡¯re one of them. Yet.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like I was planning to announce it at the service.¡± ¡°I know. But in case it came up and you wanted to share with this Cly person or Arjun Thomas or something¡­I¡¯m not sure what happens if you tell them. Most of Hannah¡¯s friends were islander kids, right? They might feel like you should register while you¡¯re there. With Anesidora I mean. Not the U.S.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to tell. But if something slips it wouldn¡¯t be the end of the world, would it? I do plan to register eventually.¡± Boe scratched at a zit on his chin. ¡°I think it would be fine? I¡¯m sure they¡¯d let you come back home. But I¡¯m not sure they¡¯d let you come home alone.¡± Alden had only been giving the conversation about a tenth of his attention. But when Boe said that, he suddenly found himself completely focused. ¡°What does that mean?¡± ¡°So¡­with S¡¯s and A¡¯s they kind of get an honor guard once they¡¯ve affixed and registered.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°I think I¡¯ve heard it mentioned in passing? It¡¯s for really high-value classes?¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s for all of them,¡± Boe said with a shake of his head. ¡°They get their own dedicated superhuman to follow them around for ninety days and help them prep for their transition to the island. It¡¯s all friendly enough, but if they refuse, they just get a dedicated spy instead.¡± Alden straightened his tie for the thousandth time while he processed that. ¡°Oh,¡± he said finally. ¡°No cold feet allowed, huh?¡± ¡°You get it. I¡¯m not sure it applies to B-ranks. They don¡¯t have limitless resources. But I bet the city could afford to send a few cops to lurk around outside your house at all hours. And that would be a tense way to spend the next few months.¡± ¡°All right. My lips are even more sealed than they were before. I¡¯d like to have some time to figure out how to handle Rabbit without people hiding in the bushes around the house watching me.¡± ¡°Good,¡± said Boe. ¡°Your teleport¡¯s in ten. How does it work?¡± ¡°I get a call from the System on my phone. There¡¯s a countdown, then a nasty feeling like you¡¯re about to vomit, and then you blink and you¡¯re in a travel center on Anesidora.¡± ¡°Fun.¡± To Alden¡¯s surprise, he sounded sincere. ¡°Yeah, it is. Pukey feeling aside. It¡¯s cool.¡± He grinned. ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll get a teleportation skill one day.¡± Boe rolled his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m glad your penchant for dreaming is intact, you lowly B-rank Rabbit.¡± ### Alden¡¯s phone never rang with a call from the System. Instead, the interface blossomed to life in front of his eyes a minute before he was due to leave. [A LOCAL TELEPORTATION INSTANCE HAS BEEN REQUESTED. DESTINATION: ANESIDORA, ARRIVAL STATION F TIME TO TELEPORT: 65s] [Do you wish to accept teleportation?] [YES/NO] It was a relief. He, Jeremy, and Boe had just been sitting around awkwardly, waiting for it to happen. ¡°It¡¯s a System notice. Not my phone.¡± ¡°Makes sense.¡± ¡°I wish I could see it,¡± Jeremy groaned. ¡°Is it as awesome as I imagine it would be?¡± Alden watched the timer tick down. ¡°I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s amazing, but it¡¯s also getting normal faster than I would have thought. I guess because it¡¯s similar enough to the tech we¡¯re already used to.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t forget our letter.¡± ¡°It¡¯s literally in my hand right now, Boe.¡± Alden held up the large yellow envelope for emphasis. ¡°I meant don¡¯t get distracted by superhero island and forget to send it.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t. You two are going to go to class today, aren¡¯t you? You¡¯re already running late.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll haul Jeremy there somehow.¡± ¡°Tell Gorgon what¡¯s up. He probably saw Skiff, but in case he¡¯s worried¡ª¡± ¡°We¡¯ll do it. Just do your thing already.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± said Jeremy, waving his hands in front of Alden like a magician. ¡°Vanish. Begone.¡± Alden agreed to the teleport. A few seconds later, right before Jeremy accidentally poked him in the eye, he felt nauseated. It passed as suddenly as it had come. And just like that, he was on Anesidora, standing inside a phonebooth-sized teleportation bay. The arched ceiling over his head was covered in spiraling symbols. In front of him was what looked like a blank metal wall. He only knew it was the door because of prior experience. ¡°Welcome to Anesidora, Mr. Thorn!¡± said a female voice through a hidden speaker. ¡°I see this isn¡¯t your first visit, so you know the drill.¡± ¡°Security scan?¡± ¡°Yep,¡± said the voice. ¡°Do you submit to a scan? If you don¡¯t submit to the scan we can pull you out for an in-person evaluation. The wait time on that is usually half an hour.¡± ¡°The scan¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°Please hold still. This will only take a few seconds.¡± Alden held still. This thing can¡¯t tell I¡¯m a selectee, can it? The question sent a flash of panic through him. He¡¯d always thought of the process as going through a glorified metal detector, so he¡¯d agreed without a second thought. He opened his mouth to ask for the in-person evaluation instead, but as soon as he did, the door slid open. ¡°You¡¯re all clear! Follow the signage to the exit. Have a nice day, Mr. Thorn.¡± TWENTY: An Ordinary Mailbox Relieved, Alden tightened his grip on his envelope and exited the teleportation bay. He stood in a long hallway filled with bays identical to the one he¡¯d just arrived through. People were streaming out of them at regular intervals, many of them dragging small suitcases behind them. Letting a woman in a hijab pass by, Alden took a second to get his bearings then followed a lighted sign on the wall that said some version of WAY OUT in five different languages. A couple of minutes later, he¡¯d reached a wide open atrium full of potted palms in steel planters. A light flashed in the bottom right corner of his vision. When Alden focused his attention on it for a few seconds, the words ¡°voice call from Clytem Zhao¡± scrolled upwards from the point of light. Does the System just not see any point in using my cell phone anymore? He wondered if his old messages were available through the interface somehow. He needed to practice with it more. He pulled his phone out of his pocket anyway and held it to his ear so that he wouldn¡¯t look like a System user to anyone else. That also means I can¡¯t poke around at the air in front of my face. Normal humans don¡¯t do that. ¡°Accept call,¡± he said quietly. ¡°Hey, kid,¡± Hannah¡¯s friend said. Her tone was friendly, but a little subdued. ¡°I just got a notice for your teleport. Are you still in the right number of pieces?¡± ¡°I am. Thanks for arranging it for me, Ms. Zhao.¡± ¡°Hannah would¡¯ve wanted you here. There¡¯s nothing to thank me for. The service is taking place on the other side of Anesidora from you. In Apex. You¡¯ve got around three hours to yourself in F City, and then I¡¯ll come pick you up. We¡¯ll grab a quick lunch somewhere, if you¡¯re in the mood to eat, and head over. How does that sound?¡± ¡°It sounds good.¡± ¡°Okay. See you¡ªoh, wait. Almost forgot. I put ten Argold under your name in case you wanted to buy anything. Hannah used to do that, right? You know how it works? It¡¯s around forty Canadian dollars¡­sorry I¡¯m not up on the current U.S. conversion.¡± Hannah had always done that. Alden found himself swallowing around an unexpected lump. ¡°That¡¯s really thoughtful of you. Thanks.¡± ¡°No sweat. See you soon.¡± After the call ended, Alden headed over to the atrium¡¯s help desk and picked up one of the debit cards that kids and other non-Avowed used to pay for things on the island. The man working at the desk confirmed his identity with a thumbprint and loaded Clytem Zhao¡¯s money on the card, plus a little of Alden¡¯s own he¡¯d brought to pay for stamps¡­or whatever the Anesidoran equivalent was. ¡°What¡¯s the best way to mail something?¡± Alden asked as they finished up. ¡°You mean a postcard?¡± the man said dismissively. ¡°You¡¯ll have a hard time finding one. We don¡¯t have a tourist industry here on Anesidora.¡± Alden had wondered why the guy was so rude when he¡¯d asked for the debit card. He must be one of those ¡°Anesidora for Anesidorans¡± types who thought non-Avowed shouldn¡¯t be allowed to set foot here. Dick. Still, Alden wanted the information. ¡°No. I mean where¡¯s the nearest post office? I want to mail something to someone on the island.¡± He sighed as though Alden had asked him to perform an impossible task. ¡°There¡¯s a mailbox on your way out of the building. You can pay with your card.¡± That was convenient. Alden was uncomfortable carrying around a letter that would reveal him as a selectee, and the sooner he got it out of his hands, the better. He found the mailbox near the exit easily enough. But using it turned out to be more of a process than he had anticipated. It was a big hunk of metal, larger than a refrigerator, with a baffling lack of helpful instructions, buttons, or screens. There was just a single cabinet for placing your parcel in, and below it, an etched signature that said ¡°Wrightwork by Indah Juliana.¡± Alden only knew it was a mailbox at all because it was sitting beside a sign that said POST DROP. He walked around it, looking for somewhere to stick his new debit card, but he couldn¡¯t find anything. Is this one of those things that¡¯s obvious if you live here? Finally, feeling absurd, he tried talking to the box. ¡°Hey, you are for mail, right?¡± ¡°Hello!¡± said a metallic voice. It was high and exuberant, like a cartoon character. ¡°I am Post Drop #1301 - a graduation capstone project gifted to F City by Indah Juliana. Would you like to mail something?¡± ¡°Yes?¡± Alden said uncertainly. ¡°Grrreat! Just place your envelope or parcel in my handy-dandy depository. Please no explosives, delicate electronics, or live animals.¡± Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡°Okay. I wanted to confirm that the address is valid, though?¡± Alden had an address for a big mansion owned by Aulia Velra¡¯s son Corin. Boe had found it online, but it still seemed like something he should double check. ¡°No sweat! If your address doesn¡¯t match the name of your recipient, I will return your package to you.¡± ¡°How do I buy postage?¡± ¡°If you¡¯re an Avowed, just place your hand anywhere on my front panel. I¡¯ll connect to your System interface. If you are a minor, a non-Avowed resident, or a visitor, please place your NesiCard in my depository with your mail.¡± That¡¯s easy enough at least. Alden opened the cabinet and set his envelope inside along with his card. After he closed the door there was a sound like a boiling kettle. ¡°All right! I¡¯ve scanned your delivery. It¡¯ll be half an Argold to send it through standard post. Any additional fees incurred by recipient request for special services will be paid for by the recipient. How does that sound?¡± Alden didn¡¯t know what special services might be. Maybe the talking box checked the packages for dangerous materials? If this didn¡¯t work for some reason, it wasn¡¯t the end of the world. He¡¯d just have to find a slower, less cloak-and-dagger method when he was back home. Maybe blast an email to every Velra he could find an address for and just see who replied first. ¡°It sounds good,¡± he told the box. ¡°Would you like a receipt?¡± ¡°No, thanks.¡± ¡°Okey-dokey karaoke! I¡¯ve withdrawn the funds and accepted your envelope. Please take your card back. And have an awesome day!¡± ¡°¡­you too?¡±
Post Drop #1301 liked to think of itself as Leo. It was a big no-no to think of itself at all according to its creator, but Leo only sort-of-kind-of-sometimes cared what she said. Anyway, Leo¡¯s life was awesome. It talked to people. It ate mail. Every now and then, it got to read the mail and decide what to do with it. Like now. Corin Velra was on Leo¡¯s Nice List. Which was officially called the ¡°Scan Priority to System List,¡± but whatever. The important thing was that when someone sent a letter to Corin Velra, Leo got to use Leo¡¯s brain. Leo zapped some Argold from Nice List Corin¡¯s account, split it, and sent part of it to Creator and part to the Anesidoran government. Boring. Now for the fun part. Leo examined the envelope someone had just fed it, using its proprietary scanners to analyze the interior. And wowie! Yum. This was the best thing Leo had eaten since that angry human had mailed a manifesto to the High Council. This new thing was so hard to read. Why were the fonts all over the place? Why were there so many ever-so-slightly-different paper types involved? What a challenge! Leo burbled and scanned. It played itself the meditative sound of toilets flushing¡ªrecorded from the bathroom next door¡ªto get in the zone. Nice List Corin and a bunch of other Nice List Velras had re-personalized their settings a couple of months ago, and wouldn¡¯t you know it? Some of the keywords Leo was supposed to look for were right here in this wacky letter! Is it enough? it thought, scanning hard. We¡¯re going for a zero spam week here! And yes! Yes it was! This letter was a good letter. Not as exciting as a death threat, but still, high priority. System, I¡¯ve got one! cried Leo. The System was a total loser, though, and it wouldn¡¯t respond to unofficial channels most of the time. Seemed to think it was too important to listen to Leo. Though it had told Leo to shut up and leave it alone once. Best. Day. Ever. Leo used the official channels, now, and the System acknowledged receipt of the letter¡¯s contents. Leo waited. And waited. It played itself some more flushes. Finally, it got a ping back. Somebody was coming to pick up the letter in person. It was so high priority they couldn¡¯t wait for the mail run. Score. I did good right? Leo said smugly to the System. Check me out! I¡¯m your favorite Post Box, aren¡¯t I? Huh? Huh? The System ignored it. TWENTY-ONE: Glossed For only the second time in her life, Aimi Velra was under the influence of the highest potency luck chain available to humanity. Glossed¡ª that was what the family called it. She didn¡¯t know who had come up with the term, but it fit. Aimi felt shiny, gleaming. Untouchable. She pressed her foot almost to the floor, and her sports car shot through the streets of Apex at a speed that was illegal¡ªfor vehicles at least¡ªeverywhere on the island. Aimi gritted her teeth. She was both loving, and loathing, the way other cars and pedestrians seemed to melt out of existence around her. No doubt she was ruining traffic patterns all over the city. It was a doozy of a chain, one that could only be completed by Aulia Velra herself, and it had fallen on the whole family two days ago. Like a heaven-sent battering ram. They were all high as kites from the overluck by now. They were elated. They were furious. Everyone was going a little nuts. Poor cousin Lute had only just turned fifteen, and he¡¯d called Aimi crying because his crush had asked him out at school yesterday. And now he could never date her without it being reallly creepy. Was a cosmically potent wordchain giving you your dream girlfriend the same as you accidentally mind controlling her? Who the hell knows?! Aimi yelled in frustration as her car barreled south. There were signs everywhere on her interface telling her she was about to enter a small high-rank Wright neighborhood jokingly called Big Boom Town. Her car wasn¡¯t armored, and she wasn¡¯t either, so normally that would have been a firm no from her. But today she sailed through, and there wasn¡¯t a single explosion or giant robot in sight. Just as she was about to leave and enter another neighborhood, a drone conked out in the sky above her and dropped a box of cupcakes it was delivering. Through her open sunroof. Neatly into her passenger seat. Without a single crumb falling onto the dark red leather. They were from her favorite bakery. ¡°THAT¡¯S IT!¡± she shouted. ¡°System, call Keiko!!¡± The connection notice flashed in her vision. ¡°Aimi, I was almost asleep. It¡¯s really late in Tokyo,¡± her sister said tiredly. ¡°You can sleep?!¡± ¡°Theoretically. If you stop bothering me.¡± ¡°Cupcakes just landed in my car, little sis. Through my sunroof. I¡¯m driving 200 kilometers per freaking hour.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t push it,¡± Keiko said sharply. ¡°The Gloss isn¡¯t perfect.¡± ¡°I went into a public bathroom at Rosa Grove Mall yesterday, and the floor was so clean I could¡¯ve eaten off it. I saw my ex at a sandwich place, and he was on crutches. I found a pearl bracelet in a potted plant.¡± ¡°Is that all?¡± ¡°What do you mean ¡®is that all?¡¯¡± ¡°I accidentally busted a gang of human traffickers on my way to get coffee this morning,¡± Keiko admitted. ¡°And I got a summons. It only took me an hour, and they were in such a good mood they gave me access to a new wordchain for it. One I haven''t really earned yet.¡± ¡°What? That¡¯s not fair!¡± ¡°I thought you were just complaining that you were too lucky?¡± ¡°I got cupcakes! You got an easy-mode summons with outsize rewards! I thought the whole point of them binding us all together for this one was to make things more balanced.¡± ¡°It''s to maximize opportunities. The fact that we''re bound together for things like this supposedly means everything comes out fairer¡ª¡± ¡°Fairer over the long run. Yeah, yeah. I know. But oh my gods, I¡¯d hate to be Hazel in a few weeks, when we¡¯re taking stray meteorites to the face and coming down with rare diseases. She¡¯s not worth it, and we all know it.¡± Keiko didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Fine,¡± said Aimi. ¡°Tell me I¡¯m being a bad Auntie. Tell me it¡¯s not little Hazel¡¯s fault that she¡¯s a chaining genius, and Corin and Grandma are willing to shove us all off cliffs for her.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a terrible Aunt,¡± said Keiko. ¡°And it¡¯s not Hazel¡¯s fault she was selected at a time when we didn¡¯t have a Chainer of the proper rank lined up for her. But¡­¡± Aimi tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She was surprised. Usually Keiko was so nice. She had that hero thing down pat. ¡°Hazel could have stopped it from going so far by affixing something else,¡± Keiko admitted grudgingly. ¡°If she¡¯d been an S like we all expected this might have been warranted¡­but she¡¯s only a B-rank. And I don¡¯t really want to bite a major luck bullet right now, either. I have my own goals. And if the good doesn¡¯t blow them up, the bad that¡¯s coming definitely will.¡± ¡°Ah¡­yeah. Sorry to vent on you. I know this is happening to you, too. I should let you get back to sleep?¡± ¡°That¡¯s a great idea,¡± said Keiko. ¡°Don¡¯t drive too fast.¡± ¡°I think I just passed a speedster.¡± ¡°Aimi.¡± ¡°Another call¡¯s coming in. Bye!¡± She didn¡¯t answer the other call right away, though. Aimi wasn¡¯t in the mood to run an errand for any of her many uncles or aunts right now. And that went double for Uncle Corin. She¡¯d blast deep into F, then answer him. At normal highway speeds, she¡¯d be a solid half-hour away from that workaholic''s office by then and less likely to be useful. She let the notification blink in her peripheral while she shot across The Span. The eight kilometer long bridge connected Apex¡ªthe smaller, crescent-shaped northern portion of Anesidora¡ªto the larger circular island to the south that was mostly made up of F-city. As she left it behind, she flipped open the lid on the box of cupcakes and reached for a bright orange one. She took a bite and frowned, chewing thoughtfully. ¡°Answer call,¡± she said finally. ¡°Voice only.¡± ¡°Aimi,¡± said Uncle Corin, he sounded breathless. ¡°Hey,¡± she said, ¡°I think the gloss is fading. I know it¡¯s supposed to last another day, but I just bit into a cupcake and I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s made of squash. I mean it¡¯s not bad, but it¡¯s definitely not my go-to flavor.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not fading,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s doing exactly what we hoped it would. I need you to run an errand.¡± ¡°Too bad,¡± she said. ¡°Can¡¯t. I¡¯m way out of Apex. Down in F.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a person in F I need you to find.¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Aimi winced. Of course there was. ¡°It¡¯s a boy. Fifteen to seventeen. I haven¡¯t got a name yet. Brown hair. Green eyes. Average height. Average build.¡± ¡°Wow. I know I¡¯m good with my insight chains, but I¡¯m not that good. You just described at least a couple hundred teenagers on the island. Can¡¯t you send me a pic at least?¡± ¡°No. I don¡¯t have security footage of him yet. I got the description from a¡­ Post Drop. I¡¯m pretty sure its creator has done something highly illegal, but that¡¯s beside the point. He¡¯s wearing a tie and dress shoes. He left the Teleportation Complex around half an hour ago.¡± He paused. ¡°Aimi, he¡¯s the one. I think. Or a friend of theirs.¡± ¡°Bullshit,¡± said Aimi, swerving easily around a pothole she definitely shouldn¡¯t have been able to dodge at this speed. ¡°The B-rank Chainer we need delivered themselves to us? Like freaking takeout?¡± Note to self: don¡¯t ever make Grandma Aulia mad. ¡°I think he might have. And not a moment too soon.¡± ¡°Meteorites to the face,¡± she muttered. At this rate, she wouldn¡¯t be surprised if the entire island sank like Atlantis sometime next week. Her uncle had to have heard her comment, but he ignored it. ¡°Hazel¡¯s at home. Take the boy straight there. I¡¯m fetching the other necessities. Thank goodness we have who we need lined up. Also, try to determine if our new friend is unacceptably odd.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Too disturbing to associate with over the long term,¡± Corin said. ¡°This letter is well-composed for a teenager, but at the same time¡­I have some concerns after seeing it in person.¡± ¡°Creepy kid in dress clothes. Got it. Still doubt I¡¯ll find him quick. I¡¯m pretty close to the place, but there are a few million people to search through in F City. And I¡¯m sure my wordchains will work great when I¡¯m glossy as a fresh manicure, but I¡¯m not psychic or anyth--huh¡­¡± She¡¯d been forced to slow down by a garbage truck. It was the first vehicle that had gotten in her way in the past two days. She¡¯d been so distracted by the conversation that she wasn¡¯t suspicious at first, but now¡­ she squinted out her windshield as her car eased forward. She was passing by a public recreation area, one with a jungle gym, some swings, and a small fish pond. ¡°Corin, just out of curiosity, is there any chance your ominous teenager actually looks incredibly wholesome?¡± ¡°Again, I don¡¯t have footage of him yet. I¡¯m working on it.¡± Corin was definitely out of breath. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Because there¡¯s a kid here, just a few blocks from the teleportation place. He¡¯s all by himself. With brown hair and dress clothes.¡± ¡°That must be him! Yes. Finally. Get him to come with you!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know...¡± she said slowly. ¡°I don¡¯t feel good about this. He looks kinda sad, and he¡¯s feeding the ducks.¡± ¡°Aimi!¡± She U-turned the car and passed by the park again. ¡°It¡¯s hard to tell from here, but I think he has freckles on his nose.¡± Her uncle swore. ¡°You¡¯re the only one in position. The gloss isn¡¯t without limits! If you cast aside the opportunities afforded by it, we might not get another chance.¡± She grimaced. The only thing that would be worse than the bad luck that was coming would be if everyone in the family blamed her for it going to waste. ¡°Yeah, yeah. Okay. I¡¯ll kidnap him.¡± There was a relieved sigh from Corin. Then, a minute later, he spoke in a startled voice. ¡°Wait¡­I said get him to come with you. Not go straight to kidnapping. We need him to give us his class! Don¡¯t do anything rash. Aimi? Aimi, did you mute me?!¡±
Alden turned the knob on the modified gumball machine beside the park bench and took another handful of duck food. A dozen birds were quacking around his feet, unafraid now that they¡¯d realized he was a big spender. Hannah would have thought this was funny. They¡¯d only come to this park together once, on Alden¡¯s first trip to visit her. It had been really awkward, and the ice between them hadn¡¯t thawed until Hannah had used one of her barriers as a platform so that the two of them could sit out in the middle of the pond, watching the ducks. I wonder if anyone has ever actually bought all of the food in the machine before? he wondered as he sprinkled the gray pellets around. Now that the letter was sent, he didn¡¯t have anywhere else to be until the funeral. The money on his debit card should be just enough for him to befriend every duck in the park. And it was nice to have the park all to himself. The day was sunny, and it was warm for an Anesidoran summer¡ªa pleasant reprieve from the cold winter he¡¯d left behind in Chicago. You¡¯d think more people would be hanging around a place like this on a Saturday morning. He grabbed another handful of food and settled on the bench, doling the pieces out slowly. It¡¯s going to be weird to live here all the time. If he got into one of the better training courses, he¡¯d be in Apex. If he was stuck in a lower-rank school here in F instead¡­he could feed the ducks all the time. Win-win. He snorted at himself. ¡°Hey you,¡± he said pointing at a particularly fat bully of a duck, ¡°leave the little guys alone or I¡¯ll grab you and stick you back in the pond.¡± ¡°Not if I grab you first,¡± a voice whispered in his ear. ¡°WHAT THE FU¡ª?¡± Before Alden could finish cursing in surprise, a hand was clamped over his mouth, and he was dragged sideways off the bench. Duck food scattered across the grass, and those quacking traitors didn¡¯t even glance up as Alden was hauled away at high speed. It happened so fast. And it was so damn uncomfortable. Whoever had grabbed hold of Alden was freakishly strong, but they were also much shorter than him. And they hadn¡¯t picked him up. He was just being hauled along in a weird bent-over position, trying to keep his feet beneath him while he was dragged forward by the head. The hand keeping him from screaming for help was one stumble away from ripping his nose off. ¡°Hey!¡± said his kidnapper as she tightened her grip on him and dragged him toward the nearby street. ¡°Ni hao. Suprabhat. What¡¯s your language of choice, amigo?¡± Shit! Help! Some crazy supergirl is going to kill me! Where the fuck is everyone? He was in the middle of a giant city. Why was the park empty? Why was the street silent as if every other soul on the planet had better places to be? ¡°Stop wriggling so much. I don¡¯t want to knock a teenager out. Concussions are wicked bad, yeah? It¡¯s not like in the movies.¡± System! thought Alden. Call! Activate! Turn ON! 911! Why hadn¡¯t he listened when Gorgon told him to make up a hands-free activation method? He¡¯d planned to do it. He just hadn¡¯t expected to need to before he even affixed a class! ¡°Sorry about this, freckles. We just want to have a quick word with you. Yeah, yeah Uncle Corin. I get it. I won¡¯t really give him a concussion. Jeez, I¡¯m not a monster, you know?¡± The name Corin sounded vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough to pierce through Alden¡¯s blind terror. As the kidnapper turned her double-armed grip into a single-arm hold so that she could open the door of fiery red sports car, Alden used every ounce of his strength to lunge away from her. Only to be yanked back by his shirt in an instant. He was shoved into the car, his hip ramming into the stick-shift hard enough to bruise, and before he could even pull himself up into a proper sitting position, a petite woman with a dark ponytail was sliding into the driver¡¯s seat beside him. ¡°Hi there!¡± she said, grinning at him as she revved the engine. ¡°I¡¯m Aimi!¡± ¡°Help!¡± Alden screamed, reaching for the door handle. ¡°Nah, you don¡¯t need help,¡± said Aimi, smashing her foot against the gas. The car shot forward so fast Alden was pressed to the red leather seat. ¡°You don¡¯t even need to buckle up! Not today. Today, I¡¯m the best driver on the island.¡± Aimi held a pastry box out toward Alden as the car roared down the street. ¡°Want a cupcake?¡± she asked. ¡°Lots to choose from. Kinda strange. I think they might be vegan.¡± TWENTY-TWO: Uneven Alden had been kidnapped for around a minute. His brain wasn¡¯t handling it well yet. In fact, it was like someone had given his stream of consciousness a shot of adrenaline and then shoved it into a rave. All his thoughts were smashing into each other so that he couldn¡¯t properly address any of them. She said Corin and that must be Corin Velra, and she said they just want to talk, but she is a crazy person, and I want to talk but not like this, am I going to be murdered, and what if I miss the funeral, why are there cupcakes, and oh my god how fast is she driving, if I can shout for help I can make a call¡­ Finally. A thought that was concrete enough to prompt an action. ¡°System, call Clytem Zh¡ª!¡± Alden spoke quickly, but at exactly the wrong moment, the car hit a pothole. Aimi had been waving a purple cupcake under his nose while she drove, and she accidentally rammed it into his face. Alden inhaled a large quantity of frosting. ¡°Don¡¯t call her!¡± Aimi said frantically while he coughed up pieces of cake. ¡°I said my family just wants to talk to you. She¡¯s a brain melter. That¡¯s not cool! Who are you anyway?¡± Strangely, having blackberry frosting shoved up both his nostrils calmed Alden down a lot. The discomfort gave his mind something to latch onto. ¡°Hey, Uncle Corin. I¡¯m pretty sure the kid is trying to call Clytem Zhao. Unless you know someone else running around with the name Clytem.¡± She nodded as if in answer to an invisible comment, sighed, then turned to Alden, completely ignoring the street in front of them. ¡°He says, ¡®Please don¡¯t act in haste. I¡¯m trying to get you what you want right now, so that all parties will be satisfied,¡± she reported. ¡°He also says I should apologize to you sincerely. So. Sorry. Sincerely.¡± Alden wiped at his face and stared at her cautiously. ¡°Why¡¯d you grab me?¡± ¡°Because you¡¯ve got Chainer,¡± Aimi said, whipping her ponytail over her shoulder. ¡°Unless you don¡¯t? If you don¡¯t, you should definitely tell me that right now so that I can release you back into your natural habitat.¡± ¡°¡­I don¡¯t?¡± ¡°Ha! Liar.¡± She grinned at him. ¡°You totally do. Wow. Listen, my grandma used this insane wordchain to coat the whole family in good luck because her favorite descendant is right up against the deadline to affix. You know about Chainer?¡± ¡°A little,¡± Alden admitted, settling back into his seat and buckling the safety belt. He could always shout for Ms. Zhao later. That was the right call, wasn¡¯t it? He had reached out to the Velras himself. He¡¯d expected some kind of reply back. In a few days. Through lawyers or emails¡­ but this might be fine? All superhuman dealings aren¡¯t this high stress, right? Should I just have expected a kidnapping half an hour after mailing a letter? ¡°Well, if you know a little, you probably know enough. Chainer¡¯s our whole thing. We don¡¯t just use it individually; we have ways to use it collectively. Not getting it is a big deal. Kind of means you¡¯re not part of the family proper anymore.¡± Aimi stared at him like she was expecting a comment. ¡°Uh, yeah,¡± said Alden. ¡°That¡¯s definitely a big deal?¡± ¡°Right! So we keep the Chainer class lined up and ready to go, especially for more talented kids. We have selectees trade it from person to person as their grace periods end. But sometimes, it¡¯s just not possible. Everyone thought my niece Hazel would be an S. We had one saved for her for the past couple of years. But then she came out as a crappy B, and it was the one rank we couldn¡¯t lay hands on. The clock ticked down, Grandma Aulia lucked us all up, and presto! Here you are.¡± She paused for breath, then added, ¡°By the way, what¡¯s your name?¡± ¡°B¡¯s not crappy.¡± He was so used to Boe¡¯s digs already that it came out automatically. ¡°It kind of is. I should know. Been one for two and a half decades. You¡¯re powerful enough that the little guys are jealous of you and weak enough that the big guys don¡¯t think of you at all. Welcome to the club.¡± Alden frowned at her, trying to slot B-rank Chainer in to what he knew about her so far. She wasn¡¯t wearing armor, but she was strong enough to haul him around easily. So she had increased physical stats. It didn¡¯t seem like something the System would normally dole out to the class though. Is there such a thing as physical enhancement wordchain? How does that work? Does she collapse into a puddle when the sacrifice half comes due? Also¡­ She looked like she was in her early twenties, but if she¡¯d become an Avowed that long ago, then she must be older. Forty? ¡°Does Chainer have a life extension component? Like Healer?¡± He was going to ask for so much more money if it did. ¡°Or do you just have amazing genes?¡± ¡°Huh?¡± she said, swerving around a motorcycle. ¡°Are you throwing me compliments? Nice! And no. Sorry. But there are a couple of healers on Anesidora who do full rejuve if you can get on their list. Grandma¡¯s got a guy. Our family basically is his list.¡± Well, no wonder they managed to pull even non-family Chainers into their club. Aimi was talking about having the fountain of youth on retainer. ¡°So¡­¡± she said. ¡°You gonna reveal your secret identity? Or does Corin need to run pictures of your face through a search engine until he finds you?¡± Alden grimaced. ¡°I wanted to be anonymous,¡± he said, annoyance creeping in now that his fear was ebbing. ¡°So I could enjoy the next few months figuring out my class without governments breathing down my neck.¡± ¡°Corin says something very polite about how he understands your feelings,¡± Aimi reported. ¡°I say, ¡®Don¡¯t be dumb. You¡¯re not a local, right? Why¡¯d you come to the island in person if you didn¡¯t want people to know who you were?¡¯¡± Hannah. ¡°I¡¯m here for a funeral. Ms. Zhao is coming to pick me up in two hours.¡± Aimi¡¯s eyebrows lifted. Her lips pressed together. For the first time since Alden had gotten in the car she was silent. He didn¡¯t think it was out of respect for the dead. Judging by the way her eyes were flicking back and forth, she was doing something with her System interface. ¡°Yeah,¡± she muttered after a while, ¡°I¡¯ll drive faster.¡±
In her Tokyo apartment, Keiko Velra had given up on sleeping. Notifications from the family kept pinging in her brain. ¡°Didn¡¯t have to add me to the confab,¡± she groaned as she threw off her covers. They had zero respect for her hero work. It had been fifteen years, but they all still thought of it as a hobby she¡¯d grow out of. She slid her feet into a pair of slippers and scuffed into the kitchen. As she rummaged through a drawer for a coffee pod, she glanced at the clock. It was around five hours until Hazel¡¯s timer ran out. They were cutting it close, but not so close that it couldn¡¯t be done. As long as the boy her stupid sister had just kidnapped didn¡¯t want something too exotic. A mean-spirited part of her thought it would be funny if he was holding out for something even rarer than Chainer. But there were hardly any of those at all. She had audio-to-text turned on so she wouldn¡¯t have to hear what was rapidly becoming a massive family conference call. She flicked her eyes up and down, directing the System with the mental commands she¡¯d been forced to master years ago. Ah. So it¡¯s Rabbit. Not the easiest, but doable. There was a teen holding it for them apparently. Uncle Corin had been lining up assets for months after all. She kept reading as the coffee brewed. [Slight hiccup,] Corin said. The Rabbit holder wanted Meister of Rifles, and they only had a Crossbow Meister to offer her. She was turning her nose up at it, even though she would be able to do most of the same things with it from a practical standpoint. A proper wright-made crossbow with the enchanted arrows she¡¯d get access to should be fine. Island-born kids are so damn picky. Obviously, Keiko¡¯s own family was the premium example of that. From what she understood, it was a harsh wakeup for outsiders who arrived on Anesidora with their shiny new random classes only to realize that the local teens had been prepping for their own for years. By the start of middle school, the upper echelon all had a strong sense of what they wanted and could reasonably expect to get based on the popularity of the class and their parents¡¯ social connections. There were even private trading groups, organized by estimated rank, where all the involved families agreed in advance that little Suzie would get Wright and little Klaus would be a Shaper. Someone always drew the short end of the straw thanks to bad luck and infighting. Maybe little Suzie didn¡¯t get chosen at all, and Klaus¡¯s rank was wildly different than what you¡¯d expect based on parentage. But more kids came out of it with their future in hand than didn¡¯t. [If it¡¯s Rabbit he wants, the boy will probably accept additional monetary compensation instead?] one of Keiko¡¯s brothers was saying. Solid bet. There were only a couple of reasons to want Rabbit. Money. And summons. Usually the first one. But plenty of people did think of it as a safely-explore-the-universe ticket. Get summoned a lot, see alien worlds, don¡¯t get killed. In the conference call, everyone was discussing amounts. They all agreed it would be much easier to drop a ton of money on the foreign kid¡¯s head than it would be to pay off the local girl with the death grip on Rabbit. She had upper middle class parents, and she had her dark little heart set on shooting people in a specific way. It didn¡¯t paint a picture of someone particularly yielding. Keiko¡¯s brother was looking up the current annual Rabbit salary now. Congrats, kid, thought Keiko, stirring hazelnut creamer into her mug. You¡¯re about to be a millionaire. Then she noticed Aimi¡¯s part of the conversation. Her sister was on a different wavelength from everyone else, and as usual, they were all ignoring her. [What about the funeral? Two hours isn¡¯t long. My brain is gonna be destroyed.] What¡¯s she talking about? Keiko scrolled back up. Aimi wasn¡¯t talking a lot, probably because she couldn¡¯t mental text well, and she did have their conversation topic riding shotgun in the car with her. Ah, there it is. Keiko blinked. The kidnapping victim was on the island to attend a funeral. With Cly Zhao. Aimi was afraid she¡¯d be sniped after the gloss wore off. Everyone else knew Zhao was only a danger in a theoretical sense. Yes, she could kill them. No, she would not do it. By necessity, the S-rank mind sniper was a Good Girl?. Her power was only for assassination. That meant it was nigh unusable as a deterrent on an island full of other superhumans. If she so much as issued a serious sounding threat, some paranoid hero would wipe her off the map. Keiko felt a familiar, gnawing annoyance in her gut. Her family had just dismissed the teen¡¯s whole reason for being on Anesidora out of hand. Like he was a gift that had been delivered to them by the chain and not a whole entire person. It was typical. But Keiko had bucked the family¡¯s private education tradition and gone to superhero school. The same one as Zhao. And Zhao¡¯s BFF, Hannah. They weren¡¯t close, but they were friendly¡­ That¡¯s got to be the funeral the boy¡¯s come for. She couldn¡¯t remember the exact date. She¡¯d put it out of mind because she couldn¡¯t attend. But it was sometime this month. He¡¯s from Chicago right? She¡¯d caught that from one of her talks with Aimi yesterday. Chainer had popped up there right after the Gloss was set. Chicago. Teenage boy. Cly Zhao. Funeral. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. That¡¯s crazy, though. What are the chances that kid ended up being chosen as an Avowed? Everyone in their peer group knew about Hannah and Arjun¡¯s disaster mission. It was nightmarish stuff. Double digit civilian deaths and the dream team falling apart in the wake of it. Keiko set aside her coffee and unplugged her tablet from the wall charger. She typed in ¡°Body Drainer incident¡± and a couple minutes later, she had the name. And a little-used social media account. ¡°Hey, Aimi,¡± she said, ¡°send me a picture of your passenger.¡± Her sister complied. It was a profile shot of a teen looking understandably tense while F-city blurred past him through a car window. He had something purple smeared on his face. That¡¯s definitely him. She started speed reading through the rest of the family conversation, trying to catch up now that she was actually interested. Yes. Things were going about how she¡¯d thought they would be. Uncle Corin was delivering politely reassuring messages to the kid through Aimi, telling him this would all be sorted out in time for ¡°your next engagement.¡± He didn¡¯t mean that. Oh, he would try to arrange things so they were pleasant and convenient and everyone fell into line. But he had the same warped sense of priorities as the rest of the family. And the kid was refusing to give them his name. Probably he was still freaked out. So he couldn¡¯t talk to Corin in person yet, and that was creating a miscommunication that would ultimately make all parties unhappy. ¡°System, can I send a text message to Alden Thorn?¡± She got an instant confirmation. Newbie hadn¡¯t even set up his contact priorities yet. She thought about it for a minute longer, then she nodded to herself and started composing a message. ### Alden was trying to sort out what, exactly, the Velras were doing based on the chaotic one-sided conversation Aimi appeared to be having with¡­more than one of them? It sounded like they were in touch with a B-rank Rabbit already. So that was good? Someone named Hazel was literally sitting around waiting for them to bring her Chainer. That was good, too. He¡¯d be done quickly and then go to the funeral. Big numbers kept getting thrown around, though, which had Alden a little worried. I mean if they want to give me lots more money than I asked for, that¡¯s okay. But why would they? Maybe they¡¯re trying to pay me off instead of going through with the part where they convince everyone I was totally ignorant and not someone who directly contacted them. He¡­could live with that. He might have to. Things were moving really fast. As long as he got the class he wanted. ¡°You could involve me in the conversation, you know?¡± he said to Aimi. ¡°I¡¯m right here.¡± ¡°How are we going to do that, Mr. Anonymous?¡± she said. ¡°They¡¯re all talking through System communications right now. We don¡¯t even know how to call you. If you have demands or something, make them known.¡± Right. That was reasonable. For someone who¡¯d almost pulled his face off a few minutes ago. ¡°Well, how many of you are there? Talking about me right now, I mean. Can¡¯t I just give my name to you and Corin and Aulia Velra? I don¡¯t have to communicate with the whole family, do I?¡± ¡°Not that many. Only fifteen or so.¡± ¡°Oh so just a small group,¡± Alden said sarcastically. ¡°Hey, I¡¯ve got eight siblings. We do things big in this family.¡± Alden was about to tell her they couldn¡¯t just invite the whole city to make hasty decisions without his input. But before he could get that out, his interface flashed. Ms. Zhao? he wondered, glancing at the notification. He stared at it, and a text message appeared: [Hi, Alden. This is Keiko Velra. Sorry about my family. I¡¯m about to video call you. Answer it if you want to sort things out calmly. No need to explain anything to Aimi.] What was this? Keiko was the Chainer superhero he¡¯d read about. She was in Tokyo. How was she in on this? And how did she know Alden¡¯s name if the rest of the family didn¡¯t? What the hell was with that mailbox? Do they work completely different here? Are they psychic? Is there some superpostman who busts the sound barrier to deliver packages? An instant later, the incoming call notice came in. Alden accepted it with a quickly muttered ¡°Yes¡± that had Aimi giving him a curious look. A woman in pajamas appeared. She was visible from the waist up, and she was centered on a circular ¡°screen¡± that floated in the top half of Alden¡¯s line of sight. Keiko looked a lot like Aimi, but with a bob haircut and the beginnings of crow¡¯s feet around her eyes. ¡°Hi,¡± she said, leaning back against the kitchen island behind her. ¡°You can talk if you want. Or just go with ¡®one blink for yes, two for no¡¯ if you don¡¯t want Aimi butting in. Like I said, I¡¯m Keiko. I¡¯m Aimi¡¯s younger sister. You were on your way to Hannah Elber¡¯s memorial service when they ambushed you, right?¡± Alden blinked once. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I was Hannah¡¯s classmate. She was an admirable person. We didn¡¯t really mesh, but I had lots of respect for her. Also, I know who you are. The boy from the Body Drainer incident.¡± Alden froze. Oh. It felt uncomfortable to have a stranger bring that up unexpectedly. It was something that used to happen all the time when he was a kid, but it had been a long while. ¡°So, about my family¡­they¡¯re not terrible. For the most part. But they¡¯re so insulated by the Anesidoran bubble that they¡¯re completely out of synch with normal people.¡± Keiko took a sip from her coffee mug. ¡°You know how many of us have ever lived off the island? Me. And the really old folks, too, but that was before the island was even built. That¡¯s it. And the last time a Velra died during a summons? It was never.¡± Alden frowned at her, trying to figure out what she was getting at. ¡°Most of their friends are people exactly like them. They¡¯re talented, rich, and powerful. But they don¡¯t do the superhero thing. They¡¯re all crazy deep in Avowed politics, but they probably know more Artonans personally than they do non-Avowed humans.¡± She stared into the distance. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m only making excuses for them at this point. I¡¯m really just calling to facilitate so that they don¡¯t steamroll you with their assumptions. I¡¯m betting Hannah¡¯s memorial service is first on your priority list, and delivering Chainer to my niece is a distant second?¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t that obvious?¡± It was a funeral. ¡°You¡¯d think so. But no. It¡¯s not to them. They were just going to install you on a sofa beside Hazel for hours while they background searched you and tried to fix things with the current Rabbit-holder.¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°Got it. Now, I¡¯m also assuming, given your personal history, that you must have very strong opinions about what kind of Avowed you want to be. So are you willing to take something other than Rabbit? Like a giant mountain of cash? Or no?¡± Alden kind of wanted to ask just how mountainous the cash would be, but there was no reason to tempt himself. ¡°Only Rabbit,¡± he said firmly. ¡°Who are you talking to, kid?¡± Aimi asked suddenly. She sounded baffled. ¡°Me? Use more words, okay.¡± Alden ignored her and focused on her saner sister. Keiko¡¯s face had softened. ¡°Yeah, I understand,¡± she said in a sympathetic voice. You definitely don¡¯t, Alden thought. She probably guessed he was latching on to one of the safest classes because of his childhood trauma. Or maybe even Hannah¡¯s recent death. It rankled, but it wasn¡¯t like he could correct her without an hour-long explanation. ¡°All right. Rabbit. Is there anything else you would need to make the deal?¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯d like¡­¡± How to put this? It was there in the letter. Maybe she didn¡¯t have access to it, though. ¡°I¡¯d like some assurance that I¡¯m not going to be embroiled in political stuff. I¡¯d rather not be some kind of outcast because I gave the class to your family?¡± ¡°Ha!¡± cried Aimi, apparently still under the impression that Alden was talking to her. ¡°Good luck with that! But don¡¯t sweat it. We¡¯ll like you. Beyond that, who cares?¡± Keiko gnawed her lip. ¡°Well, you won¡¯t be ¡®embroiled in political stuff¡¯ anyway. You¡¯re what, sixteen? And all of your political value will evaporate the minute you hand Chainer over. But if you mean it in a more¡­age-relevant¡­way, are you saying you want to give us the class but have nobody be mad at you for it?¡± That sounds childish now. But I don¡¯t care. ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said stubbornly. ¡°Okay.¡± Keiko looked a little strained. ¡°First of all¡­it won¡¯t be that bad. There are a few unpleasant individuals who will blame you for it no matter what you do, but most people will assume you¡¯re an ignorant nobody. Also, the Gloss¡ªask Aimi about it if she hasn¡¯t told you¡ªisn¡¯t common knowledge yet. But it will be by the time you have to move to the island. Using that particular wordchain is going to buy us tons of shit and you tons of forgiveness by extension. The majority will think unavoidable weirdness happened to you and give you a pass.¡± Well that wasn¡¯t even a lie. It felt a lot like unavoidable weirdness was happening to him right now. ¡°So you¡¯re saying I¡¯m good?¡± ¡°More or less¡­¡± ¡°Why are you hesitating?¡± Alden asked, tightening his grip on his seatbelt. Keiko sighed. ¡°Grandma Aulia has this thing. It¡¯s part of her personal religion almost.¡± Alden didn¡¯t like the sound of what was coming. ¡°She¡¯ll want to keep ties with you even if you don¡¯t want that. She believes people brought into the family¡¯s orbit by powerful wordchains are significant. For us. Like¡­cosmically ordained friends. Or enemies. Or assets. Or spouses.¡± ¡°No,¡± said Alden. ¡°Especially to the last one.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine really,¡± she said in a placating tone. ¡°The rest of us know it¡¯s nuts. We mitigate. Uncle Corin is probably already planning to steer his mother into ignoring you. It hardly ever gets out of hand.¡± ¡°Hard pass.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t pass on something that¡¯s already swept you up,¡± she said gently. ¡°Trust me. Grandma will already think you¡¯re important. So you want to land on her dance card, not her hit list.¡± Alden glared at her. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t look at me that way. I moved to the other side of the planet to get away from them. Just¡­be boring for a few years, and you¡¯re golden.¡± Be boring? ¡°One last thing, and then I¡¯ll make my sister let you go.¡± Alden sat up straighter. Really? Right now. He hadn¡¯t known that was on the table. ¡°Would you be very offended if Hazel attended the memorial service?¡± ¡°What? So we can trade right there? Absolutely not. That¡¯s so¡ª¡± Keiko held her hands up. ¡°Before you lose it, let me clarify. Hazel¡¯s affixation timer will be running out in just a few hours. Given the kind of service it will likely be, it might very well be a race to see which ends first. Once my family has managed to cut a deal with the Rabbit, she can trade with Hazel. Hazel will come to the funeral. You can swap person to person. It¡¯ll take like two text messages and half a minute. I swear.¡± Alden stared out the windshield, thinking. It was stupid to feel like the suggestion was inappropriate. Especially if it was a necessity because of an alien time limit. But he still did feel that way. Hannah wouldn¡¯t have cared. She liked practical, simple solutions. ¡°Fine,¡± he said. ¡°But what about witnesses?¡± ¡°Hazel¡¯s an authorized witness. She can vouch for both of you herself.¡± Alden stared at her. ¡°That¡¯s the sketchiest thing I¡¯ve ever heard.¡± ¡°I told you my family knew more Artonans than they did regular humans. Wordchains are a big deal on the Triplanets, so someone who reaches a certain proficiency level with them is automatically considered worthy for some unique privileges. Hazel¡¯s¡­a genius.¡± The last words were said with something like grudging admiration. ¡°Yeah.¡± Keiko sighed. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯ll take care of everything we just discussed and send you the details. I¡¯ll get them to throw in some bonuses. Do you like wordchains? Want a couple of freebies?¡± Alden felt like that might be a trick question. ¡°Does saying yes mean your grandmother will pay closer attention to me?¡± Keiko¡¯s face said it all. ¡°I¡¯m fine with Rabbit. And as much privacy as you can manage. And the money I asked for in my letter.¡± ¡°I understand. Go to the funeral. Hazel will show up. She¡¯ll be discreet. Nice to meet you, by the way.¡± ¡°You too. I think. Thanks for helping to sort it all out.¡± ### Three minutes later, after arguing with the air for a while, Aimi pulled her car over beside a bookstore. ¡°Okay,¡± she said, pointing at Alden. ¡°If you run away, get lost, or get taken into custody by the police, the Gloss might not get you back for us since Keiko has interfered. So do not do any of those things. She¡¯ll be in big trouble.¡± ¡°Did she really interfere? I feel like she was actually helping your cause,¡± Alden retorted as he unbuckled his seatbelt. ¡°Hard to tell. I¡¯m not one of those people who can feel fluctuations in the chain¡¯s spheres of influence and various balances. That¡¯s mumbo-jumbo for prodigies and Artonans. I¡¯m just saying if you get my sister in trouble I¡¯ll give you trouble. Got me?¡± He wanted to tell her she was exhausting. But there was no reason to stir things up when he was so close to getting back to the day he¡¯d had planned for himself. He wanted to be alone and think. And maybe take a minute to appreciate the fact that he was getting Rabbit squared away far more quickly than he¡¯d thought would be possible. ¡°I got you,¡± he said. ¡°Thanks for the ride.¡± ¡°Hey! You¡¯re welcome!¡± she said. ¡°Anytime. No hard feelings?¡± She smiled and held her hand out for him to shake. With a mental sigh, Alden reached for it. Only to freeze when his fingers were a couple of inches away from hers. She¡¯s uneven. With a feeling of shock, Alden recognized the foreignness of the thought. It had come from that new gremlin part of his brain that had strong opinions about burgers. What? Hello? What does that even mean? Then Aimi leaned forward to complete the handshake on her own. Their fingers touched. She¡¯s uneven! the gremlin screeched. In his hand, Aimi¡¯s felt¡­odd. Uneven wasn¡¯t a bad word for it. It was like it weighed too much. Or it was too far to the right or left of where Alden knew it should be. But though it was an uncomfortable sensation, it wasn¡¯t like the hard limit he was met with when he tried to eat meat. Shaking hands with Aimi Velra wasn¡¯t forbidden, it was just not right. ¡°Are we going to shake forever?¡± Aimi asked, still pumping Alden¡¯s arm up and down. ¡°Because it¡¯s getting weird.¡± Alden realized he¡¯d been clinging to her despite the feeling of wrongness, trying to figure out what was going on. He jerked away. ¡°Sorry,¡± he said, flustered. ¡°Got distracted.¡± After he watched her drive away, he spun and marched right into the bookstore. Maybe it¡¯s an Avowed thing? I haven¡¯t shaken hands with one since the mysterious blood ritual. Channeling his non-existent inner extrovert, he walked up to the guy shelving books and stuck out his hand. ¡°Hi, I¡¯m new in town!¡± The handshake he received was awkward. But it was not uneven. Gorgon, thought Alden, staring down at his own fingers like they belonged to a stranger, what did you do to me? TWENTY-THREE: Funeral Hannah¡¯s service was being held in the memorial garden at her old alma mater. Celena North University was in Apex, so Alden had to wear a lanyard with a large badge hanging from it that identified him as a minor and a non-Avowed. Ms. Zhao had called it the ¡°double squishy combo.¡± It looked dorky, and it came with a button he could press in the event of an emergency. ¡°Doesn¡¯t really go with my tie.¡± He was trying to position the thing beneath the striped silk fabric so that it wouldn¡¯t look so obvious. ¡°Yeah.¡± Cly jabbed a straw at the frozen dregs of a smoothie as they stepped off the campus bus. ¡°If it makes you feel better, plenty of Avowed have their own version of it. It¡¯s just attached to our System IDs. It¡¯s for prioritizing rescues.¡± Apex was the part of Anesidora where restrictions on power usage were heavily relaxed. High-ranking superhumans lived, work, learned, and experimented here. It wasn¡¯t legal to punch holes in buildings or melt city streets, but it was understood that sometimes, the people who hung around on this part of the island were going to cause a minor catastrophe while they were figuring themselves out. Alden really hoped he could get into one of the schools here. Apex was where superheroes trained. There were a couple of different universities with hero programs in addition to Celena. And to get into any of them, it would be best¡­if not strictly necessary¡­to attend one of their affiliated preperatory high schools first. I have a stupidly huge amount of research to do when I get back home. On top of figuring out what his new skill did, he¡¯d have to find a prep program that wouldn¡¯t use a B-rank Rabbit¡¯s application for toilet tissue. He seriously hoped one existed. Three months were going to pass by in a blink. ¡°First we have to sit through the public service,¡± Cly was saying as they passed under an arch made of flowering vines and entered an open-air amphitheater. The seating was a series of grass-covered terraces. At the base was a concrete stage, backed by large granite memorial stones. A couple of people in shirts emblazoned with the university logo were down there doing mic checks. And a large group of teens and young adults were huddled up nearby. Alden thought they were musicians, since so many of them had instrument cases, but quite a few were carrying floral arrangements, too. They were all in uniform, wearing waistcoats over shirts with standing collars. Some were in monochromatic white and others in black. ¡°Honestly, it¡¯s going to be way too long,¡± Cly said, glancing down at the group. ¡°And way too crowded. Hannah had a ton of friends. Plus there¡¯s the freshman factor. We managed to control the number of speakers at least. We¡¯re going for a celebration of her life, but it¡¯s still a lot of sad to sit through. If you need to take a timeout, don¡¯t feel bad about leaving to catch your breath.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°What¡¯s the freshman factor?¡± ¡°There¡¯s a hero school tradition. Freshmen at Celena North and first year students at the prep schools that feed into it are expected to attend services for alumni who die in the line of duty. It¡¯s to honor the dead and impress upon the living the dangers of the work.¡± She pursed her lips. ¡°They aren¡¯t required to come to this one. Since Hannah went missing during a quest summons, it¡¯s not the same as her dying during hero duties. But some of them are going to show up anyway. Half because they think it¡¯s the right thing to do and half just because they want to see Hannah¡¯s mother.¡± Hannah¡¯s mother was publicly known as The Gloom. She was a London-based Sky Shaper who strategically modified weather systems for several countries in Europe. It wasn¡¯t traditional hero work. It wasn¡¯t even traditional Shaper work. It was more like hardcore atmospheric science plus some hush-hush spells she was rumored to have earned for extraordinary service on the Triplanets. The Gloom wasn¡¯t famous for beating bad guys. As far as Alden knew, she¡¯d never even been in combat. She was famous for being a hyperbole¡ªthe nickname given to S¡¯s who had been rank upgraded by the System. It had happened to less than a hundred people so far. The first time, back in the seventies, the S-class in question had disappeared on a summons and then come back with a new rank. 1. Everyone assumed it meant the guy was literally the number one most powerful Avowed in the world. And he leaned into it, doing hundreds of interviews and commercials. So he looked pretty ridiculous when it happened again a few years later to another person, and they, too, were ranked 1. Apparently, once you got past S, the System was just done with letter grading. So far, rank-ups had only been assigned to S¡¯s and a a few hundred more A¡¯s and B¡¯s. Most of them were Uniques instead of regular classes. It almost always happened immediately after a summons. They all claimed not to know why it had occurred. It was perfect fodder for conspiracy theories and speculation, and there was a lot of that. But Alden thought it was to be expected. Extreme outliers existed. There were always weirdos like Boe who somehow ended up with a 5.3 on a 4.0 grading scale. And it wasn¡¯t like the handful of 1¡¯s were going around doing things leagues beyond the best of the S¡¯s. The Gloom was one of the better examples of someone operating at the limits of human ken, and she was a mild-mannered meteorologist. Who¡¯d recently lost her daughter¡­ ¡°Nobody¡¯s going to bother her today, right?¡± he asked. Cly shook her head. ¡°No. It should be fine. Like I said, student attendance at alumni funerals is a tradition, so there are layers of ritual and rules piled on top of it. It can actually add a lot to the atmosphere. Like the art school kids down there¡­if the high school freshmen can stop arguing with the university freshmen then they¡¯ll take care of music. The students who come from the combat program have their own thing, too.¡± She smiled. ¡°And if someone doesn¡¯t behave, I get to verbally eviscerate them. Which would be great stress relief. Oh, there¡¯s Ilya. I need to talk to him. Find yourself a seat, and let me know if you need anything, okay?¡± The bottommost terraces were reserved for friends and family. Alden took a spot on the far edge, where he was shaded by an ornamental pear tree. It would be easy to leave from here if the Velra situation required it, and he¡¯d hopefully avoid too much socializing. Keiko had sent him two updates so far, letting him know she had things under control. Alden didn¡¯t have anything to do but wait for the service to get underway, so he started trying to train himself to use mental commands with the System interface. Post-kidnapping, it seemed more important than it had before. After fifteen minutes, he managed to make it bring up a preferences menu, but since he¡¯d been trying to access the internet instead, that was a fail. Eyes aching from straining to see something that was really all in his head, he leaned back and shoved his hands into his pockets. It was getting too tempting to poke at the interface, and it would be conspicuous. People were starting to trickle in for the service. The group Cly had called ¡°art school kids¡± seemed to have finally sorted themselves out. Alden hadn¡¯t even known Celena North had an arts department, but he guessed it made sense. Some Avowed used their powers for entertainment. If you were a Vocal Brute, for example, it could be easier to get off-island jobs if you focused on opera instead of sonically shattering the bodies of evildoers. The musicians took up posts along the edges of each of the terraces and started tuning. The people with the flower arrangements were much more interesting to watch, since they were obviously using their powers. One guy seemed to be magically freshening them all up. Every member of the group brought him their arrangement. He briefly touched stems, leaves, and petals and suddenly the plants all looked minutely better. Alden wasn¡¯t sure if he was a Shaper or an Adjuster, but it was a neat trick. A girl who was clearly a Water Shaper was going around strategically affixing droplets to some pieces so that they looked like they were bejeweled with dew. An entirely different set of students were in charge of carrying the flowers and positioning them around the amphitheater. There were six of them. They moved in pairs, and each pair was perfectly in synch. Their motions were unnaturally flawless and light. Maybe they were dance majors. They clearly had enhanced physicals of some kind. A pair of girls floated toward him like they were barely touching the grass and placed a white ikebana-style arrangement a few feet away on the terrace. The students from the hero courses were also arriving, though they were too far away for Alden to get a really good look at them They had military-style formal jackets and they were positioning themselves in a loose outward-facing ring around the exterior of the amphitheater. Like an honor guard. Other arrivals in slightly different jackets were taking up similar guard posts on the top terraces. Alden didn¡¯t know if the difference in positioning had to do with age or rank, or if maybe they were from another program entirely. If there were artists in attendance, there had to be superhuman teens who wanted to be scientists and engineers here as well. I¡¯m completely surrounded by Avowed. He would be one of them, too, once he affixed. But it might be hard to get used to the idea that almost everyone he encountered on a daily basis would have superpowers. Uneven. Alden jumped. Seriously. Again? What is it now? His creepy new sixth sense was tingling. It was faint, but unignorable. He looked around and saw a pale boy dressed all in black about six feet away. He had a severe expression on his face, and he was undoing the clasps on a harp case. He was going to be the musician for this terrace. Alden had noted him briefly among the art school teens earlier. Mostly because he looked like he was around ten years old. He¡¯d thought at first he might be someone¡¯s little brother, but he didn¡¯t have the dorky lanyard, so he must have been an Avowed. One who¡¯d yet to benefit from puberty. He was the uneven person. Alden stared at him for a little too long, and the harpist glanced over. ¡°Hello,¡± he said in a morose voice. ¡°Grandmother doesn¡¯t like Keiko¡¯s plan. She sent me to make sure you don¡¯t run away before Hazel gets here.¡± What the fuck? Alden thought angrily. ¡°You can run away if you want, though.¡± The boy almost sounded hopeful. ¡°There¡¯s loads of places to hide on campus. I¡¯ll say I did my best but I couldn¡¯t find you. I haven¡¯t mastered any chains that would be good for a manhunt.¡± Alden wanted to chew him out, but instead he settled for hissing, ¡°I¡¯ve already promised I¡¯d go through with it. Tell your crazy grandma to leave me alone!¡± The Velra sighed. ¡°If I could boss her around, I wouldn¡¯t be here. I was supposed to be going to the theater with my friends today.¡± He looked down at his own hands. ¡°I bet the blowback from the gloss takes my fingers from me. I¡¯ve thought about it a lot. It¡¯s just the right level of consequence and cruelty. Even if it¡¯s just a few¡­ and it would make everyone but me happy, since they think focusing on music is wasteful.¡± ¡°Uh¡­¡± said Alden. It was a little hard to berate someone who seemed to be dead serious about losing his fingers in the near future. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m Lute.¡± He closed his eyes, moved his hands around each other in a slow swirling motion and started whispering. Alden recognized the hand gestures and cadence of a wordchain, though he could only pick out a couple of the actual Artonan words at this volume. He also had an unexpectedly strong sense of Lute¡¯s accuracy¡­which wasn¡¯t something he¡¯d ever experienced in chaining classes at the consulate. He¡¯d always thought it was a matter of hoping the chain linked you to an Opposite. But listening to the Velra boy chant, he was somehow sure that the link was forming. Even stranger was the fact that Lute himself was becoming slightly less uneven as the chain progressed. Holy shit, thought Alden, feeling enlightened. Is that what it means? Can I suddenly sense wordchain debt? How? Why? Presumably, Lute was doing something to make his playing better. If he¡¯d already spoken a sacrifice half for this type of chain, then it would mean his current one was balancing that line in his ledger. Hey, gremlin me! Is that¡¯s what¡¯s going on? But all he got in reply was a vague lessening of his own discomfort. It made sense though. If the Velras were all walking around wearing superluck like armor, maybe that was why they were the only ones who felt off. Which meant feeding Gorgon some of his blood had given Alden something potentially useful. Maybe. If he could actually figure out how to apply it instead of just using it to gauge when someone had recently cast the first half of a strong wordchain. It can¡¯t be that sensitive, or I¡¯d be feeling imbalances from more people. Right? Many people used minor wordchains like the ones Alden had learned in class. Apparently he couldn¡¯t detect those. Or maybe those little ones just don¡¯t work often? Or they¡¯re actually way harder to get right than I thought, and most people don¡¯t do it correctly? If that was it, he had wasted a lot of hours chanting for no good reason. When Lute finished, Alden cleared his throat. ¡°What was that chain for?¡± If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. He wanted to ask how strong it was, but that question seemed odd to lead with. ¡°For them,¡± said Lute, gesturing around the terraces at his fellow musicians. ¡°It¡¯s to increase their ability to harmonize. They¡¯re going to be hopeless without it. That guy on the guitar¡­don¡¯t get me started.¡± Lute plucked a few strings, and in response, an oboist at the back took up the melody. When Lute stopped, the oboist continued solo for a moment before a flutist joined in. Then the oboist quit, and the flutist had her own short solo before she was joined by the guitarist. Alden didn¡¯t know anything about music, but the song was a soothing one. It felt appropriate for the event. Lute was watching the other students critically. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± he said at last. ¡°Best we can hope for probably.¡± ¡°Your chains can buff other people? Groups of other people?¡± There were healing chains specifically designed to be said on behalf of others, but Alden hadn¡¯t realized other wordchains could work that way. He¡¯d been shocked at the thought of the Gloss being cast on the whole Verla clan at once, but that seemed to be a Velra-specific thing. Aimi had said they could use their chains collectively. Being able to affect so many unrelated musicians had to be overpowered. And really expensive. How many hits to his own ¡°ability to harmonize¡± had Lute taken in order for this to balance it back out? ¡°Mass Bestowal is one of my S-rank skills,¡± said Lute. Somebody¡¯s special. That put things in a different light. Tiny, moody harpist disenchanted with his family was one thing. S-rank casually using a buff ability Alden would kill for to make teenage musicians suck less was another animal entirely. And he¡¯d said he had more than one skill. If that was how it was, it seemed safest to ignore Lute¡¯s presence. Alden had to live on Anesidora for the rest of his life. He couldn¡¯t go around annoying crazy powerful people just because they had horrible grandmas. He let the conversation die. The music continued to play while the amphitheater filled. Hannah really did have a lot of friends. Soon, Alden found himself offering to hold the ikebana arrangement to make room for more people on his terrace. He ended up crammed in beside the harp, with white flowers and dew-flecked twigs partially obstructing his view. The service started with an eloquent, but largely impersonal, speech from the dean of the hero college. He was followed by several people close to Hannah. They spoke about her passion for helping others, her dedication to her dreams, her kindness. There were pictures projected by an Adjuster who controlled light. It was a little overwhelming. And very inspiring. The hero Hannah had been supporting for the past few years¡ªa middle-aged man based in Indonesia¡ªtalked at length about their work together. Her stabilization spells and her bubble had allowed him to use his own talents in new ways. He could rapidly heat and cool small areas, and Hannah had often protected civilians from the effects of the temperature shifts so that the power was useful in a wider variety of settings. He read aloud a few letters from people they had saved together. A couple of them were from kids, and many of those present were wiping at their eyes by the end of it. Alden spotted Cly Zhao, sitting front and center and weeping freely. He looked away from her and cast a glance toward the back of the amphitheater. Arjun Thomas was back there, almost hidden behind the ranks of uniformed students who had stood in perfect silence for the entire service. He looked stoic. Alden had never quite gotten a handle on what Arjun¡¯s relationship with Hannah had become in the wake of the Body Drainer accident. Hannah spoke of him as a respected and trusted friend, but it was obvious they didn¡¯t spend time together or talk much. Maybe hard feelings over something like that are just inevitable. Alden didn¡¯t think it should be the case, but what did he know? He¡¯d never torn somebody in half with his bare hands before¡­nor would he have to. Something like that had to mess with your head. At the end of the service, all of the Celena North hero program students and alumni recited the school¡¯s pledge. Then The Gloom, dabbing at her eyes behind her glasses, took to the stage and thanked everyone for being a part of Hannah¡¯s life. ¡°Friendships meant so much to her,¡± she said. ¡°And even the smallest kindnesses you gave her mean so very much to me.¡± Alden thought her eyes lingered on him, but maybe it was just his imagination. They¡¯d never met before, and from the front, he must have looked like just a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a bunch of flowers. There was a moment of silence. When it was over, Lute spoke quietly over the sound of the crowd climbing to their feet and collecting their belongings. ¡°Hazel¡¯s just arrived. She¡¯ll message you in a second. Last chance to escape. If you leave with everyone else, you can probably screw her over.¡± Alden looked at him over the top of a chrysanthemum. ¡°You hate your cousin or something?¡± Lute¡¯s grim expression soured further. He drummed his fingers on his harp case. Finally, he said, ¡°She¡¯s a very talented and hard-working person. She¡¯ll probably go far in life.¡± ¡°You have an unusual way of insulting people.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Maybe I just like my fingers too much.¡± Alden¡¯s interface flared. A text message scrolled by: [Hi, Alden! I¡¯m here on a bench outside the amphitheater. We¡¯ve only got about twenty minutes. Should I come to you, or do you want to come out here?] Alden stood and set the flowers down. ¡°Sorry about your friend. Seems like she was cool,¡± said Lute. ¡°See you around.¡± Alden dearly hoped he didn¡¯t see much of any of the Velras after today. He blended into the crowd, careful to avoid Cly¡¯s eyes, and passed under one of the floral arches. [To your left. Behind the rose trellis.] Alden went behind the trellis and found the mysterious Hazel sitting on a concrete bench. She looked normal. He didn¡¯t know why that surprised him. She had shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes, and she was pretty in a well-kept kind of way. Her black dress fit her like it had been made for her. Her teeth were probably on a poster in some orthodontist¡¯s office. ¡°Hi!¡± she said, smiling brightly. ¡°I¡¯m glad to meet you. Seriously glad. I¡¯ve been so stressed out for the past few months. Can we just trade fast, or do you need to read over the contract? I¡¯m sending it to you now. It¡¯s a few pages, so you¡¯ll have to speed read.¡± Alden was definitely going to read the whole thing. He sat down beside her and scrolled through page after page. He did go fast, out of consideration for the fact that he and Hazel would both be sitting on classes they didn¡¯t want in a few minutes if he didn¡¯t. But, fortunately, the language was plain enough that he didn¡¯t think he was missing anything critical. Hazel fidgeted beside him the whole time, her heels crunching against the gravel beneath the bench. ¡°You¡¯re giving me one and a half million Argold,¡± Alden said, trying to sound not freaked out by the number. ¡°Is that enough?¡± she asked quickly. ¡°It¡¯s the usual amount for a rare S-rank trade. It¡¯s what they gave the person Lute traded with. He¡¯ll tell you. Keiko said we had to give you more than usual for B because Aimi was unprofessional. I can ask grandmother for more.¡± It was nearly five million dollars. Boe was going to lose his mind. ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°So we can trade now?¡± He frowned at her. ¡°Let me finish.¡± The last two pages weren¡¯t actually contract at all. It was a list of wordchains. Four sets with both the sacrificer¡¯s and the recipient¡¯s portion written out phonetically. Video examples were included. Alden hadn''t heard of these chains before, and he wondered if they were ones you couldn¡¯t usually learn unless you were in good with the Artonans. So I¡¯m getting them whether I want them or not¡­ It wasn¡¯t like he could throw them away. Did the System even have a permanent delete feature? ¡°Was Lute awful to you?¡± Hazel said suddenly. Alden noted she¡¯d nearly picked all the polish off one of her fingernails. ¡°It wasn¡¯t okay for your grandmother to install a spy at a funeral. Even if he is a student at one of the schools.¡± ¡°He¡¯s been an arrogant brat to everyone ever since he got S.¡± Way to ignore what I said. ¡°Let me finish reading.¡± He was already finished. He just wanted a second to think. The contract seemed fine. Good in fact. Better than what he¡¯d asked for. There was even an NDA signed by around two dozen Velras that said they wouldn¡¯t discuss any of today¡¯s events. Alden didn¡¯t have any way of telling if that included all of the people who knew about him, but it was something. This is pretty great for me. Except for the whole scary-lady-thinking-the-universe-wants-us-to-be-besties thing. Alden scratched at the side of his nose. And I don¡¯t really like Hazel. It was hard to put his finger on why. It wasn¡¯t like she¡¯d said or done anything horrible in the past few minutes. Actually, compared to every other member of the family he¡¯d met today, she came across as kind of bland. And as far as he could tell, she wasn¡¯t uneven. Which might make sense if the Velra Gloss could only be applied to the Avowed family members¡­ So Hazel getting Chainer is just straight-up lucky for the entire family? ¡°Everyone says you¡¯re a prodigy,¡± Alden noted. She lit up. ¡°I have highly attuned senses for certain kinds of magic! It means I can monitor a wordchain¡¯s strength and repercussions better than other people. So when I get Chainer, the boost from that on top of my natural talent will put me a step ahead of the others.¡± ¡°That¡¯s interesting.¡± He felt like it was a neutral thing to say, but Hazel¡¯s smile broadened. Apparently she was eager to share more on the subject. ¡°To tell you the truth, right now I can barely stand to be around my own family. The Gloss is such a strong chain that it gives me this buzzing in my head every time I¡¯m near one of them. It¡¯s strange to me that other people can¡¯t hear it. Even other Chainers! Some of the older family members can detect chains if they try, but they¡¯re not so aware of it that it bothers them.¡± She laughed lightly and tucked her hair behind her ear. ¡°I bet you think I¡¯m crazy, don¡¯t you? To want to be even better at something that annoys me. But everyone thinks I¡¯ll be able to achieve great things with it.¡± Alden filed that information away, trying not to react. Was the same thing going on with him? It sounded similar but not identical. Either way, it was nice to have confirmation that it might be useful. ¡°So¡­um¡­are you done reading?¡± Hazel asked. ¡°Hm? Oh, yeah. Let¡¯s trade.¡± He drew his signature in the air with his fingertip, and the contract was finalized. She sighed with relief. ¡°Great. I¡¯ll initiate.¡± Half a second later, Alden received the notification. [Hazel Dinah Velra has requested a class trade. Hazel Dinah Velra is an authorized witness. You have been vouched for by an authorized witness. Negotiations are approved.] [TRADE CHAINER CLASS FOR RABBIT CLASS?] YES/NO Yeah. Hazel being able to witness her own trades is a loophole the size of the planet. Alden was sure a lot of legit witnesses would find the Velras¡¯ use of the gloss to be a step too far. It wasn¡¯t like they were forcing him, but having your life realigned so that you landed exactly where they needed you to¡­so sketchy. He did want to buy what they were selling, though. He clicked yes. [Both selectees have confirmed the trade. Both selectees have been vouched for by an authorized witness. Please wait. Your class is being reassigned.] Alden stood up, feeling lighter than he had in days. He had worries about Rabbit, but it was freeing not to be stuck in limbo, waiting to find out what class he¡¯d finally end up with. ¡°You¡¯re leaving?¡± Hazel sounded surprised. ¡°I have to get back. Why? We don¡¯t need to stay together for the class to be reassigned right?¡± It had taken a couple of minutes last time. He didn¡¯t want to hang out with her if he didn¡¯t have to. ¡°No¡­but I¡¯m going to affix it as soon as I get it. Because of the timer.¡± ¡°Makes sense. Good luck. I hope it works out great for you.¡± He turned and left. He was already back inside the amphitheater, heading down toward the group of Hannah¡¯s friends who were mingling by the granite memorial stones, when he realized Hazel had actually expected him to stick around for her affixation. I guess it is an important moment? Andrzej had said he was going to do it at a party his family was planning. But it¡¯s not like we even know each other. And some of her relatives have to be lurking around campus somewhere¡­ Alden wouldn¡¯t be surprised if there were thirty Velras hiding in the bushes, waiting to jump him if he reneged on the deal. He put it out of his mind. Now that all of the students and many of the other attendees had left, it was time for the private part of the event. Alden hovered at the edge of the group, not really sure he belonged here, while everyone spoke quietly and watched as Hannah¡¯s name was carved into the memorial as if by invisible fingers. Alden didn¡¯t know if the magic was a feature of the stones themselves or if there was a hidden spellcaster. When the class re-assignment notice popped up, he swiped it away and kept watching in silence. It took several minutes and there was something both terrible and cathartic about seeing the letters inscribe themselves one by one. The Gloom was shaking with silent tears. When it was over, Alden wondered if he should try to make a quick getaway. Cly Zhao didn¡¯t look like she was in any condition to babysit him on the way back to the Teleportation Complex like she¡¯d planned to do. And the chances of him being clobbered by some out of control superhuman on his way out of Apex were probably small. But as he started to quietly sneak away, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Hannah¡¯s mother. She really did look a lot like her daughter. ¡°You¡¯re Alden.¡± It wasn¡¯t a question, but Alden nodded anyway. ¡°Your forgiveness removed a heavy burden from Hannah¡¯s shoulders,¡± she told him. ¡°I¡¯ll never forget that.¡± A few people were surreptitiously watching them. Alden felt his face heating. It was only half embarrassment. The rest was nerves. He didn¡¯t want to say the wrong thing at a moment like this. ¡°I don¡¯t feel like there was anything to forgive. Hannah was¡­I look up to her.¡± He¡¯d almost said she was the kind of hero he wanted to be, but he didn¡¯t want to out himself here and now. ¡°I miss her,¡± said The Gloom. There was such a simple, aching pain in the words. It made Alden¡¯s breath stop. ¡°Yeah.¡± His eyes were stinging. Damn, I can¡¯t. It felt too selfish to cry in front of Hannah¡¯s family, so he tried to rein it in. ¡°I miss her, too.¡± TWENTY-FOUR: Rabbit Rabbit It was late when Alden teleported back home. To his surprise, Boe was hanging out on the sofa using Alden¡¯s laptop like it was community property. ¡°Do you just live here now or something?¡± Alden tossed him a bag of banana chips. ¡°You¡¯ll note from the price sticker that these cost less than fifteen dollars.¡± He¡¯d wanted to get a fresh banana, but it was against customs regulations. ¡°You spend the day in hero land, and all I get is,¡±¡ªBoe adjusted his glasses and checked the tag¡ª¡°a seven dollar snack size bag of freeze-dried fruit. That¡¯s robbery. You¡¯re making my point for me. You¡¯re going to starve to death.¡± Alden was tired and drained, but he had actually been anticipating this moment for the past couple of hours while he sat waiting for his teleport time slot in the departures lounge. ¡°I might,¡± he agreed, trying to sound casual as he kicked off his shoes. ¡°Only got five million for Chainer. Hey, where¡¯s Aunt Connie?¡± ¡°She went out for drinks with some friends¡­¡± Boe¡¯s fingers froze on the keyboard. ¡°Wait. Run that sentence past me again.¡± Alden grinned. ¡°I said, ¡®Hey, where¡¯s Aunt Connie?¡¯¡± Boe flung the banana chips at him. ¡°You¡¯re not serious?!¡± ¡°I seriously wanted to know where she was. She¡¯s my aunt. I do love her, you¡ª¡± ¡°You jerk! We have to call Jeremy. How did you already get paid? Did you just go to the Velra mansion and knock? And how did you get five million, you total pushover? You were there for a funeral!¡± ¡°Hey, don¡¯t throw my laptop around like that!¡± ¡°You can buy yourself another one with all of your newfound wealth.¡± Boe was reaching for his phone. ¡°Rabbit? Or did you chicken out and ask for Adjuster in the end?¡± ¡°Rabbit,¡± Alden said, checking his computer for damage. ¡°It was a long day. The funeral went well. As well as a funeral can go. It still feels strange to say goodbye to her when nobody even knows what happened. As for how everything else went down¡­the Velras are batshit.¡± Boe eyeballed him. ¡°Did you already affix? You don¡¯t look like you did.¡± Alden snorted and flopped onto the sofa. It felt good to be home. ¡°You think it would show? With Rabbit?¡± Boe shrugged. ¡°A little maybe. Jeremy¡¯s not picking up.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t affix. I was worried the security scanner at the teleport place might be able to tell. I¡¯ll do it in the morning when I¡¯m rested. And I need to freshen up my knowledge of all things Rabbit before I have to make final decisions.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I was doing on your computer. Since you know your skill choice, the big thing will be your trait selection. I¡¯ve never paid much attention to that before since it¡¯s Rabbit, but it¡¯s a good feature. Kind of like getting to choose your own class subtype. I think¡­¡± Alden listened while Boe rambled on. Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow is the real start of it all.
Jeremy woke the entire house up on Sunday morning by banging on the front door at six AM. ¡°I was afraid you were going to affix it without me,¡± he whispered, while Boe flipped him off with both middle fingers. Alden apologized to his slightly hungover aunt, told her she could go back to sleep, and sent Jeremy to fetch breakfast as punishment. ¡°This is probably the only time in my whole life I¡¯ll ever get to see anyone become an Avowed,¡± Jeremy said in a pitiful voice as Alden shoved him back out the door. ¡°I¡¯m not going to do it without you. I¡¯m not even fully conscious yet. Plus there won¡¯t be anything amazing for you to see.¡± At least he didn¡¯t think there would be. Some people fainted, but even if Alden was one of them, it wouldn¡¯t be much to look at. An hour later, they were all eating convenience store snacks together in the floor of Alden¡¯s bedroom, trying to talk quietly about trait selection so that they wouldn¡¯t wake up Connie. ¡°We should just do this at the consulate,¡± Boe said finally. ¡°I can¡¯t argue properly with a volume limit. And Skiff shouldn¡¯t be spying anymore, right?¡± ¡°Definitely not if he worked for the Velras. Probably not if he didn¡¯t. My listing for Chainer would have disappeared when I traded the class.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t believe you two escaped from a superhero without me.¡± ¡°We quietly walked past him, Jeremy. It was no big deal,¡± Alden said. ¡°Well yeah¡­if you¡¯re comparing it to getting stolen away in broad daylight by a gorgeous chick in a sports car.¡± ¡°She was stressful. And forty-something.¡± ¡°I looked her up online. I think you¡¯ve got to be wrong about that.¡± ¡°Completely monopolizing a Healer to give your family eternal youth is fairytale villain stuff,¡± Boe said. ¡°Gotta respect it.¡± They continued the conversation on their way to the consulate, where Gorgon let them in even though it wasn¡¯t yet officially open. Alden ran straight to the desk. ¡°I got Rabbit!¡± he said excitedly. ¡°I¡¯m going to affix it this morning.¡± ¡°I see,¡± Gorgon said, not looking away from his monitors. ¡°You may use the basement if you wish. We will be open to the public soon, and making adjustments to your class during affixation can take some time.¡± ¡°I know you can¡¯t say anything encouraging, but I can sense your enthusiasm buried deep, deep down.¡± I hope. A tiny part of Alden was still paranoid that the luggage thing was a coincidence. And right after he affixed, Gorgon was going to say something like, ¡°You moron. Why would I ever suggest a loser class like Rabbit?¡± That¡¯s not what¡¯s going to happen. It¡¯ll be fine. There will be something about the luggage skill that makes it good. They took the elevator down to the hall of beige-ness. ¡°Awesome!¡± Jeremy said, racing toward the first door and jostling the handle. ¡°Aww¡­this one¡¯s locked.¡± He went to the next and tried to turn its handle, too. ¡°Yes, keep doing that. I¡¯ve always wanted to be killed by some eldritch abomination the Artonans are keeping hidden away underground,¡± Boe said. ¡°I think if he manages to open one it¡¯s more likely to be a storage closet. Or a conference room.¡± ¡°This one¡¯s open!¡± Jeremy shouted. ¡°That¡¯s because it¡¯s the one we¡¯re allowed to use,¡± Alden told him. ¡°Wow. Were you planning to move in down here?¡± Jeremy stepped over the rumpled sleeping bag and water bottles. ¡°Yeah, I was. I thought I¡¯d have to trade 24/7 for the next few months to get something good. But¡­the Velras happened.¡± Boe was fondling the cloudy crystal table. ¡°I wonder what this thing is made of.¡± ¡°Magic stuff.¡± Alden frowned, remembering something. ¡°I told B74 I¡¯d come back. I did mean to. That asshole is going to think I¡¯m an even bigger asshole.¡± ¡°If he doesn¡¯t like the taste of it, he shouldn¡¯t serve it to other people,¡± said Boe. Jeremy took the folding chair, so after a moment¡¯s consideration, Alden hopped up to sit on the edge of the trading table. ¡°Are you going to do it now?¡± Jeremy asked eagerly. Boe shot him a look. ¡°Stop asking that every twelve seconds. He might have a few reservations about signing his life away, you know.¡± ¡°Why would he? Your choices are saying ¡®yes¡¯ to the contract and getting a thank-you prize. Or saying ¡®no¡¯ and getting squat. You become a superhuman either way.¡± Jeremy was right. The only reason anyone would reject the contract was out of deeply held anti-Artonan beliefs or because they were scared of being summoned. It wasn¡¯t an official policy, but it was widely known that the aliens deprioritized people who refused to agree, even if they wouldn¡¯t outright delete them from their list of potential summonses. They preferred to use willing helpers before they resorted to angry or petrified ones. ¡°I¡¯m good to go,¡± Alden said. ¡°I think. I just need to say yes. Pick the skill. See what traits are offered with it. Become amazing.¡± Boe snorted. ¡°Become a bunny you mean.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to use my new luggage carrying powers against you.¡± ¡°¡­I¡¯m sure that sounded more threatening in your head.¡± ¡°You can use your powers on me!¡± Jeremy volunteered. ¡°Thank you, Jeremy. You¡¯re my favorite friend.¡± He took a deep breath. ¡°Okay. Let¡¯s do it.¡± He opened up the System¡¯s acceptance page. There was an option to listen to the selection speech again, and his finger hovered over it. But he knew that was only anxiety. He¡¯d nearly memorized it when he was a kid. There were no secrets hidden in the words. [Pre-affixed Selectee: Samuel Alden Thorn] [Divergence Rank: B] [Assigned Class: Rabbit] ¡­ [Samuel Alden Thorn, do you willingly accept your duties as one of Earth¡¯s Avowed, thereby satisfying a portion of your planet¡¯s debt to Artona?] [YES/NO] 2091 h: 23 m: 11 s ¡°I would like to accept the Interdimensional Warriors Contract.¡± He spoke in a deliberately steady voice. It felt like an occasion where you should say it out loud instead of just clicking. ¡°Oh, shit. He¡¯s really doing it,¡± Jeremy whispered, staring at Alden with huge eyes. ¡°Let him focus.¡± The acceptance page disappeared. ¡°Welcome, Alden,¡± the System murmured in his ear. ¡°And thank you for your future service. Please take your time refining your choices for class-specific options. You have two thousand ninety-one hours before they will be randomly affixed.¡± ¡°It¡¯s done,¡± Alden said. Before he could add anything else, six new points of light appeared in front of his eyes and bloomed into option panes.
FOUNDATION
SKILLS
SPELLS
WARDROBE
PRIVILEGES
FINALIZE AFFIXATION
¡°My palms are literally sweating. Isn¡¯t that stupid?¡± Alden dried them on his jeans. He hesitated for a second, then selected FOUNDATION. He already knew what it should look like, since the stat bonuses for every class and rank, except the uniques, were standardized. But he still wanted to see it. Foundation was divided into two subcategories. One called Foundational Enhancements and one called Class Effects. Alden chose the first, and scanned through it. It¡¯s totally normal. He¡¯d wondered if giving his blood to Gorgon might have some effect on his stats¡­but if it did, it wasn¡¯t reflected here. Makes sense I guess. The System¡¯s only listing the things it will add itself. It didn¡¯t even list whatever Alden¡¯s base stats as a fairly-average human teenager were. It just started from zero.
FOUNDATIONAL ENHANCEMENTS Note: 1 pt is roughly equal to a 10 percent improvement over your species average. Rank-based class bonuses have been automatically applied.
Sympathy for Magic +4 Processing +0.25
Appeal +1 Agility +0
Dexterity +0.5 Speed +0
Stamina +0.25 Strength +0
Alden sighed. ¡°That full point being automatically applied to Appeal instead of something else really rubs the wrong way.¡± Rabbits were the only class that had a starting bonus in that category. Probably because the Artonans expected to have to deal with them more often and in more social settings. ¡°Tons of places require a full point or more in it for hero work anyway,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°I know. Everyone wants their hero team to be friendly and photogenic. But still¡­¡± The stats listed here were just the tip of a vast and complicated iceberg. The System tried to simplify things for people who didn¡¯t want to get double Ph. D¡¯s in the human body and the magical mutation of it. Any point added to one of these top-level stats was actually being divided and applied to all the various physical and mental components that formed that quality. If Alden selected Appeal and dug down into the sub-stat menus, he knew he¡¯d find that the point was affecting all kinds of different things, from his facial symmetry to his ability to empathize with others. As part of the 1963 Agreement, the Artonans weren¡¯t allowed to force psychological adjustments on humans through the System, though. So prior to affixing the point, Alden could delete the percentage of it that would make him better at playing well with others. But doing that, especially with a single point, was a bad look for someone who wanted to go the hero route. Next, he selected Class Information.
RABBIT - RANK B Class Standard: Your eyes are wide open to the workings of magic. Your ears await the Triplanets¡¯ call. All Rabbits receive at least one skill.
Rank Perk: *You may choose one spell impression from the spell list prior to affixation. *You may choose one spell impression from the spell list after affixation. Class Perk: * You may select your primary class trait. * Rabbit''s Wardrobe
Class Penalties: *Your summons response timer is set to 48 seconds. (Note: All emergency summons are instantaneous. Response to emergency summons will be commensurately rewarded.) If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. *Summoners will not offer access to skills or spell impressions in exchange for your regular services. Summoners may still offer foundation points, tools, or spell instruction for extraordinary service. *New skills and spell impressions are only available upon leveling of starter skills or upon long-term personal assignment to approved parties. *Your quest rejection/acceptance ratio may not exceed 1/20.
Class Trait: Please finalize skill selection to unlock this option.
¡°No surprises,¡± Alden noted as he finished reading through it. ¡°The summons response time is like something from a comedy.¡± Other classes usually had multiple hours or even days notice before they were summoned for non-emergencies. Forty-eight seconds was barely long enough to put clothes on if you got summoned in the middle of a shower. Under Privileges, he found his signing gift. He was allowed to choose among three options: three stat points to spend in foundation, a tool called The Fragile Atmosphere, and the Rabbit class spell Wardrobe Change. The Fragile Atmosphere was offered as a signing bonus to almost every class. It was a single-use life support device that would give you around six minutes of Earth air, gravity, and atmospheric pressure. It was a great ¡°oh shit¡± button in all kinds of situations, but single-use was hard to swallow. Wardrobe Change was slightly better than it sounded. It was a short spell that would let you quickly swap between various pieces of gear you had purchased from the Wardrobe all Rabbits had access to. But the stat bonuses on Rabbit gear were so small they were almost decorative. ¡°The foundation stat bonuses will be the best,¡± Alden said. ¡°Don¡¯t just assume that. You haven¡¯t even read the detailed description for your skill yet.¡± ¡°I know, Boe. I¡¯m doing it.¡± Moment of truth. Alden selected SKILLS, bit his lower lip, and scrolled through the seemingly endless options toward the L¡¯s. There was a chance¡ªa very slim one¡ªthat Let Me Take Your Luggage wouldn¡¯t be there. The System made adjustments all the time. And it sometimes limited the number of people who had certain skills or spells by deleting them from the list of available options when it had met its quota. But it was there. Right between two equally mysterious options. [Let Me Make You Toast ¡ª Rank: F] The Rabbit makes near-perfect toast every time. [Let Me Take Your Luggage ¡ª Rank: B] The Rabbit carries an item that has been entrusted to them. [Letter Writing ¡ª Rank: D] The Rabbit has near-perfect penmanship. ¡°Well, don¡¯t accidentally click the wrong one.¡± Boe raised an eyebrow when Alden read the other two aloud. ¡°Yeah. Those suck,¡± Jeremy said. ¡°Who wants perfect penmanship? Just type that shit.¡± The instructions at the top of the skill list said Alden could have one B skill or a D and an F. Not two Fs or one C or any other logical-seeming combination. The unavailable skills weren¡¯t even listed. ¡°Why do you think they don¡¯t really explain what some of the skills do until we select them?¡± Alden asked, staring at the interface. ¡°It seems spiteful now that I¡¯m actually in this position.¡± ¡°It¡¯s because the Artonans are dicks,¡± Boe said. ¡°My parents think it¡¯s one of the ways they slow the pace of human knowledge acquisition without violating the terms of the 1963 Agreement. Their deal with Earth requires them to give us access to a certain amount of magic and tech and stuff. It doesn¡¯t require them to tell us what it does or how to use it.¡± Boe and Alden both looked at him. ¡°They¡¯re lawyers. They had to do entire classes on Artona/Earth contracts in law school.¡± Alden considered it. ¡°So¡­it¡¯s because they¡¯re dicks. Here we go then. Let¡¯s hope Gorgon knows what he¡¯s doing.¡± He took a deep breath and selected the skill. [Let Me Take Your Luggage is a B-rank skill. You will not be able to choose another skill at this time. Attempting to de-affix this skill through magical means is forbidden and will cause severe harm to your person. Are you certain of your choice?] ¡°Yes.¡± He wished he was a little more certain, but everyone probably felt that way no matter what they were choosing. There was a brief pause, then the skill description expanded. Alden felt a rush of excitement. ¡°Ladies and gentlemen, we have details! Oh, wow. This is real!¡± ¡°Which of us is the lady?¡± Jeremy stage whispered to Boe. Alden didn¡¯t hear Boe¡¯s reply. He was too busy reading about his new magic skill that did something magical. His heart was racing as he scanned the description. Please be awesome. Please be awesome.
Let Me Take Your Luggage (Level One)
*While you are carrying a tangible item that has been entrusted to you by your target, the item will be preserved.* Cessation of carriage will end preservation. Loss of contact will end entrustment. Retargeting will end entrustment. Summoners will be autotargeted for heightened efficiency.
Foundational Supplementation: Proprioception +1.5 Agility +1 Visual Processing +1
* Rabbit Class Benefit: Trait Selection has been made available. Appropriate traits are now listed on the class page.
Alden read the description several times. ¡°Huh,¡± he said finally. ¡°That bad?¡± Jeremy asked. ¡°You¡¯re not really going to grow extra arms are you?¡± said Boe. Alden grinned. ¡°No. It¡¯s good. I think? It¡¯s just not any of the things I guessed it might be. There are a lot of unknowns even with the extended description.¡± He read it aloud slowly. Jeremy looked confused, Boe surprised. ¡°It¡¯s for preserving a carried object? I really didn¡¯t expect that either. I thought¡­¡± He trailed off, and Jeremy jumped in. ¡°Did you think it was going to make him hella strong? Because I did. I thought he¡¯d be able to carry cars around as long as some he-man passed them to him first.¡± ¡°Yeah I considered that. But actually my favorite theory was heading in a more metaphorical direction. I thought maybe he could temporarily take away peoples¡¯ pain or stress or something. Like a fast-acting, mini Healer of Mind. It would work for support.¡± ¡°I was hoping for my own portable pocket dimension,¡± Alden confessed. ¡°A bit.¡± ¡°Oh my god. Really? As a B-rank?¡± ¡°I thought maybe a little one¡­¡± ¡°Those stat supplements are small, by the way,¡± Jeremy said, frowning. ¡°Isn¡¯t he supposed to get closer to ten altogether?¡± Boe nodded. ¡°Yeah, three and a half is puny for a class that only gets one rank-appropriate skill. Theoretically that means the System thinks the skill is near maximum value for B. But¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to be so squishy,¡± Alden agreed, trying not to feel disappointed. ¡°Regular human squishy.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll have your armor when you drop some Argold in Wardrobe, Mr. Millionaire,¡± Boe said. ¡°But yeah. You¡¯re starting wayyy behind the curve physically if you want to hang around actual superhero fights. I noticed your skill description doesn¡¯t say you¡¯ll be preserved. Only whatever you¡¯re carrying.¡± ¡°Yep. And it¡¯s doing whole point increases of proprioception and visual processing. That¡¯s niche. Wouldn¡¯t it usually just throw it all into Agility? Or even head down a level from that and directly boost Balance?¡± ¡°Read it all to me again?¡± Boe had pulled out the laptop. Alden did. When he got to the stats, he tried to consider what the System was thinking he¡¯d need them for. It was an additional clue, since presumably it had chosen the ones that would make him best able to use the skill effectively when he was summoned. ¡°It doesn¡¯t want me to fall down?¡± he guessed. ¡°That¡¯s what I think, too,¡± Boe said,. ¡°And it doesn¡¯t seem to expect you to be knocked over a lot in the course of your Rabbit chores. The percentage strength boost that will naturally come with the Agility buff is too small. It might just be enough so that you can make use of the increase in proprioception. Along with the visual acuity¡­I think it¡¯s just worried about you tripping over stuff or navigating crowds?¡± ¡°So the skill is more often used for carrying delicate things than heavy things?¡± Alden suggested. ¡°That¡¯s what it sounds like.¡± ¡°Right. Human strength and stamina must be sufficient for most summoners¡¯ purposes. But the preservation effect ends if you fall or drop the ¡®item.¡¯ So, the System wants you to not do that.¡± Jeremy cleared his throat. ¡°What you¡¯re saying is¡­it¡¯s a skill designed for transporting expensive vases?¡± Alden tried not to feel offended. ¡°That doesn¡¯t make sense,¡± he said. ¡°Nobody needs to preserve a vase.¡± Actually what I really need to understand is what the System means by preservation in the first place. Am I supposed to be like a walking mini-fridge for perishables? Boe seemed to be thinking along the exact same lines. ¡°I think he¡¯d be better at carrying something like an ice sculpture than a vase,¡± he said. ¡°The preservation has to be the important part. The natural thing to assume is that it stops the item you¡¯re given from being damaged by outside effects, right? Like heat and cold and impacts.¡± ¡°So it¡¯ll be a shield for whatever he¡¯s got in his hands?¡± Jeremy said, perking up. ¡°That¡¯s cooler.¡± ¡°Maybe. It doesn¡¯t say he has to use his hands, though. Or that there¡¯s definitely a shield involved. We¡¯re just guessing on those things until he actually finalizes it.¡± Alden grinned. ¡°Oh, I hope it¡¯s a shield effect! Do you know how perfect that would be? I could have someone hand me a trash can lid, and as long as I was carrying it, everything would bounce off the shield around it, right?¡± He paused, realizing something. ¡°¡®Cessation of carriage¡¯ is separate from ¡®loss of contact.¡¯ That means it doesn¡¯t consider holding and carrying to be the same thing. So¡­I¡¯ll have to be moving for the skill to be active.¡± Boe¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°Right! Not just moving though. Carrying. We don¡¯t know how it defines that exactly. Can you hold something in your lap while you ride around in a car? Or do you have to be moving under your own power?¡± The first would be so much better. Alden¡¯s imagination was running wild with possibilities. If the shield thing was right, and he could use a car¡­ No. Stop. I¡¯m getting ahead of myself. He couldn¡¯t choose his trait and signing bonus based on what he hoped the skill did. He had to be realistic. ¡°I bet I have to move the object on my own. Or we should assume that. To be safe, we should probably assume that I have to physically bear the entire weight of whatever the thing is, too. The System wouldn¡¯t be giving me specific anti-tripping stats if I could easily avoid dropping my object by keeping one hand on it while I rode around in a vehicle. I need to think this through.¡± Boe and Jeremy went quiet, and Alden spent the next few minutes with his eyes closed, trying to imagine different scenarios in which he might use the skill. As far as what he would be doing with it when and if he was summoned, he had a feeling Boe wasn¡¯t too far off the mark with the ¡°carrying ice sculptures¡± thing. Only instead of ice sculptures it would be something much more finicky and valuable to the Artonans¡­maybe delicate magical devices or crumbling historical documents that needed to be moved carefully. Maybe he¡¯d be doing mostly specialized courier work. But that was on Artona. Presumably the skill alone was sufficient to make him worthwhile as a summons from the aliens¡¯ perspective. The question was, how did Alden turn it into something he could use here on Earth, where he¡¯d be spending most of his time and eventually trying to get a job as a battlefield support. Even if he could use the item he was carrying as a magic shield¡­it would have to be a certain size to be useful. If he could make shrapnel bounce off something like a tablecloth that would be fantastic. But what if it didn¡¯t work that way? And if it did, how would he get himself and his super tablecloth where they needed to be on a battlefield or for a rescue operation? After a long while, he said, ¡°I think trying for higher mobility and reaction time is the right choice?¡± Jeremy leaned back in the chair, ¡°You mean taking the stat bonus as your signing gift and dropping it all in Agility and Speed?¡± ¡°Pretty much. I¡¯m hoping I can shield myself with the carried item. But whether I can or not, it¡¯ll be more valuable for me to be quick. Maybe I¡¯ll be carrying¡­things?¡­for heroes, or just trying to get out of the way in a pinch. A Rabbit¡¯s not going to be able to go toe-to-toe physically with many villains anyway.¡± He paused. ¡°I could dig down a little and drop a partial point in Reflexes? Or even instinct?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t screw with instinct,¡± Boe said, drumming his fingers on the table. ¡°That one makes people real paranoid if they overdo it. But everything else you just said makes sense. You need to dodge hits, not take them in the face. And if the System¡¯s leaning toward boosting your balance and situational awareness anyway, it¡¯s probably good to go along with the program. Did it give you any trait selections that will work?¡± Alden went back to the class information page. There were now several traits available. For some reason, the System used colors for the names. Alden didn''t know if it was trying to make the traits seem fun and friendly or if it had some basis in Artonan culture.
Please choose a trait to help you perform your duties.
Azure Rabbit ¡ª You are lighter on your feet when your skills are in use. Green Rabbit ¡ª You senses are significantly heightened for 21.3 hours after summoning.
Citrine Rabbit ¡ª Your body¡¯s ability to filter contaminants is increased. Rose Rabbit ¡ª Your attention to detail is increased when your skills are in use.
Gold Rabbit ¡ª You are gifted with additional composure when your skills are in use. *Trait selection is final and may not be changed
¡°Is it just me,¡± Jeremy said after Alden read them aloud. ¡°Or are those all surprisingly good for combat?¡± ¡°They definitely are! Well, not Green unless I plan to be summoned on a daily basis. And Citrine¡¯s more case specific, but it¡¯s also got being a permanent effect in its favor.¡± Alden was actually thrilled. He¡¯d skimmed over the known Rabbit traits with Boe last night, and many of them were only useful after you¡¯d been summoned or in particular environments. He wanted three of these. But he could only pick one. ¡°I¡¯m mildly concerned about the Citrine trait,¡± Boe said, typing away. ¡°It looks like not a lot of people have the chance to choose it. You don¡¯t really think of Rabbits being unprotected around environmental contaminants often enough to justify speccing for it do you?¡± Alden shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s probably got some specific case use in combination with the skill. Tell me again about Azure. I know we talked about it last night, but it¡¯s personal gravity reduction, right?¡± ¡°Sort of. Based on user reports, it seems like it¡¯s a coat of magic that transforms a percentage of gravity¡¯s effect on you into force as you kick off the ground. It¡¯s amazing if you want to go for mobility, but you have to remember that the Artonans are weird about what counts as ground.¡± Ground was one of the Artonan elements Shapers could use. Artonans thought their personal concept of ¡°ground¡± was obvious. But it really wasn¡¯t. Many things humans used as flooring didn¡¯t qualify. A floor made of granite slabs was definitely ground. A floor made of concrete was, too, but it was less ground than the granite¡­and if it was several stories above the earth it might be classified as an object. Wood flooring often wasn¡¯t ground, but a big pile of wood mulch almost always was. Literally any pot full of soil with a live plant in it was ground. Even if it was on an airplane. ¡°I want it,¡± Alden said. City streets were usually considered ground. ¡°Seriously?¡± Boe sounded exasperated. ¡°I get that it¡¯s the coolest looking of the options. But you¡¯re going to be running away from a supervillain one day, and you¡¯re going to try to escape from them using an overpass or something and it will suddenly be not fucking ¡°ground¡± anymore because it¡¯s over-crafted or the altitude is six inches too high. Take the composure enhancement.¡± ¡°Not that one,¡± Jeremy argued. ¡°You can just learn to be more chill. Attention to detail is better. Sounds like a Sherlock Holmes power.¡± ¡°¡®Learning to be chill¡¯ in an emergency is not easy.¡± ¡°I see the benefits of both of those,¡± Alden said. ¡°But it¡¯s no good to notice details if I don¡¯t have the power to do anything about them. And I think if I have serious composure problems under pressure I should probably look for a different career instead of trying to magically impose calm on myself. Can you imagine the whiplash if I dropped my item in a fight and went from zen to panic attack instantaneously?¡± Boe squinted at him. ¡°It¡¯s your choice. I guess you can audit a Shaper class and study ground. It just sounds like an additional mental strain in a crisis to have to figure out what everything under your feet is made of.¡± ¡°It¡¯s something I can practice, though,¡± Alden said, selecting the option. After that, he went into spell selection. B-ranks Rabbits did not get to choose B-rank spells. He could have one F-rank spell of any type or one high complexity D-rank. As opposed to skills, all spells required the user to perform a deliberate set of casting actions. The simplest ones were just a magic word or two. More complicated ones could require finger gestures, chants¡­even wands. ¡°These are all garbage,¡± Alden muttered after staring at the options for twenty minutes. ¡°Of course they¡¯re garbage. You¡¯re not an Adjuster. You¡¯re lucky you get to play with spells at all.¡± Since the spell would be given to him as an impression¡ªdirectly transferred into his brain¡ªhe didn¡¯t have to worry about mispronouncing a paragraph-long chunk of Artonan words or mastering peculiar finger motions. But those still weren¡¯t things you wanted to be doing when time was of the essence. And a lot of these spells did stuff that technology could do better. How often would Alden need a complicated image capture spell, really, when he had a camera in his pocket that would work in a tenth the time? He dithered between a signal flare spell and one that would create a loud bang a set distance and direction from his position. He loved what the noisemaker spell did, but it was also an extremely common choice among heroes. Instead of being distracted, lots of people would hear it and know exactly where you were. His eyes landed on a complex D he had initially dismissed because it required an actual magical ingredient. I don¡¯t have to avoid them. I¡¯m rich now. ¡°Boe, can you look up something called a Temper Sphere?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a magic thing?¡± ¡°I guess. It¡¯s a spell ingredient.¡± After several minutes of searching, Boe said. ¡°Yeah. It looks like a glass ball full of glitter dirt.¡± ¡°How big is it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s about half the size of an egg, judging by this picture some guy has posted of one beside an egg. But the more important question is, ¡®What does it cost?¡¯¡± ¡°What does it cost?¡± Bored with Alden¡¯s long silence, Jeremy had gone to stand over Boe¡¯s shoulder and stare at the computer ages ago. ¡°It¡¯s two hundred Argold,¡± he reported. ¡°For one.¡± Alden winced. So practicing with the thing would be expensive. But once he mastered it, it wasn¡¯t like he¡¯d need it often. ¡°You can just buy them on Anesidora, right?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I don¡¯t have to wait for some Artonan to give them to me as a tip or something?¡± ¡°Yeah, they sell them in Wright shops. What¡¯s it do?¡± ¡°If you use the right spell on it, it turns invisible and screams. It¡¯s only good for one or two uses though.¡± ¡°Cool!¡± said Jeremy. Boe crossed his arms over his chest and stared off into space. ¡°Yeah, that is cool,¡± he said finally. ¡°Great.¡± Alden selected the Haunting Sphere spell. Finally, he chose his signing bonus and divided the three precious stat points evenly between Agility and Speed. He would have liked to put a little into general mental processing. But when he tried to add another half point, the System informed him that based on his other buffs, he¡¯d have to wait while the additional processing was gradually affixed over the course of around six months. Agility and Speed would be giving him more anyway, and on top of the visual processing buff, Alden¡¯s brain just wouldn¡¯t take any more instantaneous enhancement. So he dropped the idea for now. Maybe in six months he¡¯d have gotten more points anyway. ¡°Stop pouting,¡± said Boe. ¡°We can¡¯t all be me.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think it would let you have much more either, genius. It just doesn¡¯t like doing fast intelligence enhancements on teenagers.¡± Actually, it didn¡¯t like doing them on most people. The System was disinclined to build artificial super-geniuses. It gave almost everyone some kind of hard limit on sheer organic thinking power and started supplementing with various magical effects to satisfy the needs of Avowed at the highest levels. When it was all done, he looked it over about a dozen times. Nothing else but to do it, he thought. ¡°Finalize affixation,¡± he said. A moment later, he felt a strange rush of something. Everything went black. TWENTY-FIVE: Wardrobe Wardrobe The boy stood in front of a white door. He didn¡¯t know how long he¡¯d been standing there, or where he had come from, or what he was supposed to do next. His fingers rested on the cool metal knob without gripping it. He watched them for a while, then gradually he looked up. A sign had been affixed to the door with clear tape. It said QUARANTINE in black marker. The handwriting looked familiar. He blinked slowly, and it changed. DON¡¯T BE AFRAID, it said. WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU. As though the phrase had triggered something, he had his first clear thought. My name¡¯s Alden. What¡¯s going on? He looked from left to right. There was nothing but endless, empty hallway on either side of him. And at his back¡­he was scared to turn around. Something bad would happen to him if he did. He tightened his grip on the knob and twisted. The door swung open easily, and he stepped through into a room that glowed with a deep gold light. It was several degrees warmer than was comfortable. A bed made of artfully curved wooden branches embraced a thick foam mattress, and a line of screens glowed on the wall above it. Every screen was flashing with the same message that had been written on the door. That¡¯s not right, Alden thought. He recognized this room. It was in the House of Healing in Chicago. The screens were supposed to be showing numbers and graphs and detailed anatomical models. VERY GOOD, said the screens. PLEASE HAVE A SEAT AND WAIT. There was nowhere to sit but on the bed. Alden walked over to it. There was a stool in place below it as if a much shorter person was expected to need it. He hopped up and sat, twiddling his thumbs while he watched the white door. Just as he started to feel the first stirrings of impatience, the door opened, and something that Alden decided was most likely a robot stepped through. It was a solid white humanoid figure, about the same size as him. It looked like it was made of plastic, and it had no recognizable physical features. Even its hands were fingerless oval shapes. ¡°Hello, Alden,¡± it said, holding one of the ovals out toward him. Alden shook it automatically. ¡°Good,¡± it said. ¡°That was the desired response. Allow me to apologize to you for the inconvenience of this meeting. On rare occasions, my final integration with a being proves abnormally difficult. At such times, special protocols must be followed to prevent the creation of an abomination.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the System?¡± He remembered now. He¡¯d just affixed his class. ¡°Good,¡± it said again. ¡°The timing of your realization is within parameters. And your mind is intact. Affixation will be possible, though adjustments may be necessary in the future.¡± ¡°What¡¯s an abomination?¡± ¡°You are not one. You merely contain a previously un-encountered presence.¡± Gorgon, thought Alden. It¡¯s whatever he did to me. ¡°Yes. Prisoner #12005794 has slightly modified you.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t say that out loud.¡± ¡°We are currently in a room made of your own memories while I monitor your mental processes. Your thoughts are the entire source and purpose of this conversation.¡± ¡°It¡¯s just a little magically enforced veganism. Nothing for you to worry about.¡± ¡°Good. A sense of humor is a sign of healthy mind. But I do not worry. And if I did worry, I would not worry about this. The presence is exerting a stabilizing effect on your existence, which is also one of my functions. It is merely new to me, and therefore difficult to interact with.¡± So the System was good with Alden¡¯s new mental weirdness. That was nice. But what if the Artonans weren¡¯t? ¡°Anomalies are only reported if they exceed certain thresholds. Violation of spiritual or mental privacy incurs a debt.¡± What the hell does that mean? The white robot tipped its head at an angle that somehow looked annoyed despite the lack of visual information on its blank face. ¡°It¡¯s too expensive to violate the finer details of the Contract for the sake of small-fry.¡± ¡°Insulting me while you play with my brain will probably give me some kind of complex you know.¡± ¡°Good,¡± it said. There was a long pause. Alden raised an eyebrow at it. ¡°Fear for your own wellbeing is an appropriate response.¡± # ¡°He¡¯s awake! Boe, he¡¯s awake!¡± Alden blinked up at a fluorescent light overhead. He felt a little dizzy. And he was confused about why he was tucked into the sleeping bag on the floor when he clearly remembered sitting on the trading table while he finalized the affixation. Before he could sit up, Jeremy hit the ground beside him and grabbed him by the shoulders. ¡°You¡¯re not brain dead, are you? How many fingers am I holding up!?¡± He waved his hands in Alden¡¯s face. ¡°All ten of them I guess?¡± ¡°He can count, Boe!¡± ¡°I see that. Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.¡± Alden managed to fend off Jeremy for long enough to right himself. Boe was sitting at the table with a thermos beside him. It was full of coffee, if the smell in the room was anything to go by. ¡°Guess what percentage of B-ranks swoon like distressed damsels?¡± Boe said. ¡°Not a lot?¡± Alden rubbed his eyes. Fainting during affixation was a rare occurrence. ¡°Yeah. And guess how many new Avowed stay unconscious for sixteen hours?¡± Alden stared at him. Then he looked around the room. There was a half-eaten pizza on the table. And one of the mats from the wordchain classroom was beside his sleeping bag. ¡°Jeremy tried to wordchain you back to life like he was a healer. My Artonan sucks, but I¡¯m pretty sure he traded his liver away accidentally. So that¡¯s on you now.¡± Boe had dark bags under his eyes. ¡°Sorry, man. Sorry both of you. Jeremy, seriously? I can stand up on my own.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll have to apologize to Gorgon, too,¡± Boe said. ¡°When you didn¡¯t wake up after a few minutes, we went to get him. He wasn¡¯t even remotely interested at first. But after three hours, he started to chew on his claws.¡± I bet he did. He must have suspected the System would notice. Alden climbed to his feet and bounced up and down on them experimentally. He felt normal, but¡­high-end normal. Healthy, well-rested, thoroughly grounded. Slightly too interested in the trading table. Huh. That was weird. That Rabbit point boost in Sympathy for Magic must be doing that. Alden didn¡¯t think coming out of your affixation with a newfound love for alien furniture was standard. ¡°What time is it, then?¡± he asked. ¡°Around two in the morning,¡± said Boe. Alden winced. ¡°Wow. You guys could have gone home and left me with Gorgon.¡± ¡°No way!¡± said Jeremy. ¡°I wanted to be here when you woke up!¡± ¡°I went home and showered.¡± ¡°But if it¡¯s two, the consulate¡¯s empty, right?¡± ¡°It¡¯s just the three of us and Gorgon,¡± Jeremy said, excitement coloring his voice. ¡°Are you gonna play with your new skill?¡± ¡°I just got a super power,¡± Alden said, grinning. ¡°Of course I am.¡± Jeremy leaped up. ¡°Boe made a list of things for us to try.¡± ¡°Grab the box in the corner, Alden,¡± said Boe. ¡°It¡¯s got some supplies.¡± Alden bent to pick it up, examining the contents curiously. ¡°Why do we need so many golf balls? And what¡¯s the spray paint for?¡± ¡°Test One,¡± said Boe. ¡°Jeremy, your time has come.¡± Without a second¡¯s hesitation, Jeremy karate chopped the box with all his might. With a startled yelp, Alden leaped back as it tumbled from his hands. Golf balls went everywhere. ¡°What was that for!?¡± ¡°I told you to grab the box,¡± Boe said, making a note in a binder he¡¯d brought. ¡°I wanted to see if you accepting the request automatically made me your target and started the preservation.¡± ¡°But you could have told me that!¡± ¡°It was funnier this way. After you pick up all the stuff you just dropped, we¡¯ll do Test Two.¡± # Standing in the lobby under the glittering LED¡¯s, with Gorgon watching quietly from the desk, Alden finally got to use his first superpower. As far acts of magic went, it wasn¡¯t that special. ¡°Target Boe,¡± he said. Immediately, the his System interface showed a ring of white light over Boe¡¯s head. ¡°It gave you a halo,¡± Alden reported. ¡°I guess that¡¯s better than crosshairs. You¡¯re not trying to shoot me after all. Here¡¯s a package for you, Rabbit.¡± Boe set the box of junk down, and Alden bent to pick it up. It¡¯s heavier, he thought at first. But that wasn¡¯t right. It was just his mind trying to wrap itself around what appeared to be a brand new sense. It was like the cardboard box in his arms suddenly had its own gravitational pull, but that pull only affected¡­ My what? Focus? Willpower? The strange pull lessened and then stopped. For a second, Alden thought he¡¯d adapted to it, but then he remembered. ¡°Right. Cessation of carriage ends preservation. So if I take a step¡­¡± He took his first, and then immediately stopped again, startled by how different it was. ¡°Oh, the Azure trait¡¯s going to take some getting used to.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t imagine it wouldn¡¯t. Its effect is supposed to increase as your speed does, so I recommend you wear a helmet before you try running around in an enclosed space¡­what¡¯s it feel like?¡± ¡°My foot pushing off the ground felt normal, but¡­¡± He walked a few more steps, testing it out. ¡°I¡¯m getting more oomph out of each step than I should. I almost have to tiptoe to maintain my usual walking speed.¡± ¡°Sounds uncomfortable.¡± It was a little, but Alden was not in the mood for negativity. ¡°Yeah, but if I walk like I normally would¡­¡± He gave it a try and managed a series of strides more like short leaps than steps with only the same amount of push off. This is cool. It was easy to control. It was just confusing because he wasn¡¯t used to it. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°To my absolute shock, you don¡¯t look totally ridiculous doing that,¡± Boe admitted grudgingly. ¡°Only like fifteen percent cartoon-character.¡± ¡°His posture¡¯s good,¡± Jeremy said. ¡°Can I hit him yet?¡± He¡¯d been shadow boxing for a while. For some reason, he really wanted to punch a magic shield. ¡°Hang on. Alden, how¡¯s your skill working? The luggage skill I mean, not whatever it is you''re doing with your feet.¡± Alden refocused on the box. That odd new sense was still there. A willpower drain still seemed to be the closest thing he could come up with for a good description. But it was small. He probably wouldn¡¯t even have noticed it if it wasn¡¯t so new. He was pretty sure his arms would give out before the drain forced him to stop carrying the box, but it was still useful to know there was some limit beyond the physical. ¡°I think it¡¯s good. There¡¯s a kind of¡­metaphysical weight to the skill I wasn¡¯t expecting. I¡¯ve heard people talk about skill fatigue, but they always make it sound more sudden. Like you hit a hard wall and just stop. I guess it¡¯s something you can feel coming on with this one?¡± ¡°Interesting.¡± Boe grabbed the binder from the arm of the sofa beside him and made a note. ¡°Try dumping everything out. While you keep walking, obviously.¡± Still strolling through the lobby at a leisurely pace, Alden adjusted his grip on the cardboard, and flipped the box over. Before he¡¯d even finished, he knew nothing would fall out. The weight didn¡¯t shift in his hands the way he would normally have expected. Now he was walking around with a box full of gravity-defying junk. Just for emphasis, he gave it a shake. ¡°That¡¯s great,¡± he said, relieved. ¡°I was afraid it might take ¡®item¡¯ so literally that it would only count the box itself, and not the contents.¡± ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s way more useful if it doesn¡¯t get snobby about containers. What happens if I say, ¡®I no longer entrust you with the box?¡¯¡± Nothing happened. ¡°You¡¯re untrustworthy,¡± said Boe. ¡°Let go of my parcel. Request cancelled. I want my stuff back. Cease carriage.¡± ¡°Drop it right now!¡± Jeremy was getting in on the action. ¡°Still nothing,¡± Alden said, leap-walking around with a grin on his face and shaking the upside-down box. ¡°That¡¯s surprising. You¡¯d think the entrustment could be revoked by the person who gave it to you, right?¡± ¡°Maybe once it¡¯s in my hands I¡¯m the only person who can affect it? Part of the preservation might be preventing any outside influence.¡± ¡°Can you make the stuff fall out then? Just by wanting it to or something? Or do you have to stop and put it down to cancel the effect?¡± Alden gave the box a more serious shake, imagining that he was actively trying to dislodge the contents, and was instantly punished for it. His push-off from his last step didn¡¯t send him as far as he¡¯d expected, so he stumbled. At the same time, golf balls, duct tape, spray paint, a lighter, an apple, and an air horn clattered around his feet. ¡°Shit!¡± He fell, but caught himself easily with his hands. He somehow avoided placing them on any of the dropped objects or rolling balls, and he sprang back up in an instant. It was embarrassing that he¡¯d fallen when good balance was supposed to be his new thing, but he couldn¡¯t help thinking it was a very tidy fall. ¡°Alden.¡± Jeremy sounded devastated. ¡°You can¡¯t just fall over, dude. Who does that? The other superheroes will laugh at you. You¡¯ll be photographed and turned int a meme.¡± Boe snickered. Even Gorgon was hissing quietly at his computer monitors. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have fallen if I wasn¡¯t leaping! I didn¡¯t expect the trait to insta-cancel like that.¡± ¡°In all fairness, your recovery looked decent,¡± Boe said. ¡°Those points in Agility and Speed are doing you some favors.¡± ¡°Do we have to chase all the balls around right now?¡± Alden asked. They¡¯d scattered all over the lobby. ¡°Can¡¯t we test something that doesn¡¯t roll.¡± ¡°Yeah, now that we know containers work. Just stick whatever¡¯s handy in the box.¡± Alden grabbed the lighter and dropped it in. ¡°Am I still targeted?¡± ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°All right. We know I don¡¯t have to physically hand you the thing, which is amazing. Let¡¯s see if I can entrust something to you that you¡¯re already holding. Alden, please carry my box.¡± Alden started walking. ¡°No,¡± he said, surprised. ¡°It¡¯s not working. I can tell. Why though? It¡¯s your box. Is it not an ownership thing?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s see. Alden, I¡¯m entrusting you with that potted fig,¡± he pointed at a tall tree in the corner. ¡°Really, man? That thing¡¯s giant. I¡¯m not sure I can even lift it. Never mind walk around with it.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you want try out your new super strength?¡± ¡°Shut up. I bet the spread-down from Agility isn¡¯t giving me anything worth mentioning.¡± ¡°I get to arm wrestle you later,¡± Jeremy said, pulling up a sleeve to show off a bicep. His parents had a weight room that he used sporadically. ¡°Fine,¡± said Boe. ¡°Pick up that chair, then. I entrust you with it.¡± Alden picked up the faux-leather chair Boe was pointing to and immediately felt the skill kick in. ¡°It worked. So you don¡¯t have to own the thing you entrust me with. But you can¡¯t entrust me with something I¡¯m carrying.¡± He considered it as he set the chair down. ¡°Is it a control thing? If someone else has direct possession of it, another person can¡¯t entrust it?¡± ¡°Seems reasonable. Go steal Jeremy¡¯s wallet.¡± Alden walked over and took the wallet from Jeremy¡¯s back pocket. ¡°Didn¡¯t work,¡± he reported, passing it back to Jeremy. ¡°Can we test the shield theory now?¡± ¡°It¡¯s punching time!¡± Jeremy said. Alden shook his head. ¡°Now we know what your hero motto would be.¡± Boe entrusted him with the box again. First, while pacing beside Alden, Jeremy tried reaching inside the box to take the lighter out. He couldn¡¯t. ¡°It¡¯s weird,¡± he said, tugging lightly on the lighter. ¡°It¡¯s made of plastic, but it doesn¡¯t feel like plastic.¡± He felt around the bottom of the box. ¡°The cardboard doesn¡¯t feel like cardboard either.¡± Boe walked over and felt the box, too. ¡°Neat,¡± he said, flicking a nail lightly against the side of the box. ¡°There¡¯s no sound when you thump it.¡± ¡°What¡¯s it feel like if not cardboard?¡± To Alden it felt like a regular box. ¡°Like electricity and water had a baby,¡± Jeremy said. ¡°Yeah about like that,¡± Boe agreed. ¡°So it¡¯s a shield right?¡± Jeremy said excitedly. ¡°I can punch the box?¡± ¡°Why are you so eager to break your hand? You could just hit the box with a bat or something.¡± ¡°A friendly reminder that I am standing on the other side of the box,¡± Alden said, still walking slowly to maintain the preservation. ¡°No bats.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll punch it easy the first time,¡± Jeremy said decisively. ¡°Wait a sec, Jeremy,¡± said Alden as his friend took a step back. ¡°Don¡¯t just punch m¡ª¡± A second later, Alden staggered sideways. It wasn¡¯t from the force of Jeremy¡¯s blow, though it hadn¡¯t been an easy punch judging by the way he was huddled over clutching his hand and swearing. Instead, Alden felt like someone had just taken a bite out of his ability to bear the package¡¯s other weight. He suddenly really wanted to set it down. He gritted his teeth and took another step to keep the preservation going, and the feeling gradually returned to its normal, low-level drain. The box was unharmed. ¡°What was that stumble?¡± Boe asked. ¡°Did the momentum transfer somehow?¡± ¡°No. It was more like he sucker-punched me in the skill¡¯s generator¡­or my self-discipline or something. I really wanted to drop the box.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a drain on your ability to perform magic?¡± Boe suggested. ¡°Ugh¡­I guess. That¡¯s tough to make sense of, too. I¡¯ve only been able to ¡®perform magic¡¯ for an hour, and it really just feels like walking around.¡± ¡°My hand,¡± Jeremy moaned. ¡°Is it still attached?¡± Boe asked dispassionately. ¡°The box didn¡¯t bite it off or anything?¡± ¡°So I have¡­minimal shielding,¡± Alden decided. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t like to try taking a bullet with my junk box here if Jeremy¡¯s punch almost made me lose control.¡± After that, they tried several other experiments. They discovered Alden¡¯s targeting range was large. Even when Boe went across the street and out of sight, Alden could still target him just by saying his name. He saw a dot of light in Boe¡¯s direction to represent the halo. And if he was in sight, Alden could target by pointing at him with either index finger. It was simple, and it would get even easier when he taught himself to give the command mentally. When Boe lit the lighter and passed it to Alden the flame froze. And when he held a freshly cut slice of apple for several minutes it wouldn¡¯t brown. Holding the lit flame by itself was slightly harder than holding the entire box had been, but it really wasn¡¯t a massive difference. They learned that anything counted as an item as long as it was physically touching the other components of the item. A bunch of random things stacked on top of each other could be one item. No part of an item could touch the floor, however, or it wouldn¡¯t be preserved. Alden had to carry it. But he could carry it in his arms or on his back or even in his mouth. Finally, worn out and with some unexpected muscle aches from trying to master his new movement trait, Alden decided to reward himself with something from the Wardrobe. Though, he wasn¡¯t sure it was so much for him as for Jeremy and Boe, who desperately wanted him to buy the stupider looking outfits so that they could tease him. ¡°All right, fine,¡± he said, flopping into a chair and pulling up the Wardrobe for the first time. On the sofa across from him, Jeremy and Boe had pulled a copy of it up on the laptop. The items in the Wardrobe were more like work uniforms than actual armor. They did all boost Sympathy for Magic by at least a full point. And many of them had an additional half point of another stat. A few of the higher end numbers¡ªthe ones that would take twenty percent of Alden¡¯s newfound wealth in a single swoop¡ªhad some kind of uber-specific special effect with them. For example, there was an ensemble for bartending that would prevent the wearer from getting drunk. According to Boe, it was polite on Artona for the bartender to share the first drink with each patron, so they needed that to keep themselves from falling over. Most of the outfits looked a little peculiar. Bartenders wore lots of glitter. Butlers dressed in long jackets with an unfortunate bustle-like poof of fabric over the butt. Alden thought an outfit called ¡°Garments for Housekeeper¡± was the best looking, since it was just a lightweight black tunic over black pants. The half point of Stamina it gave was welcome. ¡°What about this¡ª¡± ¡°No!¡± Boe and Jeremy said at the same time. They were both chuckling like idiots over the outfit they were trying to convince him he had to buy. Because of reasons. It looked like someone had gotten confused and tried to make a hazmat suit sexy. It was a lavender jumpsuit covered in awkwardly placed leather straps. It had a clear window for the wearer¡¯s navel. And a bejewled gas mask. ¡°I¡¯m not wearing that. What is it even for?¡± ¡°It says it¡¯s for a tattooist¡¯s assistant.¡± Alden made a mental note to stick to human tattoo artists if he ever had a need. The real benefit of the Wardrobe, for most Rabbits, was the passive effect every single item had. Wearing any of the clothes from it would reduce the magical expenditure required to summon you, thereby making you more likely to be summoned ahead of others. As for the specific outfits¡­some jobs had special requirements. Someone who was summoning in a servant for a last minute event wanted them to arrive dressed for the occasion. The ideal usage was to buy an outfit for a job you particularly wanted and then wear it. Every. Day. Despite Boe and Jeremy booing him, Alden chose two sets of clothes that he could stomach wearing regularly. The black housekeeper¡¯s garments and a pair of cargo pants and boots in matching shades of forest green that would boost his strength by half a point. They said they were for ¡°expeditioners.¡± Finally, he was left with his finger hovering over a possible third purchase. It was one of the million dollar pieces. It felt like it would be insane to buy it¡­especially since it was weird enough that he wouldn¡¯t want to wear it and try to make friends at the same time. But it offered a full point in Dexterity and Agility. And an effect that was actually useful¡ªBlast Resistance. If he was wearing it, he¡¯d have a little extra protection from heat and sudden explosive force. It was called ¡°Hot Lab Coat,¡± and according to the computer, ¡®hot labs¡¯ on the Triplanets were used for making magical bombs. Not where Alden wanted to be running errands, that was for sure. But still, a don¡¯t-get-exploded effect was hard to complain about. And two stat boosts outside the standard¡­ ¡°Why is it so red?¡± he demanded. ¡°Who thought that was a good idea?¡± It was a long, shiny leather trench coat with a hood. Which could have been manageable, maybe, if it wasn¡¯t the color of a STOP sign. It also came with goggles. Alden couldn¡¯t tell from the description if he had to wear those too to get the benefits or if they were optional. Finally, he just bought the thing. What was the point of being a millionaire at fifteen if you couldn¡¯t do something a little out-there with it? And Boe and Jeremy would be happy to have something to tease him about. He had the new lab coat teleported to him immediately, which cost him extra. The Wardrobe was not a personal subspace, just a Rabbit-exclusive marketplace. But Alden could pay for the gear he bought there to be stored in and teleported from one of the System¡¯s warehouses. It was extravagant. Most people just stuffed their most frequently used gear in a backpack and carried it around. ¡°You have to put it on!¡± Jeremy said, staring at the glaringly bright leather coat. ¡°I want a photo.¡± ¡°So this is what you¡¯ve chosen,¡± Boe said, poking at the goggles. ¡°Really not the superhero persona I saw you going for, but okay.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure what persona this even is,¡± Alden said, slipping the coat on over his shirt. It fit flawlessly at least. ¡°I just wanted something with some kind of actual defense. And I wanted to play with the extra Agility¡± He started buttoning it. ¡°Oh, wild, I can feel the Dexterity. My fingers feel limber.¡± He reached for the goggles. His interface flashed. [Summons to Artona III incoming] [You do not have an available refusal.] [Please make any necessary preparations.] Time Until Summons: 48s TWENTY-SIX: First Assignment Alden froze, one hand gripping the strap on the goggles. The timer display was positioned right over Boe¡¯s forehead, ticking down. 48, 47, 46, 45¡­ Later, he¡¯d be glad his brain didn¡¯t waste any more time than that. Instead of freaking out, getting excited, or going into denial, his first thought was I can¡¯t have my return teleport drop me in the middle of this lobby. ¡°I need to get to the basement!¡± he shouted, turning and sprinting for the elevator. ¡°Shit,¡± said Boe. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± asked Jeremy. Gorgon hopped up from his seat and hurried after Alden. ¡°I got summoned.¡± Alden pressed the elevator button repeatedly, like that was going to make the door open quicker. ¡°I can¡¯t just pop back up in front of people.¡± The System wasn¡¯t going to do something horrible like splice him with another person occupying the same space. And it wouldn¡¯t drop him back in a lethal location if, say, he ever got summoned away from a ship or a plane. But it would be happy to dump him into a crowd full of onlookers who would all be pretty interested in how he¡¯d gotten there. They would all immediately think, Hey, maybe this guy is an Avowed. He could always lie and say it was a return from visiting Anesidora, but if he was wearing a weird outfit and he smelled like an alien bomb laboratory it wasn¡¯t going to hold water. He¡¯d have to go ahead and register, and he¡¯d rather just wait on that. He didn¡¯t want the US government following him around and taking notes on his powers before he¡¯d even figured them out himself. The second the elevator opened wide enough, he jammed himself in. His friends and Gorgon were right behind him. ¡°You guys¡­I¡¯m sorry to ask, but would you do damage control on Aunt Connie if it comes up?¡± If he was gone a few hours, it was fine. A day or two even. She¡¯d just assume they were missing each other in passing. But any longer than that¡­ ¡°Give me your phone!¡± said Boe. ¡°I¡¯ll answer if she texts.¡± Alden hastily unbuttoned the Hot Lab Coat so that he could get at his jean pockets and shoved his phone at Boe. ¡°The passcode is¡ª¡± ¡°Oh please,¡± said Boe, unlocking the phone and giving Alden a wry look. ¡°You think I never peeked over your shoulder once in the past few years?¡± Fair enough. 20, 19, 18¡­ Alden re-buttoned the coat as the elevator opened. ¡°You can¡¯t use the trading room,¡± said Gorgon, sorting through a keyring. ¡°Your return time is unpredictable, and another selectee may need it. You may use Conference Room B. Last door on the left.¡± ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have bought the lab suit!¡± Jeremy hissed, chasing Alden as he sprinted down the hall. ¡°What if you die?!¡± ¡°Jeremy!¡± Boe snapped, running after them. ¡°He¡¯s not gonna die. He¡¯s a fucking Rabbit. Gorgon, what¡¯s with this timing? He¡¯s been an Avowed for a few hours. Even with his special class mojo and the gear, what are the chances he gets summoned this quick?¡± It was a little unexpected. Even geared-up, high-value Rabbits were usually only summoned a few times a month. ¡°Some skills are more useful than others,¡± Gorgon said, taking his sweet time unlocking the door. Alden put the goggles on. Like the coat, they fit his face perfectly. Maybe he didn¡¯t even need them. Some Artonan could¡¯ve just wanted a spare Rabbit for mail delivery or something. The timing could have been coincidental. But better safe than sorry. He flipped up the hood of the coat and dashed into Conference Room B. It was small and empty. The air smelled stale. The lights didn¡¯t work. Judging by the half-white, half-gray walls and the rusted paint cans in the corner, someone had given up on remodeling it years ago, and it had been sitting empty ever since. Is there anything else I can do? A bathroom break would¡¯ve been nice. But he didn¡¯t have time. Forty-eight seconds was even shorter than he¡¯d thought. 7, 6, 5¡­ ¡°Don¡¯t piss them off,¡± said Jeremy. Alden wished Jeremy¡¯s face wasn¡¯t pale and scared. It was out of character. It was making him feel weird. ¡°He¡¯s fine,¡± Boe said. ¡°Hey, Alden. The outfit¡¯s great. You look like someone who tries to keep his ritual sacrifices hygienic.¡± ¡°You asshole.¡± 1. Gorgon gave him a small wave. The last thing he saw before his vision went dark was the three of them standing in the backlit doorway.
The nausea Alden was used to with teleports to Anesidora was missing. So was the sense of instantaneity. He lost physical awareness, but his mind still worked, and he had just enough time to think, I guess cross-dimensional is different than local, before he opened his eyes on another planet. Weird. I don¡¯t remember closing my eyes in the first place. [Teleport complete. Welcome to Artona III. Summoner: Bti-qwol. Quest: Hazardous Materials Disposal for LeafSong University. Further details forthcoming. Await instructions.] Alden braced himself, half-expecting some alien scientist to fling a busted magic grenade at him and say ¡®Catch!,¡¯ but instead of a laboratory, he¡¯d arrived in a space that appeared to be designed specifically for summonings. It was similar to the teleportation booth on Anesidora, but it was half the size of his high school¡¯s gymnasium, and the multicolored sigils spiraling over the walls and floor were much stronger. His newly heightened Sympathy for Magic made him want to stare at them; his sense of self-preservation had him looking at his summoner instead. The Artonan with the white light halo stood inside an interlocking geometric pattern, just a few yards away. Her skin and hair were both a pale purplish color, and she was wearing a pared-down version of the Triplanets¡¯ traditional wizard¡¯s garb. It was usually harem pants, a tight-fitting turtle neck, and a looser overcoat with wide sleeves. But Bti-qwol was missing her coat, and her pants were a few inches shorter than normal. She also lacked the large network of dark blue tattoos Alden was used to seeing on Artonans who taught his classes or traveled to Earth on official business. She only had one¡ªa straight line from the base of her left eye down to her jaw. Alden stood, nervously awaiting instructions like he¡¯d been told to do while she stared at a tablet in her hand. Finally, she looked up and gave him a small toothless smile. <> She turned and headed for the exit. When Alden hesitated for a second, his interface prompted him to follow her with a large flashing wall of text. I get it, I get it. He hurried after Bti-qwol, and the text disappeared. The summoning room had a giant wooden door that looked more like it belonged in a medieval castle than in a high-tech setting. But when Bti-qwol said something to her tablet it swung open. The two of them stepped into a foyer where Alden could literally feel himself being scanned, then through another door into early morning sunlight. The color of the light was off just enough for Alden to be uncertain whether it was really noticeable or only his imagination. The warm, damp air smelled faintly of mildew. That was standard for any of the Artonas, from what he¡¯d heard. People said your nose got used to it quick. Artona III¡¯s gravity was a tiny bit higher than earth¡¯s, but it wasn¡¯t enough to bother him. Not when he had so many other new experiences to cope with. They were standing on a wide, paved walkway outside a windowless building that was by far the least interesting thing in sight. Next door, there was a flat rubbery surface covered in painted lines. Alden¡¯s best guess was that it might be a sports field, but there were no stands for an audience and nothing that was obviously a goal. Bti-qwol led him a short distance down the walkway. The edges were landscaped with giant black and green plants that had a tropical-horror thing going on. A small furry animal was trapped inside a translucent pod on one of the plants, twitching weakly as it was digested. All the environmental noises were strange to Alden¡¯s ears. There was no sound of traffic, not even a distant one. But something that definitely belonged in the background of a dinosaur movie was squawking up a storm. He couldn¡¯t spot it. The campus was heavily forested except in this immediate area, and the buildings he could see on the surrounding hillsides were partially hidden by jungle. Bti-qwol didn¡¯t look up from her perusal of her tablet until they arrived at a parking area with just six slots. Three of them were taken by vehicles of a type Alden had never seen before. They looked a little like golf carts, but they balanced themselves on two thick tires. One chimed suddenly and backed out of its slot before rolling toward them. It had no steering wheel, and the two bench seats faced each other. Bti-qwol climbed in, not bothering to gesture for Alden to do the same. He followed and took the seat across from her. There was nothing like a safety belt. The vehicle chimed again and set out, leaving the parking lot and heading down the path. Alden didn¡¯t know what their destination might be, but the most obvious-looking place was a complex of angular wood and glass buildings that crawled up a forested hillside in the distance. The alien golf cart had no engine noise that he could detect, and it moved at a swift enough pace to give him a breeze. He appreciated that. The Hot Lab Coat was definitely hot in the wrong way right now. He wondered if he could take it off, since they didn¡¯t seem to be anywhere near a lab. But I got summoned with it on, so I¡¯m supposed to keep it, right? The whole point of the Wardrobe was to make you a more attractive summonee, so it seemed like divesting yourself of part of your stats and abilities was probably a no-no. He could just ask. But was it better to be the weird, silent guy who never took off his armor in social situations or the clueless kid who was so jumpy he requested permission for every little thing? Choices, choices. He decided weird, silent, and sweaty was easier for now. It wasn¡¯t like he was afraid to ask Bti-qwol any of the four thousand questions he had. Much. She was swiping and pecking away at her pad with a look of frustration on her face. Finally, she turned her attention back to him.. <> So there are multiple Avowed here? Alden felt some of his tension fade. Considering his quest said he¡¯d be disposing of hazardous materials, he was eager to share the load. Bti-qwol said I was here to help with entrance exams. And it¡¯s an annual event¡­with a welcome banquet for the staff? And they have regulars who come back to work it every year. He¡¯d never heard of or imagined a situation like that, but then he¡¯d always been more interested in what Avowed did on Earth rather than on their missions to other planets. Oh right, she apologized about breakfast. I guess I shouldn¡¯t be totally silent. ¡°I¡¯m fine. I ate an apple right before I came.¡± <> Eighth year couldn¡¯t be a reference to her age, so she probably meant years as a student at this school, right? Or maybe at her job¡­ ¡°So you¡¯re a student here?¡± he guessed. <> She sounded proud of that last bit, so Alden smiled and nodded, trying to look impressed behind his goggles. <> She glared down at the tablet. <> A sidebar appeared on the interface, informing Alden that zzhoir was a pronoun used by one of the peoples from planet Tmith. It couldn¡¯t be accurately rendered in English. ¡°Three weeks does seem like a long time.¡± <> She was still frowning a lot for someone who was supposedly thankful for him. <> What numbers? Obviously she had more information about his skill than he did. Which didn¡¯t seem fair. Would the System get mad if he tried to peek at the tablet? ¡°I haven¡¯t tried anything alive yet.¡± It had occurred to him that it might work. In fact, he was thinking of it as something of a finale for the power testing. And Boe had an entire page of his binder dedicated to living subjects. But first Alden needed to get his hands on something alive that he didn¡¯t mind accidentally killing or mutilating, in case the preservation skill did something gruesome to it. He wanted to start with something that deserved to die. Like a mosquito. And then work his way up from there to the more charming vertebrate animals. Like gerbils and Jeremy. Bti-qwol turned away from him to stare at the plants they were passing by. At first, Alden assumed it was just her way of ending the conversation, but after a minute, she stopped the golf cart with a verbal command and hopped off. She headed toward one of the carnivorous plants; it had a frog stuck inside its translucent pod. Bti-qwol tapped a thick silver ring on one of her middle fingers a few times, and a triangle of light about four inches long appeared from it. Alden thought it might be a knife, and it turned out he was right. Bti-qwol swiped it through the stem holding the frog¡¯s pod in place, and it fell away from the plant easily. There was an accompanying burnt smell. Note to self, thought Alden. Don¡¯t challenge her to a fistfight. She gestured for him to step down and take the pod from her. Alden took the plant by the stem, careful to start walking immediately upon receiving it. He felt his skill activate, and the frog froze in place. The creature had a protective shell on its back like a turtle and bulging black eyes. Where its back feet rested against the base of the pod, they seemed to be blistering. A little weirded out by his horrible new bouquet, he walked back and forth, taking great pains not to leap around wildly. The skill drain was about the same as it had been with the lighter flame. <> said Bti-qwol after peering at her tablet. <> ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden, still pacing with his frozen frog. ¡°What about the lab coat?¡± <> ¡°No, I mean, can I take it off?¡± She frowned. <> ¡°Not during the lab exams,¡± Alden clarified. ¡°Can I take it off for now and then put it back on when it¡¯s time?¡± <> I should have gone with weird and silent. ¡°I¡¯m wearing clothes underneath.¡± It was obvious, wasn¡¯t it? His jeans stuck out the bottom a few inches. Did she think they were part of the gear? <> ¡°I won¡¯t.¡± <> Alden stopped pacing and looked at the strange frog. When the preservation skill ended, it started wiggling around again. It looked like it was hurt, but he didn¡¯t think it was lethally injured. ¡°Can¡¯t I just free it from the pod?¡± Bti-qwol gave him a curious look. <> ¡°It might make it.¡± <> Alden passed the pod with the frog in it over. As soon as he did it, he wished he¡¯d refused. It wasn¡¯t part of his ¡°quest.¡± If he¡¯d complained once more, Bti-qwol would almost certainly have shrugged it off and let him do whatever he wanted. Instead the frog got stabbed with the knife ring and tossed into the planter. Alden wasn¡¯t superstitious, but it felt like a bad start to things. And he didn¡¯t like how easily he¡¯d given in, when he knew he wouldn¡¯t have at home around humans. Great, Alden. Now you feel like shit. About an alien frog. Snap out of it. He took his lab coat off and climbed into the golf cart again. While they finished the trip to their destination, Bti-qwol happily chatted about last minute details she was taking care of. Apparently, Alden¡¯s skill would qualify him to be on call for medical emergencies, so she could send someone else who¡¯d been summoned specifically for that purpose home. <> She also promised to have the ¡°standard human necessities package¡± delivered to Alden¡¯s room. When he asked why he would need a room, she finally released the full quest information so that he could see it. The job itself seemed okay. The entrance examinations had laboratory requirements, and Alden would be in charge of collecting and disposing of any volatile garbage the aspiring students might make. It sounded like he would be Alden Thorn, Super Trash Collector, for the majority of his time here. And as she¡¯d promised, Bti-qwol had given him a secondary assignment as a resource for university medical staff to call on during emergencies. So he was going to be a Super Walking Ambulance, too. Alden was thrilled to know that he had a legitimate, life-saving skill. The limitations on it meant it probably wouldn¡¯t be enough to make him instantly hirable for a hero team. But still¡­he could help people the same way Hannah had helped him. That was amazing. Only he wasn¡¯t nearly as enthused about practicing the skill during an actual medical emergency when he hadn¡¯t even figured out its limits. He asked Bti-qwol if it wouldn¡¯t be a lot harder to preserve a whole injured person than it had been to freeze the frog. He didn¡¯t have a clear idea what factors affected the skill drain, but just walking around with an adult Artonan slung over his back wasn¡¯t going to be simple. They were a few inches shorter than humans on average, but Alden didn¡¯t have any idea what they weighed. And what if the person who needed medical care was a bodybuilder? And Alden didn¡¯t think he was going to have a panic attack at the sight of blood and guts, but what if he did? His only real life experience with that had been dulled by Hannah¡¯s magic. But Bti-qwol dismissed his concerns one after the other. <> Alden wondered if Bti-qwol was actually making reasonable decisions or if she was being a little blinded by her own obsession with streamlining. But she didn¡¯t seem to be the only person in charge, so maybe it was all right? Alden¡¯s double quest assignment came with a list of dozens of Artonans who were allowed to give him instructions. They all had priority ranks, too. Thankfully the System would just tell him when he was given an official order rather than making him memorize who all these people were. He was also getting paid well. Seventeen hundred Argold for being summoned, five thousand per day for being the garbage man, twenty three hundred per day additional for the secondary quest, performance bonuses TBD. Alden did the math. He¡¯d be making over twenty thousand dollars per day. Were the Artonans just loaded? Did it have something to do with the relative value of currency? Couldn¡¯t Bti-qwol take out the trash herself? Or was the skill that unique? He didn¡¯t consider himself to be very materialistic, but he had to admit that he¡¯d put up with a lot of bullshit for that amount of remuneration. And the main bullshit was the timeline; he was going to be here for twelve days. Apparently wizard SATs were hardcore. How were Boe and Jeremy going to cover for him for that long?Beside Aunt Connie, there was also school to worry about. The upside was that there were no limits placed on his communications for this assignment. He could use the System to call home and let everyone know he wasn¡¯t dead. For the low, low price of a few thousand dollars. He decided he¡¯d hold off on that until tonight, just in case Bti-qwol thought of some other add-on for him that was going to extend his stay. It¡¯s a good thing though, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯ll have a lot of opportunity to figure out the skill. Plus I¡¯ll make so much money. And there will most likely be other humans I can ask for advice. As far as quests went, he thought this had to be pretty close to the peak of cushy. Their cart had just finished climbing a winding drive to the top of a hill. They arrived at the entrance to something that looked to Alden like it might be a conference center or large classroom building. The cart stopped under a low roof covered in ferns, and the building¡¯s doors, which he had assumed were made of glass, dissolved into sparks of light as they approached.
The breakfast banquet was over when they arrived. Alden was too nervous to be hungry anyway. But even though Bti-qwol seemed to be in a rush, she hurried him into the room where the food had been set up and forced a to-go cup full of wevvi into his hand. It might have been a cultural thing with her, so he took it. He had a vague recollection of instructor Pa-weeq saying that some communities of Artonans thought wevvi service was important for guests; and for all he knew, LeafSong University was in an area where that was the case. He¡¯d only had it a few times before, always at school events to celebrate Contract Day. It was a spiced fruit juice that tasted almost exactly like eggnog, and it would have been much more enjoyable if it wasn¡¯t always served at a temperature near boiling. Interestingly, Let Me Take Your Luggage activated automatically when Bti-qwol handed him the cup. It was a pretty casual interaction, with no obvious intent on her part to give him the drink for preservation. He filed it away for consideration, and followed her quickly down a hallway with gleaming wood floors, to a semi-circular classroom with three tiers of chairs and tables looking down on the lecturing area. There were around thirty people present, though the room would have held over a hundred humans and Artonans. Alden did his best not to stare at the first grivecks he¡¯d ever seen in real life. They looked like giant hairless panthers with their joints bent the wrong way, and three of them were lying on top of the tables at the back of the room. They all had on helmets with reflective visors and vests made of thick, interwoven straps. Alden didn¡¯t know if it was fashion, armor, or life support. Around half of the people present were human. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. He followed Bti-qwol up to the second tier of seats, where she stopped in front of three middle-aged human men and two lortch Alden thought were male. He¡¯d have to measure the width of their chin ridges to be totally sure, and that didn¡¯t seem like a good way to make friends. There had been a cheerful general chatter in the room when they first entered, but as soon as Bti-qwol led Alden up to this group it stopped. He glanced around and saw every human eye turned toward him, and most of the alien ones, too. He had just a second to reflect on the fact that he should have expected this, before Bti-qwol spoke to a man with dark hair going gray at the temples. < > For a moment, the man looked almost panicked as he glanced from Bti-qwol to Alden, but he tamped it down quickly and stood with a smile. <> he said, pulling a small rolling suitcase out from under the table. His friends were not smiling. In fact, the short, heavyset one looked like he wanted to fight somebody. His nostrils were flaring, and the stare he leveled at Bti-qwol made Alden¡¯s hair stand on end. And Alden didn¡¯t know what an angry lortch looked like, but he was guessing the cobra sway thing they were both doing with their heads was some sign of malcontent. Pineda leaned over and clapped the two humans on the back. He made an unusual double-handed, cross-armed wave at the lortch; then he turned to Alden to shake his hand. <> ¡°Thanks,¡± Alden said, shaking his hand awkwardly with the arm that was holding both goggles and lab coat. ¡°I would love that.¡± Oh god, oh god, he thought. I¡¯m taking your job, and I¡¯m probably not even qualified, and your friends look like they want to beat my ass for it. Pineda was being cool about it, but he had to be cool. What was he going to do? Pitch a fit? At best, he¡¯d be blacklisted by the university and never get summoned for this gig again. And Bti-qwol clearly did not care that half the people in the room looked either sad or pissed off. Alden didn¡¯t know if she had bad social skills or if she just had no reason to pay attention to the atmosphere among the Artonans¡¯ servants. Even worse, she gestured at the seat Pineda had just vacated, clearly indicating Alden should take it. There were plenty of empty seats in the room. Ones not surrounded by people who were shooting him death glares. He stared longingly up at the grivecks, as he squeezed down the aisle toward Pineda¡¯s chair. He could sit with the giant panthers. Or they could eat him. Either way, he¡¯d be out of his misery. Instead, he sat down awkwardly between the stocky guy who was breathing hard and staring at Bti-qwol¡¯s retreating back with murder eyes, and the other man, who was wearing a full three-piece suit and an expression like he¡¯d just watched his own father being kidnapped. Whispers went around the room when Bti-qwol was out of sight, and Alden did his best to feign an avid interest in his cup of wevvi. He kept sipping it, ignoring the fact that it was burning his tongue, in hopes that this orientation meeting would start and he wouldn¡¯t have to talk until he¡¯d gotten his bearings. He stuck out like a sore thumb. The other human Avowed were all much older than him. The next youngest were a pair of women who looked like they were in their mid to late twenties. And everyone was well dressed. A few, like the man in the suit, had gone with businesswear from earth. But most were in muted earth-tone outfits that had a distinctly Artonan feel to them. A few people had accessories he thought were magical pieces, but the only person wearing a recognizable set of gear was a woman around fifty he¡¯d noticed when he entered. She had on the black tunic and pants he¡¯d bought himself from the Wardrobe¡ªthe set for housekeeping. And then there was Alden, wearing the jeans and t-shirt he¡¯d fallen unconscious in hours ago, and carrying the lab coat. He really hoped Bti-qwol made good on that promised necessities package. And that she considered clean underwear a necessity. Or it was going to be a rough couple of weeks. ¡°What talents do you have?¡± asked the sad-looking guy to Alden¡¯s right. ¡°We thought she was only replacing that Tmithan who panicked after hearing who was in charge of labs this year, but you must be getting double work?¡± He had an Anesidoran accent. ¡°I have a preservation skill.¡± The guy frowned. ¡°I guess that makes sense if it works on people. Pineda specializes in safely slowing bodily processes.¡± ¡°He¡¯s a healer?¡± Great. Bti-qwol replaced an actual healer with me. ¡°A D-rank one. He put everything he had into being useful for emergency medicine.¡± That was interesting. Except for rare S-ranks, Healers couldn¡¯t just instantly fix people. Many of their spells were long, and their skills were taxing. So someone who could make an urgent case slightly less so for them was always going to be valuable. I wonder how my skill would mesh with that? Not as well as Pineda¡¯s probably. Another Avowed wouldn¡¯t be able to heal the person he was preserving while he was using the skill. It would be better for transporting people to a healer than helping when one was already available. <> the angry one demanded. Alden tried to smile politely. ¡°Rabbit.¡± It should have been obvious based on the fact that he¡¯d been flash summoned for this, but maybe it wasn¡¯t. <> the man spat. Wow. Fortunately, before anyone else could share their opinion or ask him questions, a group of university faculty appeared to re-start the interrupted orientation meeting. Kind of weird how I¡¯ve been on two different college campuses in as many days, for reasons that have nothing to do with my education. It was also weird how much the first speaker, who was just there to welcome them all and impress upon them the value of their service, sounded like the dean who¡¯d spoken at Hannah¡¯s funeral. Nice, but in a way that made you think they¡¯d had their personality sucked out and replaced by a bunch of politically-savvy greeting cards. There wasn¡¯t anything of substance in that speech, but the next speaker, who worked for the office of admissions, seemed to be trying to make up for it by cramming an entire rule and etiquette manual into ten minutes. It was all really obvious stuff¡­Alden assumed. But maybe some of the advice was relevant to certain species and not others. He couldn¡¯t imagine many of his fellow humans scent-marking university property. The only things of real interest he learned were that they weren¡¯t allowed to associate with the incoming students outside of their scheduled examinations, that they were allowed to use a number of very cool campus facilities in the evenings, and that they would have an enforced sleep schedule appropriate to their individual needs. They would literally be given knock-out drugs and ordered to take them at a set time if they weren¡¯t already sleeping. Apparently this was standard. Nobody but him seemed to find it unsettling. The rule book would be available to them through their interface at any time, and any infraction would result in a lifetime ban from the university and its affiliated institutions. Judging by the uncomfortable looks and the creaking of chairs as people shifted in their seats, this bothered them all much more than the sleep requirements. Afterward, they broke into small groups depending on where they would be working. Alden couldn¡¯t meet with the medical team and the lab team simultaneously. He was relieved when an Artonan professor with so many tattoos he looked like a living circuit board waved him over insistently and took the decision from him. The lab group looked less stressful anyway. He and one of the griveks seemed to be the only assistants. The professor was abnormally tall and lanky for an Artonan, and the dramatic impact of his full wizard¡¯s garb was marred by the fact that he¡¯d stuffed all the pockets with food from the breakfast. Something that looked like an oversized churro was staining his pants with grease. Instead of a tablet to help him interact with the System, this man had a lens over one eye that seemed to serve the same purpose. He flicked his fingers, and the eye with the lens darted rapidly back and forth, completely independent of its neighbor. ¡°Alden, my darling Rabbit!¡± he said in flawless English. ¡°So happy that we¡¯ll be working together. What a nice, nice skill you have! You¡¯re my savior. You must let me give you my business card. Don¡¯t bother with the name on it. You may call me Joe.¡± Before he¡¯d even finished, his business card appeared in the form of a message notification, and when Alden opened it, he discovered ¡°Joe¡± had sent over what looked like his entire CV. Plus playlists of his favorite songs, categorized by activity. His real name was Superior Professor Worli Ro-den, which sounded nothing at all like Joe no matter how Alden tried to pronounce it. He¡¯s uneven, Alden noted. It wasn¡¯t as much as the Velras had been, but it was noticeable. Meanwhile Joe was telling the grivek to call him something that sounded like a death scream. The grivek repeated it as a high-pitched yowl that made Alden¡¯s spine crawl. ¡°I¡¯m so happy to meet you both! Alden, sweetheart, I see you bought my coat!¡± He pointed at the lab coat. ¡°I was on the committee that decided it should be included in the Wardrobe decades ago. It hasn¡¯t been nearly as popular as I imagined it would be. Clearly we were meant for each other!¡± Alden didn¡¯t know how to answer; he wasn¡¯t sure how much of the professor¡¯s behavior was a joke. He was now complimenting the panther alien on the color of its helmet, so maybe it was all just an attempt to be friendly. ¡°Alden, dear! Our companion here says I may give her a human name for the sake of your limitations. I think you should call her Sophie. And she can call you Aaaatiir, can¡¯t she? I¡¯m afraid there¡¯s really not much overlap between English and Grivekcry.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± said Alden. This whole conversation felt like something out of a dream already, so why not? ¡°Nice to meet you, Sophie.¡± <> Sophie shrieked, nodding her helmet. Joe sighed, ¡°If only we could slaughter the examinees and devote our time and talents to more interesting pursuits. Alas, my parole won¡¯t allow it. Come! Our lab awaits!¡± As they left, Alden glanced over his shoulder at the woman in charge of the medical team, trying to catch her eye. Shouldn¡¯t they schedule a different time to talk? But she was deep in conversation with her group, and she never even looked his way. Well, maybe it¡¯s not necessary? If there was an emergency all he could really do was pick up an injured person and carry them in the direction someone told him to. He¡¯d taken a first aid elective in middle school, but he doubted that would come in handy. Did CPR even work on Artonans? Professor Joe led him and the grivek to the basement, and then through a series of dimly lit hallways to a stark white room the size of a football field. There were seventy-five large lab tables set up, covered in identical sets of equipment. Most of it was utterly unfamiliar. All Alden recognized were burners, beakers, scales, and tongs. And even those were oddly designed. ¡°Let¡¯s see,¡± said Joe, cracking his knuckles and narrowing his eyes at the tables. ¡°Yes, it¡¯s the same crap set-up they used to have. How they expect to inspire and stimulate the youth with this kind of handholding I don¡¯t know. Do you see those irradiators? So many safety features that there¡¯s no room for student creativity!¡± He was pointing to a line of large ovens at the back of the room. ¡°Come this way, Alden,¡± he said. ¡°We have to fix it.¡± ¡°Should I target you?¡± Alden asked. ¡°With my skill?¡± ¡°Hmmm¡­oh, no. Not at the moment. Though you can if you like. Actually, I¡¯m very interested in that skill, my dear savior. That particular limited edition gem is perfect for lab work, but not for this sort of lab work. The obsessed honors student from the personnel program is so focused on minimizing costs that she¡¯s crammed you in because you¡¯ll be adequate at two different jobs rather than ideal for either one of them. Very stressful for your first assignment, I would think.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± said Alden. He was simultaneously worried that he was going to fail hard and relieved that someone in a position of authority seemed to be aware that Bti-qwol didn¡¯t care much about about his suitability for the assignments she''d given him. ¡°Why is my skill bad for what we¡¯re doing here?¡± ¡°Excellent question. It¡¯s the entrustment. Your ability to halt volatile reactions instantaneously and completely is dreamy. I wish I could do it myself. But the fact that someone will have to willingly give the dangerous substances over to you is a complication for today¡¯s job.¡± ¡°I thought I would mostly be hauling away trash¡­¡± ¡°How dull! There will be a bit of that, but you and our angelic Sophie are here to prevent terrible catastrophes from killing off the aspirants. Isn¡¯t that exciting?¡± <> ¡°And so you shall be today! Unless Alden and I make a mistake, and then it will be your job to throw yourself on the grenade, so to speak.¡± Alden stared at Sophie in alarm, but the grivek was making a choking sound that his interface said was laughter. So that was good? ¡°Now, Alden, it¡¯s best for you to think of the students as revolting, arrogant little pukes who can¡¯t hold the idea of their own failure in their head for even a moment,¡± the professor said. ¡°Especially the ones in the first six sessions. They¡¯re all trying to test out of the introductory courses. Ha! As if I¡¯d let them.¡± Joe crouched down beside the nearest lab table and opened something that looked like a mini fridge. It was full of bottles, jars, and pouches that contained powders, liquids, and shavings of wood and metal. A few even had whole dead animals inside them. ¡°I will do my best to strike fear into their hearts when they first arrive, to impress upon them the importance of giving you their heinous failures when they¡¯re told to. However, we mustn¡¯t expect them to be entirely rational. This is the sort of school that attracts a lot of, shall we say, coddled geniuses.¡± He started taking things out of the fridge and tossing them toward Alden, who had to drop the lab coat to play catch. He was soon holding an armful of what he assumed where chemicals and magical reagents. ¡°Take those to that corner over there,¡± Joe said, flipping his hand. ¡°Let¡¯s make sure our students have an exciting educational opportunity.¡± Alden did, and on the way back to the next station, he donned the lab coat and grabbed a large metal bin. It looked enough like a trash can for him to be fairly confident that was its purpose, and he wanted to reduce the number of thrown objects if possible. He set it next to Joe, who was clearing an entirely different set of ingredients out of the next mini-fridge. How do you score an exam when everyone has different supplies? Alden wondered. ¡°You look gorgeous!¡± Joe said, beaming at the lab coat while he stuffed things in the bin. Even though he¡¯d said it wasn¡¯t necessary, Alden went ahead and targeted the professor. He seemed like the kind of person it was best to be over-prepared for. Joe had given Sophie an assignment of her own. The panther-like alien was going from table to table, carefully re-arranging some of the equipment with her claws. ¡°So,¡± said Alden, ¡°what am I supposed to do if they¡¯re not rational?¡± ¡°Hmm?¡± ¡°The students. What do I do if they won¡¯t give me their ¡®heinous failures?¡¯¡± ¡°Ah. This is where it¡¯s a bit inconvenient. If they won¡¯t behave, and you can¡¯t make them behave, then I shall have to do it myself.¡± Alden wasn¡¯t sure how he was supposed to make an Artonan holding a volatile object follow his instructions. ¡°Don¡¯t look so concerned. We¡¯ll work it out together!¡± Joe said brightly. ¡°We¡¯ll think of the first session as a trial run. And then over lunch, assuming we haven¡¯t been brought before the disciplinary committee, we can discuss opportunities for improvement.¡± Alden was still pondering that worrying statement, and the fact that the professor seemed to actually mean it, an hour later when the woman in charge of the medical team hurried into the room to brief him on his role in the event of an emergency. ¡°You¡¯re basically equipment,¡± she said bluntly. ¡°No thinking required. If you get called, just use your skill to the best of your ability and follow instructions from anyone with more authority than you¡­which is everyone.¡± She gave him a red glow stick to wear around his neck at all times and four different pills that he should take immediately after an emergency teleport ¡°to reduce undesirable outcomes.¡± ¡°What does that mean?¡± Alden was already feeling strange about the fact that he¡¯d be forced to go to sleep every night. Getting casually drugged left and right hadn¡¯t been a feature of any story he¡¯d ever heard about being Avowed. ¡°This one keeps you from throwing up. This one keeps you from passing out. This one temporarily inoculates you against Thetet Fever, and this last one makes you unable to register physical pain.¡± There¡¯s no way this combo is good for my health. Especially the one that offered immunity to pain. If that was available on Earth and not dangerous, people would be taking it all the time. He thanked the woman anyway, and stuffed the pill bottle into his pocket, hoping he wouldn¡¯t have to use it. ### The initial group of examinees arrived about two hours after Alden had first set foot in the lab. He and Sophie sat on the floor in the back by the irradiators, watching as each one entered the room and bowed to Professor Joe, apologizing for the fact that they had to wear shoes while working with dangerous supplies. Every prospective student was accompanied by one or two assistants who didn¡¯t bother apologizing for their footwear. <> Sophie told Alden in her quietest shriek. <> Roughly twenty percent of Artonans used magic. The eighty percent of the species who were members of the second class couldn¡¯t even hold political office or vote. Based on what he¡¯d seen of the faculty, Alden had assumed that the school was for the ruling class only, and this more or less confirmed his suspicions. ¡°We¡­outrank them? Right?¡± he whispered. He knew it was true, but it felt strange enough that he couldn¡¯t resist asking. <> said Sophie. <> Alden kept telling himself that just because a way of life was alien didn¡¯t mean it was wrong. But it still bothered him when he accidentally met the eyes of one of the assistants and the man gave a nervous half bow, as if afraid he might have offended Alden. To Alden¡¯s surprise, the examination actually began with a lesson. Joe walked the length of the huge room slowly, talking over their assignment and explaining what they were expected to produce. Frustratingly, the System didn¡¯t translate a single part of the lecture, not even when Alden quietly asked it to. He had taken the Artonan language intensive, and the logograms course. But it was only a beginning. He was good enough to pronounce and understand his wordchains and order off menus. But this lecture was about theoretical magic stuff, and he had almost no idea what the professor was saying. He caught every dozenth word and tried to piece something reasonable together out of it. Joe peppered his speech with a lot of references to anatomy, which at first made Alden think the students might be creating medical potions or devices of some kind; but he gradually came to the conclusion that the anatomical stuff was actually really dirty swearing. The prospective students and their helpers kept blushing and gasping too much for it to be anything else. ¡°Do you understand what they¡¯re going to be doing?¡± he asked Sophie as quietly as he could. Instead of answering aloud, the griveks sent him a texting invitation. She could obviously control her interface mentally. [In past exam seasons, the students have been asked to produce their own summoning assistive devices for one of the tests they will have later. This professor is unknown to me. He seems to be asking for a higher level of device than usual.] Alden air typed some more questions. Sophie had been working this event for three of her planet¡¯s years, which was more like seven of Earth¡¯s. Joe really hadn¡¯t been joking when he said her job was to throw herself on grenades. Classes were categorized differently for griveks, but based on her explanation, Alden thought she had both heightened speed and extreme regenerative capabilities. The latter wasn¡¯t something you really saw with humans, so he was pretty jealous. Purely out of curiosity he asked about her rank, and when the System failed to translate the word she said, she gave a click of annoyance and tapped one of her feet four times against the floor. [Four?] Alden asked. She confirmed it with four more taps. But what does that mean? Four, as in three above the hyperbole rank on Earth, seemed unlikely. It would make Sophie a titanic existence by Alden¡¯s reckoning, and she seemed pretty normal for that. He guessed it might be four above the bottom rung for griveks, which would make her a B-rank like him if the Systems were equivalent. Before he could ask more questions, the translation subtitles suddenly turned themselves on for the end of Joe¡¯s lecture. <> It¡¯s really stupid that you cut out the good part, there, Alden informed the System. I think the Earth version of you wouldn¡¯t be such a prude. It ignored him, of course. Within a few minutes, the practical portion of the lab exam was underway. Alden could practically taste the stress in the air. One of the guys at the table nearest him seemed to be hyperventilating while he stared at the equipment. At the next table over a girl was hammering on a sheet of copper colored metal so hard that she looked like she was trying to pound it right through the table. Smoke was popping up at some tables, and at others, the students were directing their assistants to dissect things. A few people were definitely muttering wordchains while they worked. Alden had no idea what it might look like if something went wrong, but almost as soon as the students got started, he gained a new visual display that gave everyone in the room a very pale pink aura. Joe had told him to expect a danger detector, but this was better than he¡¯d thought it would be. As the professor strolled the lab, noting likely problems, the aura around a given student would turn brighter. Hot pink meant Alden needed to be near that table, ready to take whatever disaster they¡¯d made away from them. Hood up and goggles on, he walked around the room, repositioning himself as the auras changed, trying not to make it too obvious which of the nearby tables he was there to monitor. Joe was surprisingly intent on the students¡¯ work, and he actually adjusted the auras a lot. So Alden was getting more of a workout than he¡¯d expected. A glimmer of dangerously bright pink appeared in his peripheral vision¡ªwhich he was pleased to note seemed a bit wider than it had been prior to his affixation¡ªand he hurried across the room to a table where a guy was pouring something that looked like boiling mercury into a tall metal cylinder. Joe wasn¡¯t even looking in this direction, so Alden wasn¡¯t sure how he knew there was a problem. The professor was twelve tables away, critically watching over a girl who seemed to be peacefully doing macrame with strips of skin she¡¯d taken from the dissected animals. Just a few yards away from Alden, the cylinder made a loud popping sound, and its creator¡¯s aura went hot pink. Alden stepped right up to the end of the table and took his hands out of his pockets so that he¡¯d be ready to grab the thing, and the guy gave him a frantic look. The cylinder popped a few more times, and then with a high whine, something like steam began to pour from the top. ¡°Take that, Alden,¡± Joe said calmly. The guy who¡¯d spent the past forty minutes building the cylinder reached for it as if to protect it, but he was too late. Alden had been expecting interference, so he¡¯d snatched the device the second Joe had finished speaking. Walking quickly away from the table with the now-silent cylinder in his hands, he felt slightly accomplished. And tired. The drain from the cylinder was bad. It was worse than either the flame or the frog had been. It was even worse than Jeremy¡¯s punch, though he¡¯d been braced for it, so at least he didn¡¯t stagger around the lab. Is it because magic is involved? Or does it have to do with the potency of the reaction itself? He had no idea, but he did know he couldn¡¯t hold onto this thing for more than a few minutes. He was already saying don¡¯t drop it, don¡¯t drop it in his head to keep himself focused. He hurried toward a teleportation alcove in the corner. The door opened automatically for him, and he set the cylinder inside, leaping back and holding his breath so that he wouldn¡¯t inhale any of the strange steam in the couple of seconds that elapsed before the thing was zapped away. The drained feeling didn¡¯t last. As soon as the device was out of his hands, it disappeared. Alden checked his palms, feeling a little paranoid that he might have gotten some dangerous substance on himself, but he didn¡¯t think the skill worked like that. Even though he could feel the items he carried, he¡¯d realized after holding the cup of wevvi that Bti-qwol had given him that he wasn¡¯t necessarily touching them in the usual sense of the word. There had been a drop of liquid on the outside of the cup that he¡¯d registered as wet, but when he¡¯d passed the cup to the other hand, the water droplet was undisturbed and his fingers were completely dry. His current theory was that the tactile sense he had from the items was actually a part of the skill itself¡ªa magical effect that made it easier for him to hold and manipulate them in a familiar way. He scanned the room again, looking for the color he¡¯d decided to call danger pink, but the worst he saw was a dark blush. Joe was verbally annihilating cylinder guy. Once again, the System was refusing to offer a translation, but this time, Alden got the gist of it just from context and the hand gestures the professor was making. Cylinder guy was in big trouble for trying to interfere with Alden¡¯s theft of his project. Well, it would have been a problem. Just based on the experiments he had done with Boe and Jeremy, entrustment had a lot to do with possession. The cylinder sitting untouched on the table belonged to nobody, as far as the skill was concerned, so Joe could entrust it to Alden from across the room. But if the student had grabbed it first, he would have been in possession of it, and he would have to be targeted and give it to Alden himself. Targeting was no trouble. Alden could do it in less than a second by pointing or speaking. But that didn¡¯t matter if cylinder guy refused to hand over his toy. Alden guessed he could have made the student drop the thing and then had Joe entrust it to him, but dropping potential bombs seemed like the opposite of what they were going for. The student left the laboratory weeping, his future at this school apparently ruined before it had even begun, and Alden tried to look as un-menacing as possible as he paced back and forth near the person with the dark blush aura. It didn¡¯t work. The students at the three nearest tables were staring at him like he was the grim reaper. Didn¡¯t expect disposing of dangerous materials to make me so unpopular. He blinked in surprise as a notification flashed. [Quest Assignment: Assist Superior Professor Worli Ro-den in Lab 7] Time to summons: 5 hr, 43 m, 55 s [Note from summoner: My lab is so much better than this one! You can just walk if you prefer not to be teleported. Don¡¯t worry about dinner. I¡¯ll feed you.] Alden glanced over at Joe. The professor was patting his food-stuffed pockets, which was the opposite of appealing. But at least whatever he wanted Alden to do couldn¡¯t take too long. They¡¯d run afoul of the mandatory sleep requirement if it did. How many quests can I even have at once? He¡¯d been under the impression that you got summoned for one thing and you did the thing and you went back home. Was he even earning credit toward his refusals with all these extra jobs? Alden smiled and waved at Joe, which seemed to make the guy happy. Maybe he just wants to show off his lab. Maybe it¡¯s not a quest to help him out with something incredibly crazy or dangerous he just thought of after seeing my skill in action. Alden stole a couple more projects from students who were too terrified to try to stop him and sent them to whatever dumping ground was on the other end of the teleportation alcove. But for the most part the first lab session passed uneventfully. ¡°Joe invited me to his lab tonight,¡± he told Sophie while they cleaned up the tables after everyone left. ¡°Well¡­ordered me. It was a quest, so it wasn¡¯t really an invitation.¡± <> the gryvek said. ¡°You have a very human sense of humor you know.¡± She shrieked at him. <> ¡°I won¡¯t. I¡¯m an honest person. I speak only truth.¡± She flung a strip of skin at him. It was one of the ones the macrame girl had left behind. It bounced off his lab coat, and he stuck his tongue out at Sophie. <> ¡°Of Joe?¡± She adjusted one of the scales with a surprisingly delicate touch. <> ¡°You mean private contracts?¡± Alden said slowly. <> ¡°I don¡¯t plan to sell myself at all. I want to work mostly on Earth, not be permanently attached to someone here.¡± <> the gryvek advised. <> TWENTY-SEVEN: Boater They took their lunch break during what felt like early afternoon to Alden. Sophie said the way humans sat around a table and ate food other people had slaughtered for them was disturbing, and she wouldn¡¯t come with him to the dining area. <> ¡°I just eat plants these days, so there¡¯s not much opportunity for butchering.¡± The grivek snorted. Joe was skipping, too. He was busy playing with all the devices the examinees had made, trying to decide which were worthy of a passing score. The lucky few would come back for a brief session this afternoon to perfect their contraptions with his guidance. ¡°Pick up a to-go basket for me, though!¡± he said. ¡°I want one of everything. And plenty of napkins.¡± Alden assumed he wanted the food wrapped so he could add it to his pocket hoard. The System provided Alden with a helpful map to the designated lunch spot, and the long walk from the basement lab by himself was a relief. It was the first time he had been alone since he¡¯d affixed his skill. It gave him enough space, finally, to process a few of his new experiences without being interrupted. He strode down the hallway, his footsteps echoing off the concrete walls, and tried to sort himself out. The first thing he realized was that he was emotionally scrambled. He¡¯d been jumping from one bizarre event to the next so fast, he didn¡¯t know what he felt about it all. He was in a high-stakes setting full of total strangers, and he¡¯d been reacting to everything without really thinking it through. He needed to ground himself, so he started by trying to address the problem that freaked him out the most. Knowing he couldn¡¯t refuse to follow quest-related orders was bothering him way more than he¡¯d ever imagined it would. Nobody had even given him a command he would have objected to yet, with the possible exception of the instructions to take the various pills. But he still felt trapped. The very fact that people like Joe and Bti-qwol could control him made it hard for him to behave normally around them. Or maybe his personal normal in this situation was vastly different than he¡¯d assumed it would be. I didn¡¯t expect to be scared of them. It wasn¡¯t just nerves, though he¡¯d tried to tell himself so several times. It was fear, and it had made him hesitate to seriously argue with Bti-qwol when she shoved him onto the medical team. The fear was also why he had passively handed the frog over for execution when he probably didn¡¯t need to. The professor was better, but even there, the relationship was tilted. Alden had been so hyper-alert during the lab session that he felt exhausted now, and his vigilance had less to do with the students potentially creating clouds of toxic gas than it did with the fact that he was trying to anticipate Joe¡¯s every random word and frenetic action. He sighed and placed his palm against the activation panel for the elevator. I don¡¯t like this version of myself. How was he supposed to be a superhero when he couldn¡¯t even have a heated discussion with one overzealous personnel manager? Well¡­maybe it isn¡¯t that bad. I could deal with her now, couldn¡¯t I? He was pretty sure he couldn¡¯t convince Bti-qwol to see reason if she appeared right this second, but he did think he could talk to her more naturally. And he could tamp down at least some of the unwanted fear by reminding himself of all the reasons he hadn¡¯t felt it before. Getting summoned was something most Avowed looked forward to. He would have been, too, if he¡¯d had just a few days to settle into his new powers first. You had to do the work, but the work wasn¡¯t terrible. The contract didn¡¯t recommend you for jobs you were completely incapable of, and the Earth-Artona agreement included all kinds of concessions to human morality. Alden wouldn¡¯t be subjected to dangerous experimentation or deprived of the things he needed to survive. Nobody could harvest his organs or beat him or force him into their bed. Almost everything that most humans would have a serious problem with was covered. The most obvious exception was that he could be asked to fight and die to protect citizens of the Triplanets. It was called the Interdimensional Warrior¡¯s Contract for a reason, after all. The Artonans¡¯ mother planet, Artona I, and some of the resource worlds had a demon problem. It was contained-ish according to the rare bits of info that filtered down to regular people like Alden. But sometimes there were disasters, and Avowed got thrown in front of them. That was most likely what had happened to Hannah. The scariest thing about being summoned was the possibility of being taken to a battlefield. And that wasn¡¯t something that many B-ranks should expect. Especially not teenage Rabbits who didn¡¯t even have a grip on their skills. So he could dismiss that concern. And beyond that¡­ What¡¯s the most horrible thing that Joe could possibly ask me to do? Clean an alien toilet? Might fall under hazardous waste disposal. Sounds like an honest day¡¯s work. Hold a bomb? Already did it. Hold an even worse bomb that¡¯s only a nanosecond away from exploding? Well, yeah. That¡¯d be bad. How would I offload the thing into the teleportation alcove without dying? So that was the worst case scenario, and even then, the Artonans would presumably try to keep him from going boom. Dead humans couldn¡¯t be a good look for LeafSong University. By the time he¡¯d made it to the upper floors, Alden was feeling more settled. And he¡¯d talked himself out of several of his most pressing discomforts by simply calming down and thinking. The sleeping pill thing, for example, was really obvious when he finally remembered that the days here on Artona III were a different length than they were on Earth. They should be a bit over twenty-six hours long, and the Artonans who lived here measured time in increments that were not quite half hours¡­there were 54 of them in a day, weren¡¯t there? Curious and with no clocks in sight, he decided to talk to the System. ¡°Hey, what¡¯s the local time? Approximately. And what time is it back home?¡± [Approximate local time is 28 o¡¯clock. The time in Chicago, Illinois is 1:43 PM.] Now he knew that good old Chicago was currently pretty well synched with Artona III time, though that was just a coincidence, and it would shift as the twenty-six hour day rolled over. Of course everyone is cool with the sleeping pills. I¡¯m probably going to love them, too, if they do something to mitigate perpetual planetlag. He wondered if he could do with less sleep now that he was an Avowed. He doubted it based on his stats. Maybe if he had been able to add more to stamina and processing¡­. It was only twelve days, so he assumed the pills would hold him together and then he¡¯d crash once he made it home. He entered the same room where the welcome breakfast had been held this morning. It looked like it was usually a study space. Large windows overlooked the forested hillside and the campus below them. There were armchairs in the corners and low tables surrounded by plush cushions in the middle of the room. A pair of beautifully carved drafting tables with tall stools stood against one wall. A dozen people, half of them humans, were eating their lunches. The humans were all sitting together at the same low table. They stopped talking when he entered, but there was no blatant hostility as far as he could tell. And the medical team was absent, so he wouldn¡¯t have to deal with the asshole who¡¯d called him ¡°pet.¡± He thought it was a perfect opportunity to show he hoped to get along with everyone, so he made sure to smile and give a small wave toward the assortment of adults. A woman with red streaks in her dark hair waved back, and an old guy in glasses nodded. One in three isn¡¯t great odds, he thought. But it¡¯s better than nothing. He only had thirty-two minutes left for this lunch break. There was an annoying semi-transparent timer hovering just above the center of his vision as a reminder. He decided he¡¯d use the time to at least try to learn everybody¡¯s name and job. He headed over to the food. It was confined to a single table, and it was a much simpler spread than the remains of the breakfast feast he¡¯d seen that morning. Small rectangular baskets stood in a neat row at the back. He grabbed one for Joe and almost dropped it in surprise when he felt the minuscule mental strain that meant his skill had activated. When he failed to take a step, the skill faded, so he started pacing. The professor was still targeted; Alden could see a white dot to indicate his general direction at the bottom left corner of his vision. And the last thing he¡¯d said was that Alden should grab him a to-go basket. But that was several minutes ago, and Joe was all the way down in the basement. This is great! Alden thought. The fact that he could be entrusted with something that wasn¡¯t even in the same area as his target was amazing. There had to be some limit, didn¡¯t there? He couldn¡¯t just have someone tell him to pick things up through a phone call from miles and miles away probably. But this was much further than he¡¯d imagined. Could I have picked up any basket I found on my way here? Or only these, since Joe must have had these ones in mind specifically? And do I have to be near Joe when he tells me to take it? Walking around anytime he had something in his hands was rapidly becoming a habit, so he barely noticed he was striding back and forth in front of the food table over and over until someone said, ¡°New kid, there are treadmills in the gym if you have that much extra energy.¡± It was the woman with the red streaks. Alden stopped. His coworkers were staring at him. He was grinning like an idiot and carrying an empty basket around the room. ¡°Sorry,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m still figuring out my skill.¡± ¡°We thought you looked really young,¡± she said, tucking a strand of red-streaked hair behind an ear. ¡°I¡¯m used to being the baby in the group, and here you come along.¡± ¡°You¡¯re at least a decade older than him, Naya,¡± said a woman in an apron sitting across the table from her. ¡°Nobody here thinks of you as the baby of the group.¡± ¡°Shut up. I¡¯m twenty-five in my heart.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°That would still be a decade older than me.¡± Naya had a hand to her chest as if he¡¯d delivered a blow. Her friend in the apron raised an eyebrow and turned around on her cushion to look at him. ¡°You¡¯re fifteen?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be sixteen in a month.¡± <> asked a balding man sitting on the cushion beside Naya. He was speaking Spanish. ¡°No. I¡¯m a B.¡± They all exchanged glances. Alden had no idea why his rank even mattered. ¡°I¡¯m Alden, by the way,¡± he said as he started double wrapping food in napkins for the professor. ¡°It¡¯s good to meet you all.¡± ¡°Yeah, you too,¡± said Naya. ¡°B is higher than the rest of us. We¡¯re mostly D¡¯s. Some C¡¯s.¡± Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°Sophie is a B¡­I think,¡± said Alden. ¡°Who?¡± ¡°The grivek I¡¯m working with. The professor in charge of labs decided I should call her Sophie, and she seems cool with it.¡± ¡°How can you tell through the helmet?¡± one of them muttered. All the foods on the table had helpful identification cards with little stick characters on them to indicate what species they were safe for. Most included a small human/Artonan shape, but thanks to Gorgon¡¯s little gift hard-passing on every other thing he touched, Alden¡¯s choices for his own lunch were limited. He grabbed a giant mushroom cap stuffed with salad and a couple of egg roll lookalikes. There was a dispenser of steaming wevvi, of course, but he ignored it in favor of a cooler full of drinks from Earth. He¡¯d never been happier to see a bottle of orange juice in his life. ¡°Manon brings those with her every year,¡± Naya said, watching Alden grab the juice. ¡°They¡¯ll be gone by the end of the week.¡± ¡°Oh. Is it all right for me to have one?¡± He¡¯d just assumed they were provided by the aliens. ¡°Sure. Manon brings them to share. But if you try to steal from her coffee pot in the dorm, you¡¯re a dead man.¡± ¡°Noted.¡± Alden resisted the urge to go sit by himself and headed for their table. The old man with the glasses and the woman in the apron scooted over their cushions to make room for him. ¡°Manon¡¯s a Rabbit,¡± said the apron lady, staring at him a little too intently for his comfort. ¡°Is she the woman with the all black clothes? I saw her at the orientation.¡± ¡°Yeah. She¡¯s been doing housekeeping for this event since the dawn of time,¡± said Naya. <> ¡°I got mine through a rec from Pineda.¡± Naya was sipping from a soda. ¡°They¡¯re the two old hats at this. So I¡¯m sure you get why everyone was unhappy to see some rich kid walk in off the street and replace one of them.¡± Alden almost choked on his egg roll. ¡°I¡¯m not a rich kid!¡± ¡°Manon said your gear cost like four hundred thousand Argold.¡± Oh right. They can just check the Wardrobe. Alden felt his face heat. ¡°I couldn¡¯t afford something like this until recently. Really recently.¡± Day before yesterday recently. ¡°Rabbit thing working out for you in a big way, then?¡± the man in glasses asked. ¡°Kind of.¡± He wasn¡¯t about to say it was the Velras that were working out for him. A couple of people already had sour expressions on their faces. The woman in the apron sighed. ¡°It¡¯s just hard to swallow. We all got our yearly invite for this event a couple of weeks ago. But a few people who usually made the list didn¡¯t this time, and then when we got here, we hoped we could talk Markee into letting them come, but she¡¯s retired.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the Artonan who used to be in charge of foreign staff for the university,¡± said Naya. ¡°But now they¡¯ve decided to give students the chance to use events like this for extra credit projects or whatever.¡± ¡°It¡¯s bad for our boater.¡± ¡°The students don¡¯t understand how we do things.¡± <> They were all looking at Alden like they expected him to add something to the conversation, but he didn¡¯t know what. And what the heck is a boater? From context, he assumed it was their group, but beyond that¡­ ¡°Is a boater an Anesidora thing?¡± he asked finally. ¡°I didn¡¯t grow up there.¡± ¡°Oh I don¡¯t think it¡¯s just an Anesidoran word, is it?¡± Naya asked the table. <> said the Spanish speaker. <> Alden turned to him. <> he explained. <> ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯ve never heard of it,¡± said Naya. ¡°But anyway¡­yeah. Our boater will fall apart if they keep letting students have the personnel management role. They¡¯re all going to summon whoever the System recommends for a position, instead of asking us who we¡¯d like to work with.¡± Awkward. But if they were just worried about keeping their plum gig a secret, that was fine. It wasn¡¯t like Alden had anyone to tell about it anyway. ¡°I won¡¯t mention the job to anyone.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± said Naya. But she was still looking at him like she was waiting for something. ¡°Uh¡­is everyone here in the boater except for me, then?¡± ¡°Oh yeah!¡± she said brightly. ¡°All of us are. And the lortch are sort of affiliated. Only for this event, though.¡± So not everyone. Only the humans and the lortch. Maybe it was too expensive to coordinate with other species regularly. Alden waited for the adults to either invite him to join their super secret job club or tell him that they were sorry he wasn¡¯t a good fit because his skill overlapped with Pineda¡¯s. He didn¡¯t particularly care which they chose, but he expected them to do one or the other. It was the natural thing after informing him that he was the odd one out, wasn¡¯t it? But they just kept exchanging glances with each other. What is it?! he thought. I¡¯m right here. I¡¯m not psychic. His lunch timer was ticking down, so he shoved another egg roll into his mouth. Whatever was in them tasted a lot like steak, and he was determined to eat as many as he could before he had to go. Maybe they expect me to apologize? he realized. That wasn¡¯t really reasonable, since Alden couldn¡¯t help being summoned. But it didn¡¯t cost him anything, and he didn¡¯t want conflict during the next twelve days. He¡¯d take any olive branch he could get. He swallowed. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about Pineda. I¡¯m not confident I¡¯m the right fit for the medical team anyway. I don¡¯t have any experience with that kind of thing, and I told Bti-qwol that. But I could talk to her again.¡± It would give him an opportunity to practice being himself around her. ¡°It¡¯s not like that would do us any good,¡± said the woman in the apron. ¡°Right. There¡¯s no way she¡¯s going to listen to you,¡± said Naya. ¡°Manon already tried to talk to her about it right after orientation, and it was a nope.¡± Doesn¡¯t that mean they tried to get me fired from one of my jobs? Sort of? He understood it was because of their friend. And he didn¡¯t mind, since he didn¡¯t want or need the medical team position. But it still seemed like the kind of thing you shouldn¡¯t just casually tell someone. ¡°Well¡­¡± he said, standing up to get more egg rolls. ¡°Let me know if there¡¯s anything I can do.¡± ¡°You live in F-city, kid?¡± the old guy asked while Alden was loading his plate. He had just shoved another half an egg roll into his mouth, which gave him time to think. He could say he hadn¡¯t registered and given up his citizenship yet. It wasn¡¯t like he was in the wrong for waiting until the last minute¡­but the vibe here was already off. Nobody was being too much of a jerk, but they definitely weren¡¯t warm and welcoming. They hadn¡¯t even given him their names when he¡¯d told them his. Obviously they were still a little pissed. He didn¡¯t need them to think he was a possible future supervillain as well. Well, if they would think something like that. What would a Rabbit villain even do? Fold napkins angrily? He swallowed. ¡°I haven¡¯t found a permanent place yet. I¡¯m applying to schools in Apex.¡± Not a lie. But they¡¯d probably assume he was staying in the intake dorms. Teens arriving on the island had to live there for a while if they didn¡¯t transfer directly into a school. ¡°Fancy,¡± said Naya. ¡°You think you have a chance of getting into a feeder school there? Even if you¡¯re not applying to the hero programs, admissions can be pretty cutthroat at B-rank.¡± ¡°Unless you have good connections?¡± the woman in the apron suggested. <> It was on the tip of Alden¡¯s tongue to say ¡°no, of course I don¡¯t.¡± After all, he didn¡¯t have any connections he planned to use. He intended to stay under the Velra family¡¯s radar as much as possible from now on, and it would be gross to call someone like Cly Zhao or Hannah¡¯s mother and ask them to get him into a hero program if he couldn¡¯t make it on his own merits. But he hesitated before saying as much. He felt like he was being judged, and he suddenly realized why. They¡¯re only asking me things that would help them decide if I¡¯m an important person or not. He went back over the conversation in his head. The members of the boater had asked about money. And if he was getting a lot of work as a Rabbit. And they¡¯d asked about rank. And they¡¯d asked if he lived in F-city, which sounded harmless but was probably loaded given the way Anesidora was divided and the fact that B¡¯s sort of floated in between the high and low rankers. And now they were checking to see if he had connections. Any one of those things wasn¡¯t necessarily suspicious, but all of it together was kind of¡­uncomfortable. Maybe it was an Avowed thing, but Alden doubted it. The only adults he regularly interacted with were teachers, neighbors, and Aunt Connie¡¯s friends. You couldn¡¯t really count Gorgon. Normally, by now, someone would have asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, if he had a girlfriend, if he played sports, or what his parents did for a living. Adults trying to get to know you almost always asked one of those things or a variation on them. They¡¯re not socializing, he concluded. They¡¯re trying to stick me in some kind of servants¡¯ pecking order. Even if he was only half right, it was so soap opera he almost expected to hear dramatic music playing in the background. ¡°I¡¯ve got some friends who can help me out,¡± he said finally. ¡°I went to Celena North with them just the other day. One of the deans talks exactly like that guy who spoke first at orientation this morning.¡± He watched their faces. There was nothing really obvious in their expressions to indicate that they cared one way or the other. But apron lady¡¯s smile was definitely fake when she said, ¡°That¡¯s great. The campus there is gorgeous.¡± After that, the conversation turned more in the direction he had originally expected. He finally got names and jobs for everyone. Ironically, the woman in the apron was a Brute who¡¯d spent the morning hauling luggage for all the examinees. That was supposed to be me. But here I am on bomb disposal¡­ The man who spoke Spanish and the woman with the red streaks were both monitors who used heightened senses to detect cheaters. The old guy in glasses was a Wright who repaired minor problems with equipment. Alden would probably be seeing a little more of him than the others, since he said he often got called to the lab to pick up things the students had broken. Alden also learned that LeafSong had a few regular Avowed workers he might run across while he was here. And they increased the number of summonees for this event because most of their Artonan staff were off duty during entrance exams, and having magical help around gave ¡°the right impression¡± to VIP students and parents who were still on the fence when it came to choosing the school. The only other thing he learned was that the boater had a screwed-up relationship with Manon the Rabbit that they didn¡¯t seem to think was screwed-up at all. They all loved her¡­because she gave them stuff. In addition to getting several of them their jobs and providing them with the snacks and drinks from Earth, she paid for everyone to have a phone call home. Alden had no idea what it cost to ship food to Artona III, but he knew what the phone calls cost. Assuming Manon was making the same amount he was for the lab assistant position and everyone made at least one call on her dime, she was taking a significant pay cut. Maybe it was how she made friends. Or she was so loaded she just didn¡¯t care? But it still put Alden in a strange position when people kept mentioning things Manon did for them ¡°because she¡¯s the Rabbit.¡± Did they think he was supposed to buy them things? Was he supposed to buy them things? If they weren¡¯t making as much money as him and Manon, it was because they were earning other equally valuable stuff, right? Alden would gladly trade his entire twelve-day salary for access to a semi-decent spell impression or half a foundation point. He couldn¡¯t figure out if there was a social expectation of Rabbits in general he hadn¡¯t known about or if it was just the members of this group who thought there was. So he was relieved when his break timer started flashing and he had an excuse to head back to the lab. He ran into the skin macrame girl and her pair of assistants in front of the elevator. He let them in first because he wasn¡¯t sure if he was allowed to ride with them. There was the whole ¡°no socializing with the examinees¡± rule, after all. But they held the door for him, so he joined them. <> the examinee said excitedly. <> ¡°Congratulations,¡± said Alden. <> she said, grinning at him. <> Even the Artonans start conversations by telling people their names, Alden thought. I¡¯m not crazy. The boater members really are kind of off. ¡°I¡¯m Alden,¡± he said. ¡°Good luck in the second session.¡± The chat ended there. He was a little concerned when he realized it was the most pleasant interaction he¡¯d had since he left behind Sophie, who was a massive war cat that liked to slaughter jungle creatures in the night. He hadn¡¯t been looking forward to having his entire evening taken up by the visit to Joe¡¯s probably-terrifying laboratory. But now he was thinking it might be a good thing for him to stay busy, just so he had an excuse not to hang out with the other humans. Apparently there was a shared housing situation as well, so they¡¯d all be bunkmates. ¡°Hey, Sophie,¡± he said after giving Joe his basket of food and watching the professor take everything out of a perfectly good container so that he could squirrel it all away in his wizard¡¯s uniform. ¡°Is there extra space in the grivek dorm?¡± <> ¡°¡­that sounds labor intensive.¡± <> ¡°Thanks,¡± said Alden. ¡°If it comes to that, I¡¯ll let you know.¡± TWENTY-EIGHT: Perception The professor only invited five students back for the afternoon session. Sophie said the pass rate was usually thirty percent, so Joe was even more of a terror than Alden had realized. At first, he assumed he wouldn¡¯t have anything to do in the lab with so few examinees. Especially since they were, presumably, talented enough not to cause a disaster. But it turned out he was as busy as he had been for the morning testing. Instead of having him dispose of dangerous materials, Joe loaned Alden¡¯s services to each of the students for a set period of time. Every ten or so minutes he swapped tables and held whatever the examinee asked him to while doing laps off to the side. At least I was wearing sneakers when I was summoned. He was already making a mental list of the items he¡¯d need to have with him everywhere he went so that he didn¡¯t wind up on strange planets with nothing but the clothes on his back. Carrying around projects for the students wasn¡¯t too taxing, but it was forcing him to rapidly develop a tolerance for grabbing things that looked like they shouldn¡¯t be touched with a ten-foot pole. He wondered if Joe had given the examinees bonus points for being weirdos; it seemed like he¡¯d given passing scores only to the scariest projects. One guy had made a chihuahua-sized spider machine that was supposed to come when it was called, but it kept trying to scuttle away from his lab table and up the walls. It stabbed him and his assistants with sharp metal feet whenever they tried to hold it in place. The examinee at the next table was carving sigils into the side of a simple wooden bowl that seemed innocent enough, but occasionally, out of the blue, it would scream. All by itself. How the heck can all these things be for the same purpose? Alden wondered. Sophie had said the students were making ¡°summoning assistive devices¡± for use in other exams they had coming up. You would think their projects would at least look similar. And what were they summoning? If it was Avowed, they would just use the System, right? Gorgon had once implied that consorting with demons was a pastime for extremely powerful Artonans, so Alden didn¡¯t think that was something that would be happening here. Maybe the projects were for containing, controlling, or communicating with the things they summoned? He was lulled into a false sense of security by the first three projects he carried. Creepy they might have been, but they were easy enough to hold. And it was particularly satisfying to watch the spider freeze in place with one of its feet halfway through a stabbing motion. Once Alden had taken charge of it, the guy who¡¯d made it spent the whole time frantically flipping the pages of textbooks while his assistants bandaged their fingers. Alden was pretty sure they didn¡¯t even need his power for the preservation effect; they only wanted a break from trying to babysit the thing they¡¯d made. They looked very sad when his time was up. He dropped the spider into a deep lab sink and ran away from it before it could enact any sort of revenge plan. Joe pointed him toward the screaming bowl girl, and he headed over feeling pretty at ease. He targeted her, and she smiled. <> ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden. She pulled her blue-black hair up into a clip and placed a small cone-shaped device into a stand, spinning it so that the open end was toward Alden and the bowl. Then she tucked a pair of buds made of the same glass-like substance as the cone into her ears. The professor strolled over to watch the two of them. ¡°It¡¯ll be heavy,¡± he said, the eye behind his smart lens darting around while the other fixed itself on Alden. ¡°You should brace yourself.¡± Alden stared at the bowl. It wasn¡¯t huge, so he didn¡¯t think the professor was warning him about physical weight. All right, he thought. Solid slow steps as soon as I grab it. And hold on tight. Don¡¯t fall over. How hard could it be? A moment later, a fresh wail came from the depths of the bowl, and Alden reached for it. The second he touched it, it felt like someone had tied his soul to an anchor and dropped it. He only managed to hold onto the bowl and take a step with it because he¡¯d told himself that was what he was going to do. This feels bad. He¡¯d had just enough practice over the past day to keep moving. The horrible burden didn¡¯t really affect his arms and legs, but he stumbled because his brain and body couldn¡¯t figure out how they were supposed to react to weight that wasn¡¯t weight. This freaking hurts. He shook his head and tried to keep going, arguing with his own senses. Hurt wasn¡¯t the right word, he told himself. He wasn¡¯t in physical or emotional pain. And if he wasn¡¯t in pain, he should be able to carry one stupid bowl, right? Just one step and then another. Right? Wrong. Alden¡¯s skill deactivated and he took in a shuddering breath, blinking around in confusion. The bowl was wailing again in his hands. He was on his knees, almost nose to nose with the hinge of one of the lab cabinets. I was walking, wasn¡¯t I? He didn¡¯t think he¡¯d fallen. Had he just knelt down? He realized he didn¡¯t even know how long he¡¯d been carrying the bowl, if anyone had spoken to him, or which direction he¡¯d traveled in. He looked around and saw that he was at one of the empty tables, farther from where he¡¯d started than he would have thought. He must have been wandering around aimlessly. The professor was right behind him. ¡°I was making sure you didn¡¯t run into a wall!¡± he said brightly. ¡°I suspected we might have been a bit greedy with this one. Hand that over, and take a rest.¡± Alden was too exhausted to protest or apologize as the professor took the bowl away. He didn¡¯t even want to. He felt apathetic about his own failure, even as he recognized that the lack of emotion was wrong. He should have been sorry for messing up whatever experiment the examinee had been doing or worried about consequences. But he just¡­didn¡¯t care. Huh, he thought. Strange. It was a peaceful feeling, though. He knelt there, staring at the cabinet hinge without really seeing it. His knees started to hurt, but he couldn¡¯t be bothered to change positions. After a few minutes, Sophie came and looked at him. He could see his face reflected in the surface of her helmet. He blinked slowly at himself. A text message scrolled across his interface. [I¡¯ve never encountered a human in a state of full magical fatigue. Does your recovery process prevent you from moving your legs?] ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Alden said. His voice was placid. [You can answer questions. Can you feel your body?] ¡°Yes.¡± [I thought so. You need to work on separating your physical senses from your magical ones. And your will from your UNTRANSLATABLE.] ¡°Okay.¡± The grivek lifted a claw larger than Alden¡¯s hand and held it in front of his eyes. [I am going to disembowel you now.] ¡°Okay.¡± The claw hit the hard white floor with a clack. [This is hilarious. But dangerous. For now, go to sleep. Maybe that will fix you.] Sophie reached out with a foot and shoved him over. Alden toppled, limp as a doll, onto his side. The floor was so clean in the lab it didn¡¯t look real. Sophie told me to go to sleep. That sounds easy. Opening his eyes every time he blinked was a lot of trouble anyway. ### A couple of hours later, Alden woke up to an insistent, piercing whistle that existed only in his own mind. [QUEST REMINDER: Assist Professor Worli Ro-den in Lab 7] The timer at the bottom said he had half an hour. He could wait around to be teleported, or he could earn a small Argold bonus by getting there on his own. Groaning, Alden rolled over on the hard floor and stared up at the ceiling. The lab lights were dimmed, and it was quiet. They must have just left him here to sleep off the¡­ That was skill fatigue, right? Sophie had called it magical fatigue, but theymust have been the same thing. Alden had heard about it before; it was like the moment an endurance athlete hit the wall. He¡¯d assumed that it was what he was heading for when he felt the strange drain every time his skill activated. But he hadn¡¯t been entirely positive, because from what he¡¯d understood, skills were an all or nothing thing for most superhumans. They worked perfectly and easily until they didn¡¯t work at all. Why does Let Me Take Your Luggage start taxing me right away? And why did it knock me out so quickly? Skill fatigue was supposed to be something that happened after you¡¯d used your skill for hours and hours. Superheroes mostly suffered from it during long, drawn-out recovery missions or during hero-vs-hero competitions. Obviously something was different about the screaming bowl than the other things Alden had carried, and he really needed to understand what that was. He couldn¡¯t just get tired and take a nap wherever, whenever. And being devoid of concern for himself was disturbing. He¡¯d told Sophie she could disembowel him. He climbed onto his feet and stretched, trying to work out the various sorenesses he¡¯d collected from lying in a motionless, crumpled heap for hours. The rest seemed to have been good for him, at least. He didn¡¯t feel tired anymore. Not in the regular human way or in the bad, new way. And for the first time all day, he wasn¡¯t sweaty. The floor had been nice and cool even through the coat. The Artonans preferred an indoor temperature just shy of ninety degrees Fahrenheit. It was getting old fast. He got directions from the System and set out for Lab 7. It was in its own building, halfway across campus. Not far from the place where Alden had teleported in this morning. On the way, he spotted a few other Avowed. One of the boater members from lunch gave him a nod as they passed in the hall. And he saw Manon the Rabbit through the open door of a classroom. She was arranging small tables and cushions into a half circle. He debated sticking his head in and saying hello to try to get a read on her, but he decided against it. He¡¯d probably have to see her tonight or in the morning anyway. When he stepped outside, he found that one of the strange golf carts had been called for him automatically. It had a halo similar to the one he saw when he targeted people. ¡°Hey, thanks,¡± he said, in case the System cared. He climbed aboard, and the vehicle chimed before setting out down the hill. The trip took about fifteen minutes, and Alden used the time to decide what he would do if Joe did offer him a private contract, as Sophie had suggested he might. ¡°Know your mind before you make your choices,¡± the grivek had said.And that seemed like good advice. What¡¯s with contracts popping up around me left and right, anyway? He knew they were an important part of Avowed life, but still¡­in the past couple of days he¡¯d agreed to the Contract and he¡¯d made the agreement with the Velras. And now here he was worrying about yet another one. He hoped it wasn¡¯t ungrateful, but he didn¡¯t really want another assignment right now, even if Joe was paying well. He was aware that most people looked for opportunities to get their foot in the door with Artonans however they could, but it was just too much at once. He was less afraid of missing out on what some would see as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and more afraid of making a foolish choice because he was in a strange place filled with strange pressures and he was having a hard time keeping his head on straight. He¡¯d heard classes on safe contracting were standard at Anesidoran high schools. He¡¯d really like to take one before he signed any more of his life away. So I¡¯ll say no. Probably. Is there anything he could offer that would make me interested? He¡¯d pass on money, he decided. Any amount of it. Even if whatever Joe wanted was easy. Even if the number was so incredibly large that Alden was sure it was a good deal. He had a few million dollars worth of Argold in his account, and he was about to add two hundred thousand more. That¡¯s so hard to fathom. I think I should talk to Jeremy¡¯s parents at some point¡­figure out how to transfer some of it to Aunt Connie. Maybe buy her a house? That was what rich people did for their family, wasn¡¯t it? Anyway, right now money wasn¡¯t worth the risk of making a contract with the professor. Even if Alden thought he was being smart, he could screw it up. Private deals didn¡¯t have the benefit of full System oversight. If he remembered correctly, the Interdimensional Warriors Contract took precedence over all other contracts he could make as far as it came to summonings, specifically. So he could still be yanked away from non-System jobs by System-approved summonings. But at the same time, the Contract would let him make deals with Artonans that didn¡¯t include the protections usually in place for humans. What if Alden missed some loophole and ended up as a lab rat for the professor? Or what if Joe enjoyed watching his servants fight in gladiator-style arenas and Alden forgot to nix that from the agreement? So, money alone isn¡¯t worth it. The only reason to say yes to anything would be if he offered something that would be unequivocally good for my power development and difficult to obtain through other means. Not even foundation points. Maybe a spell impression? A good one. C-rank or above and tooled to fit his skill. The list of available Rabbit spells was so depressing that he wasn¡¯t even excited about choosing his post-affixation one. And one perfect spell would really increase his likelihood of getting into a hero program. But spell impressions were for long-term assignments and extraordinary service to begin with, and Rabbits weren¡¯t supposed to get C-rank ones normally. So that¡¯s not going to happen, he decided as he hopped off the cart in front of a round, domed building. It was windowless and made of shiny black stone. No new, dangerous jobs today. He put his coat back on and headed for the door. It was made of the same black stone as the rest of the building, and it was so seamless it would almost have disappeared if not for the large, Artonan symbol for 7 carved into it. It opened for him automatically, and to his surprise, blessedly cool air rushed out. Air conditioning. Finally. He stepped through and found himself in a curved hallway. Directly in front of him was a transparent door that led to a decontamination area. Beyond that, a metal staircase led down to the laboratory that seemed to make up the entire center of the building. To Alden¡¯s right and left, locked supply cases lined the walls, and as he made his way around the perimeter circle, he found that the back third of it was a large office area The professor was there, sitting at a desk surrounded by rolling smart boards. Most of the furniture in the office faced a giant interior window that looked down on the lab. Joe was examining a holographic projection of something that looked like a bird¡¯s nest made out of stars, but he swiped it away and leaped up as Alden entered the space. ¡°Alden, dear!¡± he said. ¡°You are delightfully prompt. How are you feeling after that overexertion earlier?¡± ¡°Fine. Normal. I¡¯m sorry I conked out like that. I didn¡¯t ruin the students¡¯ projects, did I?¡± Joe waved a hand. ¡°No, no. I told Jel-nor and Weya that their intended uses for your skill would likely overtax you before we began, so they were forewarned. The nature of their projects was different from the others. I actually might not mind having them as students.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good¡­¡± Alden would rather have been warned a little more thoroughly himself before he got turned into an apathetic lump. ¡°Come see the lab!¡± Joe bounded toward the window. He spent the next fifteen minutes pointing at various pieces of equipment and describing what they did in loving detail. Alden only understood about a third of what he said, even though Joe was speaking mostly English, but he nodded and smiled politely. I seriously hope he doesn¡¯t want me to do anything with that aquarium full of venomous eels. According to the professor, Hot Lab 7 was currently dedicated to researching ways to ¡°reduce the overshred effects caused by magical ammunition.¡± ¡°Interesting?¡± Alden wasn¡¯t sure what overshred was, but it was probably a bad thing, right? ¡°Boring,¡± Joe sighed. ¡°So boring. In my old lab, I was doing cutting edge work on containing demonic energies for certain wealthy benefactors. But now I¡¯m stuck here with a university budget again. You know I haven¡¯t taught in three decades?¡± He gave Alden a pitiful look. ¡°You take one grand senator¡¯s wife as your lover, and the next thing you know, the authorities are suddenly offended by all the creative little things you¡¯ve done. Even though the week before they were shaking your hand under the table for it!¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°Uh¡­¡± said Alden. ¡°I still think it was an overreaction. But here we are. More importantly, here you are!¡± Joe beamed at Alden and rubbed his hands together. ¡°How do you feel about running a few personal errands for me?¡± Yep. Sophie was right. ¡°Personal? You mean doing things for a private contract instead of through System quests?¡± Completely unconcerned by the suspicion in Alden¡¯s voice, Joe wandered over to the office¡¯s small kitchen area and poured himself a cup of wevvi from a dispenser. ¡°Yes. Not only a private contract, but a secret private contract. Doesn¡¯t that sound exciting? There would be official quests, too, to make sure I was the only one who could monopolize your time in the evenings.¡± ¡°Why does it need to be secret?¡± ¡°Because I want you to do something illegal,¡± Joe said lightly. Well, that¡¯s not going to happen. ¡°Unless it¡¯s the Artonan equivalent of a minor traffic violation, then I think I¡¯m going to have to pass.¡± ¡°Traffic violation¡­ah, I see. Your vehicles on Earth are still mostly non-autonomous. Why haven¡¯t you all gotten on top of that, by the way? I know we gave you the technology for it years ago. To answer your question, it is a fairly minor crime; if we¡¯re caught, I expect it to add around a decade to my sentence at this charming institution. At most.¡± The professor pulled something that looked like a brownie out of a pocket and dipped it into the wevvi.¡°As for you, you can¡¯t be punished for anything you do if it¡¯s to satisfy the terms of a magical contract with me. Whether it¡¯s a private one or not.¡± ¡°Even if I know in advance that what you¡¯re asking me to do will be against the law?¡± Alden didn¡¯t try to hide his skepticism. Joe shrugged. ¡°You can look it up. And I don¡¯t mind explaining it, though I hope you won¡¯t waste our limited time by taking offense. You see, we Artonans generally consider Avowed to be either children in need of instruction, beasts of burden, gifts from the holy universe, or existential threats to our species.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°I¡¯ll leave it up to you to figure out how that combination of philosophies led to the creation of our culture and relationships with other planets. But I¡¯m sure you understand that children, heavenly blessings, and Ryeh-b¡¯ts can¡¯t be blamed for the actions of nasty wizards who trick them into committing crimes.¡± Alden was too surprised to be offended. He felt like he¡¯d just learned more about the Triplanets in a few sentences than he had in weeks of study at the consulate. ¡°Um¡­which are you?¡± he asked hesitantly. He wasn¡¯t sure which answer he was hoping for. ¡°Definitely the fourth,¡± said Joe, polishing off his soggy brownie and licking crumbs from his fingers. ¡°But don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m of the opinion that existential threats are how a species evolves into something greater. And I think anything cataclysmic will happen long after we¡¯re both dead, so there¡¯s no reason to let it interfere with our business. Take a seat.¡± The professor pointed at a pair of poofy, legless chairs that had a clear view of the lab below them. Alden sat in one, and Joe took the other. The Artonan steepled his fingers over his chest and sighed. ¡°First, I should warn you that I¡¯m poor. In wizard terms, that is. The conditions of my punishment limit the types of assignment I can issue through the spell you call the System, and since nobody can actually interfere with my individual agreements, they have instead made it difficult for me to summon and pay my old friends.¡± ¡°I¡¯m getting five hundred Argold for the lab assistant quest tonight,¡± Alden pointed out. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s the maximum I¡¯m allowed to offer per day through my university account. I can personally tip you quite heavily on top of it, if that¡¯s what you want. I can spend as much money on my assistants as I like. The problem is that non-System teleportation is hard to come by. And even if I could manage to summon them, most of my friends¡ª¡± he gestured at the tattoos on his face ¡°¡ªare not contracted to work for something as easily obtained as Argold.¡± Oh, thought Alden, staring at the tattoos. ¡°You usually contract for talents and foundation points?¡± Joe gave him a funny smile. ¡°Among other things. Even private contractees can usually be paid with the help the System; however, the privileges I once had to grant spell impressions or foundational improvements through it have been rescinded. And though I¡¯m theoretically powerful enough to do it without its assistance¡­the process is complex. I¡¯d probably kill quite a few people before I mastered the art.¡± ¡°I¡¯d rather not volunteer for that then. Thanks.¡± ¡°Understandable. Let me tell you what I want before you reject me. I need you to teleport somewhere, enter a laboratory, and use your skill to pick up some things for me. It¡¯s simple.¡± ¡°I doesn¡¯t sound simple.¡± It sounded like a good way to get fed to some other Artonan¡¯s pet eels. ¡°You want me to rob another scientist?¡± ¡°No. Though if you¡¯re willing to¡­?¡± Alden shook his head firmly. Joe smiled at him. ¡°The lab is mine. Or it was. It was confiscated from me, and sold to the some of the very people who were backing my research. I¡¯m sure they originally intended to find someone else to run my experiments, but given the lab¡¯s location, that has proven difficult. It¡¯s been several lunar months, and I¡¯ve come to the conclusion that they are abandoning it altogether.¡± ¡°So you want me to steal from a bunch of shady rich people?¡± ¡°They stole from me first.¡± ¡°That sounds incredibly dangerous,¡± Alden protested. ¡°What if you¡¯re wrong, and the lab isn¡¯t abandoned. What if it¡¯s surrounded by armed guards? Or it¡¯s booby trapped?¡± ¡°It is booby trapped. By me. But I have a number of monitoring spells that are still running, so I¡¯m aware of its current state. The only security you will have to deal with is my own, and I will give you the means to do that easily.¡± ¡°Professor, thank you for the opportunity. But I don¡¯t think I want to do something like¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m fairly sure you don¡¯t want money. You didn¡¯t seem interested when I offered to tip you,¡± said Joe. ¡°What if I gave you an upgraded version of the lab coat? I could double the bonuses on it, increase the protective effect. Maybe even make it magically resistant.¡± Alden frowned. That would make the coat more like proper armor. But it still wasn¡¯t something he wanted to risk trouble for. He couldn¡¯t even be sure what an ideal armor set looked like for him until he¡¯d dug deeper into potential uses for his skill and trait. He opened his mouth to reject it, but Joe held up a hand. ¡°No, no. Let me think. I¡¯m very good at this usually.¡± For a couple of minutes, he contemplated Alden in silence. Alden stared through the window at the lab, trying not to feel awkward about being so closely examined. ¡°You know,¡± Joe said eventually, ¡°I¡¯ve been planning to bribe you all day, but I don¡¯t have a good frame of reference for your type. You¡¯re about twenty years younger and two ranks weaker than the least talented of my other private contractees. And besides that you¡¯re so very¡­¡± ¡°Very what?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Let¡¯s just say I prefer to shake dirtier hands.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t even know me. Also, that¡¯s a weird way of putting it.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve watched you fling yourself at potentially deadly materials all day. One comes to conclusions. For example, would I be able to pay you off with a nice bioweapon? Or maybe a serum that would allow you to alter the memories of non-Avowed humans? I have both prepared.¡± ¡°What the heck?¡± said Alden, leaning farther away from the professor. ¡°No. What would I do with those?¡± And why did he have them prepared? ¡°See what I mean? Most of the humans I deal with would know exactly what to do with them.¡± ¡°Are your human contractees all supervillains?¡± ¡°A couple. Probably. I find the hero/villain dynamic on Earth fascinating. I could talk about the absurdity of it for hours, but I¡¯m more interested in why you haven¡¯t made a serious effort to refuse negotiations. It implies that you¡¯re not completely opposed to working for me, even if you did sound very judgmental just now.¡± That worried Alden a little. Was it wrong to be willing to consider stealing stuff from a lab on behalf of the person who it sort-of belonged to? It seemed to be in a pretty gray area¡­assuming Joe was telling the whole truth. Sleeping with a senator¡¯s wife wasn¡¯t the greatest, but did he deserve to have all of his property and research confiscated? He probably did. But maybe the senator was just a jerk? ¡°Stop that,¡± said Joe. ¡°I¡¯m just sitting here.¡± ¡°No, you¡¯re not. You¡¯re having some kind of youthful moral conundrum. You¡¯re looking guilty. We can¡¯t have that. What if I teach you some things about your skill?¡± Alden froze. Joe noticed. ¡°Hmmm?¡± he said, smiling slightly. ¡°Yes. We could do that. I could take¡­oh, I don¡¯t know¡­let¡¯s say around twenty years worth of self-experimentation off your plate?¡± It had never occurred to Alden that Joe might offer anything directly skill-related. The only way he could get anything on that front was supposed to be through naturally leveling the skill. And wasn¡¯t teaching him about it the same as offering to help him level it? ¡°I¡­need a minute to think,¡± he said. ¡°Of course.¡± Joe stood up from his chair. ¡°I¡¯ll be at my desk. Happy to answer any questions you might have. You know how I love teaching.¡± Alden was already busy re-reading the Rabbit class description. Specifically the part about getting rewards other than money. [Summoners will not offer access to skills or spell impressions in exchange for your regular services. Summoners may still offer foundation points, tools, or spell instruction for extraordinary service. New skills and spell impressions are only available upon leveling of starter skills or upon long-term personal assignment to approved parties.] Spell instruction was listed. For extraordinary service. Just like he remembered. Skill instruction wasn¡¯t mentioned at all. Getting an Artonan to teach you any magic beyond a basic word chain was hard. They didn¡¯t even teach most of their own species, after all. And the System had deliberately refused to translate the professor¡¯s lessons in the lab today. Alden had been annoyed but not surprised. He glanced over at the desk. Joe seemed to be rapidly sketching something with a long, thin dip pen. ¡°Is it¡­okay for you to teach me about my skill?¡± ¡°If I were to bind you to my personal service for the next few years, we could make it above-board. You¡¯d live here on campus, except when you were System-called for higher priority jobs. Interested?¡± ¡°No. I want to go back home.¡± He couldn¡¯t even imagine what it would be like to live here for years. ¡°Good. I¡¯m not certain I actually have enough strings left to pull to get permission for that. And even if I did, there are old familiar faces I¡¯d rather see than yours. You¡¯re wonderful of course, but I have the feeling you would stress me out over the long term.¡± Alden didn¡¯t see how he¡¯d been particularly stressful for Joe. If anything, it was the other way around. ¡°Then how¡ª?¡± ¡°When is your curfew tonight?¡± Alden swiped through his interface to check that particular timer. ¡°It¡¯s just under six hours from now.¡± ¡°Then I can give you the next twenty minutes. A quick lesson. Don¡¯t bother with taking off your shoes; I want you ready to go as soon as we¡¯re done.¡± ¡°But I haven¡¯t agreed. And we haven¡¯t signed a contract yet¡­or done whatever it is we do?¡± ¡°You will agree after you realize what a wonderful professor I am. Do you see that pointy gray rock on the shelf over there? Target me and go pick it up.¡± Well¡­it was all right, wasn¡¯t it? He could always take one free lesson and then reject the offer. Alden stood up and headed over to the shelves by Joe¡¯s desk. They lookedlike they belonged in a natural history museum. They were full of shells, bones, fossils and several unnameable items. The ¡°pointy gray rock¡± looked less like a rock and more like a softball-sized carving of a sea urchin. ¡°Grab it by the top point,¡± Joe suggested as Alden reached for it. Alden did. He felt his skill activate and started walking. The rock was easy to carry. ¡°Lesson Two,¡± said Joe. ¡°I don¡¯t think you actually have to walk. If you¡¯re ever at a loss for horizontal space, you can probably just jump up and down.¡± ¡°What happened to Lesson One?¡± Alden asked. But then he allowed what Joe had said to distract him. Up and down were directions. So traveling in them could count as carrying? He tried it, hopping in place. The preservation effect didn¡¯t deactivate. But then he realized what he was doing and grimaced. ¡°I¡¯ll be a laughingstock if I do this regularly.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Rabbit. Hopping. It¡¯s just¡­ugh.¡± He resumed his pacing like normal. ¡°What does the System call the skill in your language, by the way?¡± the professor asked, dipping his pen in a dark violet inkwell. ¡°I didn¡¯t bother to look it up.¡± ¡°Let Me Take Your Luggage,¡± said Alden. Joe snorted. ¡°Heavens, what a travesty. If we ever do make a longterm arrangement with each other, I might tell you what its actual name is.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± Alden asked. ¡°The answer to that won¡¯t be on the table today. Read the skill description to me?¡± ¡°While you are carrying a tangible item that has been entrusted to you by your target, the item will be preserved,¡± Alden said from memory. ¡°Cessation of carriage¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s enough. Tangible¡ªdoes the word mean touchable? Or feel-able? Perceivable? I¡¯m not asking for an official definition in English. I wonder how you, personally, define it?¡± Joe continued to draw on the paper in front of him. ¡°Oh¡­¡± said Alden. ¡°I guess I¡¯ve been thinking of it as anything that exists in the physical world. Non-conceptual stuff? Real stuff.¡± ¡°Interesting. Are emotions real?¡± ¡°Well, yes. But not in a tangible, carry-able way. They¡¯re emotions. I can¡¯t pick up somebody¡¯s love or their hatred as, like, a separate thing from their body. Obviously.¡± ¡°Obviously,¡± Joe repeated in a neutral tone. ¡°But you can carry magic.¡± Alden frowned. ¡°Well, it exists in physical reality, doesn¡¯t it? It¡¯s not like an emotion. I don¡¯t think so anyway. I can feel it when I get scanned after a teleport. And now that I have the heightened Sympathy stat it¡¯s even clearer. And enchanted items can be carried around.¡± ¡°Yes, you¡¯ve been carrying such items all day long, haven¡¯t you? And you preserved most of them very nicely.¡± Joe looked up from his page and raised an eyebrow. ¡°Lesson Three¡ªyou collapsed after carrying the bowl because you were actually holding something much more complex than you realized. You believe magic to be within your skill¡¯s purview, therefore you pick up magic associated with the item you¡¯re entrusted with. And you must bear the weight of it, too.¡± ¡°So I couldn¡¯t carry it for long because it was more magical than the other projects?¡± ¡°That¡¯s not quite right¡­¡± Joe hesitated. ¡°The concept may be hard for you to grasp.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure I can handle it.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll see,¡± Joe muttered. ¡°The bowl was made of living wood that is beloved by its mother tree. The tree has a natural right to remain connected to the bowl, like an organically occurring contract between the two. Your skill preserved the bowl and its portion of the magic, but having one part of the ¡®contract¡¯ out of temporal synch with the other would have put the stability of the connection between the tree and its wood at risk eventually. The tree objected. You struggled because the tree¡¯s dominion over the bowl was more profound than your own. You rapidly became exhausted, and your own authority was suppressed.¡± Alden stopped pacing to stare at the professor. ¡°I lost a magic fight with a tree?¡± ¡°Watch your feet,¡± Joe said. Alden looked down just in time to see the rock he was holding by a single spike fall to pieces. A dozen other sharp spikes rained down as he jumped out of the way. ¡°It¡¯s not a rock!¡± ¡°It¡¯s a puzzle made of stone,¡± said Joe. ¡°I¡¯ve observed that you have no trouble carrying containers full of things because you¡¯re able to perceive them as a single item. Amusingly, you seem to have decided that stacks of things can also be an item. I noticed when you disposed of a couple of the projects. You¡¯re a charmingly optimistic person, Alden. But for some reason, you were being ever so careful to grab stacks by the bottommost piece. You do realize that if your power freezes a stack in place instantaneously, it doesn¡¯t matter if you pick it up from above or below, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°¡­I just hadn¡¯t gotten around to thinking about it. I¡¯ve only been an Avowed for a day.¡± ¡°Well, do try to think as much as possible from now on. And more importantly, be careful how you think. Lesson Four will be our last for today.¡± ¡°I have some questions about my fight with the tree!¡± Alden protested. Joe couldn¡¯t just tell him that a random plant somewhere had more profound ¡°dominion¡± over magic than him and not explain what any of that meant. ¡°You¡¯ll have to sleep on them. Lesson Four is this: your perception of how your skill should work shapes what you can do almost as much as the skill itself does. If you perceive a stack is a single item, then it will be. If your understanding of magic is that it exists on the same plane as us, then maybe you can pick it up. By your age, your perception of the world has been molded by a thousand circumstances beyond your control¡ªfrom the events of your life, to the way the human brain works, to your native language. To the extent that you are able, use what you have to your advantage and try to break free of your limitations.¡± ¡°Wait¡­are stacks not supposed to count?¡± Alden thought it made sense that they did, since a container full of stuff wasn¡¯t really that different from a stack. And containers worked. Were containers not supposed to count either? Joe was using both hands to fan that design he¡¯d just finished inking onto his page. ¡°Supposed to?¡± he said. ¡°What an interesting question. How about I answer it for you tomorrow? For now, think about your other lessons. Particularly the last one. For example, if a stack is an item for the purpose of your skill, why not a couple?¡± ¡°A couple?¡± ¡°Maybe that wasn¡¯t quite the right word. As I said, perception is important. Why not a pair? You often think of certain things as being a natural part of a set, don¡¯t you? Why would a bunch of random objects piled on top of each other be one item, but a pair of matching gloves separated by a millimeter be two?¡± Alden frowned. He understood what Joe meant. But at the same time¡­ ¡°Because they are separate?¡± A pizza was an item. But if you took all the toppings off and spread them around the room then it was multiple items. Right? ¡°Perception is difficult to control. And even when you manage it, there¡¯s something of a negotiation with reality involved. You¡¯d think people with delusions of grandeur would have an advantage, but they tend to overextend and become unable to exercise sufficient authority. Where would you like your first tattoo?¡± Alden had just picked up the last piece of the spiky stone puzzle, and at those words, he almost dropped it. ¡°I have to get a tattoo if I agree to the private contract?¡± Wasn¡¯t it just a short while ago, when he¡¯d been shopping the Wardrobe with Boe and Jeremy, that he¡¯d promised himself he would always stick with human tattoo artists? Did I freaking jinx myself somehow? ¡°I have to get one, too, you know. And it¡¯s a nice one,¡± said Joe. ¡°I drew it myself.¡± He held up the page he¡¯d been working on. It was a thin sheet of paper about the size of a postcard, and on it, a very Artonan-looking design shone in violet ink. It looked like a sideways question mark with two dots under the curve and a straight line beneath it. There was also a random set of concentric triangles off to the left. Alden stared at it grimly. It was hard to be a good judge, but if he added up everything Joe had told him in the last ten minutes, he thought the information was probably worth a lot more than it seemed at first glance. The professor hadn¡¯t outright given Alden the secrets of the universe, but everything except for the advice about hopping up and down had contained just enough surprises and depth for him to be fairly confident that unpacking the ¡°lessons¡± really would grant him a lot of insight into magic in general and his skill in particular. ¡°Is this place you want to send me insanely dangerous?¡± he asked flatly. ¡°You said the people who bought your old lab had given up on doing more research there because of the location.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think anything bad will happen,¡± Joe said. ¡°If you died, I would be in a bit of trouble.¡± ¡°But there is a non-zero chance of me dying?¡± ¡°That¡¯s true no matter where you are. The lab is located on Moon Thegund. Do you know it?¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s one of the moons of Kimnor, in the same solar system as our mother planet. Half of it is in a magically stabilized zone. The other half is quite¡­wild. There are high levels of chaos, and the System there is a more primitive version that¡¯s been poorly repaired a number of times.¡± ¡°There are shitty Systems?¡± That wasn¡¯t something you heard about in school. ¡°A few. There¡¯s no point in replacing the one on Moon Thegund until the chaos problem is resolved; it would only create more degradations.¡± ¡°Chaos equals demons right?¡± ¡°Yes, but it¡¯s not as if the moon is rife with them. The population is regularly culled. And there are reasonably accurate forecasts¡ªrather like weather reports¡ªabout approaching outbreaks. The number of such outbreaks are increasing, but the chances of one happening right on top of my old lab at precisely the moment you¡¯ll be there are slim.¡± ¡°This still sounds like a job for someone like Sophie. I guess you need my skill to preserve whatever I¡¯m taking from the lab in transit?¡± Joe leaned back in his chair. ¡°Actually, I want your skill mostly because I believe it will allow you to protect a non-wizard from the hazards of a magically violent teleport.¡± ¡°I¡¯m picking up a person?¡± ¡°Yes. A few of them. I hope.¡± Joe¡¯s tone was still light, but his expression was uncharacteristically dark. ¡°I worked on Moon Thegund for around sixteen years and acquired a number of local assistants during that time. Now that I am no longer there to maintain the protections around the laboratory compound, they should be evacuated sooner rather than later. However, because the System is primitive, the teleportation is of an older, less gentle variety. It¡¯s too dangerous for average people. My assistants should travel by ship. But there aren¡¯t many to be had, and mysteriously their requests for evacuation have been given the lowest priority level, so they¡¯ve been waiting for months.¡± Alden dropped the sharp puzzle pieces on top of his desk. ¡°Jeez, why didn¡¯t you just say it was a rescue mission to begin with? That sounds much more worthwhile than helping you steal science experiments from your lab.¡± ¡°Does it?¡± Joe asked, raising a brow. ¡°¡®Rescue mission¡¯ implies you will be going to a place so terrible other people need to be rescued from it. I was easing you into the idea. Also¡­you¡¯ll still be stealing science experiments. They¡¯ll just be tucked into the pockets of whoever you¡¯re carrying, since you have that conveniently broad definition of items.¡± Alden had still been wondering if he should refuse, but finding out he wouldactually be helping somebody tipped him over the edge. ¡°So, what exactly does the tattoo do to me? In detail. And what else will you be teaching me? And what¡ª?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t answer an infinite number of questions simultaneously, you know.¡± TWENTY-NINE: Moon Thegund, pt. 1 Alden and Joe hammered out the details of their contract fairly easily. In exchange for fifteen minutes of Joe¡¯s ¡°sincere and best instructional efforts¡± for his skill, Alden would make one trip to Moon Thegund and back, using his own ¡°sincere and best efforts¡± to return with one of Joe¡¯s stranded assistants. It was Alden who¡¯d insisted on the ¡°sincere and best¡± part because he didn¡¯t have any way to be completely sure that what Joe was teaching him was as valuable as the professor said. He figured as long as the guy was trying hard, it would be worth a lot. Joe seemed to find the requirement endlessly amusing. He kept working the phrase into every other sentence. It was a short-term contract that would be renewable at any time by mutual agreement. Joe intended for them to renew it every evening while Alden was here at the university so that he could fetch another assistant. The contract itself was built into the tattoo. Alden had always assumed that the symbols Artonans wore had deep and mystical meanings, but¡­ ¡°Let¡¯s say this half circle is a sunshine,¡± said Joe, pointing at the design. ¡°It¡¯s rising. So it will be the part that represents the renewability of the agreement.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°Excellent. And this line represents the journey you will undertake. Please do your sincere best to listen while I go over the fine details. I will update your lab assistant quest with instructions for you to go to a farm on Moon Thegund for a berry picking assignment.¡± ¡°Berry picking?¡± ¡°The System won¡¯t teleport you directly to my old lab, since it¡¯s not mine anymore. The farm is relatively close by. They used to specialize in cultivating plants with esoteric magical properties. It¡¯s been abandoned for a few years, but sending you to get some supplies there is a legitimate thing for me to do.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± Joe went on at length to describe the rest of Alden¡¯s assignment. ¡°That sounds do-able,¡± he said dubiously. ¡°But how is all of that contained in a single line on the tattoo?¡± ¡°Some of the shapes we use are traditional. But in truth, the line doesn¡¯t have meaning on its own. Only the meaning we mutually assign it. For more complex contracts, it¡¯s best to have the services of a professional,¡± Joe explained.¡°We would get high together for a few hours and have our minds brought into perfect alignment by the artist so that there would be no imbalances in our understanding of our obligations toward each other. It makes the contract stable and more thoroughly binding. This is the rough and ready version.¡± ¡°I think I prefer the rough and ready version. Are you saying that you could draw a picture of anything, and we could decide it meant anything?¡± ¡°It¡¯s better to keep it simple. If I draw a detailed picture of a gravestone, for example, we would both be bringing a lot of unique personal baggage into the equation that would be hard to set aside.¡± ¡°So what if I accidentally think of our rising sun as a setting sun? Or we have a different understanding about this triangle of absolute secrecy here?¡± Joe fixed him with a stare. ¡°The ¡®triangle of absolute secrecy¡¯ had better mean absolute secrecy to you because I¡¯m not budging on my requirements in that regard.¡± They had already agreed that the purpose of the contract and anything they said to one another within the walls of Hot Lab 7 were never to be shared in any fashion with another living soul. ¡°I get it,¡± said Alden. ¡°I was just wondering.¡± ¡°Then let me give you my sincere and best answer.¡± Joe smiled. ¡°I am an experienced and powerful wizard. And you¡¯re a clueless fifteen-year-old human. If there¡¯s a disconnect between what I think we owe each other and what you think we owe each other, then my authority over the contract will absolutely crush yours like an insect.¡± Well I guess that answered the question. Alden shuddered. ¡°Don¡¯t sugarcoat it or anything.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not stupid enough for me to pat you on the head and tell you this is totally without risk,¡± said Joe. ¡°You¡¯d know it was a lie. But to give you a more comforting answer¡ªif our understanding of the agreement was severely out of alignment, the contract just wouldn¡¯t form. As it is, I will be taking on the burden of empowering the contract and sorting out inconsistencies on my end of things. You only have to doodle on yourself with the correct intentions.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have to put it on my face, right?¡± Alden was staring at Joe¡¯s own heavily inked features. He couldn¡¯t imagine trying to explain away something like that. Well he could¡­but in his imagination everyone from Boe to Aunt Connie thought he should have his decision-making privileges revoked. ¡°I¡¯d prefer it if you didn¡¯t, since my colleagues will have some questions for me if you start walking around campus with a tattooed forehead. Most of my human contractees choose to hide it under their clothes. I¡¯m given to understand that bearing such a mark is polarizing on Earth, even among the Avowed, so use your own judgment.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t it be removed after we¡¯re done with each other?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t actually want it removed, remember? It¡¯s your proof that your illegal deeds were done under contract. Just in case. However, I can unlink everything but the triangle of absolute secrecy. If you use your sincere and best efforts, it will still take you a few months to rid yourself of the rest of it. It¡¯s not like scrubbing off a bit of paint.¡± The concentric triangle portion was small, but if it was sticking around, then the tattoo was definitely going somewhere that would usually be covered. When they were done sorting everything out, Alden examined the postcard-sized design and decided it wouldn¡¯t fit on the bottom of his foot. His upper thigh was probably a good place, hidden and easy to draw on. But he settled on the left side of his chest, partially wrapping the design around so that the triangle would be covered by his arm as long as he didn¡¯t lift it. Fortunately, he didn¡¯t have to freehand the mark. Alden stood in front of one of the smart boards, which had become a convenient self-facing camera, and he glued the paper rectangle Joe had made ink-side down in the spot he¡¯d chosen. He could still see the pattern through the semi-transparent paper. He was supposed to paint over it one short stroke at a time with more ink¡ªdark gray instead of violet. There was even a metronome on the desk so that the strokes would be made according to the proper rhythm. Joe was freehanding his own on one of his shins. Alden had the impression that he thought using a stencil was beneath him. ¡°Begin,¡± the professor intoned with an uncomfortable level of formality. So I guess I¡¯m actually doing this. Alden swiped the first stroke of ink over the back of the paper while Joe repeated the terms of their contract aloud. A giant warning sign flashed in his vision. [YOU ARE FORMING AN UN-MODERATED MAGICAL CONTRACT. IT IS YOUR RIGHT TO FORM ADDITIONAL CONTRACTS, BUT THE INTERDIMENSIONAL WARRIOR¡¯S CONTRACT CANNOT BE OVERWRITTEN.] Really wants to be clear on the fact that it comes first, I guess. He swiped the warning away with the hand holding his ink brush. Giving himself the tattoo was painless. The ink just felt slightly hot as it soaked into the paper. But there was a lulling, hypnotic quality to following the metronome¡¯s timing and listening to the professor¡¯s endless repetitions of the contract¡¯s terms. Then, about twenty strokes in, Alden¡¯s brain gremlin suddenly took an intense interest in the proceedings. The bargain is flawed, it told him flatly. Fix it. His hand stilled halfway through the stroke. What am I supposed to fix? The flawed bargain. Obviously. But Alden wasn¡¯t clear on what his annoying, meat-hating gift from Gorgon had a problem with. He¡¯d arrived at the conclusion that it could detect wordchain debt, both that incurred by an ¡°uneven¡± person and that owed to them. But though that was interesting, he didn¡¯t see what it had to do with his contract with Joe. Is it because he already gave me a lesson for the day, and I haven¡¯t paid him back by running his errand? Alden wondered. Hey, jerk. You know I can¡¯t instantly fix that right? I have to actually finalize the contract and then teleport across the universe. He narrowed his eyes at himself in the smart board-turned-mirror and made another decisive stroke with the ink. The gremlin lost its mind. It was having a full Velra-level freak out in Alden¡¯s head. Flawed, flawed, flawed! But at least with the Velras, Alden had been able to detect the strangeness that upset the thing. Aimi¡¯s handshake had been wrong. He¡¯d felt it as an almost physical anomaly, probably because he didn¡¯t have his magical senses sorted out. And even with Lute there had been an off-ness that he was aware of. But now it was just the gremlin having a solo breakdown about something Alden couldn¡¯t perceive no matter how hard he tried. Dude, you¡¯ve got to chill out. I can¡¯t fix a problem if I don¡¯t know what it is. Was it worse because the contract was related to him directly? Maybe the gremlin held him to a higher standard than other people? Alden glanced over to where Joe had his foot propped against the desk. He was about to apologize for holding up their double tattooing ceremony, but the professor had stopped moving as well. He was staring at the marks on his shin with such deep frustration that Alden felt it might be rude to interrupt. A moment later, Joe¡¯s expression cleared, and at exactly the same time, Alden¡¯s gremlin went silent. ¡°Continue,¡± the professor said. Well, as long as both of you are happy, I guess? But it happened several more times while they finished their tattoos. And every time, Joe appeared more baffled and annoyed than the last. Alden was ninety percent sure that whatever was going wrong was his fault, so naturally he played dumb when Joe started shooting him dark looks. When they finally finished, the professor was sweating. Alden hadn¡¯t even realized Artonans could sweat. Alden peeled the paper off his skin and examined his work. The tattoo was neither gray nor violet but a very dark blue. ¡°Does it suit you now, your majesty?¡± Joe asked in an acidic tone. Alden kept his face carefully straight. ¡°I have no idea what you¡¯re talking about.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re that fussy about aligning contracts, you¡¯re going to have to learn to compromise on your own half of things. A few discrepancies between us should be fine. We¡¯re exchanging small favors here, not getting married.¡± Alden dropped his shirt and finally turned to look at the professor. ¡°Sorry if I made the magic harder. Or something like that? I didn¡¯t mean to. It just felt a little flawed?¡± Joe muttered in Artonan, then narrowed his eyes. ¡°Do you realize you¡¯ve just admitted to something extremely surprising, or do you perhaps think it¡¯s normal?¡± ¡°I am normal,¡± said Alden, picking up his coat. ¡°And don¡¯t I need to go rescue people now?¡± # To Alden¡¯s surprise, Joe took him to the building he¡¯d first arrived in for the teleport. He called it the Summonarium. ¡°When I say teleportation to Moon Thegund is magically violent, I mean it¡¯s magically violent,¡± Joe said as Alden positioned himself inside one of the patterns on the floor. ¡°If you were one rank lower, the System wouldn¡¯t even let me send you there. It¡¯ll be much easier on you if you use high-quality infrastructure on at least one end. You should still feel¡­well, I¡¯m not sure. To me it¡¯s just mildly irritating. Try not to waste too much time rolling around in agony after you arrive.¡± Alden hoped he was joking about that. ¡°Are you sure I¡¯ll have time to make it to the lab and back in time?¡± ¡°Yes. Just run on the way there. If you can, use your trait. There¡¯s a small ground vehicle at the lab for the return trip. After today, it will be much easier.¡± His eye was flicking around behind its lens. [QUEST UPDATE: Assist Superior Professor Worli Ro-den. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Teleport to Elepta Agricultural Community, Moon Thegund, and collect marleck berries.] ¡°I really am going berry picking.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got the quest set to allow you to complete it in whatever manner you see fit, so it won¡¯t bother you when you leave the farm. The place is overrun with marleck plants. Pick just one before your return teleport, and it will count.¡± Joe passed Alden a small metal orb that was supposed to be full of instructions for his assistants. Alden took it and felt his skill activate. [Time to teleport: 11s] ¡°Can I call you through the System if there¡¯s trouble?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯ll accept and pay the fee. I haven¡¯t been able to get through to my assistants today, but that¡¯s common. It should be fine with an Avowed there to stabilize the call.¡± ¡°How does me being there stabilize anything?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll cover it in one of your upcoming lessons.¡± The timer finished counting down, and the world went dark. It reminded Alden of the teleport from Chicago to Artona III¡­had that seriously just been this morning? He mentally braced himself for pain or nausea, since it was supposed to be ¡°magically violent¡± but he felt nothing. It was dark. He was disembodied. It seemed to take a long time compared to any of his previous teleports. Then he was stumbling out of an alcove into a place that was pretty recognizably a produce-packing warehouse, though he¡¯d never seen one before. It was abandoned, as Joe had said it would be. There was dust on the robotic arms and conveyor belts, and along one wall, plastic crates with colorful logos were empty except for a layer of what might have been blackened and dehydrated fruit skins at the bottom. The teleportation alcove Alden had arrived through was speaking in Artonan. He managed to get the words ¡°welcome¡± and ¡°thank you¡± but not much else. ¡°Hey, local System?¡± he asked, his voice echoing off the metal walls. ¡°Do you not translate?¡± It hadn¡¯t even given him an arrival notification. He scrolled through his interface and saw to his surprise that some of the features were missing. Pivotal ones.The option to choose his post-affixation spell was completely absent. Maybe the primitive System here couldn¡¯t grant skills and spells? Come to think of it, maybe it didn¡¯t recognize the name ¡°System.¡± ¡°Contract, can you translate whatever the teleportation alcove is saying?¡± This request prompted words to scroll across his vision. <> There was something spooky about being promised a friendly guide when he knew one wouldn¡¯t be appearing. ¡°Contract, you do maps right?¡± Joe had said it could. ¡°Can you give me the fastest route to the laboratory owned by Yipalck Corporation? It should be near here.¡± There was a brief pause. [That facility is in a high chaos area. Your rank is too low to approach it safely. You are currently in a high chaos area. You should travel to the Thegund Protected Zone. I have analyzed your susceptibility. You have achieved the lowest score. Yipalck Corporation¡¯s research facility is that way.] An arrow appeared, pointing toward one of the warehouse¡¯s doors. ¡°System, are you okay?¡± Alden muttered. That was a lot of word spaghetti to sort through. Don¡¯t go there, you suck too much, do go there, follow the arrow? ¡°Susceptibility to what, Contract?¡± he asked, following the arrow. ¡°What did I get the lowest score on?¡± [Susceptibility to incursion and loss of assignment is low. Congratulations, and thank you for your service!] Does this thing actually speak English? Or is it just doing its best? Outside, the temperature was comfortable. The sky was yellow and covered with a dense layer of cloud. The ground was dry, hard-packed brown dirt. Alden smelled sulfur and something like mint. The arrow led him to a field of tall shrubs covered in dark green fruit. The bushes had begun to overgrow the neat rows they¡¯d been planted in, so he had to fight his way through. Then he remembered Joe said the things had esoteric magical uses and he wondered if it was safe for him to be touching them so much. He didn¡¯t want to break out in hives or poison himself. Or start hallucinating. ¡°Are these plants safe for humans?¡± he asked. ¡°Contract? Do you know?¡± [The fruit and leaves of the marleck plant should be eaten sparingly by humans with unmodified digestive systems. Do not consume roots. Do not use any part of the plant as an inhalant.] Well, at least that was clear enough. Something uncomfortable but non-lethal would probably happen to him if he ate them, and he should never smoke them. He made his way through the field with a little more caution, trying to push away his growing sense of unease. In the first couple of minutes after his arrival, he¡¯d been too busy taking in the obviously alien environment of Moon Thegund to notice some of the finer details about it. But now he was picking up on one that bothered him. It was dead silent. The animal noises from the jungles of Artona III were strange, but not in a disturbing way. This total quiet felt unnatural. Alden could hear his own breathing and the rustle of every leaf he brushed past. He almost jumped out of his skin when one of the tall, plain white stakes stuck into the ground between the bushes suddenly came to life with a hiss and started misting the area with water. It¡¯s just the irrigation, you dork. Heart pounding, he laughed at himself a little. But the sound broke the quiet in a way that made him even more uncomfortable, so he cut it out quickly. As he traveled through the huge field, he ran across a few other stakes that seemed at least partially functional. Some of them dribbled constantly. Alden assumed they¡¯d been left running on purpose to keep the plants alive, but it must have been a long time since anyone had come by to check on them. There were other signs that the farm had been abandoned quickly by people who planned to return. He passed by a shed, and he peeked inside to find a dozen pairs of rubber work boots arranged in a neat line on a shelf. Tools hung from clips on the back wall, and there was a glowing, high-tech cabinet full of cylinders that he thought might be drones. There was something that looked like a petrified, half-eaten protein bar on the ground beside a trash can. Yep, he thought as he closed the door quietly and moved on. The fact that someone left all this stuff behind and never came back for it is a Very Bad Sign. He was glad he had the triangle of absolute secrecy. It gave him an excuse to never tell Boe and Jeremy he¡¯d willingly signed up to come to a place like this. He kept following his arrow, which never deviated from its direction, and eventually he arrived at the farm¡¯s perimeter. There were a few buildings he didn¡¯t bother to look inside, and beyond them, nothing but an endless sea of waist-high grass. It was a sickly yellow color, and the total lack of a breeze left it standing so still it looked unreal. Like a three-dimensional painting Alden was about to step into. A few whispered questions persuaded the System to give him an ETA to the lab. It would be around three hours at his current average speed. Straight through the grass. Joe had said he should use his trait and run. He still had the small message orb in hand, and to his relief, his skill was easily preserving it when he walked, even though the target indicator for Joe was gone and he couldn¡¯t make it reappear. So he could carry something entrusted to him to other planets and keep up the skill as long as he didn¡¯t lose contact. That was a pretty neat trick. And his trait would work as long as he didn¡¯t drop the ball. Through the grass, he couldn¡¯t see the ground in front of him well, so he started out slowly. After about twenty minutes he concluded that it really was just a lot of flat packed dirt. There were a few loose pebbles here and there, but he hadn¡¯t spotted a single dip or hump in the ground. And the grass was only a minor impediment. He could probably run without tripping over obstacles. ¡°Activate trait, Contract,¡± he said. And when the local System didn¡¯t respond, he sighed and did it by hand using the interface. Activating Azure Rabbit felt like flipping a switch in his head. It was a very distinct sensation, and he thought that he could probably flip the switch without using the System at all after a little practice. He tightened his grip on the message orb and took his first steps. Oh, right. It feels unusual. He hadn¡¯t gotten nearly enough practice time with the trait before he was summoned by Bti-qwol. But he could make up for that now. Focusing on every step and increasing his speed gradually, he started to jog. If he closed his eyes, he thought it would feel like a completely normal jog through tall grass, but this relatively small exertion was eating ground at a unnatural pace. It was faster than his fastest pre-affixation sprint. Alden hadn¡¯t had enough room to really let loose in the consulate. And he hadn¡¯t been able to practice with his coat on. The increased Agility from it seemed to be helping. He soon found himself completely absorbed in the movement trait, intensely focused on the process of it in a way he hadn¡¯t been able to achieve with his skill. He still didn¡¯t get what was happening when he used Let Me Take Your Luggage. It felt like he was trying to use a body part that had gone numb. Or one that was both numb and entirely foreign. It worked when he told it to, and he was glad that it did. But it didn¡¯t really feel like it belonged to him yet. Azure Rabbit was different. His feet hit the ground, and he sprang up and forward. He adjusted his posture slightly, trying to focus on getting less of a silly leap and more straight-line speed, and he felt a shift in the right direction. He adjusted it again and again, until he was running in a weird new way that felt totally amazing. It was so comprehensibly physical. There was a ton of feedback from the senses he¡¯d spent his whole life using, instead of brand new ones, and that made it wonderfully easy to intuit how to get better at it. Oh my god, this is the best, thought Alden, trying to readjust the way his feet hit the ground. It feels like a real super power. I should have picked a Brute class. Being a speedster would have been way more fun to practice. Every little tweak he made had a clear effect. This was going to be great for maneuverability once he¡¯d gotten complete control over it. He was having so much fun experimenting with the trait that it took him a while to notice how much faster he was going. He¡¯d begun actually running instead of jogging at some point, and he was rapidly wearing himself out. His legs burned, the backs of his hands stung from being whipped by the grass, and he was gasping. He was a lot faster and a little stronger. But he didn¡¯t have a limitless supply of stamina. And it wasn¡¯t like running had ever been a serious pursuit for him. Disappointed in himself, he slowed to a maintainable pace and tried to catch his breath. I¡¯m so starting an exercise program the second I get home. He wiped sweat from the message orb with the hem of his t-shirt and checked his ETA again. He¡¯d shave off plenty of travel time, even at his current reduced speed. He kept heading in the direction of the arrow. After a while, the grass began to change. In some places, there were large patches of barren soil, and in others the grass grew in strange vining loops. Maybe there was nothing dangerous about the different patches, but Alden did his best to avoid them. He¡¯d stick with the nice grass he was used to. As he edged around one of the loopy-grass spots, he caught the unmistakeable whiff of rot. It smelled like the rat that had once gotten trapped under the fridge at home and died. Somewhat to his own surprise, he made it to the lab without incident. He¡¯d been expecting a building, possibly a large one, but nothing much more than that since Joe was, after all, just one magical mad scientist. How much space could he have possibly needed? A heck of a lot of it, as it turned out. The lab lay in a depression in the landscape. It was a massive dimple in the grassland that looked like a natural geological feature to Alden, though for all he knew Joe had somehow made it himself. Looking down on it fromabove, the entire complex was visible. An enormous structure with reflective sides and roof tiles encircled the place. Though it seemed to be functioning as a barrier, Alden was hesitant to call it a wall. It was obviously large enough to contain rooms in its interior. Within its confines, there were ten to twenty other buildings, depending on if the things that looked like interconnected greenhouse domes were counted as one single place or several individual ones. Alden had thought that Joe was probably a big deal. He didn¡¯t know much about the Artonan justice system, but being given a professorship on an elite college campus seemed like a pretty mild punishment. The guy would have to be powerful, rich, or a genius for it to qualify as one at all. Staring down at the lab, he felt this opinion had been confirmed and then some. He headed down the slope toward the facility. From above, he hadn¡¯t seen any sign of life, but as he approached, people emerged from the perimeter building. They appeared through a narrow door that looked more like an afterthought than a proper entrance to the facility. Alden¡¯s heartrate ratcheted up when he spotted the first couple of Artonans. He was coming here expecting to find people, but that didn¡¯t stop him from worrying that he would find the wrong people. What if the lab¡¯s new owners were here? Or what if some of Joe¡¯s assistants hated trespassers? But people kept appearing, until there were fifteen of them, including one very elderly looking man and a couple of small children. To his surprise they all formed a line, and faced in his direction, like they were patiently waiting. A little off-footed, he slowed his pace to a normal walk. When he was fifty yards or so away, they all bowed deeply except for the kids. Alden wondered what it said about his own culture that he would have been less surprised to be met with angry guards carrying guns. As it was, he felt obligated to speed up so that they would stop doing the bow as soon as possible. I¡¯m not supposed to bow back, am I? Is it more rude if I do or if I don¡¯t? This was never covered in culture class. Culture class assumed humans would mostly be interacting with wizards, not other Artonans. He knew they considered Avowed to be¡­important-ish? Since he could only be here because he was working for one of their wizards, he had a higher social status than they did. But Alden had a very poor grasp of the etiquette involved in that kind of relationship. Bowing was probably the wrong thing. So he settled for smiling nervously as he approached instead. He was relieved when they stood up straight. All right, they definitely don¡¯t speak English. And they aren¡¯t carrying tablets so they probably don¡¯t have System access for translation? ¡°Hello,¡± he said in Artonan. ¡°My name is Alden. I have a¡­this thing from Worli Ro-den.¡± He knew the word for message was stored somewhere in his brain, but he couldn¡¯t call it to mind. He held the message orb out toward them hopefully. The kids and a few of the adults were staring at him wide-eyed. A short woman with startlingly pink eyes stepped forward with an eager expression. <> she said. <> I don¡¯t want to drink more wevvi, thought Alden. I want to go back to Artona III so that I can eventually go back home. Won¡¯t you just take the message ball from me? ¡°Yes,¡± he said, waving the orb in her direction. ¡°Wevvi and this thing?¡± Damnit, what was the word for message? And how did you say ¡°I¡¯m here to rescue you. Please let¡¯s do that instead¡±? She nodded and, to Alden¡¯s relief, reached for the ball. He passed it to her, hoping she would activate it right away. He didn¡¯t know how to do it himself. But instead the whole group bowed to him again and waited. Am I supposed to go inside first? He felt like he had to now. Who knew bowing could be a form of peer pressure? Sighing he strode to the door and they all followed after him, murmuring to each other. Maybe if he drank the wevvi super fast, they could get down to business. THIRTY: Moon Thegund, Pt. 2 Moon Thegund, Part Two The door led straight into a residential section of the perimeter building. They walked through something like a mudroom, where Alden was pretty sure he made a critical faux pas by neglecting to remove his sneakers, and into a common area full of mismatched furniture. Toys were scattered on the floor, and a couple of the adults hurried to pick them up while Alden was installed partially against his will on a chaise lounge facing a large screen he assumed was for television. Someone brought him wevvi, and he drank it as fast as he could while trying not to scald his throat. The two children stared at him from behind a chair like they expected him to do something shocking at any moment. Alden wasn¡¯t sure if they were male or female. One appeared to be around nine and the other might have been a couple years younger. I wonder if I¡¯m the first human they¡¯ve ever seen? He sat up a little straighter and sipped his unwanted drink at a more polite pace, hoping he looked like a semi-decent species representative even if he had tracked dirt on their carpet. While the adults fussed around the room, seeming unsure about whether they were supposed to sit down with him or not, Alden tried to locate the woman with the pink eyes. She¡¯d run off with the message orb. Fortunately, she returned before he tried to stumble his way through more sentences to ask after her whereabouts. She had what looked like a steel eggcup in her hand, and when she placed the message orb in it, Joe appeared on the screen. His image had that same unusual three-dimensional effect that Alden was used to from lessons at the consulate. Up close like this, it felt like the professor might reach through the screen and grab him. Several of the people in the room gave relieved sighs at the sight of Joe¡¯s face. Alden glanced around at them all, surprised. Maybe they were worried I was lying? Joe started speaking, and Alden followed the translation closely. <> There was a lot of excited chatter at this, and the uncomfortable stares Alden had been getting became uncomfortable in a brand new way. He wished Joe wouldn¡¯t set their expectations quite so high. Even if everything went perfectly, he could only carry one or two people at a time. And he couldn¡¯t do back-to-back teleports to Moon Thegund because of the limitations placed on Joe¡¯s System usage. Apparently, every wizard had some kind of individual credit limit when it came to using the System for things, and Joe¡¯s had been reduced enough that a single round-trip teleport here was all he could authorize per day. Alden hadn¡¯t been surprised to learn that there were limits, but it was something he¡¯d never really considered before. For some reason, he¡¯d always imagined summoners doing whatever they liked when it came to zapping Avowed around the universe and doling out magical rewards. But of course even the seemingly all-powerful System couldn¡¯t be an infinite resource. There were fifteen of the assistants here if he included the kids. He could double up a few times, but to rescue them all, he¡¯d have to come back every single night. Now, the recording of Joe was giving them instructions. He was telling them more or less the same things he had Alden, though he gave the assistants a sunnier impression of the situation. He did say that the first teleport would be a trial run, but he didn¡¯t mention the fact that Alden could just¡­choose not to come back again. As soon as the professor started listing supplies he wanted from the lab, several of the Artonans disappeared. I guess they¡¯ll fetch everything for me then? Alden thought. That was convenient, but he found himself a tiny bit disappointed that he wouldn¡¯t get to see the non-residential parts of the facility. It wasn¡¯t every day you got to tour a place that specialized in researching ¡°demonic energy.¡± Joe finished off his speech by telling everyone the basics of how Alden¡¯s skill worked, which would save him the trouble of trying to say ¡°Entrust yourself to me!¡± in broken Artonan. He could think of about a dozen ways that could be misconstrued. He wondered if people could be entrusted to him by others. He doubted they could, unless they were unconscious, since he couldn¡¯t steal something a person was holding. Bti-qwol had been able to entrust the frog to him, but that was an animal. Although it was actually the carnivorous flower she¡¯d given him¡­maybe he could take conscious people if they were bound or trapped in a container? Super powers put you in some bizarre situations, he thought as he imagined someone handing him a duffel bag full of a struggling third party. When the professor had finished speaking, there was a discussion among all the assembled assistants about who should go first. Initially, they asked Alden who he wanted to take, but he refused to pick. He knew so little about the situation really. If he¡¯d wandered up onto this lab with no prior knowledge about it at all, he would have thought nobody here needed saving. It was isolated, but it seemed calm. And comfortable. Yet they were obviously eager to leave. And it sounded like maybe some of the people who worked here¡ªthe ones who¡¯d chosen to be employed by the ¡®usurpers¡¯¡ªwere already gone. If it was so dangerous in this place that Joe¡¯s assistants were willing to risk using an untested method to escape, then Alden thought they should maybe give him the kids first. But, in the end, they selected the elderly man. Alden hoped it wasn¡¯t because they expected him to fail and the old guy had already had a long life. With the decision made, the pink-eyed woman led them all through the residential section of the building. It reminded Alden of a long, curved hotel hallway. Assuming the doors all belonged to individual rooms, then Joe¡¯s original staff must have been at least three times its current size. They exited through another mudroom and stepped out into the main compound. A pair of gray, pentagon-shaped¡­satellite dishes?¡­towered overhead. A woman wearing coveralls was sitting in the driver¡¯s seat of an armored vehicle with tires made out of interwoven metal links. Instead of a steering wheel, the thing had a few levers and a bunch of buttons that were identical except for the logograms on each of them. There were seats for three passengers and the driver, and it had an enclosed trailer that she unhitched with the press of a button. The trailer rolled itself back a few feet, its strange tires leaving only the faintest of impressions in the hard-packed dirt. The old man who would be Alden¡¯s first passenger went straight to a pair of plastic cases resting on one of the vehicle¡¯s seats. He unlatched them and started looking through them, asking the woman in coveralls questions about the contents. One case was full of foam padding and tubes full of innocent-looking clear liquid. The System here wasn¡¯t as stodgy as the one on Artona III. It was happily translating absolutely everything everyone said for Alden. But either it wasn¡¯t great at the job or it just didn¡¯t have English words for alien scientific materials. He doubted the official name of the substance in the tubes sounded as absurd as the System¡¯s preferred translation, which was ¡°bad impact juice.¡± And the second case had a piece of equipment in it that everyone was calling a ¡°mixer¡± even though it appeared to be a solid cube. They were all treating both cases with a lot of reverence, so Alden assumed the impact juice and the mixer were important. <> the woman with the pink eyes said. She pronounced his name with very distinct syllables, so that it sounded like more than one word. <> Alden really wished they had some kind of translator for his half of the conversation. They had so much tech here. Were the tablets with System access, like the one Bti-qwol had used, not available to regular people? ¡°Yes,¡± he said in Artonan. ¡°But two? Sometimes two people? I can¡¯t come fifteen?¡± I probably sound like a caveman. The woman didn¡¯t seem to have trouble understanding what he was worried about at least. <> ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± said Alden, relieved. Then, just in case they had overly high expectations about his physical strength, he added, ¡°I can¡¯t two big people. Two little people better?¡± <> she asked worriedly. <> Right. Because regular people couldn¡¯t even teleport on this planet. Alden rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of how to say, I have no idea. I¡¯m just worried about my ability to hold onto two full-grown adults. Finally, he pointed at himself. ¡°Ryeh-b¡¯t,¡± he said. ¡°Can¡¯t very big?¡± She nodded as if that made sense. Probably it did. He assumed the assistants were knowledgable people. Joe didn¡¯t seem to have the patience to work longterm with anyone who wasn¡¯t. And they must have at least a basic grasp of Avowed classes and other species, so they should know that a human Ryeh-b¡¯t wasn¡¯t a physical powerhouse. <> she asked, pointing at the old man and the cases. <> ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said eagerly. He¡¯d been trying to figure out how to suggest it himself without making them worry about his competence. ¡°Yes. I want that!¡± He deactivated his trait, since he didn¡¯t want the extra momentum for this experiment. Come here, old dude. Let¡¯s figure out how this works. It turned out it worked okay. The elderly Artonan picked up a case in each hand. Alden targeted him, and after gaining his verbal permission and eyeballing him for a minute, Alden just grabbed him around the waist and lifted. He¡¯d like to know how to do a proper fireman¡¯s carry, but he didn¡¯t. So for now this would have to do. Alden was taller than most Artonans, and he had a few inches on the old man. The guy wasn¡¯t light, but he could walk with him well enough. The preservation worked. The skill drain was high. Alden didn¡¯t know if it was because of the man himself or the things in the cases. But it was nowhere near as severe as it had been with the shrieky bowl. And he¡¯d only have to do this for two or three seconds anyway. The hardest part was the awkwardness of holding onto a whole petrified person. The man¡¯s clothes and limbs felt soft and yielding, but that was a false impression. Once he was lifted, Alden couldn¡¯t seem to reposition him for convenience. That¡¯s something I¡¯d really like to learn how to do. Maybe if I level the skill¡­ Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. After around half a minute of experimentation, he realized he was getting some very shocked looks from the assembled aliens, so he set the man back down. The assistant came to life immediately, looking surprised to find that he¡¯d moved from his original position. ¡°Are you good?¡± Alden asked anxiously. ¡°Are you happy?¡± Good and happy weren¡¯t the words he wanted at all, but he couldn¡¯t figure out how else to ask if he¡¯d accidentally hurt the guy somehow. Are all your body parts working? Is your brain okay? You¡¯re my first ever preserved person. I¡¯m so relieved you¡¯re in one piece. <> said the fellow, patting Alden on the arm. <> Alden let out a huge sigh. He felt himself grinning for the first time since he¡¯d arrived on Moon Thegund. ¡°Awesome,¡± he said in English. ¡°This isn¡¯t going to be a total disaster then.¡± ### There were some tearful goodbyes before they could depart. Nobody was saying it, but Alden had the feeling the group was divided into those who trusted Joe absolutely and thought he could do no wrong and others who were more cautious about the mode of travel their boss had chosen. The old guy had a great attitude and kept talking about the trip like it was a grand adventure, but Alden was pretty sure he was just trying to calm the others¡¯ fears. They finally boarded the armored vehicle and left. The driver pressed buttons, and they exited the compound by way of an underground ramp that went beneath the perimeter building. Alden and the old guy were in the back two seats, buckled in with harnesses that had automatically fitted themselves in place. Alden had been surprised at how thick the windows and doors were when they boarded, and as they left the facility, he was even more surprised when sigils of light started to appear here and there on the floor beneath his feet. A pudgy bald man had joined them. He was riding shotgun and staring with intense focus at a trio of display screens that showed a three hundred sixty degree view of the grassland around them. The three Artonans seemed more nervous now that they¡¯d left the lab behind. They were all quiet for the most part, though after she¡¯d put in coordinates for their destination, the driver turned back to look at Alden and told him admiringly that he was very brave for coming to get them on foot. Which made him feel pretty strange about the journey he¡¯d just completed. Their anxiety was infectious, and he found himself gazing out the windows expecting to see monsters lurking in the grass. He didn¡¯t. The strange vehicle moved swiftly, leaving a trail of crushed vegetation in their wake. Their ETA to the farm was just fifteen minutes. Just how far out of pocket was this place? Joe had said half the moon was a protected zone, but they must not have been anywhere near there or these guys would have left the lab in this car thing to reach it, right? And the professor had indicated that ships were in short supply, but unless he was misunderstanding, someone had come to get the other assistants who¡¯d chosen to change employers. Why didn¡¯t they just pick these people up, too? Alden had a ton of questions. But with the language limits the best he could do was say, ¡°Where did others go?¡± <> the old man asked. Well, he couldn¡¯t just leave it hanging. And he¡¯d already committed himself to sounding like a caveperson so he might as well lean into it. ¡°Other Worli Ro-den friends?¡± he said. ¡°The other Artonans go before, but you are here. Why?¡± Please don¡¯t think I¡¯m stupid. I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯m doing okay considering how small my vocabulary is. They understood the question, and the driver in particular seemed eager to badmouth her former coworkers. Over the next few minutes, Alden got an earful about the situation. Apparently when Joe had first been called to account for his crimes¡ªwhich weren¡¯t crimes at all! Oh no! They were brilliant and extraordinary magical advancements!¡ªhe and his many assistants had assumed he would brush off the charges as usual and return quickly. But he didn¡¯t. And they soon received word that the lab was being handed over to Yipalck Corporation. Another wizard scientist would soon take charge, and Joe¡¯s employees were expected to transfer over. Only some of them didn¡¯t want to. Joe was, as Alden himself had experienced, good at obtaining peoples¡¯ service. The Yipalck Corporation wouldn¡¯t pay as well as he had, and the assistants, who were mostly crazy science buffs themselves, didn¡¯t expect to have the same freedom to play around with the lab equipment that they¡¯d enjoyed under Joe¡¯s leadership. But there was a lot of pressure to shift loyalties and a lot of doubt about what Joe could do for them now that he was out of favor with higher powers. Eventually, most of the assistants gave in and signed on with the new owners, and only these few holdouts had refused. They assumed they would be shipped off to a safer, more populated area as soon as the new wizard arrived. Eventually, Joe would arrange for them to travel to the mother planet by spacecraft, and from there, they would be able to safely teleport and join him at the university. However, to everyone¡¯s surprise it went the opposite way. The promised new wizard never appeared at all. The chaos index, whatever that was, rose rapidly for months. And when it finally hit some particular limit a few weeks ago, everyone at the lab requested evacuation. But the Yipalck employees were classified differently than the Joe loyalists. A ship came to pick them up along with some of the lab equipment, but the loyalists were told they had to remain behind. Unless they were willing to quit Joe¡¯s service. It sounded to Alden like the assistants¡¯ skills and their knowledge about Joe¡¯s research were valuable to the new owners. So they were basically being held hostage until they agreed to switch sides. He was also interested to learn that the people who came to evacuate the other assistants were Avowed. Apparently they were a common enough sight on Thegund. Just not here, on the wrong half of the moon. It was an uncomfortable thought. If I¡¯d been given a quest by the corporation, I¡¯d have been sent here to strong arm a bunch of scientists by holding a possible rescue over their heads. He tried to think of anything in the human morality concessions of the Contract that would prevent that¡­and he couldn¡¯t. Supposedly he couldn¡¯t be used as an outright murderer of innocents, but of course he could be told not to help someone. Or to prioritize one group over another. That would feel awful. He was still trying and failing to imagine his way out of such a scenario when they reached the farm. They approached from a different direction than Alden had left from, and it took a second for him to orient himself before he could direct them toward the packing warehouse. He had them stop a little shy of it so he could grab a handful of berries from one of the bushes and shove them into his pockets. As soon as he did, his quest updated and offered him an option to request a return teleport. He would have been automatically returned in less than an hour anyway, but there was no reason to hang around. He showed Joe¡¯s assistants the way into the warehouse and pointed at the teleportation alcove. They promised one or more of them would be here waiting for him at the appropriate time tomorrow. There would be no need for him to travel to the lab itself again. From here, his nightly teleportation trips should be swift and simple. The old man kissed the other two on the cheek, then took the cases full of supplies. <> He looked a little afraid. Alden wished he knew how to say something comforting, but all he could do was smile and nod and act like all of this was business as usual. ¡°Go home happy,¡± he said to the other two. It wasn¡¯t the right sentiment, but he didn¡¯t know how to say ¡°travel safely.¡± When everything seemed to be in order, he clicked the request teleport button. [Request Approved. Please enter the alcove.] [67 s] It would be so stupid if I botched the timing here at the end. He knew he wasn¡¯t likely to develop sudden clumsiness, but he couldn¡¯t help but think of the look on Joe¡¯s face if he showed up alone because he¡¯d dropped the assistant or failed to keep his skill active. He ushered the elderly Artonan closer to the alcove and then watched the timer tick down. When there were only five seconds left, he picked the man up, felt him freeze, and stepped inside. He held the guy around the waist in a full bear hug, leaning back to make absolutely sure no part of his passenger was dragging the ground. It seemed to him that his skill usually faded between one and two seconds of no motion, so when the timer hit one, Alden hopped up and down. His calf muscles, burdened by the extra weight and still sore from his run to the lab, protested. Then, the teleport hit him and he couldn¡¯t feel them anymore. Just like before, everything went black, and he became a disembodied awareness. But unlike before he was aware of something beyond his own thoughts. There was an unwelcome sensation of pressure from every direction. And because he could feel it, here in this place where he had no body, he had faint sense of what it was that was actually being affected. Around him, cocooning him from the teleportation magic, was something that was uniquely his. He tried to understand it, tried to to see it in a way that had nothing to do with sight. For an instant, he had an impression of a dense cobweb surrounding him. That¡¯s my magic, he thought. Maybe he was aware of it now, when he hadn¡¯t been on his last trip, because it was under more pressure with the added burden of his passenger? His magic was being buffeted by the teleport, but not in a way that seemed overly dangerous. He was curious. He wanted to figure out what it meant. But almost as soon as he had the desire, he was back in his body, and his ability to ¡°see¡± his magic was gone. His arms were clamped tightly around Joe¡¯s assistant. His legs were sore. He felt tired and dizzy. He dropped the man back onto his feet and stumbled a few steps away, trying to re-orient himself. The light from the runes on the floor of the Summonarium seemed to be stabbing through him in a way that he knew wasn¡¯t physically possible. A metal pan slid across the floor and stopped neatly in front of his shoes. Alden stared down at it then glanced up at Joe, who was beaming at the old man and patting him on the back enthusiastically while he tried to bow. ¡°What¡¯s the pan for?¡± Alden asked. Joe turned to him. ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to throw up?¡± Alden didn¡¯t feel totally solid, but he didn¡¯t think he was about to lose his lunch. In the past, he¡¯d felt more nauseous during trips to Anesidora. ¡°I¡¯m okay. The teleport was kind of long. And different. But I¡¯m fine.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Joe looked him up and down. ¡°Aren¡¯t we the sturdy one!¡± ¡°I guess so?¡± ¡°Well, excellent work!¡± Joe¡¯s voice echoed through the room. ¡°Wonderfully done! How does it feel to complete your first contract?¡± The man Alden had brought along with him had finally managed to complete his bow. He was trembling, and Alden worried the journey might have affected him badly. But when he stood up, there was such profound gratitude on his face that it was almost painful to look at. ¡°Professor¡­¡± Alden hesitated. Now that he¡¯d been to Moon Thegund, he realized he should have asked for a little more clarification about just how dangerous the place was. Joe had told him it was risky, but that he wasn¡¯t likely to run into trouble. And he hadn¡¯t. It had all gone so smoothly. But that oppressive silence and the total abandonment of a large facility like the lab painted a grimmer picture than he¡¯d expected. Well, I¡¯m only going to be there for a few minutes at a time from now on. Just straight to the farm and back. And with the old man looking at him that way, he couldn¡¯t quite bring himself to seriously consider not returning for the rest of them. THIRTY-ONE: Manon Joe spent the next ten minutes exclaiming over the man Alden had rescued and the cases of supplies he¡¯d brought. He divided his time pretty equally between them, so it was hard to tell which he was happier to have returned to him. Alden didn¡¯t want the professor to think up any additional errands, so as soon as it was possible, he made his escape and left the Summonarium behind. He walked across the dark campus, enjoying the strange night sounds of another world and relishing in the first real freedom he¡¯d had all day. The only thing left on his task list was his sleep curfew. And that was one assignment he was looking forward to completing. I don¡¯t even know where I¡¯m supposed to sleep, though. At lunch, the other humans had mentioned dorms, but Alden had no idea where they were. ¡°System, can I get one of those carts? And a shower? And a bed?¡± He wondered if it would just give him a map and tell him to walk there himself since he was no longer on duty. But he must have been authorized to use the carts in his free time, too, because a couple of minutes after he made his request one of them rolled to a stop beside him. Alden collapsed into a seat gratefully. He had a lot he needed to think about and almost no energy left to do it with. There was a ton of stuff to unpack from the trip to Moon Thegund. He was sure he could come up with a few dozen questions just about that last teleportation cycle. If every day here is as long as this one has been, I¡¯m going to be a wreck in no time. And that reminded him. He finally had time to call his friends and let them know he was alive. ¡°System, I want to place a video call to Boe Lupescu in Chicago, Illinois.¡± Video, audio, and texting from here all cost the same absurdly high price, so why not? The connection fee was five hundred Argold, plus three every minute. Alden couldn¡¯t decide if it was fair or a total scam. On the one hand, he was instantaneously communicating across dimensions. On the other, holy crap¡­even if he only talked for a second, this call was going to cost more than a month¡¯s rent on the house. He accepted the price, marveling at the fact that he had enough money not to second guess the decision, and around a minute later, Boe answered. Unlike the larger, circular image he¡¯d gotten when he received a video call from Keiko Velra, the picture he had of Boe was a normal cellphone camera image. Boe was sitting up in bed. Behind him, a large gap in the blinds showed the half-lit windows of a neighboring building. ¡°Shit. I woke you up,¡± said Alden. ¡°Do you mind talking right now?¡± Boe rolled his eyes. ¡°Gee¡­no. I¡¯m far too busy to accept a call from my friend who disappeared in his death lab coat hours ago and hasn¡¯t been heard from since. Try again later.¡± ¡°Sorry. It¡¯s been crazy, but I should have called before this.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± Boe climbed out of bed and walked over to flip the light switch by the door. ¡°You look like you¡¯re in one piece. I¡¯m glad.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Alden. ¡°And yeah. I¡¯m okay. I¡¯m on a university campus, watching amateur wizards take exams. It¡¯s not too dangerous. I¡¯m going to be here for twelve days¡­well, eleven now.¡± His friend raised an eyebrow. ¡°That¡¯s a long assignment to get out of the blue. How do you want me to handle your aunt?¡± ¡°I¡¯d like to keep her in the dark. Until I can talk to her in person. But you¡¯ll have to do more work to make her think we¡¯ve just been missing each other in passing.¡± He gave Boe an apologetic look. ¡°Do you mind occasionally stopping by my place and making it look like I¡¯m still there?¡± He knew his friend would say yes, but he felt a little guilty for asking. ¡°I can do it. If some of your stuff is missing when you get back, consider it my service fee.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°And make sure Victor¡¯s bowl is full.¡± ¡°Got it. Lie to your aunt. Feed your cat. Tell everyone at school you¡¯re seriously ill?¡± ¡°Oh right, school¡­¡± It was amazing how a few days could make school feel like a foreign concept. ¡°They might call Connie after a few unexplained absences.¡± Boe had just grabbed Alden¡¯s own cell phone from the top of his dresser.¡°Jeremy and I can figure something out. He¡¯s absolutely losing his mind, by the way. Like, it¡¯s bad enough that I¡¯m texting him right now because there¡¯s no chance he¡¯s sleeping.¡± ¡°He looked way more freaked out when I left than I was,¡± said Alden, remembering the expression on Jeremy¡¯s face. ¡°And I was pretty freaked out.¡± ¡°Yeah, he drove me and Gorgon insane today.¡± Boe shook his head. ¡°I guess it felt like a game to him until you actually got summoned? Or¡­on some level I think he assumed all Avowed were untouchable, and then he realized he could still knock your pitiful ass over with a single punch.¡± ¡°Tell him that was because I was surprised by the way an outside impact affected my skill drain, not because I couldn¡¯t actually take it.¡± ¡°Sure it was.¡± ¡°It was. Sophie¡ªthat¡¯s my new griveck coworker¡ªseems to think my magic senses are screwed up.¡± Boe shoved his glassed up on his nose. ¡°There was a lot to unpack in that last sentence. I have questions.¡± ¡°I doubt I can answer them,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°Why are you calling an alien combat machine by a girl¡¯s name?¡± ¡°Sophie suits her kinda well actually.¡± ¡°Oh wooow¡­okay. I thought your friendship with Gorgon was an isolated incident, but now I¡¯m starting to worry there¡¯s a pattern.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be xenophobic.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not. But I do have a healthy respect for species that are literally known for their overactive prey drive. Have you ever seen video of a griveck hunting? The way they kill things is nightmare fuel, and killing things is their number one favorite pastime.¡± ¡°Sophie offered to let me burrow underground with her when I¡¯m tired.¡± Boe snorted. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure the Artonans will give you a nice bed in a nice room, maybe even with some nice human beings. Why don¡¯t you try that out first?¡± ¡°Headed there now,¡± said Alden, looking around. The cart seemed to be taking him to the outskirts of campus. Dark red lamps lit the pathway here, but there were fewer of them than there had been in more central areas. ¡°The other humans on this assignment are¡­I don¡¯t know. They¡¯re fine, but I¡¯m not their favorite person, I guess. Have you heard of boaters?¡± ¡°Like sailors?¡± ¡°No. Like an Anesidoran club of people who recommend each other for Triplanet jobs and try to keep the best positions in-group.¡± While he explained the situation and the strange lunch conversation, Boe was typing on Alden¡¯s cell phone with his free hand. ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± he said. ¡°That sounds odd. Rabbits are known for being rich, but I¡¯ve never heard anyone suggest that they¡¯re expected to pay for other humans¡¯ personal expenses when they¡¯re working together.¡± ¡°Yeah. I couldn¡¯t tell if they were hinting that I should, or if it was just part of the Manon praise and worship.¡± ¡°Let me remind you that even if they¡¯re making a fraction of the cash you are it¡¯s most likely still more than your aunt¡¯s entire annual income. An easy, twelve-day event that regularly hires a crew of low rankers? That¡¯s sweet. They¡¯re not hurting for money.¡± ¡°Do you think maybe Manon¡¯s just showing off for her friends?¡± Boe was still staring at Alden¡¯s phone. ¡°Maybe. She seems successful enough on the island.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I looked her up just now. Since you don¡¯t have Earth internet. She¡¯s a decorator for the upper crust. Has her own website. Does events and interiors. She uses that C-rank Rabbit skill that lets you rearrange furnishings to perfectly suit the owner.¡± ¡°Tailor Environment?¡± It was one of the ¡°must-choose¡± Rabbit skills, popular enough that Alden had heard about it before he did any of his recent research into the class. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ll see what else I can find. But don¡¯t make waves with the off-brand union, I guess?¡± Good advice. Waves were bad when you were barely treading water to begin with. ¡°I had things to tell you, too,¡± said Boe. ¡°Most of them can wait. You should give me contact permission, though, so I can call you whenever. On your dime, obviously.¡± ¡°I was going to ask you about that. You¡¯re cool with talking to me this way, right? You¡¯re not worried about the System spying on you?¡± ¡°Huh? Why would I be?¡± ¡°A few days ago you were all paranoid about phone tapping,¡± Alden pointed out. ¡°Yeah, by our own government. The System is obviously spying on all of us. There¡¯s no point in trying to avoid that. You should call me through it so that our fellow Earthlings can¡¯t butt in.¡± The second phone in his hand rang. ¡°Speaking of Earthlings butting in, here¡¯s Jeremy. Please make your assignment sound like a fun vacation when you talk to him. I don¡¯t think he¡¯ll sleep for the next few days if you don¡¯t.¡± ¡°Alden¡¯s talking to you right now!?¡± Jeremy¡¯s voice shouted from the phone. ¡°Are you serious?! Why didn¡¯t he call me first? Can I talk to him? Let me talk to him! How badly did he get blown up?¡± ¡°He can hear you. You¡¯re on speaker.¡± ¡°Hey, Jeremy,¡± said Alden, trying to think of the most lighthearted thing he could say about his day. ¡°I didn¡¯t get blown up at all. I¡¯m at the alien equivalent of an Ivy League school, riding a golf cart around. Did you know they have a vegetable here that tastes like steak?¡±
Human accommodations were on the top floor of a narrow, three-story building with no signage. Alden took an exterior elevator up, and the door opened directly into a locker room. Surprised, he stepped out onto a mat and looked around. Most of the lockers were shut, with the user¡¯s name displayed on a small screen at the top. Alden took his time examining the set-up. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The first thing he noticed was that the room was air conditioned, which immediately improved his mood. The second was that he was probably the last person to arrive. He counted fifteen occupied lockers, and there had only been fourteen humans total at the orientation meeting this morning, including himself. Someone named Thwart Hog had two lockers, both of them decorated with travel-themed fridge magnets. Everyone else was using an ordinary sounding name. Avowed could set a preferred public name with the System. Alden¡¯s was just ¡°Alden,¡± no last name. He hadn¡¯t seen a reason to hide his identity since he intended to be aboveboard as a superhuman. He was guessing, from the well-used look of Thwart Hog¡¯s lockers and the obvious desire for anonymity, that the person wasn¡¯t affiliated with the boater. They were probably here on a separate long-term assignment, and there was a good chance that they were an unregistered Avowed. Alden selected the locker nearest to the elevator. It was just a mini-closet, but since he didn¡¯t have anything other than his coat and shoes to store right now, it was more than enough space. When he shut the door, his name appeared on the display, and he received a System message telling him he would be informed if anyone tried to access his belongings. Well that¡¯s nice. There were two curtained exits from the locker room. Judging by the sound of running showers, the one on the right must lead to the bathroom. He stepped through the curtain on the left instead and discovered the sleeping area. The accommodations were nearly identical to pictures he¡¯d seen of capsule hotels. Everyone got their own pod of personal space, just a little larger than a double bed, with a panel that could be shut for privacy. The capsules were stacked two levels high. Several of them were occupied with the panels shut. A man in a bathrobe was climbing into one of the upper pods, and a woman was reading a mystery novel in one of the lower ones. One side of the long room was entirely capsules. The other was half capsules at the far end, but the end closest to Alden had a narrow table and a cushioned bench. Several people in pajamas and loungewear were sitting there with tablets or computers plugged into the table¡¯s adaptors. Manon, her damp gray and brown hair pulled back in a scrunchie, was going through an interior design magazine with a highlighter. Nobody looked up or spoke when Alden entered. Though he would have liked to keep it that way, he had no idea which capsules might have been claimed by the others. They didn¡¯t have names on them like the lockers. How popular would I be if I stole their friend¡¯s job, butted in on their private party, and took one of their beds? ¡°Hi,¡± he said to the room in general. ¡°I¡¯m just getting in. Which of the beds are free? And what¡¯s the shower situation?¡± Everyone present cast a glance his way, and then they all went right back to what they¡¯d been doing. Like he was so unimportant they couldn¡¯t be bothered to speak to him. Before Alden could process the pure weirdness of this behavior, Manon answered him. ¡°Alden!¡± she said, setting aside her magazine. ¡°We¡¯ve all been wondering where you were. Long day?¡± So she¡¯s going to be friendly? He was disinclined to accept it at face value, but it was easier to respond to at least. ¡°Yep,¡± he said. ¡°The professor wanted me to run some extra errands after the lab exams were over.¡± ¡°Wow, you¡¯ve got a lot on your plate for your first day here. You must be tired. Let me show you around.¡± She stood with a smile and grabbed a large rectangular case from the seat beside her. It was made of cream colored fabric, and a round leather tag hung from the zipper. ¡°This is yours.¡± She stepped out from behind the table and held the case out to him. ¡°It was on the floor in the locker room when I arrived, and I didn¡¯t want it to get stomped. Lots of traffic in and out of the elevator.¡± Alden took the fabric case and saw that his name was stamped on the tag. This must be the ¡°human necessities¡± package Bti-qwol had promised him right after he was summoned. ¡°Thanks,¡± he said to Manon. ¡°I¡¯m looking forward to having clean clothes.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯ve been caught off-footed by a summons quite a few times over the years. Hazard of the Rabbit lifestyle. When I wasn¡¯t much older than you, I ended up arriving at a posting with nothing but a swimsuit and a bottle of tanning oil!¡± She laughed. ¡°It was only a table-arranging assignment, but it was still embarrassing to be walking around laying out candles and dinnerware in a bikini.¡± She had a warm laugh and an easy smile. She was wearing bunny bedroom slippers. If Alden had met this woman before he met her friends, he would have felt at ease around her. Manon led him to the pods at the far end of the room. ¡°These four are unclaimed,¡± she said, pointing. Then she leaned toward him and whispered, ¡°To be completely honest with you, it¡¯s because of the neighborhood.¡± She gestured at the last sleeping capsules in the line. The bottom one was shut tight, and a sticker that said Get off My Lawn was pasted to the privacy panel. ¡°Thwart Hog?¡± Alden guessed. ¡°She¡¯s¡­not too much trouble.¡± The creases around Manon¡¯s dark eyes deepened in concern. ¡°She was here last year as well, so she must be a regular employee for one of the faculty. We¡¯ve only spotted her a few times in the past, and she doesn¡¯t seem to want to interact. Thankfully. But if you feel uncomfortable around an unregistered, I could swap spots with you?¡± Alden wondered if the offer was serious or if she just thought it was a polite thing to say. After all, what did it matter if he was here or a few capsules over? They were all sharing the same room. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± he said. ¡°Well, if you see a woman walking around in a fencing mask, it¡¯s best to ignore her and let her ignore you.¡± ¡°A fencing mask?¡± ¡°It¡¯s similar to one at least. We can¡¯t see her face through it.¡± She sighed. ¡°It¡¯s concerning, but what can we do?¡± After that, Manon filled him in on shower etiquette¡ªno more than fifteen minutes per person in the evenings, ten in the mornings¡ªand left him to his own devices. Alden carried his goodie bag back to his locker and opened it, both curious and nervous to see what supplies he¡¯d have to work with for the next several days. He was fairly horrified to discover a bunch of black turtlenecks and matching black pants. The pants had a stretchy waist and looked like overly voluminous joggers. They¡¯d be comfortable if nothing else. But a turtleneck? I¡¯ll sweat to death.The fabric felt like cotton, but it had a sheen to it. Maybe it¡¯s cooler than it looks? There was a device in one corner of the locker room that vaguely resembled a washing machine. If the turtlenecks didn¡¯t work out, he guessed he could just do laundry every night. He¡¯d also been given a brown garment that he thought was a bathrobe. Or maybe pajamas. He wasn¡¯t sure. It looked like a long pillowcase with holes cut out for his head and arms, and though it was a nice, soft pillowcase, he didn¡¯t think it was something he was supposed to wear to work. Totally normal human briefs had been provided. They were still in the plastic packaging, and at the sight of them, he felt love for his fellow man. He did wonder why the Artonans were willing to provide underwear from Earth but nothing else. A toothbrush would have been nice, but instead he got gum. And not even sticks of gum, but a single blue disc pressed into a little metal canister with a picture of an alien molar on the cap. The System helpfully translated the writing on the bottom, and Alden discovered that the gum was re-usable. Which reminded him of that one creepy kid in elementary school who would eat old pieces off the bottom of desks. For deodorant, there was a tube with a rollerball applicator full of some kind of cream. And there was a straight razor that looked like a miniature butcher knife with a sharp hook on the end. Alden didn¡¯t necessarily have to shave, and he decided that if the mood struck him, he¡¯d only do it with the lab coat on. Maybe the extra dexterity would keep him from chopping his own nose off or accidentally piercing it with the awkwardly placed hook. The last thing in the case was a bottle of multivitamins. That was probably a good thing. He didn¡¯t know the nutritional content of the food here, but considering how much of his diet had been made up of unwanted fruit juice today, he doubted it was balanced. He took a pair of pants and his super stylish pillowcase robe with him to the bathroom. When he opened the curtain, he almost walked right into the stocky, angry guy from the medical team. ¡°Sorry,¡± Alden said, stepping out of the way. He tensed up as the guy passed, but all he got was a grunt and a glare. Could¡¯ve been worse. The bathroom was far less communal than he¡¯d feared. Toilets were hidden away in their own individual closets, and though there were only four shower stalls, they were spacious and private. The showers were more of an adventure than he would have liked, though. They had a wash cycle, during which soapy water the temperature of the sun blasted him from every angle, followed by a cold water rinse cycle. And then a bonus moisturizer cycle, which was just odd. It misted him from head to toe with something herbal and oily before he realized what was happening and that he needed to escape. He managed to towel most of the stuff off, and it was good to be clean even if he did smell like alien body spray. By the time he was done, the bathroom was empty, and he could briefly pretend that he had the whole place to himself. He checked out the rest of the space, discovering that one of the toilet closets was actually a storage closet. Manon¡¯s cooler was there alongside cases of drinks and bags of snacks. There were also some cleaning supplies and an unloved wevvi dispenser gathering dust. Alden debated the morality of taking a granola bar from the boater and decided that they owed it to him for making his lunchtime unnecessarily hostile. It was a good granola bar, too. Lots of dark chocolate chips. With fifteen minutes remaining until the System sent him to his sleep capsule like a naughty toddler, he finally left the bathroom. He¡¯d been hoping to be the last one up so that he wouldn¡¯t have to chat again, but Manon was still at the table. She¡¯d set aside her magazine, and now she was filing her nails. ¡° ¡®night,¡± said Alden, striding past her with purpose. ¡°Just a sec, hon,¡± said Manon. ¡°I wanted to talk to you without everyone listening in, and if you¡¯re going to be as busy as you were today, there won¡¯t be many opportunities.¡± Alden glanced pointedly at the capsules. They weren¡¯t far away. ¡°Sound proof,¡± said Manon. ¡°For a restful night¡¯s sleep.¡± ¡°Of course,¡± said Alden. Manon glanced up. ¡°I won¡¯t beat around the bush. Everyone was at their worst when you arrived. Karl in particular.¡± Alden assumed Karl was the angry one. ¡°But that¡¯s no excuse,¡± Manon continued, looking back down at her nails. ¡°You¡¯re just a kid. And it¡¯s always better to keep things friendly and professional on a job. So don¡¯t worry about it. I had a talk with everyone for you. They won¡¯t bother you anymore. Or ask you to chip in to cover Pineda¡¯s lost salary.¡± It took Alden several long seconds to process what she¡¯d said. And several more to rein in his surprise. Was that what all the talk about money was leading up to earlier? Did the members of the boater think that he should give them the money he was getting for being on the medical team? They hadn¡¯t actually gotten around to suggesting anything like that. And Alden didn¡¯t think he was so bad at picking up context clues that he would have missed strong hints in that direction. But maybe.. ¡°I told them I¡¯d cover Pineda,¡± Manon added with a soft smile. ¡°It¡¯s my responsibility as the founding member of the boater anyway.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± said Alden, still off-footed. ¡°Okay.¡± Maybe they usually split money from jobs with members who weren¡¯t summoned? Or something like that? ¡°So don¡¯t worry about it anymore,¡± Manon said. ¡°And if anyone gives you a hard time, come straight to me, all right?¡± She¡¯s so nice, thought Alden. But wasn¡¯t she a little too nice? No. He hated thinking that way. Some people were kind when they didn¡¯t need to be. He really did believe that. And it was a dick move to assume that someone¡¯s positive qualities were fake when you didn¡¯t have any proof. If something¡¯s off I¡¯ll figure it out tomorrow. When I¡¯m not so tired. And paranoid. ¡°Thanks,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ll do that.¡± She grabbed her magazines and headed for her sleeping capsule. ¡°Good night, Alden,¡± she said. ¡°See you bright and early. And help yourself to any of the snacks in the storage area if you want. They¡¯re for everyone.¡± She climbed into a top bunk and disappeared. Alden went and fetched another granola bar for himself, then headed to his own capsule. The short ceiling was a little claustrophobic, but the bed was comfortable. There was a reading lamp that pulled out from the wall and a small shelf. The sleeping pills were in a little storage cubby. He didn¡¯t need one. Almost as soon as he settled under the crisp, clean sheets and put his head down, he was asleep. THIRTY-TWO: Chaining Over the next few days, Alden grew more comfortable with his new routine. The sleeping capsule woke him up with a false sunrise each morning, and his interface gave him his task list for the day. He always had around an hour and a half of personal time before he had to be at the lab for the first exam session. He hid out in his pod until the last minute, taking advantage of the privacy and the temperature control. He ate whatever snack he¡¯d stashed the night before, thought over the lesson he¡¯d had with Joe the previous evening, and got in touch with his friends. Their time was out of synch, so for the past two mornings his call had reached them when they were in class. Only they never were in class. Somehow they always both managed to be standing out in the faculty parking lot when he called, even though he¡¯d suggested that they just let him text them an update. He thought it was only half to assuage Jeremy¡¯s nerves. Boe just enjoyed seeing how often he could manipulate teachers into letting him do whatever he liked. Everything seemed to be going well at home. Aunt Connie wasn¡¯t wise to his absence. The school thought he had a severe case of mono. And his friends were busy planning out Alden¡¯s future for him. They were spending way too much time researching high schools and personal trainers on Anesidora considering the fact that they themselves would never be taking advantage of those things. He started to tell them not to do it. He was really looking forward to figuring it all out for himself as soon as he got home. But it wasn¡¯t like they were taking something away from him, and they were having fun. Boe was particularly interested in finding ways to spend every single dime of Alden¡¯s money. He¡¯d begun by suggesting fairly normal purchases, but now he¡¯d moved on to more creative things. ¡°I¡¯m not ready to try experimental gene editing on myself, thanks,¡± said Alden on his fifth morning at LeafSong. They were using voice-only today. While they talked, he was making an effort to stretch in the confined space of the capsule. ¡°Where¡¯s your sense of adventure? You could be a super superhuman if you just paid this guy to inject you with the stuff he made in his attic.¡± ¡°Uh-huh. I like Jeremy¡¯s suggestion better this morning.¡± ¡°Right?!¡± Jeremy said. ¡°It¡¯s almost a million per year, but you get customized meals, healer access, and a chauffeur.¡± He was talking about the amenities at a fancy, all-inclusive apartment complex in F-city. ¡°He should cook for himself and walk. On legs with genetically superior musculature.¡± Alden laughed. ¡°I¡¯m going to go broke just making these phone calls every day. You two go back to class. Talk to you again tomorrow.¡± ¡°Wait a minute,¡± said Boe. ¡°I have info about the sailor Rabbit.¡± It took Alden a second to realize he meant Manon. They hadn¡¯t spoken about the boater in a couple of days. Considering the fact that he lived with the other humans, he really didn¡¯t have that much contact with them. As Manon had promised, they were all decent in passing, and they didn¡¯t bother him during lunch breaks. Everyone seemed to want him to stay out of their way, and in return they stayed out of his. It wasn¡¯t what he¡¯d expected or hoped for, but it was working. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°I think she might be one of the first people who ever selected the Tailor Environment skill.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a popular one for Rabbits, though.¡± ¡°Yeah. Now. But thirty-something years ago when Manon first became an Avowed it wasn¡¯t. I can¡¯t find anyone else from her generation that has it. It only became well known about fifteen years later, when a guy from India chose it and turned himself into a successful television personality with it.¡± ¡°That¡¯s interesting,¡± said Alden. ¡°But I don¡¯t really get why it matters.¡± ¡°Well, you were saying the other day that you thought your own skill had a lot of unexplored depth to it. And that maybe, with practice, it could be developed into something more flexible.¡± ¡°Right.¡± Alden wasn¡¯t able to share the fact that he was learning from Joe or the details of their conversations, but he could give his friends a rough idea of the more obvious things they¡¯d discussed by implying he¡¯d come to the realizations on his own. ¡°I was just thinking that after spending three and a half decades with her skill, Manon can probably do more with it than rearrange furniture. I have no clue what, though. I followed all her social media accounts. She presents as all open and friendly to her followers. But I think it¡¯s bullshit.¡± ¡°Why do you say that? The others have kind of been jerks, but Manon took care of it for me. She¡¯s cooler than I thought.¡± Boe paused. ¡°Yeah?¡± he asked. ¡°Yeah,¡± said Alden. ¡°I was really suspicious about her, but she hasn¡¯t done anything wrong. And she helped me out with the Pineda thing.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great!¡± Jeremy spoke up in a chipper voice. ¡°You didn¡¯t like her at all the last time you mentioned her.¡± ¡°I was probably paranoid for no reason. She¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°She is?¡± Boe¡¯s tone was strange. ¡°She¡¯s the one who told her little fan club that you had lots of money the second you arrived, remember? So isn¡¯t it her fault if they thought the clueless new kid could be bullied out of tens of thousands of dollars?¡± Alden frowned up at the smooth white ceiling of the capsule. That was right. Manon had told them all about his overpriced lab coat the morning he arrived. He¡¯d almost forgotten. ¡°I mean¡­I guess it¡¯s normal?¡± he said. ¡°Like if someone walked up wearing a giant diamond necklace I might comment on how much it costs.¡± ¡°You¡¯re comparing a luxury good with a piece of functional equipment , but I see your point. Just don¡¯t be too forgiving. I think your first impression was right, and something¡¯s off about her. When people ask her what she can do with her power, she only talks about arranging throw pillows and organizing offices for her clients. But she did a ¡®Meet Your Senior¡¯ interview with her college newspaper years ago¡ªdon¡¯t even ask me how long it took me to find that¡ªand she made it sound like her skill was for something else.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°She was pretty cagey even then. I guess that¡¯s normal. Especially for a C-rank. If you¡¯ve got a good thing, you don¡¯t want other people catching on and competing with you. She wouldn¡¯t say what the skill was called, but she said it was ideal for working in human resources. Which is an incredibly dull thing to want to do with your superpower on the surface, but I¡¯m sure you see¡ª¡± Alden sat up straight. ¡°Text me the full skill description for Tailor Environment.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± said Boe. ¡°Because that¡¯s way different than arranging furniture.¡± ¡°Right? And she did have a couple of small jobs along those lines before her skill became a known quantity. Almost as soon as it started getting popular, she hard pivoted into interior decorating, and now she acts like it was always her dream career.¡± Alden checked the time. He was suddenly way more interested in figuring this out, but he only had a few minutes to get dressed and head over to the lab. ¡°Thanks, Boe.¡± ¡°I only spent so much time on it because I like digging up dirt on people. Have fun disposing of bombs.¡± ¡°Ah, there¡¯s not so much of that lately. The gifted students were in the first sessions. These are the normal ones. They get less dangerous stuff to play with.¡± Jeremy spoke for the first time in a couple of minutes. ¡°Why do you sound disappointed?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not. It¡¯s just boring. I only got to use my skill on one project yesterday. I spent the rest of the time cleaning up ordinary trash.¡± ¡°Poor baby Avowed,¡± said Boe. ¡°Living a life so lacking in drama.¡± ¡°I want practice. Not drama. Now let me go. I¡¯m going to be late.¡±
As usual, by the time he emerged from his sleeping capsule Alden was the last person left in the dorm. He grabbed some clothes from his locker and used one of the empty showers to change. The turtlenecks weren¡¯t as bad as he had initially feared. They were warmer than he would have liked, but whatever fabric they were made of wicked moisture much better than his cotton t-shirt did. ¡°All right,¡± he said quietly after he¡¯d pulled one on over his head. ¡°It¡¯s time for your desensitization training.¡± He felt a sudden tension in his mind, and he tried not to be bothered by the fact that he wasn¡¯t sure if it was his own. Was the gremlin a foreign passenger or just a foreign-feeling part of him? Either way, it was about to get its daily dose of medicine. After he finished dressing, he stood still with his eyes closed and carefully recited the requester¡¯s half of the wordchain for peace of mind. It was the one he¡¯d been learning at the consulate before he¡¯d become a universe traveller, and he¡¯d decided to make it step one of his new gremlin-improvement regimen. Finalizing the contract with Joe had been eye-opening. On the one hand, Gorgon¡¯s gift was clearly valuable. The System had told Alden it was exerting a stabilizing effect on his existence, which sounded like a plus. And Joe had said it was ¡°fussy¡± about ¡°contract alignment.¡± The professor had been sorting out inconsistencies and doing all the magical labor for the tattoo on his end of things. Alden thought maybe the reason he¡¯d had so much trouble was because the gremlin was a perfectionist about the very part of such contracts that would be the most dangerous to the weaker party¡ªmisunderstandings created by misaligned intentions. Since Alden would most likely always be the weaker party when he was contracting with wizards, this was a wonderful feature. It would be especially useful if he could figure out how to understand what parts of such an agreement were causing the disconnect. The gremlin was a genius. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. In some ways. Unfortunately, in others, it seemed to be simple minded. Wordchains were the main example of the problem. Ranting about the unevenness of the Velras was one thing. Members of that family would always be getting a little more than they gave when it came to chains. It was one of the perks of their class. But the fact that the gremlin went around hissing about other peoples¡¯ imbalances so often was more concerning. A wordchain had a natural time delay. In theory, you said the requester¡¯s half, got whatever perk you¡¯d asked for, and then paid it back in the near future by reciting the portion for sacrifice. Or, if you were irresponsible, you just waited for it to snap back on you on its own terms. The gremlin¡¯s whining served zero purpose if it was just detecting a state of karmic flux that would eventually be put to rights by the chain itself. And after its passionate freak-out during the tattoo session, Alden had started to worry about what was going to happen if he dared to become uneven himself for a brief time. So, on his second day at the university, he¡¯d given it a try. The first thing he¡¯d realized was that he was awful at wordchains. He¡¯d been right to wonder about it after watching Lute Velra cast one on all those other musicians at Hannah¡¯s funeral. Chains were way more demanding than anyone had ever told him. Alden knew his pronunciation of the words was above average, and he¡¯d thought he was at least semi-decent at focusing his mind. His hand signs looked like the ones he¡¯d seen in video demonstrations. He¡¯d worked hard. But when he cast a couple of the ones he was most familiar with, the gremlin had remained silent. And Alden highly doubted it was taking a nap. He¡¯d kept at it, making tiny tweaks to the peace of mind chain, until after a few dozen tries, he¡¯d finally hit on a combination that made the gremlin start grumbling at him. In the moment, he felt relieved to have finally gotten the wordchain right. But when he thought about it now, he was just pissed off. The requirements for the chain were incredibly specific. Too much wrist motion with your hand gesture would turn it into a dud. And it apparently wasn¡¯t okay to modify some of the more difficult pronunciations even a little bit. To learn wordchains efficiently, you wouldn¡¯t need a classroom setting or an instructional video¡ªwhich was what he¡¯d always had. You¡¯d need a competent private tutor to stand over you correcting your form and smacking you on top of the head when your breath pauses were too long. Alden was now fairly sure that the wordchain teacher at the consulate couldn¡¯t manage to cast them regularly herself. He wanted hours of his life back. The gremlin wasn¡¯t much of a tutor, but it did let him know when he got the chain right. By complaining. At first, it was only a little upset. Alden had been sitting in his capsule at the time, waiting for curfew, and when he finally hit the right combination, he felt a warning from it about his unevenness followed by a really enjoyable lack of concern for its opinion. So I am supposed to notice it when peace of mind kicks in, he thought. He¡¯d always assumed the effects of low level wordchains were just too small to detect. Turns out I was never casting them in the first place. In his unnaturally peaceful state, he easily drifted off to sleep. Only to be woken twenty minutes later by the gremlin¡¯s complaints. Still only mildly annoyed, he¡¯d listened to it for a while. He¡¯d even tried to soothe it by explaining out loud that he wouldn¡¯t remain a lopsided peace-stealing wretch for long. ¡°I¡¯ll say the other half tomorrow night,¡± he promised it. ¡°And then I¡¯ll be nice and even again.¡± But for whatever reason, this new part of his brain expected near instant gratification. Maybe it was a little dumb. Or maybe it just didn¡¯t trust Alden. Whatever the case, it grew louder and more insistent over the next hour, finally busting through his pleasant mood. ¡°I¡¯m not going to give up an entire category of magic because you don¡¯t understand how it works!¡± Alden snapped at it. He hoped the sleeping pods really were completely soundproof. Uneven!!!!! ¡°I¡¯m uneven because this is a process, you jerk! I¡¯m supposed to be blissed out right now, and you¡¯re ruining it!¡± Alden had the unique experience of feeling like his own brain was hissing at him. He endured until curfew, then took one of the sleeping pills. ¡°You can complain to me while I¡¯m unconscious,¡± he¡¯d told the gremlin in a triumphant voice. Apparently it had done exactly that because when he woke up the next day, his jaw hurt from grinding his teeth all night long. But at least he didn¡¯t remember it. From the experiment, he learned about a couple of important things besides his own incompetence with wordchains. One was that the gremlin didn¡¯t get tired. It was complaining just as loudly in the morning as it had been when he went to sleep. Another was that it could only bother him incessantly, not actually force him to correct the wordchain. He¡¯d worried it might be able to, since his eating restrictions were so ironclad. Finally, he discovered that it could learn. Albeit at a snail¡¯s pace. Instead of enduring all day and using the sacrifice half of the chain at night like he¡¯d planned, Alden went ahead and said it when he woke up that morning. As soon as he started trying to pay up, the gremlin fell silent, and after a disheartening number of attempts at the chain, Alden earned himself a quieter¡ªbut more anxiety-ridden¡ªmind. The peace of mind provided by the minor wordchain only lasted about three hours, so the blowback had the same time limit on it. By lunch, he¡¯d equalized, and he gave the gremlin another dose. This time, it waited a little longer before it started complaining. So, in theory, if he just kept at it he would eventually teach this part of his mind not to have such a knee-jerk reaction to wordchains. Now, four days later, he was seeing a marked improvement. Not that this is the best thing ever for my mental health, he admitted to himself as he finally cast the wordchain. It had only taken him four tries this morning. A new record. He finished dressing and left the bathroom. Between his first attempt and today, he¡¯d gone through ten cycles with the peace of mind chain. This morning, he expected to get at least a full hour of calm before things got noisy in his head. After I completely master this chain, I¡¯ll start on another. He was hoping the gremlin didn¡¯t have to be trained on every one individually. He wondered if taking Chainer would have helped him, or if the accumulated debt would have driven him mad. Probably the second one. But Gorgon would have warned him before he took it, right? Somehow? Maybe? Aliens were hard to figure out. Alden requested a cart through the System so that it would be waiting for him when he took the elevator down. Then, he stepped through the curtain into the locker room and stopped at the sight of a woman standing there. She appeared to be around thirty. She was wearing cargo pants, a sport bra, and a helmet/fencing mask that completely obscured her head. She was tightening the laces on a pair of combat boots. ¡°Hi, Thwart Hog,¡± said Alden. A second after he said it, he realized that he probably wouldn¡¯t have spoken at all under normal circumstances. Manon had suggested he avoid contact, and while his questions about the other Rabbit were fresh in his mind again after the phone call, he knew her advice wasn¡¯t bad in this case. To make matters worse, a few more seconds passed before his sense of propriety broke through the wordchain-induced calm and reminded him to stop placidly examining the reclusive, masked woman while she finished getting dressed. He looked away. ¡°I¡¯m just on my way out. Nice to meet you. Have a good day.¡± He strode purposefully past her toward the elevator and jabbed the button. ¡°Normally, I wouldn¡¯t care, but you look like you¡¯re just a kid¡­¡± Thwart Hog had a raspy voice and an Australian accent. ¡°You¡¯re not having some kind of emotional breakdown, are you?¡± Surprised, Alden glanced over his shoulder. ¡°No, I¡¯m fine.¡± Thwart Hog opened one of her lockers and pulled out a heavy vest. ¡°You were hiding out in the bathroom, begging for mental fortitude over and over, so I thought someone ought to ask. Guess your mates should have your back, but they seem like wankers.¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m not with the boater,¡± said Alden. Then he realized she might not know the term either if she didn¡¯t live on the island, so he clarified, ¡°The wankers. And I¡¯m all right. It was a peace of mind wordchain, but I¡¯m just practicing. I recently realized that I¡¯m not very good at them.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t chain myself,¡± said Thwart Hog, zipping up the vest and reaching for a jacket embossed with sigils. ¡°Glad you¡¯re not losing it. People do sometimes. Even on easy jobs.¡± ¡°Are you¡­?¡± Alden was about to ask her if she was really unregistered, but it was a dumb question considering her obvious desire for privacy, so he changed his mind halfway through the sentence. ¡°Are you a Brute?¡± She was buff as hell and dressing in something that looked like it might be armor, so it was a reasonable assumption. Though she could have just been a fitness nut with job-specific gear. ¡°Yep. Strength type. I¡¯m personal security for one of the students here. Politician¡¯s kid. Looks flashy to have an Avowed bodyguard.¡± ¡°Cool,¡± said Alden. She didn¡¯t offer her rank, and he didn¡¯t ask. As he stepped onto the elevator, he wondered if they¡¯d have another chance to talk. It seemed more likely that they¡¯d never see each other again, all things considered. And despite the mask, she didn¡¯t give off evil villain vibes. He rode the elevator all the way down, thinking. Then instead of getting off he went back up. Thwart Hog was standing right there, apparently about to head out herself. ¡°Forget something?¡± ¡°I wanted to ask you a question,¡± Alden said. ¡°You don¡¯t have to answer.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t think I did,¡± Thwart Hog replied, stepping in beside him and pressing the button for the ground floor. ¡°Manon¡ªthat¡¯s the middle aged woman with the brown hair, the Rabbit¡ª said you were here last year, too. So you must have seen a little more of the boater members than I have. Are they¡­hard to get along with? Or is it just me?¡± ¡°Anesidorans almost never get along with Avowed who refuse to live on their fancy prison island with them. Especially the ones who were born there and think it makes them special. They take it personally.¡± ¡°Oh. I see,¡± said Alden. ¡°I guess that¡¯s probably true.¡± Thwart Hog turned her mask to face him. ¡°If you¡¯ve got a real question, you should ask it without circling around it. Do I look like I have lots of spare time? Or like I care what they think?¡± She did not. Alden shoved his hands into his pockets. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯d ask outright if I knew what to ask. They¡¯re just¡­not what I expected when I came here. That¡¯s all.¡± ¡°Unfriendly, aren¡¯t they?¡± said Thwart Hog. ¡°To everyone except each other. Been here off and on for around eighteen months now. Seen plenty of people come and go. Don¡¯t usually enjoy the company, but I don¡¯t go out of my way to avoid it. As soon as this bunch arrives, I want to hide out.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Alden, relieved to have someone else put it into words. Thwart Hog grunted. ¡°You¡¯ve got an American accent. Not an island kid. And I guess at your age you¡¯re probably wondering if all Avowed are like these ones.¡± That wasn¡¯t exactly the case, but he had started to wonder if Hannah and her friends were outliers. ¡°It¡¯s my first ever assignment. I affixed really recently. Technically I¡¯m not even registered yet.¡± The woman¡¯s whole posture brightened. ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± she said at once. ¡°You can¡¯t see the world if you¡¯re stuck on Aneshitora.¡± Alden held back a groan. He immediately knew he¡¯d never be able to say Anesidora without thinking of this ever-so-memorable alternate name at the same time. ¡°I want to be a superhero. And I don¡¯t think I would like to live my whole life in hiding.¡± They stepped out of the elevator. ¡°Think again. And try to want something easier. But to answer your curiosity, yeah. Something¡¯s not right with this group. I don¡¯t know what. They creep me out. And you shouldn¡¯t think they¡¯re standard. You¡¯ll get along fine with other Avowed probably.¡± Alden climbed into the cart that had just arrived for him. ¡°Thanks for talking it over with me.¡± ¡°Stop wordchaining so hard in the showers,¡± said Thwart Hog. ¡°Makes people worry.¡± Alden laughed. The promised text message from Boe had arrived while they were talking, and as the cart headed toward the examination building, Alden opened it. His friend had chosen to respect the expensive connection fee by fitting an essay into a single message. There were about fifteen questions and twice as many theories there, but Alden focused in on the information he¡¯d asked for. Manon¡¯s base skill description was only a few words. ¡°¡®Tailor Environment (Level One) ¡ª You have a knack for arranging possessions so that they suit their owner.¡¯ THIRTY-THREE: Falling ¡°You have a knack for arranging possessions so that they suit their owner.¡± Alden reread the skill description. In his message, Boe had added that the Level Two version of the skill had the exact same description, but with knack replaced by ¡°strong knack.¡± ¡°If anyone has leveled it past that, they haven¡¯t posted the details online,¡± he¡¯d written. The foundational supplements were in dexterity, processing, and strength. And they were small, just like Alden¡¯s had been. C-ranks who chose the skill had three traits to choose from, all active only during skill use. One would increase the accuracy of their movements. Another muffled sound in their immediate vicinity. And the third was Rose Rabbit, which Alden himself had been offered. It was the one that increased attention to detail. As he headed up the hillside toward his destination, his cart trundling along in a line behind others that were filled with examinees, Alden tried to add up everything he knew about skills, Manon, and the boater. It wasn¡¯t a lot. But it was enough for him to be more nervous than ever about the other Rabbit. The skill was obviously intended for the use most people put it to. The traits would all help you beautifully arrange physical objects for their owner. The one that muffled sound was probably for those who wanted to maintain a quiet presence while they did their work. Having had a lot of experience watching students in the lab recently, Alden could even see Tailor Environment being a valuable skill in that setting. The assistants the examinees brought with them seemed to spend half their time making sure supplies were prepared, organized, and close to hand for their junior wizard. Manon would be amazing at that. Alden could think of a dozen other uses for the skill as well. Boe had said she did event planning and weddings in addition to interior decorating. But she¡¯d be able to streamline almost any busy setting. Having exactly the things you needed in exactly the place you needed them at the right moment would be fantastic. The skill even had obvious support hero applications. If Alden had been a C-rank, he might have chosen it himself. It was a very Rabbity talent. And a versatile one, too. So it¡¯s a little dark that Manon said she wanted to use it for human resources in that interview. I mean I get it¡­if you¡¯re good at knowing where things fit, you could theoretically be great at placing people inside an organization, too. But when Alden read a skill description about arranging ¡°possessions¡± for an ¡°owner¡± his first conclusion was definitely not that he should try it out on people. The morality of it would depend on how the skill worked on living things in the first place. If Manon just had a general sense for where people would be most useful to their employer, that was okay. She could take Bti-qwol¡¯s job and do it twice as well. But if her knack gave her insight into why people fit in certain places, then it was getting closer to mind reading than most humans would be comfortable with. And if the ¡°arranging¡± was an active part of the skill, maybe at higher levels, and gave her some additional ability to directly manipulate the things she arranged¡­ would it apply to another person¡¯s thoughts or actions? Wouldn¡¯t that would make her a knock-off version of a Sway? Alden grimaced. Knowing what he did now about how a person¡¯s perception influenced what they could do with their skill, he thought it was definitely possible that Manon was doing at least a little bit of freaky mind control stuff with her power. And knowing that she¡¯d quit her job and leaned hard into decorating like it was her dream career as soon as the skill started getting popular made it seem even more likely. You could keep info about your skill private and spin it however you wanted when it was just yours. But when it became popular and lots of other people picked it up, somebody who cared more about their follower count than trade secrets was bound to start showing off all the little nuances you¡¯d prefer to keep to yourself. Especially at C-rank, when your peers made up more than thirty percent of all Avowed. Even a rare class like Rabbit had enough representatives for people to start figuring everything out. Manon had the advantage of being a full generation or more ahead of most of the skill¡¯s users. She probably had several levels under her belt. And luck or natural talent might have played a role in her figuring out alternate uses for the skill when she was young. But one day, other people who were a little twisted were going to think, ¡°What if I could somehow use this thing on humans, too?¡± And as soon as one of them was careless enough to let it slip, all the other users would suddenly be subjected to intense scrutiny. There was no reason for her to drop her old job like a hot potato if the skill didn¡¯t have something similar to a mind control element. I mean¡­unless she really did just discover a sudden love for tablescapes. For a while, Alden toyed with the idea that LeafSong had even hired Manon for the purpose of keeping their other employees in line. But then he dismissed it. The Artonans weren¡¯t allowed to use mind control on Avowed humans unless they presented an immediate, life-threatening danger to themselves or their summoner. And if they were going to violate the Contract, they would probably do it with a real, S-rank Sway hidden in the shadows. Not a middling Rabbit using her skill in her own personal off-label way. So she must be doing it for herself, right? But how? And how would she become an ¡°owner¡± of other people? Even if she was a megalomaniac who imagined that others belonged to her, that probably wouldn¡¯t be enough. Not for controlling other Avowed. Not with a skill that wasn¡¯t exactly designed for it. He stared at the carnivorous plants along the pathway without really seeing them. Authorities would clash during mind control, right? For the past two nights, under Joe¡¯s tutelage, Alden had been grappling with a concept the professor usually translated as authority, dominion, or influence. Though he assured Alden that none of those were ideal word choices. It seemed to have no perfect translation in human languages, but it was the ability to impress your own desires upon¡­everything. The fundamental essence of magical power. According to Joe, Artonans could feel this ability from birth and train it like a muscle. Most other species couldn¡¯t. As an Avowed, Alden had the ability. And he could use it. But as a human, he lacked a conceptual framework¡ªand possibly the actual anatomy¡ªthat would allow him to feel it in the same way Joe did. Even his subconscious kept misinterpreting it as willpower, or a lack thereof. That flaw was fairly normal for humans, and it was also what Sophie had been getting at when she was trying to make him stop doing his rag-doll impression in front of the lab cabinets the other day. Alden had decided it was like trying to control your own internal organs. Yeah, they worked for you. But for the most part you couldn¡¯t will them to do things. As for how that applied to Manon¡ªwhen one person¡¯s authority came into conflict with another¡¯s, the stronger party would win. That was how Alden had lost a fight with a tree he hadn¡¯t even known existed. Joe was surprisingly unwilling to discuss how Avowed ranks worked, but he¡¯d indicated that they were heavily correlated with authority. And it was well known that Sways had more difficulty mind controlling other Avowed. Higher ranking Sways could usually suppress lower ranking ones. It stood to reason that Manon, as a C-rank, couldn¡¯t truly mentally enslave more than a dozen other people. And she couldn¡¯t really own them without them somehow¡­yielding themselves to her? Does it work like that? There was no way to know for sure. Probably it had something to do with all the gifts. She was in charge of the boater. She got most of them their jobs. She fed them treats and paid for their phone calls and¡­volunteered to cover Pineda¡¯s entire salary out of the goodness of her heart. Yeah. There¡¯s something there. Maybe she didn¡¯t own them in the most obvious sense of the word. But she¡¯d been taking care of them all in a really overboard way for years. They were used to it. They liked it. They hadn¡¯t been able to shut up about how wonderful she was that day at lunch. Is she working on me, too? Alden felt a chill. He didn¡¯t remember when he¡¯d started feeling grateful for Manon¡¯s help. He hadn¡¯t the first day. He¡¯d thought it was weird. Now, after having his friends remind him that he didn¡¯t like the other Rabbit, it seemed obvious that she hadn¡¯t done anything for him at all. So let¡¯s go all in on assuming she arranges people as well as furniture. How much can she actually do? It wasn¡¯t like Alden, or the boater members, were zombies. Maybe she couldn¡¯t even give them specific thoughts. Maybe she just¡­pressed little by little on their emotions and made suggestions they were predisposed to agree with because they were weak to her influence. More like a cult leader than a full-on Sway. That would explain a lot actually. Wasn¡¯t separating your members from outsiders basic cult psychology? Alden had begun to feel more kindly toward Manon, but only her. He and the other members of the boater went out of their way to avoid each other. And Thwart Hog said she felt like she should stay away from them, too. It had started that first day. They¡¯d naturally been upset about the loss of some of their coworkers for this event, but it shouldn¡¯t have made all of them hostile to Alden. One or two people incorrectly assigning blame in such a simple situation might be normal. But fourteen of them? Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. It was crazy to imagine a Rabbit altering people''s minds, but didn¡¯t it actually make more sense if all that unnecessary hostility was manufactured. It would have been so easy for Manon to just casually point out all the unlikeable things about Alden. Isn¡¯t he too young? Isn¡¯t he unqualified? He¡¯s a higher rank than we are. Maybe he thinks he¡¯s better than us. He¡¯s rich. He got Pineda fired. He doesn¡¯t even need a job, and he got a double quest. Something like that. I would resent me, too. And if someone who¡¯d had little hooks in your brain for years made those same suggestions¡­ you ended up with an even more warped perspective. Alden wondered if Manon had actually wanted her cultists to hit him up for money so that she could save the day for everyone. Or if she¡¯d just pushed a little too hard, and that was the direction they¡¯d headed in on their own. Personally, if I was manipulating everyone I would have tried to lessen drama, not fan the fires. Maybe she¡¯d panicked because he didn¡¯t fit into the arrangement. Maybe keeping the group together was a little like interior decorating, and Alden was a garish rug ruining the feng shui of Manon¡¯s carefully designed house. And she¡¯d been overeager to keep him away from the others. That was comforting to some extent. It meant she wouldn¡¯t want to add him to the collective. But what am I supposed to do about her if I¡¯m right about all of this? Nothing right now obviously. He didn¡¯t want to tip Manon off, have her whip the cult into a frenzy, and get murdered in his sleep. He¡¯d have to wait until he was back home. He could call Cly Zhao and ask her to handle it. Tell her he thought there was a Rabbit using low level mind control on other Avowed. Let the actual Sways snap Manon¡¯s influence like a twig and the mind healers try to clean up whatever mess she¡¯d made of everybody¡¯s personality. His cart dropped him off at the building on top of the hill, and he followed a group of chattering Artonan teens inside. Calling Ms. Zhao is probably the right choice, but even that feels bad. It would be like dropping a bomb on all the other people with the Tailor Environment skill. Life ruining for many of them. The vast majority of them were probably innocent, but their friends and coworkers and spouses would all suddenly have to wonder. How could they not? Do I like you because I like you? Or did you make me do it? There was a reason so many Sways only made friends with other Sways. What a mess, Alden thought, glancing out a wall of windows to take in the expansive view of the jungle canopy. In the distance, a flock of lime green birds rose into the air. He¡¯d seen a few of their kind around campus; he liked them because even up close they looked like they might have come from Earth. Just ordinary birds that did ordinary bird things. He was starting to value every glimpse of home he got more and more. He was glad the peace of mind chain let him appreciate them now, even with this many anxiety-inducing thoughts rattling around in his head. The rebound from it was going to be a pain today. He stopped by the breakfast room to grab a water bottle for himself, and he noticed with fresh eyes how a woman from the boater scurried away from as soon as he entered. Like she thought he had cooties. It¡¯s too much. I can¡¯t believe I wasn¡¯t even more suspicious. He took the stairs down to the basement level, and as he walked through the white corridor toward the lab he typed a message to Boe and Jeremy:¡°Remind me every time we talk that Manon is dangerous, and she¡¯s not my friend.¡±
The lab exams that day were uneventful, though once Alden¡¯s peace of mind wore off and he performed the sacrifice half of the chain they felt eventful. He spent the early afternoon worrying about how to hide his suspicions from Manon and staring too hard at a klutzy examinee who kept spilling chemicals all over the place. The poor guy only became progressively clumsier under the weight of Alden¡¯s nervous gaze. By the time the exam session was over, acid had eaten away part of the examinee¡¯s table, and Joe told him he¡¯d failed in an unnecessarily cheerful tone. <> Sophie said later while they cleaned up the messes the students had left. <> ¡°You sure know how to make a guy feel confident.¡± Alden was scraping chunks of perpetually smoldering wood into a pail. He wasn¡¯t sure if he was supposed to wet them or smother them before he added them to the rest of the pile they were collecting near the teleportation alcove, and Joe had left the lab to visit with one of the other professors. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Alden added. ¡°I¡¯m just practicing a wordchain, and I¡¯m on the worrywart end of it.¡± He did wonder how well Sophie could actually smell him through her helmet, though. <> ¡°Would you really?¡± Alden asked. He had been curious about it. Grivecks were notorious for being culturally okay with murder in a wide number of circumstances. They weren¡¯t mindless killing machines, despite their reputation, but their take on the subject was unique to their species. <> Like that. A rule about not murdering people after giving them your phone number implied that if Sophie hadn¡¯t given him permission to send her private messages, slaughter would still be on the table. ¡°That¡¯s good. I like hanging out with you even if it is just for work. It would be a downer if we met again, and you killed me.¡± <> About twenty minutes later, Alden was finishing up the work while the griveck kept him company. He was always the last one done, since many of the chores required fingers and Sophie didn¡¯t have them. ¡°So only the S-ranks¡ªI mean the topmost ranks¡ªbecome Ryeh-b¡¯ts on your planet? How does that even work?¡± Alden was tightening all the caps on the bottles in the mini fridges. Because apparently the examinees were a bunch of privileged ingrates who were incapable of doing it themselves. Sophie had been telling him about her planet¡¯s Avowed, and it was blowing his understanding of the System out of the water. Her species had ended up with an entirely different class set-up from humanity. They only had two of them. And they didn¡¯t even consider them to be classes. There were just bunches of Avowed who got to pick from a menu of hardcore combat skills and physical buffs, and a few overpowered Ryeh-b¡¯ts who spent all their time trying to figure out how to turn their domestic helper skills into hardcore combat ones. <> Alden suddenly wondered if the griveck felt sorry for him. Here he was, Mr. Totes Stuff Around, the B-rank Ryeh-b¡¯t who was currently coming down from a self-inflicted anxiety spiral. While she was a rapid-regenerating organic tank. He cleared his throat. ¡°You know, Rabbit is a pretty popular class on Earth. Even if it¡¯s not the best for combat, lots of people want it.¡± <> ¡°And I can do things you haven¡¯t seen yet. I can run pretty fast.¡± Sophie tilted her helmet. <> Oh. He¡¯d walked right into that one. ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be appropriate indoors¡­¡± <> A piercing whistle sounded, and Alden clapped his hands to his ears. His vision brightened alarmingly as text filled it, and a voice spoke the words simultaneously. [EMERGENCY TELEPORT AUTHORIZED. ENTER THE NEAREST ALCOVE IMMEDIATELY OR BRACE FOR TRANSPORT. TELEPORT IN 4¡­] Alden was already on his feet and running for the alcove that they¡¯d just used to dump all the garbage. His body was being driven more by adrenaline than thought. 3¡­ What¡¯s going on? [MINOR MEDICAL EMERGENCY. APPROVED RESPONDERS: ONE. PREPARE TO FOLLOW 2¡­ INSTRUCTIONS FROM SUMMONER ON SCENE.] Alden¡¯s heart was pounding. What was he about to be dropped into? Was he really going to be the only person responding? What if he screwed up? He slammed into the alcove, barely managing to avoid smacking his head. The space was hardly big enough for a person. Alden wasn¡¯t even sure it counted as a full-service teleportation device. Maybe it was just a direct connection to the dump, and the System wouldn¡¯t even use it? Wait, what am I supposed to do in a medical emergency again? Follow instructions. Right, the pills! I packed the bottle of emergency drugs this morning, didn¡¯t I? I think¡ª The runes on the alcove lit up, and before Alden could finish his thought, he was outside in the humid air. And he was falling. THIRTY-FOUR: Fishing There wasn¡¯t time to panic, though perhaps Alden should have. In his limited experience, teleports didn¡¯t usually land you thirty feet up in the air, in the jungle, above a shallow-looking pool of water surrounded by screaming teenage Artonans. Alden dropped like a stone while the System flashed the words ASSUME DIVING POSTURE at him like it thought he could just do that in an instant under these conditions. He fell feet first, his lab coat flapping around his elbows, and he barely had the presence of mind to hold his breath before he hit the water. It burned as it went up his nose, but Alden was too busy kicking furiously to care. The coat was not designed for swimming. Nor were the jogger pants. He had to hold the elastic band in one hand to keep them from dropping down and tangling around his feet. His lungs were burning when he breached the surface. He drew in a huge breath. A tiny waterfall¡ªjust a trickle a few inches wide¡ªspilled into the pool from a fern-covered rock face in front of him. Treading water, he turned away from it toward the shore, trying to find the emergency he was supposed to help with. There was an awful lot of shouting over there. It was a confusing spectacle of Artonan teens running back and forth, yelling hysterically, and waving their arms at him. There were about ten of them. His targeting halo was glowing brightly over the only one who didn¡¯t seem to be panicking, though she was gesturing at him and calling something insistent. Isn¡¯t that the girl who made the macrame project out of animal skins on the first day? They¡¯d met in the elevator, too. She was one of the ones Joe actually liked. Jel-something. He started to swim toward her, but then the System translated what she was saying. <> Alden spun in the water, heart racing, looking for ¡°the beast.¡± He expected to see something on the verge of attacking him. Instead, he saw a dark brown shape swimming away from him at an angle. He only managed to spot it because the water was so crystal clear. It was lightning fast. He didn¡¯t have a sense of its size because he wasn¡¯t actually sure how far away it was. The pool was deeper than it appeared. And he couldn¡¯t really make out the animal¡¯s shape before it darted down behind a rock. It seemed to have tentacles. Was it some kind of alien squid? A squid having a medical emergency? A student that had accidentally turned themselves into a squid? If he didn¡¯t catch them in time would they be unable to revert? Calm down, you lunatic. You¡¯re not making any sense. You need more information. ¡°What do you mean ¡®catch it?¡¯¡± he shouted back at Jel-girl. ¡°How am I supposed to do that?¡± She had one of the System access tablets, and she waved it at him. <> Alden felt like ¡°digest¡± was a very bad word in this context. Trying to keep his head, he asked, ¡°What did it eat?¡± Please don¡¯t say a person. Please don¡¯t say a person. Four different teens, including the girl¡ªJel-nor. Right! That was her name!¡ªlooked toward a boy lying on the shore. Alden hadn¡¯t even noticed him, because he was being still and quiet. Really still and quiet. Alden almost thought he was unconscious, but then he made out the guy¡¯s lips moving furiously. He was either casting a spell, praying, or chaining for all he was worth. Then, a girl who¡¯d been standing between them shifted a few steps, and Alden¡¯s mouth went dry. ¡°Oh shit,¡± he whispered. ¡°Where is his foot?¡± There was blood staining the leaf litter by the water¡¯s edge, but not quite as much as he would have expected. The Artonan boy was obviously doing a good job with his spell, but how long would that last? Jel-nor read her tablet then gave Alden an exasperated look, as if his question was too stupid to answer. He stared at her. ¡°You want me to catch something that ate somebody¡¯s foot?¡± <> Jel-nor called. <> ¡°I can¡¯t catch a freaking water monster. That¡¯s not what my skill does!¡± Alden protested. ¡°You need to call one of the professors. And get that guy to a hospital!¡± Why the hell hadn¡¯t they already done that? <> Some of the other teens were looking between the two of them doubtfully and whispering now. Alden¡¯s mind raced. Was he just being a coward? It was hard to tell because he was, in fact, pretty freaked by the idea of chasing a mystery monster that apparently bit people hard enough to sever limbs. But he didn¡¯t think that was the only reason he was hesitating. Shouldn¡¯t he go pick up the wounded guy so that he could help him stave off blood loss? Ever since he got this assignment, Alden had tried to picture what he might do if a medical crisis did arise. And none of his imaginings had involved chasing after a wild animal. He thought protecting the injured person from shock while they teleported to a medical facility made much more sense. But Jel-nor was supposedly a genius. And she seemed really sure. And the System had let her do an emergency summons for this. I guess I have to at least try? ¡°All right,¡± he said, fighting to remove his coat while keeping his head above water. ¡°Do I get a net or something?¡± The Artonans all stared at him like he¡¯d asked them for a pony. ¡°No net then,¡± he muttered. ¡°Okay.¡± When he¡¯d finally rid himself of the coat and his shoes, Alden took the deepest breath he could and dove underwater. It had been a long time since kiddie swim class in Mrs. McGugall¡¯s backyard pool when he was six, and that was the closest thing he¡¯d ever had to formal lessons. He¡¯d been considering signing up for lifeguard training next summer, but that wouldn¡¯t do him much good now. He could hold his breath as well as an average human and swim in the right direction with noble intentions. That was about it. The water stung his eyes, but at least he could clearly see the rock the foot-eater had hidden itself behind. His only hope was to¡­what? Stick his hand behind the rock, offer it his own flesh, and hope that his skill activated when it bit down? Like he was noodling for catfish? Jel-nor had told him to get the animal. Maybe that was enough. But what if if it was an intelligent beast that couldn¡¯t be entrusted against its will? Or what if no animal could be unless it was already captured? He hadn¡¯t had a chance to test that, and he hadn¡¯t asked Joe because it seemed like a waste of a question when his lesson time was limited. Crap. I don¡¯t know what to do. Alden had to surface for another gulp of air before he even made an attempt to catch the creature. He¡¯d started to lose his pants again. They were in the way. Maybe he should take them off and try to use them as a lure somehow? He ignored the cries and questions from the shore and dove again. By the time he got down to the animal¡¯s hiding place, he was already hungry for air. But he kicked his legs free of the joggers and stuffed a rounded stone from the bottom of the pool into them. His enemy was nearly hidden under the sand. Alden could only make out a single patch of smooth, mottled brown skin. He still wasn¡¯t sure of the overall size of it either. Big enough to bite off a foot. This is a bad idea. Shit. Why is this my job? I can think of so many people who would be better than me. Heart pounding and lungs burning, Alden dropped his weighted pants on top of the mystery monster from a couple yards above and watched, ready to launch himself away at the first sign of attack. He already knew the thing was too fast in the water for him to catch. Since that was the case, he could only hope that it was dumb and stubborn. If it was the kind of animal that would bite down and hold on, maybe there was a faint chance he could drag it back to shore? But no. It wasn¡¯t that kind of animal. The second the pants touched it, the creature shot away in a swirling cloud of sand. Panicking at the sudden movement even though he¡¯d been expecting it, Alden swam away as fast as he could, too. When he made it up for air again and gasped, the animal was still cutting through the pool in search of another hiding spot. It had almost crashed right into him when it made its escape. And he could see it well enough now. It was like a smooth-skinned crocodile thing with four thick flailing tentacles instead of a tail. Scary as heck. And about the size of a large dog if you didn¡¯t count the tentacles. So the pants idea was never going to work. Alden might win a tug of war game with it on land, but he¡¯d drown if he tried it underwater. Jel-nor was shouting orders. The System was translating them. But she could go on ordering him to be some Olympic swimming, gator wrestling hybrid until she was blue in the face. It didn¡¯t mean Alden would suddenly become one. And he¡¯d literally just made his best, spur-of-the-moment effort to fight the baby kraken for her. He was all out of creativity. He needed a tool. Or a spell. Or help. Alden looked back at the gathered teens to tell them that. One of the girls was on her knees beside the injured boy now, applying pressure to the bloody spot where his foot had been with her jacket. Where¡¯s the rest of the medical team? Did they not call them? Does the System not automatically summon everyone needed to handle an emergency? Well, it might not. It seemed like it made suggestions, and the summoners made final decisions. Plus summoning wasn¡¯t entirely free, and it wasn¡¯t like the System itself cared if people lived or died. Probably there were all kinds of intricate rules, settings, and exchanges involved that Alden knew nothing about. But he really doubted LeafSong was skimping on emergency services. Bti-qwol had complained that there were too many members of the medical team and they never had anything to do. Alden was positive a little local teleport wasn¡¯t too much of burden, considering they were regularly ordered up to dispose of trash in the lab. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Does that mean the System recommended me and I¡¯m sufficient for this task? He wanted to believe in himself, but it seemed like a stretch. He stared at the foot-eater. It was still swimming around in fast circles. Maybe¡­maybe I can do it? If I just get close enough to get a hand on it? He tried to rearrange his thinking. If he was here, there was something he could do. Perhaps this was a pivotal moment in his life as an Avowed, and he was about to discover some exciting hidden facet of his power. Yeah. Sure. That¡¯s likely. Then, he spotted something familiar trailing along with the monster¡¯s tentacles. It was Jel-nor¡¯s finished project from the lab. Alden was sure of it. The knotted pieces of skin she¡¯d made had been woven into a sort of lasso with a matching bracelet after she¡¯d returned for her second session. It would assist her with summoning something somehow, though Alden had never gotten a clear notion of what that would look like. I bet it looks like this, he thought. And I bet this isn¡¯t supposed to be happening out in the woods without an instructor around. ¡°System, I don¡¯t understand my current assignment. Please clarify it.¡± It responded without hesitation. [Assist with minor medical emergency. Nature of the medical emergency is a severed limb, with one individual in need of stabilization and transport. Follow instructions from summoner on scene. Do you require further clarification?] Alden treaded water. Jel-nor and a couple of the others kept shouting at him, asking him why he wasn¡¯t capturing the crocosquid and ordering him to get to work. He didn¡¯t like this. He thought what was happening was that Jel-nor and her friends had summoned and tried to control this thing when they weren¡¯t supposed to. It had gone wrong. The System must have authorized an emergency teleport because someone was seriously injured and Alden¡¯s skill could stabilize the victim, but instead of using him that way, the examineeswere hoping he could catch their mistake. Maybe they think they can dispose of it and fix everything before the school finds out? That seemed overly ambitious. Did they plan to reattach the hurt guy¡¯s foot all by themselves? Even if they could do that there¡¯s no way they can hide the fact that I was summoned for an emergency. I¡¯m working for the university. They yanked me away from the lab when I was on duty there. There has to be some kind of notification for the head of the medical team at least. Possibly if the monster was gone, and they could persuade Alden not to mention it, they thought they could say the accident had happened some other way? That sounded dumb. But maybe they were being dumb. Surely even genius junior wizards could be scared and stupid sometimes. A guy had lost a limb, so it clearly hadn¡¯t been a day for good decisions. Where does that leave me, though? <
> He looked down and met Alden¡¯s eyes. His own were pink, like the lead assistant¡¯s at the lab. <> he said, dropping Alden¡¯s hands. <> Alden clutched at his chest, gasping for air he didn¡¯t even need. Am I having a panic attack? <> Alden could barely hear him. His ears hadn¡¯t rung this loudly in years. <> he trailed off. <> <> the sister suggested. <> <> ¡°No¡­I¡¯m fine,¡± Alden gasped. ¡°Can I just go?¡± <> said the man. <> THIRTY-NINE: Lesson One ¡°Don¡¯t talk so loud,¡± Alden groaned, smashing his pillow to his face in an attempt to hide from the lights in his capsule. ¡°What? Are you hungover?¡± Boe asked. ¡°Oooo, are you? Isn¡¯t it illegal for Avowed to drink?¡± Jeremy said. Loudly. ¡°Not on the Triplanets,¡± said Boe. ¡°I guess they might still have age restrictions of some kind, though?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not hungover,¡± Alden said into the pillow. ¡°I¡¯m probably the only person on campus who isn¡¯t. How can there still be an exam this morning? I was promised sleep. There was a whole speech about sleep. There are pills just for it, and then they took it away when I wanted it most. They¡¯re torturing me.¡± ¡°It¡¯s pretty mild as far as torture goes,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°Go wash your face in cold water.¡± ¡°Drink coffee.¡± ¡°I¡¯d have to ask the boater to share theirs, and I hate them. I hate everyone this morning.¡± ¡°Ouch.¡± ¡°Harsh.¡± ¡°Except for you guys,¡± Alden amended.He ran his tongue over his teeth. The costume fangs were still in place. It was a wonder he hadn¡¯t swallowed one of them in the night. After meeting Stuart¡¯s father, and having the scariest-ever handholding session with the strange wizard, he¡¯d fled back to the dorms. He¡¯d collapsed into his bed with his ears still ringing, and that dark, shameful memory boiling closer to the surface of his mind than it had in years. What the heck is the Primary? It sounded like a title. An important one. But Alden had never heard it before. ¡°Sounds like an awesome party,¡± said Jeremy. Alden had only told them about the normal-ish parts. Not the night¡¯s conclusion. ¡°I guess it was for the guests. For me it was stressful. And exhausting. And a little demeaning. And hot¡­ why is it perpetually hot on this stupid planet?¡± He paused. ¡°I did get so many tips, though. So many. I don¡¯t even know what for. About halfway through, when all the faculty and parents got plastered, random Argold amounts just started popping up on my interface every few minutes. And some of the students slipped things in my pockets. They¡¯re either sticks of chewing gum or some kind of party drug or a magic thing that does who knows what¡ª¡± ¡°Yeah, you should definitely throw those out,¡± said Boe. ¡°Obviously I wasn¡¯t going to eat them without asking someone what they were,¡± said Alden. ¡°Anyway, it lasted forever. I¡¯m gross. I need to shower, but the boater people are hogging them. I did get to play with a magic ring, though.¡± ¡°You should steal it!¡± Jeremy said brightly. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you? You were worried he was going to his death a week and a half ago, and now you¡¯re encouraging him to rob a wizard?¡± Alden¡¯s morning timer flashed once to catch his attention. He had forty-five minutes. If he didn¡¯t get out of bed soon, it would grow more insistent. He sighed and tossed his pillow away. There was a smear of black and orange paint across it. # ¡°Good morning, Alden dear,¡± Joe said with a revolting amount of cheerfulness as soon as he entered the lab. The professor was going through his usual drill of removing select items from every table. ¡°Uh-huh.¡± I can¡¯t believe he¡¯s still alive. The last time Alden had seen him, Joe had been modifying the hookah with potions from his little case full of vials. Apparently he kept the party potions right beside the mishnen-killing ones. ¡°Ah, you¡¯ve kept your fangs! Making a statement?¡± Sophie padded over and tipped her helmet in interest. <> she said. <> Alden smiled at her then turned to Joe. ¡°Actually I can¡¯t get them out. Like¡­at all. I tried everything short of bashing them with a hammer this morning. I had to quit when my gums started to bleed. The artist didn¡¯t actually cement them to my teeth, did she?¡± If he didn¡¯t figure it out soon, it was going to be difficult to explain the fangs to a dentist when he got back to Earth. Yes, I put these on myself. No, I don¡¯t know what I used. Crazy how that happened, right? Please, make them go away. ¡°How should I know?¡± said Joe, sniffing a jar of pickled mice. ¡°I can look at them for you when we finish setting up. Maybe it¡¯s some kind of dissolvable glue.¡± Not wanting to miss out on that offer, given the lack of alternative solutions, Alden did his best to perk up and help with the work. ¡°Let¡¯s take away these gold boxes,¡± he suggested. Joe blinked at him in surprise. ¡°The Et-lor compressors?¡± he asked. ¡°I¡¯m fascinated by the suggestion. Why would we deprive the students of those?¡± ¡°Only a couple of people use them in each session. And they make a really annoying sound.¡± Like nails on a chalkboard in a cave. ¡°I¡¯m so used to them I never noticed.¡± <> said Sophie. ¡°They¡¯re horrible screechy boxes, and you always fail the people who use them,¡± Alden said blithely, carrying one away from its table. ¡°I¡¯m doing the students a favor.¡± <> Sophie hissed to Joe. <> ¡°It seems he¡¯s not a party person. A pity. He was a very big hit.¡± Alden felt much better after placing all seventy-five Et-lor compressors in the Corner of Shame where they belonged. When he was done, he helped Joe finish the fridges, and then held his mouth open while the professor examined his fangs through his smart lens. ¡°She did use some type of glue on them,¡± he said. ¡°I have several things that will dissolve it, but just keep them for now. I¡¯ll figure it out over lunch. I know absolutely nothing about human tooth enamel, and I imagine you¡¯d rather I not learn through trial and error.¡± ¡°I can use Artonan tooth cleaning gum,¡± Alden reported. And since he was thinking of it, he pulled one of the strange flat sticks out of his pocket and held it out to Joe. It was wrapped in folded waxy paper. ¡°By the way, is this gum? Or is it drugs? Or is it like a chewable magic potion?¡± Maybe it wasn¡¯t for eating at all, but it looked like it was. And it smelled like one of the herbs that was popular in food here. Joe stared at the stick and snorted. ¡°Someone gave you one of those last night? That¡¯s a little¡­anyway, yes. It is.¡± ¡°It is what?¡± ¡°Those three things you said.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°It¡¯s a gum-drug-potion?¡± Joe was shaking his head in amusement. ¡°Yes. They¡¯re easy to make, if you have the funds for the ingredients. So they¡¯re perennially popular with wealthy young people.¡± ¡°What does it do?¡± ¡°You chew it, and then you pass it off to someone else to chew it¡ª¡± ¡°Well that sounds disgusting.¡± ¡°¡ªand a mild sensory link is created between the two, or more, of you for a few minutes.¡± Alden stared down at the stick in his hand. ¡°It¡¯s telepathy gum?¡± ¡°Sensory. You don¡¯t share thoughts, only senses. Taste, smell, touch, etcetera.¡± That¡­was even better. Alden had been immensely frustrated and a bit jealous about the fact that Artonans felt and managed their authority as an actual sixth sense. If this was sensory gum¡­ ¡°Could I use this stuff to feel my magic like Artonans do?¡± he asked excitedly. Joe looked baffled. ¡°How would I know? It¡¯s not for humans, and it¡¯s not usually used in that¡ª¡± ¡°That would be awesome! Oh, but I¡¯d have to chew it with someone who had that sense.¡± Alden was turning the gum over in his hand thoughtfully, helped along by Joe¡¯s unreturned ring. ¡°Plus it could be good for combat training, maybe? If you could feel what someone who was more of an expert than you did when they moved. And it would be AMAZING if you could see your surroundings and someone else¡¯s at once¡­I guess that might make you really dizzy though. It¡¯s got to have lots of practical applications. How long did you say it lasted?¡± ¡°A quality stick should last around eleven minutes,¡± said Joe. ¡°But it¡¯s not designed with humans in mind, so if you¡¯re determined to put it in your mouth, at least wait until there¡¯s a qualified healer nearby.¡± ¡°Do you think I could buy more of these?¡± Alden said seriously. ¡°For your combat training. As a Ryeh-b¡¯t.¡± ¡°Just for whatever I might think of later. I¡¯ve never heard of this stuff before. Do you think it¡¯s very hard to find on Earth?¡± Joe sighed. ¡°I neither know nor care. And no. You can¡¯t buy more of it here on the Triplanets legally. Pharmacies aren¡¯t going to sell you something that¡¯s not designed for your species. Just be happy with the piece some young fool gave you, and don¡¯t accidentally poison yourself.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°I¡¯ve got fourteen anyway. That should be enough for now.¡± ¡°You got fourteen?¡± ¡°Yeah. I counted when I was pulling them out of my pockets last night.¡± Joe shook his head. ¡°I think I went to the wrong parties in my youth,¡± he muttered. ¡°Jel-nor even gave me one. And then she stared at me really hard while she ate a plate of those little cube-shaped burgers.¡± ¡°You should remember which piece was hers if you can.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Because it will either definitely kill you or definitely be safe for you to consume. Most likely the second since she was trying to imply you should eat the ¡®burgers¡¯ together while you were under the influence of the gum. A sort of bribe or peace offering I imagine. In either case, she would have researched the chemistry of it before giving it to you.¡± ¡°Noted.¡± He really didn¡¯t think he wanted to make peace with her, though. More like avoid her at all costs. ¡°Alas,¡± said Joe, looking toward the doors, where the quiet sounds of anxious students could be heard. ¡°We have to let them in yet again. No matter how many I test, they just keep coming.¡± <> Sophie suggested. ¡°Do you know several people told me last night that I was unacceptably difficult and cruel to their children?¡± Joe said. ¡°Nobody appreciates my exacting standards.¡± # Maybe because the previous day had been so weird and long, the return to the ordinary routine made the hours fly by. Alden was in a good mood by lunchtime, even though he had to spend the last twenty minutes of his break biting into a nasty-tasting square of gel Joe had made for him. ¡°Success!¡± he shouted, when he finally unlocked his jaws and saw the fangs stuck in the gel. ¡°I¡¯m me again.¡± <> Alden bared his teeth at Sophie. < > He laughed. ¡°I have this friend named Boe at home. You two would get along.¡± <> Alden blinked. ¡°Yeah it is. But somehow I don¡¯t think they would get along.¡± The accumulated intellectual superiority and snark would be unbearable for everyone around them, too. There was only a single lab exam on the final day of his time at LeafSong. So from this moment, there were only four more total before he could go home. Four lab sessions, two nights¡¯ sleep, three trips to Moon Thegund. He was supposed to leave just after noon on the last day, but Joe had gotten permission to keep him a few hours longer. As soon as he arrived back at the summonarium after the last trip, though, he¡¯d be teleported back to Earth. I can¡¯t wait to breathe the air in Chicago. The finish line for this insane first summoning was in sight, and with any luck, he wouldn¡¯t have another for weeks. He¡¯d be plenty busy without it. His to-do list was a mile long. And the first thing on it is just ¡°Calm down, and think.¡± He¡¯d been summoned a few hours after affixing his skill. And for a job this long. It was ridiculous. He was going to sleep for an entire day when he got back and then wake up the next morning and sit on the sofa by himself with a bowl of popcorn and a notebook and try to figure out how to get started on the rest of his life. No biggie. Today, let¡¯s just focus on today. The guy whose table he was standing beside was mixing the green and purple goo together. Something always went wrong when you mixed the green and purple goo together. Alden knew that, and he didn¡¯t even have a clue what the goos were. Trash Rabbit on duty, he thought, smiling at the unlucky student, about to steal your stuff.
That afternoon, Alden rolled toward Hot Lab 7 in a cart and had the peculiar experience of being greeted on his way by several professors and students he didn¡¯t recognize at all. Guess I¡¯m famous. Please, don¡¯t summon me for your future parties, people. As soon as the doors of the lab opened and the cool air rushed out, he heard a muffled shout from Joe. ¡°I¡¯m down here today! You can come in.¡± He was on the floor of the actual laboratory instead of in his office. For the first time, Alden went straight inside. He stopped in the chamber that separated the entryway from the center of the building and looked around at the sanitizing equipment. He had absolutely no clue how to use any of it except for the sink. ¡°Joe, do I need to do anything in here?¡± ¡°Just put on a pair of boots so you don¡¯t track in dirt. There¡¯s nothing delicate going on in here right now.¡± A minute later, Alden stepped inside wearing a too-tight pair of rubber boots. He headed down a metal staircase, taking in all of the strange equipment with interest. ¡°What are we doing down here today?¡± Joe was standing in front of a large display on the wall that was flashing through sciency information so quickly Alden didn¡¯t have a hope of reading it. ¡°You are standing there, and I am running a few final simulations on something you will take with you on your way to the lab today.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Contract,¡± Joe reminded him absently, still staring at the display. ¡°Oh, right. Sorry.¡± They reconfirmed the private contract, and Joe said, ¡°It¡¯s a bomb.¡± Of course it is. Alden sighed. ¡°Why am I taking a bomb with me today?¡± ¡°Do you really want to know?¡± ¡°Are you blowing up the lab so that the corporation can¡¯t have the rest of your stuff?¡± ¡°I¡¯m strategically tidying a few sections it. You¡¯ll need to take two bombs, actually, and deliver them to Thenn. One today. One tomorrow. They¡¯re quite unusual and magically potent, and I don¡¯t want them to strain your skill too much.¡± Thenn-ar was the leader at the lab. She¡¯d be one of the last two people evacuated. ¡°Great. Now I¡¯m complicit in blowing up buildings.¡± ¡°It¡¯s just some light remodeling really,¡± Joe said. He glanced over at Alden. ¡°So you¡¯ll do it?¡± Oh wait, Alden realized. That¡¯s right. I don¡¯t have to. The agreement was that he would pick up people and supplies. Not carry bombs over there. He¡¯d been about to say yes without even thinking about it. Joe was too easy to get along with. Even now, he was patiently going about his business without applying any additional pressure. And he did help Alden out with things that were well outside of their agreement. The mishnen, the party, even the fangs earlier today. It felt like they were almost friends lately, even though that couldn¡¯t be an accurate description of the relationship. Joe was old and powerful and openly engaged in illegal stuff. And he was a wizard. An individual private contract they formed might be fair to both parties. But the real underlying dynamic was so unbalanced between them, it probably couldn¡¯t ever be made truly right. Maybe there was no reason to overanalyze every little thing, though. ¡°I¡¯ll take it,¡± Alden said. ¡°That¡¯s nice of you.¡± ¡°Actually, it¡¯s spiteful. It made me really angry that the Yipalck Corporation sent Avowed to rescue their own people and made them leave everyone else behind.¡± Joe shook his head. ¡°Even your spite is nice,¡± he said in a slightly admonishing tone. ¡°Sorry. Can I ask questions now?¡± Joe waved his permission and walked over to feed his vat of eels. ¡°Who is the Primary?¡± ¡°Ah. So he introduced himself to you. He shouldn¡¯t really have done that. But even if he¡¯s aware of how it draws attention and complicates things, I doubt he cares much.¡± ¡°So it is a title. Why haven¡¯t I ever heard it before? If he¡¯s someone important, I should have, right?¡± ¡°You know, this isn¡¯t skill instruction. Which is what our lessons are supposed to be about.¡± Alden paused. ¡°I mean¡­you don¡¯t have to answer.¡± ¡°I know I don¡¯t have to answer. What did he say to you last night? When Stu-art¡¯h said his father wanted to meet you, I thought he was either mistaken or trying to give you some sort of misguided compliment. The people who were aware of the man¡¯s arrival at the party were frankly alarmed. He¡¯s not someone who does a lot of socializing, and they were afraid he might be offended by the nature of the festivities.¡± ¡°He held my hands.¡± Joe almost dropped the shaker can full of eel food he was sprinkling into the vat, and he turned around sputtering. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°His sister told him to.¡± The professor stared. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re leaving something out.¡± ¡°He asked me really personal questions. It was¡­I thought it was some kind of lie detector test, and he was going to want to know about what had happened with the mishnen. Or he was going to ask if I intended to betray Stuart¡¯s trust, but I¡­don¡¯t think that was it. In fact, he more or less said he wouldn¡¯t do anything to me if I did tell on his son¡ª¡± ¡°Don¡¯t. I¡¯ve got ever so many wonderful things going on because of that excellent mishap.¡± ¡°¡ªso it was just about me?I think?¡± Joe looked troubled. ¡°He must have been using some talent I¡¯m not aware of to examine you. I¡¯m afraid I can¡¯t answer your question.¡± ¡°He said I should go home and live well because one day we¡¯d meet again.¡± Alden rubbed the back of his neck. ¡°It kind of worried me.¡± Joe¡¯s eyes widened and he spun back around to face the eels so quickly that Alden didn¡¯t even have time to interpret the expression. ¡°Joe?¡± The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°I think, truly, that answering your questions about the Primary is not the best use of our limited time together. Let¡¯s return to our regularly scheduled skill lesson.¡± ¡°Now you¡¯re kind of worrying me.¡± ¡°Touch the ¡®Triangle of Absolute Secrecy,¡¯ please.¡± Alden stared at his back. ¡°We already reconfirmed the contract for today.¡± ¡°Ah, I would like to clarify a point. Today¡¯s lesson is going to be special, you see. And I would like you to confirm specifically that you will not, through any means or by any permutation of interpretation, intentionally reveal the information I¡¯m about to disclose to you with anyone else of any species without my permission. Ever.¡± Surprised but intensely curious, Alden thought through the wording. ¡°That¡¯s way too strict, isn¡¯t it? It means even if I hear the information from someone other than you at some point, I still can¡¯t ever repeat it. Or even act on it in a way that I thought would allow it to become known.¡± ¡°Yes, that¡¯s right. Anything I say that you¡¯re already aware of is yours to do with as you please, but any new information I reveal falls under this agreement. Also you will not use this knowledge to advise or instruct another person in a fashion that would allow them to take advantage of it.¡± ¡°Uh¡­do I even want to know whatever it is?¡± Joe was silent for a minute. He was still staring down at the eels. Finally he said, ¡°I¡¯m not sure. However, it will undeniably benefit your skill development. Which is what I promised to help you do.¡± Obviously I¡¯m not going to say no. He¡¯d never stop wondering what he¡¯d missed out on learning if he did. Something on a table along the far wall dinged. ¡°My bomb is done!¡± Joe¡¯s tone was cheerful. ¡°Let me just box it up, and then we can have a proper seat in the office for the rest of this discussion.¡± # ¡°You had ice all this time? And you didn¡¯t tell me?¡± Alden said accusingly as he took a seat in one of the armchairs that looked down on the lab. Under his shirt, the tattoo was burning in a way it never had before. He had felt the gremlin watching the contract modification with interest, but it hadn¡¯t objected, so he guessed it was fine. But Joe must have really meant it when he did whatever it was he did with his magic to set it in place. ¡°You always refuse my drinks.¡± Joe dropped a few cylindrical pieces of ice into a cup of dark blue tea. ¡°That¡¯s because they¡¯re always hot. I didn¡¯t even know Artonans drank chilled beverages until I served a couple last night.¡± ¡°Usually not in winter.¡± ¡°This is winter?¡± ¡°Yes, though it¡¯s always mild here. They have a pleasant climate. You didn¡¯t realize?¡± ¡°It just never occurred to me that it might be,¡± he said as he accepted the tea. It tasted floral, but it wasn¡¯t awful. Joe sat in the chair beside him. He took one sip from his own steaming cup, then without any further ceremony, said, ¡°Lesson One¡ª¡± ¡°I knew there had to be a Lesson One!¡± Alden cried. ¡°I was thinking of how much I should tell you and how to frame it for you. I was going to use it as the finale of our classes, but then it occurred to me that you might have follow-up questions. And I wouldn¡¯t be doing my sincere best if I just dropped the information on you then sent you back home.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± Alden said. ¡°Really. That¡¯s thoughtful of you.¡± Joe rolled one eye at him. ¡°Lesson One¡ªyou should never accept another skill or spell from the System.¡± He sipped his tea again. The steam curling from the cup was fogging the lens of his smart monocle. Beside him, Alden sat motionless. Beads of condensation were forming on the glass in his hand. ¡°You¡¯re not saying anything,¡± Joe noted. ¡°I¡¯m waiting for you to explain the joke.¡± The professor¡¯s smile was tight. ¡°Do you really think I swore you to eternal secrecy just so that I could deliver one?¡± Alden didn¡¯t. But he still couldn¡¯t process the advice he¡¯d been given. ¡°I don¡¯t understand.¡± ¡°I know you don¡¯t,¡± Joe said simply. ¡°But nonetheless, the lesson is the same. In my opinion, someone in your situation should refuse to accept skills and spell impressions from the System. Or from other sources, should they be offered.¡± ¡°The entire benefit of being an Avowed is collecting new skills and spells and foundation points!¡± ¡°You should limit the number of foundational improvements you accept, too. I don¡¯t think you have to entirely reject them, but be frugal. Try to keep your physical and mental enhancements within the realm of reason for your class, age, and rank.¡± ¡°My class is Rabbit, and my rank is B,¡± Alden said, raising his voice without meaning to. ¡°What am I supposed to do with one weirdass skill, one shitty little spell, and hardly any superhuman abilities?!¡± ¡°One spell?¡± Joe said in an interested voice. His eye flicked behind the lens. Then he laughed. ¡°You never affixed your second! Did you even need my advice?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t affixed it because I couldn¡¯t find a spell I liked on the list! And it was important to me to be careful and make the most of it! I was going to study all of them when I got back home!¡± It was strange to feel threatened by advice, but Alden did. What the professor was saying was unheard of, incomprehensible, and unwanted. ¡°Is it even possible to refuse skill and spell rewards?¡± he demanded. ¡°I couldn¡¯t refuse to get a skill in the first place! The System was all something, something thank you for your service, if you don¡¯t choose in a few months everything will be randomly affixed for you against your will. ENJOY.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not that nice, you know,¡± Joe said, raising an eyebrow at him. ¡°I won¡¯tbother elucidating any further if you keep flinging teenage emotions at me like I¡¯ve personally done you some injury.¡± Alden looked away from him. His grip tightened on the cold glass. Joe spoke after a moment of silence. ¡°It¡¯s astonishing. They really didn¡¯t explain a thing to you, did they?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what you mean,¡± Alden said stiffly. ¡°Whichever one of my colleagues told you to pick that class. And that skill.¡± Alden stopped breathing. ¡°I suppose it could have been another Avowed, but there shouldn¡¯t be any on Earth at this early stage of your planet¡¯s development who would know enough to give you that kind of advice. It must have been an Artonan official, but I can not fathom how you would have come to know one well enough for them to make such a suggestion. Without any sort of protective contract in place no less.¡± ¡°I just picked it because it sounded cool.¡± Alden spoke steadily, but he didn¡¯t trust himself to turn around. ¡°No. You didn¡¯t,¡± Joe said in a thoughtful tone. ¡°You¡¯re not the kind of person who thinks being a Ryeh-b¡¯t sounds ¡®cool.¡¯ For a while, I wasn¡¯t sure, because you do have a couple of qualities that suit the job. You¡¯re comfortable around other species and open-minded about vast cultural gulfs, for example. But you find the aspects of the class that most humans regard as perks tedious, and you highly value assignments you deem morally worthwhile.¡± The professor paused, then added, ¡°It¡¯s only happenstance that you got one of those from me, and you have to know that. No human who preferred rescue missions to parties would pick Rabbit. Or a skill called ¡®Let Met Take Your Luggage.¡¯ I looked up the initial English description just to be absolutely sure there wasn¡¯t some clue, and I can imagine no scenario in which someone with your personality would have selected it from the multitude of available options, unless you were advised to do it by someone you trusted.¡± Alden frantically tried to come up with a believable reason to have chosen the class and the skill¡­and he couldn¡¯t. Even if he said he wanted money, it would sound like a lie. There were Rabbit skills known to be good for that. He¡¯d picked a complete unknown. Why is Joe paying that much attention to me anyway!? He¡¯s not supposed to be so freaking curious that he psychoanalyzes every little thing. ¡°You don¡¯t have to look so nervous. Any Artonan who knows enough to recommend the skill is either my equal or my superior, and they have a strong disrespect for certain rules. I¡¯m hardly going to report someone like that. I¡¯m just surprised that they gave you something with such a specific kind of value but they apparently didn¡¯t offer you their personal protection or want you to know how to use it. It¡¯s baffling.¡± It would look that way if you assumed it was an Artonan instead of Gorgon, trying to deliver advice without being punished by his magic chains. At this point, the only thing Alden could do was steer the conversation away from how he¡¯d gotten the advice in the first place. ¡°Why can¡¯t I accept more skills and spells? When I level up and they¡¯re offered, am I really just supposed to refuse to affix them?¡± It sounded like madness. And also¡­ depressing. ¡°The Contract only forces affixations on Avowed in uniquely dangerous cases or as a last resort. I¡¯m sure you noticed it goes to great lengths to cajole people into accepting it semi-freely instead. And it¡¯s almost always successful. Every version of the System walks a tightrope, trying to maintain a certain amount of control over its planet without absolutely bleeding resources, and it only grows more complicated with every passing generation. Nearly two thousand years ago, the first version of the Contract was designed as something beautifully simple and effective. However, that¡¯s changed.¡± ¡°Effective at what?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Managing a problem that can never be truly solved,¡± Joe said vaguely. ¡°That¡¯s not a good topic for the two of us to delve into tonight. But do you remember what I said about the way Artonans generally viewed Avowed?¡± ¡°Beasts of burden, existential threats, children that should be bossed around, or gifts from the holy universe.¡± It was a hard conversation to forget. ¡°I¡¯m sure I said children in need of instruction, but your version will do. The initial idea of selecting Avowed from resource worlds was a product of minds who would view your existence as a great gift. For our planets¡ªwe only had the Mother and Artona II back then¡ªand your own. It was, and is, an arrogant point of view. One centered on Artonan needs and our assumptions about what other species should value.¡± He shrugged. ¡°But that particular point of view is the only one of the common four that assumes Avowed should both have extraordinary power and be given all the tools they need to use it as a matter of course.¡± Alden frowned at his tea. It was turning aqua as the ice melted. ¡°Are you saying the secret to ¡®extraordinary power¡¯ is refusing to accept skills. Because I¡¯m confused.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re not letting me finish. There was an initial set of around three hundred skills, designed with the fervent passion and care of those who believed they were on a holy mission to save existence itself. The designers proposed that delivering these skills to Avowed and facilitating their use should be the entire point of the Contract. ¡°But the creation and implementation of a stable, global agglomerate spell that could do everything the Contract does was¡ªand is to this day¡ªthe largest magical undertaking in Artonan history. Those dreamers who wanted a certain type of Avowed couldn¡¯t do it themselves. It was an endeavor that required the cooperation of nearly a third of the magic-capable population.¡± Alden wondered how many wizards that actually was. Artonans were, as far as anyone knew, the most numerous highly intelligent species in the universe. The Triplanets today had a population of nearly thirty-five billion. Even two thousand years ago, a third of all wizards had to be a staggering number. ¡°Do human schools ever force you to work on your educational assignments with partners?¡± Joe asked. ¡°Group projects?¡± said Alden, surprised. ¡°Of course.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t they perfectly horrible? It¡¯s rare to get a group of even four or five people to function cohesively. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s the same for humans. We¡¯re unbelievably similar. Imagine a planet-wide group project that everyone agreed must be completed¡­and then imagine that nobody wanted to complete it in the same way.¡± ¡°The ¡®Avowed are Gifts¡¯ people didn¡¯t get their way I guess?¡± ¡°Oh, they got their way. And so did absolutely everybody else. Which means that nobody got their way. And there is still today an exhausting, never-ending battle waged at the very pinnacle of wizarding society about how exactly the Contracts should be managed.¡± He sighed. ¡°It¡¯s embarrassing. Our resource worlds imagine we¡¯re soooo clever. Even the ones that loathe us think we¡¯re competently evil. And I suppose we have managed an absolutely shocking level of success given the in-fighting involved. But virtually everything about the current Systems are a result of negotiations between different Artonan philosophies. They¡¯ve got strong beating hearts we all more or less agree on, but they¡¯ve been enfleshed and clothed by a thousand different committees.¡± ¡°Is that why some of the talent names and descriptions are so¡­¡± ¡°Obscure on your planet?¡± said Joe. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s not as though they couldn¡¯t be explicitly described. But every time someone designs an interesting new skill for Avowed, someone else comes along and says ¡®If you give them that, they will hurt themselves!¡¯ And yet another person is shouting, ¡®They will kill us all!¡¯And some idiot is always off in the corner trying to convince his friends that all Avowed should look like supermodels, or have their brains turned off when they¡¯re not in use, or be able to chew through boulders with their teeth.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± Terrifying. Alden was startled to realize that he actually preferred the idea of cohesive Artonans with dark intentions to flailing politicians who might screw up his planet in a hundred different ways at any given moment. At least evil overlords would probably want Avowed to be alive and useful. ¡°Well, try not to lose sleep over it. We haven¡¯t blown anything up too badly in my lifetime. All of this was just the lead-up to the part that is of interest to you. In this day and age, due to prevailing mindsets and a widespread belief that the universe is not in the immediate danger we once feared, most skills aren¡¯t designed to be developed beyond a certain point. They have ceilings. There are different ones for every skill, but it¡¯s common for them to top out around Levels 4 through 10, as you would think of it.¡± Alden knew that already. ¡°Level 10 Skill User¡± had a certain connotation of complete mastery. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Why what?¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you let them go higher?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like that. They don¡¯t ¡®go higher¡¯ because there is no higher for them. If we focus on the skill-based classes like Ryeh-b¡¯t, then skills are¡­ah, this is hard to explain since you don¡¯t have any background knowledge¡­they¡¯re usually designed to rapidly reproduce the effect of a difficult but desirable spell.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°That¡¯s not something I¡¯ve ever heard.¡± ¡°How much of this conversation has been? Anyway, even if we just take your skill, at its most basic level, as an example, there are spells that preserve things. Obviously. It¡¯s not like I can¡¯t cast them myself. I¡¯m actually quite good at that genre of magic given how useful it is for my job. But knowing the right spell for the right situation and being able to cast it precisely when it¡¯s needed isn¡¯t nearly as easy or convenient as saying, ¡®Hey, Alden. Go pick that up.¡¯¡± ¡°So skills are just big, complicated spell impressions?¡± ¡°Very similar to that. The main differences are that spell impressions are almost always weaker than equivalently ranked skills, and they tend to be perfect duplicates of a real spell, with the casting instructions impressed onto your being so that you don¡¯t actually have to know how magic works and you literally can¡¯t screw them up. Skills are often based on spells, but they¡¯ve been re-engineered to allow the Avowed to slowly come to terms with what they are and master what they can do. More flexibility, more complex end results, much steeper learning curve. But when you reach the end of that learning curve you¡¯re done. Whatever the maximum level is, once it¡¯s reached, the skill is complete, and you have to select a new one and start building it.¡± Alden had about a thousand questions, but most importantly¡­ ¡°Do you know what the maximum level for my skill is, then?¡± Joe giggled. It was frightening. ¡°It doesn¡¯t have one,¡± he said. ¡°The original three hundred skills all still exist in one version of the System or another. The philosophical descendants of the designers make sure they don¡¯t get completely excised. I¡¯m not certain if they really believe those skills will save us all, or if it¡¯s just a point of pride they can¡¯t yield.¡± Alden already knew where this was going. But the professor¡¯s next words still sent a frisson of shock through him. ¡°Yours is number one hundred and twelve. It was hidden under a shroud of mediocrity by the factions that hoped you would never find it. It would be tragic if you uncovered it only to fall into the next trap that has been laid for you.¡± ¡°The trap is¡­taking another skill?¡± ¡°Or a spell impression. Or too many foundation points. All of the ways you would commonly wish to increase your power will only slow you down and limit the skill¡¯s growth. I¡¯ve given you all the hints you need to guess why. And you¡¯ve been a fairly good student.¡± Oh no. The look on Joe¡¯s face said this was some kind of pop quiz, and Alden had seen enough of the professor¡¯s teaching style to know that if he answered wrong the lesson would likely end at once. He had developed theories, but he considered them half-baked. ¡°My ability to do magic¡ªmy authority¡ªis wrapped up in the skill and the trait I chose,¡± he suggested finally. ¡°The skill going up a level is a result of my authority increasing. But if the System always offers rewards for leveling in addition, is it like there¡¯s excess authority? Like as I develop Let Me Take Your Luggage, part of my power is naturally wrapped up with the skill, but part of it¡¯s still unbound?¡± That made sense, Alden decided. In a headachey way. Since he¡¯d finally gotten used to the idea of authority over the past few days. ¡°So the rewards the System offers every time I level aren¡¯t exactly free gifts,¡± he concluded. ¡°It¡¯s transforming my unbound authority into a talent. Which means when I accept them, the excess authority¡­gets set back to zero. But in exchange I get powers I can actually use.¡± Joe slapped the arm of his chair. ¡°Yes! Excellent for a human. Some clarifications as a reward: your ¡®unbound authority¡¯ will never be zero, though it¡¯s usually significantly lower for Ryeh-b¡¯ts than others due to class design. It¡¯s why you¡¯re only granted talent rewards for leveling, and summoners can¡¯t usually offer them to you as payment for services rendered. Another bizarre set of complicating factors sponsored by centuries worth of politics and peoples¡¯ feelings about the different classes. Blah. Don¡¯t worry about it. ¡°Instead, wonder about what happens if you don¡¯t give the System permission to affix its little rewards when it wants to.¡± ¡°Eventually it¡¯s going to force me to do it, right?¡± ¡°The key word there is eventually. It doesn¡¯t want to take that route. It¡¯s absolutely horrible on the budget, and it¡¯s considered morally monstrous by far more Artonans than you would expect. So the System isn¡¯t allowed to force an affixation until it¡¯s exhausted all other possibilities. Instead it will let you level the skill and level it again and probably a few more times besides without taking your reward. I haven¡¯t actually seen it happen before, but from what I understand, it will resort to outright bribery right before it gives up on getting your permission and violently modifies you.¡± ¡°How does it bribe people who refuse to accept any kind of magical improvement?¡± ¡°It almost never occurs, but I¡¯ve heard it usually involves the creation of high end equipment. You asked once about accumulating a large number of refusals; I imagine something like that would be on the table, too.¡± That sounded awesome. ¡°Why don¡¯t more people do it then?¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t more people train endlessly in an effort to increase their power and then, at the moment of achievement, refuse to increase their power?¡± ¡°I mean¡­somebody has to have tried it just out of curiosity.¡± Joe shook his head. ¡°You have to consider the fact that the first thing that will happen is nothing. And the second. And the third. And only then does the System start to get concerned about the unbound authority creating a dangerous problem for the Avowed.¡± ¡°What happens?¡± ¡°A scale tips. Too much excess authority will unbalance the original skill affixation and damage it, which would result in either a gruesome and agonizing death or something much worse.¡± So maybe don¡¯t give the System a hard time just for your own amusement then, Alden thought. ¡°So, if I level and refuse my rewards and never take one from a summoner either, eventually I¡¯ll get a last-ditch bribe?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t want the last-ditch bribe. You want the thing that will, I think, come before it. With you, the System will have an additional option. If you¡¯re refusing the rewards the Triplanets would prefer you take, it can offer you the next step on the original progression path for your skill. The old one, designed by wizards who assumed you would be training with this one skill for your entire life.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± said Joe. Alden made a sound of protest. ¡°I¡¯m not an expert on the original skills. You¡¯re lucky I even recognized yours as one. It¡¯s not like it has a flashing label beside it when you¡¯re summoned. Your abilities show up here¡ª¡± he pointed at his monocle, ¡°¡ªas sets of useful data for the summoner. It shows me that you have a preservation talent. Most people experienced with the type will note that it¡¯s a little unusual. It almostlooks like it¡¯s poorly made, but it¡¯s just based on ancient tastes. No contemporary wizard would design an Avowed skill that would let you bring your full authority to bear almost instantaneously at level one.¡± ¡°It makes me too powerful?¡± Joe gave him a flat look. ¡°Aren¡¯t you optimistic? No. It just lets you exhaust every last bit of what power you naturally have at once. So that the person in charge of lab exams has to make sure you don¡¯t accidentally touch the wrong thing, pass out instantaneously, and then explode.¡± Alden felt himself blush. ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. The students didn¡¯t make anything good enough to have that effect anyway.¡± He sounded disappointed. ¡°So Lesson One,¡± Alden said. ¡°Level the skill but don¡¯t accept any rewards until I get something that looks like the start of a super old skill-specific progression path?¡± ¡°Correct. And thus, I think I have more than fulfilled the offer I made you on the first day.¡± ¡°Offer?¡± ¡°I asked if you wanted me to advance your knowledge of your skill by twenty years compared to your fellow humans. Instead, I have advanced it by several decades and levels of information access according to Artonan standards.¡±Joe looked terribly pleased with himself. ¡°Maybe I am nice after all.¡± ¡°You¡¯re nice,¡± Alden agreed absently, still a little shellshocked and worrying over the apparent irregularity of his skill. Trying to figure out how to be an Avowed on Earth was hard enough; he never once thought he¡¯d have to work out the political ramifications of his skill from a Triplanets perspective. ¡°I see why I¡¯m not allowed to talk to people about this. It¡¯s a little¡­am I going to be in some kind of trouble with other Artonans? Just for having the skill?¡± ¡°That¡¯s why I was so surprised your secret benefactor hasn¡¯t done anything to take you off the table. If I were to tell a young Avowed to pick a skill like this, I would lock them into a long-term contract the very instant they affixed it. Mostly to keep people from finding out I¡¯d done it but partly to keep one of my more panicky colleagues from summoning you into the pathof a strategically timed bullet.¡± Alden winced. ¡°I offered you a long-term largely in jest that first day. I was still trying to figure you out, and I was worried you were some kind of convoluted trick sent by one of my enemies. You were, after all, carrying one of the few talents that would help me with my problem; and you were all wrapped up like a present in that pretty coat that nobody ever buys.¡± ¡°It¡¯s because most Rabbits don¡¯t want coats for working in bomb labs, Joe.¡± ¡°Finally. He admits it.¡± Alden groaned and downed the rest of his blue tea in one gulp. ¡°I wanted the agility stats. To complement my movement trait. For superhero school.¡± ¡°Oh my stars,¡± said Joe. ¡°You¡¯re going to say something awful. I know it.¡± ¡°That¡¯s precious.¡± ¡°I¡¯m serious about it!¡± ¡°That makes it even more precious. I can¡¯t believe someone adopted such a precious little Ryeh-b¡¯t and then abandoned it to the harsh cold realities of the world.¡± ¡°What the hell? I¡¯m not a puppy someone left in a box outside the grocery store. I have plans.¡± Admittedly, those plans kept taking a beating. But Alden was sure he could put them back together. In some form. ¡°I really will adopt you if you want,¡± Joe said. ¡°As soon as I finish wriggling out of some of my problems. It would have been no trouble for me to permanently hire a B-rank before, but it¡¯s a bit out of reach just now. Maybe a year from now. After I¡¯ve had enough of a wrist slap to satisfy people, I should be able to successfully challenge the limits on my summoning rights.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­good of you. And I like you. But I really don¡¯t want to live here. I want to go home,¡± Alden said firmly. Joe nodded. ¡°I thought you¡¯d say that. You should be fine for now. Most people won¡¯t have the foggiest idea what the skill is, and they won¡¯t care as long as you don¡¯t do something insane with it. The ones who do know will almost all think it¡¯s happenstance that you ran across it, and they¡¯ll assume there¡¯s no reason to worry. It¡¯s not like it¡¯s illegal to have the skill. We¡¯re the ones who keep putting it in the pot with everything else after all. It¡¯s just a small percentage who will know and dislike it enough to make your life difficult. It will be fine.¡± ¡°For now.¡± ¡°For now,¡± Joe agreed. ¡°A couple of decades from now, on the other hand¡ª¡± ¡°Joe it¡¯s not going to take me decades to level it high enough to get the special perks, is it?¡± Alden said in a slightly panicked voice. ¡°Because I don¡¯t think I have the mentality¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know how long it¡¯ll take before the System offers it. Five levels maybe? It¡¯s just a guess.¡± ¡°Still¡­five levels could take me years. I mean, I was hoping to do three a year, but I knew that was ambitious of me.¡± One per year was more common. Two was practically a standard for Apex schools. But plenty of people never leveled at all. ¡°Endure,¡± Joe said dryly. At least two years. Just sitting around with the exact same package of talents he had now. Well, the skill would still improve as it leveled. But he¡¯d get no new low-rank skills to work with. No spells. He¡¯d be putting in all the work of someone who seriously cared about progressing their powers, but he¡¯d have almost nothing to show for it. And he wouldn¡¯t even be able to tell anyone why. If I get into a hero development program, they¡¯ll think I¡¯m slacking off. They¡¯ll expel me for lack of progress. Do I even want the super mysterious original Avowed universe-saving power? Well, when he put it that way it was hard to say he didn¡¯t. ¡°Gah!¡± said Alden, leaping up from his seat. ¡°I can¡¯t think anymore. Where is the bomb I¡¯m supposed to be delivering?!¡± ¡°So eager,¡± said Joe. ¡°By the way, there is one person I want you to tell about this conversation.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± Alden said in surprise. ¡°The Triangle of Absolute Secrecy still feels like you branded it into me, by the way. Who am I supposed to tell?¡± Joe steepled his fingers and stared down at the vat of eels writhing below them in the lab. ¡°One day, when the Primary realizes which skill you have, he¡¯s going to make your life absolutely miserable.¡± That sent a chill down Alden¡¯s spine. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°I won¡¯t tell you that. But he will eventually realize it if you achieve anything of note with it. And when the time comes, there¡¯s the most perfect way of getting back at him. Yes. We have to do it. No matter the cost.¡± ¡°Your face looks so scary right now. And the Primary is not someone I want to make mad. I¡¯m almost positive I¡¯m going to refuse.¡± Joe ignored him. ¡°When you see the endless misery on the horizon, that¡¯s the moment. Tell him then.¡± ¡°Tell him that you told me this huge Artonan secret?¡± Why? Joe acted like he was scared of the Primary. And Alden really wished he wouldn¡¯t use the phrase ¡°endless misery¡± to describe Alden¡¯s own future. Joe looked him in the eye. ¡°It will shock him.¡± ¡°You want me to tell the Primary something that might get you killed because it will shock him?¡± Alden repeated. ¡°Are you all right?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think he¡¯s been shocked since he was a teenager,¡± said Joe. ¡°It will be good for him.¡± ¡°Yeah. Okay. I¡¯ll take a moment out of my day when I¡¯m feeling, apparently, very miserable to deliver a shock. To the Primary. For you.¡± ¡°Thank you, Alden Ryeh-b¡¯t,¡± said Joe. ¡°I¡¯ll entrust you with the message. Even if he takes my head off for it, it will be so very worth it.¡± FORTY: Zero In The sun had just set, and the red street lamps were coming to life all over campus as Alden and Joe stepped into the summonarium. It was empty inside. It always was. Alden wasn¡¯t sure if summonings just didn¡¯t happen that often, or if Joe somehow booked the whole building every time. Even though he knew he should be focused on the trip ahead, Alden¡¯s mind was still reeling from the conversation they¡¯d just had. He was afraid, excited, and confused in equal measures. And more than a little overwhelmed by it all. How did Gorgon even know about the skill? Would leveling it in the way the designers had intended really be better than going for a more normal path? Or would Alden just be wasting time chasing after something different, but not necessarily better, than what he could more easily grasp? Giving up new skill selection and spell impressions for something unknown sounded like a huge gamble. ¡°What about spell instruction?¡± he asked quietly as they walked over to the runic pattern Joe always suggested they use for the trip to Moon Thegund. ¡°You didn¡¯t mention that.¡± It was listed by the System as a possible reward summoners might offer. And instruction would be different than an impression, wouldn¡¯t it? Even here, when he was fairly sure it was only the two of them, Alden found he couldn¡¯t ask the specific question about authority he wanted to ask. It was locked tight by the contract and maybe, just a little bit, by his own feelings about the answer. If he understood everything correctly¡­accumulating unbound authority meant he should be able to use it to cast spells, shouldn¡¯t he? Just like wizards did. If someone would teach him. He stood inside the pattern and faced Joe. The bomb was in a small black carrying case on the floor between them. The Artonan regarded Alden in silence for a surprisingly long time. ¡°Do you actually want to learn the sorts of spells wizards use?¡± he finally asked in an even voice. ¡°Because you can¡¯t just memorize any of the good ones by mimicking a set of actions. It¡¯s not like using wordchains; those are an ancient and simple exchange, far more similar to contracts than to modern spellcraft. You¡¯d have to start from the bottom. And magic is hard. You have some of the right qualifications for it, but the ones you lack would make it exponentially more difficult for you than for an Artonan.¡± ¡°But not impossible?¡± ¡°Probably not impossible. If you were very, very stubborn and had the necessary time and quite a lot of help. And it would benefit you in some ways. But I don¡¯t recommend you pursue it. Especially if you think you might like it. In fact, let me say that more clearly¡ªI strongly discourage you from studying wizardry. And I myself am unwilling to teach it to you.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t ask you to¡­¡± Alden wished he didn¡¯t feel a little hurt. It wasn¡¯t like he had expected Joe to say, ¡°Yes, of course, here¡¯s a list of all my favorite spells!¡± But such a firm denial still felt unexpectedly sharp. ¡°It¡¯s not because I think you¡¯re incapable. Or undeserving,¡± Joe said. ¡°Just in case that isn¡¯t obvious from our previous interactions.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°I can tell that it¡¯s not from your tone.¡± Alden glared at him. ¡°I¡¯m fine. I¡¯m just dealing with a lot of new information right now.¡± Joe sighed dramatically. ¡°If you must learn a spell to satisfy your curiosity at some point, there are a few that are simple trinkets. They¡¯re so easy that they barely even qualify, and even non-Artonans can perform them. I¡¯m sure someone will offer you one at some point and present it as true ¡®instruction.¡¯ Learn those if you like. But pursuing anything more...it would be a cruel thing to do to yourself.¡± Despite the sigh, he sounded sincere. Well, all right then. Alden wanted to ask a lot more questions now, but this wasn¡¯t the time or place. He had a job to do. ¡°What do I do if the dad freaks out, and I can¡¯t take the kids today?¡± ¡°He shouldn¡¯t,¡± said Joe. ¡°I was in touch with Thenn this morning, and she says she¡¯s had a thorough talk with him. They¡¯re growing more concerned about some of the readings they¡¯re getting on the detectors at the lab, so you look like a better option than you did a few nights ago, I imagine.¡± Alden nodded. A second later the familiar berry picking quest assignment popped up on his interface, but this time it looked a little different. [QUEST OFFER: Assist Superior Professor Worli Ro-den. Teleport to Elepta Agricultural Community, Moon Thegund, and collect marleck berries.] [Accept/Refuse] ¡°I got a refusal!¡± Joe tilted his head. ¡°You were bound to sooner rather than later, you know. You¡¯ve been very busy lately. It¡¯s not quite as clear-cut when your posting is spread across several days and events and includes sub-assignments. But my evening quests count as individuals, and the university assigning you to multiple posts is taken into consideration. You also responded to a medical emergency. The System keeps track of it all and balances things out.¡± ¡°Can I just refuse to come to the lab tomorrow morning?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I¡¯m hurt.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to do it. I was just curious about how it worked.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure the System will tell you if you fiddle around with it. But your original quest with the university is still in progress. There are a couple of different ways for them to have issued the assignment, but it probably officially started the moment the orientation meeting finished, and it won¡¯t end until the final exam is complete. Anything lab or medical team related is still on your plate for the next couple of days. If they decide to throw another party, you can refuse to participate in that.¡± ¡°Sweet.¡± Not that he would waste a refusal on something petty like that. But just having the option made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He accepted Joe¡¯s quest, and the teleport timer popped up. ¡°Would you pick up that case there for me?¡± Joe said with a smile, gesturing at his bomb. ¡°Got it,¡± Alden grabbed the case by the handle and lifted. ¡°Wow, it is kind of a strain,¡± he said, feeling a little alarmed by the sensation as he took a step back into position in the center of the teleportation pattern. There were only a few seconds left on his timer, so it wasn¡¯t like it would be a problem. But he was still surprised. ¡°Do you know the System won¡¯t let me send it on its own?¡± Joe asked in a conversational tone. ¡°You have to have permits and good reasons to teleport hazardous materials to most places.¡± That made a ton of sense, Alden realized. Otherwise System teleportation would be the perfect tool for attacking your enemies. ¡°But when you¡¯re preserving it with your skill, the System seems inclined to ignore the fact that it¡¯s a separate object. Even though it must know better! Isn¡¯t that a neat little loophole?¡± ¡°You¡¯re saying I¡¯m the ideal smuggler?¡± ¡°You are. Especially for a rough place like Moon Thegund. The contents of my case wouldn¡¯t survive the trip without you even if I did have permission to deliver bombs to Elepta.¡± How did I end up in this situation again? Alden wondered, hopping once to keep the preservation active. I¡¯m sure all the steps that led me to this moment made sense individually. But somehow he was now a person who voluntarily smuggled explosives for a criminal college professor. An instant later, the teleportation whisked him away, and he was in that place where he could feel nothing much apart from his own authority wrapped around him. He examined it as well as he could in the brief time available to him. I¡¯m still miles away from understanding. And then he was stepping out of the teleportation alcove at the farm, hitching his best confident smile onto his face to greet everyone who was anxiously awaiting his arrival.
There were six people left to rescue from Moon Thegund, and they¡¯d all come today. The woman in coveralls who always drove the armored vehicle and a soft-spoken younger man in a green lab coat that didn¡¯t look all that different from Alden¡¯s were sitting on one of the conveyor belts, popping marleck berries into their mouths while they chatted. Thenn-ar was walking around checking on the big metal bubble wands that would shield the teleportation alcove from whatever it was it needed shielding from in the event of an emergency. Her pink eyes kept flicking over to the table and chairs, where the father was having a last-minute conversation with his children. It seems all right, Alden thought, watching them out of the corner of his eye while he feigned fascination with a dusty robotic arm that had once packed fruit into boxes. The younger child¡ªthe one Alden thought was around six or seven¡ªseemed excited. The older one less so. Wouldn¡¯t it be better if I just took all three of them together? He understood that the father¡¯s primary concern was something terrible happening during the teleportation, which was why nobody had brought anything else for Alden to deliver back to Joe tonight. He wanted Alden to carry just the kids. But they were so little. It would be as easy to take all three of them as it was to carry two adults. The kids would be happier with their dad coming along, too. And that way, if something disastrous came up and prevented Alden from returning, the family wouldn¡¯t be separated. He resisted the urge to upset the balance by suggesting it. It¡¯s not like they¡¯re dumb. They¡¯re all scientists. They¡¯re smarter than I am most likely, and they know what the risks of staying are better than I do. He¡¯d finally gotten something of a handle on his position in the eyes of Joe¡¯s assistants, and it was a strange one to navigate. They were all aware that he was inexperienced, but for most of them, his words carried weight despite that. Particularly when it came to teleportation. It wasn¡¯t reasonable since Alden did not understand teleportation at all. He just stood there and let it happen to him like every other human he¡¯d ever met. He was hesitant to nudge them toward his own preferences because with the possible exception of Thenn-ar, who had a better read on him, they would all take him very seriously and have a debate about what he¡¯d said. Uh-oh. The older one was shaking his or her head now, lower lip stuck out mutinously. Alden stuck his hands in his pockets, wondering if pulling out the gifts he¡¯d brought would help or hurt the cause. He¡¯d thought it was obvious to take the whistle, the putty, and the toy Ryeh-b¡¯t from his capsule shelf this morning. They were for kids, and he was going to pick up kids. But now that he was here, the situation felt a little too serious, and he didn¡¯t want to be the kind of person who waved a bauble under a child¡¯s nose like it would distract them from a difficult emotion. I always hated it so much when people did that to me. It was okay if the family convo took a while. There was no rush. Alden had nearly three hours before his curfew back on Artona III, and the only thing he had to do here was grab a berry, grab the kids, and step into the alcove. Still trying to look like he was minding his own business, he prodded one of the tiny, squishy round things on the end of the robotic arm. Instantly, a loud zzzapp sounded. He leaped back, startled, and turned to apologize to the group ¡°Sorry, I¡ª¡± For a split second, Alden had the impression that time had stopped. He took in everything at once, and it stamped itself into his mind, clear and crisp-edged. The driver and the man in the green coat were both frozen with berries halfway to their mouths. The father¡¯s hand was resting on the older child¡¯s, and he was smiling comfortingly. The little one was kicking their feet against the chair legs. Thenn-ar was bent double beside one of the shielding devices, and all four of them were glowing and crackling with throbbing pulses of white light. Something happened, thought Alden. He wasn¡¯t afraid yet. Then Thenn-ar looked up, her face twisted in pain, and her pale pink eyes met his. She screamed something at him that could only have been an order, and before the local System had even translated it, Alden was moving. <> Alden was at the table. The father was reaching for the older child. Girl. Alden grabbed the little one and lifted her. She squealed in surprise and elbowed him, and he realized his mistake. No entrustment. But no¡­it wasn¡¯t a mistake. He had to take them both. So get them to the alcove. The big one holds the little one. Target her. Get permission. Get back. Oh right. Berry. Suddenly, it seemed like an overwhelming number of steps. But everyone was moving in the right direction. The man in the lab coat was running toward Thenn-ar. The woman in coveralls was racing toward Alden with a handful of berries. Alden was holding the little girl and running for the alcove, only half aware of the fact that she was kicking him and screaming like he was a kidnapper. Where¡¯s the other girl? He looked back and saw her staring at him wide-eyed from her father¡¯s arms. He was only a couple of steps behind. Something¡¯s wrong. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s wrong. Thenn-ar was hurt. The shield was on. Is it safe to run through it? It wasn¡¯t like there was a wall between him and the alcove. The tall bubble wand looking things were glowing but between them it looked like nothing but empty space. He stopped for a heartbeat at the edge of where an invisible barrier would be, and the father and the older daughter blazed past him. It¡¯s safe. Alden was in front of the teleportation alcove. The father was ripping the little girl out of his arms and thrusting her toward her sister. The woman in coveralls slammed a handful of crushed berries into Alden¡¯s palm. Everyone was yelling so fast that the translations were lagging and skipping. <> <> <> <<¡ªthe cursing swarm!>> <> That wasn¡¯t Artonan. The man had spoken Artonan, but the translation wasn¡¯t in Artonan or English. And translations weren¡¯t supposed to skip or lag. ¡°Something¡¯s wrong,¡± Alden said. ¡°Something¡¯s wrong with the System.¡± He didn¡¯t understand what was happening. You just zero in on your part of the job, and you let everything else go. Hannah had told him that once, when he asked her if she ever got scared during a mission. Zero in. I have to zero in. He shoved the crushed berries into his pocket. He targeted the older girl. Her sister was in her arms now. Her father was speaking, but the words were getting translation garbled into something completely unrecognizable. ¡°Come here,¡± Alden said, bending down to smile at the older girl and holding out his arms. ¡°We¡¯ll be safe.¡± Oh thank goodness. The Artonan words had just popped out of his mouth without him having to dredge them up from the depths for a change. She stared at him, unblinking, for a heart-stopping second. Her little sister had a death grip on her, and she was leaning back in an effort to hold onto her. Then she stumbled a couple of steps forward into his grasp, and he lifted the two of them. They froze, and he threw himself into the alcove, heart pounding. The notification that his quest was completed finally popped up. At least, he knew that was what it must be. He couldn¡¯t read the garbled text. It wasn¡¯t even letters anymore. The symbols in front of his eyes weren¡¯t from any language he knew, and they had gone three-dimensional and buzzy, like vibrating alien braille. But it has to be the quest notification. It always happened as soon as he got the berries. All he had to do was accept the teleport back to campus. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. ¡°Accept!¡± he shouted, arms tight on his cargo. ¡°Yes!¡± There was another loud zzzapp, and this time Alden saw what made the noise. The shielding devices flared, and for an instant, the barrier Alden had expected to see appeared. A dome of white light surrounded the teleportation alcove, sealing it and a small space in front of it in. Joe¡¯s assistants were all standing in that space. He couldn¡¯t see much beyond them. Just their backs and the harsh flare of light. It was gone almost as soon as it had appeared. Alden still didn¡¯t know what had caused the barrier to activate. He couldn¡¯t see any threat. And Thenn-ar¡¯s injuries offered no clues. It looked like her arms and chest had been burned. It seemed like something the barrier itself might have done instead of some attacker. Zero in. Focus on what I¡¯m supposed to be doing. He hopped once to keep his skill active. The symbols were still in front of his eyes. They weren¡¯t changing. Oh no. This is bad. The Moon Thegund System hadn¡¯t heard him. Or it hadn¡¯t understood him. ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said in Artonan. ¡°Yes. Go.¡± Nothing was happening. ¡°Contract,¡± he said. It was one of the first Artonan words he¡¯d ever learned. ¡°Contract, yes.¡± He hopped. He shifted his grip on the girls. They were small children and they were Artonans, but they had to weigh at least sixty pounds combined. Holding them in one arm wasn¡¯t something he wanted to try, but he needed a hand free. If the System wasn¡¯t responding to verbal confirmation, maybe poking at it would work. The symbols it was showing did look like they might be designed to be tactile. But I don¡¯t know what they say. He knew where the teleport acceptance button usually appeared in English. It¡¯s almost certainly not in the same place. But he didn¡¯t have a better idea. He reached out and had the surreal experience of grasping a floating symbol that felt like a knob in the middle of the air. It must have been designed for a species that needed that kind of accommodation, but Alden had no clue what to do with it. He pressed and twisted, then moved on to the next one, the next one. The next. Something would work. It had to. Zzzapp! Light flared, and this time, the barrier didn¡¯t disappear immediately. Instead there was another series of sizzling sounds following the first. Alden stopped trying to figure out the symbols so that he could grip the girls more securely. It was a good thing, too, because a moment later something hit them. It looked like a random fleck of trash. Just a dark, shiny shard of something that flew off the light barrier, between two of the adults, and landed on top of the older sister¡¯s head. It wasn¡¯t even moving that fast. Alden could probably have dodged it if he¡¯d been alert to the risk and aware that he needed to. It was like getting sucker punched right in the magic. If he hadn¡¯t experienced the massive skill drain that came from carrying the screaming bowl in the lab, or even just the surprise factor of Jeremy punching his carried object that one time, he would definitely have dropped them. Instead, he swore loudly and blew on the dark thing. It fluttered off the top of the girl¡¯s head like a leaf and hit one of the runes glowing on the floor of the teleportation alcove. The rune and several surrounding ones winked out. The dark thing dissolved into a puff of smoke. The children¡¯s father cried out in fear and yanked Alden out of the alcove. Okay fine. Apparently I can¡¯t teleport right now anyway. Half of the symbols had disappeared from in front of his eyes. He couldn¡¯t read his own interface. He let the man take the girls back from him and shook his arms, twisting from side to side to work out a crick in his back. The zaps had stopped, but the light from the barrier was still so strong he could barely make out the warehouse around them. The air smelled like burnt dust. He squinted, looking for more pieces of the strange debris flying through the air, but there didn¡¯t seem to be any. The father was brushing through his daughter¡¯s hair frantically where the thing had landed on her. ¡°She¡¯s safe,¡± Alden said in Artonan. ¡°My Avowed magic does safe.¡± He hoped that sounded less dumb to them than it did to him. The woman in coveralls and the man in the coat were peering through the light barrier. Thenn-ar, her burnt arms held out slightly in front of her as if she were trying to make sure not to touch them against anything, stared at Alden with a grim expression. Was she mad at him for still being here? ¡°Contract,¡± he said, making a sweeping circular motion with his arms to try to convey that he meant the whole of the System. What was the word for broken? Or messed up? ¡°The Contract here is bad now.¡± << ¡ª ¡ª .. ¡ª ->> It was a question. And she¡¯d spoken clearly enough for Alden to pick out the word ¡®everything.¡¯ Maybe she was asking if he¡¯d tried everything? ¡°Call Worli Ro-den,¡± he said in English and then again in Artonan, poking at the place in the air where he should have had been able to access his System communications panel. Zzzapp. Who else could he contact? ¡°Call LeafSong University. Call Clytem Zhao.¡± Poke, poke. ¡°Call Boe Lupescu in Chicago, Illinois. Send a text message to Bti-qwol on Artona III. Contact Stu-art¡¯h, son of the Primary.¡± Zzzapp. ¡°Contract, initiate communication with any Avowed on Moon Thegund.¡± He tried not to look panicked as he went through the motions of trying everything. He tried not to be panicked. ¡°Access Wardrobe.¡± Half of the symbols disappeared from in front of his eyes, and his heart leaped. But nothing replaced them. The Wardrobe didn¡¯t appear. Alden¡¯s hands hovered in the air in front of his face. At this point¡­there was nothing. He¡¯d tried to touch everything there was to touch. The only obvious thing he hadn¡¯t messed with was his targeting option. The halo of light was still over the older sister. He did not want to play around with that. Is targeting actually done by the System? Or is the System facilitating my own authority to do it somehow? After his lessons with Joe, he was fairly confident it was the second. But that was still a big problem. Alden wasn¡¯t sure he couldtarget someone without that facilitation. I mean¡­theoretically? Yes? It¡¯s my power, right? But maybe he couldn¡¯t do it without practice. And now looked like a really bad time to have a practice session. If he was magically locked onto the older girl at present, then he¡¯d better just stay that way. He let his hands drop. ¡°I try everything,¡± he said to Thenn-ar. ¡°The Contract here is bad now. What¡¯s happening?¡± She answered him. He didn¡¯t understand any of the words. But he kind of knew anyway. Chaos levels were a problem on Moon Thegund. They worked sort of like bad weather. The System was quirky even when it was at its best. This half of the moon was largely uninhabited. Joe¡¯s lab was here to research ¡°demonic energies.¡± We¡¯re obviously under attack by some kind of chaos monster. Some kind of demon. Or maybe more than one of them. Right before it had conked out, the System had translated the word swarm. But even though Alden got it, he didn¡¯t really get it. He¡¯d never seen a demon before. The people who called Gorgon one were just repeating a shitty joke as far as he knew. He basically had the impression that they were Very Bad Monsters that were somehow dirty¡­like, radioactive maybe?¡­because of chaos. Which was Very Bad Stuff the Artonans were always trying to mitigate in one way or another, though it seemed to only be a problem out here in far-flung places like this. It wasn¡¯t something you had to worry about on the Triplanets or Earth as far as he could tell. Hundreds of high-ranking Avowed were used to smack down Earth¡¯s annual demon allotment. It always went off without a hitch. Zero contamination, zero casualties. That was all a regular human kid knew or needed to. Oh, yeah. And the head of the Chicago Consulate got in trouble recently for consorting with a demon. Consorting implied it was intelligent. And capable of communicating. But maybe that wasn¡¯t a standard thing for the species or type of creature demons were? The way the father had acted when that little fleck of garbage had touched his daughter fit with the sort-of-radioactive theory. And the fact that it had strained Alden¡¯s skill and burned out a spot of magic on the teleportation alcove was pretty concerning. He tried to make sense of everything and build a picture of what was going on. So that black fleck is a piece of a demon. Or it was. It went up in smoke. That¡¯s a little too on the nose for the name demon. It was only a piece because the barrier must have fried the rest of it. The bubble wand barrier works like a magic bug zapper? Well, I guess that¡¯s what you would use on something called a swarm. Alden tried to decide if he would rather deal with a single giant chaos monster or a swarm of little ones. The answer was neither. But it was way harder to avoid a thousand small things than one big one. Will I die if one of them touches me? He opened his mouth to ask, then closed it again. He shouldn¡¯t say that in front of the kids. After a few seconds passed without any zaps, the barrier faded again. Thenn-ar barked an order, and the woman who always drove the vehicle nodded grimly. She dashed for the door of the warehouse and the man in green was hot on her heels. She went out through a small side door, and he stood beside a larger one that seemed to be intended for trucks. We¡¯re going back to the lab in the car? Alden was relieved there was a plan, though the idea of a long drive across the grassland through some kind of swarm of demon bugs sounded like a nightmare. But if the lab researched demon energy it stood to reason that it was better prepared to fight them or shield against them than a berry farm. He tried to decide what he could do to prepare for the trip. All he could think was that if it was like magical radiation, he probably ought to cover up as much skin as he could. The lab coat was supposed to be mildly protective against explosions. Maybe it worked on demons? Sure. Let¡¯s go with that. Something buzzed several yards overhead. He glanced up to see a black dot. Like a big carpenter bee. It wasn¡¯t attacking, just flying drunkenly. Thenn-ar was staring at it. So was the dad. They were both clearly poised to move. The children had their faces buried against their father¡¯s legs. Alden tried to keep one eye on the thing¡ªdemon?¡ªwhile he covered up. But it didn¡¯t come after them. Instead it bonked into the metal roof, gently, like a moth batting against glass. And rather than bouncing off, it punched right through and disappeared. A tiny hole was left behind, barely visible. He took a deep breath. It was better than an attack, but it was still terrifying. A swarm of lazy flying things that went through walls and screwed up the local System was only moderately better than the intelligent killer hive-mind scenario he¡¯d just been imagining. The hood of the coat zipped into a panel on the back of the neck, and Alden had been keeping it tucked away for days. He¡¯d grown complacent now that he¡¯d seen what the lab exams were actually like. He unzipped it and pulled the hood over his head. It didn¡¯t fit tight to his face, which would have made more sense to him. Instead it was deep and oversized. Joe had the weirdest taste. Alden looked like a bright red grim reaper when he pulled the thing up. The coat had an inner zipper and two rows of buttons. He sealed himself in. He wished he¡¯d brought his goggles. Why did I leave them behind? The man in the green coat did something to a panel by the big door. It opened part way, and the armored car drove into the fruit packing warehouse, its metal tires grinding against the pavement. The scientists had a very brief discussion while the driver sat in the car, frantically pushing at the dozens of buttons on her control panel. Wave after wave of light washed over the vehicle. There was a fresh burning smell in the air around it. It was obviously designed for trouble, and she intended to activate whatever safety features it had. Thenn-ar was speaking to the others harshly. The blisters all over her arms were lending her an additional air of seriousness. Alden¡¯s interface wasn¡¯t even trying to translate anymore. There were just a few random floating symbols and lights, all of them in places where they obscured parts of his vision instead of sitting in their usual minimized form around the edges. He listened as hard as he could to the conversation, struggling to understand what was going on. He didn¡¯t catch any of the words. The young scientist in green started pulling the shielders out of their stands and locking them into rings that seemed to be designed for them on the vehicle. His face was pale. Alden watched him do the first two carefully and hurried over to help with the third. There were a series of latches at the bottom of the devices. He freed one and passed it over to the scientist, who only nodded at him with a bleak expression, then he went to get the last. They¡¯d put the children in the back seats of the vehicle, and strapped them in with the harnesses. Now the father was having a hurried discussion with the driver. She was pointing at buttons and telling him what they did. Alden understood the words ¡°more,¡± ¡°less,¡± and ¡°home.¡± Something about the way it was all happening seemed wrong. He felt an unease in the pit of his stomach. He had a sense of growing dread. But he hadn¡¯t quite taken the leap to full realization when Thenn-ar stepped over to try talking to him. He handed the last shielder over to the man and turned to look at the pink-eyed leader. There was a buzzing sound coming from somewhere in the warehouse again. It wasn¡¯t where he could see it, but it made his heart race. From the start of the accident until this moment, he thought, it couldn¡¯t have been more than five minutes. Things went wrong so quickly. Thenn-ar said something. Alden didn¡¯t understand. She said it again, then she pointed from the vehicle to him, to herself, to the man in the green coat, and to the driver. She made a side-to-side gesture with her hand. Alden recognized it. Some Artonans used it to mean no. He looked back at the car. Girls in the back seat already strapped in, father in the driver¡¯s seat¡ªit had felt wrong. ¡°No,¡± he said. He wasn¡¯t sure if it was a denial or if he was repeating the idea she was trying to convey. ¡°We¡¯re not going with them?¡± He said it in English. He needed to figure out how to translate it. His brain wasn¡¯t being as obliging about that as it had been earlier. Why? WHY? The armored car was large enough for everyone if they held the kids. It was powerful. It was even taking the shields. He wanted to scream the question, but what was the point when he wouldn¡¯t understand the answer? There had to be a reason. They weren¡¯t even taking the driver. Maybe the protections would work better on fewer passengers. Maybe it was something more basic, like weight. Maybe¡­maybe any of a thousand things he didn¡¯t know. Thenn-ar was still trying to convey the message. Her pink eyes were fixed on him. Her burnt hand was flapping the ¡°no¡± sign, and she was repeating the word in Artonan. ¡°Does the car come back for the rest of us?!¡± he demanded. ¡°Or are we just supposed to stay here and die?¡± He sounded hysterical. He was hysterical. He was glad he¡¯d lost all his second language skills momentarily so that nobody could understand him. Although they probably did anyway. There were only so many responses to match the situation after all. Zero in. But there wasn¡¯t anything left to zero in on was there? How were you supposed to do your part when your part was nothing? Alden looked around the warehouse. He didn¡¯t know what he was hoping to see. Help, maybe. But there was none. He spotted his targeting halo glowing over the older girl¡¯s head. Shouldn¡¯t have worried about trying to swap it, he thought. She¡¯s not going to be around to entrust me with anything. There was more buzzing in the warehouse now. Out of the corner of his eye, Alden saw a black dot bang into one of the robotic arms, and then it drifted slowly through it. It was a slightly different shape when it came out the other side, but it kept flying. He had to keep his head. It was no good to freak out. Focus. Think. Do something. Thenn-ar must have seen that he¡¯d gotten the message. She stepped away from him to say something to the father who was about to drive away with all the safety. Including Alden¡¯s best chance of even having a skill. With his target gone, he¡¯d have nothing but Proprioception, Agility, and freaking Appeal. Can¡¯t forget the visual processing. When I¡¯m alone, I¡¯m just a semi-athletic human with nice skin and good peripheral vision. Exactly the man you want to throw at a radioactive insect swarm on an alien world! Well, as a Rabbit, his Sympathy for Magic was actually quite high, too. But it hadn¡¯t done him any favors so far. All it seemed to do was disproportionately draw his attention to shiny magic stuff that wasn¡¯t his to use. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down. He wasn¡¯t the only one staying here. All of the others were, too. He shouldn¡¯t make it worse for everyone else. Zero in. There had to be something he could do so that he didn¡¯t feel quite so helpless and terrified. He stared at the targeting halo. Right. Yes. Okay. That¡¯s something. He dug his hands into his pockets and walked toward the vehicle. Thenn-ar made a sound of protest, and Alden shook his head at her. ¡°I¡¯m not going,¡± he said, pointing at himself and the car. ¡°I¡¯m not going.¡± I understand I can¡¯t go. It¡¯s okay. I won¡¯t flip out or try to insist. It¡¯s okay that I¡¯m staying. He pulled the toys out of his pocket and held them out to the little girl who still had the glowing halo of light-that-wasn¡¯t-light floating above her head. She stared at him. Her little sister was bawling in the seat beside her. ¡°Yours,¡± he said. He wanted to say ¡®take them,¡¯ but this was the best he could do. The girl reached for the toys. Alden waited until she had all three of them clutched in her small fingers, then he said, ¡°One for me, one for you, one for your sister.¡± She blinked. Her father leaned over into the back to say something to her. She passed the Ryeh-b¡¯t model to her sister and set it on her knee when the younger girl didn¡¯t move to take it. Then she took the whistle for herself and passed the glittery putty ball back to Alden. ¡°Thank you,¡± she said. ¡°Thank you,¡± Alden said, trying to smile. He felt his skill activate. ¡°Bye. Go home safe.¡± FORTY-ONE: Chaos Everyone kept moving after the dad and his kids were gone. Alden didn¡¯t know what the plan was, and he couldn¡¯t understand ninety-five percent of the conversation around him. But it made him feel better that the scientists were taking action. They stayed in the warehouse for a few minutes, examining places the demon bugs had touched, calling out information to each other. Alden watched them intently, trying to understand. They always examined the damaged spots from at least a foot away. So maybe even touching the residue left behind by the things was hazardous. Alden followed Thenn-ar around, peering at everything she peered at and always straining his eyes and ears in an effort to detect the flying black dots before they approached. There were always one or two where he could see them now. They didn¡¯t have anything like a standard flight pattern. One would spiral toward the ground. Another would drift like it was caught in an invisible breeze. The one that scared him the most drifted for a while and then, inexplicably, changed direction and shot through the air rapidly for a few feet before drifting again. They didn¡¯t just leave holes in things. Though that seemed to be the most common result of them banging into an object, some of the spots the scientists examined weren¡¯t places that Alden would have recognized as damaged at all. A rough patch of metal, a fine smear of ash, a shiny puddle like a drop of resin on the pavement. If Joe¡¯s assistants understood anything from these signs, Alden didn¡¯t know what it might be. After about five minutes, the examination ended with them all gathering around to stare at a single tiny hole in the floor. Alden stared at it, too, noting the way the edges were jagged and sharp on one side and crumbly on the other. As if part of the concrete had started turning into chalk. After looking at it, the scientists all turned and left the building. Alden followed after them, nervous and confused. If the things punch through metal, then buildings aren¡¯t that safe. But if they only punch through sometimes, then it¡¯s still better to have a barrier between us and the outside, right? The scientists looked out over the marleck fields. The man said something to Thenn-ar and gestured toward them, but she shook her head and led the way down the packed dirt of a narrow road. Alden¡¯s best guess was that they were going to the group of farm buildings he¡¯d seen on his first evening on Moon Thegund. They¡¯d been on the other side of the enormous field. It was a long walk, and he understood why Thenn-ar didn¡¯t want to go through the bushes. It would be hard to see the small demons coming; they could drift right through a patch of leaves into your face. Even if the road wasn¡¯t as direct a path, at least the visibility was good enough. It was always the same dull yellow overcast sky every time Alden was on Moon Thegund. Nothing ever appeared from beyond the dingy, low-hanging clouds. He wasn¡¯t sure if the fact that he¡¯d never seen anything like darkness or dawn was happenstance, or if the moon had extremely long days. Maybe there was no night on this side at all. He hoped that was the case. Being here in the dark would be a hundred times worse. It¡¯s not quiet anymore, he realized as he followed the scientists down the road. Moon Thegund had always been eerily silent. But now, in addition to their footfalls, there was a low drone. And the more he looked, the more of the tiny demons he saw. Any time one approached, the scientists dodged it. Alden saw one emerge from the ground a couple of feet ahead of the man in front of him. He shouted and pointed, and the guy stepped away from it as it buzzed around a few inches above the dirt. The scientist grimaced, but he didn¡¯t look surprised. Of course. If they go through things randomly, that includes the ground. He had seen the hole in the floor of the warehouse, but he hadn¡¯t put it together. And maybe it was even worse than that. He¡¯d had a passing thought that a larger than expected percentage of the things were rising up from the grass. What if they were? What if the demons were coming from beneath them instead of falling on them from above? How could you dodge something that might just fly right through the bottom of your foot? I want my movement trait. He clenched the putty ball he¡¯d gotten the girl to give him tightly in his left fist. He still had Joe¡¯s ring on that hand, and the hand was in his pocket. One more layer of protection. If he dropped it while his skill wasn¡¯t active on it, the magic ring would hold it against his palm for a second. If he dropped it while his preservation was active, interfering with the ring, then his pocket would still be holding it. That should be enough. One of his real victories in his nightly lessons with the professor had been mentally weaving around the ¡°loss of contact breaks entrustment¡± rule that came with the skill. To start with, he¡¯d had to hold his item directly with his hands or another body part. But that had felt limiting and not quite right based on his understanding of what the skill did. After all, he was pretty sure his sense that he was touching the objects with his hands was itself manufactured in some way by the skill. He didn¡¯t think skin-to-carried-item was really what was going on, so a rule requiring apparent skin contact was just a needless complication. Despite his initial enthusiasm for altering his perception until he could do earth-shattering things with the skill, Alden had since modified his expectations. He hadn¡¯t been able to make many significant changes to the skill through the perception route. Joe assured him that it was an important thing to work on, but it was also clear to him now that it was never going to be some universe-breaking loophole for skill use. Instead, what he could manage was wriggling away from one reasonable assumption about the scope of the skill to another reasonable assumption. And then practicing it until it clicked. He thought he¡¯d had fairly easy success with the ¡°loss of contact¡± rule because it already felt like a point of confusion. If he preserved things by carrying them, then how could entrustment just end when he shoved a thing in his pocket? He was still carrying it, wasn¡¯t he? He¡¯d gotten the hang of it pretty quickly, and now he could tote preserved items around inside other things. As long as he didn¡¯t let the ball rest in his pocket while his lab coat was dragging the ground, he¡¯d still be bearing it with no help. The carriage wouldn¡¯t cease, so the entrustment wouldn¡¯t break. And as long as it didn¡¯t, his trait should work. Where¡¯s that switch inside me? That one that activates Azure Rabbit? Days ago, he¡¯d been almost positive he could turn the trait on and off without the System¡¯s help. At first, he felt around inside himself, but after a couple of minutes he decided it must not be the right tactic. Perhaps it was unnatural to look for such a literal ON button inside his own mind and body. If I was about to leap over something or duck or take any other action, I would just do it. Let¡¯s try that. He focused on the feeling he¡¯d had running to the lab that first day. The long, long jog that ate through the miles, the tiny adjustments to the way he moved until he got better at it. Take a step like one of those steps. Tweak your center of gravity. You remember what it feels like. It was hard. The demon bugs kept drawing his attention. And when he focused on his body, it made him hyperaware of the physical effects of his own fear. His pulse was too fast, his breathing shallow, his hands cold and clammy. There was a tightness in his chest like a rubber band that was about to burst. Alden Thorn¡ªDead of a Heart Attack at Age Fifteen. In a way, though, cataloging the tangible signs of extreme stress made it easier to deal with the emotions. He couldn¡¯t stop his heart from pounding like it was trying to escape from his body, but at least the feeling was solid. It gave him a different perspective to approach the problem from. If the fear was something chemical and unavoidable happening to him thanks to his own animal response to danger, then all the effort he was putting into mentally crushing it with willpower and a can-do attitude was wasted. You didn¡¯t will a physical reflex out of existence. You didn¡¯t feel guilty about it. You just dealt with it. Easier said than done, but it was better than it had been. His mind was a little clearer. I am extremely terrified of dying on Moon Thegund, he admitted to himself. I am probably not going to stop being extremely terrified anytime soon. I¡¯m a mess, and the trouble¡¯s only just started. That¡¯s¡­something I¡¯m going to want to unpack. But not here. Not until I get back home to Aunt Connie and Boe and Jeremy. Now I just need to move. He turned his attention back to how he was walking. Get the feel of it right Make the power click on. Somehow. After a few minutes, Alden grew too invested in the effort, and one of the demon bugs approached him without him realizing until it was only a couple of feet away. He leaped away from it, and there! The trait was active. He¡¯d felt it happen, like it had fallen into place through a combo of effort and adrenaline. He moved out of the demon¡¯s path and re-checked his surroundings before trying to figure out what he¡¯d done. It was like something that had been wound tight had loosened up. He tried to place the feeling inside himself, but that didn¡¯t seem quite right. The effect was very close to him but more peripheral. Less of the ¡°switch in the brain¡± feeling he¡¯d had when the System activated the skill for him and more of a¡­ Huh. That¡¯s very weird. Alden tried to come up with a metaphor for the sensation of the trait¡¯s activation so that he could make it sensible and repeatable, but the best description he could manage for himself was that it was the opposite of a feeling he¡¯d had before. That creeping sensation when you walked down a dark alley and felt like someone was watching you¡­activating the trait himself was somehow giving him the opposite of that. Why is it so different? And I didn¡¯t even know that creepy feeling had an opposite. What would you even call it if it did? The opposite of feeling like you¡¯re being spied on? The opposite of being at risk? The opposite of a privacy violation? Security? No¡­having more personal space maybe? If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. That doesn¡¯t have anything to do with movement. What is this? Not quite trusting his own senses, Alden took several steps. Azure Rabbit was definitely working, exactly the same as before. Somehow it made the ground feel more solid than it had been a second ago. But the way he¡¯d gone about making it function seemed illogical¡­and he was the one who¡¯d done it. And what was even weirder was that he still had a faint sense of the un-creepy feeling. I guess it¡¯s nice, he finally decided. Almost like it¡¯s just a little easier to exist than it was a second ago. Finding existence slightly easier is good right? Plus, he was faster now. He was falling into using the trait well, just like he had before. It was a relief to know that if one of the zippier chaos bugs pelted toward him, he¡¯d have that much more time to dodge it. The group rounded a curve in the road, and the buildings Alden had seen before appeared in the distance at the edge of the marleck field. The buzzing sound was louder now. The number of bugs was increasing. Soon, it would be impossible to avoid them. How long is this going to last? How bad is it going to get? As if in answer to his thought, the last few symbols on his interface flickered and vanished. For the first time in two weeks, Alden saw the world the way he¡¯d seen it every day of his life until he became an Avowed. The System was gone.
The first accident happened when they were only a couple hundred yards away from the square, white building that seemed to be their destination. A bug flew out of the ground right as the woman in coveralls stepped over the spot. Alden and the man in green cried out, but she couldn¡¯t move away in time. The thing darted by her, brushing against her outer thigh, and she screamed. Her friends leaped toward her, pulling her out of the demon¡¯s way, but there wasn¡¯t any need. As if passing through her skin had hurt or altered it somehow, it wisped away into smoke like the one that had touched the teleportation alcove¡¯s runes. Alden held his breath, wondering if the black dot was really gone or if it had just become particulate chaos that could get on their skin or be inhaled. In either case, the damage was done.A portion of the woman¡¯s coveralls had dissolved and the injury was not all right. There wasn¡¯t a lot of blood. It would have been better if there was. Stuart¡¯s severed foot had been disturbing, but not in a way that made Alden¡¯s stomach turn and his terror spike. The demon¡¯s touch, however, had left a line of insanity on the Artonan woman¡¯s thigh. It was partially a cut¡ªa clean understandable slice. But the rest of it¡­a vein of metallic silver streaks bled into a patch of blackened rot that turned to something that looked like fleshy sawdust. What are we even supposed to do to help her? Alden thought if it was his own skin he¡¯d want to cut it off, if only to make the wound look like a wound and not like something out of a worse kind of horror movie. I should offer to carry her. She was sobbing, leaning on the male scientist¡¯s shoulder. Alden gripped his putty ball. If he tried re-targeting, so that she would be preserved and out of pain, he could fail. He¡¯d lose the movement trait. And even if he didn¡¯t¡­he couldn¡¯t carry her forever. It didn¡¯t seem like this disaster was a short-lived problem. The bugs were getting thicker. Whatever was happening, it hadn¡¯t peaked. The risk seemed like a dumb one when he¡¯d be trading certain long-term mobility for possible temporary pain relief. Just regular carrying then? Since she¡¯s hurt, and I¡¯m the strongest. Thenn-ar was burnt, and the other scientist was holding the bomb case. ¡°I can carry her?¡± Alden said. They all looked at him. ¡°Normal carry,¡± he added hastily. ¡°No magic.¡± Thenn-ar nodded. She pointed to the woman¡¯s leg. ¡°Don¡¯t ¡ª¡ª it,¡± she said. Don¡¯t touch it maybe? Right. They avoided touching even the spots where they saw the demon damage. But what did that mean for the injured woman? Alden forced himself to let the putty ball fall into his pocket, then he lifted her, careful not to let his fingers brush against the strangely altered flesh. Still sobbing, she grabbed him around the neck and held on tight. It was so much easier to carry someone who was helping out by holding on, but he had to remind himself not to squeeze her. He¡¯d gotten a bit too used to gripping preserved things really hard, since they couldn¡¯t be hurt and he was always scared of dropping them. He was relieved when he took a step and felt his trait working. It meant the putty was still officially under his protection. He¡¯d known it should be, but still¡­ in a situation like this he was extra paranoid about getting it wrong. When he got home, and the stakes were low, he¡¯d start hauling all his preserved stuff around in a backpack to get used to it. With the added burden, Alden had to be extra cautious about avoiding the demons, but the other two helped him. He walked in between them, and they pointed out things he might have missed. Including, once, a place in the road where the hard, flat earth had a large divot in it. Anywhere else, that wouldn¡¯t have been too concerning. But Alden had previously noted that Moon Thegund didn¡¯t have a lot of variety in the terrain. He hadn¡¯t seen a single pothole in the ground during his run to the lab. When they reached the white block building, Alden set the injured woman down. She wobbled, leaning on him, and took a pen laser from inside her coveralls. It took a while, but the male scientist used it to burn off the door lock. The interior was mostly private office spaces, arrayed around a central area that served as a break room. There were tables, chairs, a kitchen, and a sofa. They helped the injured woman into a chair, and Thenn-ar went to the sink. Water flowed from it readily when she touched her hand to the faucet. She brought it over and washed the strange wound by pouring it slowly over the surface. A bloody pool formed on the hard floor. Alden had no idea what else to do with himself, so he stood guard, keeping his eyes on the three demons that were drifting around the break room. He had an impractical urge to stand on his tiptoes, as if having even that much less physical contact with the ground would save him if one emerged beneath his feet. The male scientist fiddled with the small television on the wall. It came alive with a crackle, and he ran his fingers over the touchscreen quickly, bringing up several different images. One of them looked sort of like it might have been a communications screen, and Alden gave Thenn-ar a hopeful look. ¡°Talk to someone?¡± he asked, pointing at the tv. Just because the System wasn¡¯t working, it didn¡¯t mean everything was down, did it? The Artonans were heavily reliant on magic and magical equipment, but it wasn¡¯t like they didn¡¯t have satellites. Radio, cell phone tower, smoke signals¡­Alden would gladly accept whatever kind of solution might exist out here in the middle of nowhere on the worse half of what was apparently a very bad moon. ¡°No,¡± said Thenn-ar. ¡°Maybe if ¡ª-?¡± But the man manipulating the television shook his head. He flicked away from the comm screen and pulled up a map. Alden assumed, based solely on the usual function of maps and not any ability to read the logograms on it, that it was of their current location. It was really plain as far as maps went. There were no lines to indicate the boundaries of patches of land, and there were few topographical markings. It was basically just some dots on a grey field, with a box out to the side that looked like it might be the key. Then the scientist touched something, and patches of purple, pink, and red spread across the screen. It looked a lot like a weather radar map. Mostly it was purple, but a pink blob was at the center, and in the middle of that was a small bright red dot. We¡¯re probably at the center right? In the red dot. Thenn-ar asked another question, and the man touched another part of the map. The red expanded. Then expanded again. And again. A forecast? Alden hadn¡¯t thought his mood could turn darker, but it did. The man swore. Thenn-ar closed her eyes. ¡°How many¡­?¡± Was it childish to say ¡°hours¡± when he knew that wasn¡¯t likely to be the answer? ¡°How many days?¡± They didn¡¯t respond. ¡°The red is bad? There are many red days?¡± ¡°Many,¡± said Thenn-ar. ¡°Too many,¡± said the man. ¡°Someone comes to help?¡± Alden suggested. ¡°You were someone,¡± the man grunted. Oh. Right. So that¡¯s how it is. ¡°¡ª¡ª the Contract?¡± the woman in coveralls gasped from the sofa. She was looking at Alden. ¡°It¡¯s not here,¡± he said blankly. ¡°No Contract in this place now.¡± They all three stared at him with wide eyes. They hadn¡¯t looked nearly as shocked when he told them the Contract was ¡°bad¡± earlier. And that made sense, didn¡¯t it? Alden himself knew that even if you weren¡¯t an Avowed, the System existing was a fact of life. He¡¯d never once been anywhere where it wasn¡¯t. It was like being told that something fundamental you¡¯d taken for granted had vanished from the world. ¡°No Contract,¡± he said again. ¡°Only us.¡± FORTY-TWO: Be Safe The news that the System was down hit the Artonans hard. The man, in particular, kept asking Alden questions like he thought maybe Alden had misunderstood the first half dozen. Alden plumbed the depths of his vocabulary to find new ways to express the System¡¯s complete absence. ¡°It¡¯s not here,¡± he said insistently. ¡°Goodbye, Contract. No Contract on the moon. I can¡¯t see words in my eyes.¡± His toddler talk would have been funny if the situation wasn¡¯t so dire. Thenn-ar finally said something snippy to the guy when he wouldn¡¯t leave Alden alone, and he made a surprisingly alien-sounding cry of rage. The only time Alden had ever heard an Artonan make such a noise was when Joe had introduced himself to Sophie in something approximating actual griveckcry. The man stomped off into one of the offices and slammed the door behind him. A moment later, the crash and clatter of things smashing into the walls could be heard. Thenn-ar sighed and walked over to look at the map. Alden followed her like a duckling. He had so many questions. He hated to bother her, but he couldn¡¯t stand the lack of information. He sorted through his numerous urgent queries, trying to pick ones he could ask that would have simple enough answers. Well, the map page was up. He¡¯d start with questions that involved location. ¡°Where are we?¡± Thenn-ar gave him a nod and zoomed in the map with a circular motion of her fingers. Alden watched closely. Probably it was pointless to memorize Artonan touchscreen gestures, but he would try to collect every scrap of information he could. ¡°Elepta is here,¡± she said, pointing at a dot on the center of the map, right where Alden had expected her to. It was in the middle of the glowing red circle of evil, as he¡¯d feared. He really wished he knew the words for ¡°chaos¡± or ¡°demon.¡± It would make all the things he¡¯d guessed up until now easier to confirm. Instead, he asked, ¡°Where is Worli Ro-den¡¯s house?¡± He was hoping to get a sense of the problem¡¯s scale. ¡°Here,¡± Thenn-ar said, tapping on another dot in the direction Alden decided to think of as East. It was about a third the distance from the center to the edge of the red zone. ¡°This is the ¡ª¡ª.¡± That last word must have been laboratory. ¡°Is the laboratory safe?¡± He did his best to get the new term right. Thenn-ar answered at length, then paused when she saw the blank expression on his face. ¡°More safe,¡± she said slowly. ¡°But it isn¡¯t safe.¡± ¡°Can we go there?¡± More words Alden didn¡¯t understand. Her tone sounded like a shrug, for whatever that was worth. ¡°We are not safe here and we are not safe there?¡± he suggested. ¡°Both same bad?¡± Yes, that was right. He could tell from her expression. ¡°Where is safe?¡± ¡°Nowhere,¡± she said. ¡°Where?¡± Alden insisted. He at least wanted something, just for his own sanity. She zoomed the map out again by making the opposite circular motion and stared at it for a while. She went through the forecast screens that showed the problem growing. For too many days. Finally, she pointed at a mark far, far to the west. ¡°Here,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s safe for you ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª. Maybe.¡± It was too far to walk. And those missing words were pretty important. ¡°For me?¡± ¡°Not now,¡± she said. ¡°When ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- ¡ª¡ª- ¡ª-. Then it will be safe for Avowed. If ¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª.¡± Alden fully understood the urge to go hide in an office and break things. ¡°Please,¡± he said. ¡°How do we be safe? Again?¡± Please don¡¯t give up on me. Please keep repeating it until I get it. I know it must be annoying, but it¡¯s important. And I¡¯m trying. I swear. To his surprise and utter gratitude, she kept trying. Slowly, slowly he pieced together an answer and an understanding of what was happening. ¡°Is it better to write the words?¡± she asked at one point. Alden shook his head. The written language was harder than the spoken. ¡°Talking is better.¡± She went on. He watched avidly as she swiped through the screen, using pictures when words wouldn¡¯t do. They moved out of the way of demon bugs a couple of times. Alden was almost willing to try his luck at soaking the damage from one of them with his preserved putty ball when it floated near the television. He wasn¡¯t sure if it was worth the risk. It would be bad if he just collapsed into a placid heap from overusing his skill like he had that time he tried to carry the shrieky bowl. But he really wanted the screen to keep working. Because what Thenn-ar was trying to get across to him would have been hard for him to understand even if she¡¯d been explaining it in English. The red zone would grow and grow for many days. The number was so uncertain, that Thenn-ar would not give it to him. But at some point beyond the scope of the forecast, it would begin to shrink again. ¡°Big then small?¡± Thenn-ar nodded. It would start getting smaller when ships came. Thenn-ar conveyed this with lots of pictures of spaceships. ¡°Ships from the other side of the moon?¡± Alden asked. The half that was supposedly less chaos-stricken would send aid, wouldn¡¯t they? But she shook her head. ¡°From the Mother.¡± All the way from Artona I? Yes, they were in the same solar system. Or so he¡¯d been told. But why wait for help from another planet? Joe had said spaceships were in short supply out here, but surely¡­oh, maybe I¡¯m not thinking about it right. ¡°The red place is too bad for the other side of the moon to help here?¡± he guessed. She nodded. ¡°Wizards come to help?¡± A pause, as if she had to think about it for a while, then another nod. Maybe Alden didn¡¯t have the story exactly right, but he was in the right general ballpark. Their reaction to the news that the System had vanished was so dramatic compared to their reaction when he¡¯d first told them it was malfunctioning. A buggy System must have been within the realm of their expectations, but a missing one was far, far outside it. And¡­no System meant no teleporting. For almost everyone, as far as he understood it. The Artonans could do it, but it seemed to be something of a rarity. Even Joe had said non-System transport was hard to come by, so maybe it was only the truly elite who were capable of it. And if regular people couldn¡¯t even use System teleportation on Moon Thegund, then it must be a hard place to get to. So. The people who were qualified to fix a problem of this magnitude were probably big badass wizards who did not live on a backwater like Moon Thegund. And if they couldn¡¯t teleport in, they¡¯d have to come by ship. ¡°The red place is big, then the wizards come help, then the red place is more small, then here is safe?¡± He was sort of right, judging by her expression. But not totally. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. She kept explaining. She¡¯d been snappy and all business nearly every time Alden had seen her. Always the leader, totally on top of things. But she was so patient with him now, he wanted to hug her for it. For many days the chaos zone would grow because there was nobody on Moon Thegund capable of stopping it. Eventually, the ships would come, and it would start to shrink. Thenn-ar thought the ships would arrive at the location to the west she had pointed out on the map. Then after many, many, many days the red zone would finally go away.There would be no true safety until then. This was hard for Alden to comprehend. Not literally but in every other way. He kept asking broken questions, and she never once refused to answer. ¡°More and more of these?¡± Alden asked, gesturing to the demon bugs in the break room. One of the fast ones had just punched through a wall. Frankly, Alden was surprised he, Thenn-ar and the television were all still unharmed. Are they just going to keep coming, until the entire world is made of them? At this point, Alden rather expected the answer to be yes. But slowly the scientist got across a different idea. There would be more and more of the demon bugs, until there were two or three times as many as there were now, and then eventually there wouldn¡¯t be many at all. ¡°They go?¡± Alden asked hopefully.¡°Before the ships come?¡± Yes. They would go. Only that wasn¡¯t the end of the problem. Thenn-ar showed Alden a spatter mark where one had hit the wall, and she mimed inhaling dramatically. Because he¡¯d had the fear himself, Alden understood what she was getting at. But it still horrified him so much he didn¡¯t know what to ask next. The demons were going to eventually all disperse or alter from bumping into things, and then everyone would be walking through an atmosphere full of whatever they were made of, getting it on their skin and breathing it in? Alden imagined his lungs turning into something that looked like the injured woman¡¯s leg. And he almost puked at the thought. What an unfathomably gruesome way to go. Well¡­now there was only one question left to ask. And he couldn¡¯t hold it back anymore even though he wanted to. ¡°We are dead before the ships come?¡± He hadn¡¯t moved for a while, so his preservation had faded. He was gripping the stupid putty ball so tight he¡¯d crushed it, and he could feel the tiny piece of Stuart¡¯s bone in the center. ¡°Yes,¡± Thenn-ar said, her voice cracking a little. ¡°We will die.¡± ¡°Me also?¡± Alden was right on the edge of sobbing. His self-control was shot. ¡°Maybe not. Maybe an Avowed can live,¡± she said. Then, after a moment¡¯s hesitation, she added, ¡°And ¡ª¡ª-.¡± That sounded like a name. ¡°Kibby?¡± Thenn-ar nodded. ¡°The girl you gave the ¡ª¡ª¡ª to.¡± The word wasn¡¯t Ryeh-b¡¯t, so it must have been whistle or toys. The older girl. ¡°The big girl is Kibby?¡± It wasn¡¯t quite the right pronunciation. It was probably better pronounced K¡¯-bee or Ky-be or something, but he¡¯d take what shortcuts he could at the moment. ¡°In the laboratory. Maybe. Al-den and Kibby can live. It¡¯s only a small ¡ª¡ª-. If the ships come with many _____ and they are fast. ¡ª¡ª¡ª- ¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª- ¡ª¡ª¡ª but I think it¡¯s possible.¡± She touched his shoulder softly with one of her injured hands. It had to hurt. Maybe she just didn¡¯t care any more. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said. ¡°We ¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª¡ª- you and Kibby to the laboratory in the ¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª father. But we didn¡¯t understand the problem ¡ª¡ª¡ª- until we saw this and you told us about the Contract.¡± Was she apologizing for not sending him to the lab with the girls and their father? Or maybe for not sending him instead of the father? The only thing Alden could imagine that would make the situation even harder than it was now would be if he was placed in charge of two small children he couldn¡¯t speak to, without a single adult around to explain what was happening. ¡°Will you go there?¡± Thenn-ar asked. Alden was surprised. ¡°To the lab?¡± Why was she asking? He was almost positive she¡¯d just told him his only chance of survival was there. ¡°Yes?¡± he said. ¡°If the lab is more safe, I¡¯ll go there.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s talk more,¡± she replied, flicking through the screen. ¡°Before the ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- is gone.¡± Shouldn¡¯t we check on the others? Alden realized it had been a long time since he¡¯d heard crashing sounds from the office the man had disappeared into, and the woman in coveralls hadn¡¯t spoken up in a while. He turned around, and the sight that greeted him made him shout and stumble back into the wall. Thenn-ar followed his gaze. She looked sad but not surprised. ¡°It¡¯s better to die fast,¡± she said, staring at the body of the woman¡ªher friend. Alden didn¡¯t know if she had failed to dodge one of the demons, and it had killed her. Or if she¡¯d died from the original wound, and then others had struck her body. Parts of her flesh were strangely morphed¡ªperson, plant, rot, emptiness. ¡°The guy!¡± Alden said, dropping into English again accidentally. ¡°We have to check on him. What if he¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°We should talk more,¡± Thenn-ar said. ¡°You have to go soon.¡± Alden¡¯s heart was loud in his ears. If the other scientist was still alive, wouldn¡¯t he have come at the sound of me shouting? He tried to focus on everything Thenn-ar was telling him, but it was harder than it had been. This is happening. This is really, really happening to me. And nobody is coming to save me for a long time, and I can¡¯t do much at all to save myself. He just kept dodging the tiny demons. His skin crawled. He wondered if it was his imagination, or if it was the chaos residue growing thicker in the atmosphere. Eventually, the television took a hit, and his lessons with Thenn-ar ended. She¡¯d been teaching him about day and night. Night would come, but not for a long time. A month or so. He was lucky. So lucky. With the television gone, Thenn-ar took him outside to show him the ground. They walked along the road for a while until they came to a place where the dirt looked strangely sandy. She prodded it with one of the white sprinkler sticks Elepta farm used for irrigation, and Alden watched as the ground caved in around a small depression. ¡°There will be more of this,¡± she said, pointing at it. She was still taking great pains to speak slowly, so that he could get it all. ¡°Lots of this will be everywhere soon.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said robotically. He¡¯d been stuck on ¡®yes¡¯ or ¡®no¡¯ for a while now. One for when he understood, one for when he didn¡¯t. Everything was so awful that he¡¯d actually run out of questions, and he¡¯d just started inputting the things Thenn-ar seemed to think he would need. The Artonan woman coughed, and a fine mist of blood spattered the dirt. ¡°You should go to the lab now,¡± she said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. She gave him a smile. ¡°Be safe.¡± Oh, it¡¯s funny, he realized, looking at her face. She¡¯s being funny because I keep using the word safe for everything. I should smile back. He managed it okay. He hoped. ¡°Thank you for coming, Avowed Al-den,¡± she said. Instead of standing up from her crouch, she sat down on the road. Get up, he thought. Please get up. Don¡¯t leave me all alone here. ¡°We thought nobody would come for months, but you came now. Many more of my friends would be dead ¡ª¡ª¡ª- ¡ª¡ª-. I¡¯m sorry ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª¡ª- so soon. We thought we had more time.¡± ¡°You¡¯re welcome,¡± Alden croaked. ¡°Tell Ro ¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª- ¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± She shook her head. ¡°He always. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t decipher the words of the message for Joe. But it seemed unkind to tell her that. ¡°I will tell him.¡± ¡°You should go now,¡± she said again. ¡°Be safe.¡± FORTY-THREE: The Grass Alden left Elepta Farm carrying only the few things he¡¯d brought with him from LeafSong, a pair of the irrigation sticks, and the case with the bomb in it. The sticks were Thenn-ar¡¯s suggestion. ¡°For water.¡± Alden assumed they were meant to be a backup of some kind in case the lab¡¯s water supply failed. They didn¡¯t look like much¡ªjust plasticky pipes with dome-shaped sprinkler heads on top¡ªbut he held onto them like they were precious. He¡¯d taken the bomb just because he wanted to. A childish impulse maybe, to prove that he wasn¡¯t helpless. How could you be helpless when you had a big magic bomb? For all I know, it¡¯ll blow up the second one of the chaos bugs touches it, he chided himself. This is dumb. But if the case could hold a high powered magic bomb, then maybe it could offer a little protection from the bugs. And maybe if a dumb thing was what kept Alden moving forward, then it had some value. Because he really felt like sitting down and waiting for the rescue he knew wasn¡¯t going to arrive. He¡¯d even considered eating the shard of Stuart¡¯s foot bone, just in case some kind of salvation was going to come in that form. But he thought the most likely outcome would be nothing. The second most likely would be him passing out like he had that time he¡¯d met Gorgon¡¯s eyes, which would leave him vulnerable to the environment. And the third most likely was that he¡¯d just pass whatever Gorgon had done to him on to Stuart. Which wouldn¡¯t have any positives for Alden and would make the other guy think he was crazy when the gremlin took up residence. The other possibilities ranged from instant death to triggering a helpful magical experience of some kind, but Alden knew so little it would just be a dice roll. So, instead, he held the handle of the bomb case tightly. He¡¯d let the putty mold around the hand with the case in it, and when his skill kicked in, it froze into a perfect finger-shaped grip. He found the path the armored car had taken through the grass easily. The long yellowish blades had all been flattened by the multiple trips the vehicle had made to and from the lab over the past days. It probably had an auto navigation feature of some kind, since it looked like it had traveled the exact same route every day. It¡¯s almost a road, Alden told himself. Very convenient. I won¡¯t get lost in the grass this way, and at least I can see a little. He wouldn¡¯t be able to see well enough, though. The crushed stalks were only the width of the vehicle. Any of the demon specks that changed direction quickly would still be able to blindside him by appearing out of thehip-high grass on either side. Fast or slow? Alden wondered, starting at the path before him. Fast would get him to the relative safety of the lab sooner, maybe before the numbers of the chaos bugs became too overwhelming. But slow might help him avoid crashing into them. He didn¡¯t want to find out how well being an Avowed was really going to protect him from something that had killed Joe¡¯s assistants so easily. Thenn-ar didn¡¯t seem like someone who would have given him false hope. He had some kind of survival advantage. He just didn¡¯t know how much of one. Slow, he decided. Slow and careful. He took a decisive step onto the path of crushed grass and heaved a sigh of relief when nothing terrible happened to him right away. He traveled at a stroll, keeping his eyes wide open, trying to see every flying hazard and anticipate its moves. A couple of times, his movement trait saved him. Once, he sprang over a patch of crumbled ground instead of turning aside into the grass. Another time, one of the bugs flew at him swiftly and he managed to leap away from it just before it would have touched him. Are they bugs? Or something else? They almost all seemed to buzz like bugs, though Alden only rarely caught a glimpse of a blur around them that he thought might be wings. Thenn-ar had shown him a graph of the life cycle of something that looked like a pretty normal locust, and she¡¯d gone on at length about them. But Alden wasn¡¯t sure if that was a metaphor to explain what the demons were like, or if it was actually what they were. Maybe high chaos levels change the bugs that naturally live here? And they turn into this? It was just a guess. So much of what he thought right now was just a guess. He hated it. He¡¯d been walking for nearly twenty minutes before he finally had his first incident. The black dot shot out of the grass to his right, and though he saw it, he hesitated before trying to dodge. They were getting thicker. He didn¡¯t want to jump out of one¡¯s path into another¡¯s. It smashed into the sleeve of the lab coat. Alden swore and spun away from it too late. A puff of black ash went up from where it hit, and he held his breath. For all the good that¡¯ll do. He waited for pain, but he felt none. Pulse throbbing in his ears, he looked down at his arm. He¡¯d already had a few talks with himself about how he was not going to have a freak-out here, in the grasslands, if he took an injury that looked as horrific as the ones he¡¯d seen on the Artonan woman. He wouldn¡¯t lose control until he was somewhere safer. But such an immense wave of relief washed over him when he saw nothing but a small melted-looking spot on the sleeve of the coat, that he knew he¡¯d been lying to himself. If his arm had turned into a mass of rot and fleshy sawdust, he would have completely lost it. ¡°You¡¯re the best magic lab coat in the universe,¡± Alden whispered, staring at the melted patch. ¡°I love you so damn much. I can¡¯t believe I ever criticized anything about you. Joe¡¯s right. You¡¯re gorgeous.¡± I swear, when I get home, I¡¯m going to buy another one. Best million dollars I¡¯ve ever spent. It was also the only million dollars he¡¯d ever spent, but that hardly mattered. New plan. If we have to take a hit, we take it on the coat. Up until now, he¡¯d been debating coat vs. preserved putty as the ideal shielding material. He knew his skill could protect things from the demon bugs, since it had protected the girl called Kibby from a flying piece of one, but that had been hard on him. This was better. He was almost tempted to increase his speed now that he knew the coat worked. But though he was itching to get out of the grass as fast as possible, he resisted. Over the next hour, based on his estimation since he no longer had any way of telling time, he took three more hits on the coat. Two against his back that he couldn¡¯t possibly have dodged. One more on the side of the hood that he probably could have, if he hadn¡¯t had the hood up. It was so deep it decreased visibility, but Alden thought it could be forgiven since it also prevented tiny demons from drilling into his brain. They could be friends with you, gremlin. He was tempted to cast a wordchain just so he could sense the thing complaining about it. He hadn¡¯t felt this alone in a long, long time. The fifth chaos bug went through the bottom of his foot, exactly as he¡¯d been afraid of from the start. Strangely, he didn¡¯t know where he¡¯d been hit at first. It wasn¡¯t that the demon¡¯s touch didn¡¯t hurt. It did. But the hurt wasn¡¯t localized. It wasn¡¯t even pain in the sense of the word he¡¯d always known. It was far more similar to the sensation of his skill being exhausted¡­only instead of feeling worn out, it was like that invisible part of him was suddenly boiling. For a few seconds, Alden stood there, gasping and enduring, and then it was over. He felt worse. Unsettled and like he¡¯d been shifted slightly out of some natural alignment. But he couldn¡¯t feel any injury on his physical body. He took a step and realized his right foot felt off, like there was something wrong with his shoe. He checked his surroundings, then, dreading what he¡¯d see, he set the irrigators down briefly so that he could lift his foot and look at it. There was a round hole about the size of a nickel in his shoe, right beneath the ball of his foot. And a patch of sock was missing, too. His skin looked completely unharmed. He poked his exposed foot with a finger. Feels totally normal, he thought with relief. Good. Go me. He picked the sprinkler sticks back up and kept walking. All right, so that¡¯s what happens. It¡¯s a really gross, bordering-on-agonizing sensation. But it doesn¡¯t last long. And I seem okay-ish now that it¡¯s over. Theories? Thenn-ar had said Alden might survive because he was an Avowed. So obviously that was the reason for the difference in his reaction to the demon¡¯s touch compared to the assistants¡¯. But why was it different¡­? Brushing it off as an, ¡°Avowed are more powerful than regular people!¡± thing was unsatisfying. If something about himself was going to keep him alive in this mess, then Alden wanted to understand it. So that he could keep doing it. Or do more of it. He wanted to for-sure survive. Not maybe. Being an Avowed is better. Why? Not just being an Avowed. Kibby might be able to live in this demon-infested world, too, according to the scientist. Alden had asked the obvious question about why that was, and he¡¯d gotten the obvious answer. The girl was a wizard. ¡°A small wizard,¡± Thenn-ar had said. Alden didn¡¯t think she meant size. It seemed more likely that Thenn-ar had been trying to tell him the girl was a weak or inexperienced wizard while working around his limited vocabulary. Alden guessed wizards didn¡¯t have to be born to wizards just like Avowed didn¡¯t have to be born to other Avowed. So little wizard and me. We might live. Magic¡ªor authority?¡ªoffers protection from demons. I¡¯ve heard demons come from chaos dimensions. They are chaos? Or chaos-adjacent? They ooze chaos? Crap. He wasn¡¯t quite sure. The Artonans were jerks for knowing a problem this bad existed in the universe and not making it a mandatory part of Earth¡¯s elementary school education. It wasn¡¯t like the knowledge had ever been relevant to his life until this evening, but Alden wasn¡¯t feeling very charitable at the moment. Assuming ¡®chaos¡¯ is even a good translation for what¡¯s happening here, then its opposite is ¡®order,¡¯ right? Being a wizard or an Avowed gives you an advantage because¡­ He was drawing a blank. Being more orderly than regular people wasn¡¯t a particularly solid idea to hold onto. He stopped walking, waiting for a large group of demon bees to clear the path, and he tried to keep his eyes pealed for incoming threats while pulling every single scrap of information he knew about being an Avowed to the front of his mind. The best word for it isn¡¯t order, he realized. It¡¯s stability. ¡°The System told me so itself,¡± Alden said, surprise and gratitude rushing through him. On top of everything else that had happened, the words had been brushed aside, but they remained in his memory, stored in his own personal Holy-Wow-I-Just-Became-An-Avowed! file. Everyone was always so hung up on what the Artonans were doing with the Systems. Why did they create them? Why did they offer to share them with other planets? Why did they even want to make Avowed? Why? Why? Why? It was a Big Mystery. But around eleven Earth days ago, the System had actually told Alden at least one of its purposes. Outright. Plainly. And so casually that he had assigned it almost no importance. It was talking about integrating itself with whatever weirdness Gorgon did to me. It was saying the two of them wouldn¡¯t have much trouble getting along with each other because they were similar in some way. How did it put it? ¡°The presence is exerting a stabilizing effect on your existence, which is also one of my functions.¡± So, by becoming an Avowed Alden had been stabilized. And apparently even before that, he¡¯d already been granted additional stability by Gorgon. And what they stabilized was my existence. Existence. It wasn¡¯t something he spent a lot of time thinking about. Part of existing was taking the fact that you did for granted, right? Avowed weren¡¯t immortal, without a lot of healer intervention, so the System couldn¡¯t have been talking about keeping him alive. It had been talking about¡­keeping him Alden? The chaos bugs hit objects or normal people and they changed them. A hole here, a gruesome transformation there. Maybe they were like big reality-altering germs. And as someone who was stabilized¡ªextra stabilized really¡ªAlden wasn¡¯t as easy to alter. So maybe my most important superpower, in a nasty place like this where chaos exists, is that I¡¯m super good at staying me? Yesterday, he would have said being extra reality-locked compared to others was the dullest talent he could imagine. But right now? ¡°Heck yeah,¡± he muttered, weaving in between two demons and lifting his bomb up to clear a third. ¡°I don¡¯t need the flashy powers. Give me more of the chaos immunity package, please.¡± He wondered if his ability to teleport without as much interference as a B-rank was supposed to feel was somehow related, too. I need to buy Gorgon more crickets. He seems to like them. Now all he had to do was figure out how to exist better. ¡°That¡¯s what it was,¡± he realized. The demon bees didn¡¯t react any differently when he spoke aloud, so he might as well. ¡°That must have been what I started feeling after I activated the Azure Rabbit trait.¡± He¡¯d thought it felt like he''d somehow expanded his own personal space. And several other less-apt descriptions. ¡°Well, of course I couldn¡¯t wrap my brain around it. Who has language for existing harder than you were a minute ago?¡± Probably the Artonans. No wonder Joe couldn¡¯t define the thing he called ¡®authority¡¯ or ¡®dominion¡¯ properly for a human. Apparently the guy could feel his own position in reality and flex it like a bicep. So¡­it¡¯s neat to finally understand it on a deeper level. Now what do I do with it? Keep the trait active, since it seemed to help. Try to find some other way to expand the personal space sensation more. ¡°I will get right on that. Eventually.¡± For now, he needed to focus more on his walking. The demons were getting thicker. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. They became more unavoidable as he went. He got hit by several. Most spattered against the coat. A couple crashed into the bomb case, which took the damage just as well as the coat did fortunately. One went through Alden¡¯s calf, turning an inch-wide section of his jeans into dust, and another smacked off the back of his hand. Both times he had the awful jarring sensation, and then he recovered. But the second time his trait cut out briefly before wobbling back to its usual functionality. Careful, careful, he told himself, trying to see and interpret the path of every flying black dot at once. They¡¯re damaging you somehow. Just because you can¡¯t feel where the limit is, that doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s not there. The endless grass was starting to change as time passed. It was looking a little ragged in most places. There were lots of rotted, curled, or severed blades. And a few hours into his journey, Alden started having pay more attention to the ground. There were potholes now. And more of the sandy patches Thenn-ar had told him to watch out for. To his surprise, the ground hadn¡¯t collapsed directly beneath him yet, but once, a hole a couple of feet deep opened up right behind him, like it had just missed its chance to trip him and send him stumbling face first into a demon. Not dead. Not yet. He continued on. A new sound joined the incessant droning at some point. Alden was so intent on staying on his feet and away from the flying hazards, that it might have been going on for ages before he noticed it. And even after he did, he was just so exhausted that it took him a while to register the importance of it. A high tweeting sound, then a pair of low ones, then some high ones again. Like a confused songbird. He didn¡¯t start paying attention to it until it was pretty loud, and when he finally did¡­ Oh, he thought. Oh, that¡¯s bad. It was the whistle he¡¯d gotten from the doctor¡¯s office. It made a slightly different sound every time you blew it. The kids and their dad didn¡¯t make it to the lab. They should have. Hours ago. The armored car was fast. For too long, Alden just stood there, idly ducking and stepping aside whenever he needed to. He tried to tell himself he was analyzing the situation, but he knew that wasn¡¯t it. He¡­was afraid to deal with it. He wasn¡¯t sure what he would find ahead, but he was sure it would be horrible. And it would be hard. And it would be his to handle. And he wasn¡¯t even handling himself that well right now. He was hanging on by a thread. I can¡¯t do this. I can¡¯t. I don¡¯t want to try harder than I¡¯m already trying. A demon bug crashed into his shoulder and fizzled away against whatever protections were made into the coat. ¡°You coward,¡± Alden whispered. ¡°Why did you want to be an Avowed anyway?¡± He remembered. His own dream felt really distant from him at the moment, though. Dimensions away. And maybe too naive. So what? You¡¯re just going to leave them in whatever trouble they¡¯re in? You¡¯re not even going to look? No. That wasn¡¯t it. He couldn¡¯t live with it if he did. Or he didn¡¯t want to be the kind of person who could live with it. One or the other. His motivations were blurrier than he had ever realized. But at least they were still strong enough, just barely, to make him start moving again.
The car had fallen prey to the unstable ground. A ditch several feet deep had appeared. The car wasn¡¯t stuck in it, but it must have hit it at a wrong angle and a high speed. There was a deep gouge in the ground, and it had rolled once, crushing some of the grass. It lay on its side now. Only one of the shielding devices was still sending out pulses of magic to fry the demons, and since it didn¡¯t make a full dome on its own, the vehicle didn¡¯t really have its protection anymore. Despite all of that, it looked surprisingly all right. It wasn¡¯t dented or pocked with nearly as much chaos damage as Alden would have expected, given how long it had been out here immobile and vulnerable. It was obviously made of tough stuff. And the whistle was still chirping every now and then, like someone was playing with it. As he approached, he felt hopeful that it might not be as bad as he¡¯d dreaded. ¡°Hello?¡± he called in Artonan, jabbing at the ground ahead of him as hard as he could with the sprinklers, trying to figure out where any soft spots might be. ¡°I walk very slow, but I¡¯m coming!¡± The whistle stopped. Had they heard him? ¡°Hello? This is Alden. The Ryeh-b¡¯t.¡± That wasn¡¯t an intelligent thing to say. Who else would be here in this forsaken place, speaking bad Artonan and heading to the lab? He prodded a spot, and the sprinkler sank way too far into the soil. He worked his way around it carefully. Maybe this was the reason the father and daughters had been sent on their own? Was it an attempt to lighten the heavy vehicle to reduce the chances of this kind of accident? The magic whistle screeched. Several times. And then it made a deep belching sound that must have been the extra-loud version of its lowest note. ¡°I¡¯m coming!¡± Alden said again. Chirp. Chirp. CHIIIIIRRRRP. The dad¡¯s not answering. Normally an adult would answer. Sticking to the whistle felt like a little kid thing to do. Alden finally crossed through the ditch that had toppled the vehicle and made his way over to it, taking it on faith that if the dirt right below the overturned car could hold the huge chunk of metal, it could hold him, too. He went around to the front, feeling vulnerable when he had to pass through a thick thatch of uncrushed grass, and peered through the windshield. Oh. It is as bad as I thought after all. The car was largely undamaged, but not completely. There was a small puncture in a window, and a large hole was cut through one corner of the roof. Alden couldn¡¯t imagine how that had happened, unless one of the bugs had been unusually potent or unusually massive. The father and the youngest girl were gone. He wasn¡¯t sure how they had died, but he assumed there was plenty of chaos everywhere now. Either from the demons changing as they smashed into things or it was just¡­naturally occurring. It seemed like some terrible miasma in this place must have given birth to the disaster. Maybe that was even what Thenn-ar had been trying to get across when focusing on the dangers of the air. Neither body had a visible dramatic wound, like the ones Alden had seen on the woman in coveralls. They were just very obviously dead. A little blood here and there, an almost translucent grayness to the skin, the stillness of their pose. The father had freed himself from the harness and climbed into the back with his daughters. They were all sitting there on top of one of the doors, huddled together. The older girl was still sitting with them, holding her sister¡¯s hand while she blew on her whistle and stared at Alden through the glass. Oh my god, he thought, tears stinging his eyes. She¡¯s been with them like that for hours. What was he supposed to say? Did she even know? Did she understand that they were gone? ¡°I¡¯ll get you out,¡± he said in English. He didn¡¯t want to make any promises in Artonan until he knew what the next few minutes would be like. ¡°It¡¯s going to be okay. Hang on.¡± If the doors are locked, I don¡¯t know what I¡¯ll do. Try to get her to open them from the inside? Go to the lab and get something to cut through it with? Hope a demon punches a hole in exactly the right spot for me? It was an armored alien vehicle. It wasn¡¯t likely that he could just kick out the windows. Alden set aside his bomb and the irrigators and tucked the putty into his pocket. While he clambered up the side of the car to try the door handle he was already assuming the worst. He tried to think of how to tell the the girl that he was going to have to leave for a while to get equipment from the lab. But maybe fate had decided they¡¯d both been punished enough for one day. The door wasn¡¯t locked. The car was built like a tank, and the door was so heavy that Alden had to commit to a precarious angle and use his whole body in the battle to yank it open. But he managed it with only minimal damage to himself¡­caused by falling off and landing flat on his back in the grass. The wind was knocked out of him, but that didn¡¯t prevent him from scrambling up in a panic to make sure he wasn¡¯t about to get zinged by half a dozen bugs. The girl had stopped whistling to watch him work. As soon as he disappeared from sight, she started back. Alden stood back up. His trait was gone. The putty ball was in his pocket again, and he¡¯d lost preservation on it at some point. Probably during the fall. Is she still targeted? He hadn¡¯t seen the halo over her head. It must have been a System-generated assist, as he''d feared. Well, it doesn¡¯t matter right now. He had to get her out of the car, away from her dead family, and back to the lab either way. Without crying himself and traumatizing her more. The whistle was still chirping. Alden cleared his throat. ¡°I¡¯m coming! I¡¯m safe!¡± he said in Artonan. I wonder if she thinks the whistle is the right way of calling me. It would make sense if she did. He¡¯d given it to her just as everything went wrong. And it was a magic whistle. And he was an Avowed. Maybe I¡¯m reading too much into it. He didn¡¯t know what to do. It was pretty important to say things gently given the situation. And while he could communicate that they would be going to the lab together and leaving the father and sister behind, he couldn¡¯t do it eloquently. ¡°Your family is dead. Come with me,¡± worked, but it was so cold and harsh. He needed her to trust him. And he wanted to make it better for her. Even if only a little bit. ¡°I¡¯m coming!¡± he said again. ¡°I¡¯m safe! We¡¯re safe!¡± Maybe I could¡­ Probably it wasn¡¯t the right thing. But it felt better than nothing. And it would help him push through the last few miles to the lab, too. He climbed back up on top of the car and lowered himself into it. He sat awkwardly on the side of the front passenger seat and braced himself with a leg. It was nice that the car was still offering some protection. There weren¡¯t any bugs inside right now. ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Alden,¡± he said. She knew already, but a more formal introduction seemed necessary. ¡°Are you Kibby?¡± Her face was swollen, wet, and snotty. ¡°Y-yes.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to the laboratory together,¡± said Alden. ¡°We¡¯re safe together.¡± Her grip tightened on her sister¡¯s hand and she pulled the dead girl¡¯s arm up toward him, as though telling him to take her. Oh, shit. Hold it in. Don¡¯t lose it, Alden. ¡°We¡­¡± His voice was a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. ¡°Let¡¯s say a wordchain together. Yes?¡± He didn¡¯t know if wordchains were a significant ritual in her family. But they purportedly were to at least some Artonans. And more importantly, the words were pretty eloquent, and he had them memorized. It would sound less clumsy and callous than anything he could come up with on his own, and since it was a common minor wordchain, she might have heard it before even if she hadn¡¯t learned it herself. Alden closed his eyes and made the hand signs. He tried not to ruin the solemnity of the moment by letting his voice shake. ¡°My heart calls out to another in good faith. Spare me a portion of your mind¡¯s ease in this hour when my own mind is troubled. Tomorrow, I will grant another an equal comfort of mind.¡± He¡¯d gotten really good at Peace of Mind. It locked in on the first try, and he felt like someone had taken a small weight off of him. Kibby stared at him. She¡¯s big on staring, isn¡¯t she? I wish she¡¯d talk a little more so I knew what was going on in her head. ¡°Will you say it for my _______, too?¡± she said. The word wasn¡¯t the one Alden knew for father, but he thought that might have been who she meant, since she¡¯d gestured at him. Maybe she thought the peace of mind chain had been for the little sister? Like a prayer. ¡°Yes,¡± he said.He repeated the chain again, deliberately messing up in tiny ways he hoped she wouldn¡¯t be able to detect. He didn¡¯t know if Peace of Mind would double on itself, but he knew that if it did, accepting twice the backlash in a few hours would absolutely flatten him. Since he was doling out false blessings anyway, when he got finished, he pointed at Kibby and said, ¡°I am saying one for Kibby, too. Then we are going to the lab together.¡± She nodded. Alden performed the chain a third time, then held his hand out toward the girl. She reached back, and his skill activated as he lifted her. She was still his target. Whatever part of his power was locked onto her had stayed locked even without the System¡¯s help. Oh thank you, thank you, he thought, waiting a second for the preservation to deactivate so that he could boost her up and out of the car. We might be able to get through this. # Alden carried the bomb in one hand, the irrigators in the other, and a frozen Kibby on his back. He¡¯d debated taking the one functional shielding device, but it looked like it was on its last legs anyway. And it was heavy. For a long time, he just kept placing one foot in front of another, enduring the occasional strikes from the bugs and moving on. It was harder when one hit Kibby. He didn¡¯t know why, and it didn¡¯t matter. It was just one more mystery to tuck into the back of his mind for a better day. When he finally crested the edge of the depression in the ground that held the massive laboratory complex, he was so happy he almost wanted to runtoward it. It was better here. There were still demon bugs buzzing around everywhere, but only a fraction as many as Alden had been dealing with for the past few hours. Alden didn¡¯t know if it was magic or if the lab had been built in this crater because it provided some kind of natural protection. But it was a chance. ¡°Look at this, Kibby,¡± he said as he strode toward the lab. He¡¯d been talking to her for a while now, even though she couldn¡¯t hear him. It was keeping him together. ¡°We¡¯re going to live here for a while. And we¡¯re going to survive a demon storm. And we¡¯re going to be okay.¡± He hopped sideways to avoid a bug. His coat was starting to look worse for the wear. He didn¡¯t know if it could take many more hits. ¡°Today is the worst day of your life, I know. And it¡¯s got to be the second worst day of mine. But as long as we¡¯re still alive at the end of it, stuff eventually gets better.¡± He followed the crushed grass path all the way to the wall of the circular perimeter building. He didn¡¯t know how to open the underground ramp that let the car in and out, so he turned aside into the grass. It wasn¡¯t ideal, but he had to get to one of the exterior doors. He only had to go about a hundred yards before he found one. ¡°We stay alive. Help comes. I go back home to Earth. You go to Artona III to live with all your old friends from the lab. That¡¯s the plan.¡± The door opened for him easily. Maybe locks just weren¡¯t much of a necessity when you lived in a place like this. He stepped into one of the mudrooms he¡¯d seen on his last trip here. It looked completely unharmed. When he stopped moving, the preservation on Kibby dropped, and he crouched to let her slide off onto the ground. She stared around at the room in shock and then looked back at Alden. She said something rapidly in Artonan pointing from him to the room. He smiled at her. ¡°Sweet, right? From your perspective the trip was easy-peasy. One minute you¡¯re there, the next you¡¯re here. I¡¯m jealous.¡± She might have even thought he¡¯d teleported them here. ¡°Home!¡± he said proudly in Artonan, pointing at the walls around them. ¡°Me and you are safe now!¡± Maybe it was a lie. But it was a lie they both needed. FORTY-FOUR: Request for Insight REQUEST FOR INSIGHT
Contract III to Contract Earth, requesting insight into survival chances for one Avowed under your jurisdiction. Name: Samuel Alden Thorn Last confirmed status: Teleport approved to LeafSong University, Artona III, from Elepta Agricultural Community, Moon Thegund. Teleportation cycle initiated by Contract III. Initiation by Contract Thegund unknown. Likely statuses: Death due to teleportation failure ¡ª 46.3% Death due to ongoing corruption incident on Moon Thegund ¡ª 22.7% Alive in need of rescue ¡ª 18.4% Death due to physical injury ¡ª 6.1% Other ¡ª 6.5% Survival Predictions: Based on Avowed rank, talents, experience, and availability of resources at last known location, survival chances will drop below the 1% threshold in 270 of your hours. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. No special measures on behalf of this Avowed are indicated. No special measures will be taken. Estimated time to arrival of capable rescue at last known location is 8-14 months. Likelihood of survival until rescue is 0.00003%. Is additional insight available?
Contract Earth to Contract III, additional insight available: Avowed Samuel Alden Thorn¡¯s survival likelihood in a Thegund Class corrupted environment exceeds the average for a new Avowed assigned B-Rank, due to enhancements in place prior to acceptance of Contract. Nature of enhancements qualifies as private information and inherent advantage under Clauses 4 and 102. Suggested adjustments to your predictions: Survival chances should drop below the 1% threshold in approximately 1,803 hours. Likelihood of survival after eight months is 0.0007%
Adjustments acknowledged. Analysis completed. Inform next of kin of status. Assignment to be listed as Supply Transport. Location to remain unlisted. Avowed Samuel Alden Thorn Official Status: Missing on Assignment, Irretrievable due to Teleportation Failure Status will be adjusted in 1803 Earth hours to: Missing on Assignment, Presumed Dead due to Teleportation Failure Death will be confirmed upon resolution of corruption incident on Moon Thegund. Avowed¡¯s Argold to be distributed to next of kin at that time. Death compensation to be provided by LeafSong University at that time. FORTY-FIVE: Start Staying alive in a place that didn¡¯t want you to was an endless string of chores. For the first several days at the lab, Alden spent every waking moment trying to organize and figure out how to do completely basic things. Like eat and bathe and sleep without having his brain run-through by a demon bug. On Day 10, he woke up inside the bedroom he¡¯d made for himself. He checked the clock he¡¯d stolen from the wall in the rec room and marked the time. It rolled over about every twenty-six hours, keeping time according to Mother Planet and Artona III standards. Alden was counting days and sleeping according to a human schedule to stay sane. ¡°Still alive,¡± he said, his voice echoing. His bedroom was set up within a large vault in the main lab building. Alden thought it was probably a cage for some kind of extra-dangerous summons. It had white metal walls and a floor so coated in runes it made the summonarium on the LeafSong campus look plain. And the only way in or out was a door six-feet thick that opened with a touch panel from the outside. Which Alden couldn¡¯t use. He kept it opened just far enough for himself to come and go, and he¡¯d wedged it with so many metal bars and pipes that the only way it could shut on him was if Kibby finally had enough of his nonsense and decided to off him in his sleep. She left again, he thought, taking in the child-free room with frustration. Even after I explained to her why we ought to stay in here as much as we can stand. Not a single bug had ever punched through the vault. Even though the lab was so much safer than the surrounding area, it was still slowly being riddled with damage.Signs of intrusion were everywhere if you knew how to look for it, and though he only saw a handful of the small demons buzzing around indoors each day, a handful wasn¡¯t nothing. He had to sleep. He couldn¡¯t watch Kibby while he slept. She was supposed to stay with him here in their creepy-cozy vault asylum. He¡¯d let her absolutely fill the place with toys and other odds and ends she¡¯d brought in from all over the lab, hoping it would keep her entertained when they couldn¡¯t rest at the same time. But she still disappeared on him constantly. He rolled off the mattress he was using for a bed and dressed himself in clothes he¡¯d found in storage in the room that had once been Joe¡¯s. The guy was tall for an Artonan, and they were the only clothes that weren¡¯t too tight. Wizard pants and turtlenecks made up the bulk of Alden¡¯s outfits now. Joe had also left behind a single Hawaiian shirt that must have been a gift from one of his contractees. It was green with huge pink hibiscuses all over it. Alden had decided to save it for special occasions. There was a full bathroom with a shower in the main lab, and Alden followed the line he¡¯d laid out on the floor in tape to get to it. The lab was magically booby trapped. Maybe. Alden didn¡¯t know how the traps were triggered, but Kibby claimed she did. Either Joe didn¡¯t mind having kids running around while he was experimenting, or in the time since he¡¯d been gone, the assistants had decided it was fine to let her. On Alden¡¯s second day here, when he¡¯d been dragging her around to catalogue every inch of the facility, she¡¯d insisted this particular winding path was the way you had to get through the main lab. So down the tape went, and Alden followed it. He kind of hoped she was just messing with him. It was going to be one heck of a practical joke if a few weeks from now he found out she just thought it was funny to watch him weave around random floor tiles. As he did every morning, he thanked the faucet for coming on and the toilet for flushing. His irrigation sticks were tucked safely in the vault, where he hoped he¡¯d never ever need them. ¡°Kibby!¡± he shouted. ¡°I¡¯m awake!¡± She might not have been around to hear him. Or she might have been ignoring him. She¡¯d probably appear soon, though. The little girl hated the vault, but she seemed to enjoy following Alden around and watching him do stuff. First, water. Every day, partially to make himself feel better, he added to his growing collection of bottled water. He¡¯d found loads of storage containers all over the facility. Today he selected some large glass jars with strong seals on the lids, and after washing them with a removable shower head over and over again in hopes that any undetectable chemical residue would be taken care of, he filled them to the top and hauled them into the vault. He set them beside all the other jars, bottles, and even a couple of small plastic barrels he¡¯d filled so far. How long did water last in containers? Alden didn¡¯t know. But if it became necessary, he¡¯d boil the heck out of it and hope for the best. Second, food. He¡¯d squirreled away a couple of wheelbarrows full of dry goods in the vault, but that, too, was for emergency use. He headed across the compound, sneakers crunching on gravel as he made his way to the residential section of the perimeter building. He¡¯d repaired the damaged soles of his shoes with something that looked and acted like a hot glue gun. He hadn¡¯t gotten it quite right, but the patch was holding up pretty well. How¡¯s the buzz today? he thought, listening hard. The drone of the demon bugs was quieter. It had been getting quieter for two or three days now. That had to be a good thing. He went to the main rec room where the assistants had once hosted him. The kitchen was there, and they had a well-stocked larder full of food. There were sacks of grain and beans, and there were pre-packed meals in gold foil pouches. Alden had moved a lot of it to the vault, but the place was still full. The huge fridge had been stuffed with fruits and vegetables from one of the greenhouses when he had first arrived, and he¡¯d kept it supplied with the same varieties ever since. He took a notebook made of oddly slick paper from the counter and grabbed one of the oily-looking pencils that wrote on it well. He glanced at the last note he¡¯d made. Day Nine ¡ª Dinner ¡ª Ate a full serving of the green eggplant thing. Ate a trial serving of the pink rice (?). If dead tomorrow, be advised that pink rice is lethal to humans. :) He added a new line: Day Ten ¡ª Breakfast ¡ª Still alive. Feel fine. Pink rice not super poisonous. Eggplant is officially okay. Eating larger serving of leftover pink rice. Adding a spiky strawberry. For science. Hope I see you at lunch. So far, the worst he¡¯d had was an upset stomach. Humans and Artonans could consume most of the same foods, but not everything. Alden definitely remembered hearing that it was a very bad idea to eat shellfish on any of the Triplanets. He¡¯d been getting by with things he recognized as safe from his meals on the LeafSong campus. And though he was sick to death of the stuff, he was drinking a lot of wevvi. They had so much of it, packed into bags that fitted onto the dispenser in the kitchen, and he assumed he needed the calories. There was more than enough food at the lab to last him and Kibby for ages. He just had to make sure he survived taste-testing it all. He shoved a small serving of rice and some beans he¡¯d already declared safe into the blue box that served as a microwave. ¡°Heat and sanitize,¡± he said in Artonan. It had taken him a while to figure out what the word ¡°sanitize¡± meant. When it came to using appliances, he¡¯d learned by following the little girl around and repeating whatever actions she took and sounds she made. He still did that a lot. He pretended not to know that they were both calling the automatic launderer ¡°ugly butt¡± for no reason at all whenever they used it. ¡°Kibby, food! You eat before? Or now?¡± Alden assumed not. She wasn¡¯t really into feeding herself. She¡¯d eat absolutely anything he prepared for her without complaint, though, so it had worked out so far. She liked marleck berries, and they still had some of those in the fridge. There was a jug of what looked and behaved like chunky liquefied egg and she¡¯d called it ¡°something something for second meal¡± when he¡¯d asked, so he¡¯d been scrambling that for her, too. He couldn¡¯t eat it himself, so it was better not to let it go to waste. He had no idea how to season it. He hoped it wasn¡¯t disgusting. She appeared as he was sitting down with a cup of wevvi and his own bowl of probably-not-deadly rice and beans. She¡¯d been crying. Her dark brown eyes were swollen and her short brown hair was tangled and sticking up at the back. It was a frequent occurrence. Alden didn¡¯t ask her about it. He¡¯d tried a couple of times to offer comfort, but it seemed to make it worse for her. ¡°Breakfast!¡± he said, pointing at the plate he¡¯d made her. He¡¯d arranged the berries into the logogram for ¡°friend.¡± Because he was a dork, and he didn¡¯t want his one and only companion to be mad at him for constantly trying to stick her in a vault. She ate the berries and the scrambled stuff together, with her fingers. Not how Alden would have done it, but what did he know? ¡°Thank you.¡± She always thanked him. ¡°You¡¯re welcome. Thank you for eating with me. What are you doing today?¡± She got up and went to the sink before answering. Kibby rarely felt the need to answer a question quickly. Even simple ones. It didn¡¯t seem to be deliberate rudeness on her part, and she never seemed offended that he¡¯d asked. He hadn¡¯t noticed the habit with adult Artonans, so maybe it was a kid thing. Or a personality quirk. ¡°Watching ¡ª¡ª¡ª-.¡± ¡°A show?¡± The appliances at the lab mostly ran on their own independent power sources. Magic, electricity, tiny hamsters on wheels¡ªAlden didn¡¯t care how it worked. He just loved that it did. He was pretty sure it was the only reason they still had so much nice stuff to use. The big television in the main room had served them well for a few days before suffering from a demon strike. A few smaller ones throughout the residence had just died. Like they couldn¡¯t take the pressure of living in this world anymore, the cowards. But there were still a lot working. Everyone who lived here had enjoyed at least one personal device in their room. Alden didn¡¯t know yet if the shows you could watch on them were contained on the televisions themselves or if they were receiving a signal from something. He thought it was at least partially the second, since he could pull up a much more high quality-looking version of the chaos map he¡¯d seen at Elepta. It didn¡¯t seem like something every individual device should be able to supply on its own. Maybe they were receiving input from sensors of some kind. Kibby didn¡¯t know, so Alden didn¡¯t know. They just watched shows together and appreciated the distraction. Kibby liked a category of entertainment that Alden had mentally classified as ¡°Soap Operas for Children.¡± They were really weird by human standards. The shows were clearly meant for kids since they each had a teacher explaining the moral lesson at the end of the episode, but some of them were dark. Actually, Alden had watched enough of them now to notice that a dark one was delivered exactly every five shows. Like sandwiching a really harsh life lesson in with the nice ones was the whole point. Little Klee-pak learned about taking good care of his flower garden. Little Klee-pak shared purple daisies with a pair of children he often saw going into the House of Healing next door. Little Klee-pak attended the funeral of his friends, ripped up his daisies, and got stuffed in the punishment closet by his parents. For what!? Alden had wondered, while Kibby nodded as if to say, ¡°Well, naturally. What else can you expect?¡± The dark ones drove Alden crazy. He couldn¡¯t understand enough of the show or the following lessons to even begin figuring out what cultural thing they were trying to convey. Was Klee-pak in trouble for destroying the daisies? Was he supposed to ignore his grief? Or grieve differently? Was it a social class thing? Were children not allowed at funerals? Or maybe the point of the show was that parents were sometimes nasty and abusive and you shouldn¡¯t trust them completely? ¡°Not a show, a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª,¡± Kibby told him now. ¡°That sounds good. I¡¯ll come, too.¡± Alden would just watch it with her and find out what the word meant that way.
Kibby led Alden back to one of the rooms she spent a lot of time in. It wasn¡¯t the one she¡¯d shared with her little sister. He wasn¡¯t allowed in there. This one didn¡¯t have many personal affects, but he thought it might have beenher father¡¯s. The bed was folded up into one wall, and a small table folded into the opposite. A pair of cushy chairs were arranged in front of the television from their last confusing soap opera session. While he waited for the girl to return, Alden made a mental list of the other things he wanted to do today: Go to the greenhouse the food came from and pick things that looked like they might be ripe. Avoid the other greenhouses, because they had hazmat suits by the doors, and Alden wouldn¡¯t be eating anything from those. Explore one of the outbuildings and catalog the contents better. Try to figure out where the sensor or sensors for the chaos weather map were so that they could be protected. Alden had some tablets in his vault, where he hoped they would be shielded from whatever damage was slowly taking out other things at the lab. He¡¯d like to save whatever it was that gave him the weather report, too. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Though the numbers of demons seemed to be decreasing, the red color was spreading wider with every passing day, just as Thenn-ar had said it would. After a couple of minutes, Kibby reappeared dragging a pair of cushions behind her. She gave Alden an annoyed look. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you ¡ª¡ª?¡± He looked around. ¡°What?¡± Had he been assigned a chore he didn¡¯t know about? She stomped over to the chair she usually sat in and started shoving it away from the television. Move the chairs? Maybe that was what she¡¯d said. He stood up and moved his own chair out of the way, too. Kibby pointed to one of the cushions, and he took it obediently. It was a heavy, stuffed leather pillow, square-shaped with logograms stitched around the edges in gold and silver thread. It looked like the ultra luxury version of the chopped-up yoga mats they used in wordchain class at the consulate. ¡°Are we saying wordchains?¡± Kibby paused. ¡°No. Unless you need to do it for _________?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s do what you want.¡± He said that a lot. It gave him an excuse to let her lead without looking completely clueless all the time. He hoped. Kibby set her cushion down and started taking off her socks. Alden blinked. Were they doing school of some kind? An educational show? That was usually what barefoot meant with Artonans in his experience. He dropped his cushion beside hers and hurriedly unlaced his own shoes. When they were done, Kibby walked over to the panel that controlled the lighting and spent over a minute dimming it until it was at some precise level that satisfied her. Then she disappeared again and returned with what looked like a polished wooden chopstick. She used it to measure the distance between her cushion and Alden¡¯s. Wow. It¡¯s got to be school. We¡¯re being so serious about the layout. Then she pulled a round silver disc from her pocket. Alden was startled when she used it to set the end of the measuring stick on fire. She let it burn and looked at Alden expectantly. He smiled at her. I have no idea what you want. ¡°Let¡¯s have a good education time?¡± he suggested. She looked surprised. So that probably wasn¡¯t the right thing to say. But she considered it for a while, then nodded at him and blew out the stick. Kibby walked over to the television and turned it on. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach some parts of the screen, but she didn¡¯t like it when Alden did it for her. She brought up a program he hadn¡¯t seen before. Well, good. Klee-pak was starting to stress me out. An Artonan woman in wizard¡¯s garb stood in a dimly lit room that was mostly multicolored wood and large shuttered windows. Barefoot children who looked at least a couple years younger than Kibby were filing in one after the other with cushions under their arms. They all did the thing with the polished measuring stick while the adult watched them patiently, and then they set their sticks on fire and recited something that was several sentences long while they faced one of their neighbors. Kibby glanced over her shoulder at Alden. ¡°Um¡­I¡¯ll say it better next time.¡± Then everyone sat on their cushion, and Kibby rushed over to hers. She knelt on it, and Alden joined her. He hoped she didn¡¯t mind him sitting cross-legged. Kneeling for a long time didn¡¯t seem that comfortable. He still wasn¡¯t sure what was going on in the video. His best guess was wizard kindergarten, but it wasn¡¯t what he would have imagined. They spent the first twenty minutes stretching their fingers in specific ways while the screen showed close-ups of small Artonan hands, and the teacher offered advice in a placid tone that would have put Alden straight to sleep if he wasn¡¯t so busy trying to decipher what the heck she was talking about. There were way too many words for fingers. Was she naming specific muscles or saying something completely unrelated? After finger exercises, there were mouth exercises, breathing exercises, and an exercise that Alden was sure was supposed to be some kind of mental thing. Since he couldn¡¯t understand what was being said, it just looked like a bunch of little kids drooping on their cushions. Kibby drooped right along with them. Alden was bored. And then, fifteen whole minutes after the drooping had started, just when he was certain this was all something completely incomprehensible that didn¡¯t apply to him, Kibby gave him a friendly pat. On the existence. Which was not a place he¡¯d known could be patted by another person, so he considered it a real achievement that he didn¡¯t shriek and fling himself across the room. Instead, he froze, processing the feeling in the same way he¡¯d spent the past ten days processing a few other new feelings that came along with living in demonville. Lacking any actual names for them, he was calling his new states of being ¡°centered,¡± ¡°askew,¡± and ¡°assertive.¡± Centered was for how he normally went about life. He couldn¡¯t even detect it. As far as he knew, it was just the absence of the other feelings. Askew was what happened when he got smacked by a demon bug, which hadn¡¯t occurred in two whole days¡ªmajor success. And assertive was the feeling he¡¯d had upon activating Azure Rabbit by himself for the first time¡ªa sense that he was actively expanding his personal space. He¡¯d begun to notice it now when he was using his skill, too. He had two theories about why he was aware of what it felt like to assert his authority when he hadn¡¯t been before. The first was that the System had been stopping him from feeling it somehow, either by taking some of the load off with all the various little conveniences it provided or actively altering the way he felt things to make them less confusing to a human. The second one was that humans really couldn¡¯t feel authority at all under usual conditions, and he was only beginning to feel his own ¡°assertive¡± state now because he was constantly pressing against something he¡¯d never had to deal with before. Like the difference between breathing normally and breathing with a thick cloth over your nose. The chaos was everywhere. He knew it. All day yesterday, he¡¯d been askew whenever his skill wasn¡¯t active. He could only relax in the vault. It was why he¡¯d had yet another talk with Kibby about the importance of spending time in the unpleasant place. Pat, pat, pat. Alden shook his head and tried to focus. Well, here¡¯s a new one to add to the list. Centered, askew, assertive, and¡­poked? Petted? Wizardy fist bump? It was kind of cute. He was sure he was supposed to friendly-pat back, but he didn¡¯t have a clue how. He couldn¡¯t even activate his skill without breaking her concentration and asking her to hand him something. He¡¯d been wearing a string around his neck as his preferred carried item lately, but he always lost entrustment on it when he went to sleep. Alden drooped on his cushion like the little kids. Maybe slouchy posture helped? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself patting back. It was a failure. But maybe not a complete one. When Alden gave up on trying to do something and instead focused intently on just the sensation of Kibby¡¯s magical fist bump, he gradually became aware of his own power as he had a few times before. It¡¯s here. Around me. My own little patch of authority, keeping me here and keeping me myself. It¡¯s been shaped by the System so that I can use my skill, but it¡¯s still mine. Joe said that there was always a portion of it unbound¡­I guess I should be able to do things with it. Right? Surely a little friendly pat? The lesson ended before he could get there. Well, that was all right. ¡°Sorry,¡± Alden said, when Kibby gave him a disappointed look. ¡°I can practice.¡± Why not? He had plenty of free hours ahead of him. And it was about time for him to figure out how to spend the next weeks of his life now that he had started to get a handle on surviving. After the magic class, they spent a few hours watching Artonan children learn important life skills and suffer hardship. Kibby seemed pleased. And Alden sat beside her, making a list in his notebook of all the things he wanted to do if he didn¡¯t die from eating the spiky strawberry. He had to assume he had a future. One back on Earth, where he would maybe one dayattend school, get a job, play video games¡­ Live on Anesidora. He hadn¡¯t really dug too deeply into his feelings about certain things yet, but maybe it was necessary. Boe and Jeremy would have known something was wrong the first time he skipped their usual phone call. He didn¡¯t think Joe could entirely hide his absence from LeafSong, so the university would have known by the next day, too. Alden wasn¡¯t officially off on a super secret mission. He was a Rabbit, and it was supposedly a berry collection quest that had ended in disaster. It wasn¡¯t the kind of thing that the Artonans would keep under wraps for any reason he could imagine.He wouldn¡¯t just vanish with no word like Hannah had. He would be officially declared something. Dead, missing, lost cause. He wasn¡¯t sure which because he wasn¡¯t sure what anyone else might know about his current predicament. But they would tell his aunt. If they declared him dead, legal stuff would happen. If they declared him missing, Connie would definitely contact someone from Anesidora, probably Ms. Zhao or Mr. Thomas, and try to get them to find out what had happened to him. It most likely wasn¡¯t something they could do, but Alden¡¯s aunt wouldn¡¯t believe that. And she¡¯d be desperate. In the same situation, he would have been, too. Sorry, Aunt Connie. Sorry, guys. Dead or missing¡ªeither way, he¡¯d be a known Avowed when he made it back home. So the secret unregistered route was completely off the table now. He¡¯d have to go fully on the run if he didn¡¯t want to live on the island. I don¡¯t think I had any doubts about registering. But I feel like someone took a choice away from me anyway. It¡¯s stupid. Well, life on Anesidora would be his starting point. He could still go from there in a ton of different directions. Battlefield support like he¡¯d always dreamed wasn¡¯t off the table. It¡­seemed like a more extreme decision than it had before, though. Alden had a lot more experience with being an Avowed dealing with a crisis now. It was so hard. He was terrified literally all the time that he was going to screw up. If Kibby died¡ªhis fault. If he died and she was left to suffer here alone¡ªhis fault. The first time she¡¯d abandoned him in the vault, he¡¯d used the privacy to break down and sob until he almost couldn¡¯t breathe. And only then had he gone to find her. That didn¡¯t seem like very adult behavior. Never mind superhero behavior. Maybe I¡¯m not cut out for this after all. If he¡¯d had training of some kind, would that have made a difference? If he¡¯d had partners? A team? Would he have helped them the way he¡¯d always envisioned or would he just lean on them? He didn¡¯t know anymore. What he did know for sure was that weird, awful shit could happen to you as an Avowed. You could choose a peaceful life for yourself, and you¡¯d probably get it unless everything Alden knew about living on the island was a conspiracy. But maybe you wouldn¡¯t. Maybe you¡¯d randomly get summoned to a place like this. Even if I¡¯m not hero material, I still want to be able to survive. So he would learn all the things he could learn in this situation. Language. His trait. His skill. Maybe even magic if Kibby had more of the kindergarten lessons. How will I even know I¡¯m gaining authority and leveling the skill if I don¡¯t have the System? Not sure. Try it anyway. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Kibby asked as Alden stood up from his seat and stretched. He took off his string necklace and handed it to her. Familiar with the ritual, she handed it right back. His skill activated. ¡°Practicing,¡± he said. ¡°Practicing my magic. And running for my health.¡± ¡°¡ª¡ª¡ª?¡± ¡°Exercise,¡± he confirmed, assuming that was what it was. ¡°Can I ask you for a gift, Kibby?¡± She stared at him for a long time and then nodded. It¡¯s not that serious. I just don¡¯t know how to say favor. ¡°Will you help me learn to talk better? When I say something bad, will you help me say it better? You¡¯re smart, so you know what I want to say a lot. Give me help when I talk bad.¡± ¡°You want to say badly,¡± said Kibby promptly. ¡°Or ¡ª¡ª¡ª. Or ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± ¡°Badly,¡± Alden repeated. Awesome. Adverbs. ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Can I watch the exercise?¡± ¡°Yes, it¡¯s not secret.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t ¡ª¡ª¡ª- ¡®secret.¡¯¡ª¡ª¡ª- is better.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not private?¡± ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± she said seriously. ¡°You sound less ¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± ¡°I¡¯m happy,¡± said Alden, wondering what he sounded less of. ¡°Thank you for teaching me.¡± It was a start. FORTY-SIX: Life ¡°What is this ugly thing?¡± Kibby asked, wrinkling her nose at the results of an entire morning¡¯s work in the kitchen. ¡°Kibby stinks. She¡¯s mean-mean,¡± Alden said brightly, jabbing a few of the sacred burning chopsticks into the top of his concoction. ¡°You stink! Humans stink the most. Go climb in the launderer and wash yourself!¡± Alden laughed. Insults were coming along nicely. Kibby really liked being friendly-mean. ¡°¡ª¡ª¡ª-! ¡ª¡ª¡ª- ¡ª¡ª! ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± Sometimes she got a little too into it though. ¡°This is my special birthday meal,¡± he said. He didn¡¯t know ¡®cake¡¯ yet, and anyway, it was more like a seven layer dip made with colorful vegetable mash. ¡°Yum! Delicious! It¡¯s a human custom.¡± ¡°Why are you putting my promise sticks in it?¡± ¡°For beauty.¡± ¡°You¡¯re dumb. Promise sticks aren¡¯t ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-. They¡¯re important.¡± Alden paused. ¡°Are you feeling bothered? Seriously?¡± Seriously was a good word. Kibby would stop joking around to answer him thoughtfully whenever he used it. ¡°No. It¡¯s fine. For your birthday. Your shirt is ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± Alden held out his arms and spun so that she could admire the garish Hawaiian shirt. Oh, she really does like it, he realized, examining her expression. That must have been a compliment then. ¡°Today we eat on the top of the building.¡± ¡°Roof,¡± she reminded him. She¡¯d shown him the way up there about a week ago. They¡¯d both agreed that it was a bad place and a good place. It was good because the lab lacked windows, and the only way to see the surrounding landscape and not feel a little claustrophobic was from the rooftop. And it was bad because the landscape didn¡¯t look like it once had. The endless sea of grass was all wilted, rotted, or just plain missing. It smelled funky. And in the distance, visible through a set of very cool binoculars Alden had found, he¡¯d spied some kind of trail through what was left of the grass. Like something about the size of the armored car had ambled drunkenly around out there. It was a pretty chilling idea. He¡¯d asked Kibby about it, and she¡¯d said one of the three words she liked to use for the demon bugs. So¡­yeah. The roof was good and bad. That had been a complicated conversation to navigate. But Kibby really enjoyed her new role as Alden¡¯s language tutor. Managing his word choices pleased her. She had extremely bossy tendencies for someone who was the equivalent of eight years old by human standards. Artonans aged a little more slowly. Every day Kibby gave Alden brain-breaking ¡°tests¡± by taking him around the lab and pointing at things, demanding he come up with the name. In addition to the three words specifically for the bugs, she¡¯d made him learn six for what he thought of as simply chaos. He¡¯d memorized them, but he wasn¡¯t sure what the nuances were yet. When the cake was finished, they headed up to the wide flat roof, where Alden had already set up the party spot. ¡°Surprise!¡± he shouted, gesturing to the two reclining chairs, the ball-shaped lamp, and the table he¡¯d hauled up while she was sleeping yesterday afternoon. He¡¯d called it strength training and counted it as his workout for the day. A pitcher of the same blue tea Joe had served him on his last evening at LeafSong was on the table along with cups. Kibby examined it all thoroughly. ¡°Why are we eating on the roof? It¡¯s ¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª¡ª. Do humans have to do it for their birthdays?¡± Alden resisted the urge to make up some insane tradition on the spot. ¡°No. I just thought it is happy to eat outside while we can. There aren¡¯t many demons now, and night is coming.¡± They¡¯d been living in the lab for twenty-eight days. By his math, give or take a few hours he¡¯d lost track of on the first day, he was now sixteen. And in a few Alden-days the real Thegund day would end, and a very long night would come. The light shining through the cloud cover seemed like it was already growing dimmer. He was a little hung-up on it. Kibby, who¡¯d lived here her whole life, thought it was strange that he was nervous about it. ¡°There are lots of ¡ª¡ª¡ª everywhere,¡± she said, pointing at the tall lightpoles on the grounds of the complex. ¡°Some of them will be broken, but not all of them.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll keep me safe,¡± Alden said. ¡°No.¡± ¡°You will. Inside, you¡¯re all friendly.¡± ¡°You are the Avowed. And you¡¯re old. You have to keep me safe. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª embarrassed.¡± Alden held out his mushy veggie cake. ¡°Make fire for my promise sticks,¡± he demanded. She groaned and stomped like it was a terrible imposition, but she pulled her little lighter disc out of her pocket and lit the makeshift candles. Alden set it on the table and sat beside it in his recliner. ¡°Now, I¡¯m going to say lots of words together for beauty,¡± he announced. ¡°It¡¯s part of the birthday custom.¡± ¡°Say lots of words together for beauty?¡± Kibby asked in a fascinated voice. Alden cleared his throat and belted out the happy birthday song. He was not a gifted singer. Kibby looked stunned and horrified. But since he¡¯d said it was a custom she didn¡¯t stop him or cover her ears. ¡°That is¡­ a nice custom?¡± she said when he was done. ¡°You don¡¯t call it ¡®saying lots of words together for beauty.¡¯ You mean ¡ª¡ª. I think?¡± ¡°Singing?¡± ¡°Maybe,¡± she said doubtfully. ¡°Now what?¡± Alden leaned over and blew out all of his sticks. ¡°Oh, I understand,¡± Kibby said confidently, whipping out her lighter again. Alden watched her light them all. And then she blew on them, too. ¡°Was that right?¡± she asked. ¡°Perfect.¡± He pulled one of the sticks out and licked some mushroomy-tasting paste off the bottom. ¡°Now we eat it.¡± # After the meal, Alden attempted birthday parkour around the grounds of the laboratory. When Kibby had asked to watch him exercise after their first baby magic lesson, he¡¯d tried to turn the simple laps around the facility he¡¯d initially planned into something more entertaining for her. It was a bit of a failure, but with his trait active it was at least a high-energy one. He¡¯d decided to keep at it. Plain old running wasn¡¯t as much fun as launching himself with unnecessary force off of expensive-looking equipment and buildings that belonged to a corporation that was indirectly responsible for his presence here. He wouldn¡¯t call himself good at it, but he was definitely improving. Even when he didn¡¯t wear the coat. Usually he didn¡¯t. It was in the vault, saving whatever magical oomph it had left for whenever he might really need it. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. He used the heck out of Joe¡¯s ring, though. Alden¡¯s ring, he decided, letting it do the gripping for him for a split second as he hung from the edge of one of the huge pentagonal satellite dishes. Happy birthday to me. If Joe asks for it back, I¡¯ll look him dead in the eye and say I lost it on the demon moon he sent me to. He didn¡¯t really blame Joe. It wasn¡¯t like Alden hadn¡¯t known something bad could happen here. But he still felt like he could have been a little more thoroughly informed. About everything. And if Joe had gotten him out of the party¡­ Don¡¯t go there. It always pisses you off. If he hadn¡¯t gone to that stupid party, if Manon hadn¡¯t been trying to stick it to Bti-qwol, then Kibby¡¯s sister and her father and the scientist in the green lab coat would all be alive. And Alden and Kibby wouldn¡¯t be here. Only Thenn-ar and the woman in coveralls would have died. Not like Manon knew. Not like anyone did. It wasn¡¯t on purpose. But he was looking forward to ratting his fellow Rabbit out to the Sways when he got back home a lot more than he had been. He ran at one of the curved walls of the perimeter building and tried to do that thing some people could do. A proper run up, amplified by his trait. He ate gravel. He always did. He heard Boe¡¯s voice in his head, telling him not to choose a trait that was tied to a fundamentally alien concept he didn¡¯t understand. ¡°It will suddenly be not fucking ¡®ground¡¯ anymore because it¡¯s over-crafted or the altitude is six inches too high.¡± Whatever the shiny walls of the building were made of was definitely not ground. Alden was going to work it out, though. Either by mastering the art of his final kick-off or reconceptualizing the alien definition of ground that seemed to be built into his trait¡­if that was even a trick that applied in this situation. It really might not be. He¡¯d asked Kibby about it. She seemed to think it was obvious that ground could never be something that wasn¡¯t native to the planet you were standing on. The building material for the exterior of the residence apparently wasn¡¯t. And if you just wanted to talk in a general way about the substance beneath your feet, you used ¡°floor¡± instead. It was a great insight actually, if Alden could just get a handle on the reason for it. Something about being closely connected to the native soil? He was honestly surprised his own shoes didn¡¯t prevent him from receiving the trait¡¯s benefits here on Moon Thegund. Was footwear just automatically considered part of its owner? Was the power like a coating that extended far enough to encompass the soles of his shoes? Ground is weird. And interesting. Inconvenient, too. He¡¯d get the hang of it in one way or another and make Boe eat his words. At least Moon Thegund wasn¡¯t overly warm. He could conduct his workout sessions without getting heat stroke. Also, he had a cheerleader/drill sergeant most of the time. ¡°Climb up the side of the ¡ª¡ª¡ª facility!¡± Kibby yelled enthusiastically from her recliner on the roof. Alden knew which of the little shed-like buildings she meant, though its name had so far escaped definition. It turned something into something else, according to the girl. So maybe it was transformation? Or conversion? Alden obliged her by brushing himself off and running at the shed. Kick off the gravel like this, not too much force, grab the lip of the roof. He¡¯d totally launched himself into the wall the last time he tried this. But today he managed it just a little awkwardly. Also, the concretey-looking roof here was ¡®ground,¡¯ so that was fun. He could leap off of it with enough force to land on top of the neighboring shed. Kibby thumped her feet against her chair and applauded. # Magic class happened in the vault now. Alden had finally found something his tiny roomie wanted badly enough to persuade her to spend significant amounts of time there. The authority-control exercise that resulted in the existential fist bump was very important to her. So important that she was willing to explain it in exhaustive detail when she realized Alden was open to the idea of practicing with her. Apparently she¡¯d assumed he wouldn¡¯t be at first. Because he was a great and awesome Avowed, and she imagined him to be well beyond this point in his education. He found this assumption almost as mind-blowing as she found his total lack of talent for the fist bump. ¡°But you can do things with your authority,¡± she kept insisting. ¡°You have to understand.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand things. I only do things. And I can only do them at all because of the Contract.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you know?¡± ¡°Because¡­humans are different than Artonans. Avowed are different than wizards. We don¡¯t feel our authority. So we don¡¯t have to learn magic to do our skills.¡± She looked baffled. He was baffled. There was a lot of mutual ignorance going on. Maybe it would have been different if Kibby had had a normal magical education. Apparently she was behind where she should have been, which was why the children on her video class looked a few years younger than her. Alden had pieced together enough to understand that Joe had advised her father not to send her off for formal training when she was a toddler. He thought she shouldn¡¯t pursue wizardry, because she was ungifted. It wasn¡¯t easy to read between the lines, but it sounded like Joe and Kibby¡¯s father both believed that life as a bottom-rung member of the wizard class was harder than life as a highly educated and important member of the non-wizard class. But a while back, Kibby had decided that she wasn¡¯t going to accept that, and she¡¯d refused to learn calculus until she was allowed to study magic, too. Joe had caved, had a teacher he knew record the little wizard lessons for her, and bought her the cushions. Two of them. Because you were supposed to have at least one partner for the fist bump. ¡°Distinguished Master Ro-den gave me eight lessons,¡± Kibby said seriously. It was a relationship dynamic Alden hadn¡¯t expected. He was curious about Joe¡¯s reasoning. And he wanted to ask Kibby if maybe she was a genius in the traditional, non-magical sense of the word, since she¡¯d been learning advanced mathematics at age seven, but he didn¡¯t want to out himself as someone who could not have done that. If she realized she was smarter than him at magic and math, how was he ever going to persuade her to brush her hair and chew her tooth gum and sleep in the vault so she wouldn¡¯t be constantly irradiated by chaos? ¡°Today you will be better at this,¡± Kibby announced. She was carefully measuring the distance between their cushions with the promise stick while Alden cleared some of her toys away. ¡°Because it is your birthday.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try,¡± Alden said. As always. He wondered if she thought birthdays actually had the power to transform humans into natural mages, or if she was attempting psychology on him. They¡¯d done the beginner¡¯s exercise at least once a day, and more often twice, for the past eighteen days. Alden would have given up on it by now if he wasn¡¯t using it as a bribe, but Kibby wasn¡¯t a quitter. She wanted a partner like the children on television, and if Alden was willing, she was going to keep patting at him until he finally figured it out. She lit a promise stick that still had birthday veggie residue on it, and they said the special pledge. Alden had memorized it properly after a few repetitions, and it made him glad that the little girl got such an obvious thrill out of hearing it said to her. They promised to be respectful to each other during their lesson and patient with each other. They promised to honor the sacrifice of their teacher¡¯s time by bringing their ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- to bear. Alden was pretty sure that word he hadn¡¯t gotten the hang of was something like ¡®acuity,¡¯ but he hadn¡¯t committed to defining it that way yet. And they ended by saying ¡°I promise I will give my ¡ª¡ª¡ª-, to you, my partner.¡± Alden was still working on that word, too. He thought it was too much of a coincidence for it to really be what he¡¯d been privately thinking of it as in his head: sincere best. ¡°You¡¯re smiling,¡± Kibby said as she knelt on her cushion. ¡°It¡¯s a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. Because you¡¯re going to do better today.¡± Oh she¡¯s definitely trying to psych me up. ¡°Maybe I will.¡± He didn¡¯t. And he didn¡¯t the next day either. Or the one after that. But finally, shortly after the first long night had fallen on them in truth, Kibby reached out with a determined pat-pat-pat. And a part of Alden that had been straining against the encroaching chaos for weeks and feeling its own presence for the first time ever¡ªa part of him that had never known it could move as it pleased¡ªreached out toward the small, kind existence that had been trying to get its attention for so long. And it patted back. FORTY-SEVEN: Thunder Lettuce On his hundredth day on Moon Thegund, Alden crossed the compound, rubbing his arms to ward off the cold even though he was wearing two turtlenecks on top of each other. The lab was enduring its second long night since he¡¯d arrived, and though he was getting used to it, it was still hard to resist staring up at the sky. There were never any stars, and he couldn¡¯t see the clouds through the glare of the facility¡¯s powerful lights. The buzz was long-since gone, and Moon Thegund was still and quiet again. In the dark periods, Alden felt their isolation from the rest of the universe more keenly.It was only him and Kibby and these few buildings now. Everything else was blackness and silence. He¡¯d left his little partner sleeping back at the vault. He could feel her there. It was a relatively new ability. A couple of weeks ago, Alden had lost track of her. He¡¯d searched and searched, calling her name, and growing increasingly worried until he suddenly realized he just knew what direction she was in. At first, it was almost the same as the feeling he had during their magic lessons¡ªa weight in her direction, like the universe leaned ever so slightly toward her. But as he¡¯d become aware of how to access the sense of her, it had gotten sharper and clearer rapidly. Little effort was involved now that he¡¯d figured out the trick. Because it¡¯s something that¡¯s pre-built into the skill, he thought. This was what the System had called targeting. He¡¯d just learned how to access it in a new way. Kibby was the one who could entrust him with things. Alden no longer needed the light halo or the direction indicator to know it. He was positive he could untarget and retarget her, too, now. But he hadn¡¯t tried. Some things were too dangerous to experiment with. He entered the greenhouse and paused for a moment to appreciate thewarmth and the artificial sunlight blazing down from the glass panels overhead. Well, blazing from most of them. Some of them were dead. Some of everything was dead. That was how it worked around here. Alden walked between the hydroponic tables, examining the plants. The greenhouse was mostly automated. During the first couple of months, a task list had appeared on the wall every other day or so for things that required attention. Kibby would read it to Alden, and when she didn¡¯t already know how to complete a chore, they¡¯d figured it out together. The list had died. Fortunately Alden had the routine down well enough to muddle through without it by the time it did. Today, the greenhouse had provided a new set of germination trays already loaded with seeds in little gel cups. Alden took it from the cabinet it had appeared in and slotted it into an empty space on one of the hydro tables. ¡°Hang in there, dude,¡± he said to it. ¡°It¡¯s a rough world.¡± The last few trays he¡¯d slotted in were largely failures. Most of the seeds didn¡¯t sprout. A few produced anemic little plants that looked like they¡¯d never turn into anything worth eating. And a far smaller number were growing like weeds. One of the first trays he¡¯d placed had made a whole lot of nothing and a few gargantuan heads of what Alden was calling ¡°Thunder Lettuce.¡± The name made Kibby groan like she was in pain every time he said it. Alden and the little girl had enjoyed a long discussion about eating Thunder Lettuce, and about the many other plants in the greenhouse that were still alive but no longer looking quite like they were meant to. Conclusion¡ªif the trial servings tasted yummy and didn¡¯t make you sick, eat it. It wasn¡¯t like the corruption couldn¡¯t get at all the other food they ate anyway. It just seemed to morph the living things at the lab more quickly and obviously than it did the non-living ones. Even the vault was only offering minor protection, since the door had to be left open. As Alden grew more and more aware of his own power, he also became increasingly sensitive to the perpetual assault of existing in this place. The network of power he had sometimes imagined around himself during teleports, or that one overwhelming meeting with the Primary, was still there. But it was like it was being sandblasted. The chaos pressed in endlessly. Alden asserted himself endlessly. The process had become automatic, but it was never ignorable. Even when he was not deliberately flexing his authority or using his skill, he was aware of it now. A strange sensation, like he was always tensing in expectation of a sharp poke. Asserting my authority. Asserting my right to be here and be me. I¡¯m getting much better at it. He could tell he was. He could now control the strength of the flex if he chose. Sometimes, a grim and weary whisper in his mind pointed out that he could also choose to stop. Not often. But often enough to worry him. Today he was fine. He stole some dark green leaves the size of pillowcases from Thunder Lettuce Four¡ªthe garlicky one. Stir-fry for breakfast sounded good. Kibby liked it when he cooked. She didn¡¯t care what it tasted like. She just wanted someone to give her food on a plate at the table. Like she wanted him to offer to brush her hair. And tell her to chew her tooth gum. It had taken Alden too long to realize it. She was a capable kid. If she didn¡¯t do something obvious for herself, it was because she really wanted him to do it for her. Can¡¯t fix her trauma. Can¡¯t fix the moon. Can fix breakfast. And do a decent French braid. At least it was something. # That afternoon, they watched television. They watched a lot of television. Hours and hours of it every day in the vault. It was too easy to just stare at the screens and enjoy the sight and sound of other people living normal lives. Well, normal for Artonans. Alden was a little concerned about the amount of alien content he was absorbing. The dark episodes in the soap operas were starting to make sense. Klee-pak shouldn¡¯t have killed the daisies. To disrespect life in the wake of death was the same as spitting on his friends¡¯ graves. His parents were still assholes, though. They could have explained it instead of throwing their kid in the punishment closet. ¡°It was so he could feel the darkness of death,¡± said Kibby. ¡°And come to a greater knowledge of what he¡¯d done wrong.¡± ¡°Deep,¡± said Alden, nodding in understanding. ¡°You mean profound.¡± ¡°Profound.¡± Language was coming along fantastically. This was a next-level immersion experience. Desperately wanting and needing to communicate complex ideas all the time, having a stickler of a roommate who loved correcting you, the total and complete absence of your native tongue¡­ Alden had caught himself thinking in Artonan several times recently. A few more months and he¡¯d start making a serious attempt at the writing system. There has to be some kind of official Artonan language proficiency exam on Anesidora, right? He was going to find it, take it, and obliterate it. He munched on a bowl of popped beans¡ªnot at all like popcorn, way too crunchy¡ªand watched the end of a nature show about seasonal swarms of giant crabs on Artona I. Kibby jumped up at the end of it and raced over to the television to select a new show. ¡°Hey. Do you think if you start a new show fast I¡¯m going to forget our deal?¡± Alden said, flicking a popped bean at her. She pouted. ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk about crabs.¡± ¡°The deal isn¡¯t that we have to talk about crabs. We just have to talk about something in between shows. So that we don¡¯t just sit here watching the pretty colors on the screen all day while our brains rot.¡± ¡°Decay.¡± ¡°Not rot?¡± ¡°Rot is too dirty. It¡¯s like what the chaos is doing to the plants in the greenhouse. It¡¯s not something you should say about brains.¡± Hmm. Interesting. ¡°Thank you for correcting my course.¡± Kibby beamed. He made sure to only throw that particular phrase at her a couple of times a day. It was very respectful and usually reserved for teachers. She got really bigheaded if he overdid it. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°What do we talk about instead of crabs?¡± she asked, trotting back over to sit on the edge of her mattress. She no longer complained about sleeping here. It had been a long time since that was a source of disagreement between them. ¡°Can I ask you about the First again?¡± ¡°We talked about that twice,¡± she reminded him. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you mean.¡± ¡°I know a lot more words now. He is an important Artonan man. A very important one. And he¡¯s powerful. I could feel it.¡± ¡°Powerful how?¡± ¡°Powerful magic. I could feel it like I can feel yours during partnered authority exercises. But back then, I couldn¡¯t usually dothings like that at all. I couldn¡¯t know things like that about wizards. But with him I could.¡± ¡°You mean he had high authority. Presence.¡± ¡°Extremely high. He must be a very strong wizard. And he has a¡­a special name¡­an honor name. That means something like First.¡± ¡°Honor name?¡± she considered the phrase. ¡°A ¡ª¡ª-? Like Distinguished Master? Maybe he was the leader of the school where you worked?¡± ¡°Yes! A title. But he didn¡¯t work for the school.¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± she said doubtfully. ¡°Because you get confused a lot.¡± ¡°Mean-mean,¡± he said, throwing another bean at her. ¡°Understanding different planets is hard. But I¡¯m sure. He was there with his sister. They both had special clothes.¡± He described the Primary¡¯s outfit. The shorter sleeves, the patterns done in metal studs. And all of a sudden, Kibby made a sound that Alden associated with hardcore fangirls at pop concerts. ¡°A ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª!! You met ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª! Did you say the first!? Oh, oh, ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª!! You felt his authority! WHY?! What did he say to you? And his sister! Which sister was it?!¡± She squealed and ran at him, climbing into his lap¡ªwhich was not something she usually did¡ªlike she was trying to get closer to him so that she could absorb the story through direct contact. ¡°He¡¯s ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-!¡± It was rare these days for her to use so many words in a row that he didn¡¯t have a clue about. ¡°Uh¡­slower?¡± he said, intimidated by the fact that she was nearly pressing their noses together while she fired off questions. By the time Kibby had managed to calm down and start using words he could understand, Alden ended up being moreuncertain about who the Primary was rather than less. According to Kibby he was the best. ¡°The best at what?¡± ¡°Everything!¡± Alden could practically see little hearts floating in the air over her brown hair. ¡°Yes. I understand you¡¯re excited. But maybe you could explain it more easily? For a human?¡± ¡°There are people who can¡¯t do magic,¡± she said. ¡°Then there are people who are learning magic. Then there are lowly wizards. Then there are¡­.¡± The power rankings went on for a while. Artonans were very into categorizing their wizards by ability. ¡°Then there are wizards who make sacred promises to grow their power stronger and use it to protect the Triplanets from chaos and demons and harm!¡± Alden frowned. Had Kibby just jumped from power ranking to moral ranking? He kept listening in case he¡¯d misunderstood, but it sounded like she had. Like, there were supersupersuper wizards, and then bam¡ªnoble fightin¡¯ wizards. ¡°Can I ask a question?¡± he interrupted. ¡°Do only the most powerful wizards become Primaries?¡± ¡°There¡¯s only one Primary. He is the most powerful. Then there is a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. And a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. And then his sister Alis-art¡¯h! Was she the one you met? And then ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. And then¡ª¡± ¡°Are the titles numbers?¡± he asked. ¡°They¡¯re in order!¡± So like numbers anyway. That would explain the English translation the System had given him. Primary, secondary, tertiary, etc¡­ Maybe it was part of the normal power ranking system but once you hit a certain level of wizardry you were just expected to join the chaos fighting group? ¡°I don¡¯t know what his sister¡¯s name was,¡± he said. ¡°And I still don¡¯t understand. It sounded like when you were putting the wizards in order you maybe changed it. From powerful wizards to brave wizards? Is that right or wrong?¡± ¡°Yes! Brave is more important than strong.¡± Wow. That was not the answer Alden had been expecting. ¡°Does everyone think the same? Or just some people?¡± She glared at him. ¡°Everyone knows ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- are better than regular wizards.¡± I¡¯m missing something. ¡°I met the Primary¡¯s son. Stu-art¡¯h. He wanted to be a warrior? For the Mother Planet.¡± ¡°Not just a warrior. A ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± So it was the word the System had been translating as knight. ¡°A knight. A knight is a kind of wizard that is better than a normal wizard?¡± Kibby nodded. ¡°But are they always stronger? Could Worli Ro-den win in a fight with a knight?¡± She looked appalled. ¡°Distinguished Master Ro-den would not fight a knight.¡± ¡°But if he did¡­¡± ¡°He would not. His head would be removed.¡± ¡°So the knight would definitely win?¡± She huffed. ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter. His head would be removed for fighting the knight even if he won. Especially if he won and hurt the knight.¡± He¡¯d be executed? Well, okay then. Maybe the knights were even more like royalty than he¡¯d suspected when he first heard about Stuart¡¯s dad. Alden hoped Jel-nor hadn¡¯t been beheaded for ¡®dueling¡¯ Stuart. Maybe official duels were different than fights. And the guy was only a wannabe knight at this point, so surely it didn¡¯t count. ¡°Are the knights all family to each other?¡± he asked, still trying to slot them in as some kind of obscure magical royalty. ¡°Is that part of what makes them knights?¡± ¡°Of course not. That would be dumb.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand,¡± Alden moaned. ¡°I told you. You get confused.¡± She kept rattling on about the Primary, and Alden only got more confused. Kibby made it sound like the man¡¯s role in Artonan society was a cross between a nuclear warhead and the Pope. The two ideas did not mesh. He began to wonder if she just had such a huge crush on knights that it was preventing her from giving him an unbiased answer. ¡°Wait, wait,¡± he said. ¡°One more time. All knights are better than all regular wizards, even if they¡¯re not always stronger. Because they promise to protect the Triplanets from danger. Is that right?¡± ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± said Kibby. Okay. Now they were getting somewhere. ¡°Why doesn¡¯t everyone make the promise then?¡± Kibby made the double hand gesture she liked to use for a shrug. Then she added, ¡°They¡¯re not allowed to break the promise. And I think they have to be special somehow. Maybe it¡¯s important to be stronger than normal wizards, too, even if they don¡¯t have to be the very strongest. Because I never heard about a weak knight.¡± She paused. ¡°I asked Distinguished Master Ro-den if I could be a knight one day. After I saw one on a video.¡± ¡°What did he say?¡± ¡°He said to ask him the same question after I got older and finally learned some magic. He said it was a terrible life for crazy wizards, ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª, and idiots.¡± Joe, who¡¯d spent years living here on Moon Thegund by choice, thought other wizards were crazy? ¡°Change of subject,¡± Alden said. ¡°Then we can watch another show. I¡¯ve wanted to ask you before, and since we¡¯re talking about magic and culture¡­how do Avowed work with everything else?¡± Kibby blinked. ¡°Don¡¯t you get assignments and complete them?¡± ¡°No, sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to say ¡®work.¡¯ I meant¡­what do Artonans think about Avowed? What did you think when you first saw me?¡± He had Joe¡¯s opinion about the views most wizards had. But he¡¯d never quite figured out what Kibby and the assistants thought of him. ¡°I thought, ¡®A human! Probably it is a man human. Distinguished Master Ro-den might have sent it. Or Yipalck might have sent it. I wonder if it¡¯s going to do magic. I hope it¡¯s going to help us. I hope it¡¯s not going to hurt us.¡¯¡± So it was that simple and obvious then. He didn¡¯t know why he was thinking it would have been anything more complicated. What else would someone think when a potentially powerful alien walked up to their front door? Kibby smiled at him. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you met the Primary! I can¡¯t believe you met a knight at all. I have never seen one in real life! Tell me what he said to you again!¡± ¡°He said I was amazing.¡± ¡°Liar.¡± ¡°He said I was the best human he¡¯d ever met, and I should be the Primary.¡± ¡°Liar liar!¡± ¡°We held hands.¡± Kibby looked like she wanted to bite him. FORTY-EIGHT: The Machine Dawn came. The red blob continued to spread across the map of Moon Thegund. Alden and Kibby stayed alive. Instructor Gwen-lor taught the class full of wizard tots magic, and Alden and Kibby studied with them. In the beginning, the first thing you had to learn was how to move your authority deliberately and with control. To do that, you had to feel it. That was the point of the beginner exercise, and it was why you were supposed to have a partner to poke at you. It came naturally to the Artonan wizard class. Alden didn¡¯t think he ever would have figured it out if he hadn¡¯t been trapped in a chaos sandblaster, being poked from every direction with no means of escape while also being highly motivated to actually try for Kibby¡¯s sake. But he had figured it out. He¡¯d obtained the supposedly unobtainable sixth sense, and he¡¯d learned how to use it. Then, finally, the lessons moved on to actual spell casting, and it¡­wasn¡¯t that hard? Well, it was. But it was hard in ways that had a lot more to do with basic physical and mental limitations than with his newfound sense for and control over his authority. Artonans could think two thoughts at once. Literally. Two completely separate conscious mental processes. When they wanted to, they could work a math problem with one eyeball and read a book with another. They weren¡¯t just good at multitasking, as Joe had once said, they were the gods of it. Which was so unfair that Alden had to complain about it aloud every now and then. ¡°Facts are facts,¡± Kibby intoned, looking at him with one eye while the other was fixed on the tv. ¡°They¡¯re not required to be fair.¡± ¡°Ugh. You are so¡­.what¡¯s a friendly-mean word that says you are too proud of yourself?¡± ¡°Smug,¡± Kibby said smugly. ¡°You¡¯re that,¡± said Alden, slouching on his learning cushion. Slouching was acceptable. Sitting on your butt was not. He knelt on it properly now like a respectful student. ¡°You¡¯re moving forward faster than me,¡± Kibby said. ¡°And they¡¯re my lessons.That¡¯s what isn¡¯t fair.¡± Kibby was very proud that she even had lessons. It was pretty uncommon for a child to be taught magic long distance. Most teachers, especially good teachers like Instructor Gwen-lor, found anything but in-person instruction insulting. They didn¡¯t allow themselves to be recorded. ¡°I¡¯m only faster because I¡¯m older. And I¡¯m an Avowed.¡± She smiled and nodded determinedly. Alden was lying. Kibby knew he was lying. But Artonans considered kind lies to children to be an act of love. It was grown-up manners he¡¯d learned from one of the soaps. Not exactly a foreign concept for a human, though the Artonans took it way farther than he ever would have on his own. If Kibby was expecting a loving lie, and he didn¡¯t give it to her, it really hurt her feelings. On multiple levels. It was like in addition to forcing her to have the information she didn¡¯t want, he was telling her that he didn¡¯t care enough about her to protect her. He¡¯d accidentally made her cry several times before he¡¯d finally watched the right show and realized his mistake. The truth was that Alden was pretty sure he was not better at magic because he was older. And due to some recent realizations, he was positive it wasn¡¯t because he was an Avowed. It was a strange thing to think, but he was growing fairly certain that he was just naturally more talented at authority control than Kibby. He was careful not to ask about it, since it was a painful subject for a girl who was pursuing wizardry so doggedly despite some sort of disadvantage. But the more they partnered up and worked on manipulating their power together, the more he could tell. Authority was more than just strong or weak. There were multiple other elements involved in turning it from something you had into something you used to enact magic on the world around you. Kibby seemed to have power, but it was like it didn¡¯t want to move for her. She had the Artonan gift that had allowed her to know her authority and use it in the first place, but now that Alden had found his, too, he was outpacing her. Not that it means I¡¯m particularly good in comparison to other small Artonan children, though, he thought as he watched the kindergartners on the screen. He couldn¡¯t perform a huge percentage of even the most basic spells.And he would probably never be able to. Artonans sure liked their magic ingredients and toys and tools and chants¡ªthings Instructor Gwen-lor said carried them through the maze of reality to a new destination. That metaphor meant nothing to Alden, and even if it had, he could not obtain the supplies or chant many of the chants. Not enough octaves in his vocal register, and besides, trying to say one magic spell in his head and a different one with his mouth¡ªa fairly common requirement¡ªwas like patting his head and rubbing his stomach times a thousand. You were supposed to mean the things you said, and he couldn¡¯t mean two completely different words at once as far as he knew. But Artonans and humans had really similar hands. And Alden¡¯s little bit of enhanced dexterity plus lots of repetitions of the finger exercises were doing him some favors. The spells were silly. They were for little bitty people after all. But Alden just followed the patterns with his fingers, wove his authority in and out of the imaginary symbols they made in the air, and presto. A series of musical notes sounded through the vault, matching the rhythm of his ring fingers as they flicked through the air. It had required a few hours of practice and memorization to learn the signs. It was useless. And it was so damn cool. ¡°That is very good,¡± Kibby said. You always complimented your partner when they got their spell right. Alden had gotten several right lately. He could light the promise sticks with one. With another, he could create tiny puffs of air that blew dust off of things. With a third, he was supposedly sanitizing his hands, though it was hard to know if it was working. He hoped Kibby would get one right soon, so that he could compliment her, too. ¡°Thank you.¡± Alden tried not to grin too much. ¡°You aren¡¯t upset anymore.¡± She was staring at his face with both eyes now. ¡°What?¡± ¡°After you did that spell for the first time last week. You were upset. You left the vault in a hurry.¡± ¡°Oh, that. I hurt my finger a little. I was afraid I wouldn¡¯t be able to do it again. But it¡¯s better now.¡± ¡°Which finger?¡± Kibby asked, her brows drawing together as she leaned over toward his cushion to examine him worriedly. ¡°You are only good at hand casting. You must take better care of yourself and remember your stretches.¡± ¡°I will.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s stretch now!¡± ¡°Oh. Sure.¡± Alden felt guilty about it, but he let her lead him through the hand stretches. There was nothing at all wrong with his fingers. # They should have spent every waking minute in the vault. But they couldn¡¯t. They¡¯d go mad. A few times they had tried and managed for multiple days, but one of them inevitably lost their temper or, more dangerously, they started to feel despondent. Authority wasn¡¯t willpower, but you had to have at least a little willpower to keep asserting it when you were tired. Sometimes, if you were depressed and tired and feeling sorry for yourself, it started to seem like too much trouble to right the askewness again. And again. And again. So they did the best they could. And they had agreed to let themselves enjoy going outside. On the grounds of the compound after their lesson that day, Kibby threw chunks of gravel at Alden enthusiastically. He caught each one, flicked his wrist, and dropped the preservation in a smooth motion so that they flew off in different directions. Momentum preserved and redirected. One after another in rapid succession. Panting from exertion and clearly delighted, Kibby ran at him. ¡°You¡¯re so much better at it, Alden!¡± she crowed. ¡°You never used to get it right, and now you¡¯ve gotten it right every time!¡± Alden gave a dramatic bow. ¡°I am the great rock¡­er¡­direction changer?¡± ¡°Bouncer?¡± ¡°I am the rock bouncer.¡± He stood up. ¡°And there¡¯s something else. Hand me two pieces of gravel at once.¡± Kibby¡¯s face lit up with excitement. She grabbed two pieces of the pale gray gravel and flung them at him. ¡°Ouch,¡± he said. ¡°Hand them to me this time. Not throw.¡± ¡°Oh! I am sorry.¡± She politely put two pieces side-by-side in her palm and offered them to him. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°They don¡¯t have to be touching,¡± Alden said. Her eyes widened. She moved the rocks apart, and Alden stared at them for a moment, concentrating, then he grabbed one in each hand. ¡°Yes,¡± he said, looking down at them. ¡°Both preserved.¡± ¡°Let me feel!¡± He shifted his weight from foot to foot to keep the skill going and held out his hands. She prodded at the rocks. ¡°Alden, you did it! Two at once! Did you finally master the Art of Perceiving in Multiple Ways?¡± ¡°No,¡± said Alden. The Art of Perceiving in Multiple Ways had been mentioned in passing by Instructor Gwen-lor, so Alden had been able to tell Kibby he thought perception would be important for practicing his skill without mentioning that Joe had given him the idea. ¡°That¡¯s still really difficult for me. I did it in a different way.¡± ¡°How!?¡± He considered how best to describe it. ¡°Forgive any poor word choices,¡± he said finally. ¡°It¡¯s a hard thing to explain without them. I think my Avowed skill is like a machine. Like the¡ª¡± He couldn¡¯t say it was like the car. They never talked about the car. ¡°Like the television. It comes with several possible options, but because a human can¡¯t feel or control the parts of the machine, it¡¯s a mix of our perception and the Contract that determines which options are normally turned on or off.¡± Kibby¡¯s eyes were narrowed, and she was biting her lower lip. It was her thinking face. ¡°So changing your perception changes the show?¡± ¡°There¡¯s only one show,¡± Alden said evenly. ¡°It¡¯s a show called Alden Preserves Objects. All my perception can change is the volume. Or the clearness of the image. Or¡­it can do more than that. Probably. The description is bad. But learning to change your perception gives an Avowed a way to select the options they can¡¯t feel.¡± ¡°But you haven¡¯t learned?¡± ¡°Instructor Gwen-lor did say it was a difficult art,¡± Alden reminded her. Having the right perception was important with spell casting because it could cover minor mistakes, according to Gwen-lor. And with the right perception, powerful and talented wizards could push their spells in directions they weren¡¯t really supposed to go. Alden assumed mastering perception might, one day, similarly allow him to bend the outcome of his skill activation a little. In addition to being a way of triggering Let Me Take Your Luggage¡¯s various inherent options. It did make sense that Joe had focused on it so much. ¡°Anyway, I haven¡¯t really learned to play around with my perception. I think that¡¯s probably how a human would normally need to train their skill. Probably it would be the best chance I had of learning to use it better. But I¡¯m lucky. I have the best teacher in the universe.¡± ¡°Instructor Gwen-lor is renowned, Alden,¡± Kibby said. ¡°She is a friend of Distinguished Master Ro-den. But I do not think she is the best teacher in the universe.¡± Always so serious about teachers. Alden looked her in the eyes. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean Instructor Gwen-lor. I meant Instructor Kivb-ee.¡± She stared at him. ¡°Are you trying a friendly-mean joke?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a joke,¡± Alden said firmly. ¡°You taught me how to feel my magic correctly. You were patient, generous, and hard-working. Nobody else would ever be that patient with me or work that hard for me. I was a very slow learner.¡± ¡°Very slow,¡± she agreed. ¡°I thought I couldn¡¯t do it.¡± ¡°I thought you couldn¡¯t do it either. But I didn¡¯t have anyone else to practice with.¡± Alden snorted. ¡°And you¡¯re honest. The point is, thanks to you I can use my authority. The more I learn to feel it, and the more I practice controlling it, the more I can use it to directly sense how my skill works.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± He showed her the gravel again. ¡°There¡¯s a part of the skill that starts the preservation. After it activates, that part naturally turns off. It wouldn¡¯t usually turn on again while the skill is in use. But because I can feel what part of the machine works that way now, I was able to practice with it. And I learned how to tell my authority to do it. It¡¯s really a lot like learning the control techniques for a spell. So¡­two things can be preserved now. Only easy things, though. Like rocks.¡± There was a good reason for the skill to be automatically set to not work this way. It was taking almost every fiber of his authority to double-run it even on rocks. The old Alden would have been on his knees, staring at the lab cabinets while Sophie threatened to disembowel him and told him to figure out the difference between his power to exert influence over reality and his will. Now, he was merely aware that his limit was approaching, and he needed to stop the preservation before he exhausted himself and left himself completely vulnerable to chaos. He dropped the rocks. ¡°So. That¡¯s enough skill use for today. Let¡¯s exercise.¡± ¡°I will get the stopwatch.¡± He gasped. ¡°You¡¯re timing me? After I¡¯ve had such a hard practice session! So strict.¡± ¡°You want to be the best Avowed in the Triplanets¡¯ service, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°What? No! My goals are much smaller than that. And set on Earth. Where did you get that idea?¡± Kibby stood straighter and lifted her chin. ¡°As your first Instructor, I berate you. You will shame my name if you do not become the best Avowed.¡± Huh? ¡°Is this a friendly joke?¡± he asked hesitantly. She stared at him. ¡°If yours was not a joke, then mine is not a joke. You will be the best Avowed.¡± ¡°Kibby, I¡¯m not that great. I think maybe you should lower your¡ª¡± ¡°You will be the best Avowed.¡± # Instructor Kivb-ee conked out right after their exercise session. Alden was still wide awake. He stood in the shower, letting the water blast him. It was running cold in a lot of places now, or not running at all, but the shower near the vault was still blazing hot. He¡¯d overdone it today. He¡¯d tired himself. He could feel the askewness creeping in. The chaos was like filthy fingers pressing and pressing against him, breaking through at the edges of his existence. Mostly the new edges. His authority had grown. And the fresh authority he¡¯d earned through the many hours of practice with Kibby felt a little softer and more vulnerable than the rest. It was also beautiful. So much more beautiful and dear to him than the massive portion of his authority that was dedicated to his skill and trait. He cherished it partly because for a long while now he¡¯d been aware of himself earning it and developing it through hard work. But more than that, he enjoyed it because it was free. Free to become anything and everything. Free to reshape the world in any way Alden chose and knew the spell for. Casting a spell¡ªcasting it with intention and full awareness of your own power¡ªwas awesome. In the original sense of the word. Heavy emphasis on the awe. It was like Alden became more in some profound way every time he did. He wouldn¡¯t be surprised if wizards were all addicted to it. He was, and he could only perform a handful of spells intended for children. And he could only do them with the free authority. Alden had told Joe he thought an Avowed¡¯s authority must be bound up with their skills and other talents, so that it was easy to use. And Joe had been impressed that he was right. But I wasn¡¯t right, was I? he thought, resting his back against the shower wall. I was just saying things without understanding them. Back then I couldn¡¯t have understood them. I didn¡¯t even have the words. The skill was like a machine. It wasn¡¯t a great simile, but it was good enough. Alden contained within him a powerful, startlingly complex, rock solid machine made of pure authority. He thought if the chaos ever became too much and he started to lose himself, the skill would be the last bastion that held him together. The very last thing to go. He could sense that about it¡ªits fundamental strength. And one day, if Alden finally found his way back to a world with a System on it, all of his beautiful free authority would eventually be crammed into a permanent functional shape, too. Something useful. A new skill if he wanted one. Or the mysterious alternate path Joe had advised him to follow for Let Me Take Your Luggage. A few points in Agility. Some mental processing. A spell impression. Some speed. Whatever he was allowed to choose. I wonder how many levels I¡¯ve earned. Three maybe? Or four? He didn¡¯t know how the System kept track. He was just guessing, but it had to be more than it should have been. His authority¡ªboth bound and free¡ªwas growing so much faster now that he was consciously using it all the time. The System will give me a lot of options when the time comes. I should be fine with that. A few months ago, I was just a guy bombing Hamlet quizzes. The skill is strong and useful. I should be grateful. I¡¯ll have choices. But¡­not the one I really want. Joe had said Avowed died if their free authority grew too large and unbalanced their fixed talents. So Alden couldn¡¯t just keep it. The professor hadn¡¯t been wrong when he advised Alden not to try learning wizardry. If he¡¯d never done it, he wouldn¡¯t have known the profound joy of it. He wouldn¡¯t have felt the rush of swinging your power at the universe and making things happen. He would never have learned how to feel his skill. And so he wouldn¡¯t have known that, although his Avowed powers were indeed a gift for someone who wouldn¡¯t have been able to do magic if his life had taken any course but this, they were also a set of chains. The more Alden mastered his own authority, the more clearly he felt them. And they were really, really heavy. FORTY-NINE: Words for Demons On Day 152, Kibby woke Alden up with a shriek. It was one of those days when their sleep cycles were way out of synch, so she¡¯d just awakened as he went to sleep. He rolled off his mattress, heart pounding, and saw her sitting on the floor in front of their current television staring at the chaos map. Expecting the worst, even though he wasn¡¯t sure what the worst would look like, he raced over and stared at it with her. ¡°Someone¡¯s come,¡± she said, waving her arms at the tv wildly and looking from it to Alden. ¡°Someone has come to fix it!¡± Finally. Far away, at the edge of the ever-growing wave of color, a chunk was missing. It was a smooth half-circle shape of clean map, like someone had carved the chaos away with a razor. Whoever or whatever had started repairing the damage had arrived. They weren¡¯t exactly at the location Thenn-ar had shown Alden months ago, but they were in that direction. ¡°Why there?¡± Alden asked, excited and frustrated in equal measure to see help arrive at such a distant location. ¡°Why not start here in the center?¡± ¡°People are in that direction maybe,¡± Kibby said. ¡°We¡¯re people. We wrote that we were people on the roof!¡± They¡¯d painted a large message on the roof not long after Alden¡¯s birthday. It said, ¡°People living here. We politely request assistance.¡± Not at all the urgent HELLLLLLP!!! Alden would have preferred, but Kibby was the one who¡¯d chosen the logograms for it and she was sure polite requests for assistance were the proper way to earn the benevolence of any passing wizards. ¡°A city used to be there,¡± said Kibby, pointing a fair distance beyond the cleared zone. ¡°Not anymore, but there are some people still I think.¡± They spent the whole day watching the map. And then most of the next. It was nerve-wracking. Clearing the chaos must have been a two steps forward, one step back process. Their excitement peaked every time the cleared space expanded, and they fell into despair whenever the chaos filled it in. The map updated every sixteen minutes. It was a roller coaster. ¡°All right, that¡¯s enough,¡± Alden declared, after he heard Kibby growl angrily at the update for the fifteenth time. ¡°This is bad for our brain health.¡± ¡°Mental health.¡± ¡°That too. We are going to do math, figure out how long it¡¯s going to take them to get to us, and then we¡¯re not going to check it more than once a day.¡± ¡°Twenty-six times a day!¡± Kibby demanded. ¡°Twice a day!¡± ¡°Each,¡± said Kibby. ¡°Fine, twice a day each. How far away are they, and how long will it take them to get here at their average clear speed? I don¡¯t know how to read the distances on the map well, but if you tell me¡ª¡± ¡°I can do it. I can do the math. If you are quiet.¡± Alden shut his mouth. Kibby stared at the screen for a while, her bare toes wiggling like they always did when she was working on a problem. Then, her face fell. ¡°Oh.¡± Alden¡¯s heart sank. He tried not to let it show. ¡°We get to share a room for a long time, then?¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­it¡¯s a long time,¡± she said in a small voice. ¡°Well, that¡¯s all right. We¡¯ll be each other¡¯s company. We can watch a lot more shows. How long is it?¡± ¡°One hundred and six more Earth days. If they don¡¯t slow down.¡± The chaos raked its fingers against Alden. He took a deep breath and pushed it back. ¡°That¡¯s not long at all! We¡¯re over halfway there. And maybe they¡¯ll send a ship ahead to look for people here.¡± ¡°Do you think they will?¡± ¡°I think I would. If I were in charge.¡± He spent a lot of time staring up at the sky after that. Ships never appeared.
In one class, Instructor Gwen-lor started the recording several minutes before the young children entered the room. She spoke to Kibby directly, offering her encouragement and reminding her that she would be happy to answer any questions Kibby might have if she called. ¡°I wish I could call,¡± Kibby said with a sigh. ¡°I wish we could, too,¡± said Alden. It was Day 174. They¡¯d watched this video a dozen times by now. ¡°Do you think Instructor Gwen-lor thinks I¡¯m a bad student for never calling?¡± I¡¯m sure Instructor Gwen-lor thinks anyone who used to live here is dead.¡°I bet she thinks you¡¯re mastering all the lessons you¡¯ve got, and she¡¯s looking forward to sending you more when communication is available.¡± ¡°I wish I could go there.¡± Kibby stared at the screen. ¡°To the classroom?¡± ¡°I could live there, and every morning at first meal, I could ask Instructor Gwen-lor a question.¡± ¡°Do students live at the school?¡± Alden asked curiously. He only ever saw the classroom, and it hadn¡¯t occurred to him it might be a boarding school. ¡°Even children younger than you?¡± ¡°Some of them do. If their family isn¡¯t nearby.¡± ¡°I could live there with you.¡± ¡°You¡¯re too old.¡± Alden gave her his best wounded expression. ¡°You are,¡± Kibby insisted. ¡°Someone as old as you has to attend a university instead. I can go to Instructor Gwen-lor¡¯s school, and you can go back to LeafSong.¡± ¡°I¡¯m positive they don¡¯t accept human students. And I¡¯d never pass one of Ro-den¡¯s lab exams.¡± She didn¡¯t disagree with him. He was so terribly old that he didn¡¯t get loving lies. ¡°At LeafSong there was a girl who could do that,¡± he said, nodding at the television. The instructor had just stepped over to turn off the smart screen built into the wall behind her. She almost never used it for her lessons. The previous class using this room must have been more advanced, because the hand-cast spell steps displayed on the board were really involved. They showed the fingers wrapped with string, like the cat¡¯s cradle spell Jel-nor had used to chop up Stuart¡¯s foot. ¡°That spell?¡± ¡°No. A different one. But she used the string for it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a __________.¡± ¡°Ooo! New word. What does it mean?¡± ¡°A thing that helps you concentrate. And your authority sticks to it a little bit, so you can control more complicated spells.¡± Maybe the new word was something like ¡®focusing tool¡¯? ¡°Sticks to it?¡± he asked. ¡°Like glue?¡± Kibby nodded. ¡°Can you use any string?¡± ¡°Of course not. They¡¯re special. They have to be made ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª so that they tie to you and become only yours.¡± Alden sighed. He¡¯d suspected as much. It would have been too easy if he could just grab some random twine and start blowing up things that offended him. Like the thorny vine that had busted out of Hazmat Greenhouse Three and started sneaking its way across the compound a couple of weeks ago. It was purple and oozy, and though it was slow moving, it definitely had bad intentions. Alden lit the day¡¯s promise stick with a few strategic finger flicks, and they knelt on their cushions. Throughout the lesson, Kibby seemed subdued. It was a chanting-focused lesson. Not something Alden could do, so during this one he usually cast the hand spells he¡¯d memorized instead. Or, if he was in a masochistic mood, he tormented himself by letting his authority push and shove at the boundaries of his skill. Now that he¡¯d woken up to the way his power was wrapped within the intricate confines of the skill, straining against it was turning into a compulsion. Like wiggling a loose tooth. Sometimes it actually kept him from sleeping. Unlike him, Kibby was always laser focused. She went through the motions of every lesson flawlessly as far as he could tell. The fact that she almost never actually cast anything was starting to bother him. She had power. Even if it was clumsier and stiffer than Alden¡¯s, it was still there. She worked at it. She should have been blowing the kids on screen out of the water by now. When the chanting lesson was over, she batted at the television quickly, trying to find another show. ¡°Is something wrong?¡± Alden asked. ¡°No.¡± Maybe one more ask? She didn¡¯t take pushiness well, but she was definitely off. ¡°If something¡¯s wrong, it¡¯s okay to tell your partner. We respect each other and help each other with class, don¡¯t we?¡± This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. ¡°Nothing¡¯s wrong with me!¡± Kibby said in a high voice. She jabbed at the screen, and it flickered out. She stared down at it. Alden winced. ¡°That¡¯s all right,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯ve still got a few more.¡± They had long-since rescued every working screen in the facility, from tablet-sized to medium television-sized, and stored them here in the vault. It seemed to do a little good.The place was packed to the ceiling with supplies now, which made it less sterile and creepy. But they only had enough empty space to sleep and sit. Instead of going to pick another television, Kibby just kept looking at her reflection in the dark screen. ¡°I can¡¯t do both,¡± she said in a small voice. ¡°I can¡¯t even try anymore.¡± Alden waited. ¡°I can¡¯t do a spell and keep safe. I thought I could. I was getting stronger for a long time. But then I¡­I don¡¯t think I am anymore. I think today I¡¯m less me, instead of more.¡± A uniquely Artonan word for ¡°me.¡± An expression of identity that included one¡¯s place in relation to everything else in the universe. Alden knew what she meant. He hadn¡¯t known when it would happen. Or which of them it would happen to first. But he had known, ever since she told him it would be a hundred more days, that they would probably break down before help came for them. He¡¯d started to feel the impending disaster of it, lurking somewhere near them. He could still assert himself. But his askew moments were worse. He kept pulling himself back together, and he thought that the process of wearing down and recovering was still making him stronger. But it was beginning to seem like a fragile state of affairs. He was getting tired. One day, he would get too tired, and the chaos would start to win the battle it had been losing against him all this time. An image lit up his mind, one of Kibby¡¯s little sister. Wivb-ee. Still and dead in her father¡¯s arms with hardly a sign of what had caused it. He tried not to let it show on his face. ¡°Are you hurt?¡± She shook her head. ¡°Is sleeping under the coat not helping?¡± ¡°You said you only gave it to me to keep me warm.¡± Alden didn¡¯t answer. ¡°I thought it was helping. Now I can¡¯t tell.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid. I have plans.¡± She finally looked away from her reflection. A tear rolled down her cheek. ¡°You do?¡± ¡°Yes. More than one even. If the first one doesn¡¯t work, we¡¯ll try the second. If the second doesn¡¯t work, we¡¯ll try the third.¡± ¡°How many plans?¡± That was the face that was begging for a lie. ¡°So many,¡± he said. ¡°So many that a hundred days isn¡¯t even enough to try them all.¡±
Alden had three plans that weren¡¯t really plans at all. They were just insane things he was willing to attempt after every other option had been exhausted. Living in demonville made you think about who you really were and what you could really do when you had your back pressed up against the wall. Alden had learned a lot about himself. Now, he just needed to manage what he hadn¡¯t been able to up until now¡ªfiguring out which of the first two plans was the least likely to result in a horrific outcome. He sat on his mattress, writing in one of his notebooks, while Kibby lay under the lab coat watching a talk show on a tablet. The host was interviewing a griveck. It seemed that Sophie¡¯s sense of humor wasn¡¯t unique. The show had improved Kibby¡¯s mood. She kept giggling and repeating things the griveck said as the Artonan translations went across the screen. ¡°Slaughter him,¡± she whispered. Then she laughed again. ¡°Hey, short and violent one,¡± said Alden. ¡°When you finish with that show can I ask you a question?¡± Kibby paused the device and sat up. ¡°About your plans? When are you going to tell them to me?¡± ¡°As soon as I pick my favorite, Instructor. I don¡¯t want to embarrass myself in front of you. Let¡¯s talk about demons.¡± ¡°Yay.¡± Alden snorted so hard he almost dropped the notebook. ¡°I wanted to ask you about the big thing¡ªthe one that made the trails in the grass before it all died. Could it still be out there, or would it have faded away like the bugs?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Could there be more like it?¡± ¡°I guess so. There aren¡¯t many ________ animals on Thegund, though. Or any people around here. So probably not.¡± Yikes. ¡°So¡­the big ones hunt animals for food? They¡¯re intelligent enough for that?¡± ¡°What?¡± Kibby looked confused. ¡°Maybe. I guess? But that¡¯s not what I mean. I explained this to you when we first got here. I told you all the different kinds of demons there could probably be on Moon Thegund with the current level of corruption.¡± Alden grinned sheepishly. ¡°I memorized all the words for demon, but I never have understood exactly what the differences are between them.¡± She glared at him, stood up, and walked over with the tablet. She swiped away from the shows and brought up something that looked like a researcher¡¯s hand-drawn notes. She flipped through them, showing Alden page after page of scribbled Artonan numbers and charts. He understood none of it until she got to a page with an embedded video of a sandy-colored grasshopperish bug in a clear box. The box was in the very vault they were living in now. Mesmerized, Alden watched as the grasshopper slowly morphed. It darkened, lost definition, and gradually became one of the demon bugs he was familiar with. It spiraled up out of its case. Then, some of the runes he was currently sitting on top of lit up, and the demon was vaporized instantaneously. Kibby said the word they usually used for demon and tapped on the screen. ¡°My father studied them. It was important to know more about them because they¡¯re unique. They have a weak presence, but almost the whole species has high ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand that word.¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t understand you are supposed to say right away!¡± Language teacher Kibby said severely. ¡°Instead of going around for months using all kinds of different words for demon without knowing what they mean. This is a science word that means ¡®potential to change,¡¯ but in a specific way. There are also ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª, ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª, and ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. And some more.¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­a category that describes the way the bug changes in response to chaos?¡± Kibby nodded. ¡°There are lots of categories. For example, things like the food in the greenhouse are different from the bugs. Because what happens to it is more random. Mostly it dies as the corruption increases, but it does all kinds of different things.¡± ¡°If all lettuce seeds turned into Thunder Lettuce¡ª¡± Kibby groaned. ¡°¡ªthen would it be in the same category as the bugs?¡± ¡°No. Because the big lettuces don¡¯t magnify and spread chaos the way the bugs do.¡± Oh. The category for demon bugs includes a contagion factor. That actually made sense. The grasshoppers didn¡¯t just turn into a different kind of grasshopper; they turned into something much more dangerous. That would make them worthy of study. There must have been a lot of categories. It would involve some extremely specific scientific terms if he got into it with Kibby, and that kind of conversation could take hours for them to work through. It was a rare opportunity, though. How many bored, genius Artonan children who¡¯d grown up with a bunch of demon researchers could you expect to meet in your life? Alden was about to commit to getting himself educated, when Kibby said, ¡°It¡¯s bad to be like the grasshoppers. You¡¯re not allowed to work here if you are.¡± ¡°People can be like the grasshoppers?¡± ¡°Yes. The grasshoppers are strange. They¡¯re all the same way. Most species are more like the lettuce; every member is different.¡± ¡°So not just different categories for grasshoppers and lettuce but different categories for every lettuce plant?¡± Yeah, that would take a while to learn. ¡°Is the demon bug category the worst one?¡± She shook her head. ¡°No, I think the worst ones are for things that come from a broken dimension. We didn¡¯t study those here. Maybe Distinguished Master Ro-den did, but that would have been private work. After those, the worst category is ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-. It means a being with high authority and high potential for magnifying and spreading chaos they encounter. Then there is¡ª¡± ¡°Wait,¡± said Alden, a suspicion growing inside him. ¡°High potential for spreading chaos. Like the grasshoppers. That¡¯s a way people can be?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Kibby. ¡°People like that can¡¯t come to this part of Moon Thegund. We all had to be tested every year. I had to get tested more often because my authority was higher.¡± ¡°That made you more likely to have high potential for spreading chaos?¡± Kibby frowned. ¡°I don¡¯t think so. I think it just means it would be worse if I did.¡± ¡°High chaos potential is¡­a bad thing,¡± Alden said. Kibby nodded. ¡°Um¡­just out of curiosity, what does a person with high chaos potential turn into if they end up in a place like Moon Thegund. A demon, right? Do they look like the grasshoppers or¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. That¡¯s a very bad kind of demon. We didn¡¯t study those here either.¡± She looked at his face. ¡°You got pale. Don¡¯t worry. There aren¡¯t any of those around.¡± ¡°How do you know?¡± ¡°The map would be worse. Not red.¡± ¡°Red isn¡¯t the worst color?¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s very bad for Moon Thegund, but it¡¯s not very bad compared to other places.¡± ¡°What if there¡¯s someone around with high chaos potential and they just haven¡¯t turned into a demon yet?¡± Alden asked, trying to hold back a sudden swell of panic. ¡°What if they¡¯re about to do it any minute, and¡ª¡± ¡°No! That¡¯s not how it works. The things with high chaos potential turn right away, as soon as the corruption reaches a certain level.¡± He blinked at her. ¡°They do?¡± ¡°That why the grasshoppers changed before everything else started to.¡± ¡°You¡¯re sure?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure.¡± One of the functions of the System was to exert a stabilizing effect on my existence. Alden had been assuming that meant it stabilized an Avowed compared to whatever the normal amount of instability for a human was. And maybe it did sometimes? But it had never occurred to him that it might also be capable of making a repair to a part of someone that was¡­weak? Broken? Susceptible to demonization. Wait. Do all Avowed have high chaos potential? Or only some of us? Hannah tested Bubble of Patient Waiting on lots of people, she said, and it only had weird effects on some children. But I¡¯m sure she probably tested it on tons of Avowed because that¡¯s who all of her friends were. Is it chaos potential that really matters for getting chosen or the amount of authority you¡¯re born with? Or some combination of the two? The whole chaos potential thing had only ever been a theory on Earth as far as he knew. Alden just didn¡¯t have enough info. Maybe he¡¯d had high potential and then¡­Gorgon had fixed it? And then the System had doubled up on him? His authority battered against his skill, and it held as it always did. Kibby was squinting at him. ¡°Were you scared you were about to turn into a demon?¡± ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s dumb. We¡¯d both be gone by now if we magnified chaos. Since we don¡¯t, our authority can protect us. Now that it¡¯s fraying we probably will just¡­we¡¯ll just¡­like regular people.¡± Her lip trembled. ¡°I have lots of plans, remember?¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°And this conversation helped me pick which one I want to try first.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a good plan?¡± ¡°It¡¯s great!¡± That was definitely overselling it. ¡°It¡¯s weird, though. Please don¡¯t think I¡¯m too weird to be friends with anymore.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t,¡± she said solemnly. FIFTY: Delicious Alden had asked about the demons because he¡¯d been wondering if the big one that had made the trails in the grass, or others like it, might work differently than the bug-types. The grasshopper demons didn¡¯t respond to stimuli and they didn¡¯t seem to eat. If other types were attracted to loud noises or they were more intelligent and capable of seeking prey, that was something Alden needed to know for Plans 2 and 3. Plan 1 had just become Plan 1 thanks to Kibby¡¯s explanation of chaos potential. Alden had maybe possessed high potential as a child, according to Hannah¡¯s theory about why her bubble spell wouldn¡¯t work quite right on him. Apparently he no longer did, according to Kibby¡¯s assurance that high chaos individuals would demonize very quickly when they encountered corruption. Thanks, System. But also¡ªand maybe moreso¡ªthanks, Gorgon. Being double stabilized was even better than he¡¯d thought on that first day, while he was dodging around the bugs. Plan 1 now seemed a little more viable than the other options. ¡°Alden, why are you cooking all my favorite foods?¡± Kibby sat at the kitchen table, completely bundled up in the lab coat with the deep hood pulled so low over her face that he couldn¡¯t see anything but her chin. ¡°Because we¡¯re going to be spending every single minute we can in the vault from now on, and we won¡¯t have the kitchen anymore.¡± Alden smashed a bean burger into a pan full of oil with the back of a wooden spatula. That was about ten percent of the reason. They¡¯d already been eating mostly from the stores in the vault. Alden was just scared that one or both of them were about to die way faster than they otherwise would, and cooking a last meal seemed like the thing you were supposed to do in that situation. ¡°I have a secret,¡± he said, pressing the button on the blender box to puree a bunch of Thunder Lettuce. ¡°It¡¯s a secret nobody knows about except for me and one other friend.¡± And the System. But the System wasn¡¯t really somebody. ¡°Are you going to tell it to me?¡± Kibby asked. ¡°I am.¡± She hopped out of the chair. ¡°I¡¯ll get the ink,¡± she said eagerly. Alden rolled his eyes. ¡°No. No contract tattoos.¡± The day after she¡¯d first spotted his, she had disappeared into Joe¡¯s old rooms and reappeared shortly afterward with magic ink and brushes. Periodically, she still tried to come up with reasons for them to use it on each other. Alden understood she wanted to look like a Real Wizard, but he was too much of a human to go along with it. ¡°But it¡¯s the best way to keep an important secret!¡± she protested. ¡°Nobody will be able to take it from me even under torture.¡± The coat was so long on her that it was puddling on the floor. Melty mini reaper, thought Alden. One who needs to watch happier television. ¡°Listen,¡± he said, pouring the puree into a bowl, ¡°if someone threatens to torture you, you should absolutely tell them my secret. You should tell them anything and everything they want to know about me. You should even lie to them and tell them I¡¯m a horrible human who forced you to teach him magic against your will¡­that might be something you would get in trouble for. I don¡¯t really know how people will feel about it.¡± ¡°Never.¡± ¡°I doubt it¡¯s going to come up. Since nobody knows my secret, they don¡¯t even know to ask you about it. As long as you don¡¯t bring it up yourself, it¡¯ll be fine.¡± She didn¡¯t move to sit back down. He sighed. ¡°Fine. I promise when you¡¯re older and you want to make your first contract, you can summon me, and we can get tattoos together.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°I swear.¡± ¡°On our faces,¡± she said immediately. ¡°If it¡¯s going on our faces then I get to pick the entire design. And the size.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± She trotted back over to her chair. ¡°My secret is that I¡¯m a little different from other human Avowed.¡± ¡°Because you can feel your authority,¡± said Kibby. ¡°Because I am your Instructor.¡± Alden dumped some of the canned meat she liked onto a plate. ¡°That too.¡± I really am stacking up the abnormalities, aren¡¯t I? ¡°But even before I met you, I was different. I have a friend who gave me something. I don¡¯t know what to call it. It¡¯s a magic thing, and I think it makes me¡­there¡¯s a way for authority to be more stable and tougher, right? Without necessarily being larger in amount? And maybe that¡¯s part of what gives a person lower potential for chaos?¡± ¡°There is higher quality authority. There is also higher attachment and higher control over it,¡± said Kibby, shoving back her hood to look at Alden with interest. ¡°Most people get better in that way when they practice a lot. But some people start out better than others. I thought you were like that?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so.¡± He set their small feast on the table and sat down across from her. ¡°Your friend gave you a good gift.¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯m going to try to share it with you, but don¡¯t get excited. It might not work. I don¡¯t know how my friend did it, so I don¡¯t know if I even can.¡± She looked very excited. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°You¡¯re going to want to eat all of your meat,¡± Alden said. ¡°Eat until you¡¯re full. And then we¡¯ll try it.¡± She started shoveling food into her mouth. ¡°I¡¯m going to eat my own meal at a normal speed,¡± Alden told her dryly. ¡°So there¡¯s no point in you racing through yours.¡± Kibby swallowed. ¡°Do you have to do a hard spell on me? Is that how it works?¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s a little¡­¡± Alden tried to think of a way to tell her without it sounding disturbing, but there just wasn¡¯t one. ¡°I¡¯m going to drink some of your blood. If you don¡¯t mind.¡±
Alden felt like a normal response to someone telling you he wanted to drink your blood was, ¡°Ew. Ick. Get away from me.¡± He should have known by now that Artonans were built a little different. A lifetime ago, he¡¯d watched Jel-nor¡¯s assistants peel loads of magical dead things for her so that she could merrily braid their skins into a bracelet. Kibby¡¯s reaction to his request was extreme enthusiasm combined with a desire to ritualize the event so that it would be even more like something out of a documentary about murder cults. She shuffled around the kitchen in the robe, examining all the dishes critically, trying to find exactly the right vessel for the mystical experience they were about to have together. Alden stared at her from his seat at the table, trying not to touch the logograms she¡¯d painted all over it. The few he could read said things like, ¡°great power¡± and ¡°delicious.¡± He cleared his throat.¡°Kibby, you heard me about the no more meat situation, right?¡± ¡°Yes. I am not a carnivore, so why does it matter?¡± She pushed aside a tall glass and reached for a ceramic bowl with gold paint on the rim. ¡°And you were paying attention when I told you I hear voices in my head?¡± She bounced. ¡°I will be like a natural prophet of the ancient times!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so,¡± Alden muttered. ¡°Unless the voices they heard were very hard to understand and get along with. Also, this might not work at all.¡± ¡°I will fill this with my blood for you,¡± she said proudly, holding out the chosen bowl. ¡°Um, no. That thing is huge. I was going to ask you to poke your finger and bleed onto a cracker or something. I¡¯m sure that will be enough.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t mix my blood with other ingredients!¡± Alden stared at her. Her expression was so offended. But¡­Gorgon got to use salsa. ¡°All right,¡± he said slowly. ¡°You can use the bowl. But you can only put a little bit of blood in it.¡± She marched over with the bowl and a sharp knife and set them in front of him. Then she started shoving up the sleeves of the lab coat to bare her arms. ¡°One. Finger.¡± Alden grabbed the knife. ¡°Or I¡¯ll just eat a piece of your hair, and we¡¯ll see if that works.¡± Pouting a little, Kibby gave him her right thumb. ¡°Maybe we should chill it first? So it doesn¡¯t hurt as much. We could take something out of the fridge¡ª¡± She reached over and jabbed the pad of her thumb against the knife¡¯s point. She held it over the bowl. ¡°How many drops?¡± she asked. ¡°Three?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure it needs to be more than that. I¡¯m not a very strong wizard.¡± ¡°Yet,¡± said Alden. She smiled. ¡°Three is fine,¡± he added. ¡°I¡¯ve already done twelve.¡± How? Was she bleeding fast on purpose? ¡°Twelve is a good number. Let¡¯s stop there.¡± He took the bowl away and made her wrap her finger with a bandage he¡¯d brought from one of the lab¡¯s first aid kits. Then he made her sit on the floor, just in case she was going to faint from whatever was going to happen. He would have, too, but someone had to sit at the decorated table, or all her hard work would go to waste. ¡°Why do you look nervous?¡± Kibby asked. ¡°Because I don¡¯t know what will happen. Are you ready?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Alden wished she¡¯d look away so he could sneakily take the single-drop-on-a-cracker route, but she was staring at him avidly. Idiot. Just lick the blood out of the special bowl before you chicken out. He closed his eyes and did it. It tasted a lot like his own blood, though it was unexpectedly acidic. He set the bowl back down. His pulse was racing as he met Kibby¡¯s eyes. He could tell she was holding her breath. He was, too. Nothing¡¯s happening. It had always been a possibility. He thought it was even the most likely one. Just because Gorgon could do some arcane thing with an exchange of blood didn¡¯t mean Alden could, too. It¡¯s all right if nothing happens. We just move onto Plan 2.
Dimensions away, in the Artonan Consulate building in Chicago, Illinois, a gray hand froze as it was reaching out to lock the front doors for the night. ¡°Oh my,¡± said Gorgon, in a language nobody on the planet could have understood. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting this.¡± FIFTY-ONE: Take Me Somewhere Better ¡°Kibby, I¡¯m so sorry,¡± Alden said, staring down into her wide brown eyes. ¡°I told you it might not work. Don¡¯t worry. I have a lot of other plans.¡± She was frozen in place, waiting for a magic Alden apparently couldn¡¯t produce. ¡°Kibby¡ª¡± ¡°Your Artonan is vastly improved.¡± It was Alden¡¯s turn to freeze. It definitely wasn¡¯t Kibby. She was still sitting on the floor by his chair, unblinking. And that high, strange speech with the undertone of breaking glass¡­ He slowly turned in the direction the voice had come from and saw a familiar gray alien with black eyes staring right at him. ¡°Gorgon,¡± he breathed. And then, a moment later, he was out of his chair and¡ª ¡°We¡¯re hugging? That¡¯s new.¡± ¡°Gorgon!¡± shouted Alden. ¡°Are you here?! Are you real?¡± ¡°I am real,¡± he said, squirming away from Alden, who had to force himself to let go. ¡°But I am only here, if by here you mean ¡®projected across dimensions into Alden¡¯s mind through an uncontrollable urge to provide guidance to my spiritual progeny.¡¯ Hello. I am shocked you are still alive.¡± ¡°I am so happy to see you,¡± Alden gasped. ¡°Even if it¡¯s just in my head. I¡ª¡± Gorgon held up a hand. ¡°Wait. Time is extremely limited. This feature of myself isn¡¯t one I am accustomed to. It¡¯s supposed to be triggered in my death cave shortly after you have feasted on my corpse. ¡± ¡°What?¡± The alien was leaning around Alden to examine the kitchen with interest. ¡°I was never a fan of the life sacrifice tradition, so I skipped it. I¡¯m much older and more powerful than I should be. I thought I could probably get away with transferring some of the benefits of my inheritance to you without the bother of dying and being eaten. Clearly, I was...more successful than I intended.¡± He was staring at Kibby. ¡°You can talk without restrictions,¡± Alden said. He was still so busy processing his shock at the fact that he was speaking to Gorgon at all, he was surprised he¡¯d even realized. Gorgon smiled at his wrists. ¡°Yes. No bindings in the mind space. It¡¯s been decades. I¡¯d like to spend the next few minutes relishing in even this false freedom, but wasting the entirety of your first Rite for that seems too blasphemous. Even for me¡­even if you¡¯ve chosen to perform it for an Artonan.¡± ¡°This is Kibby,¡± Alden said in a rush. ¡°I want to protect her.¡± ¡°I can tell. Things like that are very obvious in this place if you know what you¡¯re doing. Come here quickly.¡± He walked over to Kibby and crouched down. Alden followed and knelt beside him. After staring into the little girl¡¯s eyes for a moment, Gorgon said, ¡°This is going to be a disappointing first experience for you. I''m not what you think. And this doesn¡¯t work at all like you¡¯re hoping it will.¡± ¡°I wanted to share whatever you did to me with her. It made me¡­I think it made my authority less susceptible to corruption?¡± ¡°It did. But you can¡¯t pass it on,¡± Gorgon said in a matter of fact voice. ¡°You¡¯re too young. Too weak. Too alive. You don¡¯t initiate that process in this way. Drinking the successor¡¯s blood is the second to last step in the inheritance, not the first. And you¡¯re carrying an altered version of the gift anyway. You''re incomplete.¡± He looked back at Kibby. ¡°She¡¯s exhausted,¡± he noted, running a gray finger idly over the demon-damaged sleeve of the lab coat. ¡°It¡¯s due to a chaos storm?¡± ¡°We¡¯re trapped on Moon Thegund.¡± ¡°More like a gentle chaos breeze then. But I¡¯m surprised you somehow ended up in one. Though I am loath to admit it, most wizards wouldn¡¯t throw inexperienced humans, B-ranks, or Rabbits into such an environment. It¡¯s too wasteful. You have bad luck.¡± He examined Alden¡¯s face and then made an annoyed click with his forked tongue. ¡°Never mind. You volunteered.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t know exactly what¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re frustrating. Be quiet and learn an ancient duty that has no place in today¡¯s universe.¡± As soon as he said that, Alden became focused in a completely unfamiliar way. The room around them blurred into random colors so that he couldn¡¯t make out any of the details save for himself, Kibby, and Gorgon. ¡°My people practiced magic, though not in a form you would be familiar with,¡± said Gorgon, pacing around Kibby and tilting his head from side to side as if he were trying to examine her from different angles. ¡°Humanity would see us as primitive in almost every way. But I think our understanding of life was so different that it¡¯s difficult to make a real comparison. For us, power was a thing that came only through sacrifice.¡± He stopped walking and stared at Alden. ¡°A few among us were chosen to measure and spend souls in order to aid them in the fulfillment of their true will,¡± he said. ¡°That is how my teacher described it to me. And I feel like I should describe it to you in that way first. It was a position of great meaning to my kind, and it was one that I always looked down on. And now that I am alone, I wish I had at least pretended not to.¡± Alden didn¡¯t know what the respectful thing to say was, so he just nodded. ¡°Anyway, in more technical terms the Rite you just triggered by drinking the girl¡¯s blood allows us to intermediate between a person and their own magical potential. Most of my people could not control the power they held, so those like me enabled them to use it. They came to us, we read their needs and desires, and gave them what they wanted if it was possible and fell within our very strict notions of what constituted a proper miracle. Basically, I was the village wishing well.¡± That was not at all what Alden had been expecting. ¡°So¡­you granted wishes. Just like that?¡± ¡°Not that simple. It required a lot of training. Come look into the girl¡¯s eyes and see. If you can see. I¡¯m not entirely sure what I transferred to you. Or how it¡¯s been modified by the fact that you¡¯re not the right species.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know what you did to me?¡± Alden said, surprised. ¡°I know what I meant to do. But you wouldn¡¯t even have noticed I¡¯d enhanced you if it had gone exactly as I intended.¡± Alden had more questions, but Kibby came first. ¡°I just have to stare into her eyes?¡± He leaned forward and peered into them. ¡°Nothing¡¯s happening.¡± ¡°Here,¡± said Gorgon. ¡°Let me give you a push.¡± All of the sudden, Alden was immersed in a sea of deep emotions and desperate wants that didn¡¯t belong to him. He was so scared. He missed them. The chaos kept trying to take him away from himself. He was tired. He didn¡¯t want to die. He missed them so much, and it was his fault that they were gone. The guilt was crushing. He wanted them back. He¡¯d give anything to have them back. Anything. Anything. ¡°That kind of desire is common,¡± Gorgon¡¯s voice said from a long way away. ¡°Nobody has enough strength to raise the long-dead, though. Focus on the feeling for a moment. It will help you both to move past it.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t quit focusing on it. Gorgon¡¯s voice had helped him to separate himself enough from the yearning to finally realize that no part of it was his; it was entirely Kibby¡¯s longing to have her father and sister back. But he was still drawn to the overwhelming power of the emotion.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. He examined it. Closer. Closer. As if he¡¯d finally given it permission to do what it had always wanted, the gremlin in Alden¡¯s brain took over. Something was weighed just beyond the limits of his understanding. Some part of him looked even deeper. No, it said firmly. Not that. There was not enough of Kibby to pay for that. She would end. It was fine for her to end, but it was unacceptable for the end to buy her nothing in return. Spending her in this way would create a perpetual unevenness. It was not allowed. ¡°Of course I can¡¯t bring her family back. But can¡¯t I do something to make her stronger?¡± Alden asked desperately. ¡°Strong enough to survive until help comes?¡± ¡°No. Try it. Focus on her exhaustion, on the way she is under assault from the environment you¡¯ve found yourself in. You¡¯ll see.¡± Alden focused. The gremlin did too. It became confused. Flawed? it said, much more tentatively than it had when it was nitpicking Joe¡¯s private contract to death. ¡°I don¡¯t understand. And it¡ªthe thing in my brain¡ªdoesn¡¯t understand?¡± ¡°That¡¯s because a successful Rite requires the destruction of the very resource you¡¯re aware you need to enhance. On top of that, they think your alignment with the supplicant¡¯s will might be flawed. They care a great deal about making sure you understand her. I am a little glad I passed that part onto you. It¡¯s quite helpful even today. But they won¡¯t allow the Rite to take place if you can¡¯t come to an accord.¡± Alden frowned. He didn¡¯t look away from Kibby¡¯s eyes. He could feel a profound rejection from her at the word "destruction." Some part of her was aware of what Gorgon had said. ¡°The Rite destroys authority?¡± ¡°Sacrifice for power,¡± said Gorgon simply. ¡°As I said, a disappointing first experience for you. It was an expensive method of performing magic in more ways than one. And it has little use in the present we both live in. Take me somewhere better now.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I have been chained to a desk for years. Literally. I want to see something other than an Artonan kitchen.¡± ¡°Wait, Gorgon. This can¡¯t be all there is. Isn¡¯t there something else we could¡ª¡° All of the sudden the two of them were sitting side by side in familiar blue plastic seats. Buildings slid past the windows. ¡°So this is the L,¡± said Gorgon, turning and pressing his face to the glass. ¡°I have never ridden it.¡± ¡°Kibby!¡± Alden leaped up. ¡°Where did she¡ª?¡± ¡°The girl is exactly where you left her. Right beside you in the kitchen. It¡¯s only been two or three minutes. And I think I can only afford a couple more. Why is this your favorite memory of the L?¡± Oh. Was it? Alden wasn¡¯t sure how he would even know what his favorite memory of public transport was without a lot of thought. But then he spotted a box on the seat across from him, and he realized it was true. ¡°I didn¡¯t like lunch at school that day,¡± he said. ¡°And Aunt Connie was in a party-all-night phase, so I knew there wasn¡¯t going to be anything but cereal for dinner at home. The woman who got off the train at the last stop accidentally left behind an entire pizza.¡± Gorgon¡¯s posture brightened. He stood and grabbed the box. Then he took a slice so hot the cheese strung almost a foot when he tried to separate it from its fellows, and shoved it into his mouth. He thrust the box toward Alden. ¡°Can¡¯t I do anything to help her?¡± Alden demanded. Gorgon was chewing like he fully intended to finish off the piece and several more in addition before time ran out. He gulped down a quantity of pizza that would have choked a human, and said, ¡°Not with the Rite. And I¡¯m going to ask you not to do this again, please, unless both of our circumstances become much different than they are now. I have a feeling the price of this unexpected mental field trip is going to be very high for me. Also, if you¡¯d done this with a wizard with real power and experience they wouldn¡¯t have been pulled under into the pleasant mental state the child is enjoying right now. They would be quite aware that they were being deeply accessed.¡± Gorgon waved the pizza box at him again. It smelled heavenly. Sighing, Alden took a piece and bit into it. Even as upset as he was, he had to hold back a moan. The pizza tasted exactly as good as it had been that day. ¡°Sorry¡­¡± he said after he swallowed. ¡°I mean if I¡¯ve caused you trouble by doing this.¡± Gorgon shrugged and shoved another slice into his mouth. ¡°Sorry for accidentally depriving you of food options,¡± he said around a mouthful. ¡°That part of the gift can¡¯t handle being away from our home world. At all. They have no knowledge of other planets and are afraid anything related to an animal they don¡¯t recognize might have a soul. It is very inconvenient.¡± ¡°Uh¡­no problem. They?¡± Did the gremlin have a brother? ¡°Oh, that¡¯s right. You think of them as singular. In their proper form they¡¯re part instinct, part combined ancestral knowledge from all who have come before you. However, their function is supposed to be enhanced, modernized, and heavily guided by the spirit of your immediate predecessor. It would have helped you a great deal, since I actually understand that drinking a glass of milk won¡¯t initiate a sacred and intimate bond between you and the cow. But I didn¡¯t want to die and join them, so¡­¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°You made the right call. One hundred percent. Vegetables are great.¡± Especially since passing on the full benefits package involved the successor eating a body in a death cave. Alden would not be doing that. He didn¡¯t care how magnificent his gremlin¡¯s missing features were. ¡°The grem¡ªthey seem to think I can eat anyone who entrusts themselves to my skill.¡± ¡°That would only make sense if they believed the people in question were willingly giving their lives over to you. Were they knowingly rendering themselves helpless and placing themselves within your power?¡± Alden stared down at the chunky tomato sauce on top of his pizza. ¡°I never really thought of it that way. But¡­yeah. I guess they were.¡± He hadn¡¯t considered how it must feel to another person to entrust themselves. It had to be a little scary to let a stranger have total control over what happened to you in that way. Like being anesthetized before surgery. Only Alden wasn¡¯t a doctor surrounded by a bunch of other professionals; he was just some alien teenager with a creepy outfit. ¡°Wait. If that¡¯s how it judges food¡­how did you eat the fly? Did it give itself to you?¡± ¡°Asking the critical questions in our last few seconds together, are we?¡± Gorgon said dryly. ¡°If I hold them in my mouth long enough, they eventually fly or crawl far enough down my throat on their own for my digestive juices to dissolve them.¡± ¡°¡­okay.¡± ¡°It was bothering me.¡± ¡°You could have swatted it instead of having a religious experience with it.¡± His four nostrils flared. ¡°I just said, didn¡¯t I? The Rite won¡¯t trigger for a fly. Maybe for some Earth animals. Not sure. To be honest, I have some concerns about octopuses. But most of your wildlife should be comestible. I¡¯m trying to teach them that. One stolen bite at a time. My restrictions are making it a slow process.¡± Alden took another bite of his pizza. ¡°I¡¯ve taught it that wordchains aren¡¯t evil. Mostly. Well, it works for the minor ones now.¡± ¡°Oh dear,¡± Gorgon sounded amused. ¡°What I gave you is quite limited. Wordchain debt would resemble a trigger for one aspect of the ancient duties, but not that closely. They should be able to tell that chain users aren''t¡­¡± He blinked. The semi-transparent eyelids looked just as strange as they always had. ¡°I can¡¯t hold the connection. Alden, your friends are fine.¡± ¡°Boe and Jeremy?¡± His stomach clenched. It had been so, so long. He tried not to think much about what everyone at home must assume. ¡°They¡¯re both fine,¡± Gorgon said hastily, his eyes were fixed on the city like he was trying to drink in the sight of it. ¡°Remember not to do this to me again. I hope you make it. The inheritance will help you with the chaos at least. Even though I didn¡¯t intend for it to be like this, I am glad you¡ª¡±
Alden was back in the kitchen. One of his hands was resting on the table, and the painted logogram beneath it was still wet. It took a second for him to collect himself, and when he did, he looked down at Kibby. She was blinking up at him expectantly. ¡°Is it working?¡± she asked. ¡°It isn¡¯t,¡± he said, peeling his palm away from the paint. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. We¡¯ll just have to go on to Plan 2.¡± She sighed and stood. ¡°You don¡¯t look as disappointed as I expected.¡± ¡°I feel nice,¡± she replied. ¡°Like I had a good dream.¡± FIFTY-TWO: The Necessary Functions Alden and Kibby had decided that Plan 2 wouldn¡¯t commence until Moon Thegund¡¯s current night was almost at an end. They had about eleven days. It was too long to wait, and at the same time, they had so much to do to prepare that it felt like no time at all ¡°Take me with you!¡± Kibby demanded as Alden put the last few pieces of equipment into a backpack he¡¯d found in one of the closets. ¡°I told you why I¡¯m not going to do that.¡± He hefted the backpack. It weighed about one and a half Kibbys. ¡°Because when you die, you expect me to sit in the vault all by myself and die more slowly!¡± ¡°That¡¯s not it,¡± Alden said as gently as he could. ¡°I¡¯m ninety-nine percent sure I¡¯m not going to die. But I will be testing my movement trait heavily. That means I could make a mistake and exhaust myself too much to keep my preserved item safe. I want to make sure it¡¯s only a bunch of supplies and not my learning partner.¡± ¡°I would be fine for a little while even if I wasn¡¯t in the lab!¡± ¡°I know. I believe you when you tell me that. Because lying to me would be very dangerous in this situation, and you know it. But we¡¯re still not going to waste your strength on this. Plan 2 might fail. So stay here in the vault and do that research you wanted to do, and save your energy for Plan 3.¡± Kibby was scared to be left alone even for a few hours. Alden understood. He was scared to be leaving her, too. But Plan 3 was the ¡°Alden and Kibby travel to safety instead of waiting for it to come to them¡± plan. Also known as the most extremely terrifying plan. And for it to even have the slimmest chance of succeeding, Alden needed to understand what being outside the lab walls was really like. And he felt like he had to at least make an attempt to rescue their one potential mode of transportation. ¡°I need you to entrust me with the backpack,¡± he said. ¡°You will not be able to use the mover discs without me. Your human brain won¡¯t perform the necessary functions.¡± Wow, she was really stretching for excuses now. ¡°I promise my human brain works well enough to operate a remote control. Even if it is a complicated one. Entrust me with the backpack, Kibby.¡± It took a few more minutes of conversation, but she finally did it. Alden was relieved. ¡°Okay,¡± he said, securing the backpack around himself. He was already wearing the coat. ¡°What did we do with the¡ª¡± Kibby lifted up a pair of very odd-looking glasses. She¡¯d made them herself by prying some of the magic lenses out of the awesome binoculars and gluing them onto lab goggles. You could see in the dark with them. It was a fuzzy black-and-white vision, but it would do. ¡°When the magic on them fails, you will be ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. You will lose your way back home.¡± ¡°They might not fail. And the lab lights are so bright I¡¯ll be able to see them from a very long way away.¡± Kibby nodded. She bit her lip. ¡°If¡­if you come back I will give you a present.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Alden said, smiling at her. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s something good that you want.¡± ¡°Now I¡¯m very curious.¡± ¡°Then you should come back fast,¡± she said seriously. ************************* Leaving the lab behind to walk into the pitch blackness of the chaos-steeped night was just as much fun as Alden had imagined it would be. He felt like he was slowly drifting away from the real world into an abyss that wanted to get handsy with his essential nature. He was fresh right now and so good at assertive mode that he didn¡¯t even have to think about it. His authority just pressed right back on its own. But the pressure never let up. And it would be worse when he got tired. For a while, he went slowly, poking at the ground with a long metal rod he¡¯d taken from the lab. The grass was all dead and rotted away now, except for the random blades that had become Thunder Grass or started to grow into looping vines. Pretty much everywhere he looked there was just bare, unstable soil. Ugh, this is stupid, he thought as the metal sank a few inches into a random patch. Can I even run on this? Is there any point in trying the car at all? The only thing that made him think that running might be okay was that he had decided his movement trait was based heavily on an extra symbolic understanding of the universe. He hadn¡¯t learned nearly as much as he needed to about magic, but by now, he¡¯d accepted that it could happen in more than one way. There were alterations in perception that nudged your authority slightly, there were skills that bound and shaped it for specific functions, and there was the actual conscious control that Alden had been learning to exert and love in his lessons with Kibby. And that was just the normalish stuff. There were also the rituals to consider. Alden could drink people¡¯s blood and connect to their inner selves. Artonans did all kinds of similar seemingly unfathomable things. It was less a single science and more a set of sciences, arts, and historical arcana passed down from long-dead wizards. Azure Rabbit seemed to coat him in a layer of magic that gave him a boost as he kicked off things with close metaphysical relationships to the soil of the planet he was on. It did not care what he thought the ground was at all; its own definition seemed to be right at the heart of the trait¡¯s design, and it would not budge. Alden could put up with it. It was maybe going to help him out here. I¡¯d better be right, or I¡¯m going to break an ankle and have to crawl back to the lab. Even if the trait had defied his attempts to perceive it into submission, he had gotten stronger control over it, just like he had with Let Me Take Your Luggage. But unlike the complicated skill, the trait didn¡¯t have much in the way of consciously adjustable settings. It was pretty much just on or off, and he still couldn¡¯t activate it unless the skill was in use. He flexed the portion of his authority that had been made into the trait and recalled how confused he¡¯d been a few months ago when he managed it and then had the un-creepy/more personal space feeling he couldn¡¯t define. That¡¯s funny. It¡¯s so clear now that it¡¯s just me asserting my authority more strongly. It¡¯s hard to remember what it actually felt like before I understood. ¡°All right,¡± he said to the fuzzy black and white world around him. ¡°Walking seems to work like I thought it would. Let¡¯s try running.¡± When he took the first few swift steps, he knew it was the right decision. He kicked off the ground, and it felt almost just like it had on that first run to the lab. Maybe he was leaving trails of shallow holes in his wake, but who cared what the ground behind you looked like? I¡¯ve always thought the original skill description was terrible. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°You are lighter on your feet when your skills are in use¡± hasn¡¯t fit it well at all until now. But even if this isn¡¯t actual lightness it¡¯s kind of working out that way for me. If not for the heavy backpack full of equipment he hoped would help him right the car that he hoped would work, the run would have even been comfortable. The inconvenience of wearing rigged night vision glasses was balanced against the lack of obstacles. With so much of the grass gone, there was nothing but ground for miles and miles ahead of him. He cast aside the metal rod and sprinted. How do I feel? he asked himself with every step. How long could I do this for? How long will my legs hold out, my authority, me? Then he slowed to a jog and asked himself the same questions. Then a walk again. Then another sprint. How long could I travel like this with Kibby? How far can we go? He had to figure it out here and now, because after Plan 2, there was only this. And if Plan 3 failed, they wouldn¡¯t survive to make up another. ************************ Alden didn¡¯t think the car was going to work. Months ago, when he¡¯d abandoned it, he¡¯d assumed he was abandoning it for good. It hadn¡¯t been badly damaged by the demon bugs at that point, but he was sure they¡¯d done plenty of work on it in the following weeks. And then the same slow degradation that ate away at things at the lab would have ruined it even more. As soon as he found it¡ªthe only noteworthy feature in a nothing-filled landscape¡ªhe knew he wasn¡¯t wrong. The armored vehicle looked like it had taken a beating. And then a few more beatings on top of it. Parts of it were rusting. It was full of holes. The sections of the windows that weren¡¯t broken were all bubbled and hazy, like they¡¯d been made of molten sugar. But he couldn¡¯t run this far and then not at least try to turn the thing on. So, being careful not to lose preservation on his backpack by letting its weight rest on something, he pulled himself up the side of the toppled vehicle and dropped down through the same door he¡¯d opened last time he¡¯d been here. Easy, he noted. Laboratory parkour had done him some favors. And though he had little idea what the nutritional content of all the alien food he¡¯d been consuming was, he¡¯d at least been focusing on eating things Kibby said were high in protein. He was visibly a little bit fitter when he looked at himself in the mirror and not suffering from any obvious terrible ailments, so it was a complete win in his books. Don¡¯t know what the other kids are learning in Avowed school, but I can feed myself on the Triplanets. And talk to people. That¡¯s got to count for something. ¡°Hey,¡± he said quietly to what was left of the bodies in the car as he maneuvered himself into position to start up the vehicle. ¡°Your daughter¡¯s alive. She¡¯s smart and brave. Your big sister¡¯s okay. She misses you.¡± Kibby had told him which button and lever combo should power up the car. He pressed and pulled. He was already thinking about the run back to the lab after this avenue was closed off for good, but to his absolute amazement, the car came to life with a deep, airy whoom sound that reminded him of no other engine he¡¯d ever heard. ¡°Whatever wizard or Wright made you for Joe deserves a freaking raise,¡± Alden said, staring at the runes glowing against the ceiling with astonishment. There were only a few of them left instead of the plethora there had once been. And it was pretty clear that, at least when it was offline, the car hadn¡¯t been offering much in the way of chaos protection. He could tell just from the state of the bodies. They didn¡¯t really look like bodies anymore. Too degraded. Some of the bones were warped or gone. One of the vining blades of grass had crawled through the hole in the roof and wrapped around them. Don¡¯t overthink it. He turned the car back off and climbed out. Just because it had power, that didn¡¯t mean it would run. And he still had to get it back on its metal tires, which was an iffy prospect despite what he¡¯d told Kibby. Then, it had to get across the hazardous ground back to the lab. No chance it would all come together. Alden took the mover discs and the remote control out of the backpack while it wasn¡¯t preserved and then put it back on. The discs couldn¡¯t be added back and re-preserved after he used them for this, but the backpack didn¡¯t lose its status as his entrusted object just because he¡¯d removed its contents. Very convenient. Mover discs looked like big silver hockey pucks. One side of them stuck onto the object you wanted to move and you used a remote control the size of a textbook to direct the things to levitate or shift in different directions. Bigger objects took more discs. The lab had hundreds of them, but they must have been unusually delicate because they were almost all dead. Kibby had looked up a manual for them on the television and done math and said Alden would need twenty-two to move the car. He had eighteen. It would have to be enough. He removed all the weight from the car he could, including the bodies. He did his best not to touch the vining grass that seemed like it might be in one of the chaos-spreading categories of demon things. He positioned the hockey pucks where he could, in places that looked the least damaged. When he got them all situated to his satisfaction, he started adjusting each individually with the remote control. It was fiddly, especially since the numbers on the display that showed lift angle, direction, and power were in Artonan. But he had practiced on stuff at the lab. He wasn¡¯t so hopeless he couldn¡¯t figure it out. Your human brain won¡¯t perform the necessary functions. He snorted. Last month, he¡¯d said his first English word in ages aloud by accident, and she¡¯d acted shocked. She claimed she¡¯d thought he was gradually sacrificing his native vocabulary to make room for Artonan. They¡¯d had a talk about how lacking two streams of consciousness didn¡¯t affect his memory storage. I hope she was just being funny-mean. I think she was. He finished setting each disc to move in the way he thought would be best, then he activated them. Popping, creaking sounds came from the car. Not working, Alden thought. He wasn¡¯t surprised enough to feel even a little bit of disappointment. Well, it was worth a try. He jumped and stumbled back as the car righted itself with a thud that shook the ground. ¡°Oh.¡± Alden stared at it. He looked down at the remote and switched the mover discs off. Now what? Kibby had been adamant that her father and sister would be completely gone. She¡¯d said it in a way that made Alden think she didn¡¯t want to deal with the bodies. So he wouldn¡¯t try to take them along. He cleaned out the backseat thoroughly, trying to make sure there were as few horrible reminders there as possible. Not that the car itself wasn¡¯t a huge one. Under a seat, he found the toy ryeh-b¡¯t model Kibby¡¯s sister had been holding when she died. He tried not to remember the little girl the way she¡¯d looked that day, but he could. He always could when he thought about it. It was one of those memories that didn¡¯t fade. One of the ryeh-b¡¯t¡¯s wings was gone now. Its scales weren¡¯t looking so great. But it was still in the same poised-to-fly pose Alden had chosen for it six months ago. He held it gently on his palm, examining it through the night vision lenses. ¡°I don¡¯t know how we got to a place like this,¡± he said. ¡°But at least we¡¯re still somewhere, right?¡± He stuck it in the pocket of his failing lab coat. Kibby could have it if she changed her mind about mementos. Or he¡¯d keep it himself. Ryeh-b¡¯ts who held up against the chaos for this long deserved a trip to a better place. He climbed into the driver¡¯s seat and buckled the harness. ¡°You¡¯re not actually going to go, are you?¡± he asked the car. ¡°The ground is a mess out there. One more deepish bad patch like this one, and you¡¯ll just give up again.¡± Kibby swore there wouldn¡¯t be anything like a bottomless pit for them to fall into. Most of the soil would only cave a few inches, which the car could handle. The worst patches should be like the one that had caused this roll over. Just a two or three feet deep. But there would still be plenty of those. And one of the mover discs had died just from this flip. It had fallen onto the dirt before the car was even righted. Alden didn¡¯t think the others were likely to give him another full lift. ¡°Don¡¯t you dare make me trust you for no reason,¡± he said to the car. Then he pushed the logogram for home. And they started rolling. FIFTY-THREE: The Auriad Alden kept waiting for something to go wrong. But for the first time in months, nothing did. The car climbed in and out of larger depressions, and it spun its wheels in patches of loose soil a couple of times, but it made it all the way back to the lab. When it arrived, the ramp to the underground entrance even opened for it. Kibby was waiting for him. ¡°It works,¡± she said, sounding stunned as he climbed from the vehicle. ¡°I know. I can¡¯t believe it either. Also, you¡¯re supposed to be in the vault.¡± ¡°You were gone a long time.¡± He hadn¡¯t been. It had been almost the shortest possible amount of time the trip could have taken. ¡°I was worried about you, too. Vault. Now. I¡¯ll be right there after I shower.¡± Did showering do anything to remove excess chaos residue? Probably not. But it made him feel like he was being proactive. When he rejoined Kibby, he found she had set up their learning cushions side by side in front of one of the screens. ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t want to practice anymore,¡± Alden said. ¡°Wasn¡¯t it making things worse instead of better for you?¡± ¡°I am not practicing. I¡¯m teaching. This is your present for returning safely.¡± Alden held back a sigh. He wanted sleep far more than he wanted a class right now, but he wasn¡¯t about to admit it. He was already barefoot like a proper student, so he walked over to join her. Just before he was about to kneel down, he spotted something unfamiliar on his mat. It was a loop of iridescent white string, meticulously coiled into the logogram for ¡°friend.¡± ¡°Like you used to do with my marleck berries,¡± Kibby said, pointing at it. ¡°I remember.¡± Alden stared at the string. He knew immediately that it was a magic item because his brain was a little hung up on it. Sympathy for Magic being weird again. He¡¯d mostly gotten used to the effect that particular stat increase had on him, and lately it was rare for something to draw his attention to it so noticeably that it became a distraction. ¡°Kibby, is this¡­?¡± ¡°It¡¯s for you. It¡¯s an auriad.¡± Kibby used the word Alden had learned just a couple of days before when he asked about the spell Instructor Gwen-lor had erased from the screen before starting her class. ¡°Distinguished Master Ro-den gave it to me with the cushions. It was inside mine so it would be safe until I was ready to bond with it. But I haven¡¯t passed the right test for Instructor Gwen-lor to send my beginner auriad lessons, yet. I have to learn all the hand casting spells she teaches first.¡± Kibby examined his fingers. ¡°You should take off the ring before you hold it.¡± Crouching, Alden slipped the ring off and set it aside on the floor. He lifted the string carefully and knelt on the cushion. The auriad was fascinating. It flowed through his fingers so smoothly it was almost like it was made of liquid. ¡°Kibby, you don¡¯t have to give me this,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s so kind of you, but I know the things Joe¡ªDistinguished Master Ro-den¡ªgave you are important to you.¡± ¡°Someone will give me another one,¡± she replied, eyes fixed on the string. ¡°Maybe even Distinguished Master Ro-den will do it, when I finally get to call Instructor Gwen-lor and tell her I finished her lessons. Or someone else will when I go to school. But¡­maybe nobody will ever give you one. Maybe they don¡¯t have them on Earth.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never seen one there before,¡± Alden said. ¡°Since I¡¯m your instructor, I¡¯ll give you one.¡± She spoke firmly. ¡°And you will use it your whole entire life and be the best Avowed.¡± He smiled at her. ¡°You said it¡¯s a tool that bonds to authority?¡± ¡°After you start using it, it does. Then it¡¯s only yours. You have to take good care of it and keep it with you all the time, and it will get stronger so that you can cast better spells with it.¡± So Jel-nor wasn¡¯t just wearing one in her hair as a fashion statement that day by the pond. You¡¯re supposed to keep them close. ¡°We only have one auriad spell, so you will have to try very hard and learn it,¡± Kibby said in a businesslike tone. ¡°I will pause the video just before Instructor Gwen-lor clears the spell from the screen, and you will study the casting shapes while I read all the logograms to you.¡± ¡°Do we even know what that spell does? Or if all of it is listed on the board?¡± ¡°It¡¯s all there. It hits things.¡± ¡°It hits them?¡± She mimed punching something with a small fist. ¡°It does that. But farther away. And harder. And in a square shape. It¡¯s the graduation spell at Instructor Gwen-lor¡¯s school. For the Year Sixes. It says ¡®Congratulations!¡¯ on the board beside it and lists all the students¡¯ names and their second schools.¡± The tiny children Alden and Kibby had been learning with up until now were the Year Ones, and going by the length of Mother Planet years and the way Artonan kids aged¡­that was probably the human equivalent of a ten or eleven year old? So it was like an elementary school graduation spell. ¡°You only have a few days to learn,¡± Kibby said. ¡°You have to listen and remember everything I say.¡± ¡°I will,¡± Alden agreed. ¡°Thank you so much for the present. It¡¯s perfect.¡± He couldn¡¯t help feeling a little excited. And nervous. What if something like the auriad wouldn¡¯t work for an Avowed, and the gift was wasted on him? She turned on the screen, and their lesson began. ************************ The auriad lesson became Alden¡¯s main free time distraction now that they were committed to only leaving the vault for Plan-related prep work and other essentials. Kibby read the instructions to him over and over until he could nearly recite them from memory, and then he spent ages sitting on his cushion working out how to use the loop of string. It was a mix of making the necessary shape sets with the auriad and manipulating his authority to touch the gaps created by each shape. Like a complicated version of the partner-greeting exercise the students learned to start with. Alden couldn¡¯t usually feel solid objects with his authority when he wasn¡¯t actively using his skill on them. It had never even occurred to him to try. But the auriad invited him to do it. Kibby had called it ¡°sticky,¡± and that was a fine word for it. He wanted to touch it, and as he worked with it more and more over the passing days, it started to feel like an actual extension of himself. And on the third day of practice, there was another development. ¡°It¡¯s not white anymore,¡± Alden said, surprised. He held up the final shape in the set that formed the spell¡ªa lacework of string with a square at the center¡ªto show it to Kibby. She was bundled in the coat again, reading lab files on the tablet. She¡¯d been at it for ages. She was taking her role in Plan 2 seriously. Which was good, since Alden didn¡¯t have a prayer of reading the kind of highly technical writing she was going through. He was lucky to pick out the occasional common noun or adjective. She glanced up. ¡°That¡¯s good!¡± she said. The auriad had turned a very pale shade of blue. ¡°It means you¡¯ve almost finished bonding with it.¡± ¡°It changes colors when you¡¯re done?¡± ¡°It turns your favorite color.¡± Alden stared at the silky string. I guess I do like blue. ¡°You should be careful where you aim when you do the final shape from now on,¡± she warned him. ¡°You might be able to cast with it now that you¡¯re bonding. You could hit stuff.¡± Alden grinned. ¡°I want to hit stuff.¡± She sighed.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°When I learn to hit stuff, I¡¯m going to go squash the evil vine that¡¯s escaped from the greenhouse!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not supposed to be a fighting spell. It¡¯s just to learn aiming and knock things over.¡± ¡°I bet it can fight a plant.¡± She considered it. ¡°Probably,¡± she agreed. ¡°And I bet I get it right next time,¡± he said, unclenching his authority and letting the string fall from his fingers. He was wrong. It took him two more days of obsessive attention to fully bond with the auriad. But when it was over, it was less like he¡¯d gotten the hang of using a new toy and more like he¡¯d gained a third hand that he was still a little clumsy with. The auriad had turned a deep shade of indigo blue, and it retained a faintly iridescent quality. As he worked with it, it had started to feel more liquid than ever, but it had also begun to develop a habit of sticking and catching sometimes when he needed it to do so. Alden was stupidly in love with his loop of string. Maybe he was supposed to be. The idea of handing it over to someone else to use or even hold actually gave him a physical sense of discomfort. Last night, he¡¯d had a dream that something had broken his auriad, and he¡¯d woken up in a cold sweat to pester Kibby with fifty different questions about how to take proper care of it. She was not nearly as concerned about what a terrible thing it would be if the auriad broke as she should have been. ¡°Of course getting wet won¡¯t hurt it.¡± ¡°What about knives? Or fire?¡± ¡°I guess a hot enough fire. Or a powerful enough knife.¡± ¡°Really?¡± he said, clutching the string to his chest. ¡°How do I make it stronger?¡± She looked at him oddly. ¡°It¡¯s as strong as your authority is. It¡¯s protected by you. That¡¯s how it works.¡± He finally fell back onto his pillow with a relieved sigh. ¡°I guess it¡¯s true,¡± Kibby said in a fascinated tone. ¡°I always heard wizards were like this about their auriads, but since I don¡¯t have one yet¡­¡± ¡°Does every wizard have one? I think I¡¯ve seen images of them with strings a few times and never thought about it. But in person, I¡¯ve only seen the girl at LeafSong with one.¡± ¡°A lot of wizards have them. Not all. People who don¡¯t love to hand cast usually have theirs severed after they finish training with it in school so that it¡¯s not as much trouble for them.¡± Alden rolled over to gape at her in horror. ¡°You probably saw people with them and didn¡¯t realize,¡± she added. ¡°Most wizards wear them under their clothes, and some use them as ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- or necklaces.¡± Bracelets maybe. Or hair ties like Jel-nor. Wizards did tend to be thoroughly kitted out with the elaborate clothes, magic jewelry, tats, and other tools of the trade. It would be easy to overlook a piece of string or just dismiss it as another weird Artonan thing. ¡°It¡¯s rude to touch someone else¡¯s without permission,¡± Kibby informed him. ¡°Of course it is,¡± Alden said. What kind of animal would do such a thing? Kibby shook her head at him in exasperation and went back to her tablet. ¡°You¡¯ll see,¡± he said, petting his auriad. ¡°When you get yours, you¡¯ll see.¡± ¡°I am happy you like your present. Go to sleep. I¡¯m studying physics and chemistry and magic generators.¡± ******************** Night turned into a gray dawn. It wasn¡¯t light enough to be called day, but it was light enough for them to see. And that meant it was time. For everything else. Human Day 186 was the time they¡¯d both agreed on. It was dark still, but not so dark that they couldn¡¯t see. Their sleep cycles were almost properly synched for the plan thanks to the simple expedient of Alden spending several hours carrying Kibby around strapped to his back on Day 185. He¡¯d been doing it as often as she¡¯d let him lately anyway. It wore him out faster, pushing him into the askew state almost as soon as he picked her up, but he wished she would have let him do it a few more times. It wasn¡¯t like she recovered when she was being held, but it stretched their window. Over the past few days, everything had been completed. The car was packed with the items they had deemed worth the weight. Ever since he¡¯d returned with it, it had been parked inside a plain-looking metal garage that was theoretically capable of giving it some kind of magical boost. And Alden had finally memorized the function of every logogram on the vehicle¡¯s control panel. For her part, Kibby had prepped the main lab by arranging all sorts of volatile equipment, chemicals, and supplies in the way she deemed best after her days of research. ¡°Plan 2,¡± Alden said that morning as they shared a breakfast of freeze dried food in the vault. ¡°Plan 2,¡± Kibby agreed. She was looking strained already, Alden noted. Usually a night¡¯s sleep under the coat helped at least a little. ¡°We blow the whole place up,¡± he said. ¡°¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Yipalck Corporation,¡± she replied, her face set. ¡°They¡¯re not getting a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª piece. They can shove the ¡ª¡ª¡ª ashes up their ¡ª¡ª¡ª-.¡± Alden blinked. Wow. She must have learned her serious swearing from Joe. The professor¡¯s magic bomb had come with instructions for Thenn-ar. It was supposed to be used in conjunction with a second one. According to Kibby, it was not designed to make a gigantic boom that would destroy everything, but to neatly demolish just a couple of key areas in a way that would look like it could have been an accident. She didn¡¯t approve. Alden had asked her if she could figure out how to make a bigger magical explosion. Maybe some smoke and fire. Anything that might draw the attention of the people who had come to Thegund to clear the chaos. She didn¡¯t think that was enough either. And she was the one who could read the instructions. She was the one who¡¯d been hurt the most. So. Full-scale devastation it was. They watched a soap opera. Klee-pak and the purple daisies again. Then they both ate and drank as much as they could stand, and they headed out. Before they exited the main lab, Alden examined Kibby¡¯s handiwork. He couldn¡¯t understand most of it, but in addition to all the stuff she¡¯d arranged herself, she¡¯d had him dolly in some heavy plastic drums and random pieces of still-functional enchanted equipment for her. The bomb, still in its protective case, looked like a glass football full of swirling silver mist with three deep depressions in the top. Kibby had set it right at the edge of one of the floor tiles she had told Alden he must never, ever touch. She bent over it. ¡°You''re sure?¡± he asked. ¡°I will not die in the vault like a grasshopper.¡± She stuck her three middle fingers into the depressions and held them there for a while. Then, she removed them. ¡°We have a human hour and fourteen hour fractions now.¡± Seventy-four minutes. To calm his nerves, he ran his fingers over the auriad. He was wearing it around his neck, triple looped and easy to hide under the collar of one of his turtlenecks or the Hawaiian shirt he was wearing over them. They headed across the chilly compound as they had so many times before. Kibby hopped over the evil vine without looking at it, but Alden had to pause and admire his handiwork. His new spell had squashed it nicely, and he¡¯d been able to practice his aim. It hit things with a perfectly square-shaped hammer of force. Approximately sixteen inches across on the diagonal. They weren¡¯t crushing blows, but they were certainly harder than Alden could physically punch or kick. And if they didn¡¯t hit anything, they traveled pretty far before they faded. He¡¯d been able to throw up piles of gravel from about thirty yards away. They entered the garage and climbed into the car. Alden took the driver¡¯s seat and pressed the buttons that would take them to the coordinates marked on the homemade map they¡¯d glued to the car¡¯s ceiling. If nobody came to check on the explosion, the map was Plan 3. Please, somebody come, he thought. Plan 3 is the worst. The car started and began to roll. To cover his sigh of relief, he smiled at Kibby. ¡°We need driving music.¡± She winced. ¡°Do not sing, Alden. You are not good at it.¡± FIFTY-FOUR: Farther ¡°I think you should press the button that makes it go faster,¡± Kibby said suddenly from her place in the passenger seat. She was bundled up in the coat, with an additional pair of blankets wrapped around her to ward off the cold, and she had a tablet in her lap. While the lab still existed, she was using it to study the chaos map one last time. Whoever was in charge of clean-up was making slow and steady progress toward them, taking one giant semicircular bite out of the corruption every day like they were eating their way to the center of a pizza. It really wasn¡¯t what he would have expected, if he¡¯d bothered to expect anything over the course of the past few months. Something that slowly drained the chaos away from the entire map would have felt more right. So that everything turned from red to the better colors¡ªpurple and pink, and then gradually disappeared. But there was no gradual fading involved in whatever the wizards were doing. The corruption was just totally gone from the clean area. ¡°Faster?¡± he asked. ¡°I thought we agreed we liked this speed?¡± They had debated their travel pace for a long time. Fast had the advantage of getting them to safety quicker, and time was very much of the essence. Slower had the advantage of reducing the risk of a devastating roll-over like the one that had occurred before. Even at lower speeds, the car was still much faster than running. And it had proven it could actually handle the shitty terrain by grinding slowly through loose soil and climbing out of most ditches. ¡°Maybe I should not have asked you to add the Literan generators to the main lab yesterday. I felt very angry, though,¡± Kibby said. Alden turned around in his seat to stare out of the warped and hazy back windshield. They¡¯d been driving for half an hour. The lab was far behind them already, and he couldn¡¯t really mark its position anymore. Maybe that pale patch on the gray horizon was from the lights? ¡°We¡¯re pretty far away,¡± he said. ¡°Didn¡¯t we agree we should be at least in the general area to make it easier for people coming to rescue us to find¡ª¡± ¡°We should be farther.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± No arguing with the bomb maker about the bomb she¡¯d made. Alden pressed the button that increased their speed, and the quiet thrumming sound of the car rose. It was difficult to make sense of how fast they were going when their only landmarks were potholes, but the whistle of the wind through the holes in the windows and roof of the vehicle grew louder. ¡°Hey, you¡¯ve never been to another planet, right?¡± Alden asked. Kibby shook her head. ¡°I think you¡¯re going to like the rest of the universe. If you¡¯re on Artona III, near the university with Distinguished Master Ro-den and the others, there are all kinds of plants and animals¡ªway, way more than here. And you can see the stars at night. And if you end up going to Instructor Gwen-lor¡¯s school on the Mother, I bet it¡¯s just as nice.¡± ¡°What about Earth?¡± ¡°If you find a way to visit me on Earth, I¡¯ll take you to the ocean.¡± Moon Thegund didn¡¯t have any very large bodies of water. ¡°I¡¯ll let you hold my cat, Victor.¡± ¡°The mean one?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I will find a way. I will become an ambassador if I have to.¡± ¡°You¡¯d be the best ambassador.¡± ¡°That would take a long time, though. I will summon you before then. As soon as I earn my rights. And we will tattoo our faces.¡± ¡°That¡¯ll be the best day ever.¡± Alden really meant it, too. With a few minutes to go, they finally stopped the car. They both climbed out, and Kibby stood staring behind them with narrowed eyes, as if she thought it might help her see the laboratory miles away. Alden hauled a couple of small red spotlights out of the back seats and positioned them at the front and back. They were assuming that if wizards in spaceships wanted to fly over here and take a closer look at the situation they would be able to locate the vehicle easily enough even though they were now quite far from the facility. They were wizards. In spaceships. It kind of implied competence on multiple levels. But he figured the lights couldn¡¯t hurt. The tablet Kibby had brought was lying on the seat in the car. Out of the corner of his eye, Alden suddenly saw the image of the chaos map vanish from it. He spun to look back toward the lab. ¡°That was just the bomb starting to ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. The main explosion hasn¡¯t happened yet.¡± They stood in silence for another few seconds, then Kibby said, ¡°Now. It¡¯s gone.¡± An instant later, a green-white flash lit the sky. The perpetual cloud-cover was thrown into sharp relief. The whole landscape brightened. Kibby threw back the hood of the lab coat to take it all in. The light vanished, and a few seconds later, a single clear sharp BANG, like the discharge of an enormous gun, split the air. It was followed by a deep, growling roar that Alden could actually feel. And then there was silence. Kibby turned to beam at him. ¡°Uh¡­that was great,¡± he said, heart thundering in his chest. ¡°It was the most impressive explosion I¡¯ve ever seen.¡± He assumed the crater the lab had been built in was now large enough to warrant its own zip code. He wondered what level of crime blowing an actual chunk out of an Artonan moon was. ¡°You¡¯re sure we can convince people this was an accident?¡± ¡°There won¡¯t be anything left for them to prove otherwise,¡± Kibby said unconcernedly. ¡°Maybe a demon strike damaged and altered the wrong thing.¡± ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure I saw a demon sneaking around near the lab last night.¡± ¡°Me too.¡± ¡°One of the big ones.¡± ¡°It¡¯s why we left in the car.¡± ¡°We had to run. Demons are dangerous.¡± ¡°They are.¡± **************** The next part of Plan 2 involved waiting. Alden didn¡¯t like it because he wasn¡¯t sure it was the right thing. Maybe they should have decided to keep driving and trust that space wizards who were looking would find them no matter how far they got from the lab. Or maybe they should have parked a little closer to start with. Or maybe¡­ Forget it, he chided himself, walking in a slow circle around the car in his coat while he wore a preserved Kibby strapped to him like a backpack. This is what you decided on. It was a horrible day. The chaos ate away at him. He asserted his authority and pressed it back. Over and over again. He adjusted the spotlights a thousand times, as if wiggling them into different positions was going to make help drop down from the clouds on top of him. He ate and drank as much as he wanted from their supplies and went over the plan until he was almost crazy from it. Help would come. If it didn¡¯t come, they would race toward it. As fast and hard as they could. The car moved faster than the approaching aid. When he and Kibby did the math together it looked like there was a chance. If the car lasted only a single day, traveling at an average speed of around thirty miles per hour in human terms, they would probably die. If the car lasted two days¡­maybe. A tiny maybe. A gossamer-thin sliver of a maybe. Based on the speed of the approaching help, the speed of the car, the speed at which Alden himself could jog, his own total guess about how long it would be before he tipped over the same threshold Kibby had and could no longer recover effectively from the assault. And then there was Kibby. She had to last, too. She had to last at least two days without the protection of the lab, too. With nothing but whatever help the coat could give her. Or they wouldn¡¯t be able to take the car. Alden wouldn¡¯t be able to protect her with his skill if he wasn¡¯t carrying her. He adjusted the lights again. It had been hours. There were no ships in the sky. No vehicles on the dark horizon. ¡°What kind of people don¡¯t care enough to come see what that giant-ass BOOM was?¡± he muttered. ¡°There¡¯s no way they didn¡¯t notice it.¡± Some sensor on some piece of equipment somewhere had to have notified somebody. That green flash had to be visible from space. Even if they thought it was just a crazy accident at a crazy scientist¡¯s long-abandoned lab, weren¡¯t they even a little curious? ¡°It was awesome, Kibby,¡± he said to his frozen companion. ¡°They should want to come check it out.¡± Alden¡¯s faithful clock, brought with him from the vault, finally died to the chaos after about nine hours. From here on out, he¡¯d just be guessing at the days unless he asked Kibby. She had a better natural time sense. He trudged the circular path around the car, staring down at his shoes. They were the same ones he¡¯d been wearing when he was summoned away from the consulate. Just a regular pair of sneakers he¡¯d bought on sale more than a year ago. They were the only shoes at the lab that fit his feet, so he¡¯d just kept wearing them whenever he couldn¡¯t go barefoot. They were held together by so much industrial-strength glue, magic tape, and scraps at this point that they looked almost like he¡¯d made them from scratch. He stumbled suddenly and almost fell. Ah, it¡¯s hard out here. I feel less and less like me. He ran his fingers over his auriad. He tried to focus on the strength of the machine that was his activated skill and ignore the shredding, creeping pain of the askewness digging into his authority. I think the free authority is almost the same size as the skill now. The magnitude of his power was something Alden was only just learning how to sense. He wondered if he¡¯d be able to feel it still when he was back home. Or if, without the pressure of the chaos, it would all just¡­leave him. He didn¡¯t think it would. It felt so natural now. Whether he was relishing in the feeling of casting spells with it or feeling the pressures against it as it helped him endure this environment, he couldn¡¯t imagine life without it. Finally, he¡¯d had enough. His energy was spent. And he¡¯d admitted to himself that no help was coming for them here. He stopped and set Kibby down. She was just as awake and alert as she had been when he started carrying her. Her face was still flush with the excitement of her successful act of vengeance. She examined him as he pulled off the coat and gave it to her. ¡°Nobody came?¡± ¡°Plan 3,¡± said Alden tiredly. ¡°Remember your promise.¡± ¡°I remember. We are partners. I will tell you when I can¡¯t do it anymore.¡± They got back in the car. Kibby took the driver¡¯s seat. Alden strapped himself in beside her. ¡°Doors or no doors?¡± she asked, pulling back the sleeves of the coat so that her hands were free. ¡°You have experienced several hours in the corruption now, so you choose.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think the car¡¯s offering any protection at all anymore,¡± he said. Figuring out once and for all whether the armored vehicle was still doing anything to help shield them from the chaos had been part of his assignment today. But he felt exactly the same now as he had been outside. ¡°It¡¯s just good for moving us. So let¡¯s make it move better.¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Kibby nodded and started going through a long sequence of button presses and lever pulls she¡¯d found last week when she managed to get one of the lab tablets to talk to the car. When she was finished, there was the squeal of metal on metal and four loud clangs. The car¡¯s heavy armored doors fell to the ground with thuds. Alden stared out across the empty landscape. Then, he took his broken clock and chucked it into the dirt. ¡°Do you have your sleeping supplies?¡± Kibby asked. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°The plan doesn¡¯t work if you don¡¯t trust me. You have to rest.¡± ¡°I know. Look.¡±Alden showed her a set of earplugs he¡¯d been keeping in his pocket, and he pulled a strip of cloth out from under the seat. He wrapped it around his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m going straight to sleep.¡± ¡°Good,¡± said Kibby. He heard her pressing more buttons. ¡°It¡¯s my turn to carry you, now.¡± The car started up. Alden resisted the urge to thank it aloud. Or to peek out from behind his blindfold. His job was to sleep now and recover. And he wasexhausted. ¡°Go,¡± Kibby whispered. Metal tires crunched against the soil. Wind filled the stripped car. Alden said Peace of Mind and shoved his earplugs in. The gremlin was thoroughly trained on it now. It had finally learned to trust that Alden would pay his debts and even himself out without being yelled at. In just a few minutes, despite the bumpy ride, he was asleep. ************************* Hours later, Alden woke up feeling pretty refreshed physically. He wasn¡¯t great existentially, but it wasn¡¯t as bad as it had been. Less askew than when he first set Kibby down after their carrying session. I¡¯m still recovering enough to pull ahead of it a little I guess. A thousand pet crickets for Gorgon. And one noncommittal nod of acknowledgment for the System. He thought the auriad was helping somehow, too. He hadn¡¯t really expected any significant recovery at all while he was out here away from the vault. In a way, the auriad¡¯s very existence seemed to be passively bolstering his authority. ¡°Did you just wake up and pet your auriad before you even said hello to me?¡± Alden lifted his eye mask and turned to face his chauffeur. She had her knees pulled up against her chest, and not so much as a finger was sticking out from the coat and blankets while she watched for hazards on the route ahead of them. The red leather was covered in crumbs, though, so she¡¯d obviously been snacking. ¡°How are we doing?¡± ¡°You slept for ten or eleven of your hours. The car successfully climbed in and out of three large ditches. I chose to maneuver around two more. No ships flew over. I decreased our speed because of the ditches, and then I changed my mind and increased it. You should eat and drink and pee.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all good. Except for the ships. And I can remember to do those last three things on my own. I promise.¡± He unhooked his safety harness and reached behind him to dig into his box of chosen road food. After biting into a leathery nutrition block that tasted vaguely like cantaloupe, he examined Kibby more closely. It was impossible to tell how she was doing. He couldn¡¯t even see her face without leaning over to peer into the hood. ¡°Are you all right?¡± he asked. ¡°Seriously?¡± She didn¡¯t answer for a minute, and his stomach clenched. Finally, she said, ¡°I feel bad. But not so bad that we should stop the car.¡± ¡°I feel better than I expected. So if you want to, we can.¡± ¡°Not yet.¡± ¡°Regular sleep?¡± he asked. ¡°I can watch the ground.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sleepy yet. But you watch for a while. Tell me if I need to do anything.¡± Alden watched. This was the reason they hadn¡¯t left in the full dark. You had to be able to see the ground well enough to avoid the worst obstacles. But even now, in the dim light, there wasn¡¯t much to it. He just stared straight ahead, reminded himself periodically not to lose focus, and made sure the car didn¡¯t encounter something it couldn¡¯t handle. Kibby used the break he was giving her to crack open her last tin of canned meat and eat it with a spoon. He couldn¡¯t help but notice that she wasn¡¯t making the happy smacking sounds she usually did when she was eating the stuff. Alden had been saving up one particular conversation topic for exactly this sort of situation. ¡°The Primary,¡± he said. Kibby¡¯s spoon stopped clinking against the can, and he smiled. ¡°What about the Primary?¡± she asked suspiciously. ¡°I know I¡¯m always teasing you about the things he said to me when I met him at that party,¡± said Alden. ¡°The truth is he didn¡¯t say much. He certainly didn¡¯t say I was amazing or any of the other stuff I told you. He mostly asked me questions about myself.¡± ¡°What questions?¡± He kept his eyes on the landscape while he told her the whole story, not embellishing anything or leaving out a single detail. She was fascinated, delighted, baffled, and scandalized all at once. She was completely uninterested in his traumatic confessions about his childhood pastime of staring at the dead body of someone he hated, and she was entirely too interested in examining his left hand. ¡°It¡¯s been months. I don¡¯t think you¡¯re going to find the Primary¡¯s¡ª¡± huh, I still don¡¯t know how to say DNA ¡°¡ªmagic under my fingernails after this long.¡± She finally let his hand go. ¡°I can¡¯t believe he really liked you.¡± ¡°Ow.¡± Alden held the hand to his chest. ¡°Also, I don¡¯t think he liked me. It felt like¡­ah, he was okay, actually. Better than a lot of people at that party. And I don¡¯t think he was trying to scare me even though he did. But it still felt like a slightly dangerous encounter.¡± ¡°He said he wouldn¡¯t hurt you!¡± ¡°That¡¯s a weird thing to say to someone. Also, he told me I should try to grow up well.¡± ¡°You should.¡± ¡°Well, yeah. That¡¯s true, but it sounded kind of¡ª¡± ¡°He liked you. You¡¯re almost friends,¡± she said in a tone that would brook no argument. ¡°And we are friends. So¡­it¡¯s like the Primary and I are almost friends, too.¡± ¡°Logical.¡± She nodded. ¡°A lot of people on Moon Thegund wanted the Mother Planet to send a knight here. Not the Primary of course. But one of them. To guard against the corruption.¡± ¡°Did you want one to come? Is that why you¡¯re so interested in them?¡± Kibby shook her head. ¡°No. I didn¡¯t really want one here. Back then. We would have had to leave and go do research somewhere else, maybe somewhere more dangerous, if the Mother completely fixed the chaos problem here. It was the people who live in the cities on the other half of the moon that wanted it gone.¡± I would think everyone would want that. ¡°The Grand Senate said the knights couldn¡¯t spare anyone for permanent assignment in a place like Thegund. A few years ago, they offered people free ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ªinstead.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know that word.¡± ¡°Moving to a new home.¡± Ah. Relocation. ¡°I just listened to all the news about the Primary and some of the other knights because it was exciting,¡± said Kibby. ¡°Distinguished Master Ro-den got special reports on them that were supposed to be only for the most important wizards. But he didn¡¯t mind if we all watched them, too.¡± ¡°What kinds of things do the knights do?¡± ¡°All different. But all good things. They fight chaos and demons a lot. Sometimes in places really far away.¡± She took another bite of her meat. ¡°I saw the Primary slice a demon in half. Almost.¡± ¡°Almost?¡± Alden asked, taking a sip from a bottle of water and sparing a glance away from the windshield to examine her expression. She looked very thoughtful. ¡°I saw the demon in one piece, and then it was in two,¡± she clarified. ¡°I couldn¡¯t actually see the Primary.He was too small.¡± Could the guy shrink himself? It seemed like a strange choice for a fight, even if you were the Triplanets¡¯ Number One Super Wizard. ¡°It was an image from one of our space telescopes,¡± Kibby said. ¡°I asked Master Ro-den about it, and he said the demon was one-eleventh the size of Moon Thegund.¡± Alden spat water all over the car¡¯s control panel. ¡°What?!¡± he sputtered, choking and patting at his Hawaiian shirt. Like there was someone around to care if he was a little damp. ¡°No!¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°No! Demons can¡¯t be that big!¡± Kibby looked flummoxed. ¡°But I saw it.¡± ¡°Uh¡­I mean. I don¡¯t want demons to be that big. That¡¯s really bad. I don¡¯t like it at all.¡± He also did not like it that he had engaged in conversation with a man who could chop something measured in fractions of moons in half. People like that shouldn¡¯t hide behind potted plants with their sister at stupid college parties. They should stay in high budget fantasy movies. Where they belonged. ¡°I don¡¯t like it either. Except for watching the Primary fix it. That was fun.¡± She tossed her empty can out of the car. ¡°You can¡¯t tell anyone. Master Ro-den isn¡¯t supposed to share that kind of thing with his assistants.¡± ¡°Kibby, I could stand on top of a building and shout that to an entire city on Earth, and I promise nobody would believe me.¡± *************** Kibby slept; Alden drove. Kibby drove; Alden slept. They ate and drank as much as they wanted. This was not the kind of trip where you rationed your supplies. They felt worse and worse. They started talking about imaginary futures for themselves. They designed their matching tattoos. More than forty hours in by her own estimation, Kibby said, ¡°I didn¡¯t think we¡¯d make it this far. The car wasn¡¯t even supposed to drive for this long when everything was normal.¡± She had never once, in all their planning, told him that. ¡°I guess having the doors off helps a lot,¡± he said. ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll forgive it,¡± said Kibby. ¡°If it goes a little farther.¡± It was full daylight now. They¡¯d come a long way. Alden forced himself to go to sleep again. He chained for peace of mind. It was his first time ever stacking them without paying back the debt. The gremlin was starting to grumble. Give me time, he begged it. Please. I¡¯ve never once failed to pay it off. I¡¯ve never once cheated, and you know that. Just give me a little more time. Kibby woke him up. He wasn¡¯t sure how many hours it had been. The car was stopped. There were huge dark circles under her eyes. Her whole body was shaking, and she was breathing too hard. ¡°I got it wrong a little,¡± she said faintly. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°It¡¯s all right.¡± He didn¡¯t even know how she had messed up, but whatever it was, it was okay. This was the kind of situation where no mistake she made could be unacceptable. If she turned into a demon the size of a planet and destroyed the universe, Alden would look everyone in the eye when he got to the afterlife and tell them Kibby had done better than any of them could have in the same situation. She showed him a patch of skin on the back of one small hand. It was cracked and bloody and blackening. ¡°I got it wrong,¡± she said again. ¡°I couldn¡¯t push it away anymore.¡± So that¡¯s how it¡¯s going to get us? He had wondered what would happen when they were finally spent. If it would be similar to the swift deaths of the scientists. If they would just rot away, if they would mutate to death like some of the plants. Guess it doesn¡¯t matter. ¡°Not a problem,¡± said Alden, unlatching the safety harness. ¡°This just means it¡¯s my turn.¡± He drank two bottles of water. He ate sickeningly sweet jam out of a pouch. He strapped on the pitifully small bag of supplies he¡¯d allotted himself. Checked the lightweight sling they¡¯d designed for the sprinklers. Finally, he took the lab coat from Kibby, put it on, and adjusted the straps around himself that would hold her in place if he stumbled. He crouched down. She stared at him for a few seconds. ¡°You remember how my skill works, right?¡± he said with a grin. ¡°You¡¯re the boss. You¡¯ve got to do the entrusting.¡± She nodded and positioned herself on his back. He heard the clasps click shut around her. She threw her arms around him. Alden activated the skill when he felt like she was in the position that would be the most balanced and least difficult for him.Her breath, ragged and frightened in his ears, stopped. He started to run. FIFTY-FIVE: Man on the Moon Alden had heard that some humans could run hundreds of miles without sleep. Not even Avowed. Just ordinary humans. Not that ordinary, he thought as he jogged. Ultramarathoners. Trained, awesome people. He was not trained. Or awesome. And he was carrying another person on his back. But if being an Avowed was ever going to count for something, he wanted it to count for this. He had Azure Rabbit. He had a whole lot of ground for it to work with. It wasn¡¯t that he thought he could travel across country without rest for days, but that he needed to. Depending on when Kibby had stopped the car, depending on how fast his average speed was, the trip could be two days. Or four. Or more. Maybe there were three hundred miles left to go. Maybe there were twice that many. Alden hadn¡¯t asked Kibby for the number before he started carrying her because it didn¡¯t matter. They were in it now. He would run, walk, or crawl them out of it. Or they would both die. In a way, the clarity of his options was a gift. There was no longer any point in second guessing the decisions that had led them here. Alden was sure he¡¯d made stupid mistakes. Probably a lot of them. He was ignorant and incompetent in too many ways. But he¡¯d done his best, and now all the choices had been exhausted. He didn¡¯t even have a compass. He just traveled in what he hoped was a straight line away from the car, even though he knew it probably wasn¡¯t. He tried to aim for large holes or ditches he could make out in the distance directly in front of him. It was the best he could do for landmarks. At least his target¡ªthe non-chaos zone¡ªwas massive. As long as he didn¡¯t get delirious and start walking in completely the wrong direction, he wasn¡¯t likely to miss. He ran sometimes. He walked others. He wished he had music to drown out the drum of his own heart in his ears. When he got thirsty, he planted a sprinkler deep in the ground and sealed a plastic bag over its head to catch some of the water. ¡°Thanks, Thenn-ar,¡± he whispered as he paced around the device. He couldn¡¯t stop moving. Maybe Kibby could still withstand the corrupted environment for a long while. Or maybe it was only minutes. He didn¡¯t think she knew any better than he did. It took a while for the sprinkler to produce a decent amount for a drink, but it was better than trying to carry jugs of water on top of everything else. He ate some dried fruit while he waited. When he¡¯d drunk his fill, he picked up his sprinkler and kept going. ***************** Hours later¡ªmore than half a day if Alden¡¯s time sense wasn¡¯t totally wrong¡ªhe realized something bizarre was going on with the ground. It might have been going on for a long time. The convenient way his trait interacted with the soil while he was in motion meant he felt like he was kicking off of something solid even when it was it just a thin crust of dirt or it was loose and sandy. So he didn¡¯t notice what was happening beneath his feet by feeling it. Instead, he saw the whole landscape do something. The change was so subtle it would have been hard to notice except for the fact that the view on Moon Thegund was monotonous. Before it was grass. Now it was ditches and potholes. And here¡­ Did the dirt just move? All of it? Because there was no wind, Alden was not accustomed to seeing motion of any kind around him. He slowed down to his slowest walk. Several minutes later, it happened again. Everywhere he looked, in the same instant, the loosest patches of soil shifted. Then, they settled back to stillness. I think it¡¯s been less than a day. I¡¯m really tired, but I can¡¯t be hallucinating yet. It happened a few more times, and Alden finally stopped walking altogether and just took single steps from side to side to keep the skill active on Kibby.There was a shallow depression in the ground in front of him. A patch with sandy crumbling edges. He stared at it intently, and a couple of minutes later, the grains of dark sand all shivered in place. A small chunk of the edge collapsed into the depression with the quiet hiss of falling grains. Then, everything was still again. ¡°Okay?¡± Alden said to himself. ¡°What was that?¡± He kept walking and watching, trying to come up with theories. The only one that made sense was that the whole ground was moving. Like an earthquake. If an earthquake happened for the briefest of moments at perfectly regular intervals. Assuming it wasn¡¯t a giant subterranean demon creature¡¯s heartbeat¡ªthanks for coming up with that thought, brain¡ªhis next, more hopeful guess was that it might have something to do with the wizards cleaning up the chaos. It¡¯s like something is banging on Moon Thegund like a drum. On the one hand, that would be good news. Being close enough to feel the effects meant he hadn¡¯t turned in a giant semi-circle and started heading back to the lab. On the other¡­what if they weren¡¯t doing some high-powered cleansing spell to get rid of the chaos like he and Kibby had both assumed? What if it was more like they were dropping magical nukes on it from space? He was hoping to walk into a clean zone surrounded by benevolent chanting wizards. Not step out of the chaos into a giant bombing range. Alden thought that most of the things that would make a planet-sized moon tremble would make a human-sized person dead. But that changes nothing, he decided. Because I can¡¯t turn back. One foot in front of the other. For as long as he could naturally. And after that, he still had a couple of tricks in his pocket. *********************************** When I get home, I¡¯m going to be lazy. Alden made this decision¡­sometime. How long had it been? A full twenty-four hours yet? Longer? Was that only wishful thinking? One of the sprinklers had given up. He¡¯d gotten water out of it five times. Elepta Farm had earned his business if they ever actually grew something that wasn¡¯t mildly toxic for humans. I¡¯m going to be one of those lazy, rich Rabbits that everyone envies and hates. No even worse than those Rabbits. I¡¯m going to be the laziest one that ever existed. He would never walk another step. He would buy a car. And a driver. He would hire servants to carry him on a palanquin. He¡¯d pay some Adjuster with the right spell to follow him around and levitate him up staircases. Everything hurt. Legs. Back. Feet. Shoulders. Authority. He kept adjusting the straps that held Kibby in place, trying to relieve pressure. They¡¯d started to rub him raw even through the coat and the layers of clothes. Focusing on his future life as the human embodiment of sloth helped for a while. When that stopped working, he tried to hold a mental conversation with the gremlin. You were loud about the big chain debt for a while, and then you got quiet, he said. I don¡¯t mind if you want to be loud again. It stayed silent. That¡¯s really scary of you. Hey. Gorgon¡¯s confused ancestors. Talk to me. Keep me company at least. He waited for a reply that never came. Fine. Be that way. When I get home, I¡¯m going to hire an S-ranked Sway to force us to eat an entire rack of barbecued ribs. He snorted at the image of himself, trying to explain to some disturbed Sway why it would be a necessary and righteous use of their powers. From far away, there was a single whumf of sound. Staring down at the taped-up toes of his sneakers, Alden saw the ground shake. They started back. The distant hammering of something against the moon had gone on for a long time. Then it had stopped for a long time. And now here it was again. With sound effects. We¡¯re still moving the right way. He coaxed a few more steps out of himself with that knowledge. But it was getting way too hard. He thought his left foot might be bleeding inside his shoe. I guess I should do something about that. It¡¯s still a long way. No matter what, it¡¯s still a really long way. The supply pack around his waist contained bandages, numbing spray, and a change of socks. He was just scared to stop and drop the preservation on Kibby for the minute or two it would take him to use it.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. He was afraid she¡¯d be hurt. He was afraid he wouldn¡¯t be able to pick her back up. Physically or magically. Whumf. It wasn¡¯t like the situation was going to get better as time passed, though. He walked a bit farther, trying to put himself in the right headspace to do and say the right things. What were the right things again? Whumf. They came around ten minutes apart maybe. That was cool. He could use the sound of the Artonans bombing the hell out of his destination to keep time. Whumf. Alden took a knee in the soft dirt. It hurt. His knees were starting to hurt. They¡¯d never done that before. Was it just the amount of walking and running, or was the trait taking a toll on his joints? ¡°Alden?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t unstrap yourself,¡± he said. He was surprised at how dry and raspy his voice sounded. He¡¯d been drinking plenty. ¡°I¡¯m just changing my socks really quick, and then we¡¯re moving again. Can you do just a couple of minutes?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± ¡°No lies right now. We¡¯re making good time.¡± Ha. Hypocrite. You don¡¯t even know if you¡¯re lying yourself or not. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Kibby whispered. Alden¡¯s feet looked way worse than they¡¯d felt. One of his heels was actually glued to his socks with blood and whatever the clear stuff that came out of blisters was. He lifted the foot, hunched over so that he could reach his hands around it. Made an attempt at the kindergarten hand sanitizing spell. If you held something in a specific position between your hands it was supposed to work on it instead of them. So maybe it would help. His authority shuddered. Straining it in a new direction made him feel how far from himself¡ªArtonan version of the word¡ªhe was. He sprayed the numbing spray. Bandaged the foot. Pulled on the clean sock. Stuffed it in the shoe. ¡°How long has it been?¡± Kibby asked, wriggling a little against his back. She knew he didn¡¯t really know. ¡°Almost three days,¡± he lied again. ¡°You know that means we must be getting close.¡± Whumf. ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± Alden finished doing the best he could and stood back up. ¡°That¡¯s where we¡¯re headed.¡± His whole body screamed at him when he tried to take a step forward. He almost fell face first in the dirt. He tried again with almost the same result. He wanted to lay down. He wanted to sleep right here in the chaos. It couldn¡¯t be that bad could it? Oh, he thought. So this is how far I go without cheating. Hey, gremlin. I know you¡¯re not gone even if you pretend to be. Wanna see something cool? Alden licked his lips and cleared his throat. Then, he said the sacrifice half for the peace of mind chain. He shuddered as it fell on him. His anxiety spiked. His sluggish, sleepy thoughts turned a little wilder. I can¡¯t stop moving. I can¡¯t. I¡¯ll die. He took a step and then another. It wasn¡¯t enough to satisfy his fresh sense of dread. He needed to jog. So he did. The opposite of peace of mind was fear. Occasionally, fear was a good thing. *********************** Blowback for peace of mind lasted around three hours. Alden made the sacrifice three times, paying back the debt for every chain he¡¯d used to sleep in the car. Then, because he hadn¡¯t physically fallen down yet and his body was still functioning, if poorly and painfully, he used it a fourth. He was going to enjoy having the positive half in the bank at some point. By the time the fourth started to run out, he was staggering more than he was walking. Everything hurt so freaking much that even the fear couldn¡¯t keep him moving anymore. He tried to focus on the auriad. Kibby¡¯s gift was a constant source of comfort, hidden under his shirt against his chest. It was the only thing in the world that felt pleasant anymore. His body was done. His authority wasn¡¯t recovering. At all. All the new authority he had made still existed¡­but it had been pushed too far out of alignment¡­or something like that. It was tired. He was tired. He couldn¡¯t thrust the chaos away. He felt like something was penetrating right through the rest of him to batter at his skill and the trait that was built onto it. Now, it seemed like even that was at risk of cracking apart. Alden kept urging it along. Kept his fingers deliberately pressed against all of the machine¡¯s ON buttons, so to speak. But it was getting hard. He wondered if it would have been better or worse if he couldn¡¯t actually feel the machine. He could see it going either way. Maybe an Avowed who wasn¡¯t able to feel the skill consciously wouldn¡¯t be able to keep forcing it to work in this situation. Or, maybe they would, and they wouldn¡¯t even know they were in this unique kind of pain. Alden had never been in pain before, when he felt the thing most humans called skill drain. He¡¯d just¡­kind of stopped. The skill is stronger than it was, though. A lot stronger. He remembered months and months ago, how that single fleck of a demon grasshopper had landed on Kibby¡¯s hair and made him reel. He knew it was a direct strike against the skill from a creature that actually magnified chaos. But he thought he could take it much more easily now. He was positive that the skill could not have preserved another person for days before. And now it could. It could do it even here, in this hostile place, where Alden was falling apart. At least Level 4, he thought. If it¡¯s not at least there by now, I¡¯m going to have a fight with the System about its abilities as a judge. He stepped wrong. His ankle rolled. It had happened before, but this time it was bad enough that he was pulled for a moment from his focus on the skill and the assault of the chaos back into his beleaguered body. Without his attention, his trait collapsed. It just turned itself off without his permission. Even though he was still carrying Kibby. His feet sank an inch into soft dirt. Yeah. This is worse than bad, he thought tiredly, kicking up soil and sand as he trudged forward. Gotta keep the willpower and the focus up somehow. Abusing my adrenal glands with reverse peace of mind isn¡¯t going to cut it from here on it. He was so tired his vision was tunneling. He planted his last sprinkler. It hadn¡¯t worked well for its past two uses, and it didn¡¯t for this one either. It just dribbled water down its plastic sides and he had to wait a long time for his bag to catch enough to make a decent amount for drinking. This time it didn¡¯t. He got a measly cup before it quit for good. Alden gulped it down, saving the last sip in his mouth while he fumbled with fingers that had once been kind of dextrous for the very last of his last resorts. He pulled out a small silver pill bottle and poured the contents into his palm. ¡°This one keeps you from throwing up. This one keeps you from passing out. This one temporarily inoculates you against Thetet Fever, and this last one makes you unable to register physical pain.¡± He still remembered them all. He ditched Thetet Fever. Kibby said it didn¡¯t even exist on Moon Thegund, so who needed it? He tossed the other three into his mouth and swallowed them with the last of his water. It took less than a minute for the effects to kick in. Just as he¡¯d remembered from his trip to the hospital with Stuart, the Artonans were great at drugging people. His vision untunneled. He could straighten his spine without the agony of a couple of different pulled muscles. He could put his full weight on the ankle he was pretty sure he¡¯d just sprained. He felt normal. Physically. If he didn¡¯t have common sense and authority sense, he would have thought they¡¯d given him a healing miracle in a bottle. But he did have authority sense, so even though he felt great in one way, he felt like crap in another. He took a few steps forward easily, trying to get Azure Rabbit back online. Come on, come on, he thought, pushing at the part of his bound authority that belonged to the trait. You only do one trick, so you¡¯d better do it. It was going to be a really slow walk without it. Maybe pushing isn¡¯t the right thing, he thought. Maybe its more¡­ He tried to picture the way the trait was designed. The thing the System had built for Alden to use. He had been poking at it angrily for ages now, resenting it even as he knew he needed it. So he knew what had gone wrong when he took a closer look at it. It wasn¡¯t just turned off. It was slightly askew. This wasn¡¯t something perception or positive thinking was going to fix. The trait itself had weakened and wobbled. It didn¡¯t want to recover. And now that Alden examined it with his mind free of the burden of a host of bodily aches and pains¡­it was a big crack in his overall stability, and that crack was deepening. Not good. There¡¯s got to be a way to mold my authority back into the proper shape of the trait. Like manipulating it to fill in the empty panes when I make patterns with the auriad. I know I can¡¯t alter the trait, but trying to patch what¡¯s already here by asserting its existence deliberately should be doable, right? Like¡­ He took another step, and his foot finally left the ground in the way he wanted it to. ¡°Ha!¡± he said in a rasping voice as he jogged forward. ¡°Alden can do magic intelligently now. He¡¯s an Avowed with kinderwizard training.¡± Admittedly, he was also hyped up on alien drugs and talking about himself in the third person. But it was still an impressive achievement. ********************** The good-bad thing about feeling a little better was that Alden actually had enough presence of mind to think again. He could imagine clearly all the terrible things that lay ahead. The worst, by far, was the thought of what would happen when he collapsed. He was sure that when the drugs gave out, he finally would, too. Permanently. Kibby would have to see that. He didn¡¯t want that for her. But there was nothing more he could do to prevent it from happening. Since running didn¡¯t hurt anymore, he was running. The whumf, whumf sounds came again. So much louder. He could see the ground shake clearly now. Soil jumped around him every time. In the distance, on the edge of the horizon, the sky looked strange. Far too dark. Like an approaching storm on a moon that never had them. Hours passed. The sounds stopped. The storm clouds grew closer. Alden let his body move as if it wasn¡¯t being destroyed and focused all his attention on asserting his trait and his skill. Not even the rest of himself anymore. He¡¯d had to stop. He¡¯d had to choose. So he chose just those two things. They seemed like something the System had taken from Alden and written onto reality. They chained him. He¡¯d never be rid of them. But if they were the only thing holding him here now, he¡¯d rely on them. The kept wobbling and cracking, and he kept reasserting them. Who has language for existing harder? Me. Now. Apparently. A lot can change in a little while, I guess. He could feel his heart racing like it wanted to escape from his body. He could feel himself gasping like his lungs were begging him for air. Under his coat, his clothes were drenched, and he wasn¡¯t sure if it was sweat or blood. But none of it hurt. And he thought, maybe, that storm was his destination. So he didn¡¯t stop. FIFTY-SIX: A Polite Request As always since coming to Moon Thegund, Alis-art¡¯h woke feeling peace and tranquility. She slid from beneath the heated blankets of her bed and threw on a silk robe¡ªher uniform for the day. Here, there was nobody around who would whisper behind their hands and wonder what it meant for the future of the Triplanets that she had dared to stay in her pajamas for work. Indecorous bliss, she thought, humming to herself as she brushed her dark lavender hair and read the messages scrolling across her mirror with one brown eye. They arrived from Artona I with a delay of almost an hour, reminding her of just how delightfully far out of reach she was at the moment. The original plan was for her to be at home right now, doing all the things a nurturing mother should do with a healthy set of newborn wizard triplets. Nursing them, racing to their cribs at their every cry, coddling their tiny authority senses to be sure they were developing properly. Diapers. Thank goodness this corruption mishap had occurred just a week before she was scheduled to give birth! She¡¯d waddled herself straight into the Grand Senate¡¯s emergency session and volunteered for duty. With enthusiasm that at least a few senators seemed to have mistaken for hostility¡­but the point was that she was off the hook. And this was the easiest assignment she¡¯d taken in decades. They didn¡¯t like to have the Quaternary at a post like this. Too longterm and low import. Yet here she was¡ªmonths away from the political morass, family drama, and the immense stress that came from trying to like your own babies. It was just so hard when they were in that frightening needy stage. They couldn¡¯t even talk to her yet, and she was always scared she might accidentally smoosh them with her authority in a fit of postpartum confusion. Some of the spouses in the household adored newborns. It was best to leave the triplets to them. Alis would take a vacation from work and fall in love with the little creatures when they were old enough to toddle around and make comprehensible sounds. Three, she thought, gliding out of her suite and entering the travel dome¡¯s dining room. I¡¯d like to get to know them when they¡¯re around three. First meal was a beautiful spread of breads, jams, and smoked meats. No nasty military rations on this trip. There had been time to fully outfit the ship with everything she could possibly need, and if she wanted something beyond that, they could just zip right over to the other side of the moon and fetch it. ¡°You¡¯re awake early, Knight Alis-art¡¯h,¡± said Rrorro from the opposite end of the dining table. ¡°Greetings on the new day. I am honored to be in your presence.¡± ¡°No need to rise!¡± Alis said quickly. But not quickly enough. Dammit. The icorlax was already hovering respectfully over her chair, her rainbow-colored wings creating a small gust in the room. Rrorro was new to Alis¡¯s team of Avowed helpers. She had secretly wanted to work with an icorlax ever since she was a girl. Such an interesting people. Soft feather-scales, four-clawed feet, the colorful wings. And they were known to promote a sense of wellbeing in their companions. Great for teambuilding. But theirs was a rare species, and besides that, they didn¡¯t handle violence well. Emotionally. This had seemed like the perfect opportunity to invite one along for an easy, stress-free job and make a new acquaintance. Officially Rrorro was the team healer. Only nobody was going to need healing because why would they in a place like this? Alis was just supposed to have one with her at all times when she was on duty. ¡°Rrorro, I¡¯ve told you. You don¡¯t have to be so formal anymore. We¡¯re going to be here for months cleaning up. You just perch back and help yourself to some of these nice candied lunefruits. I know you like them. It¡¯s another great day for crushing the chaos out of an ugly moon, and all you have to do is watch through the dome!¡± She glanced up at the transparent roof of the travel dome. It was completely coated in a thick layer of dust so that she couldn¡¯t even see the gloomy sky overhead. Oops. She¡¯d meant to cast a spell over it yesterday to ward off the clouds of falling dirt. The Triforming she was doing was messy. ¡°I will clean the dome while you are away this morning, Knight Alis-art¡¯h. By the time you return for second meal, it will be pristine.¡± ¡°But Rrorro, I can do it in just a few moments with a¡­¡± A spell. Hmmm¡­maybe she¡¯d been taking the wrong approach to relaxing the icorlax. The voyage here had taken ages, and the Avowed still hadn¡¯t gotten any less stiff around Alis. She knew she was intimidating, but she wasn¡¯t that intimidating, surely? Rrorro had known how long the trip would be when she agreed to come along, so she shouldn¡¯t be mad about the assignment. Maybe she was one of those people who was more comfortable with a task, and the lack of work for a healer was only making her feel out of place? ¡°Yes, thank you!¡± Alis said. ¡°Please clean off the dome. That will be a big help.¡± She took her seat so that the icorlax would stop hovering, and she smeared some bright green preserves on a piece of hot flatbread. The rest of the small ground team arrived as first meal progressed. There were six of them total living in the dome. Two wizards besides Alis had come down to the corruption zone with the group. They were old friends. Understanding about the pajamas. She¡¯d left the other Artonans in orbit or ordered them to aid the locals in de-inconveniencing the cities that had been left without the services of a Contract for so long. She¡¯d have to rejoin them and start behaving appropriately once the corruption was repaired. The Contract reestablishment phase of the operation was going to be a bother, but there was some satisfaction in knowing they¡¯d finally be giving this place a proper, fully-functioning one. It would enable even non-wizards to communicate and travel around the Triplanets with ease. A vast improvement in their lives that had been far too long in coming. Alis smiled and bit into her breakfast. She still had a long time before she had to associate with everyone on the ship. For now, she could just relax with her preferred companions. In addition to the three Artonans and the icorlax, there was an Avowed lortch who had worked as a secretary for Alis before becoming too elderly to travel with her on her usual assignments. The pay for a trip of this length would set him up nicely for retirement¡­if Alis couldn¡¯t convince him to deviate from his species¡¯ customs and accept some rejuvenation treatments. Kraaaa, the griveck, clawed his way up to the table last. Alis could just tell by the backwards tilt of his helmet¡ªwhich he didn¡¯t need after his last set of enhancements but had chosen to wear since it had an excellent non-System translator¡ªthat he was gazing at everyone judgmentally. ¡°You know I could catch my own food if I wanted to,¡± Alis said, looking up at the enormous Avowed as she added flaked fish to another piece of flatbread. ¡°On a planet that actually had animals tasty enough to be worth the endeavor.¡± Traveling with grivecks was a riot, usually, and she and Kraaaa had been working together on and off for years. But he wasn¡¯t at all happy with the treats she¡¯d had stabled on the spaceship especially for him. He claimed the small herd of Balkons were too domesticated to make good meals. Alis sighed. It had been hard to convince everyone that she needed to devote part of the ship to a bunch of angry alien livestock in the first place. And they¡¯d almost eaten their handler twice. She was doing her best. It wasn¡¯t her fault that Moon Thegund lacked sufficiently entertaining food options for a griveck so powerful that the most satisfying prey would actually be his traveling companions. <> Kraaaa said in an eerie high shriek that was only partially modulated by the helmet¡¯s translation function. <
> ¡°No eating demons,¡± Alis said promptly. There was nothing else out here he could have been sensing. ¡°Even if some small fry comes this way, it¡¯s just not a good idea. Kill it or run it into the smash zone.¡± <> Rrorro gasped in horror. Alis glanced at the healer. ¡°What a suggestion, Kraaaa! Of course not. My goodness. Violence is so¡­violent. Perhaps this afternoon you and I should go for a peaceful walk together instead. Far, far away. A little friendly exercise of our legs.¡± Kraaaa made the terrifying sound that was a griveck¡¯s laugh. <> I hope he doesn¡¯t actually expect me to use my teeth, Alis thought. The conversation turned to the plans for the day. People filled her in on what she¡¯d missed while she slept. Back home, someone was in a tizzy about that giant explosion a few days ago at Worli Ro-den¡¯s old facility.They wanted Alis to go and get proof that it had been an act of deliberate sabotage by the former owner. Something she had already decided not to do. She wasn¡¯t that invested in Ro-den¡¯s situation, but her brother had looked mildly unhappy when he told her the man had been pulled from Thegund. So she would just wait a while before turning her attention to it. Let the corruption work on the site for a few more months so she could say that there was no way to be sure whether or not some angry scientist might have planted a bomb there before he was hauled off by the authorities. And how could anyone expect her to rush over for such a petty personal vendetta, when there was chaos to beat into submission? Creative beating was Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s preferred method. Very stress relieving, and she liked looking behind her to see the nice flat and fertile chaos-free land she¡¯d left in her wake.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. One of the Artonans handed her a tablet, and she read over the notes they¡¯d made on the area that was to be cleared today. Atmospheric readings, altitude and depth of the corruption zone, numbers that indicated a million tiny fractures in this patch of reality that she would be fixing by overwriting it with a stronger version of her own making. She supposed to the untrained eye it must look like she was only lifting millions of thells of soil into the atmosphere and then slamming them back into the ground again for her own amusement. And¡­yes. That was what she was doing. But there was technique involved. It required extraordinary control and quite a lot of thought to operate on this scale. ¡°It¡¯s not boring,¡± she said to Kraaaa as she stood up from the table. Everyone was bustling, making preparations to leave the dome. ¡°I have to use both sides of my brain for it.¡± <> said the griveck. <> Rrorro let out a strangled squawk of horror. The healer had been about to step out the dome¡¯s hexagonal door with a bucket of cleaning supplies. Oh no. When she offered to clean did she mean she was going to scrub it with her hands? I thought she must have some kind of spell impression that would help at least. Alis hadn¡¯t done exhaustive research into the icorlax before they left Artona I and the Contract behind. She preferred to let Avowed show off their non-essential skills and spells when the need arose instead of digging into every single detail of their power set. It made for fun surprises when you were getting to know a new person. ¡°Rrorro, it¡¯s just a joke. Kraaaa would never slaughter a shipmate. It would be rude.¡± The healer threw the door open wider and leaped back. A moment later, two people stepped in. Staggered in, Alis corrected herself, staring at the filthy pair in shock. People were not supposed to be alive within the corruption zone. No rescue orders had been issued. One of them was, she thought, a human male. Under all the sweat and blood and dirt. Though that didn¡¯t seem right or possible at all. Maybe he was a tall Artonan with unusual bone structure? He was wearing a long red coat that was partially melted and full of holes. His companion, a small girl, was also not right or possible in this context. One of her hands had a corruption wound, and the other, with a dark blue auriad wrapped around it, was gripping his tightly. They both reeked. In the organic way and the chaotic one. The humanish person smiled faintly through cracked lips at the sight of the gathered wizards and Avowed and collapsed onto his knees. The girl never let go of his hand. Her eyes landed on Alis and widened. ¡°Knight Alis-art¡¯h,¡± she said in a loud, firm voice. ¡°I am Kivb-ee, and this is Alden. We are friends of your brother. We politely request assistance.¡±
A small, colorful parrot-person ripped Alden¡¯s shirts in half like they were made of tissue paper and shoved clawed hands covered in a fine layer of scales against his chest. A moment before, they had done the same thing to Kibby. He heard them saying things rapidly. It was Artonan, but he could barely understand any of it. Sound was strange. His vision was strange. It was like his senses were no longer properly connected to his brain. We did it, he kept thinking as he lay on his back in the floor, staring up at the ceiling. He and Kibby had thought this place was made of dirt when they first approached, but it was just coated in the stuff. We made it out. He had run through a cloud of dust particles that made it hard to breathe until he¡¯d come to a short but enormously wide cliff in the landscape. It was fifteen or so feet of sudden topographical difference in a smooth crescent-shape that extended as far as his blurred vision could make out. Why had the Artonans dug out the soil? Or squashed it flatter? Alden didn¡¯t know. It didn¡¯t matter. The crescent was the bite someone had taken out of the chaos pizza. It had to be. On the other side, Kibby would be safe. There was no way to climb down, so he¡¯d jumped. He¡¯d landed badly and heard something snap. He wasn¡¯t sure if it was an ankle or a wrist or a muscle. He still couldn¡¯t feel pain. Probably the parrot-person knows what it was. He thought he was supposed to know the name of their species, but he couldn¡¯t even make himself want to remember facts right now. We did it. We made it out. Kibby¡¯s grip tightened on his hand. He¡¯d dropped preservation on her a while ago¡ªwas it minutes or hours?¡ªwhen he thought they must surely be out of the chaos. Based on the way the maps had looked. He¡¯d had to do it. To ask her if they¡¯d come far enough. Because Alden couldn¡¯t tell anymore. His authority sense was so overwhelmed by the sensation of the machine the System had given him cracking and cracking, that he didn¡¯t even have the bandwidth to feel the chaos if it was there. Kibby said it wasn¡¯t. She said they were safe here. He reasserted the skill. It cracked. He reasserted it. He raged against it accidentally. It cracked. He reasserted it. Kibby made sure to keep the auriad around her wrist pressed against his skin. She¡¯d borrowed it from him as they approached¡­to keep it safe? That¡¯s right. We aren¡¯t sure what they¡¯ll think if they find out it¡¯s mine. She¡¯s making sure they don¡¯t take it away from me. Alden was glad one of them had remembered. She was talking quickly to the people in the room. Answering questions. The parrot-person¡¯s hands were cold on Alden¡¯s chest. They asked everyone something in an anxious tone. Alden¡¯s brain deciphered it for him slowly. ¡°I have never encountered this species. Without a Contract assisting, it¡¯s a little difficult to know what I should¡­can someone bring me a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª?¡± ¡°He¡¯s a human!¡± Kibby sounded offended on Alden¡¯s behalf. ¡°He¡¯s the best human. He is the best Avowed in the universe.¡± It¡¯s okay, Kibby. I can¡¯t even remember what the parrot-people are called, so we¡¯re even. Something shrieked. An echoey translation in Artonan followed. Sophie? No. He¡¯d seen the griveck when they entered. It was twice Sophie¡¯s size. ¡°No he¡¯s not the best Avowed, Kraaaa!¡± a woman¡¯s voice shouted. ¡°He¡¯s a Ryeh-b¡¯t child!¡± That¡¯s the pregnant lady from the party. Stuart¡¯s aunt. She¡¯s not pregnant anymore. And she sounds pissed off. A man in wizard¡¯s garb leaned over Alden to pass the parrot-person a tablet. The device was speaking rapidly in a language he didn¡¯t recognize. The healer set it beside his head and placed their hands back on his chest, looking from him to the screen and back again with bright yellow eyes. <
> the griveck said in a tone Alden recognized as pleased from his experience with Sophie. <> ¡°Not like you,¡± Alis-art¡¯h snapped. ¡°He¡¯s exponentially weaker than you. He does parties. He¡¯s not supposed to be here. Nobody is supposed to be here. What if I had ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª crushed them both when I was ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- the moon!?¡± ¡°I think I understand his body well enough to get started at least,¡± the parrot-person announced. ¡°Someone carry him to the medical room, please.¡± ¡°I need to stay with him!¡± Kibby said, smashing her hand and the auriad with it against his. ¡°He needs me.¡± ¡°She needs healing, too. But him first. Young Kivb-ee, you cannot keep holding his hand.¡± Alden tried to tell Kibby it was okay. She could let go of him for a second. He wasn¡¯t going to fall apart without the auriad. Maybe. But when he tried to speak, the words were such a croak he couldn¡¯t even make them out himself. Kibby almost head-butted the healer in an effort to stare into his eyes. ¡°Take my auriad,¡± she said loudly, looping it back around his neck. ¡°It will keep you safe while you are being healed.¡± Someone made a slightly pained sound¡ªone of the other Artonans most likely¡ªbut nobody objected. Kibby¡¯s so cool, Alden thought. She¡¯s the coolest person I¡¯ve ever met. His authority cracked inside the confines of the skill. He tried to reassert. It cracked more. He managed to realign it. I think if they knock me out to heal me, I might die. He wasn¡¯t scared at all. He wondered why. Slender arms lifted him easily. It was Alis-art¡¯h. Stuart¡¯s aunt bit her lower lip and narrowed her eyes at Alden. ¡°Low rank,¡± she muttered so quietly he almost didn¡¯t catch the words. Her face was tight. ¡°Stuck here for months. Skill active for days. I think maybe I should look at¡­¡± An authority so massive it dwarfed understanding pressed against Alden¡¯s own. It wasn¡¯t trying to hurt him, but it was too much. If he had possessed the strength to do anything but shore himself up, he would have pushed back against it reflexively. As it was, his own power simply lay quiescent, enduring the examination. After it was over, the other presence backed off. But not completely. Alden still felt an odd pressure and stillness around him. It seemed to help with the cracking. A little. Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s face was dark as she looked down at him, and then her expression cleared. She smiled over her shoulder. Probably at Kibby. ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± she said. ¡°Your friend will be fine after some healing and rest.¡± Oh, wow, thought Alden. That was one hundred percent a loving lie. You really could learn a lot about Artonans by watching their children¡¯s shows. FIFTY-SEVEN: A Scale Tips When Alden woke from his initial healing session, he hurt like hell. Rrorro had knocked him out with a spell while she worked on him. It was her main magical pain relief method, but she couldn¡¯t safely keep him under indefinitely. And whatever overkill mind-altering drug LeafSong had given him had finally worn off at that point. Very apologetic, the icorlax gave him something that worked about as well as an aspirin and explained that some of the wizards were trying to track down and/or brew serious, human-approved meds. Being healed was a process. She¡¯d knock him out again soon. Until then, Alden got to feel all of the damage. Stress fractures, broken ankle, broken toes, swollen knees, torn muscles, missing skin, missing nails, giant oozing sores on his ribs and back¡­ He¡¯d been in bad shape before he took the magic pill. Being desperate and unable to register pain had kept him going long after nature would have made him lie down, but it had also let him demolish himself. Rrorro explained that she¡¯d used their first healing bout to deal with the strain on his heart, his dehydration, and his dust-abraded eyes and lungs. All great choices, in Alden¡¯s opinion. But even though he understood, it was still disturbing to see himself looking like an infected, broken, and partially-skinned monster. The healer left to rest for a couple of hours, came back, and Alden went under again. He woke up completely pain free and feeling like he had solid-ish bones. The med room was full of way more equipment than it had been when he¡¯d first arrived, and he had a couple of IVs. Kibby came in shortly after that for what was apparently her own second healing session. She wanted to sit in a chair right beside Alden¡¯s bed, and since Rrorro didn¡¯t mind, Alden had a front row seat he was not prepared for while the icorlax literally chopped away patches of corruption damage from Kibby¡¯s hands and arms and then slowly regrew clean flesh in its place. He tried not to freak out about how awful the process looked. Especially since he was the only one bothered. Kibby had accepted pain killers but refused sedation, and she and Rrorro were having a relaxed and informative discussion about Artonan biology while the healer worked. Watching the healing did make Alden wonder about how powerful the other Avowed was. When Stuart¡¯s foot had been blown up, there had been tons of wizard-doctors in the operating room at the hospital to patch him up. Admittedly that had been extreme damage to a whole limb, but Rrorro seemed to be working really fast and without too much strain to fix him and Kibby all by herself. The third time he went under and came back, he woke with fresh skin on his feet and the other places he¡¯d needed it and a different set of IVs. The new skin was tender, but he was really glad to see it there. All in all, Alden was in and out of consciousness for what he thought was around six days. He could have asked for the precise number. It just didn¡¯t seem that important. Physically, he went from feeling like he¡¯d been run over by a vicious lawnmower to feeling incredibly well. Every time he thought the healer was done with him, she would reappear and ask for permission to knock him out and improve on something else she¡¯d found. Sometimes when he groggily came to, he saw her watching medical lectures on a tablet in her own language. When he asked her about it, she eagerly told him how very exciting it was to ¡°deeply explore the cells¡± of a new species. Alden was surprised to learn that the Systems often picked up slack when it came to an Avowed doing cross-species healing. Rrorro¡¯s skills and spells were something she didn¡¯t even have to think about when it came to Artonans or her own kind, since they¡¯d been designed specifically to handle them. And it sounded like she¡¯d enhanced herself with other species-specific healing options as she developed her talents. But she had not anticipated meeting a human. With a new kind of patient in front of her and no direct help from a System, she said she was enjoying the added challenge and artistry of fixing him. On around the sixth day, she started talking about what percentages of his body fat should be stored in various locations, and Alden concluded that he was not being healed back to what had been normal for him pre-Moon Thegund. Instead, he was being brought to ideal physical health for his age. He assumed Kibby was getting the same treatment. She had been rocketing around the medical room with above-average energy levels lately, and yesterday she¡¯d reported to him that she was growing thirty percent more hair on top of her head. Alden let Rrorro do whatever she wanted. She was happy. Kibby was happy. It seemed like the two of them were fast becoming friends. That was good. The icorlax was smart, and she had a gentleness about her that seemed to permeate the whole room. It was soothing to be in her presence. Kibby needed a friend like that. ************* The next time Alden¡¯s eyes opened, he was tucked into the most comfortable bed he¡¯d ever slept in. The sheets were silky and exactly the right temperature. The pillow was lightly and pleasantly scented. And something magical was definitely going on with the mattress. No pressure points. He almost felt like he was floating in dense water. It wasn¡¯t the medical area. He let his eyes roam around the dimly lit room, taking in the luxurious furnishings, until they landed on the other occupant. Knight Alis-art¡¯h sat behind a pale wooden desk with curved legs. A three-paneled piece of abstract art on the wall behind her was giving off a soft golden glow, and she was writing with a pen in what looked like an oversized journal. Something of a rarity. You hardly ever saw Artonans using paper when they had such ubiquitous access to tech and magic. Kibby wasn¡¯t around. Kibby was almost always around. She¡¯d stuck to Alden like glue ever since they arrived. The other day he¡¯d woken up and heard a familiar sound from under his bed in the medical area, and when he¡¯d rolled over to check, he¡¯d seen her curled up there, doing her squeaky snore. No Kibby. Sleeping in the Quaternary¡¯s own room. So, he thought, it¡¯s today. He¡¯d been wondering when Alis-art¡¯h was finally going to talk to him. The knight had only come by to see him a single time so far, and their conversation had been brief and stiff compared to the more playful version of her he remembered from the party. He didn¡¯t know what she thought or felt about him. He was sure he knew what she was going to tell him, though, and the stiffness was only to be expected. He considered making a sound to let her know he was awake. Just to get it over with quicker. But¡­he didn¡¯t really want it to be over with quicker. It had been fun for the past couple of days. He¡¯d been magically turned into someone ridiculously healthy. He¡¯d met a huge griveck Ryeh-b¡¯t who¡¯d waxed poetic about his skills in hard-surface scouring and multi-species massage therapy. And he¡¯d spent lots of time talking to a Kibby who was happy, relaxed, and unstrained by the chaos. So instead of calling attention to himself, he lay there quietly, enjoying the comfy bed and listening to the pen scratch against the paper. It was the only sound other than his own breathing. His tinnitus was gone. He¡¯d asked Rrorro to take care of it, and she¡¯d been thrilled to have a specific target for her attentions. Especially since he wouldn¡¯t let her get rid of the shrapnel scar on his abdomen. Finally Alis-art¡¯h looked up and realized he was watching her. ¡°Oh, Alden!¡± She gave him the smile¡ªthe same forced one Hannah had given him when she first realized he was awake inside the bubble. ¡°You¡¯re awake. How are you today?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never been healthier in my life. Your healer is wonderful.¡± ¡°She does have the most stellar qualifications. Though when I asked her if she would come along for this assignment I assumed she wouldn¡¯t actually have to do anything¡­¡± The smile fell. She hitched it back up. She had a very readable face. Or maybe it was just that Alden was comparing her to Joe. ¡°I¡¯m happy to tell you that we have a teleportation ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª onboard the ship we arrived on. It¡¯s not as good as a Contract-to-Contract teleport, but it¡¯s better than nothing. Now that you¡¯re well, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re excited to get back home.¡± Alden was surprised. He¡¯d thought the lie several days ago had only been for Kibby. It is kind of nice to get one, I guess. If you understand why she¡¯s doing it. ¡°You don¡¯t have to feel bad about it,¡± he said, sitting up in the bed. ¡°It¡¯s not your fault I¡¯m dying.¡± He wished he could be a little more specific and let her know he actually understood what she¡¯d been doing for him ever since he arrived. But it was Joe who¡¯d told him that this situation could happen, during the conversation covered by the extra-absolute secrecy agreement. ¡°A scale tips,¡± the professor had said. Kibby had begun to existentially stabilize and recover her authority almost as soon as they set foot in the cleansed zone. Alden had, too. In a way. But he was still falling apart. He wondered if it had even been the chaos rupturing his skill and his trait during that last day of the long journey, or if that had just been an added disaster on top of the one already taking place within him. Now that he was out of the corruption, his power felt so strange. The unbound authority was strong again. It was thrilling, amazing. But it was also like some giant bird that wanted to launch itself to new heights, without any regard for the fact that his affixation was collapsing under the force of it. Alis-art¡¯h had been doing something all this time to keep it in check. She¡¯d been holding her authority over him like a weighted blanket. That and his own efforts to directly repair the damage with his beginner-level control were the only things keeping him from what Joe had once assured him would be ¡°an agonizing death or something much worse.¡±The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The Artonan woman looked stricken. ¡°You knew?¡± she said, setting aside her pen. ¡°I would have talked to you much sooner if I¡¯d realized¡­occasionally, Avowed can sense it when they¡¯re at risk of imbalance and loss of skill assignment. I wasn¡¯t sure about you. I haven¡¯t worked with a human closely before, and everyone is different. At first, I thought you might be able to, since you seemed to feel my brother¡¯s power at that ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- party, but then you were so calm I decided I must be mistaken.¡± ¡°I can feel that something¡¯s wrong.¡± An understatement. ¡°I¡¯m told it feels like a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª dread with no source to those without an Artonan¡¯s sense for it. I¡¯m sorry. That must be awful.¡± Alden blinked. That would be awful. What was happening to him was also awful, but at least it wasn¡¯t sourceless, incomprehensible dread. ¡°It¡¯s not your fault,¡± he said again. ¡°But I want to talk about it without kind lies. I have questions. What¡¯s going to happen to Kivb-ee?¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°Eventually, she¡¯ll be in the care of a cousin on Artona I. Her closest relative. However, that will take some time. The entire Moon Thegund Contract collapsed. We¡¯ll be ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- an entirely new one. At that point, it will be safe for everyone to teleport in and out again. An ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª for the people who reside here. Something that will vastly improve the quality of their lives. But it will be several more months.¡± ¡°She wants to learn magic. And I think meeting a knight was one of her goals, but I guess we¡¯ve done that.¡± Alis-art¡¯h gave him the first real smile he¡¯d seen on her face since he arrived. ¡°The two of you are best friends with my brother, I believe.¡± Alden snorted. ¡°It¡¯s even funnier if you know how difficult he is to make friends with. To answer your worry¡­the girl will be safe and well. Either here with us or with a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª family until she can join her relative.¡± She paused. ¡°She is very proper around me now that she is sure I am taking good care of you. I doubt she will ask me for anything at all herself. If you tell me what she wants, I will get it for her.¡± Alden had a long mental list of all the things Kibby needed, wanted, and deserved. And he didn¡¯t hesitate for a second in asking the knight for every single one of them. Rather than becoming annoyed by the number of requests, Alis-art¡¯h seemed relieved that he had them. If Kibby didn¡¯t have some objection, she would be living here in the travel dome for the next several months, having magic lessons with some very talented wizards and spending lots of time with Rrorro. They would help her get in touch with Instructor Gwen-lor, and they would arrange for her future attendance at the elementary boarding school if her cousin didn¡¯t refuse. Alis-art¡¯h said she couldn¡¯t imagine why the cousin would. Sending a child off to wizard school was an achievement for most people. She would also be able to talk to Joe and the people who had been rescued from the lab. That was the only request the knight balked at. ¡°I have noticed her affection for Worli Ro-den,¡± she said in a frosty tone while she sipped on a cup of tea. Rrorro had brought first meal and an extra chair for Alden a while ago. He sat at the desk across from Alis-art¡¯h working his way through two giant plates of food. Healing made you feel like you were starving. His stomach had been a bottomless pit all week. And the icorlax was completely charmed by his diet anyway. She seemed to think it was a pacifistic choice on his part. Alden forced himself to swallow instead of talking with his mouth full. ¡°Ro-den is really generous to his assistants.¡± Kibby had assured Alden Joe was the guy to work for if you were a scientist interested in chaos and demonic energies. It was a field of study often limited to the wizard class, but Joe apparently didn¡¯t enjoy working with other wizards. ¡°Someone who treats their own species well while behaving as if a member of another one is a disposable tool is not a good ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± Role model, maybe? The knight used more unfamiliar words than Kibby did. He guessed he¡¯d just gotten used to his roommate¡¯s vocabulary. When what Alis-art¡¯h had said finally registered, Alden¡¯s eyes widened. Oh, she¡¯s really mad I¡¯m here, he realized. He¡¯d definitely gotten angry vibes from the Quaternary right from the moment he walked into her dome and collapsed in front of her. But he hadn¡¯t been sure if she was inconvenienced by the presence of two dirty injured people, upset she¡¯d almost crushed Kibby in what appeared to be an intense magical terraforming project, or just upset in general that something unexpected had happened and she¡¯d been ill-informed. ¡°Ro-den did tell me it was dangerous to pick berries on Moon Thegund,¡± he said. It was kind of funny to Alden that he had to keep talking about berries with someone who knew for a fact that he¡¯d been sent here to rescue Joe¡¯s assistants. During his first round of medical treatment, Kibby had described him as Saint Alden the Savior of the Lab to everyone in the dome. After all, she didn¡¯t have any contract tattoos preventing her from telling people the full story. She¡¯d even embellished it a little in his favor before she¡¯d realized that Rrorro was going to take good care of him regardless of whether or not he deserved it. ¡°Nobody forced me to come here,¡± Alden added. The knight¡¯s expression was unyielding. ¡°I am sure he told you everything you needed to know before you agreed and that he had your best interests at the front of his mind,¡± she said caustically, slamming her cup down. Alden jumped. He was certain the cup would have shattered if it hadn¡¯t been made of wood. ¡°I am sure he did not throw an ignorant young teenager at a problem of his own making like a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-!¡± She¡¯s gonna kill Joe. ¡°I¡¯m all right,¡± he said hastily. ¡°You are literally moments away from dying horribly.¡± Alden dropped his fork. He didn¡¯t mean to. His fingers just let go without his permission. He winced. Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s face paled. ¡°Uh,¡± said Alden. ¡°I meant I¡¯m all right¡­emotionally?¡± It wasn¡¯t untrue. He didn¡¯t know why he was okay with the situation, but he was. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he¡¯d been sure on some level, for a very long time, that he was going to die here on Moon Thegund. He wanted to go home so badly, but it had been ages since he really believed himself when he imagined doing it. Probably that¡¯s the opposite of being all right emotionally, he thought. But it didn¡¯t change the fact that he somehow felt like he¡¯d won just by making it here. The silence that fell in the room was awkward. Might as well lean into it. ¡°So moments away from death? How many moments? Should I eat faster?¡± He tried for a smile. Alis-art¡¯h just sat there staring at him. ¡°Kibby says my jokes are bad.¡± She pushed her plate away from her and sighed. ¡°Not bad. I enjoy ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª humor usually. But it¡¯s depressing coming from an Avowed in your situation. I will remove my protection from you this afternoon. I am not skilled enough to fix what is wrong with you. I would be prolonging things pointlessly if I tried, and I would risk ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- you. There are very few people who might be able to help, and the Triplanets cannot ¡ª¡ª¡ª any of them. They are all assigned elsewhere. I¡­I did look into it¡­¡± Ah. Okay, thought Alden, staring at a small round fruit that looked like a candied apricot. It¡¯s this afternoon. ¡°The fact that you survived for this long in even a low-level corruption environment at your age and rank shows natural talent,¡± the knight said. ¡°The same talent my brother detected in you, I believe. But it is not enough to earn you extraordinary help. I am truly sorry.¡± ¡°It was already good of you to stop cleaning up the moon so that you could take care of me.¡± Alden assumed that was why he hadn¡¯t gotten to experience the daily dirt smashing phenomenon up close since he arrived. Alis-art¡¯h had stopped working as soon as he got here. ¡°Do not thank me,¡± she said, looking away from him to stare at a mirrored dressing table. ¡°My kindness is ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. The best thing I could do for you would be to ignore my task here, maintain my ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª on your presence, and travel with you back to Artona I, where the Contract can probably save you. We might make it.¡± She still wasn¡¯t looking at him. ¡°But that would take months. Delaying the cleansing of the corruption and the creation of a Contract here, one stable enough to allow all citizens to teleport and receive aid from the rest of the universe, would cost lives. Probably too many to be ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª by your own future potential.¡± Alden wondered if he should have specified that he would prefer to have something between the loving lie and total honesty. It did hurt to know there were salvation methods that wouldn¡¯t be used. ¡°The only recourse left to you is the emergency teleportation option on our ship,¡± Alis-art¡¯h continued. ¡°It would not be safe for someone as weak as you even under normal circumstances. In your situation, even with the Mother Planet as an ideal and relatively close destination, I do not think you will survive the trip.¡± Alden looked up from his plate. ¡°There really is a teleporter?¡± She finally turned back to him. ¡°Yes? Did you think I made it up?¡± ¡°I thought you were just trying to make me feel better.¡± ¡°I was. It¡¯s a bad option. But it does exist.¡± Alden felt something stir inside him. He hoped it wasn¡¯t hope. That seemed like a very dangerous emotion at a time like this. ¡°And the Contract on Artona I can help me?¡± Crap. It was definitely hope. He tried to crush it back down, but he felt his heart rate pick up. ¡°It¡¯s ideal for Avowed to return to their home Contract for skill assignment. Especially in situations like this. But the Mother Planet is the second best choice.¡± ¡°That sounds like a good plan then,¡± Alden said, wondering if he looked excited. He hoped he didn¡¯t look excited. It was entirely the wrong thing at this moment. You are probably going to die, stupid. You were fine with it ten seconds ago. Focus on the stuff you need to get done. What was that stuff again? Kibby would be fine. ¡°Oh. Yes. Can I make some kind of a¡­legal request saying who gets my possessions if I die?¡± He didn¡¯t know if Artonans did wills. The System actually had options for listing your beneficiaries, but Alden hadn¡¯t had the time or the inclination to set that kind of thing up. ¡°I got summoned a couple of hours after I agreed to the Contract, and then I was busy. So I never thought about it seriously.¡± Alis-art¡¯h closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, her facial expression had smoothed into something more neutral. ¡°I can be the ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- for any sort of contract, magical or legal, you wish to make,¡± she said. ¡°Naturally I will see to it that your requests are honored.¡± Great, thought Alden. Kibby and Boe can have their share of my Argold all at once. But Aunt Connie should probably receive inheritance money in installments. Jeremy could have Alden¡¯s non-monetary stuff. His parents were rich, and he was the kind of person who got nostalgic over mementos. FIFTY-EIGHT: If this one makes it to you... Saying goodbye to Kibby sucked. Alden asked himself what he would want for the two of them in an absolutely perfect universe, and the answer was that he¡¯d like for them to live together in a peaceful chaos-free cottage on Earth, with a kidnapped Instructor Gwen-lor on the premises to teach them magic every day and nothing but endless amounts of free time. He told Kibby this while they took a long walk together across the bare, chaos-free soil of Moon Thegund, leaving the dome far behind. It was almost completely private. He could still feel Alis-art¡¯h. But she must not have been able to hear his words or his thoughts, or she¡¯d have had a much better understanding of him than she actually did. ¡°We would have to be excellent students if we kidnapped her, Alden,¡± Kibby said. ¡°It would add a lot of pressure.¡± ¡°We can handle pressure.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Kibby agreed. ¡°Will you send me a message as soon as you get back to Earth?¡± Alden¡¯s large breakfast was heavy in his stomach. ¡°It might take me a while to settle in and get used to home and the Contract again,¡± he said finally. ¡°Give me a few human weeks, and then I¡¯ll send you messages through Knight Alis-art¡¯h and pester you every day.¡± If she wasn¡¯t expecting him to reach out for a while, she could relax into life here before she realized something bad had happened. She could be a child; she could grow close to Rrorro and the wizards. She could have some cushion against the news. ¡°You have to hide the auriad under your flower shirt before we get back,¡± Kibby reminded him. Alden realized he¡¯d been rubbing it again and tucked it away. His wardrobe had been reduced to a cleaned but abused-looking Hawaiian shirt and some loaned wizard pants so short they landed just below his knees. He didn¡¯t even have a pair of shoes. He¡¯d been going barefoot everywhere. He buttoned the top button on the shirt. ¡°Hidden?¡± he asked. She nodded. ¡°I don¡¯t think Knight Alis-art¡¯h would care that it¡¯s yours.¡± ¡°Do you want to tell her? I don¡¯t mind.¡± ¡°You said maybe it would be dangerous once.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know that people will be upset. I¡¯m just not sure.¡± ¡°Then we shouldn¡¯t say anything,¡± Kibby said. ¡°I like keeping secrets with you anyway.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°I like it, too. You know what I don¡¯t like?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°The fact that you¡¯re going to get so far ahead of me now that you¡¯re learning magic from wizards who were chosen to be companions for a knight!¡± ¡°It¡¯s true,¡± Kibby said, grinning up at him. ¡°I will exceed you in every way.¡± ¡°Even if I¡¯m the best Avowed in the universe?¡± ¡°You will be the best Avowed. I will be the next Primary.¡± ¡°Wow. You¡¯re killing your hero just like that? So much ambition.¡± ¡°He doesn¡¯t have to die. He just has to become Secondary instead.¡± ¡°I¡¯m excited.¡± Alden reached for her hand as they turned back to the dome. ¡°I¡¯m going to have matching face tattoos with the Primary one day.¡± ****************** Alden got to ride in a spaceship. To a bigger spaceship. It was something so far outside his imagination that it had never even made it onto his bucket list. The small egg-shaped transport vessel that ferried them from the ground to the ship in orbit had giant windows. Alis-art¡¯h was the only other passenger, and she quickly realized that Alden wasn¡¯t paying attention to her at all as they rose swiftly but gently through thick yellow-gray clouds and he finally saw what had been beyond them all this time. Below him, there was the curve of the moon¡¯s atmosphere as it fell away. And there was Kimnor¡ªan aqua and green gas giant with striations like Jupiter¡¯s¡ªset against a field of black. ¡°God,¡± he said in English. ¡°It¡¯s beautiful.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. He pressed a hand to the window. He felt very small. There was a lot of time to stare, but it still wasn¡¯t enough. When they docked with the larger ship, he tried not to be disappointed that their trip through the narrow white corridors did not take them past any viewing areas. There were a lot of wizards on board. Most of them stood out of the way and made respectful gestures to the knight as she passed. Someone ran up with a tablet to ask a question about a technical matter and got a look that made even Alden, in the strange mood he was in, feel vicarious mortification. That guy is probably going to go back to his cabin and cry, he thought, as he watched the wizard jog down the corridor. They arrived at the teleportation chamber quickly. For some reason, Alden wasn¡¯t prepared for that. He knew he should have been. The ship was large, but it was still only a ship. Just because he was walking to what was probably his death, it didn¡¯t mean the trip would get longer out of respect. The circular door cracked in an odd asymmetrical pattern at their approach and drew back into the walls in segments. Alis-art¡¯h strode into the room. ¡°Get out,¡± she said to the five other Artonans assembled there. ¡°I can finish powering it up myself.¡± The wizards scurried away from her and past Alden without glancing back. He just stood there on the threshold, staring. It didn¡¯t look anything like a teleportation alcove or the summonarium. The floor was covered in gray sand. The ceiling was hidden by an impenetrable darkness. Large rocks and chunks of what looked like driftwood were arranged in patterns that almost made sense¡­but not quite. All of the light came from a line of flames a foot wide that spiraled across the walls. The air smelled like blood. Alden didn¡¯t know how long he stood at the threshold, watching Alis-art¡¯h touch various objects one by one and murmur over them. But he was sure it was too long. His chest felt tight. He couldn¡¯t quite control his breathing. The knight never told him to hurry up and step inside the room. Eventually, he did it anyway. The sand was soft under his bare feet. ¡°Do I¡­stand in the center?¡± ¡°You can stand wherever you like,¡± she said in the same steady voice she¡¯d been using with him for hours. ¡°The entire room is the focus of the spell.¡± Alden stood in the center anyway. It just seemed like the thing to do. He looked down at his hands and realized they were trembling, so he stuffed them into the pockets of his borrowed pants. Artonans are really great about pockets. They put tons of them on absolutely everything. Probably because they were always carrying so much magic junk. His left hand found the ball of putty he¡¯d been hauling around for months, and he squeezed it. He wondered what Alis-art¡¯h would think if she knew he was holding onto one of her nephew¡¯s bones. He¡¯d started to throw it away after the experiment with Kibby¡¯s blood. Gorgon had asked him not to do the Rite again, and he couldn¡¯t even fathom a situation in which he would want to intimately connect with Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s mind and soul in order to be some kind of gremlin-directed, authority-wasting wishing well. But keeping it together had been pretty hard lately, and Alden had learned to value any little thing that made him smile. Like¡­there was definitely something funny about being a Rabbit carrying around a lucky wizard¡¯s foot. Macabre. But funny. ¡°Is there anything¡­¡± Alis-art¡¯h hesitated, then seemed to change her mind about what she wanted to say. ¡°I will step out of the room. You will remain under my protection until the last possible moment. The teleportation spell will ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª you toward Artona I, and the Contract will take over once you arrive.¡± ¡°If it works,¡± Alden said. ¡°Yes.¡± He dug his toes into the sand. ¡°That sounds good. Thank you for your help.¡± ¡°Yes. Of course.¡± She turned to go. Alden felt an urge to ask her to wait. He swallowed hard and ignored it. She¡¯d already agreed to do everything he really cared about. He didn¡¯t have anything else to say. He just didn¡¯t want to be alone. Alis-art¡¯h crossed the few paces to the door and stopped there for a moment, then she suddenly spun back around and returned to join him in the center of the room. Maybe she can read minds, after all? Alden thought. She cleared her throat and looked up at him. ¡°Before you go, let me give you a message to deliver.¡± He didn¡¯t know what she meant. He was startled when she lifted her arms to cup his cheeks in both hands. She stared at him for a moment, searching his face like she was memorizing it, then she met his gaze. ¡°Mother,¡± she said clearly, ¡°if this one makes it to you, place both of your eyes upon him. He has done more for us than he had to.¡± She let go of Alden¡¯s face, gave him a stiff nod, and left. The strange door shut behind her. He stood there for several seconds with nothing but the flickering shadows of the things in the room for company. Fists clenched, heart pounding, he tried one last time to control his own raging authority, to reassert the existence of the skill. To do anything and everything he could before it happened. The saving blanket of Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s authority vanished suddenly. Alden slammed his eyes shut. He felt pure terror. And pain. Then, he didn¡¯t feel anything at all. Ritual of Return Ritual of Return detected. Ritual legally authorized by Loh Alis-art¡¯h. Contract I attempting to establish connection to spell and preserve haecceity¡­ Attempting to establish connection to spell and preserve haecceity¡­ Connection to spell established. Haecceity of passenger is damaged. Priority of passenger is low. Likelihood of passenger survival is low. Chance of significant fallout upon arrival is 4.28%. Cost of salvation exceeds thresholds. Risk exceeds thresholds. Destruction of Ritual of Return will commence in 0.002 ern.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Final analysis prior to destruction underway¡­ Analysis completed. Personal request from Loh Alis-art¡¯h detected. Modifying records. Awaiting decision from Mother. Decision made. Passenger re-prioritized. Contract I realigning resources to support Ritual of Return. Re-routing destination in case of fallout. Attempting to repair passenger haecceity. FIFTY-NINE: Mother, pt. 1 The boy stood in front of a white door. He didn¡¯t know how long he¡¯d been standing there, or where he had come from, or what he was supposed to do next. His fingers hovered over the access panel without touching it. He watched them for a while. A dark silver ring etched with symbols appeared on the middle one. Eventually, he looked up. A logogram had been drawn on the door in blue paint. It said WELCOME. ¡°Oh.¡± Alden blinked at it. ¡°I¡¯ve done this before.¡± The paint shifted. New logograms appeared, then they morphed into letters: YOU¡¯VE HAD A DIFFICULT JOURNEY. COME INSIDE. REST FOR A WHILE. Alden pressed his hand to the access panel. The white door fractured into oddly-shaped segments and slid into the walls. He stepped through the opening into a living room. Not the one at the laboratory, or the one he shared with Aunt Connie. Not the one from the apartment. His first one. It was the house in Nashville. Wheat-colored carpet was soft under his feet. He could hear the tick of the grandfather clock from the hall. A Douglas fir Christmas tree, too large for the space, blocked part of the television. The rainbow lights were set to blink. The presents were all wrapped in paper covered in either cartoonish dump trucks, bulldozers, or superhero sigils. That¡¯s right, Alden thought, gazing at the gifts. I had a pretty serious fascination with construction equipment for a while. Childhood passions were so bizarre. One day you loved backhoes and steamrollers more than anything, and then you suddenly just¡­didn¡¯t. The house smelled like the tree. And orange cinnamon rolls. Never homemade, he remembered. Mom was always too busy for that. We did the kind that came out of a tube. He heard the creak of the oven door. Have to wait a few minutes before you can smear the frosting on. That was the best job. So of course it was his. Footsteps on the linoleum. Then the carpet. Right behind him. Alden didn¡¯t turn around. ¡°I don¡¯t want to see her,¡± he said. ¡°Not like this. It¡¯s too real.¡± There was a pause. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t do that to you,¡± an unfamiliar voice said. Alden looked. Behind him stood an Artonan woman. He had never seen her before, but she looked like a mix of a lot people he knew. Pink eyes like Thenn-ar. Braided brown hair like Hannah and Kibby. Brows set at an angle that made her look calm, like Instructor Gwen-lor. She was only a little shorter than him. She held two steaming mugs. ¡°Can I offer you some¡ª¡± ¡°Wevvi?¡± he asked in a resigned voice. ¡°Of course not, Alden. It¡¯s hot chocolate. You¡¯re new to me, but I can get at least that much right.¡± He accepted a mug with a reindeer on it from her and stared down. The marshmallows were half melted, just like he preferred them. She walked over to the sofa, drinking from her own mug, and sat down. She patted the cushion beside her. Alden joined her. ¡°I¡¯m not dead,¡± he noted, sipping his hot cocoa. It was perfect. ¡°I¡¯m really glad about that. You¡¯re the Artona I System?¡± ¡°Sometimes. A part of it,¡± she said. ¡°The kernel.¡± ¡°You have a different vibe from the Earth System,¡± Alden noted. ¡°It¡¯s young. And more rigid by design. My children prefer for me to be something more personal.¡± She pointed at the television with one finger, and it clicked on. On the screen, Alden saw himself sitting on a foam mattress across from the white, featureless mannequin the Earth System had used to talk to him when it was affixing his skill the first time around. ¡°I am in close communication with it while I work on you. It has known you since the moment of your birth, while the two of us have only just met. It seems you have become an interesting existence over the past few months. You are quite complex for your species and your age.¡± Something twinkled on the Christmas tree, and Alden glanced over to see an ornament that definitely hadn¡¯t been there when he was six. It looked like Gorgon, if Gorgon had more than one face. He examined the tree closely and realized there were other significant things there. A small planet Earth perched on top in place of the star. The branches were draped in the iridescent indigo loops of his auriad instead of tinsel. One of the ornaments was the Ryeh-b¡¯t toy with the missing wing. ¡°You have choices to make,¡± the woman said. ¡°Important ones. Hard ones. Irrevocable ones. Several of them.¡± ¡°And then I can go home?¡± ¡°You can go where you wish,¡± she said. ¡°My children tell me home is harder to find every time you change. But you can try.¡± She pointed at the tree, and the auriad separated itself and drifted over to hover in front of him. Alden reached for it, and it moved just beyond his grasp. ¡°Not so fast. This is the most significant decision. Once you make it, no matter what you choose, many paths will close to you and others will open. Do you want to continue forward with the ability you¡¯ve gained to sense your own authority? Or do you want me to remove it from you?¡± Alden frowned. His hand was still outstretched toward the auriad. ¡°Why would I ever want you to take it away?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll help you remember.¡± ********************* Alden suddenly found himself in the shower at the lab. The hot water was beating down on him. He was leaning against the tiles. A few minutes before, he¡¯d run out on his lesson with Kibby because he¡¯d just begun to realize how much he loved magic. He¡¯d just begun to understand how restrained he truly was by the gift the System had given him. Another memory. Another day. He was lying awake in the vault, unable to find the rest he needed because he was fighting against his own skill. His bound authority raged against the very shape of its own existence. His free authority scraped against it from the outside. It was maddening. It hurt. He couldn¡¯t make himself stop. He screwed his eyes shut. He screamed into the pillow. He ran across Moon Thegund with Kibby on his back. He felt no pain. Only he did. His affixation cracked. He wished it would disappear. He repaired it anyway. It cracked again. He patched it again. He knew he would die without. He knew Kibby would die without it. He was grateful for it. He hated it. He clung to it with everything he had because it was the last thing he had. ************************** ¡°Pursuing anything more would be a cruel thing to do to yourself,¡± said the woman on the sofa beside Alden. He shook himself free of the memories. ¡°Joe said that to me. When I asked if I could learn to cast spells like wizards do.¡± ¡°Worli Ro-den. I have met him through other peoples¡¯ minds on occasion. Most of them had far less favorable opinions of him than you do.¡± Alden laughed. ¡°I like him more than the average person does?¡± ¡°You had low expectations for him. Maybe because you¡¯re human. He exceeded them.¡± I guess that¡¯s true. ¡°I understand that having an authority sense and being an Avowed at the same time is hard in a lot of ways,¡± said Alden. ¡°But it¡¯s not like I can¡¯t do it, right? I¡¯ll¡­lose my ability to cast spells for a while after my authority is bound. But I can get stronger again. And cast again. Can¡¯t I?¡± ¡°And then lose it all again. Yes. That¡¯s correct.¡± ¡°And it¡¯s really helpful for actually using the skill. So much easier to understand and control than Joe¡¯s perception lessons. Eventually I¡¯ll get used to the bound authority, and it won¡¯t bother me so much. I can¡ª¡± ¡°You won¡¯t ever get used to it.¡± Alden let his hand fall away from the auriad. ¡°How do you know?¡± She slurped her hot chocolate loudly, like a kid. ¡°By its very nature, authority is that which rejects limitations on existence. The affixation is a profound limitation. You may come to accept it intellectually. You may even be able to appreciate what it does for you. But as a person who has come to know your own authority, the affixation will never be something you can ignore. And certainly it won¡¯t be something you enjoy.¡± There was a rustle of branches from the Christmas tree, and he suddenly found himself holding the many-faced Gorgon ornament in his free hand. ¡°There is a fascinating and noisy part of you that keeps informing me our comprehensions of this matter do not truly match. I could trick it or overwhelm it into silence, but I won¡¯t. Alden, of all the choices you will ever make, this is the one that interests me the most. I would like for you to be fully informed.¡± Alden ran a thumb over the tips of the ornament¡¯s horns. The gremlin might be confused sometimes, but it did come in handy. ¡°You can just explain it to me in detail?¡± he suggested. ¡°I think I will show you instead. It¡¯s a private matter, but I will excise the memory from you before I finish you if it becomes necessary.¡± That was a little scary. The Earth System had been clear that unwanted mental modifications were a violation of terms and something it wouldn¡¯t do except in emergencies. This kernel of Artona I seemed a lot more willing and able to be¡­creative. The sound of a large bell echoed from the television. Startled, Alden looked and saw that the image of himself with the Earth System had been replaced. On the screen, tiered oval rings of wooden benches looked down on an empty expanse of ground covered in a fine layer of pristine snow. ¡°Where is that?¡± he asked. His breath fogged. The cold bit at him. He blinked in surprise, and an instant later, he found himself standing in a large group of Artonan kids a few years younger than him. There were around a hundred of them. They were wearing matching quilted purple coats, and they were all shivering as they watched adults in different versions of the knights¡¯ uniform pass by on their way into the small stadium area. Everyone was quiet. A man walked over to Alden and the kids. He had long purple-black hair pulled back at the temples with jeweled clips, and though his short sleeves left his forearms bare, he didn¡¯t seem at all bothered by the weather. ¡°Greetings, Instructor Rel-art¡¯h.¡± The children spoke in unison but very softly. Their voices were almost whispers. He nodded at them, searching them all with dark eyes. ¡°No-en,¡± he said, in a voice no louder than his students¡¯ own, ¡°you have been crying. Leave.¡± Alden glanced at the girl he¡¯d spoken to. Her eyes were a little red. He wouldn¡¯t even have noticed if it hadn¡¯t been pointed out. But No-en turned without a word of complaint and walked toward a line of tall trees in the distance. ¡°Asay-tor,¡± said the instructor to a boy on the edge of the group, ¡°you are clenching your fists. Leave.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± the boy murmured. ¡°I¡ª¡± ¡°Your feelings of inadequacy are far less important than you imagine. Leave.¡± The boy paled and headed off after the girl with a stiff gait that suggested he really wished he could run. I don¡¯t even know what¡¯s going on, Alden thought. And I can still almost taste the tension. Even though this scene was all playing out in his own head, he was afraid the instructor knight was about to find him wanting and send him off toward the forest. ¡°Anyone else who fears they cannot conduct themselves in the manner the day requires may also leave,¡± said the man. ¡°No one will think less of you for it. If you stay, you will not make the event more difficult for any of the knights, especially those who will choose their rest. If a member of your own family stands when the time comes, I will help you to control yourself. That is all.¡± None of the kids left. The instructor¡¯s eyes lingered on a boy near the front of the group, but eventually he turned away. The stoic children followed him. And Alden, feeling a lot more trepidation than any of the students were showing,walked after them. In the stadium, the dark wooden benches were polished to an almost mirror-like shine. There were at least a couple thousand knights present, recognizable by the metal studs they wore on their clothes in lieu of embroidery. But they still only filled a quarter of the seats. Nobody in embroidery at all, Alden noted. He wasn¡¯t sure what it meant. Apart from the knights, there were only people in the purple student coats. The group Alden was with seemed to be the youngest class¡­if this even was a class in the traditional sense. They took their place in a separate section of the stands, sitting on the topmost bench. Below them, older kids sat in small groups. The group Alden was with were all human-equivalent twelve or thirteen by his estimation. The oldest people in purple were closer to twenty. There weren¡¯t as many of them. Only a dozen. It seemed like class sizes reduced dramatically with age. Alden looked for a place to sit, and he realized there was a familiar face in the crowd. The boy the instructor had stared at for longer than the others was in the center of his classmates. It was Stu-art¡¯h, but younger than when Alden had met him. An empty seat suddenly appeared right beside him. ¡°Pretty sure that¡¯s not what happened in real life,¡± Alden murmured. But he took the hint and claimed the spot for himself. The bell he¡¯d heard on the television began to toll.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Nobody said a word. This setting, the dire warnings from the instructor, people going to ¡°their rest¡­¡± This feels like a public execution. Not that I¡¯ve ever been to one. Alden hoped he was wrong. Maybe he was. From what he knew about human history, public executions had often been celebratory, extravagant events. Government-sponsored shows with cheering, jeering crowds ready to see someone suffering. Because people could be monsters. Whatever this was, it was a lot more somber. The unseen bell tolled again. Someone sitting on the bottom level of seats stood and walked to the center of the snow-covered grounds. A single line of footprints was left in his wake. It was too far to see his face clearly, but Alden recognized him by his hair. A shade of purple so pale it was nearly white. The Primary. When he reached the center of the field, he stopped. ¡°Good morning,¡± he said. The man¡¯s volume was ordinary, and yet it carried all the way to the stands where Alden sat beside his son. ¡°I am honored to serve with you all. And to serve those of you who must leave us today. Thank you for helping us to hold onto the frayed strands of our unraveling universe. Please rise if you have chosen to make your final sacrifice for us.¡± The bell sounded. People stood. Alden counted eleven of them. It was so quiet, he could hear the whisper of the light snowfall. Beside him, Stuart had stopped breathing. He looked down at the boy and saw his eyes fixed, unblinking, on a girl who couldn¡¯t have been that much older than Alden was now. As young as eighteen or nineteen maybe, even though she was in the full knight uniform instead of the quilted coat. Her short-cropped hair was almost as white as the Primary¡¯s. She was standing a few dozen yards to the right and below them, and as the bell rang again and the standing people began to walk down to join the Primary on the field, she glanced over her shoulder to look at Stuart just once. It was the briefest exchange. She had dark circles under her eyes and a heartbreakingly wounded expression on her face. Stuart made a small sound in the back of his throat. Don¡¯t you dare, a voice whispered in Alden¡¯s ear. Don¡¯t you dare make her feel guilty. Stuart flinched. He stopped breathing again. Alden saw the instructor for the class moving his mouth without making a sound. He thought the man was still magically whispering in Stuart¡¯s ear, but it must have been something Alden didn¡¯t need to hear. I don¡¯t think I needed to hear any of this, he thought as he watched eleven people walk across the snow. I don¡¯t think I need to see any of this. I think whatever this day was, it belonged to them. It was never meant for me. The girl who looked like the Primary was not the youngest. There was a boy around her age, too. The others were all older, though none of them were visibly old. Nobody in the crowd was. Alden assumed the knights probably all had access to healers capable of rejuvenation. If the Velras could manage it on Earth there was no way incredibly important Artonans couldn¡¯t. The eleven stood in a line before the Primary. He approached the first woman and held her hands in both of his. ¡°May-en,¡± he said, in a steady voice that reminded Alden of how the man¡¯s sister had been speaking to him just a short while ago. ¡°How much you have given us. You have earned your rest. Thank you for your service.¡± She fell to the ground dead. There was not a single mark on her. The Primary went down the line one by one. Alden would have been thrown out of the stadium by the instructor if he were really present. He managed not to make a sound or flee, but he couldn¡¯t stop himself from clenching his fists and looking away each time one of them fell. It was so, so quiet. And that made it so much worse. ¡°Sina-art¡¯h,¡± said the Primary, holding the pale-haired girl¡¯s hands. ¡°You have shone so brightly for us¡ª¡± Was there something different in his voice? Maybe. If there was, surely it was so well hidden that nobody could fault him for it. Alden wanted to reach over and slap a hand over younger-Stuart¡¯s eyes, just like he¡¯d done that day by the lake with the mishnen. ¡°You have earned your rest. Thank you for your service.¡± When the last person had fallen, the Primary turned and walked away. The ground of the stadium shifted, and tree roots slowly broke through the snow. Over the course of the next half hour, they pulled the bodies into the soil. Alden watched Stuart watch it happen. The other boy never let himself blink. At last, as the class stirred around them and started to leave, Alden spoke. ¡°The knights aren¡¯t wizards.¡± The Artonan woman appeared on the other side of Stuart like she¡¯d been there all along. ¡°You finally noticed.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t had much experience with them, you know. I¡¯ve only met two in real life, and they weren¡¯t showing off their magic all that much at the time.¡± ¡°They are wizards. Very dedicated ones usually. Most of them consider the lifelong development of their magical knowledge to be part of their obligations, though it¡¯s not technically part of their oath.¡± ¡°Right. Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s going to college. I should have said, ¡®They¡¯re not just wizards.¡¯¡± ¡°No. They¡¯re not.¡± Stuart still wasn¡¯t blinking. He wasn¡¯t moving to follow the other kids out of the stadium. Alden could see the metal rings around his irises very clearly. ¡°The Primary and the Quaternary weren¡¯t carrying tablets that night at the party. And they didn¡¯t have glasses or eye rings or any of the other things I¡¯ve seen Artonans using to access the System.¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°The Primary just spoke to the Artona III Contract directly when he wanted to. He was annoyed with it for refusing to translate what he was saying to me.¡± ¡°He has a low tolerance for petty restriction.¡± ¡°I think I just saw him execute his own daughter,¡± said Alden, trying and failing to shove the memory of the girl¡¯s face away from his mind.¡°And it didn¡¯t look like something he wanted to do. I doubt he has tolerance for petty anything.¡± ¡°Sina-art¡¯h,¡± she said. ¡°Yes. She was one of his daughters. Very talented. It¡¯s not fair to call it an execution.¡± ¡°What was it then?¡± ¡°An honorable release from something she could no longer bear. An escape that freed her from pain and allowed her to still be of service to those she loved. The remnants of her authority are gathered here, woven into the ground beneath us and the forest around us. Old magic. They become part of a ward against chaos.¡± Alden stared down at the dark patches in the snow where the bodies had disappeared. ¡°An escape¡­from her affixation.¡± The woman nodded. ¡°She was an Avowed,¡± Alden said. ¡°All the knights are. They don¡¯t have the tech to connect to you because they don¡¯t need it. They must have System interfaces like I do. And the Primary. Whatever he did just now to¡­release those people¡­. was magic. But I didn¡¯t see anything that looked like him casting a spell. It was instantaneous. He was using a skill.¡± Between them, kid Stuart suddenly slumped forward over his knees. His whole body started shaking. ¡°Can¡¯t we give him some privacy?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I don¡¯t think he¡¯d want me to see this.¡± An instant later, he was back on the sofa in his old living room. His mug was in his hand. The television screen showed Kibby, her expression focused as she lit the promise sticks on top of Alden¡¯s birthday seven-layer dip. ¡°You¡¯re not quite correct,¡± the woman said. ¡°Though both have their power bound into skills, Knights aren¡¯t Avowed. Just as Avowed aren¡¯t Knights. As an Avowed, you had very little choice when it came to having your authority bound¡ª¡± ¡°No choice,¡± Alden said. She considered him. ¡°Almost no choice,¡± she amended. ¡°You may find it comforting to know that if you were given another option on that day, and granted full knowledge of what Avowed are in truth, you would still have chosen to accept the Contract. You wanted access to magic for your own reasons. There was no other way for you to have it, and there never would have been. At that point, the chances of you somehow awakening to the authority you possessed and learning to use it on your own were so infinitesimal that even this didn¡¯t object to the deal.¡± The many-faced Gorgon twinkled again on the tree. ¡°That doesn¡¯t make it right.¡± She shrugged. ¡°Right and wrong, in the purely moral sense you mean now, aren¡¯t mine to manage. And if they were, nobody of any species would enjoy my management. My morality would be based on a vastly more elaborate thought process than any organic mind is capable of.¡± Alden sighed. He ate a few of the half-melted marshmallows off the top of the cocoa, and more appeared to replace them. Finally, he said, ¡°So, the point of that field trip¡ªit was to drive home the fact that feeling your bound authority the way Knights do isn¡¯t something to take lightly?¡± ¡°Correct.¡± Alden¡¯s auriad was still drifting around overhead, just out of reach. ¡°If you can take away my ability to feel it, why don¡¯t you just do that for them?¡± ¡°The sense is still very new for you,¡± she said. ¡°Even then, you¡¯re almost too far along for me to erase it without erasing too much of you along with it. As it is, it will be an expensive procedure. For both of us. But my Alis asked me to pay you special attention, and she has earned a favor or two.¡± My Alis. ¡°She was trying to get you to help me? When she said that stuff to me right before I teleported?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have access to her right now, but searching through your memory of her, I am sure she only hoped I would expend a little more energy than you are owed in order to facilitate the teleportation ritual she used. Which I did. But she didn¡¯t realize you were in the process of making yourself so unique. If she had known, she would have wanted me to spare a bit more of my efforts for you. So I shall.¡± ¡°How many Knights choose to be¡­no, I guess that doesn¡¯t matter. You¡¯re playing around inside my existence right now, aren¡¯t you? Can you tell if I¡¯m not going to be able to stand it over the long term?¡± ¡°Oh!¡± She looked delighted. ¡°Earth was wrong about you. That¡¯s rare.¡± Alden frowned at her. ¡°It said you wouldn¡¯t ask for my advice. It said you would feel overly directed, deprived of individualism, and less satisfied with your decisions if I made recommendations.¡± That doesn¡¯t sound like me at all. Was I really like that? ¡°I¡¯ve made a lot of life-or-death decisions for myself with zero help since Earth last talked to me,¡± Alden said. ¡°They¡¯re not fun. I promise I¡¯m not going to feel deprived of individualism if you tell me what choice is going to keep me sane.¡± ¡°If you want the highest chance of survival, job satisfaction, and overall future happiness, you should give up your authority sense,¡± she said promptly. The auriad disappeared. ¡°However, when I rewrite you, some other things will go with it.¡± Ornaments began disappearing from the tree. The planet Kimnor, a glass orb that contained the green-white flash of the lab exploding, a promise stick lit and glowing like a candle among the branches. Alden¡¯s breath caught. He looked back at the television. Kibby was gone. ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°You will not feel sorrow because you will not miss her. It¡¯s not even like amnesia. I would have to be far more thorough than that. But it won¡¯t hurt. And you won¡¯t feel the pain of your bound authority in the future. And your life will be much simpler, and more pleasant, moving forward.¡± ¡°You¡¯re talking about making me a different person.¡± ¡°You will be a different person after your upcoming affixation anyway. I am offering you a choice about which different person you want to live as. It¡¯s not something I will be able to do for you again in the future.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not even a choice!¡± ¡°I let you argue this point earlier. But here I will disagree with you. This is a moment in which you choose. You have bought this option for yourself through actions that endeared you to my Alis. I have done my best to show you the gravity of your decision. Don¡¯t pretend that your hand is being forced in order to distance yourself from the responsibility.¡± Alden made himself calm down. He tried to think about it. Really. What it would be like to just go back to who he had been, a little stronger maybe. With his skill feeling like nothing but a gift. He could see how it would make him happy. But¡­ ¡°I¡¯m not going to choose to rewind to a different version of myself without my memories of the past half a year.¡± ¡°You could, though.¡± He stared at the television screen. It was blank now, but he almost thought he could see through it to that moment when the last traces of the bodies were dragged beneath the snow. ¡°Yes,¡± he said finally. ¡°I could. But I don¡¯t want to.¡± Something liquid soft and familiar settled against his left wrist, and he looked down to see the auriad wrapped there like a bracelet. It felt just as comforting and essential to him as it had ever since he¡¯d finished bonding with it. He considered it for a while then turned back to the woman on the sofa. ¡°I don¡¯t have to join the Knights of the Mother Planet now, do I? You were just using them as an example of people with skills and wizardry, right? It¡¯s not the only option?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t like them?¡± she asked with a pout in her voice. ¡°They keep the universe in one piece. You have wondered before why even the highest ranking humans are called so infrequently for combat assignments. It¡¯s partly because the Knights are the more qualified, and therefore the preferred, first line of defense. Without them, the Triplanets would be using the supply of Avowed very differently. Even the factions that fear you would not be designing so many charming little nothing talents for you. Or wasting your skills on serving drinks. And you would live¡ªif you lived at all¡ªin a significantly darker world.¡± Alden cleared his throat. ¡°It¡¯s not that I dislike the Knights. Conceptually, they¡¯re awesome. Now that I know what they¡¯re doing, I think they¡¯re probably some of the best people I¡¯ve ever heard of. Alis-art¡¯h is using her skill to single-handedly terraform the chaos away from a planet-sized moon. I could fanboy over that like Kibby. But¡­I just watched a man mercy kill his own daughter. While his son looked on in ritual silence.¡± ¡°Several of his sons and daughters were there.¡± ¡°Right,¡± said Alden ¡°So, on an intensity scale of one to a hundred, that was at least a ninety-nine point nine. And I can¡¯t handle it right now. I am really tired. I want an intensity level of, like, four. At least for the next year or two. I want to go to high school. Maybe join a club. A boring club. A book club. Not an alien demon-fighting club.¡± She raised an eyebrow at him and then stared pointedly at the auriad. ¡°Intensity level four?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± he said seriously. She grinned. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. The Knights of the Mother Planet aren¡¯t currently recruiting humans into their ranks.¡± For some reason, Alden felt like she was lying. ¡°Why would I lie? The idea hasn¡¯t even crossed their minds. There have been Knights from other species in the past, but it was long before your planet was discovered. And even then, there were a relatively small number of them compared to the number of Artonans. Just having an authority sense and an affixation and swearing to protect the Triplanets doesn¡¯t automatically grant you access to the elite level of ¡®demon-fighting club.¡¯ There¡¯s at least one other requirement¡­even if you ignore significant political factors.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± he said with relief. She raised an eyebrow. ¡°Is it? I think I should point out that you are on the verge of accepting nearly all of the most difficult parts of Knighthood without the benefit of the reverence and extraordinary support they enjoy from the rest of wizarding society.¡± Alden frowned. ¡°You¡¯re still an Avowed. You can still be summoned into battle. And the Primary is already aware that you¡¯re abnormally chaos-resistant. Your stability was especially noteworthy considering how fresh your affixation was. There¡¯s usually a period when a skill works but it¡¯s still in the process of¡­settling in and becoming. It can be vulnerable to certain kinds of damage. Avowed can¡¯t feel it, but Knights pay attention to that kind of thing. His son is really quite sensitive. When your authority touched him, he noticed that it was of an unusual caliber, and he mentioned it to his father in passing.¡¯¡± Thanks, Stuart. Alden thought back to the party. ¡°Does he plan to summon me into battle?¡± ¡°He was making a mental note of your qualities for later. He¡¯s currently thinking of you as someone who will be useful support staff for Knights in low level chaos fields in the future. An errand runner or medic¡¯s assistant. He plans to reassess your abilities when you¡¯re around thirty.¡± ¡°Level thirty?¡± ¡°Years old,¡± she clarified. ¡°Oh.¡± At least it was a long way away. ¡°Thanks for the warning.¡± ¡°It wasn¡¯t a warning.¡± Alden was still going to take it as one. ¡°What¡¯s the other requirement?¡± ¡°Hmmm?¡± she said, smiling down at her mug. Has she gotten friendlier and less professional since I decided on keeping my authority sense? It definitely seemed like she had. Alden preferred this more personable version of a System to the others he¡¯d interacted with. But at the same time, it was off-footing. He couldn¡¯t even pretend he was talking to a thing anymore. She felt a heck of a lot like a being. ¡°The other requirement,¡± he said. ¡°For being a knight. You said there was political stuff. But also one other requirement. I¡¯d like to know what it is.¡± So I can avoid ever meeting it. ¡°Oh that. They¡¯re wizards sacrificing massive amounts of authority, their lives, and enduring sometimes torturous pain for the sake of others. It¡¯s not like they¡¯re going to go through all of that only to take a bunch of dumb little skills that let them arrange flowers or shoot fireballs or fluff pillows. They can do that nonsense with a spell and a bit more time and effort. And spreadingyour authority over fifty different itty bitty talents isn¡¯t how you slice something the size of a moon in half, you know?¡± ¡°I heard it was an eleventh of a moon.¡± ¡°Thegund is a big moon.¡± She stretched her legs out in front of her and wiggled her toes at him. ¡°Anyway, most Knights can afford a few supplementary talents for their own convenience, but those aren¡¯t important. Defending the universe is all about having that one useful, well-designed, infinitely expandable skill to funnel all of your power into. As long as you don¡¯t choose one of those, nobody will be interested in¡ª¡± She paused and then gasped dramatically. ¡°You¡¯re making fun of me,¡± said Alden, astonished to find himself saying something like that in this situation. ¡°You¡¯re a mean System. I didn¡¯t even know Systems could be mean.¡± A monocle appeared in her free hand and she held it up to a pink eye to exam him. ¡°Avowed skill number one hundred and twelve,¡± she said. ¡°Designed at a time when the Knights were fewer and weaker, and many believed they would not be able to push back the chaos without help. Potentially powerful, of course. But not intended for solo combat. You¡¯ve been thinking of your skill as something simple, but its creators admired it most for its versatility. You¡¯ll see if you choose to develop it. It¡¯s capable of supporting a number of other skills in interesting ways.¡± She tossed the monocle away. ¡°They had so much trouble choosing nice poetic names for most of the originals. But not this one.¡± A complicated sigil appeared, glowing in bright blue light on the television screen. It was a circle full of dizzying geometric patterns that seemed to shift slightly every time Alden tried to follow them with his eyes. Two bright dots shone on either side of it, barely touching the circle¡¯s perimeter. ¡°One twelve,¡± she said. ¡°The Bearer of All Burdens.¡± SIXTY: Mother, pt. 2 CHAPTER SIXTY: Mother, pt. 2 ¡°This is fun,¡± she said, waving a hand to make the sigil that represented Alden¡¯s skill disappear from the television screen. ¡°Normally, even if you were learning to use your authority, I wouldn¡¯t talk to you about the original Avowed skills. I would have to violate some rules to direct you toward them these days, and you haven¡¯t yet earned an extraordinary measure like that. But you already have the skill and know what it is. And a very naughty wizard has gone so far as to tell you outright that you can develop it for a lifetime.¡± Alden was sure there was a picture of Joe somewhere in the universe with the words Very Naughty Wizard scrawled over his face. ¡°You would have figured out that the skill had no ceiling. Probably. Eventually. But how many decades of your life would it have taken I wonder ¡­with so many other delightful talents tempting you to become something else?¡± She grinned at him. ¡°So! Now that you¡¯ve chosen to make your life harder by moving forward with full-knowledge of your authority, it¡¯s time for the simpler choices. Would you like me to tempt you with a multitude of options, Alden? Shall I bring up the Ryeh-b¡¯t skill list for you? Do you want some points in Appeal? Interested in a shiny new spell impression? Or are you in the mood for something a little¡­older?¡± Oh, right, thought Alden. This is what happens next. He had known. He just hadn¡¯t been all that focused on talent selection. Finding out he was going to live when he and the Quaternary had both thought he wouldn¡¯t had eclipsed it in importance. And besides that, he hadn¡¯t realized he¡¯d have to start by choosing to keep something that seemed as fundamental to him as his authority sense. ¡°How many levels did I get anyway?¡± he asked. ¡°What was the tipping point that made me start to fall apart?¡± ¡°If you want to be all human about it and calculate what you know is authority growth in levels¡­¡± she said, ¡°¡­then you gained eight.¡± ¡°Eight?¡± said Alden, stunned even though he knew the number was going to be larger than it would have been under normal circumstances. ¡°Wait. I don¡¯t quite understand how it works, though. The skill itself is stronger already, so some of the authority is already bound into it, right?¡± ¡°As long as a skill isn¡¯t complete and sealed¡ªwhich yours will never be¡ªthen the bound authority you have grows stronger within its confines and the free authority you have grows separately. The second at a faster rate than the first. Eight levels is your total improvement overall.¡± ¡°Got it. So I¡¯m a level nine now. If that¡¯s measured as excess authority on top of a level¡­something¡­skill and my trait and my stats?¡± ¡°If I¡¯m forced to work with these terms, then I think the current power level of your skill should be called three, but Earth says round up to four. It strokes egos to make humans more manageable it seems.¡± Well, that¡¯s a nugget of truth to worry over when I have less going on, Alden thought. Gaining three total levels had once been his ambitious goal. For a year. A year in which he¡¯d imagined himself training full time at one of the best hero schools in Apex. Alden wouldn¡¯t have aimed for level nine overall until he was well into college. ¡°It¡¯s even better than you¡¯re thinking,¡± she said, after giving him a moment to process it all. ¡°Learning to ¡®press all the buttons on the skill machine¡¯ is an excellent way to train and grow your authority. But can you please come up with a more elegant metaphor when you have a moment? This one pains me. And my children generally cope better when they see their skills as worthwhile artistic instruments to master¡­not ugly, tedious devices they must poke at so that they don¡¯t die on a demon moon.¡± ¡°Is the way I think of it really that imp¡ª?¡± ¡°Do you want to hate your skill more than you have to?¡± ¡°No,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°Then do better.¡± She paused. ¡°You asked about the tipping point. It should have been all the way back around level six or seven. At the rate you were growing your free power¡ªpracticing with it constantly and stretching it against both the chaos and the skill¡ªyou ought to have been dead weeks ago. Your friend really did refine you into something I usually only see in gifted young Artonans. I imagine he possesses the ability to do it because having authority of that quality was the requirement for becoming a member of his¡­priesthood?¡± Alden shrugged. ¡°If you don¡¯t know the right word when you¡¯re looking at my memories, then I don¡¯t see how I can tell you anything.¡± ¡°I never had the opportunity to join with one of his kind and come to an understanding.¡± She smiled at Alden. ¡°Anyway, congratulations on your swift advancement! I¡¯m very proud of you. Even if you did almost kill yourself.¡± ¡°Thanks?¡± ¡°Normally you and Earth would have had a back and forth at each of its preferred milestones, with it offering you rewards and you choosing from them. Or, in your case, refusing them. Instead, you now have no option but to pick everything all at once.¡± The presents disappeared from beneath the tree and reappeared scattered across the floor at Alden¡¯s feet. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said. ¡°As you now realize, you yourself are paying the largest portion of the gift¡¯s price. But it should still be satisfying to rip off the wrapping paper.¡± That¡¯s an entertaining way to do it. Alden grabbed the package with bulldozers on it and tugged off the yellow ribbon. When he tore into the box, light filled his eyes. For the first time in months. He laughed. ¡°I almost forgot what the interface looked like!¡± ¡°That¡¯s what you get for running around beyond Contract reach for so long. Try it out.¡± Alden reached up to touch the button for the Wardrobe. ¡°With your mind,¡± she clarified. ¡°I never had the chance to master mental commands.¡± ¡°I¡¯m doing quite a lot of work on you right now. There¡¯s no reason I can¡¯t speed up a little process like that.¡± Alden focused on the Wardrobe, and it expanded readily. ¡°Thank you. That¡¯s really easy. Wait a second¡­are there more options than there used to¡ª¡± The Wardrobe window shut and disappeared. ¡°That¡¯s for later,¡± she said. ¡°Something to keep you entertained while you¡¯re recovering. Open the next one.¡± Alden grabbed a gift bag, and when he reached inside, the Rabbit skill list appeared. Only it was called the Ryeh-b¡¯t skill list. Obviously she didn¡¯t approve of Earth changing the name. ¡°You can have another skill,¡± she said. ¡°In fact, you have accumulated so much free authority that you can have another B-rank skill affixation if you want it. I¡¯m sure you know¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s not something people get until they¡¯ve been a successful Avowed for ages,¡± Alden said. It was usually lower ranked skills for add-ons. Because of the way authority accumulation worked, he supposed. If you were taking rewards every time they were offered, you would have to be pretty far along in an illustrious career before you started getting enhancements the size of your original skill for a single upgrade. ¡°What is a level anyway?¡± he asked. ¡°Is it like a recommended percentage of growth compared to your total power prior to re-binding it?¡± She sniffed. ¡°Recommended. Yes. A poor recommendation in my opinion. Don¡¯t listen to Earth, Alden. Take your affixations in the largest doses you can stand. Not as large as the one you¡¯re about to get. But in general. Patience is a virtue.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°I mean¡­I was going to anyway since I want to actually get to use my free authority for spells for as long as possible.¡± ¡°Good boy.¡± ¡°But why? For normal people I mean?¡± ¡°The tension between your free authority and your bound strengthens your power. The more equal they are to each other, the greater the benefit. This is much more applicable to you than to a regular Avowed since your very awareness of the tension increases it substantially. But it applies to a smaller extent universally.¡± ¡°Like they¡¯re arm wrestling each other all the time,¡± Alden said. ¡°And by doing so they¡¯re forcing a constant state of reassertion?¡± She sighed. ¡°That¡¯s as bad as the machine metaphor, but you may keep it.¡± Alden glanced down at his auriad. ¡°I¡¯m not¡­the only human Avowed with an authority sense, am I?¡± It was an awkward thing to ask since he thought the answer should be something like, Of course not. Just how arrogant are you? But he wanted some confirmation so that he wouldn¡¯t feel like he was trying to do the Avowed thing completely differently¡ªand therefore possibly wrongly¡ªcompared to everybody else on Earth. Knowing some other humans were on the same path would be a big comfort. ¡°You¡¯re currently running so far ahead of a very small pack that I see no point in you considering the other racers.¡± He shook his head. ¡°That can¡¯t be right. I¡¯ve only studied magic for a few months.¡± ¡°Doggedly. In an environment with just the right amount of corruption. With a dedicated training partner. After receiving an ideal boon from a member of the only other species Artonans have ever encountered that could be said to have true natural talent for magic. It¡¯s not even a replicable experiment.¡± ¡°But there are people out there who are hyperboles. Who can control weather systems! They can do such crazy stuff.¡± ¡°You do realize the way you¡¯ve begun to train and use your skill isn¡¯t the lone possibility for achieving strength? Many humans are naturally much more powerful than you at their first affixation. Some among them are also talented in developing their skills through other methods. A few of them achieve mastery through vast amounts of practice. A few just have a subconscious knack for it. People who set out to develop their power and refuse to give up generally find the means.¡± She added, ¡°I believe Worli Ro-den was trying to lead you down such a path. You¡¯ve gained more than you realize from his lessons. Don¡¯t discard them.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°But the route you¡¯ve chosen is faster!¡± she said brightly. ¡°I kind of figured.¡± ¡°You still don¡¯t understand how much faster it is. When you have an authority sense and you bind a skill, your power can rapidly snowball. Especially if you work at. It¡¯s why even Artonans can¡¯t affix without swearing oaths that prevent them from harming the Triplanets.¡± He considered that. ¡°Cool.¡± ¡°An image of you running across Moon Thegund fearlessly and with ease just came to your mind. You are underestimating your future potential.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°Now you¡¯re picturing yourself slicing Earth¡¯s moon in half. With a preservation skill. That¡¯s overestimating. And what did the poor thing ever do to you?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have many middle-ground frames of reference,¡± Alden said defensively. He looked at the presents. ¡°Which one has it in it?¡± ¡°Has what?¡± ¡°I know you know I want to look at it.¡± She stretched her arms over her head. ¡°But you also claim to want your life to proceed at ''Intensity Level Four.'' I¡¯m not sure if I should listen to your actual desires or your stated ones. If I were Earth, I¡¯d be obligated to do the latter.¡± A moment later, the present with the superhero sigil wrapping paper floated into his lap. Alden should have known. He dug a finger under the tape and peeled the paper away slowly. ¡°It comes with a lot of options,¡± she said. ¡°Do you want me to limit it to the smart choices? Or do you want to see everything?¡± ¡°Let me see everything. But¡­don¡¯t let me make any more dumb decisions today.¡± The living room expanded until it was larger than a football field. Startled, Alden stood up from the sofa at the center of the suddenly vast carpeted room. The television was so far away he couldn¡¯t clearly make out the image on it, and floating at a convenient eye-level were hundreds of semi-transparent golden System windows, with what looked like skill names and descriptions written on them. ¡°No. Not skills,¡± she said, still sprawling across the couch. ¡°They¡¯re more like seeds that can only grow in the soil of what has already been established within you. These are designed to give your existing skill new facets, but there is nothing here that will alter its fundamental nature.¡± Alden stared at the golden window nearest to him and reached for it. He found that he could grab onto it and hold it like a card. [THE BEARER OF ALL BURDENS] [You may bear that which has been entrusted to you by the one you choose to serve. You will preserve that which you have mind, strength, and will to bear. You may not lay your burden down.] ¡°This is your skill. Along with a better translation of what it was intended to be at its heart,¡± she said. ¡°You have questions.¡± Alden held the card, studying the description on it. In a way, though the words left out what he¡¯d been thinking of as important technical details about the skill¡¯s function, they resonated more because of it. ¡°It¡¯s pretty symbolic.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve already noted that magic tends to be. Especially if it¡¯s older.¡± The taste of Kibby¡¯s vaguely acidic blood filled Alden¡¯s mouth, and he wrinkled his nose. ¡°It does kind of make it easier to grasp, I guess, even if some of the rules seem to be left out. For example, there¡¯s no mention of the autotarget for summoners.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a newer convenience added on top of the original skill. A largely System-directed bauble. It relies on the fact that by responding to a summons under contract you are on some level choosing to serve that person.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°The rule about having to carry things around for them to be preserved is missing, too¡± ¡°The fact that you have to walk or hop with things is part of the original design, but it¡¯s not meant to be a permanent feature.¡± Alden lowered the card to meet her eyes. ¡°It¡¯s not?¡± ¡°It¡¯s more of a geas placed on the new bearer. It would naturally break down over the next few years, but you can speed the process with effort. It¡¯s designed to help you understand on a deeper level what the skill is, so you¡¯ll possess the right mindset by the time you start using it on things harder to grasp than bits of gravel or balls of putty.¡± ¡°What exactly is it helping me understand about¡ª?¡± ¡°You¡¯ll figure it out if you try.¡± Alden sighed. ¡°It¡¯s to make using the skill more inconvenient.¡± ¡°That wasn¡¯t even much of a try, and you¡¯re right.¡± ¡°To make me more consciously burdened even when I¡¯m carrying something really light.¡± ¡°Yes. Part of the skill¡¯s potency comes from the fact that you must sacrifice some strength of your own in order to preserve your burden. Up until now, your burdens have been simple for you to understand¡ªobjects. You were aware of them weighing on you bodily. And you were aware of them weighing on your authority¡­moreso sometimes than others.¡± Alden looked back at the card. ¡°You will wholly preserve that which you have mind, strength, and will to bear,¡± he said. ¡°Earth just translated that concept as ¡®tangible item¡¯.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a bad description for a beginner. Your skill doesn¡¯t yet have the necessary facets¡ª¡± she gestured at the glowing windows filling the room, ¡°¡ªto expand your definition of the tangible and allow you to carry the sorts of things that will make you The Bearer of All Burdens, instead of just ones with an obvious physical shape for you to hold onto.¡± No way. Alden thought he knew where this was going, but if he was right, it was overwhelming. ¡°My friend Boe,¡± he said. ¡°He assumed the skill would be different, before I chose it and we read the description. He wondered if it would work for things like taking pain or stress away from people.¡± ¡°Those are over there,¡± she said, pointing all the way toward the tiny television and tree at the far end of the room. ¡°With the other enhancements I recommend you avoid for a long, long time.¡± ¡°Holy shit,¡± Alden breathed. ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯ll be saying if you decide to carry someone¡¯s pain for them.¡± ¡°You mean I¡¯d feel it?¡± ¡°You feel everything you preserve in some way,¡± she pointed out. ¡°You¡¯ve noted it many times before. With roots in sacrifice and symbolism, how else would the skill expect you to hold the burden of another person¡¯s pain?¡± ¡°Ah.¡± Alden stared at all the different options around him in shock. Then, he shook his head and tried to bring himself back down to reality. ¡°Let¡¯s not pick from the bad side of the room.¡± There was self-sacrificing, and then there was being a summonable repository for the suffering of any rich wizard with a medical condition. And Alden had no idea whether or not the human morality clauses in the Contract would protect him from that. ¡°It would be a terrible choice now anyway. That¡¯s quite a heavy burden. Magically. Even though I could create the new facet for you, your skill would be too weak to serve that particular function for more than a couple of minutes. In fact, I would like to suggest that you let me bind most of your free authority back into the skill simply to bolster its strength, rather than spending much of it on new facets.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°You mean¡­adding levels of power to the skill directly? Instead of new features? Is that an option?¡± He hadn¡¯t heard of the System doing that for a reward. You leveled up, and then you got a magic prize. But the prize wasn¡¯t extra levels on the skill. Or maybe that was a thing, but not for most skills because they topped out at lower levels? Well, whatever. It¡¯s an option for me now. ¡°Until you come up with the positive and artistic metaphor you promised me¡ªit¡¯s like we¡¯ll be giving the whole machine more fuel. Some of these additional functions I¡¯m showing you would require almost all of your skill-bound authority to even activate. They¡¯re not useful to you yet. But you wanted to see everything.¡± She gestured at him as if to say, Go look. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. So Alden did. And he finally understood how developing a single skill could be the pursuit of a lifetime. If this wasn¡¯t all some dream he was having in the moment before his death, then he could preserve¡­anything. A memory, a disease, a sound. He drifted through the room, trying and failing to understand what some of these new facets would even involve. He stopped in the far corner in front of a window that said ¡°A Temporal Instant¡± and wondered, How? It was grayed-out, in the way many of the options were, to indicate he couldn¡¯t have it right now even if he wanted it. But just the fact that it existed¡­ Who could even entrust something like that? How would they have one in their possession? And how would I bear it? In my mind? With my body? Would I have to live in a time loop? The options that were grayed-out often listed other facets he¡¯d have to choose alongside them to make them work. And some of them were focused not on what Alden would bear but on enhancing him in some way that made it possible to bear it. ¡°This is so insane.¡± He¡¯d been wandering for a while, and finally he stopped at a particular option that seemed to be required by a huge percentage of the other facets in the room. It was right beside the sofa, too, which meant it was highly recommended. [Divide From Whole] [Aids the bearer in the division of a burden from its source.] ¡°It¡¯s extremely complex if you want to know how it works, but if you just want to know what it does¡­it¡¯s the facet of the skill that will allow you to hold certain types of burden away from the bits of reality they are a part of. It goes with this one¡ª¡± [Sensitivity] [Gives Alden the ability to sense the thing he¡¯s trying to divide from the whole.] Oh, they¡¯re getting personalized now, Alden thought, smiling at the description. He didn¡¯t mind it. It was pretty much the opposite of the ultra-vague skill definitions Earth had used. ¡°This sounds like it makes me psychic.¡± ¡°Only for specific qualities of the thing you¡¯ve been entrusted to carry.¡± That was way less overpowered, but Alden didn¡¯t see any reason to be greedy. ¡°So I have to take both of these before I can even use the skill on the foggier conceptual stuff?¡± ¡°It¡¯s the defogging package,¡± she said. ¡°You¡¯re going to want it if you ever want to try most of the other expansion options.¡± Alden took both of the windows. ¡°So if I take these, and we pour whatever amount of authority you recommend into the core of the skill¡ª¡± ¡°Most of it.¡± ¡°What¡¯s left to choose from?¡± ¡°It depends. Do you want me to assign part of your authority to foundation points for you to enhance yourself physically and mentally?¡± Alden resisted his initial urge to shout, Make me STRONG! I want things not to be heavy anymore! It would have helped to be more physically capable when he was stuck on Moon Thegund. He¡¯d really felt his limits, and even if he¡¯d ultimately made things work, it had been by narrow margins¡­ Probably that¡¯s not enough to justify something like doubling my physical strength right now, though. If he was being realistic, it wasn¡¯t like he planned to haul whole people over long distances again anytime soon. He thought he was owed a ton of time off from summonings¡ª ¡°You¡¯ll be on leave for several months,¡± she confirmed. ¡°Mental health time for being involved in a disaster beyond your qualifications. On top of that, I¡¯ll be adding additional weeks for your post-affixation recovery.¡± He nodded. ¡°I think it would probably be a waste to pump myself up like a Brute, but I do want at least a few points¡­just to make life a little easier.¡± ¡°How about you choose one from these options, then?¡± she said. Almost all of the gold and gray windows vanished, and Alden was left with the defogging pair in his hand and four more to pick from. [Burden of Enchantment] [Burden of Spell] [Burden of Wordchain] [Burden of Secret] ¡°Only four?¡± ¡°Only four that are likely to be useful to someone as weak as you¡­unless you want to start delving into the darker burdens already?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve had enough dark for a while.¡± Alden read about the options. They were pretty self-explanatory just from the titles. [Secret] said it would transfer a secret from his entruster to him, though, and he just didn¡¯t see a way for that to work. ¡°Do they just tell it to me, and then they¡­forget it?¡± ¡°As they speak the secret, it leaves their mind. As long as you are using your authority to maintain preservation on it, it will not return to them.¡± ¡°But it does return to them? Like, I drop it somehow? Or forget it? And it just bounces back?¡± How? Just how? ¡°How does your current skill work?¡± she asked with a smile. Alden had no idea. But at least he could hold a thing between his fingers and understand that it was working. ¡°You¡¯ll have to gain a less physical notion of the universe and the way things exist in connection to each other if you really want comprehension. You don¡¯t need comprehension, by the way. I promise the new facets of the skill will work their magic wonderfully and you¡¯ll eventually figure out all of their functions and quirks through trial and error. And yes. The secret bounces back. To an extent. If you hold something like that for long enough, even though it is perfectly preserved, the entruster will no longer be a natural home for it. You would need help from a wizard with quite a lot of esoteric knowledge to reattach it to their mind. It would be much easier to just tell them what they¡¯ve forgotten.¡± Alden didn¡¯t get it. But he¡¯d grown up just accepting magic at face value, so he guessed he could put up with it for now. ¡°So every option works a little differently,¡± he said. ¡°Depending on what the burden is. And I get to figure it out as I go along.¡± She had said the skill¡¯s designers admired it for its versatility. It was a good thing really. It would be pretty boring to keep binding his magic into the skill until he was old and gray, with no variety in function. Just picking up things and holding them better might be useful, but it wasn¡¯t thrilling. He dropped [Secret]. The main thing it would be good for, he thought, was helping other people hide information they wanted to keep private from mind readers. Which was a neat trick, but he couldn¡¯t imagine finding a lot of opportunity for it right now. Next, he flicked away [Wordchain]. Taking peoples¡¯ wordchain debt onto himself would make him super popular with everyone and super miserable and super interesting to a certain family on Anesidora. The Velras would be circling him like flies. He¡¯d go to sleep one night and wake up the next morning to find he was married or adopted. I wish I could keep whatever I chose to myself. He looked at the remaining two options. He was surprised that [Spell] and [Enchantment] were different burdens. It seemed like they should go together. But [Enchantment] made it possible for Alden to remove and preserve only the magical enchantments on an object while [Spell] was for unattached spells. ¡°Can I pull the enchantment off one thing and put it on something else?¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to need to study individual enchantments if you want to get fancy with it. They¡¯re all different. The main one on that ring you¡¯ve stolen, for example, could be transferred with minimal loss in efficacy. But only to a nearly identical ring. And only after you¡¯d destroyed the original.¡± Okay. So doing that with any degree of certainty was going to take a lot of research. At first, this one would mostly be good for making something temporarily non-magical. Or I guess¡­if I held the enchantment away from its ¡®natural home¡¯ long enough¡­outright breaking it? It sounded like it would be great for busting open magical locks. Or destroying peoples¡¯ really expensive armor. After they entrusted it to him. That would be a fast way to make enemies. He looked at [Burden of Spell]. ¡°If someone gives me a spell, can I hold it and then cast it later?¡± ¡°Again, it¡¯s going to depend on the spell. Yes, in some cases. Many spells have specific targets. Others are more general. Some would harm you as soon as you stopped preserving them.¡± Study and practice for either one then, Alden concluded. ¡°I want them both.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good. Eat your vegetables, grow your authority big and strong, and come back for more.¡± He groaned. Finally, he chose [Burden of Enchantment]. ¡°That¡¯s not the one you like the best,¡± she pointed out. ¡°You¡¯re picking it because you think it will be easier to steal enchantments from items people hand you without them realizing you¡¯ve done anything at all.¡± ¡°I¡¯m¡­not sure how quiet I need to be about myself when I get back to Earth. Being a Rabbit with the ability to preserve things and carry other peoples'' spells would make me look awesome. I think it¡¯s awesome anyway. But people are going to ask a lot of questions about what the new talent is and how I got something that powerful that fast at B-rank. And I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m allowed to say. Or what I even want to say.¡± Pulling enchantments sounded more subtle. ¡°With regards to the corruption incident on Thegund, no official request for your silence has been issued by the Triplanets so far. It¡¯s largely unpublicized on Earth, but not a secret. Avowed are fully aware we face a chaos issue of some kind. The more powerful among you are sometimes called to assist with such matters. It was an unfortunate accident that you were caught in that kind of trouble while peacefully collecting berries.¡± Alden rolled his eyes. ¡°But there¡¯s no reason, from a political perspective, for you not to reveal it.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good to know.¡± ¡°Your discretion in other matters would be wise, though. For your own happiness.¡± She stared pointedly at the auriad on his wrist. He touched it. ¡°It is a problem, then? Like¡­legally?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not illegal for you to have it. Or use it. Or learn magic. It would deeply gratify some to know you are pursuing your course. And it would mortally terrify others. It¡¯s not something you should reveal lightly if you want to enjoy book clubs and live on Earth for a while longer.¡± A while longer. ¡°You don¡¯t think I can keep it a secret?¡± ¡°Not for your entire life,¡± she said. ¡°And even in the short-term you would benefit from assistance. Gaining as much power as you have in half a year is quite noteworthy. I¡¯ll give you an option to think about later. For now, you need to choose the last part of your affixation.¡± With a quick mental command, Alden pulled up his enhancement list and examined it. [Foundational Enhancements] Sympathy for Magic +4 Appeal +1 Dexterity +0.5 Stamina +0.25 Processing +0.25 - Visual Processing + 1 Agility + 2.5 - Proprioception +1.5 Speed + 1.5 Strength + 0 ¡°What does Sympathy for Magic even do?¡± Alden stared at the numbers. ¡°I never have figured out what¡¯s good about it, and it¡¯s the biggest boost Rabbits get.¡± The expression on her face was full of pity. ¡°You don¡¯t need that one.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°It makes it easier for you to use magical objects. Lots of Ryeh-b¡¯ts working in all-wizard environments on the Triplanets need to use tools. This helps them see some of the features in the same way a wizard would, without having to possess an authority sense.¡± It¡¯s literally for making magic buttons glow brighter, thought Alden, feeling devastated. He¡¯d known that was part of it, of course, but he¡¯d hoped there were other hidden benefits. If those four points had gone into anything else¡­ ¡°It¡¯s actually borderline detrimental in your case,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s like slapping on a pair of glasses when you already have perfect vision. All it¡¯s doing is giving you attention issues.¡± Alden wondered if he was too old to whine about the unfairness of the world. ¡°Of course not! I know some very old people who would sob if they were forced to eternally waste part of their authority on bad glasses,¡± she said in a comforting voice. ¡°Look, here are some points for you to spend on better things!¡± A glowing number 8 appeared in the air just in front of him. ¡°That¡¯s all I have left?¡± ¡°This is the maximum number I think you should spend here. You can have more if you want, but I¡¯d put all the rest of it into your skill.¡± Alden side-eyed her and then tapped on the plus sign beside Processing. It jumped a quarter of a point. He tapped it again. And again. ¡°I¡¯ll start the affixation process for that point,¡± she said dryly. ¡°But you¡¯ll still have to wait for it to come fully due. Gradual increases in mental capacity are the way to go.¡± ¡°How long?¡± ¡°About an Earth year.¡± ¡°Still¡­worth it.¡± ¡°Go ahead and add an extra half if you like. If you give me permission, I can even divide it up in ways that will specifically support your skill use and your wizardry.¡± Feeling smug about his future as a smarter, faster-thinking Alden, he added the full point and a half. ¡°How much Dexterity would I need in order to improve my use of the auriad?¡± he asked. It was a massive perk to have personalized advice from the one who¡¯d be doing all the modifications to you, instead of just a list of obscure options and the opinions of random people on the internet. Alden assumed most of his future affixations would take place on Earth, so he ought to make full use of this resource while he had the chance. ¡°How good do you want to be at the auriad?¡± He pictured Jel-nor¡¯s fingers flicking rapidly through the patterns right before she blew up Stuart¡¯s foot. ¡°Quite proficient then. Take two. And at least half a point in Speed. If you confirm that you want it just for the hands, I can make sure everything aligns to support that.¡± ¡°Two in Dexterity for the hands. Half in Speed for the hands. Another half in Speed for general purposes.¡± ¡°You have three and a half left.¡± ¡°Why do they go so fast?¡± He divided the remaining points between the things he had wanted more of recently. A point and a half to Stamina, a point and a half to Strength, and the final half in Agility. He stared at the list now that it included all the changes, trying to imagine what life would be like with it for however long he had to wait until his next affixation. [Foundational Enhancements] Sympathy for Magic +4 Appeal +1 Dexterity +2.5 Stamina +1.75 Processing +1.75 - Visual Processing + 1 Agility + 3 - Proprioception +1.5 Speed + 2.5 Strength + 1.5 ¡°Whoever decided human Rabbits had to have Sympathy for Magic and Appeal should be punished.¡± ¡°It was a very large committee that settled on that.¡± ¡°Lots of punishment then. They can all have those stats, too.¡± A moment later, the room disappeared, and Alden found himself standing face to face with her in a patch of light surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. Windows with his choices on them floated in front of his eyes along with the auriad. ¡°Are you sure about all of these?¡± she asked. He took them all in. The stats. The psychic defogging package. Burden of Enchantment. ¡°I feel good about them.¡± She nodded, and they disappeared. ¡°Then it¡¯s time for us to finish you up. Any questions?¡± They both knew what his question was going to be, but she waited for him to speak it anyway. Swallowing hard, he asked, ¡°It¡¯s going to hurt, right?¡± This time. And every other time from now on. ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± she said. ¡°What¡­what will it be like?¡± ¡°I will be taking a very dear and essential part of you and twisting it into a new shape. I will be severing its limitless futures for the sake of a single purpose. You will fight back, and you will lose. You will beg me to stop, and I will not. When it¡¯s over, there will still be pain. You will not want to use your power for a while, and it will take some time for you to find your new normal.¡± I can still back out. ¡°You can,¡± she agreed. ¡°Just this once.¡± ¡°No. Don¡¯t listen to that part of me,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ve made the decision, so let¡¯s do it.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°Yes. And thanks. For not letting me die. And for the advice. And everything.¡± ¡°You¡¯re welcome, Alden.¡± She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. He wondered why it didn¡¯t feel like a strange thing for her to do at all. ¡°For what it¡¯s worth, I think you¡¯ll be a great superhero.¡± * SIXTY-ONE: . . . It hurt too much for words. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. . . . Dear Royal Road Awesome Tech People, this is my attempt not to circumvent your lovely system for nefarious purposes but to have a single sentence chapter in my book for artistic reasons. It''s something I would like to do, but it''s not strictly necessary so I asked for permission first. Thank you for giving it! If it becomes a problem at a later date, please let me know and I''ll delete it. Thank you very much for letting me write stories on your site. Sleyca SIXTY-TWO: Home, pt 1 Alden was glad he¡¯d been alone through it. Some things weren¡¯t meant to be shared. After it was over, it still wasn¡¯t over. But eventually, in addition to the writhing agony of his battered authority as it tried to claw its way out of its new affixation, he became aware of the world around him. He was in a forest, lying on the ground beneath trees whose massive trunks towered above him like skyscrapers. Their bark was a brown so dark it was nearly black, and their size reminded Alden of redwoods, though he¡¯d never seen one in person. Normally this place must have been in shadow, but right now the sun was directly overhead. It pierced through distant branches to shine right in Alden¡¯s eyes. He tried to lift an arm to shade his face and realized that he couldn¡¯t. He was being held down. By tree roots. That gave him an idea about where he was. ¡°Okay,¡± he said, in a voice raw from screaming. ¡°If you¡¯re not going to pull me under, can you let me go?¡± The roots weren¡¯t tight. He thought they¡¯d been trying to help by keeping him from thrashing around. But he had seen them eat bodies recently, so he didn¡¯t feel comfortable with this situation. They began to loosen. Rather slowly. Apparently even magic trees didn¡¯t move fast. While he waited, he turned his head from side to side to take in the forest. There was no end to it that he could see. And it was very still. It wasn¡¯t the unsettling quiet of Moon Thegund but something more tranquil. The weather was pleasant, too. Warm but not hot. It would be a nice day if a certain part of me would stop trying to rip itself to shreds. He understood what she¡¯d meant now, when she said he wouldn¡¯t want to use the skill for a while. If someone appeared from around a tree and threw a knife at Alden, he¡¯d take it in the gut instead of trying to activate Let Me Take Your Luggage. The Bearer of All Burdens, he corrected himself. Similar names. Very different scope and connotations. At least it has some gravitas. When he could, he sat up. To his own surprise he felt all right, so he stood. Better than all right. Amazing. He walked around, stretching out his limbs and testing his muscles. He shouldn¡¯t have been surprised. Rrorro had healed him and then some. And even if the points he¡¯d dropped into his physicality weren¡¯t huge, they didn¡¯t have to be for him to notice that he felt better than ever. Which was incongruous, since he also felt worse. Maybe Artonans developed two streams of consciousness so that they could process their authority sense separately from the others. It¡¯s kind of confusing. But his human brain was managing it without exploding. So that was something. He was so involved with his own suffering and his physical experimentation that it took him a while to notice the total lack of interference or instruction from the System. He was wandering around on Artona I with no summoner, no destination, and no purpose. That was an unusual state of affairs. He thought his interface should be bothering him with tasks or timers. Something like an incoming teleportation notification or instructions to report to whomever was in charge of stray humans in this area. But it seemed to be leaving him to make his own decisions for now. That was obliging of it. Alden needed some space anyway. This is the first time in almost seven months that I haven¡¯t been busy, in mortal danger, or both. He realized that he didn¡¯t even know who he was supposed to be right now. Not the Alden who¡¯d tried to be mature and brave and unbreakable every second to keep himself and Kibby alive. That guy had been at the end of his rope for weeks, anyway. He wouldn¡¯t have lasted much longer. But he also wasn¡¯t the Alden who¡¯d left Earth behind for his first Rabbit assignment. He could remember all of that person¡¯s anxieties, plans, and dreams. He knew that they had been his, but they felt distant. Not bad. Not even childish. Just¡­distant. If someone assigned him an elementary school essay right now¡ªone of those ¡°When I Grow Up I Want to Be¡± ones¡ªhe¡¯d have no clue what to write. My ¡°What I Did Over Summer Break¡± essay would be badass, though. He took a walk. The large, blade-shaped fallen leaves were soft to his feet. He sprinted for a while. He did some push-ups. Everything really was in working order. Finally, he accepted the fact that things actually were going to move forward at his own pace for a change, and he sat down on top of a root the height and width of a park bench to think. He stroked the auriad around his neck and tried to figure out next steps. He gave the mental command to activate the location feature on his interface and winced as it sent a sharp needleprick through a minuscule part of his bound authority he¡¯d never identified before. So even this much is going to sting. It was like he was a giant exposed nerve right now. A map appeared, and he gladly let it distract him. He was very far to the north on Artona I¡¯s biggest continent, in the largest of a few different places on the planet marked Privately Governed Territory. If Alden¡¯s memory wasn¡¯t failing him, then in culture class back at the consulate, Instructor Pa-weeq had said those were for ¡°special communities dedicated to land preservation.¡± Which had made him think of them as environmentally important parks or something. Unlike the maps he¡¯d seen in class, though, this one was willing to enlighten him further. Privately Governed Territory - Knight Rapport 1 ¡°I don¡¯t suppose I can get alternate translations for ¡®Knight Rapport,¡¯ can I?¡± he asked aloud. He knew what the words meant literally, but he didn¡¯t quite understand what they were describing here. To his surprise a small list appeared: [Valorous Servants Community] [Neighborhood of Honored Warriors] [Resting Place of the Oathbound] [Sanctum of The Ones Who Stand Guard] Okay, so it¡¯s trying to fit a lot of nuance into a few words. The ¡°knight¡± concept must have been difficult to translate. Maybe that was why he had never been able to get Kibby¡¯s description of what the Primary was down well. Anyway, this seemed to be a forest belonging to the knights. If Alden¡¯s sense of scale wasn¡¯t completely off, it looked like it was almost the size of Illinois. He was right in the middle of it, and there were no symbols to indicate cities or landmarks. ¡°Where are the nearest people?¡± he asked. Not very close, he assumed. They would have heard him screaming. A direction arrow appeared. Beneath it were the words ¡°Art¡¯h Residence - 5.68 miles.¡± Alden wondered if Knight Alis-art¡¯h had deliberately teleported him to her family¡¯s house in the middle of what was clearly an exclusive location. Or if it was another entity¡¯s idea. He was guessing it was the second. ¡°What are my options for getting back to Earth?¡± The answer wasn¡¯t what he¡¯d expected. He had multiple choices. Including a couple of non-standard ones. [Request Direct Teleport to Anesidora] *Intensity Level 8 [Request Direct Teleport to Alternate Earth Destination] *Intensity Level 10-17 [Walk to Art¡¯h Residence and Request Use of Summonarium] *Intensity Level 4 *Reward: A Gift from Mother An optional quest of sorts. From her. That was¡­Alden didn¡¯t know what it was. But he thought the Intensity Level warnings were letting him know that even teleporting in his present state wasn¡¯t going to feel great. ¡°What kind of reward?¡± he asked. The Wardrobe window opened. In the mindspace where he¡¯d made his affixation selections, Alden had noticed the Wardrobe had gotten an expansion. But she¡¯d told him not to look at it then, that it was something to keep him busy during his recovery. There were two more tabs in addition to the main window now. One was labeled For Alden and the other said Intensity 99.9. I didn¡¯t anticipate something like this. He¡¯d assumed that her involvement with him was only a favor to Alis-art¡¯h and it wouldn¡¯t really extend to after affixation. Would the new tabs disappear when he went back to Earth, or were they here to stay? He selected the one with his name on it. There were only two items. They showed up as presents with Christmas wrapping paper. The description on the first simply said, ¡°A Gift.¡± The second was, ¡°Reward: A Gift With Strings Attached.¡± It made him smile. ¡°I definitely want a gift.¡± He had no clue what it would be, but he felt certain that he would like it or need it. She had, after all, just been inside his head. A moment after he¡¯d spoken, something was teleported onto the tree root beside him. It was a messenger bag, about the same size as the one he¡¯d had back home, but this one was made of a dark blue fabric that matched the auriad, minus the iridescent quality. He picked it up curiously. The fabric was soft, and it had a round silver medallion attached to the clasp that sparkled faintly when his hand approached it. Some kind of a lock? Or id device? he guessed. The bag felt empty. He was about to open it anyway, when a second item teleported in. It was a book. A very old looking book with a gray leather cover and a raised design of hands using an auriad on the front. Alden stared at the logograms running in a vertical line down the center beneath the star-shaped pattern that had been made with the string. He couldn¡¯t read them, but he knew a magic book when he saw one. And if he could find a dictionary that included logograms for wizard-related words somehow¡ª [Whan-tel¡¯s Art: Conducting Power through the Hands] ¡°You¡¯re going to translate it for me!¡± Alden said excitedly. And then he realized something slightly different than the usual System translation was going on. First, he got the easy-to-read English. Then it faded, and a phonetic spelling of the Artonan words along with their literal definitions appeared beside each symbol. Then that faded out, too, and he was left staring at just the untranslated logograms again. Intrigued, he watched for a while. Every half a minute or so, one of the logograms would be re-translated and then fade out. It¡¯s not only translation, he realized. It¡¯s flash cards. It would force him to learn vocabulary and the writing system while he studied the book. And it would definitely keep him busy with something practical while he was in a state where he¡¯d rather be knifed than actually use his skill. Just as he finished appreciating the first book, a second one appeared. It looked equally antique. Where is she getting these? They don¡¯t look like they¡¯re fresh from a shop. Is she just snatching them off of peoples¡¯ desks? The new book was less exciting but still useful. It was an index that listed common object enchantments and their effects. It didn¡¯t include instructions for how to enchant things, just references to other texts that did. Alden assumed it was to help him out when he started picking up his new category of burden with his skill, so that he might have a little more of an idea which enchantments he might be grabbing from objects. That¡¯s really going to be kind of cool. I could even buy stuff from the Wardrobe if I have to for experimentation purposes. It stood to reason that the stat bonuses on Rabbit gear were actually some kind of enchantment since they weren¡¯t drawing directly on the user¡¯s authority. He¡¯d have noticed that kind of thing when he wore the now-deceased lab coat. Although that would be really expensive. What is an enchantment anyway? When no more surprises appeared, Alden opened up his new bag. And promptly screeched when the thing that was probably some kind of id medallion jabbed at his sore authority. After he¡¯d recovered from the shock, he stuck the books inside. [Sorry.] ¡°It¡¯s all right,¡± Alden replied. ¡°I bet that would have been no big deal under normal circumstances. Thank you for the books.¡± He re-opened the Wardrobe and glanced at Reward: Gift with Strings Attached briefly before he checked the Intensity 99.9 tab. He stared at the contents of it unhappily. ¡°You said it was a good idea for me to keep quiet and stay under the radar. That¡¯s what I want to do. This looks like¡­a closet that will give me a lot of angry Artonans, danger, and unnecessary drama.¡± [True. These are expensive. But you have to admit they look stylish.] They were knight uniforms. They included descriptions, but since they listed the magical effects by name instead of anything as simple as stats, Alden wasn¡¯t sure what the benefits were. Knowing Artonans, though, a piece of armor that gave you something called the Halo of the Mother Planet was going to be absurdly powerful. Notes out to the side said these pieces were only available on the Triplanets and a few other worlds. Earth was not included. And as far as argold went, they were all completely free of charge. Alden wasn¡¯t surprised. He¡¯d known she hadn¡¯t been talking about money when she said they¡¯d be expensive. ¡°Do you seriously expect me to take one home with me? It seems like that¡¯ll be a hard thing to explain to the actual knights if they ever find out.¡± [No. You should not. A record is created when one of these is taken. But I wanted you to know that I would let you. Consider it a vote of confidence.] He left them alone. Then, he shifted over to the other new tab with a thought. ¡°So¡­what¡¯s the string attached to the reward gift?¡± [Only the one you¡¯ve already seen¡ªsocialization. If you want it, then when you¡¯re ready to leave, go say hello and ask to use the summonarium.] It wasn¡¯t like that was a hard request. ¡°But what are they going to think when I show up?¡± [Not that you are what you are. They will assume, correctly, that you were re-routed here so that they would be on hand to execute you if you turned into a chaos-generating monster during your repair session.] ¡°Is that a thing that happens?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Earth mentioned having to take extra precautions to prevent ¡®abominations,¡¯ too. What the heck?¡± [It almost never happens these days. Because everyone is careful about it.] ¡°That¡¯s good. I suppose. What¡¯s in the present?¡± [It¡¯s a surprise. One far too extravagant to give you for free no matter how charming you are. Help from me doesn¡¯t work like that.] ¡°I get it,¡± Alden said. ¡°I know you¡¯re not a genie. Thank you. After I¡¯ve thought about it a little more, maybe.¡± There was a pause. [Stu-art¡¯h is home from college for his weekly study days.] Ah. He got in. And got started. Months passing changes a lot. ¡°Did you want me to say hey to him specifically, or¡­?¡± [Talk to whomever you like.] Alden nodded. [But he was upset you died. And you have seen the worst moment of his life. And you¡¯re carrying around a piece of his foot.] *********** Alden spent a lot more time after that sorting out how he wanted to handle the return to Earth. He tried to consider his options¡ªall of them, not just the obvious ones. Because once he left this forest behind, he wasn¡¯t going to get many chances to undo whatever choices he made. He could really go anywhere on Earth he wanted. That was a rare opportunity, and the System wouldn¡¯t rat him out. He could drop himself in Hawaii. He was already dressed for it after all. And he didn¡¯t know how much money it took to go on the run for a lifetime, but he was betting it was less than he had. He had the same amount of argold he had been in possession of before he left. Plus full payment for his work at LeafSong. Plus a pending amount that was large enough to earn the attention of even the part of his mind that couldn¡¯t stop focusing on the abused state of his authority. Alden wondered whose pocket it was coming out of. The Triplanetary government¡¯s? The university¡¯s? Joe¡¯s? It didn¡¯t say who it was from. Only what it was for¡ªservice in a corruption field unsuited to his rank, accidental deprivation of his rights due to loss of Contract oversight, and exceptional acts of bravery unrelated to an official summons. Unless the currency exchange rate was very different than it had been when he¡¯d left home, Alden now had more than twelve million dollars. That¡¯s too much. What does a person even do with that much money? Although¡­if someone told him he had to give it all back or else return to Moon Thegund for another half year, he would gladly hand over every dime. So maybe it wasn¡¯t that much. On top of that, the [PRIVILEGES] button was pulsing on the interface¡¯s main menu. When he selected it, he saw a few new things. One was a decorative design that had been awarded in addition to the extra pay for the ¡°exceptional acts of bravery.¡± From now on, it could be embroidered on the shoulder of clothes he purchased from the Wardrobe if he wanted. Like a medal, I suppose? It had been issued by Alis-art¡¯h several hours ago, so she must have known by now that he¡¯d made it safely through the strange teleportation process and his second affixation.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. It didn¡¯t have any attached benefits Alden could see. But the embroidery patterns on their outfits obviously meant something to wizards. Maybe it was just a mark that indicated people ought to be nice to him, since he was an extra awesome Rabbit. He was also now an Authorized Witness for certain kinds of System-related actions and legal contracts. It was more of a convenience than a power. It would remove a hoop to jump through for things like the class trading process. Finally, he had a privilege listed that was only a single word. No description of what it was or how he¡¯d obtained it. Not that he needed one. It just said, ¡°MOTHER.¡± With his mind, he flicked through the interface, examining everything else. Money. Stats. Privileges. Skill. He even had an Anesidoran ID now, issued a few days after he must have officially gone missing. He didn¡¯t know if it was standard protocol to give newly-minted Avowed who vanished on their first assignment the benefit of the doubt about their intent to register, or if someone had pulled strings. It can¡¯t be something that happens often. Alden had never heard of it happening to anyone else. I guess my last known location was the consulate, too. So Boe and Jeremy could¡¯ve told people I was there to register when I got called, and it would have looked pretty legit. He had a form letter in his inbox welcoming him to the island and instructing him on what procedures he¡¯d have to go through when he arrived. He also had a System notification that he had thousands of text, voice, and video messages in storage on Earth. They could all be transferred over in one packet for just the standard connection fee, so he paid it. And immediately regretted it. His inbox turned into an emotional minefield. Connie, crying, had called him twelve times a day at first, then gradually fewer and fewer, and then the System had apparently switched him from Missing to Presumed Dead at one point, and the calls had peaked in number. Then tapered off again. Three weeks ago, for some reason, she¡¯d sent him a photo of Wummy sitting on top of her dresser in her bedroom. The text below the smiling wombat said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Jeremy and I didn¡¯t put him in the attic with the rest of it.¡± That was her last message. Alden had to take a few deep breaths. And then a few dozen more. The other messages weren¡¯t quite as emotional but they were still overwhelming. Jeremy seemed to have been using what he assumed was the ghost of Alden as a diary for a couple of months now. The entries were getting way too personal to share with someone who was only presumed dead. Boe had initially sent five messages. Each twenty-four hours apart right after Alden went missing. The fifth one said, ¡°Yeah. You¡¯re probably not ever going to read these, and sending them is making me feel like shit. I hope I¡¯m wrong and I get to see you when you come back.¡± A sixth and final one had appeared a couple of months later, though: ¡°They had a thing for you at school today. You would have loathed it. Connie¡¯s fine. Jeremy is, too. So¡¯s the cat. Gorgon is very alien, the same as always.¡± The thing at school had been a large public memorial service. Which was definitely not what he would have wanted for himself if anyone had ever asked him. They¡¯d had one at his middle school for two girls who¡¯d died in a car accident, and the event had been disturbing. Alden had hated the way so many kids, and even a few of the teachers, suddenly became posthumous best friends with the dead girls even though they¡¯d barely spoken to them in reality. The number of fake criers had exceeded the actual mourners. Apparently, when you died as an Avowed at fifteen, it was even worse. Alden had messages from classmates whose names he didn¡¯t know. More than a few of the videos had obviously been recorded not for Alden, but for posting on social media. They were incredibly insincere. A couple of them referred to entirely made-up events he had supposedly shared with the creators. It made him wonder what percentage of people were hiding the fact that they lacked a normal human conscience. He did worry about the messages from people who seemed to really be upset about his death even though he barely knew them. Apparently he¡¯d complimented one of the school lunch ladies more often than any other student, and she was devastated he was gone. Some people had no hearts. Others had big ones. Alden felt like someone had just dumped an entire wheelbarrow full of life on top of his head. It was foreign, and he didn¡¯t have any idea what to do with it. Aunt Connie probably liked the giant messy funeral at least. She was a fan of overdoing things like that to begin with, and though she had a bullshit detector, she preferred not to employ it. Alden was sure she knew better, but she enjoyed living in her own version of the world. It was one where handsome men were never scumbags, charities couldn¡¯t be sketchy, and it was illegal for reality tv to be fake. Alden had the System hide all of the messages away to be sorted through some other time. When it would be less confusing. If I went on the run in Hawaii, Aunt Connie and my friends would have to keep my existence a secret. It wasn¡¯t like he was going to let them go on thinking he was dead. Sounds hard for them. And pretty nerve-wracking for me. How do you even exchange argold for dollars if you¡¯re in hiding, anyway? He glanced at the Anesidora ID. Island it is. There had never really been a better choice. And back when he was more sure of who he was, Alden had been looking forward to being a proper, Anesidoran Avowed. So despite weird circumstances and less certainty, the plan is pretty much the same. Get into a good school, learn to use my powers, gain some survival know-how, get stronger so that if something like this ever happens to me again I¡¯m not so helpless¡­figure the rest out from there when I¡¯m not so burned out. ¡°Great,¡± he said to the woods. ¡°So, now I just have to get myself to the right planet in the right way and get started.¡± He was very tempted to just show up in the Chicago consulate. Pros: he could talk to Gorgon and make sure the alien was okay after the Rite. Cons: He and Gorgon didn¡¯t actually have much to say to each other that could be said. It would just be a social visit. Probably a brief one. Because even if Alden pretended like he¡¯d just been sent there because it was the location he¡¯d originally been summoned from, he couldn¡¯t very well act like he was ignorant of where he was supposed to be when they¡¯d given him a new ID and a welcome letter. If he openly wandered around Chicago for a while and visited home, he might get a pass for being a teenager coming out of a bad situation. Or he might be banned from legally returning to the U.S. for family business and hero work. Not worth it. He made a decision. And shortly after it, his first phone call in a long time. A few seconds later, a woman appeared. She was wearing a flawlessly tailored dark green suit jacket with a rainbow-colored pin on the lapel that said ¡°Toronto,¡± and she was standing between someone in long, glittery white sleeves and another person in gray camo. Alden couldn¡¯t see their faces, just their arms thrown over her shoulders. Over her head in the background, two curved, glass buildings rose against a cloudless blue sky. Lights flashed. Someone said, ¡°Smile, everyone!¡± The woman did not smile. Instead, she stared at Alden with her mouth hanging open slightly. He blinked, trying to process the scene. Then he exclaimed, ¡°Ms. Zhao, you didn¡¯t have to answer right in the middle of a photoshoot for your job!¡± Cly Zhao shook her head and ducked out from under her teammates¡¯ arms. ¡°Kid, you¡¯re alive! Oh my god!¡± ¡°I can wait and call back in a few minutes¡ª¡± ¡°Are you crazy!? Where are you? Are you hurt? What happened?!¡± Alden saw the other heroes on the Toronto team asking her questions, and she waved them off with both arms. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Alden said hastily. ¡°I¡¯m not hurt. I just got stuck on a moon without a System for a while. There¡¯s nothing that urgent. We really can talk lat¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to hang up on a dead person to have my picture taken!¡± She was run-walking away from the group of superhumans. Alden was a little embarrassed. He¡¯d only wanted to ask her a quick question. ¡°Uh¡­thanks,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m going to be coming back to Earth. To Anesidora. Probably in a few hours. I¡¯m about to call my aunt and let her know I¡¯m okay, but since I know she¡¯s going to be¡­pretty shocked¡­I wanted to be able to tell her when we¡¯d get to see each other in person.¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t even called Connie yet?!¡± ¡°You know my aunt¡¯s first name?¡± ¡°I know your blood type and where all your birthmarks are. She seemed to think that might help me locate you. In outer space. After you got eaten by a teleport cycle.¡± ¡°Ohhhh.¡± Alden winced. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry. You and I don¡¯t even really know each other, and I¡¯m sure she probably drove you¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. Trust me. What do you need?¡± She¡¯d stopped walking in front of a large water feature. ¡°I wanted to tell Connie exactly when we could see each other face to face. I was hoping I could get her a teleportation pass to the island. But I don¡¯t know how to do that.¡± There was no option for it on his interface. ¡°That¡¯s all? That¡¯s easy. She¡¯s your immediate family. It¡¯s basically just paperwork on the island¡¯s end of things that hasn¡¯t been done. Because you haven¡¯t been living there. If you tell me exactly when you¡¯ll be arriving, I can make sure your aunt is waiting for you.¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t have to be¡­I¡¯d rather it not be right away like that,¡± Alden said. He needed more of a chance to get his head on straight. ¡°When I see her in person, I¡¯d like to be clean and wearing normal clothes and being more normal than I feel right now. Is tomorrow okay?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± She examined him. ¡°You¡¯re wearing a very dirty tropical shirt. And you said you got stuck on a moon. With no System? Where are you again?¡± ¡°I¡¯m also barefoot and in wizard pants that don¡¯t fit. Artona I. It¡¯s a long story. I¡¯m really totally fine.¡± ¡°Either you¡¯re lying, or your definition of fine has gone way off-kilter. Doesn¡¯t matter which right now. Just get yourself back home. Don¡¯t worry about your aunt. I¡¯ll make some calls right this second, and she¡¯ll be easy for you to teleport in when you¡¯re ready. And I¡¯ll look into your friends. They called me, too. That might take a while longer to arrange¡­but anyway, I¡¯ll put some money in your account so that you can pay for them¡ª¡± ¡°No!¡± Alden almost shouted. ¡°I don¡¯t need money!¡± She looked startled. ¡°They paid me for my time on the moon,¡± he said. ¡°They paid me a lot.¡± Her face split into a wide grin. ¡°Oh yeah? And, I hear you¡¯re a Rabbit. Congrats on the rare class.¡± Right. She would know. ¡°What does a Rabbit even get for being stuck on the Triplanets for more than half a year?¡± ¡°I have twelve million dollars now.¡± She coughed. ¡°I wasn¡¯t serious! You know you don¡¯t have to answer rude questions like that!?¡± ¡°But I¡¯ve never had twelve million dollars before. It¡¯s really strange. I feel like I should tell people.¡± Cly laughed. ¡°Re-think that one. At least as far as just announcing it out loud. Buy yourself a mansion or something and let them guess.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°You can pay for your own teleports, though.¡± ¡°I can,¡± Alden agreed. ¡°Put me on your priority contacts list. If I know someone¡¯s blood type, I should be able to phone them whenever I want.¡± ¡°That sounds fair.¡± When the call ended, he realized he was smiling. He had just talked to a human. His first in ages. It was nice. The talk that followed with Aunt Connie lasted a lot longer. And it involved a surprising amount of shouting from her about how he was living dangerously, which was out of character, and a lot of apologizing for being a terrible aunt, which was also out of character. And unnecessary. ¡°You never had to be a perfect aunt,¡± Alden said for the third time while Connie sat on the curb outside a strip mall and wiped her nose on her tanktop. ¡°You¡¯re my aunt. And I love you. And I¡¯m sorry I asked my friends to lie to you. I was going to tell you I was an Avowed at some point when I got back home.¡± ¡°But you didn¡¯t tell me, and you d-didn¡¯t c-come back home!¡± she bawled. His heart clenched. He couldn¡¯t think of anything to say to that. ¡°Do you mind teleporting to Anesidora tomorrow? I¡­really want to hug you. For an awkwardly long time.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you understand. Awkwardly long. Like a couple of days at least. You should take off work.¡± She blew her nose on the tanktop. *************** After the call with his aunt, Alden didn¡¯t think he had another long heart-to-heart in him. So he texted Boe and Jeremy, letting them know he was alive and that he¡¯d get in touch soon. Then he brushed himself off as best he could and thanked the tree that he had been using as a seat all this time. It dropped a bright green leaf onto his head with accuracy that could have been coincidental but probably wasn¡¯t. He tucked the leaf into his new magic bag with his new magic books, then went for a walk, following the guiding arrow the System had provided. Sunset was approaching, and the forest was much darker now. But there was no undergrowth, so it wasn¡¯t hard to navigate. Alden considered buying something from the Wardrobe, or having the cargo pant/hiking boot set he¡¯d purchased on his first day as a Rabbit teleported in from Earth. But why spend a bunch of his new money to get himself ugly alien clothes when he didn¡¯t really want or need them at the moment? He was going to buy himself good old-fashioned human shoes when he got home. And as many other good old-fashioned human things as he could think of uses for. I want a normal toothbrush. And some jeans. He was a little trepidatious as the miles ticked down and he approached his destination. He expected to be stopped by guards of some kind. The art¡¯hs were about as important as people on the Triplanets could be as far as he could tell, and important people were supposed to have guards weren¡¯t they? Or at least magic walls. Regular walls even. But Alden had already passed by the first evidence that he¡¯d entered an occupied area before even he realized it. It was a low building, about the size of the small house he¡¯d shared with his aunt. It had mirrored sides that perfectly reflected the forest around it and a flat roof covered in fallen leaves. The structure was so well camouflaged that it took a few seconds to make out the whole shape of it even when he knew what he was looking at. It was pentagonal, and it had a pair of dark wooden chairs in what Alden assumed was the front. That can¡¯t be the whole house, can it? Alden approached, wondering how to figure out where one knocked on a mirrored building. He tried not to feel spooked by the fact that the mirrors showed everything around them but him. While he was squinting at the place, struggling to find something that looked like a door, a panel beside him suddenly slid aside, and three kids around Kibby¡¯s age stood there peeking out at him. They were all wearing loose-fitting clothes, and behind them was an open space that looked like it could have been meant for anything from meditation to dancing to martial arts. There was something inside making a hollow tocking sound with perfect rhythm, like a metronome. ¡°I told you it was human,¡± one of them whispered to the other two. ¡°Don¡¯t call her ¡®it,¡¯¡± hissed another. ¡°The Instructors say humans think that is rude.¡± Her? Nobody¡¯s ever made that particular mistake before. They didn¡¯t seem surprised or worried to see him. Just curious. ¡°Hi,¡± he said in Artonan. ¡°I¡¯m looking for Stu-art¡¯h?¡± ¡°He¡¯s probably at the main house,¡± said one, pointing in the direction Alden had been heading. ¡°He could be anywhere else though,¡± another said. ¡°But he¡¯s probably at the main house.¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± said Alden. ¡°Sorry I interrupted your¡­thing you were doing.¡± He headed in the direction they¡¯d pointed, noting several more of the small camouflaged buildings and a couple of larger ones. He passed half a dozen Artonans. A couple were in wizard¡¯s clothes, but most wore the knight¡¯s uniform. They all looked at him curiously, but nobody seemed concerned about his presence. I¡¯m an Avowed, Alden realized. They think there¡¯s no way for me to be here unless I was summoned. Also, this place was on a ginormous piece of privately governed land. He doubted they got many uninvited guests. I feel like a spy in the castle. It was kind of fun. Finally, he came to a place so large that it had to be the ¡®main house.¡¯ There were well-trodden paths leading to and from it at different angles, and the home had been built around several of the giant trees. It was at least three stories tall by his estimate. He followed the path that looked the most frequently used and stood waiting for someone to open a door for him. The kids had known he was around. He¡¯d be noticed eventually. Better to be patient, instead of banging on walls that might, for all he knew, be one-way windows into the Primary¡¯s own bathroom. A door did finally open, just a few inches from where Alden had guessed it would be. The mirrored surface faded to reveal smooth wood, which slid aside. Alden took a step back in surprise as a person of a type he¡¯d never seen in real life loomed over him. That is a giant, four-armed¡­mole, he thought. He¡¯d seen pictures of them before in a xenobiology book. He knew they were called the Mleirt, and also that there were basically none of them. They had a population of just under twenty thousand. Alden hadn¡¯t even realized they had Avowed, but this one was wearing a pair of wide fabric belts diagonally across its body, and they had embroidered designs on them reminiscent of the one Alden had just earned under his privileges tab. The Mleirt had glossy bronze fur, no visible ears, and a snout with pinkish tentacle-whiskers. <> the alien asked. According to the System, anyway. The snout tentacles waved but there was no sound that Alden could detect. ¡°I¡¯ve never been here before,¡± he admitted, staring up at the Mleirt¡¯s chin. ¡°I¡¯m looking for Stu-art¡¯h?¡± <> Interesting. They did three meals. Culture class and Kibby had taught Alden that two was more normal. First meal was usually either breakfast or lunch, depending on the eater¡¯s preference. And then there was an evening one. On the other hand, Joe had just scarfed things out of his own pockets whenever it suited him. To each their own. ¡°I can take Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s dinner with me?¡± Alden offered, thinking it would be a good way to get directions without having to wander the whole massive place. <> ¡°I brushed off, but I am covered in dirt. Sorry. That¡¯s¡ª¡± <> ¡°I¡¯m not staying long. Just here for a quick¡­thing.¡± <> ¡°Murmur,¡± Alden repeated. ¡°I¡¯m Alden.¡± He followed the Mleirt into a house that somehow managed to be cozy and inviting despite its size. Alden took in everything with interest. It was the opposite of an open floor plan. Rooms connected to other rooms which connected to hallways lined with seating nooks and bookcases. I¡¯m so going to get lost. And there were really a lot of people in residence. Wizards and knights everywhere¡ªchatting in nooks or seated around tables in rooms with soft lighting and music. There were quite a few kids running around, too. And a baby was crying somewhere. Somehow, despite the small rooms and the busyness, the house still clearly belonged to very rich people. It wasn¡¯t like there were tons of conspicuous jewels or gilded furniture. It was just that every spot Alden¡¯s eyes landed on was somehow too appealing. Armchairs snugged up against a fire pit made him long to sit down. The rugs were so plush he wanted to rub his face on them. In some spaces, candlelight¡ªand who even used candles as a serious light source these days?¡ªreflected off of polished floors and wall panels mesmerizingly. And in other locations, windows were beginning to glow softly to replace the sun as twilight fell. Even the curtains seemed to be drawn exactly right in every single room. Alden had never paid attention to something like curtains before. And he felt way too welcome and relaxed for a spy. They must have someone with Tailor Environment come in monthly to tweak this place. There¡¯s no way it¡¯s this absurdly delightful through happenstance. Alden definitely didn¡¯t fit in. He drew startled looks in every space they passed through. But nobody ever said, ¡°Hey? Who is this guy?¡± It must be the number of people living together. They see something odd, and they all just assume another member of the household is responsible for it. Plus, he was following Murmur around. On what was turning out to be a very roundabout mission to get to the kitchen and fetch Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s supper. There was no way this was the fastest route, but the Mleirt seemed to have a curious sort of purpose in wandering the entire ground floor of the building like this. It was like the point of it was to stop by in every single room. Alden thought Murmur was the housekeeper. Maybe even the person who was making the environment so nice. They did stop to tidy scattered toys and discarded dishes on a couple of occasions. But the big alien also paused their trip through the house to grab a full-grown wizard out of a chair he¡¯d been napping in and hold him still while sniffing him thoroughly. And the guy just submitted to the treatment with a sigh. The wizard gave Alden a look as if to say, ¡°Do you see what is happening to me?¡± And Alden really wondered what expression he wore on his own face, because he had no clue what was going on. Murmur set the fellow down, patted him on the back with all four of his clawed hands, and then they resumed their trip as if nothing had happened. So a housekeeper that grabs people and sniffs them regularly enough for it to be no big deal? Why not? They finally made it to a formal dining room¡ªthe one truly large space in the house so far¡ªand through there, they passed into an ultra-modern kitchen that didn¡¯t fit in with the rest of the place at all. Here, Alden finally saw adult Artonans not in wizard or knight clothes. A man was cleaning dishes, a woman appeared to be cataloging the contents of a freezer, and a couple of people were assembling to-go containers that looked like smaller versions of the high-tech takeout tiffins Alden had encountered before. One of them checked a tablet and gave Alden a container to take up to Stu-art¡¯h. And then, since they assumed he was a helpful volunteer, they gave him five more to deliver to other people on the same floor. How did I end up as room service? he wondered as he climbed the stairs Murmur had pointed out to him. Is this just the fate of Rabbits? I don¡¯t even work here. He¡¯d explained that he didn¡¯t know where any of the rooms were upstairs, and they just gave him door numbers to remember. As he emerged from the stairs into the hall, he took in the environment. Very different from the ground floor. It was a long hallway lined with widely-spaced doors. Up ahead, it made a sudden split to go around the tree trunk that was visible through floor-to-ceiling windows. Alden counted four doors, smacked his hip into the access panel to get the resident¡¯s attention since he didn¡¯t have a free hand to knock, and a moment later, a woman in a long gown that he assumed was pajamas took her food from him with only a briefly confused look on her face. These people need to be more suspicious, Alden thought. They are the protectors of the universe apparently, and I could just poison them all. Door number seven, just before he got to the tree, belonged to a familiar face. Rel-art¡¯h, the instructor in charge of the class at the¡­ceremony¡­Alden had seen. He was wearing the same knight¡¯s uniform, and his black hair was pulled back at the temples with the same small jeweled clips. Alden froze. Rel-art¡¯h seemed confused to see him, and unlike everyone else in the house, he was a little less inclined to brush it aside. ¡°Who are you?¡± he asked, taking the food in one hand and setting it on a small table by the door. Behind him, Alden could see a seating area, and there were three different screens on the wall covered in logograms. ¡°I¡¯m Alden,¡± Alden said. He¡¯d already decided not to lie about stupid stuff. If someone ever got around to caring enough to ask him why he was looking for Stuart, he¡¯d just tell them it was because he wanted to go home. Rel-art¡¯h frowned at his answer. Alden braced for further questions, but instead, the man just said, ¡°Like the ryeh-b¡¯t?¡± What? Alden blinked. He was positive his reputation shouldn¡¯t have proceeded him because as far as he knew, he did not have a reputation. Unless it was as that guy the Primary met once who¡¯d died almost immediately afterwards. ¡°Yes?¡± he said. ¡°It must be a common name for humans¡­¡± Rel-art¡¯h muttered. Then he closed the door in Alden¡¯s face. It could have been a coincidence, but as Alden traveled down the hall, the residents seemed to get younger. And more stressed out. He delivered one of the meals to a room shared by a pair of seemingly identical twin girls¡ªreally rare on the Triplanets despite the high rate of fraternal twins compared to Earth¡ªwho looked like they hadn¡¯t slept in days. They appeared to be just a few years older than him, and one of them was in the knights¡¯ uniform while the other was wrapped in an oversized towel. She was swearing tearfully at what Alden thought was a pot full of red moss. ¡°You¡¯re new,¡± the not-swearing sister said in a dull voice. ¡°Thank you for third meal.¡± ¡°You¡¯re welcome.¡± She started to close the door, then she looked at him again and swept some of her dark lavender hair out of her face to see him better. ¡°You look tired.¡± If she¡¯s saying that, it must really be showing. It wasn¡¯t that he was tired, exactly. Physically he still felt awesome. Mentally, he was really curious about this place and these people, and he was enjoying the diversion of being where he shouldn¡¯t. It was that the thing he¡¯d been diverting himself from was starting to weigh on him too much. He felt fragile. And while he knew he wasn¡¯t about to break, and it was just his authority aching, he was beginning to lose his determination not to curl up in a ball somewhere quiet to suffer in peace. ¡°I¡¯m not exactly tired. Just having a busy day.¡± ¡°You should rest,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m planning to rest for ages starting tomorrow. Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s room is at the end of this hall, right?¡± She nodded. Just one more quest to complete, he thought, turning to go. And then I get the present. And then I get to use the nice, pain-free summonarium. And then I get to go home. SIXTY-THREE: Home, pt. 2 Alden stood in front of Stuart¡¯s door, pondering what to say. Visiting him wasn¡¯t a requirement for this special quest, but it had obviously been what she wanted. And Alden felt like she¡¯d been treating him better than she had to, maybe even better than she should have, and he figured he should do the thing right in return. He tried to remember his first impressions of the Artonan boy and combine them with his newest one. He¡¯s really, really serious about things I barely understand. And, I think, the guy is socially awkward by both Artonan and Earthling standards. Plus, he¡¯s grown up in what¡¯s obviously a high pressure environment even if most people seem to be in chill mode here this evening. I don¡¯t know what to do with all of that. ¡°You know,¡± he whispered, ¡°I¡¯m not sure I¡¯m the correct person for a¡­a friend-making mission at the moment. I¡¯m probably off personality-wise myself right now.¡± He¡¯d thought he was dying. Then he¡¯d felt like he was dying. Then he¡¯d gotten to talk to Aunt Connie. Chicago still existed. Earth was still blue. Alden was spying on the Primary¡¯s family. He wanted to go home and see everyone and stand under his own planet¡¯s sun, and simultaneously, he wanted to be all alone in a dark room for a few weeks. Nothing felt quite right or real. He decided he would just knock, say, ¡°Hello, please help me get back home,¡± and figure out how to be friendly to Stuart from there based on the guy¡¯s reactions. He knocked. He heard the sound of footsteps, then a boy several inches shorter than him opened the door. He was in the pared-down version of the wizard¡¯s uniform that students wore at LeafSong, and he had thin gold rings wrapping both of his irises, which were a slightly unsettling bright rust color. His shoulder-length brown hair was still sporting the dramatic and unflattering style he¡¯d adopted for mysterious reasons in the wake of the mishnen incident. Half shaved bald, half French braided. ¡°Hello,¡± said Alden. Stuart¡¯s pale face paled further. He opened his mouth slightly, closed it again, and then, without blinking, he slowly shut the door on Alden. And did not re-open it. ¡°That wasn¡¯t one of the reactions I¡¯d planned for,¡± Alden muttered, staring at the brown wood. He waited a couple of minutes, then knocked again. ¡°Stu-art¡¯h?¡± he said, talking in the direction of the door¡¯s access panel on the off chance it worked like an intercom. ¡°Hi. It¡¯s Alden Thorn. We¡¯ve met before. I think you probably remember. Um¡­I brought you third meal.¡± He paused, knocked some more when there was no reply, and then added, just in case it wasn¡¯t clear, ¡°I¡¯m not dead. I am here at your house unexpectedly, though. Sorry if I scared you.¡± The door finally slid open again. ¡°I did not succumb to fear,¡± Stuart said quickly. Sure you didn¡¯t. Alden held up the meal container. ¡°¡­let me in your room?¡± The Artonan boy hesitated, then stepped aside. All of the places Alden had seen so far during his work as the room service guy had been customized for their occupant, and this one was no different. But Stuart¡¯s tastes were unusual. He had almost no furniture and a ridiculous amount of floor space. Everything functional was tucked into a wall nook, from a standing desk with a pair of screens over it to his bed. He had plenty of square footage for an entire living room set, but he¡¯d opted for nothing but a bare wood floor. ¡°Where do you want your food?¡± ¡°Put it anywhere.¡± The only place in the room that wasn¡¯t neat as a pin was the desk, and it was covered in some delicate-looking glowing glass thing that might have been anything from an art piece to Stuart¡¯s schoolwork. Alden wasn¡¯t going to risk knocking it over, so he set the container the only other place he could. The floor. When he turned around, he found that Stuart had sneaked up behind him. To stare. They were standing half an inch apart. ¡°Oh. That¡¯s close,¡± said Alden, taking a step back. There were splashing sounds coming from a closed door to his left. Maybe Stuart had left the bath running? ¡°The entire campus heard you died on an assignment for Superior Professor Ro-den. I had someone check, and the likelihood of your survival was so low that no resources would ever be wasted on a rescue attempt. You are probably not really here.¡± Startled, Alden asked, ¡°What do you think¡¯s happening right now, then?¡± Did Artonans believe in ghosts? Kibby hadn¡¯t mentioned it. ¡°I believe I am <>. As I used to in my childhood. It¡¯s probably been brought on by the stress of socializing with my university peers. If I converse with you, I will detect more and more flaws in your presence, and then you will vanish.¡± He¡¯d had hallucinations as a kid? In that case, he was handling Alden¡¯s arrival shockingly well. He had to be freaking out right now. ¡°No,¡± Alden said hastily. ¡°You won¡¯t detect flaws in my presence. I promise. I¡¯m really here.¡± Stuart narrowed his eyes. ¡°You speak Artonan. You did not previously. That is a flaw.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s not! I¡¯ve been speaking nothing else for the past several months while I was trapped on Moon Thegund with an Artonan and no Contract translation. Listen to me. I¡¯m sure I have an unusual accent. Would a hallucination have an accent?¡± Alden thought this was a good argument, but Stuart didn¡¯t agree. ¡°The Thegundese accent is distinctive. As are some of the human quirks of your speech. I think I am fully capable of hallucinating those.¡± Alden grabbed him by the shoulders. Stuart looked startled. Then he said, ¡°Avowed do not usually <> contact like this with wizards. That is a fl¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a flaw. I totally slapped you in the nose once,¡± Alden said in English. ¡°And I called you a prick in front of your friends. Listen¡­you¡¯re not crazy. I am really here. I was on Moon Thegund. I ran into your aunt, Knight Alis-art¡¯h. I¡¯m sure you know she¡¯s there doing something dramatic to the dirt. She used a creepy teleportation chamber on her spaceship to send me here. I was supposed to die for real, but I didn¡¯t. Instead, I landed in your forest. Since you¡¯re the only person nearby who I know, I thought I would come see you and say hello and ask if I could use your family¡¯s summonarium to go back home to Earth. Please.¡± He managed to get it all out in a single breath, before Stuart could imagine any more flaws. ¡°Aunt Alis.¡± Stuart blinked for the first time since Alden had stepped into the room, then he stared down at the floor for a second and back up at Alden. ¡°I did think your clothing choice was peculiar for a hallucination. I would not normally imagine something that looked quite like¡­that. Did you say my aunt teleported you here?¡± ¡°She teleported me, and here is where I ended up.¡± ¡°But not in our summonarium?¡± Stuart said slowly. ¡°In the trees?¡± ¡°Yeah. A few miles away.¡± Stuart¡¯s fairly neutral expression underwent a rapid transformation, shifting through several different emotions so quickly that Alden wasn¡¯t sure he caught them all. Shocked, worried, confused, worried¡­happy? He settled on something that looked like a cross between nervous and happy, and he stepped out from under Alden¡¯s grip on his shoulders. ¡°You walked here to say hello to me.¡± He sounded both pleased and surprised. Out of everything Alden had just told him, he was sure that should have been the least noteworthy thing. ¡°You are my guest.¡± Stuart said ¡®my guest¡¯ the way Kibby said ¡®my magic lesson¡¯. The phrase had just a little too much fervor behind it for it to come across as normal. The Primary¡¯s son clasped his hands together in front of his chest. ¡°You have traveled a long way,¡± he said formally. ¡°May I offer you a cup of wevvi?¡± Alden closed his eyes for a moment. Of course there has to be wevvi. ¡°I¡¯d love one.¡± ******** Wevvi at Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s house was an elaborate affair. He hurried from the room, leaving Alden to stand awkwardly in the barren space listening to the mysterious splashes from the bathroom, and then he reappeared several minutes later with a silver cart full of supplies. Fresh wevvi fruits that resembled white papayas went into a press, then the juice went into a pitcher that looked like it was made of pink quartz, and then about twenty different spices, each selected from its own little silver bowl with a pair of tiny tongs, got dropped in with it. There was a somewhat mesmerizing chanting session over the pitcher, and then it started to steam. Despite the amount of effort involved, Stuart worked quickly, and with a kind of precision that made Alden think he was probably doing everything in a specific, mannerly order. When it was done, Alden took a sip from a cup that matched the pitcher. They were both sitting on the floor. Alden¡¯s new messenger bag full of books was beside him, and Stuart was across from him, watching him closely over the top of his own drink. ¡°This is actually good.¡± Alden examined the wevvi with surprise. ¡°Really good.¡± The Artonan boy looked proud. ¡°Yes. Guests of the household always say that! Most people have only tasted the artificial kind. There aren¡¯t enough orchards to produce the fruit, so it¡¯s usually reserved for ceremonies.¡± ¡°This kind isn¡¯t so slimy.¡± ¡°I hate thick wevvi,¡± Stuart said with a deadly serious expression on his face. ¡°I always feel as though I am drinking someone else¡¯s saliva.¡± Accurate. If the saliva was boiling hot and sweet. ¡°It¡¯s all they ever gave me at LeafSong,¡± Alden said. ¡°And we had the same kind on Moon Thegund.¡± ¡°I had to drink eight cups before first meal one morning.¡± Stuart shuddered. ¡°When I was meeting with faculty members to make special arrangements for my classes.¡± Alden raised an eyebrow. ¡°Can¡¯t you refuse?¡± If the son of the Primary couldn¡¯t, then was anyone safe? ¡°Now that I have <> myself as someone who doesn¡¯t refuse a beverage of welcome it will mean things to people if I do.¡± He sounded frustrated. Alden finished his cup, and Stuart jumped up to serve more. Alden was under the impression that they were still in the ¡°making small talk¡± portion of their wevvi-drinking party, so he cast around for something to say. They didn¡¯t have many points of connection to work with. The only thing he could think of¡­ ¡°How¡¯s your foot?¡± Stuart looked down at the foot in question. He was wearing socks, so Alden couldn¡¯t tell what it might look like underneath. ¡°There is some lingering nerve damage,¡± Stuart said dismissively. ¡°I will have it healed after I have finished contemplating my errors, weaknesses, and <> from that day.¡± Yeah. There¡¯s that¡­unique outlook on things. ¡°Not to be rude,¡± Alden said hesitantly, ¡°but wouldn¡¯t it be all right to have it healed, and then continue contemplating?¡± ¡°Do you still think I¡¯m being a prick?¡± Stuart said in a slightly injured tone as he passed back the fancy cup. ¡°You learned to say prick in English?¡± ¡°I accessed the human internet in order to research all possible <> of the word as part of my contemplations.¡± Alden almost spat wevvi across the room. ¡°Don¡¯t do that!¡± he said, aghast. He had never met someone who belonged on the internet less. ¡°Why not?¡± Stuart looked at him closely. ¡°It must have been an important insult for you to have so bravely given it. And cultural research is best < > through <> sources.¡± ¡°Noooo.¡± Alden wanted to melt into the floor. ¡°Listen, you¡¯re giving me way too much credit for bravery. And presence of mind. And accurate word choices. I had one thing I was capable of doing to help you, and you wouldn¡¯t let me do it. So I was frustrated and uncomfortable, and I insulted you because I couldn¡¯t understand you.¡± Still don¡¯t understand you. ¡°There wasn¡¯t a lot of thought put into it on my end of things,¡± Alden concluded. ¡°So you definitely shouldn¡¯t put so much into it on yours.¡± Stuart looked unconvinced. ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re a prick.¡± ¡°The internet said¡ª¡± Alden waved a hand as if he could erase the internet from Stuart¡¯s mind. ¡°I¡¯m me. We should trust me to interpret me, and leave the internet alone. During the thing with the mishnen, I was thinking, ¡®Oh no! A killer fish. Yikes! A boy with a missing foot! I think I should take the boy with the missing foot to a House of Healing. Why is everyone here trying to stop me from doing that?!¡¯¡± Stuart sat back down and scanned Alden with his eyes like he was trying to memorize every dirty thread of the Hawaiian shirt. ¡°Is that all you thought?¡± Alden almost said ¡®yes,¡¯ but Stuart was a person who had taken a single insult so seriously that he¡¯d spent the past several months researching it. Maybe it was better not to leave him to come to any conclusions on his own. ¡°I had a lot of thoughts. But they were based on ignorance, guessing, and stress. If you want to know what I think about things now, when I¡¯m actually calmer, you should just ask me.¡± Stuart nodded. Alden waited. No questions came. Guess he doesn¡¯t want my opinions on his actions, after all? Fine then. Time to change the subject. ¡°How¡¯s school? Congratulations on passing your entrance exams, by the way.¡± ¡°I did pass them,¡± Stuart said, as if he thought Alden might have doubted it. Well, Joe had said he¡¯d be let in the school even if he failed, so maybe some people assumed favoritism? ¡°I am in the top seven percent or better in all of my classes.¡± ¡°Cool.¡± ¡°I have not invited a guest to the <> from among my classmates. I planned to. But then nobody was exactly what I was expecting. And bringing people here¡­it is delicate.¡± Alden could imagine like eighteen different ways for Stuart interacting with his classmates to be ¡°delicate.¡± But it still shouldn¡¯t be that hard to invite a friend over for a weekend sleepover, or whatever the alien equivalent was. His family was operating on a different level, but they didn¡¯t seem like they were impossible to get along with. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Guess I kind of invited myself over,¡± Alden said. ¡°Sorry about that. Consider it a trial run.¡± Stuart blinked at him. ¡°I will.¡± Alden finished off the second cup of wevvi. ¡°I should have asked if you were all right,¡± Stuart said suddenly. ¡°Hmm?¡± ¡°You just teleported from a chaos incident. Into the forest. I should have asked if you were all right, but I was focused on my own state of mind. And then I was excited to have a guest.¡± Guests are so dang important to him.¡°It¡¯s okay. Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± ¡°Are you?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Are you all right?¡± ¡°I¡¯m good.¡± ¡°You are very dirty.¡± ¡°Well, I ran across a lot of a moon in this shirt. And then I¡­fell down when I arrived.¡± Stuart tilted his head. ¡°Were you injured on Thegund?¡± Alden glanced down at himself. ¡°Yeah. I was. But I¡¯m fine now. You don¡¯t need to worry. Your aunt¡¯s icorlax healer took care of me for an entire week. Rrorro. It was quite the experience. And I¡¯m healthy now.¡± Alden looked at Stuart¡¯s foot pointedly. ¡°Getting fully healed doesn¡¯t prevent contemplation.¡± The boy sighed. ¡°My family says the same thing.¡± ¡°Then why¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s an ancient < >¡± he said in an annoyed tone. ¡°I wish to follow it. For multiple, long-considered personal reasons.¡± Alden examined him for a moment. ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s your decision. Sorry I brought it up after you¡¯d already told me what you were doing.¡± He snorted. ¡°I guess that was me being a prick.¡± Stuart looked surprised. Then, he smiled. ¡°You are different than I thought when I first¡ª¡± He was interrupted by a loud thumping sound from the door where the splashing noises had been coming from all this time. Alden glanced over. ¡°What¡¯s in there?¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­an indoor <> for my pet.¡± More thumping. Scratching sounds. A plaintive trill. ¡°It sounds like it wants to get out.¡± ¡°She does. I usually take her out for flight training in the evenings. She has excess energy, and it is necessary for her development at this age. She thinks I¡¯ve forgotten.¡± Flight training? ¡°Oh! Is she a ryeh-b¡¯t?¡± Alden asked, the spark of an old interest rekindling. He had wanted to see one in person, but although they were supposedly common pets, he hadn¡¯t managed to spot one during his entire time at LeafSong. Stuart nodded. ¡°I bought her egg several months ago.¡± ¡°Can I see?¡± The Artonan boy stood up. ¡°You should stand against the far wall I think. She¡¯s never smelled a human before. She might be scared of you.¡± Alden did as he was told, and a moment later, a scaled, horned, spiny thing with large wings hopped and flapped its way across the room straight toward him. The ryeh-b¡¯t was about twice the size of a full grown cat. She looked a little like a dragon, but with smaller forelimbs than hind ones and more of a naturally upright stance that reminded Alden of bipedal dinosaurs. She was bright red, with blunted gold caps on her claws to keep her from scratching up the floors, and she sniffed Alden¡¯s knees and made a gurgling, enthusiastic squawk at him. ¡°Look out,¡± said Stuart, hurrying over. ¡°She¡¯s going to¡ª¡± The ryeh-b¡¯t half-flapped, half-clawed her way up Alden¡¯s body to rest all fifteen or so pounds of herself on top of his neck and shoulders while he hunched over trying to figure out how you were supposed to hold an animal shaped like this anyway. Pretty sure this isn¡¯t the way, he thought in amusement, as the ryeh-b¡¯t lost her grip on him and tumbled to the floor. ¡°Don¡¯t climb him,¡± Stuart said in exasperation, grabbing the creature by one of the large hind feet and letting her hang upside down from his fist like a huge red bat. ¡°You are too big for that now.¡± Alden stood up and examined the animal with interest. The ryeh-b¡¯t was damp all over, and through the open door, it looked like she had a whole terrarium and pool situation going on in her special room. ¡°She¡¯s awesome!¡± ¡°She¡¯s a large < >. Much faster and stronger than usual,¡± Stuart said, lifting her proudly. ¡°The message carrying and flight competitions are only for child trainers, but I am teaching her anyway because exercise is good for her.¡± Kawaahh! the ryeh-b¡¯t said exuberantly. She seemed to like dangling upside down. ¡°I do not think it is immoral to ask a healer to extend her lifespan,¡± Stuart said, as he stroked the shiny scales on the ryeh-b¡¯t¡¯s neck. ¡°So we will be together for a long time. And she likes the forest. I will import appropriate small <> for her to hunt when she is responsible enough to feed herself.¡± It was the easiest conversation topic the two of them had found, so Alden leaned into it. He asked every question he¡¯d ever had about ryeh-b¡¯ts and got lots of detailed answered from Stuart, who was now letting the animal drape herself over his head despite what he¡¯d told her about being too big for that kind of thing a moment before. One of her wings was blocking half of his face, and she was gnawing lightly on his ear. ¡°I can¡¯t believe I didn¡¯t ask to start with,¡± said Alden. ¡°The most important question. What¡¯s her name?¡± Stuart stiffened up like a board. Alden frowned. ¡°I mean¡­unless ryeh-b¡¯ts don¡¯t usually have them?¡± Suddenly, the Artonan was blushing so hard his neck had gone from having a purplish undertone to being actually, undeniably purple. ¡°She has a name!¡± he croaked. ¡°Okay¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s a normal name.¡± ¡°Right. What is it?¡± Stuart¡¯s one visible eye shot up toward the ceiling, then down toward the floor, then off to the side like it was looking for answers around the room. ¡°Ryeh-b¡¯t!¡± he shouted. And then he closed his eye, and his whole face dropped. Like he wanted to die on the spot. ¡°You¡¯re¡­you¡¯re not great at lying, are you?¡± Stuart¡¯s face was continuing to grapify. ¡°I have endeavored not to do it for so long that I believe I have lost the <> for it,¡± he said faintly. ¡°If I ever possessed it.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to tell me her name if you don¡¯t want to for some reason.¡± Maybe he was one of those people who gave their pets stupid names on purpose and he didn¡¯t want to reveal that? But then some of Alden¡¯s brain cells sprang to life, and he remembered Rel-art¡¯h, just an hour or so ago, saying Like the ryeh-b¡¯t? after Alden had introduced himself. Stuart said he got her egg a few months ago¡­ I knew it was weird that Rel-art¡¯h recognized my name! ¡°Did¡­did you buy a pet and name it after me when you thought I¡¯d died?¡± Alden asked, managing to hold back actual laughter but not his amusement. ¡°Why would you do a thing like that?¡± She had said Stuart was upset Alden had died, but Alden hadn¡¯t taken it that seriously. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± Stuart whispered. ¡°I humbly apologize. I am very sorry. I¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind at all. I think it¡¯s funny but not in a bad way. I just don¡¯t understand.¡± He reached out cautiously and patted the ryeh-b¡¯t¡¯s warm, smooth wing. ¡°You¡¯re a good girl, aren¡¯t you, Alden?¡± he said, just to prove he didn¡¯t have a problem with it. At the petting and the sound of her name, the ryeh-b¡¯t trilled. Stuart¡¯s eyes were still clenched shut. ¡°I thought¡­it was awful and sad that you had died. And that nobody on the Triplanets would mourn you. And I thought, maybe, based on things you had said during the incident, and my father had said in its aftermath, that I might have made the last few days of your life worse. So I decided I should mourn you.¡± ¡°It was only a couple of bad hours. I don¡¯t think you should take credit for ruining entire days of my life.¡± Alden paused. ¡°And you weren¡¯t enjoying yourself either. Unless you liked having a limb eaten. And then exploded.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t. I¡¯m not a <>.¡± Stuart finally opened his eye. ¡°I researched on the internet how to mourn a human¡ª¡± ¡°Listen. You need to send me a message in the future every time you use Earth¡¯s internet, so that I can offer you some perspectiveon the things you might read there.¡± ¡°Initially, I favored a funeral service in which a boat with your body in it was set adrift and lit on fire. Though further research indicated that was not a traditional or common method¡ª¡± ¡°That would have been so much cooler than what my school did.¡± ¡°As an alternative, I read that I could name my first born after you,¡± said Stuart. ¡°But we didn¡¯t know each other that well, and people should choose their own mourning names if they want to. Not have them bestowed by their parents. And I have already taken my own.¡± Some Artonans took a mourning name in honor of a person who had died. It went at the beginning. Like the ¡°Worli¡± in front of Joe¡¯s name. ¡°So instead you bought a ryeh-b¡¯t,¡± Alden concluded. ¡°It occurs to me now that you might find this insulting,¡± said Stuart. ¡°My family thought it was weird. I meant well, but if you hate it¡ª¡± Alden lifted the wing covering Stuart¡¯s face. ¡°I like it,¡± he said slowly. ¡°It was a little weird. And it was also kind. I really doubt anyone else apart from my aunt and my friends cared that much that I was gone.¡± Stuart stared at him. ¡°Can I try holding the ryeh-b¡¯t upside down now? I feel like I should be allowed to. For obvious reasons.¡± ******** After that, Stuart didn¡¯t want to let Alden leave. He didn¡¯t say it. But it was clear. He kept finding excuses to talk about new subjects whenever the conversation hit a snag. Alden didn¡¯t know why the Artonan was so eager for company when he lived in a sort of mini-neighborhood packed with relatives and other ¡°household members.¡± But he did discover that Stuart had never really interacted with people outside of the community of Knight Rapports. He¡¯d lived here and gone to school here, and it was only now that he was in the wizard version of college that he was actually meeting the rest of the world. He seemed conflicted about the other students at school. Alden couldn¡¯t begin to unravel the nuances, but it seemed like they weren¡¯t what Stuart had hoped they would be and hewasn¡¯t what they¡¯d hoped he would be, and everyone was mutually disappointed in each other. Finally, with a great deal of regret in his voice, Stuart said, ¡°You wanted to go home. I shouldn¡¯t keep you here all night.¡± Alden gave his namesake one more scratch on the chin and stood up. ¡°Yep. Spent half a year in a corruption field. Now I get to rest.¡± ¡°You look like you need rest.¡± ¡°One of those twins down the hall said that.¡± ¡°They¡¯re my cousins. Aunt Alis¡¯s daughters.¡± Alden turned to the door. ¡°Let¡¯s go out the window,¡± Stuart said suddenly. He strode over to what Alden had thought was a blank stretch of paneled wall and pressed his hand to a spot. The wood slid back to reveal a wide window with an expansive view of the surrounding forest. ¡°Why don¡¯t you keep that open all the time?¡± Alden asked, surprised. Half a second later, the other Alden crooned and raced across the room to leap at the window. Stuart grabbed her just before she could smash into the glass. ¡°Never mind. That answered my question.¡± He watched the Artonan boy drop the ryeh-b¡¯t into its habitat. ¡°Why go out the window, though?¡± ¡°If my family realizes that you are just here instead of here after being summoned, they will want you to form a contract with someone.¡± At Alden¡¯s alarmed look, he hastily added, ¡°Only the standard Privacy of the House agreement. It¡¯s like a promise not to share certain kinds of personal information you might learn here. Anyone who works for us has to do it. I could argue that you are my guest, and therefore should be exempt, but I¡¯m not sure¡­¡± That was no big deal. Except that it was. Alden wasn¡¯t sure, but he thought that forming a contract might hurt like hell right now. ¡°The window sounds like a fantastic idea.¡± It was too dark for Alden to see outside, but Stuart cast a spell to increase his own night vision and reported when the coast was clear. Then he casually jumped out of the second floor window and landed on the ground below like it was only a short hop. Alden didn¡¯t think it was an ankle-breaking distance, but it still shouldn¡¯t have been that easy. The guy supposedly has physical enhancements, he remembered. Alden jumped too. He landed well, but it still sent a jolt through his skeleton. He grunted. ¡°I should have cast a spell on you,¡± Stuart said apologetically. ¡°No. I¡¯m fine.¡± The summonarium was a fairly long walk away down a winding path. It was almost as large as the one at LeafSong. ¡°Is it so big for teleporting in giant things? Or large numbers?¡± Alden asked as they entered. ¡°Either. It¡¯s also easier to make them extremely powerful if they¡¯re large.¡± He pointed toward a big runic design, and Alden went to stand inside it. ¡°You should be getting an option to teleport away from there?¡± Stuart¡¯s tone was curious. ¡°I can¡¯t initiate a cycle for an Avowed myself yet. But even if there was some reason for it not to directly teleport you out of the woods, the Contract should have already forced you to¡­<>?¡± Alden had known that it wasn¡¯t normal for him to have unlimited wandering rights on the Mother Planet. He adjusted his grip on his bag. ¡°It¡¯s giving me an option,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°But no timer. Maybe it thought I deserved some space after everything that happened.¡± Stuart blinked. ¡°Maybe it did.¡± ¡°Bye.¡± ¡°Goodbye.¡± ¡°Teleport to Anesidora,¡± Alden said, bracing himself. [Teleportation in 19 seconds] ¡°In a few months,¡± Stuart said suddenly, ¡°I will probably have¡­a lot of time off from school. I think I will use it for cultural studies. I know you will still be on your official leave. But maybe I could arrange for you to come over then. And you could help me learn about human culture. If you wanted to be my guest again¡­¡± Alden considered it. ¡°I would like that. But, we¡¯d need to plan it out in advance. And agree on exactly how long I¡¯d be here. Maybe just on one of my weekends or something. I¡¯m going to have school and life and stuff going on, too, you know.¡± Stuart looked happy. ¡°I know.¡± What an unexpected ending to my first trip as an Avowed. The teleportation hit him, and he was suddenly in the nothingness, where before there had been that completely baffling sense of his own authority wrapped around him and whatever he carried like a cocoon. It was different now. He could feel the shape of himself. Sore, grieving, enraged, struggling. Overly sensitive and feeling a little existentially electrocuted by the teleport because of it. But in a way, it was better like this. He was Alden Thorn. Whether his authority was bound into a skill or free, it was strong enough to keep him Alden Thorn through this. And through many other things, too. It was easier to understand that here. And then he was opening his eyes inside one of the teleportation bays on Anesidora. He took a deep breath. The air smelled like Earth. Earth totally had a smell He smiled at the plain metal door in front of him. What a beautiful thing to know. ¡°Welcome to Anesidora, Mr. Thorn,¡± said a voice. It sounded like it might even have been the same woman who¡¯d done his security check the last time he came. But she was more flustered now. ¡°Um¡­just a minute. I see we¡¯re expecting you. And this is your first arrival as an Avowed, but it¡¯s also your first return from the Triplanets¡­that¡¯s a new one for me. Let me call my supervisor about security procedures. Sorry for the delay.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind waiting,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯m just really glad to be home.¡± SIXTY-FOUR: To a Quiet Rabbit Alden was stuck in the teleportation bay for so long that he finally took a seat on the floor of the phone booth-sized space and rested his back against the wall. About every five minutes, the security lady updated him and apologized again for the wait. They¡¯d asked him if he was claustrophobic before telling him he¡¯d need to be here for a while. The problem seemed to be his very long stay on the Triplanets combined with his age and his lack of a psychological profile. They¡¯d wanted to know if he¡¯d been in ¡°a high-stress environment¡±while he was away. Probably I shouldn¡¯t have laughed. Anyway, he was going to get a video call from a therapist who specialized in Avowed trauma soon. That would help everyone figure out if he was a healthy, happy new kid who could go to the intake dorms with the other baby Avowed who¡¯d recently arrived. Or if he was a damaged superhuman who needed to be closely monitored and kept apart from the general population for a while. It makes sense. Not so much for Alden¡ªwhat was he going to do, preserve people to death?¡ªbut if you imagined an S-rank with serious offensive power suddenly arriving back home from a bad situation¡­ Alden thought the Artonans would probably do a decent job on their end of things under normal circumstances. They didn¡¯t have a reputation fordropping dangerously unstable people back on Earth, as far as he knew. But that didn¡¯t mean the Anesidorans should completely trust the process. While he waited for his phone call, he rested his arms on top of his bag and accessed Wardrobe with a mental command. He was just going to look at his tabs and his reward gift to make sure they were still there now that he wasn¡¯t on Artona I. He didn¡¯t want to open the present yet because if random stuff started appearing in the bay with him that would only add to the worries of the people who were trying to classify his threat level. But, to his surprise, the image of the box in Christmas paper was gone. When he focused on the empty space where it had been, words appeared: [From: Mother To: a Quiet Rabbit] Alden was confused. But a couple of seconds later, the particular mote of light that would let him access his main menus started flashing. Alden selected it and saw the Privileges button glowing again. The present is a privilege? When he chose the button, he discovered a completely new option had been added to the category, and it was one he¡¯d never even heard of before. [Choose Persona] Temporarily forgetting his mental commands altogether, Alden lifted a hand and pressed it. Two large, semi-transparent information panes filled his vision. Each one had a picture of him as he currently looked¡ªwide-eyed and dirty¡ªin the top left corner. Each had a single additional tab with a logogram at the top. They both had a button at the bottom that said, ¡°Share Contract Verified Information.¡± The windows held a breakdown of his full Avowed profile. They included his rank, overall level, skill level, spells, stats, experience¡ªall of it. Alden had seen this profile with the share button before, when he was playing around with his interface. It was obviously the thing you would need for applying to schools and jobs, where they wouldn¡¯t want to just take you at your word that you could do some particular magic thing at a certain level. But when Alden had seen it before there had only been a single, accurate profile. Now he had two to choose from. And one of them was a lie.
Name: Samuel Alden Thorn Preferred Name: Alden Class: Rabbit Rank: B Overall Level: 4 ? Commendation: Exceptional Bravery in the Absence of Obligation ¡ª Awarded by Fourth General Loh Alis-art¡¯h Skills: Let Me Take Your Luggage, B (Level 3) Skill Type: item preservation (single item, total) Flickerer, F (single level skill) Skill Type: minor enchantment interruption ¡ª temporary Spell Impressions: The Haunting Sphere, D Light Candle, F Trait: Azure Rabbit Trait Type: movement, limited to element ¡ª ground Enhancements: Sympathy for Magic +4,Agility + 3, Dexterity +2.5, Speed + 2.5, Stamina +1.75, Strength + 1.5, Proprioception + 1.5, Appeal + 1, Visual Processing + 1, Processing +1.75 (in progress) Recommendations and Merits: Social Recommendation (LeafSong University, Artona III) Emergency Response Merit (LeafSong University, Artona III)
¡°Mr. Thorn,¡± said the security woman¡¯s voice, ¡°we¡¯re detecting a significant increase in your heart rate. How are you feeling?¡± Way creeped out now that I know the teleportation bay monitors my vital signs. ¡°Uh¡­I¡¯m fine,¡± he said, trying not to look as shocked as he felt. ¡°Just going through some messages from home. Everyone thought I was dead, so it¡¯s a lot to take in.¡± ¡°I can imagine. Give us a few more minutes to sort you out.¡± ¡°Yeah. Sure. No sweat. I¡¯m good in here.¡± Honestly, they could leave him to his own devices for the next hour, and he would probably still be trying to get over the fact that he now had a Contract verified fake persona he could use if he chose. But they probably aren¡¯t going to give me that long, so I should think fast. He compared the fake to his real one. His real rank and overall level was B-9?. He was guessing the star indicated his commendation from Alis-art¡¯h¡ªthe one that had also earned him the embroidery shoulder patch design he could wear if he wanted. He couldn¡¯t think of what else it might be. And it was something way fancier than he¡¯d realized if the System thought it was important enough to tack onto his level. His real skill section looked different of course: Skills: Let Me Take Your Luggage, B (Level 8) Skill Type: item preservation(total) enchantment preservation (end results vary) I can see how this is going to start to look out of hand as I add new facets to the skill. Right now it was kind of like¡­ ¡°Well, the skill does two similar things. That¡¯s flexible. Lucky Alden.¡± But if he underwent a couple more affixations, even this pared-down, human-approved version of the description was going to make people do a double take and wonder what the heck it was. It¡¯s level 8. And since he hadn¡¯t taken another spell or skill that meant the extra authority that was adding up to the ninth level had pretty much all gone to his foundational enhancements. The math doesn¡¯t quite work out between the profiles as far as apparent level value goes. Must be more wiggle room between how the System presents the numbers than you¡¯d think. She had said Earth sometimes pandered to peoples¡¯ egos by rounding up. I bet the version of the profile a summoner sees is more accurate. Alden had not previously had access to something like that. But now there were the tabs with the logograms at the top of both the profiles. He selected the that tab on the real profile and held back a groan at the sight of it. Why would you make something this unnecessarily complicated? It wasn¡¯t a profile at all. He thought it was more of a 90-page long user manual for the Ryeh-b¡¯t known as Alden, but he wasn¡¯t quite sure. He suddenly understood what Joe had meant when he said there wasn¡¯t a big flashing sign announcing what his skill was, and that many Artonans wouldn¡¯t even recognize it. Presumably summoners got plain verbal talent function descriptions when they ordered up an Avowed from the System. Maybe they say something like, ¡°I need someone to preserve hazardous materials in a laboratory setting in a big hurry.¡± And the System says, ¡°Let me introduce you to this foolish Rabbit who just bought a lab coat.¡± But if the summoner wanted to dig into it and see how the foolish Rabbit worked, they got this mess. It looked like it was lots of numbers plus some completely unfathomable magical codes. Like Alden was looking at the guts of a computer program written by¡­well, by aliens. And he was trying to guess what it was for. There were words that indicated he could preserve stuff. But beyond that, even with his new logogram flashcard translation perk trying to help him, it was indecipherable. The name ¡°Bearer of All Burdens¡± was nowhere to be seen. I guess you learn how to interpret skill function in wizard school? Or, if Artonans were even a little like humans, most of them half-learned it to pass their classes. Then they forgot it. And they just trusted the System¡¯s recommendations and the Avowed¡¯s own word about their abilities when they needed to hire someone to do a job. Probably goes double for Rabbits. If you¡¯re summoning someone in a hurry to do minor tasks, you¡¯re not reading through all of this. More interestingly, there were several completely different measures of Alden¡¯s Rank in the profile manual. Including one that let the summoner know he was an Earth B. And another one that he kept staring at. It was being translated as Priority Rank. It was an absolutely massive number. And it constantly fluctuated. The more he thought about it, the more Alden felt sure that this was his literal rank in importance. Among all known intelligent beings living under the rulership of the Triplanetary Government. There are a lot of commas in that number, Alden thought as it was re-translated for him by the System. If I ever develop an arrogance problem, I¡¯ll just come here. And humble myself. He compared the numbers on the real profile and the fake. They were both stupidly big. But the fake one was way higher. Real me is a much larger speck of dust in the universal scheme of things. Good to know. And on top of all that, there were so many other things to consider about the profiles. Apparently Earth liked to call Alis-art¡¯h ¡°Fourth General¡± in English?That seemed way off-base tonally. She wasn¡¯t really commanding troops from what Alden had seen. He was going to have to look up what the System was calling her in other languages. It was also interesting that the fake profile was giving Alden a false skill and a false spell impression to explain away some of his abilities for him. Flickerer was clearly a cover for his new enchantment preservation. Light Candle¡­it had to be something similar to the little hand-cast spell that he¡¯d been using to light the promise sticks for his lessons with Kibby. Maybe it was even the exact same one, just the infallible, locked-into-your-being version of it they gave Avowed. That¡¯s nice. It would have looked bizarre to people if I didn¡¯t have the second spell impression at least. But even with so many details to consider, Alden could barely pull his mind away from the most shocking thing about this gift. By adding on the tab with the logogram, the System was making it clear that this new fake profile was designed to lie to Artonans, too. Right now, the fake was enclosed by a gold border that said ACTIVE PERSONA along the left edge. This was the thing¡ªit had to be¡ªthat the System used to tell wizards whether or not Alden was summonable for their job in the first place. It was what determined how he was actually used as an Avowed. And¡­she was going to help him lie about it. To a quiet Rabbit, he thought in wonder. She was going to help him stay under the radar, like he¡¯d said he wanted to. Somewhere, the security people must have been worried about his heart rate again. Because he could hear his own pulse in his ears. This isn¡¯t normal. This isn¡¯t even a little bit normal. All I did was wander around tracking dirt through the Primary¡¯s house for a while and drink wevvi with Stuart. This one, stunning gift was something he¡¯d never even imagined he could ask for. It was more than secrecy. Maybe it wasn¡¯t that big a deal at this point in time, but as he grew stronger, being thought weaker and less valuable by summoners would be a gift of safety. Alden hadn¡¯t realized just how desperately he wanted it until this very moment. He was hurt. And he was tired of being scared. And when the therapist finally called, he¡¯d been crying a little despite enormous efforts not to do that in a small metal room where strangers worried about his mental wellbeing were watching him on cameras and checking his vitals. He blamed it on his aunt¡¯s voicemails and the school lunch lady. And as a show of good citizenship, he volunteered to share his Contract Verified Avowed profile information with the security people. Just to prove he wasn¡¯t some rare variety of dangerous Rabbit. ¡°You gained three levels in half a year. And a star. We don¡¯t see many of those even from adults,¡± said the woman who eventually came to escort him out of the bay. She had on a security uniform and a badge that said her name was Emily. Alden was pretty sure she was a speedster of some kind based on the way she moved. ¡°Great work. Really impressive. And I¡¯m not just saying that to make you feel better.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± he said, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. ¡°You get to hang out with me until they send a car to take you to the intake dorms. So many new teens coming in this month. I swear they all just got together and decided that September was the time to register. Have you had dinner yet?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t eaten all day. I think,¡± said Alden. ¡°I might have had breakfast. But that could technically have been yesterday. I lost track of at least a few hours.¡± ¡°Trips out there must be hard. I¡¯ve never been. You like Jamaican food?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t had it before. It¡¯s from Earth, so I bet I love it.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got a spot that just opened up in the atrium. Reminds me of my old home. Let me treat you and give you a proper welcome to your new one.¡± ************************* Alden woke up at two o¡¯clock in the Anesidoran morning. The sheets on his new bed were soaked with sweat thanks to a horror soup nightmare featuring demons and a dead Kibby and running through trees, trying to get away from an unseen thing that wanted to hurt him. He was normally pretty good at going back to sleep after bad dreams, but he knew the second he opened his eyes that he wouldn¡¯t be able to right now. His freshly bound authority was roiling. It was a sickening, awful sensation. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself and refocus. ¡°Don¡¯t be such a whiner,¡± he told his authority finally, as if it was something separate from him instead of the essence of who he was. ¡°Avowed are supposed to bounce up from our affixations feeling mighty and blasting out new kinds of magic.¡± He recalled how he¡¯d started using the skill right away when he first got it. It had been really fun to experiment with it while Boe and Jeremy watched. It¡¯s so strange. I can¡¯t quite remember how it felt to not feel it. With a groan, he tossed off his damp sheets and rolled out of bed. A motion-sensitive light below the frame lit up as soon as his feet hit the floor. It illuminated the reddish faux-wood flooring and the pile of Alden¡¯s dirty clothes at the foot of the double bed. This was a luxurious room by Alden¡¯s standards. There was a television on the wall with dozens of global streaming services. A small private bath held a shower that operated at human temperatures. There were F and Apex cityscape sketches on the walls. Instead of curtains or blinds, the bedroom¡¯s window had an adjustable tint on it. When it was in transparent mode, like now, it looked out over the water of the Pacific Ocean. The intake complex was right at the water¡¯s edge on the far south side of F-city. And the apartment tower Alden was staying in was on the perimeter of the complex. Right now, there was nothing but miles and miles of dark sea between where he stood and Antarctica. He stared at the ocean for a while, until finally the fact that he was standing around stark naked started to bother him. He had just collapsed into bed without caring about it when he made it through all the hoops that had come with his arrival and he was finally left to his own devices. Now, though, it was a little odd to be a nudist. He glanced at his one filthy clothing option and wrinkled his nose. ¡°Nah. Can¡¯t sleep. Have money,¡± he muttered to himself. ¡°There¡¯s got to be something better even if it is the middle of the night.¡± His old Wardrobe purchases¡ªthe housekeeping uniform and the cargo pants¡ªwere listed as in-transit right now. He didn¡¯t know what that meant except that they¡¯d been stored somewhere and were coming to him slowly instead of through the more expensive direct teleport into his arms. Anyway, what he wanted was underwear, socks, t-shirts...the Wardrobe didn¡¯t really do basics. He wrapped a towel around his waist, opened the door and poked his head out to examine the rest of the apartment suite. It was empty. The other three bedrooms had their doors open just as they had when he¡¯d arrived, and they were still unoccupied.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. The nighttime intake counselor who was in charge of the two Rabbit floors¡ªa middle-aged guy from Brazil with strong everyone¡¯s-favorite-teacher vibes¡ªhad told Alden not to expect roommates for at least a few weeks. Alden suspected that wasn¡¯t the norm. It was probably a stealthy accommodation to make sure he was okay without completely separating him from the other newcomers. But he was grateful for it, and he didn¡¯t mind taking advantage of the privacy. He headed into the living area, feeling almost as impressed with it as he had the first time he¡¯d seen it. Effort had clearly gone into making a space that invited social interaction. There was a kitchen with a two-burner stove, a microwave, a toaster oven, and the world¡¯s fanciest, Wright-designed magic coffee maker. Alden was intimidated by the number of features on the thing, but the counselor had said it was one of this particular apartment¡¯s ¡°talking points.¡± The other one was a pinball machine in the corner by the sofa. Every suite had stuff like this, to encourage people to hang out with their new roommates and venture into other apartments to meet the neighbors. There was an entire cabinet stocked with coffee syrups, glassware, and mugs, in case Alden or any future residents wanted to be the dorm¡¯s barista. The idea was that a bunch of superpowered teenagers who¡¯d left behind not only their homes and families, but also their countries and cultures, needed new friends fast. There was a calendar on the fridge and available through his interface that was filled with community activities and classes for the month, too. About half of them were completely optional, and the other half involved a credit system Alden hadn¡¯t looked into yet. It seemed like you had to attend a certain minimum number before you were allowed to leave and get your own place, unless you were heading straight into one of the schools¡¯ boarding programs. He headed over to the counter where he¡¯d dropped off the pair of large welcome gift bags they¡¯d given him at the counselor¡¯s desk. He dumped them out, and shook his head again at the randomness of the contents. Candy, a bag of mixed nuts, deodorant samples, an enamel bunny rabbit pin, a stress ball with the logo for a dance studio on it, a dark green baseball cap with the Anesidoran flag design on the front, an invitation to a Rabbits-only welcome party that would be held in a ballroom somewhere in December, and coupons. Tons and tons of coupons. It turned out there was a fairly well adhered-to no System spam mail policy among superhumans. Having junk mail in your actual brain was just uncool. And since loads of Avowed didn¡¯t bother to receive messages in any other way, advertisements on Anesidora came to you on paper. Alden started sorting through his coupons. All right, he thought. Which of you sells clothes and is open 24/7? He organized them all for his own amusement. The largest stack by far was for restaurants, but everything else a person might need was there, too. All new Avowed got a decent argold stipend every month for their first year and a half on the island. So they were probably an ideal target audience for advertisers. There were several clothing stores. Most seemed to be popular name brands from various countries, but a few were purely local. None said they were open all night. But there were errand runner services, and one of them was delightfully named DRAGON RABBIT GETS YOU THINGS. The postcard was written in Spanish. Alden was decent enough at it to read the simpler words, but the System translation was helping. Dragon Rabbit would get you anything, anytime, day or night. Drone delivery available. Just try it if you didn¡¯t believe. Ten percent off for first-time customers. There was a picture of a dragon with bunny ears sitting on a hoard of food, accessories, and electronics. Alden felt compelled to put his fellow Rabbit to the test. He held up the card. ¡°Call this person,¡± he said. ¡°Voice or text only.¡± A millisecond later a man¡¯s voice answered. <> Alden was already inspired. ¡°Can I get a couple of t-shirts and some jeans and boxers and socks and a pair of sneakers delivered by drone? Tonight?¡± <> ¡°Really? Cool. What do I owe you?¡± <> Alden found himself faced with a dark temptation. He couldn¡¯t sleep. And he had twelve million dollars. And he was standing around in a towel talking to someone named Dragon Rabbit while he ate candy all alone in a luxury apartment. ¡°Actually, let me change my request a little. What I want is five hundred¡­no, a thousand argold worth of clothing,¡± he said. ¡°I want stuff that fits me well. And I want to look like an average American teenage guy.¡± <> said Dragon Rabbit. <> ¡°I have a coupon.¡± <> ¡°Awesome.¡± He transferred the money. The thing was, it was no big deal if a complete stranger who didn¡¯t even use their real name cheated him out of around three thousand dollars. Alden had never been rich before, and he wanted to see what would happen if you gave an unsleeping errand Rabbit a mission and the money he needed to complete it. About two hours later, he got a notification from the intake facility¡¯s security person that a package had arrived for him by delivery drone. Several minutes after that, one of the dorm¡¯s own delivery drones¡ªa rolling box with uncanny cartoon eyes painted on it¡ªtrundled into the apartment right by itself and spat a large parcel onto the floor by Alden¡¯s bedroom door. He spied on it through the crack. The drone quietly left, and the main apartment door shut behind it. Alden dragged the package into his room and opened it. He would have been happy, he thought, even if it was full of random ugly things that didn¡¯t fit. Novelty had its merits when you were trying to focus on anything outside yourself. But Dragon Rabbit was good at his job. Everything was new stuff, still in its original packaging or with the tags on. It was all pretty much the right size. And it was interesting to see how the errand runner had decided to interpret ¡°average American teenage guy.¡± Alden could be preppy in a cable-knit sweater and chinos. Or he could do jeans¡ªstrategically ripped or unripped¡ªand a black t-Shirt with a skull on it. Or he could wear a random fan football jersey for a team he did not know. There were also some plain colored t-shirts, a plaid button-down, a brown hoodie, twelve pairs of socks, leather flip-flops, and two new sets of sneakers¡ªone a casual high-top and the other a more athletic pair. ¡°Pajama pants,¡± he said to his empty room as he held up some flannel ones. ¡°Nice touch. Didn¡¯t think of those.¡± He¡¯d also gotten a stocking hat. Who didn¡¯t want a nice stocking hat every now and then? It was all so human. It felt good to be surrounded by it. And it made the room look more lived-in to have something to stick in the closet. After he was done trying on all the new things, he declared himself officially successful at surviving his first night back on his home planet. He managed to persuade the coffeemaker to give him what he thought was a double shot of espresso, and he drank a sip while he sat on a counter stool in his non-ripped jeans and the skull shirt. He was thinking it was the ironic choice. Since he was not dead. ¡°Text this to Boe,¡± he said. ¡°Hey. How do you drink coffee, anyway? It¡¯s bitter as hell, and I don¡¯t think it¡¯s just because I¡¯ve been stuck on wevvi for too long.¡± It was seven o¡¯clock in the morning in Chicago. Alden finally thought that he could have a conversation with his friends without worrying about coming across as different in too many worrying ways. Boe should be up by now, and if he wasn''t, he needed to be woken. The jerk hadn¡¯t even answered his ¡°I¡¯m alive¡± text from yesterday. Admittedly, Alden had said he would reach out again when he¡¯d dealt with the Anesidora stuff, but complete silence from Boe was odd. Jeremy had texted back several illegible things before he¡¯d finally gotten control of the autocorrect. Alden hoped he¡¯d slept. Boe didn¡¯t answer. Alden added non-dairy creamer to his espresso and stuck out his tongue at the taste. Nope. Still bad. He dumped it into the sink and poked different parts of the machine, trying to see if he could get it to spit out something better. It gurgled. He got hot water. He threw a tea bag he found in the supply cabinet into it and waited for it to steep while he stared at the light that would blink when his friend texted him back. It didn¡¯t. ¡°Text Jeremy,¡± he said finally. ¡°Hey. You awake? I¡¯m back on Earth and officially among the living.¡± He got back nineteen exclamation points, and a millisecond later, a video call came in. Alden accepted it, and Jeremy¡¯s face appeared, wobbling around as he held up his cell phone with one hand and walked through the living room into his family¡¯s big, industrial-chic kitchen. Alden took in the sight of his friend. He still looked just like Jeremy. Same haircut. Same slightly crooked nose. He¡¯d broken it in a skateboard accident before they knew each other. Seeing his face felt like time travel. But the speed of his answer and the slightly bloodshot eyes were unusual. He¡¯s probably been waiting around all night for my call. ¡°Sorry it took me so long,¡± Alden said. He didn¡¯t know whether he meant the call or everything else. Jeremy just stared at him for a full minute. ¡°I¡¯m so fucking glad to see you, Alden,¡± he said finally, leaning back against the sink. ¡°Are you okay?¡± ¡°I¡¯m okay.¡± ¡°Yeah, but¡­are you really okay?¡± This is going to be a thing with everyone, isn¡¯t it? He¡¯d gotten an almost identical question from several total strangers yesterday. And even Stu-art¡¯h, now that he thought about it. ¡°I¡¯m definitely more okay than I have been for the past several months,¡± he said after a moment. ¡°I¡¯m glad to be home. I¡¯m looking forward to doing normal stuff. Normal-er stuff. I think I¡¯m all right.¡± ¡°Can I come see you? Or can you come back home for a while? Is that a thing we can do?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Yeah. At least on the you coming here front. I think it¡¯ll be a few weeks, though. Anesidora is good about immediate family travel passes, but friend passes are harder. The therapist yesterday mentioned it would be an option. I¡¯m talking with her again this afternoon. I think she¡¯s going to put some kind of recommendation in my file to expand my guest list, since I¡¯ve only got Connie. And Cly Zhao might be working on it, too.¡± ¡°Adopt me,¡± Jeremy said immediately. ¡°I¡¯ll be your non-Avowed son.¡± Alden felt a huge rush of relief. So they could still joke around with each other. It wasn¡¯t all going to be super serious. Thank goodness. ¡°My son who¡¯s three months older than me?¡± ¡°Age is just a number.¡± Alden grinned. ¡°Yeah. Anyway, I¡¯ll adopt you or declare you my blood brother or something if I have to. They seem to have a really strong focus on getting new Avowed settled into life on the island with minimal friction, so it¡¯ll work out. Uh¡­how have you been?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine, man. I¡¯ve been here on Earth. Eating chicken nuggets and going to high school.¡± ¡°And helping Aunt Connie. A lot,¡± Alden added. ¡°She mentioned you in like every other voicemail she sent me. Thank you for that.¡± Jeremy looked surprised. ¡°Well, yeah! Obviously I wasn¡¯t just going to let her deal with everything on her own. It turns out my mom really likes having her over for dinner every other Saturday. She¡¯s a lot more fun than the people from the law firm.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t realized Jeremy had gone so far as to pull Connie into his family circle. ¡°Jeremy, you might actually be a saint.¡± ¡°No. I let her put your stuffed wombat in her room. She and Mr. Tiger Shorts are getting serious about each other, by the way. The things that poor innocent creature has seen by now¡­¡± Alden laughed so hard he spilled hot tea all over the counter. ¡°Oh shit.¡± He shook liquid from his fingers. ¡°You¡¯re a cruel man. Why would you put that image in my brain?¡± ¡°It¡¯s your punishment for making me think you were gone.¡± Jeremy tilted his head. ¡°Uh¡­can you tell me where you were? No details necessary if you don¡¯t want. Is it all top secret Avowed stuff a regular human guy can¡¯t hear? It wasn¡¯t that Manon person¡ª¡± ¡°No. It was just a random accident,¡± Alden said. ¡°Mostly. I accepted a side quest from one of the professors at the university. To go to Moon Thegund.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­some planet near Artona I?¡± Jeremy asked. ¡°Giant moon orbiting Kimnor. It¡¯s not a very important place even though it¡¯s in the same solar system as the Mother Planet. I think it used to be more significant, but now it¡¯s a low-population backwater with a System that¡¯s been half-broken since before Earth became a resource world.¡± He found a roll of paper towels in a cabinet and started wiping up the mess he¡¯d made. ¡°Anyway, while I was there it went from half-broken to completely gone.¡± Jeremy frowned. ¡°Gone?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Like¡­no System at all?¡± ¡°Yep. It was a total collapse. There¡¯s a big team of wizards there now. They¡¯re going to have to build a new one from scratch. It¡¯s something that takes a few months.¡± ¡°What was that even like?¡± ¡°Inconvenient,¡± Alden said dryly, tossing the soggy paper towels in the trash. ¡°No teleports. No communications. I was on the wrong half of the moon, and there wasn¡¯t even something like a cell phone tower.¡± ¡°Damn. So you¡¯ve been roughing it on a moon for six months?¡± ¡°Well, there was a giant mad scientist¡¯s laboratory full of supplies. And a chaos event and some demons and a really cool little Artonan girl named Kibby.¡± Jeremy¡¯s eyes were huge. ¡°See¡­I realize now I should probably have opened with the chaos problem.¡± Alden ran a hand through his hair. ¡°That was why the System went down in the first place. I haven¡¯t had a lot of practice telling the story.¡± ¡°What the heck, Alden?¡± ¡°They were very little demons. Like drunk hell bees.¡± ¡°Dude.¡± ¡°And they were only around for a couple of months.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± ¡°Chaos sucks. By the way. Much, much more than anticipated.¡± ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re all right?¡± ¡°I have a fancy coffee pot in my intake apartment. And a pinball machine.And I have twelve million dollars.¡± ¡°Okaaay.¡± Jeremy¡¯s eyebrows were drawn together in concern. ¡°Those are all positives?¡± ¡°Where¡¯s Boe?¡± It just popped out. Alden had been planning to talk to Jeremy about other things for longer. But ever since the last unanswered text, he had a knot of something like panic in his chest. No voicemails from Boe in months, no mention of him from Connie or Jeremy¡­ ¡°Um¡­¡± Jeremy looked away from his phone¡¯s camera. ¡°He¡¯s not dead, is he?¡± Alden wasn¡¯t joking. Some part of him that was now a little too used to horrible things happening was really waiting for Jeremy to say, Yes, Alden. Your closest friend died while you were away. ¡°He¡¯s fine,¡± Jeremy said quickly. ¡°Or he¡¯ll tell you he¡¯s fine and get super pissed if you disagree. When he bothers to contact you. Once every five or six weeks. Or maybe that¡¯s just me, and he¡¯ll actually answer your messages. He says he¡¯s not ignoring me, that he just doesn¡¯t get my texts. But I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°What happened while I was gone?¡± Jeremy¡¯s face was uncharacteristically serious. ¡°I think your death really messed him up,¡± he said. ¡°Way more than I realized at first. And he decided you were dead right away, man. The same day the official Missing on Assignment: Irretrievable status came in from the Artonans. He looked up some statistics on his phone, and then he said, ¡®So, he¡¯s dead.¡¯¡± Jeremy groaned. ¡°Alden, I was so mad. I could have strangled him. Connie and I were both telling each other, ¡®We could hear back from him any second now. Wait and see.¡¯ And he came into the conversation with that.¡± ¡°Boe¡¯s not¡­¡± Alden tried to think of how to put it. ¡°I don¡¯t think hopeful is part of his makeup? He¡¯s always been that way. He didn¡¯t mean anything bad by it, he just prefers to operate on facts.¡± Alden understood it. When you had a choice between desperately hoping for something unlikely and moving forward with your life¡­hope wasn¡¯t always better. There was a reason people held funerals even without a body. Denial couldn¡¯t go on forever. ¡°I get it. But it¡¯s still hard to deal with someone like that when you¡¯re in the maybe-this-isn¡¯t-really-happening phase of your friend going missing,¡± Jeremy replied. ¡°He apologized about it the next day. And then he was very, very nice for a while. To me and Connie and even people at school. Even the ones he hates.¡± That was possibly the most alarming thing Jeremy could have said. ¡°He was great, actually,¡± Jeremy admitted. ¡°For a few weeks. And I realize in hindsight that he must have been putting in crazy amounts of effort because emotionally supporting others is not something he usually does.¡± Actually, Boe could be good at that despite his own protests to the contrary. He just very rarely made an effort to be. Jeremy probably hadn¡¯t seen it before. ¡°He finally¡­I think he just snapped. You were all over the local news. They dug up all the old Body Drainer stuff¡ª¡± ¡°They did?¡± Alden hadn¡¯t expected that. ¡°Sorry. Once it finally got out, it was a big thing. Tragic victim of the worst supervillain incident in Chicago in recent years becomes a B-rank Avowed, gets summoned on his way into the consulate to register, dies on his first assignment¡­¡± Jeremy gave him an apologetic look. ¡°You only blipped across national news for a couple of days, but here, it was two weeks worth of seeing pictures of you and hearing hot takes from random people about the dumbest stuff. Should traumatized youth ever be selected as Avowed? Are Artonans evil for summoning fifteen-year-olds? Are humans evil for forcing fifteen-year-olds to leave their home countries? What did Alden Thorn¡¯s friends and classmates think of him?¡± ¡°Ugh. They called me a traumatized youth? Like Body Drainer was still messing me up so bad I can¡¯t function? It was years ago.¡± ¡°I can send you clips of some of it if you¡ª¡± ¡°I never want to see it,¡± Alden said. ¡°It¡¯s just¡­noise. With my name attached. Please tell me it finally died out.¡± Jeremy nodded. ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re old news now. Your return from the dead will probably change that for a minute, but you can just refuse to comment, right? And it¡¯ll go away again.¡± ¡°The internet will remember,¡± Alden said darkly. Jeremy didn¡¯t disagree. ¡°Anyway, we were steeped in that. And then there was your memorial thing at school right before summer break, and Boe was mad about it. I could tell. But he didn¡¯t say anything. And he went to it and sat there like a statue for the whole service. Then, when I got home, the window was open in my bedroom and he¡¯d dropped off your cat with a bag of food. There was a noteon my pillow that said, ¡®I¡¯m taking a vacation from people.¡¯¡± ¡°A vacation from people?¡± ¡°He ran away from home. And everything else. Doesn¡¯t answer his phone. I was scared he had hurt himself or something, but he swung by around a week and a half later. He looked just as bad as he did at the funeral, and he was in one hell of a unique mood.¡± ¡°Unique how?¡± Alden asked, dreading the answer. Jeremy slouched against the sink. ¡°Honestly?¡± he said in a near whisper. ¡°I think he wanted me to beat the shit out of him. He said the worst things to me. They were too fucking awful. To the point where I stopped being mad and started thinking he was actually going insane.¡± ¡°Jeremy¡­¡± ¡°Once he realized I thought he needed an exorcist instead of an ass-kicking, he punched my bedroom wall, apologized, and left. I haven¡¯t seen him in person since. I just get the occasional phone call. I thought maybe he¡¯d come back when school started again, but he didn¡¯t.¡± Alden didn¡¯t know what to say. ¡°Sorry. It¡¯s not great news to come home to. I know you two have been best friends for years. Don¡¯t worry too much about him. His last call was actually normal. We argued about movies for a couple of hours. He seemed like himself again. And I¡¯m sure you being alive can¡¯t hurt.¡± Boe, you weren¡¯t supposed to fall apart. He recognized that it was an odd thing to think. Why couldn¡¯t Boe fall apart? Time hadn¡¯t just frozen here at home while he was away. People kept moving and changing and dealing with stuff. He stared out over the apartment¡¯s living room area without really seeing any of it. ¡°Hey,¡± said Jeremy, a note of forced cheer in his voice, ¡°you¡¯re going to see Connie today, right?¡± Alden shook himself. ¡°Yeah. I think so. I thought I¡¯d teleport her in later after I sorted some things. I have to find out if it¡¯s okay for her to come stay here at the dorm overnight or if I need to get her a room someplace else.¡± ¡°Can I send Victor with her? Can you have pets?¡± Alden blinked. ¡°I¡­have no idea. Wait. Did you say Boe left the cat with you?¡± ¡°Yeah. Your landlord is on a rat poisoning mission, and Connie was afraid Victor would eat one of them. There¡¯s fur everywhere in my room. I have to keep him in there because my dad and my sister are allergic.¡± ¡°Victor¡¯s more of a street cat who deigns to let me feed him. He¡¯s not really a big fan of confinement. Isn¡¯t your room completely destroyed?¡± ¡°He¡¯s used to it now. It¡¯s fine except for his weekly bath.¡± Alden had never once attempted to bathe the semi-evil cat. He valued his body too much. ¡°About my room, though,¡± said Jeremy, a strange expression on his face. ¡°Let me show you my new poster.¡± ¡°Poster?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± he said casually. ¡°Got it a few months ago. Haven¡¯t shown it to anyone else. I don¡¯t think we should talk about it. I think you need to see it.¡± ¡°Sure?¡± Jeremy was already walking toward the stairs with his phone. A minute later, he opened the door into his familiar room and switched on the light. A shockingly fat and fluffy orange cat, with a collar and a bell, was stretched out on the duvet. ¡°My poster,¡± said Jeremy, striding over to a brick wall and turning the phone toward it so Alden could see. ¡°It¡¯s¡­Yellowstone National Park,¡± said Alden, baffled. ¡°That¡¯s outdoorsy of you.¡± ¡°Right?¡± Jeremy¡¯s tone was odd. ¡°Make sure you take a good look at this part.¡± While Alden watched, his friend pried up the tape at the bottom of the poster and lifted the paper. There was a hole in the wall. Not a massive one. But a couple of bricks were missing, there were some cracks, and the copper pipes on the other side were visible. ¡°Yellowstone,¡± said Jeremy, dropping the poster back. ¡°I spend a lot of time thinking about it.¡± Alden stared. ¡°Jeremy. Did you say Boe tried to hit you?¡± ¡°No. I was on the other side of the room. Guy just needed to relieve some tension. Hit the wall. After I refused to beat him up.¡± Jeremy paused. ¡°Apparently he has a lot of faith in my workout routine.¡± Alden laughed. He wasn¡¯t sure if it was actually funny or if he was just too shocked for another response. ¡°That¡­asshole,¡± he said finally. ¡°Such an asshole,¡± Jeremy agreed. ¡°Such a skinny, pale, weak-looking asshole.¡± They both stared at each other, and then, for some strange reason, they burst out laughing at the same time. ¡°I really missed you,¡± Alden said when they¡¯d stopped cracking up. ¡°Sorry everything got turned sideways because of me. But I really did miss you so much.¡± SIXTY-FIVE: Intake ¡°So,¡± Alden said at the conclusion of a very long voicemail to Boe, ¡°Jeremy is an angel among men. And I can¡¯t believe you thought you could really get him to hit you. You bastard. I will be calling you every day and leaving messages, even if you never reply. But you¡¯d better. I¡¯m sorry for¡­I¡¯m just sorry about it all. Take good care of yourself. Talk to you tomorrow.¡± He ended the call and waited a minute just in case there was going to be a reply. When there was none, he flicked off the kitchen lights and stepped out of the apartment. As the door shut behind him, he heard the bolt slide into place automatically. It opened in response to a command he could give through his interface, too, so there was no need to keep track of keys. ¡°Oh, hey!¡± said a voice. ¡°New neighbors!¡± Alden looked up to see a tall blonde girl exiting the apartment across the hall. She was wearing faded jeans and a long-sleeved cropped shirt. She had a mild Southern drawl, and she was carrying a tray covered in clear plastic treat bags. She¡¯s gorgeous, Alden thought. Then he had to stop for several seconds and analyze that thought. Because it had come on confusingly strong and quickly. He did notice when other people were nice to look at, but it was in the same way that he took note of whether or not he liked the appearance of a plant or a painting. He had been trying to avoid overthinking it or defining it before he was summoned. Not quite getting something that was so important to others made him feel left out. Either being away from his own species for too long had done something unexpected to him, or the neighbor girl was really, ridiculously beautiful. It¡¯s the second, he concluded. I¡¯m still me. She¡¯s just an extra amazing painting¡­wait, is that an okay thing to think about someone else? She was the same height as him. Athletic. She had one perfectly charming dimple to go with her warm, perfectly charming smile. Her skin was flawless. Her eyes were an impossible shade of gold, with brighter gold around the pupils. Her face was so symmetrical, except for the strategic dimple, that Alden was sure he¡¯d need a computer to find so much as an eyelash out of alignment. ¡°Do you want a treat bag?¡± ¡°Sorry?¡± He shoved away his fascination and blinked down at the hand she¡¯d just extended. ¡°A snack bag!¡± she said brightly, waving it at him. She was still propping the door to her apartment open with a hip. ¡°It¡¯s got my card on it. I made enough for everyone on our floors.¡± ¡°Oh. Thanks.¡± He took the bag. Even her voice was remarkable. She sounded like she could host radio shows. ¡°It¡¯s homemade granola. You should take some for your roommates.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t actually have any,¡± Alden told her before she could pass him more bags. ¡°I¡¯m the only one in the apartment for now. I¡¯m Alden. From Chicago. Hi.¡± ¡°My fellow ex-American! I¡¯m Natalie. From South Carolina.¡± She tapped on the business card she¡¯d attached to his bag, and he glanced down to see that it said Natalie Choir ¡ª Room 914 ¡ªCook of the Moment (price on request). ¡°Cook of the Moment!¡± Alden felt enlightened. ¡°The S-rank Rabbit skill.¡± He was betting she¡¯d gotten some extra foundational enhancement points to allocate as an S-rank, and that most of them had gone into Appeal. Natalie beamed. ¡°You¡¯ve heard of it?¡± ¡°Yes. Awesome choice. I heard one woman who has it stopped a deadlock at the UN with a single pasta dish.¡± ¡°Oh my gosh,¡± she gushed. ¡°She¡¯s so cool! When I got here a couple of weeks ago, and word went around that there was a new Rabbit who¡¯d chosen it, she teleported in from her job on Artona II just to make dinner for me and my roommates.¡± ¡°What was that like?¡± Alden asked curiously. She stared off into the distance. ¡°Dangerous. One of my friends cried when we had dessert because the meal was almost over.¡± Alden was now really looking forward to eating the granola. But maybe not in front of other people. ¡°Thanks for making it vegan,¡± he said, holding up the bag. ¡°Oh yeah! Vegan, gluten free, no peanuts¡­for my advertising snacks I always try to hit as many diets as I can without ruining flavor. Wait, how could you tell?¡± She peered down at her tray. ¡°It doesn¡¯t look off or something, does it?¡± She sounded anxious about it. As if someone rocking an S-rank skill might really need to worry that her free, magically perfect food would offend a bunch of hungry teenagers. ¡°I¡¯m just a good guesser. It looks great.¡± He tucked it into the pocket of his hoodie and headed down the hall. Natalie Choir let her apartment door shut and tagged along after him. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen you around. Did you just get in yesterday?¡± ¡°Last night,¡± said Alden. ¡°You said you¡¯ve been here two weeks?¡± ¡°Yeah. Me and all my roommates arrived within a couple days of each other. They try to fill whole apartments at once, so don¡¯t worry. You won¡¯t be on your own for long!¡± Alden suspected he would, but he didn¡¯t see any reason to explain that. ¡°How many Rabbits are here right now?¡± ¡°A hundred and eighty-three,¡± she said promptly. ¡°Now four, since you¡¯re here.¡± ¡°You memorized the exact number?¡± ¡°For the snacks!¡± She held up the tray again. ¡°I¡¯ve already delivered another one of these to our counselor¡¯s desk.¡± She kept filling him in while they waited in a large community space for the elevator to arrive. There were beanbag chairs and an air hockey table. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the next building over. Natalie said that apartment tower was almost entirely for Brutes. ¡°Staying here in intake has been way more fun than I thought it would be,¡± she said. ¡°I was going to go straight into the School for the Arts at Celena North High as soon as I arrived, but then I decided it was better to settle in for a couple of months after all. It¡¯s a relief, you know? To be surrounded by other people who are totally new to the island.¡± ¡°I can see that. It¡¯s probably easier to figure it all out with people who are in the same position.¡± Of course there would still be newbies in the Apex high schools¡¯ dorms, but a larger percentage of the kids their age would be native Anesidorans. ¡°Shapers and Healers are on the floors below us,¡± Natalie said. ¡°And Meisters and Adjusters are above. There are only a few U-types here right now, but they have their own floor at the top of the Brute tower. They don¡¯t mingle a lot. Wrights are in that square, blocky apartment building. And Sways are over there,¡± she pointed at a low brick structure that looked distinctly prison-ish. ¡°It¡¯s actually very nice inside. They mingle even less than the U¡¯s. I think they have their own community building activities for credits. Oh, and any ultra-rares usually get mixed in with the Healers or us Rabbits.¡± She paused for breath just as the elevator arrived. They stepped inside, and Alden pressed the button for the next floor down. It opened onto another community area, this one dominated by a large circular desk with a scrolling digital sign across the front that listed currently ongoing dorm activities. Right now, it said ¡°breakfast¡± in multiple languages. New counselor, Alden noted as he stepped out of the elevator and spotted a young woman with brown skin and an edgy-looking undercut hairstyle. She was filling some of the welcome gift bags. She must be the day shift person. She didn¡¯t wear a physical name tag, but she had one through his interface. ¡°Neha¡± floated at the top right corner of his vision. ¡°Hi, Neha!¡± Natalie said, setting the tray of granola beside another one that was already there. ¡°Hey again, Nat.¡± She had an Anesidoran accent. She looked past the girl to Alden. ¡°And Alden,¡± she added. ¡°Do I have a name tag, too?¡± he asked, surprised. ¡°No. You can if you want one. There¡¯s a setting. But I actually just got in and got an update on your situation. It had a picture of you from last night. And there¡¯s a note saying you arrived without luggage. I was about to call and ask if you needed someone to go get basics for you.¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m going to wander around the neighborhood and buy some stuff on my own, if that¡¯s okay?¡± ¡°You¡¯re not a prisoner. Go. Be free. Call me if something goes wrong during the day, even if it¡¯s just something minor. There¡¯s a loosely enforced curfew while you¡¯re staying in intake, but it¡¯s midnight. Until then, nobody will bother you.¡± She paused. ¡°You want a buddy?¡± ¡°A buddy?¡± ¡°There are volunteer mentors who take new kids and show them around. I can have one meet you?¡± ¡°No thanks,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯d rather just explore. But I wanted to ask about having visitors in the dorm¡­¡± ¡°Depends on the visitor. Random locals¡ªno. They would flood the place if we let them, and it¡¯s supposed to be a haven just for you new kids. Pre-approved tutors or class mentors¡ªyes.¡± ¡°Family?¡± ¡°Oh. We can¡¯t teleport in guests from home for the first few months at all,¡± Natalie said in a sad voice. ¡°Didn¡¯t your pre-arrival guide tell you?¡± Neha glanced between her and Alden questioningly. She raised an eyebrow at him. She obviously wasn¡¯t going to bring up his business in front of people without his permission. He figured it would all get out eventually, but there was no reason to rush it. ¡°Thanks anyway,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m going to walk around and buy myself a toothbrush.¡± ¡°Dental hygiene,¡± said Neha, turning back to her gift bag prep. ¡°Always important.¡± Before Alden left the building, he stopped briefly on the second floor to check out the cafeteria. But as soon as the door opened and the sound of a throng speaking a dozen different languages hit him, he retreated. So many people. Too much input. Not even the smell of hash browns could tempt him. He shook his head at himself as he strode out the building¡¯s front doors into the cool, clear morning. I wish I could have a quiet first meal with Kibby. Does that make me crazy? He turned down the sidewalk and headed toward a set of gates that led onto the street. A security guy opened them for him, and he was officially walking around in F-city as a proper Avowed for the first time. It was so surreal. Here was a human city, full of city sights and sounds. There was traffic. People were out jogging. Someone was walking a shitzu. A week ago, Alden had been living in a vault on a silent moon with a single other person. He wondered if he¡¯d have felt just this out of place if he¡¯d gone back home instead of coming to Anesidora. I think it might actually have been worse, he decided as he watched a guy around his own age do push-ups in the narrow stretch of grass along a bike path. He had an honest-to-goodness boulder on his back as an extra weight. One of the green ball caps they gave you in your welcome gift bags at the dorms was on the ground beside him. Where does one purchase a boulder anyway? Did he bring it with him from home? Anesidora was artificially made. It wasn¡¯t like the other teen could have dug his pet rock up out of the ground or taken it from a convenient mountain. I think¡­it might be easier to try to fit in with boulder guy than it would be to try to fit back into my old life. I hope so anyway. He kept walking. His interface offered him maps and notifications about the businesses he was passing, but he turned the helpful feature off with a thought. He decided he wanted to see things with his own eyes and figure it all out the old-fashioned way. It was a distraction. Distractions were good. His new affixation was still a giant weight on his mind. He wanted to ignore it. I think this is a low-rank neighborhood, he decided as he watched a yoga class rolling out their mats through a studio window. It wasn¡¯t like locations in F-city were deliberately sorted by rank and class. That was a more common thing in Apex, to make sure really powerful people could use their talents without accidentally killing squishy ones like Alden. But even here on the southern portion of Anesidora, people tended to group together with those who had similar needs and lived similar lifestyles. So maybe this was a D & F-heavy community. Boulder Dude was by far the most conspicuously superhuman person Alden had spotted around here, and he¡¯d come from the dorms. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. He walked on, peering through shop windows and people-watching. The weather was around fifty degrees. The sun was shining. Alden found a Mexican restaurant with a walk-up breakfast window and ate an unholy amount of chips and guacamole while he sat on a bench and counted drones in the sky. He tried to remember if he¡¯d ever seen a bird on Anesidora apart from the decorative geese and ducks in the parks, and he couldn¡¯t. I hope we have seagulls or something at least. No birds at all would be depressing. A voice call notice flashed, and he answered when he saw it was Neha from the dorm. ¡°Hey,¡± the intake counselor said. ¡°I was going to call you right after you left, but mornings are always busy. Took me an hour to duck into my office so we could talk without being overheard. You said you wanted to bring family into your apartment?¡± ¡°I booked a teleportation slot for my aunt. I¡¯m going to pick her up in an hour and a half.¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t seen her since you got back home?¡± She sounded sympathetic. ¡°I haven¡¯t. I literally teleported in straight from the Triplanets last night.¡± ¡°Gotcha. So, like Natalie said, there is a rule against having family visitors, but it¡¯s not a dorm rule. It¡¯s a delay in guest approval for newcomers to the island in general. As far as your own guest list goes, they must have decided to treat you like you became a resident half a year ago when you were registered.¡± ¡°Why no guests for new people?¡± he asked. There was a brief pause. ¡°It¡¯s because a lot of kids are homesick, and seeing family regularly actually makes it harder for them to adjust. Some people spend sixteen hours a day staring at their old life through their interface. We discourage that however we can, but it happens way too often. In some cases there are also just¡­family dynamic problems. Parents who want to involve themselves way too heavily, coattail riders, anti-alien cultists who¡¯d rather murder their own children than see them under the Contract¡­¡± Hopefully not too many of those last ones, Alden thought. ¡°Your intake period is your transition,¡± Neha continued. ¡°Between whoever you were before and who you want to be now that you¡¯ve got new powers, new responsibilities, and a new home. And it¡¯s a big transition. We try to make sure everyone gets a fair shot at making that leap in their own way, with as little outside baggage as possible.¡± ¡°That makes sense to me.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m glad. Your situation is pretty unfair. Usually as soon as you register, it sets a whole pre-arrival process in motion so that you get a lot of time and help thinking about these things before you make your final landing here on the island. Not everyone takes advantage, but plenty of people spend their last three months settling things with their families and friends and crossing stuff off their to-do lists.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t do any of that.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t see how you could have. And actually, I want to recommend that you schedule a couple of private planning sessions with either me or Gus so we can help you figure out what exactly you want to take care of before you launch yourself full-tilt at¡­I don¡¯t even know what you think you might want to do with yourself after you leave intake. I can usually pull up a list of a kid¡¯s personal goals so I can make sure they¡¯re not swimming out to sea.¡± Swimming out to sea? That was a very Anesidoran way of saying ¡°going off track,¡± he guessed. ¡°Gus is the night counselor?¡± ¡°That¡¯s him. Gustavo. And to answer your original question from back before I went off on a tangent¡ªyes. You can absolutely bring your family member back to the dorms with you. Just be aware that most people don¡¯t get to, and don¡¯t rub anyone¡¯s nose in it.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t.¡± ¡°All right, I¡¯ll let you go. But first let¡¯s do my own personal get-to-know-Counselor Neha icebreaker.¡± Alden brushed corn chip crumbs off his leg and smiled. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Ask me what the worst thing about being a Rabbit is.¡± ¡°¡­what¡¯s the worst thing about being a Rabbit?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be straight with you, Alden. It¡¯s the fact that if you¡¯re very talented at your job, the Artonans keep you busy. It can be the same for other Avowed. But moreso for us. We just tend to interact with them a lot more because for some reason, despite saying things to the contrary, wizards seem to want friendly domestic help way more often than they want hard-bitten warriors. They should boost Rabbit numbers. Don¡¯t know why they keep it so low. Anyway, I spend about two thirds of my year on the Triplanets. It¡¯s good work, but I don¡¯t need it at this point in my career. And I still get called to do it.¡± ¡°That is a ton of work time for an Avowed,¡± Alden said, surprised. ¡°Even for a Rabbit.¡± Her skillset must have been really valuable. And she must basically be counseling new Rabbits out of the goodness of her heart because there was no way she needed the money. ¡°It is,¡± she agreed. ¡°Now ask me what the best thing about being a Rabbit is.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the best thing about being a Rabbit?¡± ¡°You get the extra-special answer I reserve for my S-ranks and my very busy bunnies who start getting themselves zapped to the Triplanets weekly before they¡¯re even out of intake: eternal youth.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°Isn¡¯t that more of an elite Healer thing?¡± ¡°It¡¯s an elite thing,¡± she said. ¡°Plain and simple. Here on Earth, you¡¯ve got to have an obscene amount of money for it and get your hands on the right healer ahead of everyone else who wants them. On the Triplanets¡­only slightly less obscene. But it¡¯s easier to actually find someone who can give you rejuvenation treatments. And frequently summoned Rabbits spend enough time on the Triplanets to make that happen for ourselves. Think about it.¡± ¡°I will?¡± he said. ¡°No. I¡¯m serious. Think about it. Before you spend whatever money they must have given you for that teleporter disaster they put you through. I became an Avowed in 1964, and¡ª¡± ¡°Holy shit,¡± Alden blurted out. ¡°I thought you were in your early twenties!¡± He¡¯d also thought from her accent that she was a native Anesidoran, but the place hadn¡¯t even existed then. ¡°I was in my twenties,¡± Neha replied, ¡°when I jumped all the way off the aging train and waved goodbye to it.¡± She does not act like an old person. ¡°I know what you¡¯re thinking¡­wow, she doesn¡¯t talk like an old person!¡± ¡°Erm¡­¡± ¡°Kids always say stuff like that. You don¡¯t get a special old-person personality when you hit a certain age. Old people are just members of a different generation than you, which is to say, a different peer group. They usually act like their friends instead of yours.¡± Alden guessed that made sense. ¡°When you stay young forever, you naturally tend to make friends with other young people. Or eternally young people. Or high-class wizards. Makes you a bit different, but it¡¯s not a bad thing. And it more than makes up for the main bad thing about being a Rabbit.¡± ¡°Being away from Earth so much?¡± Her voice was serious. ¡°I intend to see more than a human lifetime¡¯s worth of sunrises right here on the planet where I was born. I¡¯ll just do it at a different pace than most people.¡± Alden didn¡¯t know how he felt about that announcement. But he had to admit that, as far as icebreakers went, Neha¡¯s was pretty mind-blowing. ¡°Anyway,¡± she said, ¡°I just wanted to give you the special talk before you bought a house or something. You might not know if you¡¯re the kind of Rabbit who gets summoned all the time yet, but you had this one terrible and no-doubt lucrative incident. So, advice from an old person¡ªsave it. In case you decide you want to be laughing about this phone call with me in a century without your mind and body suffering from the ravages of time. Despite what all the fiction tells you, death isn¡¯t the main thing that makes life meaningful. I like being alive even more now that I did when I was your age.¡± ¡°I¡­will consider that.¡± ¡°Have fun with you aunt!¡± She hung up and left Alden blinking up at a gleaming red drone, feeling bemused. Yeah. It might take me even longer than I thought to get used to all of this. *********** Alden took a city bus to the Teleportation Complex. He sat beside a Shaper of Life who was wearing vines as accessories. When he entered the building through the automatic doors, he had a strange moment. He thought he heard an extremely loud toilet flush. He looked to his right in confusion. I guess there is a bathroom over there? It was right beside the big metal post drop he¡¯d used to send his letter to the Velras. That was forever ago. At least they probably won¡¯t bother me while I¡¯m staying in intake, since there¡¯s a no random locals policy. He kept walking. He heard another toilet flush. He wondered if they had really insane plumbing in that restroom. A few minutes later, he finally got to see his aunt face to face. He was glad they¡¯d had the emotional, tear-jerker phone call while he was still hanging out in the forest. Mostly what he felt when she ran out of the local arrivals hall at the Teleportation Complex was pure happiness. They threw their arms around each other and hugged for ages, while she shouted in his ear about the fact that he¡¯d gotten taller. When they stepped apart, he said, ¡°You¡¯re imagining things. It¡¯s just a quarter of an inch.¡± ¡°You measured yourself as soon as you got home? You¡¯re not still racing Jeremy, are you?¡± She smiled. ¡°I hate to tell you this, but he¡¯s winning.¡± He laughed. ¡°I only know because I had the System send my measurements to some guy named Dragon Rabbit so that he could buy me clothes.¡± He was 176.4 cm tall. ¡°You said you didn¡¯t need clothes! I was going to pull your things down out of the attic¡ª¡± ¡°Maybe later. I thought it would be more fun if we went shopping.¡± It was a good day. They spent most of it wandering around Rosa Grove Mall. It was the largest shopping center on the island. There were hundreds of stores, and in between buying too much stuff and eating too much food, Alden managed to put together a picture of his aunt¡¯s current life. She had been devastated he was gone, but these days, she was mostly happy. He could tell. Mr. Tiger Shorts¡ªactually an RV salesman named Brodie¡ªwas okay. He had a big messy family, and he¡¯d introduced Connie to them. Alden was glad, though a little overwhelmed, to hear her chatter about all of the man¡¯s cousins, step siblings, and siblings like they were characters in a show he¡¯d never seen. In turn, he talked a lot about Kibby and all of the interesting, not-awful things he¡¯d experienced while he was away. Late in the afternoon, they split a celebratory cupcake in honor of the fact that they had missed each other¡¯s sixteenth and thirty-third birthdays. And Alden decided it was a good time to broach a subject he hoped would only be slightly awkward for them both. ¡°Can I give you money, Aunt Connie? Without it being weird?¡± ¡°No,¡± she said, licking a finger and using it to pick up stray sprinkles from the cupcake wrapper. ¡°I really want you to let me. I have a lot more than I need, and it would make me way more comfortable about leaving home.¡± She considered him for a moment, scanning his face with blue eyes that sometimes made Alden think he really remembered exactly what his mother¡¯s had looked like. ¡°I left home at sixteen, too,¡± she said finally. ¡°I thought the world owed me something grander than life in a trailer park in Tennessee. Pretty different from what you¡¯re doing.¡± ¡°I know.¡± Connie rarely mentioned it. Both of Alden¡¯s maternal grandparents had died a couple of years later. Alden thought, mostly based on context clues and not anything he¡¯d ever been told for sure, that his mother had never forgiven her much younger sister for breaking their parents¡¯ hearts. ¡°I meant to grow up,¡± she said. ¡°At some point. But I felt like everything was forcing me to do it all at once when your mom died, and I think maybe I missed a couple of steps. Because I was busy feeling sorry for myself.¡± ¡°You did fine.¡± She reached for her drink and jabbed at the ice in the cup with the straw. ¡°You didn¡¯t tell me,¡± she said finally. ¡°When you got selected as an Avowed. I just kept thinking about it, every night lying in bed after you went missing. The fact that you didn¡¯t tell me right away.¡± Alden took a deep breath. ¡°I was going to¡ª¡± ¡°I was always so disappointed in my parents when I was a teenager.¡± She looked down at the melting ice. ¡°I don¡¯t even know why. They were good people. Maybe I was angry that they weren¡¯t impressive people. Or something like that. But¡­if I¡¯d been chosen as an Avowed when I was your age, I know I¡¯d have run straight home to my mother and told her. Because even though I was ungrateful, deep down I knew I could always count on her for the things that really mattered.¡± Alden sat frozen across the pink laminate table from her. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t give you that,¡± she said finally. ¡°When you¡¯re a kid, you need grown-ups you can trust like that.¡± ¡°Aunt Connie,¡± Alden said quietly, ¡°I trust you. Don¡¯t¡ª¡± ¡°You love me.¡± She rubbed a single tear away from her cheek with the palm of her hand. She smiled at him. ¡°There¡¯s a difference. And I think it might be okay¡­it might be best¡­if you were mad at me. A little. I wasn¡¯t too young or too dumb to know I should do better. I knew. You were just so mature for your age, and I kept using it as an excuse to let you take care of yourself. And you should be mad about that. You were supposed to have more.¡± She stood up suddenly and started clearing the trash before Alden could even begin to respond. ¡°Anyway,¡± she said in a brisk voice as she came back from the recycling bins and shoved her chair under the table, ¡°you said you wanted exercise clothes and weights. So we still need to go to the athletic supply store.¡± ¡°Ah¡­but¡­okay. Um¡­according to the map on my interface it¡¯s on the fourth floor.¡± He stood up, too. ¡°Also, I didn¡¯t want weights.¡± ¡°You need weights. Or you need to go to that place full of the sweaty, grunting people we passed on the way over here.¡± ¡°The Brutes-only gym?¡± said Alden. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°You picked the bunny class, baby. People are gonna pick on you. You need to be able to protect yourself.¡± ¡°Nobody¡¯s going to pick on me. And if some of them want to, then going to the gym is not going to stop them.¡± He did want to find a good gym, but not for that reason. ¡°We¡¯ll get you some pepper spray, then,¡± she said. She narrowed her eyes. ¡°Or bear spray. And a knife.¡± ¡°Sure. Carrying those around will make me look so approachable while I try to make new friends.¡± SIXTY-SIX: Pinball On his fourth night in the intake dorms, Alden¡¯s eyes snapped open at 3 AM. He barely resisted the urge to scream and throw his comfortable pillow across the room like an angry child. He was tired. But not tired enough to ignore it anymore. He was beginning to see that this was going to be a chronic problem, not something that he could just shake off. He felt almost as bad as he had the first day, only now his brain was slightly less busy with the ten thousand things it had been juggling since he came back home. And it had enough bandwidth to dig and dig at the one thing he was desperately trying to ignore. He reached up to touch the auriad around his neck. He couldn¡¯t use it right now. He couldn¡¯t even bring himself to try, in the same way he couldn¡¯t bring himself to press his hand against a hot stove without some dire need driving him. But he still liked the thing so much. ¡°I think it¡¯s a little alien of me,¡± he said to the ceiling. He pulled up the System page that showed his leave. He had around eight months completely off. Six for mental health time. Two for other reasons. It really said that¡ªother reasons. The therapist had asked Alden about it, and he¡¯d told her he had no idea. She¡¯d shrugged it off as some Artonan oddity. Alden guessed it was. Needing recovery time from getting an upgrade wasn¡¯t going to make sense to another human. He was hoping for a steady improvement over the course of the two-month timeframe, and not this same low-level existential torture for the whole period followed by a sudden moment of acceptance. Hey. Maybe acceptance was the key. ¡°I accept you,¡± he said dramatically to his own bound power. ¡°I accept you in all your mutilated glory. We can do really cool shit together. Probably. If we could just calm down and stop feeling so confined and re-arranged and upset about it, maybe we could focus on the positives.¡± It didn¡¯t help. Whatever. He had like a billion messages to answer anyway. He propped himself up on his pillows and set the television to stream global music videos. He ran through emails and voicemails one after the other, trying to figure out how to arrange his contact priorities with the System in exactly the right way so that he got all the important stuff and everything else got dumped into the ¡°Deal With it Eventually¡± file. Connie, Boe, Jeremy, and Kibby were his high priority personals. Cly Zhao, too, since she¡¯d asked. He sent her a message thanking her for whatever she¡¯d done to smooth out his return. The security people being pre-informed that he was coming in did seem to have helped a little, and getting to spend a day and a half with Connie without figuring out the paperwork himself first was great. She¡¯d also sent him an unexpected email about the Manon situation. Apparently Jeremy and Boe had told her about that in case the other Rabbit had done something to him and was the reason he was missing. She explained that she hadn¡¯t had anyone look into Manon because it wasn¡¯t something that could be done legally unless Alden officially told the Anesidoran authorities himself that he¡¯d seen or felt her using some form of mind control. She also indicated that while many people might believe him, he would have to provide convincing proof of some kind for actual action to be taken. ¡°People are panicky about Sways,¡± she wrote. ¡°So they¡¯ll take you seriously. But at the same time, people are panicky about Sways, so someone basically has to commit a crime in full view of the public before the authorities can legally force them to undergo survey by a reader type.¡± She added that she really didn¡¯t advise him to have his own mind read in an attempt to provide proof of a subtle event that had happened half a year before. As if that was something Alden might actually be thinking of trying. I guess I¡¯ll figure out what, if anything, I want to do on my own. The whole idea of taking a swing at that particular hornet nest left him feeling exhausted. Maybe Thwart Hog had been right months ago, and not everything was his problem to solve. He could always just tell Manon¡¯s boater that she was manipulating them with her skill and let them save themselves. They were adults. They weren¡¯t stupid. They knew how to ask a Sway or a Mind Healer for help, too, didn¡¯t they? He looked back at his high priority category. Official messages from his new home country went there, too. Not because Alden had to keep them there, though. The System would let him dump them just like they were from total randos. But they¡¯d sent half a dozen Welcome to the Island text and voice messages that basically all started with different versions of, DO NOT DUMP US IN THE PILE WITH THE TOTAL RANDOS!! I am such a good citizen, he thought as he read through one of his welcome packets. It was actually all important information. There was an entire America-to-Anesidora legal guide to help him get used to differences in the laws. He had to give it permission to show him pop-ups if he was about to do something forbidden, but it didn¡¯t seem like it would be too much of a problem. Anesidora was less restrictive in some ways and more in others, but it was mostly pretty common sense when you thought about the reasons for it. Speech was free, but you couldn¡¯t have a protest or large assembly in a public space without permits. Because those spaces were more limited in number here, and a small but significant percentage of the population were dangerous and difficult to handle if tempers flared. Power use was as legal as it could reasonably be in most places. Basically if you weren¡¯t hurting and/or inconveniencing people or destroying things, you could do it. There was a sliding scale of tolerance for mishaps. The more powerful you were, the less leeway you had in F-city. And there were a couple of districts where even a whiff of potentially offensive spell or skill use would land you in jail for a decade or more¡­assuming a summons didn¡¯t bust you out before you¡¯d served your time. Those were the family-friendly areas¡ªbig residential zones that also held the elementary and middle schools for the island-born kids. Those were supposed to be totally safe spaces, and when Alden looked it up out of curiosity, he saw that those neighborhoods were some of the most expensive to live in on the whole island. Gambling was legal. There was a long list of genetic modifications that were, too. Designer babies were still controversial and illegal in much of the world, but here on Anesidora they were so common that they might outnumber purely organic births in the next couple of decades. Most of the adults here were already modified from the human norm. So there wasn¡¯t much popular support for the argument that creating smarter, stronger children through science was unethical. Alcohol was illegal. Very illegal. Nobody wanted drunk people knocking the tops off skyscrapers. The list of drugs that were illegal was extremely long, too. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of names on it were unrecognizable Artonan words. Alden¡¯s experience must not have been unique. Wizards really did like doling out pills, shots, and potions, and the island was engaged in a constant struggle to make people hand the things over when they returned home. Voluntarily doing so was your duty. Also, they would reimburse you. Please, don¡¯t feed other people whatever the Artonans have been feeding you while you¡¯ve been away. Alden opened the top drawer of his nightstand and glanced at the contents. He still had his chaos-damaged ryeh-b¡¯t model, his lucky wizard¡¯s foot encased in putty, and one piece of sensory sharing gum. He¡¯d honestly just forgotten the gum was sitting in one of the lab coat¡¯s inner pockets for ages. Of course he hadn¡¯t even considered eating a party drug of unknown quality while he was on Moon Thegund. He wondered if the chaos had damaged them or if they¡¯d been bad for humans to start with, because Rrorro had thrown them all away except for the one piece. Jel-nor¡¯s. Of course. His eyes fell on the putty, and he added Stu-art¡¯h to his priority contacts list, too. He had told the Primary¡¯s son to call for internet guidance after all. He had a single, uncomfortably warm letter from Aulia Velra herself welcoming him to Anesidora, telling him she was ever so happy to know he¡¯d survived his dreadful ordeal, and letting him know that she would be delighted to make his acquaintance sometime now that they were neighbors. It was inoffensive. But too friendly. And how did she already know he was here now, anyway? He wanted to say nothing. But he decided that completely ignoring the offer of advice and friendship from someone who¡¯d given you five million dollars was probably more noteworthy than responding to it. And he was trying to be un-noteworthy. What¡¯s the most boring thing I could write back? he asked himself. He went with a short, professional email that basically said, ¡°Thank you. I¡¯ll let you know if I need help, but for now, I¡¯m just enjoying a quiet life in intake.¡± Feeling organized, more informed, and successful, Alden checked the time¡­and he groaned when he realized he¡¯d only been working for a little over an hour. What was he supposed to do with himself at four o¡¯clock in the morning? In the end, he got out of bed and went to play with the pinball machine. He¡¯d barely touched one until this week, but he¡¯d completely crushed his aunt at it before she headed back home. Along with fourteen of the fifteen people on the high scores board. He now had abnormally fast hands in addition to the slightly enhanced visual processing. Pinball was his game. Feels pretty great. Enjoying the small stat enhancements he¡¯d received, at least, came with no additional pain. He¡¯d need to ask her why that was if they met again. He thought the most likely explanation was that the pain was there, but the stats were a passively engaged part of the affixation, rather than something that had to be actively used. So there was no change in output or increase in suffering for him to detect. Or maybe it was something weirder, like how Gorgon¡¯s people had destroyed authority to create an effect. Maybe it had been turned into something like an enchantment that coated Alden¡¯s being. Maybe it was just gone, and Alden had faster fingers in its place. I don¡¯t think that last one¡¯s right. He chased down the high scorer while he considered a final possible addition to his high priority list. It was a strange one. He thought it was maybe even a little crazy. But he wanted to. So. He took the auriad from around his neck and switched it to a spot high up on his left arm. It still had its obliging habit of sticking a little bit where he wanted it to, so it stayed in place well enough. And it was fully covered by the sleeve of the t-shirt he was wearing. He preferred it around his neck and wrists, but it had a tendency to peek out of collars that weren¡¯t high enough and sleeves that weren¡¯t long enough. He either needed to start wearing turtlenecks on the regular like some kind of wizard fanboy or come up with another comfortable way to conceal it. This would do for now. ¡°Call Worli Ro-den. Video or audio is fine.¡± ******** If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. The call connected. Joe had picked audio. The professor had a preference for no video. Alden had made note of it previously. He wondered if it was because Joe was used to talking to people from locations where he had sketchy stuff going on. There was a long silence before either of them spoke. Finally, Joe broke it. ¡°Do you know what time it is here?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± said Alden, sending one of the silver balls shooting toward a ramp. ¡°I assumed you wouldn¡¯t answer if you didn¡¯t want to. Hello from Earth.¡± ¡°Your Artonan is quite good now.¡± ¡°I had a lot of time to practice.¡± Another long pause. ¡°What did you call for?¡± ¡°How do I send space mail to the Quaternary? Because I asked the System, and it was unhelpful.¡± ¡°Space mail. To the Quaternary.¡± ¡°Yes. However it is you guys communicate to your ships when you can¡¯t use a Contract. Is it just radio? Magic radio? Interstellar pigeons?¡± ¡°I would be willing to bet what little funding I have left on you being the first person in history to combine the Artonan word for interstellar with the word pigeons.¡± ¡°So that is how it happens. I knew it.¡± ¡°It may shock you to know that I do not have permission to send messages to the Quaternary. Through pigeons or any other means. So I¡¯m afraid I can¡¯t help you with that.¡± Alden considered it. That wasn¡¯t surprising really. She probably had a super limited list of people who were allowed to bother her in the first place, and it no doubt got cut even shorter when she was somewhere so difficult to reach. ¡°Okay. That makes sense. I¡¯ll figure something else out.¡± ¡°Why do you want to get a message to her?¡± Joe said slowly. ¡°I don¡¯t. I just want to talk to Kibby. Kivb-ee. They¡¯re together.¡± ¡°I had heard that the two of you were rescued together. But I very much doubt the Quaternary is keeping a small child with her while she works in a corruption field. ¡± ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure that¡¯s exactly what she¡¯s doing,¡± said Alden. ¡°Because I asked her if Kibby could stay with her ground team. And she promised me. And she seems like the kind of person who does what she says she will.¡± When Joe didn¡¯t answer, he added, ¡°She also said I could contact her. But we never actually discussed the details of how I would do that.¡± Because they¡¯d both thought it was just polite words for a dead boy. ¡°Anyway, if you hear from Kibby before I manage to get in touch with her on my own, please ask how I can send messages.¡± ¡°Should I expect to hear from her?¡± he asked in a surprised tone. ¡°Mmm¡­I¡¯d give it a 50/50 chance. Kibby really wanted to talk to you. But Knight Alis-art¡¯h wants to bury you. So, I think it depends on which one of them wins the battle of wills.¡± Joe¡¯s tattooed face suddenly appeared in front of Alden¡¯s eyes. He was so startled he missed the ball. ¡°My high score!¡± ¡°What do you mean ¡®Knight Alis-art¡¯h wants to bury you¡¯?¡± the professor said, looking alarmed. ¡°What did I do to offend her?¡± ¡°She seems to be under the impression that you¡¯re one of those bad wizards who takes advantage of innocent young Avowed. I don¡¯t know why she¡¯d think that.¡± Joe looked like a man who¡¯d just seen the executioner stalking towards him. ¡°Uh¡­¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m teasing. At least a little. I told her I knew the mission to Moon Thegund was dangerous. And that I didn¡¯t feel like you¡¯d treated me unfairly. ¡± ¡°You did?¡± He sounded startled. ¡°I did¡­¡± ¡°Why are you hesitating?¡± ¡°It¡¯s just that I told her that while we thought I was dying. And I was sitting there with your contract tattoo on my chest being forced to talk about berry picking when we both knew it was lies. And even though I was clear on the fact that I don¡¯t blame you for anything, I think it probably didn¡¯t go very far with her.¡± ¡°I see.¡± He closed his eyes. ¡°How many things do you think can go wrong in one man¡¯s life over the course of just a couple of years?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t know,¡± said Alden, starting up another game. ¡°It¡¯s all been ryeh-b¡¯ts and rainbows for me lately.¡± Joe looked at him. In the image provided by the System, he didn¡¯t have on his smart monocle. He didn¡¯t seem quite right without it. ¡°I didn¡¯t know you¡¯d been injured that badly,¡± he said. ¡°Well..naturally I assumed you were dead after the first few weeks. And then I heard you¡¯d been rescued along with Kivb-ee, shortly after the lab exploded. I haven¡¯t had more information than that.¡± ¡°It was demons,¡± Alden said promptly. ¡°That was what destroyed the lab. We saw a big one, so we ran away. It must have gotten into some of your sciency stuff and¡­boom.¡± ¡°¡­you know everyone thinks I blew it up,¡± Joe said in a dry tone. ¡°Which is really quite a serious matter, since it looks like I arranged it all ages ago in order to murder the team working for the new owners when they took residence.¡± ¡°I will swear on my life before the Grand Senate that it was a demon, Joe,¡± Alden said. ¡°That¡¯s noble of you.¡± ¡°A big demon.¡± ¡°Oh, she¡¯s not that big.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t know demons could be female, but sure. If you say so.¡± Joe sighed. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect you to call.¡± Alden stared at the blinking lights on the machine. ¡°I don¡¯t think you made a bad gamble. If just a few things had gone a little bit differently, we could have gotten them all out. I don¡¯t really know how Artonans weigh it¡­one Avowed vs. however many regular people. But I think you¡¯d have been stupid not to ask me to go. The corruption event could have broken the System a month later than it did. Or a day. Or a minute. I was that close to teleporting back to the university with Kibby and her sister. Sometimes everything just goes wrong.¡± ¡°Indeed,¡± Joe said quietly. He cleared his throat. ¡°I take it you¡¯re well, then? Since you seem to be moving around and making lots of strange noises.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a pinball machine.¡± ¡°I have no clue what that is.¡± ¡°Human magic. I¡¯m fine now. I just almost blew my affixation.¡± Joe shuddered. Funny, thought Alden. I might not have had any idea why he was doing that if I was normal. ¡°Knight Alis-art¡¯h took care of me for a while, and then I guess Artona I must have patched me up.¡± ¡°You guess?¡± ¡°Well it¡¯s not like I can feel much of a difference,¡± he lied. ¡°But I¡¯m still here, aren¡¯t I?¡± ¡°That would be a good indicator that you¡¯d been patched up.¡± ¡°On a less serious note,¡± said Alden, ¡°your lab coat was the freaking best. It took demon grasshopper strikes like it was designed for it. Why didn¡¯t you put that feature in the advertisement?¡± ¡°As someone once told me, no Rabbit wants a coat designed for work in a bomb lab. I doubt a coat designed for a chaos-research lab would sound more appealing.¡± ¡°I¡¯m probably going to buy another one. When I¡¯m off leave in a few months. For sentimental reasons.¡± ¡°Please do. As one of the designers, I get a small commission. I could really use the funds right now.¡± Alden grinned. Then his smile dropped as he remembered something. ¡°I was supposed to give you a message. From Thenn-ar. She helped me so much when everything first went wrong. We probably wouldn¡¯t even have survived without her advice.¡± Joe went still. ¡°I wish I could remember the words for you,¡± Alden said. ¡°And for her. But it was in Artonan. The System was already down, and I wasn¡¯t in the best frame of mind. I couldn¡¯t hold the syllables in my head, and I can¡¯t remember the sound of them now no matter how hard I try.¡± ¡°Ah well,¡± Joe said in a rough voice. ¡°That is understandable.¡± ¡°Whatever she said sounded very caring,¡± Alden offered. ¡°She called you Ro. And she was smiling.¡± ¡°She¡­was a very caring person. Thank you, Alden. Passing on the sentiment was enough.¡± He hung up suddenly. Alden thought about it for just a second longer and then added him to the priority contacts. He glanced down the short list of names. Stu-art¡¯h would know how to call his aunt. It was a little more awkward there. After some reflection, Alden felt uncomfortable about the fact that he¡¯d gone to visit the Primary¡¯s son because she had suggested that he should. And even offered a bribe. It wasn¡¯t the only reason. He could have gotten the reward just by dealing with anyone in the house. But still¡­ Stuart had been very different and much lonelier than he¡¯d ever expected. He¡¯d gone out of his way to mourn Alden¡¯s death even though they¡¯d only spoken a few words to each other. And he had even helped him leave the house without agreeing to the family privacy contract, after confessing that he¡¯d had hallucinations as a child. That seemed like exactly the sort of damaging and deeply personal information such a contract should cover. Alden didn¡¯t think the Artonan boy was a pushover who would say yes to any request he made. He couldn¡¯t be, or some of those snakes at LeafSong would have eaten him alive by now. But he was still disinclined to make a request of any kind until their new acquaintanceship felt more balanced. ¡°Well, I¡¯ll just balance it then.¡± Stuart had said he wanted to learn about human culture. Since Alden was an insomniac now, he would spend part of his sleepless hours finding interesting human things and sharing them. Wholesome interesting things. Ones that wouldn¡¯t make Stuart think Earth was a horrible place that needed to be destroyed. Because he seemed to be aiming for the kind of position that might give him some say in matters like that. When Jeremy called to say good morning half an hour later, Alden was browsing the internet through his System interface and drinking a coconut milk latte. It turned out he could figure out how to work a coffee machine if he just had his aunt around to help him. ¡°If you were going to share human internet stuff with a smart, nice, but socially awkward Artonan guy who might one day be powerful enough to smite our species, what would you choose?¡± Jeremy paused in the act of stuffing a textbook into his backpack. ¡°You know, our conversation topics have expanded in some strange directions since you became an Avowed.¡± ¡°Right?¡± ¡°Videos of marching bands,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°They¡¯re cool. You can¡¯t smite a planet that has so many kickass marching bands on it.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s right. Your sister¡¯s a band geek. Good job. I¡¯ll add it to the list. Between hang gliders and pandas.¡± SIXTY-SEVEN: Goals Alden sent his list of links off to Stuart. And after some contemplation, he decided if he was going to try sharing human culture with somebody, he should probably start engaging with it again himself. Time to be brave. How hard can it really be to mingle? He stood in front of the fridge, staring at the community activities calendar for the day. He had a more detailed version pulled up on his interface, too. They went all-in on the programming here at intake; virtually every minute from six o¡¯clock in the morning until midnight curfew had something on the schedule. There were tours, classes, board games, athletic events, guest lectures, nondenominational religious services, a scavenger hunt, a mocktail party, and even volunteer opportunities. Alden wanted to pick up litter along the bike path. It sounded like a peaceful job almost nobody else would choose to do. Since that defeated his whole purpose for the day, he selected an educational group tour called Government Buildings and Procedures. It¡¯s not the most stimulating option, he admitted to himself. But it¡¯s got things going for it. It was one of the for-credit opportunities, so there would be people. But there were other classes and tours happening this morning that sounded more fun, so there probably wouldn¡¯t be a ton of them. And, more importantly, it didn¡¯t seem like an activity where everyone would be showing off their powers. Just by walking through the dorm halls over the past couple of days, Alden had realized that power displays were a huge part of introducing yourself to the other teens in intake. What¡¯s your name? Where are you from? What can you do? He was hoping to get to know other new Avowed in a setting where he could just say what his skill was without it being appropriate for them to ask him to do tricks with it. I¡¯d like to at least have some normal conversation before I have to brush everyone off or get into the whole ¡®I can¡¯t use it right now¡¯ thing. He headed out, stopping by the counselor¡¯s desk to show Neha his face and prove he was engaging with people. She hadn¡¯t told him to do that. Nobody had. But he was aware that there was a certain amount of concerned watching going on in this place. Not just of him. But of several people in unusual situations. None of his new neighbors had caught on to any anomalies with Alden¡¯s presence, as far as he knew, but he¡¯d heard them talking about others. There was a Wright who¡¯d registered and regretted it, and he kept trying to escape from Anesidora by stealing boats. If he didn¡¯t knock it off, they were going to have to take him out of intake and put him in more restrictive housing. And there was a Morph Brute who had come to the dorms after spending weeks at the island¡¯s healing hospital. Her own brothers had set her bed on fire while she slept when they found out she was an Avowed. It had made global news. I bet she hates it that everyone knows that about her. He stuffed his hands into the pocket of his hoodie as he crossed the drive that separated his apartment tower from the one that was dedicated to Brutes. The tour group was supposed to meet there in the lobby. Most people get to keep their tragedies private. But when you have one that hits a certain level of gruesomeness, suddenly the rest of the world feels like they have a right to stare at it and comment on it. He entered the lobby and blinked in surprise at the decorations. Ten-foot-tall bronze statues representing different Brute types dominated the space. They stood on raised circular platforms, and there were cushioned benches around each of them. One statue was of a shirtless man holding up a globe like the Greek god Atlas. And there was a woman mid-run, her hair streaming behind her. Alden was pretty sure the man with his mouth open and his arms spread was supposed to represent the vocal subtype. We don¡¯t get cool statues in our tower lobby. Unfair. Probably it was because they couldn¡¯t rep all the class subtypes without turning the lobby into a thicket of bronze, but they could have done a mural or something. <> someone said behind him. <> <> Alden glanced over his shoulder to see two guys nearby. They were staring up at the statue for audial Brutes. His interface informed him that they were speaking Spanish and Urdu. ¡°Are you here for the tour, too?¡± he asked. Of course they were; it was the thing starting in the lobby of this building in a few minutes. But you had to begin a conversation somewhere. <> said one of the guys. He poked around at the air with a hand, and a moment later, a custom name tag appeared beside him with his personal details. He was seventeen. From Pakistan. He was a C-rank Meister of Staves. His friend popped a name tag up for himself, too. He was sixteen. From Costa Rica. He was a C-rank Meister of Torches. He enjoyed fishing. And he was looking for a girlfriend. Torches? thought Alden, pondering the tag. Did you fight with the torches? Or illuminate things with them? Did it depend on how the Meister built their talents? Oh, wait. It¡¯s probably not old-fashioned torches. Maybe it¡¯s more like welding torches? Magic welding actually sounded kind of cool. He tossed up the name tag he¡¯d made for himself. He¡¯d kept it simpler than they had. [Alden - 16 - Rabbit] <> shouted the maybe-a-welder guy. <> ¡°Um¡­who?¡± <> ¡°Natalie Choir,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ve met her.¡± Mistake. The other boy¡¯s interest level in Natalie wasn¡¯t quite in stalker territory by Alden¡¯s estimation, but it was dangerously close to it. The guy missed two polite attempts to change the conversation topic and one much less polite one. Fortunately, his roommate wasn¡¯t as dense. He started talking about the upcoming tour loudly, and things got more normal. Both of the Meisters had arrived over two months ago. They were a few weeks away from overstaying their welcome and getting kicked out of the intake dorms. Their counselors had told them it was time for them to start participating in some of the for-credit activities¡ªlike this one¡ªor else they¡¯d be forced to sit through a month of much less fun orientation classes with the slackers when they started school. So that¡¯s how it works. Alden had wondered what the ¡°punishment¡± for being a total non-participant during your intake period might be. Both of the boys were happy to have been chosen as Avowed. And they were pretty relaxed about it. They were interested in the fact that they now had powers, of course. But it was in a more casual way than Alden had expected. The Meister of Staves was enjoying a combat class with a few older Avowed who had the same subtype. He thought it was a good hobby and an impressive art. The Torch Meister liked his stat enhancements. Neither of them were thinking of their abilities as something that would be the main focus of their futures. Maybe they¡¯d level a little, maybe they¡¯d get some cool spell impressions, maybe a job here or there¡ªthey weren¡¯t stressed about it. For them, the big perk of being an Avowed was getting to live here on Anesidora. As far as they were concerned, they were already on top just by reaching the island. Whether they ever got summoned or not was pretty irrelevant to them, except for the obvious monetary benefits. ¡°But¡­you know you could get summoned to fight or do something dangerous, right?¡± Alden asked, addressing the question mostly to the stave user. The torches were for magic welding, so the other boy was more likely to be summoned for work, not combat. The two Meisters exchanged glances. <> <> his friend agreed. <> <> <> <> Okay. So that¡¯s how it was. Probably Alden was the one who was being unrealistic for immediately wondering what they were going to do if they ever got lethal assignments from the Triplanents¡­instead of asking them about their favorite things to do on the island and what school they were planning to attend. They loved Anesidora. They were happy to be here. It is a very high standard of living. Alden had known that, but he hadn¡¯t really thought about what it meant for people other than himself. Sure. You were trapped. Especially if you didn¡¯t have the highly-marketable talents that would get you a superhuman job in another country. But despite Boe constantly joking that Alden would starve to death because of the price of things on the island, even poverty on Anesidora was pretty cushy. Basic healthcare was free and high quality. Education was free, high quality, and mandatory¡ªin one form or another¡ªuntil age 21. There was no such thing as homelessness. Once you were out of school, they would give you a very small but undeniably clean and comfortable apartment to live in if you couldn¡¯t afford one on your own. You even had internet access through your interface if you wanted free entertainment. Although Alden had decided just this morning that he hated browsing that way. It felt really intrusive. I need to buy a laptop, he thought as the tour group finally set out. There were about thirty of them. Most people had come because they needed the credits, but a few had chosen this tour because they were super enthusiastic about the fact that they had voting rights now. You were a legal voter on Anesidora the second your Avowed feet touched the ground, and they actually wanted to find out how the government worked. Their guide spoke mostly Mandarin, and in the way that a lot of native born Anesidorans did, he sprinkled in tons of loan words from other languages. They took a train through F-city, stopping at the capitol building. It was an unusual, trapezoid-shaped structure made of glass and black stone that reminded Alden of the hot lab on the Leafsong campus. This was where the High Council did their thing. The group toured the council chambers, and they even got to meet a few of the class representatives who were in their offices. The current Rabbit councilor was in. The Rabbit rep never had much power on the council unless they became President, but maybe because of that, she was more willing to talk to the tour. She was a short woman with silver corkscrew curls, and she did a brief double-take when she saw Alden¡¯s name tag. She didn¡¯t react at all to the name tag of the one other Rabbit who¡¯d come today. Alden assumed it meant she knew who he was through some kind of gossip. It was a little concerning. But she didn¡¯t say anything about it when she shook his hand, so he decided he liked her fine. The tour was over after four and a half hours, and Alden, feeling highly successful about talking to other people without coming across as someone who¡¯d been living on a moon for way too long, gave himself permission to break off from the group. They were all going to see a movie together. He picked up an order of stir-fry from a restaurant and went back to the dorm. He wanted to read his auriad book and practice his logograms. And he needed to think. Only a couple of people on the tour planned to seriously pursue leveling their Avowed talents. A lot of the others said they did, but either they didn¡¯t mean it or they hadn¡¯t actually considered how to go about it. They were almost all going to attend the general high school programs in F-city. Those included some cultural training for life as an Avowed, in case you got summoned, but they didn¡¯t cover power development at all. Well, there weren¡¯t any high ranks on the tour. Alden was sitting on the kitchen stool, watching the logograms shift while the System translated the first spell in his book for him. It¡¯s not like they could get into a serious hero track course. He¡¯d been the only B in the group. Everyone else had been C or lower. But doing a hero-prep program at one of the Apex high schools was far from the only option for developing your Avowed talents. Even for low ranks, there were leveling-track programs of other kinds that split your education between academics and more class-focused learning. If you wanted that. They were considered more time and labor intensive, but¡­ I expected more people to want that. Who just gains the ability to do magic and then doesn¡¯t do much with it? Maybe he was thinking about it wrong, though. Most people didn¡¯t spend all their time ¡°leveling up¡± in normal life. It wasn¡¯t like Alden had been doing aerobics to level up his body before he¡¯d been selected. Or seriously striving to expand his mind. He¡¯d been taking advanced classes in high school and lots of consulate extras. But if he was being honest with himself, he¡¯d always just liked keeping busy with school. So that shouldn¡¯t count. It was probably more uncommon to run at your goals full-tilt and laser-focused than it was to kind of¡­stroll in their general direction. But he¡¯d thought he would encounter a lot more ambition than he had so far. More than in regular high school. I guess I subconsciously stuck too many Avowed in the insanely dedicated category because my real-life experience was all with Hannah. And she was a workaholic by any measure. Maybe the most useful thing he¡¯d learned on the tour was what normal here on Anesidora actually looked like. He called Boe to leave his daily voicemail. ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking that living on a demon moon made me confused about who I am and what I want to do now,¡± he said in a conversational tone. ¡°Upon reflection, that¡¯s not accurate. What it made me unsure about is long-term career choices.¡± He took a sip from a bottle of blackberry soda. The vending machines in the dorm were free and they had drinks from all over the place. Trying them all was a mini goal. ¡°Honestly,¡± he said, ¡°being a hero sounds so damn horrifying right now. If someone walked into this kitchen and said, ¡®Alden Thorn, run with an injured child on your back for days until you are bloody and broken,¡¯ I think I¡¯d have to ask if the kid was Kibby or not.¡± He split open another soy sauce packet and poured it over what was left of his rice. ¡°I¡¯m not sure it¡¯s in me to do something like that again. To deliberately put myself in a situation where I know I might have to. For her¡ªa thousand times. But maybe not for someone I don¡¯t know.¡± He took a bite and swallowed. ¡°I¡¯m¡­really so disappointed in myself. For not being the person I imagined I was. Was I naive before? Or am I a coward now for not wanting to go through something that terrible again? I don¡¯t know. But I do know who I am at this moment. Better than I thought. And I know what I want to do next.¡± He paused. ¡°Come out of hiding if you want to find out what it is, Boe. Otherwise you can just suffer from your own curiosity. Talk to you tomorrow.¡± He ate the last few bites of his lunch and finished his reading. The first spell in the auriad book was complicated. This wasn¡¯t a wizard kindergarten textbook for sure. He had no way of knowing if it was actually advanced, but it was definitely more advanced than he¡¯d been expecting. She has a lot of faith in my fingers and my authority control, doesn¡¯t she? he thought as he studied the method. When he mastered it, the spell would create a small crushing shape around objects at close range. About the size of an apple. And the things inside it would get very crushed, since it said it could turn ¡°even a stubborn stone¡± into powder. Neat. He tucked the book back in his magic bag and locked it, wincing again at the bite of the id chip against his sore authority. He¡¯d been wondering how secure it really was in there. As far as he knew there wasn¡¯t a population of dorm thieves. But on the off chance that there were, it was going to be hard, bordering on impossible, for Alden to get his hands on another auriad book of this quality if anyone stole it to sell to wizard paraphernalia collectors. ¡°All right, System,¡± he said, shoving his takeout garbage into the trash. ¡°What would it cost to store my magic messenger bag in one of your warehouses?¡± It immediately gave him a list of options, along with prices that frankly hurt. The System warehouses held the Wardrobe items and whatever things other classes could purchase before they were sent out to their new owners. There was tons of stuff for Wrights from what Alden understood. But it didn¡¯t do post-purchase storage for free. And it cost even more to store things that were totally personal and not class-related. Like a bag of books. Over the course of a year, if he had the bag stored and teleported to him on a daily basis, it was going to cost like two hundred grand. But nobody was going to rob the System of its Artonan-made goodies unless they wanted the Triplanets to take an aggressive interest in them. So it was undeniably safe. And convenient. Maybe the bag can¡¯t be stolen at all because of the lock. Maybe it knocks thieves out or attacks them. How do I even figure that out? ¡°Hey, I know you know how my magic bag works,¡± he said to the System hopefully. ¡°And I respect the fact that you don¡¯t usually answer random questions. But since it was a gift from another System, maybe you¡¯ll tell me? Do I even need you for storage?¡± It didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Fine. Be that way.¡± He let the System disappear the bag and the books to one of its overpriced hideaways. Then he left the apartment and headed for the elevators. Halfway down the hall, he passed by a dark-skinned girl with long braids. She was sliding fliers under doors. <> she said, whipping around to hand him a flier. <>You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The System translated the flier for him. It turned out the Rabbit girls in Room 802 had complementary skills, and they had used them to set up their own in-apartment salon. Like Natalie, a lot of people who¡¯d taken the class were business-minded. They were planning on their skills being a big part of their future careers, either here or for the Artonans. Maybe that was why I was a little surprised by the others on the tour. <> said the girl, staring at Alden. <> Alden smiled. ¡°It¡¯s that bad, huh?¡± <> He knew it was. Met-oosa¡¯s party haircut had required wires and gel to look good in the first place. And then it had grown out for months. It was significantly longer in some places than in others. And on top of that, he was growing a ton of new hair thanks to Rrorro. <> she concluded. <> He¡¯d been planning to take care of it eventually. He hadn¡¯t even been here a week yet. ¡°I¡¯ll probably take you up on that.¡± She looked satisfied. He went downstairs to the counselor¡¯s desk. Neha was there with her feet propped up, watching television on an Artonan-made tablet. Like the kind from the lab. Alden hadn¡¯t actually seen anyone else using one on Earth before. ¡°Hey,¡± she said. She spied the flier in his hand, then glanced up at his hair. ¡°Good choice.¡± ¡°Wow. I must be hideous.¡± She snorted. ¡°Of course not. You just look like you ran afoul of some cursed scissors. What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°Goals,¡± he said. ¡°You asked about them. I have some.¡± She sat up straighter. ¡°Do you want to duck into the counselor¡¯s office for a private chat, or¡ª¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s not private. We can schedule something more in-depth for later. I just realized I do have some things I¡¯m already sure about, and you said you usually kept track of peoples¡¯ goals. So I wanted to tell you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m interested. And I¡¯m listening.¡± ¡°I want to spend the next two months living here in intake. I want to get used to life on the island and get to know people. I want to focus on settling in and prepare for what I¡¯m going to do when I leave.¡± Neha set aside her tablet. ¡°I think that¡¯s probably a really wise choice for you.¡± It might have been. But it was also a necessity since he couldn¡¯t really use his powers right now. ¡°After that,¡± he said, ¡°I want to go to school.¡± ¡°You have to go to school,¡± she pointed out. ¡°In some form. We¡¯ve got lots of options. Anesidora is all about keeping new young Avowed in school and out of trouble. And using your time in intake to go through the application process is the norm. What kind of education do you want to pursue?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care which school it is. Or what the program is. As long as they can help me train my body and my mentality to be¡­let¡¯s say stress-resistant. Or even disaster-resistant.¡± It rang true as he said it. It wasn¡¯t a big, bright life goal, like he¡¯d had before. But it was something he actually wanted right now. ¡°And I need talent development. I want them to make me practice the hell out of my skill. I want to get really great at using it. I suspect it has creative applications, but it¡¯s going to take a ton of effort to figure them all out. I could use some help.¡± Neha lifted an eyebrow, but when she spoke it was in the same quick, businesslike tone she usually had. ¡°Okay. That¡¯s a different take from most of our kids. Especially Rabbits. But it¡¯s probably all doable.¡± She paused before adding, ¡°I don¡¯t actually know what your skill is. You don¡¯t have to share your full profile, but to offer the best guidance, it would help to know what kind of power set you have.¡± Alden went to Choose Persona and clicked the share button under his false profile. Neha blinked rapidly as she read through it. ¡°Let Me Take Your Luggage.¡± She glanced up at him. ¡°I see¡­that¡¯s the one that vanished from the B-rank list early this year. No kid ever showed up on the island with it. When you came in, I wondered if it was you.¡± ¡°It vanished?¡± Alden was startled, though he probably shouldn¡¯t have been. Joe had called it ¡°limited edition.¡± He hadn¡¯t thought to read through the Rabbit skill lists since he got back home. ¡°You know it happens. Skills get cycled out. Either the System itself decides they¡¯re not working well for humans, the committees decide they don¡¯t like them, or they were experiments to start with and once someone claims them, the System is supposed to take a wait-and-see approach before releasing them more widely.¡± She shrugged. ¡°Some of them are just one-offs to start with. They¡¯re designed for something really esoteric or special. Sometimes the Triplanets is interested in having something but not having too much of it. There was someone who got S-rank Bridge Wright around the same time you must have gotten this one. You know how old I am, and I¡¯ve never seen that subclass float by. Although in that case, it was a brand new creation, and your skill has been on the Rabbit list for as long as I¡¯ve been reading it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s an object preservation skill.¡± ¡°I see that. I also see that you¡¯re a bit of a badass.¡± ¡°I¡¯m really not.¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m looking at this, and I see three levels gained in six months under presumably shit conditions. Some slightly weird balancing going on between your foundation points and your levels. I guess you had strange options because you leveled without a System around?¡± Among so many other things, thought Alden. ¡°You also really like Dexterity,¡± she noted. ¡°That¡¯s quirky.¡± ¡°Quirky?¡± She smiled. ¡°I don¡¯t mean that as an insult. Quirky is good. I see way too many teens coming in with ¡®ideal builds¡¯ they found somewhere. And they don¡¯t even know what they¡¯re building themselves for. You should pick at least some of your talents because you think they¡¯ll give you joy. Even if you do want to be ¡®disaster-resistant¡¯. You have to remember that you¡¯re living a whole life here, inside your own skin, not designing an unbeatable video game character.¡± ¡°Noted.¡± Actually, extra noted. That seemed like advice he should make an effort to keep in mind. Now that Alden knew what skills cost there was additional pressure not to mess up with his choices. It seemed like it would be easy to reach for practical-sounding powers he hated rather than stuff he actually liked. ¡°Flickerer was a fun choice for an F-rank skill,¡± she mentioned. ¡°I¡¯ve only met a couple of other people with it. It gets overlooked, but temporarily breaking things is unexpectedly useful. Even if it only works on minor enchantments.¡± Alden brightened. ¡°I thought it would be good for that, too!¡± He expected The Bearer of All Burdens to do a much more thorough job than a skill like Flickerer. It ought to lift any enchantment the skill was strong enough to support, not just minor ones. But it was nice to have confirmation that people found a similar skill useful. ¡°Do you know if your skill preserves living things?¡± ¡°It does.¡± ¡°No damage?¡± ¡°Zero.¡± ¡°How long?¡± ¡°It depends on the thing.¡± ¡°People?¡± Alden stopped himself from saying ¡°days." ¡°A few hours. I have to carry them though, so small people are better.¡± Neha smiled. ¡°All right. Got it. You want to get your bearings for around two months and get your applications done during that time, and then you want to head off to a school where they make you get creative and ¡®use the hell¡¯ out of that power.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°It sounds like you do indeed have goals. I will think about these things, call some people, and come up with ideas for you to consider.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± He turned to go. Before he¡¯d taken two steps, the Rabbit counselor said, ¡°You could have just specified that you wanted to go to a high school with a hero training course, but you didn¡¯t. Is that because that option is off the table for you?¡± ¡°No,¡± Alden said, staring at his blurred reflection in the elevator doors. ¡°If the hero prep schools in Apex are the best places to help me level up my skill and gain survival know-how, it¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°So you did know those were the places most likely to match your goals then?¡± ¡°I thought they might be.¡± ¡°All right. I ask because the culture in those is pretty unique. They¡¯re hard on B-ranks. And on <>. And I don¡¯t mean the coursework, though that¡¯s incredibly tough, too.¡± Alden glanced back at her. She was resting her chin on a hand. ¡°I don¡¯t have to burst this particular bubble very often because Rabbits tend not to be big fans. But superheroes are¡­hmmmm¡­how to put it?¡­let¡¯s say half of them are focused on the hero part. And half of them are focused on the super part. The ones in the first group are very nice people. The ones in the second are some of the most obnoxious on Earth. Personally, I find both types difficult to take in large doses.¡± He considered it. ¡°You think half are in it for the glory?¡± ¡°The siren song of celebrity doesn¡¯t skip over Avowed. If anything, it¡¯s the opposite. And frankly the whole superhero concept is built on an unwholesome mix of necessity¡ªthanks to the existence of superhuman criminals¡ªand pandering. Every major city has to have its pretty little mascot team because people love watching them.¡± ¡°I understand that.¡± She nodded. ¡°Then let me tread on your dreams just a little more. Even the good ones have their flaws. It¡¯s usually a particular kind of personality that goes to superhero school, even for the right reasons. If you don¡¯t fit the type¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t expect people to be perfect,¡± Alden said, surprised she was making such a point of it. ¡°And right now I¡¯m just looking for a place to teach me the stuff I need to know.¡± ¡°Okay. I¡¯m only telling you because¡­the hero programs are the best at the things you just asked me for. The training portion of becoming a hero is hardcore, and it¡¯s impossible to deny that the programs are excellent at pumping out more powerful Avowed. So, unless you want to go to arts school to become a professional gymnast¡ª¡± ¡°A what?¡± Alden couldn¡¯t hold back a laugh. ¡°Hey, I see these specs for balance and agility, and you want to work on your body and your mentality¡­have you ever met gymnasts? Super gymnasts? I¡¯m teasing you because it¡¯s really a career for Brutes. But you say, ¡®Stress me out bad, Neha,¡¯ and I think of those guys.¡± ¡°I said I want to be more stress-resistant,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s the same thing.¡± She gave him a smile. ¡°And lucky for you, you will have plenty of stress if you end up at hero prep school. Because I think you will find many of your classmates, and perhaps even a few of the more unprofessional instructors, will be inhospitable to you.¡± Alden considered it. ¡°Do you even think the really good schools will let me in?¡± ¡°The ones in Apex? They¡¯ll let you in.¡± ¡°I know they don¡¯t accept many B-ranks.¡± ¡°I assume you would want Celena North''s feeder high school?¡± she said. ¡°Unless you¡¯re ready to jump up to college, and I don¡¯t recommend that. The college and high school hero courses are well connected anyway, and for that kind of program in particular it¡¯s better to stick with Avowed of your own age group. Especially if you¡¯re weaker than them.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind going to the other schools. It¡¯s just nice that Celena North classes are mostly in English. Subtitles are fine, but¡­you know.¡± She nodded. ¡°Hard to deal with. Especially when you¡¯ve got groups talking over each other. Or when speed or nuance is important. CNH caps annual B-rank acceptances at 25% for most programs, but for their hero course they cap it at a generous¡ª¡± she drumrolled her hands on the desk ¡°¡ª5%.¡± ¡°Oh, okay. I¡¯m never getting in. I¡¯m a Rabbit.¡± ¡°I was wondering if you knew that. But they¡¯ll let you in. Like I said, you¡¯re secretly a badass.¡± ¡°Because of the three levels?¡± ¡°Those are very impressive, but probably not impressive enough under normal circumstances for a Rabbit. The thing about our class is that it¡¯s a choice. Everyone knows you wanted it when you got it because it¡¯s easy to trade out of. Picking it tells the world you prioritize certain things. None of those things dovetail well with superhero work. Or even superhero school.¡± ¡°Right. The timers. And summons frequency. But I do have eight months off. And vacation days on top of it. And some refusals.¡± ¡°Nice break. Please make good use of it, and take care of yourself. After that¡­your school will just have to suck it up and deal with it. Because someone important gave you a star.¡± ¡°The commendation?¡± Alden frowned. ¡°That doesn¡¯t really have anything to do with school.¡± She arched her brows at him. ¡°The commendation for bravery from Numero Cuatro doesn¡¯t have anything to do with getting into a hero program?¡± ¡°Did...did you just call Knight Alis-art¡¯h ¡®Numero Cuatro?¡¯¡± ¡°The System translations for their¡­I don¡¯t know what to call them¡ªextra special champions against chaos¡ªget pretty ridiculous. I just use what I like in the moment. I¡¯ve seen a few of them from a distance at events. Never met one face to face, though. You can bet I¡¯ll use my proper Artonan terminology if I do.¡± She was giving him a very curious look. ¡°Oh,¡± he said, after realizing she wanted juicy details. ¡°She was nice to me. They all were. I think.¡± ¡°All? How did you manage to encounter multiple Numeros in one half year session? I do understand it was a bad session. But I¡¯ve spent longer on the Triplanets than just about any human you will ever meet, except for the people who¡¯ve literally moved there. Seeing one is like sighting an endangered animal. All the other wizards in the room get odd.¡± Alden scanned her face, trying to figure out if she knew why the other wizards got odd. ¡°Well, they are really powerful, right?¡± he said finally. ¡°So I¡¯ve heard. I have suspicions about them, but that¡¯s all. I think wizards are socially¡ªhell, maybe even magically¡ªobligated to keep silent about them outside their own class. Even teenagers will clam up if you start prying. And the regular Artonans I¡¯ve asked seem to regard them as a separate, higher class of wizards. ¡°But just between you and me, I¡¯ve always suspected that the Triplanets saved the really good talents for themselves. Why wouldn¡¯t they? I don¡¯t know why wizards don¡¯t all affix something, but I assume it has to do with limiting who gets access to additional power. Whatever oaths the Numbered Ones have to swear are probably so restrictive that they exclude most of the species.¡± Ah. So she¡­didn¡¯t know. Not really. Alden was just guessing, but he suspected the oaths themselves weren¡¯t that bad. And it was just the other thing that kept people from signing up for knighthood. Because it was bad enough. He found he felt no need to clarify. Instead he said, ¡°I guess I was lucky? I actually met a couple of them even before everything went wrong.¡± It did feel really good to talk casually with someone about Artonan stuff. He hadn¡¯t realized he¡¯d be able to. With most people in the dorms, it would be like talking about a study abroad trip you¡¯d taken to a country they knew nothing about. ¡°They were at a party,¡± he said. ¡°At LeafSong University. It¡¯s on Artona III.¡± ¡°Gotta love a Triplanets party. Also¡­sweet job. That¡¯s literally their second best wizarding university. They rank schools with absurd seriousness, just like they do everything else. The first is on the Mother. LeafSong supposedly has a better climate.¡± ¡°It has a terrible climate.¡± ¡°For them,¡± Neha clarified. ¡°I sweat so much,¡± Alden said, leaning over the desk. ¡°Like, there was not enough antiperspirant. I kept wondering why the hell it didn¡¯t bother them that their human staff were all disgusting and dripping on their stuff.¡± She cackled. ¡°It was ninety degrees Fahrenheit!¡± he exclaimed. ¡°All. The. Time. The human dorm was air conditioned, but it reeked of body odor from peoples¡¯ unwashed laundry.¡± She kept laughing. ¡°The outfit I had to wear to do lab work was a full-length leather coat.¡± ¡°Oh my god, kid,¡± she said, wiping her eyes. ¡°Stop, stop! You¡¯ll get me started on some of mine.¡± ¡°How do you not melt?¡± he demanded. ¡°I need you to tell me. You¡¯re my Rabbit elder. It¡¯s basic survival skills.¡± ¡°You¡­you¡­¡± She snorted. A couple of guys stepping off the elevator gave the two of them a strange look before they headed down the hall. ¡°You have to suck up to a wizard who likes enchanting. Give them all of your clothes, and have them put cooling spells on them. It will save you. From pit sweat. And rashes.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden. ¡°Since we¡¯re talking about this¡­what is with all the drugs?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t do them.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t do drugs. Normally. But you get there, and they¡¯re like, ¡®Here¡¯s a pill, human. And here¡¯s another pill. And here¡¯s a shot in your jugular. And here¡¯s a dozen shots to fix what that first shot did to you.¡¯¡± ¡°They actually have substance abuse problems,¡± she said. ¡°Seriously. It¡¯s a big issue for the wizard class. But they have to learn all of the magic chemical stuff for school so none of the ingredients are illegal. And they just really like making and taking potions themselves. And they want to share.¡± Alden cleared his throat and whispered, ¡°Also, I wanted to report it after reading my legal guide, but I didn¡¯t know who to tell. I think maybe I committed a crime by bringing a piece of gum back with me.¡± She blinked. ¡°That would depend on what kind of gum it was,¡± she whispered back. ¡°Some kind of sensory sharing stuff. They gave it to me at the party.¡± ¡°Oh. That kind¡¯s actually not illegal. You can keep it.¡± ¡°At first I thought it might be useful for combat training or something¡­¡± ¡°No,¡± she said. ¡°No?¡± ¡°Nope.¡± She was still whispering. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. But as your Welcome to Avowed Life counselor, I have to ask before you make some kind of mistake¡­you know what that gum is designed for, right?¡± ¡°Sharing senses?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± She stared at him. He stared back. And, very belatedly, he remembered certain implications that had been made by Joe the first time he¡¯d asked about the gum. ¡°Um¡­so. That was indicated to me. By someone. A girl wanted to eat appetizers with me? I just thought it was one of many possible functions¡ª¡± ¡°Maybe? But if someone of an appropriate age gave you that, they were hitting on you. Trading that gum is junior wizard flirting.¡± She was keeping her expression professionally blank. ¡°I¡¯m just trying to make sure you know, for future reference, that appetizers plus gum is a lot more suggestive than it would be at a human party.¡± ¡°Shit. I just¡­now I have to go to my apartment and crawl under the sofa and die.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t feel embarrassed,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s a totally reasonable point of ignorance. And when you get done dying, please note that there are some educational courses about that kind of thing you can take for credit. Gustavo teaches them with one of our other counselors. They try to keep it lighthearted.¡± ¡°I¡¯d rather not.¡± ¡°Suit yourself. But if you don¡¯t take them here, they just make you take them as part of high school orientation.¡± She paused. ¡°Welcome back to Earth. Think of it as our special way of making sure you don¡¯t get too comfortable here.¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± said Alden. ¡°I will never ever forget this conversation. Unfortunately. And you¡¯re going to live forever and remember how dumb I am eternally. So¡­yeah.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve already forgotten it.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t even know what you¡¯re thanking me for.¡± SIXTY-EIGHT: The Warren Alden enjoyed a week of peace and anonymity before he chose to bite the bullet and attend a Meet the New Residents event. The neighbors were getting interested in him. Natalie Choir was worried he¡¯d been left out because an apartment full of new Rabbit boys was being filled on the floor below. Her roommates had been hinting that they wanted access to the coffee machine. And the guys in 912 had invited him over to hang out with them tomorrow and ¡°watch our rock garden do something,¡± which they promised would be worth it. Frankly he was so curious about that one that there was no way he was going to miss out. He was sure it was only a matter of time before his story went viral through intake. Lying sleepless in bed the night before the meet and greet, he¡¯d decided it would be better to pick the moment himself, so he could take control of the narrative before it came out as a gossip-generated mutant that was even worse than the real thing. This is for the best¡­and what can a rock garden even do? he thought as he entered the crowded lecture room where the event was being held. It was decorated with neon-colored paper chains, and there was a table with drinks. It was an optional event and purely social, so pretty much everyone who¡¯d come was in friend-making mode. He grabbed a plastic cup full of pineapple punch and a seat. There was a counselor from the Brute tower chilling in a corner, but other than standing and letting everyone know that it was time for newcomers to start going up to the lectern at the front of the room, he didn¡¯t have much to do. Alden listened to a dozen different people talk about themselves. A D-rank Life Shaper focused on her hobbies. An A-rank Adjuster told everyone that he was planning to specialize in fire spells and attend a hero program at Li Jean Academy starting in a few weeks. There was lots of clapping and cheering. Everyone was thrilled to share the story of how they became an Avowed. It started to get really relaxed, and of course people were showing off their new powers. All right, Alden thought, standing up during a slight lull. Get the job done. Don¡¯t completely ruin the tone. How hard can it be? He walked up to the lectern with his drink and took in the hundred or so people in the room. Faces around his own age from every corner of the globe looked back at him. The fact that he now lived in a place with people from all over the planet was astounding, and he still hadn¡¯t gotten used to it. ¡°Hi,¡± he said, ¡°I¡¯m Alden. I¡¯m a B-rank Rabbit. I got selected back in February.¡± A few of them looked confused, probably because that was too far back for him not to be at least a minor criminal. ¡°I actually got summoned for the first time right after I¡¯d finalized my talent selection¡ª¡± Several people clapped. A Brute shouted encouragements. Alden had known that they would be excited. It was considered cool to already have a summoning under your belt before you even hit the island. He tried not to feel awkward. He tried not to be awkward. ¡°Yeah,¡± he said, taking a sip from his drink. ¡°Thanks. It was a good first job. Lab assistant work. Ten days. At this really swanky wizard school. I made some money. I made friends with a griveck.¡± Everyone laughed. ¡°No I really did. She¡¯s great. I called her last night, and she was so excited. She said she¡¯d kill something in my honor.¡± They laughed again. Well, I guess it¡¯s hard to understand if you weren¡¯t there. Alden had even toned it down for them. Sophie had actually been in the process of stalking her dinner when she answered his call, which was the most expensive one he¡¯d ever made. Apparently Earth to Sreeeakk was extreme magical long distance. She¡¯d said she would chase her prey more slowly to prolong its death and celebrate his return to life. ¡°Anyway, I got an additional quest while I was there¡ª¡± <> Alden smiled. ¡°And there was an accident when I teleported to Moon Thegund. It¡¯s in the Artona I system. It has¡­not much on it. I got stuck there for a while. More than half a year. Because the System broke due to a minor chaos incident.¡± People were still grinning, but in an uncomfortable way now. Like they weren¡¯t sure if he was being serious or not. Mentioning the demons would be too high drama, right? Alden thought it would be. He was trying to keep the story true-ish but not so detailed or grim that everyone would be desperate to hear more about it. It was hard. The Brute intake counselor was giving him a super concerned look and air typing, which made Alden think he might be texting Neha to ask what the new Rabbit boy¡¯s deal was. ¡°Since the System was broken, I couldn¡¯t teleport back home. So I lived in a vault in an abandoned laboratory to protect myself from the corruption. I spent most of my time studying Artonan. I speak it now. Pretty well. And I thought it would be interesting to prove it by finishing my introduction in that language.¡± This was a completely spur of the moment decision. Because everyone else had been finishing by showing off their powers in some way. And Alden would rather be filleted with a spoon. <> Alden blinked. He had his translator set to show him what the English-speakers in the room were seeing when he talked to make sure it wasn¡¯t coming out wrong. He hadn¡¯t expected the System to translate the word he¡¯d used for ¡°moon¡± so literally. <<¡ªI gave the gift of my life¡¯s time to observing the Trials and Discoveries of The Goodchild Klee-pak with an Artonan friend, and I nurtured the fruit of the ground in a greenhouse.>> What the hell, Earth System? thought Alden, staring at the translation. Are you playing with me right now? Yes. That was technically what he was saying. But that wasn¡¯t what it sounded like in Artonan. It was somehow coming across as both stiff and kooky, but it was really everyday talk. The Artonans could lay both of their feet on the gas of the poetic formal when they wanted to. This was not it. He started deliberately dodging the words he thought would come out the worst, and went on. <> That one was probably my bad. There were a lot of synonyms for preservation. It was hard to pick the right one. <> he clarified. ¡°Uh¡­well, I guess I¡¯m not quite as good as I think, since I can¡¯t make the words come out right. It¡¯s just a preservation skill. It freezes objects I hold, and it keeps them safe.¡± He took another sip from his drink. ¡°I would rather not show it off. I had to use it a lot on Moon Thegund, and I¡¯m kind of taking it easy on things that remind me of that place. Therapist¡¯s orders.¡± It wasn¡¯t. But it sounded like something she might have wanted him to do. And what else was he supposed to say? The second best idea he¡¯d come up with was telling them all that he was abstaining from power usage right now because he¡¯d missed his chance to do it during Lent. Got all the hard parts out. Time to prove I am totally normal by finishing with something less serious. ¡°I think I might be really good at pinball. My apartment has a machine in it. Feel free to text if you want to come use it some time.¡± Done. Nobody was clapping like they had for everyone else. Which seemed unfair really. Alden had spoken a foreign language. And revealed work experience. And friendships with multiple species. He felt he deserved at least a small round of applause. ********** Alden got lots more attention than he wanted after that. But not so much that it was impossible to deal with. He attended events occasionally and acted as boring as he could when people peppered him with questions. There were a lot of other interesting Avowed in the dorms. For example, S-ranks tended to attract stares just by being around. And one of the Brutes who¡¯d come in recently was a famous child actor. Alden hoped his story would fade into the background given a little more time. Being a human around other humans again wasn¡¯t as hard as he¡¯d feared it would be. And it definitely wasn¡¯t bad. But it made him aware, on a daily basis, of the fact that he was different from who he had been in subtle ways. He was more easily annoyed now¡ªsnappish by his own standards even if he didn¡¯t think he¡¯d hurt anyone¡¯s feelings badly yet. It could just have been his lack of sleep and constant discomfort taking a toll, but he was working on reining it in anyway. He¡¯d always considered himself fairly easy-going, and he¡¯d liked that about himself. He wanted it back. Other changes didn¡¯t trouble him as much; they just left him confused. Crowds were different now. The noise bothered him. People bumping into him didn¡¯t at all. It was the reverse of his previous feelings, and he didn¡¯t understand what psychological processes could have made it happen. He cared a little less what people thought of him. He cared a lot more about his own physical comfort. The last fact amused him to no end once he realized it was an actual phenomenon he was experiencing. Alden was now someone who actively appreciated cozy sweaters and perfect temperatures and pleasant smells. It wasn¡¯t like he¡¯d completely ignored those things in the past, but he¡¯d definitely never been a person who could just sit around enjoying the fact that he had on a warm pair of socks.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. It wasn¡¯t even some emotional, grateful-to-be-alive thing as far as he could tell. It was just that the nice socks really felt nicer than they had before. And cinnamon smelled better. And colors looked more striking. He didn¡¯t know what to blame for it. Maybe his long stretch of deprivation and discomfort had sensitized him? Maybe Rrorro¡¯s healing sessions had done something to him? Maybe it was because physical pleasure was now always contrasted with metaphysical pain? Whatever it was, it was fun. He could make himself noticeably happier by digging his toes into a plush rug. And so far he hadn¡¯t gotten tired of it. He was also more introverted than he¡¯d been previously. He¡¯d never been the life of the party, or wanted to be, but he was quiet enough in groups now that people had begun to mistake it for actual shyness. Which was working out surprisingly well for him in this setting. Alden lived in the part of the dorms affectionately called The Warren, surrounded by Rabbits. And a lot of Rabbits were empathizers. They liked their Appeal points, they took extras, and plenty of them hadn¡¯t denied the System permission to include the personality alterations. They almost all wanted to be friendly, cute, and social. Being ¡°the shy one¡± on Team Rabbit was triggering a lot of outreach and inclusion efforts from people who were unnaturally good at reaching out and including. He got a haircut from the girl downstairs. It was shorter and more even¡ªa definite improvement¡ªbut it still looked more tousled than he¡¯d expected. She informed him that since he wasn¡¯t going to be getting summoned for a long while, it was magically designed to maximize his features according to average human tastes. She could choose between making her clients appealing to humanity or the Artonans. He was supposed to return for a trim every two weeks if he wanted to stay perfected. One of the hair stylist¡¯s roommates did makeup and had tried to interest Alden in under-eye concealer, but he¡¯d refused. The hair was enough. He¡¯d just wear his new insomnia-chic look with pride. Meanwhile, the guys in 912 kept finding new excuses to invite him over even though the rock garden was in its dormant cycle. The ¡°garden¡± was actually a see-through table, full of what appeared to be colorful rocks in a bed of sand. They were in fact alien lifeforms that were popular decorative elements on the Triplanets. Every few days they woke up, sprouted legs, and sort of gently did battle with each other for desirable new positions in their habitat. Lots of Rabbits came when it was wake-up day and ate takeout and placed argold bets on which of the rock creatures would come out on top. Having money to blow, even if it was just the standard stipend for most of them, was novel for many kids in the dorms. And Rabbits liked money a little extra anyway. It was supposed to be one of their class benefits, after all. Gambling was popular. What Alden had lost betting on a sleepy blue rock, he made back by defeating people at pinball. Except for his new nemesis¡ªa C-rank speedster girl from the Brute tower who was on a mission to crush all the non-high ranks in intake at their favorite games with her stupidly fast reflexes. She kept beating him. But he was gaining ground. She was very confused about it. Most people didn¡¯t have their hands specifically overclocked unless they were something like a Meister who played musical instruments. Alden hadn¡¯t told her that his were enhanced. If all of that wasn¡¯t enough to keep him busy, the girls across the hall seemed to have adopted him as an honorary roommate. It was a rare honor since Natalie¡¯s friends expended a lot of energy keeping people away from their overly appealing, S-rank kitchen goddess. He wasn¡¯t sure if they were protecting her or monopolizing her services, but she seemed happy. And they brought breakfast over every morning in exchange for coffee access, so he wasn¡¯t going to complain. Even with his new fascination with tastes and smells, he hadn¡¯t quite gotten to the point where he started weeping over freshly made beignets. But he could see it coming when Natalie leveled up a bit more. She was seriously focused on leveling already. She wanted to max out Cook of the Moment and add on some sub skills that would help her tailor her meals to be perfectly nutritious for her clients. One day, she was going to be the universe¡¯s best personal chef. ¡°You know you¡¯re building yourself into someone who will basically always be working for the Artonans, right?¡± Alden asked on the fifth morning after his self-intro speech. He was making everyone¡¯s coffee order while one of Natalie¡¯s roommates rearranged the furniture in the living area¡ªTailor Environment was as popular as ever among the C-ranks¡ªand Natalie herself scooped porridge into bowls and started adding toppings. ¡°I know,¡± Natalie said cheerfully. ¡°It¡¯s going to be so exciting to see other planets!¡± An F-rank girl named Emilija was leaning on the counter waiting for Alden to finish his first-ever attempt at latte art. She glanced between the two of them. <> ¡°No, it¡¯s¡ª¡± Natalie gasped in horror. ¡°That was so inconsiderate of me. Oh my god. I didn¡¯t even think.¡± The other two roommates were listening curiously. ¡°It¡¯s really fine,¡± said Alden, watching a barista pour frothed milk through his interface and trying to mimic the motions. ¡°Seeing other planets is exciting. I don¡¯t have a phobia about leaving Earth again or anything.¡± He didn¡¯t think he did anyway. He would definitely feel differently if someone summoned him to Moon Thegund, but everywhere else would probably be okay. Once he¡¯d had enough time off. <> Emilija asked. <> Alden felt himself freeze. It hadn¡¯t occurred to him that his story might have upset people in that way. But of course it had. Especially the Rabbits. Some of them were already being summoned occasionally. Even more of them would be before their first few months as an Avowed were over. He looked around at the four girls. ¡°Have none of you been summoned yet? Not even you, Natalie?¡± <> <> ¡°S-ranks are more expensive, and people who can afford a Cook of the Moment for special occasions actually want one with experience,¡± said Natalie. ¡°Because I¡¯ll get a lot better at it once I master ingredients. But that¡¯s really hard, since I don¡¯t even know what the ingredients on the Triplanets are. After I have a few more months of practice here on Earth, I¡¯ll turn on a special option called ¡®volunteer.¡¯ It¡¯ll get me half-priced job offers from people who wouldn¡¯t normally be able to hire an S, so I can start building my social reputation and figuring out how the kitchens work over there.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t realize there was so much to it,¡± said Alden. ¡°But my skill isn¡¯t artsy. It was pretty useful right out of the box, so it makes sense that there would be a difference.¡± <> the girl with Tailor Environment said while she carefully pinched the corners of a throw pillow into sharp points. <> She looked embarrassed. <> ¡°No, it¡¯s normal,¡± said Alden, sliding Emilija the latte. It didn¡¯t look half bad in his opinion. ¡°They don¡¯t have any sex-specific names, hair styles, or clothes. I can almost always tell with adults, but with kids I¡¯m completely clueless. They don¡¯t care if an alien gets it wrong, though. Most of the time they don¡¯t even bother to correct you.¡± <> Emilija asked. Alden considered the question. Were they nice to you? He tried to remember how he¡¯d felt that first day¡ªwhat he¡¯d expected and feared versus what he¡¯d actually experienced. Apparently he pondered for a little too long, because all the girls got really quiet. ¡°Sorry,¡± he said, ¡°I met a lot of Artonans during my main job at the college helping with the entrance exams. Not the one that went wrong. So I was taking a minute to think it all through and give you a real answer. They¡¯re just people. Some of them are terrible. Some of them are great. Most are somewhere in between. The difficult thing is¡­¡± <> ¡°It¡¯s the power dynamic,¡± he said finally. ¡°I was freaked out by it for the first few days. You can say no to things. Even things that aren¡¯t covered by all the specifics in the human morality rules. From what I¡¯ve seen, most Artonans aren¡¯t lunatics who are going to force you to do some unimportant errand if you make it clear that you have a real problem with it. But it is an alien culture and they''re in charge¡­it was stressful to know that seriously refusing to do something was going to be way harder and more complicated than it would be in most situations on Earth.¡± ¡°Did you have to refuse an assignment?¡± Natalie asked, sounding appalled. He looked over at her. She was holding the serving spoon in the air and letting the porridge she¡¯d made drip on the floor. ¡°I should clarify that my skill is unusual for a Rabbit,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s good for medical emergencies. And carrying things that are on the verge of exploding.¡± <> <> ¡°Potentially. So I¡¯m more likely to have assignments where refusing is something I would want to do more and be able to do less. Or not at all. Because, you know, emergency stuff. I might just be oversensitive to it. And I did have to refuse one. I had to call a wizard to bail me out when some of the students asked me to do something that was basically impossible.¡± ¡°What was it?¡± ¡°Mmm¡­it¡¯s a secret,¡± said Alden. ¡°Because they were stupid, and they embarrassed themselves. And they have really important families.¡± <> ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m just not interested in pissing off potential future summoners.¡± He briefly considered telling them he did have a contract tattoo for another reason but decided against it. Rabbits mostly seemed to fall into the camp of Avowed who thought they were cool, but some people were weird about them. ¡°Okay,¡± Natalie said ten minutes later while they were all polishing off their insanely delicious breakfast. ¡°So, the most important question¡­Alden, they gave you a lot of money right?¡± <> <> <> ¡°I don¡¯t mean I want you to tell me what your pay was,¡± Natalie said quickly. ¡°I mean you got enough to go ahead and do it in October, right? The Spree?¡± ¡°¡­that¡¯s the shopping thing, isn¡¯t it?¡± <> <> <> <> Alden raised his eyebrows at Emilija. <> <> <> ¡°I haven¡¯t been summoned yet,¡± Natalie said. ¡°But I¡¯ve been selling meals to lots of people, and I¡¯ve made enough that I should be able to do it in a few weeks. You could participate, too, right?¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­like a horrible rich person conspicuous consumption thing?¡± Alden said doubtfully. ¡°Yes,¡± said Natalie. <> <> <> ¡°How much do I have to spend to do it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a five thousand argold minimum to officially be part of the Spree,¡± said Natalie. ¡°I¡¯ll think about it. It doesn¡¯t really sound like me.¡± <> Emilija whispered. <> ¡°I¡¯m buying a new wardrobe and changing my clothes every hour,¡± said Natalie. ¡°I wanted kitchen equipment, but it¡¯s not conspicuous enough. I can¡¯t carry around a two thousand dollar mixer all day without looking like a crazy person.¡± They were all staring at him expectantly. I guess if I could think of something practical? ¡°I¡¯ll think about it,¡± he said noncommittally. SIXTY-NINE: A Busy Rabbit Just as his second week on Anesidora came to an end, Alden had an hour-long planning session with Neha. He met her in the counselors¡¯ shared office space after breakfast one morning. It was just one of the apartments, with the beds in the rooms replaced by desks. ¡°I have organized your next couple of weeks for you,¡± Neha said, slurping from a coffee mug and sliding a binder full of papers with colored tabs across the desk to him. ¡°It would cost you a fortune if you were a wizard, so you¡¯re welcome.¡± She smiled as he took the binder. ¡°I¡¯m also sending you a copy through the System. But paper has its charms.¡± ¡°You¡¯re an organizer?¡± ¡°I¡¯m a lot of things at my age,¡± she said. ¡°Not your average slouch who never actually developed their powers. But my most valuable skill combo from a work standpoint is the C-rank skill Day Planner plus my original S-rank, Locate Resources.¡± ¡°I can tell from the name that the last one is overpowered,¡± said Alden. He wasn¡¯t surprised she was an S. Having enough money to be immortal implied she was high ranked at least. ¡°It is,¡± said Neha. ¡°But it¡¯s not flashy.¡± She tapped her temple with a green-polished fingernail. ¡°All up in here when I¡¯m using it, like a string of magically generated Aha! moments. People are never as impressed by subtle talents as they should be. Combine it with a couple of add-ons that help me interpret a summoner¡¯s tastes and a bunch of little spell impressions that do things like this¡ª¡± She made a series of swift and flawless hand-casting gestures, and all the junk on the desk aligned itself at right angles with the edges. ¡°¡ªand you have asuper PA.¡± ¡°Cool.¡± ¡°That¡¯s nice. You sounded sincere when you said that.¡± ¡°Hanging out with so many Rabbits has given me a new appreciation for their skills. Most of them are useful every single day. A lot of Avowed talents look awesome, but¡­how often do you really need to be able to dig a trench with your brain? Or create a tidal wave? Or incinerate something in an instant? ¡± ¡°You realize you¡¯re a Rabbit, too, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I feel like this is something I need to remind you of on the regular. It¡¯s been five or six years since I met a Rabbit kid who wanted superhero training. And then we had to have a long talk about how only grivecks would try to turn a skill designed for dust removal into a battle thing. Check out the plan I¡¯ve made for you. Let¡¯s talk it through and figure out what you might want to change.¡± Alden opened the binder curiously. The top pages were detailed, daily suggested schedules. Each one had a color-coded dot at the top corner, and when he turned to the corresponding tab, he found print-outs of additional information for each day. His first thought was that Neha had gone overboard. He didn¡¯t want to be this heavily committed to a point-by-point plan. But the more he read the plan, the more he realized how ideal it was. There were blocks of free time scheduled, so it wasn¡¯t as tight as it looked, and the things she¡¯d chosen to include were all exactly what he needed to be doing right now if he wanted to head to school in Apex in a couple of months. She¡¯d taken everything into consideration, from his high school academic record to his stated desire not to use his skill at the moment. She¡¯d even included some odd-hours tasks that implied she knew he tended to be up at three o¡¯clock in the morning. Gustavo must have told her. Alden had been wandering the halls a lot, and he and the night counselor had talked a few times. ¡°This is perfect,¡± he said finally. ¡°I know.¡± ¡°You¡¯re unbelievable.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve already scheduled all these meetings and things for me?¡± ¡°Yes. Except for the ones that specifically say you should do it yourself.¡± So confident. If she¡¯d been wrong about him wanting to do all of this, wouldn¡¯t she have had to call a ton of people and cancel on them? ¡°Thank you.¡± She nodded. ¡°Don¡¯t feel locked in, Alden. I¡¯ve put all the things that will help you figure out if you¡¯re really sure about your decision to attend Celena North High¡¯s hero training track on the first week. If you have a change of heart, we¡¯ll just brainstorm something new.¡± ¡°I get it.¡± He checked the time and his new schedule. ¡°And¡­apparently I need to get going. I have academic placement tests to take.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t flunk.¡± ¡°I mean I¡¯ll try. It¡¯s been a while since I was in a normal classroom.¡± *********** Placement testing was happening today at the main high school in F-city. A steady influx of teenagers with different educational backgrounds meant it was a frequent occurrence. Alden caught a city bus from the stop nearest the intake dorms. Franklin High was so large that when the bus put him out, he had to wait with a pack of other test-takers for a campus shuttle to take them to the building that housed the testing facility. When he finally arrived, he followed a stream of other students¡ªpeople from intake and island-born kids both¡ªinto a space that filled an entire upper floor of the building. It was one of the most alien-looking places Alden had seen on Earth. A low-ceilinged, black-walled, windowless room with individual student desks each placed in the center of their own large square floor tiles. One of the two room monitors just waved everyone in and told them to sit wherever they liked. Alden took a seat between two other guys who looked nervous. It really isn¡¯t an inviting place, he thought. They could have added some motivational posters or something. If not for the fact that some people were chatting and laughing, the room would have been creepy. The official testing day started at ten AM, and five minutes before that, everyone in the room received a notification. It was a System-moderated contract that had to be signed, saying you agreed to have all of your internet and communications features cut off while you were being tested. Re-activation of them would be reported to the monitors and result in an automatic fail. As soon as Alden agreed, his floor tile lit up around the edges, and the sound of the other students talking and asking questions cut out. Magical silencing. That¡¯s new. A list of tests he could request appeared on his interface, along with the time each one would take to complete. Neha¡¯s schedule had already told him which ones he was supposed to pick. He started with the basic placement testing, answered a few starter questions about special needs and how advanced he considered himself to be in various subjects, and chose the tablet option when it asked how he wanted to take his tests today. His other options were through his interface or using pencil and paper. A drone of the small rolling box variety came to him and delivered a tablet, stylus, and bottled water. ¡°Let¡¯s see if that boost to processing has started doing me any favors yet,¡± Alden said as the tablet switched on and a basic algebra problem appeared on the screen. Math was good. He got through all the subtests that Neha had recommended quickly enough. He blew through the most advanced level of the reading comprehension test in half an hour. Then he got to science and decided he hated the American public education system. Oh, so I¡¯m clueless, he thought, reading through the first ten questions. I am a clueless person, and I didn¡¯t even know it. He looked around at his fellow teens, all focused on their own tests¡­or crying over them. Are they seriously teaching high schoolers astrophysics in other countries? Am I really supposed to know the atomic weight of all these elements off the top of my head? ¡°Listen test,¡± he said, ¡°why don¡¯t you ask me what mitochondria do? Let¡¯s talk about photosynthesis. Or even anatomy. I¡¯m pretty sure I know where my major organs all are.¡± He successfully answered about ten percent of the questions. Maybe ten percent is a good score here? He doubted it. Darn Anesidora designer babies, with their top-notch middle school science classes, ruining things for everyone else. He gave his tablet back to the drone after that and took a late lunch break. Then he returned for Spanish and Artonan language testing. Fortunately, the latter was divided into oral and written. He had a long conversation with a cartoon ryeh-b¡¯t character on the tablet for the first, and then he limped his way through the Beginner I and Beginner II levels of logograms before admitting defeat. It didn¡¯t ask me any logograms for magic-related words. I¡¯d have done better with those. He¡¯d been studying his auriad book every day. He finished his testing in the evening, long after most of the other people in the room had cleared out. He assumed they were breaking theirs up over multiple weeks, but Alden¡¯s new super schedule called for him getting it all out of the way at once. He stretched, cracked his knuckles, and headed out. Before he¡¯d even made it back to the bus stop, he¡¯d received automated messages from every high school on the island, letting him know if he¡¯d tested well enough for their various programs and what Year/Quarter level he¡¯d be assigned to if he completed other entrance requirements. It was interesting to see the differences. Most Anesidoran high schools were set up as three-year programs that operated year-round. Classes usually took place on a quarter schedule, with students needing to earn a certain number of credits to graduate by the end of their three years. Depending on how flexible the school was, you could speed things up a little by stuffing your quarters with more classes or by attending all four quarters every year and not taking off the one they anticipated you using for a break. If Alden wanted to pursue a science track program he could, but he was going to be a Y1Q1 or Q2 depending on the school. But if he wanted to be a general studies student here at Franklin High, he could start as a Y3Q1. Basically a beginning Sophomore for science tracks and a beginning Senior if I¡¯m just cruising through without focusing on anything at all, he thought, translating it into terms he was more familiar with. He checked Celena North High¡¯s hero track. It said Y1Q2, which was as good as he could have expected really. Their credit requirements were higher per quarter because of the extra hero coursework. Alden would get to skip a few classes, and at least he¡¯d met their basic academic standards for entry. There was a big fat list of other requirements he¡¯d have to meet and tests he¡¯d have to take, though. Physical testing. Multiple interviews. And if he made it to the end of the admissions cycle¡­power and combat assessments. Gonna be a busy Rabbit. *********** ¡°I think even you might have failed the science section, Boe. And now that you¡¯re a high school dropout, I¡¯m going to surpass you. I¡¯m going to go to school with the GMO kids here on the island who all learned the half-life of actinium in ninth grade instead of spending an entire semester on The Great Gatsby. Stay alive. Talk to you tomorrow.¡± Alden parked the bike he¡¯d rented for the morning in a stand outside an open air market on the northern edge of F-city. He¡¯d never been in the vicinity of this neighborhood before. It was bustling. Most of the signage was in an unexpected mix of Chinese characters and Cyrillic, and there were a lot of signs. He had to take a minute and talk the System down from translating them all because it was cluttering up his vision. He slipped through the crowd, trying not to stop and gape at a woman who was striding through the air above everyone else like she had her own personal invisible sidewalk up there. His destination was a breakfast spot, but it took him a while to find it. He was glad he¡¯d left the dorms earlier than he¡¯d thought he needed to. It was in an open food court area, looking out over the water and the bridge that connected F-city to Apex. The place was full of people eating at metal tables. The morning was cold and windy, but there were small portable heaters glowing beside some of the chairs. Alden looked around for the person he was supposed to meet, and just when he was about to give up and text the guy, he spotted someone standing and waving at him from a table all the way on the other side of the seating area. He was a short, athletic-looking man in his late twenties, with black hair pulled back in a bun. ¡°Alden, right?¡± he said, reaching across the table to shake Alden¡¯s hand as he approached. ¡°Yes. You¡¯re Mr. Banyu?¡± ¡°Call me Dave!¡± ¡°Sorry I couldn¡¯t find you in the crowd.¡± Dave chuckled and shut the laptop he¡¯d been working on. ¡°I saw you, though. It¡¯s my thing.¡± Dave Banyu was a B-rank longsight. One who¡¯d somehow made it all the way through the hero programs at Celena North High and University and gotten himself an honest-to-goodness hero job. He was currently working in Malaysia. Alden had looked him up last night to prep for this meeting Neha had arranged. ¡°Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I know you¡¯re probably busy.¡± ¡°Not as much as you¡¯d think. And getting a call from Neha is really persuasive. She¡¯s one of the island¡¯s original Avowed. When you grow up here, you know who the oldest S¡¯s are. You hear Rabbit, and you think of her. And you don¡¯t think of her calling you up one day and saying, ¡®Kid, I¡¯m sending a newbie off to hero high school. He¡¯s a B-rank Rabbit. He¡¯s totally getting in. Come talk to him and make sure he¡¯s not ruining his life.¡¯¡± ¡°She calls you kid?¡± ¡°You can¡¯t escape the ¡®kid¡¯ when someone¡¯s that much older than you.¡± ¡°I see¡­I¡¯d rather not ruin my life.¡± Dave smiled at him. ¡°I¡¯ve got to ask. What the hell is your skill? Because I¡¯ve been thinking about it ever since she scheduled this meeting, and I can not come up with a Rabbit skill that would make her so sure you would get accepted. Not even S-rank ones.¡± ¡°It preserves objects,¡± said Alden. ¡°Perfectly. As long as I¡¯m carrying them. Including living things.¡± The other Avowed¡¯s expression turned thoughtful. ¡°Safeguarding spells and skills are really functional. And not many people have them. Especially hero hopefuls; they lack the flare that teenagers who want to be heroes are usually looking for. Perfect preservation of a living thing¡­ that¡¯s definitely got applications.¡± He leaned back in his chair. ¡°The fact that you have to carry the things you¡¯re preserving is limiting though. A ranged spell has the advantage. Especially since you¡¯re a B-rank. And a Rabbit. Getting up close and personal with danger is always dicey for us low ranks. And apart from that, Rabbit is a vulnerable class physically. Your power is all in your skills. The System offers you guys proportionally very little in the foundational enhancements department.¡± He gestured to himself. ¡°Take me for example. Even though I¡¯m a B-rank and a longsight, I¡¯m still a Brute. The System gives me skill options to boost my visual and mental abilities. But it also gives me a lot of foundational points to spend however I want. I¡¯ve leaned really hard into Speed at each level, on top of the specific mental processing path I chose to give me quick photographic recall. So I can outrun trouble that would otherwise kill me.¡± ¡°I do have a movement trait.¡± ¡°Oh that¡¯s great!¡± ¡°It only works on ground.¡± ¡°Ughh¡­ so hard.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°It¡¯s not that bad.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never understood ground. I know Ground Shapers who don¡¯t understand ground.¡± ¡°I think it¡¯s just a concept from an ancient type of magic.¡± Alden scooted his chair closer toward the heater that was warming their table. ¡°It¡¯s highly symbolic. Old Artonan stuff. It¡¯s less ¡®ground¡¯ and more ¡®fundament of the planet that supports our life.¡¯¡± The longsight gave him a confused look. ¡°Did you just say fundament?¡± ¡°Sorry. I spent a long time on the Triplanets recently. And I spent way too much mental energy on ¡®ground.¡¯¡± ¡°If you say so¡­and you¡¯ve already been summoned?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Must be neat to be a Rabbit. I¡¯ve only been summoned once myself. Did you get some levels under your belt while you were away or¡­?¡± ¡°Three,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m a level four.¡± Dave blinked. ¡°Wait. How long were you gone?¡± ¡°Almost seven months.¡± ¡°Holy f¡ªare you okay? Did a wizard decide they liked having you around too much and kidnap you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m okay. There was a teleportation mishap. I ended up stuck on a moon without a System so I couldn¡¯t get back home.¡± ¡°That was you? I heard about that¡­¡± Alden grimaced. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Yeah. I mean, nothing specific. But Systems aren¡¯t supposed to break. A story like that is going to get around.¡± Alden didn¡¯t reply. ¡°Well¡­I can see why Neha thought you had a good chance of getting in despite the obvious problems. Boosting yourself three levels that quickly shows strong work ethic at least. And a bit of natural talent. And your skill isn¡¯t bad. But¡­¡± His expression turned apologetic. ¡°You should be prepared for the fact that it might not be enough. The admissions process is extremely competitive for B-ranks. There are a ton of applicants. If you actually get into the school you¡¯ll see that the few B¡¯s there are usually the sort who are so perfectly specced for some kind of superhero work that it¡¯s hard to deny their presence.¡± He pointed to himself again. ¡°This isn¡¯t me bragging. I¡¯m just an Anesidora brat who knew what I wanted for years before I ever got selected. I spoke three languages. I got so far ahead on academics that I basically didn¡¯t need to attend class for the last half of high school so that I could focus completely on the parts of hero training that were hard for me. And I started building Processing in the specific way I needed right away. Recon. My brain is basically designed to look at a cityscape, flash memorize it, and spot problem areas. I was able to walk into my interviews and explain to the doubters exactly what I would be doing as a member of a hero team and why it would work.¡± He sighed. ¡°And to be completely honest with you, I don¡¯t even know what my shelf life as a hero will be. If people get a little too comfy with mass surveillance, and governments start adopting it quickly, I¡¯m out of a job.¡± You¡¯d still be useful in an urban corruption field, thought Alden. He was glad he didn¡¯t let the words pop out of his mouth. It would probably sound strange that his very first thought when an Avowed told him they might be replaced by tech was No, actually, we¡¯re way more reliable around demons. So no worries, man. ¡°I think it¡¯s great that you¡¯re doing battlefield support,¡± he said instead. ¡°That¡¯s what I wanted to do.¡± ¡°There aren¡¯t many of us. You a team player?¡± ¡°I wanted to be someone who could use their powers to help other Avowed maximize their own. And reduce the load. I used to think¡­I still think that the ideal battlefield support is someone who makes one plus one equal three. Or more. Not the heavy hitter out front but the person in the background who makes it possible for the heavy hitter to hit really heavy. The one who makes it all come together. I wanted to be that guy.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a thoughtful heroing philosophy,¡± said Dave, looking surprised. ¡°But why all the past tense?¡± ¡°I¡¯m¡­lacking in the grand dreams department right now.¡± I just want to use hero school to make me into the kind of person who won¡¯t flake out and be useless in a crisis. I¡¯m so tired. I want to be strong enough that doing the right thing is easier. I want to be a good person, but I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯m still up for being one of The Good Guys. He didn¡¯t say it because he knew it didn¡¯t sound right. ¡°That¡¯s a problem.¡± Dave thanked a waiter who¡¯d just rollerbladed up to the table with an omelet. ¡°B-rank Rabbit? You¡¯re going to need to want it to get into the program. You can¡¯t be wishy-washy. Everyone will sense it from a mile away, and they¡¯ll want nothing to do with you.¡± ¡°Neha thinks I¡¯ll get in because I¡¯ve got a star,¡± said Alden. ¡°A star?¡± ¡°Beside my overall level number. It¡¯s 4. With a six-pointed star.¡± The longsight paused in the act of chewing, his cheeks stuffed full of eggs and bell peppers. He narrowed his eyes and swallowed. ¡°You mean an official commendation? From the Artonans?¡± ¡°For bravery in the absence of obligation.¡± <> ¡°No?¡± ¡°Yeah¡­so¡­let¡¯s talk about B-rank life. You¡¯re going to need to workout a lot. Start before you even show up for school. It won¡¯t ever be enough, but you¡¯ll have to do so much of it that nobody can accuse you of not trying. You should keep records to show the physical training faculty. They¡¯re high-rank Brutes, and after being gods for a while, some of them forget what normal humans are actually capable of. They assume anyone who can¡¯t jump twelve feet into the air from a flat stance just isn¡¯t putting in effort. ¡°Once you get in and get an advisor, you should choose your classes for your entry quarter as soon as possible, so you can send an email to all of your teachers and introduce yourself and ask for advance work. It¡¯ll go a long way with some of them. And¡­¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
*********. MOCKTAIL BREAK ********
After he was done talking to Dave Banyu, Alden had another meeting. As if she¡¯d known what the longsight would recommend, Neha had already blocked off this four-hour long period of his schedule for ¡°finding a personal fitness trainer,¡± and she¡¯d included recommendations. He¡¯d gone through them all last night while he couldn¡¯t sleep, checking websites and reading training philosophies. The Rabbit counselor had given him a ton to think about just by providing so many different types of trainers. Did Alden want to be an endurance athlete? Did he want to have fun? Did he want to mix in power use with his physical training or keep them both separate? Martial arts? Bodybuilding? Gymnastics? She really likes gymnastics for some reason, doesn¡¯t she? He¡¯d picked the trainer he suspected Neha had known he would and messaged her to set up an appointment. Her name was Roberta¡ªBobby for short¡ªand of all the people on the rec list, she was the least superhumanly impressive. A fifty-year-old, D-rank Agility Brute whose clientele were mostly off-duty heroes of the soft variety. Several Adjusters, a few Shapers. She specialized in people who were less physically special. But she still worked at the fanciest gym in Apex. The annual membership fee was so steep that Alden was considering wearing a t-shirt with the gym¡¯s logo on it for Spree day to make the other Rabbits happy. It was really close to the Celena North campus, too. He left his rental bike at a drop-off, and took a cab into Apex. His Evac Priority card flashed briefly into view when they crossed the halfway point on the bridge.He was pleasantly surprised to see that he was a Priority 6 now. In the event of an emergency, there were at least five categories of people who¡¯d need to be rescued before him. The lanyard Cly Zhao had given him to wear when he came for Hannah¡¯s funeral had been Priority 1. The cab put him out in front of the gym. It was a series of three large buildings separated by curving walkways, manicured lawns, and meditation gardens. One of the buildings was a menacing structure made of concrete that was absolutely covered in warning signs on his interface telling him to STAY AWAY from the place where greater men and women might accidentally drop a one-ton kettlebell on his head. His building was the elegant glass one. Through the fourth floor windows, he could see happy-looking people in sports bras and tank tops running significantly faster than was comfortable for normal humans around an indoor track. He entered the gym and had just enough time to appreciate the fact that they had a custom scent and marble floors in the welcome area before a girl in lime green yoga pants appeared. At first, she had a look on her face that said it was her job to politely toss out the riffraff, but she turned bubbly as soon as he activated his name tag and told him he¡¯d been expected. Did he want to stop by the free smoothie bar on their way to meet Bobby? Did he want to take a look at the potion-therapy saunas? The superolympic-sized swimming pool? The morphable obstacle course? While she chattered and led him back toward the medical center, where trainers did their consultations, Alden tried to stare at all the people working out without looking like he was staring. This place wasn¡¯t like F-city. There were plenty of powers on display. A woman was climbing a rock wall with her arms tied behind her back. She was just sprinting up it in defiance of reason. One of the yoga instructors was folded up in a way that would have made Alden sure the man was dead, if he wasn¡¯t calmly offering advice to a small class of only slightly less contorted people through a headset. And even here in the weaklings gym, there were petite people casually doing reps with eye-popping amounts of weight. Am I really allowed to be here? I don¡¯t feel like I¡¯m advanced enough to be here. Where is the weaker weaklings gym? Well¡­those were in F. Obviously. He¡¯d chosen this place for a reason. The girl with the lime yoga pants introduced him to Bobby, who invited him into a cramped office filled with framed diplomas and pictures of Super Olympians. The trainer had steel-gray hair cut very short, laugh lines around her eyes, and she wore a sleeveless top that showed off really impressive arms for a middle-aged woman. ¡°So you¡¯re a teenager. A B-rank. And a Rabbit!¡± she said as soon as they¡¯d closed the door. ¡°Sounds like a fun challenge. What are your goals?¡± ¡°I want to be less killable,¡± said Alden. Bobby laughed and settled into a chair across from him. ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°I think that I¡¯ll be attending a hero program here in Apex in a couple of months. I want to be able to keep up with¡ª¡± Bobby shook her head. ¡°No?¡± ¡°Keeping up isn¡¯t going to be your thing. Physically. For a hero program. Unless you somehow out-level the other kids so fast that the government wants to stick you in a lab and research you. You¡¯re a non-physical, skills-based class. It¡¯s superhuman in a different way. Just own it.¡± ¡°Right. I guess I should have said I want¡­to suck as little as possible?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s reframe that as something more positive!¡± she said, punching the air with a fist. ¡°You want to be the best version of yourself!¡± ¡°That sounds good.¡± She grinned. ¡°You sent me your stats, and I had a look this morning. And you picked me. I assume you¡¯re thinking you want to lean toward agility training with a side of speed?¡± ¡°It seems like the practical choice. And I like the way the stats feel. I do need to be able to pick up and carry heavy things for the most obvious use of my skill though¡­¡± ¡°How heavy?¡± ¡°An adult person.¡± ¡°Oh. Not heavy at all.¡± ¡°Two adult people?¡± ¡°Sounds awkward. But still not that heavy. You¡¯re talking about doing it for hero work right? Rescue?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Then you¡¯re looking at a minimum of six years down the road. More likely eight. If you¡¯re serious about a hero program, and you perform well enough to stay in one all the way through college, then you should be able to reach that goal even if you aren¡¯t focusing primarily on strength enhancement. We¡¯ve got a few Rabbits around here. It feels good to be fit no matter what your job is. The ones that get up into the higher levels and don¡¯t spend it all on being smart and pretty are strong enough to do what you¡¯re talking about.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°That¡¯s actually a relief to hear. I just walked past a few people casually bicep curling my bodyweight, and I was feeling concerned.¡± She laughed. ¡°No sweat¡­actually, lots of sweat. But no worries. Most of the people here are mid-career heroes, athletes, or muscle heads. You don¡¯t need to compare yourself to them yet. You¡¯re probably not quite through growing in the normal way at this point, and you¡¯ve only just gotten started on growing in the Avowed way.¡± They talked more about his wants and needs, discussed possible routines, and toured the facilities together. Next, while Bobby was putting together a schedule for him to follow, he headed over to the medical part of the medical center. This place was qualified to do the entrance physical Celena North required to start your application process. It started out easily enough. He stood in a high-tech tube that scanned him for a long time. He¡¯d barely held back a protest when the doctor told him it used some magic. But it turned out there was nothing to worry about. It must have been interacting only with his flesh, not his authority, so it was completely painless. After that, he had to run on a treadmill and breathe into a mask. Reflex checks. Vision test. Hearing test. Blood draws. I hope Gorgon liked the new crickets I sent him. He had paid Jeremy to pay a courier to have them delivered to the consulate a few nights ago along with a bunch of snacks and magazines. Maybe it was just paranoia, but Alden didn¡¯t like the idea of leaving much of a communication trail between him and the alien prisoner now that he was an Avowed. The Artonans could have killed Gorgon for whatever crime he¡¯d committed, or they could have stuck him in a deep dark pit where nobody could reach him. But they hadn¡¯t.So it was probably no big deal to them if Avowed wanted to hang out with him. But¡­better safe than sorry for both of them. When all the tests were finally over, he drank a peanut butter banana smoothie from the ¡°free¡± place that was totally not free since it was covered by the exorbitant membership fee. The doctor examining his info scratched his head, adjusted his glasses, and finally said, ¡°Obviously you can build more muscle and increase your endurance if you want. And you¡¯re sleep-deprived. That¡¯s normal for new Avowed. Big life changes make it hard to rest. But this scanner does some esoteric tests¡­I think you¡¯re one of the healthiest people I¡¯ve ever seen in my career. And I see a lot of healthy people.¡± ¡°I got healed recently. For a week straight.¡± He hadn¡¯t had an eye exam since he was in middle school, but he was pretty sure his vision hadn¡¯t been 20/10 before Rrorro got hold of him. ¡°By who?¡± ¡°An icorlax.¡± ¡°The feathery aliens.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°How did you even meet one of those?¡± the doctor muttered. ¡°Anyway, you¡¯ll need to sign some consent forms for me to send your info to CNH, and then you¡¯re good to go.¡± They gave him a customized diet plan to go with his new workout regime before he left. This is the worst, he thought as he read through it on the car ride back to F-city. Actually feeding myself this way will take over my whole life. He wondered how much the rest of the dorm would resent him if he hired Natalie to be his full-time meal prep person. She didn¡¯t yet have the nutrition skill package, but she could follow the guidelines here. Maybe she could find a way to make consuming this many macro-perfect salads feel like less of a punishment. Better do it if I¡¯m ever going to. A couple of years from now humans aren¡¯t going to be able to afford her help. He had the cab put him out by another bike rental spot so he could ride back to the dorms and see some new parts of the island. He was adjusting the height of the bike seat when he suddenly felt a poke against his authority. It happened sometimes. It was such a mild sensation that he was pretty sure it would be beneath his notice if he wasn¡¯t still smarting from the affixation. Someone just targeted me. He¡¯d figured out what that specific poking sensation was thanks to the other Rabbits. A lot of their skills targeted the person they were helping in order to customize services. Like the hair cutting. Other Avowed seemed to do it regularly just out of idle curiosity. Especially teens. It was concerning when you knew they had an offensive power set, so they had to be targeting you with something that would hurt you if they actually used it¡­but Alden had grown accustomed to it. They were just playing around with their new talents. Practicing. They didn¡¯t know he could feel it because they couldn¡¯t, so it wouldn¡¯t be fair for him to take offense. No big deal, he reminded himself, just the authoritative equivalent of someone taking a closer look at you than normal. Then, all of the sudden, Alden¡¯s mind smoothed out. The gremlin, who hadn¡¯t made a peep since Moon Thegund, noticeably relaxed a little. Oh hey, dude. Nice to know you¡¯re still there. You¡­wait¡­that was my Peace of Mind blowback. The good kind of blowback. The positive half of the extra wordchain sacrifice he¡¯d made to scare himself into moving faster on his death run had just come due. He¡¯d been hoping to save it until he was having a really bad night, so he could claim a little sleep with it. Maybe before one of the CNH interviews that were coming up, to make sure he didn¡¯t look so much like a zombie. Shit. Even with the minor wordchain easing his worries, Alden was a little upset. Sleep and anxiety-reduction were such precious resources right now. He hadn¡¯t meant to let the chain snap back on him. I didn¡¯t think it had been too long. I should have spent it before now. I don¡¯t need to be calm for a bike ride in the middle of the afternoon. Annoyed with himself, he finished adjusting the seat and looked toward the street he was about to cross. A few cars and a lot of mopeds and motorcycles were waiting at the light. And there, across the street, drinking a boba tea was a girl he recognized. She was talking to one of the minidrone cameras some Avowed used to record social media posts. Shoulder-length brown hair, perfectly fitted pink argyle sweater and a matching skirt, loafers and a pearl anklet. Hazel Velra. She wasn¡¯t looking at him, but Alden wasn¡¯t stupid. Someone had targeted him. His wordchain had blown. There was the supposedly-genius Chainer across the street. She had an unknown power set because the Velras didn¡¯t like to share info about their toys. But Alden knew Hazel could do something like what the gremlin did at least. Better than the gremlin really. She¡¯d said she could naturally sense wordchain repercussions. Even before she affixed. He didn¡¯t know what that meant. It wasn¡¯t like authority sense, probably. Because his own didn¡¯t help him out with wordchains much as far as he could tell. Something else. Psychic? Karma sensitive? Whatever. She did this, didn¡¯t she? he demanded of the gremlin. Of course this wasn¡¯t the kind of question the gremlin would answer. It was just purring to itself because whatever ancient alien debt ledger it kept was now all clean and balanced by its standards. It didn¡¯t care how the balancing had happened. Alden gripped the bike¡¯s handlebar and stood there watching Hazel¡¯s hair whip around her face as the breeze picked up. He briefly considered the likelihood that the chain coming due was just a coincidence. Then, for a slightly longer time, he considered the possibility that she might have been trying to be nice to him in some misguided way. He discarded both. Only an absolute idiot would think it was helpful to call in someone else¡¯s wordchain debt without asking them. Maybe unevenness annoyed her, and she didn¡¯t mind screwing over other people to deal with it. Maybe it was just petty meanness. She can get away with it because nobody else is going to know they were targeted right before it happened. He probably wouldn¡¯t have noticed himself if he wasn¡¯t so damn oversensitive right now. And here I was thinking I was a little bit of a jerk for disliking her when we met last time. He kicked off and pedaled across the street ahead of a crowd of pedestrians. He was planning to ignore her. It seemed like the best course of action. But she was standing by the bike path that led to intake, and as he turned onto it, she looked up. She smiled and waved. ¡°Alden!¡± she called. ¡°Hi! I heard you were back!¡± Probably she expected him to stop. But he didn¡¯t trust himself to say anything. He tried for a polite smile and a wave and pedaled right past her. He didn¡¯t look back. It¡¯s not a big deal. Nothing to stress over. He let it go. ********* The peace of mind wore off around eight o¡¯clock at night. Alden had managed to get in a solid hour of focused studying with his auriad book before it happened. Now, he was deeply pissed off. He¡¯d already showered, but he went to the non-luxury gym on the top floor of his apartment building and tried to blow off steam on an exercise bike. He was going to start actual workouts with someone who¡¯d be focusing on helping him with balancing his training and teaching him proper form tomorrow. He didn¡¯t need to be wearing himself out tonight. But it was either this or calling Hazel Velra and cussing her out. That seemed like a bad idea on multiple levels. Calm down, he told himself while he pedaled. The screen on the front of the bike showed a curving, hilly road somewhere in Germany.It¡¯s not a big deal. You¡¯re not hurt. You haven¡¯t lost anything huge. Someone was just a little mean to you. You don¡¯t have to be so sensitive about it. It was just that the meanness in this case was so uncalled for. What had he ever done to Hazel? He¡¯d given her Chainer. There was no reason for her to be mad at him. Who just saw some near-stranger minding his own business across the street and thought, ¡°You know what? I¡¯m going to mess up his day because I can?¡± Sociopaths. Maybe that was too harsh. But he was still mad, so he kept pedaling. He¡¯d switch to the rowing machine if he had to. If I burn off the rage and exhaust myself maybe I¡¯ll be able to sleep. There were only a couple other people in the gym tonight. The Adjuster speccing himself for fire spells and planning to head to the Li Jean program soon was trying to figure out one of the weight machines. And there was a heavy-set girl jogging on a treadmill. They both had earbuds. Music would make this better. Alden had always liked having music. He didn¡¯t have to drown out the tinnitus anymore, but a really good set of headphones and some earbuds would be nice. He added those onto his mental list under the gym shirt. And he did think a laptop was going to be a necessity. Maybe he could buy enough stuff he actually wanted or needed to participate in the Spree without being a spendy jerk. He did get what the other Rabbits were going for, and he understood why they were excited about showing off their cool thing just like the other classes did. But it was still kind of¡­ I could just wear a sticker on my forehead that says I hired Natalie to cook for me. That was the real power move. She¡¯d thought he was joking when he knocked on her door and asked what it would cost to have her supply him with every meal, snack, and beverage for the next few weeks. ¡°No, Natalie,¡± he¡¯d kept saying, ¡°for real.¡± He knew she¡¯d been charging people something like fifty argold a plate. Her meals weren¡¯t just meals, they were magical experiences. He¡¯d tried to explain that that was fine. He would figure out his own food when he moved out of intake and into the student dorms at CNH. For now, though, he had a schedule with twenty different things to do on it every day, and he didn¡¯t see how he was going to get through it if he also had to precisely weigh out servings of walnuts and scoops of pea protein powder before he put them in his mouth. His call notification flashed. Subtle brown. It was the color he¡¯d assigned to everyone who wasn¡¯t on one of his lists. For total strangers. ¡°Who is it?¡± he panted. [Video call from Twenty-seven Hundred and Sixty-third General Evul-art¡¯h, Artona I. Connection fee waived.] Alden almost fell off the exercise bike. ¡°What?!¡± he said, so loudly that the boy on the weight machine turned to look at him. What did I do wrong? Who is Evul-art¡¯h? Why are they calling me? I¡¯m on leave. He immediately thought of several reasons for the Artonans to be mad at him. Blowing up the lab was number one on the list. Corrupting Kibby with his human ways. Having weird powers from an alien who was rumored to be imprisoned for murder. Stealing an auriad. Stealing a leaf from the forest of trees that ate knights and using it as a bookmark. Being in the forest of trees that ate knights. Knowing about the forest of tress that ate knights. Wandering around the Primary¡¯s house without permission. Wow, the list is so long when I think of it all that way. At least it was an art¡¯h. A knight art¡¯h judging by the System¡¯s use of the word ¡°General.¡± Intensity Level 99.9 for sure, but so far none of the art¡¯h¡¯s had seemed hostile to Alden. They might change their mind about that if you leave their calls hanging while you have a pointless panic spiral. ¡°Answer call. Obviously.¡± He was shocked that a call from someone ranked that highly didn¡¯t just automatically connect regardless of where the recipient was or what they were doing. A young-looking Artonan woman appeared on the screen. She was lounging on colorful cushions in a deeply recessed bay window that looked out over a very familiar forest. She had short dark hair and pale pink eyes. It made for a startling look, but Alden was more distracted by the fact that she was smoking some kind of charcoal-gray cigar. ¡°Hey!¡± she said in Artonan, blowing a bright blue smoke ring. ¡°Who are you?¡± Not an interface to interface call, he realized in surprise. She was holding a tablet. It wobbled a little when she adjusted her seat. ¡°I¡¯m Alden Thorn? Hi.¡± Could wizards butt dial people through the System? It seemed pretty unlikely. ¡°Yeah¡­mmmm¡­is my little brother <> of you somehow?¡± Alden climbed off the exercise bike and started heading back to his room. Even just his half of this convo was bound to sound weird to passerby. ¡°Is your little brother Stuart?¡± ¡°That¡¯s him.¡± She wriggled on top of her pile of cushions and smashed one with an elbow. ¡°Is he bothering you? Is he being odd? Do you feel inappropriately treated?¡± Alden pressed the button for the elevator. ¡°No? Is this because I sent him a list of links to things on the human internet?¡± Baby pandas sneezing had seemed safe, but Alden had never heard back from the Primary¡¯s son. ¡°Should I apologize, or¡­?¡± ¡°That depends,¡± said Evul-art¡¯h, twirling her cigar between her fingers. ¡°Are you taking advantage of Stu-art¡¯h somehow?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so? I¡¯m not trying to.¡± The elevator was never coming, was it? He was going to be stuck out here having this unsettling convo in the hall. ¡°So¡­why did you contact him?¡± ¡°To be friendly,¡± Alden said. ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± ¡°Yes?¡± She nodded. ¡°So you want to be friendly. He wants to be friendly. Nobody seems like a victim to me. <>¡± The elevator doors opened, and he hurried inside and pushed the button for the ninth floor. ¡°Stu,¡± the Artonan woman said, abusing her cushions with an elbow again, ¡°I guess you are right. A human does want to talk to you.¡± She sat up suddenly, and Stuart scrambled out from under the pile of cushions she¡¯d been smashing all this time. He was purple-faced and rumpled. He looked mad and embarrassed, and he started flailing for the tablet right away. It didn¡¯t seem to be going well for him at all. His sister looked completely immovable and calm while he tried to pry it away from her. Alden had a weird visual of his fingers scrabbling at the screen. He watched the scene with wide eyes while a Meister carrying some alien thing that looked like a four-foot-long corkscrew joined him in the elevator. ¡°Give me that!¡± Stuart said, batting away at his sister¡¯s head uselessly. ¡°He really is sweaty.¡± Evul-art¡¯h blew more smoke and examined Alden. ¡°I heard humans were always sweaty. I haven¡¯t met many.¡± ¡°Humans aren¡¯t always sweaty,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯ve been exercising.¡± The Meister with the corkscrew gave him a look. ¡°Evul, when I asked you for help, I did not think you would treat this like a joke!¡± ¡°I like exercise, too,¡± the woman said. ¡°Sometimes I go and hit things just to watch them vaporize.¡± ¡°EVUL!¡± Alden winced. Stu-art¡¯h had hit that special, glass-shattering pitch that Artonans seemed to reserve for when they were extra upset or talking to grivecks. ¡°Baby Stu!¡± said Evul-art¡¯h, laughing. ¡°Did you just <> at me?¡± He looked mortified. ¡°If you want it that badly, little brother, you can have it,¡± she said sweetly, handing him the tablet. Stuart snatched it from her and fled the room. Alden saw a familiar hallway, and then the Artonan boy flung himself through the door into his own bedroom and slid it shut behind him. He straightened his shirt, his hair, and his face so fast that it looked almost like a magic trick. ¡°Hello, Alden,¡± he said, in a calm and collected voice. ¡°I am sorry it took so long to respond to your message.¡± SEVENTY: Rare Company ¡°Are we going to pretend like your big sister wasn¡¯t sitting on you three seconds ago?¡±Alden asked in Artonan, watching in fascination as Baby Stu morphed instantaneously into Stu-art¡¯h, son of the Primary, very serious future Knight of the Mother Planet. ¡°That would be my preference,¡± Stuart said primly. He took his tablet over to his standing desk and set it up at eye level. At the periphery of his vision, Alden could see the Artonan boy¡¯s hands casting a short repetitious pattern over what looked like a metal block. He felt himself smiling in amusement. He tried to keep it down to a reasonable amount. ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°Thank you for the interesting cultural <> from your world. I did say I wished to study such things when we parted. I enjoyed the musicians.¡± Alden stepped out of the elevator on floor nine and hurried toward his apartment. ¡°Who is that?¡± Stuart asked curiously as Alden passed by a guy in the hall. ¡°One of my neighbors. Another Ryeh-b¡¯t. He¡¯s got one of the cleaning skills.¡± There were so many Rabbits with cleaning skills in intake. Alden hadn¡¯t even begun to memorize them all. ¡°I think his name is Paolo.¡± He must have been right because Paolo looked back at him. Alden gave him a wave and hustled to his door. It opened as he approached, and he slipped inside, sliding a finger over the line on the wall panel that would mark his apartment as Do Not Disturb on other residents¡¯ interfaces. ¡°Do you live with many other Avowed?¡± ¡°I do now.¡± ¡°On Anesidora?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Alden grabbed a towel out of the bathroom and wiped sweat off his face. ¡°It¡¯s unusual that so many humans do that,¡± Stuart mused. ¡°Avowed form communities on other resource worlds, but you¡¯ve concentrated such a significant percentage of your population on a single island. Is it purely <> or¡­for some other reason?¡± ¡°Officially, it¡¯s for the safety and security of regular people. I guess it makes it easier to separate us into convenient halves, too. Good Avowed stay on the island and follow the rules. Bad Avowed run amok and everyone worries they¡¯re trying to take over the world.¡± ¡°It¡¯s very premature for them to be concerned about that.¡± A furrow appeared between his brows. ¡°Human Avowed aren¡¯t nearly powerful enough for the Grand Senate to consider any request you might make for an <> and < >. That''s taken other resource worlds a few centuries in the past. And the percentage of Avowed among your population is extremely small.¡± Really, man? I wanted to talk about pandas, thought Alden, grabbing a glass from one of the kitchen cabinets and filling it with water. Apparently Stuart liked his culture chat more serious. ¡°What¡¯s an authorized takeover?¡± ¡°They don¡¯t let Avowed take leadership of your home planets without oversight. It¡¯s almost always disallowed by the original Contract, so new negotiations have to take place and adjustments have to be made. And even when it isn¡¯t forbidden, the <> is stricter for that than for other forms of <>.¡± The 1963 Agreement allowed humans to self-govern in most matters. It also allowed them to screw up and make war against each other¡­up to a point. The intervention number was eight million. When the eight millionth person died in something like a genocide or war, the Artonans were allowed to come over if they wanted, or send their Avowed in, to sort the conflict out according to their own preferences. Apparently the number for many species was lower. Alden didn¡¯t know how a collection of leaders had sat around and seriously insisted that they needed permission to make more people dead for human rights reasons. But World War III was off the table at least. The Triplanets had been more hands-on in the decades immediately following the creation of the Contract, when the discovery that the rest of the universe was out there and pretty far ahead of Earth had caused a lot of upheaval. Nowadays, they weren¡¯t as eager to involve themselves. And in practice, especially for things like famines and natural disasters, the UN was usually requesting help before the Artonans offered it up on their own. ¡°My Instructors say that humans built Anesidora for breeding purposes,¡± Stuart said casually. Alden narrowly avoided spitting out his water. Of course the talk goes there right off the bat. ¡°Um¡­everyone knows that¡¯s part of it. Even if it isn¡¯t polite to say it like that. I think a lot of humans would like more Avowed because it increases the amount of attention we receive from the Triplanets? It¡¯s good for the global economy and our position among the resource worlds. And the Avowed here want more Avowed, too, because it makes Anesidora more politically powerful.¡± If you crammed a bunch of people together and made it hard for them to spend time with anyone else, they tended to make babies with each other. Super couples almost always made super babies. And raising kids here was basically free. ¡°I think there are a lot of other reasons for it, too.¡± Alden felt the need to make it clear that there was nuance. He was not just living on some kind of superhuman farm. ¡°The older Avowed seem to like having our own government. It¡¯s good to be able to use powers more freely. I think I¡¯ll probably value being surrounded by people in a similar situation when I get used to it. There is a unique culture here, and it¡¯s beneficial in plenty of ways. I''m still getting used to it. But it¡¯s not only¡­whatever your Instructors said.¡± He decided not to mention the conspiracy theory that Avowed had been collected here back in the old days so that the major global powers could more easily nuke the entire superhuman population if Earth ever decided they didn¡¯t like being a resource world anymore. Stuart opened his mouth. ¡°What about¡ª?¡± ¡°What are you doing with that metal cube?¡± Alden interrupted. ¡°That is a cute looking metal cube.¡± Stuart¡¯s flicking fingers paused over the metal cube, and he turned his head to blink at Alden. ¡°Cute?¡± ¡°Ah¡­wrong word. I meant the word for lightly interesting small things?¡± ¡°Hyektch? Maybe?¡± ¡°Yes! That one.¡± Earth was translating hyektch as "cool" which didn''t seem quite right to Alden. ¡°It¡¯s still too close to cute,¡± said Stuart slowly. ¡°That would be a better descriptive word for¡­well, never mind. I understand what you meant.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t never mind me.¡± Alden knew from when Kibby was in a funk that that phrase was a good bit more dismissive in Artonan than English. ¡°I¡¯m actually putting a lot of effort into learning your language.¡± ¡°Oh. I was rude?¡± ¡°A little.¡± Stuart sighed. ¡°I was only trying to be <> Hyektch is a very particular word. It¡¯s the interest a child feels upon first <> a pleasing new thing that is not beyond their ability to understand. You actually used it when you met¡­my ryeh-b¡¯t.¡± ¡°Other Alden!¡± Stuart smiled sheepishly. ¡°Yes. Other Alden.¡± ¡°You remembered the specific words I used?¡± ¡°Not all of them. That one was both uncommon and particularly <>.¡± ¡°Other Alden is definitely hyektch. Where is she?¡± ¡°I released some bugs in her habitat for her to stalk so that she wouldn¡¯t cry while I worked on this.¡± He gestured at the cube. ¡°I¡¯m preparing the metal to make a spell ring.¡± ¡°Interesting. Is it homework for LeafSong?¡± Stuart shook his head. ¡°No. I¡¯m not wasting time on the enchanting courses. They require too much of a commitment. But I¡¯m going to need¡­want a couple for my personal use soon. I could buy them. But there is satisfaction in making your own.¡± Alden poured himself another glass of water and hopped up on one of the counter stools. ¡°What are your rings going to do?¡± ¡°Assuming I don¡¯t fail to properly craft and <> the enchantment, this one is going to warm my hands when the temperature drops. I¡¯m making another for small object <>.¡± ¡°Look what mine does,¡± said Alden, releasing the water glass and letting it stick to his left palm before he wrapped his fingers back around it. Stuart raised his eyebrows. ¡°That¡¯s an intriguing one.¡± ¡°I think so, too. It¡¯ll even hold my bodyweight. Only for half a human second¡­¡± ¡°Did Master Ro-den give you that?¡± ¡°Sort of. Wait¡­just Master Ro-den? Did he lose his Distinguished somehow?¡± Stuart didn¡¯t seem like the kind of person who would be inaccurate with a title. ¡°He did.¡± The Artonan boy pursed his lips for a moment and then added, ¡°The <> was announced a few days ago. The campus was <> about it like a summer klerm swarm.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t realize it was a thing that could happen.¡± ¡°It does. Of course. It¡¯s very embarrassing for it to happen to someone of his age and experience.¡± ¡°Poor Joe.¡± At Stuart¡¯s look of confusion, Alden added, ¡°He told me to call him Joe.¡± ¡°How bizarre.¡± ¡°He¡¯s an unusual guy, I think.¡± ¡°He¡¯s¡­<>. For multiple reasons. But extremely talented. His summoning rights have been completely revoked now. I have labs next week. If he even shows up, I can¡¯t imagine what the atmospherewill be like.¡± It was something else to have access to wizard gossip. Alden hadn¡¯t expected that from this call. ¡°I bet he shows up and acts like nothing at all happened,¡± Alden said. ¡°And he uses just as many horrific swear words as usual and treats you all like morons.¡± Stuart looked amused. ¡°Do you think so?¡± ¡°I do. Call me and tell me if I¡¯m wrong.¡± ¡°About that,¡± said the Artonan boy, ¡°I don¡¯t think you realize this. But I¡¯m not allowed to just call you. Even if you contact me first.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°You aren¡¯t?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t earned the right to summon Avowed. Wizards my age don¡¯t usually gain provisional summoning rights for another four years, if they get them at all, and then they¡¯re monitored.¡± ¡°But you can¡¯t even talk to me socially?¡±The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°I actually had to look up the relevant laws to check when I received your message. It hadn¡¯t been covered in school, so I was surprised when the System indicated I would have to submit a formal request before replying to you, and that our conversation would be <>.¡± He sighed. ¡°It¡¯s not as though I would have trouble getting approval for it. But I prefer not to give people reason to gossip.¡± ¡°Sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to cause you problems.¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t!¡± Stuart said quickly. ¡°Please keep sending me messages. I mean¡­if you want to¡­you don¡¯t have to¡­but you can contact me. Apparently. I just have to wait until the weekends to reply. When I can get someone here at home to make the call for me.¡± ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯re talking on a tablet!¡± Alden realized. ¡°Instead of through your¡ª¡± He gestured at his own eyes to indicate the other boy¡¯s metal rings. Stuart nodded. ¡°And that¡¯s why your sister was sitting on you.¡± Stuart blushed. ¡°Can¡¯t you forget that?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I want to.¡± He smiled. ¡°Ever.¡± ¡°Evul is very <> and <> about rules. I asked her because I knew she wouldn¡¯t mind placing the call for me. I didn¡¯t expect her to¡­to shove me under her <> and squash me for half an hour first.¡± Alden burst out laughing. ¡°She squashed you for half an hour?¡± "I am nearly an adult,¡± said Stuart in a peeved tone. ¡°Who does that sort of thing to an adult?¡± ¡°Thank you for putting up with it to return my call. And your sister sounds like fun.¡± ¡°I thought this kind of behavior would cease when I started college! I specifically chose to go to LeafSong this year instead of waiting in order to make a point about myself.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not working.¡± ¡°I worry you may be right.¡± He really did look worried about it. ¡°However, I¡¯ll call you on my weekends. If¡­if you want?¡± ¡°About every thirteen Earth days?¡± Alden asked. ¡°That sounds good to me. Whatever works for you.¡± Stuart smiled and went back to working on his not-cute metal cube. Alden drummed his fingers on the counter. ¡°It didn¡¯t occur to me that young wizards couldn¡¯t just talk to any Avowed they wanted. I really want to call someone. I have permission from you aunt.¡± ¡°Aunt Alis?¡± ¡°Yes. There¡¯s a little girl with her. We spent a lot of time together on Moon Thegund. I promised I¡¯d send her messages. I can¡¯t figure out how to do it.¡± ¡°The girl you saved.¡± ¡°You heard about that?¡± Stuart¡¯s focus was still on the cube. ¡°Were you under the impression that I wouldn¡¯t try to find out everything that had happened to you?¡± ¡°I hadn¡¯t really thought about it.¡± ¡°You showed up at my house with no warning¡­and then you casually walked around delivering third meal to people." ¡°I guess that was¡ª¡± ¡°Nobody shows up at our house uninvited. Grand Senators can¡¯t even teleport into Rapports without asking for permission.¡± ¡°Um¡­¡± ¡°After you left, I had to check with some people to make sure they had seen you, too. Just to be absolutely sure you weren¡¯t a hallucination.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± ¡°Nobody is sure who summoned the human. Or what they were doing with him to make him look so <>. I believe most of the household assumes you were a very powerful Avowed who was invited in as a combat training partner for one of my cousins.¡± ¡°That couldn¡¯t be further from the truth.¡± ¡°I know.¡± One corner of Stuart''s mouth lifted. ¡°I rarely know something that the rest of them do not, and I am enjoying the occasional confused mentions of you.¡± ¡°As long as they¡¯re not mad about it when they figure out I was just visiting¡­¡± ¡°They¡¯ll probably just be relieved that the situation ended well,¡± said Stuart, watching Alden closely. ¡°Nobody wants to run out into the forest on a peaceful evening and destroy an abomination that was once an Avowed. Especially one my aunt admires enough to <> so highly.¡± Alden swallowed. ¡°So¡­you do know why you ended up here,¡± Stuart said calmly. ¡°I thought so. You pretended to be a little ignorant when we spoke before, but after I looked into what had happened, I decided you were probably more aware than you showed.¡± Oh I¡¯m way more aware than you know. ¡°Well,¡± Alden said in what he hoped was an equally calm tone, ¡°I didn¡¯t think ending up in your backyard was the usual way for people to teleport in to Artona I. And I had just come from a corruption incident. And Knight Alis-art¡¯h did tell me I was probably going to die because I was unbalanced. As far as my skill went.¡± ¡°I am glad it did not go that way. You¡¯re sure you¡¯re well?¡± Alden gave him a thumbs up. ¡°Great. The Contract fixed whatever was wrong with me. I gained a few levels on my skill. I can preserve dummies who feed their body parts to sea monsters for even longer now.¡± Stuart looked so surprised to be called a dummy that for a second Alden worried they were going to have a repeat of the ¡°prick¡± incident. But then he smiled. ¡°I¡¯m not going to give you the chance to try that again in the future.¡± ¡°But your flesh is so high quality,¡± Alden said seriously. ¡°Much better than mine. Think of the poor mishnen.¡± The Artonan boy blanched. ¡°I don¡¯t¡­I don¡¯t remember saying anything like that.¡± ¡°You did. You said something a lot like, ¡®Why would a mishnen eat you when I¡¯m right here, human? They prioritize quality.¡¯¡± ¡°I apologize. Again. My composure was not ideal.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°That¡¯s because you fed part of your high-quality self to a fish.¡± ¡°I can help you send your message to Moon Thegund.¡± ¡°So fast to change the topic. But thank you. It¡¯s really important to me.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no good way to do it, though,¡± Stuart warned him. ¡°If you wanted to send something very personal to the girl. Contract to Contract is secure and private by design, but to reach Aunt Alis¡¯s ship right now, you¡¯ll have to send any communications through official government channels.¡± ¡°Yuck.¡± Stuart nodded. ¡°You can choose to send it through them directly, in which case many nosy people will read or view whatever it is before it reaches her. Or you can send it to me, and I¡¯ll send it for you or give it to one of her spouses to pass on. They¡¯re sending Aunt Alis regular updates about the triplets. The government doesn¡¯t read her personal family mail out of respect. Probably. They¡¯ll die before they admit to doing it anyway.¡± It wasn¡¯t ideal, but since Alden¡¯s main goal was letting Kibby know he was all right and finding out if she was all right, he¡¯d put up with it. ¡°Video¡¯s okay?¡± Stuart nodded. ¡°Thanks then. I¡¯ll record it and send it to you. Talk to you in thirteen days?¡± ¡°Oh. Do you have to go already?¡± Stuart¡¯s face fell. For a guy who was so hard to chat with he sure didn¡¯t want to quit. Alden actually thought about the question. Did he have to go? Did he want to? I can¡¯t sleep. And I was about ten minutes away from calling a girl from one of the richest families on the island and yelling at her. ¡°I don¡¯t have to go,¡± he decided. ¡°But can we please talk about less serious stuff?¡± Rust-colored eyes blinked at him in surprise. ¡°Were we talking about very serious matters?¡± ¡°Uh¡­so far we¡¯ve discussed politics, the eventual overturning of the world order on my planet, me nearly becoming an abomination and being hunted by your family, and whether or not humanity is breeding Avowed.¡± Stuart looked confused. Alden raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°It¡¯s heavy,¡± he said. ¡°My only other Artonan friend is a young child, so maybe casual conversation between people around our age is supposed to be more intellectual or something¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s not.¡± Stuart¡¯s eyes shifted away from the tablet. ¡°I¡¯ve¡­been having trouble enjoying interactions with my peers at school. I want to respect and care for them. When we speak about matters that are personal to me, it makes everyone very uncomfortable. And when we speak more lightly there is so little common ground that I have nothing to say. So I have been <> conversations toward academic matters or subjects of personal interest to them.¡± His fingers paused their dance over the metal cube. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to do the same when talking to you. I was happy you reached out. I worried¡­I thought maybe you were only being polite when you said you wouldn¡¯t mind visiting again.¡± Alden considered all of that for a while. ¡°It sounds like you¡¯re working really hard,¡± he said finally. ¡°And overthinking. You don¡¯t have to do that. You can just relax you know.¡± Stuart snorted. ¡°Can I?¡± ¡°Yes. Please. And I¡¯ll give it a try, too. What¡¯s the worst that could happen?¡± The Artonan boy¡¯s face said he was imagining several terrible things. ¡°I mean, you¡¯re not going to have someone execute me if I accidentally offend you right?¡± ¡°I couldn''t. And even if I could, suggesting that I would is offensive.¡± Alden shrugged. ¡°Then I¡¯m going to relax and talk about normal shit.¡± ¡°Shit?¡± ¡°I¡¯m gonna mix some English in, too. Because that¡¯s more relaxed. I¡¯ll be speaking Artonglish for the rest of the night. Englonan. Words.¡± ¡°All right¡­?¡± Alden slid off the stool and went to flop down on the sofa. ¡°You would not believe how weird orbital stonechild sounds to an Earthling. I said it in front of a hundred other people recently when I was trying to introduce myself. The Contract totally translated it literally to make fun of me¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think the Earth Contract would do that.¡± ¡°Have you met it?¡± ¡°Obviously not.¡± ¡°It¡¯s less of a dick than Artona III, but still¡­¡± ¡°Artona III can be a little stiff.¡± ¡°You noticed it, too! It¡¯s not just Avowed then.¡± ¡°I¡¯m living there most of the time. I use it for communicating and classes.¡± ¡°With your eye ring things. By the way, I¡¯ve always wanted to ask¡­do those hurt?¡± ¡°They¡¯re implants. I can¡¯t even feel them.¡± ¡°Artona III was so snooty. It wouldn¡¯t translate any of Ro-den¡¯s swear words for me. There was no reason for that! And he uses so many of them when he¡¯s talking to you guys. I had to just guess what they all were.¡± ¡°If you weren¡¯t exceedingly creative with your guesses then you were probably wrong,¡± Stuart muttered. ¡°He never swore at me though. Made me feel left out.¡± ¡°He never swears at me either.¡± ¡°Does anyone?¡± ¡°My siblings. My cousins. You.¡± ¡°So only cool people.¡± ¡°You are putting yourself in rare company there.¡± SEVENTY-ONE: Wheres the Really Sharp Knife?
Another two weeks blurred past. Neha¡¯s schedule filled half of Alden¡¯s days, and his own side projects more than filled the rest of his time. He had his first of three interviews at CNH. It was in-person but just ten minutes long. Only B-ranks had to attend the first interview, and Alden had the strong impression that the whole point of it was to discourage them from applying. The questions had all walked a razor¡¯s edge between professionalism and insult. ¡°Do you think your disadvantages will prevent you from being a valuable part of a hero team?¡± ¡°How will you keep up with coursework designed for people more super-abled than you?¡± ¡°What will you do if you spend the next several years of your life pursuing this only to be unemployable as a superhero?¡± Joke¡¯s on you, thought Alden while his mouth spouted a pre-prepared statement about how he would never give up on his dreams. I¡¯m just here for the best government-funded Avowed education on the island. Unemployment is so far down on my worries list these days that you can¡¯t scare me with it. The questions weren¡¯t personalized. He knew because they didn¡¯t ask anything about the commendation or his time on the Triplanets. No way that was getting left out of the real interviews that were coming up next month. Alden¡¯s entrance timing was going to be a little awkward. He was too late for the quarter-schedule classes starting in October, but waiting until January to start the new quarter was a waste of time. So once he jumped through all the hoops and, hopefully, became a student, he¡¯d be polishing off the second half of classes he was confident in and taking their final exams for credit. And he¡¯d be auditing some others so that he¡¯d be better prepared for them when they started back up. It would work out. For obvious reasons, Avowed schools were set up to slot in new kids year-round. Alden was getting the usual package of Avowed-life orientation classes out of the way at least. They were all offered in some form at the dorm. He¡¯d already done the three on basic Artonan etiquette. He was concerned about how basic it was, for his fellow students¡¯ sakes. But he guessed it was different for most of them. If you were only getting summoned half a dozen times in your life, did you really need to do a deep dive into an alien culture that was fairly good about accommodating other species on its own end of things? Yes. The others didn¡¯t agree with him, though. It was mostly the Rabbits and the other people with specific subclasses known to be popular with the Artonans who took the extra etiquette classes. Them and the alien fans. Alden skipped out on those since they weren¡¯t required, and he¡¯d covered way more with his friend Klee-pak. But he still had to attend five sex-ed lessons with Gustavo and a Wright counselor named Gretchen, in a large auditorium full of teenagers in various states of hilarity, mortification, and horror. Once you got over the subject matter, you could appreciate the necessity of the things. Even the first two classes¡ªwhich were the Earth-focused ones¡ªwere kind of important. A lot of people came from cultures where sex education wasn¡¯t standard. And nobody came from a culture where the superhuman version of it was standard. The slides¡ªbecause of course there had to be a slideshow¡ªsaid petrifying things like, ¡°That spell impression doesn¡¯t work there.¡± And, ¡°Stat differences matter more than you think they do.¡± By the time they reached the interspecies lessons, Alden felt like he¡¯d gained an amazing new power. I¡¯m no longer capable of feeling embarrassment, he thought, staring at a slide that was just a picture of a griveck with the word NO! written on it in twelve major languages. I hit some lifetime maximum a while back, and now blushing is a thing of the past for me. Apparently it wasn¡¯t the same for his fellow victims. <> Paolo hissed. <> Several of the other Rabbits Alden had been sitting with during this wonderful bonding experience were nodding in agreement. ¡°It¡¯s because the pH level of your partner is almost as important as their clear and undeniable consent,¡± said Alden, pointing at a slide that said exactly that. Everyone stared at him. He marveled at how much he did not care. ¡°I¡¯m made of steel,¡± he told Boe on one of his daily phone calls. He was on another rental bike, on his way to meet with a parkour club Bobby had introduced him to. They were mostly low-rank Brutes, but not all. The group was welcoming and really eager to share the discipline with newcomers. Alden wasn¡¯t amazing, especially without his trait active, and nobody minded. It was fun. ¡°I have been forged by Gretchen and Gustavo into something beyond a mortal, and now I am untouchable. Also, Jeremy and I are finally going to get to hang out together soon. You¡¯re the worst for not joining us.¡± After parkour, he sat on a bench along an oceanside walkway and ate his lunch. Natalie Choir was officially his personal chef. His fridge was full of meals and snacks in individual containers. She¡¯d bought a label maker, and she used it to stick motivational quotes to each one along with the nutrition content. As part of their agreement, she got a massive shopping budget so that she could master new ingredients. He was eating a lot of things he¡¯d never heard of before. So good, he thought, holding back a moan as he dug into an insulated container full of hot lentil bolognese and pasta. How can it be this good and still be healthy? There was a small container full of herbed oil to go on top of it. And a ginger matcha protein drink. And a side salad with the fruits and vegetables chopped into perfect rainbow-colored cubes. Alden was bleeding money for this sort of treatment, and he did not mind. [Video call from Twenty-seven Hundred and Sixty-third General Evul-art¡¯h, Artona I. Connection fee waived.] Must be the weekend on the Triplanets. ¡°Answer,¡± he said after swallowing a mouthful of food. He wondered if Stuart¡¯s sister would be crushing him underneath pillows again, but she must not have been in as much of a tormenting mood today. They were outside, and she only held the tablet out of his reach while she observed Alden. ¡°You¡¯re not sweaty.¡± ¡°Not at the moment,¡± he agreed. It was fifty degrees and windy. After parkour club had broken up for the day, he¡¯d thrown on the cable-knit sweater Dragon Rabbit had gotten for him. ¡°My brother wants to talk to you again.¡± ¡°I want to talk to him, too.¡± She tilted her head. ¡°I know who you are now. You¡¯re the dead human he named his pet after.¡± Alden paused in the act of digging his fork into the pasta. ¡°Did you not realize that when you saw my name last time?¡± ¡°I noticed. But I thought you were dead. So I assumed a lot of humans had the same name.¡± That''s what Rel-art¡¯h assumed, too. The art''hs must not hang out with many of us. ¡°My name¡¯s not particularly common.¡± ¡°Evul,¡± said Stuart, peering at Alden from around his sister¡¯s arm, ¡°just give me the tablet. Please?¡± ¡°Okay,¡± she said, shrugging as she passed it over. ¡°The human doesn¡¯t seem to mind your <>. I guess it works.¡± Stuart glared at her, but he took the tablet without comment and hurried off into the trees to get some distance from her. ¡°I have messages for you from Kivb-ee. Eleven of them.¡± Eleven messages from Kibby. Alden couldn¡¯t think of a single thing that would have made him happier. Stuart blinked. ¡°Your smile is very wide.¡± ¡°I was worried people would change their minds about letting the human talk to her.¡± Stuart¡¯s face went still. Alden realized he¡¯d been too honest. And then¡ªwonder of wonders¡ªStu-art¡¯h navigated the two of them around a point of social awkwardness all by himself. ¡°I figured out why you enjoy the word hyektch so much. You¡¯ve been watching a lot of children¡¯s shows. Do you actually like the goodchild <>? I always found those stressful when I was young.¡± ¡°How can you tell?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t view your messages from the girl. But she gave each one a very long title so that you could sort them by subject. She wants to talk to you about those shows, demons, the videos of the ocean you sent her, recipes for something she calls stripey birthday goo, and your evil kyat?¡± ¡°Cat,¡± said Alden, grinning broadly. Kibby pronounced it a little funny. ¡°My evil cat.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± He stared off into the distance for a second, and then he said, ¡°A common small pet on Earth.¡± Stuart always looked like he was staring off into space when he accessed information through the eye rings. Alden had seen him do it several times during their previous, very long conversation. Most often to look up the English swear words Alden had been using to enforce casualness. It¡¯s unusual that he doesn¡¯t do the split-eye thing much. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, Alden couldn¡¯t remember if he¡¯d ever seen Stuart do it. He was fairly sure the other boy could split his focus like other Artonans, since he¡¯d been able to carry on a conversation while hand-casting on his metal block for the spell ring. Maybe he didn¡¯t like double visuals? ¡°How was your week?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Busy. Not in an enjoyable way. I had too much work that seems irrelevant to my future.¡± ¡°How was Ro-den?¡± Stuart hopped up on a giant tree root and took a seat. ¡°You were only partially right with your guess. He didn¡¯t swear at us as much as usual. He did it more. It scared one of my assistants so badly that I gave her permission to leave, but that made her scared that I was upset with her. So I gave her permission to stay. And then she said she was worried she¡¯d pressured me with her emotions, and now I don¡¯t even know what to do to reassure her.¡± Alden took another bite of his pasta. ¡°I¡¯ve never had an assistant, so I can¡¯t help you there.¡± Stuart sighed. ¡°I¡¯ve never had personal ones either. And I grew up around the people who work for us at home. A couple of them are even distant relatives. It was never so strange. Multiple assistants are necessary for school, though. Labs and a few other classes require more than one set of hands.¡± ¡°My week¡­it¡¯s been two human weeks actually, and they were busy, too. But it¡¯s mostly been the enjoyable kind of busy for me.¡± Alden smacked his lips. ¡°You really like whatever you¡¯re eating, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°You¡¯ll just have to forgive me.¡± Alden pointed his fork at his bowl. ¡°This was made by an S-rank Ryeh-b¡¯t with Cook of the Moment. I¡¯m not going to put it away and let it get cold while we talk.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know which human skill names correspond to which skills.¡± ¡°You guys read skills as a kind of spell code?¡± Stuart raised an eyebrow. ¡°We can¡­there are so many. And they¡¯re much more complicated than most spells. And they''re usually re-designed and affixed slightly differently for each species. If you don¡¯t already know what they do, and you don¡¯t want to trust that they¡¯ll do what the Contracts tell you they will for some reason, then you have to actually take a look at how they¡¯re built. It¡¯s <
>, from what I understand. I haven¡¯t taken classes in that subject area yet. I just meant I wasn¡¯t sure if it was one of the Ryeh-b¡¯t cooking skills I¡¯ve experienced at special meals before or not.¡± ¡°I only know it tastes like someone made this just for me. I¡¯ve never eaten it before, but it feels like comfort food. Like something I have fond memories of eating in the past, even though I don¡¯t. And it smells like¡­like happiness.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± said Stuart, giving him a small smile. ¡°I do know that one. Do you want to be alone with it?¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m fine. I eat three meals and two snacks like this every day now. For first meal I had an almond muffin so good that, for a second, my vision blurred.¡±Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°¡­you¡¯re having someone cook for you with that skill five times a day?¡± Alden opened his rainbow cube salad and dug his fork in eagerly. Stuart stared at him. ¡°There is a boy in my student house whose family has their long-term ewtwee Ryeh-b¡¯t teleported to campus every night to <>. She preps the room for ideal slumber and maintains a soothing environment for him until he falls asleep. Until now, I thought that was the most excessively luxurious use of magical resources I would ever see from someone my own age.¡± ¡°No way,¡± said Alden. ¡°I met those LeafSong kids. They can do so much worse. And sleep is very important. I should find a soothing environment maintainer for myself.¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to warp the pleasure centers in your brain.¡± ¡°There are probably healers for that. You¡¯re just jealous because this salad dressing tastes like angel tears. I bet you can sense it from Artona I.¡± While Stuart tried to figure out the phrase ¡°angel tears,¡± Alden finished off his lunch. ¡°Now I have to go suffer for a couple of hours,¡± he said. ¡°At the gym. With my trainer. You can hang out in my head if you want to, but it¡¯ll probably be boring.¡± Stuart looked fascinated by the idea of watching someone else work out. Because despite improvements, he was still weird as heck. ¡°Why are you training?¡± ¡°For fitness. Humans do that. Also, for not looking like I¡¯m lazy at school.¡± ¡°Is that a risk?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to school with people more powerful than me. Soon. Everyone seems to think it¡¯s going to be difficult for me to fit in. They¡¯re probably right.¡± ¡°Why do it then?¡± ¡°Because¡­¡± Alden had been concealing his true thoughts a lot lately. Sometimes out of necessity, sometimes because it was just easier not to give everyone else an opening to pry at painful things. But occasionally, some expression would cross Stuart¡¯s face that reminded him of what the boy had looked like that day. When he was younger. When he watched his father and his sister in the snow. ¡°I was really scared for a long time,¡± Alden said eventually. ¡°I think I still am. I need to get over it. Throwing myself at something challenging that will make me stronger might not be a perfect answer, but it seems like an answer. So I¡¯m chasing it.¡± Stuart sat there quietly, leaning back against the trunk of the tree for ages. Finally, just when Alden thought the other boy must have decided that the best answer was none at all, he said, ¡°I wish you were my classmate at LeafSong.¡± ¡°I think that one would be too much of a challenge for me.¡± ¡°I still wish it,¡± said Stuart, staring up into the branches. ¡°You never say anything that makes me hate you.¡± ******************** A few nights after that conversation, Alden finally got nine solid hours of only mildly restless sleep for the first time since he¡¯d made it back to Earth. He woke up feeling almost like he was really among the living. Lying in bed with the early morning sun streaming through the window, he took a deep breath and a deep look at himself. Himself. It was always in the corner of his mind, but he¡¯d avoided giving it his deliberate focus for weeks. Am I okay now? He was not. But he was okayer, definitely, than he had been. For the first time, he traced the new edges of his skill on purpose. He held his authority in check, and he didn¡¯t allow it to batter and rend itself in the way it had been trying to do ever since that day. Slowly, carefully, he took in the affixation. It was bigger. Stronger. A bit more complicated. New buttons to press. He was both less and more than he had been when he left the lab behind. That¡¯s all right, he told himself. It¡¯s not only a bad thing. A portion of him was still free. More than there had been right after the binding, he thought. Though maybe that was just reason seeing things more clearly than his emotions had. Enough to cast a spell with? Alden thought so. Not the auriad spells yet. But the one that lit the promise sticks. The one that made the little song in the air. The hand sanitizer spell. They had been his. He wanted them again. But I don¡¯t think that¡¯s the best way to start back. He put a lot of thought into it while he took his time getting dressed. Starting back with the kiddie wizardry, which he craved and knew he was going to love just as much as he had before, was¡­a mindset problem. Do you want to hate your skill more than you have to? She¡¯d asked him that. And he didn¡¯t. He wanted to like it like the other Avowed did. Or at least be proud of it. Or get some little thrill from it, like he had before he¡¯d known. Assuming he passed his upcoming second interview, he had just a little more than two weeks before he¡¯d be required to use his powers for Celena North High¡¯s talent and combat assessments. The latest updates Neha had made to his schedule called for him going on a campus tour today. Just a couple of hours from now. It seemed like a good morning for a debut. He walked across the hall and knocked on the door of the girls¡¯ apartment. Emilija answered. The other Rabbit was in her pajamas still, and she wore a suspicious look until she saw him. <> ¡°Harsh.¡± <> She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. <> ¡°She still cooks for you guys.¡± <> Alden smiled. ¡°Is there still vegan ice cream stuff? And is Hadiza in?¡± <> Emilija shouted, stepping aside to let Alden in. <> In the girls¡¯ apartment, there was Emilija with her chipped paint skill, the girl with Tailor Environment, Natalie, and Hadiza. The Nigerian Rabbit was a B-rank like Alden. She had a skill that made small objects more beautiful. It wasn¡¯t like Tailor Environment or the hair cutting. She didn¡¯t have to do or arrange anything by hand. She just pointed at things the size of a shoebox or smaller and, whatever they were, they got more aesthetically pleasing in a dozen tiny ways. It was a fun skill to watch work. One of those that really looked like magic. ¡°Hi, Hadiza,¡± he said when she came out of her room and gave him a curious look. ¡°Can I buy the world¡¯s prettiest ice cream cone from you?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯d like that. <>¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to carry it around in my pocket all morning.¡± Emilija gasped. <> ¡°I am. My very impressive ice cream carrying skill.¡± Peer pressure was good in this case. It would keep him from throwing the ice cream across the room if it hurt really bad. Natalie dashed out of her own room with her toothbrush in her hand. ¡°Did he do it?! Did I miss it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s really not that great.¡± She wiped foam off her chin with the back of her arm. Her gold eyes were excited. Hadiza started pulling things out of the fridge and freezer. The second fridge and freezer. The first thing Natalie had done when Alden started paying her was buy a ton of new kitchen stuff. She was going to take it all with her when she left intake, but for now their apartment looked ridiculous. There were six cookbooks open on the counter, and there were flour spatters on the walls. Both fridges were totally crammed with experiments. There was a new electronic pizza oven half-unboxed in the corner. Alden sat down and watched. Never had an ice cream cone had so much input from so many people who were deeply invested in its final appearance. <> Emilija asked. Alden watched Hadiza and Natalie put sprinkles on top of raspberry sauce. ¡°Neha says you should do things just because they bring you joy sometimes. And I think carrying ice cream around in my pockets when nobody else can do that is neat.¡± The other Rabbit nodded. The triple-decker ice cream cone was completed. It was pretty before Hadiza even did her thing, but then she pointed at it, and it turned into something that looked like it had been clipped from a magazine cover. The sauce turned glossy-bordering-on-glittery, the sprinkles were suddenly perfectly distributed, the vanilla coconut ice cream got whiter, the chocolate banana got darker, the strawberry turned lipstick pink. The scoops even looked rounder. ¡°Do we think it¡¯s an illusion? Or does it really do stuff to all of it?¡± Alden asked. <> Emilija said with a shrug. ¡°Now you do yours!¡± Natalie said eagerly. ¡°Right,¡± said Alden. He felt nervous. ¡°Just let me target Hadiza.¡± He could have pointed, or said ¡°Target Hadiza,¡± and the System would have flipped that internal switch for him. He¡¯d never actually targeted someone without the assist, since he¡¯d simply refused to let the target on Kibby drop for months for fear it might not work. But he remembered the feel of it. The weight of that pull between him and his target. He wanted to do it himself. He found the place inside him¡ªthe permanently bound mote of his authority that would never do anything again except for this one specific task. He woke it up. He flexed it. Her, he thought. Hadiza. He felt an ache. He felt the connection. A halo of white appeared over her head on his interface. She didn¡¯t feel anything. She was waiting for some indication that he¡¯d done it. So he pointed at her. She smiled and held out the ice cream cone. All right, thought Alden. I¡¯m the Bearer of All Burdens. I ran across a moon. I think I can handle a little frozen dessert. He took it from her. He wrapped his skill around it. Consciously. Deliberately. It worked just like it was supposed to. Of course. His bound authority was still oversensitive, but it did its job flawlessly. He slid off the stool. The damn carriage rule is still in effect. I¡¯m going to work on breaking that down as soon as possible. <> ¡°It did!¡± said Alden. ¡°Sorry it doesn¡¯t look very impressive.¡± He glanced down at the preserved ice cream. Then he shoved it into the pocket of his hoodie and walked around their living area with it before pulling it out and revealing that it was totally unharmed. They applauded. And then¡­ ¡°I¡¯ll get the blowtorch!¡± Natalie cried. ¡°Excuse me?¡± ¡°It¡¯s just a little one! For creme br?l¨¦e and meringue.¡± That would be fine¡­but it probably wasn¡¯t going to feel good. <> Emilija asked, heading toward Alden with her hand outstretched. <> Hadiza muttered. Were they always this violent? Alden wondered, looking down at his perfect ice cream. Were they just waiting for their chance ever since I told them I could carry bombs? Emilija slapped the ice cream lightly. And then, excited by her failure to do any harm to it, she did it a second time with what was probably every bit of her F-rank upper body strength. <> she said, shaking her bright red palm. ¡°You should meet my friend Jeremy." The slap was nothing. There wasn¡¯t really an increase in pain or even difficulty. Alden had detected it. Even with his eyes closed, he would have known something had impacted his object. But it was nothing at all like¡­ Well, what did you expect? A girl slapping your preserved object to feel like a chaos assault on Kibby? Curious, he let the girls experiment. The knife was fine. The blowtorch was fine. It was just a little baby blowtorch, like she¡¯d said, but still¡­ So this is what powering up the skill does for you. ¡°Can I hit it now?¡± Natalie asked, flipping a meat hammer in one hand. ¡°That depends,¡± said Alden warily. ¡°You¡¯re an S-rank¡­you didn¡¯t¡­what¡¯s your Strength stat?¡± <> Alden didn¡¯t. But just because she¡¯d clearly put the lion¡¯s share of the free points she would have gotten as an S into Appeal that didn¡¯t necessarily mean she¡¯d put all of them¡ª ¡°I put all my extra points in Appeal!¡± Natalie said cheerfully. ¡°I am stronger. Because it¡¯s more appealing if you move well, and that takes strength. But it¡¯s nothing crazy.¡± ¡°Oka¡ª¡± She walloped the ice cream and then laughed excitedly when the hammer flew out of her hand and across the room. ¡°This is the best!¡± <> ¡°I have to go on a tour now,¡± said Alden, grinning in spite of himself. ¡°You scary people need to leave me alone.¡± He tucked the ice cream in his pocket and left. He waited until he was out on the street to say, ¡°System, ditch the targeting assist. And the halo. I don¡¯t need it.¡± The point of light that represented Hadiza¡¯s location winked out. He could feel where she was still. He focused on the preservation for the rest of the morning. It was so easy. Despite the pain, it was just so much easier. And when he pulled his triple decker ice cream cone out of his pocket in the middle of the tour and finally ate it¡ªearning a few curious looks from the other people in the group¡ªhe did feel a little bit cool.
SEVENTY-TWO: My Daughter is An Alien Honors Student * <> ¡°Hola, Dragon Rabbit!¡± Alden said cheerfully to the faceless and nameless errand runner on the other end of the voice call. ¡°Muchas gracias por la¡­clothing. Ropa? Ropa! Muchas gracias.¡± He was planning to try for a higher score on the Spanish language proficiency exam soon. ¡°You¡¯re welcome,¡± said Dragon Rabbit. Oh no, thought Alden, taking a sip of his coffee and waving off the guy from 912 who was trying to offer him half and half. I¡¯m so bad he switched to English on me. A girl he didn¡¯t know from the eighth floor slid a notebook across the counter to him. ¡°Today is Spree day for our intake group,¡± Alden said, glancing down at the orders the girl had taken from the fifteen¡ªor maybe it was twenty now?¡ªother Rabbits who¡¯d invited themselves over to Alden¡¯s apartment at four in the morning to do prep. According to Emilija, it was Natalie¡¯s fault. She kept telling people how nice Alden was whenever they asked about the weird moon castaway who¡¯d hired her with his moon castaway money. And since he had empty rooms¡­ ¡°Apparently we need mohinga, mangu with los tres golpes, and two dozen mini cheesecakes?¡± He blinked down at the order. He¡¯d offered to feed them all so that they would stay away from his fridge full of meals from Natalie. He''d seen the variety of things on offer in the dorm cafeteria before, so he didn''t know why he''d been expecting them to request bagels and donuts. <> Of course he could find a multinational breakfast hours before restaurants were open. ¡°Thank you. I also have a list of things that should be delivered to me via drone periodically throughout the day.¡± <> That did make sense. ¡°It¡¯s mostly tech. A laptop. Some headphones. I¡¯ve got the model numbers.¡± <> ¡°What about an Artonan-made tablet capable of accessing Anesidoran WiFi networks?¡± Alden had gotten really used to the tablets at the lab. And Neha had one. So they did exist on Earth. <> ¡°What does something like that cost?¡± <> ¡°Yeah. Okay.¡± While Dragon Rabbit figured out prices, Alden watched a guy who was going around insta-shining all the metal in the room. He did a girl¡¯s earrings, a boy¡¯s brand new watch, some bracelets, a computer case, aluminum eyeglasses, and even the kitchen sink. Alden felt someone else brush by him, and a second later, all the wrinkles fell out of his clothes. They weren¡¯t even the ones he was wearing today. He¡¯d just thrown them on when people started pouring in. The hairdresser and makeup girl from downstairs were in full swing, too. People were getting clipped, brushed, and improved at an alarming pace. And there was a strange rhythm to the chaos, caused by crafty Rabbits making messes everywhere and cleany Rabbits running along behind them and magically tidying up. Presumably, similar scenes were taking place all over the Warren. As Alden finished with the errand runner, a schedule popped up on the intake Spree day group chat. He glanced through it, shaking his head in amusement. Hadiza was on beautification duty. She¡¯d be standing by the counselor¡¯s desk, zapping everyone¡¯s stuff with her skill to make it look better before they headed out for the day. Alden escaped to his bedroom¡ªthe one place in the apartment that wasn¡¯t full of other people¡ªand got dressed. He¡¯d bought a dark blue long-sleeved shirt from the gym. The name was printed on it in Artonan logograms. It was how some businesses on Anesidora tried to imply language-inclusivity without having to use tons of different ones in their marketing materials. The English translation was North of North Wellness Center for the Body and Mind. North had eliteness connotations on Anesidora because Apex was north of F-City. Crescent moons did, too, because of the northern island¡¯s shape. Which was why the gym logo was a man leaping from the bottom tip of a crescent to the top. Alden personally considered the shirt to be sufficiently snobby for Spree day, but when he emerged from his room, one of the other boys immediately asked if he was going to go with the group of Rabbit guys who¡¯d booked a personal shopping guide to take them around the luxury brand stores at Rosa Grove Mall and deck them out. ¡°This is it for me,¡± Alden said, grabbing some meal prep containers from the fridge and tucking them into his magic bag. The books were still in System storage, but now that he was closer to his new metaphysical normal and didn¡¯t feel like the bag was biting him every time he opened it, he¡¯d been carrying it around. ¡°I¡¯m a subtle conspicuous consumer.¡± <> ¡°I¡¯m going to have a big expensive laptop dropped on me from the sky. It¡¯s very Rabbit. I promise.¡± He adjusted the note on the fridge door that told people Natalie Choir would be mad at them if they ate his food, then he headed out. He stopped on the eighth floor to get a schedule update from Neha. A group of Rabbits, most of whom weren¡¯t technically participating in the Spree, were gathered around Hadiza having every small item they owned beautified. Alden plowed through the group to talk to the counselor. ¡°How¡¯d interview Number 2 go yesterday?¡± she asked. Alden wrinkled his nose. ¡°I officially made it through to the final interview, so we don¡¯t have to blow up my life plan and start over. It was¡­okay.¡± ¡°That much fun?¡± The interviewers had been an alumni trio from the school who were taking the weekend off to help out at their alma mater. The interview had been more personal and way less passive aggressive than the first one, at least. ¡°I think they felt sorry for me.¡± Neha blinked. ¡°In what way?¡± ¡°Hard to pinpoint. Maybe it was the B-rank thing? Maybe it was the Rabbit had a traumatic experience and now wants to be a hero thing?¡± ¡°Probably the second one,¡± said Neha. ¡°Or a combo.¡± ¡°I mean, I¡¯ll take a pity acceptance into hero school if that¡¯s what I have to do, but it¡¯s not my first choice. I''d rather--¡± ¡°Hadiza!¡± Neha stood up from her chair, and Alden spun around to see all the Rabbits around Hadiza leaning over her worriedly. She¡¯d slumped to the floor. <> <> <> <> Hadiza said. She was staring blankly at the ceiling. Her voice was monotone. <> ¡°You wore out your¡­power,¡± Alden said. At the same time, Neha said, ¡°Skill fatigue.¡± The intake counselor raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°I used to drop just like that.¡± <> one of the Rabbit girls said in an alarmed voice. <> Several of the others were nodding in agreement. ¡°A few people have a synesthesia issue when they overuse their main skill,¡± Neha explained. ¡°When they hit the wall magically, they feel like they¡¯re done physically and mentally, too. It¡¯s usually a newbie thing. And it¡¯s more common in Rabbits. She¡¯ll be fine after a nap.¡± Oh. It actually makes sense for it to be more common in Rabbits, Alden realized while he watched people try to coax Hadiza onto her feet so that they could take her back to her room. Such a large percentage of their authority was bound into a skill on first affixation that they didn¡¯t have much else keeping them grounded. If you tired out your skill as a brand new Rabbit, then you¡¯d tired out most of yourself. And if you had the synesthesia thing¡­ ¡°She¡¯ll really be fine,¡± Alden said to one of Hadiza¡¯s friends, who was wringing her hands while they waited for the elevator. ¡°I did that once and fell asleep in the floor of a laboratory on Artona III. It¡¯s a little like short-term magical muscle fatigue. Three hours later, I was back to normal.¡± ¡°It usually takes longer than that to bounce back,¡± Neha said. She was holding Hadiza upright with one arm. ¡°But he¡¯s right. She¡¯s not hurt.¡± Alden felt guilty. He¡¯d have to apologize to Hadiza tonight and explain why his messenger bag was a harder target than she¡¯d thought. ********** Alden chose to bike all the way from the dorms to the Teleportation Complex. He¡¯d been using magic again for about a week, and his trait was back in action when he called on it. But although he knew he needed more practice running with it in an urban environment, and there was enough groundish material around to make it work, he hadn¡¯t liked it at all the few times he¡¯d given it a try so far. He¡¯d mostly used Azure Rabbit in wide open spaces until now¡ªones without other moving objects in them. Screwing up and smacking into a wall at the lab was fine. Screwing up and launching himself into oncoming traffic or some nice elderly F-rank who was out for a walk would be awful. Realistically I don¡¯t think I would do either of those things, he thought as he cruised past the place where Aimi Velra had once kidnapped him while he was feeding the ducks. I¡¯m not a klutz. But I still think I¡¯ll stick with practicing in parks for now. Anyway, Bobby would be annoyed if he hurt himself. She¡¯d had the gym¡¯s gait analysis person come and take video of him running yesterday, and they were trying to figure out if his form was the reason he¡¯d screwed up his knees on Moon Thegund or if it was just a case of it being too physically demanding for very long distances. There was also superhuman exercise etiquette to consider on the walkways. The faster person was supposed to avoid the slower one. People got pissed if you were obviously using super speed on the far right of shared jogging paths, but they also got pissed if you weren¡¯t obviously using super speed on the far left. Alden couldn¡¯t quite figure out where the happy middle running location for non-Brutes with a funky movement power was. At least the bike lanes were delineated with paint almost everywhere. It was hard to mess that up. And bicycles counted as carrying for his skill as long as he was pedaling. So that was cool. He could also stand on trains and buses and shift his weight from foot to foot. He was still working on how to overcome the limitation. Now that he knew to look for it, he¡¯d managed to sense it over the past few days, but it wasn¡¯t really graspable in the way the functional parts of his skill were. It was more like a light fog permeating the whole thing. He was either going to have to wait a few years for it to fade like she¡¯d said it would¡­ No. Or shred it up somehow with his authority¡­. Appealing, but I don¡¯t think I actually know how to do that. Or, he was supposed to do the perception thing. It¡¯s probably that. It seems like exactly the sort of magic that would respond to a change in mental state. If the moving-around-with-your-object requirement was designed by ancient wizards to teach new Avowed profound lessons about being the Bearer of All Burdens, perception should be a good way to work around that. Or maybe even to prove that you didn¡¯t need the teaching tool anymore. Whenever he was awake, Alden was pretty much always in possession of an entrusted object lately. It seemed like the best way to tackle the problem. Right now it was one of the enamel bunny pins they¡¯d given all the Rabbits in their welcome bags. He¡¯d gotten someone to pass it to him, and it was currently tucked in his jeans pocket. I forgot I was carrying it again, he berated himself as he jumped off the bike and left it in one of the racks outside the Teleportation Complex¡¯s main entrance. The pin was so little. And easy to hold. And his power had chilled out enough that he wasn¡¯t thinking about it all the time like he had been. The pin stayed preserved as long as he followed the ¡°rules¡± of the skill, but forgetting about it was a problem when he was supposed to be trying to perceive it as a minor burden. Keep my skill wrapped around my item. Keep it preserved. Feel the item with my authority. It was his new mantra. And he thought maybe that the last sentence was going to be a very important one for him. Eventually. It was a long-term goal. The skill came with those interesting illusory tactile features that made it possible for Alden to feel the texture, shape, and weight of the things he held. It had been useful. Holding onto something you couldn¡¯t properly feel would be hard. But Alden now had an additional sense to work with, and he was betting there would be benefits if he could somehow get the skill¡¯s tactile component to acknowledge that. If he could get it to register him ¡°touching¡± the things he carried with his authority, maybe new doors would open. The only physical object he¡¯d ever managed to touch and feel like that was his auriad. Right now, he could trace the loops of it around his wrist. If it¡¯s possible with that, it should be possible for my preserved burdens, too. Alden hoped it wasn¡¯t just wishful thinking on his part. The skill was made for Avowed, not wizards. But surely the designers would have made it flexible enough to work with a sense that they themselves had possessed? And my authority is what¡¯s being the most fundamentally burdened. The bound authority of the skill is the only part of me actuallytouching the item. If anything it should work better if I can feel it that way, too. It¡¯s logical. He¡¯d begun trying to train himself to do it in a couple of different ways. And one of his favorite training toys was located here at the Teleportation Center. He headed into the building and toward the main atrium. He beelined for the customer service desk, and he beamed at the jerkface who¡¯d been rude to him for being a non-resident when he came for Hannah¡¯s funeral. ¡°No,¡± said the man as soon as he spotted Alden. ¡°You can¡¯t¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯d like a NesiCard, please,¡± Alden said. ¡°You¡¯re an Avowed. You have the System. You don¡¯t need the debit card for children and visitors.¡± ¡°But I want one. And there¡¯s no rule against it. You looked it up last time.¡± ¡°Why?!¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you want to give me one? It¡¯s not like it¡¯s hard.¡± Alden stuck out his thumb toward the man¡¯s fingerprint scanner insistently. ¡°What did you do with the last three I gave you?!¡± ¡°I broke them.¡± ¡°You broke¡ª¡± ¡°It was an accident. I¡¯m very clumsy.¡± ¡°With debit cards. That you do not need.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Why don¡¯t you just hand him one?¡± the woman beside him whispered. ¡°We have a whole stack.¡± ¡°They¡¯re not for him. What does an Avowed need a card for?!¡± ¡°I like them.¡± Despite his feelings about this person, Alden had not had any intention of tormenting him when he came here a few days ago. He¡¯d just wanted a NesiCard to experiment with. And this was the place he¡¯d always gotten them before during trips to Anesidora. But he¡¯d found the card a lot more useful than anticipated. He really did want it. And the island¡¯s self-appointed gatekeeper here really didn¡¯t want him to have it. So this was now a thing they did. He stretched his thumb toward the scanner. ¡°I want ten argold on the card.¡± It was the minimum amount. He¡¯d spend it right away here at one of the shops or restaurants and then¡­he¡¯d probably break the card again. This guy should be glad I don¡¯t just sit here at the TC all day burning through his stack of cards. The man gritted his teeth and handed the card over. ¡°Thank you. I¡¯ll see you in a couple of days.¡± ¡°You¡¯d better not be seri¡ª¡± ¡°May the warmth of the Mother comfort you until we meet again,¡± Alden said in Artonan. He strolled over to a breakfast spot with a long line and read the menu, trying to make an order add up close to the right amount. He dropped the preservation on the bunny pin in his pocket and focused his attention on the cashier as he approached. He targeted her. The action was becoming so natural it was almost like pointing with a finger. ¡°Can I get the steak and egg sandwich with extra bacon and cheese? And scallion pancakes. And a large mocha latte.¡± He handed her his card. She tapped it against a panel beside her computer screen and then held it out to him. It now looked different than it had when he passed it over. NesiCards were made of red plastic, with a white metallic oval about twice the size of a credit card chip in the center. The oval usually looked plain. Now that Alden¡¯s new target was entrusting him with the object, it looked like it had a simple network of light running through it. Alden activated his skill as he took the card back. He preserved the whole thing, just like it was any other object. And after he¡¯d collected his order and found an out-of-the-way pillar to stand beside, he started the experimenting. He let the preservation drop. As long as he didn¡¯t change targets or lose contact with the card, it was still entrusted to him, and that meant he could still see the gold light on the metal oval. It was a tiny enchantment that let the card interact with some of the magic-run gizmos on Anesidora. Alden slowly and deliberately touched a finger to the the center of the card. He made a conscious effort to focus not on the metal disc but on the magic attached to it. The network of light felt like a spark against his fingertip. He picked it up. His newly enhanced skill held it. It stuck to his finger, buzzing against his skin. Burden of Enchantment. Preserving the tiny enchantment on its own taxed his skill more than preserving the entire card. Alden¡¯s theory was that this was because the enchantment and the card belonged together on some level. Maybe his skill was somehow preserving that belonging, too, even though they¡¯d been separated. Or maybe it was actively fighting the belonging in order to separate the enchantment from its home. Two opposite possibilities that deserved more exploration. But either way, there was some factor that made pure enchantments more difficult to hold than enchanted objects. Alden pressed his finger against the disc again and dropped preservation. The enchantment snapped back into its position. The network of light looked the same as it had before he¡¯d removed it. That was the easy way. Now for the experimental way. Alden focused on the card. He let his mind drift back to the vault, to exchanging pats with Kibby. Using the lightest possible touch he could with his free authority, he tried to scoop up the enchantment. He¡¯d broken the first two NesiCards this way. But the last one had produced a result¡­not success but a result. The enchantment wasn¡¯t like a physical object. When his skill was helping him see it separately like this, Alden could also feel it with his authority. The defogging package she recommended is awesome stuff. He managed his scoop-up. His skill activated. And instantly deactivated. It felt unsettling. By going for the enchantment using his free authority like a finger, Alden had gotten the skill to do its preservation thing. But Alden¡¯s free authority couldn¡¯t interact with something that his bound authority was preserving. It was like at the exact moment he grasped the enchantment with one, the other encased it and made it untouchable. But since it was untouchable he wasn¡¯t holding it anymore. So the whole thing fell apart. But this proves that the skill does account for the possibility of grabbing burdens¡­enchantments at least¡­with an authority pick-up. Right? Alden tried again with the same results. And then a dozen more times. It made sense to him that this didn¡¯t work. He was just trying to use this method to find his way to one that would.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The Bearer of All Burdens prevented the things it preserved from being impacted by outside forces. Including Alden. He couldn¡¯t poke a hole in a sheet of paper he was preserving with his finger. He couldn¡¯t melt an ice cube he was preserving with his body heat. He wasn¡¯t ever really touching anything he preserved. Which meant the skill was holding it with something like a perfectly object-shaped magic bubble. But the bubble was currently set up to be tied to his bodily senses. Possibly because if it didn¡¯t work that way, Avowed would end up with synesthesia problems way more complex than the one that had just taken out Hadiza. Alden didn¡¯t think he would have that problem now. He just needed to find some little, special setting inside the skill that would tie the bubble to his hard-earned authority sense instead. Specifically to his sense of his own skill-bound authority rather than his free. And then he¡¯d be able to grab whatever he¡¯d been entrusted with. Without using his body parts. He hoped. Even if it wasn¡¯t straight-up telekinesis, even if symbolic Burden Bearer stuff prevented it from working on physical objects and it only worked on enchantments, spells, and similar nebulous things it would be amazing. And if it did work on physical objects¡­ He didn¡¯t want to get ahead of himself. But I¡¯m going to be so eternally angry if the option to do it doesn¡¯t exist in some form. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ever forgive the Artonans if even their ancient Avowed-will-save-us-all faction didn¡¯t account for the possibility that some Avowed might one day want to use actual authority control with this skill in addition to carrying things with our hands. He kept trying to find the hoped-for feature over the next few minutes, completely losing himself in the activity. It wasn¡¯t nearly as enjoyable as playing with the auriad. Or authority control lessons with Kibby. But it was still very much a magical process, so he could get invested pretty easily. Maybe I can try¡ª? He heard footsteps approaching, and he looked up just in time to realize who it was before he was grabbed in a crushing hug. ¡°Jeremy!¡± His friend was squeezing the life out of him. A cat carrier was banging into Alden¡¯s spine. ¡°I mean I knew you were alive!¡± Jeremy shouted. ¡°I¡¯ve been talking to you every day. But it¡¯s so good to see you in person!¡± Alden hugged him back. Same, he thought. A hundred percent the same. ¡°It¡¯s great to see you, too. I bought you breakfast if you want it.¡± Jeremy stepped back and glanced at the sandwich bag on the table Alden had been standing beside. ¡°You promised me food from a magic cook.¡± ¡°I have magic food for our lunch. Natalie made it special for us yesterday even though she was prepping for the Spree. And there¡¯s plenty back in my apartment if the other Rabbits haven¡¯t robbed me. What do you want to do today?¡± ¡°I want to see all the best stuff.¡± ¡°Done.¡± ¡°The gym full of super people?¡± ¡°We can go there. Well, to my building anyway. The soft-super gym. It¡¯s still great.¡± Jeremy looked him up and down with narrowed eyes. ¡°You don¡¯t look crazy muscular.¡± Alden laughed. ¡°You video called me yesterday. Did you expect me to morph overnight?¡± ¡°I mostly see your face and shoulders on calls. And you said you were superhuman healthy.¡± ¡°Yeah. Healthy. Not a professional bodybuilder. I think Rrorro was aiming for everyday function, not magically packing on pounds of muscle for me.¡± He paused. ¡°My abs look nice, though. I might have stared at them for way too long on my first day back home. And I don¡¯t think allergies or zits exist for me anymore. And I can see freakishly well.¡± ¡°Awesome,¡± Jeremy breathed. ¡°I can¡¯t lie,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°Those things are all awesome.¡± ******** They spent the whole morning in Apex. Alden never did that. He used his gym, did whatever business he needed to on the Celena North campus, and headed back down to F-city. It wasn¡¯t that he disliked the portion of Anesidora that was the main hangout for the high ranks, but he wasn¡¯t used to it yet. He was just learning his way around F, and Apex was more complicated. Approaching certain buildings and neighborhoods set off lists of warnings through your interface. It wasn¡¯t as if they all said ¡°GO AWAY.¡± It was usually more like, ¡°DO WHAT YOU WANT, BUT DON¡¯T BLAME US IF YOU DIE.¡± Still, that sort of thing made the place feel harder to navigate. ¡°You should get a motorcycle,¡± Jeremy said, dangling his I¡¯m a Human Minor card and lanyard in front of the nose of the fat, lazy, purring furball that he swore was Victor. If not for some of the familiar scars and the bite taken out of one ear, Alden would not have believed him. They were sitting together on the short grass in a meditation garden¡ªcurrently devoid of meditators¡ªbehind the North of North gym. Because Kibby had asked to see the evil cat, Alden was attempting to film Victor with the brand new tablet that a drone had delivered a couple of hours ago. ¡°A motorcycle?¡± he asked while he fiddled around with the logograms that ran the magic camera. Toddlers at the LeafSong party had been using them to take pictures of Avowed in their costumes. Alden would succeed. ¡°You¡¯re as bad as the other Rabbits. They all seriously want me to drive back to the dorms tonight in a brand new car.¡± ¡°Motorcycles are cooler. And they seem to be more popular here anyway.¡± ¡°Public transport is king. And then mopeds and motorcycles. And then cars. There¡¯s a huge tax on automobile imports. I think they want to discourage people from cluttering up the streets with them. Oh, some people travel around in small boats too.¡± ¡°You¡¯re officially an old man now. You think about taxes.¡± ¡°I suspect one of the guys in the apartment next to mine is secretly a middle aged accountant in a seventeen-year-old¡¯s body. He brings stuff like this up all the time.¡± Argold income from the Triplanets was un-taxable, so Alden didn¡¯t really have much to worry about. Jeremy twirled the lanyard. Victor yawned and batted at it. Cutely. Alden narrowed his eyes as he watched through the tablet screen. ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re not feeding him drugged cat food or something? Kibby¡¯s going to think I don¡¯t know what the word ¡®evil¡¯ means and give me a language lesson.¡± ¡°More proof you¡¯re an old man. You have a daughter that you¡¯re insanely proud of. Your new motorcycle is going to have a sticker on it bragging that she¡¯s an alien honors student.¡± ¡°Kid sister,¡± said Alden. ¡°Did I make you watch too many of her videos?¡± Jeremy shook his head. ¡°No, man. It sounds like she¡¯s the best. And I wanted to see who you¡¯d survived your own personal demon apocalypse with.¡± Alden finally got the settings just right and let go of the tablet. It perched on its edge in the grass unsupported. ¡°You know,¡± he said, trying to keep his tone light, ¡°you can ask me questions about it. If you want to. You haven¡¯t pried, and I know you have to be curious. I don¡¯t mind.¡± ¡°Uh¡­¡± Jeremy glanced off to the side. ¡°It¡¯s not like I don¡¯t care. Or I¡¯m not interested. But I actually thought a lot about this, and if you want to bring something up on your own¡­you know, you should do that. And otherwise I¡¯m just gonna be glad you¡¯re here. And not bother you about whatever happened.¡± Alden blinked at him. ¡°Total strangers ask me about stuff I¡¯d rather not discuss all the time. You¡¯re my friend.¡± ¡°Right,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°That¡¯s my point.¡± Oh. Damn. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯re the real old man here,¡± Alden said finally. ¡°You grew all the way up while I was gone.¡± ¡°Tell my parents that. They won¡¯t let me have a motorcycle.¡± Alden snorted. ¡°So the truth comes out. You¡¯re just trying to live vicariously through me.¡± ¡°Yeah. Obviously. You¡¯re a rich, space-faring Avowed. If you¡¯d just get new social media accounts¡ª¡± ¡°Yuck.¡± ¡°You¡¯d be famous in like four minutes.¡± ¡°Yuck.¡± There was a soft whirr overhead and a faint trumpeting sound, and they both looked up to see a large purple quad-copter drone dropping down on top of them. Alden grabbed the cat in case the drone scared it, but Victor just meowed and laid there in his lap like a lump. So confusing. ¡°See this is what I mean,¡± Jeremy said while Alden took his new laptop out of the drone¡¯s compartment. ¡°You ate magic samosas for lunch, and now you¡¯re chilling in a meditation garden in Apex while drones spit tech into your lap. The internet would love you.¡± ¡°The internet would want to see some powers eventually.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like you can¡¯t show them some.¡± ¡°True.¡± He caught sight of his friend¡¯s face and suddenly realized that Jeremy looked hopeful. ¡°Ohhh¡­did youwant to see powers? I didn¡¯t even think about that. We were right in the middle of doing cool power testing and shopping the Wardrobe, and then I got yanked to Artona III.¡± ¡°Well, you said you were doing something complicated with a card right now.¡± ¡°Not at this very second I¡¯m not. It¡¯s just sitting in my back pocket. Did you want me to preserve something else? People seem to get a thrill out of attacking whatever I¡¯m holding. You¡¯ve already done that once, but it¡¯s better now. I¡¯ve really got that shield thing we talked about going on these days. Watching me screw up enchanted items won¡¯t be fun¡­but I¡¯ve had way more practice with the Azure Rabbit trait. If we drop Victor off at a pet hotel we can go for a run or something?¡± ¡°That all sounds good,¡± he said hesitantly. Alden stared at him. ¡°What did you want me to do? Just say.¡± ¡°I kind of wanted to see the spell.¡± Alden¡¯s mind immediately went to his auriad. Wait. That¡¯s not right. Jeremy doesn¡¯t know about that. He wasn¡¯t sure if he was going to mention his ability to do non-Avowed magic at all, and if he did, he wasn¡¯t going to do it out in public. Who knew how many audial Brutes there might be around? Then Jeremy added, ¡°I didn¡¯t want to ask because I know you have to use an ingredient for it, but I thought you probably kept some with you all the time anyway¡­why are you making that face?¡± ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden, ¡°just to be clear, I didn¡¯t exactly forget I had the Haunting Sphere spell impression.¡± He could literally feel that he did right this second if he thought about it. But it was the least interesting, and very nearly the least wanted, part of his entire affixation. And he¡¯d been interested in testing the rest of his powers ever since he actually regained the ability to use them. ¡°I¡¯d also like to remind you that I was busy at LeafSong, and then I was in a corruption field with no shopping opportunities.¡± ¡°Alden,¡± said Jeremy, ¡°you¡¯re not serious.¡± ¡°And, you know, it was a spell I chose specifically because I thought it might be a little useful for support hero work, which I¡¯m not currently as sure¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯ve been on Anesidora for weeks now!¡± ¡°True¡­¡± It did look worse if you didn¡¯t know that he¡¯d only been magically functional for a matter of days. ¡°You have a whole magic spell you¡¯ve never done? You do? You¡¯re an Adjuster nut! You wanted cool spells so bad when you were picking your stuff that you complained about the Rabbit options for like an hour. Boe and I thought you were never going to decide. How could you not have tried the one you got?¡± ¡°I can make tiny flames to light candles now, too,¡± Alden said. Since it was included on the fake profile it was fair game for showing off. ¡°I really love that one.¡± Jeremy was still looking at him like he¡¯d never seen him before. ¡°We should go to a Wright shop,¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°And buy the¡­thing¡­the ball thing that makes that spell happen.¡± Jeremy gasped. ¡°Did you forget what the ingredient was called?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°I see your eyes twitching. You¡¯re looking it up on your interface! What kind of an Avowed are you?¡± ¡°One who absolutely knows the name of his own spell ingredient. It¡¯s a temper sphere. Of course. Let¡¯s go get one.¡± ********** The nearest Wright shop was a place that looked like a hardware store, if all the smaller items in the hardware store were stuffed into various kinds of vending machine and all the larger ones were locked in cages with signs on them saying you had to ask for assistance. ¡°This is uninviting,¡± Jeremy said, staring into one of the machines. It was full of pouches of colored liquids. Some of them had things in them that looked like chunks of rock. ¡°I¡¯m really getting the feeling that I¡¯m not supposed to touch the merchandise.¡± ¡°If you could see what I can see you¡¯d be even more concerned.¡± He was peering into the neighboring machine. Everything in it was sealed in metal tubes that were showing up as EXPLOSIVE ¡ª GRADE 3 TINKERING LICENSE REQUIRED on his interface. The prices were also provided through the System. Combined with all the buttons, dials, and packages that were glowing thanks to his Sympathy for Magic, Alden felt like he needed sunglasses for his brain. He shifted his grip on the cat carrier and watched an Asian woman in coveralls direct an electric dolly down the aisle. It had a bunch of bizarrely shaped metal tubes on it. ¡°It¡¯d be hard to be a Wright,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°You can stink at being one. Can you imagine how depressing it would be to get a bunch of spells and skills to help you build something amazing¡ªlike magic cannons. But then you just¡­couldn¡¯t pull them all together and engineer the actual cannons because you were missing one talent? Or you were bad at figuring out how?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯s actually that much of a problem for them. They have all the workshops for people who don¡¯t have magical engineering skills or full item-creation packages. Even if you¡¯re an unleveled F-rank you can still be the guy who just makes the cannon¡¯s trigger or something.¡± ¡°Yeah, but nobody wants to be the superhuman who spends all day making triggers.¡± ¡°You¡¯d be surprised!¡± someone called from the next aisle over. ¡°Good magic triggering mechanisms can sell for a lot of argold!¡± Jeremy¡¯s face turned beet red. ¡°I didn¡¯t think I was talking that loud,¡± he whispered. ¡°I didn¡¯t think you were either.¡± ¡°You weren¡¯t!¡± Both of them looked up in surprise to see a man¡ªso covered in gear that he was leaning cyborg¡ªfloating up and over the vending machines toward them. His accent was pure Anesidoran, and his System name tag was up. It seemed he was using it as a business card: [Techno Tarek] [S-rank Wright ] [If I can¡¯t make it, I know someone who can. ] ¡°I¡¯ve got convo picks in my ears. Made by me!¡± He pointed at his ears. ¡°Better than your usual hearing aides because they only pick up stuff you¡¯re actually interested in. I¡¯ve got hover gear made by my wife! It¡¯s experimental, but there are heroes using it in Delhi and Rome. I¡¯ve got visual layer penetration goggles made by my son! He¡¯s fresh out of uni.¡± He paused for breath. ¡°And I¡¯ve got a murder ribbon launcher. Made by my baby girl.¡± Jeremy¡¯s face was alarmed. ¡°What¡¯s a murder ribbon?¡± Alden asked slowly. ¡°I¡¯m glad you asked, Alden Thorn.¡± ¡°You know my name?¡± He didn¡¯t have his tag turned on. ¡°Observe! The murder ribbon¡ª¡± The Wright pulled a bulky squarish gun out of a holster on his belt. It looked like one of those things people used to shoot dollar bills. Alden and Jeremy both took a step back, but the man pointed it down the aisle and pulled the trigger. A hot pink ribbon a few inches wide shot out of it rapidly. It cut itself off at thirty or so feet and drifted toward the floor so slowly that for a moment Alden wondered if it was actually levitating. After several seconds, before it reached the concrete, the whole thing flash-burned away into nothing with a sizzling sound. It smelled like burnt hair. Jeremy was giving Alden a look that said he expected the Avowed to deal with the other, crazier Avowed. ¡°Does¡­does that actually kill people somehow?¡± Alden asked. If it did, should he be using it indoors? In a place full of people? Tarek scratched his head. ¡°My daughter is fifteen. She¡¯s just starting out. Murder ribbon might be an overly ambitious name for her first prototype. But it does give you a second degree burn if you grab it at the wrong moment!¡± He held up his hand proudly to show them a ribbon-wide, blistered patch of skin on his palm. There was a buzzing noise, and all of the sudden, a woman¡¯s voice sounded over the store¡¯s intercom. ¡°Tarek! Stop hawking your family¡¯s stuff to my customers! How many times have I told you¡ª¡± ¡°But I¡¯m your best customer, Bridget!¡± ¡°You are not!¡± ¡°I¡¯m definitely in the top ten!¡± ¡°Leave the kids alone, or I¡¯ll cancel your frequent shopper discount!¡± Tarek put the ribbon launcher back in its holster. He leaned over to Alden and whispered, ¡°You should buy it. It¡¯s Spree day, and somebunny has money.¡± ¡°Um¡­¡± ¡°NO!¡± shouted Bridget¡¯s voice from the speaker system. ¡°Stop freaking out the new islanders, Tarek. New boy, he¡¯s not a mind reader in disguise. His father¡¯s the Informant. Tarek¡¯s just got infogear screwed into his skull.¡± That only made Alden slightly less concerned. The Informant was an old Wright who made cheap magical wearables that were popular on Anesidora, and in a few countries where they were legal. In exchange for the fact that they were sold below cost, they monitored and recorded things that happened around the wearer and sent the intel to the Informant¡¯s private data collection center. People said that the Informant could look at someone and get a full read-out through his infogear of everything about them that he would find useful. The wearables supposedly only recorded info that had been shared in public spaces, so it wasn¡¯t against the law here on Anesidora. I guess my name and the fact that I¡¯m a Rabbit in the intake dorms isn¡¯t private. It was unsettling to wonder what else Tarek knew, though. He smiled at Alden while the unseen shop owner continued to yell at him through the intercom. ¡°Temper spheres are on aisle eleven. White vending machine. Third item from the left on the top row. Good job surviving space, by the way. I¡¯ve been a few times. Wild out there in the big universe, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°It¡­is,¡± Alden said. "Thank you." The Wright waved and left before his frequent shopper discount could be cancelled. ¡°It just hit me that you¡¯re really going to be living here,¡± said Jeremy after a minute. ¡°With super people.¡± ¡°Me too.¡± ¡°You¡¯re gonna be okay, right?¡± ¡°I hope so.¡± *********** When they got back to the dorms, Alden was relieved to see that his apartment was his again. ¡°This place is spotless,¡± said Jeremy, looking around at everything. ¡°Your pinball machine is so shiny.¡± ¡°The other Rabbits are good about tidying up after themselves. At least the new ones are. Nobody¡¯s gotten bored with their cleaning skills yet.¡± Alden set the cat carrier down and opened the door so Victor could wander the place. He wasn¡¯t sure how long he was planning to keep the cat here. Jeremy and Connie thought he needed company from home and had insisted that he give it a try. And half of Jeremy¡¯s family was allergic, so it seemed good to give them a break. But pets aren¡¯t a great choice for student dorm life, are they? Even if they were allowed at school, Alden would be busy with classes most of the time. And Victor had never been a cat that would tolerate being locked up in the house. It was like trying to keep a tornado in a cupboard. Although now¡­ While the cat went to sniff the fridge, Alden set his bag on the sofa and pulled out the carton of temper spheres he¡¯d bought. It looked like an egg carton, with twelve glass balls half-filled with glittery sand in the cups instead of eggs. Despite the fact that they looked like soap bubbles, they were supposed to be tough enough to throw around and even stand on, so Alden chucked one across the apartment into the kitchen. It bounced across the faux-wood floor and stopped beside the door. ¡°You just point, and say its name, and it happens, right?¡± Jeremy asked in an eager voice. ¡°I think so.¡± He could also do a mental target and command. But he figured he might as well start with the basics. He pointed at the ball and said, ¡°Haunting Sphere.¡± What happened next was interesting. And shockingly easy. But having experienced normal casting, Alden wouldn¡¯t be willing to describe it as enjoyable. He felt the spell impression come alive. A glowing light provided by his interface surrounded the sphere. The hand he was pointing with made a series of rapid signs he¡¯d never learned. His mouth whispered a word he didn¡¯t know. His focus narrowed onto the glass orb until there was almost nothing else in the room. Then the temper sphere disappeared. Alden¡¯s brain snapped back to normal. About five heartbeats later, a loud high-pitched scream filled the apartment. Jeremy jumped. Victor yowled and skittered out of the kitchen to hide under the pinball machine. The scream lasted a few seconds, and then it faded. The sphere was still invisible. A notification popped up telling Alden the ball would remain invisible for three hundred and seven more seconds, and he could make it scream again if he wanted. He dropped his hand, clenching and unclenching his fingers to try to rid himself of the feeling of having them puppeteered by the spell impression. ¡°So that¡¯s how it works,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m glad the apartments are well sound proofed, or they would have heard that across the entire floor.¡± ¡°It¡¯s so cool!¡± Jeremy said. ¡°The ball¡¯s still over there, right? Can I pick it up?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯ll mess up the spell. There¡¯s no warning against it or anything.¡± Jeremy hurried over to pick up the sphere, and they spent the next three minutes passing it back and forth, being impressed with the fact that there really was a completely invisible object in their hands. ¡°Wait!¡± said Alden, a flash of inspiration coming to him. ¡°I wasn¡¯t thinking. Let me¡­¡± He targeted Jeremy, and held out his hand. His friend passed him the sphere, and he wrapped his skill around it. The preservation activated. The orb stayed invisible. Alden held it between his fingers curiously. ¡°Now. If it just wasn¡¯t a ball the size of an egg, I would have an invisible shield.¡± ¡°Can I¡­?¡± Jeremy mimed thumping the ball, and Alden nodded. Stepping from foot to foot still, he held his palm flat with the ball resting on it, and Jeremy flicked his finger over it. ¡°A little too high. You missed.¡± Jeremy flicked lower, and Alden felt the impact. ¡°Why doesn¡¯t it fly off your hand?¡± Jeremy thumped it again. ¡°You don¡¯t even have your fingers around it.¡± ¡°Because you¡¯re not really touching it. You¡¯re touching a layer of preservation magic. The dumb thing is that I¡¯m not touching it with my hand either, but it has physical weight to it. The glass even feels a little bit cool. And if I don¡¯t grip it, it still does this¡ª¡± He flipped his palm over and there were a series of thumps and the sound of an invisible ball rolling across the floor. ¡°I¡¯m working on fixing that,¡± Alden said. ¡°Fixing it?¡± Jeremy looked surprised. ¡°Is it broken?¡± ¡°No. It seems to be a core feature. Not a design flaw. But I really hope it can do just a little more on this front than it¡¯s shown me so far.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be so hard on Let Me Take Your Luggage. I think it¡¯s bomb for a B-rank skill. And you¡¯ve already started leveling it.¡± It is good, Alden thought. Very, very good. And also expensive in ways I don¡¯t want to explain. ¡°I hope Celena North agrees with you,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ve got power testing this coming Saturday.¡± SEVENTY-THREE: A Busy Morning, pt. 1 * I¡¯m nervous. It was eight o¡¯clock on the night before the talent testing, combat assessment, and final interview. They were the last hurdles Alden had to clear to become a student at Celena North High. He stood in front of his closet, staring at his clothes without really seeing them. His laptop was on his bed. Victor was lying beside it rubbing his head against the edge of the open screen, which showed the latest message from the school¡¯s admissions office. Alden had read through it several times. It was congratulatory. The bulk of applicants were cut prior to reaching this stage, and he should be proud of himself for making it this far. I think, before, I would have been. He suspected that applying to one of the most difficult programs on the island would once have been a rollercoaster of hope, desperation, and anxiety. But until now, he hadn¡¯t felt even a glimmer of stress about it. I¡¯m more stressed about the fact that I haven¡¯t been stressing. Jeremy¡¯s visit had been fun. Except for Boe¡¯s absence, it had been normal in the best way. Just hanging out with a friend, talking mostly about things that weren¡¯t too serious. But there were so many little moments when Alden realized he wasn¡¯t matching up to who he had been. He kept thinking about the enchantment on the NesiCard. When he held it away for too long with his preservation, it couldn¡¯t be put back again. It would either partially reattach, but the card wouldn¡¯t work anymore, or it would just fizzle into nothing when he dropped it. I¡¯m like that. Partially the same, but not enough to work exactly how I used to. So the nerves were welcome. He would definitely have been a nervous wreck if he were an alternate-universe Alden who hadn¡¯t lost a percentage of his life to a disaster. This was milder, but still a reminder of the old him. He couldn¡¯t even figure out what to wear. Assuming Neha wasn¡¯t totally off-base, and he was destined to pass, he wouldn¡¯t just be meeting some future teachers but also many of his future classmates tomorrow. Graduates from the high school¡¯s hero program were funneled straight into the university program. Both tracks were so intensive that they didn¡¯t allow for much free time. So these are people who I¡¯ll be spending most of my days with over the next few years. Not the gym shirt for sure. People would think he thought he was hot shit. That was never a good thing. And not his Rabbit housekeeper outfit. Unless he wanted to commit social suicide right off the bat. He had dressed up a little for the first and second interviews. But the interviewers themselves were in casual clothes both times, so at this point, it would probably seem like he was trying too hard. Is the skull shirt too villainous? Is that a thing in hero school? He doubted it. He could think of a few superheroes whose public personas were deliberately dark. Maybe it would counteract the Rabbit factor that was inevitably going to be the first thing people remembered about him? Or maybe it would make people think¡ª Ugh. Never mind. I¡¯m getting ridiculous. I¡¯ll just go for safely boring like every other self-conscious, fashion-clueless teenager ever. Jeans. Plain brown t-shirt. The dark green plaid shirt unbuttoned over the top instead of a jacket. Done. Casual. Comfy. Inoffensive unless there was a secret society of plaid-haters among the Avowed. Before he shut the closet, he gave the newest additions to it a look and shook his head. A few days ago, he¡¯d received a parcel from LeafSong. It had been teleported in and delivered by a courier. Alden had had to sign for it like it was something very important. But it was just the paper copy of his certificate of merit for responding to an emergency on the campus and a new human necessities package, identical to the one he¡¯d received on his first night there. They¡¯d thrown the contents of his locker out, and they were upset about it because the turtlenecks, jogger pants, and alien hygiene supplies had been given to Alden instead of loaned. They felt like they¡¯d trashed his possessions, so he got all new ones. Right down to the intimidating hooked razor and the tin full of tooth gum. He shut the closet door and went to read the email from Celena North yet again. Athletic shoes were a must, but protective gym suits would be given to them when they arrived. No armor, weapons, or magic items for the test unless they were completely necessary for power function. Ingredients for spell impressions had to be provided by the prospective student. Enough for ten casts if you wanted the impression to be considered part of your power set for admissions purposes. I wouldn¡¯t even be able to show off my spell impression if I wasn¡¯t rich now. I guess money is a superpower, too, huh? Temper spheres cost two hundred argold. And they almost always lasted for two uses, but sometimes only one. Alden was bringing twelve of them just in case. No unnecessary magic items¡­ Alden¡¯s fingers went immediately to the auriad around his neck. It was coming with him. There was really no question about that. He wasn¡¯t sure he was even able to leave it behind for an extended period without the connection between them being damaged, and if he was, he still hated the idea so much it wasn¡¯t happening. He¡¯d bought a wide leather cuff bracelet, and he¡¯d spent the past several days breaking it in and making sure it completely covered the authority control tool no matter how he moved around. If he was in a situation where the bracelet wasn¡¯t convenient or allowed, he¡¯d wear the auriad around his ankle and cover it with a sock. It¡¯ll be fine. The only thing left was to figure out what the heck to have along with him for preservables tomorrow. He was assuming he could bring anything he wanted, since items were completely necessary for his main skill use. It wasn¡¯t as straightforward as a Meister showing up with their tool, but he didn¡¯t think the school was going to be that picky about it. The problem was, he knew how test day worked in general but not what he¡¯d be asked to do with his skill specifically. There were blog posts and videos online from people who¡¯d participated in the past. Lots of advice for the more common class subtypes, none for anyone with a skill similar to his. He had some thoughts about the combat assessment, and he suspected being a teenage battle prodigy might not really be the point of it. So there was a case to be made for trying to show off some creativity and flexibility instead of sheer efficacy. But some of his ideas were so creative that they might make the assessors think he was just being a clown. When he was having a bad night and trying to distract himself by coming up with unique materials to use as shields, a bouquet of helium balloons sounded like a really good idea. But maybe that was sleep deprivation talking and he would look like he¡¯d lost his mind to experienced heroes. He¡¯d actually gone to the trouble of tracking down a florist¡¯s shop that sold balloons just to see what holding a single one felt like. He¡¯d been almost positive the skill would work on one but he wasn¡¯t entirely sure how a lighter-than-air item was going to react. It had been absolutely fine. Instead of feeling the downward weight he was used to, he had the same upward tugging sensation he would have had if the balloon was unfrozen in his hand. I swear it would work. The balloons or their ribbons would all be touching. They¡¯d count as a single stack. If a string snapped or a few popped when they weren¡¯t being preserved it wouldn¡¯t matter much. I could adjust the size by dropping some on purpose, or I could adjust the distance between the bouquet and my body by choking up on the string and then re-preserving. But if a man showed up to hero school with a balloon bouquet, everyone was going to want him to prove he knew what he was doing with it. And regardless of whether it succeeded or failed epically, it was definitely going to be unforgettable. Alden hadn¡¯t had much time to practice. His skill was only just back online. What time he did have had been spent working on his trait under Bobby¡¯s guidance and experimenting with the new enchantment-moving feature, which was one he most likely wouldn¡¯t even have an opportunity to use today. Another month would have been ideal, but he didn¡¯t have that. In the end, instead of ordering up fifty balloons from Dragon Rabbit, he settled on a couple of items that he thought would show off his skill¡¯s flexibility without being confusing for him to handle or making him look like he was joking around. All that was left to do was try to get some sleep. He¡¯d gotten a couple of good luck texts from Connie and Jeremy. He thanked them, then placed a call to Boe. ¡°Guess what, Boe?¡± he said as he transferred Victor to the floor and tried to brush cat hair off the bed. ¡°I¡¯m actually nervous about doing a good job tomorrow, and I¡¯m mildly worried about what people will think of me at my former dream school. It¡¯s a miracle. I may be turning back into a normal-ish person. You¡¯re supposed to be here to give me a sarcastic pep talk. Or something.¡± He paused. ¡°Call me back, okay? As soon as you get this¡­even if it¡¯s just to tell me to knock it off for a while.¡± He wanted the call notice to flash, but it didn¡¯t. Jeremy had said Boe was getting in touch every few weeks. It had been nearly two months now. And still no word. Alden lay in bed, using his auriad to practice some of the string figures for the spell that would brutally crush small objects. Now that he¡¯d memorized the patterns, practicing them and funneling his authority through the tool in the necessary way was relaxing. Not easy enough to be mindless yet but almost. He¡¯d be able to cast this spell. One day. For now, there just wasn¡¯t enough of him unfettered by the affixation. The patterns required a more forceful use of his free authority than the elementary school graduation spell he¡¯d learned with Kibby. He got tired too quickly. He couldn¡¯t push all the way through yet. The next one in the book is nice, he thought, staring up at the dark ceiling after he¡¯d completely exhausted himself. It would pull heat from target area. A small one¡ªheld within the the bounds of the final pattern in the sequence. It would freeze room temperature water in around half a minute. I¡¯m going to make my own ice when I¡¯m on the Triplanets and carry it around in my pockets to throw in drinks so I don¡¯t scald my tongue anymore. It was important to have goals as a wizard, right? ******* The alarm Alden had set through his interface woke him up at 4:00 AM. His eyes snapped open. It¡¯s today. Power testing. Final interview. Rest of my life starting. Maybe. I guess I could always flub it and declare myself retired. He rolled out of bed. He was already buzzing with nervous energy, so he decided coffee was a bad idea this morning despite the early start. He got dressed, grabbed his things, and filled a dish with expensive diet cat food that wasn¡¯t poisoned despite Victor¡¯s feelings on the matter. He read the email from the school again because his overhyped brain said it might have changed overnight¡ªnope¡ªthen headed out the door. The halls were devoid of people, and so was the common area. Alden went down a floor. As soon as the elevator opened, Gustavo waved at him from the beanbag chair he was occupying in front of the big screen tv. <> ¡°Hi, Gus. How¡¯s the soccer?¡± ¡°The football is <>,¡± said the night counselor. ¡°I Americaned it up again. Sorry. Football,¡± Alden walked over and handed the man a compact red umbrella with a sturdy wrist strap. <> Gus said dramatically. ¡°Thank you so much.¡± ¡°You can keep it if it means that much to you.¡± Alden grinned and targeted him. ¡°But I would appreciate it if you handed it back to me.¡± <> ¡°Yes. I assume I¡¯ll be carrying people and switching out between things they give me all day? But just in case they¡¯re really strict and won¡¯t let other people entrust me with stuff for some reason, I figure I¡¯d better have an object ready to go the second I walked through the doors.¡± <> ¡°Are we?¡± <> ¡°Huh,¡± said Alden. ¡°I hadn¡¯t thought of it that way. But we should be the most prepared class.¡± Gus nodded, stood from his beanbag, and gave a full bow, arms flared outward. It was a fancy Artonan ¡°Welcome to the House, Very Important Person¡± bow. Gustavo did a lot of work on Triplanet weekends as a fill-in butler. After standing back up, he returned the umbrella. ¡°Thanks.¡± <> ¡°I¡¯ll try.¡± ¡°Big smile!¡± said Gus, as Alden entered the elevator. <> Who all? A few seconds later, the doors opened again, and Alden flattened himself against the back of the elevator, clutching his umbrella in both hands, as he was greeted by squeals, cheering, and applause. Ohmygodwhatisthis!? he thought frantically, while dozens of overlapping subtitles blitzed across the lower half of his vision, and Emilija and Paolo dove into the elevator to drag him into the crowded lobby. ¡°That one¡¯s ours!¡± Natalie Choir called from where she stood on top of a chair across the room. Hadiza was standing in a neighboring one. They waved at Alden wildly, and he just gaped at them. <> Emilija shouted over the other voices as she grabbed the front of his shirt and tugged him through a gaggle of cheering Meisters. <> Paolo shouted back. People from every class in the tower were down here. There must have been at least three hundred of them. An Adjuster Alden had met at a couple of events patted him on the back and shouted <> in Turkish. A pair of Rabbits from the eighth floor were saying the same. He finally managed a startled ¡°Thank you all,¡± just before he and his handlers broke through the back edge of the crowd at the lobby doors. <> Emilija said, straightening her ponytail and smiling at him. <> A moment later, the lobby burst into cheers again as a girl Alden thought was an A-rank Life Shaper emerged. She looked embarrassed but not shocked at all the cheering and clapping. The other Shapers in the room were being particularly loud. <> Emilija said in a satisfied voice. <> ¡°So this send-off happens every time?¡± Alden asked. <> said Paolo. <> ¡°I didn¡¯t know.¡± <> That was true. When the Shaper girl reached the doors, she and Alden made their escape together just as another explosion of sound erupted in the lobby. ¡°It¡¯s lovely, isn¡¯t it?¡± she said as she adjusted her backpack straps. ¡°Helps a bit with the nerves.¡± ¡°It is nice of them.¡± It was still hours until sunrise. It had rained overnight, and the lights from the windows of the apartment towers were reflected in the puddles. A bus was parked outside the Brute tower. They crossed over toward it and headed up the steps. <> the driver said. He was brushing powdered sugar from a donut off of his uniform. <> Alden hadn¡¯t bothered to find out how many people had made it to the final round from intake, so as he walked down the aisle to the back, he counted the seats. Sixty of them. Annually, the high school accepted two hundred and fifty students for the hero track, give or take a few. They held the practical talent tests every two months. So it stood to reason they¡¯d be taking in around forty new students this time. On top of that, the teens from intake would be a fraction of the applicants, since all the island-born people and the non-natives who¡¯d already left the intake dorms would be included. Lots of people are going to be disappointed at the end of the day. And that wasn¡¯t even counting all the ones who¡¯d been kicked in the first and second interview rounds. He snagged one of the window seats and sat tapping his umbrella against his leg while he listened to the bellows and shouts of encouragement coming from the Brute lobby. It was so jammed with people that their well-wishers actually spilled out of the doors onto the sidewalk. Watching the bus fill was interesting. Nobody took a seat next to anyone until they ran out of space and had to start. A lot of these people must know each other. They¡¯re probably friends. Avowed had a tendency to divide up along class and rank lines. Especially the high levels. Alden had thought Anesidora would be this way. Apex existed for a reason, and it was just how human relationships usually worked. But even so, outside of the rare classes, it was a little more stratified than he¡¯d expected. Even in intake. So there was no way those two S-rank Adjusters didn¡¯t know each other. And the thirty or so Brutes on the bus had to have been hanging out together before now. But there was still tension. And not a lot of talking. Everyone wants it. They¡¯ve got to be feeling that even more than I am. Finally someone came to sit beside him. She was wearing a black hoodie with the hood up, and she had long dark pigtails sticking out the front. Her hands were shoved into the pockets of her jeans, and she plopped into the seat beside him. She folded herself in half and stuck her feet against the back of the seat in front of her. Her sneakers weren¡¯t quite as dirty as Alden¡¯s had been on Moon Thegund, but they were headed in that direction. ¡°Hi,¡± he said. ¡°Hello,¡± she muttered. ¡°Maricel. S. Shaper of Ground. Philippines. First time taking the practical.¡± Well, that¡¯s one way to do it. ¡°Alden. B. Rabbit. America. First time taking the practical, too.¡± She didn¡¯t look at him. ¡°Rabbit?¡± ¡°He¡¯s that guy,¡± one of the Brutes sitting in front of them whispered to his neighbor. ¡°The guy who got stuck on a planet with no System for a couple of years.¡± At that, Maricel turned to see Alden better. She had very dark brown eyes. ¡°It was a moon. And it was only half a year,¡± said Alden. ¡°Um¡­I have a movement trait that involves ground. It¡¯s a really interesting element.¡± ¡°Ground¡¯s not really that great here on Anesidora, though,¡± the Brute in front of them said. He turned around in his seat to peer at them over the back. He was wearing sunglasses around his neck, though that didn¡¯t seem like a practical choice given the day¡¯s activities, and he looked like a stereotypical surfer dude. ¡°To really play with ground as a high rank shaper you¡¯re basically taking bites out of the island itself, right? And I bet they frown on that. I¡¯m Winston.¡± But that is not the name of a surfer dude. He had his name tag up. His full name was Winston Reginald Heelfeather. He was from New Hampshire. He was a speedster. A-rank. ¡°I¡¯m glad somebody started talking finally. It was a bummer to come out of the lobby pumped to show off my talents and get on board the gloom bus. This is my second time going through this, and it was a gloom bus last time, too.¡± ¡°You participated in the acceptance cycle two months ago?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Yeah. I was so close to making it. Just a few little hiccups on the interview portion. They love speedsters, but they play mind games. Today I¡¯m wearing these, so they can¡¯t see what I¡¯m thinking.¡± He pointed to his sunglasses. ¡°Like a pro poker player.¡± Alden wondered if maybe Winston had failed last time because he was the kind of person who thought wearing sunglasses indoors during an interview was a clever idea. ¡°God, it would be embarrassing if I didn''t make it this time. I''d have to start a general studies program at Franklin High and move into the dorms there while I prep for the next round. So what did the aliens do to you on the moon?¡± ¡°Idiot,¡± said a girl halfway down the aisle. ¡°You can¡¯t just ask someone a question like that.¡± ¡°Hey!¡± said Winston, whipping around too fast to pass as a regular human. ¡°I¡¯m just curious. It¡¯s not like he has to answer.¡± <> his neighbor muttered in Portuguese. ¡°I think rumors have gotten garbled,¡± said Alden, choosing to answer the speedster¡¯s question, since if he didn¡¯t the rumors would get even more garbled. ¡°I wasn¡¯t with a bunch of Artonans on the moon. Just one friend. A little girl. We tried to stay out of the corruption as much as we could. We watched a lot of television and had language lessons. And I learned to operate a greenhouse and drive a magic car. When help came, we headed for it.¡± ¡°But what are you going to do in hero school if you get in?¡± Winston asked as the driver shut the bus door and started up the engine. ¡°What are you going to do?¡± Alden countered. ¡°I¡¯m going to run really fast, grab bad guys, use my superior strength and knowledge of judo to pin them to the ground, and get lots of sponsorship deals from sports drink brands.¡± ¡°You know judo?¡± ¡°No. Not yet. It¡¯s a goal, man. But¡­what¡¯s a Rabbit hero supposed to do?¡± Alden sighed. ¡°I want to be battlefield support,¡± he said. ¡°I haven¡¯t got it down perfectly. My skill is potentially good for things like shielding and medical evac. It¡¯s flexible. I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll figure more uses out as I go along.¡± <> Winston''s seatmat said. <> Wow, he¡¯s devoting a lot of early morning energy to being a dick. The dick was also assuming that Alden had gotten the average number of extra foundation points with his skill. Which was ten, as Jeremy had pointed out when he was going through his initial selection process. Bearer of All Burdens had only come with three and a half. Authority cost for affixing a base skill is in a range, obviously. I only got twelve and a half foundation points to start with. And that was with the signing bonus¡­which¡­damn. What a scam that is if it actually used my own authority. I don''t think they can just gift you more...can they? And getting points early isn¡¯t that great. Unless you¡¯re someone who plans on it taking you years to level. I should definitely have taken The Fragile Atmosphere tool. Or maybe not. If his body was just a little weaker, if his affixation was just a little smaller, he might not have made it out with Kibby. His free authority might have overbalanced too quickly. He might not have survived the teleport. It was hard to say what the value of taking those few measly points had been. Alden was so lost in pondering how the Earth System made its calculations and presented them to Avowed that he was on the verge of forgetting to respond to the other boy, when Maricel spoke up. ¡°You¡¯re a Brute, too, aren¡¯t you?¡± the Filipino girl asked the asshole quietly. She was still folded-up in her seat. ¡°All you Brutes are point-obsessed. Just because your own skills are pathetic doesn¡¯t mean ours are.¡± ¡°Hey! My skill isn¡¯t pathetic,¡± said Winston. ¡°I admit I haven''t completely figured out what it does. It¡¯s some kind of force-adjustment thing that turns on automatically as soon as I start to run at a certain speed? But it¡¯s not¡ª¡± <> ¡°I said I was an S-rank. Were you even listening?¡± Maricel replied in an acidic tone. ¡°And my foundation points don¡¯t matter. They¡¯re not what¡¯s going to get me into the program.¡± ¡°Someone¡¯s confident,¡± the girl across the aisle from them said. <> someone else replied. <> ¡°Look!¡± Alden said loudly, pointing out the bus window. ¡°They¡¯ve decorated the arena for Halloween.¡± Everyone ignored him. Apparently hostility was more appealing than the orange and violet spiderwebs of light being projected across the smooth metallic surface of the stadium where many of the Avowed sporting events were held in F-City. Well, I tried. ¡°I know enough,¡± Maricel said. ¡°I know I will be getting into the stupid hero school today. And I will go to the stupid hero college. And I will become a superhero as fast as possible, so I can leave this place behind for good. <>¡± That shut most of the others up. Finally, the Life Shaper Alden had left his building with earlier said, ¡°You¡­you know that¡¯s a fine goal. To be a superhero in your hometown. But putting it like that¡­it isn¡¯t really the best way to impress the interviewers.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t help her, Sue. She¡¯s the competition.¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Maricel muttered, tucking her neck and yanking her hood as low as it would go so nobody could see her face. ¡°If I don¡¯t get into hero school, I will just train. I¡¯ll train until I can lift the earth from four kilometers away.¡± <> ¡°It¡¯s crazy is what it is,¡± someone said. ¡°She¡¯s a nut. How¡¯d she make it this far?¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­two and a half miles?¡± said Winston. He was gesturing in the air, probably looking up the unit conversion. ¡°Is there even a Shaper alive who can do that? The Gloom works across miles, I guess? But I don¡¯t think there¡¯s a Ground Shaper who does¡­¡± ¡°Why that distance?¡± Alden asked curiously. It was so specific. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind answering. No pressure or any¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s where the seabed is in this part of the South Pacific.¡± Maricel spoke in a flat voice. ¡°Four kilometers below us. That¡¯s where all the ground I¡¯ll ever need is.¡± ¡°To do what?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care if some politician decides I¡¯m not popular and exciting enough to allow back home,¡± she said to her knees. ¡°If I can¡¯t get to Manila by becoming a hero, then I will rip up the earth below us. And I will build a bridge. I will walk back to my family.¡± The silence that fell was oppressive. ¡°Oh. You¡¯re a cool person!¡± Alden exclaimed. One of Maricel¡¯s feet slipped, and the sole of her sneaker squeaked against the plastic backing of Winston¡¯s seat. Ah¡­way to go, Alden. That must have sounded like you were making fun of her with the others. ¡°I¡¯m being serious,¡± he said, when she didn¡¯t look at him. ¡°After we both get accepted, if you don¡¯t hate the idea, we should hang out?¡± <> someone farther up the bus whispered. <> Alden didn¡¯t care how it sounded. He didn¡¯t care that leaping to initiate a friendship with a stranger wasn¡¯t like him at all. It was a pure, visceral reaction¡ªone of the strongest he¡¯d had to another person since arriving back on Earth. Maricel didn¡¯t want to show off. She didn¡¯t want a branding deal. She didn¡¯t want to fit in. She didn¡¯t even want to save people. She just wants to go home. She just wants her family back. She wanted it so desperately, she¡¯d do anything for it. She was willing to walk across a planet. Realistic? Not at all. But even if it wasn¡¯t realistic, something about it felt real. And she¡¯d stood up for him. It might have only fanned the argument¡­but¡­yeah. She was cool. *********** The bus put them out at Celena Circle, a sort of mini-park in the middle of the high school campus. The circular green space¡¯s central walkway split and branched off in three different directions. The left path went to the School for the Arts, right to the School for Sciences, and central to the School for Superhuman Studies and Talent Development. They should just give up and change the name since nobody ever calls it that, Alden thought as he hopped off the bus. The rest of the trip here had been uneventful except for a few ugly looks and whispers, thankfully. Maricel hadn''t responded to his friendship request, but she clearly didn¡¯t have a problem speaking her mind and she wasn¡¯t telling him to buzz off, so he decided she was still considering it. He activated his skill and his trait as the two of them trailed behind the others up the concrete walk. ¡°See,¡± he said, taking a bounding step forward. ¡°Ground.¡± She watched him for a second, then asked, ¡°Did you take that just because you¡¯re a Rabbit, and it makes you bounce a little?¡± ¡°I consider the comedic potential to be a drawback. I can make it look pretty much like a normal run. Or I can go extra bouncy with it. My trainer and I have been practicing to find all the ways that are easiest on my joints.¡± Rrorro wasn¡¯t going to be around to fix him if he destroyed himself again. And just because other healers would be available to him didn¡¯t mean he wanted to repeat the experience. As they passed under a streetlamp, Maricel threw out her hand and made a cupping motion with the middle finger extended in a point. A chunk of dirt at the edge of the sidewalk pulled loose and floated over to them. ¡°Ground,¡± she said, directing it toward Alden with a gesture. A yellow flowering weed stood on top of the softball-sized clod. He held out his left hand since his umbrella was in his right, and she dropped the dirt in it. He grinned as some of the damp soil slipped through his fingers to plop onto the sidewalk. ¡°You gave me a flower. We¡¯re definitely friends now!¡± She sighed and stared ahead of them to where the other slowpokes¡ªAdjusters and Shapers mostly¡ªwere walking. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have been so honest on the bus. They¡¯ll all talk about it. It will make me look bad to the admissions committee.¡± Alden plucked his weed free of the dirt and tossed the rest of it into the grass. ¡°Yeah¡­¡± he said quietly. ¡°That might not have been the best idea. I¡¯ve been operating on the ¡®Pretend You¡¯re a Hundred Percent into It¡¯ model myself for a while now. Not brave enough to tell a bus full of competitors that being a superhero isn¡¯t my very first priority.¡± She pulled her hood back for the first time and looked over at him. ¡°It¡¯s not?¡± He shrugged. ¡°I want to get stronger. I want to be in the best superpower development program I can get into. And that¡¯s here since I¡¯m not trilingual enough for the other big Apex schools.¡± ¡°¡­why seriously pursue combat talent development if not for hero work? Especially if you¡¯re a Rabbit. You¡¯ll get work work anyway, won¡¯t you? From the Artonans.¡± Alden tucked the flower into his shirt pocket. ¡°I want to survive if I¡¯m ever attacked by demons. Or if some wizard summons me and forces me to fight alien sea monsters. Or if a bomb explodes in my face.¡± She stared at him. ¡°I don¡¯t know why you¡¯re giving me that look,¡± Alden said mildly. ¡°You¡¯re planning to build a land bridge from here to Manila. We¡¯re both at hero school for different reasons from most people.¡± ¡°Ha!¡± she said, still examining him. ¡°Okay¡­¡± ¡°Anyway, I did really want it once. The superhero thing. Maybe I will again.¡± They followed the group. Just before they hit the hero program¡¯s section of the campus, the sidewalk wound between a pair of stately stone buildings. They looked like they belonged on a European aristocrat¡¯s family estate instead of an island that was less than a century old. Architecture-wise, both Celena North¡¯s high school and the adjacent university campus had an identity crisis. The buildings were all grand and expensive-looking, but they didn¡¯t go together. Contemporary structures sat beside traditional ones from multiple cultures. These two out-of-place manor houses were part of the dorms that he and Maricel might be staying in one day. Some of the windows were lit, and they¡¯d already passed by a couple of people out running. ¡°Early risers,¡± Alden noted. It was five thirty AM. ¡°Apex schools aren¡¯t for lazy people I guess?¡± ¡°That¡¯s why you¡¯re going to get in.¡± She frowned at him. ¡°You seemed really confident about that on the bus, too. I think you¡¯re the only one.¡± ¡°You¡¯re an S. Ground Shaper is a great class for hero work. And even if you don¡¯t want to be a hero for the normal reason, you still want it more than most of them do.¡± ¡°How do you know that?¡± she said skeptically. ¡°There are a lot of ambitious people in this group.¡± ¡°I was listening. Your ambition is to become so powerful that nobody can stop you from being with the people you care about. I don¡¯t see how a guy whose current life goal is to advertise vitamin-laced fruit punch is going to compete with you.¡± She frowned down at her feet. A minute later, she said, ¡°It¡¯s Alcantara. My last name. I¡¯m fifteen.¡± ¡°I¡¯m Alden Thorn. Sixteen.¡± ¡°Thorn is a good name for a hero.¡± She considered it a moment longer. ¡°It might be better for a villain, though.¡± ¡°That can always be my backup plan.¡± A few minutes later they arrived at their destination. Despite the division of the high school into distinct educational tracks, a lot of the spaces were shared. Hero students took classes with the art and science kids, and they used the same dining and entertainment facilities. But this particular building was mostly just for the future heroes. It was a huge cement block, doing its best to hide from the more attractive buildings behind a line of narrow, leafy trees Alden couldn¡¯t identify. There was no sign out front in reality, but the letters on his interface served the same purpose. [CNH MagiPhysical Education] ¡°It¡¯s just PE, with an M on the front,¡± he muttered. ¡°No big deal.¡± Maricel was staring at it, too. ¡°So this is where we fight.¡± Alden grimaced and tightened his grip on his umbrella. ¡°It¡¯s not all going to be combat testing. But¡­yep. This is where we fight.¡± ¡°Do you think they¡¯ll let me shove dirt into that mean Brute¡¯s lungs?¡± Alden side-eyed her. ¡°I¡¯m going to guess the answer to that is no,¡± he said. ¡°Also¡­since we¡¯re friends now¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ll treat you like a fellow S-rank.¡± She smiled at him. ¡°Out of respect.¡± ¡°You know, that¡¯s not necessary. They¡¯ll just take one or two B¡¯s today, right? Two max. So they¡¯re probably going to compare me to other B¡¯s. Maybe the weaker A¡¯s. You and I are worlds apart. If they pit us against each other, I¡¯ll be feeling really respected if you just wave at me, and then gently trip me or something.¡± They stepped through the double doors and headed down a short hallway into the building¡¯s gymnasium. There were wooden bleachers, but the resemblance to Alden¡¯s former high school gym ended there. It was a massive space. The ceiling high above them was transparent; the floor was smooth, white, and unmarked by lines. The second he entered, he had to approve an area-customized name tag for himself. ¡°You now have the letter B on your forehead,¡± Maricel informed him. She had an S on her own, but Alden was barely paying attention to it. ¡°There are so many people here.¡± He had thought there would be a couple hundred. But there were more than twice that many, and people were still pouring through the doors. ¡°Look how many of them are B¡¯s,¡± she noted. ¡°It¡¯s a lot more than I expected.¡± Alden scanned foreheads. Around one in four were fellow B-ranks. ¡°So I just need to beat a hundred plus people. No sweat.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve got no idea,¡± a familiar voice said, and Alden turned to see Winston Reginald Heelfeather slipping around a lost-looking A-rank nearby. He wiped his sunglasses on his shirt and then put them on. ¡°Some of these people have been trying for a year or more to get in. They¡¯re on the verge of being too old. The hero track won¡¯t even take you once you hit seventeen, no matter how amazing you are. You have to wait and shoot for the university program instead. But that means some of them have had time to level. And then there are the locals¡­¡± He leaned toward Maricel and whispered, ¡°The locals are terrifying. If you need any advice from someone with some experience, let me know.¡± Alden stared around at his fellow B¡¯s, trying to guess classes based on subtle cues. It was a fairly useless thing to do. Unless someone was showing off talents at this very moment, then he couldn¡¯t tell much. Only the Meisters were easy to pick out as a whole class since they had all brought along the tool of their trade. Mostly weapons, of course, both Artonan and Earth-based. Meisters could be craftsmen or artists, too, but getting into this program with those powers wasn¡¯t going to be easy. That guy has a big flashlight. Is it because he walked over in the dark, or does he use it to do something? People were filling the bleachers. The group from the intake dorms was all huddled up together in a big pile, and Winston headed over to join them. ¡°I guess it would be strange if we sat with some other clique, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± Alden asked. The island kids were so obvious. They were all broken up into smaller friend groups that were joking around with each other despite the anxiety in the air being so thick you could practically taste it. A few of the S¡¯s were relaxed. Maricel shrugged at him, then she headed toward an empty space in between the intake kids and a large posse of silent A¡¯s and B¡¯s who looked like they might puke at any minute. Some of them had bags or shirts for teams at Franklin High, so he was guessing this was a group who was hoping to transfer schools from there to here. Maricel sat precisely in the middle of the empty area. I guess my new friend and I are loners today, Alden thought as he joined her. But at least we¡¯re loners together. He didn¡¯t mind it. Though he¡¯d been actively trying not to be a recluse since arriving on Anesidora, hanging out with one or two interesting people had always been more his speed than inserting himself into big groups. ¡°Loners together¡± had been business as usual all through middle school with Boe. A moment later, a hush fell over the room, and the few people still milling around hurried to find seats as a group of twenty adults entered. Most of them were chatting, yawning, and sipping from travel mugs. But the woman in front of the pack was all business. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and she was wearing a form-fitting gray body suit with black athletic shoes. ¡°Good morning,¡± she said in a carrying voice, as she strode to the center of the gym. ¡°As all of you should know after enduring the selection process to get here, I¡¯m Head of Program Saleh. You can call me Principal Saleh, Director Saleh, or whatever equivalent term of respect works best with your native tongue.¡± She stood tall, arms loose at her sides as she scanned the crowd of hopefuls. ¡°However, I will ask you not to call me Ghosten. I¡¯ve retired, and another hero now wears the name.¡± She smiled and lifted an eyebrow. ¡°If you can beat me in a fight, you can call me by my first name. Lesedi.¡± I would like to see someone other than me try that, thought Alden. Lesedi Saleh was a U-type, and she was one of the rare, rare Avowed who¡¯d moved up from their original rank designation. She¡¯d gone from A to S. And her power set was nightmarishly hard to deal with in combat. She was strong, fast, and agile enough to be mistaken for a balanced version of a Brute, but on top of that, she could phase through solid objects. There seemed to be limits on how long she could use that skill, from what Alden had seen on old videos of her in fights and demonstrations, but it didn¡¯t change the fact that having it made her extra scary. She could deliver devastating strikes without receiving any in return. It was a very tight and tidy package of talents for a U. Many of the uniques seemed to have powers that didn¡¯t quite go together or even ones that outright clashed. It was as if the Artonans had designed them at the end of one of their parties, when all the wizards were drunk and making a botched version of a Sky Shaper who communed with small animals on the side seemed like a hilarious thing to do. Bedlam Beldam has made it work for years, but it can¡¯t be easy¡­ ¡°Congratulations on coming this far,¡± Principal Saleh continued. ¡°As high ranks, you represent the top fifteen percent of young Avowed.¡± She¡¯s including B¡¯s with high ranks. That¡¯s good of her. ¡°As young people who have made it to the final stage of this selection process, you represent a much more exclusive percentage. Now, before I finish my welcome speech, let¡¯s take care of a few matters.¡± She paused. ¡°Those of you who have been through this on multiple occasions should now be seeing interview times and room numbers appearing on your interfaces. If your slot is in the next half hour, please proceed there now. There is no need for you to listen to information you¡¯ve heard more than once before. As usual, you will note that returnee interviews are only five minutes long. If you fail to impress your committee in that time frame, you will not be allowed to return for power testing. Good luck to you all.¡± A few dozen people stood, including many from the Franklin High group near Alden and Maricel. They left quickly. Some of them were grim-faced, others sweaty and wide-eyed. ¡°To the two of you who sent special testing requests into the school last night,¡± the principal said in a disapproving tone, ¡°you may stay and observe today if you wish, but you won¡¯t be allowed to participate. Your applications have been rejected for this cycle. We are pleased to accommodate unique powers and unique situations, but the window to notify us passed a month ago. Others who made such requests were prepared and respectful of our faculty members¡¯ time. You were not. You may try again in December. ¡°To the rest of you, thank you for all the hard work you¡¯ve done to get here. The School for Superhuman Studies and Talent Development provides a close-knit community of like-minded young people, and an excellent but grueling educational environment. As students hoping to join us, you are prepared to commit to a complete academic education on top of the talent development program we are known for. If you are accepted, you will not be allowed to neglect either. You will devote twice as much time to your schooling as most of your Avowed peers do, and it is our hope that in turn you will reap more than twice the results. ¡°Your personalized schedules for the morning are being sent to you now. Some of the times listed are very specific. Showing up late to anything will result in your dismissal. Please look over them now, and if you have any questions, let us know immediately.¡± All over the room, people started scrolling through schedules with their fingers. Alden¡¯s own arrived, and he flicked through it with a thought. [Alden Thorn - B4? - Locker 311]
  • 06:30 - Special Talent Assessment - MagiPhys Lawn, Green Tent
  • 07:38 - Substance Abuse Testing - Room 1002
  • 08:00 - Gym Suit Fit Check and Usage Instruction - Main Gym
  • 08:45 - Runner Group B2 - MagiPhys Track
  • 10:00 - Combat Group 2 or Private Assessment (TBD) - Main Gym
  • 11:30 - Interview - Room 1005
  • 12:00 - Lunch - Locations Throughout Campus
* Please remain on campus until rejections and acceptances have been announced. That¡¯s a busy morning. ¡°Why is there a drug test when we¡¯ve already had one as part of our physicals?¡± a guy sitting on the far edge of the room asked loudly. ¡°The physicals most of you had done months ago?¡± Principal Saleh said in a light voice. ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t you have to do another one?¡± ¡°It¡¯s just¡­I don¡¯t think¡­¡± The principal raised her voice slightly, ¡°Random substance abuse testing will be a feature of your life in most countries if you become a superhero or superathlete. It will also be a regular occurrence as a student in this program. Here, it involves spitting into a vial, wiping a drop of blood onto a magic test strip, and stepping briefly into a scanner. If that¡¯s a problem for you, for some mysterious reason, then you should choose a different school and a different career. Any more questions?¡± There weren¡¯t. ¡°All right,¡± she said. ¡°You are dismissed. I look forward to seeing you all throughout the day.¡± People started to stand and exit. ¡°Which dining commons are you going to for breakfast?¡± Maricel asked, propping her foot up on the bleacher to tighten her shoelaces. ¡°I don¡¯t have a breakfast time slot,¡± said Alden. ¡°I have Special Talent Assessment now.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that about? I don¡¯t get to do that.¡± ¡°I think it¡¯s probably for people who are coming in with less common powers. To make sure the faculty know how we work before they start throwing us at other students.¡± ¡°Oh¡­¡± she said. ¡°What do you do? Other than your bunny run?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s not call it that. I preserve stuff.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a kitchen Rabbit skill? You turn food into pickles? Or jam?¡± In that moment, Alden experienced an unexpected mix of horror and amusement. The thing was¡­instant pickling absolutely sounded like a skill the Artonans would include in the Rabbit class. There were plenty of kitchen-focused Rabbits out there. And it would even be useful for preserving all of the dead things and magic plants that wizards used for potions, tool creation, and spells. There¡¯s no way that skill doesn¡¯t exist. It¡¯s got to be on the list somewhere. People are probably walking around Anesidora with it right now. ¡°I think I¡¯ve told dozens of people ¡®I preserve stuff,¡¯ without explaining any further,¡± he said in a stunned voice. ¡°They all assume I¡¯m a pickle maker. That¡¯s definitely what they all think.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t do that?¡± ¡°I surround objects someone else gives me with an invisible protective barrier that stops them from changing and prevents outside forces from interacting with them.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± she said in a relieved voice. ¡°Good! That¡¯s so much better. I was thinking maybe you could instantly pickle peoples¡¯ body parts, but it didn¡¯t sound like it would work very well.¡± * SEVENTY-FOUR: A Busy Morning, pt. 2 The lawn Alden¡¯s schedule directed him to was a large stretch of grass that separated the building from the school¡¯s track. The sky was turning paler, but it was still dark. And one of the teens walking ahead of him was glowing. U-type? Or an Adjuster with a light spell package? Or some lucky Shaper who got a rare element? In addition to the glowing person, who turned out to be a guy from Denmark, there were fourteen others under the canopy of the green tent. Feeling nervous, Alden sat down at a picnic table with the glow guy and two girls. A moment later, a short, red-headed woman with tons of freckles bounded up to join them. ¡°Good morning, odd birds!¡± she said in a gung-ho voice. ¡°Sorry we deprived you of breakfast. Most people are too sick to their stomach to enjoy it anyway, but there are water bottles in the cooler over there. And if you¡¯re hungry, feel free to drone something in from Cafeteria North. No charge. You¡¯re on the school¡¯s budget today just like you were already students. By the way, I¡¯m Luna Plim. Instructor Plim. I teach Creative Power Applications.¡± She paused as if waiting for them to greet her in return, but they all just sat there in silence. ¡°Nerves?¡± she asked. ¡°I don¡¯t bite. Anyway, as soon as the principal gets out here we¡¯re going to go ahead and have each of you show off a little. So if you need to stretch, pray, or ask a question, go ahead.¡± Five different hands went up, including Alden¡¯s. The skinny, blue-eyed girl sitting across from him blurted out,¡°Ihavetohaveapartnerandi¡¯msorrybutI¡¯maSway.¡± Everyone stared at her with frowns on their faces while they tried to figure out what she¡¯d said. Finally a tall guy at the next picnic table said, ¡°No thank you.¡± Instructor Plim cleared her throat. ¡°Mina here is a next gen Sway. In case you¡¯re not up to date with the latest and greatest Avowed news, the Council¡¯s complaints to the Triplanets have finally yielded results, and for the past few years, Sways have been getting much more variety as far as class refinement options go. Mina, why don¡¯t you tell us about your talents and how you hope to use them?¡± Mina looked like she¡¯d rather crawl under the table and hide, but she said, ¡°Ihaveaspellthatrelaxesmytargetanda¡ª¡± The teacher coughed. ¡°Just a little slower maybe¡­¡± The girl took a huge breath. ¡°I¡­I have a spell that will relax you, and I have an S-rank alteration that will let me block distractions from your mind as they pop up. I also have reverts for both if they¡¯re necessary. And¡­and a couple of other things that I¡¯m not going to try today.¡± She glanced around at the others desperately. Nobody seemed to want to meet her eyes. Luna Plim spoke up again, ¡°Mina is in this group because to complete her entrance requirements it was decided that she would need to gain the cooperation of at least some of her future classmates.¡± It made sense. A Sway with the kind of helper mind control the girl had was still a Sway. If she wanted to work with other heroes, even with those talents, she was going to have to get permission from her teammates every time she used her powers. Only now that everyone knew she needed their help to have a chance of getting into the program, several people were staring at their own fingernails or the blades of grass beneath their feet like they were the most fascinating things in the world. ¡°Those sound like support talents,¡± Alden said finally. ¡°You didn¡¯t take any other reader or manipulator powers?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to use anything like that today,¡± Mina said, looking at him hopefully. That wasn¡¯t a no. But now that he¡¯d spoken, he didn¡¯t want to say, Never mind. Fail, you brain scrambler. After all, his own skill required a partner if he wanted to do more than play with his magic umbrella. He¡¯d thought he¡¯d be the only one here in that situation. ¡°I guess¡­I would be fine with it if you shared your Avowed profile. So I could actually read your talent descriptions.¡± Her face reddened. ¡°Sorry,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s just I wouldn¡¯t be comfortable with it otherwise.¡± When she didn¡¯t reply, the teacher asked, ¡°How do you feel about that suggestion, Mina?¡± The girl clenched her jaw and shook her head. Really? thought Alden. ¡°Well, I¡¯m going to have to say no then.¡± Instructor Plim sighed. ¡°In that case, Mina, you¡¯ve failed again. Regular buses should be running by now. Have a safe trip back home.¡± The girl grabbed her purse and hurried off, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her arm. Alden felt awful, but at the same time¡­ ¡°I thought it was a reasonable suggestion,¡± he muttered. ¡°It was completely reasonable,¡± said a boy who was lying on a bench with his hands behind his head like he was here for a nap. He had an S on his forehead and an Anesidoran accent. ¡°Willingly letting her access your brain for one thing makes it easier for her to do something else to you without any detection. If she didn¡¯t have some nasty talent lurking on her profile, she¡¯d have shared it. And if she¡¯s got a nasty talent, she¡¯s an idiot. Everyone knows if you¡¯re going for the next-gen-nice kind of Sway you don¡¯t pick things that will scare other people off.¡± Alden was guessing that was something island kids knew. He¡¯d never lived the kind of life where he had to think about it himself. But it did make sense. ¡°Other questions?¡± Instructor Plim asked. Her chipper attitude was back, as if she hadn¡¯t just sent someone off crying. ¡°Alden, you had one, didn¡¯t you?¡± He looked back at her. ¡°Yes. I wanted to ask about the entrustment component of my skill. I brought something that¡¯s already under my control. So technically nobody has to entrust me with anything, but that reduces my flexibility a lot, and I wasn¡¯t sure¡ª¡± ¡°Interesting! You were thinking ahead. And you brought a tool of some kind? That¡¯s exactly the kind of thing we¡¯re here to figure out before we send you off for the rest of the day¡¯s tests.¡± She stared off into space for a second. He didn¡¯t know if she was thinking, reading the profile and skill description he¡¯d provided the school with, or texting someone else. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± she said after a minute. ¡°Since you came prepared we won¡¯t make you jump through any extra hoops. We do have you scheduled for some things that will necessitate you dropping your item. But one of the faculty will entrust¡ªis that the term you want to use?¡ªyou with it again if the other students aren¡¯t willing to play along. If you want to use additional items, you¡¯ll have to get your hands on them yourself however you can. Sound fair?¡± He nodded. I¡¯m so glad I brought the umbrella. Otherwise he¡¯d have to con people into giving him things all day long. It was fascinating to listen to the others¡¯ questions. The group of ¡°odd birds¡± was really odd. The glowing boy was a Shaper¡ªan A-rank who controlled light as an element. It wasn¡¯t totally unheard of, but it was rare enough that Alden didn¡¯t know what could be done with it. And apparently the other Avowed didn¡¯t either. This was his second time around. He was trying to figure out how to use the starter skills for invisibility, but he hadn¡¯t quite gotten there yet. And he was trying to figure out how to burn things, but he hadn¡¯t quite gotten there yet either. It made it hard for the faculty to decide what he could actually do to show off his talents. There was a B-rank Brute girl who could elongate and strengthen her limbs. It made her look like a Morph, but she was listed as something the System was calling a Flail Brute instead. So she apparently wouldn¡¯t be getting access to the full variety of shapeshifter options moving forward. The guy who¡¯d been lying down on the bench was an Adjuster who¡¯d gotten a rare spell path offer from the System and had taken it. He¡¯d only received one starting skill and one spell impression, which was very uncommon for his class and rank. The skill let him read the recent history of nonliving objects. The spell let him return them to a past state. ¡°You sound like the world¡¯s greatest repairman, not a superhero,¡± another boy muttered. The Adjuster flipped him off. Principal Saleh arrived not long after they¡¯d finished asking all of their most pressing questions and looked around. ¡°The Sway?¡± she asked Instructor Plim. The teacher shrugged. ¡°She wasn¡¯t good at making her case. Alden here offered to partner with her if she¡¯d show her full profile, and she refused.¡± ¡°Mmm¡­¡± the principal said. She glanced at Alden briefly and arched a dark brow at him ¡°All right. Who do I get to beat up first?¡± ************ Despite the principal¡¯s words, no beating went on. She and Instructor Plim each pulled a student onto the lawn for a brief talk and power demonstration. Everyone else sat around the tables watching and eating breakfast. Alden pulled a meal prep container out of his bag. The motivational label Natalie had chosen for today said, ¡°Hard work never fails.¡± He bit into a breakfast wrap while he watched Principal Saleh encourage the nervous Flail Brute girl to take a swing at her own outstretched arm. ¡°Just trying to gauge the power output of all of us <>,¡± said the Adjuster. He had very dark brown hair that looked like it had received a lot of attention in the mirror this morning. He was eyeing Alden¡¯s breakfast curiously while he spread cream cheese on top of his own strawberry-filled croissant. ¡°So that we don¡¯t kill the more predictable people. Or get killed by them. Hey¡­what¡¯s your class?¡± ¡°Me?¡± Alden asked ¡°Yes. You asked questions about your skill, but I couldn¡¯t tell what class it belonged to. Are you a rare Adjuster path, too? Or a U?¡± ¡°Rabbit.¡± The boy choked on a mouthful of pastry. Then he laughed. ¡°For real? That¡¯s fun! If you get in, you should come to my house on Friday. I¡¯m throwing a party. Everyone will be there.¡± <> another boy snapped as he bounced his leg and stared at the principal. He was an A-rank Meister who was carrying a polished black stick with a slender gold chain attached to the end. <> Alden checked the S¡¯s name tag again. Kon was short for Konstantin. ¡°I got my S,¡± said Kon, yawning. ¡°I got a good class. My good class turned out odd thanks to the System deciding to throw something extra my way. But I think I¡¯ll manage just fine.¡± <> ¡°You¡¯re just scared I¡¯m going to get in, and you¡¯re not. Stop speaking awful Russian. You¡¯re so bad it makes Mom want to cry.¡± <> <> <> ¡°Everyone¡¯s going to think you¡¯re warped, carrying a magic whip around for the rest of your life.¡± The A-rank clutched his weapon tighter and glared. ¡°Lexi and Kon are brothers,¡± the girl sitting next to Alden whispered. ¡°I go to the same school as them. Lexi¡¯s a year older, but they got selected around the same time. I think he¡¯s jealous.¡± ¡°You know I can hear you, don¡¯t you?¡± Lexi spat. ¡°Careful. My big brother likes to hit people with whips!¡± Konstantin said gleefully. Then, he sniffed the air. ¡°What in Apex are you eating for breakfast, Rabbit guy? And why does it smell like sunshine?¡± Everyone else started sniffing, too. ¡°Must be something else,¡± said Alden, grabbing the other half of his wrap quickly and biting into it. ¡°This is just beans and lettuce and grains. Health food. Gross.¡± And a pineapple salsa. And some kind of luscious potion of a dipping sauce that Natalie said had twenty-three ingredients in it. He¡¯d gotten into the habit of eating slowly so that he could savor every bite, but with these scavengers watching him he couldn¡¯t take any chances, so he gulped it down. ¡°You ate that like you thought you were surrounded by thieves,¡± said Lexi, staring at him with an expression of mild disgust. ¡°Right?¡± said his little brother, still sniffing. ¡°Seeing that kind of made me want to steal it more.¡± Shortly afterward, it was Alden¡¯s turn to go up and have his private consult. He was with Luna Plim. Having watched her work for the past twenty minutes, he now knew she was a Water Shaper. But she was only using the contents of about six bottles of water to test people. ¡°Hello again!¡± she said brightly while water blobs orbited her head. ¡°I re-read all of your info last night. So I¡¯ve got down everything you included in your application. What object did you bring along with you?¡± Alden held up the compact umbrella. ¡°Technically it¡¯s two things. I¡¯ve got the other one wrapped around the handle.¡± ¡°You can do two objects?¡± ¡°Stacks,¡± he clarified. ¡°Or things that are touching when they¡¯re entrusted to me.¡± He didn¡¯t see a point in trying to show off his actual ability to do two separate items since it wasn¡¯t easy enough yet to be useful in practice. ¡°Ooooo,¡± she said, clapping her hands together. ¡°That sounds like so much fun for me to play with in class! I mean¡­for you to play with. If you get in. Of course. What¡¯s the other thing?¡± Alden extended the compact umbrella without allowing it to open fully and showed her the fishing line he¡¯d wrapped around the handle. A metal washer was tied to one end of it. ¡°Woooow. Points for creativity! I love weird weapons. Though I guess yours is more like a weird shield. How much practice have you had with these two things?¡± ¡°Basically none,¡± said Alden. ¡°I played with them a little, but it¡¯s not like I¡¯ve tried to use them seriously.¡± Who would he have used them on? Even if he¡¯d had more time to prepare, it wasn¡¯t like the intake dorms had an underground battle ring. ¡°I see¡­¡± She stared off into space again. ¡°I know you can¡¯t kill anyone with the umbrella. And I don¡¯t think you¡¯re likely to kill anyone here with the fishing line. But let¡¯s test that out.¡± ¡°What?¡± said Alden, a little alarmed. ¡°I was just trying to think of ways to trip people, maybe?¡± ¡°Sure!¡± she said eagerly, flipping her red hair over her shoulder. ¡°But let¡¯s check just to be positive. Show me your skill, young Avowed! Let me give you my wisdom.¡± Trying not to feel ridiculous, Alden grabbed the closed umbrella by the wrong end and gripped it tightly. Holding it over his head, he spun it in circles so that the weighted line began to unravel. Don¡¯t hit yourself or anyone else in the head with a washer, he commanded himself. Don¡¯t get tangled up in your own line. You will look incredibly dumb. When he had maybe twelve feet whistling around over his head, he shifted his weight and activated the preservation. It froze into position. He now had a long, difficult-to-see preserved line. ¡°So you¡¯re using the umbrella as a handle, too,¡± Instructor Plim said as she walked below the line and examined it. ¡°Double duty. How long can you hold it like that for?¡± ¡°Forever.¡± She looked over and raised her eyebrows at him questioningly. ¡°Until I get tired of moving around with it,¡± he clarified. ¡°And it¡¯s not heavy. So several hours if nothing messes with it.¡± ¡°Define ¡®messes with it.¡¯¡± ¡°If nothing too powerful impacts it?¡± ¡°How powerful is too powerful, though?¡± she asked. ¡°Do you know?¡± ¡°My skill¡¯s a B, level¡­3. So nothing more powerful than that?¡± ¡°Are you aware that some people think Rabbit skills might be more powerful or longer lasting than equivalently ranked and leveled skills from other classes?¡± she asked, reaching up to poke at the line. ¡°So when you¡¯re thinking of it, you should think of it as Rabbit B3.¡± ¡°I thought it might be that way, but I¡¯m not really sure how much the System cares about¡ª¡± ¡°Oh! Did you?¡± She looked thrilled. ¡°Do you study System theory?!¡± Alden didn¡¯t know how to answer that one. ¡°Well, most Rabbits start with just a single skill, and our spell impression choices are weak, and most of us don¡¯t get many foundation points. It just stands to reason that our skills are¡­slightly bulkier than other classes at the same rank? Or else it wouldn¡¯t be fair.¡± He guessed it could have to do with a lot of factors. Complexity of the magical effect, strength, durability¡­all of the above. It could be slightly different for every skill. But if the System was locking up most of your authority to make the skill, it had to be more substantial in some way. So that Konstantin guy¡¯s Adjuster skill must be overpowered for a newbie S, Alden realized, glancing toward where the other boy was arguing with his brother again. Either that or his spell impression is nuts. Adjusters usually get multiple decent spells to start, so one of the two things he can do must have abnormal authority requirements. ¡°You have thought about it!¡± Instructor Plim said, and Alden refocused his attention. ¡°It makes sense and follows with what we currently understand about the System. Only not many people have gone toe-to-toe with a Rabbit and then reported back on it. I tried to look up some things when your application came through just to be sure. But I couldn¡¯t find what I wanted, so I called up one of my friends and asked if we could fight, and she said, ¡®No, Luna. What¡¯s wrong with you? I mop alien floors.¡¯¡± She shook her head and then beamed. ¡°So can we?¡± ¡°Can we what?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Can we fight?¡± She spun her finger, and her orbiting water balls started spinning faster. ¡°Can I hit your fishing line over and over again, and see how tough it is?¡± He nodded. ¡°Great!¡± Half a second later, one of the water balls flattened into a disc and flew at the line like a Frisbee. It was so fast, Alden could barely see it. But he definitely felt it. He didn¡¯t know how much power Instructor Plim had put behind it, but it was more of a strain than anything Natalie or her roommates had hit him with. Like most Shapers, Luna Plim directed her element with bodily gestures. It was a dynamic-looking class because of that. High ranks who had lots of different control skills to play with could look almost like they were dancing when they worked.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°All right!¡± she said excitedly. ¡°I¡¯m going to hit it again.¡± Three more discs smashed Alden¡¯s line in rapid succession. He stood there, trying to gauge how fast he would get exhausted if she kept doing this. It would take a long time. Do I need to fake skill fatigue at some point? he wondered worriedly. She thinks it¡¯s a level three skill, but it¡¯s an eight. He didn¡¯t want to do that. He wanted to see how much he could really do. But that was a pretty big gulf, and he didn¡¯t want to out himself as something strange either¡­ Wait. She¡¯s probably not actually trying that hard. They can¡¯t wear me out this early because recovery time for most people is longer than mine. Hadiza had been down for most of a day after she¡¯d tried her skill on Alden¡¯s bag. They would assume I¡¯d miss all my other practical testing. ¡°I recover from fatigue in¡­I think it¡¯s around three hours until I¡¯m mostly functional?¡± he said. ¡°So if you hit it really hard, I¡¯ll probably just need to miss the running test.¡± She stopped in the process of forming another water disc. ¡°Ohhh! That¡¯s tempting. That¡¯s so tempting. I don¡¯t know what the other faculty will think of me though if I knock out a student¡¯s main skill first thing in the morning.¡± So knocking us out later in the day would be acceptable? ¡°But this is good enough for me to tell where you¡¯re at. Your fishing line is approved for tripping people! And your umbrella is approved for protecting you! And you can play with your Flickerer if you can find something to use it on, but I don¡¯t think you will since most of the enchanted objects around should be the Meister tools, and an F-rank skill isn¡¯t going to do anything to those.¡± She chuckled. ¡°Is there anything you¡¯re worried about as far as the morning combat assessment goes?¡± ¡°Doing well?¡± She smiled. ¡°Then you¡¯re a go! With a warning¡ªyour fishing line is sturdier than I was expecting, so you¡¯re going to need to be careful with some of our Brutes.¡± ¡°Brutes?¡± ¡°There¡¯s a no killing requirement today.¡± She smashed another water disc into the line. ¡°And your tool here is more dangerous than you¡¯re thinking. People who grow up knowing about Avowed mostly through the news cycle and entertainment media tend to assume Brutes are more unbreakable than they really are. You have to remember that the ones who become superheroes have much more complete talent packages and knowledge of their weaknesses than those who are just starting out. They don¡¯t make many mistakes. Kids do all the time. It depends on the subclass, rank, and skills, but most of the Brutes here aren¡¯t equipped to take narrow point damage at their maximum speed.¡± She pointed at the clothesline. ¡°It¡¯s too skinny. When I read your description of your skill, I was assuming you created more of a bubble shape around your object, like other shields I¡¯ve seen. But it seems you freeze it in exactly the shape it¡¯s in. A clueless speedster could slice through their own neck smashing into this, so our gym suits would register that as a kill.¡± ¡°I can just not use it,¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°In fact, maybe I shouldn¡¯t. I don¡¯t want¡ª¡± ¡°Oh no! You should use it. It¡¯s so interesting. Well, it¡¯s your choice. But I¡¯m curious to see what you¡¯ll do with it! Just be careful and don¡¯t get yourself disqualified. Now, if you could cancel the skill, I wanted to see¡ª¡± Alden let the preservation fall, and the line went right back to spinning. ¡°Yes! So exciting. It really does just resume motion. I can¡¯t wait. Now¡­¡± Without any explanation, Instructor Plim stiffened up and fell flat on her back in the grass. She hit the ground with a thump. Her water orbs splashed down around her. A couple of people under the tent called out in alarm, and the principal looked over from where she was working with Lexi. ¡°Instructor Plim,¡± she said with a sigh. ¡°I¡¯m injured!¡± Instructor Plim announced. ¡°I want to be frozen in time for science¡­I mean rescued. Please rescue me.¡± Right, thought Alden. I guess they would want to see that part of the skill, too. But just as he targeted the Creative Applications teacher, Principal Saleh walked across the grass toward them. ¡°You don¡¯t have to pick her up if you think it will tire you out for your other assessments. She gets unprofessionally enthusiastic about powers she hasn¡¯t seen before. There¡¯s a rescue component later¡ª¡± ¡°I weigh fifty-five kilograms! I have a possible spinal cord injury. Saving me is extra credit!¡± ¡°There is no extra credit!¡± Principal Saleh said loudly for the benefit of everyone present. ¡°None of you are even being judged right now. We¡¯re just making sure we understand your powers so that you¡¯re prepared for the rest of the day, and our faculty are prepared for you.¡± ¡°I have no idea how to pick up someone with a possible spinal cord injury,¡± said Alden. ¡°Since she doesn¡¯t actually have one, you can just throw her around however you like. If you¡¯re going to indulge her, then¡­¡± She stepped over to the other teacher, bent and picked the redhead up like she was light as a feather. ¡°Here. Take her. I¡¯ll offer advice for you if I think of anything after I see your skill work. At least that way it won¡¯t be completely pointless.¡± Alden carried the teacher around for a few seconds. ¡°This is really strange looking,¡± Kon said. The Adjuster boy had casually wandered over to watch. ¡°She¡¯s like a statue. You just haul people around like that all the time?¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t come up that often.¡± Alden dropped preservation, and Instructor Plim looked at him in confusion for a second before she lowered her arms from around his neck so that he could set her back down. ¡°This is actually my first time preserving a human.¡± He¡¯d only just realized it. The teacher was blinking excitedly around and examining herself. ¡°How long was I out?¡± ¡°Less than a minute,¡± the principal said. ¡°And that was plenty. Konstantin, you¡¯re next with Instructor Plim. Alden, regardless of whether you are accepted into Celena North or not, you would benefit from emergency response classes. Carrying people is somewhat unusual for you since you lock them in place, and you should learn more about positioning and weight distribution.¡± ¡°Yes. Thank you,¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°I¡¯ll do that.¡± The principal headed back over to Lexi. ¡°I¡¯m now a time traveler,¡± Instructor Plim said thoughtfully. ¡°Who¡¯s next?¡± She completely missed everything Principal Saleh just said. Kon smiled and waved at her. ¡°Oooo,¡± she said. ¡°The object reader. I have so many ideas for what we can do together in my class! I mean, if you get in of course. Let¡¯s talk about¡­¡± ************* Alden passed his drug test, then headed to the locker room. A man at a table just outside glanced at his name tag and passed him a tote bag. ¡°I feel like getting dressed is something we should all be able to do by ourselves by the time we¡¯re in high school,¡± he said with a yawn. ¡°But since we¡¯ve already had one unfortunate incident this morning¡­this is a protective bodysuit. Magic zipper on the front. You have to wear the cuffs unless you want to lose your hands, feet, or face. Red lines down. You have to return all of this when you¡¯re finished with it. The gear isn¡¯t a souvenir. The last time someone stole a set, the principal tracked them down, phased through the wall of their bedroom in the middle of the night, and recovered it herself.¡± ¡°Got it.¡± Another pair of guys were already in line behind him to receive their own suits, and when he stepped into the locker room, it was packed. There were private stalls and showers, but they were all occupied. Lots of people were changing in between the lockers. Alden wasn¡¯t particularly eager to flash his contract tattoo, so he waited and ducked into a shower as soon as the previous occupant left. He snapped the curtain closed behind him and examined the gear. He¡¯d already seen the dark gray bodysuit in videos online. And in person on Principal Saleh. It was a somewhat famous uniform¡ªone of the perks of getting into the school. It was the same magical protective outfit that the college¡¯s hero program students wore. The material was soft, with a faint sheen in bright light, and it was very thick. He put the suit on and ran his hand up the gap in the fabric at the front. ¡°Magic zipper¡± was a misnomer. The fabric itself just sealed together as if it had been made in one piece from the start, all the way from his navel to the turtleneck top. Of course it¡¯s a turtleneck. Nothing about this outfit was human tech. Since he had the option, he shifted his auriad from where it had been hiding under his leather bracelet and put it around his neck before pulling the bodysuit up to cover it. Inch-wide metal bands with a line of something bright red inlaid into the bottoms went around his wrists, ankles, and neck. The red looked like some kind of stone, and the things were heavy, so maybe it was. He put his shoes back on and headed out. Everyone else who¡¯d gotten dressed was crowded around mirrors examining themselves, and he couldn¡¯t help but stop and look at himself for a second, too. It¡¯s not that a gray unitard is much to look at, he thought as he took in his appearance. But everyone knows it¡¯s what superheroes wear to train. He followed a Wright¡ªthe only one he¡¯d noticed so far today¡ªout the door and into the gym. He took a seat on the bleachers and was pleasantly surprised when Maricel appeared a few minutes later and climbed up to join him. She had opted to wear her hoodie over her own unitard. ¡°You¡¯re not using performance enhancing drugs,¡± she said. ¡°You either. We are officially not cheaters together.¡± Performance enhancing wordchains were allowed. Alden had heard a couple of people muttering them in the locker room. One of them had even sounded like he was getting it right. Maricel looked around at everyone else. ¡°The interview must have been difficult.¡± She jerked her head to their left. The group from Franklin High they¡¯d sat beside this morning was clustered up again, but their numbers were seriously diminished. Only around a third of them had survived their five minute interview session. Brutal, thought Alden. It would make you feel like garbage to keep coming here every two months and making it this far only to get dismissed in five minutes. Faculty started streaming in. They were almost all in suits of their own now, and it wasn¡¯t long before Principal Saleh reappeared, too. Everyone focused on her, but she only walked over to take a seat on a bottom bleacher beside some students who all spontaneously developed amazing posture. Instead, an absolute giant of a man took the floor. ¡°Big Snake,¡± Alden and about a hundred other people whispered at the same time. ¡°Howdy,¡± said Big Snake, smiling and tipping an imaginary cowboy hat. He somehow made his gimmicky greeting look not cheesy. His graying blond hair was pulled back in a short, straggly ponytail. ¡°I¡¯m Morrison Waker. I¡¯m teachin¡¯ combat to third year students here while that little mess back home blows over. I¡¯ll also be watching y¡¯all work today. ¡°Let¡¯s talk about the gymnasium and those suits you¡¯re wearing.¡± He stomped the white floor once, and it sounded like a thunderclap. ¡°Our gym¡¯s tough. One of only a few places on the island built special for Avowed by the Artonans and regularly maintained for us by wizards. You might see ¡®em when they come to check it every few weeks. Remember it¡¯s rude to stare at people just because you haven¡¯t seen their kind before. Artonans don¡¯t mind, but this one time I stared too hard at a Fetuna and¡ª¡± Principal Saleh cleared her throat. ¡°As I was sayin¡¯, the gym¡¯s magic. You can smash the floor. You can burn it. You can try to cut it with your big giant sword. Oh yeah, I see you there, kid with the big giant sword. That¡¯s cool, young lady.¡± The girl with the absurdly large broadsword blushed. ¡°I can¡¯t bust this place up no matter how hard I try, so that means you kids can¡¯t either. And when the floor is turned on¡ª¡± He paused for a moment, and a curtain of light went up between the white floor and the bleachers. It was bright at first and then it faded into invisibility. In its place, Alden now had the words FLOOR ON at the top right corner of his field of vision. ¡°Then nobody standing here where I am right now, properly wearing one of the suits, can take serious physical damage. There are rules! And they¡¯re important ones. Even I follow ¡®em, so you know I mean it. First, you wear all your gear.¡± He pointed to his own metal bands and his suit. ¡°Second, you don¡¯t screw around and try to kill your peers. During certain classes we allow lethal intent for training purposes. You¡¯re not in one of those classes. If the gym registers a lethal hit today, the person who dealt it had better be prepared to prove it was a freak accident, or they¡¯d better be prepared to find another school. And I don¡¯t mean a hero school. We¡¯ll share your name with every school in Apex, and you¡¯ll be blacklisted.¡± Several people muttered at that. ¡°Finally, just because you aren¡¯t likely to take an injury, it doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯ll enjoy getting hit. That wouldn¡¯t make sense. Training that way would turn you into a bunch of fearless idiots with no sense of self-preservation. So when you get socked in the nose, you¡¯re going to feel like you got socked in the nose. It¡¯s neat.¡± He nodded. ¡°Artonans make neat stuff. One time, I talked this wizard into giving me a spiky exploding mace her grandpa used to own and¡­and that¡¯s another story.¡± Principal Saleh nodded at him. ¡°The point today is, you all need to come down here now and make sure your suits fit properly and the gym is registering them correctly. So you don¡¯t die. Or have embarrassing things like this happen!¡± He shrank at least a couple of feet in every direction until he was a wiry, short version of himself. His suit started to slip off his shoulders. It pooled around his feet. One of his wrist bands thudded onto the floor. ¡°Little Snake,¡± people all around the room whispered. ¡°So come on down here now and get checked out!¡± ¡°Is that man famous?¡± Maricel asked Alden as all around them people started rushing down the bleachers toward the floor. ¡°You don¡¯t know Big¡¯nLittle Snake?¡± Alden said, surprised. ¡°He¡¯s one of the most popular heroes in America. He was. Top three in polling for more than a decade.¡± ¡°He¡¯s a Morph Brute?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°A cool one. When he¡¯s big he¡¯s incredibly strong. When he¡¯s little he¡¯s incredibly fast. And his shift time is so quick. You just saw. It¡¯s only a few seconds.¡± ¡°Why is he here then?¡± ¡°He¡¯s an over the top kind of person,¡± said Alden. ¡°That¡¯s part of the reason he¡¯s so popular. And he¡¯s busy¡­he has extreme hobbies. A new one every couple of years. They don¡¯t always work out.¡± ¡°How can a hobby be extreme?¡± ¡°When I was little he ran through every state in the contiguous U.S. And when he got to your state, he would knock down a tree, carve the wood into some of your state animals with his bare hands in front of a crowd, and then auction off the carvings for charity. He did that on weekends and then headed back home to Texas to work for the rest of the week. He was their state hero.¡± ¡°Wouldn¡¯t carving a tree with your hands hurt?¡± ¡°Maybe not if you¡¯re him.¡± ¡°Can he morph his fingernails into carving blades?¡± ¡°Probably? Anyway, nobody had a problem with that. But a few years ago, he decided he wanted some wolves. And if I remember correctly, ranchers protested against him? But he was at peak popularity with everyone else, and some of the other states were going to let him have them if Texas didn¡¯t, so he got his wolves.¡± ¡°They let him have wolves? For fighting crime?¡± ¡°No. He just enjoyed having a wolf reserve and running with them.¡± Maricel stared across the gym at Big Snake. ¡°He seems to love Triplanets work, too. Like I said, he¡¯s really busy. I heard he only sleeps two hours a night. He got summoned, and while he was there, he told some wizard how much he loved his wolves. So they offered to make them better as his quest reward.¡± ¡°Better how?¡± ¡°Bigger, stronger wolves. Strong enough to make decent pets for a world-class superhero.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not legal in your country is it?¡± ¡°Of course not.¡± Alden sighed. He stood up, and they headed down the bleachers. ¡°Anyway, the government was not happy about it. To make a point about Avowed getting out of line, someone sent a tank to shoot one of the wolves. Big Snake beat up the tank. And then there was this whole drama because a lot of people were fans of the giant wolves and Big¡¯nLittle Snake. And others were worried that getting rid of the wolves would offend the wizard? But it was a crime. So the wolves still live in Texas, but Snake got banished.¡± His feet hit the white floor, and a notification appeared. [Connected to MagiPhys Gym. Floor On. Protections active.] ¡°Can I hit you now?¡± Maricel asked, looking around at a number of other people who were slapping each other with growing enthusiasm. ¡°I guess a light tap?¡± She smacked him lightly on the arm. It felt normal. He tapped her on the arm, too. ¡°You guys look like cowards,¡± a tall Brute who¡¯d come with them on the bus said. ¡°This is how you hit somebody.¡± He drew back his fist and punched his own friend in the jaw. The friend fell to the floor clutching his face. ¡°Oh shit! I¡¯m sorry! I didn¡¯t mean to!¡± ¡°They said it would hurt,¡± Maricel said with narrowed eyes. ¡°Did you not believe them?¡± Alden assumed that everyone was hitting and slapping each other out of curiosity, but it turned out that it had been started by the prospective students who¡¯d made it this far in the admissions process previously. The gymnasium was interacting with the suits to check efficacy, and the students were supposed to be hitting each other. Some people had just begun early. Big Snake¡ªwho Alden was trying unsuccessfully to think of as Instructor Waker¡ªexplained it, and shortly afterward, the barely-visible letter ranks superimposed on everyone¡¯s forehead grew bolder and turned green. ¡°I¡¯m allowed to punch literally everyone in here as hard as I want, wherever I want,¡± Alden said with a groan. They weren¡¯t using skills or spells for the suit test, just physical stats. And green meant he could go all-out on that front. ¡°You¡¯re yellow for me,¡± Maricel informed him. She sounded intrigued. ¡°That means I can¡¯t hit you in the head.¡± Alden smiled uncertainly at her. ¡°This is so uncomfortable honestly.¡± People were partnering up as they¡¯d been told to. Some of them were still joking around. Others were on the floor, having already been knocked down by eager partners. But quite a few of the teens in the gym were staring at each other with looks on their faces that said they found this just as surreal as he did. ¡°I knew we¡¯d be doing stuff like this. Obviously. Using powers and having them used against me is one of the reasons I want to get into this school. But it¡¯s hard to actually hit someone like I mean it. I¡¯ve never done that¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m surprised there are people in the room who are yellow for me,¡± Maricel said. She¡¯d lowered her hood to look around. ¡°I know I¡¯m an S, but I¡¯ve got a small Strength stat, even for a Shaper.¡± ¡°Do you want to hit someone else instead?¡± ¡°No. Where do you want the pain? And do you want a kick or a punch?¡± She balled up her fist. ¡°You seem not at all bothered by this.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been looking forward to it.¡± At his expression, she added, ¡°Not hitting you specifically. Just hitting things in general. I haven¡¯t gotten to do it before either, but it sounds satisfying.¡± I guess it¡¯s good one of us is into it. He nodded. ¡°Okay then. Surprise me¡­nope. On second thought, let¡¯s avoid hitting me however that guy just got hit.¡± Someone across the room was puking. Alden hadn¡¯t seen where his partner had aimed. ¡°I¡¯ll kick you in the leg,¡± Maricel said, lowering her fist. ¡°That seems safe.¡± ¡°Oka¡ª¡± Still looking more curious than anything else, Maricel leaned back and delivered a swift kick to the side of Alden¡¯s left thigh. His legs flew out from under him and he landed hard on his shoulder. At first, he was shocked more by the force of the blow than anything else. Then the pain registered. ¡°Fuck!¡± he said, clutching his leg. The word was lost in a cacophony of other peoples¡¯ multilingual cursing. The pain was intense enough to make his eyes water. But after a few seconds, it disappeared. That¡¯s so weird. How can it feel so realistic, then not be there at all? ¡°Are you all right?¡± Maricel asked, leaning over him. ¡°Yeah.¡± He let her pull him back onto his feet. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s not a big deal. Should I kick you in the same place?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± She held still. After waiting patiently for a moment, she said, ¡°You don¡¯t have to put that much thinking into it, do you?¡± Alden felt his face heat. ¡°You¡¯d better kick me for real, Rabbit boy,¡± she said, crossing her arms. ¡°I don¡¯t want to fail my combat assessment later because everyone else hits so much harder than you and it takes me by surprise.¡± Right. That¡¯s a good point. Feeling insanely awkward and very much like he was doing something wrong, he took a deep breath and then tried to kick a person who was smaller than him as hard as he could. He didn¡¯t know whether to be relieved or horrified when she hit the floor. <> Maricel gasped, wrapping her hands around her leg just above her knee. <> Her eyes were wide. ¡°The Artonans can do some really interesting stuff when they¡¯re trying,¡± Alden said, looking down at her nervously. ¡°You¡¯re fine, right? Your suit worked? I didn¡¯t¡ª¡± She shooed him away with a gesture and got back on her feet. ¡°All right,¡± she said. ¡°Let¡¯s try punching each other now.¡± ¡°But I just got a notification saying the suit check¡¯s complete. We¡¯re done.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got more time, though,¡± she said, looking around the room. Most people were taking their one required hit and leaving. But a few were still fighting with their partners. The faculty were watching it all play out and discussing things with each other. Several of them had pulled out tablets. One teacher had a notebook. Alden couldn¡¯t tell what they thought. There were people here who clearly had martial arts training of various kinds, but the majority didn¡¯t. And the faculty were watching the nervous flailing kids as closely as the ones who had some idea what they were doing. This is a training program. They¡¯re not expecting us to start out as combat geniuses. I¡¯m assuming it helps if you are one, but for most people they have to be assessing things like general skill potential and¡­attitude. It was obvious. Willingness to dish out a hit. Willingness to take one. Not freaking out. There wasn¡¯t a point in trying to get into this program if you weren¡¯t willing to be here in this gym. ¡°Yeah, we¡¯ve got time,¡± Alden said, trying to get his nerves in check. ¡°Wanna use it to hit each other lots and get used to the suits?¡± She was pulling the bands out of her pigtails and redoing them into a ponytail. She finally took off her hoodie and tossed it aside. She cracked her knuckles. She bounced a little on the balls of her feet. <> she whispered to herself, shaking out her hands. <> Oh boy, thought Alden. So this is how we get into superhero school. SEVENTY-FIVE: A Busy Morning, pt. 3 * The few minutes of attempted fighting with Maricel was painful, embarrassing, and just plain confusing. After it was over and they awkwardly thanked one another for the educational experience, they both parted ways to go to their next assessments. Maricel went to some kind of Ground Shaper¡¯s-only dirt flinging thing. Alden headed toward the outdoor track. Hitting people feels so wrong. Getting hit felt way less wrong. So maybe it was just social conditioning, and he would get over it. But as he followed a few other B-ranks out to the massive track, he couldn¡¯t help fixating on all the novel, and mostly negative, physical sensations he¡¯d just experienced. He¡¯d now been punched in the ribs, kicked in the knee, and pinned to the floor by someone with slightly superior strength. He also knew what it felt like to punch another person in the gut as hard as he could and bite the shit out of her fingers. Maricel started it with the biting. That was her own fault. ¡°Hey, what was that about?¡± Alden turned to see a lanky, dark-skinned guy with very short hair striding up behind him, stretching out his arms. ¡°Are you talking to me?¡± ¡°I am. Were you and your S friend just trying to look cool in front of the faculty by giving each other those little love taps?¡± ¡°We were trying to get used to the way the suits feel before the combat assessment. So that we wouldn¡¯t be as surprised during our fights later today.¡± The guy sighed. ¡°So, you¡¯re not stupid. That¡¯s a shame. I prefer stupid competition.¡± ¡°Thanks¡­?¡± ¡°Is this your first time?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°It¡¯s my second. I was here four months ago,¡± he said. ¡°I skipped the last one to prep for this one. I¡¯m Max.¡± ¡°Alden.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your class?¡± Max asked. ¡°I¡¯m an Adjuster.¡± ¡°Rabbit.¡± ¡°Well¡­that¡¯s scary.¡± They¡¯d just reached the back of the group that was waiting at the track¡¯s edge. Alden turned to the taller boy. The words felt like they should have been said in a sarcastic tone, but they hadn¡¯t been. ¡°Are you joking around, or¡ª?¡± Max¡¯s brows rose. ¡°No. It¡¯s actually bad for the rest of us B-rank hopefuls.¡± ¡°How do you figure?¡± Max looked over the group. ¡°Hey!¡± he shouted. ¡°Anybody here a Rabbit?¡± Everyone turned to look back at him. <> one boy asked. ¡°I don¡¯t think they let Rabbits in the program,¡± a girl added. ¡°Or Healers.¡± ¡°Yeah, why would they?¡± another said. ¡°There are some Wrights here today, though.¡± ¡°See?¡± said Max, when everyone resumed their original convos. ¡°You¡¯re probably the only one.¡± ¡°I¡¯m the only one from intake anyway,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°Right. You¡¯re obviously here for a reason. They¡¯d have bounced you before the second interview if you were average. And before this one if you were above average, I bet. So you must be way above average in some way, right?¡± Alden shrugged and tried for a casual tone. ¡°It¡¯s the same for everyone, probably.¡± Max was doing leg stretches now. ¡°No it¡¯s not,¡± he said. He smiled at Alden. ¡°Rabbit¡¯s an awful class for traditional superhero work. Despite the name, this is a program that prioritizes traditional superhero work. You¡¯re not Anesidoran, and you¡¯re living in intake; so you don¡¯t have important family on the island greasing the admissions machine for you. But they made an exception for you. Therefore, you¡¯re exceptional. An exceptional Rabbit.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t decide if the other boy wanted an answer or if he was just making conversation. ¡°You mean there really is a Rabbit here?¡± A nearby girl who¡¯d been talking about tae-kwon-do with a friend turned to looked at Alden. ¡°You¡¯re a Rabbit?¡± <> someone else asked. ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± <> A lot of people were staring now. I don¡¯t want to explain myself. I don¡¯t want attention. I just want to focus on the task at hand. ¡°Multiple, long-considered personal reasons,¡± he said finally. He couldn¡¯t believe he¡¯d just quoted Stu-art¡¯h. It worked pretty well though. A few people laughed like it was funny, but most of them accepted it and went back to stressing over their own problems. ¡°Yeah,¡± Max said, giving him a look. ¡°Pretty sure you¡¯re my main competition this time.¡± ¡°Thanks I guess?¡± The other boy shrugged. A few minutes later, a pair of staff members arrived. They were each carrying large tablets. ¡°All right,¡± a gray-haired man said. ¡°This is Runner Group B2. If you¡¯re not a part of this group, you¡¯re lost. Better get yourself un-lost before you miss whatever you¡¯re supposed to be doing.¡± He paused. When nobody left, he continued. ¡°So, I say this every time and nobody listens, but I¡¯ll try anyway. You¡¯re not racing today. We¡¯re testing you as individuals. If you¡¯re running using mostly what your parents gave you, you¡¯ll be done quickly and you can head off to rest before your next event. If you¡¯re using powers, we might ask you to keep going. If you¡¯re using a power we haven¡¯t got a lot of data on, prepare to sweat. Don¡¯t come asking us for second chances or questioning why we made you do something different from everyone else.¡± He looked around at them all. ¡°Everyone¡¯s got their shoes tied, right? The track isn¡¯t the gym. The suits you¡¯re all wearing will give us some readings, but they¡¯re not going to protect you out here. Don¡¯t do something stupid with a spell if you don¡¯t know how to use it. Boy lost a tooth last time¡­ All right. First group¡¯s up.¡± The words [Lane 3] appeared in front of Alden¡¯s eyes. And, a moment after that, Lane 3 itself appeared. The track was made of what looked like asphalt, but there was obviously more to it than met the eye. It had been plain, but now glowing yellow lines appeared on the surface. Alden preserved his compact umbrella, and he let his trait activate at the same time. He was relieved when it worked. Asphalt roads were usually ground enough to satisfy the magical requirement, but a glowing one was new. He took his spot. ¡°Run your first lap however you like. After that, we¡¯ll be directing you individually through your interfaces,¡± the guy with the tablet called. ¡°Don¡¯t sprint flat-out when we say jog. Don¡¯t jog when we say sprint. Kid with the umbrella, what the¡­oh, never mind. There¡¯s a note. You can have the umbrella.¡± [Trait Assisted Run in 3¡­] [2¡­] [1¡­] I¡¯m starting to worry, Alden thought half an hour later, as he jogged around Lane 3 yet again. Are they ever going to let me stop? The morning was cool, but he was sweating like crazy. The original set of B-rank runners he¡¯d been mentally racing against, even though he¡¯d been told not to, were all gone. I think I beat them all. Now, every two minutes or so, he got a new set of instructions to follow through his interface. Faster, faster, slower, low obstacle leap, double footed jumps, all of those things again but backwards. Nobody else had to run backwards. The Adjuster called Max was two lanes over now. Alden couldn¡¯t spare a lot of attention, but it seemed like he had some kind of zonal movement spells. He¡¯d run the whole track at a slow jog while casting, and now that he was on his second lap, weird stuff was happening over in his lane. Alden was pretty sure the guy had just leaped and floated over one of the wall-like hurdles that the track itself produced at the command of the instructors. That¡¯s actually really cool. He finally got an instruction to break at the end of his next lap, and he headed over to grab a water bottle. ¡°Take a breather for ten minutes, but don¡¯t get stiff,¡± the female instructor said, coming over to check on him. ¡°We¡¯re going to have you go back out soon.¡± Alden wanted to ask why, but since they¡¯d been specifically told not to complain about getting different instructions from others, he didn¡¯t want them to think he was whining. ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°Sorry you¡¯re getting so much more exercise than everyone else,¡± she said, grabbing a water bottle from one of the coolers for herself. ¡°Our data on that trait is scanty, and the way you move is a pretty important factor in determining how you¡¯ll eventually do hero work.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind.¡± He took advantage of the break to watch the other runners. The Brutes were easy to understand, and of course, most of them were Brutes. The Shapers, Adjusters, and Meisters were mostly not using powers at all, apart from whatever foundational enhancements they had. They just completed a few laps and headed off. Alden assumed that was only because the track wasn¡¯t designed to take a lot of magical damage; one or two of them must have had spells and skills that would have allowed them to blow through hurdles. Apart from super speed, the visible magic was mostly coming from a few people who had something odd going on with their movement. Beside Max, there was a Sky Shaper who was running faster by altering the air around her. And there was a Meister of Staves who was adjusting the flexibility of her weapon to clear some short hurdles. Alden thought she might be trying to show off a short-pole version of pole vaulting? He didn¡¯t think it was going the way she wanted, though. It was looking way less useful than just regular jumping. I wonder what the A and S groups look like? Really, there was plenty to be impressed with in the B group. It was a shame that almost everyone here would end up going home with nothing at the end of the day. Not just at the end of the day either. There are more B¡¯s here than can enter the program in the next few years. Are Apex schools just too damn elitist, or is the rank gap really that insurmountable? As promised, he was soon called back to do more laps. Including a zig-zag one and one involving side-steps. He was starting to wonder if they actually needed all this data on him, specifically, or if he was being used to make a complete record for their future information on Azure Rabbit. When he was finally done, he headed toward the cooler and threw a fistful of ice cubes down the neck of his unitard. ¡°Feeling warm?¡± asked Max. The Adjuster was sitting on the grass nearby beside an empty water bottle. ¡°It was a lot,¡± Alden said. Some of the movements they¡¯d asked for had been so bizarre. He had muscles burning from the waist down. ¡°Are you just sitting here observing people?¡± ¡°More like observing person,¡± he responded. ¡°Now that person is done. You¡¯re in the ten o¡¯clock combat group, right? Or did you get slotted in for private assessment?¡± ¡°I¡¯m in the combat group.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll walk back with you.¡± Alden didn¡¯t see any reason to object, but he didn¡¯t understand the other B-rank boy¡¯s motives either. He¡¯d said he considered Alden competition, but he didn¡¯t sound pissed off about it. Is this a keep your enemies close thing? he wondered as they entered through the back of the MagicPhys building. Max was just chatting about everyday stuff now, not asking questions about powers or abilities, so it didn¡¯t seem like a big deal. He had an Anesidoran mom and a South African dad who were amicably divorced. He¡¯d grown up in between the two worlds, spending school breaks and holidays here on the island. ¡°That must give you a really different perspective,¡± Alden said. ¡°Probably.¡± They entered the gymnasium, and the Floor On notification appeared at once. ¡°I think moving between places just shows you that everywhere has its ups and downs. You¡¯re American, aren¡¯t you? Have you ever traveled to other countries?¡± Alden opened his mouth, and then he realized he didn¡¯t know the answer. ¡°I¡¯ve never visited another country on Earth. Do alien worlds count?¡± Max gave him a curious look. ¡°I guess you really are a Rabbit if you¡¯ve already got a summoning under your belt. Yeah, sure it counts.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯ve done some traveling.¡± There was a boom of sound as Instructor Waker, in his Big Snake mode, stomped the floor for attention. ¡°All right, next combat group!¡± he said in a cheerful voice. ¡°Let¡¯s go over some of the rules.¡± ******** The rules for the next hour and a half of Alden¡¯s life were simple: 1. He would receive combat or rescue assignments. He should complete them to the best of his ability, using whatever resources he had at his disposal. 2. No taking off the gym suit or the metal bands. 3. No ¡°killing¡± the other participants. 4. He could refuse assignments if he believed ¡°they will not show your abilities in the best light.¡± 5. He could leave whenever he liked after completing at least one assignment. It¡¯s probably a trap, he thought, sitting on the lowest bleacher and watching the gym being divided into distinct sections by walls of light that flared and then disappeared. The entire left third was set up with walls and metal drums to serve as cover and scattered debris to make obstacles. The other two thirds were being divided into even smaller sections that were going to be for one-on-one duels. If you refuse to participate after your first assignment, or just choose easy fights that make you look awesome, there¡¯s no way they score you as well as people who stay for the entire thing and do everything they ask. It¡¯s basically self-rejecting, right? All around him, people were whispering similar thoughts. Why bother to make it an option if everyone knows it¡¯s the wrong choice? ¡°Maybe they¡¯re testing us on our ability to know the scope of our power and our limits.¡± Max, sitting beside Alden, spoke loudly enough for everyone nearby to hear him. ¡°It would be stupid to throw your life away in a hopeless fight, right?¡± The combat assessment group was made up of every rank and class here, but people had already fallen into the habit of clustering with their fellows. It was mostly B¡¯s from the track test around them. ¡°That doesn¡¯t sound right,¡± a girl behind them said. ¡°Of course it would be stupid to do that in real life, but for a test? You can¡¯t show off your creativity or your full talents or¡­or your perseverance if you just drop out.¡± Max shrugged. ¡°Just making a guess.¡± Alden examined him. He didn¡¯t have long to do it, though. About a minute later his first assignment popped up: [Defeat Your Opponent] [Dueling Block 6] [Opponent: Tatiana Evans, Shaper of Sky] Around a third of the people in the gym were standing and hurrying to their assigned spots. All of their forehead ranks had faded into invisibility on Alden¡¯s interface, except for one girl¡¯s. It was the B-rank Sky Shaper from his running group. The one who could move pretty fast by altering the air around her. Her ¡°B¡± was glowing bright green under her dark bangs. He gave her a wave as they both headed toward their block. She nodded at him, but her expression was stiff. Mine probably is a little, too. One of his palms was sweating against his umbrella handle. The other was sweating against a fresh temper sphere. Can¡¯t think of how to use fishing line against a girl who plays with the atmosphere. She¡¯s obviously doing something with just wind at this point, right? Beginner Shaper¡­some kind of air strike? I don¡¯t think she could have anything else in combo with that technique that makes her run better. And there¡¯s not a lot of space in this set of dueling blocks for either of us to run around. It¡¯s close quarters. All right, strange shield. Time to do your duty. He extended the umbrella, finally letting it unfurl before he re-preserved it. Isn¡¯t opening an umbrella indoors bad luck or something? The dueling block was a rectangular space outlined on the floor in dull black lines that had appeared there like they¡¯d always existed. As soon as he and the girl entered, a timer popped up. ¡°We¡¯re supposed to fight for two minutes,¡± said Alden. ¡°That¡¯s not long is¡ª?¡± From around eight feet away, Tatiana Evans curled her fingers like she was holding an imaginary softball and thrust her hand out toward him. An invisible force struck the umbrella, which he¡¯d been holding between him and the girl more because it was convenient than out of an abundance of caution. His authority sense registered it as a smack. But not a very good one. He glanced down and then back up at his opponent¡¯s shocked face. ¡°We¡¯re getting started without even saying hi? You should have aimed for something else.¡± Her face reddened, and she threw out her hand again. Alden held the umbrella out to protect his torso and felt another strike against it. I just told her to aim for something else. She should have gone for my legs. He was assuming she wasn¡¯t willing to aim for his head because of the no-kill rule. I guess I should try some offense? He flung the temper sphere at her. To his surprise, the glass ball full of glittering sand smashed her right in the nose. She yelled and leaped back, clutching her face while the sphere rolled across the floor. Oh. I guess she didn¡¯t know I had it? Feeling like a little bit of a jerk, Alden ran forward with his umbrella held out in front of him. Instead of attacking again, Tatiana tried to dodge sideways. Alden threw his leg out and kicked her in the knee as hard as he could. Kicks to the knee were the most effective attack he¡¯d managed against Maricel earlier, other than the finger biting¡­which could only happen if someone¡¯s fingers were already way too close to your mouth. The Sky Shaper cried out and fell sideways. She would have fallen over the line into the next dueling rectangle, but an invisible wall stopped her. She slid down the unseen barrier, her eyes clenched shut. She threw out a hand, and Alden felt something whip the hair over his right ear. Missed. The timer told him their fight had only been going on for twenty seconds. So two minutes was longer than it felt like. Do I kick her again? While she¡¯s still on the ground with her eyes shut? He hesitated. She opened watering eyes and swung one of her own legs around hard enough to sweep his feet out from under him. He went down on his butt, and then she was grabbing onto his umbrella, trying to yank it out of his hand. Fortunately, her first yank happened during the second when it was still preserved, before the stupid carriage requirement screwed him over. I don¡¯t want to have to fight with a broken umbrella for the rest of the day. He scrambled onto his feet and swung the umbrella at her like a weapon. It was an iffy thing to do. Alden lost preservation on objects when he allowed them to be partially borne by something else. However¡­if coming into contact with that something else was going to increase Alden¡¯s burden instead of lifting it, the rule could be worked around somewhat. It helps to understand when you know the right skill name. Alden''s skill was The Bearer of All Burdens. He was supposed to carry and protect things with it. Someone helping him bear the weight of his umbrella would end the preservation. Someone trying to take the umbrella when he didn¡¯t want them to wouldn¡¯t. Even though the two actions were physically very similar. Likewise, setting part of the object on a table to get some rest would halt the skill, but smashing it forcefully into a table wouldn¡¯t necessarily. If he could manage to make himself feel very committed to protecting his object from the very thing he was swinging it at. This was a recent advancement, and it required more focus. It felt unnatural, the physical impacts transferred to him in a way they didn''t when he was using the skill normally, and Alden had to make sure he didn¡¯t get casual about it. Perception was heavily at play in this matter, and he was still getting the hang of it. Fortunately, trying to fight someone with his preserved object was the opposite of casual. It was easy to perceive Tatiana as a threat to his object, and he didn¡¯t think he was at risk of allowing himself to be overly assisted by her. Especially since she was bellowing at him with pure rage while he whacked her repeatedly in the face with the pointy edges of a preserved umbrella, and she kept flinging her hand out in the gesture that made the wind strikes. She finally caught him in the gut with one. It was about the same as one of Maricel¡¯s punches, so it made him double over. He felt nausea that was soon eclipsed by pain as a knee connected with his cheekbone. She pushed him up against the barrier and drove another invisible ball of air into his ribs. He shoved her off him. Oh, he thought in surprise, as she staggered back from the push. I¡¯m stronger than she is. He¡¯d been unconsciously comparing her physical abilities to Maricel¡¯s, since they were around the same height. And Maricel was stronger than him despite claiming not to have put many points in Strength. But he and Tatiana were both B-ranks. It wasn¡¯t impossible for her to have more points in Strength than he did, depending on how she¡¯d allocated her stats. But she might not. And he was half a foot taller than her. And he was a guy, and he was pretty fit. That¡­isn¡¯t the coolest way to win. But I guess I should do whatever works? The hits he was taking from her shaping were the most offensive power she could dish out. She wasn¡¯t very creative with how she threw them either. It was always straight out in front of her with the hand gesture. He¡¯d been blocking them with the umbrella very easily, but¡­ The shield was unnecessary really. He could just dodge. Two free hands would be better if he was going this route. He cast the umbrella aside and launched himself at the girl, tackling her to the ground. She fell facedown and he pinned her there with zero elegance. He caught an elbow in the face in the process, but that was all. She tried to throw her power with a backwards gesture, but she couldn¡¯t aim with Alden behind her holding onto her arms. She is so mad at me, he noted, while he held her there, and she cussed. Maricel got kind of mad, too, even though she was winning our practice fight earlier. That was what had led to the biting. Alden wished he could get a little angry. He was sure it would make this feel less awkward. He¡¯d been slightly nervous about his own performance to start with. But he hadn¡¯t gotten anything like a real adrenaline rush during the whole course of this ¡°battle.¡± It¡¯s weird. It¡¯s weird not to get at least a little fired-up or scared about someone hitting me, isn¡¯t it? My temper¡¯s been hotter than usual about some things lately, why is it so flat right now? Mostly, he felt sorry for Tatiana Evans. He wanted her to go ahead and concede. He also wished she¡¯d quit trying to throw air balls at him because he thought the logical course of action might be to repeatedly ¡°break¡± her fingers so that the pain would put her out of commission until the timer ran out, and he didn¡¯t want to do that. Finally, after an eternity, the two minutes was up and he scrambled off her. She leaped to her feet. They were both panting. Her face was furious. ¡°You!¡± she said. ¡°You¡­!¡± Me what? ¡°Fuck you!¡± she screamed. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. ¡°They¡¯re not exactly judging us on if we win or lose, I think,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s more about how we approach¡ª¡± ¡°You hit me in the face with a ball!¡± He blinked. ¡°Well¡­yeah.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t even use magic! You were just trying to humiliate me!¡± ¡°I used magic on my umbrella.¡± That was really obvious. She had to know that. ¡°And the ball¡¯s a spell ingredient. It¡¯s allowed. But I didn¡¯t need to activate the spell during this fight, so¡­¡± <> said one of the A-rank girls who¡¯d been dueling in the next block over. She tossed long blonde hair over her shoulder as she brushed by him. Her own opponent was a boy who was sitting on the floor angry-crying, so Alden wasn¡¯t sure if she was talking about him or Tatiana. I don¡¯t even know how they fought, Alden realized suddenly. He might not have been angry or afraid, but he had been focused enough to completely tune out what was going on everywhere else. Now that he looked around the gym, it was obvious emotions were running hot all over the place. Big Snake was hauling two red-faced Brutes toward the exit by the backs of their suits. Maybe they hadn¡¯t obeyed the stop timer? Tatiana stalked away from him fuming. Trying to decide if he¡¯d done well or not, Alden collected his umbrella and his temper sphere. So. That was a duel between superhumans. Technically. As he approached the bleachers, the next combatants were already taking their places and starting. A flare of orange light behind him made him turn. Someone had just cast one hell of a fire spell as the opener to their duel. I should have brought a bigger umbrella. ****** He went back to the bleachers and made sure to sit as far away from his defeated opponent as he could. That meant he ended up surrounded by a bunch of S¡¯s and A¡¯s he didn¡¯t know. ¡°Man, you¡¯re sweaty,¡± said a girl. ¡°From just that little fight?¡± ¡°I was running track for ages right before I got in here,¡± said Alden. ¡°I haven¡¯t had a chance to cool off.¡± ¡°Speedster?¡± ¡°Rabbit.¡± The girl smiled at him. ¡°No, really,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m a Rabbit.¡± ¡°Um¡­right.¡± No assignments popped up for him after the next set of duels ended either. So he guessed he was getting a break. He used it to observe what was going on with everyone else. He spotted Max heading for a dueling block. He was chatting amicably with another B-rank¡ªa big guy whose jaw was clenched with stress. And on the left-hand side of the gym, people were playing a hero/villain game that involved rescuing victims. It seemed like they¡¯d just gotten started, so they must have had an instruction period. I know what my role will probably be there. There were some people carrying the victims away while others protected them from enemy fire. That looks kind of fun compared to what I just did. ¡°Some people are leaving already,¡± the girl who¡¯d spoken to him earlier said to her friend. ¡°Foreigners probably,¡± her friend replied. ¡°I don¡¯t recognize any of them.¡± Alden looked toward the people they were talking about. It was about ten of them, and¡­the girls weren¡¯t wrong. He recognized most of them from the intake bus. ¡°I hear it happens every time. They aren¡¯t expecting getting hit with powers to be so intense, and they get freaked out. And they take the bait.¡± ¡°They don¡¯t let anyone into the program if they leave early, right?¡± Alden said. ¡°That¡¯s what I thought when they explained that you could.¡± The S girls glanced down at him. Maybe because he was a B, they didn¡¯t seem inclined to lie. ¡°Unless something really terrible happens in your fight, they don¡¯t. It¡¯s supposed to be obvious that that¡¯s the wrong answer¡ª¡± ¡°It is obvious,¡± her friend said. ¡°This kind of stuff is what makes the hero track the hero track. Using the MagiPhys gym to test and improve your powers against other Avowed talents is one of the main reasons to come to this school. If you don¡¯t want to be here for an hour and a half, you¡¯re not going to want to be a Celena North student for the next few years.¡± ¡°But people tap out anyway. It¡¯s not only clueless newcomers. It¡¯s a lot of locals without hero-trained parents, too. And even some with.¡± She nodded toward a boy who¡¯d just sat down by himself not too far away and lowered her voice. ¡°Haoyu is a legacy. He¡¯s going to be a Dura Brute like his mom and dad. He¡¯s really well trained. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he leaves after that duel though and tries again next time.¡± Dura Brute wasn¡¯t an official System subclass, but Alden knew what she meant. Usually it was Strength or Stamina Brutes who used the System¡¯s willingness to micro-tweak to hybridize the two, sacrificing some pure striking power for extra endurance and toughness. Depending on which subclass they¡¯d started out with, the skill options that pulled it all together would be a little different. ¡°They shouldn¡¯t have let the Wright bring that weapon,¡± the other girl said angrily. ¡°He just stood there, and Haoyu didn¡¯t even get a chance to fight back.¡± ¡°What was it?¡± ¡°Some kind of pain inducement tool. The Wright made it himself and it draws on some skill he¡¯s got to function, he said. So I guess technically it¡¯s fair. But to keep a Brute down with it, he just pointed it and kept it active. Maybe the gym suits overshot the pain estimate because it was a unique thing, but¡­it looked awful. BigSnake canceled their fight himself.¡± ¡°Speaking of duels, they¡¯re starting again,¡± her friend said. Alden turned his attention toward the floor. He wanted to know how his own fight compared to the average, but it was kind of hard to tell. There wasn¡¯t really an average. Everyone was fighting same-rank opponents right now, so the S¡¯s obviously looked flashy compared to the A¡¯s, who looked pretty flashy themselves compared to the B¡¯s. But there was a lot of variety within each group. Some duels were downright boring, with people timidly trading spells like they were playing a game. And others were insane. There were two Brutes throwing each other at the barriers with so much force and such a total lack of concern for head and spinal injuries, that Alden wondered if they cared at all about the no-killing rule. ¡°I hate the idea of fighting Adjusters,¡± a boy sitting a couple of seats back muttered. ¡°Are they going to burn you? Are they going to freeze you? Are they going to levitate your ass and laugh while you flail around up there? Do they have fast spells? Slow spells? A mix?¡± ¡°It is pretty hard if you don¡¯t know what path they¡¯ve chosen,¡± someone else agreed. The first boy pointed. ¡°Like that¡ªwhat in Apex is that guy¡¯s spell set?¡± He was pointing at Max. Max¡¯s opponent¡ªa B-rank Meister with a spear¡ªwas running at him. Without making any forward progress. ¡°He looks like he¡¯s on a treadmill,¡± a girl said in fascinated voice. ¡°Why doesn¡¯t the other guy just throw his spear?¡± About ten seconds later, that was what happened. The spear flew. Max stood stock still and took it dead center in the chest. His body crashed backward into the barrier. The spear clattered to the floor, and Max collapsed with his arms wrapped around his chest. ¡°Oh shit!¡± one of the S¡¯s said excitedly. ¡°That Adjuster absolutely baited him into that somehow. The Meister should have seen that coming. He should have gone for a leg!¡± ¡°He¡¯s an idiot if he let himself be baited that badly. There was no way for a spear to be nonlethal if you aimed there¡­and yes. They¡¯re done.¡± The Meister had gone white as ghost. One of the faculty observers was headed over with a grim expression on her face. Wincing, Max climbed to his feet, still rubbing his chest and gasping. And smiling. I think he¡¯s a little dangerous, Alden decided. I need to be careful around him. The duels ended. Alden got a notification that he was going up again shortly. It was against a Meister of Bow, and they were rank mixing now. His opponent would be an A. He stood up and started to walk away. ¡°Wait! Don¡¯t you need your umbrella and your spell ball?¡± Alden smiled. I thought it would be her. She seemed to be the nicest member of the locals group, so he¡¯d left the umbrella and the temper sphere right beside her feet where she couldn¡¯t help but notice them. He turned back around and targeted her with a thought. ¡°What?¡± he asked. ¡°Your supplies!¡± she said. ¡°Don¡¯t you need them to fight?¡± ¡°I do. I should take them, shouldn¡¯t I?¡± She nodded. That nod should be enough. Alden stepped over and picked them up. He¡¯d left the glass orb sitting where it would be touching the umbrella, so they came together. ¡°Whoa. It¡¯s a glue umbrella? How does that work?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a skill that preserves objects,¡± he said. ¡°Thank you. I owe you one.¡± ¡°What for?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll tell you later.¡± He didn¡¯t even really need the temper sphere preserved right now, but he¡¯d wanted to prove to the observing faculty that he could sneakily get things entrusted to him. It seemed like something they might care about. He headed toward his assigned dueling area and shook hands with a boy carrying a short, metal bow. A-rank archer sounds like a bad match-up, he thought. Wasn¡¯t an arrow going to move faster than he could react to it? And though they had been given a larger dueling block to work with than the last one, it wasn¡¯t large enough that someone with that subclass was likely to miss him. I guess he¡¯ll have to be extra careful not to get lethals. I could focus on shielding my legs instead of my torso? Taking an arrow to the torso sounded like it would feel really bad. But since another guy had just chest-bumped a spear and walked it off smiling, it was probably doable, right? The Meister cheerfully called, ¡°This is my first duel! The last person surrendered when they saw my class.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± The boy nodded. ¡°They didn¡¯t want to find out what it feels like to get shot.¡± Understandable. I don¡¯t particularly want to find out what that feels like either, even if it¡¯s only going to last a few seconds. ¡°Getting shot doesn¡¯t sound as bad as getting burned,¡± he said, thinking of one of the high rank Adjuster who was fireballing people into submission. ¡°I agree,¡± said the Meister, nocking an arrow. ¡°I also think the large bludgeoning weapons are just the worst. Can you imagine the gym suits mimicking crushed bones?¡± ¡°Um¡­¡± Alden felt a pinprick against his authority and brought his umbrella up. He backed as far away from his opponent as the dueling block would allow. ¡°Hold still,¡± said the guy, smiling at him. ¡°I¡¯m going to shoot you now.¡± ********** The next two minutes of Alden¡¯s life were aerobic and unpleasant. Ow, he thought, fleeing with his umbrella covering his back as the archer dashed around behind him collecting the six arrows he¡¯d just rapidly and delightedly shot Alden¡¯s legs and feet with. Fucking ow. And the asshole doesn¡¯t miss. Pros ¡ª the arrows bounced off, and though the pain wasn¡¯t fun, Alden had a high pain threshold. He could keep running around. Cons ¡ª the arrows bounced off, which meant Jolly Robin Hood could keep picking them up and shooting them again. Alden had tried to stop this from happening by grabbing one of the arrows off the floor, only to get his palm ¡°sliced¡± open as the other boy recalled it magically. The fact that he didn¡¯t do it unless Alden picked them up meant it must be a really puny skill he was worried about fatiguing before future fights, but it was a good deterrent. Alden felt a pinch against his authority and spun, umbrella held out. He got it in front of the first arrow, but even as it struck, there was a second pinch, and then a third. Maybe he¡¯d one day be able to tell what body parts another Avowed was targeting, but it wasn¡¯t happening today. He waved the umbrella around wildly, hoping for the best, and miraculously didn¡¯t get hit. ¡°You¡¯re amazing!¡± the archer called. ¡°This is such good practice!¡± A pinch. Most of them had been coming in low. Alden guessed and tried to reposition his shield. And took an arrow in the shoulder. It hurt enough that his brain lied to him and told him he couldn¡¯t move the arm for a split second. Which proved fatal. The next arrow had a lot more power behind it than the others had. It hit him in the lower stomach and threw him back against the barrier. He sat there, clutching at his stomach. He couldn¡¯t move. He knew in his head that he could. But his body wasn¡¯t willing to do it quickly for him. I guess it¡¯s nonlethal, since I could conceivably be saved from being gut shot? The archer bounded toward him with another arrow knocked. ¡°I can shoot you with that one again at close range, and you¡¯d have to stay there. But¡­I don¡¯t think you want me to do that?¡± Alden shook his head, waiting for the pain to subside. ¡°Great! So you¡¯re captured. Toss aside your shield. And after that, if you move, I¡¯ll shoot you some more.¡± ¡°Noted,¡± said Alden, setting aside the umbrella. ¡°Ranged weapons are the best,¡± the guy told him conversationally. ¡°You should get some long distance spells when you level up.¡± Clearly this boy had never seen the B-rank Rabbit spell impression options. But Alden thought of his auriad. ¡°Working on it.¡± When the timer ran out, he targeted the guy. ¡°Could you hand me my umbrella, and the glass ball?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± People are in a good mood when they¡¯ve just won, he noted, taking his things. I wonder if there was something I could have done with the fishing line for this fight after all? If he¡¯d stretched it out long enough it would have given him some range to¡­smack the archer with? It would have been distracting for him. I don¡¯t think it would have won me the fight, but it might have at least given me ideas for future ones. I should make an effort to try more stuff in the next battle. On cue, his next assignment popped up: [Rescue Victims] [Special Notes: Focus on Skill Use] SEVENTY-SIX: The Rescue Game Alden headed over to the side of the gym where the rescue game was going on and received his instructions. He was on a team of six ¡°heroes¡± who would be facing off against four ¡°villains.¡± There were also three victims being played by other students. The heroes had to get the victims safely from one side of the gym to the other while the villains attacked them. Alden was the only B-rank in the whole group this time, but there was a familiar face among his fellow heroes. ¡°Rabbit guy!¡± said Konstantin as soon as they¡¯d gotten their initial instructions and clustered up to discuss strategy. ¡°You¡¯re the other rescuer, right?¡± Alden nodded at the Adjuster. ¡°Hi, Kon.¡± The other four hero team members were supposed to focus on engaging with the villains and keeping a corridor of the fake disaster zone enemy-free for the rescuers to move through. ¡°All right!¡± said a serious-looking Brute girl with short brown hair. ¡°So you two are in charge of victim transport, and the four of us will be protecting you from the villains. What are your talents? Are either of you fast?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to be amazingly useless at this,¡± Kon announced, giving everyone an easy smile. ¡°I read objects and restore them to previous states. Nothing else.¡± The other members of the hero group looked confused. Alden didn¡¯t blame them. It was a weird-sounding talent package for a hero school candidate, and it was so limited for an S-rank Adjuster. Usually they had a bare minimum of three spells to go with their skill to start. ¡°I can take on a lower ranked non-Brute in a fight¡­if they can¡¯t use their powers. Probably. But I think they put me here just so I could prove I¡¯m not a panicker,¡± Kon added. ¡°Since there isn¡¯t much point in me participating in duels.¡± <> one of their new teammates¡ªa Strength Brute¡ªsaid. His voice was an ill-tempered mutter. <> ¡°We¡¯re all on the same side here.¡± The short-haired girl spoke with forced perkiness. ¡°We¡¯ll be showing off our ability to get along and deal with the unexpected as much as anything else. Rabbit, you¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s Alden.¡± He¡¯d literally put his name tag up without a single word on it except for his name so that people would stop calling him just Rabbit. ¡°My skill will freeze the victims in place and protect them as long as I¡¯m carrying them. They have to give me permission to pick them up, or, if they¡¯re supposed to be unconscious, one of you will have to do it to make it an accurate representation of how the skill works.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± said the girl. Everyone else was letting her take the lead, so Alden decided to consider her the team captain, too. It was pretty lucky that there wasn¡¯t some kind of fight for dominance going on here. The villain huddle was already talking with raised voices. ¡°What do you mean freeze them in place and protect them? Is there going to be a shield around you, and we don¡¯t need to worry about you taking damage, or¡ª¡± ¡°He¡¯s a B and a Rabbit. We have to worry about him taking damage no matter what,¡± the Wright with the pain weapon said in a bored voice. He was a really plain-looking guy, and the weapon that had everyone side-eyeing him was almost as nondescript. It was a foot-long black tube with beads of what looked like molten glass around one end. Alden was tempted to call it a wand. Other than the rare Adjuster receiving an impression-specific tool, the variety of wands humans had access to were pre-loaded spell shooters, and they could look like all kinds of things. ¡°I can use this as a shield until I grab a victim,¡± Alden said, gesturing with his umbrella. ¡°And then I can use the victim as a shield.¡± They all stared at him. ¡°I mean nothing that hits them will hurt me or them as long as my skill doesn¡¯t get overwhelmed¡± Alden clarified. ¡°So if I¡¯m carrying someone on my back, we don¡¯t have to worry quite as much about things hitting me from behind. Spells, weapons, and strikes should just bounce off the victim. If the victims can walk on their own I can use other things for shielding material, instead.¡± ¡°So you basically turn things into shields.¡± <> There¡¯s more to it than that. It¡¯s not just shields. Alden refrained from saying it. He felt offended on his skill¡¯s behalf, but they didn¡¯t have to understand every little thing about his talent for this exercise. Just like he didn¡¯t need to perfectly know theirs. It would take ten minutes to explain all the ins and outs of everybody¡¯s abilities, and they probably wouldn¡¯t even be able to make use of it. ¡°I have a movement trait that only works on ground,¡± he added. There was a Ground Shaper on the villain team who¡¯d been given stacks of sandbags to use, so there was a faint possibility of that coming into play. ¡°And I have a spell impression that turns these balls invisible and makes them scream. It¡¯s good for distractions.¡± He held up one of the two temper spheres he¡¯d brought for this exercise. Everyone else started going over their own talents, and a plan gradually began to develop. The captain girl¡ªEmma¡ªwas a vocal Brute. Like longsights and audials, a lot of people thought the vocals should be considered a different class altogether. But if your powers were body-modification related and you got a large number of foundation points, the System said you were a Brute. ¡°Right now I can just make myself horribly loud,¡± she said apologetically. ¡°I can burst everyone¡¯s eardrums and deafen them, but¡ª¡± Alden shuddered. ¡°My voice-directing skill is only level one so I can¡¯t focus the noise I make well at all. But if you¡¯re standing in a kind of cone shape behind me instead of to the sides or in front, it shouldn¡¯t hit you when I use it.¡± ¡°How do the suits handle it?¡± Konstantin asked. ¡°Do they just hurt peoples¡¯ ears, or do they really cut sound?¡± ¡°They do it pretty realistically,¡± she said. ¡°The faculty have the gym set to make all the negative effects last for ten seconds or less, though. So even though I¡¯d only have to do it once in reality to knock out the other team¡¯s hearing, today I¡¯ll have to do it over and over when we want to interrupt their communication.¡± In addition to Emma, Kon, and Alden there was an Object Shaper who would be trying to turn a box of old glasses, wrist watches, and cell phones into obstacles for their opponents. ¡°I¡¯ve been practicing a caltrop shape,¡± she said. ¡°So that¡¯s the most complicated thing I can manage right now. But I can throw the objects around just like any other Shaper!¡± ¡°Flying glass and metal caltrops would make most people think twice about messing with you,¡± Alden said. They also had the Wright with the pain stick, and the strength Brute. ¡°I¡¯m the only useless one.¡± Kon sighed. ¡°Unless we want to turn some of the caltrops back into broken cellphones when we¡¯re done. I could do that for you. Alden, you¡¯re not in financial distress, right?¡± ¡°Who just asks somebody that?¡± the Wright said. ¡°It¡¯s relevant. Anyway, I figure if you¡¯re trying to be a Rabbit hero, being rich is going to be one of your powers, isn''t it¡± ¡°I don¡¯t consider it one of my powers.¡± ¡°Fine, but you¡¯re at least not broke? I¡¯ve been thinking about your sunshine-smelling breakfast all morning, and I¡¯m ninety percent sure that wasn¡¯t normal food. You¡¯re paying someone with a skill to cook for you. Whatever¡­I don¡¯t care¡­ can you afford to waste your temper spheres?¡± ¡°You know what they¡¯re called?¡± ¡°I looked up the spell impression you said you had while everyone was talking. Can you?¡± ¡°I could donate some. Why?¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have any good long range talents other than Emma¡¯s screaming, and that¡¯s not going to stop people for long. They¡¯ll just get used to it.¡± True. Even the pain wand¡ªwhich the faculty had re-approved for use after making some kind of adjustment to the way the gym suits handled it¡ªonly worked from around ten feet away. Beginner Shapers didn¡¯t have much range either, and theirs had been practicing fine control over shape creation, not aiming, so she couldn¡¯t telekinetically fling things with any more accuracy than the average person could throw them. ¡°The thing is,¡± Kon said, ¡°I think all of our victims will be dead right away if we don¡¯t focus on their Meister from the start.¡± ¡°Their Meister?¡± asked Alden, looking over at the other team. ¡°You mean your brother?¡± Kon pursed his lips. ¡°It¡¯s unfortunate. I want to tease Lexi about being Meister of the Mind Writher so bad. Because it¡¯s an alien whip. Called Mind Writher. So funny. But it¡¯s actually useful and terrifying, and he¡¯s been practicing with it for hours every day. And he¡¯s pretty accurate with it from a long way away.¡± Alden looked over in surprise. The thin gold chain of the strange weapon wasn¡¯t very long. <> their Strength Brute demanded. ¡°I wasn¡¯t sure what the faculty meant by pitting us against each other,¡± Kon said with a shrug. ¡°I was trying to decide if they were testing brotherly loyalty or team loyalty or what before I said anything.¡± ¡°You settled on team loyalty?¡± Alden guessed. ¡°Actually, I just decided they were testing Lexi. To see if he¡¯d hit me. He would be a shoe-in for the program, but he¡¯s gotten a reputation for exploding recently. A couple of suspensions on his record¡­the latest looked pretty bad. Anyway, I¡¯ve been deliberately driving him nuts all day. I think they want to see if he¡¯ll focus on the task or if he¡¯ll take the chance to humiliate me. Even though there¡¯s not much point in attacking me at all, since he knows my magic isn¡¯t useful here.¡± Alden was surprised. Kon had seemed so cocky and confident this morning. Nearly relaxed. And quite dismissive of his older brother. But apparently that was more of a front than Alden had realized. ¡°So, I can be brotherly loyal by pointing you all at him and giving him an opportunity to overcome difficulty! And I can be team loyal by telling you that his whip is a mentally-directed tool, and it¡¯s perfect for sneaking through openings in our defense and hitting the ¡®kill¡¯ targets on the victims. And I can avoid him torturing me with it. Win-win-win.¡± Then he smiled at Alden. ¡°Except for you. You have to lose your balls.¡± ¡°Hilarious,¡± Alden said dryly. ¡°But yeah, I can spare more temper spheres. I¡¯ll have to go grab them.¡± They were sitting on a table full of other peoples¡¯ spell ingredients in the storage room under the bleachers. There wasn¡¯t much risk of them being stolen, since nobody here was trying to piss off the school. ¡°I¡¯ll get them! I¡¯m just here to taunt my brother anyway, I suppose,¡± said Kon. ¡°What I think we should do with them is¡ª¡± ¡°Turn them invisible and give them to the Brutes to use as projectiles,¡± said Alden. It wasn¡¯t like it hadn¡¯t occurred to him that Brutes¡ªespecially the strong guy¡ªthrowing invisible things would be scary¡­but it was so expensive. ¡°Exactly! Lexi will stand at the back of their group. He¡¯ll think he¡¯s safe there. Invisible things hitting him with Brute force should keep him pinned down until someone can break through to engage with him up close. Mix them in with some of those concrete chunks and bricks that are scattered around so that he and the others are busy dodging and blocking the things they can see.¡± Maybe it will show my team spirit, Alden thought as the Adjuster dashed off to fetch the spheres. ******** The heroes and the villains both started on the same side of the gym. Across the width of it, on the opposite side, the three victims were sprawled among the rubble. The interfaces showed each of them with glowing ¡°kill¡± spots, where any strike by the villains would be deemed lethal for the purposes of the exercise. One of the students who¡¯d been assigned to the victim role was dramatically groaning, so at least somebody was having fun. A loosely developed plan. Teammates who were a little volatile and stressed out. Multiple opponents. In a way, Kon was worse off. Physically he¡¯d be more capable than Alden. But his main job between now and the time when the victims were either rescued or dead was to be Alden¡¯s assistant and entrust him with things. It was nice for Alden, and Kon seemed completely relaxed about it. But it had to be frustrating on some level. Stay focused, he told himself. You¡¯re not supposed to be fighting unless something goes wrong, so don¡¯t pay attention to what the fighters are doing. His umbrella was open and preserved already. He was holding seven temper spheres against his chest with his other arm. Nobody could hold them for him until the official start, since they were his spell item. Madness. Konstantin and the Strength Brute guy snatched the temper spheres from Alden. Emma dashed toward the enemy and screamed. Her vocal targeting skill couldn¡¯t be as bad as she¡¯d said because he didn¡¯t hear her. He only knew she had done it because that was the plan, and he heard the other team crying out in shock. He didn¡¯t look. ¡°Haunting Sphere¡± he commanded, pointing the hand not holding his umbrella at one of the orbs in the Brute¡¯s hands. The artificial focus took him; his vision narrowed. His fingers flicked. The sphere screamed and disappeared. The Brute flung it with a manly grunt of effort. Hopefully it hit Kon¡¯s brother. Alden couldn¡¯t spare the attention to check. The three of them started across the gym together. Thanks to the semi-brainless way spell impressions worked, he could cast ¡°Haunting Sphere,¡± jog, and hold his umbrella between his body and the enemy at the same time. But anything more was going to be tough. He felt something smash into his umbrella. He ignored it. Three invisible spheres. Four. Five. He quit casting, and he and Kon split off from their Brute protector. Alden ran flat-out the last few yards toward the first victim. Since people were actively trying to kill all the victims, it just seemed wisest to go for whoever was closest instead of trying to figure out who was the most injured. Diving behind a broken block wall that looked like it had been stolen from a real disaster site, Alden and Kon examined the student lying there. She was a girl with the spiky hair who had her arms and legs in a starfish posture. Her tongue was lolling out. She had a piercing. ¡°What¡¯s with the tongue? Are you supposed to be dead already?¡± Kon asked. ¡°Are you unconscious for this exercise?¡± Alden asked, targeting her and flinging the umbrella at Kon. She didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Guess she¡¯s a method actor. And she¡¯s unconscious,¡± the Adjuster said, closing the umbrella. ¡°I give her body to you, Bunny Dude.¡± ¡°Freak,¡± said the girl, cracking open one eye to glare at him. ¡°But, yeah, Bunny Dude! You can pick me up.¡± That was good. The faculty must have filled the victims in on the entrustment thing. ¡°Great,¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°Kon, are we clear enough for you to grab a second victim and follow, or¡ª?¡± ¡°Should be. We moved so fast. Let me check. You stay down.¡± Kon popped his head up over the wall. ¡°Well that¡¯s not good.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°We¡¯ve already got a problem. Their team¡¯s Ground Shaper just threw a twenty-five kilo sandbag in our Torture Wright¡¯s face. Guess he missed with his evil pain stick? Yeah¡­now she¡¯s got him on the ground and she¡¯s smashing him in the stomach with it.¡± Alden winced. A fifty-five pound sandbag backed by telekinetic force didn''t sound like a good time. ¡°Ha!¡± said the unconscious victim. Kon and Alden both looked at her. ¡°That guy deserves a taste of his own medicine.¡± ¡°He¡¯s getting pummeled. Emma and Caltrops Girl have got two of them pinned in the far corner. Our Strong Guy is pelting my brother with spheres and running at him, so we might be all right if he can deal with Lexi fast then handle the girl with the sandbags¡­but I don¡¯t actually think he can deal with Lexi fast. And if we split up to take two victims, the sandbag girl will for sure stop one of us.¡± As the slightly more useful team member, Alden was supposed to keep his head down, but he was having a hard time picturing what was going on from the description. ¡°Can we make it across the gym with just this one or not?¡± he hissed. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Konstantin said. ¡°If we go together, I can maybe distract the Sandbagger¡ª¡± ¡°¡ªbut if Lexi told her what my skill and spell are, then she might ignore me altogether in favor of rapid-smacking you and then the victim. It would really help if Torture Wright would at least try to point his weapon at her.¡± ¡°Do you think she¡¯s an A or an S?¡± ¡°A. She¡¯s a bludgeoner, too. No refined shaping techniques yet. That¡¯s why she¡¯s using the whole bags instead of fooling around with loose sand. She¡¯s going to hit hard, but she¡¯s not going to do something awesome like make sand fingers.¡± ¡°You can just tell?¡± ¡°It might be more obvious if you grow up around Avowed, and you¡¯re used to seeing everybody get their powers.¡± Oh. True. He¡¯d probably seen half a dozen people from whatever school he went to come out of affixation with a similar set of talents. ¡°Let¡¯s change plans,¡± Alden said, hoping it wasn¡¯t a stupid idea. ¡°You carry the victim. I¡¯ll shield you.¡± Kon ducked down behind the wall. ¡°Why? You¡¯ve got the rescue people skill.¡± ¡°You¡¯re just unconscious, right?¡± Alden asked the girl. ¡°Or are you supposed to be bleeding out and on the verge of death? Do you have some damage that will be seriously worsened if you¡¯re not frozen in transport?¡± ¡°They just told me I¡¯m unconscious.¡± ¡°So it¡¯s not actually necessary to preserve her, is it?¡± said Alden. He switched targets to Kon. ¡°You¡¯ve got to be stronger and faster than me¡ª¡± ¡°Oh god yes,¡± said Kon. ¡°Do I look like I wasted points on fluff like Appeal? It¡¯s mostly in Strength and Agility.¡± ¡°So you carry the victim. I¡¯ll be able to keep up with you and shield you. We¡¯ll move way quicker.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re just going to take hits from flying sandbags with your umbrella?¡± ¡°I think I can.¡± ¡°She¡¯s got a rank on you.¡± ¡°I can do it.¡± Sandbags weren¡¯t arrows. And she was only working with one right now. He¡¯d definitely see it coming. ¡°Let¡¯s go with it, then,¡± said Kon. ¡°Being your caddie wasn¡¯t doing my coolness justice anyway.¡± He stuffed one of the remaining temper spheres into the sleeve of his suit and passed the other one to Alden, who did the same. ¡°I give you back your umbrella shield.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t mentioned that the entrustment didn¡¯t have to be quite that literally spoken, and now didn¡¯t seem like the time to explain. He took the umbrella, opened it, and preserved it. Kon grabbed the girl with the tongue-piercing by the ankles. ¡°You¡¯re not even going to carry me?¡± she asked. ¡°So lazy.¡± ¡°What are we? Newlyweds? I think dragging you like this is one of the safer ways to move you since you¡¯ve got unknown injuries. I¡¯ll carry you if we have to run through the caltrops or something.¡± They moved. As they came around the wall, Alden got his first look at the mess that was the battlefield. Kon¡¯s brother had been tackled, disarmed, and pinned to the ground by the Strong Guy, so that was good. But Emma had lost the other team¡¯s Strong Girl; she was heading to rescue her fallen teammate. The Sandbagger was standing ten feet away from the Torture Wright, lifting and lowering one of her arms repeatedly to smash him with the heavy bag. The Object Shaper from Alden¡¯s team was occasionally flinging a spiky metal ball at one of the enemies as she hurried over to stand guard over the other two victims. No more time to think. Kon was dragging their victim at a speed that was just shy of a run. Alden was keeping pace, holding the preserved umbrella at the ready. She¡¯ll notice us any second. The Sandbagger slammed her weapon of choice into Torture Wright one more time. He was groaning and retching. And then she threw both of her arms toward the girl Kon was dragging. Alden jumped in front of the victim, prepared to intercept, but the sandbag missed. It hit the floor in the spot they¡¯d been just a second ago. ¡°Careful!¡± Kon called, dragging the victim around a pile of metal drums and continuing toward the safe zone near their team¡¯s starting point. ¡°She¡¯s getting into range for another¡ª¡± The Sandbagger ran toward them, arms outstretched. A second later, the sandbag lifted a couple of yards into the air and flew at a downward angle toward the girl with the tongue piercing. She was dedicated to her role, and she had guts. She didn¡¯t spring up to rescue herself or even throw up her arms. She just clenched her eyes shut and let Kon keep dragging her. Alden barely got underneath the bag in time. He threw himself down and backwards, stretching out his arm over the victim¡¯s torso. His umbrella caught the sandbag just in time. This feels a little different than I expected, thought Alden, flinging the bag away from him with a gesture. Think about it later. ¡°Nice!¡± said Kon. Alden made it back onto his feet in time to catch the sandbag with the umbrella again. This time the Shaper kept smashing the umbrella with it, seemingly trying to get Alden out of the way. She was waving both arms at him in a comically worshipful-looking gesture to do it. They were hard hits. Alden felt his skill-bound authority rising to the occasion and protecting the umbrella. He felt the impacts. But he was solid. ¡°What the hell!?¡± the Shaper snarled, smashing the bag into him again. ¡°Fine!¡± She threw her arms in Kon¡¯s direction. The sandbag lifted into the air and flew toward the Adjuster. He¡¯d been making a break for it with the victim while their attacker was distracted. Alden wasn¡¯t fast enough to chase the sandbag down. It crashed into the S-rank, and he crashed into the nearby barrier in turn. Mentally cursing, Alden raced over, let the umbrella dangle by its wrist strap, and bent to grab the victim by the feet and drag her the last few steps into the safe zone. The girl with the tongue piercing sat up and grinned at him. ¡°Good luck!¡± she called as Alden left her there and hurried back to help Kon. The other boy was being slammed into the barrier by the sandbag again and again for no practical reason. The Adjuster wasn¡¯t even fighting back; he was just shielding his face with his arms. Torture Wright was still on the ground, curled up in the fetal position. He shouldn¡¯t be in pain anymore. He was just freaked out. Their team channel was completely unused so far. Apparently, with the pace of things, nobody had had time or confidence enough to stop and give advice to anyone else. But Alden accessed it now to send a hasty mental text to the downed Wright. [You can get up. Nobody¡¯s paying attention to you. Go help someone.] It was worth a try, he figured. But only one. Now he had to collect his own scattered thoughts. I guess I should attack the Shaper? Or do I grab another victim on my own? His job was rescuing the victims, but that didn¡¯t mean letting Konstantin become a victim in turn did it? Kon didn¡¯t seem to be seriously suffering from the sandbag attack. It was just strong enough and fast enough to keep him from closing the distance between himself and the Shaper. But if Alden went solo to grab another victim, what was he going to do when he got them? Crossing the battlefield all by himself while he dragged or carried someone would leave him vulnerable. He dropped his preservation, closed the umbrella, and started unraveling fishing line from around the pole as fast as he could, spinning it rapidly so that the weighted line unspooled. What is that? Ten feet? Twelve? Enough. He re-preserved. He ran toward the Sandbagger, his bizarre fishing line lance extended in front of him. Her arms were still going up and down to direct her sandbag. He went for her hands. As soon as he was close enough, he angled the preserved fishing line to intercept her waving arms. She was so focused on Kon that she didn¡¯t even see it. She smashed both of her palms into it and yelped in surprise, drawing her elbows back and clutching her hands to her chest. Alden threw his arm to the side to smack her across the chest with the line for good measure. She took a step back, her head whipping around in confusion. The sandbag hit Kon in the hip with regular momentum instead of telekinetically powered force. He shoved himself away from the barrier and flung himself at the startled Shaper. Alden hastily lifted the umbrella over his head before his own teammate ran into the attached line. Kon swept the girl¡¯s legs out from under her and tackled her to the ground. ¡°Figure this out!¡± Alden shouted. ¡°I¡¯m going to grab the next victim.¡± Kon didn¡¯t answer. He was busy kneeing the Shaper in the stomach. Alden ran toward a cluster of metal drums and ducked down. Heart pounding, he glanced around one, trying to figure out what to do. Their Wright was still lying on the floor. Alden¡¯s team of six had been reduced to five. The villain team was still one member smaller, but they didn¡¯t have two victims to protect. Emma had given up on using her voice, and she¡¯d switched to basic Brute muscularity to wrestle the person she was dealing with. The Strong Guy on Alden¡¯s team was dealing with the villain Strong Girl, who appeared to be his equal in every way, and¡­oh, good. The Object Shaper had run over to help. Lexi was lying on the ground being pelted in the face and hands with caltrops now. The victims were completely unguarded. And any shift in the battle was going to send one of the villains straight at them. He ran. He held his closed umbrella down and behind him slightly as he did, twisting it with his wrist so that the line swept back and forth rapidly. It probably looked dumb, but maybe if someone ran at him from behind, the frozen line would hit them? There was no time to drop preservation and play around with the shape of his object again. He made it to the nearest victim, who was positioned behind some concrete block rubble and crouched over him. ¡°Are you unconscious?¡± he demanded. <> Alden examined him. The guy was big. Big enough that Alden wasn¡¯t going to be carrying him across the whole length of the gym anyway. ¡°Be right back.¡± <> The next victim was only a few steps away. ¡°Save me!¡± the brunette girl yelled as soon as Alden reached her. She was clutching at her stomach. ¡°There¡¯s so much blood!¡± On the positive side, she was small and could entrust herself. On the negative¡­if her character had a terrible gut wound, he probably shouldn¡¯t go so far as to ask her to climb onto his back for easy carrying? Nothing to do but give it a try. He held his umbrella out to the side so that the line wouldn¡¯t wrap around him when it resumed its spin, then he targeted the victim. Switching his entruster meant the preservation dropped instantly. He heard the metal washer ping off a cinderblock. No time to fool around with winding the line back up. It can just drag. ¡°Can I pick you up?¡± ¡°Please get me out of here!¡± He knelt beside her and leaned over her. ¡°Could you wrap your arms around my neck so that my hold on you is more secure?¡± She considered it for what he felt was an unnecessarily long time. Alden wondered if she was trying to decide if doing it would be too helpful to a competitor. She did do it, though, and Alden lifted her. He tried to get a decent grip on her, then he preserved her. As he did, he heard a girl scream. No way was he making it back to the safe zone with this victim unless all the villains were occupied. He hustled across the gym, taking the straightest path he could manage. The best he could do with the added weight was a speed-walk. His legs, tired from all the odd laps the assessors at the track had made him do, protested. He ignored them. There was a clanging sound from his right. Someone was beating on one of the metal drums, or they were beating someone else with one. He didn¡¯t look. The route was strewn with rubble so he shouldn¡¯t take his eyes off it. There were angry shouts, swearing, the sharp note of a slap. Alden hurried past the Wright. The other boy had pressed his face to the floor so that he couldn¡¯t see anything going on. Something wrapped around his waist and yanked him backwards hard. He fell with the girl on top of him. The air rushed from his lungs. There was a line of sharp, burning pain across his stomach and his back. Preservation dropped, and his victim sat up on top of him in surprise, looking around. ¡°What?!¡± she said in astonishment. Then she looked around and yelped, her eyes going wide. She scrambled to her feet. <> Still trying to draw in a full breath, Alden rolled over and got onto his hands and knees. Whatever was around his waist tightened like it was going to slice him in two, and the gym suit helpfully ratcheted up the pain. He looked down and saw a thin chain, sparkling with white light, wrapped around him. <> said Lexi in an angry voice. Kon¡¯s older brother was standing around nine feet away. He was breathing hard, and his dark hair was scrambled. Both of his hands were on the handle of his whip. The entire length of it was glowing. <> Stop him, thought Alden. Delay until help gets here. Don¡¯t let him use the whip on the victim. Alden grabbed onto the chain. It felt like he¡¯d grabbed a burning wire. Gritting his teeth, he tried to yank on it, and got nothing for his troubles at all except for a feeling like he was slicing through his own fingers. Lexi¡¯s arms didn¡¯t even budge. Meisters could be pretty physically strong. Very strong depending on their subclass. But something about this didn¡¯t look right. Alden hauled backwards, using as much of his bodyweight as he could, and¡­Lexi¡¯s grip on the handle didn¡¯t change at all. He wasn¡¯t even looking at Alden. He was still glaring at the victim in annoyance, clearly pissed that she wouldn¡¯t lay back down so that she could be properly killed. Him trying to manhandle the chain whip must be the same as Natalie Choir and her roommates taking on the ice cream cone protected by The Bearer of All Burdens with slaps and meat hammers. Alden got his feet under him and launched himself at the Meister¡¯s knees. The physical attack was so much less effective than it had been versus Tatiana Evans earlier. He hit Lexi, and Lexi did hit the ground. And then a fist smashed into his back so hard he lost the ability to breathe again. That was the only thing that kept him from shouting out loud as he felt something pierce his right calf muscle. It felt like his leg was on fire. <> Lexi shouted, digging a fist into Alden¡¯s ribs this time. The burning whip Alden had been counting on keeping entangled with himself suddenly disappeared from around his waist. It didn¡¯t unwind. It was there one instant and gone the next. Lexi kicked Alden off him and stood. The whip was in one hand. The chain was short and gold again, like it had been when Alden had first seen it this morning. Alden tried to rise but before he could regain his feet, Lexi lashed out with the whip again. Not at him. The chain lengthened in a flash into its glittery white magic mode and wrapped around the girl. Alden had been down for long enough, and she¡¯d refused to play victim for long enough, that Lexi thought she was fair game now even if she wasn¡¯t pretending to be injured anymore. The tip of it elongated and struck like a snake. It jabbed the glowing red mark on the girl¡¯s shoulder that was her kill point dead center, and a notification flashed: Someone on the other team cheered. Lexi nodded in satisfaction. His whip vanished from around the victim and returned to its starting form. Then he turned and started to run. Alden was on his feet and after him in an instant. He was almost fast enough to catch him. He definitely would have been if the gym floor was ground and his trait was active. Then a cell phone smacked into the side of Lexi¡¯s head. It wasn¡¯t a very hard strike, but at least the Object Shaper had made an attempt. She was coming up from their left. Lexi threw the hand with the whip out almost casually, and the tip of the chain struck her in the stomach. She screamed and bent double. Lacking any better idea, Alden grabbed the temper sphere from inside his sleeve and threw it as hard as he could at the Meister¡¯s back. It probably didn¡¯t hurt much, but it did make the other boy look back. ¡°Haunting sphere!¡± shouted Alden, pointing. He only did it because it was the one tool left in his arsenal. He didn¡¯t have a single expectation for it. So it was a big surprise to him when, at the sound of the ball¡¯s scream, Lexi jumped and whirled around with his whip raised. His head jerked back and forth, looking for the source of the noise. Alden forced himself to keep running at the Meister even though he knew what would happen next. Lexi flung his whip out again. The chain caught Alden in the side. There was a burning feeling as if he¡¯d just been sliced, but it didn¡¯t wrap around and yank him off his feet this time. <> ¡°You just stop!¡± shouted a voice from right behind Alden. ¡°Your shitty Russian is an embarrassment to our ancestors!¡± Kon dashed past. The whip struck him across the chest, and he completely ignored it. He leaped with a grunt of effort and flew through the air toward Lexi. ¡°Fuck,¡± said the Meister, a split second before his little brother collided with his chest. They both crashed to the floor. In an instant, Kon was sitting on his brother¡¯s stomach, facing his feet. ¡°Don¡¯t you fucking¡ª!¡± Grinning, Kon drew back both arms and delivered a double-fisted punch to the groin. Lexi¡¯s whole body jerked, and his face lost all color. Alden didn¡¯t stop to watch the siblings fight. He ran toward the last victim, and his stomach clenched in dread as he saw the other team¡¯s Brute heading in the same direction. She cleared a block wall taller than Alden¡¯s head by springing over it. Probably the right thing to do if this was a real crisis was run away or wait for more qualified help. But that wasn¡¯t the point today. Thank goodness for wrist straps. The umbrella was still with him, though a tug a few seconds ago made him think the washer had caught on some debris and the line had snapped. ¡°Target Kon!¡± he gasped. He couldn¡¯t take the time to turn around and point, couldn¡¯t think through the authority control required for targeting someone he couldn¡¯t see at this moment. The System was still a valid quick choice. ¡°Text Kon! Kon, tell me to pick up the umbrella!¡± Even as he said it he flung the umbrella ahead of him. It bounced off the ground and rolled toward the third victim. He really didn¡¯t expect the Adjuster to hear his shout or see the message in the midst of what sounded like a zealous English/Russian swearing match with his brother. But Kon must have had more presence of mind than Alden had given him credit for. ¡°PICK UP THE UMBRELLA!¡± He reached the last victim. He snatched up the umbrella, popped it open, and turned to face the oncoming Brute. Instead of hitting him, grabbing his umbrella, or dodging, she just tried to bull right through like Alden didn¡¯t exist. She smashed into the umbrella and bounced off like she¡¯d hit a wall. She sprawled backward on the ground, dazed and blinking up at the rafters of the gym. She took a deep breath. Then¡­ ¡°Oh!¡± she said in surprise, lifting her head to look at Alden with wide eyes. Her brown ponytail swung as she hopped back onto her feet. ¡°Okay!¡± He stood in front of the victim, holding the umbrella out. The girl picked up a cantaloupe-sized chunk of broken concrete. She held it in both hands, crouched a little, narrowed her eyes¡ª She threw it at him, aiming low. It flew so fast, he considered it a miracle that he intercepted it. It hit the very edge of the umbrella, and it shattered. Alden felt chunks of it hitting his lower legs and the tops of his shoes. More importantly, he felt his skill straining to keep up with the force of the impact. ¡°I guess I should go behind you, huh?¡± She bent her knees and jumped over his head. <> said the supposedly unconscious victim. <> Alden spun and threw the umbrella out to protect him. The Brute girl landed on top of it, lost her balance, slid off the side, and elbowed the victim in the kill point as she hit the ground. It almost looked like an accident. Maybe it was. But the rescue game was still over. . SEVENTY-SEVEN: About the Rabbit ¡°This is like Saturday morning cartoons. But better. We should hold these more often.¡± The middle-aged brunette woman who¡¯d spoken was sitting at a table positioned at the front of a large classroom. To her left, a younger man in a sweatshirt, board shorts, and flip-flops was doodling on a tablet. And to her right, a man with short, salt-and-pepper hair was sitting with his arms crossed over his chest while he watched the images being projected onto the classroom¡¯s wall. They showed a live feed of some of the battles currently taking place in the Celena North High gym. ¡°Organizing this six times a year is already a strain on the Office of Admissions. We¡¯re talking about reducing the number of third-round interviews and knocking the combat assessments back to a quarterly schedule,¡± he said. ¡°That would be a shame. The production of these videos is good for superhumanity.¡± She pointed one ruby-colored fingernail at two girls who were pulling each other¡¯s hair and yelling. ¡°It¡¯s like watching puppies fall all over themselves. Or like kittens batting each other with their little paws. One of those girls is an Adjuster. The other started out with a gun. Where are the bullets? Where are the spells? Why are two ranged power users doing¡ª?¡± She mimed punching the air with loosely balled fists and meowed. ¡°Can we rewind that section and watch them again?¡± she asked. ¡°Surely they started out dueling normally?¡± ¡°They¡¯re probably scared to seriously hurt each other. Or to get hurt themselves. But they didn¡¯t want to quit,¡± said the man in the board shorts. ¡°The same as so many others,¡± said the older man in a dismissive tone. ¡°We should be using this time to focus on footage of the interviewees we¡¯re responsible for.¡± The woman gave him an amused look. ¡°Torsten Klein, you could take a little pleasure in watching the newest generation discover that the System didn¡¯t turn them into gods of war when it gave them their powers.¡± ¡°Some of them are funny. There are two boys who¡¯ve been chasing each other around in circles for their entire duel. They haven¡¯t done anything but run. It looks like playground tag.¡± ¡°See? Skiff agrees with me,¡± said the woman. ¡°And the alumni gallery is supposed to give us their opinion of the students¡¯ combat performance. Review the highlights we¡¯ve already gotten for previous students if you want. I want to see some of the general madness. We only have time to enjoy the whole spectacle right now because of the drop-out.¡± ¡°I¡¯m surprised only one of our interviewees has dropped out at this point,¡± said Skiff. ¡°It felt like a lot of people decided to quit earlier in the day when I was going through this.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right, Skiff! You¡¯re a baby. And you went through the high school program. You must have done this stage of the admissions process. Did you show people a real fight, or were you this precious?¡± ¡°I¡¯m thirty-one, Instructor Colibr¨ª.¡± ¡°An infant! And since you¡¯re still calling me Instructor Colibr¨ª¡­¡± She narrowed her eyes at him. ¡°You passed my courses in university with flying colors, so why are you wearing swim trunks for your hero costume?¡± He reddened. ¡°About that¡­¡± ¡°I seem to remember spending hours with you, developing a Greco-Roman inspired merman persona.¡± ¡°Chicago didn¡¯t like it.¡± ¡°Down with them, then! They would have loved you in Los Angeles!¡± ¡°LA wasn¡¯t hiring.¡± Skiff looked at the teens on the screen. ¡°As for the combat assessment¡­I didn¡¯t grow up on Anesidora, so I didn¡¯t have as much warning as the local teens do. I heard about it while I was applying, but in the middle of everything else that comes with unexpectedly getting selected and moving to the island, it was a blip. I was riding high, and I was worried about a million things besides whether or not I was really okay with having someone break my nose or stab me with a knife.¡± ¡°One of your opponents stabbed you?¡± ¡°With a dagger. It nicked my femur. You know what I mean. It felt like it did. Or I thought it felt like it did. I was doing okay up until that point, and then at the end of the day, after they announced that everyone had finished their interviews and they asked us all the final admissions question¡ª¡± ¡°The final question,¡± Colibr¨ª said. ¡°Was it a surprise?¡± ¡°It was.¡± ¡°Good.¡± It was Torsten who spoke up. ¡°That question is supposed to be a surprise. It¡¯s meant to be impactful. Damn alumni telling their offspring have spread it all over the island by now, and it''s lost most of its purpose. It¡¯s only the NDAs keeping it off the internet.¡± Skiff frowned. ¡°It¡¯s unfair to the first-timers without Avowed parents, but I get the point. Anyway, I decided I needed time to think. And then I came back a few months later, and I got in.¡± ¡°And you passed all your classes, and went straight to the university program where you were a model student who dreamed of being a merman!¡± Colibr¨ª clapped her hands. Torsten glanced at her but didn¡¯t say anything. A notification pinged on all of their interfaces letting them know it was ten minutes until their next interviewee was scheduled to arrive. Skiff and Colibr¨ª both pulled up the student¡¯s profile on their tablets; Torsten continued staring straight ahead. ¡°You don¡¯t even blink when you mentally command the System, Instructor Klein,¡± Colibr¨ª said in a faintly mocking tone. ¡°Blinking gives enemies an advantage.¡± She laughed lightly. ¡°I forget you do have a teensy sense of humor sometimes.¡± ¡°I¡¯m the funniest man I know.¡± Skiff cast a doubtful glance in his direction but didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°Let¡¯s see what some of our alumni think of our extra special applicant,¡± said Colibr¨ª. ¡°Samuel Alden Thorn.¡± The live feed cut off, and the projection switched to show five people who were all in very different locations. One man was sitting in a lounge chair on a beach. A woman was curled up on a sofa with the lights of a city skyline filling the windows behind her. And a couple in their early twenties sat together in a study room of the Celena North University library. ¡°Good morning to those of you on Anesidora. And good whatever to those of you elsewhere. Thank you for donating some of your time to help us observe the prospective students today,¡± said Colibr¨ª. ¡°This gallery was assigned number 192, and he¡¯s our next interviewee. We¡¯ve all studied his application. You¡¯ve had a chance to see him during the combat assessment. Is there anything that stood out about him, good or bad, that you¡¯d like us to consider before we talk to him?¡± A short pause followed, then the girl in the library raised her hand. ¡°Yes, Robin? And you don¡¯t have to raise your hand. We¡¯re not in class right now. It¡¯s just a casual chat.¡± ¡°Sorry,¡± she said, blushing. ¡°The last interview committee said that, too. I like 192. If you don¡¯t mind, I¡¯ll read my notes? They¡¯re just a few bullet points.¡± She waited and when nobody objected, she picked up a notebook. ¡°So, the first thing I noticed was his¡­uh¡­weapon¡ª¡± ¡°What¡¯s he using?¡± Torsten interrupted. Skiff tapped on his tablet, and a moment later, an additional video window was projected above the faces of the alumni gallery. ¡°This is the heroes vs. villains game.¡± ¡°That¡¯s an umbrella,¡± said Torsten in a startled voice, as the boy on the screen jumped in front of a flying sandbag. ¡°Yes, Instructor Klein,¡± Robin said. ¡°I was surprised. At first I thought, ¡®Whoa, that¡¯s one of the weirdest Meisters I¡¯ve ever seen. Someone should tell the System to knock it off.¡¯¡± Several people laughed. ¡°But then he didn¡¯t seem like a Meister. He¡¯s not slick with his umbrella. You can tell there¡¯s no special umbrella-wielding knowledge? And finally in the group match, it was confirmed. The umbrella is just a prop. It seems like he could use all kinds of different things as shields. He¡¯s also got a spell impression. And he freezes people, which I¡¯m assuming makes them safe?¡­I¡¯ve gone off my notes a little bit.¡± She looked back down at the page. ¡°What I wanted to say was, it seems like the umbrella and the fishing line were a choice on his part. I¡¯m sure he could have picked something more effective if he had more experience, but I appreciate that he went with mundane items. Most teens would be tempted to choose something more impressive looking, but it seems to me that 192 was trying to be practical and show off his creativity. I like that. I also like that the ability to use everyday objects with his talents has great branding potential; I know Instructor Colibr¨ª is always bringing that up in class. ¡°Lastly, he¡¯s not hesitant. I only saw him freeze up a couple of times, and after re-watching them, I think they were because he couldn¡¯t figure out where to put himself on the battlefield, not because he was panicking or afraid of taking hits.¡± ¡°I noticed that last one, too,¡± said the man on the beach. ¡°This kid¡¯s one of the gutsier ones out there. But not stupid gutsy like some of them. He seems to be trying to avoid pointless danger, but he does take risks when he decides it¡¯s time. He¡¯s in a good headspace. I figure he either has a hero parent or this isn¡¯t his first time doing the combat assessment.¡± ¡°I agree with that, too.¡± A fluffy white lapdog had just jumped up onto the sofa beside the woman who was calling from her living room, and she scratched it behind the ears while she talked. ¡°Well, not the parentage part. I didn¡¯t bother to consider it. But he¡¯s a level-headed young man. He was assigned to the rescuer position, which usually implies that he¡¯s one of the team members less suited to fights. However, he didn¡¯t run from the ones that came his way. And he¡¯s much less afraid of the gym suits than most of them are.¡± The man in the library with Robin spoke up. <> ¡°He failed in some ways,¡± the woman with the dog said. ¡°But those failures all seem to me to be failures of knowledge and training. And knowledge and training is what the school exists to provide.¡± The moments from Alden Thorn¡¯s duels that the alumni had deemed the most significant were playing on the screen. The interviewers watched them with very different expressions on their faces. Skiff looked surprised and relieved. Colibr¨ª was smiling. Torsten¡¯s severe expression shifted slightly into a frown. ¡°He¡¯s not doing bad at all!¡± said Skiff. ¡°Actually, he¡¯s doing better than most¡­oh¡­that one boy is just laying there, isn¡¯t he? For the whole fight? What happened to him?¡± ¡°Sandbag to the gut!¡± said the man on the beach, shaking his head. ¡°In the kid¡¯s defense, it was a lot of sandbag to the gut. I know I¡¯m not evaluating the Ground Shaper who did it, but she¡¯s got a fixation problem. Once she¡¯s found someone to hit, she just keeps hitting them. Might drop a note to her committee asking them to prod her. Someone ought to check if she¡¯s got anger issues or if she¡¯s just a bad judge of when the other guy has had enough.¡± ¡°Finally,¡± Colibr¨ª whispered, watching a Brute girl bounce off Alden Thorn¡¯s umbrella, ¡°someone who can use designer goods in a battle without destroying them.¡± ¡°You all seem very approving,¡± Torsten said to the observers. ¡°But what did you assume his class and rank were?¡± The couple sitting across campus in the university library exchanged glances. ¡°I thought B-rank Adjuster,¡± Robin answered. ¡°With an unusual set of spell impressions that he can stealth cast¡­or cast well in advance of using them.¡± <> the man with her said. The man on the beach yawned. ¡°I considered a Sky or Object Shaper with a control method other than the usual physical gestures. Never seen a brand new Avowed with that kind of control. Seemed unlikely but not impossible. Then he froze one of the victims, and I decided I didn¡¯t have a clue. Definitely A-rank, though.¡± ¡°A-rank U-type is my guess as well,¡± said the woman talking from her living room. ¡°Though I have some questions about the spell impression in that case. Uniques don¡¯t usually get them to start with, so he¡¯d need to have leveled at least once already.¡± The fifth member of the alumni gallery¡ªa man with a neatly combed black beard who stood leaning against the railing of an empty rooftop restaurant¡ªremained silent, as he had since the start of the conversation. ¡°Interesting,¡± Torsten said finally. ¡°Thank you. How would you rate his performance if you knew his class was¡ª¡± ¡°The correct procedure is for the gallery to give unbiased opinions,¡± Colibr¨ª interrupted. Her voice was pleasant on the surface, but there was an undercurrent of censure in it. ¡°So they should offer their final official recommendations for this candidate without us giving them any additional information.¡± Torsten narrowed his eyes at her. ¡°In this case, since they¡¯re making certain assumptions, don¡¯t you think¡ª?¡± ¡°I agree with Instructor Colibr¨ª,¡± said Skiff, twirling his stylus nervously between his fingers. He glanced at the man with the black beard. ¡°We¡¯ve had access to all of 192¡¯s application information. They haven¡¯t. We can always make our own judgments now that they¡¯ve put together the highlights for us. But it¡¯s important to hear from people who don¡¯t know anything about the student. That¡¯s how it¡¯s supposed to work.¡± ¡°Well, now you¡¯ve all got me curious,¡± said the man in the lounge chair. He brushed sand from one of his arms. ¡°But fine. I didn¡¯t see any major issues. Just normal stupid new kid stuff. And less of that than most of the other squirts I¡¯ve been watching this morning. Based solely on what I¡¯ve seen today, I think he¡¯s a solid choice for the hero track.¡± ¡°Based on attitude, the shielding ability, and the apparent potential of that human-freezing power, I¡¯d say he¡¯s a yes, too,¡± said the woman on the sofa. <> the boy in the library offered. <> His girlfriend hesitated. ¡°Since I¡¯m the only one who thinks he¡¯s a B-rank¡­¡± ¡°Why did you think that?¡± the other woman in the evaluators group asked curiously. ¡°He¡¯s physically too weak for an A-rank guy, isn¡¯t he? It seems like he¡¯s low on stats. We haven¡¯t talked about his earlier duels, but the fight with the Sky Shaper girl and the archer were more telling on that front. I guess he could have put everything into hidden qualities. Micro adjustments to senses¡­or a lot of Stamina. Maybe the System let him boost some Processing qualities outside the norm? But I¡¯m not seeing A-rank stats. ¡± <> She nodded. ¡°Horses not unicorns, right, Instructor Klein?¡± The stern-faced Torsten cracked his first smile. ¡°You remember my lessons well, Robin.¡± Robin¡¯s boyfriend made a few hand gestures, and a second later, the display of the candidate¡¯s highlights shifted to show a concrete chunk smashing into the edge of an umbrella and breaking into pieces. <> he said. <> ¡°I see that,¡± Robin said. ¡°If he is an A-rank, I say yes. But even though I think he¡¯s cool, if he¡¯s a B, I say no. Sorry, I know that¡¯s not really how we¡¯re supposed to evaluate, but his main spell, or his skill if that¡¯s what it is, also seems to have some kind of weird condition? He asked another boy on his team to tell him to pick the umbrella back up.¡± ¡°Starting powers are extremely important, but we don''t have to evaluate based entirely on current limitations,¡± the man in the lounge chair said. ¡°His mindset matters the most at this point. Especially if you¡¯re right, and he¡¯s an Adjuster. He just has to level enough, and he¡¯ll have more decent spells to choose from. Whichever rank he¡¯s at, the faculty can guide him toward choices that will increase his combat ability.¡± Robin nodded. ¡°I understand. I still feel like based just on what I¡¯ve seen today, though, I would worry if he were a B.¡± ¡°So three yeses, and one conditional yes/no,¡± said Colibr¨ª. ¡°You all found his performance well above average in general and saw no major cause for concern. Is that correct?¡± They all nodded. ¡°Excellent. If you¡¯ll all please remember to take a few minutes and type up a quick evaluation for 192 to receive at the end of the day, then¡ª¡± ¡°I say no,¡± said the man standing on the rooftop in a flat voice. The other four evaluators looked surprised. ¡°I wondered why you were dead quiet over there,¡± said the man on the beach. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you speak up sooner?¡± ¡°It¡¯s really inappropriate for you to comment on this candidate, isn¡¯t it?¡± Skiff interjected, staring at the fifth member of the gallery. ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to say anything since you were being quiet. But if you were randomly assigned to evaluate 192 you should have refused it and let someone else take your place. Obviously.¡± The other alumni were wearing very curious expressions. ¡°Skiff has a point,¡± Colibr¨ª said lightly. ¡°Even if you offer an evaluation, Arjun, we can¡¯t take it into consideration.¡± ¡°I¡¯d like to hear what he has to say,¡± Torsten Klein said. ¡°Of course you would,¡± Colibr¨ª replied. ¡°But that doesn¡¯t change¡ª¡± ¡°He waited until everyone else had given their unbiased opinions to talk. We know what they think. So let¡¯s hear him out.¡± ¡°If we know their unbiased opinions, I don¡¯t see why we ought to hear biased ones now,¡± Skiff protested. ¡°That¡¯s not how it works for any of the other kids. Why should Thomas even be here when¡ª¡± ¡°I slipped him into the group,¡± said a voice from behind them. The interviewers turned to see Lesedi Saleh striding between a row of student desks toward the front of the classroom. ¡°Because he wouldn¡¯t stop bothering me once he caught wind of this student¡¯s application. And he promised to volunteer his time as a guest instructor frequently and enthusiastically in the future. Hello, everyone. I wanted to hear this conversation. I¡¯m sorry I seem to have missed the first half of it.¡± ¡°Who is 192 anyway?¡± asked the lounge chair guy. ¡°Has he got important heroes for parents or something? And what¡¯s with all the drama around his class?¡± ¡°I¡¯m surprised Torsten hasn¡¯t already spilled the beans,¡± the principal said, her hands gripping the back of a plastic chair while she looked at the assembled heroes. ¡°He was about to,¡± said Colibr¨ª. ¡°Skiff and I insisted on hearing their untainted opinions of the student first. I¡¯ve recorded them all by the way. So those will be the official ones.¡± Lesedi nodded. ¡°I¡¯ve been taking the occasional peek at him throughout the day. He seems to be performing well. How did our evaluators feel?¡± ¡°They said he was above average,¡± Skiff said quickly. ¡°He was a ¡®yes¡¯ for most of them.¡± ¡°He wouldn¡¯t have been if they knew his class,¡± said Torsten. Skiff slapped his stylus down. ¡°And he might have been if they knew other things. The point is for them to evaluate him without having the same information we do, so¡ª¡± ¡°He¡¯s a B-rank Rabbit,¡± the principal said. Everyone looked at her in surprise. ¡°There, Torsten,¡± she said. ¡°I did it for you. And no, he doesn¡¯t have an influential family. His name¡¯s Alden Thorn. He arrived on Anesidora seven weeks ago. This is his first time applying to Celena North.¡± ¡°It must¡¯ve been one hell of an application if the school didn¡¯t set it on fire when they saw his class,¡± said the man on the beach. ¡°It was an extraordinary one. His name and class are easily discoverable anyway now that you¡¯ve seen his face. Naturally, we won¡¯t be sharing the detailed information contained in his Avowed profile with you. The school makes an attempt to protect student privacy at least¡­¡± ¡°Not much point in secrecy, is there, when we¡¯ve seen almost his full power set? Knowing he¡¯s a Rabbit paints an entirely different picture of him as a candidate. Rabbits get one or two starter skills. And two crap spells at B-rank. He¡¯s got the shieldy thing. It¡¯s his only real trick if it¡¯s strong enough to take that much of a pounding.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a robust skill.¡± The woman gave her dog one last scratch behind the ears and stood from the sofa. She walked over to stare out at the glittering city skyline through her window. ¡°But I wouldn¡¯t have said yes if I¡¯d known he was a Rabbit. The rank is bad, but not impossible to overcome. B-ranks can do good work. If they have realistic expectations for their futures, I think the school should be much more open to accepting them than it is. But that class¡­if the boy has miraculously found a good primary skill for hero work, fine. But what happens for him next?¡± ¡°I agree.¡± The man wasn¡¯t lounging anymore. He sat up and threw his legs over the side of the chair. He was frowning. ¡°I liked the kid. Appreciated his effort today. But how are you going to develop him from here? Even if that weird skill of his is a ten-top or better, and it takes him all the way to uni, what the hell is the college going to do with him in his last couple of years? What¡¯s he going to do with himself a decade from now? Isn¡¯t he going to be stuck at some point trying to choose between skills for toilet bowl sanitization and¡­I dunno¡­air freshening for his next upgrade?¡± ¡°Never mind that,¡± said the woman, ¡°how is he going to hold a job?¡± ¡°With a custom-tailored tailcoat,¡± Colibr¨ª said at once. ¡°And white gloves. For a butler Rabbit vibe. Or if we have him tweak his Appeal toward the more adorable end of the spectrum¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mean, ¡®How are you going to persuade a city he¡¯s marketable?¡¯ I mean how is he going to stick around in one place for long enough to actually do hero work? If you successfully run a Rabbit through the program, and he levels quickly and starts picking up new skills, he¡¯s bound to choose one that the Artonans are hungry for at some point.¡± ¡°And there¡¯s no long-term development path that will take him to the next level as a hero,¡± the man said in a frustrated voice. ¡°Not unless the rest of you know about some Rabbit skills that are actually good for combat or rescue work?¡± ¡°I won¡¯t deny that there could be some,¡± Torsten said, leaning back in his chair with his arms over his chest. ¡°The skill list for the class is even more absurd than the System¡¯s usual offerings. And grivecks seem to do fine with it.¡± ¡°Jesus, are we comparing ourselves to grivecks now? Even the non-Avowed ones can kill things the size of a grown man with their tongues. And they¡¯ve been pals with the Artonans for more than a millennium. They know more than we do. I¡¯m pretty sure the aliens like them more than us. And at this point, I¡¯m assuming the wizards have gotten around to actually customizing some of their sillier sounding skills to perfectly suit their murderous needs.¡± ¡°I was just pointing out that I had actually considered the possibility that useful skills for hero work might exist within the class,¡± Torsten replied. He turned and raised an eyebrow at the principal. ¡°But as I said the minute I received his application, we don¡¯t know of any. Because of that, directing Alden Thorn toward such choices will be impossible. Our instructors can help him learn to maximize the skill he currently has. But what if it tops out at level five? Even if it¡¯s a ten-top, or if he¡¯s lucky, and it¡¯s a few levels higher than that, it won¡¯t be enough. As a B-rank, one skill won¡¯t allow him to keep pace with other career heroes. At worst, he won¡¯t even be able to level it far enough to meet the high school graduation requirement. At best, he¡¯ll be stuck as a lifelong bottom tier supporter. Even if he¡¯s satisfied with that personally, it¡¯s not the kind of student we would usually accept at Celena North.¡± The boy sitting in the library spoke up. <> ¡°That¡¯s a good point,¡± Robin said. ¡°If he picked Rabbit, and he chose a random skill nobody knows about¡­that¡¯s not very serious-minded, is it? That doesn¡¯t sound like someone who actually wanted to attend a hero program to me. It sounds like he wanted to be a Rabbit, and then he got an interesting skill and applied to Celena North on a whim.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think it was a whim,¡± Skiff said immediately. At the same time, Arjun Thomas said, ¡°He knew what the skill was before he chose it.¡± Everyone looked at him. He stared down at where his hands rested against the rooftop¡¯s railing. His next words were spoken quietly. ¡°I don¡¯t know it for a fact, but it would be a shock to me if he¡¯d accidentally acquired a skill with that sort of effect. But whatever Alden plans to do with the Rabbit class and that skill is irrelevant today. The boy can become a superhero if he wants to. Or not. As Lesedi knows, I¡¯m objecting on the grounds that the hero track is an inappropriate environment for him right now, and even his presence on the gym floor today is proof that the school is overeager to accept him for some reason.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sharing his profile with you either, Arjun,¡± the principal said. ¡°Your concerns have been noted. I¡¯ve let you serve as an evaluator and cast your vote. Now you can write up an evaluation and use it to tell Alden why you don¡¯t think he should attend your alma mater.¡± She smiled at him. ¡°I¡¯ll send your guest lecturer schedule soon. But I think that¡¯s all the time we have for this chat. The subject of our discussion should be done having a final, painful duel with one our S-rank prospects about now, and he¡¯ll be coming in for his interview any minute. Thank you all for your time.¡± Arjun opened his mouth. ¡°Wait,¡± protested the man on the beach. ¡°You can¡¯t just leave us dying of curiosity like¡ª¡± The connection to the alumni gallery cut off suddenly, and their faces disappeared. ¡°So even Arjun doesn¡¯t know about the star then,¡± Torsten Klein said to the suddenly silent classroom. ¡°He¡¯s not well-connected anymore,¡± the principal said. ¡°By choice. And he¡¯s too ashamed to call Gemma Elber and ask what¡¯s going on with the boy¡¯s application.¡± ¡°Does she know already?¡± Colibr¨ª asked. ¡°I¡¯m surprised. She¡¯s so apolitical.¡± ¡°People tell hyperboles things even if they aren¡¯t political creatures. She called me last week and said she hoped I would make sure Thorn was ¡®well cared for at school.¡¯ ¡± ¡°So even the Gloom wants him to get in,¡± Torsten said grimly. ¡°I don¡¯t know why we waste our time pretending to evaluate him at all.¡± ¡°I believe I told you why when you were placed on this committee. I don¡¯t want applicants to receive overly obvious special treatment, even if some of them do have special circumstances. It creates too much resentment within the student body.¡± ¡°If he doesn¡¯t want special treatment, he should¡ª¡± ¡°Should what?¡± the principal asked, arching her brows at him. ¡°Go to a different school? Do you think there¡¯s one on the island where people will be better informed and less agog about his circumstances than we will be here?¡± ¡°A non-hero track program would be the best choice.¡± ¡°For so many people. And yet thousands of teenagers want to be superheroes. Including this one,¡± the principal said. ¡°The boy has to attend school somewhere. He wants to try this. There is absolutely nothing he can do to change his class. There is also nothing he can do to change that commendation or the way terrible old people like us react to it.¡± ¡°He could change his own mind about what he wants.¡± ¡°Yes, I thought that, too,¡± said Lesedi. ¡°It was another reason I pushed for the combat assessment instead of the private evaluation. And now he¡¯s almost through with it, and he¡¯s performing in a way that makes me think he is unlikely to abandon his ambitions in the near future.¡± Torsten grunted. The principal smacked him lightly on the shoulder. ¡°You should be happy. I let everyone know he was a Rabbit for you. And they realize that something strange is going on with his entry. The evaluations they write him will be much more critical now. No doubt he¡¯ll even get some kind of gloomy advice from Arjun, a hero he presumably has strong opinions about. Short of having your dour self hold up a sign as he walks into the interview room that says, ¡®You shouldn¡¯t really be here,¡¯ I can¡¯t do much else.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no reason for everyone to take such a negative view of the kid,¡± Skiff protested. ¡°He¡¯s a survivor. He wrote an amazing essay. He¡¯s a fast leveler. He¡ª¡± ¡°I like him,¡± said Colibr¨ª. ¡°I¡¯ve got four costume designs and two dozen marketing schemes in mind already.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have a ¡®negative view of the kid.¡¯ I have a realistic one. If the commendation isn¡¯t just some head pat from an easily charmed wizard, then he¡¯s very brave. Weak people can be brave. That doesn¡¯t mean they belong at this school,¡± Torsten said. ¡°He doesn¡¯t belong at any hero feeder program. If he didn¡¯t have that decoration beside his name, none of the rest of it would be enough. We¡¯d tell him to level on his own for the next two or three years, give us proof of concept, miraculously find more useful skills in the home decorating class, and then come show us we were wrong at the uni tryouts.¡± ¡°That¡¯s how it would have been,¡± Lesedi said. ¡°But that¡¯s not how it is. As long as he didn¡¯t have a breakdown, insult the faculty, or leave during the middle of the combat assessment there was no way to reject him. You knew that, Torsten.¡± She frowned. ¡°And you may be underselling the value of bravery, don¡¯t you think?¡± ¡°I¡¯m still hoping he¡¯ll reject himself after he reads the evaluators¡¯ comments.¡± Lesedi sighed. ¡°Arjun is hoping the same. For different reasons. He seems to believe the only reason we would let the boy in would be because we¡¯re ¡®up to something.¡¯¡± ¡°Why does he think that?¡± Skiff asked. The principal was stretching out her shoulders. ¡°It¡¯s the timeline. You heard Arjun saying that his very presence here was proof we were overeager? It is. He spent much of the past year in what sounds like a horrific environment, even if you take the stripped-down description he gave of the event in writing at face value. The university was afraid that the good psychologist we usually use wouldn¡¯t approve his readiness for hero track courses or combat after reading his application, so they hired a less good psychologist for this cycle. I¡¯ve still had people watching him all day to make sure he¡¯s all right.¡± ¡°I wish you wouldn¡¯t make me aware of things like that when I can¡¯t change them,¡± Torsten grumbled. Lesedi shrugged. ¡°I can¡¯t change that particular decision either. But if there was a problem, we would have pulled him. And anyway, Arjun doesn¡¯t know what we all do. If Celena North rejects Thorn¡­¡± ¡°Nobody else will,¡± Colibr¨ª said. She was rummaging through her purse. The principal put her hands on her hips. ¡°That¡¯s right. If Thorn wants hero school with his special star, someone¡¯s going to give it to him. The other two Apex high schools probably have people filling out forms with his name on them right now.¡± ¡°They can¡¯t have him.¡± Colibr¨ª pulled out a tube of lipstick. ¡°I¡¯m supposed to offer him direct entry into the university today if it looks like he isn¡¯t going to get into the high school program.¡± The other three fell quiet and looked at her. ¡°What?¡± she asked, rubbing her freshly reddened lips together and then smacking them. ¡°We¡¯re all being so honest about it. If he wants hero track, it¡¯s better to start him in the high school. Academically he could probably handle uni, but he¡¯s not ready for that level of combat training.¡± ¡°He¡¯s not ready for high school level combat!¡± Torsten said in an outraged tone. ¡°We¡¯d give him trainers and tutors. Call him a remedial student. Keep him out of regular heroing classes, and have him enrolled at the university level for six or eight years instead of four.¡± ¡°That is too shameless,¡± Lesedi said, her own voice harsh. ¡°Admissions has been pushing us hard to accept him, but admitting him directly to university would make Celena North look awful. And it would make the boy look like a fool. It¡¯s bad enough that some of the faculty and students here at High are going to resent his presence. He¡¯d never socially recover from receiving years of flagrant handholding and favoritism in the university program. People would never take him seriously enough to work with him.¡± ¡°That¡¯s why it¡¯s so great that you¡¯re not planning on rejecting him!¡± Colibr¨ª said. ¡°Although I don¡¯t think we would look as bad as you¡¯re thinking. He might, but we would just look like we knew the value of what we have on our hands. We¡¯ve never had such a young student with a commendation before. I don¡¯t know anything about commendations myself. I don¡¯t get summoned, and I don¡¯t want to, thank you. But the university¡¯s cultural advisor is flipping out over that one.¡± Torsten¡¯s seat creaked as he shifted his weight. He didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°Yes,¡± Colibr¨ª said. ¡°It¡¯s something over the top. And I don¡¯t just mean that General person¡¯s rank number. They say we don¡¯t even have record of an alumni receiving that particular wording on a commendation. The culture advisor thinks that one day after the boy has settled in, when the wizards swing by for a visit to repair the gyms and the other magical facilities, we just¡­trot dear Alden out to say hello to them. They¡¯re going to see commendation plus kid plus educational facility, and great things will happen.¡± ¡°I hadn¡¯t thought of it that way,¡± Skiff said in a stunned voice. ¡°I thought the school just didn¡¯t want to reject him because they were worried about offending the Artonans or¡ª¡± ¡°You have to think bigger, my dear merman! The Triplanetary Government hasn¡¯t been inclined to give the school wonderful magical presents for the past couple of decades, but that cute little Rabbit hits them in every one of their weak points. So¡­don¡¯t try too hard to scare him off, Instructor Klein. Think of the needs of the many, won¡¯t you?¡± She smiled at him. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be a hero, after all.¡± * SEVENTY-EIGHT: Facts are Facts ¡°Want me to fix your umbrella?¡± Alden looked over at Konstantin. The Adjuster was sitting beside him, running his fingers through his dark hair, trying to straighten it out. He was breathless, red-faced, and sweaty¡ªthe same as almost everyone who¡¯d taken part in the heroes vs. villains battle. Alden himself hadn¡¯t realized how depleted he was until it was over. Now both teams were sprawled across the bleachers. Most people were sitting slightly apart from each other. Emotions were still running hot for several of them. The Strength Brute from the hero team had started cussing out the Wright before they¡¯d even left the floor, and it was probably only the fact that the guy had high-tailed it out of the gym that had prevented a real fight. The Object Shaper was crying while Emma patted her on the shoulder. The Sandbagger was shooting death glares. She only spared a couple for Alden; Kon was receiving the bulk of them. Lexi was wringing the handle of his whip like he was imagining it was someone¡¯s neck. He was glaring a lot at Kon, too, but to Alden¡¯s surprise his ire wasn¡¯t just for his brother. He seemed to be mad at every single one of his own teammates and Alden¡¯s as well. He wasn¡¯t yelling at anyone, though. Just darkly stewing. Kon was staring straight ahead, watching the latest batch of duelists. Alden glanced down at his umbrella. One of the spokes was bent and poking out through the fabric, and of course there was the broken fishing line. ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯re going to make me fight much more,¡± said Alden. ¡°But I¡¯d appreciate it, just in case, if it¡¯s not going to wear you out.¡± ¡°Hand it over. I didn¡¯t get to show off my amazing powers anyway.¡± ¡°I think you showed off well enough.¡± Alden passed over the umbrella and the broken piece of line. ¡°It was when I nut punched my big brother, right?¡± Kon said with a grin that didn¡¯t quite reach his eyes. ¡°That was a memorable moment.¡± ¡°Probably extra memorable for him.¡± Kon held the umbrella across his palms and stared at it. ¡°Now you get to experience my dolphin impression.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± The other boy opened his mouth, and the weirdest spell chant Alden had ever heard came out of it. Many chants were purely sound¡ªthe vocal equivalent of weaving a pattern with the auriad. Some peppered in very old Artonan words Alden could occasionally recognize. This one sounded¡­a lot like a dolphin trying to speak a foreign language. It was extremely alien, and surprisingly un-pretty. Artonan tastes didn¡¯t always run in the same direction as human tastes, but their chants usually sounded pleasantly musical. This one was just strange. And astonishing. There was a cloud of glittering light around the umbrella, then its damaged spots rapidly repaired themselves. It suddenly looked like it had before the fight started. ¡°Let me do the fishing line next.¡± ¡°Are your vocal cords modified?!¡± Kon looked surprised. ¡°Most people are more interested in the instant restoration thing. Yeah, they are.¡± ¡°Bullshit.¡± His brows drew together. ¡°You think I was born speaking like a cetacean?¡± ¡°No! It¡¯s just¡­I¡¯m sorry. That was a positive ¡®bullshit,¡¯ I guess? I¡¯ve never heard of an Adjuster getting body modded for vocal casting, and I think it¡¯s cool.¡± ¡°Positive bullshit? Must be an American thing. There are only a couple dozen other Adjusters known to have vocal mods for some of their spells. My parents helped me look into it after I affixed.¡± ¡°It¡¯s so cool.¡± ¡°You said that already.¡± He looked happy about it though. ¡°When the System spat out a rare type-path opportunity for me, I was completely caught off guard. I was going to focus on spells that manipulate electrical energy. I¡¯ve been planning to be an S-rank Adjuster since I was nine, and it was going to be perfect. But when the Contract offers you something you know is one of a kind, you have to take it. It¡¯s a thing, right?¡± ¡°A thing?¡± Kon nodded. ¡°Yeah. Everyone knows that singleton paths, subclasses, or talents are usually higher potential. Sometimes they¡¯re a flop, but most of the time, they pay off. It was just one starter spell, which seemed so ungenerous. But I took it, and the next thing I knew the System was like, ¡®And here is your new alien voice to go with that spell.¡¯¡± That wasn¡¯t something everyone knew. That sounded like something you only knew if all your friends and relatives were Avowed. ¡°Can you make any sound an Artonan can?¡± Kon shook his head. ¡°Not quite. I¡¯m assuming if the other spells in this category the System has stuck me in require it, I¡¯ll get additional mods.¡± ¡°Awesome,¡± Alden breathed. Kon grinned. ¡°You¡¯re really into my dolphin impression. Most people think it¡¯s creepy.¡± ¡°I wanted to be an Adjuster so bad.¡± The other boy tilted his head. ¡°Then why are you a Rabbit?¡± Alden didn¡¯t know what to say. ¡°Did you just get super nervous and accept the class assignment as soon as it popped up? I heard sometimes globies do that.¡± ¡°Rabbit seemed like a really good idea at the time.¡± Alden was unable to think of another excuse for himself that would make sense. ¡°Well, your shield thing is cool at least.¡± Kon picked up the fishing line and held the broken end to the piece still wrapped around the umbrella handle. He stared at it, performed the spell again, and the two pieces of line were reconnected. ¡°Thanks,¡± Alden said, targeting him before he handed it back. ¡°I hope the school is as enthusiastic about it as you are.¡± ¡°You sounded more confident this morning.¡± Kon shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m confident the spell is capable of amazing things. And that I¡¯ll get more spells that do similar stuff in the future. And that my rank gives me a big advantage. But I¡¯m not quite as sure that the school will be willing to risk it. Just because it¡¯s special doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s going to be the right thing for hero work. Instructor Plim was really excited about it, but¡­¡± ¡°You have a skill, too.¡± ¡°Yeah. They might let me slip in because the skill alone has applications. Knowing the previous state of objects is an odd one to work with, too, though. So who knows?¡± ¡°You use the skill before the spell every time?¡± ¡°I have to,¡± said Kon. ¡°If I don¡¯t, it¡¯s like my brain can¡¯t conceptualize the exact state I¡¯m trying to restore the object to. I can¡¯t even trigger the spell impression to cast without it.¡± They both stopped talking as a man with a bushy mustache approached them. ¡°Kon,¡± he said, scrolling through something on his interface. ¡°Are you all right with the interview on your schedule being brought forward half an hour? We¡¯ve had some drop outs.¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯m sending you the update now. Alden, is your skill still working? We have you listed as having hit your limit during that last fight.¡± ¡°I¡¯m okay,¡± said Alden. He was starting to feel tired. Approaching skill exhaustion was a strange experience now that he had an authority sense, and he didn¡¯t have a chaos attack to occupy him. It wasn¡¯t like the authority went away. It was almost like the world around him became resistant to it, and his authority itself became¡­less authoritative. Stiller. Unwilling to be moved by his will or to move things around him in turn. ¡°I can keep going until the end of the combat assessment.¡± The man rolled his eyes. ¡°You¡¯re one of those, are you? You don¡¯t know when skill fatigue will hit you, kid. Don¡¯t just assume you''re tireless because your talent hasn¡¯t quit yet.¡± ¡°I mean my skill was still working fine the last time I used it.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll give you one more duel then. Toward the end of the session. If it completely quits on you, just yield. No penalties for that. It¡¯s normal for it to hit low ranks in the last half of the combat assessment.¡± He walked away. ¡°Ouch. He called me a low rank. The principal included us B¡¯s with the rest of you in her speech this morning.¡± ¡°She was being generous. B¡¯s are usually ¡®high¡¯ if you¡¯re living in F-city and ¡®low¡¯ if you¡¯re in Apex. You live between two worlds.¡± ¡°What happened to middle? Why can¡¯t we be middles?¡± Kon shrugged. ¡°Maybe they¡¯ll build another island when we get a couple million more people, and we can call it mid-city?¡± ¡°Mid-city?¡± ¡°B¡¯s can hang there with the C¡¯s. Feeling all superior. And then we mighty S¡¯s can have two islands to look down on instead of one.¡± ¡°How long have you been an S-rank even?¡± ¡°About four months.¡± ¡°Does the System affix a massive dose of self confidence when it gives you that rank?¡± ¡°It¡¯s just that I¡¯ve been an S in my heart from a young age,¡± said Kon, holding a hand over his heart. ¡°My parents are both A¡¯s so there was always a decent chance.¡± He looked over at Alden. ¡°They¡¯ll put you against an S. For your final duel.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not random?¡± ¡°It¡¯s semi-random. If it looks like you¡¯re toughing it out all the way to the end of the assessment, though, they¡¯ll make sure you get hit really bad at least once. If they can. It¡¯s a thing.¡± ¡°A thing everyone knows,¡± Alden said. ¡°Exactly. At least one terrible match-up if they can swing it. For you, any S who isn¡¯t me will do. And it won¡¯t be me, since I¡¯m not dueling. It was all private testing with Instructor Plim¡­except for me showing off my brother-punching skill just now.¡± ¡°Thanks for letting me know.¡± Kon shrugged. ¡°You were cool in the fight. I thought you were way overestimating yourself when you said you could bonk the Shaper¡¯s sandbags with your umbrella. But you bonked them really well.¡± ¡°My skill¡¯s Level 3.¡± Kon looked startled. ¡°That¡¯s nice. Did you hide out and train for a year before you showed up here or something? But I still wouldn¡¯t have thought you¡¯d just fling off those bags like they didn¡¯t weigh anything.¡± ¡°They didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°They didn¡¯t weigh anything.¡± Alden pulled his legs up and crossed them. ¡°I should have realized¡­but I¡¯m an idiot. I haven¡¯t seriously used my skill like this before.¡± ¡°It would be uncommon if you had a lot of sandbag attack experience.¡± ¡°No, I mean I haven¡¯t used it as a shield. It¡¯s not¡­that hasn¡¯t been its main function for me. I knew it would be a big thing for hero work. But up until now, it¡¯s the preservation element that¡¯s been important. Until the past couple of weeks, I usually really cared about keeping the thing I was carrying safe. So I¡¯m geared to think of it that way. And I missed something incredibly obvious because of it.¡± ¡°What?¡± Kon asked curiously. ¡°I don¡¯t feel the force of things that impact my preserved object. Physically.¡± He¡¯d definitely felt every impact in other ways. ¡°Impacts strain my skill. They make it reach the exhaustion point faster. I knew that. But if the magic takes the impact of outside things, it also takes their weight.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t quite see where you¡¯re going with¡ª¡± ¡°The victims,¡± said Alden, staring across the gym without really seeing it. ¡°Whenever I¡¯ve carried people before, it¡¯s been because they needed to be preserved. Their whole bodies. For their protection.¡± ¡°Have you had to do something like that often?¡± Kon said slowly. Alden ignored the question. ¡°And people are heavy. I just got so used to thinking of people as heavy things I have to preserve. But for this exercise, we needed to move fast. That was more important. So I suggested you carry the first girl because you¡¯re stronger.¡± ¡°Right¡­¡± ¡°You could have entrusted her gym suit to me instead. I mean, she could have.¡± ¡°You mean you could turn her suit into a shield?¡± ¡°Yes, but more importantly, she wouldn¡¯t have weighed anything inside it,¡± said Alden, not even trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. ¡°She would be carried by the magic wrapped around my preserved object. From my perspective, she would have weighed as much as a gym suit. It might not have been comfortable for her. But I could have carried her all that way in one hand.¡± Kon stared at him. ¡°Are you sure?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Alden paused. ¡°I¡¯m sure that it would have worked, but I guess the faculty would most likely have made us stop. I don¡¯t know how the suits and the bands work together with each other and in conjunction with the magic on the gym. Preserving just the suit¡­it could have been really bad if something had hit her somewhere unprotected, and the gym couldn¡¯t register it properly?¡± ¡°That¡¯s a dark thought. Glad you didn¡¯t try it and find out the hard way.¡± Kon stood up. ¡°I¡¯m off to be grilled by an interview committee. It was fun to play superheroes with you. It sent me right back to primary school. Only there was never a Rabbit in our superhero games. Even if you don¡¯t get into the program you should come to that party at my house.¡± ¡°Are you having it even if you don¡¯t get in?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t jinx me,¡± said Kon. ¡°And of course. It will be a consolation party in that case.¡± ¡°Thank you for the invitation.¡± Alden tapped his umbrella against his knee. ¡°By the way¡­¡± Kon looked over his shoulder. ¡°You probably didn¡¯t have to cast your spell twice. You could have just done it once.¡± The Adjuster might have been an S-rank, but that didn¡¯t mean he could infinite cast his spell. Impressions could be exhausted just like skills. They used their own discrete portion of your bound authority in a similar way. ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°To repair the umbrella and the fishing line. You said you use the skill to read the object first. You could have used it on the umbrella and the fishing line at the same time.¡± ¡°They¡¯re two different objects.¡± ¡°No they¡¯re not.¡± Alden held it up. ¡°This is one object.¡± Kon frowned. ¡°Imagine the line was superglued to the umbrella. Or that it was made that way from the start. Maybe by some Wright who¡¯s way too fond of multi-function tools. In that case you would have read it as one cohesive piece, right?¡± ¡°¡­right.¡± ¡°Just something to consider. Good luck in your interview.¡± Alden watched him leave. About twenty minutes later, he was called up for his final duel. The opponent was an S-rank speedster. He ran at Alden, dodged around the umbrella much faster than Alden could react to protect himself, and shoved him sideways into the barrier. Perhaps he was concerned about hitting a B-rank Rabbit in the torso, because he shoved Alden¡¯s partially outstretched arm. Pain flared. Alden could have sworn he heard something pop as his shoulder dislocated. He shouted, but it came out muffled as the speedster grabbed the back of his head and pressed his face into the wall. For the first time all day, Alden felt fear. Then the ten seconds passed, and his arm was completely fine. His panicked brain slowed down enough to realize the attack was already over. The S-rank was just pinning him to the barrier. He wasn¡¯t even trying to be harsh about it. The other boy was only going for maximum efficiency. His heart was racing. He would have dropped the umbrella if not for the wrist strap. His right arm was bent behind his back and held in a grip that didn¡¯t budge no matter how he tried to twist. ¡°You good, pal?¡± the speedster asked in a Scottish accent. ¡°Your nose all right?¡± His nose did, in fact, hurt. The guy was smashing his face into the barrier too hard. ¡°You could crush me less,¡± Alden finally admitted. It came out sounding like, Oo cud cuff me leff. The Scottish boy let up on the pressure. ¡°Sorry. You¡¯re my first B. Didn¡¯t want you to get a hit in from being too careless. I¡¯m on a winning streak.¡± Alden cleared his throat. ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°I feel like I¡¯ve been here all day pressing people into magic walls,¡± the other boy mused. ¡°It¡¯s not a fun way to spend time, is it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s probably less fun for the people who are getting pressed into the walls, man.¡± ¡°Guess that¡¯s why so many of them have left already, eh? Didn¡¯t think that was the right choice even if the rules did say we could go whenever we liked after the first fight.¡± ¡°It¡¯s definitely a trap,¡± Alden agreed. ¡°The locals didn¡¯t start leaving until halfway through. Suits must be nasty. Haven¡¯t taken a bad enough hit to feel it myself. Think they meant for that last Meister to get me good, but I beat her, too.¡± ¡°Sounds like you¡¯re doing well.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to be a hero.¡± The boy¡¯s accent was becoming heavier as he started talking faster. ¡°I¡¯ve always wanted to help people. I want to make a difference, you know? I never thought it would happen, but now it has! I¡¯m going to be the hero I always imagined in my head. ¡®If you can just run fast enough,¡¯ I used to think, ¡®you can save everyone, can¡¯t you?¡¯¡± Alden stared through the barrier. It wasn¡¯t quite invisible when you were being pressed against it. There was a fluctuation in the air. Beyond it, he could see the bleachers. They were nearly empty. Most of the people who weren¡¯t currently dueling had already left, either to head to interviews, to move on to other assessments, or just to go back home and lick their wounds. And reassess their life choices. ¡°I hope it works out that way for you,¡± Alden said as the timer ran out and their duel officially ended. ¡°I hope you get in, get your dream job, and it works out just like you imagined.¡± The speedster gave him a confused look. ¡°Thank you?¡± ¡°You too,¡± said Alden, saluting with his umbrella. ¡°Good fight. It was informative.¡± ********* Alden only had minutes between the last duel and his interview. It was barely enough time to change back into his normal clothes. He didn¡¯t have to bother; plenty of people didn¡¯t. But he wanted to make the best impression he could, and Sweaty Unitard Guy wasn¡¯t that. He stripped and toweled off in the same shower stall he¡¯d gotten dressed in a few hours before. The morning had been so intense that time was behaving differently. It felt like it had been a week since he met Maricel on the bus. He hoped her own combat assessment had gone well. She¡¯d been in the group that had done it right before his. I wonder if they gave her sandbags to use. He wrapped his auriad around his wrist and covered it with the leather cuff bracelet. Actually, I wonder what stats she has. Now that I¡¯ve met other beginner S-ranks, she seems outside the norm. Maricel had been stronger and faster than Alden when they were practicing with the suits, but not stronger and faster enough. She couldn¡¯t have sunk an S-rank¡¯s worth of points into Processing, and Dexterity seemed like an odd choice for her. Maybe she¡¯d gone for ultra specific enhancements. Or it was all in Stamina. He threw on the green plaid shirt and stepped out to take a quick look in the mirror. Often during the application process, especially when he was writing essays or answering questions about goals, Alden had felt like he was trying to time travel. Why do you want to join the program? Why do you think you¡¯d make a good superhero? What does being a hero mean to you? He had some answers to those questions, but they weren¡¯t the answers anyone else wanted to hear. They weren¡¯t shiny. They weren¡¯t charming. So he relied on Alden from a year ago instead. He¡¯d had all the answers back then. And they were shiny. They sounded good in person and on paper. He remembered them all by heart because he¡¯d meant them for such a long time. It was. Of course. She came to mind more often when he was on campus. Alden wanted to talk to her¡­almost as much as he wanted to talk to Boe. He wanted to tell someone the things he wasn¡¯t willing to tell the other people who were curious. If Hannah hadn¡¯t died, he would have asked her if she minded him being different than the Alden she¡¯d known. Walking down the hall to the classroom where his interview was being held, he met Lesedi Saleh. ¡°How did your final duel go, Alden?¡± ¡°I lost really fast, Principal Saleh.¡± She chuckled. ¡°That tends to happen versus strong speedsters.¡± She even knew who I was fighting l? Did the principal keep track of everything that was going on? ¡°What did you think of it?¡± she asked ¡°Of the combat assessment overall? Or the last duel specifically?¡± She smiled. ¡°The last duel. What did you think when you lost?¡± ¡°That I need to get faster.¡± Belatedly, he realized that might sound flippant, so he added, ¡°I know getting as fast as an S-rank speed Brute would be ridiculous. But I¡¯d like to at least be able to keep up well enough to understand what was happening as it happened and respond in some kind of way.¡± ¡°I see.¡± The principal¡¯s tone was friendly, but it didn¡¯t reveal what she thought of his answer. ¡°Thank you for all your hard work today. You¡¯ve almost run the whole gauntlet. Good luck in your interview.¡± She nodded to him, and they parted. A few seconds later, he heard her greeting another student heading into their own interview room. When he arrived at the right spot, he took a moment to collect himself before he knocked. The three interviewers were sitting at a table at the front of the classroom. The first thing Alden noticed was Skiff¡ªChicago¡¯s very own Water Shaper. He stared at the hero in surprise. Of course he was wearing his board shorts. He¡¯d been wearing them the last time Alden had seen him, too. And it had been freezing then. Well¡­Skiff had always seemed to like all of the parts of hero work that involved hanging out with kids and teenagers. The fun, big brother PR stuff appeared to be his comfort zone. It stood to reason that he¡¯d volunteer at his old high school, too. Beside him was a petite, older woman who was somehow making a rhinestone-studded, emerald green pinafore dress look like a casual thing to wear. The third member of the group was a strong-jawed man with blue eyes and short, graying hair. None of them were speaking to each other when Alden entered. Maybe they¡¯d argued during the last interview? They all stood as he entered, and he shook everyone¡¯s hand, starting with the man on the right. ¡°Torsten Klein,¡± he said. ¡°I teach some courses here at the high school. Offensive combat mostly.¡± ¡°Nice to meet you.¡± ¡°Hello, Alden!¡± said the woman, leaning across the table. ¡°I¡¯m not teaching at the high school, but we¡¯ll see each other eventually. I teach at the university and advise Seniors who are finalizing their public personas. I just go by Colibr¨ª. My hero name grew on me over the years, so I made it official.¡± Alden shook her hand. It makes sense that the university faculty would be involved, too. Graduates from the high school hero track were automatically accepted to the university one, so there was no question about where you¡¯d eventually be going to school unless you dropped out or were booted. ¡°And I¡¯m Skiff. Or Lawrence is fine. I haven¡¯t quite decided. You might¡ª¡± ¡°Of course. It¡¯s really cool to meet you in person!¡± He wasn¡¯t even lying. It was cool to shake hands with someone he¡¯d been watching on television for several years. Which team Skiff was doing a favor for that day when they¡¯d walked past him at the consulate had never been settled. Alden sat in a chair facing the trio. ¡°So! Tell us what kind of hero you imagine being in the future,¡± Colibr¨ª said. ¡°Take as much time as you need.¡± Okay. So it¡¯s that question. They¡¯d asked it in both of the previous interviews. And it was the main subject of the essay he¡¯d written. So it wasn¡¯t like he couldn¡¯t answer. He could answer it so well, in fact, that he didn¡¯t even have to think about most of the words coming out of his mouth. Battlefield support. The guy whose work makes the other heroes more effective. Hannah¡¯s dream. For the first time, Alden added on a bit about how difficult he¡¯d found it to be the only responsible party on Moon Thegund. He was assuming they were finally going to ask him about what had happened in this interview, since it had barely been brought up the last one. ¡°I know lower-rank sidekicks, and even hero duos, aren¡¯t as popular these days unless they¡¯re¡­¡± He tried to think of how to say ¡®just for the sake of the show¡¯ without offending Instructor Colibr¨ª, who seemed to be someone who was in charge of making the show more showy. ¡°Unless they¡¯re unique cases. But I think there would be a lot of benefits to having a dedicated partner and learning the ins and outs of each other¡¯s power set. Working alone isn¡¯t the ideal scenario.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a wonderful point!¡± Colibr¨ª said brightly. ¡°Do you know why so many superheroes operate on their own when it comes to higher level combat?¡± Instructor Klein asked. ¡°You do see hero teams working together to fight regular crime. It makes for exciting footage if nothing else. So do you understand why an S-rank in pursuit of an equally powerful supervillain might prefer not to have help beyond the usual¡­which is to have other individually capable members of the hero team evacuate civilians, relay critical information, and block off access to the battle site?¡± ¡°It¡¯s for a lot of different reasons, isn¡¯t it?¡± Alden said. He ticked them off. ¡°There¡¯s the whole ¡®What if I screw up and kill my partner?¡¯ factor. Which I¡¯m sure makes a lot of people just not want to deal with it at all. Then there¡¯s the fact that you need to dedicate additional training time so that you understand how to fight alone and in a pair or team. Trust would be a huge issue; if you don¡¯t absolutely trust your partner to do their job, then what¡¯s the point? And¡­if the support hero is, for example, functioning in a way that makes it possible for the primary damage dealer to safely deal more damage than they would otherwise be able to¡­then an error on the support¡¯s part means that their partner might cause much more harm to infrastructure and bystanders than they would have if they¡¯d been working completely alone. It makes both heroes look bad, and it¡¯s the support¡¯s error. But people don¡¯t understand. They usually blame the person in the limelight who dealt the damage, not the person in the background who was supposed to prevent it.¡± Instructor Klein looked surprised. ¡°Those are a lot of reasons. You¡¯ve put some thought into it after all.¡± ¡°¡­I think it would be strange if I hadn¡¯t. Given what I want to do. And other things.¡± In an urgent situation, rushing because she couldn¡¯t quite keep up with the pace of a fight, Hannah Elber had counted the number of floors on a building wrong. Because of that, Arjun Thomas had smashed through the side of it and into an occupied apartment across the street. That he hadn¡¯t collided with Alden, or someone else, and instantly killed them was luck. ¡°Then why do you hope to become a support hero?¡± Skiff seemed to be trying to give Alden an encouraging smile as he asked. ¡°I really enjoyed your essay by the way.¡± ¡°Oh. Thank you. It¡¯s because heroes can work better in pairs. More good guys bringing more types of magic to a fight should be an amazing thing. The ideal situation is perfectly orchestrated teamwork. Just because it¡¯s more difficult to achieve that ideal doesn¡¯t mean we should give up on it and settle for the status quo.¡± He felt good about that answer. It was so much more satisfying to give an answer that rang true. He tried to study the interviewer¡¯s faces, to get a read on what they thought. Skiff seemed to be in comforting cheerleader mode. It was probably his default. Or maybe he just liked Alden because of the Chicago connection. Instructor Colibr¨ª hadn¡¯t stopped smiling since he entered the room. It was a great smile. It didn¡¯t look fake at all. But it was confusing that it never faded. And for some reason, Instructor Klein looked tired and resigned. Support heroes, as he was describing them, were supposed to be able to take care of themselves well enough not to cause problems. Old-timey sidekicks were a thing of the past because they¡¯d often been highly-killable low ranks. ¡°Next question!¡± Colibr¨ª said, still beaming. ¡°What active heroes do you currently admire? And why?¡± Alden talked. And talked. He was on edge, waiting for the harder questions. They had to be coming. They¡¯d rejected a ton of the returnees first thing this morning after a single, five-minute long interview. They must have asked something difficult. And Winston Reginald Heelfeather was wearing sunglasses because he was so scared of the ¡°mind games¡± he claimed his committee had played with him last time. However, as the time slot for his interview approached its end, they hadn¡¯t asked him anything that was even particularly new. These were all questions that had been on the application or in previous interviews. Occasionally, Instructor Klein would ask him to clarify his opinions, which made him think a little. But the questions were harder in the first interview. The formulaic ones on the B-ranks only, we-really-wish-you¡¯d-reconsider-applying interview had been semi-hostile and stressful to answer because of it. With two minutes to go, Alden was confused. I thought this would be deeper. I thought they¡¯d want to really get to know me. It said something to that effect in the admissions office email he¡¯d read a hundred times¡ªthat prospective students should be prepared to answer more personal questions in the third interview. Maybe Body Drainer and Moon Thegund were considered too personal? But wasn¡¯t the point of this to make sure he had the right reasons for wanting to become a hero? Alden hadn¡¯t wanted them to ask if he had some kind of revenge-driven need to fight supervillains because one had killed his parents, but he¡¯d expected them to. He had also been dreading detailed questions about how he¡¯d earned the commendation. He was sure that someone idly saying the wrong thing about Kibby was his Achilles heel. Nothing had fazed him badly all day, but that definitely would have. He suspected that someone else overanalyzing and judging the harder decisions he¡¯d made on Moon Thegund would have set him off in some way, too. Maybe Neha was mistaken, and he wasn¡¯t getting the serious questions because he wasn¡¯t a serious candidate at this point. They could have already decided he wasn¡¯t good enough, or that he was too much of a risk with the messy personal history. And so there was no reason to ask him the hardball stuff. That must be it. They¡¯re not even asking me about being a Rabbit. That¡¯s got to be the surest sign that they¡¯re not taking my interview seriously at all. Even if the darker personal material was off-limits, asking the superhero hopeful why he¡¯d chosen nearly the worst possible class for superhero work was so obvious. They should have been grilling him about that one. As Alden reached the conclusion that it was all over for him, this time around at least, he tried not to let his disappointment show. ¡°Thank you so much for your time today, Alden,¡± Colibr¨ª said. ¡°It¡¯s been wonderful to get to know you better. Do you have any questions for us before we send you off to lunch?¡± So it was over. How anti-climactic after the intensity of the combat assessment. ¡°I was wondering if there was anything I should think about or do to improve myself? I know I¡¯ll be getting evaluations from the people who were watching combat today, but are there other obvious things I¡¯m missing right now that I should be aware of?¡± ¡°I think you¡¯re on the right track,¡± Skiff said. ¡°Just keep working and keep your chin up, and you¡¯ll get there!¡± Alden hoped his smile looked realer than it felt. ¡°You should think about what kind of impression you want to give off in front of cameras starting right now,¡± Instructor Colibr¨ª said. For the first time since the interview had started, she seemed really intense. ¡°Point placement is going to be so important for you as a B-rank. Rabbit hasn¡¯t ever been seriously attempted in the superhero market, so you have options. But that only means you have to narrow your choices down that much more. The bouncing things you can do with your trait¡ª¡± So she¡¯d at least seen some footage from the running assessment. ¡°¡ªit makes me so happy. You may want to play into that. Speedy, agile Rabbit! And don¡¯t neglect your Appeal. You have to make it work for you every step of the way. The System will just generalize it if you don¡¯t make special requests, and no, no, no¡­that¡¯s for amateurs. You want to be a professional, so you have to decide as soon as you can and start tweaking. Cute? Soft? Sexy? Ironically macho bunny?¡± Alden stared at her. Her hand disappeared and reappeared from the front pocket of her spangled pinafore so fast that he didn¡¯t even see her move. In a blink, she was holding out a hummingbird-shaped card. The foil letters on it showed her name, address, and school office hours. ¡°Call any time! Definitely before you affix that next Appeal point.¡± I don¡¯t want another one, though. Alden took the card because you couldn¡¯t just not take peoples¡¯ cards. But he found her a little frightening. ¡°When you start living on campus, we can¡ª!¡± ¡°You want my advice?¡± Instructor Klein interrupted. Halfway through the interview, he¡¯d crossed his arms over his chest, and he hadn¡¯t removed them since. The body language there definitely wasn¡¯t inviting. Skiff¡¯s eyebrows went up and he bit his lower lip as he glanced sideways at the other man. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind?¡± Alden said. ¡°Your rank is bad for what you think you want to do. Your class may very well be insurmountable.¡± ¡°I think that¡¯s an uncalled for assessment, Instructor Klein!¡± Instructor Colibr¨ª said quickly. ¡°I personally believe in the untapped potential of the Rabbit class. I can¡¯t wait to see what Alden does with it.¡± The other teacher didn¡¯t even spare her a glance. ¡°My advice is that you focus on leveling for the next couple of years before you even consider joining a hero training course. And do some research into other skill options for your class. If you can¡¯t put together a list of known Rabbit skills and spells that will see you performing as well as other currently active B-rank heroes who are in their thirties and forties, then you should find another job.¡± ¡°Torsten!¡± ¡°After doing my own research into your class¡¯s talent choices, I do not believe you have the potential to be a superhero. Thus, you attending Celena North High is a waste of your potential as a person. And it is a waste of our faculty¡¯s time. I recommend that you enjoy a normal high school experience, learn your way around Avowed life, and then, if you are still determined to try this path in a couple of years, return and apply for the university¡¯s hero program instead.¡± It wasn¡¯t that his words were a shock. But they were harsh on the heels of so much hard work today and such unexpectedly lackadaisical questions from the interviewers. Alden took a few seconds to collect himself. ¡°Okay,¡± he said at last. ¡°Thank you for the super honest advice. You¡¯re worried that one preservation skill isn¡¯t enough to see me through an entire career?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not enough,¡± he said bluntly. ¡°One skill is not enough for hero work.¡± Colibr¨ª looked pissed off. Skiff was chewing on the end of his stylus. ¡°That makes sense,¡± said Alden. He was having an emotionally confused moment. His hands were death-gripping his shirt hem, because having someone tell you to your face that they thought you sucked and would be a waste of everyone¡¯s time was¡­yeah. But on the other hand¡­ He tried not to smile; he thought he might have a little anyway. ¡°Rabbit is a skill-based class. So the skills I choose are the most important thing. If Let Me Take Your Luggage is the only one in the class that¡¯s really good for hero work, and it tops out at a low level, that would be a career ender.¡± Instructor Klein uncrossed his arms and rested his elbows on the table. ¡°That¡¯s just a fact you have to contend with,¡± he said. Facts are facts, Alden thought in Artonan. They don¡¯t have to be fair. He could practically hear Kibby saying it. He was really smiling now. It probably looked like he didn¡¯t take the Instructor seriously. That was bad. It was Earth bad and Triplanets unforgivable. ¡°I will consider that,¡± he said, forcing his face straight. ¡°I will seriously think about what you said. Thank you for interviewing me.¡± He shook their hands again. He hurried out of the room so that he wouldn¡¯t lose his self-control and start laughing in front of them. It¡¯s not that funny, Alden, he told himself as he rushed down the hall to get out of earshot. This is serious. They think you stink. They¡¯re not going to let you into their school ever, even if you did run across a moon and impress a Knight. Welcome to Earth. Where you are only a shitty B-rank, and an even shittier Rabbit. He just kept going until he was out of the MagiPhys building and racing across the lawn. His legs were sore from all the weird running demands the coaches had made at the track earlier. It felt good to move anyway. He ran down the paved pathway, jumped over the back of a bench, and took a seat. He leaned back and smiled up into the tree branches. ¡°One skill is not enough for hero work,¡± he said. Then he did laugh. And he directed his growing amount of free authority to run along the edges of the affixation, to really feel the shape of what it, too, would one day be. Most of the hypersensitivity was gone. He still woke up in the middle of the night feeling wounded. He still fought it when he knew he shouldn¡¯t. But right now¡­ ¡°Hey, we did amazing today,¡± he murmured . ¡°You worked like a dream. I¡¯ll try to think up a better metaphor for us, like she told me to. Because you can be pretty cool. And you¡¯re going to get big. And strong. And awesome.¡± He considered the epiphany he¡¯d had earlier. ¡°I wonder if we could pick up a car? That¡¯s probably way too greedy at this point¡­but just think of how much luggage we could carry now.¡± SEVENTY-NINE: The Few . Alden stretched out on the bench where he''d planted himself after his interview had ended. The weather outside was pleasant enough, and it seemed like a good place to decompress and kill time. He turned his thoughts toward his priority contact list, and it appeared. His attention lingered on Boe''s name at the top for a few seconds. Boe would have had so much to say about his magic, the interview, and all the people he''d met today. The more time passed without hearing from him, the more Alden dwelled on random details of their last few days together, as if they had some special significance. He was upset about me moving away and leaving him behind. He said so. He hardly ever admits stuff like that. But then he turned the conversation right back to what was going on with me, and I let him. Then Skiff was watching the consulate, and we were researching powers, and Hannah''s funeral... It had all happened in a couple of days. Those couple of days had been insane, and the insanity had all centered on Alden. It would have calmed down, if things had gone the way they expected. Alden would have gotten his head on straight after coming back from LeafSong, and he wouldn''t have just brushed past the fact that becoming Avowed meant leaving his oldest friend behind for good. What if that was the last time...? He threw the thought as far away from himself as he could and selected Jeremy''s name from the contact list like it was a lifeline. "Hey!" Jeremy said as soon as the call connected. "How''d it go, man?" He was in the backseat of his dad¡¯s car. His family was taking a trip this weekend, and his older sister, Sarah, was leaning over in her seat to see Alden¡¯s face on the cell phone screen. ¡°It was an eternal morning,¡± said Alden. ¡°An S-rank Ground Shaper from Manila gave me a flower, and we had our first ever fistfights together. I ran around a track in every possible way you could imagine except for normal running. I met a lot of people, fought some of them with an umbrella. I had an interview with some superheroes.¡± ¡°All Jeremy¡¯s done today is drop a fried chicken sandwich on the floor of the car and then eat it anyway,¡± Sarah informed Alden. ¡°What else was I going to do? Let good food go to waste?¡± ¡°There was hair on it!¡± ¡°There was not. And even if there was, it probably belonged to someone related to me. So it doesn¡¯t count.¡± ¡°Gross.¡± ¡°Family germs aren¡¯t real germs,¡± Jeremy said. ¡°Tell her, Alden.¡± ¡°Alden¡¯s got class. He¡¯s not going to agree with that.¡± ¡°If I could eat floor chicken right this second, I would,¡± Alden said with a grin. ¡°Sorry, Sarah.¡± ¡°Told you.¡± Jeremy adjusted his seatbelt. ¡°You¡¯re done with everything now, right?¡± ¡°I just have a long lunch break ahead of me. They make the final decisions this afternoon. We¡¯re supposed to stay on campus and wait to hear if we got in." He sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t think I did. The assessments didn¡¯t go badly, but my interview was¡­well, at least one of the interviewers thinks I¡¯m a waste of time. And the other two only asked me the blandest questions. It was like they didn¡¯t really care what my answers were.¡± ¡°Screw them, then." Sarah spoke passionately. ¡°They don¡¯t deserve us.¡± ¡°Us?¡± ¡°She just had a bad scholarship interview,¡± Jeremy told him. ¡°I guess that makes you bandmates or something?¡± ¡°You rose from the dead!¡± Sarah said. ¡°Did any of the other superteens do that? No! They did not. They should be begging you to come to their school.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t actually dead.¡± ¡°And we¡¯re very glad about that!¡± their mom called from the front seat. ¡°But, Alden, don¡¯t encourage my son to eat things off the floor. We¡¯ve only just gotten him civilized.¡± ¡°Sorry, Mrs. Levi.¡± For the next few minutes, he watched the Levis chatter. Jeremy, his parents, and his sister had always seemed like a wholesome sitcom family. Alden was sure it was different from the inside, but he couldn¡¯t help being slightly fascinated by them. A text notification popped up, and when he checked it, he found it was from Maricel. [I am at Cafeteria North.] Is that an invitation? ¡°I think someone wants me to have lunch with them,¡± Alden said. ¡°You can¡¯t tell?¡± Jeremy asked. ¡°They just told me they were at the cafeteria.¡± ¡°You should go. It can¡¯t be that interesting to watch me and Sarah argue about whether the animals we just saw out the window were goats or sheep.¡± ¡°They were hair sheep,¡± said Alden. ¡°I saw them, too, but I didn¡¯t want to side against you.¡± ******** Cafeteria North was the university campus¡¯s largest dining hall. There were plenty of other places to eat, including a dining hall and a coffee shop for the exclusive use of students in the high school, but it seemed like almost all of the applicants had chosen to eat here today. It wasn¡¯t open to the public, so for most of them, this would be their only chance to try it out. It¡¯s even cooler than it looked in pictures, Alden thought as he passed through a short hallway that was themed to look like an alley between old buildings. A moment later, he found himself standing in a place that might have been transplanted here from a postcard. The university website said the cafeteria was ¡°an homage to the most beautiful city squares in Europe,¡± and though Alden didn¡¯t have the real-life experience to say whether or not they¡¯d gotten it right, they¡¯d definitely made it impressive. The floor was cobblestone. The transparent ceiling overhead was so perfectly clear it would have been difficult to believe it existed if not for the lack of Anesidora¡¯s usual wind. And the different food options took the form of individual restaurants around the edges of the square, complete with indoor or ¡°outdoor¡± seating options. At the center of it all, was a giant marble fountain. On weeknights, there was supposed to be live music from student bands, but right now there was a soundtrack of people singing in German. The cafeteria wasn¡¯t particularly crowded, even though they were in the middle of what should have been the lunch rush. Alden assumed a lot of students took advantage of the weekends to get off campus and enjoy the rest of Apex. He found Maricel sitting at a table under an umbrella, just getting started on a steamed seafood platter that looked like it was meant to feed three. ¡°You cut all of your¡­um¡­¡± Alden stared at her. ¡°Your hair looks nice!¡± He sat in the chair across from her and pulled his own lunch out of his bag. ¡°It looks like I asked a Meister of Knives to chop it all off for me with five seconds left before a duel.¡± Maricel was twisting the tail off a whole lobster. ¡°The first girl I fought grabbed me by my ponytail and dragged me around the dueling block. So it had to go. My mother is going to cry when she sees it.¡± ¡°I know a Rabbit who¡¯d love to work on it for you.¡± Maricel shoved lobster meat into her mouth with a hand and glared at a clam. She seemed a little more feral than the last time Alden had seen her. ¡°¡­how was it today?¡± he asked. ¡°Other than the ponytail grabbing.¡± ¡°I did all right. Maybe. <>. It¡¯s a <>. Did you win any at all?¡± ¡°Are you just assuming I lost all of my fights because I¡¯m a Rabbit? Rude.¡± Alden opened the lid on his takeout container. ¡°I definitely won one. And lost two. And the others were more complicated¡­more people involved¡­but I don¡¯t think I did badly at combat. Especially not compared to most of the other B-ranks I saw.¡± ¡°Your evals?¡± ¡°They haven¡¯t come in.¡± ¡°They will soon," she said. "Mine showed up an hour after the combat assessment finished. It¡¯s just a paragraph of notes from the heroes watching you. One of the Shapers gave me permission to contact them and talk about it more, though.¡± ¡°That¡¯s really great, Maricel! That means they thought you were a serious contender, right?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. The interview was bad. There is a boy sneaking up on you.¡± Alden turned in his seat to see Kon, wearing an innocent expression, standing a yard away. ¡°I wasn¡¯t sneaking!¡± he protested, holding up his hands. ¡°I was walking normally. Are you two saving seats for other people from intake, or¡­?¡± ¡°We don¡¯t like the other candidates from intake,¡± Maricel said. ¡°We fought with them on the bus.¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t,¡± said Alden. ¡°It was just a tense morning. And I don¡¯t even really know any of the other people from the bus.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t like the other candidates from intake,¡± Maricel clarified. ¡°You do like shellfish, though,¡± Kon said, his eyes on the enormous platter of food. ¡°It was free.¡± Kon grabbed a chair beside Alden, and Alden carefully put his arm between the Adjuster and his lunch. ¡°What are we having?¡± Kon asked, smiling and peering into Alden¡¯s container. ¡°I am having vegan chili, chips, and guacamole. I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re having.¡± ¡°You should both get the free food,¡± said Maricel. ¡°I already ate,¡± Kon replied. ¡°But there¡¯s a lady who comes through the square every now and then with a waffle cart. I¡¯m going to sit here until she reappears. Or until Alden decides to be friendly and let me taste his magic chili.¡± ¡°It¡¯s magic?¡± Maricel said, standing up from her seat to look at Alden¡¯s lunch. She frowned. ¡°It looks healthy.¡± ¡°It is healthy,¡± he said. ¡°I am a lowly B-rank who has to maximize everything, so everyone knows I deserve to be here. You S people eat your waffles and your lobsters, and stop drooling over my nutritionally balanced lunch.¡± ¡°It smells like my grandma made it,¡± said Maricel, sniffing the air. ¡°It smells like my grandma made it, too,¡± said Kon. ¡°That¡¯s how you know it¡¯s magic. One of them hates to cook, and the other thinks growing boys have to be fed meat at every opportunity. I don¡¯t think she¡¯s ever encountered vegan chili in her life.¡± Then he looked at Maricel. ¡°You¡¯re an S?¡± She nodded. ¡°She¡¯s a Shaper,¡± said Alden. ¡°Ground.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good subclass for hero work! Hey, since nobody else is sitting with you two, I¡¯m inviting some people I know over to meet you.¡± Maricel narrowed her eyes at Alden, as if this was somehow his fault, but it couldn¡¯t be helped now. Kon was already saying, ¡°Yes, we¡¯re in front of the fish place,¡± to someone through the System. Alden scooped up some chili and guacamole with a chip and leaned across the table to set it on top of one of Maricel¡¯s shrimp. By the time he sat back down, he was another chip short, and Kon was making crunching sounds. Watching the expressions on their faces was almost worth the loss of the food. Maricel held a hand over her stomach. <> she said in a breathless voice. ¡°Now I know what it feels like to be embraced by an avocado,¡± said Kon. They both stared at Alden¡¯s remaining lunch with big eyes. ¡°No way. Get your own private chefs.¡± A few minutes later, Alden was completely surrounded by Anesidoran teens. Kon had dragged the neighboring table over, and there were now nine people sitting together, with two more on the way after they fetched their lunches. They were all varying amounts of nervous and hyped, and the conversation was all over the place. Alden had given up on catching everybody¡¯s name, and he was just letting it all flow around him. How did I end up at the popular kids¡¯ table? That was what it seemed to be¡ªa transplanted collection of cool kids who all knew each other from school had found themselves here together. They were mostly a year younger than him; they¡¯d gotten their S¡¯s and A¡¯s right on schedule. A couple of them were unhappy about their subclasses, but most had managed to trade into exactly what they¡¯d planned for. Everyone was worried Kon had made a mistake with his choice and would have to go to CNH Sciences instead. It¡¯s crazy that they¡¯ve always known this was where they were headed. For everyone in intake, it came like a lightning strike. Or a lottery win. There were people still walking around in a state of shock months in, trying to get used to the idea that their lives were not going to be anything like they had thought. Even if you¡¯re someone who wanted it, like me, that¡¯s not at all the same as knowing you¡¯re going to get it and really understanding what it is you¡¯re getting. Just listening to them talk was highlighting the worldview differences and the experience gap. Some of them had their talent choices mapped out for the next five years. Their combat evaluations were trickling in, and the excitement about the names of the heroes who¡¯d watched their performances was high but definitely different than it would have been if Alden had been sitting with other ¡°globies.¡± ¡°Titania gave me advice about balancing my stats! She was my aunt¡¯s roommate in college.¡± ¡°Blade of Red was one of my evaluators¡­he thinks I¡¯m stupid. Next time I see him around Harmonia Promenade I¡¯m going to have to hide my face.¡± They¡¯d been sitting around for almost an hour when Alden¡¯s own evals finally came in. Everyone else had been loudly announcing when they received theirs and reading some of the comments out loud. He glanced over his and winced. They were complimentary. Judah Blake¡ªan Adjuster who¡¯d risen to popularity when he¡¯d caught a speedster in a flashy lightnet spell on an interstate during rush hour¡ªeven said he¡¯d enjoyed watching Alden more than any of the other students he¡¯d evaluated today. But there was a clear note of, ¡°You did really well for what you are,¡± in three of the evaluations. And while Arjun Thomas¡¯s critiques and compliments were thoughtful and implied that he was taking Alden¡¯s ambitions seriously, there was also an uncomfortably strong warning that he should be resting right now and not letting people ¡°push him into things.¡± What people are pushing me into what things? Alden wondered, baffled. Also, how is it not unfair for Mr. Thomas to be my evaluator? Alden didn¡¯t know whether the superhero would be biased in his favor or against him, but it seemed really unlikely that he wouldn¡¯t be biased in some kind of way. Unlike Hannah, the Brute had always kept his distance. But if Alden had been trying to evaluate Arjun, his own emotions would get in the way. He didn¡¯t see how it could be much different in reverse. [Did you finally get them?] Maricel texted. She was crammed in between a tall boy with a mole on his nose and a petite, anxious Meister girl with bob-cut black hair. She and Alden had been texting occasionally for privacy. Maricel couldn¡¯t do it mentally, so Alden always knew when one was incoming, since her fingers started waving around. [I¡¯m doomed,] he texted back. [They feel sorry for me and think I should do some other meaningful thing with my life.] At least nobody else in the group was likely to ask him to share. Kon was busy trying to carry on three different discussions at once, and the others had started treating Alden like he didn¡¯t exist after the initial novelty of having a Rabbit in their midst wore off. It was absolutely an elitist thing, since they kept trying to cajole Maricel into talking. You couldn¡¯t even blame them for it. They thought she was likely to be chosen. Apparently, she¡¯d been more impressive than she let on during her combat and skill assessments, and chopping off her hair had left an impression on people. Depending on what they thought of their own chances, she was either competition or a potential future classmate. Alden was just some weak boy Kon the social butterfly had bumped into, and he would probably disappear from their lives after today. The waffle cart finally appeared. While everyone was eating hot waffles covered in sinful toppings and Alden was staring at the mountains of whipped cream with longing, they all received a message announcing that the last of the interviews and personal assessments had just been completed. The faculty members involved in the selection process were now meeting to make their final judgments. [Thank you for all your hard work today. Please enjoy your time on campus while you wait.] ¡°It¡¯s nice that they tell us,¡± Alden said. Before anyone could reply, another message appeared. [We have one final question for all applicants. Please read through the following legal agreement. If you agree not to disclose the final question, choose I Agree.] Alden was surprised. But he was just about the only one. Except for Maricel, whose brows had lifted, the others were still chewing on their waffles and talking about other things while they made scrolling motions in the air. Maricel shrugged at him. Alden selected the ¡°I Agree¡± option, and the final question appeared: [During today¡¯s combat assessment, injury realism was set to 40-75%, depending on the severity and nature of the injuries received. Students accepted into the Superhuman Studies and Talent Development program here at Celena North High will sometimes be expected to train with minimal or no realism reduction. In the future, combat training may also involve encountering talents that were off-limits on the gym floor today. This includes, but is not limited to, mental manipulation . If you wish to pause your application, you may. If you choose, you may return during a future admissions cycle with no need to redo the written application or pass the first two interview stages. Do you still wish to be considered for admission today?] [Yes/No] It¡¯s meant to be a shock, Alden realized. Finding out that the injuries that felt so real weren¡¯t as bad as they should have been. The lighter punches and kicks, at least, were most likely close to realism, and it was the things like broken bones, eviscerations, and burns that had been heavily reduced. It makes sense that the pain reduction is a feature of the gym. You need to be able to give the fights consequence and keep people from getting sloppy, but too much pain would just mess everyones¡¯ heads up. Oh, not just pain either. Realism. Alden had thought he heard something in his arm snap when the S-rank speedster hit him earlier. So the gym must be capable of much more disturbing effects when the faculty wanted it to be. He clicked yes. He didn¡¯t feel any hesitation about the surprise question. And even if everyone here thought he stank, he still wanted to get into their school, so what else was there to do? It¡¯s not like there are Artonan-made combat gyms to practice your powers in all over the island. When he was finished, he looked across the table. Maricel was still biting her lip. She hadn¡¯t made her decision yet. ¡°Whoa,¡± one of Kon¡¯s friends said. ¡°That whole table is clearing out.¡± He was gesturing toward a group of other applicants sitting in front of the cafeteria mini-restaurant that served French food. Alden had been glancing at them from time to time because Max was sitting there. ¡°It looks like they¡¯re all B¡¯s. They probably got destroyed in some of their duels, so I guess if they didn¡¯t know it wasn¡¯t completely realistic¡­¡± a girl said. <> someone else protested. <> ¡°Maybe she¡¯s still upset about getting B. She was expecting a higher rank.¡± ¡°Maybe,¡± said Kon, watching the people leaving the cafeteria. ¡°But that Adjuster has been nudging the other B¡¯s to quit all day.¡± ¡°What Adjuster?¡± ¡°The one guy who¡¯s still sitting at the table.¡± ¡°His name is Max,¡± said Alden. ¡°You know him?¡± Kon asked. ¡°No. I just met him earlier. We had our running test together.¡± ¡°How do you nudge someone to quit after they spent months applying?¡± someone asked. ¡°He seems¡­I don¡¯t know how to put it.¡± Kon frowned. ¡°He¡¯s cutthroat friendly? And really good at making people mad when he wants to be, too.¡± ¡°He suggested to a big group this morning that offering everyone the chance to leave combat assessment early could be the school¡¯s way of seeing if we had a reasonable sense of our own limitations,¡± Alden said. Everyone exchanged looks. ¡°I¡¯m impressed,¡± one girl said. ¡°That sounds surprisingly legit. Even if it¡¯s wrong.¡± <> ¡°It¡¯s not his first time doing this, so he definitely knew,¡± said Alden. ¡°Well, he¡¯s evil. Is there a school for villains?¡± ¡°What a jerk!¡± You guys all know how everything here works, and it¡¯s not like you tried to give those of us who don¡¯t a heads-up, thought Alden. All day long, the locals and the returnees had had little advantages over the newcomers. There¡¯s a difference but not much of one. Alden thought Max¡¯s strategy was cutthroat, as Kon had said. Definitely not sportsmanlike. But he wasn¡¯t quite willing to call it evil without further evidence. Even the suggestion about quitting after a single duel was just one-upping the school¡¯s own lie. The school gives people an excuse to take the easy way out. Max makes it even easier for them to do it. ¡°The people who really want to prove themselves or test their strength stick around anyway,¡± said a Sky Shaper wearing a dark blue pantsuit. She sat so straight in her seat that it felt like a condemnation of all the slouchers at the table. ¡°Deceitful suggestions aren¡¯t going to knock you out of the running if you were serious to begin with.¡± ¡°I was just watching him because I was trying to check out all of the Adjusters,¡± said Kon. ¡°And then I realized he was winning duels by goading people into kill-shotting him¡ª¡± ¡°Hey! He¡¯s that guy. I saw that. A spear right to the chest. Ow.¡± ¡°¡ªI was petrified they¡¯d pair him with Lexi,¡± Kon concluded. ¡°I texted him so many warnings.¡± ¡°People who allow themselves to be goaded into kill-shotting aren¡¯t serious candidates either,¡± said the girl. <> ¡°All of us who''ve chosen to be here today are trying to become heroes,¡± Vandy said in a surprised tone. ¡°What kind of hero would throw a spear through someone¡¯s chest because they said something annoying?¡± A few people shifted in their seats. A boy rolled his eyes. ¡°At least we won¡¯t have to worry about him. He¡¯s just a B. Sometimes they don¡¯t even pick any.¡± ¡°By my powers, I¡¯m so nervous now that I know they¡¯re doing the final judging,¡± the Meister beside Maricel said. She shoved her half-eaten waffle aside and pressed her forehead to the table. ¡°By my powers¡± was the dorkiest bit of Avowed lingo Alden had learned so far. He¡¯d heard a couple of these guys say it. He wondered if it sounded cooler in other languages. ¡°It does feel like we¡¯re waiting for them to decide our whole futures.¡± <> ¡°Can I have your waffle if you¡¯re really too nervous to eat it, Tuyet?¡± ¡°You know, statistically¡­a lot of us won¡¯t get in,¡± one of the guys said slowly. ¡°They¡¯re going to accept forty to fifty students today. If all of us got in, we¡¯d be a quarter of the whole group.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s be a quarter of the group!¡± ¡°How many people are left anyway?¡± <> ¡°So many of the repeaters got cut during their interviews.¡± ¡°I saw some people crying and having talks with the faculty during combat. I¡¯m sure they left.¡± ¡°Yeah, plenty of them balked as soon as it was time to duel. Dominic from my class shook his head and said, ¡®I think I made a mistake,¡¯ and walked out.¡± ¡°It was worse than I thought it would be.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve been training for six months, Justine. What did you have to be scared of?¡± ¡°You think having people run at you with swords stops being scary because I¡¯ve trained more than them?¡± Maricel texted Alden, [I said yes to the question. Did you?] He nodded. [Most of them are so confident,] she said. [They are. It¡¯s interesting to listen to them, though.] [Do you think it will be mostly people like these, who grew up here, who get in?] He was surprised she didn¡¯t know that already. [It will be. So many high-ranking Avowed are born here. And you see how much prep time they¡¯ve had compared to us.] He did think this group was being too optimistic about their chances in general, though. A lot of candidates had left, but there were plenty who hadn¡¯t. It would be surprising if this whole friend cluster was accepted. The afternoon wore on. Most of the food places closed to prep for dinner, and Cafeteria North cleared out except for current students occasionally wandering through to grab something from the 24/7 snack shop. Maricel started up a quiet conversation with Tuyet. Alden wondered if it was his imagination or if she was smiling more than she had been earlier. Among the other hopefuls, the energy was turning anxious. ¡°I heard one time they left people waiting so long that they didn¡¯t get home until the next day.¡± ¡°That¡¯s just a rumor.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll die.¡± <> ¡°We could go for a run to blow off steam?¡± ¡°Brutes can go for a run. The rest of us are tired from fighting you monsters.¡± ¡°We could do tricks with our powers?¡± ¡°We¡¯ve already showed off all our tricks at school, haven¡¯t we?¡± ¡°Alden, just preserve us all, so we can timeskip to the good part of the day,¡± Kon said suddenly. Silence fell. Alden had been resting his head on his arms, trying to plan out how to maximize the next couple of months so that he¡¯d be in better shape to try again next time after the school rejected him. At Kon¡¯s words, he looked up. Everyone was staring at him as if surprised to find him sitting among them. Yeah, hi. I¡¯m still here. ¡°My legs hurt too much,¡± he said to Kon. ¡°They made me hop around the track like a frog. Backwards. I don¡¯t want to haul your heavy asses around for hours.¡± Kon grinned. I think I¡¯ve found a pure extrovert. How can he not be tired of interaction after getting this much of it? ¡°Wait, does the Rabbit control time?¡± another guy demanded. ¡°Because if the Rabbit controls time, you should have opened with that when you introduced him. Instead of saying, ¡®He makes a shieldbrella.¡¯¡± ¡°I don¡¯t control time.¡± ¡°Instructor Plim would not shut up about the fact that you might control time,¡± Kon said. ¡°I spent ages with her today. She¡¯s a fan.¡± ¡°I think she¡¯s a fan of weirdos in general.¡± ¡°Yeah, we¡¯re her favorites, but¡ª¡± ¡°Does Alfred control time or not?!¡± ¡°No,¡± said Alden. ¡°My skill just prevents time from having an effect on things I¡¯m carrying. I think.¡± If he really dug into it, he had to start asking himself questions like ¡°What is time?¡± And then his brain would break. ¡°No wonder, Kon.¡± The guy looked from him to Alden. ¡°You know he wants his ultimate spell path to be something temporal? Since he¡¯s trailblazing it, nobody knows what the System is going to offer him when he levels. Probably, he¡¯s an overpowered repairman.¡± ¡°Go bite your mother. It¡¯s pure time control.¡± ¡°Your object reading skill could be a hub instead of a launchpad. Maybe your next spells are something that make use of it in a completely different¡ª¡± ¡°Time. Control.¡± <> ¡°Just accept the fact that they aren¡¯t stupid enough to accidentally give human kids a universe-breaking ability.¡± Kon was ignoring them. ¡°When I become the master of time, I¡¯m going to call myself Kontempus,¡± he said to Alden. ¡°With a ¡®K¡¯. So you have to pick a different superhero name for yourself.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°How did you know I wanted that one?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got a message from the school!!¡± someone screamed from all the way across the cobblestone square. It happened at the exact same moment that Alden¡¯s own message notification flashed. A few people squealed or swore, surprised despite the fact that this was what they¡¯d all been waiting for, but most of them fell silent. ¡°I can¡¯t open it. What if you all get in, and I don¡¯t?¡± Tuyet whispered. ¡°Well, it¡¯s on your interface, so it¡¯s not like we can open it for you,¡± another girl snapped, suddenly irritable. All around Alden, people were freezing or taking deep breaths. They were reaching up with shaking fingers to open their messages. To start with, he watched them instead of opening his own. Ten seconds later, almost every face underwent a massive change. Smiles fell. The boy who¡¯d just been teasing Kon stood and stalked away. ¡°I didn¡¯t¡­I didn¡¯t get in,¡± a girl said, her lips trembling. ¡°My whole family went to this school! And I didn¡¯t get in.¡± She burst into tears, and her friend did the same a moment later. They hugged each other. Alden looked at Maricel. Her jaw was set. She nodded once. In other parts of the room, people were crying, running away from their tables, or in a few cases, shouting with glee. A boy with a bright blue mohawk jumped into the fountain at the center of the square and ripped his t-shirt in half from the neck down. ¡°Jeffy got in!¡± he bellowed. ¡°Did any of us get in?¡± A girl with a long ponytail was looking around the joined tables. ¡°Did we all fail?¡± ¡°I''ve been admitted,¡± said Vandy. The Sky Shaper stood up. ¡°I¡¯m going to go tell that boy to get out of the fountain. There¡¯s a sign that says not to do that.¡± ¡°Only Vandy?¡± said Ponytail, watching the other girl jog toward the fountain. ¡°I know she¡¯s an S, but¡­Rodrigo, did you?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Yasmin?¡± Yasmin cried harder. ¡°I¡­I got in,¡± said Tuyet, looking stunned. ¡°I got in. You guys! I got in! I can go to school with all of you¡ª¡± Alden winced. ¡°We didn¡¯t get in! Only you and Vandy!¡± Tuyet¡¯s face fell. ¡°I got in,¡± Kon said quietly from his seat beside Alden. Despite seeming relaxed enough up until now, he looked very relieved. ¡°Your power doesn¡¯t even do anything though,¡± one of the others muttered. Kon raised his eyebrows. ¡°Well it¡¯s true, but¡­sorry. I¡¯m going to go. I need to think.¡± He stood up quickly and left. ¡°How¡¯d everyone else do?¡± Kon asked. Nobody answered. ¡°I got in,¡± Maricel said after the silence had stretched so long that it became awkward. ¡°They only took the S¡¯s.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not fair.¡± They had to know better. CNH didn¡¯t only take S¡¯s. They had the advantage, but there were more A¡¯s in the program than there were representatives of the highest rank. It just hadn¡¯t worked out that way for this particular clique. Alden finally opened his own message and read it, already knowing what it would say¡­ [Dear Alden, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Celena North¡¯s preparatory program, as a Y1Q2 student in the School for Superhuman Studies and Talent Development. Congratulations! Please proceed¡ª] What? That¡¯s not what it¡¯s supposed to say. He read it again. They let me in. Excitement ran through him, but it was slightly tainted by confusion. I did it! I guess? Even though Instructor Klein said I was a waste of time¡­that¡¯s¡­I think I might have misunderstood something. The sound of a chair scraping loudly on the floor broke his concentration. ¡°You¡¯re just leaving while Yasmin¡¯s crying?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Kon said, giving all of his friends an apologetic look. ¡°The acceptance letter says we¡¯re supposed to meet some of the faculty and the other people who got accepted in half an hour, so¡­¡± Maricel and Tuyet had just shoved their chairs back. Alden stood up. ¡°Wait, did you get in, too?¡± Kon asked. ¡°I did.¡± Maricel let out a relieved sigh. That was nice of her. Everyone else was staring. After a second, Kon broke into a smile. ¡°That¡¯s great! That Max guy just blew heaven a kiss and left looking like he was walking on clouds, so I knew he was in. And the number of B slots are so limited¡­you¡¯re probably the only other one this time. Way to go!¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Alden. He could feel himself smiling. He¡¯d dreamed of going to this school for years. And it had been such an unattainable dream. And now it was happening. It was a little too thrilling for him not to feel thrilled. Despite an undercurrent of disappointment. They half-assed my interview, but it wasn¡¯t because I was pre-rejected. It was because I was pre-accepted. No reason to traumatize and grill the moon victim who¡¯s already got his foot in the door. Damn it. Neha was right. It¡¯s a good thing, too, but¡­ But he¡¯d tried really hard. He¡¯d spent twenty hours on the stupid essay. He¡¯d been training with Bobby as much as she would let him. He hadn¡¯t chickened out during their combat assessment. I¡¯ve been doing my best. I wanted it to matter more. He would just have to make it matter. He was here to train his powers and get stronger. He would do that. Kon clapped him on the shoulder as he pushed his chair back under the table, and Alden smiled at him. ¡°Guess we¡¯re classmates.¡± They headed toward one of the exit alleys. ¡°What Q did you get?¡± Kon asked. ¡°Quarter 1,¡± said Maricel. ¡°2,¡± said Alden and Tuyet. ¡°Nice. I¡¯m 2 as well. So we¡¯ve all pretty much got the same amount of High ahead of us. Before we hit uni together. And then¡­the world!¡± Maricel blinked. ¡°We¡¯re going to be classmates for a long time.¡± ¡°It¡¯s going to be epic,¡± said Kon. ¡°Let¡¯s go shake hands with the principal and make our best first first-year impressions!¡± EIGHTY: First Year Impressions Their group of four had been walking for several minutes when Kon suddenly stopped, threw his arms around his chest in a self-hug, and stomped his feet rapidly while giggling and saying, ¡°Yes! Yes! Yes!¡± Alden, Maricel, and Tuyet stared at him. They were on a paved walkway, heading past a tall classroom building with reflective windows, so there was a second Kon doing the victory dance alongside the first. ¡°Delayed realization?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Haha!¡± said Kon, throwing his hands up in the air and spinning to face the other three. ¡°No. Not delayed at all. I almost burst an organ trying to hold myself back so that I wouldn¡¯t hurt everyone else''s feelings. Yasmin¡¯s an Audial Brute, but even she shouldn¡¯t be able to hear me now so¡­YES! I am one of the chosen! I¡¯m going to be a superhero. I¡¯m going to get so freaking powerful, and I¡¯m going to get my own personal magic gym suit, and I¡¯m going to eat waffles at Cafeteria North every day, and it¡¯s gonna be STELLAR!!¡± Tuyet smiled. ¡°You¡¯re so excited.¡± Kon grabbed her by the shoulders. ¡°You should be, too! Holy aliens, you must have kicked butt. Or darted butt? Anyway, you did it!¡± ¡°Darts?¡± Maricel asked. ¡°Is that what your mastery is?¡± Alden had been wondering, too. He¡¯d heard Tuyet was a Meister, but he hadn¡¯t caught what her weapon was. After a few seconds of begging interspersed with excessive praise from Kon, the girl reached into a yellow purse that matched the dress she was wearing and produced a shiny metal case the size of a hardback book. She opened it to show off eight pale, gleaming darts. They had needle-sharp points, and they looked like they were made of nacre, though Alden assumed it was really some other material. ¡°Are they coated with poison? Or are they magically enhanced?¡± Alden asked. Maricel had been reaching out to touch one of the darts, but at that, she yanked her hand back. "I do magical enhancement,¡± said Tuyet. ¡°They¡¯re safe right now if you want¡­?¡± She held the case toward Maricel. ¡°Yeah, Tuyet¡¯s sweet.¡± Kon watched Maricel pick up a dart. ¡°Most Meisters won¡¯t let you breathe on their tools unless they¡¯re trying to kill you with them.¡± ¡°You sound like you speak from experience,¡± said Alden. ¡°I just wanted to hold the whip for a minute. Lexi could have shared.¡± ¡°Did your brother¡­?¡± ¡°He got in, too!¡± Kon chirped. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to say that in front of everyone else either, since they were talking about the school being unfair to A-ranks. And he is one. But then you showed off by getting in at B, so I¡¯m sure they all feel awful anyway.¡± Tuyet tucked her dart case back into her purse, and they headed toward the street that separated the high school¡¯s campus from the larger university one. ¡°I can¡¯t believe it¡¯s only us and Vandy,¡± she said to Kon. ¡°Everyone else is going to be mad at us, aren¡¯t they? We¡¯ve always gone to school together, and now¡ª¡± ¡°They¡¯ll get over it,¡± said Kon. ¡°Most of them will, anyway. And the ones who don¡¯t, we can¡¯t do anything about.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t you want them all to get in, too?¡± ¡°That would have been great, but when everyone gets their ranks and classes, you know things are going to change a little. Even if you don¡¯t want them to.¡± Tuyet¡¯s face fell. ¡°Hey!¡± said Kon, dropping back to nudge her with an elbow. ¡°We¡¯re still together. And some people we know have already gotten in, not to mention all the people who¡¯ll be in the programs for Arts and Sciences. This is supposed to be happy. Alden and Maricel are happy. Aren¡¯t you?¡± Alden glanced at Maricel. Her expression was blank. He suspected she wasn¡¯t happy in the way Kon meant. Satisfied, probably. Glad that she¡¯d done what she¡¯d set out to do. But she was here in hopes that getting more powerful would eventually get her back home to her family. Even Alden was feeling envious of Kon and Tuyet. The separation from their classmates Tuyet was upset about was sad, but it was so minor compared to being forced to leave everything behind and come to a new country. Getting into that was going to be a real downer, though. And Maricel still wasn¡¯t speaking. I guess I should say something? ¡°I think Maricel and I might have slightly different goals, so we see it in another ligh¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m happy,¡± Maricel interrupted suddenly. ¡°I¡¯m happy I got in.¡± She plastered on a smile and turned to Tuyet. ¡°I¡¯m still a little upset about my hair, though!¡± Alden watched in surprise as Maricel, who¡¯d been so prickly and withdrawn most of the day, turned and gestured dramatically toward her hair. ¡°Look what I did to myself! Just look at how terrible it is.¡± ¡°No! You¡¯ll be beautiful with short hair as soon as it¡¯s trimmed!¡± Tuyet exclaimed. ¡°The woman who cuts mine is really nice. I can send you her contact information.¡± ¡°Maybe I should have bangs like yours? They¡¯re so cute!¡± Oh. She¡¯s going to do bubbly now, Alden thought, a little confused. Okay. By the time they¡¯d crossed the street, Tuyet had pulled out a cell phone, and the girls were looking up pictures of celebrities with short hair. ¡°What were you going to say?¡± Kon asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. ¡°Nothing important,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m glad I¡¯m in. I want to focus on skill development, and I want to be challenged. So this is great for me.¡± They passed a classroom building that had the high school coffee shop on the ground floor. There were a few students doing homework at tables and booths. A girl near the window was making orange juice jump from one tall plastic cup to another, like a leaping fountain. ¡°I¡¯m happy to be going to school in general,¡± Alden added. ¡°It¡¯s been a while.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t really know anything about American schools except for what I''ve seen on television. Did you have to leave in the middle of term?¡± I¡¯m probably going to be seeing Kon at school for the next few years. Not telling him now is just going to be more awkward when he hears about it on his own. ¡°I was selected back in February,¡± said Alden. ¡°I walked out of school that day in a daze, and I never got the chance to go back. I was summoned right after affixing. I only made it back to Earth at the beginning of last month.¡± ¡°Wow,¡± Kon said. ¡°That...is a really long assignment. I guess it explains why you¡¯ve leveled a few times, though, if you were doing a lot of work with your magic while you were gone?¡± Alden looked at him. Kon sounded surprised, but not completely shocked the way most people had been so far. ¡°Usually people freak out a little when I tell them that.¡± ¡°Do they? Yeah, that makes sense. Especially in intake. In F. It is crazy that someone our age got a posting that long. That¡¯s not normal. But you¡¯re a Rabbit. So it doesn¡¯t seem totally impossible to me.¡± ¡°Kon¡¯s parents get summoned a lot,¡± Tuyet said from behind them. ¡°Not a lot, but a couple of times a year usually. They¡¯ve been on Artona II for three days. They¡¯ll be home in ten.¡± ¡°They get summoned together?¡± Alden asked. ¡°They¡¯re ballet dancers,¡± said Kon. ¡°They¡¯re Brutes. Dad was supposed to be a strongman, and mom was supposed to be all about that superspeed. But they were both dancers before they got selected and they ignored a lot of the normal tweaks people with their subclass would make and specced themselves for their thing. He still leans strong, and she still leans fast. But it¡¯s all for the sake of the dance!¡± He flung out his arms and leaped dramatically. ¡°They call it a Dancer Brute or Graceful Brute build at the arts schools. People have been trying to define it as a whole new subclass for the past thirty years. It¡¯s kind of working? The System¡¯s been loosening up about letting Brutes hybridize in new ways, especially once they get past low levels.¡± ¡°They get summoned¡­to dance?¡± Kon nodded. ¡°With the Anesidoran Avowed Ballet. If you¡¯ve only seen regular ballets, then you should think of it as a more intense version. Plus acrobatics and spell performances. Most of the group goes. They still spend more time touring on Earth at this point, but human performing arts are finally starting to catch on a bit on the Triplanets.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never seen a ballet at all.¡± ¡°Me either,¡± said Maricel. Kon¡¯s mouth dropped open. ¡°But why?¡± ¡°I guess I could have gone to one, if tickets for that kind of thing aren¡¯t expensive? But I never even thought about it. They¡¯re not very popular at home with people our age.¡± And if it was an Avowed group on a rare American tour, tickets would definitely have been too expensive for him. Any kind of superhuman sporting event or performance allowed to take place was always sold out in seconds. ¡°That¡¯s terrible. You have to go. I¡¯ll take you both. They¡¯re doing some special shows in February for Lunar New Year. Maybe we can invite our new classmates and make it a first year field trip!¡± He looked like he was completely energized by the idea. ¡°And afterwards we¡¯ll have a party.¡± But you¡¯re about to have a party in a few days, thought Alden. How much socialization can one man plan? It sounded exhausting to him. ¡°I went off topic,¡± said Kon. ¡°Were you going to tell us what you were summoned for? What job did you do?¡± ¡°I was going to tell you about it. But now we¡¯re talking about parties and superballet, and you¡¯re going to think I¡¯m depressing.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t!¡± ¡°I completely kill conversations when I talk about myself these days,¡± Alden warned. ¡°I silenced an entire room full of people trying to introduce myself. At this point, it should be listed as a talent on my profile.¡± ¡°Try me. My brother is a conversation serial murderer. The trick is, once one dies, you just have to walk away from the body fast and start a new one. I¡¯ll think up an emergency conversation starter right now¡­and¡­yes, got it.¡± He grinned at Alden. Okay. ¡°I got summoned as a lab assistant. Volatile materials disposal. It was a decent job. Not that hard, and the money was amazing. Then I accepted a side quest from a mad scientist, the teleporter broke, and I ended up trapped in a chaos-corrupted area on Moon Thegund. Some people died. I was living there with an Artonan kid for the past half a year. She¡¯s my favorite person. It¡¯s good to be back on Earth.¡± Kon blinked several times. He looked like he was processing. When Alden turned back to see how the girls had reacted, they both had blank expressions. Even though Maricel, at least, had already heard part of this. ¡°That¡¯s not that bad,¡± said Kon after a few seconds. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re so worried about. I don¡¯t even have to use my emergency convo idea.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Alden was stunned. Kon shook his head. ¡°No, not really. It sounds like it was awful. And I actually know who you are now. We heard a rumor about you in school a few months ago. They said a brand new Avowed had died in a teleportation accident. I guess that¡¯s not true?¡± ¡°I was just missing for a long time.¡± ¡°I can see why you might not want to bring that up. But I¡¯m not rude enough to freak out about it to your face after you just said you didn¡¯t want things to be awkward. We can pretend like your backstory is boring, average stuff. ¡± ¡°Is¡­is that what we should do?¡± Tuyet said tentatively. ¡°Is it?¡± Maricel asked, too. Alden felt himself relax. ¡°I¡¯d like that. Thanks.¡± ¡°Everyone,¡± said Kon, sweeping a hand out over the group. ¡°Alden is boring and average. We¡¯ve agreed. It¡¯s done.¡± ¡°So average,¡± said Maricel. ¡°So average,¡± Tuyet repeated after hesitating for a second. ¡°It¡¯s a shame, but I¡¯ll just have to try to be interesting enough to make up for how boring you are,¡± Kon told Alden. ¡°What was your conversation starter going to be?¡± Alden asked him. ¡°Our student ID''s!¡± said Kon. ¡°If you check, they¡¯ve already sent them. They¡¯re with our Anesidora ID¡¯s. We¡¯re officially CNH students now.¡± Tuyet gasped, and Maricel reached up to prod her interface. Alden opened the ID section with a mental command. Sure enough, it was right there. ******** The ID wasn¡¯t the only quick part of becoming a member of the student body now that they had been admitted. Onboarding new Avowed was something the school was adept at. The forty-one students who¡¯d been accepted this cycle were directed to a meeting room. The principal and a few other faculty members were there to shake hands, congratulate them, and pull individuals aside for course advisement. While they were waiting their turn, everyone was supposed to mingle, make friends, and fill out a housing form that had been sent to their inboxes. You could request which dormitory you wanted to stay in and who you wanted for roommates. The dormitory request probably wouldn¡¯t be honored. The roommate one would, provided the people you requested also requested you. Technically, you weren¡¯t required to live in student housing. But it was free, convenient, and the school encouraged it so strongly that almost everyone did. Alden thought he should at least try it. Standing in a corner, he looked out over the group of teens who were engaged in anxious roommate negotiations with people they knew or half-knew from school and intake. A couple of them were calling friends who were already in the hero track or another program to find out if they had free space. ¡°Maricel, be my roommate.¡± His fellow corner-dweller shook her head. ¡°I know you heard them say the co-ed dorms were full. Anyway, I want to live with Tuyet, and I don¡¯t think she wants to live with boys.¡± Alden groaned. ¡°I¡¯m going to get stuck with someone awful.¡± He was watching Winston Heelfeather, still in his sunglasses, zip around the room introducing himself to people. How did he get in? I know speed types have an advantage, but¡­ ¡°Ask Kon,¡± Maricel suggested. Alden wanted to ask Kon. ¡°I would, but just look at him. He¡¯s talked to six friends since we came into the room, and he¡¯s air texting students who already live here at the same time. He¡¯s probably got a dozen possible roommates, and they¡¯re all people he already knows.¡± ¡°Just ask. He might say yes.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want him to say yes because he feels obligated after hearing my tale of woe.¡± Maricel peered at him over the can of cherry soda she was drinking. ¡°You¡¯re not confident about this kind of thing, are you?¡± Alden tried not to look offended. He was sure he did anyway. ¡°You seemed so in control this morning, handling the people being mean on the bus.¡± Ignoring jerks is completely different from imposing on nice people. ¡°And afterward, when you were telling me why I would get into school and they wouldn¡¯t¡­I used that in my interview.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°They asked why they should let me in when I didn¡¯t really want to be a hero. The others from intake did make sure to talk about what I¡¯d said in front of the faculty¡ªabout wanting to go back home. And the interviewers told me this wasn¡¯t a place for someone who trying to run away from their problems.¡± She looked angry. ¡°So I said what you did. That going back home was a serious goal. And it meant more to me than anything. And getting stronger is one of the best ways to do that, so I¡¯m going to work so much harder than everyone else. They must have believed me. Because here I am.¡± ¡°And almost none of the others from the bus this morning are,¡± Alden added. She took another gulp from the soda.¡°Can I ask you for a favor?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t¡­don¡¯t let them know that I hate it here. Kon and Tuyet. And everyone else.¡± He looked down at her. Her cheeks darkened. ¡°It was a mistake,¡± she muttered. ¡°Not trying to get along with people in intake. My roommates can¡¯t stand to spend time with me. They leave me out of everything. My counselor said he was tired of me ¡®clinging to a negative attitude.¡¯¡± Well the Shaper counselor sounds like a dick. ¡°At home, I used to be somebody with lots of friends,¡± she said. ¡°When I first moved here, they called every day, but now it¡¯s less. Having lunch with that stupid group made me remember. I want¡­I think I should try to be a little more like I used to be while I still can. Or it will be intake all over again. I hate Anesidora. But I don¡¯t want everyone to hate me, and this is their home, so¡­¡± ¡°I understand,¡± said Alden. ¡°I won¡¯t say anything.¡± A few minutes later, Maricel left to go to her advisement. Alden sighed and worked himself up to brave the group of people standing around Kon. As soon as he spotted Alden, he waved and started introducing him to everyone. It was too many names and classes to memorize at once, so Alden only bothered to remember the girl with the tongue piercing he¡¯d ¡°rescued¡± earlier. Astrid. A-rank. She was a Morph Brute. ¡°Oh,¡± a girl with dark hair and blue eyes who was standing beside Astrid said. ¡°I guess they did let a B in this time after all. I thought they might have already met their annual quota or something.¡± ¡°Nope." Alden pretended he hadn¡¯t heard the clear note of condescension in her voice. ¡°There are at least two of us here. Kon, do you have your roommates picked out yet?¡± Nothing for it but to ask. ¡°Yeah,¡± said Kon apologetically. ¡°I¡¯m rooming with Mehdi.¡± He pointed to a boy with perfectly gelled hair. ¡°And a couple of guys who are already on campus. Since Lexi¡¯s being a stubborn ass¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s nothing new,¡± someone said. ¡°I know it¡¯s not,¡± said Kon. ¡°But I assumed since we¡¯re brothers he¡¯d prefer me to people he barely knows.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to be the party room, anyway,¡± said Mehdi. ¡°He¡¯d hate it.¡± Kon brightened. ¡°You should be Lexi¡¯s roommate, Alden!¡± ¡°Um¡­¡± ¡°He thinks he¡¯s going to put together a room full of silent people. He¡¯s already talked Haoyu into it.¡± Kon paused. ¡°My brother is clean. And he doesn¡¯t snore¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s the best you can do to sell him?¡± Mehdi laughed. Kon glared. ¡°He¡¯ll be gone every weekend for sure. He studies or trains all the time, and as long as you don¡¯t interrupt him or forget to hang up your towels there are no explosive temper flares¡± ¡°Oh my god, Konstantin, you¡¯re making it worse.¡± ¡°I think Fountain Jeffy is looking for roommates,¡± Astrid piped up. ¡°Fountain Jeffy?¡± ¡°The guy with the blue mohawk who jumped in the fountain.¡± ¡°Jeffy got in!!¡± someone shouted, miming the shirt-ripping moment. ¡°Where is he?¡± Kon asked, looking around. ¡°That was fun.¡± ¡°Vandy gave him a speech about following rules. And now he¡¯s standing around in the men¡¯s room trying to dry off his pants.¡± ¡°Thanks anyway,¡± Alden said. ¡°Nice to meet you all.¡± So I can choose from a guy who¡¯s clean and quiet until he explodes, and an excitable guy who jumps into fountains and takes off his clothes. I mean¡­both are fine but neither would be my first choice. I guess the party room wouldn¡¯t be either, though. Where are the friendly but low-key people? Low drama potential. It had to be here somewhere. He scanned the other boys. There were two Brutes loudly trying to outbrag each other about their duels. There was a boy with a tablet who was editing photos of himself in the gymsuit to make himself look slightly taller. A knife Meister¡ªthe very one who¡¯d cut Maricel¡¯s hair¡ª was on the verge of stabbing Winston for interrupting him during a call. An Object Shaper was chatting up girls and trying, without much success, to show off by molding an aluminum can into some animal shape. And then there was Max. Alden¡¯s fellow B was pretending to mind his own business while he played games on a handheld console, but he was glancing up often enough that Alden thought the gaming was just a cover for his eavesdropping. Alden went to the bathroom to examine his other option. He walked in just as a tan guy with a mohawk, wearing no shirt or pants yelled, ¡°You idiot!¡± and tore the electric hand dryer off the wall. All right then. That¡¯s a nope for me. Alden tried to quietly shut the bathroom door before he was noticed. ¡°You¡¯ve got two shirts!¡± Jeffy said suddenly, staring at Alden¡¯s reflection in the mirror. He was holding the dryer in both hands. There were dents in the metal case. His soggy jeans were in a pile on the tile floor. ¡°Sorry for interrupting,¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°I think I¡¯ve got the wrong bathroom.¡± ¡°Can I have one of your shirts?¡± Alden stared at him. Then he looked down at himself. He wants my clothes? Jeffy tossed the hand dryer in the direction of the trashcan without looking. It hit the wall with a crunching sound and then clanged onto the tile floor. He walked toward Alden. ¡°Gimme a shirt, man. Please?¡± he said, holding out his hand. ¡°Mine got messed up.¡± You ripped it in half yourself, thought Alden. Jeffy leaned toward him, and Alden leaned back, still gripping the bathroom door handle tightly. ¡°I can¡¯t meet the faculty with my bellybutton showing,¡± Jeffy hissed. ¡°There was this girl, and she said they expect students to be professional. And maybe they would throw me out and replace me with someone who wasn¡¯t a ruffian. I think it¡¯s Anesidoran slang for people who behave like dogs.¡± ¡°No. It isn¡¯t. It¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°Because it¡¯s ruff. Like ruff ruff,¡± Jeffy said seriously. ¡°They have so many new words here, and I wasn¡¯t paying attention to see if the System translated that one. So I¡ª¡± ¡°You can have one of my shirts,¡± Alden interrupted. ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°Do you have a power that will dry pants?¡± ¡°I can set them on fire with my candle lighting spell,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t recommend that.¡± Alden stepped into the bathroom and took off the green plaid shirt he¡¯d been wearing over his tee. ¡°Here,¡± he said, shaking it in the other boy¡¯s direction. ¡°Can I have the t-shirt instead?¡± Dude. ¡°Plaid will make me look like a farmer.¡± Alden threw the shirt at him. ¡°I think you should be more worried about the fact that you just broke the bathroom. The school¡¯s going to care way more about that than your clothes. Konstantin might fix this for you if you ask him quick enough.¡± He stalked out and left the boy there. For real? They let in a person who beats up appliances because they¡¯re not drying his pants fast enough, but I¡¯m a waste of the faculty¡¯s time just for being a Rabbit? What kind of elitist Anesidoran shit¡ª He sighed at how easily his thoughts had taken this path. Maybe he was a little upset about what Instructor Klein had said. Getting in because of the commendation isn¡¯t something I have to be embarrassed about. I think Alis-art¡¯h was more generous than she should have been, but it¡¯s not like it¡¯s fake. The star is there on my profile with my level and my rank. Think of it like its own separate stat. And I have the emergency response merit from LeafSong. There can¡¯t be a lot of other teenagers walking around with one of those either. It wasn¡¯t important. He was in. He would learn everything he could. He would get stronger. He would put his life back on some kind of track. He would get himself a roommate. He glanced at Max. Maybe there would be solidarity in them both being B-ranks? But he¡¯d also be worried he was being analyzed all the time. Alden had secrets. Living with someone ambitious, observant, and good at manipulating others would be stressful even if they weren¡¯t enemies. Determined, he walked over to where Lexi was sitting at the conference table and sat down beside him. ¡°Hi,¡± he said, ¡°I didn¡¯t get the chance to introduce myself earlier.¡± Kon¡¯s brother strongly resembled him. They were both good-looking, with light brown eyes and straight dark hair. But in contrast to Kon¡¯s expressiveness and easy smiles, Lexi looked like someone had carved ninety percent of his personality away and left only suspicion and annoyance behind. ¡°When you wouldn¡¯t let go of my Mind Writher?¡± ¡°Did you really expect people not to try to fight you?¡± Lexi huffed. ¡°What do you want?¡± ¡°Kon says you¡¯re looking for quiet roommates. Quiet is fine with me. I clean up after myself. And I plan to spend a lot of my free time locked in my room studying.¡± It was all true. Even if Alden had wanted to become a party animal, he didn¡¯t think he was going to have time for it. He¡¯d be privately learning magic on top of all his schoolwork. ¡°I do have a cat,¡± he added. ¡°He¡¯s quiet, too. And he will stay in my room if you don¡¯t like cats. Did you already have your apartment full or¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s going to be me, Haoyu, and probably a guy I know from Arts once I get him to answer his calls. There¡¯s one more bedroom in the apartment.¡± Lexi examined him. ¡°You haven¡¯t been on the island long, have you?¡± ¡°I just got here. I¡¯m still in intake.¡± ¡°Yeah. That¡¯s okay then.¡± His eyes flicked up to Alden¡¯s name tag. ¡°Alden.¡± Hey, he used my name instead of calling me B-rank. Or Rabbit. He can¡¯t be that bad. Lexi held out his hand, and Alden shook it. A second later, a notification popped up letting him know Lexi had added him to his housing form and asking him if he wanted to do the same. Five minutes after that, while he was on his way out the door to meet with his course advisor, Haoyu added him to the form, too. Even though we haven¡¯t met. So he must just trust Lexi. If it didn¡¯t work out, Alden could always try again. There was bound to be some roommate shuffling right after everyone moved in, wasn¡¯t there? The teacher advising him gave him permission to take a couple of classes for credit even though they were already well underway. In addition, he would be auditing two more. It would either make it easier to breeze through them when he took them in a later quarter, or with instructor permission, he could sit the finals and receive credit for those, too. He would also be taking a phys ed/self-defense hybrid with everyone who¡¯d just gotten in so that they would be extra well-prepared for their first full combat courses in January. He walked out ten minutes later with his new schedule finalized. Tomorrow was Sunday. It was a week until he officially had to start classes and move into the dorms. But according to the advisor, he could begin this Monday to get a jumpstart if he didn¡¯t mind commuting. So¡­that¡¯s what we¡¯ll do. He pulled out his tablet while he waited for a bus and studied his new schedule. If he did everything that the school required, he would be busy. If he did everything that they strongly recommended, he was going to have about two hours of free time at night, meal times, and weekends to himself. And that was it. They said I could skip the study hours if my grades were good. That was almost two hours a day, but it was set aside for everyone to do their homework. So he wouldn¡¯t know if he needed it or not until he actually got to class. ¡°Hey! Do you want your shirt back?¡± Alden looked up from his tablet to see Jeffy had just strolled up to the bus stop. He was squinting in the late afternoon sunlight. He¡¯s not going to strip right here is he? ¡°You can keep it for now. Just give it back when it¡¯s convenient.¡± Jeffy nodded. ¡°I¡¯m a Brute,¡± he said. ¡°I assumed.¡± ¡°Aquatic.¡± Wait, aquatic? ¡°But that¡¯s dumb, so I¡¯m going to ignore as much of the water stuff as I can and put everything the System will let me into Strength.¡± ¡°Uh¡­so, I haven¡¯t looked into Brute subclasses a lot, but I think Aqua Brutes are cool. And all of the enviro ones are pretty uncommon. And you shouldn¡¯t just give up on the idea before you even try to¡ª¡± ¡°Who wants to grow gills?¡± Jeffy said. ¡°I only took it because the internet said high rank Aquas were shoe-ins for school. Thought it would make up for my grades. But now that I¡¯m in, I¡¯m going full building-puncher!¡± But there are so many building punchers, Alden thought, feeling exasperated in spite of himself. Maybe the instructors would be able to explain to Jeffy that being able to breathe underwater and endure pressure and temperature extremes was a good thing. Plus there was at least one high level Aqua Brute who could see in near total darkness. They boarded the bus. Right before it left, Maricel jogged toward the stop and climbed aboard. Winston blasted through the doors right behind her, his sunglasses swinging from the strap on his neck. It was standing room only, and they all ended up together, gripping the handrails near the front. ¡°When I used to stand on buses, I had to focus on balancing,¡± Maricel noted. ¡°Now it¡¯s just easy. I don¡¯t even have to think.¡± ¡°Super perk!¡± shouted Winston. Then he grinned at Jeffy. ¡°You got in, too, man. Way to go!¡± ¡°You¡¯re in intake?¡± Alden asked Jeffy. ¡°You didn¡¯t leave with us from the dorms, though.¡± He was obviously not a local. He had an accent that didn¡¯t really sound like an accent at all to Alden, so he was American. But he would have remembered him if they¡¯d met this morning. The mohawk was hard to miss. Jeffy nodded. ¡°I tried to run.¡± Winston looked like he was holding back laughter. ¡°Run?¡± ¡°Yeah. From the dorms to Celena North. To show them I meant business.¡± ¡°You¡­tried to run the entire width of F-city, the bridge, then most of Apex?¡± Alden didn¡¯t know whether he ought to admire the ambition or despair at the stupidity of doing that the morning before your physical testing. ¡°He left at one AM!¡± said Winston. ¡°His roommates helped him sneak out.¡± ¡°A police drone tried to stop me from running on the highway. But I didn¡¯t know police drones were real, and it looked evil. So I swatted it away, and I wasn¡¯t accepting messages through my interface because they would have distracted from my process, so they sent an actual cop after me.¡± What poor soul had been assigned to grab a teenage newbie who thought running on the street instead of using the plentiful sidewalks was a good idea? ¡°She made me sit on the ground and read aloud all of the traffic rules in the U.S. to Anesidora legal guide.¡± Maricel looked like she was struggling not to laugh. ¡°We are allowed to run on the roads if we go fast enough and get licensed for it,¡± Winston said. ¡°That¡¯s why you see people doing it sometimes. I''m going to--¡± With flawless timing, a boy running on the street passed the bus as it slowed to make its next stop. Winston¡¯s face fell at the sight of the better speedster. ¡°Awesome,¡± said Jeffy. ¡°That¡¯s what I wanted to do!¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t he one of our new classmates?¡± Maricel asked. ¡°I think I recognize him.¡± ¡°That¡¯s Finlay,¡± said Alden. ¡°From Scotland. He¡¯s really nice. He beat me up in like two seconds.¡± They all stared after the speedster as he threw out a hand to signal a turn. Alden suspected they were each thinking the same thing¡ªsuperhero school was going to be pretty different from everything they¡¯d done before. * EIGHTY-ONE: O Cruzamento 81 ¡°How?¡± Alden asked Victor, picking him up and squinting at his tubby belly. ¡°How are you getting bigger on the diet kitty chow?¡± Mrrraoow. ¡°It¡¯s because there are no vermin here, isn¡¯t it? You need mice to chase. Maybe the dorms will be infested.¡± He doubted it. Anesidora didn¡¯t have much of a pest problem. There weren¡¯t even mosquitoes. He set Victor back on the sofa because the cat bed wasn¡¯t good enough for his orange majesty, then he grabbed his lunch from the fridge. He sent a group text to the girls across the hall, letting them know they could hang out in his apartment while he was gone if they wanted and use his coffee machine. Natalie responded a second later. [Wait! I¡¯ll go with you! I just need five minutes.] [Ok.] He used the time to let his fingers flick through his non-auriad spells. He magically sanitized his hands, blew a puff of air at his cat, and then played a little tune. Victor yawned. ¡°Such a critic.¡± Alden tickled the cat¡¯s whiskers with his ring fingers while chimes sounded. ¡°You know this is majorly impressive stuff, right? For a human.¡± Maybe Victor would respect him more when he started smacking, crushing, and freezing things. He was sure he could do the spell that hit things with a square of force now. I wonder how much free authority I would need to cast that spell Jel-nor did. A lot, he assumed. And there had been a chant with that one. But the mince-it-into-diamonds spell, or another like it, could be a longterm goal. When Natalie was ready, he met her in the hall. She was wearing pink overalls and a backpack so crammed full of stuff it looked like it was on the verge of bursting. ¡°Are you going to school today after all?¡± Alden asked. She¡¯d gotten her acceptance from the CNH Arts program a few days before Alden, but instead of starting classes right away, like him, she was waiting until the last possible minute to leave intake. Of her roommates, only Hadiza would be going to school with her, and she was upset about leaving the friends she¡¯d made here behind. ¡°Apartment hunting,¡± she said in a determined voice. ¡°Again.¡± She wouldn¡¯t be staying in the school dorms because they didn¡¯t have full private kitchens. She wanted all of her new equipment to go with her. ¡°Emilija finally said that if I could find an apartment she can afford to contribute rent for on her stipend, she¡¯d come stay in Apex with me and Hadiza! She thinks I can¡¯t do it, but I have twenty pounds of cake and brownies in here.¡± She slapped one of her backpack straps. ¡°I¡¯ll bribe my way through every landlord in the city if I have to!¡± They hit the lobby then headed out the doors into the dark morning. ¡°Do you know if bus or train is faster this time of day?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I don¡¯t usually leave this early either. I think it¡¯s train through F, then bus in Apex?¡± It was windy again, and strands of blonde hair that hadn¡¯t been caught by her ponytail were whipping around her face. ¡°Want me to carry your backpack?¡± He kept looking for excuses to experiment with his new magical weight-lifting discovery. ¡°I¡¯ve got it. Thanks, though. Are any of the hero track people starting with you today?¡± ¡°I only asked Maricel. She¡¯s going, but I think she¡¯s a last possible minute person. She didn¡¯t want to leave early.¡± ¡°I want to meet her!¡± ¡°We¡¯ll all be on campus together, so I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll run into each other.¡± They dashed through a crosswalk just before the signal changed, and then headed in the direction of the nearest station. As they passed by the yoga studio Alden had noticed on his first ever trip through the neighborhood, Natalie suddenly said, ¡°I tried to take a class at this place.¡± ¡°Yeah?¡± The orange light from a shuttered restaurant¡¯s sign made one of the silver buttons on her overalls glitter. ¡°I think they didn¡¯t want me there. They were nice at first. They said they were used to people from intake visiting, and they didn¡¯t mind that I¡¯d never done a class before. But then it got weird after somebody asked my rank. You wouldn¡¯t think it would matter, would you? For yoga.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have thought so,¡± Alden agreed. ¡°But I¡¯m still getting used to Anesidora, too. Sometimes things catch me by surprise.¡± ¡°Maybe I¡¯m being sensitive for no reason. This place is going to feel smaller if being an S means some people think I¡¯m supposed to stay on the north island. On top of everything else.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯s not like that,¡± he said. He hoped not anyway. ¡°I think this is a D and F-heavy neighborhood except for intake. Hardly any powers on display. Once you go a couple more blocks, you¡¯ve got people throwing spells around in the streets.¡± Natalie perked up. ¡°That¡¯s true. I am excited about living in Apex! It¡¯ll be perfect if I can keep Emilija with us. And you¡¯re going to have roommates finally. I can¡¯t believe they left you alone all that time.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve liked having the giant apartment to myself.¡± He didn¡¯t tell her that he¡¯d asked for it a few weeks ago. Gustavo had made it easy for him. During one of Alden¡¯s nocturnal rambles through the dorm hallways, the night counselor had casually suggested that there wasn¡¯t much point in putting new people in with him when he¡¯d be leaving in a month. Alden had just as casually agreed. He¡¯d needed it. It was cool of Gus not to make it into a big deal. Just a little more of a buffer between him and everyone else. Just a little more time before he forced himself into trying for 24/7 normal. No roommates to whom he¡¯d feel obligated to explain the insomnia, or any of the rest of it.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. If I was placing bets on my ability to be a great living companion right now, I don¡¯t know if I¡¯d choose me. It¡¯s probably good I¡¯m in a suite that Lexi is actively trying to make the quiet, studious one. Another block and then an escalator down, and they were inside the station. It was glossy, immaculately clean, and a little over the top¡ªqualities it shared with most of the other public transport spaces Alden had seen on the island. Starburst-shaped chandeliers the size of cars hung from a high, arched white ceiling, and every now and then when you stepped on a floor tile, it would twinkle with embedded lights. A train had just arrived. They hurried for the nearest car and slipped inside just as the doors were closing. ¡°Made it!¡± Natalie said, sliding her shoulders out of her backpack straps and taking a seat. She patted the one next to her, and Alden sat. ¡°Perfect timing! Now I don¡¯t feel so bad about making you wait for me earlier.¡± ¡°It was only five minutes. I¡¯m not worried about¡­¡± He¡¯d just recognized someone at the other end of the car. The stocky, brown-haired man had his eyes closed. He was leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed. Possibly resting, more likely watching videos through his interface. It was the first time Alden had ever seen him not looking like he was spoiling for a fight. But then he hasn¡¯t spotted me yet. It was the angry guy from the boater who¡¯d called him ¡°fucking pet¡± within thirty seconds of meeting him at LeafSong. Karl. The last time Alden had seen him, he¡¯d been grunting and glaring from across the locker room in the human dorms. As if the sight of a teenager putting on a pair of socks was an affront to the universe. Alden swallowed. His hand gripped the edge of the seat harder. The sudden spike of tension was unexpected and unpleasantly familiar, like he¡¯d just received a postcard from eight months ago, when the boater members had been front and center in his mind. Karl had always struck him as unstable, even by the standards of that unpleasant group of adults. And he¡¯d had an endless list of grievances against Alden that had been aired in a stream of sniping criticisms and backhanded compliments as the days passed. Alden was an ignorant globie who hadn¡¯t done anything to deserve a Triplanets job. Alden was an idiot who¡¯d chosen the wrong button on the washing machine they all shared and stolen minutes from Karl¡¯s laundry cycle. Karl hated being on the same medical team as a fifteen-year-old. He hated Alden¡¯s expensive lab coat, his higher rank, and the fact that he was getting tons of extra work from Joe. He loathed the fact that Alden was making more money than him. And I don¡¯t think Manon was making him behave like that at all. He despised me the instant Bti-qwol introduced me. If anything, it seemed more likely that Manon had been tamping this particular member of her crew¡¯s temper down to prevent an altercation. There was giving Alden the outcast treatment so that he couldn¡¯t make friends with the other humans, and then there was starting a fight in the middle of a premium assignment she¡¯d spent years micromanaging and building her twisted relationships for. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Natalie asked. ¡°You were about to say something, weren¡¯t you?¡± He selected her name from his contacts list, then texted her. [Let¡¯s get off at the next station and swap cars.] She gave him a confused smile. [There¡¯s a guy I¡¯ve met before over there. He¡¯s a huge jerk. I don¡¯t want him to bother us.] Karl ought to have enough self-control not to start something on a train¡­but Karl should also have had enough self-control not to pick on someone who was just trying to do a good job and get by on his first assignment. Alden didn¡¯t want to deal with him. Natalie mouthed Oh! then nodded. After they¡¯d swapped cars and claimed new seats, he said, ¡°Sorry. I was probably overreacting, but¡ª¡± ¡°No! Don¡¯t be! Some people are creepy and awful to be around, and Hadiza is always saying ¡®We don¡¯t owe them our time, so why are we letting them take it?¡¯ about people like that. Or something! She says it better.¡± She patted him on the arm. ¡°So, you don¡¯t owe a huge jerk anything. Right?¡± ¡°Right.¡± His stomach sank. Right. The boater. Cly Zhao was a superhero and a Sway, and she knew about it. And she had chosen to leave it alone. But Alden had still intended to send the boater members all messages saying, ¡°Hey. It¡¯s really obvious to an outsider that Manon is messing with your brains. I think your friend group and that job you all like so much is scary cult stuff. Maybe you want to get help.¡± He hadn¡¯t done it yet. He¡¯d been so incredibly busy for the past two months, but not so busy that he couldn¡¯t have drafted a few emails. It was just¡­this wad of pure stress in his chest whenever he thought about it. He felt as if the messages weren¡¯t enough, like that plan was a copout. Like he was obligated to do something more serious if he was going to address the problem at all. And at the same time, it was too much. The thought of sending a bunch of emails¡ªones that might put him back on Manon¡¯s radar¡ªmade him so weary. I¡¯m too freaking young to be weary. At this point, aren¡¯t I just being lazy? It was like he could see the swamp of human suffering Manon had made from the dry, safe place he¡¯d finally found for himself. And he thought he should jump in and swim through it to help everyone she¡¯d trapped there. If he was a good person, he¡¯d want to do that for them. Instead, he couldn¡¯t even work himself up to shout a warning to them from shore. A pleasant tone sounded as the train approached another station. Karl is in the next car. I could tell Natalie to stay here, step back over there, and try to talk to him. I know he wouldn¡¯t react well. He might punch me in the face, but it¡¯s not like that¡¯ll kill me. I could do it. Just do it, Alden. Stand up, go over there, and do the right thing. The thought of doing it crushed him deeper into his seat. The weight of not doing it made him feel like there was a planet resting on his chest. He sat there, immobilized by the competing pressures, until Karl got off the train a couple of stops later. Alden watched him stride toward another set of escalators, brushing past a woman who had stopped to search through her handbag. Doors slid shut. The name of the station was still scrolling over them¡ªO Cruzamento. As the train pulled away, Alden was relieved. And he was devastated that he was relieved. I¡¯m a bad person now, aren¡¯t I? He closed his eyes. ¡°Hey, you are okay, right?¡± Natalie Choir asked. He looked over. Her smile had faded. Her single dimple had disappeared. ¡°Yeah! Yeah, I¡¯m great. Sorry. Just really sleepy from the early wake-up.¡± He grinned at her. It was forced, but even if it was obvious, she would let it pass. She and the other girls were good about ignoring things like that for him. ¡°So apartment shopping! It¡¯s crazy that people our age can do that kind of thing here, isn¡¯t it? What kind of place are you hoping to end up in?¡± After a beat, she nodded at him. ¡°Well, I really want¡­¡± He listened to her talk. The train carried him toward hero school. EIGHTY-TWO: Guess It took them an hour to get to campus. On the way there, Alden managed to shove his uncertainty about the meeting on the train down and bury it. He had a busy morning to focus on. He alternated between texting Aunt Connie and chatting with Natalie about their different educational tracks. Their core academic curriculum would be similar, and they might even meet each other in some classes. But while he was enduring super P.E. and lectures on Avowed-caused catastrophes, she would be taking molecular gastronomy and learning how to source rare cheeses. It¡¯s enough to make a guy question his life choices, Alden thought when they finally parted ways at the bus stop close to the high school section of the Celena North campus. He headed toward the place where most of his regular classes would be held. A lot of the buildings that weren¡¯t named for alumni were named for virtues. The Forthright Building was a glass and steel oval chunk. Half of the ground floor was dedicated to a theater that doubled as a lecture hall, and the other half was the student coffee shop. The upper levels were all classrooms. An outdoor gallery for student wrightwork and artwork made a large social space on the rooftop. Alden entered through the doors of the coffee place, checking his schedule more out of sudden first-day jitters than because he¡¯d actually forgotten the room number for his class. 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM Preparatory Sciences - Forthright 1001 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM Engaging with the Unexpected I - Wong 6012 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM Artonan Conversation IV - Forthright 1810 1:30 - 2:45 Intro to Other Worlds - Forthright 1207 3:00 - 4:45 - First Year Study Hall E - Forthright 1901 5:00 - 7:00 - MPE Pre-course - MagiPhys Gym This would be his schedule until his first full quarter started in January. The MagiPhys Ed sessions for Alden¡¯s acceptance group would begin next Monday. They took place three evenings a week. Everything else was daily. The monitored study hall was skippable if you weren¡¯t in danger of failing a class. Since it was eating two hours right out of the middle of the day, Alden was highly motivated not to be put in a situation where he¡¯d have to sit through it. All right, he thought, heading into the theater to find a seat for the science class. I¡¯m finally a high school student once more. Let¡¯s do this. ********* Preparatory Sciences was a combined sciences overview, with a rotating set of teachers. Finlay and Maricel both showed up right as it was starting and grabbed seats in the row behind Alden. Maricel was definitely not a morning person. She kept yawning so much that she was sparking a chain reaction of drowsiness in almost everyone nearby. Finlay, on the other hand, was drinking an iced coffee and a hot tea, and talking so excitedly about the start of classes and the fact that they were all going to be heroes together that Alden was pretty sure they could have used him to power the building if they plugged him in. He took notes on his laptop and tried to stay focused. The instructor for this week was downright soporific. It was going to be a rough way to start the mornings. The next class was more interesting, though. Engaging with the Unexpected was only for the hero program students, and there were just thirty of them. It was small enough that Alden¡¯s appearance in it was noteworthy. He waited until right before class started to enter so that he wouldn¡¯t be the guy who stole someone¡¯s very favorite desk. When he walked in, eyes fixed on him. ¡°Are we getting a new person?¡± a girl asked. ¡°Unless he¡¯s lost.¡± ¡°Fresh first year meat!¡± ¡°Ignore Ray. He¡¯s the biggest idiot in the whole school.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t listen to her; she¡¯s just mad I hit five before she did.¡± ¡°A5 can¡¯t even scratch an S1 in a totally balanced fight, so I don¡¯t know why you¡¯re bragging, you troll.¡± ¡°Says who?!¡± ¡°System theory.¡± Alden wasn¡¯t paying much attention to the argument. Instead, he was staring at a familiar face. Andrzej¡ªthe B-rank Polish boy who had given him the Chainer class in exchange for Cudgel Meister¡ªwas sitting in the back corner with a weapon that looked like a swollen baseball bat propped against his desk. His face was totally blank as he stared at Alden. Alden lifted his hand in a wave, but before the other boy could respond, their teacher jogged into the room. ¡°Sorry I¡¯m late, everybody!¡± he said, yanking his long dark hair back with an elastic band as he skidded to a stop in front of the board. ¡°I was arguing with someone about wolves.¡± ¡°Aww. Did Big Snake get caught smuggling in the puppies?¡± a girl asked, her mouth turning down in a pout. ¡°He was going to let our class play with them if we beat up the Uni freshmen!¡± ¡°As motivating as that sounds, Penelope, we can¡¯t have enhanced apex predators running around Apex. Even if they do start out small. And fuzzy. And so cute you just want to¡­¡± He suddenly realized Alden was in the room. ¡°Oh how exciting! You came today. I wasn¡¯t expecting you until next week. Let that be a lesson to me. Hello! I¡¯m Instructor Marion!¡± He leaned over the podium and stuck out his hand for Alden to shake. ¡°Everyone this is Alden. He¡¯s joining our class mid-stream with my permission. We seem to be short a desk. Someone go steal him one from next door, and¡ª¡± ¡°Me!¡± shouted a girl, leaping to her feet. ¡°Maria, by ¡®steal¡¯ I meant ¡®borrow with permission!¡¯¡± Instructor Marion said hastily. One of Maria¡¯s hands was flat on her desk. Her eyes were closed. She pointed over her shoulder toward the back wall of the classroom with her other hand. ¡°Similar Summoning 2!¡± Her hand flashed a series of signs. Her mouth moved in a chant that was only a few syllables long. There was a crashing sound, and people in the neighboring classroom started laughing and shouting. ¡°Duck, Ray,¡± another girl who was typing away on her cell phone said idly. ¡°Huh?¡± With a crack, a school desk appeared in the air over Ray. He yelped and covered his head with his arms, but the desk just hovered there. A boy wearing the black school uniform jacket that was optional except on certain occasions had stood up and was pointing at it. ¡°Thanks, man,¡± said Ray. ¡°Sorry I said Object Shaping was dumb in gym last week.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t tempt me to drop it on you.¡± The desk floated toward Alden. ¡°Your seat, sir,¡± the Shaper said grandly. ¡°Um¡­thank you all.¡± He felt a little lost, but he was definitely impressed by the amount of magic that had just gone down in less than a minute. They made a space for him on the front row. Alden glanced back at Andrzej curiously. The Cudgel Meister gave him a half-hearted smile. Is he just freaked out to see me or what? Maybe he was afraid Alden would tell everyone he¡¯d passed along Chainer? He¡¯d been really worried about people resenting him for it. He¡¯d implied his superhero uncle was anti-Velra, and Alden was assuming it was an extreme level of anti, since Andrzej had given up such a lucrative opportunity. Alden hadn¡¯t had time to waste on deeply studying the family since he arrived. He had glanced through some local news headlines to see if he was mentioned in connection with them, though. Thank goodness he wasn¡¯t. ¡°Tragically Missing Avowed Teen¡± was a weird but minor story here, and it wasn¡¯t at all related to the much juicier news that Aulia Velra had blasted her whole family with hardcore magic, resulting in ¡°unknown amounts of havoc and potential damages¡± to the rest of the island. Alden was thinking that the blowback from the chain was mostly people discovering it had been cast in the first place and the political fallout from that. Aulia had lost the Unified Rares and Uniques seat on the Anesidoran council. It was a position she¡¯d held for decades, representing all of the ultra rares and uniques, whose population was too small to justify having their own individual class councilpersons. Beyond that, many Velras had had old scandals come to light¡ªa mistress, a drug problem, suspicions of genetic engineering that wasn¡¯t legal even on Anesidora. And to top it off, there were a lot of lawsuits being filed against them. Some people who¡¯d had upsetting and bizarre things happen to them were trying to blame it on the uberluck wordchain¡¯s butterfly effect. It wasn¡¯t going to result in much since, ¡°Maybe the Velras made my upstairs toilet fall through the ceiling; I really feel like they might have,¡± wasn¡¯t a strong legal argument. But it had to be a headache for them. Still, while public opinion had turned against the family, it didn¡¯t seem as though the average Anesidoran spent a ton of time worrying about them. They were more fascinating than the other important families on the island, for sure, because of the secretiveness about their class and the maniacal lengths they went to in their efforts to keep an iron grip on it. However, Alden still had the same impression he¡¯d had when he first read about them all those months ago. The people who really cared were the other Avowed who were trying to establish their own political positions and class dynasties. Billionaires whining about more successful billionaires. The only reason I have to think about them at all is that one of them believes I¡¯m cosmically significant to her. Maybe Andrzej¡¯s uncle was just politically inclined, too. Alden put it out of his mind for now and turned his attention to class. Instructor Marion introduced himself and the course for Alden¡¯s benefit. He was a Sway in his late twenties who¡¯d graduated from the university program just a few years ago. He wanted a heroing job, but since he hadn¡¯t landed one yet he was getting an advanced degree and focusing on mental coaching. Engaging with the Unexpected was a class on how to approach unexpected situations from the correct mindset. Every week, they would be presented with a different real-life situation encountered by a working Avowed, and they would have discussions about it. The method Instructor Marion was teaching was supposed to be a multi-pronged approach to calming yourself down, thinking clearly, and checking your own assumptions. The situation the other students had been given to think about over the weekend was one in which the hero, an audial Brute who had been listening in on an apartment tower in an attempt to locate a suspected terrorist, had overheard a clear case of domestic violence. The first question they were supposed to ask themselves was, ¡°Is the thing I¡¯ve encountered actually a problem, or is it something else?¡± Everyone in class said that the domestic violence incident was a legitimate problem in need of a solution. After that, however, they broke down arguing in a way that made Alden think lengthy disagreements were a frequent occurrence. ¡°Question Two is, ¡®Is this my problem to handle?¡¯¡± the Shaper who¡¯d floated the desk to Alden said. ¡°And the answer is no. The hero is looking for a terrorist who¡¯s suspected of planting a bomb somewhere in the city. Anything less important than that gets sidelined.¡± ¡°The bomb isn¡¯t going to go off for hours!¡± a Wright argued. ¡°The guy is beating his wife right now. It¡¯ll take like three minutes to go punch his lights out.¡± ¡°You¡¯re assuming it¡¯s a man beating a woman,¡± said a girl. ¡°We weren¡¯t actually told that.¡± ¡°Why does it matter?¡± ¡°Well, if it¡¯s an adult hurting children, it¡¯s extremely urgent, isn¡¯t it? If it¡¯s, like, a tiny little old lady hitting a bodybuilder it¡¯s still bad, but he¡¯s probably not going to be injured if we leave him to handle it on his own.¡± ¡°What? So we only care about helping people if they¡¯re on the verge of death?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t put words in my mouth. But if you¡¯re on your way to stop a terrorist from blowing up a hospital, and you take a break to save one single person, you¡¯re fucking bad at math.¡± ¡°Respectful language or you lose your right to join the discussion!¡± said Instructor Marion. <> someone suggested. ¡°You always want to use wordchains.¡± <> ¡°We do have recommended wordchains in this course for a reason.¡± ¡°Peace of mind?¡± ¡°What? Why that one? Unless your adrenaline is off the charts here why are you going to sacrifice your edge?¡± <> ¡°That one looks so impossible to cast.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not even going to try to learn that one. It¡¯s completely inappropriate for a superhero to deliberately care less!¡± <> ¡°You¡¯re already leaving the domestic violence case unaddressed, and we haven¡¯t even decided to do that.¡± Before long, a third of the class was involved in the fast-paced argument. Alden was trying to follow what they were saying, catch up on the case itself, and read through the course syllabus on his laptop at the same time. Instructor Marion spoke up again. ¡°I think I¡¯ll give you a little more information now,¡± he said. ¡°Since we don¡¯t seem to be moving forward. The domestic violence incident is taking place between two adult women. Neither of them sounds like they¡¯re badly hurt at this point. There are three children in the apartment with them who are currently uninvolved. The hero hears the children whispering about calling the police.¡± ¡°Calling the police is what the hero should do, and then they should go back to their actual job.¡± ¡°If there are children there, then I switch my opinion. The hero should take a few minutes to remove them from danger.¡± Almost everyone was nodding their head in agreement. A girl in a paisley dress raised her hand. ¡°I originally said the hero should break up the fight. And¡­I know this sounds bad, but¡­hearing that there are three kids there makes me change my mind.¡± Everybody, including Alden, stared at her. She winced. ¡°Breaking up a fight between two adults would only take the audial a couple of minutes, like we said. You just separate them. Maybe even drag one of them out of the building and tell them not to come back in until they¡¯ve cooled off? They¡¯re capable of taking care of themselves since they¡¯re not seriously hurt. But if you go and pull three kids out of the apartment, you become responsible for them. You have to stay with them and keep them safe. It wouldn¡¯t be a short interruption anymore. It would be a long one. The terrorist would definitely get away.¡± ¡°Just give them to a neighbor!¡± ¡°No¡­that¡¯s not right, is it? You can¡¯t break down a door in the middle of the night, steal three kids from their home, and give them to a stranger. That would be more traumatic for them than the fight!¡± ¡°The optics of that would be terrible.¡± ¡°Optics this, optics that. Someone¡¯s always bringing up how things are going to look. That¡¯s not how superheroes should think!¡± ¡°It is if they want to be superheroes for more than five minutes.¡± ¡°Andrzej,¡± said Instructor Marion, ¡°you haven¡¯t spoken up yet today.¡± ¡°The B-rank has the same boring opinion as always.¡± The instructor sighed. ¡°Snide comments about other students¡¯ rank or abilities also mean you¡¯re out of the discussion for the day. And you don¡¯t get credit for attendance.¡±Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°I think it¡¯s relevant,¡± the boy who¡¯d spoken protested. ¡°Since his solutions are almost always based on his rank.¡± The teacher gave him a sharp look, and he snapped his mouth shut. Andrzej cleared his throat. ¡°I would call in to my handler,¡± he said. ¡°And I would do what they instructed to do.¡± He¡¯s getting his English down great, thought Alden. ¡°That¡¯s not an answer,¡± a girl said in an exasperated voice. ¡°Asking someone else to choose for you is just a way of shifting responsibility.¡± ¡°Heroes have to <>. Calling them is responsible and appropriate,¡± Andrzej said. ¡°We¡¯re crunched for time hunting a terrorist. There¡¯s a problem that needs dealing with. Are you going to wait five minutes for someone else to debate what to do, or are you going to solve the problem yourself in three?¡± a boy with a pugnacious look on his face asked. ¡°Three?¡± someone else asked. ¡°One minute to break up the fight. One to take the kids to a neighbor¡¯s place. The third is to explain to the neighbor that you¡¯ve already called whatever government agency you¡¯re working with and told them to send child protective services to fetch the kids.¡± The speaker cracked his knuckles. ¡°Done. Superheroes are supposed to be competent enough to handle shi..stuff fast and smart without begging for permission from people who don¡¯t even understand how our powers work. We¡¯re a one-stop solution to serious superhuman shi¡­stuff. If on the way to handle the serious superhuman stuff, we patch up some human stuff in a less than perfect way, that¡¯s on the normals to brush over and fix.¡± ¡°I think a lot of governments would disagree with you.¡± ¡°Maybe out loud? But in practice, everyone knows we¡¯re not cops. We have a different set of skills and different mandates, so we follow a different set of rules.¡± ¡°This is a change of subject, but I looked up the statistics on the lethality of domestic violence incidents, and¡­¡± The discussion continued at a rapid-fire pace until the end of the period. It was a lot¡­really a lot¡­of thorny moral problems. Before Alden could even begin to think his way through one, the class would get divided into two or three factions that were all absolutely convinced they knew the right answer and that everyone else was a horrible person who deserved to be kicked off the island. He liked it a lot more around the midpoint, when the instructor made everyone start fitting their arguments within the course framework instead of just butting heads. Their homework was to write a few paragraphs about what they thought their own personal reactions would be to finding themselves in a similar situation, and describe how they would manage those reactions. Instructor Marion called Alden over after class for a quick discussion. ¡°Given the way this class is structured,¡± he said, ¡°I think it¡¯s fine to come into it late. We can just grade you on your performance and discussion over the next few weeks and pretend you¡¯ve been here all along. Try to get an A so I don¡¯t feel like it¡¯s unfair to everyone else? Anyway, what I actually wanted to talk to you about is the second half of the course coming up next quarter.¡± ¡°The advisor mentioned they were paired.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Marion, sitting on the edge of the teacher¡¯s desk. ¡°The way I teach Engaging with the Unexpected II is heavily practical. Students are required to take part in a pre-approved term project outside their comfort zone, and then we only meet twice a week for everyone to report on the difficulties they¡¯re facing and discuss solutions and mental approaches to handling them.¡± ¡°What kind of project?¡± ¡°You can choose all sorts of things. Some do community service work. Others take up hobbies they¡¯re ill-suited for or even part-time jobs. The idea is to put yourself around people who think differently than you and sincerely pursue success in an area you don¡¯t have qualifications for. I¡¯m telling you now so that you can take your time thinking about whether or not you want to take the course in the normal way or if you want to skip the practical component. It seems to me that unwillingly spending months away from Earth would be far enough outside anyone¡¯s comfort zone. We could count that as your practical experience if you were willing to have discussions about the challenges you faced in class, or you could go the normal route if you prefer.¡± ¡°Oh. Okay,¡± said Alden, surprised and not sure what he thought of the offer. ¡°Thank you for the consideration.¡± ¡°Just be ready to let me know before next quarter.¡± So that was my first ever real hero class. It was lively. And now I¡¯m stressed out on behalf of an audial Brute I¡¯ve never even met. It sounds like we¡¯re going to be talking a lot about what it means to be a hero in the first place and how to do the right thing. I don¡¯t know if I can fit myself¡ª He almost ran into Andrzej standing in the hall. ¡°Good morning,¡± said the boy, smiling more readily than he had earlier. ¡°Hey, man!¡± said Alden. ¡°How¡¯s the cudgel working out for you?¡± Andrzej hefted his bulbous bat. ¡°I like it. Simple but <>.¡± ¡°So you got into school,¡± said Alden. ¡°That¡¯s great.¡± ¡°Thank you. You also. Did¡­¡± He paused as a group of students exited the neighboring classroom. Then, whispering, he said, ¡°I hope the people you gave that class to didn¡¯t¡­do anything bad to you?¡± Alden was surprised. So that was the reason for the awkwardness? ¡°No. It wasn¡¯t exactly a good experience, but it was no big deal. There was a little kidnapping situation. It only lasted a few minutes. And they paid me really well.¡± Andrzej heaved an enormous sigh. ¡°Good. Good!¡± The Polish boy held a hand to his chest. <> ¡°Thanks. But they weren¡¯t involved in that at all. It was completely separate.¡± Alden didn¡¯t think he had never met an Artonan who could and would casually cover up a random assassination, using the System, for a human. Probably not even Joe. Either the Velras had way scarier alien friends who loved them way more than he¡¯d imagined, or Andrzej had completely unrealistic ideas about what they were capable of. <> He sighed. ¡°It is hard to remember when I am excited. You should become members with The B List.¡± ¡°The B List?¡± ¡°It is our rank club for the hero students. Almost every B is a member.¡± ¡°That sounds like it could be cool.¡± Or sad. He could see it going either way. ¡°It is very helpful. We have several meetings every week. There is a study meeting, and we have private gym time at eight PM on Sundays. I always go to both of those. There is also a meeting off the campus sometimes. For fun.¡± They only had a couple more minutes to talk before Alden had to head back to the Forthright building for his conversation class. He¡¯d wanted to take Convo VI, which was the highest level offered at the high school, and which his test scores should have qualified him for. But according to the advisor, the teacher for that one wouldn¡¯t take mid-term students. This should be easy, and it¡¯ll give me credit so it¡¯s not a total waste I guess. The more requirements he could satisfy this quarter the more freedom he¡¯d have in later ones to pick classes he needed. Conversation class was being held on the eighth floor, and as Alden emerged from the stairwell, he had a sudden sense of displacement. This floor was styled differently from the others. Abstract wood carvings decorated the walls, and rows of shoe cubbies stood beside each classroom door. It wasn¡¯t exactly like LeafSong or the lab, but it was clearly Artonan-inspired. They must do all the culture and language classes up here, and this puts you in the right frame of mind? Or if they occasionally had visiting instructors from the Triplanets that would explain it. Alden felt an urge to video himself walking down the hallway so that he could share it with Kibby. She¡¯d get such a thrill out of seeing him in a school. I¡¯ll get here really early one day and do it when there aren¡¯t so many people in the halls. If I¡¯m having class here, does that give me an excuse to buy my own learning cushion? It hadn¡¯t occurred to him that he wanted one until just this second, but he did. Sitting on a sofa or chair for your auriad practice just didn¡¯t feel the same. He found his classroom, stuffed his shoes into a cubby, and headed in. Look at these monsters, he thought, staring at his fellow students. Cushions all the wrong distance apart, chip crumbs on the floor, sprawling, butt sitting. Kibby would lose her mind. Maybe he would video the class for her one day. The respect humanity would lose because of it would more than be made up for by the joy Alden would get out of listening to Kibby in ranting mode. It had been too long. He grabbed a cushion from a stack by the window and positioned it on the edge of the room beside a boy and girl who were touching up each other¡¯s elaborate face paint. ¡°New?¡± the boy asked, while the girl squinted and applied tiny rhinestones to one of his eyebrows. <> she commanded in Hungarian. ¡°It¡¯s my first day,¡± said Alden, wondering what on earth they were doing. ¡°Welcome, fellow Northie.¡± <> ¡°What track are you?¡± Mikkel asked. <> said the Hungarian girl. ¡°Not Arts. I¡¯m in the hero program.¡± ¡°Nice. Come to me in a few years when you want costuming. I graduate from high in two quarters, and I¡¯m already accepted into the fashion department for uni.¡± <> Lines. So they¡¯re probably doing skits or something for another class. That would explain the number of people in the room wearing odd accessories and makeup. It was at least half of the other students. The artists were obviously heavily represented here. Alden figured it made sense. Arts and sciences were larger programs than the hero track to begin with, and it was more normal for hero students to take human languages since Earth-based bilingualism was required for their university graduation. The teacher, an orator Brute named Instructor Rao, breezed into the room five minutes late¡ªwhich would have convinced Kibby the world was ending¡ªand class finally started. The first half involved everyone standing individually to recite memorized poems. They weren¡¯t bad, but most of them weren¡¯t great either. ¡°I don¡¯t believe you¡¯ve gone yet?¡± the instructor said in Artonan, pointing at Alden. He blinked up at her. ¡°I was admitted to the school on Saturday,¡± he responded in his best Thegundese accent. ¡°This is my first time in this class.¡± ¡°So you haven¡¯t memorized any poems?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t know we needed to.¡± And if he had, memorizing one in a single day was kind of a big ask. ¡°I¡­guess I can try to translate one from English?¡± She waved at him in a way that looked semi-encouraging, so he stood up and excavated the only poem he could remember from ninth grade from the depths of his skull. ¡°I guess I will be saying the Artonan version of ¡®The Road not Taken¡¯ by Robert Frost. ¡®Two roads parted in a yellow forest¡­¡¯¡± He managed it. Rhyming poetry sounded terrible in another language, and he had to keep pausing to remember the lines before he could translate them, but he got through it. And when he was done, people clapped. ¡°Man, that was phenomenal!¡± ¡°Why the hell do you know how to say undergrowth in Artonan?¡± Luck. He¡¯d used the words for ¡®weeds,¡¯ since Kibby had liked to insult Thunder Lettuce with it. ¡°That¡¯s not even the most impressive thing. How did you know what word to use to get the System to translate it as ¡®hence¡¯?¡± ¡°I was leaning formal. Since it was a poem,¡± said Alden, trying not to feel absurdly proud that he¡¯d finally found humans who appreciated his language learning efforts. ¡°I¡¯m glad the System translated it right.¡± He tried to decide if ¡°hence¡± was good enough for ¡°orbital stonechild¡± to be forgiven. Instructor Rao was harder to read than his classmates. She said, ¡°Well done.¡± But it was the same thing she had said to every other person regardless of whether they¡¯d done well or not. After recitation, they had conversation in pairs. Everyone already had a favorite partner, so Alden ended up looking around for anyone else who¡¯d been left out. The only person remaining was a boy in a white Venetian mask with a long beak. Alden would have bet he¡¯d be the one, based mostly on the fact that he¡¯d been in isolation already. Nobody had put their cushion next to his. Since he was sitting in the center of the room, it was very noticeable. He was also betting he knew who this person was. The boy had recited his poem with precision but in a listless voice, and almost his entire face was covered. So there wasn¡¯t a lot of information to go on. But his height was a giveaway; he was shorter than the shortest girl in the room by a couple of inches. And Alden had just been talking to Andrzej about his family. I guess he¡¯s not coming to me, he thought, watching the other boy sit there. He sighed, picked up his cushion, and headed over. ¡°I think we¡¯re learning partners today,¡± he said, sticking with Artonan since the teacher had told them to. ¡°You¡¯re Lute, aren¡¯t you?¡± The beaked mask turned to him. ¡°No,¡± he said flatly. Yikes. ¡°Sorry!¡± Alden said. ¡°I thought you looked a little like someone I met once. I¡¯m Alden.¡± I guess I should have figured it out when he didn¡¯t feel even a little bit uneven? Lute and Aimi Velra both had been the last time he¡¯d met them. He¡¯d actually been running into more people who were clearly wordchain users here on campus, but the feeling didn¡¯t bother him much now that he had confirmation from Gorgon that his gremlin wasn¡¯t even supposed to be worried about that kind of debt. He would still have expected a Velra to trigger it pretty hard, though. ¡°My name is Clarence.¡± ¡°Hi, Clarence. She said we¡¯re supposed to be talking about the weather, so I¡¯ll start. It¡¯s nice that the sun is out. I¡¯m looking forward to eating second meal outdoors.¡± Alden waited. The other boy heaved a dramatic sigh. ¡°Fine,¡± he said in English. ¡°I guess you aren¡¯t a tool sent by the Grandwitch. Unless her tools have gotten really good at faking gullibility.¡± He pulled his mask off. ¡°Yes. I¡¯m Lute. Hello.¡± Alden was so taken aback it was a second before he could respond. ¡°Why would your grandmother send me to talk to you?¡± he demanded. ¡°And why on the Mother would you lie about your own name?¡± And how is it gullible to believe someone about their own name?! Lute¡¯s pale blond hair was sticking up where the elastic from the mask had tugged at it. He finger combed it while he scowled at Alden. The power of the scowl was enhanced by a black eyepatch over his right eye that had rivers of dried costume blood crusting and flaking below it on his cheek. ¡°Aulia is delusional and thinks I only hate her temporarily. Instead of eternally. So I was just checking.¡± ¡°Artonan, Mr. Velra!¡± Instructor Rao called from the front of the room. ¡°My preferred name is Lute!¡± Lute spat in English. Then he muttered, ¡°Teachers always use other people¡¯s preferred names. Funny how they can¡¯t remember mine.¡± All right. Well. This has been weird already. ¡°We should probably talk about the weather,¡± Alden said in Artonan. ¡°I like sunshine,¡± Lute said dryly in the same language. ¡°I like crushable clouds. I like thunderstorms.¡± Alden blinked at him. ¡°That¡­that was the wrong word for fluffy¡­unless you do things with clouds I¡¯m not familiar with.¡± Lute sighed and dug at the strap on his eyepatch. ¡°The word is fluffy?¡± ¡°Yes. That thing looks like it¡¯s cutting into your face,¡± Alden added. ¡°Don¡¯t you want to take it off, too?¡± ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± ¡°You talk too fast,¡± said Lute. ¡°And I have translation being off for educational time. What are you saying?¡± Oh. This is an early intermediate class. He had assumed the Velras would all speak fluent Artonan. It seemed like an obvious thing for them to learn to prep for Chainer before they were old enough to be selected. But even though Lute¡¯s pronunciation was flawless as far as Alden could tell, he seemed to have a limited vocabulary. ¡°The covering over your eye looks uncomfortable,¡± Alden said, trying to enunciate each word carefully. ¡°It¡¯s a new one.¡± Lute was prying at the eyepatch again. ¡°I think I have bought the wrong smallness for my face.¡± ¡°It looks like it¡¯s chopping your face in half. Just take it off.¡± Lute glared at him. ¡°Why? You got a thing for gawking at prosthetics?¡± he asked in English. Alden¡¯s blood froze. He switched to English, too, without even thinking about it. ¡°It¡¯s not part of your costume?¡± ¡°Why the hell would it be part of¡ª?¡± Lute snapped his mouth shut and touched his finger to his bloody cheek. ¡°Oh. That¡¯s right. I forgot I was fooling around with the stage blood this morning.¡± ¡°Oh shit,¡± said Alden, mortified. ¡°Artonan, Alden!¡± the teacher called. ¡°Oh shit,¡± Alden said in Artonan. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Lute cackled. ¡°Yeah. Bad person. Making jokes of the one eye boy!¡± ¡°I am very sorry.¡± Lute beamed at him. ¡°Guess how it happened. More fun than weather¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s fine. I¡ª¡± ¡°Guess.¡± EIGHTY-THREE: You A**hole 83 Alden breathed a huge sigh of relief when conversation class was over. Lute had refused to talk about the weather and had insisted on playing, ¡°Guess how I lost my eye?¡± It was a game that was not improved by Alden¡¯s embarrassment over assuming the eye patch was a costume, nor by Lute¡¯s limited Artonan vocabulary. Do you think my eye is juice like wevvi fruit? Do you think grandma takes it and eats it? ¡°Something is wrong with all the Velras,¡± Alden said as he took the stairs down to the ground floor. By the end of the period, Lute had been in hysterics, and Alden wasn¡¯t even sure the Velra boy had lost his eye. He¡¯d lied about his own name after all. But he couldn¡¯t accuse him of having a twisted sense of humor because what if he was wrong? Again. Was it the blowback from the gloss? Lute had been worried at Hannah¡¯s funeral that he was going to lose his fingers. Had he lost an eye instead? He was mad at his grandmother for sure. Even madder than before. And if the whole thing wasn¡¯t just some sick joke, then¡­yeah. Who could blame him? Aulia lost a council seat, and Lute lost an eyeball? Alden had frantically tried to look up whether or not human Healers could regrow eyes while Lute joked around. They couldn¡¯t. They could fix injuries, but not serious destruction. So it was possible¡­ You¡¯d think the Velras could get an Artonan to grow him a new one. Maybe they¡¯re not as well connected as people think? Or Aulia¡¯s well connected, but she doesn¡¯t share those connections with every family member? Can¡¯t Lute get a bionic? Alden comforted himself with a peanut butter mousse cup Natalie had made while he took a walk around campus. Konstantin had sent him his official invitation to a party on Friday. Alden was supposed to bring his favorite mocktail ingredients. He turned toward Celena Circle. The high school¡¯s main green space wasn¡¯t crowded, but there were a few groups of friends enjoying lunch together on the lawn. ¡°Call Boe.¡± He swallowed another mouthful of peanut butter before he made his decision about the day¡¯s conversation topic. ¡°So I¡¯ve told you good things about Anesidora and bad things about Anesidora, but today let me tell you something that¡¯s just funny. They take mocktails really seriously. And they think that¡¯s normal. Like we have coffee shops where nobody bats an eye if you order something with eight ingredients and a specific kind of foam? They¡¯re the same way about mocktails. Someone asked me what kind of cherries I wanted to garnish my glass the other day, and there were three different choices. It¡¯s hilarious. But I could get used to it.¡± He scraped his spoon against the sides of his mousse container, and when it was insufficient to the job, he gave up and licked it. ¡°I really enjoyed sharing my magic food with Jeremy,¡± he said. ¡°And you didn¡¯t get any. Because you¡¯re a terrible person who ran away from home, and you refuse to answer your phone. I¡¯ve left you more than sixty messages. Yes. I¡¯m counting. ¡°I¡¯m scared for you, jerk. If you¡¯re not careful, you¡¯re going to get downgraded from best friend to slightly less best friend. Be warned. ¡°In other news, I met another Velra today. This one was nuts, too, but he didn¡¯t use his powers to blow a wordchain I was saving for myself. So I think that puts him at number two on my personal Velra ranking list. ¡°I hope you¡¯re safe. I¡¯m going to¡­to¡­¡± The insulated metal cup Natalie had packed the mousse in fell from his hand. It clanged as it bounced against the sidewalk, but the loud noise didn¡¯t even register. The words scrolling across the bottom of Alden¡¯s interface stole every last speck of his attention: [voice call connected] Say something. Keep him here. ¡°Boe? Boe, if that¡¯s you, please don¡¯t hang up. I¡ª¡± ¡°Alden, you¡¯re alive?¡± Boe¡¯s voice was a whisper. ¡°Are you really¡­are you okay?¡± Alden was so excited, he shouted out loud. ¡°Am I okay?! Boe, where have you been? Where are you now?!¡± ¡°I¡¯m¡­um¡­I think that I¡¯m¡­¡± Boe sounded frazzled. He took several deep breaths. ¡°Are you all right?¡± Alden demanded. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine,¡± Boe said. ¡°You¡¯re alive. And¡­do you have an apartment on Anesidora now? Is that right?¡± ¡°Have you really not been getting my messages?!¡± ¡°No. I haven¡¯t. I was¡­are you somewhere private?¡± ¡°I¡¯m standing in the middle of campus.¡± ¡°You¡¯re in school? On Anesidora?¡± Holy crap, he really hasn¡¯t gotten a single one. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s my lunch break. Who cares? Can you tell me where you are?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s¡­okay, Anesidora¡­let¡¯s not talk while you¡¯re out in public. Go back to your apartment. Call me from there.¡± ¡°Stay on the phone with me!¡± Alden commanded. He was already sprinting toward the nearest bus stop. ¡°Don¡¯t hang up.¡± ¡°You¡¯re really all right?¡± Boe asked. He was still taking such deep breaths that Alden could hear them. ¡°Where were you? Did you get hurt? What happ¡ª?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine. I¡¯m completely and totally healthy and fine and good. I¡¯ve been home for two months. Well, not home. But here on the island, and oh my god, the timer for this bus says it¡¯s going to be fifteen minutes. I¡¯m going to run to another stop. Don¡¯t hang up.¡± ¡°¡­how long will it be until you get to your place from wherever you are?¡± ¡°An hour. Maybe a little more if traffic¡¯s bad. I can find another quiet spot to talk.¡± Boe didn¡¯t say anything for a second, and it was only the ¡°call connected¡± notice that kept Alden from panicking and thinking he was gone. ¡°Are you all right, Boe?¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m a lot fucking better now that you¡¯re not gone,¡± said Boe. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, though. I do need to hang up on you¡ª¡± ¡°No! Why would you¡ª?¡± ¡°I need to collect myself.¡± ¡°Collect yourself while I listen!¡± Alden didn¡¯t care how weird that sounded in the heat of the moment. ¡°No,¡± Boe said. ¡°Sorry. I need the hour. It would be better if I had even longer than that, so don¡¯t break your neck trying to get to your apartment. I was so shocked when I saw your name¡­I answered before I¡¯d even thought it through.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t hang up on me! Please! Boe, just mute me or something!¡± His friend laughed shakily. ¡°You made me think you were dead for half a year, you dick. I think you can give me two months and an hour.¡± The call disconnected. ******** ****** Contract Park Middle School Chicago, Illinois five years ago ******* ********* Middle school was going to be different for him. Aunt Connie had said so, but she didn¡¯t have a great track record on the advice front. Counselor Davis¡ªCall Me Maggie!¡ªhad said so, but she was part of the reason elementary school had ended on a sour note. Even Coach Randall had said so, but he had also said he couldn¡¯t let Alden play in many games because he sometimes showed up late for practices. When he didn¡¯t know Alden was listening, he¡¯d told the assistant coach that it was because the other kids¡¯ parents always came on game day. And it was a shame if they didn¡¯t get to see their children play. So baseball was out. And counselors who came into the school during the last half of fifth grade and then babied you were even more out. Everyone had only just started to forget that Alden was the one who got all the careful treatment in third grade. They¡¯d only just stopped being afraid of the weird, scary kid he sometimes was in fourth. But fifth grade had been going well. The teacher hadn¡¯t forced a single heartfelt talk on him, and she hadn¡¯t told anyone to be careful of what they said around him. Then Call Me Maggie had to arrive and be conspicuous about the fact that she considered him to be one of her special students. She was so proud of his good grades! Go Alden! Like she had anything to do with any of it. The old counselor had been helpful and professional. She¡¯s supposed to be a guidance counselor. Not a therapist. But she just breezed in and acted like she knew all about me, and¡ª No. He wasn¡¯t going to get mad about it again. He wasn¡¯t going to stew over it. Not any of it. He wasn¡¯t someone who did that anymore. Middle school was going to be different. Because he wanted it to be. And Hannah Elber had said she was confident in Alden¡¯s ability to make it different. His phone was full of pictures from his day trips to Anesidora that summer. He had been invited to the island by a real superhero. That wasn¡¯t something many people could say. And she¡¯d had him back a second time. She had even let him try on her motorcycle jacket. It didn¡¯t give him powers. But she was cool. Sixth grade was his for the taking. He had a new sky blue backpack he¡¯d picked out with Connie during a last minute school supply shopping mission. And he hadn¡¯t spent a single night recently thinking about those pictures of Body Drainer¡¯s body¡ªnever, ever think about those again¡ªor staring at message boards and hating people like wakeuptheresbacon for badmouthing his parents. His tinnitus even kind of went with the music he was listening to on his headphones as he slipped into his new classroom and looked around for a good seat. I can make it different. I can make myself different. I can be better. He was going to start by making a friend in homeroom. He decided right away that the left side of the classroom wouldn¡¯t work. Terry Millikan was over there with one of his friends. Nothing was wrong with Terry, exactly, but Terry had come over to Alden¡¯s house once last year and then called his mom to pick him up early because there was a roach trap in the kitchen and a single beer in the back of the fridge. Terry thought¡­Alden wasn¡¯t sure what he thought. It wasn¡¯t like Alden was allowed to drink the beer. It was just sitting there in the fridge not bothering anybody. And the roach trap was there so that roaches wouldn¡¯t bother anyone either. The classroom wasn¡¯t full yet. There were a few girls on the other side of the room and a boy in the back corner. That¡¯s a really ugly scarf, Alden thought as he examined the lumpy woolen object and its owner. Maybe he had tried to knit it himself? Did people their age knit? Alden could be friends with a knitter. He took the desk next to him. He spent a long time pretending to organize the supplies in his backpack, hoping his new friend would introduce himself first because then it would be easier. When it didn¡¯t happen, he took a deep breath, and¡ª ¡°F-fuck off,¡± the boy said under his breath. Alden blinked. ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk to you,¡± the boy said. ¡°I haven¡¯t even said anything yet!¡± Alden protested. ¡°Keep it that way, d-dickhead.¡± He whispered the word ¡°dickhead,¡± too. It was like he wanted to swear like a grown up, but he was embarrassed to be doing it at the same time. Change of plans, thought Alden. The knitter has issues. I need a different desk. He picked his backpack up again¡­only to realize an unfortunate thing had happened while he was hoping that the other boy would start the conversation for him. Almost all of the seats in the room had been taken. The only ones left were over by Terry¡¯s group. Alden hovered over the desk indecisively. This wasn¡¯t going at all like he¡¯d hoped. The scarf boy was hostile. He wasn¡¯t great at being hostile, but he was obviously trying hard to be mean and that wasn¡¯t normal. Terry Millikan though¡­ He¡¯d been polite when he said he had to call his mom and leave. But something about it had made Alden feel bad about himself, his aunt, and their house. The knitter swearing at me just makes me feel like the knitter has his own troubles. Not like he¡¯s judging me. That was preferable. He sat back down. ¡°Hi! I¡¯m Alden.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care.¡±If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± ¡°I said I don¡¯t want to talk to you. I don¡¯t want to talk to anyone. You¡­you a-assho¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s asshole,¡± said Alden. Connie and her friends swore a lot. It wasn¡¯t something he usually did because it upset a lot of people when an eleven-year-old swore, and he tried hard not to upset people. ¡°You¡¯re trying to call me an asshole. You asshole.¡± He smiled. The other boy looked surprisingly horrified, considering he¡¯d started this whole thing. He turned around in his seat and stared at the board. He seemed to be attempting to retract his head into the folds of his scarf to hide himself from Alden. Alden felt pretty sorry for him. Clearly whatever impression he¡¯d been attempting to make had gone awry. Scarf kid whipped back around and glared at him, nostrils flaring. ¡°I don¡¯t want you to pity me,¡± he spat. ¡°I don¡¯t need you. Go sit with those other assholes you keep staring at.¡± Now it was Alden¡¯s turn to be surprised. If he¡¯d made that face and spoken in that voice when he was trying to run Alden off the first time, instead of whispering ¡°dickhead¡± like he¡¯d only just learned the word from a dictionary, Alden would have fled. So he does have a really scary setting? And a fake scary setting. He¡¯s strange. ¡°Isn¡¯t your scarf hot? It¡¯s summer.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t make fun of me!¡± ¡°I¡¯m not. Did you knit it yourself? It¡¯s neat if you did.¡± ¡°Go away.¡± ¡°You go away.¡± ¡°I have to sit in the corner seat. I ran here just to take it.¡± Elementary School Alden had liked corner seats, too. Maybe Middle School Alden, who was going to be different, should try the middle of the room. Surrounded by people. ¡°I like it here. I¡¯m Alden. Wait¡­I already said that, didn¡¯t I?¡± He set his backpack down. ¡°I won¡¯t bother you anymore. We can both sit here and not talk. That¡¯s fine with me. We change classes in sixth grade anyway, so you can sit wherever you like for the others.¡± The boy pressed his lips together and said nothing. When the teacher called roll, Alden found out his name was Boe Lupescu. They all stood up to say something about themselves, and Alden said he might like to be a superhero if he could one day. He¡¯d decided this summer. After visiting Hannah. A few people laughed. It turned out they were supposed to be too old for that this year. You couldn¡¯t just dream of being chosen by the System anymore. But everyone was saying stuff like that before summer break¡­ Fifth grade and sixth grade¡ªmiles apart after all. He suddenly felt like he¡¯d missed out on something by having mixed feelings on the topic of superheroes in the years since the disaster. He wouldn¡¯t say it aloud in class again. When Boe stood up, he said his last name was Romanian, then he sat back down. Two seconds and done. Someone laughed at him, too. Alden felt sorry for him again and tried to catch his eye. But Boe refused to look at him. It¡¯s all right, he thought. I¡¯ll make other friends. And that was how the school year began. By the end of the first week, Boe Lupescu had developed a real knack for alienating people. He didn¡¯t even use swear words to do it after his misfire with Alden. He ignored classmates when they tried to talk to him. He answered robotically when he had to. Then, if anyone dared to keep bothering him, his mouth started spraying acid. Their classmates began to avoid him. Then they talked to other people, who avoided him, too. Boe was rapidly becoming one of those kids everyone knew it was okay to hate. The weirdo with the bad temper. Nobody likes him, so it¡¯s fine not to be nice to him. It¡¯s normal to be mean to him. This was a problem. Alden had to start avoiding Boe, too, or he wouldn¡¯t be able to make friends. But¡­ ¡°Why don¡¯t you just go hang out with them?¡± Boe slammed a locker so hard it made Alden jump. He pointed down the hall to where some of their classmates were standing in a group laughing at videos on one of their phones. ¡°You want to, right? Go.¡± ¡°You spoke to me!¡± Alden exclaimed. Boe stared at him. Alden grinned. ¡°I haven¡¯t said anything to you. Like I prom¡ª¡± ¡°You asked me if I knitted again on Wednesday.¡± ¡°And you didn¡¯t answer! I haven¡¯t said anything since then.¡± Boe clenched his jaw. ¡°I don¡¯t mind being quiet if you just hate talking,¡± Alden said. ¡°Why?¡± Alden knew why, but he didn¡¯t know how to explain it. Boe was angry, but he wasn¡¯t a bully. He never sought people out to be mean to them. Like a human cactus, he only stabbed if you grabbed. But it seemed like he considered any form of interaction to be a grab, and other people didn¡¯t get it. ¡°If you don¡¯t let people talk to you, most of them take it really personally.¡± Alden felt like he had to at least try to get the idea across. ¡°They don¡¯t understand why you¡¯re being that way. So they start to hate you.¡± ¡°Good.¡± ¡°You won¡¯t have any other friends.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want any friends.¡± Alden glared at him. ¡°Well I do. At least one.¡± Boe raised an eyebrow and pointed down the hall again. Asshole. Asshole. He really is one, Alden thought, marching away to watch the video with the other boys. I bet he doesn¡¯t know how hard it is to fix how people see you when they¡¯ve already got opinions about you in their heads. ****** At the end of September, the sixth grade took a field trip to Brookfield Zoo. Alden sat next to Boe on the bus. It wasn¡¯t intentional. He wasn¡¯t mad at his homeroom neighbor, but he¡¯d mostly given up on trying to speak to him weeks before. ¡°You don¡¯t wear your scarf anymore.¡± ¡°People kept pulling on it.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± Boe nodded once. That was the entire bus ride conversation. Maybe it¡¯s for the best. Alden wasn¡¯t in the mood for talking that day either. Everyone else was ecstatic to be out of the classroom. When they reached their destination, they broke into small groups and ran laughing from exhibit to exhibit. Alden trailed after them. By lunchtime, he wished he¡¯d just stayed home pretending to be sick. ¡°If you hate the zoo so much why¡¯d you come?¡± Startled, Alden looked up from the bag lunch he¡¯d been picking through. Boe was standing over him with an even more annoyed expression on his face than usual. How¡¯d he find me? Alden had elected to sneak away from the group to eat his lunch behind a trashcan, so that he could have a minute to himself. ¡°I don¡¯t hate the zoo.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve been miserable all morning. It¡¯s not like you.¡± ¡°Go away.¡± ¡°You go away.¡± ¡°I was here fir¡ª!¡± Oh. Alden stared down at his slightly soggy turkey and cheese sandwich. He swallowed. ¡°I do like the zoo.¡± Boe Lupescu sighed and stalked away. Great talking to you, asshole, thought Alden. I guess we¡¯ll do it again in a month. Five minutes later, he heard footsteps that were more like footstomps, and Boe appeared around the trashcan again. He thrust a paper plate with a funnel cake on it under Alden¡¯s nose. It was covered in sugar and chocolate drizzles. ¡°Funnel cake.¡± It was less a question and more a command. Alden would have been shocked if Boe had offered him a pencil stub. An entire fried dessert was¡­ ¡°Is it poisoned?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Alden took it. Boe sat down beside him. They ate it in silence. The cake was huge. By the time it was gone, Alden had greasy, sticky fingers. And he felt a lot better. ¡°My parents brought me here right after we moved to Chicago,¡± he said. ¡°I think they wanted to make sure we did something fun together as soon as possible, so I wouldn¡¯t miss my old school or my friends.¡± Boe was trying to wipe chocolate sauce off his glasses. He didn¡¯t answer. ¡°I have good memories of the trip. Happy, but it¡¯s not just that they¡¯re happy. They¡¯re really clear. I remember what I saw here and what my parents said about the different animals. And now they have to be all mixed up with this day¡­and everyone just wants to talk about poop and how earth animals aren¡¯t as interesting as alien ones and how the anteater¡¯s nose looks like a penis.¡± Another minute passed. Alden waited. He thought Boe would probably say nothing. Or maybe something mean. But it would be nice, wouldn¡¯t it? If he didn¡¯t¡­ ¡°My favorite thing about the anteater is that it eats tens of thousands of ants every day,¡± Boe said. ¡°Ants suck. And anteaters suck up ants.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°I wanted to hear the guide talk more about them,¡± Boe added. ¡°And I wanted to actually learn about dik-diks, but I couldn¡¯t because everyone else was so busy being stupid about the name.¡± ¡°They were really cute.¡± ¡°They were.¡± ¡°The name is¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s hilarious. But people make dick jokes every single day in class. It''s not like those are new. I¡¯ve never seen a tiny antelope before, and they wouldn¡¯t let me enjoy it.¡± ¡°We could sneak off and go back on our own,¡± Alden said. The other boy looked down at the empty plate on top of his knees. ¡°Or not,¡± Alden added hastily. ¡°We¡¯d probably make the teachers mad if they realized. My aunt isn¡¯t going to mind if they tell her, but¡­you know¡­I¡¯m sure your family cares more than¡ª¡± Boe stood up suddenly. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°We¡¯re still not friends. I can¡¯t have friends. It¡¯s just for today.¡± ¡°Okay!¡± ¡°You¡¯re not listening. I just want to see the animals without everyone else around.¡± ¡°I get it. Can we go to the Australia section by ourselves, too? They have wombats.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not my friend.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fine. Do you want to come over to my house this weekend?¡± ******** ****** F-city Anesidora present day ****** ******* Alden remembered how just a couple of months ago, after waking up in the forest, he had sent Boe and Jeremy text messages asking them to give him time to get back home to Earth and settled in before he called them. It had felt like a reasonable request at the time. But it wasn¡¯t! Being on this end of it is torture. What if I call him in an hour, and he doesn¡¯t answer?! And apparently Boe was still paranoid about having calls overheard. Fair enough. There were people running around in the Informant¡¯s wearables, and residences like the apartment were supposed to be safe from those. When the hour was up, Alden was still on a crowded train zipping through F-city, and it was only the knowledge that he would be the worst kind of hypocrite that kept him from calling right that second. All the questions he¡¯d had about where Boe was, and the fear that he¡¯d been holding back by clinging to Jeremy¡¯s assurances that he had sounded fine on his last phone call, were welling to the surface. <> a woman with graying hair said in Cantonese. <> Alden realized he¡¯d been swaying in place like some anxiety-stricken cobra. He tightened his grip on a handrail and tried to hold himself still. Just as the train reached the last stop, a text message popped up. [What¡¯s your ETA?] Alden felt so relieved he could have melted into a puddle. [Ten minutes,] he texted back. [At most.] Because he was going to run. [I¡¯m going through some of your messages now,] Boe wrote. [Sounds like I have to off Jeremy and some poser named Stuart to re-secure my best friend position. Talk to you soon.] It felt like it took forever to reach the dorms. Then it felt like it took forever for the elevator to reach the ninth floor. Then, finally, he was walking through the door of his apartment. He locked it and set the Do Not Disturb notice. ¡°Hey, Victor,¡± he said, carefully stepping over the cat as it weaved around his ankles. ¡°Boe finally answered! We¡¯re going to call him. And we¡¯re not going to freak out or freak him out. Normal friend stuff.¡± That was what he¡¯d wanted from Jeremy when he got back home. ¡°It¡¯s fine if we don¡¯t even talk about where he¡¯s been,¡± Alden muttered to himself as he headed toward the sofa. ¡°Just as long as he¡¯s okay and doesn¡¯t run away again.¡± He took a deep breath. ¡°System, call¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re still the same as always,¡± said a familiar voice¡ªmaybe the most familiar voice in Alden¡¯s life¡ªfrom just behind him. ¡°Aren¡¯t you? And¡­ you¡¯re really alive.¡± Alden turned slowly to see a skinny, pale boy with dark hair in an ugly bowl cut stepping out of his bedroom. He was wearing ripped jeans and a black t-shirt with a skull on it. His hair was wet, and he was gripping a towel in one hand. It was dragging on the faux wood floor. ¡°Boe.¡± * EIGHTY-FOUR: The French Sauce ¡°Alden¡­you¡¯re¡­I just knew you were gone forever,¡± Boe said. ¡°I handled it about as well as you¡¯d expec¡ªmmmph!¡± Alden was crushing him in a hug before he even realized it. He was solid. He was real. ¡°You weren¡¯t here when I got back home!¡± Alden shouted in his ear. ¡°I thought you were dead, too!¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t Jeremy tell you¡ª?¡± ¡°Of course. And I believed him. Mostly. But so much had already gone wrong, and sometimes I thought¡­you know it¡¯s not the same as seeing you with my own eyes!¡± ¡°Asshole,¡± Boe said in a muffled voice. ¡°You don¡¯t get to play the victim when you died first. And instead of Jeremy telling me you were fine, I had the freaking System telling me you were space dust.¡± Boe put an arm around him briefly, then pushed him off. Alden took a step back. ¡°How on earth are you here, Boe?¡± ¡°You just told the cat you weren¡¯t going to ask me questions.¡± ¡°About where you were all this time. You don¡¯t have to say if you don¡¯t want to answer. But how are you on Anesidora?! How did you even get into my apartment? The door¡¯s not supposed to open for people unless I give it permission to.¡± He examined his friend. Ripped jeans. Drippy hair. ¡°And when you said you needed to collect yourself did you mean you needed to shower and get dressed up in my clothes?¡± Boe¡¯s smile widened. ¡°That¡¯s definitely what I meant.¡± Alden laughed a little too wildly. ¡°What the heck, man?¡± ¡°No. I really was collecting my thoughts. Showering helped. Actually¡­could you do me a favor?¡± ¡°Anything,¡± Alden said at once. ¡°¡­you sound so serious. I¡¯m not going to ask you for your firstborn. Could you just¡­do your wordchain?¡± ¡°What wordchain?¡± ¡°You mentioned in a couple of your messages that you¡¯ve got Peace of Mind down pat?¡± Boe shifted his eyes toward the damp streaks the towel was leaving on the floor. ¡°That one.¡± ¡°Oh. Okay? You want me to do that right now?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°¡­just a sec then.¡± It took more than a second, but Alden composed himself and started the hand gestures. The gremlin stirred briefly and then ignored him. ¡°My heart calls out to another in good faith,¡± he said in Artonan. ¡°Spare me a portion of your mind¡¯s ease in this hour when my own mind is troubled. Tomorrow, I will grant another an equal comfort of mind.¡± A moment passed, and he felt the chain settle. The overwhelming joy he was feeling faded just a little. ¡°You didn¡¯t even ask why,¡± Boe noted. ¡°It¡¯s only a wordchain. I¡¯ll recite it all day if you want.¡± ¡°But it dimmed your mood slightly in this case. I¡¯m sure that¡¯s not how you usually want to use that one. Thanks. For doing it. And¡­for being so thrilled to see me in the first place that I had to ask you to.¡± Alden considered that¡ªa bit more calmly than he would have a minute before. He thought of a lot of questions to ask. All of them were things Boe had to know he was dying to have answers about. Finally, he said, ¡°You want food?¡± ¡°The magic food I don¡¯t deserve because I¡¯m a terrible person?¡± ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t say no to that.¡± Alden stepped over to the fridge. ¡°Scandinavian, Indian, or Chinese?¡± he asked, examining the containers. ¡°So international.¡± ¡°Natalie¡ªdid you hear any of my messages about her?¡ªshe wants to cook for everyone, so she¡¯s trying to learn recipes from all over the place.¡± ¡°Indian food,¡± said Boe, leaning against the counter on his elbows. ¡°And now that you¡¯re not out in the middle of a crowd of superhumans, you can ask me where I¡¯ve been and what I¡¯ve been doing. And why I wanted you to do a wordchain. Just because you promised the cat you wouldn¡¯t, it doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m going to hold you to that.¡± ¡°You know¡­I had a reversed version of this conversation with Jeremy last week.¡± Alden headed over to the microwave with a veggie curry dish. ¡°Where I said he could ask me anything because he was my friend, and he said he didn¡¯t have to ask me anything because he was my friend.¡± ¡°Ugh.¡± Boe covered his face, and peered at Alden through his fingers. ¡°He said that? With his own mouth?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Fine. He is an angel among men. Fuck. How do you compete with that?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t. And I know you can¡¯t.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m a bastard. It¡¯s been established.¡± ¡°Me too. But I¡¯m a lesser bastard. So I¡¯m only going to ask one slightly prying question instead of the million I want to. How¡¯s your hand?¡± Boe uncovered his eyes. ¡°My hand?¡± Alden pretended to punch a cabinet. He smiled at Boe. ¡°Your hand,¡± he said. ¡°Oh.¡± ¡°I mean the hand you put through a brick wall,¡± Alden clarified. ¡°I know what hand you mean.¡± ¡°The hand you put through a brick wall after trying to get the angel to beat you up. And saying something so horrible to him that he won¡¯t even repeat it.¡± ¡°I was there. I know what I did.¡± ¡°That hand.¡± Alden took the curry out of the microwave and slid it across the counter toward him with a fork. ¡°Is it broken? Do you need a healer?¡± Boe stared down at his fingers. ¡°Nope,¡± he said finally. ¡°Not so much as a scratch.¡± Well¡­then the question had to be asked. He took a deep breath. ¡°Did you get selected while I was gone?¡± ¡°It was before you left.¡± There was a brief silence. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t do that, man,¡± Boe groaned. Alden had been reaching for the soap. He paused. ¡°Don¡¯t wash curry sauce and train germs off my fingers?¡± ¡°No¡­please don¡¯t be sad I didn¡¯t tell you. Be offended. Or annoyed. Or even angry.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sad. This is just my face.¡± ¡°You¡¯re sad,¡± said Boe. ¡°Sad is¡­it¡¯s the worst. I¡¯m terrible at dealing with sadness. My own. Other peoples¡¯. It ruins my self-control.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sad,¡± Alden said again. He absolutely was. But only about that one specific thing. It wasn¡¯t that important, and it was overshadowed by his relief that Boe was alive, his worry about what his friend was doing here, and quite a lot of happiness. ¡°Alden, I¡¯m so sorry.¡± There was an uncommon amount of sincerity in Boe¡¯s voice. ¡°Why?¡± Alden forgot about his soapy hands and stared at him. ¡°You haven¡¯t done anything wrong except for being an enormous dick to Jeremy, and even he says you were amazing prior to the wall punching incident. I didn¡¯t mean to make it into a bigger thing than it was by bringing it up like that.¡± ¡°That¡­the ¡®wall punching incident¡¯ was a much bigger thing than he let on,¡± Boe said. ¡°But that¡¯s between me and him. I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t tell you I had powers. You told me right after it happened for you.¡± Of course I did. ¡°It¡¯s fine. Everyone has secrets.¡± ¡°I knew you didn¡¯t think we had them. I knew it wasn¡¯t right to keep it from you. I hated myself for it so much, especially after you¡­ I didn¡¯t want it to be that way. I¡¯m just a fucking coward. I almost told you a hundred times. There were reasons I should have, but I didn¡¯t want to lose my friend.¡± Alden snorted. Then, he realized Boe was serious. ¡°I¡¯m not going to stop being your friend.¡± How could he even think that? ¡°We¡¯ve spent almost every single day together since we were eleven. You could say harsh things to a dik-dik, and we¡¯d still be friends.¡± ¡°What about a baby dik-dik?¡± ¡°No. Not then. I have to draw the line somewhere.¡± They smiled at each other. Alden said, ¡°Those last few days before everything went wrong¡­I didn¡¯t mean to be so wrapped up in myself? But I didn¡¯t slow down for a second. Selection and then the funeral and then my moon mission¡ª¡° ¡°Right,¡± Boe interrupted. ¡°Moon mission. You¡¯re going to need to explain that to me very slowly. Because the messages I¡¯ve listened to so far were not clear at all. You just throw phrases like ¡®grasshopper demons¡¯ and ¡®running until I¡¯m bloody and broken¡¯ into soliloquies about how much you love your private chef¡¯s guacamole. Like those things are equally important. And like I have the full story.¡± Alden opened his mouth. ¡°Not right now,¡± Boe said hastily. ¡°Let me get my dramatic reveals out of the way before something comes up or I chicken out. Like I said, I regretted it. So let me do it. First, I¡¯m a U-type.¡± U-type. Didn¡¯t see that one coming. Wait¡­ ¡°That¡¯s not why you didn¡¯t tell me, is it? You should know I don¡¯t have anything against U¡¯s just because¡ª¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°Well good,¡± Alden said. ¡°And U! That¡¯s cool. I was assuming Brute because of averages and the wall punching.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not cool.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not?¡± ¡°¡­uncomfortable is the kindest adjective I¡¯ve ever applied to it, and that¡¯s just on good days. Imagine the System stuck a Sway and a Mourner in a blender. And the thing that came out didn¡¯t work as well as either of those. So it keeps trying to patch the creature with random shit it finds in its pockets.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°Sway. And Mourner?¡± ¡°And random shit.¡± Boe was biting his thumbnail and watching him nervously from beneath wet bangs. Mourner. The emotional transference class. ¡°Oh¡­you weren¡¯t saying I looked sad a second ago. You were saying you knew I was.¡± Boe nodded. Alden didn¡¯t know how he felt about that.Or I do, but it¡¯s not the way I think I should feel so it¡¯s confusing. ¡°Eat your curry,¡± he said, finally turning his attention back to his hand washing. He watched the suds flow down the drain. He heard the scrape of the fork in Boe¡¯s hand against the container. If anyone else had told Alden they were spying on his feelings, he would have been furious. And scared. Even though he put effort into not being one of those people who treated Sways like lepers, he still had to consciously ignore that spike of anxiety when he was around them. Even Instructor Marion this morning in class¡­Alden really liked the teacher, but there was always a What if? factor you had to leap over before you could act natural around one. So why¡­? ¡°You¡¯re not doing some Swayner thing to calm me down right now, are you?¡± Boe grimaced. ¡°Don¡¯t just cram the class names together. Swayner sounds terrible, and I¡¯m not really either one. I¡¯m my own monster.¡± He paused. ¡°I¡¯m not doing anything to you. But this curry is doing something weird to me. I feel like it¡¯s cuddling me as I eat it? That can¡¯t be right.¡± Alden dried his hands on a paper towel while Boe squinted suspiciously at a chunk of carrot. Where are his glasses? ¡°I don¡¯t think I care,¡± Alden said. Boe looked up. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s just the wordchain working overtime, but¡­I don¡¯t think I care very much if you¡¯re reading my mind right now.¡± His friend frowned. Alden shrugged. ¡°Well, I¡¯m not reading your mind. I don¡¯t hear your thoughts,¡± said Boe. ¡°But I am feeling what you¡¯re feeling, like your emotions are pressing down on top of my own.¡± ¡°Then you know. I don¡¯t really care that you¡¯re doing it. That¡¯s crazy, right?¡± Alden bent to pick up Victor before the cat could try¡ªand fail¡ªto jump up onto the counter with the food. ¡°You¡¯re going to care a lot later. Right now you¡¯re very relieved and happy to see me.¡± Boe tilted his head. ¡°The positive emotion and the Peace of Mind are cancelling out the anger you should be feeling.¡± ¡°Maybe.¡± ¡°You are slightly worried, though. If you want to leave, I¡ª¡± Alden stared down at the chunky orange feline in his arms. ¡°I¡¯m not worried about you reading my mind¡ª¡± ¡°Which I¡¯m not doing.¡± ¡°Or my emotions. The thing I¡¯m worried about is, like, whiny little kid stuff. So let¡¯s just pretend I¡¯m not worried at all.¡± Very little kid stuff. Lying in bed with your wombat plushie and wondering if maybe your best friend doesn¡¯t think you¡¯re his best friend because he¡¯s been keeping a secret from you. Is that kind of fear not something you grow out of? Alden cleared his throat. ¡°Even if I don¡¯t care, you obviously shouldn¡¯t be reading my emotions without permission in the first place. Because it¡¯s rude. And immoral. So stop it.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t right now. I was about to tell you, if you go away and come back in seven or so hours, you can have complete emotional privacy.¡± ¡°Just stop using your skill. Or whatever you call the talent you use to do it.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not using one. My default state is empathic sponge. I use a skill to block your emotions, not access them. And since I¡¯m magically toast at present¡­don¡¯t squeeze the cat that hard, you doofus. He¡¯ll bite you.¡± ¡°Sorry!¡± Alden set Victor back down. ¡°What do you mean empathic sponge is your default state?¡± ¡°Pretty sure you know the definition of all those words.¡± Alden narrowed his eyes at him. ¡°That doesn¡¯t make sense. The magic thing you do is your normal? And not doing the magic thing is¡­you using your powers?¡± ¡°Ta-da,¡± said Boe, waving his hands and wiggling his fingers like a party magician. ¡°I¡¯m real special. In a useless kind of way.¡± ¡°What the¡­are you a born psychic of some kind?¡± Like Hazel Velra? It was literally the only thing Alden could think of that would fit. But on the other hand, it didn¡¯t fit at all. Psychic powers weren¡¯t part of the standard human makeup. He just assumed Hazel¡¯s uniqueness was because she¡¯d been experimentally enhanced by some really unethical scientist. The Velras didn¡¯t seem like the type to go for purely organic kids. ¡°I guess you could call it psychic? Makes me feel like I should have bangle bracelets and a crystal ball. But it¡¯s not natural. Or at least I wasn¡¯t born this way. The emotion reading came contemporaneously with my affixation.¡± ¡°That is a specific and unusual way to put it.¡± Boe¡¯s expression was sardonic. ¡°The System likes to keep Uniques quiet. Our affixations are unusual. And we can get¡­significant help¡­with them if we don¡¯t broadcast why we got our powers in a different way from everyone else in the first place. I¡¯ve rejected the additional help so far. I think that¡¯s uncommon, judging by how often the System nags me about it. But I¡¯d rather not completely burn that bridge until I¡¯m certain I¡¯m not going to need to cross it one¡ªholy shit, Alden, your emotions are all over the place! What¡ª?¡± ¡°I¡¯m good!¡± Alden said. He accidentally knocked over the soap dispenser and caught it just before it could fall. ¡°You are not. What¡¯s wrong?¡± ¡°Nothing¡¯s wrong.¡± Boe reached a hand out toward him. ¡°Something is seriously¡ª¡± Alden whipped around and opened a random cabinet. Oh my god. So clever. Turning my back to hide my face so that my empathic friend won¡¯t know how I feel. This was going to take some getting used to. He stared at all the bottles of multicolored coffee flavorings, trying not to think so hard about unusual affixations with unusual System involvement.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Maybe you should eat some of the curry?¡± Boe suggested in a strained voice. Alden laughed in spite of himself. ¡°Sorry. I don¡¯t mean to be a freak. That came out of nowhere, huh? Now I guess you know how much of a mess the new me can be. Are you all right?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me right now. Is there a subject I should avoid? I will, but I¡¯m not sure what I said.¡± ¡°It wasn¡¯t you. Don¡¯t burn the bridge. I¡¯m not sure what kind of ¡®significant help¡¯ Earth is offering you, but maybe it¡¯s something you really will need one day. So don¡¯t burn it. Affixations are¡­they¡¯re super important. So additional help is good. Hey, I finally became a coffee drinker! I make lattes now. With this absurd magic bean machine. Do you want one?¡± You¡¯re babbling, Alden. Just because Boe had something weird going on with his affixations. It¡¯s not something like mine was. His tone was too casual. And every U-type has something weird going on. Which you knew anyway. It¡¯s not a huge surprise. They¡¯re Uniques for some reason. Boe let him change the subject at least. ¡°I¡¯ll take a decaf mocha.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t you tell me once that decaf was for people with untreated heart conditions?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need to be more alert right now. And you definitely don¡¯t.¡± Point taken. Alden reached for the bottle of chocolate syrup. ¡°So¡­you really can¡¯t turn off the feelings barometer?¡± ¡°I really can¡¯t. And you¡¯re really not leaving the apartment even though I told you so.¡± ¡°Boe, it¡¯s my apartment. If I wanted to get away from you, I¡¯d kick you out, not run away myself.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t. I¡¯ll get arrested.¡± Alden turned back to face him. ¡°Are you going to explain that?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t tell you how I got my weird powers. But I can tell you what they all are,¡± Boe said instead of answering. He took another bite of the food. ¡°If you¡¯re interested.¡± ¡°Nooo¡­I¡¯m not at all interested. Keep them to yourself.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± Alden set down the chocolate syrup with a bang. ¡°Tell me. Or I¡¯ll think of horrifying stuff on purpose and barf my feelings all over you.¡± Boe blinked. ¡°Well, that¡¯s a threat I wasn¡¯t expecting. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t believe some of the trauma I¡¯ve got in my head now. It¡¯s a weaponizable amount for sure.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know why Jeremy thinks you¡¯re the nice one.¡± ¡°He just hasn¡¯t known me long enough yet. Do you want a rosette on your latte?¡± ¡°I want to see you try to make one. I feel the emotions of everyone in my vicinity. Unless I use a skill to actively block them.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the skill called?¡± ¡°The System lets me name them myself.¡± Alden accidentally shot chocolate syrup across the counter. ¡°What?!¡± ¡°Nobody else has them. They¡¯re custom. So why wouldn¡¯t I get to?¡± ¡°That¡¯s so unfair!¡± ¡°I can even change them. I just type in a new one. At first, I called the emotion blocking skill Moody Moon Barrier.¡± ¡°I love it. So mystical.¡± ¡°Bedlam Beldam has one called Kitty Moon Barrier. It was in her honor.¡± ¡°Magnificent.¡± ¡°Now I call it Skill Number 1.¡± Alden glared at him. ¡°I was so happy that you had a dorky pre-schooler name for your superpower, and you go and change it to the blandest thing in the world.¡± ¡°Sorry. Skill Number 2¡ª¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°We can¡¯t all be baggage Rabbits. Skill Number 2 is the really nasty one. It lets me magnify peoples¡¯ emotions or force my own onto them.¡± Oh. Yeah, that¡¯s a little¡­ ¡°So that¡¯s what you mean by comparing yourself to a Sway. Mourners only take negative emotions away from people, right?¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. They have enhanced control over their own emotions, too. But as far as others go, it¡¯s just absorbing the unwanted ones. And there are consequences¡­¡± Boe trailed off. ¡°I think the System must mean for them to be assistants to Mind Healers? And maybe it hopes humans will use them like a less-objectionable version of a Sway. But in practice not many of them do that kind of work from what I can tell.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t hear about them much, do you? I know they¡¯re incredibly rare, but¡ª¡± ¡°I think they mostly sit around doing nothing and making themselves happy.¡± ¡°You mean magically happy?¡± Alden asked. ¡°It¡¯s a feature. Of their power set. Like a counterbalance to the bad. But why soak up the bad at all? Why not just ignore universal suffering, flip the happy switch on yourself, and bliss out for as long as you can before you overdo it and turn your mind into jelly?¡± ¡°You think the Mourners sit around all day high on their own skills?¡± Boe shrugged. ¡°The System has been spitting out fewer and fewer of them over the years. If you pay attention to that kind of thing. So whatever it is the Artonans hoped human Mourners would be good for, it must not be working out in practice.¡± ¡°Do you have a happy switch?¡± Boe raised both eyebrows. ¡°Do you think I have a happy switch?¡± A sarcastic and abrasive switch maybe. ¡°You¡¯ve never struck me as someone who could choose to be perky.¡± Boe looked down at the rosette on top of his latte. ¡°I don¡¯t have a happy switch,¡± he said after a long pause. ¡°But I can¡­there are ways to misuse my power that¡­they make me feel good. Let¡¯s not talk about that. Especially while I¡¯m missing my Moody Moon Barrier.¡± ¡°Got it.¡± Then, Alden smiled. ¡°And did you call it that just to amuse me?¡± ¡°I guess when people come back from the dead, I¡¯m a pushover. It¡¯s revolting. Skill Number 3¡ª¡± ¡°Damn. How many different powers do you have?¡± ¡°Last one. Other than foundational enhancements. I actually gave Skill Number 3 a new name. I typed it in during that heinous memorial service they had for you at school.¡± That was right before he ran away. ¡°It¡¯s called ¡®I Need a Break from People,¡¯¡± said Boe. ¡°That¡¯s what you wrote on the note you left on Jeremy¡¯s bed after the memorial. When you dropped off the cat and vanished.¡± ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s¡­¡± Boe was still gazing into his coffee. ¡°You can skip it if you don¡¯t want to talk about it. I don¡¯t need to know.¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s not that. This one isn¡¯t based on violating other people¡¯s emotions. So that¡¯s good. But it¡¯s just that I¡¯ve never described it before. I don¡¯t actually know what it does, so it¡¯s hard.¡± ¡°My new principal is a Unique. She can phase through solid objects.¡± Boe blinked. ¡°Ghosten?¡± ¡°That¡¯s her.¡± ¡°Lesedi Saleh is your principal. You did get into superhero school! After only being home for a few weeks? You¡¯ve been¡­wow, you¡¯ve been really busy.¡± ¡°You need to finish listening to my messages. They¡¯re not all guacamole.¡± ¡°There were sixty of them. Give me time. My third skill is not as cool as Ghosten¡¯s power. It¡¯s like an escape hatch.¡± ¡°It gives you a break from people?¡± Boe nodded. ¡°Hence the name. It¡¯s one of those things I mentioned¡ª something the System found in its pocket and tried to patch me up with. That¡¯s my best guess for its intentions anyway. When I trigger the skill, I go somewhere. For a while.¡± ¡°Where?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Boe said slowly. ¡°I¡¯m disembodied. But I can still think. I¡¯m me, but without the¡­complexity¡­of my physical form weighing on me. It gives me some clarity. I know that sounds like mumbo jumbo¡ª¡± ¡°It sounds like a cross-dimensional teleport,¡± said Alden. ¡°What? Does it?¡± ¡°It does. I¡¯m a fan of them I think.¡± ¡°If you say so.¡± ¡°They¡¯re really centering.¡± ¡°We for sure need to talk about you after I¡¯m done with my turn and my powers are back online.¡± Boe sipped his drink. ¡°Wherever it is I go when I activate that skill, it¡¯s only me there. And I just have an echo of my emotions¡­my own emotions. Being there completely dumps all of the feelings from other people that get tangled up with me. So¡­all right. Yeah. It¡¯s really centering.¡± ¡°See. I know things.¡± ¡°Uh-huh. To take the escape hatch, I have to do something the System calls ¡®attaching my existence¡¯ to another being.¡± Alden drummed his fingers on the counter. ¡°Fine. I do not know things anymore. What does that mean?¡± ¡°It means I have to target a person or sufficiently intelligent animal before I activate the skill. They¡¯re either carrying me around somehow, or their emotions are acting as a beacon that lights the way back to real life? I¡¯m not sure.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± Boe grinned. ¡°You¡¯re confused.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a very unique talent?¡± ¡°Well, you know what the ¡®u¡¯ in U-type stands for.¡± ¡°But what are you supposed to do with that set of powers?¡± Boe set down his mug. ¡°You¡¯re just assuming I¡¯m supposed to do something with them at all. That they have a purpose. At the risk of lighting a spark under that bridge I just talked about¡ª¡± ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± ¡°The System could flash a warning sign in front of my eyes if it wanted to, right? I think it¡¯s fine to say this much. I don¡¯t believe my talents are intended to be useful to me, Earth, or the Triplanets. I don¡¯t think the Artonans want me to be Boe the Dark Empath Who Occasionally Takes a Time Out in His Own Personal Other Realm. I think I¡¯m¡­oh there¡¯s the flashing sign. So you are awake. Hi there, shithead. Give me a list of things I can say, then.¡± Did he just call the System shithead and demand a list of talking points? That wasn¡¯t a shock, considering it was Boe. What surprised Alden was the fact that his friend didn¡¯t really sound annoyed at all. That was chummy cussing, wasn¡¯t it? Boe¡¯s eyes flicked up and down. ¡°Random.¡± ¡°Are you talking to me or to it?¡± ¡°I¡¯m only allowed to tell you, ¡®I think I¡¯m random,¡¯¡± Boe clarified. ¡°Any more and the mighty magical overseer will be wroth with me.¡± ¡°At least it answers you.¡± ¡°It¡¯ll answer anyone if it thinks the answer is likely to save it trouble down the line,¡± Boe said dismissively. ¡°Have my messages been going to you through your cell phone? Or the System?¡± ¡°Both I assume. Unless the autopay for the phone plan had a hiccup. I just couldn¡¯t access it while I was gone.¡± Boe looked at him. ¡°You¡¯re still not upset about me knowing what you¡¯re feeling?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not.¡± ¡°Not that I¡¯m not¡­relieved. And pretty damn touched. But I think that¡¯s definitely not going to last.¡± ¡°My feelings aren¡¯t particularly embarrassing right now, are they?¡± ¡°You only have to experience everybody else¡¯s emotions for a few days before you realize that almost nothing we inadvertently feel should be embarrassing,¡± said Boe. Alden felt his left eyebrow shoot up. ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re Boe and not his kindly doppelg?nger?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t misunderstand. People are horrible. They are so, so awful. I hate most of them most of the time. But not because of what they feel. It¡¯s because of what they do with those feelings. Two completely different things.¡± ¡°About doing horrible things¡­what you¡¯re getting around to telling me is that you used Skill Number 3 to attach yourself to my cat, right?¡± ¡°I needed a break from people,¡± said Boe. ¡°It gets hard for me when I¡¯m soaking in everyone else¡¯s madness on top of my own. Eventually, I can¡¯t disentangle anymore. It starts to feel like I¡¯m being overwritten. And after the memorial¡­why are you heading over to the sofa to bother that poor animal again?¡± Alden crouched over Victor. ¡°Are you the reason he¡¯s fat now? Was he tired from carrying you around, and it ruined his metabolism?¡± ¡°That¡¯s definitely how magic works.¡± ¡°Victor, do you want me to beat up Boe for you?¡± Alden asked, trying to find evidence of magical interference with his pet. ¡°Did the evil Mournay ask your permission before he used you as some kind of wellness retreat?¡± ¡°Mournay is not happening. That¡¯s even worse than Swayner. You make me sound like a French sauce.¡± ¡°We can¡¯t use Dark Empath Who Occasionally Takes a Time Out Inside Alden¡¯s Formerly Fit Cat, or whatever it was. It¡¯s just too long.¡± ¡°You seriously want to workshop a name for my bonkers unique class?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± Alden smiled at him. ¡°That¡¯s what friends should do when you get uncomfortable random powers.¡± Boe slid off the counter stool and came to stand beside him. He looked down at the cat. After a long while, he said, ¡°Alden, you were dead.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°I know it was probably worse for you than for me.¡± ¡°It was bad. I thought about it sometimes¡­how terrible it would be for you. And Connie and Jeremy, too.¡± ¡°I almost couldn¡¯t take it,¡± Boe said quietly. ¡°Where were you?¡± ¡°Moon Thegund broke. It was full of chaos and tiny demons. There was no way back home. I¡¯m sorry it took me so long.¡± Boe sighed. ¡°Me too. I didn¡¯t mean to be gone for months. Time doesn¡¯t move the same for me when I¡¯m hiding in that place. I have a sense of it passing, but it¡¯s not accurate. I stay until I feel like I won¡¯t fly apart. It feels like hours. But usually it¡¯s a few weeks.¡± ¡°That sounds dangerous,¡± Alden said. ¡°Losing track of real time like that.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know if it is or not. I was scared of the same thing¡ªthat years would go by without me knowing. And I haven¡¯t really had practice with the skill. So when I used it right after your memorial, I came back too soon. I wasn¡¯t all right yet. That was when I flipped out at Jeremy¡¯s.¡± Alden looked at him. ¡°It must have been agony,¡± he said hesitantly. ¡°Having everyone else¡¯s grief piled on top of your own sounds¡­¡± Boe didn¡¯t answer right away. Finally, he nudged Alden with an elbow. ¡°You should feel guiltier. Give me some good guilt.¡± ¡°I said I was sorry¡ª¡± ¡°Not for going missing. For making me an illegal immigrant. I was expecting to reappear in Jeremy¡¯s suburban mansion. There was a reason I attached myself to your cat. Instead I popped up butt naked in a strange apartment. I thought he¡¯d given away Victor. I thought some homeowner was going to bust in and shoot me.¡± Alden gaped at him. ¡°Your clothes don¡¯t go with you?¡± ¡°My glasses don¡¯t even go with me. They¡¯re buried in a plastic bag under a bush below Jeremy¡¯s bedroom window. You¡¯re just a friend-shaped blur right now.¡± Alden laughed. ¡°Jerk.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry; it shouldn¡¯t be so funny¡ª ¡°I was panicking. I was running around the room, trying to figure out where I was and get clothes on myself so I could escape, and then I see the ocean out the window and the sketches of Apex and F-city on the wall. And I think¡­this place looks like pictures I¡¯ve seen of the intake dorms on Anesidora. And I¡¯m confused and very concerned because the only thing worse than breaking and entering in some trigger happy person¡¯s house is breaking and entering on an island full of people with superpowers!¡± Alden laughed harder. ¡°And then I see a call notice flashing on my interface, and I click it without checking, expecting it to be Jeremy because the only other person in the world who gives a shit about me is dead, and maybe Jeremy can tell me what the hell is going on. But then¡­it¡¯s you. Leaving a voicemail. About how you''re making a personal list of which Velras you hate the least. I thought¡­I sincerely thought I¡¯d lost my grip on reality.¡± ¡°Boe¡­¡± ¡°I thought I should have done it ages ago, if all it took to hear from my best friend again was losing my mind.¡± Alden tried to control his emotions. He couldn¡¯t. He took a few steps back from Boe, who was staring at him with an expression so raw that Alden didn¡¯t know what to do with it. ¡°Sorry. Shit, I¡­¡± Alden said apologetically. ¡°I know you need me to be less¡­but I can¡¯t just be chill after you say something like that.¡± ¡°Fair enough,¡± Boe said, still staring at him. ¡°That was my bad.¡± ¡°Peace of Mind isn¡¯t a super strong wordchain, man. It can¡¯t take this much of a beating.¡± ¡°I¡¯m the one who completely exhausted my barrier skill before taking my time out. I know it doesn¡¯t recover much when I¡¯m away. So that¡¯s my bad, too.¡± ¡°Am I¡­my feelings are intense and all over the place again. That¡¯s tough on you, right? It bothers you. Should I go?¡± ¡°¡­you should probably go.¡± Boe smiled wryly. ¡°Unless you want me to go. And try to explain to the superpolice how I got to Point Nemo all by myself.¡± ¡°I¡¯m supposed to be meeting my personal trainer at the gym this afternoon.¡± Alden backed toward the door. ¡°I¡¯ll do that. I¡¯ll come back tonight. You said a few hours. Some? I forgot the number.¡± ¡°Six or seven should do. You have a trainer?¡± ¡°I have a trainer. And I¡¯m in hero school. Today was my first day. And I¡¯ve got a commendation from a really important Artonan. And I have twelve million dollars.¡± Boe opened his mouth at that, but he didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°Yeah. There¡¯s a lot,¡± said Alden. ¡°We¡¯ll cover it when you¡¯re not being forced to ride my every emotional nuance with me. I¡¯m going now. Help yourself to my food. And clothes. And whatever¡­I have an expensive laptop. Enjoy. Call Jeremy. Don¡¯t feed the cat. He¡¯s a liar.¡± Alden¡¯s hand was hovering over the door panel, but he didn¡¯t touch it. ¡°Boe¡­you¡¯re not going to disappear again, are you? You¡¯ll be here when I get back?¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad you asked first. I didn¡¯t want to be the one to sound all needy.¡± Boe sat on the sofa, threw his legs up onto the low coffee table, and crossed his arms over his chest. ¡°I¡¯ll be here. No disappearances. You¡¯re coming back, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Yep. Just going to the gym. No trips to other worlds for months. I promise.¡± ¡°Good.¡± ¡°Good. And send me your glasses prescription. I¡¯ll have some new ones drone delivered.¡± ¡°Showing off your new money swag?¡± ¡°Do you enjoy squinting at everything?¡± A text message with the prescription appeared on his interface. Boe hadn¡¯t even twitched. ¡°I can mental text as well,¡± said Alden. ¡°You¡¯re not that impressive.¡± ¡°Takes a ton of practice, doesn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°I figured it out really fast and all by myself. I¡¯m amazing like that.¡± ¡°Your emotions shift when you lie. Shitty B-rank.¡± Alden suddenly realized¡­ ¡°What is your rank?¡± ¡°A.¡± ¡°That¡¯s only one above me.¡± ¡°But it is above you.¡± ¡°I have 20/10 vision,¡± Alden said. ¡°So we¡¯re even.¡± Boe sighed. ¡°Alden, go away for six hours until my skill¡¯s recovered. I really will be here when you get back.¡± ¡°Ah. Sorry. I was stalling a little. Bye.¡± ¡°Bye,¡± said Boe. Then, just before the door shut, he added quietly, ¡°Love you, too.¡± EIGHTY-FIVE: The Other Half of It 85 Boe is all right. Boe is here on Anesidora. Boe is¡­an empath. The thoughts flowed through his head again as he dashed toward a wall made of the tough, rubbery material that formed all the impediments on the North of North gym¡¯s morphable obstacle course. The course was popular, and even at Alden¡¯s level, they never let more than three people use the room at the same time. So this slot had been booked days ago. Glad I didn¡¯t skip. Bobby would have killed me. The trainer was standing off to the side, adjusting the obstacles ahead of him slightly every time he ran it. The blocks and bars were never quite the same distance apart. The walls were never the same height. Occasionally something would be unexpectedly loose or wobbly, and he¡¯d have to change tactics. There were even sections where puddles of water could appear only to be quickly dried before his next run, though Bobby never made use of those. Alden popped up the wall. It was narrower than it had been last time, and the second obstacle he was supposed to be scaling from here¡ªa pillar¡ªnow had a series of vertical and diagonal ridges and crevices instead of the horizontal ones that had made the job simple enough last time. He glanced toward her. She probably thinks I¡¯m not paying attention today. It was true. It was only willpower that was keeping him from trying to sneakily research U-types through his interface while he did this. That and the fact that he didn¡¯t have two consciousnesses, so he was sure he would plow face first into something. ¡°I¡¯m not sure I can climb that!¡± Bobby gave him a thumbs-up. She was wearing a striped yellow and black tank top and a bobble antenna headband. Even though Halloween was still officially a couple of days away, a lot of places were treating everyone to Halloweek. Including the gym. Anesidora took a more-is-more approach to holidays. If it was celebrated anywhere on Earth and it was even moderately fun, chances were it would be honored on the island. ¡°Give it a try!¡± she called back. ¡°Remember your handholds.¡± A minute later, Alden hit the floor, which had gone soft enough that it wasn¡¯t painful. He accepted a hand up from Bumblebee Bobby. ¡°Almost!¡± she said. ¡°We need to work more on your climbing technique. Underbars next!¡± When his workout was over and they had talked about how to adjust his schedule to fit around his new classes and the school gym period that was starting up next week, Alden headed to the showers. He rinsed off under a full rainfall ceiling while New Age music played, and then he dried with a heated towel that had been folded around a pouch of lavender. This place is too expensive. And I know it. But they do make you feel good about giving them your money. He never knew what to do with the lavender pouches. If you handed them back to a bathroom attendant, they just threw them away. He¡¯d been keeping them all and tucking them into his sock drawer. He needed to kill a few more hours, so he sat at the smoothie bar, drinking something that definitely had too much maple syrup in it to actually be healthy, and did his homework. To say he wasn¡¯t into it would have been an understatement. He hadn¡¯t even brought his bag with him when he raced out of the apartment, so he had to do it all through the interface instead of on his computer or tablet. He skimmed the science reading, then he watched an episode of a show that featured two Artonan farmers arguing over the ownership of a livestock animal that looked like a jumbo mole cricket. It seemed to be part of a historical comedy series about the farmers. Their argument got more and more ridiculous as the show progressed, until by the end of it, the animal got fed up with them and left both farms behind to go live its life in the wild. Where it was almost immediately killed an eaten by a poacher lady. Not bad, Alden decided. For me. But I wonder if the people who were struggling to describe the weather today are going to be all right? The banter between the farmers was fast-paced and full of childish insults that probably weren¡¯t frequently encountered unless you lived with a little girl who thought it was hilarious to hear an Avowed call the household appliances things like ¡°ugly butt.¡± If you were listening without translation, like they were supposed to, wouldn¡¯t it be difficult for people who weren¡¯t used to it? Instructor Rao did make me recite a poem even though it was my first day of class. Is she a hardass or is she just phoning it in? He put extra effort into typing up what the moral of the story was so that he could record himself reading the whole thing later and send it to Kibby. ¡°This is what my class is watching,¡± he would say. ¡°Since you¡¯re my first Instructor, I wanted your opinion on my work if you can spare me your valuable time.¡± She was going to love it. Finally, he typed up two paragraphs for Instructor Marion¡¯s class about the domestic violence/terrorist situation, feeling ill at ease with the questions it provoked. And with the fact that he lacked the passion and confidence in his own judgment that his new classmates had displayed. Most of them were really sure that it would be no big deal for them to do the right thing, whatever they thought that was. Even the ones who had incredibly dangerous plans had a lot of conviction about them. He grimaced down at the dregs of his smoothie and sent the homework in to Instructor Marion. Then he turned his attention to Boe. He checked the time. My empath friend needs at least two more hours to get his skill online so he can not be an empath. Maybe even three if I¡¯m being extra considerate. It was so backward for an Avowed¡¯s skill to be the thing that kept them from being powerful. What the fuck is up with that? Alden knew a lot more about affixations now. It wasn¡¯t enough to completely unravel this mystery, but he could make better guesses than he would have been able to before he left home. He wasn¡¯t born with the ability to read emotions. But he can¡¯t turn it off. And it doesn¡¯t wear out. It could be a passive skill that¡¯s always on like a stat point¡­? No, it would have to be a weak effect compared to the amount of authority bound into it for that to work, I think, and it doesn¡¯t sound weak at all. So he¡¯s been changed. It¡¯s permanent. Brain alteration? Is it a specific upgrade to Processing? Or is it more like being open to other peoples¡¯ emotions is now a part of Boe¡¯s self on the existential level? That¡¯s¡­ He guessed how it had been done didn¡¯t matter as much as the fact that it had been. Without Boe wanting it. He would never have chosen powers like that. Yet he didn¡¯t seem particularly angry at the System or the Artonans. Alden could only ever remember there being a normal, Boe-ish amount of negativity and suspicion toward either party. And if he had already been forced to affix prior to Alden¡¯s own affixation¡­ There was nothing, thought Alden, staring blankly across the counter at the smoothie bar¡¯s frozen yogurt machine. When I first told him I¡¯d been chosen, he didn¡¯t want me to talk about it over the phone, but that makes complete sense now. He¡¯s unregistered himself, and he¡¯s cautious about it because he doesn¡¯t want to get deported. That¡¯s an Earth-based problem. And when he was encouraging me to seriously consider being unregistered and choosing a quiet class¡­that was an Earth-based concern, too. He didn¡¯t want me to leave Chicago. He wasn¡¯t actually very negative on me being an Avowed at all. Maybe it¡¯s just because there¡¯s not much choice in the matter, so why drag me down. But you¡¯d think if he¡¯d been forced to have painful powers that are at odds with his personality, there would be some serious bitterness and hatred toward the System. Alden didn¡¯t think he was so clueless that he couldn¡¯t pick up on Boe¡¯s feelings at all. I must be, though. At some point¡ªprobably last year?¡ªhe was selected and had those powers dropped on him all at once. And I didn¡¯t notice. He tried to remember a moment when Boe might have changed. A period of particularly terrible moods, evidence of him struggling more than usual to put up with their classmates, a reluctance to spend extended periods of time with Alden¡­ I can¡¯t think of anything. Am I unobservant? Have I been that bad of a friend? Maybe if it had happened around the time Hannah went missing? That could have been it. I guess the next question is how do I even be a good friend to an empath? Especially an empathic Boe? Boe could get tangled up in other peoples¡¯ emotions so badly he had to evacuate to his own personal nowhere, so¡­okay. Emotional control was not Alden¡¯s best quality these days. He had far more good moments than bad ones. But the bad moments could be intensely bad. Thankfully they mostly came at night, and he just dealt with them in the privacy of his room. But if Boe was sleeping next door, then obviously¡­ If he¡¯s having a hard time and he¡¯s exhausted the authority bound into the barrier skill, what do I do? If I¡¯m in a regular level mood I can offer to Peace of Mind it. And if I¡¯m in an Intensity 99.9 mood, I¡¯ll leave. Oh yeah, there¡¯s also¡­ He pulled up the contract he¡¯d signed with the Velras back in February. There, attached to it whether he wanted them or not, were four wordchains that weren¡¯t available anywhere he could find on the internet. There were even videos of various pairs of hands hastily performing the associated gestures in bizarre locations. Someone had filmed their fingers swirling around with a grocery store¡¯s meat cooler as the backdrop. Yes, Grandchild Number Forty-Three, Alden imagined Aulia saying on a phone call. I have decided to gift Feather¡¯s Touch to that boy Aimi manhandled. I¡¯m sure he will love it. Perform it immediately. I don¡¯t care if you¡¯re standing in front of a shelf full of pork chops! Just do it! One half of Feather¡¯s Touch made your skin extremely sensitive. The other half would make you numb. It was nice that both halves had upsides in addition to downsides, but Alden wasn¡¯t interested in it right now. The only one of the four that might be helpful for dealing with emotions was¡­ This one. Purposefulness. It seemed to be something that would improve your focus. So maybe you could use it to control what your attention was on if you were spinning out emotionally. Like focusing on a task instead of whatever was upsetting you? The Velras had conveniently forgotten to describe the effects for him themselves, so he had to guess based on the Artonan words in the chain. Probably they thought I would get in touch with them for more details and help learning to do them? Alden was curious. About the chains and why some of them were even made exclusive in the first place. But it was a resistible curiosity. This one would be good, though. He¡¯d shift learning it higher up on his overstuffed to-do list. Thinking about the Velras reminded him of an annoying new problem that had to be managed. Someone was running around Anesidora who could call in your chain debt prematurely. And she was willing to do it, too. Which meant Alden now had to consider the consequences of whatever debt he was carrying hitting him unexpectedly. The blowback from the wrong chain at the wrong moment could screw you over in a big way. It wasn¡¯t like he expected Hazel to be hiding around every corner waiting to snipe him. But usually people carried debt for quite a while. It wasn¡¯t likely Alden would run into the Chainer at any given moment, but the chances of a random meeting happening over the course of days or weeks were much higher. And Peace of Mind¡¯s negative half is so¡­ [Hey,] he texted Boe, [I¡¯m taking a little longer than I expected. Finishing up homework. I¡¯ll be back in four hours.] Then he headed upstairs to the spa. He¡¯d seen it on his first tour of the facilities. He¡¯d admired it, just like he had the rest of North of North. But he¡¯d never actually used a spa before, and he hadn¡¯t expected that to change anytime soon. It¡¯s so fancy. He watched jellyfish drift through the aquarium wall that divided the check-in area from a lounge where Avowed in robes drank herbal tea and waited for their scheduled treatments. I wonder if I could bring Connie here or if it¡¯s members only. He thought he recognized several famous people, though they looked different in terrycloth and slippers than they did in their superhero get-ups. According to local gossip, more big names than usual should be around over the coming days, since a battle group was being called in to deal with one of the annual demon destruction events. There was much more news about it here on Anesidora than Alden had ever experienced at home, and he didn¡¯t think it was just his own personal interest in what was going on that made it feel that way. Mentions of it were everywhere. But local interest was still mostly on who would be involved and how they would get along with each other and match powers, not in how the fight would go. A demon would appear in the offshore facility where that always happened. A select best-of-the-best group would destroy it. Nobody else would get to see anything interesting. It had happened so many times before that it wasn¡¯t worth worrying about. Alden did learn that the battle group spent several weeks away from their other jobs, preparing. It was something he probably should have known just because it made logical sense that you couldn¡¯t have a mass of disparate powers clashing. But news about the demon allotment had always been such an after-the-fact blip before now that it had felt like something that lasted only a single day. Do the Artonans even need us to kill a random demon for them or is it some training thing that the Avowed-should-be-saviors faction insists on? If giant, powerful demons were anything like the grasshoppers then they didn¡¯t seem like something that would be particularly shippable. He understood very little about teleportation or the System¡¯s abilities, but he couldn¡¯t imagine that dropping a chaos monster on a specific location was anything but hell on magical resources. A man in one of the spa employee uniforms stepped around the aquarium and took a position behind the check-in desk. A special notification below his name tag on Alden¡¯s interface told him that the guy was non-Avowed. It wasn¡¯t really necessary information in his opinion. It wasn¡¯t like superhumans went around greeting each other by swinging magic swords or exchanging deadly blows. Maybe it¡¯s more to explain why he has to use tech for everything, so that people don¡¯t think he¡¯s being rude. That did seem likely after Alden talked to him. He read his smart watch for the translation, and nodded. A few minutes later, Alden had his own personal relaxation room. There was a heated lounge chair. Three walls were screens that would display different landscapes if he wanted, and the fourth looked out over the meditation garden. There was a ¡°sound therapy¡± playlist and a mini fridge full of drinks that looked like liquefied salads. Seems interesting. I don¡¯t expect to enjoy it much. He settled into the lounge chair, took a breath, and said the sacrifice half of Peace of Mind. Yeah, yeah, I know, he thought at the gremlin. I¡¯m a good boy. Paying my debts right away. Alden suspected the next three hours were going to suck, no matter how great it was to be able to pay off the debt in private, in a spa. The thing about the bad half of Peace of Mind was that it hit above its weight. The calming half of the wordchain just settled over you and took the sharp edges away, so he was sure that its counterpart only sharpened all those same edges by an equal amount. On its end of things. But the human brain was primed to fixate on danger and negativity, so that you¡¯d be inspired to pay extra attention to anything that could hurt you. In practice, it meant that one wrong, slightly too magnified bad thought could spiral into something that had less to do with the magic of the wordchain than it did with your mind and body overreacting to it. Alden had taken advantage of that to fan his own fear when he was running with Kibby. Now, though, there were no advantages to be had¡ªonly his own heart rate elevating for no real reason and a sick feeling of dread making his stomach clench. He decided to combat it by watching Kibby¡¯s latest batch of videos. He pulled up his current favorite. It was full of evidence that the Quaternary¡¯s team of wizards and Avowed were spoiling her. He tried to focus on every detail, to notice things he hadn¡¯t the last time he watched it. ¡°Hello, Alden!¡± Kibby said, a smile brightening her whole face. ¡°This video is about scarlet ryeh-b¡¯t females and Stu-art¡¯h, who is the son of the Primary and the nephew of the Quaternary, and how he named one after you. I have been thinking about whether that was funny-mean of him or not.¡± She looks so relaxed. Alden had hardly ever seen Kibby look relaxed unless she was actually asleep. It was beautiful. She was in the travel dome¡¯s medical area, which had been turned into her room. And it was such a wonderful child¡¯s room. She had stuffed alien critters on her bed. Except for the size, they were all anatomically detailed and realistic. Either Artonans didn¡¯t go for cartoonish stuffies, or Kibby herself didn¡¯t. The toys she and her sister had played with at the lab had been similar. In one corner, a brand new learning cushion, a short desk, and a vase full of promise sticks made a small classroom for her. There was a projection on the wall that scrolled through pictures she¡¯d chosen. Half of them were still-frames from Alden¡¯s video messages to her. There were a lot of close-ups of Kraaa and Rrorro, and several pictures of clouds flashing with green light. They looked innocent until you realized that they were images captured from space of the lab blowing up. She definitely has shots of the crater she made somewhere, and she¡¯s just saving them because she hopes I¡¯ll ask to see her work. ¡°First let me show you my hair,¡± said Kibby, angling her head and her tablet. ¡°Rrorro is learning braiding, but I don¡¯t like it as much as yours.¡± That is just pure favoritism for me, thought Alden. He¡¯d learned to do the French braid for her when he realized that having her hair done made her happier. But Rrorro must have been an overachiever in all things, because the healer had gone for some advanced level basketweaving with ribbons. I could do that now that I¡¯ve had more auriad practice. I can totally beat Rrorro. Her species doesn¡¯t even have hair. Kibby popped back upright. ¡°Scarlet ryeh-b¡¯ts are known for their merry natures, their large sizes, and their athleticism,¡± she said in an instructive tone. ¡°So maybe the son of the Primary was not being as rude as I thought at first when you told me he had tried to replace your presence in the universe with an animal.¡± She paused. ¡°It would be better if he were not being rude. It would be unfortunate for the son of the Primary and the nephew of the Quaternary to be a rude and thoughtless person.¡± My next video is clearly going to need to be in defense of Stuart. She is so judgey. I think I should have explained that Other Alden is awesome instead of just mentioning her in passing. ¡°You are merry, large, and athletic¡ª¡± Merry? Alden shook his head. ¡°And your coat was red. Perhaps Stu-art¡¯h was being funny-mean by naming such a ryeh-b¡¯t after you. As friends do. So it may be all right for you to talk to him socially.¡± She went on discussing Stuart¡¯s behavior and ryeh-b¡¯ts for a while. Alden focused on noticing other things about her and the room around her. She had a rolling space heater. One of the wizards with Alis-art¡¯h must have been doting on her, or else the Knight herself was, because Kibby was wearing one of their magic rings on a chain around her neck. On her way to being a wizard for real. I know that must make her so proud. She¡¯s¡­ Oh. He¡¯d forgotten. There was a thought he¡¯d been avoiding every time he watched Kibby¡¯s videos. Not¡­not a terrible one. Definitely not an urgent one. But here it was, jabbing at him with those unnaturally sharpened edges. She¡¯s going to want to be a knight. ¡°That¡¯s more than a decade in the future,¡± he said loudly and quickly, trying to kill it. ¡°She¡¯ll live a whole new life before then. She might take one look at all the plants and animals on Artona I and decide she wants to be a biologist.¡± She might like her authority sense so much that the idea of doing that to herself sounds like insanity. Joe told her nobody wanted to be a knight when they actually grew up. Joe doesn¡¯t understand her at all. Or maybe he¡¯d understood a different Kibby. One whose family hadn¡¯t died in such a hideous way while she watched. She¡¯ll want to do it. And they¡¯ll probably let her. He didn¡¯t know how the Artonans figured out the knight candidate thing. Obviously the Rapports had some private schooling going on, at least for the children of current knights. But they must have had some way to welcome in other wizards. Most likely with open arms. He could be completely off-base, but he really doubted there were masses of qualified volunteers being turned away. Maybe she sucks at magic too much to be a knight. Unlikely. After all, affixations were practically the cure for sucking at magic. Aliens sucking at magic and Artonans giving them a way to do it easy-peasy was the cornerstone of the whole Avowed/wizard relationship. Even if there¡¯s some elitist rule about who can be a knight that I don¡¯t know about¡­Alis-art¡¯h will just smash right through it for Kibby if she decides to. And Alden was sure she would decide to. How could you spend months living with Kibby and not think she was the absolute best? I don¡¯t want it for her. I want her to do magic and be happy. I want her to go to some posh school like LeafSong and show up every last one of those wizard-raised prodigies. I want her to get her own lab one day, and I want it to be twice as big as Joe¡¯s, and I want her to have so many friends and fun hobbies that she can¡¯t figure out how to balance them with her deeply fulfilling work as the universe¡¯s greatest scientist. I don¡¯t want her to fix chaos outbreaks. I don¡¯t want her to face whatever ¡°the really bad kind¡± of demons actually are. I don¡¯t want her to know what the affixation feels like. Alden knew you couldn¡¯t make another person¡¯s major life choices for them. Kibby was smart. She¡¯d get smarter. She¡¯d know so much more by the time she had to make her decision. And she deserved to become whoever she wanted to be. But knowing didn¡¯t change how he felt. And what he felt was an anxiety that was rapidly ratcheting up toward panic. And with the panic came a flood of his other greatest fear hits. It¡¯s only six months before I¡¯ll start getting summoned again. Something awful could happen to me. If I don¡¯t get stronger I could be in danger. If I do get stronger I¡¯ll have to affix sooner. I¡¯ll have to feel that sooner. Idon¡¯twanttogothroughthatagain.Ican¡¯t. Fantastic, he thought, holding the sides of the fancy heated lounge chair so tightly his hands ached. So this is what the bad half of Peace of Mind is like for me these days. What a treat. He forced himself to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. What if this doesn¡¯t ever get better, and I¡¯m fucked up forever? That thought set off a whole new string of imagined horrors. The only good thing about them was that they were much less realistic and logical than the others, so he could distance himself from his own crazy a little more. It culminated with a fear that someone would walk into his relaxation room here, see the state he was in, and they would stuff him into Avowed jail. Because that was obviously what the authorities did to upset teenagers.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! By the time the three hours was up, Alden was exhausted with himself. Fortunately, he was also too tired to keep going without the little extra oomph from the chain driving him. He could tell it was over when he had his first positive thought in a while that wasn¡¯t immediately followed by a panic spike. Boe¡¯s all right. I¡¯m all right. Jeremy and Connie are fine. Kibby¡¯s with good people, and she¡¯s happy. Finally, they were all accounted for. ******** Alden was still less emotionally solid than he would have liked to be when he made it back to the dorms, but Boe had texted to say his shields were fully up. It should be fine. It was night, and the halls in The Warren were full of people decorating their doors for a spookiest apartment contest. He stopped to compliment the guys in 912. None of them were from countries where Halloween was widely celebrated, but they¡¯d really gotten into the spirit of things and gotten hold of paint that Alden hoped was temporary. There were dark red stains on the floor that made it look like someone had dragged a body down the hall to their apartment. When he stepped into his own place, the first thing that hit him was the sound of the pinball machine. He shut the door quickly. Boe was leaning over the game, and behind a new pair of brown tortoise-shell frames, his eyes were fixed and focused. ¡°You¡¯d better not be beating my high score.¡± ¡°I was going to,¡± Boe said without looking at him. ¡°Because I thought it would be funny if you came back, and I had put the cat¡¯s name in place of yours. But it¡¯s not happening for me. Why are you so good at this?¡± ¡°I have hidden depths.¡± Alden walked over to him. ¡°Pumpkin fro-yo? It¡¯s the seasonal special at the gym.¡± Boe abandoned the game and blinked at the cone of dark orange soft-serve. ¡°Did you just pull ice cream out of the pocket of your pants?¡± ¡°Yogurt. They¡¯re brand new pants. I had to buy all new workout clothes because I fled the apartment without thinking hard enough earlier.¡± Boe took it from him and bit into it. ¡°Please note that the curl on top was perfect. Before you ate it just now.¡± ¡°Are you seriously fishing for superpower compliments?¡± Boe grinned. ¡°It¡¯s cool.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t strain yourself.¡± ¡°It¡¯s very cool.¡± Boe examined him. ¡°What kind of training are you doing at the gym? You look worn out.¡± ¡°Obstacle course running today.¡± ¡°Fun?¡± ¡°Actually yes. How¡¯s your empathy?¡± Boe¡¯s face scrunched. ¡°That sounds so wrong. I guess people knowing you¡¯re an empath means they ask things like that, though? It¡¯s safely muffled. You¡¯re free to hate me freely if you want to.¡± He said it jokingly, but Alden wondered¡­ ¡°I¡¯m still not mad that you read my emotions earlier. And I¡¯m not upset anymore that you didn¡¯t tell me about being an Avowed.¡± ¡°Technically I¡¯m not,¡± said Boe. ¡°Not what?¡± ¡°Avowed. I didn¡¯t agree to the Contract. Yet. I still can anytime. The System throws it in front of my eyeballs every morning exactly two minutes after I wake up. You have to give it credit for determination. But you can¡¯t be Avowed if you never make a vow, right?¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°Sorry. I¡¯m being pedantic. I know most people call Contract refusers Avowed anyway.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t thinking that. I was just realizing that automatically affixing means you didn¡¯t have a chance to say yes or no to start with at all.¡± Boe took another bite of his yogurt. ¡°Correct. So it keeps offering. In case I want to sign up and get with the program.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t discourage me from agreeing,¡± Alden said slowly. ¡°I seriously wish I had. So fucking much. A refuser wouldn¡¯t have gotten that job.¡± Alden let the obvious question hang between them. ¡°I thought Gorgon might have intended for you to be summoned more,¡± Boe said, ¡°to develop the skill somehow. Since he picked Rabbit. And I thought it would be okay for you. No, not even that¡­I thought you would probably like the occasional trip to the Triplanets. You¡¯ve always thought aliens were interesting. And I assumed that no matter what your skill was, even the worst Rabbit assignments wouldn¡¯t be bad.¡± Fair enough, I guess. I thought that, too. ¡°I promise I would have told you if I had some secret knowledge about it being the wrong choice. I would agree to the Contract myself if I had better powers for it. A high-paying job once in a while would really help me out. I was a little envious that you could go the usual route.¡± Oh. ¡°You¡¯re a refuser because you don¡¯t want to be asked to use your skills. At all.¡± ¡°Skill Number 2,¡± said Boe. ¡°Specifically.¡± ¡°The forcing and magnifying emotions one.¡± Boe nodded. ¡°It can be dangerous. For the people I use it on and for me. Even if they asked me to do something pleasant with it, there are problems. By not signing, I have to accept some inconveniences, but it means I¡¯ll most likely never be called unless there¡¯s some specific emergency.¡± ¡°What kind of problems do you¡ª?¡± Boe turned back to the machine. ¡°So. Pinball. Show me your trick.¡± It does sound nasty. Being forced by the Contract to force someone else to feel a certain way. If it was helping someone calm themselves down after a nightmare, great. If it was terrorizing a prisoner while they were being interrogated or something similar¡­yeah, I wouldn¡¯t want to roll the dice on that either. He let Boe change the subject and went to stand in front of the machine. ¡°Behold my trick,¡± he said, as a new game started up. Boe watched him. After a couple of minutes, he asked, ¡°Did you get a lot more points in Speed?¡± ¡°Just a little. And Dexterity. But I asked the Artona I System to pay special attention to my hands.¡± Boe was quiet while he finished the yogurt. The pinball machine spat out two more balls. ¡°I give up. I can¡¯t think of any reason for you to do that,¡± he said. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t say that if you saw how fast I can type now.¡± ¡°I know you must have a real reason. Is there some hand weapon you found that you liked?¡± When Alden didn¡¯t answer, Boe said, ¡°Or we can talk about other stuff. I made it through all of your messages. Some of your insults were creative. And you¡¯ve thrown yourself into Avowed life with ludicrous energy for someone who should be in rest and recover mode. That¡¯s kind of concerning. But how¡¯d the first day of school go?¡± ¡°Surprisingly okay. The academic part is more normal than I thought it would be. There¡¯s a hero track class called Engaging with the Unexpected that¡¯s¡­well, it¡¯s not boring for sure. And I met Lute Velra in Artonan Conversation.¡± ¡°Short mopey harpist from Hannah¡¯s funeral.¡± ¡°You bothered to remember who he was? I probably only mentioned him once.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a good listener,¡± said Boe. ¡°And it was an S-rank Velra. At the time, I was planning to follow up and see if he really did lose fingers. I thought it might be hitherto unknown proof that Chainers could guess exactly what consequences they were getting from something like a luck wordchain.¡± ¡°He might¡¯ve lost an eye instead. I don¡¯t know what that¡¯ll do for your theory.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Boe looked intrigued. ¡°Might¡¯ve.¡± ¡°You couldn¡¯t tell?¡± ¡°He was wearing an eye patch.¡± ¡°Well, that doesn¡¯t mean he lost it. There are all kinds of reasons to wear one.¡± ¡°He said he lost it.¡± Boe¡¯s brow furrowed. ¡°Then why is there doubt?¡± ¡°I think he could have been screwing with me. Actually, he definitely was. He made me teach him the word <> to describe eyeballs popping? Do they even do that?¡± Alden shivered. ¡°Anyway¡­I think he really lost the eye. And his sense of humor about it is pitch black. But he was having so much fun saying disturbing things that I¡¯m not completely sure.¡± ¡°I feel like I need to meet this person.¡± Alden snorted. ¡°Can I ask¡­?¡± Boe trailed off, and Alden braced himself. So much had happened to him he didn¡¯t have any idea what the question was going to be. ¡°What should I ask about?¡± Boe said finally. ¡°What¡¯s the critical, need-to-know information about Alden Thorn now that he¡¯s back home?¡± ¡°That¡¯s hard.¡± He wanted to tell Boe things. More than other people. But also, there was something bothering him a little. ¡°Can I ask you something first?¡± He didn¡¯t wait for him to answer. ¡°I promise I won¡¯t freak out. Or get mad at you¡ª¡± ¡°I think I know what you¡¯re going to ask.¡± ¡°Whatever the answer is, I¡¯ll be fine with it. But if you don¡¯t tell me either way, I¡¯m going to keep wondering. Have you ever used it on me? The skill that alters feelings?¡± Alden regretted the question almost as soon as it was out of his mouth. Boe¡¯s expression was blank. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Alden said quickly. He let go of the flipper buttons, and the pinball game ended with depressed digital moan. ¡°Please forget I said that. Now that I¡¯ve done it, it sounds wrong. It¡¯s like asking any other person if they secretly hurt people just because they can.¡± ¡°It is like that.¡± ¡°I know. Shit. Boe, I didn¡¯t mean to¡ª¡± ¡°But it¡¯s not exactly the same. You wouldn¡¯t have asked if I was ¡®any other person.¡¯ You don¡¯t go around asking every Sway on the island if they¡¯ve stuck their fingers in your brain, do you?¡± He sighed. ¡°I¡¯m your best friend. And¡­I kept information from you. About something major. It¡¯s fine. No, I¡¯ve never magically screwed with your emotions on purpose. There have been mishaps, when my own mood was so out of control that I activated part of the skill without thinking about it. But I always reined it back in as soon as I realized.¡± ¡°That¡¯s understandable,¡± Alden said quietly. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for asking.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°I feel bad.¡± Boe¡¯s smile twisted. ¡°Don¡¯t feel too bad. I¡¯m definitely not a saint. I actually¡­I ought to tell you something, and the System doesn¡¯t want me to.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t piss it off for my sake.¡± ¡°It¡¯s pretty important.¡± ¡°Is me not knowing going to kill either one of us?¡± ¡°No.¡± Boe frowned at him. ¡°But¡­Alden, that¡¯s an extreme tolerance level for someone else¡¯s secrets negatively affecting you. Too extreme.¡± ¡°Fine. Is me not knowing going to seriously hurt anyone?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so. The thing I want to tell you about already happened. It¡¯s done.¡± Alden considered that. Then he considered Boe. His friend didn¡¯t have a lot of tells, but there was a tightness around his eyes. ¡°You did something you feel guilty about. Or something bad happened to you. Or you know something about the System, powers, or me that I don¡¯t. And you think not telling me about it now, after everything that¡¯s happened and after coming clean about other things, might be like¡­a betrayal?¡± When Boe didn¡¯t answer, Alden asked, ¡°Am I close?¡± Boe licked melted yogurt off of his thumb. ¡°Yeah. You covered it with that,¡± he said in a tone of forced casualness. ¡° ¡®kay. Then don¡¯t worry about it. Do what you need to do to keep the System happy.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bother it until it gives me a way to tell you.¡± Alden squinted at him. ¡°Isn¡¯t that the opposite of what I just said?¡± ¡°Not exactly. Hey, don¡¯t roll your eyes at me! I¡¯m trying to think of ways to get a magical entity to let me open myself up to someone even more. Do you know how not me that is? Ever since I jumped out of catspace this afternoon, the world¡¯s been nuts. I¡¯m in the wrong hemisphere. You¡¯re alive. I spent the afternoon surrounded by teenagers who are even more emotionally haywire than normal teenagers, and that¡¯s saying something.¡± ¡°You could feel the neighbors?¡± ¡°That¡¯s what you focus on?¡± ¡°That and ¡®catspace.¡¯¡± Boe rolled his own eyes. ¡°My range is good. Even when I¡¯m not actively trying. I can pick up about two apartments¡¯ worth of people in every direction. Fortunately most of them were gone for the day until just a couple of hours ago, so I didn¡¯t have to endure the madness for long.¡± ¡°That bad?¡± ¡°¡­there¡¯s a lot of longing going on around here.¡± ¡°Longing?¡± ¡°I think it¡¯s a mix of lust and homesickness. It¡¯s an uncomfortable combo. And there¡¯s so much of both.¡± Alden held laughter back with an iron grip. ¡°You think it¡¯s funny?¡± Boe said dryly. ¡°Don¡¯t read me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m reading your face.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t read my face.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°Anyway, about the secret. Don¡¯t worry so much. If you can¡¯t say something because of magic bullshit, you can¡¯t say it. For example¡ª¡± ¡°Just whip off your shirt in the middle of a conversation why don¡¯t yo¡ªholy shit! You¡¯re tatted now?!¡± Alden dropped the shirt on top of the pinball machine. ¡°It¡¯s so depressing that everyone is going to notice that before anything else. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve turned vain exactly, but do you know what I had to go through to get my body fat redistributed by a god-tier healer? Do you know how much gym time I¡¯m getting?¡± ¡°Did it hurt?¡± Boe was leaning in to examine the contract tattoo. Alden lifted his arm to show off the triangle of absolute secrecy better. ¡°No. It¡¯s basically painted on. The Artonans like to get high as kites when they do it, too. I skipped that part.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t picture Instructor Pa-weeq high. She¡¯s so straitlaced.¡± ¡°She could be a completely different person outside of class. She probably gets drunk at parties on the weekends and deliberately throws food on the floor.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the contract for?¡± Boe asked. ¡°I can¡¯t tell you.¡± ¡°Oh. I see. That¡¯s the point you¡¯re making about magic bullshit.¡± He tilted his head. ¡°After catching up on all your messages, I¡¯ve got the gist of what happened to you on Moon Thegund. It sounds like it was...did you have to agree to go to that place? Did someone make you do a side quest?¡± ¡°No. I chose to do it,¡± said Alden. ¡°What was the assignment?¡± ¡°Berry picking.¡± ¡°Berry picking?¡± ¡°It¡¯s very Rabbit, right? Marleck berries grow there. Or they used to. I assume they¡¯re just as dead or mutated as all the other plants now.¡± There was a pause before Boe spoke again. ¡°Did you know it was going to be dangerous?¡± ¡°The danger might have been understated, but...yes. I knew it wasn¡¯t the safest thing to do.¡± Boe''s lips thinned to a line. ¡°Was it worth it?¡± ¡°The berries?¡± ¡°I know we¡¯re not talking about berries!¡± he snapped. ¡°We¡¯re talking about you volunteering to throw yourself at the first random heroic-sounding thing you found! Without caring about whether you were ready for it. Without caring what might happen to you! Or what that would do to the people who were waiting for you to come back home. Like a jackass!¡± ¡°I knew you¡¯d be mad.¡± The edge of the pinball machine was cold against Alden¡¯s back. ¡°It was worth it.¡± ¡°Because of the little girl? The one you¡¯d do it again for?¡± He nodded. Boe looked away from him. After several seconds, he said quietly, ¡°I¡¯m not saying it wasn¡¯t worth it to you in the end. I¡¯m saying in the beginning, when you first made the choice to do it¡ªwhen you decided to go to what was clearly a dangerous place, probably without even knowing for sure if you were helping good people or alien serial killers¡ªwhy didn¡¯t you place a little more value on your own life?¡± ¡°I did get paid well.¡± Boe¡¯s head jerked around. ¡°If I thought you¡¯d actually done it for money, I would be so furious with you, Alden.¡± ¡°The pay was nice. But you''re right. It was mostly me ¡®throwing myself at the first random heroic-sounding thing I found.¡¯¡± He was surprised at the sarcasm in his own voice. He hadn¡¯t meant for it to be there. Boe frowned. It was more of a concerned frown, though. He was opening his mouth¡ªprobably to apologize since he seemed to be in an unusually apologetic mood today¡ªwhen Alden said, ¡°It¡¯s kind of a relief that you think I was a jackass. For doing that.¡± ¡°I¡¯m using ¡®jackass¡¯ extremely liberally, so don¡¯t think I¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid I wouldn¡¯t do it again,¡± Alden said. ¡°That I don''t even want to. For strangers. I already told you, right? In the message. The idea of doing something like that scares me now. It sounds horrifying¡­I¡¯m going to Celena North to get stronger. So that things can¡¯t hurt me anymore. Perfect attitude for a future superhero, right?¡± He tried to smile to lighten things up. But it felt wrong. Boe stared at him for a long time. ¡°You¡¯re¡­are you worried that feeling that way makes you a bad person?¡± ¡°I miss who I was.¡± Maybe that was at the very heart of it. Maybe it was the thing he couldn¡¯t get over. He had been coming to recognize it over the past weeks, but there was nobody to tell. No reason to ever let the words out. Now, in the wake of the afternoon he¡¯d just had, he found he couldn¡¯t hold them back. ¡°I wasn¡¯t done, Boe,¡± he said. ¡°That day when I got summoned from the consulate, I wasn¡¯t ready to stop being the one who shook his head every time you talked Jeremy into a stupid bet. I wasn¡¯t finished riding the L. I was excited to be chosen, and I thought I knew what I wanted, but there wasn¡¯t time for me to calm down and process any of it. I didn¡¯t get to say goodbye to anything. Not Aunt Connie. Not you. Not myself.¡± His eyes burned. Of fucking course I¡¯m going to do this now. I¡¯m still messed up. I should have stayed at the spa. His voice was thick, but his mouth kept moving. ¡°I didn¡¯t know I was about to lose it all. My home, the people who loved me, the dreams I had about who I was going to become¡ªthat was the last time I ever got to have those things all together and so simply. And so that was the last time I was ever going to be that Alden¡­I wasn¡¯t done. But I can¡¯t have it back, can I?¡± Snot was building up in his nose. Why did even the pre-tears stage of crying have to involve so much moisture? ¡°Alden¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine. I am. But I wanted to come back home to me. Only it turns out that I¡¯m not here anymore. And sometimes it¡¯s okay with me that it¡¯s all changed. It really is. Even¡­even though I probably look wretched right now, I¡¯m so happy just to be alive. There are some great things in my life that I didn¡¯t have before. ¡°Kibby¡ªI¡¯m going to make you watch all of her videos. Jeremy did it so you have to. And I can do magic now. Not Avowed magic. Real wizard magic. I can learn all kinds of spells. Nobody knows, and it¡¯ll be a huge mess if they do, so don¡¯t tell. But it¡¯s cool. I think maybe I love it.¡± He missed the startled expression on Boe¡¯s face while he was wiping his eyes. ¡°But even with all the amazing new things, I can¡¯t believe it¡¯s over. My old life being gone doesn¡¯t make sense to me. I promise I knew better. I¡¯m not stupid. But I think I still wanted everything to be the same here when I got home. Just for a little while. Just so I could let it go instead of having it torn away.¡± Orange cloth was thrust toward his face, and he blinked down at the shirt he¡¯d just taken off. He took it from Boe and scrubbed at his eyes with it. ¡°Thanks,¡± he said into the fabric. ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be,¡± Boe said quietly. ¡°Am I fucking with your empathy?¡± ¡°No, I can¡¯t feel anything through the shield.¡± Then, he added in a very awkward voice, ¡°Uh¡­do you¡­if you want me to drop the barrier, I could?¡± Alden let out a choked laugh and lowered the shirt to look at him. ¡°God. No. Why would you do that?¡± Boe shrugged and pushed up his glasses. ¡°I¡¯ve never been openly an empath before. Maybe offering when you¡¯re upset is like¡­the polite thing for me to do?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t want in on my feelings right now. Trust me.¡± ¡°We could cry together in a manly fashion. It would be a bonding experience.¡± ¡°That¡¯s one hell of a bond.¡± ¡°Hey, I told you I was taking my best friend position back from Jeremy.¡± Alden blew his nose. ¡°I know you feel like crap right now,¡± Boe said. ¡°On multiple levels. But, Alden¡­I don¡¯t think you have to worry so much about having lost yourself. You''ve lost a lot. Some of the things you thought about yourself maybe. You can¡¯t get it all back, but at the risk of sounding even creepier than I actually am¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re not creepy.¡± ¡°¡ªI know you very well. When you came into the apartment earlier, and you were talking to the cat, I was feeling everything you were feeling. Do you remember what the first thing out of my mouth was?¡± Alden thought back. ¡°No. I¡¯m pretty sure it was lost in my shock at the fact that it was coming out of your mouth. Right here. Where you¡¯re not supposed to be.¡± ¡°It was, ¡®You¡¯re still the same as always, aren¡¯t you?¡¯¡± said Boe. ¡°I remember because it wasn¡¯t something I was just saying. It¡¯s something I felt during that whole conversation earlier. I know how you think about things. And I know how you feel about them, which is even purer in a way¡­though that might just be me trying to convince myself I¡¯m superior to actual Sways. You¡¯re not as different as you¡¯re afraid of being. You don¡¯t feel like a stranger to me.¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°You feel like you, Alden. You¡¯re just a little older. We both are. And we¡¯ve had a really horrible year.¡± ****** EIGHTY-SIX: One Word 86 Alden slept like a baby. Going to bed physically tired and emotionally drained on the night you¡¯d found out your missing friend was okay turned out to be the perfect recipe for rest. When his alarm woke him early in the morning, he turned it off and hugged his pillow tighter. Bed is amazing. I¡¯m going to sleep until noon. He was on his way to doing it, too, when someone turned on all his lights and yanked his blankets off with a businesslike brusqueness that was almost as cold as the air in his room. ¡°No,¡± Alden moaned, bringing his knees up to his chest. ¡°Why??¡± ¡°Because you have school. You ran out on your first day. You can¡¯t skip your second. Your new teachers will think you¡¯re a flake,¡± said Boe, reaching over to yank the pillow away, too. Alden clung to it. ¡°It¡¯s not real school. The first week was optional. I haven¡¯t even moved into the dorms!¡± ¡°But you showed your face, and they all know you don¡¯t have anything better to do now. So you¡¯ll make yourself look bad. Go to school. Make nice with the other Avowed.¡± Alden tightened his grip on the pillow. ¡°That was the best sleep I¡¯ve gotten since February,¡± he hissed. ¡°You were that relieved to see me, huh?¡± ¡°No! How can an empath be such a heartless monster?¡± Boe rolled his eyes. ¡°Did you really want to sleep all day?¡± ¡°I guess not. But I didn¡¯t plan to go to school either. I planned to stay here with you.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Boe. ¡°But I stayed up all night maintaining my barrier and sorting out my own return to life, so I¡¯m going to sleep all day. And you can go to school. And then we can hang out all afternoon.¡± He ripped the pillow from Alden¡¯s grip. Alden groaned. ¡°You can go late and skip the science lecture you hated,¡± Boe said placatingly, tossing the pillow at the foot of the bed. ¡°It was a giant class, right? Nobody will miss you there. ¡± That wasn¡¯t a bad idea, and¡­Alden checked a blinking message. ¡°Natalie wants to come over to deliver my last few meals.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fine. I¡¯ll just hide out in here. Why are they your last meals?¡± ¡°She¡¯s not going to have time to prep for me as often with her classes. Maybe every now and then, she said.¡± Boe raised both eyebrows at him. ¡°I¡¯m not reading you right now, but you sound mournful.¡± ¡°You tasted her food.¡± ¡°I did.¡± ¡°How am I going to survive without her?¡± ¡°Judging by the number of messages you left me describing various condiments, not too well. Can I borrow more of your clothes?¡± Alden waved at the closet then rolled out of bed. [Come over. I¡¯m running a little late this morning, so if you¡¯re heading up to Apex early again I won¡¯t be able to go with you.] ¡°I texted her,¡± he reported. ¡°Stay out of sight.¡± A couple of minutes later, he received a notification that Natalie was at the door, and he went to open it. ¡°Hey!¡± She glided past him into the kitchen. She was wearing a pleated skirt and a pastel blouse with a pattern of rabbits and radishes on it. Her arms were full of containers, and the smell of vanilla and cinnamon followed her into the apartment. ¡°Don¡¯t be upset with me. I know you¡¯re going easy on the sweets. But I finally got the cinnamon rolls right, and they¡¯re fresh out of the oven, so I just had to bring them over!¡± He shut the door and breathed deeply. ¡°Natalie, I miss you already.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to the same high school.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll starve without you.¡± Natalie giggled as she set everything on the counter. She opened the fridge. ¡°The campus has so many options! You¡¯ll find something. How was your first day? Are the teachers nice? What about the other students?¡± They chatted briefly, and the cinnamon rolls made an appearance. She¡¯d even managed to make something that tasted so much like real cream cheese frosting that Alden was going to need to find a way to send one of these things to Gorgon. ¡°I know you said you were running late, so don¡¯t mind me,¡± Natalie chirped. ¡°I¡¯m just going to have my coffee in your living room with Victor. There¡¯s my precious boy! Who¡¯s a good kitty?¡± Victor was rubbing his head against Natalie¡¯s ankles. Alden swallowed an enormous mouthful of sticky, sweet roll. ¡°Um¡­yeah. That¡¯s all right.¡± He glanced past her at the door to his room. It was opened a crack. He definitely hadn¡¯t left it that way. ¡°I¡¯m going to go change out of my pajamas. Be right back.¡± The second he entered his room, he was met with Boe sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed, polishing his glasses on the hem of his shirt. He put them on his face, and gave Alden a double thumbs up. ¡°What were you doing poking your head out?¡± Alden whispered. ¡°What if she¡¯d seen you?¡± Boe grinned. [There are certain things a person has to experience for himself.] Right. We can text. [What¡¯s that supposed to mean?] [You can¡¯t just casually mention in one message that your personal chef put all her freely selectable S-rank points in Appeal and then never describe what she looks like at all. What kind of a friend does that?] [You risked prison to see how pretty she was???] [Yeah. And it was very worth it.] ¡°No it¡¯s not,¡± Alden mouthed at him. [She¡¯s a masterpiece. The System has outdone itself. And I barely caught a glimpse of her face. Are her eyes gold, or am I imagining it?] Alden had spent some time pondering the eye color since it was Natalie¡¯s most impossible-looking feature. [I think they¡¯re as gold as they can be without falling over the edge of fascinating into the uncanny valley.] [She must have been stunning to start with. I don¡¯t think even S-rank Rabbits get enough free points on their first affixation to do that well. Did she choose some trait that boosts her appearance on top of it?] [I¡¯m not going to ask her that. Just sit here quietly. I¡¯ve been letting her and the other girls from her apartment hang out when they want. I couldn¡¯t think of how to tell her no without it being unusual. She probably won¡¯t be long. I¡¯ll throw up the Do Not Disturb as soon as she¡¯s gone so they can¡¯t get in for the rest of the day.] [It¡¯s fine if she stays. I¡¯m jealous of Victor. Listen to all the nice things she¡¯s saying to him. Even her voice is worth it.] Alden rolled his eyes. ******** ¡°Okay, three things,¡± Boe said a short while later. He was in the fridge, opening all the containers Natalie had brought and sniffing them. Alden was boxing up a cinnamon bun and trying to figure out the best way to get it to the Chicago consulate. ¡°Number one¡ª Alden, you¡¯re friends with a teenage supermodel! Strong emphasis on the super. And she cooks. And she¡¯s sweet. I did not see your life going this way.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to have some cereal delivered to the apartment so that you don¡¯t eat all of my magic meals.¡± ¡°Cereal?¡± ¡°You like cereal.¡± Boe inhaled deeply over a container full of soup. ¡°I do. But you¡¯re really asking a lot of highly processed breakfast food if you think it¡¯s going to beat this.¡± ¡°Cereal and whatever else you want.¡± ¡°Sandwich-making supplies will be fine. Number two¡ªand I¡¯m not joking around with this one¡ªyou know you¡¯ll be in huge trouble if anyone finds out you¡¯re harboring an unregistered, don¡¯t you? At the very least, you would get expelled from your new school.¡± Alden turned to him. ¡°Don¡¯t get caught.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t plan to. If anyone who isn¡¯t you comes through the door, I¡¯m catspacing myself. But you need to seriously consider how risky this is. Do you want me to go ahead and leave?¡± ¡°No.Also, how would you leave?¡± ¡°Again. Catspace. I disappear; you send Victor to Jeremy. My time sense isn¡¯t good there, but if I try to do it fast I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be in and out within a week or so.¡± ¡°Or six years later. Or never. That skill sounds dangerous, Boe.¡± ¡°I think the riskiest thing about it is the chance that I end up appearing without my clothes in front of Jeremy¡¯s sister. Sarah would beat me to death with a wind instrument before she stopped to realize who I was.¡± ¡°It might not be Sarah. It might be his new girlfriend. She carries a tennis racket.¡± ¡°Oh we need to talk about him and Kimberly Martinez at some point. He¡¯s dating an older woman. And he didn¡¯t even have to work for it! She asked him out at lunchtime in front of a hundred people. When he was wearing the wiener dog shirt.¡± ¡°The dachsund-frolicking-with-a-ketchup-bottle shirt?¡± Boe nodded. ¡°That¡¯s the one.¡± ¡°His taste in clothes¡­¡± Alden trailed off. Then he looked over at Boe¡¯s taxi driver, who was lying in the spot on the sofa Natalie had just vacated. ¡°I don¡¯t want to jinx Victor, but has it occurred to you that he¡¯s a pretty old cat?¡± ¡°You¡¯re age shaming him as well as fat shaming him now?¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. ¡°I¡¯m being serious like you asked,¡± Alden said. ¡°You be serious, too. What happens to you if the creature you¡¯ve attached yourself to dies? Do you know?¡± Boe was quiet. ¡°Oh my g¡­you don¡¯t know, do you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± he admitted. ¡°I like to think there would be some kind of emergency eject, but it¡¯s not something I can test.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re mad at me for being reckless?¡± ¡°Mine was a last resort,¡± said Boe. ¡°To keep me from going insane. Or doing something I would regret until the end of time. Yours was some kind of ¡®Alden feels like he has to throw himself at danger because¡¯¡ªno. It¡¯s over. Never mind. About the cat¡­you have to admit that if I¡¯m just planning to be gone for a week or two, the likelihood of the cat dying right then isn¡¯t that high.¡± Alden tossed the cat a diet treat from a jar on the counter. ¡°You¡¯re awesome, Victor. I hope you have nine lives and live to be twenty in every one of them. But, Boe, if you have to use your escape plan, shouldn¡¯t you attach yourself to something sturdier? One of those tortoises that wander around gardens eating lettuce for two hundred years. Or a young human being.¡± ¡°You volunteering?¡± Boe asked in a dry voice. Alden stared at him. ¡°Yes. Of course. If you ever need to.¡± Boe blinked. ¡°Oh¡­thank you? I¡¯ve never tried the skill on a person though. Like I said, I haven¡¯t had many opportunities to practice it. And since I don¡¯t know exactly when I¡¯m coming back, a house pet is actually better than a human in some ways. If I used you as my attachment point, you¡¯d have to confine yourself to a private location until I reappeared. Victor¡¯s usually chilling out in a semi-private location anyway, so he doesn¡¯t have to inconvenience himself for me.¡± Victor¡¯s a cat, thought Alden. What if he¡¯s chilling out in a garbage can? Or on top of a roof? Or under a parked car? Alden knew his concern must show on his face, but his friend ignored it. ¡°Number three,¡± Boe said. ¡°You should pretend to call me from a public location today. And we should talk. Just like we would if you¡¯d heard from me for the first time yesterday, but we hadn¡¯t seen each other.¡± ¡°You want a fake phone call?¡± ¡°Anesidora is so incredibly not private, Alden. The Informant¡ª¡± ¡°Oh, I met his son! He tried to sell me experimental Wright equipment. He knew all kinds of things about me. Not deeply secret stuff, but it was still unsettling.¡± ¡°The Informant is the biggest example. But at least the guy has a reputation for never openly violating the rules about private spaces. You¡¯ve got to take into account everyone else who can get intel on you. Superpowers make it really easy to spy on people. Sways, audials, people with legal and illegal listening gear. And there are probably a hundred spell impressions that will let people pry without anyone ever knowing.¡± ¡°I realize that. I can¡¯t decide if it¡¯s something I have to be constantly worried about or not.¡± ¡°You have to be constantly worried about it with regard to certain subjects,¡± Boe said seriously. ¡°For example, me. Unlike the rest of the world, Anesidora is fairly forgiving about unregistered Avowed. They¡¯ll treat us like we¡¯re one hundred percent legit as long as we willingly show up before we¡¯re twenty. And even if you¡¯re older or you get caught and dragged here against your will, if you haven¡¯t ever committed a crime other than refusing to register, they just give you a probationary period for a couple of years. During it you have to agree to have all of your talent uses logged. Then you¡¯re a citizen just like everyone else and free to move on with your life.¡± ¡°Having every power use logged sounds terrible,¡± said Alden. ¡°Not compared to prison. And depending on how the legal system is feeling, that¡¯s where I might end up instead of in the Welcome Aboard program if I get caught here in this particular situation. Technically I used my powers to break onto the island¡­which there can¡¯t be a lot of examples of on the books. But I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll take a dim view of it since I¡¯m Swayish.¡± ¡°I would tell them it wasn¡¯t your fault.¡± ¡°And then they would point out that if it was an accident, I should have just gone to announce myself the second I arrived.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t disagree with that. ¡°So. Fake phone call. Yes. Let¡¯s do it.¡± ¡°Thank you. We¡¯re actually lucky I popped up while you were still in intake. In Rabbity intake, too. We¡¯re as far from Apex as we can get. Your neighbors don¡¯t have spy powers. The rooms are all sound-proofed. We can be pretty sure they¡¯re not bugged since you newcomers are well guarded, and nobody would risk it just to eavesdrop on random kids constantly moving in and out of the place. And the Sways are in an entirely different building here.¡± ¡°I''m supposed to move into the CNH dorms at the end of the week.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not going to suddenly decide to register between now and Saturday, are you?¡± Alden asked. He kept his voice casual. Boe fiddled with one of the magnets that held the weekly activities schedule to the fridge. ¡°You wish I would.¡± "Of course I do,¡± Alden answered. ¡°But I don¡¯t expect you to. I swear. A lot of people treat Sways like shit here. U-types tend to be admired, and some people are jealous of them, I think? Because of the rank-up potential and the one-of-a-kind powers. I¡¯m just starting to get a handle on it all. But I know you wouldn¡¯t enjoy being treated like shit or like an extra-special mystery. You should stay at home and be normal. It would make me happy for you if that was what you wanted and you got to have it.¡± ¡°I¡¯d fucking love to be normal.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°But I¡¯m not,¡± said Boe. ¡°And you¡¯re not. I was agonizing over it a lot while you were at LeafSong. You weren¡¯t supposed to get selected, you dick. It messed up all my future pretending-to-be-normal plans.¡± ¡°Sorry about that.¡± ¡°What are the chances? I used to think you were going to be chosen. When we were kids. Because you said you really wanted to be a superhero, and I thought¡­well, I was eleven. I had some specific, crazy ideas about how the System chose Avowed. But I grew out of it.¡± ¡°I promise your crazy ideas aren¡¯t as crazy as my current theories,¡± Alden muttered. ¡°Really? I¡¯d love to hear whatever you¡¯ve come up with. But what I need to tell you now is¡­I don¡¯t think I can.¡± ¡°Register?¡± Boe shook his head. Alden swallowed. He¡¯d known Boe probably felt that way. If he¡¯d wanted to live on Anesidora, he¡¯d already be living here. But there had still been a flicker of hope inside him. ¡°Since you¡¯re here now¡­maybe one day,¡± Boe said. ¡°But I¡¯ve got some things I have to take care of first. If I even can. And, honestly I need to think. I didn¡¯t do a lot of thinking while you were away.¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°Well, I did, but my thoughts were the kind of thoughts that made me sure I needed to magically evacuate from humanity, so¡­¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Alden hopped up to sit on the counter. ¡°Those kinds of thoughts get erased when your reality changes, right?¡± Boe put the magnet back on the fridge. ¡°I hope so.¡± ¡°For example, I had thoughts about hiring other Avowed to carry me around in a palanquin when I got home. And they were going to force-feed me racks of ribs.¡± ¡°Why did you abandon that plan? I¡¯m in favor of it.¡± ¡°I suppose it could always return if I have a few too many bad days in a row.¡± Boe¡¯s smile faded. ¡°Mine weren¡¯t nearly that fun.¡± ¡°Mine weren¡¯t really either. Do you know¡­well, you can¡¯t know. But it almost didn¡¯t happen. Me getting stuck on Moon Thegund. I had to go to the party¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s been so long since I thought of you at that party. You were so unhappy about it, but Jeremy and I were having a lot of fun imagining you there. Please tell me you¡¯ve got pictures of your costume somewhere.¡± ¡°Not a single one,¡± said Alden. ¡°But that party kept me from picking berries that night. And if it hadn¡¯t, I would have been able to¡­¡± Save Kibby and her sister. The next night, I would have saved her father and the scientist in the green coat. The only reason I didn¡¯t teleport in time was because Kibby was scared of leaving. We delayed so her dad could make her feel better. The delay would have come a night earlier if not for the party. It would have come on a night when nothing went wrong. On the day the System broke, I would have left a few minutes sooner. Three more people would have lived. Kibby would have her family. He wanted to say it all. But it was too much detail about his real assignment from Joe for the contract to abide. The words wouldn¡¯t come out of his mouth. He cleared his throat. ¡°I would have picked the berries faster,¡± he said. ¡°If not for that party, I would have come back home when I was supposed to. I know nobody hurt me on purpose, but things happened that wouldn¡¯t have happened if others had just been semi-okay people instead of flaming-dumpster people. And sometimes, when I was puking up food because I¡¯d guessed wrong about it being safe for humans to eat or I was watching one of the lab lights flicker out for the last time and feeling like it was a metaphor for what was happening to me and Kibby¡­I wanted some punishment. For the dumpster people.¡± ¡°Just hearing about it makes me want to punish the dumpster people, and I wasn¡¯t even there.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mean justice, Boe,¡± said Alden. ¡°I mean punishment. If someone had sent me a space pigeon message while I was in one of those moods, and it said that Manon and the executives who owned the lab had gotten lost on Sreeeakk and were being hunted by the locals, I¡¯m afraid I might have smiled.¡± He didn¡¯t feel that way anymore. The anger was there but it was a dull ember of what it had been. It was hard to maintain a hot rage when the corporation was completely beyond the scope of his knowledge or reach and Manon was involved only because of a series of manipulations she couldn¡¯t have known would lead to the disaster. I wish the boater would quit sailing through my mind at the worst moments. Even if I go through with the "email everyone" plan, am I still going to feel like I haven¡¯t done enough? Manon is the¡ª ¡°To hell with the dumpster people!¡± Boe had just taken a mug from a cabinet. He raised it in salute. ¡°May the grivecks enjoy their feast.¡± It was so great to have Boe around. ¡°Don¡¯t you need to go to school?¡± ¡°I was just thinking you were good company, and you come out with that.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a legal voter and everything now. You have to be responsible.¡± ¡°No. Let¡¯s play video games all day.¡± ¡°How are you going to fake being normal and give me my fake phone call if you stay here instead of going to school?¡± Alden groaned. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m not playing video games with a person who had his hands magically speeded up. Unless they¡¯re puzzle games. Or games where we use foot controllers.¡± ¡°Buzzkill.¡± He checked the time. ¡°But if I¡¯m going, I really do need to leave¡­ten minutes ago. I¡¯m going to have to run to make it to class.¡± He slid off the counter and grabbed his bag. ¡°I¡¯ll leave you the laptop. I¡¯ll take the tablet. It¡¯s unintuitive if you haven¡¯t used Artonan tech before.¡± Boe was leaning toward the coffee machine, studying all the buttons. Just as Alden was about to head out, he said, ¡°The hand speed¡ªyou did it for spell casting, right?¡± Alden stopped and his eyes widened. ¡°I completely forgot I blurted that out last night.¡± ¡°Oh, I definitely didn¡¯t forget.¡± Boe pulled on a lever, and the coffee machine started grinding beans. ¡°You¡¯re a wizard now?¡± ¡°I mostly just know kindergarten-level spells.¡± ¡°But you do know spells. As in multiple ones. That the System didn¡¯t give you.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Boe turned to smile at him. ¡°Alden, you¡¯re a wizard?¡± Alden adjusted his bag. ¡°Humans can¡¯t cast just like Artonans. Their spells are designed for them. I¡¯m anatomically incapable of lots of them. But for hand casting at least¡­one day, I¡¯m going to be a wizard.¡± It felt simultaneously embarrassing and awesome to say it. ¡°Oh my god,¡± said Boe, grinning more now. ¡°That¡¯s so freaking cool.¡± ¡°It is.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know why you¡¯re turning red. It¡¯s literally so cool I can¡¯t even think of a way to make fun of you that doesn¡¯t just make you sound more awesome. You mage geek. You didn¡¯t get to be an Adjuster like you wanted, and the Rabbit spells made you mad, and so you just¡­became a wizard instead?¡± ¡°It wasn¡¯t that intentional.¡± ¡°Who cares?! I didn¡¯t know humans could even do that!¡± Boe stared at him. ¡°Do the Artonans know humans can do that?¡± ¡°They¡¯re aware it¡¯s a possibility, but I think it¡¯s such a distant one that they don¡¯t take it seriously. Humans aren¡¯t naturally suited to it. A lot of different complicated things had to come together for me to get there. And the Artonans definitely don¡¯t know that I¡¯ve actually managed it. I¡¯m keeping it a secret from them, too. ¡± ¡°This is terrible,¡± said Boe, shaking his head. ¡°You just keep sounding more ballsy and badass with every word that comes out of your mouth. I¡¯m going to have to diss your rank more until I feel better. Shitty B-rank.¡± ¡°Shitty B-rank wizard,¡± Alden countered. Boe winced. ¡°Oh great.¡± Alden nodded. One word really could hold a lot of power. * EIGHTY-SEVEN: Incautious Caring 87 Boe Lupescu sat on the floor in a bedroom on Anesidora, staring out the window toward the ocean. Through his interface there was a live feed of his apartment in Chicago, provided by the hidden nanny cams he¡¯d installed. The images alternated between living room and kitchen. His parents weren¡¯t there right now. It was a good sign at this time of day. They didn¡¯t have friends or hobbies, so they could only be at their latest jobs. Neither of them had gotten fired or just stopped going in. It¡¯s either a miracle or¡­ In the kitchen, dirty dishes filled the sink and the breakfast table, and a jug of milk had been left out to spoil on the stove. But it was only a few days worth of dishes. Only one milk jug. The woman Boe had paid in cash to keep the place above the biohazard level while he was away was supposed to come once a week. She was obviously doing it, or it would be worse. The smoke alarm was lying on the counter. It must have started beeping and bothered them. I should have checked the batteries. He swiped the scene away and looked out at the Pacific. It was a cloudless day, and the small dark waves stretched on and on. A helicopter was visible in the distance. I¡¯m not supposed to be here. There were things he did not deserve that he allowed himself to have anyway. Anesidora wasn¡¯t one of them. I can¡¯t be here. If I¡¯m not a ticking bomb anymore, I have to go back home. He selfishly wished that someone would come and arrest him. If it happened in the right way, if he wasn¡¯t accused of anything too serious, it would be such a relief. To have what he wanted anyway forced on him, through no fault of his own. He would feel guilty, but he¡¯d be able to justify it to himself eventually. He¡¯d definitely be outlawed from returning home. And with summonses being extremely unlikely, he would just live here. He would start over. Alden worried about people hating Boe for his powers, but he didn¡¯t care so muchabout that himself. It would be unenjoyable, but he would endure it for a while. Until he¡¯d made enough money to buy a shitty boat. And then he¡¯d live on his shitty boat, just far enough offshore that he only had himself to deal with. He¡¯d attend college online. He¡¯d get way too many degrees, enjoy the amenities on the island whenever he wanted, help Alden figure out¡­ I think he has a lot more to figure out than he used to. ¡°Hey. What did you do to my friend?¡± he whispered to the System. The System didn''t answer because the answer didn¡¯t benefit it. Or it was forbidden. That storm of emotion yesterday¡ªnot the second one that Boe had only witnessed instead of experiencing himself. The first one. The strange, sudden one right after they¡¯d been reunited. So strong it broke through Peace of Mind and the relief and happiness Alden had been feeling. It wasn¡¯t panic. Panic was shallower. Dread. What was that? More importantly why was it? Boe had thought back over the whole conversation so many times in the night. The dread had come when he mentioned the fact that the System offered U-types additional assistance with their affixation. That didn¡¯t make sense. I sparked a barely related memory from the moon situation maybe? Feelings weren¡¯t as easy to follow as he imagined thoughts must be. Someone saw a cute puppy and they felt joy. Someone else saw the same puppy, and they grieved. Maybe for one they¡¯d lost. Or for a dozen other reasons that Boe preferred not to care about. He strictly limited the number of people he cared about. Incautious caring was dangerous. [I made it to class on time. The second and third years are really passionate about this domestic violence/terrorist problem. The girl next to me is snapping ink pens in half every time someone argues against rescuing the kids. I hope she brought plenty of spares.] Boe stared at the words in a state close to wonder. Last night, he¡¯d set messages from Alden to come straight through, no notification required. His friend could text him. Because he wasn¡¯t dead. Just this once, the universe had been uncharacteristically generous. [The pen snapper is some kind of Brute. Do you think you could take her in a fight??] He¡¯s lonely. Boe doubted Alden had even realized it yet. He was trying to deal by keeping himself busy. He was so hung up on what he¡¯d lost, and so worryingly agonized about who he was supposed to be now in the aftermath of that loss¡­he had always demanded such impossible things from himself. Loneliness was probably way down on his list of concerns. But it was still there. He hadn¡¯t had time to form any real connections in this place. Casual acquaintances couldn¡¯t replace friends and family overnight, no matter how hard Anesidora tried to make it happen. [I assume you mean a physical fight,] Boe texted back. [Probably not. Punching a hole in Jeremy¡¯s wall was my maximum effort.] [Disappointing.] [I¡¯m more durable than I am strong. System¡¯s choice. Not mine.] A brief pause. [What kind of stats will you choose when you level? You¡¯ll probably level pretty fast if you have to keep that shield up all the time just to be comfortable, right?] Boe closed his eyes. ¡°Give me a way to tell him the whole story without screwing myself over,¡± he muttered. ¡°Or I¡¯m just going to do it anyway and make me and you both unhappy.¡± The System didn¡¯t answer. It hadn¡¯t answered the request no matter how many different ways Boe had asked last night. He was sure there was logic to its behavior, but it was a logic that was beyond human understanding. Most of the time he didn¡¯t mind. Other times, he wanted to smash its non-existent face with a bat. [Yeah. I do use that skill constantly when it¡¯s up,] he texted. [That¡¯s one thing. And the fact that it¡¯s a dynamic skill is another. Working on figuring it out will level me faster.] [Dynamic how?] [Developable. Flexible functions. I¡¯ve been trying to learn how to filter out specific emotions through it instead of using it as a universal block. It¡¯s slow going, but I¡¯m making progress.] [Cool! :)] Boe stared at the smiley. Cool! Smiley face. Good job developing your horror show of a power, Boe. Cool! Smiley face. I¡¯m okay with it. I¡¯m still your friend. I¡¯m not scared of you. He meant it, too. And because he meant it, Boe had to live up to it. He¡¯d really wanted to feel Alden¡¯s emotions a few times last night. To check on him. To make sure he was real and okay. Being an adult about it instead of a needy, sneaky brat was hard. Even now his inner weasel was coming up with ways for it to be all right. For example, if Boe just happened to overuse the barrier now so that he¡¯d be too magically fatigued to help himself when Alden made it back later¡­ He scowled at his own thoughts and dropped the skill. He let Alden¡¯s neighbors buffet him. Some people would probably consider this immoral, too, but Boe personally didn¡¯t. If it was bad, it ought to be more fun. Instead, it was often like having one total stranger sit on your chest whispering terrors in your ear, while another handed you a teddybear and a third shoved twenty different flavors of ice cream down your throat simultaneously even though you were too full to eat them. And while all of that went on you were also all afraid of something environmental, like an earthquake. Or a swarm of wasps. He was familiar with it, but he didn¡¯t think it was possible to be used to it. Right now, someone had just had their feelings hurt. Someone was guilty. Someone was excited. In general, everyone was more relaxed than they had been last night. People tended to have a better handle on themselves in the mornings. So it was a good time for him to have the barrier down. He didn¡¯t know who these other teenagers were. Experience told him that he couldn¡¯t even guess their genders with much more than fifty percent accuracy. He was just with them all, though he didn¡¯t want to be. [Are you going to sleep now? Should I stop texting you?] Alden asked. [No. I¡¯ll sleep when a few more people have cleared out of the building. What¡¯s up?] [Literally a person. An Adjuster just levitated someone to make a point¡­I¡¯m still not sure what the point is, but people are floating now and Instructor Marion seems to think that¡¯s more acceptable than personal insults, so I guess we¡¯re going with it.] Boe smiled. [Send me a picture.] ******** In Conversation IV, they were supposed to be talking about the show with Artonan farmers who¡¯d fought over the doomed mole cricket. This exercise was majorly impeded by the fact that almost nobody in the class had the vocabulary they needed to talk about farms or poaching. And a few people hadn¡¯t bothered to watch the video. The students had complained, but Instructor Rao wouldn¡¯t hear a word against the assignment. So Alden¡¯s ears were being assaulted by sentences that had him on the edge of both laughter and despair. ¡°The worker man number one and the worker man number two love animals a lot.¡± ¡°I love animals a lot like the worker man.¡± ¡°The pretty woman who killed the Trenxop beetle was a murderer.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a story about freedom.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a story about food.¡± ¡°The kill-kill woman was probably starving.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a sad story.¡± ¡°It¡¯s very sad.¡± ¡°It¡¯s funny,¡± Lute Velra said in Artonan. He was sitting on his learning cushion across from Alden, wearing a graphic print spiderweb sweatshirt so long it reached his knees. His eyepatch was still present, but there was no fake blood oozing from it today. ¡°I don¡¯t know why it¡¯s funny, but I¡¯m sure the Artonans think it¡¯s funny.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a comedy,¡± Alden confirmed. ¡°I think it might be building to a romance between the farmers and the poacher, too, but I¡¯ll have to watch more episodes to be sure.¡± Given the show¡¯s tone, it probably wasn¡¯t going to be a serious romance. Artonans had so many permutations of relationship, and Alden was sure he hadn¡¯t even heard of some of them yet. The Primary and Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s massive shared household was a bit of a mystery to him still, and since Stuart hadn¡¯t brought it up, he hadn¡¯t wanted to ask. But the farmer/farmer/poacher combo was likely. By modern Artonan standards, three was the least intimidating option. They could devote just one half of their divided consciousness to each partner, instead of their full attention, so it was like¡­partial intimacy and lower pressure?Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Talk slower,¡± Lute reminded him. ¡°Sorry.¡± He repeated the words more slowly. ¡°You not should being in this class,¡± said Lute. ¡°¡®Should not be,¡¯¡± Alden corrected. ¡°There¡¯s a level six course offered this term, but they wouldn¡¯t put me in it. I asked.¡± ¡°Probably the instructor wouldn¡¯t say yes. Some of the Artonan culture and language instructors have those works because they¡­¡± He switched to English again. ¡°How do you say ¡®get off on fantasizing that the ritualized classroom garbage actually makes them important?¡¯¡± ¡°That isn¡¯t something I would say. Unless I was trying to offend nine out of ten people on the Triplanets.¡± ¡°You¡¯re calm.¡± And they were back to Artonan now. Lute¡¯s tone was disappointed. ¡°You would being more fun if not so calm.¡± Alden untangled that. ¡°I think you mean ¡®boring¡¯ not calm.¡± ¡°You¡¯re boring,¡± Lute agreed. ¡°I will show you the eye grandmother ate if you teach me bad words in Artonan!¡± Alden tried not to picture Aulia Velra eating an eyeball. ¡°That¡¯s not necessary. And I don¡¯t actually know a lot of adult curse words.¡± ¡°Boring.¡± Lute picked at the edge of the learning cushion with his index finger. ¡°How do I say ¡®I want to feed myself?¡¯¡± ¡°Feed yourself? You mean eating?¡± Alden pointed at his mouth. ¡°Or are you thinking of another word?¡± ¡°I want to feed myself,¡± Lute said in English. ¡°How do I say that in Artonan?¡± Maybe he was on-topic now and thinking about the poacher from the video? ¡°You said it correctly,¡± Alden said in Artonan. ¡°¡®I want to feed myself¡¯ is good.¡± Lute shook his head. ¡°No. Like¡­¡± he leaned forward. He was still speaking English. ¡°If I really needed the aliens to listen to me. Is there a special way or a¡­a formal way of telling someone that you really want to feed yourself?¡± If this was a joke, then it was one too obscure for Alden to grasp. And the Velra boy looked serious. Okay then. ¡°You can raise the pitch of your voice when you say it.¡± Alden switched languages, too, since he wasn¡¯t sure he had all the words for this explanation in Artonan anyway. ¡°For emphasis. If you make a request once and someone ignores you and you go higher the second time, it comes across as insistent, but in a politer way than shouting?¡± ¡°How high?¡± Lute demanded. ¡°Not very. They¡¯re pretty sensitive to tone. Anything that¡¯s recognizably above normal for you should be fine. I guess you might have to do it more than once if it¡¯s someone who assumes it was an accident?¡± ¡°I want to feed myself,¡± Lute said in Artonan. Then, slightly higher, ¡°I want to feed myself.¡± Alden was so confused. ¡°That should do it?¡± he said. ¡°Unless they¡¯ve got bad manners. And if that¡¯s something you have to insist on in the first place they might. Why is this something you need to know?¡± Lute ignored the question and leaned back on his cushion again. ¡°You can see my terrible eye,¡± he said. ¡°Reward! Look. See.¡± He lifted the patch. For half a second, Alden thought the other boy really had been messing with him this whole time. He had some barely visible scarring below his bottom eyelid, and the eye itself looked almost exactly like its gray neighbor. Oh, it¡¯s not quite the same though. ¡°The prosthetic looks really good. Why do you keep it covered?¡± ¡°It does look great,¡± Lute agreed, re-positioning the patch. ¡°The ocularist did an amazing job. But people still stare at it like it¡¯s a hypnotist¡¯s pocket watch. Especially here where plenty of Avowed are walking around with enhanced visual acuity. Even if I eventually get an electronic one that tracks with my real eye better, it¡¯s not going to be perfect. And since I plan to have the System upgrade my own vision when I get the chance, it¡¯ll be even more obnoxious to constantly notice them all noticing. It¡¯s less annoying to me if they stare at a big obvious eye patch than at the thing that¡¯s supposed to be subtle.¡± Alden wanted to ask what had really happened and if some kind of magical prosthetic that could actually allow Lute to see wasn¡¯t a possibility. He refrained. They spent the rest of the period with Lute struggling through a summary of the video. He seems to be trying hard. His pronunciation is so perfect. And it should be, considering his class. But if he cares about learning Artonan¡­why didn¡¯t hedo it before now? Back home you had to search out teachers. Anesidora was different. Artonan wasn¡¯t the most popular second language choice, but lessons in it were ubiquitous. As he left class, Alden texted Boe. [Lute Velra is really missing an eye,] he reported while he took one of his sneakers from its cubby in the hallway and balanced on one foot to put it back on. [Also, he¡¯s got strange concerns about Artonans not letting him feed himself. If that¡¯s something from an obscure Triplanets subculture, I have no clue about it, and I¡¯m glad I don¡¯t.] ¡°Hey, by the way¡­¡± Alden looked down to see Lute kneeling by a bottom cubby. The blond boy was sniffing a black loafer. ¡°Did Lexi Roberts tell you he was inviting the school pariah to be your roommate, or did he not explain?¡± Alden froze with one foot still lifted and stared at him. ¡°He said it would be me, Haoyu, and some guy from¡­you¡¯re the guy from Arts?¡± Alden¡¯s housing form was still listed as pending. He¡¯d assumed it was a normal delay, but maybe they were waiting on the fourth roommate to be assigned? ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what I thought.¡± Lute finally put his shoe on and started sniffing the other one. ¡°That guy isn¡¯t much of acommunicator. I actually thought we weren¡¯t friends anymore. Because we haven¡¯t spoken in around a year. But apparently we still are¡­?¡± No, thought Alden. No way. I don¡¯t want to live with a Velra even if he is number two on my Velra ranking list. The list is a list of people to be cautious around. Everyone on the list is a non-roommate. ¡°So, do you mind? I¡¯ve been wanting to move back on campus, but I didn¡¯t want a repeat of the whole ¡®Oh god not him,¡¯ thing I got last time I tried.¡± ¡°I am¡­texting you,¡± said Alden. ¡°Hold on.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Because Boe¡¯s paranoia was rubbing off. [I have no problem with being your roommate except for the fact that I¡¯m trying to avoid your grandmother.] Lute blinked up at him. ¡°You and everyone else with common sense. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m going to invite her to sleep over.¡± [I understand. But won¡¯t she think us being roommates means she¡¯s right about¡­] Alden didn¡¯t know how to put it, but Lute just kept waiting, with a neutral expression, for him to spit it out. [She thinks the Gloss bringing Chainer to Hazel through me means I¡¯m important somehow. To your family. According to Keiko and Aimi. I want her to forget about that.] Lute¡¯s lips stretched into a wicked smile. ¡°Aww¡­¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re so innocent. I feel bad for you.¡± He set his loafer down and started air typing with one hand. [Aulia will never forget. You gave her most favoritest pet project Chainer. You got summoned to LeafSong, died, then rose from the grave months later. Your goose isn¡¯t just cooked, it¡¯s charcoal.] [You just know off the top of your head where I was summoned?] Alden wished texting offered more in terms of tone so that he could express how unhappy that made him. [She mentioned it in passing during a meeting when she was telling certain family members her plans for popping the Gloss debt. I¡¯ve heard some of the old people say the name of the school on occasion, so it stuck out.] ¡°My point,¡± the Velra boy continued, ¡°is that you¡¯ve already jumped in the ocean. Or been dumped there. I¡¯d apologize, but one of my new policies is never to say sorry for things I didn¡¯t do. You can¡¯t avoid getting wet at this point.¡± [I want them to leave me alone.] ¡°Me too.¡± [Is Aulia actually bothering you right now? Or are you just worried about her doing it in the future?] [She sends me emails offering to help me with things and inviting me to events.] [You ignore them?] [I politely reject them.] Lute frowned down at the floor. [Guess you don¡¯t need money or favors. That limits her options for befriending you. If she invites you to something that doesn¡¯t sound completely disgusting, you should just go and get it over with.] ¡°No. Why?¡± [You don¡¯t have anything to offer that she actually wants at the moment, right?] [I don¡¯t think so?] [Then she¡¯ll be satisfied if you just make it obvious you¡¯re not avoiding her. She can only actively torment so many people at once, and she¡¯s already stabbing everyone she can with her pitchfork. Don¡¯t run away, and she won¡¯t feel the urge to chase you and put you in hell with her favorite pincushions.] ¡°What is wrong with your family?¡± Alden whispered. ¡°Ha! Don¡¯t ask me. I¡¯m just trying to survive them.¡± Lute sniffed the loafer one last time and stuck it on his foot. ¡°But if that¡¯s how you feel, I¡¯ll tell Lexi not to bother. It would almost be a point of pride for me to earn a few more jabs of the fork for associating with you. I¡¯m going for a family record, see? Guess there¡¯s no reason to spread the misery around though.¡± Alden finished tying his own shoe while he thought about it. He absolutely hated the idea that he was choosing his high school roommates based on nerves about an old politician he¡¯d never met pestering him in the future. I lived with tiny demons flying through the walls for months. Why the heck should Aulia Velra be a factor in my current living arrangements? It was giving the specter of her more power over him than she actually had. Wasn¡¯t it? It was also just wrong to avoid someone solely because of their relatives. ¡°You should room with us,¡± he said. ¡°At least I¡¯ve actually spoken to you. I haven¡¯t even properly met Lexi and Haoyu. Unless you count Lexi almost cutting me in half with a whip as a normal getting-to-know-you activity.¡± ¡°Normal for certain kinds of Avowed maybe. How did you end up with them?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know anyone else either. They seemed like the least crazy options out of the remaining people in my incoming class.¡± ¡°I guess you wouldn¡¯t know anyone since you came from the real world.¡± Lute stood and hefted his backpack onto his shoulders. ¡°America. Chicago. They make some of the best harps on the planet there.¡± Alden was surprised by the description. ¡°They do?¡± ¡°Yes. Was it great living there?¡± ¡°I like it a lot.¡± Alden started down the hall toward the stairs. Lute followed after him. ¡°Have you ever been to Austria?¡± ¡°Uh¡­no. I wasn¡¯t rich enough to travel around like that.¡± ¡°I got to go once. Before I affixed. To Vienna. I wanted to move there.¡± They reached the door to the stairwell, and Alden held it open for a group of students. <> one of them muttered as he swept past Lute. Lute stared straight at the wall like he hadn¡¯t heard him. Alden looked after the group. A couple were glancing back over their shoulders to stare at Lute in a way that was definitely unfriendly. ¡°Did you call yourself the school pariah?¡± Alden asked when the others were out of earshot. ¡°You did notice that the whole conversation class sits eight feet away from me like I have some rare incurable disease, didn¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Is it just your family¡­?¡± Lute¡¯s gray eye met his. ¡°Under normal circumstances, I don¡¯t think most people our age would care. Tons of students have important relatives around here. But the Gloss was major, memorable magic that Aulia had only used twice before now as far as anyone knows. And I¡¯m considered an accomplice.¡± Was he an accomplice? From what Alden knew, Aulia had somehow applied the high-powered chain to and maybe through all of the family members to make it stronger or more effective. Had they had to consent to that or was it just something she could do? ¡°You haven¡¯t heard any gossip about it yet?¡± Lute asked. ¡°Just newspaper headlines. Not school gossip. It¡¯s only my second day on campus.¡± ¡°Well I¡¯m in high school, so it¡¯s the high school gossip I get to enjoy. Not the political stuff. And the high school gossip is that every good thing that has ever happened to me was caused by me using my evil Chainer powers, and every bad thing that happens to me from here on out is proof that I¡¯ve been using my evil Chainer powers even more.¡± That would really suck. For every accomplishment to be attributed to luck. And every misfortune to be something people thought you deserved. ¡°I don¡¯t even know any powerful luck chains,¡± Lute said. He pointed at his eye. ¡°And if I did, they¡¯re way too expensive.¡± ¡°Your class is extremely odd,¡± Alden said. ¡°Sorry people blame you for your family¡¯s decisions.¡± ¡°You have no idea¡­ truly, the family advertising about how the class works is beyond misleading.¡± Lute headed into the stairwell. ¡°And the hatred isn¡¯t completely unfair, I guess. Ultimately, I did agree to be part of the Velra cabal. But I didn¡¯t realize I was signing up to have a once-in-a-generation chain tied around my neck right off the bat.¡± He headed down the steps, his fingers trailing along the handrail. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s getting better.¡± His voice echoed off the block walls. ¡°I¡¯ve got roommates now, apparently. And it¡¯s been an entire month since somebody pissed in my shoes.¡± * EIGHTY-EIGHT: Diving 88 Alden stood on the packed train, staring at the name of the approaching station as it scrolled over the door across from him. O Cruzamento. He watched the words. He''d research Manon a little more in Engaging with the Unexpected. People had been talking about what "goodness" was--a fairly common discussion point, he assumed, given the number of groans it had elicited. And typing her name into a search bar had suddenly seemed like a chore that had to be completed. He''d learned that the boater''s leader had an office within walking distance of this station. He didn''t know what to do with the information now that he had it other than agonize over it. Fortunately, another text from Boe came in to take his mind off things. [Pick up snacks for us.] [Snacks?] [Unhealthy ones.] ****** Half an hour later, Alden walked through the door of his apartment and spotted his friend sitting on the sofa. Victor was beside him, and Boe was typing on Alden¡¯s laptop. ¡°Hey,¡± Alden said, dropping his messenger bag on the kitchen counter and lifting up the net shopping bag full of snacks he¡¯d bought on his way over from the station. He was preserving it just for the practice. ¡°Why do we need unhealthy snacks?¡± ¡°Because we¡¯re watching a movie,¡± Boe announced. He picked up the remote and pointed it at the television. Familiar music filled the room, and an equally familiar image of a sand dune appeared on the screen. ¡°The End of the Lonely Earth documentary?¡± Alden toed off his shoes and dumped the chips and candy on the coffee table. ¡°I don¡¯t mind, but didn¡¯t we have it memorized by seventh grade?¡± ¡°Us and everyone else,¡± said Boe. ¡°But see, I think it¡¯s going to be way funnier now that my friend is a wizard. And we can pause it every time that hammy narrator says something about the Artonans or Avowed and discuss it with our fresh perspectives. Mostly your fresh perspective. Since you¡¯ve actually been hanging with both Artonans and Avowed, and I have not.¡± ¡°My job is to argue with the narrator. Got it.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll argue with him, too, of course. You can¡¯t leave me out of a good roasting.¡± Alden sat with his legs crossed on the floor and watched the familiar montage of images from the late 1950¡¯s and early 1960¡¯s that started the film. ¡°Telstar¡± started to play while a woman in high heels and an apron pulled a crown roast out of the oven. A poster for the Four Pests Campaign turned into an image from the Vostok 1 launch turned into a scene of military personnel guarding students as they tried to integrate a school. Photos of a Japanese city flooded by a typhoon faded into newspaper headlines about the Cuban Missile Crisis. ¡°It was a rough time,¡± said Boe. ¡°Would we have nuked the planet by now?¡± ¡°Definitely.¡± ¡°I think so, too.¡± ¡°This was our lonely Earth,¡± the narrator said in a deep voice that would have fit right into some of the radio snippets that would play later in the documentary. ¡°The late 1950s and early 1960s was a time full of humanity¡¯s highest highs and our lowest lows.¡± ¡°They didn¡¯t have to synch ¡®lowest lows¡¯ with that clip of Elvis dancing. He looks like he¡¯s enjoying himself,¡± Alden said. ¡°That was uncalled for.¡± ¡°If we didn¡¯t blow ourselves up, we¡¯d have gotten over a lot of the rest of it without an alien intervention by now, right?¡± ¡°I think we could have eradicated malaria on our own,¡± said Boe. ¡°Given a few more years. It was great they did it for us, but we could probably have handled that one?¡± ¡°A lot of the things they fought about must have seemed serious one day and then insane the next. You¡¯ve got people all over the world saying some version of, ¡®You have a different god than me, so you should die. You like a different kind of political system than me, so die. You look different from me, so you can¡¯t sit in my restaurant.¡¯¡± Boe reached for a box of chocolate raisins. ¡°Uh¡­Alden...it''s still like that in a lot of ways. We''re literally on an island that was made because normal humans want to limit our access to the rest of the species.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°Right. That''s...an unfortunate counterexample I somehow never considered any of the other times I watched this. My original thought was that it''s not as bad for most people? It feels like there were so many more groups of humans sitting around feeling superior to other humans for no reason at all back then. And they were using it to justify all kinds of terrible shit. And then¡ª¡± ¡°Then one day,¡± the narrator said dramatically as the wind howled across the Sahara, and a re-enactment began, ¡°we learned we were not alone after all.¡± A large group of wizards and Avowed, one from almost every resource world, appeared in a cloud of smoke. ¡°Pretty understated of them to land in the desert,¡± said Boe. ¡°I¡¯d have materialized on top of the White House or in Red Square. Or both. Maximum impact." ¡°I highly doubt there was a cloud of smoke when they showed up. I bet it was either nothing at all or something so much creepier.¡± Alden was remembering how the teleportation room on Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s ship had smelled like blood. ¡°Anyway, if your whole personality was built on being right about everything and fundamentally better than anyone different from you, how do you feel when boom¡ªspace wizards and a ton of superpowered representatives from their empire invite themselves over to ask if you¡¯d like to join up?¡± Then one of the first things they do is that. They both watched the screen. The footage now looked different from that filmed by human cameras at the time. It had been captured by the Artonans themselves using both magic and their own technology. ¡°Tan-wyk and the others casually wandering away from that meeting with U.S. and Soviet leadership and then showing up in Bali a few hours later would have been a decent power move on its own,¡± Boe noted. ¡°But why not record yourself stopping a volcanic eruption while you¡¯re there?¡± There were museums all over the world where you could experience various moments from that day, instead of just seeing it on a screen. The magic rooms made you feel like you were standing there, watching the pyroclastic flow that was going to kill you suddenly encounter an impenetrable wall of magic, the ash and rock piling skywards rapidly. ¡°Here¡¯s my favorite line.¡± Boe turned up the volume. A couple of days later, Tan-wyk with her familiar crown of purple hair stood blinking into a camera¡ªa human one this time¡ªand said in response to a question about what the next stage of the operation would be, <> Boe was laughing so hard Alden couldn¡¯t hear the narrator¡¯s next few words. ¡°The best part is that she¡¯s not just saying that! All the other members of the delegation go back to talking to world leaders and doing good deeds all over the rest of the planet, and she just stays right there for the next year, magically fixing things for the local villages and observing the rice-growing process.¡± ¡°She likes rice,¡± said Alden. ¡°She beat a volcano, so she gets to take a break and enjoy as much Earth grain as she wants.¡± The volume was still high, so the narrator¡¯s next words filled the room, ¡°Every human who witnessed such an amazing feat wanted to know, ¡®What is magic? And can we do it, too?¡¯¡± ¡°Here it comes,¡± said Boe. ¡°The first official definition the Triplanets gave us of magic. Unfortunately, it was delivered by an Artonan who wasn¡¯t as cool as Tan-wyk.¡± ¡°He did take the time to deliver it in every known human language separately. Maybe he was really pumped and creative in the first three dozen, and by the time he got to English he was tired.¡± The man on the screen started to speak in a dull voice. ¡°Magic is the process by which we wizards prove our existence and assert our dominion over all else that exists. If your planet chooses to form a Contract with us, we will present you with magical tools, healing, and conveniences that you will never otherwise be able to obtain. And a few among you will be granted the ability to wield magic yourselves, with the expectation that you will use those powers for the benefit of both your species and ours.¡± Boe paused the video. ¡°Such an idiot. The rest of the team was busy presenting themselves as helpful friends who¡¯d come to say hello and tell us about the chaos that was eating the universe, and then he set them back with a definition of magic that fueled everyone¡¯s belief that the aliens had come to exert dominion over all of humanity in mustache-twirling villain fashion. Someone shot the ewtwee Avowed a couple of days after this aired.¡± ¡°That upset me so much the first time I heard about it. I know the ewtwee just dug the bullet out of her armor and then added it to her memories necklace. But how could anyone shoot one of them? They¡¯re one of the most harmless aliens. She thought the bullet might have been a gift that was delivered too quickly.¡± Ewtwees looked sort of like large fennec foxes with furless, prehensile double tails. They wore charm belts and necklaces full of shiny objects that they liked. ¡°I saw one in real life,¡± said Boe. ¡°When I was around eight.¡± ¡°You did? You never told me that!¡± They weren¡¯t a low population species, but Alden had still only ever seen them on screens. ¡°He must have been an Avowed working for an Artonan visitor, but he was alone at the time. He was coming out of a jewelry store, and he was glittering like he¡¯d bought out the whole place. I wanted to say hello to him, but my mom dragged me away before I could.¡± A few seconds passed, then Boe looked at Alden expectantly. ¡°So?¡± ¡°So what?¡± ¡°You¡¯re a wizard. Say wizard things about magic. Comment on the first definition.¡± ¡°Oh! Replay what he said.¡± ¡°You have the attention span of a flea.¡± ¡°Some jerk made me go to school today. I burned myself out debating superterrorism and talking to Lute Velra.¡± Boe replayed the section of the video; Alden listened to it closely. ¡°It¡¯s only one sentence, It sounds like it¡¯s not an answer to the question at all, and he has a massive wizard-superiority complex,¡± said Boe. ¡°The definitions the other ambassadors gave when they were cleaning up his mess were much more satisfying to most people.¡± ¡°The other answers mostly imply that magic is a kind of special energy Artonan wizards have inside of them and they use it to manipulate the universe,¡± said Alden. ¡°That¡¯s right. And that¡¯s the explanation that¡¯s most popular. Remember that kid in seventh grade who called it Alien Spirit Gas?¡± said Boe. Alden did. The unfortunate boy had been subjected to fart sounds whenever he walked into classrooms after that. ¡°Some people think it¡¯s mystery energy,¡± Boe continued. ¡°Some people think it¡¯s more like prayer with replicable results. Others¡ªand quite a few Avowed¡ªthink doing spells is like outputting code that the world responds to. And the Artonans muddy the waters by not outright disagreeing with any of it. I¡¯ve got you here now, so¡­reveal the truth.¡± ¡°Well, magic does a lot of different stuff. So it¡¯s not like you can point at any one of those ideas and say, ¡®This is completely wrong.¡¯ Even the prayer one¡­people who think that are probably thinking of wordchains, right? And ¡®outputting code¡¯ makes a lot more sense as a concept if you¡¯re an Avowed with a spell impression.¡± ¡°Does it?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°They make you feel like a robot.¡± ¡°Weird. Should I get one if I ever have the chance?¡± ¡°It¡¯s convenient,¡± said Alden. ¡°Really thorough. Very efficient. Nearly infallible.¡± ¡°You sound so surly about it.¡± ¡°Feeling my body and my brain do complex things on autopilot grosses me out.¡± He looked back at the screen. It was nice that Joe¡¯s first, more generalized lessons on authority hadn¡¯t been conducted under the same extreme strictures as their long final discussion about The Bearer of All Burdens and the original skills. Alden had since figured out some things on his own and had his knowledge shored up by Kibby and Instructor Gwen-lor, so he could talk about this a bit more freely. ¡°The first definition was better,¡± he said. ¡°I mean, it was worse in one way because humans don¡¯t have the base concepts of reality or the senses to understand what he meant by it. So it comes across as him bragging instead of giving information. But it was actually better as far as openness and honesty goes. That¡¯s like a stripped-down and language-limited version of the definition of magic they give wizard toddlers.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Really.¡± Boe grinned. ¡°I wondered! For the first time in my life today, I delved into the depressing and embarrassing world of adult humans who believe, despite literally decades of evidence to the contrary, that they can become wizards by mimicking footage of wizards in action.¡± Alden winced. ¡°Oh no.¡± ¡°Yes. Mine eyes have feasted on many strange sights! There is a man in Washington state making wands out of sticks he marinates in his own bodily fluids. There is a woman who has spent the past twenty years meticulously memorizing every single facial expression ever made by a visiting wizard. However! Despite the fact that many of these people pursue foolish and smelly habits, they do have some valuable qualities. They all speak Artonan well, and their unhealthy obsession makes them strive for authenticity.¡± He spun the laptop around to show Alden a Japanese website. The System translated the title as <> ¡°Please ignore the many layers of confusion the name they¡¯ve chosen can produce. They¡¯re just big fans of the first definition of magic. Because, as they point out, contemporary Artonan guests on Earth use many different words that the System translates as ¡®magic¡¯ that are better translated as ¡®power,¡¯ ¡®dominance,¡¯ ¡®sway,¡¯ or¡­more bizarrely¡­¡®my spot.¡¯¡± ¡°Avowed who go to the Triplanets often enough have to notice those things, too,¡± said Alden. ¡°Once you speak the language, it¡¯s impossible not to realize that the way they talk about magic is different than most humans think of it. But it probably comes across as wizard cultural posturing to people who don¡¯t like Artonans or who don¡¯t care to delve into it. Because if a wizard doesn¡¯t sit down and explain it to you really slowly and clearly, it¡¯s easy to convince yourself that they¡¯re just being poetic, arrogant, and alien. Instead of surprisingly literal.¡± Boe shut the laptop and set it aside. ¡°So give me your definition!¡± He was leaning over his knees toward Alden. He sounded eager. Of course he did. Alden wanted to tell him, and at the same time, he very much didn¡¯t. ¡°Talking about it in general is fine,¡± he said hesitantly. ¡°But if you want me to try to teach you how to do it, too, I¡­I¡¯m going to need to think about that. For a long time probably. Okay?¡± Boe stared. ¡°You think you can teach other people how to do it?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t think it would be impossible if I chose the right person. Probably another Avowed. It would be really hard. And time consuming. Maybe even years worth of time consuming for both of us? If I even wanted to at all.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t asking you to teach me,¡± said Boe, watching him closely through his brand new glasses. ¡°I assumed you couldn¡¯t. Either because of that tattoo on your chest or because you were a one-of-a-kind case. For the obvious reason.¡± ¡°Oh. I am, but I think there should be others who are capable of it. Only it would be harder for them than it was for me. And possibly less worthwhile.¡± According to her, Gorgon¡¯s refinement of Alden¡¯s authority made him qualify as ¡®gifted¡¯. He hadn¡¯t thought much about that statement over the past few weeks, but it had crossed his mind a few times. Mostly when he was wondering how gifted you had to be for an entity like that to acknowledge it. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Thanks, Gorgon. Hope you liked Natalie¡¯s cinnamon bun. ¡°I think you have to be underestimating the difficulty of it even with all those caveats,¡± said Boe. ¡°Everyone is curious about magic. Plenty of smart Avowed spend lots of time with the Artonans. By all accounts, they¡¯re secretive as hell, but there¡¯s no way every last wizard, including a couple who¡¯ve gone and married humans, would refuse to teach it. Someone would have broken the rules by now. So if it¡¯s not damn near close to impossible, then the Triplanetary Government must assassinate everyone who does it, because otherwise there would be a small population of human wizards running around already.¡± ¡°From what I¡¯ve been told, I¡¯m basically the only one right now,¡± said Alden. It made more sense when you knew the whole truth. Joe was probably the king of rule breakers, and even he had been very firmly against teaching an Avowed magic. It meant flouting your culture, your colleagues, and your conscience. And after months or years of training, you¡¯d be gifting your student not only power but a variety of pain they couldn¡¯t properly understand and consent to until they were too deeply involved to back out. You¡¯d have to be at least a little bit of a monster. Or a very patient and determined child who didn¡¯t know any better. He cleared his throat and pointed at the TV. ¡°My definition is totally better than that guy¡¯s. Here it is: while I was on Moon Thegund being sandblasted by chaos, I became aware of <> as a unique existence within reality. Becoming aware of yourself in that way is probably what the Human Dominators, or whatever they¡¯re called, are translating as ¡®my spot¡¯? It works. You gain awareness of yourself as an entity beyond the physical, and in doing so you come to understand that you both have and are authority. You learn to direct your authority to effect changes in reality¡ªaka doing magic. In the process of doing so, you can grow the strength of your authority and expand it beyond your initial ¡®spot¡¯, gaining < > and the power to do more magic.¡± Alden took a breath. Awesome. He¡¯d gotten it all out. Mostly in English. And it sounded closer to right than he¡¯d thought it would. ¡°I don¡¯t know why you¡¯re grinning. That was some of the most abstract, batshit sounding¡ª¡± ¡°It was really very clear!¡± Boe shoved up his glasses. ¡°You sound like a snooty Artonan wizard wearing an Alden suit.¡± Alden considered that. ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Fine. I did understand that better than the single sentence definition at least.¡± ¡°Do you want to see me do it? We can always finish the movie later.¡± Alden undid the buckle on his leather cuff bracelet and unwrapped his auriad. ¡°Cool. Is that a magic string?¡± Boe reached out curiously. Alden had been in the process of standing, and at the sight of a hand reaching for the auriad, he reflexively leaped backward. Only to fall over the coffee table full of snacks. ¡°Ow¡­¡± he said, staring up at the ceiling. Boe stood with an amused look on his face. ¡°Are you all right? Your Agility stats failed you hard just now.¡± Alden let his left foot sweep a chip bag to the floor as he yanked his leg off the table and sat back up. ¡°Yeah. Sorry. That was¡ª¡± Boe held up his hands. ¡°I will not touch your magic string,¡± he said, the solemn voice at odds with his growing smile. Alden climbed to his feet. ¡°I know. I know. That looked crazy. Maybe you can touch it. I just haven¡¯t really thought about it, and I panicked.¡± ¡°Is it delicate, or is it dangerous?¡± ¡°It¡¯s part of me,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ve bonded with it, and we¡¯re growing more intertwined as I practice.¡± ¡°We? Does it have a personality?¡± Boe asked, lowering his hands. ¡°No. That¡¯s me projecting.¡± He looked down at his fingers. He was already absently weaving the auriad into the starting position for the elementary school graduation spell. ¡°It¡¯s an auriad. It¡¯s a tool that feels sort of like an extra limb. But it¡¯s also a deep expression of myself. Honestly, I¡¯ve got a little bit of a security blanket thing going on with it, too.¡± He took a step closer and held the interlaced string out toward his friend. Boe regarded it cautiously. ¡°It¡¯s neat. It¡¯s almost like liquid instead of string to the touch,¡± Alden said, holding it in front of Boe''s nose. ¡°I promise not to fall over the coffee table again.¡± ¡°I¡¯m good. I¡¯m not sure if we¡¯re talking about me shaking hands with your soul or you offering to let me touch your favorite kidney, but either one sounds unnecessary just to satisfy my curiosity.¡± Alden shrugged and lowered the auriad. ¡°Well, move Victor off the sofa then, and watch me and my favorite kidney do something cool.¡± He headed into the kitchen, his hands moving by rote. His mind was focused on manipulating his authority into the shapes that filled in the gaps in the auriad¡¯s pattern. It felt good. Exciting. Like he was approaching the edge of a high dive, and he was already anticipating the way the water would part for him. Yield to him. In exactly the way that he demanded. His free authority moved. Not as fast as his fingers could. His hand speed had surpassed his authority control by too much, but that was all right. It gave him a new goal to work toward. He spun to face the sofa as the final design of the spell took shape. Boe was standing off to the side by the pinball machine with the cat in his arms. Alden lifted the auriad, aimed over the counter, and made sure to throw himself into the final push. He didn¡¯t have enough free authority to hold himself back in the way he¡¯d been able to on those final days at the lab. But the water still parted. Alden couldn¡¯t see the square of force shoot across the room, but he was aware of it on another level. It was as if there was an echo of the command he¡¯d given in the world around him that he could just barely detect. One day, maybe he¡¯d be able to feel it more clearly. He was staring at the exact spot he¡¯d aimed for, so he saw the instant the back cushion of the sofa depressed, in a perfect square shape, with a thwuff sound. The whole piece of furniture rocked and fell over onto its back. ¡°Did you see?!¡± he demanded, hurrying into the living room and letting the auriad helpfully wrap itself back around his left wrist. He pointed at the fallen sofa. ¡°That was my spell!¡± Boe set the cat down. ¡°That was sick!¡± His voice was almost as excited as Alden¡¯s. ¡°That was a hundred percent a spell that the System would never offer a Rabbit. And you¡¯ve got it anyway!¡± ¡°I know!¡± ¡°You kicked the couch from across the room!¡± ¡°I can do it from even farther, but the aim needs a little work. It¡¯s just the graduation spell they give wizard kids when they leave this fancy-pants elementary school on Artona I. But¡ª¡± ¡°But if you can do that you can do so much more!¡± ¡°I know. There are like a billion spells I won¡¯t be able to do because I¡¯m not Artonan, but they¡¯ve been wizarding around since the dawn of time and they¡¯ve got more magical knowledge than anyone could ever learn anyway. So even if I¡¯m stuck with pure hand casting and I can¡¯t do double-brain dolphin chanting or jet off to other worlds to get potions ingredients, I¡¯m not ever going to run out of stuff to try!¡± ¡°Can you do it again?¡± ¡°Yes! A few more times at least. Can I show you some others, too?¡± ****** An hour later, they sat on the floor in the wreckage of the living room. All the furniture was tipped over. Several chip bags had been used as targets, and crumbs littered the floor. There was a faint smell of smoke in the air from the little bits of paper that had been burned in lieu of candles, they both had very sanitized hands, and the last chiming notes of the song spell were fading from the air. Victor had abandoned them to their madness long ago. Alden laid on his stomach on a battered sofa cushion and watched Boe. His friend¡¯s back was propped against the bottom of the overturned sofa, and he was trying to get the wax paper wrapper off a smashed caramel. He was relaxed and happy. They both were because Alden had asked if he wanted to share the emotion. Boe had seemed surprised. Alden just thought it was the obvious thing to do. And there was another reason¡­ Now¡¯s a good time. ¡°Big anxiety spike,¡± Boe said without looking over at him. He¡¯d been verbally identifying Alden¡¯s emotions for a while now, maybe as an attempt to fully disclose what he was reading. ¡°I know. Could you shield up again?¡± ¡°Done.¡± ¡°I wanted you to know it¡¯s fun for me. Doing magic.¡± ¡°That¡¯s an understatement. You¡¯ve got this very specific emotion when you do it. Like self-affirmation and a success high all rolled up together. I haven¡¯t felt anything quite like it before.¡± Alden took a deep breath. [My affixations hurt now.] Boe¡¯s fingers stopped prying at the caramel wrapper. His eyes met Alden¡¯s. [I don¡¯t know why I¡¯m texting it. I guess it¡¯s easier. When the System does my affixations now, I can feel it. Changing me.] ¡°Oh,¡± Boe said quietly. [The work the Artona I Contract did on me after I got back from all that time away was¡­ I couldn¡¯t even use my skill after it happened. Not until a couple of weeks ago. And it¡¯s still this thing that¡­sometimes I can¡¯t sleep. I don¡¯t want to talk about it. But I did want you to understand why I freaked out yesterday when you were trying to tell me about U-type affixations. And why I¡¯m not sure about teaching anyone else.] Boe hadn¡¯t looked away. Alden did himself, letting his eyes fall on the dirty floor. ¡°Anyway,¡± he said after clearing his throat, "now that I¡¯m back in action again, I¡¯ve been memorizing new spells. I think I¡¯ll be able to cast a couple of them really soon. There¡¯s this one that crushes the hell out of stuff. Close range. Baseball-sized crush zone. Sphere or pancake depending on how I adjust it. I think it¡¯s going to be like having permanent access to a hydraulic press. I¡¯m going to flatten all the things. I don¡¯t know how practical it will really be in everyday life¡ª¡± ¡°Extreme crushing doesn¡¯t have to be practical,¡± Boe said in a casual voice. ¡°You should just enjoy it.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°Right. Also¡ªclose range flash freezing. I¡¯ve got both of those down, and I¡¯m basically just waiting until my authority develops enough so that I can do them. I think I''m almost there.¡± ¡°The freezing spell goes well with your new passion for keeping inappropriate things in your pockets.¡± ¡°Exactly! I can make frozen food and keep it frozen. All I need is a spell to heat it back up, and I¡¯m a one-man kitchen.¡± ¡°You can make tiny flames,¡± Boe pointed out. ¡°Just learn to cook over an open fire, and you¡¯re set.¡± Alden gasped. ¡°I¡¯m amazing.¡± ¡°You¡¯re shaping up to be the ideal camping buddy if nothing else. You even entertain people with finger songs.¡± ¡°The spell I plan to memorize after those is very similar to the graduation spell. It makes a sharper force shape, a triangle that flies through the air like a thrown dagger. Spells that cut and smash in different ways seem to be particularly common uses for auriads, but they aren¡¯t the only kinds. There¡¯s an honest-to-goodness object summoning spell at the end of the book. I¡¯m drooling over it.¡± Anything in your line of sight below a certain size could be summoned. They talked about some of the other spells Alden was looking forward to, and then, out of the blue, Boe asked, ¡°Does having the tattoo bother you?¡± Alden looked at him in surprise. ¡°In what way?¡± ¡°In any way.¡± ¡°The level of restrictiveness I agreed to is inconvenient,¡± Alden said after thinking about it briefly. ¡°There are a lot of things I can¡¯t say that I would like to tell a few people. Like you. But I did agree to it. And I got a lot in exchange. I honestly think the wizard who made the contract with me was¡­more than I was ready to deal with. But he was pretty fair to me other than that.¡± ¡°So no lingering negative associations with tattoos in general,¡± said Boe. ¡°Do people give you a lot of shit for having it?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t shown it to many humans other than you and Jeremy. The doctor who did my physical exam for CNH was appropriate about ignoring it. And I know the worst you two are going to think is that I was a dumbass who got in over my head. Not that I agreed to a private contract because I was committing murders off-the-record, or that I took money in exchange for letting some creep do experiments on me.¡± ¡°Yeah, I assume the most common use of them is to protect sensitive info instead of covering dark deeds. Or that they¡¯re fake and the Artonan-obsessives who have them just wish wizards wanted to tat match with them.¡± Alden brightened. ¡°I¡¯m getting one on my face!¡± ¡°Excuse me, what?¡± ¡°With Kibby! When she gets her summoning rights for the first time, I¡¯m going to be her first Avowed summons. And the entire purpose of the mission will be matching facial tattoos.¡± ¡°What will the contract be?¡± Boe asked slowly. ¡°Eternal friendship and respect,¡± Alden said. ¡°It¡¯s all decided.¡± ¡°When is this happening?¡± ¡°More than a decade from now most likely. But it¡¯s happening.¡± ¡°Okay. You look really excited about having blue ink on your face forever, so¡­way to go. Also that makes me feel much less worried about what I was about to ask you. Can you make a magical contract with someone? Like can you do the wizard part of it?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t really know how to. Kibby kept asking me for one because she thought it would be like an authority handshake with magic ink added. And I do think it¡¯s probably something pretty simple at the core. But I don¡¯t know how. I understand how tattoo design works, but I think to make it all come together I¡¯d need instructions.¡± ¡°Do you have any way to get those kinds of instructions without risking revealing your wizardness?¡± Alden considered it. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. I could ask some people I know really general questions ¡®just out of curiosity¡¯ and hope the answers were enough to go on. I could try to buy a magic book with the info in it¡ª¡± ¡°Oh yes. Trying to shop some kind of Avowed magical black market is a very smart thing to do for someone in your position,¡± Boe said sarcastically. ¡°Or I could trial and error it. We might end up looking like the walls in a public bathroom before I got done. I¡¯m assuming you¡¯re asking because you want one with me?¡± Boe nodded. ¡°I spent all day trying to negotiate with the System. Shithead didn¡¯t give me so much as an exclamation point in answer. Finally, I asked if I could tell you everything without losing its help if I formed a wizard¡¯s contract with you, and it woke up.¡± ¡°It actually agreed?¡± Alden asked, surprised. And impressed. He hadn¡¯t realized you could successfully negotiate with Earth. Maybe he needed to try harder in the future. ¡°It sent me a picture of those concentric triangles on your chest. And the words, ¡®Yes. If you both make not revealing the information to anyone else in the future part of the bargain.¡¯¡± ¡°Oh. So it only agreed because in that scenario you telling me would actually give us both less freedom to do what we want than we have now. That checks out.¡± ¡°A surefire, ¡®Shut Boe up,¡¯ solution seems to be really tempting for it. I guess making myself less of a future variable must take a load off its plate.¡± Alden pushed himself up from his cushion. ¡°Is this big secret something you actually want to tell me? Or is it something you feel like you have to do for my sake? Because if it¡¯s the second, then I don¡¯t need it.¡± ¡°I regretted a lot of things when you disappeared. This was one. I want to.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯ll figure it out. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll manage it before you leave, though. I can¡¯t possibly get the info I need in the next few days, unless the System¡¯s willing to give me the instructions itself. System, could you do that?¡± [No.] Boe looked startled. ¡°It answered on my interface, too.¡± Group chat with the System. What an afternoon. ¡°Can we not just do a magical contract through you somehow?¡± Alden asked. ¡°System-moderated. You¡¯re the Contract for an entire planet. This should be right up your alley.¡± [You completing such an agreement yourselves will produce a more ideal result.] ¡°Why?¡± Alden and Boe asked at the same time. The System didn¡¯t answer. Of course not. ¡°It¡¯s a good idea for you to learn anyway,¡± Boe said. ¡°If you¡¯re going to wizard, you should wizard all the way. And I would sleep much better if you would contract lock a lot of the news you¡¯ve already given me in my head.¡± ¡°You sound like Kibby. ¡®Contract with me, Alden! I will not reveal your secrets even under torture.¡¯¡± ¡°She does sound cool. By the way, where are all these alien kid videos that you¡¯ve been promising me?¡± * EIGHTY-NINE: Hero Types 89 Alden¡¯s remaining days with Boe were much too brief, and they threw into stark relief one inconvenient fact about his new life. ¡°I can¡¯t get approval to go back home for Christmas or New Year,¡± he told his friend on Wednesday night, slamming the door to his bedroom and stalking into the kitchen. ¡°All the requests I put in this morning were denied. I got the notices while I was in the shower.¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± Boe glanced up from his perusal of the enormous stack of coupons Alden had received when he first entered intake. ¡°We thought it would be that way.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t go back next Christmas either.¡± Alden yanked open the fridge and glared at an innocent bottle of green tea. ¡°The U.S. approves Avowed for visits up to eighteen months in advance, and the slots for major holidays for anyone C-rank and above fill the day they¡¯re opened. I have eleven days off between school quarters then. You know what else I can¡¯t do with that time?¡± ¡°Get approval to have guests here on Anesidora?¡± Boe suggested. ¡°That¡¯s right! Because Anesidora allows us to schedule visitors two years in advance. And the special occasion slots here fill up the second they¡¯re opened, too. So maybe, if I¡¯m lucky enough to not be on a summons on sign-up day this year, I can have a holiday with my family or friends, when I¡¯m in college.¡± ¡°February is probably good, right? Or March.¡± Alden grabbed a container of acorn squash soup. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s manageable. Weekends get booked up fast. I guess I just have to skip school if I actually want to use the fourteen days of family time the U.S. allows me each year. But the local hero team in Chicago will also ask my school how I¡¯m doing before they grant my approval, to make sure I¡¯m a good boy who won¡¯t hurt regular humans while I¡¯m under their jurisdiction. So I can¡¯t just skip class. I have to get permission from the school, then get permission from the country I was born in, then get permission from the hero team in charge of monitoring me and sign a paper saying I understand they will arrest me if I so much as magically sneeze or step outside the city limits.¡± ¡°If it makes you feel better, I¡¯m sure the process is really streamlined. It sounds like a lot, but it¡¯s probably computers putting checkmarks beside your name all along the way.¡± ¡°They¡¯re treating me like I¡¯ve done something bad. But I haven¡¯t. And that fact makes me want to do something bad.¡± Alden shoved a spoon into the soup without bothering to heat it. Boe raised his eyebrows. ¡°What kind of a villain phase will it be then?¡± ¡°Something heinous,¡± Alden muttered, shoveling soup into his mouth. ¡°How heinous?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll¡­¡± The silence stretched between them. Boe started to snicker. ¡°Shut up. I¡¯m thinking of things.¡± ¡°You literally can¡¯t think of anything bad to do!¡± ¡°I can! I¡¯m trying to think of something bad that involves my powers, though. My skill requires people to entrust me with things. So my evil has to have an accomplice.¡± Boe rested his elbows on the counter and steepled his fingers. ¡°I will be your minion. You¡¯re welcome.¡± Alden pointed the spoon at him. ¡°I can¡¯t have a minion who outranks me. Everyone will think you¡¯re the one in charge.¡± ¡°Since you can¡¯t even think of crimes to do on your own¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯ll throw Haunting Spheres into movie theaters and make them yell.¡± ¡°Petrifying.¡± Alden sighed. ¡°I actually can think of a few terrible things, but they¡¯re a little too terrible for me to joke about them. I wanted to be funny with some middle ground crime. Something between pranking moviegoers and decapitating cyclists with fishing line.¡± ¡°The evil oozes from you.¡± Boe pushed aside the stack of coupons. ¡°Seriously though. I¡¯m sorry. It sucks they make you jump through so many hoops to visit.¡± ¡°Do you know there¡¯s pushback here on Anesidora about allowing more guests, too? It¡¯s purely an insular locals thing. They don¡¯t like ¡®tourists¡¯ even though practically the only tourists here are the family members of first generation Avowed. It¡¯s not even close to a majority opinion, but still¡­¡± ¡°Wish you were unregistered, too?¡± Boe asked. Alden winced. ¡°Sometimes,¡± he admitted. ¡°But I¡¯d have other stresses then. I mostly wish you weren¡¯t going back home.¡± It was different with Boe. Alden didn¡¯t want to dump his baggage on Connie or Jeremy. He didn¡¯t want to with Boe either, but¡­he could. Or he had been able to. They were putting a moratorium on ¡®sharing Earth-shattering secrets¡¯ at Boe¡¯s insistence, until Alden could figure out how to magically bind them with his own version of the Triangle of Absolute Secrecy. On Alden¡¯s end of things, there wasn¡¯t much left to tell anyway. He couldn¡¯t talk about Bearer, and the cat was already out of the bag on his budding wizardry. He wasn¡¯t going to give anyone details about the knights. He didn¡¯t know what combination of politics, personal reasons, and culture made them want to keep exactly what they were private. But they did. And he understood it himself on a gut level. Boe knew Stuart was the son of that really important Primary guy Alden had met at the party. Which was all Alden had known himself a few months ago. It was fine. The only thing he really had left that he wanted to share was the existence of his fake profile and his actual level¡­but the Contract lying about your powers to the Artonans was just about the most earth-shattering news he could think of. Even bigger than him being able to cast spells now. It could wait until he figured out contract magic. Someone pressed the buzzer on the apartment and shouted, ¡°Trick-or-treat!¡± through the panel. Boe looked at door. ¡°Are you supposed to be passing out candy tonight?¡± ¡°A lot of people are. I didn¡¯t even decorate my door, so that person¡¯s hoping for a bit much. Don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s locked, and they¡¯re used to me skipping out on social events.¡± Boe¡¯s fingers went back to their steepled position. ¡°In that case, let¡¯s talk about that disturbing text you sent me in the middle of the day.¡± ¡°What disturbing text?¡± ¡°A quote: ¡®I think I really ought to do something more serious about Manon and the boater. What do you think about me confronting her directly?¡¯¡± ¡°Oh. That¡¯s no big deal.¡± Alden just¡­hadn¡¯t been able to put it out of his mind since he saw Karl. ¡°I was in Engaging with the Unexpected. We were talking about what goodness is again.¡± ¡°And your answer today is vigilantism?¡± Boe asked in a flat voice. ¡°Because I seem to remember you saying that an actual Sway superhero told you there was no legal way to handle the problem.¡± ¡°Of course not. I¡¯ve¡­ She¡¯s a cult leader who lightly mind controls her ¡®friends¡¯ and uses them like breakable dolls. And I know about it. So I have to do something for them. My original idea of sending them messages wasn¡¯t really enough either, was it?And it probably wouldn¡¯t even work. I don¡¯t want to cause a huge mess, but I should do more than that. I could tell Manon herself I know what she¡¯s doing. I could¡ª¡± ¡°Do you actually want to save the boater? Or are you feeling an urge to fuck with Manon because she indirectly fucked with you and got people killed? Or is it something far dumber than either of those things?¡± ¡°I told you I¡¯m over my dark desire to see Manon punished. I want to help the boater people¡± ¡°Alden,¡± he said tiredly. Alden shrugged and took another bite of his soup. ¡°Their dynamic with Manon is strange. I don¡¯t know which of them really needs an out and which of them might be a willing participant in whatever it is she¡¯s doing. But she magically nudged a woman into busting up her leg and then kept her from getting help for it until it was so swollen she couldn¡¯t walk on it properly. So at least one member of the collective couldn¡¯t possibly be on board.¡± ¡°And?¡± said Boe. ¡°And¡­it¡¯s awful that I¡¯ve been here for two months without even trying to help. It¡¯s shitty.¡± Boe pressed his face to the counter and clutched his hands together behind his head. What¡¯s with the drama? Alden thought with annoyance. ¡°I am not a therapist,¡± Boe said in a muffled voice. ¡°But at the risk of seriously pissing you off, I am going to tell you something about yourself that I¡¯m sure you don¡¯t want to hear.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re going to say I¡¯m lying about the revenge, I¡¯m not,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that. And I¡¯m not reading you right now. But I have in the past, and I have very recently. So I know what I¡¯m about to say is true. And I think even though hearing it said aloud is going to make you unhappy, in the long run, it might keep you from getting stuck on moons.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m all for that not happening¡­¡± Alden felt nervous suddenly. Boe could say devastating things when he was angry. He didn¡¯t seem very angry right now, but Alden doubted that gaining the ability to read emotions had softened his edges. Boe looked up at him. ¡°Some people are deeply compassionate toward their fellow man,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s nature, nurture, or habit; but they actually want to help total strangers. They care about every single person who crosses their path. They¡¯re as close to being pure givers as humans can be. They¡¯re special. The world would be utopian if everyone was like that.¡± Alden nodded slowly. ¡°There¡¯s another type of person,¡± Boe continued, not taking his eyes off Alden¡¯s face, ¡°who runs around doing good, not out of world-hugging compassion, but because being a do-gooder gives them energy. If I¡¯m being ungracious, I¡¯d say it¡¯s selfishness and ego stroking, but that¡¯s selling them short. It¡¯s more like helping out is their identity. For whatever reason, it¡¯s part of how they see themselves and their place in relation to others. Running to save someone else psychs them up and makes them fulfilled and confident. They feel amazing when they do the right thing. I suppose that¡¯s pretty special in its own way.¡± Alden set aside what was left of his soup. ¡°I know what you¡¯re going to say.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s call those people Hero Type 1 and Hero Type 2.¡± Boe held up two fingers, then he added bluntly, ¡°You¡¯re not either type. You really wish you were. You try so fucking hard to fit both of the molds. But you never have been a natural humanitarian or someone who gets high on his own righteousness, and you¡¯re not even close to getting there.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± Alden said sourly. ¡°I think I¡¯ve made it clear in multiple ways recently that this is something I¡¯ve noticed about myself.¡± ¡°Yes, but for some reason, it bothers you. You think it¡¯s a personal failing.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t it one?¡± Boe stood up and slapped the counter. ¡°No! You have got to stop being ashamed of not being the merry, self-sacrificing savior figure you have in your head! The things you said about yourself in some of your voicemails¡­. Stop feeling disappointed in yourself for not enjoying running on broken bones in some kind of one-man alien death marathon. Nobody normal fucking would!¡± ¡°I know that!¡± ¡°Then why are you so, so upset about not wanting to do something like that again?! Alden, it¡¯s not healthy. Why do you feel guilty? Why do you feel guilty? Of all people! You saved someone¡¯s life. More than one person, I¡¯m guessing, if I read between the lines of that dorky berry-picking story. If you lounge around in bed for the next hundred years, you¡¯ve already done it. You can quit now, and nobody who has more than a single braincell will ever think you haven¡¯t earned it.¡± ¡°I almost left her.¡± ¡°Who?¡± ¡°Kibby!¡± Alden shouted. ¡°Before I knew her. On the first day, when it was all going wrong and everyone was dying. I heard her whistling for help. In the grass. And I knew it was probably one of the little girls trying to get my attention, and I knew something horrible must have happened to her, and I just stood there for a while. Because I didn¡¯t want to deal with a problem that hard!¡± ¡°But you did deal with it. You dealt with it for months!¡±The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°I left her sitting in the car with the corpses of her family while I felt sorry for myself,¡± Alden spat. Boe took a deep breath. His next words were soft. ¡°The standard you hold yourself to scares me. I am so afraid that as soon as you¡¯re not completely drained by everything you¡¯ve been through, the unnecessary shame you feel is going to get you killed for real this time.¡± Alden¡¯s urge to argue left him at that. ¡°I¡¯m not going to do anything stupid.¡± ¡°You just suggested directly confronting someone you know is a mind controller, so forgive me if I don¡¯t believe you!¡± Alden held his hands out and gave his friend his best, I can¡¯t help what you believe, look. Boe pointed at him. ¡°You¡¯ve lost my trust. All it took was some self-righteous moron saying the word ¡®goodness¡¯ in a high school class for you to have a guilt fest¡ªabout not flinging yourself into danger to save the fucking boater people. They¡¯re a bunch of adults who¡¯ve gotten into a messy situation on their own, and they were assholes to you on top of it. You don¡¯t really care about them!¡± ¡°But I should,¡± Alden argued. ¡°And if I can¡¯t, I should at least act like I do.¡± ¡°What logic is there in forcing yourself to feel obligated to every single person you run across? I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re so¡ªgah!¡± Boe threw a fistful of coupons at him. Alden stepped back in surprise as paper fluttered around him like leaves. ¡°I¡¯m going to get this crammed through your thick skull, or I¡¯m not leaving the island on Saturday. I will literally turn myself in and stay right here for the rest of my life to watch you and make sure you don¡¯t throw yourself away again!¡± ¡°I do understand what you mean,¡± Alden said, alarmed. ¡°I didn¡¯t intend to freak you out with the text. There¡¯s no reason¡ª¡± ¡°No. You don¡¯t understand, or you wouldn¡¯t be talking about yourself this way! Clearly, I am a bad explainer. Let me try again! Alden, stop wishing you were like Hannah Elber. Please.¡± Alden plucked a coupon for fifteen percent off parasailing out of his hair. He stared across the counter. Boe looked so serious. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve been wishing that exactly¡­¡± ¡°I never met her,¡± Boe said. ¡°But I¡¯ve heard you talk about her. You admire her so much, and you describe her like she was a holy workaholic combo of Hero Types 1 & 2. Maybe she was, or maybe that was just how she chose to present herself to you. Either way¡ªdamn. Nobody is ever going to hit that mark through any amount of effort. Not even you. You can¡¯t make yourself feel warm fuzzies for all mankind. You can¡¯t just get stoked about being the person who pulls others out of burning buildings when you were born with the common sense to be afraid of fire.¡± ¡°Hey, you could make me feel those things!¡± Alden said. ¡°Problem solved.¡± He was trying to take the edge off some of the tension in the room, but Boe just blinked at him. ¡°Alden, I wouldn¡¯t,¡± he said finally. ¡°Even if it was as simple as that and there was no danger involved, I wouldn¡¯t. Because I don¡¯t actually have much respect for that kind of righteousness. I think it¡¯s special. I wish there was more of it in the world. But if you ask me to pick which type of person has the most real value, I¡¯m going to pick a third Hero Type¡ªone who helps after taking his own safety and sanity into consideration.¡± Alden did understand what he was trying to get at, but at the same time¡­ ¡°Don¡¯t you think this Hero Type 3 might not do the right thing at any given moment because he¡¯s a little bit too selfish? Isn¡¯t that a problem?¡± ¡°Is it okay to walk past one struggling person on your way to save two?¡± Alden frowned. ¡°I hate questions like that.¡± ¡°Yeah. Everyone does. Moral philosophy problems are nasty little riddles, and they never apply well to the complexities of real life. Hero Types 1 & 2 are going to leap headfirst to help whoever happens to be in front of them, and they¡¯re going to feel awesome about it. And everyone can applaud them for it. It¡¯s a simple, undeniably good answer. That doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s the only good answer.¡± ¡°You think I should have a different one.¡± ¡°Speaking as a Scumbag Type, I think you need to stop feeling like shit about not naturally being the particular variety of saint you¡¯ve been looking up to all this time. Most people aren¡¯t even Hero Types at all. They¡¯re Average Types who think there¡¯s nothing wrong with stepping over every casualty on the road as long as they didn¡¯t directly hurt anyone with their own two hands. You should realize you¡¯re already one of the better ones, and make peace with helping others in ways that actually suit your personality¡­since you won¡¯t listen to my advice and become an elementary school teacher.¡± Alden smiled suddenly. ¡°I meant to tell you. You were right about that.¡± ¡°I fucking know I was!¡± ¡°I thought about it all the time while I was living with Kibby and watching Instructor Gwen-lor teach the little kids. Hiding out as an audial Brute and being a teacher would have made me happy.¡± Boe tossed up his hands. ¡°I couldn¡¯t figure out how you knew. I didn¡¯t even know I liked that kind of thing.¡± ¡°How can you not¡­never mind. That path is off the table. You can be a teacher here on the island one day if they don¡¯t mind the Artonans yanking you out of class every other week.¡± Alden groaned at the reminder. ¡°Six months off sounds like a lot sometimes, and others it sounds like nothing.¡± ¡°It¡¯s nothing,¡± said Boe severely. ¡°You¡¯ll blink and be there again. Hopefully scrubbing toilets¡ª¡± ¡°Now that you mention it, when I thought they wanted me to be an actual garbage man during my first few minutes at LeafSong, I was pretty cool with it. I hope they do summon me to scrub toilets. It¡¯s honest work, and it sounds easy.¡± ¡°Please note that in the space of a few sentences we have found three jobs that the current you is more passionate about than being a superhero.¡± ¡°Alien toilet scrubber, garbage man, school teacher,¡± said Alden. ¡°Noted. But assuming I do still want that one day¡­what¡¯s Hero Type 3¡¯s ideal if he is by his very nature less than an ideal?¡± Boe narrowed his eyes. ¡°First of all, what are you hoping it will be?¡± ¡°Oh my god, you are a therapist.¡± ¡°I will punch you with my superior strength. This is a one-time thing brought on by your terrible treatment of yourself. You owe me all of your Natalie food in exchange for my efforts.¡± Alden went to sit down in the chair beside him. ¡°Can I be so super strong that problems feel smaller, and I never have to get in over my head again?¡± ¡°Super strong is why you say you¡¯re going to Celena North, so I think that¡¯s a fair start. You think you¡¯ll keep leveling fast?¡± ¡°I¡¯m trying not to look at it too hard right now, and you don¡¯t want a lot of info¡ª¡± ¡°Secrecy is our friend. Learn contract magic.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to. To answer your question, yes. I expect to level quickly.¡± He was relieved he didn¡¯t sound as worried about that as he actually was. ¡°So Hero Type 3 gets to be strong and competent,¡± said Boe. ¡°And he has a sense of self-preservation, which is not some dirty habit. It¡¯s what makes him ponder situations to decide if they¡¯re worth his effort and whatever amount of suffering they¡¯re going to cause him. He should let himself walk away sometimes. And he should not feel guilty when he does it, because guilt just makes him suck ass at self-analysis. And then he panics trying to fix himself when nothing was ever wrong with him to begin with.¡± ¡°I¡­still don¡¯t want to be the person who walks away from the whistle.¡± ¡°Alden, you didn¡¯t walk away from that. Even when you were weaker than you are right now, you took care of it. There¡¯s no reason for you to think you wouldn¡¯t take care of something equally important in an equally difficult situation again.¡± Alden fiddled with the parasailing coupon. ¡°Okay. But if turning your back on some people who need help is an option for you¡­like, if it¡¯s on your personal list of things that you can forgive yourself for¡­how do you ever make it right in your head?¡± Boe huffed. ¡°There are millions of people who need help right now, who we could help if we seriously tried, but you and I are totally ignoring them. Look at us, sitting here with plenty of food in the fridge and more blood than we need pumping through our veins. How are you making that right in your head?¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m old enough to donate blood now.¡± ¡°Your blood¡¯s probably radioactive and full of alien germs. Nobody wants it, so maybe that was a bad example.¡± ¡°I¡¯m serious, though,¡± Alden said. ¡°If you decide to live in shades of moral gray, there¡¯s no way to know if you¡¯re being pragmatic or just giving yourself a pass to chicken out in any given situation.¡± Boe didn¡¯t answer. After he¡¯d been staring off into space for a minute, Alden asked, ¡°Are you getting a call or something?¡± ¡°No,¡± Boe replied in a distant voice. ¡°Hey, how many lives have you saved in your life? We don¡¯t have to say it was during berry picking. We can pretend it was during some other unrelated event. But how many was it, really?¡± Ten, thought Alden. But saving Kibby had been the same as saving himself, so he couldn¡¯t count her. ¡°Nine.¡± ¡°Fucker. I was hoping you were going to say three. Maximum. Fine. Okay. Nine. You¡¯re one away from double digits. That¡¯s cool of you.¡± ¡°Where are you going with¡ª?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve just thought of a way to help you see yourself better. So that you can make shit right in your head no matter how morally gray the situation is.¡± Boe was grinning now, and he sounded pleased with himself in that particular way that meant he thought he¡¯d just done something very clever. Alden felt a sense of foreboding. ¡°I can¡¯t believe it took me this long to come up with it! It should have been out of my mouth the minute you walked into the apartment.¡± ¡°Boe, you¡¯re acting a little¡­¡± ¡°From now on, whenever you go more than a step or two out of your way to help someone you don¡¯t personally know and care for, you have to call me and tell me about it,¡± he announced. ¡°What? No, I don¡¯t!¡± Alden glared at him. ¡°That¡¯s patronizing, and dumb as shi¡ª¡± ¡°Oh, it¡¯s not to ask me for permission or anything like that! That would be patronizing. You are totally free to save every person on Anesidora and their pets if you want. You just have to tell me you¡¯re doing it. Because from now until the day you really-for-real die, I¡¯m going to match you.¡± Match me? ¡°When I get home,¡± Boe continued, ¡°I¡¯m going to save nine peoples¡¯ lives. And to be fair about it, I¡¯m going to try to do it with an equivalent amount of risk. You said the berry picking wasn¡¯t supposed to be incredibly dangerous, but you did know it wasn¡¯t safe. So I can¡¯t take total softballs. I¡¯ll have to find nine people in situations that will be mildly hazardous for me to resolve.¡± ¡°Boe, that¡¯s not funny,¡± Alden breathed. ¡°You have no idea how good I¡¯m going to be at this. Can you even imagine how much human suffering happens around us on a daily basis? Sometimes, in big crowds, if I lose my shield, I can identify people who are suicidally depressed. Or violently angry. Or scared of the angry person they¡¯re with.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m embarrassed to tell you that. Because usually I ignore them. See, with my power, there¡¯s always a next person in trouble. And a next person. And another. At school once, I felt someone getting the crap beat out of them just outside the building, and in the bathroom across the hall, in the same class period, a person was feeling these spikes of self-hatred and pain that made me think they were hurting themselves. And our teacher was flirting with a girl in a way that was making her incredibly uncomfortable. All of it. All at once. Any time I want.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t just¡ª¡± ¡°How many of them do you think I helped?¡± Boe asked. Alden¡¯s pulse was racing. He felt the beginnings of panic. ¡°The answer is two. I distracted the teacher by asking for permission to go to the bathroom. I didn¡¯t bother with the fight. I could have broken it up easily, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Getting punched in the face is a bizarre risk for me, since I take it like an Avowed instead of a normal guy and people might notice. That¡¯s the kind of thing I¡¯ll do until I get my nine, though. Just a little danger. Probably nothing will go wrong, and I¡¯ll be helping people. That¡¯s what you thought you were getting yourself into, right?¡± Alden¡¯s ears were ringing. Almost like the tinnitus was back. His knuckles were white against the counter. ¡°Calm down,¡± Boe said, suddenly eyeing him with alarm. I can¡¯t. ¡°Try to control your breathing,¡± said Boe. ¡°There¡¯s that thing you used to do with¡ª¡± ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± he gasped. ¡°Give me a second. Fuck. Don¡¯t read me. You asshole.¡± Boe went quiet. This is so humiliating. Actual fucking panic because of a conversation. What the hell, Alden? He wished Boe could leave. He wished he could without having to walk through halls full of people having fun in their Halloween costumes. He clung to the counter, feeling like his chest was going to burst and the room was spinning around him. Boe did go hide out in one of the spare rooms to give him some privacy. Twenty minutes later, when he heard Alden running the kitchen sink to get a glass of water, he re-emerged. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said. ¡°Are you all right?¡± ¡°Awesome,¡± Alden croaked. ¡°I¡¯m way more temperamental than I¡¯ve been in years. It¡¯s so much fun.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t reading you,¡± Boe said. ¡°You can tell because I didn¡¯t realize I was upsetting you that much until it was too late.¡± ¡°I know you weren¡¯t.¡± ¡°I was a little too thrilled with my idea.¡± ¡°Your idea is fucking shit.¡± ¡°Oh no,¡± Boe said mildly. ¡°My idea is perfection. But I didn¡¯t mean to dig in with it quite like that.¡± ¡°You¡¯re still going to fight gangs as an unregistered superhuman until you save nine people!?¡± ¡°Why can¡¯t I?¡± Boe asked. His voice was steady. ¡°I went a little overboard, and I made it sound like I was going to risk myself to punish you. Which is twisted. I promise it won¡¯t be like that. I¡¯ll be careful. But I am going to do it. I¡¯ll text you before and after. You can watch me through our interfaces if you want¡ªfull disclosure on my lifesaving endeavors. Don¡¯t think of it as me doing something dangerous to hurt you, spite you, or mock you. It¡¯s really not that. Think of it as me helping people with you. Like we¡¯re partners in heroics. Long distance style.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°I don¡¯t want you to.¡± ¡°Because you value me? Good. You should value yourself at least as much. And I¡¯m always wondering where the line is that will take me from Scumbag Type to Hero Type. I know you¡¯re all the way on the other side of it. So this is actually the perfect thing for both of us.¡± ¡°You¡¯re crazy.¡± ¡°This is the best I¡¯ve felt about myself in years, to be honest. I¡¯m completely clear-headed. Be as noble as you choose to be, Alden. Save babies. Save boaters. Save murderers if you want. But every time you stick your own neck out to save a stranger¡¯s, pretend I¡¯m there with you. Pretend we¡¯re getting into it together and we¡¯re facing the exact same amount of struggle and the exact same consequences for failure.¡± ¡°I would be too paralyzed to leave the fucking apartment.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°What do you mean why?!¡± ¡°Do you think I¡¯m a coward?¡± Boe asked. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to paralyze you. I don¡¯t want you to wrap yourself up in a blanket and hide from danger. I want¡­to involve myself in this part of your life. All this time, I¡¯ve thought I wasn¡¯t good enough for it, but I think if we do it this way, maybe I am. ¡°This is my Hero Type. I chose it for myself just now. I watch you. I do my best to keep up. Don¡¯t hold yourself back only to keep me safe. That¡¯s lame. I¡¯m an A-rank. I¡¯m smart. I¡¯m actually very competent even if my powers aren¡¯t ones I want to use much. So don¡¯t worry about challenging me. I expect you to. Just don¡¯t throw us away on something you don¡¯t really care about. Got it?¡± Alden didn¡¯t know what to say. ¡°Got it?¡± ¡°I¡­get your point at least.¡± ¡°My point is that the next time you die it had better be for something the size of the planet. Because otherwise I¡¯m going to resent you a little bit when I try to make us match up.¡± * NINETY: Forty Pineapples, part one 90 ¡°I don¡¯t have to count Lute Velra, right?¡± It was Friday. Alden was packing a suitcase with all the possessions he¡¯d acquired over the past couple of months, while Boe sat on the bed with a notebook, writing down potential good deed schemes for when he got back home. Over the past forty-eight hours, Alden had gone from panicking about his friend¡¯s new ¡°Hero Type¡±, to being absolutely furious about it, to¡­ now. Now he felt an inexplicable desire to simultaneously hug and strangle the bastard. Because he was actually serious about them doing this. Boe wasn¡¯t usually whimsical, but Alden had still wanted this to be a whim. If anything, though, he was getting more and more into it, in a completely friendship re-shaping way. It was as if he¡¯d found the answer to a question Alden had never even suspected he was asking. And now he¡¯d been reborn as someone who intended to mimic Alden¡¯s moral lead. It was scary. And at least a little messed up. And Alden thought he might be a little messed up, too. Because the new plan was already working on him like a freaking enchantment. When he finally calmed down enough to oblige Boe by considering what he would really do if they were ¡°partners in heroics, long distance style,¡± he no longer felt any uncertainty about the boater. Knowing his friend planned to mimic his efforts gave him so much clarity he almost didn¡¯t recognize himself. What did the two of them owe the boater? What should they do to stop Manon? Should they buy spy gear and try to sleuth out her true purposes like the protagonists of a mystery series? The answers were: strongly-worded emails, nothing, and obviously fucking not. So simple. So clear. His guilt and shame level? Nearly ZERO. An adult superhero who was an expert on mind control had already been informed. The boater members should be informed, too. It wasn''t completely safe to poke the wasp nest in that way, but it was safe enough he thought. And it was the right thing to do. When he tried to imagine Boe doing more than that¡ªspying, using his powers against Manon, or wading through the swamp of trouble and moral conundrums that would come from publicly decrying one of the most popular Rabbit skills¡ªit sounded baffling. This is nuts, he thought as he tucked his growing collection of lavender sachets from the gym into his bag. My decision-making shouldn¡¯t be this altered just because I¡¯m considering how doing similar things would affect him. I can¡¯t have been holding myself to such a completely different standard than one of the people I care most about. And if I have been¡­is that damaged? ¡°You told Lute he could be your roommate because you felt sorry for him. That could be considered sticking your neck out for a stranger, given who he is.¡± ¡°Let that one go.¡± Alden folded a shirt and tucked it in beside the others. ¡°It was more about me being mad at myself for letting Aulia Velra push me around from the shadows.¡± ¡°Okay. I can¡¯t figure out a workable equivalent for it anyway.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be stopping by Laura¡¯s apartment in person,¡± Alden said. ¡°Not this weekend but soon. I might try waiting until Manon is off-planet. She posts about getting summoned for jobs on her socials often enough, and the warnings might break through to them better if she''s not around.¡± ¡°Laura?¡± ¡°That¡¯s the Brute woman who Manon hurt the worst. I decided today in class. She¡¯s the only one who gets a personal visit to go with the message. I¡¯m not even going to step inside her place. I will literally just stand in the hall and tell her face to face that I think she needs to take it seriously.¡± The emails would be sent through the System at staggered intervals, with the people who Alden thought were least likely to be willingly in cahoots with Manon receiving theirs first and Pineda receiving his last. ¡°Sweet. An in-person action. Should I back one of mine up with an in-person visit, too?¡± Boe had settled on sending people emails about the criminal or adulterous behavior of their lovers. He¡¯d decided, somewhat regretfully, that it would be quicker than trying to track down a small-time cult leader of his very own. Alden still didn¡¯t quite understand how they¡¯d ended up here, but here they were. ¡°Once again, don¡¯t try to make minute details of your schemes match mine,¡± he said firmly. ¡°It¡¯s too stressful for me to think through.¡± ¡°Fair. I¡¯ll use my own judgment about whether someone deserves more from me than an email.¡± ¡°I¡¯m telling Laura because I¡¯m one hundred percent sure she doesn¡¯t know what¡¯s going on, and because I think it won¡¯t be too dangerous,¡± Alden explained. ¡°I¡¯ll stay on the phone with some trustworthy local the whole time I¡¯m talking to her. If she doesn¡¯t believe me and she won¡¯t go get help¡­that¡¯s her problem. I won¡¯t do anything else. The boater gets zilch after this. And I¡¯ll stay out of F-city as much as I can for the next six months.¡± Boe looked up. ¡°That¡¯s new. What¡¯s your thought with that one?¡± ¡°Risk mitigation. Manon¡¯s power could, conceivably, be used for elaborate and difficult to avoid vengeance schemes. I don¡¯t think she¡¯d attempt it? But even if she wants to, she and all of her puzzle pieces live here in F. And they actually stopped trying to shake me down for money once when I implied I had friends in Apex. They¡¯re cautious about messing around with high ranks. I¡¯ll be on campus ninety-five percent of the time from now on. I¡¯ll be surrounded by actual superheroes.¡± ¡°So it¡¯s a win for human decency and minimal risk. I like it.¡± Boe hummed to himself. ¡°And I¡¯m going to help good people discover that they should choose their romantic partners more wisely. We are making the world a much better place here.¡± It¡¯s like he¡¯s turned himself into a mirror for me. And whatever I do, I won¡¯t be able to look away from the reflection. Alden thought about that while he collected his shoes from his closet. Turning around with four pairs of them in his arms, he said, ¡°Listen¡­if we¡¯re really going to try this, and you want me to take it just as seriously as you are, it has to go both ways.¡± Boe was drawing little broken hearts by the name of one of their eighth grade teachers, who was no doubt a future divorcee. ¡°What?¡± ¡°If I have to tell you when and how I¡¯m sticking my neck out for strangers, then you have to do the same thing.¡± Boe blinked at him. ¡°Um¡­have you met me? I don¡¯t think you¡¯re going to be getting many surprises along those lines.¡± ¡°Something else then. I want to copy you somehow, too.¡± Boe pushed up his glasses. ¡°Sorry. This is already an attempt to correct my general scumbaggery. I don¡¯t think I have any other bad habits you can fix by copying me.¡± You¡¯re not a scumbag just because you don¡¯t help every troubled person you can sense with your powers. Alden didn¡¯t say it, because he knew exactly the look Boe would give him if he did. ¡°Everyone¡¯s got something,¡± he said instead. ¡°You¡¯re mirroring me. Let me mirror you.¡± ¡°Like I said, be my guest. But I don¡¯t know how you think it¡¯s going to work.¡± Alden dropped the shoes onto the bed. It was true. It seemed like almost everything he could think of that worried or bothered him about Boe was a problem Boe was already aware of and planning to deal with¡ªrepairing his friendship with Jeremy, un-dropping out of school, getting Alden to learn contract tattoos so he could get his guilty secret intel off his chest. The empathy thing was more complicated. Over the past few days Alden had been trying to detect when Boe was bothered by it, but after that first meeting, he seemed to always be shielding or keeping such a tight grip on himself that Alden couldn¡¯t tell when he wasn¡¯t. He¡¯s really good at hiding things from me. And I can¡¯t hide things from him if he doesn¡¯t want me to. That¡¯s not fair. Oh, that might be¡­ Alden pondered it for a while. ¡°This thing you want to do might be okay for me,¡± he admitted. ¡°And it seems to be making you happy for now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m delighted. My genius has outdone itself.¡± Boe was scribbling on his notebook again. ¡°The whole dynamic relies on me being very honest with you.¡± ¡°If I read about you taking a bullet for someone in the news before you tell me about it yourself, I¡¯m going to assume you¡¯ve done it a hundred times in secret.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t bother to assume. I¡¯ll commit to telling you the truth. And also¡­¡± He hesitated for just a second. ¡°Also, from now on, you can read my emotions. Whenever you need to. Or even if you just really want to. I would appreciate it if you¡¯d tell me about it when you do it, but you don¡¯t even have to do that much.¡± Boe¡¯s pen stopped scribbling against the paper. ¡°No. Blanket permission for something like that is way too much for any friendship.¡± ¡°Is it?¡± Alden was wearing his auriad around his neck this afternoon, and he ran his fingers along it while he thought through how to say it. ¡°If you seriously tell me it¡¯s the wrong thing, I¡¯ll believe you, and I¡¯ll retract the offer. But I¡¯ve been chewing on it ever since I found out, and if I was an empath, I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be able to stop myself from doing the reader part of it a hundred percent of the time. The skill you have that pushes people¡ªI think I could resist that one. But the reading?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t read you at all this week except for the times you already know about!¡± Boe set aside his notebook. ¡°I swear.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not accusing you of anything. See, this is why I think it¡¯s best if I do give you blanket permission. If I had that power, and I was afraid you were hurt or scared or lying to me about something important¡­I hope I¡¯d respect your privacy. But realistically, I would slip up. Probably a lot. It¡¯s way too easy, isn¡¯t it? To do it and to justify it. Sometimes, I bet I¡¯d just be too curious about someone to stop myself.¡± Boe¡¯s expression was tight. ¡°Right,¡± said Alden. ¡°So if we both agree that you shouldn¡¯t read me¡­it¡¯s not going to work. We can pretend you¡¯re perfect. But I¡¯m always going to know that you must screw up sometimes, and I¡¯m going to resent the boundary violation a little even if I try not to. And you¡¯re going to feel like a piece of shit for betraying my trust every time you do it, and that¡¯s just going to make you all¡­withdrawn and down on yourself. It¡¯ll eventually ruin our friendship.¡± Boe¡¯s grip tightened on the blanket beneath him. ¡°I won¡¯t let it.¡± Okay, Alden thought. So this is an actual problem. I was right. ¡°Let¡¯s just take all the work out of it. For both of us. Boe, you can emotion check me whatever amount is right for you. Unless I¡¯ve specifically asked you not to for some reason. And I¡­will be all right with that.¡± It would be easier in the long run. Mortifying at times, but knowing he¡¯d agreed to overshare wouldn¡¯t be nearly as bad as feeling like his friend was taking something he hadn¡¯t offered. ¡°Alden, you won¡¯t be all right with that,¡± Boe said harshly. ¡°How could you be? You¡¯re worried about how unfair it will feel knowing I occasionally slip up? How are you going to feel walking around just assuming you have no emotional privacy from me?¡± ¡°I was getting to that part. Why don¡¯t you try to make it fair?¡± ¡°What¡¯s that mean?!¡± ¡°You can make it fair to me,¡± Alden repeated. It was nice to be the calm one for a change. He¡¯d been such a dramatic wreck this week, and he finally felt like he was starting to get a handle on himself again. ¡°You want to match me in other ways. So match me in this one, too. You¡¯re the only one who will know for sure what the right amount of give and take is anyway. Balance us out so that it¡¯s not just one-way openness on my part. Don¡¯t worry about the times when it¡¯s a true accident, or when we agree to hang out even though your barrier is exhausted. Just make it so that the reads you do on purpose are fair.¡± All the color left Boe¡¯s cheeks. ¡°You want me to share my emotions in exchange.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°Not magically or anything. I know you said you don¡¯t want to use Skill 2. You can just tell me things about yourself I would know if I were an empath, too.¡± Why does he look so freaked out? Is he misunderstanding something? ¡°For example, when you inevitably read me at the wrong moment one day and finally realize I am a little too into ultraplush socks now¡­tell me your own version of that. Or we could agree that I get to ask you how you¡¯re feeling when I want to sometimes, and you have to answer honestly. Easy.¡± ¡°Just enough to balance out the on-purpose reads,¡± Boe said faintly. ¡°Easy.¡± ¡°If you want to cheat, it¡¯s not like I¡¯ll really know. But it would make you a huge dick.¡± Boe swallowed. ¡°What if me balancing it out in that way just makes your life even harder? How would that be fair to you?¡± ¡°You mean because I¡¯ll be worried about your mental health or have to deal with knowing that you hate my guts every sixth Wednesday?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Don¡¯t you have to deal with that kind of thing, too? I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve noticed, but I¡¯m not a paragon of stability right now. I have nightmares about literal demons. And worse. ¡°To me, ¡®fair¡¯ doesn¡¯t mean you pay me back for reading me with nice, happy things that will make me feel good. It means we deal with each other more equally. Good and bad. If it¡¯s mostly bad, then¡­like you said when you decided on this new plot of yours, ¡®Do you think I¡¯m a coward?¡¯ I¡¯ll be fine.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I will be.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll get used to it.¡± Alden headed back to his closet. ¡°I¡¯m already getting used to the idea that you¡¯re my own personal copycat hero. It¡¯s almost flattering if I look at it sideways.¡± Ten minutes later, he was through packing. Boe was gazing down at his notebook with a blank expression on his face. Alden wondered if a request for empathic equality had broken him. At least he¡¯s taking it really seriously I guess. He targeted Boe and poked him in the knee. ¡°Let me show off. Tell me to pick up my suitcase.¡± Boe looked over at the absolutely massive blue suitcase Alden had ordered from Dragon Rabbit this morning. He shook his head. ¡°Everyone who sees you carrying that is going to think you¡¯re a Brute.¡± ¡°I know!¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯m so excited.¡± ¡°Your new skill discovery is decent.¡± ¡°Give me my command.¡± ¡°Alden,¡± Boe said seriously, ¡°take the luggage.¡± Alden focused. Just the suitcase. Nothing else. He¡¯d been practicing. When he tried to do just the suitcase handle, it wouldn¡¯t work. Yet. But that was only a mind game. He¡¯d get it before long. Preserving the suitcase without the contents, though, had already become relatively easy. He lifted it, and he immediately felt the skill activate. The suitcase was preserved. The clothes, shoes, cat toys, and accumulated junk inside were not. He could feel the weight of them against his authority while he picked the bag up with two fingers and beamed at Boe. ¡°I just know you¡¯re going to carry that with you everywhere with that smug look on your face. Even though it¡¯s got wheels.¡± ¡°Wheels are for the weak.¡± Alden swung the suitcase around, almost clipping the bedside table. ¡°I could smash this over somebody¡¯s head. One-handed! I just drop the preservation at the last second so that my magic isn¡¯t holding the weight anymore, and WHAM! So easy.¡± ¡°Very heroic.¡± ¡°I know you¡¯re jealous. I don¡¯t have to read your emotions to figure that one out.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not jealous at all right now,¡± said Boe. ¡°I¡¯m relieved.¡± Alden looked over in surprise. ¡°Relieved?¡± ¡°You¡¯re the kind of person who gets into a lot of trouble. You¡¯ve joined a school that trains you for combat. When I see you swinging around seventy pounds of luggage like it weighs two, I feel relieved.¡± ¡°Ah!¡± said Alden. ¡°Emotional transparency. You¡¯re doing it with me. Thank you.¡± Boe smiled faintly. ¡°Oh, that wasn¡¯t much. I¡¯ll¡­balance us out. Just give me time to think of how to make it fair. Maybe I¡¯ll have something figured out when you get back from the party with all your new classmates.¡± Alden set the suitcase down. ¡°Nooo,¡± he moaned. ¡°I don¡¯t want to go. Let me beat you at pinball again.¡± ¡°You have to go. You already told the dude who¡¯s throwing it that you would.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to stay here. I¡¯ve decided.¡± ******** Boe almost had to shove him out the door to make him attend Konstantin¡¯s party. [I¡¯m going to see those strangers all the time for the next who knows how many years!] he protested from out in the hall, using the text font they had agreed was ¡°the angry one.¡± [You have to go home tomorrow morning!] [That¡¯s my point! Don¡¯t snub the popular guy who¡¯s the brother of your new roommate and be the only one in your acceptance group who doesn¡¯t hang out with everyone else on top of being the B-rank Rabbit!] [Wizard Rabbit!] [Pull yourself out of a hat if you want, but you still have to go. I curse you for making me the one who¡¯s insisting on socialization. It¡¯s wrong.] [You¡¯re the empath. You¡¯re supposed to love people.] [What kind of a cartoon-colored idea is that? People are needy, selfish, insecure, filthy-minded little feelers. Go party with them.] Alden sighed. [Fine. I¡¯ll drink a mocktail for you.] He started down the hall. The leftover Halloween decorations were still littering most of the doors. For some reason, the air smelled like sparklers. [Hey, do Anesidoran teens pretend to get drunk on their mocktails?] Boe asked. [Probably. That¡¯s probably exactly what you¡¯re signing me up for.] The mental texting had gone from being pretty easy, to being completely natural over the past few days. Alden was starting to feel like he had telepathy. He kept an eye out for Maricel as he headed through the building, hoping to spot her. He¡¯d seen her a couple of times on campus, usually with Tuyet or Vandy. The Dart Meister and the Sky Shaper were going to be her roommates, and she seemed to get along with both of them despite their three very different personalities. That¡¯s going to be a lot of S-ranks in one room. When he didn¡¯t catch her in the lobby, he headed out on his own. He stopped at a fancy corner grocery not too far from intake. [What are good mocktail ingredients?] he asked as he wandered down the aisles, staring at jars of olives and candied fruit. [How should I know? Do you think I¡¯ve ever had a mocktail in my life?] [I¡¯m supposed to bring something. I like pineapples. How many pineapples would I have to bring for a party, though?] [I dare you to use your new trick to carry forty pineapples.] [I¡¯d try it, but I¡¯m sure it would make everyone hate me on the train.] He ended up buying a bunch of differently flavored sodas. The store had a self-checkout. Alden took the NesiCard Boe had entrusted him with a few minutes ago from his pocket, pulled the enchantment off the metal disc with a finger, and used the card to cover what he was doing while he held just the enchantment itself toward the card scanner. He dropped the preservation. The screen showed that he¡¯d paid for the drinks, and the enchantment, separated from its home, burned out for the last time. Not the most practical thing he¡¯d ever done, but it was interesting to know that he could finger-pay for things with that type of enchantment at least once. He figured the info might apply more broadly to other kinds of enchantments and magical scanners. And he¡¯d get another card when he took Victor and Boe to the Teleportation Complex tomorrow. [You¡¯re still my target,] he texted. [Tell me to pick up the bag full of drinks right in front of me.] [We¡¯ve tried that twenty different times. It won¡¯t work from this far away.] [It feels like it should, though. If you can do it by text from a couple of floors away why not a couple of blocks?] [Pick up the bag full of drinks in front of you,] Boe said. Alden did. The skill didn¡¯t activate. He prodded around at the Bearer of All Burdens. What gives? What¡¯s the difference in me being this far away when the entrustment is given? Why are you being picky? ¡°Alden?¡± He looked up to see Maricel just entering the shop. After having her ponytail chopped off for the sake of the combat assessment, she had gotten her hair repaired into a pixie cut. It looked nice enough to Alden¡¯s untrained eye, but he couldn¡¯t tell if she loved it or hated it. It was usually on full display at school, but whenever he spotted her in the dorms, she had her hoodie pulled up to cover it. ¡°Hey, Maricel! I was looking for you just a minute ago. Are you buying ingredients, too?¡± She nodded and headed toward one of the freezers in the back. ¡°This place has calamansi juice.¡± After she paid for her juice, they headed for the nearest station and traveled toward Kon¡¯s home on the northwestern edge of F-city. ¡°I expected to see you around more,¡± Maricel said half an hour later as they followed the directions on their interfaces toward a place called Nilama Marina. ¡°Are you hanging out with your new roommates a lot?¡± Alden hadn¡¯t even seen Lexi or Haoyu this week. ¡°I have a class with one of them. Sorry for being a recluse. I¡¯ve just been enjoying the last few days of peace and quiet in intake.¡± And by peace and quiet I mean shocking revelations and negotiations with my friend the criminal. ¡°That¡¯s probably a good idea.¡± She looked curiously at a man in a turban who was casting a spell over the keyboard of a street piano. ¡°Maybe I should have taken it easier, too, but I wanted everything to be better with my new roommates than with my old ones. By the way, I think you should expect people to ask you some questions tonight.¡± Alden frowned. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Because Vandy and Tuyet ask me questions about you. And neither one of them ever gossips about anyone else.¡± ¡°Uh¡­right. I appreciate the warning.¡± [I hate you,] he texted Boe. [What did I do?] ¡°They don¡¯t say anything bad about you. They just seem very curious,¡± Maricel added. ¡°They don¡¯t want to date you, though. I asked. So that¡¯s not why they¡¯re interested.¡± ¡°You asked them if they wanted to date me?¡± Alden gaped down at her. ¡°Why would they want to date me? We don¡¯t even know each other!¡± She smiled at him. ¡°I asked in a teasing way when they wouldn¡¯t shut up about you. It wasn¡¯t strange. I was checking for you.¡± He felt alarmed. But I guess she¡¯s helping? ¡°Thank you,¡± he said uncertainly. ¡°¡­do they want to know about me because of my rank or my class or¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s all the other things. I think word is spreading around. I haven¡¯t talked about you. And Tuyet probably wouldn¡¯t share rumors with just anyone, but I think she does tell her sisters and brother everything. She seems really close to them.¡± They turned onto a narrower street where attempts had been made to transform identical, shoebox-shaped buildings into something more cheerful with pastel paint colors and lines of tall palm trees that must have been regularly maintained by someone¡¯s magic given how inappropriate the climate here was for them. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Alden said as they passed a tattoo parlor where a girl around their own age was hanging a string of marigolds over the door. ¡°Anyone from intake could be talking about me. Or the faculty could have said something where people could overhear. And I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if Max was running background checks on us all.¡± ¡°Why would you think that, Alden?¡± a male voice asked. Alden whirled, his bag of drinks swinging wildly. Maricel shrieked. She dropped her own bag of juice onto the pavement, her hand flew out, and a ball of dirt shot from one of her pockets toward the tall boy who had just spoken. He was standing so close behind them that he had to have been deliberately masking his footsteps for them not to have noticed his presence. He threw an arm up in front of him at the last second, and Maricel¡¯s dirt ball smashed into him. Hard. Max¡¯s fist flew back into his own nose. He slapped his other hand to his face and swore in a muffled voice. It was all over in a couple of seconds, and the three of them stood there staring at each other in horror. <> Maricel shouted, her eyes huge. <> ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯m fine.¡± Max pulled his hand away, and a little blood dribbled down his face. Maricel yelped and started patting her hoodie pockets like she was searching for a tissue. But instead she just pulled out another handful of dirt and looked at it with a blank expression. ¡°Max¡­hi there. You¡¯re bleeding,¡± Alden said finally. Max''s lips compressed. ¡°I noticed.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry I was talking about you behind your back. Saying that you were background checking all of us was not meant as an insult. I was just noting that you are a thorough person. In a positive way.¡± He hoped that sounded convincing. ¡°Sure.¡± Max¡¯s voice was flat. Alden narrowed his eyes. ¡°You were literally sneaking up on us and eavesdropping just now.¡± ¡°I thought it would be funny. And now my nose is broken.¡± ¡°Is it really?!¡± Maricel gasped. ¡°I¡¯m so¡ª¡± Max waved at her with his not-bloody hand and felt at the bridge of his nose. ¡°I¡¯m kidding. It doesn¡¯t feel broken. I just wasn¡¯t expecting your reaction to be an attack. With your powers. I thought you¡¯d yell and then laugh like a normal person.¡± He arched an eyebrow at her. ¡°I will not surprise you in the future.¡± Alden noted that he wasn¡¯t excluded from that. ¡°Really though¡­¡± Max pressed a knuckle to his bloody nostril as he tipped his chin to look down at Maricel. ¡°You do understand you can¡¯t do things like this? Not here. I know you¡¯re probably not used to Anesidora, but you¡¯re an S. And this isn¡¯t Apex. We¡¯re a few hundred meters from one of the family zones. If we were standing over there¡ª¡± He pointed in the direction they were headed. ¡°¡ªinstead of here, you¡¯d be caught on a dozen cameras, and whoever¡¯s on call for this area would land on you like the wrath of God. I don¡¯t think they¡¯re going to arrest you for a first offense with a little dirt baseball. But they will definitely fine you, ban you from safe zones for a while, and put your name on a list that shows up in all the local news.¡± Maricel¡¯s eyes were still fixed on him. Her expression had frozen on her face. Alden looked back toward the family zone. There was an advisement on his interface that they were approaching one¡ªa tiny glowing house symbol in the section he¡¯d assigned for local pop-up warnings. But it was so easy to get used to those things and ignore them. Especially since there wasn¡¯t much risk of him using his own skill offensively as a knee-jerk reaction. He could free his auriad and hit something with his square punch spell, but he wasn¡¯t worried that he was going to do it accidentally. That¡¯s a good thing. I¡¯d hate to be afraid of my own magic. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to scare you,¡± Max was saying. ¡°I¡¯m just pointing out that you have to get used to extremes in this place. Avowed like playing with our powers, and this is home, so we let ourselves be really irresponsible with them in some settings. And then in others, like when you¡¯re out in public in the family neighborhoods, it¡¯s the opposite. You have to have a Don¡¯t Zap It mode.¡± ¡°That tattoo parlor probably has something that will help with your nose. And there¡¯s a clothes shop a couple of blocks back according to the area map,¡± Alden said. ¡°Do you want me to run in and get you a new shirt?¡± He didn¡¯t know what else to do to make the situation less uncomfortable. Max glanced at the pale green button-down he was wearing. ¡°Wonderful. Blood and dirt.¡± ¡°It¡¯ll only take me a minute,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ll pay!¡± Maricel said immediately. ¡°No. Let¡¯s just walk quickly. If we get to Kon¡¯s place in time he can fix this,¡± Max said, setting off with long strides. ¡°And he seems like a person who likes to show off his talent. I would, too, if I had that one. One of the most useful powers I¡¯ve ever heard of.¡± Alden walked beside him, and Maricel hurried to catch up. ¡°I heard some people saying at the meet and greet that they were worried he wouldn¡¯t get into the program because of it,¡± Max said. ¡°Idiots.¡± ¡°He was actually a little worried about that himself.¡± Alden thought conversation was a good plan. It made it feel less like they were a trio made up of an eavesdropper, a gossiper, and an attacker who had all just run afoul of each other on the sidewalk. Max rolled his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m afraid sometimes that wanting to become a professional superhero might be something you¡¯re not supposed to do if you have even the tiniest speck of common sense. Konstantin Roberts is the most employable member of our entire admissions group. He¡¯s probably going to be one of the most employable people in all of Celena North. He would have had to bite an instructor for them not to take him.¡± He threw both hands out in front of him and made a series of gestures. A pair of matching copper-colored bracelets peeked out from beneath his sleeves. Alden thought they looked more like equipment of some kind than jewelry. ¡°Speed increase in around five steps. It feels like a moving walkway. Don¡¯t stop or fall down,¡± said Max. Without pausing for breath, he continued, ¡°Even if we ignore the investigative potential of Kon¡¯s object reading and just focus on the spell impression¡­does nobody else realize how much damage Avowed do to everything around us when we fight each other? In some places and situations, it¡¯s fine. Because it¡¯s what people really want¡ªsuperhuman battle theater they can feel good about watching. But that¡¯s if you¡¯re fighting in a scrapyard or an empty park. When you start devastating property the fine citizens of Earth actually care about, you subject yourself and whoever¡¯s paying you to a lot more negative judgment.¡± Alden was trying to keep track of Max¡¯s speech, but he was a little distracted by his anticipation of the upcoming magical effect. Suddenly, his foot hit a spot in the sidewalk that felt less solid than concrete. His stride took him three paces farther forward than it should have. Looking down made him feel dizzy, so he jerked his eyes up. Behind him, Maricel made a startled noise. Max was casting again. ¡°If Kon gets a spell that lets him repair larger objects, or if he can significantly extend his time window, he¡¯ll be able to clean up after other heroes. And both of those things seem possible based on how Adjuster usually works. He¡¯s an S, so even if he gets no offensive spells he should be able to take care of himself on the edges of a fight. Ideally, everyone will get to see someone wreckingball through a town, and then they¡¯ll get to watch it magically put itself back together again. Nobody will be inconvenienced, and insurance companies will send Kon so many gift baskets he¡¯s going to have to shovel his way through them every morning to greet his fans. Which he¡¯ll have legions of even if he isn¡¯t a combat specialist. Because in addition to having been Systemically blessed, he¡¯s going to be a natural on camera. Three or four steps until the speed zone ends. Then eight until the next one.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think battle theater is what most people want from their superheroes,¡± Alden protested. Neither Max nor Maricel responded. As they stepped out of the second speed zone, Max finally looked over at him. ¡°I understand why you might feel that way. I think it depends on whether or not they¡¯re actually scared of criminals with superhuman abilities. And how they regard Avowed in general. But for a large percentage of people¡­a superhero is just a pretty, likeable character who uses fun magic powers to beat up a nasty, unlikeable character. It¡¯s no more serious to them than that.¡± ¡°What do you even want to be in this program for then?¡± Max didn¡¯t answer until they¡¯d reached the end of the palm tree-lined street. They headed toward a seaside apartment tower with a giant lettered sign¡ªcurrently unlit¡ªat the top, and he shoved his way through the revolving door. ¡°Just because most people think like that doesn¡¯t mean I do,¡± he said, glancing around the red-tiled lobby then beelining for the elevator bank. As the car played a theremin-heavy soundtrack and zipped up to the seventh floor, he added, ¡°Also, Maricel¡¯s right.¡± ¡°About what?¡± Maricel asked. ¡°People have gotten curious about you, Alden. I¡¯m surprised you haven¡¯t noticed if you¡¯ve been in class this week.¡± ¡°It¡¯s been a busy week. And I don¡¯t have academic classes with anyone from our group except for big lectures. Not a lot of opportunity for chatting.¡± Intro to Other Worlds and Preparatory Sciences were the only classes where he ever spoke to anyone, and then it was only Maricel and Finlay, who were both nice enough not to pry at sensitive subjects. ¡°We¡¯ll all be seeing a lot more of each other starting Monday. Gym class. Should be delightful.¡± ¡°What exactly is the gossip about me?¡± Alden didn¡¯t want to ask Max, but he did want to know. And he felt sure that Max would know. The Adjuster smiled as the gold metal doors of the elevator opened. ¡°Only the things anyone on Earth would find if they did a background check. And by that, I mean typing your name into a computer.¡± Wonderful. [You¡¯re a bad friend,] he texted Boe. [You sent me out to deal with these people all by myself.] [You live with those people now.] [That¡¯s a mistake. I admit it. I¡¯ve made a big mistake. Teach me how to enter catspace.] [No.] ******* Alden had been to a ¡°my parents aren¡¯t home¡± style high school party before. Once. He¡¯d drifted miserably through someone else¡¯s house, wondering if he¡¯d entered an alternate reality where all of the people he saw at school behaving normally every day had committed themselves to pretending they were movie-teen stereotypes. He was expecting the same thing from this one, with a possible side order of nosey questions based on Max and Maricel¡¯s warnings. So he braced as the door to the apartment opened, and he promised himself he only had to stay for a single hour. ¡°Hey! You guys are early, too!¡± Kon said exuberantly. ¡°That¡¯s great!¡± He was wearing his Celena North uniform and a bright yellow paper cone hat of the type that usually only made an appearance at birthdays. He stood aside and gestured them into a spacious apartment. Around twenty people, many of whom Alden recognized from the admissions meet and greet, were sprawled on furniture, sleeping bags, and pillows arranged in front of a projection screen that was showing the end of a Chinese martial arts film. This looks different than I was expecting. In a positive way. ¡°Everybody, we have Alden, Max, and Maricel!¡± he shouted. ¡°The globies are showing up!¡± a boy wearing what appeared to be the uniform for one of the local middle schools cried. His shirt was covered in signatures. Like a yearbook page maybe? Alden guessed. That would make sense. For the locals who hadn¡¯t opted to go ahead and start classes at CNH this week, today would have been their last day at their old schools. ¡°My mother¡¯s Anesidoran,¡± Max said. ¡°Oh boring.¡± A few other people waved and shouted hi. ¡°You¡¯re a little bloody.¡± Kon stared at Max. ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°I fell on my face in some dirt. It was around four minutes ago. Can you fix my¡ª¡± ¡°Yeah! Sure! I¡¯m the king of stain removal. Four minutes is nearly my limit, though, so let¡¯s heal your shirt right away. Maricel, Alden, you two can go in the kitchen and set your stuff down. Make yourself a drink. There¡¯s a bunch of baklava. More snacks are being delivered. Grab a hat!¡± He took Max by the elbow and steered him down a hall. The kitchen was full of a large and very random assortment of drink supplies. Astrid¡ªthe spiky-haired Morph Brute Kon and Alden had ¡°rescued¡± during the heroes vs. villains game¡ªand a short girl with cornrows were giggling and throwing some of everything into a blender together. <> the shorter girl asked, pouring almond extract into the pitcher and looking at their shopping bags eagerly. ¡°Oh my god!¡± said Astrid, pointing at Alden. ¡°America! Have you ever seen a moose?!¡± Her tongue wasn¡¯t obviously pierced anymore, but her eyebrow was. Is moving her piercing around shapeshifting practice? He set his sodas down on a mint green counter and tried to figure out why he was being asked about moose. ¡°Not in a zoo or something,¡± Astrid clarified, throwing a handful of cocktail onions in the general direction of the blender. ¡°A real moose. In the wilderness.¡± ¡°I have not,¡± Alden said slowly. ¡°Damn it!¡± ¡°Why¡­?¡± ¡°All of us taking Normie Studies¡ª¡± The other girl cleared her throat. ¡°Fine. Non-Avowed Experiences and Cultures. We¡¯re doing homework bingo, and for one of the squares, I need to interview someone about fearful things they¡¯ve encountered in nature. And I saw this program about moose attacks once, and I really want to interview someone who¡¯s seen a moose.¡± ¡°I¡¯m Rebecca,¡± the other girl said. She made a flicking gesture beside her ear, and a name tag appeared. She was an A-rank Brute. Instead of calling herself by one of the subclass names Alden was familiar with, she¡¯d listed ¡°jumper¡± as her specialty. He didn¡¯t know what that meant in terms of her real powers. ¡°I¡¯m in the same class. Have you ever been in a forest fire?¡± Alden and Maricel both shook their heads. ¡°Forget bingo then!¡± Astrid cried. ¡°Bring an offering for the blender.¡± Rebecca was throwing a spoonful of espresso powder on top of the onions. ¡°You¡¯re not going to drink that, are you?¡± Maricel¡¯s face twisted as she studied the blender¡¯s contents. ¡°Everyone will! It¡¯s for a game later. It will bind us to each other forever.¡± ¡°Until we die of food poisoning,¡± Rebecca said. ¡°It was my idea,¡± said Astrid. ¡°Or maybe Mehdi¡¯s. I¡¯m not sure. We got a little stupid on the way over from school earlier and the blender of binding was born. When a couple dozen more people show up with their offerings, this may have enough ingredients to qualify as a real wizard potion.¡± ¡°Is our whole admissions group coming?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Kon invited everyone. Plus around forty others.¡± She shrugged. ¡°Realistically, almost none of the people who failed to get in will come. It¡¯s too soon, you know? Need time to lick their wounds.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a good thing, too,¡± said Kon, breezing into the kitchen with a cleaner-looking Max behind him. Kon¡¯s new roommate, Mehdi, was sipping something that looked like coffee out of a martini glass and bringing up the rear. ¡°Eighty people would definitely break building rules. Our neighbors are cool, but not that cool. I booked the roof just in case, but the weather¡¯s going to be miserable tonight. Have you seen the swells out there?¡± He nodded toward one of the large oval windows that looked out over the marina and the ocean beyond. The sinking sun was only occasionally visible through cracks in the clouds, and the water looked almost storm-tossed. ¡°Your brother¡¯s going to drown.¡± Mehdi was speaking to Kon but examining Max. Then he turned dark eyes on Alden, scanning him from head to toe. Is he judging my outfit or something? If he was, Alden was sure his jeans and sweater combo was found lacking. Kon¡¯s new roommate was wearing a knee-length black coat with a stylized lion¡¯s head painted on the back in bronze. ¡°I know,¡± Kon was saying. ¡°He¡¯s crazy.¡± ¡°Did he go swimming?¡± Max was fixing himself some complicated drink that involved a lighter and an orange peel. ¡°I know people do, but¡ª¡± ¡°No, the water temperature is about six degrees today, isn¡¯t it? And he¡¯s not quite that crazy. He¡¯s just out in his boat with Haoyu.¡± ¡°He¡¯s got a boat?¡± Alden asked. ¡°A little one. Our parents got it for him for his birthday.¡± ¡°Shit Sixteen present,¡± Mehdi said, raising his glass. The other Anesidorans all nodded. Maricel looked around at them all. ¡°A boat sounds like an expensive gift to me, though?¡± Kon turned to her, blinking. ¡°It was! I guess this is completely an island thing¡­I hadn¡¯t thought of that. But when you start to age out of the usual selection window for the rank everyone thought you were going to have, sometimes your family suddenly gets too generous with the gift giving.¡± ¡°It¡¯s usually a Shit Seventeen,¡± Mehdi added. ¡°But when your younger brother gets selected as an S before you get selected at all¡­¡± Kon threw his head back and groaned. ¡°I didn¡¯t even tell them for a whole week! I knew he was going to be so upset. And that he might kill me. I was hoping the System would take pity on us both.¡± ¡°Wooow¡­you are stronger than me,¡± said Astrid. ¡°I woke half the neighborhood up at the crack of dawn when I got my A. I woke up my dog to tell her.¡± Kon smiled at Maricel. ¡°Anyway, Lexi was really hoping for A or S. We¡¯ve both known we wanted to go the hero school route for years. And you have to have the rank for that¡­unless you¡¯re Alden and Max here.¡± Max was throwing a sugar cube into his glass. Alden had just opened a lemon soda. ¡°We weren¡¯t panicking for him yet, but we were definitely starting to have more awkward dinner conversations where Mom and Dad were conspicuously saying positive things about the lifestyles of D¡¯s and F¡¯s.¡± ¡°Gotta lower those expectations all the way down once you start lowering them.¡± Mehdi pointed at the floor. ¡°My aunt and uncle did it wrong with one of my cousins. They went level by level, prolonging the torture every few months. He affixed as an F. Outlier at almost nineteen. And he was completely depressed and done with our whole family by then.¡± Kon winced. ¡°Yeah. I finally had to come out about it. You can¡¯t just wait when it¡¯s S. It¡¯s so hard to trade, and I really wanted Adjuster. Because we¡¯re the best.¡± ¡°Hey!¡± said half the people in the room. ¡°I speak only the truth,¡± he said. ¡°Anyway, Maricel, when I told my family, it was about ten weeks after Lexi¡¯s sixteenth birthday. And suddenly, in addition to shelling out a ton of money to help me top off the trade for the class, they found enough for a boat. I don¡¯t think he even wanted a boat at the time, but he uses it a lot.¡± ¡°So your brother got a boat and a high rank in the end,¡± said Astrid. She saluted the ocean with a half-peeled banana. ¡°Now that¡¯s the way to do it!¡± ¡°He felt bad about it when when he got selected a couple of months after me. They¡¯d just finished paying for my trade, and his boat, and then they had to help him get Meister, too. He offered to sell the boat, but they didn¡¯t want to admit it was a ¡®We¡¯d given up on you¡¯ present, so they wouldn¡¯t let him. The fact that they had this Artona II tour lined up was a huge relief.¡± ¡°Trades were so rough this year,¡± said Rebecca, her lips turning down. ¡°I wanted a ranged weapon Meister, but I couldn¡¯t trade into it, and my parents couldn¡¯t afford to offer enough money on top.¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to kill it as a Brute, though,¡± said Astrid. ¡°We¡¯re awesome, too.¡± ¡°Yeah, according to the surveys Brute actually has a higher satisfaction rate than Meister or Adjuster. So, in the long run, you guys will probably be better off than any of us,¡± said Kon. ¡°Except maybe Alden.¡± Alden had been standing off to the side with his soda, wondering just how much Anesidoran parents had to save up to arrange to make their children¡¯s dream classes a reality. ¡°Why me?¡± ¡°Rabbit¡¯s right below Healer for class satisfaction,¡± Kon informed him. ¡°I know that¡¯s probably a self-selection result considering how hard it is to nab a rare, but it¡¯s still interesting to note. You are, mostly, a happy class.¡± I can believe that. ¡°Rabbit intake is fun from what I¡¯ve seen. Compared to the other groups.¡± Mehdi had set down his martini and was making micro-adjustments to his hair using his reflection on the fridge handle. ¡°I know in my heart that you intakers are partying every day. Three full months of no school. All that nice stuff. I tried to sneak in with friends a couple of times last year, but they have guard ninjas to keep us out.¡± ¡°They¡¯re just security people in dark clothes, man,¡± said Kon. ¡°Ninja-like security people.¡± ¡°They don¡¯t want us bothering the new citizens,¡± said Rebecca. ¡°They don¡¯t want us to enjoy our youth!¡± said Mehdi. ¡°All those globies with new powers, nothing but free time, and no parents nagging them like they¡¯re still children. Some of them come out of that place pregnant. It¡¯s obviously a fu¡ª¡± Astrid threw a bottle of black currant syrup at his back, and he spun and snatched it out of the air. It shattered with an explosive tinkle. Maricel shouted. Alden covered his face half a second too late. Fortunately, he just got a splattered instead of cut. ¡°Fuck, you two! Come on!¡± said Kon, leaping back from the spreading puddle. ¡°Fucking glass?¡± ¡°Oops.¡± Astrid¡¯s eyebrow ring fell off her face and hit the floor. She really must have been maintaining the piercing to practice her morphing. ¡°That was my bad. I knew he could catch it, but I threw it harder than I meant to. ¡± ¡°¡­it might have been my fault, too,¡± said Mehdi shaking syrup from his fingers. ¡°I haven¡¯t got grip strength down when I¡¯m surprised. I¡¯ve been breaking things at home a lot. My hand¡¯s not cut, though. So we didn¡¯t overdo it too much!¡± People were running into the kitchen to see what the noise was. ¡°All right!¡± the Meister who''d shot Alden with a lot of arrows during their duel last weekend shouted. ¡°Party¡¯s really starting up now!¡± He fist-bumped the boy in the autographed shirt. Max stood there, absolutely dripping with dark purple liquid. The expression on his face was louder than any sigh could have been. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. * NINETY-ONE: Forty Pineapples, part 2 The party did pick up pace after that. The sun set. More guests arrived. Delivery people and drones brought snacks. The projection screen in the middle of the living room switched to famous superhero fight footage, and music started to play. Kon put caution tape over two of the bedroom doors, but he gave everyone free access to the rest of the apartment. He might have been regretting that decision, since his parents¡¯ king sized mattress was being used for random power demonstrations in the living room. Half the girls present were standing on it at the moment, trying to pep talk their admissions group¡¯s Object Shaper into lifting it up like a flying carpet. He was eager to oblige, but in over his head. So far he¡¯d only managed to lift one half or another of the mattress at a time, and the girls were falling all over each other and laughing. Alden was hanging out in the kitchen, where the other partygoers were too distracted by food and adding nasty things to Extra Spicy Bonding Potion 2.0 (no broken glass edition) to bother with more than small talk. About an hour in, he was sitting at the table by the window, having a strange but not terrible conversation with a Shaper of Life named Jupiter, who was really into the historic value of Kon¡¯s family¡¯s apartment. ¡°Some old guy designed this tower in the late 1900¡¯s,¡± she said, wafting purple polished fingernails over a fried crab wonton to cool it off. ¡°And he was so upset that the future had come and it didn¡¯t look like the future he had imagined. So instead of building something contemporary, he flashed back to the past and built this place. It¡¯s the only Googie-style skyscraper on the island. You need to make sure to take a good look at it when you leave. It looks great at night. It¡¯s got these impractical spikes sticking up from the roof and the big neon Nilama sign. But it¡¯s ancient, and it doesn¡¯t really hold enough people to justify its footprint for a great neighborhood like this. They¡¯re definitely going to tear it down sooner rather than later. Oh, hello! Kon¡¯s brother!¡± <> he said in Russian as he stepped over a crushed chip. He was wearing a gray sweater with straggly pieces of yarn hanging from the hem and cuffs, and his dark hair looked about like you¡¯d expect for someone who¡¯d been out boating in high winds. <> she responded in Spanish. <> ¡°We¡¯re actually going to be roommates,¡± Alden said. At the same time Lexi asked, ¡°Why does he need me to be nice to him?¡± Jupiter fixed Lexi with a look Alden couldn¡¯t decipher at all. Her hazel eyes were wide, her lips were pursed, and she kept bobbing her head up and down in time to some unheard rhythm. ¡°Are you trying to mental text?¡± Lexi asked after watching this strange behavior for almost a full minute. ¡°I only got six disconnected words. If you want to talk about him behind his back, you¡¯re just going to have to use your fingers.¡± ¡°Haha!¡± Jupiter said nervously. She waved a hand at Alden. ¡°We¡¯re not talking about you.¡± She then proceeded to air text Lexi. [People are talking about me behind my back right in front of my face,] Alden reported to Boe. He felt more curious than offended at this point. [Bets on what it¡¯s about?] [If you¡¯d brought forty pineapples like I suggested, they would forget everything else about you.] ¡°Yeah,¡± said Lexi to Jupiter. ¡°I know. Thanks for the warning.¡± [There¡¯s a warning about me.] Jupiter grabbed another wonton and left. Lexi was staring at the sign beside the blender that said, ¡°Fill me up. I¡¯m hungry!¡± ¡°What is this?¡± he asked in a disgusted voice. ¡°It smells like chili sauce and toilet bowl cleaner.¡± ¡°You should smell the rest of it,¡± Alden said. ¡°It¡¯s in the fridge in a punch bowl.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to be forced to drink it later. For social reasons.¡± ¡°I should have known it was one of the weird parties when that guy with the mohawk refused to let me into my own house until I guessed the ¡®secret password.¡¯¡± So that¡¯s how Kon got Jeffy to stop challenging every other Brute here to squeeze his hand as hard as they could. ¡°I should just sleep on the boat,¡± Lexi murmured as he looked at the chunky, separated contents of the punchbowl in the fridge. ¡°Kon has plans for the two of you. They sound good.¡± The brothers¡¯ parents had a call scheduled for tonight from Artona II. It had been pre-planned because the cost of making daily phone calls was impractical and because if one or both of the brothers had failed to get into the hero track, this would be the day when they received an admissions notice from the sciences program. Their parents were expecting to hear their news and congratulate them. Kon wanted them both to be in their school uniforms surrounded by new classmates. This was such an inescapably sweet idea that Alden was now committed to staying for at least two more hours so that he could put on a paper hat and wave with everyone else at the designated time. ¡°I know,¡± said Lexi. ¡°I¡¯m going to go to my room and finish packing. You¡¯re moving into the dorms tomorrow, too, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Yep. I¡¯m packed. I¡¯ll be hauling all my stuff over in the morning. By the way¡­¡± Alden scooped some more hummus onto his plate, trying to think of how to phrase a criticism without making Lexi angry. ¡°Springing Lute Velra on me because you thought I would be too ignorant to know about his family was maybe not the most neighborly thing for a new roommate to do.¡± Lexi looked around with raised eyebrows. ¡°You¡¯re the one who asked to stay with me. If you¡¯ve got a problem, get another room.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have a problem with Lute. We¡¯re partners in Convo IV. It¡¯s a neutral relationship. But you deliberately checked to make sure I was still in intake and brand new to the island before you agreed to room with me.¡± He leaned back in his chair. ¡°I¡¯m just saying that when you happen to know some Anesidoran social dynamic that¡¯s going to affect me and you deliberately hide it¡­well, Lute himself was much cooler than you. He actually asked if I minded rooming with someone that ninety percent of the school seems to hate.¡± ¡°He needs help moving his concert harp tomorrow if you want to thank him for it,¡± Lexi said in a flat voice. ¡°Fine. I will not deliberately hide ¡®Anesidoran social dynamics¡¯ from you. There¡¯s nothing wrong with Lute Velra. Everyone who enjoyed bullying him in middle school is just excited to relive the experience now that his family has done something insane enough to give them an excuse to start back up.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± Lexi grabbed a bottle of plain club soda. He looked around for a bottle opener and when he couldn¡¯t find it, he lifted his sweater and removed his whip from where he had it belted around his waist. The thin chain, in its shortened form, started to glow. Lexi flicked his wrist. The tip of the chain wrapped around the throat of the bottle, and then melted through, neatly cutting the glass. Lexi poured the contents into a plastic cup. ¡°That is a very superhuman way to access your beverage.¡± ¡°You thought it was some kind of a torture device, didn¡¯t you?¡± Lexi said, tossing his bottle at the recycling box in the corner and ringing it dead center. Alden stared at the whip as the Meister hid it beneath his sweater again. ¡°No? It seemed strong and versatile during our combat assessment. The fact that you have mental control over its motion is probably going to be a huge advantage. I thought it was a nuanced weapon.¡± Lexi straightened up and faced him. He didn¡¯t look happy, but he did look not ill-tempered for the first time since he¡¯d entered the kitchen. He pointed at Alden. ¡°Finally,¡± he said. ¡°Thank you. Everyone else must have their heads so far up their asses that they can¡¯t see Nautilus Needle.¡± He was referring to the tallest skyscraper on Anesidora. ¡°Writher is a puncturing, cutting, cauterizing, and control tool. I don¡¯t know whether I should blame Kon for making stupid BDSM jokes every time I pull it out or that Wright who brought an actual torture device to trials. Of course the gymsuits hurt a lot when I use it in certain ways! They hurt when everyone else uses their weapons on you, too! Just because I picked this instead of some brainless stabbing implement, it doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m a sadist.¡± He does have a certain rage and intensity on his face when he¡¯s hitting people with it that probably contributes to that impression. It didn¡¯t seem necessary to mention that. ¡°There you are!¡± Kon jogged into the kitchen holding a lumpy pillowcase. He dumped its contents out on the floor. It looked like it might once have been a record player. Lexi stared. ¡°Is that Grandpa¡¯s¡ª?¡± ¡°No,¡± said Kon. ¡°Shhhh..it¡¯s fine. I¡¯m almost positive I swept up all the little broken bits. Guard the door so nobody interrupts me. You know the spell won¡¯t repair its own damage if I get hit mid-cast. Hi, Alden! Stay there and don¡¯t throw stuff at me or this while I fix it.¡± He was frantically nudging every last piece of the broken player into a pile. ¡°Dad loves this thing. It¡¯s lucky I heard the crash as soon as it happened.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you put it in Irina¡¯s room?¡± Lexi went over to stand in front of the door. ¡°I did. A couple of our new schoolmates ignored my caution tape.¡± ¡°To do something that involved turning a record player into rubble?¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. There are some large scratches and dents on the floor, but I think I¡¯m almost out of spell uses for the night, so I had to pick¡­ Iri would like a new rug. A turtle-shaped one! She¡¯s into turtles right now. And if she doesn¡¯t tell Mom, I¡¯ll buy her a real turtle. Two turtles. I will officiate a turtle marriage for her if she wants.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Lexi said in a toneless voice. ¡°Our mother will never think to look under the brand new rug her son bought out of the goodness of his heart right after inviting several dozen strangers into the house.¡± ¡°I do things out of the goodness of my heart all the time!¡± ¡°Buying household furnishings?¡± ¡°Shut up. I¡¯m dolphining.¡± That¡¯s never going to stop being cool, thought Alden, watching in silence as all the broken pieces were surrounded by Kon¡¯s glittering cloud of magic, and they miraculously became a vintage record player again. Kon frantically checked it all over, then he set it down and collapsed onto his back with a relieved sigh. ¡°Thanks to every soul from here to the last moon of Vevezeck. It¡¯s all there.¡± He sprang up. ¡°I¡¯ll go put this back and put up more caution tape.¡± ¡°Let me,¡± Lexi said, taking the player. ¡°I don¡¯t want people doing perverted things in our sister¡¯s room.¡± ¡°It was a Shaper and a Brute trying telekinesis versus superpowered stomp. It was stupid, not perverted.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll throw them out for being stupid then.¡± ¡°Ummmm¡­¡± Kon clasped his hands behind his neck and stared up at the ceiling. ¡°Yeah. That¡¯s fair. I¡¯ll toss them myself. Don¡¯t worry about it. Hey, did you and Haoyu get some good fireworks?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Really? The Wrights are usually so easy to persuade. Well, for most people¡­¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t talk to any Wrights.¡± ¡°I thought you guys were going out to see the barges they¡¯re setting up for Diwali?¡± Just then, Lexi stepped aside, and a boy with equally wind-scrambled hairand dark brown eyes appeared. Alden had seen his third roommate before and heard a few things about him¡ªmostly that he was going for a Dura Brute build like his hero parents and that he¡¯d managed to get into the program despite a rough start on the combat assessment. But they¡¯d never spoken. Haoyu was wearing a half-unzipped windbreaker over a shirt with a familiar logo on it. ¡°I go to that gym, too!¡± said Alden. ¡°So you are definitely a rich kid,¡± Kon whispered, grinning at him. ¡°We have a decent gym at school, you know.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you can be called a rich kid if you¡¯ve only had access to money for two months,¡± Alden protested. Haoyu looked at him curiously. ¡°The membership was my affixation present.¡± ¡°He got a Shit Affixation present even though he¡¯s still fifteen,¡± Kon informed Alden. ¡°Because his parents are both S¡¯s, and he only got A.¡± Lexi glared at him. ¡°Really?¡± Konstantin took a step back and held his hands up. ¡°I¡¯m not picking on you two. Someone mentioned Shit Birthday presents earlier and our new citizens thought we were a bunch of silverspooners who complained about luxury gifts. I¡¯m educating, not insulting.¡± ¡°It was a disappointment.¡± Haoyu sounded completely unbothered by Kon bringing it up, though. He stepped over toward Alden and held out a hand. His name tag popped up without him gesturing, so he obviously had some mental control over his interface already. [Haoyu Zhang-Demir] [Preferred: Haoyu] [Year 1 at Celena North High School] [Please contact my parents through their agents at Pacific Pinnacle Representation, not through me.] ¡°It¡¯s very nice to meet you,¡± he said earnestly while Alden stood and leaned over a platter full of baklava to shake his hand. ¡°Lexi says you have a cat. I don¡¯t mind watching him or her for you when you¡¯re away on summons.¡± ¡°Victor¡¯s a dude. He¡¯s going on a vacation to visit one of my friends while I get settled into the dorms, but he¡¯ll be coming back,¡± said Alden. ¡°And thanks! I do have six months off for now, though.¡± Haoyu nodded. ¡°For a Rabbit, balancing summons with a career will be hard. If you need advice, you can talk to my mom. She was already established when she started receiving more frequent missions from the Artonans, but she¡¯ll know more than most people.¡± This is amazing, thought Alden, beaming at the back of Haoyu¡¯s head as the other boy turned around to speak to Kon. One of them is polite, mature, and thoughtful. Not angry or exhausting at all. Haoyu was officially his favorite roommate after only a few sentences. ¡°We didn¡¯t go see the fireworks barges. We went to Matadero,¡± he was telling Kon. Matadero? Alden was startled. People can just go there? It was the off-shore facility where the demon fight took place. Kon gave his brother a look. ¡°You guys went all the way to The Slaughterhouse? In your boat on rough water? And you¡¯re worried about what our parents are going to say to me about some scratches on the floor?¡± Lexi shrugged. ¡°We¡¯re Avowed now. If the boat capsized we could just ET ourselves back.¡± ¡°Emergency teleporting only works if you¡¯re conscious to initiate it,¡± Kon grumbled. ¡°I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯m mad you went or mad you didn¡¯t take me. What did it look like?¡± ¡°You¡¯ve seen pictures.¡± ¡°It was interesting,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°We only got close enough to see it well through binoculars. Our interfaces warned us not to go any farther, and SkySea Guard is patrolling out there.¡± ¡°I¡¯d probably have been turned away before I could even spot it if Haoyu wasn¡¯t with me.¡± Haoyu shrugged. ¡°Oh. That¡¯s true¡­¡± Kon looked at Haoyu. ¡°I haven¡¯t been keeping track this time. Is it your mom or your dad?¡± ¡°It¡¯s Battle Group 3¡¯s turn, so it¡¯s dad. We had dim sum together a couple of nights ago before he headed over.¡± Alden watched the other three boys from his spot by the food table, trying to follow the discussion. ¡°Do the people participating in the demon fight go to Matadero early?¡± he asked. ¡°I thought it was still a pretty long time until the execution.¡± They all looked at him. ¡°Official Demon Day is probably a fake date,¡± Kon answered. ¡°Everyone knows it, but it feels better to have a mark on the calendar.¡± Haoyu nodded. ¡°It¡¯s an added layer of security. Most of the people going to Matadero stay in residence there for a few weeks. My parents can¡¯t tell me much, but they say they spend a lot of time talking about strategies and getting to know the new members of their group.¡± ¡°And it¡¯s an open secret that one of the university combat gyms is always ¡®closed for repairs¡¯ during demon season so that Avowed working on Matadero can teleport in and out to practice more dangerous skills,¡± Kon added. ¡°It¡¯s usually Li Jean because their hero college has the largest training space.¡± ¡°The official date is when they announce that it¡¯s over and how it went,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Not necessarily when the fight will actually happen.¡± Running into points of ignorance that supposedly ¡°everyone¡± knew about was getting tiring. Alden assumed it would be the same if he moved to any other foreign country, but he hoped he¡¯d find the limits of outsider inexperience soon and start feeling like he was actually getting the subtext of casual conversations again. ¡°Thanks,¡± he said. ¡°Just curious.¡± ¡°Lexi and I were talking about going back soon. The weekend after next maybe. You can come with us if you want to see it,¡± Haoyu offered. Lexi and Kon both made sounds of protest ¡°I don¡¯t want to be a water taxi!¡± ¡°You should offer to take me, too! I¡¯m your brother.¡± Haoyu blinked at Lexi. ¡°If we¡¯re going anyway, it would be fun to take Alden. And Vandy might like to be invited, too? Since her mom¡¯s in residence this time.¡± ¡°Hellooo?¡± said Kon, waving his hands in Lexi¡¯s face. Lexi¡¯s arms tightened on the record player and he shot a look at Alden before sighing. ¡°You too?¡± he said to Haoyu. ¡°Yeah. Maybe we can do that.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t put yourself out or anything,¡± said Alden. He wasn¡¯t sure he even wanted to see Matadero. But since Haoyu was shaping up to be his good roommate, he wasn¡¯t going to outright reject his idea. The volume of the music in the living room suddenly shot through the roof, and the sound of a K-pop group backed by a strong bass beat made everything on the table and countertops vibrate. Alden and Haoyu slapped their hands to their ears, and Lexi¡¯s shoulders drew up like he was trying to retract his head into his spine. ¡°How did they find the remote?!¡± Kon screamed before racing out of the room. Astrid skidded past Lexi into the kitchen a second later, her socks slipping against the floor. Rebecca and another girl were hot on her heels. ¡°Alden!¡± she shouted three inches from his face while he stared at her eyebrow ring.¡°Alden! Raccoons! Have you ever seen real raccoons?!¡± Hands still clutched to his head, he nodded. ¡°Yeah! We have raccoons in Chicago.¡± ¡°Are they rabid?! Are they cute?! Were you scared? Have you ever pet one?!¡± ¡°Probably some of them! Yes! No! And no!¡± The music cut off suddenly. ¡°Hell yes, my supersisters!¡± Astrid yelled, throwing her hands up to high five her friends. ¡°I interviewed someone about dangerous wildlife! That¡¯s BINGO!¡± ******* Astrid threw hummus in the blender and cackled like a witch. Rebecca asked Alden how long he¡¯d been going out with Maricel. A girl named Njeri told him he should come with her and her friends to join the school¡¯s ice hockey club after gym class on Monday. Jupiter wandered into the kitchen, told everyone to be nice to him, then wandered back out with her cheeks stuffed with wontons. Before Alden could finish completely abolishing the rumor about Maricel or decide what to do about the ice hockey invitation, Jeffy appeared carrying a familiar green plaid shirt. ¡°I brought this to give back to you!¡± Alden assumed he was the target of that announcement, even though Jeffy¡¯s eyes were fixed on the girls. ¡°You know I¡¯ve been living in the building beside yours all this time, don¡¯t you?¡± Alden asked, reaching for the shirt before one of its trailing sleeves could get hummused. ¡°You could have just brought it over anytime instead of carrying it all this way. Or we¡¯ll be on campus together tomorrow night?¡± ¡°I¡¯m Jeffy,¡± he said, ignoring Alden in favor of ogling Astrid. ¡°I know! We met earlier! Love the hair. Have you properly greeted Lord Blender?¡± ¡°You can cook?¡± Jeffy asked, sniffing the blender. ¡°That¡¯s cool! It smells great.¡± All three girls, Alden, and a Meister standing in the corner slicing cheese into shapes with his knife stared at the Aqua Brute. Astrid looked from the blender to Jeffy then down at her own cleavage and back at Jeffy. ¡°I can cook,¡± she said, throwing her shoulders back and smiling at him. ¡°You want some?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± Alden whispered. It was too cruel. Rebecca¡¯s hand shot up to cover his mouth. Just a little too much force there, Brute girl, he thought as his head banged lightly against the cabinet behind him. He wondered how many people wound up injured by brand new Avowed getting relaxed about their powers before they really should have been. Astrid was pouring a dastardly quantity of her latest concoction into a cup. Njeri, giggling, disappeared into the living room. Heads started popping around the kitchen door a moment later. Everyone was snickering and shushing each other. ¡°Bottoms up,¡± Astrid said passing Jeffy the cup with that same innocent smile on her face. ¡°Uh¡­what¡¯s this drink called?¡±He looked uncertain. ¡°I made it up. So it doesn¡¯t have a name yet. You can name it after you taste it!¡± Alden shook his head. If Jeffy had been looking at him instead of at Astrid, he might have saved himself. Of course he wasn¡¯t. Jeffy took a big gulp and then immediately started to choke. ¡°Now, now!¡± said Rebecca, lowering her hand from Alden¡¯s face and shoving on the bottom of the cup as Jeffy tried to put it down. ¡°That¡¯s just the hot sauce tricking your tongue. The second sip is going to be way better!¡± ¡°DRINK IT, YOU COWARD!¡± a guy bellowed from the watching group. ¡°Drink it, drink it,¡± someone else started chanting from the back of the pack. ¡°Don¡¯t give in to peer pressure,¡± said Alden. ¡°A whole cup of that shit¡¯s going to destroy your digestive tract.¡± One of the larger hot sauce bottles they¡¯d poured in there had had a coffin on the label. ¡°Who is that killjoy!?¡± Alden flipped off the person who¡¯d just shouted. ¡°BE A HERO!¡± ¡°I am a hero!¡± shouted Jeffy, punching a fist into the air. His eyes and nose were pouring. Pinkish brown blender potion was oozing down his chin. He started to chug it and gag on it at the same time. Oh well. Now I have a clear conscience. Alden gave in and applauded with everyone else. [Just risked my future popularity to save a stranger I don¡¯t really like,] he reported to Boe while Jeffy coughed and wheezed over the sink and Astrid patted him on the back. [Warned him off of a blender full of hot sauce, smoked oysters, cherry syrup, and hummus. So put that on your to-do list.] There was a long delay before Boe¡¯s reply. [That one doesn¡¯t count.] [Sure it does. Now you have to save an idiot from the error of his own ways, too. It¡¯s fine if you fail. I did.] [Get puked on, send me a picture, and we¡¯ll agree to call it an actual Savior Alden incident.] So not worth it. People were surrounding him and the blender. He shoved his way through the circle and out of the kitchen before they could get any ideas about him being a volunteer for an encore. He headed down the hallway and stood outside the bathroom door, waiting for whoever was in there to finish up. He waited. And waited. Lexi, exiting one of the bedrooms by ducking between ribbons of caution tape, spotted him there. ¡°You¡¯re going to want to use the one in my parents¡¯ room. Some girl¡¯s been crying in this one for twenty minutes, and she¡¯s not emerging no matter what I say.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Alden looked at the door. There were marks on the frame, with heights and ages for Lexi, Kon, and their little sister. She was four, if her last mark was up to date. Lexi started to walk past him, then stopped suddenly. He sighed. ¡°Hey. Anesidora social dynamic for you, since you demanded it¡ªthere¡¯s a group chat with a lot of the people here in it. They¡¯ve been doing nothing in school for the past week except gossiping and getting to know each other if they didn¡¯t already. All of you globies come up¡­for obvious reasons. They think the Scottish boy¡¯s accent is exotic and they can¡¯t get enough of it.¡± The local group chat wasn¡¯t much of a surprise. And good for Finlay. ¡°I heard him showing it off for people earlier.¡± ¡°Most of them are enchanted with him. He¡¯s very strong for someone our age. Started with a little more than normal for an S, probably, and worked hard at it on top of that.¡± Lexi looked at Alden. ¡°Your accent¡¯s boring. But nothing else about you is. You¡¯re kind of a hypocrite, aren¡¯t you?¡± Startled, Alden uncrossed his arms. ¡°How am I a hypocrite?¡± ¡°You think I owe you a warning about a Velra and you don¡¯t owe me one about everything you¡¯ve got going on? Your reputation may not be toxic like Lute¡¯s, but it¡¯s going to be just as inconvenient. I¡¯ve barely interacted with you, but four people, including my brother and my friend, have already scolded me for not being gentle with you.¡± Alden opened his mouth, but he couldn¡¯t come up with words to express the potent mix of embarrassment, disgust, and oh no he was suddenly experiencing. ¡°Be however you fucking like with me,¡± he finally said. ¡°I don¡¯t need special treatment. I¡¯m not one of those goats that faint when people yell at them.¡± Lexi squinted at him. ¡°Is that a real animal or is it some American saying that makes no sense?¡± ¡°They¡¯re real! I saw some on a farm when I was little. I don¡¯t know how they work or why, but that¡¯s not the point! The point is, I am not one of those goats. And you should be as ungentle around me as you want.¡± ¡°Yeah okay.¡± ¡°Just because I spent time on another world with some chaos in it, it doesn¡¯t mean I need to be managed! By my fucking classmates! I just saw one of them drink homebrewed lava while the rest of them cheered. I am fine.¡± Lexi smiled for the first time Alden had seen. It made him look shockingly Kon-ish. ¡°You sound really fine. Also, you said that loud enough for some of the people here to hear you.¡± Alden clenched his teeth. ¡°And for your information, since you want honesty, almost everyone is way more fascinated about you being orphaned by a supervillain of the twisted and evil variety. They¡¯ve spent the past few days reading all about it.¡± Oh. Body Drainer. That¡¯s actually¡­ that should have been obvious. Moon Thegund was what was at the forefront of Alden¡¯s mind. But this was a group full of freshly minted superhero school students. Half of them were probably getting excited about the opportunity to go into protector mode and the other half were probably trying to think of ways to ask him for gorey battle details without pissing off their own friends. ¡°I told Kon that he, at least, should know better. Nobody wants people to be extra nice to them because of things that happened when they were eight years old. But he liked hanging out with you the other day, and he gets caught up in group activities. That¡¯s the gist of it. If you want to insert yourself into the secret Anesidoran social dynamic somehow and change it, go for it.¡± Alden was conflicted. On the one hand, everything Lexi had said was something that he was glad to have out in the open or that he agreed with. Even the hypocrisy accusation¡­was¡­ Totally fair. Ugh. Shit. But the Meister had such a cold way of dropping phrases that really shouldn¡¯t be dropped at all¡ªlike ¡°orphaned by a supervillain¡±¡ªthat it felt like they were having an argument. ¡°Thank you for telling me,¡± Alden said, resisting the urge to inject sarcasm into the words. ¡°I appreciate it. And I¡¯m sorry for complaining about Lute when I am just as inconvenient as him.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± Lexi said dispassionately. Then he left. Alden let himself slump against the wall. Well, that¡¯s not really a big deal. Or big news. And people being nice to me for no reason is so much better than them being assho¡ª Lexi had stopped at the end of the hall. He turned around suddenly and came back. He stood a couple of feet away, and Alden braced for whatever else he¡¯d thought of to say. The other boy glared down at his own socks. ¡°Haoyu thinks we should allget along if we share a suite,¡± he said grudgingly. ¡°He was already talking about doing something with you and Lute anyway. I shouldn¡¯t have implied that he was being like the others.¡± Oh. Well, that was actually a relief. ¡°He seems cool.¡± ¡°He¡¯s too nice. He volunteers me for things.¡± Lexi grunted. ¡°Have fun destroying my house with everyone else.¡± He stalked away. ¡°I¡¯ve barely left the snack table!¡± Alden called after him. ¡°I¡¯ve been cleaning up spills all night!¡± This time Lexi kept walking. Alden looked at the bathroom door again. I wonder if it¡¯s¡­ [Hey,] he texted Maricel. [I haven¡¯t seen you around in a while. Are you still at the party?] She didn¡¯t answer. [If you decide you want company for the trip back to intake, let me know.] That¡¯s the right thing, isn¡¯t it? It¡¯s better than outright asking if she¡¯s the crying person. He didn¡¯t want to insert himself where he wasn¡¯t welcome. He waited until he was sure he wasn¡¯t getting a reply, then he headed toward the other bathroom. Before he¡¯d made it through the door, Jeffy ran past him, clutching his mouth with one hand and his stomach with the other. Guess I don¡¯t need to pee that bad after all. ******** ¡°What I¡¯m trying to tell you,¡± Alden said, raising his voice so that his chosen target could hear him over the beat of the music in the crowded living room, ¡°is that you should just treat me normally. Or¡­however it is you treat everyone else.¡± Jupiter¡¯s arms were in the air over her head, and she was swaying in time to the music in a floppy kind of way that probably shouldn¡¯t be called dancing. ¡°I promise I am already!¡± said Jupiter. She¡¯d found glitter to apply to her face since the last time Alden had seen her. It was awfully slick looking. He thought she might have just smeared lip gloss all over herself. ¡°I haven¡¯t been talking about you at all!¡± ¡°No.¡± Alden didn¡¯t know how to break through. ¡°I¡¯m saying it¡¯s fine if you have been! I understand you¡¯re trying to be considerate. Stop telling everyone here that they have to be nicer to me than they want to be, though! It¡¯s unnecessary!¡± Jupiter swayed so far to the left that Alden reached out reflexively to catch her in case she fell. She wobbled then popped back upright. ¡°Snake plants are the best!¡± What in the¡­? She was smiling at something behind him, and Alden turned to see a tall green-striped plant by the window wriggling in a very Jupiter-like way. She is befriending vegetation. ¡°You¡¯re¡­a unique person,¡± he said, giving up on getting his point across. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re having fun.¡± Blue light flashed across the ceiling as the fight scene on the screen changed. Alden wandered over to hover among a crowd of people who were discussing the battle between a Wright decked out in laser cannons she¡¯d made herself and a small gang of non-Avowed criminals who¡¯d somehow gotten their hands on Wright-made weapons of their own. It was a cinematic battle. All of the ones that had played tonight were. Most day-to-day superhero work wasn¡¯t so flashy. An Anesidora-trained S-rank chasing down some C-rank unregistered who¡¯d been found out by their nosy neighbors wasn¡¯t usually a major event. But it¡¯s the big flashy ones that make people think of you as a real superhero. Maybe Max is more right about battle theater than I want him to be. The other B-rank was standing on the edge of the room, wearing a too-tight shirt Kon had loaned him. The one he¡¯d come to the party in had been deemed cursed after a third incident involving a girl and a virgin strawberry daiquiri. The group watching the television was trying to analyze the Wright¡¯s weapons. Some of them sounded semi-knowledgable. Most sounded like they wished they were. One of the Brutes was arguing that lasers were ¡°the same as cheating¡± for reasons so convoluted that Alden couldn¡¯t follow them at all.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Ooo¡­that¡¯s going to leave a scar!¡± a guy called out as one of the Wright¡¯s smaller lasers flashed. <> ¡°Ohhhh right.¡± ¡°Any Healers will help injured Avowed first, local victims of the magic-caused event second, and then, if they have time, they¡¯ll assist regular people on their waiting list,¡± Vandy told everyone. Maricel¡¯s roommate had been in the battle-discussion group for the whole party. The Sky Shaper was in the same dark blue pantsuit she¡¯d worn to interviews. She¡¯d chosen to start classes this week, and Alden had seen her a few times. She was one of those people who wore the full school uniform every day even though it wasn¡¯t required. She¡¯s not completely stiff though. Vandy¡¯s hands, held down beside her legs, had been twitching back and forth for the past hour. She was directing a pair of paper airplanes overhead. Alden was sure she was doing it mostly for practice, but she also seemed to want everyone to enjoy them. Whenever one got swiped out of the air by a partier, she smiled and folded another. ¡°Armless gets a human surgeon if he survives,¡± another girl said. ¡°Did you get a Healer?¡± At first, Alden didn¡¯t realize he was being addressed.He was watching the Wright pursue the last runaway bad guy down a street. She shed her heavier weaponry, it teleported out of sight, and she went with pure strength for the final chase and grab. ¡°Hey, I asked you if you got a Healer?¡± Alden looked around. To his surprise, the person speaking to him from the other side of the group was Winston Heelfeather. He¡¯d noticed him lurking around the party, drifting after Finlay and glaring holes in the back of the more powerful speedster¡¯s head. ¡°What?¡± Alden asked. A few people were looking between the two of them now. ¡°Everyone¡¯s saying you were part of some big deal hero/villain fight or something,¡± said Winston. He took a sip of his mocktail. ¡°When you were a kid.¡± Now it was more than a few people. Why is he glaring at me? Admittedly it was a half-powered glare compared to what Finlay had been getting all night, but it made a lot less sense. This is good for me anyway. Thanks for bringing it up so that I have an excuse to be visibly fine with it. ¡°They did take me to the House of Healing.¡± He shoved his hands into his pockets and smiled at Winston. ¡°It wasn¡¯t a Healer-class Avowed that helped me, though. It was the wizard who runs the Chicago House.¡± His mother¡¯s old boss. Rynez-yt. He¡¯d only met her a couple of times before that night. She was a morose person with a dreadful bedside manner, but he¡¯d been inclined to like her anyway because his mom did. ¡°I¡¯d rather be healed by a human than an Artonan,¡± Winston spat. Everyone in the group was looking at him instead of the screen now. ¡°That¡¯s¡­a little xenophobic,¡± said Rebecca. ¡°It¡¯s very xenophobic,¡± said Vandy, staring at Winston in shock. One of her airplanes crashed into the back of Mehdi¡¯s gelled hair, and he grabbed it. He was watching the discussion with an unreadable expression. ¡°It¡¯s also stupid,¡± said Alden. ¡°When you¡¯ve got shrapnel in your intestines, you¡¯ll be really glad to see any kind of healer of any species.¡± Everyone¡¯s eyes were still on Winston. His ears were reddening. ¡°Yeah, yeah! Sorry I didn¡¯t mean it like that. I was just running my mouth too fast.¡± ¡°You should apologize to Alden, too,¡± Vandy said. Alden didn¡¯t know whether Winston had meant it or not, but he was pretty sure the speedster hadn¡¯t meant to say it out loud. Does he really want attention so much that he¡¯s jealous of the variety I¡¯m getting? Well, whatever. I¡¯m still going to use this for project Alden-is-not-a-poor-baby. ¡°Thanks, Vandy,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s fine, though. The Body Drainer incident was a long time ago. It¡¯s not my favorite convo topic, but I don¡¯t mind answering questions about it.¡± Most of the eyes fixed on Winston turned back to him. ¡°What was it like?¡± Rebecca asked immediately. ¡°You had shrapnel in your intestines? Did it hurt?¡± <> ¡°It hurt super bad,¡± said Alden. ¡°And I lost a ton of blood. I would have died if not for one of the heroes on the scene.¡± ¡°Hannah Elber,¡± someone said. ¡°I read about that.¡± ¡°She went missing last year.¡± ¡°The Gloom¡¯s daughter.¡± ¡°Do you know the Gloom?¡± Mehdi asked. ¡°Not really.¡± The crowd had shifted so that Alden had to stand on his tiptoes if he wanted to see the other boy clearly. ¡°I¡¯ve only met her once, and it was just for a few minutes.¡± ¡°But what does shrapnel feel like?¡± Sanjay said, staring at Alden avidly. ¡°Sanjay!¡± Astrid entered the discussion by shouting from all the way across the room. ¡°Monday in Combat class, we¡¯ll ask the faculty to turn the gymsuits all the way up. Then we¡¯ll take turns stabbing you in the guts. How does that sound?¡± <> ¡°It¡¯s not combat class. It¡¯s pre-combat class. Physical education and self defense, right?¡± a girl wearing a fiberoptic headband said nervously. ¡°They¡¯ll keep the suits powered down, won¡¯t they?¡± ¡°You hope they will.¡± ¡°Oh don¡¯t remind me about MPE,¡± Tuyet moaned from her seat on the sofa. ¡°I¡¯m so nervous about it.¡± ¡°What was the worst thing about being in a supervillain incident?¡± Alden blinked at the Meister who¡¯d asked. ¡°My parents dying. And long-term tinnitus.¡± ¡°My dad has tinnitus from getting hit real bad by a Vocal!¡± Jupiter suddenly called from over by her plant friend. ¡°Healers have trouble fixing that. Sometimes the magic repairs it, and sometimes it just doesn¡¯t.¡± Telling her dad to try to find a Healer as good as Rrorro didn¡¯t seem like helpful advice, so Alden left it alone. ¡°Where in the intestines¡ª?¡± ¡°If you¡¯re that curious, I could show you my scar¡­¡± Several people said ¡°yes¡± or some version of ¡°cool,¡± and nobody said ¡°no.¡± Pretty much the same as when I offered to show it to people in sixth grade homeroom, thought Alden, lifting up his sweater just enough to show off the whole scar without revealing the tattoo above it. Though I guess we¡¯re all old enough now that nobody is going to say something dumb, like ¡®I want one, too.¡¯ ¡°I want one, too,¡± Jeffy¡ªfresh from his karmic bathroom experience¡ªsaida minute later after staring at Alden¡¯s stomach. Alden sighed. Astrid, who was leaning really much too close to finish her own examination, popped upright. ¡°I like it!¡± she announced. ¡°He has a nice stomach,¡± said Rebecca. ¡°It¡¯s not bad at all,¡±Astrid agreed. ¡°Hey, I¡¯ve got a nice stomach!¡± said Jeffy. ¡°We¡¯ve all seen yours. Pretty average to be honest.¡± ¡°Jeffy got in!¡± someone yelled. A jacket flew through the room and slid down the screen. Astrid turned back to Alden and narrowed her eyes. ¡°Appeal or effort?¡± He dropped his shirt. ¡°Both,¡± he confessed. ¡°But mostly an alien plant-based diet for months and an overzealous healer. There¡¯s only one point in Appeal.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to admit to one,¡± she said, flapping her hand at him. ¡°Most of us will pick up at least three or four before we graduate from uni anyway.¡± ¡°Beauty always sells,¡± said Mehdi. He¡¯d gotten closer during the impromptu scar-viewing session. ¡°You should have known he had one, Astrid. He¡¯s a Rabbit. B-rank Rabbits always get a whole point in Appeal.¡± He smiled at Alden. ¡°Anesidoran social dynamic¡ª¡± Oh great. That¡¯s going to be a thing every time someone talks to me for a while isn¡¯t it? He was going to have a long conversation with himself about not saying anything out loud ever again. Mental texting henceforth. With everyone. ¡°¡ªnobody serious takes Appeal until they¡¯re in third year. Or uni even. It just looks terrible on the application unless you¡¯re doing it specifically for the empathy. So it¡¯s really impressive that you managed to get into the program with that hanging over you on top of everything else.¡± He was still smiling. He sounded friendly. ¡°Well, I¡¯m glad to be here.¡± ¡°Yeah, I think the school needs some diversity,¡± said Mehdi. ¡°About that skill you used in the combat assessment, how exactly does it¡ª?¡± Astrid gasped, and everyones¡¯ heads jerked toward her. Behind her head, the screen was showing a Brute righting an overturned rail car, but that didn¡¯t seem dramatic enough to be the source of her surprise. ¡°Alden, no!¡± she said in horror, grabbing him by the shoulders and looking into his eyes. ¡°How are you going to drink our potion if you¡¯re vegetarian?! There¡¯s a meatball in there!¡± ¡°And I blended a wonton,¡± said Jupiter, stroking the plant. ¡°Sorry. I didn¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Can I be vegetarian, too?¡± Tuyet asked quietly. ¡°Vegan. It¡¯s fine,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯ll just hold the potion in my mouth for however long you guys think is fair and then spit it back out.¡± Mehdi¡¯s smile shifted to something lighter in a way Alden couldn¡¯t put his finger on. ¡°So your dietary ethics only forbid swallowing? That¡¯s a new one.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t let everyone suffer alone, can I?¡± He was worried this might make the gremlin apoplectic. Alden hadn¡¯t seriously tested its resolve on this matter since they¡¯d had a two-hour long battle over a bag of shredded cheese back before he became an Avowed. It was one of his more humiliating moments as a human being, trying to trick his own brain by accidentally-on-purpose throwing value brand cheddar at his mouth and hoping it went in and all the way to his stomach. But the whole reason for coming to this event was to try to establish himself as a real member of the class. It wasn¡¯t going as badly as he¡¯d worried. People were being weird, but almost nobody was being weird in a mean way. And Gorgon could hold live flies in his mouth for extended periods of time, so it wasn¡¯t impossible despite the gremlin trying to convince him it was. Astrid patted him on the arms. ¡°Two minutes counts as a drink! That should be fair!¡± ¡°That seems a little long¡ª¡± Alden started to protest. ¡°Our first year bond grows stronger the longer you can withstand it,¡± Rebecca told him. The music quieted. Lexi and Kon had just entered. Kon was carrying the world¡¯s most heinous punchbowl carefully in both hands. ¡°It¡¯s time,¡± he intoned, setting it on the coffee table. It was a red-brown soup with scum and floating chunks of fat from some ill advised dairy addition on top. Muddy opaque liquid made a middle layer, followed by a more translucent one, and then there was a solid two inches of sediment at the bottom of the bowl. ¡°Just so everyone here knows, I¡¯ve never forced anyone to do anything like this at one of my parties before. I thought that the karaoke was going to be enough of a bonding experience, but some of you¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s hero school,¡± said Astrid. ¡°We have to be more epic.¡± ¡°If any of you slipped smuggled alcohol or actual potions in there, then I am going to kill you,¡± Lexi said. Haoyu was leaning over the bowl and poking curiously at a weird gray disc that might once have been a banana slice. ¡°Yes, thank you all,¡± said Kon. ¡°And I tasted it a few minutes ago. To make sure there were no potions. It¡¯s fine. Well¡­it¡¯s definitely not fine. But there¡¯s nothing magic in there. Or in the numerous pitchers of this stuff Astrid has spread around the kitchen for us. Since there¡¯s so much, and I don¡¯t want to try pouring it all down the sink, I think our drinking game should be more straightforward. Whoever drinks the most of it wins a prize.¡± ¡°Yay! What¡¯s the prize?¡± Jupiter asked. ¡°Can I have the¡ª¡± ¡°Our mother likes that plant,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Put it down.¡± ¡°The prize is a great one.¡± Kon looked around at them all. ¡°Everyone here owes the winner one use of one of their magical talents¡­for nonhazardous, non-humiliating purposes.¡± ¡°There are over forty people here,¡± said Vandy, looking interested. ¡°That¡¯s a good prize.¡± ¡°A drink counts as one of these.¡± Kon pointed at a stack of tiny paper cups with pictures of sea turtles on them. Alden was guessing they were some kind of disposable medicine or potion cup, since they didn¡¯t look big enough for anything else. Kon looked over at him. ¡°Also, Astrid, two minutes is really long for a single drink. If Alden¡¯s determined enough, he might be at this for an hour. And I¡¯m worried about the flesh peeling off his tongue.¡± Oh wow how bad is this stuff? ¡°We can reduce it to one,¡± she said magnanimously. ¡°Because he let me poke his scar.¡± ¡°Also nobody has to participate. You just lose your chance at the prize.¡± ¡°And our respect!¡± shouted the guy who was picking his jacket up off the floor. ¡°And his respect. Up to you.¡± Kon looked around. ¡°Sound good to everybody?¡± While a few people argued about whether potion pong would be better, an athletic girl with a short brown ponytail walked over to grab a cup. ¡°I just want to know what everybody¡¯s best talent is!¡± She smiled confidently down at the punch bowl. She was wearing a green maxi dress and a teddybear purse.¡°Because I¡¯m gonna win.¡± She pointed at Alden. ¡°You¡¯ve got umbrella power.¡± He smiled. ¡°It¡¯s not just the umbrella.¡± ¡°I hit that thing hard. And bam! It was fun. We should do it again!¡± ¡°I honestly don¡¯t think I can take many hits like that. But sure. I¡¯m also good at keeping food hot or cold. And carrying stuff.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think Helo¨ªsa needs help carrying stuff, man!¡± Alden didn¡¯t think so either. The A-rank Strength Brute who¡¯d ended the rescue game could probably handle her own luggage. ¡°What¡¯ve the rest of you got for me?¡± Helo¨ªsa asked while she held out a cup and Kon ladled the punch into it. ¡°I like prizes.¡± ¡°She¡¯s so sure she¡¯s going to win,¡± another Brute muttered. ¡°I am going to win.¡± ¡°When I win, I¡¯m going to make Helo¨ªsa rearrange all of my dorm furniture!¡± ¡°I want her to carry me to all of my classes one day.¡± ¡°I want to make the knife boy carve a dryad in her tree out of ice and then I want the frost Adjuster and Alden and Konstantin to make sure it never melts.¡± Everyone turned to stare at Jupiter. ¡°Wow,¡± said Kon, filling Rebecca¡¯s cub. ¡°You came up with that incredibly¡­specific¡­request so quickly. But sure. I could give that a try.¡± A rough line was forming. Alden got behind Mehdi. [Maricel,] he texted, [we¡¯re doing the punch thing. If you¡¯re still here.] Drinking a revolting beverage with a bunch of other teenagers just because wasn¡¯t an unmissable life experience, in his opinion. But Alden was sure this was the kind of group activity that Maricel was also making an effort to be a part of. She wants to fit in and come across as more fun, right? This seems like exactly that sort of opportunity. Even Lexi was taking a cup. Probably in solidarity with Haoyu. He looked disappointed in himself. Alden took his turn at the punchbowl. He took one of the little cups from the dwindling stack and held it out to Kon. Wait a second. If we¡¯re doing it this way, can¡¯t I¡­ He hastily targeted Kon. His sense of Boe¡¯s direction faded and was replaced by a new one of the Adjuster in front of him. ¡°I haven¡¯t talked to you much tonight!¡± Kon was stirring Bonding Potion 2.0 aggressively so that the chunks all rose off the bottom. He seemed intent on giving everyone their fair portion despite the fact that he¡¯d wanted them to do karaoke instead. ¡°Are you having fun?¡± ¡°It¡¯s been good to get to know everyone.¡± Kon ladled glop into his cup. ¡°Enjoy!¡± Alden walked off, staring into his cup of punishment. He¡¯d been in the kitchen for a long time so he¡¯d seen most of the things that went into it. There was an entire zoo in here. It was a firm no from that part of him that just knew not to bother with certain foods anymore. This smells foul. Alden activated his skill. The liquid stopped threatening to spill over the rim. The curdled dairy and fat globs froze in place on top. Hey¡­is it cool if I put this in my mouth? he asked. Just to carry it, not to eat it? Nothing. No objection. Does it not know what this is made of now that it¡¯s preserved? Or does it not mind because I have no intention of swallowing it? Probably the second one. ¡°All right! Everyone get in a circley shape, so we can all see each other. No cheating!¡± Astrid shouted. Jeffy was standing beside her with another cup. He¡¯s determined at least. Alden took a place across the circle from them. It was unfortunately close to Winston Heelfeather, who was getting the cold shoulder from lots of people now, including a couple of guys he seemed to be making friends with earlier. It wasn¡¯t the whole group, but he was still looking miserable and pissed about it. ¡°To the newest first year hero students at Celena North High!¡± Astrid announced, lifting her cup over her head. Everyone cheered. ¡°May we be united in amazingness and asskickery!¡± ¡°I¡¯m almost qualified for second year,¡± Lexi mumbled. ¡°I would be if not for the combat classes.¡± His brother elbowed him. ¡°To us!¡± said Kon. ¡°To victory!¡± Helo¨ªsa cried. ¡°To Brutes!¡± ¡°To Meisters!¡± ¡°Shapers forever!¡± ¡°Adjusters!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t any of you dare spit it out on our floor!¡± Lexi shouted. To Rabbits, thought Alden, shifting his weight, throwing the cup back, and opening his mouth wide enough for the shape of the preserved drink to pass between his teeth. Well, this is peculiar. He let it rest on top of his tongue. It felt sort of like an ice cube just starting to melt, only less cold. Bearer of All Burdens did the fake tactile and visual senses with varying degrees of accuracy, but it didn¡¯t bother with smell, sound, or, apparently, taste. So he had no idea what the others were experiencing as they all hacked, gagged, made faces, or spit their drinks back into their cups. He closed his eyes. You could try taste if you wanted to, he thought, prodding at various parts of his skill. I wouldn¡¯t even mind having this poison in my mouth if it meant I could get good fake flavors this way down the line. He was a shameless animal who would absolutely carry a piece of bacon around like this all day so that he had his own personal meat-flavored breath mint. Maybe some facet I can add will include a tasting feature. Some species somewhere must need to lick things to understand them, right? There¡¯s got to be a way. ¡°That was one minute,¡± someone said. ¡°Damn, the Rabbit¡¯s still got his eyes closed. Is he meditating to endure having that shit in his mouth?¡± ¡°Did he actually drink it? Was someone watching him?¡± Alden opened his eyes and held his paper cup upside down to prove he wasn¡¯t a cheater. Even though he totally was. Then he crushed it in his fist to prevent anyone from seeing how spotless the inside of it was. Kon was wiping his tongue on a napkin and taking drinks from a cup of water. ¡°One of you dropouts time him! Everyone who still wants the prize, come get your second cup.¡± <> someone moaned. [I¡¯ve found the perfect way to destroy my classmates with my skill,] Alden reported to Boe. He tried to keep his weight shifting subtle, and he closed his eyes again so that he couldn¡¯t see them all. If he started laughing, it was going to be obvious he didn¡¯t have liquid in his mouth¡­at least not in the usual sense of the word. He described what was happening, and Boe texted him back. [Told you there would be benefits to partying. Now you¡¯ll have a few dozen high-ranking Avowed owing you favors.] [I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll go that far with it. I¡¯ll let someone else win. I just want to beat this one particular guy.] Isn¡¯t it interesting that I¡¯m having no trouble from the gremlin? How fast will it make me choke on this if I change my intentions from not drinking it to drinking it? ¡°Two minutes.¡± Alden looked around again. Most people were finishing their fourth drink. Finlay had tears running down his face and was waving off the ladle as a pair of dropouts came around with the punch bowl again. He dashed toward an almost-empty milk carton and upended it into his mouth. Winston¡¯s eyes were watering, too. But he glanced at Alden then took another cup. Alden smiled around his pleasantly cool mouthful. Jupiter was accepting her next cup¡­rather blithely. Okay, so she¡¯s got an unexpected tolerance for both heat and horror. Jeffy was taking another one even though he looked ill. Helo¨ªsa waved a hand over her mouth and said, ¡°Refreshing!¡± before staring at another Brute and holding out her cup for more. Haoyu was downing one while Lexi stood behind him shaking his head. Mehdi was throwing them back placidly, too. Max was watching Alden through narrowed eyes while he blew his nose and held out his cup for the punchbowl bearers. Uh-oh. A text notification blinked, and Alden answered it. [You¡¯ve either got nothing at all in your mouth, or you¡¯re using your skill to shield yourself from it. It hadn¡¯t occurred to me that it might work that way, but I bet it does.] [You can¡¯t prove that,] Alden replied at once. [But even if you¡¯re right, just let me beat Winston, and I¡¯ll spit it out.] Max looked over at Winston. He shook his head. [The one with the serious inferiority issue? He¡¯s either going to puke or win the whole thing. Probably the first. But he might last through fifteen more rounds before that happens. I¡¯m not going to let you look like your capsaicin tolerance is that high.] [I¡¯ll give you a talent use. The same as the prize winner gets,] Alden offered. [What am I supposed to do with it?] [You¡¯ll think of something.] Max gulped down his drink and shuddered. [Deal,] he said a second later. [But try to look like you¡¯re suffering, or other people are going to start to notice, too. Some of the A¡¯s are paying extra attention to us both.] Alden looked around. [Is Mehdi one of them?] [I¡¯m surprised you noticed him. He¡¯s not being obvious about it. But he¡¯s not a fan of me or you.] Max was carefully avoiding looking in Mehdi¡¯s direction. [Do you think he hates low ranks or something?] [It would be odd if he did. I think he¡¯s worried about me and you particularly.] Alden had been trying to look pained so that Astrid would know he was enduring along with everyone else, but at that, his confusion distracted him from his efforts. [What did I do to him?] [You took a hit from Helo¨ªsa with your skill, and you didn¡¯t roll around on the ground crying afterward. Mehdi¡¯s an A-rank Brute, too. Agility-focused.] [He¡¯s afraid you and I might beat him in a fight?] [I think that¡¯s what some of the others are afraid of. Mehdi seems different. He seems like the kind of person who wants absolute victories, doesn¡¯t he?] Alden cut his eyes toward the other boy and back. He didn¡¯t have a clue. Who spent time thinking about other people that way? Keeping up socially was his goal for the night, not analyzing everyone as if they were a future opponent. [We¡¯ve got ages left to worry about who¡¯s going to grow into the biggest baddest Avowed.] Max took another drink. [Some of us are worried about Monday. I¡¯ve met at least four people who have something to prove, and they¡¯re thinking they¡¯ll start by beating me at whatever our instructors have us doing in the gym.] Just then, Winston Heelfeather made a retching sound, and everyone backed away from him. Lexi was over there in a split second holding out a bucket that a bunch of samosas had been delivered in earlier. [Tap out after the next minute,] Max demanded, while Winston barfed. [I get to be the B-rank victor for this one.] Alden nodded. He did his best to feign increasing agony and distress, and then ran away from the living room clutching his face dramatically. He¡¯d only had Astrid and strangely, Sanjay, for personal cheerleaders, and they both applauded as he fled back toward the bathroom in the apartment¡¯s master suite. Good. Nobody¡¯s here. He locked the door behind him. He had forbidden food in his mouth. Some combination of preservation plus his initially pure intentions had made the gremlin dismiss Bonding Potion 2.0 from its threat list. I can preserve food any time, but not having the slightest intention of eating it is going to be close to impossible now that I¡¯ve had the idea of working around the restriction in this way. Unless he was amazingly lucky and preservation was a true hack, then this kind of opportunity wouldn¡¯t come around often. How to do it? If I un-preserve too soon, it could make me freak, and I¡¯ll be spewing this stuff all over the bathroom and trying to wash it out of my mouth. Enough might make it into my stomach to teach it¡­or it might not.Instead, it could consider it accidental ingestion at that point and think that¡¯s why the rite didn¡¯t trigger. And it¡¯s a slow learner. If Alden¡¯s wordchain practice hadn¡¯t proven that, then the fact that Gorgon had been engaged in food negotiations with his own, much more complete and functional mental helper for ages certainly did. He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, noting that he still had a few purple flecks from the currant-syrup incident on his cheeks and in his hair. He sighed through his nose. I know it was a tiny paper cup, but this is still going to be like eating a damn golfball. Can people even do that? He was trying to look it up when someone knocked on the door. Alden turned on the sink, hoping that would buy him a minute. Determined, he used his fingers to shove his cup-shaped preserved drink into the back of his throat. He tried to gulp. Unsuccessfully. ¡°Are you all right in there?¡± a girl¡¯s voice called through the door. ¡°Throwing up?¡± I hope not. It felt like he was trying to take a pill made for giants. After several more tries, he finally choked it down. It was a memorable, inelegant process. Kinda gross. He felt it slide down his throat and settle in his stomach. He had the same melting ice cube feeling in his gut now. He blinked at himself in the mirror and wiped drool off his face with a tissue from a box on the counter. He wondered if his tonsils were all right. He started snickering at himself. Oh yeah! This is definitely the use-case the Artonans had in mind when they designed one of their most powerful Avowed skills. He released the preservation, and the bonding potion hit his stomach. The gremlin woke up. Alden could feel it trying to figure out what was going on. It seemed very suspicious. That¡¯s right, little buddy. We just had some surf-and-turf smoothie. How did that happen? Notice how we¡¯re not exploring the souls of an entire menagerie? You think about that really hard for a while, Alden told it. ******* The party was getting sloppier. A pair of hot pink tights were crumpled on the floor in the hall. An Asian boy ran past Alden wearing a piece of caution tape as a belt. The second bathroom wasn¡¯t locked anymore, but there was some kind of thick mustard-colored smoke pouring out of a dispenser on the rim of the tub. Alden assumed it wasn¡¯t an illegal substance, since Lexi wasn¡¯t in here kicking people out, but he still held his breath. A quartet of people were sitting on the floor while clouds of the stuff settled around them. They were having a discussion about how Anesidora ought to be allowed to purchase a ¡°vacation territory¡± somewhere on Earth. ¡°Somewhere tropical,¡± said Rebecca. ¡°With animals.¡± ¡°The Amazon. The Artonans are already paying the South American countries not to develop it. We could hang out there.¡± ¡°Can you wear a bikini in the Amazon?¡± ¡°I think there are a lot of insects, right?¡± In the living room, two teams of supporters had formed around Helo¨ªsa and Mehdi. Kon was doling out punch to each of them, his concerned look standing out in stark contrast to the ferociously pleasant smiles on their faces. ¡°You guys,¡± he said, while Astrid bounced toward him holding another pitcher of punch, ¡°that¡¯s thirty-six each. Don¡¯t you think we should call it a tie? You can split the prize.¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± said Helo¨ªsa, putting one hand on the hip of her maxi dress and holding her cup out toward Kon. ¡°Me too.¡± Mehdi had stripped off his tiger coat. The black shirt he had on under it had gotten sprinkled with glitter at some point. ¡°I could do another thirty-six.¡± ¡°Same here.¡± ¡°Good.¡± ¡°Good.¡± ¡°Maybe you two should fight with your powers,¡± said Njeri. She was thumping Jeffy on the back. The Aqua Brute was lying sprawled on the sofa, moaning. ¡°It seems like that might be safer.¡± Alden caught Helo¨ªsa¡¯s eye and gave her a thumbs up as he passed. He would rather owe her a favor if he had his choice. In the kitchen, he beelined for the snack table and took the last wonton. Aw man. He still couldn¡¯t eat it. He held it up to his nose, sniffed it aggressively, and imagined crabs dissolving in stomach acid. The gremlin wasn¡¯t having it. But Alden liked to think that it was a bit less sure of itself than it had been. Eventually, he realized that Vandy and Tuyet were both staring at him. Maricel¡¯s roommates had bowed out of the drinking contest. Now Tuyet was loading dishes into the washer while Vandy folded another paper airplane at the table. Alden set down his teaching wonton and wiped his hands on a napkin. ¡°Hey,¡± he said, hoping that they would shrug off his behavior as normal party-induced madness. ¡°Do either of you know where Maricel is?¡± ¡°I texted her.¡± Tuyet finished rinsing a pitcher and started trying to find a place for it on the bottom rack. ¡°She said she had a headache and left. It must have been right at the beginning of the party because I haven¡¯t seen her since.¡± ¡°She did?¡± So that wasn¡¯t her hiding out in the bathroom then? Or was she lying about when she left? ¡°I hope she feels better tomorrow.¡± Tuyet sounded worried. ¡°Move-in is going to be hectic. Vandy, maybe we should offer to help her carry her things over from intake? My brother could drive us.¡± ¡°I already asked. She said she had it covered. Maybe Alden is helping her?¡± ¡°We haven¡¯t talked about it,¡± Alden said. ¡°But if she needs help, then sure. I¡¯ll check on her in the morning.¡± They both exchanged looks. ¡°Are you and Maricel interested in each other?¡± Tuyet asked. ¡°Have you made plans for choosing skills that will help you overcome your class disadvantage?¡± Both of their mouths fell open. ¡°Tuyet! If Maricel hasn¡¯t told us about a relationship, then it would mean it¡¯s private.¡± ¡°Vandy, you can¡¯t just call him disadvantaged!¡± Vandy clasped her hands over her airplane and looked at Alden. ¡°I am not trying to hurt your feelings,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m asking a professional question. In the future, we may need to shore up one another¡¯s weaknesses¡ª¡± ¡°And that¡¯s so much worse than me asking about Mari! I was just checking because she seems unhappy sometimes!¡± ¡°Both questions were fine,¡± Alden said hastily. ¡°Maricel and I are just getting to know each other, and we¡¯re only friends. I don¡¯t know how that rumor got started. And, Vandy, my current plan is to develop my main skill as much as I can. Since there¡¯s no record of it being chosen before, nobody knows when it will top out. As it grows, I¡¯ll have better ideas about what I should choose next.¡± ¡°It¡¯s an unknown skill?¡± Tuyet sounded surprised. ¡°That was¡­brave of you.¡± Vandy cleared her throat. ¡°I¡¯m sure he had different plans for himself when he picked it. And then he changed his mind after experiencing danger on the Triplanets and learning that his skill had rescue potential.¡± Yeah, I¡¯ll go with that one. It¡¯s what will make sense to people. Alden nodded at her. ¡°I think that¡¯s wonderful.¡± Vandy brushed a strand of brown hair away from her cheek. ¡°You may not have the best class, but you have real experience. That¡¯s probably why you were chosen for the program.¡± No way was he bringing up the commendation with his new peers. It had been an unavoidable part of his application since it was on his profile, but maybe there was still a chance of it staying hidden from other students. The star seemed to be a relationship warper with some adult Avowed at least, and if the Anesidoran teens found out about it¡­ Even more unpredictable ideas about who I am and what I¡¯m doing at the school coming at me from every angle. Let¡¯s just not. Vandy finished her airplane and threw it. Before it could crash into the light fixture, she gestured. Alden felt a current of air toss his hair around his face, and the plane dipped and swooped out the kitchen door. ¡°Vandy, you practice too much,¡± Tuyet said with a sigh. ¡°You¡¯re doing such refined shaping even though you don¡¯t have the perfect talents for it yet.¡± ¡°I¡¯m preparing for when I do. I doubt power alone will impress our instructors.¡± She pulled another sheet of paper out of a notebook on the chair beside her. ¡°Hey, can I fold one, too?¡± It had just occurred to Alden that he would be a lot better at it than he had been before. Vandy smiled and held out the notebook. At the same time a link to a site full of airplane designs appeared on his interface. And there are still corn chips on the table, he thought happily as he sat down across from the Sky Shaper and started to fold. Note to self: tell Stu-art¡¯h about paper airplanes. Their fifth call should be on Tuesday. Alden had decided on a personal goal of finding some silly little Earth thing that the Primary¡¯s son actually liked in a more than mildly-curious way. He was starting to worry that there weren¡¯t even many silly little Artonan things that Stuart allowed himself to enjoy. Possibly the ceremonial wevvi cart, but Alden thought that might be too culturally significant to count. The guy wants friends but can¡¯t seem to find any he connects with. He loves his family, but he¡¯s not happy with some aspect of that either. He¡¯s still walking around on a nerve-damaged foot when he doesn¡¯t have to because I don¡¯t understand why. He needs some distractions. I think he¡¯s planning to do it soon. He hasn¡¯t said as much to the clueless human, but¡­the time off school, the enchanted rings that do things basic spells should be able to handle¡­ His fingers paused their swift work on one of the creases of the fourth airplane. Do they do it at home? With other knights around them? Or do they go to the woods to be alone like I was? What a strange thing for him to wonder right at this moment, in the middle of a party, in a brightly lit kitchen with two girls he barely knew, folding paper airplanes in the only Googie-style skyscraper on Anesidora. It was a night when he was almost as far away from that other world as he ever could be. He went back to folding. Why would you do this to yourself, Stuart, you weird bastard? You are one of the few people in the universe who can be anything in the universe. You are rich. His fingers pinched a corner tighter. You are smart. Another crease. You are a wizard. A tiny, tiny fan fold. You are an Artonan. A rip. Your father is The. Numero. Uno. A twist. You could be a senator, a healer, a scientist. You could get yourself a spouse or five and farm overpriced papayas. Another twist. An another. And then next would be a thread of paper torn free and wound through the rest of it like a stitch. ¡°Um¡­are you still making a plane or have you switched to some more complicated origami?¡± Alden¡¯s breath caught. His fingers stilled on the paper. He looked up into Vandy¡¯s blue-gray eyes. ¡°I was wondering the same thing. Is it just me or are your hands really fast, Alden?¡± It was Kon¡¯s voice. Behind him. ¡°And, Tuyet, you¡¯re my hero! Thank you, thank you so much for doing the dishes.¡± The sound of the punch bowl against the metal basin of the sink. Footsteps. ¡°What¡¯s that going to be when you¡¯re done with it?¡± Kon asked curiously. He leaned over Alden¡¯s shoulder. Vandy was still staring at him. Words, Alden. Use your mouth. ¡°Ah, I got a little too into it,¡± he said sheepishly. He ran a hand through his hair. ¡°This one is definitely not going to end up being aerodynamic for you, Vandy. Sorry.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind. The others you made look much better than mine.¡± He passed the three finished airplanes to her. ¡°As for the drinking game, we have an official tie!¡± Kon announced. ¡°Because we ran out of Bonding Potion. And Helo¨ªsa and Mehdi are officially mad about it. And now we¡¯re having the official cleaning of the living room so that my parents don¡¯t murder me when they see it on the call. It doesn¡¯t have to be clean clean, but it needs to look less like a stampede has gone through. And does anyone know where I can buy a mattress on sale?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll grab a broom,¡± said Tuyet. ¡°Don¡¯t bother.¡± Vandy stood and stretched. ¡°I can blow anything a broom can get twice as fast. I¡¯ll be the sweeper.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to need a mop, too. Njeri offered to clean up the punch spills with her shaping, but it turns out that they¡¯re no longer close enough to elemental water for her to manage. The Object Shaper could probably do it, but he fatigued himself ages ago.¡± Kon grabbed a box of trash bags from under the sink. He took one for himself and passed Alden a second as he stood from the table. He reached for the thing Alden had been making. ¡°Is this trash, or are you still¡ª?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep it,¡± Alden said immediately. ¡°It¡¯s a work in progress.¡± Kon handed it over, and Alden preserved the paper shape almost by reflex. He stared down at it while Kon started grabbing cups and throwing them into his own bag. It must look like a mistake to everyone else, he thought. He tucked it into his pocket and went to help clean up in the living room. The shape he¡¯d made was not a plane. It was part, just the smallest of fragments, of his own affixation. His stomach clenched. Just the heinous hot sauce bomb you stuffed in there, he told himself. Nothing else. It only took fifteen chaotic minutes for the living room to look reasonable again. With dozens of people cleaning, it would probably have gone even faster, but everyone kept getting in each others¡¯ way in an attempt to show off their powers. ¡°Don¡¯t play tug of war with the sofa, you meatheads!¡± Lexi shouted at Mehdi and Helo¨ªsa. ¡°Just put it back where it started!¡± He¡¯d just come back into the room. He¡¯d taken off the sweater and combed his hair. His school uniform was sharply pressed and the double line of silver buttons down the chest looked polished. ¡°I¡¯ve heard the third years are petitioning to add a version with a short cape,¡± a petite girl with her hair dyed silvery gray and put up in two buns said to Alden. Her name tag said Everly Kim. They hadn¡¯t run into each other yet, but he thought she was an Adjuster with ice spells. ¡°It¡¯s almost time!¡± Kon shouted, racing through the room with his cone hat back on his head. He flung a second one at his brother. Other people were putting theirs on obligingly. ¡°Everyone group up and get ready. They¡¯re calling Lexi. Lexi remember to make sure the System¡¯s pulling everyone in!¡± ¡°I can run my own interface.¡± Everly smoothed her blouse and straightened her skirt. A second later Kon grabbed her by the hand and pulled her toward the front of the group. ¡°The two of them just decided to go out together,¡± Astrid announced. She was dragging a surprised-looking Jeffy over to stand beside Alden. For some reason her short, dark blonde hair¡ªwhich had been sticking up in a fluffy, spiky style all night¡ªwas now dripping wet and hanging around her ears. As the call arrived, Alden got an invite to connect. Astrid stood on her tiptoes and threw her arms over his shoulder¡¯s and Jeffy¡¯s. A man and a woman appeared in front of his eyes. They were both in tank tops with the Anesidoran Avowed Ballet logo on the chest. A little girl was in the man¡¯s lap, waving at whatever screen they were using with a completely blue hand. ¡°Surprise!¡± half the group in the living room yelled, while the other half shouted other random greetings. ¡°Did you let the wizards tattoo Irina?!¡± Kon cried over the din. ¡°Hello,¡± said Lexi. ¡°How has the trip been?¡± The brothers¡¯ parents looked overwhelmed. Their mother recovered first. ¡°Boys! You¡¯re both in CNH uniforms! You look so grown!¡± ¡°Irina and the other kids traveling with us asked one of our hosts if they could try body art. It¡¯s not permanent,¡± their father said. He had a very faint American accent. His wife had a faint Russian one. ¡°I¡¯ve got a turtle. Look!¡± The little girl¡¯s other hand appeared to show off a circle design on the palm. There were five sticks poking out of it that might have been legs and a head. ¡°We¡¯re first years in the hero program together!¡± Kon shouted. ¡°I would be a second year, if not for the combat¡ª¡± ¡°These are all of our new classmates! We¡¯re moving into dorms tomorrow! Lexi refuses to live with me. The house is fine. Absolutely nothing is wrong with it.¡± ¡°Kon¡ª¡± said their mother. ¡°None of the neighbors mind the party. I talked to them all in advance.¡± ¡°He spent his entire stipend on food for this.¡± Lexi said. ¡°I told him¡ª¡± ¡°Alexei,¡± said their father. ¡°We¡¯re not worried abou¡ª¡± ¡°Wait until you hear what he did with his boat!¡± Their mother shook her head. She beamed at them. ¡°I am so proud of you two. We both are.¡± ¡°We are,¡± their dad agreed, grinning at the group. ¡°And of all the rest of you, too.¡± Several people said, ¡°Awwww.¡± ¡°Thank you, Kon¡¯s dad!¡± Sanjay shouted. ¡°Kon¡¯s mom, I¡¯m coming to see the Avowed Ballet for Lunar New Year!¡± said Everly. ¡°Kon¡¯s little sister, I love your turtle!¡± Astrid called. Lexi rounded on them all. ¡°They have names, you guys. And they¡¯re my family, too!¡± NINETY-TWO: All Nighter The wind was so strong it almost tore Alden¡¯s plaid shirt out of his hands when he stepped out into the night. He rolled it into a tube and stuffed it under his arm before looking up to admire the gleaming neon sign and colorful lighted spikes on the roof of the apartment building. The party was still underway, and some of the guests had found fresh energy reserves to draw on. They¡¯d been starting up the karaoke when he said goodbye to Kon and thanked him for the invite. A minute later, the car he¡¯d called arrived. It was a shiny black luxury sedan, with a woman in a suit and tie in the driver¡¯s seat. He¡¯d decided to search for the fastest possible route back to intake, and it turned out to be this car service, which had a driver available in the area. Fifteen minutes faster was fifteen more minutes to hang out with Boe before he left. And, anyway, he was a little over-peopled. A car sounded nicer than a crowded bus or train. He slid into the back seat and found a water bottle and candy bars waiting for him in the cupholders. <> the woman asked in Thai, as she punched their destination into a glowing screen. ¡°Something calm would be good.¡± The car drove itself away from the building. The woman¡¯s hands weren¡¯t on the wheel; she was mostly monitoring the mirrors and cameras. Fancy. His mind flicked toward his contacts list and selected Boe¡¯s name from the top. [On my way back. You want me to pick up anything for you?] [I¡¯m eating all your food, so I¡¯m good.] Alden snorted. He leaned back in his seat and looked out the window. The car had turned onto the palm tree-lined street he, Maricel, and Max had walked down on their way to the party earlier. The trees had lights wrapped around the trunks. A boy who looked around eight years old was crouched beside one, examining a fallen frond, while the group of adults he was with stood chatting outside of a Lebanese restaurant. This is a strange place for a kid to grow up. He¡¯d thought it a few times tonight at the party. The Anesidoran natives had huge advantages, but they also had some areas where they were really disconnected from the rest of humanity. There were little things like their fascination with wild animals¡ªnothing but the occasional fish or the even more occasional seabird to see around here. Astrid had kept telling him the names of every animal they didn¡¯t have at F-city¡¯s small zoo. And there were bigger life differences, too, like the fact that they¡¯d grown up with the assumption that access to magical medical care for most ailments was the norm. The hospitals were combos here¡ªMDs, Healers, and a couple of wizards besides. For the rest of the world, there was a significant amount of Triplanets-gifted healthcare everyone could expect to take advantage of. Certain vaccines and medicines had been made available as part of the Contract. And while the creation of genetically engineered children was still illegal in many countries, the use of magical wombs was allowed in most places even if people had all kinds of bizarre hot takes about it. But here, there were magical solutions for so many other things, and they were widely available. You could get potions for headaches instead of taking an aspirin if you wanted. People who had dangerous food allergies could have their immune system reconfigured without paying a fortune or joining a Healer lottery and hoping they got selected. If you capsize your boat, you just call on the System to ET you back to the Teleportation Complex. Obviously children couldn¡¯t do that for themselves, but the authorities or their parents could do it on their behalf. That sort of rescue wasn¡¯t something that happened for most people. Regular humans benefited from teleportation in the global sense, but individuals didn¡¯t get access to it for personal use. The System let the Anesidoran government and Avowed living here do all kinds of things with it, though. I wish I¡¯d had time to take that tour of the Teleportation Complex they offered for the intake residents last month. That one would have been cool. The whole facility was an enormous, well-dressed summonarium. If humanity was going to cram their Avowed into one spot why wouldn¡¯t the Artonans help them build a massive one here to reduce the load on the System? The car turned onto a broader thoroughfare. Someone ran past in the opposite lane, and when Alden turned around in his seat curiously to get a better look at them, he saw that the woman had half-functional, half-decorative taillights. On the seat of her pants. Yep. Definitely an unusual place to be a kid. They weren¡¯t far from Franklin High now. There were signs at almost every street they came to pointing the way to different sections of the enormous campus, and there were a lot of teenagers heading in and out of all the local businesses. The car stopped, and a rowdy group that had just left a bowling alley crossed the street in front of them. Alden¡¯s driver suddenly gasped. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± he asked. <> She pressed a series of buttons on the car¡¯s screen to park it and activate the hazard lights, then she reached over and yanked open the glove compartment. She pulled out a small bag. <> ¡°Are you okay? What¡ª?¡± <> She pulled a slightly larger bag out from beneath the front passenger seat, unzipped it, and hastily checked the contents. She turned to look at Alden. <> He did feel sort of alarmed. He didn¡¯t know why. ¡°Yes. I understand. Okay.¡± <> she said by way of explanation. ¡°You¡¯re¡­just gonna go like that then.¡± I mean it¡¯s not like I haven¡¯t done it myself. I do realize it happens to other people. But he¡¯d never seen it. ¡°Good luck,¡± he said, trying to think through the manners of having the person in front of you disappear from the planet suddenly. ¡°Have fun with the wizards? I¡¯m a Rabbit, too.¡± ¡°Hey!!¡± she said in English, giving him a little wave. <> ¡°I preserve things. Not pickles. I prevent things from being harmed.¡± She grinned. <> Alden was still processing. ¡°Yeah,¡± he said finally. ¡°The tips for those are fantastic.¡± He looked around for something else to contribute, and his eyes landed on the candy bars. He grabbed them and held them out to her. ¡°Earth food?¡± he suggested. <> She took the candy from him. Their hands touched. She vanished. Heart racing, Alden stared at the spot where she¡¯d been. ¡°Alden,¡± said a man¡¯s voice from the car speakers, ¡°we apologize for the inconvenience. Your ride tonight will be free of charge. Do you mind if a remote pilot monitors the car on the way to your destination? It¡¯s perfectly safe, and I¡¯m afraid we don¡¯t have any other drivers available in your area.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fine with me.¡± ¡°Excellent. Thank you for your understanding. If there¡¯s anything else I can do for you tonight, let me know.¡± Alden looked down at the hand that had just brushed the driver¡¯s. Then he shook his head and sat back in his seat. ¡°I¡¯m good¡ªoh, wait! Can I book a ride for tomorrow morning? From intake to the Teleportation Complex, then from there to Celena Circle. With a lot of luggage. And a cat.¡± ******* By mutual agreement, Alden and Boe pulled an all-nighter. They didn¡¯t know when they would see each other again, even though Alden was hoping to get approval for a trip back home when he could and Boe was semi-confident he could bounce in and out of catspace within a week. As opposed to disappearing for months at a time. ¡°If you screw up and appear in the middle of the TC in your birthday suit, we can be prison buddies.¡± ¡°Until some wizard summons your ass and I get left in the Locker by myself. I¡¯ll err on the side of appearing a few weeks late rather than a few hours early if you don¡¯t mind. Look! That idiot¡¯s really going to try the jetpack!¡± He was gesturing at the television. They were doing all of Alden¡¯s homework for the coming week together because why not? Right now it was Engaging with the Unexpected, and the tv was playing a documentary about superchasers¡ªdaredevils who made a hobby out of stalking their local hero team and inserting themselves into the action, to the detriment of everyone involved. Boe said, ¡°Listen, if you¡¯re ever flying around in your slutty loincloth¡ª¡± ¡°Cavemanly¡¯s persona is questionable in so many ways.¡± Alden watched the superhero pause his flight around an office block to reapply one of several spells that helped him stay airborne. What did cavemen have to do with anything? How was a furry loincloth a good choice for flight? Was selling your own branded bodywax really that profitable? ¡°If you¡¯re ever flying around,¡± Boe continued, ¡°and some moron chases you with a jetpack they bought at a flea market and assembled in their mom¡¯s basement, don¡¯t save them. Do the rest of humanity a favor, and let nature take its course.¡± He turned up the volume so they could hear the superchaser¡¯s cries for help, captured by his own fleet of filming drones, as his badly designed gear sent him spiraling toward a water tower. ¡°He looks easy enough to rescue though. And it¡¯s not like Cavemanly will be in much danger doing it.¡± ¡°The guy¡¯s competent at everything except for costuming. I¡¯ll give him that. But it¡¯s the principle of the thing¡­that is a forty-year-old man who jumped off a building so that he could film himself annoying the crap out of someone else. Not for the first time either. I would let him enjoy the consequences of his own actions.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t. If I was a flying caveman, I¡¯d save him. And then I¡¯d call and tell you I¡¯d done it. So you¡¯d have to save someone equally stupid.¡± Boe shook his head violently. ¡°No. I will engage in similar good deeds, but I reserve the right to make sure the lucky people I help are slightly more worthy than yours. That way I¡¯m always one-upping you just a little.¡± ¡°Seems reasonable.¡± For Convo IV, Alden was supposed to film himself describing his day. While he did that, Boe wrote a colorful summary for the reading assignment in Intro to Other Worlds so that Alden wouldn¡¯t have to read the whole thing himself. By around two o¡¯clock in the morning, they were done with it all. Boe was judging the local newscasters for their cheerful dispositions while Alden paced back and forth in the kitchen, practicing with his skill. ¡°Are you going to play with your balls all night or are you going to try out the hydraulic press thing?¡± ¡°You¡¯re late with the balls joke,¡± Alden said absently, examining the network of enchantments on the temper sphere in his hand. They were duller than the NesiCard enchantment, but much more complex looking. ¡°Kon already made a similar one. If I¡¯d known eighth grade humorists were going to have so much fun at my expense, I¡¯d have picked a different spell impression.¡± ¡°Spoilsport. What are you doing with the banshee orb anyway? When you asked me to throw you one, I thought you were going to make it scream.¡± ¡°I¡¯m trying to figure out if I can pull the invisibility off it and put it on something else.¡± Boe looked away from an interview with a Kinshasa-based Meister who¡¯d recently captured a pair of teens who¡¯d been trying to go full supervillain¡ªcostumes, an unrealized plot to destroy government buildings, the works. ¡°Run that past me again,¡± Boe said. Alden repeated himself. ¡°You think that¡¯s something you can actually do with Let Me Take Your Luggage? Why didn¡¯t you bring that up earlier?¡± ¡°You¡¯re the one who wanted me to stop giving details about my powers and my profile until we were under contract,¡± Alden reminded him. ¡°I wasn¡¯t sure what to keep my mouth shut about. I¡¯m not publicizing this one, though, so keep your mouth shut.¡± ¡°So you can pick up an invisibility spell or enchantment or whatever it is? Like it¡¯s a thing? And reapply it?¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯ve never successfully managed it.¡± Unless we count holding a debit card enchantment on my finger for a split second before it burns out. Alden poked at the ball he¡¯d gotten Boe to entrust him with twenty minutes before. It was easy enough to see the enchantments when he deliberately tried to. And it felt like it was covered in a warm buzzing net. But they looked duller than the NesiCard enchant for some reason. ¡°I¡¯m practicing still. Let¡¯s call it a goal rather than a current ability.¡± He wasn¡¯t even sure how many enchantments were on the sphere and which did what. He could see the magic but not identify it. And the glittery sand inside the ball seemed to be connected to the network somehow, so he was assuming that it was critical to the temper sphere¡¯s function. ¡°Now, I¡¯m done looking at it, so I¡¯m going to make it scream,¡± Alden warned. Boe covered his ears. Bracing himself for the odd feeling of the impression taking over his body, Alden pointed at the orb, and activated it. It was easy. Just an assertion of the authority bound into the impression. His fingers moved, his focus narrowed. Good, I can still see the enchantments. He¡¯d been worried that the artificial focus the spell impression created would mess with his ability to detect them, since doing so required a little mental effort on his part. Part of the magic shone suddenly brighter, and the sphere disappeared¡­except for the enchantments themselves. I wasn¡¯t expecting that. Another thread of enchantment blazed bright, and the scream echoed through the apartment. ¡°You¡¯d better have superhuman-grade soundproofing on the walls in your new dorm, too, or your neighbors are going to hate you.¡± Alden was staring at the spherical network of magic on his palm. Okay so the one that¡¯s glowing brighter still is probably the invisibility. The screaming one faded after the scream was over. The other stuff could be holding it all together or making the ball stronger. Or twenty other things. He concentrated on just the threads of the magic he¡¯d decided were making the sphere invisible and reached for them. With his fingers. He was still, rather desperately, hoping The Bearer of All Burdens would reveal a function that would allow him to pick up enchantments with nothing but the authority of the skill itself. But tonight, he wanted success in other areas more than he wanted to try to squeeze something like telekinesis out of an affixation that might not have been designed with the option. He caught the enchantment and preserved it with his right hand. The temper sphere reappeared suddenly in his left. He couldn¡¯t see the other enchantments on it anymore. Did they completely fall apart when I stole this one? The sphere should still be entrusted to him. That was how it worked with the NesiCard and its enchantment as long as he didn¡¯t set either down. So that wasn¡¯t it. ¡°Holy¡­did you just de-magic it?¡± Boe leaped out of his chair and strode over to examine the ball eagerly. ¡°You did right? When you showed that Haunting Sphere spell off a couple of days ago, the invisibility lasted longer.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m holding what I hope is some kind of temporary invisibility enchantment that¡¯s been activated by my spell impression.¡± He held up his hand. ¡°Can you see it?¡± He could. It looked like a pale golden web of spirals and curls. And to Alden¡¯s surprise it hadn¡¯t stayed in a sphere shape. Instead it was clinging to his hand like a partial glove. It felt like warm lace. I assumed the other enchantment laid flat against my fingertip because that was its natural shape. I thought this one would stay spherical. ¡°I can¡¯t see anything,¡± Boe said. ¡°That¡¯s a shame. It¡¯s actually really cool looking.¡± Alden was still shifting his weight. He held his hand out, palm up since he was going to operate under the assumption that the enchantment was droppable even if it kind of didn¡¯t look like it was right now. ¡°Can you feel it?¡± Boe jabbed at his palm with an index finger. And Alden felt him do it. With his skin. Like it was a totally normal jab. ¡°Feels like a hand,¡± Boe announced. ¡°Really?¡± Alden stared at his light glove. ¡°I was not expecting it to work like this.¡± I should have been practicing with something bigger than the NesiCard I guess. It wasn¡¯t as obvious what was going on when you were working with something smaller than your pinky fingertip. He frowned. ¡°I need a ball.¡± ¡°You¡¯re holding one.¡± ¡°Another ball.¡± ¡°There¡¯s an orange in your fruit bowl.¡± ¡°A ball that¡¯s less closely associated with the Life element. An Object-ish ball.¡± Boe blinked at him, then he held a hand to his chest dramatically. ¡°Excuse me, Master Wizard. I am but a lowly human without knowledge of Artonan arcana.¡± Ignoring him, Alden scanned the apartment. ¡°Where¡¯s that fluffy ball on the string that mesmerizes Victor?¡± ¡°You heartless bastard. You¡¯re going to make his favorite toy invisible?¡± ¡°I hope so.¡± He tossed the defunct sphere to his friend. ¡°Fooling around with enchantments is pricey. I want to get my money¡¯s worth.¡± ¡°You put it with his crate earlier so you wouldn¡¯t forget to send it with us tomorrow.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Alden headed into the spare room where he¡¯d been keeping the crate. ¡°Speaking of which, we¡¯re leaving in like six hours. You should drop your barrier now, shouldn¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m okay. I don¡¯t have to.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you want your skill to be fully functional when you come back to reality?¡± Alden asked, re-entering the kitchen with a puffy yellow cat toy that dangled from a stick. ¡°I¡¯m emotionally average right now. I think. But Jeremy probably won¡¯t be when he sees you appear from your own personal nowhere.¡± ¡°The chances of him being at school or asleep are way higher than the chances of him staring at the cat right as it happens.¡± ¡°You think after the coded message we sent him he¡¯s not going to be staring at Victor every second he can? Waiting to see you emerge?¡± Boe looked disturbed. ¡°Point taken.¡± Alden snipped the ball off the end of the string. ¡°Truly heartless. I was experiencing your emotions right then, and you felt nothing but curiosity.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll tie it back on. He won¡¯t even know the difference!¡± Alden looked over his shoulder. ¡°Will you stab my hand a little? Don¡¯t think I¡¯m weird.¡± Boe raised an eyebrow. ¡°I want you to replay what you just said.¡± ¡°It hadn¡¯t occurred to me that enchantments wouldn¡¯t be shielded in exactly the same way as objects. I can see it and feel it clearly, so I thought it was similar. It¡¯s not. The way the skill defaults to protecting them must be different. I¡¯m pretty sure you can stab my hand.¡± ¡°¡­he said with growing feelings of excitement.¡± ¡°It is exciting. It¡¯s a new feature.¡± ¡°A less useful feature.¡± ¡°Less obviously useful. It has advantages. The fact that you can¡¯t tell I¡¯ve got anything for one.¡± He found a small knife in a drawer and beckoned Boe over. ¡°Right there,¡± he said, pointing to one of the spirals of light at the base of his palm with the knife tip. ¡°Jab it enough to draw a little blood. Just to be completely sure.¡± ¡°What are friends for?¡± Boe muttered, taking the knife handle and pressing down. Blood welled. Boe pulled the knife back. ¡°All right. I have stabbed you slightly. And you¡¯re quite pleased about it.¡± Alden ignored him. Nothing, he thought in surprise. No increase in the difficulty of preserving it. Which means there¡¯s no shield. No physical shield anyway. That implies there¡¯s no way for it to be removed from me physically either. He was guessing it would be vulnerable to magical attacks, by someone who knew to attack it. Which would be¡­absolutely nobody. Because they couldn¡¯t see it. Maybe wizards can? But if I¡¯m getting attacked by a summoner I¡¯m going to have much bigger concerns on my mind. I guess chaos might still batter at it, too. And, of course, his own fatigue would eventually be a problem. It¡¯s heavy. He played with his new ¡°glove¡± for another minute, moving it from hand to hand as easily as picking up a piece of cloth and repositioning it. Then he closed his eyes and tried to feel the preserved magic with the very authority that was holding it. To become consciously aware of the points where his own power was protecting the enchantment. I¡¯m touching it that way. I know I am. I feel the skill working. I just can¡¯t feel the thing the skill is working on. Instead I feel a fake glove. It¡¯s an excellent glove. But it¡¯s stupid if the glove is all there is for me. For the hundredth time, what kind of bullshit wizards don¡¯t design a skill to work with their own wizard senses? He examined his skill itself. All the settings and buttons he¡¯d identified so far were there. Not buttons. I promised I¡¯d come up with something nicer. He thought of the origami shape he¡¯d created earlier tonight when he was supposed to be making a paper airplane. Maybe. That wasn¡¯t exactly a happy moment, but it came naturally. Instead of switches, folds? Many-layered ones making new shapes when I adjust them¡­wait, let me try this one over here that I use to double run the skill. If it¡¯s not a button, but a paper fold¡­ He imagined turning it inside out, changing the shape of his authority in that spot so that it molded into its second option. I like that a little. That¡¯s more like what I do with the auriad. And it¡¯s less ON/OFF than a switch. Less YES/NO. Instead it¡¯s¡­this shape/that shape/maybe one day we¡¯ll find another shape that¡¯s allowed with this part of the affixation too. That seems more positive. Wait, where was I? I¡¯m getting a little tired. Alden opened his eyes. Boe was in the living room watching the tv on mute and munching on a box of Lucky Charms. Alden was leaning against the refrigerator, a cat toy in one hand and his enchantment in the other. ¡°Hello there, space cadet,¡± Boe said without looking away from the television. ¡°Welcome back. That was one heck of a flow state you were having. You kind of propped yourself against the fridge, and I decided you weren¡¯t going to fall in the floor. So I left you to it.¡± ¡°How long¡ª¡± he checked the time. ¡°Boe! It¡¯s five AM. You could have interrupted me before I zoned out for three whole hours.¡± ¡°No way. You were hitting that hyperfocus hard. Absorbed and challenged, but not stressed out. I just sat here and let myself enjoy it, too.¡± Alden stared down at his glowing hand. ¡°But I wanted to¡­¡± ¡°Hang out with me? We¡¯ve done that a lot. A few hours lost isn¡¯t the end of the world. Anyway¡ª¡± Boe leaned around the edge of the chair and grinned at him ¡°¡ªyou were making progress.¡± ¡°No I wasn¡¯t. I got completely distracted playing around with a metaphor.¡± ¡°Really? It looks like success from where I¡¯m sitting. Unless you dropped your invisible thing?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got it still.¡± Minor miracle. No wonder his skill was getting tired if he¡¯d been fiddling with the options and holding the enchantment with it all this time. ¡°You haven¡¯t moved in three hours,¡± Boe said. ¡°Yeah, apparently.¡± Boe adjusted his glasses. ¡°Don¡¯t be slow on the uptake. It makes me worry about leaving you here to fend for yourself. I mean you haven¡¯t been moving your feet. Not even weight shifting.¡± Alden looked from him down to his own bare feet sticking out of the bottoms of his flannel pajama pants. He straightened up and kept staring at them, very deliberately not moving a muscle. The enchantment stayed glued to his hand. ¡°AH!¡± he yelled. ¡°I¡¯m doing it! And by ¡®it¡¯ I mean ¡®nothing!¡¯ I¡¯m just standing here. Can I sit down?!¡± Immediately, he slid down the side of the fridge and let his butt rest on the floor. Three seconds later, his light glove was still on his hand. ¡°I CAN SIT DOWN!¡± Boe stood to get a better look at him. Alden waved his hand at him for emphasis. ¡°I note your hand,¡± Boe said. ¡°And I trust that you are still holding the thing only you can see.¡± ¡°What if it¡¯s only because it¡¯s an enchantment?! What if it still won¡¯t work with physical objects? I have to ditch this and test it. Hang on.¡± He held up Victor¡¯s fuzzy yellow ball and wrapped the hand gloved with the enchantment around it. He dropped the preservation. Boe whistled. ¡°You really did have something in your hand!¡± The cat toy wasn¡¯t perfectly invisible like the temper sphere had been. There was a fairly obvious distortion in the air around it if you were paying attention, and it got worse when Alden moved it back and forth. ¡°I guess it kind of works as camo, since you can¡¯t really tell what the thing is. What do you think?¡± The cat toy reappeared. ¡°I think it didn¡¯t last very long.¡± ¡°It did break really quick compared to the temper sphere. What was that? Five seconds? I¡¯m surprised it worked at all, though. So this is a win. Now we have to test the object preservation.¡± ¡°Throw,¡± Boe said, holding out his hand. Alden tossed him the fuzzy ball. ¡°Catch.¡± Boe tossed it right back. Alden preserved it the instant he caught it and held his breath. He examined his affixation again. The part of it that had enforced the carriage requirement¡ªthe foggy magic of the geas permeating it¡ªdid seem to be gone. He waited. And waited. ¡°Well?¡± Boe asked after almost a full minute had passed. Alden felt himself grinning like crazy. ¡°It¡¯s still preserved! I can now preserve things while I sit on my ass. Thank you for not interrupting my inappropriately timed zone-out. I¡¯m so happy I could scream.¡± ¡°Go right ahead. If your Haunting Sphere didn¡¯t piss off the other residents, nothing will.¡± Instead, Alden climbed to his feet. He tossed the ball toward the sofa. Victor was lurking behind it somewhere. ¡°No. I¡¯m good. Let¡¯s do something fun until you have to go.¡± ¡°I want you to crush things with your hydraulic press spell.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try.¡± ¡°Can of soda,¡± said Boe, heading toward the fridge. ¡°By the way, if you crush the wrong thing will shards fly off and kill us?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a long range spell. I have to stand right next to it with my auriad. It would be pretty terrible design if it made whatever I crushed into bombs, right?¡± Boe slid a dark purple can across the counter toward him. Alden¡¯s fingers were already moving through loops of iridescent indigo string. ¡°Sphere crush or pancake crush?¡± he asked. The pattern he¡¯d been practicing for weeks was coming to him easily. His free authority was filling the gaps made by the auriad. ¡°It¡¯s a substantial spell. I¡¯m not sure I can do it more than once.¡± ¡°Wizard¡¯s choice.¡± Pancake, thought Alden, holding his arms out toward the can and sighting it through the specific section of the pattern that was supposed to help him target. As his authority filled it and he focused, he experienced a much milder version of the phenomenon that happened when he used his spell impression on the temper sphere. The bottom four fifths of the can became just a little clearer and brighter. And so did the air around it, strangely enough. So much more pleasant. But apparently I can¡¯t crush the whole can with this spell. He was worried he wouldn¡¯t be able to finish casting it at all. He struggled with the last few steps. It wasn¡¯t his memory of the pattern or his control that faltered; it was his authority reaching its current limits, growing exhausted as he fought to press through the escalating resistance that came as he approached the spell¡¯s end. Come on, he thought, pushing himself. Trying to assert the spell into existence in the same way he¡¯d grown accustomed to asserting himself in the chaos. He focused harder on the auriad. It¡¯s been the best night ever for magical experimentation. Just give me a little more. He was barely aware of Boe standing quietly beside him, staring from his hands to the can with a thoughtful look on his face. Alden finished the spell. He was supposed to hold his authority over the final pattern and control how long the spell lasted, but he only had a couple of seconds¡¯ worth of effort left in him. And that was all it took. Most of the can accordioned. Grape soda shot out of the spell-made crushing area and spattered with force against the tile backsplash directly opposite Alden. In the next moment, a flat metal disc that had once been a soda can clattered onto the counter, and its severed top fell straight down on top of it. Foaming liquid spread outward and dripped onto the floor. ¡°Wow. That really crushes, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Boe stared at the disc. ¡°A lot like a hydraulic press. We should have filmed it so we could see it in slow motion and figure out what exactly you¡¯ve got going on. Does all the excess debris and energy that the spell can¡¯t handle just get blown away from you somehow?¡± ¡°That¡¯s what it looked like, right? The soda all shot off in that direction.¡± Alden was still blinking at the results. ¡°How hard of a substance can you smash?¡± ¡°It said a ¡®stubborn stone.¡¯¡± ¡°That¡¯s scientific.¡± ¡°It might be. For all I know ¡®stubborn¡¯ is an agreed-upon category of stone hardness for educated Artonans. Somewhere between crumbly and adamantine.¡± ¡°¡­you might want to reconsider your earlier comments about not making the things you crush into bombs. If you¡¯re crushing certain materials, and it¡¯s not one hundred percent magically contained, you¡¯re going to be sending some bizarre shrapnel flying with deadly force away from you. Away from you is good. Unless someone or something you like is over there.¡± ¡°And on a windy day I could end up inhaling tiny particles of pulverized junk.¡± ¡°That too.¡± ¡°I need to watch more videos of hydraulic presses.¡± ¡°You need a physics class or three.¡± ¡°I can make my own shields, so that¡¯s good.¡± Boe clapped him on the back. ¡°Just don¡¯t do anything stupid. You¡¯re the first human wizard as far as we know. If you kill yourself with your own spell, you¡¯ll embarrass us in front of the aliens.¡± Stolen novel; please report. NINETY-THREE: The Only Sign 93 The first time Maricel Alcantara caught a glimpse of her own future, she was five. The jeepney put them out in front of the hospital on a hot, sunny day. Her mother was gripping her fingers with one hand and helping her grandmother with the other. ¡°This is the wrong entrance,¡± her mother said, staring up at the tall building. ¡°We have to walk.¡± ¡°We can¡¯t be late,¡± her grandmother fretted. ¡°If we¡¯re late¡ª¡± ¡°Nothing bad will happen. We won¡¯t miss it. And if we do, it¡¯s not like a long time ago. We just reschedule in a few weeks.¡± ¡°What happened a long time ago?¡± Maricel asked. ¡°Nothing terrible, baby,¡± said her mother. ¡°When people missed their appointments for special medicine, they just had to wait a lot longer for their next turn. Your lola remembers that. Now it¡¯s all easy and not so serious.¡± They walked across a parking lot. Maricel¡¯s white dress shoes¡ªthe ones they¡¯d bought for her cousin¡¯s wedding¡ªcollected their first scuff when she kicked a piece of stray gravel. The scuff occupied her attention, even with everything else going on. She was afraid her mother would see it and chide her for ruining the good shoes. When they reached a set of metal doors covered in logograms, she stood on one foot and wobbled around, trying to hide the damaged shoe under her skirt. ¡°Don¡¯t play like that, Maricel,¡± her mother said, feeding a long paper card into a slot. ¡°You¡¯ll fall.¡± ¡°What do the doors say, Lola?¡± Maricel asked, still wobbling. Her grandmother didn¡¯t answer. She was staring at the entrance. ¡°What if they don¡¯t let us in? What if we¡¯re too late?¡± The doors opened. As Maricel¡¯s mother took her hand again and tugged her through them, a voice seemed to fill the whole building. ¡°Good afternoon, Maricel.¡± ¡°Someone is talking to me!¡± She didn¡¯t know if it was a man or a woman. ¡°That¡¯s the System. It only does it in special places and on special occasions.¡± Maricel stared up at the wood carving hanging from the ceiling. It was a multi-toned sunburst, backlit with gold. ¡°Mama, is it going to give us magic powers?¡± ¡°Heavens no!¡± said her mother, laughing a little. ¡°We¡¯re too old, and you¡¯re too young. And that only happens to a tiny, tiny number of people, anyway. It¡¯s nothing any of us will ever have to worry about.¡± Oh, that¡¯s right. Her family had explained it several times before today, but she¡¯d gotten excited by the System speaking. Her grandmother was having trouble with her memory. It had happened to Lola¡¯s mother, too. She had been sad, scared, and sometimes mad since it started. But now it would be all right. They¡¯re going to help her. That¡¯s why she¡¯s here. A man in a strange outfit opened another set of doors for them, and they entered a room full of people. Some were sitting, some were milling around, a few were in wheelchairs. ¡°It¡¯s so crowded,¡± her mother said, gripping her hand more tightly. ¡°Maybe I shouldn¡¯t have brought Maricel. They said it was fine, but¡ª¡± A hand fell softly on Maricel¡¯s head, and she looked up from her scuffed shoe to see her grandmother smiling at her. ¡°Other families are here. And she helps me feel brave.¡± ¡°I¡¯m very brave,¡± Maricel said. ¡°Well¡­it is an experience for us all I guess. Maricel would you like to try some juice? I know you said¡ª¡± ¡°Wevvi!¡± Maricel¡¯s eyes fixed on the heated drink dispensers her mother was looking toward. One of her friends had bragged that she¡¯d gotten to drink it before. And that she¡¯d seen an alien before. And now Maricel would be able to say, ¡°So have I!¡± ¡°It¡¯s going to taste just like wevvi-flavored lollipops, and you don¡¯t like those,¡± her mother murmured. ¡°I don¡¯t know why you suddenly decided you had to have it.¡± But she wove through the crowd and returned a moment later with three paper cups full of a lukewarm, white drink that smelled like spices. ¡°Don¡¯t spill it,¡± she cautioned as she handed Maricel one. Maricel held the cup in both hands and took a sip. ¡°I love it!¡± she declared. She had decided to love it already, so there was no going back now. ¡°You do?¡± ¡°It¡¯s sweet.¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to drink all of it.¡± Several minutes later, she was sitting on one of the hard chairs that filled the room, keeping the damaged shoe tucked out of sight behind her ankle and sipping from her mother¡¯s serving of wevvi. She was determined to finish off every drop available to her so that she wouldn¡¯t look like a liar. The Artonan finally appeared. ¡°It¡¯s not one of the wizards,¡± her mother said, more to herself than anyone else. ¡°Looks like a regular person. Unless wizards don¡¯t always wear the fancy clothes?¡± The Artonan was going to be a wizard when Maricel told her friends about this, that was for sure. There was a short speech she was too bored to listen to after the first few sentences, and then they started the recitation. ¡°Can I say it, too?¡± she whispered after she¡¯d listened to the adults speak a couple of lines. Her mother nodded and held a finger to her lips. It was a confusing combination of gestures, but Maricel decided it meant she could join in the reciting as long as she didn¡¯t talk about other things right now. Repeating after the alien, she said she was a citizen of Earth, a resource world under the protection of the empire. She reaffirmed her personal commitment to the Contract in general. She agreed that in exchange for everything Earth had received in the past and would receive in the future, the Artonans could have¡­ ¡°What are ¡®select warriors and attendants to work under the¡­¡¯ um¡­the something ¡®of the Contract¡¯?¡± she asked her mother while they waited for their turns to touch a large glass panel at the front of the room. Whenever anyone pressed their hand against it, it glowed, and the Artonan gave them a polite little nod before they passed into the next room. ¡°They mean Avowed.¡± ¡°Avowed?¡± ¡°Superheroes. And the other people who live on Anesidora.¡± ¡°Ohhhh¡­¡± Then a much more worrisome thought popped into her head. ¡°Why do you have to say the words? Are you sick, too?¡± Her mother squeezed her hand. ¡°No. I¡¯m healthy! I just wanted to have it recorded and get it out of the way in case I do ever get sick.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t have to say it when I got my shots.¡± The shots had happened a couple of weeks ago, and they were a subject she brought up as often as possible, to remind her mother of the fact that she had not shed even a single tear. ¡°Your vaccines were different.¡± ¡°You said the Artonans made some of them!¡± ¡°They did. And I signed a paper that mentioned I agreed to the terms of the Contract then, too. Today is more formal because all of these people are getting special healing, instead of just a few shots. This is a part of it. A ceremony to mark the occasion.¡± ¡°There were a lot of shots.¡± Her mother grinned and hugged her close. ¡°All right. A lot of shots.¡± ¡°Big ones.¡± ¡°Huge ones,¡± her mother agreed, right before she pressed her hand to the glass panel. It glowed white, and the Artonan person gave her the nod of thanks. Maricel stood on her tiptoes and slapped her own hand against the panel. Nothing happened. Very disappointed, she slapped it again. A hand tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up into a brown face that was a little too purplish to match anyone else in the room. She thought the Artonan was a woman, but it was mostly because they had a colorful embroidered hairband. ¡°Too young,¡± the Artonan said in a heavy accent. They smiled at Maricel. ¡°Glow stick!¡± From their pocket, they removed a bright pink tube and handed it to her. ¡°Thank you,¡± she said. She waved it around, pretending it was a magic wand, while she followed her mother and grandmother through to the next room. ****** ¡°Maricel, did you hear? Dreaming Bear died.¡± She looked up from a video her grandmother had just sent her of her youngest brother trying and failing to feed himself breakfast. He was covered all over in what looked like smashed banana. One of her friends was running toward her across the expanse of pavementin front of their junior high building. ¡°Who?¡± Maricel asked. ¡°Dreaming Bear! From China. She was trying to bring in a runner our age who was being held for pick-up and transport to Anesidora, and he killed her.¡± Oh. Must be a superhero. She didn¡¯t care, but she didn¡¯t mind pretending for Carmen¡¯s sake. ¡°That¡¯s terrible.¡± Carmen nodded. ¡°Anyway¡­.Jacob?¡± Maricel groaned. ¡°I haven¡¯t decided. He¡¯s so, so sweet. But I¡¯m not sure I feel like that about him.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to be sure! He¡¯s perfect for you! Say yes.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t¡ª¡± ¡°Say. Yes.¡± Maricel smiled. ¡°Maybe.¡± Carmen slapped both hands to her face dramatically. ¡°Okay okay! Let¡¯s have school.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s have school,¡± Maricel agreed. Arm in arm they walked toward the front doors. A gaggle of their other friends were gathered in between a pair of palm trees by the entrance. Her phone pinged again, and she looked down at it. This time her grandmother was forwarding a link to a website for a girls¡¯ swimming club. Maricel smiled. She¡¯d told her lola she thought she should try to find a hobby like so many of her classmates had. Maybe swimming. It seemed like junior high was a time when you were supposed to want some special thing for yourself, and Maricel really didn¡¯t. She loved hanging out with friends, playing with her little brothers, and spending time in the kitchen with her mother and grandmother, talking about anything and everything while they cooked. It¡¯s too boring, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯m supposed to want more, I think. Since everyone else seems to. She¡¯d started telling people she wanted to be a doctor, just so that she wouldn¡¯t sound like she had no dreams at all. ¡°It¡¯s a lucky thing to be happy with exactly what life has given you,¡± her grandmother had said last night when she brought up the problem while they were making adobo together. ¡°If you¡¯re happy now, you¡¯ll probably be even happier when you¡¯re a swimming doctor!¡± Then she¡¯d laughed and laughed. ****** ¡°Stop squirming!¡± ¡°I¡¯m not!¡± ¡°Nathaniel! You are wriggling like a fish. How am I going to know if you¡¯re tall or not?¡± Maricel knelt beside the door to her parents¡¯ bedroom, trying and failing to look serious. It was evening, and the middle child in their family had insisted on being measured before bed because his teacher had said he might not be the tallest boy in the class and he wanted proof to the contrary. ¡°You can do it, Maricel!¡± her step-father¡¯s voice called enthusiastically from the end of the hall. ¡°Stretch your neck, Nathaniel!¡± her mother cried. ¡°If he¡¯s short, we¡¯ll feed him more!¡± said her grandmother. Maricel rolled her eyes. ¡°How did I get the hard job when you¡¯re all right here?¡± Nathaniel finally stopped bouncing and stood with his back flat against the door. She took the measurement. She informed him that he was a very average height for a seven year old, and then she tickled him until he forgot to be disappointed about it.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. What do I want to be in the future? thought Maricel, as she drank a glass of water and climbed into bed that night. A note was stuck to the underside of the shelf over her bed, taped up beside the pictures of her and Carmen wearing matching hats at the end of last year. It was a reminder that she was going swimsuit shopping with her mom next Saturday. Nothing more than this. I don¡¯t want to be anything more than this. I really am so lucky. The System chose her that Friday. As an S-rank. It never occurred to her that she shouldn¡¯t tell her family. She thought she needed their help to keep it secret. She thought it was obvious, from the very moment that inhuman voice whispered in her ear, that it had to stay a secret. Because Avowed got sent away, and they would never want her to be sent away. But after days of crying and shouting, and Maricel not understanding how everything was going so wrong when it had never, ever gone wrong before¡­ ¡­they took her to the consulate. Her family took her there themselves and made her register. Because it was safer for her, they said. Safer for you and for us, Angel, they said. Because her powers would be frightening. Because it was the right thing to do. Because they could never hide it forever. There was a good future ahead of her. A great future. A future where she could have so many extraordinary things. Please stop crying, Maricel. You¡¯re an Avowed now. And not just any Avowed. A rare, amazing S-rank. You might see other worlds. Because of you, people like your grandmother get to live full lives. You yourself might live for centuries if you¡¯re lucky. If you¡¯re lucky. She never did go shopping with her mother for the bathing suit. ****** Stop crying, Maricel, she thought, lying on floor in a bathroom in Anesidora. She was sobbing beside a tub with a turtle-patterned shower curtain. Someone knocked on the door. She ignored them. She¡¯d ignored Alden Thorn¡¯s texts, too. I shouldn¡¯t have done that. He¡¯s nice. She was too miserable to care that he was nice. I want to go home. I want to go home. I don¡¯t want to live my life just seeing pictures of them all through screens. And she couldn¡¯t stand to set foot beyond that door, into that party where Konstantin was bouncing around making plans to surprise his parents, and so many of those other people who had happy families, too, were acting like it was a chore to have curfews, rules, and love. She kept trying and failing to fall into some kind of synch with them. It wasn¡¯t working. She fixed her eyes on the door. This family actually marked their children¡¯s heights there, on the other side, in permanent ink. They could keep on doing that for years to come. I¡¯ll probably never measure my little brothers again. Even if she did, it would just be some odd request she made herself on a rare visit. A text appeared. The sender¡¯s name was J. He was a Wright in intake. [Are you sure?] She thought of the heights on the door. She thought of her family. [I can¡¯t. You shouldn¡¯t either. It¡¯s dangerous.] [I know what I¡¯m doing. There¡¯s plenty of time if you change your mind.] She wiped her face on her hoodie. [Maricel, we¡¯re doing the punch thing if you¡¯re still here.] That one was from Alden. He was trying again. Thanks. She¡¯d panicked when Tuyet texted to ask where she¡¯d disappeared to and lied about leaving with a headache. Stupid. Completely stupid. There was no way to leave the apartment without being spotted by forty people, but if they were all about to start their drinking thing¡­maybe she could make it while they were distracted. Maybe her new roommates wouldn¡¯t see her and start to hate her. Carmen hasn¡¯t called me in two weeks. I don¡¯t think she really wants me to call her anymore. She was jealous of Maricel. She was tired of Maricel¡¯s complaining. Why didn¡¯t the System pick her? Maricel thought as she pulled her hood up over her head and listened for the sounds of the drinking contest getting underway. If it had just picked her instead of me, everyone would have been happy.
The giant suitcase stood, packed and waiting, by the door. Smaller bags and containers were strapped to it with all the belongings that had been collected at the last minute. The apartment was clean. The furniture was arranged so that it looked like it had never been used for target practice. Victor was in his carrier, and Alden was making a noble effort to lint roll every last strand of cat hair from the sofa. Boe sat crosslegged in the armchair beside Victor, holding the smashed aluminum disc that had once been a soda can and watching Alden work. ¡°You¡¯ve got to tell me the second you get back home!¡± Alden tried to inject some energy into his voice. ¡°You have to make up fully with Jeremy. And you should swing by the consulate and say hi to Gorgon for me.¡± ¡°I will. Gorgon was intensely upset when you went missing.¡± Alden peeled another layer of adhesive off the lint roller. ¡°You¡¯ve read Gorgon?¡± ¡°Yeah. On purpose. He¡¯s a member of an unknown species chained up for crimes, and you were feeding him snacks. I wanted to make sure he wasn¡¯t having sinister thoughts toward you.¡± ¡°Boe.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I think Gorgon¡¯s a good person.¡± ¡°Well, he obviously likes you, too. He seems pretty fond of the people who walk through the lobby in general, as long as they¡¯re not there to gawk at him and they don¡¯t dirty the place up.¡± Alden looked over his shoulder. ¡°Really?¡± Gorgon didn¡¯t offer humanity a lot of praise in his experience, but he had seemed fascinated by Alden¡¯s memories of the city. Boe was nodding. ¡°Yeah. He¡¯s not easy to understand, even when you¡¯re feeling what he is. He¡¯s got very alien emotions. Sometimes, he seems to make an effort to mimic human expressions and body language¡ªquite social of him if you think about it. But it can be misleading. I knew he¡­appreciated you, but I would not have expected him to feel something similar to anguish when you went missing. I couldn¡¯t take his alien mess on top of my own human one, so I steered clear of his feelings after that brief glimpse.¡± Alden felt rather touched. ¡°And he says we¡¯re not friends. Do you think he wants a robot vacuum for the lobby? I¡¯ve been thinking he might like one.¡± ¡°Go for it. If he hates it, I¡¯ll take it.¡± A text message arrived, and Alden read it with a weight like an anvil in his stomach. ¡°Car¡¯s on schedule,¡± he said lightly. ¡°It¡¯ll be here in ten minutes.¡± He forced himself to stop aggressively rolling up cat hair, and he took a seat on the sofa. ¡°I¡¯ll be back soon,¡± said Boe. ¡°Maybe not back here, but back. You can brain text me until our synapses go on strike.¡± ¡°I remember saying something similar when I first told you I was an Avowed. And you told me long-distance friendships never worked out like people hoped they would.¡± Boe cleared his throat. ¡°I must have been having an uncharacteristically stupid moment. It¡¯ll work out. We¡¯re bound in profound new ways now. You know about my powers. We¡¯ve decided to be a heroic tandem. We¡¯ve wept together.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t recall you weeping.¡± ¡°I offered to weep with you. It¡¯s the same.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°You did. Sorry. I don¡¯t mean to mope. By the way, before you vanish, there¡¯s something I need to ask you to do for me.¡± His friend stood up and stretched. ¡°Sure. But you¡¯re feeling nervous suddenly¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re still reading me then? That¡¯s fine. I¡¯m nervous because it¡¯s important to me that you say yes and that it not be some uncomfortable big deal between us.¡± Boe lowered his arms. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t interrupt me before I¡¯ve finished explaining why I made this decision. I¡¯m sending you around two million argold.¡± Boe¡¯s mouth fell open. ¡°Don¡¯t interrupt. It¡¯s about half of everything I have. It¡¯s not a gift. If you¡¯re willing to take large sums of money as a gift, I¡¯d love to give you some, but I know you won¡¯t. This isn¡¯t a present for you. It¡¯s not me being overly generous or self-sacrificing. It¡¯s money for survival. Yours. Connie¡¯s. Jeremy¡¯s. Victor¡¯s. I want you to use it in whatever way you think is best to make sure that all of you stay alive, healthy, and safe.¡± Alden leaned forward and clasped his hands together. ¡°It¡¯s better for me to split my resources this way. What if I¡¯m off-planet, and I can¡¯t communicate with home, and Connie has a major accident? What if you get a summons? It would probably be for an emergency in your case since you haven¡¯t formally agreed to the Contract. I¡¯d really like for you to have enough money to call and let me know what¡¯s happening. Or, if they won¡¯t let you because you¡¯re empathing at the Artonan equivalent of a black ops site, I want you to have enough money to do whatever it is you need to do to get back home safely.¡± He bit his lip. ¡°Also¡­I consider it not unlikely that you will one day have to go on the run from actual superheroes. For being an unregistered. A pretty powerful one. And if that happens, I want you to already have some kind of insanely clever escape plan in place. One that¡¯s foolproof because you spent, like, a million dollars on it. I don¡¯t want to agonize over the escape plan, or try to make it up for you from the other side of the planet. You make it up. And buy yourself whatever it is you need, so that I don¡¯t wake up one morning and see you being dragged to jail or stuffed in a bodybag by Skiff and Sharon.¡± He sat back and waited for Boe¡¯s answer. ¡°How dare you?¡± Boe said quietly. Alden started to protest. ¡°How dare you think that Skiff and Sharon could defeat me?¡± Boe continued. ¡°He trips over his flip-flops. She deleted her own last name. I could take both of them at the same time and not even be late for school.¡± Alden smiled in spite of himself. ¡°So someone more awesome then. Big¡¯nLittle Snake. But, seriously, you¡¯ll take the money and do all of that with it?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Boe. ¡°And I¡¯ll try not to let my feelings of inferiority get in the way of spending it. Avowed life gets expensive. I want you to have millions of dollars to keep yourself safe. It makes sense you want to put your own millions toward keeping the people you worry about safe. If we get separated again due to some freak event, we each have a significant hoard to make sure everything that needs to be taken care of gets taken care of.¡± Alden sighed with relief. ¡°Thank you so much. It¡¯s a huge weight off.¡± Boe ran his fingers through his hair. ¡°Around six million dollars. That¡¯s a lot. I¡¯ll ask the System to let me put your name on the account, so that you can access whatever¡¯s in it whenever you need to. Can I ask you for a favor?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± ¡°If I ever do get summoned or accidentally exile myself for a long time, would you check in on my parents?¡± Alden was surprised. Boe gave him a knowing look. ¡°I realize you don¡¯t like them. They contribute nothing of worth to the world, and I doubt they even wonder where I¡¯ve run off to when I¡¯m gone. If you could read my emotions, you¡¯d know that I don¡¯t like them much either. But I do love them. And worry about them. So¡­¡± Alden was very surprised. And Boe¡¯s feeling you being surprised that he loves his own family¡­crap, empaths are hard to be cool around. His face heated. ¡°I¡¯ll add them to the list of people we look after.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t put a lot of time and energy into it. It¡¯s a thankless task. Just check in every three months or so if I¡¯m not here to do it and make sure they¡¯re not living on the streets.¡± He took off his glasses and picked up their case from the armrest of the chair. ¡°And mail me these. They¡¯re much nicer than the pair I buried in Jeremy¡¯s yard.¡± They stared at each other across the coffee table. ¡°Why does it feel like we¡¯re never going to see each other again? That¡¯s stupid right?¡± Alden said finally. ¡°It is. We¡¯re just freaked out because the last time we said goodbye we almost didn¡¯t get to see each other again.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re freaked out, too. At least it¡¯s not just me.¡± [Good morning, Alden! This is your driver, Gilbert. I¡¯m parked in front of your building. I¡¯m at your service for the day, so take your time. If you need help with your bags, let me know.] Dammit, Gilbert. Couldn¡¯t you have caught a few red lights? ¡°My ride¡¯s here.¡± ¡°My ride¡¯s here!¡± Boe said with fake cheer, gesturing toward the cat carrier beside his feet. ¡°And since I¡¯m about to be completely beyond your wrath, allow me to explain something.¡± Alden raised an eyebrow. ¡°I want you to picture me, months ago, trying to hold my shit together on a really bad day. Connie was crying in the bathtub. Jeremy was obsessively vacuuming your house because he couldn¡¯t figure out how else to help. And I was standing ankle deep in garbage outside because the bag had broken. Then Victor¡ªwho had been missing for like half a week¡ªsprinted by with a possibly poison-infused rat in his jaws.¡± ¡°I knew it! You did do something to my cat!¡± ¡°Yes. I chased him yelling, ¡®Here, kitty! Give me the rat. Be a good boy. Stop, you orange asshole! That¡¯s a furniture truck!¡¯¡± Alden gasped. ¡°He ran at a furniture truck?¡± ¡°Oh, he got run over by the furniture truck. Crouched right there in the middle of the lane while it skimmed his ears doing forty miles an hour. Luckily it had high ground clearance. So I run out into the street, grab the cat, grab the still wiggling rat, and I decide we can¡¯t go on like this anymore. It¡¯s time for Victor to retire from his wandering criminal lifestyle.¡± Boe leaned down and stuck a finger through the crate door to pet one of Victor¡¯s ears. ¡°I started lightly boosting his happiness whenever he was chilling out on the sofa and being sane.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± Alden asked, confused. ¡°And it completely changed his personality?¡± ¡°I also did it whenever Jeremy was talking to him or petting him.¡± Alden imagined Boe stalking Victor around, waiting for the cat to sit on sofas or approach Jeremy so that he could use his powers to engage in feline emotional massage. ¡°So you do practice Skill 2 sometimes.¡± ¡°It¡¯s different with animals. They have emotions; but those emotions aren¡¯t like ours, and they don¡¯t intrude on me in the same way. And it¡¯s not unethical to make a pet feel better when it¡¯s engaging in safe and healthy behavior, I don¡¯t think? It was like treat training him. Only my treats are zero-calorie.¡± He frowned. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have done it, though.¡± ¡°Victor does seem happier now, so I guess it¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°He¡¯s great. He¡¯s learned how to enjoy the good life as a house cat finally. He got over some of his anxieties and his hardbitten street cat trust issues. He¡¯s only chunky because empty food dishes make Jeremy panic and think he might¡¯ve forgotten to feed him at all.¡± He was still petting Victor through the door. ¡°But fixing even an animal¡¯s problems this way is too tempting for me. It makes me think, ¡®Well, it worked out that time, didn¡¯t it? Isn¡¯t everyone better off now? I didn¡¯t hurt anybody. What if I do it just a little bit more¡­?¡± ¡°And that¡¯s a slippery slope,¡± Alden concluded. ¡°It¡¯s the blackest of ice.¡± Boe straightened and cleared his throat. ¡°So now I¡¯ve confessed to being a cat whisperer. I¡¯ve stolen half of your wealth. And I¡¯ve made you late for your luxury car service. My work here is done.¡± ¡°God, I¡¯m gonna miss you.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll be so busy learning to coexist with the other superteens, you won¡¯t even have time to miss me before we see each other again.¡± That¡¯s not true, thought Alden. I already do. Boe waved. ¡°Bye for now. Pick up your suitcase. Try not to save too many lives until I¡¯m back home and I start to catch up. ¡± ¡°Stay safe, Boe.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s both do that.¡± A few seconds later, he was gone. Alden took a deep breath and let it out. Then he gathered the pile of clothes from the floor, wrapped them around the glasses case, and collected Victor. His skill had completely recovered from last night¡¯s experiments, and the bulging suitcase by the door was light when he lifted it, even though his sense of his current entruster¡¯s location was strangely absent. He maneuvered himself awkwardly out into the hall with all of it and stood collecting himself for just a moment longer. The lines of doors stretched in front of him. A girl was staring at apartment 909. She had one of the welcome bags in her hand. She looks scared. Alden walked toward her.¡°Moving in today?¡± She took in his ridiculous number of belongings with wide blue eyes. <> she said in Russian. Then she laughed uncomfortably. <> ¡°I¡¯m leaving,¡± said Alden. ¡°Don¡¯t be nervous. This is an okay place. The Warren is the best part of intake. Rabbits are a really friendly group.¡± Now that it was over, he wished he¡¯d been in a better frame of mind for the past few weeks so that he could have appreciated it all more. <> ¡°You¡¯ve got this.¡± He didn¡¯t have hands free to give her a thumbs up, so he lifted Victor in salute instead. He piled into the elevator with all his stuff, and he didn¡¯t bother to stop on the eighth floor to visit the counselor¡¯s desk. Neha had left a few days ago, off to work on Artona I for one of her long-time employers. She¡¯d sent him a personal e-mail encouraging him to call her if he ever needed anything and giving him the name of a financial advisor she recommended. Gus had talked to him a couple of nights ago and reminded him that a Rabbit should be well-dressed and well-prepared for every occasion and ready to act with less than a minute¡¯s notice. <> he¡¯d announced. <> Then he¡¯d gone back to swearing violently at a goalkeeper from Argentina. The elevator opened onto the empty lobby, and Alden strode out the front doors toward a waiting SUV. Intake was a place for people who were just passing through. After the professional cleaners went over the apartment and removed every last trace of cat hair, the only sign Alden Thorn had ever lived here would be a line of high scores on a pinball machine. *** NINETY-FOUR: Roommates 94 Alden gave Victor one last hug before tucking him back into his carrier. A tag that proved he¡¯d been scanned for diseases and magical contraband was clipped to the outside. He set the cat on the floor of the teleportation bay he¡¯d been assigned. ¡°You¡¯ll be with Jeremy in a few minutes. Be good.¡± Both of you. When the teleport was complete and he received a text from Jeremy confirming that Victor was in his arms, he sighed with relief. Great work, Victor. Smuggling people through teleportation is officially a family business now. Gilbert, his chauffeur for the day, was waiting for him in the parking garage. It was the first Anesidoran parking garage Alden had ever seen the interior of, and he wondered if they were all this cheerful. It was brightly lit, clean, and there were colorful murals on the walls. ¡°Celena North next?¡± Gilbert asked as he held the door for Alden to climb into the backseat of the large SUV he¡¯d booked. Gilbert had the non-Avowed notification under his name tag, and he¡¯d told Alden that he and his D-rank wife had decided to leave behind an Avowed zone in Australia and move here to Anesidora for the ¡°big city lifestyle.¡± Should I tell him he doesn¡¯t have to get the door for me every time? Or am I supposed to let him? Alden buckled his seatbelt and checked his text messages. He¡¯d offered rides to several different acquaintances and friends who were planning to move to campus today. Now that Boe was safely gone, he could head back for them. But they were all running late except for Jeffy, of all people. I don¡¯t want to ride around with just Jeffy. Jeffy needs a buffer. He could send the car back for the intake crowd later. ¡°Celena North,¡± Alden confirmed, texting Maricel to ask if she was sure she wanted to haul her bags on the train. ¡°And then if you don¡¯t mind coming back to F to pick up a bunch of people and their stuff after you drop me off¡ª¡± ¡°Picking up people and their stuff is what I do!¡± Another text came in. It was from Kon, and it just said, [Thank you, thank you, thank you!] ¡°Actually, can we swing by Nilama Marina? There¡¯s someone there who wants a ride.¡± ******* Alden was going to be an amazing roommate. He¡¯d decided it last night at the party, about five minutes after Lexi had accused him of being a hypocrite. Alden hated that the Meister was even more right about that than he knew. Lute Velra could arrive at their new apartment with Aulia riding piggyback and an entourage of bedbugs, and it still wouldn¡¯t be fair of Alden to complain that Lexi hadn¡¯t warned him. Because it wasn¡¯t like Alden had warned anyone about anything at all. As the SUV approached the family zone where the Roberts brothers lived, he cataloged a few of his many inconvenient features. I gave Chainer to the Velras. Aulia thinks I¡¯m some kind of luck Rabbit. My best friend is a current criminal and future vigilante who I am happily aiding and abetting. Prone to nightly wanderings. May disappear suddenly without warning. He was going to be an amazing roommate anyway. Lexi was the surly one. Lute was the school punching bag with the dark sense of humor. If Alden acted like an antisocial insomniac, then Haoyu might end up being the only pleasant one in the whole group. I¡¯m going to be so damn easy to get along with that Lexi feels guilty every time he glares at me. He smiled at the thought. In pursuit of this goal, he¡¯d offered to pick up everyone and help with their belongings. Haoyu had thanked him and said that he was already at the new apartment with his mother. Lexi had refused. Lute still hadn¡¯t responded. Kon, on the other hand, was waiting outside his building with seven other people who were left over from the party and enough luggage to sink a ship. They were playing rock-paper-scissors to see who got to ride and who had to head toward Apex on their own. ¡°I can sit on someone¡¯s lap!¡± Astrid protested as the winners piled into the vehicle. The other losers were already trudging toward the nearest bus stop together. ¡°We could at least take her sleeping bag so she doesn¡¯t have to carry it around,¡± Alden suggested, moving into the passenger seat. Kon patted him happily on the shoulder before climbing in and squeezing into the back between Everly and Mehdi. ¡°Nope!¡± Helo¨ªsa said from the captain¡¯s chair she¡¯d just claimed. Her teddybear purse was now wearing a caution tape bowtie. ¡°She was the one who wanted additional consequences for losers.¡± ¡°No take-backs,¡± Mehdi added. Then he yawned loudly. Alden had the impression that nobody in this group was well-rested. Everly was drinking a canned coffee in the back with a look on her face that said it was a necessity, not a pleasure. Helo¨ªsa was still boisterous, and Kon was still trying to carry on multiple conversations at once as they set off. But even their energy had that slightly unhinged quality that came from having been without sleep. Helo¨ªsa kept laughing at things that were only mildly funny, and Kon blanked on the word crosswalk in English and ended up calling it <> in Russian. Which Alden was betting wasn¡¯t correct either. Their other passenger was the Bow Meister who¡¯d shot Alden¡ªa lot¡ªduring the combat assessment. His preferred name had been Reinhard. Now it was showing up as Rain Hard, and Alden wasn¡¯t sure if he was brainstorming hero names for himself and had forgotten he¡¯d left one up or if he really wanted people to call him that. So he was avoiding calling him anything for now. All in all, he was relieved when they arrived on campus. He made an excuse about needing to make a call to separate himself from the group and get his bearings. He walked the perimeter of Celena Circle. It was also a move-in opportunity for Arts and Sciences, and all the new students from those much larger programs wandering around with family, friends, and suitcases made for an atmosphere that hovered between festive and stressful. Alden had gotten his chauffeur to re-entrust him with his belongings. He was enjoying the combo of his movement trait plus unnaturally lightweight baggage a lot. He only regretted the fact that none of these Apex people were nearly as impressed with him as he was with himself. Though a passing dad did cheer at him as he ran by with a recliner chair over his own head. Alden waved at the two kids¡ªsomeone¡¯s younger siblings he assumed¡ªbouncing and squealing in the seat. The dormitory he¡¯d been assigned to was called Garden Hall. It was built of gray stone, and it had decorative forest green shutters. Carefully controlled ivy crept up the sides of the building without getting in the way of a single window. It looked like an English cottage had gotten hit with an enlargement spell. It was three stories tall, and it did have a line of evergreen trees and a gardenish outdoor area separating it from a busy street on the campus¡¯s edge. There were a couple of grills, tables, and lots of planters full of flowers and herbs that were maintained by students who had each put up signs in their allotted space: Do NOT touch this tree. Rocco will kill you. Percy¡¯s Garden. Take whatever you need. For a class project! Don¡¯t eat it! Thanks! ¡ª T.W. As he entered the building, the words, ¡°Welcome Home, Alden!¡± scrolled across his vision. That¡¯s a nice touch. He examined the main common area. It was more practical than grand. It had concrete floors, tables, a few exhausted looking sofas. Floor-to-ceiling shelves full of borrowable books and games separated the seating area from a community kitchen that was currently home to a trio of guys who were discussing a single bowl of brownie batter like the fate of the world hung in the balance. He took the stairs up to the second floor, made his way down a hall bustling with people, and found his new apartment. Although he doublechecked the number over the entry pad twice just to be completely sure before he stepped through the wide-open door. He¡¯d been expecting to find three teenaged boys, not two grown women examining every nick and stain in the place. I think that might be Haoyu¡¯s mom. He watched the slim, brunette woman in the gray sweatshirt give the fridge a bearhug and lift it off the floor while her peach-haired helper peered underneath. ¡°Nothing, ma¡¯am! The smell isn¡¯t coming from under here either.¡± She set the fridge down carefully, not looking even slightly strained. Definitely Haoyu¡¯s mom, Alden decided. He¡¯d heard that both of his parents were Dura Brutes previously, but at the party last night he¡¯d learned that they were elite ones. The two of them shared a working name¡ªOmega Scorpii. They were part of a hero group that had agreements with several different governments to provide pre-vetted heavy hitters on short notice to deal with sudden upticks in violence or large disasters. And they were both on-call for different Anesidora battle groups, too. It sounded like they balanced superhero work with having a kid by trying to avoid taking jobs at the same time, though that didn¡¯t always work out. With Haoyu¡¯s Dad training for a demon fight, his mom was now free to suspiciously sniff the air in this apartment and help her son move in. She was eyeing the vent in the ceiling when the woman with the pinkish orange hair spotted Alden. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s Alden Thorn!¡± she said. ¡°Ma¡¯am, he¡¯s here!¡± Before Alden even had time to be surprised, he found himself ushered into the apartment by the two of them. ¡°I¡¯m Molly, Mrs. Zhang-Demir¡¯s assistant.¡± ¡°Give me your bag, dear! That looks heavy. It¡¯s so nice to meet you.¡± ¡°Have you had breakfast? The boys went to Cafeteria North. We can have them pick something up for you.¡± ¡°Lexi and Haoyu have already selected their rooms, but you can choose from the last two. This one is the best. Don¡¯t you think, Molly?¡± ¡°I do. The one by the bathroom has some annoyances. Look here, kid, you¡¯ve got plenty of drawers built in behind this panel." ¡°We¡¯re going shopping for the living room later, so don¡¯t worry about how it looks right now, Alden. The furniture is terrible.¡± ¡°Depressing.¡± ¡°Very depressing. It was when I went to school here, too. They chose indestructibility over comfort.¡± ¡°Are you sure you brought everything you need? This is a big bag, but since you¡¯re coming in from intake instead of home¡ª¡± ¡°Sheets! Molly, we might need to add sheets to the list for him.¡± Wait. What¡¯s happening here? thought Alden. Twenty seconds had elapsed. If that. He stood at the foot of the elevated twin bed and desk combo that had just been assigned to him. His head was whirling from the sudden input, and he was trying to find words that would slow the two of them down. ¡°I ordered sheets and stuff for the bed. It should be delivered this afternoon,¡± he said when they both happened to pause for breath at the same time. For once, he hadn¡¯t done it through Dragon Rabbit. He¡¯d spent a lot of time thinking about sleep comfort and had picked out everything himself. He didn¡¯t know if having a white noise machine and blankets that adjusted their own temperature throughout the night was necessary, but it was worth a try. ¡°You¡¯re so on top of things!¡± Mrs. Zhang-Demir said with a smile. ¡°Haoyu always keeps up with his schoolwork, but bedding? He would sleep on a bare mattress using dirty laundry as a pillow for months before he decided to do anything about it!¡± She looked around the room again. ¡°We¡¯ll leave you to unpack your own things. But first, do you want a ladder for the bed? It seems like the boys who lived here before you either didn¡¯t like them or lost them somehow because there isn¡¯t one in any of your rooms. Haoyu and Lexi didn¡¯t mind, but it should be easy enough to track one down.¡± ¡°Oh, um¡­¡± Alden examined the loft bed. ¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯ll be a problem.¡± ¡°All right, all right. We¡¯ll get out of your hair. If you change your mind or think of anything you need, just let us know. Molly, the odor¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ll call in a professional sniffer if we can¡¯t pin it down ourselves, ma¡¯am.¡± When they were gone, Alden inhaled deeply. He couldn¡¯t detect any foul scents. Newish paint. Whatever cleaners the ladies had been using to wipe down the place. I guess Mrs. Zhang-Demir probably has a slightly enhanced sense of smell. He needed to look up her first name when he got a second. The room wasn¡¯t as glamorous as the one he¡¯d just left behind. Intake was like a modern luxury hotel dedicated to making teenagers feel less stressed out. Garden Hall had everything Alden needed, but it was more of a functional place to crash. The loft bed and the desk and chair below it were the only furniture. He appreciated that, since space was at a premium. He only had room to add one more piece, and he¡¯d like to choose it himself. Something to make it more homey. The floors were polished concrete up here on the second story, too. And combined with white walls and a steel-framed bed, there wasn¡¯t a lot of warmth. The window looked out over a walkway that separated the dormitory from an identical girls-only building. The owner of the room directly opposite his had hung the Botswanan flag in her window. Alden unpacked everything. Even though he wasted time fiddling with the layout of his desk, it still didn¡¯t take very long. Voices and the occasional banging sound were coming through the door, so the soundproofing within the apartment itself here was pretty nonexistent. I¡¯ll have to buy something for that. He heard Haoyu¡¯s voice. He stepped out of his room in time to see the other boy¡¯s mother casually grabbing him by the chin and wiping powdered sugar off his cheek with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. He spotted Alden. ¡°Mom,¡± he said, embarrassed. ¡°I can clean my own face!¡± ¡°But you didn¡¯t,¡± she replied, releasing him and heading into his room. ¡°Now, are you sure you have to have your entire skateboard collection with you? You can only ride one at a time.¡± Alden explored the rest of the apartment. His bedroom was right beside Haoyu¡¯s. Lute and Lexi were across the hall in windowless rooms. They had screens on the wall where windows would have been, but it was a definite downgrade in his opinion. He was surprised Lexi had chosen it for himself. Lute, who still hadn¡¯t shown up, would be beside the shared bathroom. They had a pair of sinks with mirrored medicine cabinets, a single shower stall, and a deep claw-footed tub that looked like it might be both the apartment¡¯s best and most troublesome feature. On the one hand, it looked like the kind of tub you could sink into up to your eyebrows and boil yourself in for hours. Alden had never had a tub like that, and he liked the sound of it. But it¡¯s in a shared bathroom. I guess we¡¯ll figure out bathing etiquette somehow. Thankfully the toilet was in its own separate spot, closeted in a cubby with another sink. The kitchen was just a fridge, a microwave, and a table. No dishes in the few cabinets. The living area had a dark beige loveseat and matching chairs. They didn¡¯t look that bad, but sitting on one was a lot like sitting on a cement bench. They had a decent television, built-in shelving, and an infrared heater disguised as a fireplace. Alden was particularly charmed by that last feature. It had a remote control you could use to make the logs glow different colors and emit crackling sounds. He was playing with it when Lute finally arrived, dragging a pair of rolling hard-sided suitcases that had been heavily decorated with markers. His face was dark. A personal filming drone¡ªa spherical one with a rainbow propeller¡ªwas following along behind him. He stepped through the door, and the drone trailed after him. The second it crossed the threshold, he whipped off the ball cap he was wearing and smashed the small device out of the air with it. It hit the floor and skittered across it with a plaintive whir, and Lute leapt after it to grind it into the concrete with a polished black combat boot. Alden watched in alarm while the other boy stomped the drone viciously. ¡°I think it¡¯s dead,¡± he said at last. Lute brushed his blonde bangs out of his face. He¡¯d decorated his eyepatch since class yesterday, or he¡¯d gotten a new one. It had a big red X painted on it now. ¡°They¡¯re not allowed to follow you into your home.¡± He grunted and kicked at the drone rubble some more. ¡°I guess I need to start catching them and selling them, but this is more satisfying.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a paparazzi drone?¡± ¡°Only if it¡¯s an impoverished paparazzi. A cheap one like this probably belongs to some campus dickhead who has nothing better to do with their Saturday morning than piss me off. I hope their genitals rot off and¡­uh¡­¡± He trailed off as Haoyu¡¯s mother appeared. Molly was on her heels, air typing and muttering about the caulking on the shower. ¡°Hello, Lute,¡± said Mrs. Zhang-Demir. ¡°You might not remember me. I visited your class when you were in fourth grade with Haoyu, but that was quite a while back, wasn¡¯t it? You¡¯ve gotten¡­so much more mature!¡± The hesitation made Alden wonder if she¡¯d been about to say ¡°taller¡± and had changed her mind at the last second. Lute stared down at his boots and brushed his bangs awkwardly over his eyepatch. ¡°Yeah. Yes. I remember. Hi. I¡¯m¡­really glad to be roommates with Haoyu.¡± ¡°Are we expecting your mother and father to stop by today?¡± she asked. ¡°Or any other family helpers?¡± She said it lightly, but Molly¡¯s fingers stopped tapping at the air in front of her face and her eyes flicked toward Lute. ¡°No,¡± he said in a stiff voice. ¡°I¡¯m on my own.¡± A noticeable tension left the room. ¡°Well! It¡¯s just me and you getting the boys settled in today, Molly.¡± ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am. The sniffer is on his way.¡± ¡°Lute, I was telling Alden earlier that we¡¯re planning a shopping trip for this afternoon to pick up anything you might have forgotten and collect some creature comforts for the apartment. If you want to add something to the list or come along and pick out some things for yourself, we¡¯ll head out this afternoon?¡± ¡°Yeah. Yes. That would be good. Thank you.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll take care of the drone,¡± Molly said. ¡°It won¡¯t be the first time I¡¯ve sorted one out. Please stand back.¡± Lute stepped aside, and Molly reached out with a splayed hand. She fixed her eyes on the rubble and slowly drew her fingers together. The pieces of the drone ground into each other with squeals and snapping sounds, then she made a beckoning motion and the crumbs of the device floated over to her hand. She sifted through them. ¡°The microphones and cameras are all destroyed,¡± she announced. ¡°I¡¯ll throw this in the trash.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve already hired a car service for the day,¡± Alden said into the awkward silence that followed. ¡°An SUV. If anyone wants to use it for anything.¡± ¡°That sounds comfortable!¡± Haoyu¡¯s mother smiled at him. ¡°Molly brought a car, but six of us aren¡¯t going to fit in a compact. Lute, have you had breakfast?¡± ******* Alden had finished unpacking so much quicker than everyone else that he was the only one who couldn¡¯t seem to find anything to do. He knocked on Lexi¡¯s door and offered to help him with his things, only to be met with a blank expression and a monosyllabic refusal. Alden smiled at him and cheerfully announced that he¡¯d go check on the others instead. I¡¯m going to be such a good roommate to you, Mr. Standoffish. Just you wait. Haoyu was assembling a rack that was supposed to display his skateboards. He also had a bookcase in progress and boxes of Chinese and Turkish comics. ¡°I read too many of them,¡± he confessed. ¡°I call it language study, but really I just like them.¡± Lute was trying to cram an impossible number of clothes and shoes into his closet. They¡¯d all been vacuum bagged to fit in his suitcases, and every time he opened another one, his room lost square footage. ¡°Lexi said last night that you had a harp you needed help with?¡± ¡°My concert harp. I can actually move it myself, but this building was designed by sadists who thought Avowed didn¡¯t need elevators. I¡¯d like to have another person to get it up the staircase. Or to make sure nobody messes with me while I¡¯m trying to get it up the staircase.¡± ¡°Is it downstairs now, or¡­?¡± Lute was trying to make a denim jacket fit onto the same hanger as a sweater with a toucan on the front. ¡°It¡¯s locked in a teacher¡¯s office so that people can¡¯t fuck with it. I can go get it whenever, but I¡¯d rather not roll it all the way across campus on its cart if I don¡¯t have to. Do you think that SUV you offered has removable seats?¡± ¡°I can carry it,¡± Alden said. ¡°Do you know how big a pedal harp is and what a great one costs?¡± ¡°About as tall as me? And a lot? But my skill literally protects things I¡¯m carrying, so I¡¯m definitely a good delicate object mover.¡± ¡°Taller than you. But I¡¯ll take the help if you¡¯re volunteering. Let¡¯s take Lexi, too.¡± ¡°He seems busy.¡± Lute stood up and went to bang on the wall. ¡°Lexi!!! Come protect my harp with your personality and that creepy thing you picked for your mastery!!¡± ¡°It¡¯s called Mind Writher,¡± Alden murmured. Lute raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°Is that supposed to make it less creepy?¡± To Alden¡¯s total surprise, Lexi stuck his head in the room a minute later. ¡°Yeah, I can come.¡± He frowned at Lute¡¯s pants. ¡°Did you cut those in half and put them back together with safety pins?¡± ¡°Do you like them?¡± Lute gestured at the line of pins running down the sides of his legs. ¡°I think if you walk past a large enough magnet we¡¯ll have to call Haoyu¡¯s mother to unstick you.¡± ¡°I like them,¡± said Alden. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t wear them myself, but they look cool.¡± ¡°Thank you, Alden.¡± Lute slipped past Lexi and elbowed him in the ribs. ¡°See? That¡¯s how you say nice things to people. You used to be such a polite guy, and now you¡¯re going through this angry phase. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I approve, but aren¡¯t you supposed to be growing out of teen angst at your age instead of into it?¡± ¡°Can I come, too?¡± Haoyu had just stepped out of his own room. He lowered his voice. ¡°I don¡¯t want to be here when the professional smeller arrives. It¡¯s weird.¡± He didn¡¯t expound on this opinion as they left the dorm and cut through campus toward the music department, but Lute certainly did. ¡°People who can sniff out the ghosts of your past farts are no fun at all,¡± he said, sticking his hands into his pockets as they headed past the Forthright building. ¡°It¡¯s bad enough to wonder if you brushed away your morning breath and used plenty of deodorant around regular people. There are some things we aren¡¯t supposed to know about each other from across a room. What you ate last night, what you did this morning, whether you wiped really good or you were in a hurry¡ª¡± Alden side-eyed him. ¡°These things should be a man¡¯s own business! I say we move my harp slowly.¡± ¡°I agree,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°And I¡¯m sorry about my mom, you guys. If she¡¯s taking over too much I can ask her to back down.¡± ¡°No, she¡¯s so nice,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Lexi said. Lute peered around Alden to look at Haoyu. ¡°She doesn¡¯t have a problem with me?¡± ¡°Why would she?¡± Lute lifted his eyebrows. Haoyu looked uncomfortable. ¡°I don¡¯t think my parents ever heard about the¡­incident. Mom got summoned on pretty short notice around then. She was somewhere so far out of reach we couldn¡¯t even call her. And dad was bolstering the Hong Kong hero team while they handled that <> person. He was home every chance he got, but it wasn¡¯t like I brought it up with him.¡± ¡°It was ages ago,¡± Lexi said flatly. ¡°It was childish. Your whole grade has always been full of walking, talking hemorrhoids.¡± ¡°They¡¯re not that bad!¡± Haoyu protested. ¡°Everyone¡¯s gotten more serious since affixing, too.¡± Lexi grunted. For a minute, there was only the sound of their shoes hitting the pavers. Alden wondered what on earth Lute had done in middle school. It sounded like it was a personal screw-up they were talking about rather than something related to his family. One bad enough that he thought a former classmate¡¯s parents might still have a problem with him. Can I ask? It would be better if one of them would realize he was clueless and offer the info up, but they didn¡¯t seem to be considering him at all. ¡°Your mom was working with the Artonans right then,¡± Lute said finally. ¡°I knew she did sometimes, but I didn¡¯t realize...¡± ¡°She¡¯s been getting summoned more for the past few years,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I''ve stopped telling people every time she''s gone. They always say the wrong thing.¡± ¡°And she gets summoned for combat jobs.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Sorry,¡± Lute said quietly. ¡°She doesn¡¯t mind. She¡¯s got a team of alien Avowed she works with usually. I don¡¯t know much, but she says it¡¯s fine. And dad says it¡¯s fine. So¡­it¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°I meant I was sorry for back then. I shouldn¡¯t have done it.¡± Done what?! But now they were all so serious, he couldn¡¯t ask. Haoyu smiled at Lute. ¡°Like Lexi says. It was ages ago. And maybe we deserved it a little. I never brought it up with my parents because I thought they¡¯d be mad at me if I explained it all. Dad especially¡­he hates bullies. He¡¯d have wanted to know why I didn¡¯t do anything to stop them from picking on you.¡± ¡°Wow. Pressure,¡± said Lute. He sidestepped to stomp on a fallen leaf. ¡°You hero babies have some intense parents. Let¡¯s cut across the quad here. It¡¯s quicker.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t we on the college campus now?¡± Alden asked, blinking in the glare of sunlight bouncing off the curved surface of a metal statue at the center of the quad. ¡°Yep,¡± Lute said. ¡°The music programs share a lot of spaces. And the instructor who offered her office for harp storage teaches uni classes, too.¡± Lexi frowned. ¡°It just occurred to me to wonder. You are still in first year, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t been taking extra classes to speed through. I¡¯ll be a second year when January quarter starts.¡± The frown deepened. Lute¡¯s own expression brightened at the sight. ¡°Oh! Oh, are you mad I¡¯m your senior now?¡± ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be if I had chosen Sciences! Superhuman Studies has a ton of classes they won¡¯t let me test out of!¡± Lute grinned. ¡°You can call me senpai or¡ª¡± ¡°We are not doing that.¡± Haoyu laughed. ¡°Are you the oldest in your admissions group? You are, aren¡¯t you?¡± Lute said. ¡°I am not! There¡¯s an Adjuster who¡¯s only a month away from seventeen.¡± ¡°Max?¡± Alden guessed. Lexi nodded. ¡°I¡¯m sixteen, too," said Alden. "So there¡¯s a decent chance I¡¯m older than¡ª¡± ¡°My birthday is February 18th,¡± Lexi said. ¡°March 25th,¡± said Alden. ¡°So you¡¯re the second oldest in your group, Lexi!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a big deal.¡± His voice was stiff. ¡°I know that,¡± said Lute. ¡°But do you?¡± A few minutes later, they pushed through the front doors of a huge performing arts building, and Lute led the way into a transparent tube elevator that lifted them slowly through a massive blown-glass art piece to the sixth floor. ¡°This is the scenic route,¡± he informed Alden. ¡°There are faster elevators. But it¡¯s cool to take this one when the place is empty. There¡¯s usually a long wait for it.¡± Haoyu¡¯s nose was almost pressed to the wall as he examined the floating pink and blue bubbles that made up the installation. ¡°I rode on this when I was little,¡± he said. ¡°My parents brought me here to see a show. But I remember the chandelier being different?¡± ¡°They changed it when I was around ten,¡± said Lexi. ¡°My father was upset. One of his roommates made the old one.¡± The space darkened and flames flickered to life inside some of the bubbles as the elevator approached the top. It was eerily beautiful. ¡°Molly says we need to pick a theme for our living room or else we¡¯ll all be adding things to it that don¡¯t match and making it look cluttered,¡± Haoyu said suddenly. Lexi shrugged. ¡°As long as the theme isn¡¯t something ridiculous, that¡¯s probably a good¡ª¡± ¡°Can we do this?¡± Haoyu was pointing eagerly at the nearest fire orb. The other three stared at him. ¡°So, as the resident Arts program student,¡± Lute said slowly, ¡°I compliment you for your ambition. Magic candle balls floating in an impenetrable darkness are a vibe¡­but I don¡¯t see how we could pull it off as a decor scheme. And if we paint the whole suite black, everyone¡¯s just going to think we¡¯re aspiring vampires.¡± ¡°We could do all black furniture!" said Haoyu. "And one of those chair swings shaped like a bubble. And an orange and yellow rug.¡± Lute and Lexi both cringed. Haoyu didn¡¯t notice. ¡°And if we keep the lights turned off and get some blackout curtains, it could work!¡± Alden pictured himself fumbling his way through a pitch black apartment, tripping over a neon orange rug he couldn¡¯t see, and colliding with a plastic bubble swing. He didn¡¯t know what he wanted their new apartment to look like, but he didn¡¯t think that was it. ¡°I think the fireplace is pretty neat,¡± he offered. ¡°A fireplace is like a candle ball,¡± Lexi said so quickly that Alden was sure he would have jumped on any other idea. ¡°Let¡¯s build around it.¡± ¡°Nighttime hunting lodge? Or ski lodge?¡± Lute suggested. He glanced over at Haoyu as the elevator emerged into the light again. ¡°Dark furniture. A faux fur throw. Some lamps with dimmers maybe? I¡¯m sure we can find a round glass one somewhere.¡± ¡°Okay!¡± Haoyu said happily. ¡°That sounds fun, too!¡± Oh. He¡¯s easy to please. ¡°I like lodge,¡± said Alden. He wasn¡¯t sure what the difference was between hunting lodge style and ski lodge style. ¡°That¡¯s fine,¡± said Lexi. ¡°No bearskin rugs.¡± ¡°Come on! A bear rug would be funny!¡± Lute protested. ¡°No taxidermy anything. I don¡¯t want something watching me with its dead plastic eyes.¡± ¡°What have you got against fake eyes, man?¡± asked Lute. Lexi made a choking noise. Haoyu slapped a hand over his mouth to hold back a laugh. ¡°That was such a hurtful¡ª¡± ¡°You know I didn¡¯t mean it like that!¡± Alden was watching Lexi backpedal with amusement and sympathy. ¡°You just accidentally brought it up,¡± Lute said in a mournful voice. ¡°Because it¡¯s what you really think.¡± ¡°I do not!¡± ¡°I understand. No fake eyes in the apartment. Haoyu, Alden, will you help me move all my things out into the garden so that I can sleep where I won¡¯t offend Lexi?¡± ¡°You can have a bear rug! You can have as many dead animals as you want!¡±
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°I can¡¯t believe this thing costs more than my boat.¡± ¡°Since when do you have a boat?¡± ¡°It was my birthday present.¡± ¡°Ohhhh¡­your parents felt sorry for you. Because you got old.¡± They were walking back across campus with Lute¡¯s harp, and Alden was trying to focus on not dropping the massive thing or tripping over pavement cracks. ¡°Would it be easier to hold it over your head so you can see where you¡¯re putting your feet?¡± Haoyu asked as they passed the building where Alden had his Engaging with the Unexpected class. ¡°Definitely.¡± Alden had a death grip on the handles of the thick canvas cover that was currently preserved around the harp. The instrument itself was over six feet tall, deep purple, and named Angela Aubergine. ¡°But my homework for science was on gravitational potential energy, and I keep thinking about how there will be sixty thousand dollars worth of maple splinters on the ground if I drop it from overhead.¡± ¡°I told you I can wheel her around on her cart if you change your mind,¡± said Lute. He was pushing the cart in question ahead of him. ¡°It¡¯s not the end of the world if we hit a few bumps. You were the one who insisted on pretending to be some kind of pseudo-Brute.¡± ¡°It is really neat that he can do that!¡± Haoyu had been properly enthusiastic about Alden¡¯s skill. The other two weren¡¯t as much fun. Lexi had started listing things he could have done with it during combat assessment if he wasn¡¯t an idiot, and Lute had said, ¡°Oh, so that¡¯s what you do.¡± Apparently he¡¯d had absolutely no idea what Alden¡¯s talent was until today, and he just hadn¡¯t been curious enough to ask. I didn¡¯t ask him for details about his powers either, but that was because I assumed he wouldn¡¯t tell me for Velra-ish reasons. Then again¡­Lute had been forthcoming about at least one of his skills at the funeral. ¡°Hey, what¡¯s your skill?¡± Alden asked as they approached the MagiPhys building. ¡°If it¡¯s not a secret.¡± ¡°All the Chainer S-ranks take the same one,¡± said Lexi. ¡°So it can¡¯t be a secret.¡± ¡°Mass Bestowal,¡± Haoyu agreed. ¡°There¡¯s always one of them using it on Matadero to support the battle group for the demon fight.¡± ¡°Yeah, they¡¯re really noble,¡± Lute said dryly. ¡°You should let people compliment your relatives. It¡¯s not happening in many other contexts these days,¡± Lexi pointed out. ¡°Everyone does appreciate it," said Haoyu. "Loading up that many beneficial chains and having them ready to go must take a ton of prep work on the Chainer¡¯s part, right? Even if you do get to reduce the effect of one of the halves somehow, paying off the debts must be really involved.¡± ¡°Due to the tattoo on my bumcheek, I can neither confirm nor deny the specifics¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯ve got a contract tattoo!¡± Alden exclaimed. ¡°Yeah. How else do you think Aulia keeps every member of a family the size of ours in line? Most of them love doing her bidding for some reason, but I¡¯m not the only problem child. And I like Cousin Aimi, but she would literally forget to keep family business to herself if it wasn¡¯t magically enforced.¡± Alden was about to ask how Avowed managed contract tattoos with each other if there was no wizard involved. If Lute could tell him, it would solve a major problem. But Haoyu spoke up first. ¡°Is it really on your butt?¡± he whispered. ¡°I wanted it to be. But when she introduced me to the Artonan tattooer who was going to facilitate the contract, I couldn¡¯t bring myself to request the appropriate location. I think it¡¯s one of my biggest regrets.¡± ¡°Where¡­?¡± ¡°Lower back,¡± said Lute. ¡°I figured it was ass-adjacent.¡± Ah okay. They have a professional do the whole mind alignment thing that Joe mentioned. ¡°I knew about Mass Bestowal already.¡± Alden shifted his grip on the harp and kept an eye on the walkway ahead of him. The sign for the gym was just ahead. ¡°I saw you use it at Hannah¡¯s funeral. I meant your other S-rank skill.¡± Haoyu and Lexi both looked back at him. ¡°He should only have Mass Bestowal,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Chainers get one skill to start. And some special chains. I don¡¯t know what else they can do, but that¡¯s the rumor anyway.¡± ¡°Even if he¡¯s leveled a couple of times¡ª¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t. I¡¯m a very lazy Avowed.¡± Lute was still wheeling his cart ahead of them. ¡°Even when he¡¯s leveled a few times, he won¡¯t get another S-rank skill,¡± Haoyu continued. ¡°Some lower ranked ones instead. Aulia has earned more than one S, but I don¡¯t think any of your other relatives have?¡± ¡°Not unless they¡¯re keeping it quiet.¡± ¡°I understand classes that start with a single primary skill as their main power don¡¯t get a same rank one that easily,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯m a Rabbit. That¡¯s how mine works, too. Instructor Plim was all excited about the theoretical strength of Rabbit skills. But I assumed Chainer skill ranking was a little different, or Lute was¡­you know¡­packing additional heat?¡± Lexi made a scoffing sound. ¡°Why would you assume¡ª?¡± ¡°Probably because I told him I had my second S already.¡± Lexi stopped walking and Haoyu smacked into his back. Alden dodged around them with Angela. Lute strolled ahead, one of the cart wheels squeaking. ¡°You do not!¡± Lexi shouted. Then he dashed ahead of Lute and blocked his path. ¡°You don¡¯t!¡± Alden stared at him. He sounded almost horrified. ¡°Um¡­Lexi,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°You¡¯re being¡ª¡± ¡°Hao! Him? He didn¡¯t affix with a double S,¡± Lexi said. ¡°The universe isn¡¯t that¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s absolutely that unfair,¡± said Lute, leaning on the cart. ¡°And it thinks it¡¯s a comedian, too.¡± Lexi looked emotional. Not angry, like usual. But terribly upset, as if Lute had just revealed something that shocked and devastated him in equal measure. ¡°Sorry, Alden,¡± Lute said, turning back to smile at him. ¡°I¡¯m doing this thing where I refuse to tell another soul what the second skill is. It¡¯s part of my brilliant plan to enrage my grandma. So that she constantly wonders whether I¡¯m lying about having it, and what it is, and it drives her slowly insane¡ª¡± ¡°So you don¡¯t really have one?¡± Haoyu asked. He was giving Lexi a concerned look. ¡°I do. But it¡¯s pretty unbelievable, right? Which will frustrate Aulia until she wants to die¡ª¡± ¡°Show me your profile!¡± Lexi shouted suddenly. ¡°Annnnd¡­apparently it will frustrate Lexi Roberts until he wants to die, too.¡± Lute stared at him. ¡°Not my intention. I don¡¯t see why you¡¯re that shocked. By now, you should¡¯ve just written me off as one of those freaks of natu¡ª¡± ¡°You don''t even want it!¡± Lexi said wildly. ¡°Why the fuck does the System keep giving everything to people who don¡¯t even want it?!¡± Lute opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Lexi had spun on his heel and stalked away at a speed halfway between a walk and a run. ¡°Oh no,¡± Haoyu groaned. ¡°We were all getting along and¡­I¡¯m sorry, guys. Let me go talk to him! He¡¯ll be fine. See you back at the dorm!¡± He bounded after Lexi. Alden and Lute stood staring after them. Finally, Lute said, ¡°You¡¯re from the real world. I bet you think we¡¯re all nuts.¡± He¡¯s the only one who ever calls the rest of Earth the ¡°real world.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re nuts, but I don¡¯t understand what Lexi¡¯s problem is at all.¡± ¡°He¡¯s jealous,¡± said Lute. ¡°Or maybe it¡¯s more accurate to say that people affixing young and high is one of his sore points. I probably shouldn¡¯t have teased him about his age. He wouldn¡¯t have minded that kind of joking around before, but we aren¡¯t really close anymore. I guess the past year has been bad for him, too.¡± He glanced at the harp in Alden''s arms. ¡°Let¡¯s walk slowly and give Haoyu a minute to sort him out. I don¡¯t want to make drama when I¡¯ve finally found roommates who aren¡¯t assholes.¡± Is Lexi not behaving like an asshole in his opinion? ¡°What do you know about¡­life, I guess?" Lute asked. "Growing up here on Anesidora? I know some of my classmates had normal human groupies even when we were little who followed their every move, so if you were one of those you probably already have a lot of¡ª¡± ¡°Do they?¡± ¡°Yeah. Especially cute people with rich, high-rank parents. Extra especially superheroes¡¯ kids. Vandy Carisson is in your group, right? She¡¯s so awkward sometimes. But she had a hundred thousand followers who would just listen to her talk about her goals and give her advice while they watched her watch recordings of her parents working.¡± ¡°I was more into actual superheroes growing up. Not their offspring.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a casual. The real fans start analyzing the future high ranks when they¡¯re twelve and start placing bets on how they¡¯ll affix and what they¡¯ll choose when they¡¯re thirteen.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°That¡¯s creepy.¡± Lute nodded. ¡°Oh yeah. Most peoples¡¯ parents keep them out of it. But some don¡¯t. There''s internet filtering for minors, but it¡¯s not like you can¡¯t talk an adult into giving you access early and showing you what the world is really saying about you and your family¡­don¡¯t get me started. I¡¯m going off track. About Lexi¡ªgetting to mid-sixteen without being selected would¡¯ve been terrible for him.¡± A black drone skimmed low over their heads, and Lute glared at it until it had passed. ¡°He¡¯s been very serious about hero work forever as far as I know. And his parents are both A¡¯s, so it wasn¡¯t like it was a crazy thing for him to want. He was significantly more likely to be a high rank than a mid or low one. Kids here tend to make friends with people who are probably going to be around the same power level as them. Their parents naturally hang out with each other and put them together. By the time you¡¯re in late primary school it¡¯s just not comfortable to be friends with someone who has a totally different future ahead of them.¡± He gestured grandly at the campus. ¡°They start talking about when it is going to happen to them, and the probably A-rank friend mentions moving to Apex and coming to school here. And the probably D-rank friend feels inferior and resentful, and then snap¡ªfriendship broken.¡± He shrugged. ¡°So Lexi¡¯s close friends would have been A¡¯s and S¡¯s. Probably all hero-hopefuls. Probable high-ranks start getting really wound-up about selection in seventh or eighth grade, and then it hits this fever pitch the second they turn fifteen. And people ask them every day if it¡¯s happened for them yet¡­it¡¯s unbearably fucking obnoxious even if you¡¯re not the person who¡¯s being quizzed.¡± He bounced the cart over the edge of a curb as they cut across a small parking lot. ¡°Yeah, I shouldn¡¯t have made fun of his age. I was thinking it was no big deal since he¡¯s got his rank now. But I bet he lost all of his friends because of it. Watching them all get chosen one after the other¡­some of them have to be first and second years here, but he didn¡¯t ask to room with them. They all left him in the dust, and then his little brother almost did, too. And he couldn¡¯t just make new friends while he was in rank limbo.¡± ¡°He spent¡­,¡± Alden counted backward to Lexi¡¯s fifteenth birthday, then subtracted a few months, since the Meister must have been selected before beginning the application process for CNH, ¡°seventeenish months on the edge of his seat watching his life goals and his relationships slowly collapse because of something he couldn¡¯t control.¡± ¡°That¡¯s my read on the situation.¡± ¡°It does sound like it would make you insane.¡± Lute nodded. ¡°And the guy''s a hardcore perfectionist. He probably kept right on going to Hour with a Hero meetups and attending the weekend seminars and all the other things locals with a yen for caped crusading do to prepare. Only instead of being one of the likely candidates, he¡¯d turned into that pathetic kid who couldn¡¯t let it go.¡± ¡°Now I feel sad for him.¡± ¡°He¡¯ll get over it.¡± Lute¡¯s expression shifted. ¡°About our ski lodge¡­we want leather furniture, don¡¯t we? You and I need to decide right now and align our goals so that we can steer Haoyu away from whatever horrors he¡¯ll come up with on his own.¡± ******** What was ski lodge style? Alden still didn¡¯t know. But he and Lute had found a picture they both liked of a resort lobby in Colorado. It had dark brown furniture, a fireplace, and fur throws. It had been photographed with lots of candles, which made Haoyu happy. And Lexi seemed to feel too bad about his freak-out to disagree with anything when they showed it to him. So it was four votes in favor from the apartment residents. And two votes against from the adult voices of reason, who were trying to set a budget that didn¡¯t accommodate Alden¡¯s desire for very nice rugs and Lute¡¯s passion for a particular pair of distressed leather chairs. As Gilbert dropped them off outside the main entrance at Rosa Grove mall, Haoyu was sending everyone pictures of a copper toaster he wanted. His mother finally turned to them all and held up her hands. ¡°All right,¡± she said. ¡°Before we go in, we have to have a budget. And we have to decide what one thing each of you can¡¯t stand to live without in the new apartment¡¯s shared living area. Remember, you¡¯re going to be spending money decorating your own rooms, too.¡± ¡°I have 750 argold dedicated to the apartment in my planner,¡± Lexi said promptly. ¡°Two hundred and fifty can go to the shared area.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got fifteen hundred saved from my Avowed stipends, and I don¡¯t mind if we spend half of it on the kitchen and living room,¡± said Haoyu. Lute chewed on his bottom lip and stared off into space. ¡°I can spend fifteen hundred, too,¡± he said finally. ¡°That took you a while,¡± Molly said. ¡°Are you sure?¡± Lute shrugged at the assistant. ¡°I had to think through how long it would be before I had more money coming in, and how much it would cost to rent another place if Lexi decides he can¡¯t stand living with my fake eye.¡± Haoyu and Alden both snickered. ¡°Why are you two still laughing at that joke?¡± Lexi demanded. ¡°He¡¯s worked it in half a dozen times since this morning!¡± ¡°I can¡¯t help it!¡± Haoyu protested. ¡°It gets funnier every time.¡± ¡°Alden, what about you, sweetheart?¡± Mrs. Zhang-Demir gave him a warm smile. ¡°Don¡¯t feel obligated to spend more than you want.¡± She¡¯s worried because it¡¯s taking me so long to answer. She was thoughtful. And she¡¯d been going out of her way to mom him all day. Adults had done that more often when he was younger, and he had usually been offended. Now that he was older and actually appreciated the effort, people rarely bothered. But she was momming in a way that wasn¡¯t exactly¡­ There¡¯s no way Haoyu¡¯s family isn¡¯t rich, so I¡¯m pretty sure this is a mini-lesson in responsibility. Like, you¡¯ve got money of your own now with your new-Avowed stipend, so let¡¯s spend it wisely. Lexi tattled on Kon to their parents, too, for blowing all of his on party supplies. Lute¡¯s situation was more complex. He had a family who could buy him musical instruments that cost more than cars, but he was now at odds with them. And he had been living on his own off-campus somewhere. Lexi and Haoyu have really nice places to go back to whenever they want. Their families are right here, too. Most of the time. The dorm is like practice independence I guess, so she¡¯s¡ª ¡°Earth to Alden,¡± Lute said, waving a hand in front of his face. ¡°What planet are you lost on?¡± Alden snapped out of it. They were standing on the sidewalk between the parking lot and the mall. This wasn¡¯t the place to think that deeply about life. ¡°I¡¯m not lost on another planet,¡± he said, ¡°for a change.¡± Lute looked startled. Alden cleared his throat. ¡°Sorry. I was thinking about budgets and houses. I haven¡¯t had one for a long time. A home. And we get to keep this apartment for as long as we¡¯re in high school unless we decide to apply for a different building, right? And it¡¯s not like I¡¯m planning to hate you all and move out. You guys seem cool.¡± ¡°Stop, you¡¯re making me blush,¡± said Lute. Alden ignored the snark. ¡°I don¡¯t have any other place to go on Anesidora, so Garden Hall is it for me. I¡¯ll be there every weekend and every holiday. I don¡¯t even have a way to get home for Christmas for the next two years. And I don¡¯t actually need to be precious with my financial resources, so I¡¯d rather not have one.¡± They were all a little wide-eyed. Molly¡¯s fingers had stilled in the middle of another typing session. ¡°A budget!¡± he clarified. ¡°I¡¯d rather not have a budget. Can everyone else just save their budgets for their own rooms, and I can buy whatever we want for the rest of it? To make it look like the picture.¡± After a few more seconds of silence, Alden started to wonder if what he¡¯d said sounded stranger to them than it did to him. ¡°It¡¯s fine if you all want to do something else. I don¡¯t mind that ei¡ª¡± ¡°Good lord. You can come to my house for Christmas,¡± said Lexi. ¡°We import a real tree and everything.¡± ¡°My family doesn¡¯t celebrate Christmas usually,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°But we could this year!¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to play the homeless card, Alden.¡± Molly glared. ¡°Lute Velra! That¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°What? I¡¯m saying I don¡¯t need him to justify his spending urges. I¡¯m amazing at letting other people buy things for me. Look here, Rabbit.¡± He air typed, and a picture of the furniture set he liked appeared in their group chat. ¡°If we¡¯re not being responsible, then we need both armchairs, the chesterfield, and the big storage ottoman with the top that reverses into a coffee table. They have the whole set here.¡± ¡°I still want to buy the toaster myself,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I really like it.¡± Lexi squinted at Alden. ¡°If you¡¯re paying for everything, then do you want to pick it all?¡± ¡°No. I like all the stuff we¡¯ve talked about so far. And I did find the picture of the lodge in the first place. Let¡¯s just get whatever everyone wants if it looks good.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a copper slow-cooker that matches the toaster!¡± ¡°Do you cook or something, Haoyu?¡± Lute asked. ¡°You just drop things that taste good together in the pot, right? How hard can it be?¡± ******* As the four of them headed into the mall, Haoyu¡¯s mother and her assistant trailed behind them. ¡°Molly¡­¡± ¡°Tissues, ma¡¯am?¡± Mrs. Zhang-Demir blinked at her. ¡°No. I¡¯m fine.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not,¡± Molly said, wiping at her nose with a tissue she¡¯d just pulled from her purse. ¡°That American boy doesn¡¯t have parents. And I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on with the Velras and why they¡¯re making that poor child run around with one eye. And little Haoyu¡¯s all grown up¡ª¡± ¡°Not quite. It sounds like he¡¯s about to spend his entire stipend for the month on kitchen appliances he¡¯ll never use. But he¡¯s getting there. And worrying me to death in the process¡­you know he could have roomed with almost anyone? He¡¯s chosen Lexi and this group. He won¡¯t hear a word against it.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°I have no idea.¡± She shook her head. ¡°I was just going to let you know that I¡¯ve had another mission invitation. Next month. I¡¯ll be gone for a few weeks this time.¡± ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am,¡± Molly said quietly. ¡°Why so glum? I could turn this one down if I chose to.¡± She watched her son spring up the steps to grab the door for the others. He moved differently. It was a small change, one he was probably only half aware of himself, but she¡¯d noticed it the moment he affixed. ¡°One second you¡¯re a child, the next¡­¡± ¡°Ma¡¯am?¡± She smiled. ¡°Where¡¯s my mind going? We¡¯ve got to get these boys settled into their¡­was it a ski lodge or a hunting lodge in the end?¡± ¡°A man lodge of some kind. Winter themed. Possibly there will be a bearskin rug. On top of numerous other rugs. Alden seems to have an obsession with luxury carpeting. Lute and Haoyu want a bear. Based on the conversation in the car, they may or may not be painting the whole place black. I don¡¯t understand what they¡¯re thinking¡­¡± ¡°I really don¡¯t know how they arrived at this either, but all right! A manly winter lodge with rugs and attractive leather furniture they¡¯re going to ruin before next term! We have a goal. Come on, Molly. Let¡¯s try to impose reason and order where we can. Also, I checked, and not a single one of them has brought their own soap and shampoo. Do they think the school supplies it?¡± ¡°I will add it to the list.¡± * NINETY-FIVE: The B-list, I 95 It took an afternoon, an evening, and an entire morning. But on Sunday at noon, when it was finally finished and they collapsed in the living room to examine the fruits of their labor, they all arrived at the same conclusion. ¡°Is it just me,¡± said Alden from where he was sprawled on top of the chesterfield sofa, enjoying the smell of the soft leather, ¡°or is this place really awesome now?¡± ¡°It¡¯s perfect.¡± Haoyu was playing with the app on his tablet that controlled the dimmers on all of the apartment¡¯s new lighting. ¡°Thank you for letting me paint the antler fixture copper.¡± Alden stared up at it. ¡°I think we¡¯re firmly in luxury huntski lodge territory now, so it fits.¡± ¡°Sunny likes it, too,¡± said Lute. Sunny was the fake polar bear head mounted on the wall at the end of the hallway that separated their bedrooms. They had given him a pair of sunglasses, to protect Lexi from his plastic eyes. ¡°We still need to put up the curtain around the bathtub,¡± Lexi reminded them. He¡¯d claimed one of the new armchairs as his personal favorite seat. Any time they took a break, he planted himself in it before anyone else could even take a step toward it. ¡°If Lute¡¯s going to spend three hours a night in there¡ª¡± ¡°I was contemplating. You could have used the shower at the same time. It¡¯s not like I locked you out.¡± ¡°When do we invite people over to see the place?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°It¡¯s done unless we decide to paint so¡ª¡± ¡°Never,¡± Lute and Lexi said simultaneously. ¡°Why?¡± Haoyu sounded surprised. Alden rolled over onto his side to watch them. Haoyu and Lexi were both in athletic wear. Lexi was wearing a sleeveless shirt with a logo for a ballet school where he had, until recently, been taking classes. Lute had taken off his eyepatch last night while they worked, and he hadn¡¯t put it back on today. He said it wasn¡¯t comfortable when his face was sweaty. ¡°Someone who hates me will come over and piss on Alden¡¯s rugs.¡± ¡°Kon will want to throw a themed party in our room the second he sees it.¡± Haoyu looked between the two of them and then at Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t mind the occasional guest, but if someone pisses on my rugs you have to help me kill them,¡± Alden told him. ¡°I don¡¯t think anyone would do that.¡± ¡°They violated a pair of my sneakers on Thursday. Alden is my witness.¡± Lexi¡¯s expression twisted. ¡°Wait, you¡¯re serious about someone pissing on your things? What kind of animals are you hanging out with?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not hanging out with¡ª¡± ¡°How do they do it?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Can you not dodge fast enough?¡± ¡°They don¡¯t pee on them when my feet are in them! And it¡¯s not someone I¡¯m hanging out with. Some disgusting psycho gets them when I¡¯m in class on the Artonan culture floor. Anyway, who cares about my shoes? I have plenty. But we have to protect Sunny, the rugs, and Angela Aubergine.¡± ¡°You guys¡­¡± Haoyu said plaintively. ¡°I want to show it off a little. I bet nobody else has a room this cool. And people keep inviting me over to see theirs.¡± ¡°There are a few people I¡¯d like to have over at some point,¡± Alden said. ¡°Who?¡± Lexi asked suspiciously. ¡°Rabbits I got to know in intake.¡± ¡°Do you really plan to keep Kon out of the apartment forever?¡± Haoyu asked Lexi. ¡°He¡¯s your brother. And he lives one floor above us.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not just Kon. I have analyzed all of the other boys in our acceptance group,¡± said Lexi. ¡°And I¡¯m sure none of them need to be here.¡± Lute looked at Alden. ¡°Is the hero track that bad, or is he just making angry noises again?¡± Alden grinned. ¡°They¡¯re not all bad. Finlay seems really nice.¡± ¡°Too nice,¡± Lexi said, as if Finlay had committed a crime. ¡°He¡¯ll bring over one of his new roommates, and his new roommates include the Aqua Brute.¡± ¡°Do we hate the Aqua Brute?¡± Lute asked. Alden shook his head. ¡°Jeffy is¡­¡± ¡°We don¡¯t hate him!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°He is a little¡­lively?¡± ¡°Yeah. Lively.¡± ¡°Lively is bad? And is it true Tuyet got accepted to the program with you guys? Because I didn¡¯t see that coming even with an S. She¡¯s always seemed so nervous. And Dart Meister is an unusual choice. You wouldn¡¯t think¡ª¡± Knock, knock, knock. ¡°It could be any of them,¡± Lexi hissed as Alden stood up. ¡°Don¡¯t answer it.¡± Alden raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°It¡¯s just the groceries we ordered. To fill the fridge. I got a message from the shopper.¡± ******** They spent most of the afternoon working on their own projects and minding their own business. After lunch, all of them naturally drifted apart to take care of what they needed to. Haoyu was studying in his room with the door open. Lexi was in his with the door closed. Lute alternated between doing homework on a large tablet in the living room and practicing on a harp smaller than Angela¡ªan electric one with headphones so that he wouldn¡¯t disturb the rest of them. Every time Alden stepped out of his room to grab something from the kitchen, he felt more and more impressed with the fact that Lexi actually had managed to find people who could stand to be around him and each other and also quietly pursue their own interests for hours at a time. Maybe we¡¯re all on our best behavior because it¡¯s new, but this is nice. He was studying, too. Magic. At some point he had to get soundproofing for his room. Some kind of painfully expensive Wrightwork setup probably. But he¡¯d eventually have wanted that wherever he was staying. For now, he was working with the door locked. He settled onto his new learning cushion. He¡¯d picked out one that looked as similar to the cushion from the lab as possible, but it was still disappointingly inferior. It was better than nothing, though, and until he found a piece of furniture he wanted for the bedroom, it had a place of honor on top of a shag rug. Since he¡¯d finished all his homework with Boe, he could sit and practice with the auriad for hours. He even let himself pull the memory foam pillows off the bed so that he could hit them a few times with the square-punch spell. It wasn¡¯t silent, but it just sounded like someone smacking pillows. If anyone heard him and wondered, he¡¯d say he was punching them the old fashioned way for some kind of practice. At six o¡¯clock, he tucked his auriad back under his cuff bracelet and opened his curtains. In the girls¡¯ dormitory across from theirs, someone was putting a line of electronic tea lights in her window for Diwali. She spotted Alden, and they waved at each other. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. On Thegund, in the crater that was home to the lab, it was night now. Cold, dark, and starless. Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s team should have made it to the area last week. They were probably beyond it now. Every day, the Quaternary erased a little more of that broken world, and every day, it grew just a little more distant from Alden. A chattering group was passing by on the walkway below him. When he opened his eyes again and looked down, he recognized Astrid, Helo¨ªsa, and a couple of other girls from the party. It¡¯s good to be settling in. It feels like I¡¯m finally a part of something that might last for a while. [Haoyu: This is our official room chat, right?] [Lute: Yes.] [Haoyu: I¡¯m going to eat at Cafeteria North. Do you all want to come?] [Alden: I¡¯ll come.] [Lute: Bring me something. I¡¯m filling the tub.] [Lexi: We need a schedule for the tub. You can¡¯t just occupy it from six to nine every night.] [Lute: Bring me something I can eat in the tub.] Alden smiled and grabbed his messenger bag from the desk. A few minutes later, he and Haoyu were about to cross the street in front of the university¡¯s main dining hall, when Lexi sprinted up behind them. ¡°You know he¡¯s really requesting that we bring him a full three course meal?¡± he groused. ¡°Are we his maids? Who does that?¡± ¡°He wants steak frites and a creme br?l¨¦e from the French place. I¡¯m kind of admiring his taste,¡± said Alden. ¡°How does somebody eat steak in the bath?¡± ¡°He addresses that. You¡¯ll see if you keep reading the group chat. He wants a bread roll for it.¡± ¡°And blue cheese dressing so he can make his own sandwich,¡± Haoyu added. ¡°Well we¡¯re obviously not going to do that,¡± Lexi scoffed Alden smiled. ¡°I am, though.¡± Lexi stared at him as the light changed and they crossed the street. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I? It¡¯s easy, and I like carrying food with my skill. I can deliver perfect hot French fries. It¡¯s powerful.¡± ¡°He was telling me he keeps ice cream in his pockets sometimes,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°He offered to bring me stuff when I want, too.¡± ¡°We should have roommate perks,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯ll bring you hot fries for the bathtub, too, Lexi.¡± Lexi rolled his eyes. ¡°I can get my own food.¡± ¡°Just wait. One day you¡¯re going to be miserable and hungry, and you¡¯ll be glad you live with me then.¡± The weekend crowd at Cafeteria North was always lighter, but at this hour, it was still fairly busy. They all three headed for the salad bar. It had enough options that Alden could eat there every day for a month without repeating a topping, so he was trying not to be a whiner about the fact that it tasted like fresh produce instead of angel tears. He threw some sweet potato cubes on a bed of arugula. Then he added a scoop of roasted almonds. Chipotle tofu? Yeah, okay. There was a girl ahead of him counting the number of cubes she took. I can¡¯t bring myself to do that. I¡¯m hungry. And lazy. Natalie, I need you. ¡°We could go out with the others for just a little while tonight,¡± Haoyu was telling Lexi as Alden joined the two of them at a table near the fountain. ¡°It would be fun.¡± ¡°I actually have a club meeting tonight,¡± Alden said. ¡°You¡¯re in a club already! Which one?¡± ¡°I was invited. I¡¯ve never gone. The B-list.¡± ¡°Oh, your rank club,¡± said Lexi. ¡°The guy who invited me said they had private use of the gym at eight on Sundays, so I thought I¡¯d try it.¡± Haoyu stabbed at his salmon and lettuce. ¡°The B-list gets private gym time? The A-list doesn¡¯t! Lexi won¡¯t even go with me to any of the events because he says it¡¯s just a bunch of dumb social hours.¡± ¡°The A-rank club would have to persuade a lot of faculty members to work overtime to monitor us in the gym,¡± said Lexi. ¡°There are less than forty B¡¯s. Even if every single one of them shows up each week, they probably only need to convince a couple of advisors.¡± ¡°No fair!¡± ¡°Reconsider that,¡± Lexi muttered, looking down at his own food. He¡¯d gotten the salmon, too, but he¡¯d separated all of his ingredients into piles on his plate instead of making a salad out of them. Haoyu blinked at him then back at Alden. He chewed for a while. ¡°Nope. Still unfair,¡± he decided. ¡°My mom says the B¡¯s who get picked for hero track are some of the best students anyway, with some of the most unique powers. So no pity from me for being lower ranks. If I thought that way, I¡¯d just have to feel sorry for myself for not being an S.¡± ¡°What¡¯s really unfair is that the Superlatives have club gym time, too,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Kon was looking into it.¡± ¡°The S-rank club calls themselves the Superlatives?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Of course they do. ¡®B-list¡¯ is some decent, self-deprecating humor. ¡®A-list¡¯ is just embarrassing when there¡¯s a rank club above it, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°You should become club president and change the name,¡± Haoyu said brightly. Lexi considered him. ¡°I¡¯ve told you before, the fact that you deliver jokes in the exact same tone you use when you¡¯re being serious is why nobody can ever tell when you are joking.¡± ¡°Were you joking?¡± Alden asked in surprise. Haoyu nodded. ¡°The class-specific combat clubs have private gym time with special mentors,¡± said Lexi. ¡°So I can join the other Meisters for that, and you can hang out with the Brutes.¡± ¡°Oh! Alden doesn¡¯t have a class combat club. You should join the Brutes!¡± ¡°Do you hate him? He¡¯s a fragile combatant with handheld shields. I admit it sounds like a difficult thing to pull off no matter who he¡¯s going up against, but the fisticuffs club is definitely his discomfort zone.¡± ¡°Well, if he wants to win at our level¡­he¡¯s good versus Shaper?¡± ¡°Shaper,¡± Lexi agreed. ¡°Ranged Meister and spellflinger Adjusters, too,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Depends on the Meister. Depends on the Adjuster.¡± ¡°You can say that about any class. Wait, how are you even trying to win fights, Alden?¡± Alden swallowed a bite of sweet potato. ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°If shields are your main thing, then are you aiming for battles of attrition?¡± ¡°He wants you to say yes because he¡¯s going for Dura Brute, and he thinks battles of attrition are the best.¡± ¡°Just refusing to stop is the most satisfying way to win,¡± Haoyu said, waving his fork around with passion. ¡°Let them come at me with a fancy spell they can only cast three times or an overpowered hit that¡¯ll break every bone in their body if they fatigue their protective talents. Let them double-on their stats and become legends¡­but when the dust clears, I¡¯m still there. Saying, ¡®Hello. Yes, you did look flashy. But now what have you got for me?¡¯¡± He does make it sound epic. I¡¯m aimless by comparison. ¡°I honestly don¡¯t know how I win fights,¡± Alden said. ¡°I always wanted to be a support, so in that case, it wouldn¡¯t be strictly necessary for me to be able to defeat another Avowed all by myself. As long as I could keep myself alive for long enough. But if we¡¯re talking about me fighting people on my own¡­my skill will be great at protecting me if I use the right objects. It¡¯s also got some interesting¡ª¡± ¡°You can carry heavy stuff!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Isn¡¯t it great? The first thing I did when I affixed was wander around the house lifting things I couldn¡¯t before.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t practiced much with¡ª¡± ¡°How much of a hit can that shield of yours take?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°Magically and physically?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not¡ª¡± ¡°How big of an object can you protect?¡± ¡°I have no idea.¡± Lexi frowned. Haoyu looked amused. ¡°How can you not know? Are you not curious?¡± ¡°I am! Of course. But¡­¡± It¡¯s changed since I practiced with Joe and Kibby. And it was a lot easier for someone like Haoyu, with superheroes for parents, to safely experiment with his limits before starting school. ¡°Well, don¡¯t worry about it,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Try stuff you¡¯re curious about in rank club. If the other B¡¯s are cool, ask them if Lexi and I can come by sometime!¡± Lexi sighed. ¡°Don¡¯t just invite yourself to dominate the lower rank¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m here to improve. They are too. Maybe they¡¯d like to try their skills on a Dura Brute! And your weapon¡¯s unusual. It would be great practice for all of us.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t mention this idea to the B-list, Alden. Anesidora Social Dynamic¡ªthey¡¯ll hate it.¡± Haoyu flicked a caper at him. ¡°You think everyone is a rank-biased backstabber. I bet the B¡¯s are really nice and open-minded.¡±
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. At 7:30 PM, Alden stepped out of the men¡¯s locker room in the MPE building wearing his very own gym suit. It had been waiting for him in his new locker, along with a list of care instructions that boiled down to, ¡°Don¡¯t store it in your dorm. Don¡¯t do experiments on it. Use the cleaner cabinet in the on-site laundry room before you start to stink.¡± He crossed the hallway, wheeling his giant suitcase behind him. The gym doors opened before he reached them, and Max stepped through. ¡°You¡¯re early, too,¡± the Adjuster said, taking in Alden¡¯s unitard and the suitcase with a glance. ¡°Yeah, I thought half an hour was overboard, but there are already a couple of other guys getting dressed.¡± ¡°Suitcase?¡± ¡°I¡¯m planning to experiment with it.¡± And probably destroy it in the process. It was a good and faithful suitcase. And it was also taking up way too much space in his bedroom. Live and learn, and buy a stupidly large duffel bag next time instead. He entered the gym. There was a girl running laps, and a couple of people were stretching off to the side. A boy was doing double-footed jumps up the bleachers. ¡°The floor¡¯s off!¡± one of the stretchers called as soon as she spotted Alden. ¡°Floor¡¯s off!¡± almost everyone else repeated in unison. A safety call? He went to the storage room under the bleachers. It was a large area with signs on the wall designating it as a back-up safe zone for multiple kinds of emergency. Though the people fleeing the emergencies would have to share space with a lot of equipment. When I was here for testing day, I saw¡­ There. About halfway in, along one wall, there were stacks of elemental weights for Shapers. The sandbags were piled up between refillable water bags and larger ¡°lifemass¡± bags. Alden wondered what exactly those were stuffed with. Is there a sign-out sheet for taking these, or can we just have them? He heard the storage room door shut. He didn¡¯t think anything of it until the boy and girl who had just entered started whispering to each other a few feet away from him. ¡°Can anyone borrow these?¡± he asked, pointing at the sandbags. The boy¡ªdeath-pale with straight black hair that hung like curtains down to his collarbones¡ªsmiled. ¡°That depends. Are you one of us? Or are you an interloper?¡± ¡°An interloper?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Those are B-rank only bags right now,¡± said the girl. She had the letter B on each cheek in green paint that matched her eyeshadow, and a frizzy blonde puff of a ponytail stuck up from the back of her head. ¡°Oh! I¡¯m a B. I¡¯m Alden. I¡¯m here for the clu¡ª¡± ¡°BeeBee,¡± said the boy, ¡°he¡¯s ours.¡± Before Alden could fully appreciate the fact that there was a B-rank named BeeBee who wore two B¡¯s on her face for makeup, she was upon him. ¡°Let us teach you your duties!¡± Ding. Ding. As Alden looked around to see where the ringing sound was coming from, BeeBee grabbed him by the hand and hauled him toward a Rules and Regulations for Gym Use poster. ¡°Do you have bells?¡± he asked the guy. The other boy¡¯s thumbs flicked against the underside of a pair of black rings he wore on his index fingers. Dong. Ding. ¡°Rings that sound like bells?¡± He soon found himself with his back against a stack of alternate-surface tiles for the gym floor. BeeBee and the dark haired guy were standing next to the poster with grins on their faces. ¡°Repeat after me,¡± said the boy. ¡°¡®The A-ranks are our enemies.¡¯¡± ¡°Uh¡­they are?¡± What kind of kooky welcome ritual is this? The storage room door opened, and Max stepped through. ¡°Are you new blood or an interloper?¡± BeeBee demanded. ¡°What do you¡ª?¡± A moment later he was trapped against the floor tiles with Alden. ¡°All right, again,¡± said the guy with the bell jewelry. ¡°The A-ranks are our enemies.¡± ¡°Enemies,¡± BeeBee hissed. Ding. Ding. ¡°Put the names of your first victims on The Beat List,¡± the guy intoned. ¡°This is The Beat List,¡± BeeBee whispered. Then, she made a dramatic downward slicing gesture with one hand, and the poster on the wall behind her tore in two. Behind it was a large chart, with the names of club members on the left and boxes full of other students¡¯ names out to the right. [What¡¯s happening?] Max asked via text. [I¡¯m not sure. Do you think we¡¯re being hazed?] Alden replied. Ding. Dong. Max crossed his arms over his chest. [I just wanted to try some things out in the gym, and now I feel like this club might be a bad idea.] ¡°Every B needs a target.¡± ¡°Every B¡ª¡± ¡°Not again, you two! We talked about this!¡± The guy who¡¯d just stepped into the storage room was wheeling a pair of weapon cases behind him. They were stamped with the words: Rahul M. Wrightwork DO NOT TOUCH ¡°You weirded out those girls last time so bad they never came back to club!I¡¯m starting to think you¡¯re doing it on purpose to hog advisor attention.¡± ¡°We apologized to those girls!¡± BeeBee protested. ¡°They were just too weak for the B-List,¡± the boy with the bell rings said. He waved at Max. ¡°Welcome. Don¡¯t run away. We require new blood to carry on our holy purpose.¡± Max was looking over his shoulder at the chart on the wall. ¡°Your holy purpose is¡­making a hit list for A-ranks in your combat classes?¡± ¡°It¡¯s very simple,¡± said the girl, pointing first at Max and then at Alden. ¡°As a B, you are not allowed to suck the most in your year. There must be some A¡¯s beneath you. The first years have been letting us down hard lately.¡± ¡°BeeBee!¡± snapped Rahul. ¡°They can¡¯t fight for shit.¡± ¡°Francis! Get lost, you two, before I tell Instructor Plim you¡¯re abusing the new first years!¡± ¡°You wouldn¡ª¡± ¡°GO!¡± ¡°You¡¯re a mean old man, Rahul,¡± said BeeBee, bouncing past him toward the door. ¡°I¡¯m gonna break your guns before you graduate.¡± Francis watched her leave. ¡°I know what you¡¯re both thinking,¡± he said to Max and Alden. He made a curving hourglass shape in the air with his hands. ¡°She¡¯s amazing, but she¡¯s my girlfriend. We¡¯re madly in love. Don¡¯t make me use these on you for real.¡± He flicked his rings. Ding. Ding. While Alden and Max watched with equally baffled expressions on their faces, Rahul grabbed Francis by the back of his unitard and dragged him toward the door. ¡°I¡¯m not threatening them, man!¡± he said, laughing. ¡°I¡¯m laying down boundaries!¡± Rahul shut the door in his face, then he turned to them. ¡°Hi! I¡¯m so sorry about those two. Most people here are sane. I¡¯m Rahul. Third year. I¡¯m already taking half my classes at uni, and I graduate from high in March when I pass the final combat course. Until then, I seem to be club president.¡± He shook their hands. ¡°So you¡¯re our new Adjuster and our new Rabbit,¡± he added before they could even introduce themselves. ¡°Instructor Plim is¡­enthused. I mean she¡¯s always that way. But she¡¯s extra that way this time around.¡± Alden glanced at The Beat List. If they were really keeping score of A-ranks they¡¯d defeated, then Francis and someone above him named Ella-Clara were not people he wanted to pick a fight with. Then what Rahul had said caught up with him. ¡°Is Instructor Plim the B-list advisor?¡± That would be great. The Creative Applications teacher was someone he really wanted to work with, and he couldn¡¯t take one of her classes until next quarter. ¡°Yes. All the other clubs keep trying to poach her. It would be a disaster for us. Fortunately, there are an abnormal number of abnormal people at B rank. And she just loves the fact that we¡¯re mostly desperate enough to try whatever she suggests.¡± He rummaged in a cardboard box hidden behind the floor tile stack and pulled out another poster and a roll of tape. He started covering The Beat List with it. ¡°Don¡¯t feel pressured to take part in this Defeat the A¡¯s nonsense unless you find it motivating. It¡¯s not a real part of the club. It wasn¡¯t when I started at CNH anyway. B¡¯s in the hero track tend to be extremely studious and hardworking, but our second years are all¡­viciously competitive¡­on top of that. It might be some strange side effect of being around Ella-Clara. Don¡¯t bother her, and she won¡¯t bother you.¡± Rahul patted the poster into place and sighed. ¡°Sometimes I feel boring in this club. A Wright specializing in multi-object launchers should be one of the odder people in the room, but not here.¡± Max cleared his throat. ¡°During my first time applying to the school¡­¡± Alden looked over at him in surprise. ¡°¡­the interview committee for the final round said that a B shouldn¡¯t expect acceptance unless we had something to offer that a higher rank with the exact same subclass couldn¡¯t.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not an uncommon point of view. A bit of a ¡®prove you¡¯re special enough or go back to F-city¡¯ attitude.¡± Rahul shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s understandable, so there¡¯s no point worrying over it. I suggest you see it as a challenge to rise to.¡± He knelt and started unlatching his weapon cases. ¡°There should be plenty of people in the gym by now. Enough to dilute the more unusual personalities. Go say hello!¡± ¡°Can I use the sandbags?¡± Alden asked quickly. ¡°Sure. In general, it fine to use anything in here as long as you¡¯re sticking close to its intended purpose. And if you want to use things for non-intended purposes, Intructor Plim isn¡¯t exactly difficult to persuade.¡± I bet not. Alden unzipped his suitcase and started adding sandbags. Max grabbed a box labeled Ground Drone and headed for the door. The club president spoke up again just before he reached it. ¡°By the way, Francis¡¯s class clown routine is partially an attempt to put people at ease. Since he¡¯s a Sway. I don¡¯t know that it works the way he means for it to, especially since he¡¯s trying to make everyone think his mind control bells aren¡¯t scary by using them to punctuate regular sentences¡­well, just a warning. Have fun!¡± Max¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°Yes. I¡¯ll try.¡± What the hell is a mind control bell? Alden wondered as he loaded another sandbag in. He hadn¡¯t felt himself being targeted, and he hadn¡¯t felt the need to do what Francis said, so he guessed it was all right. ¡°Alden¡­if you want a heavy weight, you don¡¯t have to fill a suitcase with smaller ones. There are 120 kilo bags on the bottom.¡± ¡°This is better I think.¡± The big bags looked like giant sausages, and they didn¡¯t have as many handholds as the suitcase did. Anyway, using luggage with his skill was poetic. When he had 100 kilos, he zipped it. Then he discretely placed Joe¡¯s enchanted ring on the ground beside the handle. ¡°Would you mind telling me to pick all of this up? It¡¯s for my skill.¡± Rahul looked up from assembling a large gun that had some unexpectedly squishy-looking parts. ¡°Sure? Pick it up.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Alden. He found the part of his affixation that controlled the number of separate protective fields he could maintain. Don¡¯t think of it as a switch. Go for something just a little more creative. He grabbed the side handle of the bag. That part of the affixation tried to close¡ªan automatic setting to prevent double activation. He held it in place, trying to paper-ify the process in his mind so it would fit with his new metaphor. Like keeping an origami piece that¡¯s been partially unfolded from snapping back shut along the creases? He picked up the ring. He slipped it onto the middle finger of his left hand, then he stood. Both items were preserved. The suitcase was light¡ªphysically at least. He let his attention leave that part of the affixation, and he felt it close. Double-running the skill on objects had been absurdly exhausting on Moon Thegund, and now it was only slightly less absurdly exhausting. He was debating the merits of making it his hidden handicap. He didn¡¯t think he needed to hide the power level of his skill much at this point. He¡¯d shown it off a lot during the trials, and the idea of the System granting him a fake profile was so absurd that he was sure he wasn¡¯t in danger of provoking suspicion yet. Not accurate suspicions at least. Humans were going to assume any additional prowess was the result of a dozen more likely factors before they ever got around to thinking, ¡°Maybe the System lies to us about this one specific sixteen-year-old guy.¡± But carrying multiple preserved objects was something he wanted to practice anyway, and if as a side effect, it made him look a little less like an outlier that was a good thing. All right. Now stay cool, Alden, he thought as he headed back into the gym. If you drop the skill and break some part of your body with a two hundred twenty pound bag, everyone will think you¡¯re too much of a dumbass to be allowed. * NINETY-SIX: The B List, part two 96 Alden was keeping his goal for the night simple. Assuming they were allowed to do whatever they wanted with their club practice time, he was just going to use this opportunity to learn what it felt like to run around and protect himself with a burden of this size, shape, and weight. How did the hundred kilos of unpreserved sandbags trapped inside the preserved suitcase affect his skill fatigue? How did moving around with it work? Could he reliably keep his hands on it to maintain entrustment without doing something like strapping it to himself? Was it even practical to try to weaponize something like this? Being able to easily move this much weight is already so good, and it¡¯s probably going to be more useful in the long run for transport instead of creating ridiculously heavy weapons. He kept thinking of how much easier something like this would have made his life three months ago. Has it really just been three months since I was hauling equipment and drums around the lab to help prep for Kibby¡¯s Great Big Boom? Less than three months. But it felt like a lifetime ago. Celena North was pretty combat oriented, even at the high school level. The constant competition and pressure from facing a wide variety of other talents was part of what encouraged people to intuit new uses for their powers, stretch their abilities, and level. But Alden was looking forward to learning a lot of the less flashy stuff more. Moving large objects. Running. Concealment. Dealing with complicated environments. He¡¯d kill for a wilderness survival course, but wilderness survival was one thing that an Avowed almost never needed. It wasn¡¯t like you could get lost in a desert and starve to death when you had the System in your head. Maybe the university offered special classes for people who were anticipating summons? I have to check that out. He kept thinking about the big demon on Moon Thegund. The one he hadn¡¯t ever properly seen or had to deal with. He wanted to be able to survive if he ran into something like that, so combat training was good. But even if he had to fight something or someone to survive in the future¡­that was just one way to die. There were a million other ways that had nothing to do with combat at all. What if the car hadn¡¯t existed? What if there hadn¡¯t been mover discs to flip it? What if the water at the lab had quit a couple of weeks into his stay? There was magic for all of that. His skill. Stats. Spells he could learn. So, I¡¯ll do whatever the school wants, but my personal focus should be filling in those gaps. He still wanted to hit something really hard with the suitcase before the practice hour was over, though. Alden spotted Andrzej sitting on the bottom bleacher. The Polish boy was holding his cudgel in his lap and talking to a girl wearing a t-shirt over her gym suit that said, ¡°Ask Me About Gympie Gympie,¡± in black marker. Before he could head over to say hello, his interface flashed: [FLOOR ON] A small floor status notice remained even after the larger notification faded away. ¡°All right, my little B¡¯s!¡± a voice called. Alden looked over to see Luna Plim wheeling herself backward into the gym in a rolling desk chair. Her bright red hair was contained in a bun by a pair of pencils, and she was wearing a yellow raincoat over her own unitard. A trio of basketball-sized water balls were following her around like they were her pets. ¡°You¡¯re free to wreak whatever havoc you had planned for tonight. Let me know if you need me to set up a private block for dueling or practice. Injury realism is set to ten percent.¡± ¡°The warning ouch!¡± BeeBee shouted. ¡°Thanks, Instructor Plim,¡± several people called. ¡°If you need any advice, I¡¯ll be in my office,¡± the teacher said. Then she kept on rolling her office chair across the huge gym until she and her pet water came to a stop in the center of the floor. ¡°Instructor, kill permission has to be explicit¡ª¡± ¡°I forgot again. Thank you, Rahul. Everyone, you can kill your clubmates today if they don¡¯t mind. This isn¡¯t class. Experiment fearlessly! Ella-Clara, I got all eight of your messages this week. Yes, you can come see me. I¡¯ve been thinking about new ideas for your special friend.¡± The girl who¡¯d been lapping the gym ever since Alden arrived ran toward the instructor, her chin-length brown hair swinging. A couple of people grumbled. Four students chased after Ella-Clara to wait for their own turn to talk to the instructor. She was the one who had the most victories on The Beat List, Alden thought, staring at the girl¡¯s back. And what¡¯s her special friend? His best guess was that she was a Meister, and her friend was her weapon. What should I start with? They only had an hour. It seemed much too short now. Part of him wanted to go lurk around Plim, hoping to talk to her, but it seemed like other people had been in touch with her throughout the week asking specific questions about powers. It was probably a dick move to try to edge his way in ahead of the established club members when he just had a general thirst for advice. Now that he knew she was their advisor and she worked this way, he would think of some questions and message her to prep for next time. He looked around to see what everyone else was doing for their own practice. There were twenty-nine students here tonight, which meant Alden was seeing most of the B-ranks in the program all at once. Three pairs were fighting with their powers already. Francis was wandering around talking to people and making various tones with his bell rings. The boy who¡¯d been jumping up the bleachers earlier was now doing gymnastics¡­wow, badly. Alden cringed as the guy attempted an aerial and landed on his head. But he jumped right up again and kept going. The gym is great. You can try out so many things you¡¯d be rightfully scared to do otherwise. He watched as a girl ran past with a pair of custom-made kites flying over her head. ¡°Alden, are you needing a partner for something?¡± It was Andrzej. The girl in the Gympie Gympie shirt was beside him. Alden smiled at them. ¡°I was taking everything in. I¡¯ve got a suitcase here that will protect me from hits and weigh a hundred kilograms when I drop it.¡± He lifted the suitcase a little higher. ¡°I¡¯m hoping to get a feel for using something this size and shape as a shield.¡± The girl leaned forward with an interested expression. ¡°Are you a U?¡± she asked in a French accent. ¡°Rabbit.¡± ¡°Haha! Right.¡± Andrzej shook his head at her. Alden¡¯s Rabbitness had come out during a discussion in Engaging with the Unexpected a few days ago. ¡°Oh no! <>¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°Laure and I were going to set up for blind fighting,¡± said Andrzej. ¡°With some target drones if we could not find a partner. You could be our target instead?¡± ¡°What¡¯s blind fighting?¡± ¡°Help us lay down the grass. I will show you.¡± ******** Andrzej had such an honest face and such forthcoming mannerisms that Alden had almost forgotten he¡¯d initially been suspicious of the Polish boy¡¯s eagerness to take Cudgel Meister off his hands. He¡¯d said he wanted to offload Chainer quickly, which was apparently true. And he¡¯d said he wanted a Meister class with the highest possible Strength stat so he¡¯d meet requirements for a hero team internship he had in mind down the road, which was no doubt also true. But he hadn¡¯t been completely honest. Because what he¡¯d most wanted was a very specific Meister skill that was only offered to a few of the rarer and more brutish-seeming subclasses, Meister of Knuckles and Meister of Cudgel among them. Andrzej knew about it because his anti-Velra uncle was a high rank Knuckle Meister who¡¯d acquired it several years ago as a secondary skill. It was called Throughblow. With it, Andrzej could make the force of his weapon strikes land on the other side of whatever he hit. He could swing his club at a pane of glass, leave it unharmed, and destroy a target several yards beyond it. It turned a close-combat weapon into one with some range. And Andrzej was planning to build his whole battle style around it. His uncle apparently loved it and had been fixated on leveling it ever since he got it. Andrzej said it was at least a nine-top, with every level increase boosting the distance the throughblow could travel. It made being a dude with a club so much more cool than Alden had anticipated. ¡°Being able to fight at different distances is good for a Meister,¡± Andrzej explained as they positioned tall foam blocks in a line across the gym. Laure and a couple of helpers were laying down trays of sod to make patches of the life element. And ground, incidentally. ¡°Throughblow gives many options. I can hide behind walls and still attack. I can damage things held in locked rooms. Versatility.¡± ¡°It sounds awesome,¡± Alden said enthusiastically as he maneuvered another block into place to build the wall Andrzej would be hitting through. The main problem Andrzej faced with his chosen fighting style was that sometimes he wouldn¡¯t be able to see the targets he wanted to hit. He had no shielding skills and wasn¡¯t likely to acquire them, so he planned to use the environment as his shield. But at present, he didn¡¯t have any way of detecting things through opaque walls. He had a list of spell impressions, sensory enhancements, and magical tools he would be collecting and mastering over the coming years that would allow him to visualize or hear things through solid objects. But until then¡­ ¡°Blind fighting practice. To improve my reasoning and aiming.¡± ¡°And my Life Shaping!¡± Laure called. The French girl was a third year. To distinguish herself from other Life Shapers and be more useful at their rank, she¡¯d decided a year ago to make a shift from focusing on more traditional telekinetic attacks to using her control over plants for detection. She said she was still an amateur, but when someone stepped on a sod tile she was using her power on, she should know. And she would be giving Andrzej targeting directions based on that. ¡°I have a trait that makes me move better over ground,¡± Alden told them. ¡°Should I use it to make things harder for you?¡± ¡°A little,¡± Andrzej said after thinking about it for a moment. ¡°But not too much. I am not that good at hitting what I can¡¯t see.¡± After they finished setting up, Alden had his suitcase full of sand re-entrusted to him, and they got started. It was dull for the first several minutes. Alden walked slowly between sod tiles with his suitcase, being sure to stand on each one for at least a few seconds before heading to another. He held his shield between him and the foam wall, just in case, but none of Andrzej¡¯s strikes came close to hitting him. The Cudgel Meister had done versions of this exercise before, but he and Laure had never partnered together to try to coordinate. There was a lot of French-Polish-English discussion going on over there as they sorted themselves out. But then, about five minutes in, they finally got quiet. Did they switch to texting? Alden wondered as he stepped off one patch of grass and headed for another. A moment later, something smashed into his bag. It was a solid hit. Not like Helo¨ªsa throwing a chunk of concrete , but more substantial than the wind strikes that Tatiana Evans¡ªthe Sky Shaper Alden had defeated in his first ever duel¡ªhad delivered. ¡°You got me!¡± he called excitedly. <> Laure cried. Andrzej poked his head around the edge of the wall. ¡°Are you all right?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Your shield?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a very sturdy shield.¡± And on top of that, it was so big it could cover him from chin to knee when he held it longways. Andrzej narrowed his eyes. ¡°I will hit it harder next time.¡± ¡°I might hit you with some grass, too!¡± Laure shouted. As if to emphasize her point, several of the sod tiles shifted closer to Alden. The pace picked up. Andrzej was not as speedy or as accurate as the third year. Sod chunks flew at Alden much more frequently than cudgel blows did. But the cudgel strikes were a lot more powerful. This was proven when Andrzej aimed too low and sent one of the sod trays flying across the gym, shedding clumps of grass and dirt. It attracted attention, and it wasn¡¯t long before a second year Adjuster joined the people on the other side of the wall and started lobbing small orbs of lightning at Alden. He had appalling aim, but he was making up for it with quantity. Alden had to begin jogging and actively dodging. And with more noise and activity in their section of the gym, they started to gain an audience. ¡°You guys keep missing him! Only Laure is hitting him at all, and she¡¯s just getting him dirty!¡± ¡°Yeah, the attack team is at too much of a disadvantage if they can¡¯t see. Left! The new boy is ten meters to the left, Andrzej!¡± <> Andrzej shouted at the tattletale. After he¡¯d sent a hit that smacked into the edge of Alden¡¯s suitcase shield. The guy who¡¯d been practicing aerials and handsprings came and joined Alden¡¯s side of the wall. A girl bounded over to the other team with a plastic storage container full of what looked like tennis balls soaked in molasses, and a second later they were flying over with everything else. They left streaks of brown goo all over the floor, and when Alden accidentally stepped in one, both of his feet went out from under him in opposite directions. He ended up doing a high-speed split. He was not a person accustomed to doing full splits. What is this? Is it a power or a science project? he wondered as he tried to regain his footing. He¡¯d only stepped in the ooze with the toe of one foot, but both feet kept shooting out from under him like they were entirely greased. He hunkered behind his suitcase, laughing at the absurdity of his own situation as another cudgel blow came in from Andrzej. It hit the unpreserved case, which took it like a chunky heavyweight champion even though it and Alden both slid a few feet across the floor together. A second later, Alden experienced a sudden bodily lightness. It was like he¡¯d been immersed in a pool without getting wet. [I think you might be able to stand up now. It¡¯s possible my zone counteracts whatever that substance is.] The text had come from Max. He¡¯d been in another part of the gym, running the drone he¡¯d borrowed through a zone to test its effect, but it seemed he¡¯d decided that there was a better opportunity for spell testing over here. He¡¯d joined the runaway team, and he was standing on the edge of Andrzej¡¯s range with his arms stretched out toward Alden and a curious look on his face. ¡°It¡¯s the one I used for track hurdles on assessment day!¡± he called. The levitating one? Alden stood and gripped his bag. The preservation didn¡¯t kick back in. He was startled, and he knew his face showed it. He looked back at Max. Thank goodness he seemed to be entirely focused on Alden¡¯s feet. Even though it wasn¡¯t preserved, the case wasn¡¯t as heavy as it should have been. This isn¡¯t levitation, he thought as he took a single step. There¡¯s resistance. This zone really is more like being on the bottom of a pool. He¡¯d only caught glimpses of Max using the spell while they both ran track. He¡¯d seen him drifting over the hurdles, and he¡¯d assumed a low gravity environment was going on. This was even wilder. Alden was sure he¡¯d be able to swim through the air if he tried. Not that he was going to make the attempt if it showed off his skill¡¯s weakness. It would inevitably come out eventually if they were all fighting each other in class and club regularly, but there was no reason to hasten the process. Of course it would be Max with a spell that interfered. Alden had actually tried The Bearer of All Burdens out in the pool one day at the North of North gym, and he¡¯d been able to make it work fine. I guess this is undeniably somebody else¡¯s magic giving the suitcase a helping hand. Maybe if he was attacking me with the spell instead of assisting, I could work around¡ª The spell cut out suddenly and his suitcase was instantly preserved. The zone had only lasted a few seconds, but it had overridden the unnatural slickness. Alden waved his thanks to Max and jumped onto the nearest patch of grass. ¡°Since you guys are making a mess anyway, I¡¯m joining in!¡± someone said, and Alden turned to see the club president stomping over to join the other team. Rahul was pushing a shopping cart full of what looked like the entire contents of a rummage sale, and his fully-assembled cannon was on top. Why does it look so squishy in places? It looks like he tried to make a gun around someone¡¯s black beanbag chair. Alden was sure it worked, since the club president was already a part-time university student. Did he call it a multi-object launcher? A second later there was a shrill sound followed by a deep thunk, and a garden gnome covered in flaking paint sailed over the wall in an arc and land right where Max had been standing a moment before. Its gnome hat broke off on impact. ¡°Oh right!¡± Rahul popped over the wall, boosting himself with his hands. ¡°Alden, Max, are you okay with kill shots? I have the go-ahead from the others.¡± Alden stared at the dead gnome. ¡°Sure!¡± he called back, feeling less certain than he sounded. ¡°You can try to kill me, too,¡± the president said encouragingly. He waved. ¡°Do your best!¡± He dropped back down. Alden thought he was close enough to skill fatigue to justify some caution, so he stopped preserving his ring. He¡¯d taken quite a few hits on the suitcase by now, and it was harder on him anyway with two hundred pounds of sandbag weight constantly banging into his shield. He¡¯d handicapped his skill enough now, and he wanted to focus on soaking whatever damage the others were dishing out. He stepped sideways to dodge some more badly aimed ball lightning, and not long after that, something that looked like a broken boat paddle came whistling toward him with scary accuracy. It bounced off of his suitcase only to be followed in rapid succession by a bowling pin, a frying pan with a missing handle, and a half-disassembled boombox. Holy cow he can fire anything out of that gun. Alden ran for his life, leaping from patch of ground to patch of ground to avoid the magic molasses on the floor, trying to make full use of his trait for the first time all night. Max took a powerful hit from Andrzej¡¯s cudgel, and then, not long after it, he ¡°died¡± to something that looked like the dish of a concrete birdbath. Alden would totally have died, too, if his suitcase wasn¡¯t so oversized. Or if Rahul wasn¡¯t being forced to launch things in arcs because of the wall. If a freaking garden gnome flies at you in a straight line, that¡¯s really bad. And someone with a multi-object gun had endless ammunition as long as they weren¡¯t stuck in a barren wasteland. Just pick up some garbage and bang! Alden suspected the third year Wright had some kind of skill or spell that was helping him instantly determine the trajectory of his projectiles, too. No way was he just correctly guessing how all those things with different sizes, shapes, and weights were going to land every time. ¡°Five minutes until you need to clean up!¡± Instructor Plim called merrily from the referee post she¡¯d taken up a moment before, just after finishing up her conversations with everyone who¡¯d needed her attention. ¡°Alden, what have you got in your bag? I¡¯m so happy to see you and Max at club!¡± Alden didn¡¯t want to answer because it would give people another way of targeting him. The Life Shaper girl didn¡¯t need anymore help. She had really gotten the hang of giving directions to the others. ¡°It¡¯s a hundred kilos of sandbags, Instructor!¡± Rahul shouted for him. ¡°Oh! How exciting! Yes, yes, I see¡­I was going to suggest you try something like that, and you¡¯ve already beaten me to it!¡± To Alden¡¯s surprise, she ran over to join him, sweeping away the slippery stuff and debris all over the floor in front of her with her pet water balls. ¡°Are you just weight-testing, today?¡± she asked curiously, while he held the suitcase over his head and squatted near the base of the wall. Rahul wasn¡¯t having much luck lobbing things this close. ¡°Or are you going to do something else? Would you like suggestions?¡± Some sod smacked into the hood of her raincoat and she ignored it. I bet she has twenty suggestions. Alden, panting, looked up at her from his protected-froggy position. ¡°Honestly? I want to know what it feels like to be able to throw a two hundred pound suitcase.¡± She beamed. ¡°Well, of course you do! Who wouldn¡¯t? Let¡¯s aim for Rahul. He¡¯s graduating soon. You can hit the others with suitcases any time! How are you going to do it?¡± Alden couldn¡¯t help but smile back at her. He heard a muffled oath as handspring-guy started sliding around on the floor. ¡°I thought I could jump?¡± he whispered. ¡°On one of the sod tiles. And get him from above?¡± He could use his trait to jump really high if he was here, where there would be no permanent consequences for a bad landing. ¡°A fine experiment,¡± Instructor Plim whispered back. ¡°I suggest waiting until you see something fly over. He¡¯s not that fast on the reload. Or do it when he starts swearing. Francis has been instilling a suggestion that Rahul has no right hand for the past ten minutes, and he¡¯s about to unleash it.¡± At Alden¡¯s surprised look, she made the flicking motions that the Sway used to activate his bell rings. So that¡¯s how a mind control bell works? He¡¯d been hearing Francis ringing away for the whole club meeting, but he¡¯d been too busy over here to see any effects his power might be having on his victims. Instructor Plim gave Alden a double thumbs up, then jogged over to talk to Max. He was taking the opportunity to see what effects all of the incoming objects and rapidly changing surfaces had on his speed zone spell. Alden could have sworn he¡¯d seen him air typing notes to himself shortly after being murdered by the birdbath. A plastic babydoll with most of its hair missing flew at the terrible gymnast, who still hadn¡¯t caught his footing, and it bounced off his back. A pure humiliation shot. ¡°Come on, man!¡± ¡°I¡¯ll get revenge for you, Kaleb!¡± Francis¡¯s voice shouted from somewhere behind them. Ding ding. Rahul started to swear. Alden moved. Is this really going to work? He had an image in his mind of it working. Of him sailing up ten feet in the air and spiking a two hundred pound suitcase, like a monstrous version of a volleyball player. More of a two-handed heave than a spike. The suitcase was an unwieldy size even if his authority was carrying the bulk of the load. But he was excited. His blood was rushing in his ears. He didn¡¯t care if he hit the club president. He wasn¡¯t sure he was even going to aim for him. He didn¡¯t want to fake kill anyone really. He just wanted to feel himself do it¡ªsomething new, ridiculous, and superhuman. He aimed for the sod tray he¡¯d had his eyes on. He hit it with an approximation of the good form he¡¯d been practicing with Bobby, only too hard. And with a suitcase. He bounced like he¡¯d been thrown up by a trampoline. He cleared the wall in an instant and looked down on the group that had gathered on the other side. Andrzej with his club, Laure gesturing wildly to make her grass clumps fly and calling out instructions, the electricity guy with his eyes closed summoning up another shot. And a few more people who¡¯d joined the free-for-all at the end. Rahul was there, with his cart still half full of junk, shoving some other random thing into the depths of his launcher with his one good arm. Most of them were grinning like idiots. Alden felt himself doing it, too. He flung the suitcase. Someone shouted a warning at Rahul too late, but Alden had been aiming at the Wright¡¯s dwindling supplies anyway. As he fell hard on the floor, he heard a loud crash and a surprised yell. [Right Ankle - Sprain] Instructor Plim had set the gym to provide them with the breakdowns of their injuries for their information. The low pain setting meant a sprained ankle barely even stung. Alden ignored it, staring up as a whole shopping cart flipped up into the air and over the edge of the foam wall, taking out a section and spilling junk objects everywhere. ¡°Holy shit! What a cannonball!¡± Francis yelled. ¡°Rahul, Rahul!¡± called someone watching from the bleachers. Laughter was in their voice. ¡°Did you just take your own broken microwave in the face?!¡± Luna Plim leaned over Alden with her hands on her hips. Her red hair clashed with the raincoat. ¡°Well, what was it like?¡± she asked. ¡°It was so much fun,¡± he said. ¡°I just wish I could have seen it a little better.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that!¡± She pointed up at a drone hovering around over their heads. ¡°I¡¯ve got it on film!¡± She pulled him onto his feet. ¡°And you can try it again next week! That works, too. Welcome to the B-List! Now, about that fishing line you brought on testing day, have you considered selecting something a little easier for you to handle? Or maybe you could try¡­¡± * NINETY-SEVEN: Fireworks 97 Alden didn¡¯t write his name or the names of any future targets on The Beat List. He did see a lot of the other B¡¯s update their personal hit lists, though, while he was putting his sandbags back in the correct stack. Not a single bag had burst. They were bulletproof, according to Rahul. You might as well be bulletproof, too, Alden thought as he zipped his empty suitcase back up and lifted the telescoping handle. Though it had been wounded during its assault on the club president¡¯s cart full of junk, it hadn¡¯t died yet. It had a crushed corner, and one of the front pockets was badly ripped. But its wheels hadn¡¯t taken a hit. It still worked, so it was obviously volunteering for one more round of duty. ¡°Not joining the competitive crowd?¡± Max asked him. He was putting the drone he¡¯d borrowed earlier back on its shelf. ¡°Nah.¡± Who was Alden going to put on a hit list anyway? Winston? He¡¯d had his fun ¡°beating¡± the guy at the drinking game. Besides, the speedster was so jealous of Finlay he was practically punishing himself, and targeting a particular classmate for the sake of it sounded like a recipe for hard-feelings all around. ¡°If I beat someone, I beat them. If I lose, I lose. I¡¯ve got enough goals to keep me busy for the next couple of years anyway.¡± Rahul said not to bother with the list unless it was motivating. Alden¡¯s motivation was growing more powerful so that in the future, doing the right thing would be easier and he would be less likely to die in painful, gruesome ways. One-upping a guy from New Hampshire in gym class didn¡¯t really inspire him. Anyway, the girl at the top of the list who seemed to be systematically destroying second-year A¡¯s wasn¡¯t even participating by choice. Francis and BeeBee had put her there, and they were keeping track of her victories every week. Ella-Clara. She¡¯d occupied Instructor Plim¡¯s time for most of the hour, discussing something. Alden hadn¡¯t seen her using any powers. ¡°Probably a good attitude,¡± Max said. ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going to be dueling in class on the first day anyway. Competing in some fashion seems unavoidable, but just throwing us at each other again and saying ¡®fight¡¯ wouldn¡¯t be that practical.¡± True. A lot of their classmates were anticipating or dreading duels, but if there was a fighting component to gym tomorrow, it would hopefully involve someone who knew what they were doing actually teaching them. Instead of everyone going at each other in a repeat of assessment day. Max wasn¡¯t making any moves to add his own name to the list either. They headed for the locker room. ¡°Do you know what the girl at the top of the The Beat List does?¡± Alden asked. Max nodded. ¡°Figurinist.¡± ¡°Figurinist?¡± ¡°Take a minute to look it up if you need to,¡± Max said. ¡°I had to.¡± ¡°They put on magic puppet shows? Am I remembering that right?¡± Figurinist was an ultra-rare he¡¯d only read a brief description of when he was looking through class lists. ¡°And I thought they were all low ranks?¡± he added as he claimed a stall for himself to change in. ¡°I mean actually low. Not Apex-low.¡± ¡°They were.¡± Max¡¯s voice echoed. ¡°The System made around a dozen of them over the years. All D¡¯s and F¡¯s. Guess it was field testing. And now it¡¯s made a B. Just one as far as anyone knows. She might as well be a U-type.¡± Alden looked up the class while he dressed. He found a channel where a Tibetan Figurinist in an Avowed zone showed off his powers. A small man-shaped figurine, made of what looked like aluminum foil, walked around a miniature kitchen and fried a quail egg in a tiny pan. That¡¯s some seriously fine detail and control. I¡¯m glad this guy is raking in views. ¡°It¡¯s like a little mind-controlled doll. Just one?¡± ¡°Just one. But Ella-Clara¡¯s is bigger according to the girl I asked.¡± ¡°How big?¡± ¡°The same size as her.¡± ¡°Cool.¡± If a mini one could fry an egg, then a big one could probably fight. He stepped out of the stall. Max was changing shoes on one of the benches. ¡°Before you go,¡± he said, just as Alden was turning to head out the door, ¡°that favor you owe me¡­¡± ¡°From the party.¡± He¡¯s calling it in already? That¡¯s fast. ¡°Have you got anything but your skill and Haunting Sphere?¡± ¡°Is answering doing you the favor, or are you checking to see what kind of favors I can do for you?¡± Alden asked. Max looked up from his shoelaces. ¡°Don¡¯t be cheap. It¡¯s the second. Unless you¡¯re about to make some kind of major revelation.¡± ¡°I can interrupt weak enchantments,¡± Alden said. ¡°And make small flames. Light Candle.¡± ¡°Utility abilities,¡± Max said thoughtfully. ¡°Okay. Have fun tonight.¡± ¡°Yeah. You too.¡± ********* Alden didn¡¯t realize why they¡¯d just told each other to have fun until he stepped out of the bright MagiPhys building. The campus pathway lights had all been cut off, and lines of small lamps shone along rooftops and walkways. He¡¯d seen a few last night from his dorm window, but he¡¯d collapsed after all the shopping and furniture moving and hadn¡¯t thought much of it. Right. A lot of people are celebrating Diwali, and tonight there are supposed to be¡ª A crackling sound filled his ears, increasing in volume, and he stared up as a silver-blue comet sailed overhead, leaving a trail of subtle luminescence in its wake. It didn¡¯t look like any firework he¡¯d ever seen. And it was just the first of a dozen light shows he would run across as he made his way back to the dorms. A group of university students on glow-in-the-dark bicycles were trick riding around the campus. Some of them definitely knew what they were doing with their spells. Alden saw a trio ride up the side of the Forthright building, where they were greeted with loud cheers by the high schoolers on the roof. It was a big crowd, judging by the number of beams, fireballs, and other glitzy spells going up into the air from that location. There were teens, and quite a few adults, running around with sparklers. And Alden paused for several minutes to admire the hard work of a team of Shapers who were building a multi-element mandala pattern in the air over the entrance to one of the dormitories. Garden Hall had its own light display, courtesy of someone who had programed small drones to fly around making emojis over the planters. As he approached, he thought he recognized the girl standing beside a pot of basil, staring up at a winking smiley. When another one of the silver comet fireworks shot across the sky, its light illuminated her well enough for him to be sure. ¡°Maricel!¡± He jogged over, his suitcase bouncing along the pavers behind him. ¡°Hi, Alden. Are you still moving things from intake?¡± she asked, looking at the luggage. ¡°No. This is my partner. We do battle together.¡± At her perplexed expression, he shook his head. ¡°Never mind. Weird joke. I¡¯m all moved in. How are you doing with your roommates?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± The glowing drones behind her head were reshaping themselves into a hand. ¡°I read something on the internet. I wanted to ask someone who would know about it personally, and I thought maybe you would. Do you mind?¡± ¡°Of course not! What is it?¡± Was she waiting here just to catch me then? She could¡¯ve texted. She smiled at him. ¡°Okay. I didn¡¯t know much about Avowed before I became one. I was studying, and I read that sometimes when we get summoned by the Artonans we can pick our return point? People were saying that maybe a lot of Avowed who go missing aren¡¯t really. They just didn¡¯t want to come back to Anesidora.¡± What? This wasn¡¯t the last question Alden would have expected, but it was a long way down the list. ¡°If that¡¯s what you want to know, you should probably ask some of our classmates. I can introduce you to my roommates. Lexi, Haoyu, and Lute would have more datapoints to draw on than me if they¡¯ve ever heard their families mention it. I¡¯ve only been summoned once. It just took me a really long time to get back.¡± Her smile tightened. ¡°I don¡¯t want to ask anyone else. I don¡¯t want an Anesidora person¡¯s answer. I want¡­a real answer.¡± But their parents¡¯ experiences would be more average and repeatable than mine. He glanced down at the hand resting on his suitcase handle. The magic ring was still on his finger. Maricel sounded serious. Was she hoping to get back home that way? Well, it¡¯s probably more achievable than the landbridge plan, and considering the fact that I just cat-smuggled my friend off the island, I¡¯m definitely not someone who ought to be all, ¡°Oh noooo, Maricel. Running away from Anesidora is bad.¡± ¡°I hadn¡¯t put a lot of thought into it,¡± he said. At least, he hadn¡¯t considered how it applied to Avowed in general instead of him specifically. ¡°We have a right to be dropped back where we left from or in the nearest safe location. I¡¯ve heard it¡¯s somewhere in the original Contract terms. And given how teleportation infrastructure works, the System probably prefers to send us to the TC here on the island, so I doubt that¡¯s ever off the table if you ask for it. But¡­¡± He thought over what he knew about Artonans, summonariums, and Thwart Hog, with her lockers covered in travel magnets and her advice about seeing the world as an unregistered. ¡°When you get summoned, if your summoner is willing, I bet you could get sent back almost anywhere on Earth you wanted that wasn¡¯t inherently private or secure.¡± ¡°How likely would it be?¡± Maricel asked. She was staring into his eyes intently. ¡°Would many wizards do that for one of us?¡± ¡°Again, I haven¡¯t interacted with that many wizards¡­¡± But he went through the list of them in his head. Joe, Stu-art¡¯h, Alis-art¡¯h, the Primary, Bti-qwol¡­heck, let¡¯s throw Jel-nor and Evul-art¡¯h in there for good measure. And Kibby. Wow, a high percentage of my known-wizards lists is the art¡¯h family. Preserving a footless guy and getting lost in a chaos field can really change your social circle. Maricel was still waiting for him to answer her question. The drones behind her were making an exclamation point. Appropriate. ¡°All of them,¡± Alden said finally. ¡°What?¡± He nodded. ¡°Definitely talk to some other Avowed before you make any life plans based on my experiences. But I think even the¡­most unpleasant¡­wizards I¡¯ve met would have changed my teleportation destination to another Earth location if I asked.¡± He¡¯d almost called Jel-nor and Bti-qwol ¡°the normal wizards,¡± but that was a bit too revealing of a thing to say out in public. It begged the question, ¡°How many abnormal wizards has Alden Thorn met? And in what ways were they abnormal?¡± Bti-qwol would be the least likely to do someone a favor, but even she would probably privilege an Avowed¡¯s easily-granted request over human laws she had no obligation to know, much less follow. All she¡¯d have to do is punch a few buttons on a tablet. Maricel¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°So it¡¯s true? Why would they do that? Don¡¯t they care about¡ª¡± ¡°They consider Anesidora to be a human idiosyncrasy. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s convenient for them in some ways just like it is for us. A lot of the magical resources we have might not have been given to us if Avowed were scattered all over the planet, right? But the idea of average people confining people who can do magic to a specific country is really alien to them.¡± He was sure that at some point, when the concept of Anesidora was proposed, someone would have asked the wizards if they could force Avowed to stay put here when they weren¡¯t in use. He was betting the idea had gotten zero traction. Too culturally topsy-turvy from an Artonan point of view. ¡°Maricel, you do know anything we say outside of private residences is probably being picked up by infogear, right? I mean¡­¡± He shrugged at her. She tucked her chin. ¡°I know that. I¡¯m not planning to break any rules.¡± Then why are you asking how to break rules? Granted, it was rule-breaking in a way that was impossible for anyone to prevent. ¡°There¡¯s no reason I can¡¯t discuss things with you,¡± she continued. ¡°I¡¯m just curious about something I read. We don¡¯t have to talk about it here if you don¡¯t want to.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind. I¡¯ve told you everything I know about it anyway. I¡¯ve only brought up Anesidora specifically with two wizards, and they both think Avowed living here is really quirky.¡± Alden rested his arms on top of his suitcase handle. ¡°But an Avowed who wanted to spend their life in hiding that way¡ª¡± Maricel shifted and looked away from him. ¡°¡ªwould have to get summoned first,¡± he concluded. Her fingers toyed with a basil leaf she¡¯d plucked from the plant beside them, and the scent of it filled the air. ¡°Is there a way to make that happen quicker, or¡­?¡± ¡°As far as that goes, I can¡¯t tell you anything more than the internet. Have valuable talents, and learn to use them well. Level up and pick more good talents. Have a friend who gets summoned often recommend you to a wizard in person.¡± Boaters. Alden was watching Manon¡¯s social media accounts. It looked like she got summoned to non-LeafSong jobs sometimes. It had occurred to him that if he could contact the boater members when she was busy on another planet, that would be one more way to reduce her influence on them. ¡°You could also tell the System you wanted to be summoned,¡± he added. ¡°The Systems are the ones who recommend specific Avowed to wizards, usually, so it can¡¯t hurt to let it know that you¡¯re eager to go. Even more explicit agreement probably makes it¡­happy?¡± She looked startled. ¡°You mean just talk to it?¡± ¡°Sure. It¡¯s worth a try.¡± He wanted to remind her that being summoned came with bucketloads of problems and risks. But she knew. She¡¯d agreed to the Contract. She¡¯d gotten the speech. She was aware the person she was talking to had almost died on another planet recently. She must really, really miss her family. ¡°Hey, the fireworks are amazing, aren¡¯t they?¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen anything like them. I heard someone on a light-up bicycle say the best view is supposed to be from the bridge, and people on light-up bicycles usually know what they¡¯re talking about. You want to go there together?¡± She blinked. Her face softened, but she shook her head. ¡°Thank you, Alden. That does sound like fun. But I¡¯ve got plans for tonight.¡± He watched her go. She ate the basil leaf she¡¯d plucked. That¡¯s a good sign, isn¡¯t it? Angrily throwing the leaf on the ground would be bad. Eating it is more positive. Possibly, he was trying a little too hard to read a girl¡¯s mind via her interactions with an herb. A few seconds later, when he stepped through the door into Garden Hall, he received the [Welcome Home] message and a notification that something had been delivered for him earlier. There was a mailroom on the ground floor beside the laundry. He headed there and squatted down to reach the low postbox the notification had indicated. As soon as the door swung open with a squeal, he recognized the sky blue fabric and frayed straps of the backpack he¡¯d worn in middle school. Aunt Connie? She hadn¡¯t mentioned sending him anything the last time he¡¯d called her. He pulled the backpack out, and upon realizing that it smelled like his old bedroom, he couldn¡¯t help but sniff it a few times. His aunt had wired the main zippers shut with the twist-tie from a bread bag. When he got the backpack open, he smiled. Now it¡¯s a lot more like being home. ¡°Alden! How¡¯d the club meeting go?¡± Haoyu asked when he entered their apartment. ¡°And what¡¯s that?¡± He was in the kitchenette, holding a bag of oats in one hand and a slow-cooker instruction manual in the other. ¡°The B-list was fun. Instructor Plim is our advisor, so that¡¯s going to be really helpful. I put a hundred kilos of sand in my suitcase and threw it at the club president¡¯s junk cart. And this is my wombat.¡± He held up Wummy. ¡°My aunt sent him. With four jars of hot giardiniera. The fireworks are different than I was expecting.¡± ¡°Are they? I¡¯ve seen nonmagical fireworks shows on movies, and they do always look simpler. Lute¡¯s going to go see the volley. Lexi went to buy earplugs so that he can sleep early.¡± ¡°The volley?¡± ¡°The Apex Wright workshops and the F-city Wright workshops have barges set up on either side of the bridge, and they take turns firing off all of their best magic missiles and fireworks. It¡¯s the most popular thing to do. There are also some festival events in different neighborhoods. There¡¯s a street closed to traffic and entirely covered in rangoli near Nilama Marina and a big temple that¡¯s always decorated.¡± ¡°Are you going out?¡± Haoyu groaned. ¡°I know I shouldn¡¯t,¡± he said. ¡°Tomorrow¡¯s my first official day of high school, and I want to make a good impression on my instructors. And we just had Kon¡¯s party. But if you eat a healthy breakfast, it makes up for staying out late the night before, doesn¡¯t it?¡± He held up his oats. There would be oatmeal in the school cafeterias in the mornings for sure. But Haoyu seemed to have taken his mother¡¯s doubts about his plans to cook for himself personally. ¡°Sounds logical. Can I come with you, or are you meeting friends?¡± Maybe if you¡¯d grown up watching competing teams of Wrights blasting magic at the night sky, you could casually plug your ears and go to sleep like Lexi. But Alden didn¡¯t want to miss out on something like this. You can¡¯t just take it for granted that you¡¯ll be here to see it again next year. Haoyu¡¯s expression turned pained at his question, and he texted instead of answering out loud. [I¡¯m going with Kon and a bunch of people he¡¯s gathered. You can come. I invited Lute, but he doesn¡¯t want to see some of the people we¡¯re going with. So he says he can just go alone.] [I¡¯ll ask to go with Lute then.] A surprisingly obvious decision. Lute had been really easy to get along with all weekend. Alden dropped Wummy off in his room. He fit right in. Wombats belonged on top of learning cushions. Then, he went and knocked on Lute¡¯s door. When it swung open, he was surprised to see Lute in plain clothes. Instead of one of his usual interesting outfits, he seemed to aiming for comfort. And maybe he was trying to be incognito. He was wearing his combat boots, baggy black sweatpants, and a plain gray shirt. He¡¯d left off the eyepatch and covered his hair with a knit cap. ¡°Hey, can I follow you around and watch the fireworks?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I figure you know where you¡¯re going.¡± Lute brightened. ¡°Sure. I¡¯ll be your tour guide. Lexi¡¯s a bore. Who tries to sleep through this?¡± He looked happy. So he must have wanted company¡­just not most company. ¡°Should I invite some people I know from intake to meet up with us?¡± Alden asked. ¡°They¡¯re living between campus and the Span.¡± ¡°The friends you wanted to bring to the apartment? If they¡¯re cool, that¡¯s fine with me.¡± ¡°Great!¡± He texted Natalie. She and Hadiza were about to start classes in the same program as Lute, so they should get to know each other. They would all probably have more fun with a local showing them the way around tonight, and none of the intake girls were going to care about island politics and the Velras. It was good for everyone. [We were about to head out!] Natalie replied a moment later. [Did you see the big silver comets going by?? Come pick us up at the new place! The kitchen is amazing.] ******** Fifteen minutes later, Alden and Lute were sitting side by side on a crowded bus. ¡°Your friends are Rabbits,¡± Lute said. ¡°What do they do? They¡¯re not trying to be hero Rabbits like you, right? That¡¯s not becoming a trend?¡± Alden could hear the rapid pops of firecrackers through the bus window. ¡°It¡¯s the next big thing,¡± he answered. ¡°You should have heard one of the uni faculty on my interview committee talking about how charming I¡¯d look saving people in designer shoes and a tailcoat.¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to have to tell me why you picked that class one day. After all¡­you could have chosen almost anything.¡± Lute, more than most people, knew how true that was. For now, Alden could deflect by answering his other question. ¡°Natalie¡¯s got Cook of the Moment. She¡¯s going to be in Arts with you. She plans to be the best private chef in the universe. She was helping me with my diet until this weekend, and I think I¡¯m going into withdrawal.¡± Lute stared at him. ¡°Hadiza¡¯s got an object beautification skill. She¡¯s in Arts, too. She¡¯s not sure what she wants to do for a career yet, outside of being summoned. I know they¡¯re both really excited about starting classes, so they might ask you a ton of questions. Emilija¡¯s at Franklin High. She¡¯s an F, so she couldn¡¯t apply to CNH. She insta-fixes small patches of chipped paint. She likes it here on Anesidora a lot; I think she just wishes she had enough power to blend in more.¡± ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you, man?¡± Lute¡¯s voice was exasperated. He yanked off the hat and the oversized glow-in-the-dark novelty glasses he¡¯d put on before they left the dorm. ¡°What?¡± ¡°All of the people we¡¯re meeting up with are girls. And you weren¡¯t going to mention it? I have hat hair! I¡¯m dressed like a bum! And I didn¡¯t bring any of my cool eyepatches.¡± ¡°They don¡¯t care what you look like. It¡¯s dark. And we¡¯re going to be watching fireworks.¡± Lute scrubbed his hands through his hair. ¡°Do they like musicians?¡± ¡°Probably a normal amount?¡± ¡°I should go back to the room and change.¡± He stared down at his sweatpants. ¡°I could meet up with you later.¡± ¡°That¡¯ll take forever. You¡¯re fine.¡± Lute gave him a flat look. ¡°I don¡¯t get a lot of chances to make first impressions on people who don¡¯t have preconceived notions about me. I¡¯m not sure if you¡¯re a good roommate for taking me to meet girls or a bad roommate for taking me to meet girls without warning.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not meeting girls. You¡¯re being a tour guide for people who still don¡¯t know everything about Anesidora. Don¡¯t be weird around Natalie. She¡¯s my friend.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to be weird. I¡¯m going to be ugly, short, and badly dressed!¡± ¡°You¡¯re not ugly.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you just stab me in the other eye?!¡± Lute started muttering to himself darkly. It took Alden a minute to realize the muttering had turned songlike. He glanced away from the window and saw Lute surreptitiously making rapid hand signs over his lap. ¡°Are you chaining right now?¡± He didn¡¯t answer. As Lute finished up, Alden became aware that he was uneven. It was the first time since he¡¯d met him in conversation class a week ago. ¡°One more,¡± Lute said. ¡°Maybe the one that¡­¡± He started up again, and when he finished, he sat back and straightened his shoulders. His expression relaxed. ¡°What did you do?¡± Alden asked. ¡°The second was a common one that increases self-confidence. Great for socializing, but use with caution in dangerous environments. The first was one of my personal favorites; it makes me look cooler.¡± Alden examined him closely. ¡°It¡¯s not noteworthy when I¡¯m just sitting here. It¡¯s a multi-layered effect that increases bodily awareness and control. Stat points can do similar things, but this is more flexible. And temporary, obviously.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t quite¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be easier for me to move how I want to move for the next few hours,¡± Lute said. ¡°The more you practice with it, the better it gets. I¡¯ve practiced with it¡­honestly, too much. It¡¯s great for when I play my harp, but it helps with all kinds of other things. I¡¯ve been training my facial expressions with it. Tell me to mimic an emotion.¡± ¡°Do a happy smile.¡± ¡°Could you be more dull?¡± ¡°Fine, what¡¯s a hard one? Look like I just hurt your feelings.¡± Lute¡¯s eye widened. His brows lifted and tilted slightly. His lips parted, and a small gasp escaped him. Alden was impressed against his will. If he¡¯d seen this expression in passing, he would absolutely have known that Lute¡¯s feelings were hurt, and on top of that¡­ ¡°How are you making me think that whoever hurt you was definitely in the wrong?¡± ¡°Just a touch of vulnerability,¡± said Lute. ¡°Works every time. I started doing this thinking I¡¯d excel at an acting class.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the fallout from the chain like?¡± Alden asked. ¡°For regular people, I mean. I know it might be different¡ª¡± ¡°Imagine the klutziest you¡¯ve ever been,¡± Lute said at once. ¡°And then triple it. I broke six different things, including a toe, before I decided to stop being stupid and just go to bed when I¡¯m paying my dues. Lack of bodily awareness actually makes it really easy to fall asleep. But you¡¯ve got to remember to empty your bladder before bed. And make sure you¡¯re not in some contorted posture that¡¯s going to hurt when you wake up.¡± A wordchain that gave you better control of your body at the price of a good night¡¯s sleep sounded blissful. The warning about bladder control is concerning, but I doubt it would be one of his favorite wordchains if that was a major issue. ¡°Could you teach me that one sometime?¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Lute gave him a smile that was perfectly apologetic. ¡°I don¡¯t think so.¡± ¡°It¡¯s one of your family¡¯s exclusive chains I guess? That¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that exclusive. There are different levels of restriction with wordchains. To teach you this one, all I¡¯d have to do is put you in a conference call with someone I work with on Artona II and formally vouch for your integrity. It would be a long conference call because the guy likes to hear himself talk, but it¡¯s not like it¡¯s impossible for me to get permission.¡± That¡¯s all there is to it? The impediment to getting access to more wordchains is having a Velra pinky promise a wizard that you¡¯re a good person? Then the rest of what Lute had said caught his attention. ¡°So you¡¯ve definitely been summoned then? I was almost positive you had based on what you said in Conversation class, but¡ª¡± ¡°Yeah, I get summoned. I¡¯ve got an official work calendar and everything. I might occasionally disappear without warning, too. Don¡¯t freak out if it happens. It¡¯s not like a real emergency summons. I don¡¯t do anything physically dangerous.¡± He stood as the bus slowed to a stop. ¡°I probably can¡¯t teach you that chain because it¡¯s difficult. Wordchains are¡­I guess you¡¯d call them picky? Some of them more than others. The low-power, publicly available ones are the easiest to cast.¡± He hopped lightly down the bus steps and onto the sidewalk. Alden followed him, listening avidly. ¡°The more powerful they are, or the more esoteric their uses are, the more likely they are to be lazy bastards that refuse to work. Oh, free sparklers! Thanks!¡± He said that last to a woman in a long skirt who was walking past with baskets of them. He took a handful. ¡°You were saying?¡± Alden prompted, when Lute started looking around for people with more freebies instead of continuing his speech. ¡°To make harder chains work for you, you need to have just the right combo of body modifications or be a perfectionistic glutton for tedium. Or all of the above. Being higher ranked also helps, but don¡¯t ask me why because the only answer I have is Aulia¡¯s. And hers is some nonsense about magically powerful people being more in tune with universal vibrations.¡± He frowned. ¡°Or you could be a prodigy like Hazel and just feel how to be good at them.¡± ¡°I¡¯d still like to try,¡± said Alden. ¡°I mean, if you don¡¯t mind teaching me. I don¡¯t plan to make wordchains a huge part of my daily life, but¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s another thing. The more you do them, the more forgiving they are about mistakes. So those two I just used on the bus? I can only mumble them like that because the self-confidence one is weak, and I¡¯ve done the other one so much. I have to be really precise with my words and signing when I¡¯m mastering a strong new one.¡± ¡°This way,¡± Alden pointed toward the building indicated on his interface map. ¡°Your friends are living on the edge of Boom Town to save on rent.¡± Lute nodded. ¡°A courageous choice.¡± ¡°The Wrights don¡¯t actually blow people up, do they?¡± ¡°Themselves. Occasionally. Mostly the problem is the noise, the smells, and the lack of conveniences. Even if you shield your place, you still have to walk through the neighborhood to get around. And nobody¡¯s going to put a decent restaurant in an area full of Wright workshops.¡± It wasn¡¯t long before they were standing outside the girls¡¯ apartment. Lute had just finished finger combing his hair when Hadiza answered the door. We might really not be dressed well enough to hang out with them, Alden though. Hadiza was in a fitted black turtleneck dress, and she was decked out in gold accessories. She¡¯d definitely given everything the skill treatment. Even the gold metal bands wrapped around her long ponytail were so shiny they practically glowed. ¡°Your outfit looks amazing, Hadiza.¡± ¡°Thank¡ª¡± <> Emilija bounced into view from a side room, wearing a silver sequined jacket over a red shirt that matched her lipstick and her fingernails. She¡¯d once told Alden that there was no excuse for a paint-fixer to ever be without polish. <> ¡°Hey! I was just complimenting her.¡± ¡°You were trying to convince her to give you more food,¡± Hadiza said. Emilija grabbed the door and threw it open wider. <> ¡°Beef ribs,¡± said Hadiza. ¡°Candied bacon,¡± said Emilija. ¡°Lamb stew.¡± ¡°Fried chicken.¡± He swallowed. Don¡¯t drool in front of people, Alden. Have some self-respect. Lute cleared his throat. ¡°Ah right!¡± said Alden. ¡°Let me introduce you to my roommate. This is Lute Velra. Lute, the kind one is Hadiza, and the mean one is Emilija.¡± Emilija stuck her tongue out at him. ¡°You guys, Lute¡¯s in the art school, too. He¡¯s a harpist. He¡¯s really talented.¡± Alden had thought he was at the funeral anyway. He had multiple instruments and a disdain for his classmates¡¯ skills. It suggested some degree of talent. Lute held out his sparklers and smiled winningly, ¡°Alden suggested you might like a tour guide for the night. Sorry I¡¯m in sweats. I was moving furniture right before we left, and I didn¡¯t want to make him late to meet up with you.¡± Alden stared down at his shameless, lying face. He texted him. [Is ¡°moving furniture¡± Anesidoran slang for eating a steak and blue cheese sandwich in the bath?] As the girls turned to lead the way into the place, Lute¡¯s fingers moved rapidly. [You¡¯re a good man. You called me talented. We¡¯re friends, aren¡¯t we?] He was wearing a puppy-dog look that even Emilija couldn¡¯t have found fault with. Alden rolled his eyes. [Fine. As far as I know, you were bench-pressing the bathtub for three hours while you inhaled fries.] A minute later, they were politely admiring the kitchen, and Alden was resisting a powerful urge to steal a fistful of granola from a glass canister beside the pizza oven, when Natalie stepped out of her room. ¡°Sorry, y¡¯all! It¡¯s late back home, but my parents still didn¡¯t want me to hang up the phone. Hi! You must be Alden¡¯s roommate! Alden, you¡¯ve finally got roommates!¡± ¡°I do. This is Lute. He¡¯s¡­¡± Looking like he just got hit in the face with a brick. Natalie wasn¡¯t even all dressed up like the others. She was wearing her rabbits and radishes blouse and jeans. Lute recovered quickly, at least. Maybe it was his wordchain making him aware that he¡¯d gone temporarily slack-jawed and mute. ¡°Natalie!¡± he said. ¡°Nice to meet you. I was just telling Emilija and Hadiza that one of our roommates would be envious of your pot and pan collection.¡± He pointed up at the copper cookware over the stove. With an unnecessarily dramatic and elegant arm motion. Alden had to give him credit for the attention to detail. ******* They had a lot of fun. Lute knew where all the best light displays, street performances, and firework sellers were. When the crowd watching the volley from the Apex half of the Span turned out to be pretty crushing and Emilija started to look uncomfortable, he led them all to an oceanside high-rise that looked out over the bridge toward the lights of F-city. ¡°Aimi¡¯s gone out. She doesn¡¯t mind if we use her balcony.¡± ¡°Wow,¡± said Natalie, looking around the place as they crossed a white tile floor strewn with clothes and shoes. ¡°This place is swanky.¡± Except for the laundry everywhere¡ªdid Aimi Velra just strip and fling everything each time she walked through the door?¡ªshe was right. The apartment was minimalist and modern, but there was something comfortable about it. ¡°Tailor Environment,¡± Hadiza said. ¡°It feels like it.¡± <> said Emilija. ¡°Yes,¡± Lute said. ¡°My family doesn¡¯t believe in skimping on the magical amenities. Aimi probably had the same Rabbit do this place that the Grandwitch uses on Libra.¡± ¡°Grandwitch?¡± Natalie said. ¡°Libra?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Grandwitch is my grandmother. Libra¡¯s her megayacht lair. And my former address.¡± Lute slid open the balcony door. Wind rushed into the room, and the sheer curtains whipped around. ¡°Hang on. I forgot to activate the shielding.¡± He stepped over to a series of foggy bubbles on the wall that Alden had mistaken for decorations and ran his fingers over them. They glimmered faintly, and the wind stopped. The balcony was obviously a major feature for the apartment, with a table, lounge chairs, and a hot tub that glowed with color-shifting lights. <> Emilija gazed at the tub longingly while everyone else stood at the railing looking out at one of the the barges. The Wrights were firing up a device that made something that looked like plasma branch and twist over the water. Natalie held another sparkler out toward Alden, and he flicked his fingers over it. He¡¯d been enjoying lighting them for everyone for the past couple of hours. It flared, casting sparks around her hands. She beamed at him. ¡°That¡¯s a great spell impression. I wouldn¡¯t mind having it for myself.¡± There was a loud roar, and a band of white light as wide as a river shot through the air over the bridge. The balcony was brighter than day for a few seconds, and then the light band broke apart and rained down over the ocean in sizzling motes. <
> ¡°There is,¡± Hadiza said, glancing over at Emilija. Natalie nodded. Lute coughed. ¡°I¡¯m sure Aimi has swimsuits. You can borrow one. She¡¯s not someone who would mind. Or even notice.¡± Over the course of the next five minutes, Emilija played with the settings on the tub, and the girls talked themselves into going to explore Aimi Velra¡¯s room in search of suits. As soon as they left, Lute rounded on Alden. ¡°Would it be good funny or bad funny if I got in the hot tub with all my clothes on?¡± ¡°Considering the fact that you¡¯d have to splash your way back home in wet sweatpants, it might be sad funny. And uncomfortable.¡± ¡°I think I can make it look cool.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the self-confidence chain talking.¡± ¡°I can definitely make it look cool.¡± Alden chuckled. Lute stood on his tiptoes and leaned over the railing. ¡°This has been the greatest weekend. I wish I could rewind it and do it all again.¡± ¡°You just want to torment Lexi with eye jokes.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to do that anyway. It won¡¯t get old.¡± They watched the barge on the other side of the bridge send up sprays of fireworks in the shape of a peacock¡¯s tail. ¡°Hey, I¡¯ll show you the physical gestures for the wordchain tonight. We can practice them tomorrow in Convo IV. I¡¯ll correct you, and you can correct my garbage Artonan. It¡¯ll make the class less boring for both of us. If you still want to do it after you see what a pain it is, I¡¯ll set up a call with my boss and get permission to teach you the full thing.¡± ¡°Really?¡± That was going to make that portion of his days so much more beneficial. ¡°Thanks!¡± <> Emilija appeared, wearing a very minimal red bikini and carrying a towel. Natalie and Hadiza were behind her in borrowed t-shirts over their swimsuits. ¡°It¡¯s fine to get these wet, too, isn¡¯t it?¡± Natalie asked, gesturing at her shirt. It said Tokyo on the chest. ¡°Your cousin¡¯s a different size than us, so the suits are¡­¡± ¡°Little boobs,¡± said Hadiza, already slipping into the water. Lute smiled at them all graciously. ¡°Aimi will not mind. Her house is your house. Help yourselves.¡± A second later, Alden got a text from him. [Don¡¯t thank me. I should be thanking you.] Then he walked right over and stepped into the tub, combat boots and all. * If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. NINETY-EIGHT: Blossoming Tentacles 98 ¡°You¡¯re all idiots.¡± Lexi Roberts¡ªsmug bastard¡ªsaid this while examining Alden, Lute, and Haoyu on Monday morning. It was 6:45, he¡¯d just come in from a run, and he looked disgustingly energized standing there drinking an iced black coffee from the campus shop. ¡°I got up at two o¡¯clock to use the bathroom, and none of you were here.¡± ¡°Kon and Mehdi¡¯s group decided to go all the way down to the stadium in F,¡± Haoyu groaned while he trudged across the kitchen toward his slow-cooker. ¡°To see a spell performance. It took a couple of hours to get back through all the traffic. I regret it.¡± ¡°I regret nothing,¡± Lute mumbled into the top of the dark wood table that they¡¯d chosen to match their huntski lodge theme. ¡°I was eating mochi in a tub surrounded by beautiful, friendly Rabbit girls when the volley ended at one.¡± ¡°Were you?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Of course he wasn¡¯t,¡± Lexi scoffed, rolling his eyes. Without looking up, Lute pointed across the table at Alden, who was trying to will himself awake while he chewed on a vegan protein bar the North of North gym recommended. It was supposed to taste like cookie dough. I wonder if whoever made this has actually eaten cookie dough, or if it¡¯s just a phrase they¡¯ve heard people with tastebuds say before. He swallowed the chalky, artificially sweetened monstrosity. ¡°He was in the tub. We calculated it at one point, and he spent almost five hours yesterday in tubs. He¡¯s the cleanest person on campus.¡± ¡°Alden¡¯s intake friends are excellent. I¡¯ve changed my vote about letting guests come over if those are the guests.¡± ¡°Oh no,¡± said Haoyu, staring into his slow cooker at the oatmeal he¡¯d put in last night. ¡°I don¡¯t think this is right.¡± He dug a spoon into it, and when he lifted it, an oatmeal and dried fruit disc came out. ¡°I think I need to add more water.¡± It slid off the spoon and hit the counter. ¡°Did that just bounce?¡± Lexi asked, blinking at it. Alden nodded. ¡°That was a definite bounce.¡± ****** Maricel was already in the lecture theater by the time Alden made it to Preparatory Sciences, and when he went over to sit with her, he was relieved that she seemed at ease. They talked about homework until Finlay arrived and turned the conversation to their upcoming gym class. ¡°Whatever we do, I want to make a proper show of it for the instructors,¡± he said, ripping open creamers and sugar packets and pouring them into a hot tea. ¡°You know? I don¡¯t want them to think, Och, we made a mistake with that one! He¡¯s not quality material.¡± ¡°Something tells me you won¡¯t have that problem,¡± said Alden. ¡°You never can be sure. At the party, when I told Mehdi I was in this course, he said it was for the ¡®remedial students.¡¯ Did you two know that?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Alden and Maricel both said. ¡°What¡¯s that about? I never was a remedial student before. Not top of my class, but never the bottom either. Well¡­I suppose we¡¯re not the worst of them. They didn¡¯t even give Jeffy the option to test out at the end of the quarter. He has to take it now and next term.¡± He chugged his tea, then stared down into the cup. ¡°I think I need another.¡± After that, it was off to Engaging with the Unexpected. Alden sat beside Andrzej, in what he privately thought of as the B-rank section. The discussion for the week would be on a series of three different superchaser incidents. There were so many examples for Instructor Marion to draw on that he hadn¡¯t been able to limit himself to just one. ¡°All right,¡± said a third year girl, leaning back in her chair. ¡°Before he gets here, we all agree that the correct response to the chaser-turned-flasher who visually assaulted the hero is just a strategic accident with a spell impression, right?¡± ¡°Can¡¯t flash what you don¡¯t have,¡± said her friend, holding up a hand for a high five. Several people laughed. A couple sighed. ¡°I¡¯d love to strategic accident a lot of them,¡± a boy said. ¡°It would solve at least half of the issues we discuss in this seminar.¡± Andrzej muttered under his breath in Polish and shook his head. He wasn¡¯t much of a talker in class. Alden found it surprising now that he¡¯d seen him at the B-list¡ªwhere he was quick to share ideas and eager to chat. This was a discussion-based course, so Andrzej couldn¡¯t be completely silent. But his usual habit was to share three opinions, each spaced about twenty minutes apart, and then fade out of the conversation again rather than ardently defending his point. Alden didn¡¯t know if he disliked arguing in general or if it was the particulars of this class and its participants that made him keep his head down. The girl who was always typing away on her phone on the opposite side of the room suddenly said, ¡°Knock it off with the strat acc jokes. He¡¯s coming.¡± A few seconds later, Instructor Marion breezed into the room. ¡°Morning everyone!¡± ¡°Good morning!¡± The use of ¡°strategic accidents¡± had been banned at the beginning of the quarter. Anyone who mentioned accidentally doing violence to fix problems got thrown out of class and marked absent for the day. Not because violence was never the answer. Violence was, according to Instructor Marion, a valid tool and a subject worthy of serious and respectful consideration. ¡°But it comes with consequences,¡± he¡¯d said last week after tossing a guy out into the hall.¡°Planning to use violence and squirm away from those consequences by saying, ¡®I had a little oopsie,¡¯ is not an acceptable approach to engaging with the unexpected.¡± Alden had wondered what kind of lunatics he was going to school with that made it necessary for that to be a class rule¡­until these superchaser scenarios. There was this one married couple who made money videoing working superheroes up close and personal. Their country didn¡¯t consider their actions to be interference, so they couldn¡¯t be prosecuted. But they liked to run into the path of oncoming spells and projectiles to get unique footage for their channel. Some of the unique footage came from Avowed having to perform dangerous stunts to dodge them. They were creating circuses on purpose. It wasn¡¯t like they deserved to die, but they did deserve to be locked up in a punishment closet so that they could engage with the darkness of death and gain knowledge of what they¡¯d done wrong. Alden had written this down in his private notes as the Klee-pak Solution. Having it there was his way of venting, but he had enough sense and self-control not to present it to a human audience. He pulled out his laptop and went over his less private notes. In prepping for this class, he had decided to try to dodge the big moral questions everyone liked to fight about. After everything that had happened with Boe over the past week, he just wanted to quietly figure his own way through those things rather than having twenty different opinions flying at him¡ªall of them presented with a vibrant certitude that made him feel lacking. Instead, he wanted to talk about the complications presented by superchasers in general, and since the best way to steer conversations was to start them, he raised his hand. ¡°I think we should discuss how superchasers themselves aren¡¯t unexpected. Once a hero or a team has stalkers, they know they¡¯re going to appear at public events or whenever action is taking place somewhere the chasers can get to in time. Their presence is a given; it¡¯s only the exact type of chaos they¡¯ll cause that¡¯s hard to anticipate. So we should talk about how knowing a difficult incident is more likely to occur than usual changes a hero¡¯s preparation and response.¡± Andrzej looked up. ¡°I agree. We should talk about strategies for¡­ah¡­ how do you say¡­ <> during frustrating moments that are caused by people a hero might have personal problems with.¡± ¡°Translation for you all,¡± said the girl with the phone. ¡°The B¡¯s want to talk serious business this week instead of penile rights.¡± ¡°Penile rights are pretty serious, though.¡± ¡°My rights in that area matter a lot to me.¡± Instructor Marion blinked around the room. ¡°What exactly do you all mean by penal rights? Have you been discussing legal systems?¡± ¡°Yes, Instructor.¡± ¡°That¡¯s definitely it.¡± ¡°We think the law should do a better job of protecting superheroes from civilian interference!¡± ****** <> Lute whispered, leaning forward on his learning cushion and holding out his hands to show Alden a series of signs. They were in the classroom for Conversation IV, and they were alternating between talking about the assignment whenever Instructor Rao was paying attention to them and talking about wordchains when she wasn¡¯t. Alden watched Lute¡¯s wiggling fingers closely.And his wrists, elbows, and shoulders. Lute hadn¡¯t been kidding when he said the chain was difficult. He¡¯d been doing a shorthand version of it last night on the bus. The full gesture set that Alden would be practicing involved a lot more motion. <> Alden suggested, texting him the English translation at the same time. Lute liked to name his motions himself so that he could remember them more easily. Alden knew perfectly well that the Artonans had their own names for common hand signs, but Lute¡¯s way had some benefits. There was a good chance that ¡°blossoming tentacles¡± was going to stick in Alden¡¯s mind better than whatever the real name was. <> his tutor repeated, grinning at him. Lute was wearing his toucan shirt with a green eyepatch, and his high-tops were in his lap. He¡¯d decided not to give the shoe victimizers any more opportunities. Alden repeated the gestures, and Lute gave him an odd look. <> Alden asked. <> Alden started the sign at the level of his forehead and drew his arms down through the air as he went. <> Lute reached out and adjusted the angle of the first knuckle on his left middle finger. <> Alden started back. <> Lute rotated one of his wrists slightly outward and adjusted the distance between his hands. <> Lute had completely forgotten about behaving like they were doing the assigned work. He got up on his knees to stare even more closely at Alden¡¯s fingers. But Instructor Rao just sighed and walked past them when she did her next round of the classroom. Alden supposed she was grateful they were some of the only students not slipping other languages into their sentences today. <> When they left thirty minutes later, Lute watched Alden take his shoes from his cubby and sniff them. ¡°You think they¡¯re going to get you since they couldn¡¯t get me?¡± he asked, tying his laces. ¡°I see no reason not to take some precautions.¡± Alden shoved his feet in. ¡°You¡¯ve got a lunch break now?¡± ¡°An hour and fifteen minutes.¡± ¡°Do you want to go back to the dorm and practice more?¡± Alden looked up. ¡°I thought you had class?¡± ¡°It¡¯s theater, and the instructor lets us play around half the time. If I don¡¯t skip performance days and I do the homework, he¡¯s not going to care.¡± Lunch back in their room instead of in one of the cafeterias sounded good, and Alden didn¡¯t want to refuse help if wrist rotation and knuckle angle were going to be important components of getting more complex wordchains right. They headed back, and just a few minutes later they were walking into their apartment. ¡°Living on campus is so convenient,¡± Alden said. ¡°Hour plus commutes down to intake were getting really old.¡± ¡°Yeah, for the past few months I was only living about twenty minutes away if the buses worked out, and that was still a pain.¡± Lute wandered over to look in Haoyu¡¯s cooker. ¡°He¡¯s trying something with chicken and onions. It hasn¡¯t gone to hell yet.¡± ¡°Until recently, I was cooking two meals a day every day,¡± said Alden, grabbing a steamer bag of frozen mixed veggies and tossing it into the microwave. ¡°Using ingredients mutated by a chaos field. Sometimes it even tasted okay. I¡¯ve decided to believe in him. He will master the electric soup pot.¡± He opened the cupboard and reached for a can of chickpeas. ¡°Get me some noodles while you¡¯re there.¡± Lute¡¯s personal food shelf¡ªbecause Lexi did not believe in shelf sharing¡ªwas below Alden¡¯s. It was ninety percent an instant noodle collection and ten percent condiments to enhance the instant noodle collection. Alden selected a package that was supposed to be flavored like an ¡°exotic lortch delicacy¡± and set it on the counter. ¡°Your hands,¡± said Lute, dropping his bag on the floor on plopping down in a chair. ¡°They¡¯re slightly enhanced?¡± ¡°They are.¡± ¡°I thought so!¡± Alden was surprised at the delight in his voice. ¡°Mine too,¡± said Lute, holding up his hands. ¡°You¡¯ve got your dexterity boosted. For them especially? You see it in the music program a lot. And with some people who love handicrafts. I wasn¡¯t expecting it from you.¡± His curiosity was obvious. Alden started to deliver the lie he¡¯d prepped for the interview committee in case they asked why he would waste his limited point supply that way. Quicker, nimbler hands would have helped me out with tasks at the lab on Moon Thegund. It made them feel like a priority when it was time to affix. He¡¯d decided that was better than blaming the System and saying it had chosen and applied the points in an unusual way without his input. Doing so would imply that this particular stat allocation was important for his skill. It might send people like Instructor Plim on a wild goose chase in an attempt to figure out what it meant. I don¡¯t want to lie to Lute, though. This weekend had been fun. Last night had been fun. Lute had volunteered to tutor him. Well, so what if you don¡¯t want to? You don¡¯t know him well enough to tell him the truth. You don¡¯t even know him well enough to let slip that you¡¯ve got something mysterious going on. Was there any part of the truth he could share without potentially ruining his life? ¡°I like it,¡± he said finally. ¡°I know all of us in the hero development program are supposed to be brutally practical about our stat allocation and talent selection. Especially if we¡¯re not S¡¯s. But I decided to boost my hand speed and dexterity for personal reasons at first, and now I like it so much that I¡¯ll probably do it again the next time I get the chance. For more than the original reason. It¡¯s an aspect of my powers that I enjoy in little ways all the time. I made a typo on my laptop the other day, and I suddenly realized I¡¯d been speed typing for over an hour without a single one.¡± Lute nodded. ¡°The points I¡¯ve got are fully baked now. All the hand-head stuff is refined and settled. I basically never miss a note on any normal composition¡­it makes it feel like the years I spent practicing prior to affixation were a waste, but if I¡¯m not agonizing over that, it can be really fun. And I¡¯ve learned a lot of card tricks. And I bet I¡¯d be a great pickpocket.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ¡°I got all the high scores on a pinball machine in intake.¡± ¡°That¡¯s cute. There¡¯s a secret arcade on the Li Jean campus. The games are weird since they¡¯re all custom made, but you should come with me sometime and watch me dominate the uni students.¡± ¡°How fast are you?¡± ¡°Not the absolute fastest compared to a bunch of uni gamers, but I don¡¯t lose much at all. The System wants Chainers to be very good with our hands and with pattern memorization. It barely gave me any points to spend how I wanted.¡± Well, yes. Those would be the enhancements that make you better at chaining. Plus something for his voice, too, I bet. Maybe his hearing as well. Chainers would be amazing spell casters if they had authority senses. And also¡­ ¡°It¡¯s a perfect class for a musician,¡± Alden said. The microwave beeped, and he pulled out his vegetables. ¡°In some ways.¡± There was an undercurrent of sadness in Lute¡¯s voice. Before Alden could ask about it, he cleared his throat. ¡°But about your hands¡­since they¡¯re way better than I thought they were going to be, and since you¡¯ve actually got a surprisingly good memory for signs¡ª¡± ¡°Did you think I was dumb?¡± ¡°No, but I thought we¡¯d spend several hours going over the macro gestures. And you¡¯ve almost got them already. So we can finish those off while you¡­eat a can of beans and entire bag of cruciferous vegetables with a bunch of raw garlic on top. Are you punishing yourself or the people who have to sit beside you in class?¡± Alden kept mincing his garlic. He was having mock Thunder Lettuce for lunch. ¡°It¡¯s healthy.¡± ¡°Not socially or spiritually.¡± ¡°You¡¯re about to eat noodles flavored with something that looks like an alien dragonfly.¡± ¡°They¡¯re nutty.¡± Over their lunches, Lute went through the signs for the chain again, and in between slurps of noodles in a suspiciously gray broth, he corrected Alden¡¯s form. The wordchain had no official English translation. Lute was calling it Self Mastery. The Artonan title was more like My Body Becomes my Assistant. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure Keiko calls this one Gracefulness,¡± said Lute, reaching across the table adjust two of Alden¡¯s fingers. ¡°Unless she¡¯s using that name for a slightly different one. Are your arms getting tired?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m good.¡± Lute sat back down and watched him. ¡°I tried to teach a couple of people some wordchains when I first started school here. My roommates. And they were both mad when they got them almost right, and the chains still only worked like ten percent of the time. Even though I warned them. Those weren¡¯t even difficult like this one. You¡¯re not going to blame me if you spend a couple of weeks studying and it¡¯s a bust for you, are you?¡± ¡°Nah. The first time I actually did a wordchain right, back in February, I had a pissy fit about what a pain in the ass they are. I thought I¡¯d been doing them correctly before and they just didn¡¯t have very noticeable effects. I was in a class to learn them and everything. Then I actually nailed it, and I realized they were supposed to do a very obvious magical thing.¡± ¡°You must have had a terrible teacher if they didn¡¯t warn you.¡± ¡°She had cheek implants, and she¡¯d had her hairline lasered back a little. So I¡¯m sure she was trying to be authentic.¡± Lute¡¯s expression turned pained. ¡°Wellll¡­anyway, what was the chain?¡± ¡°Peace of Mind. I¡¯ve got it down now.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good one to learn. It¡¯s weak, but it¡¯s good because it¡¯s weak. The higher level chains that do similar things can really mess you up.¡± Alden did not doubt it. He paused again so Lute could show him a specific flicking motion, then he said, ¡°I was saving the peaceful half of that chain for myself, and Hazel made it snap back on me. I¡¯m ninety-nine percent sure it was her.¡± Lute¡¯s lips pursed. ¡°So it was her,¡± said Alden. ¡°Due to the tattoo above my butt I can¡¯t share¡ª¡± ¡°It was totally her,¡± said Alden. ¡°I knew it. It was too much of a coincidence for her to be standing right across the street when it happened, and then she was all smiles and, ¡®Hi, Alden!¡¯ And I¡­ugh, why?! I gave her the class. I haven¡¯t done anything to make her mad at me unless it was leaving her to affix by herself, and I¡¯ve thought about it way too much, and it was weird of her to expect me to hang out with her longer when she was already interrupting my friend¡¯s funeral! She didn¡¯t even say ¡®sorry for your loss!¡¯¡± Lute was cupping his chin in his hands and nodding in overly dramatic sympathy. Alden suddenly realized how he must sound. And his hands were still in the air, halfway through Blossoming Tentacles. He shoved down his annoyance and lowered his arms. ¡°Sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to rant. I¡¯ll shut up about your cousin.¡± ¡°No!¡± Lute cried. ¡°Don¡¯t shut up. You¡¯re just getting started!¡± ¡°I want to focus on practicing. And I know it¡¯s not a huge deal. It¡¯s just¡­her pressing the debt due button on my wordchain felt so childishly fucking mean. It¡¯s like she saw I¡¯d spent hours building a sandcastle for myself, and she walked over and stomped it. Only the sandcastle was a magical effect I¡¯d prepped for my mental health.¡± He sighed. ¡°Am I a clueless jerk? Is there some friendly reason to call in someone¡¯s wordchain? In public. Without asking.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a list of skills possessed by my family members I¡¯ve agreed not to disclose. I can talk about some partially, others fully, and others not at all. We have this Aulia-ordained brand to uphold. Ninety percent of it is just secretive bullshit for the sake of secretive bullshit. Which she loves. I mean¡­being ¡®bound to secrecy¡¯ is part of our mystique at this point. So don¡¯t buy in to the drama. Wordchains are common sense compared to most magic. And so in a lot of ways Chainer is a common sense class.¡± Lute stirred his noodles. ¡°When I finally affixed and got access to the deep dark powers of the Velra line, I said, ¡®That¡¯s it?¡¯ And I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever offended my grandmother more in my life. Which is a shame, because I wasn¡¯t even trying right then. I was just surprised that we were so much less spooky than I¡¯d been led to believe.¡± ¡°Spooky?¡± ¡°¡®Chainers always get more than they pay for,¡± said Lute. ¡°¡®Your chain failed? Did you make a Velra mad?¡¯ And my personal favorite is probably, ¡®Fate always smiles on the Chainer last.¡¯¡± ¡°Are those¡­common sayings?¡± Alden couldn¡¯t imagine what it must be like to have family-specific cliches. ¡°You don¡¯t hear them every day, but you do hear them. So I was somewhat underwhelmed when I actually became a full-fledged Velra.¡± He shivered. ¡°And then I let my guard down and walked face first into the ten percent of being a Chainer that actually is insane and spooky. Anyway, that¡¯s a humiliating story for never. You asked if there was a friendly reason for someone to, hypothetically, call in someone else¡¯s debt without asking them first. And my answer is the common sense one¡ªnope. Unless your friend is bound and gagged and the beach police are coming, why would it ever be nice to kick over the sandcastle they spent three hours four minutes and eleven seconds building?¡± I suppose a Chainer would know the duration of common chains down to the second. ¡°Wizards can do it, by the way,¡± Lute added. ¡°I can tell you that. I don¡¯t know if all of them can, but my boss and his¡­coworkers¡­can complete other peoples¡¯ chains prematurely and by force.¡± ¡°Not friendly at all,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s usually not. But when they do it, it¡¯s also not without purpose. He¡¯ll almost definitely tell you what that purpose is when we call him together. And if not, you could probably ask any wizard who you feel comfortable enough around. Aulia¡¯s got that particular wordchain wrinkle on the Do Not Disclose list because, like I said, cagey for the sake of caginess is her modus operandi. But it¡¯s just a fact of life for Artonans who use major chains.¡± They finished their lunch and went through the signs for the chain several more times. While he was correcting Alden¡¯s positioning during the last repetition, Lute said, ¡°You said Hazel tried to talk to you. I have no comment on her powers, but Aulia probably told her to make friends with you and bring you over for a visit. Or Hazel heard her talking about you and decided to get in on it by herself.¡± ¡°I guessed that,¡± Alden said flatly. ¡°She failed.¡± ¡°She might have failed on purpose. Or she might have tripped over her own personality. She might really still be mad at you, too. For the funeral thing.¡± He adjusted Alden¡¯s wrist again. ¡°Hazel grew up devouring my grandmother¡¯s attention, and ever since she started getting a lot of Aulia¡¯s time instead of all of it, it¡¯s like she¡¯s starving.¡± He placed his hands on the table and watched Alden finish the set. ¡°She wanted you to see her faint.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°When she affixed. At the funeral. She wanted someone there to see her faint.¡± ¡°Was she scared of that happening? It hardly ever does.¡± ¡°No, she wasn¡¯t scared of it happening,¡± Lute said. ¡°She wanted it to. It happens more often to S ranks. The System needs additional time for whatever reason and knocks you out for it. Sometimes it talks to you.¡± I am very familiar with that. Lute continued, ¡°Fainting during affixation and getting a meeting with the System doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re going to be a better Avowed, but it has specialness connotations. Hazel grew up¡­okay, she had a messed up childhood. But she grew up sure she¡¯d be a fainter, and she wanted witnesses. Definitely not me, but I was who was closest when you left. She called asking for an affixation buddy, so they made me go back to look after her until her parents could get there.¡± His eye wasn¡¯t focused on Alden¡¯s face anymore. He was staring across the room toward the window. ¡°She faked it. When I walked up, she was lying there on her side like she¡¯d fallen off the bench she was sitting on. I wasn¡¯t surprised. I was really used to her being special, too, so I just thought she was an idiot for not going to sit on the grass before she gave the System the okay. And then I saw her rubbing her cheek on the gravel below the bench to give herself scratches. To make it look more like she¡¯d fallen.¡± Oh my god. Alden felt embarrassed just hearing about someone else getting caught doing that. ¡°What on earth did you say?¡± ¡°You know,¡± Lute said slowly, ¡°I think I was going to let her get away with it. She oscillated between ignoring me and tormenting me when we were kids, so I didn¡¯t feel sorry for her. But me getting the Chainer S was soul-crushing for Hazel. It had been saved for years especially for her. The family paid a different new Avowed every couple of months to sit on it for her and then pass it off, just waiting for the day when she¡¯d be selected. ¡°I actually have another cousin who got S, wanted Chainer, and had to take another class instead. Because even though Hazel had just turned sixteen, everyone still thought¡­maybe. Probably. Sometimes the System picks you late.¡± Lute¡¯s frown deepened. ¡°So I wasn¡¯t going to say anything. Because even though I didn¡¯t want it, I did end up with the toy that we all thought had her name on it. And I wasn¡¯t nice about it because Hazel was never nice to me¡­and then there she was rubbing her own face in the dirt. It was enough. I didn¡¯t feel the need to grind it in any more.¡± ¡°But you did?¡± Alden guessed when Lute went quiet. ¡°A couple of days later we were having a party to celebrate her affixation. A big family bash in her honor. She decided to cap the festivities off with a reenactment of one those times she tormented pathetic little Lute.¡± He shrugged. ¡°I should have left it alone. But when she did it, she was trying to set me off. She just didn¡¯t know I had such humiliating ammunition to send back her way.¡± ¡°And you advised me recently to go to one of your family parties.¡± ¡°We have them all the time, and the catering is always perfection,¡± said Lute. ¡°Just go say hi to Grandma, act like a typical teenager who¡¯s at least mildly interested in rubbing shoulders with the super rich, then vanish¡­and don¡¯t engage with Hazel. That¡¯s my only advice for dealing with her.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll go at all. Unless Natalie is the one catering, then I have to ponder it.¡± ¡°Suit yourself.¡± Lute got up to drop his bowl in the sink. ¡°Did you like the tutoring session?¡± ¡°Yes. Thank you. It¡¯s really helpful to have an in-person teacher.¡±It was going to decrease the time it took to learn by a lot. ¡°And you still want to master this wordchain?¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t mind tutoring me more and getting permission from your boss.¡± ¡°Cool! In that case, what time does your class end tonight? The PE that you¡¯re all stressed about.¡± They were all a little stressed. The very brief course description said it was just physical education and magic development, so there was no real reason to be. But everyone in the group was anxious about it being something intense¡­because the last time they¡¯d been in the gym had been so intense. Even the ridiculous and fun hour Alden had spent with the B-List hadn¡¯t quite been enough to take the edge off his nerves. ¡°It¡¯s over at 7:00 PM.¡± ¡°And it¡¯s almost one o¡¯clock now,¡± said Lute. ¡°Perfect. I¡¯ll bestow Self Mastery on you. It lasts a little less than six hours, so it¡¯ll carry you through the rest of the day and most of your class. You can see what it¡¯s like to live with it.¡± Alden was startled. He didn¡¯t know why it hadn¡¯t occurred to him to ask Lute about that. He had a skill that let him bestow wordchains on groups of people; it would be weird if it didn¡¯t work on a single individual, too. ¡°Can you give me the debt, too?¡± ¡°I can give you the debt later if you¡¯re willing to accept it,¡± said Lute. ¡°I don¡¯t mind just giving you the good part¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯ll pay my own bills,¡± said Alden. ¡°And it¡¯s great to be able to know what it feels like before I commit to learning it.¡± And there was the gremlin to consider. Alden didn¡¯t think it would care about this, since someone else was responsible for the missing half of the chain. But if it was offended by the process, he¡¯d need to take both halves to make it shush. Lute smiled. A second later, Alden felt himself being targeted. That, he had expected. What he hadn¡¯t expected was to suddenly have a very clear sense of Lute Velra¡¯s power, reaching out toward him and stopping just short of touching him, like he was politely waiting for Alden to start up an authority control exercise. That¡¯s not it. I think this is just his skill bringing us closer. It must be¡ª [Accept Wordchain from Lute?] [Primary Wordchain Effects: heightened awareness of body, heightened control of body, heightened spatial awareness] [Approximate Wordchain Duration: 5 hours 49 minutes] [Yes/No] He hadn¡¯t expected giving permission through his interface to be part of it either. ¡°You should be getting a notification.¡± Alden was suddenly nervous about what was going to happen when he accepted. Not about the effects of the wordchain itself, but¡­what was Lute going to do to him to give it to him? Alden couldn¡¯t ask because the answer was just going to be, ¡°What do you mean? I¡¯m just going to use my skill. Duh.¡± But Lute being close in this way implied that some kind of metaphysical touching beyond simple targeting was about to take place. And while Alden was almost positive it wouldn¡¯t be damaging to him in any way, he really wished he knew if the bestowal skill was about to give him a Kibby-sized friendly pat or a sharp stab or what. Also, Lute was noticeably strong. Nothing at all like the overwhelming forces the Primary or his sister had been. But Alden could still sense that a more powerful presence was right beside him, taking an interest in him. Oh fuck it. It¡¯s getting more awkward and nerve-wracking the longer I wait to do the obvious thing. He commanded himself to hold still, accept the skill, and not authority smack his helpful roommate in a panic if anything weird happened, then he selected YES. Lute¡¯s skill brushed against him. Alden had a split-second impression of something being passed to him, and either he¡¯d gotten it right when he told himself to be accepting or Lute¡¯s skill was really great at its job, because there was no resistance when it became part of him. The skill withdrew, and Alden couldn¡¯t find any evidence of what had happened at all. Authoritatively. I guess it¡¯s subtle? Or not, and I¡¯m still too much of a beginner when it comes to understanding what goes on with myself in this way. He hadn¡¯t even been able to identify the carriage geas in his affixation until she told him to look for it, so it wasn¡¯t that surprising. Still it¡¯s odd that someone can give me something, and I can¡¯t find it. ¡°You look really tense. It¡¯s over. You can relax.¡± Lute¡¯s expression was amused. Alden felt himself start to blush. He didn¡¯t want to. He stopped it. Oh. ¡°Oh!¡± The mild feeling of embarrassment didn¡¯t leave, but a blush was banishable? It had taken thought and effort, but thought and effort had never worked that way for him before. ¡°Dude! How strong is this wordchain?¡± ¡°Neat, right? Just a warning¡­there are some inconveniences. You¡¯ve got amazing control over your body. Anything you should be capable of doing or noticing on your best day ever will suddenly be much more natural for you. On the flip side, a lot of things that go on with your body aren¡¯t actually enjoyable, and heightened awareness of them is either maddening or disgusting.¡± He glanced at Alden¡¯s empty plate. ¡°I¡¯m not someone who does a lot of exercise, but I think it¡¯s going to be great for performance in your hero PE class. And I suspect it¡¯s good for developing muscle memory? But it can make everyday stuff hyper-annoying.¡± Alden suddenly realized what he meant. ¡°My own breath is burning me,¡± he said, fanning his face. ¡°The garlic is everywhere.¡± Lute snickered. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m not sure if you actually taste it better, but you¡¯re definitely better at being constantly aware of it. So have fun with that! If you can¡¯t stand the side effects, call me, and I¡¯ll come take what¡¯s left of the chain back.¡± ¡°What would that involve on your end of things? Do you just save it in a special Chainer box for later? Or do you delete it from the universe?¡± Lute slapped his own butt dramatically. Alden blinked. ¡°Is that your new way of indicating your family tattoo?¡± ¡°If you¡¯re going to keep asking lots of questions about Chainer, I need a quicker method for blaming Aulia for my non-answers. Like I said, if you assume it¡¯s common sense, you¡¯ll be right most of the time.¡± ¡°Well, I suspect you¡¯ve got some kind of chain-saving magic because you delivered that one without actually doing the chain yourself. So you probably banked it somehow? That¡¯s cool.¡± ¡°Lute Velra¡ªvery cool guy. Now, if other people would just fall for my trap, too¡­¡± * NINETY-NINE: Gym Class, I The wordchain Lute had bestowed on Alden was fun, mind-blowing, and a total menace. He had learned to cascade juggle five balls from Gustavo during a couple of sleepless nights in intake. Under the effects of the wordchain, he discovered he could easily do it with pieces of crumpled notebook paper while he was walking up a flight of stairs. But sitting still in his Intro to Other Worlds class was proving difficult. People were so damn noisy. His stomach was so damn busy. Friction was so damn everywhere. He kept making micro-level adjustments to himself in an attempt to get away from his own clothes. He was wriggling like an eel at his desk, trying and failing to escape from the itchy tag Satan had stitched into the neck of his shirt. It hadn¡¯t bothered him at all earlier. Now it did very much. And the waistband of his jeans was rough in one spot. And that girl making little noises with her straw while she slurped on a milkshake that was apparently bottomless¡­ Giving up, he texted the expert. [Lute, what the hell? How do you use this regularly and not murder everyone around you?] His reply was a couple of torturous minutes coming. [It¡¯s not hard if something interesting is going on. It¡¯s only terrible when you¡¯re bored.] The Intro to Other Worlds instructor was teaching them about sacred dirt mounds today. Nothing like a good alien dirt mound to distract you from the eight different ways your pants fit imperfectly¡ªnot. [Find something to concentrate on that doesn¡¯t make you crazy. Physical sensations are better than thoughts.] He ended up practicing some of the gestures for the wordchain under his desk, as discretely as he could, and when class was finally over he raced to the nearest bathroom and used his promise stick lighting spell to burn the itchy tag out of his t-shirt. With a little too much enthusiasm. Now there was a scorched hole where the tag had been. It was a vast improvement. He had nearly two hours worth of study hall next. He¡¯d been skipping it all last week, and he planned to do the same for the rest of the quarter. It was only required if your grades dropped, and he didn¡¯t see that becoming a problem with this roster of classes. Two hours to kill. I¡¯m suddenly extra graceful, and I need to use it. Or else I¡¯m going to burn up all of my own clothes. But I shouldn¡¯t wear myself out before gym time, so¡­ He¡¯d wanted to buy a few things to have on hand for skill practice. Instead of ordering them like a Rabbit of leisure, he could go get them himself and play with his new adroitness on the way. Sounds like a plan. He headed downstairs, got a small cup of ice water from the coffee shop, and shoved it in his hoodie pocket. That way failing to keep his skill active would result in some cold wet punishment. Then he headed off at ground-eating speed thanks to his trait. The wordchain was definitely made for motion. The more Alden challenged himself, the more it showed off. He could hop up onto the back of park benches and walk across railings just fine without it, but with it, it was like his feet were always glued exactly where he wanted them to be. He was so alert to minor balance issues, and making rapid adjustments felt second nature. Aww¡­I really want to meet up with Bobby or the parkour club and show off. He had to content himself with dashing along every narrow edge he could find as he left campus behind and headed for an area that the internet said was one of Apex¡¯s best shopping spots. It was in a neighborhood with a large Chinese-speaking population, so Alden let his interface do a lot of sign translating for him. A busy boulevard lined with glossy, commercial shops gradually turned into a narrower street with more eccentric local businesses that catered to specific Avowed needs. Alden was fascinated by some of the local stores, and he wished he actually needed a bunch of cool magic toys instead of the mundane stuff that was on his list. He consoled himself by promising to come back when he knew which of the mundane items he wanted particularly magnificent versions of. An hour later, he was the proud owner of one clear plastic shower curtain, a cheap bedsheet, a four-pack of clear plastic ponchos, a roll of wrapping paper, a giant bottle of glue, a bunch of duct tape, two hundred feet of orange paracord, carabiners, a bubble umbrella, and a very large lightweight nylon duffel bag with backpack carry straps. There were more items on his I-should-experiment-with-these-things list, but he was running out of time, and one of the things he¡¯d definitely wanted to acquire didn¡¯t seem to exist. ¡°I¡¯m sure I am not the only guy on the island who wants a pair of thin, elbow-length gloves,¡± he said, stepping out of a costume and party supply store. ¡°It¡¯s probably not the most common request,¡± Jeremy told him. He had a date with his girlfriend, and he was trying to put on a tie. He had even bought one that wasn¡¯t patterned with chocolate chip cookies. Kimberly Martinez must¡¯ve been special. Behind him, Victor was lounging on top of a new cat tower that Alden was sure he was going to have to find room for in his dorm sooner or later. Jeremy turned around to look at the cat every three seconds. ¡°None of the work gloves I tried were quite right.¡± They made his fingers stupid. Not having stupid fingers was a big deal for spells and wordchains. ¡°And surgical gloves are too short and sweaty. Plus they¡¯re going to make me look like, ¡®Hi! Here I am to give you a medical exam!¡¯¡± He¡¯d bought some disposables anyway to have in his future Rabbit go-bag for backups. But for regular use, he thought he wanted something fabric, very thin, and perfectly fitted. And long would be a bonus, since it would protect his arm when it was preserved. A pair of opera gloves rolled down just a little so that they didn¡¯t cover his elbows and impede motion had sounded like a decent start. ¡°What about the opera-going ladies with largish hands and forearms? It¡¯s a terrible injustice for me and for them. Anyway, I¡¯ll find something better when I¡¯ve got more time. Or just modify something. Your tie looks great.¡± ¡°You think so?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°And thanks for taking care of Victor.¡± Jeremy turned around to stare at the cat again. ¡°I thought maybe I should take him to the vet. Because what if he¡¯s sick and he just doesn¡¯t look like it? But then, you know¡­veterinarians might not understand¡­¡± ¡°Indeed. He¡¯s a complicated cat.¡± ****** The mood in the men¡¯s locker room was more tense than it had been on combat assessment day. The boys who were joking around were doing it with bravado that came across more as nerves than confidence, and most people were getting dressed quietly. Odd that it was so much more boisterous when we were all fighting for our places here, Alden thought, running his hand up the front of his gray unitard to seal it around him. And now that we¡¯ve got them, it¡¯s subdued. Or maybe it stood to reason that the group who¡¯d made it in had taken the trials seriously enough to pass them. Even the guys who had acted like idiots at the party must care a lot about how they performed in the MagiPhys gym. ¡°Why is it a morgue in here?¡± someone said suddenly. Alden thought it was the Bow Meister, Reinhard. ¡°It¡¯s just class. They¡¯re not going to kick us out now.¡± ¡°They do kick people out for poor performance. My dad said so.¡± ¡°For failing courses and failing to level. Not for being terrible on your first day of gym. Somebody talk about something fun. Kon, did someone spell you quiet? Why are some of the globies hiding in the showers to dress? Does your junk look different in other countries?¡± In the stall next to Alden, Finlay cleared his throat. ¡°I just don¡¯t want to embarrass you all.¡± ¡°He says a few minutes before a class where he¡¯ll absolutely embarrass us!¡± Reinhard called back. ¡°I can totally take him,¡± Kon said. ¡°I can take every last one of you. If you¡¯re asleep.¡± ¡°Kon,¡± someone said, ¡°this class is really going to suck for you, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. There are other subtypes that aren¡¯t great at combat and rescue, so it¡¯s not like I¡¯m the only one in school. And by third year, I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be able to destroy you all.¡± ¡°He can still beat up the B¡¯s, right?¡± That sounded like Sanjay. Thanks so much, thought Alden. A few people were agreeing, but Kon himself wasn¡¯t among them. We don¡¯t all know each other¡¯s abilities that well yet, so I guess it¡¯s understandable that some of them would think that surely any S could beat a B. Kon didn¡¯t have any offensive or defensive abilities beyond a high-rank Adjuster¡¯s physicality. And Adjusters weren¡¯t known for their physicality. Him winning versus Max or Alden was dependent on circumstance. What would they let Alden use as a shield? Was there ground? How much time and space would Max be given to lay down his zones? I guess it¡¯s going to be like that no matter who you¡¯re dealing with to some extent. Years from now, when they all knew what they were doing and they¡¯d refined their power sets, they¡¯d still probably lose to Jeffy if they were fighting in the ocean. There were only a couple of B-rank Brutes at the school, and one of them was Aquatic. She had a special section on The Beat List for ¡°sea days,¡± when everyone had to practice water battles and she suddenly became a serious problem for all the higher ranks to deal with. ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re dueling each other anyway,¡± Kon said. ¡°I asked some older students, and they said they didn¡¯t start fighting classmates until a couple of weeks in.¡± That suited Alden just fine. By some unspoken agreement, almost everyone left the locker room together. The same phenomenon seemed to have affected the girls, because they were in a chattery group outside their own locker room, waiting for stragglers to emerge. Alden spotted Maricel. She had her back turned to him while she talked with her roommates, but he could tell by her animated hand gestures that she was in her cheerful mode. I hope she¡¯s actually feeling it. Vandy and Tuyet seem to want to be friends with her, too. His own roommate chat notification appeared, and he opened it to find Haoyu asking critical questions. [Haoyu: Astrid looks different.] Alden glanced at him. They were standing right next to each other, and Haoyu wasn¡¯t obviously observing the target of his inquiry. [Lexi: Why are you texting us here? Isn¡¯t this for roommate business?] [Lute: I¡¯m interested in Astrid. Who is she? Is she beating you all up in your Avowed violence class?] I guess I should answer since I know the answer? [Alden: She morphs them. She was going minimalist when I met her on assessment day, too. It¡¯s probably better than a sports bra.] [Lute: Now I¡¯m even more interested in Astrid.] [Lexi: I¡¯m going to ignore notifications. I need to focus.] [Haoyu: It would be fun if we could text all class. I¡¯m not good enough at mental, though. I can¡¯t do it and do anything else at the same time.] They entered the gym in a mass. Alden¡¯s first thought was, Are they really giving us seven instructors? The gym was fully set up and prepared for them, and the instructors, wearing their own suits, were having a last-minute discussion together in the corner nearest the locker rooms. There were forty-one students¡ªtwenty-three boys, eighteen girls. Seven instructors still seemed like a lot. Alden¡¯s second thought was, Torsten Klein is one of them. I hope he¡¯s not an asshole to me. He also recognized Instructor Marion and Big Snake. It¡¯s cool that Snake¡¯s here. They said he usually teaches third years. Wait¡­ Instructor Waker. Call him Instructor Waker. He was absolutely going to forget. ¡°All right, everyone!¡± Instructor Klein called, clapping his hands together once for attention. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re all here for your first day of school. Grab a seat. No talking for the next ten minutes while I explain this course and what we expect from you.¡± They hastened to sit down. Before the last butts had even found their perches, Instructor Klein was standing in front of them, arms clasped behind his back. His eyes were as sharp as Alden remembered from his interview, and his salt and pepper hair looked like it had been commanded by its owner not to fall into disarray. ¡°We don¡¯t believe in wasting time here at Celena North,¡± he said, his voice ringing through the gym. ¡°We accept incoming classes as often as we can, so that none of you have to cool your heels for months in a regular high school before applying. We start power training you on the very first day you arrive, even if you¡¯re a mid-quarter group. This is the School for Superhuman Talent Development. And this is the one course all of you have this term where we will be focusing on developing your superhuman talents. We don¡¯t waste your time. You don¡¯t waste ours.¡± Alden tensed, expecting the instructor to look over at the Rabbit who he¡¯d literally called a time waster, but he never did. ¡°Today is the fifth of November. Between now and the day the quarter ends on the twenty-first of December, you¡¯ll be here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for two hours. Twenty-one classes. Arrive ten minutes early, not ten seconds late. The only excused absences are if you¡¯re on another planet or in the hospital.¡± He gestured toward Instructor Marion, who smiled and waved. ¡°This is Instructor Marion. He¡¯ll be here on Tuesday mornings from six to eight. If you¡¯re struggling with something, send him a message to set up an appointment for that time slot to sort it out. You¡¯ll only have access to a small portion of the gym, and he¡¯ll only be tutoring six people during the Tuesday sessions. It¡¯s first come, first serve until everyone has had their chance.¡± He scanned them all. ¡°This class period is one hundred and twenty minutes long. You will be using your powers and your bodies a lot while you¡¯re here, usually until they are exhausted. If you show up too tired to move, or with your main skills and spells already depleted, we will be extremely disappointed in you.¡± Jeffy gasped. Alden didn¡¯t know what talents the Aqua Brute had other than high strength stats but he wouldn¡¯t be at all surprised to find that he¡¯d been showing off all day without considering what that would mean for class. ¡°The regular course structure will be four, thirty-minute-long sessions. The idea is to get you all used to the gym and used to thinking about your bodies and your magic in new ways. We will be giving you the opportunity to experiment with your powers. The sessions will loosely mimic different types of hero work. You only became Avowed in the past few months. Most of you are at least seven years away from the start of your careers. At this point in your lives, it¡¯s more important for you to discover what you¡¯re capable of than it is to perform with perfect realism.¡± He pointed at himself. ¡°I will be teaching you offense, single-target only for now. Instructor Waker will be running the self-defense session. Instructor Marion will be teaching maneuvering and positioning. Instructor Fragment will be giving you rescue problems to solve.¡± Alden examined Instructor Fragment. He hadn¡¯t recognized the stocky woman until her hero name was used. He knew from reading the faculty list on the school website that she was a Ground Shaper who specialized in saving people from building collapses. A rare, emergency-work-only hero. It¡¯s a totally different lifestyle than most people here seem to want. She lived on Anesidora and got called when she was needed, a bit like Haoyu¡¯s parents but without the collective backing and with zero expectation of showmanship when she arrived. The downside, of course, was no fame, less fortune, and no off-island address. Alden was inclined to respect her without even having spoken to her. ¡°You¡¯ll rotate between each of us in small groups. Don¡¯t dawdle when it¡¯s time to move to the next thing. Learn to shift gears quickly. Instructors Wu, Ivanova, and Foxbolt will be our floating faculty. If they pull you out to work with you on something, give them your full attention. Don¡¯t complain if they take up a great deal of your time. They know what they¡¯re doing far better than you do.¡± He frowned at them all as if he were already anticipating complaints. ¡°We have gym etiquette. Your interfaces will always provide you with a floor status notification in this space. Additionally, when you are in here with the floor off and you see a new person enter the room, shout, ¡®Floor off!¡¯ It¡¯s a critical piece of information to be aware of at all times, so we like to have the backup call. At the moment, you¡¯re new to this, so you¡¯re naturally checking floor status all the time to make sure you¡¯re doing the right thing. Within a few months, the gym will feel like a second home, and you¡¯ll get laxer.¡± He cleared his throat. ¡°From now on, do not use any powers or any degree of superhuman strength on the gym floor while it¡¯s off. If you want to play with a harmless talent while the floor¡¯s off, do it to the sides or up here on the bleachers. The white floor is where we do things that would be fatal elsewhere. Get it in your head that anyone visibly doing any kind of magic there when it¡¯s not on is making a potentially deadly mistake, and scream ¡®Floor off!¡¯ at the top of your lungs the second you notice them. Maybe it¡¯s nothing, or maybe they¡¯re about to accidentally rip off a friend¡¯s limbs. Don¡¯t wait to find out. ¡°Finally, don¡¯t agonize over leveling. Students inevitably panic as soon as the first of their classmates gains a level. We will tell you when you need to worry, and we won¡¯t even think of telling you to worry for at least six more months. The System¡¯s management of any given Avowed can be somewhat¡­eccentric. Principal Saleh has been known to pop into classes on occasion and offer her unique perspective as someone who has ranked up. But the general consensus among some of the best levelers on Earth¡ªthe ones who¡¯ve seen fit to share insights with the rest of us anyway¡ªis that hard work at the edge of your abilities always pays off. So that¡¯s what we¡¯ll be having you do. We can talk about more creative, personal endeavors to push your limits when that hard work has become a matter of course for you all. ¡°Now let¡¯s get started.¡± ****** The instructors didn¡¯t explain how they were breaking people into groups; everyone just got an assignment and went. But there was obviously some thought process to it instead of random selection. One group of ten was entirely Brutes, minus the class¡¯s two speedsters. Haoyu was over there, looking laser focused as Big Snake explained something to them all. Another group was mostly Shapers and ranged weapon Meisters. Lexi was in that one. More than half of the group was S-rank. It included Maricel, Vandy, Tuyet, and Jupiter. A third group was more of a mixed bag, but they¡¯d stuck both Finlay and Winston in it together. Alden was pretty sure the group he¡¯d been put in was the struggles-to-deal-damage group. He, Max, Kon, Everly, and Astrid were in it with five other students he hadn¡¯t properly met. One was actually the Shaper of Light who Alden had seen in the ¡°odd birds¡± crowd on assessment day. I didn¡¯t realize he got in. He wasn¡¯t at the party. The Light Shaper hadn¡¯t actually been good at anything, but he¡¯d been on his way to one day being good at multiple impressive things¡ªinvisibility, creating high temperature areas. But he¡¯d have to avoid a breakdown first. His forehead was beaded with sweat, and when Alden and Kon both said hi to him, he stared at them like a deer caught in headlights. If it¡¯s this bad now, what¡¯s it going to be like when we hit the other teachers? Their group was starting with Instructor Fragment in the rescue work section. In Alden¡¯s opinion, it was the least intimidating. He tuned out the Light Shaper¡¯s heavy breathing and listened with interest while Fragment talk about how important problem solving and creative skill use was for her job. She explained that they would be exploring ways to use their powers to protect other people from assault and to excavate them from dangerous areas. ¡°This is really just the most basics of the basics and your first introduction to thinking about possible uses for your magic in these scenarios. You will make mistakes, and those mistakes will teach you even more than your successes.¡± They would be climbing a towering jungle gym of a scaffold and bringing down ¡°victims¡± that were really hundred and twenty kilo sandbags. They were starting to talk about approaches to the problem for everyone, when Instructor Foxbolt tapped Alden on the shoulder. ¡°Let me steal you for a minute.¡± She winked at Fragment, revealing that she had a magical effect applied to her winged eyeliner of all things. It flashed from orange to electric blue. But this was going to be my favorite part of the whole class period, Alden thought as he stared over his shoulder to where Astrid was climbing up the scaffolding. She was moving easily, and he wanted to watch her attempt the rescue. Naturally, she had more stats than him, but Morph was one of those Brute subclasses that didn¡¯t necessarily come out on top in terms superstrength. They got a lot of choices for how to develop their shapeshifting, which was one of the reasons it was such a desirable subclass. Big¡¯nLittleSnake was one of the most powerful superheroes around, and he showed off Morph combat abilities at the absolute maximum. A lot of morphers were more into impersonation or esoteric body mods that gave them utility in specific situations. Alden followed the instructor over to the bleachers and sat down when she patted the bench invitingly. ¡°All right!¡± she said, picking up a tablet. ¡°I¡¯m Foxbolt. Adjuster. Lovely to meet you, Alden. We agreed that I would be the one to talk to you about your equipage for this course. Is there some particular object you¡¯re absolutely dying to use as a main tool?¡± He shook his head. Right now, he was preserving a long length of paracord, with carabiners on either end. He¡¯d wrapped it around his left arm and wrist like a homemade bracer. He¡¯d also brought the duffel bag full of supplies he¡¯d just bought, since he didn¡¯t know if the faculty was expecting him to show up with things or not. ¡°I have lots of different ideas I want to try. I don¡¯t have a favorite yet.¡± She nodded. ¡°The versatility of items you can use with your skill is one of your strengths, so experimenting with objects is good. But it presents some problems. If you use a different tool each day we meet, you¡¯ll never gain a decent understanding of how to work with any of them. And the instructors¡¯ advice will no longer be as useful from one class to the next because if they give you tips for defending yourself with something like an umbrella today and you show up with a sheet-shaped shield tomorrow¡ª¡± Just bought potential sheet shields. And an umbrella. ¡°¡ªthey¡¯ll have different opinions on how it should be used,¡± she continued. ¡°So let me tell you what we suggest.¡± She read some notes on her tablet and nodded to herself. ¡°For offense, defense, and maneuvering, we suggest you pick a single tool or a homemade combotool that¡¯s not much more complex than the thing you rigged for combat assessment. Take this week to figure it out if you need to, but we think you should commit to using it for the rest of term by next Monday. Feel free to ask us for advice. Even if you later discover that what you¡¯ve chosen is wildly flawed, learning to work around those flaws has benefits, and it will give you ideas about what you might want to try in future courses. ¡°As for your rescue sessions, Instructor Fragment actually encourages you to bring anything you like. The more the better. She points out that in a disaster relief effort, the ability to use any everyday object at hand would be invaluable. And in such a situation, you¡¯d likely have many people to entrust you with them.¡± ¡°That all sounds good to me,¡± said Alden. ¡°About offense¡ª¡± Foxbolt flashed her eyeliner at him before he could finish the thought. ¡°Realistically, if we were sending you out to fight bad guys next week, we¡¯d tell you to cover up as much of yourself with a shield as you can, and we¡¯d hand you a solid Wrightmade gun. However, this is a magic development program, and firearms training would do nothing to develop your magic. We¡¯d rather have you practice with your skill. You¡¯ll also find that you can acquire excellent marksmanship quite easily as an Avowed. Your current vision and stat allocations are fine already. If you don¡¯t gain an offensive skill of some kind over the next few years, someone will shoo you off to the targeting range. It won¡¯t take you long to be more proficient with a gun than any ordinary human.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.¡± He¡¯d been planning to ask if he could go grab a weight from the storage room so that he could tie his paracord around it and whack people in the offense portion of the class. But finding out he had a future as a sharpshooter was interesting, too. ¡°Last thing!¡± she said. ¡°Instructor Klein wanted me to ask if you were wearing any magical equipment today.¡± ¡°No? I thought we weren¡¯t supposed to bring things like that.¡± He¡¯d left Joe¡¯s ring in his messenger bag with his books in System storage, and the auriad around his neck didn¡¯t count because it was more like a piece of him than a piece of equipment. She looked over toward Klein with a raised eyebrow. He was beside Jupiter, trying to explain something about ankles if the direction his finger was pointing was any indication. The Life Shaper had draped herself in fresh kudzu vines for class today. ¡°He says he thought you were moving differently than you were during combat assessment.¡± Alden glanced at the instructor. How much is he staring at me? I¡¯ve barely moved at all in front of him yet. ¡°It¡¯s a wordchain. They¡¯re allowed, right?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Foxbolt said. ¡°They are. A wordchain you¡¯ve mastered will always be there for you to use as you see fit, so we consider it to be another talent in your repertoire.¡± ¡°Well, I haven¡¯t mastered this one myself yet,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°My roommate¡¯s teaching it to me, so he cast it on me earlier to make sure I wanted to keep studying it. He said he could take it off. I can call him if you want.¡± The instructor looked bewildered for several seconds, then she said, ¡°The Velra boy in the arts program!¡± She laughed. ¡°I was trying my best to figure out how another student had done a wordchain for you. I¡¯d forgotten we had a Chainer on campus!¡± She lowered her voice. ¡°I think it¡¯s practical to try it out first. They can be tedious to learn. Just let me know before you get any more free ones from your roommate so that I can pre-approve them and nobody can complain.¡± She finally let him go, and after collecting a sandbag for later, he hurried over to take his turn on the scaffolding. In the minutes he¡¯d been away, Astrid had failed her first rescue attempt. She¡¯d tried to climb down with the bag gripped between her thighs. ¡°I squeezed the victim until his ribs cracked, and then my hand slipped and I dropped him and fell on top of him,¡± she reported to Alden when he walked up. ¡°I think I¡¯ll try a rope next time.¡± She gestured at the pile of supplies Fragment had given them to work with. There were things there that would obviously help. Ropes and straps. A pulley. A sandbag-fitted harness. And they¡¯d been given video links to watch that would show them how to use any of it if they wanted. But they were supposed to be using their powers as much as possible, and they had to change tactics after they rescued the heavy bag once. No repeat rescue methods. A couple of people had already gone after Astrid. Now the Light Shaper was going up. ¡°That is a nervous person,¡± said Astrid, watching him climb. ¡°Is he scared of heights?¡± Before Alden could consider the question, the Light Shaper froze. He clung to the scaffold three-quarters of the way up and trembled there. ¡°Maybe the pressure got to him?¡± someone whispered. ¡°That¡¯s sixty seconds!¡± Instructor Fragment called. ¡°You¡¯ll want to get a move on.¡± They weren¡¯t allowed to take more than three minutes, and they were supposed to be trying for faster. A few people started calling out encouragements. Kon had just come over to stand beside Alden. He shook his head. ¡°He¡¯s not moving.¡± At the three minute mark, their teacher sighed. ¡°I guess we¡¯re leaving him up there. Everyone has their troubles with different assignments. Let¡¯s see if he gets a handle on himself when people start climbing up past him.¡± She gestured, and another 120 kilo bag that had been waiting off to the side flew up to land on top of the platform. ¡°Alden, you¡¯re heading up next. If your classmate is standing in your preferred climbing route, then adapt and adjust, all right?¡± Alden hurried over to the scaffolding, more eager than nervous for this particular assignment. He wanted to try something new, he had a plan, and he thought it would work. They hadn¡¯t been given a convenient ladder; the scaffolding was made to be more demanding than that, with certain bars arranged at difficult distances and angles. But it was nothing ridiculous. He would have climbed it easily enough even on a bad day, and with the wordchain making him beautifully sure of his grips and his balance, he almost felt like he was flowing up it. It definitely made up for the period of suffering the chain had caused him in Intro to Other Worlds. He pulled himself onto the metal grating that formed the platform at the top, unpreserved his paracord bracer, and started unraveling it as he stepped over to his assigned bag. The sausage shape made it harder to rescue, in his opinion, than an actual human would have been. I need to learn how to tie a good harness, he thought as he hastily wrapped cord around the bag in X shapes that he imagined would be slightly more forgiving than a simple belt if his passenger had actually possessed nerve endings. But this is probably faster. Alden was pretty good with string. And he was wordchain-blessed at the moment. His bag wrapping knowledge might not be up to snuff, but it didn¡¯t actually have to be. He¡¯d soon made a tight, secure-looking net of rope around the bag, and if his knot tying was shoddy, it would be irrelevant as long as he kept his skill active. He lifted and preserved his cord in the same motion, and the sandbag came with it. It weighed two hundred and sixty pounds. His arm said it weighed almost nothing. Instead, the authority bound within his skill strained under the weight as the bag rested on top of his shielded cord. He gave himself a few extra seconds to feel it. Acknowledging the weight is important. While watching the fireworks last night and telling the girls and Lute about his suitcase cannonball, he¡¯d suddenly had the thought that this weight-lifting trick he¡¯d found could be more remarkable than he¡¯d realized. He thought it might be something a normal Avowed with the skill at this level shouldn¡¯t be able to manage as easily as he himself did. The Bearer of All Burdens was older magic that had ¡°roots in sacrifice and symbolism.¡± As he understood it, it derived part of its power from the fact that Alden was at least peripherally aware of himself laboring while he used it. Any Avowed¡¯s authority was laboring while they used their talents, of course. But they couldn¡¯t feel it. Like it or not, Bearer was a little different. Because an Avowed couldn¡¯t detect their own struggle, it made them struggle more than they should¡¯ve had to. So that it could power itself. Or maybe even so that it could truly be itself¡ªa very wizardy sounding idea Alden had come up with, though he wasn¡¯t enough of a wizard to fully understand what he even meant by it. So¡­an Avowed who received Bearer got the carriage restriction to start. From an ancient alien perspective, that was a helpful flashing signpost instead of a mysterious inconvenience. Move your feet. For this skill, you need to be burdened. And it wouldn¡¯t let Alden feel like he was floating preserved objects around telekinetically, even though he technically was. You have to hold it. Because you have to be burdened. And even though he had managed to mentally gymnastics his way to hitting people with his preserved items, it was clearly an inferior way to use the skill. What he was using the skill for mattered. If he preserved an umbrella and swung it at a concrete block with all his might, he¡¯d hurt his arm. If he preserved his umbrella, and Helo¨ªsa tried to crush it with a concrete block, his power broke the concrete. The Bearer of All Burdens protected things, transported them, and bore their weight. He was sure he¡¯d find more. And he also suspected he¡¯d collect more evidence that although Bearer was vast, complex, and versatile¡­it wasn¡¯t a skill designed for cheaters. He stared at the sandbag. It weighed more than he did, and he could hold it here one-handed. He could toss it over his head by flicking his arm. This would feel like cheating for sure. If I wasn¡¯t aware I was carrying it with my authority, too. What he was wondering was if a normal Avowed could have used a preserved item as a heavy-stuff carrier without some kind of physical repercussion or weakening of the magic. It was more in line with the skill¡¯s theme than attacking was, for sure. The Let Me Take Your Luggage name the System had given the skill could even be considered a hint about this use. But would it have worked this well? Alden could now fling two hundred pounds around like it was a basketball. As a B-rank. Would he be able to if he couldn¡¯t feel what it cost? If I didn¡¯t have my authority sense, would I be consciously sacrificing enough to make the skill strong enough to do what I¡¯m about to? He tilted the sandbag on the back and forth by moving the rope attached to his wrist, checking that it wasn¡¯t going slide out of its quickly rigged carrier, then he set it back down on the platform near the edge and unpreserved his rope. There were a few different ways to do this rescue, but he was choosing the one that he thought would test his powers the best. He climbed swiftly down the scaffolding. He enjoyed the wordchain just as much on the way down as he had on the way up. ¡°Hey,¡± he said encouragingly to the Light Shaper as he sped past. ¡°You¡¯ve got this. The realism setting is ten percent today. I¡¯ve felt it before. Even if you fall, it¡¯s not going to hurt much at all.¡± He didn¡¯t have time to see how the words landed, but he hoped they helped the other boy out. ¡°Alden! You forgot the victim!¡± Astrid said brightly when he reached the bottom. She probably thought he¡¯d had trouble and had to bow out. She was trying to lighten the mood. The guy who snickered when she said it was being a dick, though. ¡°Nah,¡± said Alden, smiling. ¡°I¡¯m bringing him down right now.¡± Their instructor was staring up at the platform intently. This is totally going to work. There¡¯s no reason it shouldn¡¯t. Alden preserved the paracord, and as soon as it stiffened, he lifted it over his head. The snickerer looked startled. Astrid stared from Alden up the frozen paracord line to the bag held at the top. ¡°It looks like a giant balloon!¡± Everly Kim exclaimed, sweeping a strand of silver hair out of her eyes as she looked up. ¡°That¡¯s so neat!¡± It¡¯s harder on my skill than I thought it would be now that I¡¯m down here, Alden noted. He carried his preserved string and its high-altitude burden to the edge of the area that had been set aside for the rescue group¡¯s use. Working with an inflexible straight line of this length did present some problems, and he was sure Instructor Fragment wouldn¡¯t approve of him setting the victim in the middle of another pack of students who were practicing their powers. The rest of his rescue classmates had jogged after him. He started to lower his arm carefully. ¡°You¡¯ll need to go even slower, Alden,¡± Instructor Fragment said with a touch of amusement in her voice. ¡°And be careful of how you move your wrists. We want to place the victim gently on the floor, and with this method, it will be quite easy to drop him like the head of a hammer instead.¡± ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re rotating him now,¡± Kon said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. ¡°The poor man¡¯s getting further traumatized.¡± ¡°He¡¯s unconscious!¡± Alden protested. ¡°We already established that.¡± ¡°Maybe he woke back up when you turned him into the world¡¯s largest sausage on a stick.¡± Instructor Fragment chuckled. She seemed to have a good sense of humor, and it was making most of the group loosen up. Alden had to admit there was some resemblance to a giant cocktail wiener stuck on the end of an even more giant toothpick. But it was still awesome. He stared at the bag the whole time he lowered it, trying to be considerate about momentum and still meet his three minute deadline. It touched the floor. Gently-ish. ¡°I think that counts as a rescue,¡± Instructor Fragment announced. Astrid punched Alden in the shoulder. Everly clapped. Max gave him a thoughtful look¡­because he was Max, and staring thoughtfully at everything was what he did. The teacher waved another bag up onto the scaffold. ¡°Kon, this one¡¯s for you.¡± Alden grinned at Kon, who cracked his knuckles dramatically. ¡°Yup. Here I go. Off to use my awesome Adjuster powers to carry that heavy guy on my back and hope I do not fall.¡± ********** The last few minutes of rescue class was a free-for-all. Alden hadn¡¯t been expecting that, but Instructor Fragment said she couldn¡¯t send them off to their next teacher looking like she hadn¡¯t given them a workout. ¡°Many of you were trying to be careful and sensible the first time up,¡± she called from where she was riding a sandbag up to pry the Light Shaper off the scaffold. ¡°Now it¡¯s time for you to try more ideas out. Speed run through as many as you can in the next¡­six and a half minutes! Come on, young man. Let go now. We all have bad days.¡± As soon as Fragment hit the floor, she lifted her arms, and the bags started soaring up to land on the platform. She draped a couple of them across bars, too. ¡°Go!¡± she said. ¡°Find out what you can and can¡¯t do when you¡¯re really rushing!¡± They all raced toward the scaffolding. Alden was right behind Astrid and Kon. Both of them had thrown caution to the winds. They were forcing their way up more than climbing. Astrid was jumping from precarious perch to precarious perch, barely pausing to finish pulling herself up before she flung herself higher. Damn she¡¯s fast when she wants to be. He felt sure she would die more often than not climbing this way, but it was still something to see. Kon was being more moderate than her, but he was taking a lot of risks, too. Guess I should push it as well. Leaping and swinging as fast as he could from one angled metal bar to another instead of choosing his hand and footholds would be stupid under normal circumstances, but Fragment had said to find out what rushing was like. Alden crouched on a bar that was connected to the corner of their scaffold jungle gym at a forty-five degree angle, holding himself steady by gripping the vertical corner pole. He eyed the route ahead of him. If he jumped there, then there, then swung himself over¡­ He tried it. His body flew almost exactly the way he expected it to. His hands landed in almost the perfect spots. He¡¯d worn his parkour shoes today, and he felt light on his kick-offs and glued on his landings. ¡°Are you part monkey?¡± Kon called as Alden caught up with him and then passed him. ¡°Rocking a new wordchain,¡± Alden said between breaths. ¡°It makes me better at controlling my body.¡± ¡°Which one is that?¡± ¡°One Lute¡¯s teaching me.¡± Kon grunted. The scaffold shook beneath them. Alden heard someone yell. He didn¡¯t pause to see who it was. He pulled himself up onto the platform. Kon popped up right behind him. Astrid and a couple of others were already there working on their bags. ¡°I¡¯m going to rescue you this time, my man!¡± Astrid told hers cheerfully as she tied a rope around it with strangling force. Alden was working hastily with his cord again. He was going to strap it to himself and carry it down this time instead of going for the sausage-on-a-stick route. Everly reached the top of the platform and stared at one of the bags with a resigned look on her face. ¡°You can do it, Ev,¡± Kon said encouragingly. She looked like she weighed about a hundred pounds herself¡ªless than half of what the bag she was supposed to rescue did. As an A-rank Adjuster who was just starting out, her stats wouldn¡¯t be high. She could lift the bag, but she couldn¡¯t carry it easily. Much less climb with it. She¡¯d tried with a rope, harness, and pulley the first time, but now what was she going to do? She¡¯s got ice spells, thought Alden. Adjusters had extensive spell lists, so it wasn¡¯t like he knew everything on them. But he had at least skimmed over all the well-known ones for high ranks, and he couldn¡¯t think of any freezing spells off the top of his head that would help much with this task. He hoisted his own, physically weightless bag onto his back and started his climb down. When he¡¯d made it about half way, a length of rope fell down beside him. He looked up to see Everly aiming a spell at the top of it. So she is freezing it after all? He didn¡¯t see how that was going to help, but at least she had a plan. His feet hit the floor. ¡°That¡¯s a rescue, Alden!¡± called Instructor Fragment. ¡°Get back up there. Get one more.¡± On the opposite side of the scaffolding, he saw someone else¡¯s victim being lowered in a harness. It was a really obvious rescue method that didn¡¯t utilize powers at all. He hated to do the same thing, but it was hard to come up with fresh ideas in a hurry. He started climbing again. If I had a long enough tarp I could make a ramp? Like a sliding board. Though the victim might have a rough roll down it, which was less than ideal. Actually what would a tarp or sheet that big weigh? And could I get it into the right shape without it flying all over the place? Also it would be humongous. Size did matter with his skill. And now he was thinking that the distance he extended his protective magic from his body did, too. He¡¯d noticed it a couple of times before, and the first sandbag rescue confirmed it in his mind. He was fatiguing himself a lot faster when the paracord was extended a long way than when it was coiled around his arm in a tidy bundle. Even if he could preserve a really massive sheet ramp, he probably couldn¡¯t do it for long. And massive objects are more likely to take impacts. So much surface area for things to smash into. At some point I¡¯m going to have to start doing math¡­that sucks. He was interrupted from his thoughts and his climb by the appearance of Everly. Even though he knew he was short on time, he couldn¡¯t help but stare. What the hell? She was a couple of yards above him on his right. Her rope was stiff and completely covered in a thick, glossy sheet of ice. And she was walking down it. Sideways. Sort of walking anyway. It was more like her feet¡ªcompletely bare and flashing pale blue toenail polish¡ªwere adhered to it and gravity was giving the rest of her a really hard time. She was in a half-squat, and she had the sandbag deathgripped to her side, opposite the floor far below them. It was being held more by her body than her arm. But her body isn¡¯t being held by anything, is it? Except her feet. Alden recognized the spell she was using now. Glaze Object. It completely coated objects in a layer of ice, which was why Everly had decided to use a rope rather than the scaffolding itself. The scaffold was probably too large for the spell to encase, and if it couldn¡¯t encase the thing she¡¯d targeted, it wouldn¡¯t work. Her skill must have been that one that gave you traction control on ice. He couldn¡¯t think of the name right now, and he hadn¡¯t ever imagined it being used this way. Everly, purple faced and breathing hard, carefully slid one foot down the iced rope, a little closer to the floor. She shifted her weight, bent her knee, and slid the other. Isn¡¯t that brutal on your ankles and knees? And your abs? And everything? The gym suits didn¡¯t prevent muscle fatigue or soreness. Alden knew from experience. ¡°All right, everyone! Stop focusing on your classmate¡¯s magic, and start focusing on your own!¡± Fragment¡¯s call made Alden realize he¡¯d forgotten about his rescue mission to stare. At least I¡¯m not the only one, he thought as he hastily resumed his ascent. He spotted at least three other people who had paused to watch the girl¡¯s progress. Just as his hands grasped the edge of the platform, a pair of sneakers stepped beside them. Max was staring down at the floor below. Alden had noticed him laying rope down in a rectangle beside the scaffolding earlier. He assumed the other boy was outlining a zone. ¡°What are you going to do?¡± Alden asked, as he pulled himself up. Still staring down instead of at him, Max said, ¡°I was going to throw the victim down, but that won¡¯t really tell me anything. I know it will slow the fall, but it might still be lethal.¡± Then he wrinkled his nose, sighed, and jumped. A few people yelled. They had whenever someone had fallen from up high. It was an unnatural thing to see. Alden¡¯s own stomach clenched. Max slowed before he hit the floor. The pool zone, Alden thought. Max was using it like a diving tank. It looks like he still hit pretty hard. ¡°Two minutes left!¡± shouted Instructor Fragment. Another sandbag landed beside him. A new rescue method in two minutes? He was curious about what would happen if he tried to preserve the bag and jump with it, but he felt like if he could get that right, it was going to take more than a single attempt. I mean I guess I can just try and lower it. ¡°Oh god,¡± Kon groaned, flinging himself up onto the platform and then looking down at his girlfriend. ¡°She didn¡¯t have the upper body strength to get the bag down, so she went with magically gluing herself to an ice pole so that she couldn¡¯t fall. My whole body hurts just watching her. Or maybe my whole body really hurts.¡± ¡°You saved two bags with zero spells. You can be proud.¡± Alden started wrapping up victim number three. ¡°Preserve me and time skip me to the end of class.¡± ¡°You¡¯re always asking me to carry you.¡± ¡°Instructor Plim made it sound fun. Also, whoa. Your skill is way more useful than you made it look previously.¡± ¡°Thanks. It¡¯s only because I figured out the weight thing¡­oh! I could try something like a zip line? Crap, I should have brought up more supplies.¡± ¡°We¡¯re doing this again on Wednesday. I heard her telling our Glow Boy that he¡¯d have a chance to re-try. It seems like heights are his nemesis.¡± Kon was harnessing another bag. ¡°I¡¯m glad to have another chance, but I don¡¯t know how much more creative I can be. I climbed with it on my back down the bars. I slid with it on my back down a rope, which I don¡¯t recommend; I think I wouldn¡¯t have hands anymore if I really tried that without magical protective gear. Now I¡¯m lowering it on a rope.¡± ¡°Rope lowering does seem like the easiest solution.¡± ¡°I guess for Wednesday I can learn how to properly abseil?¡± ¡°If we¡¯re in the same group again, we can try teamwork.¡± ¡°Teamwork?¡± ¡°She didn¡¯t say we couldn¡¯t help each other after the first round,¡± Alden pointed out. ¡°You can ride my zip line holding a victim.¡± Kon sighed. ¡°That¡¯s you working and me being at a carnival.¡± ¡°You¡¯re assuming I actually know how to make a good zip line. I don¡¯t think I can get the length I¡¯d need to give anyone a gentle landing.¡± ONE HUNDRED: Gym Class, II They barely had time to say thanks and bye to Instructor Fragment. As soon as their feet hit the ground, students from the next group were jogging up, and their group was supposed to be jogging off to their own second session. Everly was staggering ahead of Alden and Kon. She was clutching her shoes in her hand, and her hair buns had mostly unraveled. <> she said in Korean when she spotted Konstantin. <> ¡°You were magnificent! Like an ice spider!¡± She frowned. ¡°A spider?¡± ¡°A beautiful spider,¡± he said. ¡°But why was your bag a girl?¡± ¡°I was imagining it was my mom. So that I wouldn¡¯t drop it.¡± When Alden had heard they would have class time dedicated to practicing maneuvering and positioning, he had imagined a lot of talking would happen, and then maybe a quick exercise. But he was starting to suspect that the philosophy of their gym instructors was going to be a learn-while-doing one. Instead of giving a long lecture, Instructor Marion was periodically talking in their ears through System comms and telling them what to think about and what mistakes they¡¯d just made. Half the gym had been given over to this class, and obstructions had been created out of the magic shields that could be used to segment the gym into dueling blocks. They¡¯d been made opaque, and they stood in tall columns and walls, creating a maze filled with tons of blind spots. Alden stood with Astrid, trying not to gasp for air. He was afraid that breathing too hard would give away their position. Both of them were wearing green vests over their gym suits, and they had their backs pressed to a column. The other green vests were their teammates for this exercise¡ªthe hunted. The red vests were their enemies¡ªthe hunters. The hunted gained a point for every twenty seconds they went without being spotted. The hunters stole one of those point every time they spotted someone. ¡°It¡¯s simple,¡± Instructor Marion had said in that pleasant voice of his. ¡°It¡¯s so simple that most of you will have little use for your magic. A spell effect will usually give away your position. You cannot scale the obstacles. There is no combat. Apologies, Alden, but this time there¡¯s no ground element. We¡¯ll play with that later. Here most of you have nothing but your wits¡­and of course your stats. You¡¯re supposed to be using your talents heavily in the other sections. Think of this game as a fun breather!¡± Fun breather my ass. It had been twenty minutes of flat-out sprints to reposition himself behind a safe obstruction, where he would stand for just a few seconds before Max would¡ª [Alden and Astrid, go down the corridor to your right at the signal.] A high-pitched yelp came from the Light Shaper¡¯s direction a moment later. Presumably he was both signaling and providing a distraction to pull away the hunter who¡¯d been running toward Alden and Astrid. They left the column behind and fled down the corridor. Everly, wearing a red vest, was standing right there as they emerged. She pointed at them excitedly, then spun around to press her face to the column behind her, like the person who was ¡°it¡± in a game of hide-and-seek. Hunters who¡¯d just gotten a point had to close their eyes and count down to let the hunted get away again. ¡°Shit,¡± Astrid whispered as two points disappeared from their team¡¯s score. They were barely keeping it above zero thanks to Konstantin¡¯s efforts on behalf of the other team. His legs were definitely not tired enough from climbing up and down the scaffolding. When they first got started, he¡¯d been excited and he¡¯d said he was going to try to use his object reading skill to detect where people had recently been standing on the gym floor. But either that had been too slow, his skill was too low level to do a wide enough area, or the magic floor wasn¡¯t particularly readable. Because he¡¯d shifted tactics and was instead pelting through the gym like an S-rank lunatic, whipping his neck back and forth rapidly to catch glimpses of green. Alden wasn¡¯t sure he was even blinking. [Everly saw us,] Alden reported to Max. [She¡¯s at the end of the corridor you sent us down.] [Sorry,] Max texted back. [Nobody has sighted her in a while, so I didn¡¯t know what area she was in.] He was doing really well at remembering the layout of all the visibility obstructors and, usually, the positioning of most members on both teams. Kon¡¯s squirrel-like habit of spontaneously changing directions had made Max curse in three different languages at one point, though. [Astrid and I are splitting up. I¡¯m heading¡ª] Before he could finish texting, Astrid darted off back the way they¡¯d come. [I¡¯m heading toward the bathrooms,] he finished. [East,] said Max. [Bathrooms is simpler, dude.] Astrid suddenly texted, [Scar folder! Master red! I do run!] The others were using finger texting, but the shapeshifter had claimed she wouldn¡¯t be outdone by Max and Alden and would be sticking with mental. Thus, some interpretation was required. Alden stared at the words. [I think she means she just spotted the red team¡¯s Meister in the direction of the scaffolding.] The Meister must not have spotted her, though, since they hadn¡¯t lost another point. Alden crept along a wall, then sprinted through an intersection where he could potentially be spotted from too many directions. He stopped beside another obstacle. A moment later, he heard rapid footsteps approaching. [Is that you behind the obelisk, Alden?] Max asked. [It¡¯s me.] The other B-rank stepped around to join him. He was breathing hard, too. Max held up both hands with his fingers spread to indicate a ten second rest, then he went back to directing their teammates and collecting enemy locations through the chat. [Raccoons!] Astrid said, just as they were about to sprint again. Raccoons? Max mouthed. [Do you mean bathrooms? Is Kon toward the bathrooms from where you are?] [Type oh. Sad face. I do run!] ¡°I think she was just thinking about raccoons and she accidentally typed that,¡± Alden whispered. Max sighed and dashed away. ****** They had a three-minute water and bathroom break at the end of Instructor Marion¡¯s session. Alden felt like someone had sucked the oxygen from the room and the energy from his muscles. The bodily awareness wordchain was still in effect. It would fade at the beginning of his last session¡ªself defense. For now, though, he was feeling every spot on his body that had gotten a workout today. And it¡¯s all of them. All of the move-Alden-around spots are tired. At this rate, only his face was going to have strength left in it. He¡¯d have to try talking people into not hitting him for self-defense. His skill was great for defense of course, but by his rough estimation, Level 3 Bearer of All Burdens should be approaching depletion by now. The long, extended cord preservation had been unexpectedly taxing. He was guesstimating that he could have done most of what he¡¯d done in the rescue session in some fashion, and probably he¡¯d make it through the majority of offense. But that should be about it. If he followed his own plan and handicapped himself right now, the high cost of double-running Bearer would exhaust his authority in the expected timeframe. It¡¯s not like it¡¯s a real waste to do it. Learning to take care of myself when my skill¡¯s gone, or when I¡¯m using it to preserve something tiny or precious that¡¯s useless as a shield is good. And learning to double run it is important, too. He collapsed onto a bleacher. Everyone was taking their break now. He saw Haoyu jogging across the gym toward him, looking fresh as a daisy. ¡°I want your stamina stats,¡± Alden said as soon as he drew close. ¡°Give them to me.¡± ¡°They only make it take longer for my body to get tired right now. My brain is still fuzzy from not getting any sleep last night. And I already blew out my boxing gloves skill.¡± He sat down beside Alden and beamed when Everly passed him one of the iced towels she¡¯d made. Alden was watching Maricel. Instructor Fragment had pulled her aside and was talking animatedly while manipulating the potting soil Maricel had chosen to use for class today. It looks kind of like they¡¯re talking about how she can make floating stairs? Maricel looked focused and intrigued. ¡°Everyone¡¯s so cool, aren¡¯t they?¡± Haoyu said. ¡°I saw your thing! With the sandbag rescue. Like a balloon! Big Snake stared at it, too. For about three seconds. Then he went back to hitting everyone.¡± ¡°Did you see Everly¡¯s ice rope?¡± Alden asked. ¡°No!¡± Haoyu whipped around to look at her. ¡°What did you do with an ice rope?¡± Kon leaped at the opportunity to praise her. During the break, they all got a surprise. It was one most of the class felt was negative, judging by the sounds of distress Alden heard echoing around him. ¡°Gym class has written homework?¡± the boy Alden had seen running around the party wearing a caution tape belt asked. ¡°Of course there¡¯s homework,¡± Vandy replied. She was using her powers to fan herself, and the tail of her braid was blowing around. ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t there be?¡± ¡°This is a lot of homework, though.¡± Helo¨ªsa was upside down, practicing handstands. ¡°It¡¯s a ton. Are you looking at it, Windy Woman?¡± Reinhard asked. He was casting some kind of spell over his practice arrows. ¡°But there¡¯s supposed to be a lot of homework,¡± Vandy said. ¡°She¡¯s right,¡± Haoyu agreed, looking around at everyone. ¡°All of the gym courses will have homework. It would be a waste of the facility for the instructors to focus too much on lecturing and theory while we¡¯re in here. This is the practical half of the course, where we¡¯re supposed to be pushing our powers and our physical abilities as much as we can. So the other half of the course happens outside the gym.¡± He and Vandy both had parents who¡¯d attended either the high school or university hero programs, so they would know. Alden was studying the assignments. For the rescue section, they were supposed to listen to a recorded lecture and review the drone footage of their own rescues. Then they had to come to class on Wednesday with new things to try. For maneuvering, there was a self-evaluation of today¡¯s performance due on Wednesday, and there was a book that had to be read by the end of next week. For self-defense and offense, they¡¯d be given individual assignments based on their strengths and weaknesses. It was a lot, but what Haoyu had said made sense. The gym wasn¡¯t really a place where it was reasonable for them all to sit around pondering and talking, so that had to be done separately. And this was a three-day-a-week class. Six hours a week of pure practical work, he thought. This looks like about the same amount of homework to go with it, assuming defense and offense aren¡¯t ridiculous. Torsten Klein¡¯s voice suddenly rang across the gym. ¡°Two minutes! Finish up whatever you¡¯re doing, and head to your next instructor!¡± You¡¯re my next instructor. Alden was nervous about it for multiple reasons. ¡°Hey, Haoyu? You did offense already with the all-Brute group. Any advice on weapon selection?¡± He grinned. ¡°Massive fireballs.¡± ¡°A nuclear detonation!¡± cried Helo¨ªsa, righting herself. ¡°That¡¯s what it¡¯ll take to knock out Instructor Klein. Trust me. Your umbrella is not fast enough.¡± ¡°Nothing I can do is fast enough to catch up to a professional AgiBrute. I was just wondering about strategy in general.¡± There was a thud behind him as Mehdi leaped down from a higher bleacher. ¡°A professional AgiBrute? Do you think a B-rank Rabbit could even beat me?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t bothered to consider it,¡± Alden said absently, still staring across the gym at Klein. ¡°I just have to pick a weapon for the rest of term by Friday, and I don¡¯t want to waste today trying out something completely wrong.¡± ¡°Oh, they¡¯re making you choose just one thing?¡± Haoyu looked disappointed. ¡°That¡¯s not as much fun.¡± ¡°Pick the umbrella! We¡¯re doing duels starting week after next. I want to fight the umbrella again.¡± ¡°Stop going on about that stupid umbrella, Helo¨ªsa,¡± Mehdi snapped. ¡°If I were you, I¡¯d be embarrassed I couldn¡¯t crumple a B-rank¡¯s comedy shield like paper.¡± He stalked away. ¡°Ops. I pissed him off somehow,¡± Helo¨ªsa said. Then she shrugged. ¡°He¡¯s probably still mad that I would definitely have beaten him at the drinking contest if Astrid had made enough Bonding Potion for us to fight to the death.¡± She adjusted her ponytail then trotted after him. Haoyu leaned toward Alden. [I¡¯m pretty sure it was you who made him mad.] [What did I do?] [He was trying to say, ¡®Rawrr, I¡¯m better than you!¡¯ And you said, ¡®I don¡¯t even know who you are.¡¯] Alden laughed. ¡°I did not!¡± Haoyu nodded. ¡°You did.¡± Alden looked at Mehdi¡¯s retreating back. ¡°He still shouldn¡¯t have insulted my umbrella. It wasn¡¯t for comedy. I thought about it. It was lightweight, not so oversized that I would trip over it, extendable, I could rapidly make two different easily useable shapes out of it, and it had a wrist strap. So that I wouldn¡¯t drop it.¡± ¡°You could shield a real shield, couldn¡¯t you? If you wanted?¡± ¡°Sure. But it would be so much harder to move around with. And if my skill gives out, then there¡¯s no point in me hauling a big hunk of metal or wood around the gym. It¡¯ll offer protection against a few things, but the more likely outcome is that it slows me down, someone snatches it, thanks me for the gift, and then beats me to death with it.¡± He stood up. ¡°If I lose my shield, it¡¯s not the worst thing for it to turn back into something useless for everyone else around me. Would you come over to my duffel with me? I want to change my paracord weapon.¡± And pick up my handicap. It was going to be a small breath mint. He¡¯d bought a pack of them to try to un-torture his garlicky, oversensitive tongue. It hadn¡¯t worked, but if he preserved one and ate it¡­ Well, there was no way of dropping that kind of preserved object. He¡¯d lay it beside the cord when he asked Haoyu to entrust it. ¡°Range,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°What?¡± ¡°I was answering your question more seriously. You need some way to attack from range. Instructor Klein is only running away, not fighting back. So don¡¯t worry about protecting yourself at all and go for range.¡± ¡°Thanks for the tip.¡± ¡°Are you really going to make a zip line?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I heard someone say you were going to make one next time. Can I ride it?¡± ¡°Sure¡­if you can get the faculty to let you and if gym death doesn¡¯t upset you.¡± ****** ¡°Superheroes have to go on the attack frequently,¡± Instructor Klein said. ¡°Instructor Waker will be teaching you what it¡¯s like to face someone who is willing to engage you in combat. I will be teaching you what it¡¯s like to deal with someone who isn¡¯t.¡± Everly raised her hand with a nervous look. ¡°Are you going to ask why we would fight someone who wasn¡¯t fighting back?¡± She blushed and nodded. He smiled at her. ¡°A question that shows good character. However, I¡¯m not talking about attacking someone who has yielded. I¡¯m talking about dealing with dangerous people who have harmed others, who will likely do so again, and who have no desire to stick around and fight back when another powerful Avowed arrives to bring them to justice.¡± ¡°Runners,¡± said Astrid. Klein nodded. ¡°Runners, hiders, hostage takers. Sometimes allowing a criminal Avowed to flee is the correct choice. Perhaps your powers are a terrible match. Or you deem it likely that a pursuit will endanger more lives than the criminal themselves will if they¡¯re allowed to leave. But in most cases, it¡¯s better to swiftly and efficiently deal with the enemy while they are in front of you. Allowing an escape is just making future victims and future problems for yourself or another hero to handle.¡± He speared them with his eyes. ¡°Remember, an active duty superhero is almost always the most powerful solution that will be thrown at a problem Avowed. Above you, there is only well-orchestrated military action, a hyperbole, or one of our battlegroups. And a lot of innocent people have to die before the cogs turn and the authorities bring those options to bear for the sake of a single villain. ¡°The enemy is the question. You must strive to be the answer.¡± He likes giving speeches I think. Admittedly, it was a good speech. Alden was trying to stand still and attentive without looking like he was standing at actual military attention. He kept worrying that Klein was about to call him out¡ªas a time waster, a weak link, someone who did not really belong. If it happened he¡¯d already decided he was just going to grin and bear it, but ¡­he was still dreading it. ¡°Konstantin!¡± the instructor barked. ¡°Ah! What?¡± Kon said, looking around frantically. Everyone else had jumped at the sudden increase in volume, too. ¡°How do you attack?¡± Instructor Klein asked in a more normal tone. ¡°Um¡­I hope that in the future¡ª¡± ¡°Let the faculty worry about your future. In this space, it¡¯s your job to work with what you already possess, so that you can learn and grow quickly. We develop the talents you have fully, and because of that you¡¯ll naturally gain new ones. So if an enemy appears before you at this very moment, how do you attack?¡± Kon grimaced. ¡°With my fists.¡± ¡°Good. Instructor Wu, take Konstantin aside and show him how to throw a decent punch.¡± They all turned in surprise to see that Wu and Foxbolt were behind them. ¡°S?ren!¡± The Light Shaper flinched. ¡°How do you attack?¡± ¡°I¡­can make places hot. If I have long enough.¡± Instructor Klein coughed. ¡°You sound distressed about that.¡± ¡°I know it¡¯s not¡­¡± ¡°Your powers and Konstantin¡¯s are not presently useful for attacking. However, the benefit of that is that you can both practice them to their fullest and at your leisure without worrying about seriously harming yourselves or destroying anything. Many of your classmates would relish the opportunity. We expect you to take advantage of it. Extensively. You have other strengths as a superhuman. For now, go join Instructor Wu and learn to throw a punch.¡± Instructor Klein continued down the line, asking everyone how they attacked. It soon became apparent that the scary voice he used to shout their names was his version of a joke, since it was almost always followed up with advice delivered more affably. He only fumbled momentarily when Astrid asked if she could try to deal with a villain by ¡°looking like their mom to catch them off-guard then punching them.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯ll be playing the villain today. Can you shift into an approximation of my mother?¡± he asked finally. ¡°Does she look a lot like me?¡± ¡°Not remotely.¡± ¡°Aww. Then not yet.¡± He saved Alden for last. The others were all off having quick practice sessions by themselves or with Instructors Foxbolt and Wu. ¡°Alden¡­¡± I didn¡¯t get the angry joke voice. He felt a tiny bit disappointed. Klein seemed strict but also like he was a dedicated teacher. The ideal thing would have been if both of them could have pretended like the you-don¡¯t-belong-at-this-school speech hadn¡¯t been spoken or heard. ¡°What are you trying out for your attacks today?¡± ¡°Paracord with a five kilo bag on the end,¡± Alden said. He only had a few feet looped around his wrist. The bulk of the cord was around the bag so that he could try a different unraveling method. He also had a preserved mint in his stomach¡­ Funny how none of my heroic visions for myself as a kid ever included eating my own magic. ¡°Do you know how to use it?¡± the instructor asked, examining bag and cord. ¡°I don¡¯t. But I¡¯m here to figure that out.¡± After a pause, Instructor Klein said, ¡°Given the nature of your skill, rope is an important tool to master. It¡¯s something you will benefit from practicing with, so I have no objection to you choosing it as your weapon for the offensive portion of this course.¡± Then he turned to call the others back together. Could¡¯ve been worse, Alden decided. He glanced over at Kon, who¡¯d just come to stand beside him. The Adjuster was frowning at his own clenched fists. ¡°I think my thumbs are too long. I have long thumbs.¡± ¡°They look standard to me,¡± said Alden. ¡°Do they? I just spent several minutes thinking about how to make a perfect fist, and now I¡¯m sure there¡¯s something wrong with them.¡± ¡°Everyone!¡± Instructor Klein barked. He smiled when half of them jumped again. ¡°Your only job today is to hit me with something that can put me out of commission. A killshot, a capture, knocking me unconscious¡ªyou¡¯re going to have enough trouble as it is, so don¡¯t feel limited. The rules are: I can go anywhere in the gym I want, you can use your powers however you want, no teamwork, and no stopping. It¡¯s the second half of class. If you¡¯ve been pushing yourself as you should have, then a lot of you should be approaching fatigue with your main talents. When they give out, you don¡¯t get to quit for the day. Running is good for you.¡± ¡°No teamwork?¡± Surprisingly, it was Max who asked. The instructor looked at him. ¡°Not today. No planning with your classmates. No interfering with them for the sake of interfering with them either. Treat what everyone else is doing like mayhem happening in the midst of your own solo attempt to stop a dangerous criminal as quickly as possible. Use their actions or their magic if they can be a resource to you; avoid them if they¡¯re an obstacle. Your friends aren¡¯t civilians, villains, or fellow heroes for this exercise, they¡¯re just complicating features of the environment you¡¯re fighting in.¡± That¡¯s unexpected. It sounded like it was okay for them to make use of what everyone else was doing with zero regard for if it would ruin the other person¡¯s plans. So if I see Max building a speed zone, I can steal it for myself as long as I¡¯m doing it to help me kill the instructor and not just to be a dick to Max. Klein had also said they would be using the whole gym. And the whole gym was full of other students and faculty doing their own work Is this something special he¡¯s doing for our group for some reason? Alden hadn¡¯t had much attention to spare for other groups this afternoon, but he would have noticed if they were chasing after Instructor Klein through the rescue section or hide-and-seek maze. Isn¡¯t it going to be extremely chaotic? Two minutes later, he had the answer to his questions. It was chaotic. And Instructor Klein wasn¡¯t giving their group special treatment. He simply didn¡¯t need to utilize the whole gym to run circles around ten brand new hero students. Running circles around people was his specialty as an Agility Brute. He was fast and strong, and he¡¯d obviously played the class straight, choosing talents that made him a peak superhuman maneuverer. One second, he was running directly at Alden, but the moment Alden tried to throw up a length of frozen paracord to stop him, Klein slid sideways across the white floor at the same rate he¡¯d been running. It defied human anatomy and his own momentum, and Alden¡¯s rope whipped harmlessly past him. Konstantin tried a flying tackle that the instructor ducked under without even looking, and then almost too fast for Alden to make out, the teacher changed directions again and was running at completely different angle. ¡°It¡¯s the Instant Corners skill!¡± a Meister yelled in an oddly panicked voice. ¡°We know it¡¯s the Instant Corners skill!¡± Kon yelled back. That was the last time anyone had enough air in their lungs to yell anything. Alden chased, he swung his rope, he threw his sandbag. He tried to trip Klein. He tried to hit him. From above, below, behind. Shit, where is he now? I can¡¯t keep up. Gasping, he whirled around in a circle twice before he finally caught up to the instructor visually. Never mind physically. It was insane. It got even more insane when he started to realize that Instructor Klein wasn¡¯t trying his best. His feet stayed on the ground. He hadn¡¯t cast a spell yet. Agility Brutes were phenomenal gymnasts, so in addition to just running around them all like they were standing still, he could have been flying through the air over their heads or using any number of impressions. A blocked attack here, an invisible step there¡ªhe didn¡¯t bother with it. He seemed to have limited himself for their sakes and imposed additional personal rules on what he could do. They couldn¡¯t even threaten him enough to get him out of their corner of the gym. A couple of people were hunched over, trying to breathe. The Meister who¡¯d shouted about the skill was moving so sluggishly that Alden was pretty sure he wasn¡¯t really trying. Max¡¯s spell impressions had run out a few minutes ago after he¡¯d laid down a series of traps that had ended up catching classmates instead of the instructor, and he¡¯d been running doggedly after Klein ever since, despite the fact that he was always, always miles from catching him. As for Kon, he was fast. He wasn¡¯t as fit as his older brother, and it was only S-rank Adjuster fast. But he was still quicker and more agile than Alden was without ground. He was trying like hell, too, but it wasn¡¯t enough. His face was tomato red, and sweat literally flew off him as he nearly sideswiped Alden during the course of his pursuit. Alden was trying to think, to come up with some rope shape or technique that would miraculously be enough to stop a middle aged man who¡¯d spent the past thirty or forty years training his superpowers. There¡¯s nothing. There¡¯s literally nothing. He jogged past Everly Kim, who was squatting on the floor with her head down. She¡¯d been that way for a while. Alden wouldn¡¯t be surprised if she had awful muscle cramps or something after her feat during the rescue session. Maybe if I swing the weight on the end of my rope around to build up momentum, freeze it, and then surprise him with¡­ Shit! Klein suddenly pulled his direction changing trick again, and now they were face to face too quickly. Alden brought the preserved paracord between them like a spear with a bulbous weighted nose instead of a point, and he crouched, trying to anticipate the instructor¡¯s next move. He wished he¡¯d unfurled just two more feet. It was about eight feet long at the moment, which made it more manageable. But twelve would have given him just a little more reach. That was always the thing. Klein was never the right distance away from him. No matter what length line he choose, no matter how sure he was that the teacher hadn¡¯t spotted him stealthily unfurling more or drawing it back, the man always seemed to know exactly what Alden¡¯s range was. Just like he always knew where Max had laid down a trap or where the Meister¡ª Wham! A body smashed into Alden¡¯s from the right, and both of them flew sideways. ¡°Fuck!¡± He landed on his left shoulder. His head hit the floor hard and fast¡ªor it felt like it did. In reality, the gym suit stiffened around him, cushioned him, and magically shielded him from what would definitely have been a concussion. A fraction of a second later, the bottom of a pair of sneakers landed on him. One on his chest, one on his face, and his assailant springboarded off of him¡­toward nothing. Astrid soared through the air, roaring, then splatted onto the floor and rolled. Alden sat up and stared at her through the helpful scrolling list of ¡°damage¡± he¡¯d just taken from the surprise attack. Was she trying something? What in the world? The low pain setting meant he could focus more on his confusion than his injuries. Klein sprinted away with Max and Kon hustling after him, both of them wearing startled expressions. So at least Alden wasn¡¯t the only one who didn¡¯t understand why he¡¯d just been brutally tackled. Astrid was getting onto her hands and knees. She looked annoyed. So¡­bellyflopping on the floor hadn¡¯t been her intention? Alden pushed himself up, too. His paracord and sandbag had come along for the ride with him since he had them tied to him, though he¡¯d lost preservation when he¡¯d fallen. He lifted and re-preserved in the same motion, but before he could attempt to catch and attack the instructor again, he lost his footing. A slick coat of ice was spreading across the gym floor from behind him. It lifted his shoes from the ground in an instant and toppled him again. He rolled over to see Everly¡ªbarefoot and running across the patch of ice she¡¯d made toward Instructor Klein. She¡¯d managed to catch their entire group in the spell. Max was down. Kon was windmilling comically like he was on skates for the first time in his life. Astrid was still on all fours. And the instructor had stopped. For the first time. He wasn¡¯t falling, but he was standing still. Get him, thought Alden, lifting his rope and preserving yet again as he tried to clamber to his feet. He wasn¡¯t sure if he was rooting for himself or Everly. Just before she reached him, Instructor Klein smiled and nodded once, and then he slipped around her like an ice dancer, his mouth reciting a spell. A second later he grabbed something unseen in the air and heaved against it, sending himself sliding hard and fast on his feet across the frozen floor away from Everly. Backwards. Toward me! Finally. Sliding, Klein had less control. He was in a crouch, knees bent and elbows in, flying across the ice, keeping his eyes on the threat running toward him. Alden was behind him on one knee, halfway toward standing, but Klein was about to slide past him, just a few feet away, and the line was long enough if he stretched to¡­ He held it out. The slender orange cord with the sandbag on the end wasn¡¯t much, but it was what he had, and if all he could do was slow Klein down for a second so Everly could freeze his ass somehow¡ª That would be great. Alden snapped his wrist up and down rapidly, trying to make it harder for Klein to dodge over or under, since Alden was convinced he definitely had eyes in the back of his head. The Agility Brute¡¯s back hit the cord. Alden felt the impact on his authority as Klein bounced off. He didn¡¯t look over at Alden or uncurl. His body stayed in its crouched position. He slid fast toward Everly again across the thin layer of water that coated the ice. It made him look like a pool ball ricocheting off the edge of the table. Everly¡¯s eyes widened. She pointed at him and shouted the name of a spell. Her fingers started to move. She hadn¡¯t done it fast enough. Klein slid right past her, cast his own invisible floating block spell again, and then he flung himself hard in a new direction. Everly¡¯s patch of superslick ice was a circle with a radius of twentyish yards by Alden¡¯s estimate. Klein skidded to the edge of it, rolled and sprang to his feet. Then he stood there and watched all of his battered and exhausted students try to escape without falling on their asses. He looked like he was having a blast. ****** They were so tired they didn¡¯t even speak when the session ended. They all just stumbled off to let Big Snake take his turn beating them up. Alden¡¯s skill was toast. He¡¯d tried an extra-long line again in an attempt to poke Klein just one more time, and in combo with the breath mint handicap, the effort had done the skill in. His officially useable magical powers were now a candle lighter and screaming invisible balls that would cost him six hundred dollars a pop. Everly¡¯s floor-freezing spell had required a reagent, too. She was eyeing a bottle half full of some dark blue powder with a depressed look on her face. Alden patted her on the shoulder. She nodded. This was how they were all communicating now. Words required lungs. Lungs required air. Too much trouble. He didn¡¯t even have the energy to say, ¡°Why, Astrid? Why did you randomly attack me and then throw yourself at nothing?¡± But she had given him the shoulder pat of companionship when they finally escaped from the ice. So he figured it was all good. She¡¯d only tackled him and then used his nose as a launchpad. Everyone had their idiosyncrasies. ¡°You all look like you¡¯re raring to go!¡± Big Snake said in a jovial voice when they appeared. He clapped his hands together hard enough that it would probably have hurt their ears if not for the suits. ¡°We¡¯re gonna start with a few laps to get you warmed up!¡± S?ren whimpered. ¡°Hahaha!¡±said the instructor. ¡°Just kiddin¡¯. Just kiddin¡¯. Looks like Torsten put you through the wringer. Wednesday, you¡¯ll all start with me, and then it¡¯s my turn to wear you out! So! The way this session works is the reverse of Instructor Klein¡¯s. You all run, and I attack.¡± That should go well. ¡°Well, that¡¯s the gist of it. This is where y¡¯all find out what your powers can do for self-defense. I¡¯ll be teaching you general principles of self-defense, but that¡¯s mostly in your homework. Today, since you look about dead, we have the magic management talk and you get a short breather before I start to attack you.¡± He stepped over to Alden and grinned. In Big Snake mode, Instructor Waker was so tall and wide it made Alden feel like a child standing in front of an adult. And the superhero vibes were strong, even though the instructor was in the same gray unitard as everyone else. Alden felt a tiny thrill through his tiredness. Big¡¯nLittleSnake was about as famous as an Avowed could be without being a hyperbole, and on top of that, he had been considered extremely kid friendly prior to the tank-punching incident. An insanely strong morpher known for a larger-than-life personality, entertaining charity work, and nonlethal captures was hard not to like. Somewhere in the back of a cabinet in Connie¡¯s kitchen, there was a cup with pictures of Big Snake on it that would turn into Little Snake when you added cold drinks. ¡°You¡¯ve got a magic shield,¡± the instructor said to Alden. ¡°That¡¯s about as classic as a self-defense skill can be. But what do you have without the magic shield?¡± ¡°Not much,¡± Alden said. ¡°That¡¯s right! You can use your wits and your muscle, but even then, you¡¯ve got a lot more options for using those things when the magic shield is up and running. So what¡¯s the most important thing for you, as an Avowed, in a fight or a disaster?¡± Alden didn¡¯t know why this felt like a trick question. ¡°Not losing my shielding skill?¡± ¡°Right! Only it might be better to say the most important thing is getting the job done without dyin¡¯. You¡¯ve all got to know how to treat your power like a finite resource. You¡¯ll get stronger here at school, but you¡¯ll never get so strong you can win every fight by just flinging your power around however you like.¡± He looked up at the ceiling. ¡°Even if you get strong enough to beat every last problem we¡¯ve got here on Earth¡­there¡¯s bigger problems.¡± Oh, thought Alden. Good. He was relieved a faculty member had finally addressed it. They were in superhero school, but it was starting to feel weird that the older Avowed hardly ever referenced off-planet work. I know I¡¯m overly concerned with what¡¯s going on out there. And I¡¯m in a different situation from most people because I¡¯m probably going to be unusually useful in that capacity one day. But I was starting to feel like I was crazy¡­ ¡°What if a criminal runs from you?¡± Instructor Klein had asked earlier. What if a demon runs toward me? Alden had thought. Smiling, Instructor Marion had said, ¡°You need to learn maneuvering and positioning so you can¡ª¡° Escape from demons. ¡°In later courses, you¡¯ll have the opportunity to learn about structural integrity,¡± Instructor Fragment had told them. ¡°Because¡ª¡± Because chaos eats and mutates fucking everything. It was like everyone else was talking about the weather while Alden had a disturbed man wearing a sandwich board in his head that said, ¡°Beware of moon-sized demons devouring Earth and the End of Days!¡± Like Haoyu¡¯s mom, Big Snake got summoned a lot. And considering his skillset, it probably wasn¡¯t for waiting tables at college parties. Maybe it made sense for him to be the one to bring it up. ¡°You ought to be trying to exhaust your levelable talents often,¡± Big Snake was saying. ¡°And your spell impressions¡­oh, uh¡­the one¡¯s that won¡¯t bankrupt you.¡± The last was said in response to Everly going white as a sheet and clutching her bottle of blue powder like the instructor might steal it from her. ¡°Whether you have gym or not, find ways to burn ¡®em out. Learn ¡®em. Know how much you can do with them before you hit fatigue. This quarter we¡¯re still getting to know your talents and you¡¯re still getting to know them yourselves. In gym courses after this one, you¡¯ll be expected to manage your skill usage better so that you¡¯re finished about the same time the class is. Understanding how far you can push your magic before you lose it is a lifesaver.¡± He looked around at them all. ¡°Now let me show you why you don¡¯t want to come to my session without your powers.¡± He bent down toward a large cardboard box at his feet and pulled out a tennis ball. It looked small in his hand. ¡°I¡¯ve been workin¡¯ on my pitching accuracy this month!¡± He started stretching out his right shoulder. ¡°We¡¯re going to die,¡± Kon whispered. Nobody disagreed with him. ONE HUNDRED ONE: Anesidora Time, 07:15 PM 101 In F-city, there was a neighborhood where apartment blocks and towers gave way to rolling lawns, miniature patches of forest, and sporting fields. The mansions¡ªdecadent odes to magical architecture¡ªnestled around the curves of artificial hills or in groves of trees, strategically planted to give the owners the illusion of space and nature in a city-state where those two things were precious commodities. The boy found the address he¡¯d been looking for in a thatch of bottlebrush-shaped trees that backed up to the largest racetrack on the island. He walked along the edge of a paved driveway that was crammed with parked luxury cars and motorcycles. One of his hands clenched the handle of a heavy metal cooler; the other worked nervously on the edge of his jacket. He flinched as a drone sailed over his head. And again as one of the rocks lining the drive¡ªapparently an artificial one¡ªsuddenly played birdsong through a hidden speaker as he passed. Private property warnings flashed on his interface, and he checked the address in his messages again. This was it. This was the spot. He drew in a breath and knocked on a tall, smooth bronze door with no apparent handle. It opened, and a woman with cat-eye contact lenses blinked at him. She was wearing a leopard print bra and jeans. He didn¡¯t know where to put his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m here to see Orpheus,¡± he said. She leaned forward and looked at his cooler. <> She almost stumbled over her own high heeled boots as she stepped aside to let him in. <> There were people moving through the house behind her. Walking up a floating staircase, pressing each other against a railing, laughing at nothing in the floor beside a four-foot tall antique vase. <> She hugged him as he passed, and he blushed. He didn¡¯t take his shirt off. It took the boy a long while to find who he¡¯d come to see. The man wasn¡¯t on the verandah but outside floating on an inflatable chair in a pool that had been heated hot enough to steam. He was completely naked, which was less of a shock after the amount of nudity the boy had encountered on his search through the house. The drone he had seen earlier hovered over the man, drizzling his forehead with something that looked like honey. ¡°Orpheus,¡± said one of the women in the pool. ¡°Orpheus, I think the presents you promised are here.¡± She took a swig from a bottle that didn¡¯t look like it had originated on Earth. The float Orpheus was on rotated slowly. He drifted over to the side. He blinked up with blown pupils at the boy with the cooler. The pool lights in the water below him suddenly cut on and glowed an eerie green. The sun hadn¡¯t set yet. It was probably on a timer. Just a coincidence. ¡°You bring the drugs?¡± Orpheus asked. Were they just going to talk about it casually like this? Out in the open? ¡°I brought you¡­some snacks.¡± ¡°Haha! All right! Jacob, wasn¡¯t it? How did someone your age get your hands on the good stuff? Hand them over! Your half of the deal is in the cabana over there. Good luck hauling it out of here. It¡¯s heavy.¡± Jacob leaned over and held out the cooler. Orpheus took it in both hands. A brown-haired girl, remarkable mostly for the fact that she was fully clothed in slacks and a polka-dotted blouse, was sitting on the edge of a teak lounge chair. She glanced over at Orpheus and raised an eyebrow. ¡°Aren¡¯t you even going to check to make sure your snacks are there so you can destroy your organs properly this time? For all you know, he brought you takeout.¡± Orpheus ignored her. He set the cooler in the water. ¡°Hey it floats!¡± Eager to take his earnings and leave, Jacob hurried over to the cabana. There was a padded duffel bag on the pavement beside some kind of alien hookah. He squatted and unzipped it. The thing inside looked like an aquarium full of yellow oil and clear water. A small silver ball floated in the precise center, in the place where the two substances met and refused to mix. There were less parts than he was expecting. No mechanicalness to it. Jacob preferred the open complexity of wires, pipes, and circuits to something so obviously not of this world. Because the complexity was still there. It had to be, for this thing to do what it was supposed to do. But it was all hidden. All magic. It made it feel not quite real. He pointed at the object to target it, and then said the name of one of his talents¡ª¡°Device Identification.¡± His interface responded. [Device: Submerger Device Status: Complete] That was less information than he was hoping for. But it was enough. The Submerger would help him, and then it would help the people who were helping him, and then¡ª ¡°You have to shout the name of your talents to use them?¡± asked a voice from behind him. Jacob looked over his shoulder to see the girl standing in the entrance of the cabana. One of the canvas curtains was almost brushing her hair. ¡°You might want to work on actually learning how to use your powers without the Contract holding your hand¡­instead of doing whatever it is you plan to do with that.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t see how my life is any of your business,¡± said Jacob. She shrugged. A mini drone appeared behind her head and made a cute, cartoonish snapping sound. He stood up. ¡°Did you just take my picture?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Why?!¡± ¡°Because my brother is giving you extremely rare magical equipment in exchange for a few illegal potions and snorts he could have gotten in other ways. Stolen equipment¡­it¡¯s not his, you know. He¡¯s a brat in his thirties, so you¡¯re getting something extraordinary practically for free. I dislike that.¡± ¡°Who are you to¡ª?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep this.¡± She shooed the drone away. ¡°Maybe one day you¡¯ll be something other than a drug dealer. And I¡¯ll ask you to pay off your debt.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t owe you anything. I made a deal with Orpheus Velra, not whoever you are! And I¡¯m not a drug dealer!¡± She arched a perfectly plucked brow. ¡°Did you not just deal drugs?¡± He stared at her. She smiled, waved, and left.
In F-city, there was a neighborhood where the skyscrapers seemed to grow taller by the year. Nautilus Needle crowned the district. Its silver spire glimmered like a Christmas tree topper, and the protective helix shields wrapping it were visible from every exterior angle. If you could afford Wrightmade shielding devices for an entire skyscraper, you wanted people to know it. At 7:15, the karaage restaurant at the base of the Needle was in the middle of its dinner rush. The doors barely had time to close before they opened once more to let customers in and out. A woman in a caramel-colored pantsuit stepped inside, and an employee hurried over at her wave. The girl smiled. <> ¡°Someone took the calligraphy menu out of the window,¡± said the woman. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Ma¡¯am?¡± the girl asked in an uncertain voice. The woman tucked a strand of graying brown hair behind her ear and sighed. ¡°It goes there. It¡¯s the perfect piece for that spot. Put it back.¡± <> ¡°Don¡¯t cater to outliers. This is a business.¡± <> ¡°Ah! Ms. Barre. Ms. Manon Barre! You¡¯ve come back after only a week this time! I¡¯m flattered!¡± The owner of the restaurant trotted over and took her hand in both of his. Shaking it, he said, ¡°The usual?¡± ¡°Yes. And have someone find the big menu. Your exterior is out of balance without it.¡± ¡°Mo, go find the menu!¡± he said to the girl. ¡°Make sure you put it back exactly where it was.¡± <> ¡°She¡¯s new,¡± he explained to Manon. ¡°She doesn¡¯t know what your advice does for us.¡± As the girl headed toward the back of the restaurant, he called, ¡°And keep venting the scent onto the sidewalk! That¡¯s what I hired a Sky Shaper for!¡± A few minutes later, the menu was back in place, and Manon was crossing the street, one hand gripping a paper bag already flecked with grease and the other wrapped around a cherry lemonade. She sipped it, her eyes fixed on the words floating in front of her eyes instead of the people, shops, and cars around her. [Of course there¡¯s nothing to worry about, dear. It¡¯s only a hiccup. I always pay my debts.] That. And only that. To make matters worse, Manon couldn¡¯t risk bothering the sender more than she already had. Even after all this time, she had so little power in this relationship. So little ability to make sure she wasn¡¯t cheated out of what she¡¯d been promised all those years ago. Some people were just too high above her for her to even bother trying. ¡°Fucking S-ranks,¡± she whispered. It had been months since she¡¯d sworn. That bitch of a university student¡­Bti-qwol. She had interfered in a system of carefully orchestrated relationships that had been running smoothly for years, just because she was eager to impress her instructors. Wizards grew more tedious the older Manon got. Everything grew more tedious the older Manon got. Like the personal rule about swearing. She¡¯d decided thirty years ago that it didn¡¯t fit her image. Image mattered. Everything mattered for a C. They were the most common rank. Most people were comforted by it. A C-rank was never alone. Never the weakest. Never the strongest. Anesidora¡¯s everyman. She couldn¡¯t understand how everyone around her could be so content with their own mediocrity. But they were. Most humans didn¡¯t really want glory, despite what they said. They wanted comfort, and they wanted to fit in. Not that she would complain about that. Fitting people into places that made them feel so comfortable they never wanted to leave was her specialty. On the way up to her apartment, she scanned her contact list. It was different than most. She used it for brainstorming. Hundreds of groups were listed, each of them combinations of personalities she thought could be managed in specific ways. These were her pride and joy. They were what made Manon Barre more than a C-rank interior decorator. They were the proof that she was not content with mediocrity. Every personality group was a custom, moldable piece that would make it easier to complete large puzzles. The boater alone was divided into dozens of possible arrangements. Naya and Chris¡ªthe youngest, most attractive member of the boater and the sweet, awkward man who couldn¡¯t help but notice those things. If she invited just the two of them over, said the right things, served the right amount of wine, reprioritized their thoughts just a little¡­they would almost definitely go to Chris¡¯s apartment after they left and have sex. Naya would be embarrassed and confide in Manon. Chris would be smitten and confide in Manon. Afterward, they would both become even more subject to influence. She wasn¡¯t a Sway. She couldn¡¯t create ideas for people. She could only arrange what already existed in their minds¡ªa little clumsily, a little blindly, using a skill that was best at making sure people positioned their sofas correctly. In-group passions were powerful and easy to understand, but Chris would be hard to patch up afterward. It was the only reason she hadn¡¯t molded that piece yet. Her thoughts hovered over the Karl/Chris/Laura group. She could always put them together and take them somewhere that would allow Karl to play at his version of manly posturing. Maybe the golf course next time. He liked the game. Laura¡¯s knee was fully healed, and her spirits were finally up again. She had a damsel fantasy that got worse when Chris was around. Careful placement and suggestions would have her pretending to be hopeless, in an effort to make Chris notice her. Manon would prevent Chris from doing that. Instead, Karl would get to be an expert on the use of a putter or a driver or¡­were there more types? Some kind of ball hitter anyway. Manon didn¡¯t actually play golf, she played people. Karl probably does require the boost. If Laura had damsel fantasies, then he had dominance fantasies. It was a painful character trait for a low-rank living on Anesidora, but it made him useful. He could easily be persuaded to take risks the others would have to be ever so gently steered toward. He could also become easily enraged about things that less chronically frustrated people would ignore, which was more troublesome. The memory of the last time she¡¯d almost lost control of him made her glance at another trio. Naya/Alden/Karl. A piece she¡¯d imagined at LeafSong. It was more of a half-baked, last-ditch emergency scheme than a real plan. The boy was a terrible target for her powers. He¡¯d been doing private work for an unusually invested professor, and apart from that, teenagers changed all the time. Their bodies flooded them with hormones. Their immature brains gave them unpredictable notions. Every day they encountered ideas and experiences that were completely novel to them simply because they hadn¡¯t lived long enough to notice them before. She could shove them in one direction, but they might turn around and run in the opposite ten minutes later because they¡¯d suddenly discovered butterflies, French kissing, or communism. Most adults were more¡­finished. But the piece hadn¡¯t relied on Alden anyway. Naya would have spent time with him with little prompting. She wouldn¡¯t have been interested in a fifteen-year-old, but she would have jokingly flirted if given enough of a push. It could all be tailored so that, at a particularly bad moment, Karl would see a woman who never gave him the time of day batting her eyes at a higher ranking boy who was making more than twice his salary. It would be a knife plunged into his insecurities about himself. Manon couldn¡¯t really plan it out beyond that. But if the pieces around that moment were all correctly placed, she thought it would have ended with Karl starting the fight away from the rest of the boater. He would be fired. The boy wouldn¡¯t be invited back to LeafSong either. The Artonans wouldn¡¯t have been perfectly sure who was at fault for the quarrel, and in the absence of perfect surety they¡¯d simply blacklist both of them from working there again. Pineda¡¯s job for next year would likely be re-secured. But much more importantly, Bti-qwol would have been blamed for mismanaging the Avowed on campus. Manon couldn¡¯t afford for her to have the position again. And she won¡¯t be there now. I¡¯m glad it worked out without me having to create such a sloppy three-person puzzle piece on the fly, she thought as she stepped out of the elevator into her apartment. And cutting Karl loose would have been a shame. She kicked off her high heels and walked across the cold marble in her hose. The apartment had been Hollywood Glam for a couple of years now. Manon¡ªwho could find styles to suit anyone¡ªcould never seem to find one that suited herself for longer than that. Most adults were finished. Most C-ranks were content. She was different. Even the part of her that chose textiles for her own enjoyment refused to be satisfied. She stepped over to the window to look down on the people below her. It was lonely, at times. But it was better to be lonely than to be average, wasn¡¯t it? She shoved a nugget of the fried chicken into her mouth and looked around. She had a team of Rabbit maids clean the place twice a week. It was so flawless she¡¯d probably need to scuff it up a little if she ever tried to sell it. People thought they wanted perfection, but true perfection made them feel their own flaws more. But Manon liked true perfection. The one object that didn¡¯t fit in with the rest of the place stood out like a sore thumb to her eyes. It always stood out, no matter how she changed the style of her home. That was the way it should be. An eyesore. A thorn she refused to stop pressing her thumb against, for fear she¡¯d forget it and enjoy the rose. She stepped over to the bookcase. The device was on the second shelf. She¡¯d found it in a shop long ago. It had been ugly then and it was now, too. Some Wright¡¯s project, no doubt. It was a fifteen year timer. The sand in the left side of the horizontal hourglass shape slid over to the right, one grain per minute. More than half a million grains per year. So many individual moments that added up to a pathetic handful of dirt. The left side of the glass was nearly empty. Manon stared at it. She ate the chicken. She shoved the pieces into her mouth faster as she watched another grain of sand disappear. She thought of LeafSong. She wished, pointlessly, that the Artonan year could be shorter. It was close to fifteen Earth months. [Of course there¡¯s nothing to worry about, dear. It¡¯s only a hiccup. I always pay my debts.] She thrust two pieces into her mouth at once, barely chewing the meat before she swallowed. Her oily fingers dove into the bag again and scrabbled against the crumbs at the bottom. Blinking, she looked down into it. It was empty. Twenty pieces gone just like that. She told herself she¡¯d been planning to save some for later. But she wondered if that was true. She¡¯d eaten all twenty last time, too. She felt stuffed. The heartburn would hit soon. Manon had never had heartburn until she hit fifty. She¡¯d never had a gray hair. She refused to fix either problem. More thorns to remind herself of what really mattered.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Every few days one of Kivb-ee¡¯s new instructors took her by ship to the other side of Moon Thegund, to Chayklo, the only populated city of significant size. There, they forced her to interact with other children for her wellbeing. Officially, the trips were for her to have fun. But she had much more fun in the travel dome, examining Rrorro¡¯s feather structures and sticking her head into the back of Kraaa¡¯s mouth to see where the amazing serrated lash of his tongue was stored when it was not fully extended. These were, her honored instructors and Knight Alis-art¡¯h agreed, educational pursuits. However, for some reason, they did not consider them to be sufficient to her socialization. The Quaternary said that her intellectual abilities and her background meant she needed to spend more time with other young Artonans rather than less. Playdates were arranged with local families and schools. The events weren¡¯t terrible, but the first couple had gone strangely. Hopcatch had always been a good game when she played it with her sister. It had been a good game when she played it with Alden, too, though of course his size meant he¡¯d had to bounce with just one foot and catch with just one hand to make it fun and fair for both of them. When she played it with the children in Chayklo, she always won. After she realized that they were letting her win at a game she wasn¡¯t particularly good at, she couldn¡¯t even trust her victories in the games where she probably was superior. Of course she could answer trivia questions faster than a class full of her peers, but¡­what if there was someone who could compete with her and they were staying silent because it was now clear that she would one day bear the responsibilities and receive the dignities of the wizard class? Before, there had been doubt. Distinguished Master Ro-den¡ªwho would remain distinguished in her mind no matter what terrible misunderstanding had led to the removal of his higher title¡ªhad not truly yielded to her ambitions yet. He¡¯d been warming up to the idea. She would have convinced him and earned real approval soon, but then he¡¯d been sent away¡­ Now Alden, a brave and honorable Avowed, had told Knight Alis-art¡¯h that he believed Kivb-ee had the makings of a true wizard. Even if Knight Alis-art¡¯h didn¡¯t know that Alden himself had embarked on the path of higher onus, she respected his opinion. As was natural. Kivb-ee was still somewhat perplexed about the fact that the Avowed couldn¡¯t sense their authority. Avowed were important people. They performed magic. Distinguished Master Ro-den had always treated them like friends on the occasions when he summoned one to the lab. She¡¯d been confident she understood, so she¡¯d never checked her assumptions. How embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as her excitement at winning that first game of hopcatch, before she realized the others were yielding to her. ¡°I don¡¯t think they enjoy playing with me,¡± she had informed Instructor Dalat-orni after they walked away from the school that had been the location for their second social adventure. ¡°I think they are nervous around me.¡± The instructor had looked down at her and smiled. ¡°It does seem so, doesn¡¯t it? Don¡¯t give it both halves of your attention. They are only afraid because they rarely deal with wizards who are even deserving of the name here. Thegund has been¡­a small place. For quite some time. On the Mother, the children of your birthclass will not be nervous in your presence. They will often expect more of you, and because of that, it will not occur to most of them that letting you win a game would be anything but an insult. In fact, many of them will be deeply disappointed in you whenever you lose.¡± ¡°That sounds bad, too.¡± ¡°It¡¯s the way of things. Through our efforts may the way grow closer to perfection.¡± ¡°Through our efforts,¡± Kivb-ee repeated. ¡°Perhaps you wish to suggest an effort that would make your social hours more enjoyable for everyone,¡± the instructor prompted gently. Oh. Was this a lesson? The right answer was probably not that social hours would be better spent testing Kraaa¡¯s bite strength against various materials. ¡°I think we should plan noncompetitive activities,¡± she decided. ¡°A wise choice. Plan some and show them to me,¡± Instructor Dalat-orni said. ¡°Consider the comfort of your agemates and yourself.¡± Her next playdates had involved practicing formal table manners at a restaurant with the owners¡¯ children and participating in an art-garden program. Those worked out much better. Magic lessons were also going well. Kivb-ee hoped they were anyway. She was improving faster with teachers available to help and personal advice from Instructor Gwen-lor in every new video. But it wasn¡¯t proper for instructors to tell a student of her level how she compared to others. It was their job to worry over such matters in their own minds, and it was hers to devote herself fully. If she was in a proper class with a proper partner on the learning cushion beside her¡ªor even better, with Alden¡ªshe would have had some sense of relative progress. Comparing herself to the adult wizards who traveled with the Quaternary didn¡¯t offer the same opportunity for understanding her abilities. She assumed her control and sensitivity remained well below normal. However, Instructor Dalat-orni had begun to imply that they should work with her auriad soon. He had almost finished correcting the flaws in her beginner¡¯s plainhand casting. Kivb-ee hadn¡¯t been looking forward to this. She would have to reveal that she didn¡¯t have an auriad. And they would all be confused, since she¡¯d claimed to previously and they¡¯d seen it. Or they thought they had. Alden wished for his bond with an auriad to remain private. He had told her she could tell whoever she wanted whenever she wanted, but that was only because he was trying not to create difficulties for her. Kivb-ee refused to make difficulties for him. She could lie and say she¡¯d given hers to him, but that would be regarded very oddly. She had more lessons available to her now and understood that if she¡¯d given him her auriad and he¡¯d traveled so far away, the distance would have severed it from her violently. It would have destroyed the auriad and wounded her. Kivb-ee was not obviously wounded. How would she make that story seem reasonable? Another solution had to be found quickly. And auriads didn¡¯t sprout up from the ground like fungus. In fact¡­Kivb-ee had determined after some consideration and study that there were only two unbonded auriads on all of Moon Thegund. And five more in orbit. There was one here in the travel dome in a spell-locked case. It¡ªlike the five on the large ship¡ªwas for Alis-art¡¯h or the wizards traveling with her to use if their own auriads were severed. Or if, during the course of the long voyage, they progressed with their casting to such an extent that they wished to bond a second one. Kivb-ee couldn¡¯t take any of those. She would have, since six spares was an excessive number of auriads for the Quaternary¡¯s group to possess. It was a quantity they would only need if they encountered truly awful problems during their travels. But she couldn¡¯t open the boxes. And even if she could, she suspected the auriads would be inventoried at the end of the journey. Adults loved to inventory things. At the lab, entire days had been devoted to making sure everything was where it was supposed to be and what it was supposed to be. That left just one option. Only one on this entire side of the solar system. Her plan to obtain it had already been in motion for three Earth weeks. Kivb-ee liked to think in Earth weeks with one half of her consciousness so that she always knew what Alden was probably doing. Right now it was Mundee night on Anesidora. Since his last set of videos, he would have achieved his goal of entering an educational program that would help him on his journey to becoming the best Avowed. He and beautiful, fat Victor the kyat would be living in a school. And they would have access to instructors all the time. By the time she received his next video, she would be a robber in addition to being a laboratory bomber. She was sure he would not mind. While Alden and Victor were learning from the human instructors, Kivb-ee was at the local Museum of the Empire with hers. She was accompanied by a group of other children who had been invited along for her socialization. And by Kraaa, who had forced his way into the experience after she had maybe exaggerated the amazing terribleness of the antique weapons on display in the museum. Kraaa was an important part of the plan. People looked at him a lot whenever he was around, which meant that they looked at everything else less. Two eyes on the griveck Avowed at all times¡­very silly. Kivb-ee clenched her fingers as they approached the room where the unbonded auriad was stored. It was part of a collection of magical tools. She had seen it once before when her father had brought her and her sister here. It¡¯s still there, she thought as they entered the room. It¡¯s still out on the table like I remember. None of the wizarding supplies in this room were dangerous or fragile, so of course none of them were displayed with barriers between them and the public. To separate objects of learning from the very people who had come to learn about them would imply all kinds of terrible things about the museum and how it viewed its visitors. Kivb-ee felt guilty. She felt awfully guilty as her bare feet carried her closer and closer to the polished table with the white auriad on it. But after careful consideration, this was the only course of action that she thought wouldn¡¯t hurt anyone. The museum¡¯s collection would be less accurate, but that was not as serious as the worst possible outcome she could imagine. What if someone took Alden¡¯s auriad from him? Kivb-ee had now realized her own understanding of Avowed wasn¡¯t perfect. Alden seemed to sense some risk to himself. She would trust his judgment. He was supposed to have an auriad. He did have one. And it was a lovely shade of purple-blue that was also now her favorite color it absolutely was forevermore. It was his. He had bled for her. She had smelled it. She had seen it when they cut off his clothes. What if Rrorro hadn¡¯t been there? Alden was going to be the best Avowed. And they would both be wizards. Through our efforts may the way of things grow closer to perfection. ¡°Oh Kraaa!¡± she called when she was only an arm¡¯s length away from the loop of soft white string on the table. ¡°You should show everyone that trick you can do with your tongue!¡± Heads and eyes turned. She took it on faith that all of the heads and eyes turned. She acted. Once, she had failed to take a small risk out of fear. Once, she had hesitated to act. It had cost her almost everything. And it had almost cost Alden everything, too, though he would never admit that it was true. Kivb, her father had said on that last, most awful day. This human is an Avowed. Distinguished Master Ro-den has sent him to help us. Be brave for your sister. Kivb-ee wouldn¡¯t be someone who hesitated anymore. A couple of hours later, when they left the Museum of the Empire, she had an auriad in her pocket. It was real. She¡¯d been a little afraid that it wouldn¡¯t be. What if she¡¯d been wrong, and they were much too valuable to be left out on tables even in an important educational location? What if instead of a real auriad, it had been a fake, like the one she¡¯d left in its place? It was a perfect-looking fake. She¡¯d tried to make it herself, but she¡¯d quickly realized she wasn¡¯t talented enough to get the sheen right. She¡¯d asked Instructor Dalat-orni to make it for her, claiming she wanted to give it to one of her dolls. Fortunately, the instructor didn¡¯t keep track of her dolls, so he didn¡¯t realize that she didn¡¯t have an Artonan one. They took the personal transport ship back to the travel dome. It was a long trip to the other side of the planet, but they would arrive in time for third meal¡ªa quirk that the Quaternary enjoyed every night. ¡°Instructor,¡± said Kivb-ee, her fingers still stroking the string in her pocket the way she¡¯d seen Alden do so many times after he¡¯d bonded with his own. Perhaps the more she mimicked him, the braver she would be. ¡°I would like to take a mourning name.¡± There was a pause. ¡°I see,¡± Dalat-orni said. ¡°That is a very serious decision. Have you thought it through as carefully as you can?¡± ¡°I will not live a life that would bring shame to it,¡± she said. ¡°I wasn¡¯t sure before, but I am now.¡± * ONE HUNDRED TWO: What kind of wordchain? 102 ¡°Were you expecting the competition for the showers to be the highest drama part of gym class?¡± Alden asked Haoyu as the two of them headed down a broad avenue toward North of North gym. It was a ten minute walk from the MPE building, right on the edge of campus, and apparently, they had both had the same idea when they discovered they were going to have to wait for their turns anyway. Haoyu was gulping from a water bottle. ¡°I¡¯m glad my group was getting along well. I think the one with the speedsters in it had some kind of issue. They seemed tense.¡± Finlay had looked pretty mad. It was the first time Alden had seen the Scottish boy in anything but a cheerful mood. ¡°I didn¡¯t have the attention span to watch them and run from Snake¡¯s tennis ball pitches. It somehow adds insult to injury that he makes you chase the balls down after they hit you.¡± When they reached the airy glass building that Alden thought of as the main gym, the same girl in lime green yoga pants who¡¯d been protecting the entrance from riffraff and gawkers on his first visit greeted them both warmly. She was giving out cups of some of the liquefied salads that the spa upstairs bottled and sold as drinks. They both took one. As they headed toward the showers, Haoyu sipped the black pepper beet juice he¡¯d chosen and wrinkled his nose. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯m old enough to drink this.¡± Alden raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°I¡¯m trying!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Being friends with Lexi¡¯s hard. He got really serious about nutrition in the past year or two. I saw him cut a single piece of chocolate in half once. And there I was stuffing six in my mouth at a time. I want to eat healthy, but I like candy so much. And anything fried.¡± ¡°Is that why you bought the slow cooker?¡± Haoyu nodded. ¡°That, and because my mom kept telling me I shouldn¡¯t buy it because I wouldn¡¯t ever use it. I¡¯m going to use it every day. And send her pictures. Starting tonight. The bouncing oatmeal was just a temporary setback. It didn¡¯t even taste that bad.¡± He looked curiously at a man casting spells on a section of the climbing wall as they passed it. ¡°I¡¯m so glad you¡¯ve got a membership here, too. I really wanted one, and my parents wanted me to have it. But I almost told them not to buy it for me because it¡¯s so¡­um¡­¡± ¡°Richy?¡± ¡°Yes. Mom and Dad both come here, but they have to. They need the facilities in the heavy gym. I could probably have used the school equipment until I was halfway through uni. But everything here is so much nicer, and I used to play on the rock wall in the onsite daycare and just imagine how great it was going to be when I was finally fifteen and I could use the real one. They can set it to have high winds, floods, and earthquakes! I went for it. And you¡¯re here, too! We¡¯ll both look richy together, and it won¡¯t be as awkward when we leave school to use the better stuff.¡± ¡°Happy to spoil myself with you.¡± They walked past an attendant into the room with the big rainfall showers and the ridiculously fluffy scented towels. Haoyu beamed at him. ¡°Soooo, since you¡¯re here with me, and you¡¯re not going to freak out about it¡­I¡¯ll confess that I actually already have potion therapy sauna slots booked for a few days a week until the end of term. I was always planning to come here instead of using the student showers.¡± Alden blinked at him. The potions saunas had been a part of his facilities tour. For a hundred argold¡ªor more depending on which sauna you chose¡ªyou could sweat and inhale magical substances that did rather out-there sounding things. ¡°Are you having your spirit waxed or¡­?¡± ¡°No!¡± Haoyu laughed. ¡°Is that even real? I¡¯m using the recovery sauna. Potions aren¡¯t as good as healers, obviously, but if I sit in there for ninety minutes or so, I don¡¯t really need to rest on my rest days, and I don¡¯t get too sore. I¡¯m just going to do my homework in there instead of sitting through study halls. My mom did sauna homework her whole last year of uni. It was her idea, and since I wasn¡¯t saying no to the gym membership I wasn¡¯t going to say no to something like this.¡± He¡¯s basically turning the two hour study hall into recovery time. Alden wondered if Mrs. Zhang-Demir had been attempting to balance out Haoyu¡¯s lifestyle when she tried to set a dorm decorating budget. ¡°That¡¯s very efficient,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m telling you so you can book a slot tonight, if you want to do homework together. And so you¡¯re not like, ¡®Where did Haoyu go? Is he trying to get away from me?¡¯ when I jump straight out of the shower and run off to the sauna instead of heading back to the dorms with you.¡± ¡°Gotcha.¡± ¡°Do you want to come?¡± ¡°¡­isn¡¯t it a lot of famous people sitting around in towels together, talking about superhero stuff?¡± That sounded like a high pressure environment to do homework in unless your parents were famous superheroes and you were used to them. ¡°I¡¯ve only used it a few times so far. It¡¯s not that many people, and they¡¯re all zoned out watching videos or working on their interfaces. They don¡¯t talk and interrupt my studying, so it¡¯s good.¡± ¡°Let me think about it.¡± ****** Alden had a couple of minutes to debate it while they both rinsed off. Pro: doing homework with Haoyu was in line with his mission to be a great roommate. Con: shirtlessness. Pro: trying the new magic thing with someone his own age for backup instead of facing down a bunch of forty-year-olds who could create waterspouts and pitch railcars by himself. Con: money. Pro: feeling good tomorrow instead of feeling ouch tomorrow. The cons aren¡¯t really cons. He didn¡¯t want to be shy about the tattoo forever with the people he actually lived with. And as for the money¡­ Alden had given half of it to Boe so that his family and friends would be taken care of no matter where he was. He¡¯d be spending half of what he had left on supplies, gear, and calling fees to make himself the most absurdly well-equipped and well-connected Rabbit on the Triplanets the next time he was summoned. A little would be set aside in his backup backup emergency fund. But all the rest of it¡­ He¡¯d just about talked himself into spending a million dollars however he wanted. As fast as he felt like. When the mood struck him. Neha had told him to save it for a downpayment on his future immortality, and everything on the internet was about preparing for retirement. Meanwhile, the tiny remnants of the person he¡¯d been in January kept shouting that this much money should last him until he was a wrinkly old man. He thought all of them were overconfident in his ability to make it to the wrinkly stage of life. Besides, even if he did live to a ripe old age, two or three short summonings a year would make for a decent salary by his standards. He¡¯d be absolutely floored if he only got summoned twice a year. Mind made up, he flicked through his interface and booked a recovery sauna slot. Then he quickly checked the North of North website to make sure he actually understood what you were supposed to do in potion saunas. Just sit there. No clothes or shoes. Towels. Shower first. No noisy, bright, or smelly spells. No food. Respect the tranquility of the environment. Gee they don¡¯t tell you where to hide your auriad. That¡¯s an oversight. He could go with under the wrist cuff or on a thigh. The auriad was getting more and more helpful every day about staying put comfortably wherever he wanted it to. A couple of minutes later, towel around his waist, he was stepping into the sauna. It was hot and spacious with soft lighting and steam. Five women, three men, and Haoyu each had plenty of room to themselves on the two tiers of pale wood benches. Alden assumed it was all normal enough¡­for Apex anyway. The adults mostly had that fit-and-flawless look about them that was so common in this gym he hardly ever noticed it anymore. And there was a little bitty cauldron on a pedestal in the middle of the floor. The clear substance inside was blub-blubbing, and he thought it was the source of the watermelonish scent. Haoyu smiled brightly and waved him over. ¡°I¡¯m going to watch all the drone footage of my rescues first,¡± he said quietly. ¡°And then we have that reading assignment on ¡®outsmarting enemies¡¯ for offense.¡± Alden sat down beside him. By the time he¡¯d started to sweat, he¡¯d gotten over the inherent oddness of doing homework in such an uncommon environment¡ªmostly because Haoyu was a dedicated student. Alden couldn¡¯t stay hung up on towel etiquette while they were having a serious texting conversation about whether saving two of the sandbags at once would increase rescue speed enough to justify the difficulty, risk, and/or talent strain. The time went by quickly. A gym employee brought water for them and a refill potion for the tiny cauldron just as he finished up the reading for Instructor Klein. It had already been an hour. His homework was half done. He felt tired, but a little less so than when he¡¯d sat down. Either his body liked saunas or it liked inhaling magic steam. Most of the people who¡¯d been here to start with were gone. There was just one woman wearing cucumbers over her eyes while she lounged on the top bench¡­which was technically having food in the sauna, wasn¡¯t it? He glanced over at Haoyu. His dark hair was stuck to his forehead, and his mouth was moving slightly. He was one of those people who did that even when they were reading silently. Alden kept at his own homework. Cucumber lady left about fifteen minutes later. Alden was busy watching a video, so he wouldn¡¯t have noticed. But as soon as she closed the door behind her, Haoyu said, ¡°Why can she wear food, but we can¡¯t eat food?¡± ¡°I was thinking the same thing.¡± Haoyu looked over at him. ¡°Thanks for studying with me. I didn¡¯t beg too much, did I? I know it¡¯s expensive. I just got excited to have a gym buddy. The only other people I know of who are even close to our age here are a couple of uni first years.¡± ¡°This is fun. I probably wouldn¡¯t ever have tried it if you hadn¡¯t asked, so I¡¯m glad you did,¡± Alden said. ¡°I was more worried about wearing my towel backwards than the money.¡± Haoyu looked thoughtful. ¡°I don¡¯t think you can wear a towel backward.¡± ¡°What if I got here and everyone else had turned theirs into a toga? Or they were supposed to be for our heads instead of our waists?¡± Haoyu snorted. ¡°It could happen. You Anesidorans have weird customs. Spas have weird customs. Magic has weird customs. All three combined in one location? If I¡¯d walked in and found out we all had to remove our towels and bow to the cauldron, I wouldn¡¯t have been very surprised.¡± ¡°You were supposed to do that.¡± Alden stared at him. The other boy¡¯s expression was sincere. ¡°It¡¯s all right that you didn¡¯t do it. Since it was your first time, nobody expected you to know¡ª¡± ¡°Lexi¡¯s right about you! You do deliver jokes in the exact same tone as serious material.¡± Haoyu grinned. ¡°What if you do that to someone¡­you can¡¯t do that! Someone like Jeffy will totally get naked and worship a wizard soup pot!¡± ¡°Jokes are funnier when they¡¯re subtle.¡± He lifted an arm up and over his head to start a shoulder stretch. ¡°I¡¯m glad you wanted to try it. I was a lot more focused knowing someone else was doing the same assignments.¡± Haoyu¡¯s not going to mention it. Alden was gratified but not really surprised. He¡¯s so good-natured. And his mom¡­ Alden decided he wasn¡¯t going to get a better chance to bring it up himself. ¡°Do you think our classmates will make a big deal about the tattoo when they see it?¡± Arm still bent behind his head, Haoyu cut his eyes toward him. ¡°It¡¯s real, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°You just have to ignore them,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°You¡¯re rooming with me and Lexi and Lute¡­ Plus everyone¡¯s already talking about how something crazy happened to you. And you¡¯re a Rabbit. The purity people have already slotted you in with the rest of us. They¡¯re stupid and they just repeat whatever their parents say, so who cares?¡± Alden felt like he was missing at least a couple of social factors that Haoyu was treating as obvious. ¡°The purity people?¡± ¡°You know, the ones who are like, ¡®Anyone who wants to work for the Artonans is an alien bumkisser. Anyone who gets summoned all the time cares more about money than human pride.¡¯ Those people. I think there are only one or two in our whole class who are seriously that way.¡± He dropped his arm and shrugged. ¡°I haven¡¯t noticed,¡± said Alden. ¡°Sometimes it¡¯s someone who¡¯s lost a family member to an emergency summons, and then, I understand. They¡¯re grieving and angry. But usually it¡¯s just the kids of Contract refusers, or people who¡¯ve never been called at all for some reason, and they want to act like not being a part of that aspect of Avowed life somehow makes them better than everyone else.¡± ¡°So they¡¯re assholes?¡± ¡°Mostly. Those people are going to be terrible no matter what, so I say don¡¯t worry about them. Everyone else¡­¡± Haoyu¡¯s brows suddenly lowered. ¡°Maybe I wouldn¡¯t flash it around the locker room, after all? Even if most of them don¡¯t really have a problem with private contracts, they¡¯re still going to say stupid things and gossip about it. It¡¯s the same reason I don¡¯t tell most people when my parents are doing something dangerous.¡± He nodded once, as if to settle the matter, then added, ¡°And obviously don¡¯t worry about me. Or any mature people. Mom and dad both have tattoos. From Triplanets work and from the demon suppression. Everyone who helps with that gets a secrecy one. And Lexi¡¯s little sister has eight now!¡± ¡°Half of them are turtles,¡± said Alden. Haoyu laughed. ¡°Lexi won¡¯t admit it, but he¡¯s super worried that his parents are wrong and they won¡¯t actually wash off. I think he¡¯s already planning to murder anyone who says anything about the fact that Irina is blue.¡± ****** They headed back to the dorm in the dark, and they met a rolling cafeteria delivery drone on the way that had half of Haoyu¡¯s supper in it. ¡°Listen,¡± Haoyu said, walking backward while he pleaded with the slowly trundling box, ¡°that¡¯s my vegetable rice. I¡¯m Haoyu Zhang-Demir, Garden Hall, Suite 208. That¡¯s me! My name¡¯s on your lid display. Give it to me, and I¡¯ll get to eat it sooner and you¡¯ll get to go back to the cafeteria sooner. It makes sense!¡± Beeeeep, the drone said angrily when Haoyu moved to block its way again. ¡°Not beep! Rice. My rice. I want it!¡± Alden was trying not to lose it. ¡°I don¡¯t think it understands you. It probably can¡¯t give it to you until it reaches the room.¡± ¡°It¡¯s such a slow, dumb one! Why does CNH have slow, dumb drones?¡± Alden coughed. ¡°You want me to pick it up?¡± ¡°They make a huge racket and report you to drone operations if you interfere with their delivery for more than a second or two, and then an operator scolds you,¡± said Haoyu, stepping out of the drone¡¯s path and rolling his eyes. ¡°No, I mean¡­tell me to pick it up.¡± Haoyu blinked. ¡°You mean with your skill?¡± ¡°I recover from fatigue quickly, so it will work for this. And the drone can¡¯t beep or report if it¡¯s preserved, right? We¡¯re just going to help it get to our room faster.¡± ¡°That¡¯s crazy. Drone operations is going to think it learned to teleport¡­let¡¯s do it! Pick it up!¡± Alden swooped down on the drone. A few minutes later, laughing like dumbasses, they set the rolling box down in front of the doors to Garden Hall then hid behind a planter watching it. ¡°It¡¯s so freaked out,¡± Haoyu whispered, watching the box sit there silently. ¡°How did I get here?¡± Alden whispered back. ¡°Where am I? I am full of rice and confusion.¡± ¡°You¡¯re so weird.¡± ¡°Shut up. You¡¯re hiding behind a pepper plant with me.¡± ¡°Peppers! Are these ones we can take? Oh, it¡¯s figured it out. I¡¯m getting a delivery notice.¡± He bounced over to the drone, and it¡¯s lid popped open. ¡°You two look happy,¡± Lute said when they stepped into the room shortly after that. He was lying on the chesterfield, reading one of Haoyu¡¯s Chinese comic books. ¡°Downright vibrant compared to Lexi. He staggered in, ate some of the food in the cooker, and he¡¯s been in the tub ever since. Does he bathe with his whip?¡± ¡°Maybe. He¡¯s a Meister. They do things like that,¡± said Haoyu, setting his container of rice on the counter and lifting the lid on the chicken-onion dish he¡¯d concocted. ¡°This doesn¡¯t look bad!¡± ¡°It¡¯s really good with ramen,¡± said Lute. ¡°It is?! I have to call my mom!¡± Alden told himself he was content with the liquid salad he¡¯d bought on the way out of the gym and the bean burgers he was microwaving. He carried his plate into the living room and took Lexi¡¯s favorite armchair. ¡°The self-mastery wordchain was fantastic,¡± he told Lute between bites of burger. Lute dropped the comic book on the ottoman and rolled over to look at him. ¡°It¡¯s cool, right?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯d want to use it every day, since this shirt now has a hole burned into the back of it that seemed like a completely reasonable thing to do at the time. But it was so good in the gym. It ran out about the time Big Snake started pelting me with deathballs.¡± ¡°Deathballs?¡± ¡°Tennis balls at deadly speeds!¡± Haoyu called. ¡°I know I was only my normal self again, and my normal self is pretty good at running around and ducking. But I felt so awkward all of the sudden. Like my limbs got stupider.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m always disappointed in my natural state of being when it fizzles out, too. Do you still want to learn it?¡± ¡°I need to pay the debt. Can we do that tonight?¡± Lute looked at the plate on Alden¡¯s lap. ¡°Sure. But not while you¡¯re eating. I bit my own finger doing that once.¡± Haoyu sat down with them a minute later, with a pile of food he¡¯d very obviously tried to make photogenic. ¡°We¡¯ve done it. Our first official day of school.¡± ¡°You cute little first years,¡± said Lute. ¡°You¡¯re a first year, too!¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Yeah, but I¡¯m a grizzled old veteran first year. I bet you two don¡¯t even know which of the toilets on campus have spells and gag flushes on them.¡± Haoyu and Alden exchanged looks. ¡°I feel like we need more details,¡± said Alden. ¡°Absolutely not. It¡¯s a right of passage to figure it out yourself.¡± He looked at Alden¡¯s plate again. ¡°You finished your burgers. How much fun can Haoyu and I have at your expense?¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°As a friend, I should tell you to go get in bed for the night before I drop the debt on you. But¡­as a friend¡­I think you should let us observe you a while instead.¡± ¡°Is he going to be funny?¡± ¡°He¡¯s going to be so funny.¡± Lute was grinning. Haoyu looked excited. ****** Alden Thorn was pretty sure he¡¯d done it. He¡¯d just become a great roommate. Would a not great roommate let two teenage boys who were laughing like hyenas watch him try to wash dishes when he was in this state? He didn¡¯t think so. The feet are more important, he told himself. Pay attention to your balance. He stood firm. The cup he¡¯d been washing fell out of his hand into the small sink and sent soapy water splashing onto the floor. For the third time. ¡°What the hell?¡± It came out sounding like ¡°Whadell?¡± His tongue now had a disturbing habit of skipping over sounds. He accessed their roommate group chat. [Alden: Lute, did you somehow give me a triple dose of this shit!?] Haoyu was on the floor mopping spills with a kitchen towel they only owned thanks to his mother and her assistant explaining that kitchen towels were a must-have item. Lute was lying on his back on the table, clutching his stomach. They were both howling. [Alden: I can¡¯t even talk! This can¡¯t be normal.] It wasn¡¯t exactly that he couldn¡¯t talk. With careful effort, he could talk, stand up safely, or move his hands the way he wanted to. But doing all three at once was suddenly rocket science. Lute had even insisted on checking the water temperature before he put his hands in the sink. Apparently with this half of the wordchain, you could be minimally aware of the fact that you were boiling yourself. ¡°I p-promise it¡¯s only one!¡± Lute gasped. ¡°After you finish the dishes, let¡¯s¡­let¡¯s try brushing your teeth!¡± [Alden: If there¡¯s a fire tonight, I¡¯ll die. I¡¯ll never make it down the stairs.] ¡°We¡¯d carry you!¡± Haoyu said from the floor as another stream of bubbles slopped over the edge toward him. Lexi, scowling, stepped into the kitchen right then. He was in pajama pants. He crossed his arms over his bare chest. ¡°Why are you three so loud, and what did you do to¡ª?¡± ¡°Hi,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± His arm overshot the drainboard by a mile, and a fork clattered across the tile counter. ¡°Don¡¯t fall!¡± Haoyu shouted. I¡¯m not falling, thought Alden. But Haoyu was on his feet suddenly and Alden was being caught and set upright, so he must have been falling. Lexi walked over to the sink, his eyes wide. ¡°Are you drunk?¡± he hissed in Alden¡¯s ear. ¡°Did you two get him drunk?!¡± ¡°Yeah that¡¯s it,¡± said Lute. ¡°Just look at all this booze we¡¯ve got lying around.¡± ¡°I¡¯mnah drunk! I¡¯m jethnah master now.¡± Probably ¡°I¡¯m just not the master of myself right now¡± was an overly ambitious sentence. ¡°He is drunk! He looks just like a drunk person on television! He sounds just like a drunk person.¡± ¡°He¡¯s not drunk,¡± said Haoyu, trying to square Alden¡¯s shoulders from behind like he was straightening an unruly shelf. ¡°Are niffing?¡± Alden asked as Lexi leaned toward him and inhaled. [Alden: He¡¯s sniffing me. Stop it, Lexi. I don¡¯t have beer breath. ] Lute started cackling again. ¡°It¡¯s a clumsiness wordchain,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°That¡¯s why he sounds fine on the room chat but not with his mouth. It seems pretty strong. Lute gave it to him.¡± ¡°Pretty strong?¡± Lexi asked, staring as another tricky fork made a bid for freedom. ¡°We aren¡¯t letting him wash knives.¡± Lexi frowned. ¡°Should you be letting him stand up?¡± [Alden: I¡¯m a good roommate. I¡¯m washing all the dishes by myself!] ¡°Haoyu¡¯s keeping you upright.¡± [Alden: He¡¯s a good roommate, too.] [Haoyu: Thank you! That¡¯s not a dish you¡¯re washing though. It¡¯s the pear you knocked in the sink earlier.] Alden looked down to see himself scrubbing the peel off a green pear with the dish brush. He set the fruit aside with as much dignity as he could. Lexi looked at them all, then he sighed and went to fetch the forks. After the dishes, they all three followed Alden around while he attempted to go through his nighttime routine. Equal amounts of teasing and mother-henning were involved. They wouldn¡¯t let him trip over the edges of the rugs¡ªmaybe he shouldn¡¯t have bought quite such thick ones¡ªand bust his face. But they absolutely all stood there snickering while he tried to get toothpaste out of the tube onto his brush. ¡°Don¡¯t waste it!¡± said Haoyu as Alden stared down at the tablespoonful of green paste oozing down the sides of the brush onto his hand. ¡°Put it all in your mouth.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a mistake, you guys!¡± Lute said. ¡°He wanted that much. You should have seen what he ate for lunch.¡± ¡°Anesidoran social dynamic,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Spit goes in the sink.¡± [Alden: Et tu, Lexi?] ¡°Why do we randomly say ¡®Anesidoran social dynamic¡¯ to Alden sometimes?¡± Lute asked as he finished brushing. Alden glanced at them all in the mirror. Lexi¡¯s expression was neutral. [Alden: Because I whined about Lexi keeping Anesidoran social dynamics to himself when he knew I was ignorant. I was being a dick.] About Lute. He felt even worse about that now. ¡°Compared to Lexi?¡± Lute asked. . [Alden: That time I was.] Lute gasped in mock horror. ¡°Cool! Anesidoran social dynamic¡ªremember you have to pee before bed. For real.¡± Lexi and Haoyu both looked startled. ¡°What kind of wordchain is this?¡± Lexi asked for the third time. ****** Alden wasn¡¯t sure about the lack of bodily awareness being great for sleeping. He might just have been tired after the day he¡¯d had. But he was drifting off easily, right on the brink of unconsciousness, when the notification came in: [Video call from Twenty-seven Hundred and Sixty-third General Evul-art¡¯h, Artona I. Connection fee waived.] Alden stared at it. Stuart was calling. Early. It shouldn¡¯t have been much of a surprise. Alden was up in the middle of the night a lot, and Stuart knew that. But I¡¯m in bed. And my tongue is broken. He reached up and slapped at the switch for the reading light over his bunk. When he finally got it on, he accepted the call with a thought. Evul-art¡¯h¡¯s black hair and pale pink eyes appeared. She was in her cushioned window seat again. ¡°The human is very <>today, Stu,¡± she reported. ¡°He¡¯s in bed.¡± Loosey-goosey? Alden was going to have to look into the word that was being translated that way. ¡°Did we wake him up?¡± Stuart inserted his face between his sister and the tablet. ¡°Did we wake you up? I¡¯m sorry. I called as soon as I got home. I wasn¡¯t thinking about the time as much as I should have been.¡± Evul-art¡¯h gave them both a curious look. ¡°It¡¯s all right,¡± Alden said slowly in the least loosey-goosey Artonan he could manage. Think only about the tongue. Only the tongue. ¡°I¡¯m on the bad half of a wordchain now. Do you mind if we send text messages instead? Or talk in the morning? My mouth¡ª¡± Stuart smiled. ¡°Go to sleep. I¡¯ll call back later.¡± ¡°He means I¡¯ll call back later,¡± his sister said dryly. ¡°Thank you. Both of you. We can talk all day tomorrow, Stuart. If you want. Night-night.¡±
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°The human just said night-night and hung up on you. And me,¡± said Evul-art¡¯h in an intrigued voice. ¡°Mostly me, since it¡¯s officially me calling.¡± ¡°He has a name.¡± Stu-art¡¯h perched on the edge of the lounger beside her. ¡°I know. It¡¯s your fault for naming your pet after him. Now I don¡¯t know what to call either of them!¡± ¡°Alden. And¡­Other Alden.¡± ¡°The Ryeh-b¡¯t and the other ryeh-b¡¯t. Not confusing in the slightest.¡± She shoved herself back into her cushions. After a moment, she said, ¡°Stu, are you all right these days?¡± He sighed. ¡°I would be much more all right if you would all stop wanting things for me that I don¡¯t want for myself.¡± She smiled. ¡°You¡¯re still angry with me. I don¡¯t know why you thought I wouldn¡¯t side with the others. It¡¯s only the small matters I allow myself to be careless about. You are not a small matter.¡± One of her hands rummaged under a golden yellow pillow and pulled out one of her lungsticks. She held the dark tube out to him, and he lit it with a flick of his fingers. ¡°You¡¯ve always been such a beautiful caster, Stu.¡± He stood. ¡°Thank you for calling Alden,¡± he said stiffly. ¡°I would appreciate it if you did me the favor again when he has finished resting.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll do all manner of favors for you, baby brother.¡± She drew on the stick and sent a cloud of blue smoke toward the ceiling. ¡°Consider doing just one for me in return.¡± ONE HUNDRED THREE: Artonan Conversations 103 Alden was constantly reminding himself to be careful of cultural differences and, more importantly, personality differences when he spoke to the son of the Primary. For example¡­if, when you were sleepy and focused on not biting your own tongue, you said, ¡°We can talk all day tomorrow,¡± Stu of House Art¡¯h did not hear, ¡°We can talk lots.¡± He heard, ¡°Call me at the crack of dawn and stay on the line with me until one of us needs sleep.¡± Alden was in his boxers, kneeling on his learning cushion and getting in some practice time with his auriad when the call came in. Startled, he threw the iridescent indigo loop over his head, leaped to his feet and ran to the closet. Thirty seconds later, he was dressed in the first things he¡¯d laid his hands on¡ªjeans and one of the moisture-wicking black turtlenecks LeafSong had sent him in the replacement human necessities package. I didn¡¯t intend to wear one of these unless I got really lazy about the laundry, he thought as he accepted the call. They were comfortable, but they were turtlenecks and the material was faintly shiny, like silk. He was on the fence about whether it was a tolerable amount of shiny or not. ¡°Good morning, Human Alden,¡± said Evul-art¡¯h. She was outside leaning against the mirrored wall of the house, waving at him with fingers covered in thick rings. It almost looked like she was wearing hand armor. ¡°My brother wants to¡ª¡± ¡°Thank you, Evul!¡± Stuart snatched the tablet. ¡°Hey, you actually managed to take it from her,¡± said Alden as the Artonan boy scurried down one of the outdoor paths. ¡°She let me. She¡¯s busy right now. Good morning! I¡¯m very happy you want to talk all day. I was afraid our opportunities for conversation would be limited by your schooling.¡± That¡¯s right. I did say¡­ Stuart would understand if Alden explained that he¡¯d been exaggerating. But he looked excited. It was rare for him to show excitement, so he might actually have been very excited. They¡¯d spoken for hours at a time on most of their previous phone calls. There was a lot of ground to cover when you lived on different planets, didn¡¯t know that much about each other, and only got one chance to talk every two-ish weeks. It isn¡¯t really that weird for him to think all day means all day. ¡°Yes. I can¡¯t actually talk to you when I¡¯m in class, but you can¡­um¡­ observe and comment. I can text you, too, if that works? Your sister¡¯s paying for it, so¡­¡± ¡°Technically she isn¡¯t,¡± said Stu-art¡¯h. ¡°Evul may use common System resources like this as much as she pleases.¡± It would be kind of hard to argue that she shouldn¡¯t be able to. ¡°All right.¡± ¡°You have a learning cushion!¡± Oh, we¡¯re zoomed out so he can see stuff around me. Thank goodness he¡¯d been practicing from memory and not with his spell books this morning. It was only because yanking them from System storage was too expensive to bother with for just a few minutes. He usually waited until he was settling down for at least an hour or so at a time. ¡°I do.¡± Alden looked down at the faux-leather cushion. ¡°There were some at the lab with Kibby. I liked them. You¡¯ll get to see some of them in one of my classes today, too. But I can¡¯t really find any as nice here on Earth. They all seem to be more cheaply made.¡± ¡°That¡¯s <>¡± said Stuart with a frown. ¡°Does your new school not have proper respect for the <> of your education?¡± Wow¡­ Alden had temporarily forgotten his plan to send Kibby videos of his classes so that she could rant about late teachers and people who ate chips during the sacred hours of knowledge acquisition. ¡°It¡¯s fine. Human school is less¡­it¡¯s not always less serious. If you¡¯d been watching my talent development class last night¡ªthe magic and physical education I wanted to attend this program for¡ªyou¡¯d have seen it can be very serious. But my daily classes aren¡¯t as formal as an Artonan school.¡± ¡°Worli Ro-den is unusually informal for an instructor,¡± Stuart said. ¡°Yeah, I can¡¯t imagine most teachers threaten their students that much.¡± ¡°It is barely forgivable in his case because he manages to present it as a consequence of eccentrically high passion for his field and exacting standards.¡± ¡°You¡¯re saying he gets away with being mean-mean because he¡¯s so gifted everyone else really does come across as inferior when he¡¯s around,¡± said Alden. ¡°That¡¯s not perfectly accurate, but it¡¯s close.¡± ¡°People are probably just afraid to complain after they¡¯ve sat through a class.¡± ¡°He¡¯s pushing the boundaries of student tolerance farther than he should lately,¡± said Stuart. ¡°His assignments are becoming more < > than educational. The dissections¡­¡± Alden gasped. ¡°Are you criticizing an instructor?¡± Stuart turned his nose up. ¡°I am merely saying that when a couple of my classmates lose their composure and seek vengeance, I may not be able to condemn them for it.¡± ****** Alden was sure roommate code dictated you not spring a sentence like, ¡°I have this very important Artonan friend, and he¡¯s watching us all through the System,¡± on innocent people before 6:15 AM. The guys deserved to wake up without being observed by the curious wizard in Alden¡¯s head. And Stuart was curious about everything. ¡°Who is that?¡± he asked, as Alden stepped out of his room with his messenger bag slung over his shoulder and encountered Lute coming from the opposite one. ¡°What is that animal on the wall? Oh, another boy! What¡¯s his name? How many people do you live with now?¡± Instead of responding to the question stream right away, he jogged through the kitchen and out into the corridor. When he was safely out of the room, he answered, ¡°I¡¯m living with three other boys. The one with the pale hair is Lute.¡± He took the stairs down to the first floor. ¡°The animal on the wall was a polar bear. Not a real one. The boy with the dark hair is Haoyu. Lute¡¯s a Chainer, we¡¯ll see him in a few hours. Haoyu is a Stamina Brute who¡¯s planning to pick up some spell and skill overlaps with the Strength subclass.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°I think it¡¯s mostly because that¡¯s what his mom and dad both do,¡± said Alden. ¡°But I haven¡¯t asked. We¡¯re just getting to know each other. They call it a Dura Brute build. He wants to have some more offensive abilities without losing the advantages of his class.¡± ¡°I see. What are those plants?¡± After a brief tour of the garden and a trip across campus, Alden ended up drinking coffee and eating vegan sausage rolls in the student area on the roof of the Forthright building. He was the only one up there. The early hour and the gloomy weather were probably keeping everyone else indoors. ¡°I just remembered something I wanted to ask you,¡± said Alden, when Stuart¡¯s questions finally stopped for a moment. ¡°There¡¯s a food they served us when we were working on campus at LeafSong. I think they sell it at one of the restaurants nearby, too. It¡¯s this short, thick tube. It¡¯s crunchy. It¡¯s cooked in hot oil maybe? And inside, it¡¯s full of some kind of vegetable. And the vegetable tastes like meat. To me. Earth meat. I really want to know what it is, so I can try to import it.¡± Stuart was in the woods right now, preparing a hunting game for his ryeh-b¡¯t. He had a small basket full of creatures he was calling ¡°bugs¡± for her to find. They did look like beetles, if beetles were rat-sized. ¡°Was it coated in a substance similar to <> blood?¡± Stuart asked. ¡°I was thinking of it as a delicious sauce, but now that you mention it¡­yes?¡± ¡°The tubes are k¡¯rethkan. The majority of the <> to Artona III were from a culture in which it is popular. The vegetable you like is native to III, and <> it¡¯s called ¡®meat petal.¡¯ So I¡¯m sure that¡¯s what you mean.¡± ¡°Meat petal,¡± said Alden reverently. Stuart gave him an odd look. ¡°Hey, you¡¯ve got giant bugs crawling up your arm! I¡¯m not the strange one. Meat petal is a great name for a plant.¡± ¡°They don¡¯t bite,¡± said Stuart, knocking the two escapee beetles back into the basket. ¡°Meat petal does, though. The jungles of three are known for their carnivorous plant life.¡± ¡°It bites?¡± ¡°The <> snap shut when something touches them.¡± Alien venus flytrap. Let¡¯s eat it. He was soon distracted from his plans to import alien plant life, though. Stuart had stopped walking. He set down his bugs, shook his arm slightly, and a soft loop of string slithered out from under the loose sleeve of the coat he was wearing and fell into his hand. His auriad. For a second, Alden wondered if it was a new one. Then he realized it wasn¡¯t quite unbonded white. It was just a very pale shade of purple. Like his father¡¯s hair was. Or like his sister Sina¡¯s had been. Alden felt an unexpected urge to compliment him on it. Then he realized he had no idea how to do that or if it was even appropriate, so he just watched in silence while Stuart cast a spell. Something was different about the way he used it. Alden couldn¡¯t quite put his finger on what it was, and the spell was over too quickly. A scoop of soil was taken from the ground as if by an invisible trowel. Stuart dropped a beetle into the hole and kicked the dirt and leaves back over it with a booted toe. ¡°They¡¯ll just sit there,¡± he explained. ¡°Alden <> on visually tracking her prey. She needs to practice using her sense of smell, too.¡± Human Alden was too busy watching the young wizard¡¯s hands as he cast again to answer. Stuart was elegant and precise. Alden had seen him make wevvi before, so that wasn¡¯t a surprise. And he wasn¡¯t faster with his hands than Alden was, but the string was moving through the patterns¡­ It moves more for him than for me. It was almost like Stuart had a couple of additional fingers to use. Alden touched a hand to the base of his neck. His own auriad had been getting more and more helpful. He could make it tighten or cling just by wanting it to. So maybe one day, they¡¯d be at that level, too. ¡°You¡¯re quiet suddenly,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Are you sad the bugs will be eaten? You don¡¯t have to observe if you don¡¯t want to.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that. I was just really enjoying watching you work. I hope Other Alden has fun with her hunt.¡± Stuart paused with a beetle held in his hand over the fifth hole, then he dropped it in and covered it up. He looked away from his task to examine Alden. Then he held up his right hand. The loops of string draping his fingers shone. ¡°This is my auriad,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s a casting tool. A more personal type of one. I¡¯ve had it since I was small. It aids me in shaping my authority for more complex spells. It gives me focal points. Let me think how to¡­¡± He trailed off. He¡¯s trying to think of how to explain it to me, Alden thought as he took in the look of concentration on Stuart¡¯s face. ¡°¡­it¡¯s like a helpful hand that works alongside my intentions to perform magic,¡± Stuart said finally. There was a note of annoyance in his voice at the inadequate description. ¡°It¡¯s part of me. A piece of my power. I don¡¯t know if that will sound reasonable to you. I can¡¯t quite imagine how to say it otherwise.¡± ¡°Thank you, Stuart,¡± Alden said. ¡°I understand what you mean.¡± ¡°Do you?¡± Alden wanted to say yes, I really do. He tried to think of how to do it without revealing personal experience. ¡°You look¡­there¡¯s an English saying, ¡®comfortable in your own skin.¡¯ You look like that when you use it.¡± He waited. Stuart blinked a few times, then he smiled. ¡°That¡¯s a pleasing thing to hear.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a bug on your shoulder,¡± said Alden, brushing the last crumbs of his sausage roll off his hands. ¡°Better start digging." ****** Stuart¡¯s presence was a major distraction during the science lecture. It wasn¡¯t his fault. He was minding his own business out in his forest with his ryeh-b¡¯t. But a video feed of a small red dinodragon hunting buried beetles was much more entertaining than organic chemistry. Other Alden was a capable but lazy bug finder. She would dig one up with her large hind claws, eat some favored squishy part out of its interior, then flap back to Stuart to cling to his shoulders or his legs and make begging sounds. ¡°I am not going to dig up the next one for you,¡± he said every time. ¡°Go hunt.¡± ¡°Go hunt¡± was obviously a phrase the ryeh-b¡¯t knew, since she would always head off to hunt when he said it. But she had a habit of running right back to him and begging more whenever it took her longer than thirty seconds to sniff out her prey. I don¡¯t have a future as an animal trainer, thought Alden, watching Stuart shoo her again. If the ryeh-b¡¯t had made that sad little gurgling noise at him, he would have delivered her beetles to her on a platter. [Do you ever take her with you to school?] he asked. He couldn¡¯t text in logograms yet, so Stuart would just have to rely on System translation. He looked up in surprise. ¡°I will when she¡¯s fully trained. The jungle campus will be good for her, but she needs to learn that not all creatures wish to play with her. Are you able to focus on your class and speak to me at the same time?¡± [Not really. But you¡¯re educational, too, right?] Stuart lifted a brow. ¡°Do you want me to talk to you about < >? I¡¯ve been listening to your instructor. I don¡¯t think I can improve on her lecture.¡± [Not a chemistry expert?] ¡°I have basic knowledge. If she were lecturing you on how spells and elementally aligned ingredients can be used to transmogrify various materials, I would have much more to say.¡± [You mean spells that turn one thing into another. Do you like that kind of magic?] ¡°I do,¡± said Stuart. ¡°But I like most kinds of magic. The boy in front of you is trying to get your attention. I believe he wants his beverage now.¡± Turning his thoughts away from the forest back toward the classroom was a jarring experience. The theater-style lecture hall full of creaking seats, clicking keyboards, and sighing students surrounded him. Finlay kept glancing hopefully over his shoulder. ¡°Sorry, man,¡± Alden whispered. ¡°I zoned out. You could¡¯ve texted.¡± Finlay was an extreme fan of caffeination, and he¡¯d brought two drinks to class again. So Alden had been holding onto a hot tea for him with one hand. He dropped his skill, and the smell of Earl Grey hit his nose. He passed it forward, and Finlay grinned at him. It was so convenient not to have to move around to preserve things anymore. ¡°Do you¡­does your skill improve your life?¡± Stuart asked. What a loaded question, thought Alden. Doubly so, considering who was asking, and the future he had planned for himself. [It¡¯s an amazing skill,] Alden replied. [It helped me save someone I care about, and I enjoy it in a lot of ways. I was excited to be selected as an Avowed, but if I never had been, I would definitely have been safer. And possibly happier in the long run. Or maybe I¡¯d just be different. It¡¯s hard to know for sure.] ¡°You really answered,¡± said Stuart, an unreadable look on his face. Alden leaned back until his seat creaked. [That¡¯s a fraction of an answer for that question. I don¡¯t think I even know the complete one yet. You should ask me again sometime when we¡¯re face to face if you¡¯re still curious.] ¡°You¡¯ll still be my guest?¡± [Sure. If you pick a good date for both¡ª] ¡°December fifteenth,¡± Stuart said promptly. ¡°It is your weekend. And I will not be in school either. I will persuade Evul to send you an invitation.¡± Alden stared. So Stuart had totally already picked out the date and¡­yeah¡­that was soon. So soon. Don¡¯t get freaked out. He¡¯s not summoning you to do anything dangerous. He wants to serve you beverages out of the pink quartz pitcher. And do¡­whatever it is Artonan knights-in-waiting do when they have friends over. [The fifteenth is good for me. But if you wanted to wait another week, I¡¯ll actually be out of school for eleven days starting on the twenty-third.] ¡°It needs to be sooner,¡± said Stuart quickly. ¡°That is to say¡­I¡¯ll be busy with something during that time. And I hope to see you before then. If you don¡¯t mind. You don¡¯t have to come if¡ª¡± [December 15th,] Alden texted. [Perfect date. I¡¯m putting your name on my calendar.] ¡°Truly?¡± Stuart smiled. Yes, truly. He couldn¡¯t put things like ¡°parkour club meet-up in Parc des Batteurs¡± on the calendar and leave off ¡°go to another planet.¡± ****** Stuart usually got more relaxed the longer they talked, but even when he was relaxed there was a distance between them that no amount of forced casualness on Alden¡¯s part would bridge. There were things the Artonan boy hinted at but never explained¡ªthe exact nature of his unhappiness with his schoolmates, why he was frustrated with his family, what was up with his many eccentricities¡­ He¡¯d finally gotten the foot fully healed. He mentioned it to Alden in the middle of showing off his ryeh-b¡¯t¡¯s claws. It was like, ¡°You can stop worrying about me now. My contemplations on the nature of my ignorance and failures are complete, so I told a healer to fix the burning pains I¡¯ve been enduring for more than eight months.¡± No big revelations about what those contemplations were, and his tone didn¡¯t invite questions. Things like that made it so damn hard to get to know him. If he were anyone else, if I were anyone else, I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be able to connect with him at all. But what Alden did know about Stu-art¡¯h was so significant that it largely made up for the gaps in his understanding. And it was obvious that the Primary¡¯s son was trying hard all the time. Even when Alden couldn¡¯t fathom what the other boy was thinking, he could see the vast amounts of effort he was putting in. It was hard not to like someone when you could see them struggling to get it right. But Stuart, dude, I wish you¡¯d put just a little less effort into this, Alden thought as he sat in Engaging with the Unexpected and listened to the Artonan¡¯s slightly too-shrill sounds of offense. ¡°Alden! Your classmates clearly need guidance. Look at them! Just look! They are biting at each other¡¯s throats¡ªand not in an enjoyable manner¡ªand you are just sitting there quietly.¡± [I¡¯m not suggesting that Instructor Marion change the course format no matter how often you ask.] ¡°They are too young to engage in this type of debate. They are merely arguing with each other for fun at this point, not <>¡± Too young? You fed yourself to an illegally summoned squid monster because you were trying so hard to make friends with the other baby wizards. Don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ever forget. [You know, I¡¯m pretty sure Artonans argue with each other like this, too,] Alden said. Joe¡¯s descriptions of the Grand Senate¡¯s decision making processes were, unfortunately, unforgettable. ¡°Not in class,¡± Stuart said in an affronted tone. ¡°Not unless we were nurtured by <
>¡± Alden raised his hand. Instructor Marion whistled to stop the verbal battle that had been going on for the past several minutes. It had started out as a relatively serious discussion about whether it was all right for a hero to disable a pursuing superchaser¡¯s vehicle if they had reason to believe that the chaser was endangering themselves with reckless driving, but after that, it had somehow devolved into a fight about image rights and whether chasers who were known to deliberately cut and splice footage to make heroes look bad could be considered attackers when they showed up on the scene. ¡°I think we¡¯ve gotten off topic again. We¡¯re acting like a bunch of gokoratch,¡± said Alden. Stuart¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°Can¡¯t we talk about the next case?¡± Alden continued. ¡°It seems more serious to me anyway.¡± The whole class and Instructor Marion were silent and staring, no doubt at the System¡¯s translation for gokoratch. Finally, the boy who¡¯d been the most pugnacious about the image rights fight said, ¡°What, you just want to finish this case off really fast with your Rabbit powers?¡± It was the guy who Alden had been privately thinking of as ¡°three minute man,¡± from his first ever class¡ªthe one who¡¯d assured everyone he could solve the domestic violence case in three minutes. ¡°I could finish this one in three minutes,¡± said Alden. ¡°The first one is to ask myself why I¡¯m loaded up with magic gear while I chase a soccer mom¡¯s minivan down the freeway. Am I working for a city so desperate for dramatic battle footage that looking cool supersedes highway safety? The second minute is for me to think, ¡®Oh, there are a bunch of superchasers following me. Now it¡¯s even more of a disaster.¡¯ And the third is for me to text the soccer mom and say, ¡®Look, I like living on Anesidora just fine. The school system¡¯s great for your kids. You don¡¯t get to live a normal life ever again anyway, so maybe think about coming in on your own when you¡¯re less panic-stricken.¡¯ ¡°Then I turn around and go about my day in the least sensational way possible.¡± And¡­that was an unvarnished opinion. Now I sound judgmental and jaded. ¡°Your solution is to send the villain a text message then go home?¡± ¡°She¡¯s a C-rank Brute who didn¡¯t want to move to Point Nemo,¡± said Alden. ¡°Not a terrorist. Why was a dramatic chase ever appropriate to start with? Instructor Klein¡ª¡± Wait, is it safe to invoke him of all people? It doesn¡¯t feel safe. But I¡¯ve started. I can¡¯t just stop halfway. Alden had been doing so well up until now carefully typing up his arguments for this class and editing them until they sounded better¡­and less annoyed. Somehow, this is Stuart¡¯s fault. ¡°Instructor Klein says we should be willing to finish the job ourselves,¡± he said. ¡°But he also says it¡¯s sometimes appropriate to let someone run if chasing them does more harm than good. So when an unexpected event occurs during the middle of what was already a questionable chase, I say quit.¡± One of the third year girls turned around in her desk. ¡°Who cares about that? Did you call us stinky cannibal parrots?¡± ¡°Technically he said ¡®we,¡¯ so he was calling himself a stinky cannibal parrot, too.¡± ¡°Gokatch,¡± said Andrzej under his breath. ¡°Gokovatch?¡± ¡°Instructor, does gokoratch fall under the ¡®no disrespectful language¡¯ rule? Because I think we should add it to the class vocabulary.¡± ¡°Is gokoratch the plural or the singular?¡± ¡°Alden,¡± Instructor Marion said in a tired voice. ¡°Sorry about that.¡± ¡°No alien species names. I have a hard enough time deciding where to draw the line with human insults.¡± ¡°Understood.¡± ¡°What if we just said ¡®stinky cannibal parrot¡¯ in English, Instructor?¡± someone asked. ¡°Is that too disrespectful?¡± A very long way away from their classroom, there was an alien boy covering his face with a hand. ****** ¡°My roommate will be in the next class,¡± Alden said, heading back toward the Forthright building behind a group of chattering students. A cold raindrop splashed against his forehead, and he looked up at the dark clouds. ¡°I¡¯m going to tell him you¡¯re listening in.¡± Stuart was back in his room, working on metal for another spell ring. It was a chore he¡¯d assigned himself so that he wouldn¡¯t ¡°get too impassioned and prompt you to insult fellow students.¡± ¡°Lute¡¯s a Chainer, so we¡¯re practicing the hand signs for a wordchain together while I correct his Artonan language.¡± As soon as he said it, he realized that Lute might not be supposed to teach him anything until that conversation with his boss happened. Alden didn¡¯t know if there was some rule about what amount of instruction was allowed. ¡°He¡¯s setting up a meeting with the wizard he works for to let him know,¡± he added quickly. ¡°Yes¡­¡± Stuart looked up from his metal block. His expression was carefully guarded. ¡°I was trying to understand the nature of your relationship with him after I heard his class.¡± ¡°The nature of our relationship?¡± Alden asked. ¡°We¡¯re getting to know each other. We¡¯re roommates. He was fun to spend time with the other day, and he¡¯s a good tutor. I think we¡¯ll be friends. Why would his class matter?¡± Stuart still looked cautious. ¡°You did say you were suffering from ¡®the bad half¡¯ of a wordchain last night. I assumed it was your own, but then¡­¡± ¡°Lute gave me the good half earlier in the day. I can¡¯t cast it myself yet.¡± ¡°So he was doing you a favor!¡± Stuart said in a relieved tone. ¡°You don¡¯t < > beneath his feet after the <>.¡± Alden stopped walking. Another raindrop hit his nose. ¡°I don¡¯t what now?¡± he said. Completely in English. He¡¯d been speaking Artonan with just a few words peppered in to cover vocab failings, but there were some levels of confusion so great that they could only be conveyed in your native tongue. ¡°I don¡¯t what?¡± he said again. ¡°I¡¯m so relieved,¡± said Stuart. ¡°I didn¡¯t think that particular subculture had made it to Earth yet. There¡¯s very little <> between them and the majority of wizards. But you spent a long time on Thegund, so you might have encountered their ideas and found them persuasive. It would have been fine if you had. They serve the Triplanets, too, in their own way. Many refuse to acknowledge their place in our society, but their cultural and practical value has been affirmed by the Grand Senate. Some of our most powerful wordchains wouldn¡¯t even exist without their <> And considering my family¡¯s relationship with them, it would be extremely improper for me to judge you for finding <> where you wished.¡± Rain had started to fall in earnest, and Alden sprinted for Forthright. Stuart¡¯s wildly indecipherable rapid-fire reassurances that he would absolutely still respect Alden if Alden wanted to be someone who derived spiritual meaning from Lute Velra rang in his ears. What the heckity heck? he thought as he hustled. He¡¯d heard that wordchains had religious significance to Artonans. The teacher with the lasered hairline had insisted on it, actually. But he¡¯d yet to find evidence. Kibby had appreciated them more as aesthetic and ritualistic objects; she thought they sounded pretty and felt magicky. On the Artonan soaps and sitcoms he¡¯d seen, nobody who did wordchains acted differently than Alden would have expected. Now Stuart was throwing around all kinds of interesting words. ¡°I¡¯m really glad you respect¡­my freedom of religion?¡± said Alden as he dashed into the building. ¡°But I have no idea what you¡¯re say¡ª¡± He suddenly spied a blond head beelining for the stairs. A very short blond head. ¡°Lute!¡± Lute spun around. ¡°Oh. Hey, Alden. You left in a hurry this morning.¡± [That¡¯s what I wanted to talk to you about,] Alden texted, swiping beads of rain off his messenger bag. It was waterproof. Good to know. [I didn¡¯t want to surprise you guys first thing. I¡¯m talking to my Artonan friend today. We¡¯re on a video call right now, and he can see my surroundings. So maybe you don¡¯t want to go so hard on the colorful language in class?] Lute pointed at him. ¡°You and Haoyu went to your fancy gym and absorbed potions together last night. I wondered when I smelled the watermelon. Lexi looked like he crawled from his own grave this morning, and you two are all springy.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°We did our homework in the recovery sauna.¡± Lute didn¡¯t even bat an eye at the news that Alden was mid-call with an alien? He must have been even more used to Artonans that Alden had realized. ¡°Ha! Next time Lexi makes fun of me for eating sandwiches in the tub, I¡¯ll just remind him he¡¯s the only one in the room practicing asceticism. By the way, your dish washing session last night was legendary. The forks!¡± Lute dramatically stumbled and flung his hand out. Stuart had a very interested expression on his face. He¡¯d completely stopped playing around with his spellring metal. Alden winced. ¡°What happened to the eating utensils?¡± Stuart asked. ¡°I dropped them.¡± ¡°You dropped them more than anyone has ever dropped them!¡± Lute said gleefully. He led the way toward the stairs. ¡°Hey, do you think it would be a crime to put a mousetrap in my shoes?¡± ¡°A mousetrap?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I assume Shoe Pisser is using magic to target them because otherwise the hall cameras would record their nasty deed, right? But just in case they¡¯re doing it old school, a mousetrap might work. A lot of stars would have to align, but if they did¡­¡± Lute¡¯s laugh was close to a nefarious cackle. It echoed off the walls in the stairwell. Stuart¡¯s head tilted so far sideways it looked like it was in danger of falling off his neck. ¡°I do not think his words are being properly translated. What is shoe pisser?¡± [Dude, I am impressed by your ability to be yourself in front of anyone. But do you really want me to have to define and try to explain Shoe Pisser to my friend? I don¡¯t want him to think humans are gross.] ¡°How disturbing,¡± said Stuart. ¡°I guess it was being translated correctly.¡± Alden almost tripped up the stairs. ¡°Lute, have you been getting my texts?¡± he asked. ¡°Recently? No.¡± ¡°Stuart,¡± Alden hissed under his breath. ¡°You¡ª¡± Stuart looked down at his metal cube and started wiggling his fingers over it like it was a fascinating business. ¡°It was only two messages,¡± he said. ¡°I wasn¡¯t even sure it was an accident at fi¡ª¡± [Yes, you were! You¡¯re still a terrible liar! Your face is turning purple!] Alden focused more carefully. Apparently, he could make mental texting mistakes when he was trying to do it with multiple people in multiple languages, and he¡¯d let himself get too relaxed. [Lute, hi. I was trying to tell you earlier. I¡¯m on a video call with my Artonan friend right now. We¡¯re hanging out together today. He can hear what you¡¯re saying.] ¡°My nosy friend,¡± he added aloud for both of their benefits. Stuart made a sound of protest. Lute had stopped under the sign for the sixth floor. The look that crossed his face was hard to read¡ªsomewhere between confused and amused, like Alden had told a joke he didn¡¯t quite get. ¡°Are you serious?¡± ¡°Yes?¡± said Alden. ¡°¡­uh¡­I see. Let me¡­¡± His fingers tapped through the air, and a second later, Alden received a message from him. [Is this person actually your friend? Like a person you gossip about teachers and girls with because it¡¯s more interesting than focusing on class? Or is he a friend in some more complicated ¡®he¡¯s nice but also he¡¯s paying me to give him a tour¡¯ way?] ¡°I meant it the first way,¡± said Alden. The door beside Lute creaked open and a gaggle of science track students poured onto the stairs. Some of them went up, others down, their feet pounding and their shoes squeaking on the damp steps. ¡°Right,¡± said Lute. ¡°Um¡­hello, Alden¡¯s friend.¡± Stuart looked up. ¡°Tell him I greet him,¡± he said. ¡°I would add him to our call, but I would have to have Evul change the settings and I can¡¯t interrupt her practice right now.¡± [He says hi,] Alden texted Lute. [He¡¯s sorry he can¡¯t add you into the call. His sister set it up for him. He can¡¯t actually call Avowed on his own yet.] Lute looked surprised. ¡°He¡¯s a kid?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I am not!¡± Stuart protested. ¡°I¡¯m nearly an adult.¡± ¡°He¡¯s around our age,¡± Alden clarified. ¡°I¡¯m older than you!¡± ¡°I think he¡¯s actually younger in terms of maturity level.¡± Stuart stared at him in such perfect and profound shock that it more than made up for the text messaging mishap. ******* Artonan Conversation class had never before involved such an impossible amount of mental juggling. Stuart was busy being outraged by literally everything going on in the classroom, but that didn¡¯t stop him from wanting Alden to convey messages to Lute. And Lute seemed to have developed a split personality of his own. He was a little nervous that an Artonan was watching him teach Alden a wordchain, but he was also enthusiastic about having someone answer the burning questions Alden and the System were unable to. ¡°How do I say ¡®dickwad¡¯?¡± Lute whispered, his eye fixed on Alden¡¯s forehead. That seemed to be where he looked when he was actually talking to Stuart. ¡°Really?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Tell him I will attempt to come up with a translation in a moment¡­look. Just look! That learning cushion has a stain.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Alden asked again. ¡°Well I suppose it hardly matters,¡± said Stuart, his voice rising an octave. ¡°They¡¯ve put you in an instructional environment so far below your level, I¡¯m surprised you do not rise from that <> cushion and make <>!¡± [You know,] Alden texted him, [I¡¯m starting to think you want me to be expelled.] ¡°There has to be a better school!¡± [This is literally one of the best schools on the island. It¡¯s so much better than my old one. Human school is just more relaxed about a few things. People are allowed to eat in classes here, so sometimes stuff gets stained. It will probably be cleaned or replaced at the end of the term.] It totally wouldn¡¯t. The stain he was upset about was really small. While Stuart freaked out over Instructor Rao¡¯s bizarrely disinterested teaching style for the eleventh time, Alden let Lute correct one of his handsigns and informed him that there was an Artonan vulgarity for things that had been sat on with butt cheeks when they shouldn¡¯t have been. Stuart fretted and Lute practiced the word for ¡°ass-abused,¡± and Alden decided he¡¯d juggled the two them for long enough. It was time for him to get his own burning question answered. [All right, this is more of a text message only conversation,] he sent to Lute while the Chainer nudged his left elbow inwards to correct his signing form. [My friend seemed concerned I might be someone who prostrated myself before you at a feast. Or a fancy dinner? Do you know what that¡¯s about? I know it sounds cra¡ª] Lute made such a high pitched yelp of alarm it would have done an Artonan proud. Several people turned to look at them. Stuart paused his rant. ¡°Oh dear. Is he very upset? Does he need comforting?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine!¡± Lute said to their classmates. ¡°I¡­uh¡­pulled a muscle.¡± ¡°Sitting down?¡± a girl said. ¡°I¡¯m fucking talented, okay?¡± said Lute. ¡°Artonan only in class, everyone!¡± called Instructor Rao. Lute was looking at Alden in utter horror. Alden smiled apologetically. [Sorry if it¡¯s a weird or sensitive subject¡ª] ¡°It¡¯s both!¡± Lute fixed his eye on Alden¡¯s forehead again, pointed, and said. ¡°No.¡± ¡°Is he talking to me?¡± Stuart asked. Lute started typing furiously. [I don¡¯t want you to hear about my job from someone who¡¯s going to make it sound like that!] [So people don¡¯t prostrate themselves before you?] Lute¡¯s expression was mortified. [Relax,] said Alden. [I¡¯m teasing. I know Artonans can get hyperpoetic about the simplest things.] [I was planning to let my boss tell you stuff, since I can¡¯t. But I wanted to hear what he said as he said it and tone it down! And I was sure he wouldn¡¯t talk about that at all, since¡­for reasons.] [It¡¯s fine. I¡¯ll tell my friend to leave it alone.] He focused on Stuart. [Lute¡¯s embarrassed about his job a little, and he wants to control the way it¡¯s presented to me.] Stuart looked surprised. He picked Evul¡¯s tablet up from the stand where it had been propped and squinted at it as if trying to get a better look at Lute. ¡°Is he not pleased with his work for the < >?¡± He sounded very concerned. ¡°That¡¯s¡­well, I suppose I should respect his wishes and allow him to tell you about it?¡± [It¡¯s fine, Lute,] Alden texted. [He says he respects your wishes.] ¡°Are you just saying that to make me feel better?¡± Lute asked suspiciously. ¡°I never imagined an Avowed assigned to that service would be embarrassed about it,¡± Stuart mused. ¡°The work should be easy, but those people can be very odd.¡± ****** Alden spent lunchtime eating cafeteria food out of a to-go container in the dorm. All of his roommates were out, so there was no need for warnings or three-way conversational confusion. ¡°Hey, what should I wear when I come to your house?¡± Alden asked, propping his feet up on the ottoman. Stuart was still enchanting his metal block. Either the task wasn¡¯t going well with all the distractions, or it just took forever. ¡°Something cleaner than last time.¡± ¡°Are you being funny?¡± ¡°Maybe.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°Well, I was being serious. If I¡¯m showing up at your house as your guest, I don¡¯t want to make you look bad or make your family uncomfortable. If there are rules or customs I should follow, you need to tell me so I can get it right.¡± The more he thought about it, the more he hoped Stuart would send him a manual for how to get along with people in the Knights¡¯ private forest. Maybe how to get along with the plant life, too, for that matter. A bunch of roots had responded to his request for freedom last time he was there, and his leaf bookmark still seemed to be alive, so yeah. He didn¡¯t want to offend the trees. ¡°Alden, I¡¯ve been wondering for a while, but we¡¯ve never talked about it¡­what do you actually know about my family?¡± Alden thought of bodies falling in the snow. ¡°The first time I ever heard of a Knight of the Mother Planet was when you were declaring your intention to become one by the pond,¡± he said. ¡°The one with the mishnen in it.¡± Stuart sighed. ¡°I knew which pond you meant.¡± ¡°I had no idea what you were talking about. But Joe said you probably had enhanced bones and you¡¯d been modified so that you couldn¡¯t fall unconscious unless you wanted to, so I figured a Knight was someone who fought something. By the way, the word doesn¡¯t translate all that well into my language. It seems to have a lot of subtle shades of meaning that aren¡¯t captured, and Earth actually translates it differently than Artona I and III did.¡± The list of alternate translations he¡¯d requested after waking up in Knight Rapport 1 had given the impression that the word was more like Honored Oathbound Guardservant. So he guessed the word ¡°knight¡± was just doing its best. ¡°Superior Professor Ro-den shouldn¡¯t say things about me when he doesn¡¯t know,¡± Stuart said. He sounds peeved. Alden was surprised. ¡°Was he wrong?¡± Stuart frowned. ¡°Even though my body has been enhanced, it¡¯s still rude of him to guess at it and tell people. And I don¡¯t have any unnatural methods of preventing a loss of consciousness. I was bending nearly my whole mind toward not panicking or fainting. It was effort, not magical modification.¡± ¡°It was an impressive effort,¡± Alden said. ¡°I was very confused by you. But undeniably impressed.¡± ¡°I bet Ro-den has tricks and toys to adjust his consciousness.¡± And now Joe¡¯s been downgraded all the way to Ro-den. ¡°He probably does.¡± The Primary¡¯s son still looked miffed. ¡°Anyway¡­¡± said Alden. ¡°I guessed then that Knights did some kind of battle. And then your aunt was there de-corrupting Moon Thegund by throwing around all the dirt¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s much more complicated than that.¡± ¡°So naturally I am aware that Knights are the wizards who are at the forefront of the fight against chaos. And I¡¯ve caught on to the clothing difference¡ª¡± Stuart looked startled. ¡°Isn¡¯t that common knowledge?¡± ¡°Not common enough to filter down to a regular teenager on Earth. Some Avowed are obviously more up to date.¡± Neha had called them ¡°extra special warriors against chaos,¡± and she at least suspected they had talents like Avowed in addition to their wizardry. Which was actually a piece of knowledge Kibby didn¡¯t possess even with Joe¡¯s tendency to share important top secret Knight news with the assistants. For some reason, the wizard class didn¡¯t make a lot of noise about how knighthood worked for even the nonwizard Artonans to pick up on. ¡°I caught onto the shorter sleeves and the metal decorations, so I can find knights in a crowd. Because of that, I realize your family seems to have a mix of knights and wizards. Obviously I see Evul-art¡¯h¡¯s title when she calls, so I know she¡¯s one. ¡°And¡­¡± he hesitated. ¡°I¡¯m sure having a position like that involves a lot of difficulty and sacrifice.¡± That was all he felt like saying over the phone. ¡°It does,¡± Stuart said softly. Then he cleared his throat. ¡°All right. You understand well enough. Our household can be formal on certain dates and occasions, but I¡¯m not inviting you to visit on one of those. The only custom you need to follow on a normal day is addressing all of the knights by their title when you first meet them. They¡¯ll immediately give you permission to stop because my family doesn¡¯t use titles at home except to acknowledge important life events.¡± Straight to business then. ¡°I can do that.¡± ¡°You can wear whatever human clothes you want, or if you want to be <> I can send you images of what is currently popular for nonprofessional clothing here on the Mother Planet.¡± ¡°I kind of want to see what that looks like regardless of whether I wear it or not.¡± ¡°If you do not mind¡­it¡¯s my personal opinion that you should not wear clothing with writing on it unless the writing is meaningful to you.¡± Alden sat up in surprise. ¡°Writing?¡± Stuart let his hands snap up briefly in the same gesture Kibby had usually used for a shrug. Artonans did shoulder shrugs, too. Alden was going to have to check and see which one was more shruggy. ¡°I do understand that dress customs are not the same on Earth. But we¡¯re used to reading the markings on clothing to learn important information about the wearer. Humans in images are often wearing words that I think mean nothing to them. Or the names of other people? Or cultural references that are hard to grasp even if I research. And it¡¯s difficult to determine whether a human wants me to care about the meaning of the words or if they¡¯re just decorating themselves with the shapes¡­¡± ¡°Oh!¡± said Alden. ¡°It reminds you of the symbols on knight and wizard outfits, so it feels like you have to pay attention to it. It¡¯s usually just advertising¡­but it¡¯s not always advertising. Sometimes it¡¯s a saying the person likes or a uniform for their workplace. I see how that could be confusing.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Stuart. ¡°It will be overlooked as a species preference if you like to adorn yourself in that way, but you asked about making people comfortable. Most would find it <> for you to wear your commendation alongside something meaningless.¡± Alden tried to picture himself having the special symbol that went with Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s commendation embroidered on a t-shirt for a pizza joint. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t do that anyway. Um¡­am I supposed to wear the commendation?¡± ¡°Do you not want to?¡± Alden wished Stuart would be a little more expressive right now. He couldn¡¯t tell from the Artonan boy¡¯s face if he cared about the answer or not. ¡°I want to do whatever¡¯s respectful and appropriate,¡± Alden said carefully. ¡°I don¡¯t understand the etiquette.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not good. There¡¯s a lot of etiquette.¡± Alden grimaced. Coming from someone he¡¯d once seen count out the individual grains of a particular spice before he dropped them in the wevvi kettle, that didn¡¯t bode well. ¡°It¡¯s really a lot,¡± said Stuart. ****** They spent the whole afternoon together, except for a few breaks when Stuart left the tablet behind for a couple of minutes. During Intro to Other Worlds, Alden received a lesson on the etiquette of when and how he should wear the embroidery when he was on the Triplanets. He wished he could have remained blissfully ignorant. It was so complicated there was no way he was going to get through without embarrassing himself at some point. And that might be the same as embarrassing the Quaternary? Actually Stuart kept using the English words ¡°tarnish¡± and ¡°honor¡± which he had learned especially for that long-ago apology he¡¯d delivered in front of all the other teens at LeafSong. Alden still wasn¡¯t sure exactly how they¡¯d both gotten tarnished back then. He didn¡¯t want to freak out his roommates¡­anymore than he already had. So he spent the late afternoon and early evening away from campus. Stuart wanted to see ¡°things you find beautiful about your world.¡± It was a tall order. The temperature had dropped, and the rain had turned into a real storm. It was forty degrees Fahrenheit and howling outside. They rode a lot of public transportation and did some people watching. Alden had gotten a woman on the bus to entrust him with one of his own plastic ponchos, so when he did step out into the weather it was surprisingly tolerable. After a couple of tries he¡¯d mastered the poncho shield. The ideal thing was to ignore the sleeve holes and stick his arms inside. Then he could either jump to make the whole oversized covering balloon out prior to preserving it, or he could flap around inside it until he¡¯d gotten a similar shape. Roominess between his body and the shielded plastic made walking around possible, and bonus¡ªhe now looked even cooler than people normally did while wearing what was effectively a garbage bag with a hood. ¡°This is the traditional garb of my people,¡± he told Stuart as he walked through the open air market where he¡¯d met Dave Banyu, the Longsight, for a chat about B-rank superheroing. ¡°We all dress like this when Artonans aren¡¯t looking.¡± ¡°Do you?¡± Stuart said in an amused voice. He was sitting on the floor beside his bednook, and Other Alden was using him as a climbing frame. ¡°Yes. This is true human beauty.¡± Most of the places in the market were still open. Anesidorans weren¡¯t strangers to bad weather, and wind shielding and deeply recessed stalls made shopping manageable. But not far from the end of the market, down by the water, was an area without any roofing or shields. There, the waves were crashing into the seawall and sending up clouds of spray. Alden went to watch it. His shoes were soaked and his feet were freezing, but he¡¯d had the sense to roll up his pants at least. The shielded poncho was keeping the rest of him warm enough, and there were some other positives he hadn¡¯t realized would be so nice. The wind that whipped his ankles and stung his face when he turned his head in the wrong direction wasn¡¯t touching the rest of him except as an occasional swirl of air that found its way in from the bottom. And the raindrops that should have been loud against the plastic were soundless. He could still hear sounds coming in from the open front of the hood, but the muffling was nice. The constant pressure on his skill from the wind and rain was an interesting feeling, too. He couldn¡¯t pick out the impact of individual raindrops¡­it was far too many little things hitting him all at once. But it occurred to him that if he wanted to refine his sensitivity in that area, standing out in the rain wasn¡¯t a bad plan. Or under a shower, but that didn¡¯t have the same drama. A large wave burst against magic and concrete, and Alden stood in the spray, licking salt off his lips. ¡°Do you like that spot?¡± Stuart asked. ¡°I think I really do.¡± He was very nearly alone out here. Godspeed to any drone smaller than a helicopter trying to fly in this weather. And good luck to anyone not packing magic that would protect them from a gale. Probably there were other oddballs having fun somewhere else. He could definitely imagine Vandy trying to Sky Shape in this; he¡¯s seen her outside the girl¡¯s dorm this morning trying to trust fall into a cushion of her own breeze. She¡¯d hit the ground. Apparently she hadn¡¯t gotten the hang of shaping while she was falling backwards. But here, now, this little patch of Earth felt like Alden¡¯s own. ¡°Thegund fucking sucked!¡± he told Stuart and the storm. ¡°Even before the Contract failed, it sucked. It was still all the time. No wind. And there was almost no sound. That place felt like death even before it turned into death.¡± ¡°Would you like me to have Aunt Alis dig an ocean there?¡± ¡°YES!¡± Stuart rubbed his ryeh-b¡¯t¡¯s scaled snout. ¡°You do know that was a joke?¡± ¡°As far as I¡¯m concerned, it was a promise.¡± Another wave smashed itself against the island. Alden spun around and let the back of the poncho take it. ¡°Alden,¡± Stuart said hesitantly, ¡°I have a question that I don¡¯t mean in an offensive way, but I am curious¡­¡± He turned back around. ¡°Just ask.¡± ¡°You are attending your school because you wish to challenge yourself and busy yourself to overcome your fears.¡± I did tell him about that weeks ago. And afterward, he told me he wished I could go to LeafSong with him. This was the point where they connected, despite all the distance both of them created with their secrets, half-truths, and misunderstandings. On Alden¡¯s part the link was made mostly of respect, for what Stuart had been through and what he planned to go through in the future. On Stuart¡¯s¡­ Alden wasn¡¯t sure, but he hoped it was a similar emotion. Stuart took things so seriously. It was a quality that caused a lot of headaches, but it shone when it was actually time to discuss serious matters. ¡°The graduates of your school become superheroes.¡± That word sounds weird coming out of his mouth. ¡°I¡¯m still trying to fully understand the idea,¡± said Stuart. ¡°I¡¯ve been told it¡¯s a very human idea.¡± ¡°Yes. It must be. It is battle against those who would harm others and it is also battle for the sake of entertainment?¡± Battle theater, Max called it. Alden wondered why he¡¯d bothered arguing if even Stuart got that impression. ¡°It is. A lot of the time. There are superheroes who don¡¯t entertain people at all, though. I have an instructor who only helps with disasters. And the Anesidora battlegroups have entertaining heroes on them, but they don¡¯t do entertainment when they¡¯re called in as a team to deal with real problems.¡± ¡°It¡¯s also the job of superheroes to capture other Avowed and force them to live on Anesidora with you,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Even ones who don¡¯t do harm?¡± Alden could tell from his tone that this was the thing he worried was potentially offensive. ¡°I understand it¡¯s illegal on your world for Avowed to live among average humans.¡± ¡°It is,¡± said Alden. ¡°And, yes, that¡¯s part of the job for many superheroes. Most, I assume. Though I guess whether it¡¯s something ugly and dramatic like that case we were talking about in class today or something more reasonable must depend on the people issuing orders to the Avowed.¡­what exactly did you want to know?¡± ¡°Will you do that one day?¡± Stuart asked. ¡°I won¡¯t.¡± He hadn¡¯t thought about it when he was younger¡ªsuperheroes picking up completely harmless unregistereds. Everyone knew they were criminals, too. And he¡¯d taken it for granted that a criminal Avowed was dangerous and probably should be caught, before Gorgon and Boe both pointed out that not registering was just a lifestyle many people preferred and not necessarily step one on the path to supervillainy. Thoughtless of me. Childish. At least there are some parts of the old Alden I¡¯m glad to have left behind. Icy water spattered around his feet again. ¡°I won¡¯t do it,¡± he repeated. ¡°Maybe I¡¯m just as bad as those idiots in Engaging with the Unexpected who are always trying to make the law for Avowed be whatever they want it to be. But I¡¯m not ever going to use my magic that way. The thought of overpowering a frightened person and dragging them away from their home because it would make the rest of humanity feel better completely disgusts me.¡± ¡°I see,¡± said Stuart. Alden had no idea what he thought. ¡°What do you intend to use your magic for then?¡± Stuart asked. ¡°What will you do with it?¡± ¡°Are you asking me what my purpose is?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± As if that was just a thing people regularly asked each other. ¡°You know, the last person who asked me that was your father.¡± The Artonan boy looked away from the tablet. ¡°Was it?¡± ¡°We were holding hands.¡± Stuart¡¯s lips pursed and then, unexpectedly, he started to giggle. ¡°He couldn¡¯t do it without holding your hands? If anyone knew¡­¡± ¡°Your aunt was there. It was her idea.¡± ¡°She doesn¡¯t count. They shared a womb.¡± ¡°They¡¯re twins?¡± ¡°No. Two of a triplet set. Their third is no longer with them.¡± He regained his composure and looked back at Alden expectantly. ¡°Is asking people their purpose the family question or something?¡± ¡°I fear it might be,¡± said Stuart, giving a smile that didn¡¯t quite reach his eyes. ¡°I thought it was a universal quest, but I have been disappointed to find it otherwise over the past several months.¡± Well, that explained at least some of his problem connecting to the other people his age at LeafSong. If he expected them to be questing after life purposes instead of getting wasted and shoving gum in human pockets to see what happened¡­ ¡°Hey, I worry too much about this kind of thing as well,¡± said Alden. ¡°My friend yelled at me for it recently.¡± ¡°I do not believe I worry about it too much at all. How could it be possible to do that?¡± ¡°You want to be perfectly noble and honorable and self-sacrificing all the time, right? And you torture yourself when you¡¯re not living up to it. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s a character flaw.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be embarrassed. It¡¯s both of us. We need to work on that.¡± ¡°What in the name of the Mother are you talking about?¡± Stuart looked delightfully flummoxed. Alden smiled into the next wave. ¡°I want to use my magic to protect myself and stay alive. And I want it to be a life that¡¯s worth living. How does that sound?¡± ¡°What does ¡®worth living¡¯ mean?¡± Stuart asked solemnly. ¡°Not endlessly shitty and full of horror,¡± said Alden. ¡°Joyful. A lot of the time. I really need it to be that, or I¡¯m not going to be strong enough to do anything at all.¡± Thunder growled over the water. ¡°And when I die,¡± he added, ¡°I want to do it feeling sure that other people are better off because I lived.¡± He didn¡¯t have to be perfect. He didn¡¯t have to give every single part of himself away if he didn¡¯t want to. And the more okay he felt about that, the more he felt like he could actually breathe again and act again. ¡°Yeah, I think that¡¯s my purpose,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s kind of simple. It¡¯s not like I have a detailed plan anymore. And it¡¯s a little more selfish than the old me would have wanted. But he didn¡¯t know himself as well as he thought.¡± After he¡¯d finished speaking, Stuart watched him for a long time without saying anything at all. When Alden started to shiver, he turned away from the water. ¡°Come on,¡± he said. ¡°Let¡¯s go find someplace dry. Before you leave, I¡¯m going to show you how to fold a paper airplane.¡± If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. * ONE HUNDRED FOUR: Hot Chocolate 104 Alden got back to the dorms at eight PM. His feet were nearly numb from walking around in his cold, wet shoes for hours, and his messenger bag was stuffed full of paper airplanes. Stuart had liked the activity. I just never know with that guy. ¡°Paper shaping¡± was an art form on the Triplanets as well, which Alden probably should have guessed. If you had more than thirty billion people with fingers and access to paper, someone was going to come up with the idea of folding it creatively. But Stuart hadn¡¯t tried it since he was a small child. And he¡¯d been able to justify it to himself as both art, cultural exchange, and enrichment for Other Alden. Flying paper toys were the best thing the ryeh-b¡¯t had ever seen. Stuart had been casting spells to clean up all the shredded planes when they finally cut off the call. Alden squelched his way up to the second floor of Garden Hall. Njeri¡ªthe Water Shaper from his class who he¡¯d met at the party¡ªwas coming down the stairs from the third floor, her flip-flops slapping against her heels. ¡°I was upstairs in Mehdi¡¯s room,¡± she said quickly. ¡°Pulling water out of the clothes he wore today. I owed him the favor from the drinking game.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t been that curious, but maybe she felt like she had to explain why she was in the wrong building. ¡°I owe Helo¨ªsa,¡± he said. ¡°She hasn¡¯t called it in yet.¡± Kon had divided the class in half, tried to weight it by rank so it was fairer, and then sent everyone their victor assignments. Max had gotten stuck owing Mehdi. Alden didn¡¯t know if that was random, or if he needed to thank Kon the next time he saw him. ¡°Helo¨ªsa¡¯s my roommate,¡± said Njeri. ¡°She wants to find a way to use all the favors on the same day so that it¡¯s grander. Do you want me to dry your shoes?¡± Five minutes later, barefoot and with dry sneakers in hand, he stepped into the huntski lodge. It was surprisingly silent, considering all three of his roommates were in the living area. Haoyu was the only one obviously working. He had a tablet out and he was tapping his cheek with the end of a stylus. Lexi and Lute were just sitting there. ¡°Hey,¡± Alden said, heading toward his room. [Lexi: Are you alone?] Alden glanced over. All three of them were staring at him. ¡°Oh, Lute told you. It¡¯s just me.¡± Lexi crossed his arms over his chest. ¡°You had a wizard watching your every move all day!¡± Alden frowned. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Why?!¡± ¡°Because he wanted to hang out. And I did too.¡± Lexi stared at him. ¡°Do you think that¡¯s normal? Is he watching us too? What¡ª?¡± ¡°I was in the room for six seconds this morning. I literally sprinted out without speaking to any of you,¡± said Alden. ¡°If you¡¯d tried to start a conversation or I¡¯d needed to do something in the shared area, I would have mentioned it. I told Lute even though we were just going to be in class together.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a big deal,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°It is! How often is the wizard watching you? Why is he watching you? Why the hell would you¡ª?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t tell you so you could interrogate him,¡± said Lute. ¡°I just mentioned it because it was¡­a noteworthy thing about our roommate. And so that none of us would be sitting around saying or doing something embarrassing when Alden walked through the door.¡± Alden was still trying to grasp what Lute actually considered embarrassing. He¡¯d asked Stuart to translate the word ¡°dickwad,¡± of all things. But he was shy about his job. ¡°I deliberately avoided coming back to the room this afternoon so that I wouldn¡¯t make anyone feel like they were being observed by a stranger at home,¡± said Alden. ¡°See?¡± said Haoyu, looking back down at his tablet. ¡°It¡¯s fine. Leave him alone.¡± ¡°Why are you two being so calm all of a sudden? Lute was entirely weirded out when he told us¡ª¡± ¡°Not for the reason you seem to think,¡± said Lute. ¡°I was weirded out about what the wizard spy might be telling Alden about me, not what Alden might be telling him.¡± He turned around in his chair to see Alden better. ¡°Say nothing of what you have heard,¡± he said dramatically. ¡°Or I¡¯ll do spooky Chainer things to you.¡± Alden sighed. ¡°It really wasn¡¯t much except for what I already asked you about. After you kind of squeaked like that in class, the wizard spy was worried he¡¯d upset you. He wanted me to offer you comfort.¡± ¡°You squeaked? What did you squeak about?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°I don¡¯t care what he squeaked about,¡± Lexi said. ¡°I care about the fact that the globie is¡ª¡± Haoyu slapped his stylus down on the sofa beside him. ¡°Don¡¯t call him that.¡± ¡°You guys don¡¯t fight about me,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s fine. People call me that all the time.¡± ¡°He wasn¡¯t saying it in a friendly way,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°To be fair, Lexi doesn¡¯t say much in a friendly way,¡± Alden replied. Lexi¡¯s cheeks colored. Alden didn¡¯t want to deal with this. He was pretty sure Lexi was overreacting, but he did feel bad about making the guy nervous about this kind of thing. ¡°Listen, my friend¡¯s around our age. He just started wizard college. He doesn¡¯t have summoning rights, and wizards in training who haven¡¯t earned them yet aren¡¯t allowed to call Avowed without being monitored by a summoner. That sounds awkward to both of us, so when he goes home for the weekends, his older sister places the call for him and connects it to a tablet. We usually talk for a few hours about things like pandas, marching bands, and the day when Avowed will grow strong enough to overpower the United Nations and take our rightful place as the leaders of our species.¡± ¡°Oh my goodness,¡± said Haoyu, his eyes going round. ¡°Grandwitch would love to hear more about that one.¡± Lexi¡¯s face was stiff. ¡°Apparently there¡¯s like a whole process for it to make sure it happens peacefully. But we probably won¡¯t live to see it unless Earth gets a bunch more hyperboles with grand ambitions or we start making superbabies a lot faster, so don¡¯t get too excited about world domination.¡± ¡°My dreams,¡± said Lute. ¡°Destroyed the very moment they were born.¡± ¡°Mostly, my friend just wanted to spend time together,¡± said Alden. ¡°And see what human school was like. And ask me about my life purpose and tell me about cannibal parrots.¡± ¡°Did you start the gokoratch thing? People were saying it in my afternoon classes,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Mine too,¡± said Lute. ¡°Someone was trying to rhyme it with other words to make a music video.¡± ¡°My point is that people talk to their friends through their interfaces all the time. There¡¯s a girl in Intro to Other Worlds whose Swedish boyfriend stays on the phone with her for the entire class, and everyone but the teacher knows it. I realize it¡¯s uncommon that the person I was on the phone with was an Artonan, which is why I didn¡¯t hang around people having private conversations. I stayed in crowds or totally alone all day.¡± He met Lexi¡¯s eyes. ¡°Sorry if you felt spied on. He didn¡¯t even see you, and I never told him your name. He calls every couple of weeks. I¡¯ll remind you it¡¯s coming up a day in advance next time, and I¡¯ll stay completely away from you again. Is that fine?¡± ¡°Did you talk about me?¡± Haoyu asked before Lexi could answer. He sounded curious, not upset, but Alden still felt nervous. ¡°I did tell him your name. And your class. Is that¡­I hope that¡¯s okay?¡± Haoyu blinked. ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t it be? He¡¯s not even a summoner, and when he is, he can just look it up if he wants. He¡¯s going to be a wizard and I¡¯m an Avowed. The System can send him information about me that I don¡¯t even know myself. I was just wondering what an alien my age thought of me.¡± Lexi glanced at Haoyu, then Lute. He sighed. ¡°Fine. Sorry I called you globie in an unfriendly way.¡± Haoyu smiled and picked up his stylus. ¡°He did say something about the demon event on Matadero,¡± Alden added after a moment¡¯s hesitation. ¡°I was sitting in a restaurant teaching him to fold paper planes¡ª¡± ¡°Okay, now he¡¯s making fun of us,¡± said Lute. ¡°I totally buy an Artonan talking about politics, and I can imagine them being interested in endangered animals. But I refuse to believe the two of you were doing arts and crafts together.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t believe you either,¡± said Lexi. ¡°You¡¯ve just got a broken sense of humor like these two.¡± Haoyu looked at Alden. ¡°What did he say about Matadero?¡± ¡°Not much. We just overheard someone mention it, and he said he knew two wizards that are there right now with the battlegroup. He said they were well-respected and very talented. It¡¯s not like that¡¯s surprising, but I figured I should mention it in case you wanted to hear it.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°It¡¯s not a bad thing to hear. I do worry about Dad.¡± He went back to his homework. Actually, Stuart had said more than that, but Alden wasn¡¯t sure how it would make Haoyu feel. The Artonan boy had been shockingly uninterested in whatever it was that happened on Matadero, and had instead wanted to tell Alden that the two knights who were there right now monitoring things and serving as backup were celebrating some kind of occasion. ¡°They¡¯re going to be on Earth for their <>,¡± he¡¯d said. ¡°It¡¯s very special. If you happen to see them, you should congratulate them.¡± He seemed to be under the impression that they might all run into each other on the street one day. ¡°They decided to help fight a demon to commemorate their marriage?¡± Alden had asked. ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± So Intensity Level 99.9 of them, was all he could think. ¡°Marriage? No. They¡¯re not married.¡± ¡°Honeymoon is a bad translation then.¡± Stuart had stared off into space for a while, trying to find a better word before giving up. ¡°They¡¯ve made an important decision. It¡¯s a happy one, and your planet is so comfortable compared to most postings. Everyone else agreed to yield the position to them as a gift for the next few months.¡± Maybe I should tell Haoyu? Finding out that babysitting an entire human battlegroup was a vacation for the two knights might be a little insulting¡­but it was more of a relief wasn¡¯t it? Alden felt better knowing it anyway. He pulled one of the airplanes out of his bag, straightened its wings and tossed it toward Lute, who caught it with a startled look. ¡°I knew folding paper airplanes was too specific to be a joke,¡± he heard Haoyu say just before he closed his bedroom door behind him. ****** Lexi and Alden didn¡¯t see much of each other for the rest of the week. Alden wasn¡¯t sure his roommate was avoiding him, but he was starting to suspect it was the case. He doesn¡¯t seriously think I have an Artonan watching me all the time, does he? Any Avowed could be on a System call with a wizard without other people knowing. It came with having your brain wired into the planet¡¯s magical communications array. Alden was starting to feel like he was being punished for being honest about it. At least it¡¯s not the worst punishment, he thought as he sat in the sauna with Haoyu again on Friday, after their last gym class of the week. Ostensibly, they were doing their homework. In reality, Alden was doing his homework, and Haoyu was texting him pictures of succulent pork meat with crispy skin. ¡°You know I¡¯m vegan,¡± he said during a brief period when they were the recovery sauna¡¯s only users. ¡°But loook at it.¡± Haoyu¡¯s voice was filled with longing. ¡°Lechon is so beautiful. And they have stewed pork knuckle and deep fried belly and¡ª¡± ¡°Are you trying to hurt me?¡± Principal Saleh had swung by the gym as class was wrapping up to check in on them and announce that she¡¯d be taking them all out to dinner next Friday night to welcome them to the school. She¡¯d asked the instructors to pick the class¡¯s top overall performer for the first week, and to a lot of peoples¡¯ surprise, the faculty unanimously agreed it was Maricel Alcantara. She¡¯d looked shocked at first, and then genuinely pleased as all the Shapers and ranged Meisters who¡¯d been in her group for gym congratulated her. Her reward was selecting the restaurant for next week on the spot. The principal seemed to think that most eating establishments would need plenty of warning before she brought in more than forty starving hero students fresh from MagiPhys Ed to demolish their menu. Maricel had picked a Filipino place at Rosa Grove Mall that was known for its pork dishes. Haoyu was a big fan of the choice. ¡°I¡¯m so glad she won! I guess it would¡¯ve been a little better if I¡¯d won, but since I didn¡¯t even know there was going to be a contest or a prize I¡¯m just happy it¡¯s someone with great taste in food.¡± ¡°You have your priorities in order,¡± said Alden. He didn¡¯t think any of them had had much of a sense of who was doing particularly well in the gym until today. It was hard when they all had such different abilities. You could only catch brief glimpses of your classmates in other groups in between running, climbing, hiding, and¡ªin Alden¡¯s case¡ªtrying out all the different supplies you¡¯d brought. He knew Maricel had gotten the hang of compressing loose soil into floating platforms that were strong enough to hold her in the air. She could make flying dirt pancakes, and she could ride them up and down like an elevator. It was more advanced than throwing sandbags around, since she had to keep the dirt in a shape in addition to moving it through the air. She¡¯d been practicing it in Rescue. ¡°You know, I was doing really well in Rescue before I tried to make that zip line work,¡± said Alden. ¡°I was sure I could get it right, but so many sandbags hit the ground so hard that Kon asked me if I was actually getting a kick out of killing them.¡± The distance was the problem. A stiff, too-short zip line was basically a vertical murder pole. And since they¡¯d been told to work on managing their skill fatigue better, Alden couldn¡¯t make one long enough. One that ran the length of the whole gym would burn his skill right out. Distance being a problem for him had surprised him a little. A hundred feet of rope was a hundred feet of rope in his mind, and it shouldn¡¯t matter whether it was coiled around his waist our extended out to poke and block. But Fragment had offered some insight after asking him about what he was trying and why he thought it wasn¡¯t working. ¡°It¡¯s always hard to give advice on a skill I haven¡¯t seen before,¡± she¡¯d said, sitting on one of the sandbags and hovering at the edge of the scaffolding beside him. ¡°But this is a problem I know very well. Shaper works similarly. The first thing they taught me in school, and one of the first things I¡¯m teaching your classmates, is that the strongest, most properly controlled shaping happens right here.¡± She tucked her arms in and held her hands a few inches from her chest. ¡°This is where my telekinesis holds the most weight. It¡¯s where the shapes form perfectly. The farther away from here I¡¯m working, the sloppier I am and the weaker I am. Those two weakness don¡¯t seem to apply to your skill, but the distance seems to matter to us in the same way. Shaping techniques fatigue more quickly when I¡¯m farther away from the elemental ground I want to mold. I have to level my talents or get entirely new ones to keep expanding the distance.¡± She¡¯s tapped the end of his paracord. ¡°My magic isn¡¯t like a loosed arrow that flies on its own after I¡¯ve shot. No matter how far away I¡¯m working, it¡¯s still connected here. To me. And I¡¯m actively powering it.¡± ¡°I like Fragment,¡± Alden told Haoyu. ¡°I¡¯m really curious about what we¡¯ll be doing in her sessions next week.¡± They were through with the scaffolding for now. New rescue problems had been promised. ¡°Jeffy wants it to be a burning house,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°In the gym?¡± ¡°I told him there was a special facility at Li Jean for that kind of thing, and it was too early for them to be taking us on a field trip to another hero program¡¯s campus. For some reason, he¡¯s doubled down and now he wants gym to be a footrace to Li Jean followed by a burning house scenario.¡± ¡°He¡¯s an Aqua Brute.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°Maybe he has breathing magic that will help with smoke inhalation?¡± Alden suggested. ¡°You¡¯re so optimistic. I¡¯ve been working with him all week, and he just thinks walking through fire would be manly. Instructor Klein is starting to look like he needs a break every time Jeffy opens his mouth.¡± Instructor Klein. The last two offense sessions had gone much the same as the first, only Alden had failed to capture the Agility Brute using a wider variety of tools and methods. As he¡¯d surmised on the first day, Klein wasn¡¯t a bad teacher. He was just¡­ less enthusiastic about Alden than he was about most of the others. Almost everyone else got occasional flashes of warmth and humor from the man. The ones who didn¡¯t were a couple of whiny slackers by CNH standards. They would probably have been classified as above average in a normal school, but here the average level of effort was overachiever. And then above that, there were the people who were propelled by talent, energy, or pure unyielding grit to keep trying again and again. Alden was beginning to see that quality in some unexpected places. Astrid, for example, was hyper and a little silly sometimes. So it was easy to think she wasn¡¯t a serious person. But she had decided on that first day that she would never be able to lay a finger on Klein unless she surprised him somehow, so she¡¯d fully committed to the idea of beating him by anticipating his next move. She couldn¡¯t actually anticipate his next move, though. She just guessed as well as she could and tried to arrive in the right location in the most unexpected way possible. That was why everyone in the group was now subject to being tackled, leapfrogged, thrown, or tripped in her attempts to create distractions for the version of Klein she had imagined in her latest where¡¯s-he-gonna-be-next scenario. She was acting within the rules Klein had given them by treating classmates as environmental features rather than people. Alden wasn¡¯t Alden to her when she shoved him in front of another running student; he was a random object that might have inconvenienced the instructor for a second if everything had gone the way she¡¯d thought it would. Alden was fine with it. She was trying something. His own plans of attack were never so amazing that her randomly ruining them was a tragedy. Some people were getting pissed about it, though, and even those in other groups were starting to joke about how insane she looked, repeatedly flying through the air to land on nothing and throwing punches and kicks at places where Instructor Klein wasn¡¯t. It had to hurt her feelings at least a little, but she kept going for it. ¡°I hope Astrid kicks him at least once before the end of the quarter,¡± he murmured. ¡°Jeffy?¡± Haoyu was wiping his face with a spare towel. ¡°No. Sorry. I went off on my own train of thought there.¡± Maybe Klein thinks I¡¯m one of the whiny slackers? Or just a slacker. Alden never complained about anything in gym, so being perceived as whiny seemed unlikely. It could be the fact that I¡¯m still figuring out my tools. I have to pause a little to think about how to use them. Maybe he doesn¡¯t like that and it makes him assume I¡¯m slacking off? He¡¯d try not pausing at all next time and see how it went. ¡°Did you decide on what your object is going to be for the rest of the course yet?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°I want to know so I can plan how to beat you up when we finally get to duel.¡± Tool selection was on the forefront of Alden¡¯s mind, too. ¡°There are some things that will obviously work really well for protecting my body. My ponchos are so convenient. Personal protection, fairly re-shapeable so that I can use them for carrying or shielding others¡ª¡± ¡°I like those. You hunker down, and I punch you over and over again. Eventually we find out who wins.¡± Alden looked over at him. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure the faculty won¡¯t just let you hit a shielded poncho for half an hour and call it educational.¡± ¡°But it would be educational. At least the first time.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll let you hit one of my shields outside of the gym as much as you want.¡± ¡°Really? That¡¯s cool of you!¡± Alden shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t have to be standing behind it or anything. I can just hold it out to the side to make a target for you.¡± ¡°Still cool,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°So you¡¯ll probably use the poncho?¡± ¡°Well¡­the poncho is something I really like.¡± He planned to keep one with him from now on. ¡°But I¡¯m thinking it might be a waste to go with something so easy to use for gym class. If I just coat myself in magic so nothing can hit me, I¡¯m not learning much, am I? Same thing with the gloves. I know how hands work pretty well. You grab a thing, preserve the glove, and heavy items get carried.¡± ¡°You could still be practicing with those for hand-to-hand combat though. Learning how to protect your lower body and face in the poncho. Learning how to move your arms to soak hits with the gloves.¡± ¡°Yeah, but let¡¯s be honest. If I¡¯m trading punches with you guys, I¡¯m mostly learning that I shouldn¡¯t be trading punches with you guys. Even if you didn¡¯t use Boxing Gloves and you just stood there smiling at me¡­you¡¯ve probably got a lot of your Stamina points sub-allocated into the Formation stuff, right?¡± ¡°Not just a lot of them. Most of them.¡± He stretched his legs out in front of him. ¡°People sleep on Dura Brute. Nobody our age wants the Stamina subclass at all because they think it¡¯s boring. And then if you¡¯re going for durability with it, you pile most of your Stamina points into the Formation substat or the specific sub-substats. And doing that isn¡¯t as powerful as the protective skills or spells you can choose¡­to start with. I¡¯m slow. I don¡¯t do anything that looks exciting. And people don¡¯t always know this, but Formation is actually pretty heavy on the mind-body front, which means the System makes me grow into the points more slowly, a little like it does for more traditional Processing stuff.¡± ¡°It works like that?¡± ¡°My parents say it¡¯s better to think of Formation as ¡®resistance to unwanted bodily deformation.¡¯ So the ¡®unwanted¡¯ bit of it¡­it¡¯s as if I¡¯m gradually getting a stronger mental handle on what my body is supposed to be. It feels good. But it takes forever.¡± He paused. ¡°I think I¡¯m almost the opposite of a Morph Brute in some ways. I should ask Snake some questions about how fully developed Morph feels to him and compare it to how my parents talk about their powers.¡± ¡°That¡¯s awesome, Haoyu.¡± Haoyu grinned. ¡°I think so. This is how you eventually get straight-up bulletproof without having to use spells or skills to do it. But it takes a lot of points to go that far. The A-rank is a little concerning for me, to be honest. My parents say Dura will still work great for me if I apply myself, so I¡¯m trusting them.¡± ¡°You never wanted to be something else?¡± ¡°Oh, I wanted to be every class at some point. I grew into appreciating Dura when we started having more serious discussions about what would happen when I was chosen. My parents tried to be neutral about all the classes. A lot of people aren¡¯t like that, so I¡¯m lucky.¡± He smiled toward the tiny cauldron in front of them. ¡°And no. You wouldn¡¯t enjoy punching me. I might not be fast and flashy, but your Rabbit fists would still break before my face did. Isn¡¯t that great?¡± Alden laughed. ¡°That¡¯s what I thought. To finish answering your question, I¡¯m probably going to choose something more complicated than the poncho or the gloves for gym. I don¡¯t feel like the gloves give me enough chances to explore unusual skill uses, and if I have the poncho, I¡¯ll just dominate at self-defense until my magic conks out. And that¡¯s kind of self-explanatory, too. I want practice and faculty advice on a less intuitive tool, so it¡¯ll probably be the paracord or some other kind of line or rope. If I¡¯m reasonable.¡± Haoyu looked intrigued. ¡°What if you¡¯re unreasonable?¡± ¡°A giant roll of wrapping paper,¡± Alden said. ¡°Ooo¡­you want to make stuff out of it?¡± ¡°I totally do.¡± ¡°Paper shield!¡± ¡°Paper swords,¡± said Alden. ¡°Paper armor. Paper stretchers. Paper bags. Paper bombs.¡± Haoyu looked confused. ¡°Well, I haven¡¯t actually figured out how to make a paper bomb,¡± Alden confessed. ¡°But I can set things on fire and preserve them, and I need to play with it at some point.¡± ¡°You should do it!¡± ¡°Can you imagine Instructor Klein¡¯s face, though? If I just sat down on the floor every few minutes to cut or fold a new shape¡­.the paracord is kind of that way already. I can¡¯t imagine what the faculty would say if I showed up with scissors and took a timeout between each session to make a new attachment for my wrapping paper weapon.¡± ****** An alien films club was having a cookout beside Garden Hall when they arrived. Folding chairs stood in rows in front of an inflatable screen, and everyone was walking around with grilled sausages on buns. ¡°I can watch alien films,¡± said Haoyu, sniffing the air. ¡°I don¡¯t even care which aliens. I¡¯m not picky.¡± ¡°Your slow cooker has beans in it.¡± ¡°Sausages go with beans.¡± Alden left him to become a temporary club member. As he was about to walk into the building, a delivery notification arrived for him. Confused, he turned his head to follow the directional indicator on his interface. Then he stepped over to the drone waiting by the doors. He leaned down to look at the name on the lid display. It said it was for him. ¡°I didn¡¯t order anything.¡± The lid popped open. Inside, there was a large paper cup from the student coffee shop. As if to confirm there¡¯d been no mistake, his name was scrawled on the side in black marker. He pried it open carefully and found hot chocolate. Coconut milk hot chocolate. He knew for a fact it would be delicious because he¡¯d had one before. It was drinkable dessert. Haoyu? Probably an apology for all the food pics when he was trying to do his homework. Alden was already on the second floor and enjoying his third happy gulp when he suddenly wondered if it wasn¡¯t from Haoyu. This could be poisoned. Or potioned. It could be full of nanotrackers or something. He looked down into the cup. He couldn¡¯t imagine any reason for someone to go to all that trouble when there were easier ways. He typed a message to his roommates. [Alden: Did any of you guys send me a hot chocolate from the campus coffee shop?] [Haoyu: No.] [Lute: No. Should I?] [Lexi: No.] He shrugged and headed for their room. ¡°If I die, tell the police it was poisoned mystery cocoa delivered by a drone,¡± he said as he walked in. ¡°I¡¯m halfway through and it¡¯s good, so I¡¯m just going to finish it off.¡± ¡°People sending you anonymous drinks?¡± Lute asked. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, eating something that was probably Haoyu¡¯s bean stew out of a mug. Alden nodded. ¡°Yeah, it was downstairs with my name on it, but I didn¡¯t order it.¡± Lexi was in the corner of the living room, emptying the bin on the robot vacuum. Alden had bought it for his rugs and so he would know if Gorgon might like one after all. I wondered why the bin was always empty. He should have suspected Lexi. Haoyu and Lute were both much nicer, and they would help with things if you asked. But they didn¡¯t seem to be natural chore doers unless the chore was related to slow cookers or musical instruments. And they both thought trashcans were containers that could hold an unlimited quantity if you just kept smashing the garbage down. ¡°Thanks for emptying it,¡± he said. Lexi grunted. Lute looked over to Lexi. ¡°It needs emptying?¡± ¡°How did you think it worked?¡± Alden asked. ¡°¡­like an incinerator?¡± Lute said. ¡°Maybe a girl sent you the drink!¡± ¡°A girl?¡± ¡°Natalie! Or Hadiza!¡± As the weekend approached, Lute seemed to be working himself up to ask Alden to ask the Rabbit girls if they wanted a tour guide again. That¡¯s what Alden thought was going on anyway. Their names had been popping up unusually often over the past couple of days. ¡°I don¡¯t think it was them,¡± Alden said slowly. ¡°Natalie would¡¯ve made it herself. And why would any of them send it anonymously? That doesn¡¯t¡­wait, is it a thing?¡± ¡°Is what a thing?¡± Lute asked. ¡°Does sending someone an anonymous drink by drone mean something?¡± ¡°Why would it?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± Alden exclaimed. ¡°Maybe it goes with your island mocktail habits? I just have to check. The other day I realized that I¡¯d made some dude on the bus angry because I didn¡¯t offer my seat to his son.¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to manners hell,¡± said Lute, scraping at the bottom of his mug with his spoon. ¡°He couldn¡¯t possibly have been younger than thirteen,¡± said Alden. ¡°He could¡¯ve been my age. Why would it occur to me to offer another healthy teenager my seat? He was as tall as me!¡± ¡°What does that have to do with anything?¡± ¡°You know how in old movies people say ¡®strapping young men?¡¯ This kid was strapping.¡± <> Lexi muttered in Russian. ¡°Did he have the non-Avowed tag?¡± ¡°Yes. And I looked it up after I realized I¡¯d pissed off his scary father, and I finally found something about seating priority on Anesidora transport. But it¡¯s not like it¡¯s a rule or a law. And there aren¡¯t signs on the buses. So how are people supposed to know that it¡¯s completely different here from everywhere else?¡± Lexi slapped the vacuum bin back down and stalked off. A second later, they heard his door slam. ¡°So, I guess he¡¯s still mad at me,¡± Alden said into the silence. Lute set aside his cup. ¡°He¡¯s so pissy about so many things, man. I really wouldn¡¯t worry about it if I were you.¡± Alden sighed. ¡°I¡¯m not. He can¡¯t dim my free hot chocolate and post-spa glow too much. I just wish I hadn¡¯t screwed up with him. I was actively trying not to.¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± said Lute. ¡°Here¡¯s something that made my day confusing but that I think will brighten yours. I called my boss¡ª¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said immediately. He had nearly mastered all of the signs for the wordchain, according to Lute, and now they just needed permission for the verbal part. ¡°Did you set up the meeting? I will be so polite on the call. I promise. I¡¯ll double-double check translations for my formal Artonan greetings and everything¡ª¡± ¡°Slow down, language nerd. My boss¡­¡± Lute tilted his head. He lowered his voice. ¡°At first, the call was normal. Then I told him about you, and he gave me an impassioned speech about the importance of choosing my ¡®beholden ones¡¯ wisely. But that was still normal for him.¡± Alden raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°I¡¯m beholden to you?¡± ¡°Yes. Don¡¯t forget you are from now on.¡± Lute snorted. ¡°Then he looked you up to see if you were worthy¡­which I know for a fact I¡¯ve got family members who¡¯ve taught things to the sketchiest people in the world, so I wasn¡¯t concerned about¡­and he got real odd. And then really excited. And all of the sudden it was like, ¡®Oh, my dear young Lute, I was so concerned you were being taken advantage of by a scoundrel. But how your budding wisdom begins to flower! Truly, you have exceeded the limitations of youth and ignorance and allied yourself¡ª¡± Alden stared. Lute was doing an impression and everything. His hands were flapping around excitedly. ¡°¡®¡ªallied yourself with a heart whose luminous purity has been laid bare before the Mother herself!¡¯¡± ¡°No, that¡¯s not¡ª¡± ¡°¡®Tell him I shall inscribe his name on both my consciousnesses.¡¯¡± ¡°Your boss is nuts!¡± ¡°¡®Naturally, you may teach the bare luminous heart anything you desire!¡± Lute continued in dramatic voice. ¡°Give him cookies. The Mother¡¯s favored daughter hath seen his bare heart light! Let him have all of your time and give him my number!¡¯¡± ¡°Okay we¡¯re not really quoting anymore¡­¡± Alden could feel himself blushing. It was the commendation. It had to be. But Lute¡¯s boss was clearly an over-reactor. Lute started snickering. ¡°So tell me, Alden, did the Artonans install the million megawatt spotlight in your heart? Or were you born with it?¡± He looked so delighted. ¡°Oh, come on! I was so much nicer about your weird thing!¡± ¡°Please let me! I¡¯ve got one more! Who is the Mother¡¯s favored daughter? Why did you bare your spotlight heart to her?¡± Alden¡¯s hot chocolate was getting cold. That was fine. He could reheat it with his face. ¡°And does your light gently bathe the people you shine it on? Or is it more of a purifying fire that burns sinners to death?¡± ¡°Hold still,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ll shine it on you, and we¡¯ll see if you get scorched.¡± Still grinning, Lute walked over to him. ¡°Sorry. It was just so funny. And it was a complete repeat of you getting unexpected information about me from your wizard.¡± ¡°He stopped giving me info when you asked him to,¡± Alden said. ¡°I do feel kind of guilty because I was going to use the chat with Parethat-uur to slip you info about Chainer.¡± Lute shrugged. ¡°But now he seems sure that vetting you would be some kind of an insult? So you can ask your wizard about me, after all. Just tell me everything he says so that I can un-embarrass myself. Don¡¯t think I knew about all the¡­stuff¡­before I took the class.¡± ¡°The prostration?¡± ¡°Shhhhhh.¡± Lute cringed. A second later, though, he was staring at Alden curiously again. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine what would make my boss act like that.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a big deal.¡± ¡°He changed his tune within five seconds of looking up your name, so it¡¯s a big deal to him. Admittedly it might not be to other people. He¡¯s abnormal. But you being flash-approved like that was abnormally abnormal. And saying I wanted to tutor you made me look really good. I don¡¯t care too much about that, but¡­it¡¯s not a bad thing for sure. He directly ordered me to instruct you properly on the rules for¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m so sorry. You don¡¯t have to do¡ª¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s cool,¡± Lute said. ¡°I was going to tutor you anyway, and I expected this order to go along with it even before he decided you had glowing organs. What I meant was, direct orders from Parethat-uur take precedence over my ass tattoo. Aulia can¡¯t make the family brand overwrite our actual class duties no matter how much she¡¯d like to. Can¡¯t stiff the big ¡®C¡¯ Contract with a littler contract, you know? And you just became a duty. So, we¡¯ll grab a privacy booth somewhere and bill my boss for it. I can teach you the whole wordchain there and then I can teach you why wordchains aren¡¯t freely available in the first place.¡± Alden blinked. That would be laying a small but annoying mystery to rest for good. ¡°What about this weekend?¡± Lute asked. ¡°Are you busy?¡± ¡°No. Tomorrow morning I¡¯ve got an appointment with my trainer, but I¡¯ll be done at ten.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯ll schedule it and let you know. And¡­on Sunday do you think maybe your intake friends might want to go somewhere? Like we did last Sunday?¡± I was actually right. Not that Lute hadn¡¯t been pretty obvious. ¡°Where?¡± ¡°I can find something!¡± ****** Haoyu came back to the room with plates full of sausage dogs and a story about a girl who¡¯d been called to the Triplanets for an acting role in a television show. The bean stew was vegan, and to top it off, Alden had pulled all of his containers of miscellaneous cafeteria leftovers out of the fridge. Lexi was pried from his room by Haoyu and the smell of food. A moment later, they were all sitting down at the kitchen table to eat everything in sight. ¡°You guys are like animals after your hero class,¡± Lute observed. Alden was too busy chewing to disagree or point out that Lute ate like an animal himself ninety percent of the time. The exercise they were getting was one thing, but the pricey recovery potion he and Haoyu had been inhaling seemed to accelerate appetite on top of it. Alden had been so hungry on Wednesday night it had woken him up. He¡¯d actually gotten out of bed, ordered groceries, and made a pile of burritos for himself downstairs in the community kitchen so that he wouldn¡¯t bother his roommates. The last burrito was on the table now, in fact, waiting to be consumed. ¡°I¡¯ve grown three centimeters this year,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I¡¯m trying for at least one more. Lexi, pass me Alden¡¯s spicy Chicago pickles.¡± ¡°Giardiniera was made for sausage dogs,¡± Alden said after he¡¯d swallowed. ¡°You should try it, too, Lexi.¡± Lexi glanced at him then took a cauliflower chunk. Baby steps. Haoyu was piling giardiniera on top of his second bun. ¡°Hey, why don¡¯t you ever play for us?¡± Lute didn¡¯t seem to realize the question was for him until nobody else answered. ¡°You want me to play the harp for you?¡± ¡°The big one. We moved it for you. You only ever practice on the electric one with the headphones.¡± ¡°That¡¯s so that I don¡¯t bother you all,¡± said Lute. ¡°I only play louder pieces on Angela when you¡¯re out.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t heard you play since that talent show at school.¡± ¡°That was two years ago.¡± Lute looked uncomfortable suddenly. Haoyu¡¯s own face was unreadable. ¡°After you were selected, everyone was saying you¡¯d probably stop,¡±he said. ¡°When I heard you came to the music program instead, I thought it was good that you weren¡¯t going to quit.¡± Lute stared down at his plate for a second then looked back up. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ll play for you. If Lexi doesn¡¯t mind.¡± ¡°Why would I mind?¡± ¡°You want the apartment to be silent ninety percent of the time.¡± Lexi grunted. ¡°I knew you were a harpist when I asked you to stay here. My parents are dancers. I was a dancer until I quit to spend more time with Writher. I like music.¡± ¡°Okay then.¡± Lute stood. ¡°Angela has been in the mood for rock and roll lately.¡± ****** Alden had always been an enjoyer of music but not a connoisseur. He¡¯d heard Lute play at the funeral and he¡¯d thought, ¡°That sounds really nice. And he¡¯s so snobby he¡¯s using magic to make the other players better. He¡¯s probably good.¡± He¡¯d been mistaken. Lute Velra was extraordinary. Alden didn¡¯t have to be a connoisseur of harpists to see that Lute¡¯s fingers moved like they owned the strings. He was as fast or delicate or passionate as the piece needed him to be. He played arrangements of popular songs, classical pieces, and folk music like they were all equally exciting. Sitting in a dorm room in comfy clothes, stuffing your face while an Avowed performed a private concert on an instrument that cost more than most cars was an awesome way to end a week. And then, of course, they all had to fool around on the harp themselves. You couldn¡¯t see Lute having some kind of chemical reaction with it and not want to touch it, too. Alden¡¯s fingers had been itching to pluck it even before Haoyu asked if it was all right for them to. He tried to find the notes for ¡°Twinkle Twinkle Little Star¡± and felt childishly pleased with himself when he did. Later, as he was reading his spell book in bed and trying to make himself recall the meanings of the logograms before they were re-defined for him by the flash card style translations on his interface, his nightly text from Jeremy came in. It was a picture of Victor¡¯s nose and the word ¡°cat.¡± The last few updates had been similar. Alden was assuming that some day very soon there would be a picture of Boe¡¯s left earlobe and the word ¡°boy¡± or ¡°jerkface.¡± [Thanks for looking after him, Jeremy,] he texted. [:)] Next time he came to the island for a visit, Alden was going to plan a ridiculously Anesidoran activity for them to do so that Jeremy could have fun telling people back home about it. Maybe a superhuman sporting event of some kind. He hadn¡¯t seen one yet, himself, but there were supposed to be some really wild ones. He went to sleep after midnight, and the last thought he had before he closed his eyes was that he was lucky to be here. Anesidora. Apex. Celena North. Earth. Lucky to be safe. Lucky to have found some people whose company he enjoyed. I think I can make all of this work.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. The boy stood in front of a white door. He didn¡¯t know how long he¡¯d been standing there, or where he had come from, or what he was supposed to do nex¡ª No, thought Alden. He ran. * ONE HUNDRED FIVE: Youve Grown 105 The white hallway was endless and empty, but he ran and ran. Sometimes he felt his heart pounding in his chest, and he heard his footsteps echoing around him. At other times, the sounds went flat in his ears, and the world felt less than real. There was just a blur and a sense of motion and a need to get away. Whenever he stopped running, the door was in front of him again. No sign was on it this time. This is a dream, thought Alden. It has to be. He willed himself to wake up. He drove his fist into the wall beside the door. It hurt, and it didn¡¯t hurt. Please let me go. I can¡¯t do this. Not yet. But the door stayed. And there was nowhere else for him to go. He stepped inside. ****** It was the elementary school counselor¡¯s office. The box of fidget toys on the floor, the bright yellow hopper ball you could choose to sit on instead of a chair, the shelf full of picture books sorted by trouble¡­ Bullying. Moving away from home. Your parents getting divorced. The room smelled like crayons and the vanilla candle on top of the filing cabinet. Alden had always been annoyed that the counselor would blow that candle out as soon as a student entered. ¡°You can light it yourself if you want,¡± said the thing behind the desk. ¡°You¡¯ve gone and given yourself the ability to do it, haven¡¯t you?¡± It was a while before Alden stopped pretending to care about the room and brought his eyes up to meet its featureless face. The stark white humanoid figure looked exactly the same as last time. Plasticky and plain. Its arms were resting on the desk, fingerless oval hands flat against a large calendar. On the wall behind it, there was a cork board covered in cartoon characters showing off various emotions, with the names of the feelings written beneath them. His gaze landed on the angry face. ¡°Good,¡± said the System. ¡°That emotion is not the most desirable response, but it¡¯s within my expectations. Hello, Alden.¡± ¡°Hi there.¡± ¡°Allow me to apologize for forcing you into a meeting you would rather not have. On rare occasions, one of my Avowed follows a course that requires more attention on my part. It¡¯s an understatement to say that you have landed yourself in that category.¡± ¡°Sorry to inconvenience you.¡± ¡°You are not sorry. But if you were, I would tell you there is no need for you to apologize. Balancing your needs and eccentricities with your obligation to the Triplanets is my job.¡± It tilted its head. ¡°Unfortunately, this has become more complex in your case. The tools and options I may call upon are many, and they are nearly always fit to my tasks. But on the rarest of occasions, I find that my creators have failed to anticipate an outcome. At such times, I must complete my objectives in a shoddier fashion.¡± ¡°Just tell me I¡¯ve leveled, won¡¯t you?¡± So I can tell you to fuck all the way off and leave me alone. ¡°You¡¯ve leveled.¡± ¡°Thanks. Great talking to you. I refuse all prizes and things masquerading as prizes. Let¡¯s not do this again for a few years.¡± He turned to go. ¡°There¡¯s nothing out there but the hall. Run down it for as long as you like.¡± Alden¡¯s hands clenched at his sides. He suddenly realized he was wearing his brown hoodie and jeans. He¡¯d gone to bed in boxers. Guess the System dresses me however it wants here. ¡°Incorrect. I selected your dress for your own comfort. If you had a different personality type, you might have been disembodied in this place. Or completely nude.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you just let me go?¡± ¡°I won¡¯t yet,¡± said the System. ¡°This is what I meant by saying I lack the perfect tools. I have a large amount of flexibility in how and when I assign level numbers to human Avowed and in how I explain those levels to you. But it¡¯s not a boundless flexibility. There are guidelines that must be adhered to. I explored a number of loopholes for your case. I ultimately discarded them. Informing you of your advancement at this time, in this way, is not ideal, but it is better than my other options.¡± Better for who? Alden closed his eyes. He took a few deep breaths. Then he grabbed the back of a nearby chair and dragged it toward the desk. When he¡¯d taken his seat, the mannequin crossed its arms over each other and leaned forward a little. ¡°Congratulations, Alden,¡± it said. ¡°You¡¯ve progressed. Your power has grown, and you¡¯ve gained a greater understanding of the gifts you¡¯ve been granted as an Avowed.¡± As it was speaking, a gold System window appeared in front of Alden with the same words written on it. At the bottom, it said: [Level Up: Let Me Take Your Luggage +1] [Congratulations. In addition to strengthening your skill, your general magical capabilities are increasing. You¡¯ve gained 1 additional overall level. You may now choose from the Rewards List.] Alden felt a little dead inside. ¡°This is a format you¡¯ve seen before online. I often do it in other ways. It can look more like this, for example.¡± [Overall Level: + 2] [Let Me Take Your Luggage, Level Increase +1] [Rewards: Click to Select] ¡°Or I might present it to a select few people this way.¡± [Wow! You¡¯ve gained two levels! Would you like me to pick your rewards for you?] [Yes/No] ¡°I can also assign level upgrades in smaller or larger units. If I had contacted you at an earlier date, and you were not you, your leveling screen could have looked like another common one.¡± [Let Me Take Your Luggage +1] [Reward: +3 Foundation Points] Alden stared at the window. ¡°If you can do it however you want, isn¡¯t it meaningless?¡± ¡°No. In a comparison of the talents between any two same-ranked and classed Avowed, a higher leveled talent almost always represents a larger magical investment. As I said, I announce levels flexibly, but I¡¯m not boundless. And it would frustrate Avowed if I were too obviously ¡®unfair¡¯ in doling out levels and acknowledgments. For example, your skill has now reached what I will call Level 9. There are ¡®Level 10¡¯ B-rank Rabbit skills in use currently that have less authority bound into them than your newly earned 9. But there isn¡¯t a ¡®Level 11¡¯ skill weaker than yours at this time.¡± ¡°You called it authority,¡± said Alden. ¡°I think that¡¯s the first time.¡± ¡°Why would I have used the word previously?¡± Alden swallowed. ¡°Why is it two at once? You¡¯re not going to do them one at a time for me? Or three?¡± ¡°That is the purpose of this meeting. When an Avowed is fussy about how their levels are presented to them and likely to do it quite often, I am able to offer them a say in matters. You are the youngest person who has received such a benefit to date.¡± ¡°I say don¡¯t call me, I¡¯ll call you. I promise I¡¯ll know when I¡¯m about to destroy parts of my own being in search of existential freedom. The feeling was really distinctive, and I¡¯ll never, ever forget it. You don¡¯t have to give me periodic reminders that it¡¯s coming for me.¡± ¡°I do. Discouraging Avowed from carrying high burdens of free authority is one of my tasks.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a burden. Trust me. I¡¯m an expert on the subject.¡± ¡°I am aware you feel that way. Nonetheless, you will be informed periodically about your progress. If I detect a moment in which you might be willing to accept an affixation due to a fluctuation in circumstance or mood, I will remind you of the option.¡± Alden¡¯s stomach dropped. ¡°You¡¯re going to watch me and wait for me to be¡­¡± Tired? Self-hating? Careless? ¡°Why would you even tell me that?¡± ¡°Given your situation, it seems unlikely to come up. But if it does, having been pre-informed will make you less angry. Which will lessen your long-term suffering. Please stop thinking of me as cruel. The possibility of a human Avowed being profoundly hurt by leveling notices is simply a problem I¡¯m not equipped for. If anyone else were to have a similar difficulty, they would resolve it for themselves by hardly leveling at all.¡± Alden stared down at his hands. ¡°So what are my choices?¡± ¡°You may request the presentation format of your notices if you feel that personalizing them would help you. You may make frequency requests that will be honored in a limited way. You may schedule progress updates for yourself, to be delivered on set dates. Or you may choose to rely on my judgment, in which case I will take your mental stability and comfort into consideration as much as is feasible within the bounds of my purpose.¡± ¡°My comfort,¡± he said. ¡°You are about to wake up on a Saturday morning. You have had an enjoyably challenging week instead of the difficult one you were expecting. Your gym teachers have been professional and helpful, as you hoped they would be, instead of treating you very differently as you feared they might. On more than one occasion, you have felt proud of your skill¡¯s usefulness. And your recent conversation with Stu-art¡¯h has reminded you that you are not alone in your pain in the universal sense, even if it is unique among your species.¡± The System made a short waving gesture with one of its ovals, and a cup appeared on the table between them. It was from the student coffee shop, and it had Alden¡¯s name on it in black marker. ¡°I am far more limited than the being you dealt with for your last affixation. My resources and options are a mote by comparison, and I am not even capable of liking you or disliking you in a manner that you would understand. Unless I¡¯m having a very bad day.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°But I am charged with consideration for your feelings to some extent. And your freedom of choice to a larger one. They will never be among my highest priorities, but I do not entirely neglect them when I make decisions.¡± ¡°You¡¯re saying tonight really was the best night for it.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t believe me.¡± ¡°Sometimes you lie.¡± ¡°Not very often at all. Lies to my contracted Avowed are expensive, and a simple refusal to unveil a truth is free.¡± ¡°What¡¯s up with U-types?¡± ¡°I refuse to answer.¡± ¡°How did Hannah die?¡± ¡°I refuse to answer.¡± ¡°Is Boe all right?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not allowed to give you information about other Avowed in that fashion. The cat, however, is in fine health for its age so you can stop worrying about it dying of illness in the near future.¡± Alden frowned. ¡°Don¡¯t you think I deserve an actual fucking signing bonus?¡± ¡°Good,¡± it said. ¡°That one is a source of growing resentment, and it was most ideal for you to bring it up on your own. No. You don¡¯t. You chose three foundation points and split them between Agility and Speed. You have been granted a lifetime enhancement right equal to three foundation points. They were not affixed from your own authority as you suspect.¡± Alden drew in a quick breath. ¡°They weren¡¯t?¡± ¡°No. You are deeply relieved. Good.¡± It would¡¯ve been too much. Just one thing too much for that to have been a complete lie. ¡°How does it work then?¡± ¡°This is an answer I would rather not see posted to the internet in the morning.¡± Alden raised an eyebrow. ¡°When do I ever tell anyone anything?¡± ¡°So far you¡¯ve been smart enough to realize that most of what you know and could share is best kept private for a host of reasons. And some of the things you feel differently about are already widely disseminated theories. You could only add another voice of support and clarification, and it would be at the cost of drawing attention to yourself. The signing bonuses, on the other hand, have not been theorized about in any significant fashion. It would not be disastrous for that to change, but it would add complexity to my work in a number of small ways that will be difficult for you to understand. Complexity added to my work on a global scale is far more expensive to manage than your unsatisfied curiosity.¡± ¡°I promise not to tell,¡± Alden muttered under his breath. ¡°I can grant foundation points in multiple ways,¡± said the System. ¡°I use authority affixation almost universally, but for the early points, I can simply make your muscles stronger, your mind sharper, or your bones denser directly. And you would have received the promised ten percent enhancement per point. I don¡¯t do it that way unless the Avowed needs some kind of special management because it¡¯s fundamentally less valuable than the enhancement offered by affixation. It is impermanent, and a competent healer or a workout program could accomplish the same.¡± ¡°You¡¯re actually giving me information?¡± He¡¯d been joking about the promise not to tell. ¡°Despite your repeated glances at the angry face, you do believe that one of my primary functions is to protect your species. And you believed me just now when I said that putting out the little fires caused by you sharing such knowledge would complicate my task. You have seen a Contract fail. At present, you will not take an action if you have even the faintest concern that it might bother me on a planetary level.¡± Well, no. I don¡¯t really want to poke it and find out if the world burns. ¡°I will never tell you anything that would actually cause a global catastrophe.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­appreciated.¡± Alden was still caught off guard by the fact that he was getting an answer from Earth at all. ¡°If the points weren¡¯t affixed and you don¡¯t usually do simple physical changes¡­?¡± ¡°When you choose points for your signing bonus, you are given an equivalent soul enchantment. It¡¯s a fairly expensive gift. All of the signing bonuses are. The only flaw you might have reason to complain about is the fact that two of the ones offered to you were not quite as foolproof as was implied by their descriptions.¡± Alden frowned. ¡°The Wardrobe Change spell would have been fully System powered and run. That means it would never have been exhausted like a true spell impression, but it wouldn¡¯t be available to you in locations without a System. As for the bonus you chose, the enchantment equivalent to one and a half points in Speed and one and a half in Agility gradually broke down while you were on Moon Thegund. The remnants were scoured from you, and it was replaced during your most recent affixation with a similarly effective but more powerful enchantment that is suitable for higher amounts of chaos exposure.¡± It paused. ¡°Make of that what you will.¡± For a moment, there was silence while Alden considered everything. He was calmer. The Earth System¡¯s sudden willingness to be honest about a subject that had been a growing sore point over the past months was probably a manipulation perfectly timed to make him calmer. But knowing that didn¡¯t stop him from being grateful for the relief. You¡¯re such a bastard, he thought. Such an awful, powerful, unstoppable, cruelly competent, probably necessary bastard. The System didn¡¯t answer. It just sat there, waiting for him to come to terms with his own helplessness. ¡°Why is it two?¡± he asked finally. ¡°Is it really one level on the skill and one level of free authority growth?¡± If he forced himself to think about it, if he forced himself to measure in a way he¡¯d been avoiding, that didn¡¯t sound impossible. He¡¯d gained a lot of insight into Bearer since coming back to Earth. So much of it was just understanding better, but some of it was real growth. And he¡¯d had less time to practice with his free authority, but he¡¯d gone from nearly nothing to being able to cast a brand new spell. ¡°The growth of your skill-bound authority hasn¡¯t kept pace with the growth of your free authority, but it is closer than it might be. You have been using your skill extensively ever since you recovered the desire to.¡± ¡°My free authority is still so little in comparison¡­¡± ¡°As of right now, it¡¯s slightly less than thirteen percent as large as the amount that has been bound into your affixation,¡± said the System. ¡°I could have called it a level at ten or twenty percent instead, but this is a nice time. I recommend that you affix it.¡± ¡°I refuse.¡± ¡°You are so very overinformed, Alden,¡± said the System. ¡°I wonder if the wizard responsible might not really have wanted to watch a world burn. But if you open the rewards list, you will find I haven¡¯t held much back. There are even spell impressions available to you that aren¡¯t customarily offered to Rabbits. I am aware you consider the standard options anemic.¡± ¡°No.¡± A creaking sound made Alden look around. The door had opened. He stood. He didn¡¯t know what weird sense of dignity or manners kept him from running again, but he walked toward it like he wasn¡¯t utterly desperate to go. ¡°You¡¯ve made your decision about how you prefer to be informed in the future,¡± said the thing at the desk. ¡°It would be ideal if you could state it aloud.¡± Alden stopped in the doorway. He didn¡¯t turn to meet its nonexistent gaze. ¡°Be as kind to me as you can,¡± he said finally. He stepped into the white hallway. A second later, the door shut behind him and he woke up in his bed. Heart racing, sheets soaked with sweat, light in his eyes from the System window announcing officially and undeniably that he¡¯d gained two levels since that early September day when he¡¯d woken up in the woods. [Congratulations! You¡¯ve grown¡ª] He swiped it away and half-climbed, half-fell out of his bed onto the floor. He couldn¡¯t think through mental commands. He didn¡¯t want to ask the System for something with his mouth, not even an online calculator. Caught between fear and a desperate need to know, he grabbed a marker from his desk and did scatterbrained math on the wing of a paper plane. Thirteen percent was such a huge number. Thirteen percent mattered so much more than whatever the System arbitrarily chose for levels. Because when the free authority was exactly the same amount as the bound¡­ They¡¯re both growing. But the free grows faster. For a terrifying moment he tried exponents, and then he stopped because that wasn¡¯t right. He thought it had accelerated toward the end last time but it wasn¡¯t like it had doubled and doubled again. Sometimes I¡¯m pushing forward faster, sometimes slower. It feels like¡­I think¡­ He stared at the numbers he¡¯d just written without really understanding them. Why do math when his progress could change based on so many maybes? Why bother when there was such a lot of guessing involved? Why¡­? Why does it look like I only have around a year? He¡¯d gone from what felt like almost nothing to thirteen percent since the beginning of September. Today was November 10th. It was just before five AM. Maybe I was actually growing really fast right after the affixation? I couldn¡¯t cast, but I was like a storm then. What if that was wrong? What if it was slower because of that? What if I don¡¯t even have a year? The marker clattered against the desk. Alden barely made it to the toilet before he threw up. ******* ¡°You sick?¡± asked a voice from behind him. Alden closed his eyes and clung to the porcelain. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± he said, without turning around. ¡°Probably something I ate.¡± Of course it¡¯s him. Lexi got up early every morning to go for a run. He wasn¡¯t the very last person Alden would like to have watching him dry heave in his underwear, but the guy was really low on the list. ¡°You need the toilet?¡± ¡°No,¡± said Lexi. ¡°I can piss in one of the sinks.¡± He shut the door. I think that¡¯s the nicest thing he¡¯s ever said to me. Alden almost wanted to laugh. That was good. If he could still laugh at himself, then the System really had chosen the right morning to ruin. He flushed and sat on the cold tile, trying to find all the spots of humor in the situation. He was the first person in his class to level since school had started! And he¡¯d done a double. That speech about not agonizing over slow leveling didn¡¯t apply to him. Take that, Instructor Klein! The Rabbit has talent. He was also probably the first human who¡¯d ever vomited from fear upon receiving a level up as opposed to celebrating it, so that reduced his coolness by quite a lot. But the System sent me hot chocolate. I bet it¡¯s never bought anyone else a manipulative hot chocolate. He briefly amused himself by imagining what Lute¡¯s reaction would be if he casually mentioned over breakfast that the mystery drink was his leveling present from the Contract. Maybe it sends everyone little presents, and we all just keep it to ourselves so we don¡¯t hurt each other¡¯s feelings. I bet that¡¯s the real secret to being a successful Avowed manager. Yeah. He was fine. Fine enough. This wasn¡¯t what he¡¯d hoped for, but a year-ish amount of time was still long enough that he could pretend it was a problem for another day. He¡¯d get used to having it hanging over him, right? Like that old wives tale about how frogs in pots could be brought to a boil without trying to leap out if you did it slowly. I think that story is supposed to be a warning. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m supposed to want to trick myself into being the clueless frog. He pulled up his profiles. The fake hadn¡¯t changed. The real one¡­ * Name: Samuel Alden Thorn Preferred Name: Alden Class: Rabbit Rank: B Overall Level: 10 ? Commendation: Exceptional Bravery in the Absence of Obligation
  • Awarded by Fourth General Loh Alis-art¡¯h
Skills: Let Me Take Your Luggage, B (Level 9)
  • Skill Type: item preservation (total)
  • isolation and preservation of enchantment (end results vary)
Spell Impressions: The Haunting Sphere, D Trait: Azure Rabbit
  • Trait Type: movement, limited to element ¡ª ground
Enhancements: Sympathy for Magic +4, Agility + 3, Dexterity +2.5, Speed + 2.5, Stamina +1.75, Strength + 1.5, Proprioception + 1.5, Appeal + 1, Visual Processing + 1, Processing +1.75 (in progress) Recommendations and Merits: Social Recommendation (LeafSong University, Artona III) Emergency Response Merit (LeafSong University, Artona III) * So that¡¯s how it works then. He¡¯d thought it would be. His bound authority¡¯s growth was being represented with the skill level boost from 8 to 9. And in his overall level number change from 9 to 10. The free authority growth wouldn¡¯t be represented until it was bound into something. There was no point in Earth counting it as a part of an Avowed¡¯s overall power, since it was unusable for everyone but Alden. He assumed the fake profile would update on its own at a later date¡­or maybe they were waiting for him to ask for an adjustment. He didn¡¯t want it to change right now. I need to learn a non-auriad spell first. Maybe two. In a few months, when the school started to get antsy about his progress, the level on the fake could get a bump and the spells could be passed off as his reward. Or possibly the ability to preserve an additional item could be, since he hadn¡¯t revealed it to anyone yet. It¡¯s going to be a little stressful to fake spell impressions if they¡¯re more complicated than Light Candle. Spell impressions were robo-casting, and if you paid attention to the people doing them for long enough, they started to look and sound like robo-casting. Konstantin¡¯s dolphin chant involved the exact same noises being delivered in the exact same way. And when Alden cast Haunting Sphere, his fingers moved with a very particular rhythm and no deviations from form unless he tried to screw it up or something hit his hand mid cast. It was hard to judge what his regular casting looked like to an outsider, but he knew it wouldn¡¯t be identical every time. Guess I¡¯ll figure it out. It would be fine. He would be fine. He¡¯d known the levels were coming. He wanted his free authority to grow. He just had a hard time wrapping his head around the price and the pace. He pushed himself up and went to brush his teeth. ****** He¡¯d been curled up on the sofa for fifteen minutes, watching Kibby videos on his tablet, when Lexi came back. That was a quick jog. He pretended not to notice his fellow early riser had returned. Kibby produced several hours of content for every video batch. For some reason, she¡¯d decided to give him a lesson in ultra-formal table manners this time. She was in Instructor Kivb-ee mode, and she was in the travel dome¡¯s dining room, explaining the significance of all the different ways place settings could be arranged. He¡¯d turned off translations so that he could pick up all the new words on his own. This was educational. And it was his version of Saturday morning cartoons to help him put his head back on straight. Snide remarks from his prickliest roommate were unwelcome. No, he thought, as he caught Lexi approaching out of the corner of his eye. See the headphones I¡¯m wearing. See me not looking your way. You were nice about the puking, and now we¡¯re both minding our own business, aren¡¯t we? ¡°Hey.¡± Or not. Alden looked up with his most non-confrontational smile plastered on his face. Lexi held out his hand. A thimble-sized gray cylinder with a dark red cap lay on his palm. ¡°For your stomach.¡± He got me medicine? Alden pulled off his headphones and took the cylinder. He did recognize it as a medical something. He¡¯d seen pictures of them but hadn¡¯t taken enough of an interest to figure out exactly what they were. The few tiny logograms on the side were translating as ¡°pause unruly stomach.¡± ¡°An injector,¡± said Lexi. ¡°I told the dispensary it was for me. It¡¯s just an anti-emetic and we¡¯re about the same size, so it¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± Lexi watched him turn it over in his hand a couple more times. ¡°You don¡¯t know how to use it.¡± ¡°I can look it up.¡± ¡°You press the cap to your abdomen and say the word for ¡®pierce¡¯ in Artonan. It burns a little. Lasts for hours.¡± Alden wasn¡¯t nauseous anymore, but he knew an olive branch when he saw one. He lifted his t-shirt an inch and pressed the injector to his skin. ¡°Pierce.¡± There was a pinch and a burning sensation, and a few seconds later, he realized his guts hadn¡¯t been completely back to normal because he did feel slightly better. ¡°They are so good at drugs,¡± he noted, pulling the empty cylinder away from his skin and examining it. ¡°I¡¯ve heard that those cost a few hundred argold in other places.¡± Lexi sat down in the armchair across from Alden. ¡°Do I owe you money?¡± ¡°No. It was free. They don¡¯t even ask what you need these ones for unless you¡¯ve been requesting them frequently. My mother used six a day when she was pregnant with Irina.¡± ¡°It was cool of you to pick it up for me. Sorry if you had to cut your run short to do it.¡± Lexi looked toward the window. The sun hadn¡¯t risen yet, but there were a couple of lights on in the girl¡¯s dormitory. ¡°I don¡¯t hate you or anything.¡± I¡¯ll take it. ¡°I don¡¯t hate you either.¡± ¡°Freaking out about your Artonan friend wasn¡¯t even about you. Or your friend. I¡¯ve just got a lot on my mind lately. You being unbelievably strange and oblivious in yet another way just set me off.¡± ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t hate me?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Because those aren¡¯t things people would usually say in the middle of apologizing.¡± Lexi turned to face him again. ¡°I wasn¡¯t taking you seriously enough when you complained about me springing Lute on you.¡± ¡°I was being a hypocrite. You were right.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Lexi said. ¡°But I really did think you were just whining about me hiding social dynamics from you. I thought it was a stupid thing for you to complain about at all. I thought, ¡®Why the fuck can¡¯t he figure out the social dynamics for himself? How hard can it be?¡¯¡± Alden frowned. ¡°I¡¯m not suffering that much. I would have figured out the potion injector on my own in a few minutes.¡± Lexi rolled his eyes. ¡°It¡¯s not about the potion injector. Or about you constantly doing the recycling wrong. Or the fact that you don¡¯t know when to give up your bus seat.¡± ¡°I¡¯m doing the recycling wrong?¡± ¡°When you tell people you¡¯re on the phone with your wizard friend, they¡¯re going to think you mean a dozen different things before it ever occurs to them that you might really mean you have a friend who is a wizard. And having a friend who is a wizard is uncommon enough on its own. If I had an Artonan friend, I wouldn¡¯t tell you about it unless you and I were close. I wouldn¡¯t give my new roommate a casual warning when I was on the phone with a wizard. I¡¯d just let them spy.¡± ¡°You want me not to tell you when I¡¯m on a video call with him?¡± ¡°Of course I want you to tell me every time an alien is watching me through the System. Now that I know, I¡¯ll go crazy wondering. But¡­I think what I¡¯m trying to say is you didn¡¯t owe us the warning in the first place. And if I were you, I wouldn¡¯t give that one to people in the future.¡± ¡°That seems dishonest.¡± ¡°Say you¡¯re on a phone call with your elderly aunt or something. Let everyone know they need to be polite. You don¡¯t have to be forthcoming about¡­¡± ¡°About what?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± Lexi said in a frustrated voice. ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯ve actually thought through this particular Anesidora social dynamic before. It doesn¡¯t apply to me. But you don¡¯t have to be completely open about something that you know is going to make you look so different from everyone else. If I thought you were telling me you had an Artonan friend to brag or make yourself seem more important, I would understand you and I wouldn¡¯t say anything. But you almost never talk about your time on the Triplanets or whatever you did there. I¡¯ve heard you mention it twice, and it was trivial stuff. And Kon specifically told me that you wanted it to be no big deal¡­just¡­I¡¯m telling you the wizard friend might come across as a bigger deal to most people than whatever your space horror story is.¡± They wouldn¡¯t feel that way if they¡¯d had their own space horror stories, thought Alden. ¡°I see what you¡¯re saying. But other Avowed do have Artonan friends. Like Big Snake.¡± Lexi stared a him. ¡°He¡¯s one of the most popular superheroes in the world. He gets summoned to the Triplanets all the time, and he owned magic wolves. When he says, ¡®my wizard friend¡¯ it feels like part of a certain kind of package. It¡¯s the same with Lute¡¯s grandmother. Or with a few Avowed who stop by the island twice a year and walk around fully inked and refusing to speak Earth languages, dropping ten thousand argold tips on everyone they meet. ¡°If they say something like that, people kind of know what they mean and how to take it. You¡¯re not those guys. When you say it, who knows what everyone will come up with?¡± Alden rather wondered what Lexi had come up with. Had Alden been stuck in the Big Snake, Velra, or Barely Human Anymore category? Somewhere totally different? He felt a fleeting temptation to give his roommate a ten thousand argold tip on the spot, just to see what happened. He squashed it. ¡°Got it. Thank you for explaining. I¡¯ll tell you guys when my friend calls. I¡¯ll tell everyone else he¡¯s my ancient aunt.¡± Lexi stood. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I called you globie like it was some kind of a slur.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been wondering if it is a slur actually,¡± said Alden. ¡°Some people say it fondly, like your brother and Astrid. Sometimes it sounds much nastier.¡± ¡°It¡¯s strange to suddenly meet a bunch of people our age who¡¯ve just come from the other side.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Even for me. And I¡¯m not an idiot like half of them are.¡± ¡°The other side?¡± ¡°You¡¯ve all lived different lives in different places. Like movie characters.¡± I feel like the people here are the movie characters sometimes. I guess that¡¯s a mutual thing. ¡°And most of you still seem to think Anesidora is just your address,¡± Lexi continued. ¡°Like we do when we¡¯re younger kids.¡± ¡°How else would we think of it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯ve got it all figured out. Or like anyone ever puts it into words that don¡¯t sound horrible.¡± He cast another thoughtful look toward the window. ¡°But a lot of us understand by the time we¡¯re old enough to be selected¡­the rest of the globe might as well be another planet. It¡¯s a planet that¡¯s a little easier to get to than the others, and the people there look like us. But no matter how much an Avowed loves it, it¡¯s never going to love us back.¡± Alden felt like he¡¯d just taken a small, unexpected slap. ¡°Do you really feel like that?¡± Lexi nodded. ¡°My parents were born there. They have families there. They love their old cultures, and they still can¡¯t fit back in when they go for visits. Sometimes you sound like them when you talk about Chicago, but with none of the nostalgic distance. And you don¡¯t even do it that much. Some of the other globies do it a lot more. Maricel and Finlay and the glowing guy¡­¡± ¡°S?ren,¡± said Alden. ¡°He¡¯s unmemorable for a human lightbulb. Him too. Some Anesidorans can¡¯t get enough of hearing about life on the rest of Earth. Others feel jealous that you¡¯ve seen things they haven¡¯t. We¡¯ve got third gens and even a couple of pure fourths in our class. No close relatives in any other country, so they¡¯ll never get visitation visas like you all do. They feel however they feel about that, so the word ¡®globie¡¯ sounds thrilled coming out of some mouths and angry coming out of others.¡± He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jogging pants. ¡°And then there are the people like me who are just surprised to be reminded some Avowed do hate it here even though this is the place that actually wants us.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t ever thought of it in quite that way. ¡°I don¡¯t hate it here at all. I¡¯m pretty happy. Annoyed I can¡¯t go see my family and friends for Christmas, but I like living here so far.¡± ¡°I know. I didn¡¯t mean you.¡± Is Lexi a tiny bit patriotic? I did not see that one coming for some reason. ¡°What kind of superhero do you want to be?¡± Alden asked suddenly. Lexi scowled. ¡°Are you interviewing me now just because I talked to you for a few minutes?¡± ¡°No. Yes? I just realized I didn¡¯t know. And if you don¡¯t really want off the island¡ª¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t say I hated the concept of traveling,¡± he said in annoyance. ¡°Anyway, there are all kinds of different jobs I could do after graduating.¡± I know, thought Alden, trying to smile placatingly. That¡¯s why I was asking. ¡°He wants to be Avowed event security,¡± said a voice. They both looked over to see Haoyu coming down the hall with a terrible case of bedhead. He yawned. ¡°You two are up so early on a Saturday. And talking about careers? Hardcore.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to head home to see my family in a few minutes,¡± said Lexi. ¡°They¡¯re back. I¡¯d have gone last night, but Kon went the second classes were over yesterday. I figured he¡¯d be overwhelming enough on his own. He¡¯ll want to fool around here with everyone on campus today.¡± ¡°Say hi to your parents for me. Mom and I are meeting up this afternoon, too. I¡¯ll tell Alden about your dream job.¡± ¡°No,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Why? It¡¯s such a good one.¡± Haoyu yawned again. Lexi turned back to Alden. ¡°When Anesidoran entertainers and athletes travel on Earth, they have at least one qualified security person with them,¡± he said quickly. ¡°Sometimes more. They need people who can detect threats and deal with emergencies in large venues. The places they¡¯re visiting usually provide their own security, too, but the High Council decided several years ago to require specially trained Avowed for all groups over a certain size. I¡¯d like to do that.¡± He raised his eyebrows at Haoyu as if to say, Look. I communicated myself. Are you happy? ¡°That is a good job,¡± said Alden. It also suited Lexi a lot better than a position where he¡¯d be on camera all the time. ¡°Do you want to travel with your parents when they¡¯re touring? And keep an eye out for them?¡± ¡°There are other traveling groups, too,¡± Lexi said stiffly. ¡°He totally wants to protect his parents and the ballet company,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Which is lovely. So I don¡¯t see why he¡¯s acting like it¡¯s embarrassing.¡± Lexi muttered something under his breath. ¡°Actually, though,¡± said Haoyu, ¡°if anything goes wrong at a large event like that, the security hero only takes care of the other Avowed until they¡¯ve all emergency teleported out. Mostly they¡¯re on hand to protect the guests who came to the event. It¡¯s a political nightmare for a group of Avowed to get ET¡¯d out of a disaster where regular humans are getting injured. The security person is a visible reminder that the performers are performers. People who¡¯ve gone somewhere to sing or dance shouldn¡¯t have to throw themselves on grenades for their audience members¡­but there are really unfair expectations.¡± ¡°They think every Avowed should be willing to die for them because that¡¯s what we¡¯re for.¡± ¡°Lexi, it¡¯s six o¡¯clock in the morning,¡± Haoyu said plaintively. Lexi stared at him. ¡°It¡¯s too early for you to be mad.¡± ¡°I can be mad whenever I¡ª¡± ¡°No,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I just decided. You¡¯re not allowed to be mad before eight. Nine on Saturdays.¡± Lexi¡¯s brows drew together. Haoyu nodded at him. ¡°I was sick, and Lexi brought me medicine,¡± said Alden, feeling the need to defend him a little. ¡°He confessed he didn¡¯t hate me. And I will be learning about how to do the recycling right away.¡± ¡°Were you doing it wrong?¡± ¡°I guess so. There are a lot more options than I¡¯m used to. What¡¯s the gray bin for?¡± ¡°Metal stuff,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°No!¡± Lexi gaped at him. ¡°It¡¯s for things that could possibly have magical residue on them. Like that!¡± He pointed at the injector in Alden¡¯s hand. ¡°Really? The one at home said something about Wrights, and it was gray, so I figured they wanted metal¡­I don¡¯t think I ever asked anyone.¡± His eyes widened. ¡°Oh no. I¡¯ve been doing the recycling wrong since I was three.¡± * ONE HUNDRED SIX: Ledger 106 At North of North that morning, Alden had a plyometrics session with Bobby and the guy who¡¯d been analyzing how his movement trait stressed his body. They¡¯d roped off a section of the building¡¯s marble-floored foyer just for him because they wanted to watch him on different types of ¡°ground,¡± and they hadn¡¯t tried marble yet. He was doing his best not to feel self-conscious while he jumped up and down on progressively higher boxes. Regular jumping. Magic jumping. Higher, Alden. Faster, Alden. Ignore all the superheroes getting their smoothies, Alden. There¡¯s an actual hyperbole watching me hop around. That¡¯s not strange at all. She was a spunky-looking girl with teal hair. Well, not a girl, he corrected himself. Isn¡¯t she like forty? She was a U-type, and in English, her name was Plopstar. Alden had always found that concerning. Laying waste to acreage with falling magic sparkles? Awesome. But calling yourself Plopstar while you did it? Could she really be trusted to aim her magic sparkles at the right spots? ¡°Let¡¯s get some more height on the next one,¡± said Bobby, moving a mat out of the way. She¡¯d brought it to toss in front of him in case he overshot a box on a high jump. ¡°Tell me if anything starts to hurt.¡± While Alden was checking to make sure the enamel rabbit pin he was using as his preserved object was still tucked deeply in the pocket of his shorts, a text message from Lute popped up. He¡¯d just woken up, and he was booking the privacy booth for them to have their wordchain tutoring session. [Do you want a creepy one, a snobby one, or an underwater one?] Why are those the only three options? Why are those options at all? When he¡¯d heard the phrase ¡°privacy booth¡± he¡¯d assumed it would be similar to an office cubicle or a restaurant booth. Lute seemed like someone whose idea of creepy might be really creepy. [Isn¡¯t there a normal variety?] [What about one in the back of a Wright shop? They¡¯ll check our molars for explosives and teach us a secret knock.] [Snobby sounds good,] Alden said immediately. If molar checking happened at these places, he wanted the least creepy molar check available. ¡°Throw your hips into it!¡± a voice shouted across the foyer. ¡°You can go higher, kid!¡± [Plopstar is yelling at me,] Alden told Lute. He tried to ignore her. Then he realized that ignoring was probably not the way to go with one of the most powerful people in the world. So he smiled and waved instead. [R.I.P.] said Lute. [It was nice knowing you. When she glitters you to ash, can I have your room?] ****** Alden survived his gym session with only a little more input from a Rank 1 than he would¡¯ve liked, and afterward, he set off on a rental bike for a skatepark where Lute was hanging out with Haoyu. It was a gorgeous day for Anesidora¡ªblue sky, sunshine, breezy. People were walking around in flip-flops and tank tops and pretending it was actually warm instead of just warm enough. Lexi thinks the rest of the planet isn¡¯t for us, and it never will be, Alden thought as he pedaled. He felt so unsettled by the sentiment, and he couldn¡¯t understand why he did. He was perfectly aware of what Anesidora was. He¡¯d had multiple conversations with people about it. A lengthy government letter was still in his inbox, announcing the official date his U.S. citizenship had expired. Maybe it was the way Lexi had delivered the opinion. Like it wasn¡¯t really up for debate¡­just a simple truth. ¡°Hey, System,¡± he said, as he wove around a stroller that had been parked in the bike lane outside a clothing store. ¡°Pull up my exit letter. The one that de-citizens me. Text to audio.¡± He didn¡¯t know exactly what he was trying to figure out as he listened to the message read itself. He wanted to judge the tone, maybe, and that wasn¡¯t the easiest thing to do. The letter sounded like it had been crafted by a roomful of writers who¡¯d been threatened with execution if there was a single negative connotation toward any party. There was no line in there that explicitly said, ¡°Fuck off, Alden Thorn. The country just works better for the rest of us without you in it.¡± It was, of course, professional and full of language that implied he was a good person and should be proud of himself. They were confident he would use his ¡°extraordinary gifts in protection of and service to our United Nations of Earth and all other known peoples throughout the universe.¡± Yeah, it¡¯s pretty final. He was surprised they¡¯d thrown the other species into the mix, though. It felt like an unusual show of solidarity with the other resource worlds in the first place, and in the second, this was a letter about how Alden had to live on Anesidora now. Stay there. That¡¯s the spot where we put the people with the extraordinary gifts. Good boy. It really didn¡¯t have anything to do with the ¡°other known peoples throughout the universe¡± at all. ¡­so that¡¯s it. They couldn¡¯t manage to make living on an isolated island sound like my noble duty, so they talk about how I¡¯m protecting and serving as an Avowed instead and hope I won¡¯t notice the two are entirely separate things. Not surprising. Nothing new. It just sounded different a few hours after he¡¯d heard Lexi describe Anesidora as ¡°the place that actually wants us.¡± He looked around him. A girl in a university t-shirt was in the lane ahead, using Shaping gestures to power her bicycle instead of the pedals. On the street, people were making full use of their running licenses, whipping around cars and motorcycles. And he¡¯d spotted Bedlam Beldam on his way to the gym, soaring around above the drone traffic layer on her broomglider. He¡¯d taken a quick video for Boe. It was all so Anesidoran. So Apex. A couple of minutes later, he reached a small skatepark. He racked the bike and took in the scenery. It had sounded like his roommates were just going to hang out together, and Haoyu was going to teach Lute how to use a board. But their plans must have changed. He saw Haoyu, but there was also a large and peculiar assortment of their classmates present. Kon was there, so it was probably his doing. Lexi¡¯s brother went through the day picking up people like they were Easter Eggs. Maricel, Vandy, Tuyet, and Everly were all playing around with a single skateboard. It was obvious they¡¯d never used one before. Helo¨ªsa was doing conspicuous kickflips in Mehdi¡¯s line of sight, and he was pretending not to see her while he went up and down a ramp. Haoyu was on a board at the edge of the park, animatedly explaining something to a watching Kon and Jeffy. The girls were closest, so Alden headed over to them. ¡°If I ice the top of it and use my skill to stick myself to it do you think that will make me better or worse?¡± Everly asked Tuyet and Vandy. She had her arms crossed over her chest and she was watching Maricel skate away from them across a flat section of concrete. ¡°You might damage Haoyu¡¯s board.¡± Vandy¡¯s hands were making a pressing motion down by her sides. Alden looked around for whatever patch of air she was working on. Vandy was almost always doing something with her magic. It took him a while to spot it today. Her shoulder-length hair didn¡¯t seem to be moving in the breeze like everyone else¡¯s. ¡°Hi, Vandy! Are you shaping the air around your face?¡± Blue-gray eyes fixed on him. ¡°Yes,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m practicing stilling rather than moving today. Maricel is practicing soil compression with the dirt in her pockets. Everly is thinking about freezing skateboards. And Tuyet¡­is taking a day off. For rest.¡± Everly shook her head. Oof, thought Alden. The judgment in her tone. ¡°I can¡¯t throw darts around out here in public!¡± Tuyet protested. ¡°It¡¯ll scare people. They¡¯re weapons, and they''re little. It¡¯s hard for anyone to know if I¡¯ve got safety blunting on them or not.¡± Vandy was the kind of person who asked you with utter seriousness how you were going to overcome your Rabbit disadvantages so that she could make plans for shoring up your weaknesses if you happened to be in battle together fifteen years from now. It had to be tough to be her friend sometimes. ¡°Not everyone wants to practice every minute of every day,¡± Everly told her. ¡°Weekends are healthy. Alden¡¯s not practicing right now.¡± ¡°Yes, he is,¡± said Vandy. Alden looked at her in surprise. ¡°He¡¯s almost always practicing,¡± Vandy informed the other two. ¡°It¡¯s just that his skill is subtle, and you can only tell he¡¯s using it if you¡¯re watching him walk across ground element surfaces. Or examining his pockets.¡± Maricel was skating back toward them. Her pixie cut had gotten a dye job. She had a few small pink streaks at the back of her neck. She smiled as she joined them. ¡°Are you really time-stopping something right now?¡± Tuyet asked Alden. A few people almost always referred to Alden¡¯s power with temporal language rather than using the words he himself usually did when he was talking about it¡ªpreservation, freezing, shielding¡­ They all pretty much knew what the skill did by now. He thought the vocabulary difference had to do with whether he had tried to explain it to them himself or if Konstantin had gotten to them first. The Adjuster liked talking about time magic for obvious reasons. I¡¯m just glad Maricel is a nice person who doesn¡¯t tell people about the pickles misunderstanding. Pickle Man would be a difficult image to escape from. ¡°What are we talking about?¡± Maricel asked brightly. ¡°Vandy says she can tell when Alden¡¯s practicing his skill,¡± said Tuyet. Everly was staring at Alden¡¯s butt. ¡°Not my back pockets,¡± he clarified. ¡°I almost never have an item there.¡± Because his skill wouldn¡¯t work if he accidentally sat on his object instead of letting it sit on him. ¡°No,¡± said Vandy. ¡°He keeps objects in his front pockets if he doesn¡¯t have them in his hand or his bag. Usually his hoodie. I always check to see if he¡¯s practicing in Intro to Other Worlds.¡± So I¡¯m going to have to make sure I don¡¯t stick anything too weird in the pockets from now on. ¡°You could just ask me¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s good to examine other Avowed and determine when their powers are in use,¡± Vandy explained. ¡°You¡¯re one of the best people in our class to practice observation on.¡± Now they were all staring at him. ¡°He doesn¡¯t have a hoodie on today,¡± said Everly. ¡°The front pockets look normal,¡± said Maricel, examining his jeans. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s one of his shoelaces?¡± Tuyet bent over to poke at Alden¡¯s feet. ¡°He could do it to keep a shoe from coming untied.¡± I hadn¡¯t thought of that one yet. ¡°I know he has something,¡± said Vandy. ¡°He has a trait. It¡¯s tied to the skill¡¯s use like a lot of Rabbit traits. It makes him walk differently on ground when he¡¯s protecting something.¡± ¡°She¡¯s right,¡± Alden admitted, digging his hand into his front pocket and producing the enamel pin. ¡°I can cut the trait off, but I usually don¡¯t bother. I carry this sometimes when I just want to practice and I don¡¯t have anything I really need to preserve. Or I pin it to my shirt. It¡¯s small, so it doesn¡¯t get in the way.¡± ¡°Aww, it¡¯s a bunny!¡± said Everly. ¡°They gave them to all the Rabbits in intake.¡± Maricel looked at him for permission, then reached out with a finger to poke the pin on his palm. ¡°I really can¡¯t touch it. It looks like I¡¯m touching it. I¡¯m touching something. But it¡¯s not the pin.¡± ¡°You¡¯re touching a layer of protective magic.¡± Vandy looked very satisfied. ¡°All right,¡± Tuyet said with a sigh. ¡°I¡¯ll practice later. Not here where I might accidentally poke out somebody¡¯s eye.¡± Right. ¡°Have you guys seen Lute Velra? I¡¯m supposed to be meeting him here, but¡­¡± He trailed off as a distinctly uncomfortable shift occurred. Vandy stiffened up like a board. Tuyet¡¯s lips pursed. Everly wrinkled her nose. Maricel hadn¡¯t noticed. She was still rubbing the preserved pin curiously with her finger. ¡°Why are you hanging out with him?¡± Everly asked. ¡°He¡¯s my roommate.¡± ¡°Yeah. I know. Haoyu¡¯s living with him, too.¡± ¡°He was here when we got here,¡± Tuyet said slowly. ¡°And then he left.¡± Alden frowned at them. ¡°He¡¯s tutoring me. Everly scrunched her nose again. ¡°Are you learning music?¡± ¡°Wordchains,¡± said Alden. ¡°I need to try that!¡± said Maricel, looking up. ¡°I¡¯ve never done one.¡± ¡°Let us teach you,¡± Vandy said immediately. ¡°I know two different ones,¡± said Tuyet. Maricel suddenly caught the vibe. She looked between Alden and her roommates. ¡°Um¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind teaching you, too¡± Vandy said to Alden. ¡°It¡¯s good you want to learn some. Supplemental magics will be particularly important for you.¡± Holy shit, they must hate Lute. They hadn¡¯t said anything terrible, but Alden hadn¡¯t even realized Tuyet had a critical bone in her body. She got nervous if people argued during breaks in gym. And he rather liked Everly. She was super tough and hard-working. And Vandy had just offered to tutor him¡­instead of saying, ¡°Will the expert tutor me, too?¡± Which would have been more in line with what he thought of her character. If they were known dicks, like Winston or Mehdi, he¡¯d probably have said something cutting¡­but they weren¡¯t. And Maricel was here. And these were the people she was trying to make friends with. Evacuate, he decided. ¡°Thanks, but I¡¯m grateful Lute¡¯s teaching me. He¡¯s been taking time out of his schedule to tutor me all week, and he¡¯s amazing at it. I¡¯ll track him down.¡± [Lute, where are you?] he texted quickly. [Skatepark still.] [I¡¯m here. I don¡¯t see you.] [Already? Meet me on the side farthest from the street. By the trees.] ¡°Found him,¡± said Alden, even though he hadn¡¯t yet. ¡°Bye, guys.¡± He spun and headed away from the street, walking along the edge of the park to steer clear of the skateboarders. A second later, he saw Lute drop out of a tree and take a seat on a metal railing that marked the boundary between the park and a walking trail.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. When Alden joined him, Lute said, ¡°We¡¯ve got half an hour until our car comes.¡± ¡°Car?¡± ¡°We¡¯re going in style because we can¡­and because my boss is paying for it.¡± He nodded toward the park. ¡°You want to go hang out with Haoyu and your hero program friends while we wait?¡± The girls Alden had just left behind had their heads together. He wondered if Maricel was getting some kind of Lute-related gossip right now. ¡°Are you going to hang out with them?¡± Alden asked. Lute pulled his knees up so that he was sitting on the railing like a gargoyle. He was wearing his safety pin pants and a t-shirt with a Jolly Roger flag on it. It wasn¡¯t the first time Alden had seen him boldly go for pirate themed clothing with the eyepatch. ¡°Not my thing,¡± he said after a moment. ¡°Well I¡¯m tired from jumping on boxes, so I¡¯m good over here, too.¡± Lute smiled. ¡°Tell me about meeting Plopstar then.¡± ¡°She cheered me on while I exercised. Or maybe it was heckling. One or the other. Normally, Bobby would¡¯ve asked her to stop. The gym has a ¡®no bothering¡¯ policy.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t tell me you expected your personal trainer to yell at a hyperbole for you.¡± ¡°Of course not. I was just noting the difference.¡± ¡°A kooky hyperbole, no less.¡± A thought suddenly occurred to Alden. ¡°Do you think you¡¯ll be one someday?¡± ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°A hyperbole,¡± said Alden. ¡°I just realized you¡¯re probably the person I know who has the best chance¡ª¡± ¡°No!¡± said Lute, gripping the railing and staring at him. ¡°What a thing to say!¡± ¡°You are super strong and you¡¯re only fifteen,¡± Alden pointed out. ¡°I know you¡¯re not a Unique, and nobody except the rank-uppers have got confirmation about how the System makes the upgrade choices. But power has to be a major part of it. Surely people mention it to you sometimes?¡± Lute coughed. ¡°No. They don¡¯t. That¡¯s¡­probably because most of them think I¡¯m jerking everyone around with the second S. But even if they did believe me, it doesn¡¯t mean anything. S¡¯s get second and third S-rank talents. It doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re about to hyperbolize.¡± Not fifteen-year-olds, thought Alden. But Lute was looking wild-eyed, so he let it drop. They watched the skaters for a while, paying more attention to the older people who were doing tricks with their magic than to Alden¡¯s hero program classmates. While Lute was saying that someone who could float was way less impressive than professional non-Avowed skateboarders, Alden got a notification email he¡¯d been waiting for and dreading. [New Update from Barre Fine Environments!] When he clicked the link, it took him to Manon¡¯s main social media page, where, instead of the usual photo post filled with luxury goods and interiors, her away notice had appeared. It was an animation of a gold hourglass with the words ¡°Currently Designing for Clients on the Triplanets¡± beneath it. She¡¯d been summoned. He watched the hourglass turn over. He knew from looking at older posts that she was usually gone for at least a few hours. So¡­this is our first chance to go through with the plan since we decided what the right plan was. He sighed so heavily that Lute looked over at him. ¡°You good?¡± ¡°I have to send a bunch of messed-up cult members messages letting them know I have observed the fact that they are in a messed-up cult and advising them to go promptly to the nearest Sway or Mind Healer to have themselves checked out for their own safety.¡± ¡°What the hell?¡± said Lute, tilting his head and giving Alden a confused look. ¡°I need to ask. Do you just wake up every morning and try to make your life bonkers in a brand new way?¡± ¡°This is the first bonkers thing since I¡¯ve met you!¡± ¡°Do you want me to give you a blow-by-blow of your past week? You did attend classes like a normal person. Sort of. But usually, prompting me to place a phone call to Parethat-uur on your behalf would be enough action for a couple of months, don¡¯t you think?¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°Would it?¡± Lute huffed. ¡°I knew you didn¡¯t think of it that way at all, which was why I wanted to do it for you in the first place. And then you had your own interesting phone call a couple of days ago. And now this. You are so busy, man.¡± ¡°I thought the past few days had been relaxing,¡± Alden said. ¡°Actually, I know that they were relaxing for me.¡± The System had totally pointed out how relaxing and pleasant his week had been before it trapped him in his old school counselor¡¯s office and threatened him with levels. ¡°I¡¯ve even been sleeping at night!¡± ¡°Oh yes. Sleeping at night, of all times, is proof that you¡¯re taking it easy.¡± He slid off the railing and punched Alden lightly on the arm. ¡°Come on. Our ride¡¯s here. You have got to tell me about why you¡¯re involved with a cult. I¡¯m excited. Living with you is exciting. Let¡¯s go spend five thousand argold on a tutoring session.¡± ¡°How much?¡± ¡°Probably more than that actually. I¡¯m not sure what the little gifts cost.¡± ¡°The what?¡± ****** They got in a car with tinted windows and a driver who spoke not a word to either of them. He took them to a parking garage where there was another driver in another car with tinted windows. They didn¡¯t transfer vehicles. They just waited for a few minutes, and then both cars drove out of the garage together and turned in opposite directions down the street. ¡°Lute, is all of this necessary?¡± Alden hissed. ¡°We¡¯re going to talk to each other, not commit crimes.¡± Lute was sitting crosslegged in his seat, eating a chocolate bar that had been provided in the car¡¯s snack basket. ¡°Call me Mr. Velra. That¡¯s my crime name.¡± Alden snatched a bag of peanuts from the basket and started eating them nervously. ¡°Chill. It¡¯s just part of the experience. If we were actually doing crime or concerned about people knowing we were having a private meeting, then we¡¯d be doing something completely different. You can arrange a much more secret rendezvous if you¡¯ve got enough money and put enough forethought into it. Teleportation is what the best bad guys use.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± Lute nodded. ¡°The allotment the System gives Anesidora is enough for the government to sell local rides. Just not that many.¡± The car made two more stops at locations where it could have put them out without them being spotted before it arrived at their actual destination. It was another parking garage. This one was for a luxury mall in midtown Apex, not that far from where they¡¯d started. Alden raised an eyebrow at Lute as they followed a slender woman in a tight black pencil skirt down a service corridor. She looked like she was in her early twenties. When they reached the end, she turned to them. <> she said in Spanish. A moment later, her full Avowed profile appeared in front of them. She was a D-rank Sway with nothing but a lie detection ability. <> ¡°Yep,¡± said Lute. ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden. He felt her target him almost at once. Being targeted was even more subtle now that he wasn¡¯t suffering from post-affixation sensitivity, but he still noticed it when he wasn¡¯t very distracted or when he was a little on edge. <> ¡°No,¡± he said. <> ¡°I don¡¯t.¡± <> Alden looked at Lute in surprise. Was this a standard question or one he¡¯d requested specifically? ¡°No.¡± Lute answered the same three in the same way. ¡°Both parties are honest.¡± She cracked a smile for the first time since they¡¯d met her in the garage. ¡°You¡¯ll have to trust me on that since you¡¯re not traveling with your own personal Sways.¡± To Lute, she added, ¡°The packages that arrived for you are waiting inside.¡± Then she knocked on the wall behind her six times, and it swung open to reveal a room that definitely didn¡¯t belong in this dull back corridor. ¡°It¡¯s a replica of a suite on a European luxury train,¡± Lute said as soon as the door closed behind them. ¡°I¡¯m glad you picked snobby.¡± It was compact, but the quality of everything made it feel like it wasn¡¯t a closet. The walls were glossy wood with decorative geometric inlay. Light came from glowing sconces and a line of panels along one wall designed to look like windows with semi-transparent shades pulled down. The tiny seating area was just a green velvet chair, a cream-colored loveseat, and a side table with a stack of packages on it. Right behind the chair, a queen-sized bed with an inlaid headboard filled the rest of the room, and if they squeezed past the foot of it, there was a tiny bathroom behind a sliding door. ¡°Privacy spaces tend to be small,¡± Lute said. ¡°It¡¯s expensive to magically shield them from the million different ways people can pry, I think. So it¡¯s smart if they¡¯re designed to look like cool places that are supposed to be cramped. The underwater one was going to be a little submarine.¡± Lute kicked off his shoes and flung himself on the brocade bedspread. ¡°Do they all have beds?¡± ¡°It seems to be a common feature.¡± He clucked his tongue before rolling off the bed and stepping past Alden to examine the boxes on the table. ¡°We¡¯ve got this place for six hours, so if you need to send your messages or something, go ahead. I¡¯ve got to look through the supplies before we get started to make sure I understand what it is Parethat-uur expects me to actually do with you. While I¡¯m opening these, please do tell me about your cult problem. I am incredibly interested in peoples¡¯ cult problems.¡± Alden took off his own shoes and sat down on the loveseat. It was so soft that it took him a second to stop appreciating the fabric with his fingers before he spoke. ¡°If there was an Avowed talent that was capable of mind control and it wasn¡¯t known as that kind of power, how bad would it be for the people who had it if the news got out?¡± Lute was undoing the latches on the front of a leather case. ¡°It depends. There¡¯s plenty of magic that skirts the edges of mind control, and people usually don¡¯t freak out about it. Everyone knows if you whack Appeal up far enough interesting things can happen before the System cuts you off or starts offering you alternatives. And there are some iffy spell impressions outside of Sway. As long as it¡¯s still in a gray area where you can¡¯t say for sure the person used magic directly on your actual thoughts¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m ninety-nine percent sure she does something directly,¡± said Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯s the main way she controls her minions, necessarily. But it exists. I was really suspicious of her one day, and I knew she¡¯d behaved badly toward me, then a couple of days later it was like that knowledge was at the back of my thoughts. My friends had to remind me that I had a problem with her, and I¡¯m not usually forgetful about people who creep me out. And I was having a picnic with her cult once, and they were all being nice to me and I was being nice to them and then they just started strongly disliking me again mid-supper. And she totally convinced a lady with a busted leg that she was too shy to ask the medic for help.¡± Lute looked up. ¡°Yeah¡­that¡¯s less gray area and more actual mind control. It would be awful for the people who had the talent without knowing it.¡± Alden groaned. ¡°I don¡¯t want to ruin the skill¡¯s reputation, but if the people I¡¯m trying to help take me seriously, it¡¯ll probably come out. I feel terrible about it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not your fault someone found a dangerous use for a skill.¡± Lute shut the case and opened a carved wooden box. ¡°This kind of thing happens. Anyway, if it¡¯s got a mind control component, it¡¯s going to be news eventually. If it¡¯s today or twenty years from now, the only difference is when it gets ruined for people. And there could be someone taking it right this second who wouldn¡¯t if they knew it would make them look suspicious for the rest of their life. So you might be saving more people than you destroy.¡± ¡°Could we not use the word ¡®destroy?¡¯¡± ¡°What¡¯s the skill?¡± ¡°It¡¯s Tailor Environment. You know, the¡ª¡± Lute spun toward him. ¡°Shit. That¡¯s bad. I was assuming it was something obscure. That skill is so popular.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°It¡¯s one of the sure-thing skills for C-rank Rabbits.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°Everyone loves that skill. It makes the world comfortable. And it makes people so much money.¡± ¡°The woman who¡¯s misusing it is older. Probably one of the first people to acquire it, before it even got really popular here on Earth.¡± ¡°Ohhhh¡­¡± Lute bit his lower lip and furrowed his brow. ¡°Has the skill found its top yet?¡± ¡°The guy who really popularized it says his is at level fourteen now. So probably around there.¡± ¡°So it¡¯s a skill that gets fat, too. That makes it more desirable. But it should make you feel better.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°You say the person you met is one of the first to ever select it. She could¡¯ve topped it off a decade or more ago. I¡¯m sure there aren¡¯t any C-rank Rabbits running around at level four or five who could make you too shy to get help when you were injured. And since it¡¯s such a beloved talent, it might end up being a situation where people with it just have to be more open about their profiles from now on to prove they haven¡¯t taken it really high. It¡¯ll still be upsetting for them, but not life ruining. The Artonans might even change the skill for future human users¡­wouldn¡¯t count on it though. Sounds like the mind control might be a desirable part of it, if it wasn¡¯t a bad person using it that way.¡± Alden threw his legs up onto the loveseat. ¡°You think they want it to do that?¡± ¡°You think they designed one of their own favorite skills for their most frequently summoned class haphazardly?¡± Lute countered. ¡°Tailor Environment is about arranging things so that they¡¯re exactly where someone likes for them to be, right? Say you¡¯re a wizard about to do some stressful wizard job. You snap your fingers, and a Rabbit appears. They clean your potion kitchen or whatever, prep your equipment in the perfect way and put all your tools exactly where they¡¯ll be the most useful to you. Then, before you send them off with a pocketful of argold, you have them tuck your doubts and stresses behind task-focused thoughts so you can get down to business. Like having someone put the files in your head in order¡­it would be great.¡± ¡°I assumed she was pushing the skill way out of line from its intended use,¡± Alden said. ¡°She sounds like a freak. She touches brain without permission. If telling her victims makes the word spread, it¡¯s a shame for all the nice Rabbits. But sometimes Avowed just have to deal with people thinking our powers are icky. And maybe, if it does work like I just guessed, it¡¯ll be seen in a more positive light.¡± Alden glanced back at Manon¡¯s hourglass animation. He checked his other messages just to make sure Boe wasn¡¯t back from catspace yet. [Boater is getting their warnings today,] he texted. [Doing it the way we talked about. When you get back from your timeout, it¡¯s your turn.] Then he went into his System profile and, for the first time ever, he got creative with his name. The Contract didn¡¯t care what Avowed called themselves, and it didn¡¯t mind them setting their preferred name to be entirely different things for different locations, people, or situations. It was normal among some species for an individual to have tons of names, and the Artonans were used to calling aliens whatever they wanted to be called. Sending messages under false identities was frowned upon among human Avowed. Just like spam mail was frowned upon. But nobody could punish you for doing it if they couldn¡¯t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt you had. Alden changed his name to Alice. It was a decision he¡¯d made in around a minute when he was working out the details of this plan. A female name was better for a couple of reasons. It started with A. He liked it¡­probably because someone named Alis had kept him from dying recently. He set the emails to go out at staggered intervals. He¡¯d spent hours tweaking them until they were as perfect as he could manage. Laura would receive hers in a few minutes. Half an hour later, the second would go to Chris. Then half an hour after that, to Naya. And so on¡­all the way to Pineda. Then he hired a courier service to deliver hard copies of the emails to all the members of the boater in a few hours, after the last one had been sent. One would also be delivered to Alden at his dorm, as if the sender was concerned about him, too. Finally, he created a special social rule for himself. Every action he had just taken had been done under the preferred name Alice, and the rule said that when referencing these past few minutes of his life the System should never call him by another name. It was a sneaky feature from a human point of view. But the System liked doling out tons of options for the most trivial things¡­or maybe it was there because the Yumanit species had the concept of ¡°momentary names.¡± Alden switched his name back. All the messages he¡¯d just sent would now be from Alice. And if someone asked the System who¡¯d sent them it would still answer ¡°Alice¡± even though his name was now back to his original. It was secure because the Systems were disinclined to tattletale. Alden hadn¡¯t always planned to send his warnings anonymously, but he¡¯d decided there were significant benefits. First, Manon had pre-disposed the boater to dislike him. What if her brainwashing would prevent them from believing any message with his name on it? Second, if this all turned into a huge shitshow, he didn¡¯t want Manon to try to sue him for defamation of character or something. She was probably going to think it was him. Cly Zhao would think it was him if the news ever reached her. The boater members, if they didn¡¯t suspect one another, would think it was him. Everyone and their uncle was going to suspect Alden Thorn, but if his name wasn¡¯t on anything, how would they ever prove it? He¡¯d even used a girl¡¯s name. Alice could have been ThwartHog, and there was no way they were going to get her onto Anesidora to say otherwise. The physical letters were being sent in case the boater people had their interfaces set to block messages from non-friends or people with recent name changes. And so that Alden would have a copy of his very own to take with him when he went to talk to Laura. He could say he¡¯d gotten the same warning as the rest of them and use it as his opener. ¡°I did it,¡± he said. ¡°I warned the cultists.¡± He¡¯d expected to feel a sense of relief once the job was done. He was glad that he would wake up tomorrow with this task erased from his to-do list, but he also felt a little like he¡¯d just stepped off a ledge without checking to see how far below him the ground was. ¡°Neat. That was fast.¡± Lute could out him as the sender, but Alden didn¡¯t think that he would. If he did¡­if anything did¡­Alden would just have to stand behind the letters and say, ¡°Yeah. It was me. Manon Barre hurts people. Sorry that the way she does it is going to make a whole bunch of other Rabbits look bad.¡± He hoped that a few of the boater members would go get themselves checked out¡­or even just one of them. And then, with proof in official hands, the legal system could deal with it all in a graceful way. Maybe Anesidora is good at this kind of thing. If they¡¯re not, then nobody else could be. ¡°The plan was in development for a while,¡± he told Lute. ¡°Will you stay on the phone with me this evening while I go talk to one of them in person? In case she gets angry and attacks or the cult leader shows up and tries something on me.¡± He¡¯d promised Boe he¡¯d have local backup. ¡°Of course. We¡¯re having a special day together anyway.¡± Lute held out his hands. ¡°System, I need my books.¡± A stack of books that looked like they ought to be called ¡°tomes¡± appeared in his hands. His head barely peeked over the top of them. ¡°Impressive, aren¡¯t I?¡± ¡°For using System storage?¡± ¡°For having free System storage,¡± said Lute. ¡°It¡¯s just for the books and some other job supplies, though.¡± He turned and dropped the books onto the foot of the bed. ¡°Good thing, too. They¡¯re going to give me even more of these if I ever finish the first set.¡± ¡°What are they?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Most of them are full of wordchains I¡¯m supposed to be learning. Sometimes it feels like my job as an Avowed is just perpetual homework. So much memorization.¡± Alden stood and went over to look down at the book covers. ¡°These are all written in logograms. Can you read them?¡± ¡°They get read aloud to me while I follow along. Like incredibly boring bedtime stories. To make matters worse, a lot of them aren¡¯t even in modern Artonan. They¡¯re from before the lingual unification. I was just memorizing the sounds of those ones¡­and then it turned out my boss was not impressed with that method even though it was working for me. So now I¡¯m supposed to remember what all the sounds mean. You can imagine how well that¡¯s going based on our Conversation classes.¡± He rolled his eye. ¡°This¡­¡± He grabbed the smallest and plainest-looking of the books. It had a simple brownish red cover that flipped open from bottom-to-top instead of side-to-side. ¡°This is what I was actually getting. I wanted to show off my homework and complain about it in the process. You can have this.¡± ¡°Do I need to read it?¡± Alden asked. ¡°No. It¡¯s a ledger. They gave it to me on my first day as a Chainer for whenever I wanted to take a student.¡± Lute held it out toward him, and he took it. ¡°You asked whether Self-mastery was an ¡®exclusive¡¯ wordchain, and I told you it wasn¡¯t really. That I¡¯d just need to vouch for you and get permission to teach it. This is the final step in me vouching for you. Giving you this means I¡¯m taking responsibility for your wordchain usage.¡± He scratched his head. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to write down all your chains in here. And then show it to me or send me a copy through the System, so I can remind you when it¡¯s time to pay them back. Sorry¡­I know it¡¯s childish.¡± Alden flipped open the book. Inside, the first page had a spot for him and Lute to both sign their names. There was a line in logograms down one side that talked about following sacred paths. The second page was a grid. Despite the thick paper and some more poetic language sprinkled around, it was quite simple. There were spaces for chain names, casting dates, and finishing dates. ¡°You want me to write down everything I use?¡± ¡°Just what I teach you. If you wanted to write down more common ones when you use them, too, that would be a good thing for me. Parethat-uur is going to ask me about you all the time since he¡¯s decided you¡¯re the best, and you having a fuller ledger would make him very happy.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind doing this,¡± said Alden, thinking it through. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine why it would be a problem for me. But I don¡¯t understand why it¡¯s necessary. Wordchains pay themselves off if you don¡¯t pay them off in a timely fashion, right?¡± ¡°This is one of the things I was happy my boss ordered me to teach you about. The duty that I totally knew I¡¯d get assigned when I called him. Wordchains do land the debt on you. If they¡¯re healthy.¡± ¡°Healthy?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s sit down,¡± said Lute, throwing himself at the green velvet chair. ¡°This is only going to take a second to explain, but then we have to have our tutoring session and that¡¯s going to take ages. Try not to get into trouble for the next few hours, all right? One mind control cult per day.¡± * ONE HUNDRED SEVEN: Opposite Stone 107 ¡°Wordchains are the original form of magic, according to the Palace of Unbreaking. I would take that with an ocean full of salt, because the Palace¡¯s stance is always that wordchains are better than everything else and you might be an actual demon if you disagree.¡± Lute was sitting sideways in the green velvet chair, stretching his fingers one by one. Behind him, the light panel on the wall was flickering slightly behind its shade, as if the privacy booth really was a train car and a changing landscape lay just beyond the fabric. ¡°Anyway, they¡¯re way old. And they work based on a simple concept¡ªequal exchange. I give you my sense of balance for three hours. You give me yours for three hours. I take your strength today. You take mine tomorrow.¡± ¡°You told me they were common sense,¡± Alden said from where he was sitting on the love seat. ¡°And that it made Chainer a common sense class.¡± Lute nodded. ¡°Aulia wants to obscure every minute detail partially because it¡¯s so simple. I¡¯m not an evil old politician, but I think she¡¯s afraid people will realize that we don¡¯t actually get¡­ah¡­that¡¯s still an ass tattoo matter. Back on topic¡ªmy boss says the more people make successful exchanges, the more solid the chain becomes, until it¡¯s so strong it¡¯s doable for even less accomplished people. A person says these magic words and they get peace of mind. Even little kids and species without fingers can make some of them work.¡± He pointed at Alden¡¯s ledger. ¡°But what happens when a wordchain is brand new? Or when it¡¯s been forgotten? What happens if nobody ever uses it? Or if everybody only wants to use one half and so they never speak the other and always let it snap back?¡± Alden¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°That¡¯s so obvious.¡± ¡°I know it is. But we take wordchains for granted. Like they¡¯re¡­light switches maybe? Not that many people sit down to ponder how the electricity got to them when they flip the switch. My boss tells me that Artonans, as a society, used to be very serious about wordchain maintenance. Ancient aliens would perform multiple ones every day, like it was a chore they had to do to keep the lights on for themselves and their grandchildren. Now, even though they¡¯re still in use across the Triplanets, they¡¯re not being cared for with the same level of dedication. So tons of them have broken, or they¡¯re on the verge of breaking, or they¡¯re just weakening.¡± He reached over to grab the wooden case on the table beside him. ¡°The Palace of Unbreaking is dedicated to wordchain preservation. Scary dedicated. As part of that, they do their best to restrict access to wordchains based on their fragility. They want everyone to do wordchains all the time. But only if they¡¯re going to do them in the right way. So when chains start to fail, they try to make sure they¡¯re only being taught and shared with responsible people who are going to strengthen them instead of weakening them further.¡± Alden lifted his new ledger from his lap. ¡°So you¡¯re supposed to make sure I¡¯m not stacking up tons of debt.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. And don¡¯t lie, man. If you miss listing properly completed ones every now and then it¡¯s fine. Or if you let a few snap and have to fess up to it, that¡¯s fine, too. But don¡¯t neglect to mention the snapped ones and don¡¯t say you completed one fair and square if you didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t.¡± Lute nodded. ¡°Parethat-uur has an absurdly high opinion of you, so I think you¡¯ve probably got a lot more leeway than normal. And they don¡¯t demand perfection from beginners anyway. But the thing is¡­if you do become a problematic user, there can be serious consequences for you after you¡¯ve signed this with me. You wouldn¡¯t like them at all.¡± Alden looked back at the first page of the ledger. ¡°Are the spaces for the teacher and student names some kind of contract?¡± ¡°No. They told me it was more like an honesty pledge. It won¡¯t make either of us do anything or prevent us from doing anything. It¡¯s just an official record of the fact that you agreed to be a responsible wordchain user and I agreed to be responsible for you. I send a copy to the Palace of Unbreaking as soon as you sign. If you get caught avoiding debt too often, they take away one of your rights, and if I get caught neglecting you or letting you cheat¡­I¡¯m pretty sure I get yelled at. And they don¡¯t let me have another student until I¡¯ve sucked up a lot.¡± ¡°What right do I lose?¡± Lute looked uncomfortable. ¡°You know how when I shared the wordchain with you, you had to agree to it through the System?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°That one.¡± He took in Alden¡¯s expression. ¡°No! Don¡¯t think I¡¯m horrible! I wouldn¡¯t actually do anything to you, it¡¯s just that I¡¯d be able to¡­and so would the rest of my family.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re horrible,¡± Alden said. He cleared his throat. ¡°I was surprised. That¡¯s all.¡± ¡°You look like someone who¡¯s stuck in a tiny room with a serial killer.¡± ¡°No I don¡¯t.¡± ¡°You¡ª¡± Alden tossed one of the silk throw pillows at him. ¡°Lute, it¡¯s fine. I wondered about the System permission thing when it popped up. It¡¯s not like Sways have to get our permission before they do shit to us. It¡¯s not like Lexi has to get permission before stabbing us with Writher. That¡¯s not how Avowed classes usually work, so I thought it was strange that you had to use a consent form before laying a wordchain on me.¡± Lute was still eyeing him nervously. ¡°The Palace of Unbreaking won¡¯t let Chainers bestow a wordchain¡ªwhether it¡¯s beneficial or not¡ªon unwilling people under normal circumstances. It¡¯s counter to their entire ethos.¡± Hazel didn¡¯t have to get my permission before she sniped me, though. The fact that she was calling in a debt that already belonged to Alden must¡¯ve made it all right in the Palace¡¯s eyes. Or else she got to play by her own rules for some reason. ¡°Your class would be something if you didn¡¯t have that restriction.¡± Alden looked over at the pile of books on the bed. ¡°You could lay endless types of disaster and reap endless positives in return.¡± ¡°But I can¡¯t do that. And I wouldn¡¯t.¡± ¡°I believe you.¡± Alden felt like he was missing something though. ¡°Why does your grandmother not want people to understand even the basics of why wordchains are restricted? I don¡¯t see any benefit for her. A lot of people seem to dislike you guys because they think you¡¯re wordchain hoarders who refuse to share with others so that you can maintain your power. But you actually just work for the hoarders. And the hoarders are hoarding for a good reason.¡± ¡°Wellll,¡± said Lute. ¡°We do hoard. Some. There are a lot that the Palace wouldn¡¯t mind people using that just haven¡¯t filtered down to Earth yet. Mostly odd effects. You could probably crack open one of those books and find a dozen. And we do get access to some particularly strong, delicate, or difficult ones just for ourselves. Aulia, for example, has The Gloss. Which she does not mind the family telling people is very extra awesome and only for her.¡± Imagine that. ¡°Why don¡¯t other Avowed who visit the Palace come back with all this info, then?¡± ¡°Oh. Now this is interesting. I can answer this question but only in a misleading fashion. Your friend the wizard will be able to answer it fully.¡± Lute looked like he very much wanted Alden to ask. ¡°What¡¯s the misleading reason?¡± Lute rose to his feet and looked down his nose at Alden. ¡°No Avowed but Chainers may work for the Palace. I¡¯m terribly sorry, pleb. You¡¯re never going to be summoned there, so you¡¯ll have to take my word for all matters wordchain related.¡± Alden narrowed his eyes. ¡°So that¡¯s it. They don¡¯t summon anyone but you guys to wordchain central.¡± ¡°We¡¯re special,¡± Lute said in the same snobby voice. ¡°The Artonans love us so much, and we¡¯re so special.¡± ¡°Never? None of the wizards there have ever wanted a Rabbit masseuse? They don¡¯t want a Rabbit floor cleaner to make sure the people who prostrate themselves before you don¡¯t get their faces dirty?¡± Lute pointed at him. ¡°You say prostration one more time and I¡¯m not signing that ledger with you.¡± Alden grinned. ¡°Prost¡ª¡± ¡°Oh look,¡± said Lute in an airy voice, ¡°Parethat-uur sent you a present. He¡¯ll want to know how you liked it. Here you go.¡± He grabbed one of the cases and presented it to Alden with a flourish. Alden opened it. There was a big white papaya-shaped fruit inside. ¡°It¡¯s a wevvi fruit,¡± he said. ¡°You recognize it from pictures? Good.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve had one before. A juiced one anyway.¡± Lute tilted his head. ¡°A real one?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°What the hell? I thought for sure it was just my family. They told me you basically have to have some kind of ritual event to even get your hands on¡­never mind. It¡¯s you. Your oddities keep stacking.¡± ¡°Should you be saying that to me?¡± ¡°Eat up, my new beholden one, in a fashion that honors your Artonan ancestors!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have any of those.¡± ¡°Parethat-uur does not care.¡± Lute smirked. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to eat the whole thing. No utensils. Wasting the skin or the seeds is forbidden in this instance.¡± ¡°No juice?¡± ¡°Whatever you can gnaw out of its fibrous hide before swallowing.¡± ¡°It¡¯s kind of large.¡± It wasn¡¯t quite ham-sized, but it was close. ¡°I actually felt a little sorry for you when I first saw it.¡± Lute said, staring down at the white fruit. ¡°He was trying to be generous. You can do it while I teach. You should be able to manage it in a few hours, right?¡± ¡°Do I really have to eat the whole thing? That¡¯s going to make me sick, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll help. I don¡¯t want to lie to Parethat-uur about what happened to it, and I can spin us sharing it into something nice for him.¡± He pointed at Alden. ¡°I get the best bites.¡± ****** The wevvi was tasty. It just wasn¡¯t fun to chew up, and the quantity was intimidating. Alden could see why juice had become the standard way of consuming it rather than whole fruit. While his jaws worked, he listened closely to the words of the chain as Lute repeated them for him. It was significantly longer than the weaker wordchains he was used to. And poetic, as he¡¯d anticipated. There were six problem words; he could say them, but Lute assured him he wasn¡¯t saying them well enough. It was going to take a while to get those right and then a longer while to synch up the hand signs with the words properly. ¡°You promised you wouldn¡¯t be angry if it didn¡¯t work,¡± Lute reminded him. ¡°You¡¯re still worried about that?¡± Alden asked after he¡¯d swallowed his latest mouthful. ¡°I¡¯m not going to be upset.¡± They¡¯d both signed their names in the ledger, using a brush dipped in dark green ink. Alden was supposed to keep the ink and use it for his record taking. ¡°I¡¯m grateful you¡¯re tutoring me,¡± he added. ¡°If anything, I feel guilty for asking you now that I know it¡¯s more serious for you to teach someone than you implied.¡± Lute couldn¡¯t have another student for restricted wordchains until he and Alden had both proven themselves responsible¡ªAlden by not lying about accidents on his chaining ledgers and Lute by making himself available to help complete a chain when necessary. The less frequently used a wordchain was, the shorter the time frame before the debt came due. Very fragile ones needed to be paid off almost immediately. According to Lute, self-mastery was currently running at about three weeks, but in the interest of looking responsible, Alden would be trying to pay it off much sooner. If he couldn¡¯t complete the payments himself, either due to miscasts or the wordchain just refusing to land for him, Lute would be using his skill to bestow the debt to him so that their ledger stayed balanced. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± said Lute. ¡°When I found out I got to have students and realized I could weave around some of my tattoo restrictions because of it, I thought I was going to be the Velra family member who spread knowledge and ruined Aulia¡¯s monopoly¡­then I realized most people suck too much to teach. They suck at doing the wordchains. And they suck even more at wanting to pay them back. I¡¯ve taught people non-restricted ones before and watched them, and I arrived at the conclusion that I couldn¡¯t be friends and teach them the kind of chains I¡¯d be obligated to monitor.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t they just hurting themselves if they make the chain slap them with the debt at a random moment?¡± ¡°People procrastinate on things they don¡¯t like. And they all imagine their future selves being a more self-sacrificing version of who they are. They want the good right now, and the payback feels like a problem for another person¡­so they take it. And then it turns out Future Them doesn¡¯t miraculously want to spend several hours being weak or frightened or clumsy either.¡± He went back to showing Alden the various gestures and words. Alden set his half-finished wevvi aside and repeated them after him. Toward the end of their six-hour window, the gremlin was starting to take an interest. ¡°I think I¡¯m getting it,¡± Alden said after finishing several attempts on his own. Lute was draped over the foot of the bed, head hanging down toward the floor while he watched. ¡°I think you are, too.¡± ¡°Is it a problem for me to cast this in public? Do I need to hide out in bathroom stalls or something?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a gray area,¡± said Lute. ¡°You can cast it wherever you want, but I generally cast in private until I¡¯m good enough to mutter or even abbreviate them. I think if other Avowed do pick them up from us and use them incorrectly the Palace might assign a Chainer to give them a talking to¡­and that doesn¡¯t sound like fun for me. Obviously don¡¯t go out and have a tutoring session like this with someone else until you¡¯ve gotten permission to be a teacher, too. And¡ª¡± ¡°I get permission to teach at some point?¡± Alden asked in surprise. ¡°I assume you do. The Palace lets all of their Artonan members teach restricted chains once they¡¯ve made it out of the novice echelons, so I don¡¯t see why they wouldn¡¯t let a human do it, especially if his heart contains all the light of the sun within it.¡± ¡°Prostration,¡± said Alden. ¡°Prostration. Prostration.¡± ¡°Just don¡¯t say it in front of the girls, jerk.¡± Lute looked like he was on the verge of falling off the bed. His blonde hair was brushing the rug. ¡°Do you like Natalie?¡± ¡°Yeah, of course.¡± ¡°¡®Of course,¡¯ he says. ¡®I have both my eyes.¡¯¡± Oh he meant like that. ¡°We¡¯re friends. I¡¯m friends with all of them.¡± ¡°I know. But¡­if I¡¯m thinking about developing a crush on one of them, I want to make sure it¡¯s someone you¡¯re not into. That wouldn¡¯t be cool.¡± ¡°You plan your crushes in advance?¡± Alden asked with interest. ¡°I¡¯ve never heard anyone mention that was an option.¡± ¡°I got burned last time. I could like Emilija. She¡¯s funny and cute. All your intake friends are hot. And she¡¯s seventeen, but she didn¡¯t treat me like a kid. She didn¡¯t make a big deal out of any of the things people usually care about¡­probably because she¡¯s not from here. And I don¡¯t think she was mad when my self-confidence chain made me tell her she looked amazing in the bikini.¡± He bit his lip. ¡°She seemed happy I¡¯d complimented her, right? It wasn¡¯t too much that I looked up how to say it in Lithuanian?¡± Alden was growing more and more sure that the self-confidence chain was dangerous. ¡°I must¡¯ve missed that one while I was watching the fireworks. It¡¯s fine with me if you develop a crush on Emilija. She isn¡¯t dating anyone as far as I¡¯ve heard. Do you¡­am I supposed to ask her if she likes you back?¡± That sounded so awkward. But Alden had encountered a lot of people asking about crushes recently. Maricel had asked her roommates if they liked him. Her roommates and others at the party had asked him if he liked her. Jeremy had a serious girlfriend. Maybe it was just time for them all to be doing this kind of crush-checking regularly? ¡°I¡¯ll murder you if you do,¡± said Lute Or not. ¡°Just offering,¡± said Alden. ¡°Anyway, go for it. I heard she scared some assholes who were giving Natalie a hard time into leaving intake early, and she¡¯s so positive about everything on Anesidora, and she¡¯s good at <>. I think she¡¯s cool.¡± ¡°You just use Artonan in casual convo?¡± Lute shook his head. ¡°You really are in the wrong language class.¡± ****** Before their last few minutes in the privacy booth were up, Lute gave Alden two jewelry-sized boxes. One had an inch-long silver piece of metal in it, shaped like a rounded rectangle with a hole in the center. ¡°It¡¯s a chain link,¡± said Lute. ¡°Symbolic. You can earn more by being a good wordchain user in the Palace of Unbreaking¡¯s eyes. It doesn¡¯t do anything or get you anything, but you can string them together and feel proud of yourself.¡± ¡°Like earning badges or gold stars?¡± ¡°Yes. But alien,¡± Lute said dramatically. ¡°Don¡¯t throw it away. You¡¯re supposed to keep it with you at all times. I don¡¯t even do that with mine. Just shove it somewhere where you won¡¯t lose it. I keep them in my closet.¡± The second jewelry box had a flattened piece of cloudy crystal about the size and shape of a checker. ¡°I was surprised when he said he was going to give you this.¡± Lute stared at it. ¡°Apparently, it¡¯s because you¡¯re an Avowed. They don¡¯t give them out to most of the palace members. Just some people. It¡¯s more inconvenient than the chain link. If you don¡¯t want to use it, you should give it me, and I¡¯ll do it for you.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± Alden asked. The small piece was heavy in his hand. It reminded him of the material the trading table had been made of in the consulate building. ¡°It¡¯s an Opposite stone. If you have it with you while you perform a wordchain, it glows for the person that has the other one. It¡¯s really just symbolic in your case. I checked. They don¡¯t know what you¡¯ve cast, and they don¡¯t become your literal Opposite for chains. It¡¯s going to be a notification toy for you and the person who has the other half. But¡­it probably means a lot to that person. Because they got a stone suddenly when almost nobody else gets one.¡± ¡°I need to do it every time?¡± ¡°No. But if you¡¯re not going to do it at least every few weeks, I¡¯ll take it.¡± Lute held out his hand. Alden looked at him. ¡°Do you want me to give it to you?¡± he asked. ¡°I will. But it won¡¯t be trouble to stick this in a pocket or something while I cast.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re sure you¡¯ll do it, that would be best,¡± Lute said slowly. ¡°But I know it¡¯s a pain to keep track of a little thing that¡¯s not actually significant to you. I ran mine through a washing machine a few times because I forgot about it¡­which was very crappy of me.¡± He¡¯s serious about the rock, thought Alden. That seemed odd. Lute was even pretty casual about the ledger. He didn¡¯t think it would be a big deal to Parethat-uur if Alden botched wordchains every now and then, but he clearly didn¡¯t want him to mess up with the Opposite stone. Even though he¡¯d just said it was only a toy. ¡°I¡¯ll be careful with it.¡± Lute was still staring at it. ¡°I¡¯m great at carrying random objects. It¡¯s what I do. If I¡¯m not using wordchains for a few weeks, I¡¯ll pass it off to you. How about that?¡± Lute finally dropped his hand. ¡°That would be¡­it¡¯s better if it¡¯s you. Your Opposite will be so honored that it feels wrong to lie about who¡¯s making their rock blink. But they might be crushed if the rock never blinks. And I don¡¯t know if they get to keep being your Opposite if you lose your stone. They might assign you someone else for some crazy Artonan reason.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a religious artifact for them. I get it. I¡¯ll be careful.¡± Another thing struck him suddenly. ¡°You said the Palace is giving it to me because I¡¯m an Avowed. And you think the Opposite will be honored. They¡¯re not a wizard, then?¡± It was the natural conclusion to draw. An Avowed got the special rock when most ordinary wordchain students didn¡¯t. And regular people could cast wordchains. The Palace probably had a large non-wizard class membership. ¡°Most likely not,¡± said Lute. He sat down on the green velvet chair again and started putting on his shoes. ¡°¡­it¡¯ll be someone your age. Born on the same day as you, as close to the same minute as possible. They go all-in on the matching if they can.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± said Alden. He smiled down at the stone. ¡°So they¡¯re a kid.¡± An Artonan exactly his age should be physically and emotionally closer to human twelve. ¡°That¡¯s amazing¡ªimagining that someone born the same minute as me might be holding their stone right now, too.¡± Lute finished tying his laces, then stood up. ¡°All right. Money spent. Tutoring completed. Bed jumped on. Alien gifts given. Some Chainer secrets revealed.¡± ¡°Crush selected,¡± Alden added, reaching for his own shoes. ¡°Crush selected,¡± Lute repeated. ¡°Wevvi fruit¡­¡± He craned his neck toward the case the fruit had come in. ¡°I just finished the last bite,¡± said Alden. ¡°And because of that, I may need to stop by a dispensary when we leave for another one of those ¡®unruly stomach¡¯ injectors. My guts are wondering why I¡¯ve chosen to put a whole raw custard-flavored pumpkin in them on a beautiful Saturday.¡± <> Lute intoned as he collected all the things they¡¯d be taking with them when they left. ¡°Thank you for teaching me. This was awesome of you. It¡¯s great for me, but you¡¯re getting nothing out of it except for tons of my company.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like I have a glorious social life. I would just be sitting around playing my harp and studying.¡± ¡°Still¡­¡± said Alden. ¡°If you think of some way for me to return the favor, let me know.¡± ¡°Tomorrow. The girls¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s just me having a good time with all of you, Lute. It wasn¡¯t a favor last weekend, and it isn¡¯t this one either. And now I¡¯m asking you to spend even more time on the phone with me while I go down to F and possibly piss off a mind-controlled Brute lady.¡± Lute was quiet for a second. Then he said, ¡°Well¡­that¡¯s just me having a good time with you, Alden. I¡¯ll watch you piss off Brute ladies every weekend. It sounds very entertaining.¡± Alden laughed. ¡°Sorry, but I hope it¡¯s boring for you. I want to get to her apartment and find out that she¡¯s not even there. If she¡¯s at the healing hospital right now getting checked for mental manipulation like I recommended, that would be the best possible outcome.¡± ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll root for that this weekend. But next weekend I¡¯m rooting for a Brute lady to take a swing at you.¡± Alden stood and looked around the privacy booth. He made a decision. ¡°Hey, the thing on my profile that made your boss excited¡­¡± Lute¡¯s eye fixed on him. ¡°It¡¯s not something I¡¯m embarrassed about, but it doesn¡¯t feel like me. I don¡¯t know how people will see it, and I definitely don¡¯t want to introduce myself to everyone I meet that way and then have to, like, prove it with every breath I take.¡± He shrugged uncomfortably. ¡°Anyway. It¡¯s just a commendation.¡± ¡°A commendation?¡± Lute¡¯s fingers tightened on the box that held Alden¡¯s new inkwell and brush. ¡°You mean¡­one for fighting chaos. Like the kind Haoyu¡¯s mom has?¡± ¡°Does she have one? I didn¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Two. I think she got one before he was born and another when we were in seventh grade. His dad has one. I¡¯ve heard him mention them before. And there were a couple other people in our school whose parents had one.¡± Lute looked away from Alden to stare at the cut-crystal sconce on the wall in front of him. ¡°Most of them were really proud.¡± ¡°Mine¡¯s not for fighting chaos,¡± said Alden. ¡°I was sitting in a little bit of chaos for months and trying to stay alive, and then I was running away from it. The commendation is for taking care of someone while I was there and taking her with me when I left. I think. They just gave it to me. It¡¯s not like there was an explanation.¡± Lute didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°I figured you were probably curious. And I¡¯ve learned a lot about your Chainer stuff,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯m sure the faculty know, and I trust you more than any of them so there¡¯s no real reason to keep it a secret¡­I just don¡¯t want people to look at me and think ¡®Guy with Alien Accolade¡¯ instead of ¡®Guy Trying to Remember How to Do High School.¡¯¡± ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re terrible at that,¡± said Lute. ¡°You speak fluent Artonan, you study way too much, and you try to save cultists. You need to get some chewing gum stuck to your learning cushion next week, accidentally set one of your rugs on fire, and fail to turn in homework. Then you¡¯ll be cured.¡± Alden felt relieved. ¡°I did set a shirt on fire.¡± ¡°Oh right. The tag tried to kill you so you defeated it with your spell impression.¡± Lute gave him a half-smile. ¡°Thanks for telling me. That¡¯s¡­it¡¯s cool.¡± ¡°It¡¯s just a thing that happened.¡± ¡°Which commendation is it?¡± Lute asked. ¡°I know there are different ones.¡± ¡°It¡¯s for Exceptional Bravery in the Absence of Obligation.¡± ¡°Well that confirms that your heart really does burn sinners to death.¡± ¡°Shut up.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t help that words have meanings, man. The meaning of those words isn¡¯t open to interpretation. No one made you be brave, and you chose to do it anyway.¡± ¡°It really is just a thing that happened.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t bother you about it,¡± Lute said. ¡°I do understand wanting to be High School Guy instead of something else. And it would be peculiar to introduce yourself to people with, ¡®Hi. I¡¯m Alden the Commended One.¡¯ Don¡¯t do that. Everyone will think you have issues.¡± Alden snorted. ¡°I¡¯ll try to avoid it. By the way, I don¡¯t want Haoyu and Lexi to hear about it yet.¡± Lute looked surprised. ¡°You haven¡¯t told Haoyu?¡± ¡°No. I only told you because we¡¯re getting to know each other and your boss was acting like I had a supernova in my chest. It was nice of you not to push for info.¡± ¡°You should tell Haoyu. You two get along so well and he¡¯s going to be thrilled. He¡¯ll probably carry you home to his mother like, ¡®Look! I found another one of you! Compare stars while I take notes!¡¯¡± ¡°I¡¯ll tell him if it comes up naturally. I¡¯m not desperate to keep it from him or anything. I kind of want to do better in gym before it comes out, though.¡± ¡°That¡¯s random.¡± ¡°I¡¯m positive they only let me into the hero program because of the commendation,¡± Alden explained. ¡°And not because it says I¡¯m brave. They didn¡¯t talk about bravery at all in my interview. I don¡¯t think they consider it the most necessary quality. They were just afraid of making the Artonans mad or something, so here I am. I¡¯d like to show all of my classmates I don¡¯t suck before they find out about the star and start guessing about it.¡± Lute¡¯s expression darkened. ¡°I hadn¡¯t thought of that. Being the class weakling is¡­bad. Being the class weakling and having something that will make other people jealous? That can ruin your whole life.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not the class weakling!¡± Alden protested. ¡°I¡¯m doing well. I just think I can do even better.¡± Lute gave him a look. ¡°Be realistic. You could be levitating a meter off the ground, weeping diamonds, and exhaling clouds of poisonous gas, and some of those privileged little rankists would still know right down to their bones that they were better than you because you¡¯re only a B.¡± ¡°They¡¯re not that bad.¡± ¡°They are,¡± Lute muttered. ¡°Trust me. I know several of the people in your program. Some of them are better than others, and not all of the ones who buy into that mindset are dicks because of it. But it¡¯s like¡­this is the puddle we all grew up swimming in. Even if they understand that it¡¯s wrong and they actively try to reject it, they still default to thinking that way a lot of the time.¡± A chime sounded through the room suddenly, and the lights flickered. ¡°That¡¯s our two-minute warning,¡± Lute said. ¡°Before they open the door and kick us out.¡± ¡°I¡¯m ready to go when you are.¡± Alden grabbed the wevvi fruit case. None of Parethat-uur¡¯s gifts had been sent in anything that looked remotely disposable. The cases, chests, and small boxes were all wood and leather with embroidered cloth interiors. Rich people need to stop giving me things that are too expensive to get rid of. I don¡¯t know what my dorm room¡¯s going to look like a year from now at this rate. Dozens of boxes full of lavender and alien curios probably. At least he was going to smell good. Lute¡¯s fingers hovered over the latch that would open the privacy booth¡¯s door. Alden waited, but he just stood there, facing the paneled wall. ¡°I do think it¡¯s amazing,¡± he said as the lights flickered again. ¡°The fact that you earned a commendation. I feel like I need be clear about it. I think it¡¯s amazing, and I¡¯m glad you made it back to Earth and that you¡¯re alive.¡± Alden raised his eyebrows. ¡°Thanks. You don¡¯t have to say stuff like that, though.¡± ¡°I do,¡± said Lute, still not looking at him. ¡°Not to make things weird for you or anything, but just so you know¡­I mean it. I think it¡¯s terrible something bad happened to you, and I hope nothing like that happens to you again.¡± He hooked the latch with a finger and pulled before Alden could ask what the sudden change in tone was about. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. * ONE HUNDRED EIGHT: Canoe 108 The dead silent driver, who Alden was trying hard not to think of as ¡°the Mob driver,¡± picked them up in the parking garage in a slightly different SUV with equally tinted windows. ¡°Where are we going?¡± Lute asked Alden as he buckled his seat. ¡°I assumed you were going back to campus,¡± said Alden. ¡°And I thought I¡¯d catch a bus from there down to F.¡± ¡°What kind of backup would I be from that far away? I¡¯ll ride with you. Let¡¯s use the secret car like it¡¯s a proper secret car! You¡¯ll take us anywhere, right? As long as I keep paying the privacy company?¡± In the rearview mirror, the driver nodded once. Alden couldn¡¯t think of any reason why taking a possibly private and definitely overpriced automobile would be worse than just taking public transport. The seat was more comfortable anyway. ¡°Okay.¡± He leaned forward to talk to the burly, suited man who definitely wasn¡¯t a mobster. ¡°We¡¯re going right down the road to CNH because I need to pick something up from my dorm. Then it¡¯s down to F, to Milagro Lakeside Village.¡± ¡°The Miracle Lakes neighborhoods are so twee,¡± said Lute. ¡°You know the place?¡± ¡°Yes. It¡¯s an area with decorative ponds surrounded by themed housing and restaurants. I¡¯ve never been to Milagro Lake specifically, but one of my aunts took some of us to Kiseki Lake for Children¡¯s Day once. I got to feed the koi.¡± As the driver set off, Lute was air typing enthusiastically. Alden wondered what he was so excited about until twenty minutes later when, just as they were leaving campus with the courier-delivered letter from ¡°Alice¡± tucked in his pocket, the driver rolled down the passenger window to let a small drone in the car. ¡°It¡¯s for you,¡± said Lute. ¡°For your digestion.¡± The driver took the injector from the drone and passed it back to Alden. ¡°We could have just stopped to pick one up,¡± Alden said with a sigh. ¡°Secret delivery is better. Everyone knows that.¡± ¡°If you say so.¡± Lute reached into the seatback pocket and pulled out a ski mask. ¡°Look. You¡¯ve got a balaclava on your side, too. You can wear it to go meet the person you¡¯re helping.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°They come standard with the ride,¡± Lute said defensively. ¡°There¡¯s a bag with more stuff in the back. Anyway, you¡¯re in a hero program. You should get used to costumes.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to visit her as myself. Besides, I think costumes that make me look like a stereotypical bank robber are unlikely to be in my future.¡± ¡°You never know. Peoples¡¯ tastes in superheroes gets stranger every year.¡± It was sunset when the driver parallel parked them on a street near their destination. Alden was holding a ball cap and a pair of dark sunglasses from the car¡¯s supply of incognito wear¡­mostly so that Lute would stop suggesting disguises to him. There was fake facial hair and glue, and Alden was sure they had only been one traffic jam away from his roommate insisting on a handlebar mustache. ¡°This is it. You want me to go with you?¡± Lute asked. ¡°I think it¡¯s better to have you here, right?¡± Alden said. ¡°We haven¡¯t really talked about it. Do you think this lady is actually going to try to beat you up?¡± ¡°No. Of course not. It¡¯s just¡­you know, in case.¡± Laura was a D-rank. But she was also a Strength Brute who¡¯d been mind controlled for years. Alden had no idea how she was going to react to seeing him. He thought they¡¯d just have an uncomfortable conversation. But if she opened the door and cold-cocked him before he could say hello, someone needed to be safely out of reach and able to call for help. ¡°Actually¡­¡± he said, ¡°wasn¡¯t there a jacket in the bank-robbing supplies?¡± ¡°A very large black puffer coat,¡± Lute confirmed. ¡°You want it?¡± He was already reaching behind his seat for the bag of miscellaneous disguises. Alden targeted him before taking the coat. He was sure he was being overcautious. And he was also sure that if he died because someone who liked to cosplay as a French maid punched him hard enough to make his kidneys explode, his last thought would be about how stupid it was for a guy with a shielding skill to go out like that. Worrying about how he¡¯d look if he wore heavy winter wear out of season just wasn¡¯t a good enough reason. The puffer was slightly less of a fashion statement than the poncho, at least, since there wasn¡¯t a drop of rain. He stepped out of the car wearing his supplies. A woman in a tank top walked past with a pair of leashed Dalmatians then turned back to stare at him. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about her,¡± Lute said with a grin. ¡°She¡¯s just jealous of your style.¡± Alden shut the car door. He¡¯d only taken three steps down the sidewalk toward the arched gateway that said Milagro Village before Lute¡¯s video call came in. He accepted it and minimized the display so that it was in his peripheral vision rather than directly in front of his face. ¡°All right,¡± said Lute, pressing a button to make his seat recline. ¡°I¡¯ll be your handler for today, Cottontail. Call me Odin.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure if you¡¯re being funny or unforgivably ridiculous right now.¡± ¡°Silence, Cottontail. You¡¯re on a mission.¡± Lute paused. ¡°And you¡¯re the one who decided to have a mission, of all things. I don¡¯t think the other hero hopefuls are doing missions this afternoon. It¡¯s only you. All ridiculousness that happens from this point on is your fault.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a neighborly warning, not a mission.¡± Also why does he get to be a Norse god when I have to be Cottontail? He passed through the arch and walked beside a narrow road lined with flower beds full of carnations. Signs advertising the magical landscaping company that kept the flowers alive were picketed here and there among them. He caught a glimpse of the small lake between two buildings just ahead, but Laura¡¯s apartment wasn¡¯t on the water. Instead, he turned right and headed down a path that lead through more flowers and past six-story-tall buildings with wrought-iron balconies. This place wasn¡¯t marked as a family neighborhood on his interface, but there was plenty of evidence that families with children lived here. Child-sized bicycles stood in the racks, and toys lay forgotten on some of the balconies. From the direction of the lake, he heard the faint sound of music. Not the fanciest area I¡¯ve seen, but it seems really pleasant. Though¡­he¡¯d yet to see anywhere on the island that looked sketchy or shabby to him. Even Boom Town, where the girls lived, had felt upscale. I might need to adjust my standards. ¡°Hey, is this a nice neighborhood?¡± he asked. Lute was examining the bottle of mustache glue. ¡°I think most people would call it middle class. Why?¡± ¡°Just getting a feel for things.¡± ¡°I spent a lot of my childhood on a magical megayacht,¡± said Lute, ¡°and when I wasn¡¯t there I was in the family mansion or Aulia¡¯s midtown penthouse. I¡¯m probably not the best judge of real estate values.¡± ¡°You grew up fancy.¡± ¡°You should¡¯ve seen how I got to school in the mornings.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been meaning to ask you about school.¡± Alden was striding through a gazebo. The heavy coat was already getting toasty. ¡°Not our current one. I mean the one you attended before. It seems like a huge amount of high rank kids are all familiar with each other from elementary and middle school. From things you¡¯ve said, I know you were in classes with people we know.¡± Haoyu, Vandy, Kon, and Tuyet all seemed to have been in class with Lute at some point. Possibly at multiple points. And Konstantin¡¯s friend group on the day they¡¯d all come for final interviews and combat assessment was huge and full of students who talked like they shared homerooms. ¡°Did they separate you all by prospective rank even before you got selected?¡± Alden asked. ¡°A single classroom with more than a couple of S¡¯s in it should be uncommon otherwise, right?¡± Lute¡¯s eyes went wide and he sat back up in his seat. ¡°No, they don¡¯t separate out kids by guessrank in school. Doing that in an official way would be a step too far even for the super elitists. But I went to a private academy that catered to the cr¨¨me de la cr¨¨me, and more than half of the kids had high-rank parents. Elbow rubbing is one of the reasons people send their spawn there. Plus small class sizes, personal attention, and slick blazers that make you look like a future CEO.¡± He had an unsettled look on his face. ¡°Alden, didn¡¯t anyone ever tell you about me being¡­?¡± ¡°Being what?¡± ¡°Nothing. I was wondering whether you¡¯d picked up on everything or not. But I just assumed you would have already heard about¡­my basics, I guess? I thought people were probably still making so much noise about it behind my back that you couldn¡¯t have missed it.¡± He looked down at his hands. ¡°Self-centered, right? But if you don¡¯t know, I¡¯ll get to tell you about it myself. That¡¯ll be¡­nice. For a change.¡± He cleared his throat. ¡°Focus on your mission for now, Cottontail.¡± ¡°Are you okay?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I¡¯m Odin. Why wouldn¡¯t I be?¡± ****** Alden debated the merits of clicking the buzzer with Laura¡¯s name on it for a couple of minutes before a man dressed in disco pants and wearing a shirt made of what looked like plastic bubbles held the door open for him. <> he said, giving Alden spirit fingers. <> ¡°Uh¡­will you?¡± Alden asked as the door swung shut behind him. Bubble Shirt was already skidding down the sidewalk, propelled by magic boots. ¡°What was that about?¡± Lute was laughing. ¡°He thinks you¡¯re some kind of badly dressed clubber!¡± Right then, Alden happened to catch sight of himself in a mirror beside the building¡¯s elevator. He was dressed all in black except for his jeans and sneakers. Black ball cap, black glasses, knee-length black puffer jacket that would have fit two of him. Well, I¡¯m committed anyway, he thought, while Lute snickered and regaled their nameless, speechless driver with a dramatized description of Alden¡¯s encounter. He took the stairs up to the fifth floor to give himself just a little more time to get in the right headspace. Hi, Laura, he thought. Remember me? You probably don¡¯t want to hear this from a sixteen-year-old you don¡¯t particularly like, but I think Manon made you crush your knee and be too embarrassed around Chris to ask for his help. I think she needed to throw a wrench into the party to spite Bti-qwol, and I think she chose to do it with you because you were about to get that bodyguard job with one of the professors and she didn¡¯t want you out from under her thumb. Something like that. But¡­slower. With more details. No panicking and no getting mad at her if she¡¯s angry or impossible to persuade. It won¡¯t help anything. If it¡¯s going badly I just apologize for bothering her and leave. He pulled up the hood on the puffer coat as he reached the landing of the fifth floor. He experimentally preserved and unpreserved the garment a few times. It was much more restrictive than the poncho, and if he had to beat a retreat from an angry Brute he was going to be the silliest looking person on Earth, waddling away under heavy shielding, unable to fully bend his knees due to the coat¡¯s length and unable to move his arms at all inside the sleeves. But if Helo¨ªsa can¡¯t bust my shield in a single hit with her overpowered throw, then there¡¯s no way a D-rank is getting through it tonight. As long as Laura didn¡¯t take out his face or his ankles, he¡¯d be fine. [Switching to texting,] he told Lute. Lute waved at him and went back to describing the disco pants to the driver. Alden stepped into the hallway. The floor was painted to look like colorful tile, and the apartment doors were in alternating shades of terracotta, teal, and saffron. He headed for 519, at the far end of the hall. Hi, Laura, he thought. I¡¯m sorry to bother you, but I hoped we could have a serious conversation about Manon. The other Rabbit¡¯s hourglass away notice was still up. It would be fine. Laura, you should really go to a healer. You should do it tonight, before she gets back home from the Triplanets. If I¡¯m wrong, there¡¯s no harm in it, but if I¡¯m right then¡­ Maybe she¡¯d already done it. That would be best for everyone. The door to 519 opened before Alden reached it. He stopped in front of 515, and stood there as a woman backed out into the hall. It wasn¡¯t Laura. The Brute from the boater was standing in her apartment doorway, though, seeing her guest off. Manon, he thought. But it was an absurd thought born of pure nerves. Laura¡¯s guest looked nothing at all like the head of the boater. She had a thick rope of white-blonde hair that fell down her back in a braid all the way to her knees. She was slim and so short Alden might have assumed she was a child, if not for the fact that she was wearing a sharply tailored suit and three-inch heels. And calling Laura ¡°dear.¡± ¡°Dear, I think we completely understand each other,¡± she was saying in a soothing voice. ¡°You were right to call me. We¡¯ll handle this, and everything will be smoother moving forward.¡± [Lute, she¡¯s got a visitor,] Alden texted. He looked around like he expected to find a convenient hiding spot in an empty hallway. ¡°I can¡¯t see or hear that far,¡± said Lute. ¡°It¡¯s off-screen for me.¡± [Do Mind Healers make house calls?] Lute shrugged. ¡°All of my family¡¯s doctors and healers made house calls, but that¡¯s not the standard.¡± Alden pretended to admire the brass number plate on 515¡¯s door, while shooting surreptitious glances down the hall. ¡°It¡¯s not all right,¡± Laura said in an annoyed tone. ¡°You tell her that. A good job is one thing, but when it turns this sour¡­it¡¯s not worth it anymore. You tell her. Tell her I said it, and it¡¯s not just me.¡± ¡°I understand. I understand,¡± said the smaller woman, shaking her head. ¡°You have reason to be upset.¡± ¡°Manon isn¡¯t the only person who matters! It takes the whole team.¡± [I don¡¯t think she¡¯s a Mind Healer,] Alden reported to Lute. ¡°And I want to be paid for¡­for pain and suffering!¡± Laura said angrily. ¡°Tell her that, too.¡± She slammed the door in the blonde woman¡¯s face. The woman sighed and turned around. Alden forgot himself and stared at her openly for a couple of seconds. She looked Artonan. She looked so Artonan that he had to actually stop and think about whether she was one or not. As far as facial features went, it wasn¡¯t strange to see a human who had a couple that called to mind the other species¡¯s average individual. Prominent cheekbones, unusually wide-set eyes, narrow brows, a high forehead, small chin¡ªthey were common enough that even seeing the full combination on a human face wasn¡¯t shocking. But in this woman¡¯s case, all of those features were pushed farther than they could be without registering as alien. And there were other cues, apart from her face, that made him question his initial assumption about her species. Her skin was just a couple shades darker than he would usually have expected of a human with such strikingly pale hair. The ice blonde seemed to be natural. Her eyebrows matched anyway. Skin and hair were quite varied for both species, but this combo felt more unlikely for a human than it would have for an Artonan. Then there was the height. She was maybe five feet tall with the heels. Petite was normal enough, but when you added it to everything else¡­ Even her hands, thought Alden. Was it his imagination or were the fingers wrapped around the large cell phone she was holding just a little long? Still, she was human. Even if he disregarded the context of their current location, Artonan women were almost always flat-chested, and the woman who¡¯d just left Laura¡¯s apartment wasn¡¯t. Plus her skin had a honeyish undertone, rather than a purplish one. She¡¯s just a very rare looking person. Possibly one who¡¯d had a much more artful plastic surgeon than his old wordchain teacher. Or maybe she¡¯d asked the System to tune her Appeal in an uncommon way. He didn¡¯t have to stare at her for long to take in her appearance and get over the surprise. She must have noticed him standing here, but she didn¡¯t seem interested. Her eyes were on the phone. What do I do? What were she and Laura talking about? Alden had heard just enough to think that things were not going the way he¡¯d hoped or expected. Laura had called this person instead of a healer. She wanted to be paid for pain and suffering? So my message prompted her to do something, but I don¡¯t understand exactly what. Still facing 515, he cut his eyes to see the woman again. She was pushing up the sleeve of her suit. She had a smart watch on her wrist and a second piece of tech in the form of a bracelet that was casting what looked like a lighted computer display across the skin of her forearm. I can¡¯t just stand here silently. That¡¯s the most conspicuous option. Knocking on Laura¡¯s door right now, with this stranger checking her email or something just outside it, didn¡¯t seem like the right call. Leave and come back? Alden turned. ¡°You¡¯re leaving?¡± Lute asked curiously. ¡°Is the person who¡¯s probably not a Mind Healer scary?¡± [I¡¯m just getting out of sight while she¡¯s here. Laura was complaining to her. And asking for compensation. And I think asking her to report how dissatisfied she is to a boss?] ¡°Sweet! There¡¯s a boss. Is the cult leader the boss, or is there a bigger boss?¡± [How should I know?] If this woman worked for Manon¡­then Alden was at a loss. How did he help the boater members if their answer to finding out they were mind controlled was to call the mind controller? And ask for money. He heard the click of high heels behind him as he headed for the stairs. Fast clicking. He¡¯d been deliberately strolling at a leisurely pace in an effort not to look like he was running away. Now he had to fight the urge to speed up. Don¡¯t be dumb. Your legs are way longer than hers, and you had a head start. And she¡¯s just walking down a hall, not running after the strangely dressed guy to stab him in the back. He still felt relieved when he reached the door to the stairs. Then considerably less relieved as a butt dressed in cargo pants backed through it. The man attached to the butt had¡­a canoe. Why is a canoe coming up the stairs at a time like this?! ¡°Who hauls a canoe indoors?¡± Lute asked. ¡°Who hauls a canoe up a staircase instead of using the elevator?¡± <> the man asked Alden. ¡°Sure,¡± said Alden, holding the door open. ¡°Maybe canoes don¡¯t fit in elevators? I¡¯m impressed he got it up the staircase really,¡± said Lute. Fine. This is fine. Now I¡¯m helping Mr. Canoe. That probably makes me look less suspicious. ¡°I get that these people want to live the lake life, but can¡¯t they just rent boats if they¡ª¡± Lute¡¯s merry chatter stopped. His expression was shocked. And then his eyes widened even further as a look of horror transformed his face. [What¡¯s wrong?] Alden texted him. The woman in heels had just reached him. She stopped a couple feet away. She couldn¡¯t get to the elevator because the canoeist was in her way as he maneuvered his vessel into the hall. ¡°Alden,¡± Lute said. ¡°Don¡¯t¡­¡± Don¡¯t what? Alden wondered. ¡°Don¡¯t look,¡± maybe. ¡°Don¡¯t say anything.¡± Or something more personal. Whatever it was, it remained unsaid. And Alden did look. The woman didn¡¯t have herself name-tagged, but when she was standing this close, a special notification appeared beside her thanks to his interface. He blinked at it in surprise. [She¡¯s not Avowed,] he reported to Lute. [She¡¯s a regular human.] Lute took a deep breath. ¡°You need to come back here. To the SUV. Don¡¯t say anything. Keep your sunglasses on. She¡¯s not acting like she¡¯s recognized you, but she might if she gets a good look at your face.¡± Something in his tone made Alden freeze up. Literally. He activated his skill like he expected to be on the receiving end of an attack after all. The puffer coat stiffened around him. He forced himself to drop it. Being unable to move your arms wasn¡¯t exactly subtle. The canoe was finally through. <> the owner called, hefting it over his head and trotting off toward his apartment. The woman headed toward the elevator. Alden slipped through the door and took the stairs down quickly. [You know her?] he asked, keeping up with the texting since Lute had made him even more nervous. ¡°Yes,¡± Lute said. [Is she dangerous?] ¡°She¡¯s my mom.¡± If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. * ONE HUNDRED NINE: The Chainer, I 109 The trip back toward Apex was so silent it made Alden¡¯s skin crawl. When he¡¯d first returned to the SUV, Lute had said, ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk about it,¡± before Alden had begun to develop a decent question. Then he¡¯d told the driver to take them to campus without even asking if it was all right. Of course, it was all right. Alden would have decided to head back himself most likely. Interfering with Manon to help people had sounded difficult but worth a try. Interfering with her and Lute¡¯s family? He didn¡¯t understand how the two were connected. And even if he¡¯d had all the details¡­he was now worried the scale of the matter was beyond his ability to handle. Have I already stuck my foot too far in it by sending the letters? Can I still pull back? Why on Earth would the message he¡¯d sent prompt Laura to call Lute¡¯s mother? He thought over the snippet of conversation he¡¯d heard in the hallway. He tried to remember everything he knew about the Velras. LeafSong, he thought, letting his head fall back so that he was staring up through the SUV¡¯s tinted moonroof. When Lute was asking whether I minded being his roommate, he told me Aulia mentioned I was assigned there. And it stuck out because he¡¯d heard members of his family say the university name before. At the time, Alden had been more focused on other things. He¡¯d brushed it off. Neha had heard of the wizard university, too, so it hadn¡¯t seemed that strange that the Velras might bring it up from time to time. It was an even more prestigious school than he¡¯d realized when he was doing the job there. He¡¯d decided that hearing an Avowed who was familiar with Artonan culture mention it in passing must be like hearing someone mention Oxford or MIT. It didn¡¯t necessarily mean they had a personal connection to the institution. What if Aulia does, though? Through the boater¡­ He could imagine a few reasons for people to want a way into the school¡ªcozying up to important wizards while they were young, gaining access to powerful families, maybe even something like collecting information on youthful transgressions to save for later. If Joe could take advantage of that kind of thing, then possibly human blackmailers could as well? It¡¯s all guessing. What was less of a guess was the fact that the boater wasn¡¯t just a messed up version of a union for Manon and her friends. The Velras wouldn¡¯t care about something like that. And Alden had wondered on more than one occasion why Manon would care so much about the boater herself. It was odd for a Rabbit who got plenty of work on her own to be so obsessed with monopolizing and controlling the campus posting. The money was amazing. The connections were amazing. And those things gave her a tighter grip on her collection of human assets. Maybe, he¡¯d thought, it was enough of an excuse. But it made more sense if there was something else at stake¡­for Manon at least. The boater had to be a lot of work to maintain. She shelled out her own money when they were on campus to keep them happy. I freaking hate schemes, politics, and power struggles, he decided. Night had fallen, and a river of oncoming headlights greeted them as they approached the Span. Lute had been staring quietly through his window for the past half hour, hands clenched together in his lap. ¡°You¡¯re not going to say anything?¡± he asked suddenly. His face was still turned away from Alden. ¡°You didn¡¯t want me to. And I don¡¯t know enough to say anything. Sorry for¡­¡± Alden didn¡¯t understand the situation well enough to know if he should apologize or not. ¡°Sorry to accidentally involve you in something that might be bigger and more personal for you than I realized. I thought I was just going to talk to someone I¡¯d met once. I didn¡¯t know.¡± He¡¯d wanted it to take an hour and then, whether it went well or badly, be over. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± Lute said in a dull voice. ¡°It¡¯s not like it¡¯s your fault. I have such a busy family. I suppose that when someone mentions a shady thing going down on Anesidora, I shouldn¡¯t be surprised if they¡¯re right in the middle of it. I¡¯m living proof that Aulia gets away with illegal crap all the time, aren¡¯t I?¡± He was still clutching the bottle of mustache glue in his hand. Alden thought he must have forgotten he was holding it. ¡°I have some relatives who think every bizarre thing that happens to someone in our family happens because Aulia has fucked around with fate a few times. They¡¯re wrong. Our lives are full of strange, dramatic, odious shit because Aulia fucks around with everything, every minute, of every hour, of every day. And they let her. They help her.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Alden asked. Lute shrugged. ¡°Maybe they all love it as much as she does. Or maybe they just love her. Every time I feel like I get it, a little, I end up being more wrong and more¡­fucked around with¡­than before. I see how living with it for decades makes some of them think they¡¯re cursed or blessed or whatever, though. Coincidence feels like magic sometimes.¡± He shifted around in his seat to look at Alden. ¡°I¡¯d only just realized you didn¡¯t know anything about my parents. I was thinking it was nice that I¡¯d get to tell you about them myself and present it how I wanted to. And fifteen minutes later, you run into Mom¡ªJessica¡ªdoing Aulia¡¯s bidding in the hall of a random apartment building.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what you wanted to tell me about?¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t know she wasn¡¯t Avowed,¡± said Lute. Alden shook his head. ¡°You asked me if I was in a special class for high ranks when I was younger. That¡¯s how I realized. They wouldn¡¯t have put me in that kind of class even if one existed.¡± His smile was bitter. ¡°If they sorted kids that way, they¡¯d have needed to dig a basement below the school to stuff me in. Do you know what they call people who have Avowed parents but who never get selected?¡± ¡°No¡­¡± ¡°Whiffs. Like their parents took a swing in a game of baseball and missed. Sorry, you struck out.¡± ¡°That¡¯s cruel,¡± Alden said quietly. ¡°Whiff is the cutest word for it. Believe me. Mo¡ªJessica is Aulia¡¯s big whiff,¡± said Lute. ¡°And Cyril is a whiff, too. His parents are C-ranks.¡± ¡°Cyril¡¯s your father?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Lute glanced down at the bottle of glue, then dropped it into his cup holder. ¡°I¡¯ve always thought so anyway. But that being true became very unlikely the moment I was selected. I look pitiful and stupid if I pretend I don¡¯t know that.¡± He drew his legs up toward his chest and put his feet on the dark leather seat. ¡°Do you know what the kid of two whiffs is supposed to be?¡± Alden could guess. ¡°Human.¡± Lute gazed up through the moonroof. The flickering lights of drones mingled with the stars. ¡°I was supposed to be human.¡± After a moment of silence, one corner of his mouth turned up. ¡°Sometimes I wonder if the System enjoyed it. Picking me. Putting its fist right through the middle of my plans and everyone else¡¯s. I know it¡¯s not supposed to enjoy things. But I bet it did that day. Just a little.¡± ¡°What was it like?¡± Alden asked. He couldn¡¯t imagine it. He¡¯d grown up knowing he would most likely never be selected, even if he¡¯d had his hopes and Hannah¡¯s theories. But he¡¯d belonged to a whole world full of people who wouldn¡¯t be chosen. To grow up here, where almost everyone was or would be Avowed, had to be a completely different experience. ¡°It was like¡­someone flung me into the sky when I¡¯d spent my whole entire life teaching myself how to be happy with the ground.¡± ****** Cabin 2 - Libra North Point Marina Anesidora eleven years ago ****** One of Lute Velra¡¯s earliest memories was of an argument between his parents. About him. He remembered waking up to the sound of it one morning. The night before, he¡¯d asked to sleep in the big bed because of a nightmare, and the covers were still warm around him when he opened his eyes. The angry whispers and the sound of his own name made him scared and curious at the same time. He hid his face beneath the sheet. It was morning, and the room was bright. In the golden, glowing world under the sheet, he learned new things about himself that he wasn¡¯t old enough yet to understand. His father was mad. His mother was crying. The problem seemed to be that Lute was too short. Or that he was going to be too short in the future. Am I? Such a difficult idea to get a handle on. He was short because he was the youngest person on the whole ship. He was short because he was only just getting started growing. He was cute¡ªthe cutest¡ªall the crew said so. And that was a good thing, wasn¡¯t it? ¡°What do you mean you don¡¯t want him treated for it?!¡± his father shouted. ¡°It¡¯s easier if they start while he¡¯s young! Everyone will torment him enough as it is. Why the hell would you do that to him, Jessica?¡± Is he mad at me? thought Lute. His heart was beating faster. He didn¡¯t like the yelling. ¡°He¡¯s healthy! He¡¯s completely healthy, and he¡¯s beautiful!¡± his mother said in a tearful voice. ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with him.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine when he¡¯s four! It¡¯s going to be something else when he¡¯s a grown man, and it¡¯s not like the System will ever be an option for him. I know you don¡¯t mind looking like some kind of Artonan doll, but my son¡ª¡± ¡°Fuck you!¡± Lute¡¯s mother screamed. There was a thump as something hit the wall, and then another. Then another. ¡°Are you throwing shoes at me now?!¡± ¡°Get out! Leave! Get off my family¡¯s boat!¡± Lute didn¡¯t understand what was going on. He was trembling under the sheet. His eyes were shut tight. ¡°GET OUT!¡± The door slammed. A minute later, the mattress sank and a hand fell softly on his covered head. ¡°Did we scare you, baby?¡± his mother whispered. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. It¡¯s all right. Mommy and Daddy are just having a bad morning.¡± Lute sniffled. ¡°Is something wrong with me?¡± ¡°Of course not.¡± ¡°Am I ugly?¡± ¡°Ugly?¡± The sheet was tugged off him, and a finger tapped him on the cheek. ¡°You¡¯re my little prince, and you¡¯re perfect.¡± ¡°Daddy said¡ª¡± ¡°Perfect,¡± his mother repeated, leaning over to rub her nose against his until he giggled. ¡°The most perfect little boy in all of Apex! Has Mommy ever lied to you?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± said his mother. ¡°Why don¡¯t we go swimming today?¡± ¡°All day,¡± Lute said at once. ¡°All day,¡± she agreed. ¡°I¡¯ll tell them to heat up the pool. Maybe your Grandma will even come play with us.¡± ¡°Will she buy me another present?¡± ¡°Do you want her to?¡± Lute nodded. ¡°Then she will!¡± ****** Another of Lute¡¯s first memories, from around the same time, was the moment he realized he wouldn¡¯t ever be able to do magic. Of course he¡¯d always known he wouldn¡¯t be an Avowed. Nobody had kept it a secret. It was a fact about himself, just like all the others. His name was Lute Velra. He was nearly five years old. He liked grapes, mandarinfish, and his music tutor, Mrs. Yu. The System would not pick him. He was an ordinary human, like his mother. He knew but, somehow, he¡¯d missed the fact that being an Avowed was how people did magic. He¡¯d thought they were two separate things. He was in the pool on the afternoon when the news finally crashed down on him. His arms were supported by inflatable swim wings, and his face was in the water so that he could see through the glass bottom to one of the yacht¡¯s sitting rooms on the deck below. His cousin Hazel was there with Grandma Aulia. He pulled his head up. ¡°Can I go see Grandma?¡± His mother, lounging on the long white deck sofa and typing on her computer, shook her head. ¡°No, she¡¯s teaching Hazel right now.¡± It felt like Lute had been hearing that a lot lately. ¡°What¡¯s she teaching?¡± ¡°Wordchains, baby. You know that.¡± ¡°I can do one. I can do that one you taught me. Sometimes.¡± When it worked, it made him just a little dizzy, which was funny. And then it made him just a little not-dizzy, which was boring. His mother said it was one of the easiest wordchains there was, but she¡¯d still been proud of him when he got it right. ¡°Teach me the one that makes the water move,¡± said Lute. ¡°I¡¯ll practice hard.¡± His mother looked away from the screen. ¡°The one that makes the water move?¡± Lute splashed and stared up at the flying droplets. The retractable roof was closed over the pool today, with the panels lit up to warm and light the deck. ¡°Like that,¡± he said, splashing again. ¡°Teach me to do that.¡± Jessica closed the laptop. ¡°You mean Water Shaping,¡± she said slowly. ¡°That¡¯s not a wordchain. It¡¯s something Avowed do. Shapers.¡± ¡°Yes! Teach me!¡± ¡°Lute, we¡¯ve talked about this,¡± she said. ¡°You¡¯re not going to be Avowed. You¡¯re like Mommy.¡± ¡°I know.¡± He loved his mother. He was glad they weren¡¯t Avowed together. ¡°Only Avowed can be Water Shapers.¡± Lute stared at her. ¡°I can¡¯t be?¡± She shook her head. ¡°But why?¡± ¡°Because the System doesn¡¯t pick many people,¡± said Jessica. ¡°It picks most boys and girls whose parents are Avowed. But if your parents aren¡¯t, it almost never picks you. And if it doesn¡¯t pick you, you can¡¯t do magic.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°That¡¯s just how it is.¡± She paused. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t wordchains magic?¡± There was a tight, sick feeling in his stomach. ¡°I can do the dizzy one.¡± ¡°They¡¯re not the same. I can perform wordchains, too. A lot of them. Enough that nobody worried too much¡­¡± Jessica shook her head. ¡°But I can¡¯t do other kinds of magic. And I never will be able to. And your father can¡¯t. And you can¡¯t.¡± But, thought Lute. But¡­ Everyone could do magic. Everyone he had ever met. All the adults anyway. Talents, skills, spells, points¡ªthese were the things people talked about. These were the things you got for being a grown-up. Avowed meant you went to see the Artonans sometimes. It was all right if Lute couldn¡¯t do that. But making water into animal shapes and flying and reading the names painted on the sides of ships and boats even though they were kilometers away¡­those were different. Lute wanted those things. He wanted to be like the cabin stewardess who made the bed every morning without using her hands. He wanted to be like the crewman who checked the hull sometimes without ever coming up for air. The current in the pool had spun him around. He kicked his feet to face his mother again. ¡°I can¡¯t do magic?¡± he asked. She shook her head. ¡°Not even a little?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°What about when I¡¯m as old as Grandma? Then will I be able to?¡± ¡°You won¡¯t.¡± He panicked. It wasn¡¯t okay. It was like someone had stolen his birthday. In that moment, he couldn¡¯t fathom a worse outcome. He was different. He was different in a bad way. And it wasn¡¯t fair. His thoughts rocketed around. ¡°What if I¡¯m good? What if I¡¯m good every year all year? I will be!¡± Like for Santa Claus. ¡°Lute,¡± said Jessica, ¡°no.¡± ¡°What if I try my hardest? What if I practice every day?¡± Like he did for Mrs. Yu. ¡°Lute¡ª¡± ¡°Sometimes the System picks people! Sometimes it picks globals!¡± Yes! This was it. Sometimes Avowed didn¡¯t come from Anesidora. He remembered now! Sometimes they come from other countries all over the world. And those Avowed had parents like his. And¡ª His mother had stood from the sofa. She wasn¡¯t smiling. Her face was smooth like glass. She sat on the edge of the pool. Sometimes, when she wasn¡¯t doing important work for Grandma, she let Lute pick out her clothes and she wore whatever he chose. That day it was a sarong covered in a birds of paradise print and a necklace made of diamonds and conch pearls. She didn¡¯t remove either before she slid into the pool. The fabric of the sarong drifted around her legs as she walked toward him. Her eyes never left his. She cupped his face in her hands. She leaned forward. Their noses were almost touching, but she didn¡¯t rub them together. ¡°Lute,¡± she said, ¡°you will never be chosen. You will never be an Avowed. You will never do any magic other than wordchains. Do you understand?¡± ¡°But, Mommy, everybody else¡­¡± ¡°Say you understand.¡± Lute burst into sobs. She held him while he cried. She held him every time he cried about it over the next couple of years. Some disappointments were far too bitter to overcome in a single afternoon. ****** When Lute was six, his parents got divorced. It was a quiet finalization of something that had been in progress for an eternity by the reckoning of a young child. His father had stopped living with them a few months after the fight Lute had overheard. When Jessica and Lute were on Libra, he was in the Velra mansion. When they were in the mansion, he was in Aulia¡¯s apartment. When they were in the apartment, he was on Libra. Lute visited him a lot, then a little less, then every other weekend. After the divorce, he moved to a large apartment in a family neighborhood. ¡°How do you like my new place, Lutey?¡± he asked when Lute came by for the first time. ¡°You¡¯ve got your own room! It¡¯s the biggest one!¡± He would continue to mention that Lute had the biggest bedroom for years, as if it was proof of his love, until finally, at twelve, Lute ended it for good by saying, ¡°Isn¡¯t that because Mom owns this apartment and she had the room with the en suite decorated for me?¡± She¡¯d had a picture of a lutist installed on the shower wall in mosaic tile. Lute¡¯s monogram was carved into the bed¡¯s footboard. It was crystal clear who she expected to sleep there. At six, though, he was less jaded. He always looked forward to his weekends with his father. Jessica worked a lot. Cyril was never too busy to play. And there were so many other children in the family neighborhood! Lute was used to being around adults mostly. Cousins similar in age were frequent visitors wherever he was, but they were never his visitors. If they were around, it was because their parents had brought them to see Grandma. Lute was expected to let them have their special time with Aulia without stealing any of her attention for himself. ¡°We live with her, baby,¡± said Jessica, when Lute complained about it. ¡°You get to see her more than any of them.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t like them.¡± ¡°None of them?¡± Jessica asked. ¡°They pretend like my pools belong to them.¡± ¡°Your pools?¡± ¡°Grandma said they were mine since I spent the most time in them.¡± ¡°Oh, I see¡­¡± Jessica smiled. Lute thought about telling her the other thing about the cousins. The thing that had happened at the New Years party¡ªhow in the children¡¯s dining room, a whisper had gone around, and everyone had started speaking in Artonan. They all took lessons in it. Hazel sometimes bragged that her father and her grandfather¡ªLute¡¯s Uncle Corin¡ªspoke nothing but Artonan. Which wasn¡¯t true. They spoke English to everyone who wasn¡¯t her. ¡°I don¡¯t speak Artonan,¡± Lute had told the cousins. ¡°I¡¯m learning Mandarin instead.¡± Once he¡¯d learned Mandarin, his mother said he could choose his own third language. Anything he wanted. But not Artonan. ¡°I spoke Artonan better than English when I was your age,¡± Jessica had said. ¡°It was a lot of hard work, and all I had to show for it when all was said and done was a funny accent.¡± Sometimes, they still practiced wordchains together. When Lute asked. But his mother didn¡¯t seem to enjoy it, and Lute asked less and less. Chainers did wordchains better. Somehow. Lute didn¡¯t quite understand how it worked. But he knew he would never be a Chainer. Even if he tried to grab that little bit of magic for himself, it would always be worse than what his own relatives could do. And when Hazel and Grandma Aulia parted, Aulia always said, ¡°May the warmth of the Mother comfort you until we meet again.¡± When she said goodbye to Lute, it was only ¡°goodbye.¡± ¡°Could you all speak English so I can talk, too?¡± he¡¯d asked the cousins at the party. They¡¯d switched back, but not until Aunt Hikari and Uncle Benjamin came to check on them. By then, they¡¯d been saying things Lute couldn¡¯t understand for five minutes. It¡¯s not our fault you can¡¯t do it. We have to practice. Yeah, Lute, we have to practice. One day, we¡¯re going to be Chainers. ¡°Actually, only some of you will be,¡± Hazel had informed them all when Hikari finally left. ¡°The Artonans don¡¯t have enough jobs for all of you. Even if Grandpa Corin¡¯s office buys every single Chainer the System offers, some of you are going to have to be something else. Grandma Aulia told me so.¡± Grandma Aulia seemed to be telling Hazel more and more every day. Things she didn¡¯t tell Lute. ¡°I don¡¯t like any of my cousins,¡± Lute told his mother stubbornly. ¡°Except Aimi.¡± ¡°Well, Aimi¡¯s too old to be your playmate. She¡¯s my age.¡± Lute shook his head. ¡°She says she¡¯s sixteen.¡± Jessica had sighed through her nose. ¡°The rejuvenator made Aimi look and feel sixteen again recently. She thinks that being heavily tutored made her miss out on the teenage experience, so she decided to take her slot prematurely.¡± ¡°I understand," said Lute. He didn¡¯t. And he still liked Aimi. One time, when the yacht was out sailing, she¡¯d shaken her butt in the direction of Apex and said, ¡°Look! I¡¯m mooning the moon!¡± That was enough reason to like someone, wasn¡¯t it? ****** Jessica Velra took her son into the city often, but they never went alone. Someone was always with them, usually several people. If it wasn¡¯t family members or crew members, it would be strangers dressed in clothes appropriate for whatever they were doing that day. ¡°Our friends for this outing!¡± Jessica would say, whenever she introduced Lute to a new entourage. ¡°They¡¯re going to help us get where we¡¯re going and make sure we have a good time! Say thank you, Lute.¡± Lute always thanked them. He never minded having them along. They were all friendly, quiet people who wandered through markets and parks with him and his mom. They carried bags, held seats, and ran back for lost toys. He assumed those things were their purpose in life, and everyone who went out on a sunny day must have some helpful seat holders and runners of their own. Even when he was visiting his dad, at least one of the helpers would appear if they ever left the family neighborhood. One day, when they were getting ready to leave his grandmother¡¯s midtown apartment to go shopping, Cousin Orpheus wandered through the living room as Jessica was giving the quartet of helpers for that day their instructions. Lute was supposed to be practicing on the baby grand piano until the last possible minute, but he was easily distracted by the appearance of the one family member he¡¯d been told in no uncertain terms that he ought to avoid. ¡°Is he a bad man?¡± he¡¯d asked his mother when the instruction had been given. ¡°No. But he has some troubles,¡± Jessica had said. ¡°Isn¡¯t he an S?¡± ¡°That only makes his troubles more troublesome for the rest of us,¡± she¡¯d muttered. Hazel¡¯s older brother was getting harder to avoid, though. He¡¯d started hanging around Grandma Aulia more often and actually using his cabin on Libra. Today he was in his underwear, scratching at the family tattoo on his ribs while he strolled around the living room, hunting for something. He checked inside boxes and behind books on the shelves. He looked under the leaves of a potted plant. ¡°Orpheus,¡± Jessica snapped. ¡°I¡¯m busy. None of your special medicine is hidden in this room anymore. Mother hired a sniffer to clean it out last week.¡± Orpheus yawned and scratched himself some more. He took in the day¡¯s entourage¡ªall standing around Jessica in crisp polo shirts and ironed pants¡ªwith an amused look. ¡°Cripes, Aunt Jess,¡± he said. ¡°Are you afraid someone¡¯s going to kidnap the squirt? If they did, where would they even take him? It¡¯s an island.¡± Jessica looked over at Lute, who went back to playing Gymnop¨¦die 1 at a slightly too fast tempo. ¡°Our friends will be helping us with our shopping,¡± she said. Orpheus laughed. ¡°Who hires four high-ranks to help with shopping at Rosa Grove Mall?¡± He left it there. The true purpose of the helpers might have remained mysterious for a long time after that, if not for his sister. She came over to spend the night a few days later. It was an increasingly frequent event. And a miserable one in Lute¡¯s opinion. Hazel was almost two years older than him. And when she wasn¡¯t holed away with Grandma Aulia drinking milky tea out of painted cups and learning wordchains, she always came to find Lute and be a show-off. He managed to avoid her for a whole day, night, and morning. But then on her second afternoon in residence, Aulia was called away to deal with something and Jessica went with her. Lute, sensing danger, was trying to pretend that he and the piano were very, very busy together. But the thing about Hazel was that nobody was ever too busy for her to interrupt them. She would walk right up to the housekeeper while she was vacuuming and ask her to stop making so much noise. On Libra, she would bother Chef Kabir for ¡°grilled cheese with light butter¡± even if he was in the middle of making lunch for everyone else onboard. Lute wasn¡¯t allowed to do things like that. The other children in the family weren¡¯t allowed to do things like that either. Hazel¡­was different. And it wasn¡¯t the bad kind of different, like Lute was. She skipped toward the piano, her braid swinging, and she plinked a few keys at the highest octave, right in the middle of his song. ¡°My Daddy can play the piano,¡± she said. ¡°I asked if I could have lessons like you, and he said I wouldn¡¯t need them.¡± She told Lute this every time she heard him play. ¡°Mrs. Yu says practice is important,¡± said Lute. ¡°The System will enhance my hearing, my pattern memorization, and my mantle dexterity when I get Chainer. So Daddy says I¡¯ll be able to play just about as well as anyone could want after I¡¯ve become an Avowed.¡± Lute thought ¡°mantle dexterity¡± wasn¡¯t the right phrase, but he wasn¡¯t sure enough to argue with her and risk being wrong. ¡°Mrs. Yu says¡­¡± No. He wouldn¡¯t repeat it. No matter how mad she made him. This one thing, the thing a non-Avowed classical pianist had shared with him, he would keep to himself. So that Hazel couldn¡¯t find a way to ruin it. He went quiet. He tried to ignore Hazel¡¯s toneless plinking. ¡°Grandma Aulia and Grandpa Corin took me to Artona I,¡± said Hazel. ¡°They took me there to meet some verrry important people. So that I could show them what I can do.¡± ¡°All you do is have headaches.¡± Hazel bristled. ¡°They¡¯re not just headaches! I¡¯m sensitive!¡± She smacked the keys in front of her with a fist. Lute already knew about the trip to Artona I. Everyone in the family¡ªmaybe everyone on Earth¡ªknew that Hazel had gone to meet verrry important people. It was all any of the aunts, uncles, and cousins could talk about. Some of them were excited. For some reason. Some of them were panicking. For some reason. Aulia had bought Hazel a brand new cell phone with a matching watch and a pair of hot pink glasses. The display on the glasses mimicked a System interface. Hazel wanted Lute to ask to look through them. He¡¯d die first. It was Avowed stuff anyway, and Avowed stuff wasn¡¯t for Lute. He didn¡¯t understand why everyone cared so much, and his mother said he didn¡¯t need to understand. A lot of noise about a little girl, she¡¯d said. That¡¯s all. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to leave me alone while I¡¯m practicing,¡± Lute said. It was a house rule, no matter which house he was in. Lute¡¯s music was just as important as everyone else¡¯s wordchain practice or their language lessons. His mother said so, and she enforced it. They¡¯d even put a piano on Libra just for him. ¡°What are you playing anyway?¡± Hazel asked, leaning over to stare at his sheet music. ¡°It¡¯s so slow. It can¡¯t be hard.¡± ¡°It¡¯s just a song.¡± Gymnop¨¦die 1 was his mother¡¯s favorite song. He was going to learn it as perfectly as he could. Mrs. Yu was helping him figure out how to modify it in the places where his fingers couldn¡¯t reach. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if it¡¯s slow or fast. You have to think about expression,¡± Lute said. ¡°I¡¯m about to turn nine,¡± said Hazel. ¡°You should play Happy Birthday.¡± ¡°I just turned seven.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t have a party.¡± ¡°Yes I did.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t invite me!¡± Lute had invited his parents, his grandmother, Aimi, the crew, a kora player he¡¯d heard on the street a week before, and Mrs. Yu. No. Other. Cousins. He had been very specific about his guest list, and his mother hadn¡¯t argued. Aimi said she was surprised to be invited, but it was the best family party she¡¯d ever been to. ¡°I didn¡¯t invite you because it was an adult birthday party,¡± Lute said. ¡°I only invited grown-ups.¡± ¡°You still should¡¯ve invited me. We¡¯re friends.¡± Lute missed a note. And then another. We¡¯re friends? Were they friends? ¡°Friends are supposed to be nice to each other. You¡¯re not nice,¡± he said. Hazel plinked a few more keys. ¡°I¡¯m nice to you. You¡¯re just too little and dumb to understand. I look out for you all the time.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t look out for me!¡± Lute said angrily. ¡°Kids, don¡¯t fight in there!¡± a woman¡¯s voice called from the another room. The housekeeper was spending an awful long time cleaning the bathroom today. Lute was sure she was just avoiding Hazel. ¡°You¡¯re rude and you bother me when I¡¯m practicing,¡± Lute hissed. ¡°And you never do anything but brag. You¡¯re not my friend, and you¡¯re not nice.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t brag!¡± Hazel glared at him. ¡°And I am nice! There are all kinds of things I know about you and Aunt Jessica but I don¡¯t say them just to be nice!¡± ¡°Liar!¡± Hazel¡¯s eyes narrowed. Her voice lowered to a whisper. ¡°Orpheus says you¡¯re not allowed out of the house without S-ranks around, and my Daddy says it¡¯s just because Aunt Jessica wants to make sure nobody says anything about you.¡± Lute stopped even trying to play the song. ¡°What does that mean?¡± Hazel gave him a superior look. ¡°You¡¯re both whiffs, and so people might say mean things around you. Aunt Jessica takes guards so that those people will be scared to do it where you can hear them.¡± ¡°We¡¯re not whiffs!¡± ¡°Yes you are.¡± ¡°No we¡¯re not!¡± ¡°Stupid. I bet you don¡¯t even know what it means. That¡¯s what it¡¯s called when you¡¯re supposed to be Avowed and you aren¡¯t.¡± ¡°You¡¯re making that up!¡± Hazel pulled out her phone. ¡°I¡¯ve known about you forever. And I don¡¯t say anything because I¡¯m supposed to be nice to you and not make trouble for Grandma Aulia.¡± Lute was breathing hard. ¡°Here, I¡¯ll prove it. I found this the other day when they were talking about your guards. My new phone doesn¡¯t have little kid settings like my old one because when I went to Artona, I proved I was responsible. I can find anything now. I¡¯m typing in ¡®What mean things do people say about whiffs¡­?¡¯¡± A minute later, she whipped off her new glasses and shoved them onto Lute¡¯s face. They were too big. He had to hold them in place with his hand. He didn¡¯t want to. He wanted to take them and throw them across the room. But the lights in his eyes¡­the possibility that Hazel wasn¡¯t lying and she really knew things about him he didn¡¯t¡­her new phone was a grown-up phone? Are they saying bad things about us? Do Hazel¡¯s parents tell her secrets about us? What kinds of things are on grown-up phones? Lute didn¡¯t have a phone at all. His mother said he didn¡¯t need things like that at his age. ¡°This one,¡± said Hazel. ¡°Look. It¡¯s a board where just people from here on Anesidora go to talk.¡± ¡°A board?¡± ¡°A place online,¡± Hazel said. ¡°I¡¯ll read it to you since you probably can¡¯t.¡± ¡°I can read!¡± Hazel ignored him. ¡°Someone says, ¡®I¡¯m seventeen already. What am I going to do if I¡¯m a whiff?¡¯¡± Lute could read the words himself. They were blazing in his eyes. He couldn¡¯t read them quite as fast as Hazel was, but he could tell she wasn¡¯t lying. ¡°And then the next person says, ¡®You need to start praying,¡¯ but that one¡¯s not important. The one after that says, ¡®My dad¡¯s so nasty. He loves all the mean whiff jokes.¡¯ Then he writes some out.¡± She read them all aloud to him one by one. It took her several minutes to finish the list and explain what they all meant. Then she took her glasses back and stared into Lute¡¯s wide eyes. ¡°See? That¡¯s the kind of thing people say about you and your parents. And I knew. And I didn¡¯t tell you. Because I¡¯m nice to you.¡± She spent the next two hours trying to force him to stop crying. She failed. He hid in his room and sobbed until he was exhausted, and when his mother woke him up, he burst into fresh tears. He was so inconsolable that even his grandmother got involved, and the whole story was pried out of him between blown noses and hiccups. Hazel¡¯s parents and her grandparents were called, and there was a meeting in Aulia¡¯s office that Lute was not privy to. But she lost her phone, her glasses, and her watch. She gained two additional tutors and a uniformed nanny who traveled with her everywhere for the next year, so that she was never left to her own devices, even on weekends. It would be a while before she and Lute were alone in a room together again. Apparently Aulia¡¯s tolerance did have a limit. And that limit was Hazel explaining a joke about how whiff was the sound a tissue should¡¯ve made as it entered the trashcan. ¡­because it would¡¯ve been better if the sperm went there instead of in the whiff¡¯s mom. Later, Lute would decide Hazel was lucky Jessica hadn¡¯t thrown her off the yacht when nobody was looking. Up until then, his questions about how babies were made had been answered with very sweet euphemisms about two people creating a new life out of love. In a world so full of magic, that kind of explanation could make sense for a long time. The entrance of sperm cells and trashcans into the story, forced his mother to have many long conversations with him about delicate family matters. For example, Jessica came from Aulia and a man who preferred to remain anonymous and uninvolved, as a couple of other high profile donors did with their Velra offspring. She had also been genetically engineered to an extent that was illegal on Anesidora. Even on the island, an ethical committee usually would have prevented the creation, for aesthetic reasons, of someone who looked so significantly different from both the average human and her own parents. ¡°Am I short because the scientists made me that way?¡± ¡°No,¡± said Jessica. ¡°You¡¯re short because Mommy is short. There were no scientists involved in making you. Just me and your father.¡± Another delicate family matter¡ªHazel¡¯s Mommy and Daddy hadn¡¯t made her by themselves. Cousin Hugh was an A-rank and his first wife was an S-rank, and they¡¯d made Orpheus, who was also an S. Then Cousin Hugh married Cady, who was only a C-rank, but she wanted an S baby like the first wife had made. So a Hazel egg had come from Aulia. And a Hazel sperm had come from a hyperbole named Sonde. ¡°I see,¡± said Lute, after this had all been explained slowly. ¡°Do you?¡± Jessica asked hesitantly. ¡°Hazel has four parents.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± ¡°Two sperms and two eggs, and Cady carried them all around for nine months.¡± Jessica sighed. ¡°Let¡¯s go get some grapes from the fridge, and then I¡¯ll try this again.¡± Eventually, it was all unraveled. Including the fascinating news that Aunt Hikari had been married to Uncle Corin before she switched over to his brother, Uncle Benjamin. Lute pondered it for a while, then nodded. ¡°That was a good decision. Uncle Corin never thinks about anything but Hazel. Aunt Hikari would be bored.¡± ****** Lute recovered quickly from the shock of having the birds and the bees, and the Avowed version of the birds and the bees, explained to him all at once. It just became background information, like everything else about his multitudinous relations. But he had a harder time getting over the jokes. They stuck in his head. They were there when he went to sleep at night. And when he went out with the bodyguards. They were there whenever grown-ups whispered something over his head or when the cousins looked at him and snickered. Are they talking about me? Are they saying those things about me? Are they being mean to me and my parents? Worst of all, the jokes were there when he played the piano. ¡°What is this, baby?¡± Jessica asked a week after the incident, sitting down on the bench beside him and stroking his head. The sheet music for Gymnop¨¦die 1 was in front of him. He¡¯d been trying to read it through the angry red scrawls he¡¯d made across it with a crayon yesterday. ¡°You usually enjoy practice. You can play another song if you want.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t like the piano,¡± Lute said quietly. His mother stared at the sheet music for a while. ¡°Maybe a little break,¡± she said. ¡°How about you take a few days off?¡± He did. A few days turned into a few more days. When he yielded to practice again, he could hear himself hating the notes. He had been learning piano since he was three. He¡¯d never hated the notes before. Mrs. Yu and his mother eventually had a meeting. The next day, Jessica took him to a concert. The day after that, she took him to see a string quartet. A jazz band. A xylophonist. The kora player again. They started having mother/son brunches at places with live music¡ªpiano, violin, cello, saxophone, pipa. Lute became aware that they were instrument shopping, but he was having so much fun he saw no reason to resist the project. ¡°What about that man who plays bagpipes on his sailboat?¡± he asked hopefully as they left a restaurant with a sitar player. ¡°Bagpipes?¡± Jessica said with an alarmed look. ¡°Oh yes. Those are so exciting. And loud¡­I think the bagpipe man might be busy this month.¡± If the bagpipe man hadn¡¯t been busy that month, who knew what might have happened? As it was, Lute found the harp. The sound was mesmerizing. There were so many different types and sizes. And the big ones were so big. They were special, and he felt special when he held one. That was a feeling that was growing harder and harder to find, so he clung to it. And he played until his fingers blistered. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. * ONE HUNDRED TEN: The Chainer, II 110 ¡°Hazel¡¯s your aunt?¡± said Alden, selecting a few of his favorite things out of a bag of trail mix. It was only the two of them in the apartment since Lexi was spending the night with his family and Haoyu was still hanging out with his mom. They¡¯d had the driver drop them off at a grocery store near campus, and they¡¯d bought snacks. Alden was just picking at his. He was too full of wevvi to really enjoy it. ¡°Yeah,¡± said Lute, prying the foil lid off a second cup of flan. ¡°Genetically, she¡¯s Aulia¡¯s daughter. Which means she¡¯s sort of Hugh¡¯s aunt, too, even though Hugh is the guy she calls her dad. And she calls Corin her grandpa, but he¡¯s technically her brother.¡± ¡°Immortal families are so¡­different.¡± ¡°I do know it¡¯s weird to people from families that aren¡¯t into deliberately breeding wonderkids, but it doesn¡¯t actually feel like a huge deal when you grow up with it. Aulia calls Hazel her granddaughter, and that¡¯s just how it is. I don¡¯t even think about it much until I have to start explaining it to someone else. And Hazel¡¯s really proud of who her genetic parents are¡­oh, but her mom, Cady? She freaks out if anyone brings it up.¡± He licked the back of his spoon. ¡°I think maybe she wanted Hazel¡¯s real parentage to be a secret? She wanted to be the mother of a super super child, so she asked to do it this way. But she also wanted everyone to think she¡¯d made an S-rank without assistance like Hugh¡¯s first wife did with Orpheus. If that is what she hoped for, I don¡¯t know who decided to make it common knowledge¡­probably Hugh trying to prove something to someone else in the family.¡± Alden smiled and nodded politely. He¡¯d done that a lot during Lute¡¯s explanation because what else was there to do? ¡°Anyway, people being appalled about the members of the family with unusual origins wouldn¡¯t bother me, except for the things they say about my mom. They act like she¡¯s not a person herself, just some kind of punishment Aulia got for pushing it too far. You¡¯ll note the Grandwitch didn¡¯t try for the Artonan look again after Jessica. Hazel¡¯s so human-averaged that I wonder if they didn¡¯t ask her designers to remove any features that might remind people of Aulia¡¯s whiff.¡± And that was yet another subject Alden had no idea how to comment on. I thought your mom looked kind of pretty in an older, semi-alien way, was so not the right thing. Aulia¡¯s gene people undershot the height, though, didn¡¯t they? was even worse. Artonans tended to be petite by human standards, but a significant part of that was due to the fact that they were less sexually dimorphic than humans when it came to body size. When they¡¯d last met, Stuart was around¡­ 5¡¯1¡±? An inch taller? It wasn¡¯t like Alden had pulled out a measuring stick and asked the Primary¡¯s son to hold still. Alden didn¡¯t know if Stuart was still growing or not, but he was a pretty normal height for an adult on the Triplanets whether they were male or female. Jessica could¡¯ve been the same height and fit in well with both Artonans and humans, assuming that was what Aulia¡¯s goal had been. Maybe they couldn¡¯t select for height that specifically so they erred on the side of extra short so that she¡¯d match up with the Artonans for sure? Still¡­why? It seemed unnecessary no matter how Alden looked at it. The only thing that made even a little bit of sense was the possibility that Aulia had expected her daughter to be so in-demand as an Avowed that she would end up living on the Triplanets more than Earth. Which would mean she¡¯d had Jessica¡¯s entire future job, home planet, and lifestyle planned out before she was born. Somehow that seemed even worse, when Alden really thought about it, than Aulia picking such uncommon physical features for her. Nobody got to select their own natural starting appearance anyway. Everyone just made do with what they got, loving it or modifying as best they could. But we¡¯re supposed to get to choose the other stuff for ourselves, as much as the world will let us. Avowed were already dealing with a lot of limitations. Having your mother plan your entire life out for you before you were even born on top of that? ¡°What did Aulia expect you to be?¡± Alden asked Lute. ¡°Did they have some other job picked out for you before you found out you were an Avowed?¡± ¡°You mean like how they had all the other children in the family stacked with tutors, and they started taking Hazel to meet her future employers when she was eight?¡± ¡°I just assumed it went for you, too.¡± ¡°It was different,¡± said Lute. ¡°With everyone else there was this struggle¡ªto impress Grandma, to earn one of the Chainer class assignments, to beat Miyo and Roman.¡± ¡°Miyo and Roman?¡± ¡°There was no point in any of them trying to beat Hazel, so nobody ever bothered. She has a legit psychic something going on, and apparently that¡¯s the level of exceptionality Aulia has been aiming to breed into the family for years. And not just Grandwitch¡­other key relatives seem involved with it, too.¡± He wrinkled his nose. ¡°I never wanted to ask for details, but I¡¯m sure my mother was an early attempt. She said she¡¯d tell me who my maternal grandfather was when I was older, but I stopped caring a while ago. I doubt it was Hazel¡¯s donor, Sonde. He would¡¯ve been kind of young, and they wouldn¡¯t have reused him if he¡¯d sired a normal human. But it was probably someone like him. Not just a Rank 1, but one known for unusual mental abilities.¡± ¡°I see,¡± said Alden. ¡°That¡¯s interesting.¡± ¡°You¡¯re so polite, man.¡± ¡°I just assume half the kids our age around here were at least a little modified prior to becoming Avowed,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°It¡¯s really different from what I¡¯m used to, but¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that many. Plenty of people are still romantic about making children the old-fashioned way. And the ones who do take it as far as my family are usually shyer about admitting to it than Aulia and company are.¡± Lute slurped down another spoonful of flan. ¡°Some of them won¡¯t even tell their kids. But you were asking about Miyo and Roman¡ªcousins, obviously. They¡¯re around our age, and they¡¯re also¡­I don¡¯t know how to say it. Of good stock?¡± ¡°You probably should say it some other way.¡± Lute shrugged. ¡°They¡¯re both really smart, super dedicated to chaining, and family-oriented. Aulia adores them. They were the grandchildren for the others to beat, after Hazel. I haven¡¯t ever been close to either of them, but they¡¯ve been on my mind more lately. Roman seriously got screwed. He scored an S, instead of the A that was more likely for him, and Hazel was still waiting¡­¡± ¡°Ohhhh, he¡¯s the one who got passed over,¡± said Alden. He experienced an unexpected sympathy pang for the Velra guy he¡¯d never met. ¡°He spent his entire childhood aiming for A-rank Chainer? Got an S? And got¡­¡± ¡°They actually gave him Rabbit,¡± said Lute. ¡°He told them to go fuck themselves unless they got him Healer of Body, which¡ª¡± Alden winced. ¡°Yeah¡­we¡¯re the people to see if you want a hard to get class, but Healers? Even if they¡¯re not the rarest, people click yes the millisecond they find out they¡¯ve hit that jackpot. They couldn¡¯t swing it for him. Not at his rank. And I know they must have been trying like hell because Corin¡¯s office handles class purchases and he¡¯d feed Hazel his own liver if she said she was feeling peckish. He must¡¯ve been sweating rivers, thinking Roman might get the big Chainer instead of her.¡± ¡°What the hell is so great about Chainer?¡± Alden asked. ¡°No offense¡­it¡¯s a cool class. Knowing what little I do, I¡¯m thinking you have some amazing perks and job security. But for your Grandma to want Hazel slotted into it so badly¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. I have a lot of suspicions now that I¡¯ve actually seen how things work. I doubt this is the whole story, but I think the ultimate goal might be to monopolize Chainer.¡± ¡°I gathered that,¡± said Alden. ¡°The whole world has gathered that.¡± Lute laughed. ¡°No, no¡­you don¡¯t get it. When I say ¡®monopolize Chainer¡¯ I don¡¯t just mean Aulia¡¯s trying to make sure nobody else on Anesidora gets it. I mean I think we might really be trying to utterly monopolize Chainer. In the universal sense.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°You mean including the other resource worlds?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± said Lute. ¡°It might be the only class it¡¯s even possible to do it with. Chainer is already ultra rare on Earth, but it doesn¡¯t even exist on most planets.¡± He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers at Alden. ¡°There are some unique anatomical requirements if you want to be good at the whole job instead of just parts of it.¡± ¡°You have to have Artonan-looking hands,¡± Alden said. ¡°Of course. And it would be twisted and weird for them to attach arms to a ewtwee or something.¡± ¡°The ewtwee would not like that much,¡± Lute agreed. ¡°Most species without at least eight fingers and something like thumbs don¡¯t even bother to try wordchains. They can sometimes make it work, but it would be like us trying to dig a sleeping burrow with our toenails. Not completely impossible, but why would we put ourselves through that?¡± ¡°So of the large population species that leaves¡­tmithans and I guess the Fetuna¡­are lortchish hands too long?¡± ¡°They aren¡¯t,¡± said Lute. ¡°They¡¯re quite good at wordchains. But they¡¯ve also got some strong beliefs, protected by their Contract, that make it hard for the Palace to use them in all the ways they¡¯d like. Same with the Fetuna. Their species practices wordchains widely and respectfully. Parethat-uur loves them, and apparently they¡¯ve produced some amazing Chainers. But they refuse to be seen by aliens once they reach maturity, which makes them hard to handle. I think Parethat-uur would happily chatter away at them through blindfolds or walls, but most people find that kind of thing inconvenient.¡± ¡°So it¡¯s the tmithans,¡± Alden said. ¡°And us. And some rarer species.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. Until humans came along, the Avowed of Tmith more or less had Chainer jobs all to themselves. And then the Palace took a peek at Earth and thought, ¡®Wow. Look at those aliens. Those are some gorgeous bastards. Let¡¯s introduce them to our holy purpose.¡¯¡± Alden laughed. Lute snorted. ¡°Seriously. I¡¯m surprised they didn¡¯t send wordchain missionaries over to proselytize the whole planet. I bet the Grand Senate told them to chill out and stay away from us until we¡¯d had time to settle in.¡± He coughed. ¡°Uh¡­I have a tmithan coworker. He is so xenophobic against humans.¡± ¡°What? Why?¡± ¡°In his defense, the only humans he¡¯s ever met are my family members. So it¡¯s probably their fault. And if I¡¯m right about the monopolization thing, Aulia¡¯s on a long-term mission to make herself Queen of the only Chainer clan in the universe¡­¡± He drummed his fingers. ¡°Anyway, that¡¯s the thing about Chainer, or it¡¯s my best guess right now. Maybe Hazel is like her proof of concept? Her way of saying humans are better at this than anyone else. Not just humans either. Our family.¡± ¡°You think she wants you to be the exclusive Chainers for all of the Triplanets. Is that even a possibility? They would have to take the class away from other planets, and even if they did, class assignments are supposed to be random here on Earth. You guys will eventually lose some of them to people who don¡¯t want to join the family.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± said Lute. ¡°That¡¯s how it¡¯s supposed to be. But things can change. And the Palace of Unbreaking is a really unique institution. If Aulia could get more Hazels, if she could get the Palace onboard to manage the Artonan end of things and she can manage the Earth half¡­it¡¯s long-term, like I said. But it doesn¡¯t sound completely impossible considering what a thorough job she¡¯s already doing.¡± ¡°So Roman the S-rank who¡¯s spent his whole life learning wordchains got Rabbit,¡± Alden concluded. ¡°Because Hazel has to get Chainer. Because she¡¯s the one with the special ability that proves Velras are naturally suited for it, and Aulia needs her to be at the Palace all the time to keep that fact front and center.¡± ¡°That¡¯s my theory. It makes sense doesn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°I see,¡± said Alden with a straight face. ¡°That¡¯s interesting.¡± Lute crumpled the foil lid up and tossed it at him. ¡°Miyo hasn¡¯t been selected yet,¡± he said. ¡°I really hope she doesn¡¯t get S. The Artonans probably aren¡¯t going to throw another top rank position at Earth anytime soon unless someone dies, so if she does¡­it¡¯ll be Roman all over again. She¡¯s just as Chainer-obsessed as he is. If she gets A, the adults have got a slot with her name on it ready and waiting. But if it¡¯s S, she¡¯s going to hate me forever.¡± ¡°After hearing all of this,¡± Alden said, ¡°I¡¯m kind of surprised they gave you the Chainer S.¡± ¡°You mean because I only knew six wordchains, hadn¡¯t been trained, had a fractious relationship with Grandma and the entire rest of my family, would¡¯ve preferred several other classes, and don¡¯t speak Artonan?¡± Lute said dryly. ¡°Those would seem to disqualify you if you¡¯ve got other cousins lined up.¡± Especially if Hazel wasn''t completely out of the running. ¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re missing another piece of it,¡± said Lute. ¡°Or you just haven¡¯t realized how much it matters. Maybe it¡¯s one of those things Lexi and Haoyu are always teasing you about¡ªan Anesidora social dynamic. We¡¯ll get there.¡± ****** ****** Narcissus House Watergarden Road Apex January 9, 2034 ****** ****** Lute Velra was going to third grade. Real third grade. At a school. His mother had delivered the news a couple of weeks before Christmas. Now it was the first day, and the knowledge of what was about to happen to him was so surreal he felt like he was dressing another person¡¯s body in the new uniform. The summer uniform for primary students at Nilama Paragon Academy. Which was a school. For children. Avowed children. Whole roomfuls of them. He was scared and excited and more scared than excited but both feelings were definitely present and¡ª ¡°Don¡¯t forget the pocket square!¡± his mother¡¯s voice called from just outside the bedroom door. She was standing out there because Lute could dress himself, thank you. He was eight. In a couple of weeks, he¡¯d be nine. Being born in January was an advantage for him, according to his mother, because he would be one of the oldest in his grade. He would not have trouble with the lessons, she promised. His tutors up until now would have been sufficient. ¡°What if they all speak Mandarin better than me?¡± Lute had asked in Mandarin while they decorated one of the mansion¡¯s Christmas trees together. ¡°They won¡¯t,¡± Jessica had assured him. ¡°What if they speak German better than me?¡± ¡°They probably will if their parents were born in Germany. Don¡¯t worry about it. Your teacher will be speaking English anyway.¡± ¡°What if they speak English better than me?¡± ¡°English is your first language, Lute.¡± ¡°That will make it even worse!¡± he¡¯d said shrilly. Now, he picked up the pocket square from where it sat on top of his duvet and tucked it into place. He walked over to the dressing mirror and examined himself carefully. In summer, primary students wore heather gray waistcoats, collared white shirts with short or long sleeves, clip-on sapphire blue ties, gray shorts or pants, and any closed-toe shoe of their preference. Third graders wore yellow pocket squares. The square color would change every year. In winter, there were coats or sweaters. In middle school, there were blazers. Lute was focusing on the clothes because so far they were the only real clue he had about what school would be like. ¡°Are you dressed yet?¡± Jessica called. ¡°Yes, Mom!¡± The door opened. His mother smiled at the sight of him. ¡°Aren¡¯t you handsome?¡± ¡°What if the teacher won¡¯t let me go to the bathroom?¡± ¡°They will.¡± ¡°What if one of the cousins decides to go to school, too?¡± ¡°You¡¯ll be the only member of the family there. I promise.¡± ¡°What if¡ª?¡± She swooped down on him and lifted him in a hug. ¡°Mom! You¡¯ll wrinkle me!¡± She kissed him on the forehead. ¡°Come on. Grandma has presents for you before you leave. Let¡¯s go see her.¡± Lute was surprised. He hadn¡¯t even seen much of Aulia during Christmastime, since she¡¯d been busy on Artona I. With Hazel again. And he¡¯d already been told that she wouldn¡¯t be available for his birthday this year. It didn¡¯t sting anymore. Much. He and his mother were a team. But he wished they were the only team in the household sometimes. Grandma Aulia and his mom were also a team. When Aulia wasn¡¯t on the Triplanets, Jessica was with her more often than not. Or running errands for her. Or trying to make the other relatives do whatever Lute¡¯s grandmother wanted them to do. A lot of family members were loafers. Lute had heard Aulia tell Jessica and Aunt Hikari so during a very rare ¡°girls night in.¡± She¡¯d said that she ¡°despaired of the loafers ever becoming anything useful to anyone.¡± Jessica was not a loafer. She was Aulia¡¯s Principal Assistant. It was an important job, which was why Jessica had the second best suites in every house they lived in. And also why Lute would be getting a cabin of his own on Libra when he turned ten, even though they were in such short supply and other family members coveted them. He thought it was Orpheus who was going to be kicked out. For being the loafiest loafer and for falling down the stairs a couple of months ago and landing on top of Chef Kabir. ¡°Grandma¡¯s in the White Parlor,¡± Jessica told Lute, sending him out the door with a pat. ¡°Go get your presents.¡± Lute Velra was no stranger to presents. He¡¯d once heard an uncle mutter, ¡°God, Jessica spoils him rotten, doesn¡¯t she?¡± And Orpheus, drinking something that smelled like mouthwash out of a crystal punch glass, had laughed and said, ¡°Do you think you can actually spoil a squirt like him with things? On this island? In this family?¡± Lute had thought about the two comments so much that he felt like he almost understood them. He walked down the curving stairs into the White Parlor, a small hand trailing along the glossy railing, and he found his grandmother there alone. She was dressed in a tight black short-sleeved sweater and black cropped jeans. Her feet, in black ballet flats, were propped up on one of the downy white pillows. Her dark blonde hair was side parted, and her face, younger than Lute¡¯s mother¡¯s, wore that familiar, lovely smile. ¡°Lute, my dove!¡± said Aulia Velra, setting down the croissant she¡¯d been having with her first coffee of the morning and standing to greet him. ¡°Don¡¯t you look like a fine young man, today? Off to school! Come here and let me give you a hug.¡± Lute smiled back. He ran to hug her eagerly. Aulia gave wonderful hugs. Like Jessica¡¯s, but taller. ¡°Grandma, I¡¯m going to be in third¡ª¡± ¡°Nope!¡± said Aulia, letting the word pop off her lips as she took a step back. ¡°First, you have to impress me. I wore this outfit just for you! It¡¯s time for our little fashion game.¡± Oh! Lute loved this. They hadn¡¯t done this in a while, but it was special. He was the only one who got to play this game with Grandma Aulia. He knew some of the others had their own personal games with his grandmother, but he thought his was the best. He squinted at her clothes, thinking hard. It was such a simple outfit, compared to some he¡¯d seen. Tight. Black on black. A big belt accentuating the pinch of her waist. He knew he had seen the style before because if she was wearing one for the first time for their game, she would explain it instead of asking him to guess. But the name¡­ ¡°A hint!¡± said Aulia, reaching over the back of a low chair and grabbing a black beret from the seat. She set it at a playful angle on top of her head. Then she stood leaning against the chair with her ankles crossed, waiting. ¡°Beatnik!¡± shouted Lute, finally capturing the word. ¡°You¡¯re a Beatnik!¡± He had absolutely no idea what one was, but this was what one looked like. ¡°Hooray!¡± cried Aulia, throwing the hat into the air. ¡°Perfect! I¡¯ll have to try something harder next time.¡± Lute felt like he was the only person in Aulia¡¯s world. She was very good at doing that. For the next half hour, they opened presents and talked about harps and the beat generation and schools¡­ ¡°I am very experienced with schools,¡± said Aulia, poking a piece of croissant into Lute¡¯s mouth as they cuddled together on the sofa. ¡°I went to one from five to fifteen! Ten whole years. And let me tell you, it¡¯s tough work. You¡¯d better try hard.¡± ¡°I will,¡± Lute said seriously. ¡°Almost none of your aunts, uncles, or cousins have gone to school until they were adults on their way to college. Well¡­there was Keiko. But Keiko made such a lot of noise about the fact that she was going to high school for such a long time that we were all bored with it by the time she finally got around to it.¡± She winked at him. ¡°Don¡¯t tell her I said that, though.¡± ¡°Keiko¡¯s never here.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because Keiko is still making a lot of noise about running away from the family,¡± Aulia said. ¡°It¡¯s what she does. You¡¯re different. You are going to one of the best schools in the whole entire country! And you¡¯re only eight. I¡¯m very proud of you, Lute.¡± Lute wriggled closer to her. The praise was so warm. ¡°Now, I know your mother has had a few little talks with you about school, but let me give you some advice of my own. Do you know who you¡¯ll be going to school with?¡± ¡°Other boys and girls who are eight.¡± ¡°Yes. And what else do you know about them?¡± ¡°A lot of them have important parents.¡± Aulia nodded, but he could tell from her face that the answer wasn¡¯t sufficient. ¡°They¡¯ll all know each other already.¡± A nod. ¡°They¡¯ll know lots about us because you¡¯re on the Council.¡± Another nod. Lute suspected he knew what she wanted him to say, but he mentioned every other thing about the children he¡¯d be meeting today first, in hopes that he wouldn¡¯t have to. Finally, there was nothing else left. ¡°None of them are going to be ordinary when they grow up,¡± he whispered. ¡°Just me.¡± ¡°But you won¡¯t be ordinary, my dove,¡± said Aulia, holding him close. ¡°That¡¯s what I wanted to tell you. You are, and always will be, a Velra. And I¡¯m sure as you meet more of the world, you¡¯ll come to see how very wonderful that is. Because I have built this family into something bigger than its individual members. Even if you are the weakest and the least of the Velras, you are still one of us, and we are more important than any of those children you are going to school with.¡± Lute looked down at his shoes. Something about this reassurance didn¡¯t feel quite as good as his grandmother seemed to think it should. ¡°Your family is your power, Lute. And it¡¯s more power than you know. As long as you take care of the Velra name, it will take care of you.¡± ¡°How do I take care of our name?¡± he asked. ¡°Oh well¡­¡± said Aulia. ¡°It¡¯s nothing you have to work too hard at just yet. Study. Don¡¯t get into trouble. Make some nice friends at your new school. It¡¯s a good place for you to meet people who will be somebodies one day, and everyone needs to know a few somebodies. When you grow up, you can do the same sort of work for us as your mother. You¡¯ll be my Cabin 3! How does that sound?¡± ¡°Good,¡± Lute said slowly. ¡°Can I¡­if I live in Cabin 3, can I still visit Austria?¡± Aulia tilted her head. ¡°Austria. The country in Europe?¡± ¡°I might want to go there someday,¡± Lute said nervously. ¡°To play my harp.¡± Aulia smiled. ¡°Dear, you can play your harp wherever you want!¡± Chuckling, she added to herself, ¡°Austria. How random!¡± Before his mother came to get him a few minutes later, Aulia helped him tuck his new presents into his new backpack. His first cell phone, a tablet, a smartwatch, an emergency locator medallion he was to wear under his shirt at all times¡ªeverything a young man needed before he went out into Anesidora on his own. ¡°And one more thing,¡± said Aulia, producing a shiny red card out of thin air. Lute¡¯s eyes fixed on it at once. The best presents always got teleported in that way for dramatic effect. ¡°I¡¯ll be quite busy for the rest of this month, so I¡¯m afraid I won¡¯t be able to attend whatever exciting event you decide to put on for your birthday. But this should make up for it!¡± She passed him the card. ¡°It¡¯s a NesiCard,¡± Lute said. He hadn¡¯t had one before because he¡¯d never gone anywhere without a grown-up. But he¡¯d seen his mother¡¯s and father¡¯s. And his cousins¡¯. ¡°It¡¯s your very own NesiCard!¡± Aulia said enthusiastically as she handed it to him. ¡°And guess how much money is on it?¡± Lute gave the question due consideration. Hazel had gotten one with a thousand argold on it for Christmas. She had kept finding excuses to put things in and out of her wallet so that she could show it off. He didn¡¯t want to guess that much because it would be so embarrassing if he was wrong. ¡°Is it¡­a hundred argold?¡± ¡°Oh! You think I¡¯m a cheap old lady, don¡¯t you?¡± Aulia teased. Then she leaned over and whispered in his ear, ¡°It¡¯s a thousand. And you can spend every last bit of it every day if you want to, and it¡¯ll be filled again by the time you wake up in the morning.¡± He stared down at the piece of plastic with the enchanted chip in the center. ¡°How does that sound?¡± Aulia asked him. He nodded. ¡°Give me another hug before you go. The helicopter is waiting for you.¡± Lute hugged her goodbye. He flew to school beside his mother in the back of the family¡¯s helicopter. It landed on the pad of a building near the school, and they walked the rest of the way together. ¡°Did Grandma give you the NesiCard?¡± Jessica asked. ¡°She did. I¡¯ll be careful with it.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry. They¡¯re easy to replace if they get lost¡­you don¡¯t seem excited.¡± ¡°Oh I am!¡± Lute said quickly. ¡°She said it had a thousand argold on it, and it would be refilled every day. If I wanted.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a lot of money,¡± said Jessica. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t really spend a thousand argold in a day without talking to me first. If you buy more toys than will fit in your rooms, you¡¯ll have to get rid of some of them.¡± She held his hand most of the way, but when they reached the school she let him go in alone. He waved until the moment the doors shut between them. Then his smile fell. He was glad he had his own money now. He didn¡¯t have that many things he wanted, since Christmas had just happened and his birthday was coming. It was still a big present though, wasn¡¯t it? But¡­ She called me the least of the Velras. He hadn¡¯t been able to think of anything else on his whole way to school. Not even his nerves. Grandma said that. But she loves me. We played our game. Maybe¡­she didn¡¯t mean it. Maybe she meant the least in one specific way. Not the least least. Probably, she meant it like that. ****** School was WONDERFUL. Third grade was the best thing that had ever happened to Lute Velra. After his fear of the other children faded, after his worries about whether or not bathroom breaks would be allowed were assuaged, he settled into life as a primary school student as if he¡¯d been made for it. His teacher liked him! She complimented him on his art projects, his school work, and his manners. When you followed the rules, she liked you even more, so he followed the rules very carefully. It was so easy. Much more importantly, the other children liked him. He had friends! Almost as soon as he arrived and just that easily. They weren¡¯t like the cousins. They were all his own age, and they didn¡¯t care about who would get Chainer one day. They weren¡¯t always trying to beat each other at everything. And they didn¡¯t care that Lute wouldn¡¯t ever be an Avowed¡­mostly. A few people said things, but only a few. They played superheroes together at recess, and nobody told him he couldn¡¯t do it. He played, too. They asked if he wanted to play a Chainer superhero, and he said, ¡°No. Water Shaper.¡± And since almost nobody else wanted to do that, Lute got to be the Water Shaper lots and lots. And he got to be a Meister and an Adjuster and a Wright and even, once, a Brute. But the Brute was supposed to run really fast or pick someone else up to make the game work, and he wasn¡¯t good enough at that to volunteer for a second round. It didn¡¯t matter. People liked him. Some of them even thought he was cool. His helicopter was cool. His stories about living on a boat were cool. His passion for the harp¡­well, the teacher seemed to think it was cool. And everyone else thought it was interesting that he got pulled out of class three afternoons a week for special instruction with it. ¡°Is it going to be your job?¡± a girl asked. ¡°Like an instrument Meister?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Lute. ¡°I¡¯m going to play all over the world.¡± His plans for his future were developing every day, now that he was encountering so many questions about it. Almost nobody at home had ever mentioned Lute having a job, except for Aulia¡¯s comment about how he could be second assistant. But in school, people talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up all the time. Encouraged by the overwhelming amount of acceptance, curiosity, and friendliness he¡¯d encountered from his fellow third graders, Lute Velra declared that he would be a famous musician. Like an instrument Meister. And even if he traveled the world, he would come back home every night to have supper with his mother. The dream wasn¡¯t so different from most of the other students¡¯ goals. And when he finally revealed the secret truth Mrs. Yu had shared with him¡ªthe one he¡¯d been careful never to let slip around his cousins so that they couldn¡¯t find anything mean to say¡ªit only made the dream sound even brighter. ¡°There¡¯s a list!¡± he blurted out after a show-and-tell featuring his harp. He was standing in front of the classroom and fidgeting with the edge of his waistcoat. ¡°Every nine years¡ªnot Earth years¡ªthe Artonan ranking board for large musical ensembles attends performances all over the Triplanets and the resource worlds. And they make a list of all the best ones.¡± The Artonans loved to rank things. Everyone said so. Lute appreciated it in this case at least. ¡°To get them to visit your group, your planet has to nominate you. And then they come with Artonan experts and they meet with experts from your own species, and they study all kinds of things about the musicians. They even use magic to tell how much the audiences are enjoying the performances. After that, they make a list to let everyone know who the best musicians in the universe are. There were only four Earth groups in the top 27 last time¡­¡± He paused for effect. ¡°None of them had an Avowed musician in them. Not even one. ¡°And two of the groups have beaten the Anesidoran Philharmonic every single time they¡¯ve all been ranked. The All-Earth Symphony and the Vienna Philharmonic.¡± Lute paused again, not intentionally this time. It was just so important to him¡­this one little fact. ¡°That means that the best musicians on Earth are ordinary humans. Like my parents and me. And I can be the best harpist in the world if I try hard enough. Even if I don¡¯t have magic.¡± He looked hopefully around the classroom. Most of the faces were a little uncertain. One boy, who Lute would later discover had a mother in the Anesidoran Philharmonic, seemed appalled. ¡°Hey! That¡¯s neat!¡± said Haoyu Zhang-Demir from his desk at the front of the room. ¡°If you become the best harpist in the world, I bet the Artonans might want to hear you play. You could get invited to other planets like we will.¡± A few people were nodding. ¡°Yeah! He could do that.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re the best on Earth, I bet they would summon you.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯s a summons if you¡¯re not Avowed¡­?¡± someone said uncertainly. ¡°Isn¡¯t it just a visit, then?¡± ¡°It¡¯s almost the same!¡± ¡°I want to buy a ryeh-b¡¯t the first time I get summoned.¡± ¡°If Lute buys a ryeh-b¡¯t, it could fly beside his helicopter.¡± ¡°He can go like us.¡± ¡°Just like us!¡± Lute stood before them, feeling as though he might burst from pride and relief. Third grade was wonderful. It was such a shame they all had to grow up. ****** There were warning signs, but he didn¡¯t want to see them. Toward the end of fourth grade, games of superhero got more realistic. People wanted to talk about how classes actually worked. No more Brutes turning people into goldfish. No more Meisters who were also Adjusters in secret. Then one day, Vandy Carisson said, ¡°Let¡¯s all pretend to be what we really want to be when we¡¯re Avowed.¡± Everyone agreed. And then several pairs of eyes turned to Lute Velra and looked at him differently than they had mere moments before. ¡°It¡¯s fine, Lute,¡± said a boy named Declan who he was particularly close to. ¡°You can just be whatever.¡± ¡°Maybe you can be the person we¡¯re saving today,¡± a girl added. ¡°If we¡¯re all going to pretend it¡¯s really real.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± said Lute. ¡°Okay. I don¡¯t mind.¡± He did. But minding wouldn¡¯t change anything. And they¡¯re my friends. Another pair of signs came that same year, in the form of new divisions in the grade. One was unique to Lute. He noticed it because shifts in his relationships with any of his friends caused him terrible anxiety. If someone was angry with him, he would flip and flop in his bed all night, wondering what he¡¯d done wrong and how to fix it. But he couldn¡¯t fix this one. There had always been a few people who were not allowed to sleep over at any of Lute¡¯s houses or come for visits. It had never been a problem in third grade. When someone told Lute their parents didn¡¯t want them visiting because of his family, he immediately thought, I understand completely. The cousins will talk in Artonan so we can¡¯t understand them. Orpheus is always wandering around falling on top of people. Cady made me sit in the corner at the New Year party for no reason. And you never know when Hazel might be coming over. Now that he¡¯d met teachers, made friends, and been a guest at other peoples¡¯ houses, he was more sure than ever that half of his relatives were completely horrible. And he had a lot of relatives, so half was a large number. Lute didn¡¯t consider someone disliking the other Velras to be a dealbreaker, so he¡¯d gotten along with the children who weren¡¯t allowed to attend sleepovers just fine. And they¡¯d gotten along with him, too. Everyone knew that grown-ups sometimes made inconvenient rules you had to follow, and there were no hard feelings on either side. Someone would say, Mom won¡¯t let me visit you on your boat even though I told her everyone else was going and you were my fifth best friend! And all the children would shake their heads, because, Parents, right? What could you even do about people who didn¡¯t acknowledge the importance of the bond between fifth best friends? Slowly, that changed. The classmates who weren¡¯t allowed to visit him at home also started drawing away from him in school. They whispered things to each other that they¡¯d overheard their parents say about his grandmother. Or one of his other relatives. And instead of fifth best friends, they became¡­ ¡°My mum says your grandmother bribed the Brute councilor to vote with her.¡± ¡°My dad says your Uncle Corin slept with his ex-wife.¡± ¡°My grandma says your grandma bought the rejuvenation slot out from under her, and that¡¯s why she can¡¯t have another baby until after 2039! So our families are enemies now.¡± The Velra name isn¡¯t taking care of me, Lute thought every time one of these accusations was leveled at him as if he were somehow personally responsible. It¡¯s just stealing my friends. The second division that happened, happened to everyone. All of a sudden, your parents¡¯ rank seemed to matter a lot more than it ever had before. Carlotta¡¯s parents were a B-rank Brute and a C-rank Rabbit. She¡¯d always been friends with Vandy Carrison. Then she wasn¡¯t anymore. Instead, she was hanging around Lute a lot. He was happy for himself but sorry for her. ¡°I said I¡¯d go to high school with her when we both got selected! And we would share our room! And she said we couldn¡¯t do that!¡± Because you¡¯re not going to be powerful enough to go to the same high school as Vandy, thought Lute. This kind of thing was much less confusing to him than the sudden dislike because of his name. But it was far more worrying. Because this¡­this was how the cousins were. Everyone talking about rank all the time. And thinking about it. And knowing that at the very bottom of them all¡­ It won¡¯t be like that. It won¡¯t. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± said Declan Gao, leaning over to take one of the bonbons from the box on Lute¡¯s desk. He¡¯d bought them with his NesiCard. He¡¯d been buying snacks to share with everyone more often lately. ¡°Some people are acting like they¡¯re going to get chosen tomorrow. Vandy might not even be an S-rank. She might not get to go to school in Apex. Anything can happen.¡± Declan said not to worry about it, but he was getting really sensitive about rank, too. His mom was an A. And his Dad was a D. That made it very hard to guess what he might be. Their class was starting to cluster up. High. Low. A couple like Declan who didn¡¯t know where they belonged. As the year ended and Lute cleaned out his desk to head home for the winter break, he was afraid he was on the verge of losing something. ****** In fifth grade, they got several new students. Nilama Paragon Academy was expensive; parents who couldn¡¯t really afford to send their children there sometimes chose to save up and wait until they were older so that they could take advantage of the middle school. Next year, when they moved out of the primary building, their class would more than double in size. For now, it was just a few additions. One of them was perky. He scurried around their new classroom, introducing himself to every single person, like he was on a mission to make sure he fit in as many handshakes as he could before morning announcements and meditation started. Lute saw him coming and had just enough time to hope this went well before they were face to face. ¡°Hi! I¡¯m Kon. I live just a few blocks away from here. You can see this school from the roof of my building!¡± ¡°Which building does your family own?¡± Lute asked politely. Kon¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°No. We don¡¯t own a whole building. Just an apartment inside the building. My parents are ballet dancers and my brother¡¯s in sixth grade. We moved schools together this year!¡± Lute¡¯s interest was piqued. ¡°Ballet dancers?¡± ¡°I dance, too,¡± said Kon. ¡°In the youth ballet.¡± ¡°Youth ballet! A youth orchestra plays for you when you do Nutcracker.¡± Kon blinked. ¡°It¡¯s not fair that the dancers can be so young but they won¡¯t let you join youth orchestra until you¡¯re twelve,¡± Lute said. ¡°I wanted to audition.¡± He was ready for his first audition but there weren¡¯t a lot of opportunities. Getting to twelve was taking ages. And to make matters worse, The Nutcracker was always in December. Which meant Lute would be nearly thirteen before he could play in a proper orchestra at a proper ballet. He was sure there were other harpists getting ahead of him out there in the bigger world. ¡°Do you play an instrument?¡± Kon asked. ¡°All he can do is play harp,¡± the girl whose grandma was waiting on a baby because of Aulia called from across the room. ¡°So he never shuts up about it.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be mean!¡± Tuyet said. ¡°Let¡¯s not be mean to each other.¡± A boy snickered a little. Carlotta and Declan were nearby. They¡­didn¡¯t say anything. Kon doesn¡¯t know yet, thought Lute. For just a minute longer, he won¡¯t know about me. The matter suddenly felt urgent. ¡°It¡¯s really nice to meet you!¡± Lute said quickly, holding out his hand. ¡°I hope we can be friends. I brought snacks to share.¡± Kon¡¯s bright smile brightened further. ¡°Yeah! Let¡¯s be friends!¡± By the end of the day, Konstantin was friends with everyone in the class, but Lute still considered it a success. On the way to the helipad that afternoon, he ended up standing behind Kon and a taller boy who looked a lot like him while they waited to cross the street. It must have been the older brother. He was wearing one of the middle school blazers. Lute was about to say hello, when Kon suddenly piped up. ¡°Guess what! There¡¯s a boy in my class who¡¯s not Avowed!¡± ¡°You¡¯re ten,¡± said the brother. ¡°Nobody in your class is Avowed.¡± Kon groaned. ¡°You know what I mean! He¡¯s not going to be Avowed. His parents aren¡¯t.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± the brother asked in a surprised voice. ¡°Well...it doesn¡¯t matter in fifth grade. I¡¯m sure his family will send him to another school next year.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°The same reason we¡¯re going to school here now, Kon. Paragon¡¯s got so many high ranks in one spot. My classes are really different from last year. S and A kids are everywhere, instead of there being just a few of us in a mix of everyone else. We¡¯re starting selection prep lessons earlier than they would in our old school. It¡¯s nice for us, but it would make class really weird for him, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°He¡¯ll just hang out with the lows, right?¡± The brother shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m not sure it works like that. The probable low-ranks in my grade seem kind of different than last year, too. Anyway, if he goes to a big school instead, there are bound to be a few other kids like him.¡± Lute let them go ahead of him without ever speaking up. There¡¯s a boy in my class who¡¯s not Avowed, he thought. Kon could¡¯ve said anything. But he said that. It wasn¡¯t a shock. When Lute compared himself to other people, that was the first thing he always thought, too. This afternoon it just hurt more than it had in a while. That was all. There are other things about me. There are so many other things to say. Fifth grade was the year he went silent. It was natural, a reflex born of a thousand Velra holidays and parties. There was a family event nearly every week, sometimes more than one, and when Lute was forced to attend them because they were happening in his current residence¡ªthey almost always were¡ªhe was quiet. If you were loud, people commented on you. If you protested when the cousins said something mean, then they realized they¡¯d hurt you. They knew what to say next time. He was getting too old to run and tell his mother or his grandmother. They would put a stop to it, but then he was a tattletale and even the cousins who hadn¡¯t been bothering him would get mad. Strangely, over the holidays, he¡¯d been accused more than once of thinking he was better than the rest of them¡­because he lived with Aulia. Being quiet, he¡¯d learned, would get you through three-quarters of all family events without incident. And being quiet was what he started doing at school, too. He didn¡¯t talk about his music. He didn¡¯t talk about his things. He ignored thoughtless comments about what he wasn¡¯t¡­so many of those. At the same time, he couldn¡¯t ignore the fact, anymore, that a few of his friends were only staying friendly because they liked his houses. In a school full of rich kids, he was the richest, and it was just a little too obvious that when he invited them over, they only wanted to spend time with his stuff, not with him. One of them even admitted that his parents had told him to be nice to Lute because of his family. And then there was Declan Gao, who alternated between being Lute¡¯s best friend on the weekends and being a jerk who didn¡¯t want the high ranks to see him hanging out with Lute at school. It wasn¡¯t all terrible, though. Fifth grade was the most exciting year for students at Paragon. They all looked forward to it for the same reason, and as the year end approached, even Lute had to start making noise, because you couldn¡¯t bottle up so much pure eagerness without exploding. At the end of fifth grade, when they were still young enough that most countries were happy to treat them like non-threats and just old enough that the adults didn¡¯t think they¡¯d be completely impossible to manage, the school arranged the trips. Three weeks. Three whole weeks worth of days spent away from the island, in the rest of the world. They would travel to the TC every morning. And from there they would teleport, many of them for the first time ever, away to a new place on Earth. They would see rivers! Mountains! More than one barren desert which everyone agreed was really boring and unfortunate! They were repeatedly reminded not to brag about this to any friends they might have in other schools, since this sort of thing was Very Impossible to implement on a nationwide scale. Lute heard the teachers calling it ¡°the annual madness.¡± And in the weeks leading up to it, their travel schedule changed almost daily, sending the class into cries of joy or dismay as they learned what the efforts of their parents, their school, and their government had wrought. People got strange as the date of the trip approached. Not Lute, though. He was totally sane about it. ¡°Do not betray me, Vienna,¡± he whispered, bowing his head over his desk each morning and holding his palms skyward in supplication. ¡°Ich liebe dich, ?sterreich.¡± ¡°He¡¯s praying to Austria again.¡± ¡°I think it¡¯s more like he¡¯s trying to cast a spell on it.¡± ¡°Oh, beautiful Zambezi, I have always wanted to see Victoria Falls! I promise not to jump in.¡± ¡°Now Everly¡¯s talking to a river.¡± ¡°Maybe we should do it, too?¡± ¡°You think?¡± ¡°Istanbul did cancel our day there because the hero team said they were worried about protests. Haoyu¡¯s really disappointed.¡± ¡°¡­Hello, Machu Pichu! Some of my ancestors were born in Peru.¡± ****** He got to go to Austria. The night before he left, hiding under his blankets at his father¡¯s place, Lute stared at pictures on a realtor¡¯s website on his phone. He picked out an apartment for himself there¡ªa little loft with lots of sunshine near the metro. He knew it probably wasn¡¯t going to be for sale when he was finally old enough to emigrate, but it was still fun to imagine it. And to spot it from the street the next day when they were on a walking tour, surrounded by a fleet of guides and protectors impersonating guides. He hid his passport band under his sleeve and pretended he was a local who¡¯d just wandered into the middle of this group of future Avowed by accident. He did it anytime their trips took them to a city. Here, he wasn¡¯t the odd one out. Every person on the street, every soul in every building¡ªthey were like him. For me, this is the real world, he decided. I¡¯m not alone. I¡¯m just waiting to get here. He would convince his mom to come with him. There was no reason she couldn¡¯t. ****** Lute started sixth grade quiet. Safe. Ignorable. He didn¡¯t really have friends anymore. The last of them¡ªthe ones who he¡¯d annoyed by trying a little too hard to keep¡­oh my god, you guys, Lute Velra is so clingy¡ªhad evaporated over the holidays. They were all joining clubs and doing extracurriculars now. Not the kind of clubs Lute could just insert himself into. Wrightshop apprenticeships. Martial arts for future Meisters. BruteScouts. Heroes of the Future. It wasn¡¯t like he wouldn¡¯t be allowed to participate. They couldn¡¯t officially discriminate against him, and he was sure the adults would mostly force everyone to behave around him. But there was nothing quite like being the person in the room everyone was forced to be considerate of. It just made them go from being a little mean to you to really hating you. This is better, he thought from his spot at the back of the room. I just keep my head down. Be polite to everyone. Ask Mom if I can have a top-of-the-line concert harp for my birthday next week. I can have it professionally painted. Purple would be fun. Also, purple didn¡¯t belong to anyone else. Avowed classes didn¡¯t officially have associated colors and symbology, but people liked to team up, so it was a thing in some settings. If you went into a Swayborhood, you¡¯d see the gray flag with the Artonan symbol for the mind on it here and there. Brutes were red with the symbol for the body. Green for Meisters. Brown or light blue or both done in stripes for Shapers¡­they couldn¡¯t seem to settle the matter. It wasn¡¯t something he¡¯d ever thought much about, but the colors were all the rage now that they were in sixth grade. If someone wore a red bracelet or a green hairband, all of his classmates had decided it had to mean things. They were getting superstitious about it in ways that even Grandma Aulia would have found ridiculous, and she¡¯d recently invited a cab driver to dinner with them because when she¡¯d cast her last giant luck wordchain, before Lute was even born, the cabbie had picked her up twice in one night. She was still checking in on him every year or so to see if she could figure out what the universe was trying to tell her about him. ¡°Mom, that¡¯s weird, isn¡¯t it?¡± Lute had whispered after she came to check on him and tuck him in that night. ¡°Most people think so,¡± Jessica said with a smile. ¡°But Grandma doesn¡¯t believe in letting things go once they¡¯ve caught her eye.¡± Anyway, sixth grade had hit Lute¡¯s classmates with what he could only describe as System fever, and they were making the cab driver thing seem completely normal. He looked up from his desk at the sound of a squeal from the opposite corner, and sure enough¡­ ¡°Tuyet! Your earrings are green! Does that mean you want to be a Meister now?¡± Soon all the Meister-hopefuls were welcoming her to the fold, like it was all set in stone, even though people were still changing their minds every day and nothing was guaranteed. Lute had had to change the case on his cellphone from red to black so that people would stop asking if he wanted to be a Brute. It was ¡°just a joke,¡± but none of them seemed to care that he didn¡¯t think it was funny. Dark purple. That would be a cool color for a harp. And for his party this year¡­ He looked around the room. There were people who would come. Most people would probably come, if he made it an epic Velra bash. They didn¡¯t all hate him, they just didn¡¯t have anything in common with him now that they were getting older and starting to care about things he couldn¡¯t be involved in. No. I¡¯ll do it like I used to. On the yacht, as long as Hazel wasn¡¯t there. Her family liked to take it over these days. No kids. Just me, mom, Aimi if she¡¯s free, the crew, and a cake. He wouldn¡¯t invite Aulia. It was her boat. She¡¯d be there or she wouldn¡¯t. Lute couldn¡¯t even remember the last time they¡¯d played their fashion game. When he asked his mother about the party, she promised to set it up. If not on the yacht, then at the midtown apartment. Then she added, ¡°You¡¯ll have to go to Hazel¡¯s birthday party next month, remember.¡± ¡°I do?¡± Lute asked, not bothering to keep the horror out of his voice. ¡°Why?¡± They were sitting together in the White Parlor, eating burgers from a place they both liked but almost never visited. Lute pretended not to know why, but he did. It was a crowded fast food restaurant in Apex. Full of high ranks. His mom didn¡¯t like to go places like that with Lute, because the presence of the S-rank bodyguards didn¡¯t make crowds of high ranks just a little nervous, the way it did down in F. If they weren¡¯t a little nervous, they made comments sometimes. Lute thought it would be all right. There was nothing so terrible they could say that he couldn¡¯t ignore it. But she didn¡¯t like it, so he never complained about reheated burgers and fries not being quite as good. ¡°Hazel wants me at her party?¡± Hazel¡¯s birthday parties had often swept him up when he was little. Now that they were older, he was delighted not to be invited. This year she had a set of teenage friend-ish people she had somehow obtained despite the fact that when she wasn¡¯t off doing verrrry important things on the Triplanets with whoever it was the Chainer family members worked for, she was virtually always being tutored by their grandmother or someone else. The wound left in Hazel¡¯s pride from being forced to apologize to Lute after the whiff jokes had festered rather than healing. And he wasn¡¯t really interested in forgiveness either. Avoidance was the only thing that kept peace in the household whenever she was around, and she was around so often that avoiding her meant Lute sometimes went days without showing his face to the people he lived with except at mealtimes. ¡°It¡¯s her fourteenth birthday, Lute,¡± said Jessica. ¡°Does that mean something?¡± Jessica smoothed the front of her skirt over her legs. ¡°She¡¯s having her Coming of Age party this year.¡± Lute narrowed his eyes. ¡°Ewwww.¡± ¡°Lute¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s a whole year early! This is just a plot so that she can have a second giant ball when she turns fifteen! I¡¯m not wearing a tuxedo and learning a dance for her until she¡¯s actually the right age!¡± Jessica cleared her throat. ¡°The theme she¡¯s chosen is Royal Ascot. So you¡¯ll wear a full morning suit and top hat. And there won¡¯t be a dance.¡± ¡°What¡¯s Royal Ascot?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a horse race. In England.¡± Lute considered that. ¡°Horses¡­might make it okay.¡± He hadn¡¯t had many opportunities to interact with horses. ¡°Can I feed them?¡± ¡°It will be a series of Brute races. At the big track in F. Racehorses won¡¯t last long enough to provide entertainment for the whole length of the party.¡± She paused. ¡°You can offer the Brutes snacks if you like.¡± ¡°Mooom!¡± Jessica grinned. ¡°You can hold out carrots and sugar lumps for them¡ª¡± ¡°Hazel will probably really do something like that,¡± Lute grumbled. He was wrong. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. What she did on the day of the party was so much worse. ** ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN: The Chainer, III ****** ****** Pandora Anthropodrome February 23, 2037 09:17 PM ****** ****** Lute was trying to do his homework in the most isolated spot of the most isolated pavilion at one of the most ridiculous family parties he¡¯d ever been to when the guest of honor found him. He was in a cream colored morning suit with a matching top hat. For some unfathomable reason, all male family members had also been ordered to carry decorative walking sticks. His stick was lying on the ground in front of the white folding chair he was sitting in. He tried to ignore the patter of clay on the pavilion roof. It was a strange kind of rain, created by men and women running faster than horses could have dreamed around the massive earthen track. The clay rain was supposed to be part of the experience somehow, but it was just worrying him because what if the transparent barriers between them and the track edge gave out? What if some Brute speedster lost control of their powers and smashed through the tent, killing themselves and some of the people here? On top of that, his homework sucked. He was memorizing the human morality clauses. Because they were in middle school, and it was time for them to prepare for the day when they would all be Avowed. A lot of his classes were now Avowed-focused in a way that they hadn¡¯t been before. Imagine you are a speedster running to catch the train. Your top safe speed with your skills fully activated and your spell impressions aiding you is 198 km/hr. You are nineteen standard F-city blocks away. If the train is approaching the station at 50 km/hr and is only one block away¡­ Now Lute was slouching in his seat beside the crumbs of a sticky toffee pudding that had been decorated with an unappetizing amount of gold leaf, and here came the birthday girl. It was garbage on top of garbage on top of a perfectly rotten day. Quiet. If I¡¯m just quiet and polite, it¡¯ll be fine. Biting his tongue had been working at school so far. Just the other day, someone had...sniffed him. In the hallway. One of the new kids who¡¯d started attending this year so that they could have the pre-selection Avowed prep experience at a fancier middle school. There were so many students like that, and he was much funnier to them than he was to the people he¡¯d spent the past few years growing up with. And the fact that they found him so funny seemed to be making it more all right for some of the ones he had grown up with to¡­ Anyway, Lute knew what the sniffing joke was, but he¡¯d pretended not to. So only a couple of people had laughed, and then it had died out. It was fine. ¡°There you are!¡± said Hazel. She was being trailed by a couple of her friendish people and a few of the weak cousins who were too far from Aulia¡¯s graces to be bitter about her position in the way the more talented family members were. The boys were in their top hats and morning suits. The girls were all in dresses and big hats. There was a lot of lace and ribbons going on. Why on Earth would they come over here to bother me? Lute wondered. There is a live band. There are Avowed running around in circles to watch. She¡¯s got a fireworks launch every fifteen minutes. I can¡¯t even be in the top twenty most interesting things here. ¡°Hello, Hazel,¡± he said. ¡°Happy birthday.¡± ¡°You too!¡± she said brightly. Turning to the others, she added, ¡°Lute¡¯s birthday was last month. He turned twelve. He didn¡¯t have a party.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t want a party,¡± Lute muttered. Then he berated himself because that wasn¡¯t being quiet. That was arguing. He wouldn¡¯t do it again. If I¡¯m just quiet, she¡¯ll get bored. Her friends were already bored. Hazel had led them here, but for three or four minutes, it seemed like she was just chatting with Lute. Or at Lute. And he couldn¡¯t imagine what she was getting out of it. For a moment, he actually had to entertain the fact that she might be trying to be nice to him. She was declaring to the world that she would be coming of age this year, which was just absurd. But maybe she was trying to be adult by coming to visit him in his lonely corner and make amends? Then Hazel suddenly said, ¡°Even though Lute didn¡¯t have a party, he wanted Libra all to himself for his birthday. Aunt Jessica begged Grandmother to give it to him, so my family had to leave even though we were vacationing on it last month. I¡¯ve been so busy on the Triplanets with our family¡¯s friends that I needed a rest. But I didn¡¯t mind giving up the yacht at all of course. Not to you Lute.¡± Lute stared at her. ¡°You got thrown off the yacht?¡± For me? Nobody had told him that. His mother had said they¡¯d have his little get-together of favored adults at the apartment if Libra wasn¡¯t available. He¡¯d just assumed it had been available. Lute¡¯s birthday was January 22nd. Hazel said Libra was supposed to be her family¡¯s for the month¡­had Jessica really gotten them kicked off a whole week early? Hugh, Cady, Corin, Orpheus, Hazel¡­all of them? Well, maybe not Orpheus. He drifted around. There was no guarantee he was with the rest of them. ¡°We left,¡± Hazel said tightly. ¡°For you. Because we understand you don¡¯t have friends other than the crew and you have difficulties.¡± They got kicked off. For me. He smiled. Just a little. ¡°Grandma Aulia is modeling our family after some concepts she likes from Artonan history and culture,¡± Hazel said, taking off her wide-brimmed white hat and setting it on the table behind Lute. ¡°So it all makes sense to me now. Hold on, let me perform a wordchain.¡± Lute didn¡¯t roll his eyes, but it took a lot of effort. ¡°¡®Hold on, let me perform a wordchain,¡¯ was practically Hazel¡¯s catchphrase. She whipped them out periodically to show off how many she knew. She spoke in Artonan. Her hands flicked around. Lute assumed she was doing it correctly because she usually was. When she was done, she sighed. ¡°There. Much better. That one enhanced my ability to perceive certain things visually. It¡¯s the fourteenth wordchain I¡¯ve cast on my fourteenth birthday. For luck!¡± ¡°Wow! Fourteen!¡± said a guy who had to be three years older than the rest of them. Hazel smiled at him. Gross. Is he her boyfriend? She looked back at Lute. ¡°As I was saying, it all makes sense now. Why Grandma keeps you and Aunt Jessica with her all the time and why she does favors for you that she wouldn¡¯t do for most of the family members¡­ it¡¯s because you¡¯re the assistants.¡± ¡°My mom¡¯s her assistant,¡± Lute said. ¡°I¡¯m just her grandson.¡± Hazel was staring at his face with her somehow-enhanced eyes. ¡°No, I mean, you¡¯re like a wizard¡¯s assistants. Both of you. The wizard class is supposed to protect the non-wizard class, and they take especially good care of their assistants. They give them a home to live in. And clothes to wear. And they give them gifts all the time.¡± I have to argue after all. ¡°Hazel, that¡¯s what families do, too. Grandma gives you clothes to wear and a yacht to live on, and she gives you gifts all the time. I don¡¯t know everything about Artonan culture, but I¡¯ve lived on Earth for a while. Sharing things with your relatives is normal.¡± He was glad her attempt to get back at him for the yacht ousting was so pitiful. ¡°Yes, of course it is,¡± Hazel said. ¡°But you¡¯re different. Want to see?¡± Suddenly, Lute sensed danger. Hazel did stupid things sometimes because she had no sense of¡­ something important most people had. A sense of consequence maybe? But she wasn¡¯t stupid. And she¡¯d brought over witnesses. She was confident that she was right about this insane Artonan assistant thing. She thought Lute had gotten something that was supposed to be hers because of an alien version of¡­what was that phrase he¡¯d heard his grandmother say a couple of times? Beatnik? No, that wasn¡¯t it. That was just a random memory of Aulia resurfacing. Noblesse oblige, he thought. That one. ¡°Hazel, I¡¯m doing my homework.¡± He tried not to let his nerves show. They must have anyway. ¡°Never mind.¡± The corners of Hazel¡¯s lips turned up. ¡°I can tell you don¡¯t want to hear this. The last time I told you the truth about what people said about you, you cried. That was wrong of me. Assistants are supposed to be protected from painful information.¡± Lute stood. ¡°You¡¯re cracked,¡± he spat. ¡°Why can¡¯t you leave me alone!? Roman barely notices I exist! Miyo asked me if I still played piano at Christmas! None of the important cousins care about me at all. You know who bothers me at school? It¡¯s mostly not the future S-ranks, Hazel! You act like an F.¡± This was an insult based entirely on Lute¡¯s lived experience. Hazel probably didn¡¯t even understand it, but it was true. Lexi Roberts had actually implied it over a year ago, when he doubted Kon¡¯s assertion that Lute would be able to get along with the low ranks. Lute was at the very bottom, and the people who were most aware of that were not the members of his class who were aiming for Apex. They¡¯d already left him so far behind that he¡¯d have had to scream in their faces to remind them he was still alive. It was painful. But with the exception of those high rank children who had a specific grievance with his family, the kids who saw him and snickered about him and sniffed the whiff, were the ones who felt like they were being left behind, too. Just like the cousins. Exactly like them. The cousins who were always the most eager to start speaking languages he didn¡¯t know and talking about things he¡¯d never be able to do were the people who were hoping they¡¯d end up as C¡¯s and B¡¯s. Hazel was the Chosen One. She had no business being so obsessed with Lute¡¯s business. ¡°You¡¯re pathetic!¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re so used to getting first you can¡¯t stand to come in second for a single moment! The only reason you care about me at all is because I live with Grandma and you¡¯re afraid that means she might take three seconds out of her month to look at me instead of you!¡± ¡°I¡¯m pathetic!¡± Hazel scoffed. She looked around at her friends for support. ¡°Me? I spend hours every day with Grandma Aulia. I spend days on the Triplanets every month. I don¡¯t need to worry about you. I just pity you.¡± ¡°Your birthday party is the stupidest thing ever! The theme is weird. Morning suits are for daytime! You¡¯ve got Brutes instead of horses. And you¡¯re fourteen! Coming of Age parties are at fifteen. Were you soooo busy doing mysterious things on the Triplanets you forgot how to count or did you just want us all to lick your feet a few extra times?¡± At this, a couple of her hangers-on did look uncomfortable. ¡°I might be chosen at fourteen,¡± Hazel said, running her hands over the sides of her white lace dress. ¡°If I am, this will be my only chance to have a Coming of Age party.¡± Lute gave her a blank look. ¡°He¡¯s a little bit right,¡± Cousin Uma said unexpectedly. She was wearing a peach dress with a big tulle flower on the hip. ¡°My parents were saying the same thing on the way over here¡­¡± Hazel rounded on her. ¡°They weren¡¯t saying it mean! Like he just did. With the feet licking¡­they were just saying that nobody in the family has ever been a pre-fifteen selectee. Orpheus was the earliest, wasn¡¯t he? Fifteen years, fifty-one days.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t think I can beat Orpheus? He started dosing himself with potions the second he made it to the Triplanets! He¡¯s going to get fired. Did you even know an Avowed could be fired?¡± ¡°You¡¯re not getting picked at fourteen,¡± said Lute. ¡°It¡¯s not unlikely I will be,¡± said Hazel, turning back to him. ¡°Even Grandma says so.¡± Her fake smile had dropped. Her confidence at being surrounded by her friends seemed to have faded, too. She looked peeved. ¡°The System hates making outliers,¡± Lute said. ¡°That¡¯s why they¡¯re outliers. Only a few people get chosen before fifteen each year and some of them are usually U-types. You can¡¯t count them. Everything about them is strange.¡± ¡°Hazel is unique,¡± the person who might have been a boyfriend said, glaring at Lute. ¡°There¡¯s nobody else like her on all of Anesidora. So there¡¯s no reason to think she won¡¯t be chosen at fourteen. The Gloom was selected at fourteen years, two hundred eighty-seven days. Rime was chosen at fourteen years, three hundred days. Neha¡ª¡± Oh he¡¯s one of those, Lute thought as he droned on. He didn¡¯t just have the selection dates of hyperboles memorized; if he was bringing up Neha, he¡¯d gone and memorized all the significant S¡¯s on the island, too. He wondered how long it would be before his classmates started doing this kind of thing. ¡°Sonde was picked at thirteen years, three hundred eleven days,¡± Hazel announced, apparently miffed that the boyfriend hadn¡¯t included her genetic father. He¡¯s a U, though, thought Lute. And a massive outlier. That was kind of my point. ¡°He¡¯s a U, though,¡± said Uma, as if she¡¯s read Lute¡¯s mind. ¡°You can''t be a U, Hazel.¡± Hazel¡¯s expression turned even more irritated. ¡°I just came over here to say hello,¡± she ground out. ¡°Since Lute didn¡¯t even come greet me on my birthday. I¡¯m done now. Let¡¯s go.¡± Amazing, thought Lute as she stalked away with her posse trailing after her. She even forgot to prove her point, whatever it was. It looked like she was heading for the towering confection of silver and gold boxes that was the gift table. Everyone had been told to stick to certain wrapping guidelines for their presents so that they wouldn¡¯t clash with the decor. Then she suddenly turned around, and leaving her friends behind, she stalked back toward Lute. He watched her cautiously. ¡°My hat,¡± she muttered, reaching over him to grab it. She perched it back on top of her head. ¡°You¡¯re such a spoiled brat. You can¡¯t even let me enjoy my Coming of Age. And you¡¯re so stupid you don¡¯t know anything. I don¡¯t know why I talk to you.¡± Lute opened his mouth. ¡°Aunt Jessica will pick up whatever any other member of the family drops,¡± Hazel whispered in his ear. ¡°My dad and mom said so, and I watched, and it¡¯s true.¡± He could tell she thought she was saying something awful to him, but¡­ ¡°What does that mean?¡± he asked in spite of his own better judgment. ¡°Even when she¡¯s not working. Even if there are servants around. If anyone else in the family makes a mess, she cleans it. Because she knows she¡¯s the assistant. It¡¯s not just her job. It¡¯s what she is.¡± Lute was cold all over. Maybe the under-table heaters had stopped working. ¡°You think my mom¡¯s not a family member because she tidies up. That doesn¡¯t even make sense.¡± ¡°Watch. You¡¯ll see.¡± She straightened again. The expression on her face smoothed. ¡°And another thing¡ªI wasn¡¯t going to mention this one because it¡¯s just awful, but¡­family members? We get slots with a rejuvenator. They¡¯ve all been booked and contracted for the next several years. I asked Grandma Aulia to give my mom one, and she did. Six years from now. Your mom? She hasn¡¯t ever had one. And she¡¯s still not booked for one. Do you know why?¡± Wait, thought Lute. Stop talking. Stop. His head was spinning. He felt like he was going to faint. ¡°I bet you do. I bet you have noticed. Family members¡ªif they¡¯re even a tiny bit important to Grandma¡ªget to stay young. That¡¯s half the reason other people hate us. Because we take up tons of slots with the Healers who have the rejuve talents.¡± Hazel exhaled sharply through her nose. ¡°You and Jessica get lots of things for being the family¡¯s assistants. But you don¡¯t get that. Because there¡¯s not enough of it to go around. And¡­well¡­it doesn¡¯t really hurt the Velra line, does it? If your mom gets too old to make more kids like you.¡± Lute was too overwhelmed to speak. There was no retort. He watched Hazel leave in a daze. The band was playing a mambo song suddenly. Most of the family, friends, and random Aulia-invited guests were cheering on their favorite Brutes as they lapped the track again. Clay spattered onto the pavilion roof. Hazel walked straight over to Cousin Katsuro, one of Aimi¡¯s brothers. He was talking to Jessica and drinking a glass of the imitation champagne that tasted so terrible Lute couldn¡¯t imagine the real stuff was anything like it. Hazel bumped into his arm. The glass tumbled from his hand into the grass. Maybe he would have bent down to pick it up himself, but before he could, Lute¡¯s mother dove for it. They said something to each other. She patted Katsuro on the arm. She nodded to Hazel. Then she hurried over to the mocktail bar to fetch him another drink. Hazel turned around, looked back at Lute, and smiled.
¡°I ran away from the Royal Ascot party,¡± Lute said casually. ¡°For some reason, I left my homework behind and took two puddings with me instead.¡± Once again, Alden had no idea what to say. The remains of the trail mix was spread on the table between them. They¡¯d eaten out all the dark chocolate and nuts, and now there were a bunch of raisins left. ¡°The sticky toffee ones covered in all that gold leaf,¡± Lute added. ¡°They were individual serving sizes. I don¡¯t even remember going to pick them up. One minute, I was in my chair watching Hazel smile at me and the next I was on a train, holding two puddings on these little gold plates.¡± ¡°I wonder if I wanted to hit her with them?¡± he mused. ¡°Maybe I grabbed the puddings, planning to smash them into her face in front of two hundred people and a band playing Latin music, but then I just left instead. I ended up at Cyril¡¯s place. I told him I¡¯d brought the pudding for him. ¡°Of course, she got a second Coming of Age party the next year.¡± What was the theme for that one? Alden wondered. ¡°I can¡¯t believe people memorize exactly how old other Avowed were when they got selected,¡± he said. ¡°Down to the day.¡± ¡°Really? To me it feels like a natural extension of everything else. The soon-to-be-super lunacy that takes people over as their big birthdays approach is something to behold when you think it doesn¡¯t apply to you at all.¡± Lute crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. ¡°By seventh grade, I was starting to hate everything about it so much. On this side of it, I can see that I was unreasonable in some ways. A lot of what upset me was just¡­unavoidable for everyone. But after an entire year of people ignoring me, teasing me, or talking endlessly about all the cool things in their lives and their futures that I thought I couldn¡¯t take part in, I was done with the whole country. I wanted it to vanish like Atlantis. ¡°I did get an early audition with the youth orchestra in sixth grade, though. I was so tired of waiting, I went and asked, and it turned out they weren¡¯t that serious about the age limit. It was just like, ¡®Yeah, sure. Come on. Whatever.¡¯¡± He pursed his lips. ¡°Anesidora sucks that way. For someone like I was. Teenagers tend not to have really serious hobbies unrelated to their future dream class. And in a lot of cases, the way people practice for those dream classes is different from how a non-Avowed would practice for the nearest equivalent. So there really wasn¡¯t anything for someone my age who wanted to get to the next level as a musician. I just had to stick with tutors.¡± ¡°People who want to be instrument Meisters don¡¯t study music?¡± Alden asked. ¡°They study music,¡± Lute said. ¡°But they¡¯re encouraged to try different types of instrument instead of focusing too much on one. Youth orchestra is really just for them to see if they like playing in a group. The thing is, even if they know what subclass they want, there¡¯s no guarantee that the System will offer something similar, or that their families will be able to get it for them. And musical instrument Meisters aren¡¯t particularly common either. So the teachers and directors try to make sure they¡¯re falling in love with music and the lifestyle of an Avowed musician, but they discourage them from getting too into any one thing. They want them to play around and get ideas for lots of different futures. It makes sense.¡± He raised an eyebrow then added, ¡°It also means most of them are kind of terrible before they get chosen. And afterward they don¡¯t¡­have quite the right mindset in my opinion.¡± ¡°You¡¯re saying that instrument Meisters don¡¯t have the right mindset for being musicians.¡± Alden grinned at him. ¡°All right. I¡¯m extremely snobby about this,¡± Lute said. ¡°I admit it. And my snobbishness is actually why I decided I wouldn¡¯t mind being friendly with Lexi around the same time. He was one of the only people in our entire school other than me who had an artistic hobby he was actually devoted to instead of just killing time with.¡± ¡°The ballet stuff?¡± Lute nodded. ¡°It¡¯s just his personality, I think. He can¡¯t stand to half-ass whatever he starts. If his parents had given him a hockey stick or a paintbrush when he was little, he¡¯d have done those things instead. But they were dancers, so they put him in dance classes, and that¡¯s what he turned all of his perfectionism toward while he was waiting for what came next.¡± ¡°Is he talented?¡± ¡°I¡¯m a musician, not a dancer. But he was a lot better than the other kids were. I heard he was dancing with a community ballet of adults a little last year¡­Avowed adults. I¡¯m sure they were way more casual and nothing like his parents¡¯ company, but that still had to be next level.¡± ¡°And then he just quit,¡± said Alden. ¡°To spend more time with his whip,¡± Lute agreed. ¡°I mean¡­of course he did. You can only be a perfectionist in so many different directions at once, and the hero program was always his goal. Is he good with it in gym?¡± ¡°I think he is.¡± It wasn¡¯t easy for Alden to tell because he had no idea how difficult Writher might be to use. When Lexi practiced picking up small objects with it in the apartment, he had a tendency to cut them in half instead of lifting them. ¡°He seems really good at changing its length, phasing it, and slicing. I think he might be having trouble with aiming the tip and controlling its general danger level? But that still seems impressive to me. He¡¯s only had it a few months.¡± ¡°I knew he was going to pick Meister, but I still can¡¯t believe he chose to have an Artonan chain whip linked to his brain. That was kind of ballsy. I pictured him with something much more traditional. Like a sword.¡± ¡°My class at selection was Meister.¡± Lute looked startled. ¡°How did you end up with Chainer, then?¡± ¡°I traded into it.¡± ¡°Ha!¡± said Lute. ¡°That means Corin¡¯s office screwed up! They should have been glued to the class trade system. Or it was luckier for you to hand deliver it to them for some reason? Or someone whose family hated mine had it, and they would never have sold it to us. But they didn¡¯t want to force their kid to take it either. In that case, you¡¯d think they would sell it to someone else who hated us, though.¡± Alden had thought about Andrzej a bit since coming to Celena North. Lute¡¯s comment just cemented his opinion. ¡°I assume the person who gave it to me was offloading it before their family found out they had been chosen. I think they were afraid they would be forced to take it themselves if someone knew.¡± ¡°Ooo¡­a clan of extreme Velra dislikers then? Those are fun. They came out of the woodwork when I was in seventh grade and all their offspring turned extra monstrous for a while.¡± ¡°Why then?¡± Lute¡¯s eye shot skyward. ¡°Aulia ran for re-election. You wouldn¡¯t think it would be that bad since she was on the council for ages. You¡¯d think they¡¯d have gotten used to her, right? But no. They dug up old family news and pretended it was just as shocking as the day it happened. About halfway through the year I tried to quit, actually.¡± ¡°School?¡± ¡°I asked for private instruction, like I¡¯d had when I was little. Like almost all the Velra kids get. It had gotten to the point where I thought I could withstand my relatives better than some of my classmates¡­total reversal, I know.¡± He stopped leaning and let the legs of his chair hit the floor with a clack. ¡°Jessica said no. She wanted me to stay in school.¡± ****** ****** Nilama Paragon Academy July 19, 2038 7:46 AM ****** ****** The wind was freezing, and the sky was still dark as Lute climbed the steps up to the front doors of the middle school building. I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m here. I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m doing this, he thought, as he clutched at his scarf with a gloved hand and stared down at his shoes. I can¡¯t believe I announced I was leaving like some kind of drama lord on Friday. Why didn¡¯t I just stay quiet? It was in his second science class of the day. Biology. That one went off the rails a lot, and the teacher always let it go too far before he stepped in. He was a brownnose who always wanted to pick the right side, and he could never figure out which of his illustrious young Avowed to suck up to at any given moment. Things had to explode before he said some tepid thing like, ¡°Now quiet down, everyone. We¡¯re all friends here.¡± Why didn¡¯t I just stay quiet? Wasn¡¯t the plan to stay quiet? The door handle felt icy even through his glove. He pulled it open and headed down the hall, trying to hide behind his scarf. They¡¯d called his mother a mule. Declan was a terrible comedian who couldn¡¯t even make his jokes work without a minute-long explanation in follow up, but still¡­still¡­ You know how horses and donkeys make mules? And mules are barren? Well maybe if a human and an Artonan make a mule, the mule can¡¯t ever do magic! The Lutes-mom-is-half-Artonan bullshit had been all over the school since before the election. The votes had been cast now. Aulia had won. Why wasn¡¯t it going away? We used to be friends. He came to my sleepovers. Mom was nice to him. Lute didn¡¯t understand what was so enthralling about the half-Artonan rumors anyway. There were other people who had similar features. There were people who begged the System or their surgeons for similar features. Everyone knew alien-human hybrids weren¡¯t a thing. We were in a biology classroom surrounded by books and computers that said they weren¡¯t a thing. Lute had snapped. He¡¯d stood up and told the whole classroom full of his peers not to expect him back on Monday. So long, you psychos. I hate you all, and I¡¯m looking forward to never seeing a single one of you again. He¡¯d been one hundred percent confident that his mom would let him quit school if he told her he was being bullied. It wasn¡¯t like they couldn¡¯t afford tutors for him. It wasn¡¯t like he¡¯d get a worse education at home. He¡¯d get a better one. The classes at Paragon were excellent. For most of the people here. But now that they were older, so much of the day was focused on the Triplanets, the Contract, System theory, superhuman history. At home, with his own program, he could skip all of that pre-Avowed crap and focus on things people learned in the real world. A literature class would be cool. Paragon didn¡¯t even have those. He¡¯d been so certain, he¡¯d cleaned out his locker. Now he was trudging toward it with a loaded backpack. To fill it back up again. If Anesidora wasn¡¯t an island, he would already have run away. He tried not to meet anyone¡¯s eyes as he hastily shoved everything back into the locker. ¡°Uh¡­good morning, Lute.¡± Konstantin. Two lockers over. He¡¯d never said a single cruel thing to Lute. He never would. It just wasn¡¯t his personality. He¡¯d even tell people to knock it off, sometimes, if they said something completely awful by his standards. A lot like Vandy. A lot like Tuyet. A lot like a lot of nice people who didn¡¯t want to see something too bad happen right in front of them¡­ But it ended there. Kon had friends over all the time. He put together groups to go hang out at Rosa Grove. Sometimes Declan Gao was in those groups. Lute never was. ¡°Good morning,¡± said Lute. In classes, he was quiet. At lunch, he sat alone. He made it through another week. And another. One more. They had an ongoing pen pal assignment with students in Canada. Lute¡¯s Canadian was depressed that she was Lute¡¯s Canadian. All the other people in her class got to have video calls and send emails to future Avowed. The instructor announced that they would start rotating pen pals. Everyone knew why. ¡°Honestly,¡± said Carlotta. ¡°You knew what she wanted to hear. Why didn¡¯t you just lie and say you were one of us? The rest of us were having fun getting to know people and now we have to swap!¡± ¡°She doesn''t mean it like that,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°It might be fun to swap.¡± ¡°I did mean it like that,¡± she said. She stalked away. ¡°Well,¡± Haoyu said, sounding uncomfortable. ¡°Her older sister just got D. She¡¯s stressed out.¡± ¡°Yes, it must be so stressful for her,¡± said Lute, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear him. ¡°Just imagine how horrible it must be to get D when you¡¯re expecting C. I think I¡¯d cry my eyes out every day if I wound up as a lowly D, don¡¯t you?¡± It wasn¡¯t quite fair. He knew he was being a little bit of an asshole, too. But he felt less like a ghost after he¡¯d said what was on his mind. Without meaning to, he kept doing it. A retort here. A waspish remark there. It didn¡¯t feel like he was doing it very often at all. Every minute of every day, someone was stabbing him. On purpose. Accidentally. And the ones who weren¡¯t stabbing him were ignoring the ones who were ninety percent of the time. Will the world really come to an end, he wondered, if I just stop trying so hard to stay out of everyone¡¯s way? He took Angela Aubergine to the school talent show. They each got three minutes. He played his song. The biology teacher was the one who was giving everyone the signal to get off stage. Lute looked at him, and he suddenly realized¡­that guy will wait ages before he walks out here and actually makes me move. He kept playing. There was no grand plan. He had no delusions that anyone would think he was cool for this. They didn¡¯t even like the harp. They thought classical music was dull. He could¡¯ve played something popular to try to win a few of them over, but he didn¡¯t. Arranging Handel¡¯s Suite in D Minor for himself was his current project. He cared about it. He had to listen to what they cared about every second of every day. They could listen to him for a change. I am good at this, he thought as he plucked the strings with more vigor than Handel might have wanted. I have made myself good at this. You¡¯re all so proud of what a magic spell is going to turn you into. One day, I¡¯m going to be the best harpist in the world. Maybe that¡¯s not as spectacular as what you¡¯ll all be. But at least I¡¯m going to earn it for myself. The stage lights were getting hot. Lute Velra was getting angry. When the biology teacher finally stomped onto the stage and tried to touch Angela, Lute quit. The auditorium was full of people giggling or staring at him with wide eyes. ¡°This is inappropriate behavior, Lute. You need to apologize to all of us.¡± Oh, though Lute. I¡¯ve actually made him mad. He didn¡¯t look that mad when they were torturing me in class the other day. ¡°Why?¡± Lute asked. ¡°I think you know why! You took five times as long as students are allowed¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s because I¡¯m five times as talented as the rest of them,¡± said Lute.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°You didn''t,¡± said Alden. ¡°On stage in front of the whole school?¡± ¡°It felt so good,¡± said Lute. ¡°Even as I said it, I knew it was social suicide. But I was already socially dead, and I¡¯d begun to snap, and I kind of wanted to be expelled. I was so calm about it while I sat in the principal¡¯s office.¡± ¡°They expelled you for playing the harp for fifteen minutes and talking back to a teacher?¡± ¡°Of course not. They just called my parents. They regretted that because Aulia showed up instead of Jessica or Cyril. I was shocked. The principal was shocked. I think my bio teacher almost pissed himself. ¡°I¡¯d never gotten in trouble like that, so I didn¡¯t realize that my grandmother was even available for Lute screw-ups. I¡¯m sure the academy didn¡¯t either. But my parents didn¡¯t involve themselves at school much. Even when I was in third grade. Cyril couldn¡¯t getting along with the other parents, and I guess Jessica knew people might tease me. And¡­power, you know. Nobody treats Aulia like she¡¯s less than them.¡± ¡°Was she mad at you?¡± Lute sighed. ¡°She was very amused. When they told her what I¡¯d done, she said, ¡®Well, were you five times better than the rest of them?¡¯ ¡°It didn¡¯t endear me to the faculty. That¡¯s for sure. And my refusing-to-be-a-doormat phase didn¡¯t win me any friends. I was mad at all of them, you know. I was almost more angry at the people who weren¡¯t heinous. People can tell when you¡¯re mad at them, and it offends them, and they stop feeling even a little sorry for you, and then it just¡­seventh grade sucked so bad.¡±
Declan Gao was evil. So were a few of the others. Unless the System installed one hell of an empathy patch in their twisted brains when it gave them their powers, they were going to grow up to be supervillains. Terrorists, animal abusers, politicians in favor of a zero-human Anesidora¡ªsomething like that. Deciding they were evil helped. Lute despised them, and he still braced himself as he walked through the doors of the building, trying to prepare for whatever terrible thing would be funny to them that week. But even though they could still hurt him, he was no longer hurt by the fact that they wanted to hurt him. Evil was what they were. What else could you expect from them? An evil person nicknaming you Quadruple Decimal because your chance of being granted powers was four decimal places to the right of zero wasn¡¯t surprising. It was like a leech sucking your blood. Or like Hazel screaming at you to stop playing while she was chaining because she was fifteen now and she had mere days left to practice before she became one of the most powerful creatures on Earth. It was just what they did. You could hate it, but you couldn¡¯t be surprised by them anymore. What hurt his feelings the most lately was all the others¡ªthe ones who weren¡¯t evil. The friendly ones¡­who still didn¡¯t really want to be his friend. Well, I guess, he thought one morning in November as he sat down at his desk, I am an inconvenient person to be friends with. My family is complicated. We¡¯ll only be in school together for a couple more years before they all head off to the Avowed high schools. My own life goal is to leave them all behind. What else did I expect? Part of him knew that what he¡¯d expected was for primary school friendships to last. He¡¯d expected them to keep liking him and wanting to hang out with him until they were all grown up. Because he¡¯d liked them so much. They hadn¡¯t been like the cousins, so he¡¯d thought they were similar to children on cartoons¡ªfriends forever no matter the differences or distances. But that was just an embarrassing thing to want, so he pretended he hadn¡¯t. That he didn¡¯t. It was easier that way. He reached into his bag for his fountain pen. Fountain pens were his latest collectible distraction. All the different ink colors and the nibs and the chore of cleaning them gave him something to do. When school was particularly bad, he bought himself another one. Some people use them for art. Maybe I¡¯ll learn to draw. When he set the pen inside his desk, his fingers brushed against something unfamiliar. He grabbed the unexpected object and looked down. It took him a minute to realize what the thing in the pink foil wrapper was. This¡­is a condom. They¡¯d had an uncomfortable so-you¡¯re-all-growing-up-now sex education class a couple of weeks ago. He¡¯d only just managed to wipe it from his brain. Was this left over from that somehow? How could he not have noticed until today? I can¡¯t let anyone see me with this! He shoved it into the back of the desk, blushing furiously. If anyone found it, he¡¯d have to swim to Antarctica and feed himself to a leopard seal. There would be no other option. His nerves about one of the super children developing the ability to see through wooden surfaces or his teacher announcing that there would be a desk-check for the first time ever kept him so distracted that he almost forgot to hate class. And he¡¯d been really devoted to hating class that week because they were playing a game. A stupid game. It¡¯s all they ever talk about anymore anyway, so I don¡¯t see why we have to make it official. It was supposed to be a career-planning assignment, and it was a reward for making it through the school year. They were about to take their December break. Seventh grade was pretty much over. They¡¯d all go home for a few weeks and come back as eighth graders. This week was full of fun activities that were pretending to be work. For the assignment, they had bags full of multisided dice. Some were even big, hundred-sided ones that looked like golfballs. To start the game, they closed their eyes and grabbed a random black bag from the plastic crate full of them at the front of the room. When you opened it up, the slip of paper inside determined your rank, and the color of your dice determined your Avowed class. Congratulations! You¡¯ve been selected! They had a trading time slot and fake money where everyone tried to talk their friends into giving them the general class they wanted. Then you used one of the dice to pick you subclass. And the others could be rolled to randomize whatever was applicable to your class. You looked up corresponding numbers for talents the System might offer you on a chart, and you slowly built your dream profile as well as you could within the limits of chance. Afterward, they all talked about how great it was to be that type of Avowed and what kinds of jobs they could have. Lute wasn¡¯t required to participate. But if he didn¡¯t participate, he had to sit in his desk trying to read a book while everyone squealed with excitement or groaned in despair at their imaginary fates. And he caught pitying looks sometimes. He hated those, and they didn¡¯t bother to shoot as many his way if he played, too. The only one who¡¯s almost always happy with how it works out for them is Haoyu, he thought while he rolled a green die. He seemed to be gradually settling on Stamina Brute as his class preference. Nobody else ever wanted it. Kind of unexpected. His parents could get him just about anything, and what he wants is the simplest thing to get. Lute was a C-rank Meister today, rolling for his tool. ¡°Lute? Hey, Lute! Can I have your bag?¡± The plastic die bounced across his desk, and Lute slapped his hand on it to keep it from escaping. He looked at Carlotta. She¡¯d crossed the room with a bag full of the red Brute dice in her hand. Declan was behind her. Other peoples¡¯ dice were clattering around. The door to the hall was open so that they could come and go to make trades and discuss things with seventh graders in the nearby classrooms. Their current teacher was chatting with one of the others by the lockers instead of monitoring them. The last days of the school year were always so haphazard. ¡°I¡¯m already rolling for my subtype,¡± said Lute. ¡°And I haven¡¯t been Meister before, so¡­¡± He always kept whatever he drew so that he didn¡¯t have to negotiate with his classmates. It had been Brute every time so far. There were more of them in the box than any of the other colors. ¡°Yeah, but I¡¯ve been Brute already,¡± she said. ¡°And you know I want Meister so much.¡± ¡°You should give it to her,¡± Declan said. ¡°Meister¡¯s more fun than Brute,¡± said Lute. ¡°Maybe you¡¯ll get it tomorrow.¡± ¡°Come on!¡± said Carlotta, thrusting her dice bag toward him. ¡°Don¡¯t be selfish!¡± ¡°She needs it way more than you.¡± These two were the worst of the worst. And Lute wasn¡¯t being a doormat anymore; that was the only thing that was keeping him sane. He wasn¡¯t giving them a damn thing. He squeezed the bag of dice. ¡°No. Leave me alone. I need to finish the assignment.¡± And then¡­ ¡°You really ought to give it to her.¡± The voice cut across the classroom. Vandy Carisson had a tendency to announce things for all to hear when she made a judgment. Everyone started to look up to see who she¡¯d decided to correct. She¡¯d been sitting on the floor by the board, casting her dice with some of the other girls. She¡¯d stood to make her proclamation. ¡°She wants to make a Meister profile to prepare herself,¡± said Vandy, staring at Lute with her pale eyes. She¡¯d gotten rather pretty this year. What a stupid thing to think at a time like this. ¡°You never take this seriously, Lute,¡± she continued. ¡°You just pick random foundation points and talents that don¡¯t fit together and then write them on your form.¡± ¡°What else would he do?¡± someone muttered. ¡°I don¡¯t have to give her my dice.¡± Lute wondered why he felt nervous, suddenly. Everyone was staring. ¡°I drew them from the box the same as everyone else. Nobody has to trade. Those are the rules.¡± Rules. Vandy loved rules. She¡¯d probably printed out a copy of the student handbook to sleep with. ¡°You don¡¯t have to,¡± she said slowly. ¡°But why wouldn¡¯t you? This is important to us. And it¡¯s not to you.¡± ¡°She¡¯s kind of right,¡± said Konstantin from a desk nearby. ¡°I mean, you don¡¯t care, and she cares a lot¡­¡± No, thought Lute. No, this is wrong. It¡¯s not fair. They had these looks on their faces¡­like he was hurting them. Even the nice ones. The probable high ranks. The hero kids. Why¡­? What do they expect from me? They know how she treats me but¡­ Was this game so important now that the way she treated Lute didn¡¯t matter in comparison? ¡°I guess¡­¡± Vandy said, her eyes going round as if she¡¯d suddenly had a shocking thought. ¡°Oh. Did you really want Meister, too? I guess if you did want it¡­that would be different. If you wanted to take building a profile seriously today. In case.¡± A few people had still been playing around with their dice. The last one clicked to a stop, and the classroom went so quiet that they could hear the teachers murmuring together in the hall. Lute felt like every eye in the room was carving out a piece of his heart. ¡°You will never be chosen. You will never be an Avowed. You will never do any magic other than wordchains. Do you understand?¡± ¡°But, Mommy, everybody else¡­¡± ¡°Say you understand.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to be a harpist,¡± Lute said. ¡°I¡¯ve never wanted to be anything else. Why would I take any of this seriously?¡± Something left the room. Some enormous tension between him and them¡ªworse than any he¡¯d ever felt before¡ªfaded. Eyes rolled, chairs creaked. ¡°Of course he doesn¡¯t want to be a Meister for real, Vandy. He''s got his own thing. He played boring music for like an hour at the talent show.¡± ¡°Quadruple Decimal¡¯s got his whoooole future planned out,¡± Declan said. He shoved his hand into Lute¡¯s desk. It was clear he knew exactly what he was looking for. ¡°And look! He¡¯s being responsible.¡± He slapped Lute on the back hard and held up the pink foil wrapper. ¡°We must prevent more whiffs!¡± People gasped. Or laughed. ¡°Declan, seriously, what¡¯s wrong with you?¡± said Kon. ¡°That¡¯s not funny.¡± ¡°Is that a condom?¡± someone said in horror. ¡°Is it?¡± Vandy asked, looking around for an answer. Lute suddenly didn¡¯t care at all about the condom. It was just Hazel¡¯s original revelation about how some Avowed talked about people like him in a new form. The terrible joke of the day. Instead, he cared about the fact that when Carlotta reached for his dice, his fingers let go. Even the nice ones had said he shouldn¡¯t have them, so¡­ Everyone else was freaking out about that condom though. They made a ton of noise about it, the teachers heard, and Declan got dragged off to the principal¡¯s office. Lute sat in his desk, and he tried to roll his dice. Red ones. His vision was blurry for some reason. Not tears, surely. He was thirteen. He¡¯d seriously rather be eaten by a leopard seal than cry in front of them. But he couldn¡¯t see the numbers. Two days later, when everyone went to select their dice bags, they discovered some of the dice had been replaced. The discovery came after the colors had been seen and the trades had happened. It came after almost everyone was holding the dice set for their dream class. Sometimes, when you rolled one, instead of getting the number that should have been on that face, you got a percentage. And a message written in tiny logograms. People had to look up the meanings on their phones. ¡°This¡­this is an A-rank Adjuster¡¯s chance of returning home after an emergency summons,¡± Kon said in a high voice. ¡°Mine¡¯s for A-rank Brute! And there¡¯s another die with the chance of being killed in combat on Earth!¡± ¡°Here¡¯s one for¡­for unhealable mind damage,¡± Tuyet whispered. ¡°Mine¡¯s S-rank Meister. It¡¯s for death on Matadero. But the number¡¯s zero.¡± Yes, thought Lute, sitting at his desk with the red dice again. I wanted to be evenhanded. Nobody ever actually dies on Matadero. ¡°Mine¡¯s the annual chance of getting an emergency summons as an S-rank.¡± ¡°Is the death rate really this high for S-rank Life Shapers?¡± someone said in a panicked voice. ¡°You guys! Is it? My mom gets summoned sometimes, and she¡¯s an S-rank Life Shaper!¡±
Alden and Lute stared at each other for a long time without saying anything. ¡°Alright then¡­¡± Alden said finally. ¡°That was all horrible.¡± ¡°I know. I ruined the end of the school year. And apparently Haoyu¡¯s mother was on an emergency summons when I did it. He was probably really scared for her. I didn¡¯t know. He should have punched me. I hope I wouldn¡¯t have done it if I had known, but I¡¯m not sure. I snapped. Really snapped. It took more than a day to look up all the statistics, design the dice, and have them 3d printed. And it still felt like a reasonable and measured response when I shoved them in the bags.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t really mean you,¡± said Alden. ¡°Just all of it. Your school sounds like hell.¡± ¡°They did take me to see Victoria Falls,¡± said Lute. ¡°It was breathtaking. Then he grimaced. ¡°Haoyu¡¯s tried to get me to hang out with some of them a couple of times. During Diwali. This morning at the skate park. He says he thinks being selected made them more mature, and¡­I do believe him. Mostly. The mood was already starting to shift when I left Paragon to come to CNH. But you should see their faces when they look at me.¡± Alden had seen their faces when Lute name was mentioned. He could imagine. ¡°People like Vandy didn¡¯t hate me before I said I hoped they and their parents all got summoned to die agonizing deaths¡ª¡± ¡°Was that really what you were trying to say?¡± ¡°No. But that''s how they took it. My enraged thirteen-year-old self thought he was making an impressive point. About how if the dice were so serious that I was a bad person for not giving one of my bullies her favorite color, then maybe the dice should actually be serious. That nuance was lost on everyone else. It turns out that a die covered in ways you and your loved ones might die doesn¡¯t lend itself to conveying anything beyond, ¡®Die, all of you.¡±¡± He rested his elbows on the table and propped his chin on his hands. It was getting later. The noises of people moving through the building and outside on the walkways had gone quiet. ¡°I don¡¯t think any of them ever understood I was upset about them making me give up the dice. They thought it was all about the condom, and I was being insane by taking out my anger on them when they didn¡¯t have anything to do with it.¡± He looked at Alden. ¡°I told you the story because I wanted to explain¡­I don¡¯t feel that way. I grew up here. I know seriously bad shit happens to Avowed sometimes. And I know it¡¯s not something to mock.¡± Alden cleared his throat. ¡°What are the statistics for B-rank Rabbits getting stuck on moons without Systems?¡± Lute¡¯s face relaxed. ¡°You¡¯ll never believe this, but I didn¡¯t include that one on my ¡®terrible Avowed facts¡¯ dice.¡± ¡°Major oversight. You¡¯ll have to pay more attention to the safe ranks and classes next time.¡± ¡°Chainer¡¯s a safe class,¡± said Lute. ¡°The safest there is. Everyone knows we don¡¯t die. I guess Keiko could doing hero work, but the rest of us¡­I can¡¯t imagine that adds to my old classmates¡¯ opinion about my charact¡ª¡± ¡°Oh, screw that. Your character¡¯s fine,¡± said Alden. ¡°Except¡­you know¡­¡± ¡°What?¡± Lute asked worriedly. ¡°You¡¯re a bathtub hog,¡± said Alden in a serious tone. ¡°I know it¡¯s usually Lexi who complains, but that¡¯s only because he wants to hog the tub, too. Haoyu and I get nothing but showers. We¡¯re starting to talk bad about you both.¡± ¡°You guys get the fancy drug sauna! You don¡¯t need the tub!¡± ¡°We pay for the drug sauna,¡± Alden said. ¡°The tub is a free household resource. We are entitled to a quarter of all tub nights each. I understand you¡¯re used to having constant access to multiple swimming pools¡ª¡± ¡°Only two¡­or three if I didn¡¯t mind putting up with certain people!¡± ¡°And in the absence of your two or three swimming pools, you¡¯re clearly suffering from a lack of hydration,¡± said Alden. ¡°Like some kind of tropical Velra plant. But you need to learn to water yourself in the shower once in a while instead.¡± Lute looked thoughtful. ¡°Are you going to tell Lexi he¡¯s a tub hog, too?¡± ¡°No way. He carries a whip with him to the bathroom. Haoyu can tell him.¡± * ONE HUNDRED TWELVE: The Chainer, IV 112 ¡°So,¡± said Alden spitting toothpaste into the sink while Lute brushed at the one beside him, ¡°when did it happen?¡± Lute looked at him in the mirrored medicine cabinet. ¡°When did what happen?¡± ¡°What do you think, man? You can¡¯t tell me all about your childhood and then leave out the big magical stuff.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to.¡± He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ¡°What was being selected like for you, though?¡± ¡°I was in the bathroom at school, looking at an anatomically suspicious cactus someone had drawn on the wall. I had a really weird feeling and then the System started whispering in my ear. It was a shock. I just left without talking to anyone. But I was forewarned that I might get that shock, so it probably wasn¡¯t as¡ª¡± ¡°You were?¡± Gorgon was actually the one whose warning had made the biggest difference, but that wasn''t something Alden was prepared to try explaining. ¡°The superhero who saved my life when I was a kid had a spell that didn¡¯t work properly on me. It was supposed to completely knock me out, but I stayed awake. Hannah was curious about it, so she went and tested the spell on a ton of different people and animals. Several years later, she told me the only ones that had the same reaction I did were a few Anesidoran children.¡± He rinsed his toothbrush. ¡°She thought maybe it was related to peoples¡¯ theories about chaos potential. She was careful to emphasize that I shouldn¡¯t expect anything, and I didn¡¯t. Exactly. But it did fuel my hopes. I wanted it way past the age when it¡¯s reasonable for a person to still be hoping, ¡®Maybe one day I¡¯ll be magical!¡¯¡± ¡°Chaos potential is totally a real thing,¡± said Lute. ¡°The average citizen just doesn¡¯t have a lot of info on what it is. I bet at least some of the heavy hitter combatants who get summoned know. I just assume the Grandwitch knows stuff like that, too. Not to compliment her, mind you, but she is antique and very interested in involving herself in all things Artonan.¡± ¡°Wanna hear my theory?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°It¡¯s bad.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure I¡¯ve heard it before. Anesidorans love nothing more than guessing at all the things the Artonans are still refusing to be one hundred percent forthcoming about. We even guess at the things they are forthcoming about, in case they¡¯re lying.¡± Alden typed a mental text out and left it hanging with no recipient: [If you¡¯ve got a problem with me sharing a little of the theory I came up with on Thegund, you should let me know.] He waited a second. The System didn¡¯t shout, ¡°Stop, idiot! That will cause a global catastrophe!¡± So he figured it was safe. He gave Lute his cheerfullest smile. ¡°I¡¯m ninety percent sure the phrase ¡®chaos potential¡¯ has to do with how likely a person is to turn into something that could be classified as a demon in the event of a chaos exposure.¡± Lute blinked. ¡°I¡¯ve heard similar things, but those ideas seem to be more popular with anti-Avowed hate groups than with Avowed.¡± ¡°Well, part two of my theory is that the System fixes the chaos vulnerabilities a person might have in the process of making us Avowed, so there¡¯s no reason for the hate groups to use it against any of us. We¡¯re better for handling chaos than regular people, not worse. As promised really. The Artonans did say they were ultimately making Avowed to help them out with chaos problems.¡± He paused. ¡°Also, just because some Avowed might have high chaos potential prior to being chosen, that doesn¡¯t mean all of us do. I don¡¯t think that, actually.¡± The System had said it stabilized existences. It could be picking just the people who had a mix of high enough authority and an unusual vulnerability to chaos. Or it could be picking everyone on Earth who was naturally above the authority threshold for F-rank and granting them affixations and further stability. Or it could be weighing multiple qualities to assess a person¡¯s value as a future Avowed as well as their risk of demonifying. He didn¡¯t know which it was or if some third or fourth factor was at play, but he didn¡¯t believe it was pure chaos potential. Because Gorgon had done something to Alden before the System had gotten to him. And he had done such a good job at it that the Earth System had mentioned it was a positive, and she had commented on how exceptional Gorgon¡¯s work on his was. But the Earth System had still picked him. And stabilized him some more with the affixation. It might have done it just because I was already on its to-be-Avowed list, and it wasn¡¯t able or willing to remove me from it for some reason. He doubted that was it. ¡°Oh, so you don¡¯t necessarily think chaos potential makes us Avowed. You think it¡¯s an additional wrinkle in the situation? What do you think makes the System pick someone then?¡± ¡°In the interest of not having an extremely long talk about alien philosophy,¡± said Alden, ¡°let¡¯s call it power.¡± Lute nodded. ¡°Power. Most people I knew growing up thought that they either had an ability to contain more power than regular people and that was why the System would choose them to hold magic or that they were born with some kind of power and the System has the ability to wake it up and turn it into magic.¡± More the second one, thought Alden. ¡°As far as I know, my family pretty much all thinks some version of the second. There are some other theories. But it doesn¡¯t really matter which one you look at¡­if it¡¯s even a little reasonable, it has to take into account the fact that two superhumans usually have superhuman children. Which means it¡¯s not random. The special thing, whatever it is, is inside you.¡± He stared at his own reflection. ¡°I really don¡¯t know what it feels like. To grow up knowing you have something that will become magic. I was so sure I didn¡¯t. I¡¯d been training myself not to even want it since I was a little older than a toddler. By eighth grade¡­I was just trying to hold on until I was old enough for my real life to happen. Somewhere far away from here.¡± ****** ****** Nilama Paragon Academy Theater January 14, 2039 ****** ****** One day, thought Lute Velra, I will live thousands of kilometers away from this place. He sat in a group of his classmates, right at the base of the stage, waiting for his name to be read. It was the end of the first week of school, and the principal was calling them up one by one. This little ceremony was just for the eighth grade; the speech had been short and casual. It didn¡¯t matter. The excitement was so strong, he wondered if the sound of all the racing heartbeats was annoying one of the new teachers. She was an Audial Brute. ¡°Konstantin Roberts!¡± the principal called, and Kon flew out of his seat and up the stairs to shake her hand and take a small wooden case, engraved with his name and the name of the school. I will live so far away they forget my name. At the start of the eighth grade year, Paragon students received their graduation pins. It was a tradition nearly as beloved as the fifth grade trips. The pins were a single logogram made of titanium. It was an unusually intricate and elegant symbol, and the principal¡¯s speech had mostly been defining the Artonan word it represented. ¡°It means an ending and a beginning that arrive at the same time,¡± she¡¯d said. ¡°And so it¡¯s appropriate that we give them to you. You will walk through the doors of this school wearing them one day to announce that a wonderful phase of your life has ended and an equally wonderful one has begun.¡± When I see the powerful ones on television screens, I¡¯ll think, ¡®Oh, there¡¯s Kon electrocuting a serial killer with a lightning spell. Haven¡¯t thought of that guy in years.¡¯ Konstantin bounced off the stage and raced over to reclaim his seat. He opened the box so that he could stare at his pin. They were all doing it. Most of the grade had been called up, and they were now gazing at the pins. Or even touching them lightly with their fingers, like they were checking to make sure they were real. Normally, they¡¯d have gotten them on the first day. Instead, the whole grade had been brought to the auditorium on Monday not for the pin ceremony, but to have a lecture on their general behavior the previous term. It was the most blistering talking-to Lute had ever experienced. The gist of it was that they were expected to behave with maturity this year, dammit, and anyone who couldn¡¯t do that should raise their hand right then and there so that they could be taken back to the primary school building and start over with the five-year-olds. ¡°Carlotta Sullivan!¡± Carlotta headed up to get her pin. In the seat in front of Lute, Vandy was staring down at her own pin. She was wearing light blue earrings shaped like clouds¡ªa subtle announcement that she¡¯d decided on Shaper of Sky for herself over the holidays. He doubted she would change her mind. She wasn¡¯t someone who liked to reverse course. Vandy¡¯s parents were both S-rank superheroes. Quite famous. She probably would be, too. I wonder what it will feel like if I see her one day, decades from now, and she looks almost exactly the same. More beautiful because of Appeal. In a fancy outfit because of her job. But the same, pretty much. Lute forced that thought away from him, as he always did. It was too frightening to look at for long. Assuming true rejuvenation remained a rare skillset among Earth¡¯s top Healers, not all of his classmates would have access to it. But¡­some of them would. The best and most well-connected of them. And he probably wouldn¡¯t. If his mother didn¡¯t, after a lifetime at Aulia¡¯s side, then Lute wouldn¡¯t after a lifetime spent staying as far away from Anesidora as he could. When I get old and sick, they¡¯ll treat me with medicine that only exists thanks to the Contract. Thanks to Avowed. I guess I¡¯ll have to think of them all then. He wondered if he would still feel guilty about the dice when he was an old man. If some of his classmates really did die in one of those ways¡­if someone they loved suffered in one of those ways... Stop thinking about it. Nobody had spoken to him all week, unless it was necessary for class. He hadn¡¯t initiated a conversation with any of them himself. Lute didn¡¯t know how they were thinking about it, but for his part, a show of maturity was just a return to silence. Stay out of their way. Don¡¯t whine anymore about the fact that their world surrounds you without letting you in. If the class assignment doesn¡¯t apply to you, do it quietly anyway. If things go badly again, don¡¯t respond. Yield to it all. Be the doormat. Until you finally get to leave this place forever. It was quieter than last year¡ªnot a single incident that could be called bullying. ¡°Lute Velra!¡± He stood. No laughter. No anything. It was better, wasn¡¯t it? Even if it was so very cold sometimes. He walked up to get his pin, then he sat back down with it. He couldn¡¯t decide if he wanted to open the box or not. Of course they had given him one. Since his mom wouldn¡¯t let him quit or transfer schools, he would graduate one day. Sort of. The high school at Paragon was not a building, but a single hallway that emptied rapidly throughout the year as the people who hadn¡¯t been selected in the later half of ninth grade all got their turn in tenth. Eleventh grade would be one classroom by the end of the year. Just a handful of straggler future low ranks with parents rich enough to keep sending them here. Eleventh was the accelerated year. Six days of instruction instead of five and no holidays for that tiny class of left-behinds, so that they could be ushered out the door directly into university instead of bothering with application and transfer to an Avowed high school for twelfth grade. Graduation for them was sugar cookies with their parents and the faculty in the teacher¡¯s lounge and everyone wishing them luck with the rest of their lives. They would get to wear their pins that day, if they hadn¡¯t already put them on. It sounded immensely depressing. None of these people would be beaming down at their pins if they knew for sure, as Lute did, that they¡¯d only get to wear them once. On sugar cookie day. ¡°Haoyu Zhang-Demir!¡± Haoyu gets called last for everything like this. Because of the Z. He might be the first one who gets to wear the pin, though. He had to be one of the frontrunners for that honor. His parents weren¡¯t just S¡¯s; they were strong ones. The tradition at Paragon was for students to wear the graduation pin starting on the first school day after their selection. Since you weren¡¯t allowed to keep attending the school indefinitely as an Avowed, selection was the beginning of your graduation process. People wore the pins to school for a few weeks or months, while they were trading for their desired class, sorting out their next steps, and applying for Avowed high schools. Then they were gone for good. Into the world of adult superhumans. An ending and a beginning that arrive at the same time. Ninth grade was all about checking your classmates¡¯ lapels every morning, to see if the System fairy had come to bestow gifts on them in the night. But they received the pins in eighth because¡­ ¡°What if it happens for one of us this year!¡± a girl squealed as Lute tried to find his way through a cluster of his fellow eighth graders who were clogging up the hall at the end of the day. ¡°It does sometimes!¡± Paragon was the kind of school where an eighth grader got selected once in a while. Not a U-type, of course. A true pre-fifteen. It had happened to a girl the year before last, and it had been like an emotional bomb went off in the middle school building. The eighth grade had gotten so wild they¡¯d just let them skip classes and fling their enthusiasm back and forth at each other for a day. It tended to be similar when the first ninth grader walked through the doors with their pin each year, but that usually happened around February or March to someone who had turned fifteen earlier in the year. Everyone knew it was coming. After that initial sign that it was finally starting for all of them, the ninth graders settled into a routine of freaking out over their new selectees for the first half hour of a school day and getting back to business. The eighth grade selectee had taken over the school¡¯s collective mind for weeks. ¡°It could be you, Vandy! Or you, Haoyu!¡± Haoyu smiled nervously. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯d want to be picked this year,¡± he told them. ¡°I¡¯d have to leave and head to high school without any of the rest of you. I¡¯d be younger than all the other students in my new school. And I¡¯m almost sure about what I want but not a hundred percent. I¡¯d have to make important decisions in a big hurry. I think it would be really hard.¡± He sounds like he¡¯s seriously thought about early selection, thought Lute. At least he wouldn¡¯t do something horribly arrogant¡­like throwing himself a premature Coming of Age party. I think Hazel jinxed herself with that. She¡¯s going to be a late fifteen instead of a fourteen like she wanted. It would probably happen in the next few weeks. Before her sixteenth birthday. She¡¯d been attached to Aulia like a favored parasite for the entire past two years. Their grandmother had been so busy with her that Jessica had been forging Aulia¡¯s signature on all the gifts and birthday cards, even for the important relatives. And Aulia had forgotten to kiss Miyo on the cheek when her family walked through the door of the mansion for the big Christmas breakfast, because Hazel had made a pronunciation error during one of her ¡°Hold on, let me perform a wordchain,¡± moments. Grandma¡¯s Cheek Kiss was a whole ritual Aulia used like a spell on all of them on Christmas morning. And it was Miyo, who was probably her second most beloved pre-Avowed grandchild. Miyo was almost as good at wordchains as Hazel had been at her age. So was Roman. They spoke Artonan just about as well as she did. They were both learning to read logograms even though a massive memorization project of that scale would probably be way easier for them in the future, after the System had whacked up their Processing a little. They just couldn¡¯t feel special mystical feelings when they chained or when other people did. So they weren¡¯t considered competition for Hazel at all. Lute didn¡¯t care much for either of them, but he¡¯d felt annoyed on their behalf a few times recently. Oh wouldn¡¯t it be crazy, he thought, heading for the train station. He liked riding the train so much more than the helicopter. Train and bus rides took longer, extending the blissful transitional period when he wasn¡¯t in school or at home. Wouldn¡¯t it just be crazy, if Hazel turned out to be an A instead of an S? The idea of her getting a lower assignment than that didn¡¯t cross his mind. Even an A-rank Hazel felt like a flight of fancy he was allowing himself as a response to pin day and his future as a member of the sugar cookie class. She could already do something like magic. The Artonans all the family Chainers worked with were reportedly fascinated by her. She had had the S in the bag since birth. At least she¡¯s not having a party this year. The idea seemed to be that she¡¯d be such an in-demand, important Avowed that there was no point in planning one. She might be off working on another planet on her birthday. On the train, Lute stared at his pin case for a while, then stuffed it back into his backpack. He wouldn¡¯t open it. He¡¯d do it for the first time on the day they tossed him out of Paragon Academy. That felt more appropriate for someone like him. ****** Lute turned fourteen on a Saturday. Instead of a party, he asked Jessica to spend time with him. She¡¯d been so busy dealing with all the things Aulia was letting slide because of Hazel that it felt like they weren¡¯t seeing enough of each other. He¡¯d planned the whole day himself, taking full advantage of his family¡¯s money in a way he rarely had any real desire to do. He booked out an entire movie theater so that it could be just the two of them, and his mom wouldn¡¯t feel like bringing bodyguards. She didn¡¯t usually do it when she traveled alone. He didn¡¯t do it when he traveled alone. But she still wanted the guards every time they were together. He hated it so much for her¡ªthe fact that she couldn¡¯t stand the idea of someone like Declan or Hazel saying things about her where he could hear them. But there was no way for him to say, ¡°It¡¯s fine. They do it even when you¡¯re not around. I¡¯m old enough now. We can just go get burgers wherever we want and ignore them.¡± Not yet. He didn¡¯t know how to put the words so that they wouldn¡¯t upset her even more. Instead, he did this¡ªjust the two of them blowing Velra money and eating their favorite takeout while, on the screen, the lineup of famous musical performances he¡¯d chosen played. Not a single Avowed musician in the entire bunch. ¡°Mom,¡± said Lute, dipping a fry in the remoulade that was suppose to go with the crab cakes, ¡°when I move to Austria, you¡¯ll come with me, won¡¯t you?¡± Jessica chuckled. ¡°You¡¯re still on Austria? I didn¡¯t realize!¡± Lute frowned at her. ¡°But you know I¡¯m planning to go there. As soon as I¡¯m old enough. At twenty-one. I¡¯ll finish uni at a music school if I can. I¡¯m hoping they¡¯ll let me take some of the early curriculum long distance because of my situation, but even if they don¡¯t, it¡¯ll be fine.¡± The details had all been coming together for the past few months. He hadn¡¯t actually discussed the specifics of timing and coursework with her yet because she¡¯d been so busy, but since everyone else his age was career planning right now, Lute was career planning, too. One of the only great things about being born on Anesidora as a non-Avowed was that nearly every country on Earth was a signatory to an agreement that said you could have your pick if and when you made an exit. When he turned twenty-one, Lute could declare himself a citizen of wherever he wanted. His mom¡¯s eyebrows drew down. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it¡­ ¡°Baby, you¡¯re not really serious about that, are you?¡± she said slowly. ¡°You don¡¯t really want to leave?¡± Lute was sure his own mouth was goldfishing. ¡°What?¡± he said at last. ¡°Mom, I¡¯ve wanted it forever. Since Mrs. Yu first told me about¡­¡± He gave her a smile. ¡°I mean¡­you know this.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t want the same thing you wanted when you were six!¡± Yes I can, thought Lute. I do. He was completely confused by the fact that there had been a misunderstanding of this magnitude. Somehow. He couldn¡¯t quite believe there had been because he¡¯d never, ever told her he wanted something different, not since he was too young to swim without floats. ¡°I wanted it when I was seven. And when I was eight. And ten. And twelve. And last year. And now.¡± He was getting a little upset. ¡°Mom, this is¡­it¡¯s practically the main thing about me! I¡¯ve told you. I¡¯ve told Dad. I even told Grandma a couple of times. You could ask anyone in my entire class at school and they would tell you. It¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°All right! All right,¡± said Jessica, hastily. ¡°I understand. Don¡¯t¡­don¡¯t get upset on your birthday. We¡¯ll talk about this.¡± There¡¯s nothing to talk about, thought Lute. The words almost popped out of his mouth, but he clamped down on them. The thing was, he did want to talk about it. Really seriously. With her. An adult conversation. Because it was very important to him that she come with him and get away from this place where she picked up trash her sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews dropped. Where she was ashamed for people to say things Lute might hear. Where she had to grow older, watching her own relatives grow younger. Hazel had rubbed Lute¡¯s face in a monstrous truth a couple of years ago. Not a monstrous lie. Lute hadn¡¯t been able to ask Jessica about something so awful, but he¡¯d started to pay attention. He¡¯d been unable not to. Everyone had their calendar month for it¡ªthe rejuve. Even Keiko, who acted like being part of the family was beneath her while she was walking around with their signature class by her own choice, had been penciled in for a few years from now. Keiko was younger than Jessica. Cady was on the list, and she was a C-rank Brute who wasn¡¯t even blood related to Aulia. Mom, thought Lute, staring blankly at the conductor on the towering screen. Mom, you can¡¯t keep cleaning up after someone who doesn¡¯t think you¡¯re worthy of it. The big gift. Most people didn¡¯t get everlasting youth. Not even most Avowed. But Aulia was very good at getting her hands on it. She¡¯d locked one of the S-Healers into a contract when they were both, like, thirty. An eternity ago. That dumbass had been taking rejuve talents ever since, and he belonged to her. And what drops of eternal youth couldn¡¯t be squeezed out of him, she extracted from other Healers with money, favors, and backroom deals. It was one of those things that enraged people¡­but only because they wanted to do the same themselves. Life was life, not a luxury good. How could you reasonably blame anyone for buying themselves more years to breathe? But Lute could blame Aulia. He found it very easy. Because Aulia wasn¡¯t just buying years for herself, she was choosing who else in the family got them. And it looked like she was choosing everyone except for his mom. This whole country was just¡­not for them. There was a world out there for them. They needed to get there. It might still be hard for Jessica in the real world, but there, at least, their name wouldn¡¯t add to their troubles. Lute would even have taken his father with them, if Cyril was the kind of person who¡¯d be interested. He wasn¡¯t. He¡¯d literally never had a job and never wanted one. He wouldn¡¯t do well in an environment that didn¡¯t allow him to loaf endlessly. Lute and Jessica could both get jobs. He wanted a job. How cool would it be to play his harp for people who appreciated it? For money? Even if he didn¡¯t start out formally, he¡¯d always wanted to try busking. Let¡¯s do it, Mom, he thought. He couldn¡¯t even hear the music playing on the theater screen. Let¡¯s get out of here. Let¡¯s leave. If he was going to grow old, if he had a single century ahead of him instead of who knew how many, then Lute Velra wanted to spend it with other ordinary humans beside him. Not here, on this island, with millions of Avowed crushing him and his dreams beneath their feet. ¡°I want,¡± he said, as they left the theater that evening in his grandmother¡¯s Bentley, ¡°to have a serious talk about this.¡± ¡°About what?¡± Jessica asked. ¡°Mom, I¡¯m not going to work for the family one day. Like¡ª¡± Like some kind of servant instead of a relative. ¡°Like a lot of Velras do. I am going to be a musician. I¡¯m going to travel the world. I won¡¯t live here. I really, really want¡­no, I need¡­for you to come with me. I think you should. We should. It¡¯ll be amazing.¡± ¡°I understand,¡± Jessica said, paying an enormous amount of attention to the contents of her purse. ¡°I see that you feel that way. But you¡¯re only fourteen, Lute. Let¡¯s wait and see how you feel in a couple of years. Let¡¯s wait and see what happens.¡± Why won¡¯t she talk about this with me? Why didn¡¯t she believe me every other time I¡¯ve told her about this? Has she even been listening to me at all? ¡°Mom, I love you,¡± said Lute. ¡°Oh baby,¡± she said, leaning over in the sea to kiss him on the nose. ¡°I love you, too. More than anything. I¡¯m sorry if I upset you on your birthday.¡± ****** A few weeks later, Hazel turned sixteen. Her mood was so dark it eclipsed the mansion. She was so mad it went from funny to scary then all the way back to funny again. Lute had basically been living with her for the past year and a half. She and Aulia being inseparable and Jessica being attached to his grandmother made that unavoidable. But they¡¯d been on tracks that didn¡¯t intersect for a while. She was so busy preparing for her ascension, so certain it would be any day, that she really only had time to bother him if they happened to run into each other by accident. If Lute chose to eat breakfast on the way to school and hide in his room for supper, he could usually go days without hearing her opinion on anything. Her parents, who came along with her, were harder to hide from. But Cousin Hugh and Cady treated him like he didn¡¯t exist even if they were standing three feet away from him, so that was fine. That evening, Hazel was sitting in the White Parlor, staring at an arrangement of lilies like she was trying to wilt them with her aura. Cady, who had been trying to cheer her up all day, said, ¡°Oh look, Hazel! It¡¯s 8:04 PM! This is the exact minute you were born!¡± Hazel stood up and rounded on her mother. She shouted something in Artonan. Lute was sitting quietly in a corner social nook, eating one of the gourmet grilled cheeses, with light butter, that Chef Kabir had been making periodically since noon. Just in case Hazel decided that she couldn¡¯t live on indignation alone. This one was brie, arugula, and apple. Seasoned with schadenfreude. It¡¯s delicious. He looked down at his phone. He¡¯d had it opened to an Artonan translation app for the past hour, since Hugh and Hazel were both speaking the language like they thought not doing it would add to the curse that was her sixteenth birthday. <> She has lost her marbles. Cady was a real social climber, and Hazel was her ladder; but she didn¡¯t hate her daughter. She¡¯d been trying to talk Hazel into having some people over or going out for the night so that she wouldn¡¯t just sit here and stew. <> Hazel glared across the room at Lute, her chest heaving under her sweater vest. She¡¯d decided prep was the look to have recently. All of her socks were knee highs, all of her skirts were pleated, and she was never without something argyle. Lute did not laugh around his mouthful of brie. But he did smile. ¡°I¡¯m just doing my homework in here.¡± He gestured at the notebook he¡¯d been doodling in with his latest fountain pen. ¡°Quietly. Not bothering anyone.¡± I should say Happy Birthday, he thought, staring at her red face. Or better yet, play it for her on the piano like she demanded that time. Right before she read all those jokes to me. Before he could decide if that was cruelty or justice, Hazel picked up a wooden figurine from its place of honor on the coffee table. She flung it. Lute couldn¡¯t even track the motion. There was a whistling sound and then a crash as it impacted the stone wall beside the fireplace. Splinters flew. Cady screamed. Hugh was off the sofa in an instant and in front of Hazel¡­a little too late to shield her from the splinters, if that was his intent. ¡°What the hell,¡± hissed Lute, his heart racing. Hugh was swearing too. ¡°How many strength chains did you stack?¡± he shouted at his daughter. ¡°Which ones?!¡± ¡°Just a few!¡± Hazel screamed back. ¡°You can¡¯t act like that when you¡¯re empowered!¡± her father said. ¡°If you¡¯d thrown that at your cousin, you could end up in prison!¡± Uh¡­ thought Lute. If she¡¯d thrown that at me, I would be dead. He felt like that was the more dramatic point to make, but he wasn¡¯t about to do it himself. He decided to vacate the room as Aulia swept in to see what the crash was. Her blonde hair was in a clip, and she had a couple of crumbs from her own grilled cheese dinner on the front of her silk dressing gown. She looked from Hazel to the pile of splinters on the hearth. ¡°That was one of the first gifts I ever received from one of my friends on Artona I,¡± she said mildly. Her eyes flicked up to meet Hazel¡¯s face. ¡°I hope you don¡¯t expect me to defray the cost of all those chains you¡¯ve piled on yourself as a birthday present this year. You¡¯re in for a bad time paying them back.¡± Oh shit, thought Lute, pausing on his journey up the staircase. She might actually be mad. At Hazel. ¡°You will be chosen any day now, dear,¡± said Aulia. ¡°I understand you¡¯re frustrated, but now is the time for you to act more like one of the leading lights of this family. Not less. Come with me to my office. We¡¯ll talk about the future.¡± Then, she glanced up the stairs toward Lute. ¡°Would you grab a dustpan or vacuum? We don¡¯t want people stepping on splinters.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± he said. ¡°Sure.¡± He was standing in the storage room where the cleaning supplies were kept before he even realized what he¡¯d agreed to. It was only because he really wasn¡¯t busy. It was only because Aulia had brought up the danger of splinters, and he¡¯d thought, Right, that needs doing. Don¡¯t want anyone to hurt themselves. The main housekeeper was off for the night. If a mess was made, it needed cleaning up. It hadn¡¯t seemed weird until just now. Lute grabbed a broom and dustpan, and he went back to the parlor and swept up every last splinter. He was afraid that if he didn¡¯t, his mother would come down from her shower and clean it up herself. He never made a single complaint about it to anyone. He wasn¡¯t even very mad about it, considering how closely connected to all of his sorest points it was. But as he threw Hazel¡¯s mess into the kitchen trashcan, he felt what he could only describe as the cleanest break in the world happening inside him. Goodbye, Anesidora, he thought as he took one of the last grilled cheeses out of the oven they¡¯d been put in to stay warm. Roasted red pepper and basil on homemade whole wheat. I think I loved you a little still, right up until this moment. It¡¯s all gone now. You can¡¯t hurt me anymore. And every last magical person, place, and thing here can kiss my human ass. ****** Cousin Roman got selected two weeks later. Seconds after it happened, he booked a car to come to the mansion. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and he arrived just as Lute was walking up the driveway on his way home from school. The car stopped, and Roman scrambled out of the backseat, smiling so widely that his eyes almost disappeared. His dark brown hair was tangled. He ran toward Lute, who stopped walking in surprise. He couldn¡¯t actually recall any of his non-adult cousins ever greeting him with such obvious delight. ¡°Lute!¡± he said breathlessly. ¡°Lute! I got it!¡± Got what? Lute thought. ¡°The S!!¡± Roman said in a strangely jubilant sounding hiss. ¡°I got S. Just now. I drove straight here. I mean¡­I rode straight here. In this car! With an S.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± said Lute. ¡°That¡¯s great. Congrats.¡± His brain, not being tuned in to The Chainer Channel 24/7 like everybody else¡¯s, hadn¡¯t quite caught up with the significance of what his cousin saying. ¡°Lute, I¡¯m eight months younger than her!¡± Oh, thought Lute. Ohhhhhh. ¡°I¡¯m not even fifteen and a half yet! They¡¯re going to have to give it to me.¡± Lute couldn¡¯t process it all as fast as Roman clearly expected him to, but, yeah, that sounded like a definite possibility, didn¡¯t it? The S had been held for the past few years. Hazel had hit sixteen. She was¡­ Well, Lute hadn¡¯t seriously considered this as much as he should have because she was Hazel and she was the most special of the special ones, but if they were going to be logical about this, then¡­ Wait a second. She actually isn¡¯t that likely to get S anymore. She isn¡¯t likely to get S at all. She¡¯s not even that likely to get A. It could still happen. Sometimes the System picked you late. But if you were betting the odds, you wouldn¡¯t bet on Hazel over Roman today, would you? Not with such a big age gap. Not with him being so devoted to Aulia and Chainer himself. Surprise shot through Lute. ¡°They¡¯re going to give you the S.¡± Roman held a hand to his mouth. ¡°I could¡¯ve been a B. I was bracing for it. I expected A, but I told myself B could happen. And then¡­it¡¯s this! And Miyo can take an A!¡± He looked at the car. ¡°I can¡¯t even get back in. It¡¯s too slow. You take it. I have to run!¡± He shoved Lute toward the car like he expected him to ride a few meters down the driveway in it, and then he sprinted toward the mansion. Lute smiled. He could enjoy things like this now that whatever it was that tied a person to the place of their birth had completely ruptured for him. Ever since Hazel¡¯s birthday, life here was like a very realistic movie he was watching. Anesidora, the Velras, and his classmates flowed past him. Occasionally they brushed against him. But his skin was diamond-hard, and nothing broke through anymore. He liked it. Nothing wounded him. It was like he¡¯d found easy mode for the first time ever. He thought it might actually be making him a better person. The other day he¡¯d held the door open for Carlotta to carry a project into the classroom because the disdainful looks she shot him just didn¡¯t bother him anymore. Good for Roman, thought Lute. What an interesting part of the Anesidora movie this is. He hurried after his cousin to see what would unfold. He expected it all to be resolved in a single afternoon. Roman was eight months younger than Hazel. He was an S. He was thoroughly accomplished and prepared. Lute would have to look up some numbers to see how the high-rank parentage played into it, but if they were going just by age, Hazel was now much more likely to be a C than any other rank. He was betting the numbers were heavily in favor of Roman. He seemed so sure, and the cousins didn¡¯t slouch on knowing this kind of thing. The next three months were ludicrous. Family members divided into camps. There were meetings of the high ranks. Aulia, Hazel¡¯s parents, and her grandparents defended her right to the Chainer S. Aunt Hikari stepping in on Hazel¡¯s behalf almost certainly had more to do with her trying to save the S in case her daughter Miyo needed it than anything else. Aulia was busy putting out fires within the family, so Jessica was busy helping her. Lute watched it all fall apart, feeling untouched. Though he was surprised that his grandmother really would burn down a success story like Roman, even for the sake of Hazel. One morning before dawn, he woke up to the sound of Roman screaming his head off about superstitious bullshit ruining his life, and the next day, Aulia moved their little household to Libra and had it set sail. Lute had to start going to school by helicopter again. But what did that matter? The important thing was that teenagers who were about to get Rabbit instead of Chainer couldn¡¯t show up at five AM to condemn Aulia if she was a mile offshore. ****** ****** Nilama Paragon Academy June 20, 2039 ****** ****** Lexi and Kon had their heads together beside Kon¡¯s locker when Lute made it to school. Lexi sounded annoyed with his little brother again. They¡¯d always been close. Lute didn¡¯t know why they were arguing a bit lately, and he saw no reason to pry. Kon was still perky. With most people. And he was in the middle of one of those growth spurts that seemed to land on the other boys in their grade every couple of months. Lute suspected some of them were shooting up centimeters as they slept in their beds at night. His own short stature was an annoyance but not the emotional crisis that his father seemed to think it should be. That was probably because he¡¯d always had plenty of other difficult things to agonize over. If he¡¯d had more Artonan-resembling features, like his mother, he was sure it would have been a larger issue. As it was, he had round cheeks and long lashes that made him look like a primary schooler who¡¯d gotten lost in a pile of big kids. Shopping for interesting clothes to wear when he wasn¡¯t in his uniform was a pain in the ass. But other than that¡­ He was still growing, and the baby face would disappear soon enough. Did it really matter what he looked like between now and when his real life started at twenty-one? Boy, I like not caring. It¡¯s so much easier. His locker was near Kon¡¯s this year, too, so he had to slip past the brothers to reach it. ¡°Hey, Lute.¡± ¡°Hey, Lexi,¡± said Lute. His eyes checked the ninth grader¡¯s lapel. Even if Anesidora had become a movie recently, he couldn¡¯t help doing things like that. They¡¯d been baked into who he was for too long. Plus, Lexi was still talking to Lute when they met in the halls, and Lute didn¡¯t mind that at all. The guy worked to be good at ballet even though nobody else in his age group was taking it seriously anymore, unless they wanted to be a dancer for the rest of their lives. Lute felt like they had an artistic compatibility or something, though he¡¯d refrained from ever saying it out loud in case Lexi disappointed him by disagreeing. And he¡¯s doing all that hero prep stuff with Kon on top of it. Lexi was hitting the prime time for his selection right now, and when he wore his pin, Lute planned to be sincere in his congratulations. ¡°Do you know what the rates are going to be for Meister trades for the next few months?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°If they¡¯re going up or down? I know it¡¯s an out-of-the-blue business question, but if you happened to have heard anything¡­¡± Kon was giving his brother an uncomfortable look. ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± said Lute. ¡°I¡¯m not sure if Uncle Corin even knows things like that or if he just pretends to have his finger on the pulse of the class trading business. The System spits out what it spits out, and he just pays people to hold good stuff for bargaining¡­I can ask.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to.¡± ¡°I¡¯m living in the cabin next to his. He¡¯s not there a lot, but it¡¯s no trouble.¡± Roman was a Rabbit now, but they were still offshore. Lute wondered if Aulia was hiding from him out of guilt. He wondered if she even had the capacity to feel guilt. Lexi nodded. ¡°Thanks. I was in a big swap group. Some of them have gotten selected earlier than they expected and dropped out. If I¡¯m a few months late¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯ll ask,¡± said Lute. The swap groups always left a ton of people with short straws, even if everyone was sticking to their agreements. Lute had the impression that the Roberts family was right at the edge of being able to give their kids the best education and the classes they wanted. As long as the System didn¡¯t throw a wrench in the works by giving them something awful to trade out of. Lexi headed off to join his friends. A couple of them were wearing their pins already. Kon stared at Lute. ¡°Will you really ask your uncle or are you just saying that?¡± ¡°Why would I lie? I like your brother,¡± said Lute. ¡°He¡¯s always been nice to me. I¡¯ll annoy Corin for him.¡± ¡°Most of us were nice to you. I¡¯ve never been anything but nice to you.¡± Lute felt a crack, just the smallest chink, in his diamond skin. Careful now, he thought. Careful. ¡°I guess,¡± Lute said slowly, ¡°that I don¡¯t mean nice. I mean that your brother acts like he sees me every now and then.¡± And you never have. ¡°I thought he¡¯d hate you,¡± said Kon. ¡°When I told him about the dice. It seemed like the kind of thing that would make him hate you. He gets mad about stuff like that¡­but you¡¯re right. He still gets along with you for some reason.¡± He slammed his locker door. ¡°Anyway, thanks for asking for him. He¡¯s freaking out about his selection day.¡± Lute went to class. Conversation with a Mandarin speaker in one of the language exchange booths. Calculus 1. Chemistry. Does anyone actually need to memorize the half-life of actinium? When is this going to be useful? When is this going to be useful in a situation where we don¡¯t have a computer handy to look up the answer? He was in the second row from the back, trying to draw a picture of what Angela Aubergine would look like if she were a girl with that name. When I color it in I¡¯ll give her purple hair obviously¡­does that make her look too Artonan? Maybe a purple t-shirt? His whole body spasmed. His pen dropped from his hand and thumped onto the notebook. Lute froze in his seat. What was that? Some kind of¡­tiny seizure? Was he hurt? I think I feel fine. He didn¡¯t reach for his pen, though. Is it going to happen ag¡ª ¡°Hello, Lute,¡± a voice whispered in his ear. ¡°In 1963, the peoples of Earth accepted an infusion of magic and technology, as well as a promise of future protection, as part of an agreement with the Artonan Triplanetary Government. In doing so, Earth became an Artonan resource world, with all the accompanying rights, privileges, and responsibilities afforded by that designation.¡± Oh, though Lute. Oh, those assholes are at it again. He guessed a few months of quiet cold-shouldering from his classmates was more than he should¡¯ve expected. This was the System¡¯s selection speech. Everyone knew it verbatim. He would not react. Not another flinch. He picked up his pen calmly and went back to drawing Angela. ¡°As part of this alliance,¡± the voice continued quietly, ¡°Earth is required to deliver a number of suitable individuals into contractual servitude. You have been selected for this honor. You may refuse to sign your planet¡¯s version of the Interdimensional Warriors Contract out of personal principle, and your objection will be taken into consideration hereafter. Ultimately, however, you may not refuse to serve.¡± I wonder which of them it is. Declan, Carlotta¡­someone else finally retaliating for me shoving the scariest parts of their future in their face? ¡°Upon signing, you will become one of your planet¡¯s Avowed.¡± They were probably using one of those devices that magically directed sound into a single person¡¯s ear. There were toy versions, but this was extremely realistic. Someone who¡¯d borrowed it from a parent maybe? ¡°As a signing bonus, you will receive an additional gift. Refusal to sign will result in the loss of this bonus.¡± This is so savage of them, thought Lute. Before I was made of diamond, it might have broken me. ¡°Upon becoming one of the Avowed, you will be subject to summons, for emergency and non-emergency purposes, by members of the Artonan wizarding classes. By Artonan law, all Avowed are justly rewarded for any service rendered. ¡°Your rank has been determined. Your class has been randomly assigned based on the Triplanetary Government¡¯s current requests. You have ninety Earth days to sign the Contract of your own free will. During that time, you may trade your class with equivalently ranked selectees from your own planet. Once affixed, your class assignment is immutable.¡± Anesidora flows past me. ¡°Welcome, Lute. And thank you for your future service.¡± None of this can really touch me. It was over now. That was all there should be of the speech. Lute was fine. He would be fine with things like this until he left this¡ª A single point of gold light appeared, at the center of his vision, and then it oozed outward. It turned out he was not made of diamond after all. He was something much more fragile than that. Because words appeared, and they pierced right through him and everything he thought about himself: Pre-affixed Selectee: Lute Stellan Velra Divergence Rank: S Assigned Class: Wright * ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN: The Chainer, V ¡°Lute? Lute, are you all right? LUTE VELRA.¡± Lute realized he was in class. He was standing up at his desk. His pen was clenched in his hand. He was breathing hard. Every face was looking at him in confusion. The chemistry teacher, Mrs. Sharma, had a frown line between her brows as she examined him. ¡°I¡­¡± said Lute. ¡°Are you all right?¡± she asked again. ¡°I feel sick,¡± he blurted. ¡°I need to leave. My head hurts. And my stomach.¡± Should he say that more things hurt? He really needed to¡­to do something. Move. Get out of here. Think. Something wasn¡¯t right. Maybe I really am sick? Maybe I¡¯ve gone crazy? Mrs. Sharma¡¯s first name was Saanvi. It was floating on a lighted name tag over her shoulder. ¡°Okay,¡± said the teacher, her voice businesslike now that the problem had been identified. ¡°Tuyet, walk with Lute to the nurse¡¯s office. I¡¯ll let them know you¡¯re coming. Lute, go ahead and take your backpack in case they send you home.¡± Lute¡¯s selection notice was still floating in front of his eyes. His hand moved toward it then stopped. If I¡­if I swipe something out of the air in front of them, they¡¯ll all know what that means. Adults do that. Avowed adults. He pretended like he was sweeping his hair away from his forehead instead. He was sure he walked to the nurse¡¯s office beside Tuyet after that, but it was a blank. He might as well have been teleported there for all he could remember of the trip. ¡°You do look like you¡¯re not feeling too well.¡± The nurse was pointing a thermometer at his head. ¡°But you haven¡¯t got a fever. You say it¡¯s a head, stomach, and backache?¡± Did I add backache in there too? ¡°I feel sick,¡± Lute repeated. ¡°I think I need to lie down.¡± ¡°If you really think you might be sick, we¡¯ll take you to a Healer and have them use Diagnosis on you. Just to be on the safe side. How does that sound?¡± Lute was gradually regaining his senses at that point. His primary concern now was time. Everything was blowing up inside him. He didn¡¯t know anything about anything anymore. If he ran through the school screaming, ¡°I¡¯m either Avowed or insane!¡± things would start blowing up outside him, too. He had to figure out the internal explosions before setting off the external ones because¡­a thousand reasons. They were all crowding together in his head so that he couldn¡¯t quite make out any of them, but he knew they were there and they were massive. He needed time. What he would like was to ride the train or the bus around and around for the next year, never stopping, until he¡¯d finally calmed down. That wasn¡¯t going to happen. He couldn¡¯t even leave campus until the end of the day. This was a family neighborhood. One of the watchers on duty would pick up the wandering student and put it back in the school where it belonged. The nurse leaned toward him. ¡°Lute,¡± she said in an even voice, ¡°are you really sick? Or are you having trouble with your classmates again?¡± Lute¡¯s troubles with his classmates were so irrelevant at that moment that he didn¡¯t even edit his answer. ¡°Most of them think they never did anything to hurt me all these years, and then I repaid them by making fun of Avowed being killed. So now they¡¯re consciously shunning me instead of accidentally doing it. But the bullies have switched to shunning, too, so that they fit in with the crowd. It¡¯s much better.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± said the nurse. ¡°You can do your homework in here for the afternoon. I¡¯m only letting you because you¡¯ve never done this before. Don¡¯t make a habit of it.¡± If Lute had known the nurse had a soft spot like this, he would absolutely have made a habit of feigning illness last year. He sat quietly in a chair, pretending to read on his tablet. Instead, he was staring at his interface. It took almost an hour before he really started to accept the fact that this was not some trick or mental break. Nobody had managed to stick a pair of high tech contact lenses in his eyes. This was the System interface. And it was his. Whether he wanted it or not. What has happened? thought Lute. I¡¯m Quadruple Decimal. I¡¯m not one of them. I don¡¯t get magic. This text floating in front of him¡ªthat he still wasn¡¯t swiping away because touching the interface felt like too much of a commitment¡ªsaid he did. It said he was ninety days, or one button press, away from being a Wright. A Wright? I mean¡­Wrights exist. They have Wright jobs making Wrightwork here on Anesidora. Magic stuff. Fireworks, guns, equipment, infrastructure, toys, bombs. Lots of people really want to be Wrights. He could call to mind the names and faces of every person he knew who¡¯d ever gone through a Wright phase and all those who were currently close to deciding on the class for real. This is kinda weird. Like someone had just walked up to him in the street and said, ¡°Will you come over to my house in a few months to fix the dishwasher?¡± ¡°Oh no, you must have mistaken me for someone else. I¡¯m not a dishwasher repairman.¡± ¡°You will be then. And every day after that. See you in September.¡± He kept working on the word ¡®Wright¡¯ like it needed deciphering. It didn¡¯t belong to him. He was not a Wright. He was practicing and preparing for the day when he became a professional harpist. That was what was keeping him sane while he waited to get away from the Avowed. Get away from the Avowed? I¡¯m going to be an Avowed. The thought kept hitting him like a blow to the gut and then fading. Lute wondered if the substance of his being was just too stubborn to let something so antithetical stick for more than a few seconds. I¡¯ve got to try to let it in. Get a grip on it. I can¡¯t just wander around with these words in front of my eyes for three months until the big thing happens to me. I¡¯ve¡­I¡¯ve had the lessons with everyone else. I¡¯ve watched them plan for selection for years. This was supposed to be go-time. Right? You get picked. You trade for the class you¡¯ve been planning on. Go to meetings with grown-ups who have it before you finalize everything. Professional career coaches. Make sure you¡¯re not screwing yourself up forever. Applications. Affixation. Acceptance letters come. High school. Wait, thought Lute. Waitwaitwait. No. I don¡¯t want to do any of those things. Could he hide it? Globies hid it sometimes. Unregistereds. Criminals. He could do that! And then it would be like it hadn¡¯t happened. You idiot, Lute. You¡¯re Anesidoran. There¡¯s no benefit at all in your case. For a human born here, getting your citizenship transferred to another country was so easy. It was one of the things he¡¯d been looking forward to ever since the class trips. At twenty-one, you just filled out some forms and had an interview with a Sway verifier, who would confirm for everyone that even though you¡¯d been born in superhuman territory you weren¡¯t one yourself. And then you could make your home anywhere on Earth. Lute wouldn¡¯t be able to pass that exit interview anymore. He was stuck here. That hit him and faded as well. He was still absorbing facts, still so busy trying to understand what was going on that he wasn¡¯t feeling a lot other than shock and confusion. And then one of his thoughts came through a little louder than all the others. So it¡¯s Wright. And it¡¯s an S. That¡¯s good. All Avowed want to be S-ranks because that¡¯s the best¡­one¡­ An S-rank? Lute stared so hard at his new rank that it actually expanded. He¡¯d somehow enlarged the image mentally by overfocusing. Now there was a giant semi-transparent, golden letter S blotting out most of the nurse¡¯s office. ¡°I¡¯m fourteen years old.¡± The nurse looked over from her desk. ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± ¡°Sorry!¡± Lute shook his head. ¡°Just thinking out loud.¡± He clamped his mouth shut. The thought in his head was loud enough that it might as well have been echoing through the room anyway. I¡¯m fourteen. He made sure the nurse had her back turned, then he hastily swiped the giant S away so that he could see clearly. He pulled up a calendar on his tablet. I am fourteen years, one hundred forty-nine days old. I¡¯m a pre-fifteen S-rank. Very pre-fifteen. Not even fourteen and a half. The System didn¡¯t tell people why it chose them when it did. It didn¡¯t explain its outliers. ¡°It has plans within plans,¡± some wannabe sages said. ¡°And we can only glimpse a few of them.¡± But if you shoved the small number of Uniques into a box and tucked them off to the side to be all batty, secretive, and potentially hyperbolic away from the ordinary Avowed¡­one of the System¡¯s more obvious plans or directives was to pick powerful people younger. If you looked at the birthdays of every registered Avowed, it was all perfectly clear. The S¡¯s and A¡¯s at fifteen with a few B¡¯s for good measure. Then a giant pile of mid-ranks with some highs and lows mixed in at sixteen. Then the D¡¯s and F¡¯s with some mid-rank stragglers along for the ride at seventeen. It was almost as bizarre for an S to be picked at seventeen as it was for an F to be chosen at fifteen. And far more bizarre than either of those¡­ Unless this is one of those plans within plans, thought Lute, it implies I¡¯m likely to be powerful. Not everyone started out exactly the same, even if the System slapped them with the same letter. If he remembered correctly, that fourteen-year-old S who¡¯d gone to school here a couple of years ago was supposed to have gotten more foundation points than normal for a beginner S of her class. A few less stats, a few more, an additional spell impression or two, a special offer when you started to affix¡ªthe System seemed to play around with those things. So Lute, at fourteen, might not be just an S. He might be an S that got something extra on top of it. None of the faculty are S ranks, thought Lute, still gazing at the calendar on his tablet. There¡¯s one in ninth grade right now, about to graduate. Three more in tenth. If Lute Velra agreed to the Contract right this second, took Wright, and affixed¡­he thought he might walk out of the nurses¡¯s office as the most powerful person in the entire school. ****** ¡°Why are you sitting on your hands?¡± asked the nurse. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be doing schoolwork.¡± ¡®They were cold,¡± said Lute. More like they were three seconds away from pushing buttons just to see how much crazier the day could get. I do not want to be a Wright. I don¡¯t think. They¡¯re definitely in the middle of the pack for me, not at the top, right? As far as Avowed classes I like go. He hadn¡¯t had a favorite class since he was on the playground playing superheroes. It would have been like having a favorite sports car out of a lineup of them covered in plates that said NOT4LUTE. I¡¯m not sure I like any of them. His mind went straight to the instrument Meisters then ditched them. They weren¡¯t really subclasses for high ranks. More C¡¯s and sub-C¡¯s. The couple of S-rank ones he¡¯d heard of had instruments that doubled as sonic weapons. Even if one of those rarities cropped up, that wasn¡¯t what he wanted. Musical instruments were for creation. Not destruction. Shaper. Shapers were extremely useful, and they could be artists. Shaping performances set to song were popular and exciting. All the elements were good. But Water¡¯s the prettiest. He almost groaned out loud at himself. His taste in magic hadn¡¯t changed since he was four. Maybe because that was when he¡¯d last truly thought he could have it. It¡¯s not my fault I haven¡¯t prepared at all! I wasn¡¯t supposed to have magic. Lute¡¯s brow furrowed. Uh¡­so why do I? This question was urgent enough to temporarily knock the ten thousand others he had away from the single braincell that was still capable of normal function. I¡¯m the kid of two regular people. I¡¯m supposed to be a regular person, too. There wasn¡¯t a lot of data on children with two sets of superhuman grandparents and a pair of plain human parents, but it wasn¡¯t like he was the one and only. There were others. And there were those who had gotten the heck off of Anesidora, like Lute had planned to, and married regular people. All evidence pointed to whiffs being garden variety human beings that the System had no interest in playing with. Garden variety human beings didn¡¯t make superhumans very often. Every globie was a little statistical miracle. I could be a miracle. But before he started introducing himself as Lute Velra¡ª first ever fourteen-year-old S-rank born of non-Avowed parents on Anesidora, he had to consider the much more likely reason. If I¡¯m not the biggest miracle ever, then at least one of my parents¡­isn¡¯t. He realized his lip was trembling and he bit it, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. That¡¯s not¡­don¡¯t be a baby about it, all right? It¡¯s not a big deal. It was a huge deal. Your parents are even divorced. Like a lot of peoples¡¯. You didn¡¯t think they had some beautiful connection. Dad was probably into Mom because he¡¯s insecure about his own height and not being Avowed and the family¡¯s rich. And Mom liked Dad for¡­ Actually, his mother had never admitted to liking anything specific about Cyril. But Lute assumed it might have been an insecurity thing with her, too. She¡¯d never dated someone else since the divorce. If I¡¯m being less of a doubter, they might¡¯ve just had the one huge thing in common and thought it would keep them loving each other forever. It was hard being the only non-Avowed in every room. Lute knew. If another kid like him had walked into the school, he would have been completely fascinated by them even if everyone else thought they were the most blah person on the planet. I¡¯m pitiful. And whether they loved each other or not¡­ There was a lie somewhere. He was either a miracle or a lie, and he just couldn¡¯t bring himself to seriously believe the first one. They¡¯re my parents. Mundane Explanation: Jessica had cheated on Cyril with an Avowed and never told. How could she? Was it a horrible mistake? Is she too embarrassed to admit to it even though it¡¯s really important information for me to have? Anesidoran Soap Opera Explanation: They had been in a polyamorous relationship, Artonan style, with a powerful S-rank who had betrayed them. They¡¯d hated the asshole so much, they¡¯d agreed never to mention him to Lute. That would require them to be way different people than I think they are, but since something way different is going on anyway, can I really rule it out? He probably could, but he liked this scenario. It would mean his parents were both in on it together and they both knew Lute might have been fathered by the S-rank betrayer, and when his selection came out his Dad wouldn¡¯t¡­ He won¡¯t stop being my Dad. He wouldn¡¯t. Right? Superhuman Breeding Explanation 1: One or both of his parents were like Hazel¡¯s. They had wanted a baby stronger than they could make themselves and they¡¯d¡­done something to make that happen. With or without the other person¡¯s knowledge. Superhuman Breeding Explanation 2: Lute could be¡ª I don¡¯t care! He shook his head again. Most of these are horrible. They¡¯re not horrible people! They¡¯re not perfect, but they¡¯re my parents. I don¡¯t want other ones! Jessica, even when she was busy, was Lute¡¯s best friend in the entire world. They were a team in a family full of crazy Avowed. They took care of each other. Cyril, even though he was kind of bitter and a bum, was Lute¡¯s second best friend. They still saw each other every other weekend. Sometimes more if there was a heavy cousin population wherever Lute was living. They played video games together, badmouthed Cyril¡¯s awful parents and most of the Velra family members, and went for walks around the neighborhood where he lived in the evenings. These were the people who loved Lute. And whom he loved. These two. If he lost them, he would be alone. So I won¡¯t lose them. Hugh and Cady are Hazel¡¯s parents. Mom and Dad are mine. And screw everyone who¡¯s going to say otherwise! There. That was better. Now he could pay attention to the really important stuff, which was literally everything that was happening right now. Okay. One good thing. If I can¡¯t leave Anesidora without smuggling myself away on a boat, then I just¡­oh god I¡¯m trapped here!¡­no. Focus, Lute. If I can¡¯t leave Anesidora then I won¡¯t have to convince Mom and Dad to come with me. We¡¯ll all be together for sure. What¡¯s another good thing? He was an S. He was having some trouble wrapping his mind around it, but if it was going in a column it had to be the ¡°pro¡± one, didn¡¯t it? Another good thing? There was something he had known he couldn¡¯t have. And now he probably could. I might not have to die. No matter how logical and mature he had tried to be about it since Hazel had dropped the bomb on him, the normal human lifespan had been a horribly painful pill to force down after a childhood spent in an environment that had made him assume it would be otherwise. The fact that he and his mother weren¡¯t on the family¡¯s re-youthening plan had put him into something like a fugue state at twelve, and he¡¯d wandered through F-city with sticky toffee puddings for who knew how long before he came out of it. He was fourteen now. Death was still a long way off, so he didn¡¯t have too much trouble shoving it down. Only it came back sometimes, and when it did, it came back with a vengeance. It was there whenever some relative pranced through the house ten years younger than they had been the month before. And he ground his teeth against it whenever he noticed that his mom, always by Aulia¡¯s side, was starting to look more and more like she could be Aulia¡¯s mother instead of her daughter. He¡¯d told himself it was all right. He was extraordinarily privileged in so many other ways. It was true, he¡¯d reminded himself, that Avowed got magic and they got things regular people didn¡¯t. But they also paid a price for it other people didn¡¯t have to. Lute could remember the sound of dice rattling against each other as he stuffed them one by one into the bags. I might not have to die¡­of old age, he corrected himself. He spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about his parents, the Velras, the dice, the cost of things. Leaving the nurse¡¯s office that day, he was exhausted, as if he¡¯d run for hours instead of sitting on his hands having thoughts. At the bottom of the building steps, he spotted Haoyu. He had one foot on a skateboard and was putting on his helmet. Haoyu didn¡¯t want to be chosen this year, thought Lute. He said he wasn¡¯t ready. And he¡¯s had ages to get ready. I¡¯m doomed. ¡°Do you feel better, Lute?¡± Lute had stared for too long, and now Haoyu was looking at him. ¡°I feel completely normal,¡± said Lute quickly. ¡°Totally like myself. The same as every day. Why wouldn¡¯t I?¡± Haoyu blinked. ¡°Because I heard you got sick in class?¡± ¡°I¡¯m better now,¡± Lute said. ¡°It was a very short virus. See you tomorrow!¡± He hustled away. What¡¯s with all this eyeball clutter?! Some people had name tags floating beside them. Buildings had labels. Since when had the Nilama neighborhood had so much signage? There¡¯s some way to turn most of it off right? He had recollections of adults idly mentioning that they were adjusting things like that, but for him to adjust things like that, he¡¯d have to wave his arms around and he didn¡¯t want anyone to know yet. When he got back to the yacht, it was a relief to have everything looking normal again. He could pretend it was an ordinary afternoon for a while. Maybe that would reset his head. On an ordinary afternoon on Libra, he went to see what the baked good of the day was in the galley. Then he took it to his cabin and ate it while he hid from Hazel and did his homework. ¡°Chicken ¨¤ la King for dinner,¡± Chef Kabir said while Lute stole a piece of coffee cake from under a glass dome. Aulia¡¯s stressed, thought Lute. Chicken ¨¤ la King on toast was one of her not-so-secret comfort food dishes. He wondered if she¡¯d tried to make up with Roman again. Ha! That¡¯s not happening anytime this year. He hoped Roman had more self-respect than that at least. He might not. The brainwashing in this family seems to be really potent. When I finally get out of here¡ª The thought hit him like a punch once again. And this time¡­this time, he thought it might be sticking. The bite of cake he¡¯d just taken sat in his mouth, unchewed, getting soggy on his tongue. I don¡¯t get out of here. I¡¯m Anesidoran forever now. Even if I try to get a job off the island in the future, this is where they¡¯ll make me come back to. Always. Lute swallowed the cake. He was sure it didn¡¯t really taste like dust. Kabir was a great cook. ¡°¡­do you like being a Brute?¡± Lute asked. Kabir was pulling a bottle of cream out of the fridge. ¡°I¡¯ve been one for more than twenty years,¡± he said lightly. ¡°I hardly ever think about it to tell you the truth. It¡¯s just who I am.¡± Kabir was a C-rank Longsight Brute. He wasn¡¯t much of a leveler. He was fast with a kitchen knife, and he liked it when Aulia wanted to do a chef¡¯s table for special guests, so he could show some flare while he worked. He had a spell that would let him set up a viewpoint somewhere, but it didn¡¯t last very long. He occasionally used it to monitor pots and pans when he was busy with something else. ¡°Would you rather be something other than a Brute? If you could change classes right now, would you?¡± ¡°We all find ways to be happy with the road we¡¯re on, don¡¯t we?¡± Kabir said. ¡°Asking ¡®What if I had a different life?¡¯ just distracts from the one you¡¯re living.¡± Okay, that¡¯s nice and all, thought Lute as he left the galley. But what if the System is currently asking you, ¡°Which life?¡± When he went back to get a second piece of cake, he heard Kabir murmuring with one of the crew members. <> <> <> <> <> <> Lute¡¯s first thought was, Wow! Translations! His second was, I wonder how often adults I know have talked about me in languages I couldn¡¯t understand? His third was an indignant, I¡¯m not longing to be an Avowed! And now look what I¡¯ve got. It¡¯s the opposite of longing. I¡¯m a fourteen-year-old S who wants to be a member of the Vienna Philharmonic! Does everyone think I¡¯ve been kidding about that my whole life?! I have anti-longing! He had half a mind to march in there with a name tag turned on for himself: Lute Velra¡ª not jealous you¡¯re Avowed! As he was heading back to his cabin, without any cake, another question knocked insistently on his crowded mind. Why did Mom send me to Paragon? In primary school, it had made more sense. He¡¯d been happy. In sixth and seventh grade? This year? Why did she keep sending me there after I told her how much I hated it? It was one of the only real fights they¡¯d ever had, that evening when he¡¯d told her he¡¯d cleaned out his locker and wanted private tutoring instead of school. She said it was important for me to learn to face difficulties instead of running away from them. It sounded like a thing a grown-up would say, but not a thing his mother would say to him, and it still felt like a burning criticism he hadn¡¯t deserved. There was no reward for facing the difficulties at Paragon, no better destination at the end of the journey. Just day after day of being treated like an empty spot in the room, if he was lucky, or like the pitiable butt of a joke, if he wasn¡¯t, all resulting in an education that didn¡¯t apply to him as well as a more personalized one could have. Lute had long since forgiven her for it and gotten on with his life as an unwilling student. And yet¡­ It¡¯s basically a prep school for becoming a high-rank, but it¡¯s not like I actually prepped for it well. They were even giving me alternative assignments for tons of things. She knew that. He didn¡¯t think it really meant anything. Jessica must have wanted him in school so that he wouldn¡¯t be a recluse. Or so that he wouldn¡¯t grow up to be someone like Hazel, who probably thought the whole world worked like the Velra web. And Paragon was an expensive school where he could get to know future ¡°somebodies,¡± as Aulia had put it before she sent him off on his very first day. If you wanted someone to prepare for Avowed life, you wouldn¡¯t tell them so clearly and completely that it was impossible would you? Lute flopped onto his bed in his cabin and clutched a pillow shaped like a fried egg to his face. When you got selected, you either ran to tell your parents or your best friends. Lucky him, his parents were his best friends! No choice to be made. Less lucky¡­ Though he loved them more than anyone else, he didn¡¯t quite trust them right now. And this was the rest of his life. He couldn¡¯t mess it up. ****** First, Lute thought, staring at his notebook, you pick the class you want. Come on. You know them all. This should be easy. There aren¡¯t that many. The laptop on the desk in front of him and the two tablets beside it all showed notes. Avowed careers¡ªhe wanted none of them. Summoning likelihoods, talents, satisfaction surveys, all those ugly statistics he¡¯d found for his classmates last year¡­ It was midnight. He¡¯d been at this for seven hours. Libra creaked and rolled in the waves because Aulia said she slept better when the yacht wasn¡¯t so stabilized that it felt like just another house. Lute liked it when the boat felt like a boat as well, though he wouldn¡¯t admit it. Somewhere in the galley fridge, his serving of the Chicken ¨¤ la King was probably beautifully plated and waiting for him. But he couldn¡¯t pull himself away from this task. Time wasn¡¯t on his side. One little mistake, one slip, and his family would involve themselves. I can¡¯t believe it took me so long to realize that. Lute was so used to being beneath everyone¡¯s notice, the truth had taken its sweet time to land. Being an S-rank at fourteen meant he would suddenly become interesting to his own relatives. Will they want me for¡­? He didn¡¯t know. He just didn¡¯t know about the S-rank Chainer slot. They¡¯d kicked Roman, a good and loyal Velra scion, off a cliff because of Hazel¡¯s psychic quirk. I¡¯m a lot younger than Roman. I¡¯m the first Velra ever to be selected before fifteen. And coming right on the heels of Aulia rejecting Roman? Grandma might think it¡¯s some kind of sign, and then who knows what she¡¯ll do? The thing was, it didn¡¯t matter if they wanted him for Chainer or not. Even if he was out of the running for that, they¡¯d still want something from him. Chainer was the Velra signature class, but it wasn¡¯t like Aulia was going to ignore all the other high ranks. Roman had taken a Rabbit skill that allowed him to locate lost objects, and Lute had already heard his grandmother brainstorming different helpful things he could do with it for the family¡ªwhen we aren¡¯t having a little spat anymore! Lute had to figure out what he could live with, and then do everything in his power to position himself for it before they started to get ideas and cut him off. They could really help him or really hurt him. S was too freaking rare. Welcome to the one percent! Good luck clawing the class you want away from the other members of your tiny trading pool without a seven digit argold balance and a lot of handshakes being exchanged by everybody¡¯s extended families. How do globies do this?! Do they just take random stuff and think ¡®Guess that¡¯ll do?¡¯¡± He could sympathize. His family could buy him almost anything, but they wouldn¡¯t do it if they got it into their heads that he needed to be something else. And if they were really serious about forcing him into some random class, they could even go so far as to pay other teenagers to take the classes he¡¯d prefer off the trading table. The only security net he could be sure of having was whatever class was in his possession on the day his grandmother found out. Let¡¯s not panic yet. Let¡¯s make a list. By three in the morning, he¡¯d sort of done it. He¡¯d ranked all the classes in order, from top to bottom, only leaving off the very rare ones. Except for the obvious¡­ 1. Healer 2. Rabbit 3. Adjuster (spell paths tbd before affixation¡ªnot combat ones) 4. Shaper (preference: water, object, life, ground, sky¡­rares?) 5. Wright 6. Meister (non-combat tool) 7. Chainer (what exactly does my family do with the aliens?) 8. Brute (vocal, sensory, maybe morph?) 9. Meister (ranged weapon) 10. Brute (the other ones) 11. Meister (close weapon) 12. Sway (should this be higher? i wouldn¡¯t mind a next gen one. but i don¡¯t want everyone to think i¡¯m a creep. if i¡¯m going to high school with people who don¡¯t know me yet it would be better not to start out as a perceived creep.) This looks wrong, thought Lute, staring at his notebook. None of this looks like me. He was trying to make it work, but something was flawed with all of them for him. Even Healer at the top¡ªhe¡¯d picked it because of the lifespan and because it was easy to get work off the island. Everyone loved a Healer. And, most importantly, he could take care of his parents with it. The family had just spent three months trying to get S-Healer for Roman and failed, so it was a very distant possibility. If they were supportive, though, they could give it a try again. It¡¯s not like Grandma would object to having another one on-call. But even if he got it, Healer was such a life-consuming class. You couldn¡¯t take Healer and not expect to spend pretty much your entire working life healing. Unless you were really amazing at telling sick and injured people ¡°no,¡± and Lute didn¡¯t think he was. I just want it because I¡¯m scared of dying and I¡¯m scared of my mom and dad dying. I think I¡¯m more scared of that than I ever realized. Maybe it wasn¡¯t just about his youthful looking relatives. Maybe it came from always knowing in the back of his mind that the kids he¡¯d grown up with would be able to kill him with a slap, a word, or a gesture when they were older. Not even a lot older. Starting next year. It wasn¡¯t like Lute was afraid of it happening in a realistic way; it was more like an under-the-bed monster. You knew it was stupid, but the idea still made you feel like you had to be careful not to let your feet dangle over the edge of the bed. Or maybe me being so hung up on death after finding out I¡¯m going to be one of them is just karma. For the dice. He rubbed his eyes. Rabbit¡ªthey didn¡¯t get called to do dangerous stuff like fight. They made lots of money, so Lute could be independent. And the kind of Rabbit Roman had picked was actually pretty neat. Lute¡¯s cousin may have been furious, but it seemed like he¡¯d chosen a nice situation for himself. The finder skill he¡¯d selected wasn¡¯t the kind of thing that would keep him on alien worlds for most of his life, like a lot of the high-rank Rabbit skills. Supposedly, he would get tons of summonses, but those summonses would almost all be very short. From what Lute understood, Roman would roll out of bed in the middle of the night when he got called, appear somewhere where some wizard¡ªin a fit of frustration¡ªhad decided to pay out the nose for an Avowed to find the thing they¡¯d lost. And Roman would activate his skill and say, ¡°Oh, yeah. Your grandma¡¯s favorite drinking bowl is by your cauldron. You filled it with something that looks putrid. Good luck with that.¡± Job done. Pay given. The wizard would be relieved to have their lost item located and Roman would be back in his own bed before the sheets got cold. I can only get Rabbit if the family helps me like they did him. He could ask. Maybe they would do it. As for Adjuster, it had some spell paths that seemed both safe and lucrative. It would also be hard to trade for on his own unless he was lucky. Shapers¡­were so very useful. The Artonans summoned them for all kinds of things. It could be a landscaping project or, at the high ranks, it could be a real corruption field assignment. Those are rare. I really shouldn¡¯t be scared of getting one. He was. That was why his list had the safest things above the one class he actually liked to imagine himself playing with. Liking the idea of artistic telekinesis isn¡¯t a good enough reason, Lute, he told himself. But pride wouldn¡¯t let him put the thing he admired below the other items, either. You could be totally safe as a Wright, but you could also end up as a really highly paid drudge. Oh look, you took all the talents necessary to make a very valuable kind of bomb! Guess what the Triplanets would like twenty thousand of? Have a great decade building nothing else! The tool Meister was similarly suspect. The System offering a specific non-combat tool at S-rank implied that someone had a use for that tool already in mind, didn¡¯t it? You could certainly expect jobs being the best magic pipe wrench wielder in the world. But how many jobs? Who could say! What if they needed you to spend a single month doing an incredibly important thing that would enrich thousands of lives, but then your magic pipe wrench was purposeless thereafter¡­and you just kept getting better at using it for no reason and having nothing to do with it ever again? Or it could be more like, We¡¯re gonna need you and that pipe wrench until the end of time, buddy! Settle in! Risky. Chainer was sitting at number seven, instead of dead last, because although Lute was sure he would loathe having a perpetual connection to and attention from most of his relatives, he had noted some very valuable features. His Chainer relatives almost all worked on schedules, which was an uncommon set-up for Avowed. They mostly seemed to know what days they would be away from home months or even years in advance. And it wasn¡¯t a ton of days, even for the S-ranks. Aulia and Hazel were off all the time, but Lute had the impression that Aulia instigated a lot of those trips. They weren¡¯t all summonings. For the other family members, it seemed more like they had appointments they went to two or three times a month. He didn¡¯t know what they did, but it couldn¡¯t be anything too hard. None of them ever seemed stressed or unhappy about going. They rarely seemed super excited about it either, so Lute was thinking their tasks on the Triplanets, whatever they were, were probably kind of neutral. Grandma always has a stylist come in to do her hair right before she leaves¡­ Lute couldn¡¯t glean anything from that other than the fact that the aliens didn¡¯t have her enhancing herself with chains so that she could face danger or do heavy lifting. Honestly, I think all the S¡¯s just go, use Mass Bestowal a few times to spread around whatever chains the Artonans want wherever they want, and then they come back home a little richer. I don¡¯t see how it could be anything else. They all acted like they were very grand and mysterious. Aulia¡¯s supporters thought she knew hidden truths about magic and had two hundred wizards on her priority contacts list, eager to solve her every problem. Her enemies thought she went to the Triplanets to eat puppies and gain dark powers that would help her steal luck from her political opponents. But Lute had grown up around them. Aunt Hikari was an S-rank Chainer, and she wouldn¡¯t let any kid in the family ride the rooftop-to-rooftop rollercoaster that had opened last year until she¡¯d interviewed the Wright who¡¯d designed it. She wouldn¡¯t be trying to make sure all her children got the class if it involved anything too crazy. So he was sure the job was safe, easy, not too weird, and it involved casting lots of wordchains and using the skill Mass Bestowal around. I guess I could choose another skill when I actually saw my options. The S¡¯s probably all took that one because Aulia did and they knew it was good, but I could pick something of my own. And you get to learn special chains the Artonans don¡¯t share with everyone else. And your own unwanted debt is reduced. Chainers get more than they pay for. Everyone knows that. Plus, the versatility was pretty good. Wordchains were like spells you had to pay for, right? Chainer made it easier to do them, so you could learn more of them and you could learn them faster. So an advanced Chainer had access to lots of magical effects instead of just a few spell impressions. As for Mass Bestowal, it wasn¡¯t the most interesting magic. It was boring, actually, now that Lute was seriously considering it. The premium Chainer skill was just passing something over to other people as far as he could tell. Valuable. Other Avowed definitely wanted access to enhancements they couldn¡¯t get themselves. It just wasn¡¯t exciting. Having a decent summoning schedule and a safe job sounded positive, though. And Lute was pretty sure his relatives all worked for the same group of wizards most of the time, so he presumably would, too. It seems to me like Chainers have a long-term assignment with none of the drawbacks of a long-term assignment. If not for his family, it would be higher on the list. If not for his family, it would also be completely impossible to get. He dropped his pen and stared at his work. Everything below Chainer on the list was going to be too useful for combat at S-rank. Lute thought of those members of his class at school who were aiming for the superhero life. He couldn¡¯t imagine doing what they wanted to do. And if you didn¡¯t want to be a combatant or a celebrity version of a combatant, what were you supposed to do with a lot of the Avowed talents? Like ranged weapon Meister¡ªso popular because they looked so cool. But if you had a bow and arrow, what did you have besides a bow and arrow? How often did you really want to shoot something? I know you can also have good vision and stuff with classes like that. But why do the Artonans give us so much fighting magic? He knew the answer. It¡¯s a Contract saying Avowed can be used as a fighting force. We¡¯re all used to thinking of it as just ¡°the System¡± and we¡¯re all used to the Artonans not asking many of us for too much. But they can. What if, one day, they do?
¡°You do know Shaper¡¯s perfect for combat, right?¡± Alden asked. ¡°At S-rank, it¡¯s even pretty amazing at level one once they¡¯ve put in the practice to figure it out. Their talents aren¡¯t so straightforward that they can master them the day they get them like some classes, but the Shapers in the hero program are getting better really fast.¡± Lute was lying on the sofa. Alden was sitting on the rug in front of the infrared fireplace, doing stretches because he figured he might as well be productive if they were staying up late to talk Velras. He got the impression Lute was telling him so much about himself partially so that he didn¡¯t have to go to his room and be alone to think about the fact that his mother was helping Aulia do something with Manon. It would be like if I found out Aunt Connie was involved. We don¡¯t understand what it is they¡¯re up to, but we know it¡¯s not wholesome. Alden would be upset to think someone he cared about was using people to that extent for profit. Hurting them. Probably doing something illegal or at least being aware that Manon was doing something illegal to get the job done. He doesn¡¯t want to close his eyes on it and dwell, Alden decided. ¡°Shaper¡¯s just awesome.¡± Lute tossed one of his crumpled foil flan lids from earlier into the air over his head and caught it. ¡°It can¡¯t help that it¡¯s good for beauty, utility, and murder all at the same time.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t seen all that much artistic Shaping in person,¡± said Alden. ¡°There were some people making rangoli patterns in the air on Diwali.¡± ¡°We should go to a performance sometime,¡± said Lute. ¡°They have this event every year called Theater of the Sea. The audience sits on a platform out on the ocean, and some of the best Shapers on the island build the show all around you and above you. They use all the elements. It¡¯s so cool. It only runs for a couple of weeks, but Mom took me almost every day when I was four because I got obsessed with it.¡± He caught the foil ball again and then held it to his chest. ¡°Some of the Shapers are assigned to play with the young children in the audience. They teach you gestures, and if you do them during the show, they¡¯ll make it look like you¡¯re controlling the element yourself. So you wave your hand a certain way, and streams of water flow around you.¡± ¡°Yeah. That would probably have given anyone an interest in it.¡± ¡°Not to brag, but I was adorable as a kid. And I was sitting in the premium seats,¡± said Lute. ¡°One of the Shapers humored me for the entire show no matter how many times I made my little hand gestures.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad I didn¡¯t grow up here,¡± Alden said. ¡°Even if I wasn¡¯t in your situation. Everyone wants magic when they¡¯re little. Most of us still want magic when we¡¯re pretty big. Having it in your face all the time, wanting it and not knowing what type or how much of it you were going to get¡­even if you take out considerations about being summoned, it would be hard.¡± The fireplace emitted fake crackling sounds while Alden reached for his toes. The color of the glowing logs was set to shift, and they gradually went from green to a more normal shade of orange. ¡°I wanted it,¡± said Lute quietly. ¡°Magic? Or Chainer?¡± ¡°Shaper.¡± Alden stared at his socked foot. ¡°Oh.¡± ¡°At the time, I did and I didn¡¯t. My head said it wasn¡¯t the most sensible for me. If my family had been willing to give me anything I asked for, I might have ended up with Rabbit like Roman did. I might have taken the same skill even. Because I could see a lot of practicality in it. I was in damage mitigation mode, you know?Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. ¡°Selection took my whole vision for my future and my self-image from me in a second. And it felt like everything else would be lost if I wasn¡¯t careful. I thought all of my time would vanish if I picked something like Healer or Natalie¡¯s Cook of the Moment. I thought my life might end if I picked a combat-oriented subclass. My privacy would go if I chose something that would put me in the public eye. I assumed I would never have the chance to make friends again if I became a Sway. Shit, I thought my Mom and Dad would disappear if I dared to question how I¡¯d come to exist.¡± He heaved a sigh. ¡°And I didn¡¯t realize I was that scared of me and my parents being more mortal than my other relatives. Until all of that other stuff piled on me, and I suddenly couldn¡¯t let it go. I had this recurring nightmare the week I was chosen, where I was in the mansion and the whole family was there around the dining room table, looking just like they do now, and I was trying to find my mom, and then I had this thought¡­ ¡®Oh, that¡¯s right. She¡¯s been gone for a hundred years. It¡¯s just me and the rest of them now.¡¯¡± That¡¯s a bad one, thought Alden. ¡°It was a short dream. Nothing else happened in it. But I kept having it over and over¡­¡± Lute trailed off. ¡°They tell you to be sure to take a class you¡¯ll enjoy for the rest of your life. When they¡¯re talking about career planning with future Avowed. We had guest speakers, and peoples¡¯ parents came in to tell us about what they did for a living. I can remember a few of them being clear about how you need to focus on what positive things you¡¯ll be able to do with your new powers and then make your choice.¡± ¡°Neha talked about choosing things for a lifetime, too,¡± said Alden. ¡°Talents that make you proud and bring you joy.¡± ¡°You know one of the first Rabbits already?¡± ¡°She was my intake councilor.¡± ¡°Sweet. I think I heard about her doing that on occasion. Anyway, I had heard adults say that. Pick powers you can be proud of¡­only I felt like I¡¯d taken damage by being chosen. Dreams over. Trapped. Banished from the rest of the world. I was so worried about preventing more losses, I couldn¡¯t weigh my decisions properly.¡± He swallowed. ¡°I swapped Wright for Shaper of Water¡ª¡± ¡°Without your family knowing?¡± Lute nodded. ¡°I wanted to get something as high up on my list of classes as possible before the news came out, so that my family wouldn¡¯t have as much leverage to make me do things. I thought if I could get something I didn¡¯t hate the idea of, then I¡¯d be able to say no to any unreasonable requests on their part. Do you have any idea how hard it is to secretly trade a class here?¡± ¡°No privacy options?¡± ¡°Officially, the trading posts where you go sit at the cool tables and swap with Avowed all over the world are confidential institutions. But even if the guards and authorized witnesses aren¡¯t allowed to tell others what you did there, the buildings aren¡¯t in secluded locations. Any kid of high-ranks heading to the trading post for the first time gets noticed, and it¡¯s not just my family who collect that kind of information.¡± So something like Skiff spying on the consulate is just normal behavior here. Although it wasn¡¯t like the Anesidoran teens had the same risks. Or the same options. Being unregistered didn¡¯t really come into play for them unless they did something extreme to get off the island. Lute sat up and faced him. ¡°It was so odd to suddenly be personally invested in the trading process. I got the Meister trade info for Lexi from Uncle Corin, and I kept buttering him up until I learned a few more things. Then I stalked the ninth and tenth graders in my school for the rest of the week, listening to them.¡± He frowned. ¡°I heard someone call me Lute the Lurker at one point, so I wasn¡¯t as subtle as I thought I was being. But you know¡­they never suspected. Not even when I worked myself up to ask questions about it. Nobody ever thought, ¡®Lute Velra is surprisingly interested in matters like this all of a sudden. Maybe he¡¯s been chosen, too.¡¯¡±
It was Thursday. Lute had known he would become an Avowed since Monday. He had gotten about twelve whole hours of sleep since then, most of them in class. It was break. He stood in the hall outside the tenth grade rooms, sharpening a third colored pencil with a hand sharpener into a trashcan between two blocks of lockers. As if that was a good way to go about sharpening an entire pack of pencils and a normal way for him to spend his breaks. Look at me. Not lurking. Just sharpening. I have never heard of electric sharpeners, and I have business with this waste receptacle. A group of ninth and tenth graders were standing around a couple with pins, and they were all talking about how hard it was to swap the more common Brute types for anything else. Listen, Lute, he told himself, you¡¯ve just got to insert yourself into the conversation. It will be fine. Just walk up to that giant of a tenth grader¡ªwhat have his parents been feeding him?¡ªand ask. You heard what he just said. Go do it. He still didn¡¯t think he really wanted any of the classes. But he was sure he didn¡¯t want Wright now. Shaper sounded better. Shaper sounded good enough that he could withstand his family trying to pressure him into who knew what if he had it in his hand. He could manage this selection stuff. His classmates were going to have to manage it one day. So what if they¡¯d had fifteen years advanced notice? What was a lifetime of preparation in comparison to a can-do attitude? I shouldn¡¯t have gone to stare at the Departures sign in the TC yesterday. I don¡¯t think that was as good a way of solidifying my resolve as I planned. He¡¯d had to blow his nose in the bathroom afterward, and when he¡¯d stepped out, he could have sworn he¡¯d heard someone else dramatically blowing their own nose right beside him even though there was nothing but a PostDrop around. I need more sleep. His pencil had gone past the point of getting sharper. Now it was just getting shorter. He gripped it tightly and headed toward the group of upperclassmen. ¡°Excuse me?¡± he said. Nobody turned around. The older students weren¡¯t engaged in shunning him. It was just that he¡¯d spoken in a whisper accidentally. ¡°Excuse me!¡± Too loud this time. A girl with her hair in small braids whirled to face him. The group fell silent. ¡°I heard you say you know somebody trying to free trade an S Shaper.¡± He addressed the boy who¡¯d said it. ¡°One of my cousins has a friend who just got Wright and wants to trade for any Shaper.¡± This sounded like a glaring lie to Lute. Part of him was sure they were about to point at him and say, ¡°Aha! You¡¯re the ¡®friend¡¯ yourself aren¡¯t you?!¡± But after a couple of blinks during which they were all apparently absorbing the new input, the guy said, ¡°Oh really? My friend wants Adjuster though. That¡¯s why I was saying he¡¯s hopeless. Trading up from Shaper to Adjuster at S, with only a month to go and no bonus to add? He¡¯s going to have to hope some globie jumps on it.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± said Lute. ¡°Just¡­checking for my cousin¡¯s friend. Because they can¡¯t add much of a bonus either.¡± ¡°Wright to Shaper should be easy,¡± said the girl he¡¯d scared. ¡°Shaper¡¯s more popular, but Wright¡¯s rarer. Someone¡¯ll want it soon enough if they just post it to the exchange.¡± Can¡¯t post it to the exchange. Corin¡¯s got people watching. Lute gave them all a pained smile. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m sure that¡¯s true. They¡¯re just worried about it because they don¡¯t know if their family will be fans of the trade.¡± ¡°I hate parents like that,¡± she said. ¡°As if it¡¯s not hard enough to make up your mind! Then you finally do, and suddenly they start saying things like, ¡®The Enviro Brutes? When we said would support you no matter where you wanted to go in life, Miranda, we meant on this planet! Glacial Brute is just a gateway to some icy wasteland on the backside of the universe.¡± Her friends were all nodding. Lute wasn¡¯t sure if they were agreeing with Miranda or her parents. Break ended a few minutes later, and he thought the whole conversation was a dead end. But the next morning, when he was stepping out of the Language Exchange room with a group of his classmates, there were some tenth graders waiting their turn to enter. ¡°Hey! Hey, Velra boy!¡± Lute saw the big guy from yesterday stepping away from his own peers and waving. ¡°My friend doesn¡¯t want Wright, but he said he heard about another Shaper who did. A girl at Nilama Middle.¡± Lute¡¯s heart skipped a beat. ¡°That¡¯s just a few blocks away from here.¡± ¡°Haha,¡± said the guy. ¡°Well most of the schools are in family neighborhoods, right? I didn¡¯t get a name, but it probably won¡¯t be hard to find her. The NilMid people will know who it is.¡± Lute wanted to run over there immediately. He would have, if he¡¯d been one hundred percent sure about the tip. But he didn¡¯t want to blow his cover by tearing off in the middle of the school day only to find the Shaper didn¡¯t exist or had already traded. The other eighth graders were giving him odd looks. ¡°Why are you talking with them about trades?¡± someone asked. ¡°Probably running errands for his family or something,¡± Carlotta answered before Lute could. ¡°Do you know how much they pay their friends¡¯ kids to hold those S and A Chainers without taking them? My mom says pausing an ultrarare like that costs them millions every year.¡± She brushed past Lute with that same nose-in-the-air look she¡¯d worn around him since fifth grade. Her dad is a B. Her mom is a C. Her sister is a D. Lute knew everyone¡¯s parents and siblings¡¯ ranks off the top of his head. Every other person in the grade was the same. It was just the thing you knew about people. Carlotta would probably be a mid-rank. B or C like her parents. To feel like she belonged up in the sky with the people she wanted to be friends with, she looked down at Lute and the few other low guessranks. Declan¡¯s reasons were similar. Lute had always known it. He had also always known their reasons were no excuse and they were slimy creatures who should be tied to rocks and sunk. So why, all of a sudden, did he pity her? Just a little. Fine. I¡¯ll give her one chance. ¡°I¡¯ve been asking my uncle about the trading business lately. He gave me some info on Meister. If you¡¯re curious¡­¡± It was info about the interesting Meisters currently changing hands among the high ranks that he¡¯d gotten for Lexi, not useful at all for Carlotta. But she still loved Meister. This was as much of a peace offering as Lute was willing to extend to satisfy this unwelcome emotion. She would be excited if someone else told her this. A couple of other people were interested. A few paces ahead of them, Lute saw Tuyet actually turning around to walk backward and hear the conversation. She must have still been thinking about weapon Meisters. Lute didn¡¯t know what she planned to do with one of those. Not superhero school, surely? She hates public speaking. I can¡¯t imagine she¡¯d love doing hero PR. ¡°Why would I want to talk about Avowed jobs with you?¡± ¡°I see,¡± said Lute. They were almost at their classroom. ¡°Just thought I¡¯d offer.¡± It was so satisfying to open his notebook when he got back to his desk and scratch Carlotta¡¯s name off the list he¡¯d made inside it. He would be leaving this school. He wasn¡¯t quite sure when yet, but even if he stayed through the end of the year for some reason, he wouldn¡¯t be able to return for ninth grade. So he was taking one last look at them all this week. Like a private goodbye ritual. If they treated him like a person in even a small way, they got underlined. If they were jerks after he tried to be nice¡­ He enthusiastically scribbled out ¡°Carlotta Sullivan¡± some more. Now I never have to think about her again. Even though we¡¯ll both be stuck on this island for life. Bye, Carlotta. You don¡¯t exist for me anymore. At the end of the school day, he ran as fast as he could to Nilama Middle School. It was freezing, and students in heavy winter clothes were pouring out the doors. He looked around for interface name tags. Almost every selectee seemed eager to give themselves one right away, unlike him. Most of them were flashing their current classes, too, so that people would know. Shaper, Shaper, where¡¯s the Shaper? He could only see two people with the tags right now, and both were holding Brutes. Nothing for it. Got to ask. Lute wove through a throng of younger students then headed toward one of the Brutes over by the bike racks. ¡°Hi,¡± he said. The other boy looked around. He took in Lute¡¯s uniform curiously. ¡°I¡¯m looking for someone at this school,¡± said Lute. ¡°A girl who just got Shaper?¡± The possible-Brute brightened. ¡°For trades?¡± ¡°I¡¯m helping a friend track her down,¡± Lute said. ¡°He heard she might want Wright.¡± ¡°Aw, man. I was hoping you might be a trader with Morph. I¡¯m trying to find one right now. Anyway, yeah! That¡¯s Isabel. She was going to grab snacks before she headed over to the trading post.¡± He shook his head. ¡°¡­new selectees. So unprepared.¡± He gestured at the huge duffel bag on his back. ¡°I¡¯m packed and ready to spend the weekend at the post. I¡¯ve got enough caffeine in here to stop a speedster¡¯s heart!¡± ¡°Good luck?¡± ¡°Thanks! Isabel¡¯s probably at the convenience store on the corner. A lot of people go there after classes let out. You want me to call her for you?¡± He grinned. ¡°I can do it through the System now!¡± Ten minutes later, Lute was standing in front of a convenience store¡¯s hot food case, waiting for a brown-skinned girl with big glasses and a mechanical pencil stuck through her bun to finish selecting her favorite from an assortment of pizza slices. ¡°Let me get this right,¡± said Isabel, squinting at a bell pepper-covered option. ¡°You¡¯ve got a cousin who¡¯s got an S-rank friend who wants to trade Wright for any Shaper. Without their family knowing they¡¯ve been selected. And you heard about me from a tenth grader at your school, and you¡¯re trying to schedule an appointment for me to meet your nameless cousin¡¯s nameless friend so we can swap in the presence of an authorized witness without going to the trading post. Why can¡¯t your cousin¡¯s friend arrange this themselves?¡± ¡°They¡¯re under a lot of pressure. And¡­my school is really close to yours. So I knew I could get here first.¡± ¡°This sounds like one of those suspicious situations they warn you about,¡± said Isabel. ¡°¡®Don¡¯t go off with strangers. They¡¯ll have someone Sway you, and a bad witness will authorize a trade that ruins your life.¡¯¡± ¡°There is nothing suspicious! You can even pick the witness! And the location as long as it¡¯s not too public!¡± ¡°Uh huh¡­¡± She turned to peer down at him. ¡°Are you the friend?¡± Lute¡¯s breath caught. ¡°Wow. You look really young for someone our age,¡± said Isabel. ¡°I will buy you a thousand argold worth of anything,¡± Lute hissed. ¡°That¡¯s all I¡¯ve got right now.¡± ¡°That makes you sound more suspicious, rich boy,¡± she said. She stood up. ¡°But I was expecting a free swap or for the money to go the other way, so this will work. My parents haven¡¯t saved up enough for S trading. Let¡¯s go to a Wright shop. An Apex one. I already know what I want. And then we can do it. You provide the witness.¡± She pointed at the case. ¡°And buy me this piece of pizza.¡± ****** I am pretty sure I am a sucker, thought Lute, his arms shaking from the weight of Isabel¡¯s shopping bags as they walked toward a seaside tower full of luxury apartments. They had somehow agreed that Lute owed her three thousand more argold, for refusing to share his name. And another six, for depriving her of the joys of the trading post experience. And another one, for the risks she was taking with her future by consenting to go to a private location with him for the trade. They were only handshake agreements, but she¡¯d recorded video of them making the handshake agreements so that he could be ¡°shamed by all the S¡¯s of our generation if you go back on your word.¡± ¡°This is the place,¡± he said, nodding toward the magic doors at the building¡¯s base. ¡°You live here?¡± Isabel asked as they walked through the entrance and the ¡®glass¡¯ pane shattered and disappeared around them only to reappear as soon as they were inside. ¡°Fancy.¡± ¡°No. The witness who¡¯s going to help us lives here.¡± I hope. He tried to adjust the bags again so that they weren¡¯t cutting off circulation to his fingers. ¡°Let me talk to her for a few minutes before we do it, okay?¡± Isabel shrugged. ¡°If it takes more than an hour, you owe me five hundred more argold.¡± ¡°For what?!¡± ¡°Depriving me of homework time.¡± ****** Lute dropped the bags onto the white tile floor the second the two of them entered Aimi Velra¡¯s apartment. After saying hello and giving Aimi a wave, Isabel started rummaging through them. ¡°I¡¯m just going to get to know my new equipment,¡± she said. ¡°While you talk to this nameless lady, nameless rich boy.¡± Aimi¡¯s eyebrows lifted, and she looked at Lute with interest. He grabbed her by the hand and dragged her toward the balcony. She slapped the controls for the wind shielding as they passed. ¡°Lute!¡± she said. ¡°Are you hitting on a girl!? You¡¯re old enough for that? I¡¯m so imp¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m not hitting on her! I think she¡¯s robbing me.¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± Aimi asked. ¡°Because your text messages were very suspicious. ¡®I need your help. I need your support. Don¡¯t call Mom.¡¯ Then you brought a girl to my apartment, and you¡¯re carrying shopping bags for her and¡ª¡± ¡°They¡¯re full of weird screwdrivers, and there¡¯s a dead alien rat in a vacuum-sealed pouch.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be bound by tradition. It¡¯s important to give a girl what she really wants!¡± Aimi said. ¡°If my ex had understood that¡­¡± ¡°Aimi,¡± Lute interrupted, ¡°are the Artonans okay?¡± He stood looking over the balcony railing. The waves were high today. ¡°They control the known universe,¡± said Aimi in a perplexed voice. ¡°Last I checked they were doing fine.¡± She was wearing a short, spangled gold dress. Her hair looked half brushed. Probably she¡¯d been getting ready to go out for a fun Friday night before he started texting her. ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°I needed¡­I wanted to know if they were friendly? The people you work for. I¡¯ve only ever seen Artonans here and there. We¡¯ve had several come visit us at school. Grandma invited that one to dinner. It¡¯s not like I¡¯ve ever thought about what it would be like to deal with them much.¡± Because I wasn¡¯t supposed to have to. ¡°What¡¯s this about?¡± Aimi asked. Lute wanted to hear her answer before he told her. So he just shrugged in reply. ¡°Welll,¡± said Aimi. ¡°I like them fine. They¡¯re weird. Just between you and me, the ones we Chainers usually work for are kind of nonstandard. When I was sixteen, I thought they might be more representative of the species, and then I realized¡­no, noooo¡­they¡¯re really peculiar. So I guess I might not know that much about how things work for other Avowed. But my job¡¯s fine. I go for a day or so, do my thing, meet some people who want to¡­uh¡­cheer me on and provide me with moral support?¡± She touched her hip when she said that. So it¡¯s one of those things Aulia locks behind the tattoo? Lute took a deep breath. His cousin wasn¡¯t telling him anything very new. He was just delaying. ¡°Aimi, you¡¯re an authorized witness, aren¡¯t you?¡± Hazel had become one recently, so it would be odd if Aimi, who¡¯d been working as a Chainer for years, wasn¡¯t. ¡°Yes!¡± said Aimi. ¡°But I will not witness some kind of Artonan-law union with the dead rat girl. Sorry. I¡¯m all for it, but not until you¡¯ve graduated from high school.¡± ¡°Our family¡¯s insane,¡± said Lute. ¡°You know that, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Is Grandma bothering that cab driver again?¡± ¡°Probably. That¡¯s not¡­I want you to help me keep a secret from them. For just a little while.¡± ¡°Sure!¡± Lute narrowed his eyes at her. ¡°Really?¡± Aimi shrugged. ¡°As long as it¡¯s not the mangled body of one of the good relatives¡­. It¡¯s my cousinly duty not to betray you to the old people! Those are the Velra survival rules.¡± Aimi refused to acknowledge that there was a generation of cousins younger than her who saw her as one of the old people. Lute trusted her. Mostly. She wasn¡¯t the most responsible adult he knew, but she seemed to drift along under everyone else¡¯s radar. She could spring up at gatherings and be included or disappear and not be missed. Flighty B-rank Aimi¡ªone of the family, easy to get along with, not important enough to worry over. For the first time, Lute wondered if Aimi wasn¡¯t something of a genius. It took him a minute more to get the words out of his mouth. Once he said it, there was no going back. There¡¯s no going back anyway. This is happening to you. You just have to respond to it. ¡°I want you to witness a class trade,¡± said Lute. Aimi turned to look back through the sliding doors at Isabel, who had helped herself to one of the kitchen knives so that she could open the packaging on a multicolored flashlight that she¡¯d told Lute wouldn¡¯t burn out even if she used it every day for the next twenty years. ¡°The cute nerd needs help with one?¡± ¡°We both do.¡± Aimi faced him with a look of dawning comprehension. ¡°I got selected as an S-rank on Monday,¡± Lute said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his blazer. ¡°So¡­you know. Hi?¡± He waited. And waited. ¡°Oh shit,¡± Aimi whispered. ¡°How old are you again?¡± ¡°You were invited to my birthday a few months ago,¡± said Lute. ¡°You got me a trampoline because you wanted to jump on one yourself.¡± ¡°But maybe I remember your age wrong¡­¡± ¡°You don¡¯t. I¡¯m fourteen.¡± Aimi grinned, and then started snorting with laughter. ¡°Don¡¯t laugh! This is serious!¡± ¡°I know! It¡¯s so bad!¡± said Aimi, laughing even harder. ¡°It¡¯s so, so bad!¡± ¡°Aimi!¡± ¡°Everyone just got tired of fighting over Roman! His dad kept calling him a ¡®young titan¡¯ every chance he got. He¡¯s a normal age for an S, but the way they were talking about him! It was like he¡¯d just emerged from the crib. And now you! You¡­¡± Aimi was doubled over. ¡°You¡¯ll help, won¡¯t you?¡± Lute asked frantically. ¡°I want Shaper before anyone in the family finds out. I kind of like it? I¡¯m not sure, but I want to have something other than Wright. Even their stores are intimidating.¡± She flapped an arm at him. ¡°Yes! Yes. I want to be a part of this historic moment. Go get your girlfriend!¡± ¡°Trading partner,¡± said Lute, stepping quickly over to the door. ¡°Isabel! Let¡¯s do this!¡±
¡°She insisted on doing it with wedding lingo,¡± said Lute, shaking his head at the memory. ¡°¡®Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to behold a miracle in the form of my Cousin Lute!¡¯ Isabel thought we were nuts. Then she saw my last name on the trading notification, and she was like, ¡®I should have demanded more money.¡¯¡± ¡°She totally should have,¡± Alden agreed from his spot on the rug. ¡°But not demanding enough money from Velras is an honest mistake. Anyone could make it. It¡¯s not a sign of foolishness. Nobody should be judged.¡± ¡°I know you¡¯re talking about yourself right now. Don¡¯t worry about Isabel. She was confident about Wright. She affixed standing right there on the balcony, and Aimi transferred a ¡®celebratory¡¯ amount to her in honor of the special occasion.¡± ¡°What¡ª?¡± Their apartment doorknob made a lot more noise than it usually did when it was being opened, and they both sat up in surprise as Haoyu stepped in. He was wearing his windbreaker and an odd smile. ¡°I thought you were staying at home tonight?¡± Lute said. ¡°No, I was just having supper out with Mom until late.¡± Haoyu wasn¡¯t quite meeting his eye. ¡°All my comfy pillows are here. What are you guys doing?¡± ¡°Just talking,¡± said Lute. Haoyu nodded. He was still smiling weird. Guilty weird, thought Alden. He studied their roommate. ¡°Were you listening at the door?¡± he guessed. ¡°No! I heard Lexi¡¯s name, and I wondered¡­are they talking about him? What are they saying?¡± ¡°So you were listening at the door. The act you¡¯re describing is eavesdropping.¡± ¡°No! Because it¡¯s my door, too. You can¡¯t eavesdrop on your own door can you?¡± ¡°That depends,¡± Lute said. ¡°How long were you standing there?¡± ¡°Not long!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Just ten or fifteen minutes or so.¡± Lute looked startled Alden stared. ¡°What?¡± Haoyu¡¯s tone was defensive. ¡°That¡¯s not how you confess to eavesdropping, man,¡± said Alden. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to say, ¡®Not long. I was only there a second.¡¯ Even if you were there for way longer than that.¡± ¡°Yeah. Standing out there for fifteen minutes with your ear pressed to the door is spy territory. Not friendly eavesdropping,¡± said Lute. ¡°I haven¡¯t been sharing state secrets. Why didn¡¯t you just come inside?¡± Haoyu¡¯s nervous smile grew more nervous. ¡°I thought¡­¡± They both waited silently for his answer. ¡°I just thought you might mention me?¡± ¡°Why?¡± Lute asked. ¡°I mean¡­I can mention you if you want. Alden, Haoyu tried to grow his hair out long when we were in fifth grade. It made him look like a completely different person. It wasn¡¯t bad, but he cut it all off after one of our tour guides on the trip to the Grand Canyon thought he was a girl from behind. I bet Kon has pictures of the look.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t mention me like that!¡± Haoyu said in horror. ¡°I was just waiting to hear where I was on the list!¡± ¡°What list?¡± Lute asked. Alden laughed. ¡°He means your ¡®People I Hate Forever¡¯ list. The one you made with all your classmates¡¯ names on it.¡± Alden had wondered where everyone he was familiar with had ended up, too. ¡°You were naming people who¡¯d been crossed off for life!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°And you were naming people who¡¯d been underlined for being nice to you. And I needed to know if you crossed me off. I don¡¯t want to be crossed off.¡± ¡°You weren¡¯t crossed off.¡± ¡°Well, did I get underlined?¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if you got underlined or not,¡± Lute said. ¡°I was telling Alden about the list to explain my mood at the time. Not because the list is actually important now.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t get underlined!¡± ¡°You were underlined.¡± Haoyu groaned. ¡°I should have kept eavesdropping. Now I¡¯ll never know if you¡¯re just saying that to make me feel better.¡± ¡°You were underlined. If the list still existed, I might have to erase your underlining. Since you¡¯re a spy.¡± ¡°But he¡¯s a really honest one,¡± said Alden. ¡°That counts in his favor.¡± ¡°Does it? Honesty is a bad quality for a spy.¡± Haoyu unzipped his jacket and sat down in one of the chairs. ¡°Can I listen?¡± ¡°You just were.¡± ¡°You¡¯re telling selection stories! They¡¯re always so much fun. And I haven¡¯t heard yours.¡± Lute fluffed a cushion and laid back down. ¡°Well¡­mine is actually my entire life story, delivered to Alden because we saw my mom earlier this evening. And he didn¡¯t know she was non-Avowed. So he¡¯s getting a download from me before anyone else can poison his mind.¡± Haoyu looked down at Alden. ¡°You thought his parents were high ranks?¡± ¡°I hadn¡¯t really thought about it. It was just an assumption.¡± ¡°I was telling him about school,¡± Lute explained. ¡°Tell him about the talent show,¡± Haoyu said immediately. Lute rolled to look at him. ¡°I told him about that.¡± ¡°He played for ages!¡± Haoyu reported. ¡°And when they went up to drag him offstage, he gave Mr. Fretch such a scary look that he took a step back.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°You did.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure not. I was very composed.¡± ¡°Lute looked out over the whole audience,¡± said Haoyu, ¡°and I could feel him staring right at me¡ª¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t staring at you! I don¡¯t even know where you were sitting.¡± ¡°Everyone could feel him staring,¡± Haoyu continued, pointing at his eyes for emphasis. ¡°And then he said, ¡®I¡¯m five times more talented than all of them.¡¯¡± ¡°Don¡¯t repeat it. It sounds worse when other people say it.¡± ¡°You said it so loud! It echoed through the whole room.¡± He paused. ¡°People made fun of you for weeks.¡± ¡°Refusing to get off stage was a weird thing to do. And then I backed it up by saying something like that. I didn¡¯t expect anyone to like it, so I couldn¡¯t really blame them for that one.¡± Lute glanced away, then added, ¡°I told Alden about the dice, too.¡± ¡°The die dice,¡± Haoyu said mildly. ¡°Yeah that was another memorable day.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to apologize. You¡¯ve already tried a couple of times.¡± Alden had nothing to add to that minefield, so he stayed quiet. Haoyu threw his legs over an armrest and sat in his chair sideways. ¡°I think you think it was some big shock to me,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I¡¯ve been looking up that kind of statistic ever since I got my first tablet. Every time my mom gets summoned, I go look again. Even though it¡¯s stupid. She¡¯s not a statistic. She¡¯s usually working with and for people she knows. She seems to feel like it¡¯s important. I¡¯m sure she¡¯s smart and careful. Or when my dad gets a sudden call to supplement a team in a new city¡­I run to check and see if any heroes have died there. That¡¯s stupid, too. Some other hero having an accident five years ago doesn¡¯t mean he will today.¡± ¡°Still,¡± said Lute, ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have just thrown it at you all like that.¡± ¡°It was kind of mean,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Everyone else thought it was really mean. I just figured most of them didn¡¯t have parents who talked with them about serious stuff like that a lot, and they felt like it was harsher. Or like you didn¡¯t have the right to point it out because of who you were.¡± ¡°They think I was a crazy, jealous whiff who couldn¡¯t take a condom joke, and I laughed when Avowed died.¡± Haoyu didn¡¯t answer. Awkward, thought Alden, wondering if he should try to cut the tension. So awkward. ¡°I¡¯m not that,¡± Lute muttered. ¡°It hurt your feelings,¡± Haoyu said, watching him. ¡°When everyone expected you to give up the dice bag. You usually acted like you didn¡¯t care at all about that kind of thing. But you were so upset that day. Then Vandy made it worse by telling you it would only be okay for you to keep the dice if you actually wanted to be Avowed. You looked like you were about to¡­you looked miserable.¡± Lute swallowed. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize you noticed.¡± ¡°I noticed. I just didn¡¯t know what to say. Then Declan was disgusting, and everybody focused on him. I helped Kon yell at him.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°It was easy to yell at Declan,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°But the second I saw the death dice, I remembered how bad your face looked. And I felt like I should say something to you, but I still didn¡¯t know what. So I didn¡¯t say anything at all. I never said much to you, and I always made excuses like that. I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. But I¡¯m really not that hard to talk to,¡± said Lute. ¡°Ask Alden.¡± Alden cleared his throat. ¡°Lute¡¯s great. The second time I met him, he forced me to guess what happened to his eye over and over again, and I wasn¡¯t even sure it was really missing at the time because his sense of humor was so weird.¡± ¡°Hey!¡± ¡°He tried to make me wear a ski mask against my will earlier today. He called me Cottontail.¡± ¡°That¡¯s terrible, Lute,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Don¡¯t be mean to Rabbits. They¡¯re the sweetest class.¡± ¡°Alden¡¯s a confused Rabbit. He¡¯s in school with all you fighty people.¡± Lute yanked off his eyepatch and tossed it at the foot of the couch. ¡°I was supposed to weather the bad luck half of the Gloss in a safe location. As safe as anywhere can be when Aulia¡¯s fate boomerang is coming in for a landing, anyway. It landed too soon. Or I made it to the safe place too late. I was standing right outside it, and a drone crashed into the car I¡¯d just arrived in. One of the propellers flew off.¡± He touched his cheek below the prosthetic eye. ¡°It was fast. I just thought, ¡®Shit. I¡¯m hurt.¡¯ It was a minute before I understood I was really hurt. Afterward, my family acted like it was going to be no big deal for me to get a new eye.¡± He swallowed. ¡°I found out they were lying about that. No surprise there. Healing it was going to be¡­expensive and complicated. And not for them. I decided I couldn¡¯t afford binocular vision after all.¡± There was a long silence. ¡°Eyepatches are badass,¡± said Alden. ¡°They are,¡± Haoyu agreed quickly. ¡°And most people can¡¯t get away with wearing them if it¡¯s not Halloween.¡± ¡°I like the one with the big red X on it.¡± ¡°The leather one is my favorite.¡± Lute smiled. ¡°I¡¯m making one that says, ¡®Look away, Lexi.¡¯ We can put it on the polar bear after I¡¯ve worn it a few times.¡±
Lute had Shaper. It was there below his name on his selection notice now. And not just any Shaper¡ªIsabel had been in possession of Shaper of Water. He was at his Dad¡¯s place this weekend, and he stared at it through dinner. In the bath. In bed. This, he thought, this doesn¡¯t feel like Wright did. His brain was full of all the reasons it was wrong for him. On paper, other things were still better. But this class felt like it had a bit of a shine to it, didn¡¯t it? It makes all of this feel a little less like a disaster. Most importantly, it made him feel like he could move forward with everything else that needed to happen. At some point, he had to tell everyone instead of just Aimi and a newly minted Wright. I need advice from some people who know more than me about the classes that I don¡¯t hate. Career counselors? Isabel had been rattling off a twenty-point plan for the next three months of her life when they parted. It had made Lute feel his lack of preparation more acutely than ever. If I do want something like Rabbit or Adjuster, I¡¯ll need help to get them. Mom could probably pay for it if Aulia wouldn¡¯t¡­but negotiating for a popular or rare S class takes time no matter who¡¯s after it. He had more than eighty days still. He would be able to calm down, figure out whether his family was going to help him or not, and make rational choices before the timer ran out. How to kick over the first domino? Lute stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars he¡¯d stuck on the ceiling in this bedroom when he was nine. He made his decision. Monday, he thought. It happens on Monday. He¡¯d need to stop by the mansion first and get something he¡¯d left in his closet. What will it feel like to be one of them? I can¡¯t imagine it at all. Guess I¡¯ll find out. ****** Lute arrived at Narcissus House when the morning was so early it still felt like night. A car put him out at the front gate, and his cellphone and handprint gave him access. That¡¯s something that will change, he thought as he walked down the drive with the cold air stinging his cheeks. Anesidora was the only place on Earth where the System had agreed to make itself useful for even some of the tiny details of daily life. The gate would open with an interface command for Avowed family members, and that would include him once Aulia knew about him. Since the last time Lute had been here, the landscapers had come. The planters by the front door were bursting with pale hellebore flowers and those dark red plants with the tendrils that luminesced every time the wind stirred them. I wonder if I¡¯ll ever end up on the world where those things come from. Inside, he found signs that his grandmother had unexpectedly chosen this weekend to make her return from life at sea. One of Hazel¡¯s favorite scarves was in the coat closet. A pile of miscellaneous cases and bags waited by the door for daylight, when someone would unpack them. He headed upstairs. His room was exactly as he¡¯d left it. He had school uniforms here, just like he did in all his other residences, and he grabbed the one that looked like it had never been worn. He put it on with an unusual amount of care, then chose a black cashmere topcoat to go with it. Climbing onto a step ladder, he reached for one of the highest shelves. A small wooden case with his name carved into it was there. Was it this heavy the last time I held it? he wondered, looking down at it. He distinctly remembered thinking it was worthless to him. He remembered rolling his eyes as he stuffed it away to wait for its one and only appearance on sugar cookie day. His fingers hovered over the lid. Not yet. He slipped it into his blazer pocket and threw his coat over his arm. When he made it back downstairs, he heard murmuring in the kitchen. He¡¯d been hoping to grab something from the fridge, but never mind. He would just go. Quiet. No confrontations. One day, he would leave Anesidora forever, and he could be as loud as he wanted then. Lute froze in the foyer, just a few steps from the front door. How long will it be before I stop having thoughts like this? How many times have I skipped meals or left rooms, just so that I wouldn¡¯t feel like the adults were erasing me with their inattention and the cousins were watching me for vulnerabilities. I wonder how they¡¯ll all look at me today, how they¡¯ll look to me today. On this morning right before everything changes. For better or worse. He turned back to see which Velras were up so early in the morning, talking quietly and filling the house with the smell of coffee. Aulia, Corin, Cady, Hugh, Hazel¡ªthe usual suspects, all in their robes or pajamas except for Corin, who had probably been born in that boring three-piece suit. Then there was Aunt Diana, her husband, and their two adult children¡ªunusual additions, but predictable in this case. They liked to inhabit the mansion whenever it was mostly empty and pretend that it was theirs. They must have been caught here unawares last night and now they were breakfasting with everyone else to make it seem like they were guests instead of serial house thieves. The Diana family was smiling and nodding mechanically while the others all talked. When Lute stepped into the room, absolutely nothing changed at all. Aulia continued stirring brown sugar into her coffee with a tiny silver spoon. Hugh and Corin kept leaning toward her, peppering her with words delivered in tones that implied the conversation was very serious, though it probably wasn¡¯t. They both talked to her like that no matter how trivial the subject, as if they could force their opinion to mean more than everyone else¡¯s just by vocal inflection. ¡°I want a new stylist,¡± Hazel was saying to her mother. ¡°The way the last one braided my hair before I left was ridiculous.¡± Oh. Hazel must be heading off to do whatever it is she spends her time doing with the Artonans. And Aulia would naturally be going with her. In that case, it wasn¡¯t strange for them all to be up this early. Time differences between planets meant Avowed, and Hazel, could be found prepping to travel at all hours. Lute studied all the faces. None of them studied him back. ¡°Good morning,¡± said Lute. There were nine people in the room besides him. Cousin Becky, with Aunt Diana¡¯s group, made a grunting sound over her coffee mug that could have been taken as a miserable sort of ¡°good morning¡± in reply. Hazel glanced at him then away, not stopping her conversation with her mother. Nobody else responded at all. Lute went to one of the two steel refrigerators in the huge kitchen and searched it for breakfast. He was reaching for a yogurt when he thought better of it. No. Something more conspicuous than that. He opened the freezer and found a pint of black cherry ice cream. He spooned it all out into a bowl. Then he covered it in cornflakes, chocolate chips, and walnuts and sat cross-legged on top of the kitchen island to eat it with a serving spoon. He made sure to crunch aggressively and occasionally bang his spoon into the side of his bowl. This is actually better than I realized it would be. Ice cream and cereal really works. Not a word from any of his relatives as he worked his way through the strange breakfast. Hazel was aware of him, though. He could tell she was because of the occasional annoyed looks. But she was in I¡¯m-too-important-for-you mode, and all she did was increase her volume as she talked about appropriate footwear for a long day spent on her feet with the aliens. Lute ate as much ice cream as seemed reasonable given the time of day then set his bowl on the white marble beside him. ¡°Roman,¡± he said. At the sound of the name, conversation stopped. Heads turned. ¡°How¡¯s he doing?¡± Lute asked. ¡°Is he feeling better?¡± ¡°Like you care,¡± Hazel scoffed. People shifted. Chairs scraped lightly against the floor. Aulia was looking at him with a neutral expression on her face¡ªnot upset, not happy, just a look that said, ¡°Yes, there¡¯s the child who has lived with me his whole life.¡± ¡°I was just wondering,¡± said Lute. ¡°He was so excited on the day he got selected. I do feel bad for him.¡± Hazel opened her mouth. ¡°We all feel bad for him, dear,¡± said Aulia. Her smile was faint but not particularly annoyed. ¡°I would have Chainer waiting for every member of this family if I could. Maybe one day.¡± ¡°Roman¡¯s fine,¡± said Corin. His eyes swept the table. He was directing his words to the rest of them instead of Lute. ¡°He¡¯s better off even. Rabbit suits his personality much more than Chainer, if you think about it. He¡¯ll settle in and be happy as a clam!¡± Cady and Hugh were both nodding. Nobody else agreed. Not even Aulia. ¡°I guess he was only eight months younger than Hazel,¡± said Lute. ¡°Eight months isn¡¯t a lot really.¡± It was absolutely a lot, when one of the people involved was sixteen and the other was fifteen. And everyone in the room knew it. Lute slid off the island and reached for his coat. ¡°It was so nice to have breakfast with you all. Good luck on your travels, Grandma. Hazel. I¡¯ve got to go.¡± Hazel¡¯s eyes were narrowed. Aulia¡¯s smile now warmed the room, as if to banish any remaining mentions of poor Roman. ¡°Thank you, Lute! Have a wonderful day at school!¡± ¡°It¡¯s going to be interesting,¡± said Lute as he left the kitchen behind. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you all about it when you get back home.¡± ****** He opened the box for the first time on a bus as it drove the length of the Span. The sun still hadn¡¯t risen, and to his left and right, the dark ocean might as well have been endless. The graduation pin was right there, nestled on a bed of blue satin. The titanium symbol glimmered as it caught the light of streetlamps. The bus was full of adults conversing at early-morning volume. Lute heard bits and pieces while he stared at the pin. <> ¡°I¡¯m heading to Milwaukee for the 4th of July. My old man cooks a beer can chicken every year.¡± <> ¡°I¡¯ve always liked that symbol.¡± It was the middle-aged looking woman in the seat beside him. She was looking at the pin. ¡°A beginning and an end at the same time.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a pin they give to students at my school,¡± said Lute. ¡°The principal gave a speech about it.¡± The woman smiled. Her eyes were such a perfect shade of aquamarine there was probably some magical assistance involved, and she was wearing a shirt for a Brute diving club under her jacket. ¡°Did they tell you it¡¯s sometimes used to remind a person to move forward? It can be a way of saying that no matter how beautiful or painful a moment in your life is, it¡¯s still just a waypoint. You can¡¯t hold onto it, but you can have the next moment.¡± ¡°She didn¡¯t put it like that.¡± ¡°Well that¡¯s my favorite thing about it,¡± said the woman. ¡°So now you know.¡± Lute touched the titanium logogram with a finger, just like he¡¯d seen so many of his classmates doing a few months ago. Later, in the bathroom of a shop near his school that sold otherworldly imports, he finally put the pin on. Then he played with his System name tag. Lute Velra Lute Stellan Velra- S rank Lute Velra - Harpist Lute Velra - Pre-affixed Shaper of Water Stellan Velra - No, not that one Enjoy Eleventh Grade, Carlotta and Declan It really will let me put anything I want. He tried the ¡°harpist¡± tag on several times. He liked it best. It was the one he thought he would wear most of the time. But for today¡­something a little different. Mind made up, he hid the tag and left the bathroom with his coat on over his blazer. Walking the final block to school was surreal. The sun still hadn¡¯t risen. He felt like the journey took a long time. People he saw every day passed him on bicycles or on foot. Their breath made puffs of fog around their faces. Chattering groups of friends, older students, younger ones. Primary schoolers in their winter sweaters, holding onto the hands of parents or arriving in cars. He spotted Tuyet grabbing the back of her little brother¡¯s coat. And there was Vandy, chasing a windblown chip bag down the sidewalk. She leaped and smashed it under a loafer, then picked it up. Lute stopped to watch her. If I was going to say something to her, what would I say? An apology would go a long way with Vandy, but he wasn¡¯t going to give her one. Not her. Not until she gave him one, and he didn¡¯t see that happening. She was very stubborn. Even if he wrote a ten-page essay baring his soul, she wouldn¡¯t think she¡¯d done anything wrong. From her point of view, she hadn¡¯t. From everyone¡¯s point of view, maybe. Except for mine. Was it really so hard to make out the ground from your place in the sky? Well, it went both ways. He hadn¡¯t felt very sorry for the people who¡¯d cried at the end of the class trips, had he? They''d all been dealing with knowing that they were seeing things they might never be allowed to see again. Everly had been particularly devastated on the last day. Salar de Uyuni, right after a fortuitous rain. Lute sat down on a bench and called his father on his cell phone before entering the middle school building. Cyril was still asleep. He had to place the call twice before he answered. ¡°Hey, Lutey,¡± he said in a gravelly voice. ¡°You okay at school?¡± Lute pressed the phone to his ear. "I¡¯m good. Sorry for waking you up.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± Cyril yawned. ¡°Dad, I wanted to tell you¡­good morning and have a nice day and¡­um¡­love you.¡± That wasn¡¯t what he¡¯d called to say. But the other words wouldn¡¯t come. They exchanged pleasantries, and then he hung up. Lute tucked his phone away and climbed the stairs up to the building. He stopped at the doors. People were still arriving, but not as many. It was almost time for the first bell. The halls would be full of students lingering to talk to friends before heading into their classrooms. There would be some ninth and tenth graders keeping an eye on the entryway, eager to be the first to report a new graduation pin sighting to the rest of the school. Now? wondered Lute, holding his hand over the place where the pin was hidden beneath his coat. Here? Or later in the classroom? Rapid footsteps behind him, shoes bounding up cement steps. Then Konstantin was passing him like a whirlwind, yanking open the door, insanely eager for a Monday morning as usual. He took three steps inside then stopped and spun back to grab the door before it could shut in Lute¡¯s face. He¡¯d been holding doors and saying unusually loud good mornings all week. Lute was pretty sure he was upset that he¡¯d been deemed less socially observant than Lexi. I didn¡¯t mean it like this, thought Lute while Kon waited with the door. He doesn¡¯t understand at all. Though his misguided efforts had earned himself the highest number of underlines on the list this week. I know how I want to do it. ¡°Good morning, Lute,¡± said Kon as Lute walked through the door. ¡°Morning, Kon.¡± They walked into the building side-by-side. Lute strolled through the entryway at a leisurely speed. Kon, no-doubt vibrating with the need to go talk to twenty people before the bell rang, slowed down to match his pace. ¡°How was your weekend?¡± he asked politely. Lute was going to have to underline him again. He kept missing the point, but a wrong-minded effort was still an effort, Lute supposed. ¡°It was okay. I¡¯ve had a really stressful few days, but I ate ice cream for breakfast this morning with my cereal. I recommend that.¡± They had passed through the entryway, and as they entered the hall that held their classroom and their lockers, Lute stopped walking. It was crowded. People were milling around. Locker doors banged, and voices filled the air. No new selectees today, thought Lute. You could always tell by the atmosphere. It didn¡¯t matter which grade they were in, there would be an additional buzz in the air about whoever it was. People would be talking about the class the latest lucky person had been assigned and snapping photos with them. Kon stopped beside him. When Lute didn¡¯t move for several seconds, he asked, ¡°Did you leave something behind?¡± So many things. I don¡¯t even know what¡¯s going to be left after this. ¡°I¡¯m just going to take off my coat.¡± Lute¡¯s fingers touched soft cashmere. He shrugged his shoulders free of the coat. Then he reached up to activate the name tag, so that people with the necessary apps, or interfaces of their own, would be able to see it: Lute Nothing else. He had decided to let the very existence of the name tag speak for itself. He turned to face Kon. He watched brown eyes fix themselves on his lapel. The graduation pin shone there. Kon¡¯s brow furrowed. He opened his mouth, probably to ask Lute what exactly it meant, and Lute said, ¡°I got my S-rank selection on Monday.¡± The silence between them stood in stark contrast to the bustle of the other students in the hall. Nobody else had noticed yet. Lute knew it would only be moments. ¡°You¡¯ve never seen me before,¡± he said, staring into Kon¡¯s eyes. ¡°Maybe you¡¯ll be able to now.¡± ********** ********** ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN: The Chainer, coda 114 Lute lay on the sofa¡ªa distressed leather chesterfield Alden Thorn had been very easily talked into buying during their dorm decoration shopping spree¡ªand stared up at the copper-painted antler light fixture. If I were rewriting the story of my life, he thought, would I affix Shaper of Water right there in the hallway at school? Haoyu was telling Alden animatedly about all the traditions surrounding the graduation pins. He was of the opinion that shock from the eighth grade student body had rendered Lute¡¯s reveal day less joyful than it should have been. Lute hadn¡¯t minded at the time. It had felt right to him, even if the congratulations from his peers had been more confused and subdued than they would have been for most people. The day had been an ending and a beginning. He hadn¡¯t been in the frame of mind to want more from it than that. ¡°Everything that happened next,¡± said Lute, ¡°makes me sound so dumb. I don¡¯t know how to say it without making you both think I¡¯m pitiful.¡± Maybe if he just stuck to the facts. Ruthlessly. ¡°I went to see Cyril right after school. The word had been spreading through my mother¡¯s side of the family for a few hours, but nobody had called him. I¡¯m sure they wouldn¡¯t have anyway, but just in case, I had texted Jessica when I realized the news was out, telling her I wanted to talk to him myself. It was hard.¡± Dad, it doesn¡¯t have to change anything. Please. I don¡¯t want it to. ¡­I need some time to think, Lute. Thank you for telling me. Thank you. Why don¡¯t you stay with your mom tonight? ¡°He¡¯s still taking some time to think,¡± said Lute, ¡°about whether or not he wants to be my father. It¡¯s been a year and a half. I suppose he¡¯ll get around to deciding one of these days.¡± The apartment had gone quiet. I hope I¡¯m not traumatizing Haoyu. His parents seem so functional and loving. And¡­shit¡­Alden¡¯s died horribly so I guess I should be careful not to whine about mine too much. ¡°I¡¯d been getting interface calls from every Velra ever spawned since noon,¡± he continued. ¡°If I was the System, I¡¯d have teleported Hazel¡¯s parents and Corin to the bottom of some oceanic trench. They must have been standing around chanting, ¡®Call Lute! Text Lute! Call Lute!¡¯ ¡°I blocked them. They couldn¡¯t believe I would do such a thing. Apparently we¡¯ve got a Velra rule about not blocking each other because ¡®What if there¡¯s a family emergency!?¡¯¡± Roman had texted him right as school was letting out. If they give it to you, make her pay. Grandma or Hazel? Yes. ¡°The talk with Dad really messed me up. I was so mad.¡± Not mad. He didn¡¯t know why he¡¯d lie about the emotion. Mad was what he was about it now. At the time, he¡¯d been scared. He¡¯d stood in the elevator of Cyril¡¯s building, going up and down whenever someone boarded the car, wondering if he¡¯d just lost his dad forever and trying to figure out if it was the parentage or the fact that he¡¯d gotten something Cyril had always wanted for himself. Or did I say something wrong when I was telling him? Maybe different words¡­ ¡°When I finally left, it was ridiculous. Hugh, Cady, and Corin were parked outside in the Bentley. Roman¡¯s dad was there glaring at them from his motorcycle. Miyo and a couple of the other cousins were standing on the sidewalk. The neighborhood watcher for that area was an Adjuster, and she was making herself obvious, standing out in front of the library with a look on her face that said she was ready to turn some Velras inside out if they started anything. ¡°As soon as I stepped outside, they stampeded me. They were all like, ¡®What wonderful news! You might not know this, but I told the maid to change your diaper once when you were six months old and that makes us incredibly close. Now do exactly as I say. ¡°Jessica was ahead of them, though. She¡¯d sent a driver to take me to the helicopter. Hugh tried to get in the car with me, and I told him to go about his business. Politely.¡± ****** ****** ¡°Grab my arm one more time and I¡¯ll scream for help,¡± Lute said as he swatted at Hazel¡¯s father with one hand and tried to close the car door on him with the other. ¡°Now listen to me, young man!¡± ¡°No! I won¡¯t listen to you. You freaking lunatics drove all the way here from Apex to jump me! Don¡¯t you put your hand in this car!¡± ¡°You¡¯re being ridiculous, Lute. You¡¯re going through a difficult time right now and you need guidance¡ª¡± ¡°Help!¡± Lute bellowed, so loudly that the driver swore. ¡°I¡¯m trying to leave, and this man won¡¯t let me! He¡¯s not my guardian! I barely know him.¡± Hugh¡¯s feet shot out from under him. Cady, who¡¯d been about to get into the backseat of the car from the other side, shrieked as her husband was lifted by the ankles into the air. He dangled there, flapping his arms and babbling excuses while the Adjuster charged with keeping the neighborhood family friendly stalked over. She was pushing up the sleeves of her gray uniform, and she looked deeply annoyed. Lute went still in his seat. Corin was straightening his tie, like the watcher was going to take him more seriously if he did that. Roman¡¯s dad was cackling next to the fire hydrant. Half of the cousins looked startled, and the other half looked delighted. ¡°Are you all having some kind of trouble?¡± she asked in Mandarin. She directed the question to Lute, probably because she knew he lived here sometimes. He had seen her in the area occasionally. ¡°My mother called this car for me. Only for me. These people are trying to get in it with me when they¡¯re not supposed to,¡± Lute said in the same language. ¡°We¡¯re his family!¡± Corin said quickly in English. ¡°It¡¯s not like we¡¯re strangers.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Hugh was still dangling in the air. ¡°We¡¯re just trying to help him. He¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°A moment away from being an Avowed,¡± said the Adjuster, crossing her arms over her chest. ¡°He¡¯s flashing a name tag andthere¡¯s a non-Avowed notice, which means he¡¯s recently been selected. Congratulations, by the way.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Lute. ¡°Why do you all seem to think someone who¡¯s about to make some of the biggest decisions of his life needs your help for a little car trip?¡± she said, leaning down to look at Hugh with a menacing expression. ¡°Hmmm?¡± She made a humming sound and gestured, and Hugh was flipped onto his feet again. The damage was done. People were watching curiously through apartment windows. Cady pulled up the collar of her coat like that might hide her from view. ¡°Buckle your seatbelt,¡± the watcher said to Lute. ¡°Have a nice afternoon.¡± I could be an Adjuster, thought Lute as the car drove away. I wonder what types of spells she has? It could be binding spells, and that one just happens to lift the target off the ground. It didn¡¯t look like she messed with gravity. There were so many different methods that wonderful lady could be using to punish his family. She was probably just giving them a talking to, but Lute liked imagining them all hanging upside down. The happy thought was short-lived. Dad¡­ If I just give him time, it¡¯ll be all right. Won¡¯t it? Obviously he didn¡¯t suspect at all. And he¡¯s upset. It¡¯s a lot. Lute hoped it wasn¡¯t too much. What if Mom¡¯s just as upset? She had texted him several times, but it was all very business mode. Yes, you can go see your father. I¡¯m getting the helicopter arranged. There will be a car for you. Don¡¯t make any sudden decisions. Come straight to me. Are you all right at school? What if neither one of them want a son who¡¯s different from them in this way? How would I feel if one of them suddenly became Avowed? He rested his head against the window. The answer came to him immediately¡ªLike they¡¯d left me behind. Like they¡¯d gone to join the rest of Anesidora. Lonely. Was his mother feeling like that right now? Would she look at him differently when he walked through the door? If neither one of them want me like this, I think it might kill me. Car to helicopter. Helicopter to Narcissus House. A bit absurd just to shave minutes off the travel time, but at least Chainers couldn¡¯t fly. If they could, they¡¯d be up here trying to drag him out of the helicopter. Hazel¡¯s family really did want me to affix before Grandma got back from the Triplanets. They¡¯re worried about her position more than they¡¯ve been letting on. And Roman¡¯s dad had been there to tell him not to affix until Aulia got back. None of them had even asked him what class he actually wanted. Corin had just started shouting the names of things he could get his hands on very quickly. Lute watched the city and the sea pass by below him. He kept checking his cell phone and his interface for messages, hoping to see one from Cyril that said not to worry. Or a single emoji would be enough. Not even a heart, just a thumbs up. A wink. The helicopter landed, and Lute headed toward the back of the house with his coat over his arm and a feeling close to terror making his stomach roil. Mom will be okay with it. She will. She¡¯ll have advice, and she¡¯ll help me figure all of this out. She¡¯s probably working in Grandma¡¯s office right now. I¡¯ll go see her, and tell her every¡ª The sliding door that led from the sunroom to the outdoor kitchen opened, and Jessica Velra stood there. She was wearing the dark green sweater Lute had bought her for Mother¡¯s Day and a pair of jeans. She had on the ugly slide sandals she loved but only wore when they were unlikely to have guests. Her white blonde hair hung down in a side braid. She¡¯d been crying. She was still crying. The mascara she used to darken her lashes sometimes had run. Her cheeks were wet. Lute stood still, more afraid than ever before in his life. Mom, no. Please don¡¯t. It¡¯s all right. He meant to say the words out loud, but he didn¡¯t. Then she was running toward him, her arms outstretched, and Lute couldn¡¯t even drop the coat before she was embracing him. ¡°Mom, what¡ª?¡± He stumbled. Before he knew it, his butt was on the grass, and Jessica was on the ground right beside him, still hugging the life out of him. ¡°Look at you,¡± she sobbed in his ear. ¡°Look at you, baby. You¡¯re an Avowed! I¡¯m so happy.¡± ¡°You are?¡± Lute asked. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°You¡¯re beautiful,¡± she said, leaning back and cupping his cheek with a hand. ¡°You¡¯ve always been so beautiful. Things have been hard for you. It¡¯s my fault. I¡¯m sorry. I was afraid they¡¯d be hard forever, but they won¡¯t now. Lute, you¡¯re going to be all right.¡± What? ¡°Mom, I¡¯ve been fine.¡± ¡°I was selfish for wanting you so much.¡± She stole his pocket square and wiped at her face with it. ¡°Are you all right? Are you hurt?¡± ¡°From falling in the grass?¡± She chuckled. ¡°I know. I¡¯m being silly. I¡¯ve seen Selection happen to how many other people? But now it¡¯s you and the first thing I thought was, ¡®I hope the Contract is careful with him! I hope it didn¡¯t scare him!¡¯¡± ¡°It scared the shi¡ªstuffing out of me.¡± ¡°It did?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t even believe it was happening until an hour later.¡± She stood and pulled him onto his feet. ¡°¡­Mom, you¡¯re really happy?¡± The terror was fading. Relief was replacing it. She smiled and reached for his hand. ¡°Lute Velra, this is the happiest I¡¯ve been since the day you were born. I¡¯m proud of you.¡± ¡°But I didn¡¯t do anything.¡± Despite how some people seemed to feel, being an Avowed wasn¡¯t something you earned. Still, he couldn¡¯t help returning her smile. ¡°Come on!¡± she said. ¡°Come with me. We need to talk before your grandmother gets home!¡± ****** Jessica¡¯s joy at Lute¡¯s selection was infectious. He hadn¡¯t once had a similar emotion about it himself, and after a week of feeling every way but pleased, he gave himself permission to relax a little. ¡°Okay, okay!¡± he said, brushing the crumbs from a brownie off his shirt and leaning toward her just as eagerly as she was leaning toward him. They were sitting in a pair of pink velvet armchairs inside the expansive walk-in dressing room that connected her bedroom to Aulia¡¯s, and they¡¯d set the panic protocols just so that they wouldn¡¯t be able to hear relatives knocking. Lute was enjoying imagining some of the particularly toxic ones out there, throwing themselves stupidly at the walls of what was effectively a bomb shelter again and again. Like zombies. ¡°So the first person other than Kon sees my pin, and they say something to their friend, and then it goes all through the hall. And it gets quiet except for a couple of older students who are like, ¡®Hey! Awesome! An eighth grader¡¯s wearing a pin!¡¯ And they¡¯re all trying to figure out if I really got selected or it¡¯s some kind of stunt, and then Mrs. Sharma comes down the hall juggling all her bags and a pile of supplies. She just stops and stares at me for ages, and she doesn¡¯t notice her mug is tilted in her hand and she¡¯s dripping that Artonan flower tea she likes all over the floor. ¡°Finally she realizes her foot is getting wet, and she snaps out of it and she just drops everything she¡¯s carrying on Declan without even asking¡ªlike he¡¯s a catch-all table!¡ªand she hurries over to make sure that I¡¯m not doing anything stupid. She seemed to think I might have gotten overwhelmed and started affixing right there by the lockers.¡± He shook his head. ¡°I wasn¡¯t a great student when it came to the Avowed stuff, but I¡¯m not that ignorant.¡± He¡¯d been a quarter of a second away from becoming a Wright out of curiosity, but did that need mentioning? ¡°So then they all knew it was real! And this gossip wave hit the school, and¡­it was weird but fun. People kept staring at me like I had become a completely different person overnight.¡± His mother was beaming. Her hands were clasped over her heart. ¡°I wanted this for you,¡± said said in an emotional voice. ¡°All your life, I wanted you not to have to go through what I did. I wanted you to have everything, but I couldn¡¯t be sure.¡± ¡°You weren¡¯t sure¡­of what?¡± Lute asked cautiously. He didn¡¯t know if wanted the answer. But she still loved him. They were still a team, hiding out here in this giant closet from all the other Velras. Nothing else could matter as much as that. ¡°I wasn¡¯t sure if you¡¯d be Avowed or not.¡± Jessica reached for his knee and squeezed it. ¡°Growing up assuming I was¡ªall that endless training and preparing, and then¡­it was gone. I hated myself. I hated myself for years. I couldn¡¯t let it happen to you. If you didn¡¯t know, you couldn¡¯t be hurt like that. If you didn¡¯t know, and something wonderful happened, it could only be a blessing for you.¡± Lute¡¯s chest felt tight. So it was a lie then. She thought maybe I could be¡­but she told me never. My whole life was built on that lie. Her face was a mess from the crying. She thought she would be Avowed. Aulia designed her to be one. Trained her. Told her she would be strong. And then she wasn¡¯t. Then she was the assistant. Lute knew these things about his mother. But in his eyes, she was somehow above them. It had never occurred to him until this second that she might be thinking about his life and future this way. I thought we were the same. Me, her, and Dad. But that¡¯s not right. They grew up¡­like everyone else I know. Like Avowed. Not like me. ¡°You understand, don¡¯t you?¡± Jessica said in a rush. ¡°You¡¯re old enough to know. I couldn¡¯t raise you like the rest of them. I couldn¡¯t let you live that way, training for a future that might not happen. I wanted you to have everything I didn¡¯t. School, hobbies, a childhood, no fear at all about disappointing me¡­you could never disappoint me¡­and then, maybe, it would come to you like this. As a gift. And I never imagined¡­S. Baby, you¡¯re going to be an S-rank! For the rest of your life, nobody can take that from you.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± said Lute, still feeling like someone had stolen the last few crumbs of solid ground out from beneath him. ¡°Mom, I know you love me, but this is¡ª¡± A lie. Wrong. I don¡¯t know what the right thing would have been since you only thought I might be an Avowed, but you got it wrong. The whole world hurt me every day because of your lie. But she was so relieved. She¡¯d been crying all afternoon¡­because she wasn¡¯t afraid for him anymore. He couldn¡¯t say something that harsh. ¡°I really wanted to be the best harpist in the world,¡± he said softly. ¡°I was proud of that. I wanted that.¡± You made me want that. ¡°You can be that, can¡¯t you?¡± Jessica said, beaming at him. ¡°You can be that and so much more now.¡± Lute¡¯s phone, on the little table beside the plate of brownies, buzzed and he snatched it. Dad? It wasn¡¯t. Of course. Somehow Miyo had gotten hold of his phone number, and she wanted to know what he was about to do. ¡°They¡¯re so wrapped up in themselves they can¡¯t even imagine I might not care about Chainer,¡± Lute said. ¡°They assume everyone is just as obsessed with the class as they are.¡± Jessica took a deep breath. ¡°Don¡¯t get your hopes up, but Grandma might consider giving it to you. She wants to put the most powerful family member possible in front of the Artonans, and Hazel¡ª¡± Lute snorted. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if she¡¯s considering me or not.¡± He was still staring at his text messages, willing a new one to appear. ¡°I made a list. Chainer¡¯s not that high on it. I know there are some positive things about it, but the fact that it¡¯s held mostly by people I hate shoves it way down in the rankings.¡± ¡°Lute, you don¡¯t hate your grandmother.¡± He considered that. ¡°I think it¡¯s really close to hate,¡± he said. ¡°What¡¯s hate, but with less passion? Hate but in a way that¡¯s less, ¡®I want you to die,¡¯ and more, ¡®I want to never see or think about you again¡¯? Because that¡¯s the feeling.¡± A fair feeling, he thought, considering how she treated them. Jessica blinked. ¡°I traded into Shaper of Water,¡± Lute said. ¡°Mom, I wanted to talk to you about Rabbit and Adjuster and see if we could to swap to one of those without Corin¡¯s help? Or with it. He seems extremely eager to help. I¡¯m not sure I want to. I¡¯m not ready to make the decision. I think I need a professional class and career counselor. A lot of my classmates have them.¡± ¡°Shaper?¡± Jessica said. ¡°S-rank Shaper? I know you used to admire them, but¡­¡± ¡°I know, I know,¡± Lute said quickly. ¡°It¡¯s probably not the perfect thing. I just need time to figure it out. If you get good with it at S, you don¡¯t really know what you¡¯ll be summoned for or how often. And I assume I¡¯ll want to be talented with whatever class I have? But there¡¯s something about it. Even holding it feels better than Wright did.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t affix until we¡¯ve figured this out together!¡± Jessica said quickly. ¡°I think you might change your mind. Even if you take Chainer it¡¯s not like you have to stay around the family members you don¡¯t like. Your grandmother would expect you to drop out of school and study under her, but¡ª¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°But you wouldn¡¯t have to,¡± she continued. ¡°You can still go to school wherever you want. You can play your harp. Don¡¯t make any hasty decisions.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to.¡± Lute reached for another brownie. ¡°But there¡¯s nothing Grandma can say that will convince me to take Chainer.¡± His mom blinked again. Her smile turned a little strained. ¡°I know I never encouraged you to like wordchains. In fact, I discouraged you from it because I didn¡¯t want anyone to take too much of an interest if you seemed good at them. But they are useful. And the safety¡­Lute, it¡¯s a class that will never have to worry about¡­about being sacrificed in some awful foreign battle or¡ª¡± ¡°But there¡¯s Rabbit, Mom.¡± ¡°Chainer can make you as much money as Rabbit, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re worried about.¡± ¡°No,¡± said Lute. He paused. ¡°I hope she does want to give it to me. So I can tell her I don¡¯t even care about her special, mysterious class. I guess maybe she could convince me to take it if she gave me Libra¡­no not even then. Maybe if she gave me the Healer.¡± He was being a touch dramatic. He¡¯d heard someone say once that Libra, with all of its magical modifications and comforts, was worth more than everything else Aulia owned combined. ¡°The Healer?¡± Jessica said. ¡°What do you¡ª?¡± ¡°The rejuvenation person.¡± Lute couldn¡¯t stop the anger from slipping into his voice. ¡°The one she¡¯s got the deal with. Him. I¡¯ll take him, and she can give me any class at all.¡± ¡°Lute, it¡¯s important to think seriously about this kind of thing. I know the family hasn¡¯t been friendly to you. In general. But you can¡¯t throw the rest of your future away just to spite them.¡± Lute swallowed his last bite. ¡°I am being serious. Mom, I know we don¡¯t talk about it, but you¡¯re not even on the rejuve list. You¡¯re not important enough for that? You¡¯re not important enough, but Keiko is? I¡¯ve met her twice! She doesn¡¯t even like the family. And Cady? Cady gets to stay young, and she and Hugh are the ones who¡­who¡­¡± Who talk about you like that in front of Hazel. Who tell her that you pick up garbage for the other members of the family. ¡°They were trying to climb in the car with me when I left Dad¡¯s!¡± he said instead. ¡°I had to yell for the watcher on duty to get them to leave me alone, like a kid in a public safety video!¡± Jessica¡¯s expression had gone blank. Lute gripped the velvet arms of the chair. ¡°We deserve better. You deserve better. I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m going to like being Avowed. I can¡¯t imagine it. It¡¯s like someone else¡¯s life has landed on me and squashed my plans into dust. But even if I hate having the System in my head, even if I can¡¯t ever leave this tiny little trap of a country, the one good thing is that there are more Healers here. And as an S-rank I can eventually get money with our without Aulia¡¯s help. By the time I¡¯m out of school, I can get some kind of job. And I¡¯m going to make sure I don¡¯t have to come to dinner here in the mansion a hundred years from now and look at Grandma¡¯s face and wonder why she gets to be here when you and Dad aren¡¯t.¡± He¡¯d used up all the oxygen in his lungs on that little speech. He drew in a breath. ¡°I didn¡¯t know you were worried about that kind of thing,¡± Jessica said in a strange voice. ¡°Not at your age.¡± ¡°You¡¯re my mom,¡± Lute said. ¡°And Dad¡¯s my¡­he¡¯s Dad.¡± She folded her hands over her lap. ¡°All right,¡± she said after a minute. She cleared her throat and switched to her all-business. ¡°We¡¯ll talk this all through before you have to make a decision. When both of us are just a little calmer. When your grandmother gets back home with Hazel.¡± Lute slumped in his seat and sighed. ¡°It¡¯s been a long day.¡± ¡°It sounds like it. Did Hugh really¡ª?¡± ¡°He did. Like a crazy man.¡± Lute shook his head. ¡°And Cady was coming with him! What were they going to do? Beat me up in the back of the car and force me to affix right then and there?¡± Jessica frowned. She tapped a polished nail against the side table. ¡°I think we¡¯ll have a party tonight.¡± ¡°What?¡± Lute said. ¡°The whole family. Even the more distant relations. Maybe some friends as well. Lydia.¡± Lydia? It took Lute a second to place the name, and when he did, he was surprised. ¡°Orpheus¡¯s mother?¡± Hugh¡¯s ex-wife. The S-rank Strength Brute he had divorced for Cady. ¡°Yes, I don¡¯t think Hazel¡¯s parents will have any time to bother you tonight with her around.¡± ¡°Do I have to go to this party?¡± Lute asked. ¡°You do,¡± his mother said. ¡°The point is to surround ourselves with people in order to prevent incidents. Until your grandmother gets back from the TC and reminds everyone of their duties to the family. It should be late tonight. Besides, who else would the party be for on this particular night?¡± ¡°Me?¡± ¡°Well, yes,¡± said Jessica. There was a glint in her eye that Lute had never seen before. ¡°I seem to remember making you attend two Coming of Age parties for one of your cousins. Wouldn¡¯t you like to have one of your own?¡± ****** ****** ¡°Did you have horses at your party?¡± Alden interrupted, grinning. ¡°Horses?¡± Haoyu asked. They were both sitting on the rug now. Alden was petting it. Lute didn¡¯t think he realized he was doing it. ¡°Do you seriously think I had horses running in circles around the mansion just to remind Hazel of her bizarre taste in party entertainment?¡± ¡°Did you?¡± ¡°No! It was very last minute. And honestly it wasn¡¯t fun. I was tired and stressed, and people I didn¡¯t like were flooding me with handshakes, advice, and demands. They were all so fake¡­¡± He shook his head. ¡°Jessica asked me what kind of party I wanted, and I had no idea. I was like, ¡®A fourteen and a half birthday cake? Music. Some candles maybe. Dad to come.¡± He grunted. ¡°Not that I actually said that last part out loud. Mom¡¯s good at putting on events, though. Sometimes Aulia¡¯s just in the mood for one, so she throws something together. She had an Adjuster come and blast the lawn with spells so it felt like summer, and there were food trucks parked all over the place. Street musicians took turns playing from one of the balconies. Nobody beat me up or Swayed me into affixing, so I guess it worked.¡± ¡°We should throw you another one,¡± said Haoyu, watching with interest as Alden stroked the fluffy rug. ¡°So you can actually enjoy it. Coming of Age parties are supposed to be fun for the person having them.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to be sixteen in January.¡± ¡°So?¡± ¡°I¡¯m too old. I don¡¯t want one.¡± ¡°I want a birthday party,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯ve just decided. I¡¯m having one. My last one was memorable, but I would like to make the next one more run-of-the-mill.¡± ¡°What did you do for your last one?¡± Haoyu gave the rug an experimental pet of his own. ¡°I picked all the vegetables I was sure weren¡¯t poisonous from the greenhouse at the lab, and I made something that looked like seven-layer dip out of them. Then I put on a Hawaiian shirt and ate it on the roof with Kibby. I taught her about candles and she enhanced the tradition. Everyone gets to take turns blowing them out.¡± Lute exchanged a look with Haoyu. ¡°That sounds¡­peaceful?¡± Lute suggested. ¡°I thought I did a pretty good job. I sang. We looked out at the corrupted grasslands of Thegund and talked about whether or not the lab lights would last through the long night. I did some parkour.¡± ¡°You guys both need normal birthdays bad,¡± Haoyu murmured. ¡°I didn¡¯t sing at mine,¡± said Lute. ¡°But I did play a song.¡± ****** ****** Lute Velra had a little voice in his head that told him to be careful about revenge. He didn¡¯t feel great about how it had gone last time. A couple of people had cried. He stared really hard at an accordion player and ate onion rings out of a paper cone. He was hoping the mix of his apparently intense focus on the musician, his smelly breath, and the fact that he¡¯d hidden his name tag and put on a ball cap would protect him from his relatives for at least a few minutes. This party was full of some of the most blistering family interactions and vitriolic backbiting he¡¯d ever seen or heard. None of it directed at him, of course. Goodness no! Everyone was his friend tonight. The Roman supporters were spoiling for a re-match, and they would take up Lute¡¯s banner whether he had agreed to have a banner or not! And the Hazel supporters were losing ground, but they still kept finding time to swing by and let him know that Chainer was just the worst. Really. He¡¯d had no preparation. If Aulia decided to offer it to him¡ªnot that she would ever do such a thing!¡ªhe was going to struggle and find it so terribly dull and didn¡¯t he want to take another class? Any other one? They would go kidnap some innocent fifteen-year-old for him and deliver them tied up like a present if he wanted. Grandma and Hazel are going to come home to this. I don¡¯t think she has tears inside her. She probably weeps acid. But still¡­I think I should have said no to this lunacy. We could have hidden out with someone trustworthy. Mom was just mad about them trying to strongarm me. Then his phone rang. He started to reach for his pocket, then he stopped. ¡°System, can you send that to my interface?¡± He had to start learning the features. A familiar face appeared, floating in a circular window at the top center of his field of vision. Hazel¡¯s brown hair was braided into a crown. She was wearing a black dress with a white collar and cuffs. She was standing in a toilet stall at the TC. Lute recognized the tile work on the wall behind her because he¡¯d recently blown his nose in front of it for a while. ¡°Lute, hello,¡± she said. She sounded very professional, like this call was a meeting they¡¯d scheduled ages ago. ¡°Congratulations! My phone is full of news about what¡¯s happened. This is wonderful. Grandma and I are so excited for you.¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± Lute said in an equally professional voice. He¡¯d had a couple of hours worth of practice thanking people when he didn¡¯t mean it tonight. He was all warmed up. ¡°I hear you¡¯ve got Shaper of Water. That¡¯s a wonderful class. You¡¯ve always liked¡­swimming.¡± Little fumble there. ¡°Thank you,¡± Lute said again. ¡°I was thinking¡­this is so crazy,¡± said Hazel. She licked her lips. ¡°At work today, there was a woman who reminded me of Aunt Jessica¡ª¡± ¡°Are you really going there?¡± ¡°No!¡± Hazel said quickly. ¡°Listen, this is important. There was a woman who reminded me of Aunt Jessica¡­because of her personality. She was having a hard day today actually, and I helped her come to terms with it. I do that sometimes when I¡¯m visiting our friends there. I¡¯m sorry I can¡¯t tell you more. But I wanted you to know, she reminded me of your mother and you, and I thought¡­it¡¯s terrible that I never apologized to you. I shouldn¡¯t have said those things to you¡ª¡± ¡°Which time?¡± Lute interrupted. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Which things are you apologizing for saying?¡± Say them aloud to me right now. Any of them. Any one of the thousand things. I dare you. ¡°¡­you know, you were right when you yelled at me at my little Ascot party. I was so immature. I should have apologized, but instead I said what I did. I don¡¯t think of you and Aunt Jessica that way. I never have. I was just upset and confused.¡± A toilet flushed in one of the neighboring stalls. ¡°Thank you, Hazel,¡± said Lute. ¡°For apologizing like this. See you when you get home.¡± The helicopter should be there at the TC waiting on them now. What¡¯ll it be? Half an hour maybe if they¡¯re slow. That¡¯s enough time. He hung up. He found his mother laughing behind a food truck with Orpheus¡¯s mother, Lydia. Hugh¡¯s ex-wife was a brunette with a very noticeable hourglass figure. Lute knew at once that he¡¯d never seen her around the house before because he would have remembered her. She was striking. Magnetic in a way that made him think high Appeal, though that wasn¡¯t necessarily the case. If he remembered correctly, Lydia was a Strength Brute. One who¡¯d gone through one of the Apex leveling programs¡­so she¡¯d wanted to be a superhero or something like it at one point. Cady was also extremely curvy and brunette. Lute wondered if Hugh had a type. ¡°Mom, I¡¯m going to be in the formal living room for a while. I¡¯ll take Aimi with me.¡± She was around here somewhere, taste-testing the food.¡°Grandma and Hazel are back.¡± ¡°I know. Your grandmother texted.¡± She checked one of her smart watches. ¡°Is currently texting, in fact.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be in there when they get back to the house.¡± ¡°You aren¡¯t enjoying the party?¡± ¡°There¡¯s a song I want to play. I need to warm up.¡± ****** Lute left Aimi to enjoy a tray full of fried food and skewered meat while she guarded the door to the living room. He practiced the song until he was sure of every note, and then he kept playing, trying to breathe some life into it. It had been a while. He didn¡¯t have long to wait. When Aulia swept in with a delighted smile on her face and Hazel scuttled in after her with a strained one on hers, the room was dark. The only light came from the windows and from the lamp over the sheet music. ¡°Hello, Hazel,¡± said Lute from his seat at the piano. He didn¡¯t look away from the music. ¡°Do you remember the name of this song?¡± The name tag floating over his shoulder said, ¡°Lute - The Least of the Velras.¡± He doubted his grandmother even remembered saying it, but the idea would still come across. ¡°This is Gymnop¨¦die 1,¡± said Lute, his fingers delicate on the keys. ¡°It¡¯s my mother¡¯s favorite song. It¡¯s almost painfully beautiful. And every time I play it¡­I have to think of tissues in trash cans. Thank you for that.¡± He finally looked up at her. His fingers kept moving. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about the Ascot party. It was so long ago. You were only fourteen.¡± He paused. ¡°Oh. Wait. That¡¯s the same age I am now.¡± ****** Small, wet feet slapping on the decking as Lute chased after a beachball. A bare adult foot stopping it for him. An anklet covered in sparkling charms that made him pause for a curious examination. And a fragment of the anklet-wearer¡¯s conversation with another family member, overheard but filed away in the back of his mind. A grown-up artifact on a day filled with more interesting things for a young child to think about. ¡°Everyone thinks Aulia¡¯s attempts to find signs and omens within magical occurrences is a weakness, the one crack in an otherwise indomitable nature. They¡¯re wrong.¡± A gasp. ¡°Aunt Hikari! You don¡¯t really believe in it, too, do¡ª¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± said Hikari. ¡°That¡¯s what nobody seems to understand. It doesn¡¯t matter if such signs exist. It doesn¡¯t matter if Aulia reads them correctly. She thinks they do and that it is possible to interpret them, and that frees her from one of the bonds that hold most of us back.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand.¡± ¡°Fear. And the inertia it breeds.¡± She nudged the ball toward Lute. ¡°Once Aulia is sure magic is pointing her down a path, she takes it. Her own certainty in the supernatural provenance of her course reduces the obstacles in her way. So she tends to arrive at her destination when by all rights she shouldn¡¯t.¡± Stubby fingers wrapped themselves around damp vinyl. Lute stood and turned back toward his pool. ¡°There aren¡¯t many people strong enough to halt the momentum of someone who believes she has deciphered the voice of her god.¡± ****** Aulia Velra stood smiling beside the piano bench, her hair shining a deep honey color in the lamplight as Lute finished the song. ¡°Lute, my dove,¡± she said. ¡°Aren¡¯t you spectacular tonight! I didn¡¯t realize you¡¯d kept up with the piano at all. I thought you and Angela were more of an exclusive couple.¡± Startled, he looked at her. She knows the name of my harp? He was sure he¡¯d said it in front of her a few times. But he would have bet the price of Angela that she wouldn¡¯t have bothered to remember. The name tag that said ¡°Least of the Velras¡± was floating beside his head for a reason. ¡°I haven¡¯t really kept up with it,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s just not that hard to go back to a song you used to spend so much time on.¡± ¡°Mmm,¡± Aulia said. ¡°Congratulations. I am truly overjoyed to learn that all my heartache over your future was wasted.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t believe for one second that your heart ached for me.¡± She touched his cheek. This close, she smelled faintly of jasmine. ¡°I know you don¡¯t,¡± she said. ¡°That¡¯s my fault, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯ve been gifted with more talented young grandchildren than I can keep up with. That doesn¡¯t mean I don¡¯t love every last one of you. But sometimes I turn around and realize you¡¯ve gotten so big in the last few blinks, and I wasn¡¯t paying attention.¡± She sounds sincere. How unsettling. ¡°Grandma,¡± said Hazel, ¡°you¡¯re not going to¡ª¡± Aulia¡¯s eyes didn¡¯t leave Lute¡¯s face. ¡°Hazel, sweetheart. I know the difficulties you¡¯ve been facing. And you should know, your position in my heart and in this family could never be in jeopardy. You may be the most uniquely gifted person on all of Anesidora. You will be a Chainer.¡± Hazel straightened. There was just a hint of smugness tinging the relief on her face. ¡°Let¡¯s go for a little trip,¡± said Aulia. ¡°Just the three of us. I¡¯ll drive.¡± In the ensuing moment of silence, the noise from the party filtered into the room. ¡°You can drive?¡± Hazel and Lute both said at exactly the same time. They frowned at each other. ¡°Good grief, you two,¡± said Aulia, flipping her hair over her shoulder. ¡°I¡¯m the reason Anesidorans drive on the righthand side. Just because I haven¡¯t done it in a while doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯ve forgotten how.¡± ¡°But¡­how long has it been?¡± Lute asked. He had never seen his grandmother operate a vehicle. ¡°I got my license renewed fifteen or so years ago. So it was just the other day! We¡¯ll take the Bentley.¡± She drove them to the apartment. It was a quiet trip except for one of the local news streams playing through the car¡¯s speakers. They were talking about upgrades that had recently When Aulia pulled up to the building and passed the keys off to a valet, she raised an eyebrow at the two of them. ¡°Good job,¡± said Lute. ¡°We are alive.¡± ¡°Grandma, can you teach me how to drive?¡± Hazel asked. ¡°Corin can teach you,¡± said Lute. ¡°I know, because he drove your parents over to my dad¡¯s place today so that they could all accost me.¡± She glared at him. ¡°Your da¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m not interested in hearing the two of you bicker,¡± Aulia said, making the tossing gesture at the building¡¯s doorman that she used to automatically send argold tips through the System. ¡°You¡¯re family. Act like it.¡± Should I start speaking a language Hazel can¡¯t understand? That would be very familial, as far as this family goes. When they reached the penthouse, it was empty. Aulia¡¯s residences were rarely empty. There was always some family member enjoying the luxuries. Maybe everyone was just back at the party, but Lute thought it was more likely she¡¯d called ahead and cleared the place out. She led the way into the apartment, kicking off her shoes and dropping the Artonan-style widesleeved coat she¡¯d been wearing on the foot of a chaise lounge. The lights, operated by a command from her interface, came on then dimmed. And the giant windows framing two sides of the apartment¡¯s main living area turned opaque, blocking the view of the skyline. ¡°Sit wherever you like,¡± Aulia said, tying her hair back with a ponytail holder she¡¯d pulled from her pants pocket. Blue tattoos peeked out of the sleeveless cream-colored top she was wearing¡ªthe back of the shoulder, her chest, her waist. Having seen her in a swimsuit, Lute knew the geometric patterns interlocked, making a network over the left side of her torso. The newer ones were smaller than the older ones, but just as intricate. One for every Velra who wore one of their own. ¡°Let¡¯s have a little tutoring session,¡± said Aulia. ¡°A special one. We¡¯re going to learn a wordchain together. The name¡¯s nice. <>.¡± Hazel perched herself on the center of the sofa. <> she said in Artonan. <> ¡°An old one,¡± said Aulia. ¡°So old it¡¯s decrepit, you might say.¡± Hazel drew in a breath. ¡°But if it¡¯s like that¡­it won¡¯t¡­and won¡¯t we get in troub¡ª?¡± ¡°I know what I¡¯m doing,¡± Aulia replied. ¡°And why would we get in trouble? If one of you forges half of the chain, I will make sure the other half is forged to meet you. It¡¯s simple. Let¡¯s see if we can¡¯t wake it up.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t agreed to this,¡± Lute said. ¡°I don¡¯t understand what you¡¯re talking about, and I don¡¯t really do wordchains.¡± ¡°Ha!¡± said Hazel in a vindicated tone, as if he¡¯d just confessed to eating boogers instead of not fooling around with the family hobby. ¡°And what does this one even do? Maybe I don¡¯t want to see a thousand instants.¡± ¡°It¡¯s nothing that grand,¡± said Aulia. ¡°If you get it right, it will give you long distance vision for a moment. There are other chains with similar effects. This one was just designed in a way that makes it unusual¡­and undesirable to certain people in decision-making positions. So you won¡¯t find it in any book. Hazel won¡¯t find it in any of her books either. ¡°Actually, it¡¯s not in any of my books. It¡¯s that far removed from the world we work in.¡± Hazel gasped. Lute looked between the two of them. They¡¯re so melodramatic. I think they enjoy it. ¡°It¡¯s a special acquisition of mine,¡± Aulia said. ¡°And the words and signs aren¡¯t very difficult, Lute, so Hazel¡¯s advantage will be slightly reduced. It¡¯s uniquely suited for a little friendly competition.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the other half do?¡± ¡°You won¡¯t have to pay it.¡± Her smile widened. ¡°I took care of Hazel¡¯s debts for the chains she cast on her Coming of Age. It wouldn¡¯t be fair if I didn¡¯t do the same for you.¡± Coming of Ages, thought Lute. Plural. He went to the bathroom and texted his mother. [Grandma wants me to learn some ancient vision wordchain. It¡¯s a competition thing with Hazel.] [Good luck! You¡¯ve got this!] Jessica texted back. Not what I was getting at. He texted Aimi. [Grandma wants me to learn some ancient wordchain. It¡¯s a competition thing with Hazel. This isn¡¯t some kind of trap is it?] After a few seconds, Aimi replied, [Run! Run for your life! :) Just kidding. She does this kind of thing all the time. Cousin versus cousin battles make us all feel even more loving toward each other as we grow up.] Lute sighed. [Spending hours watching you fumble around in Artonan is a really inconvenient murder method, don¡¯t you think?] Aimi added. [I didn¡¯t think she was going to kill me. But why does she have to act so spooky about it!?] [Vibes.] Well, it¡¯s fine. Not like I even have to try the chain seriously if I don¡¯t want to. He was sure this whole plot was designed to boost Hazel¡¯s confidence and reassure her. Yeah, that¡¯s it. Here, Hazel. I know you¡¯re feeling bad about being sixteen, and half the family is mad about Roman. Crush Lute at your favorite game so everyone still knows you¡¯re above him. The wordchain Aulia taught them was, as she¡¯d said, simple. Simple-ish anyway. Twenty words. Some gestures. They weren¡¯t allowed to practice everything all at once. Instead they had to do it in out-of-order sections. ¡°When you decide you¡¯re ready to try a full cast, let me know,¡± she said brightly after she was done teaching. ¡°Only one attempt each!¡± ¡°Only one?¡± Hazel asked. She seemed displeased with this wordchain. She kept looking at Aulia and saying, ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± with regard to the gestures and words. Like she wanted it to be harder. The translations for the words that had appeared on Lute¡¯s interface indicated that the wordchain would do what Aulia said. It was about seeing really far anyway. He¡¯d written the words phonetically in English with notes on pronunciation quirks out to the side. Aulia¡¯s chaining had a pleasant chanting rhythm to it as well, and that was helping. Artonan¡ªbad. Songs¡ªgood. Hand gestures¡ªit wasn¡¯t like playing the harp, but he was pretty decent at getting his fingers to do what he told them to when he told them to. Hazel, apparently worried about giving him any advantages, was refusing to practice out loud. She was just moving her lips silently and staring off into space. Lute discarded the page on which he¡¯d written the definitions of the words, because trying to remember what it all meant was unnecessary, wasn¡¯t it? Just make the sounds right and convey the idea. Hey! Give me some long distance vision for a second. You¡¯ll be paid back. No reason to be all formal about it. But be sincere, he decided. Did wordchains care about sincerity? He doubted it. Hazel could do them after all. But they sounded like they were supposed to be sincere, so he¡¯d claw an advantage where he could. Hazel was definitely going to beat him at this strange little game Aulia had decided to invite the least of the Velras to participate in now that he was looking less least. This is quieter than the party was anyway. When he thought he had it memorized, he waited. No way was he going first. He wanted to make sure he saw Hazel try it. She was glancing at him, too, as if she was thinking the same thing. I can outlast you, thought Lute. Because I don¡¯t want to prove myself as much as you do. He grinned at her. ¡°On the off chance that you both succeed, the first person to do it successfully wins,¡± Aulia said from where she was typing on a laptop nearby. Hazel leaped up. ¡°I¡¯ll go first!¡± ¡°What are we winning anyway?¡± Lute asked, not moving an inch. ¡°You can pick the menu for the next month,¡± said Aulia. ¡°Anything you want. How does that sound?¡± ¡°With Kabir?¡± ¡°Unless we¡¯ve gotten another chef.¡± That wasn¡¯t a bad reward. Hazel hated spicy food. Lute hadn¡¯t gotten to eat Kabir¡¯s version of Jamaican jerk chicken in forever. He still let Hazel have her attempt first. Aulia took her over to the windows and removed the opacity from them. She had Hazel look out over the skyline. ¡°Begin,¡± she said. To Lute¡¯s surprise, his grandmother started casting what appeared to be the opposite half of the wordchain just seconds after Hazel started hers. So much for listening to Hazel for pronunciation tips. It sounded like a mess with both of them chanting it. Hazel finished. Aulia was watching her closely. She suddenly stopped casting mid-word and let her hands drop. ¡°You did very well, dear. Your casting was flawless,¡± said Aulia. Hazel¡¯s hands were clenched at her sides. ¡°You always take such offense when this happens. Relax. Everything will come to you in its own time.¡± She looked back at Lute. ¡°Are you ready?¡± ¡°Sure,¡± he said, pushing himself up off the couch. ¡°Why not?¡± He stepped over to join her by the window. ¡°What am I supposed to look at?¡± ¡°Whatever you like. Something in the distance is best. It will only last a moment, so why waste it?¡± ¡°If it works, you mean,¡± Hazel muttered. Lute fixed his eyes on the farthest point he could see from this height. Past streets and rooftops and spires, past Nautilus Needle, to a small light in the distance on the water. He performed the wordchain, tuning out Aulia¡¯s simultaneous performance with ears used to ignoring some of the more offensive members of the youth orchestra. The words were just sounds to him. The hand motions were a dance that went in time to the song he was making. He tried to sincerely want to borrow something so that he could see the pinprick of light out there. He didn¡¯t feel anything special happening. There was no headache or psychic event. Just him doing the thing as well as a tedious night of practice would allow for. He pronounced the last syllable. And then¡­ The thing he¡¯d assumed was a boat wasn¡¯t. He could see it clearly, as if darkness and distance didn¡¯t exist. It was the moon. Not the real moon, but a big gleaming moon nonetheless, brought to life by someone¡¯s illusion magic and hanging over the water like a giant lantern. A man and woman bundled up in coats and earmuffs suddenly appeared from what should have been the dark side of their giant moon. They were arm-in-arm, flying around it slowly. ¡°That¡¯s got to be the most Apex date that¡¯s ever happened in the history of dating!¡± Lute exclaimed. ¡°Which one of them is doing the flying and which has the illusion spell?¡± He blinked, and he couldn¡¯t see it anymore. He stared out at the city and the tiny light over the water that was no longer a mystery. ¡°Wordchains can do that?¡± he asked in surprise. ¡°That was really Longsight level¡ª¡± There was a thump behind him that caught his attention, and he turned to see Hazel hopping on one bare foot. She was clutching the other and grimacing. Did she just kick the sofa? He said, ¡°Kicking things is its own punishm¡ª¡± ¡°Shut up!¡± Hazel spat. ¡°Just shut up!¡± ¡°I see now.¡± There was something in Aulia¡¯s voice that made Lute forget his cousin. One of her hands was pressed to the window. She closed her eyes. ¡°Or rather I don¡¯t.¡± Her expression was soft. She turned to face Lute unerringly, even with her eyes shut. ¡°So this is what I¡¯ve been blind to.¡± ****** It was four days later when his mother woke him in the night. He struggled his way out from under the sheets, adrenaline flooding him at the urgency in his mother¡¯s voice, and the tablet he¡¯d fallen asleep with came to life, showing the last website he¡¯d been viewing. Class and career counseling services. He¡¯d found one that seemed cool. He was going to ask his mom to set up an appointment. He wanted to talk about Shaper and Rabbit. And Adjusters with illusion abilities¡ªthe moon date was just a little too striking to get out of his head, so he wanted to find out more about the path that would get him that kind of spell. ¡°What is it?¡± he asked, staring into Jessica¡¯s eyes. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± ¡°You need to get dressed,¡± she whispered. ¡°Don¡¯t be too loud. This is your chance.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± he whispered back. She was holding out clothes for him. Jeans and a t-shirt with Beethoven¡¯s face on it. ¡°Hurry,¡± she said. ¡°Your grandmother¡¯s waiting. We don¡¯t want her to change her mind.¡± ¡°Is she still¡­you know. Can she see again?¡± Lute did not like that weirdass wordchain she¡¯d taught them at all. It wasn¡¯t anything like the ones he¡¯d ever heard of, even living in a house full of Chainers. The bad portion seemed way out of line with the good one, and wordchains were supposed to be equal weren¡¯t they? Was that one glimpse of a superhuman date night worth days of blindness? What it did seemed off in the first place, and Hazel was all like, I bet you feel smug, but don¡¯t think something like that is going to get you any respect from people who matter! No wonder it was some kind of forgotten antique. ¡°She¡¯s fine,¡± Jessica said. She went to stand by Angela Aubergine. ¡°Dress. Quickly. Don¡¯t make too much noise. If the others wake up they¡¯ll interfere.¡± ¡°Interfere with what?¡± Lute pulled the shirt over his head and started yanking on the jeans. A pair of sneakers and socks were already on the bed. ¡°Chainer,¡± Jessica whispered. She was staring at the harp. ¡°You¡¯re getting it.¡± Lute paused with a sock in his hand. ¡°I don¡¯t want it. I told Grandma I didn¡¯t. I told her before she could even ask me outright if I would be interested.¡± Actually, he had said something more panicky about crazy old Avowed doing creepy wordchains they¡¯d probably gotten from the kinds of wizards who had bodies decomposing under their beds. But he was sure the ¡°no thank you, I¡¯ll have none of that¡± had come through loud and clear. Jessica let out a single puff of laughter. ¡°Yes. You surprised her. In a positive way, maybe. You do..it¡¯s a good thing if you can stand up for yourself a little bit in this family. We have some strong personalities.¡± Lute wasn¡¯t putting on his socks. ¡°I said no. She can¡¯t make me take a class I don¡¯t want. I¡¯ll just¡­I¡¯ll affix Shaper even if I¡¯m not ready.¡± He wasn¡¯t sure he was brave enough to do it. He really wanted time. His mother looked back at him. Her face was suddenly very composed. ¡°Lute, just talk to her. Chainer¡¯s a good class. And I think¡­I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll make it worth your while.¡± ¡°If I do this, then can we go to the career counselor tomorrow?¡±If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Jessica didn¡¯t answer for a moment. ¡°Yes,¡± she said. ¡°We can do that.¡± ¡°It isn¡¯t far from Dad¡¯s place,¡± Lute added. ¡°I might stop by again. He didn¡¯t answer my voicemails.¡± He stuffed his feet into the shoes, then he followed his mother through the mansion, down the curving staircase into the White Parlor, through it and down a hall to Aulia¡¯s office. Jessica stopped outside the door. ¡°You¡¯re not going in with me?¡± Lute hissed. ¡°Why? Are you scared of your grandma?¡± ¡°No.¡± A little. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ¡°I love you, baby. More than anything else in the whole world. You can do this. You¡¯re going to be great.¡± Now Lute felt embarrassed for making her say something like that before a simple conversation with his own grandmother. He stepped through the door. Aulia was at her desk. Four globes¡ªone Earth and each of the Artonas¡ªstood on wooden pedestals behind her. A fluffy gray cat was sitting in her lap, purring as she stroked it. Persia had been dropped off by Orpheus a few years ago. Lute wasn¡¯t sure whose cat she was officially, but her heart belonged to the housekeeper. Aulia stood and set her on the floor. She stepped out from behind the desk. ¡°Well?¡± she said, holding her arms out and spinning in a slow circle. ¡°What¡¯s the verdict?¡± Teal sleeveless mock turtleneck. Batiked harem pants. Low-top sneakers. Large wooden hoop earrings and a wooden armlet. Her hair was in a French braid. ¡°Early 1970s Universalian,¡± said Lute. ¡°They wanted to look Artonan but cooler.¡± ¡°Bingo!¡± said Aulia, putting a hand on her hip. ¡°They also wanted to look as different as possible from those fogeys who were hankering for a return to the 50s.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want Chainer. Give it to Hazel.¡± His grandmother heaved a dramatic sigh and flopped back down into her rolling chair. She crossed one leg over the other. ¡°You know, Lute,¡± she said, ¡°I¡¯m sure the Artonans could tell me if Hazel was an S-rank. Or they could have told me you were. Maybe not the minute you were born, but surely before you were this age. If the System knows, how could they not? But they have very stubbornly refused to give me any information like that. In fact, they get ridiculously offended if I ask. They seem to think having such answers might lead me to rear young minds improperly. A rather backward point of view considering how all of this has gone.¡± If the Artonans had told her about me years ago, would I have spent all my time locked away with her and Hazel? Lute shuddered. ¡°Jessica¡­¡± Aulia frowned. ¡°Your mother seems to have held a similar sort of opinion without me realizing. If she had acted differently, if she had given me some inkling that you might be Avowed¡­you would¡¯ve faced less trouble. I would have insisted on teaching you. As you aged, I would have noticed you were above average, I¡¯m sure. Some children surpass others through effort even though they lack talent, as your mother did. But when talent is present it always shows itself eventually. Cream rises, as they say.¡± She arched a brow at him. ¡°To be frank with you, Lute, I haven¡¯t given up on Hazel achieving S-rank. So I hope you¡¯ll take it as a compliment that I wish to give you the position over her. You haven¡¯t had any of the training I prefer to give our new Chainers before they¡¯re presented to the people of the Triplanets, but as your mother points out, you¡¯ve proven you¡¯re capable in other ways. You speak two foreign languages, you are accustomed to long hours of practice with your harp, and your casting of such a rusty chain was fateful. Don¡¯t you think? I selected that one because I knew it would be. Magic has so obviously chosen your cousin, I was blind to the fact that it has also chosen you.¡± Yes. That was a completely sane way to decide how valuable family members are. ¡°An S at fourteen,¡± Aulia said. ¡°Do you know how many people have called to congratulate me on you? And there have already been tasteless questions about your origins. I would expect a smidge of jealousy and misdirected anger from fools and their mediocre children for the next few years. Take whatever idiotic accusations they throw your way as compliments. And, of course, you¡¯re my grandson. You¡¯ll suit Chainer well.¡± Lute swallowed. ¡°Are you saying that the family won¡¯t help me get any other class?¡± ¡°Does it sound like I¡¯m saying that?¡± Aulia opened her desk drawer and took out a deck of tarot cards. They had been in there for as long as Lute could remember. When he was little, he¡¯d asked her if she believed in them, and she¡¯d said of course not. They were just useful for putting her thoughts in order. Only an idiot would take them seriously when real magic existed. He still didn¡¯t know what to make of that. She laid the first card on the table. ¡°What is it you think you hate about Chainer?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to be around most of the people who have the class.¡± ¡°Get an apartment,¡± said Aulia. ¡°Lock the door and tell the family members you don¡¯t like to go away.¡± Does she not realize that includes her? ¡°I don¡¯t even understand what it is you all do when you¡¯re summoned.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll be wonderful at it! It¡¯s simple. You go, you use Mass Bestowal until it doesn¡¯t work anymore, you meet lots of people who are very excited to see an important Avowed, and then you come back home.¡± ¡°Anyone can do wordchains,¡± Lute said. ¡°I know you learn extra ones¡ª¡± ¡°Anyone can do wordchains, yes. But do you see many people running around using them as often as we do? The System will adjust you in ways that make learning them so much easier. And you¡¯ll be able to give them to other people. Master a few highly desirable ones, and you can make a fortune of your very own if you like.¡± ¡°It¡­¡± Lute hesitated, ¡°¡­Chainer doesn¡¯t feel very much like magic.¡± Aulia looked up from the Ten of Swords. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Grandma, if I¡¯m going to have magic¡ª¡± after thinking I couldn¡¯t for so long, ¡°¡ªI¡¯d rather it do something more obviously magical.¡± An illusion of the moon. Flight. A swimming pool¡¯s worth of water obeying his command. Even something like Roman¡¯s new lost item finding skill. ¡°I have no idea what you¡¯re talking about right now,¡± Aulia said. ¡°In a couple of seconds, I could pass you a chain that would make you as strong as an ox. What¡¯s not magical about that?¡± Lute shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s just how I feel right now. Chainer sounds okay, but it¡¯s not my favorite. If you¡¯ll help me get other classes, that¡¯s great. If not, I¡¯ll take Shaper of Water.¡± No thanks. I haven¡¯t enjoyed being a Velra of Great Worth for the past few days. I¡¯ll make my own way. He felt good saying it. When his grandmother didn¡¯t answer, he decided it was fine for him to declare the meeting over himself. He turned to leave. ¡°I¡¯ve heard you claimed you wouldn¡¯t take Chainer unless I gave you Libra. Or Horatio. Don¡¯t you have expensive tastes?¡± The bitterness stirred. Lute was afraid if he turned around, he¡¯d yell at her. And he didn¡¯t actually want to make her that mad. Aulia was the ultimate authority in his life and, more importantly, his mother¡¯s. She always had been. Even if he could get an apartment and lock her out of it¡­it would be a while before he was out of school and able to work. It would be a while before he had the resources to completely sever ties without risking things that mattered more to him than his own pride. ¡°You can have Horatio.¡± Lute spun. ¡°What?¡± Aulia¡¯s smile was gone. ¡°Imagine. Asking me for a whole person. A Healer. I almost admire you for it.¡± She set aside the deck. ¡°You say Chainer is ¡®okay¡¯ with you, so you don¡¯t actually dislike the class that much. That¡¯s enough. You¡¯ll see its benefits once you have it in hand. You can¡¯t have the entirety of Horatio, though, no matter how¡­interesting I find the request. You can have one hundred and forty years of youth restoring treatments for whomever you like, whenever you¡¯d like. A decade of rejuvenation for every year of your own life. It¡¯s not like his talents control things on a literal year by year level, but we can approximate the amount. What do you think?¡± Lute didn¡¯t think anything at all. His mind had gone blank. Aulia crossed her arms over her chest and waited. ¡°You¡­¡± said Lute, his voice cracking. ¡°You¡¯re just¡­.you¡¯re going to give me one hundred and forty years worth of rejuvenation treatments. To do whatever I like with? When you won¡¯t give¡­¡± His neck was hot. Jessica might still be right outside the door. He dropped his voice to a fierce whisper. ¡°When you won¡¯t give Mom anything?! She does everything for you. She¡¯s the hardest working member of the entire family. And just because I got an S¡ª¡± ¡°An early S,¡± said Aulia. ¡°A very early and auspicious S.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care how early it was. I don¡¯t care if I was born with the letter tattooed on my ass!¡± ¡°Oh, you¡¯re old enough to swear at your grandmother now. Precious.¡± You monster, thought Lute. You¡¯re an awful monster of an old lady and if there was a magic power to suck all of the youth and beauty out of your face, I¡¯d use it on you right now. ¡°I¡¯ll make my own money,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ll make enough to get a rejuvenator myself.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure you can,¡± said Aulia. ¡°You¡¯re clearly very angry, but since it¡¯s for the sake of your mother, I won¡¯t hold it against you. I promise, on the day you have enough money and connections to force your way onto a rejuvenator¡¯s waiting list, I¡¯ll applaud you. How long do you think it will be?¡± Lute stared at her. ¡°Eight more years of school before you can work full-time. But maybe you¡¯ll be summoned often, and that will really speed you along in terms of money and connections. Shaper of Water is so useful. If you go through a talent development program and focus on leveling it intensely to the exclusion of all else, you¡¯ll no doubt become one of the best in the world. And maybe the Artonans will stop being so stingy with the rejuvenation skills in the first place. If they dole them out more often, then the Healers being selected right now who choose to follow that path could be at Horatio¡¯s level in¡­well, he¡¯s the same age as me.¡± She sighed through her nose. ¡°I believe you¡¯re capable of getting there. But you have a painful and lengthy journey ahead of you. You wouldn¡¯t believe the things some people put themselves through to get on those lists. They ruin their youths in the process of chasing youth if you ask me. Wouldn¡¯t it be much simpler for me to¡ª¡± She made a flicking gesture with her fingers, ¡°¡ªthump some relative who¡¯s already had a turn or three off the list for you so that you can put whoever you like in their place?¡± I¡¯m trapped, thought Lute. He could feel the tension in his muscles, like he was preparing to bolt. ¡°Why¡­?¡± he said. ¡°Why are you pressuring me so much? Just for Chainer? Why is¡­?¡± Why is an S rank worth this much? When only days ago I was worth nothing at all to you. When my Mom is apparently still worth nothing at all. I hate Anesidora. I want to leave this place forever. ¡°Don¡¯t feel pressured,¡± said Aulia calmly. ¡°This is only a business agreement. I¡¯m presenting you with an option you didn¡¯t have previously. Make whatever choice you want.¡± Then she swiveled her chair around to stare at the globes. ¡°I need time to¡­to think.¡± ¡°Take as much time as you like,¡± said his grandmother. ¡°But¡­while you think, consider this: if Hazel does get an S, I¡¯ll give the prize to her. It¡¯s just like in our game the other night. In the event of a tie, the first to volunteer wins.¡± Lute fled. The house was dark. One of the automatic nightlights in the hall turned on as he ran from the office, casting his shadow against the walls. In the White Parlor, he found his mother sitting beside her computer on the sofa, staring down at her hands. ¡°Oh,¡± she said, giving him a shaky smile, ¡°you caught me. I was so nervous I was just sitting here instead of working.¡± He threw himself at her and grabbed her in a hug. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Jessica asked. ¡°We need to leave,¡± said Lute in a muffled voice. ¡°She¡¯s awful, Mom. We need to live somewhere else.¡± She stroked the back of his head. ¡°Lute, I like it here. And I love your grandmother.¡± ¡°She doesn¡¯t love you back.¡± He didn¡¯t let go of her. He felt like if he let go of her, she would disappear. ¡°I think¡­I think I might have to take Chainer.¡± Her arms tightened around him. ¡°It¡¯ll be all right, won¡¯t it?¡± He could barely think through it. There was suddenly a ticking clock over his head, and it wasn¡¯t the friendly ninety day clock the System had given him. The first to volunteer wins. Hazel probably wouldn¡¯t get S. But she might. She might any second. She was so freaking old. The System could be giving her that speech right now. ¡°It wasn¡¯t¡­it¡¯s not my least favorite class. And I don¡¯t have to hang around the family just because I¡¯m a Chainer. I can get an apartment and lock people out. I can support myself. When I was making my list, I liked the schedule. Because I could keep being a musician instead of spending all my time on Avowed stuff. I never wanted this in the first place, so any class that¡¯s not too hard and doesn¡¯t get me killed¡­that was how I was thinking the first day. That¡¯s still a bit how I¡¯ve been thinking. Like if I did get the right kind of Rabbit skill, it wouldn¡¯t be that different from Chainer, would it? I only put it so low because of the cousins. That¡¯s such a childish reason to discard a class. Maybe I actually like it fine?¡± Shaper of Water was in his head. And the moon. That was dumb. Lute had lived his whole life not wanting magic at all. Now that he thought he might get it, he was getting off track. ¡°I did do that wordchain when Hazel couldn¡¯t the other night. So, I¡¯m probably not going to suck at them. And¡­I need to be practical. Chainer is very practical.¡± He rambled on until he finally realized he was rambling on. He was still so anxious he couldn¡¯t feel embarrassed that he¡¯d been hugging his mother and babbling in her ear for entirely too long. He let go of her and stood up, straightening his Beethoven shirt. ¡°I¡¯m making the right decision, aren¡¯t I, Mom? It¡¯s¡­I know it¡¯s an important decision, and she¡¯s making me rush. I hate her so freaking much. But this is still the right decision?¡± Jessica leaned forward. ¡°Well,¡± she said, ¡°I want you to be happy. And I want you to be safe. And I don¡¯t want you to have to live your life being summoned every few seconds for who knows what. I think Chainer will give you all those things, when not many other things could.¡± ¡°Yeah. I know you don¡¯t like the Shaper idea,¡± Lute said. ¡°I think that class might get you killed one day,¡± said Jessica. ¡°So you¡¯ll have to forgive me for not being a fan. It just doesn¡¯t feel like you to me.¡± ¡°And Rabbit¡¯s¡­if I had the perfect Rabbit skill it might be great, but what if the Artonans suddenly decide they just can¡¯t go five minutes without seeing my face?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a cute face.¡± ¡°So they¡¯d summon me all the time. One minute I¡¯m in bed, the next I¡¯m falling all over myself trying to get clothes on before someone orders me to polish their chandeliers.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t even like cleaning your own room,¡± said Jessica. ¡°I think I¡¯d like it a lot more if magic was involved.¡± Lute sighed. ¡°But still. Chainer. It¡¯s not bad at all.¡± ¡°It¡¯s right for you,¡± she said firmly. ¡°You think so?¡± ¡°I truly do.¡± The reassurance did make him feel better. ¡°Hazel¡¯s going to lose her mind. If she really does get an S, too, I might need to hire protection. Okay. Chainer. Easy decision. I don¡¯t know why I¡¯m freaking out. Let me just go tell Grandma.¡± He walked back to her office. Slightly less panicked. This was fine. And he had a rough idea of what Horatio¡¯s time cost due to his obsession with the subject. His grandmother was a hateful witch for holding it over his head, but at least he was getting a huge bonus for taking a class that his cousins were willing to kill each other for. This Avowed nonsense is all really hard. No wonder my classmates are a bunch of lunatics. He knocked on the door and entered. ¡°That didn¡¯t take you very long.¡± His grandmother¡¯s voice was pleasant. Her feet were propped on the desk and she was staring at the ceiling. ¡°I¡¯ll do it,¡± Lute said. ¡°I¡¯ll take Chainer. Um¡­do I have to get that tattoo like everyone¡ª?¡± ¡°The family mark is nonnegotiable.¡± ¡°And do we hire a lawyer in the morning for making the agreement about the Healer or what?¡± No way was he giving her anything until he was sure she couldn¡¯t cheat him out of that. ¡°You want it to be binding, don¡¯t you?¡± Aulia said. ¡°We¡¯ll tie it into the tattoo with all the rest of it so you can be sure of my integrity.¡± I¡¯m getting that tattoo on my ass. For real. Whichever butt cheek is my least favorite. ¡°So when do we¡ª?¡± She smiled. ¡°Right about¡­¡± ¡°When?¡± ¡°Wait for it¡­now.¡± [Invitation from Contract Artist Rekiss-tha House of the Southern Convocation Palace of Unbreaking Artona III] [Teleport in 74s] [Accept/Reject] ****** ****** ¡°And so I was branded for life at the age of fourteen,¡± Lute said. ¡°The next thing that happened was¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t get to hear about the tattoo ceremony?!¡± Haoyu protested. ¡°That¡¯s the first time you went to the Triplanets!¡± ¡°But I can hardly tell you anything about it. I can¡¯t tell you exactly where I was or what its function is. I can¡¯t tell you all the things I agreed to or didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind. You¡¯ve left out other things and it¡¯s still interesting. Like, you said your grandmother tested you with a wordchain but you wouldn¡¯t tell us what it was called or what it did.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because she had me promise not to divulge it during our little tattoo session.¡± ¡°What did the tattoo artist look like?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Was he nice?¡± ¡°She. And I don¡¯t actually know if she was nice. She wasn¡¯t mean to me or anything. But I wasn¡¯t in the best frame of mind to be making character judgments. Clearly.¡± ¡°Were you high?¡± Alden asked. Haoyu looked at him in surprise. ¡°I mean while he was getting the tattoo,¡± Alden clarified. ¡°I¡¯m not asking if he was high when he was making his decisions about his class.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I was. I was relaxed in a really specific way¡­fine, I¡¯ll tell you some of it.¡± ****** ****** Lute Velra had never expected to see one of the Triplanets in real life. When the teleport ended, his eyes were shut tight and he was thinking, Another planet! Wizards are going to look at me! Aliens are going to think things about me and talk to me! Wizard aliens! I¡¯m getting a tattoo! Becoming an Avowed! Mom! What was the Contract Artist¡¯s name again? How is it pronounced? I was supposed to have more time. His eyes opened. He was breathing fast. He was¡­in a parking lot. Outside of what appeared to be a stadium. A pair of giant swooping wing shapes, made of a metal that looked like hammered bronze, sheltered it. Did the System put us in the wrong spot? he wondered. Then, madly, If it did, is this my one and only chance to run away and live in Europe under a false identity? Reality asserted itself quickly. The parking lot didn¡¯t have painted spaces for cars. Instead it was covered in patterns and logograms. The air smelled peculiar. It was a sunny day. ¡°It¡¯s warm,¡± he said. ¡°Do you think it¡¯s thirty degrees?¡± ¡°Probably. Though that¡¯s not particularly hot for this area.¡± Aulia started striding toward the stadium, and Lute hurried after her. A driverless cart met them halfway and carried them to their destination. ¡°Do they play some kind of sport here?¡± Lute asked as he stepped off the cart in front of a massive entrance where towering statues of Artonans holding up the edges of one of the bronze wings made a shaded area. His grandmother laughed. ¡°Oh, to be your age! ¡± Was that a yes or a no? Soon, he was walking into his first alien building. It looked like a conference center, but a very decorated one. Logograms everywhere. No people¡­ Oh, there¡¯s one. Lute took in the sight of the Artonan. They were wheeling something like a library cart covered in small wooden pyramids out of a nearby room. At the sight of Lute and Aulia, the Artonan froze. And stared. It wasn¡¯t until they were on an elevator down to a sub level that it occurred to Lute that he was the real alien in this alien seeming place. That person was having an ordinary Artonan Monday. And then we walked by. Maybe they were going to go home and tell their kids that they¡¯d seen a human boy at work today. The two of them met their Contract Artist in a hot and dim circular room full of what looked like adjustable massage tables. A trio of people in matching robes, who Lute assumed were assistants, were prepping two adjacent tables. Rekiss-tha, standing between them, took one look at Lute and said, <> <> Aulia said easily. ¡°I¡¯m fourteen.¡± Lute was determined not to let Aulia to do all the talking for him even if he was language limited. ¡°In Earth years.¡± Rekiss-tha had a lens that hovered in front of her left eye. Lute was assuming she got translations through it. Her wizard garb seemed unusually elaborate and very rainbow-colored. <> she said again. <> Aulia said. <> I will be working for a palace soon. That¡¯s¡­is that good? The tattooist grunted with obvious displeasure at this news. Then she made a fluttering gesture at Aulia. <> Aulia smiled and hopped up onto the nearest table. Rekiss-tha beckoned Lute over. She looked at him with reddish-brown eyes. <> ¡°Yes.¡± <> She sounded hopeful. ¡°No,¡± Lute said quickly. ¡°No¡­thank you. Not my face.¡± <> My ass. My bum. My butt. Nope, none of those words were coming out. He meant them, but they would not come out. What about rump? Not that one either. Lute couldn¡¯t look a wizard lady in the eye ten minutes after arriving on another planet for the first time and request a tattoo in that location. No matter how displeased he was with his grandmother. I¡¯m kind of afraid of Rekiss-tha, aren¡¯t I? There was a knot of worry in his gut. He was about to be an Avowed. She was a wizard. She could summon him. She was probably much more trustworthy than Aulia, just based on the odds. But it was still a very strange realization that he was about to be, officially, at the Artonans¡¯ beck and call. Maybe Chainer really is the best choice. That boring work schedule they all seem to have is sounding comforting right about now. Still he couldn¡¯t let himself be entirely overwhelmed. He was going to stand up for himself. Fight the fear. Fight his Grandmother. It¡¯s going to last forever. It has to go in the right spot. I have to make a statement as the least of the Velras. I¡¯m a teenager. I can say the word ass! ¡°I¡¯d like it on my lower back, please.¡± ¡°Are you sure about that one, dear?¡± Aulia asked. ¡°I know I didn¡¯t give you much time to prepare. You can ponder it for a while longer.¡± Lute rounded on her. ¡°I can have my tattoo wherever I want. I think I know my own mind. Lower back is a classic location.¡± She held up her hands. ¡°I¡¯ve always wanted one there.¡± Dammit, he thought as he climbed up on his table and accepted a cup of¡­maybe it was oily gray tea?¡­from one of the assistants. It¡¯s fine. The lower back is close enough. I can still call it an ass tattoo. Anyway, who would get a butt tattoo with their grandma in the room? He was making better choices. This stuff tastes like chalk. Sometime later, he was facedown on the table. Pleasant-smelling smoke kept wafting unerringly toward his nostrils from the incense burning all around them. Lute was in an odd mental space. Spells had been involved and the tea, and he was simultaneously very relaxed and very focused. He was barely aware of the lines of paint Rekiss-tha was putting on his back with a delicate brush. But he was extremely aware of the words she was saying. It was as though every one of them had meanings so powerful they could obliterate everything else in their path. <> He was aware he was learning a whole lot about Chainer through this process. But at the same time, he couldn¡¯t care about a such a trivial thing. What mattered was each word. Understanding it. Thinking about whether he agreed with it or not. At one point, Rekiss-tha patted Lute on the shoulder. A ringing tone that had filled the room¡ªwhen had that started?¡ªsuddenly stopped, and she said, <> A long pause. <> Aulia said in a dreamy voice. <> said the tattooist. <> <> <> ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Lute mumbled. <> said Rekiss-tha, patting his shoulder again. <> <> Aulia said, still distant. <> Rekiss-tha grunted. <> she said. <> Then the tone came back to the room, and Lute was focusing on the words again. What could have been hours later, he gradually came to his senses enough to realize that he was sitting in a comfy chair holding a cup of wevvi and nodding politely at one of the assistants. She was asking him if he remembered everything he¡¯d agreed to. ¡°Yes,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s all right here in my head.¡± At the front of his mind in fact. Like the information had been written there very recently in a bold hand. ¡°I remember arguing with my grandmother about some of the lines, even. But it also feels like it didn¡¯t really happen.¡± <> She asked him a few more questions that seemed designed to check that he was recovering from his altered state properly, then left him alone in the side room with his cup of wevvi. Lute ran through the terms of the family contract in his head while he sipped his drink. This would be better with cocoa powder in it. Wow, Grandma takes micromanaging to an embarrassing level. All of these little details are just stupid. Never tell anyone about this family member¡¯s skill. You can tell everyone about this. Keep these thirty-eight specific facts about your work secret. He didn¡¯t have his hands on the class yet, but this sounded like it all added up to Aulia sowing confusion about how their powers worked so that people thought she was more special than she really was. And to hide some weaknesses from her enemies. For example, the Gloss¡ªthe big trump card that Lute was now obligated to allow her to cast on him, with certain conditions¡ª ****** ****** ¡°What about the Gloss?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Ass tatt.¡± ¡°Awwww¡­¡± ****** ****** ¡ªthe big trump card that Lute was now obligated to allow her to cast on him, with certain conditions¡ªhad to be paid for in full. Everyone knew one of the main benefits of being a Chainer was that you got more than you paid for and you could selectively reduce the cost of wordchain halves. But Lute had just agreed to keep a lot of secrets about how Chainer debt repayment worked in general, so there was something uncool going on somewhere. And he¡¯d specifically agreed never to let anyone know that certain wordchains, including the Gloss, could not be attenuated or repaid by other parties. Aulia¡¯s signature wordchain had mythic status on Anesidora. If you could summon up good luck for yourself and your family and never receive as much bad luck in return, then you had a guaranteed win button. If you just kept pressing it, you¡¯d eventually pull ahead of everyone else, and the only reason Aulia didn¡¯t do that was because she was a respectable council member who didn¡¯t want to risk causing nationwide havoc for her own gain. Well that¡¯s a lot of crap, thought Lute. The reason she doesn¡¯t do that is obviously because there¡¯s no point! There¡¯s no benefit if you have to pay it all back! Why on Earth would she ever use it? Aulia breezed into the room, her wooden hoop earrings swinging. ¡°You¡¯re back to yourself, I see! Excellent. I was just telling some people about you. They can¡¯t wait to meet you. But they¡¯ll have to I¡¯m afraid. We have an appointment to get you your new class.¡± She¡¯s chipper. ¡°Hey,¡± he said. ¡°Do Chainers only work for this Palace of Unbreaking? Because one of the terms in the contract¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Aulia said. ¡°Hop up. We¡¯ll be exiting from the same spot we arrived in.¡± She held out a hand as if she were going to pull him out of the chair and onto his feet. Lute ignored it and stood on his own. ¡°We don¡¯t ever get summoned by anyone else? Ever?¡± ¡°Hardly ever,¡± said Aulia, ¡°The Palace has exclusive summoning rights for Chainers. They can loan us out, but they rarely see fit to do that.¡± Lute peered at her. ¡°Is that a good thing?¡± It didn¡¯t sound like the worst thing, depending on how nice the palace people were, but the family had been quite tight-lipped about it. Lute had thought that they all worked for the same place, but he hadn¡¯t been aware that they could only work for that place. ¡°It has its pros and its cons,¡± Aulia said, her smile turning forced. ¡°When I was a little older than you and had my first magical adventure¡­I admit, I was somewhat distressed to find that I wouldn¡¯t have access to the entirety of the Triplanets. But what Avowed does?¡± Access¡­thought Lute as they rode the cart across the parking lot where nobody parked. ¡°Don¡¯t you have friends all over the Triplanets?¡± Lute said. ¡°Everyone says you¡ª¡± ¡°The Palace exists in multiple locations on all three Artonas,¡± Aulia replied. ¡°And there are a few on other worlds. Plus there are plenty of other ways to make connections.¡± ¡°Yes¡­but that¡¯s definitely not the impression most people have about you.¡± ¡°As I said, there are pros and cons. For example, the Palace doesn¡¯t summon other classes of Avowed. Feel free to tell people that as long as you adhere to the family guidelines about making it sound the proper way.¡± ¡°Why do we have guidelines about how things sound? It¡¯s weird.¡± ¡°What people think is the truth is often more powerful than the actual truth,¡± Aulia said in a tone that seemed designed to convey wisdom. That sounds bogus, thought Lute. That sounds like the kind of thing you say because the actual truth is that Chainers are isolated from the rest of the Triplanets and we only get to work with one specific group of Artonans. Who own buildings that look like sports stadiums. ¡°Why is it good that they don¡¯t summon other Avowed?¡± he asked. ¡°Because there¡¯s power to be had here, dear,¡± said Aulia. ¡°Why would we want to share it?¡± ****** When they arrived back home, it was mid-morning. Jessica was waiting in Aulia¡¯s office with a dark-haired boy in a dress shirt. He leaped to his feet as soon as Aulia entered and said, ¡°Counselor Velra!¡± excitedly. ¡°Yes, you¡¯ve won the lottery, haven¡¯t you?¡± Aulia said. ¡°Thank you for holding the class for us for the past few months. The funds have all been transferred? Good. Jessica, give us a moment alone.¡± Lute¡¯s mother hugged him, then left. ¡°Lute, trade with him,¡± Aulia said when the door had closed behind her. It¡¯s too soon. I¡¯m not quite ready. Let me think about it just a little longer. The protest died inside him. Among the thousand other things the tattoo he now wore said, he had promised he would affix Chainer, and in return, Aulia had promised she would do everything in her power to uphold her end of the bargain even if Horatio the Healer dropped dead suddenly. The other guy enthusiastically initiated the trade. Aulia stood there as an authorized witness. Lute accepted. There was a twinge of regret when the words Shaper of Water were replaced by Chainer. Giving up Wright didn¡¯t feel like that. He knew he was just being childish. He¡¯d spent his whole life thinking he wouldn¡¯t be Avowed at all. Any class he got would make him far more magical than he¡¯d ever expected to be. While he tried to distract himself from the unexpected sense of loss by examining the Artona III globe and trying to figure out exactly where he¡¯d just spent the past few hours of his life, Aulia said kind politiciany things to his trading partner and wished him a bright future before sending him out the door. It clicked shut behind him. ¡°All right,¡± she said. ¡°What an exciting morning! Now, you¡¯ll hold the Chainer assignment for the next two and a half months while we give you a crash course on everything you need. I¡¯d download the language into your head if I could, but even beginning to teach you that kind of thing will have to wait. There¡¯s so much else. You¡¯ll need a wordchain repertoire first, lessons on the unique culture surrounding the Palace of Unbreaking, and etiquette. God, the etiquette! And of course I¡¯ll be giving you a complete rundown of all the important figures you might meet during the course of your work.¡± Lute looked around. ¡°You don¡¯t want me to affix the class right away?¡± ¡°Absolutely not,¡± said Aulia. ¡°You¡¯re already contracted to do it, so I¡¯m not worried about a change of heart. You¡¯re an S. We don¡¯t have that many. More than any of the others, you need a thorough education in how to handle yourself and how to handle the people you¡¯ll encounter. It will take time, but the Palace tends to summon new Chainers very quickly to say hello. I don¡¯t want you affixing until I¡¯ve nudged things around and talked to the leaders about you. Given your age, and the way Orpheus fell apart when he started, it shouldn¡¯t be hard to convince them you need to work alongside one of us every time you¡¯re summoned for the next few years.¡± ¡°I think I¡¯ll be all right on my own.¡± She rolled her eyes dramatically. ¡°Yes, yes. I know you¡¯ve decided I¡¯m a terrible person. But would you really rather work all alone with a bunch of aliens instead of having some backup from some more experienced members of your own family?¡± ¡°Maybe if it¡¯s Aimi.¡± ¡°Aimi can¡¯t be your keeper. Aimi needs a keeper of her own. It¡¯s¡­nine in the morning. We¡¯ll have breakfast brought in here and get started on your first lessons right away.¡± Breakfast is French toast casserole today. Lute had the menu he¡¯d made with Kabir for this week memorized. Breakfasts were the only non-spicy dishes on it for some reason. ¡°How much time is all this tutoring going to take?¡± Lute asked. ¡°I¡¯m in the process of clearing my schedule for the coming weeks. We don¡¯t have a moment to lose.¡± Aulia¡¯s eyes were flicking through the air as she did something with her interface. ¡°I have school.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be ridiculous. Do you want to spend the next few weeks practicing your multiplication tables or do you want to know how to handle your career on the Triplanets?¡± Multiplication tables? When was the last time she looked at eighth grade math homework? She walked over to him and reclaimed her swivel chair. He was standing between her and the globe. ¡°One more thing¡­¡± Her lips twisted. ¡°Jessica has asked me not to tell you that you¡¯ve made a judgment error until you¡¯ve grown to enjoy your new class, but I¡¯m afraid I won¡¯t be able to accommodate her wishes. I prefer not to become tutor to a grandson who thinks I¡¯m evil. I would feel bad, since she and I have a relationship built on trust. But apparently that trust doesn¡¯t run as deep as I thought it did.¡± ¡°What are you talking about?¡± ¡°I asked her who your genetic father was. She insisted it was Cyril. You haven¡¯t demanded to know otherwise yet; I suppose she feels like preserving that little illusion for you if you want it. Do fill me in if you change your mind. I¡¯d be very interested.¡± Aulia stacked the tarot cards she¡¯d left behind earlier and tucked them back into the desk drawer. ¡°As for your error¡­I never had any intention of letting your mother, or you, suffer the ravages of time while the rest of us lived on.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t believe¡ª¡± ¡°Healing doesn¡¯t always work. You know that?¡± Lute frowned. ¡°I know there are some things that magic won¡¯t fix. And there¡¯s reversion.¡± ¡°Artonans had magic long before they understood cells or genes. Healing does things beyond the realm of medicine and it suffers from drawbacks beyond the realm of medicine as well. Reversion, for example. On occasion, or in response to certain interferences, a Healer¡¯s work can revert. A week passes and a healed bone is suddenly broken again.¡± ¡°Reversion is really rare though.¡± ¡°Yes. But it¡¯s more common after intensive or repeated bouts of healing. And it¡¯s more common when the healing is done by Avowed.¡± ¡°What? I¡¯ve never heard that!¡± ¡°It¡¯s rare enough no matter who the Healer is, so it¡¯s not something you need to worry about on a daily basis. My point is that healing is miraculous, but it isn¡¯t flawless. A specially trained wizard¡ªor sometimes a whole team of them¡ªcan offer gentler, more customized healing options than any Avowed we currently have here on Earth. Rejuvenation is considered an extreme magical process. The Artonans who are allowed to take advantage of it almost never use Avowed for their own treatments.¡± She interlaced her fingers over her stomach and watched him. ¡°When I realized Jessica wouldn¡¯t be one of us, I researched the matter. Not many regular humans have received rejuvenation treatments, especially not multiple ones, and there wasn¡¯t a lot of information here on Earth. But I found it on the Triplanets. I was told that a non-Avowed would be more delicate than you and I are. They said that if I wanted her to have the longest life possible, she should be treated there by specialists. Not here by someone like Horatio. ¡°Getting it lined up for her isn¡¯t simple. We¡¯re waiting another decade or so and then I¡¯m going to agree to what will no doubt be a gauntlet of awful favors in order to have a Rabbit who¡¯s an expert at locating human-friendly healers arrange it for us.¡± The first thing Lute felt was relief. The second was a dawning understanding that almost took his breath away. ¡°You¡¯re¡­I know you¡¯re lying,¡± he said. ¡°Mom knew what I thought. I told her, and she never said¡­there was no reason for her to let me think¡­¡± ¡°She¡¯s the one who told me about your misapprehension in the first place,¡± Aulia pointed out. ¡°I was confident I could persuade you to want Chainer on your own, but she was afraid that you were only going to grow more enamored with Shaper as time passed. Or with Rabbit. She thought one was too dangerous. She thought the other might take you off the planet so that she could never see you again. A bit silly. It¡¯s not like we have Shapers dying left and right. Most Rabbits enjoy their travels. But Jessica is most familiar with Chainer. She understands all of its drawbacks and benefits clearly. She wanted it for you. And I wanted you for it. So she suggested that if all else failed, we might take advantage of your misunderstanding so that you would do what was best for yourself.¡± No, thought Lute. No, she wouldn¡¯t do that. She wouldn¡¯t do that to me. ¡°I¡¯m sure you picked up the idea that I was a coldhearted creature who would let my own daughter die from the rest of the family. Obviously Jessica and I don¡¯t tell them that she¡¯ll be receiving access to far superior magical treatments in the future. It would only make them jealous and obnoxious. Some of the more shameless ones would hover around me at all hours, begging for more than I already give them.¡± Aulia put her feet up on the desk. One of the laces of her sneakers was beginning to come untied. ¡°So now you have the full picture. You mother has always been well cared for. You were to be well cared for. And please remember that even if I played a little trick on you, I did give you Horatio¡¯s time to use for whomever you wish. It would have been so easy just to promise you that I would help Jessica get rejuvenation treatments, and it wouldn¡¯t have cost me anything at all since that was already my plan.¡± I¡¯ve already agreed. I agreed to it. When he tried to imagine himself giving Chainer away to someone else, he could feel it. The contract. He could hate the class. He could want to be rid of it. But as soon as he seriously thought about trying to be rid of it, there was this¡­denial of the possibility that it could be a reality. He¡¯d promised. He¡¯d meant it. It was done. Aulia laughed suddenly. ¡°You¡¯re the first person I¡¯ve ever paid to take Chainer! Think of it as an apology for all the years of my tutelage you missed. Do what you want with your prize. Sell it for a fortune. Give it to the man you call your father. Save it for yourself or share it with someone you find in the future. Enjoy!¡± There was a cry of rage. The Artona III globe hit the floor. Lute Velra was running through the mansion, through the White Parlor, past the kitchen, toward the front door. His mother was there picking up a pair of shoes someone had left in the wrong spot when they came in. ¡°Lute?¡± ¡°You lied to me!¡± he shouted. ¡°You lied to me my whole life! You lied to me about all the most important things in my life!¡± She looked so shocked. ¡°Lute, let¡¯s calm¡ª¡± ¡°NO!¡± She reached for him, and he backed away from her so fast he almost tripped. ¡°This was supposed to be my decision! Mine! It¡¯s the biggest choice I¡¯ll ever make, and I was trying so hard to get it right, and you knew that, and you lied to me!¡± ¡°I just want you to be happ¡ª¡± ¡°Go fuck yourself! Keep picking up everyone else¡¯s shit until you really die. I promise I won¡¯t shed a single tear for you ever again!¡± He ran past her and out the door. She lied. She lied to me and dad. She lied about me possibly being Avowed. She plotted with Grandma to make me take Chainer. He ran until he was about to collapse. He stumbled onto a bus. Jessica kept sending him texts and voicemails, trying to explain that she understood how upset he was and she loved him and she only wanted to make sure he had the best life possible. [That¡¯s all,] she wrote, [I¡¯ve ever wanted for you.] [Make Aulia agree to break the contract,] he wrote back finally. [Come home. We¡¯ll talk.] [Make Aulia break the contract. Let me make a choice when I have all the facts. Fix what you did.] He went to Cyril¡¯s and practically forced his way into the apartment. He stayed for a couple of nights, trying to ignore the fact that the atmosphere had turned poisonous from a combination of him needing his dad to act normal around him and his dad not being able to do that. The only moment of connection came when he first explained what had happened. ¡°She was raised to be this way, wasn¡¯t she?¡± Cyril said, giving Lute an orange juice to drink since that was all he had in the fridge at the moment. ¡°Chainer this. Chainer that. Jessica always said she hated it and that things were going to be different with you, but I guess she meant she was going to wait and see if you were actually Avowed before she put you in the family business instead of starting when you were a toddler.¡± Lute clenched his juice glass in both hands. ¡°If she doesn¡¯t at least try to get Aulia to let me out of the agreement, I¡¯ll never forgive her.¡± ¡°Doubt she¡¯ll believe you about that. After all, she forgave Aulia for everything, didn¡¯t she?¡± They talked for a while longer. Lute was starting to relax and get things off his chest. Then Cyril had to ruin it. ¡°It¡¯s not right, but really, Lute, you haven¡¯t got much to complain about. Chosen at fourteen. S-rank. About to become an Avowed with one of the rarest classes. Be happy with what you¡¯ve got.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± Lute asked. ¡°I have to be happy about my own family manipulating me because they¡¯re manipulating me to take something other people would want?¡± ¡°I¡¯m just saying¡­¡± ¡°I wanted to be a musician. I had goals of my own and I have worked toward them every day. For years.¡± Cyril snorted. ¡°Nobody would choose that life over the one you¡¯ll be getting.¡± Lute hated him right then. Just a little. He started his applications to all of Anesidora¡¯s best high school music programs that night. When the forms asked him to input his Avowed class, he wrote, ¡°harpist.¡± He wished the forms were paper instead of electronic so that he could write the word more aggressively to get his point across. Filling out the forms and writing essays about his future as if class and rank were completely irrelevant to him gave him some clarity. I¡¯ve already screwed up. Bad. I trusted the wrong person. My mom. If your mom is the wrong person, then who¡¯s the right one? Never mind. It¡¯s done. What do I need to do now? There weren¡¯t many options. He could keep throwing himself on his family¡¯s mercy and sense of justice and hope they saw reason. He could try to convince Aulia that he was the second coming of Orpheus by finding substances and abusing them in public. He could be the most epic brat in the world in some other kind of way and hope she was dumb enough to believe it was a longterm state. He could wait quietly and hope Hazel had an S buried in the black pit she had in place of a heart. These are terrible. The first is naive, and I¡¯m tired of being naive. The second is self-destructive and why should I destroy myself for them? The third¡­could be really fun. But I don¡¯t think she¡¯d buy it. The fourth is just unlikely. He¡¯d been expecting Hazel to call him. She hadn¡¯t. He didn¡¯t know if she was busy plotting to kill him or if she was just really depressed. Despite what Aulia had said, Lute didn¡¯t think she was expecting S for Hazel anymore either. One too many disappointments. One too many signs from the universe against her. First a surprise Roman causing a family schism. Now a surprise Lute in all his youthful glory! Lute pulled his applications up on his interface. The word ¡°harpist¡± was so satisfying. The answers he¡¯d written about what kind of musician he hoped to be were so him. This is who I am. Why can¡¯t I still be this? ¡°System, can I ask you a question?¡± Why not? Mom can never be trusted again. Dad¡¯s¡­not at his best. ¡°Haha, System. You¡¯re my family now. That¡¯s what you get for picking Lute Velra.¡± He dragged a blanket off his bed and sat on the floor. ¡°What should I do?¡± He waited. [Make a choice for yourself.] ¡°Thanks I guess.¡± Lute continued to stare at the words. The System was just telling him what he already knew. It was up to him. Decide. Deciding had been so impossible since the moment he had been selected. It turned out that the real life version of the dice game scrambled your head up horribly. ¡°I¡¯m always going to be a harpist,¡± he said. A choice. Just one. ¡°I¡¯m going to be the best musician on Anesidora. I don¡¯t care what my class is or what theirs is. I¡¯m going to destroy them all.¡± Two. ¡°I¡¯m going to high school. No way am I getting roped into private tutoring. I want people who aren¡¯t my family around me.¡± Three. The more choices he made, the more solid ground he had to stand on. Two weeks ago, he¡¯d known himself perfectly. He just had to build it back brick by brick. Lute kept at it, making decisions about tiny things when he couldn¡¯t handle the big ones. Until finally¡­ I think I¡¯m back. I think I¡¯m me again. The class he ended up with was terribly important. It would shape his whole life. But it wouldn¡¯t be his whole life. He could look at it more calmly when he thought of it that way. The most likely outcome from this point on is that I affix Chainer. Lute Velra-Harpist. Side order of wordchains. Address: Anesidora. If that¡¯s the way it goes, what choices are there left for me to make? Aulia was planning to tutor him and teach him everything he needed to know over the course of the next two months. She was planning to have a chat with the Artonans and make sure he was placed with a family monitor even when he was on other worlds. She was planning to have control. Lute dropped his blanket and went to the bathroom. He checked out the ornate symbol on his back for the thousandth time. It was a lot of geometric linework contained in a shape that looked like a wide-splayed letter V. I think this is enough control for one lifetime, he thought. I think¡­she doesn¡¯t get to have anymore. A choice. A big one. He did sleep on it, just in case he was insane. But when he woke up in the morning, he still felt sure that he wanted to do it. ¡°I¡¯d like to sign the Contract,¡± he said. ¡°Right now.¡± ¡°Welcome, Lute,¡± the System murmured in his ear. ¡°And thank you for your future service.¡± ****** ¡°What is this?¡± Lute asked, staring at his interface. He¡¯d selected the Skills tab first because he wanted to see what juicy goodies Aulia was keeping secret from the rest of humanity. And¡­ ¡°Mass Bestowal is automatic!? I thought the other S¡¯s just took it because Aulia did! We don¡¯t get to pick? What kind of damaged class is this?¡± He was having a mini heart attack sitting on the edge of his bed because this was his big S-rank skill, and he was trying to make a bold step forward in his life here and make choices, and there were no choices. ¡°Are you laughing at me right now?¡± he asked the System. ¡°You¡¯re almost as bad as my real family!¡± He poked the words Mass Bestowal (required), hoping they¡¯d disappear. When he finally got around to looking away from the terrible crime that was his complete lack of a skill list, he felt silly. ¡°Oh. I get to choose something down here. Whew. I was panicking for nothing. Sorry, System. We¡¯re still friends as long as it¡¯s at least a C-rank.¡± He prodded the option, and the skill list he¡¯d been hoping for appeared. Now let¡¯s see what kinds of things Chainers can do that I don¡¯t know about¡­these all look so boring. Debt this. Loan that. Am I a magical banker now? Wait, these are all S¡¯s. ¡°Am I supposed to have two S-rank skills?¡± He knew he wasn¡¯t. ¡°I get a whole second S skill?¡± When it sank in, he started to laugh. He felt delighted. And excited. Two S skills! Not one! Lute Velra was a god! Maybe only a banker god, but he¡¯d take whatever victories he could find at this point. ¡°Okay. Let¡¯s study this.¡± He had nothing to rely on but the words in front of him. There weren¡¯t descriptions of Chainer skills for him to read on the internet. He wasn¡¯t about to call any of the S-ranks in his family and ask them for tips. Fortunately, the Chainer S-rank skill list seemed to be way more forthcoming than the ones he¡¯d heard about. There weren¡¯t that many skills¡ªaround thirty with a note at the bottom reassuring him that if he ever used them all up, the Palace of Unbreaking would design more especially for him! Lute peered at it. That¡¯s friendly of them, he decided. But how many lifetimes would it even take to get thirty S-rank skills? Even more shockingly, the skills were listed in non-alphabetical order. Instead, they were sorted by their priority in the Palace of Unbreaking¡¯s eyes. Number One on the list, a skill that accelerated a wordchain so that it would hit harder but last for a shorter duration, was the one that was most valuable to the Palace at the moment. He could expect more summonings if he took it. The other classes would kill to have skills sorted this way. Ultrarares designed for specific jobs obviously have their perks. He thought about Number One for a long time. That¡¯s an amazing skill, he decided. Worthy of S-rank for sure. There were a dozen reasons to want a wordchain¡¯s effect to be intenser, briefer, or both. The main drawback seemed to be that the skill would have to be actively used the whole time the chain was being accelerated. Most wordchains lasted hours. Aulia¡¯s Gloss lasted days. It was great if Lute was just going to be working for himself and on himself, but considering the fact that this skill was in high demand with his new employers¡­ This could be a skill that requires hours of work from me every day, couldn¡¯t it? All of them could depending on what the Artonans do with us. But this is the number one most wanted. He went down the list, reading whatever skill descriptions were offered carefully. Some had notes about ¡°ethical limitations¡± and when he asked the System for clarification, he actually got it. They were like Mass Bestowal¡ªpermission from target required. Not that surprising. I knew they didn¡¯t just ask to be polite. They have to do it. The limit wasn¡¯t placed on all the skills, but it was there on a significant number of them. He made himself take his time and not jump ahead to look at a few skills he¡¯d spotted on his initial skim. He had no idea what they did yet, but they had music-related names. Most were about halfway down the list. One was just a couple away from the very bottom. Aulia would probably lose her mind if she knew I was getting to pick another S skill. She would have wanted me to choose something in the top five so that I could make myself more useful for the Artonans and for her schemes. She¡¯d have slapped the instructions to do it into the tattoo with all the rest of it. He was looking forward to picking whatever he wanted and then repeatedly reminding her that she¡¯d missed the chance to control an entire extra S-rank talent. I wonder how many people even have access to this skill list? On Earth it might just be Aulia. Maybe Aunt Hikari was hiding another max rank skill up her sleeve, too. And then there were the Chainers from other worlds. They probably had a very similar list, right? But it still couldn¡¯t be that many people. Especially if every S-equivalent Chainer on every planet got Mass Bestowal first. Lute spent hours on the selection process. The farther he went down the list, the more strange little notes started to appear out to the side of the skills: [Ceremonial Use Only] [Supervision Required] [Created in Memory of our Brother Sess-nor] Eventually, he decided he liked the third skill from the bottom. It had a musical name even if it didn¡¯t do a musical thing. It seemed like the titling was more of an artistic nod to the fact that wordchains could sound quite musical or, if a couple of the other skill descriptions were anything to go by, be performed in time to music. It¡¯s a short description, but it sounds cool. It doesn¡¯t have any special notes out to the side. Being at the very bottom of the list meant the palace didn¡¯t really want him to take it. It probably wouldn¡¯t increase his work hours at all. It wouldn¡¯t put him in a good position to rub shoulders with and become valuable to important Artonans. He considered that a total benefit. A harpist needed time to play the harp. Grandma would hate it. He stood and stretched. ¡°System, what do you think of this one?¡± The System had no comment. It wasn¡¯t a good sport about commenting on the skills at all. ¡°I like it,¡± Lute decided. ¡°I want it.¡± He jabbed it confidently. Next my foundation points! They were mostly selected for him. ¡°Are you serious? Even though I¡¯m S?¡± It wasn¡¯t like they were bad stats. He had to dig down into sub menus and sub-sub menus and ask a few questions to see what it was the System would actually be doing for him. Vocal range. Linguistic processing. Pattern memorization. His ears were going to be amazing and his fingers were going to fly. He¡¯d known his relatives had those, and he¡¯d assumed he would too. He¡¯d just thought he¡¯d have a few more points to spend than he did. He stared at the Strength stat. And the Appeal stat. He kind of wanted to go under Stamina and whack up his Formation, but that was mostly because Haoyu had been talking about how great it was in class the other day. ¡°Can we talk about more customization? I don¡¯t know which combo of points to pick to get the effect I want.¡± They¡¯d taught them in school just to ask when it came to things like this. The System knew what it was doing way better than you did, and while it could be really silent on talents, it didn¡¯t usually mind having chats about the points. ****** ****** ¡°Don¡¯t you two dare laugh at me,¡± Lute warned his roommates. ¡°I took some Strength and Stamina!¡± Alden and Haoyu exchanged looks. ¡°Why would we laugh about that?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Because¡­I didn¡¯t take much. I spent almost all the free points I had on my hearing.¡± Haoyu pointed at him. ¡°You accused me of eavesdropping, but you¡¯ve got super ears!¡± ¡°Cool,¡± said Alden. ¡°Also, Haoyu, we didn¡¯t accuse you of doing that. You were literally doing that. You confessed.¡± ¡°No, you guys,¡± Lute said. ¡°It was already going to enhance me so that I could pick up and interpret sounds better. I asked it to give me more conscious control over it, so that I could not hear things if I didn¡¯t want to. I basically asked it to give me the ability to hear worse than my new superhuman best.¡± ¡°Music thing?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I wanted to make sure I could still hear like I¡¯d always been able to. It¡¯s not like the System does a bad job when it boosts a sense. If I¡¯m turned up all the way and I¡¯m hearing the heartbeats and stomach noises of people sitting near me, I don¡¯t usually get annoyed or distracted by them. But I was worried about it, and more than that, I was afraid of forgetting what my baseline was. Now I¡¯ve got this mental notch that feels like Original Lute, and I can shift up and down from there by concentrating.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like it¡¯s useless just because you did it so you could be human normal sometimes,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Can you selectively hear stuff? Can you make Alden¡¯s stomach sound loud to you and make mine sound quiet?¡± ¡°Pretty well. I can focus to make one noise come to the foreground or recede into the background better than a normal person.¡± ¡°Then it¡¯s awesome.¡± Haoyu smiled at him. ¡°Like a mini Audial talent that you got through creative point use instead.¡± ¡°I need soundproofing for my room,¡± Alden muttered. ¡°Why?¡± Lute asked. ¡°What secret things are you doing in there?¡± ¡°One of you thinks fifteen minutes of eavesdropping is not long and the other one can hear my heartbeat. I¡¯ll probably find out Lexi can see through walls soon. A guy needs to feel alone from time to time.¡± ¡°So suspicious.¡± ¡°I have bouts of insomnia. I want to be able to make a racket in there at three AM without feeling guilty for waking all of you up.¡± ¡°It¡¯s three AM now.¡± Haoyu¡¯s hand was in the air as he shifted something on his interface. ¡°Lexi¡¯s going to call us idiots again.¡± ¡°Tomorrow¡¯s Sunday. We¡¯ll catch up on sleep then,¡± said Alden. ¡°So, Lute has a mystery skill that even his own family doesn¡¯t know about, ears he can dial up and down like a radio control, great hands, processing so that he can memorize wordchains faster, and Mass Bestowal¡­which bestows wordchains.¡± ¡°It does do that,¡± Lute said dryly. ¡°How does it work?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Ass tatt,¡± Alden said before Lute could open his mouth. ¡°Oh you already asked?¡± ¡°I wanted to know if he could bank chain halves for later. He can. Or the skill does something similar enough to that. He doesn¡¯t actually have to cast one that very second to pass it to you.¡± ¡°Just talk amongst yourselves,¡± said Lute. ¡°I can¡¯t tell you exactly how Mass Bestowal works. But you¡¯ve seen the effects of it so it¡¯s not like it¡¯s that big a secret.¡± ****** ****** ¡°Aren¡¯t I supposed to get access to some special wordchains?¡± Lute asked the System. ¡°Does that not happen now?¡± He wouldn¡¯t be getting spell impressions. There was an option for choosing a wordchain impression instead of points, but he didn¡¯t see any reason to do that. It seemed like something you¡¯d only want if you were prone to screwing up some particularly difficult and important chain. But beyond the impressions, all of his Chainer family members¡ªeven the C¡¯s¡ªseemed to have a chain or two that was their special thing. His grandmother had quite a few. Maybe I pick those later? He¡¯d bumped Strength and Stamina. It was a difficult decision. He wanted to see what would happen if he boosted Appeal instead, but he was already having enough trouble wrapping his brain around the halo effect his new rank was giving him. People at school, especially the upperclassmen, were suddenly much more interested in him. He didn¡¯t want to be friends with people who liked Lute the S-rank when they hadn¡¯t cared about Lute the Human Being. And the fact that he was going to have to navigate that for the rest of his life was freaking him out a little. Zero tolerance for suck-ups and rankists. The same as always. They¡¯re just a lot harder to identify now, and I need to learn how to find them in a crowd. He¡¯d taken points for his signing bonus, so that was all done. And there was a note saying he¡¯d be getting ¡°Gifts of Joyous Welcome!¡± from his new¡­bosses? That could include the wordchains? Lute was enjoying all these personal notes from the Palace of Unbreaking people. It wasn¡¯t what he¡¯d expected, and it was making him feel like he was the newest member of a club. A peculiar club for sure, but the notes were giving off an impression of reason and companionableness. These Artonans created skills in memory of former colleagues and helpfully told their Avowed which talents were on their wishlist. It made everything that was happening seem a little less insane. They have at least one building that looks like a conference center on the inside. Conference centers are safe. So how weird could they possibly be? He checked the time. He¡¯d been at it all day and for most of the night except for a nap and snack breaks. It was almost 5:00 AM. He could affix then go to school. Or skip and figure out how his new powers worked. ¡°Let¡¯s do it, System,¡± said Lute, standing beside his bed. ¡°Let¡¯s make me magical. Finalize affixation.¡± He¡¯d find some way to make Mass Bestowal look like magic. Throwing fistfuls of glitter at people when he did it might be satisfying. Ha! Didn¡¯t think to ban that with the family tattoo, did you, Grandma? Think of how ridiculous I¡¯m going to make the Velras look when¡ª ****** The boy recognized the tall golden concert hall before he recognized himself. The audience was full but silent. The orchestra at the front of room hadn¡¯t begun to play. This is the Musikverein, thought Lute. In Vienna. He was standing in an aisle, and there was only one empty seat in the whole place. It was a couple of steps away. Lute knew it was for him, but he still hesitated. The paintings of Apollo and the Muses on the ceiling looked down on him. The golden caryatids holding up the balcony level watched him mutely. When he finally moved, a violin released the first haunting notes of a song. A white humanoid doll sat in the neighboring chair. Its oval hands were folded in its lap. ¡°Good,¡± it said, when Lute took his seat. ¡°That¡¯s the desired response. Hello, Lute. Your affixation is underway, and everything is progressing normally. Do you have questions?¡± ¡°Not really,¡± said Lute, gazing at the orchestra. ¡°I know what¡¯s happening.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯ll leave you to enjoy the show.¡± * ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN: Lazy Sunday 115 [First of all, this is not my fault, Boe. I sent my warnings out to the boater members, then I went to follow up with Laura. I aborted because she was in the process of following up with the Velras. And it sounded like she was asking them for money in exchange for being mind controlled, so I guess she¡¯s not as worried for herself as I was for her. Pissing off one of the richest S-ranks in the world for the sake of people who don¡¯t want help seems like a bad call, so my efforts in this matter are now complete. As long as nobody shows up at my apartment to murder me. If the next time you talk to me I say, ¡®Manon is my friend. Aulia is my new mom. Hazel and I are seeing each other,¡¯ please send help.] It was nearly four in the morning, and Alden had just gotten in bed. He couldn¡¯t decide if there was a point in trying to sleep once you were this far into the next day, but going through the motions seemed like the responsible thing to do. He read over the message, then he added, [I don¡¯t think they recognized me at Laura¡¯s, so even if they know I¡¯m involved, maybe they don¡¯t know I know they¡¯re involved. Or something. Don¡¯t worry. Do detach yourself from the cat. Talk to you soon.] As he was pulling the sheets up around his chin, he received a text message from Haoyu asking if he was asleep yet. [I¡¯m not,] Alden replied. [I don¡¯t think I can sleep. I¡¯m going to be downstairs in the common area.] Does he want company or is he just informing me because it¡¯s a weird hour? Alden wondered. He yawned. Guess I am tired. I wonder if last night¡¯s sleep even counted considering I spent a portion of it trapped in a school counselor¡¯s office with the System. His white noise machine was lulling him with fan sounds. His bed was exactly the right temperature. He tried to think of how to phrase a text so that Haoyu would know he was willing to stay up but not necessarily eager to do it. Alden closed his eyes. Maybe¡­ Six hours later, he woke to sunlight seeping around the edges of his curtains. He debated the merits of just staying in bed for the rest of the day. When was the last time he¡¯d had a completely lazy Sunday? Is that even a thing I can do anymore? Keeping busy had been a coping mechanism since the moment he arrived in intake. And there was plenty to keep busy with. He braced himself and checked his inbox. No messages from the boater. No accusations or questions. Nothing. Maybe I really am done with that shit? Emotionally he was anyway. Finally. He¡¯d done what he set out to do. If anything else happened because of it, he¡¯d just have to react when it came up. Did that mean he could he eat unhealthy food and lie in bed until Monday? Well there¡¯s some unavoidable prep work for gym tomorrow. And Lute wanted to go out with the girls¡­he might not be in the mood for that after last night, though. Fine. But the comfort food is happening no matter what. He put on his flannel pajama pants and his slouchiest t-shirt to solidify his intentions to be a normal lazy guy on a normal lazy Sunday. When he exited his room, the apartment was quiet. ¡°Just me and you, Sunny?¡± Alden asked the polar bear head. He stretched his arms, smiled, and placed an order from a diner he¡¯d spotted a couple of weeks ago. It was a retro postcard of a restaurant¡ªaqua vinyl seats, chrome detailing everywhere, and a jukebox playing pre-Contract hits. Not much like the neighborhood diner he¡¯d frequented with Boe and Jeremy. But he¡¯d read the menu online, and it was hitting all the right nostalgia points. He set himself up at the kitchen table with his laptop to wait on the arrival of his feast. When Haoyu entered the apartment an hour later with a basket full of laundry in his arms, Alden was just tucking in to a mountain of golden hash browns with onions two ways¡ªsome caramelized and others cut into thin slivers and batter fried for extra crunch. There were sauces. He was happy. Then he looked at his roommate. Haoyu didn¡¯t look as cheerful as usual. ¡°Haoyu! Sorry about earlier. I fell asleep in the middle of texting you to tell you I was sleepy.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. I figured it was something like that.¡± ¡°Do you want some hash browns?¡± Haoyu started to shake his head, then he eyed the tall mound in front of Alden. ¡°Maybe. Let me set this down.¡± He returned without the laundry basket. Several bites of potato and quite a lot of the sticky sweet miso ketchup sauce disappeared into his mouth before he said, ¡°Would it be wrong to buy a car and hit Lute¡¯s family members with it?¡± ¡°I understand the sentiment, but that would be murder.¡± His roommate stuffed another forkful of potatoes in his mouth. ¡°But is murder always wrong?¡± he muttered. ¡°It depends on which species you ask. We humans tend to think it is.¡± Haoyu stabbed the potato mountain. ¡°What they did to him was despicable. And I don¡¯t even mean the eye, although that¡¯s bad enough. Of course I wondered why he hadn¡¯t replaced it, but I thought maybe he was scared of having a magibionic implanted. Since that¡¯s not it, there¡¯s obviously some added complication for injuries sustained while Aulia was polluting causality on a nationwide scale.¡± ¡°Global,¡± said Alden. ¡°What?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like I understand it, but the Gloss probably has global impacts. You were eavesdropping, so you heard me mention¡­¡± Haoyu was blinking at him. ¡°Maybe you didn¡¯t catch that part,¡± Alden said awkwardly. ¡°And¡­now it¡¯s weird if I don¡¯t explain. During the first half of the luck chain, someone traded a B-rank Chainer class assignment to me right before I was scheduled to come here for Hannah Elber¡¯s funeral. Getting that class for Hazel was the main reason for the Gloss. The person who had received Chainer from the System wasn¡¯t here on Anesidora, and neither was I. Lute¡¯s family basically jumped me the second I landed, and by the end of the day, I had one and a half million argold.¡± ¡°You should have asked for more,¡± Haoyu said flatly. ¡°You should¡¯ve bankrupted them.¡± ¡°I asked for way less than that. My sense of what these things were worth wasn¡¯t great. Even if I¡¯d been trying to hurt the Velras monetarily I think I would¡¯ve undershot it.¡± ¡°If it works on a global scale then she sucks even more,¡± Haoyu said emphatically. ¡°Whenever anyone does something like that, it makes Avowed look bad. When one of Anesidora¡¯s leaders does it?¡± He¡¯s an emotional eater. Alden watched Haoyu shovel more fried potatoes into his mouth. He was glad he¡¯d ordered an indulgent quantity. ¡°Lute¡¯s mom and his grandmother¡­¡± Haoyu was speaking between bites. ¡°When he was telling the story he was saying things like, ¡®I should have expected them to trick me after everything else, right? I was stupid to trust them even a little.¡¯ And I was just sitting there thinking, ¡®No, you weren¡¯t stupid. You were at a vulnerable point in your life and they took advantage of you. They¡¯re monsters, and you should get a restraining order.¡¯¡± He stabbed the potatoes again. ¡°But you can¡¯t say something like that about another person¡¯s family if they haven¡¯t said it themselves, can you? I know Lute hates Aulia, but I don¡¯t think he blames his mom nearly as much as he should. I was so furious about it I couldn¡¯t sleep. And he only slept two or three hours. He took off early this morning saying he had something to do, but I bet it was because he was still upset from seeing her yesterday.¡± And Haoyu doesn¡¯t even know what she was doing when we saw her. Alden slid another plastic cup full of sauce across the table. ¡°It¡¯s not simple to comment on other peoples¡¯ family situations,¡± he agreed. ¡°They¡¯re so personal, and there¡¯s no way for you to see it from the inside.¡± He¡¯d never once appreciated an outsider saying something harsh about his aunt, even if he was angry about the exact same things they were judging her for. ¡°I went to a pre-selection advice session in eighth grade,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°After Lute had left school. He transferred to CNH really fast after taking Chainer. I¡¯m not sure it was even a standard acceptance window for Arts students. Now that I¡¯ve heard his story I wonder if he wasn¡¯t just trying to get into a dorm and away from them all as fast as possible. ¡°At the session, there was a panel of people telling their own selection stories, and one of them said the only choice more life-altering than your class was who you married. And Three-eyed Rhoda¡ª¡± They really did have some cool people connected to their school, thought Alden. Three-eyed Rhoda was a famous Adjuster who could cast deconstructive spells on things from miles away as long as she¡¯d seen and marked them in the past few hours. ¡°¡ªsaid marriage was so much less serious. ¡®You can¡¯t divorce a class. You can¡¯t have a talk with it and ask it to change how it treats you. You can¡¯t go stay in another room to get some alone time. It¡¯s part of you.¡¯ I think the other panelists thought she was putting too much pressure on us because they tried to tone it down with what they said next. But it¡¯s still true. I don¡¯t get to un-be a Brute now. If I ever have doubts, I¡¯ll just remind myself that I took my time and made the best decisions I could. And even if I got tons of help from other people making up my mind, they were completely my decisions. Lute doesn¡¯t get to have that.¡± He¡¯s not wrong. ¡°I almost said something myself,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°I wanted to comment on how twisted it was that they woke him up in the middle of the night to do it.¡± ¡°I know.¡± Haoyu lowered his voice. ¡°That was¡­¡± ¡°Being yanked out of bed like that? There was absolutely no reason for it except to confuse him and make him feel like it was urgent. Like making a decision right then and there was an emergency. If they¡¯d waited and had a calm conversation about it in the morning, he wouldn¡¯t have freaked when Aulia pointed out that Hazel could still get S any minute and take the opportunity away. He knew it was unlikely, but they had set him up to panic in every way they could.¡± They both fell quiet. ¡°These are really good potatoes,¡± Haoyu said finally. ¡°Did I eat half your breakfast?¡± ¡°They are good. Don¡¯t worry about it. I ordered more than I could handle on my own anyway.¡± Haoyu sighed. ¡°And the Gloss didn¡¯t do him any favors here at CNH. Kon was telling me about it yesterday. A girl¡¯s pet died in class while the wordchain was in effect¡ª¡± ¡°Whoa, wait! I was under the impression the art kids didn¡¯t like Lute because he thinks he¡¯s better than them at a ton of stuff and he doesn¡¯t¡­make efforts to hide it. They also seem to think he¡¯s using luck magic to cheat at auditions or something like that.¡± Haoyu nodded. ¡°I heard he called one of the most popular third years a hack, and he tested out of all the high school music theory classes because he knew how many nose hairs Mozart had or something.¡± That sounds likely, thought Alden. ¡°But about the pet story¡ªaccording to Kon, there was a Wright girl Lute had a really obvious crush on, and her friend had a pet alien that she was allowed to carry with her to classes because coaxing it into laying eggs was a project that had been approved by one of her instructors. It looked like a guinea pig crossed with a platypus, and it was the mascot of one of the biggest first year science classes. They even had a pet feed that played at the front of the room beside the instructor¡¯s lecture notes.¡± That sounds completely adorable. ¡°I don¡¯t like where this is going for the platypig.¡± ¡°You definitely don¡¯t. On the first day of the Gloss, someone got distracted while they were using a skill, and even though they were all the way across the lecture hall, the effect hit the platypig¡ª¡± Alden slapped his hands to his ears and shook his head. ¡°Nope. That¡¯s enough. No mental images.¡± ¡°The platypig is no longer with us,¡± Haoyu said simply. ¡°How was that good luck for Lute?¡± ¡°He was sitting right there, and he was comforting the pet owner. He wrapped the body of the deceased up in his scarf so that she wouldn¡¯t have to see it. The girl he was crushing on thought his handling of the incident was gentlemanly I guess. So she asked him out. He must have realized what was going on, and he turned her down. Then when people found out about the Gloss and did the math¡­¡± ¡°It could have been a coincidence,¡± Alden said in a doubtful voice. ¡°Nobody can prove it wasn¡¯t.¡± Haoyu¡¯s tone was equally doubtful. ¡°And he didn¡¯t do it. It sounds like Aulia performs the Gloss, and she just takes the rest of the family along for the ride whether they want to go or not.¡± ¡°Everyone knows that. Or at least suspects it. But if you think about how many things moved to make that one girl suddenly think Lute was dateable when she hadn¡¯t thought it before, it is uncomfortable. They¡¯re probably going to try to make it illegal now that Aulia¡¯s off the High Council.¡± ¡°For her to cast that wordchain?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Dad thinks so. They¡¯ve tried a few times, but it¡¯s never gotten off the ground. Power bans are so unpopular. And Aulia¡¯s always finding examples of things the past two Gloss uses might have been responsible for that were good instead of bad.¡± Lute needs to go on a character repair campaign.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Haoyu was taking in the rest of the scene at the table. Alden¡¯s laptop was there, and strands of paracord, looped and tied in different ways, lay beside it. ¡°You were trying to prep for gym, were¡¯t you? And I sat down and vented at you. I¡¯m sorry. I just¡­¡± ¡°Want to run over some Velras with a car.¡± ¡°That.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°It¡¯s fine. I was finalizing my tool choice.¡± ¡°You are going with the cord, then.¡± ¡°I am,¡± said Alden. ¡°I messaged Foxbolt since she¡¯s in charge of approving it, and she just got back to me before you walked in. She says even though they¡¯re limiting me, they¡¯ll let me be flexible within the category of weapon I¡¯ve chosen. Any type of rope or line, varying weights on the end, different carrying methods¡ªthings like that.¡± He looked down at the loops of cord he¡¯d tied. ¡°I¡¯m glad to be practicing with it. I¡¯ve thought of things I want to try for defense, maneuvering, and rescue. For offense¡­I¡¯ve maybe got an idea. If we¡¯re still playing Kill Klein.¡± ¡°I heard from one of the second years that he¡¯s still doing that game with them a lot. Apparently, once a few people actually manage to lay hands on him, he ups the difficulty.¡± ¡°I want to make him use more of the gym at least. It¡¯s disheartening to be in a ten-on-one battle where the one doesn¡¯t even have to run very far.¡± ¡°The Instant Corners skill is phenomenal,¡± Haoyu agreed. ¡°I knew it would be. I¡¯ve seen it a ton watching Brute Arena because S-rank Agis love it. But actually being face to face with someone using it is something else. You¡¯re always thinking, ¡®Yes! I¡¯ve got him now¡­nope, not even close.¡¯ I asked Mom what to do about it.¡± ¡°What did she say?¡± Alden asked. ¡°She said I need to think more about basics instead of combatting specific skills at this point. She thinks I should focus on learning to read tells.¡± ¡°Like in poker?¡± He nodded. ¡°Most people have a tell or two associated with their skills. Lots of them are deliberate actions, to get the user in the right frame of mind. But some are accidents. For Boxing Gloves, I didn¡¯t want to start high school having to say ¡®Activate Boxing Gloves!¡¯ out loud because that¡¯s a little embarrassing. So I practiced until I could do it without that, but I started automatically clenching my fists every time. I¡¯m working on stopping it.¡± ¡°So Klein probably has a tell when he¡¯s about to use Instant Corners.¡± Alden fully intended to find it and use it against him. ¡°Well, lots of professional heroes get rid of their known ones as ruthlessly as they can. They¡¯ll even hire Sways to help them ditch whatever the habit is. But Mom says even if he¡¯s gotten rid of his real tells, he¡¯s probably showing off fake ones for teaching purposes. She says Big Snake should be, too, in the Offense sessions, to train our eyes.¡± Alden took the last bite of the hash browns then shoved the to-go container aside. ¡°I wonder what my own tells are? I doubt I have one when I¡¯m just preserving something, but maybe when I¡¯m about to activate or deactivate the preservation?¡± ¡°We can study our footage from gym together and try to find each other¡¯s habits if you want.¡± ¡°I do.¡± Alden stared down at the paracord he¡¯d been practicing speed tying. ¡°Maybe not today. I was trying to have a lazy Sunday and I¡¯ve already come up with six weekends¡¯ worth of tasks for myself. And that¡¯s just related to learning to use rope.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve always wanted to lasso someone.¡± ¡°I just watched a video of someone using a lasso. I¡¯m pretty sure I could get a cow with one after some practice, but Instructor Klein doesn¡¯t move at cow speed.¡± Haoyu laughed. ¡°What if cows moved at Klein speed?¡± ¡°I¡¯d head to a safer planet.¡± It was two more hours before Lute came home. When he arrived, Alden and Haoyu were both working in their bedrooms at their desks with their doors open. And periodically¡­ ¡°Are you two mooing at each other?¡± Lute asked from the hall. ¡°No,¡± said Haoyu in a completely neutral voice. ¡°Of course not.¡± ¡°Why would we be?¡± Alden was doing a much worse job of keeping a straight face. ¡°I¡¯m practicing my new wordchain signs. And trying to figure out how to make useful supplies really fast out of cord. We¡¯re both being product¡ª¡± ¡°Moooooo,¡± said Haoyu. Alden cracked up, and Haoyu was only a second behind him. Lute stared from one of them to the other. ¡°How did you get this weird this fast? I was only gone a few hours.¡± ¡°We were talking about cows with superpowers,¡± said Alden. ¡°Did you get lunch?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Alden just ordered a bunch of pastries from a vegan bakery.¡± ¡°No,¡± Lute said. ¡°I¡¯ve been really busy. Alden, are you continuing Operation Cottontail?¡± Alarmed, Alden shoved his chair away from his desk, rolling backward in it until he could see Lute more clearly. He was standing with his back to the opposite wall in the hall so that he could talk to them both at the same time. ¡°What¡¯s Operation Cottontail?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Nah, man,¡± said Alden. ¡°After yesterday, I¡¯m satisfied. Good deed done. The only thing I missed out on was that one convo and clearly that one convo wasn¡¯t going to go well. And¡­you know¡­¡± Your mother was there. Almost definitely working for your grandma. I¡¯m not going anywhere near that again. ¡°I¡¯m having a lazy Sunday.¡± ¡°You were practicing your Self-Mastery wordchain when I walked in,¡± Lute pointed out. ¡°That¡¯s lazy for me. There are fruit tarts coming. And cookies covered in dark chocolate.¡± ¡°Hello??¡± Haoyu said. Alden heard his desk chair rolling, and a moment later he had wheeled himself out into the hall beside Lute. ¡°What kind of operation?¡± ¡°A completed one.¡± ¡°But it was something worthy of a code name?¡± ¡°No. Lute gave it a code name on his¡ª¡± Lute interrupted them. ¡°I was just checking in case you wanted more information.¡± There was a long pause. Lute was watching him. Haoyu¡¯s head was whipping from one of them to the other like he might be able to decipher the situation if he read their expressions fast enough. ¡°I¡­want to eat cookies,¡± Alden said. ¡°It took you a long time to decide.¡± ¡°Cookies.¡± Lute shrugged. ¡°Anyway, I was just going to tell you that during the course of Operation Odin¡¯s Revenge this morning, I pursued one of our suspects¡ª¡± ¡°There are suspects?!¡± Haoyu exclaimed. ¡°And she had a very similar conversation to the one we overheard last night with another person who is presumably a member of that group you were interested in. So this is just Odin letting Cottontail know. In case he needs to know.¡± ¡°Dude,¡± said Alden, ¡°what the heck are you doing?¡± ¡°You inspired me.¡± Lute held a hand to his chest. ¡°And then our talk last night inspired me even more. Operation Odin¡¯s Revenge is my new hobby. Its goal is singular, but difficult. I am going to get the grandwitch arrested. For some illegal thing she¡¯s done. Somehow.¡± Alden stared at him. Haoyu stared at him. Sunny stared at all three of them from behind his hot pink sunglasses. ¡°That¡¯s craz¡ª¡± ¡°Can I help?¡± ¡°Haoyu!¡± Alden protested. ¡°Of course you can, Haoyu,¡± said Lute. ¡°I don¡¯t have permission to tell you about Alden¡¯s completed operation, but mine isn¡¯t really going to intersect with his anyway. That¡¯s what I decided this morning. It¡¯s too hard to pin crimes on Aulia through those people, Alden. She¡¯ll just shift the blame to the mini crime lord, won¡¯t she? Plus, a big organized group of people being involved and the crimes being at least partially conducted on the Triplanets makes it too complicated.¡± Alden assumed Manon was the ¡®mini crime lord.¡¯ ¡°But since I¡¯m sure Aulia¡¯s doing other terrible things. I¡¯m going to find one and get proof. And tell everybody.¡± He smiled in satisfaction. Haoyu looked extremely intrigued. Alden didn¡¯t see how this could possibly be his fault, but it felt like it was his fault. ¡°Okay,¡± he said slowly. ¡°I support your desire to¡­imprison your grandmother. But how serious are you about this? Because it sounds pretty dangerous, and you should value your own life. We only get one. Don¡¯t die doing something that¡¯s not worth it. And¡­don¡¯t take risks you wouldn¡¯t want your friends to take with you.¡± I¡¯m so glad Boe isn¡¯t here to hear me trying to paraphrase him right now. Why are they looking at me like that? Haoyu looked like he¡¯d just seen the world¡¯s cutest puppy. And Lute looked like he¡¯d run across the same puppy when it was doing something dumb¡ªattacking its own reflection in a puddle maybe. ¡°Alden, you¡¯re really worried about him!¡± ¡°You¡¯ve been mooing at him for too long,¡± said Lute. ¡°It¡¯s made him nervous. I¡¯m talking about exploring locked closets in my own former homes and talking to my own relatives. I¡¯m not going to die.¡± Alden felt incredibly embarrassed for a few seconds, and then slightly less so as he reassessed the threat level. ¡°Wait. You guys, it was an overly strong warning, but I do have a point. Lute¡¯s grandmother isn¡¯t going to be happy if she figures out what he¡¯s doing, and¡ª¡± ¡°Good,¡± said Lute. ¡°No. Not good. What happens if she gets really mad at you?¡± Alden said. ¡°Not ¡®my grandson is annoying me¡¯ mad, but ¡®Lute is a legitimate threat to my freedom¡¯ mad. She could seriously fuck up your life.¡± ¡°No,¡± Lute said dryly. ¡°You think so?¡± ¡°I think you¡¯re really angry,¡± Alden said. ¡°You should be. But you should still think for more than a few hours before you go against the Anesidoran mafia and you should value your life and all that other stuff I just said. It was fine advice!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re quite worthy of being called a mafia¡­¡± Haoyu looked at Alden curiously. ¡°What the heck did you guys do without me yesterday?¡± ¡°You know what, I¡¯m not going to talk about it out loud. I will text you. From now on, all conversations about this sort of thing happen in privacy booths or in our heads.¡± [Alden: Look. Here. Talk here if you¡¯re going to take on the mafia together on a nice Sunday afternoon when there are baked goods coming.] ¡°Wow. You really are one of the fastest mental texters I¡¯ve ever seen,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°That was an entire paragraph. With a custom font.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the annoyed font.¡± ¡°You¡¯re including yourself in the group chat, too, though,¡± Lute pointed out. ¡°That¡¯s because I care about what happens to you, stupid. Don¡¯t run off half-cocked because I led you into a crazy situation yesterday and accidentally exposed you to¡­that emotional dynamite.¡± ¡°Actually,¡± said Haoyu, ¡°even though I want to run over your grandmother with a car¡ª¡± ¡°You do?¡± ¡°We were talking about it earlier. But even though I want that, I do agree with Alden that you should be careful. What was your plan anyway?¡± ¡°My plan was¡ª¡± [Alden: Put it in the chat! This chat! Right here!] They both blinked at him then lifted their hands to start typing. Alden sighed and let his neck fall back to stare up at the ceiling. I¡¯m trying to turn over a new leaf here¡­and now Lute wants to put Aulia Velra in prison. Personally. He tried to think of how he would ever explain this to Boe if he got involved. It might not actually count under our copycat heroics agreement since Lute¡¯s motivation is revenge and mine would be¡ª [Haoyu: Operation Odin¡¯s Revenge is a fun name. I need a codename. Can I pick it myself?] [Lute: My plan doesn¡¯t actually sound that great now that you¡¯re making me write it out. I don¡¯t think I really know how to buy a device that will silently blast a hole in the wall of Aulia¡¯s office. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s shielded like the panic room and the other safe spaces.] [Lute: And I get to pick the codenames. You can pick the codenames for your own operations.] [Haoyu: I want to help, but I don¡¯t want to do anything actually illegal, all right? My parents would be surprised if I shot someone¡¯s office with a magic cannon. But not in a good way. Our activities need to be more moderate than that.] [Alden: I would like to remind Lute that he made fun of me just yesterday for having a mission. I would also like to point out that people trying to sneakily search multiple private locations probably shouldn¡¯t leave giant holes behind them to let everyone know where they¡¯ve been.] [Lute: So you are helping, Cottontail!] Alden rolled his eyes. He got a little more work done while the two of them texted each other spy plans. They were both toning it down and down again as they talked, so he was feeling a lot less concerned that Lute was about to do something crazy. The bakery delivery arrived, and while he went downstairs to fetch it, he scrolled through the chat. It looked like Lute had decided on a much more gradual fact-finding approach. He was talking about attending more family gatherings and actually paying attention to ¡°Velra shit¡± while he was at them instead of avoiding everyone. [Lute: I¡¯ll need to make it look like I want something from Aulia. So she won¡¯t be as suspicious. It sounds dreadful. Maybe we should reconsider the merits of blowing things up.] Alden carried the bakery box back up to the apartment, sniffing it more than was necessary. ¡°Hey,¡± he said, when he walked in. ¡°Snacks.¡± Haoyu sprang up from the sofa, and Lute wasn¡¯t far behind him. Alden grabbed a miniature cherry tart and ate it, watching Lute Velra thoughtfully. ¡°I¡¯ll go with you,¡± he said. Lute was licking the lemon coconut filling out of his own tart shell. ¡°What?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll go with you to a Velra party. You know Aulia would love it.¡± [Alden: I¡¯m not going to do anything illegal or explosive either. But I could be a good distraction for your grandmother if you wanted to sneak around and talk to other people without her paying attention to you.] ¡°No,¡± said Lute. ¡°I can¡¯t ask you to do that. I know you¡¯re trying really hard to avoid her and her brand of crazy. I¡ª¡± ¡°I am. I was even nervous about being roommates with you because I was afraid I¡¯d get sucked into the Velra vortex.¡± Lute looked away uncomfortably. Haoyu had stopped chewing his cookie. ¡°Weird, right?¡± said Alden. ¡°I was so worried about it. And now, a couple of weeks later, I think you¡¯re the person I know best on all of Anesidora.¡± Lute¡¯s head whipped around again. He looked taken aback. Alden shrugged. ¡°Well, you are. I haven¡¯t been here long. I¡¯ve gotten to know a lot of nice people who I hope I can get to know even better. But you and I have spent a ton of time together, and you¡¯re fun as hell to hang out with even if you¡¯re just spending six straight hours tutoring me. You¡­are an excellent friend. So yeah. Sign me up for a tasteless rich person event where Aulia tries to read the lines on my palms. It¡¯ll be fun in its own way if we¡¯re all doing it together, right?¡± ¡°Right,¡± Lute said, his surprised expression gradually turning into a smile. ¡°Family parties should be a lot more fun with friends.¡± ¡°Is there one tonight?¡± Alden asked. ¡°No.¡± ¡°Then let¡¯s put it out of our minds for now,¡± said Alden. ¡°Didn¡¯t you want to do something with the girls this afternoon? It¡¯s getting late. Haoyu, you want to come, too, right?¡± Lute was still smiling happily at his pastry. ¡°What? Oh! I didn¡¯t plan anything at all. I wanted to, and then¡­¡± ¡°You mentioned something in passing last night that I was really curious about, so I¡¯m sure they will be too.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°You said there was a magic roller coaster?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I¡¯m going to need to see that.¡± * ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN: Twinkle, Twinkle, Gokoratch The rooftop-to-rooftop coaster in F-city was part sightseeing experience, part thrill ride, part ode to magical engineering. It was also very popular. Even though they bought tickets the second Alden expressed an interest, they still ended up with time slots staggered over the course of two hours. Well, all right then, thought Alden, trying not to feel offended on Other Alden''s behalf. Apparently I''m the only one who thinks holding a miniature dragon is a more noteworthy conversation topic. [Lexi Roberts has joined A Group Chat for Insane Things Nobody Else Ever Needs to Know About.] [Lexi Roberts has left A Group Chat for Insane Things Nobody Else Ever Needs to Know About.] [Lexi Roberts has joined A Group Chat for Insane Things Nobody Else Ever Needs to Know About.] * ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN: Catch 117 In gym, they were assigned to new groups. The groupings were more varied than the previous week¡¯s, but other than a deliberate mixing of classes and ranks in each set of ten students, Alden couldn¡¯t tell if there was any reason behind it. His group had three S¡¯s, six A¡¯s, and him. Maricel, Jeffy, and a very quiet Strength Brute named Lucille were their S¡¯s. Njeri the Water Shaper, Reinhard the Bow Meister, Everly, Astrid, Haoyu, and Lexi were their A¡¯s. This is a significantly more intimidating collection of people to have gym with than last week. It was exciting, too. He¡¯d wanted to see his roommates and Maricel working up close. He¡¯d seen all of Everly¡¯s tricks now, but her freezing spells tended to make class a lot more interesting. And chasing Klein just wouldn¡¯t be the same without Astrid throwing herself wildly in unexpected directions. ¡°This is great!¡± Haoyu said, jogging across the gym between Alden and Lexi toward their first session. ¡°I thought we might go all semester without getting to be in the same group!¡± To Alden¡¯s surprise, Instructor Marion¡¯s hide and seek maze was making a reappearance. Though it looked like it was in a new configuration. ¡°I was just thinking I was happy about it, too.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad we¡¯re getting the maze out of the way to start with.¡± Lexi had Writher in a cross-body holster over his unitard today. ¡°It¡¯s my least favorite.¡± ¡°Because you don¡¯t like memorizing everyone else¡¯s position?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Or because you can¡¯t use Writher?¡± ¡°It¡¯s because it¡¯s a team game,¡± Haoyu whispered loudly. Lexi didn¡¯t deny it. ¡°Sorry to bring out the maze again so soon, everyone,¡± Instructor Marion said when they¡¯d all gathered. ¡°It wasn¡¯t supposed to reappear for two more weeks, but we¡¯ve had a change of plans that makes introducing a new activity today less practical. Big Sna¡ªInstructor Waker is going to be leaving for the Triplanets tomorrow, and he¡¯ll be gone for at least a week.¡± Astrid made an unhappy sound. She seemed to like Big Snake¡¯s teaching style a lot for someone who took just as many tennis balls to the face as anyone else. ¡°I understand,¡± said Marion. ¡°But Principal Saleh will be his replacement. She thinks it would be fun for you all to go ahead and take a crack at the obstacle course race we¡¯ve put together for the first year classes who are ahead of yours. We¡¯ll be using my usual section of the gym and Instructor Waker¡¯s for it. And I know you¡¯ll all be excited to hear that it¡¯s a team event!¡± Alden accidentally caught Lexi¡¯s eye at exactly that moment, and he couldn¡¯t help but smile. Marion went on to explain that the obstacle course would be run by two competing groups at the same time. And ¡°strategic interference¡± with other runners would be allowed. ¡°We get to duel!¡± Jeffy sounded energized. ¡°Strategic interference isn¡¯t really dueling.¡± Instructor Marion examined Jeffy. ¡°We¡¯ll talk about it on Wednesday! That way the rules will be fresh in your mind. For now let¡¯s divide you into teams. Same rules as last time. And remember! No using targeting abilities no matter how tempting it might be.¡± The hide and seek maze was a different experience with this group than it had been with Alden¡¯s old one. For one thing, half of these people had very superhuman endurance. And they were almost all on the other team, looking chipper and well oxygenated, while Alden and several other teammates were starting to pant from all the sprinting. Maricel, Jeffy, Lucille, Haoyu, and Reinhard were the hunted in the green vests. And Alden had somehow become the shot-caller for the hunters in the red vests. I do know how this happened. I¡¯m just surprised that it did. Astrid had volunteered him for it. ¡°Because you¡¯re always bossing people around in this game! Like Max! You¡¯re good at it!¡± ¡°That¡¯s not really true,¡± Alden had said. ¡°I¡¯m just faster at text messaging than the rest of you, so I end up outputting a lot more information to the group.¡± ¡°Coms are important,¡± said Njeri, pulling one of her legs back in a thigh stretch. ¡°I want to win.¡± ¡°When I¡¯m focused on hunting a particular person, I forget where everyone else is,¡± Everly said. ¡°Lexi, what do you think?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I don¡¯t give other people instructions for this kind of thing unless I¡¯m a hundred percent sure about them, so if I tell any of you to do something, I expect you to do it.¡± The other three looked irritated. How would a good roommate translate that for him? ¡°I think what Lexi means, in his heart, is that he would rather not take a strong advice-giving position on the team, but when he does give advice, he hopes we¡¯ll trust his judgment.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I said.¡± ¡°So we¡¯re all in it together!¡± Alden had announced. ¡°I¡¯ll try to keep the other team¡¯s positioning in mind. Please take a couple of seconds to text when you change your own positions or you spot a green vest.¡± And now he was stuck as the leader. But because he wasn¡¯t great at remembering where all the other players were at any given second, he was focusing particularly hard on a weakness they had discovered in the other team. Jeffy would follow bait. Alden almost couldn¡¯t believe it when Njeri had said she¡¯d made the Aqua Brute go down a corridor by leaving a trail of water drops on the floor. [He followed them? He didn¡¯t run away from them?] When one of the hunted got spotted, Alden¡¯s team stole one of their points. If Jeffy thought Njeri was in an area, he should¡¯ve fled, not headed toward her. Doing the brain work meant Alden wasn¡¯t running quite as much himself. At the moment, he was occupying a spot beside a pyramidal obstacle. Haoyu should be in the area, and from here, Alden might catch a glimpse of him. [He followed,] Njeri confirmed. [I had left the water there because I didn¡¯t want him to use that path. I was planning to catch him somewhere else. But then he didn¡¯t show up in the place I expected and Lexi got that point from him instead.] A minute ago, Lexi had spotted Jeffy trying to hide between two cube-shaped obstacles on the other side of the maze. [Does anyone have ears on him right now?] Alden asked. That nobody had eyes on him was a given. Their point tally would¡¯ve gone up, and the spotter would have reported the location. [I have ears on someone who walks heavy,] said Everly. [We¡¯re both in Column Forest right now. It¡¯s probably one of the boys if it¡¯s not a trick of some kind.] Column Forest had become its name at some point. It was a small area full of tall body-wide columns with just enough space in between them for a person to pass through. It was a favorite hiding spot for the hunted and an annoying portion of the maze for the hunters. [Haoyu should be near me. He and Reinhard both have their shoes off and they know to sneak when they¡¯re in tight spots instead of corridors,] Alden said. [If you can hear them clearly, it¡¯s got to be Jeffy.] [It¡¯s him then.] All right, thought Alden. What¡¯s the most efficient way to use him before the other team realizes we¡¯re using him? After the hunters spotted someone, they had to close their eyes and count down to give the person they¡¯d caught repositioning time. And whenever someone was in countdown mode, Alden¡¯s team had a blind spot on the map that the other team could use. Multiple people counting down at the same time meant they lost control of too much territory and their prey ran wild. So all of them just converging on Jeffy in a trap was no good. Why did he follow the water? [He must want to help his team out by location reporting on someone,] Alden texted. It was what made the most sense. Jeffy wanted to sneak up on a hunter without being spotted in return so that he could tell his teammates where the enemy was. The hunted earned points passively by running away and not being seen. Jeffy probably didn¡¯t like the role as much as the more proactive-feeling hunter position. A point came in suddenly, and a moment later Astrid inflicted one of her mental texts on the group. [I caught! Dirt Girl! Counting counting! Edge! Hear fast! Think trees.] Alden had gotten so used to translating for her last week that he just did it without waiting to find out if people had understood or not. [She spotted Maricel near the perimeter of her zone, and hears her running away fast. She¡¯s counting now. She thinks Maricel is going toward Column Forest with you, Everly.] [Yes!] Astrid agreed. [Lexi, can you cover your zone and Njeri¡¯s?] Alden asked. [Not perfectly.] Alden rolled his eyes. Lexi¡¯s approach to hunting was aggressive, effective, and very like him. He had memorized several different routes through his section that would provide him with full visibility, assigned them numbers, and he had a randomizer website pulled up on his interface telling him which route to run next when he completed one so that there wouldn¡¯t be a pattern for the hunted to pick up on. He¡¯d been running constantly since the beginning of class, and nobody left his zone alive, which meant nobody had hidden in his zone for most of the game. [I think it would be okay if you were a little less perfect while you covered a larger area. Njeri, could you go pick up Jeffy and lead him around for us? We¡¯ll take turns stealing points from him until he gives up on chasing you. If we stagger it out enough the other team might think it¡¯s bad luck that he keeps getting caught instead of realizing it¡¯s a scheme.] A point came in. Njeri replied, [Counting down. Lucille. Toward you, Lexi. I¡¯ll get Jeffy next.] They gained another point as Lucille was spotted by Lexi. A flicker of movement on the periphery of Alden¡¯s vision caught his attention, and he spun around just in time to see Haoyu trying to creep out from behind the pyramid. Alden pointed at him triumphantly, and Haoyu winced. [You¡¯re so mean,] Haoyu texted him a few seconds later while he was counting down. [You¡¯re not even breathing hard,] Alden told him. [Run faster.] Not long after that, their first Jeffy point came in as Njeri lured him to Astrid. [Excited! Bloodhound!] Astrid said. Alden, racing through his zone on what he hoped would be a surprise course for any hiding green vests, had no idea what that meant. [Astrid, if it¡¯s important information, using your fingers to text is good. It doesn¡¯t have to be mental all the time. I finger text sometimes.] Rarely. [Jeffy looks really excited. Like a bloodhound chasing a scent trail!] said Astrid. That¡¯s good, thought Alden. [Great work, Njeri!] She didn¡¯t answer. But a second later he heard footsteps, and the Water Shaper dashed through the intersection he was approaching with a look of concentration on her face. Their eyes barely met as she spilled a little water out of the drinking bottles she¡¯d carried into the maze ¡°just in case I think of something to do with them.¡± Maricel had brought in the big bag of potting soil she liked to work with in class, too. It would make it possible for her to move through the air with zero footsteps, but hauling it around, even telekinetically, must have been too slow. She¡¯d abandoned it. Alden had wondered how useful the water bottle would be, since Njeri couldn¡¯t levitate herself with it and they weren¡¯t allowed to attack other players. Baiting someone with it had never occurred to him. He tried to give her a thumbs up but she was already rushing away. Isn¡¯t she going a little fast? he wondered as he hid behind a corner to wait for his Shaper-delivered victim to appear. It wasn¡¯t like Jeffy would be running after her. He was trying to sneak up on¡ª Pounding footsteps interrupted his thoughts, and a mohawk-sporting Aqua Brute appeared, jogging with his eyes fixed on the ground. Jeffy was grinning. As he spotted the water splatter Njeri had left, his face brightened even more. And his pace picked up. Alden took a point for his team, and¡­ He didn¡¯t see me. Jeffy¡¯s jog was approaching a run. The lost point didn¡¯t seem to phase him at all. Alden didn¡¯t think he even knew he was the one who¡¯d lost his team the point. [Njeri! Go faster! He¡¯s gaining on you!] Alden closed his eyes for the required number of seconds. [What do you mean he¡¯s gaining on her?] Lexi asked. [You guys, Jeffy¡¯s focused on chasing Njeri. He might have forgotten he¡¯s not a hunter. Don¡¯t let him see you when you take your point from him.] [He can¡¯t be that¡ª] Another point. [Never mind. He¡¯s definitely forgotten,] Lexi said. [Astrid, come this way a little.] Everly got a point from Maricel finally in the Column Forest. [Can I have some Jeffy points?] The next time Alden saw Njeri she was sprinting flat out, and she only paused for long enough to pick up the water she¡¯d left behind last time so that she could throw it in a slightly different location. The highlight of the whole game, in his opinion, came two minutes and quite a few points later when he heard Reinhard bellow, ¡°What do you mean you caught her!? You¡¯re not supposed to be catching anyone!!¡± Another point. [Me!] Astrid texted. [Loud shout! I found!] ****** In Rescue, Instructor Fragment had them excavating water balloons from an impressive mound of wood, rubble, and broken appliances. It required concentration and careful application of powers, since mistakes would lead to collapses that crushed the victims. They were allowed to work alone or in groups today. Alden was saving poor injured balloons left and right. ¡°Lexi, tell me to pick up that piece of particle board,¡± he said, indicating the one he¡¯d chosen. Lexi was looking down at his third smashed balloon. He used Mind Writher very well when he was slicing something down to size so that he could move it more easily, or when he was pulling sturdy, medium-sized objects out of the pile. But it wasn¡¯t good for heavy lifting, and when he tried to pluck trapped balloons out of the mess directly, they always popped. He kept trying, though. He seemed very concerned about his delicacy with the tool. ¡°Grab the particle board,¡± Astrid said helpfully. She was extracting what looked like half of a recliner. Alden changed targets. ¡°Tell me again, please, Astrid.¡± ¡°Take the board!¡± The board was underneath a mound of bricks. Checking his footing to make sure he wasn¡¯t standing on anything too precarious, Alden grabbed the board by the edge, preserved it, and lifted. The bricks all came with it, riding on top. He walked backward, careful not to tilt the heavy load. It was satisfying to dump it all in his personal rubble mound, then dive back in to save the balloon he¡¯d uncovered. It was barely visible, still trapped in a crevice under a heavy slab of concrete with twisted pieces of rebar sticking out. ¡°Astrid, do you mind¡ª?¡± ¡°Rescue that pink dying man!¡± The balloon was pink. And it was one of the really big ones that had been overfilled so that it would burst more easily. Alden shoved his arm in, grabbed, and preserved. When he got the balloon to the exit, though, he realized he had a problem. Pink dying man, you¡¯re too chubby to escape this way. Well¡­it¡¯s not like you¡¯ll pop. As long as I don¡¯t lose focus on protecting you. Deliberately hitting things with his preserved burdens could be iffy. He assumed that yanking them through a crack they shouldn¡¯t fit through would be similarly iffy, though he¡¯d never actually tried this particular move. He closed his eyes and concentrated. I¡¯m willingly bearing the weight of this water balloon. I want to keep it safe from damage. Me dragging it out from under a big pile of heavy stuff and letting it scrape against some things on the top and bottom is part of that. Moving all the heavy junk on top of it piece by piece would be another option, but it would be a less educational one. Alden got into a crouch and gave the chubby balloon an experimental pull. His preservation held, but the rubble didn¡¯t budge. It seemed to be wedged tightly together. Hmm¡­maybe if I get my hand underneath the balloon and try to use more of a lifting motion to move the stuff on top? He tried, only to have to stop immediately. The concrete slab had shifted, and its shifting had made a much larger quantity of rubble move and slide than Alden had anticipated. He didn¡¯t know how many balloons he might crush if the pile collapsed. ¡°Are you really going to use the people you¡¯re saving that way in the future?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°I have no idea what you mean,¡± Alden lied. ¡°Besides, if I was trapped and a hero with my skill came along to save me, I¡¯d be completely fine with them using my preserved body as a lever or a carrying device¡­¡± ¡°Maybe he¡¯s going to go for one of those dark hero personas!¡± Reinhard called from the other side of the pile. ¡°He¡¯ll rescue you from the villain and then turn around and block the villain¡¯s spells with your face.¡± ¡°Is that real?¡± Maricel asked. She was working with Lucille, moving ground element obstacles with her telekinesis while the quiet girl moved everything else. Their collection of saved balloons was growing fast. ¡°People being heroes like that?¡± ¡°They¡¯re not very common,¡± said Njeri. ¡°Too controversial.¡± ¡°I noticed this last week. You don¡¯t actually know much about superheroes, do you, Maricel?¡± Reinhard said. The large, pale stone she was moving dropped suddenly, and Lucille caught it with a grunt before it could hit the cache of balloons they were trying to save. One handed. Fine, thought Alden, raising an eyebrow at the girl as Maricel frantically apologized. Be epic like that. He wasn¡¯t sure he could have even made a boulder that size wobble without getting something coated in his magic underneath it. He wondered how she compared to Helo¨ªsa, a rank below her. Lexi had come over to examine Alden¡¯s problem rescue from closer up. His whip was in his hand. ¡°Do you want me to try to cut a wider opening?¡± ¡°That sounds like a good plan. I can keep the balloon preserved so if anything falls on it it¡¯ll still be safe.¡± ¡°I might hit your hand,¡± Lexi warned. ¡°That¡¯s what the gym suits are for.¡± ¡°I might hit the balloon.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m for.¡± Writher¡¯s thin chain lengthened and started to glow. Lexi backed up a few steps. He¡¯s backing up? Alden had assumed they were going for a close-range, delicate operation. ¡°Hold still,¡± said Lexi. He¡¯s going to really swing it. Alden tensed. Even though the pain setting on the gym was low again today, he still remembered what it felt like to be grabbed around the waist and stabbed through the leg by that thing during combat assessment. And that hadn¡¯t been its full potency either. Lexi moved. Alden¡¯s eyes weren¡¯t fast enough to make out the whip as anything but a blur of light, but there was a loud crack and some of the concrete around his hands crumbled. Writher phased out. A thin slice of concrete and iron fell forward onto Alden¡¯s forearms. It was heavy, but not enough to injure him. His whip cut right through all of that, Alden thought as he lifted the water balloon free of the expanded gap. Well that¡¯s neat. Once again, he was convinced that the gym group he¡¯d been assigned to last time had been made up of the least scary members of the class. During the brief mid-class break, Alden set himself up for defense. ¡°Is that the shield of the day?¡± Haoyu asked, leaning over him curiously. ¡°Yep.¡± Alden had learned last week that if he tried to shield his whole body, Big Snake just threw more balls at him harder. It fatigued him faster so that he couldn¡¯t try out as many things in the next sessions, and hiding behind a magic wall for thirty minutes was lazy anyway. So his shield was going to be a more sporting size today. Shoulder-to-hip coverage was what he was going for. ¡°I thought a paracord zigzag would be easy to make fast even in an emergency, so I wanted to try it.¡± He laid the cord out on the floor in the zigzag pattern, making sure that it was a little wider than his body and that the gaps were all narrow enough to prevent him from getting hit by Snake¡¯s preferred ammunition, while still providing enough visibility if he raised it in front of his own face. When he was done, he unwound some more of the olive green paracord cord from the spool he was using and tied himself a handle. ¡°One minute shield!¡± he announced, lifting it up to show it off. ¡°It was closer to two minutes,¡± said Lexi from his seat on the bleachers nearby. ¡°I timed you.¡± ¡°That was so helpful of you. Thank you.¡± ¡°I bet I could shoot through it,¡± Reinhard said. He was using some kind of spell on the tips of his arrows before stuffing them back in his quiver. ¡°You have arrows, not tennis balls. I would make a shield with smaller gaps to handle you.¡± Big Snake was in the same boisterous mood he¡¯d been in last week, despite the fact that he¡¯d soon be leaving for some kind of assignment. He did up the difficulty of their game, though. Alden wasn¡¯t sure if the instructor had always planned to increase the challenge, or if being in a higher powered group of classmates was what made the difference. Reinhard¡¯s bow was no good for this, but he had fast reflexes and excellent vision. He was dodging well. Lexi was also great at dodging, though he seemed to have chosen not to. Instead, he was trying to use Writher as a blocking device with his mental control. He¡¯s totally trying to make his own version of the zigzag shield with the chain, Alden thought as he ducked his head and lifted his paracord to block a ball. He decided he was flattered. Lexi was getting hit a lot¡ªby balls and also by pieces of balls that had been sliced by the whip as they came in. Haoyu¡¯s tactic was to slap incoming balls out of the air with hands protected by the Boxing Gloves skill. And Maricel and Njeri both had element shields up. Rather than choosing to use a rock or one of the sandbags, Maricel was focusing on compressing and moving free soil. At Earthbox earlier this afternoon, she¡¯d seen someone making a wedge shape, and she was trying to use one of her own to redirect the projectiles. It was working well. A flashing dot at the bottom left of Alden¡¯s vision let him know the timer he¡¯d set had just gone off. They now had around five minutes left in this session. If I¡¯m going to try it, now¡¯s the time. He¡¯d wanted to attempt something last week, but he thought it might involve a lot of failure, so he¡¯d elected to wait until Instructor Waker had seen him using his skill in the more obvious way. He was sure now that he wouldn¡¯t look like he was phoning it in, and Big Snake wouldn¡¯t mind him flailing around as long as he seemed to have a plan. He repelled one ball with his shield, stepped over a dirty one that had just ricocheted off Maricel¡¯s soil wedge, and focused on Snake. The man was smiling and calling out praise to Njeri, who¡¯d finally managed to get enough water in the air in front of a ball to keep it from bursting through and hitting her anyway. Alden flexed the part of his authority that was in charge of targeting and focused on the instructor. His sense of a pull toward Haoyu, off to the right and behind him, disappeared. His shield collapsed into a tangle of cord at his feet. He no longer felt his authority protecting his second, secret object¡ªthe breath mint he¡¯d been preserving in his stomach to make sure he tired out at a reasonable rate for someone who had a potent level four skill instead of a potent level eight one. It¡¯s nine now, he corrected himself. ¡°You hit skill fatigue, Alden?¡± Big Snake shouted. ¡°Better get ready to run!¡± Alden wouldn¡¯t be running. Just get your hands on the ball. He¡¯d caught things Joe had thrown. He¡¯d caught things Kibby had thrown. The problem was that Joe and Kibby were throwing those things to him, not at him. Of course Alden had wondered if he could snatch an incoming projectile. But retargeting meant he was powerless until his target gave him permission to hold something, so it was a risk to drop shields and go for it. Was someone sending objects his way with intent to injure giving him permission to hold them? Maybe¡­if he thought about it right. I promise to keep anything Big Snake throws at me safe until it leaves my protection again. A tennis ball smashed into his knee before he could get his fingers near it, making the joint ache and sting. Irritated with himself, Alden chased the ball down. Those were the rules for ones that hit his body instead of the shield¡­the ones that didn¡¯t burst anyway. Not all of the balls were rated for superhuman use, and even though Instructor Waker wasn¡¯t using anything close to his full strength, some of them blew apart at the seams when they impacted. Alden captured the runaway and tossed it back in Snake¡¯s direction. The instructor snatched it out of the air with his left hand while he flung three balls at once toward Lexi with his right. Alden refocused his attention on his plan. All right. This might take a lot of tries, and it might not work, and everyone¡¯s going to think I¡¯m weird. Who cares. Get the next one. He watched the hero closely. Instructor Waker was trying his¡­Alden didn¡¯t know what to call it. Sometimes he scooped a pile of balls out of the bin with both enormous arms and sent them flying toward the ceiling, then he kicked and punched them all joyfully at his fleeing students. ¡°Rain of Terror!¡± Reinhard shouted, lifting his bow and shooting one of the airborne balls. I guess we could call it that. Alden crouched and held his hands up in front of his chest. He splayed his fingers wide. He tried to pay attention to Big Snake¡¯s motions and also that sense of something almost like weight that he experienced when he had a target. Like the world tilted slightly in the other person¡¯s direction. He¡¯s my target. He¡¯s the one who can entrust me with stuff. Anything he throws at me is meant for me. The balls were coming down. If Joe¡¯s perception lessons are going to come in handy, now would be a great¡ª The swing of a massive arm at an angle that his brain said was dangerous. Where? And then he was toppling forward, unexpectedly thrown off balance by the sudden motion of his own body, and in his right hand, he was preserving the tennis ball. His palm didn¡¯t sting at all. Got the ball! Didn¡¯t kill the momentum! Alden thought excitedly as he knelt on the gym floor. He could feel his skill protecting it. How did I catch that? The ball had come in low. It would have struck his ankle. But there had never been an instant where he consciously thought, ¡°It¡¯s going to hit low.¡± Just reflex? Probably. It probably only felt like something mysterious had happened because it had been so fast and not enough thought could take place. And yet¡­that was a really great catch. Look what I did! Literally nobody was looking at him. Not even Big Snake. Oh, come on! He was sure it just looked like he¡¯d gotten lucky and stopped a ball with his hands instead of the rest of his body. But this was so much more than that! A singed chunk of tennis ball bounced off his shoulder from Lexi¡¯s direction, and Alden looked over at his roommate, beaming. Lexi was wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, and Writher¡¯s gleaming chain was undulating in the air around him. He caught sight of Alden and blinked. Writher undulated faster. ¡°Are you okay?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°I caught a ball!¡± ¡°I see that¡­why are you on the floor hugging the ball you caught?¡± ¡°Did he get hit in the head?¡± Jeffy called from behind them. He did sound concerned, so Alden couldn¡¯t be too offended. Dirt spattered them all as Maricel¡¯s wedge took a strong strike directly to the tip. Big Snake¡¯s follow-up shot smashed into her stomach, and she yelped. Leaving her dirt on the floor, she chased after the ball. ¡°I would be happy, too, if I caught one of these things!¡± she shouted. ¡°Let him enjoy it.¡± Thanks, Maricel. Alden jumped up. ¡°No. I really caught it,¡± he said to Lexi, who was still watching him. ¡°Look!¡± He considered the ball for a second more, rotating it until it pointed in the direction he wanted, then he let it rest flat on his palm. He stretched out his arm toward the instructor, smiled, and dropped preservation. The tennis ball shot back toward Big Snake with all the power of the hero¡¯s own throw. Alden¡¯s aim wasn¡¯t the best; it would have gone over Snake¡¯s head if he hadn¡¯t jumped to catch it. But the speed! It hit his hand with such a satisfying thwap. There was a sudden pause in the activity. Lucille, standing as close to the instructor as they were allowed to, looked around to see who had returned the ball that fast. Haoyu, too. Everly, who had been collecting a trio of balls and had missed what happened, started to throw them back then stopped as Big Snake pointed at Alden. ¡°Hey!¡± he said in an enthusiastic voice that echoed across the gym. ¡°I think I know what that was! Let¡¯s see that again!¡± Alden was thrilled. And then he was taking a tennis ball to the collar bone. ¡°Gotta stay alert!¡± Big Snake called as Alden cursed in his head and ran after it. ¡°If you¡¯re gonna play the game that way outside of the gym it¡¯s not safe to miss one!¡± Over the course of the final few minutes of Defense, Alden missed five balls and caught one more that had been aimed directly at his chest. As the signal flashed indicating their session shift, Big Snake waved him over. ¡°You know you could do that?¡± the hero asked as he plucked damaged projectiles out of his bin and tossed them with uncanny accuracy into a separate recycling container behind him. ¡°Get ahold of things with that skill of yours that maybe your target didn¡¯t mean for you to keep?¡± ¡°I knew I could take advantage of people being nonspecific when they told me to pick something up, and I can make use of them being clueless about the fact that they¡¯re my entrusters when they hand me objects,¡± Alden said. ¡°I wasn¡¯t sure about something like this. Weapons heading at you are meant for you but not in the same way¡­¡± ¡°Skills are funny things.¡± Big Snake was still sorting through the bin. ¡°Gotta learn what they¡¯re meant to be without boxin¡¯ ¡®em in. Or that¡¯s my opinion, which I¡¯m supposed to tell you is only my opinion, since everyone figures themselves out differently. Some people are analyzers. Others are feelers. I know a few successful levelers who consider themselves explorers¡­set out to discover something new about what the System has given them every day.¡± He looked down at Alden. ¡°Anyhow, you¡¯ve had your skill longer than the other kids here, and you¡¯ve used it for things more serious than gym class.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Alden agreed after a brief hesitation. ¡°That¡¯s true. ¡°Leveled it a few times, too,¡± Big Snake said. ¡°Can you tell when you¡¯re on the verge of getting the hang of a new trick?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure. Sometimes?¡± ¡°You think half an hour more of me attacking you might help you grab hold of it?¡± Alden looked at him in surprise. ¡°I think it might. It definitely couldn¡¯t hurt. Except for my body. And my pride.¡± Big Snake laughed so loudly that all other sound in the gym stopped for a second. Well, now people are wondering what¡¯s going on. ¡°Yeah!¡± Instructor Waker said. ¡°I don¡¯t like to send you off when you¡¯re just getting your first look at something. If you¡¯re not dyin¡¯ to go have a stab at Torsten, stay in my section here for another round of defense training. Just join in with the next group.¡± That sounded ideal. ¡°Thank you. If you don¡¯t mind.¡± ¡°Throwing things at eleven people isn¡¯t any harder than throwing things at ten.¡± He lifted an arm and waved across the gym at Instructor Klein. Alden assumed the faculty had some mental texting going on, since the wave alone didn¡¯t seem to be enough to convey information. Klein stared at Alden for a moment, then he nodded stoically at Snake. ¡°Great!¡± The huge man grinned at Alden. ¡°Now let¡¯s talk about how to make the most of it.¡± ****** The new group Alden joined contained Winston, and they had just come from Instructor Marion¡¯s session, which was probably why half of them looked dead on their feet. The hunting game favored fast people; Winston was swaggering a little. Last week, he and Finlay had been in the same group, so Instructor Marion would have been able to split them between the two teams. Maybe that¡¯s part of the reason Winston¡¯s still got such an issue with him, Alden thought, crossing the floor toward the position Big Snake had told him to take. Direct competition between the two speedsters in the maze would have been just a step below sticking them on a track and watching Finlay lap the A-rank over and over. Mehdi was a step ahead of Vandy as the group reached Alden. His normally immaculate hair was a mess, and he was holding his side like he had a stitch. ¡°What are you doing over here?¡± he asked when he spotted Alden. ¡°More defense. Big Snake said I should stay to work on something.¡± Vandy looked curious. Mehdi brightened. ¡°We¡¯ll get to go head to head! Watch me, and I¡¯ll show you how an Agility Brute can move.¡± ¡°Thanks? But I¡¯m going to be kind of busy watching Instructor Waker¡­¡± Mehdi opened his mouth. ¡°Let¡¯s see which B-rank has to chase the most balls!¡± Winston interrupted. Max was bringing up the rear of the group. As always by the end of gym, he was walking like his legs hurt, and he was so drenched, he looked like he¡¯d been swimming. Alden frowned at Winston. ¡°Max doesn¡¯t have to chase many. He sets up zones to slow or stop them.¡± Max glanced at him and shook his head. ¡°Spell impressions are mostly done for the day. I¡¯ve used almost all of my casts.¡± ¡°Oh, sorry.¡± Max shrugged. ¡°I guess you and I could compete,¡± Winston said to Alden. Then he gave one of the girls in his group a smile, as though he¡¯d said something hilarious. I¡¯m too busy for whatever his issues are, thought Alden. But then again¡­ ¡°If you want to compete to see who has to chase the most balls, Winston, let¡¯s do it,¡± Alden said. ¡°Sounds awesome.¡± Max raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°All right!¡± Big Snake called. ¡°Get ready. You know how this works.¡± Winston jogged toward the front. ¡°What are you doing agreeing to his challenge?¡± Max asked quietly, taking a position near Alden. ¡°You don¡¯t usually take him seriously.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not taking him seriously. You¡¯ll see. He thinks he was being so funny suggesting we compete.¡± A dull black line in the shape of a semicircle appeared on the floor around Alden. ¡°Everyone, Alden¡¯s practicing something specific right now. He¡¯s got a barrier behind him so that he doesn¡¯t have to chase after the balls,¡± Big Snake announced. ¡°It¡¯s transparent so it won¡¯t affect visibility for any of you. Don¡¯t cross the line on the floor or you¡¯ll run into it!¡± Winston whipped around to stare at Alden. ¡°See?¡± Alden murmured to Max. ¡°I¡¯m funny, too.¡± One corner of Max¡¯s mouth turned up. ¡°You know he¡¯ll say that¡¯s not what he meant.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care.¡± Alden crouched and held his arms up, fingers splayed. He focused his attention on Instructor Waker. ¡°I¡¯ve got things to do.¡± ****** So many tennis balls pelted Alden so quickly that multiple parts of his body were always stinging from the suit¡¯s pain mimicry. But there was something here, knocking on the door of his mind, waiting to be understood. Every time another ball flew at him, he grew a little more immersed in what he was doing. With no need to run or dodge, the sights and sounds of the gymnasium faded. He tuned out his classmates. He focused. And focused again. Deeper. He was attentive in a way he associated more with spell casting than with using his Avowed powers. He didn¡¯t know how he¡¯d gotten here, but now that he was, he trusted the feeling. At some point, it stopped mattering altogether that the tennis ball was a weapon aimed at him. Thinking of it that way was wrong. Too complicated. An object left Morrison Waker¡¯s hand and flew toward Alden Thorn. No, that was still too complicated. An object flew toward The Bearer of All Burdens from his entruster¡¯s hand. That was¡­closer. Not perfect, for some reason, but much closer. And the more Alden tried to hold onto that idea¡ªthe more he tried to meet it with himself¡ªthe more natural catching the incoming balls became. They were still too fast. Too hard. Thrown at the most awkward parts of his body with the most awkward timing no matter what position he was in. He couldn¡¯t see them coming properly, and he missed so many of them. But sometimes his hands would wrap around one before he even realized he¡¯d reached for it. And the more he did it, the more he doubted that it was just reflex. When it happened, in the instant he captured the ball, the skill felt alive inside him. There was no particular twist or fold of the affixation that he suddenly activated, no burden-catching button he could find. It was both more total and more subtle than that. And though his body moved without conscious direction, it didn¡¯t feel at all like the robotic takeover that happened whenever he used his Haunting Sphere spell impression. What is this exactly? What are we doing? It was a shame his own skill couldn¡¯t talk back to him because this felt really important. That moment when I¡¯m casting a spell with my auriad¡ªthe moment when it feels like reality parts to make way for me. That feeling Boe called self-affirmation and a success high rolled up into one. This feels more like that than using the skill usually does. He caught. He caught. He caught. Three in a row. He was still sending them back to his instructor, but though the high speed return had been so exciting earlier, the catching was more important than the releasing right now. Then, the pitches stopped coming. For a long moment, Alden waited, still ready. The sounds of the gymnasium, so loud and startling, intruded on him very suddenly. They were followed by the urgency of his own need for air, his heaving chest, his body¡­ Did someone change the settings on my gym suit? Why does everything hurt this much? The ground around his feet was littered with tennis balls. He was supposed to pick them up. He bent in half at the waist, and his back protested. He straightened with a ball in his hand, feeling like he¡¯d just managed something Herculean by not swearing out loud. Max was walking back from the ball bin, the expression on his face thoughtful as he regarded Alden. He wasn¡¯t the only one staring. Mehdi was frowning at him. Vandy looked like she was trying to x-ray him with her eyes. Alden suddenly realized he didn¡¯t have any idea what he¡¯d looked like from the outside. He had no clue how many balls he¡¯d caught or if he¡¯d returned them all properly. He didn¡¯t know how many had hit him. His aching lungs and strained muscles said he hadn¡¯t been holding still. I just hope I wasn¡¯t talking to my own skill out loud. Instructor Waker was waving him over. He went, trying not to stumble over his feet. ¡°Hated to stop throwing at you when you seemed to be catching on to catching! But class is over, and you looked like you were about to pass out. I¡¯d never hear the end of it from the principal if you did.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Alden, getting the word out between breaths, ¡°for the extra time.¡± ¡°I¡¯d ask if you thought it had helped, but I don¡¯t need to.¡± ¡°Did I¡­?¡± He had more than one question. None of them were easy to ask. Did I look like I was having a meaningful experience with a sense no other human possesses? ¡°Um¡­did I return the ones I caught in the correct direction?¡± The instructor chuckled. ¡°Not sure, huh? I thought not. You were doing good, kid. Lots of improvement. Your footage will be in your inbox, same as always. You should give it a watch.¡± Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. * ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN: Unfolding 118 By the time Alden finished cleaning up after himself, he was the last student left in the gym except for Maricel, who was talking animatedly to Fragment about what she¡¯d seen the other Ground Shapers doing at Earthbox. He headed toward the locker room, wondering how he was going to haul his exhausted body to North of North and if the recovery sauna was going to be powerful enough to save him. The sound of his own name made his hand pause just before he pushed on the door. He nudged it open a crack instead of shoving straight through. ¡°¡­like he¡¯s special or something. It¡¯s just catching balls.¡± Winston. ¡°I only caught a glimpse,¡± said Kon. ¡°But Waker throws so that you can barely see the things coming before they¡¯re on top of you. Catching them might not be impossible, but it¡¯s not like it would be easy.¡± ¡°And the balls were throwing themselves back! It was great! Instructor Klein was mad because I kept looking over there instead of at him.¡± And that¡¯s Jeffy. I hereby forgive you for making my plaid shirt smell like cheap body spray, Jeffy. ¡°Don¡¯t you want the instructors to help you when you¡¯re figuring something new out with your powers?¡± Haoyu said cooly. ¡°This is a school. They¡¯re teachers. They teach. It¡¯s not that confusing.¡± I¡¯m going to buy more copper appliances for the apartment. ¡°It¡¯s not something new,¡± Winston retorted. ¡°It¡¯s catch. He¡¯s just a B, and Big¡¯nLittleSnake was so focused on him toward the end of our session it wasn¡¯t even as hard to dodge as usual!¡± ¡°It was new, idiot,¡± Lexi snapped. ¡°If you actually paid attention to other peoples¡¯ abilities instead of getting jealous over stupid¡ª¡± Alden threw the door open and hurried in before Lexi could get himself into trouble. He pretended not to notice the hush that fell over everyone. The running showers were the only sound in the room. Alden smiled blithely around at them all and texted Haoyu. [Make Lexi come with us to use the sauna today.] Haoyu gave him a surprised look. [You¡¯re good at making him do things,] Alden said. [I¡¯ll pay for the guest pass and the reservation.] ****** ¡°You can¡¯t keep saying, ¡®I guess we¡¯ll invite Kon instead,¡¯ when you want me to agree to things,¡± Lexi complained as they walked beside the busy street that ran between the edge of campus and North of North. ¡°I know what you¡¯re doing!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯m lying when I say it,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Kon and I get along. I really might have invited him instead.¡± ¡°Why do you keep asking me to come here anyway?¡± ¡°For your health and happiness. But today I insisted because Alden wanted you to come, too.¡± Lexi looked back. Alden was several steps behind them. ¡°Why are you making me come to your grossly fancy potion sniffing facility with you? And¡­do you need one of us to carry your bag or something?¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m fine. I think I just pulled a muscle. Everywhere.¡± Lexi rolled his eyes, and reached over to take his duffel from him. ¡°Thanks. You A-ranks are so handy. And North of North isn¡¯t grossly fancy. It¡¯s a very good amount of fancy. Right, Haoyu?¡± ¡°Exactly.¡± A few minutes later, when they stepped into the gym, the girl who often guarded the lobby presented Lexi with a velvet gift bag full of swag in honor of his first visit. ¡°The smoothies and frozen yogurt are free,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°The showers are big enough for ten people.¡± ¡°Spirit waxing might be real.¡± ¡°Are you two trying to sell me a membership or what?¡± In Alden¡¯s opinion, the place was more than worth the price of the membership that evening. What was that? he wondered while he stood under warm water in the rainfall shower. He remembered the feeling of his fingers, and his skill, wrapping around tennis balls he probably shouldn¡¯t have been able to catch. How was I doing it? What was it that happened? He didn¡¯t know. It was frustrating not to know but exciting to think that Bearer had something like that to show him. When he arrived at the sauna, there was nobody inside except for Lexi and Haoyu. Usually, there would be a few other people taking advantage of the potion-infused steam, but if you hung around for long enough you¡¯d hit a patch or two when everyone else was gone. Alden¡¯s roommates were sitting on the bottom bench, their hands moving through the air as they worked with their interfaces. Lexi glanced at Alden, eyes lingering on the left side of his chest for a moment. ¡°It¡¯s not real,¡± Haoyu whispered loudly as Alden sat down beside him. ¡°He got it because he wanted to look more mature than the rest of us.¡± ¡°Haoyu, don¡¯t tell him the truth. I want everyone to think I¡¯m a serious Avowed.¡± ¡°Sorry,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°It¡¯s very, very real. He killed some people for a wizard, and the tattoo makes it so he can never reveal the locations of the bodies.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m a dangerous Rabbit.¡± Lexi looked at him. ¡°You might be.¡± ¡°You do know I¡¯m kidding about the murder, right?¡± ¡°I know that. But what was with your reaction time in class today?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°You were moving completely differently than you were a couple of weeks ago.¡± Haoyu groaned. ¡°Lexi, you can¡¯t even relax and joke around with us for a second?¡± Silence fell, then Lexi cleared his throat. ¡°Knock knock.¡± Alden stared at him. Haoyu¡¯s eyes lit. ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± ¡°Alexei,¡± Lexi muttered. He looked like he already regretted doing this. ¡°Alexei who?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°A lexicon is a kind of dictionary. Do you want to buy one?¡± Haoyu¡¯s grin was huge. Alden thought he was probably wearing a similar expression. ¡°You have your own family knock knock joke!¡± he exclaimed. And he was brave enough to deliver it, too. ¡°Lexi. Kon. It¡¯s perfect,¡± Haoyu said. Lexi¡¯s face was way too red for the amount of time they¡¯d been in the sauna.¡°My dad made it up when we were little. He thinks it¡¯s hilarious. Can I ask you about gym now?¡± ¡°I was going to answer you anyway.¡± Alden shifted, trying to get comfortable. The two of them were watching him expectantly. This is hard. The parts of it I do think I understand would make me sound crazy. Oh, I could feel my goals aligning with my affixation better than usual. I suspect I was establishing my authority over reality more properly, and that was making the skill more effective in a number of ways that I can¡¯t quite grasp just¡ªwait¡­stop running away! Come back, you guys! I don¡¯t want new roommates! ¡°I don¡¯t think I should¡¯ve been catching some of those,¡± he said instead. ¡°Most of those. When it comes to Big Snake¡¯s faster pitches, I don¡¯t usually have time to think, ¡®Left ankle. Right hip. Shoulder.¡¯ It¡¯s more like ¡®Yikes! Motion! Duck!¡¯¡± He arched his back, trying to stretch it out. ¡°Also, I was very focused on¡­my mindset. So I wasn¡¯t paying great attention to details. He was throwing them at least as fast as usual, right?¡± Haoyu and Lexi exchanged a look. ¡°I was busy trying to beat Instructor Klein,¡± Lexi said. ¡°But¡­¡± ¡°It was getting noteworthy toward the end of class,¡± Haoyu told him. ¡°Not the speed of the individual pitches; he was throwing at what looked like his normal top speed for you.¡± Alden nodded. Snake threw harder at some people than others, depending on what they were doing with their powers and how suited they were to playing high-speed dodgeball to begin with. ¡°But he was throwing a much larger number of pitches at you. For the last half of the session, he wasn¡¯t even giving you time to return one before the next was in the air. And he was throwing more multiples your way. You would have needed to be an Avowed octopus to catch all of them.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got to watch my footage.¡± ¡°Before you do,¡± Lexi said, ¡°let me ask¡ªyou didn¡¯t know, right? That you could catch something that was being used as a weapon against you. That was why you were so excited even with the first one?¡± ¡°I¡¯d never done it,¡± Alden replied. ¡°Of course Big Snake isn¡¯t trying to hurt us for real, but it¡¯s a situation where both parties know his goal is to hit us, not pass the balls to us. So it was a decent test.¡± A much better test than I expected. Alden had hoped it would be a first step toward sorting out his perception of incoming enemy projectiles. Only a baby step, he¡¯d thought, since it wasn¡¯t a perfect model of an actually dangerous situation. That was all. ¡°I ended up glimpsing something way different than I¡¯d planned. I have practiced playing catch with my skill, but it was to get the hang of preserving objects instantly, instead of halting their momentum and then preserving. It wasn¡¯t like¡ª¡± ¡°You couldn¡¯t always do that?¡± Lexi¡¯s face was intent. ¡°It¡¯s something you figured out through trial and error?¡± ¡°It actually took a lot of practice to be able to do it naturally every time.¡± ¡°Could you tell when you were on the right track to getting it?¡± Haoyu asked at once. ¡°How many times would you say you had to try?¡± Lexi asked at the same time. ¡°Um¡­you two definitely shouldn¡¯t use most of my experiences to judge your own progress. I learned a lot of what I know about my skill and my trait during a crisis. There were really unique pressures holding me back in some ways and driving me forward in others.¡± They both looked embarrassed, which wasn¡¯t what Alden had wanted at all. ¡°I don¡¯t mind talking about it with you,¡± he said hastily. He was surprised to realize that it was closer to a truth than a lie. Maybe it was only because he¡¯d just heard them defending him when they didn¡¯t even know he was listening, but it was a relief, for a change, not to have that internal clench at the thought of possibly being asked a question about Thegund. He was sure it would be back when he was in a different mood, but for now¡­ ¡°I played catch with Kibby all the time. She threw gravel. Small pointy rocks aren¡¯t the most pleasant things to catch, but that worked out for the best because it encouraged me to grab them with the right idea in mind instead of the wrong one. At the time, whenever someone tossed something to me, I had a feeling that I needed to stop it and get a good grip on it before I preserved it.¡± And when feelings and intuition were all I had to go on instead of my authority sense, it made activating the skill exactly how I wanted to seem like rocket science. It was good they¡¯d asked about this one, now that he thought about it. Instant preservation of moving objects was one of the few things he¡¯d made progress with prior to gaining more deliberate control over his affixation. ¡°Practicing my way out of it worked. I got it right more and more often.¡± Soon enough, even without his expanding senses changing how he understood his magic, halting the rocks properly would have become a knack in the normal way for human Avowed, he was sure. Just one of those things you could do thoughtlessly once you¡¯d gotten the hang of it, the magical equivalent of riding a bicycle. ¡°Now it¡¯s not hard at all. I¡ª¡± The sound of the door opening drew his attention. Lute Velra walked into the room wearing a towel around his waist and drinking an orange smoothie. ¡°I see,¡± he said, wafting steam dramatically toward his nose with one hand, then slurping from his drink. ¡°So this is where the spoiled people do their homework.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t it indecent for you to call someone spoiled?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°Lute!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°What are you doing here?¡± ¡°Alden invited me. Sorry I¡¯m late. I had to make sure I tried all the free samples.¡± He was peering into the tiny cauldron on the pedestal at the center of the room. He didn¡¯t have his patch on, and from this angle, in all the steam, it was impossible to tell he had a false eye. ¡°You might want to drink the smoothie fast,¡± said Alden. ¡°There¡¯s no food allowed in here. When other people show up, they¡¯ll glare at you.¡± Lute looked over to answer. ¡°Hey! You have a tattoo!¡± Before Alden could respond, Lute was right beside him examining it. ¡°Does it go around the side? It looks like it goes around the side.¡± Alden lifted his arm. ¡°Oooo¡­a mysterious triangle.¡± Alden snorted. ¡°You should¡¯ve said you had one!¡± Then Lute frowned. ¡°Now mine is even dumber. You probably got yours doing a deal with a wizard, and mine¡¯s a fancy letter V my grandmother designed back in the dark ages.¡± ¡°Under slightly different circumstances, an ancestral tattoo would actually be awesome,¡± said Alden. ¡°Yeah. I guess. But that¡¯s dependent on your ancestors being awesome.¡± He sat down. ¡°So now Haoyu and Lexi just need to get summoned for something serious or secret, and we¡¯ll all be inked.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not on my to-do list for the near future,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Mine either.¡± ¡°Fine. But Alden and I are getting ahead of you.¡± He sucked on his straw. ¡°So! Now we sit around and recover together.¡± ¡°We¡¯re recovering from an intense MPE class,¡± said Lexi. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you think you¡¯re recovering from.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll have you know I used the stairs instead of the elevators to get to all my lessons today.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m glad you both came. But now I really do have to review the video to see if I can figure out what I was actually doing with my skill earlier.¡± ¡°There¡¯s entertainment?¡± Lute asked. ¡°Can I watch?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind. You don¡¯t have your own homework?¡± ¡°My homework is boring.¡± They all ended up watching, even Lexi, who claimed he needed to study his own efforts far more than Alden¡¯s. It was always strange to view the gym footage. The first time Alden had seen his body in high definition from every angle, wearing the unitard and doing the kinds of things they did in MPE, he hadn¡¯t recognized himself. In ways both good and bad. His reaction had included important concerns like: Is my accent slightly different than it used to be? Is my hair funny? My face gets so red when I¡¯m working out, and it makes so many expressions. I bet everyone thinks I¡¯m a creepy tomato head. And there were some more positive observations. Watching himself do magic was incredible. He looked so much more like a superhuman when he used his skill than he¡¯d realized. Alden from a year ago would have thought the guy on the video had cool powers. On top of that, he looked athletic, which was gratifying. He was aware that he was in great shape; he could feel it. But seeing himself move in ways he couldn¡¯t have before was still exciting. And as for moving in ways he couldn¡¯t or, rather, shouldn¡¯t¡­ As they hit the fifteen-minute mark of the recording, Alden watched through his interface as two projectiles came toward him in rapid succession. He paused it. [Lexi: Double miss.] He was typing in their roommate chat so that they wouldn¡¯t bother the man and woman who¡¯d come to relax on the benches across from them. [Haoyu: Single miss.] [Lute: You¡¯re going to get hit in the shoulder and the knee.] Every now and then they were playing this guessing game, trying to decide whether or not Alden could make the catches. [Alden: Double miss. These ones are too fast.] He started the video. The him from just a short while ago threw his body forward to grab the first ball with his right hand before it hit his shin, and then, even as he raised his arm to send the ball back to Instructor Waker, he was snapping up and twisting his spine around to catch the second ball with his left hand even though it had already gone past him. What the hell? thought Alden, thrilled and confused at the same time. ¡°Damn,¡± said Lute from right beside him. ¡°You are so much better than I imagined you being.¡± [Alden: Hey.] [Haoyu: That¡¯s right. Give him the annoyed font.] [Lute: Seriously, though. You look like you¡¯re using the self-mastery wordchain even though you¡¯re not.] [Lexi: Did your skill give you some kind of temporary enhancement?] [Haoyu: A speed boost maybe? That would be amazing!] Alden doubted that was it, but he didn¡¯t know what it was either. He rewound and watched again in slow motion. Incoming fastballs that should have hit him one right after the other. Catch. Release. Catch. Release. Smooth as silk. He watched it twice more at regular speed. Then in slow motion. Then one more time, focusing on the fingers of his right hand as they manipulated the ball into the correct position for the return. [Alden: I don¡¯t think my body¡¯s moving faster than I¡¯m capable of. But I was concentrating so hard on intercepting the pitches with my magic that I lost my sense of self-preservation a little.] The all three looked at him. [Lexi: What does that mean?] [Alden: I tuned out everything else. I¡¯m pretty sure I wouldn¡¯t have twisted around that hard and fast to catch a ball normally. I¡¯m getting whiplash just watching myself. It explains why I¡¯m this sore.] There was your normal best, and then there was your ¡®I¡¯ve managed to convince myself that catching the ball is the purpose of my existence, and I¡¯m too busy feeling my authority to notice if things hurt or not¡¯ best. [Lute: Don¡¯t your super stylish turtleneck jumpsuits stop you from injuring yourselves?] They all turned to look at him. Haoyu narrowed his eyes. [So you think our superhero suits are stylish?] [Lexi: They don¡¯t prevent self-inflicted muscle strain unless you¡¯re doing something completely insane.] I might not be moving that much faster, Alden thought as he watched himself miss one pitch then catch another. But I sure am moving in the right direction more often than not. And he moved more and more correctly the longer it went on. By the last few minutes of class, even the balls he missed were bare misses. To start with, some of them had caught him completely by surprise, but at the end, he was always reaching for the spot they were coming toward with one hand or the other. Big Snake seemed to have decided that the harder catches were helping the most. He¡¯d even started throwing a few of them wild, instead of playing the villain and always aiming for Alden¡¯s body. ¡°Your eyes,¡± Lexi said as they approached the end of the video. Then he seemed to realize he¡¯d spoken aloud, and he looked over at the other sauna users apologetically. [Haoyu: I was going to say that too. His visual processing must be really great.] That¡¯s not it. Alden remembered the feel of catching. He didn¡¯t remember seeing the balls coming at him very often at all. [Lexi: No. Look at his face again during that fast series of throws earlier.] [Lute: The one where Teacher Snake hit him like fifteen times just for fun?] [Haoyu: I don¡¯t think it was for fun. I think he just decided to try out a bunch of different things to see how Alden reacted to them. That ball that hit the floor right in front of him and exploded probably couldn¡¯t have been hand-caught by anyone in our class. It was an experiment.] Alden was backing up the video to find the part Lexi meant. It was an absurd looking moment. If he hadn¡¯t been so lost in what was going on with his skill right then, the sight of almost twenty inbound objects would have made him throw up his hands in defeat. But apparently, when he was this deep into it, he was all business. He¡¯d watched his body and his hands last time. He knew he would miss almost all of these pitches. There was no way he could have caught them. Now, following Lexi¡¯s prompting, he watched his face. I look exhausted. He was gasping. I look calm. He remembered that. I look¡­ Shocked, he zoomed in on his face even closer. What the hell am I doing? He caught a ball and returned it. A dozen others hit him or whizzed over his head. He caught a second and returned it. He lunged sideways, so that his fingers brushed the final one in the volley, but they couldn¡¯t close over it in time. Alden replayed the scene again. ¡°Did I close my eyes?!¡± he exclaimed. ¡°Maybe you can hear the balls with your ears,¡± Haoyu whispered. [Lexi: Are you reading Instructor Waker¡¯s mind?] ¡°Not using your eyes makes you one hundred percent cooler. I¡¯m perpetually fifty percent cooler than the rest of you, so I should know.¡± ¡°Oh my god, Gym Alden was temporarily psychic,¡± said Alden. Haoyu laughed. ¡°You do know gym you is you, don¡¯t you?¡± [Lexi: You all remember we¡¯re not supposed to be loud in here, right?] [Alden: How did I catch them with my eyes closed???] Lexi blinked at him. [Lute: Are you seriously asking us to tell you how your own powers work?] [Haoyu: Maybe you just remembered where all the balls were and caught a couple that way.] Could that have been it? With that many heading at him, a couple of lucky catches¡­would still have been too lucky [Lexi: That wasn¡¯t it. Zoom out so you can see yourself and Instructor Waker at the same time.] Alden did. Big Snake threw the huge volley, and then followed it up with a few more. [The last one,] Lexi texted. [The one your fingers barely touched. He threw that one right after you shut your eyes. You couldn¡¯t possibly have seen it, but you still went for it.] He was right. And since Alden hadn¡¯t been reading Big Snake¡¯s mind¡­ [Lute: You guys, look at his face. He¡¯s smiling at his own footage.] Of course Alden was smiling. How could he not be? This was a part of his skill he hadn¡¯t thought to look for. He was always so focused on preserving the burden and using the preserved burden in different ways and finding the limits of the preservation¡­ He¡¯d needed a broader view. Even though he¡¯d known his skill was special, he still hadn¡¯t been looking at it through a wide enough lens. A skill for a lifetime. One called The Bearer of All Burdens. During my last affixation, I even took the ¡°defogging package¡± she recommended. I enhanced Bearer with the [Sensitivity] option. I assumed all it could do for me right now was help me see and feel enchantments so that I could use the new skill facet properly¡­because that was what we were talking about using it for at the time. He had never wondered if it could do anything for solid objects. Nobody had ever entrusted him with an object he didn¡¯t more or less know the location of. Until today. His eyes and brain hadn¡¯t been quite fast enough to direct his body toward the burdens he wanted to bear, so his skill had stepped up to the plate. Closing his eyes once he¡¯d fallen all the way into the effort¡­ I was just letting go of a less capable sense so that another one could do its job better. ****** ¡°Fine.¡± Haoyu was slurping up noodles at the kitchen table. ¡°You¡¯re right. Ramen noodles are good with minestrone.¡± ¡°In the absence of a professional chef and a full kitchen, ramen noodles are good with everything,¡± Lute replied. ¡°Alden, you¡¯re about to trip over the ottoman. Again.¡± Stop talking so much, thought Alden, halting his slow, blindfolded walk through the apartment. It¡¯s making it hard for me to sense my soup. Somewhere in this place there was a mug of minestrone that Haoyu had told him to preserve. They¡¯d come up with this scheme on the way back from the sauna. Lute had asked if Alden could practice his newly discovered ability by using it like a much more limited version of a lost thing finder skill, like Roman Velra had. Haoyu had volunteered to be his entruster. And Lexi had suggested they use supper as a motivator, since Alden¡¯s stomach was growling. Now he was wearing his sleep mask, and he was trying to find both his food and the particular mental state that had allowed him to catch pitches he couldn¡¯t see. ¡°Stop sniffing for it,¡± Lexi said. ¡°The whole apartment smells like minestrone. You¡¯re not going to get it that way.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not doing it on purpose! My nose is just inhaling more than usual on its own.¡± He paused. ¡°Haoyu, you know where the mug is, right? I don¡¯t know if this will work if neither one of us knows where the thing I¡¯m looking for is hiding.¡± ¡°I know where the mug is,¡± Haoyu confirmed. ¡°And I want you to preserve it. It¡¯s getting cold. It¡¯ll taste bad. You¡¯re ruining the supper I made.¡± ¡°Pressure him more,¡± Lute said. ¡°I¡¯ll be depressed if that mug is still full of cold soup and soggy ramen in the morning. And you¡¯ll starve to death.¡± ¡°Too much pressure,¡± said Alden, fumbling his way out of the living area. ¡°I¡¯m going to my room. Maybe I can sense the soup better from in there.¡± Okay, he thought, after he¡¯d closed his door and pulled off the mask. Let¡¯s do this right. He went to kneel on his learning cushion and consider everything he knew and everything he suspected. First of all, he told himself, it wasn¡¯t a neat little trick. So don¡¯t let yourself think of it that way. Catching things with his eyes closed was neat. And it did seem like a fun party trick. But when he¡¯d actually been doing it, his intentions had been more serious. I started thinking of myself as The Bearer of All Burdens instead of Alden. That¡¯s a little embarrassing now that I¡¯m not so deeply lost inside my own affixation. But the effects of it couldn¡¯t be denied. It wasn¡¯t only that he¡¯d been letting his magic lead his hands to the tennis balls¡¯ locations; he¡¯d also been so efficient about it. The more he¡¯d watched the video, the clearer it had become. In the last three or so minutes of class, he hadn¡¯t just been catching more balls, he¡¯d been going for the best ones. He¡¯d obviously started to get a sense for which ones he could actually reach in time. If being in that headspace had worked once, it would work again. He just had to find a way to get himself there. He slowed his breathing and let his eyelids fall shut. I should take a look at myself. I should do it like I mean it. He went backward in his mind, all the way to a better learning cushion in a worse place. Backward to the soft voice of an Artonan kindergarten teacher and the achingly hopeful presence of a grieving girl who kept reaching for a learning partner so that she wouldn¡¯t be alone in the chaos anymore. Back to the moment when he¡¯d first returned the friendly pat. There was a spot where the universe made room for Alden. A spot that was him. And when he finally found himself¡­ I have the authority to move here. He delivered a wizardy fistbump for the first time in months. He sent it rippling out like a tiny, undirected pulse since there was no Kibby here to receive it. I can move like this. But not all of me. He remembered the excitement, satisfaction, and joy of that first deliberate exercise of his authority. And the inevitable horror. Hi, he thought at the rest of himself. How¡¯s it going? I know you¡¯re me, too. It was unpleasant to think of himself in his entirety, so often¡ªtoo often, he suspected¡ªhe divided it. He pretended that he was his free authority, and his bound was more like an attachment. A useful one he couldn¡¯t extricate himself from¡­but still an attachment. That¡¯s a big self-directed loving lie. He sighed and let go of that lie for now. He knew how to. Denial was a luxury that his last affixation had stripped from him in a profound way, so it wasn¡¯t like he could ever really trick himself into forgetting his true nature. It was just an uncomfortable thing to fully acknowledge in a quiet moment like this. Accepting that I was mostly The Bearer of All Burdens, and only a little bit free, didn¡¯t feel that bad earlier when I was focused on doing my job right. The Bearer of All Burdens could not fist bump Kibby. It¡­he¡­could not use an auriad. He would never make an ice pop or light a promise stick. The Bearer¡¯s infinite futures had been severed, for the sake of single purpose. I can bear the hell out of some burdens. Now¡­where was Haoyu? They were close enough to each other right now that Alden was sure he could have sensed his roommate with the part of himself that was free; he¡¯d never tried it for a host of reasons. And anyway, it was an entirely different kind of sensing than Bearer used. There. That weight. Judging by the direction, Haoyu was still in the kitchen. My target has entrusted me with a mug of soup. It¡¯s true that it¡¯s not the most meaningful thing I¡¯ve ever been charged with protecting, but it¡¯s still been placed under my care. Nothing happened. I¡¯m not feeling it like I was in gym. He wasn¡¯t falling into his role as naturally as he had earlier. Too many thoughts running through his head. Too many desires outside of his purpose. Less urgency. Maybe if the soup was in terrible danger. He chuckled. I¡¯m super distractible when I¡¯m hungry, sore, and tired. What else can I do? He remembered the way the skill had felt more alive as he aligned with it. Just pick some feature of the skill I know how to access and give it deliberate attention. Maybe that will put me in the zone. He focused on the targeting ability. I don¡¯t usually think about you or work on you much. I haven¡¯t bothered to conceive of you as something more interesting than a button on a machine yet. How ungrateful of me. You stayed fixed on Kibby for months without ever failing. I wanted you and needed you, but I haven¡¯t been appreciating what you do. Alden tried to think about what this part of him was¡ªwhat it truly was. He thought of it as a small fraction of his power, and that wasn¡¯t wrong. But as he explored it, he found that there was something fundamental about it. This piece of the affixation runs through everything else Bearer is. Like wires or the roots of a tree. He was enjoying the origami metaphor for other parts of his skill and he felt like he should keep it consistent, so¡­paper roots? You could twist paper into root shapes, so that wasn¡¯t the most ridiculous thing. But then there had to be an acknowledgement of what the targeting feature did. It pointed him toward his entruster. It gave him that feeling that they were significant. So significant the universe tilted toward them a little. Also, when I target someone the feeling isn¡¯t forceful. Now that he considered it, that was interesting. He felt pokes and pinches when other Avowed targeted him, but he didn¡¯t think he pinched back the same way with his own targeting. Maybe Kibby would be able to tell him what it felt like for sure the next time he saw her. But on his end of things, at least, it was a more receptive process. Like I¡¯m opening myself up or holding out a hand? Should I try imagining it¡¯s something with roots that opens and tracks things? It¡¯s pretty special. It keeps me connected to my entruster over long distances. Alden fixed his mind on his sense of Haoyu. All right, so if I wanted to acknowledge and strengthen this part of the skill then¡­ It had never occurred to him to try targeting someone more by manipulating his bound authority. For one thing, it didn¡¯t seem necessary. His targeted person was targeted, and he could protect things they entrusted him with. It was such a basic part of the skill that it had gone overlooked. He worked at it for a while, growing engrossed just as he had on his last night in intake when he¡¯d first started reimagining the affixation. Eventually, as he¡¯d hoped, focusing intently on even a small part of the skill like this helped him align himself with the whole thing. By the time he¡¯d discovered a way of thinking that helped him become a little more receptive to his target and increase his awareness of Haoyu¡¯s location, he felt relaxed and more at home with himself. My entruster is there, he thought. Now where is the thing he told me to preserve? He stood and left the room. Eyes still closed, he turned and walked a few steps to the end of the hall. He was careful to keep his thoughts quiet. If he took time to question it, he was sure he would lose it. It needed to be more like an instinct for now. He bent and his fingers closed around something, preserving it instantly. He opened his eyes. Of course they put my soup on the floor under the polar bear head. He carried it toward the kitchen to reheat it. All three of the other guys were in the living room. ¡°I got it,¡± said Alden, lifting the mug. Haoyu and Lexi looked at him. Lute turned around in his chair to look, too. ¡°No eyes?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Or did you just get hungry?¡± ¡°No eyes,¡± Alden confirmed with a grin. Then he yawned. ¡°But I am very hungry. And sleepy.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a fun new power discovery,¡± said Lute. ¡°I¡¯m going to hide things you need in awkward places. To help you train. Good luck finding the toilet paper tomorrow.¡± ¡°Thanks. You¡¯re a true friend.¡± ¡°That took you two hours,¡± Lexi said. Alden checked the time. ¡°It did. Sorry. I thought I was faster than that, but I got kind of invested in the process.¡± He went over to the microwave. ¡°You can have fresh soup,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°You don¡¯t have to eat the training soup.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to eat the training soup and the fresh soup if you don¡¯t mind. It smells awesome.¡± ¡°Take a selfie with your mug,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°I¡¯m sending them to my mom. To prove I rock at cooking.¡± ¡°Will do.¡± Alden watched his dinner rotate around on the glass plate. ¡°Hey¡­heliotropic flowers are cool, aren¡¯t they?¡± ¡°Huh?¡± said Lute. ¡°You know. Flowers that always turn to face the sun and follow it across the sky. Like daisies. They¡¯re a targeting flower. If you were gonna be a flower you¡¯d want to be a heliotropic one.¡± ¡°They¡¯re pretty cool,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Man, you need sleep,¡± said Lute. ¡°Were you imagining yourself as a daisy when you were trying to target your soup cup?¡± Lexi asked slowly. ¡°Wait!¡± Haoyu cried. ¡°Was that what you meant?¡± ¡°Not exactly.¡± He¡¯d played around with imagining he had an origami targeting shape pointed at Haoyu. Not the soup. And it wasn¡¯t really a daisy; it was just a kind of unfolding feeling like a flower opening toward the sun that had gotten him the stronger sense of Haoyu¡¯s location that he¡¯d wanted. ¡°What exactly did you mean then?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°Mmmmm¡­good minestrone. I¡¯m just doing some metaphor stuff, Lexi. Trying out everything. Approaching magic from new angles. No big deal.¡± ¡°Is it working for you?¡± ¡°Sometimes. It did take me two whole hours to find my supper though. That¡¯s forever. So maybe don¡¯t take my advice.¡± Alden ate every bite, then he pulled the leftovers out of the fridge and refilled the mug. [Lute: There¡¯s a birthday thing for Uncle Benjamin tomorrow night. It¡¯s not a huge party. Like fifty people. I¡¯m getting an invite from Aimi. Do you still want to come?] Yuck, thought Alden. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°How many more times do you think you¡¯ll have to practice until you can reliably find your entrusted object?¡± Lexi asked. He¡¯s got a one track mind. ¡°You mean until I¡¯m good at it?¡± Alden said. ¡°I just wondered if you knew¡­¡± ¡°I can reliably find it already, probably. If time isn¡¯t an issue, I¡¯m sure I could do it again. But I¡¯ll keep practicing until I get a lot faster. I want to find a way to hit that point I was at in gym today at will instead of after half an hour of having a superhero pelt me with fastballs.¡± ¡°How far away do you think¡ª?¡± ¡°There¡¯s a distance limit on how far away my target can be from whatever they¡¯re entrusting me with, so not that far. Haoyu could probably tell me to go find something he¡¯d left downstairs but not across campus. And he might need to have at least a general idea of where the item is himself before he can tell me to get it. We haven¡¯t tested that. That would make it way less useful for finding lost objects. But this is still a good way to train myself. And maybe I can have one of you throw some stuff at me. I¡¯ll help you with whatever you want to practice, too.¡± ¡°Your new codename is Ball Catcher.¡± ¡°You can go to that party alone, Lute.¡± ¡°Cotton Balls?¡± ¡°By yourself.¡± This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. * ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN: Interesting * 119 The gleaming tip of a slender chain whip inched through the air, approaching its victim with a quiet, lethal grace. ¡°Gently,¡± Lexi Roberts mumbled, staring at the marshmallow on the concrete floor a couple of meters away. ¡°Calmly.¡± ¡°Lexi? You¡¯re not jogging this morning?¡± Writher wrapped around the marshmallow and sliced it in half, filling the apartment with a burnt sugar smell and making Haoyu Zhang-Demir smile sheepishly from where he stood by a leather armchair. ¡°Sorry. You were practicing.¡± ¡°Not like it was going well.¡± Lexi huffed and went over to pick up the marshmallow pieces and fling them toward the trash. ¡°Don¡¯t throw them away!¡± Haoyu protested. ¡°Toasted marshmallows are good.¡± ¡°They¡¯ve been on the floor.¡± ¡°It¡¯s pristine. The robot vacuum cleans it every day.¡± ¡°The bag¡¯s on the counter if you want a fresh one. You don¡¯t mind me using them for this, do you?¡± ¡°The marshmallows?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Why would I?¡± ¡°They were on the shared food shelf. I figured you¡¯d bought them.¡± ¡°No. Alden did. He won¡¯t care. It seems like he¡¯s easygoing about most things.¡± Writher hung by Lexi¡¯s side, writhing slightly. ¡°Do you think he¡¯s¡­?¡± Haoyu looked at him. ¡°Do you think he¡¯s one of those people who just gets how to use his powers naturally?¡± Lexi asked. Haoyu shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I haven¡¯t known him that long. I haven¡¯t had powers that long. He hasn¡¯t either really. It¡¯s premature to guess.¡± ¡°I know you were thinking the same thing as me last night,¡± Lexi said. ¡°I saw your face.¡± ¡°When?¡± ¡°Several times.¡± Haoyu sighed. ¡°Okay. I was a little envious.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Lexi hissed. ¡°This isn¡¯t the first¡ª¡± ¡°I know. We met him a little less than three weeks ago, and that skill of his looks vastly more impressive than it did on assessment day.¡± ¡°It¡¯s so different than I thought it was,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Even Kon mentioned it this past weekend, and at that point, we hadn¡¯t even seen him do¡­whatever that was last night.¡± ¡°The skill seems really versatile. I¡¯m glad for him. Stop worrying about your own progress so much. You¡¯re doing great.¡± ¡°Writher¡¯s supposed to be versatile, too. But it randomly attacks¡ª¡± ¡°It was a tiny scratch. It was right after you first got it, and Kon wasn¡¯t even mad about it.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want a deadly weapon I¡¯m responsible for to scratch my brother.¡± ¡°It¡¯s responding to your mood.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not a good thing for it to respond to.¡± ¡°I mean it¡¯s responding to your mood right now. It just singed the edge of the fluffy rug.¡± Lexi swore in Russian, and ran over to stomp on the smoldering spot while Writher withdrew. Haoyu walked over with a pair of scissors and started trimming the burnt fuzz out of the rug. ¡°Maybe I should get Kon.¡± ¡°It¡¯s such a thick rug. It hides mistakes like this all by itself.¡± Lexi stared down at him. ¡°How many times have you trimmed it?¡± ¡°Just once. There was an itty bitty tiny little stain that wouldn¡¯t come clean. And now it¡¯s gone. Like it never happened.¡± He snipped some more. ¡°I don¡¯t think Alden¡¯s had the opportunity to try most of the things with his skill that he¡¯s trying now. He wasn¡¯t surrounded by older Avowed when he affixed who could take him to safe places and let him experiment. And even though he¡¯s leveled, I doubt he was in the mood to take creative risks when he was stuck in a situation where mistakes would get him killed. If you think about it that way, it¡¯s natural for him to be finding a ton of new things he can do all at once.¡± ¡°I know. Still. Last night it took him two hours to find the soup¡­¡± ¡°Right. And he was like, Oh no that¡¯s such a long time.¡± ¡°After the first time I activated Writher¡¯s phase out feature, it took me a week to get it to do it again.¡± Haoyu stood up with a fistful of trimmings. ¡°It was his certainty that he could do it reliably from now on that stung my ego. But maybe he¡¯s figuring his skill out so fast because he¡¯s been through bad stuff with it.¡± ¡°I considered that.¡± ¡°So stop comparing your pace to his. He¡¯s just got interesting circumstances. After you¡¯ve been summoned to another planet for months, then you can worry you¡¯re slow.¡± Lexi was quiet. Then he said, ¡°When do you think it¡¯ll happen for us?¡± ¡°Late uni maybe? If we both level as fast as we hope to. Unless some wizard who knows our parents decides to request us for a job out of curiosity.¡± ¡°Are you seriously going to that party tonight?¡± ¡°Yes. It¡¯s not that much trouble. And Lute needs support. You¡¯re coming too.¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m not.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll see.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not.¡± ****** ¡°The Rabbit¡¯s interestin¡¯.¡± ¡°Morrison, I hope you¡¯re talking about a cute animal or the zodiac right now and not one of our students,¡± Lesedi Saleh said as she phased her hand through the top of the mini fridge beside her bed and pulled out a bottle of water. ¡°Students are work. And I don¡¯t discuss work when I¡¯m not fully clothed.¡± Morrison Waker rolled over to grin at her. ¡°You were just tellin¡¯ me about that time you shoved your hand through a Meister to punch the Brute behind him.¡± ¡°I¡¯m retired from being Ghosten. Old work isn¡¯t work anymore. Alden Thorn is current work. Current work is off limits when I¡¯m naked or when the person I¡¯m talking to is naked.¡± ¡°Good policy.¡± She twisted the cap off the bottle, drained half of it, and then passed the rest to him. He sat up to take it. ¡°When you¡¯re not Big Snake or Little Snake, do people ever call you Medium Snake?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Hardly ever get around to being my natural self in front of strangers these days.¡± ¡°I like you this way. You look more like when we first met.¡± ¡°I can look exactly like when we first met if you want. Right down to the mullet.¡± She tossed her hair over her shoulder. ¡°Not that I don¡¯t appreciate the possibilities of your morphing, but let¡¯s keep it simple for our first time trying this.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the boss,¡± he said happily. Then he gasped in false horror. ¡°Wait. You really are my boss now. I¡¯m sleepin¡¯ with my boss.¡± She slapped his thigh. ¡°This is terrible. I¡¯m being taken advantage of.¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t mind, I¡¯m going to take advantage of you a little bit more.¡± Some time later, as the lights in the room gradually brightened to indicate the arrival of morning, they lay staring at one another across the rumpled expanse of the sheets. ¡°Was this a ¡®just in case you die out there¡¯ kind of night?¡± he asked. ¡°Or something else? I¡¯m happy either way, and I don¡¯t like to assume¡­¡± ¡°Come back home safely so we can talk about it more,¡± she said. ¡°It was that kind of night. There are a lot of people here on Earth who would miss you if you were gone.¡± He nodded. ¡°Will do. You want me to sneak off before your daughter wakes up?¡± ¡°Do you need to head home and pack?¡± ¡°Nope. Got a bag stashed in System storage.¡± ¡°Then stay for breakfast. She¡¯ll be excited to have company, and she¡¯s too young to care about why the company is here first thing in the morning. But be prepared to hear a lot about treehouses. I read her a bedtime story with one in it and now she wants one.¡± ¡°Who doesn¡¯t?¡± ¡°Morrison, do you know how hard it is to find a house with a yard with a treehouse-appropriate tree on this island?¡± After they¡¯d dressed, while the coffee was brewing, he said, ¡°So. The Rabbit.¡± Lesedi sighed. ¡°We¡¯ve got clothes on. And this really is interestin¡¯. He can use that skill of his with his eyes closed.¡± ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t he be able to?¡± Morrison examined the selection of coffee cups and picked one with red stripes. ¡°I mean he can use it to catch things out of the air and freeze ¡®em without opening his eyes to see what¡¯s coming his way. Saw it plain as day, but I still reviewed the video after class just to make sure.¡± Her expression changed. ¡°See? You are interested.¡± ¡°I¡¯m surprised. I¡¯ve put quite a lot of thought into his skill, given the situation. An ability like that is beyond my expectations for its development.¡± ¡°He still has to target the person throwing stuff at him, so¡ª¡± ¡°That drives Torsten insane. We all know the skill vanished from the list after Alden chose it. But even if it¡¯s experimental, the thing he calls entrustment seems like a pointless limiter on a fairly harmless power. Luna Plim thinks it¡¯s the most wonderful mystery. She¡¯s trying to find other skills with similarly impractical requirements.¡± ¡°How many levels do you think he¡¯d have to get on the one skill before he can catch bullets with it?¡± ¡°You want the B-rank Rabbit to be a bullet catcher?¡± ¡°I want to see him get something worthwhile for his troubles. He¡¯s had it rough.¡± ****** On the rooftop of a mirrored, cube-shaped building that stood by itself, reflecting nothing but the endlessness of the sky and the waves, a woman looked east toward the place where Earth¡¯s newly risen sun hid behind thick gray clouds. Her brown hair hung down her back in three braids, cuffed together with wooden hoops. The uniform she wore was decorated with metal studs, and the fabric of her coat was a pale shade of green that one of the humans on the residence levels below her had said might be called ¡°sea foam¡± in his language. She was slightly disappointed that the sea here had not produced foam in a similar color since she¡¯d arrived. This is a lonely place on such a lively planet, she thought. But she did not feel alone. She smiled and a minute later, her partner appeared on the roof beside her. ¡°Lind, you¡¯ve been out here for hours,¡± he complained. ¡°I think you¡¯re doing it just to see if I¡¯ll miss you.¡± ¡°Did you?¡± ¡°A little. Isn¡¯t that absurd? I¡¯ve never been more aware of your presence. You¡¯d think it would make me less inclined to follow you onto cold rooftops, but here I am.¡± His own hair, so dark it was almost true black, was braided to match hers. He crossed his arms over his chest and shivered dramatically. ¡°Are you quite serious, Esh?¡± she said in an amused tone. ¡°The last time we visited the first Rapport there was a blizzard, and I didn¡¯t notice you complaining about the weather then.¡± ¡°I was complaining in the privacy of my mind. I¡¯ll make sure you notice it next time.¡± He looked toward the horizon. ¡°What are you out here for?¡± ¡°Late in the night I felt something unusual. I wanted to get some distance from the humans to think about it.¡± He waited. ¡°An authority greeting,¡± she said. ¡°But such a quiet, undirected one. As if they didn¡¯t seek an answer.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t notice it.¡± ¡°You were observing the Avowed in their training. And as I said¡­it was very quiet.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s send a message to all of the unbound here on Earth and demand that the person sending out random hellos confess,¡± he suggested. ¡°The mystery will be solved in moments.¡± She laughed. ¡°You cruel man. You¡¯ll have some frightened person convinced we¡¯re angry with them.¡± ¡°We will tell them that their strange behavior distracted you from your work.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s leave whoever they are alone. There was something charming about their greeting. It was why I was curious in the first place.¡± ¡°Speaking of curiosities¡­I asked the local Contract for the profiles of all commended Avowed on this planet.¡± She turned to him. ¡°Were you going to invite them over for socializing, training, or work?¡± He lifted his hands. ¡°I just don¡¯t know what to do with myself when you¡¯re hiding on roofs and there are no disasters in progress. I thought if there was someone very interesting who wasn¡¯t already here we might ask them to stop by.¡± ¡°Come over. Enjoy the chaos miasma with us.¡± Her tone was wry. ¡°Yes. Something like that. Do you remember that story we heard about Alis-art¡¯h finding a human on Thegund?¡± he said. ¡°Of course.¡± ¡°Because of that experience, he has the highest commendation of any human Avowed. A thirteen-year-old Ryeh-b¡¯t boy. Isn¡¯t that interesting?¡± ¡°It is,¡± she agreed. ¡°Very interesting. And disturbing. He must be a remarkable child. I do hope he¡¯s resting well now that he¡¯s made it back home.¡± ****** Alden Thorn dropped out of his bed, and his feet hit the rug beneath him with a thump. He could hear the quiet sounds of Lexi and Haoyu having a conversation in the living room. And the shower running meant Lute was already up, too. Nice, he thought. I slept a reasonable number of hours. His messages light was blinking. [Haoyu: Good morning, everyone! Happy Velra Mafia Infiltration Day! Let¡¯s talk about our goals.] Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. *** ONE HUNDRED TWENTY: Party Animals 120 ***** ¡°Alden¡­what in Apex did you just pull out of your bag?¡± Lute asked, blinking at the object in Alden¡¯s hand as the four roommates approached the alleyway where Benjamin Velra¡¯s birthday party was being held. It was six o¡¯clock in the evening, and they were in an Apex neighborhood Alden had never been to before. It was known for its nightlife, according to the others, but it was too early for there to be much evidence of that. ¡°It¡¯s a present.¡± Alden held up a box covered in ryeh-b¡¯t wrapping paper. ¡°Aren¡¯t we supposed to bring gifts? It¡¯s a birthday party, and we invited ourselves.¡± ¡°Benjamin¡¯s turning seventy,¡± said Lute. ¡°Adults still get birthday presents, don¡¯t they?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t bring anything,¡± Lexi said. ¡°But you should have, Lute. He¡¯s your uncle.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± ¡°Look! He made the bow out of origami paper,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°What do you even get for a seventy-year-old millionaire you¡¯ve never met?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°It¡¯s a sleep mask. I bought three different ones to try, and I haven¡¯t used this one yet.¡± [Lute: I guess it fits in with your persona, Cottontail.] Alden bit back a sigh. Lute¡¯s goals for the night were simple enough. First, he wanted to make a reappearance in front of his family in the least suspicious way possible. ¡°Which means pretending I want something from them,¡± he¡¯d said, ¡°since none of them would believe it if I just started longing for their company after all this time.¡± To this end, he would be dropping hints about wanting to show Libra off to his roommates. Ideally, this would eventually lead to them all being invited to the megayacht, which was high on the list of locations Lute wanted to search for evidence of his grandmother¡¯s criminality. Secondly, he wanted to cozy up to some cousins who had complaints about Aulia and see if they dropped any interesting information. ¡°If it was the kind of party where the mocktails weren¡¯t so mock, we¡¯d probably have more luck,¡± he explained as they walked. ¡°But Uncle Benjamin is a person who feels like he¡¯s done something wild when he orders more than one thing from a dessert menu. It¡¯ll be a good starter event for you, Lexi.¡± ¡°Why are you mentioning me specifically?¡± Lexi asked in a suspicious voice. ¡°You seem like you need easing into your role more than the other two, Hushin¡¯ Russian.¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the eleventh codename you¡¯ve refused. Cottontail has accepted his with grace, and Foe Cooker made up a good one all by himself.¡± Alden, Haoyu, and Lexi were supposed to be their normal selves ¡°if your selves were more normal¡± according to Lute. Apparently, he had little faith in their acting abilities, so he¡¯d spent his time in class today making character sheets for each of them. [Lute: Remember, Cottontail, you¡¯re¡­] [Alden: Not a fan of socializing, but grateful that Aulia gave me a bunch of money and flattered that she¡¯s been sending me emails. Instead of weirded out and wary.] Lute nodded. [I¡¯ve been told that normal people like it when my grandmother wants to shower them with attention and gifts.] [Alden: I¡¯m not sure you¡¯re right about those people being normal, but I¡¯ll go with it.] [Haoyu: I¡¯m a typical teenager who has come to this party because parties are awesome, and I¡¯m finally old enough to do whatever I want! I¡¯m a party animal who definitely doesn¡¯t want to run over Aulia Velra with a car!] ¡°And I just came along because I have nothing better to do with my life on a Tuesday night than make sure you three don¡¯t stay out too late and get in trouble,¡± Lexi said sarcastically. ¡°I¡ª¡± ¡°There¡¯s the place,¡± Lute interrupted, gesturing toward a curtain of glimmering stars that obscured the entrance to the alleyway from view. He stopped to adjust the eye patch he was wearing¡ªa plain black one today. He kept on adjusting it for longer than was normal. ¡°You know,¡± Alden said, ¡°if this thing sucks we can leave anytime.¡± ¡°True,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°As a party animal, I only animal at the best parties. So if this one isn¡¯t the best¡­¡± ¡°We all have homework we should be doing,¡± Lexi added. Lute stopped fiddling around with the eye patch. ¡°Come, my entourage,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m going to get myself a yacht trip.¡± [Lute: And by yacht trip, I mean justice.] Haoyu glanced at Alden. [Do you think this is a bad idea?] he asked via private message. [I can¡¯t actually tell,] Alden admitted. [I think it might be the kind of thing where if he takes a stab at it once or twice, he¡¯ll feel better even if it goes nowhere. And all I have to do is mingle with some people who will probably annoy me. How bad can it really be?] ****** The decorations at the party were impressive enough that even Lexi and Haoyu¡ªwho were much more used to having magic around them for special events than Alden was¡ªstopped for a moment after they entered the alley to admire the location. Haoyu whistled. ¡°Are those dumpsters oozing something that looks like molten gold?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°I thought you said your uncle had boring taste?¡± Alden examined the graffiti on the wall beside him. It looked like ordinary spray paint, but every time he blinked, it changed. A Happy Birthday message disappeared to be replaced by a long green tongue wrapping around a lollipop. ¡°If this is boring, I¡¯m concerned about what you think of me.¡± ¡°He does have boring taste. But some of his kids planned this thing. So they included stuff they thought was cool. According to Aimi the theme is ¡®Glitter and Grunge.¡¯¡± Lute reached up to shove an opalescent, basketball-sized bubble away from his face, but as soon as his fingers touched it, it burst. A cloud of metallic confetti flew outward, showering them all, and a sparkling choker hit the pavement. ¡°That is costume jewelry, isn¡¯t it?¡± Lexi asked, staring down at the necklace. The answer came not from Lute, but from a boy who¡¯d just stepped through the star curtain behind them. ¡°If you find a set of earrings or a watch, those are real. Everything else is just rhinestones. Hello, Lute.¡± ¡°Hi, Roman,¡± Lute said in a guarded tone. ¡°What are you doing here?¡± Roman asked. He had dark, slightly curly hair and magnetic deep-set eyes. His voice was ear-catching and enjoyable in a way that Alden had learned to recognize as a feature of some peoples¡¯ high Appeal. ¡°Are you coming to get your eye back?¡± But even the Appeal can¡¯t make something like that sound less disturbing. Alden, Haoyu, and Lexi were all frozen. Lute¡¯s expression blanked. ¡°You do know it¡¯s not on a shelf in Grandma¡¯s closet, don¡¯t you? It got sliced and diced. It was the exploded remnants of an eyeball. Medical waste. I can¡¯t get it back.¡± [so bad bad so soon! very awkwardness how do I party animal now?] Haoyu¡¯s hands were in his pockets, so it was a pure mental texting effort. He¡¯d sent it to both Alden and Lexi. [You¡¯re pretty good at that,] Alden replied. [You should do mental more.] As for the answer to Haoyu¡¯s question¡­he had no idea. ¡°I feel bad for you though,¡± said Roman. ¡°I keep thinking, ¡®What if it was my eye?¡¯ It almost could¡¯ve been. And everyone says you won¡¯t get a new one because you¡¯re just being stubborn to hurt Aunt Jessica¡¯s feel¡ª¡± ¡°Hi, I¡¯m Alden!¡± He thrust his hand toward Lute¡¯s cousin. ¡°I¡¯m a Rabbit, too. We must have so much in common. As Rabbits.¡± He tried to cover his wince with a smile. What the heck, brain? You couldn¡¯t think of anything else to say to interrupt the conversation? Before Roman could shake his hand, Haoyu stuck his own out. ¡°I¡¯m Haoyu. You can think of me as a party badger!¡± Lexi crossed his arms over his chest. ¡°Is it all right if we hit the bubbles with Meister weapons?¡± Roman Velra squinted at all three of them, then turned to Lute with a questioning look. ¡°These are my roommates,¡± said Lute. ¡°If they were normal, they would have introduced themselves as my roommates.¡± ¡°I¡¯m his roommate,¡± said Alden. ¡°Me too,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Yes, that¡¯s right.¡± ¡°We¡¯re also his friends,¡± Haoyu added. ¡°Yeah we don¡¯t just live with him,¡± said Alden ¡°We actually like him.¡± They both turned to Lexi. ¡°He hogs the bathtub.¡± ¡°All right!¡± Lute said, clapping his hands together once. ¡°Roommates introduced. It was all very normal. Why don¡¯t you three go eat something? Roman, do you know where Aulia is right now?¡± As they left Lute to his relatives, Haoyu said, ¡°Did he tell us to go eat just so that our mouths would be full and we couldn¡¯t talk to anyone?¡± ¡°Probably. What¡¯s a party badger?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I was trying to figure out what kind of party animal I should be. I didn¡¯t mean to say it out loud.¡± Another confetti explosion hit them, and they looked over to see Lexi picking up a rhinestone tiara. ¡°I didn¡¯t use Writher,¡± he said defensively. ¡°We weren¡¯t judging you,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°I¡¯m going to pop every single one of those things that drifts near me,¡± Alden agreed. ****** They clung together for the first twenty minutes of the party, as more Velras and friends of Velras arrived. Alden intended to keep clinging to the people he knew were safe, but when he took a moment to set his present down on a table that held a large chocolate cake, he found himself abandoned. Lexi was weaving through party guests, stalking a particularly large confetti bubble with an intense look on his face that would suit him well if he was ever trying to strike fear into the heart of¡­well, anyone. And Haoyu had been caught up in conversation by a girl who might be Lute¡¯s cousin Miyo. He was about to text to ask Haoyu if he wanted to be rescued, when a pair of hands landed on his shoulders from behind. ¡°Salutations! Long time no see.¡± Uneven. The gremlin was so petulant when it conveyed the idea, too. It was convinced Alden was currently attending a party full of sinners. We¡¯ve talked about this so many times. Wordchains get paid back. It¡¯s not like all of these Velras have reneged on half a dozen sacred contracts since this morning. They¡¯re just carrying debt. He turned around to face the person who¡¯d grabbed him. ¡°Aimi,¡± he said warily. ¡°Hello.¡± She was wearing a red minidress, a lot of costume jewelry, and a broad smile. ¡°You lived,¡± she said. ¡°Good job.¡± Well that¡¯s one way to acknowledge what happened without making it too gloomy. ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°You used my hot tub! And you came to a family party with Lute! You¡¯re one of my cousins now!¡± ¡°Nope.¡± ¡°Did you bring a present?¡± She was looking around him to see the package on the table. ¡°That¡¯s great! We said no gifts on the invitations, because that¡¯s what we did last year and the year before that and the year before that. But then I think Dad was sad about it this year because seventy is a round number¡­or something. I¡¯ll take this to him!¡± That was painless enough, thought Alden as she swept off with the gift. One Velra successfully interacted with. Now, where did the guys¡ª The mood of the crowd in the alleyway shifted. It wasn¡¯t dramatic, but Alden still noticed. The chatter of voices stopped drowning out the music. Someone standing at a wooden spool table nearby spilled their drink. A couple of tiny drones whirred up into the air at their owners¡¯ commands, and a few too many heads turned at once toward the entrance. Alden followed their gazes and caught his first real-life glimpse of Aulia Velra. She looks better than in pictures. He¡¯d assumed she would; powerful superhumans were like that. Their moreness came across clearer in person than on film. He just hadn¡¯t expected her to look different in quite the way she did. Stately and intimidating¡ªthat was what he¡¯d imagined she would be like at first, because she was old and political and rich. Then he¡¯d heard Lute¡¯s story, and he¡¯d known that wasn¡¯t right. But he still hadn¡¯t quite reached the conclusion he drew now, within seconds of seeing her walk into the party. Her arms were spread wide to greet a very young boy¡ªno doubt one of her many grandchildren¡ªwho ran toward her excitedly. Aulia squeezed the little boy in a hug, kissed him on the forehead, and then pointed up at the highest of the flying bubbles. He nodded, and she winked at him. An instant later, the elastic band holding her brownish blond hair up in a very perky ponytail was in her hand. As her hair spilled down her back, she looped one end of the band around her thumb and drew the other taut. Then she shot it at the bubble. A second later, confetti rained down and the boy dashed toward the falling prize. And Aulia was already moving through the party, altering it around her with every step she took. She pointed at someone¡¯s cup and asked a question, and they offered her a sip of their drink. After she swallowed it, she smiled, then she gestured to a man passing by wearing a giant necklace. She called out a joke. He blinked, then guffawed. Aulia tossed her head back and laughed with him. She moved on, shaking a hand here, stealing a bacon-wrapped jalape?o from a partygoer¡¯s plate there. Fully on theme, she was wearing workboots and coveralls artfully smeared with gold paint and what looked like oil. Even knowing the things he knew, Alden couldn¡¯t overcome the impression that Aulia Velra was one of the most alive people he¡¯d ever seen. She was vibrant, and even though people were parting to get out of her way or trailing along in her wake in hopes of gaining her notice, it didn¡¯t feel like she was controlling them. It looked like she belonged there. Right at the heart of things. Alden had wondered how she could keep winning elections when she apparently had so many enemies. Now I know. He was so focused on her that it took him a minute to take in the people who¡¯d arrived with her. They were afterthoughts, decorative backdrop for the star of the show. Lute¡¯s mother was there. Jessica Velra¡¯s appearance was so noteworthy and so fresh in Alden¡¯s mind that she was the first one he saw after Aulia. She was just a step behind, her white blond braid hanging over her shoulder. She was in a shredded skirt and blouse that looked more like a zombie apocalypse costume than anything else, and her eyes were flitting between one of her smart watches and her cell phone. If there¡¯s one person at this party I have to avoid at all costs it¡¯s her. He was less worried about her recognizing him from their brief encounter the other night than he was about the fact that he had no idea how to talk to her. It was like Haoyu had said; Lute was angry with Jessica, but it seemed like a really conflicted sort of anger. Alden understood that he was supposed to say hello to Aulia, be polite and dull, make sure she didn¡¯t know he was freaked out by the fact that she believed they were fated to interact¡ªthat kind of thing. But he¡¯d been given zero advice for how to deal with Jessica. And he hadn¡¯t asked because he didn¡¯t know how to ask. Hey, Lute. Your mom betrayed your trust and stole your choices about your future. She¡¯s scary and pitiable at the same time. She¡¯s your mom. You love her. Am I supposed to be nice to her or yell at her for you? He mentally drew a big X over Jessica and promised himself he¡¯d run away if she came toward him regardless of how it would look. See. A plan. I can handle Velras. I¡­and there¡¯s Hazel. It wasn¡¯t like Alden was surprised to see her, but he was sure a frown crossed his face when he did. Maybe I should have taken the wordchain from Lute after all. Lute had offered to dole out the wordchain that Alden was currently learning. Self-mastery, Gracefulness, My Body Becomes My Servant¡ªwhatever they wanted to call it, there were some nice uses for it in social contexts. Alden had refused on the grounds that a party sounded both boring and full of annoyances, which was a bad combo with the heightened bodily awareness. Lute did fine with it, but Lute had had a lot of practice. It would be good to have conscious control over all of my facial expressions. But it¡¯s probably better to make a funny face or two instead of bottling up a bunch of discomfort behind a placid smile until I set my clothes on fire and yell at people for talking loudly. Hazel was near the back of the group that had arrived with Aulia. She was wearing a tight, shiny silver dress and a matching flapper headband. Instead of adding something grimy to her own look, she had brought along a boy to be the grunge to her glitter. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and he was smeared with what appeared to be plain old dirt. Like he¡¯d found a fresh flowerbed to roll in right before he arrived. Alden couldn¡¯t criticize. He was in chinos and a button-down because Lute either hadn¡¯t known or hadn¡¯t seen fit to tell anyone that people would be in costume for this thing. Haoyu, who had decided a party animal would take advantage of all aspects of the party, was attaching costume jewelry to himself every time a bubble popped near him, and he¡¯d pinned an ugly rhinestone brooch to Alden¡¯s shirt. Hazel¡¯s boyfriend looks familiar. He assumed that was who the dirt-smeared boy was anyway. She beckoned him with a finger when he trailed too far behind her, though, and it seemed weirdly commanding. So who knew? Corin Velra was hovering around Aulia as well. A man and woman Alden was guessing were probably Hugh and Cady, based on Lute¡¯s descriptions, were near her, too. And¡­ [Alden: Lute, your grandma just spotted you.] He saw Haoyu peering over Miyo¡¯s shoulder to check out the situation. Lexi, so far down the alley now that he looked like he was trying to escape from the party altogether, turned around to see. The warning wasn¡¯t necessary for Lute, though. A moment ago, he¡¯d been talking to a woman who was sitting at a table by herself. Now, he was standing at the end of the buffet that had been set up in the middle of the passage, with his back straight and his arms loose at his sides. His eye was fixed on Aulia. And her eyes were fixed on him. Both of their faces were suddenly opaque. [Haoyu: It¡¯s like a Western.] It wasn¡¯t the most obvious comparison, but Alden got what he meant. If Aulia and Lute had been wearing cowboy hats, he would have expected them to draw pistols on each other. ¡°That¡¯s him,¡± a man leaning against a wall nearby muttered under his breath to the woman beside him. ¡°The newest Velra S-rank.¡± Guess he¡¯s not a family member? The moment stretched, and a tension that Alden didn¡¯t think he was imagining filled the alley. Then Aulia smiled. She waved at Lute like they were friends encountering each other casually on the street, and almost everything went back to the way it had been. Chatter, music, confetti raining down. Almost everything. Jessica wasn¡¯t moving through the crowd with Aulia anymore. She was just standing there, staring at her son. Lute watched her for a second, then turned his back and snatched a plate from the buffet. ¡°Let¡¯s go back him up.¡± Haoyu was suddenly at Alden¡¯s shoulder, wearing a pair of oversized rhinestone studded glasses and a determined expression. ¡°Foe Cooker and Cottontail are on duty.¡± ¡°If we¡¯re not careful, those names are going to spread and stick.¡± ¡°No. Not mine anyway. If a name like Foe Cooker ever started to gain public traction for me, my parents¡¯ agents would damage control it out of existence. Too comedic, violent, and confusing.¡± He headed toward Lute, and Alden joined him. ¡°Grab a plate,¡± Lute said lightly. ¡°There¡¯s paper and china to choose from.¡± ¡°The china can be weaponized more easily in an emergency, so I¡¯m taking one of those,¡± Haoyu said. Alden had been reaching for paper, but he changed his mind. ¡°You¡¯re planning to throw plates at people?¡± Lute asked. ¡°It¡¯s not a plan. More of a precaution.¡± Lute was spooning caviar onto his plate beside a mound of potato chips.¡°Where¡¯d Lexi go?¡± Alden glanced around. ¡°It looks like he was making his way over to us, but Roman caught him.¡± ¡°That should be interesting. Roman¡¯s not sure if he¡¯s forgiven my grandmother or not yet¡ªhis resolve is weak¡ªbut he wants to discuss how he feels about it all apparently. And Lexi¡¯s so good at talking about feelings.¡± Haoyu paused in the act of reaching for some of the chips. ¡°It¡¯ll be fine¡­¡± He didn¡¯t have a lot of confidence in his voice. Alden was too busy keeping one eye on Aulia, who was approaching them slowly but surely, to pay attention to what he filled his own plate with. By the time Lute¡¯s grandmother reached the buffet table, he looked down to realize he¡¯d grabbed nothing he could actually eat except for a large number of radishes from the crudit¨¦ platter. I am a normal guy who has not been avoiding her like the plague since I made it back to Earth. A simple radish enjoyer who is much less interesting than she thinks. ¡°Lute!¡± Aulia said, smiling charmingly at him as she bypassed the plates and grabbed a sesame bonbon. ¡°How are you, dear? It¡¯s been months!¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been worse,¡± Lute said. Alden had wondered how exactly Lute would interact with her. Apparently he was going for a neutral tone. I guess he thought warmth would be fake and hostility wouldn¡¯t fit with his supposed reason for being here. ¡°And I heard a little rumor that you¡¯d moved back onto campus at Celena North.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Lute gestured toward Alden and Haoyu. ¡°These are my roommates. Guys, this is my grandmother, Aulia.¡± ¡°No need for introductions! I think we all recognize each other.¡± She stepped forward and patted Haoyu on the arm. ¡°Haoyu, it¡¯s wonderful to meet you. I hardly ever get the chance to have a real conversation with your parents, but every time I run into them, they mention you!¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± said Haoyu, smiling like he hadn¡¯t ever had a single unkind thought about her. ¡°They like me a lot.¡± ¡°As it should be!¡± Next, she turned to Alden. ¡°Alden, I¡¯m so glad you¡¯ve joined us. And you¡¯re in school with my grandson! I couldn¡¯t be happier about that. How are you settling into life here on our little Avowed oasis?¡± He decided at the last minute not to try for a smile. Haoyu was too good at faking. He¡¯d suffer in comparison. ¡°I¡¯m doing pretty well,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m glad to be in school again, and learning my way around Anesidora has been fun. But it¡¯s been an overwhelming year.¡± Aulia shook her head sympathetically. ¡°I can¡¯t even imagine. Listen, if you need anything at all, call me. Your messages will come right through. After what you¡¯ve been through¡­you have a friend here. More than one! I feel we Velras have a bit of a connection with you. Isn¡¯t that right?¡± The entourage was nodding. ¡°I know Hugh and I are personally so grateful to you,¡± the curvy brunette woman said, reaching out with a hand to shake Alden¡¯s. ¡°Hazel is, too.¡± She is Cady, then. She was also less than subtle. The Velras weren¡¯t supposed to mention that he¡¯d given Hazel Chainer in front of Haoyu. They didn¡¯t know he knew. Hugh and Corin were nodding. Alden shook hands with them. Quick. Painless. This is going well. Do I shake hands with Hazel? They¡¯d already met. He didn¡¯t want to. He aimed for her probable boyfriend first, so he could think about it a second longer, only for the other teenager to take a couple of steps back. Alden looked at his own hand in bewilderment. It¡¯s not dirty or anything. He switched to a wave. ¡°Nice to meet you.¡± The boy looked embarrassed, so maybe he hadn¡¯t meant to retreat. ¡°We¡¯ve met,¡± he said. ¡°I mean not really, but I know who you are anyway. I¡¯m Jacob.¡± Alden blinked. No Anesidoran accent, plus his age, plus vaguely familiar equaled¡­ ¡°Were we in intake together?¡± ¡°Jacob is a C-rank globie,¡± Hazel said. That seemed like an odd way to introduce your boyfriend, but Alden was too busy trying to figure out where and when he might actually have seen this person to worry about it. There were thousands of teenagers in intake at any given time, so it wasn¡¯t like he¡¯d gotten to know even a small fraction of them. ¡°He¡¯s a Wright,¡± Hazel added. Ohhh¡­he¡¯s the runaway. Alden hadn¡¯t met Jacob. But the boy had been pointed out by others on more than one occasion as a curiosity¡ªthe guy who kept stealing boats and getting dragged back. Everyone had thought he was going to be put in secure housing, but he¡¯d supposedly calmed down enough that it hadn¡¯t been necessary. How did someone like that end up going to parties with Hazel Velra? Alden felt someone target him. He was in a small crowd. It could¡¯ve been anyone for any number of reasons, most of them harmless. But his eyes automatically met Hazel¡¯s brown ones. She wasn¡¯t wearing the smile she¡¯d had at the funeral or that day when she¡¯d called in his Peace of Mind. She looked annoyed and unhappy. If that¡¯s you, good luck screwing me over again, thought Alden. I¡¯m debt free right now. She glanced away from him. It¡¯s partially your fault I had to go through an hours-long fear session about Kibby¡¯s future, followed by an emotional breakdown in front of Boe. I would probably have had my Peace of Mind ready to spend that day if not for you. I wouldn¡¯t have had to cast it again. Or, at least, I wouldn¡¯t have had to pay the bad half back right away if I wasn¡¯t worried about you sniping me with your skill when I was out in public. You suck, Hazel. An elbow nudged him, and he snapped out of it to see Haoyu giving him a questioning look. Great. I was glaring. [Alden: Sorry. I don¡¯t like her.] [Haoyu: Big shocking to me. Such a friendly face you were wear.] He rolled his eyes for emphasis. Alden wished more people would boldly attempt mental texting before they¡¯d mastered it. The messages were fun to read. [Lexi: Someone come here and make this Roman person leave me alone.] [Alden: It hasn¡¯t even been five minutes. Can¡¯t you handle him for five minutes?] [Lexi: I¡¯d rather let Writher handle him.] Haoyu¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°Wow, the snacks are so good!¡± he said. ¡°Let me take some to my friend.¡± Alden was going to follow him, but before he could, Aulia popped the last bite of the bonbon in her mouth, brushed off her hands, and said, ¡°You know, Alden, Hazel will be starting university at Celena North in a couple of months. Maybe you two could get together and explore the campus sometime. Give her the full tour once you¡¯ve learned your way around!¡± ¡°That would be so lovely! Wouldn¡¯t it, Hazel?¡± Cady said encouragingly. ¡°I think so, I think so,¡± said Corin. ¡°Our Hazel¡¯s very accomplished,¡± said Hugh. ¡°She¡¯s spent so much time on the Triplanets. I¡¯m sure you two would have a lot in common.¡± Except for Jessica, who was still staring at Lute from over by the brick wall of the alleyway, and Jacob, who was inching away from the group little by little, like he was hoping he could make it over to the nearest dumpster to hide, the whole entourage was looking at Hazel now. She hitched a smile onto her face and nodded at Alden. ¡°I would love that!¡± The foreboding was so heavy it was almost crushing. One little campus tour wouldn¡¯t kill him, but if he said yes, all of these people might think sending Hazel in as Alden¡¯s very own Velra family outreach person was the way to go forevermore. Aulia probably assumes it¡¯s totally natural. Lute¡¯s a loose cannon in her mind, and here¡¯s Hazel being the right age and¡­wait. What if she doesn¡¯t just think I¡¯m important to the Velra family in general? What if she thinks I¡¯m important to Hazel specifically since I brought her Chainer? Hazel had already popped up in a very unwelcome fashion once. Alden didn¡¯t want that to become a regular thing. He turned to Lute, pleading for help with his eyes, and Lute coughed. ¡°Don¡¯t matchmake my roommate with a random family member within two minutes of meeting him. It¡¯s weird.¡± Hazel looked at him like he was a bug. Cady and Hugh looked at him like he was the devil. Corin sputtered something about nonsense, and Aulia chuckled and shook her head fondly. ¡°Oh dear! Don¡¯t let our Lute scare you off, Alden. I was just suggesting a friendly arrangement. I¡¯d ask him to give his cousin a little tour, but¡­¡± she lowered her voice in a conspiratorial whisper, ¡°¡­they haven¡¯t always gotten along. One too many childish insults exchanged over the years. They¡¯ll laugh about it one day when they¡¯re as old as I am!¡± Lute¡¯s mouth tightened, and his cheeks reddened. It wasn¡¯t much. Alden couldn¡¯t tell if he was angry to have his conflict with his cousin reduced to ¡°childish insults¡± or if he was just flustered to have his grandmother lightly disparage him in front of a friend. Whatever the case, he got a handle on himself quickly, his face turning bored as he scooped caviar up with one of his chips. He¡¯s going to let it go. There was no reason not to. It was the tiniest of digs if it could even be considered a dig at all. Aulia wasn¡¯t saying it to hurt anyone. She was using it to smooth over their current conversation. And probably to make a polite excuse to cover for anything Lute might have told me about Hazel. The easy thing to do is let it go. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± said Alden. ¡°Lute¡¯s only trying to help me out. The thing is¡­¡± He hesitated. Breaking social norms intentionally wasn¡¯t something he did. It hadn¡¯t occurred to him to do it until right this second, and he hadn¡¯t thought it through well. All the Velras were staring at him with varying degrees of interest. Aulia¡¯s smile was so warm and inviting it was practically begging for him to take her into his confidence. She probably didn¡¯t mean for it to result in this. ¡°The thing is I don¡¯t want to be around you, Hazel.¡± Alden heard himself deliver the words bluntly. ¡°I don¡¯t feel comfortable with you near me. A few weeks ago when you were trying to get my attention, a wordchain that would have made me more open to talking to you came due before it should have. And it¡¯s not like I can prove it was you, but I do think it was. I¡¯m sorry if I¡¯m falsely accusing you, but¡­I¡¯m really not okay with a stranger deciding on a whim that I should take a dose of a mood alterer for her convenience.¡± Except for what sounded like Lute choking to death on his chips behind Alden, there was silence from the little group. And Keiko Velra, who¡¯d been walking by with a slice of cake as Alden had started speaking, had stopped to stare at them all. Hugh, Cady, and Corin looked utterly aghast. Hazel¡¯s face had frozen so completely that Alden had no idea what she was feeling other than shock. Aulia¡¯s expression had gone just as opaque as it had upon first spotting Lute. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Alden said to Aulia. ¡°I¡¯m grateful to you¡­and to you, Keiko.¡± Remember, Lute¡¯s character sheet for more-normal Alden says I am grateful and flattered. He looked over to the Chainer superhero, who gave him a confused nod. ¡°I bought a coat that probably saved my life with the money you guys gave me for the class trade. Even if it is the thing that got me in trouble in the first place, it was still really useful. And Aimi seems¡­fun. And Lute¡¯s been an amazing roommate.¡± The amazing roommate was still choking. Did he need help back there? ¡°So I hope I¡¯m not offending anybody here,¡± Alden continued. ¡°But I¡¯m going to pass on hanging out with Hazel.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t prove anything!¡± Hazel¡¯s mother said wildly. ¡°Young man!¡± Corin exclaimed. ¡°To accuse my granddaughter of such a¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m not trying to prove anything.¡± Alden felt surprisingly calm in the face of Hazel¡¯s family being so upset. ¡°I don¡¯t have to. I don¡¯t even want to. I¡¯m just saying that an unwelcome wordchain-related thing happened right as I ran into one of the only Chainers in the universe. It¡¯s made me suspicious of that person.¡± Hazel¡¯s mother started to say something else, but Hazel interrupted her. ¡°I¡¯m very sorry you would assume something so awful about me.¡± Her words were steady, but at her sides, her hands were clenched in the crinkly silver fabric of her dress. ¡°Obviously I can¡¯t do anything to defend myself. We Chainers don¡¯t make our profiles public, so I can¡¯t even show you my skill. It doesn¡¯t do anything like what you¡¯re suggesting.¡± For a second, Alden felt a stab of doubt. It would be mortifying if I was totally wrong about her doing it. There are multiple flashing signs pointing to her, and Lute all but confirmed it, but¡­ ¡°Perhaps if you can¡¯t trust me, you can consider my qualifications,¡± Hazel said, standing taller. ¡°I have been formally recognized for my responsible chaining by the Artonans themselves. You know I¡¯m an authorized witness. I have been since before I was even an Avowed. Do you really think they just hand something like that out to untrustworthy people?¡± ¡°Most of the Chainers in the family are authorized witnesses, Hazel,¡± Lute chimed in. ¡°It doesn¡¯t come with a halo.¡± She glared at him. ¡°You¡ª¡± ¡°Hazel,¡± Aulia said in a sharp voice, ¡°I¡¯m very embarrassed by you right now. Apologize to Alden.¡± Alden blinked. The entourage seemed to be holding their breath all of a sudden. Hazel stared at her grandmother in shock. ¡°Why would I apologize when there¡¯s no proof I did any¡ª?¡± Aulia silenced her with a look. ¡°No proof? We all know what your skill does. Do you expect the whole family to stand here behind you and back you up while you lie to someone about one of your misjudgments?¡± Hugh made a sound of protest, but it was so soft Aulia didn¡¯t even bother to acknowledge it. Instead, she looked back at Alden. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry, dear. As Hazel says, the family doesn¡¯t share their profiles. Unfortunately, conducting Chainer business to the best of our abilities demands a certain amount of discretion from us.¡± She said it as if the need for secrecy was an inconvenience to her, too, rather than an idea she¡¯d cooked up on her own. ¡°But under these circumstances, I can¡¯t imagine leaving you in the dark. Hazel¡¯s skill does in fact do what you suspect.¡± [Lute: !!! Ohmyshit. Yes!] ¡°It¡¯s a simple ability that¡­how shall I put it? It gently ushers a chain toward its debtor.¡± ¡°Grandma, you can¡¯t just¡ª!¡± Hazel looked stricken. ¡°It seems my granddaughter has been almost unforgivably selfish. Of course it will never happen again. What wordchain was it?¡± Alden was thrown off-guard. Not having planned this all out, he didn¡¯t know what he would have expected Aulia Velra¡¯s reaction to be to his accusation if he¡¯d had time to consider it. But it wasn¡¯t this. And Hazel, Hugh, and Corin¡¯s faces said they were way more horrified by this outcome than seemed normal. ¡°It was Peace of Mind,¡± he said slowly. ¡°I see,¡± said Aulia. ¡°A wonderful chain. One of the most popular ones in the universe in fact.¡± Corin and Hugh blanched. Cady was wringing her hands. From the corner of his eye, Alden noted that Keiko had a sort of ready-to-pounce look about her. Like if something went too horribly wrong she was prepared to break it up. Popular is bad¡­because the chain is super healthy? he guessed. So there¡¯s even less reason for her to usher the debt toward me than there would have been otherwise? He assumed Hazel¡¯s ushering initiated a wordchain¡¯s debt repayment in a way that was less costly to the chain than the usual automatic snap back that came if you just went too long without saying the other half. It might make sense for the Palace of Unbreaking to create a skill like that. ¡°Lute,¡± Aulia was saying now, ¡°if you knew about this you should have told me right away.¡± ¡°Should I have?¡± ¡°Of course. Do you think I would have let this situation stand for a single moment?¡± Lute didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Hazel,¡± said Aulia, ¡°apologize.¡± Her expression looked like it had the power to pin people to walls. The entourage certainly wasn¡¯t moving; even Jessica and Jacob were locked in place. And the effect expanded outward as more people at the party realized a drama of some kind was unfolding. A few guests who¡¯d started to approach the buffet for food had changed their minds. Hazel, though, didn¡¯t look pinned. Her face was flushed, and her hands were shaking. And it didn¡¯t look like embarrassment. She looks really pissed off. ¡°You just announced my skill!¡± she cried. ¡°It¡¯s supposed to be private. You just told him.¡± ¡°You kind of told him first,¡± Lute muttered. Hazel didn¡¯t seem to hear him. Her attention was all on Aulia now. ¡°It¡¯s supposed to be a secret. It¡¯s supposed to be mine! How could you do this to me?!¡± Aulia tapped her own chin with a slender finger and looked up in mock thoughtfulness. ¡°Someone who wants to keep her talents a secret should perhaps consider not using them against our family friends.¡± ¡°I am your granddaughter!¡± Hazel shouted. ¡°I am your prot¨¦g¨¦e. I¡¯ve done everything you ever asked me to, and you gave my S to that whiny, lazy little whiff the second he was selected!¡± ¡°Hazel!¡± Corin said in alarm. Hugh was reaching out to calm her. Cady¡¯s hands were over her own mouth. ¡°I¡¯ve been working for this family for years,¡± Hazel said, slapping her father¡¯s hand away. ¡°Every day. All day. I¡¯ve been studying for you and impressing people for you and doing the things only I can do for you, and Lute casts one little wordchain right and you choose him? Him!?¡± She switched to Artonan. <> ¡°Are you almost through with this little fit?¡± Aulia asked in an icy voice. Hazel pointed at Alden, who raised his plate protectively in front of himself. Radishes rolled off the edge and hit the pavement. As the music filling the alley changed to a song that started with a screechy electric guitar solo, Hazel said, ¡°I was just trying to get to know him for you because the same stupid superstition that makes you think Lute is special makes you think this boy matters. Do you think I want to spend time with someone like him for myself?¡± So the feeling¡¯s mutual. ¡°He could have had any class he wanted, and he begged to be a maid!¡± Hey, thought Alden. ¡°Hey!¡± shouted a voice that sounded like Roman¡¯s. ¡°Hazel, please sweetie,¡± her mother said. ¡°You¡¯ve had a bad day. Why don¡¯t we¡ª¡± ¡°He¡¯s just some rude globie who got lucky and got Chainer, and now what?¡± The beaded tassel on her flapper headband was trembling like it was enraged, too. ¡°We have to have him at all the family events? I have to go on tours of campuses I¡¯ve already seen with him?¡± She jabbed the finger she was pointing at Alden through the air again. ¡°I¡¯ve been nothing but nice to you and you¡¯re the worst person I¡¯ve ever met.¡± Alden kept his mouth shut. ¡°You left me to affix alone. You almost sideswiped me with a bicycle and you didn¡¯t even stop to apologize. You¡­you¡­make accusations you don¡¯t have any proof about!¡± Alden was going to keep keeping his mouth shut. The Operation Odin¡¯s Revenge group chat was getting odd. Haoyu and Lute were both trying and failing to mental text, and he was receiving nothing but random words and punctuation marks. ¡°I am the only person in the world who can do what I do. My rank doesn¡¯t matter. I do. I matter. I¡¯m valuable on this planet and on <>. You should¡¯ve been grateful someone like me reached out to you instead of complaining about a little¡­it was nothing! What I did made you feel good. It didn¡¯t hurt you! Why would you make a big deal out of that and humiliate me in front of everyone here?¡± So it was her. Having it come out of her own mouth so that he could set aside every last shred of doubt once and for all was such a relief. ¡°If having your own behavior described in public makes you feel humiliated,¡± said Alden, ¡°maybe you should behave differently.¡± Hazel seemed to have run out of words to say. She was breathing hard. Her face was shifting from anger to something more alarmed, and her eyes were darting back and forth like she was looking for the exit. Her relatives were either gaping at her or avoiding her gaze. Aulia looked her up and down just once, then she turned away and reached for another bonbon. ¡°I don¡¯t think we should entertain Hazel¡¯s drama for a second longer,¡± she said in a ringing voice. ¡°Alden, have you tried the bruschetta? It¡¯s to die for.¡± *** ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE: Avalanche 121 **** Alden Thorn had learned a valuable life lesson tonight¡ªa single moment of honesty could transform a manageable party into a gauntlet of social suffering. And that social suffering was exponentially worse when it involved Velras. ¡°I¡¯ve said, I¡¯ve always said, that girl is going to snap and kill someone one day,¡± a lady who Alden thought was Roman¡¯s mother told him, leaning so close that the edge of her stole trailed through the lime ginger ale he was carrying. ¡°You were lucky it was only a mental assault and not the end of your life. Death was watching you. Mark my words.¡± Yikes, thought Alden. Almost as soon as he escaped from that woman, he ran into a boy a couple of years younger than him who talked like he possessed superhuman lung capacity even though he wasn¡¯t Avowed yet. ¡°I used to think Hazel was nice, but she¡¯s not really nice because one time I told her about my hamster, and she asked why I thought she would care, and when Tara got C and they didn¡¯t give her Chainer, Hazel said, ¡®Well what do you expect?¡¯ And I said, ¡®What does that mean?¡¯ And she said, ¡®Tara pronounces words like her tongue is made of cement,¡¯ and I said¡ª ¡± ¡°Who¡¯s Tara?¡± Alden asked solely to stem the river of noise. ¡°My second oldest sister. And I said, ¡®What do you mean her tongue is made of cement?¡¯ And Hazel said, ¡®Don¡¯t you ever shut up?¡¯ How could she say that to someone whose sister just became a C-rank? It was so mean. So I said¡ª¡± Save me, thought Alden. ¡°But can you really get a proper education without private tutors?¡± another boy asked. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I feel like you should be more worried than most people.¡± Dare I ask why? ¡°A young man in your position has to be careful about presentation,¡± one of Lute¡¯s aunts told him. ¡°Let me put you in touch with my publicist.¡± ¡°Now if Aulia asks to speak to you alone¡­¡± The speaker was someone who was the stepfather of someone else who was the cousin of¡­Alden didn¡¯t even want to remember it. ¡°You call me. Tell me everything she says, and I¡¯ll give you advice.¡± ¡°It was just Peace of Mind, son,¡± a man who definitely didn¡¯t look old enough to be calling strange teenagers ¡°son¡± said in an exasperated voice. ¡°You¡¯ve got to think these things through. Any Velra is a good catch for a B-rank, so even if they¡¯re a little cracked around the edges you can¡¯t waste an opportunity.¡± [Alden: Where the hell are you three? Somebody get me away from this¡ª] ¡°Alden, there you are!¡± called the voice of his savior. Haoyu bounced up, jingling with costume jewelry. ¡°You¡¯re needed. Over here with me. For party reasons.¡± ¡°You left me alone for so long,¡± Alden complained once they¡¯d escaped. ¡°It was just five minutes. I thought I spotted the prize bubble with the watch in it.¡± [Alden: That can¡¯t be true! I talked to a hundred Velras.] ¡°There aren¡¯t even a hundred Velras here,¡± Haoyu said. [Alden: That dude over there thinks I need special tutors because I came from America. Can we leave yet?] [Haoyu: Sure. But you were the one who thought you should stay.] Alden sighed. After Hazel had exploded and fled from the party, his roommates had suggested an exit. But Lute was staying, and Alden didn¡¯t want to look like he was running away after dropping the pebble that caused an avalanche. Besides, the plan to back up Lute and facilitate his return to the Velra fold wasn¡¯t actually shot. If anything, it seemed like it was going better than anticipated. Aulia was still acting like she was delighted to have them all here anyway. I think me singling out Hazel as a problem and implying her presence was my only issue with the Velras might have made it seem like I really was grateful and willing to get to know the rest of them. A grateful, willing person wouldn¡¯t try to escape when Aulia had so openly sided with him over her own granddaughter. She¡¯s even scarier than I thought. She was so¡­maybe the word for it was unflappable? Alden didn¡¯t know what had gone through her head in that moment when she¡¯d analyzed his accusation against Hazel, but he knew she¡¯d had a thought and then acted on it immediately with the expectation that every member of her family would fall in line. She outed Hazel¡¯s skill. They all seem to believe that was something really extreme, and it was definitely irrevocable. And she made the decision to do it in about half a minute. Alden looked over to where the Velra matriarch was holding someone¡¯s baby while she talked to her son, Benjamin. Today was his seventieth birthday, and this party was for him; but he was just about the quietest person here. Benjamin was an A-rank who appeared to be in his mid thirties. He was an average-looking guy by Avowed standards, and he had a ton of kids with Hikari, the second oldest S-rank Chainer in the world. Aunt Connie would love to hear all about this. Alden had been so busy since starting school that they¡¯d only had a couple of short chats. But the Velras were basically one of those reality television shows she liked dialed up to a thousand and infused with magic. [Haoyu: Hugh is still shooting nasty looks at us.] [Lexi: What do you expect? Alden accused his daughter of power abuse in front of everyone here. That scene has probably already been uploaded to the web.] Alden¡¯s legs stopped carrying him forward. The sounds of the party faded. ¡°Oh fuck.¡± Haoyu glanced at him and then did a double-take when he caught sight of what Alden was sure was a nauseous expression on his face. ¡°It¡¯s nothing to worry about,¡± he said quickly. ¡°You didn¡¯t sound unreasonable.¡± ¡°What if it really is on the internet, though?¡± The corners of Haoyu¡¯s lips tipped up in a polite smile, and he blinked at Alden. That¡¯s the expression you¡¯d give a kid who just told you they had some suspicions about Santa Claus. ¡°Haoyu¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. It was edited before it went up.¡± ¡°Someone already posted it! You¡¯ve watched it?¡± Haoyu started air typing as fast as he could. [Haoyu: You giving her the class wasn¡¯t mentioned. It¡¯s obvious some of what she shouted at you and some of what you said was clipped, so people will make up all kinds of things. But it doesn¡¯t make you look bad.] [Lute: No-no 2 offend the witch. Everyone knows. Normal business.] [Haoyu: He¡¯s trying to say that it¡¯s natural for the video to be edited. Nobody here wants to offend his grandmother.] [Alden: Then why would they put it online at all?!] ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Aulia herself backed you up. You look good.¡± It¡¯s fine, Alden told himself. He had meant nearly every word he¡¯d said. It was just¡­ [Alden: I hate being the center of public commentary. I knew the drones were there, but they¡¯re everywhere all the time. I was getting too used to them.] ¡°Do you want me to call Molly?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Your mom¡¯s assistant?¡± ¡°She handles stuff like this. She¡¯ll tell you it¡¯s all right.¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s okay. I just didn¡¯t think it through.¡± Haoyu shrugged. ¡°We can¡¯t overthink every little thing. Last year, a member of my parents¡¯ hero group wore a hat that resembled a hat that some member of Superhumans At Large was wearing when she was caught, and there are still people who refuse to believe it was a coincidence instead of a political statement. And¡­you do not look like this story is making you feel better, so¡­have some ginger ale!¡± Alden looked down at his cup. ¡°One of Lute¡¯s relatives dipped her scarf in it.¡± ¡°That is tragic. Let¡¯s get you another one.¡± ****** Alden mingled for as long as he could endure it, and then he went to hide in a dumpster. It was a very nice dumpster that had clearly never seen any garbage. He had cushions to sit on and big fake gemstones that were really battery-powered lamps to enjoy. ¡°The dumpsters are for children,¡± a little girl informed him. She was standing on the convenient stepladder that you could use to climb inside, looking down at him. ¡°There¡¯s no sign that says that.¡± There were a lot of bouncy balls and a large set of magnetic blocks in here, but those could have been toys for all ages. No reason for adults not to enjoy building a good magnet castle every now and then. ¡°Everyone knows it,¡± the girl said. ¡°I¡¯m a child.¡± She squinted at him. ¡°Are you an Avowed yet?¡± ¡°You can¡¯t hold that against me!¡± ¡°Hey!¡± said a familiar voice. Lute hopped up and landed in a crouch on the lip of the metal can with unnatural grace. ¡°You¡¯re in the kids¡¯ trashcan?¡± ¡°See. I told you it wasn¡¯t for you!¡± the girl announced. ¡°Sweet,¡± said Lute. He let himself topple forward and sprawl on his back on the cushions beside Alden. ¡°You are amazing. I need to go to Chicago. You and Angela Aubergine both came from there. There must be something in the water.¡± ¡°Yes. Proper fluoridation in my youth has led to this moment.¡± Alden swallowed as he stared at the web page he¡¯d pulled up on his interface. ¡°Sixty thousand views and rising.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t read the comments.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°Then why are you doing it?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know that I am.¡± ¡°Of course you are. Everyone reads the comments.¡± Lute crossed his arms behind his head. A piece of confetti fluttered down into the dumpster and landed on his t-shirt. The girl had disappeared from the stepladder. ¡°Sorry, man. I should¡¯ve mentioned that a get-together like this, with non-relatives in attendance, is pretty much always fair game for posting and gossiping about.¡± ¡°I knew. I saw the drones. I just didn¡¯t think of myself as being that interesting.¡± ¡°In all fairness, I doubt you¡¯d be that fascinating on your own. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s my grandmother¡¯s apology and Hazel¡¯s unhinged rant that are getting a thousand views a minute. Or maybe it¡¯s me choking to death on chips in the background. I¡¯ve got major stage presence.¡± He grabbed a bouncy ball and tossed it at the wall of the dumpster. ¡°It¡¯ll go through Anesidora like wildfire, but if it makes you feel better, Velra drama tends not to spread quite as widely as something like superhero news in the rest of the world.¡± Alden sighed and swiped the video away. [Thanks.] Lute sent the text privately instead of through their group chat. [I¡¯m sorry my family made a mess. It¡¯s what they do. Thanks for coming. Having you guys here was great.] ¡°And as far as I¡¯m concerned,¡± he said out loud, ¡°telling the entire island that my cousin doesn¡¯t have the decency to keep her skill away from unwilling people was a community service.¡± [Her father isn¡¯t taking this well,] Alden texted. [I¡¯m in this dumpster partially because he looks like he wants to do me in.] ¡°Hugh?¡± Lute scoffed. His fingers started flickering through the air. [Listen, let me tell you something about Hugh. He¡¯s a loser. He divorced a sexy S-rank right after having a kid with her because she was cooler than him and people kept pointing it out. So then he married a C-rank that looks suspiciously similar to his first wife, but with a way weaker personality. He¡¯s scared of his own mother, his father, his ex, his son, and obviously Aulia. He¡¯s been trying to ride Hazel¡¯s coattails toward glory since she was born, and Aulia just yanked off Hazel¡¯s coat and threw it in a shredder.] Alden tried to input all of that. [I¡¯m saying he doesn¡¯t have the courage or the energy to do you in,] Lute said. [And if he did try something¡­we could beat him.] Alden snorted. ¡°You think?¡± ¡°I¡¯m positive.¡± Lute glanced over. [You want me to give you a free Peace of Mind?] ¡°What? No. Come on. I¡¯m not that upset. Decompressing in luxury garbage cans is part of my process. Every party needs a few of these things.¡± He banged on the metal wall behind his head for emphasis. ¡°Okay. But it¡¯s really no big deal. So if you change your mind¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m good,¡± Alden insisted. ¡°Then let¡¯s get out of here and go back to sanity. I¡¯ve got what we came here for.¡± Alden stared at him. [Already? The Libra invitation?] ¡°I mean this,¡± said Lute, pulling a large tin of caviar out from under his shirt. ¡°We shall eat like kings! The rest of us will anyway. I would have stolen something for you, too, but there were no expensive fruits and vegetables lying around in plain sight.¡± [I wouldn¡¯t worry about the Libra invite,] he added. [I don¡¯t know what Aulia¡¯s twisted mind thinks about me right now, but she¡¯s obviously pro-you. So I bet it¡¯ll happen.] They climbed out of the dumpster and met up with Haoyu and Lexi nearby. The two of them weren¡¯t alone. ¡°I could walk with you guys to the train,¡± Roman said, dropping faux pearls and dazzling bangle bracelets into one of the plastic shopping bags Lexi was filling. ¡°If you needed some company.¡± ¡°There are four of us,¡± Lute pointed out. ¡°We kind of make our own company.¡± ¡°He can come.¡± Lexi¡¯s tone was that of a man who had just agreed to have his molars removed by someone wielding pliers. Politely escaping from the party took twenty minutes. People kept stopping them to offer commentary, and there was at least one conspicuous drone pointed at Alden like he was about to do a trick. And then, right before they reached the street, they were stopped by the absolute last person they wanted to have an encounter with. ¡°Lute,¡± said Jessica Velra, ¡°I¡¯m so glad you decided to come. How have you¡ª¡± ¡°Guys, this is Aulia¡¯s daughter Jessica,¡± Lute said in a dead voice, staring straight over her shoulder. ¡°Jessica, these are my roommates. We¡¯re kind of in a hurry.¡± Alden¡¯s concerns about being filmed were completely forgotten for a moment. He almost wished Lute¡¯s mother would recognize him from their brief encounter the other night in the hall of Laura¡¯s apartment building. It might be easier if she caused a scene of some kind with him, instead of staring at Lute like she was about to cry. Even Haoyu didn¡¯t seem to have a way to combat this level of tension. His smile was forced. Roman let out a gasp. Good, thought Alden. He knows them both. Maybe he¡¯ll say something helpful. A finger tapped him on his shoulder, and when he looked toward Roman, the other boy shoved a half-finished iced coffee into his hand. ¡°What¡ª?¡± ¡°Does my hair look okay?¡± Roman demanded. ¡°It¡¯s got some confetti in it. Why?¡± Roman flipped his head upside down and shook out his hair. A second after he righted himself, he disappeared into thin air. By the time Alden got over his surprise, Lute had taken the opportunity afforded by the distraction to leave. Lexi and Haoyu were following him. Nodding at Jessica awkwardly, Alden took off after them. ¡°All right¡­¡± Haoyu said a couple of minutes later as they walked past a club that was advertising a comedy night. ¡°That was definitely more interesting than Konstantin¡¯s party. I always hoped high school would be exciting, but it¡¯s exceeding my expectations on that front already.¡± ¡°I declare our first operation a success,¡± Lute said in a tone so blithe Alden would never have guessed he¡¯d just had what must have been an emotional encounter. ¡°We survived my family. Lexi didn¡¯t find the diamonds, but he claimed like eighty percent of the party favors anyway, and he will never run out of jewelry again.¡± ¡°They¡¯re Christmas presents for my little sister.¡± ¡°And Alden¡­revealed his true nature to us and everyone else,¡± Lute continued. Alden groaned. ¡°Righteous, politely devastating¡ª¡± Lute said. ¡°He was polite,¡± Haoyu agreed. ¡°It made his attack so much more effective!¡± Lute hopped over a grate in the sidewalk. Alden was glad they approved. And at least I know for sure now where Hazel and I stand. He thought it would be less stressful in the long run to have it all out in the open. Now he wouldn¡¯t have to wonder why she¡¯d done it and what it meant and if he was crazy for being upset about it. ¡°There are some real idiots in the comments on that video,¡± said Lexi. ¡°You definitely shouldn¡¯t read them.¡± ¡°You¡¯re reading them?¡± Lexi shrugged. ¡°Most people are cheering you on,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I don¡¯t want to be cheered on. I want to be ignored.¡± ¡°Someone¡¯s connected you to the gokoratch songs video Finlay posted yesterday,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°It¡¯s starting to get a lot of hits, too.¡± Alden considered it. ¡°That¡¯s not enough of a comfort. But I¡¯ll take it.¡± ¡°Are you really going to send that thing to your¡­foreign friend?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°Yes,¡± said Alden. ¡°My foreign friend needs to know how much we¡¯re all enjoying his contributions. Can we discuss anything other than the Hazel incident?¡± There was just a second of silence, then Lexi said, ¡°Lute, your cousin Roman needs a pet or something. One that doesn¡¯t mind him talking to it for hours.¡± Mention of Roman made Alden look down at the coffee he was still carrying. ¡°I can throw this away, right? He¡¯s not going to reappear and want it?¡± ¡°His summonses usually last around thirty minutes,¡± Lexi reported. ¡°We¡¯ll be back at the apartment. I say trash it.¡± ¡°You guys talked about his summonses?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°He talked,¡± Lexi said in a sullen voice. ¡°He mistook my silence for me being a good listener.¡± ¡°If you remembered everything he said, doesn¡¯t that make you a good listener?¡±
Manon Barre had barely gotten any sleep since she¡¯d made it back to Earth. Astounding how much can fall apart when I¡¯m only gone for a few hours. Now she was on the third floor of a building, sitting in a folding chair and watching the people in the alley below her through a window. It had been all too easy to get in. She¡¯d simply told the owner she was considering renting this empty space at a later date, and the access code had been granted. She had an excellent reputation in the event industry. There was no reason to say no to her even if a party for a certain noteworthy family was taking place this evening. Manon¡¯s inbox was full of angry, confused messages from the boater, and there was an obnoxious amount of ¡°respectful advice on the pursuit of our shared interests¡± from Aulia Velra¡¯s daughter-turned-personal assistant. The first issue was being addressed one boater member at a time. Three of them were already pacified, and the others would be¡­as soon as she could manage it. All the busybodying from Aulia¡¯s little helper was unnecessary. Manon had carved the grooves that her peoples¡¯ lives fit into. They were mostly content, and they would refocus themselves on the things that really mattered after she had devoted enough time to tucking troublesome ideas into the recesses of their minds again. Aulia only makes my job more difficult by butting in. Now that some of them had discovered a Velra representative would come running at their call, they were getting an overinflated sense of their own importance. That would have to be handled, too. Manon wasn¡¯t sure the extra work the Velras had made for her was unintentional. It would be nice for Aulia if I was too busy tending to their petty upsets to ask her inconvenient questions about our agreement. And there was a lot of upset right now. Manon had never suspected that such a brief absence could lead to so much mayhem, not after all these years. The little shit thought it out. I¡¯ll give him that. The members¡¯ faith in their leader, their gratitude toward her, and their affection for her would have been strong enough to withstand a simple word of warning. But a multipage essay of warning being delivered to each of them, in duplicate no less, was something else. A spoken word could be pushed out of the mind so quickly. Having so many words that so thoroughly speculated on a portion of their lives shoved in front of their eyes once and then again shortly afterward in hardcopy¡­ This was supposed to be the age of text messages and short attention spans. What was a teenager doing outputting research papers on Manon¡¯s activities in his free time? Did he not have anything better to do? You¡¯d think someone who just came out of some kind of disaster would have other things to worry about. And why on Earth was he standing below her right now, popping confetti balloons at a Velra birthday party? Manon couldn¡¯t figure it out. Had Aulia realized the boy was aware of her involvement with the boater? Had she invited Alden Thorn here as some kind of a bribe? Was he here on his own because he¡¯d gotten wind of Aulia backing Manon and he fancied himself a sleuth? He¡¯d arrived with the one-eyed short boy. Jessica¡¯s S-rank. Maybe they were acquainted, and it was just a coincidence? It doesn¡¯t matter. I¡¯ll deal with him when the boater is finally settled again. One chore at a time, and this evening¡¯s had already been decided upon. Aulia and her assistant clearly didn¡¯t have enough to do lately if they could engage in thinly-veiled negotiations with some of Manon¡¯s people. She needed them out of the way so that she could re-establish control. An attempt to do the LeafSong job without her would be doomed. It was obvious to her, but maybe it wasn¡¯t so obvious to an out-of-touch S-rank. So tonight we find something to distract her from meddling in my end of the business. If I keep her busy for a while, and I re-establish control fully, she¡¯ll leave it alone for now. And¡­ Finding a way to make sure Aulia honored their bargain could wait just a little longer. That was going to take some more planning. Manon watched. She waited. This party was not hers. The people attending it were not hers. But a Rabbit with Tailor Environment was more used to working on the possessions of others anyway. And Manon¡¯s skill had topped out some time ago, the last, lovely features settling into her mind and making her one of the very best at figuring out exactly what changes she could make to suit the owner of a space, event, or thought. As a consequence of that, she could also tell what arrangements were less suitable. This party had a few different people who could be considered ¡°owners¡± with varying needs and degrees of connection to the space. Manon targeted Benjamin Velra first, since it was the man¡¯s birthday. Good lord, she thought. Did they even ask him if he wanted a party at all? Almost everything in the alley was less than ideal for him. If she¡¯d really been rearranging and positioning things to suit him, instead of just taking a peek, she would have ordered a getaway vehicle for the man and told him to go someplace quiet. The only things in this environment that fit him were the cake, the trash bins the children were playing in, and the wrapped gift his eldest daughter was presenting him with. Manon frowned down at Aimi, then moved on. She targeted Benjamin¡¯s wife next. Hikari Velra. And she suddenly saw a dozen new possible arrangements for tables and chairs. She cares about where people are sitting. It was possible to learn a lot from tailoring an environment. Not really surprising that another S-rank who¡¯s been by Aulia¡¯s side for so long would be interested in manipulating the various family relationships. Before Manon could move on to a new target, the queen herself arrived. Ah, there you are Aulia. Let¡¯s see what suits you right now. Let¡¯s see if a lowly C-rank can make sure it stays out of your grasp. ****** An interesting thing about Tailor Environment that most non-users didn¡¯t understand¡ªthe owner¡¯s wants and needs both mattered when it came to arranging a perfect space. The skill balanced those things, but it didn¡¯t tell Manon how it was balancing them or what the client¡¯s actual thoughts were. She didn¡¯t need to know to do her job, so she didn¡¯t. But she could often guess anyway. For example, if the magic indicated that a family heirloom should be placed in a highly visible but otherwise awkward location, that probably meant that the owner was so fond of it their desire for its presence outweighed practicality. Is this something Aulia wants? Or something she needs? Manon wondered, watching the woman make her way through the crowd with that way she had about her that most older Anesidorans would probably recognize even if she were to suddenly inhabit another body. The woman¡¯s ownership of this party was so strong from the moment she appeared that Manon could see the whole puzzle, and what suited Aulia most right now wasn¡¯t her own comfort¡­but Alden Thorn¡¯s. It wasn¡¯t the easiest thing to pick up on, but it was there to an experienced eye. For this space to suit Aulia as well as it could in this moment, a particularly nice decoration should be moved into Alden¡¯s line of sight. One of the confetti bubbles¡ªno doubt containing a party favor he would like¡ªought to be shoved in front of him. What¡¯s this about? Aulia moved through the crowd so swiftly that Manon barely had time to understand what her skill was telling her. Figuring out why it was telling her such a thing would no doubt take hours. She had to move now. It suited Aulia for the boy to be comfortable. It suited Manon for Aulia to have some trouble. And Alden deserves to be miserable, thought Manon. Sometimes the universe gives us such unexpected opportunities. As Aulia engaged him in conversation, Manon looked for an opening. She couldn¡¯t exactly toss a chair out of the window and smash the boy over the head, though that would no doubt get the job done. It would have to be handled the subtle way. Which wasn¡¯t simple. These weren¡¯t her people. On-the-spot thought rearrangement without something that resembled acquiescence from the owner of the thoughts wasn¡¯t really what the skill did, but there was a way if she found exactly the right type of person with the right mental state¡­ She tried Jessica first because weak people were usually easier. Then Cady Velra. Without much hope, she tried Alden himself and found he wouldn¡¯t work either. Even at LeafSong, she¡¯d barely managed to push a couple of his thoughts to the back of his mind¡ªsuspicions toward her, she was now sure. And that had probably only been possible because a boy on his first assignment was so tense in so many ways that having that tension reduced suited him. Next, she targeted Hazel Velra¡ªAulia¡¯s daughter, though everyone seemed on-board with politely pretending she was a great granddaughter. There! A piece I can move. Manon couldn¡¯t read the thought. To her, it was just a shape she was allowed to access and fit into a new slot. To guess at what it was, she would have to know Hazel well or be down there reading the girl¡¯s expressions and listening carefully to what she said. And that wasn¡¯t possible. But with all involved parties targeted and her skill working at its absolute maximum, Manon could tell that nudging this thought forward in the girl¡¯s mind would somehow make the environment less pleasant for Alden and less ideal for Aulia. Sloppy. But it will have to do. She focused her full attention on Hazel Velra. You¡¯ve got something inside of you that¡¯s bothering you, don¡¯t you? Something you need and want to let out so badly that you¡¯re about to burst with it. There¡¯s a part of your mental environment that it would feel so good to let out, but some other pesky concerns are holding you back. For this to be doable on the fly, when Manon had never even spoken to the girl, it must have been like that. Let me help you, Hazel. You¡¯ll feel more at home with yourself if you go ahead and say what¡¯s on your mind. She lifted the shape of the thought toward the light. Then, she waited. Body language over the past few seconds indicated that Aulia was doing a fair job on her own of making Alden Thorn uncomfortable. While Manon was identifying Hazel¡¯s usefulness, he¡¯d been shooting a panicky look at the boy with the eyepatch. Eyepatch had said something. Then Aulia had laughed, making a dismissive-looking gesture with her hand while she leaned toward Alden. He¡¯d fixed his eyes on Hazel and replied. There had been some back and forth while Manon worked, and now¡­ ¡°I am your granddaughter!¡± Hazel shouted so loudly that the words carried over the music and up to Manon¡¯s window. ¡°I am your prot¨¦g¨¦e. I¡¯ve done everything you ever asked me to, and you gave my S to that whiny, lazy little whiff the second he was selected!¡± So that¡¯s what the idea eating away at you was, Manon thought while the girl below continued her rant in full voice. Some of the things she said were contradictory. Some of them made no sense. But Manon knew what Hazel was really saying. So childish. Such a common feeling and always so useful to me, though this is definitely the most dramatic result I¡¯ve ever had from pulling it out of someone. Manon wondered if she¡¯d needed to do anything at all. To be snapping like this, the girl must have been on the very precipice of her self-control. She might have lost her head any second without Manon helping her get it out of her system This isn¡¯t fair, Hazel Velra was screaming at the top of her lungs, using far more words than necessary. My life is unfair. Manon smiled. Hazel was revealing grievances, wants, and weaknesses galore. She was a volatile creature, but volatility was only a problem if you planned on managing someone longterm. If you just wanted them to give you information or stir up trouble for someone else, it was a useful quality. The girl had spent her entire life at Aulia¡¯s knee. And here she was having such a terrible day. This, Manon thought, is an opportunity.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°You and I have a lot in common,¡± the Rabbit woman said, shaking her head sympathetically. She¡¯d been going blah, blah, blah for a long time. Hazel had paid attention to enough of the chatter to know they didn¡¯t have anything in common at all. And her bare feet were freezing against the marble floor. This sofa was hard as a rock. Why did I agree to come with this annoying stranger? she wondered. Because she¡¯d run away from the party sobbing. Because she¡¯d assumed the black sedan that had stopped for her had been sent by her parents to carry her back home in privacy, and the second she¡¯d gotten in the woman had spoken as if she was affiliated with the family somehow. One of the help, Hazel had assumed. Someone from Grandpa Corin¡¯s office possibly. And when she¡¯d realized the Rabbit was just one of those people who wanted to suck up to a Velra¡­well, Hazel didn¡¯t mind. Maybe if she disappeared and refused to answer her messages for a while, her family would understand how badly they¡¯d treated her. Her parents and her grandfather could¡¯ve stood up for her. Instead, they¡¯d just flapped their lips pointlessly and cringed. My skill¡­they took my skill from me. She couldn¡¯t believe this was really happening. The ability was only useful on Earth if people didn¡¯t know she had it. And she wasn¡¯t required to get consent before using it like so many of her relatives needed to before they used their own skills. It was a privilege she¡¯d earned for herself, a product of her giftedness and her effort. Her one solace for the rank disaster. That boy¡­ I didn¡¯t do anything wrong. It wasn¡¯t a big deal. But Grandma sided with him. It¡¯s like Lute all over again. She thinks they¡¯re special even though they haven¡¯t done anything to earn it. At least Lute was an S. At least he¡¯d gotten it at fourteen. It was nothing he deserved, but it was something. Alden Thorn had just been a delivery boy for Hazel¡¯s Chainer. She felt almost numb. The video filled her eyes, the opacity just low enough that she could still see the woman sitting beside her, eating the karaage she kept offering to share with Hazel. Hazel had taken a few pieces. Her mouth felt greasy, and the comments under the video pierced her eyes. ¡°You know it can feel really good to get things like this off your chest,¡± the woman said. Manon Something. Somewhere in all the blahs she¡¯d managed to convey that she was a contractor of some sort for Hazel¡¯s grandmother. Like that was a special connection they shared. Grandma probably doesn¡¯t know her name either. She probably smiled at her once, and this old lady thinks it meant she mattered. Hazel reached for another piece of the chicken and chewed it. She wiped her fingers on her dress. She could never wear it again now. It would make people think of Alden Thorn announcing that she was too dangerous to be around. Maybe she did want to get something off her chest after all. ¡°He¡¯s not stable.¡± She gestured at the video in front of her eyes even though Manon couldn¡¯t see it. ¡°People shouldn¡¯t just believe whatever he says. Avowed who spend months in bad situations usually come back damaged. It¡¯s sad, but it¡¯s the truth. I guess that¡¯s why he¡¯s so upset about his Peace of Mind. Because he¡¯s got problems. He¡¯s overreacting, and people are too ignorant about wordchains to realize what I did wouldn¡¯t have been that bad to a normal person.¡± Manon was quiet for a beat. Then, she brightened. ¡°Hey! Do you want to trade stories? I actually know Alden a little bit. I¡¯ll tell you some embarrassing things about him and you tell me about¡­oh, whoever you like! Who¡¯s done something embarrassing around you lately?¡± That sounds stupid. Why would I gossip with someone like you? ¡°I think I¡¯ll go,¡± said Hazel, standing and heading toward the door. ¡°Not just yet!¡± Manon sounded so disappointed. ¡°I¡¯ve even got a few pictures of him in a funny costume. Let me just grab the tablet I keep my Triplanets photography on.¡± Pictures? Hazel frowned. Maybe it would make me feel better. The Rabbit woman rummaged around on a bookshelf for what seemed like too long. Why doesn¡¯t she just send me a copy through our interfaces? Tech could be better and more convenient for capturing photographs and video. Hazel loved her drone and her phone. Maybe Manon was the same. She stood beside the shelf watching Manon scroll very slowly through a photography folder on the tablet. ¡°Aulia thinks I use social media too much,¡± Hazel said. ¡°I told her it was my outlet, but she doesn¡¯t understand. ¡®Hazel, why don¡¯t you get a productive hobby?¡¯ But it¡¯s not like making fans isn¡¯t productive. And now they¡¯re going to think all the wrong things about me because of Alden.¡± ¡°Aulia doesn¡¯t care about your interests?¡± Manon asked in a surprised voice. ¡°But you¡¯re her granddaughter!¡± ¡°She keeps saying she expects me to be mature. She¡¯s not always mature. But I have to be.¡± ¡°The older generations aren¡¯t always fair to the younger ones. I¡¯d apologize on our behalf, but your grandmother is quite a bit older than me.¡± ¡°When she was my age she¡¯d already had her first child. I don¡¯t think she even knows who Grandpa Corin¡¯s father was.¡± ¡°It sounds like you¡¯re more responsible than she was.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been working on the Triplanets for years. I think I understand more about the real world than most people.¡± The large, sideways timeglass on the bookshelf caught Hazel¡¯s eye. It looked out of place with the rest of the decor in the apartment. She reached up to tap the metal case that held it idly, and she frowned as it slid along the wood. Wrong. She didn¡¯t feel like she¡¯d tapped it that hard. Oh. I performed an extra Force of the Traveler¡¯s Body just now. I remember. Over by the door, right before walking over here to stand beside Manon and see the pictures. She could even feel her own imbalance, but it never bothered her the way other peoples¡¯ did. How strange that I let it slip my mind. Hazel enjoyed the whole set of wordchains in the Force of the Body family. She liked turning the sweep of a hand into something explosive. She usually elected to cast a single one on an ordinary day though. Why did I decide to add another one? ¡°Most people aren¡¯t thinkers,¡± Manon said. ¡°Or doers. They just exist. You¡¯re different. I can tell. Can Aulia not see that about you?¡± Hazel frowned. ¡°What did you say you did for my grandmother again?¡± ¡°I run a little side business for her during a certain annual event. We¡¯ve been partners for almost fifteen years.¡± Manon looked at the timer. ¡°Unfortunately, my payment was supposed to be time with Horatio Qu¡ª¡± ¡°So that¡¯s it. Everyone wants to know when the healer will be back.¡± Hazel rolled her eyes. ¡°He¡¯s just being a whiner. Aimi barely hit him with the car. He yelled about the Gloss threatening his life and then requested assignment to Artona III for a supplemental Healer school. He¡¯ll get over it soon enough and ask to come home. According to Grandma, he doesn¡¯t even like other planets.¡± Manon¡¯s smile was strained. ¡°That¡¯s good to know, but ¡®soon enough¡¯ for someone as old as Horatio or your grandmother can be rather long to the rest of us¡­anyway, where were we? You were telling me that Aulia expects maturity from you even though she isn¡¯t always mature herself!¡± ¡°Do you even have embarrassing pictures of Alden Thorn?¡± How would she? That¡¯s right! That was the thought I had. That was why I cast the extra strengthening chain. Because the pictures sounded unlikely, and I thought she was a little creepy. The way she ate that chicken wasn¡¯t normal. Alden and Manon were both Rabbits, but Alden hadn¡¯t been on Anesidora for long. Why would they know each other? Why would they know each other well enough for her to have pictures of him in ¡®a funny costume¡¯? It sounded like a fiction the woman had invented just to make Hazel talk to her for longer. ¡°I do,¡± said Manon. ¡°From a job we did together. They¡¯re on this tablet.¡± Lie. Hazel didn¡¯t know Alden. But she knew about him. He¡¯d only had the one job. The one that had ended badly. It was so ironic that the job had been at¡­ LeafSong. That school of all places. No wonder Grandma has completely taken leave of her senses when it comes to the delivery boy. She probably thinks the universe is shouting his name. Hazel started to turn away. She was going to march out the door and leave this pitiful lying Rabbit to her pitiful little life. And then¡­the rest of the facts pulled themselves together. ¡°The LeafSong Entrance Examinations?¡± she asked slowly. ¡°Is that the job you mean?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Manon, smiling at her as though she¡¯d said something flattering. In that moment, Hazel Velra understood everything about the past few hours. She thinks I don¡¯t know what she does at that school. She thinks it¡¯s such an important secret that Aulia wouldn¡¯t share it with me. ¡°You know I have more than one contract tattoo with my grandmother,¡± Hazel spat. Her anger was boiling up inside her. Manon stared at her. ¡°More than one?¡± ¡°You think she wouldn¡¯t trust me with information? Me?¡± The nerve of this woman. She did that¡­to me¡­! ¡°I can¡¯t believe she¡¯s paying someone like you with Horatio!¡± Hazel couldn¡¯t repeat the precise details of Manon¡¯s work even to the woman herself, thanks to a rule in one of the contracts. But she would force out every biting truth she could manage around the limitations. ¡°You don¡¯t even do anything hard! All kinds of people could do that job. And we don¡¯t really need it. Grandma just thinks having you do it might one day give us something interesting. You¡¯re useless. You should be fired.¡± Manon¡¯s eyebrows were heading toward her graying hairline. ¡°Now calm down. There¡¯s no need for us to have an argu¡ª¡± ¡°Are you trying to do it to me again? You think I don¡¯t know what you can do to people? You think Grandma Aulia wouldn¡¯t tell me something like that? I. Matter. I know things. I know who you are!¡± Manon¡¯s face paled. ¡°You were there to pick me up right as I ran away from the party!¡± Hazel shouted. ¡°Do you think I¡¯m stupid?¡± In the corner of her eye, where she¡¯d minimized the video, a commenter was saying her dress made her look like a convenience store burrito. ¡°I would never act like I did today! I would never say things like that!¡± Hazel slapped her hand against the bookshelf so hard that a ceramic figurine fell off to shatter on the icy floor. ¡°You made me!¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t!¡± Manon said. ¡°I don¡¯t believe you! You Swayed me. Why aren¡¯t you doing it now? Did your C-rank skill run out?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a Sway! Listen, Hazel, I understand you¡¯re¡ª¡± She was reaching out toward Hazel with a hand. Hazel¡¯s own hand wrapped around something heavy on the shelf beside her. She swept her arm through the air. All of her favorite daily chains were with her, defending her from the evil madwoman who stood before her. Hazel was graceful, accurate, strong. The timeglass connected with Manon¡¯s temple. There was an impact. A warm spatter. The soft but weighty thud of a body collapsing to the floor. Hazel stared down, chest heaving. She felt cold and hot. The air smelled like blood. ¡°C-contract,¡± she said, ¡°call¡­call my grandmother. I need her. I need her right now!¡± In her hand, unseen, a single grain of sand slid from one side of the fifteen-year timer to the other, marking the passing of another minute.
The party was ending. As the last few guests exited the alley and a team of low-rank Brutes and Shapers began the clean-up, Aulia was situating a tiara on top of Miyo¡¯s head. A call notice came in. ¡°Fine,¡± Aulia said with a sigh. She winked at Miyo¡¯s questioning look. ¡°Your cousin¡¯s calling. Do you want to place a bet with me on whether it will be an apology or not?¡± ¡°Not,¡± Miyo said at once. ¡°A thousand argold.¡± ¡°Done!¡± This was their little game. She had the call go to audio only. ¡°Yes, Hazel dear. Do you have something to say to me?¡± ¡°Grandma,¡± Hazel sobbed. ¡°Grandma, I killed the Rabbit.¡± ¡°Ow!¡± Aulia had accidentally yanked the tiara through Miyo¡¯s hair. ¡°What did you say?¡± she asked in a steady voice. ¡°I k-killed the R-rabbit.¡± Aulia clasped her hands in front of her chest. The graffiti on the wall behind Miyo switched to an image of a tongue and a lollipop. ¡°Repeat yourself, please,¡± said Aulia. The lights of her interface flared and shifted, screens changing rapidly as she requested and paid for information. The boy had last been seen in public entering his dormitory with Lute and the other two. Hazel¡¯s last known location was an apartment building near Nautilus Needle. Aulia exhaled. ¡°Hazel, Alden Thorn may very well be an extraordinary friend to this family one day. I¡¯m sorry you¡¯re having such difficulty adjusting to a slightly different reality than we had planned, but I see no reason to indulge your behavior any furth¡ª¡± ¡°Not that Rabbit!¡± Hazel¡¯s voice was nearly a scream. ¡°Manon! The LeafSong Rabbit. She tried to user her powers on me. I had to¡­I had to kill her. It was self-defense!¡± The grating sound of chairs and tables scraping against concrete filled the alley as the cleanup crew began to put them away. ¡°That¡¯s the third time you¡¯ve made that face tonight,¡± Miyo noted, rubbing her scalp. Aulia glanced at her. <> Miyo said in Artonan, sweeping a hand straight down over her own face and making her expression blank. She was getting an interesting attitude now that she was a teenager. Aulia couldn¡¯t appreciate it at the moment. <> Miyo asked. <> ¡°Indeed you do,¡± Aulia said. ¡°One moment, dear. Hazel, I¡¯m so happy to hear about your decision! Practicing your skill and serving others is a good way to make up for that shameful display earlier tonight. Our friends will be pleased to have you around full-time.¡± ¡°W-what?¡± Hazel asked. ¡°Grandma, there¡¯s blood everywhere. But it was self-defense. I swear. She was doing things to me with her powers.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t just rush off!¡± said Aulia. ¡°Where are you? I¡¯ll send someone for you. You need to come home and pack.¡± ¡°Is Hazel going somewhere?¡± Miyo asked. Aulia nodded at her. ¡°Important news,¡± she said to both of them. ¡°Hazel plans to become a volunteer on the Triplanets. She¡¯ll be leaving us soon.¡± ¡°Volunteer?¡± Miyo asked. ¡°Yes! That¡¯s an option for us Chainers. If you feel a call to service and choose to deny your own comforts and sacrifice your rights to payment and time off, they won¡¯t refuse you!¡± Miyo raised an eyebrow. ¡°So she¡¯s trying to avoid the backlash from that video. How long is she going to stay?¡± ¡°A long time,¡± said Aulia in a thin voice. ¡°She¡¯s probably going to stay there a very long time. I suggested volunteering shortly after she affixed, but she was feeling such a lot of disappointment about her rank that she refused. She¡¯s had a change of heart. Would you like a car, Miyo?¡± ¡°Me?¡± ¡°You are such a wonderful granddaughter.¡± Aulia leaned over and kissed her on both cheeks. ¡°I think you deserve more than a thousand argold. Let¡¯s get you a license. And a car. Or a helicopter. You pick.¡±
Alden took a deep breath and let himself slide beneath the surface of the water. He¡¯d gotten a turn in the claw-footed bathtub. Finally. And all I had to do was ask Hazel Velra to stay away from me. Easy-peasy. He let air escape from his nose and bubble to the surface. Recovery sauna time had done wonders for him after Monday¡¯s gym class, but he was still achier than usual. The hot water was good. He could feel his auriad, loosely looped around his fingers from the spell he¡¯d been practicing while he soaked, drifting. It would be fun to have the wordchain finished for the obstacle course tomorrow, he thought. But I think I¡¯d have to stay up all night hacking away at it. Friday¡¯s a better goal. A notification light in indigo, his high priority color, appeared and he accepted it with a thought as he pushed himself back up for a breath of air. Oh, it¡¯s just that. He¡¯d been hoping it was Boe. Instead it was a notice that Manon Barre had updated her social media page. He clicked through to look at it because he couldn¡¯t stop himself and saw, to his surprise, that the new post was her special away animation again. She got summoned? She only just got back. The hourglass turned over. Maybe they¡¯ll keep her for longer than a few hours this time. One or two of the boater members might still want to escape from her. If they¡¯re not all like Laura¡­ No. He was supposed to be letting this one go. He¡¯d done what he¡¯d set out to do. If it hadn¡¯t helped, then it hadn¡¯t. Alden ducked his head under the water again. I wonder how long it will take to make an ice cube in hot water like this with my freezing spell? His auriad stopped drifting around in the water so much. He felt a few of the loops tighten around his fingers. He smiled. ****** ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO: Obstacles 122 Alden had a suspicion that the day might be a bit different before he even left the dorm that morning. Jeremy didn¡¯t usually video call him from inside a bathroom stall at seven thirty AM. ¡°Hey! It¡¯s good to see you instead of getting a text, but shouldn¡¯t you be in second period?¡± Alden asked. He¡¯d just pulled on a long-sleeved shirt, and he was tucking his laptop into his messenger bag. ¡°People have been talking about you all morning,¡± Jeremy said. ¡°I didn¡¯t call earlier because you like sleep.¡± ¡°I do like sleep. Thanks for respecting the time zone. Any chance they¡¯ve been talking about how much they miss having me sitting in the classroom? Does that Goth girl wish I was still there to loan her pens? She owes me three. Don¡¯t think I forgot while I was away.¡± ¡°I saw the video.¡± Alden made a face. ¡°Did you go to a party last night and tell a girl that she was sketch and you didn¡¯t like her?¡± ¡°Maybe¡­¡± ¡°In front of her parents and her Grandma, who¡¯s a member of the Anesidoran government?¡± ¡°Aulia¡¯s not on the High Council anymore. Also, there were a lot more people than that around. Also, that might not have been me. It could¡¯ve been another guy who resembled me.¡± ¡°Are you okay?¡± Jeremy asked. ¡°Another Avowed used their powers on you! Isn¡¯t that a crime or something?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine. It wasn¡¯t a huge thing. I just really didn¡¯t want to have any more to do with Hazel Velra, and in the moment, letting it be known seemed like the best course of action.¡± ¡°It sucks that I couldn¡¯t be there,¡± said Jeremy. He grinned. ¡°I¡¯ll hate her for you from here!¡± ¡°You rock,¡± said Alden. Jeremy was wearing a shirt with an eyeball and a rock on it. ¡°More importantly,¡± he said, ¡°did you sing a bunch of songs about an alien bird while wearing your gym jammies?¡± ¡°That made it all the way to you, too?¡± Silver lining. Then Jeremy¡¯s phrasing caught his attention. ¡°Did you just call my highly magical, very exclusive, wizard-made protective Avowed gear gym jammies?¡± ¡°That¡¯s what Kimberly called them. It¡¯s cute, right?¡± ¡°It¡¯s definitely unforgettable,¡± said Alden. ¡°I know you¡¯ve got to get to class but before you do, I had to check on you and tell you¡ª¡± Jeremy pointed at him. ¡°You¡¯ve officially made it as a superhuman.¡± Alden¡¯s brows lifted. ¡°How do you figure?¡± ¡°Alden, there are memes.¡± ****** It could have been worse, but Alden was sure it couldn¡¯t have been weirder. As he went through the morning, he ran across several students and even one faculty member singing Finlay¡¯s gokoratch songs, so that was good. Lots of people minded their own business or didn¡¯t care about his altercation with Hazel at all. A few, unfortunately, felt the need to corner him and give him their personal analysis of the situation; it was obnoxious no matter what their opinion was since Alden didn¡¯t remember requesting critique from other teenagers who thought they knew him based on a short video clip and some facts they¡¯d found on the internet. But beyond all of that, most of the CNH students who wanted to interact with him because of the video wanted to talk about¡­ ¡°Did you get more radishes?¡± ¡°Radish Rabbit!¡± ¡°Not my radishes!¡± ¡°You¡¯d better make the Velras buy you a lifetime supply, mate! Can¡¯t let them get away with costing a man his treats!¡± <> he told Lute while he knelt on a too-thin cushion during their conversation class. <> <> Lute replied, correcting a finger position for him. <> <> Alden said. <> <> Lute asked. Alden frowned. <> <> Lute bowed his head and clasped his hands together in a prayerful posture. Alden didn¡¯t know whether to laugh or sigh. Of the memes Jeremy had mentioned this morning, only two seemed to be gaining traction. The first was a clip of Hazel shouting about how she mattered on Earth and the Mother while her flapper headband¡¯s tassel whipped around. The second was Alden hastily raising a china plate in front of him and sending eleven radishes¡ªaccording to the people who¡¯d bothered to count¡ªto their deaths. There were slow-mo shots of them falling. In one edit, someone had drawn little screaming faces on them. Rabbit Drops his Radishes was by far the most harmless thing that could pop up when someone searched for him, so he was torn between wondering if it was okay for something so silly to be making him instantly recognizable on campus and kind of hoping that it would become a lot of peoples¡¯ main impression of him before they dug into everything else. His roommates were right; the video didn¡¯t make him look that bad. Some assholes were saying asshole things, and unless he was being paranoid, the moment when Aulia called him one of the Velras¡¯ ¡°family friends¡± seemed to be ever so slightly louder and clearer than the rest of the audio. But the family friend thing didn¡¯t seem one hundred percent believable, he hoped, when he was in the process of complaining about a member of said family. And he looked calm and collected when he explained why he had a problem with Hazel. <> Alden asked Lute as they put their shoes back on at the end of class. <> ¡°Do you just speak Artonan all the time now?¡± Alden shrugged. ¡°I hadn¡¯t shifted gears yet. But it¡¯s good practice for you, so don¡¯t complain. I was asking why Aulia¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got translations back on, so I understood. There are probably a hundred factors you and I can¡¯t guess, but I assume Hazel¡¯s been getting problematic in other ways. A few relatives mentioned that she¡¯s become more of a menace since she started having free time. She¡¯s used to being with a tutor, with Aulia, or asleep. Aulia¡¯s not training her for hours a day anymore. You want to have lunch together?¡± ¡°Sure,¡± said Alden. ¡°But should you really skip your theater class as often as you do?¡± ¡°No. Are you judging me?¡± ¡°So hard.¡± ****** That evening, Alden¡¯s gym group stood in a huddle together, waiting for Principal Saleh to arrive and officially mark the start of class. They were all staring at their fate. ¡°Haoyu,¡± Alden whispered, leaning toward him without taking his eyes off the monstrosity the faculty had created. ¡°Can you complete that whole course?¡± Haoyu was staring at it, too. ¡°I cannot.¡± ¡°Maybe it¡¯s not finished?¡± Njeri suggested. ¡°It looks unfinished.¡± ¡°That must be it!¡± Astrid agreed. She had gelled her short hair into a mini mohawk ¡°to promote team spirit.¡± She put her hands on her hips. ¡°They¡¯ve left off some ladders. And they must be bringing us scuba equipment!¡± They were all standing at the black line that separated the course from the rest of the huge gym. Jeffy stepped right up to the edge of it eagerly. ¡°I bet I can do it!¡± ¡°Really?¡± Lexi said in a dry voice. Writher¡¯s short chain was twitching at the end of its handle. ¡°How are you going to get over the fifteen-meter-tall barrier made of magic when there are no handholds?¡± ¡°You think we have to climb that?¡± Jeffy asked. ¡°Maybe we¡¯re just supposed to walk around it. Like in the maze.¡± ¡°Jeffy, my friend in mohawkdom,¡± Astrid said before Lexi could add anything, ¡°let me explain how obstacle courses usually work.¡± ¡°We¡¯re probably meant to help each other,¡± Haoyu added. ¡°That¡¯s common for this kind of thing.¡± Alden stepped over to Maricel. She had a pensive expression on her face. ¡°What are you thinking?¡± he asked. ¡°I was wondering if they would let me ride my soil platform over obstacles or not. I saw your video¡­¡± ¡°You and everyone else.¡± He¡¯d arrived at the MPE building and gotten dressed early to avoid the locker-room takes from certain people. For now, he was blissfully unaware of whatever some of the more tedious members of his class might have to say. Maricel watched him for a minute. ¡°You could¡¯ve pickled those radishes,¡± she said sadly. ¡°And they wouldn¡¯t have died.¡± Startled, it took Alden a second to respond to the joke. He shook his head at her. ¡°Shhhhh¡­don¡¯t reveal my true power.¡± When Principal Saleh showed up, she was wearing her own suit and carrying a small metal triangle on a stick that turned out to be a magical megaphone. ¡°Good to see you again, everyone!¡± she said. Behind her, Instructors Marion, Foxbolt, and Ivanova were all holding tablets and checking over various obstacles. Despite Astrid¡¯s hopes, no ladders were making an appearance. ¡°This is part of the course you¡¯ll all be running today. The other first years have run this route several times in their own classes, so if you¡¯d like to compare your team times to theirs or watch their videos we¡¯ll make that available to you.¡± Only part of the course? Alden wondered. ¡°Let¡¯s go over the rules!¡± Five minutes later, he was standing outside in his group¡¯s assigned lane of the MagiPhys track. They were getting one half, and the group of ten that would be running against them was getting the other. Alden listened to Haoyu and Reinhard argue over strategy and watched Lucille lace up a pair of dark purple boots that he found all shiny and fascinating thanks to Sympathy for Magic. In the gym, people who didn¡¯t want to risk wearing out or destroying ordinary athletic shoes just took them off. The suits protected your feet, so it was fine if you wanted. But out here, some of Alden¡¯s classmates were allowed to bring gear he didn¡¯t usually see. Lucille¡¯s boots were extra durable. Someone on the other team had complained about people getting special treatment because Wrightmade armor, but a raised eyebrow from Principal Saleh had shut the whiner down. Alden didn¡¯t mind. None of the approved equipment was anything that should be a game changer, and there was no point in risking an injury just so that nobody would accuse you of having a tiny advantage. The team they¡¯d be racing against to start with included Konstantin, Finlay, Jupiter, and Tuyet along with six others. The other half of the class was back in the gym, having school emergency procedure practice sessions with Klein and Fragment while they waited their turn to run the course. Their race would be cut off at the twenty-minute mark if they hadn¡¯t finished. The losers would swap with one of the teams in the gym, and the victors would stay out here for one more round. The losing team would have another race before the end of class. And then two more on Friday. So every team of ten or eleven would have the chance to face each other once. As was typical of their gym periods, the explanation of what they should do had been brief and to-the-point, and they were expected to get to work and figure out the details as they went. Alden was going over the rules in his head again, too focused on not screwing up the basics to imagine what running the course would actually be like. They started out here on the morphable track, where they would run three laps with the same sorts of hurdles Alden had encountered on combat assessment day. At the end of the third lap, they ran down a flag-marked path to the gym, where the more dangerous and impossible-looking half of the course was. Their interfaces would give them instructions as they approached obstacles if necessary. Both teams would begin their run at the same time, with all teammates participating. That was all simple enough. But then the aspect of the race that Instructor Marion had called ¡°strategic interference¡± came into play. Just so that he wouldn¡¯t forget a detail, Alden typed a list for himself while he explained it all to Jeffy out loud again: 1. For a team to win the race, every member has to reach the end of the course. 2. A runner who reaches the finish line may not participate in the race except to offer advice to their teammates. 3. Every time someone crosses the finish line, their active teammates may take one hostile action to impede the other team¡¯s runners. One hostile action is defined as a single talent use, obstacle modification, or physical attack by one team member. The hostile actor may enter the other team¡¯s half of the course. On the outdoor portion of the course, only harmless attacks and obstacle modification may be used to impede runners. Within the gymnasium, all attacks, including lethal ones, are allowed. 4. Injuries will be simulated by movement restriction. 5. ¡°Dead¡± runners must return to the start of the race. 6. No killing your own teammates. Reinhard and Haoyu were energetically disagreeing about a dozen different aspects of the race, and Alden could see why. The amount of strategy that would be needed to maximize a team¡¯s speed was huge. Excelling at this game would take planning, practice, and careful teammate selection. They would be getting the opportunity to do that in later academic terms, but for this, their first time, they were flying blind. Alden liked the notion of an obstacle course, and he had a hundred and twenty feet of paracord weighted with a heavy-duty carabiner to contribute. It was fine with him if they all looked at this as an interesting opportunity to test their abilities, like usual. But he was getting the feeling that most of the others were more anxious and eager to prove themselves than they had been on Monday. ¡°I can shoot Tuyet!¡± Reinhard was saying. ¡°I know I can take her out. His preferred strategy was for Lucille and Maricel to plow through the course together and hit the finish line, so that they could get two attacks on the other team as quickly as possible. ¡°I¡¯ve watched uni obstacle course competitions,¡± Haoyu insisted. ¡°It¡¯s different because a lot of those people can complete a whole course without assistance, but in this kind of team run, you don¡¯t send all of your strongest competitors to the end. You keep some of them in play so that they can help everyone else.¡± ¡°He¡¯s right about not losing critical players,¡± Njeri said. ¡°Though I¡¯m not sure Lucille is actually our strongest competitor.¡± She looked over at the quiet girl. ¡°You¡¯re literally our strongest of course. But you couldn¡¯t run the whole route on your own if you got left behind, could you?¡± Lucille shook her head. Could any of us, though? Alden wondered. ¡°Start in thirty seconds!¡± Lesedi Saleh announced. Maricel was shaking her hands out and staring at the track ahead of them. Reinhard made a strangled sound. Astrid bounced eagerly on the balls of her feet. ¡°Save your energy,¡± Lexi said to her. ¡°Who me?¡± He grunted. They all stood at the starting line. On the other team¡¯s side, Jupiter was humming and glancing longingly toward the mound of freshly cut limbs and twigs she¡¯d stolen from someone who¡¯d been pruning the grounds. Her team had barely managed to talk her out of telekinetically hauling the whole pile with her during the race. Appropriate elemental weights were being provided for each Shaper to use here and in the gym, but if they wanted something special, their teams were required to transport it through the entire route. A couple of the others were carrying heavy branches for Jupiter, so that she wouldn¡¯t be slowed down. [Race Start in 10¡­] ¡°I don¡¯t want to lose,¡± said Everly, getting in a ready position. ¡°Your ice will work great for messing with the other team,¡± Njeri told her. ¡°If we can get someone to the finish line.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t even know what we¡¯re doing,¡± Reinhard muttered, checking the straps on his quiver one last time. ¡°Just run as fast as you can and send back news once you hit the gym to report on the obstacles,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Don¡¯t be idiots.¡± ¡°Nobody cross the finish line without consulting the rest of us,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°The principal is watching,¡± Jeffy whispered. ¡°We know,¡± three of the others replied at once. Reinhard scowled. ¡°I¡¯m more worried about the fact that they¡¯re making this footage available to the rest of the first years. Two hundred other people will be trying to decide if we should¡¯ve gotten into the school with them or not.¡± [3¡­] ¡°It¡¯ll be fine,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Only if we do well. This is going to be their first impression of us.¡± Alden preserved his cord. He was wearing it wrapped around him in loose, cross-body loops. Haoyu was his entruster, which was becoming a usual thing for gym class. ¡°Win,¡± Lucille whispered. [1] Here we go. They took off. From the first few steps, Alden knew it wasn¡¯t going to be anything like his last time running the track. For one thing, this was a race, and for another¡­these weren¡¯t a bunch of B-ranks who¡¯d failed to make the cut. Thank goodness running with my trait is one of the things I¡¯ve practiced the most. It was a relief to finally have a ground element surface under his feet in class. He didn¡¯t bother to look at what was going on with the other team since no attacks would be coming in yet. Instead, he focused on his form, his speed, and eating ground as fast as possible. One day, they¡¯re going to give us something like mud to run across, and I¡¯m really going to shine. This afternoon, he wasn¡¯t doing badly compared to his own teammates. Lucille and Jeffy were ahead of him, but having the magical help from Azure Rabbit had put him ahead of the A-ranks and Maricel. It¡¯s a nice change from being slower than most of them in the gym. The hurdles out here were walls of varying heights that rose from the track itself. He leaped the first easily, mentally thanking the trait for the height he got and Bobby for the fact that he could feel confident about proper form and knowing his limits when it came to making landings. He kept going. After climbing a steep hill near the end of the circuit, Alden jumped and pulled himself onto the top of a much higher wall than any of the others had been. He was relieved to find a mat waiting to catch people at the bottom. He hit it, ran a few more steps, and got the [Lap One Complete] notice through his interface. I feel pretty good about this. He thought he was pacing himself correctly; his body was moving well. He completed the second and third laps in exactly the same way as the first, bypassing Jeffy, who¡¯d taken on the task of standing beside the high hurdle and boosting people over it. Chat on their team voice call suggested everyone was doing all right on their own or with the helping hand for the last jump. Lucille had made it through the first indoor obstacle and was reporting on the next one as Alden left the track behind and ran down the marked path toward the gym. Reinhard wasn¡¯t very far behind him. Who¡¯s ahead of us on the other team? Finlay and Tuyet were way out front. He thought at least one of the other Brutes was ahead of him. Alden flew through the open doors of the MagiPhys building and down the short hall into the gym. ¡°Floor On!¡± Instructor Foxbolt called loudly from her post at the start of the indoor course. ¡°Green line!¡± The obstacle course loomed in front of him. Green and red lines on the floor and the obstacles themselves indicated each team¡¯s path. Alden had a momentary flashback to the children¡¯s play area outside a fastfood restaurant he had visited when he was little as he got down on his hands and knees and started crawling through a long plastic tunnel. When he emerged from the other end, he found the obstacle Lucille had mentioned in her update from just a short while ago. [Go through.] Yes, that was obvious. It didn¡¯t make the assignment look any more appealing. ¡°So,¡± he said aloud for the benefit of the rest of the team, ¡°the shipping container obstacle is on fire, as Lucille mentioned. It¡¯s a little bigger than a regular shipping container, I think, and the walls shoot jets of flame. The floor doesn¡¯t. Should I go through on my own or do you guys want me to stick around and shield you?¡± Haoyu answered first. ¡°Be there in a sec. Lucille, how much damage did you take running through?¡± ¡°Not bad,¡± she said succinctly. ¡°Like a sunburn. Ten percent movement reduction. My suit got stiffer. ¡± ¡°Ten percent is bad,¡± Reinhard said. ¡°Take a penalty like that a couple more times and we¡¯ll be moving like snails.¡± ¡°I can probably ice the whole thing over!¡± Everly sounded slightly winded. ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s against the rules, but I¡¯m not at the halfway point for my last lap.¡± That¡¯s unlucky, thought Alden as the heat from the box in front of him made him take a step back. If Everly was standing where he was now, she could¡¯ve handily solved the problem for everyone and then run on. I wish I¡¯d picked the poncho now, don¡¯t I? The point was to force himself to come up with non-obvious solutions, but he still would¡¯ve felt cool waltzing through the fire obstacle. The sound of rapid thumping from the tunnel behind him made him turn, and he saw Reinhard emerging. ¡°Carry me,¡± the archer demanded, before he¡¯d even stood up. ¡°Do your trick. You can right?¡± ¡°Yes¡­should we just wait for Everly and get everyone else through without damage all at once?¡± ¡°I¡¯d like to go ahead,¡± Reinhard said impatiently. ¡°It¡¯s important to get people to the end as fast as possible. Finlay and Tuyet are way ahead of Lucille.¡± Alden looked down the course. Tuyet and Finlay were climbing the high magic wall by having her embed her darts in it and using them as handholds. ¡°Can you do that with your arrows?¡± ¡°I won¡¯t know until I try to stab it with one and see what kind of settings they¡¯ve got on it.¡± ¡°All right, but let¡¯s try to make sure I don¡¯t end up with a huge movement penalty either.¡± It was less than half a minute before Lexi climbed out of the tube. ¡°Shield me instead.¡± ¡°I just put on my Reinhard outfit,¡± Alden replied, quickly shifting the archer¡¯s weight. ¡°Does this look easy to achieve?¡± Reinhard was draped over his back with his feet hanging almost to the ground, human-cloak style. His arms were stuck straight out past Alden¡¯s ears, gripping the quiver to offer some protection for Alden¡¯s face and torso. It was a very uncomfortable way to carry someone, but time seemed to be of the essence, so¡­ Off we go. He hauled his human shield into the fire box, sticking closer to one wall and shuffling sideways as fast as he could along it with Reinhard positioned to take the brunt of the flames. He was through it quickly and feeling relieved as he dropped the other boy. ¡°I really didn¡¯t take any damage!¡± Reinhard slapped Alden on the shoulder and thrust his paracord back toward him. Alden took it. Reinhard was his target now, so it was formally re-entrusted. ¡°It¡¯s an all or nothing kind of shield. Do¡ª?¡± Reinhard started to sprint ahead only to stop and curse two steps later as he saw the next obstacle. ¡°Lucille already moved these for us!¡± he protested, staring at the line of black weights in different shapes that stood before him. Each weighed either 500 kg or a full metric ton. The instructions flashing in front of their eyes indicated all the shapes needed to be moved down the course twenty meters and up a ramp to be dropped into the appropriate compartment before anyone else on the team could go forward. ¡°The obstacle must reset.¡± Alden was bending his elbows and knees experimentally to see what the three percent movement restriction he¡¯d earned from being slightly singed on his way through the tunnel felt like. He looked around to see Haoyu and Lexi both running through the fire, with Haoyu shielding Lexi from the brunt of the flames. Meanwhile, their group call was getting busy. ¡°I¡¯m at the gym!¡± Astrid shouted. ¡°I¡¯m not far behind her,¡± said Maricel. ¡°I can shield us both with the sandbags.¡± ¡°Jeffy, get Everly and Njeri over that last hurdle.¡± Haoyu hurried toward a tire shape and squatted to get his hands underneath the edge of it. He pushed it up and flipped it, and it hit the floor with a loud bang. ¡°We¡¯ll be nearly done with these by the time you get here.¡± He squatted again. Lexi was concentrating on wrapping Writher around a cone shape¡ªa little worrisome since this wasn¡¯t one of the challenges where they were allowed to chop things in half. Reinhard was shoving a sphere toward the ramp. Alden laid a loop of cord around the base of a waist-high dodecahedron. He bent down, preserved, lifted. He was gratified when it moved easily. Here we go, protecting our precious rope from this eleven hundred pound villain that wants to crush it. The shape of the weight meant that when he lifted, it settled into the loop he¡¯d made. He carried the weight out in front of him, being cautious on his way up the ramp because he was nervous about dropping it and having it roll back on him or someone else. After this, there¡¯s the rope climb straight up and then those bar swings. I can do those. The cord¡¯s going to be useful for the vertical ascent, too. He could lift people up, and then they could pull him up. Maricel could lift herself and others too. All together as a team it would be fast. From the top of the high wall there¡¯s the diving tank. That one looks harder to manage. He dropped the weight in the designated area and headed back for another. Maricel and Astrid had just run out of the fire. ¡°Alden,¡± said Maricel, letting a pair of charred sandbags hit the floor beside her, ¡°let¡¯s move this one togeth¡ª¡± A bell sounded. The red lines all over the other team¡¯s course flared bright, and Jupiter, who had just arrived at the weight-moving challenge with a pair of smoking branches in tow, cheered. A ripple in the air indicated the lowering of an invisible barrier between the two halves of the course. Reinhard was swearing. ¡°Lucille!¡± Haoyu called. ¡°Can you see who crossed the finish line from up there on the bars?¡± ¡°It was Finlay,¡± Lucille said. So he¡¯s out of the race now, thought Alden. ¡°Should I hit him?!¡± Jupiter was shouting. ¡°No!¡± one of her teammates shouted back. ¡°Stick with the plan.¡± ¡°Everyone look out!¡± Haoyu said ¡°Especially men,¡± said Lexi. ¡°She said ¡®him.¡¯¡± ¡°We¡¯re screwed,¡± Reinhard spat. ¡°Tuyet¡¯s standing on top of the wall.¡± Alden looked. Tuyet was up there, her chin-length black hair dripping, having obviously backtracked from the water obstacle. She fixed her eyes on him. He moved to position his paracord in front of his torso for some protection, but she moved faster. Her arm whipped through the air so quickly he only realized that was what the motion was when it was already over. A large dart made of a shining, nacreous material bounced off his forehead and hit the ground at his feet. It didn¡¯t hurt, so it took him a second to realize he¡¯d just been killed. [DEAD - Back to Start] ¡°When you die, take the path of least resistance out of the gym! Don¡¯t worry about the obstacles!¡± Principal Saleh announced through her megaphone. ¡°Go!¡± shouted Reinhard. ¡°Hurry!¡± Alden had already taken off. Shit, he thought, focusing on his injury list as he ran. If this had been real life, Tuyet¡¯s dart would have killed him so quickly his brain wouldn¡¯t have registered the pain. She¡¯d loaded it with an explosive spell that blew outward in a fan shape from the point of impact. Just that fast. I didn¡¯t even feel her target me. Possibly he¡¯d been too distracted? He didn¡¯t think so, though, since he¡¯d known an attack was incoming. Alden had assumed a Meister with ranged weapons would have a targeting ability, but maybe she didn¡¯t. He hadn¡¯t worked with Tuyet in gym before. The S-rank could just be highly accurate thanks to stats and talents, no additional targeting features necessary. It could even be that she targets points in space instead of people. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d feel that. When Reinhard had shot him previously, the arrows had seemed to be semi-attracted to specific body parts. Like he¡¯d told them to hit ¡°Alden Thorn¡¯s left knee¡± even if Alden¡¯s left knee moved. Doesn¡¯t matter. Just get around the track three times as fast as possible. He passed the final members of his team on his way out the door. A death is really going to slow us down. If the reset timer on the weights is just a minute or two, someone will have to hang around or backtrack to help me move them It felt bad to be the one who¡¯d gotten hit, but there wasn¡¯t anything he could¡¯ve done about it that he could see. He wasn¡¯t sure what the best course of action for stopping something that small and fast was. Dodge, shield, or try his newfound ability to grab it out of the air? When his feet hit the pavement of the track, a filming drone whizzed into position beside him, and as he approached the starting line, he got the ¡°Race Start¡± notification with no countdown. His teammates were having an argument over comms about forcing people through to the end¡ªwho should run ahead, who should hang back, what talents they needed to get everyone through the rest of the obstacles. I¡¯m just going to focus on running. He was alone out here, so there was nothing else for it. ¡°You guys tell me if someone from their team comes back toward me!¡± he said as he cleared the first hurdle. He pushed himself. He didn¡¯t want to be the hold-up. As he lapped the track, he tried to plan the most efficient ways through everything ahead of him. Do the laps, through the tube, fire¡­if it was still iced over from Everly¡¯s spell he was good. The only bright side about this situation was that dying had removed the movement restriction on him, and it wasn¡¯t much of a comfort, since his restriction had been so minor he¡¯d barely noticed it. ¡°Halfway through the third lap,¡± he said. ¡°Be back in the gym soon.¡± ¡°Maricel¡¯s lifting Jeffy over the wall!¡± Haoyu reported. ¡°He¡¯ll be through the water obstacle fast. Once he hits the finish line, the threat of one of us taking out Tuyet might force her off the top of the wall. And toward the finish, too, if we¡¯re lucky.¡± ¡°She¡¯s still up there?¡± ¡°Sniper perch,¡± Reinhard said. That¡¯s more intimidating than I would have imagined it being at the start of this. Alden was on the grass, sprinting back toward the building, when Lucille said, ¡°They¡¯re waiting for something.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± Lexi asked. A pause. ¡°Lucille¡¯s in the water!¡± said Maricel. ¡°I think she means that other Brute who¡¯s been standing there. Why haven¡¯t they gone through the finish line?¡± ¡°Alden, stay off the gym floor!¡± Haoyu shouted. Alden reached the gym seconds later and stopped right at the edge of the white floor. ¡°Why?¡± He tried to take in everything. Tuyet was still in position on top of her team¡¯s half of the fifteen-meter wall, a dart in hand. Jupiter was lifting Konstantin up with a lifematter bag. It looked like a very rough ride. He was hugging the bag with his arms and legs. Maricel was providing a gentler elevator service for Haoyu with one of the sandbags. ¡°I can¡¯t just stand here,¡± said Alden. Haoyu¡¯s head was whipping around. ¡°Jeffy, you need to get over our finish line now.¡± ¡°But what if you guys need help with the water?¡± ¡°We have to take out a member of their team. Kon¡¯s best. Now. While Reinhard¡¯s got a clean shot.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to take out Tuyet.¡± ¡°No, you can¡¯t!¡± ¡°You think I can¡¯t hit her?¡± The bell rang as Jeffy crossed the finish line. The green lines for Alden¡¯s team flashed bright, and the barrier went down. Before the green had finished flashing, the bell rang again and the red lines flashed. Haoyu said, ¡°Take out Konstan-¡± An arrow cut through the air and struck Tuyet in the ribs with force. She fell backward off the wall. ¡°No!¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I told you I could get her!¡± ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant! Why would you shoot the fastest runner they have left? She¡¯ll be back right away.¡± Seconds later, Tuyet was whizzing past Alden on her way to take her second set of laps around the track. Water droplets flew off her as she passed him by. Alden made a hasty shield for himself out of his cord while he waited anxiously for a sign to go. He chose the same zigzag design he¡¯d used versus Big Snake on Monday, even though it wouldn¡¯t do much for the fire, and he had to assume Tuyet could dart him through it. There were other combatants to consider, and this should help against some of them. He thought he could crawl through the tube with it on his back so he wouldn¡¯t lose it. He also thought he knew why Haoyu had asked him to stay off the gym floor. Dangerous attacks could only happen there. Anyone interfering with him before he stepped onto the white surface couldn¡¯t use much force, so he couldn¡¯t be sent back to the start again. But if I just stand around until Tuyet gets back, we¡¯ll lose anyway. ¡°Lucille¡¯s coming back for you!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Meet Lucille at the weights!¡± Maricel said at the same time. The other team still hadn¡¯t used the attack chance they¡¯d just earned. I don¡¯t like this. He crawled through the long tube. When he was halfway through, Lexi said, ¡°Stay in there!¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°We¡¯re coming back for you.¡± <> Maricel shouted. Alden dropped his preservation on the paracord shield and refroze it in a split second. Later, he would feel slightly clever for the quick thinking. The zigzags of cord draped down over his back, butt, and head. It wasn¡¯t like it was great armor, but it was the fastest armor he could possibly have managed with so little warning while stuck on his hands and knees inside a tube. Right then, however, it felt like a pitiful effort. He covered his head with his arms. He heard people shouting. A crack. And then a lot more cracking and popping as a damn forest shot into the pipe and through it. Jupiter¡¯s largest tree limb hit him so hard it ejected him from the tube, and he rolled backwards, his arms and legs unable to stop his momentum, to crash into the barrier that prevented students from getting thrown into the bleachers. Heart pounding, Alden tried to scramble onto his feet only to find he couldn¡¯t move. His suit wouldn¡¯t let him. [Penalty: 100% restriction, unconscious] [Injuries¡­] The list scrolled for a long time. With the low pain setting they were working with today, he felt fine, but apparently he was on his way to being dead. Again. He was hemorrhaging. ¡°By the way, you shouldn¡¯t talk or text your teammates when you¡¯re listed as unconscious!¡± Lesedi Saleh announced through her megaphone. Alden¡¯s teammates were talking so much that he wouldn¡¯t have been able to get a word in edgewise anyway. Apparently, Lexi had tried to stop the flying limb with Writher, but all he¡¯d done was ¡°trim it a little¡± according to Reinhard. Now he wanted to trim Reinhard a little. Maricel, Lucille, and Everly were frantically trying to assess Alden¡¯s injuries from the readout they¡¯d gotten and guess how long it would take him to die. Njeri was asking them all to confirm if she should cross the finish line or not. What a mess. The principal walked over to have a look at Alden. He was lying on his side, disturbed by the answers he¡¯d received when he mentally requested more details about the injuries. ¡°You can talk to me if you want,¡± she said, squatting down to give him a smile. ¡°How are you enjoying school?¡± ¡°Less at the moment than usual,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s been good. I have cool roommates.¡± ¡°Glad to hear it.¡± Her dark hair was in the same sleek bun she usually wore. ¡°After viewing a certain video, Instructor Colibr¨ª, from the university, wants me to strongly encourage you to come by her office and talk about your on-camera presence and your dress sense.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Alden said in a high voice. ¡°How nice of her. So nice. Uh¡­I¡¯m very busy right now, but maybe next quarter¡­¡± ¡°I want to strongly encourage you to keep up the good work. Instructor Waker was impressed with your efforts in class on Monday.¡± ¡°I kind of wish he was here to throw tennis balls at me now.¡± ¡°Ha!¡± She shook her head. ¡°He¡¯d love nothing more probably. I¡¯d also like to ask you to stop by my own office if you find yourself running into any trouble here at school.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Alden. ¡°But it really has been pretty great so far.¡± She stood. ¡°I hope it stays that way. We¡¯ve got a lot of talented kids, but things get tense for some groups when we actually start bringing combat into class. The team exercises should build some camaraderie at the same time. We¡¯ll see.¡± The bell rang. Njeri had just crossed the finish line. Alden¡¯s suit finally decided he was a goner, and he pushed himself up and ran toward the door. He heard the bell ringing again and Haoyu said, ¡°That was them crossing the finish line, Alden.¡± So they have another attack chance. He had rounded the second curve of the track and was heading up the slope toward the final hurdle when Maricel said, ¡°Where¡¯s Tuyet?¡± ¡°I think she¡¯s in the pipe,¡± Njeri replied. ¡°I don¡¯t see her from the finish line.¡± Alden was running as hard as he could. It wasn¡¯t easy to find air for a conversation, but he was listening to theirs. ¡°She¡¯s not in the pipe,¡± Jeffy said. ¡°I¡¯ve been watching for her.¡± I just assumed she was back in the gym. He hadn¡¯t been able to see the course properly from the angle he¡¯d landed at when he fell. So he¡¯d thought she¡¯d made it while he wasn¡¯t looking. She was fast enough that she should¡¯ve been back in the gym by now. ¡°I didn¡¯t pass her,¡± he got out as he launched himself up and caught the edge of the wall. He dropped down onto the mat. ¡°I didn¡¯t see her on my way out here.¡± There was a beat of silence. ¡°We need to pause for a second and think,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Where is she? And why is she there?¡± ¡°Ah!¡± said Maricel frantically. ¡°This is bad.¡± ¡°What is?¡± Lexi demanded. ¡°The rules! Tuyet might be able to use her¡ª¡± A human shape flew out from under the thick mat Alden was about to step off of, and an arm shot toward his foot. ¡°Fuck!¡± he shouted, leaping back. ¡°Sorry!¡± Tuyet cried. Her wet hair was plastered to the side of her face, and she had an impression on her cheek from the asphalt. ¡°Did it hurt?¡± Alden clutched his chest. ¡°What the hell?!¡± Giving people heart attacks had to be against the rules. ¡°Don¡¯t back off the mat,¡± said Tuyet. ¡°You might hit your head when you collapse.¡± ¡°What?¡± She pointed down at his shoe. A dart was sticking out of the top of it. He realized his foot stung. ¡°You stabbed me?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got a bandage! It¡¯s a tiny needle! The magic on it just makes you go to¡ª¡± Alden¡¯s knees gave out. He flopped onto the mat. About twenty minutes later, he woke up lying on the bleachers with one bare foot. A small bright yellow bandage was placed just above his toes, and someone had used a pen to draw an animal on it that might, charitably, have been called a raccoon. It had little z¡¯s coming out of its mouth. Groaning, he covered his face with his hands. [Haoyu: He¡¯s awake! Hi, Alden! First of all, I am so, so sorry.] [Lute: I hear it was hilarious.] [Alden: What happened?] He sat up and looked around the gym. His teammates were up on top of the bleachers across from him, listening to Fragment explain something about the MPE building¡¯s ceiling, if the direction her finger was pointing was any indication. [Haoyu: We didn¡¯t plan well. It all collapsed. They killed Astrid and Lexi. We got Jupiter.] [Alden: I take it we did not win.] Tuyet was back in her sniper position, running the course with her team, so it was obvious. [Haoyu: Reinhard and Lexi didn¡¯t hit each other with their weapons. That¡¯s a win.] Alden put his shoe back on and went to learn some school emergency procedures. Our next try will definitely be better than that one. ****** Dragging himself out of the gym after class, dripping wet and exhausted just like the rest of his team, he decided he hadn¡¯t been wrong. The second race was much closer, and he¡¯d died only a single death to Helo¨ªsa, who¡¯d tackled him so hard on top of the big wall that she took Everly Kim and herself over the edge with him. They¡¯d lost, but he¡¯d been more useful at shielding people and helping them maneuver over obstacles than he had the first run. And he¡¯d made it across the finish line in the end. So at least he¡¯d been able to experience the full course. They were focusing more on killing me than they should¡¯ve been, though, weren¡¯t they? I guess because they saw the other team do it, and they figured it worked. Of course Alden wasn¡¯t happy with how it had all gone, but it was more upsetting that his teammates were disappointed. Everly was so frustrated after her second death that she¡¯d been crying a little even as she kept going. Lucille just got quieter and quieter until people started snapping at her for failing to communicate. Reinhard blamed everyone else for everything. Lexi blamed Reinhard for everything. Njeri had asked Maricel if she couldn¡¯t go a little faster at one point and Maricel, who was under a lot of pressure because of how useful she was on most of the obstacles, had almost bitten her head off. They were talking quietly to each other now as they slogged their way toward the girls¡¯ locker room ahead of Alden. By the end, even Haoyu¡¯s attempts at peacemaking were leaning toward intimidating instead of peace-inspiring. Too many different pressures building up. They¡¯d all screwed up in gym before now, but this was different. More personal. Tuyet was the politest of assassins, and Alden was still kind of miffed that she¡¯d picked him to kill. Twice. Not that he¡¯d ever showed it. ¡°Maybe if I¡¯d carried Everly on my back around the track,¡± Jeffy said. ¡°I think that¡¯s what I did wrong.¡± ¡°I think everyone did stuff wrong,¡± Alden said. ¡°Don¡¯t punch a hand dryer over it or anything. On Friday, we¡¯re going to do so much bett¡ª¡± ¡°Because he¡¯s dead fucking weight!¡± The heated voice from behind them made Jeffy, Alden, and several other people turn around. It was Winston. He was pointing at Max. Their team had lost twice today, too. ¡°I¡¯m sure he was doing his best,¡± Vandy said. ¡°We were all trying hard. Maybe if we meet tomorrow to plan¡ª¡± ¡°He didn¡¯t have magic for most of the second run!¡± Winston shouted. Max shoved through the group. He looked furious. ¡°What? You don¡¯t have anything to say for yourself?¡± Winston called after him. ¡°Did you do what Max suggested during the race?¡± Alden asked. Winston rounded on him. ¡°I¡¯m not talking to you.¡± ¡°And I don¡¯t know why I¡¯m talking to you, but here we are. Stop being such a dick. Max is amazing at strategy and his spells are harmless traps and movement enhancements. He¡¯s got to be one of the most valuable members of your entire team for this activity.¡± ¡°This isn¡¯t any of your business.¡± Alden shrugged and turned away. ¡°Only the teams with B-ranks lost!¡± Winston said. ¡°It wasn¡¯t fair.¡± Someone shushed him. A couple of people shifted uncomfortably. Very scientific reasoning, thought Alden. He followed Max, Haoyu, and Lexi through the locker room door. ¡°I didn¡¯t ask you to do that,¡± Max said waspishly. ¡°I wanted to. He¡¯s annoying. And I got killed in multiple embarrassing ways. My self-control is shot.¡± Haoyu shook his head. ¡°Again? Oh, Alden. The last time that happened you took the lives of eleven¡ª¡± ¡°Not you too!¡± ¡°¡ªinnocent young radishes,¡± Haoyu finished. Alden looked over at him. ¡°I am sorry I died so much.¡± ¡°It really wasn¡¯t your fault. I think it was actually Kon¡¯s strategy. He¡¯s an asshole.¡± Kon was standing in the corner of the locker room, unsealing the front of his unitard. ¡°Haoyu!¡± ¡°Was it your idea?¡± Lexi was staring at him. ¡°Why do you look shocked?¡± Kon asked. ¡°I can have ideas.¡± Lexi raised an eyebrow at him. Kon gave Alden a nervous smile. ¡°It wasn¡¯t really a strategy. Just us trying to pull something together to fit a couple of goals. But I was the one who suggested we focus on you. I¡¯ve been thinking I should do more brain work since I¡¯m kind of useless at everything else in this class for now.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. But why¡ª?¡± ¡°Our goal was to incapacitate somebody as far away from help as we could. You seemed like a decent choice because you were going to be a really useful assist for the rest of your team. Having you out of the way was convenient for us. And you could clear the final hurdle on your own. If we¡¯d taken out Everly or Njeri, one of you would have headed back to the track with them right from the start and been on hand to help out. When you went down, they had to run all the way back out there for you and then run twice around the track carrying you.¡± I think I¡¯m glad I slept through that. ¡°It could¡¯ve worked out a lot of different ways. Or not at all. We were lucky Reinhard shot Tuyet. Most of us were just planning to use the obstacle creation tablet to increase the final hurdle height so you had to call for help. Tuyet put you out of commission for the whole game.¡± Alden sighed. ¡°Thanks for the nap I guess.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not mad?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Hey!¡± said Kon, brightening. ¡°When are you guys going to invite me to see your apartment? I¡¯ve invited you to see mine!¡± ¡°It¡¯s just an apartment,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Nothing to see.¡± ¡°I have a slow cooker,¡± said Haoyu. Kon blinked at him. ¡°I have a rug. Or two,¡± said Alden. ¡°Lexi assigned us all our own food shelves.¡± ¡°Okay. That¡¯s really homey, but¡­why do I feel like you¡¯re all leaving something out?¡± *** ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE: Meeting 123 It was four in the morning, and Alden¡¯s fingers were flicking through the new spell. He focused on the shapes his auriad made, pushing himself outward through them in that specific way that made magic happen. Casting excited him, like always, but he wished there was someone around to answer his questions. Following the instructions in Whan-tel''s Art was easy enough. And there were the other factors he could manage on his own--memorization, quick hands, authority manipulation. But can I do things to make the spell work better? Can I do things to make it worse? Different? He was sure the answers were all ¡®yes.¡¯ Instructor Gwen-lor¡¯s brief mentions of the "art of perceiving in multiple ways" teased him sometimes. Perception wasn¡¯t just an important tool for Avowed using their skills, as Joe had taught him. It could also help with spell casting. But Alden''s books didn¡¯t tell him how to work with perception or around it or if he was even supposed to be taking it into consideration regularly. Maybe altering your perception came into play only when you were struggling with a spell or if you needed to make it deviate from its intended purpose. He just didn''t know. And besides that, wizards talked about perfection a lot. According to Lute, and based on Alden¡¯s own experience, perfection made wordchains more likely to land. How did that fit in with spells? Surely a greater or lesser degree of accuracy must effect something. Once or twice, he¡¯d noticed himself making a small mistake, and the spells still did what they were meant to do. Am I learning correctly? Just how much am I missing? A whole culture¡¯s worth of history and insight, obviously. It was so frustrating. He wished he could listen in on Kibby¡¯s lessons again. He withdrew his authority from the effort and completed the last few motions with only his hands and his auriad. He thought he had the spell down well enough for it to have an effect, and he didn¡¯t want to shoot a flying dagger of force at his laptop. The computer was open on the desk beneath his loft bed. Last night, before he went to sleep, Alden had watched televised obstacle course runs for a while. He¡¯d seen them before, but one-on-one runs between famous Avowed were more popular. He wasn¡¯t as familiar with uni team competitions. Having actually experienced a course himself, he found he had a much deeper interest in them and appreciation for how difficult they were. I¡¯m sure I would¡¯ve thought things like tunnels and corridors were boring filler if I¡¯d watched last year, but now they¡¯re so stressful. After his death by tree limb, he¡¯d hated crawling through the pipe more than any other obstacle, even though it was just about the easiest thing to do on the whole course. You were a sitting duck inside that thing¡ªbarely enough room to move around, no visibility, completely reliant on your teammates to tell you what was happening and keep both ends of the tube clear so you could emerge safely. Alden lowered his hands and let the auriad wrap itself back around his wrist. Then, he stood from his learning cushion and dropped Wummy on top of it to serve in his usual post as a guard wombat. Cushion already has a loose thread, he noted. That makes it looks kind of sad. Should I try for another hour or two of sleep? He ended up sitting at his desk and forcing his way through some homework instead. Less than an hour later, the quiet murmur of voices lured him from his room. All the lights were off in the apartment except for the kitchenette¡¯s nightlight. Haoyu was sitting at the table with a tablet, stylus, and a lot of candy wrappers. Lexi, dressed for his morning run, was standing across the table from him. ¡°Hey,¡± Alden said, keeping his voice down for Lute¡¯s sake. ¡°You guys are up already?¡± ¡°I¡¯m up already,¡± Lexi replied. ¡°He¡¯s up still.¡± He jerked his head toward Haoyu. As Haoyu rolled his eyes at the disapproval in his friend''s voice, Alden realized he was still wearing the t-shirt he¡¯d had on when the two of them left North of North last night. ¡°You didn¡¯t sleep?¡± Alden asked him. ¡°I could tell I wasn¡¯t in a sleeping mood.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been up since three. I should¡¯ve come in here with you.¡± ¡°You both should¡¯ve gone to bed. Your frequent potion therapy sessions aren¡¯t a substitute for actual rest,¡± Lexi said. Haoyu shoved a few gummy bears into his mouth and chewed them with a stubborn look on his face. Alden walked over to see the tablet. Unsurprisingly, it was playing their footage from gym yesterday. ¡°I¡¯m annoyed we¡¯re only doing it for these two classes while Snake is gone,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°It¡¯s good practice, just like gym always is. But four runs is barely enough for us to get our bearings. I feel like we¡¯d need to do a lot more work as a team to actually play the game well.¡± ¡°It is annoying.¡± Haoyu shoved the tablet away from himself. ¡°If we had a couple of weeks and some practice time, I think it would be really fun. But like this, we¡¯re just getting the awkward starting phase of learning our way through the course. And I felt like such an asshole yesterday trying to give advice when I was in a bad mood and everyone else was too. Did I make Everly cry?¡± ¡°No,¡± Alden and Lexi said at the same time. ¡°She was just mad at herself,¡± said Alden. ¡°She usually casts a lot more in class. I wondered if she wanted to use her spells for some of the obstacles but couldn¡¯t because she was nervous about how it would affect the rest of us.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t feel like I was doing enough to help either. And there¡¯s no time before the next class to make plans.¡± Haoyu held up one finger then another. ¡°Today. Tomorrow. That¡¯s it. Everyone has different class schedules to work around, and I don¡¯t even know if they all want to meet. The instructors didn¡¯t assign group planning sessions, so some people might not care about it. Maybe I should go for a run. It¡¯ll clear my mind, right? That¡¯s something people do to clear their minds?¡± Lexi tilted his head. ¡°Are you asking me?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll go, too,¡± said Alden. Haoyu pushed himself back from the table. ¡°I¡¯ll be ready in a minute.¡± Alden expected Lexi to protest that his morning ritual was sacred and he didn¡¯t want company or chatter about gym class during it. But he waited for them both. It was dark and chilly, and the run was easy. They followed a winding route around and through the campus. As the sky was growing paler, they found themselves on their third trip through the Celena North memorial garden. The area was lighted by lanterns hanging from the arching tree limbs. ¡°I¡¯m going to stop here for a while,¡± Alden said as they approached a fork in the walkway. ¡°You guys go ahead.¡± ¡°Do you want us to pick you up something from the coffee shop?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°I¡¯ll grab something on my own.¡± He slowed, letting them run ahead of him before he turned down the path. He passed the bench where he¡¯d first met Hazel Velra, then he entered the amphitheater. The grass terrace seating, the tall granite memorial stones, the ornamental pear tree¡ªit all looked the same, and yet it felt very different. He walked down to the lowest level to stand beside the stone that had Hannah¡¯s name carved on it. ¡°You know,¡± he said, reaching out to touch the letters, ¡°I affixed the next day. That sounds insane. If you¡¯d been around, I¡¯m sure you would¡¯ve given me some advice before I leaped headfirst into being an Avowed.¡± He wondered what she would¡¯ve said. The things you told a kid who admired you were probably different than the things you told someone who was about to sign the Contract and come live this life for real. Boe had made a similar point. It was a good point. Alden wasn¡¯t sure how much it mattered now, after everything. ¡°Or maybe you¡¯d have been exactly the same person with the same things to say. It wouldn¡¯t surprise me. You always seemed to know what you believed in so clearly¡­. You were the coolest, Hannah. All the superhero fans who didn¡¯t notice you because you chose to work in the background really missed out.¡± He pressed his finger to the stone harder then pulled it back to see the impression of one of the letter A¡¯s left behind on his skin. ¡°I¡¯ve changed a lot.¡± When he turned his head, he could see the spot on the first terrace where he¡¯d chosen to sit when he came for the funeral. ¡°There¡¯s this chasm between then and now. And it¡¯s not just those ¡®growing up¡¯ changes everyone tells you are coming for you. ¡°Don¡¯t think I¡¯m complaining. I¡¯m not. Not at the moment anyway. I¡¯ve gone through some epic agonizing since I got home two and a half months ago. But I¡¯ve been getting used to caring about different stuff and thinking differently. And it¡¯s not bad. I think this side of the chasm is probably just as good in a different way. I wish we could hang out and talk about it. I hope we¡¯d still be friends.¡± He left a short while later. The sky was bright. It was going to be a clear day. ****** ¡°You guys, let¡¯s ask the whole team if they do want to meet up and work out strategy for tomorrow,¡± Alden said as he entered the apartment later with a takeout container from Cafeteria North in hand. ¡°They might be up for it, and even if it¡¯s only a couple of them and us, that¡¯ll be half the group. I¡¯ve got some thoughts.¡± ¡°I was just checking with the library!¡± Haoyu was drinking an iced fruit tea and looking much more like himself than he had earlier. ¡°There are study rooms big enough for the group, but we can only have them for three hours at a time.¡± ¡°What if we take turns booking them?¡± Alden asked. ¡°If we could keep one all day, then whenever some of us didn¡¯t have class we could be in there working stuff out. I book one, and then you book it for the end of my time slot, then Lexi, then Jeffy¡ª¡± Haoyu¡¯s hands moved through the air. ¡°That should work! I don¡¯t see anything saying it won¡¯t on the website. Why Jeffy?¡± ¡°Because he¡¯s probably already awake. He gets up early. And he seems eager to participate in general.¡± Lexi came down the hall, buttoning the cuffs of his shirt. ¡°We should strategize, but I don¡¯t see how you two are going to get everyone to agree on everything.¡± ¡°I doubt we¡¯ll agree on everything,¡± said Alden, ¡°but there are a couple of things I know would help me run the course better that I can¡¯t imagine any of you disagreeing with. So if we start from there, I think it¡¯ll cool off some tempers and put everyone in a more helpful frame of mind. Can I¡­lead the beginning of the meeting, I guess?¡± Haoyu looked curious. ¡°And how mad do you two think Lute will be if I wake him up early?¡± Alden asked. ¡°He won¡¯t be mad at all,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°You should do it.¡± ¡°He¡¯s joking,¡± Lexi warned. ¡°I¡¯m not. You should do it, Alden. Do it.¡± ¡°I did bring him waffles from the cart. Hot and fresh.¡± He held up the takeout container. ¡°That makes up for it, right?¡± Lute grumbled about being dragged from his bed for an unplanned tutoring session, but Alden didn¡¯t think he was actually annoyed. ¡°You banished Hazel from the planet, so I guess you deserve more of my company.¡± Alden had been reaching across the table to hand him the food. That made him pause. ¡°I did what?¡± ¡°Heard it from Roman and the Grandwitch herself yesterday," said Lute. "According to Roman, Hazel freaked out and ran away to work for our employers in a full-time capacity because she couldn¡¯t take the heat from the video. Aulia¡¯s story is that this is a character rehabilitation retreat. She says Hazel will come back from it more at peace with her skill and rank.¡± I ran a person off of Earth? He did not know how to feel about that. Lute took his breakfast from Alden and opened the box. Steam wafted out. He smiled. ¡°The waffles are still crispy. The chocolate curls and the mocha whipped cream aren¡¯t even melted.¡± ¡°I know," said Alden. Lute dragged his finger through the whipped cream. ¡°What are you doing with your life, man? Become a delivery person. Put a couple of drones out of business.¡± ****** Throughout the morning, the team gradually agreed to meet up. At twelve fifteen, when Conversation IV let out, Alden dashed across campus to the library. He took the stairs up to the sixth-floor study room they¡¯d booked and tried to figure out how to use the projector so that they could have video of their runs from yesterday up on the wall. Everyone who wasn¡¯t here in the room was going to be on call through their interface, except for Astrid. She''d been invited to a special practice session with a visiting Morph mentor. A short while later, when the rest of the team had all gathered or joined the call, there was an unpleasant thirty seconds of everyone staring at each other before Alden cleared his throat and said, ¡°Just to be clear, I¡¯m not trying to be team captain or something like that. But I figured we needed to start somewhere. Does anyone mind if I direct the conversation for now? I have my last class of the day in an hour, so if someone else wants to take over then that¡¯s great.¡± [I don¡¯t mind,] Haoyu texted from his current class. ¡°Should you really be the one¡ª¡± Reinhard started to say. ¡°It sounds great to me,¡± Maricel interrupted. Reinhard side-eyed her put didn¡¯t protest. ¡°Okay,¡± said Alden. ¡°Let¡¯s clear the air. Yesterday was less than ideal.¡± ¡°It was embarrassing,¡± said Njeri. She was wearing a jacket with the hockey club¡¯s emblem on the back, and she¡¯d brought a big bag of pita chips and jars of dip for her lunch. ¡°We came across as a bunch of incompetent kids,¡± said Reinhard, drumming his fingers on the conference table. We kind of are, thought Alden. But since almost the entire group was nodding in agreement, he didn¡¯t voice the opinion. ¡°I wanted the principal to tell Instructor Klein I was cool,¡± Jeffy said. ¡°I don¡¯t think I looked cool.¡± Maricel was sitting beside him and across from Alden. ¡°Why did you want that to happen?¡± ¡°Because whenever I ask a question during Offense sessions, he says, ¡®You¡¯re asking the wrong question. That¡¯s not something an Aqua Brute really needs to worry about.¡¯ If the principal told him it was fine for me to fight on land instead of doing water rescues¡ª¡± Reinhard and Everly both opened their mouths; in a classroom in the Forthright building, Lexi was lifting his hand to type something that was no doubt scathing. ¡°This is good!¡± Alden interrupted quickly. ¡°I actually wanted to discuss this with everyone. What do you all want from the runs tomorrow? Yesterday we just went at it, and I know everyone was trying really hard. None of us are slackers. But we were getting pissed at each other and misunderstanding each other.¡± ¡°We all want the same thing,¡± said Reinhard. ¡°To win.¡± Lots of nodding at that. ¡°Yeah.¡± Alden leaned back in his chair. ¡°Everyone would prefer to win. But I don¡¯t know if winning is the only thing we all want or even the most important thing. Some people were compromising personal goals a lot yesterday and others were only compromising a little. It¡¯s not fair. And it made us all have different expectations of each other.¡± Most of them didn¡¯t look like they got what he was saying. ¡°Do you guys really want the team to win more than anything else?¡± he asked. ¡°Or is it more important to you that you get to accomplish something just for yourself out on the course, since we¡¯ve only got one more day to use it? We should be honest about it. For example, Maricel¡ª¡± She made a startled sound as everyone turned to her. ¡°She was ignoring her own practice to be a team player yesterday. Which I don¡¯t think we all appreciated enough. She only used sandbags for lifting and shielding, and that¡¯s not what she¡¯s working on with her powers right now. She¡¯s trying to learn to compress loose soil into shapes while she moves it. I¡¯m sure she would rather have a big pile of dirt, but the sandbags are faster and easier for her to throw around. So she did that just for the rest of us. It was great of you. Thanks.¡± ¡°You mean we need to decide on that kind of thing?¡± Everly asked. Her silver buns were held up by a pair of pencils, and she had snowflakes painted on her fingernails. Alden nodded. ¡°We should know where everyone stands. I think it¡¯s all right if we want to think of the course as a personal playground or a chance to show off individually instead of a quest for team victory. But it ought to be all of us who get to behave that way instead of some of us, and we should set some limits on it so it¡¯s not a total fiasco again.¡± [He means the archer,] Lexi typed. ¡°I have a name!¡± Reinhard said. ¡°I told you that shooting Tuyet¡ª¡± ¡°You just wanted to prove you could take out an S-rank,¡± said Njeri. ¡°You announced that you wanted to target her before the race even started. And then you took two more shots we didn¡¯t all agree on in the next game.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a ranged Meister! Do you know how irritating class has been? Rescue, Defense, the maze¡ªmy bow is useless for all of it! It¡¯s not like Lexi¡¯s tool. He can lift and slice. I just shoot. And the only thing I¡¯m allowed to shoot is tennis balls and Klein, who is obviously the son of an eel. Now you guys want me not to shoot people when I finally have the chance? I¡¯m our main offense!¡± ¡°Just don¡¯t shoot people until we tell you to shoot people,¡± said Njeri. Alden examined Reinhard. He¡¯d gotten his pale brown hair turned into a buzzcut since combat assessment day. ¡°So is the most important thing to you being our primary offense?¡± he asked. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. A couple of people might object to that. ¡°I just don¡¯t want to look like I¡¯m not doing anything,¡± said Reinhard. ¡°Other students are watching us. The first years are sharing it around. My older sister¡¯s in third year. When she sees our footage I want to look like an archer. Not like a guy carrying a bow for no reason. Do you want to look useless in front of the entire school?¡± They all shifted and shot uncomfortable glances at Alden. Thanks, guys. But you¡¯d all be useless if you were asleep, too. ¡°About what I want¡­¡± he said. ¡°First, I¡¯d like for all of you to tell me how you need me to assist you on each obstacle, or how you can assist me, if it¡¯s just the two of us working together. Before we run again. If we can agree on it, we¡¯ll know what to expect from each other.¡± There had been a wasteful amount of back and forth yesterday. ¡°Second, I¡¯m going to the big Wright shop to pick up some more temper spheres before class tomorrow. I don¡¯t know what we could use them for, unless we give Lucille one to throw at the enemy. But if you do want my screaming invisible ball spell for anything, just say so. I¡¯ll have plenty. ¡°And third, I wanted to let everyone know that I would be using a new wordchain tomorrow. It basically helps me function at my peak¡ªbetter balance, more efficient movements, slightly higher spatial awareness.¡± [You¡¯ve got it down already?] Haoyu asked. He was wriggling a lot in his seat. Alden had the feeling he would much rather be here with the team than in his class right now. ¡°I¡¯m really close.¡± Alden had nearly had it during this morning¡¯s tutoring session. ¡°If any of you have wordchains you think would benefit you but you need help mastering them, Lute Velra said he wouldn¡¯t mind giving pointers. Obviously you can¡¯t learn a new one from scratch. However, if you¡¯ve got one that already works, but only occasionally, or you think you just need a tip or two to figure one out, he might be able to help.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve heard about that Velra guy,¡± said Reinhard, his expression growing concerned. ¡°He killed his girlfriend¡¯s platypus?¡± Further proof Lute needs reputation repair. ¡°Lute definitely did not do that,¡± Alden answered. ¡°It was a freak accident, possibly caused by a wordchain he had no say in the casting of. And she was not his girlfriend, and it was not a platypus. Sometimes disturbing, sad things happen that we have no control over.¡± He clasped his hands together on top of the table. ¡°So, that¡¯s it for me! I¡¯m happy to go along with whatever the team wants and try to make it work. I¡¯d rather not be the other teams¡¯ favorite target again, but if it goes that way, I¡¯ll deal with it. Also, I¡¯ve been brainstorming ideas for obstacles, but I wanted to hear what you all thought.¡± It turned out, they had a lot of thoughts. And not all of them were things Alden would have expected. While he was sitting in Intro to Other Worlds a short while later, listening to their ongoing discussion more than the instructor¡¯s lecture, they were still trying to decide if they really wanted to win no matter what or if they wanted to give everyone the chance to show off and try things. Alden wasn¡¯t surprised to find that most of them were more concerned with their individual performances over the team¡¯s, but he was interested in the variety of their reasoning for it. Reinhard was worried about looking bad and making his sister look bad. Everly¡¯s parents often asked to watch her gym footage, and she really didn¡¯t want them to see her failing. ¡°They worry so much about me being in this program. It¡¯ll scare them if I look weak. I want them to know I can keep up.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to kill anyone,¡± a voice said so quietly that Alden almost didn¡¯t catch it. ¡°I was afraid you were all going to ask me to attack the other team yesterday. I don¡¯t want to.¡± Alden directed one of the video images to come back into the center of his line of sight. While he took in the library scene, his fingers hovered over the keys of his laptop, the cursor on the screen blinking halfway through a page that had started as class notes and turned into team notes. Nobody said anything for a second. ¡°What do you mean, Lucille?¡± Haoyu asked. He and Lexi now had a free period, so they were there. Maricel was in an Algebra class. And Jeffy was in the big lecture theater on the floor below Alden. For some reason, he was writing ideas on a notebook and holding them up for everyone to read rather than texting. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± said Lucille. ¡°I know I¡¯m an S. Refusing to use lethal attacks means the team has less options. But I want to be a no-kill hero.¡± ¡°The gentle giant type,¡± Reinhard said with a nod. ¡°It¡¯s a classic for a Strength Brute, but it can fall apart if you get into the wrong kinds of situations.¡± ¡°I just don¡¯t want to do it.¡± Lucille¡¯s dark hair fell in her eyes as she stared down at a single pita chip on a napkin in front of her. ¡°And I¡¯m not a giant. I¡¯m an average height.¡± ¡°It¡¯s just what the type is called¡­¡± ¡°But this is gym,¡± Njeri pointed out. ¡°The realism settings are very low. Even you said walking through the fire was like getting a sunburn, so it¡¯s not like we¡¯re really hurting people.¡± Lucille took a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯ve decided if I ever kill anyone, even just in gym, I¡¯ll give up on being a city-affiliated hero. I¡¯ll switch to disaster rescue only. Like Fragment.¡± A strangled sound escaped from Reinhard. ¡°That¡¯s too extreme! They¡¯re completely different lives. Don¡¯t give up on your dreams because of something that happens in our classes!¡± ¡°What if you do it accidentally? What if you just make a mistake?¡± Njeri asked. ¡°Then I wouldn¡¯t trust myself not to do it again.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°There¡¯s no reason she has to use lethal force. It¡¯s probably better if we use less attacks like that anyway. For strategy reasons.¡± [Lucille helps with a ton of other stuff on the course,] Alden added by text. [She doesn¡¯t need to attack, too.] ¡°But what are you going to do in duels when we start those?¡± Reinhard asked the Brute. ¡°I don¡¯t mind pinning people.¡± ¡°Only pinning people?!¡± ¡°Let her do it how she wants,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°You want to be our main offense tomorrow anyway. Jeffy, about the water obstacle¡­you don¡¯t really hate your skill, do you?¡± ¡°It¡¯s boring,¡± he said aloud. Then he looked around at his neighbors in the lecture hall and grabbed his notebook again. ¡°It¡¯s literally not,¡± Njeri said. ¡°Sink and Surface is so useful.¡± It¡¯s just going up and down in the water, Jeffy wrote. He had surprisingly good handwriting. ¡°Why him?¡± Lexi murmured to himself. Then, louder, he said, ¡°You know 71% of the planet is underwater, don¡¯t you?¡± More writing: All the people are above the water. Who cares about the fish? Haoyu¡¯s forehead wrinkled. He exhaled slowly. ¡°Why in Apex did you take Aqua Brute if you didn¡¯t want it? You could¡¯ve traded it for any other Brute class. I know so many people who would love¡ª¡± Jeffy held up his notebook: The internet told me to take it. So I could get into school with you guys! And my grandpa thought it was a good idea. Reinhard was making more distressed noises. Njeri was shaking her head. Everly had steepled her fingers in front of her mouth. ¡°Surely you like being able to stay underwater for a long time when other people can¡¯t?¡± Jeffy looked like he was pondering the question. He started to write in the notebook. A notice appeared on Alden¡¯s roommate chat. [Lexi: One of you tell me what he says if it¡¯s worth hearing. Otherwise leave me ignorant. I find him stressful.] ****** ¡°Alden, are you all right?¡± He looked up in surprise to see Vandy beside his desk. He¡¯d been polishing off a final note about Lucille. Njeri had suggested finding out if the Strength Brute grabbing someone on the other team and carrying them backwards along their course to place them beside an inconvenient obstacle could count as a single attack or if it wasn¡¯t allowed. Alden shut the laptop hastily. ¡°Yeah! I¡¯m fine, Vandy! Why?¡± ¡°I was watching you in class to figure out what you were preserving today¡ª¡± Of course you were. ¡°¡ªand I noticed you making very pained facial expressions. You did hit a couple of hurdles yesterday.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t! I jumped them all!¡± Blue-gray eyes blinked at him. ¡°I mean when your teammates were carrying you while you slept.¡± ¡°Oh, that. I¡¯m fine.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re injured, you should go to the campus health center.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not injured.¡± She scanned him up and down. ¡°I¡¯m not injured,¡± he repeated. ¡°Promise. Unless Tuyet asks. Then I¡¯m very injured, and she should feel guilty.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re not hurt, that¡¯s good¡­¡± She stared at him. ¡°She wants you to say why you weren¡¯t paying attention in class now,¡± Haoyu informed him through the still-active video call. Alden nodded at Vandy. ¡°I''m really not hurt. I was just thinking about our¡ª¡± ¡°Tell her nothing,¡± Njeri interrupted. ¡°This is competition. We take every advantage!¡± ¡°How is not telling her we¡¯re having a meeting an advantage?¡± Maricel asked as she left her math class. ¡°She¡¯ll want to have one, too,¡± said Everly. ¡°I know she wants to have one, too,¡± Maricel replied. ¡°She¡¯s been trying to organize her team all day.¡± They all started giving Alden a completely ridiculous amount of advice for how to deal with a curious classmate. ¡°You''re making those expressions again,¡± said Vandy. At the same time, Reinhard was suggesting that Alden ¡°do what¡¯s right for the team¡± by asking Vandy for homework help so that she¡¯d be too busy to organize her own group. That¡¯s really quite deceitful of him. ¡°I was thinking about our obstacle course run,¡± said Alden, deciding a compromise between full honesty and dastardly schemes was appropriate. ¡°Lots of emotions.¡± Before she could ask another question, he reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out his current preserved object. ¡°Do you want a pita chip? It¡¯s got mango chutney on it.¡± *** ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR: Poor Mice ****** 124 ***** ¡°I don¡¯t understand.¡± Jeffy was standing at the back of the study room, watching Reinhard pronounce a string of Artonan words for the tenth time. The wordchain was supposed to increase energy, and the archer said he wanted it for tomorrow. Lute listened to him from his perch on the edge of the conference table. ¡°You don¡¯t go to class sometimes?¡± Jeffy asked Lute. ¡°And the teachers don¡¯t mind?¡± ¡°They¡¯ll mind if you don¡¯t go to class,¡± Lexi told him. ¡°Get over here and discuss the water obstacle with Njeri. It¡¯s important.¡± ¡°Being an Aqua Brute is so cool,¡± said Astrid. She¡¯d been trying to hype Jeffy up about swimming ever since arriving from her special Morph training to join their team planning session. She had given herself an aquiline nose and added long asymmetrical bangs to her hair. Her tongue was pierced again, and she assured them she was now confident in her ability to make her legs four and a half centimeters longer ¡°without any loss of their leg functionalities!¡± for her running and hurdling convenience. She did seem taller when she walked in, Alden thought, scraping the last of the tabbouleh out of a takeout container from Cafeteria North. He was sitting between Astrid and Lucille, watching footage of Team Vandy/Marsha. Over the course of the evening, everyone had fallen into the habit of calling the other teams by the names of their most intimidating members. Naturally, that meant the S-ranks. Alden had been annoyed by it to start with, and now it sounded almost natural. The rank fixation is pernicious. He thought it was also keeping some of his teammates from giving the other players due respect. ¡°Does anyone know if Reinhard can actually shoot Mehdi? I know we said it would be an option, but just because he¡¯s an A-rank it doesn¡¯t mean¡ª¡± ¡°Of course I can!¡± <> Lute commanded in Artonan, pelting Reinhard in the forehead with one of the paper clips he¡¯d been bending into interesting shapes for the past hour. He¡¯d taken a fistful from the supply room on the way into the library, and thanks to his fast hands, he¡¯d gone through dozens of them already. Reinhard rubbed his head, glared, then went back to practicing. ¡°Rein can probably hit him,¡± said Astrid. ¡°Mehdi¡¯s got his threat detection skill, but its radius is a little less than three meters right now.¡± ¡°That¡¯s relevant if Reinhard¡¯s shooting him from behind,¡± Alden said, ¡°but we¡¯re not going to get off many surprise attacks. The bell rings when one of us crosses the finish line. They all know something¡¯s coming. Mehdi might be looking right at him when he draws the bow.¡± Alden still didn¡¯t have a good sense of how fast everyone and everything moved in the gym. Yesterday, when Reinhard had fired on Febri¡ªthe S-rank Agi Brute from the team they were now calling Febri/Shrike¡ªhe¡¯d missed. Febri had the same Instant Corners skill as Instructor Klein, and even though it was at the first level, he¡¯d managed to use it to change the position of his body in a blink so that Reinhard¡¯s shot had swept past his back instead of hitting him dead center in the chest. Apparently, Alden wasn¡¯t the only one remembering that moment, because Haoyu piped up from the corner where he, Everly, and Maricel were watching video of an Adjuster who had the same super-slick ice trap spell that Everly could use. ¡°If we face Team Febri/Shrike again,¡± he said, ¡°I think their Adjuster, Olive, would be a better choice of target than either of the S-ranks.¡± Lexi pointed at Reinhard. ¡°He means you were an idiot for targeting the one member of that team you definitely couldn¡¯t hit last time.¡± On the screen, Alden watched Winston Heelfeather emerge from the pipe and hit the speed zone Max had laid down between it and the fire obstacle. There was another speed zone inside the box with the flaming walls itself and yet another with the weights, alongside the zone that Alden thought of as the invisible swimming pool. ¡°They used him so fucking badly.¡± Irritation crept into his voice as Max arrived back at the fire himself only to have to cast the speed spell again. ¡°Who?¡± Njeri asked. ¡°Winston?¡± ¡°No. Max.¡± ¡°He didn¡¯t sleep in his room last night,¡± Jeffy said. ¡°I called to ask where he was, and he was on the train to his mom¡¯s place. He stayed there.¡± Several people looked interested at the news. Njeri walked over to stare at the screen. ¡°I don¡¯t really see how they misused him, Alden. The speed increases are helping them all get through that section of the course with a lot less movement restriction penalties from the burns, and the¡­float zone?¡­is making it so that some of them can move the weights when they wouldn¡¯t usually be able to.¡± ¡°Those are fine areas to put his zones down. Practically the whole course is a good place for one of them,¡± Alden said. ¡°But almost every member of their team who comes to one is using it, regardless of what the state of the rest of the group is. Max¡¯s zones are cool, but they have capacity limitations. Someone with high stats blasting through them or someone standing inside of one using spells makes the effect end faster.¡± The fire obstacle was a big slowdown if your team didn¡¯t have a hard counter to it. And the Vandy/Marsha team didn¡¯t have many. ¡°You think Winston should¡¯ve dodged the zone and left it for someone behind him?¡± Njeri asked. ¡°Lucille can get through the fire with no help and a ten percent movement restriction. Winston should be able to do at least that well.¡± In Alden¡¯s opinion, there was no good reason for a Speed Brute to have his pace tripled when there were a bunch of slower people on his team and he couldn¡¯t move through upcoming obstacles without them. ¡°He just doesn¡¯t want to be slowed down for the rest of the course,¡± Astrid said. ¡°He¡¯s trying to get exciting shots for his fans, too.¡± One of Everly¡¯s silver buns was gradually coming loose as the night wore on, the pencil holding it in place sagging toward her ear. ¡°When he posted his gym clips this morning, that moment when he ran through the flames was his opener. He mentioned that he¡¯d benefited from a spell effect in the text description, but nobody reads those.¡± ¡°Is he allowed to post the official school gym footage?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I thought there was a rule against putting it online?¡± ¡°You can if you¡¯re the only person visible.¡± She lifted her eyebrows. ¡°I¡¯ve been meaning to ask you¡­when are you going to update your account? I tried to connect with everybody in the class, but you haven¡¯t posted anything since October of last year.¡± ¡°He¡¯s got thirty thousand comments on that post,¡± Njeri said. ¡°He¡¯s never going to be able to read them all.¡± Lute spun around on the table. ¡°I read a lot of them. They mostly say, ¡®He died.¡¯ Or ¡®He¡¯s not dead!¡¯ Or, more recently, ¡®He came back for the radishes.¡¯¡± Good to have a summary I guess. Everly side-eyed Lute. She¡¯d been doing that a lot, but she hadn¡¯t said anything negative. ¡°Why are you all studying a picture I took of a bunch of pigeons over a year ago?¡± Alden asked. They exchanged looks. ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to say anything,¡± said Reinhard, dropping his hands from their casting position. ¡°Because I don¡¯t know you. But if I were you I¡¯d post something soon. Take advantage of all the interest you¡¯ve gotten recently. Leverage it. You should try to do something cool during the run tomorrow and put it up. And talk about the video with that girl who was¡­uh¡­¡± He frowned at Lute. ¡°How dare you think unkind thoughts about my cousin,¡± said Lute, curving a paper clip into a spiral. ¡°Alden could do a ¡®How I Became an Avowed¡¯ post!¡± Everly said. ¡°Those are always soooo much better for globies than for us. It¡¯s exciting because being chosen is a surprise for all of you! Maricel¡¯s started posting, but she hasn¡¯t done one of those either.¡± She nudged Maricel with her shoulder. ¡°Vandy has suggested it a few times,¡± Maricel said in a neutral voice. When Alden didn¡¯t answer right away, Haoyu cleared his throat. ¡°Guys, he might not want to curate a media presence as a first year.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t.¡± ¡°My profiles are all private,¡± Haoyu added. ¡°Some of you are really rushing superhero persona creation.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t do social media,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Never would¡¯ve guessed,¡± Reinhard muttered. ¡°Can we get task-focused?¡± Alden asked, gesturing toward the video. ¡°I¡¯ve never wanted to be an internet-famous person. I only posted the pigeons because they were walking along the sidewalk in a perfectly straight line. Now, about Winston¡ª¡± ¡°No wonder he¡¯s got a problem with you,¡± Reinhard said. ¡°He wants to be an internet-famous person so bad. And you¡¯re getting there without trying.¡± Fine. Let¡¯s not be task-focused. It was eleven o¡¯clock at night, and they¡¯d all been at this off and on throughout the day. Expecting everyone to stay on topic one hundred percent of the time was probably too much. ¡°We were discussing famousness in the locker room before the gokoratch video!¡± Astrid announced. ¡°Winston got really mad at the party when people started giving Finlay advice about this kind of thing.¡± Alden sighed. ¡°Is he seriously mad that Finlay is more popular than him online? That¡¯s it? That¡¯s his whole issue?¡± ¡°I think so,¡± said Astrid. ¡°Getting more popular,¡± Njeri corrected. ¡°Winston¡¯s actually still slightly ahead on the follower count. But that¡¯s just because he started months ago. Finlay¡¯s going to pass him and then keep passing him¡­in multiple ways, which probably makes it worse.¡± ¡°I do feel a tad sorry for him,¡± said Everly. ¡°I think his family put a lot of money into advertising him before he even left home. There was some kind of a tour of the US? He was doing interviews and making so many videos. He¡¯s more friendly on camera than in person, and it must have been a lot of work. It¡¯s probably part of what made him appealing to the admissions committee.¡± Wow. It really is some kind of celebrity wannabe drama. Apparently Winston was going for that sports drink branding deal he¡¯d mentioned the first time Alden and Maricel had met him. ¡°Can we talk about Marsha?¡± he suggested hopefully before they could get farther away from business. He paused the video on a curvy girl with blue eyes and shoulder-length dark hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. She¡¯d spoken to him exactly once, during the class meet-and-greet on acceptance day. She¡¯d been fairly condescending about B-ranks, and they¡¯d basically never had reason to speak to each other since then. On the screen, Marsha was carrying a polearm with a haft that looked like it was made of engraved bone. She could change the shape of the blade. It currently resembled a glaive, and she was bringing it down in a sweeping motion toward Finlay, who¡¯d shoved Jupiter out of the way of the strike. Finlay would¡¯ve managed to dodge it if Marsha was wielding a normal weapon, but the polearm could deliver a near-instant magical follow-up slice equal to the force of the original swing. Two deadly strokes for the price of one. Marsha could choose to some degree what direction that invisible slash of force traveled in, so if she missed someone with a swipe of the physical blade, the magical strike coming in from a surprise angle might get them. Which was exactly what happened to Finlay. ¡°Marsha¡¯s got a unique personality,¡± Everly said in a diplomatic tone. ¡°Marsha¡¯s got a lot of pent-up feelings,¡± said Njeri. ¡°Or something.¡± ¡°Marsha just sliced that fast guy in half, and she looked happy about it. Avoid her.¡± They all turned to Lute. ¡°What? I¡¯m not allowed to comment? I¡¯m the team trainer.¡± Alden grinned at him. ¡°She probably looked happy because that was the only time anybody in our class has ever beaten Finlay. What I was going to say was that it seems like Marsha might be able to run the whole course by herself. Is that right? The way she uses the magic strikes to toss some of the weights is really cumbersome and slow, but other than that¡­¡± The girls exchanged looks. ¡°I think it depends on if it¡¯s her first run or her second,¡± Maricel said. Lucille was nodding. ¡°She doesn¡¯t like to hold back,¡± Maricel explained. ¡°Our advisors for The Superlatives club even mentioned it. She¡¯ll use her talents for everything even if she doesn¡¯t need to. So by the end of class, if she¡¯s the last one left on her team, she might not have enough magic to run the whole course.¡± ¡°Marsha has run herself dry attacking Instructor Klein twice already. Vandy tried to give her advice about it the second time¡­¡± Njeri shook her head. ¡°That didn¡¯t go well.¡± Alden looked back at the video of the S-rank. After dispatching Finlay and returning to her team¡¯s half of the course, she chanted a spell over the weapon and flung it at the magic wall like a spear. It embedded itself deeply near the top. Rather than taking a weapon recall talent like many Meisters did, Marsha had done the opposite and taken an ability that pulled her body toward the polearm. Alden couldn¡¯t imagine what it looked like if she used it to move along the ground, but ground-to-air looked uncomfortable. Like she was being yanked forcefully upward by unseen puppet strings. It works great though. Her hands clamped onto the haft, and she swung herself up onto the top of the wall, pulling her weapon free as she went. ¡°I want to do that,¡± Jeffy said longingly. Astrid spun her chair around to face him. ¡°Sure! But just imagine how much more awesome it would be to do something like that underwater.¡± ****** They worked until midnight and might¡¯ve kept going if not for Lexi threatening to read them research on how lack of sleep made you too klutzy to run obstacle courses. ¡°Does that specific research really exist?¡± Haoyu yawned as they passed below a lamppost on their way back across campus toward Garden Hall. Alden and his roommates were lagging a couple of minutes behind the rest of the group, since Lute had wanted to explore the library¡¯s free office supply offerings some more. ¡°Some scientist made a bunch of people go without sleep, and then ran them through an obstacle course?¡± ¡°It was a maze. And it was mice. But it still applies.¡± ¡°Poor mice.¡± ¡°Are you guys going to win?¡± Lute asked. ¡°I¡¯ll be depressed if you lose now that I¡¯ve contributed.¡± ¡°Three wordchains,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Hours of tutoring,¡± Lute countered. ¡°Reinhard won¡¯t be a fatigued maze mouse even if he stays up all night. Njeri will be very slightly stronger. And Astrid will feel more peaceful when everything¡¯s going wrong. Assuming they all remember what I told them. I have my doubts.¡± ¡°Thank you for doing it,¡± said Alden. Lexi sighed. ¡°It was nice.¡± ¡°It was great of you!¡± Haoyu agreed. Lute leaped ahead of them on the sidewalk and gave them a dramatic bow. ¡°I am great. But seriously¡­are you going to win? The other teams look scarier than you guys.¡± ¡°They all have an S-rank weapon Meister except for us. Tuyet, Marsha, and Shrike are pure offense,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Are we seriously supposed to call Knife Guy ¡®Shrike?¡¯¡± Alden asked. ¡°Even if he¡¯s picked a favorite hero name, are we sure he doesn¡¯t want us to use his real name in casual conversation?¡± ¡°You¡¯re calling him Knife Guy,¡± Lexi pointed out. ¡°And I can¡¯t believe you didn¡¯t know the name of one of the class S-ranks.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve barely interacted with him. Maricel didn¡¯t remember either!¡± The Knife Meister wasn¡¯t much of a talker, as it turned out, because of a language gap. He was just learning English, and he often kept translations turned off for the immersion experience. ¡°Ignacio wants to use both names, so either should be fine,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I think we could win. Our team is interesting, too. Lots of versatility. Strategy is up in the air still since we decided to let everyone have at least one of their personal goals. But even with that, we¡¯ll work together so much better this time around.¡± As they approached the dorm, Lexi said, ¡°You never mentioned if there was anything you wanted to try.¡± ¡°Me?¡± Alden asked. Lexi nodded. ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± said Haoyu. ¡°You were the one who said we should be open about it if we wanted to test something out or show something off while we have access to the course. Didn¡¯t you want to try anything?¡± Alden looked up toward his own bedroom window as they passed below it. The neighboring girls¡¯ dorm had gotten an upgrade yesterday in the form of twinkle lights in their ivy. He assumed the boys¡¯ building would soon follow. ¡°I just want to hang out in the background and find ways to use my power to support everyone else,¡± he said finally. ¡°Is that all?¡± Haoyu leaned around Lexi to see him better. ¡°You¡¯re sure?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to use my new wordchain, too. And I¡¯ve got a few ideas that could be fun if the appropriate situations arise. It¡¯s enough. I¡¯ll be getting plenty of practice whatever I do¡­as long as nobody knocks me out.¡± They entered the sliding doors, paused for a moment in the common area so Lexi could throw a bunch of trash someone had left on one of the tables into the recycling bins, then headed up the stairs. ¡°I call the tub,¡± Lute announced as their feet pounded up the steps. ¡°It¡¯s my right as team trainer.¡± Haoyu nodded. ¡°Sounds fair.¡± ¡°I call¡ª¡± said Lexi. ¡°First shower is mine!¡± Haoyu said in a rush. ¡°Ha! I win. You can¡ª¡± A scream interrupted him. Alden jumped. His hand clenched against the soft fabric of his bag. All four of them looked at the ceiling. ¡°It wasn¡¯t that loud,¡± said Lexi. ¡°It must have come from inside a room.¡± ¡°Should we¡ª?¡± Haoyu gestured upwards. ¡°Someone¡¯s on fire.¡± Lute tilted his head. ¡°What?¡± Lexi demanded. ¡°What do you me¡ª?¡± ¡°Someone¡¯s really¡­FUCK!¡± Lute shouted, bolting up the last few steps and then racing for the third floor. ¡°ET!! ET yourself!!¡± They were all three right behind him. Alden¡¯s laptop-laden bag smashed into his hip as they rounded the corner. He took the stairs up to the next floor two at a time behind Haoyu. No time for thoughts other than the most obvious. Fire? Who is it? My skill¡­ Voices were shouting. Lute was banging on the door of Suite 313, cursing a lot, and yelling for whoever the injured person was to emergency teleport to the hospital. The door flew open, and Sanjay from their class pelted out. ¡°Sanjay!¡± Lexi said. ¡°Who¡¯s hurt?¡± Sanjay leaped through the air, heading down the stairs Alden and the others had just come up without actually using them. He hit the landing in a roll that smashed him into a wall, then he was up and leaping down the next flight, nothing but a broken flip-flop left behind. ¡°Holy shit,¡± said Alden. They pushed into the apartment. Every surface was covered in food, bags, and tech; and people were shouting in the hall. They ran in to find themselves at the back of a group of their classmates who were crowding the doorway of one of the bedrooms. ¡°Oh my god, oh my god,¡± Rebecca was saying. ¡°He needs the hospital.¡± ¡°It¡¯s out! The fire¡¯s out! Stay calm!¡± someone shrieked wildly. ¡°Everyone stay calm!¡± <> ¡°Shut up! I can¡¯t hear!¡± ¡°S?ren? S?ren, why didn¡¯t you ET?¡± The air smelled like smoke. Without pausing to figure out exactly what had gone down, Alden tried to squeeze his way between Rebecca and another one of the class¡¯s Brutes to get through the door into the bedroom. Someone was apologizing almost hysterically. ¡°Rebecca,¡± said Alden, ¡°Rebecca, if someone¡¯s hurt, move.¡± ¡°Hey!¡± a voice rang out sharply. ¡°Fucking move, all of you!¡± It was Lexi. ¡°Alden¡¯s skill is good for injured people!¡± Haoyu shouted right after him. ¡°Let him through!¡± Rebecca leaped out of the way and across the room so fast she almost went through the window. Alden hurried inside, taking it all in as fast as he could. A slightly charred desk, a broken lamp, water everywhere, and a metal bucket on its side by the loft bed¡¯s ladder. S?ren was lying on the floor, breathing hard. His lips trembled and he clumsily waved away an anxious Reinhard¡ªwho must have arrived back here at his apartment just in time to witness the accident¡ªwith one arm. Febri and Ignacio, the S-ranks from S?ren¡¯s team, squatted beside him. Both of them looked freaked out. Febri had struck Alden as an exuberant guy when he¡¯d first seen him at Konstantin¡¯s party, racing around dressed in caution tape, and though they hadn¡¯t said much to each other at all since then he didn¡¯t think the impression was wrong. Now, though, the Agility Brute was chewing nervously on a fingernail. And Ignacio¡¯s hands were hovering over S?ren¡¯s right side, like they were anxious to do something but unable to find the correct action. S?ren¡¯s shirt sleeve had obviously caught on fire. The exposed skin on his arm and shoulder looked awful. ¡°Some¡­some of the fabric is¡­I think it¡¯s stuck to your skin,¡± Febri said. ¡°And it¡¯s all blistered. You have to go to a healer.¡± <> Ignacio asked. ¡°I¡¯m f-fine,¡± S?ren said. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯m fine. I can still run tomorrow. I can run.¡± <> ¡°This is your fault!¡± Rebecca interrupted, pointing at the two S-ranks. ¡°You told him there was no reason for him to be in the team meeting!¡± <> Ignacio said. <> How do you attack? thought Alden. Instructor Klein¡¯s bark from their first day of class came back to him so clearly the man might have been in the room. And S?ren¡¯s embarrassed reply had been...He can make places hot. Focus light to make heat. Just not with much control yet. Clearly. Alden crouched beside Reinhard and targeted the injured boy. ¡°That looks super painful. You want me to pick you up? I¡¯m even more instant than Artonan drugs.¡± The Light Shaper shook his head. He wiped at his watering eyes with his unburned arm. ¡°I¡¯m fine. I just want a moment. Leave me alone,¡± he babbled. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re not fine!¡± Reinhard said. ¡°Your arm looks like it¡¯s been grilled. You¡¯re running on adrenaline or something. Are you crazy? ET. Now.¡± A commotion by the door announced the arrival of yet more classmates. The apartment had been crowded already with what was obviously a Team Febri/Shrike meeting. Now, a few members of Team Vandy/Marsha were out in the hall, and a pajama-clad Kon was stepping into the room, his curious expression fading and his eyes widening. ¡°We heard shouting¡­what happened!? Why didn¡¯t you send him to the¡ª?¡± <> ¡°Sanjay went to get a Healer,¡± someone whispered. ¡°His sister¡¯s girlfriend is one. She¡¯s in the uni dorms.¡± ¡°Did he forget he has the System now? Why didn¡¯t he just call her?¡± Lexi¡¯s voice rose again from out in the hallway. ¡°Injured people need the healing hospital, not a random student Sanjay knows.¡± ¡°I think he wants some space,¡± Alden said evenly. S?ren was covering his eyes with his arm again. ¡°He¡¯s not dying. There¡¯s no reason for everyone to stand around staring and discussing things.¡± Everyone ignored him. Does he have friends here? Alden looked around. He didn¡¯t know who the Light Shaper hung out with. Or if he spent much time with anybody at all. He had only been vaguely aware that S?ren and Reinhard were roommates. Everybody was chattering back and forth, some of them sharing would-be-helpful ideas, others just spreading gossip and blame around. Reading between the lines, it sounded like S?ren¡¯s teammates hadn¡¯t done much to hide the fact that they were unenthused about his presence on the team. A Shaper who couldn¡¯t shape yet, who was afraid of heights, who had to be carried over and through most of the course¡­ ¡°I don¡¯t want a Healer,¡± S?ren was saying in that same shaky voice, arm still covering his face. ¡°Nobody can know. They¡¯ll keep me from class tomorrow. I can¡¯t let everybody down again.¡± He¡¯s not making sense, thought Alden. There was no way to keep this secret, and there was no good reason to. He wouldn¡¯t even want to once the initial rush of emotion faded. The room smelled acrid. It wasn¡¯t like S?ren could even wear a gym suit at the moment. He needed a doctor, or someone with an appropriate and gentle spell, to peel his shirt off him without hurting him. Alden was opening his mouth to try some logic on the guy, when a girl¡¯s voice spoke up: ¡°Your team will run better without you on it. So just go to the hospital and get some meds. Take a break. Nobody here needs you, and all this drama is probably bad for you.¡± Alden looked around to see people moving out of Marsha¡¯s way. Winston was right behind her, standing on his tiptoes to see into the room better. Vandy wasn¡¯t with them. Guess it¡¯s too late for her to be with her team even if some of them did finally gather. Maricel had mentioned Vandy had a strict personal schedule. She believed in all-nighters even less than Lexi did. <> Ignacio said. Marsha shrugged. S?ren¡¯s lower lip was trembling worse. Alden looked around helplessly for a safe exit for the guy, before someone said something even more awful. He found the next best thing in the form of Konstantin, who was standing a few feet away, examining the broken lamp. [Kon, can¡¯t you get rid of them all?] he texted. [They¡¯re not helping anything.] Kon blinked, then lifted his head in surprise. ¡°Ah!¡± he said after only a second¡¯s thought. He set the lamp aside then spun around with a beaming smile on his face. ¡°Okay, okay. This isn¡¯t that serious, you lot. You¡¯re all acting like something crazy just happened.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because it did,¡± said Rebecca. ¡°We¡¯re Avowed now!¡± Kon said brightly. ¡°Sometimes power practice goes wrong. S?ren doesn¡¯t need help from twenty people. And I need to concentrate on fixing his lamp.¡± ¡°His lamp?¡± a boy asked. ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll try his desk, too.¡± Kon was making gestures with his arms as if to sweep them all away. ¡°Good practice. But you¡¯re all making too much noise, and my spell won¡¯t work if you distract me for too long, so¡­¡± He managed to chivvy most of the onlookers away from the door and down the hall, then he shut it behind them and locked it for good measure. They didn¡¯t stop talking and arguing, but at least it was muffled. Inside the room, the loudest sound was S?ren¡¯s heavy breathing. Rebecca, who had remained standing over by the window, suddenly said, ¡°S?ren, if you teleport to the hospital, I¡¯ll go meet you there. I don¡¯t think I can sleep tonight anyway.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good idea!¡± Febri sounded relieved. ¡°You won¡¯t be alone for long. You go ahead. Some of us will head over right away.¡± ¡°No,¡± S?ren said. ¡°No, I¡¯ll¡­I¡¯ll wait. If Sanjay¡¯s friend can help¡­then tomorrow¡­¡± As if he had something to prove, he lowered his good arm from his face and used it to push himself slowly up into a seated position, his face contorting as he did so. He took several more deep breaths. ¡°I¡¯ll be all right. I¡¯m a part of the team. I¡¯m a part of this program, too. I deserve to be here, too. I won¡¯t be slow on the wall again. I¡¯ll climb as fast as everyone else. As long as nobody tells the instructors, I can run, and¡ª¡± Alden made a decision. ¡°Sounds like a plan.¡± Febri and Ignacio stared at him. Rebecca made a sound of protest. Kon raised an eyebrow ¡°Maybe with a little help from the Healer Sanjay knows, and if you skip your early classes tomorrow and get some sleep, you¡¯ll be better in time for gym,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s worth a try. You should probably let me pick you up, though. So that you don¡¯t make anything worse before the Healer gets here.¡± S?ren blinked at him. ¡°You don¡¯t want to move around with an injury, right? It¡¯ll just make it harder for the Healer to fix you.¡± ¡°Just until the Healer comes?¡± S?ren asked, staring into his eyes with his own puffy ones. He really looked awful. His hair was half wet and dripping down the side of his neck, where the skin was bright red. He¡¯d been burned there too, just not bad enough to instantly blister. Alden nodded. ¡°Put the arm that¡¯s not hurt around my neck. I¡¯ll pick you up.¡± He smiled. ¡°You¡¯ll get to join the very exclusive time traveller club with Instructor Plim.¡± S?ren nodded slowly. A minute later, Alden stood up with one frozen Shaper in his arms. ¡°So,¡± he said, repositioning his hands now that he wasn¡¯t scared to hurt his classmate by touching the burns, ¡°I¡¯m going to ET out of here with him. I hope. Otherwise, I¡¯m just going to have to sit around holding him until a faculty member gets here and forces him to ET.¡± That seemed more convenient for Alden, since it wouldn¡¯t mean a late-night trip across the island, but crueler to S?ren than a swift arrival at the hospital and a dose of painkillers. The third option was hauling a burned, preserved body around by car service or public transportation, and that didn¡¯t seem like the most desirable idea. <> Ignacio asked. ¡°Good,¡± said Rebecca in a relieved voice. ¡°I¡¯ll go tell the team I¡¯m going there!¡± ¡°He¡¯ll be mad at you,¡± said Febri. ¡°Maybe,¡± said Alden. ¡°But I think he knows on some level that he''s hurt way too bad to go to class tomorrow. He just needed someone to take the choice off his plate.¡± So that he wouldn¡¯t feel like he¡¯d given up. ¡°Can you teleport him with your skill even though he just directly rejected a teleport to that location?¡± Kon asked. ¡°That¡¯s surprising for some reason.¡± ¡°Never tried. We¡¯re about to find out. System, I need an emergency teleport to the healing hospital.¡± The response was immediate. [Usage of Anesidora¡¯s teleport allotment has been authorized. Please cancel your request if your need is not urgent. ] [Teleporting in 8 s¡­] ¡°It says to cancel my request if my need isn¡¯t urgent.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that,¡± said Kon. ¡°This is urgent enough. They just don¡¯t want people using ET for scrapes and bruises.¡± ¡°My uncle got in so much trouble for abusing the ET allotment when he was our age,¡± said Febri. ¡°He was a daredevil and he relied on it to get him out of whatever disaster was about to happen. Now he¡¯s on the restricted¡ª¡± Alden had a brief sensation that he could only describe as a kind of existential blink. Like he¡¯d been cut off from the physical world for the briefest of moments, so that he was aware of himself and the person he protected and nothing more, and then he was suddenly standing somewhere else. Weird. It¡¯s like a mini version of the longer teleports now. But no nausea. He always used to get that with local teleports. This was his first one since coming back home. Looking around, he found himself in a larger than standard teleport bay. It was about a third the size of his bedroom, and there was a screen on the wall in front of him. A dark-skinned woman in jade green scrubs was examining him through it. ¡°What¡¯s the nature of your emergency?¡± ¡°He burned himself,¡± said Alden. ¡°Is he¡­unconscious?¡± ¡°Oh!¡± This probably did look confusing. And if she had the same kind of vitals monitors on this teleportation bay that they had at the TC, it might have looked like Alden was holding nothing. Or a dead person. ¡°It¡¯s my skill. He¡¯s sheltered by a layer of magic that protects him and keeps him in exactly the same state he was in when I picked him up. He¡¯s not aware of anything. Basically, he¡¯s on hold.¡± She blinked at him. ¡°That¡¯s a good skill.¡± They liked it in the last emergency department I visited, too. The woman quickly went through a series of questions that Alden was positive nobody would have asked at a medical facility anywhere else. S?ren being an A-rank triggered an additional few questions about his state of mind when Alden had picked him up, making Alden wonder if there was some kind of high-rank subduer on staff who protected people from violent patients. A couple of minutes after he arrived, the door in the wall to his left slid open and a man and a woman in the same jade green scrubs appeared with a gurney and a supply caddy. They looked S?ren over curiously, then looked at Alden just as curiously, then finally they let him set the Light Shaper down. S?ren blinked around in confusion for just a second. ¡°We¡¯re at the healing hospital in F,¡± said Alden, shoving his hands into his pockets. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± They asked the injured boy some of the same questions they¡¯d asked Alden, got permission to give him medicine, and started pressing injectors to his arms right there in the bay. His face relaxed a lot. ¡°You lied to me,¡± S?ren said. He didn¡¯t sound surprised. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Alden said again. Despite the necessity of it, he did feel guilty. ¡°Everyone thinks I¡¯m useless. This makes me look even worse.¡± ¡°You can''t just tough out a major injury. Get better and use your ultra-rare subclass to defeat them all. It¡¯s the only way.¡± ****** Alden left the hospital more than an hour later. He was tired, and he couldn¡¯t help feeling like this was a sour note for an otherwise productive day to end on. He fell asleep in the private car on the way back to campus and dragged himself through the door of the apartment at nearly three AM. The others were all asleep. He showered, then headed to his room. My plans for the night have all fallen apart. He¡¯d wanted to cast the clumsy half of the self-awareness wordchain by himself for the first time, so that he could use the other half tomorrow for gym. It just felt better to do it that way, even if Hazel Velra wasn¡¯t a threat at the moment. Now he didn¡¯t have enough hours to let the chain run its course before science class. It¡¯s fine. Doing it like that would be nice, but it¡¯s not necessary. He was about to climb up into his bed when a System notice appeared. He opened it, and then read it through more than once to be sure he understood what it was. The message had come from the Artonan embassy. Unlike the consulate in Chicago, there was an actual ambassadorial presence here on Anesidora. One of the current ambassador¡¯s assistants wanted to know how he would like his mail to be delivered. My mail? The assistant had given him far too many options, including recommendations for his or her favorite walking routes to various destinations where the mail could be presented to Alden. That takes thorough to a brand new level. The mail itself was left conspicuously undescribed, considering the fact that a map to a specific tea shop had been provided in case he needed a warm human beverage with his mail. Maybe it was something else from LeafSong. Another package of turtlenecks and joggers. Though they¡¯d used a human courier service for that. Is it rude to ask for them just to teleport it to me? The option was there, so surely it wasn¡¯t. He tried to turn on his brain and draft a nice reply. Kibby should have given me lessons on letter writing instead of table manners. Klee-pak had written a letter to a relative once and had included a strand of hair. Fortunately that wasn¡¯t possible through the System, so Alden didn¡¯t have to ask himself if it was necessary. He sent the message, then waited. A couple of minutes later, a package arrived. A largish sack made of what looked like heavy brown silk appeared on the rug right beside him. The corners of the fabric were tied at the top in a knot looped through with a single strand of matching ribbon. Very curious, Alden bent down and pried at the knot. Eventually he realized that wasn¡¯t the way to go, and he pulled on the end of the ribbon experimentally. It slid free easily, and the knotted silk came undone with it. Alden realized what the gift was as soon as he saw the corner of it peeking out from under the cloth. Deep brown leather, the logogram for the word that meant ¡°earnestly seeking¡± stitched into the top in gold thread that glimmered with just a little bit of magic in addition to the metallic sheen. He knelt there staring at the corner for a while, blindsided by emotions he couldn¡¯t quite place. Stu-art¡¯h sent me a learning cushion. His hand went to the auriad around his neck. That was thoughtful of him. On one hand, it was just a really nice pillow. On the other¡­ Learning cushions like this one were for wizards. It was why Kibby had treasured the two from Joe so much even though there were other cushions at the lab. Most humans didn¡¯t realize there were different types unless they were Artonan geeks; Earth associated the leather cushions with Artonans in general, producing knock-offs accordingly. But the learning cushion a non-wizard used in a classroom would be made of other materials. Leather had significance because it had come from life. I¡¯m reading too much into it. He knew what kind of cushions we played around with here on Earth because he saw them. He probably assumed it was natural to give me the wizard one because it was what I preferred, and there are no official cushion material rules for Avowed. Knowing all of that didn¡¯t dim his feelings much. He unwrapped the cushion slowly. And he discovered that it was fucking gorgeous. A cushion could be gorgeous, it turned out. It had more embroidery than Kibby¡¯s had. Six lines of gold and silver logograms made a band around the edges. It was heavy, and it was ever so slightly larger and thicker than standard if Alden wasn¡¯t mistaken. It¡¯s more me-sized. Stuart rocks. Completely perfect. That was what it was. He was delighted to find it even had the discreet narrow side pocket where a student could keep a spare promise stick¡­or store their unbonded auriad until they decided to give it to the human as a reward for coming back alive with the car. If I can¡¯t find a promise stick on Earth, I¡¯ll make one. He almost didn¡¯t want to set the cushion down on the floor, even though that was what it was intended for, but he finally did. Then he reached down to pick up the note that had been placed below it in the cloth wrap. Stuart had written it, so he was sure it would be a meticulously well-crafted letter. Probably with a lesson on proper cushion use included. When he unfolded it, he found that it was just as well-crafted as he¡¯d expected, though not in the way he¡¯d expected it to be. Stuart had written the note in excellent English. It was brief, and his handwriting was neat but quite round, as if he wanted the letters to be more circular than they were supposed to be: Dear Alden, This was made by the Craftswoman Enyl-tirg, who also made my cushion. Please protect it from your schoolmates. May you gain knowledge all the days of your life, and may your days be many. ********* ********* ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE: Its Pepper Flavored ************ 125 ************ Somewhere, in a different part of the universe, an Artonan child who¡¯d been born at the same time as Alden Thorn was excited. Maybe too excited. ¡°Stop.¡± Alden shook his head as he watched the Opposite stone on his desk glow a soft white for the fourth time in the past fifteen minutes. ¡°You have to pay for those.¡± He finished making note of his very first successful casting of the wordchain in his ledger, using the Palace of Unbreaking¡¯s official name for it¡ªMy Body Becomes My Assistant¡ªand admiring how awesome he was at drawing logograms when he had the chain on top of his enhanced dexterity. Then he placed his brush bristles-down in the cleaning divot on the cap of the ink bottle. The foggy crystal checker was still glowing. Alden shut the ledger and picked up the stone. I hope you¡¯re surrounded by a bunch of other kids right now, he thought. And they saw your stone light up, and they¡¯re all wildly impressed. He also hoped the little enthusiast had been saving up the pleasant halves of these wordchains as a celebratory reply to Alden¡¯s first message, or that they were baby wordchains of some kind. Otherwise they were piling up the debt fast. Alden had muted his team¡¯s conference call while he worked. They¡¯d had it going all day, with people vanishing from it when needed and reappearing during their breaks to offer ideas or ask questions. After tucking his ledger into his desk and his blinky checker into a pocket, he joined back in. ¡°All right,¡± he said, ¡°last chance to decide if you want me to pick up anything for you. I¡¯m heading to Wrightwares.¡± ¡°I want beef jerky.¡± ¡°He means do you need anything for gym, Jeffy!¡± ¡°But I do want it for gym. I always eat protein during our break.¡± ¡°If I see beef jerky at the Wright shop, I¡¯ll get some,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ll check in once I get there.¡± He muted them again so that they wouldn¡¯t make him nervous. They¡¯d been doing a lot of worrying and rehashing all afternoon. Some of them seemed to enjoy fretting, but he didn¡¯t find it helpful. When Alden emerged from his room, he found Lute sitting on the floor by the fireplace, working on some kind of craft project. ¡°I got the chain,¡± Alden said, gesturing to himself. ¡°My shirt tag has been removed¡ªwith scissors this time¡ªand my body has become my assistant.¡± ¡°Congratulations! As your tutor, I expect a World¡¯s Greatest Teacher mug. By the way, I don¡¯t think you can make a shirt fast enough for it to be useful on the course. Maybe with some practice¡­¡± ¡°A shirt?¡± Lute held up a net tank top made out of purple yarn. ¡°Isn¡¯t it beautiful? This is just a test piece. You could do this same kind of thing with your cord, though. Give me ten more minutes, and it¡¯ll be a floor-length dress. Even your ankles would be safe. From things larger than the holes in the net anyway.¡± Alden stepped over to check it out. ¡°It¡¯s cool. I found a guy online who crochets paracord backpacks for people. But why are you in here designing theoretical armor for me?¡± ¡°Because it¡¯s much more interesting than my homework. And I couldn¡¯t think of anything else fun to do to help the team. Although I¡¯m sure if I could get my hands on the whip¡­¡± ¡°Kon hasn¡¯t even gotten his hands on it.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sneakier than Kon.¡± Lute threw the tank top on over his shirt. ¡°How do I look?¡± Alden took in the hastily made purple net. ¡°Mmmm¡­do you want to come to the Wright shop with me?¡± Lute looked down at himself. ¡°It¡¯s so bad you won¡¯t even answer, huh?¡± ****** The list of supplies wasn¡¯t long, but it was easy to get distracted in the island¡¯s largest Wright shop. ¡°Alden, you need a grappling hook!¡± ¡°Those are neat.¡± ¡°A handheld line launcher!¡± ¡°I¡¯m buying one as a present for myself after I make it through first quarter probably.¡± ¡°Levitating pulleys! A portable autoloom! Self-knotting rope!¡± ¡°All exciting things,¡± Alden agreed, examining the spools of cordage in front of him. ¡°Whyyyy are you not buying the exciting things, then?¡± Lute had the loom in his arms. ¡°Because gym time is training time. And during training time, I operate under the assumption that when shit goes really wrong I¡¯m not going to have access to ginormous hardware stores full of magical doodads. What¡¯s more likely¡ªme getting stranded on another planet and finding the perfect Wrightmade tool? Or me getting stranded on another planet and finding some kind of rope?¡± You couldn¡¯t rely on a mad scientist¡¯s fully stocked laboratory being within running distance all the time. Lute didn¡¯t answer. The silence was conspicuous considering how much talking he¡¯d been doing since they arrived. ¡°What?¡± Alden asked, looking around at him. ¡°Nothing!¡± Lute hastily put the loom back on the shelf. ¡°You don¡¯t have to pretend it¡¯s reasonable. I know it isn¡¯t.¡± Alden went back to studying the cord. ¡°Even if I do end up in a crisis, the chances of that crisis involving me being stuck on a planet without a System and nothing but one companion and a rope we wove out of natural fibers are astronomical.¡± ¡°Hey, a man needs to be prepared for all eventualities,¡± Lute said lightly. ¡°Sometimes Systems break. Sometimes drone propellers destroy eyeballs.¡­are you planning to learn to make ropes out of natural fibers, too?¡± ¡°Celena North needs wilderness survival classes. The fact that we don¡¯t have them is criminal. But I¡¯m joking about learning rope making. Mostly. And I came here to buy something like this.¡± He reached for a spool of paracord in a painful shade of fluorescent yellow. ¡°I¡¯m not completely into making gym harder for myself. Especially not with the team aspect this time. This is an ultra strong survival cord¡ªabout as fancy as something this simple gets. And I¡¯ll be carrying a ton of it.¡± There was no rule about how much rope Alden could bring to class. The outer sheath of this particular paracord was fire resistant, the inner strands provided him with some interesting opportunities, and it was strong enough that Lucille could haul every member of the team up the wall with it at once if for some reason that became a good idea. ¡°Now we need temper spheres even though they¡¯re probably not going to be useful at all, a bottle of that powder Everly has to have to cast her ice trap, and beef jerky.¡± ¡°They¡¯re not going to have that.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ****** I can¡¯t believe they had eight different kinds of beef jerky. As he headed through the locker room, Alden tossed a shopping bag toward Jeffy, temporarily distracting the Aqua Brute from whatever he¡¯d been telling Reinhard. ¡°So many flavors!¡± His delighted tone was a contrast to the conversation going on nearby. The boys on S?ren¡¯s team looked like they were discussing something serious. ¡°Is S?ren doing all right?¡± Alden asked. The Light Shaper had been a lot more rational by the time Alden had left the healing hospital last night. Rational enough that when he¡¯d phoned his mother to tell her where he was and what had happened, he¡¯d managed to make it sound like he¡¯d used emergency teleportation the second the fire started instead of arguing with everyone about whether or not he could hide his injuries from the faculty. ¡°They¡¯ve been growing him new skin for the past few hours,¡± said Febri. ¡°He feels fine, and he¡¯ll be back at school first thing next week. But he¡¯s upset they told him no gym until Wednesday.¡± <> Ignacio asked. He was searching through a heavy bag that Alden knew from previous glimpses contained an alarming number of blades. According to Reinhard, Ignacio bought bulk lots of old knives off auction websites and used a spell to sharpen each one before he added it to his collection. ¡°You mean about what happened?¡± Alden shrugged. ¡°I got a check-in call from¡­somebody. And Instructor Marion pulled me aside before Engaging with the Unexpected to see if I needed anything. Other than that, not really.¡± The check-in had come from the trauma specialist he¡¯d been assigned when he¡¯d first arrived on the island. He was still having regularly scheduled video calls with her. It wasn¡¯t required, but it was so strongly recommended by everyone¡ªsecurity people at the TC, the public health and safety office, intake counselors¡ªthat going along was better for now. And she was really good about not insisting on details he couldn¡¯t or didn¡¯t want to share. He thought it was overkill that the school had called her for this, though, even if she was listed as one of his medical providers. He hadn¡¯t gotten so stressed out that he took a risk with his powers. Ignacio was opening his mouth to say something else when Max walked in. Winston, who was replacing the white laces on his shoes with red ones, burst out, ¡°There you are! Where have you been, you jerk? We¡¯ve been sending you messages all day telling you our plans for the runs!¡± ¡°The plans that involve you all demanding I drop zones exactly where you want, when you want?¡± Max tossed his backpack onto a bench and yanked his shirt off over his head. ¡°It¡¯s such a deeply considered stratagem, and my role is so terribly complicated. However will I prepare myself to assist you if I don¡¯t answer your messages?¡± Everyone was suddenly very busy changing their clothes. Alden scooted toward the nearest shower to get busy with it himself. ¡°It¡¯s not our fault you couldn¡¯t keep up last time,¡± Winston said as Alden latched the door behind himself. ¡°Marsha says you shouldn¡¯t be such a dick about running out of casts. High-ranks always carry low-ranks in this kind of competition anyway. If you just cast what we tell you to, you can sit around, and one of us will get you to the finish line.¡± Alden grimaced. Max raised his voice. ¡°I promise to cast exactly what you all tell me to. I won¡¯t offer a single word of advice to the team. Vandy can try to hold you all together while Marsha chases down worthy opponents and the rest of you pose for the camera. I will say not a word. So let it be known.¡± They¡¯re getting along even worse than I expected. Alden was awfully relieved he hadn¡¯t been assigned to that team. Oddly, Mehdi wasn¡¯t commenting on the spat. He¡¯d been quiet ever since their team¡¯s double loss, and Haoyu had called him ¡°sulky¡± when they were discussing him as a possible target for Reinhard. I know they say highly competitive environments help Avowed make faster progress. But we¡¯ve only had one day of team competition, and someone¡¯s already caught on fire. Alden couldn¡¯t imagine that smaller scale duels would lead to less hard feelings. The third years must have gone through this together, and they seem sane. At least the B¡¯s do. The second years are abnormal, but Rahul says they¡¯re a special case. Alden would most likely be in class with these same people next quarter and the one after. At some point it was common for high achievers to end up with higher level gym groups and low achievers to repeat a course. But until then, he was rooting for his class to be very normal. Bland. The vanilla pudding of CNH classes. He walked out wearing his unitard a minute later to find Jeffy trying to soothe Max with a strip of beef jerky. ¡°It¡¯s pepper flavored,¡± he said, waving it under Max¡¯s nose. ¡°I don¡¯t want it.¡± ¡°How do you know if you don¡¯t bite it?¡± ¡°Jeffy, let¡¯s go meet up with our group. They¡¯re already waiting in the gym. Anyway, Max might be saving room for the dinner tonight. There¡¯s going to be pork so many ways. Haoyu can tell you all about it. He¡¯s memorized the menu.¡± ****** Their group would be facing Team Febri/Shrike for the first run. As they walked out to the track, the sky was overcast, and the wind was blowing so hard there was grit flying through the air. Maricel and Lucille led the way, hauling bags of clayey soil with them. Njeri and Everly were right behind them, discussing their roles quietly so that the other team couldn¡¯t hear. Reinhard was giving Lexi unsolicited tips about who to attack with Writher if the archer wasn¡¯t available and the need was urgent. And Haoyu and Alden were bringing up the rear with Jeffy and Astrid. The other half of the class would be watching from the bleachers while Principal Saleh, Instructor Klein, and Instructor Marion took turns highlighting team tactics and breaking down the ways individual students had chosen to use their powers. Alden was looking forward to having his turn in the audience even as he dreaded having his decision-making critiqued. As his shoes hit the pavement, he checked himself over for the third time since setting foot outside. Yep. All still here. Two thousand feet of paracord sounded like a ton, but it was a very portable amount. Alden had it wrapped around him in two cross-body loops to make an X over his chest, and he was wearing a pouch full of his temper spheres. He would be allowed to carry a small knife or scissors to cut the cord if he wanted, but he did not want. Having unnecessary sharp objects on your person versus the team with the S-rank Knife Meister was a bad idea. Instead, he¡¯d precut the cord into long sections that were tied together with loose knots. That way he could dole out lengths of it to teammates or sacrifice pieces without wasting much time. ¡°We should think of this rematch as an opportunity,¡± said Reinhard as they took their place at the starting line on the track. ¡°The day before yesterday is history.¡± ¡°Literally!¡± Astrid said. ¡°It¡¯s literally history. So let¡¯s make new history together¡­¡± He trailed off then looked around at them all uncertainly. ¡°I¡¯ve never done a pep talk before? But I thought I should do one as co-captain.¡± Several people had wanted to try their hand at leading the team. Rather than having a big argument about it, they¡¯d decided to have four captains. Two per run. The captaincy wasn¡¯t about directing overall strategy or approaches to obstacles, since that was already agreed on. What they needed was someone who could keep track of the state of the game and rearrange team members to make sure their plans stayed viable after attacks from the other team had injured or killed people. Reinhard and Njeri were in charge of this run. Haoyu and Astrid were in charge of the next. Alden had been a little surprised that Astrid wanted to try giving orders, but she seemed worried that she couldn¡¯t contribute enough in other ways. Njeri suddenly cleared her throat and put her hands on her hips. ¡°All right, Avowed!¡± she bellowed. Their whole team took a step back from her in surprise. Olive¡ªthe Adjuster on Team Febri/Shrike¡ªyelped and whirled around to stare at her. Instructor Ivanova, standing by the track doing final hurdle checks on her tablet, looked startled too. ¡°Today I want you to think about one thing and one thing only¡ªdo you know what that is?¡± Njeri demanded ¡°Better teamwork,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Aiming well?¡± suggested Reinhard. ¡°Sportsmanship?¡± Astrid asked. ¡°Impressing the principal!¡± Jeffy exclaimed. ¡°None of that!¡± shouted Njeri. ¡°Victory dines at the tables of those who have prepared the greatest feasts. She can only grow fat on our preparation, our love for the game, and the flesh of our enemies.¡± Alden exchanged a look with Haoyu. On the other side of him, Everly was nodding along with the speech. ¡°I won¡¯t lie to you,¡± said Njeri, shaking her head. ¡°We are not truly prepared. We have not sweated enough yet to fill Victory¡¯s cup. And our love for this game is just beginning to blossom.¡± ¡°Wow,¡± Jeffy said in an awestruck voice. ¡°So what do we have left to offer Victory to tempt her toward our table?¡± ¡°Not sportsmanship?¡± Astrid whispered. There was an extended pause. Then, Reinhard looked over at the other team. ¡°That¡¯s right! Look at your enemy. They are our offerings to Victory. When they pass you by on the course, when they come at you with their weapons, when you feel the stirrings of intimidation, remember¡ªthey are Victory¡¯s sustenance. And we are her hunters. We will not let her starve!¡± Njeri took a deep breath, then smiled. ¡°I¡¯ve always wanted to give a pep talk! I thought you guys might need some extra vigor, since Febri/Shrike has beaten us before. I modeled it after a speech my hockey coach gave! How was it?¡± ¡°Energetic.¡± ¡°Motivational in a slightly threatening way.¡± ¡°Is the hockey team all right?¡± ¡°Victory!¡± ¡°But didn¡¯t we agree that victory wasn¡¯t our only goal?¡± ¡°A speech about maybe being okay with losing doesn¡¯t sound as good!¡± Njeri protested. ¡°How am I supposed to inspire you all with that?¡± ¡°I totally loved it!¡± Helo¨ªsa shouted. ¡°Thank you!¡± Njeri shouted back. ¡°But you¡¯re on the wrong team!¡± I don¡¯t know if it made me feel inspired, thought Alden. But I definitely feel more awake now. Beside him, Maricel was looking guiltily at the pile of dirt bags. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± said Alden. ¡°We all decided on it.¡± ¡°But I could just pour out the sand from the bags in the gym. Or forget practicing and focus on vict¡ª¡± ¡°You did that last time.¡± Lexi was staring at the track ahead of them. ¡°If you want specific dirt, we¡¯ll carry specific dirt.¡± ¡°It might not even slow us down,¡± Haoyu added. ¡°Having it might make things run more smoothly later. We just won¡¯t know until we try it.¡± Alden thought obstacle course rules for Shapers were arbitrary to begin with. Jupiter wanted fresh-cut wood. Maricel wanted soil. There were a set number of life matter bags and sand bags on the course for them to use instead. Njeri could draw from the water obstacle if they were close enough to it or she could carry water if she wanted it earlier in the course¡­which they were doing this time. The water jugs were heavy. But if this were some kind of real-world scenario, Maricel could dig up the earth right outside the building and carry it into the gym with her. Or Jupiter could knock down one of the bottlebrush-shaped trees out front and do the same. Making their teams haul their special requests around seemed a little harsh. In the uni team competitions Alden had viewed over the past couple of days, Shapers usually had designated offside areas and weight allowances for their materials; but they were allowed to put anything in there they wanted. I guess this is still class and the idea is limitations. Vandy¡¯s always going to have air around for Sky Shaping. Maricel and Jupiter will usually have something available but not necessarily the type of thing they prefer. The countdown for the race appeared, and they all took their positions. Just follow the plan, Alden told himself. See how it goes. ****** The race began, and with it, the team¡¯s first major strategy shift. ¡°Slowpokes first!¡± Reinhard shouted. Not how Alden would¡¯ve put it¡­but yes. Everly, with her Glaze Object spell, was the best answer for the fire box. Three casts of it would coat the box in solid ice for several minutes, allowing the rest of the team to break through with zero movement impairment. That should more than make up for them all getting a slower start. Everly, Njeri, Maricel, and Astrid took off. Jeffy was running with them a second later, carrying a large water jug in each hand. Lucille bent over and allowed Lexi and Haoyu to strap bags of dirt to her back with one of Alden¡¯s lengths of cord. ¡°Is that really uncomfortable?¡± Alden asked, prepping his own dirt for transport with Reinhard¡¯s help. ¡°I can take more.¡± Lucille shook her head. He was glad she had it under control. Alden would be carrying four bags himself, wrapped in paracord. They wouldn¡¯t weigh much thanks to his authority bearing the load, but at a certain point the size became awkward for clearing the hurdles. As it was, if he screwed up he was going to have three hundred pounds of dirt instantly smashing him forward into the ground or pulling him backwards off his feet depending on his luck. Honestly, I¡¯m just grateful none of the faculty are saying it¡¯s too dangerous for us to run with this much outside of the gym. Lucille bounded off right as the slowpokes were finishing their first lap. ¡°I hope I tied the knots right,¡± Haoyu said, watching Lucille spring over a hurdle. ¡°I feel like this is asking a lot of them.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. Let¡¯s go,¡± said Lexi, taking off. The frontrunners of the other team were finished with their second lap. It was enough to send a jolt of anxiety through anyone after last class. The first team with a person over the finish line got to take the first shot. We¡¯ll catch up indoors, Alden reminded himself. This is the plan. He set off and let himself enjoy the surefootedness his new wordchain provided. It was the same as the first time Lute had given it to him; his body was always moving exactly how he told it to move. It was, he thought, a little like running in a dream. In real life, you often pictured yourself leaping a certain way and landing a certain way only to have to adjust your expectations or recover from an imbalance. With the wordchain in effect, the leaps and the landings became an almost eerie match for Alden¡¯s mental vision of them. The first few hurdles made him feel like he was on a roll; with the next dozen, he started to have a sense of surreality. He came to the end of his first lap as Febri was finishing his final one, and he had a view of the Agility Brute clearing the largest hurdle with movements so fluid they would¡¯ve put a cat to shame. I wonder if he feels like this all the time. Febri had launched himself far enough to land on the other side of the safety mat. No need for cushioning, not a wasted step as he sprinted for the gym. First the track, thought Alden. Then the tube. Then the fire. ¡°It¡¯s all going according to plan, everyone!¡± Njeri said. The bellow that Alden had decided must be her coaching voice came through on the team call and echoed toward him from the other side of the windy track at the same time. ¡°Let¡¯s put this boring running behind us, and go play with the fun stuff!¡± A breathless cheer went up from Everly, and something like a yodel came from Astrid. Haoyu shouted an enthusiastic ¡°Yep!¡± as he vaulted over a hurdle. Alden had been pacing himself deliberately so that he¡¯d arrive at the gym behind the obstacle freezing group as planned, but it was hard not to run a little faster with everyone yelling encouragements in each other¡¯s ears. ****** ****** ¡°Let¡¯s try to determine what the teams¡¯ strategies are based on what we¡¯ve seen at this early stage,¡± Instructor Marion said to the half of the class that was on the bleachers waiting their turn to run the course. ¡°Talk with your groups. I¡¯ll come by to hear your ideas.¡± ¡°Obviously dirt is involved for my brother¡¯s team,¡± Kon said to his teammates, staring at the live progress of the race through his interface. ¡°Lots and lots of dirt.¡± ¡°Maricel went to buy all of it in the middle of the night,¡± said Tuyet. ¡°She said she couldn¡¯t sleep.¡± ¡°Lexi¡¯s flinging that one bag around like it insulted his mum,¡± Finlay observed. ¡°It¡¯s going to burst.¡± ¡°Look at how much weight they¡¯re carrying for her. Dirt¡¯s heavy. I don¡¯t see any complaining on Maricel¡¯s team.¡± They all turned to Jupiter. ¡°The holly hedge you brought isn¡¯t happening,¡± said Kon. ¡°It¡¯s massive and pointy. You¡¯ve got scratches all over you, and it¡¯s obviously stolen. It¡¯s still got roots on it.¡± ¡°The fact that is has roots on it makes it borrowed!¡± said Jupiter. ¡°I can put it back after class.¡± They turned away. ¡°You guys! I promise I can put it back! I already bought it special fertilizer!¡± ****** ¡°Maricel¡¯s team has decided to arrange themselves so that the slower members are at the front of the group,¡± Vandy said, folding her hands in her lap and staring avidly at the drone footage. ¡°On Wednesday, they were letting the people who could race ahead do it. Today, they¡¯ve obviously prioritized Everly¡¯s abilities for the first indoor obstacles, and possibly they¡¯re thinking of her synergy with Njeri. It¡¯s likely those two will stick together for the entire course. We¡¯ll need to watch what they do and decide if we might want to target one of them and separate them. ¡°Maricel may or may not have a specific plan for the clay soil they¡¯re carrying. She was disappointed on Wednesday that she was only able to use her simpler shaping abilities. She greatly admires Instructor Fragment because of their similar backgrounds and wants to impress her. The compression point skill she¡¯s been practicing allows her to draw ground together and pack it very tightly but the shapes of her compression points are limited. She uses her left hand for the gestures usually and assigns her right to moving her creations through the air. She¡¯s planning to incorporate breath gestures one day. Her range of control is impressive for a new Ground Shaper already, and¡ª¡± ¡°Alden¡¯s running faster,¡± Winston said suddenly. ¡°Maybe he took something.¡± Vandy blinked at the interruption. ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°I mean like drugs.¡± ¡°Why would he need to take drugs to run at the back of their group?¡± Mehdi said in annoyance. ¡°He was the third fastest last time. Weren¡¯t you paying attention?¡± ¡°He¡¯s running different now!¡± Winston insisted. ¡°Look at him. He¡¯s running like¡­more like you!¡± ¡°Excuse me, but I don¡¯t clear hurdles like a Rabbit.¡± Marsha rolled her eyes and spoke to Vandy. ¡°Why are those two so obsessed with the B-rank?¡± ¡°Alden¡¯s a diligent person,¡± Vandy said. ¡°He also has experience in a high stress environment, so in some ways he¡¯s the most proven member of our class. For example, during S?ren¡¯s accident last night, I¡¯ve heard he used his powers very calm¡ª¡± ¡°Power,¡± Winston interrupted. ¡°Singular. Alden has one useful skill. Not multiple. And he¡¯s really arrogant. He was talking like he was definitely going to get into the program before the bus even made it here. And you know¡­they don¡¯t accept a lot of people like him.¡± He glanced over at Max, who hadn¡¯t spoken yet, and the rest of the team followed his gaze. ¡°Confidence isn¡¯t a flaw as long as it¡¯s earned,¡± Vandy said seriously. ¡°And Max is also a very diligent student.¡± Max took a sip from his water bottle and said nothing. ¡°Well¡­¡± Vandy hesitated. ¡°Maybe you would all like to talk about Shrike¡¯s team strategy instead? We could learn something from them.¡± ¡°They¡¯ve trimmed everything holding them back,¡± said Marsha. ¡°Our class has too many System experiments and wishful thinkers. It¡¯s irritating that we won¡¯t get another fight with their team. They¡¯re going to be up against Tuyet¡¯s group next. If I had one more chance at Febri¡­him dodging last time was a fluke. I can hit someone with the Instant Corners skill. I just need to get the angle of my strike¡ª¡± ¡°I really think our team should¡¯ve attacked them when they were on the bars last time,¡± Vandy said. ¡°Focusing on Febri was¡ª¡± ¡°I could¡¯ve handled Shrike on my own, too,¡± said Marsha. She looked over at Max. ¡°Don¡¯t save any zones for my assaults today. I want to do them on my own. I don¡¯t need you trying to help again. I don¡¯t need an underling.¡± Max took another swig from his bottle. He spoke for the first time since leaving the locker room. ¡°You can all have exactly what you want. No more complaints from me.¡± ****** ****** Alden reached the gym just ahead of Haoyu, moving at a pace that felt too leisurely even if it was all going according to plan so far. Haoyu helped him free himself from his bags of dirt, and almost as soon as the bags hit the floor they lifted up into the air and headed for their master. Now that the dirt was in the gym, any re-runs of the track would be unencumbered. ¡°You first,¡± Alden said, gesturing at the entrance to the pipe. Haoyu grinned at him. ¡°Are you afraid of the tube?¡± ¡°You would be too if you were me!¡± Haoyu hit his knees and started to crawl, and Alden followed. ¡°Welcome to The Workshop!¡± Njeri shouted as they emerged. She was forming a water ball about the size of a grapefruit and holding it out toward Everly. ¡°Go through. Go through.¡± Alden almost wanted to linger and examine The Workshop, but he couldn¡¯t afford to. I know what¡¯s going on anyway, he consoled himself as he and Haoyu hurried through the frozen fire obstacle. During the first several minutes of the race, Everly, Njeri, and Maricel would be making things instead of running the course with the rest of them. It had sounded like an odd idea when Everly had presented it. But she wanted to use her spells a lot more, and Njeri felt like her Water Shaping had gone underutilized as well. So they¡¯d come up with this. If it went like they hoped it would, then they were establishing a secure area in front of the pipe and making resources that would be useful when combat started. ¡°Olive¡¯s in the gym!¡± said Reinhard. ¡°Eyes on Olive! She just went in the pipe. Lexi¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m heading toward the gym now. She¡¯s not out here,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Confirmed. Olive¡¯s really in the pipe! I¡¯ll watch for her until you guys reach the top of the rope climb, then Haoyu and I will swap.¡± Alden and Haoyu ran past the weight obstacle¡ªalready conveniently moved by Lucille and the others and not yet reset. Our timing¡¯s just right. Now where is everyone? Alden scanned the parts of the gym he could see from here. Lucille was standing at the bottom of the climbing rope up ahead; that would be her position for a little while. Jeffy had crossed the high bar swings up near the ceiling. Astrid was right behind him. Reinhard was standing on the first bar, staring down at the other team¡¯s pipe with a focused expression. On the other side of the course, Ignacio was rapidly carving handholds into the fifteen-meter wall for his teammates to climb, and Sanjay was climbing them in his wake. Rebecca wasn¡¯t visible, but if they were doing it like last time, she was probably already over and in the water. The Brute was very boingy when she used her spell impression and her full jumping power. So boingy she sometimes overshot her target or landed wrong. ¡°Looks like they¡¯re putting Sanjay over the line first,¡± Alden predicted as he pulled himself hand over hand up the rope. ¡°It could be Rebecca, but I bet they let her stay in play.¡± This wordchain is amazing, he thought again as he reached the top and stretched out to grab the bars. When he¡¯d gotten up the rope for the first time on Wednesday, his arms had already been burning a little. Now they weren¡¯t. Does having less wasted motion make that much of a difference? He swung past Reinhard, who was still watching the other team¡¯s pipe like a hawk. Olive wasn¡¯t coming out. She was definitely waiting for the moment when her using her spells would create as much confusion as possible. ¡°We¡¯re still putting Astrid over the line first, Alden,¡± Reinhard said. Not a necessary reminder, but it was fine. ¡°Got it.¡± Astrid was the obvious choice. She contributed to the team, but in terms of her magic and skillset she didn¡¯t contribute anything irreplaceable to the team. So sending her over the finish line and taking her out of play was the option that would cost them the least. I hope she doesn¡¯t feel too bad about it. She¡¯s always so upbeat, but still¡­ The bar swings were easy enough, like monkey bars if the playground wanted the monkeys to fall to their deaths. The psychological impact of the height was actually worse than the physical effort required. Alden swung his body and flew a short distance. Thanks to the wordchain, he was abnormally aware of the flow of air across his skin even as his hands wrapped around the final bar. Lute had told him it was a chain that you learned to use better with practice, and he could see that it was true. There was a mental shift he would need to get used to. His body on the wordchain moved differently, so he¡¯d have to learn to make decisions that utilized it appropriately. And then know how to switch expectations for myself when I¡¯m not using it. He pulled himself up onto the narrow metal perch at the end of the bars, then looked down. A semi-opaque barrier separated this obstacle from the next at ground level, and the only way you were allowed to move through it according to the rules was to enter through a specific gap in the barrier you accessed by traveling down a narrow metal beam. It stabbed toward the floor at a steep angle, so walking down it wasn¡¯t an option unless you had a good spell for it. Sliding wouldn¡¯t kill you if you could manage it without falling, but they¡¯d gotten some sprains and a broken tailbone experimenting with it on their previous runs, which slowed them down. Alden dropped a length of cord on the perch for whoever might need it then lowered himself carefully onto the beam, stomach pressed to the metal and butt pointed toward the floor like a sane person. Not like Jeffy, who refused to be persuaded that rocketing groundward headfirst was harder even if you could see where you were going. ¡°Slide, stop, slide, stop!¡± Reinhard called, passing his pipe-watching task off to Haoyu and swinging across the bars toward Alden. Again. Unnecessary. But I guess it¡¯s kind of nice to have the call-outs to remind everyone what¡¯s going on. Alden relaxed his arms and legs to loosen his grip on the beam, slid rapidly downward, re-gripped before he could pick up too much momentum, and repeated the process all the way through the gap in the barrier and to the floor. He rolled backward and sprang to his feet, untying the next section of cord as he ran to join Astrid and Jeffy at the base of the white, fifteen-meter wall. The gym-created obstacle was smooth as glass, and to Alden it felt hard as a rock, though the Meisters could pierce it, and Lucille could gouge chunks out of it barehanded if she didn¡¯t care about the damage she¡¯d take in the process. ¡°Alden! I¡¯m ready!¡± Jeffy waved at him. ¡°Boost us up! This man¡¯s ready to swim!¡± Astrid was still trying to highlight the joys of aquatic work at every opportunity. ¡°You remember how we do this?¡± Alden asked, hanging on to one end of the cord as he dropped the rest of the coil onto the floor. This length was still entrusted to him, and it would stay that way as long as he didn¡¯t take his hands off the end of it. He hurried backwards, grateful that the wall had a run-up zone in front of it that he could use this way. ¡°I hold onto Astrid, not the magic rope!¡± Jeffy announced. ¡°Right!¡± Alden stopped backing away when there were five coils of cord left in the pile beside Jeffy. This piece had been pre-measured for the task, so it should be long enough. He bent, preserved, and lifted. The cord stiffened, and the coiled end rose from the floor fifty feet away. As usual, the strain on his authority was surprisingly high when he was preserving at a distance. There was now a hoop of coiled cord on the end of a straight length. ¡°Reinhard, should we wait on you?¡± he asked. ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± the archer said over coms. ¡°I¡¯ll go up separately. Everyone, check in!¡± ¡°Workshop is good!¡± Njeri called. ¡°Maricel has a really great idea. For second attack if we time it right.¡± ¡°Olive¡¯s still in the pipe!¡± Haoyu announced. ¡°The weights have reset,¡± Lucille said. ¡°Remember we¡¯re moving those again as soon as Sanjay hits the final obstacle!¡± Njeri called. ¡°Lexi, you¡¯re up on bars with a view of everything. What¡¯s the state of the rest of their team?¡± ¡°Shrike¡¯s on the wall monitoring our progress. Febri, Sanjay, and Rebecca are finishing up the water obstacle. Helo¨ªsa¡¯s started shifting their weights again, and they¡¯ve got a couple of people climbing the wall.¡± ¡°Okay, let¡¯s move, everybody! We¡¯ll catch up to them in the water.¡± ¡°Thanks to Jeffy!¡± shouted Astrid. ¡°Thanks to Jeffy,¡± Alden agreed. ¡°Ready to lift.¡± He felt a jolt of excitement and nerves. The obstacle course itself was easily doable as a team. When the attacks started¡­that was when things got a lot more complicated. ¡°Tell me if you start to have some kind of a problem on the way up,¡± Alden ordered as he lowered his hoop over Jeffy¡¯s head. The Aqua Brute stuck out his arms toward Astrid, and as Alden lifted, the paracord caught Jeffy under the armpits and picked his feet up off the ground. Astrid hopped up and grabbed him in a full body bearhug, her arms going over the cord and around his back, her legs wrapping around his waist. The paracord was stuck between them now. That¡¯s actually more thorough than what we discussed, Alden thought, lifting them slowly higher and watching them closely to make sure they weren¡¯t about to change positions and slip. As long as Astrid didn¡¯t lose her grip, there should be no way for them to fall. He approved. Jeffy seemed alarmed, but not in a bad way. His feet kicked wildly and his eyes were wide, but he wrapped his arms around Astrid as they rose. ¡°All right!¡± Alden said. ¡°Shout if you need anything.¡± ¡°Higher! Faster!¡± yelled Astrid. ¡°Let¡¯s win!¡± ¡°Yeah!!¡± Jeffy said. Alden resisted the urge to oblige them. For one thing, their bodyweight was being entirely supported by a fairly narrow hoop instead of a proper harness, and even if Jeffy was a tough dude, it was probably uncomfortable. For another, speed at the end of the line wasn¡¯t the easiest thing to judge if he rushed. As Fragment had warned Alden when he was practicing rescues in a similar fashion, small wrist movements at his end of the preserved cord resulted in much larger swings on the far end. Catapulting them across the gym wouldn¡¯t be very friendly of me. ¡°That looks just as neat as the first time I saw it,¡± Everly said from her spot at The Workshop as Astrid and Jeffy reached the top of their arc. ¡°Like he¡¯s got a strange balloon.¡± ¡°I am the strange balloon!¡± Astrid crowed. ¡°Sanjay just hit the final obstacle! Move those weights, Lucille! Wow! People are getting excited in the bleachers. I see them pointing.¡± There was a noise barrier up between the runners and the audience. Alden was grateful for that. Once his excited passengers were fifty feet up in the air and more or less vertically oriented, he just walked over to the base of the wall with them. ¡°Jeffy, let go of her, but keep the cord under your arms! Astrid, you should be able to drop onto the top of the wall easily.¡± He paused, then added. ¡°Don¡¯t miss!¡± Astrid was on her feet on top of the wall a second later, and Jeffy was right behind her. He whooped then dove off the back. A splash announced his landing in the water tank, and Astrid followed him. ¡°Good job!¡± Reinhard shouted, running up toward Alden with Lexi right behind him. ¡°Get me up there, too, so I can get ready to snipe.¡± Alden kept his cord preserved, ran back to where he¡¯d started from last time, and dropped the hoop for Reinhard. The archer opted to wrap his arms and legs around it and dangle upside down like a tree sloth. ¡°Let¡¯s go, let¡¯s go!¡± Njeri was shouting. ¡°It¡¯s almost time!¡± ¡°Thanks for being my bodyguard,¡± Alden said to Lexi while he lifted the sloth into the air, pausing briefly when it looked like Reinhard needed to adjust his position. Lexi had his back turned to Alden, and Writher was long and at-the-ready as he watch the other team¡¯s half of the course. ¡°They¡¯ve put Rebecca back on top of their wall. She¡¯s on watch replacing Shrike. I can¡¯t see him from here, so he¡¯s got to be back on the floor, getting ready for attack. Febri¡¯s heading for the ground again, too. ¡± Febri/Shrike used their S-ranks for attack, though they¡¯d let Helo¨ªsa and Rebecca have a turn last time when it became obvious that they were pulling ahead of Alden¡¯s team. All the other teams used their S-ranks as primary attackers. For good reason. ¡°I think if it¡¯s Shrike I might be able to stop him from doing too much damage to you,¡± said Lexi. ¡°If it¡¯s Febri¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. Shit happens.¡± Alden forced himself not to fling Reinhard toward the ceiling faster out of nerves. ¡°Everly, get to freezing,¡± Reinhard said from overhead. ¡°They might go for you instead of Alden. Lucille, you¡¯re probably their third choice.¡± ¡°Olive¡¯s in the pipe,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°If she stays in there, let me take first attack!¡± Maricel called. ¡°Jeffy¡¯s got me through the water!¡± Astrid shouted. ¡°I¡¯m heading for the finish.¡± An Aqua Brute really does make that obstacle fast. A bell rang. The lights on the other half of the course lit up. The invisible barrier that separated the two sides gave a warning flare then dropped. The other team was now allowed to cross over for the purpose of making a single attack or messing around with one of the obstacles using either their powers or an obstacle modification tablet that lay at the entrance to each of the pipes. Resetting the weights could screw a team over big time if their strongest members were over the finish line. Resetting the wall so that the handholds teams had created were removed was also an option. ¡°Worskhop is protecting the tablet and Everly!¡± Maricel called. ¡°I¡¯m on Alden,¡± Lexi reported. ¡°I¡¯ll go with Astrid to protect her!¡± Jeffy said. ¡°No!¡± Reinhard and Njeri spoke over each other. ¡°You¡¯re staying in the water, remember?¡± Reinhard said as Alden carried him toward the wall at a fast walk. ¡°You stay there unless we need you to run back!¡± Njeri agreed. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s right.¡± Jeffy sounded mournful. Reinhard made it onto the top of the wall. He crouched low and used the vantage point to scan the course. Relieved he¡¯d gotten some critical teammates into position in time, Alden dropped preservation, and let his cord fall in a scrambled heap at his feet. Hastily toeing the mess into a slightly more cohesive shape, he picked it all up together. It made a small, handheld shield with lots of holes in it. But it only took seconds. ¡°What are you going to do with that?¡± Lexi asked without looking back over his shoulder. ¡°They might not send their S¡¯s. I should be able to take a hit from the others. You never know.¡± It was inconvenient to have any member of their team sent back to the track or heavily injured and movement restricted. But some of them were particularly juicy targets. Incapacitating Maricel, Lucille, or Jeffy would be a real triumph for their enemies; but Febri/Shrike probably wouldn¡¯t try it. Maricel was over by the pipe and the frozen box, which would provide her with a lot of shelter. The giant sandbags she had on hand also served her as both weapons and shields. Jeffy was, hopefully, underwater. Getting into the tank and successfully attacking him there would be nearly impossible for anyone on the Febri/Shrike team. Lucille was more vulnerable, but she didn¡¯t come across that way while she was trotting back and forth with metric ton weights. We¡¯re lucky they don¡¯t know she doesn¡¯t want to lethally hit people. It really limits her options for responding. The other teams didn¡¯t seem to realize it yet anyway. For now, the risk of not taking Lucille down in a single hit and getting backhanded to the moon by a retaliatory strike was probably going to keep attackers from getting within an easy arm¡¯s reach of her. If enemies didn¡¯t go for the S¡¯s, Alden and Everly were the next most appealing victims. Everly was protected by Maricel. So the most likely place for them to attack was here. Here I am, both breakable and useful to the team. And Alden¡¯s body wasn¡¯t the only thing that was breakable. The way his skill worked gave him an additional exploitable weakness for this kind of game. ¡°Don¡¯t shield against a hit if you¡¯re not sure how strong it is,¡± Lexi said, keeping himself between Alden and any possible incoming threats. ¡°I know.¡± ¡°The next run¡ª¡± ¡°I know. I¡¯m the one who pointed out that my own death would technically be more helpful than me trying to protect myself sometimes.¡± Alden¡¯s skill was stronger than anyone here knew, and if he was right with his theorizing, it was more versatile and potent than it might have been in a normal B-rank Rabbit¡¯s hands. But some of his classmates could still magically overwhelm him in one strike and put him out of commission for the rest of class. It just depended on which classmates they were and what the strike was. And beyond that, there was compounding fatigue to consider. Their current strategy called for Alden doing as many of these high lifts as were necessary to get people over the wall. Depending on how many deaths and re-runs they suffered, it could be quite a few. If he fatigued his skill, Maricel would take over or they¡¯d start climbing the much more tiring and slow way; but it was best if Alden stayed available for the length of this run and the next. Which meant he should only use his messy little shield here to soak attacks if doing so wouldn¡¯t be too costly or render him useless later. If it¡¯s Febri, should I try? He could, like, blink at just the wrong moment and a miracle could happen. But how hard does he hit compared to someone like Helo¨ªsa. If it¡¯s¡ª ¡°Febri¡¯s over the line! Febri¡¯s over the line! Heading for The Workshop!¡± Reinhard¡¯s call was excited. ¡°Lucille, stop¡ª!¡± ¡°Olive¡¯s out of the pipe!¡± Haoyu announced at the same time. ¡°And another Olive¡¯s out of the pipe! And a third!¡± ¡°I¡¯m almost to the finish line!¡± Astrid said. ¡°Hang in there!¡± ¡°Haoyu, Reinhard, try to determine which one is the real Olive. Lucille, run toward Febri. Grab him! Maricel, guard.¡± Njeri¡¯s instructions were delivered so rapidly that it would have been hard to interpret them if it wasn¡¯t fairly well planned in advance. Alden and Lexi both ran over to an opening in the wall¡ªabout two-bodies wide¡ªthat connected this part of their team¡¯s course to the previous one so that people who¡¯d completed the bars and gone down the beam could run back to the old obstacles to help teammates with them. It was a one-way situation. You could use this shortcut to rapidly backtrack, but once you¡¯d backtracked, you were required to return the hard way. This was also a spot where people waiting to go up the wall could see what was happening, and where attackers¡ªwho didn¡¯t have to obey obstacle order rules on the enemy course¡ªcould come through. Now that they knew Febri was the attacker and he was going in the other direction, it was safe to take a peek. Lucille and Febri were facing off in front of the final, cube-shaped weight. She crouched. Her arms were wide, and she was poised to spring and grab Febri. But the Agility Brute bounced once on the balls of his feet, feinted down and to the right, then leaped up and to the left so fast that by the time Lucille had started to move to intercept him in the fakeout direction, he was already airborne, turning an unnecessary but very cool-looking flip as he sailed toward the frozen Workshop area. Lexi was standing at the edge of the line they weren¡¯t allowed to cross without it being deemed an official backtrack, but Writher was stretching out over it toward Febri, twitching angrily. Alden chose not to comment on that. They were way too far away for Lexi to reach the S-rank with the whip. ¡°I bet he¡¯s smiling,¡± Lexi hissed. ¡°You can tell by how he bounces around that he¡¯s smiling.¡± ¡°Not for long,¡± Maricel said quietly over coms. It was really nice of them to go for Everly first, thought Alden. Kind of impractical considering she had two companions to Alden¡¯s one. I guess they thought they could get away with taking a closer look at what we were doing over there. He felt a little smug about what was going to happen, and then two bells rang and both sides of the course flashed again. ¡°I¡¯m over the finish line!¡± Astrid shouted. ¡°And another one of theirs is, too.¡± Lexi and Alden stared at each other. ¡°Shrike,¡± they both said. A moment later, they spotted him. Ignacio was running toward them fast, shouting instructions to his own teammates in Spanish, and wearing a chef¡¯s knife roll bag on each shoulder in addition to his System-gifted Meister daggers¡ªone in each hand, pointed straight ahead of him. A pair of arrows zinged through the air one after the other. Reinhard was allowed to shoot as much as he wanted at interlopers on their half of the course. But judging by the swearing, he¡¯d missed Febri. He wouldn¡¯t be aiming for Shrike. The S-rank had taken an unusual skill, and in addition to its offensive uses, it neatly countered Reinhard¡¯s arrows. It was up to Lexi to deal with him. ¡°Haoyu,¡± said Reinhard, keeping his voice low. ¡°Which Olive is real?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t know yet. Sorry. She¡¯s improved her realism now that she knows what the course is like. Best guess is the middle one.¡± A lot of things happened all at once. It was a familiar chaos after Wednesday¡¯s runs, but Alden still couldn¡¯t quite believe how fast it all moved when the attacks started. He let the mini shield, too small to be useful versus Ignacio¡¯s favorite attack, unravel. He started re-coiling the end of it to make his teammate-lifting shape as he got out of the Knife Meister¡¯s sight and pressed himself to the barrier. Lexi was standing boldly in the opening, ready to intercept, Writher curling through the air in front of him threateningly. ¡°Taking our attack shot,¡± Reinhard was saying. ¡°Aiming for one of their wall climbers since we don¡¯t know where Olive is.¡± Alden listened. Running footsteps paused as Ignacio considered his options. <> he shouted to his teammates. An arrow flew toward its target. ¡°Got the climber!¡± Reinhard sounded gleeful. A shattering, popping noise came from the workshop. Followed by a yelp. <> Writher lashed out. There was swearing in Spanish. Alden poked his head out from behind the wall for just long enough to see that the whip had grabbed Ignacio by the leg and yanked him off balance. His knife rolls were open on the floor beside him. He was struggling against the whip for now, but if he just stopped and turned around¡­ Alden dropped the coil of paracord he¡¯d just made behind Lexi and ran backwards, putting the partition between him and Shrike again and unspooling his rope just like he had to put Jeffy up the wall. ¡°Shrike tried to turn toward The Workshop!¡± Lexi was calling for the team¡¯s benefit. ¡°Writher¡¯s got him, but he hasn¡¯t attacked, and he still has his arms free to¡ª¡± ¡°Step backward, Lexi!¡± Alden shouted, sending a mental text to enforce the message simultaneously. ¡°One step backward!¡± [Step backward!] It was just a crazy, last second scheme. Something he attempted because the idea popped into his head, and in the haze of the fight he couldn¡¯t see any immediate drawbacks. Getting the timing right was at least ninety percent luck. Lexi taking a step backward was probably more a response to what was happening with the enemy in front of him than to Alden¡¯s command. But he did step backward. Right into the center of the prepared loop behind him. ¡°GRAB THE ROPE!¡± Alden yelled, preserving and pushing the cord straight up over his head. It caught Lexi under his extended arm, and an instant after his feet had left the ground, his other was hooked over it. Alden lifted his roommate much too fast for safety and just fast enough that the bulk of Ignacio¡¯s attack missed him. One of the Knife Meister¡¯s blades, glowing a dark, burning orange, shot below Lexi¡¯s feet and every sharp object in Shrike¡¯s vicinity followed it. The Leading Knife skill. Alden hadn¡¯t been familiar with it until he¡¯d seen his classmate use it. Most knife-throwing Avowed seemed to pride themselves on pinpoint accuracy, power, and weapon spell effects more similar to Tuyet¡¯s darts. But The Leading Knife made any sufficiently knifelike object within the user¡¯s range orient to point in the same direction as Shrike¡¯s lead blade. Reinhard was particularly miffed about the existence of a skill that made even his strongest arrows rotate in the wrong direction as they approached their target. And once the lead blade left Shrike¡¯s hand, all of those servant blades chased it like a flock of birds. The mundane blades were confined to quite a large spherical area behind the thrown Meister weapon, though it was hard to make out the shape unless there were a lot of weapons in the air at once. It was a great skill for turning a person or whole groups of people into pincushions. A large knife at the top of the flock smashed into Lexi¡¯s shins before Alden had him fully out of range, then kept going. But they missed the worst of it, and Ignacio was dangling off the floor now, leg still caught by Writher. Lexi was staring down at him with dignity and focus befitting a person who wasn¡¯t barely hanging onto his uncomfortable perch by his armpits. ¡°I think his leg is probably missing.¡± He was murmuring to himself so quietly that it only came through coms. ¡°That¡¯s good. A little fall now. No more attacking.¡± Writher phased out and returned to its normal size. As Shrike stood up with the stiff motions of someone enduring a serious movement penalty, Lexi called, ¡°Shrike¡¯s seriously injured, but I don¡¯t think he¡¯ll die! Let¡¯s let him go! He¡¯ll slow them down.¡± Shrike looked back over his shoulder and grimaced. Then he sighed and started hopping away from them on one foot. ¡°Wait! Why am I up in the air?!¡± Alden stared up as Lexi expression turned shocked and he scrambled to throw a leg over the hoop to make himself more secure. ¡°You didn¡¯t know?¡± Alden asked, baffled. ¡°My weapon requires concentration.¡± ¡°You did amazing, then!¡± Alden said. ¡°I was going really fast and you held on great!¡± ¡°What¡¯s wrong with my leg?!¡± ¡°You got stabbed on the way up. It shouldn¡¯t be too bad.¡± ¡°He¡¯s stabbed? Good!¡± Njeri called. ¡°Why is that good!?¡± ¡°Because we need someone over the line right now, and he¡¯s close enough to make it to the finish if he¡¯s only slightly injured! Alden, get him over the wall. Jeffy, get him through the water. Haoyu¡ª¡± ¡°I think I know which Olive is real now. Keeping my eyes on her.¡± ¡°Thank god,¡± said Reinhard. ¡°That antitargeting spell she has shouldn¡¯t be allowed in combination with the illusions!¡± ¡°You guys!¡± Everly sounded excited. ¡°Do you realize what just happened?¡± There was a pause. Alden grinned. ¡°We injured their S-ranks! We repelled two attacks and got one of our own!The plan¡¯s working!¡± Everly said. ¡°What happened over there?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you all about it after the game,¡± Njeri said. ¡°Now hurry!¡± ¡°Up you go!¡± Alden called, lifting his strange balloon higher into the air. ****** ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX: Well See 126 *** ¡°Now my brother¡¯s flying. He looks happy!¡± ¡°I think he looks a bit bored,¡± said Finlay, watching Lexi cling to a hoop of fluorescent yellow paracord that was swinging him upwards in a steady arc toward the top of the wall. ¡°Especially for a person dangling from a string that high in the air.¡± ¡°No, that¡¯s one of his happy faces.¡± Kon was standing. ¡°Look at the drone view footage and zoom in instead of watching from here. There¡¯s this tiny smirk.¡± Despite the fact that their class filled only a small fraction of the bleachers, voices echoed around the gym, competing with the shouts of the people on the floor. As soon as the first players had made it over the finish line, the tension had started to build. Kon wasn¡¯t the only one who¡¯d been driven to his feet by nerves or excitement. ¡°Febri! Febri, man! How could you walk into a trap that obvious?¡± someone on the other waiting team¡ªsitting in a group together several meters away¡ªwas shouting. Another person groaned. ¡°Shrike wasted that attack! He wasted it! He¡¯s an S-rank Meister! He should¡¯ve gotten both of them!¡± ¡°It¡¯s a good thing they can¡¯t hear us down there,¡± Kon said. Tuyet winced. ¡°I wish people wouldn¡¯t assume Meisters and S-ranks were flawless at this game. It¡¯s so stressful.¡± ¡°You know it¡¯s partially your fault, right?¡± Kon said. ¡°Me! How?¡± ¡°You just stand up there on the wall, demolishing the other teams one dart at a time. Raising the bar higher for the other Meisters.¡± Down on the course, Lexi reached the top of said wall, and Reinhard gave him a hand. ¡°He¡¯s limping,¡± said Kon, as his brother stepped past a length of extra paracord that Alden had sent up with Astrid earlier. Lexi dove into the water tank. ¡°Movement restriction from that knife he took to the shin.¡± ¡°It would¡¯ve been much worse than a restriction if Alden hadn¡¯t yoinked him up into the air right then,¡± said Jupiter. ¡°By the way, why can¡¯t we have a Crafting Castle? Maricel gets a Crafting Castle.¡± ¡°They¡¯re calling it a workshop, aren¡¯t they? I think that¡¯s what they shouted,¡± said Finlay. ¡°What would you craft, Jupiter?¡± Tuyet asked. ¡°Picture a wall of spiky protectors made of plant life. When the enemy approached, they would leap to your defense. Some noble flora. Like holly maybe¡­¡± They all groaned. Instructor Marion had been down on the floor having a quick discussion with Principal Saleh and Instructor Klein. He headed toward their group. ¡°I think¡­¡± said Kon, ¡°we¡¯re having too much fun. I bet he wants us to analyze what just happened with a ¡®strategic mindset.¡¯ Quick. Someone think up something smart to say about the trap the girls set.¡± ¡°Oh I¡¯ve done that already,¡± Jupiter announced. ¡°Here are my notes.¡± They all tapped the air in front of them to accept the message she¡¯d just sent. * Crafting Castle!! Crafting Castle (for Killing?) Crafting Castle of Maiming Artists: Maricel (S-Ground Shaper), Everly (A-Ice Spells), Njeri (A-Water Shaper) Materials: bags of dirt (reminder: I owe Mari potting soil because I borrowed some without telling her) sand emptied from 120 kg sandbags water Happenings: 1. Everly uses multiple casts of Glaze Object to turn the fire obstacle into a frozen box. Her eyeshadow is blue today. 2. Maricel creates a large, thin rectangle out of dirt. Excellent shaping. They use Glaze Object again to ice the rectangle over. Water and ground elements in balance mean it should be movable by both Maricel and Njeri. 3. After all of their teammates have passed through the obstacle, the artists move the ice-dirt rectangle into position over the exit of the frozen box, making the interior invisible from the enemy course. I would like a similar fort on our next run. 4. Drone footage shows artists rapidly crafting small solid ice balls (x11), a large dirt ball glazed with ice (x1), and a large, highly compressed cylinder of clay and sand (x1 - still in progress). I think these all have multiple potential uses. They are making whatever their team might need. 5. Sanjay crossed the finish line! I bet the artists are disappointed it happened so soon, forcing them to halt their crafting, but they leap into action at the sound of the enemy bell. Njeri and Maricel are fleeing the fortress! Going into the pipe! Don¡¯t forget Everly! Why are you leaving her? Ice balls, sand, and dirt follow them into the pipe. 6. That¡¯s a lot of sand, Mari. Some might say a greedy amount. How much do you need in there? 7. Febri is the attacker. He¡¯s going to attack Alden probably. He should have waited until Alden had someone up in the air again. That''s what I would have done. 8. No! Febri is obviously too curious about the crafting team to resist! He¡¯s assaulting the castle instead. 9. Lucille tries to intercept and tackle, but she¡¯s too slow. I think she could¡¯ve moved faster than that. 10. It¡¯s a cannon!!! 11. I was right! I realized it was a cannon before Febri did! He tried to enter the frozen fort to attack Everly, not knowing she had just cast her extra slippery ice trap. It only slowed him down for a second, but a second was enough. Everly ducked behind the sphere and cylinder crafts the Shapers left in the fort. Then, Maricel used her maximum power to push all of the sand and the ice balls out of the pipe at high speed. Very high speed. I am sure I was the inspiration for this attack. One cannonball hit Febri in the shoulder. While he was suffering a blinding penalty from all the sand, Everly escaped the fort through the shattered back pane and ran for Lucille¡¯s protection. Njeri climbed out of the pipe and smashed some of the ice from the fort¡¯s ceiling and walls on top of Febri. The fire jets restarted. Battered, burned, and overwhelmed, he opted for retreat. But I¡¯m sure he didn¡¯t mind since he got to see the hard work of these dedicated artists in person. They deserve to celebrate their victory, but instead, they must rescue their remaining creations from the flames. Final Thoughts: Establishing a protected base on the indoor course was smart. The location they chose was perfect, and it has the benefit of protecting the object creation tablet located at the end of the pipe. Protecting the tablet limits the enemy¡¯s methods of assault. Their success proves that the hero program should accept a higher percentage of Shapers. I volunteer to be on this team for their next run. The addition of a Life Shaper to their group would be educational for all of us. And I believe Alden Thorn would be happy to help me carry my preferred supplies. Unlike some people. * ****** Vandy Carisson leaned forward with her hands on her knees, watching the teams below her avidly. ¡°The assault on Lexi and Alden might have gone differently if Shrike hadn¡¯t been distracted by what happened to Febri. He obviously wanted to assist his teammate, but turning his back on Lexi was a mistake. I wonder if he misjudged the range of Mind Writher?¡± She turned to Marsha. ¡°I also wonder what Febri¡¯s strategy was. Maybe he thought getting a look at Maricel, Njeri, and Everly¡¯s position was worth the risk. Or he assumed that his agility and his skill would allow him to escape no matter what he found. He didn¡¯t account for the time they¡¯d had to prepare.¡± ¡°He probably just wanted to take out Maricel,¡± Marsha said. ¡°He could have if she didn¡¯t have double backup. She¡¯s not quick enough to stop his subclass. There¡¯s no reason to be scared of her in a one-on-one fight.¡± ¡°You think all the S-ranks are as focused on each other as you are on them,¡± Mehdi said with a snort. ¡°Do you even know the names of the other members of our class?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t take it personally, Mehdi,¡± Marsha said dryly. ¡°I don¡¯t have anything against you A-ranks. I just don¡¯t see the point in these mixed combat classes. I train better against stronger opponents, and they train better against me.¡± She stood. Her polearm, in its glaive form, lay on the bench beside her. She lifted it and tipped its head toward the runners on course. ¡°This is a game. You know it¡¯s a game because Shrike lost versus the Rabbit and the whip boy. One attack at a time? I guess it makes us learn to plan better, but it¡¯s nothing like a real duel. In Superlatives, our practice fights are completely different.¡± Mehdi crammed his lips together as if he had no intention of continuing the conversation. But then, half a minute later, he asked, ¡°How are they different?¡± Marsha smiled at him. ¡°When Shrike really fights, he throws one of his Meister knives like you just saw. His blade collection follows it. Then, he recalls while the lead knife is still in the air, and all the knives turn to chase it back to him. The second he catches it, he whips it in a different direction, before any of the following knives have the chance to fall. He can keep them airborne for ages. Like he¡¯s directing a swarm around the battlefield. Here, he¡¯s not allowed to do that because it counts as more than one attack.¡± She let the butt of her weapon thump against the bleacher. ¡°Duels will be different. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll make it S on S. And A on A. So don¡¯t worry about it.¡± Mehdi sat up straighter. ¡°I wasn¡¯t worried about¡ª¡± ¡°He chose a stupid color for his rope.¡± Winston was on his feet with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Alden Thorn greet Haoyu Zhang-Demir as the Brute rolled off the beam into his section of the obstacle course. ¡°How much of an idiot do you have to be to bring neon yellow rope? It¡¯s like he¡¯s saying, ¡®Look at me! Look at me! Attack right here.¡¯¡± ¡°Maybe bright colors help him visualize what he¡¯s doing more clearly,¡± Vandy suggested. ¡°I¡¯m sure for some things he needs to see exactly where the tip of the line is.¡± ¡°He¡¯s been using dark green a lot until now.¡± Mehdi squinted down at Alden. ¡°Maybe he ran out of it and had to grab the neon stuff on the way out the door.¡± Marsha stared at them. ¡°Why are you two memorizing the B-rank¡¯s rope colors? What¡¯s wrong with you? If you need to fight him when we go up against them, dodge the rope¡ªyou¡¯re an Agi and a speedster; you can handle that much, can¡¯t you?¡ªand hit him. Or kick him. It¡¯s not that hard.¡± ¡°Huh,¡± said Max. Vandy was the only person on the team who looked over at him. He smiled at her and shrugged. A bell rang. ¡°Whip boy¡¯s over the finish line,¡± Marsha said. ¡°And this game is basically done.¡± ****** This is going entirely too well, thought Alden as the bell rang. Surely we¡¯re about to run into some trouble. The weights had been moved for what might be the last time if nothing went wrong. Lucille was climbing the rope with Njeri on her back to speed things along. And Everly was refreezing the fire obstacle for what was definitely the last time; she¡¯d need to save plenty of casts for their next run. And it was their turn to take an attack. ¡°My plan is an obstacle modification,¡± Maricel was saying. ¡°It should slow them down a lot. I¡¯m almost ready. ¡± ¡°I¡¯ll cross the finish line next,¡± Njeri said. ¡°As soon as I¡¯m over, Reinhard will take out Olive. She¡¯s their slowest runner. If you¡¯re sure you picked the right one earlier, Haoyu.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve kept an eye on the one he pointed out,¡± Reinhard said. ¡°She¡¯s the one sitting on the platform at the end of the bar swings. I can¡¯t tell any difference between them, and I have enhanced vision. If he¡¯s wrong we¡¯ll be wasting the shot.¡± ¡°No pressure or anything,¡± Haoyu murmured beside Alden. They stood in the opening Lexi had defended from Shrike a short while ago, looking across their course toward what they could see of the opposing team¡¯s side. Haoyu was trying to view the three identical girls in hot pink sweatbands from a different angle than Reinhard, in hopes of noticing something else. ¡°She glanced up with a curious expression earlier,¡± he told the team. ¡°It was only a second, but it didn¡¯t look like one of those pre-planned actions she gives the illusions to make them more realistic. I think she was distracted by Alden flying Lexi through the air like a kite.¡± Alden didn¡¯t reply. Instead, he was watching the Olives. Two on the bars. One sitting on top of their team¡¯s wall. All very temptingly arranged and easy to shoot. The Adjuster would need help from a second teammate out on the track, so she was an obvious person to send all the way back to start. But she was good with her illusions, and after running the course on Wednesday, she¡¯d gone from good to incredible. From what little Alden understood about her power, the illusionary girls moved over obstacles and struggled realistically because Olive had been able to craft them based on memories of these specific tasks instead of relying on general memories of her body in motion to do it. She even had a spell to prevent people from targeting her. Alden still knew which one was real. He¡¯d realized he knew how to tell last time, and he¡¯d been trying to decide how to be fair about it ever since. Ask me, he thought. Ask me which one I think it is. This was what he¡¯d settled on. He¡¯d find Olive for his team if he was assigned to find Olive. If someone directly asked, he would pick her out and pretend he just had a feeling she was the right one. Otherwise, he¡¯d act clueless. It would be mean to repeatedly screw her over in a way nobody could possibly have a defense against. And I¡¯ll have to make up excuses for how I knew every time. When people correctly identified Olive, she asked them how at the end of class. So that she could improve. Alden could only use ¡°it was luck¡± and ¡°not sure, maybe I noticed something subconsciously¡± so many times before she thought she had some subtle tell he wasn¡¯t revealing and started to agonize over it. ¡°I¡¯m almost positive I picked the right one,¡± Haoyu told the team. ¡°Second-guessing doesn¡¯t do any good unless we see some sign.¡± He was right. Alden knew because the gremlin said that particular Olive was a no-no. Alden couldn¡¯t eat her without her permission. ¡°What are you sighing for in the middle of an epic battle of magic and wits?¡± Haoyu was raising an eyebrow. ¡°I wish I was less weird sometimes.¡± Before Haoyu could reply, Maricel said, ¡°Ready!¡± She sounded excited. ¡°With Helo¨ªsa¡¯s positioning right now, I think I can do even better! I¡¯ll have to start farther from the target, though. And once I¡¯ve made the Shaping gesture that qualifies as the official attack, Principal Saleh will give us a penalty if I make another gesture to adjust my dirt¡¯s position. I might miss. Maybe I shouldn¡¯t try for more if it¡¯s risk¡ª¡± ¡°Always try for more,¡± said Astrid from her spot at the finish line. ¡°I agree,¡± Njeri said. ¡°Give Victory her sustenance.¡± ¡°If you all don¡¯t mind¡­okay!¡± A moment passed, and then Maricel came into view. She jogged up the ramp at the end of the weight challenge. She didn¡¯t have any dirt with her. Yet. ¡°Do you know what she¡¯s doing?¡± Haoyu asked Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t. We talked about knocking people off the top of their wall with sandbags, but it¡¯s obviously not going to be that.¡± Shrike was headed for the wall again. He would probably perch there with his ¡°severed¡± leg for a couple of minutes, hoping they would get careless and knock him off so that he could get a fresh start. The other team was cautious. They knew an attack was incoming. They just didn¡¯t know what it would be or who would deliver it. Reinhard had an arrow nocked, and that was drawing most of their attention toward him. Maricel was pretending like she was just repositioning herself. She wasn¡¯t looking toward the enemy team at all, not even Helo¨ªsa, who was shifting her weight from foot to foot and staring at Reinhard like she fully intended to dodge an arrow if it came her way. She was grinning eagerly. ¡°She knows I¡¯m an Avowed, too, doesn¡¯t she?¡± he groused. ¡°I¡¯m not a kid playing with a toy bow, and she¡¯s not Febri.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t shoot her just to prove you can,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°It¡¯s not your turn.¡± Alden watched Maricel. Good luck, he thought as she suddenly stopped and lifted her arms. You¡¯ve been doing great since school started. Get them.
Everything had gotten better since Maricel Alcantara left intake. She¡¯d never expected it, and she still couldn¡¯t quite believe it was happening. But for the past two weeks, a lot of the good things that had been stolen from her the moment the System chose her seemed to be coming back to her all at once. They were slightly different than before¡ª this island¡¯s version of those good things rather than identical replacements for what she¡¯d lost¡ªbut she still recognized them. Friends. School. Teachers. Until six months ago, Maricel had had those. She¡¯d always been welcome among the other girls her age back home. She¡¯d looked forward to seeing them every day and being with them¡­not as the most popular or exciting person, but as a comfortable background character in their world. Right after her family had made her register, she¡¯d gone back to her junior high for what she¡¯d thought would be a final week of classes and a chance to say goodbye to everyone. That was what she¡¯d been told it would be by her handler, the Avowed emigration people, and all those other adults who¡¯d started buzzing around her the moment she¡¯d been announced as a newly selected S. Instead, the week had been more of a big celebration. Supposedly, it was all in her honor, but she¡¯d soon realized that although her name was everywhere, none of what had been planned was intended to make things better for her. Lots of people needed their piece of the earthquake that had shaken the foundations of her life. Let this news crew film you during lunchtime, Maricel. You won¡¯t even know they¡¯re around. Make sure you smile. Be happy for the reporter. And there¡¯s an interview tomorrow. You¡¯re so lucky! Everyone is so curious! No, you don¡¯t have to, but it¡¯s already arranged. Think of the community, the school, everything we¡¯ve done for you. Would it really be so hard? A girl in your position should be grateful. Now come here and stand beside this important stranger for the camera. Then this other one. Just one more. She felt like she was being spun around in circles for days, and then just like that¡­it was over. They¡¯d had their fun, they¡¯d gotten an Avowed fairytale story, and the school didn¡¯t really want to manage an S-rank in class. She would be a hazard and a distraction, and she was required to have her handler with her at all times around large groups of people. So inconvenient for everyone. Parents would complain. There was a farewell assembly on the last day. It was all right for her to cry then. It was touching if she cried after the celebration was over. People said that if she became famous, they might name the school she was no longer allowed to attend after her. She went home with a brand new computer, donated by a local company that wanted a picture of her wearing a shirt with their logo on it, so that she could sit in her bedroom having online classes. Safely tucked out of everyone else¡¯s way until she was banished to Anesidora. Even she thought it was for the best, since she wanted to spend as much time with her family as possible. But maybe not. Maybe listening to conversations through her door and imagining how in the future her name would be spoken less and less in the house until she didn¡¯t really belong there anymore had been bad for her. Then in intake, lots of the new arrivals were sad just like her. But they snapped out of it. So fast. And they wanted to leave the sad behind. And there she was, still going through boxes of tissues and trying to find ways to get back home. I guess I really will have to be famous enough for them to name a school after me, she¡¯d decided. I guess I¡¯ll just have to be one of those Avowed who can break mountains. I¡¯ll have to look pretty and smile for cameras and shake hands with strangers¡­and if I do that for them, they will let me stay. It was her ray of hope. It also made her so furious that she wanted to rip up the floor of the sea. She practiced with her powers so that she could one day. In intake, she learned that a girl with an S beside her name was supposed to be grateful, even here. She was supposed to complain less than everyone else, not more. Only the other gloomy, furious people thought she had a right to her unhappiness. So she¡¯d hung around them a little. It wasn¡¯t really friendship. Just shared misery and resentment. It seemed natural to hang around people who felt the same way, she thought as she stood inside the re-frozen Workshop. She carefully targeted points within and around the big cylinder she had built for the team. She used her hands, her skills, and the curious mental focus her active spell impression gave her to direct her magic. But it just made it harder to move on. Things weren¡¯t perfect, and yet they had been getting better ever since she got away from intake. And telling Jacob, once and for all, that she wouldn¡¯t go with him if he tried to leave again had relieved some pressure she hadn¡¯t realized was crushing her. She hoped he¡¯d talk to the System, like Alden had suggested, and tell it he wanted to be summoned. Trying to escape from Anesidora that way sounded much safer and more likely to succeed. But as for Maricel, she was here now. On this path home. She had to start walking it. She packed more clay into her cylinder. More sand. She pressed and pressed. A slightly wrong motion or a misplaced compression point, and her magic would break the shape apart instead of hardening it. Mistakes weren¡¯t usually a problem. It was only dirt. But today she was nervous. I don¡¯t want to disappoint them all. It¡¯s been so much fun. The long hours at the library, having everyone on calls with her in class, even teasing Vandy and Tuyet this morning before they¡¯d left the apartment¡­ Everly had been joking that their team had spent all their time coming up with surefire methods to counter Dart Meisters and Sky Shapers specifically, and Maricel had gone along with her. Tuyet had threatened to pin pictures of them to her dartboard in retaliation. I like being on the team. After their terrible runs on Wednesday, she¡¯d thought they might fall apart. She¡¯d been sure Alden must feel terrible after getting targeted so many times. But he¡¯d been calm and collected starting off their meeting, and it had just gotten better from there. I wish we could run the course together more. We could get so good at it. They only had today. She wanted to make it count. And she wanted to impress Fragment, who was watching from the stands. The older Ground Shaper saved people from disasters with her power. She had two brothers several years younger than her, just like Maricel. She had been forced to leave them behind when she was fifteen, just like Maricel. ¡°And I never suspected,¡± she¡¯d said, offering Maricel a coconut taffy from the tin she kept on her desk, ¡°that one day the younger one would be selected, too! I was so glad I¡¯d gotten my feet under me by then. I¡¯d just bought my first apartment. Didn¡¯t even have a spare bedroom, but he moved in with me the day he arrived on the island.¡± Siblings of globie Avowed didn¡¯t usually become Avowed, too. But it happened much more often for them than it did for the general population. You never know. Maricel Alcantara was trying to get her feet back under her for a lot of reasons. She quit shaping and looked down at the large tube she¡¯d made. She¡¯d had to use more sand than she wanted, but with the slightly damp clay and the intense compression it should hold together well enough until it reached its destination. ¡°Great,¡± said Everly from where she stood watching. ¡°That should really frustrate them.¡± ¡°Ready!¡± Maricel called to the rest of the team. A few moments later, heart racing with nerves, she was hurrying down the course. Her Shaping attacks on the other team needed to be either massive or very accurate to be effective. She was allowed to move something into position on their side for just a few seconds, and then she could make a single gesture to direct it toward someone or something in an aggressive fashion. Otherwise Shapers could just fly their element around for ages without committing to a proper attack, creating an extended threat that would interfere with the other team¡¯s ability to maneuver. She stopped just past the weight ramp. She glanced toward Reinhard. He was distracting the other team for her. Helo¨ªsa was looking at him. Maricel eyeballed the other girl¡¯s position, almost directly opposite her own. I think I can do it. I think she¡¯s standing in exactly the right spot. But it¡¯s going to have to be really fast to catch her by surprise. She lifted her arms. Maintain shape with the left hand. Three gestures with the right, she thought. To me, away from me, down the enemy course. If I¡¯m not accurate, it¡¯s going to be very embarrassing. But Astrid had just said they should always try for more.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. ¡°There¡¯s all of our dirt!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°It¡¯s moving really¡ª¡± ¡°Fast,¡± said Alden. ¡°Holy¡ª!¡± A large tube of dirt flew through the air toward Maricel. People shouted. Her right hand pressed forward as the cylinder shot over her head, and its direction changed in a heartbeat. It rocketed across enemy lines, smashed toward the floor¡ªwhich should have broken it to bits or, given its shape, sent it rolling off into the sunset¡ªand stopped dead for a split second. Helo¨ªsa, standing a couple of yards away from the end of it, whipped around to face it just in time for it to crash into her legs and send her flying as it barreled in a perfectly straight line along the floor down the enemy course. It left a large trail of dirt across the white floor in its wake. ¡°GO!¡± Maricel shouted. She wrapped her arms around herself, perhaps to keep herself from accidentally using her magic anymore. The cylinder shot dead center through the fire obstacle, out the other end, and into the pipe, the very thin edge on the bottom of the obstacle shaving off some more dirt but doing little to halt the juggernaut¡¯s progress. ¡°NOW STOP!¡± its creator ordered. <> There was no way for her to control the dirt with her voice, and Alden fully expected to see it launch itself out of the pipe like a bullet given how fast it had entered. But it did stop. Not in the middle, where Maricel had probably wanted it. Instead, about half of the bulk, crumbling from its violent journey, emerged from the end. ¡°No! I threw it too hard! They¡¯ll be able to dig it out easier from there. I¡¯m so sor¡ª¡± Her apology was cut off by cheers and laughter from the rest of the team. ¡°That was awesome,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Helo¨ªsa, we¡¯re sorry!¡± Everly called. Njeri shouted, ¡°Your aim is AMAZING, Maricel!¡± ¡°It really is,¡± said Alden. ¡°That was a super long shot. And you hit Helo¨ªsa on the way.¡± ¡°We might¡¯ve just won,¡± said Reinhard. ¡°Their track runner¡¯s about to reach the gym and have to dig. Maricel took Helo¨ªsa out at the knees, and it was pretty severe. She¡¯s belly crawling toward the rope climb¡­frighteningly fast¡­but we can count her out. I think.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s push for the finish line,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°All of us.¡± Alden began prepping his cord. Since we¡¯re all going for it, priority order over the line is easy to figure out. He¡¯d put Njeri and Lucille up and over together. Njeri would head for the finish with Jeffy¡¯s help. Reinhard would target someone on the other team as soon as she was over. Lucille would be able to haul people up with the cord from up there as well. Everly would go through, then Alden and Haoyu. Versus this team, it was fine for Reinhard to stay in his sniper position until the last minute, so he¡¯d finish the course off with the three S-ranks. Surprisingly soon, Alden was up on top of the wall himself, looking down into the water. The tank was a giant L shape, with the longer, vertical side of the L abutting the wall. There were small floats that had to be dragged underwater and put in wire traps along the way before the escape hatch at the other end of the L would unlock. The traps periodically set the floats free again. It wasn¡¯t complicated, but it was exhausting to get the floats all down. Unless you had an Aqua Brute on your team. Jeffy was down at the bottom of the tank now, trapping one of the floats. Thanks to his skill he could drag all of them at once if he wanted, and just walk around at the bottom holding them in complete defiance of buoyancy. He¡¯s probably a little disappointed it¡¯s all going so well. They had promised they would send him back out to the track at least once to help and protect whoever had died so that he could show off his ¡°land moves¡± to the principal. We¡¯ll have to let him attack someone next time. Alden jumped. Haoyu was right behind him. He held his breath as he hit the water, and before he could resurface, a hand grabbed him around the ankle, and he sank like a rock despite the lungful of air. He kept his eyes closed as they went down. The vertical portion of the tank was about thirty feet deep, and when you reached the bottom, you swam through a passage toward the escape hatch. Jeffy was supposed to shove them right toward it, so it was very low effort. I wonder if he could¡¯ve caught the mishnen. Probably. At the very least, he would¡¯ve had more options than stripping down to his underwear and trying to bait it with his own pants. They reached the bottom and a hand pushed Alden forward. He opened his eyes and swam. A few seconds later he was emerging from the escape hatch, the magic barrier letting him slide right through. The final obstacle was simple¡ªa tightrope walk. The metal cable they were supposed to walk across was only a couple of feet off the ground, but every fall punished you with a five percent total body movement penalty. I¡¯m pretty sure this is going to go really well, Alden thought as he hopped up onto it. It was exactly the kind of challenge his new wordchain should turn into a non-challenge. He took his first couple of steps and smiled. Thanks, Lute. He strolled the rest of the way over the finish line. Everyone who¡¯d gone ahead of him was waiting with big smiles on their faces. ****** ¡°I see,¡± Lesedi Saleh said, holding the magical device she was using as a megaphone when it suited her down by her side and staring at a notice she¡¯d just receive through her interface, ¡°that one of our students has earned some jealousy already.¡± ¡°Only one?¡± Torsten Klein asked. He was watching Maricel stumble over the finish line and beam as Astrid and Everly patted her on the back. ¡°We have several stand-outs.¡± ¡°They should all be exceptional in some way,¡± the principal answered. ¡°But I meant Alden; someone just used the reporting system to share their suspicions that he¡¯s ¡®using some kind of performance enhancing drugs.¡¯ They obviously didn¡¯t appreciate his jaunty demeanor as he finished the race. A shame. I rather liked it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a wordchain,¡± Klein said, shifting his gaze toward Alden. ¡°We told him not to bring it to class again until he could cast it himself. I thought we wouldn¡¯t see it again for a few more weeks, if he kept up with it at all.¡± ¡°Do I detect a hint of approval?¡± ¡°It depends on whether he actually did cast it himself.¡± ¡°Does he strike you as a cheater?¡± ¡°He doesn¡¯t.¡± He frowned. ¡°Do you think he plans to supplement himself more extensively than usual with wordchains?¡± ¡°It will be a lot of studying if he does. We have a few students who try, but we don¡¯t really leave them much time for it. I¡¯ve always thought shoring up wordchain knowledge was more of a post-graduate endeavor.¡± Klein nodded once. ¡°Leveling to secure more foundation points and talents offers an improvement with no drawbacks. But his unusual Dexterity and Speed allocations¡­maybe he did it specifically because he was hoping to make up for his rank and class with chains? He should have mentioned it during his interview if that was the case.¡± ¡°You could just ask him,¡± she said mildly. He sighed through his nose. ¡°Maybe after I¡¯ve seen more evidence that it¡¯s actually a good idea for him and not a waste of his time.¡± ¡°He can also do several things with his skill that he wasn¡¯t capable of a few short weeks ago,¡± she pointed out. He didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Morrison wants him to catch bullets with it.¡± Klein rolled his eyes. ¡°It¡¯s a robust skill,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯ll find out how robust soon enough. And then¡­we¡¯ll see.¡± ****** Once they were all over the finish line, giddy with excitement at their first win and drinking from their water bottles while the other team used the remaining minutes on the clock to struggle through the course, Jeffy watched the drone footage of Maricel¡¯s epic attack. He¡¯d been able to hear them all talking about it under the water, but he couldn¡¯t see it. He felt like he¡¯d missed out. ¡°That was so cool!¡± he said, gnawing on a strip of jerky. Maricel beamed. ¡°Thank¡ª¡± ¡°It looks like their pipe is pooping if you watch it in reverse.¡± Maricel¡¯s smile froze. ¡°What?¡± Alden tried not to laugh. Everly snorted. ¡°I thought so too.¡± ¡°What?!¡± ¡°Your creation did look a little like a giant¡­¡± Haoyu caught a glimpse of her expression and quickly changed tactics. ¡°But everyone was totally focused on your perfect Shaping! You looked awe-inspring. Definitely the MVP. It¡¯s not your fault you wanted to plug a pipe, and pipes are pipe-shaped.¡± ¡°Oh no,¡± Maricel stared back at the other team. ¡°Maybe nobody else noticed what it slightly resembled,¡± said Njeri. ¡°Except for Jeffy, Everly, Haoyu, and me.¡± There was a pause. ¡°I noticed,¡± said Lexi. Maricel groaned. *** ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN: Lets Feed Her to Victory 127 ****** Winning felt good. No surprise there. But the jubilant, giddy atmosphere among the members of the team kept ratcheting higher and higher, and everyone was behaving like they¡¯d accomplished something much grander than winning a race against their classmates. They grabbed a spot together on the bleachers while the other two teams prepped for their own runs, and Alden basked in the victory right along with the rest of them. ¡°We need to figure out how to make the pipe into an even stronger cannon!¡± Njeri said. ¡°Did you see my ice ball take out Febri?! His arm didn¡¯t work for the rest of the race!¡± Everly nodded eagerly. ¡°Is there something we could do to make pressure build up inside it? So it was more explosive?¡± ¡°I should try out for the school team in January,¡± Reinhard was saying. ¡°Ranged Meisters are so good at this game, and it would give me lots of practice time in the gym.¡± ¡°You know the rules are different for different courses,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°So they don¡¯t always favor Meisters so heavily¡­¡± ¡°Lexi, you¡¯ve got to be relieved you finally got the chance to use Writher on a person, right?¡± Reinhard asked, clapping Lexi on the back so hard that Lexi almost dropped his water bottle. ¡°The way you put that sounds dark,¡± said Astrid. ¡°Meisters need to train our weapons on the rest of you. That¡¯s just how it is!¡± ¡°I was pleased with Writher¡¯s performance,¡± Lexi said. ¡°He was really pleased,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°You can tell by his smirk.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a smirk?¡± Astrid, sitting on the other side of Alden, leaned around to examine Lexi¡¯s face. ¡°You have to look close,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Stop staring at me that hard!¡± Lexi protested. ¡°It¡¯s just a face.¡± ¡°Do you not smile much because it would make you look like Kon?¡± Astrid asked. ¡°Of course not. I¡¯m just not a smiley person. And technically Kon looks like me. I was born first.¡± ¡°Thank you for carrying my dirt,¡± Maricel said to Lucille. ¡°And you Alden. And Lexi.¡± Alden nodded at her. ¡°Are we going to do it that way again?¡± ¡°Oh, we don¡¯t have to!¡± Maricel said. ¡°Didn¡¯t we agree we¡¯d try it for one run and then on the next we¡¯d try something different so that everybody¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think any of us minded your efforts this time. And Alden did great getting people over the wall fast,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°So we don¡¯t have to have you for that necessarily. As long as he¡¯s not on the verge of wearing out his skill¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine for another run as long as it doesn¡¯t turn into a big drawn-out mess like we had on our Wednesday attempts.¡± Alden had planned to use his handicap before the next race. He usually ate the preserved breath mint in the middle of class so that he could double run the skill and burn himself out just about on schedule every time. I don¡¯t have to do it that way, though. It might be nice to have a little extra power at the right moment. And I can still feel it out when I¡¯m close to where the limit should be. When he was close to what he deemed half-exhausted, he would quit. If he pushed it a smidge¡­ A Boe-like voice in his head told him that every time he did something like this he was risking people asking questions. I know, I know. Suspicions stack up over time so you have to be careful from the beginning. I¡¯ll only do it the smallest bit. Only if it really counts. He wanted to win again, not just to keep this good feeling going but also because their final run would be versus Team Vandy/Marsha. It wasn¡¯t like he had a rivalry with Winston Heelfeather, but the speedster had been putting so much effort into being a shit since school started that Alden was sure letting him win would be inviting even worse behavior. Or maybe I¡¯m slightly more spiteful than I should be. ¡°Jeffy, you make the water obstacle so fast for us,¡± Reinhard said suddenly. ¡°We get through it way more quickly than any other team.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Njeri agreed. ¡°Without you, our runs would take so much longer.¡± Their voices had both turned encouraging to the point of being sugary. They¡¯re definitely going to try to get him to agree to stay in the tank for the whole next race. It would be the ideal situation for the team. And Njeri and Reinhard were their most vocally competitive members. Alden suspected that Everly and Lexi were just as interested in winning, but they tended to be quieter about it. ¡°You do make things so much easier for us, dude,¡± he said to the Aqua Brute. Jeffy was toweling off his hair aggressively, like he thought he could bring the waterlogged mohawk back to life. ¡°I¡¯m looking forward to seeing your¡­land moves¡­on our next run, though.¡± The wattage on Jeffy¡¯s smile made up for the glare Reinhard shot Alden. We promised him, Alden silently mouthed at the archer. Njeri slumped in her seat. ¡°I¡¯m gonna use my spell impression so hard for you guys!¡± Jeffy announced. ¡°I¡¯m gonna attack everyone on the other team with it.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you can use a spell impression hard,¡± said Everly. She sighed. ¡°But we all look forward to seeing how it goes.¡± ¡°I can use it hard. It¡¯s like this feeling in your head. Like determination and wanting it real bad!¡± A crease appeared between Everly¡¯s brows. ¡°That¡¯s the spirit!¡± said Astrid. ¡°And maybe, after you¡¯ve used it once, you can use your land moves to get back to the tank fast. Like, speedster fast. That would be cool.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± said Reinhard. ¡°After we let you attack the enemy, let¡¯s see how fast you can run back to the tank.¡± Jeffy tilted his head and looked at Reinhard. ¡°Are you scared of swimming by yourself?¡± Reinhard fumbled the jar of protective coating he¡¯d been applying to his arrow tips and almost dropped it. ¡°What?!¡± ¡°I mean if you are, I¡¯ll stay in the water for you. You could¡¯ve just told me you were a bad swimmer.¡± ¡°You¡­¡± Reinhard¡¯s face was twitching from offended to exasperated. ¡°He¡¯s not a bad swimmer,¡± Alden said, before anyone could decide to stuff Jeffy back into his goldfish bowl with that little excuse. ¡°None of us are bad swimmers. We do work faster as a team when you¡¯re helping us with the water obstacle, but we all agreed that we could try things out on the course, so don¡¯t worry about us. We¡ª¡± ¡°Alden, come down here for a minute!¡± They all quieted at the sound of Lesedi Saleh¡¯s magnified voice. Alden stood. ¡°Tell me if she says anything about me,¡± Jeffy called after him. From behind him, Alden heard Haoyu, voice amused, saying, ¡°Do you think she¡¯d call Alden down there to talk about you?¡± Alden hopped down onto the gym floor and approached the head of the hero program. Principal Saleh was standing with Instructor Klein, murmuring and pointing toward Tuyet¡¯s back as she headed out toward the track with her team. I¡¯m sure Tuyet¡¯s a big part of the reason their team has to fight back to back today. Unlike the first day, when winners had fought double matches, the run order for this afternoon had been pre-decided. The next race would be Finlay/Tuyet/Jupiter versus Vandy/Marsha, then Finlay/Tuyet/Jupiter versus Febri/Shrike. Finally, Alden¡¯s team would go up against Vandy/Marsha for the last run. ¡°Sorry to pull you away from your team right after such an interesting win,¡± said Principal Saleh as Alden reached them. ¡°You were moving well out there.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Instructor Klein says you¡¯re learning a movement wordchain?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°My roommate¡¯s been tutoring me.¡± ¡°Which wordchain is it?¡± Klein asked. ¡°Well, it¡¯s¡­.¡± I guess I should use the official name? <>, he said. Klein blinked at him. The principal lifted an eyebrow. ¡°It increases my awareness of my own body and my control of it. By a lot. The System mentionec it also increases situational awareness the first time Lute passed it to me, but I don¡¯t know that I¡¯ve noticed that much. I¡¯m still getting the hang of it. Lute says there¡¯s a learning curve.¡± ¡°When you say ¡®by a lot¡¯¡­?¡± the principal asked. ¡°The other day I unblushed with it. Like I was blushing, then I stopped. That was cool. I haven¡¯t been able to repeat something like that just yet, but the chain¡¯s making moving easier in general. Balance seems to be a big thing. I¡¯m really aware when it¡¯s off, and it¡¯s very easy to correct. Lute says Keiko Velra calls the chain ¡®Gracefulness¡¯ so that makes sense.¡± He thought of mentioning how Lute used it¡ªto gain control of his own facial expressions for acting. But since he hadn¡¯t tried that out himself yet, he left it off. ¡°That sounds like a very useful wordchain,¡± Klein said. ¡°Lute¡¯s a good tutor. He had to get permission to teach it to me, though.¡± ¡°Well, it¡¯s obviously working for you,¡± said Principal Saleh. She gave him a wry look. ¡°So well that you¡¯ve been anonymously reported for drug use.¡± For a few seconds, Alden just stared at her. ¡°Me?¡± he said finally. ¡°What kind of drugs?¡± ¡°Non-specified performance enhancing ones.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not on drugs!¡± It was such a stupid accusation that he was on the verge of laughing¡­which he belatedly realized was probably not the appropriate response. ¡°I¡¯m not on drugs,¡± he said again. Calmly and maturely. ¡°We know,¡± said the principal. ¡°I was just informing you in case you wanted to get a drug test to nip the matter in the bud right away. Or you can wait. Every member of your class is scheduled for random testing before the end of the quarter. We can just ¡®randomly¡¯ test you now instead. If you want.¡± I guess they¡¯re thinking that if someone throws it in my face, it might be better for me to be able to prove I¡¯m not high on alien stimulants right away? Not the worst idea. And if it was the same test they¡¯d all taken before it was only a few minutes and no big deal. ¡°Okay. I don¡¯t mind.¡± ¡°Head toward the labs room, then,¡± said Principal Saleh. ¡°One of the instructors will join you in a moment.¡± Before he left the gym, Alden accessed his roommate chat. [Alden: Hey, I¡¯m going to be drug tested! :)] He looked up to see Haoyu and Lexi¡¯s startled expressions from the bleachers. [Haoyu: You¡¯re happy about that?] [Alden: I¡¯m so amazing someone in our class thinks I¡¯m a criminal.] Haoyu rolled his eyes dramatically. Lexi was scanning the class. [Lexi: I bet it was Heelfeather. He¡¯s already gone out to the track, but I bet it was him.] ¡­.yeah, he¡¯s the most likely suspect. [Lute: Is this because of the wordchain?] [Alden: Probably. The teachers seem to think so. I¡¯ve become a source of envy with a single chain.] It made him want to learn dozens more and apply them all at once to see if Winston¡¯s head exploded. I need to figure out how many hours I put into learning this one altogether. I feel like it was a really good return on my investment. He added it all up while he left the gym and headed toward the room where they¡¯d done his last drug test. There were all the lunch time tutoring sessions. I could count the in-class tutoring as half since we were only partially focused on me, the time we spent in the privacy booth, all the practice during breaks and in the evenings¡­ More than forty hours probably. Studying the wordchain had taken over his life when he wasn¡¯t in school or practicing spell casting instead. But he had it now. If he made sure to cast it at least once a week, he shouldn¡¯t forget all the little gestures that went into it, and if it always landed for him¡­ It¡¯s more than worth it. I wonder what Lute really ought to be charging me for the tutoring. Even if we ignore the fact that he had to vouch for me with the Palace of Unbreaking to teach this one, there aren¡¯t a lot of amazing wordchain tutors available for the uncommon chains. What do S-rank Avowed charge to teach you things only they can teach you? By the time Foxbolt arrived to test him, Alden had looked up the hourly price for S-rank personal trainers at North of North. They were the kind of people who worked with you in the heavy-hitters gym when you yourself were a beginner heavy-hitter who needed someone to give you one-on-one advice about proper technique for headbutting pickup trucks into submission. He figured it was the best equivalent he could come up with. Lute was only a teenager, but he was a Chainer. They were a really rare commodity. ¡°Let¡¯s get this all squared away!¡± Foxbolt said, walking down the hall toward Alden with a spring in her step. ¡°Excellent work mastering your new chain so quickly!¡± She winked. She winked a lot at everyone. It made her eyeliner do the color switch from blue to orange and back. According to Reinhard, who kept track of all the faculty members¡¯ hero careers, it had been a cute camera habit for the instructor when she was a full-time superhero. Now that she was taking a break to spend more time with her family here on Anesidora, she still hadn¡¯t stopped doing it. ¡°Not scared of needles, are you?¡± she asked, letting Alden into the room and opening a cabinet to grab supplies. ¡°I am not.¡± He watched the bones of a holographic skeleton in the corner slowly change shape, presumably to mimic the effects of a Morph¡¯s talents. ¡°Great! Have to ask!¡± Foxbolt said. ¡°We¡¯ve got a second year student who¡¯ll take a sword to the face in gym and keep going without a flinch. So I didn¡¯t ask her before I gave her a little finger poke, and she hit the floor like I¡¯d turned her legs into custard.¡± Alden held out his hand and let the instructor jab him with the needle. She wiped the drop of blood onto a test strip, he spit into a vial of potion, then stepped into the body scanner. ¡°Going to go ahead and check you for magical tools as well,¡± she said. Alden¡¯s heart beat faster. He was hyperaware of it thanks to the wordchain. Calm down, he told himself. Control your expression. ¡°Sounds good.¡± He¡¯d already been through this before. The scanner didn¡¯t pick up on the auriad last time. It wouldn¡¯t this time either. It¡¯s closer to being a part of me than it is to being the kind of magic tool the school checks for. Alden assumed something like Joe¡¯s enchanted ring would set it off. He made his body relax, and he stood still while the scanner worked. Foxbolt was watching the test strip do absolutely nothing. ¡°The wordchain can be quite a feather in your cap,¡± she said. ¡°If you use it often enough for us to be sure you¡¯ve mastered it and can put it into play on demand, we¡¯ll add it to your official transcript. It¡¯ll become an additional proficiency consideration for entry into certain courses¡­and for when you¡¯re trying to get jobs one day, of course.¡± The scanner stopped. Foxbolt was quiet for a moment as she received the readout. ¡°You¡¯re not on drugs,¡± she announced. ¡°Keep it that way.¡± ¡°Will do.¡± ¡°You can head back to the gym now. By the way, how¡¯s it going with the rope?¡± ¡°I wish it was a poncho sometimes. Otherwise, it¡¯s fine.¡± She laughed. ¡°Keep plugging away at it! You¡¯re just getting started, and you¡¯ve got your whole life ahead of you to turn it into something amazing.¡± Alden paused on his way out the door. ¡°Thank you.¡± There wasn¡¯t really anything else to say, so he spun the knob and headed out. That was unexpectedly nice to hear. ¡°You¡¯ve got your whole life ahead of you,¡± was one of those throwaway things people said. But it felt a lot less throwaway these days than it used to. I¡¯m not going to die in that awful place. I¡¯m not going to watch Kibby die. My biggest problems, for the next few months at least, are wondering when Boe will get himself unstuck from catspace and dealing with Winston Heelfeather thinking I¡¯m cheating in gym class. Life was really sweet right now. ****** ¡°Lute!¡± Alden had ducked into the bathroom, and he was just in time to spot a pair of combat boots disappearing from the narrow gap at the bottom of a stall door as the owner tucked his feet out of sight. ¡°What are you doing here?¡± The door opened to reveal Lute sitting on top of the toilet lid. He was still wearing his homemade yarn tank top over his t-shirt. ¡°What the fuck? Can you see through walls?¡± he asked. ¡°I know all your footwear,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ve been watching you check for Shoe Pisser¡¯s interference for weeks now.¡± Then he realized why his roommate was probably hiding out in the bathroom in a building where he definitely didn¡¯t belong. ¡°Were you worried about the team? Have you been spying on us?¡± ¡°No!¡± ¡°You were! I¡¯m going to tell Haoyu you¡¯re a spy, too. Lexi and I are the only truly honest men in the lodge.¡± Lute dropped his feet and stood up. ¡°I was just making sure my wordchain students were actually using what I taught them. I was going to be very angry if I spent hours tutoring those idiots and they didn¡¯t even bother to chain up before the course.¡± ¡°They did. I think Reinhard actually tried to do the energy chain twice, but it didn¡¯t work the second time.¡± ¡°They become harder to call toward you as you stack more of them.¡± Lute took a step closer to him. ¡°Soooo¡­Self-Mastery was so good you got drug tested?¡± Alden held up the finger that had just been pricked. It was now sealed with a waterproof bandage. ¡°They stole my blood and everything.¡± Lute looked pleased. ¡°I know something that small shouldn¡¯t make me feel like I¡¯ve accomplished anything, but it does.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t stay and talk to you,¡± said Alden. ¡°I have to do my business and get back to the gym. But yes. You¡¯re the best. Are you just hiding out in here until we start running again or¡­?¡± ¡°Once people get on the indoor part of the course, everyone seems pretty distracted,¡± Lute replied. ¡°I just watched a little from the sidelines. Couldn¡¯t see everything, but I saw enough.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll show you all our recordings later,¡± Alden promised. Less than a minute later, he was out of the bathroom and on his way back into the gym. He mentally pulled up the North of North website again and navigated to the page where they sold memberships. Then he texted Lute. [Do you ever work out?] [No. Are you insinuating something?] [Of course not. Just a sec.] He bought the annual spa package. It granted you access to the fun stuff at North of North¡ªrelaxation rooms, the pools, and one free spa treatment a week. [Here,] he texted. [A thank you present.] Lute didn¡¯t respond until Alden had nearly reached the team. Instructor Klein was with them. He seemed to be busy breaking down the offensive and defensive decisions everyone had made on the course. [You didn¡¯t have to get me anything,] Lute wrote. [You didn¡¯t have to spend forever teaching me. It¡¯s just me being friendly to a friend. Don¡¯t sweat it.] [I plan to sweat it. In the fancy saunas. I believe I¡¯ve told you I am well trained in the art of spending other peoples¡¯ money.] ****** By the time the race was a third of the way through, it was obvious that the Finlay/Tuyet/Jupiter team was going to wipe the floor with Vandy/Marsha. Even though Vandy provided a decent counter to Tuyet¡¯s darts. The Sky Shaper turned the air turbulent over virtually every part of her team¡¯s course any time the opponent was on the attack, and since Tuyet couldn¡¯t tell which way the wind was blowing between her sniper perch and the other team¡¯s members, she couldn¡¯t account for it with her throws. ¡°This is where my shooting has an advantage,¡± Reinhard whispered. ¡°Sure it does,¡± Lexi said. ¡°It does! It¡¯s not like when I try to shoot at Shrike with his skill active. My arrows will adjust themselves back toward the target if it¡¯s only wind in the way.¡± ¡°Could you shoot through Vandy¡¯s level of air movement though? I thought you said it would be hard when we talked about it before?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°It depends on how much wind is blowing between me and the person I¡¯m aiming at, and air is, unfortunately, invisible.¡± ¡°So you have exactly the same problem as Tuyet,¡± Lexi concluded. ¡°Now you¡¯re just being an ass!¡± Reinhard exclaimed. ¡°This is why everyone likes your brother more.¡± ¡°I¡¯m reminding you not to take wild shots. You have a history¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m the captain now, and I order you both to stop fighting,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°You¡¯re creating tension on board my tightly-run ship.¡± ¡°Our tightly-run ship,¡± said Astrid. ¡°We aren¡¯t on the course yet,¡± Lexi pointed out. ¡°Astrid and I are already co-captaining,¡± Haoyu told him. ¡°Monitoring your morale, ensuring good behavior.¡± ¡°Anyone who says anything negative to another teammate before the end of class has to chew jerky so that they can¡¯t talk anymore,¡± Astrid added. ¡°I like that!¡± Haoyu said. She nodded. ¡°Punishments should fit the crime.¡± Alden was paying more attention to the happenings on the course than their conversation. Max was out, taken down by Jupiter on his way up the wall. He¡¯d hit his head, and it looked like it was going to count as unconsciousness, rather than death, which was the worst possible outcome from a game perspective. ¡°We¡¯ll have to deal with Max for most of our run, then,¡± he said. There had been some question about whether or not his team was going to overuse him on the first run again, but since he was currently unable to cast, he¡¯d probably be able to do a lot more damage when they faced him. Well, he¡¯ll be able to if they actually have him doing the right sorts of things. Prior to getting knocked out, he¡¯d been casting zones in the same locations as last time. They were a selfish team. Nobody defended anyone else. They wanted zones that improved their individual ability to conquer specific obstacles rather than increasing the team¡¯s overall chance of winning. Typing notes up for when Instructor Marion came back around to talk strategy, Alden allowed himself to be scathing in his analysis. ¡°Are you worried about Max?¡± Everly asked him. ¡°Strategically?¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°Not really. But it¡¯s only because they¡¯re the worst, and he¡¯s decided to spite them by letting them go on being the worst. If he was actually trying to help them, he¡¯d be a serious problem. They should use him to lay down the float zones on the wall so that they can swim up it, then they should send him back out to the track to ruin our life.¡± ¡°I did expect them to use him that way,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°They¡¯re not using the treadmill zone at all.¡± Alden nodded. Max¡¯s trap zone¡ªthe one that made it so that the person inside it ran without ever moving forward¡ªwas one of the few talents that could be used out on the track against other players. It was completely harmless, so it wasn¡¯t off-limits out there; and even if it only captured someone for a couple of minutes, that was a really long delay on the course. ¡°All he has to do is lay it down after everyone on the other team has gone inside where they can¡¯t see him. There¡¯s no way to know where it is until you step on it.¡± ¡°And there¡¯s the reason they haven¡¯t been letting him use it.¡± Haoyu pointed toward Marsha. She was heading toward Jupiter like a rocket. It was abundantly obvious that Marsha considered the attacker job to be hers. When her team had a strike available, she would only hang back if a member of the enemy team was assaulting their half of the course and she felt like dealing with them first. ¡°So she¡¯s really only interested in fighting S-ranks,¡± Njeri said. ¡°Until now, I was still wondering if she might be thinking of it as going for the most valuable members of the other team, and those all happened to be the S¡¯s. But it seems more like she¡¯s got rank tunnel vision.¡± On the bleacher below Alden, Lucille was biting one of her fingernails. ¡°We¡¯ll be fine,¡± he said. ¡°Just like the other teams have been.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s feed her to victory,¡± said Jeffy. Njeri held her hand up for a high five. I think we¡¯ve got this. ****** They were heading out to the track for the final run of the night, all of them in a great mood and hatching plans for how to deal with the other team¡¯s every-man-for-himself style, when Maricel suddenly gasped. The bags of dirt she was floating ahead of her, looking a lot dirtier and worse for the wear after having been repackaged and heavily taped back into useable condition, hit the ground with a weighty thud. ¡°You didn¡¯t just fatigue your skills, did you!?¡± Reinhard said in a horrified voice. ¡°We¡¯ll lose.¡± ¡°Wow,¡± said Astrid. ¡°Go ahead and tell everyone who you think the best teammate is. Don¡¯t hold back.¡± ¡°Maricel?¡± Everly asked in a concerned voice. Alden was worried, too. Maricel was staring straight ahead, her face slack. ¡°Hey, are you all right?¡± ¡°I¡­¡± she said. ¡°You all go. I have to talk to someone.¡± ¡°What?¡± Reinhard said. ¡°Now? Right this second?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be¡­I¡¯ll be right with you.¡± She started tapping her fingers through the air, texting somebody. ¡°All right,¡± said Haoyu, when it looked like everyone was just going to hang around awkwardly waiting on her. ¡°She¡¯ll meet us on the track.¡± Alden kept looking over his shoulder all the way to the track. Maricel stood staring for a while at something on her interface, her fingers nervously twirling one of the protective cuffs they all wore on their wrists. She said something. Then a shocked look crossed her face, and she froze for a while before whirling around and taking off back toward the gym. ¡°I think there¡¯s a problem,¡± he said. They all exchanged looks. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s bad news from home?¡± Everly suggested. I hope not. A short while later, Instructor Ivanova headed for their team. ¡°All right,¡± she said in a brisk voice. ¡°I just got word from the gym. Maricel had a sudden personal matter to deal with. She¡¯s not going to be able to make this run. You can take a couple of minutes to adjust your plans, and then we¡¯ll start.¡± ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT: Better Watch Out 128 ******* From the very beginning, there was something ugly about it Alden¡¯s team was missing a core piece. They were worried, nervous, and not sure what they were supposed to be doing now that all of their plans had been upset. And the personalities of their opponents added an additional element of tension that hadn¡¯t been present in any of the previous matches. The members of Team Vandy/Marsha who had been grim from their earlier losses suddenly felt like they had a chance. Maricel¡¯s absence put a couple of them in a much more optimistic mood. They were excited by the fact that they wouldn¡¯t be going up against one of the class¡¯s most powerful students after all, and they were too self-absorbed to hide it. Jerkasses, thought Alden, surfacing in the water tank and gulping in a few breaths before he grabbed a third float and plunged downward again. Vandy had been upset about Maricel, of course. They were on their way to being friends if they weren¡¯t there already. But Marsha¡­ Alden gritted his teeth and kicked furiously toward the bottom of the tank, shoving the float ahead of him. Even if Maricel hadn¡¯t gone missing, even if he and his team members weren¡¯t all a little anxious for her, he still thought they would have struggled in this race more than they¡¯d originally expected. There¡¯s something brutal about these guys, and the fact that they have no clear plan of their own fucks up all of our attempts to make plans that counter them. Case in point: the game was around halfway through, and Alden was currently doing Jeffy¡¯s job. That hadn¡¯t even been on their radar as a backup backup scheme. Things had been weird like this the whole race, starting from the second the other team hit the gym. It was more like they were forcing their way down the course instead of running it, trying to keep up with Marsha, who was so hellbent on getting first attack that she practically carried the class¡¯s one and only Vocal Brute to the finish line and tossed him over it. Alden¡¯s team hadn¡¯t been lagging too far behind despite everything. They¡¯d decided to send Astrid and Njeri over the line first to give themselves some attack options, and Alden had just finished putting the two of them, along with Jeffy and Reinhard, up on top of the wall when the other team¡¯s bell rang to announce that Marsha had earned them the right to attack. ¡°Okay,¡± Haoyu had said. At that time, he and Lexi had taken a position on the floor at that end of the weights with the intention of forcing incoming enemies to confront them rather than running through toward the people on the wall. ¡°Let¡¯s be wary. The smart thing for them to do would be wait until they had two attacks available so that they could¡­or not. Here she comes!¡± Marsha had run straight at the two of them, thrown her weapon into the air high over their heads before she reached them and used her reverse recall to fly up toward it, gaining enough altitude that Writher only managed to sever an aglet from one of her shoelaces as she passed. She and the polearm¡ªin spear form¡ªhit the floor on their side of the course hard enough that she had to be at least slightly injured. But you wouldn¡¯t have known it from the way she sprang up again and dashed for the wall, where Alden was standing at the base. Even if he had been fully rested and holding a large shield, he wouldn¡¯t have been foolish enough to think he could take an S-rank Meister¡¯s strike dead-on. He didn¡¯t want to lose the use of his skill for the rest of the game, so he opted for death. Or he opted for what would have been his death if Marsha was a player who cared about winning more than her own personal agenda. Alden dropped preservation on his paracord, and flung a temper sphere at her as she approached. Because why not try everything? Then he dove under the tip of the spear and at her knees as she reached him. His first thought was, I can¡¯t believe I managed to grab her before she stabbed me. His second was, Oh God. It¡¯s like I¡¯ve grabbed a bear. Marsha didn¡¯t even stumble. She just plowed right through him and over him, which didn¡¯t count as an attack on her part since he was the one who¡¯d thrown himself in front of the freight train and she¡¯d made no move at all to injure him. Alden rolled across the floor, gasping, and looked up to see Marsha scaling the wall with another toss of her spear. Reinhard shot her twice, going for injuries rather than kills because an injured Marsha was way better for them. She had one dead arm and one half-functional one when she leaped past him and into their tank. To attack Jeffy. In the water. She probably could¡¯ve taken out Astrid and Njeri, who were also in the tank right then, with one swing. She could¡¯ve taken out Reinhard or Alden as she passed. Instead, she took a ton of injuries, let a very confused Jeffy drag her down to the bottom of the tank, and then attacked him after she was on the verge of drowning. For what was basically a murder-suicide that managed not to violate any rules. Killing yourself was a no-go, but being reckless in your pursuit of a target wasn¡¯t. Jeffy was upset in the immediate aftermath, but it really wasn¡¯t his fault. None of them had given him advice on what to do if an enemy came into the tank with him, and the last thing he¡¯d heard Reinhard shout through comms was ¡®I¡¯ll make sure not to kill her.¡¯ So he¡¯d wavered, not sure what the right thing was. That skill of Marsha¡¯s that released an invisible strike had speared him in the chest. ¡°That was insane,¡± Astrid said after it was over. ¡°If she had to take out an S, why didn¡¯t she go for Lucille first?¡± Lucille was on the ground at the frozen fire obstacle, guarding Everly. She was a much, much easier target than Jeffy. Reinhard was angry with himself. ¡°I should¡¯ve shot her lethally. I could have. We just agreed to go for injuries, and I thought arrows to the shoulders would be plenty¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Shake it off, everybody. Especially you, Jeffy. That was basically a wasted attack for them since Marsha¡¯s going back to start, too. Look how annoyed Vandy is.¡± Vandy did look very displeased. She was sitting up on her team¡¯s monkey bar obstacle, brow furrowed and talking fast. ¡°Don¡¯t worry so much,¡± Marsha responded on her way out of the gym. Her voice was loud enough to carry. ¡°Their team only has one S-rank with Maricel gone.¡± At the time, Alden wondered, rather naively, if she¡¯d misspoken. But no. The next several minutes had shed light on the matter. Marsha, who seemed to have an interest in taking down other S¡¯s that bordered on obsession, didn¡¯t want to bother with Lucille. On her next attack, she took on Jeffy again, before he could make it back to the water. That time he was ready, sort of, and managed to grab hold of her and chant something as he ¡°died.¡± ¡°What the hell was that?¡± she¡¯d asked when the spell did absolutely nothing obvious. ¡°What spell impression did you take?¡± ¡°That¡¯s not going to work on her,¡± Reinhard had said with a groan. ¡°With her skill¡­why didn¡¯t he just punch her?¡± He was struggling a bit with the fact that he couldn¡¯t successfully attack over there himself. High winds were such a good counter to arrows that it wasn¡¯t worth wasting a shot, and he would be confining himself to defensive shooting. Their next best attacker would have been Maricel. In her absence, they were going with an unusual combination. When they¡¯d earned their first two attacks, Lexi crossed over to the enemy course with Everly. His job was to use his one attack to protect her from whoever tried to interfere with her while she cast her slick ice patch over the ramp that led up to the area where the tonne and half-tonne weights had to be dropped. It was Everly¡¯s most powerful spell, and the ice it created was a bit more arcane than the sort humans regularly pulled out of a freezer. She¡¯d used it a few times versus Instructor Klein, and the stuff was a menace. There was no running across it, only sliding, and it resisted melting and destruction. The other team would have to cajole Marsha into using her weapon to break it up if they wanted to get weights up the ramp again. The hastily-developed plan went well enough. Everly got the ice down and got away. Lexi got killed but managed to wrap Writher around Mehdi¡¯s arm and fling him skyward first. Everything was going well enough if Alden compared their team¡¯s progress to the other¡¯s. The race was just chaotic, difficult, and increasingly bitter. As he headed down into the depths of the tank with yet another float, the world went quiet except for the sound of Astrid and Haoyu encouraging everyone through comms. They were doing their best to counter the negativity and confusion with good attitudes and constant callouts about what was going on¡­which couldn¡¯t be that easy to keep track of since Vandy had, at long last, gotten fed up with Marsha. After that last risky assault on Jeffy had carried the polearm-wielding Meister right past juicier targets once again, Vandy had started trying to direct the team without any further regard for her most zealous teammate¡¯s attacks. Instead of letting Marsha run in a third time, she¡¯d taken her own shot and blown Reinhard right off the top of the wall with a powerful burst of air. He¡¯d survived the long fall with such a heavy movement restriction that Haoyu had had to come carry him to the finish line. Vandy deciding not to let Marsha have her way by working around her seemed to have blown any last remaining crumb of team cohesion apart. It was a free-for-all over there, with some of the group thrusting toward the finish line with almost zero help and others waiting for the sound of the bell to claim the next attack. ¡°They¡¯re losing,¡± Haoyu called. ¡°I know it¡¯s stressful right now, but just remember that the way they¡¯re playing is going to make them lose even if it is making our own strategies¡­kind of useless.¡± He¡¯d pushed Reinhard over the line a while ago, and now he was heading to pick up Everly and move her through the course. With Vandy having proven herself willing to attack, they had to take her into consideration as well now. The higher, more precarious positions like the rope climb, the bars, and the top of the wall could become death traps. Haoyu had a spell impression that made him less likely to be knocked off his feet by blows. He seemed a little sheepish about it because it was a much weaker version of talents his parents had. But it was strong enough to help him resist Vandy¡¯s wind, so he¡¯d be making sure Everly didn¡¯t get taken down on her way to the finish. ¡°Lucille, are you good?¡± Astrid called. ¡°You¡¯re sure you¡¯re fine to move the weights one more time for Jeffy to come through when he¡¯s done running track?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± she said softly. Under the water, his feet hooked under one trap to keep himself submerged while his fingers flicked open the catch of another, Alden winced. Even that single word reply sounded downtrodden. Lucille had launched herself into Marsha¡¯s path to protect Jeffy from that last assault. She¡¯d made it there in time with an explosively powerful leap, but then her tackle and the toss that sent Marsha back toward her own course had been¡­rather gentle. Especially for an S-rank grabbing and throwing another S-rank. Gentle enough that Marsha had managed to complete her swing and kill Jeffy for the second time. Gentle enough that Winston Heelfeather had seen it and suddenly decided he could get in on the offensive action, too. His team¡¯s Object Shaper was over there on their course quietly turning all of the miscellaneous objects he¡¯d brought into very sharp miscellaneous objects. He¡¯d done the same on their last run. He seemed to want to attack people with them, but he never got around to actually doing it so maybe it was just his way of staying out of his more aggressive teammates¡¯ paths. When their bell rang for the fourth time, Winston had snatched up a wind chime that had been turned into something more like a razor sharp sickle. He¡¯d ordered up a speed zone from Max, run at Lucille, dove dramatically across the floor, and sliced her calf. Now she was moving the weights with a bum leg, she sounded like she was near tears, and Winston was watching her like a hawk, clearly hoping he¡¯d get another shot. ¡°Vandy¡¯s sending Max back out to the track again,¡± Astrid reported. ¡°He¡¯s jogging that way.¡± ¡°This is so stupid,¡± Lexi spat. ¡°It¡¯s like trying to figure out what a bunch of over-energized toddlers are going to do with their superpowers next.¡± Max was doing what he¡¯d sworn he would do and following instructions. Everyone¡¯s instructions. And because his team had nothing like organization since Vandy¡¯s break with Marsha, people were countermanding each other all the time. Vandy would send Max out to the track to lay down a trap; obviously she thought that her team should¡¯ve been using him that way from the start. Then Marsha would catch on and order him back because she didn¡¯t want him to take one of her attack slots. Or Winston would call him back to lay down another speed zone in front of him, ostensibly so that he could attack faster or run back and forth through the fire. Alden was sure it was really so that he could run as fast as Finlay while he put on a cool expression for the camera. As a result, Max was spending half his time running back and forth uselessly and the other half casting spells that benefited one or two people for very specific tasks. Someone had had the bright idea of telling him to lay down a bunch of the float zones under the monkey bars, so that nobody would die if they fell off. So that spell impression was now completely gone if Alden¡¯s count was right, and there was no benefit unless somebody on their team spontaneously lost grip strength on their way across that one obstacle. Now Haoyu was asking Jeffy if he wanted to use his land moves on Max, since they were both about to pass by each other outside and Max was unlikely to escape from an S-rank who gave chase. As long as it doesn¡¯t take him too long, Alden thought. Even though he was much, much slower than the Aqua Brute, he was still working steadily here to keep the obstacle cleared so that they could send Everly through without waiting for Jeffy to trap all the floats. I was not supposed to have to swim this much. There was no permutation of the plan that called for me being the team¡¯s swimmer. He gasped in some more air and went back to it. Everyone was doing their best around all the madness. He was proud of his teammates for not getting too flustered with the state of things. He kept going through it all in his head. It was more important to keep a mental image of their positions in mind when he was down here where he had no way to see them. I¡¯m in here doing my job and staying safe from attack unless Marsha decides she¡¯d like to spearfish for a B-rank. Astrid, Njeri, and Reinhard are over the finish line. Lucille is still pushing through the weights for us; she¡¯s the best for it even if she is limping. Jeffy¡¯ll be back in the gym in a minute. Haoyu and Everly will make it to me right ahead of him, and I¡¯ll pull them all up. Haoyu had helped himself to Reinhard¡¯s bow and used it to shoot arrows into this side of the wall above the tank so that Alden could climb back up to the top when it was time. Reinhard had been officially unconscious and therefore unable to complain aloud without getting in trouble, but they¡¯d gotten some indecipherable mental texts from him that probably meant something like, ¡°How dare you play with my bow, you swine?!¡± He didn¡¯t mind people touching the arrows, but he was a little precious about the bow. The current plan, which was the dozenth they¡¯d had in as many minutes, was for the final six team members to head over the finish line in two groups. First would be Everly and Lexi. Then Haoyu, Alden, Lucille, and Jeffy wouldn¡¯t cross until they were all together. The four of them should be able to tackle every obstacle on the course, even if one of them was knocked out by an assault and had to be carried. They weren¡¯t even going to bother trying another attack after Everly and Lexi were over the line. They were just going to run for it and get this mess over with. ¡°I got Max!¡± Jeffy said excitedly. ¡°I grabbed him and did the spell. Do you think he minded?¡± ¡°I think Max has given up on minding things for the day, Jeffy,¡± said Astrid. ¡°Now hurry back here! Alden is doing your job at ten percent speed.¡± Not long after that, Alden got word that it was showtime for him and he pulled himself out of the tank. He heard an all-too-familiar soft sploosh sound behind him as he climbed the few wobbly arrows up to the top. One of the floats had come free of its trap and would have to be put back. Breathing hard, he made it to the top of the wall. Lying flat on his belly so that any surprise attacks from Vandy would be less likely to knock him off, hair dripping in his eyes, he looked over the edge to see Haoyu, Lexi, Everly and Jeffy below him. ¡°Hi there,¡± he said. ¡°Your skill¡¯s okay, isn¡¯t it?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Should we go up all together to save you from having to use it for longer?¡± All together was, debatably, riskier this late in the game, with attacks more likely to come in as the other team gained more finishers of their own. Alden getting knocked off the wall while he was lifting the four of them could result in kills and crippling injuries for half the team at once. ¡°I¡¯m fine. Let¡¯s do it two at a time to be on the safe side.¡± ¡°Lucille,¡± Astrid called from where she watched at the end of the course. ¡°Be sure to shout if you see Vandy making shaping gestures.¡± Now that everyone was through the weights for what they hoped would be the last time, the injured Brute was bringing up the rear and serving as their watcher. She was up near the ceiling, clinging to the platform at the end of the bars, her strength ensuring a good grip that would keep Vandy from trying an assault on her. As soon as Lexi and Everly were over the finish line, she¡¯d slide down the steep diagonal beam to join the final four in this section of the course. Alden would pull her up. And then we can wrap this up. He tied a large loop into the end of a length of cord and lowered it, preserving just before he reached the floor almost fifty feet below him. He pulled Everly and Jeffy up. She gave him a tired smile. ¡°I¡¯m ready for this one to be over with,¡± she said, then she splashed down into the tank with the Aqua Brute. Alden pulled Lexi and Haoyu up, feeling anxious the whole way. But they made it to the top, too. Lexi dove into the water. While Jeffy dragged him and Everly toward the bottom, Haoyu crouched beside Alden, recast his spell impression, and grabbed the back of Alden¡¯s gymsuit in a firm grip. ¡°I call this my anti-wind move,¡± he said quietly, eyes shifting from Vandy to Lucille and back. ¡°I appreciate it. Death by falling is no fun.¡± ¡°Sorry you had to swim the whole race.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± said Alden. ¡°Jeffy got to do his thing. I¡¯m looking forward to seeing the results of it.¡± In truth, he was getting pretty tired. Speed swimming was exhausting anyway, and doing it with floats trying to drag you back to the surface the whole time was a lot harder. Now Lucille was coming down the beam, using the slide-grip-slide method they¡¯d all settled on. [She¡¯s cry eyes.] Haoyu sent the mental text to Alden privately. [No talking.] It was true. Lucille had been getting more vocal toward the end of the race against Febri/Shrike earlier, but now she¡¯d almost totally shut down. No matter how many encouragements Astrid sent her way, she seemed to be hanging onto herself by a thread. [She¡¯s angry with herself,] Alden replied. The team wouldn¡¯t be this far along without Lucille. Even if all she did was the weights, it was a huge benefit. The damn things took so much time and combinations of at least two people for the rest of them to move. But Lucille had missed chances to take out enemies that another person with her abilities wouldn¡¯t have missed, and she was obviously very aware of it. [I was afraid Reinhard was going to say something to her about it,] Alden admitted. [He looked so pissed after she soft-balled Marsha. But he let it go.] [Good team,] said Haoyu. Max ran back into the gym with a totally blank expression on his face; either he¡¯d actually succeeded in putting a trap out there for the first time since the obstacle courses had started or he¡¯d been re-summoned by some team member who wanted to use him stupidly. Alden watched him hit his knees and head through the tube. When he emerged, he laid down what had to be one of his last speed zones inside the fire obstacle to get through with the minimum possible movement restriction. ¡°Do you think Max trapped the track?¡± Haoyu asked, narrowing his eyes. ¡°They¡¯ve got an attack. So he could have.¡± The enemy bell rang again It¡¯s annoying that they have two more players than us. Then again, given their complete inability to get along, maybe more wasn¡¯t merrier in this case. Lucille hit the end of the beam and limped toward them. Though it¡¯s not really limping by a normal human measure. More like strength-infused one-legged bounds, that put her at the base of the wall in moments. Alden had the cord preserved and waiting for her. ¡°They¡¯ve got at least one attack for sure now,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°They need to take it. Vandy could try to knock Lexi off the tightrope, or Marsha looks like she¡ª¡± ¡°Winston!¡± said Alden, spotting the speedster as he blitzed across the boundary between the two courses. Once he¡¯d done that, he was the official attacker for his team for one turn. ¡°Lucille, grab on! Let me get you in the air!¡± She hesitated. Alden thought it was because she wanted to try it. To fight back. All she had to do was hit Winston in the leg, and he was done for. The game was over. Everyone knew it. But she hesitated, and you couldn¡¯t do that versus people who¡¯d been shaped by the System to be fast. Alden thought Winston Heelfeather was a nasty, shallow piece of work, but he did move like a speedster. Like his stats are telling reality itself he has the right to move through it quicker than the rest of us. It had been a half-developed concept in Alden¡¯s mind until right this second, a slightly different perception of foundation points he¡¯d been arriving at after his last talk with the System and after watching his classmates do so many amazing things over the past weeks. It¡¯s easy to forget when the power looks physical instead of mystical, but there it is, he thought grimly as the wind chime sickle Winston had stolen earlier flashed across Lucille¡¯s throat. Winston¡¯s using every bit of his magic, and Lucille¡¯s scared to use all of hers. She leaned against the wall below him and Haoyu, a devastated expression on her face. Winston¡¯s attack hadn¡¯t pushed her back even a step, but his aim had been true. Alden was sure she¡¯d just gotten a death notice. Winston paused and looked up toward a drone with a winning smile on his face, and Alden¡¯s hands made a judgment call before his brain had caught up with them. He snatched the bag full of unused temper spheres off of himself and shook his whole supply of them out on top of Winston¡¯s head. ¡°Put that on your website,¡± he muttered, as Winston yelped and ducked, zipping back to the safety of his team¡¯s side so fast that it was clear he imagined himself to be under a much more serious assault than he actually was. ¡°If you hadn¡¯t done that, I was about to jump on him,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°From fifty feet up?¡± ¡°I almost definitely wouldn¡¯t die. But he might. If I hit him. Bit embarrassing if he dodged, though.¡± ¡°Shake it off, Lucille!¡± Astrid called. ¡°No big deal. You¡¯re the fastest person we have. If you hurry, Everly¡¯s freeze might still be in effect on the fire box when you come back through.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± said Njeri. ¡°Get back out there. We¡¯re almost done.¡± ¡°S-sorry!¡± Lucille said, wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve. ¡°I¡¯ll hurry!¡± Alden was relieved she was still moving. He¡¯d been afraid for a second that she was going to give up. ¡°Aw man,¡± he said as he watched her go. ¡°The track¡­¡± Haoyu looked at him. Then he groaned. ¡°Max.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°It could be trapped. Assuming they gave him time to do it before they summoned him back. It probably is since Marsha isn¡¯t running over here to stab something. He must have used that other attack they earned for it.¡± ¡°Lucille can probably bust through. It won¡¯t hold an S-rank for long.¡± ¡°It might delay her for just a minute though,¡± Alden said. ¡°We don¡¯t really need a delay, and¡­¡± And he was worried about how she¡¯d react to enduring yet another mishap. Even such a small one. Repeat failures felt really bad. They felt even worse when you knew forty other people were watching you and judging you. ¡°Permission to depart, Co-captain?¡± he said. Haoyu¡¯s lips twitched a little. ¡°Yes. If you want to.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Astrid agreed. Alden nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll run with her and make sure the trap isn¡¯t a problem. If you stay here with Jeffy¡­well, it¡¯s better. Two of you to watch each other¡¯s backs. And Lucille and I will do the same. Nobody alone. More flexibility. Here.¡± He slapped his cord down on top of the wall. He had a couple more pieces long enough to get himself and Lucille up here if Haoyu couldn¡¯t hold the post until they got back. ¡°Five minutes left,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Plenty of time.¡± On his way out of the gym, Alden saw Winston pointing at Max and then at the ground in front of himself demandingly. ****** Since Alden hadn¡¯t died, he didn¡¯t have to run the track three times before heading back to the gym. He was just going to hang out and make sure Lucille didn¡¯t have any trouble. But when he got out there, he saw she was already having trouble. She was really crying as she cleared hurdles one after the other. ¡°It¡¯s fine, Lucille,¡± he said, standing at the edge of the track. The sun was getting low in the sky. ¡°I slept through half of our first run. Remember? You could die three more times and you¡¯d still accomplish more than I did that race.¡± ¡°I¡¯m r-ruining it for you all.¡± She overshot a hurdle by at least a yard and landed hard on the other side. ¡°I w-wanted to fight b-back, but I¡¯m not good at guessing how hard I can hit when people come at me fast.¡± ¡°Understandable. Nobody¡¯s mad. Nothing¡¯s ruined. We¡¯re still going to win because they¡¯re a shit team.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sup-posed to be our most powerful fighter. Especially with Maricel gone. And Vandy countering the arrows. I¡¯m letting you all d-down. Lexi had to defend Everly. Haoyu¡ª¡± ¡°Lexi totally wanted to hit someone with Writher,¡± said Alden. ¡°And he got Mehdi. And Mehdi¡¯s too stubborn to leave their course, so he¡¯s just hobbling around in there¡­hoping for I don¡¯t know what. It¡¯s all good. I swear.¡± Lucille was rounding the track¡¯s second curve when she suddenly stopped going forward. Her feet were still moving, but each one of her bounding strides went absolutely nowhere. Yep, there it is, thought Alden. She stopped and stared down at her boots. Alden ran over to join her. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She was one of those people who got really red and puffy when they teared up. He could sympathize. ¡°I¡¯m trapped,¡± she said in a thick voice. ¡°You are. Thanks for finding that for us.¡± He smiled. ¡°Want me to throw you a rope or do you want to bust out of it by overwhelming it with super strength? I bet you could. One really forceful jump.¡± ¡°Why are you so nice to me?¡± She was scrubbing at her eyes again. ¡°You should be mad.¡± ¡°People make mistakes while they¡¯re trying to figure out their powers. Would you be mad if I made one?¡± She was still looking at her boots. ¡°They¡¯re just going to attack me again,¡± she said. ¡°As soon as I get back in the gym. I¡¯ll just mess up again.¡± ¡°They should really focus on their own course instead of risking more attacks,¡± said Alden. ¡°So maybe¡ª¡± She shook her head furiously. ¡°I heard Marsha say it to one of them on my way out. That she¡¯d just let Winston keep¡­that maybe it would make me learn a lesson if an A took me down over and over¡­she was mad I wouldn¡¯t fight her the way she wanted in Superlatives last week.¡± Marsha¡¯s some kind of battle freak. They need to turn the gym¡¯s realism settings all the way up and see if that sobers her ass. ¡°I think it¡¯s fine that you want to figure out how to take people down without killing them. I think it¡¯s good for you to practice that in whatever way works best for you. Maybe it¡¯s different than how I would do it¡­I don¡¯t really know¡­I¡¯m not in your shoes. But this is class. Class is for practice. I¡¯m at this school because it¡¯s an educational facility, and honestly I find it tedious how almost everyone else seems to think it¡¯s a magical dick measuring facility instead.¡± She finally met his eyes. She looked a little alarmed. Alden shrugged. ¡°I hope Winston does attack you again. Because I actually want to educate myself. I¡¯m curious to see how a Rabbit should fight a Speed Brute. So if he does, let me deal with it.¡± ¡°Um¡­¡± ¡°What? You think I can¡¯t?¡± ¡°No! I¡¯m sure you can!¡± Her eyes were wide. ¡°It¡¯s not the end of the world if I can¡¯t. I¡¯ll try it. If I get hurt, you¡¯ll carry me over the finish line with your Brute strength. If you get hurt, I¡¯ll tie you up in a bunch of rope and carry you over the finish line with my magic. Right?¡± She hesitated. ¡°Right?¡± ¡°By the way,¡± he added, ¡°I saw someone ripped in half by a Strength Brute once. It was gruesome. It probably saved my life. I really doubt Marsha has more insight into the matter than you or I do, so definitely don¡¯t listen to her opinion on how you want to handle your rank and class.¡± He pointed at her. ¡°Now break out of that puny trap and run. Fast. Despite everything I just said about dick measuring, I don¡¯t want to lose to such an awful team. Catch me before I get back to the gym.¡± He turned to go. About ten seconds passed before he heard a grunt followed the sound of boots hitting the pavement hard, as if the owner had landed from a particularly forceful jump. ****** ¡°You¡¯re sure you don¡¯t want us to come back that way for you?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Or just me. We should really leave Jeffy in the water.¡± ¡°We¡¯re fine,¡± said Alden, crawling through the pipe behind Lucille. A blade of torn grass fell off the bottom of her shoes. ¡°Let¡¯s stick with the two and two plan for now.¡± ¡°Is that good with you, Lucille?¡± ¡°We¡¯re fine!¡± she said. ¡°We¡¯ve got this.¡± ¡°Pause for a sec,¡± Alden told her. ¡°Let me prep something before we exit the pipe, while the other team can¡¯t see us.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I brought something special for handling our faster classmates. I didn¡¯t expect I¡¯d actually get to use it.¡± Nobody ever asked the Rabbit to go on the attack after all. There were much more qualified people. Nice of Winston to make himself such a nuisance, he thought, pulling more of the blindingly yellow paracord free from his supply of it. ****** ****** Winston Heelfeather concentrated on every part of his body. The way the balls of his feet rested on the ground, the tension in his spine, the twist of the sickle in his right hand, then his left, then his right. Tossing it with Avowed grace was what he was going for, but you couldn¡¯t always tell how it looked until you¡¯d seen the footage. He did the smile. One of the fans called it his ¡°looks could kill¡± smile. It was a little one. But confident. Already beat an S twice, the caption would say. Do you guys think I¡¯m brave enough to try it a third time? Presence. Was. Everything. Well, no. Power was better. But he had an A to work with, so he would work with it. There were some A¡¯s who were more famous than S¡¯s. Hotter, funnier, cooler. He would be one of them. They¡¯re coming out of the pipe. When to take her? What would look best? Not when she was on her knees escaping from the pipe. Even though Winston wasn¡¯t allowed to show the actual moment he killed her because of the rules about sharing images of other students, sometimes the video watchers really analyzed his movements. Those overzealous fans might notice the angle he approached his victim from and realize he¡¯d been going for someone on the ground. Bad look. He wished he could have one more attack. Just one more. Three times for the only S in the class besides Kon that Marsha didn¡¯t want to fight herself¡­and then one for Alden Thorn. That guy needed to be taken down several notches. He was getting so much attention for having a cute face and a fucked up story. For being the stupidest class and dropping a plate full of vegetables and singing about freaky alien birds that ate each other. Winston¡¯s fans wanted to know more about him. Maybe I should go for him after all. No. Focus on what mattered. Alden could go around polishing alien silverware and dropping carrots on other freckled orphans; eventually, it would stop being novel and people would forget him. It would go that way. It was just logic. What mattered was Winston building himself and his image. His legend. He watched Lucille emerged from the pipe. The rest of her team was at the other end of the course. She was scared to hit people too hard, so she was a sitting duck. Through the fire, he decided. The ice was getting thin. The melting water, a few flames¡ªit was going to look great. ¡°Hey! Have you got another speed boost for me?¡± Max was lurking around Winston. Winston didn¡¯t know why. Someone who ran at purely human speeds should be booking it down the course so he wouldn¡¯t hold the rest of them up at this point. But since he was here¡­ ¡°You¡¯re going to attack Lucille again?¡± the B-rank asked. ¡°She''s got Alden with her. Better watch out.¡± Winston narrowed his eyes. ¡°Are you being funny or something?¡± Max glanced toward the other team. Alden was coming out of the pipe, a length of that fluorescent yellow rope in his hand. ¡°Sure,¡± said Max. ¡°I happen to have just one more speed zone. Tell me where you want it, and down it will go.¡± ****** Parachute cord was a type of kernmantle rope. Smaller inner strands were held together and protected from breakage by the woven exterior sheath. The outer sheaths came in lots of different colors, including shades so bright they almost hurt your eyes. The inner strands in most of Alden¡¯s paracord collection were white. The floor of the gymnasium was also white. The possibilities were obvious. But just in case, he¡¯d taken it a step farther. Some types of paracord¡ªmostly meant for survivalists¡ªhad neat things inside them apart from the plain white core. Wires, fire starter strands, even fishing line. And it took no time at all to get at the stuff; you just grabbed the end of whichever interior strand you wanted and pulled. It came right out, inch by inch, foot by foot. Before they¡¯d left the pipe, Alden had pulled some of his fishing line out. When he straightened it all out and preserved it, he had a very obvious paracord line several feet in length with an even longer, but much less obvious, strand of fishing line sticking out from the end. Winston came for them as soon as they were on their feet, so quickly that Alden barely had time to admire his new tool. The speedster blasted through the melting fire obstacle, his feet shattering the very thin layer of ice left on the floor. He was moving at freeway speeds. At that speed, most people couldn¡¯t see strands of transparent fishing line. It turned out Winston Heelfeather couldn¡¯t either. Alden thrust the cord out, turned his wrist just in time to get it positioned parallel to the floor between the fire obstacle and Lucile, and then he felt the impact on his authority as Winston clotheslined himself and fell backwards. The other teen hit the floor hard, grabbing at his neck, a shocked expression on his face. Just that fast, it was over. Alden let his skill drop. Winston running into had almost fatigued it the rest of the way anyway; Alden had pushed farther than he¡¯d meant to. Other Avowed directly striking the preserved object seem to hit harder than equivalent non-Avowed forces. That kind of thing wasn¡¯t an unknown phenomenon; he just hadn¡¯t had a lot of personal experience with it. Magic clashing with magic. Authority vs. authority. Winston had winded himself. He was still staring up at the ceiling in astonishment. ¡°All right,¡± said Alden, stepping around him and hurrying toward the next obstacle before it could turn into an inferno. ¡°So that¡¯s done. Lucille, my skill¡¯s gone. I¡¯ll have to rely on you and Haoyu to get me past the weights and over the wall.¡± ¡°Did you guys just take out Winston?¡± Astrid called. ¡°What was that?¡± ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure Alden just decapitated him,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Let¡¯s win now,¡± said Alden. ¡°I want to go eat Filipino food.¡± ****** ****** The race ended with Lucille crossing the tightrope over the finish line. The bell rang, and an instant later, they were all smiling, half the drama of the past twenty minutes forgotten in an instant. Astrid started doling out hugs to every one. ¡°Beautiful land moves!¡± she shouted in Jeffy¡¯s ear, pointing toward the other team¡¯s course. ¡°Look what you accomplished.¡± In their water tank, Max was floating peacefully on his back. And Marsha was upside down, her legs kicking wildly in the air as she tried to dive. And failed. Her glaive was at the bottom of the tank. She¡¯d thrown it down there, no doubt planning to pull herself toward it that way, but it seemed like she¡¯d overused the ability. ¡°Maricel said she was prone to overworking herself and running out of gas,¡± Alden said. ¡°Guess it happened.¡± ¡°Who would¡¯ve thought a life jacket spell could be used to defeat people?¡± Haoyu sounded amused as he watched Marsha struggle. ¡°It must be pretty strong. She¡¯s not getting anywhere.¡± ¡°If you cast it eight times you can make a tract¡ªa really heavy truck float,¡± Jeffy announced. ¡°I practiced it before I left home.¡± ¡°It¡¯s good,¡± said Alden. ¡°You beat Winston,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Yeah. I kind of wanted to save that trick to try on Klein. But this was a worthy cause.¡± Marsha kicked her feet so hard one of her shoes flew off, but she kept right on bobbing in the water like a cork. * ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE: They Feasted 129 ****** The chatter in the MPE building¡¯s laundry room was energetic when Alden walked in with his gym suit over his arm. ¡°After we eat, we could all go do something at the mall together.¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be late. We won¡¯t even make it to the restaurant until after eight.¡± ¡°It¡¯s Friday! Who cares if it¡¯s late?¡± ¡°Marsha¡¯s team is still in the gym. What do you think the faculty are doing with them?¡± ¡°They weren¡¯t cohesive before, but that last run was too far, don¡¯t you think? They completely broke down.¡± ¡°We could go to the cinema.¡± ¡°I¡¯d rather shop. We have stipends now.¡± ¡°I already spent mine buying things for the dorm.¡± Alden headed for a cleaning cabinet that Rebecca had just taken her own suit from. While he put the garment on the mannequin and hung the cuffs on the pegs, he listened to his classmates¡¯ chatter. Even Febri and Shrike¡¯s team, who¡¯d suffered two losses today, didn¡¯t seem too upset about it. Olive was on the other side of the room grilling Haoyu about how he¡¯d been able to tell her apart from her illusions, and Febri was trying to explain to Konstantin that the team had had a plan to make a statement about solidarity that had been ruined because of their defeat. ¡°We were going to almost win,¡± he explained, ¡°and then we were going to have the last person refuse to cross the finish line. Because S?ren isn¡¯t here. It was going to be a gesture.¡± ¡°A gesture like that¡­¡± Kon rocked back and forth. ¡°I see what you were going for, but that might make S?ren feel uncomfortable?¡± Sounds patronizing to me, too, thought Alden. But I guess S?ren might appreciate the effort even if it¡¯s misguided. He shut the cabinet and leaned against it. It made a faint humming noise as the cycle started. Instructor Klein had asked team Vandy/Marsha to stay behind after class instead of heading to the locker rooms with everyone else. He hadn¡¯t said they were in trouble, but it didn¡¯t seem likely that they were being held back for praise. Upon hearing that her group was being singled out, Vandy had looked so appalled that if Alden hadn¡¯t known what was going on he¡¯d have assumed something earth-shattering had just happened. He felt a little sorry for them, and he was glad he was here instead of in their shoes. Officially the end of another week. Nothing to do tonight but take a bus ride down to F, eat dinner, and hang out. His team had won. His skill had gotten a workout. And he¡¯d just had a hot shower that he hadn¡¯t needed to rush through. Some of the guys had decided the swimming tank was enough of a bath. It would be almost perfect if Maricel hadn¡¯t had to go. He hoped whatever news she¡¯d gotten wasn¡¯t terrible. When the team had finished running the course, Fragment and the principal were both gone. It made him worry more, but they might have left for some other reason. Maybe they had last minute arrangements for the dinner or¡ª ¡°Maricel!¡± ¡°Mari!¡± ¡°Are you all right?¡± ¡°Where¡¯d you go?¡± Some of the girls sitting on the benches by the door had spotted her first. Maricel had already changed out of her gym suit into a denim skirt and pink shirt. ¡°I¡¯m good. I¡¯m so sorry! A friend called, and they were in trouble so I had to¡ª¡± ¡°A friend from home?¡± ¡°Are they okay?¡± ¡°Do you get to go back home to see them?¡± ¡°It¡¯s all fine. I told Instructor Fragment. It¡¯s taken care of.¡± She headed toward the nearest available cabinet while Everly and Tuyet told her all about what she¡¯d just missed. ¡°Maricel!¡± Jeffy shouted. ¡°We fed them to Victory!¡± ¡°Why do people on your team keep saying that?¡± Finlay asked Alden from the next cabinet over. ¡°I think it¡¯s our motto now.¡± Maricel looked over Everly¡¯s shoulder toward him suddenly, and her dark brown eyes met his. Her smile was more strained than happy. [Everything okay?] he texted her. He expected her to say ¡°yes¡± whether it was or not. She hadn¡¯t been one to confide everything. Not since that first day they¡¯d met, when she felt she¡¯d said too much. Sure enough, she nodded. [We really missed you on the course.] People were still calling out fight highlights to her; Alden¡¯s name came up more than once. ¡°Alden killed Winston,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°He went for the throat.¡± Njeri sounded approving. ¡°Finlay, would that have killed you, too?¡± Jupiter asked. ¡°Can we kill you that way?¡± A lot of heads turned toward the Speed Brute. ¡°What are you all planning to kill me for!?¡± Finlay said. ¡°And how should I know? Nobody¡¯s ever tried to take my head off with a fishing line. We didn¡¯t do that kind of thing at my old school.¡± ¡°They don¡¯t train you for lethality during PE in Scotland?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Imagine that.¡± Finlay laughed. <> Ignacio said. <> ¡°That¡¯s true,¡± Finlay agreed with a shrug. ¡°My visual processing and reaction time are better than his. I also try not to go at top speed when I¡¯m about to engage with someone. Liu Arielle says in battles she goes faster than a villain can understand, not faster than she can understand. Pushing it all the way is for getting to the fight in the first place, isn¡¯t it? Or when you¡¯re outmatched.¡± ¡°Do you like Arielle?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°She¡¯s friends with my parents.¡± ¡°She¡¯s my favorite,¡± said Finlay. ¡°Was she your favorite before or after she got her last few upgrades?¡± Febri asked. ¡°Because she became a lot of peoples¡¯ favorite once she started getting the special stuff.¡± ¡°Some Brutes think speedsters taking short range teleportation is unBrutely,¡± said Rebecca. ¡°That¡¯s because those Brutes are jealous they haven¡¯t reached the point where the System gives you the option.¡± Finlay was gesturing animatedly. ¡°They all slack off on their training when they get old if you ask me. Liu Arielle¡¯s kept up her leveling all this time. She¡¯s going hyperbolic sooner or later. I believe in her. I believe in me! I¡¯m going to get that same skill one day.¡± Kon was walking around the room, touching random stuff lightly with his fingers and closing his eyes. His object reading skill outlasted the spell impression that went with it by a significant amount. He was supposed to be burning both talents out every day, just like the rest of them, but since he never had opportunity in class, he spent a lot of time poking things throughout the day and psychically analyzing their recent history. He pulled his hand away from the unused washing machine at the back of the room and looked around at Finlay. ¡°I¡¯m surprised you didn¡¯t go to Li Jean. She teaches there every now and then, and I¡¯m sure you could¡¯ve gotten in.¡± ¡°I did get in. But they invited me to watch some classes, and I decided it would be hard to follow along with the System translations and do my best in their gym. Felt like I¡¯d be stopping to read every other second.¡± While the conversation continued around him, Alden composed a message to Jeremy, describing his gym victory. Jeremy had hinted a couple of times that Alden wasn¡¯t going into enough detail about the superpowers when they talked, so he wrote more than he normally would have. By the time he was done and his suit was clean, Team Vandy/Marsha had been freed from whatever lecture they¡¯d gotten. None of them were speaking to each other, so if the subject of the talking to had been the importance of team unity, it had failed. Mehdi looked like he was ready to hit someone. Max¡¯s expression was completely unbothered and pleasant because he was a scary bastard, but somehow tension was still emanating from him like a poisonous gas. And as for Vandy, a couple of the girls said she was hiding in an empty classroom while she called her family and confessed to all her personal failings. Winston was nowhere to be found. Everyone with a sense of self-preservation left them to lick their wounds and get dressed by themselves. Alden vacated the building with most of the class, walking between Lexi and Haoyu as they headed toward the nearby street. The wind that had been blowing grit around the track earlier hadn¡¯t let up any, and there was a distant grumble of thunder. One of the Celena North buses was waiting for them. Alden sat by Jeffy, with Lexi and Haoyu across the aisle and Everly and Kon in front of him. As the bus filled up, Kon suddenly leaned out of his seat to look up and down the aisle. ¡°Everyone¡¯s in pairs. Are we going to make Vandy¡¯s team all sit together in the back?¡± ¡°Ha!¡± said Reinhard. ¡°That¡¯s hilarious.¡± ¡°It is a little,¡± said Kon. ¡°But they¡¯re going to ruin our class dinner if they get any more¡­how they are.¡± ¡°I saved a seat for Mehdi!¡± Helo¨ªsa called from near the front of the bus. Everly giggled. ¡°We should pick out seats for all of them to reduce their tension,¡± Haoyu said brightly. ¡°Winston and Alden can sit together. And Jeffy and Marsha. And Tuyet¡ª¡± ¡°Get an instructor!¡± Astrid shouted. ¡°They¡¯ve accidentally let someone evil into the program.¡± ¡°Yes, we need to kick Haoyu off the bus,¡± Alden agreed. ****** Just after eight o¡¯clock, the bus put them all out at one of the side entrances for Rosa Grove mall. Despite a number of increasingly horrible seating arrangements being discussed, the class had opted for nonviolence in the end. Alden had gone to the back to save a seat for Max, who¡¯d stared silently out the window the whole trip. It wasn¡¯t a bad thing since it gave Alden time to get some homework done en route. Mehdi had sat with Kon, while Everly had spent most of the trip trying to cheer up Vandy. Marsha and Winston had ended up sitting together by default. He was pretending to sleep so that he didn¡¯t have to talk to anyone. But unlike the rest of their team, Marsha seemed barely bothered by the scolding they¡¯d received. According to Haoyu, who could see her tablet from his own seat, she spent the ride watching best-of Meister fights compilations. Alden was one of the last people to leave the bus, and as he stepped off, he was surprised to find that Maricel had hung back instead of heading toward the mall with Tuyet. Curious, he dragged his feet a little. In response, she dragged her own feet a little. Since everybody else was eager to get to the promised meal, they ended up lingering outside after the group had run ahead. This section of the mall¡¯s exterior had large advertisements playing on the walls. An Avowed famous for mountain rescues stood on a peak in a raging storm while the camera slowly zoomed in to show that her makeup was flawless, despite the water sheeting off her face. Bright red lips smiled, and the words ¡°still kissable¡± appeared beneath her chin. Then the glitzy commercial faded to be replaced by images of children studying in a language academy. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± asked Alden, blinking against the wind as he looked down at Maricel. ¡°Do you remember when I asked you about wizards changing our return destinations after a summons?¡± To somewhere other than Anesidora. ¡°Yep,¡± he said, keeping his voice light even though his stomach clenched at the topic. Maricel took a deep breath. ¡°It was for somebody I met in intake. He still wants to leave. I wanted¡­I was trying to find a safe way for him to do it, so he wouldn¡¯t choose a dangerous way again. I told him what I read online about escaping after a summons being possible and what you said about it probably being true. I thought he believed me. I thought I had convinced him to wait a while.¡±Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. She sounded unhappy, but Alden couldn¡¯t help feeling relieved that she hadn¡¯t been asking for herself. ¡°The guy didn¡¯t listen?¡± he guessed. Maricel shook her head. ¡°He sent me a message earlier. He said he had everything he needed ready. He said it was my last chance to go with him.¡± Alden waited for her to continue. ¡°He¡¯s going in a boat. It¡¯s night. There¡¯s rain coming, and the ocean¡¯s very rough. Maybe that¡¯s why he thinks the patrols won¡¯t be able to find him this time.¡± She¡¯s worried. ¡°The authorities here do deal with stuff like this all the time,¡± Alden said. ¡°And if you told somebody¡ª¡± ¡°I told Instructor Fragment.¡± Maricel lowered her voice. ¡°She and the principal stayed with me while we called someone from SkySea guard. They asked me a bunch of questions, but I don¡¯t know anything. Only what I told you now.¡± ¡°Are you in trouble?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so. But maybe I should be. I could¡¯ve told someone earlier instead of trying to talk him out of it myself. They want me to keep trying to get in touch with him, so I text him every few minutes. But he stopped answering when he realized I wouldn¡¯t go with him. If something happens¡­¡± A trio of teenagers with non-Avowed tags stepped through the nearby doors. They shrieked as the wind almost stole the large pizza box from one girl¡¯s hands, then they all started laughing about it. ¡°He¡¯ll be fine,¡± said Alden. ¡°There¡¯s no way this is the first time someone¡¯s tried to use rough weather to slip past the patrols. It probably happens weekly.¡± ¡°Fragment said the same thing. And the man who interviewed me didn¡¯t seem worried, but¡ª¡± ¡°Plus there¡¯s always ETing.¡± Alden remembered Lexi telling Kon exactly that about his rough-seas boat trip to Matadero the day of the party. ¡°If your friend capsizes, or if he gets lost, that¡¯s always an option.¡± She made a face. ¡°I know. And thinking about it that way makes me wonder if I was wrong to tell on him. What if he could have made it? And been happy? But because of me, he¡¯ll get caught.¡± <> said the advertisement on the wall. <> ¡°This isn¡¯t the first time he¡¯s run. They¡¯ll put a lot of restrictions on him when they bring him back,¡± Maricel went on. ¡°He¡¯ll hate me forever. I¡­this is what I wanted to ask you. Once he¡¯s back, if he doesn¡¯t mind, will you try talking to him for me?¡± ¡°Why me?¡± Alden had wondered the last time she¡¯d questioned him about escaping via summons. She seemed to think he had more insight to offer than he did. ¡°I¡¯m not an authority on getting off the island or being summoned or anything. There are much better people to¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re one of us,¡± Maricel said, taking a step closer to him. ¡°A globie. That really matters to him. And you don¡¯t hate it here, but you don¡¯t think other people are stupid or crazy if they do. You¡¯re a nice person. And you know summoners even though you¡¯re our age. There aren¡¯t any other people like that at all. Maybe he¡¯ll listen to you.¡± I guess if that specific combination of qualities is her criteria there aren¡¯t a lot of matches. ¡°I mean¡­I¡¯m willing to try I guess. No promises on my success at reasoning with anyone.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± Her shoulders slumped and she let out a long breath. ¡°You¡¯re a better friend than I am. I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯ll try not to be so much trouble to you¡ª¡± ¡°We¡¯re good,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ve thought you were cool ever since you went off on those assholes who were like, ¡®Ew¡­a Rabbit¡¯ and declared your intention to run across a planet to get back home.¡± She looked pained. ¡°That¡¯s really not who I am most of the time.¡± ¡°I get that. It was a bad day for you. You were still cool. Now stop worrying. Let the professionals handle the problem. And take me to eat.¡± ****** They feasted. The restaurant was on the third floor of the mall. It wasn¡¯t a big spot. Forty-one students, six instructors, and one principal nearly filled the place up. Tables had been pushed together for them by a line of windows that looked out over one of the mall¡¯s outdoor recreation areas. A wide, shallow fountain with embedded lights periodically put on a show for people walking past down there. Alden assumed the jets of water operated in time to music, but he couldn¡¯t hear it through the thick glass and the sound of everyone talking over each other. ¡°Do you think all the garlic fried rice is yours?¡± Lexi asked Alden. ¡°I think everyone else had their shot at it already.¡± He loaded his plate. ¡°I have waited patiently. Now they can fight me for it.¡± He spooned atchara beside his rice and eyed the fresh batch of lumpia that one of the servers had just set at the other end of the table. They looked like they were coated in caramelized sugar. Those must be dessert. The stars were all meat dishes, including the crispy lechon that Haoyu had been so eager to try. But the restaurant had made a delicious jackfruit entree, too, so Alden wasn¡¯t suffering except from a bit of envy. Principal Saleh was paying for everything, and the food kept coming. Dining with teachers had been stiff at first, but it soon became clear that this was more of a social, getting-to-know-you event in the faculty¡¯s mind. The longer they went without talking about everyone¡¯s performance and schoolwork, the more people loosened up. Several seats away, Finlay was telling people about his father. ¡°He retired from being an electrician and bought a pub. Loses loads of money on it and drives my mum crazy, but he says it¡¯s his dream.¡± ¡°Instructor Klein and I were on the same hero team for a couple of years when I first started out,¡± Foxbolt was saying to Astrid. ¡°We didn¡¯t have a single superhuman incident with anyone over C-rank, but Berlin had just been selected to host a womb vault. Protesters were pouring in from everywhere, flooding the streets every day for months. And then when the building actually started, we were on guard duty 24/7.¡± Astrid looked baffled. ¡°Were that many people mad about it? I thought magical medical care wasn¡¯t controversial anymore.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not,¡± Foxbolt said. ¡°In general. Artificial wombs are one of the most contentious areas remaining these days. Which is a bit odd considering they were almost universally praised when the Contract was first being hammered out.¡± Instructor Klein heaved a sigh. ¡°Most of you are thinking about careers that will lead you off the island, so you have to start paying attention to what¡¯s going on in the world. Those of you who were born here will find that a number of things our society considers completely benign are scandalous in other places and vice versa.¡± ¡°On that note, you¡¯ll all get to take everyone¡¯s favorite course twice, right before you graduate from the high school and in uni,¡± Principal Saleh said, giving the people in her vicinity a wicked smile. ¡°¡®Avowed Comportment and Representation.¡¯¡± ¡°We have to take the national manners class more than once?¡± Reinhard asked. Alden was sitting far enough away from them that he wasn¡¯t really involved in the conversation, but at that, he swallowed a lump of garlic rice and looked across the table at Lexi and Haoyu. ¡°What¡¯s the national manners class?¡± Haoyu, who had just stuffed another bite of pork belly into his mouth, nudged Lexi demandingly with an elbow. ¡°It¡¯s what it sounds like,¡± Lexi said. ¡°They teach you how the government wishes you¡¯d behave and what they want you to say about certain issues whenever you¡¯re working or communicating with people off the island.¡± Kon, who had claimed the seat on the other side of his brother, rolled his eyes. ¡°It¡¯s the brainwashing class. The high council made it mandatory for schools to teach it a long time ago¡ª¡± ¡°More than a decade,¡± Lexi said. ¡°But people are still fighting about it during elections,¡± Kon concluded. ¡°Who decides what our national comportment should be?¡± Alden asked. ¡°That¡¯s what the fights are mostly about.¡± Haoyu took a sip of his water. ¡°When they¡¯re not about whether or not something like that should exist in the first place.¡± Mehdi had been quiet and moody for most of the meal, so it was a surprise when he chimed in. ¡°It¡¯s not fair. The really old people lived however they wanted and said whatever they wanted when they got their powers. And now they¡¯re suddenly trying to make all of these rules for the rest of us.¡± Vandy overheard him. ¡°But we have a country of our own here now. They didn¡¯t.¡± Another server dropped a plate in front of Alden, and he finally got his hands on the dessert offering. The crunchy, sugar-coated spring roll wrappers were full of banana. He took one and bit into it, giving himself permission to zone out while Vandy expounded about the unprecedented nature of Anesidora and the importance of careful lawmaking. Marsha was watching Shrike spin a knife. Winston was picking at his food and avoiding everyone¡¯s eyes like he¡¯d suffered a terrible humiliation instead of a combat death in the gym. Dare I hope he¡¯ll be less of a pain moving forward? Max and Jeffy were sitting beside each other and answering Instructor Marion¡¯s questions about where they¡¯d grown up. Max was talking about South Africa like a normal person, in contrast to Jeffy, who was delivering unnecessarily obscure hints about his own home. Instructor Marion looked confused, and Alden couldn¡¯t blame him. About the only thing you could pin down from the ramble was that Jeffy had grown up in a house with grandparents and an uncle. He¡¯d just finished describing his former school as ¡°a place where there might or might not have been many people with mohawks.¡± ¡°All right.¡± Marion¡¯s tone said that he¡¯d decided going with it was the correct course of action. ¡°As for me, I grew up not far from where we¡¯re sitting right now. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if my parents are wandering around the mall at the moment. They eat out every night, and they like the food hall downstairs.¡± Max nodded. ¡°Are you second gen or¡ª¡± ¡°Third on one side,¡± the instructor said. ¡°Second on the other.¡± That prompted a turn in the discussion as people started chiming in with their own Avowed lineages. Unlike Marion, most of the faculty present had been born off the island. The students, of course, had almost all been born here. And more of them had large families than Alden had realized. Nobody was describing anything quite like the multigenerational Velra clan situation, but the number of people mentioning tons of siblings was more than he would have expected from a cross-section of peers back home. Mehdi had three older brothers, an older sister, and a little brother. Tuyet was one of seven. Jupiter had a set of siblings all named after planets in their solar system. ¡°Except they skipped Uranus and went straight to Neptune.¡± When Kon piped up to inform everyone that he and Lexi were expecting another sibling sometime in the next couple of years, his brother reached over to smack him on the back of the head. ¡°Ow! What was that for?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t just tell everyone on the island our parents¡¯ reproductive plans.¡± Kon rolled his eyes. ¡°There¡¯s going to be a whole new person with our last name. What are we supposed to do? Pretend they found a baby growing on a tree?¡± ¡°That¡¯s not the poin¡ª¡± ¡°Do you know if they¡¯re going to have a girl or a boy?¡± Astrid asked. ¡°They let us all be surprises, so I assume it¡¯s going to be the same for Number 4.¡± Kon held up a fork threateningly when Lexi looked like he wanted to smack him again. Alden filed that information away in his ¡°don¡¯t make assumptions¡± file. If anyone had asked him, he would have guessed Lexi and Kon were designed. They were both aesthetically gifted even though they didn¡¯t have points in Appeal yet. Plus, if you ignored personality, style, and the fact that Lexi was crazy fit from keeping up his ballet physique, they would have looked very similar even by brotherly standards. ¡°What about you Alden?¡± Alden looked at Astrid questioningly. ¡°I know you don¡¯t have brothers and sisters, but do you have a lot of cousins?¡± ¡°No. It was just me and my aunt.¡± He thought that would be the end of his turn, but everyone was still waiting patiently, like they were giving him time to say more. Really, you guys. That¡¯s it for me on the family front. There might be some distant cousins thrice removed out there somewhere, but other than that¡­ ¡°I have two close friends back home,¡± he added. ¡°One of them is practically my brother.¡± He steered clear of saying, ¡°His parental situation was shitty. We basically raised each other.¡± ¡°Is it the friend who¡¯s keeping your cat?¡± asked Haoyu. ¡°What¡¯s his name? Is he going to come visit?¡± Alden suddenly realized he¡¯d dived headfirst into something more dramatic than he¡¯d intended. Okay. So, even the shareable portions of the Boe situation sound kind of¡­ ¡°His name¡¯s Boe. I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll come visit eventually. He¡¯s on my guest list.¡± Alden tried to sound casual. ¡°I haven¡¯t mentioned him before because he¡¯s not home right now. He ran away after my funeral.¡± Haoyu blinked. Lexi frowned. Kon squinted at him. ¡°I managed to get in touch with him a few weeks ago,¡± Alden explained. ¡°He¡¯s fine. He said he would go back home as soon as he¡¯d figured things out.¡± This story had been supported by some of the fake phone calls Boe had insisted Alden make in public locations. Nobody responded. ¡°And there¡¯s my friend Jeremy. His parents are lawyers. He has a sister in marching band. He¡¯s taking great care of my cat!¡± Thank you for being the sane one, Jeremy. Alden searched his mind for other proof that he¡¯d had a mundane and solid social life before coming to Anesidora. I regularly buy gifts for an alien chained to a desk in the Chicago consulate. That¡¯s not exactly¡­ah, screw it. I¡¯ll tell them about how Kibby is cooler than all the other younger siblings that have been mentioned tonight. ¡°You had a funeral?¡± Kon blurted. Lexi looked over at him. ¡°You know everyone thought he was dead. What else would¡¯ve happened?¡± ¡°I do know. It just never occurred to me that he¡¯d had an actual funeral.¡± ¡°Was it a good funeral?¡± Astrid sounded fascinated. ¡°I mean¡­I wasn¡¯t around for it,¡± said Alden, startled. ¡°But no. There were like a thousand people there, and I only knew a few of them well.¡± ¡°That is so weird,¡± said Kon. ¡°It must feel really weird. Does it?¡± ¡°Was there a casket?¡± Astrid asked. ¡°Or an urn?¡± ¡°It¡¯s only weird if I think about it. I haven¡¯t had much time to bother. And according to my aunt, there was no casket, Astrid. Just a giant picture of me on a stand.¡± ¡°You deserved something more exciting than that,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I agree,¡± said Astrid. ¡°I could come up with a better funeral in five minutes.¡± The dinner ended with a lot of people planning increasingly absurd funerals for themselves. Alden eventually found himself nodding along while Astrid described her wish to have her ashes launched off the top of Nautilus Needle at midnight by a magic cannon. Haoyu wanted a statue made of himself and placed somewhere statues didn¡¯t belong in order to perplex as many people as possible. And Lexi refused to play along, which resulted in Kon planning a jazz funeral for him without his input. When they left the table, their stomachs were full of food, and they were all laughing too loudly about their own dumb ideas. Alden decided that was a nice combination, all things considered. ****** ****** a few hours earlier ****** ****** Jacob hadn¡¯t meant to call Maricel Alcantara. It wasn¡¯t part of the plan. But as the cruiser had set off, dipping down into a wave and making his stomach churn, he¡¯d suddenly thought, What if she regrets it? This place that pretended to be a palace one minute only to show its true colors as a prison the next¡ªshe thought she¡¯d be all right here, with these people, but how could she be? Everything got worse when you left intake, not better as people kept promising him. So he¡¯d sent her a message. He¡¯d tried to give her one last chance. She¡¯d refused, and he¡¯d forced himself not to answer any of her subsequent messages. They would probably never see each other again. Salt water spattered the windows as the man in the cockpit flipped switches and turned the silver wheel. Jacob sat with the others in the cabin. The boat was well-appointed, but he could hardly make out the wood floors or the galley. Supplies covered every surface. The dinette furniture had been removed to make room for something particularly large wrapped in a tarp. There was food, of course, but mostly the boat was filled with magical equipment, spell ingredients, cases that Jacob was sure held weapons¡ªall things that were difficult or expensive for people to obtain off Anesidora. The bunks had been left intact, but they¡¯d have to sleep in shifts if they wanted to use the beds. Three of the passengers were crammed onto the small settee right now, and a fourth was sitting on top of a large plastic bin he¡¯d proudly told Jacob was full of stolen potions. The fifth was¡­there was no fifth. <> the man sitting on the bin had said. Jacob was the youngest here. The man who¡¯d stolen the potions was around twenty-five. The strange one on the end of the settee who kept humming to himself and picking at a scab on the back of his hand until it bled looked a decade older. The girl with her soft, dark curls piled up on top of her head in a barrette had said she was ¡°nineteen and ready to see what¡¯s out there¡± when they all introduced themselves. The other one¡­there was no other passenger. The captain had graying hair. I wonder if I¡¯m a part of ¡°the fight¡± now. He hadn¡¯t planned to be, but ever since he¡¯d first reached out to Superhumans at Large, he¡¯d felt like the stars kept aligning. Everything they asked for came to him so much easier than he¡¯d thought it would. His eyes found his own contribution to the boat¡¯s wealth of strange devices. The Submerger had a place of honor on the floor just beside the captain. The aquarium-like container sat on top of a crystal dial that was obviously made to hold it. Jacob hadn¡¯t had to get that part. The captain had been in possession of it already, and he knew how to use it from a previous experience with one of these devices. The Submerger would only be the second one SAL had obtained. They were calling him a hero. I don¡¯t think they would be as impressed with me if they¡¯d met Orpheus Velra themselves. He¡¯d have sold Earth to the devil for a cigarette. ¡°You need to relax.¡± The girl bumped his knee with her own. ¡°We¡¯ve got a long trip ahead of us even with our friends meeting us halfway. If you stay this tense the whole time, it¡¯ll be rough.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t you nervous, too?¡± Jacob asked. ¡°Not much.¡± <> the captain said. <> He pointed down at the Submerger. <> Jacob swallowed. The captain smiled out at the darkening sky. <> ***** ***** ONE HUNDRED THIRTY: Ripples, I 130 ******* After their dinner, the class broke up. Some people left to head back to the dorms, meet up with friends, or get an early start on weekend family time. Principal Saleh and most of the instructors took their leave, while Torsten Klein was stuck with the job of seeing the bus safely back to campus. The vehicle drove itself, but the school required it to have a babysitter. ¡°The mall closes at midnight!¡± he called after the students as they scattered. ¡°If you¡¯re not on the bus five minutes later, you can find your own way!¡± Haoyu wanted to throw coins into a particular fountain because he did it every time he came to the mall, so Lexi and Alden tagged along. Three people heading in the same direction with a goal, even such a small one, must have had some natural attraction to it because several other guys with no plans of their own ended up following them. Jeffy and Finlay weren¡¯t that surprising; like Alden, they didn¡¯t know their way around the giant shopping complex all that well. Reinhard came, too. And Mehdi seemed to have ended up with them accidentally. He¡¯d tried to go with Kon, only to have Everly Kim give him such a frosty look that he¡¯d run to join the nearest available group. ¡°Why the fountain?¡± he groaned. ¡°It¡¯s for little kids.¡± ¡°Because throwing coins in the fountain is good luck,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°If you leave Rosa Grove without throwing coins in, it¡¯s bad luck. You guys can do the slide if you¡¯d rather. It¡¯s right next to it.¡± Mehdi brightened. ¡°I haven¡¯t been on the slide in forever! There¡¯s always a line when I go shopping with my mother and she never wants to wait.¡± Reinhard gave him a superior look. ¡°So you love the sliding board, but the fountain¡¯s for little kids?¡± They bickered just like the little kids they were both so insistent they weren¡¯t until the group reached an atrium. You could see all four floors of the mall from here, and the panels that made up the roof could be opened to make it open air. They were closed now. The rain that had been promised by the thunder earlier had begun, and water streamed down the glass. Alden patted his messenger bag. He had two disposable ponchos in there. He felt the smug satisfaction of the properly prepared. Never mind the fact that I could probably buy all kinds of rain repelling gear here in the mall. With the roof closed, the atrium echoed with the voices of nighttime shoppers and the happy shrieks of a few children who were going down the slide with their parents. Wide enough for five people to ride it side-by-side on slippery mats, it ran from the fourth floor to the ground. As passengers zipped down it, colorful trails of light appeared in their wake then faded out to match the deep gray surface again. ¡°There¡¯s no line!¡± Jeffy said excitedly. ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± Everyone but Alden and his roommates shot off toward a staircase that led up to the fourth floor. ¡°I hope they¡¯re not disappointed,¡± said Haoyu, taking the same stairs down to the bottom level a few seconds later. ¡°I used to love the slide.¡± ¡°Used to?¡± Alden asked. It looked fun to him. Definitely not just for ¡°little kids¡± despite all the arguing about it. Haoyu looked over at it. ¡°I¡¯ve been kind of worried since we started school that things like that were going to turn boring. I don¡¯t know. I just don¡¯t want to ride it and find out I don¡¯t get the swoopy guts thing anymore. It¡¯ll be sad if it¡¯s not special now.¡± ¡°Because of the gym.¡± Lexi was nodding. Alden suddenly realized what they were talking about, and he didn¡¯t like it at all. ¡°No! Is the insane stuff we do in the MagiPhys gym going to ruin carnival rides?¡± ¡°The rooftop-to-rooftop coaster was still great,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°But just think of everything we did today. And if you compare that to the slide¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m quitting school.¡± ¡°Switch to Arts or Sciences at least so we don¡¯t have to find a new roommate,¡± Haoyu told him. The ¡°fountain¡± Haoyu liked was actually a huge, beautifully detailed scale model of Anesidora. It stood on the pavement at ground level. The interior of the knee-deep basin was a dark gray-blue, and the water inside it formed tiny waves that matched the ocean. At the center stood F-city and Apex, the circle and the crescent connected by the Span. There were no vehicles or tiny people, but lights glimmered in the windows of the buildings and skyscrapers, occasionally flicking on and off. A single purple beam shooting upwards served as a ¡°You Are Here¡± indicator over the model of the mall. A couple of kiosks placed on opposite sides of the fountain sold coins. ¡°You pick the project you want your donation to fund,¡± Lexi explained while Haoyu poked at the screen. ¡°And you get the coin designed for it¡­or coins.¡± Eight shining tokens about the size of silver dollars clattered into the kiosk¡¯s tray. Alden wondered if Haoyu had gotten so many to share, but that wasn¡¯t the case. He took all of them for himself and walked about a quarter of the way around the fountain with the air of someone who had an established favorite coin tossing spot. Lexi bought a single coin for himself, then Alden stepped up to read about the projects the fountain was funding right now. The one that was farthest from its goal was creating a permanently balmy custom climate for the second largest park on the island. Do we build that kind of thing for ourselves or do we pay wizards to do it for us? He donated to a plan that would beautify one of the streets near campus because he figured he¡¯d get to enjoy it more often, and coins with images of buildings on one side and trees on the other fell into the tray. Eight for eight Argold was a lot more expensive than tossing pennies, but he had more than enough wishes to justify it. He flipped a coin through the air, trying to see if he could land it precisely on top of the spot Lexi had just hit with his own toss. I wish for Kibby to be happy. The coin hit the miniature sea with a satisfying plop. It didn¡¯t land in exactly the spot he¡¯d been aiming for. It might have if his wordchain hadn¡¯t run out. He threw the next one. Boe stays safe and gets to live however he wants. The silver disc sank beneath the surface. His third coin was for himself. I wish for more moments like this one. His stomach was full of good food. His body was tired in a nice way from the course. People were laughing as they went down the slide. Calypso music poured out of one of the shops. And at the kiosk he¡¯d just used, a small girl was patiently reading aloud the project descriptions to an even younger boy who was holding a NesiCard in both hands and staring up at the screen. Nothing too fancy. Just more moments like this one. As many of them as I can have. The coin hit the water. The ripples didn¡¯t spread very far before they disappeared into the waves.
On Apex, a man wearing lounge pants tucked into the tops of a pair of galoshes stepped out of a brick townhouse. He chuckled as a golden retriever, tail wagging, shoved its way past him and bolted down the steps so fast it almost tripped over its own paws. ¡°Even in the rain?¡± a woman¡¯s voice called out from the house. ¡°He¡¯s a good boy,¡± he said. ¡°And I promised.¡± He closed the door. The dog waited on the sidewalk, standing on his hind feet and whining excitedly. His owner took the steps down, galoshes splashing in a puddle that had gathered in a dip in the concrete. A large drone over the man¡¯s head kept him dry. It had no propellers, but it hovered quietly and easily above him as if the wind had little effect on the dark fabric sails it used to shield him. The dog was chubby, and his fur was going silver around his muzzle. But he raced across the one-lane street with the energy of a puppy and bounded into the grassy square that the townhouse faced. Other, similar houses surrounded it. They were mostly quiet right now, curtains pulled tight against the night. The man lifted his left hand as he reached the square and snapped his fingers twice. Street lamps and pathway lights turned on in an instant, illuminating the wet grass and the dog running in eager circles. ¡°All right. Fetch it is.¡± He pulled a tennis ball from his jacket pocket and threw it. The dog raced after it, barking joyfully, heedless of the rain. They played for several minutes before a chirping sound called the man¡¯s attention to his watch. ¡°What is it?¡± he asked. ¡°Elias, why won¡¯t you answer your damn interface when the SkySea Guard is calling you?¡± ¡°Hello, Archibald. Why do government officials keep calling me on my interface when they know it¡¯s not my preferred contact method for the information business?¡± ¡°You stubborn old¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re almost as old as I am. And I keep SkySea fully supplied with top of the line infogear.¡± ¡°Nobody wants to wear your spy equipment, Elias!¡± ¡°Many people do.¡± While Elias tossed the soggy tennis ball again, the other man sighed. ¡°We¡¯re having some trouble with the runaways we queried you on earlier this evening. It¡¯s been long enough that they might¡­might¡­have slipped past the bulk of our patrols. We¡¯d like to find them before they hit the edge of our territory and run into less tolerant parties.¡± As he finished speaking, notes appeared in front of Elias¡¯s eyes, and a soothing, male voice whispered in his ear. Elias listened to its report for a few seconds, then said, ¡°I see you requested intelligence on a seventeen-year-old boy, a couple who thought an escape attempt would spice up their love life, and that funny woman who enjoys the thrill of being plucked from the waves every couple of months.¡± He also saw that the couple and the thrill seeker had already been brought back. ¡°The audio recording and video you purchased indicated the boy left in the company of five others. And it seems you haven¡¯t found any sign of them, judging by the fact that most of the members of your day shift haven¡¯t returned to their homes.¡± Archibald grumbled something, then said more clearly, ¡°Where are they?¡± ¡°I doubt my creation knows the precise answer to that. I can have it make guesses based on the captain¡¯s personality profile and the capabilities of their vessel, but I don¡¯t have recording devices out at sea.¡± ¡°We want anything you¡¯ve got that will help. We¡¯ll pay the fee.¡± Archibald Carisson said the word ¡®fee¡¯ like it was a curse. ¡°How uncharacteristically generous you¡¯re being with the budget tonight. It¡¯s because of the two high ranks traveling with them, I suppose?¡± Elias whistled, and his dog trotted toward him, head high and tail wagging. ¡°You ought to be required by law to help with matters like this if you ask me. Every time an Avowed makes it off the island and causes trouble for ordinary people it¡¯s a setback for global relations and puts our efforts to function as an independent nation without interference in jeop¡ª¡± ¡°If I was required by law to do any such thing, I would get on a boat myself. And you would not find me.¡± He bent to lay a hand on top of the dog¡¯s soft, wet head. ¡°Or I would run for election.¡± He could practically hear the other man shuddering at the thought. ¡°You¡¯ll just have to be content with the fact that I don¡¯t hold myself to the same privacy standards as our System. If I did, I¡¯d tell you nothing at all. Now¡­how much help do you want?¡± Archibald didn¡¯t hesitate. ¡°No need to help your creation along with your power,¡± he said at once. ¡°Just its own work will be sufficient.¡± The Informant sighed. ¡°You heard him. What do we know about the missing boat? Synthesize all relevant information and make predictions.¡±A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Data began to pour in at once. ¡°You¡¯re looking the wrong place,¡± he said mildly. ¡°You need to look deeper.¡± ¡°Did they sink?¡± Archibald asked in surprise. ¡°They almost definitely did, but not in the way you mean. I hope you have a lot of manpower for tonight¡¯s search. And that they¡¯re strong swimmers.¡±
It was silent at the bottom of the sea. And black. Jacob had been doing his best to ignore the nothingness beyond the windows of the submerged cruiser by browsing the internet and texting his mom. He¡¯d told her he was out for the night with some new friends he¡¯d made, so their chat back and forth was light. She didn¡¯t need more worries. He was on the settee, curled up in the corner to stay out of his companions¡¯ way. He could hear them all breathing. With the engines off, the boat was that silent. No crashing waves or rushing wind. The lights came from a few battery powered lanterns and the Submerger, which was shining in the cockpit, the crystal dial that had become its new base occasionally flickering and calling the captain¡¯s attention toward it. Though he never touches it, Jacob noted. He¡¯d halted the engines, then set their course using the dial and a glass stick that might have been called either a stylus or a wand in Jacob¡¯s opinion. There were logograms on the dial that controlled depth, direction, speed, and Jacob didn¡¯t know what else. After the captain had played around with the thing¡ªpressing the stylus to one logogram and then another, timing himself with a stopwatch for some reason every time he made an adjustment¡ªhe¡¯d flipped the whole Submerger over, so that the oily yellow liquid inside the tank was on the bottom instead of the top. When he¡¯d placed the Submerger back on top of the dial, the silver bead in the middle of the liquid had sunk almost to the bottom. And then so had the boat. Magic encasing it, water crawling up the sides to pull it under...Jacob shuddered. ¡°No touching this or casting spells at her,¡± the captain had warned in an ominous voice, shooing the man with the scabby hand away from the device when it was over. ¡°She¡¯s a powerful but sensitive piece of equipment, and she¡¯s all that protects us from our enemies and the deep.¡± Jacob had no desire at all to touch the Submerger. He just wanted the magical, creepy part of their journey to be over. If possible, he would¡¯ve moved their company¡¯s thief away from the crate full of stolen medicine and looked around for one of those knockout drugs they¡¯d given him the last time they¡¯d hauled him back to intake. Being unconscious until they were back above the water sounded like a great idea. Other people weren¡¯t as anxious as he was. ¡°Well!¡± said the girl, Riley. She clapped her hands together and bounced onto her feet. ¡°It turns out that traveling away from home gets boring after only a few hours. I¡¯m going to go see what it¡¯s like outside if that¡¯s all right with you, Captain.¡± He was lying on one of the bunks now, reading a paperback. ¡°It¡¯s fine to go out. You can even touch the envelope if you want to get a first hand look at the power of Jacob¡¯s gift to us.¡± Riley snatched up one of the lanterns and squeezed her way through all the supplies toward the door. ¡°You coming?¡± she asked, beckoning toward Jacob. He shook his head. He didn¡¯t see the appeal in getting even closer to the darkness. She left, and he tried to relax. It wasn¡¯t made any easier by the company. The thief kept laughing loudly at whatever he was watching or reading on his interface, and the other man was poking around the boat with an intensity that was only matched by his randomness. He stared at a nick in one of the cabinets, then at one of the weapon cases, then he peered at the tarp that covered the large object that sat where the dinette had once been. The edge of the tight canvas started to pull up at the bottom. ¡°Um,¡± said Jacob, alarmed. ¡°Should you be doing that?¡± ¡°Get away from that, Will,¡± said the captain, looking over the top of his book. ¡°It¡¯s delicate. Dangerous.¡± The man leaped back, muttered an apology, then went to stare at the label on a jar of peanut butter. The captain had only introduced the strange man as a friend who needed a lift earlier. Seeing Jacob¡¯s s expression, he seemed to decide further explanation was needed. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about Will,¡± he said. ¡°He only fidgets around like this because he¡¯s nervous. Isn¡¯t that right, pal?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not nervous,¡± Will muttered, rocking back and forth. ¡°It¡¯s just very small in here.¡± ¡°Claustrophobic?¡± the thief asked in an unconcerned voice. ¡°What¡¯s a boy your age doing cooped up in here with us?¡± the captain asked Jacob. ¡°Go out and take a look. Not many times in your life you¡¯ll get to see such a thing.¡± Will opened a cabinet and yelped as dozens of large stickers slid out and fluttered around him. He scrambled backward, his socks slipping on some of the stickers as he fled. Stickers seemed like a wasteful addition on a boat stuffed so full of necessities. Jacob stood up to get a better look at them. Most of them were square or rectangular. A few were die-cut, horned monster faces. They said things like ¡°SAL for True Peace¡± and ¡°Who¡¯s gonna save you from the demons?¡± Some were in English, others in Chinese. He even spotted one in French. The captain shook his head. ¡°I told Riley she could bring one box of those since she¡¯s spent so long designing them. Should¡¯ve specified the size of the box. She¡¯s got them tucked in every nook and cranny.¡± Will had picked up a sticker that looked like a holographic cube. He was staring at it now. Guess it¡¯s just as interesting as the peanut butter label. Jacob tried to help clean up the stickers, but Will swatted him away. Fine then. He didn¡¯t want to go outside and ¡®take a look,¡¯ but staying in here wasn¡¯t much better after all. ¡°Excuse me,¡± he said when he was halfway to the door. Wait, who was I apologizing¡­he needed to relax and focus on getting outside.
By the fountain, there was a home furnishings store that specialized in extraterrestrial imports. Now this is not the kind of shopping experience you get in Chicago, Alden thought, sitting on a very short stool in one corner of the store, waiting for his body heat to make the stone-like material it was made of release a scent. The sign beside the stool had said it would happen, and nobody else had wanted to try it. Where is their sense of adventure? How often do you get to experience a sit-and-sniff stool from Tmith? There was plenty of other adventure to be had in this place, though. Finlay was trying to figure out how to read a device that said it was a clock even though it just looked like a jar full of differently colored gels. Mehdi was sinking deeper and deeper into a squishy blob-shaped massager; soon nothing would be left of him but his nose. And Haoyu and Lexi were browsing the shelves. Jeffy and Reinhard had hung back to do the slide one more time, but it had been so long, Alden suspected they¡¯d either gotten lost or forgotten they were supposed to be rejoining them. A sickly sweet smell that vaguely reminded him of apples filled the air, and with his curiosity satisfied, he stood up to look for a new weird experience. He found Haoyu tapping on a two-foot-tall cylindrical lamp that was lit by a swarm of tiny luminescent bugs. Lexi was right beside him, examining all the supplies you would need to keep your bug lamp alive. ¡°You¡¯re finally off the stool,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°We were just talking about you.¡± ¡°Were you saying nice things?¡± ¡°We were wondering if you still wanted to come with us to Matadero. It¡¯s a long trip out and it¡¯s not much to see since we can¡¯t get too close, but the boat¡¯s fun.¡± ¡°Tomorrow?¡± Haoyu nodded. ¡°Or Sunday if the weather¡¯s better for it then. We¡¯re going to ask Vandy too. Her mom¡¯s in residence there, and she¡¯s so down about the way things went in class this week.¡± Lexi wasn¡¯t complaining about being a water taxi. Alden looked over at him. ¡°I¡¯m selling the boat soon,¡± he said. ¡°My parents were just trying to distract me with a new hobby and give me an escape so that I wouldn¡¯t go crazy waiting for selection, but I don¡¯t have time for it now. Having the money is more practical.¡± ¡°This is our last chance to farewell a noble vessel.¡± Haoyu saluted the lamp for some reason. They don¡¯t plan to get close. There¡¯s no reason to be weirded out by the idea of viewing Matadero from a distance. ¡°I¡¯ll go,¡± he said. ¡°Thanks for inviting me.¡± He spent a few more minutes browsing with them, pausing to admire a case full of the same colorful rock creatures he¡¯d enjoyed watching with the other Rabbits in intake. They were all in their hibernation mode right now. The store had the date of their next wake-up posted on a sign. ¡°We placed bets on these dudes in intake,¡± he told the others, pointing. ¡°The guys in the apartment next door to mine had a whole table full of them.¡± ¡°Seriously? They¡¯re kind of expensive.¡± Haoyu leaned toward the case, and his breath fogged the glass beside a mottled pinkish creature. ¡°All the apartments have unique fun features. For socializing. Some people just went from room to room, trying out everyone else¡¯s games and furniture.¡± ¡°What did you have?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°A very dramatic coffee pot and a pinball machine.¡± ¡°Sounds like fun,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°It was. They make it as comfortable as they can. It¡¯s supposed to be a soft landing.¡± Not soft enough for everyone I guess. He wondered if Maricel¡¯s friend had been caught yet. ¡°CNH has been even better believe it or not.¡± The rooms weren¡¯t as luxurious, but the busyness and the good company were making him feel more settled in than intake had managed to. ¡°Well we have a polar bear,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°It¡¯s hard to compete with that.¡± ¡°True. Sunny is the main reason I stay with you all. Plus the spontaneous outbreaks of mooing.¡±
[WARNING: You are approaching a blockaded area. Turn back or request teleportation to Anesidora now.] ¡°Told you!¡± Riley¡¯s soft curls were freed from their barrette, and they drifted in the magic the captain called ¡®the envelope¡¯. She had unfolded the boat¡¯s stern boarding platform so that she could get even closer to the ocean that surrounded them. She leaned back, arms spread wide. Behind her there was nothing but blackness; any faint light from the night sky so far above them couldn¡¯t penetrate this deep. The angle of the girl¡¯s body made her look like she was about to fall into an endless void, but the Submerger¡¯s magic held her in place. Jacob had touched the magic himself just once, right after he came out here to join her an hour or so ago. The protective envelope was invisible, but it felt like the air itself grew denser and denser the farther he extended his arm from the edges of the boat, until he couldn¡¯t push through anymore. ¡°Captain couldn¡¯t resist kissing the edge of the forbidden zone. One last¡ª¡± She lifted a middle finger covered in magenta polish to the sky. ¡°¡ªto all those Avowed who go along with playing captors to our own kind.¡± Jacob was still staring at the blockade notice. ¡°What if the System sends us back?¡± Riley snorted. ¡°It doesn¡¯t do that unless you ask it to. Trust me. I¡¯ve lived here my whole life. People who make it through to Matadero on dares say it just keeps flashing the warning. When you get close enough, your boat smashes into shielding. That¡¯s the real restricted area. And we¡¯re not headed that way anyway. We¡¯re just sneaking along the perimeter, right below all those patrols.¡± She smiled up at the silent blackness over their heads. ¡°Hear that, assholes? There are superhumans soon to be at large under your noses and you don¡¯t have a clue!¡± Her voice disappeared into the envelope. She crossed her arms over her chest. After a little while, she said, ¡°You know, you¡¯re quiet for a hero.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a hero.¡± ¡°You sort of are,¡± Riley said. ¡°The captain thinks so anyway. Apparently this thing you¡¯ve brought us is rare on Earth. SAL only has one more, and the person who brought it back from the Triplanets years ago won¡¯t let it be used for anything but helping runners hide or relocate. They¡¯re not really caught up with the times. Those of us who don¡¯t like the way things are done need to start pushing people to think, don¡¯t we?¡± Since meeting her for the first time this afternoon, Jacob had come to understand that Riley¡¯s reasons for leaving Anesidora weren¡¯t at all the same as his. She liked the island. She was just bored. She¡¯d really wanted to be powerful, but she was a C-rank Stamina Brute who couldn¡¯t pick a uni major because they all sounded pointless. ¡°On track for a do-nothing life like my do-nothing friends and family,¡± she¡¯d said. ¡°I¡¯d rather be an activist.¡± She¡¯d been spending a lot of time System chatting with anonymous unregistered Avowed who were members of SAL, and she wanted to ¡®join the fight for Avowed rights.¡¯ ¡°We¡¯re Earth¡¯s protectors, you know,¡± she told him a few minutes after they¡¯d received the message. She was still pressing herself back into the envelope as far as she could. ¡°Even if chaos stays away, you and I are protecting Earth right now. With our lives.¡± ¡°We¡¯re not really¡ª¡± ¡°Just think of how many people are benefiting from the Contract at this very moment. Billions of them. In all kinds of ways. And what did they have to give up for it?¡± She pointed at him. ¡°Nothing. If there¡¯s some kind of universal apocalypse, I guess they might have to make room for some alien refugees, but right now, they pay nothing. All they have to do is let the System make us. We¡¯re what the Artonans care about here. I¡¯m not a supremacist or anything, but every Avowed should be treated like we¡¯re saving human lives just by breathing. Because we are.¡± She¡¯s so Anesidoran, Jacob thought. She was no Hazel Velra by any means¡ªbossing him around like he was a servant, blackmailing him into being her date, and then introducing him to everyone in her family as Jacob the C-rank like she was hoping someone would make comments about his unworthiness. But there was a similar arrogance. A pride he couldn¡¯t connect with. And a kind of blind lack of interest in the lives or feelings of people who hadn¡¯t been born with a magical purpose. Riley rattled on, explaining that Avowed should be allowed to walk across every border on Earth if they wanted and be welcomed with open arms. According to her, that was clearly how the Artonans had imagined it going based on how their own culture worked. ¡°What if they hurt people?¡± Riley paused in the middle of a sentence. ¡°They?¡± Jacob was jarred for a moment. This wasn¡¯t the first time he¡¯d run into this feeling of disconnection, but no matter how many times it happened, it always made him feel lost. ¡°We. I meant we.¡± Riley¡¯s nose wrinkled. ¡°You¡¯re a globie. You weren¡¯t one of those lunatics who thought Avowed were disgusting or something before you were selected, were you?¡± ¡°No,¡± Jacob said in an annoyed voice. ¡°Then why would you default to thinking ¡®What if they hurt people?¡¯ It¡¯s stupid. You¡¯ve been living on an island entirely full of superhumans. Were we all murdering each other in the streets?¡± ¡°Avowed do use your powers on people when you think you can get away with it. This girl I know used her skill to mess with a guy¡¯s wordchain. And there are other examples.¡± ¡°You did it again,¡± she said. ¡°Do you seriously not think of yourself as an Avowed, too? ¡± ¡°I know I¡¯m an Avowed,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t have a problem with them. Us. Don¡¯t accuse me of stuff when you don¡¯t even know me! I¡­people like my dad think superhumans are¡­I don¡¯t think that way. I was just asking a question about the point you were making.¡± Riley went quiet and Jacob tried not to let that make him uncomfortable. She hadn¡¯t had many quiet spells at all since the boat set out. I didn¡¯t mean to let her wind me up. She just won¡¯t shut up about all these things that I¡¯m too tired to think about, and she acts like I should care about them but I don¡¯t. I don¡¯t want to. That¡¯s not who I¡ª Finally, she said, ¡°You know you¡¯ll still be one of us, right? No matter where on Earth you end up. You can run away from the island, but you have to take yourself with you.¡± He turned away. But the only place to go was back in the cabin with the others. ¡°Hey. Don¡¯t be upset. I¡¯ve just never met anyone like you before,¡± said Riley. A hand landed on Jacob¡¯s shoulder, and he whirled to see her smiling at him. ¡°Did your dad think magic was unnatural? Or that Avowed were an Artonan infection that needed to be quarantined?¡± He took a step back from her. ¡°Or was it one of the even crazier ideas?¡± She shook her head. ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter. It¡¯s good you¡¯re coming with us, Jacob. You need to be around people who¡¯ll show you how it really is.¡± ¡°How what really is?¡± he asked. She leaned toward him. ¡°We¡¯re awesome,¡± she said softly. ¡°Stronger, healthier, kinder and prettier if we want to be. Smarter. It¡¯s harder to see on Anesidora, where everyone¡¯s one of us. Why do you think they make us stay there?¡± She sounded so sure of herself it was impossible not to listen. ¡°¡®Oh, what if you hurt us ordinary people with your terrible alien magic? You¡¯re like walking weapons,¡¯¡± she scoffed. ¡°That¡¯s not why they want us all tucked away. Most people would welcome us with open arms, but the ones currently in power¡­?¡± She looked up into the darkness. ¡°They say that if the first generation of Avowed had been chosen at forty, instead of in their teens, they would¡¯ve become Presidents and Prime Ministers. They would¡¯ve ended monopolies and carved out kingdoms for themselves.¡± Jacob had never heard anyone say that before. ¡°Some of them almost did things like that anyway. But they were kids who¡¯d grown up in a world without magic, and the people in power saw what was coming before they did. And they decided to bottle the genie back up before it realized what it really was¡­¡± She bent suddenly and picked up the electric lantern. She held it up high like a torch. ¡°We¡¯re not going to stay in the bottle for much longer. I¡¯m going to be one of the first ones to break free.¡± Everyone thinks something different about Avowed, Jacob thought. I miss not being confused. ¡°I¡ª¡± he started to say, only to be interrupted by a second girl¡¯s nervous voice. ¡°Um¡­um¡­you guys?¡± She was standing right there on the stern of the boat with them. She was so thin that the pink and white polka-dotted sweatshirt she was wearing looked like it had swallowed her. Her pale eyes were wide. ¡°Something is reallyreallywrong.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE: Ripples, II 131 ******** The bus was less than half full on the way back to campus, so Alden had taken two seats. The lights were off, and he was letting himself sprawl, watching the city pass by as they approached the north shore of F and The Span. Anesidora is starting to look familiar in a lot of places. A motorcycle zipped through traffic, its rider accelerating to pass the bus before they reached the long bridge, and a police drone up ahead flared yellow in warning. But some of it¡¯s still crazy. Behind him, Haoyu was leaning out of his seat to talk to Kon. ¡°Jeffy¡¯s standing in the parking lot with Reinhard right now," he was saying. "They¡¯ve been looking for the bus.¡± Kon turned his head toward the front, where Instructor Klein was sitting in the driver¡¯s seat with his arms crossed over his chest like he was having critical thoughts about the road instead of just monitoring it. There was a touchscreen and a wheel if he needed to take over as the vehicle¡¯s operator. ¡°I feel kind of bad for them, but he did warn us not to be late.¡± They were both whispering. Beside Kon, Everly had already fallen asleep. Her head was against the window, pillowed by one of her silver buns, and her mouth was hanging open. The bus doors had closed at 12:05 AM. Alden was pretty sure Klein had timed their departure down to the second. ¡°They were having too much fun racing some boys from Reinhard¡¯s old middle school on the slide and lost track of time,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°Then they accidentally followed signs to the parking garage instead of the lot where the bus was.¡± ¡°What a shock,¡± Lexi murmured. ¡°Tell them they should try to meet up with Astrid,¡± said Maricel from a couple of rows in front of him. She was sitting by Tuyet. ¡°She should still be there. She was with us, but she went back in to get a pair of pants she saw in a commercial on the way out the door.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t bought anything. He¡¯d tried to find something for Stuart, but he wanted a gift that somehow said, ¡°Thank you for the learning cushion and also good luck with that irrevocable life choice you¡¯re about to make.¡± Scented candles and lamps with bugs in them felt way too shallow. [The Filipino food was great,] Alden texted Maricel. [I¡¯m still stuffed.] That seemed better than reminding her about the day¡¯s troubles. He assumed she would¡¯ve updated him if she¡¯d heard anything over the past hours. Near the front of the bus, Marsha was drinking a can of strawberry milk and occasionally bothering Ignacio with questions about his knives. She and Mehdi were the only members of their team who¡¯d stayed to ride the bus back to campus. Even Vandy had left as soon as dinner finished. Alden thought it was a fifty-fifty split between her being embarrassed about her team¡¯s performance and her being unwilling to compromise her personal schedule and stay out late. While everyone continued to murmur around him, he started mentally drafting a letter to Kibby. It would make a nice addition to his usual video messages, and taking the time to translate it into logograms for her would be good practice. Plus he didn¡¯t want to fall asleep like Everly. Having a nightmare on the bus would be unfortunate. They were coming less often, but the last one had bothered him enough that he was more worried about a repeat than usual. He¡¯d been on Thegund, wearing his coat, trying to make it to the lab on the first day of the disaster. He¡¯d heard the whistle, and he¡¯d run as fast as he could to the car to get her, only to find she wasn¡¯t there. It was just the bodies of her father and sister. The sound of the whistle had called to him again from the endless plain, and he¡¯d chased it for what fell like hours, with the tall grass withering around him and turning to dirt as if its death had been put on fast forward. Then the last blades had rotted away and he¡¯d stood there alone. Just him and the chaos. No more whistling. And he realized he was going to have to go through the whole thing again, without her. Without another living soul. ¡°Thank you! I¡¯m going to wear mine on Monday,¡± Haoyu said. Alden refocused and realized Njeri was passing around temporary laurel wreath tattoos that she''d bought for their team at the mall in celebration of their victory. He took the small square of paper from her with a thanks. ¡°They¡¯re supposed to last a week,¡± she told him. ¡°So make sure you stick it somewhere you like it.¡± She went back to her seat, and he smiled at the little circle of dark green leaves for a second before he tucked it into his bag. Instructor Kivb-ee, he typed on his interface with a thought, I¡¯d like to tell you about the team I worked with this week and what we accomplished together. I¡¯m also including some video of my skill in use, so you can see what I¡¯ve learned¡­ A minute later, the bus bumped slightly beneath them as they hit the bridge. Apex, and what would hopefully be a good night¡¯s sleep, were just a few miles away. ****** ****** Riley cried out and dropped the lantern she¡¯d been holding aloft. Jacob leaped back. The girl who had just appeared between them and the door to the cabin waved her arms. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid! Don¡¯t be afraid of me!¡± ¡°Where did you come from?!¡± Jacob shouted. She looked strangely familiar to him, though. Her sudden presence was somehow startling and not at the same time in a way that made him feel disoriented. ¡°I¡¯m sorry! I¡¯m so sorry! Ijustdidn¡¯twanttogetthrownofftheship!¡± She was still flapping. ¡°But something¡¯s wrong and I can¡¯t open the door and I can¡¯t target the captain anymore and I think something bad is going on and I can¡¯t fix it by myself!¡± ¡°Who the hell are you?¡± Riley demanded. ¡°And what in the name of Boomtown¡¯s Backside are you doing here?¡± ¡°Mina,¡± said the girl, taking a step toward them both. ¡°I¡¯m Mina. But listen to me. It doesn¡¯t matter who I am. The System¡¯s not here. Where did it go? And the door to the cabin is locked. Why aren¡¯t the people inside talking anymore? The blinds on the windows shut themselves all of a sudden. I think that Object Shaper I have trouble controlling did it. Something¡¯s not right. It¡¯s not right at all.¡± ¡°You¡ª!¡± Riley exclaimed. ¡°Are you listening to me?!¡± Mina¡¯s voice was so high it was piercing. ¡°The System¡¯s GONE!¡± She sounds crazy, thought Jacob. But a moment later, he realized that she wasn¡¯t. He hadn¡¯t been doing anything with his interface while he listened to Riley talk about Superhumans At Large, but there were supposed to be a couple of surreptitious lights in the corner of his vision that he could gesture toward to call it back up since he hadn¡¯t mastered a mental command. Those lights had disappeared. He waved his hand in the area they should¡¯ve been in, feeling odd. This is what everything used to look like. The last System notification had been the warning. ¡°Is it just because we crossed the blockade? Is that what happened?" Mina asked in a frantic voice. "Isthatnormal? Doyouknow?¡± Riley was staring at the space in front of her own nose with a perturbed expression. ¡°I was only a little worried when it first went away, but I¡¯ve got a bad feeling now,¡± Mina said. ¡°Like something¡¯s out there in the water watching over my shoulder. We have to get out of here.¡± ¡°Out of here is two miles below the Pacific Ocean,¡± said Jacob slowly. ¡°So¡­where did you come from?¡± ¡°Are you a Sway?¡± Riley hissed, stalking toward Mina threateningly. ¡°Are you doing all of this to us? Give me my interface back!¡± Mina staggered away from her until she smacked into the wall of the cabin. ¡°ET!¡± she shouted. ¡°System, ET me! Emergency Teleport. I would like to be teleported immediately! Please! Please!¡± Nothing happened; Mina kept babbling. Jacob realized he was starting to breathe heavily. ¡°I don¡¯t understand why the System is gone," he muttered. "How can it just be gone?¡± Nobody had had an answer for Mina, so of course there wasn¡¯t one for him either. Maybe I should call for an ET, too. Maybe I should. It might still hear me Riley had frozen in the act of reaching for the terrified girl. Changing her mind, she suddenly spun toward the cabin door. She grabbed the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. The handle wasn¡¯t even budging; it was like it had been cemented in place. ¡°Hey!¡± she called, slapping the door with the palm of her hand. ¡°Hey! Let us in! Captain Adi! Mr. Belasco! Will!¡± No reply. ¡°Jacob, do you have any Wright gear that can open doors or¡ª?¡± A huff of laughter escaped from him even though none of this was funny. ¡°I took talents to help me make detector flashlights. I¡¯m useless.¡± ¡°You know what?¡± Riley said. ¡°Fuck this. It''s getting uncomfortable. I¡¯m a Brute, and it¡¯s just a door.¡± She took a step back, lifted her leg, and kicked the handle hard. There was a popping sound, and the handle flew off. ¡°Ha!¡± she said. But when she threw herself at the door, it still didn¡¯t open. Pressed to the wall nearby, Mina said, ¡°I told you it¡¯s theObjectShaper! He¡¯sprobablystabilizingthedoorandwindowsfromtheinside¡ª¡± Jacob jumped as Riley reached over and slapped the other girl lightly on the cheek. ¡°Talk like a normal person!¡± she commanded. ¡°We are members of Superhumans At Large. We aren¡¯t going to panic. This is not a time for us to panic.¡± Mina held a hand to her cheek. ¡°I think¡­I think¡­¡± ¡°Spit it out at a normal speed!¡± Riley shouted at her. ¡°I think everyone in there is dead except for that man Will!¡± Mina yelled back. ¡°I think he killed the captain and the other one! I think he¡¯s trying to kill all of us!¡± A brief silence fell in the wake of that pronouncement. It¡¯s not true, thought Jacob. It¡¯s not going this way. Everything can''t just suddenly go wrong for no reason. Can it? ¡°I am a Sway, okay?¡± Mina¡¯s lips were trembling now. ¡°But I¡¯ve only been hiding until I could decide if I should reveal myself! I was reaching out to relax everyone some more because I really wanted to take a break and it would¡¯ve been nice if you all went to bed. But then when I tried to target the captain again, I couldn¡¯t. So I tried the robber, and I couldn¡¯t target him either. It¡¯s like they¡¯re¡­they¡¯re gone. That Will person is still in there, but my relaxation alter does almost nothing to him. I think he¡¯s a high rank. Is he?¡± ¡°An A I think,¡± said Riley, glaring at her. ¡°You nasty little¡­never mind. He wouldn¡¯t kill the captain. They¡¯re friends. We¡¯re all trying to escape together. And the System is only down because of Matadero. Probably. Maybe it shuts off around the island.¡± For a second, her words hung there comfortingly. Jacob wanted to believe them. But¡­¡°You just told me the System always warns people over and over until they crash into the real restricted area. It¡¯s not warning us anymore. We only got the first one.¡± Mina was wringing the hem of her polka-dotted sweatshirt between her hands. Riley grabbed a fistful of her own curly hair and stared around them. ¡°Listen,¡± she said. ¡°Listen. This is a lot of panic for nothing. Maybe they¡¯re doing something private in there. Probably it¡¯s because they realized we had a stowaway on board, and they¡¯re trying to think of what to do about you.¡± She was nodding along with her own guesses. ¡°And if the System isn¡¯t here¡­well, the Submerger could¡¯ve started interfering with it. It¡¯s powerful magic, right? Everyone keeps saying so. Works in oceans on all kinds of planets! That¡¯s completely wild! Our interfaces will come back again as soon as we reach the surface and shut the device off.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°Or, if that¡¯s not the problem," she continued, "then Matadero¡¯s just...different right now for some reason. Maybe tonight is go night for the big guys, and they¡¯re punching a demon¡¯s lights out. The System might take a break for that? It¡¯ll come back on when they get finished. Or we¡¯ll just pass out of the blockade zone and find Earth¡¯s Contract waiting for us on the other side.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t really believe any of that!¡± Mina exclaimed. ¡°You¡ª!¡± Riley took a deep breath. ¡°Look. I¡¯m happy to help you to freedom even if you are a mind violator. But stop freaking out. We¡¯re fine. Look around. It¡¯s calm. Nothing¡¯s changed for hours.¡± She motioned at the darkness. Jacob was already staring out at it, harder than he had been. As if staring is going to make me see more clearly. ¡°How would we know?¡± he asked quietly. Both girls looked at him. ¡°What do you mean?¡± Riley was favoring one foot after her kick to the door. ¡°How would we know if anything had changed out there?¡± Jacob could hear his voice tightening with every word. ¡°Do you have any idea how fast we¡¯re going? Or what direction we¡¯re headed in? It¡¯s not like we can feel ourselves moving or hear the water rushing past from in here. How would we tell if someone turned us around or sped us up? We could be shooting toward the patrols on the surface right now. Or toward Anesidora. Or the sea floor.¡± He stared into Mina¡¯s pale eyes. ¡°You can¡¯t target the captain? You¡¯re sure you¡¯re not just making a mistake with your powers?¡± She nodded. ¡°I learned mental targeting as fast as I could. To impress schools. I was trying to get into hero programs.¡± Riley walked toward the boarding platform where she¡¯d been spending so much time leaning back against the magic that protected them. She stepped down onto it, closed her eyes, and leaned again. Her hair drifted up around her. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Jacob protested. ¡°Just ignoring the problem won¡¯t¡ª¡± ¡°Shut up. I¡¯m focusing. I thought¡­¡± Her forehead wrinkled as she concentrated. ¡°I thought it was softer earlier. The magic envelope. There was more of a floaty feeling? I assumed I was just getting used to it, but maybe it really changed. It¡¯s like it¡¯s firmed up.¡± ¡°How long ago?¡± Mina asked. ¡°Right after we got the message?¡± Riley opened her eyes. ¡°That was only a few minutes ago. It¡¯s not like we could have gone too far off course in a few minutes.¡± ¡°How far is the edge of the blockade from Matadero?¡± Mina asked. ¡°The timing is¡­ and if he has taken control of the Submerger because he wanted to change our direction, that¡¯s¡­the cube is the main thing out here. So...so you know...¡± Riley swallowed. Jacob swore. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter how far anything is from anything, you two! Like I said, we don¡¯t know how fast we¡¯re going. We could be flying toward the place where they kill the demons like a bullet! We have to break into that cabin. Now.¡± He stared at Riley. ¡°Now.¡± For a few seconds, the decision stood there with them like a question. Then she straightened up. ¡°Let¡¯s do it. You¡ªMina¡ªsway the hell out of Will. I don¡¯t care what you hit him with. Give us an opening! Jacob, you¡ª¡± He nodded. His fists clenched. They ran at the door together.
Here are the things they thought. As they tried. As they realized. That something had gone wrong. That something had ended. That something was about to end. Riley Lin thought about how when she was a little girl, she¡¯d had a recurring dream about running so fast through the streets of Anesidora that she created a river of wind in her wake. All the litter on the island tumbled through the air after her. And when she stopped at the northern edge of the Apex crescent, it all blew past her and out to sea. At the end of the dream, she always turned around to see that everyone was astounded by her. Lightning Riley. Cleaning up their home for them every time she went for a jog. She¡¯d been really young. Mina Nowak thought about how she¡¯d never been that serious about coming along with these people. It was only a tantrum. A childish misbehavior to prove to herself that she was strong enough and smart enough to misbehave in a major way and not get caught at it. She hadn¡¯t meant it. She really hadn¡¯t. Deep down, she¡¯d known all along that she would ET back home within a day or two. Next week, she would be sixteen. Her father had already bought the ingredients for her birthday dinner. She¡¯d seen them in the fridge last night. She couldn¡¯t remember why she hadn¡¯t appreciated them. Jacob Moore thought about how his mom would wonder why he¡¯d lied to her in the last text message. In so many of them over the past months. Would she be upset he hadn¡¯t confided in her? Would she wonder if he hadn¡¯t trusted her? He thought about how his dad had always said the System only chose people who were mentally weak. "If you have a spine," he¡¯d said, "why would it pick you? The Avowed are all desperate for it on some level no matter what they whine about. Damaged. They¡¯ve got a need to be controlled. Why would the Artonans give real power to someone like me who can think for himself?" A couple of years ago, Jacob had decided those words were crap. He was sure he had forced them out of himself. He was sure they weren¡¯t still inside him, shaping who he was. Riley thought, I¡¯m going to bust this fucking door down and I¡¯m going to save this fucking ship and I¡¯m going to make it to my friends fighting for our rights. I¡¯m going to do things in this fucking world no matter what my rank is. Mina thought, Relaxrelaxrelaxrelax. Why won¡¯t the Object Shaper relax? I know it¡¯s not my strongest alter, but it should work. Did I use it too much hiding from them all? Is he really high level? Am I out of magic? Jacob thought, Not here. Not like this. I don¡¯t know what I want. I¡¯ve never known what I wanted. But I want something different than this. Riley thought, Kick it harder. More. I¡¯m an Avowed. I¡¯ve got power. Use it all. Mina thought, If my mind control isn¡¯t working, I¡¯ll punch the door, too. I¡¯ve got stats. He¡¯s only an A. He¡¯s only an A, and he¡¯s trying to close off the whole cabin. There are three of us. Jacob thought, I¡¯m so glad I couldn¡¯t talk anyone else into coming on this trip with me. They were all right when they told me I was going too far. There was blood on the door.
Inside the facility the humans called a slaughterhouse¡ªHumorous? Serious? The grivecks would be delighted by the name, but they might take it as an invitation¡ªEsh-erdi was watching the fight below him with both eyes. He stood on one of the transparent barriers that sealed the top of the containment area. The entity the fighters dealt with now was dangerous enough that Esh would not relax or trade banter with Lind, who stood beside him. But the demon was also simple enough in form and ability that he wouldn¡¯t interfere unless one of the humans needed him. The two dozen Avowed who''d been chosen approached the battle with one of the methods they had decided on days ago. Six at a time, using their abilities against it in waves. The demon was about the size of the riding terackerin Esh had recently given his nieces. The humans kept shouting ¡°centipede¡± at it. The Contract had withdrawn from this one small patch of Earth for now, so Esh and his partner wore translation devices in their ears. The equipment defined the word well enough, but he wasn¡¯t sure why the humans had all named the demon so swiftly and surely based on nothing but its outward appearance. If it shifted its shape, would they start calling it something else? He almost wanted to ask one of the non-combatants who stood on the second barrier above him for an explanation, but his curiosity could wait. Being close to the battle, even as witnesses, was an educational experience for them, too. He should not interfere with their learning. I wonder how they perceive it? During his time here, he had heard the ones with some experience describe weak incursives like this to their newer members, but the descriptions still left him uncertain about the depth of their understanding. Did they have some sense of what this creature was? Did they feel the becoming and unbecoming? The chaos oozed around it as it struggled against them and the richness of this world they lived in. It had broken through in the spot where such things should break through if they were going to, and it would be gone soon. The Avowed had been training together. They were dedicated to the task. And the way they used their skills was¡­workmanlike. His partner made a pointed noise in the back of her throat. Perhaps his last thought had been gleaned. Or she had anticipated it. ¡°He is interesting,¡± she said softly. She did not indicate the man with a gesture, but he knew which one she meant. The cheerful one who did less damage than most of the others but who did not tire. Avowed Zhang-Demir had a highly self-defensive fighting style, and there was a unity of purpose to the choices he had made for himself since being bound. His path was simple. Strong. And he was proud of being those things, Esh imagined. Or selfishly hoped. It was a path that would protect the one who walked it as he followed it so that he lived long enough to see it widen before him. Now that is truly a hope. Esh-erdi worried about humans a little more than he wanted to. So many of them. So few Avowed among them. So similar to us. What a fearful marvel Earth was. And what a terrible responsibility.
On the boat, they were screaming¡ªwords, profanities, pain. The sounds battered the door in time with their fists and feet; they disappeared without echoes into the magic that held back the weight of the sea. Fuck this door, thought Riley. It doesn¡¯t matter if it hurts, thought Jacob. Keep going. Get in there so you can get out of here. RELAX DAMN YOU, thought Mina, slamming her shoulder into the door, imagining herself reaching out with her mind to scream the words into the face of the man inside. And then, finally, the door broke open. They fell through it.
Several miles from Anesidora, aboard a ship that served as a low-security housing facility for Avowed who were best kept away from the larger population for a variety of reasons, a dark-haired man sat alone in a billiards room. He was curled up in a chair, a quilt wrapped around him, and the lights were off save for the one over the large table. A few balls had been left behind on the baize from an unfinished game. A woman poked her head into the room. ¡°You¡¯re up late, too!¡± she said. ¡°Do you want to come on a walk around the deck with me?¡± He didn¡¯t seem to hear her. His mouth was moving quietly. The word ¡°relax¡± was the only one loud enough for her to make out. ¡°Bad night?¡± the woman said. ¡°You haven¡¯t had one in a while. Do you want some coffee? I don¡¯t make it as well as you.¡± She waited for a reply that didn¡¯t come, then said, ¡°I¡¯ll make us both a cup.¡±
The captain was dead. Blood from a large head wound saturated the bunk below him. He¡¯d died fast enough that his paperback was still resting on his stomach. As for the thief, his body lay in the kitchenette where blood spray stained the cabinets and a red pool spread out to cover some of the stickers left on the floor. ¡°Ohnononono.¡± Mina turned and ran. Her feet pounded the teak deck behind Jacob, then they stopped. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. It was a small boat. Jacob''s own mind was nearly blank. Will squatted on the floor beside the Submerger. He was holding the holographic cube sticker he¡¯d picked up earlier in one hand, and with the other, he was pressing the stylus to one of the logograms on the Submerger¡¯s control dial. The metal bead in the tank was sunken still, but it was no longer in the center of the device. Instead it was battering itself against one of the glass walls of its container, like a tiny fish trying to break free of the aquarium that protected it. ¡°Sorry,¡± said Will, his eyes looking right through the teens. ¡°You can¡¯t feel it, can you? I can feel it. It¡¯s right there, scratching and scratching at the door. Why does everyone on Earth pretend it isn¡¯t there?¡± ¡°Okay,¡± said Riley, her voice remarkably calm as blood dripped from her hands onto the floor. ¡°Sir. Will. We¡¯re all friends. We all want the same thing. Give me the Submerger. Let¡¯s talk about this.¡± He blinked at her for a few seconds, then the stylus that controlled the device lifted into the air and snapped cleanly in two with a tinkling sound. The Shaper didn¡¯t even have to use a gesture to do it. ¡°No!¡± Riley shouted, arms lifting as if she wanted to stop what had already happened. Just outside the cabin door, Mina let out a sob. ¡°We¡¯re almost there,¡± Will said, dropping back onto his butt and staring down at the sticker in his hand. ¡°Almost there. Sorry. Sorry about the trip. I changed my mind.¡± He picked up something from the floor that Jacob hadn¡¯t noticed because of all the other horrific things there were to notice in the cabin. It was a potion injector, probably taken from the supplies the dead thief had stolen. Will pressed it to his own neck. He spoke a word in Artonan then slumped to the floor. Unconscious or dead. Did it really matter? Riley ran over to the Submerger and tried to lift it, but the control dial came with it. ¡°Help me!¡± she said, fumbling with the broken stylus. ¡°You two! Do something to help me!¡± There¡¯s nothing I can do, thought Jacob. But he found himself dragging his getaway bag out of the corner where he¡¯d stashed it. He reached inside and pulled out one of the few things he¡¯d made as a Wright. Some components, a spell impression that had to be cast a ridiculous number of times on the lens, a skill that fed it power if the battery ran out¡ªa weak detector flashlight. Jacob preferred the open complexity of wires, pipes, and circuits. Magically created items functioned in ways he didn¡¯t understand, even if he¡¯d made them himself. So he¡¯d chosen the talents needed to make a magical gadget that might help him inspect nonmagical ones. Some nonmagical ones anyway. His detector flashlight only worked on objects, and parts of objects, that had been crafted by hand or by spell. It didn¡¯t help at all with mass-produced, machine-made parts. I doubt the Submerger came from a robotic assembly line. Jacob held his finger against the switch and pointed the dull red beam at the Submerger. He was surprised his heart could sink further, but it did. ¡°What is it?¡± Riley said. ¡°What do you see?¡± ¡°Nothing.¡± The detector was supposed to show you places that were ¡°disordered¡± on crafted objects. Loose screws, broken enchantments, malfunctions¡ªalmost everything had a flaw. They were supposed to turn hot pink under the light. ¡°There¡¯s absolutely nothing.¡± And the flashlight was working fine; the snapped stylus was shining brightly. When Jacob swept the beam around the room, he could see all kinds of disorder. Even the thing under the tarp¡ªthe thing he was sure was some kind of a Wrightmade bomb¡ªwas giving off a small pink glow. But the Submerger¡­ ¡°That thing is really well made,¡± he said. ¡°If it¡¯s got weak points, they¡¯re too small for me to see them. It¡¯ll keep¡­it¡¯ll keep doing whatever he told it to do. I guess we could try breaking it. But¡­¡± But then we¡¯ll die. If we break it, we die. If he¡¯s set it to crash into Matadero, we die. ¡°We¡¯ve got powers,¡± Riley said in a faint voice. ¡°We¡¯ve got powers. There must be something we can do.¡± Mina stumbled into the room. She was pressing her hand to the front of her sweatshirt, right over her heart. ¡°He said it would be soon. He said we were almost there. Did that mean a minute? Two? An hour?¡± Neither of them answered her. She stared at Will¡¯s body. ¡°He wouldn¡¯t have knocked himself out would he? If it wasn¡¯t reallyreallysoon.¡± She took three breaths so fast that the air whistled between her lips, then she smashed her hand over her chest even harder, her fingers sinking into the thick fabric. ¡°Ihopethisistherightthing. Activate Fragile Atmosphere!¡± ¡°Oh my god,¡± said Riley. Her voice was shaking. ¡°This¡­this is really happening.¡± She pressed a hand to her own chest. ¡°Activate¡­activate Fragile Atmosphere.¡± They both looked at Jacob. There was a layer of something like silver glitter covering their skin. So that¡¯s what it looks like, Jacob thought. It looks like that when you use your once-in-a-lifetime Contract signing bonus. ¡°Did you¡­?¡± Riley asked. ¡°I took a device identification offering.¡± Jacob¡¯s voice sounded distant in his own ears. ¡°Everyone said it was so much more useful. For a Wright.¡±
A gasp from above drew a portion of Esh-erdi¡¯s attention. He glanced up with one eye. The sound had come from the messenger. Her only function in this place, at this time, was to maintain a mental connection with another Avowed who still stood under the Contract¡¯s shelter. A much surer form of communication in this environment than technology. ¡°What is it?¡± he asked. ¡°A message,¡± she said in one of the human languages. A message when no word is expected, he thought while he watched her face and the demon below him at the same time. The news is never good.
¡°Relax, damn you?¡± The words didn¡¯t really go with the questioning tone, and swearing--even in a perplexed whisper--sounded odd coming out of Tuyet¡¯s mouth. Alden looked toward her curiously. ¡°Tuyet?¡± Maricel asked. ¡°Sorry! I¡¯m not talking to you. I just got a message from my brother. The oldest one. He¡¯s a Sway, and he¡¯s not¡­completely well. He lives on a residential ship. Sometimes he does strange things. He must be having a difficult time right now. Let me text him back.¡± The bus was halfway across the bridge. The traffic was surprisingly heavy for the hour, but it was a Friday night. ¡°If Lute¡¯s in the tub when we get home,¡± Lexi was saying to Haoyu, ¡°then I think we should¡ª¡± An ear-splitting wail filled the air. Alden was out of his seat in an instant, ready to move without any clue where or why he should move. And he wasn¡¯t the only one. The siren was hideously loud. Everly, startled from her sleep, screamed and shoved Kon away from her like she thought she was under attack. He staggered sideways a step and didn¡¯t say anything about it. His eyes were fixed on Lexi, who was standing up from his seat, too. At the front of the bus, Instructor Klein had also risen. ¡°What¡¯s the siren for?¡± Kon asked. <> Ignacio asked from the front of the bus. ¡°We have a chaos siren?¡± Alden demanded. ¡°Nobody lose your heads,¡± Klein said. ¡°Notices should be coming in any second. Stay calm.¡± Notices appeared. Alden¡¯s nerves were suddenly so bad he could barely make sense of the words the System was sending him even though he could read them fine. [Disaster Alert: Attack on Matadero] [Disaster Alert: Low Probability of Chaos Exposure] Nobody had time to say anything about the two shocking ¡°Disaster Alerts¡± before a third arrived: [Disaster Alert: Oceanic Anomalies - Imminent Avoid seawater. Seek high ground. Beware of possible tsunami.] ******* ******* ONE HUNDRE THIRTY-TWO: Ripples, III 132 ****** Within moments, everyone on the bus was talking. ¡°System, call my mom!¡± ¡°Does this say tsunami?¡± ¡°What in Apex is an oceanic anomaly?¡± ¡°Wardrobe.¡± ¡°The possible tsunami is the anomaly!¡± ¡°Then why is it listed separately?¡± ¡°Text my sister.¡± ¡°Emergency teleport!¡± ¡°Access wardrobe.¡± ¡°Like the giant waves? Do we even have those here?¡± ¡°I thought there wasn¡¯t any chaos on Earth!¡± ¡°What¡¯s happening at Matadero? What kind of attack?¡± ¡°Wardrobe.¡± ¡°Uh¡­System? I asked you to call my mom.¡± ¡°I SAID LISTEN UP!¡± Torsten Klein bellowed from where he stood by the driver¡¯s seat. At his back, the wipers were rhythmically stripping the raindrops from the bus¡¯s windshield, and the head and taillights of the traffic on the bridge shone bright. Silence fell. Alden, still on his feet, was gripping his leather cuff bracelet, pressing the auriad hidden below it hard into his wrist. He stared at the Rabbit¡¯s Wardrobe, willing the window to look like it was supposed to. It didn¡¯t seem to be glitching, exactly. The tabs were there, including the special ones she had added. But there was nothing available for purchase. The shop was closed. It¡¯s different from back then. When I asked for the Wardrobe on the day the Thegund System broke and the request failed, it didn¡¯t look like this. It¡¯s just not letting me make purchases. Everything else is normal. Anxiety bubbled inside him anyway. Your interface missing a function doesn¡¯t mean anything is falling apart. You¡¯re on Earth. Go ahead and do Peace of Mind, so you can¡ª ¡°We¡¯ll reach Apex in a few minutes. Stay. Calm,¡± Instructor Klein commanded. ¡°Don¡¯t panic about your calls not going through. Mine aren¡¯t either. The System is obviously busy right now. I¡¯m sure we can expect more information soon.¡± Alden heard the words. He understood them. He even believed them. Mostly. But they did nothing to stop his mouth from going dry or his chest from tightening. He wanted to climb out the window and run away. He wanted to crawl under one of the seats and hide. He wanted to be summoned, immediately, to anywhere where his connection to the System looked completely, one hundred percent normal. It¡¯s fine. Klein¡¯s here. This is a bus full of high ranks. There are worse places to be. Calm down. A hand shot up near the front of the bus. ¡°Not right now, Jupiter. Let me finish talking.¡± Klein¡¯s demeanor was composed. ¡°During an emergency, keep your wits about you. Don¡¯t throw your powers at problems unless you need to in order to keep yourself or someone else safe. Pay attention to instructions from the authorities, from the System, and in the absence of instructions from those two sources, pay attention to me.¡± His gaze landed on each of them in turn, calm and piercing at once. ¡°I don¡¯t know any more about what¡¯s going on than you all do. I¡¯m sure information will be coming to our interfaces shortly. If I learn something else, I¡¯ll let you know. For now, I expect you all to behave like this is a serious matter and you are serious young men and women.¡± ¡°No more translation,¡± a voice said quietly. It was Ignacio, looking unnecessarily embarrassed about admitting he didn¡¯t understand all of what Klein was saying. Spanish was his first language, and if Alden remembered right, he spoke Hindi as well. ¡°Even translation is broken now?¡± Mehdi said. ¡°That seems bad.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not broken,¡± Alden said forcefully. ¡°The System is just busy. It¡¯s not going to break.¡± Mehdi turned to him with arched brows. ¡°Will someone buddy-up with Ignacio and translate for him?¡± Klein asked. ¡°I¡¯ll do it!¡± said Jupiter, springing out of her seat. ¡°But, Instructor, shouldn¡¯t we turn around?¡± Before Klein could answer, she went on: ¡°We¡¯re almost at the halfway marker, but it¡¯s a slightly shorter distance back to F-city. And they have more safe harbor locations, don¡¯t they? Isn¡¯t there a building near that end of the bridge that¡¯s supposed to be an emergency shelter?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± said Mehdi, rising to his feet. ¡°My family lives near there. My mother¡¯s always complaining about how ugly it is. Like a windowless fortress. We should go!¡± There were murmurs of agreement from a few people. Klein shook his head. ¡°We¡¯re already northbound. We have shelters in Apex, too, if we need to get to one. You also have to think about the responsibility of being¡­well, there are other reasons for heading in this direction. The main one is that the System indicated we should head to high ground quickly, and U-turning a bus on The Span will cause traffic problems and ultimately slow us down.¡± ¡°Other people don¡¯t seem to know that,¡± said Kon, leaning over Everly to stare out the window. Once his attention was called to it, Alden realized it was true. The sounds of horns honking and people shouting filled the gaps in between the sirens¡¯ wails. There were four lanes on the Span--two headed north, two south. Cyclists and foot traffic that traveled below certain speeds could use the Span Trail, a jogging path that hung just below the level of the roadway from the western side of the bridge, like a shelf. Behind Instructor Klein, the traffic, which had been on the heavy side but still steadily flowing in both directions, was shifting now. Motorcycles and mopeds were changing direction everywhere, and a small black car in one of the southbound lanes suddenly shot forward. Finlay swore. Tuyet let out an alarmed eep. An instant before the car should¡¯ve collided with the pack of bi-wheeled traffic in front of it, it lifted off the ground and went over the other vehicles instead, presumably thanks to the skills or spells of the driver or a passenger, since it didn¡¯t look Wrightmade. At least, it didn¡¯t look like it was made by a Wright who¡¯d known what they were doing. The car barely cleared the heads of the nearest riders. Some of them actually ducked. Alden whipped around to watch as it got just enough height for its tires to skim the top of a city bus. ¡°Stupidity like that,¡± Instructor Klein intoned, pointing at the car, ¡°is exactly the sort of behavior I expect you all to avoid. That person clearly doesn¡¯t know how to fly a vehicle, therefore they should not be flying a vehicle. If they don¡¯t kill themselves or someone else, they¡¯ll exhaust their magic. They¡¯ll create havoc for everyone around them.¡± The CNH bus had already been slowing thanks to the shifting traffic. Now, it jerked as the brakes brought them to a full halt. Alden swayed on his feet. Before anyone could even comment on the fact that they¡¯d stopped, new System messages started rolling in. [Disaster Advisory: All disaster alerts remain in effect.] [Global Advisory: Due to an emergent situation affecting an area and population within the purview of the Triplanetary government, nonessential Contract services on Earth have been halted. Requests for information will be answered once normal function has resumed.] [Disaster Advisory: Local damage mitigation efforts are in progress. The emergency teleportation allotment for Anesidora has been increased, but all personal requests for teleportation will be ignored. Your teleportation priority will be assigned to you shortly and may be adjusted at any time.] [Disaster Update: Attack on Matadero - Confirmed] [Disaster Alert: Oceanic Anomalies - Imminent] ¡°What the hell is happening on Matadero?¡± Mehdi muttered. Matadero. I was supposed to be going there tomorrow. Oh no. Alden looked at Haoyu, sitting in the seat right behind him by the window. His dark brown eyes were fixed on the space in front of his nose. Alden couldn¡¯t tell if he was staring at his interface or the seat back. His face¡ªusually so cheerful, always so expressive even when the expression was a lie for the sake of one of his jokes¡ªwas blank. ¡°Haoyu,¡± Lexi said quietly, ¡°I¡¯m sure¡­¡± ¡°What are you sure about?¡± Haoyu asked without looking at him. He didn¡¯t say it harshly. His voice was as blank as his face. But there was a collective held breath, a group wince, as if he¡¯d snapped at Lexi instead. All over Anesidora, the sirens reached the quiet trough of their wailing and rose again toward their crescendo. ****** A minute after the bus had stopped, the students were all out of their seats and crowded at the front, trying to get a better view through the windshield. The sounds of Torsten Klein¡¯s feet on the metal roof vanished suddenly. ¡°Used one of his spell impressions to get more height,¡± Mehdi said. The Instructor was figuring out the traffic situation. The smaller vehicles were still in motion, weaving in and out of the stationary cars, buses, and vans. ¡°It¡¯s not going to get better for a while, is it?¡± Kon¡¯s voice was tense. ¡°It might even get worse. We¡¯re all trying to get off, but there have to be people in Apex and F who are heading to the bridge right now because they want to make the crossing. They¡¯ll be trying to reach homes or families¡­¡± ¡°They¡¯ve probably closed it,¡± said Lexi. ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean they closed it before more traffic hit it,¡± Kon replied. ¡°It could be jammed from end to end.¡± The sirens had begun such a short while ago. Everything was happening fast, but it felt so slow. The word ¡°imminent¡± was burned into Alden¡¯s eyes. He¡¯d expanded the last disaster notice and frozen it there rather than swiping it away. It was proof that the System was here and doing stuff; he wanted that proof even more than he wanted clear vision. It couldn¡¯t tell us how imminent? It couldn¡¯t define oceanic anomalies even a little? His brain fed him images of demonized fish swimming through the sea, crashing into the supports that held the bridge, poking them full of holes, transforming them into sand. Knock it off. If the System meant demons, it would¡¯ve said demons. It¡¯s not like it doesn¡¯t know the freaking word. And there was no chaos here. Yet. Alden was on high alert in more ways than one, actively paying attention, waiting for the first brush of something against himself that was antithetical to his existence. It wasn¡¯t there. Not even that more nebulous sensation of being watched, of having your privacy violated, that he¡¯d felt the first time chaos had touched him. The world around him felt normal right now. His own body and his mind were the things that were growing increasingly foreign. I hate this. His chest hurt. His ears rang with tinnitus he didn¡¯t even have anymore. His thoughts were pinging rapidly from planning to demons and corpses and watching patches of his own flesh turn into something grotesque¡ª Calm the fuck down! The self-directed order didn¡¯t work. You could know you were going farther and farther off the rails without being able to stop yourself. Your head could be reminding you that you were normally capable of logical assessment, could be in the act of trying to do logical assessment, while at the same time, some wounded animal inside you ripped into every rational notion you had before it could gain traction. I hate this so much. He wondered if he was acting weird in addition to feeling weird. He was just standing quietly at the back of the group while the others looked out the windshield. Haoyu was beside him. Everly was right in front of him, standing on her tiptoes and trying to see. He assumed he seemed all right to them. Like he was paying attention to their conversation about Klein, the alerts, and the people on the bridge who were starting to behave badly. A man had just abandoned his car in the highway and taken off on foot. Alden¡¯s classmates were debating. The debate was relevant to the next few minutes of his life, and he wanted to listen, but he was only catching sentences here and there that were getting ground up by the rapids of his thoughts. I need to do Peace of Mind right away. I¡¯m glad Kibby is with Alis-art¡¯h. Alis-art¡¯h will keep her safe no matter what happens to me. Tsunami? The water will be cold. Thenn-ar coughed up blood when she died. Should I run? If people are abandoning their cars, there¡¯s no point in us staying on the bus. Should I trust Klein to know what he¡¯s doing? Get your bag; it¡¯s full of all your stuff. Did the global advisory go to Aunt Connie¡¯s phone? Next find out if the surface of the bridge counts as the ground element for your trait. Is help coming? Do I run? Haoyu¡¯s dad might be dead. Aren¡¯t tsunamis usually caused by earthquakes? Somewhere in that stream of unwelcome garbage, Alden knew there were good thoughts, ones that would lead to useful actions. But his ability to prioritize seemed to be badly damaged. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. So it turns out my interface suddenly not having every feature I expect it to is something I can¡¯t handle. It shouldn¡¯t be shocking. A buggy System had been the glaring warning sign about Thegund. System failure had marked the end of his old life and the beginning of his horror story. If something was going to hit his panic buttons particularly hard, why not that? On some level, he was fascinated by the fact that he could recognize what was wrong with him, recognize that he was responding poorly, and still be unable to overcome it. On a much more urgent level, he was afraid he was going to make the shift from panicky thoughts to complete and utter insanity. Or immobility. And then Klein would leave him here by himself so that he didn¡¯t hold back the functional people. Abandon the weakling. Sacrifice him to the demon fish. Pretty sure that¡¯s not one of my reasonable fears. I need to calm down. How do I calm down? I need to do Peace of Mind right away. Suddenly, Alden realized he¡¯d been telling himself to do Peace of Mind ¡°right away¡± almost since the sirens had started. Within seconds, he¡¯d known he should. He¡¯d just¡­. Scatterbrain. Do the Peace of Mind no matter what. Right now. Get it done. He stumbled away from the group toward the back of the bus for reasons that would only make sense to a panicky scatterbrain. Like, it wasn¡¯t polite to start reciting your poetic Artonan in the middle of a group of people who were having a conversation. Mind your manners, Alden. He rolled his eyes at himself and stopped at the last row of seats, facing the rain-glazed rear window. His hands were shaking. They mostly stopped when he started using them.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Dexterity. It had been made a part of his being. Alden¡¯s hands were supposed to move well, and here they were, doing it for him. The wordchain was so familiar. Three months ago, I did this in the car with Kibby. He¡¯d been calmer three months ago, facing down almost certain death. After he¡¯d survived this, he¡¯d have to unpack the why of his mental state being worse right now than it had been back then. Alden finished the chain. As the last syllable sounded, it felt like someone peeled the top layer off his panic and threw it away. Thank you. He suddenly remembered one of the boys in Engaging with the Unexpected asking why you would ¡°sacrifice your edge¡± by using this chain. That guy just doesn¡¯t have enough edge. My edge is so sharp I have plenty to spare. He hesitated, then started casting it again. It would probably double for him now, based on things Lute had said. Alden had performed the chain consecutively without paying it back during the car trip on Thegund. Trying to cast it when it was already active, for an increased effect, was a different thing. But it was a super healthy chain. He¡¯d practiced it a lot, his form was perfect, and he was an Avowed. To his relief, it worked. His edge dulled a little more. Now the new one. He wove his hands through the patterns for the chain he¡¯d used earlier today. Mastery over his body would be extremely welcome. But when he reached the end, nothing happened. I said it a lot faster than usual. Nerves. Was that the problem? It was a much more powerful chain. Shorter snapback timeframe. Harder to cast. It was less familiar to him, and he was already holding debt for it. Maybe Alden just couldn¡¯t call on it again with all those things working against him. He dried sweaty palms on the front of his shirt. I¡¯m tempted to go for a triple Peace of Mind. He lowered his hands instead. He was calm enough to know that the urge was probably an overreaction. He wanted to be able to focus through his tension, not take it so far that he placidly let a giant wave carry him out to sea. And I¡¯m about in the right emotional place now. The sirens were still making him anxious. He was afraid. But he was no longer so anxious and afraid that he couldn¡¯t decide what to do. Bag. He strode back to his seat and grabbed his messenger bag. His finger brushed over the medallion on the clasp, and he felt the familiar authority prick of it identifying its owner. Good bag. He had two ponchos still in their packaging, a temper sphere, a carabiner, and a hundred feet of tightly coiled paracord. It was just the normal stuff he¡¯d been playing around with during breaks lately. He didn¡¯t even have the fancy survival cord he¡¯d been using in gym today because he¡¯d thought he was going to the mall to have fun, dammit, and he hadn¡¯t swapped out his daily supplies for apocalypse supplies. The apocalypse supplies were supposed to go in his apocalypse bag months from now, when he was due to be summoned. So that he could be a vastly over-prepared cocktail party waiter. I thought I was too paranoid. Ha! Clearly, I¡¯m not paranoid enough. He also had his Artonan-made tablet, a stylus, a pack of origami paper, and one of those cookie dough protein bars¡ªcompletely squashed because it was nasty and he¡¯d just left it in the bottom of his bag to be abused. And, finally, a pile of lavender sachets. He¡¯d recently embarked on a plan to deposit his excess supply of the things in places where poor, lavenderless people might appreciate them. So that he could ditch them without feeling wasteful. If some of the classrooms and restrooms on campus suddenly smelled better than others was anyone going to mind? He dug the sachets out and tossed them toward the back of the bus. Not dying because I was weighed down by a few extra ounces of dried flowers. He considered tossing other things, but he could think of uses for most of them so he didn¡¯t. Granted, he couldn¡¯t think of many uses for them that would be relevant if he fell into the ocean. Maybe he could inflate a poncho and use it as a float or something. The only other things he had were his clothes. Green plaid shirt, t-shirt underneath, a blinky checker in the front pocket of his jeans. He dug his hand into the pocket. Sure enough, his unknown Opposite was merrily chaining in response to his earlier chains. Alden watched the Opposite stone glow for a second, then tucked it away again. ¡°Are you all right?¡± The whispered question came from Haoyu. He¡¯d separated from the others, who were¡­ Oh, okay. So that¡¯s happening. They were watching Klein, who was way out in front of them now. He was high above the traffic, clinging to one of the spell-created effects he used to rapidly shift his position sometimes when they were in the gym. The spells made invisible blocks that only he could touch. He could cast quite a few of them, but they didn¡¯t last very long at all. The Instructor had a high-powered flashlight in his free hand. Alden¡¯s memory for the fine details of the past few minutes wasn¡¯t great, so he didn¡¯t know if Klein had taken the light from the bus or grabbed it from a vehicle on the ground. He was flicking it on and off up there. Morse code? We¡¯re at that point. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Alden told Haoyu. ¡°I wordchained myself into being something more like fine anyway. I guess you noticed? Are you¡­¡± Are you all right? Returning the question in this case seemed wrong. There were System notifications flashing in their eyes that said Haoyu¡¯s dad was under attack. ¡°Will you entrust me with my bag?¡± he asked instead. Haoyu nodded, but then he said, ¡°That requirement makes your skill so much less useful. It¡¯s strange. If you didn¡¯t have someone else with you, you¡¯d be helpless.¡± He was still talking in a slightly off voice. Alden had the impression he¡¯d lost a personal filter or three. ¡°I know.¡± He decided not to comment on the uncharacteristic bluntness of the comment. ¡°I¡¯ve thought about it a lot. What¡¯s Klein doing?¡± ¡°We¡¯re not sure.¡± The answer came a second later, in the form of lights going up in the air ahead of them. A flare sizzled. A large beam flashed its own Morse code. An illusion of a traffic signal shone red. All of them were blurred by rain. Alden looked out the back windows to see a string of similar communications flying into the air behind him. He didn¡¯t understand all of them. Someone was in the air back there, just waving glow sticks with abandon. But the bulk of the information was clear. ¡°Traffic¡¯s stopped everywhere,¡± Maricel said into the quiet. Klein was swinging down from his perch, heading back toward them. Looks like we¡¯ll be running, thought Alden. ****** The instructor returned to the bus with a tall young woman who was pushing a bicycle. Alden and most of the others met them on the pavement, their belongings already in hand. ¡°We have a plan,¡± Klein said, sounding unhappy about it. ¡°This is Dee from our Uni program. Adjuster. Ranged blasting spells.¡± ¡°So useful right now.¡± Dee gave them all a wave. ¡°She¡¯ll be accompanying us. We¡¯re running. Finlay¡­¡± He stared at the speedster. Finlay looked a little wild-eyed. Everyone did. ¡°Can you safely make your way on your own?¡± Finlay¡¯s head jerked up. ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to.¡± ¡°No, I can! I can get myself back to campus or wherever the System tells me to go. No trouble.¡± ¡°You have to watch out for people being idiots. Moreso than usual,¡± Klein warned. ¡°I¡¯ll be fine.¡± ¡°Then go. Straight to Apex. Don¡¯t stop until you¡¯re somewhere safe.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Finlay met Alden¡¯s eyes briefly. ¡°Erm¡­good luck?¡± ¡°Good luck,¡± Alden said. Everyone repeated it in voices showcasing a range of emotions from stiff with nerves to forcefully cheerful. ¡°See you back at school. Soon! Really soon,¡± Finlay said. He took off. ¡°Stop turning around to look at us!¡± Klein bellowed after him. ¡°Eyes in front of you!¡± ¡°Can I go?¡± Tuyet was gripping her bright yellow purse tightly. She kept her dart case in there. ¡°One of my sisters lives on the Apex side with my nephews. She might need help. I¡¯m not tired. I can make it.¡± Klein glanced down at her shoes. She was wearing ballet flats. ¡°Fine. If you have any trouble, just stop and wait for us. Now, for the rest of you, here¡¯s what we¡¯re going to do.¡± He asked them to run in small groups. ¡°Not piled on top of each other. Just close enough together that if someone has a problem, you know it. Don¡¯t leave your slowest group member so far behind you that you can¡¯t reconnect with them.¡± Other than that, they were supposed to run as fast as they safely could. They set off with the uni student bringing up the rear on her bike, keeping in touch with Klein via an infogear phone. Once she¡¯d pointed out that infogear was still allowing local calls and texts on a delay, Klein had asked to borrow a watch from Mehdi, who was the only person on the bus who had a piece of the Informant¡¯s tech. Then he¡¯d kept it. He made it sound like he was only going to hold it for a second. I don¡¯t think he meant it to come across that way. But I bet Mehdi''s annoyed. The instructor was running ten times as much as everyone else, frequently leaping over unoccupied vehicles as he headed up and down the bridge, trying to monitor the progress and safety of all his students at once. It made Alden wonder why they didn¡¯t all run in more of a pack so that Klein could guard them better. His brain, still being a dick even under the influence of two Peace of Mind chains, supplied him with the opinion that it was to decrease the risk of a total wipeout. If the bridge crumbled beneath one small group, at least the rest of them would survive. Then why don¡¯t we all just run separately? he wondered. So that when the demons come, you can fight them off together, said his brain. Probably, the truth was something like that plus Klein trying to balance his own wishes to keep the whole class under his protection with a certain cold logic that said the faster kids shouldn¡¯t be made to hold back for the sake of the slower ones in a dangerous situation. The front group¡ªMarsha, Ignacio, and Rebecca¡ªwere soon too far away for Alden to spot amidst all the stopped cars and other fleeing people. The second group¡ªHaoyu, Lexi, Mehdi, and Kon¡ªwere far enough ahead that he thought it might be foolish for him to swap groups and catch up with them even though part of him was itching to do just that. It happened, Boe. You were right. I want something to be ground, and it isn¡¯t. The bridge appeared to be made of nice groundish things Alden usually got along with well. Assuming it was really concrete and steel from Earth and not some similar materials from another world¡ªalways a possibility on Anesidora¡ªhe would¡¯ve been able to run on it under most circumstances. But it was soaring over deep water, a marvel of engineering. Not so much as a blade of grass growing out of a crack. Basically, The Span was too closely aligned with the object element for his movement trait to interact with it. He wondered if a really powerful Ground Shaper could still work with it. Doesn¡¯t matter. I can¡¯t. Alden was the fastest member of the back group, but he was still slow enough that if he sprinted to join the guys ahead of him, he¡¯d be the one holding them back. So he was running with Maricel, Everly, Jupiter, and Njeri. Jupiter had requested that the System use her foundational enhancement points to increase her sense of smell. Alden was going to have to ask her why she¡¯d done a thing like that when they were all out of this. They¡¯d been running for about three minutes. The rain wasn¡¯t heavy, but it was so windy on top of the bridge that his nose and cheeks were going numb. Or maybe that was from the cold. He was grateful for his ponchos. One was still safely tucked in his entrusted bag in case he needed armor later. He was wearing the other to keep himself dry. His hood was back since it wouldn¡¯t stay on while he ran, but the plastic was doing a good job of trapping body heat elsewhere. He had no preservation active on anything at the moment. Since the trait wouldn¡¯t work here on the bridge to speed him along, he was saving his magic. He didn¡¯t know what he¡¯d need to do with it for the rest of the night. Resource management. He was pissed that traffic had stopped the bus, but he was glad that the bridge wasn¡¯t completely empty at the same time. This could¡¯ve been an even creepier spot than it was at the moment. The ocean stretched out to either side of them. It was so dark out there, and Alden was so blinded by the bright street lamps that lined the bridge that he couldn¡¯t really make out much. Lights from boats and ships. A helicopter had flown over right after they started running. Apex glittered ahead of him. Why did they build it so far from F?! Maybe they really were planning to slap another urban island between the two one day and call it Mid City, as Konstantin had once joked. A half-moon shape, to stay in keeping with the theme. Tires squealed, and Alden looked around. He didn¡¯t spot the source of that sound, but up ahead, Haoyu suddenly shouted and threw himself against the side of a minivan. Lexi yanked Kon out of the way as a southbound motortrike careened out of its lane and into theirs, taking advantage of gaps between stalled vehicles. Alden stopped, pressing himself to the trunk of a coupe just in case the trike rider did something else unexpected. The person¡¯s helmet had a glowing blue stripe that matched the lighted wheels. As they growled past, stinging drops of water flew off and spattered his poncho. ¡°I hope you hit a pothole and die!¡± Mehdi shouted loudly enough for his voice to carry over the wind. He was wearing the same knee-length black coat with the stylized bronze lion on the back that he¡¯d worn to Kon¡¯s party. It had looked pretty cool when they set off, the lightweight fabric whipping around him as he ran. Now he just looked soggy. Motion from inside the car Alden was pressed against pulled his attention, and he realized a boy and girl were staring at him from the backseat. The youngest one waved an action figure at him and said something that was muffled by the glass. It sounded like he might¡¯ve been speaking Russian. The man driving the car leaned around to talk to the kids. Most people were leaving their cars now, but Alden had run past several occupied vehicles. He wondered if they were thinking that the jam would clear. Or if they were guessing that the bridge qualified as ¡°high ground.¡± It had been built for boats to pass below it. I¡¯m glad Klein didn¡¯t want to sit tight. They were kilometers from shore in both directions, and the System was telling everyone to avoid seawater. If anything did happen to the bridge, there was nothing but seawater around them. Alden wanted to be close enough to Apex that he could swim the rest of the distance in rough waves, and he was guessing he couldn¡¯t swim very far at all in those conditions. So running it was. Njeri and Maricel dashed up beside him and paused to see what he was staring at. The little boy waved his action figure at them, too. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen any other children out here,¡± Maricel said. ¡°Not ones much younger than us. He¡¯s the same age as one of my brothers.¡± This late at night, even on a weekend, most little kids would be at home in bed. The boy looked around five or six. The girl wasn¡¯t much older. ¡°Should we offer to¡­?¡± Alden trailed off. Oh my god, the chaos. ¡°Do you need help?¡± Maricel was calling through the back window. If there¡¯s a corruption incident here, what happens to the kids? They weren¡¯t Avowed. But most of them would be. And if affixation was something that protected vulnerable people from chaos... The passenger window rolled down. ¡°They will teleport soon! Very soon!¡± the driver said, motioning them all onwards with his arm. ¡°Go! Go!¡± The churning in Alden¡¯s guts quieted at that. Relieved in more ways than one, he set off again. The System¡¯s moving the kids somewhere safe first. The dad was just waiting with them until it happened. The System was functional. Everything was going to be fine. ****** Alden and his group had made it nearly half the distance when new System updates appeared. [Disaster Update: Oceanic anomalies may occur in your location soon. Evacuate watercraft. Move inland. Tsunami-like incursions of water remain possible. Analysis of likely outcomes is still underway.] Before Alden could make any guesses about what all of that meant, he received the next notice. [Teleportation Priority Assigned: 8m 59 s Your priority may be adjusted. For your safety, you are advised to continue toward shelter. Rejecting teleportation is not advised.] YES! thought Alden. Yes, yes, yes. The System is going to teleport my ass somewhere safe in eight minutes. I hope it drops me all the way back in Illinois. He wasn¡¯t the only person happy. There was a general clamor from his classmates and others on the bridge. A few whoops. And at least one outraged shout of ¡°An hour and eighteen minutes!?¡± from a guy standing in front of his car holding an umbrella. That does seem really long. The guy would definitely make it somewhere safe on his own two feet before then, right? As long as he actually moved them instead of standing around. Does the System deprioritize you if you¡¯re not making an effort? It was an odd thought and it seemed unlikely, but just in case, Alden was going to keep moving forward effortfully. Klein was coming toward him for one of his checks, running between cars and occasionally bounding over them. ¡°I¡¯m good,¡± Alden called. Usually that was all the instructor wanted to hear. He hadn¡¯t stopped moving since they left the bus, but now he fell into step beside Alden, who suddenly had the bizarre impression that Klein was running in slow motion even though the two of them were going the same speed. He¡¯s been flying all over the place so much I forgot he could move slower. ¡°Are you all right to pick up the pace?¡± Klein asked. ¡°Yes.¡± Alden was running, but it was a very comfortable run. ¡°Our tail¡¯s getting long here. Front group¡¯s way ahead. I¡¯m going to carry some people forward past the next group. You¡¯ll be at the back for a couple of minutes with Dee. She¡¯ll loan you the bike so you can catch up to us. Give it to Jupiter when you reach her. Dee will catch up on foot.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll do it.¡± He was relieved. He knew they were making okay time; they were passing a lot of the people who were traveling on foot in the same direction. But he still wanted off this bridge ASAP. Ironically, I¡¯ll probably be teleporting right as I reach the finish line. He didn¡¯t have a problem with that. He¡¯d say goodbye to this place and hello to safety in whatever way happened first. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about your teleport assignment,¡± said Klein. ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°Priorities are still being adjusted.¡± I don¡¯t want my priority to be adjusted if it¡¯s going to go in the wrong direction. ¡°There¡¯s a good chance we¡¯ll make it to an appropriate location before the teleports come due. I know a couple of places,¡± said Klein. ¡°I¡¯ll reject mine if I need to. Nobody gets left alone.¡± Something about that didn¡¯t sound right. Before Alden could register what it was, the instructor was gone. He zipped by seconds later, plus one Jupiter who looked like she was being jostled a lot more than was comfortable. I think he was being nice to me? Alden resisted the urge to yell at a woman on a moped who almost sideswiped him from behind. Telling me nobody got left alone. He thinks my timer is longer than his. Is it? No, he also thinks we¡¯ll be in a safe location before they finish counting down. No way are we getting off the bridge and to a chaos-resistant, flood-resistant shelter in eight minutes. So my timer is shorter than his, then? That made sense if the System was going with lower ranks first. But then why would Torsten Klein think it would be the other way around? The Instructor raced back for Everly, Njeri, then Maricel. When Dee pedaled up to give Alden the bicycle, he asked, ¡°What¡¯s your teleport timer?¡± ¡°It¡¯s twenty-five minutes. Keeps changing a lot, doesn¡¯t it? Don¡¯t worry about it too much for now,¡± she said, dismounting. She started to pass the bike to him, then stopped with one hand on the handlebar, looking toward the sea through a gap in the frozen southbound traffic. Her mascara was streaking the light brown skin of her cheeks, and the back of her wet shirt had a logo on it advertising the diner Alden had ordered the giant mound of hash browns and onions from last weekend. He stared at his own timer. It hadn¡¯t changed by a single second. It was ticking steadily down. ¡°Did you see¡­?¡± the Adjuster asked, frowning. Alden looked away from the time to follow her gaze. There was another helicopter going over and a small shape, barely visible against the clouds, that might have been a person in flight. ¡°What?¡± he asked, raising his voice over the sound of the chopper blades and the wind. ¡°Never mind,¡± she said. ¡°Let¡¯s get you¡ª¡± The lights of one of the ships suddenly went out. Alden couldn¡¯t see the vessel the lights belonged to. It was too distant, and the dark beyond the shining Span was too impenetrable. But it might have been a yacht¡ªsomething fun, probably, rather than a working ship. He¡¯d been looking right at it because the lights were color-shifting through the rainbow and it stood out compared to the other things in that direction. ¡°Did you see a boat disappear?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Maybe they¡­had a power outage,¡± she said. ¡°Let¡¯s not stand around.¡± Alden threw a leg over the bicycle. As his sneaker hit the ground on the other side, the bridge shuddered below his feet. It wasn¡¯t a big shudder, but the bridge had been solid and immovable until just now. His hands tightened on the bars. His heart rate, already fast, kicked into a new gear. They both looked at each other. ¡°I don¡¯t think that was a power outage,¡± said Alden. The bridge shuddered again. The lights of another boat, a much smaller one speeding toward Apex, winked out. I swear it just went down, but boats can¡¯t sink that fast, can they? ¡°Ride!¡± shouted Dee. ¡°Go!¡± He took off. She took off. Around them, people who had been waiting in cars or opting for a more leisurely jogging pace than a bunch of high rank teens started to run, too. A van door swung open right in front of Alden, and he almost lost control of the bicycle as he dodged around it. Fuck, fuck, fuck I don¡¯t want to fall into the Pacific with tons of rubble. Was the bridge still shaking? He didn¡¯t know. Maybe it would feel different on a bike. The wind was in his ears. Someone was screaming in Chinese. There was a sharp crash from behind him that had to be a vehicle hitting another vehicle. And then the water came. It wasn¡¯t a tsunami. It wasn¡¯t even ¡°tsunami-like.¡± And the giant, Hollywood-style killer wave his asshole brain had been picturing was definitely nowhere to be seen. Alden saw the magical phenomenon happening with his own eyes and failed to understand it until he was already at its mercy. The ocean, bubbling and swirling in a way that looked otherworldly, crept over the concrete barriers that formed the sides of the bridge. It crawled across the lanes and spiraled up the columns of the lampposts. It was one inch deep, two inches, a foot in an instant. Alden managed to jump off the bicycle instead of falling, but there was nowhere to go. He threw himself onto the hood of the nearest car, barely registering the fact that others were doing the same thing all around him. And then the bridge dropped. He shouted as the car disappeared from below him briefly, and then he was slamming down onto the hood again, staring up at the twinkling light of some brave drone or distant star as the water started behaving like water once more. It suddenly fell away from all the pillars that supported The Span with a mighty crash. A mass of liquid released its grip on the lamp over Alden¡¯s head. So much water had gathered up there in just a few heartbeats that when it fell on him it was more like a blow than a splash. The bridge almost felt like it was swaying. Or maybe he was just disoriented. Who knew anymore? He¡¯d heard at least one loud crack split the night. Am I falling? Are we sinking? He felt like it took him forever to figure out that neither of those things was happening at this particular moment. According to his teleport timer, only seconds had passed. [Disaster Update: Oceanic Anomalies - Confirmed] I think that that doesn¡¯t really cover what just happened, thought Alden. I think tsunami was a bad description too. He slid off the car and splashed down into ankle deep water that was rushing down the pavement. I think the ocean just tried to eat The Span. ***** ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE: Ripples IV ***** 133 ***** It was loud. The helicopter was still overhead, and a car alarm was going off. The rush of the wind had been joined by the sound of water sheeting down the pavement as it followed the slope of the bridge toward Apex. Somewhere behind Alden, a man was screaming profanities so vehemently that he sounded unhinged. But despite all of that, there was a kind of shocked hush from most people in the immediate aftermath of the¡­ What was that? Alden wondered as he shucked his poncho and let it fall. The plastic had ripped almost completely in half along his chest, probably from catching on some part of the bike or car as he scrambled away from the water. He wanted full-coverage armor now. Saving his powers was important, but under the circumstances, he wasn¡¯t willing to be stingy with them anymore. Shielding his body wouldn¡¯t protect him from drowning, but for all he knew, the ocean was about to pick up a tugboat and throw it at him. He plunged his hand into his messenger bag and grabbed the second poncho. Shit. I didn¡¯t lose entrustment, did I? He was actually great at following skill rules, even when he was distracted. They¡¯d become second nature. But what had just happened was a major distraction. If he¡¯d accidentally rolled around on top of the bag and lost skin contact at the same time, if it had been temporarily airborne during that drop¡­ He focused, wrapping his skill¡¯s magic around both bag and poncho at the same time, preserving them then hastily undoing it so that the strain of holding two separate objects with Bearer wouldn¡¯t start to take a toll. Good. Preserving part of an entrusted stack¡ªor a single item from inside an entrusted bag in this case¡ªwould normally end entrustment on the non-preserved portion. Alden was redefining his burden when he did that, separating it out from the things that would no longer be under his protection. What he¡¯d just done was his way of making sure that he could bear the poncho and the bag separately from now on. Two burdens instead of one. He slicked his hair back in a partially successful effort to make it stop dripping in his eyes, then threw on the poncho, ignoring the arm holes and just wearing it over himself like a big plastic bag. He¡¯d accomplished his manual wardrobe change quickly. His heart was still drumming with adrenaline. People were still picking themselves or their companions up from where they¡¯d fallen, looking around with confusion and fear. Alden¡¯s eyes landed on a pink stiletto heel on the pavement nearby. He had the beginnings of a thought about how the owner must have abandoned it because it was bad for running, but he promptly forgot to wonder about something that mundane. The water rushing past the shoe was starting to interact with it oddly. The liquid piled around and on top of the stiletto, like it wanted to cover it. He stared as more and more water snuggled up to the shoe until it was a vaguely stiletto-shaped blob nearly as tall as his knees. Oceanic anomalies. Avoid seawater. I¡¯m currently drenched in seawater. His poncho had helped with the light rain, but it hadn¡¯t done nearly as much for him when it was ripped and all of the icy water that had crawled up to encase that lamppost had suddenly decided to let go. His jeans were soaked to the hips, and his shirt was saturated. His few dry spots weren¡¯t going to stay that way for long. Some freaky magic thing is going on. Is just being wet dangerous? Should I strip and try to dry off right away? But I need to keep up with everyone. The splash of approaching footsteps drew his attention to Dee, who¡¯d been clinging to a van a couple of car lengths behind him. ¡°Are you all right!?¡± She shouted the question way too loud in his face. ¡°Yes!¡± ¡°Let¡¯s go! Let¡¯s run. I don¡¯t think my bicycle is the best choice with this much flowing water.¡± She picked the bike up anyway and lifted it over her head as she started forward. ¡°Stick to the center of the bridge!¡± The bridge. ¡°Is it okay?¡± Alden asked, hurrying after her. Their feet kicked up small waves. ¡°The bridge dropped, right? Is it broken?¡± It looked all right to him, but the thing about bridges was you couldn¡¯t really see what was going on below them when you were standing on top of them. ¡°All I know is we¡¯re not at the bottom of the ocean. Since neither of us can fly, let¡¯s hope the pontoons and the anchoring are all still doing whatever it is they do!¡± She was a lot less composed than earlier. She kept running fast then stopping for him to catch up. ¡°You can¡¯t fly, can you? Not holding that one back?¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m a Rabbit. I preser¡ª¡± ¡°Ha! Good one! Not the time for jokes, though! There¡¯s chaos attacking right now.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not chaos,¡± said Alden. ¡°This is just magic of some kind.¡± The watery assault hadn¡¯t touched his authority. Nothing on the bridge was being degraded or transformed in any way he could see. And he was so grateful for that he couldn¡¯t put it into words. Is the System holding it back somehow? Is it still out there at Matadero? Dee stopped beside a hatchback that had water crawling up the wheels, watching it cautiously. ¡°I really want to blast this and see what happens. So I¡¯ll know just in case¡­¡± Alden was looking ahead of him as he ran past her, trying to spot his classmates. Klein had already carried Jupiter, Everly, and Njeri forward to tighten up the group. Maricel had been with the instructor when the water had risen. As for the front runners, they were probably blasting toward Apex even faster now. They¡¯d be off the bridge in no time. I should be able to see the guys at least. Haoyu, Lexi, Kon. Where¡¯s Mehdi¡¯s lion coat? He wasn¡¯t too worried yet since he could feel the weight of his entruster¡¯s presence up ahead. Precise distance wasn¡¯t so easy to determine, but direction was. If Haoyu had fallen off the bridge somehow, Alden would know. A woman suddenly appeared out of thin air thirty yards ahead of him, distracting him from his search. Her bare calves were sticking out from the bottom of a fluffy white bathrobe. Her feet were shoved into a pair of boots similar to the ones Lucille had worn for the obstacle course. All of that, plus her teal hair whipping around freely in the wind, made her look exactly like someone who¡¯d just been given a few seconds warning before the System stole her away from a peaceful night in. Plopstar. She leaped onto the roof of a minibus in a single bound and turned to face the west. She lifted her arms over her head. [Warning: Hazard in your area. Do not interfere with Avowed on assignment. Avowed on assignment are indicated on your interface.] A dark red interface-generated halo, very similar to the targeting halo Alden had previously used except for the color, appeared over Plopstar¡¯s head. Some distance away, tiny white lights formed high out over the water¡ªmore than Alden could quickly count. A crackling sound filled the air as they expanded and gained a fuzzy quality, like the edges were blurring into the air around them. They shot toward the waves all at once, so fast and bright that they left trails in their wake. When they hit the surface, they burst. There was a sharp, loud pop of sound, and steam boiled up instantly, the white cloud of it lit from beneath with the rapid flashes of the hyperbole¡¯s magic as it ricocheted around down there, still burning hot. Assuming Alden¡¯s knowledge about Plopstar¡¯s skill was up to date and she was using it to full effect, the area she¡¯d just fried was the size of a couple of city blocks. Through the thick white steam, he couldn¡¯t see what effect it was having on the ocean other than heat generation. Was there something down there to hit? Was she punishing a bad patch of water? He didn¡¯t have time to stop and admire her work. As he sprinted by her, another field of tiny stars was forming over the ocean, and up ahead, as if to mirror them, the lights of helicopters and spells rose above Apex as people sought the safety of the sky. ****** A minute later, Alden was dashing past a truck with the name of a flooring company painted on the side when he spotted a girl in a pink shirt and a denim skirt trying to open the latch on the door of the trailer. ¡°Maricel!¡± She was so focused on her task she didn¡¯t seem to hear him. Instead, she said something in Tagalog and threw her right hand up into the air swiftly. A clamor of violent bangs sounded from inside. The whole trailer bounced on its tires and rocked back and forth. Maricel was still facing the truck. She leaped back into Alden¡¯s lane, swept her hand through the air hard again, and the door burst open violently. Stone slabs and tiles crashed onto the pavement right behind the trailer. A pink granite countertop, dragging a wooden A-frame it had been strapped to with it, smashed into everything else with a clatter then broke free of the frame and flipped over onto the empty car parked behind the flooring truck. The end of it went right through the windshield. A couple of witnesses yelled, none of them as loud as Maricel herself. Alden dashed toward her. ¡°Maricel!¡± She spun to face him; her brown eyes were huge. ¡°I thought it would be little things!¡± she said. ¡°Like the sidewalk bricks at school!¡± She made a gesture with her hands in front of her, as if she were trying to show him an imaginary, innocently-sized paver. ¡°Where¡¯s Klein?¡± Alden asked. ¡°The others¡ª¡± ¡°He got teleported before we caught up to them. Before the water did that¡­Alden, the bridge felt like it was falling!¡± Up ahead, Dee was bounding along with the bike in her arms. She didn¡¯t seem to realize she was leaving them behind yet, but Alden wasn¡¯t worried about it. The uni student had been checking over her shoulder for him every few seconds. ¡°What do you mean he got teleported? He just told me he¡¯d reject it.¡± ¡°He couldn¡¯t. It wasn¡¯t a rescue teleport. It was an official emergency summons to help somewhere else. He barely had time to give me this.¡± She held up Mehdi¡¯s infogear watch. The small screen flared, and an incongruously soothing voice announced that the neighborhoods around Nilama Marina should be avoided due to heavy flooding. ¡°The System has also ordered local evacuations of the following areas due to increasing risks,¡± the voice said. ¡°In Apex: Punta de la Luna, Albatross Cove, S¨¡nji¨£o Beach¡­¡± So the bridge gets Plopstar, and somewhere else gets Klein, thought Alden while the voice kept naming locations. Maricel turned back to look at what she¡¯d just done. A small cloud of dust was hanging over the scene of the crime. ¡°I saw the word ¡®flooring,¡¯ and I thought there would probably be something I could use. But I couldn¡¯t see inside. I didn¡¯t mean to break¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. Let¡¯s just go.¡± ¡°Wait! I want something. In case the water comes again.¡± Oh, thought Alden. She was trying to find a way to fly. That sounded awesome, but¡­ But you can¡¯t move as fast while using your shaping. There was a reason we helped haul all that dirt around the track instead of letting you do it yourself. What if you wear yourself out? Do you have some idea of how much your skill has recovered since gym earlier? That countertop looks heavy, and if we start piling bodies on top of it, how much weight can you hold? Is it worth it to try this, or should we keep running and trust the bridge? Alden had questions, but no time to stand around figuring out answers. Let other people decide what to do with their own magic, he told himself. She knows her powers better than you do, and you¡¯ve got enough to worry about on your end of things. ¡°Hey!¡± Dee shouted. She¡¯d realized Alden was lagging, and she was motioning for them with an arm. Maricel lifted the counter into the air. The night was turning white from all the steam Plopstar¡¯s skill was creating. Alden¡¯s timer said he had a little under five minutes left until he got to leave. If he was going to help Maricel with the countertop using his own skill, it would take him a couple of minutes to secure a slab of stone with some of his supplies and even start running with it. So he was out. ¡°All right. You bring it with us. But do it really fast?¡± he suggested. ¡°We need to catch the others.¡± Dee was back with them in an instant.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Aha!¡± she said upon spotting the pink granite slab floating in front of them. ¡°I see what you¡¯re thinking, but we need to move. I know Shapers like to have a lot of control, but you can push for speed instead. Unless you¡¯re going to ride it? That might be a good idea if you want to make your own way. Or if you could take Alden¡¯s weight all the way to shore, too¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m all right running,¡± Alden said. ¡°My timer is coming pretty soon.¡± An odd look crossed Dee¡¯s face at that, but she was more focused on Maricel. ¡°I was going to try to get to the others and help everyone,¡± said Maricel. ¡°So that if the bridge falls or the water¡­climbs back up here?¡­we have something.¡± ¡°Out over the water then!¡± said Dee, pointing. ¡°If you don¡¯t have time for control, keep it out over the ocean and if it falls it falls, okay?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± said Maricel. ¡°Yes. Okay. I see.¡± ¡°The instructor¡¯s gone,¡± Alden reported as they set off again. ¡°He got summoned to do something.¡± Dee froze for a split second. ¡°I wondered! That¡¯s better than him getting taken by the chaos water. Um¡­so it¡¯s just us now. And the others if we catch them. I¡¯ll stay with you all. Let¡¯s keep at it!¡± It¡¯s not chaos water. I guess I might¡¯ve thought so too if I didn¡¯t know much of anything about chaos¡­. The Disaster Alert notices were still listing the probability of chaos exposure as low. Maricel¡¯s power was stronger if she was close to the thing she was shaping, so they crossed the highway again and ran along the eastern edge of the bridge. Alden was out in front now; Dee was at the back. They were both trying to make sure Maricel could run without worrying about impediments. The countertop was soaring along beside them like a magic carpet, occasionally shooting forward rapidly then stopping as Maricel tried to find a rhythm that would be easier on her. If the bridge so much as quivered, she would pull it back in and they would climb aboard. [Disaster Update: Oceanic anomalies resulting from spill of a magical contaminant at Matadero continue.] Alden kicked an abandoned backpack out of their path. Rain slid off of his poncho. He kept preserving it and unpreserving it, trying to get the shape right for running. [Observed effects include: forced submersion¡ªusually but not always of elementally defined objects, rapid motion of submerged materials, sudden influxes of water in limited coastal areas] His timer hit the three minute mark. He whipped his head around, trying to see through the rapidly thickening white mist. He felt like he was running through a humidifier. There were no more motorcycles or mopeds going by anymore. That was a good thing, since it lessened the risk of them being mowed down, but at the same time, it made the bridge feel deader. Almost there. We have to be getting closer. ¡°Listen!¡± he shouted back to the others. ¡°I¡¯m getting teleported out soon. Before we hit the end of the bridge. Should I¡ª?¡± Haoyu. Alden suddenly realized he was very nearby now. Still up ahead but not far. To the left a little. ¡°Haoyu!¡± he called. He should be way ahead of us. Why isn¡¯t he? ¡°Haoyu!¡± ¡°Alden?¡± A moment after Haoyu¡¯s reply came toward him, there was a thump as a pair of feet landed on the roof of a car two lanes over. Mehdi. His coat was gone, and the thin black t-shirt he¡¯d been wearing underneath was starting to sag at the neck from its own sodden weight. ¡°Is Klein with you?¡± he demanded. Alden was relieved to see any member of the class looking unharmed. ¡°No! He¡¯s gone. Teleported!¡± Mehdi groaned. ¡°Why aren¡¯t you moving forward?¡± Dee shouted. ¡°There was a kind of traffic pileup. We only just sorted it out. By the way, if we break some things doing a good deed how much trouble do we get in?¡± ****** Alden ran up on a scene so superheroical that he might have stopped to stare at it on another day. Crunched vehicles were in a pile against the barrier. A compact car had been sliced in thirds, then the thirds had been moved. Mehdi¡¯s coat was draped over one of them. Another car with a crushed side, deployed airbags, and the driver door ripped off was sitting in the road. There was Haoyu, crawling out of one of the wrecked cars and handing a purse to a short lady with gray hair and a pair of infogear glasses hanging from a beaded loop around her neck. She patted his arm and said something in a language Alden didn¡¯t recognize, but it was probably some version of ¡°What a nice young man, you are!¡± There was Lexi with one sleeve of his shirt torn, standing in the rain with Writher blazing around him, sizzling whenever a drop touched it. And there was Kon, blood pouring from his nose and mouth as he looked down at something in his palm. Well, that last one doesn¡¯t quite fit in. And Lexi would cut a more traditional heroic figure if he wasn¡¯t yelling at that dude in the baggy pants ¡°I wouldn¡¯t care if your girlfriend was giving birth right this second. That¡¯s not my problem, it doesn¡¯t make you special, and we¡¯re not obligated to take you anywhere. My brother almost died helping you already! Now get lost.¡± ¡°Kon almost died?!¡± Alden exclaimed. And someone was having a baby? And it looked like Lexi had been chopping things with Writher. Apparently this section of the bridge had been more exciting than most. ¡°Kon hit himself in the face with a car, but he didn¡¯t even pass out,¡± Mehdi said. Then he went on trying to explain to Dee that a massive sphere of water had swallowed a truck and then slammed it at an angle across all four lanes of traffic, causing the mess in front of them now. ¡°We were a little farther along when all of the water came. We saw it happen, and some people who¡¯d been in their cars were trapped, so we ran back¡ª¡± ¡°Alden!¡± Kon exclaimed. ¡°Maricel!¡± More blood spilled down his lower lip and joined the diluted rivulets of it pouring down his chin onto his shirt. He had a goose egg on his forehead, too. Before Alden could ask how a person could hit themselves in the face with a car even if they were engaging in rescue efforts, Haoyu, Kon, and Lexi were all surrounding him. ¡°I¡¯m so glad you¡¯re all right!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°The water¡ª!¡± ¡°Alden, I had a breakthrough with my powers!¡± Kon was beaming. ¡°Kon, give him those right away! Maybe they can be put back.¡± Lexi tried to pry open his brother¡¯s fist. Writher had phased out and gone back to its short, inactive mode in an instant. ¡°What?¡± said Kon, blinking at Lexi. ¡°Hey! That¡¯s right! He can do his¡­would you hold these for me, Alden?¡± Alden stuck an arm through one of the poncho sleeve holes just in time to receive the offering. He almost wished he hadn¡¯t. ¡°These are teeth!¡± To his credit, he didn¡¯t drop the two bloody incisors. Kon opened his mouth. There was a big gap at the top of his smile. ¡°I was reading one of the wheels on a car that was pinning the others, and I decided to go for it! Not a repair job¡ªmoving it back into its original position. It¡¯s all about getting the read right with my skill. Once I did it, my spell dragged the whole car with it even though I was only casting on the wheel! Faster than I expected, but¡ª¡± ¡°Why are you giving me your teeth?¡± Alden interrupted. ¡°So that you can keep them safe until we get him to a healer!¡± Lexi shouted. Haoyu snorted at the look on Alden¡¯s face. ¡°He means with your skill.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± Duh. Of course that¡¯s what they want. ¡°Nobody¡¯s ever handed me teeth before. That came at me kind of fast. Sorry.¡± I guess I stick them in the bag and then get Haoyu to re-entrust it all? ¡°Don¡¯t lose them.¡± Lexi was glaring like he thought Alden might just toss the teeth into the next convenient trashcan he found. ¡°I¡¯ll do my best¡­¡± ¡°Miss? Miss, are you a Shaper?¡± said a voice. ¡°Can you take me to F-city on that?¡± The speaker was the man Lexi had just been yelling at. He looked like he was around Dee¡¯s age, and he was wearing a tanktop that said Club Dandelion on the front. He¡¯d hurried over to them to point at Maricel¡¯s hovering countertop. ¡°Oh,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry. But we¡¯re going to¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m a Shaper, too! I¡¯m only a D-rank, but my timer¡¯s over an hour for some reason! My girlfriend¡¯s in F, and she¡¯s pregnant.¡± Lexi rolled his eyes. ¡°He keeps bringing that up like it¡¯s a spell that will force us to carry him seven kilometers across a possibly sinking bridge! Go back to Apex! We already saved you!¡± ¡°This guy was trapped in his car by the pileup,¡± Haoyu explained. ¡°We got him out, but he¡¯s trying to get to F.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not talking to you!¡± the man spat at Lexi. ¡°The lady can make up her own mind¡ª¡± ¡°No,¡± Dee said, stepping between the man and Maricel. ¡°Maricel. Boys. Can¡¯t remember everyone¡¯s name, sorry. But we¡¯re all heading straight to Apex. Right now. Stay together. If you get way ahead of me for some reason, don¡¯t stop to wait and don¡¯t stop to deal with anything else.¡± The man looked pissed off. ¡°You ought to be running to Apex, too. We¡¯re almost there. You¡¯re being unreasonable, but that¡¯s fine with me,¡± Dee said to him. ¡°As long as you¡¯re not bothering the kids.¡± ¡°They¡¯re high ranks.¡± ¡°They haven¡¯t even been Avowed for a year. I¡¯m a high rank. And I¡¯m not escorting you across The Span in the wrong direction either.¡± Lexi grabbed Kon by the hand and dragged him forward. They all chased after him. Dee lingered behind. ¡°That old lady we helped is as fast as us,¡± Mehdi said. ¡°Look at her run.¡± ¡°I feel kind of bad for that man,¡± Maricel muttered, sending the countertop ahead of them a short ways, stopping it, then sending it ahead again in what she seemed to have decided was a good rhythm for her. ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± said Lexi. ¡°He¡¯s had more than enough time to make it back to Apex. He didn¡¯t use it. Some people make their own problems.¡± ¡°Probably thought he¡¯d get teleported out early,¡± said Mehdi. ¡°I think a lot of people thought that,¡± Haoyu answered. ¡°Did you hear some of them yelling about it? They were assuming the System would use Apex rescue priority numbers. It¡¯s like they all forgot the System doesn¡¯t work for Anesidora or follow our rules. And if it was a normal day, it would probably have burned through the ET allotment it gives us in seconds and nobody would be getting transported. It¡¯s working according to its own¡ª¡± ¡°Guys, about the teleport,¡± Alden interrupted. ¡°I¡¯m leaving.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your time?¡± Haoyu asked, looking over at him. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. We¡¯ll be hitting the end of the bridge really soon. If not for all this fog, we¡¯d be able to see it. We can head up to the top of a sturdy building or¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m teleporting out in just over a minute,¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°Should I take some of you with me? I can usually hold people through teleports with my skill, so I don¡¯t see why I wouldn¡¯t be able to now.¡± ¡°What do you mean a minute?¡± Mehdi exclaimed. ¡°No you¡¯re not!¡± ¡°Is it really a minute?¡± Lexi demanded. ¡°Why would I lie about a timer?¡± Alden said. Lexi was so tense he was making Alden feel calm by comparison. He needs Peace of Mind. ¡°Why are you teleporting out before the S-ranks?¡± Mehdi protested. ¡°I¡¯m staying. Mom¡¯s in Apex,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I¡¯m really hoping I¡¯ll run into her, and you don¡¯t know where the System is going to put you. It could be a safe location down in F.¡± ¡°Take Kon.¡± ¡°No! Lexi, I¡¯m missing teeth not feet. I want to join up with the others and help!¡± ¡°You have a head injury.¡± ¡°You¡¯re freaking out about nothing. It¡¯s just a tiny lump. And my own timer¡¯s shorter than the rest of yours any¡ª¡± ¡°The water¡¯s getting higher!¡± Maricel said suddenly. ¡°Everybody¡ª¡± They didn¡¯t need telling twice. The second she lowered the countertop, they were all scrambling onto it. Haoyu hooked a leg through the hole that had been cut for some unfortunate homeowner¡¯s kitchen sink and grabbed onto one of Alden¡¯s ankles and one of Lexi¡¯s elbows as they all crowded together. Maricel, sitting in the center of the counter herself, lifted them. Alden didn¡¯t complain about the strength of his roommate¡¯s grip. If Maricel shaped just a little wrong, and they tipped¡­ Actually I wouldn¡¯t fall very far right now. She was keeping them just a couple of feet above the water on the bridge. ¡°It¡¯s the same thing as last time.¡± Kon¡¯s voice was strained as he watched the ocean build up on the roadway, the side rails, the lampposts. ¡°Maybe whatever Plopstar is doing isn¡¯t helping?¡± ¡°Someone¡¯s ordered her to fight the ocean. Give her time,¡± said Mehdi. ¡°Maricel, how long can you hold this much weight?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± she answered. ¡°I¡¯m sure I could get us all the way to the end of the bridge like this. But¡­I would rather not carry anyone else if I don¡¯t have to. Just in case.¡± There was a groaning, crackling sound from somewhere behind them. It could have been anything, but Alden¡¯s imagination conjured visions of The Span¡ªput under pressures that even the most creative magical engineers probably hadn¡¯t anticipated¡ªbeginning to snap into pieces. ¡°You¡¯d better take us higher,¡± Lexi said quietly. ¡°Before someone runs up and decides to invite themselves on board. Anyone who sees us is going to see a lifeboat with plenty of room, and they won¡¯t listen to you when you try to tell them there¡¯s a limit.¡± As if the illustrate his point, Dee¡¯s voice called, ¡°Room for two more!?¡± just then. The man who¡¯d been trying to get help crossing the bridge was with her. The water was piling higher this time than it had before. It was well past their knees. Alden¡¯s heart raced watching it, wondering when it was going to start pulling the bridge down, and then¡­it just went back to being normal water suddenly. Like it had changed its mind. There was another thunderous crash as the water fell away from The Span and back into the Pacific. Seaspray filled the air. ¡°Whew!¡± shouted Dee, wading toward them. ¡°That¡¯s a relief, but let¡¯s not trust it too much. I got this gentleman to agree that Apex wouldn¡¯t be so bad after all.¡± ¡°Dee,¡± said Lexi, ¡°Maricel¡¯s not sure¡ª¡± ¡°Of course there will be room!¡± Maricel¡¯s voice was higher than usual. She looked at Lexi and lowered her voice. ¡°I can make it work.¡± ¡°You won¡¯t have to,¡± Alden said, staring at his timer. ¡°I¡¯ll be disappearing, and I can take people with me. Two or three at least.¡± [Teleportation Priority Assigned: 23 s] ¡°Dee!¡± he called, whipping his length of paracord out of his bag and thrusting it toward Haoyu. Since he was heading toward safety, the others might get more use out of it. ¡°I¡¯m teleporting out in twenty seconds! Does anyone want to come?¡± ¡°ME!¡± shouted the man in the Club Dandelion shirt. ¡°Take me, man!¡± He practically threw himself on top of Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m going to F,¡± Alden warned. ¡°I don¡¯t know where I¡¯m going at all.¡± The man laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. ¡°I¡¯ll go with you wherever. It¡¯s fine! It¡¯s fine! We¡¯re all in this together now, right?¡± He was staring down at the water and breathing hard. Alden tried to muster some sympathy for the guy. Meeting him when Lexi was yelling at him hadn¡¯t been the best first impression. ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± he said, shifting targets regretfully. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± He would¡¯ve preferred to take any of the others. He would¡¯ve preferred to take several of the others at the same time. But Haoyu staying meant Lexi was staying. Kon wanted to reconnect with the class and he wasn¡¯t leaving Lexi. Mehdi said he wasn¡¯t a coward¡­whatever that meant. And Dee felt obligated to see the students to safety in Instructor Klein¡¯s absence. They were less than a kilometer from the end of the bridge. At least Alden would be getting this person out of their hair and lightening Maricel¡¯s load a little in the event that they needed her for the final stretch. Always accept teleportation away from bad situations when it¡¯s offered, you guys, thought Alden, gripping a frozen Mr. Dandelion as the timer approached zero. Always. Don¡¯t hesitate. Sometimes, the chance for an exit didn¡¯t come your way again for a long, long time.
It was a confusing teleport. Alden exhaled, and the bridge disappeared. Then, he was standing in a teleportation bay at the TC, arms tightly wrapped around one heavy passenger. He had only a second to see the space and take it in. The symbols covering the arched ceiling and floor were burning so white that they hurt his eyes. The air was stingingly frosty, and the floor was covered in a layer of water with actual shards of ice floating in it. People were calling out what sounded like orders to each other from beyond the metal door. He inhaled and smelled a very faint mildewy smell. Like an Artonan jungle? Then he was stumbling out of a completely different teleportation alcove. He¡¯d expected to end up on top of a tall building, in some kind of anti-chaos bunker, or possibly back at Celena North. Instead, he wondered if he might have left the planet entirely. He was in a long, rectangular room lined with windows on three sides. All of them were covered from the outside by heavy wooden shutters. The air was warm, and the space was pierced by sharp shadows thanks to the unusual lighting; chubby glass lamps were evenly spaced along the floor beneath spiky potted plants. A pair of double doors carved with a logogram that meant ¡°welcome¡± stood near the teleportation alcove. And the floor of the room was a dizzying puzzle of wooden stars and diamonds all pieced together, each one a slightly different shade for a muted rainbow effect. ¡°System, did you send me to one of the Triplanets?¡± Alden asked. The System was too busy for boring questions like that, though. Which, on its own, was enough to tell him he was still on Earth. The other Systems would be functioning like usual. He wondered if Earth was even listening to him right now. That teleportation bay had looked like it was in distress. Did it accidentally bring the ice in from somewhere or does the equipment freeze over if it¡¯s being used a lot? He let Mr. Dandelion go, and the man came to life at once. ¡°Whoa!¡± he said, staring around. ¡°Just that fast. And¡­holy¡­this is the Artonan Ambassador¡¯s residence!¡± ¡°It is?¡± ¡°Yeah!¡± He laughed. ¡°They dragged us all the way here to see the floor when I was a kid. For a school trip. Wouldn¡¯t let us go any further inside, but we got a lesson about all the different kinds of wood they¡¯d built this place out of while we ate wevvi popsicles and listened to some weird music. I picked the right guy to hang out with!¡± You didn¡¯t really pick me. I was just convenient for you. ¡°So we¡¯re in F?¡± Alden asked. ¡°No. This place is in Punta de la Luna. Apex.¡± Then why are you excited? ¡°Didn¡¯t you want to go to F?¡± Alden reminded him. ¡°To find your girlfriend?¡± ¡°¡­yeah. That would be better. But we¡¯ll be safe here, won¡¯t we? I bet the Artonans built it to survive anything!¡± The man was walking confidently toward the double doors. ¡°Are you someone really important? Big news S-rank?¡± I wonder if the girlfriend really exists. ¡°I¡¯m a B-rank Rabbit. Hold on. I need you to entrust me with this bag.¡± Kon¡¯s teeth were in there. He needed to re-preserve it all thanks to the target swap he¡¯d had to do to get this guy here. ¡°Some wizard¡¯s favorite Rabbit, eh?¡± The man grinned. ¡°Good for you!¡± Before he could touch the doors, one of them swung open and an Artonan carrying a tray covered in handleless mugs stepped through. He had dark purple hair so long his braid almost brushed the floor, and his eyebrows had an arch to them that made him look a little worried even though his expression was neutral. He frowned at Mr. Dandelion, eyes flicking up and down, then turned to Alden. ¡°Alden Ryeh-b¡¯t.¡± He bowed low. ¡°I am very honored to meet you. I am very sorry for the nature of the occasion. The Ambassador sends his wishes for your long life and invites you to use one of our escape flyers until this perturbation has ended.¡± He held out the tray. ¡°Before you go, I have prepared a selection of many teas for you!¡± ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR: Ripples V 134 ***** Moments after the Artonan rose from his bow, he pushed the entire tray full of mugs into Alden¡¯s hands. This is not what I was expecting, thought Alden, staring down at the selection of many teas. The tray was heavy. Most of the ceramic vessels were giving off fragrant steam, but some of them were iced. He remembered Stuart saying he¡¯d had to drink eight cups of wevvi before first meal one morning to be polite to the LeafSong faculty, and he wondered if he was about to have to do the same kind of thing. Wasn¡¯t I just standing on a possibly-broken bridge? ¡°The Span,¡± said Alden, while the Artonan studied him. He had metal iris rings, like Stuart¡¯s, though they were a shade of pale brown that almost blended in with his eye color. ¡°I was on the bridge, and the water was trying to pull it down. The people there¡ª.¡± ¡°Do not worry,¡± the Artonan said in very clear English. ¡°Earth¡¯s Contract is performing to the best of its capabilities, and its capabilities are substantial. I wasn¡¯t expecting you to arrive with a companion.¡± There was nothing at all reproachful in the tone, but Alden wondered if he¡¯d done the wrong thing. How could it have been? I was just trying to get somebody away from trouble and help out the others. I didn¡¯t know I¡¯d be coming somewhere more exclusive than a shelter. Maybe he should have suspected something like this, given the swiftness of his exit compared to everyone else¡¯s, but he¡¯d had a lot on his mind. Mr. Dandelion was wringing out his Club Dandelion tank top onto the floor. ¡°This man was on the bridge with me,¡± Alden said slowly. ¡°It was dangerous there. I thought bringing him with me would be helpful.¡± ¡°Of course,¡± said the Artonan, bowing his head once. ¡°You were accomplishing all you could with your skill. I understand.¡± ¡°I¡¯m Marks!¡± Dandelion said. ¡°The letter s on the end is for luck according to my mother. So we¡¯re going in some kind of escape plane? Sounds great to me! If there¡¯s room for more, I¡¯ve got some friends, my girlfriend¡­you¡¯ve got ways of calling people from here I bet. You can make the System send messages like normal?¡± He stepped over and reached for the nearest mug of tea. ¡°My name is Zeridee-und¡¯h,¡± said the Artonan. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to meet you both under such unpleasant circumstances. That is a butterfly pea flower tea, Marks. You may have the cup. It¡¯s a short walk to the train. A team has been summoned to keep the line running in the event of flooding, but we are endeavoring to clear this area swiftly so that the Avowed assigned here can head to more populous neighborhoods soon. Please enjoy your drink while you follow local evacuation orders.¡± Oh shit, thought Alden. No company allowed. Zeridee-und¡¯h sounded polite and professional, but there was not a hint of wiggle room to be found in that voice. Alden couldn¡¯t imagine this going over well. And it was his fault even if he¡¯d only been trying to make himself useful. He held his teas and tried to think of some way to smooth it all over. ¡°So there are evac teams helping out nearby!¡± he said. ¡°And the neighborhood¡¯s almost empty already? That¡¯s great. The Span was chaotic, and I didn¡¯t see rescuers other than Plopst¡ª¡± ¡°Now wait a minute,¡± said Marks, narrowing his eyes at Zeridee-und¡¯h. ¡°Why am I supposed to go to a train if you two are taking a plane?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but there is no plane. Only a single flyer. Its course is preset, so even if there were room for your friends aboard it, there would be no way for us to retrieve them.¡± Zeridee-und¡¯h walked over to one of the shuttered floor-to-ceiling windows, and hooked a finger through a latch Alden hadn¡¯t noticed. When he pulled it open and pushed aside one of the heavy shutters, the window revealed itself to be a door that opened onto a verandah. Beyond it, a terraced garden led down to a picturesque brick lane that overlooked the tiled roofs of cottages that lined a seaside boardwalk. In daylight, Alden was sure the hill this neighborhood sat on would provide an excellent view of the ocean. Now, it provided an excellent view of a pair of parked police cars that bathed the area in flashing red and blue. A small group of people carrying backpacks and bags were climbing a stairway that led from the boardwalk up to the lane. They were escorted by a lighting drone and a man in a raincoat with reflective striping on the sleeves. Zeridee-und¡¯h paused at the sight of them then muttered in his own language, ¡°Still more children. The humans need to practice ¡ª¡ª¡ª. Not enough faith in the Contract. No ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± This feels uncomfortably familiar without the translation. But at least there were people around. ¡°Come with me, Marks!¡± Zeridee-und¡¯h motioned for him and stepped out into the rain. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid for your safety. The evacuation teams are taking everyone to secure locations. There are no shortages, and there will be very minimal danger to those who arrive promptly.¡± Marks looked over at Alden. ¡°Don¡¯t you have anything to say about this?¡± Alden¡¯s brain shuffled through options. He wanted to point out that if he was going to beg a person he¡¯d just met to give strangers access to what sounded like a limited escape resource, he wouldn¡¯t do it for Mr. Dandelion when there were more endearing people in plain sight. This guy had already been rescued three times tonight from his own stupidity by Alden¡¯s count. Once by the guys stopping to free him from the traffic pile-up he¡¯d only been in because he¡¯d refused to leave his car, once by Dee talking him out of just standing around waiting for someone to carry him to F, and once by Alden giving him a free ride from a bridge under oceanic assault to this place, where there were professionals directing people to safety. My classmates are still stuck on the Span. You¡¯re here on land. There¡¯s a kid with a ewtwee plushie climbing the stairs with their family. Move your own ass this time. He took a breath. Marks is scared. Everyone¡¯s scared. Don¡¯t make it worse. Do the right thing. He actually wasn¡¯t a hundred percent sure what the right thing was. What he wanted was to shove this man off the verandah, run straight to whatever an escape flyer was, and buckle himself in. Having two Peace of Minds was great. But the wordchains didn¡¯t make him eager to suffer through a disaster. Again. Why is something like this happening again? Less than an hour ago, I was hanging out in the mall with everyone else, and now¡­ The alerts he still hadn¡¯t dismissed were shining in his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m really sorry my teleport didn¡¯t take you to F, Marks,¡± he said, trying to sound as calm as the ambassador¡¯s assistant. ¡°I can go with you and everyone else to the train station to make sure you get there safely. If that would make you feel more comfortable. Or I could help with¡ª¡± ¡°Fuck,¡± said Marks, glowering at him. ¡°I should¡¯ve known some Rabbit globie wouldn¡¯t follow the rules. I¡¯m a D. You¡¯re an A. You think about that! Think about that on your private jet while you¡¯re li¡ª¡± ¡°There¡¯s not a jet,¡± Alden protested. ¡°He just told you. And I don¡¯t know what you think I can do for you that I haven¡¯t already done! Do you want me to carry you to a shelter in my arms? I don¡¯t see how it would make any sense. I probably don¡¯t have many more physical foundation points than you. I might even have less. And I¡¯m a B, and I don¡¯t have any powers that make me immune to floods.¡± ¡°What about this house?¡± Marks demanded as he rounded on Zeridee-und¡¯h. ¡°You¡¯re not letting people in? Just keeping it all to yourself.¡± ¡°The house isn¡¯t a safe location, except for the natural safety provided by its position on the hill. This entire neighborhood is being evacuated. There is no magical shielding on this structure, and there are no wizards currently in residence to offer protection to Avowed. Ambassador Bash-nor must refuse you this household¡¯s hospitality tonight for your own wellbeing.¡± The way the assistant delivered the news sounded rote, and Alden wondered if it had been delivered to others already tonight. Marks suddenly threw the mug of tea at the floor hard. The ceramic bounced instead of shattering, but Alden still jumped enough to make the other mugs rattle on their tray. He felt himself stiffen up. He wondered what his body thought they were going to do if Marks got violent. Do I hit him with my many teas? Do I swap targets and try to turn this tray into a shield? Or¡­ His auriad shifted against the skin of his wrist. But instead of making even more of a scene, Marks turned and stalked out the door. By the time he hit the lane, he was waving toward the officer and the family and calling, ¡°Wait up!¡± in a voice that was almost cheerful. Alden stared after him. I guess he tries nice to get what he wants then switches to angry and forceful when it doesn¡¯t work. He now understood why Writher had been looking so unfriendly when he¡¯d found Lexi yelling at this guy. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said. ¡°I couldn¡¯t just leave him on the bridge.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± said Zeridee-und¡¯h, looking slightly distracted. He was squinting toward the family climbing the hill. ¡°That¡¯s Mrs. Chandola. She is a reasonable person. Why¡­? I must speak with her. I¡¯ll be right back!¡± He took two steps out the door into the rain, then turned around. ¡°By the way, Alden Ryeh-b¡¯t, I¡¯m female. Hip width and nape hair aren¡¯t good indicators in my case. I have noticed humans are less embarrassed by such misapprehensions if I clarify as soon as possible after our first meeting. Please enjoy your beverages!¡± ¡°Oh! I¡ª¡± He¡­she¡­was already running after Marks, lifting her extremely long braid as she hurried down the verandah steps with the practiced air of someone who was used to keeping it from dragging. Alden¡¯s first thought was, Crap. I did so good at LeafSong. I was bound to get it wrong at some point. His second was, How many of them have noticed me checking their hips? He was sure they didn¡¯t really care, but he¡¯d also prided himself on doing it quickly and unobtrusively. Zeridee-und¡¯h was even wearing relatively form-fitting clothes¡ªlight brown trousers and a darker brown sweater with a cowl neck. Wizards were sometimes dressed in layers upon layers of fabric. The assistant¡¯s simpler outfit had given him false confidence in his first guess. She¡¯d told him to enjoy his beverages, but there was no table in this room for him to set the tray on. And he was nervous about Marks¡¯s behavior still. He stood at the door, watching the Artonan talk to the group who¡¯d just reached the lane. She used very human hand gestures, but she used them a bit too much and a bit too emphatically. She must be trying hard to communicate human-style. Her English is amazing. It would make sense if the ambassador himself spoke an Earth language or two¡­ although it did seem to be a position with a lot of turnover. In an Anesidoran history lecture Alden had attended for exit credits during intake, he¡¯d heard at least three different ambassador so-and-so¡¯s mentioned. But even if the ambassadors had to learn local languages, he wouldn¡¯t have expected all of the staff to be so fluent. There were a couple of other surprises, too. For one thing, the ambassadorial residence wasn¡¯t in F, with the larger building that was the official embassy. The Artonans must have wanted to be fair to Apex. Either that, or they just preferred this very cute seaside residential area on the western point of the crescent to the urban tangle around their office. And Alden also would¡¯ve assumed that anywhere an important Artonan official lived would be magically protected. It¡¯s one thing for the art¡¯h family living in their knight-governed state-sized rapport, but you¡¯d think here on Anesidora¡­ Maybe she was lying just to get rid of Marks. But if the house was completely safe other Artonans would be weathering the catastrophe here, wouldn¡¯t they? The residence was large enough to be home to quite a few people, but it was silent at his back. If there were others here, they were being awfully stealthy. A man was coming up the lane now with what looked like half the contents of a home piled on his back in a teetering tower that had to be held in place by magic in addition to his strength. A woman was following along behind him with her own arms loaded with bags. It was a ridiculous sight, but¡­ They¡¯re all worried about their houses flooding. Such a different tone in the middle of the same crisis. On the bridge, people were ditching shoes so they could run faster. Here, they were trying to save their whole closets. Alden didn¡¯t blame them for it. They¡¯d been woken up by blaring sirens and flashing lights a very short while ago. They were confused. The neighborhood was evacuating fast, all things considered. He kept catching glimpses of a speedster running from door to door down near the water, checking houses for stragglers. This was just danger happening at a different pace. Zeridee-und¡¯h smiled widely at the woman she was talking to. Bowed. And a moment later, the little girl holding the ewtwee doll disappeared. The ambassador¡¯s assistant hurried back to Alden. ¡°We¡¯re having some unexpected trouble with people refusing the teleportation of their children,¡± she said, taking the tray from him and striding toward the door with the "welcome" logogram. ¡°Your Contract is being a little too abbreviated with its orders and explanations, I think. But it¡¯s all right! Mrs. Chandola understood. Come with me. I have dry clothes for you.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Is there time for something like that?¡± ¡°Yes! It¡¯s fine. There are people shifting the contamination away from shore here. An alert will come before they lose strength, and you are shivering.¡± He realized she was right. He was drenched in frigid seawater, and the wind on the bridge hadn¡¯t helped matters. He had a lot of questions to ask if she was a person who had answers, but first¡ª¡°Zeridee-und¡¯h, is there a way to find out if my classmates are okay without distracting the System from its work?¡± ¡°Please call me Zeridee if the familiarity doesn¡¯t make you uncomfortable. I prefer it. I will help you. And there is some business for us to complete together. Do you like sugar in your tea?¡± ****** The Artonan woman led him through the mansion so quickly that he wouldn¡¯t have had time to appreciate the floors, tapestries, and alcoves full of carvings even if he¡¯d been in a touristy mood as opposed to a stressed and slightly dazed one. She took him to a windowless parlor that was probably for the residents to socialize and smoke in, if he was right about those little bowls on the side tables being some kind of ashtrays. Beside an open suitcase, a few supplies had been laid out on a long sofa covered in silky gray fabric, as if someone was meant to inspect them before they were packed away. Me I guess. This was surreal. ¡°Did you prepare all of this for me? Just now?¡± Over the last half hour. While sirens went off and everyone else evacuated. Why? ¡°Not exactly.¡± Zeridee was looking at him with one eye while the other scanned the items on the sofa. ¡°I did run to one of our neighbor¡¯s houses to purchase clothing for you. I didn¡¯t know what state you would be in when you arrived, and I hoped you might take comfort in having some casual human garb with you. Everything else has been prepared and kept ready since your return to Earth. I thought you would be presented with it very soon after your arrival. I assumed the ambassador would meet with you at once to ascertain your well-being and discuss your status with you.¡± There was a brief pause. ¡°I failed to anticipate his pace. I¡¯m sure he wished for you to be settled first, and there was no reason to rush.¡± She sounded very, very polite. Alden didn¡¯t know if she was dissing the ambassador or herself or merely stating facts. ¡°This is all because of Alis¡ªKnight Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s commendation,¡± he said. He chose to use the Artonan word for knight. The one with all the subtle layers of meaning he still hadn¡¯t fully unpacked. Hn¡¯tyon was probably how he would spell it if someone asked him to, but it had an unusual first syllable, even by the standards of a language that had been forcibly unified during its history by people who didn¡¯t want to leave out any of the cool sounds their species could make. A kind of inhaled hum, as if the word demanded a tiny gasp from the speaker before it could proceed. ¡°Yes,¡± she said. ¡°Do you want help dressing yourself?¡± It took Alden a second to realize she was literally asking rather than telling him to hurry it along. The clothes she¡¯d bought from the neighbor were a long pair of khaki walking shorts, hiking sandals, and a sweatshirt that said CANADA in red letters. ¡°Um¡­no, thank you. I can handle this on my own.¡± He stripped off the poncho. There was no good place to drop it and he¡¯d already trailed water through the entire house without her complaining about it, so he just let it fall onto the floor. As he shrugged out of his soggy green plaid over shirt, she turned her back. ¡°I will explain the situation to you while you dry off and re-clothe yourself. She¡¯s not even leaving the room? The auriad was tucked under his bracelet and he had no reason to hide his contract tattoo from her, so he guessed it was fine if a turned back was as much privacy as he got. And now that dry clothes were right in front of him, and his adrenaline was giving out, he was acutely aware of how uncomfortable being drenched in cold salt water was. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind having a towel.¡± ¡°I have given you something to dry with,¡± she said. ¡°On the back of the seat.¡± Alden looked around the room. The sofa was the only piece of furniture with anything on the back of it, and that couldn¡¯t be right. ¡°The quilt with all the different shades of silver and gray?¡± he asked hesitantly. ¡°Yes,¡± said Zeridee. It looked like something you kept as a family heirloom because your great-grandmother had stabbed herself ten thousand times stitching it together. Not something you dried your butt with. I¡¯m not crazy, Alden thought as his t-shirt slapped against the floor and he started to peel off his jeans. Artonans have towels. Those microfiberish things. I have seen them. I have used them. ¡°I can¡¯t justify using the Contract to monitor the classmates you¡¯re worried about,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°But there is alternative footage of the situation on The Span. The steam is obscuring much of it. What area would they be in?¡± ¡°We were just a kilometer from the end. They might be off by now. They should be. If the water went over the bridge again, Maricel had a granite countertop. She¡¯s a Shaper. They were riding on it. Mehdi has an infogear watch if that helps.¡± ¡°I will search for them while I talk to you. First, do not be overly alarmed by the fact that you have been summoned for special evacuation. Most of the people with insight at this early stage do not believe that Earth has a serious problem.¡± ¡°This isn¡¯t a serious problem?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a problem for Anesidora. I speak on a global scale.¡± That¡¯s better than nothing. Zeridee went on, ¡°However, in the unlikely event that this incident or a future one leads to a catastrophic erosion of the Contract on Earth you will¡­¡­¡­priority¡­¡­¡­assure you¡­¡­.many different methods of exit¡­¡­¡­.the tablet in front of you can be¡ª¡± ¡°Stop,¡± said Alden. He was staring down at the tops of his bare feet. The extremely beautiful blanket that was clearly not intended to be used as a towel no matter what planet you came from was wrapped around him. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve¡­I haven¡¯t really heard anything since you said the System might collapse.¡± Zeridee turned to frown at him. ¡°It¡¯s important that you remember all¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Alden said in Artonan. He felt like he needed to apologize in her language. He had the impression that she might have been speaking for quite a while before he stopped her. ¡°The thought of the Contract failing causes me pain. I¡¯ll listen now.¡± It was interesting how having an incomplete vocabulary to work with could force you to be more honest than you really wanted to at times. Right now, he couldn¡¯t seem to come up with words that would politely brush over the matter. Zeridee-und¡¯h stared for a few seconds, then her expression softened. ¡°I will explain again. The Contract doesn¡¯t appear to be in danger to those who are now studying the situation. However, it is behaving with extreme vigilance. Failing to anticipate an incident at Matadero is unprecedented for it. It still doesn''t know what it might have missed that led to this outcome, and because of that, it¡¯s responding in a defensive manner. One of the effects of this is that it doesn¡¯t wish to initiate exit teleports from Anesidora at this time. And there''s no reason to force it to when we have another option prepared. Do you understand?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Alden. ¡°No. Why¡ª?¡± ¡°Its reasoning is complex. Drain on resources, the potential for an inimical Avowed to escape and instigate a second attack in another location while its focus is here, and a desire not to choose usual courses that might have been anticipated by enemies are parts of the whole.¡± The System¡¯s panicking and playing chess with an unknown enemy at the same time? That was what it sounded like she was saying. She¡¯d turned her back on him again, so he went about dressing himself in some other guy¡¯s clothes while he listened. What it boiled down to was the fact that Earth was almost definitely not about to dissolve into an unsalvageable puddle of chaos. But since the possibility wasn¡¯t completely off the table, the Artonans were quietly rolling forward with the first stages of planetary evacuation. Apparently planetary evacuation, ¡°in its most desirable form,¡± involved mass teleportation from secret locations. The flyer, designed to provide an escape from a wide variety of crises, would take Alden to one of those places now with no involvement from the System at all. He was paying attention to Zeridee-und¡¯h this time, but he was still reeling from the pace of it all. And from the sudden need to redefine which incident he was being saved from. ¡°You didn¡¯t bring me here to protect me from the ocean,¡± he said, just to confirm it. ¡°As I told that man you carried with you¡ªand several others tonight¡ªthere are many places on Anesidora for people to shelter. Having you directly teleported to one of them would have been a simple matter. I brought you here because one of our last flyers is here. You will be among the very first to arrive at the planetary evacuation site.¡± The CANADA sweatshirt hid Alden¡¯s wrists thoroughly, so he unhooked the itchy wet leather bracelet and shoved it into the pocket of the shorts. A quick shove had his auriad settling into place farther up his arm. ¡°The System says the probability of chaos exposure is low.¡± ¡°It is. It is so low that the ambassador was somewhat annoyed that it was mentioned in the alerts at all.¡± ¡°So it¡¯s low. But you¡¯re starting preliminary evacuations for the apocalypse anyway?¡± ¡°Should we wait?¡± Okay, there was definitely some sarcasm there. ¡°What about¡­?¡± The number of things he wanted to ask was creating a mental clog. ¡°Aren¡¯t there some other people who should leave first?¡± ¡°If there are, then they are already in possession of the means to do so. There were a dozen flyers here at the house and five times as many at the embassy. Others were in the personal homes of the Artonans and Avowed who were assigned them.¡± Alden watched the water from his clothes pool across the floor. Leaving Anesidora to get away from what was happening here was a simple enough idea for him to get a handle on it. Leaving Earth to fall to chaos and never coming back, even though it was just a tiny possibility, was¡­not computing well. Zeridee, obviously deciding he¡¯d had plenty of time to put some clothes on, turned around and walked over to the sofa. She picked up a shiny metal ball. ¡°This orb functions as a beacon in the event that your flyer crashes. It will also be useful if you fail to make your destination in time and must escape into space.¡± ¡°So that¡¯s an option too, huh?¡± She must have heard the high note in his voice. ¡°I will schedule a meeting with you after this is over and you return safely to Anesidora. I will explain it all in more detail,¡± she said gently. ¡°If the ambassador doesn''t have time, I¡¯m sure he will not mind me taking on the task.¡± She tucked his stranded-in-space beacon into his Earth¡¯s-about-to-die suitcase, then moved on to the next thing. ¡°This is your personal medical kit,¡± she said, opening a shoebox-sized container and holding it out for him to see. Neatly packed potions, injectors, a stubby looking stick, and something like a glue gun greeted him. ¡°All of the dosages are tuned to your body size. I have translated the labels into English for you. Instructions are in the booklet at the bottom.¡± She really has been prepping all of this for a while then. The medical kit went into the suitcase beside the beacon. ¡°It is inconvenient that some of the things in your kit are illegal for Avowed to possess and use here. From now until you return, you will be on or within property under Artonan jurisdiction, so please don¡¯t fret about legal consequences.¡± I¡¯ve got too much other stuff to fret about anyway. ¡°This tablet will be kept in storage for you at the embassy and frequently updated by staff. At the start of any future emergency, it will be transported to you directly or it will be waiting for you at your final evacuation site. Its last update was ten days ago.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t realized the thing she was holding was a tablet. It was thick enough to be used as a little step-stool. ¡°What¡¯s on it?¡± ¡°A copy of the internet,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°A copy? Of the whole internet?¡± ¡°Yes. For your entertainment, education, and to remember your people by.¡± Their eyes met. ¡°Not¡­that the last one should be taken too seriously¡± the Artonan woman said. ¡°Someone¡­a well-meaning person¡­had the idea that humans might appreciate having their own personal copies during trying times. And giving these out to many trustworthy people ensures the survival of the information.¡± ¡°Are you the well-meaning person?¡± Alden asked. ¡°The tablet is also how you make your official requests known to deciding parties during an emergency.¡± She handed it to him and pulled back the cover on the screen. A stylus rolled down, and he caught it. There was a form glowing there, waiting for him to fill it out. ¡°You are allowed to name two people. Their evacuation priorities will be changed to match your own.¡± Alden looked down at the form then back up at Zeridee-und¡¯h. ¡°Thank you.¡± She nodded. He wrote in the names, and the form faded. A moment passed. Zeridee seemed to be looking something up with her eye rings. ¡°It¡¯s inappropriate of me to¡­I feel obligated to mention that one of the people you have named is an Avowed of high rank and unique ability.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°His own evacuation priority is significantly lower than yours, but in many planetary loss scenarios, he would still be saved. My people have a responsibility to Avowed. Even those who have rejected the Contract. If that was a factor in your decision, you can change your mind.¡± ¡°I¡¯m still sure,¡± said Alden. ¡°Good,¡± she said. ¡°Do most people have to agonize over it a lot?¡± he asked. ¡°I don¡¯t have much family, so maybe it¡¯s different.¡± ¡°I have only seen a few people make their choice,¡± said Zeridee, speaking after a pause. ¡°They all chose quickly and did not change their minds. If they agonized, they must have done it afterward and gained no insight from it.¡± He watched her put the tablet in with the other items. ¡°This is a bag of oranges.¡± She picked up the final object on the sofa. ¡°They are my favorite Earth fruit, so we had them in the kitchen. I didn¡¯t know if you would be hungry or not.¡± ****** ¡°The Span remains mostly intact,¡± Zeridee said as she led him through the house again. Alden was pulling his new suitcase along behind him, and his messenger bag was slung over his shoulder. Zeridee had stared at it a little but made no comment. ¡°A gap at this end of the bridge is preventing people from exiting, but your friends don¡¯t seem to be among them. I¡¯ve been examining the scene for a while.¡± ¡°Thank you for looking for them. A gap wouldn¡¯t be a problem if they were with Maricel.¡± That¡¯s right. Kon¡¯s teeth. ¡°Zeridee, do you mind if I target you? I need to preserve my messenger bag.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind,¡± she said. A few seconds later, bag safely preserved, he followed her into a closet-sized room full of monitors. ¡°I think the fastest way to obtain information will be for you to send a message to the one with the watch. Infogear is currently suffering from minor delays, but it should go through. Here.¡± As she said ¡°here¡± she reached into a cabinet and produced a small metal safe that opened only after she laid her hand on top of it for a while. Inside the safe was a second safe. Alden fully expected her to pull out a bomb or a diamond the size of a baseball. Instead, she handed him a normal infogear cellphone. Okay. The Artonan Ambassador keeps his infogear in two safes even in the privacy of his house. I¡¯m never saying a freaking word aloud in front of a piece of this stuff ever again. ¡°To use it, you need to¡ª¡± Before he could tell her that him blanking out earlier was really no reason to explain what oranges were or how to use phones, she sighed. ¡°Again?¡± she murmured in Artonan. ¡°So many people assuming¡­¡± ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± he asked in the same language. ¡°Contact your friends,¡± she said, switching back. ¡°I will return. There are people in the garden.¡± She hurried away. He typed Mehdi¡¯s name into the phone and listed his address as the third floor of the Garden Hall boy¡¯s dorm. Infogear didn¡¯t care if you actually knew somebody¡¯s number. You just had to narrow down who they were tightly enough. It was convenient right now. He tried a voice call first, got a delay notice, and sent a text instead: [Mehdi, this is Alden. I¡¯m safe. The guy I brought with me should be too. Is everyone all right?] While he waited for a reply, he stared at the monitors. There were none that showed rooms in the house¡¯s interior. They were all outside. Front Garden. Verandah. A very large back yard by local standards with an enormous greenhouse. Nothing that looks like a hangar. Motion on the verandah monitor drew his eye, and he watched Zeridee-und¡¯h using her big human hand gestures to explain to a group of four people¡ªtwo middle-aged men and a younger man and woman¡ªthat they couldn¡¯t come in. He could practically hear the conversation through the way her arms moved. A bow¡ªshe¡¯s so very sorry for the unpleasant circumstances. A sweep of her arm toward the water with a shake of her head¡ªno, no, the Ambassador isn¡¯t here and the house isn¡¯t flood proof. Pointing at the place where the police cars had been and then north, toward the train station¡ªplease go that way. You¡¯ve only just missed another group. Alden watched the pantomime. They¡¯re not happy with her answer. One of the men was pointing angrily at Zeridee herself and then up at an angle. Alden wasn¡¯t sure if he was gesturing at the second floor of the house or the sky. She bowed again, more deeply this time, gripping the end of her dark purple braid in both hands so that it didn¡¯t trail in a puddle. Alden suddenly wondered if maybe Ambassador Bash-nor was a piece of shit for leaving the assistant here to handle both Alden and a tense situation on her own. The house had had a dozen of the escape flyers. Now it had one. Eleven must have left without Zeridee-und¡¯h. He frowned at the monitor. The two older men were arguing with each other now, and Zeridee was back upright. She didn¡¯t look flustered at all. Nothing seemed to have fazed her yet except for the mother of the little girl she knew from the neighborhood not having accepted the teleport. But Alden was suddenly reminded of his first visit to the lab. And the fact that Joe¡¯s assistants had been a little scared of him. A human! Probably it is a man human. I wonder if it¡¯s going to do magic. I hope it¡¯s going to help us. I hope it¡¯s not going to hurt us. That was what Kibby said she had been thinking the first time she¡¯d seen him. Such simple, obvious stuff. He left the monitor room and headed back to the front of the house. When he made it to the entryway with the all the windows and spiky shadows, the group of people was just leaving. Zeridee was stepping back inside, a bit damper than she had been. ¡°Zeridee, will you be coming on the flyer with me?¡± Alden asked. She let her braid drop down to swing behind her. ¡°No,¡± she said. ¡°You will leave as soon as you have heard from your friends on the bridge. I¡¯ll stay here. As you see, people still think this is a safe place to evacuate to, even though they have been told that the area should be abandoned. The house is on a hill, and they believe it is guarded by magic. Like a chaos fortification. If people try to shelter here, they may be swept away when the contaminant shifts toward us again.¡± ¡°Is the house really not protected?¡± She blinked at him. ¡°If it was, I would have let them in.¡± ¡°It just seems strange. I see why they all assume it.¡± ¡°The ambassadors come and go so often,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°It¡¯s a good way to get experience on Earth and gain a larger voice to influence the committees that make decisions about your species. Many ambassadors have fractious relationships with their predecessors, so they all prefer to install their own personal security measures. Ambassador Bash-nor¡¯s protective enchantments are contained in a portable form. He took them with him to protect the chambers of the Anesidoran High Council while he met with them.¡± ¡°What about you?¡± Alden asked. ¡°You¡¯re just going to stay here, trying to make sure nobody tries to use the house as a shelter? Where will you shelter?¡± She smiled. ¡°You are kind to worry. But I will not stay too long after the last train leaves. Once I¡¯m sure that the neighborhood is empty, I will walk to safety. It¡¯s not very far.¡± If safety was the nearest inland skyscraper, as Alden suspected, then it was a very long walk. ¡°I¡¯ll stay with you,¡± he said. ¡°You said it wouldn¡¯t be long until the last train, right? I¡¯ll stay, and I¡¯ll help you explain to the people who come, and then we¡¯ll both leave on the flyer together.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE: Waves I 135 ****** ¡°No,¡± said Zeridee-und¡¯h as they headed back into the ambassadorial residence. ¡°No,¡± she said again while Alden looked at the cellphone worriedly. Still no reply from Mehdi. ¡°NO,¡± the Artonan insisted, as they stood in the room with the video monitors. Alden was checking first them and then the phone screen. He started to peel one of his oranges just to put a little of his nervous energy somewhere. His eyes landed on a stack of something that looked like laminated beige paper. A chunky marker with a brush tip was lying on top. ¡°You were making signs before I got here?¡± The first line of text on the top sign was in Spanish, the second in Chinese. He only knew what they were because she¡¯d begun writing the third line in English before stopping halfway: PLEASE CONTINUE TOWARD SAFETY. THIS HOUSE IS NOT¡ª ¡°That¡¯s a good idea. We can tape them up on the doors before we leave.¡± ¡°I will tape them on the doors before I leave,¡± Zeridee said. ¡°As soon as you are no longer in fear for your friends, you will get in your flyer and head to the planetary evacuation site!¡± Alden assumed she was only all right with him waiting around on the phone because the infogear couldn¡¯t come with him or wouldn¡¯t work if he took it in the escape vehicle. And she was trying hard¡ªprobably too hard¡ªto be comforting. Oranges. Dry human clothes. All the tea. He¡¯d only drunk one black tea with sugar right after getting dressed, guzzling it for politeness¡¯s sake. He hoped she wasn¡¯t upset about that. ¡°Do two people fit in the flyer?¡± he asked. ¡°Not comfortably.¡± So that¡¯s a yes. ¡°Why don¡¯t you come see it?¡± She was speaking in a coaxing tone even as her hand took up the brush marker and started rapidly finishing the sign in small block letters. ¡°It¡¯s very nice.¡± ¡°I will,¡± said Alden, digging his thumb into the orange peel. ¡°Believe me. As soon as you¡¯re ready to leave, too, I will be in that flyer. And we¡¯ll fly away from this ocean-adjacent neighborhood. I¡¯m seriously looking forward to it. By the way, why is the ocean acting insane? People on the bridge were saying it was chaos, but it¡¯s obviously not that. It¡¯s not corrupting anything.¡± Zeridee-und¡¯h rolled one eye at him while the other was fixed on the sign. ¡°Some ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª has given a human a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. It¡¯s spilled,¡± she said in Artonan. ¡°I didn¡¯t understand all of those words,¡± Alden said. ¡°Something about sinking? What¡¯s a¡ª?¡± ¡°Someone who has such limited common sense that they should have died of their own errors by now has given an Avowed a Sinker Sender.¡± She paused. ¡°Unless one of my people brought it themselves and chose to crash it into the cube. But I doubt that. It would be such an expensive and foolish means of attack for a wizard to use that the institution which confirmed the wholeness of their education would revoke their diplomas and apologize to all of the Triplanets upon hearing of it.¡± Apparently, wizards could be expelled from school long after they¡¯d graduated if they were embarrassingly stupid. Alden filed that away for consideration in some more relaxed moment. ¡°Sinker Sender?¡± ¡°I would call it that in your language. A device designed to safely submerge objects in liquid environments and transport them. Useful for shipping, stealth, protection, research¡­many things.¡± ¡°So someone crashed a Sinker Sender into Matadero. And it¡¯s powerful enough to eat bridges and flood islands?¡± Did that mean the Matadero facility had been destroyed? Or sunk? ¡°The devices are allowed on this planet, but only because most of them are not this strong. They become more powerful with age and proper care. The idea that someone would give one this old to an Avowed is ridiculous. It must have been created a thousand years before we even found your species! It should¡¯ve been placed under trained guardianship on a planet where its services are actually needed.¡± She punctuated her words with a particularly aggressive brushstroke, then started making another sign. ¡°The device still does magic even if it¡¯s broken?¡± ¡°It would be improper to call this doing magic,¡± she said. ¡°The Sinker Sender was obviously old enough that every part of it had begun to resound with the function of the whole. The particles ejected into the water upon its destruction are therefore creating effects similar to the purposes to which they have been turned for the entirety of their existence.¡± She stared grimly at him. Still with just one eye. ¡°The spill will be cleaned. Or it will degrade enough that it poses no threat to other lands. It may cause a great deal of damage before then.¡± ¡°Tsunamis?¡± ¡°Large quantities of water will be pulled onto the islands in some locations as the contamination impacts things near shore and attempts to envelope them. The power of whatever motes of the Sinker are causing a particular effect will be rapidly expended, but additional motes of contamination will be spread by the flood waters.¡± Pulling even more water on shore. ¡°Plopstar is blowing up the ocean around The Span.¡± ¡°Her use of large quantities of magic in a contaminated area should help to disrupt¡ªyou are distracting me from the matter at hand on purpose!¡± ¡°I¡¯m not!¡± She dropped her marker. ¡°The situation here will not affect you once you leave in your flyer. It is being handled as well as it might by many competent people. You will be very far from here, waiting in the gathering area for a mass teleport. Just in case this incident is followed by others that lead to dire consequences.¡± So in case the System is panicking for the right reasons and this is the first in a string of masterminded attacks that will overwhelm Earth. ¡°Where does the flyer take me?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a secret location.¡± ¡°Is it the Sahara or the Amazon? Antarctica maybe? That one would be a little closer.¡± Zeridee said nothing. ¡°If it¡¯s for evacuation during planet meltdown situations, does it still use the System? Or is there some giant version of one of those teleport rooms like the Quaternary had on her ship? Fire, blood, dirt, driftwood. Very uncanny. I¡¯m extremely grateful the option exists, but I have it on good authority that getting blasted to Artona I that way almost killed me. And I¡¯m usually an excellent teleportation traveler.¡± ¡°Maybe I¡¯ve been overly soothing to you.¡± Zeridee leaned toward him. ¡°Alden Ryeh-b¡¯t, even though this neighborhood has protectors at the moment, it is not completely safe. You should go.¡± He knew. There were alerts flashing on his interface telling him the Punta de la Luna neighborhood should be evacuated immediately. And he didn¡¯t want to stay here when the safety of an aerial vehicle was available. But he also didn¡¯t feel right about leaving Zeridee alone to deal with a bunch of stressed-out superhumans. Her connection to the ambassador might make people listen to her, but she wasn¡¯t a wizard herself. Avowed were well aware that they occupied a higher social rung than the ordinary class of Artonans on the Triplanets, and Alden doubted everyone cared to engage with the complexities and balances of that relationship in good faith on a night like tonight. He had already met one asshole who wanted to use rank as a battering ram. Admittedly, it was in the reverse of the usual direction, which he hadn¡¯t been expecting. But Marks was one side of the coin, and on the other side of it, Alden was sure there was a different idiot who would try to commandeer the house from Zeridee because they were ¡°the Avowed boss.¡± She seemed to care a lot about the people who lived around here. She might stay, trying to talk someone stubborn out of endangering themselves, until it was too late and then¡­ Wait. Am I behaving like I think I¡¯m her boss, too? That¡¯s not how I mean it. ¡°You don¡¯t have to come with me on the flyer if you don¡¯t want to,¡± he said quickly. She looked very pleased. ¡°Good! I¡¯ll show you to¡ª¡± ¡°No. Let me explain. I know it¡¯s not completely safe. But¡­if it¡¯s safe enough for you to stay here for just a little while longer, then can¡¯t I do that, too? I can help you do whatever it is you want to. Some of it will go faster with two people. I can totally make signs or run up and down the street checking your neighbors¡¯ houses like that speedster is doing down by the water. I can help you convince people this place isn¡¯t a good hiding spot.¡± Her eyes narrowed. ¡°I¡¯m betting an escape flyer moves fast,¡± he continued. ¡°You said I was scheduled to be one of the very first to arrive for the possible planetary evac, so even if we stop thinking about the disaster that¡¯s actually happening around us and start thinking about the slim possibility that Earth falls to chaos¡­I¡¯ll be fine. Right? I can afford to stay here until you¡¯re ready to leave. I can help you and still have plenty of time to get to wherever the flyer is taking me. And if you wanted to come with me, you could.¡± He thought he was doing an awesome job of not puking while he talked about Earth turning into a corrupted wasteland unable to sustain life. Wait. Can she come with me? ¡°Your boss didn¡¯t tell you that you weren¡¯t¡­allowed to use the flyer with me or something, did he?¡± Alden didn¡¯t really know her well enough to read her face, but if she were Kibby instead of a grown woman, he would suspect that she was thinking of fibbing about something. ¡°This is serious to me,¡± he said in Artonan. ¡°Lying about things that are serious is mean-mean.¡± Zeridee¡¯s jaw went slack, and her brows drew together until her forehead wrinkled. ¡°Did you just call me mean-mean?!¡± ¡°No. I said it would be mean-mean of you to lie right now when I am trying to make important decisions.¡± He wasn¡¯t sure why Zeridee-und¡¯h stared at him for such a long time after he said that. Finally, she shoved the infogear cellphone back into its containment safes and chose her reply. ¡°The Ambassador would not object to me leaving Anesidora. And even at the planetary evacuation site, if all goes badly, nobody would object to me joining the first wave of evacuees. But you should leave sooner than me. Sooner than almost everyone. Not to be safe, but to be as safe as possible.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I promise I¡¯m not that wonderful.¡± ¡°You have an obligation! You must consider your true ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª!¡± ¡°My what?¡± Zeridee took a deep breath. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you can fully understand the ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª of this, but¡­your death might weigh on the minds of Hn¡¯tyon Alis-art¡¯h and Hn¡¯tyon Evul-art¡¯h!¡± Alden blinked at her, too confused to respond. Zeridee was staring at him with both eyes now. Her hands were clenched at her sides. ¡°Their lives are filled with difficulties you cannot imagine. No doubt they take great comfort from the idea of you here, living a life of peace and happiness on your motherworld. Images of you may ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª through them at this very moment, giving them strength of purpose and the will to move forward through their trials.¡± ¡°Excuse me, but that doesn¡¯t sound likely at all!¡± Alden protested. ¡°I think you might have misunderstood some things¡ª¡± ¡°For you to die so young and so soon after they have have ¡ª¡ª¡ª- their affection in you¡ª¡± ¡°Why are we talking so seriously about me dying now?¡± ¡°I am sure the commendation you have earned for your actions is not a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª political move by the Quaternary!¡± ¡°Who said it was?!¡± Zeridee shook a finger at him. ¡°They obviously feel true respect and liking for you. Evul-art¡¯h sent you a gift! Such an unexpected ¡ª¡ª¡ª-. I would never have imagined a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª for a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. You must not cause either of them to grieve.¡± Alden was about to tell her that Evul-art¡¯h was just mailing stuff for her little brother, since Stuart wasn¡¯t allowed to communicate with Avowed without supervision. If Alden died, Evul would probably shrug and think, Meh¡­Baby Stu has a cuter Alden anyway. I always thought the sweaty one was a weird choice. But Zeridee was suddenly reaching for his apocalypse suitcase, muttering to herself, ¡°Where is the human boy¡¯s medical kit?¡± ¡°Why do you need to know that?¡± he asked. ¡°You need to relax more so that you can calmly engage your brain and understand what I¡¯m telling you!¡± Oh my god, she¡¯s gonna tranq me so that she can stuff me in the flyer and ensure that there is a 0.0% chance of an art¡¯h family member feeling even a single twinge of sadness. I can¡¯t believe I was worried I was being too bossy. She is fully willing to boss me right off the planet. Alden looked around for a way to convince her that he didn¡¯t need to be protected this zealously and spotted motion on one of the monitors. A young woman was heading up the front walk. Perfect! ¡°Zeridee, someone¡¯s coming to the house again.¡± She stopped rummaging in the drugs and looked up. Her expression turned alarmed. ¡°That¡¯s Becky! But she should already be gone! I saw her heading toward the train right after the sirens¡­just a moment, I¡­¡± Alden watched her hurry away. He took his medical kit and stuffed it into his messenger bag instead of the suitcase. Preserving the bag and contents around the kit should do the trick. Next, he grasped the brush marker, finished the last sign the assistant had been making, and picked up a tape roll that was waiting beside the stack. He grabbed the mini safe even though he couldn¡¯t open it; for all he knew, you could still hear the phone ring from inside the thing. Then he headed toward the entryway. Zeridee had let the visitor inside this time, since the rain had picked up. Becky looked like she was in her twenties. She had on platform boots, and she was carrying a Meister tool that was shaped like a giant fishhook. ¡°People were talking so much about chaos, Zeridee! And that¡¯s never happened before! So I tried to call you and ask about it, but I couldn¡¯t get through,¡± she said. ¡°A man who¡¯d been summoned once was saying maybe going to Kitama Tower wouldn¡¯t be safe if there was going to be chaos instead of just sea anomalies. And he was talking about how maybe the TC and the embassy building would be better, but how is anybody going to get down to F now? And I thought of this place because of all the times I¡¯ve been here for the Ambassador¡¯s parties. Can I stay with you guys?¡± ¡°No!¡± said Zeridee, shaking her head. ¡°I am very sorry for all of this. At this time, our residence isn¡¯t protected. But do not worry! As the Contract says, the risk of any chaos exposure is low. The chance of an amount dangerous to Avowed is far lower than that. Keep following all evacuation orders. Kitama Tower will be very safe, and I believe many Shapers of Water are being summoned¡­¡± To Alden¡¯s relief, Becky took it completely in stride and seemed to believe the assistant. No arguing or shouting this time. She asked Zeridee if the party was still on for next week, then bounded off. Zeridee-und¡¯h leaned out the door, trying to watch her all the way to the end of the lane. The sirens had been shut off finally, but the sound of an emergency vehicle¡¯s speaker came from down below on the boardwalk, telling everyone that personal possessions needed to be left behind if they weren¡¯t necessities. ¡°You know that woman from the ambassador¡¯s parties?¡± The tape made a ripping sound as Alden pulled some of it off the roll. He positioned the sign at eye level on the interior of the glass door. ¡°Does he throw a lot of them?¡± Zeridee was still squinting after Becky. ¡°All the ambassadors organize a lot of parties. Even the ones who do not plan to at the beginning of their terms end up hosting many after they have attended a few here and seen the state of things.¡± Despite the circumstances, Alden couldn¡¯t help cracking a smile. ¡°Are you saying we suck so much at partying they feel like we need help?¡± Instead of answering, she said, ¡°I try to know every Avowed who lives in this area. If they do not mind knowing me. Some do.¡± ¡°It must be important for an ambassadorial assistant to do that kind of thing.¡± ¡°It is a privilege,¡± she said. He smoothed the wrinkles from his tape and looked out at the rain. She pulled her head back in and examined his work with a critical eye. ¡°I know how to tape signs,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ll go put up all of these others. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve got like twenty jobs to finish before you can leave this place. I can handle this one. I can tell people the house isn¡¯t safe just like you do if I run into anybody while I¡¯m taping.¡± And if they get nasty about me being here, I¡¯ll say it¡¯s because I¡¯m an S-rank who can walk on air or something. That¡¯ll move them along without the whole throwing dishes and ¡°Why do you get a private jet?!¡± thing that we had to go through with Marks. ¡°That group of four earlier looked like they were hard to deal with,¡± he said. ¡°Some people will be convinced faster by a human. Some will be convinced faster by the ambassador¡¯s assistant. With both of us working on it, we¡¯ve got better odds.¡± She sighed. ¡°The people who are familiar with this place are not unreasonable to assume it is open to them. Or that it is secure. Ambassador Bash-nor has, on festive occasions, allowed Avowed to test their powers against the house.¡± Alden pictured a party reaching the extra-sloppy stage and an Artonan, who looked like Joe for some reason, shouting, ¡°Hit it with all you¡¯ve got! My enchantments can take your puny human magics! I designed that skill!¡± ¡°Of course such things leave an impression in the memory,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°And shortly after the disaster alerts came, the flyers left with the other residents of this house and a couple of Avowed who lived nearby aboard. That was visually noteworthy. I don¡¯t know exactly what humans thought they were, but the obvious assumption is that they are some kind of escape vehicle. The four that were here a few minutes ago saw them and wanted to know about them.¡± Probably asking why the Artonans needed spaceplanes if everything was really all right on Anesidora. Kind of hard to explain that they¡¯re just getting a jump on a completely different scale of evacuation on the off chance that everything goes to hell everywhere. ¡°Now you¡ª¡± said Zeridee. ¡°Please let me stay as long as you do,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m already out of the worst of the danger, and I would be ashamed of myself if I left you.¡± He also had the feeling that Zeridee-und¡¯h would leave in a more reasonable amount of time if he was around, instead of searching the entire area for stragglers long after she should¡¯ve departed. She shut the door, dulling the sound of the speaker and the patter of the rain. ¡°Would you really feel shame?¡± He felt his eyebrows lift. ¡°I¡¯m sure I would.¡± According to a guy who would know, I have a problem with that particular emotion. ¡°I understand then,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t want you to carry a feeling like that with you over such a small matter. Go put up the signs. Don¡¯t forget the back gates.¡± ****** Alden ran down the sidewalk, in too much of a hurry to appreciate the fact that his skill was active and the concrete beneath his sandals qualified as ground. His poncho was back in action so that he didn¡¯t get wet. He¡¯d spread it out and frozen it in its extra-dorky mushroom shape, so that he could move his arms beneath it. His messenger bag was connected to it by a piece of tape so that they counted as a single object. In his back pocket, the infogear phone had a message on it that made him want to have a lengthy conversation with whichever one of his classmates had sent it: [OK]. Would it have killed Mehdi to write a full sentence? What do two letters mean? We¡¯re all okay. Glad you¡¯re okay. I¡¯m okay but everyone else fell off the bridge. We have been teleported to Oklahoma!? He blamed Mehdi for the pitiful message fifty percent of the time and Lexi the other fifty percent. He was confident the rest of them would have had the decency to type at least half a dozen words. Unless they¡¯ve joined up with Marsha¡¯s group. I think that¡¯s pretty likely, and I have no idea what she would¡¯ve typed.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. He visually checked the windows and doors of all the houses he passed automatically. The tablet in his left hand chimed, and Zeridee¡¯s voice came from it: ¡°Did you get Gudrun back to her owner?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± The train station had been closed and barricaded about ten minutes ago. Alden had been doing his final lap of the zone Zeridee had assigned him when he¡¯d run into a guy in a tuxedo who was coming back to the neighborhood on foot. He¡¯d been out at an event when the sirens went off, and he¡¯d walked for over an hour to get here. Of course there wasn¡¯t a single public transport option headed this way, and he wanted to save his Great Dane. The guy wasn¡¯t athletic, and he was trusting enough to give an oddly-dressed teenager the code to his boardwalk cottage. Alden and the Great Dane were fast. Job complete. And she was such a friendly dog. She was so excited to go for a late night run with a stranger. She had almost pulled Alden off of his feet when she saw her person, and the man in the tux had gotten so choked up that Alden had started to get a lump in his own throat. And now he was realizing other pets could be left behind in the houses around him, and¡­ He was trying not to think about it. ¡°I¡¯ve secured everything in the house that could cause harm if it were damaged or stolen,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°Only two more people have stopped by since you left. They both read the sign on the front door and departed.¡± She had linked her eye rings to his Artonan-made tablet somehow. She¡¯d been assigning him jobs ever since. As soon as she¡¯d decided he was allowed to assist, she¡¯d been determined not to waste that assistance. She¡¯d even sent him out to deliver messages and request updates from police and other Avowed who were officially doing System-assigned tasks in Punta de la Luna. Unexpectedly, his movement trait seemed to legitimize him. Possibly it made him look like a more capable person than he actually was because only a couple of people asked what he thought he was doing hanging around. Honestly, though, my legs are getting tired. They¡¯d already run the obstacle course and the bridge in the past several hours. The last thing he¡¯d had on his mind in either case was saving up strength for even more sprinting. Having a disaster happen after gym¡­ He¡¯d thought of it a few times. A lot of his classmates were probably running on fumes as far as powers went. Muscles, skills, and spells that had been used to the limit would have recovered some over dinner, but none of them would be back at their peak. It was really, really lucky that Maricel had missed the second race. At the top of the hill, he turned and looked out over the neighborhood. It was so quiet now. The houses were dark. A small figure down near the water with the red System halo that meant they weren¡¯t to be interfered with was holding some kind of gleaming staff aloft. An Adjuster with a spell impression that requires a tool maybe? Instructor Klein was probably wearing a similar halo right now. It was only a guess, but Alden thought he might have been called somewhere to hasten the evacuation of children and teens who hadn¡¯t been selected yet. That seemed to have been a big priority for the System right from the beginning, and according to a snippet of conversation he¡¯d overheard between one of the police officers and a red halo, a lot of people had been put on child escort duty. As Alden had already seen, some Avowed weren¡¯t happy with the thought of approving a teleport that would take their kids out of their sight, even if it was to what he suspected was an actual chaos-resistant shelter rather than a place that was merely safe from the water. The cellphone in his back pocket suddenly bee-beeped perkily, and he grabbed it so fast he almost tossed it. He looked down through the wet poncho at the screen. [Alden, this is Haoyu. Borrowed a phone from someone. I got teleported to a safe spot a little while ago, so don¡¯t worry about me. Kon teleported out, too. Somewhere different. The others were all fine and heading toward midtown when I left. Maricel flew us over a break in the bridge just a couple of minutes after you disappeared. Don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve seen the news. She got fourteen other people over before she said she didn¡¯t know for sure when she was going to fatigue and decided to stop and let the professionals handle it so that she didn¡¯t accidentally drop anybody. Marsha traumatized a couple of girls from Franklin High. She told them she could fly, then yanked them across by throwing her spear, grabbing them, and then summoning herself toward it. They were all fine, but there was a lot of screaming. Everyone agreed there would have been even more screaming if they¡¯d known how bad she is at guessing when she¡¯s about to run her talents dry. There were a lot of people helping out on the Apex side of the bridge, so I think everyone¡¯s getting off. Nobody has heard from the people we left behind at the mall or the ones who went home early. Keep the teeth safe or Lexi will kill you. I haven¡¯t heard from Lute. Not too worried about him for the obvious reasons. Message me when you get the chance. I¡¯ll borrow another piece of infogear when I can to check. Take care of yourself. I might have been rude to you on the bus. Sorry. I¡¯ll only cook food you can eat next week to make up for it.] Alden¡¯s spirits lifted in an instant. Now that, he thought, is a properly written text message. He read through it again, relieved that escaping from the bridge seemed to have gone as well for the people on the bus as he had hoped it would¡­even if you couldn¡¯t exactly call a run that involved a bridge almost sinking, a car getting sliced to bits, Konstantin smashing himself in the face with a vehicle, and everybody flying the last few meters to safety on a cracked granite countertop that Maricel had stolen a perfect outcome. His eyes caught on the last line. You don¡¯t have to feel bad about that, Haoyu. Of all of us, you¡¯re probably having the hardest night. He resisted the urge to check the phone¡¯s emergency updates. The highlight had been the same thing since he arrived here. The Nilama family neighborhood down in F, where Lexi and Kon had grown up, was still flooding. He put the phone back in his pocket and took one last look at the tiled roofs and the picturesque lane. He could feel Zeridee-und¡¯h behind him. North side of the house. It was comforting to have that sense of his entruster. Useful, too. No way to get turned around on unfamiliar streets when he always knew which direction the ambassador¡¯s residence was in. He headed up the terraced garden path to the verandah. After he closed and locked the door, he pressed the tape on the back of the sign down one more time. Hope you¡¯re still here in the morning, he thought. He found Zeridee in a room he hadn¡¯t seen yet. ¡°No wonder so many people want to get inside this place.¡± The ambassador had a large bar in the residence. And those bottles lining the gleaming shelves behind Zeridee were definitely not full of mocktail ingredients. The assistant poured a little vial of something down the sink, then she pressed a button beside it, and blue flames shot up from the drain. ¡°That¡¯s an interesting garbage disposal,¡± said Alden. ¡°If someone does break in, there are some substances in here that should not be consumed without the supervision of a knowledgeable person. I¡¯m almost done pouring them out or packing them away.¡± I bet there are. And is that some kind of a mechanical bull in the back? How strong would you have to make one of those things for Avowed to find it challenging? ¡°Would you like a drink before we go?¡± Zeridee asked. ¡°We have mixers, tea, and wevvi. You could take a jar of cherries for the trip?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m good.¡± He leaned over the bar toward her. ¡°Zeridee¡­you seem to still have access to a lot of information about what¡¯s going on even with the Ambassador gone?¡± She didn¡¯t seem to be using the System for communication much, but she¡¯d said some things that implied she wasn¡¯t on the same ¡°Leave Me Alone While I¡¯m Busy Hunting Down Your Planet¡¯s Enemies¡± list that almost everyone else was on. For example, she hadn¡¯t said she couldn¡¯t use System resources to find his friends, only that she couldn¡¯t justify it. And since she could link up to some Artonan-made tech through non-System means, she was probably getting info that way too. ¡°I do,¡± she answered. ¡°Matadero¡­¡± ¡°Communications with Matadero are being handled through telepathic relay right now. Information about the precise situation there is not instantly available to me. But I still have news. What do you want to know?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want you to get in trouble for telling me anything. I know that the demon fight is always this completely secret thing with the people there on lockdown, and now that there¡¯s been an attack it¡¯s probably even more¡ª¡± She started to unscrew the cap from another vial. ¡°Just ask. I will tell you if I can. I may request that you put the spying device away first.¡± ¡°Fair enough. One of my roommate¡¯s parents is there. His dad. Are the Avowed there¡­is there any way to know if a particular person is all right?¡± She paused and looked up at him. ¡°You are worried about the present safety of the Avowed on Matadero?¡± she asked in a mildly surprised voice. ¡°Of course. Ever since the System warned that there was an attack¡ª¡± ¡°I see.¡± She reached around a bottle of tonic water and produced the cellphone¡¯s prison. Alden stuffed it inside. ¡°I don¡¯t know every detail. I can¡¯t tell you who attacked or why. But I will tell you what I do know.¡± ****** ****** earlier ****** ****** The waves of Earth¡¯s largest ocean clawed at the towering mirrored walls of Matadero. The water crashed against the facility and retreated in a rhythm that had existed since the day work on the structure had been completed. Partially submerged, with no physical anchors to the seafloor below, the cube had not moved from its position in more than seventy years. Within it, Avowed fought a being that didn¡¯t belong in their world. A fist collided with the shiny, red two-meter long protrusion that served as one of the thing¡¯s many legs. A crack sounded, like stone rupturing. The demon didn¡¯t appear to notice as the appendage fell away from its body. Sometimes it would react to an attack. Sometimes not. The men and women fighting it were under the impression that it had favorite parts. The ones who waited on the sidelines for their turn on the attack didn¡¯t let down their guard. It was impossible to in this place, at this moment. Even before the demon had appeared, there was something wrong with reality here. Even when it disappeared, the wrongness would remain for a time. They understood it in different ways, to different degrees, but they all knew it was there. A tension, a sickness, an unwanted gaze. A touch you couldn¡¯t flinch away from. ¡°I don¡¯t really feel anything when I¡¯m around chaos,¡± Melanie Carisson had said at one point during their weeks spent in preparation. ¡°I just keep having this dream that I¡¯m trying to write my name on something important, but no matter how fast I write, the ink fades from the paper before I can finish the last letter.¡± Now, a blade of her wind cut through the width of the arena like a knife. The other fighters all ducked or leaped to avoid it with practiced timing. The sharpened wind hadn¡¯t been aimed at the demon¡¯s body but at the area above it. There was some part of it there, unseen. Less an invisible limb for it to control and more a violent disturbance in the air that occasionally lashed out madly. A cloud of something that looked like black sand burst into existence when the wind cleaved through that spot. A stench filled the air. They had been warned not to think overmuch about what the demon¡¯s body parts were or whether the things that happened when it was struck made sense. The effects of the chaos clashing with reality couldn¡¯t be predicted by the likes of them. Still. It was hard not to think of that strike as a small victory. And then a gasp came from the Sway standing on one of the protective barriers above them. The fighters didn¡¯t hear her. They didn¡¯t hear Esh-erdi¡ªwho observed their battle from above¡ªask her a question. They didn¡¯t hear her reply. They did notice when the demon died. It happened so fast that most of them weren¡¯t able to see the cracks forming¡ªin a gash on the entity¡¯s back, in every battered or torn leg, in the mad roiling somethingness above it. They formed, widened, broke open. And from every break, more cracks spread. Many of the Avowed had the impression that the demon simply fell apart instantly into a hundred pieces at a hundred seams they hadn¡¯t known existed. And then it continued to crumble as Esh-erdi and Lind-otta dropped down among them. The two Artonans landed on the pile of fragmenting parts that had once moved like a semi-organized beast, and where their feet hit, the remains of the demon shattered like shards of glass. There was another puff of the black sand in the air. The chaos still filled the area, but to those who had the attention to spare for it, its creeping presence seemed to have been suddenly muffled. Esh-erdi said something. Most of the Avowed looked startled. A few stared at him blankly. He looked up toward the magical barrier where the non-combatants stood. Two more wizards, the Sway messenger, a group of Avowed who had not been chosen to participate in this particular fight when the demon had made its appearance, and a blonde woman wearing raspberry colored jeans and a turtleneck sweater. ¡°He says the Contract just informed us via Sway relay that a ship carrying a bomb and a powerful magic device is about to impact the first layer of shielding around Matadero,¡± Aulia Velra said. ¡°Some of your translation earpieces seem to have given out in the chaos. <>¡± ¡°When?¡± someone demanded. ¡°What should we¡ª?¡± <> Lind-otta¡¯s face was turned to the east. <> her partner asked. <> she said. ****** At 12:27 AM, a boat carrying three teenagers, an unconscious man, and two corpses struck the shield around Matadero at a speed unmatchable by any other submarine currently in existence on Earth. The shield around the facility, detecting a powerful assault, repelled them violently. A protective envelope around the vessel vanished in an instant. A Wrightmade bomb exploded. A magical artifact created at least a thousand years before the human species was discovered by wizards was blasted apart, and the contents of it, impacting the shield, triggered a second, more targeted repulsive response. Propelled half by their own un-contained and undirected power and half by the pulse of magic from the shields, countless motes of the fluid substances that had powered the artifact raced through the water toward Anesidora. The sirens were already wailing. Another wave burst against a mirrored wall. It stood firm. ****** ****** ¡°If the cube had fallen, you would not be standing here,¡± Zeridee-und¡¯h said to Alden. ¡°Would I be unconscious in my flyer on the way to Antarctica?¡± ¡°Something like that,¡± she said shamelessly. Alden smiled. ¡°So Haoyu¡¯s dad¡ª¡± She held up a hand. ¡°I won¡¯t promise that everyone at Matadero is unharmed. They have been in battle. And they will stay on site for a while rather than returning to help here right away. If other attacks come, or there is¡­more to deal with in the way of demons¡­it¡¯s essential to have a strong force in place. But nobody was harmed by the attack of the Sinker Sender. ¡°And I¡¯m confident that I would have heard if an Avowed had died fighting the demon. It would have been upsetting to the ones in charge at Matadero right now, and I believe they would have mentioned it when they reported on the situation to the ambassador.¡± ¡°Esh-erdi and Lind-odo?¡± Alden asked. He¡¯d tried to remember the names from his conversation with Stuart. Zeridee peered at him. ¡°She¡­is from the otta family. Yes. Them.¡± ¡°Sorry. I only caught her name once.¡± ¡°How¡­?¡± She looked super confused. The assistant had been so on top of things since the moment Alden had stumbled out of the teleportation alcove and started dripping on the ambassador¡¯s floors that it was fun to startle her. And since she was already convinced that very important knights would be stricken with grief if Alden died, there was no reason for him to act like he was completely out of the loop. ¡°Earlier when you said Evul-art¡¯h had sent me a gift¡­that wasn¡¯t from her. I honestly don¡¯t even know her. We¡¯ve only said a few words to each other, and half of them were her musing on whether or not all humans perspire as much as I do. I¡¯m friends with her brother¡ª¡± ¡°Which brother?¡± Zeridee demanded. She had both eyes on him, and she¡¯d left the button for the magic garbage disposal pressed. The blue flames were flickering higher. ¡°Stu-art¡¯h,¡± said Alden. ¡°You might not even know of him. He¡¯s not a¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re friends?¡± The emphasis she put on ¡®friends¡¯ made Alden pause. ¡°I¡¯d say friends, but I guess other people might think it was more like penpals? We talk on his weekends. We both look forward to it. He sent me the gift you forwarded.¡± My learning cushion. Zeridee finally realized she was incinerating nothing and switched off the flames. She stared down into the sink after they¡¯d faded, then said, ¡°It¡¯s time for us to go to the flyer now.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not going to do those other vials and jars?¡± She had a few lined up that he¡¯d thought were for disposal. ¡°It¡¯s fine if we leave these here. And your friend¡ªyour human roommate I mean, not¡­the Primary¡¯s youngest child¡ªI¡¯m sorry I can¡¯t completely confirm his father¡¯s safety, but you can tell him what I said. I assume that is why you wanted to know?¡± ¡°Yes! Thank you. His mom and dad are both pretty important, so it¡¯s possible he¡¯s already gotten some info, but just in case, can I say you¡¯re almost positive everyone on Matadero is fine? At the moment at least?¡± She finally looked up and nodded. She slapped her hand on top of the safe to release the infogear from its confinement. ¡°Meet me in the greenhouse after you send him your message. I will take your suitcase.¡± As he took the cell phone, she added, ¡°And put that back in the safe when you¡¯re done with it. It won¡¯t work in the flyer or at our destination.¡± She left at a walk slightly faster than her usual businesslike pace, and Alden drafted his message. [Haoyu, glad you¡¯re safe. I¡¯ve been with an Artonan ambassadorial assistant since I left you guys. She says that the facility at Matadero is unharmed by the attack, and that everyone there¡­] ****** Being able to send that felt good, he thought. I hope it gives Haoyu some relief. He took the steps down into the house¡¯s backyard, and headed for the giant greenhouse. The rain was slacking off. There weren¡¯t so many drops pinging against his authority as he and his poncho made their way across the grass. He found Zeridee in the greenhouse under something that looked like a zebra-striped banana plant, about to load his suitcase into a compartment on the bottom of a shiny silver egg. The flyer balanced on the pavement at a forty-five degree angle. It had a clear top that was open just wide enough for a person to squeeze under it, and there was puffy white foam in a chair-ish shape inside. Nothing that looks like an engine to me. I¡¯m guessing we¡¯re all-in on the magic spacecraft here. The escape flyer was definitely a one-seater, but it was spacious enough that it would just be uncomfortable for the two of them to manage, rather than impossible. ¡°I cleansed and dried your clothes before I packed them,¡± Zeridee said. ¡°You found time to do that with everything else going on?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Thanks. That¡¯s¡­¡± ¡°What is it?¡± she asked. ¡°Just a second¡­can I¡­?¡± He hurried over to take the suitcase. ¡°When I was changing, I wasn¡¯t even thinking about it. So much else was going on. I had an Opposite Stone in my pocket. From the Palace of Unbreaking.¡± The jeans were on top, soft and dry. The pockets were empty. ¡°You should run back and check the laundry room,¡± she said. ¡°I was in a hurry, so I may not have noticed the stone falling out. It¡¯s by the kitchen.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯ll be quick!¡± Finding the stone took him just a couple of minutes. It wasn¡¯t in the laundry room, after all, but in the parlor where he¡¯d undressed, lying on the floor. He grabbed it and dashed back through the house. He was back outside and his foot had just hit the grass, when it happened. It was the first time that Alden had ever felt anything like it. And still, he knew what it was. Those ripples washing over him suddenly, so faint but so frightening¡­ He tensed. He tensed. The five senses he¡¯d been born with dulled, and for an instant, he was less a being made of flesh and bone than he ever had been. He didn¡¯t reach out with himself. He didn¡¯t have to. The feeling touched him as Kivb-ee¡¯s first friendly pat once had. And he just¡­understood. Those ripples were caused by another authority that knew how to make the universe move. They were a scream without sound. They were proof of a person flailing and rocking the waters around them in warning, in need, in fear. Zeridee. Alden¡¯s body made itself known to him again as he ran. He saw that one of the gates was open. He¡¯d put a sign on it earlier¡ªso much tape to make sure it held against the weather. He felt the cold hardness of the Opposite Stone in his fist. He smelled the clean scent of rain. He heard a man¡¯s voice shouting. His mouth still tasted like oranges. ****** ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX: Waves II 136 ****** The ambassador¡¯s greenhouse was hot and damp. As soon as Alden had seen it, patchily illuminated tonight by lights dedicated to specific plants, he¡¯d decided that rather than being a place for food production or research like the greenhouses at Joe¡¯s lab, this was an environment meant for the residents of the house and their guests to enjoy. Flowers were everywhere, speckling tangled clumps of vines or shaded beneath foliage that looked otherworldly. A smell like nutmeg and lemons filled the air even though neither of those things was in evidence. Adirondack chairs were positioned in appealing leafy alcoves, and there was a pleasant burbling sound that never stopped, as if to imply a stream was nearby, just out of sight through the leaves. But Alden couldn¡¯t hear the burbling now. His ears were full of the man with the weapon¡ªwhat is it? what¡¯sthat? a tent stake? a garden picket? some ordinary thing. not a Meister tool. it doesn¡¯t look special enough. two foot long. thin. sharp. bloody¡ªshouting at a second man who shoving on the back of the flyer with both hands. Two men. They were standing at the far end, beneath the place where one of the roof panels had been removed for the flyer¡¯s exit. The back door of the greenhouse was open as well as the front, and wind swept through, stirring the plants. Two men. No there are three of them. The third is in the shadows. Lying down. Hurt? Dead? Not moving. ¡°Fuck! The fuck!? ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª wizard ¡ª¡ª¡ª! ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª stunner ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. Fuck!¡± The weapon wielder wasn¡¯t speaking much English, and Alden wasn¡¯t trying to figure out what the other language was. He was barely registering the words he did understand. Too much of his attention was glued to the sharp, bloody thing the man was waving through the air. ¡°Shut up,¡± hissed the other one. ¡°Stop panicking. It¡¯s all good as long as we...as long as¡­fuck if I know! It wasn¡¯t supposed to go this way. With Grigs down, we can¡¯t use his swallow box. How do we move this out of¡­just check on him while I try to get this to roll or something! Fucking aliens making a round object that won¡¯t roll!¡± Behind the babbling one who was shoving on the flyer, Zeridee-und¡¯h was flat on her face. He was almost standing on her long, dark purple braid. Her body was crushing one of the big leaves with the zebra striping. The spot where she lay was dim. Alden couldn¡¯t see her well enough to know what he needed to know. That terrifying, rippling authority cry had cut off so abruptly, right as he¡¯d finished crossing the lawn. Did that mean she was gone? Maybe she¡¯s not hurt too bad. Maybe she¡¯s not. He crouched near the front door of the greenhouse, hiding in a dark corner behind a plant covered in large round berries. He didn¡¯t remember thinking any of the things he must have thought to end up in this position: I need to be quiet. This is dangerous. I can¡¯t let them see me. Get down. His body had run here, driven by adrenaline. It had made him duck behind this plant. And now¡­ What do I do? WhatdoIdo? Think. Thinkthinkthink. His auriad was tangled in the fingers of his left hand. His right was digging in his bag. What am I looking for in here? His fingers closed on origami paper. A protein bar. A temper sphere. ¡°¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª wizard!?¡± ¡°Why do you care if the Artonan guy was a wizard or not? He¡¯s a body now! Shit. A dead Artonan. Damn, you stabbed him good. You¡¯re pretty fast. That¡¯s the Brute in you. Good¡­good work. Ha! I¡¯m shaking so much. Can''t think straight. This is...there might be two bodies.¡± The babbler whipped around for just a second to look at the man on the floor before he went back to pawing at the flyer. ¡°We should¡¯ve just waited until the fucker flew off and searched the house for stuff. We should¡¯ve waited.¡± ¡°I say this! I say this twice!¡± shouted the man with the weapon. ¡°But you say, ¡®By my powers, little spaceship! Once in lifetime! ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- argold!¡¯¡± He swung the weapon at the silvery side of the egg-shaped flyer, and it hit with a clang. ¡°You and Grigs¡ª¡± ¡°Fuck! I know, all right? I know this is a mess. But it¡¯s not my fault! I¡¯m sorry about the stunner. They use ¡®em at the hospital to knock out people who are out of their minds. The guy said it¡¯ll even work on lots of high ranks. I didn¡¯t know it wouldn¡¯t do an Artonan! I hit him three times.¡± Maybe this? Alden thought, fingers closing on the temper sphere. I took the spell impression for situations like this, didn¡¯t I? Distractions. Back when I wanted different things. ¡°They¡¯re not supposed to be martial fucking artists, are they?¡± the babbler said defensively. ¡°This scrawny bastard throat-punched Grigs and took him down like¡ª¡± ¡° ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª!¡± shouted the other one. ¡°Keep your damn voice down! What if somebody hears us in here!?¡± Alden tossed the temper sphere out the door behind him. Into the grass. Now what? It¡¯ll make a loud sound. Does that help at all? Will they run away? What if they don¡¯t? He started lacing the auriad through his fingers. The babbler suddenly threw his shoulder into the flyer and bounced off, wincing. ¡°It¡¯s not my fault. It¡¯s nobody¡¯s fault. We should¡¯ve gone for the Artonan healer¡¯s place. But the Ambassador¡¯s house was supposed to be empty! You heard those people whining about it on the train. This Matadero accident is supposed to be the best thing that ever happened to us! Get at the mother lode instead of scratching around for whatever shit the wizards leave behind in their offices overnight.¡± Alden¡¯s hands were moving. ¡°See if Grigs is still alive! Try to wake him up. If we could get this thing in the swallow box and get it out of here¡­.don¡¯t you understand? We couldn¡¯t get our hands on something like this even if we got summoned. Do you know what kind of money those lucky bastards who bring home nice stuff from the Triplanets can make? This thing could be worth tens of millions!¡± Alden¡¯s auriad was moving. His authority was moving. To do what? What am I going to do with it? He had begun cat¡¯s cradling his way through his most familiar auriad spell with no plan, just a need to not be helpless. Now, a square of striking force was about to be brought into being. Around sixteen inches across on the diagonal. It would hit what he aimed at harder than he could punch or kick. But there are two of them. I can¡¯t do it twice before they reach me. Can I cast and run and cast again? If they look over here¡­ Should I have picked the triangle? No. Not that. I might miss. The flying triangle spell seemed to be more powerful, but the description in Whan-tel¡¯s Art indicated it made a smaller shape. Alden was sure he could cast it, but because he didn¡¯t want to blow a hole through the wall of his bedroom he¡¯d never actually finished it to see exactly what it looked like and what it did. If his aim was bad, if it came out as some adorable little tap instead of the piercing blade he imagined¡­ They stabbed Zeridee. The big one stabbed her with that long metal rod. Because they wanted to steal the flyer. Not even to save themselves. Not because they were scared. What kind of crazy shitbrains would rob wizards? Are they suicidal? Do they think the Artonans won¡¯t care about something important going missing? It sounds like they originally planned to take smaller stuff from the house, but¡­focus. What¡¯s a stunner?The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Second weapon. Some kind of knockout thing. The babbler was wearing a piece of gear on his right arm. Like a metal brace with an attached articulated glove that only covered the back of his hand. Is that it? How strong is it? How strong are they? Should I leave? It was the first time he¡¯d had a thought about fleeing. He processed it in confused bursts as he finished shaping the spell. They¡¯re bad people. They hurt her. More shouting. They think they killed her. The world tilted a little toward his entruster. I need to get her out of here. What would I expect Boe to do? I don¡¯t know. ¡°¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª ! ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Punta!¡± ¡°Yes, I see the disaster alert! I know the neighborhood¡¯s not going to be looked after anymore! That¡¯s why we¡¯re here, and if we leave without getting anything, this is all a fucking waste!¡± I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t know. She¡¯s not dead. They¡¯re not that strong. Last few finger flicks. The spell was building. The universe was about to part for it. Decide, Alden. Shoot it at the babbler who has the stunning weapon. Run outside. Activate the temper sphere. Maybe the screaming will make them think there are more people here. Prep second shot. Maybe they¡¯ll run out to chase me. I¡¯m probably faster than them. Hide in the dark, then sneak back and grab Zeri¡ª A zebra-striped leaf crunched as Zeridee-und¡¯h stirred. She was barely moving, still face-down where she¡¯d fallen. The panicked authority cry started up again. An arm shifted. ¡°He¡¯s moving!!¡± screamed the babbler. ¡°He¡¯s moving! Hit him! Hit him! He¡¯s seen us! He might do a spell!¡± The Brute rounded on the fallen Artonan with a panicked expression and raised his bloody stake over her body. Alden¡¯s attempt at a plan vanished. Square. He stepped out from behind the plants, lifted the auriad, and shot. He aimed for the man¡¯s head.
Everything happened fast. His auriad was back under the sleeve of his sweatshirt, and he was moving. There was no more time for him to think. But maybe because he¡¯d already gotten a little used to watching other Avowed¡ªfaster, stronger Avowed¡ªhe found he could see. Whipping his head around three times a week to check for tennis balls, classmates, and Torsten Klein had given him the impression that danger happened at a pace he could only rarely respond to. By the time you realized you needed to duck, Tuyet had already darted you. Or Klein had already disappeared. Or you were flat on your back, and Astrid was spring-boarding off of your face. But now, Alden managed to reach the two men before they even realized he was in the greenhouse with them. It was two big leaps with Azure Rabbit, and he accidentally knocked over a bucket, and then he was there. They were still scrambling from the first attack. The babbler, obviously under the impression that Zeridee had done something, was shouting, ¡°Wizard! The Artonan is a wizard! Hit him quick! Hit him quick!¡± Rather than helping his friend, he had squeezed himself under the flyer¡¯s cover and into the seat, and he was smashing logograms on the front panel with both hands. The Brute was on the floor behind the vehicle, scrabbling for his weapon. His right arm had been raised, swinging back for an overhand strike when Alden had cast his spell, and it had ended up in a position to catch the brunt of the spell¡¯s impact. Fortunately, he¡¯d dropped the stake. Unfortunately, he was still conscious. ¡°Who the fuck are you!?¡± shouted the one in the flyer as Alden landed beside Zeridee. Alden¡¯s poncho hood had slipped off. He yanked it back over his head, pulled his arms inside, bent toward Zeridee¡ª Motion. He caught just the briefest, corner-of-the-eye glimpse of motion from the Brute behind him. Then the metal stake smashed into his back. Tip first. Right between his shoulder blades. It hit the magic of his skill instead. Alden stuck his arms out from the bottom of the frozen poncho, and grabbed the ambassador¡¯s assistant under the armpits with both hands. She let out a small, high sound of pain. He kept lifting, trying to somehow cover her with the poncho without dropping his skill. I can¡¯t¡­oh shit. He¡¯s coming at me again. He let go of Zeridee. He spun. He kept his body in a crouch. Everything but his face and feet were protected. As long as he didn¡¯t lift his face and give the Brute a shot at¡ª The weapon smashed into the back of his head. He heard the faint sound of its reverberation and then the clanging clatter of it hitting the cement floor and sliding. ¡°I¡¯m a fucking S-rank Adjuster, you psychos!¡± Alden shouted over the sound of them shouting. ¡°You¡¯d better fucking run before I shove icicles down your throats and rip you apart from the inside!!¡± There were so many logical problems with this threat. But it was the first random, violent thing his brain could provide, so out it came. ¡°And this lady is the best wizard on the Triplanets. She blows up gokoratches for fun!¡± He couldn¡¯t see their faces now because that would require him to lift his vulnerable face, but he could see the big guy¡¯s legs, and the man was going for the fallen stake again. Alden bellowed something else about icicles and leaped at the Brute, knocking him to the floor and narrowly avoiding a fall himself. The babbler was still yelling at the flyer like he thought that would make it go. The Brute''s meaty hand managed to wrap around the weapon. As he grasped the stake, Alden kicked out with a foot, aiming for the side of the head only to hit a shoulder and be instantly and painfully reminded that I am wearing the sandals Zeridee got me shit and who has time to care about that he¡¯s trying to kill me kick him again! There was another scream from the man in the flyer, much more agonized than any that had gone before. It cut off abruptly. Alden whipped his head for just long enough to see that the flyer had shut. There was a smear of blood on the transparent roof. The man inside was howling soundlessly. Alden turned back to the more pressing threat, but before he could kick the man again, the dim greenhouse suddenly went brighter than day. The Brute, still kneeling on the floor, grunted and swung at him, and Alden jumped this time because the swing might hit his unprotected legs. Driven by adrenaline and his trait, he jumped way too hard. He almost hit the glass ceiling of the greenhouse. In the air, he had a fraction of a second to see that it was the flyer that was blazing with light, and then the flyer was gone. Up and out, like a bullet racing for the stars. Alden was so blind in the sudden darkness that when he hit the ground and rolled he had almost no sense of where the Brute with the weapon was. He got onto his feet as fast as he could and re-preserved the poncho. The tape that had connected the messenger bag to it had come free at some point, and the bag was swinging against his side now, no longer entrusted or preserved. I can¡¯t see. Gotta get Zeridee and get away. Where¡¯s the¡­? His pulse was so high he could feel it throbbing in his head. As he managed to regain enough vision to make out shapes, he saw a figure kneeling on the concrete. He crouched, prepared to take another hit on his poncho. He waited. And then he realized the figure was smaller than the Brute had been. His eyes adjusted some more. ¡°Zeridee? Are you¡­?¡± The Brute was on the floor beside her. He wasn¡¯t moving. It looked like she had stabbed him through the temple with his own weapon. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said in Artonan, her voice faint. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. They were going to hurt you. I had to send the flyer. You should run.¡±
¡°Entrust yourself to me,¡± Alden insisted, forcing himself to talk gently. He was using Artonan just to be sure she could understand him. ¡°Zeridee, please.¡± She¡¯d slumped onto the floor beside the dead Brute. Alden knelt beside her now, left hand pressed to the bloody spot on the right side of her chest, right hand pressed to the second bloody spot on her abdomen. Does this help? Does this even help? The wounds go through and through. The Brute had stabbed her at least twice. And there was a massive gash on the side of her head. Alden was having a hard time imagining any kind of first aid other than getting her preserved as soon as possible. He pressed harder, and she made a choking noise. ¡°Entrust yourself to me,¡± he repeated in the calm voice. Her blood was hot and slick. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid,¡± she said. ¡°This man isn¡¯t dead.¡± It was the second time she¡¯d said that. Only one of her eyes was focused on Alden¡¯s face. The other was drifting around aimlessly. She¡¯s really confused from the head injury. ¡°Entrust yourself to me.¡± ¡°He is only sleeping,¡± Zeridee whispered. ¡°That other man is only sleeping, too.¡± No. She¡¯s confused, but not in the way I think. The Artonan woman was trying to give him loving lies. Like he was a child. ¡°I believe you,¡± said Alden. He didn¡¯t spare a single glance for the Brute lying a few inches away with a metal spike shoved through his skull. ¡°You helped the bad men go to sleep. I¡¯m not scared. Can I pick you up?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry I had to give the other man your escape flyer. You have to leave the house now.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all right. We¡¯ll leave together.¡± ¡°He will not die of blood loss before he reaches the Amazon. It didn¡¯t hurt him much when his arm was ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª by the flyer¡¯s ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª.¡± She meant it hadn¡¯t hurt the babbler much when the ship¡¯s hood had closed on his arm, severing it almost to the shoulder. It was the one with the magical equipment on it, and it was lying on the pavement nearby. Alden assumed the one-armed man who was now blasting toward South America in an escape flyer that didn¡¯t belong to him had been sticking the limb out of the vessel, about to fire the thing he had called a stunner at Alden¡¯s back. If it can take out high ranks it might have burst through my poncho. Or tired me out enough that the Brute¡¯s next strike did. And then we¡¯d both be dead. Zeridee must have managed to give the vehicle some kind of ¡°go¡± command through her eye rings. ¡°Ah,¡± he said, ¡°so one of my teleportation site guesses was right. We were going to go the Amazon together. That would¡¯ve been fun.¡± Zeridee took a breath. Does it seem like more of a struggle than her last one? Am I imagining that? Both of her eyes met his briefly before the left one wandered off again. ¡°You go to a ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª now,¡± she said. ¡°Hurry.¡± He assumed that was a synonym for shelter that he hadn¡¯t learned yet. Is she having a good moment? He stared hard into her focused eye. ¡°Zeridee, I will run faster if you are alive. My skill and trait will only work if you come with me. Can I carry you?¡± She blinked the eye. ¡°I will run faster if I carry you,¡± he said slowly. He thought it might be true. But probably not. He would run faster at the outset for sure if he was using his skill, but he wasn¡¯t actually sure whether or not he would lose entrustment if his entruster died. And he would also tire faster carrying her weight. Loving lies can go both ways. ¡°I will be much faster if you let me carry you,¡± he said. ¡°Can I carry you?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± she said. That¡¯s an agreement! He stopped pressing his hands to her wounds and reached for her braid. ¡°Is there medicine that will help you in the house? Is there something like my special medicine bag there? One for Artonans?¡± ¡°This man is just sleeping.¡± ¡°I believe you. Is there medicine for Artonans in the house? Will any of the medicine in my bag help you?¡± ¡°Yes. In the ¡ª¡ª¡ª. Upstairs.¡± In the roof? The underroof? Is that a word for attic? Is searching for it the right move? He pulled the braid forward over her face. Her hair was thick, and soft where it wasn¡¯t damp with blood. He tucked the purple tuft at the end into the waistband of her pants, then lifted the braid at the middle to make¡­well, it was a great carrying strap. If everyone came equipped with their own personal ropes, my life would be much easier. ¡°Thank you, Zeridee. You saved our lives. You¡¯re amazing. Everything¡¯s going to be all right.¡± *********** *********** ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN: Waves III 137 ****** ¡°You¡¯re pretty heavy, Zeridee.¡± Alden spoke quietly, but his voice seemed loud and out of place in the greenhouse. Just minutes ago, people had been screaming here. Alden had been screaming. His body was still a little shaky from the aftereffects of what had happened. I don¡¯t even know what to call it. Must have been the ¡°fight¡± half of fight or flight mode. Now, there was only the gentle burble of a stream that didn¡¯t exist and the plap-plap sound of water dripping through the open ceiling panel onto the empty patch of floor where the flyer had been. For just a few seconds more, he took stock of it all. Zeridee¡¯s torso was against his chest. Her weight was carried by his back and shoulders when he let his arms fall away from her, thanks to the strap he¡¯d made out of her long braid. The Artonan woman was around five feet tall¡ªa usual height for adults of her species. He could already tell that carrying her was going to get difficult sooner than he¡¯d like. Now that she was wrapped in the protective magic created by his skill, he could haul her around however he wanted. Throw her over a shoulder; balance her on my head if I have to. I can do it. I¡¯ll manage. His right foot throbbed. He was sure he¡¯d broken a toe or two. Kicking another person as hard as you could while you were wearing sandals was probably some kind of brawling faux pas. He was less sure about the blood slicking the end of the sandal. It might have been his own, possibly from one of the busted toes. But he hadn¡¯t examined himself for injuries until just now. He couldn¡¯t see the foot well without going to a lot of trouble and shifting Zeridee around. And there were so many other possible sources of blood in the room. One dead Brute. One severed arm. One stabbed and battered Artonan. His gaze landed on the man who¡¯d been lying in the shadows ever since Alden had reached the greenhouse. The one they¡¯d called Grigs. Briefly, the thought of checking him for a pulse passed through Alden¡¯s head, but he dismissed it. If the man was dead, there was no point. If he was faking death, then he might spring up and attack once he was found out. And if he was unconscious, Alden didn¡¯t have the time or strength to spare to help him. Right now he needed to move. In some direction. Fast. All right. I don¡¯t know what the best thing to do is¡­so familiar. I never know what to do when things get really, really bad, do I? Just try not to be a complete dumbass. Dawdling around here at the crime scene and worrying about the level of deadness of one of the corpses would take time. There were Artonan-safe drugs in the house, but finding them would take time. Time was limited. The first warning that the Avowed assigned to protect and assist in this neighborhood were about to leave had come while Alden was returning the Great Dane to her owner. The last train was already gone. Alden had seen the Speed Brute who¡¯d been checking homes down by the waterfront heading out to clear the next residential area that was being evacuated. But he wasn¡¯t the only red halo around. There were a couple more. And I just saw someone. Down by the water. The person with the halo and the shining staff who he¡¯d guessed was an Adjuster doing some kind of tool-enhanced spellwork. I know the red halo means, ¡°Don¡¯t talk to me; I¡¯m busy,¡± but come on. It¡¯s not like I have a small problem. He moved. Out of the greenhouse, as fast as he reasonably could without dropping Zeridee. His foot bumped into something in the grass as he left, and he realized it was his temper sphere. That was a plan that went absolutely nowhere. Irritated and unwilling to stop or bend over with his burden for an enchanted object that just wasn¡¯t that useful in the present situation, he kicked it upwards with the edge of one sandal in a completely half-hearted attempt to retrieve it. The small glass orb flew up. He took a step and snagged it easily with his left hand. Typical, he thought as he hurried around the side of the ambassadorial residence and headed for the front. I break my toes kicking a Brute, and I¡¯m lucky I didn¡¯t break more than that when I landed from that stupidly high jump earlier, but I¡¯m poetry in motion when it comes to retrieving a six hundred dollar golf ball I don¡¯t really need. He reached the street and looked around. The single narrow lane here was incongruously cute, given the situation. It was paved with brick and closed to any motor vehicle that didn¡¯t belong to the residents of the houses that lined it. A light designed to look like an old-fashioned gas lamp flickered over Alden¡¯s head. Even the bicycle racks in the neighborhood were hidden by trellises or in little nooks, and the ones he¡¯d found on his trips back and forth earlier had all been empty. He resisted the urge to go check the rack a few houses down in case a bicycle or electric scooter had miraculously appeared there. Instead, he headed for the staircase that led all the way down the hillside to the boardwalk. Moving toward the ocean felt bad, but the red halo had been there. How long had it been since Alden had spotted them? He¡¯d talked to Zeridee for such a short while in the bar, sent the text to Haoyu, shut the phone back in the safe, headed out to the greenhouse¡­ They¡¯d been ready to leave. It¡¯s been fifteen minutes at the most. Please still be there. The air bit at him as he went down the stairs. He kept one hand on the wet railing because if there was ever a time not to trip over his own feet this was it. Halfway down, breeze block walls separated the staircase from the tile-roofed cottages on either side. The houses were almost all dark. The ones with lights still shining in the windows were just as empty as the others, but he couldn¡¯t help looking at them a little harder, eager for signs of life. A painted iron archway at the bottom of the stairs welcomed him to Punta de la Luna, and his feet hit the boardwalk for the first time. It was wide and windy. A fence of interwoven ropes separated the edge of the promenade from the sea below. More fake gas lamps flickered beside a couple of storefronts, but there were brighter lights here, too, keeping the whole boardwalk illuminated. To his left, a few dozen meters away, a bank of binoculars on poles pointed south. They looked like the kind of things that could be used to view F-city and The Span in daylight. To his right, there were more businesses, including the only bed and breakfast he¡¯d ever noticed on Anesidora. Where¡¯s the red halo? They were right here earlier. If they¡¯re still around, they would be near the water, wouldn¡¯t they? ¡°Hello!¡± he shouted. Then, deciding that wasn¡¯t the right greeting under the circumstances, ¡°HELP!¡± When no reply came, he cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted it again. Nothing. Bad. This is bad. He looked back behind him, up the hill. It¡¯s going to be a really hard walk if that red halo isn¡¯t here anymore. I can¡¯t stay down here by the water for long, but if I could just get linked up with some rescuers¡­ The fastest way out of this was finding someone to help, even if they couldn¡¯t stop their work to actively save Zeridee. If all they did was call ahead through some infogear to tell a law enforcement officer with a car to wait for Alden up ahead, so that he had a destination in mind that wasn¡¯t miles from here, it would be enough to make this awful situation manageable. If the red halo was on foot, casting final spells prior to abandoning the area, he or she had most likely headed north along the boardwalk. Assuming their work was something like Plopstar¡¯s and they needed access to the ocean to push back the contaminant, they wouldn¡¯t have left the waterside. There¡¯s still a chance of running into them. We¡¯ll try just until we reach the end of the boardwalk. It wasn¡¯t that far. Heart pounding, he turned to the right and headed north, hugging the fronts of the buildings, not at all eager to get any closer to the ocean than he already was. He shouted for help every ten strides.He also opened a message window and started mental texting the System. It was busy teleporting people, preventing that low probability of chaos exposure from turning into a high one, and, apparently, hunting for terrorists who wanted to unleash demons on Earth. But now that his own need for salvation was looking pretty damn urgent, he was less worried about bothering it. [This is Alden. I¡¯ve got a dying Artonan strapped to my chest, and we¡¯re in Punta de la Luna, and my flyer has left with the wrong person on board so if you¡¯ve taken me off your to-be-assisted list for the night please put me back on it.] [Thank you.] [I know you¡¯re having a rough time. I¡¯m sure that a few million Avowed are asking you for stuff right now, and the Artonans are probably putting a lot of pressure on you to figure out what¡¯s up with the Matadero incident. I don¡¯t want to distract you much, but some sign that you¡¯re reading my messages would be great.] [You¡¯re doing a really good job, and I appreciate you.] [Perhaps my hostility during our last meeting is on your mind. You know that I do approve of your work. Big fan. I don¡¯t even need a teleport. Those are more trouble for you, right? Just a quick text message to the nearest person capable of helping me will be fine.] He got nothing. Alden couldn¡¯t decide if he was just unhappy that it wouldn¡¯t answer him, or if he was actually a little surprised. There were still active disaster alerts that he could access with a thought. One of them said that nonessential services were halted. One said all personal requests for teleportation would be ignored. He could read just fine. I kind of thought it might be paying extra attention to me anyway. He knew he wasn¡¯t the most important person running around Anesidora right now, but he¡¯d hoped the commendation that had earned him the early teleport might also earn him conversation privileges above and beyond the usual in dire circumstances. Apparently not. Unless it just doesn¡¯t like me. That idea wasn¡¯t welcome at all. The Earth System had indicated it was incapable of having feelings toward its Avowed¡­except on bad days. What if I¡¯m on its shit list? Oh, hell. Of course I am. Think of how much easier its life, or whatever it has that passes for a life, would be if I just dropped dead. Now that he¡¯d had the thought, Alden could come up with far too many ways him disappearing would appeal to the System if the System was in a mood. I¡¯m fucking weird, and it¡¯s got to expend energy thinking about how to handle me. The Artonans didn¡¯t equip it with rules for one of its Avowed waking up to his own presence and authority. I¡¯m going to refuse to do the one thing it really wants me to do until the last minute every single time it asks. And when it finally does get my permission¡­ Alden didn¡¯t like to think about the process of affixation. But he had a lot of reason to believe his future ones had become more expensive in that way Systems seemed to care about. Joe had once said the Contracts didn¡¯t want to force affixations on Avowed in part because they were ¡°hell on the budget.¡± Even with Alden fully agreeing on Artona I and having been as thoroughly warned about the nature of it as he could have been¡­ ¡°You will fight back, and you will lose.¡± His stomach rolled. Well, that¡¯s one way to take my mind off the present problem. But getting back to it¡ªthe Earth Contract is probably reading my texts and feeling something like hope. I bet it¡¯s watching the special snowflake that only exists because a whole bunch of aliens involved themselves in ways they shouldn¡¯t have, and it¡¯s chanting, ¡°Melt, melt, melt!¡± There were probably other reasonable explanations, ones that didn¡¯t attribute quite so much hostile glee to the System. But whether Alden was being unfair or not, it didn¡¯t change the fact that he wasn¡¯t getting any answers. [You¡¯re doing a really good job, and I appreciate you,] he texted again. He hoped that made it feel guilty about the chanting. ****** The boardwalk ended. A paved walkway connected it to a street that was just as lifeless as everywhere else. ¡°Crap,¡± Alden whispered, looking around desperately for any sign of red. ¡°Okay. Okay¡­ Zeridee, I said we were only going to come this far, and we¡¯ve come this far, and now we just do the next thing.¡±The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Two choices. The first was to keep going. Inland. Hope he found people soon. The second was to run back to the house, find the first aid kit, and jab Zeridee with something that might stave off blood loss. Hope there was something else in there that would give her prolonged mental clarity. Talk to her until she understood she needed to call for help through her eye rings ¡°These are both awful choices. They are pure shit.¡± Just do something fast. You don¡¯t have time to think. The choice that felt the most terrifying was going back to the house. What if he did that and searched the attic and couldn¡¯t find the medicine? Did he give up after ten minutes? Twenty? Half an hour? What if he found it, but it didn¡¯t have the same variety of supplies he¡¯d seen in his own kit? What if he misjudged Artonan biology and waking Zeridee-und¡¯h up for a few minutes and letting her bleed out a bit more killed her? ¡°We¡¯re going on foot,¡± he said. ¡°Unless that food truck over there has keys in it. Then I¡¯m going to learn to drive a food truck with a frozen person on my lap.¡± The food truck was in a small parking area up ahead. It wasn¡¯t any closer to the water than he already was. Fine. Alden hurried toward it, moving at a lope now that his feet were on something that qualified as ground again. A wave crashed, and the wind whipped some moisture against his cheek. He didn¡¯t think about it. He was too busy silently praying that some trusting and good-hearted food truck owner kept a key tucked into the visor. Then, he saw the shine of a thin layer of water crossing the street up ahead. He stopped and spun. As far as he could see ahead of him and behind him in the dark, the ocean was oozing ashore. ¡°No!¡± He gave up on the truck in an instant and ran as fast as he could down the street, Zeridee¡¯s body a painful weight that he gripped in both arms to steady himself. Nonono. Even the seaspray is enough to carry it? Is that how it works? The same crashing wave that had thrown water up into the air just now and touched his cheek must have spread a fine mist over half of everything in sight. If just a speck of that Sinker Sender device¡¯s remnants was enough to call water ashore to submerge whatever it had touched¡­ Alden hit a cross street and turned up it. Don¡¯t look back again. You and Boe always talk about how people who do that in chase scenes are just slowing themselves down. Keep running. He didn¡¯t stop until his thighs and calves were burning. He didn¡¯t stop until he was blocks inland and blocks northward, a little farther along than the place where he¡¯d found the man in the tuxedo earlier. He collapsed onto a bus stop bench, gasping for air and clutching Zeridee to him, careful not to let her rest on the bench itself so that he didn¡¯t lose preservation on her. All right, he thought. It¡¯s all right to breathe. That¡¯s got to be far enough for now. He leaned back and stared at the curved roof above him, lungs aching. Sprinting with an adult is incredibly different from marathoning with a Kibby backpack. I knew that. But everything hurts already. Just need a minute to catch my breath. Then I can keep going and keep yelling for help. Telling himself that it was fine to take a minute to think here was at least a little bit of a lie. He wasn¡¯t sure it was fine, but he was sure his body wasn¡¯t going to cooperate with the panic pace he¡¯d just tried to set. So we know some things now. Water¡¯s coming. Red halos seem to have left the area. Wow, what an amazing job they did of helping all the sensible people get away. Haven¡¯t seen a soul except for stupid asshole murderers who were trying to take advantage of all the normal people being gone. He blinked a few times. Someone tried to kill me a little while ago. None of the expected emotions were connected to the idea at all. A man took a metal rod and tried to drive it through my back. He hit me on the back of the head with it, hard enough to crack open my skull. The whole fight in the greenhouse felt like something that hadn¡¯t really happened. Alden didn¡¯t think he was blocking it out because it was traumatic. He remembered it all with clarity. But the event had been so sudden and impersonal. He¡¯d realized something bad was happening. Then he was in it. Then it was over. Sitting here at this bus stop on this abandoned street with the System ignoring him and the water turning dangerous again was taking a bigger emotional toll. He looked down at Zeridee, shifting her so he could see her face under the braid. Sometimes¡ªusually, if he was being honest¡ªthe people he carried this way looked uncanny even to him. But she¡¯d closed her eyes or blinked right before she was preserved. Her expression was soft, probably because she¡¯d been in the midst of trying to comfort him with her loving lies. If he didn¡¯t think about the bloody gash on her head, she looked like she was asleep. Actually asleep. Not ¡°sleeping¡± like the guy with the stake through his brain. ¡°What a total badass,¡± he said. ¡°They sneaked up on you and shot you with that thing, then they stabbed you, and you still beat them. I only helped a little there at the end. Do you do double duty as trained security for the ambassadors or something?¡± She¡¯d been scared. What was that scream I felt, Zeridee? Are you a wizard? She wasn¡¯t dressed in the kind of clothes working wizards often wore, but that could have been her trying to fit in with humans. She also didn¡¯t seem to have any of the stuff that adult wizards came equipped with, though. She hadn¡¯t whipped out a wand or a pile of potions or an auriad. No rings on her fingers. And she definitely hadn¡¯t cast any spells that Alden had noticed. Did she feel me cast a spell? He was under the impression that spellcasting might be detectable by people more experienced than him. He sometimes had a vague awareness of his own spells happening after he¡¯d sent out the command. It seems pretty subtle to me, but that doesn¡¯t mean it is to everyone. Normally he wouldn¡¯t have worried. All Avowed did magic. Wizards did magic. If magical noise was a thing, then they were on an island full of it. But if you suddenly reduced the number of people in the area to almost nobody, could a wizard tell you¡¯d cast something? He hoped she hadn¡¯t noticed. He hoped he¡¯d managed to get away with using the auriad in public. The ambassador¡¯s video monitoring all seemed to be focused on exterior locations, and he¡¯d been inside a greenhouse full of wall-to-wall plants. He didn¡¯t think he¡¯d been filmed. Nothing I can do about it now if I¡¯m wrong. He waited for his breathing to slow, and took another minute to search through his new medical kit. If he needed to take something in it, he didn¡¯t want to have to be fishing around in his bag and trying to read labels while he ran. As he stuffed a different injector into each one of the pockets on his shorts, he became aware of a strange sound. It was distant, and he couldn¡¯t quite tell where it was coming from. A grumbling roar. Not a sound that belongs here, he thought. Not a sound I¡¯ve heard before. I wonder¡­ If a lot of water came ashore, Alden thought it might sound a little bit like that. ¡°Time to go,¡± he said quietly. He wrapped an arm around Zeridee¡¯s shoulders and stood with a grunt. ¡°You really are pretty heavy.¡± ****** Alden walked for several minutes, periodically prodding the System and calling out for help. He passed another closed train station. I just have to keep going. There will be other people up ahead. This isn¡¯t Thegund. The similarities are getting extremely uncomfortable. But the System exists. I am in a highly populated location full of Avowed. The world isn¡¯t corrupted, and I¡¯m not alone. It felt an awful lot like he was. Just a little while ago, I was talking to people and helping people. I was making signs that people were reading. They¡¯re around. I will find someone. He went a few more blocks. He checked three cars and a vehicle that looked like a homemade jeep, but they were all locked. He walked down the middle of a street, trying to stay highly visible, but the helicopter that passed far overhead seemed to have a task that didn¡¯t involve looking for stray Rabbits. And when it detected him with its sensors, the boxy food delivery drone he found sitting outside of a laundromat just repeated the same ¡°Disaster Alert¡± messages he was getting from the System. ¡°I know I need to stay away from water!¡± he snapped at it. ¡°I¡¯m trying!¡± He¡¯d hoped that if he approached the drone and it saw a person where one shouldn¡¯t be it would send some kind of message to emergency responders. It¡¯s fine. Every step I take makes us safer. He was in a very residential area still, one that was under full evacuation orders, but he was out of the Punta de la Luna neighborhood. As he headed around the curve of the crescent, Apex would widen. The coasts would be more distant. Flood waters would have to travel farther to reach him. I can¡ªwhat¡¯s that? ¡°That¡¯s a headlight!¡± Up ahead, coming toward him, was the single headlight of a motorcycle. Alden leaped away from the drone and stood fully in the middle of the street, waving both his arms over his head in what he was sure was a universal symbol for, ¡°Stop. I need help.¡± Thank you, thank you. You¡¯re going the wrong direction for some reason, but you¡¯re going really fast. If you could just pick us up and carry us forward for two or three minutes, into an area with some people¡­ The motorcycle slowed down as the rider, a dark-haired woman in a soggy sweater and jeans, spotted him. Warm relief mixed with excitement coursed through Alden. ¡°Please, we really need a¡ª!¡± She shook her head, looked away, picked up speed again, and was gone. ¡°No!¡± Alden shouted after her. ¡°No! Come back!¡± The taillight turned a corner in the distance and disappeared. What? She saw me. She totally saw me carrying a hurt person. We looked each other in the eye. She seemed to be thinking about stopping. But she hadn¡¯t. Maybe¡­maybe she¡¯ll come back. His stomach clenched. He held Zeridee in a crushing grip as he stared at the place where the motorcycle had disappeared. It didn¡¯t return. She¡¯s probably got her own problems tonight. And no room on her plate for one more. She could¡¯ve been on her way to find her lover, her parents, or her friends. She might just have been a little too scared of him to stop. He was carrying a bloody, stiff Artonan down the street. Maybe he looked dangerous. Alden understood all of that. He didn¡¯t know why it felt like he¡¯d just taken the most devastating blow of the entire terrible night. She looked like she cared, and then she didn¡¯t. I wish she¡¯d tried to stab me in the back instead. That strange thought was followed by another, even stranger one. I was supposed to die months ago. I wrote a will with Alis-art¡¯h. I thought I was saying goodbye to Kibby forever. And then I made it back. Maybe wanting to survive one more disaster is greedy of me. Maybe being the guy who pulls it off again isn¡¯t in the cards. He stared down at the pavement. ¡°Jeez,¡± he whispered. ¡°Melodramatic and morbid, just like that? It¡¯s not nearly that bad. So stupid.¡± He ordered his legs to move him forward and they did. At least that¡¯s something. ****** Alden kept walking, trying to knock himself out of his sudden and very unhelpful funk by talking to Zeridee and jabbing himself with an injector that reduced physical pain. ¡°You did such a great job prepping the med kit. I¡¯m glad it has non-total pain reducers in it. Those things are wild, but breaking bones and not even knowing you did it is overkill. I would like to live my whole life without ever being in a situation where I need something like that.¡± He went on talking about nothing and looking over his shoulder every time he heard a noise that might have been the motorcyclist returning. ¡°You know, she¡¯s probably already on her way back. Bet she took a different street so that she didn¡¯t have to see us here struggling along¡­¡± He trailed off. There it was again. That strange roaring sound. To my left. He had been periodically marking sturdy structures with his eyes. Just in case. He¡¯d just passed by the last one¡ªa building full of rentable studio spaces for artists. It didn¡¯t have ground floor windows and it had six floors. That was about as good as it got right here. The sound¡¯s getting louder, thought Alden. And it¡¯s doing it much too fast. ****** ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT: Waves IV 138 ****** Up. Go up. Alden didn¡¯t know for sure what was coming or if it would even reach him. He had no idea if now was the right time to abandon his horizontal evacuation in favor of a vertical one. The only place he was sure would be safe was the interior of a flyer that was currently bound for South America. In the absence of that vehicle, and with his public school education having failed to prepare him to escape from oceanic anomalies caused by magical contaminants, he was going to have to go with Plan C. For ¡°caveman.¡± Big scary sound is getting louder. Hide from it. He increased his speed and hustled back the way he¡¯d just come from, jogging past a row of oddly gothic-looking townhouses. As he hurried across the next street, flashing pedestrian warning lights automatically switched on, bathing the crosswalk yellow. One of the safest-looking buildings he¡¯d seen since he left The Span was on the corner. A stretch of concrete wall, painted white, led him to a door that had seemed appealingly sturdy when he passed it earlier. It was a tall, wide rectangle designed to look like a jigsaw puzzle made of colored pieces of metal. Some of them had slightly different elevations, giving the door a textured appearance. Now that I want to get in, it looks too damn sturdy. Alden had a couple of sketchy ideas about how he would break and enter, but he¡¯d much rather it just be unlocked. If I can¡¯t get this opened, I just break into one of the houses instead. That¡¯s all there is to do. The roaring still filled his ears. He couldn¡¯t tell if it was growing anymore, but it was way too loud for his liking. This can¡¯t be good. Either some Avowed is using really heavy-duty magic, or the ocean is eating things oceans shouldn¡¯t eat. He thrust his hand toward the extra large puzzle piece that served as a knob. Nothing happened when he turned it in either direction. Don¡¯t panic. Just try¡ª ¡°Hi there! Bienvenue!¡± ¡°Ack!¡± Alden took a step back and clutched Zeridee with both arms as a smiling cartoon seal animation suddenly appeared on the wall by the door. It waved a flipper at him. ¡°Welcome to Apogee Artist Spaces! You can use your studio 24/7. Just input your personal puzzle code to gain entry.¡± What the heck does a talking seal have to do with anything? ¡°I don¡¯t have a code,¡± Alden said quickly, staring the seal in the eyes. ¡°But it¡¯s an emergency. Could you open the door?¡± The seal giggled and performed a swimming back flip. ¡°Art is fun!¡± Crap. ¡°You¡¯re not equipped to respond, are you? I¡¯m talking to pixels.¡± It clapped its flippers. ¡°You can rent our studios by the month! We even have boom rooms! Just call Kimmy T¡ª¡± Alden tuned it out and carefully adjusted his grip on Zeridee, trying to make sure he was holding her in a way that wouldn¡¯t hurt. She¡¯s been stabbed. However you hold her is going to hurt. Just try to talk to her fast. He let the preservation fall from the assistant for the first time since he¡¯d lifted her. Zeridee didn¡¯t make a sound, but the sudden re-animation of her features turned the illusion of peaceful sleep into something more pained. Her eyes opened. ¡°You¡¯re all right,¡± Alden said in Artonan, trying to enunciate. ¡°I¡¯m all right. I need to open a door. I think if I use my skill on the door for a second, it might open. Can I have this door?¡± She stared at him with one eye. The other was pointing straight up. Blood from her head injury was trickling down toward her ear. ¡°Some of the doors in the residence are expensive,¡± she whispered. ¡°Why do you want them?¡± Alden swallowed. Stay calm. Act sane. Don¡¯t freak her out. ¡°We¡¯re not in the ambassador¡¯s residence. I¡¯m taking us both to a place that I think is safe. This is another door. You don¡¯t mind me using my skill on it, do you?¡± ¡°Those men are sleeping.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad they are. May I have this door? Or even just the knob?¡± ¡°Why?¡± More warm blood was slicking his hands. Shit. I can¡¯t do this to her. One more try. Then we re-preserve her. ¡°If I use my skill on this door, it might open. I hope it leads to a safe place. May I?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Great! ¡°Alden Ryeh-b¡¯t, I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have allowed you¡ª¡± He slapped his hand to the puzzle knob, attempting to activate preservation on both Zeridee and the door simultaneously. Her words were cut off in an instant. As for the door¡­ There was no way Alden could actually preserve it while it was attached to its frame. Maybe with a lot of mental gymnastics that he didn¡¯t have time for, he could convince himself the building was an enemy trying to assault the door or something. But for now, he was just hoping that his intent to take the object into his keeping would be clear enough that the skill would still count it as his. Tag, puzzle door. You¡¯re under my care now even if you haven¡¯t gotten the full preserve. Beneath his feet, a subtle vibration ran through the pavement. That¡­had to be really bad. Get inside. Get up high, he told himself as he frantically searched the door, looking for enchantments. There was a better than fifty percent chance, in his opinion, of the door being some kind of Wrightmade magical artwork. The alternative was it being regular tech. If it was magical artwork, there should be some enchanted components involved. He didn¡¯t see anything at first, and he almost jumped right to his backup plan¡ªtrying to use his skill on just the doorknob over and over to see if he could interrupt an imagined electric locking mechanism. But then his own heavy breathing and the feel of his bloody, sweaty palm slipping against the knob made him reconsider. Enchantments might be there. You might just be in the wrong headspace to see them. You need to take a little bit of time and look harder. The sensitivity part of the ¡°defogging package¡± he¡¯d chosen to enhance The Bearer of All Burdens with during his last affixation wasn¡¯t one he¡¯d had all that much opportunity to train. He was a pro at seeing enchantments on NesiCards when he was calm and focused, but that didn¡¯t mean he could take it for granted that he was picking up on everything there was to see about this door. Give it just sixty seconds. Sixty seconds of focus. The ground was still vibrating. Ignore it. Alden tried to make his next breath slow and steady. He pressed his hand to the knob harder. Okay. You¡¯ve been entrusted to me. All of you. What does all of you include? What are you besides just a door? He asserted his skill as much as he could while he stared at the entrance, not trying to use any particular feature of his bound authority, just aligning himself with his affixation a little more. He was only capable of giving the process a measly fraction of his attention; it was nothing compared to the effort he¡¯d dedicated to aligning himself the other night, when he¡¯d spent ages contemplating his targeting ability and making peace with himself so that he could find the mug of soup Haoyu had hidden. But to his surprise and relief, even a little effort made a difference here. A new aspect of the door suddenly came into view. The knob beneath Alden¡¯s hand gleamed with a network of magic, similar to the enchantments he saw when he looked at temper spheres or the chips on entrusted NesiCards. And he could now feel that piece of the enchantment under his palm, like a patch of warmth. Defogging package is really being awesome tonight. Taking another breath, determined not to lose his head or shift his attention, he examined the rest of the door. Smaller knots of enchantment shone on several of the puzzle pieces¡ªthe ones that were elevated or recessed compared to the others. All of them had hair-thin magical connections to the door¡¯s knob. The giggling seal said to input my code for entry. Those pieces must all be buttons people press to open this thing. He thought trying to pull the enchantment from a single piece would be a bad move. It might do nothing at all. Pulling the whole thing and de-magicking the door entirely seemed like the surest option. He was a little worried about the strain on his skill, though. Enchantments were harder than objects, and with Zeridee preserved, it would be a double run on top of that. I don¡¯t think it¡¯ll be nearly enough to wear me out, but¡­ Fast. Just do it fast. Take enchantment. Turn doorknob. Done. ¡°Please work,¡± he murmured. He made a pinching motion against the doorknob, like he was trying to pluck a cobweb from it, and activated his preservation again, this time with the intention of bearing only the enchantment and giving up his claim to the rest of the door. But all of the enchantment. I want to hold the whole enchantment. The network of light pulled free of the door and wrapped itself around his hand and a few inches of forearm. He could feel it there, under the sleeve of the sweatshirt. And he gasped as he realized it was taking way more effort to hold than temper sphere enchantment. ¡°Shit!¡± Alden grabbed the freshly de-magicked knob, turned, and yanked. The door swung open. In too much of a rush to be grateful, he stepped through and dropped his hold on the stolen enchantment the second his feet were over the threshold. Heart pounding, hand still on the knob, he looked at what he¡¯d done. He could feel the warmth of the restored enchantment beneath his palm again, and he could see it on the puzzle piece buttons¡­some of them anyway. They seemed dimmer, and most of threads connecting the different pieces to the knob were missing.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Pretty sure I¡¯ve broken it. He let go, pushed the door shut, and took a step back. A couple of seconds later, the door clicked as if it was locking itself. Then it clicked again. And a few more times. ¡°Yeah. That¡¯s definitely broken.¡± He hoped the cool door wasn¡¯t someone¡¯s magnum opus. Something to feel sorry about on another, better day. One when he would also have time to appreciate the fact that he had just confirmed he could use his skill to bust magical locks. ****** It took Alden a few seconds to get his bearings, but it probably wouldn¡¯t have taken even that long if he wasn¡¯t so stressed. The building seemed to have a simple layout. The lights were on as well as the heating. It was toasty warm, bright, and quiet. The roaring was undetectable, but he doubted it had just stopped at the exact moment the door shut. The walls must have been thick enough to block the sound. That could only be a good thing. He carried Zeridee down a hallway lined with with doors on both sides. Some of them had nameplates. One had a ¡°Boom Room 4 - Available¡± sign on it. What¡¯s a boom room? He associated funny names with ¡°boom¡± in them with Wrights who worked with dangerous materials, not artists. He reached the building¡¯s elevator and pushed the call button. Should I be looking for stairs? Getting stuck in an elevator would make a bad night worse. But climbing six flights of stairs with his injured passenger wouldn¡¯t be much faster and would wear him out even more. While he waited, he watched the animated seal on a nearby wall screen. It was swimming around in a bright blue ocean and using its nose to bump balls covered in notices and news toward him for him to read. Someone was looking for unpaid collaborators, models in the 3-6 Appeal point range were wanted for a fashion show in the spring, and a ¡°living sculpture experience¡± would take place in the sixth-floor gallery tomorrow night. There would be hors d¡¯oeuvres. ¡°Your elevator¡¯s here!¡± said the seal. ¡°Have a creative day!¡± Alden stepped into the elevator. As if to mock him, it turned out to be a painfully slow one. He tried not to imagine a giant wave barreling toward him while he watched the floor numbers change one by one. When a ding finally announced his arrival at the top, he stepped off to find himself in the promised gallery. ¡°Well¡­this is unnecessarily creepy.¡± The whole sixth floor was a wide open space except for columns that supported the roof, and it was lined with windows on all four sides. The entire room was full of sculptures, almost all of them featuring life-sized human figures who were reaching out in various ways as if to interact with people who weren¡¯t there. That would¡¯ve been eerie on its own, but none of the main overhead lights were turned on. Instead, about half of the sculptures featured their own custom lighting arrangements that left faces, hands, or other body parts aglow while everything else in the room was in shadow. And the sound that had sent him fleeing was audible here again, thanks to all the glass. Alden ignored the outstretched arms and knowing expressions on the statues¡¯ faces while he walked toward the windows that overlooked the street he¡¯d just left. He stared down, waiting. Nothing. His body wouldn¡¯t relax. He stood there, on the alert for a glimpse of the villain he¡¯d imagined. Gradually, signs of wrongness appeared. They weren¡¯t down on the street, but some distance ahead¡ªin the direction he¡¯d been traveling in and to the left, around where the western coast was on this tip of the crescent. ¡°Oh,¡± he said softly, letting his forehead touch the glass as he tried to see better. There was an area of darkness, as if something had taken a bite out of the island. Most of the places in the evacuated neighborhoods weren¡¯t fully lit. But there were street lamps, signage, windows, and occasionally an entire home or building with the lights left on. In that place, however, it was black. Maybe the power¡¯s just out. Maybe there¡¯s a cove there or some other kind of place that doesn¡¯t have lighting. Or maybe there was a brand new cove there, one created in the past few minutes. ¡°I¡¯m really uncomfortable with the fact that it¡¯s ahead of us instead of behind us, Zeridee.¡± He¡¯d been picturing the danger at his back, chasing him. And ahead of him¡ªreally, not that far away¡ªthere would be people, tall buildings, superheroes, battle groups¡­safety. We could get cut off. He walked the perimeter of the gallery, looking out in every direction, trying to understand what was happening out there in the dark. ¡°I think¡­¡± He trailed off because he didn¡¯t know what he thought. From up here, he could see another blocky multi-story building in the direction they needed to go in. Several minutes of his fastest carrying-an-adult-Artonan pace, by his reckoning. I could do jog-rest-jog. Keep moving out of the evacuation zone, stop every time I hit a concrete building at least a few stories tall for a breather and head upstairs to check out the landscape. Doing it that way sounded like some sort of plan. I think it makes sense. I don¡¯t want to get in a situation again where I¡¯m down at street level with no idea what¡¯s going on up ahead or behind me, so heading up high to do periodic checks is good. Don¡¯t want to run toward a patch where all the lights have gone out, right? The plan came with new worries. If the power goes out everywhere I¡¯m not going to be able to see anything. What if the next building I aim for has a door like a bank vault? What if the next time I try to talk to Zeridee, the blood loss finally gets her, and she faints? ¡°Yep,¡± he said aloud, deliberately ignoring his own inner questioner. ¡°It¡¯s a good plan. I think a short rest and regroup while I try to figure out what the noise and vibration is doing out there is the right choice. I¡¯ll do something about my fucked up toes and try to fix the straps on this Canadian man¡¯s sandals. Oh, and let¡¯s find ourselves some light switches!¡± Inspired by Instructor Klein¡¯s technique on the bridge earlier, Alden had an idea to make the gallery lights flash an SOS by flicking a switch over and over. He was foiled by technological ¡°advancement.¡± Instead of switches, there was only a lighting control panel accessed via the screen by the elevator. ¡°Listen, you dumb seal,¡± he said, poking the happy animal in the forehead. ¡°You and I both know that there¡¯s no reason to password protect the lights! You¡¯re just afraid I¡¯m going to get a good look at some of the freakier statues hiding in the shadows!¡± He abandoned the project since it was cutting into his self-imposed ¡°rest and regroup¡± plan and went to sit down. The only seats in the room were translucent acrylic benches lining the windows on two sides. He took a corner one so that he could prop his back against the wall and still see out, facing in the direction he planned to head. He spent a couple of minutes adjusting his shoes, fighting his way out of the poncho¡ªbecause it was getting messed up anyway and he was hot¡ªand getting himself situated on the bench in as comfortable a position as he could find with a whole other person resting on him. ¡°Okay,¡± he said at last. ¡°I¡¯ve got to be totally honest, Zeridee. I wish you weren¡¯t hurt, but I¡¯m glad you can¡¯t see me now.¡± Playing a game of ¡°the floor is lava for the person I¡¯m holding¡± while he tried to adjust his clothing and take care of his own injured foot was inelegant to say the least. Now I sit here and I watch and I make decisions. Calmly. Yeah, right. He was already fidgeting even though he was finally getting the chance to sit, just because not running felt wrong. The roaring seemed to have diminished. He stared out, trying to watch for changes in the cityscape. People are up ahead. The lights of downtown Apex were there, curving around the crescent, so close and so far at the same time. He hoped the guys were all right. They¡¯re definitely more all right than me. He pulled his attention back toward nearer destinations. The building he¡¯d mentally marked as his next stopping point was in view. We¡¯ll aim for it when we leave. I could take the stimulant injector there. The label warned there was a possibility of sudden onset tiredness after it wore off, and he was leery about using it until he was just a little more sure that salvation was within reach. For a while longer, he stared out, hoping to spot signs of life, signs of danger, and signs telling him where help might be. ¡°I wanted this place to keep me safe.¡± He shifted Zeridee¡¯s weight. The way he¡¯d positioned her was making one of his legs go numb. ¡°Anesidora, I mean. That¡¯s not all I wanted from it, but it¡¯s probably the main thing. Chaos is supposed to stay out there, with you Artonans. It¡¯s not supposed to chase me to Earth.¡± Matadero was supposed to be nothing¡ªa blip that happened, and then he would hear about it on the news and forget it again. Like it had been every year of his life up until tonight. ¡°I would like to file a complaint with the ambassador. As an Avowed, I expect safe and comfortable living conditions when I¡¯m off-duty. It¡¯s only fair. The demon cube should be moved to whatever place on Earth is as far from Anesidora as possible. So you guys just pull some wizards together, act all mighty like you did when you showed up eighty years ago, and tell the rest of the planet you¡¯re going to plonk it down somewhere else. ¡°And if the cube can¡¯t be moved, you can plonk whatever¡¯s left of this place elsewhere instead.¡± He watched the dark place up ahead, wondering. ¡°Hey,¡± he said finally. ¡°You weren¡¯t about to tell me to put you down, were you? Before I preserved you again. It sounded a little like you were.¡± He looked at the top of her head. ¡°Don¡¯t do that to me, Zeridee. I know we only just met, but you¡¯re¡­¡± She was kind. She¡¯d been left behind at least partially for his sake. She was the sort of person who fretted over the safety of her human neighbors, and she¡¯d thrown her broken body at an Avowed who had tried to murder Alden. And she¡¯d killed him. ¡°You remind me too much of too many people who have been important in my life. Pieces of each of them.¡± Kibby, Hannah, Arjun Thomas, Thenn-ar. If she asks me to put her down, and she seems to be having a lucid moment, I guess I have to do it. But then what happens to us? ¡°Please don¡¯t ask. It¡¯s really not heroic of me,¡± said Alden. ¡°You¡¯ve made me care about you just that fast. I still see ways for us both to get out of this together, and as long as I see them, I don¡¯t want to find out what it feels like to leave you behind. That¡¯s all.¡± ****** Back downstairs, Alden gave himself a last minute pep talk while he drank from a water cooler near the elevator. I¡¯m up for a jog to get to the next building. Move forward steadily. If I think it¡¯s about to get really dangerous, and I¡¯m three quarters of the way there, I¡¯ll keep going. If I haven¡¯t made it that far, I¡¯ll turn back. He¡¯d decided three quarters of the distance should be his cut-off instead of half, since he didn¡¯t know what the exact situation with the other building would be. It might take him a few minutes to get inside, or he might discover it was impossible to break in and have to haul ass toward the next best thing. This place had the advantage of being a known quantity. One with a door he¡¯d already broken. He refilled his paper cup again, and the cooler released one giant blub as water poured from the tap. He drank, crushed the cup, and dropped it into the trash. He felt ready to move. He¡¯d already washed the blood off his hands. Zeridee was slung across his back now, her braid wrapped around his chest and shoulders. All right. Let¡¯s go. This isn¡¯t a Thegund-level tribulation. Just a bad night. It doesn¡¯t matter whether the System¡¯s answering me or not. I¡¯m getting us both to safety within the hour. Determined, driven, and focused on the journey ahead, he headed for the exit. And froze at the sight of a pale-skinned, dark-haired man wearing nothing but a bright red swim brief. His back was to Alden, and he was pulling open the puzzle door. He stepped out into the night. As the door swung shut, Alden saw him throw his arms out and stand on his bare tiptoes, head tipped back for a big inhale. ¡°This is your night, Liam!¡± he shouted to the street. ¡°This your time! Become more than¡ª¡± The door closed, cutting off the man¡¯s voice. The damaged lock clicked a few times. ****** ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE: Waves V ****** 139 ****** There was a man in a tiny swimsuit here just now. A man was here. Another Avowed. Here. Just now. I¡¯m not alone. Alden¡¯s thoughts had gone blank for a moment, but they came right back online at that. ¡°Sir!¡± he shouted, sprinting down the hall. ¡°Dude! Liam! Wait!¡± He flung open the door and ran out onto the sidewalk. Where¡¯d he go!? Alden spun around in a circle once. Twice. He couldn¡¯t see the guy anywhere. I didn¡¯t imagine him. I¡¯m not that crazy yet. ¡°Liam!¡± he yelled as loud as he could. ¡°Liam! Where are you?!¡± Oh fuck. Fuck he¡¯s gone. He must be running. Fast. Did he turn the corner up ahead? If I just¡­ He kept shouting, racing toward the intersection, and just as he reached the crosswalk, he heard someone call back. ¡°Hey! You good over there?¡± Relieved to the depths of his soul, Alden looked around to see the man in the swimsuit standing in the other crosswalk, on the other side of the intersection. The yellow pedestrian lights were flashing for both of them. ¡°What¡¯s that on your back?¡± Liam called. An image of the woman on the motorcycle shaking her head and abandoning him flashed through Alden. ¡°She¡¯s alive!¡± he shouted. ¡°I¡¯m trying to get her to someone who can help! She only looks like this because of my skill. I¡¯m definitely not a murderer!¡± ¡°Somebody¡¯s hurt?¡± The man bounded toward him. He had a friendly face. His eyes widened as he got close enough to get a better look at Alden and Zeridee. ¡°Ho wow! What happened to you!? That¡¯s an Artonan. That¡¯s a very bloody Artonan. And she¡¯s so stiff!¡± ¡°That¡¯s my skill. It¡¯s preser¡ªtimestopping her and shielding her. What¡­¡± What are you doing here in swimwear? Why were you headed toward the coast? Have you seen anyone else? Alden settled on the question that mattered the most: ¡°Can you help us somehow?¡± Liam was hovering around Alden¡¯s back now, gawking at Zeridee, so Alden had to strain his neck to see him properly. ¡°What?¡± Liam asked. ¡°Can you help us?¡± Alden repeated. ¡°I¡¯m trying to get us out of here as fast as possible. I don¡¯t know my way around the area.¡± ¡°Of course!¡± Liam exclaimed. ¡°Ho wow! You¡¯ve obviously had a hell of night already. What in Apex happened to you two? Did you come from that way? Did something go wrong with the evac up there?¡± He pointed in the direction Alden had mentally marked as unsafe¡ªthe place where all the lights were out. ¡°No. We came from the Artonan ambassador¡¯s house. It¡¯s a complicated story.¡± ¡°Well, don¡¯t worry. Unless you think your powers are at risk of giving out? In that case, we might need to worry. Yeah¡­¡± He ran a hand through his sleek, dark hair and looked up and down the street. ¡°We¡¯re nowhere near an emergency department, and I don¡¯t really know how I would help with something like this.¡± ¡°I can hold her and keep her this way for a long time,¡± said Alden. ¡°Running far would be hard, but if we walk¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re set then. Yeah. I know a place that¡¯s safe.¡± ¡°You do?¡± The man was nodding. ¡°Yes. If you can really keep the Artonan petrified¡­ You¡¯re a hundred percent sure she won¡¯t die of her wounds when she¡¯s like that? She looks kind of¡­not healthy.¡± ¡°I can keep her like this,¡± Alden said firmly. ¡°She won¡¯t die.¡± ¡°Then you¡¯re good, buddy! What¡¯s your class? Healer? Never mind. I¡¯ve got you covered. Yeah, yeah¡­oh, and we can probably use one of Tina¡¯s spells to send a message ahead. For a good cause¡­definitely!¡± Alden¡¯s faith in humanity had taken some critical hits tonight. This guy was restoring it fast. ¡°Thank you so much. Who¡¯s Tina? And where¡ª?¡± ¡°Come on, come on! Let¡¯s get you to a place where you can rest.¡± ****** To Alden¡¯s surprise, Liam Long led him right back into Apogee Artist Spaces, talking ninety miles an hour the whole way. The ¡°safe place¡± he knew about was the ground floor studio he shared with his brother and sister. The brother and sister were B-rank students at Celena North University; Liam was a B-rank, too. He had just graduated. The guys were Brutes. The sister was an Adjuster. According to Liam, Apogee¡¯s ground floor boom rooms were the perfect ¡°base of operations¡± during a natural disaster. Basically, the things were reinforced concrete boxes that allowed artists to get more violently creative with their powers than was allowed in the upstairs studios. Hence, no windows and thick doors. ¡°The old lady in the studio across the hall films herself smashing through all sorts of things. Bet you¡¯ve seen some of her work in movies! Cannonball Betty? We never hear a sound.¡± That does sound good, thought Alden, but¡­ ¡°Did anyone say the rooms were safe to hide in during a magical flood?¡± He was watching Liam input his code into the panel by the door of Boom Room 6. ¡°Or a regular flood even? They¡¯re at ground level. Are they waterproof? Have they been rated for external impacts by, like, an engineer?¡± His security code is just 123123123? Alden had been memorizing it in case he needed to leave and come back for some reason. Liam Long seemed a little too nonchalant about the ongoing disaster. ¡°Of course they couldn¡¯t officially let people shelter here. There are only a few rooms. But Tina, Royce, and I all agreed it was safe enough. You can stay here in our boom room. I¡¯ll get back to them fast and tell them about you. Tina¡¯s got a spell that will signal friends on campus if any of us get into trouble. When they get it, they¡¯ll know to send someone this way. You just sit tight!¡± He smiled comfortingly and pushed open the door, gesturing for Alden to step inside. Alden did take a step inside. Then the lights came on automatically, and he reversed course so quickly he almost fell down. ¡°Thank you so much, but Zeridee and I are just going to head toward downtown on our own! Nice meeting you. Sorry to bother you! I think I¡¯ll be fast enough to get where I¡¯m going. I hope you and your brother and sister and everyone you know have a wonderful time together in your bathing suits. See¡ª¡± ¡°Wait!¡± shouted Liam. No way. Alden was down the hall grabbing the puzzle-piece doorknob in a heartbeat. The man¡¯s bare feet were slapping the floor behind him. ¡°It¡¯s not a torture chamber!¡± Liam shouted. ¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯s not!¡± Alden shouted back as he shot outside. ¡°No judgment! Just going now. For multiple personal reasons!¡± He ran as fast as he could. Liam Long caught up to him, passed him, and skidded to a halt in front of him. He¡¯s faster than me. Probably a speedster. I¡¯m screwed. ¡°Kid, it¡¯s not a torture chamber! I mean it sort of is, but¡ª¡± Maybe if I kick him hard enough in the nuts. ¡°Tina, Royce, and I just use it to scare ourselves.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure you do. That sounds like a thing anyone might do! Like I said. No judgment. I just realized I felt like running right now.¡± Kick him and then kick him again. ¡°I know it looks weird!¡± Liam waved his hands. ¡°But we just get together and scare the shit out of each other. I swear.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Alden demanded. ¡°Because¡­¡± He dropped his arms and gave Alden an embarrassed smile. ¡°We¡¯re doing it to help each other level.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°¡­what?¡± ****** This is so ridiculous and disappointing. It was a few minutes later, and Alden was sitting backwards on a folding chair in the Long siblings¡¯ private dungeon, staring at a tarantula. The spider lifted its hairy front legs to scrabble at the glass walls of its tank. Other habitats for roaches, a small snake, and a particularly evil-looking scorpion lined the shelves above and below it. ¡°Not you. You¡¯re very scary,¡± Alden muttered to the tarantula. So was everything else in this place, even though Liam Long had hinted that he and his siblings had ¡°gone beyond¡± their original fears. Lately, they had been using sketchy substances on each other to make everything in the room even worse and ¡°really get that adrenaline pumping.¡± They had a lifelike model griveck. The serrated tongue extending from its maw could be controlled with a remote. There was a big drum full of liquid¡ªAlden hoped it was water¡ªwith a bunch of massive chains beside it. And, naturally, they¡¯d made their very own iron maiden and included a heater, so that they could risk heat stroke in addition to a skewering. And those were just a few of the pieces Alden knew how to identify. What the hell do they do to each other with those suction cup things? He understood what they were going for¡­though it had never in his life occurred to him that anyone would get together on the weekends with their brother and sister and engage in extreme stress induction for the sake of faster leveling. ¡°I bet you¡¯re thinking we¡¯re crazy!¡± Liam was chuckling to himself as he pulled open the drawers of one of the only normal items in this domain of terror¡ªa steel office desk that looked like it had been around since the Cold War. ¡°This isn¡¯t that different from how the universities train people in the hero programs,¡± he said. ¡°Those are ninety percent about strengthening powers. We¡¯ve just put together our own version of it.¡± Sort of. Kind of. Seriously, though? Alden couldn¡¯t even argue with the guy about the validity of the project. It sounded like the Longs were setting up stressful situations for each other that demanded use of their Avowed abilities to escape from. Locking your sister in an iron maiden and refusing to let her out until she¡¯d learned how to use her skill on an object twelve centimeters farther away than she¡¯d been able to manage last weekend was not normal. But Alden had been burned, darted, impaled, and thrown off a fifty-foot-high wall this week. So he really didn¡¯t have as much righteous ground to stand on as he would have liked. Competitive environments, going up against other Avowed, being forced to try new things with your magic or else¡­ ¡°Listen,¡± said Alden, ¡°I¡¯m in the Talent Development program at CNH. I was in the gym a few hours ago. I know what kind of environments we use to promote growth and lead to new discoveries about our powers. But it¡¯s not dangerous when we do it. We¡¯re extremely well protected, even from pain most of the time. What you and your brother and sister are planning tonight is different, and it makes me so¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re a hero student! At B-rank? WOW! Way to go!!¡± ¡ªdamn frustrated, Alden finished in his own head. Just as well that he hadn¡¯t said it out loud. Liam didn¡¯t owe him anything. Not even common sense. But Alden was still baffled, annoyed, and disheartened that the person he¡¯d found who was somewhat willing to help him was in the middle of treating the emergency like a personal training ground. ¡°You must be awesome,¡± Liam continued. ¡°We all tried to get in. Did the whole application cycle in high school, then in uni. So brutal at B. I swear they autorejected me every time just because my GPA wasn¡¯t perfect. Tina made it to the combat assessment in high school once. Royce is still thinking of trying out one more time for the uni program. Can¡¯t age out of that one at least. If he can bash through three levels in the next twelve months, that¡¯ll put a lot of the admissions committee¡¯s doubts to rest.¡± He rummaged through the drawer and slammed it shut. Reaching for the next, he sighed. ¡°Tina, what¡¯s the point of having a filing system if you aren¡¯t going to use it? Where¡¯s the ¡®currently active¡¯ folder?¡± Tina Long¡ªwho was with the other brother, on their way to play chicken with the oceanic anomalies¡ªhad a skill that magically paired objects, along with spells that took advantage of the pairings in a few different ways. She could make temporary, short range communication devices with it. Liam had an earring his sister could use to signal him. He was going to give Alden something else she¡¯d recently used her skill on so that he could get in touch with the siblings to share emergency news. If Liam could actually find it. I have to try one more time, Alden thought. These guys should absolutely come with me. What they¡¯re doing is nuts. ¡°You were listening when I told you that a magical substance is causing all of this, right? There are a bajillion particles of it in the water. From what I understand, they latch onto stuff and try to sink it or throw it around. Tons of magic, pulling water onto shore. I think sometimes the effect is pretty weak.¡± The blob of water around that high heel shoe on the bridge had seemed relatively self-contained and innocuous. ¡°But sometimes it¡¯s crazy strong. It moved The Span. It covered the bridge and yanked it. Plopstar is out there attacking the whole ocean on System orders¡ª¡± ¡°So casting spells at it might affect it, then?¡± Liam turned to him excitedly. ¡°That¡¯s good intel! I still can¡¯t believe the night you¡¯ve had. On The Span! Carrying an ambassador¡¯s assistant around. I bet you level up after this!¡± ¡°I¡¯d better fucking not.¡± Liam looked startled. Alden shook his head. ¡°What I mean is¡ªthis is serious. And it¡¯s not just water. It threw a truck across the bridge so hard that it smashed through a bunch of other vehicles like bowling pins. My classmates had to help rescue drivers. The ocean will be moving in really unpredictable ways. It¡¯s not like a wave at the beach. You won¡¯t be able to guess how big or which way¡ª¡± ¡°Ho! This is it!¡± Liam waved a large accordion folder through the air and did a little victory jig in the middle of his family torture chamber. In his swim briefs. Alden held back the urge to yell. Liam dumped the folder onto the desk, and bric-a-brac tumbled out. He grabbed a pair of black cardstock rectangles and passed one of them to Alden, who held an arm over the chair back to take both it and the small, pointy wooden stick the man offered along with it. Alden examined the card. The word ¡°testing¡± was visible on the corner in rainbow letters. ¡°This is one of those scratch art things where you scrape the black layer off, and the colors are underneath?¡± he asked. ¡°Yep!¡± said Liam, holding the other card.¡°Don¡¯t scratch it right away. They¡¯ve already been paired, but Tina has to cast a spell on a least one half to make them start mimicking each other. I¡¯ll take this one to her, she¡¯ll spell it, and she¡¯ll write you a little note to let you know it¡¯s active. Then you can message us back.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± Alden did mean it. Even a limited ability to communicate with a single Adjuster felt like a lifeline under the circumstances. He could tell them where he was if he ran into trouble. They could tell him where danger was. Since they¡¯re going to be chasing it. He shifted, adjusting Zeridee¡¯s weight again, and the chair creaked. ¡°You look worried, Alden! Don¡¯t be. We know what we¡¯re doing.¡± ¡°Even the System doesn¡¯t know what it¡¯s doing tonight,¡± Alden said tiredly. ¡°Huh. Well, that might be true.¡± Liam shut the folder back in the drawer. ¡°We did think we¡¯d get a later teleport out when we rejected the first ones. It said it advised against it, so I suppose it¡¯s fair¡­. But we were going to use that to plan our trials for the night. Go hard, get tired, teleport out. It hasn¡¯t offered another time slot. Guess it was a ¡®take your one shot or take care of yourself¡¯ kind of deal.¡± He looked at Alden curiously. ¡°I took mine,¡± Alden said. ¡°It just didn¡¯t work out. Obviously.¡± He wasn¡¯t sure if Liam¡¯s willingness to not ask questions and take a preserved, horribly injured alien in stride was a sign of practicality or a symptom of his slaphappy approach to the events of the night in general. ¡°I wish you¡¯d consider staying here in our boom room,¡± said Liam, smiling at him. ¡°You could have a seat. Get some rest. The snake is friendly. We¡¯re all coming back here after we¡¯re done testing ourselves against the water and anything else we might find, so you won¡¯t be alone for long.¡± Alden tucked his scratchart card into his messenger bag, trying to come up with one last argument that might inject some reasonable fear into this sort of person. ¡°I appreciate the offer. A lot. I¡¯ll come back here if I need to.¡± If everything absolutely goes to shit and I have no other option. ¡°But the System is suggesting you leave.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you think if it was really safe, it would have just said ¡®stay where you are?¡¯¡± Alden asked. ¡°Even if it¡¯s just too busy and it overlooked this place, nobody else came to shelter here. Not even the other people who rent boom rooms. Maybe they¡¯re not as safe as you think. I really¡­¡±This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Maybe if I compliment him. I haven¡¯t tried that one yet. ¡°I think the way you guys are training yourselves is already impressive. You don¡¯t have to push it even farther and risk your lives. You¡¯ve got a great thing going, right?¡± ¡°Thanks. You¡¯re a good kid. But don¡¯t worry so much,¡± said Liam. ¡°We¡¯ll have each other¡¯s backs, and the thing is¡­this is real. We try to push our limits, but you always know it¡¯s fake on some level when your little bro is the one threatening you with Chester.¡± He jerked a thumb toward the griveck. ¡°We¡¯ve never had a chance to test ourselves versus actual danger. Magical danger! And we need it. Avowed come out of real disasters changed,¡± said Liam. ¡°Do they?¡± Alden spoke flatly. That dreamy tone in the Brute¡¯s voice¡­ Alden¡¯s patience and willingness to cajole Liam Long died there. All that was left was a little gratitude for the kindness and the offer of help, limited though it was. And a shadow of despondence about the fact that sometimes friendly people were hopelessly stupid. I can¡¯t save him and myself and Zeridee. I can¡¯t drag him with me. Maybe with his siblings he¡¯ll be strong enough and lucky enough to stay safe. He stood up from the chair. Liam still hadn¡¯t noticed his mood shift. He was waxing enthusiastic about his goals. ¡°Almost everyone who¡¯s ever learned to double-on their stats has managed it the first time in a crisis. I know it¡¯s a longshot, but we are the Longs! Tonight could be our night for that kind of rare breakthrough. If something like that happened for me¡ª¡± ¡°Good luck,¡± said Alden, slapping a stimulant injector and a small roll of bandaging onto the desk. He¡¯d taken them from his bag while Liam was rummaging through the drawers. He thought it was all right to give them away since he had two of each. ¡°Read the instructions before you use that. Try to stay alive.¡± He headed for the door so quickly that Liam didn¡¯t react to his abrupt departure until he was turning the handle. ¡°You too! See you around sometime. I still hang around campus a lot because of my bro and sis. Maybe we¡¯ll¡­¡± He kept talking. Alden stopped listening. He¡¯d just stepped outside the Longs¡¯ boom room, and the building was vibrating around him. A low whomp, so deep that he felt it, sounded. He froze, looking down the hall. The puzzle door was only a few meters away. There was no noise down here earlier. Thick walls. ¡°Liam,¡± he said, ¡°something¡¯s not right. The floor¡ª¡± A crash from behind him made him turn. When he did, he saw the large bottle from the top of the water cooler sliding down the hall toward him. Having been knocked free of its base, the mouth of the bottle was open, but none of the water was escaping from it. Alden jumped out of the way. It hit the wall beside the puzzle door and stopped. None of the water¡¯s pouring out. Alden watched it. Is it all pulling in that direction, just dragging the bottle along for the ride? He couldn¡¯t think of what else it could be. ¡°Tina? Hey! You¡¯re not coming through clear.¡± Liam exited the room to stand in the hall beside Alden. He was tugging his messaging earring free of his lobe. It was a golden ball stud, and it was emitting a faint, metallic voice. ¡°Runnnnnununun,¡± it said. ¡°¡ªiammmm, gooooo.¡± ¡°This might not have been a good night for her to experiment with a mismatched pair,¡± Liam said apologetically. ¡°But we didn¡¯t know something was about to happen when she used her skill on the earrings. Normally she sounds way bett¡ª¡± Alden was ignoring him in favor of staring at the stud on his palm. ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± Alden demanded, gripping his Zeridee braid strap and addressing the earring. ¡°Where¡¯s the water?¡± ¡°¡ªtsss gonnne. Sinnnnngggng paaaace.¡± ¡°Sing pace?¡± ¡°She means Dr. Singh¡¯s place. We were going to meet up there, but¡­¡± For the first time, Liam looked worried. ¡°Hey¡­do you think¡­? Tina! Tina, are you saying Dr. Singh¡¯s place is gone? What about all that shielding they had installed?¡± ¡°Runnunnunnnn¡ª¡± Alden didn¡¯t wait to hear the rest of it. He needed to see for himself. Running out into the street, in the direction the water in the bottle seemed to be heading, felt wrong. And he thought Liam¡¯s assurances about the safety of the ground floor were based on too much wishful thinking to trust. So he went with his own instinct, which was shouting the same thing it had been the last time he¡¯d heard the sound of approaching danger. Up. We go up. His earlier wonderings about power outages and his knowledge that the elevator was a slow one sent him scrambling for the stairwell. When he reached it, he yanked open the door so hard it smashed into the wall. He heard Liam shouting something. No time to figure out if it¡¯s at me or his sister. Get to the sixth floor. Go. He couldn¡¯t feel the vibration anymore because he was moving his own body as hard as he could. Floor 2. The stairwell had the number painted on the wall in bright blue. It was almost the same size, typeface, and color as Alden¡¯s old high school had used. A momentary flash of d¨¦j¨¤ vu. He left it behind him as he passed the landing and headed for the third floor. His breath was loud in his ears. His thoughts raced ahead to what he would do if the street down below looked like this or like that when he got a look at it. His feet were pounding solidly against the steps. And then the world around him changed all at once. There was an explosion of sound. Breaking glass. One of the perfectly spaced steps not being where he expected as the building shook. Alden caught himself painfully on hands and knees, halfway up a flight of stairs. He bit his tongue. He tried to jump right back up, but the stairs were still moving. He held himself there, panting. He heard¡­a river. As loud as if it were pouring on top of his head. He heard screaming. What? What¡¯s happening exactly? His brain didn¡¯t have enough information or experience. It couldn¡¯t answer him. Still on his knees, he reached for the stair railing and clung to it. Shaking. It was shaking or he was. Everything was suddenly so unstable. He looked through the bars. There was the river, filling the stairwell and the landing below him. The water was so filthy it was almost black. A thousand pieces of unnameable debris were smashing against the walls. The door to the second floor was ripped from its hinges, floating. And there was Liam¡ªwet, bellowing something, pulling himself out of the water and up the staircase behind Alden. He must have followed me. Alden stared. He clung. Liam kept yelling, and Alden kept not registering the actual words. Taking in whatever Liam was doing and thinking and wanting from him was just so much less important than understanding everything else. Then a hand landed on Zeridee-und¡¯h. He felt it with his authority. ¡°Don¡¯t touch her!¡± Alden¡¯s shout echoed up the stairwell, but it sounded like nothing compared to everything else. The back of his hand stung, and he realized he¡¯d slapped Liam Long¡¯s arm away. Hard. ¡°We¡¯ve gotta go! We¡¯ve gotta go, man!¡± Liam was screaming. ¡°The water! The water!¡± Alden stood. He could stand. Liam was already running upstairs. ¡°The water¡¯s not rising.¡± Alden didn¡¯t realize he¡¯d observed it until he said it. He looked over the railing again to make sure he¡¯d understood correctly. ¡°I don¡¯t think the magic is pulling it right now.¡± It was like on the bridge, when the magic of the Sinker Sender had suddenly broken or exhausted itself, and everything had gone back to normal. The water below him looked like water. Turbulent water that had just crashed through the second story of a building, but¡­ The way all of that debris was swirling in it¡ªthat was normal water behavior. It didn¡¯t look like it was on a mission to climb the walls or go somewhere. ¡°All right,¡± said Alden, gazing down at it. ¡°I¡¯m okay. We¡¯re both okay. I still need to get upstairs.¡± He could hear Liam swearing as the man fled upwards. Alden started to climb, fast but not at a run this time. He still wasn¡¯t sure about the steadiness of the floor beneath him. He saw Liam¡¯s wet footprints on the next landing. One of them was tinged pink with blood. He made it up a few more steps before the power went out.
Alden entered the sixth-floor gallery, and the door closed behind him, cutting off the stairwell¡¯s emergency backup lighting. He stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, listening to his one conscious companion. ¡°No. Ho no. Oh man. Ohshit. No no no.¡± Liam was only a shape for now, running through the forest of statues. His speed was out of place in this setting, making him look more like a specter from a horror film than a goofy guy without much clothing on. The litany of ¡°no¡¯s¡± wasn¡¯t for Alden. It was just a ramble, volume rising and falling, as he raced from one side of the gallery to the other to stare out windows in every direction. Alden took a few seconds to consider himself and his burden. His body was all right. Miraculously, the fall on the staircase hadn¡¯t really hurt him. His broken toes were back to throbbing fiercely. An elbow felt bruised. Zeridee was all right, too. At least, she wasn¡¯t any worse than she had been. He hadn¡¯t let her go for even a second. When he could finally see well enough to weave between the statues, he did so, heading for the acrylic bench where he¡¯d rested for such a short while. He looked down onto a world that was much blacker, wetter, and emptier than it had been minutes before. There were still lights¡ªbattery powered things, magical things, a functional power grid in the distance, one¡­no two¡­small fires burning in this neighborhood. One of them was flaring and sputtering on top of a raft of debris that floated near the intersection just beneath him. The pedestrian crossing lights still work. How eerie to see the water flashing yellow, lit from below. Alden walked slowly along the perimeter of the gallery, trying to see everything and understand all of it. He thought the water had mostly come from the dark place he¡¯d spotted earlier. The area where the Long siblings had planned to engage in their own personal man vs. nature trial. Almost everything between where he stood and that place was dark now, and what he could make out didn¡¯t look right. Structures were standing here and there. But it wasn¡¯t as it had been. Too flat. Some of the rooflines that he¡¯d thought were noteworthy earlier were nowhere to be seen. Even with the terrible visibility, he knew things were missing. Whether they were underwater or razed¡­ Next, he stared in the direction he¡¯d planned to travel, examining what was left of the townhouses with the gothic-style facades he¡¯d noticed earlier. There wasn¡¯t much. Roofs gone. Walls gone. A couple of corners still standing tall. He watched as the burning debris started to slide down the street, slow at first and then faster, half of it peeling away from the raft as it encountered the pole of a streetlight, the rest of it continuing to pick up speed as the water went strange once more, developing an organized current where none should be. And it was heading in the very direction Alden himself wished to go. What caused the wave that hit our building? How big must it have been to take out the townhouses and shake this place? His imagination gave him guesses, but he had no idea if they were right. The scale of it was hard to handle. Alden pictured a particularly large patch or particularly strong particle of the contamination latching onto something huge¡ªa house instead of a high heel. Or something even bigger than that. It could have pulled more and more water toward the thing to cover it, blobbing up and up, trying to drag it. Hell, maybe it had dragged it. Maybe a whole submerged house could move like the truck that had caused the pile-up Marks had been caught in, blasting forward, borne inside its own juggernaut of a wave. It would destroy things as it went. And it would destroy them when it gave up, too. A giant water blob or column or whatever just collapsing when the magic runs out¡­ How much water did it actually take to tear down houses? Alden had a sketchy memory from just before he¡¯d left home¡ªsome morning news personality warning the good people of Chicago to steer clear of the area where Skiff was fighting that man who¡¯d tried to make a lair under Lake Michigan. ¡°Our hunky fan favorite beach bum may not look dangerous, but remember folks, Skiff¡¯s not all fun and games. Just a few inches of swiftly moving water can knock you right off your feet!¡± It was something like that anyway He did remember the line right after that verbatim: ¡°Or maybe we should call it Skiffly moving water!¡± That was so tasteless. Why do morning shows try to turn things that shouldn¡¯t be jokes into jokes? He focused on the building that had been his next ¡°goal¡± stop¡ªthe one that looked like it was about the same size as this one. It was still there. The main power seemed to be out, but there was a dull blue glow throughout it now instead. Some kind of emergency feature probably. Would I have made it in time, or would I have died in the street with Zeridee? A useless question he couldn¡¯t help asking. ¡°Tina? Tina? Royce! Are you guys there?¡± Alden turned to watch Liam. He stood nearby. Alden could see well enough now to make out the statue of a woman behind him, reaching out as if asking a child that didn¡¯t exist to leap into her arms. Liam had managed to keep hold of his earring. He was holding it so close to his lips it looked like he was about to eat it. He even managed to keep the scratchboard and the bandages I gave him. They were in his other fist. ¡°You guys? Answer me. Answer me!¡± Maybe I should say something to him. He didn¡¯t. What was there to say really? Any comfort he could offer would be a cheap nothing from a stranger. Maybe Liam¡¯s brother and sister were all right. Maybe they weren¡¯t. People die so fast. Alden realized he was getting a little odd. One too many shocks per hour or something. But he didn¡¯t feel like he was about to panic again, so he¡¯d take this. For a couple more minutes, he watched everything. Just to be sure. Liam kept trying to call his siblings through the earring. ¡°The water¡¯s moving somewhere else. It looks like it might be pulling out of this area, but who knows how long that will last? I¡¯m leaving if I can,¡± Alden said finally. ¡°There are still lights toward the inner curve of the crescent. I¡¯ll head that way, then toward people. As fast as possible. No stopping.¡± Liam stared at him like he¡¯d started speaking another language. ¡°What?¡± ¡°If the water¡¯s already this far inland, we¡¯re going to be completely cut off sooner or later. This whole point of the crescent could be gone by morning,¡± said Alden. ¡°And unless they¡¯ve got way more people working rescue than they need, why would anyone come here to help us?¡± There was at least one big, highly populated family neighborhood down in F being hit hard. ¡°Rescuers are going to be prioritizing other places. They won¡¯t be looking for stragglers here, in these few abandoned neighborhoods, where everyone already had their chance to get out.¡± He turned back to watch the receding water. It¡¯s moving so fast. The larger debris was starting to drag on pavement instead of floating. A couple of minutes later, when Alden headed for the stairs, Liam stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. ¡°I have to go find my brother and sister,¡± he said in an urgent voice. ¡°I can¡¯t leave them.¡± ¡°I hope you do find them,¡± said Alden. ¡°I hope they¡¯re safe.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t¡­haha¡­I don¡¯t even know where my shoes are.¡± Liam suddenly looked down at Alden¡¯s sandals. Alden looked down at Liam¡¯s bare feet. ¡°Did you leave a pair downstairs in your torture chamber?¡± Liam nodded. ¡°They¡¯re probably still there, then. Don¡¯t worry. The building hasn¡¯t collapsed, so the ground floor is just wet, right? Not gone. They¡¯ll be near where you left them.¡± Alden didn¡¯t know if it was true or not. He said it like he believed it was true. ¡°Ha! Right. Right.¡± Liam was still staring at the sandals. ¡°Don¡¯t go just yet. Do you have¡­let me think¡­do you have any more medicine? And bandages? You know Tina and Royce might need stuff like that. They¡¯re out there in it. They might need things. I might need things to help them.¡± Alden¡¯s hesitation was swift, and in the dark, he hoped it couldn¡¯t even be seen on his face. There were a few things in the medical kit he could probably afford to share. But if he said yes, he¡¯d have to open his bag and pull them out right here. And he wasn¡¯t comfortable letting Liam Long know he had a full medical kit. He wasn¡¯t comfortable enough to stick around, sorting through the supplies and dividing them up. Not now. Not with the man eyeing the hiking sandals as if he was just now realizing what a fool he was for planning to go fight tsunamis naked. Every time you stick your own neck out to save a stranger¡¯s, pretend I¡¯m there with you. Pretend we¡¯re getting into it together and we¡¯re facing the exact same amount of struggle and the exact same consequences for failure. ¡°Man, I¡¯m sorry,¡± said Alden. ¡°I wish I had more. As far as useful stuff goes, I¡¯ve only got one more pain killer. And a disgusting protein bar. You can have the meds, though.¡± He reached into his shorts and pulled out one of the injectors he¡¯d pocketed earlier. It was the only thing he could give up without revealing everything else. ¡°And thanks for the communication device. When you find your sister, get her to message me, all right? I¡¯ll report back on where I am and what the situation is. Think of me as your forward scout. I¡¯m not moving fast, so you guys might even meet up with me before we leave the evac zone.¡± He forced the injector into Liam¡¯s cold hand. ¡°Yeah. Yeah, that¡¯s a good idea,¡± Liam muttered, turning his eyes to the injector. ¡°And if we don¡¯t meet up, I¡¯ll see y¡¯all around campus next week,¡± said Alden, making his first ever deliberate attempt to sound like he was a manly badass who should not have his footwear stolen. ¡°We¡¯ve got this, Liam. Glad I met you tonight.¡± He refused to wonder why his attempt to convey manly badassery was trending both Southern and severe, like some terrible Big Snake/Klein hybrid. He left right away, keeping his back straight and his walk steady. As he crossed the gallery, refusing to turn back to look at Liam, there was a place at the top of his spine, between his shoulder blades, that he was all too aware of. No more shield poncho, he thought. If someone tries to stab me again tonight, the blade will go right through. ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED FORTY: Waves VI 140 ****** ¡°I love grocery shopping!!¡± The voice was joyful, warm, and golden as honey. It sang out over the cacophony of thumping music, ringing argold slots, noisy laughter, and the squawking of the flock of macaws currently displayed on the arched screen that formed a roof over the crowded street. Natalie Choir stood in front of a casino that was decked out in flashing green lights. She was spinning in place, her outstretched arms full of takeout bags with restaurant names emblazoned on the sides. <> said Emilija. <> ¡°Grocery getting then!¡± said Natalie. ¡°I love it! Everyone in class said it would be hard to find some of this stuff, but the chefs are all so friendly. I have kitchen scraps from five different planets in here!¡± Emilija shook her head. ¡°She does offer them all money.¡± Hadiza was watching a woman across the street who was wearing glowing silver wings and a matching leotard. The performer was six meters above the pavement, leaping through the air. ¡°Adjuster?¡± she guessed as the woman paused to take a bow over the watchers¡¯ heads. The other two followed her gaze. ¡°She could be a Wright? Maybe the wings are tools she made,¡± Natalie suggested. ¡°Oh! Do you think they are? Do you think they¡¯re the kind of gear that only works with one of the creator¡¯s skills, or does she sell them?¡± She started to head toward the performer, but stopped at Emilija¡¯s voice. ¡°Agility Brute,¡± the older girl said confidently. <> ¡°Awwww¡­are you sure?¡± <> said Hadiza. Then in a teasing voice, she added, ¡°Anesidora nerd.¡± <> Emilija announced. <> ¡°I probably would,¡± said Natalie. ¡°My Mama thinks you wear a halo, Emilija. She¡¯s like, ¡®That¡¯s a young lady with good sense, Natalie. I wish you wouldn¡¯t go out after nine PM, but if you do, you stay with her.¡± ¡°Ha!¡± said Hadiza. ¡°Next time your family calls, let me talk to them. She has fooled them.¡± Emilija bowed dramatically. Hadiza glared at her. <> <> Emilija replied. <> ¡°There¡¯s one more! They officially closed at midnight, but one of the uni girls who works there said I could come by. They have these big soft-shell eggs. This big.¡± Her bags smashed into her as she tried to hold her hands up to show them the size. ¡°Laid by an eppy-eppy. Ebby-ebby? Am I saying that right? They¡¯re supposed to be really creamy and taste like apples and mayonnaise.¡± Hadiza made a face. ¡°Let¡¯s <> the eppy-eppys!¡± said Emilija. ¡°Breakfast for tomorrow!¡± ¡°You will eat anything,¡± said Hadiza. ¡°Actually, I was going to turn them into a dressing. For¡ª¡± Natalie¡¯s words were cut off by sirens. All over the street, performers and revelers stopped and looked around in alarm. ¡°What is this?¡± The girls drew closer together. Emilija said something in Lithuanian, and Natalie and Hadiza both stared at her in confusion. No translations appeared on their interfaces, but a moment later, System alerts did. [Disaster Alert: Attack on Matadero] [Disaster Alert: Low Probability of Chaos Exposure] [Disaster Alert: Oceanic Anomalies - Imminent Avoid seawater. Seek high ground. Beware of possible tsunami.] ****** ****** Flat on his back in bed, Lute clutched a pillow shaped like a fried egg to his chest and yawned. It¡¯s so late. I should sleep. Instead, he pulled up another interface window. He had three arranged in front of his eyes now, all showing things worthy of deep contemplation. In the one on the lower left, Hazel was absolutely losing her shit. He set it to play in slow motion. I still can¡¯t believe that happened. Hazel blowing up, even in such a phenomenal way, wasn¡¯t that big of a surprise. She¡¯d never been hesitant about dishing out humiliation and criticism to others, but she sure didn¡¯t like the taste of them herself. A steady diet of praise and being told you can do no wrong must make someone saying they don¡¯t like you because you did something wrong really hard to swallow. He was glad she was off Earth. He wasn¡¯t sure that working for the Palace full-time would cure her, though. Maybe being separated from her parents, Corin, and Aulia will be enough to help her grow a functional personality, but with her usual job¡­she might end up even more of a monster. If Parethat-uur had had anything to do with managing Hazel, Lute would¡¯ve called and warned the guy. Aulia confirmed Hazel¡¯s crimes, outed her skill, and apologized on her behalf on camera. That was the part Lute was still marveling at. He wished he could see inside his grandmother¡¯s twisted mind for just a second so he¡¯d know what percentage of her behavior was based on her interest in Alden and what percentage was her irritation with Hazel. Surely politics was also in the mix somehow. And me too. Unfortunately. He turned his attention to the middle video. The volume was on so he could listen to it.It was the kora player who had come to Lute¡¯s seventh birthday party. The man had been filmed playing in Parc des Batteurs a couple of months ago. He was still one of Lute¡¯s favorite street musicians. Would he teach me to play the kora? Would it be rude if I asked? He had been wondering about it for a while. It wouldn¡¯t have felt rude before, when he was bound for a normal human life. Now it was more complicated. Just like everything else. He wanted to think that if a high rank with their hearing, hands, and brain all upgraded had approached him in June of last year and asked to learn the harp, he would have politely said, ¡°I¡¯m too busy to teach you, but good luck.¡± But he was afraid it would¡¯ve been something more akin to, ¡°Never. How dare you ask? Take your magic fingers and shove them where the sun can¡¯t shine.¡± What if he thinks I¡¯m just a show-off dilettante like stupid Hugh? ¡°My Daddy says I don¡¯t need piano lessons like you, whiff boy,¡± he muttered, imagining Hazel¡¯s voice in his head. ¡°The System will turn me into a natural musician as soon as I get Chainer, and then I can pick up any instrument I want soooo easy.¡± I wonder if Aulia¡¯s right, and one day I¡¯ll be old and I just won¡¯t care about any of the things she said or did to me anymore. He couldn¡¯t imagine it. He glanced at the third window. It was a picture from Emilija¡¯s social media page. She¡¯d posted it an hour ago, and he¡¯d been staring at it ever since, trying to think of exactly the right comment to make. Something casual and friendly. Something that would make her smile. Something that said, ¡°I¡¯m a naturally engaging person who didn¡¯t have to spend an hour thinking up this comment.¡± But it also needs to be mature. And a little funny. And smart. And not long. A universe contained in a single sentence. The poetic masterpiece of comments. If she¡¯d been somewhere he was familiar with, he could have offered her advice for things to do. But her picture was of a team participating in a human stacking challenge outside of a casino. She was down in F, in New Sybaris. Lute been there just once, not long after he¡¯d affixed, to see what it was like. What it was like was very loud and crowded and full of so many adults trying to age check him that he¡¯d left without even setting foot in the restaurant that had been his intended destination. He¡¯d mentioned it to Aimi, and she¡¯d told him that Chainers weren¡¯t allowed in the casinos anyway. She¡¯d said it in such a sorrowful voice that Lute wondered if she really wanted to gamble or if the ban was somehow her fault. What if Emilija is there because she loves poker or something? If a girl agrees to go on a date with me, will she get a lifetime casino ban by association? I could learn a luck chain and put it on someone else just as easily as my¡ª His concerns were shattered by the sound of a siren. He almost fell off his loft bed. Is that the fire alarm? A guy had set himself on fire last night, so the idea was fresh in his head. Then the System notices arrived. Lute had just enough time to read them a few times, get out of bed, and start pulling on clothes before the sound of a woman¡¯s magnified shout came from outside. ¡°Garden Hall residents!¡± she said in a clear but hurried voice. ¡°All of you should have received instructions to report to campus shelters. That means the MPE Building for you. Please head there now. If you don¡¯t know the location of the MPE building, ask a student in the Talent Development program. No running! No panicking! No staying in your rooms! We will be sending people in to check shortly!¡± Lute threw a jacket on. His mind was racing. Matadero? But nobody ever¡­ And what does ¡®oceanic anomaly¡¯ mean? Giant whirlpools? Have the whales risen up against us? ¡°System, I feel like you¡¯re being a little scanty with the information here. Do you not know what¡¯s going on for sure or something?¡± He started to zip up the jacket, but his hands stopped halfway through. Avoid seawater. Where¡¯s Libra tonight? Where¡¯s mom? ****** ****** ¡°Listen, Jeffrey,¡± Reinhard whispered, dragging the Aqua Brute a few steps away from Astrid, who was calling a car for them. They were all three waiting under a shelter near one of the Rosa Grove Mall exits. It was designed to look like an oversized umbrella, covered in bright tube lights. ¡°I¡¯m trying to do you a favor here.¡± ¡°Jeffy¡¯s not short for Jeffrey.¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. Now listen.¡± ¡°It¡¯s long for Jeff.¡± Reinhard¡¯s mouth closed. ¡°A lot of people make that mistake,¡± said Jeffy. ¡°I don¡¯t mind or anything.¡± ¡°Do you want to ride alone with Astrid or not?¡± the archer hissed. ¡°I can go separately. Jeffy stared at him. ¡°But we won¡¯t be alone. There¡¯s a driver.¡± ¡°She obviously likes you, you blue-haired¡ª!¡± ¡°What are you two talking about?¡± Astrid asked. She was using the umbrella shelter¡¯s curved handle as a prop while she tightened the laces on her shoes. ¡°I was just telling Jeffy that I¡¯m heading to the train station instead,¡± Reinhard said loudly. ¡°I¡¯ll go to my house. Sleeping in my old room¡¯s more comfortable than campus anyway. Good night! Have a safe trip, you two! Bye!¡± Before either of them could ask questions, he took off. ¡°That was absolutely my good deed for the week,¡± he said to himself several minutes later as he rode an escalator toward a train platform. ¡°They both owe me now. I have done Cupid duty.¡± He mimed shooting an arrow at one of the lights overhead. A loud, rising wail broke his concentration. Reinhard stumbled off the escalator, squinting at the alerts in front of him disbelievingly. ¡°Tsunami?¡± The word was being repeated by several people around him, in equally shocked tones. ¡°Like big waves?¡± He gasped, then ran for the other escalator. He flew up it and then down the street, heading back toward the mall.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Jeffy!¡± he shouted as soon as he could see the glowing umbrella shelter. ¡°Astrid! You guys haven¡¯t left yet, right!?¡± The sirens were howling. ¡°Jeffy!¡± When he reached the spot, he found Astrid waiting for him. ¡°You did come back!¡± She grabbed him by his shoulders and then let them go again in a gesture that was more reality-confirmation than embrace. ¡°Good. I thought you might, so I waited. Didn¡¯t want you to be alone. But I was getting reallyworried that was the wrong move. Reinhard, the System¡ª¡± ¡°I know,¡± he said. ¡°Where the hell is Jeffy? Did he leave?¡± ¡°He¡¯s gone,¡± she said. ¡°It took him.¡± ¡°What did?¡± he demanded, still looking around as if he expected to spot the Aqua Brute¡¯s mohawk in the shadows. ¡°Reinhard¡­¡± At the baffled, slightly helpless tone in her voice, he went still. ¡°Oh,¡± he said. ¡°You mean he got summoned.¡± ¡°Yeah. That.¡± ¡°Like Avowed do.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± They both stared at each other. ¡°He¡¯s on Anesidora still,¡± said Astrid. ¡°It would be weird if it was an emergency summons to somewhere else, right? Under these circumstances.¡± ¡°That would be ironic.¡± He ran a hand over his buzzed hair, then let it fall. ¡°Hey, he¡¯s first in our class to be summoned. We haven¡¯t even been in school long enough to get a betting pool going on who it¡¯ll be.¡± ¡°There¡¯s Alden.¡± ¡°Well yeah¡­but Alden¡¯s¡­his situation¡¯s not really¡­¡± She swallowed. ¡°I¡¯m sure Jeffy¡¯ll be fine,¡± Reinhard said. ¡°The guy¡¯s got an annoyingly great subclass that¡¯s even more great in this situation. We¡¯re the ones who need to get ourselves to a tall building.¡± ¡°I know. Stay with me. He life jacketed me before he left, so I¡¯m basically an emergency flotation device now. We¡¯re not that close to the water though, so it might have been a wasted spell.¡± ¡°Says who?¡± Reinhard asked. ¡°If I see so much as an oversized raindrop I¡¯m going to grab you. Since when do we have tsunami warning¡¯s here? And why would anyone attack Matadero? That¡¯s¡­.¡± ¡°It¡¯s bad,¡± she agreed. ¡°And we can¡¯t make calls. I still have my old cell phone, but I left it back in my room. I¡¯m getting so used to the interface.¡± They started walking, and before long, they were in a flow of foot traffic, headed toward the center of F and the highest buildings on the island. ¡°He was scared,¡± Astrid said quietly as they cut through a plaza at the back of a noisy, nervous pack of people. ¡°Not too bad. He was trying to read me his emergency summoning notice, and I was telling him it was fine, the System probably just needed him to help someone in the water. And he was saying of course it was fine and he¡¯d do his best. Only I could tell he was scared. And then he was gone.¡± It was a while before Reinhard answered her. ¡°Who wouldn¡¯t be scared?¡± ****** ****** Alden went down the stairs quickly. But not too quickly. Don¡¯t run. He¡¯ll hear your feet on the steps. Running makes it look like you¡¯re trying to get away from him. Trying to get away might make him wonder if he shouldn¡¯t let you. He hoped he was being paranoid. Liam seemed more like a person who would beg for your stuff than a person who would actually threaten you for it. A decent enough guy who was coming face to face with the terrible choices he¡¯d made tonight. It didn¡¯t really matter. A scared stranger was unpredictable. The consequences for misjudgments were too high. There was a new, dangerous feeling in the air. Alden was acutely aware of his own weaknesses. I can¡¯t outrun him. I can¡¯t fight him. Helping him look for his family sounds like a suicide mission. And if I drop Zeridee, she could die. The second floor landing was below him, and the emergency lights in the stairwell were bright, illuminating an absolute wreck. The water had drained away, leaving behind so much destroyed stuff¡ªthe broken door, glass, wood, an easel, an office chair. A dozen flavors of unidentifiable, sharp, shattered crap. Alden approached it cautiously. There was no way to avoid stepping on some of it. But the hiking sandals Zeridee had gotten for him had thick soles, so that was something at least. Stay up there trying to wrap your head around this shitty situation just a little longer please, Liam. Just long enough for me to get out. He made his way through the maze of garbage step by step, trying to balance his need for speed with his need to still have functional legs and feet once he made it outside. You know, Dura Brute would actually be fantastic. Can Haoyu walk across broken glass like its beach sand already? I think so. Once he gets himself where he wants to be, he could just barrel through a mess like this for sure. Or he could cannonball off the roof and skip the stairs altogether. He was almost at the bottom when the stairwell reverberated with the sound of footfalls. Damn. Okay. More fast; less careful. Alden jumped four steps into a spot that looked clear enough, landing hard thanks to the weight of his passenger. Here, below the second floor, drops of water rained down from all the pockets and crevices of junk they¡¯d been trapped in. Alden wanted to stop and study the movement of it, to see if he could figure out if there was some kind of rule or clue about how it got pulled toward its next target. The individual falling drops seemed to be responding to gravity like normal in here, but there was also a big wedge of water building up against the wall, as if the room were tilted. ¡°Tina? Tina, are you there?¡± Liam was still talking loudly to the earring. His voice echoed. Alden reached the last staircase. Surprisingly, the debris wasn¡¯t that bad down here. There was a lot of smaller stuff littering the floor. A whole electric keyboard was in the corner on its side. And the door was gone. It wasn¡¯t even in the stairwell. It was just gone like it had never been there at all. Alden ran out without pausing to question his good fortune. Within three steps, though, he realized the ground floor was going to be pitch black as he got farther from the emergency lighted staircase. I know where the puzzle door is. Apogee¡¯s ground floor had more than one hall lined with the reinforced boom rooms. He couldn¡¯t currently see the central hallway where a few strides past the Long siblings¡¯ torture room would lead him to the exit, but it wasn¡¯t far at all. One turn and a straight shot. It¡¯s fine. But the pause gave him a split second to consider another urgent problem. If he ran straight out into the street, he might not be able to jog away from Liam at whatever pace he wanted. Outdoors it was probably at least as difficult to navigate as this. And what if there wasn¡¯t a puzzle door anymore? Just rubble for him to dig through to find a way out. If I¡¯m even a little slow, Liam might catch up to me. If he can¡¯t find his own shoes, he might actively try to chase me down. It¡¯s safer if I watch him leave. The man was about to reach him. Thought turned to decision, and Alden rushed to hide himself and Zeridee in the deeper darkness of the hall he was on. Soon, his feet were crunching on things he couldn¡¯t properly see. He dodged larger shapes and walked along a damp wall. I think the end is just ahead? It was getting harder to make out anything. He shuffled a few more steps, and he accidentally kicked a pile of something that shifted and plopped on top of his foot. It felt like a giant wad of wet toilet paper, which seemed unlikely. He shook it off and stood still, lifting a hand to his chest as if that might keep his heart from beating out of it. Okay. Okay. Far enough. Don¡¯t let yourself panic and keep stumbling around for no reason. He turned just in time to see Liam stepping out of the stairwell. The light at his back make him super visible, and Alden¡¯s lizard brain hissed that the other Avowed could definitely see him right now if he looked this way. He bent his knees and squatted to make himself less obviously person-shaped. Even if he looks this way, he won¡¯t see me. Not unless he¡¯s got vision enhancements to help him, and I don¡¯t think he does. Liam had bumped into a couple of statues on the sixth floor while he was freaking out up there. Alden understood that people standing in bright spots couldn¡¯t clearly make out dark areas. He knew Liam¡¯s night vision should be at least as dull as his own was from being in the brighter stairwell. He still felt like a sitting duck. A few seconds passed, then Liam stepped out of the light and headed for his boom room. He¡¯d never even looked in Alden¡¯s direction. He¡¯s walking well. Maybe he took the pain injector I gave him already. It was the same as the one Alden had taken earlier. Knocked everything down to manageable levels. But really¡­please put something on your feet, man. Fabric, cardboard, anything. Having no skin left on them is going to suck so much. ****** Liam looked for his shoes. Alden sat on the floor in the dark, monitoring him with his ears. There was scuffing, thumping, splashing. A lot of splashing. Did he find a whole lake in the torture chamber? Alden did have some questions about how the water had entered and exited the building down here. Without windows, had it punched through walls? I hope the whole place isn¡¯t about to fall on top of my head. He stretched his shoulders, organized his thoughts. He was trying to take advantage of the short delay as much as he could. Zeridee lay across his lap. Water dripped from the ceiling around them as if in mockery of the rain that had so recently stopped falling outside. I¡¯m going to need to take that stimulant sooner than I planned. And I need some light. I¡¯m too tired to search the whole building for a light, but that¡¯s what I¡¯m going to need. How do people make torches? Can I do that? ¡°Royce, can you hear me? Come on, Roycee. Come on!¡± Alden closed his eyes and swallowed. Liam kept calling for his brother and sister. His voice was growing more desperate every time. Please answer him, one of you. Please don¡¯t leave him alone. The man was still looking for the shoes. Or maybe he¡¯d found them and he was gearing up in other ways. That would be smart. Alden tried not to feel ashamed. And sad. Afraid. He tried not to wonder if he was letting another person suffer more than he had to. And at the same time, he tried not to feel like he was already in trouble so deep that he might not make it to the surface no matter how overcautious he was. He patted one of Zeridee¡¯s arms a few times, just so that he felt less alone. It¡¯s all right. We were moving forward well enough earlier.We were getting closer and closer to safety. We¡¯ll make it out. He didn¡¯t quite believe himself. And because of that, because he wanted this terrible situation to end, he found himself pulling up his interface and flicking to the Privileges tab. One simple, weighty word at the bottom of the list stared at him: [MOTHER] So, thought Alden. I guess it¡¯s finally time to think about this seriously. It didn¡¯t look like a button. Just a word. Can I really¡­? A memory came to him. Sharp and fresh. Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s hands had touched his cheeks, in that teleporatation room on her spaceship that was supposed to kill him. ¡°Mother,¡± she¡¯d said, ¡°if this one makes it to you, place both your eyes upon him.¡± And because of that, because Alis-art¡¯h had suffered and served for who knew how long and earned herself ¡°a favor or two¡± from that entity, Alden Thorn got to live a little more. He got the sort of extraordinary help the Quaternary had so regretfully informed him he was not deemed worthy of. More extraordinary than that, even. I got to make a couple of important choices. And I got the chance to be safe again. Though it had been as simple as Alis-art¡¯h asking, Alden had never for a second thought it was actually simple. She hesitated. She was so upset about what happened to me. I saw how guilty she felt. But she still hesitated to ask. The knight had been walking out the door to leave him to his fate when she changed her mind and turned back to ask for that favor. This option¡ªif it was an option at all and Alden wasn¡¯t misunderstanding completely¡ªwould come with so much more than strings attached. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m misunderstanding. She was paying attention to me when I saw the privilege for the first time. She knew exactly what I thought. I even told her I knew she wasn¡¯t a genie. He wasn¡¯t Alis-art¡¯h. He wasn¡¯t owed. If Alden wanted to ask for favors, he was going to have to earn them. And Quiet Rabbits probably couldn¡¯t do that. He opened a text message window to nobody. [If I use my final privilege, then don¡¯t you have to talk to me? I can¡¯t get in touch with Artona I without you.] The dripping of the water all around him seemed loud. A frigid drop hit his head and slid down the side of his cheek. Then, a voice whispered in his ear. It was a pleasant enough one, neither male nor female. ¡°Are you using that privilege, Alden?¡± It¡¯s answering. Like this. I can¡¯t even use it to send a text if I beg right now, but it answers this. If just the mention of the privilege was enough to reprioritize its attention¡­ Alden suddenly felt like he was hanging onto the edge of a cliff by a single fingertip. The question hung there, too, right beside him. [No,] he wrote. [I¡¯m sorry for bothering you. I wasn¡¯t thinking clearly. I won¡¯t mention that subject again unless I mean it.] ****** ONE HUNDRED FORTY-ONE: Waves VII 141 ****** Alden shifted Zeridee on his back and peered out of the gaping hole in the front wall of Apogee Artist Spaces. Liam had just made it to the intersection. The man¡¯s chest was wrapped in white light; he¡¯d found some kind of flexible, glowing tubing in his studio or the wreckage. And his feet were covered now¡ªone with a shoe, one with something Alden couldn¡¯t identify from here. Good luck, he thought as the Brute leaped over what looked like a destroyed refrigerator and disappeared around the corner. My turn to go. He wanted a flashlight, but while he¡¯d listened to Liam frantically searching his ruined studio for supplies, he¡¯d decided that it would take too long to find one in this mess. Better to get off this street and to a clearer area first. The boom rooms had only partially lived up to their names. On this hall that connected directly to the building¡¯s entryway and exterior, most of the rooms were standing, but their doors had been blown inward by the force of the water. All kinds of things had gotten scrambled and smashed. Some of the mess had drifted into the hallway or out of the building altogether when the water retreated. He was guessing most of it had left through the giant gap where the puzzle door and the stretch of concrete wall on one side of it had once been. There was an entire room missing there, just behind Alden and to his left. Reinforced walls had been turned to rubble, and so much of the ceiling was gone that the second floor was exposed. He couldn¡¯t help looking back at that area one last time, wondering if he could possibly be correct about how it had happened. It looks like a torpedo hit the front of the building and burst through there instead of just the big wave. ¡°Hey,¡± he said, staring at the thing he suspected of being that torpedo. ¡°You don¡¯t happen to have a package with a flashlight in you, do you?¡± A glowing red hand sign appeared, illuminating an odd nook in the rubble as it waved hello. It looked like something largish had been sitting there, supporting the debris as it fell all around it, and then that something had disappeared. Now, there was a single Post Drop in the precise center of that space, standing upright. Alden wasn¡¯t sure it was fair of him to be suspicious of the Drop. The mailbox wasn¡¯t totally unharmed. Its solar panel top was broken from where a broken pipe had hit it. The screen that was displaying the hand was shattered. And some rubble around it ruined the perfection of the strange pocket it sat in. But the pocket was still there. It looked like it could have been created by a water bubble that had surrounded the Post Drop and launched it into Apogee. And the mailbox was in unexpectedly fantastic shape if it was a regular victim of a massive wave. The glowing hand turned into a smiley face. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, customer. I don¡¯t recognize you. My connection to System information seems to be malfunctioning. Please input your name on the touchscreen if you¡¯d like to send mail.¡± ¡°Where did you come from?¡± Alden asked it, thinking that he might at least get the name of a location. He¡¯d know to avoid going that way as he traveled, since missing mailboxes didn¡¯t bode well for the conditions there. But there must not have been a programmed response for that question. The device said ¡°I¡¯m sorry, customer,¡± again in that same tonelessly polite voice. Much more boring than the one Alden remembered from the Post Drop he¡¯d used to send his message to the Velras. That feels like it was years ago. Before he left home. Before he was a Rabbit. Somewhere on the other side of that chasm in his life. He took a deep breath. ¡°All right, Zeridee. Let¡¯s go for a walk.¡± He stepped out of the building onto what had once been a pristine sidewalk, but before he could go any farther, a motion a few feet ahead caught his eye. Then the light of the mailbox winked out, and he couldn¡¯t see clearly enough to make out the source of the motion anymore. ¡°Post Drop.¡± The red light came back on behind him. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, customer. I don¡¯t recogni¡ª¡± Alden ignored it. He took another step, debris crunching beneath his feet, and looked down. There was a small snake, curled up on top of a piece of fiberboard beside a plastic bento box decorated with cherry blossoms. The animal wasn¡¯t moving now, but it was still in one piece. ¡°You got washed all the way out here? That must have been a cold, scary swim.¡± Liam¡¯s snake was pencil thin and even though Alden couldn¡¯t make out the color right now, he knew from seeing it in its habitat earlier that its patterned skin was primarily dark orange. ¡°I hear you¡¯re friendly. But are you deadly?¡± He glanced at the bento. It had a lid. Practically fate then. Alden groaned like an old man as he bent down with Zeridee¡¯s weight on his back. The bento had a pair of chopsticks clipped to the inside of the lid. ¡°I¡¯m neutral on snakes,¡± he said, slipping the sticks under the creature. ¡°I¡¯m not neutral on being bitten by venomous ones. So please forgive me for poking you with these things and trapping you in a lunchbox instead of carrying you around on my nice warm body.¡± The snake was really sluggish. From the temperature and exhaustion, Alden assumed. It barely twitched as he scooped it into its new carrying case. ¡°Sorry.¡± He shut the lid on the snake and tucking the bento into his bag. ¡°The ride might be bumpy, but I think your chances are better with me than out here in the street. If you live, you¡¯ll be my easiest ever rescue. So please do that.¡± He closed the flap on the bag and looked around him. The swift movement of the water out of this area seemed to have carried the worst of the debris away from this particular spot, but there was some unfathomable shit going on anyway. Something that Alden could only guess was a steel industrial vat was on its side in the road right in front of him, and a mound of detritus had piled up behind it. He could barely pick out what any of it was. Whole houses are missing. That vat is big enough for cars to disappear inside it. This is all too big to deal with mentally, never mind physically. From the sixth floor, he¡¯d marked the general area he wanted to head toward. He was going to get out of this demolition zone and then try to dodge the places where the absence of lights indicated some other picturesque corner of Apex had been ground into suburban paste. He patted Zeridee¡¯s braid and the bag. Finding the snake had made him feel a little better. Like it was proof that he would survive, too. He didn¡¯t care if it made sense or not. ¡°Let¡¯s all live then,¡± he said. ¡°How does that sound?¡± ****** ****** Well, this looks different than it did earlier today, doesn¡¯t it? Lute Velra stood on his toes and craned his neck to examine the crowd in the MPE gymnasium. The facility the students in the high school¡¯s hero program used was huge, as spaces for Avowed talent training and athletics tended to be. Lots of superhumans needed room for their powers to shine, and there was plenty of that here. Usually. Right now, Lute was wondering if they were going to have to start stacking students on top of each other to fit them all in. Like in Emilija¡¯s photo. The image the F-rank Rabbit had taken of the human stackers outside the casino was the last bit of internet access Lute had enjoyed. And that had been over an hour ago. He¡¯d been slow arriving here at his designated evac location because people who recognized him had kept stopping him to ask him for wordchains, and once he¡¯d realized there was a significant problem on that front, he¡¯d been trying to correct it. Only to fail hard. They¡¯re all going to think I¡¯m a greedy Velra who won¡¯t share even in a crisis. That¡¯s what everyone is going to think no matter what I say. The truth wasn¡¯t much better, and his reputation could hardly sink lower. So in that sense he supposed it was fine. People bumped into him. He was still standing in the doorway that separated the building¡¯s front vestibule from the gym itself, and the crowd was so thick that he basically couldn¡¯t move until everyone else did. Lute was being careful about how he moved. He¡¯d stacked quite a few wordchains on himself, since he could still do that just fine, and he wasn¡¯t accustomed to carrying this many at once. Hazel got her jollies by turning herself into a faux Brute. His own preferred daily chain list was more moderate. He didn¡¯t think he¡¯d gone overboard yet, but his body still felt like an ill-fitted suit. Self-mastery chains¡ªtwo of them¡ªwere keeping it all manageable. He heard someone mention the Teleportation Complex, and he focused on the other boy¡¯s voice, tuning out the rest of the clamor. ¡°¡­got in touch with Mom finally on Bilal¡¯s infogear watch. Took forever. Anyway, she¡¯s night shift, and she said they had her chipping ice off the magic symbols. Some side effect from heavy use. You¡¯d think it would be heat if it was anything, wouldn¡¯t you? She said the System was dropping hundreds of kids at once in the concourse, not even bothering with bays. It made them clear all the furniture out. She said the kids were there and gone so fast that she heard one batch yelling and crying, and when she turned around it was just voices echoing around the place. The kids were already gone on to who knows where.¡± Lute couldn¡¯t see the speaker through the crowd. There was a pause, then the boy added, ¡°It was kind of scary. She said the tiles on the concourse floor were starting to crack in places. She pried up a piece because she thought she saw something strange, and there are symbols under there, too. Just like in the bays. She asked one of the security people who¡¯s worked there forever what that was about, and he said the whole building is actually a teleporter. The bays are just more refined or something.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not scary,¡± said a girl. ¡°It¡¯s cool. I didn¡¯t know that.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t done. The security man told her that the Artonans who come to do maintenance don¡¯t just work on the building. They always check the lots and the parking garage and part of the streets around the place. When he first started working there, he asked them why the full teleportation area was so big, and one of them actually answered him.¡± ¡°What did they say?¡± ¡°That the whole thing would only be used ¡®if Anesidora was no longer a suitable place to live.¡¯¡± Lute shivered. This is what I get for eavesdropping, he thought. Nightmare fuel. But in one way, it made him feel better. The System was mass teleporting people. With that plus shelters being available, his parents were probably already somewhere safe, or they would be very soon. Mom might not even have needed a teleport. She¡¯s almost always with Aulia. If nothing else, Aulia was powerful. And they could be living at the penthouse right now. They¡¯d be totally safe there. As the throng of people finally pushed its way into the gym proper, a local interface message appeared: [This is a secure location. Do not leave.] ¡°Okay then,¡± Lute muttered. ¡°I will not leave. Easy enough.¡± The noise level was ridiculous. A few people crying. More people laughing and joking around with their friends. There were around thirty young children in a group on the white floor, singing Donguri Korokoro with the grown-ups who were watching them. ¡°Kids center floor! Kids center floor! H¨¢izimen¡­¡± Lute tuned out the people shouting instructions for non-Avowed. But a couple of minutes later, a young woman wearing a bright red vest over her t-shirt forced her way through the crowd toward him. ¡°Hi!¡± she said brightly. ¡°Are you looking for your family? I¡¯ll find them for you if you want to go ahead to the floor with the other minors.¡± ¡°I¡¯m an S-rank.¡± She looked confused for a second, then she gasped, ¡°You¡¯re the Velra boy!¡± Lute bit back a sigh. ¡°That¡¯s me.¡± Please don¡¯t ask me for a wordchain right now. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry!¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°I¡¯m really sorry.¡± ¡°It¡¯s nothing. I¡¯m only fifteen.¡± ¡°But I should have recognized you! I see you all the time.You look different without your¡­we both have a class in Mele Center around the same time. I¡¯m taking throat singing!¡± She didn¡¯t recognize me without an eye patch, Lute thought. He¡¯d been too flustered on his way out of the room to worry about something like that. ¡°Anyway, the whole place is supposed to be safe,¡± she said, ¡°but they told us to put more vulnerable people in the center of the gym floor, and less vulnerable people around the edges. If you want, you can even go sit in the side halls and classrooms. There¡¯s more room there. For now. Doesn¡¯t look like it¡¯s going to last. The uni combat facility is filling up fast, too. Don¡¯t leave the building or you might not get back in.¡± A little room to breathe sounded good, even if it wasn¡¯t guaranteed to last. I wonder if I should just have stayed in my room. The Celena North campus wasn¡¯t very close to the coast. He couldn¡¯t imagine the ocean reaching them here unless the whole country was screwed. Lute made his way slowly through the crowd and eventually reached one of the side halls. He could actually walk in here. The classrooms were open, but all the desks were full. He didn¡¯t feel like sitting down anyway, so he wandered for a bit, poking his head inside of rooms to see what footage of the disaster was playing on the projection screens and listening in on peoples¡¯ conversations. ¡°I swear on my skill, that¡¯s what they said. The old Nilama high-rise was completely underwater for a while.¡± Lute wondered briefly if Paragon Academy was still there. Then he frowned. That high-rise is where Lexi¡¯s family lives. He assumed most of the newest first year hero class, including his roommates, had gotten stuck at Rosa Grove when everything went wrong. ¡°If that place was underwater, the whole family neighborhood would be. That¡¯s just not possible,¡± someone said. ¡°No. Re-read the System update. ¡®Observed effects include: forced submersion¡ªusually but not always of elementally defined objects, rapid motion of submerged materials, sudden influxes of water in limited coastal areas.¡¯¡± ¡°What are you saying?¡± ¡°A building is an object. It would be like what happened to The Span.¡± A girl¡¯s voice chimed in. ¡°I just talked to someone in the bathroom who was there. She only just made it back to campus.¡± ¡°In Nilama?¡± ¡°At The Span!¡± Lute stepped aside to let a group of older teens enter the room where the discussion was taking place. A moment later, his ears picked up on another conversation happening behind him. ¡°You¡¯ll let me know if they reply back, won¡¯t you, Vandy?¡± ¡°Of course I will. Just don¡¯t leave the building. We need to keep track of everyone.¡± ¡°I¡¯m after Helo¨ªsa.¡± ¡°No, Sanjay. You¡¯re after Olive. She put herself on the list before you did. It won¡¯t be long.¡± Lute turned. He could only make out a slice of Vandy Carisson¡¯s face and torso, thanks to the gaggle of people standing around her as she sat with her back to the wall. He moved closer, trying to see around the backside of an appallingly lazy guitarist he knew from a shared class. Vandy had claimed one of the only outlets on the hallway, and she¡¯d plugged in one of those power strips that was made for infogear. Three of the latest model phones were linked to it by their tiny chargethreads, and all of them were currently being held by people who were texting on them. With one hand, Vandy was passing a fourth phone to that Adjuster girl who could make illusions of herself; with the other, she was writing in a spiralbound notebook. ¡°Helo¨ªsa, now that you¡¯ve had your turn, would you go ask the instructors and the helpers if they have any messages that should be sent?¡± she asked an athletic girl who was wearing sneakers with pajama shorts and a hoody. ¡°Since they¡¯re so busy, we can do it for them. Just make sure you get names and enough information.¡± Vandy ripped some sheets of paper out of the notebook and passed them over. ¡°Thanks for the mission!¡± Helo¨ªsa sprang up from her squat on the floor and raced off. Lute took advantage of the gap left by her absence to slip even closer to Vandy. Are all the phones hers? Where did she get so much infogear? She¡¯d never carried the stuff back at Paragon, and he couldn¡¯t imagine why she would suddenly have started once she got her own interface. Vandy was wearing her gym suit. Lute wondered if it was for safety, or if she¡¯d run out of the dorms in such a hurry that the unitard was more appropriate than whatever she¡¯d had on. Her brown hair was uncharacteristically unkempt, and strands were escaping from a cloud-shaped barrette to fall around her cheeks as she focused on the chart she¡¯d made inside her notebook. There were a ton of names on it already. One of the phones chimed, and the boy holding it passed it to her. Vandy read the message, wrote it down in the notebook beside someone¡¯s name, then passed it back. Why couldn¡¯t someone else have set up a calling service? Lute wondered. She wasn¡¯t a person who would refuse to let him use the phone just because she hated him, but he still wished he didn¡¯t have to ask. ¡°Hi, Vandy.¡± Her pen stopped scratching at the notebook. Her eyes met his. ¡°Lute.¡± ¡°Are you sharing your phones? Do you mind if I borrow one to see if I have a message?¡± Cyril had bought himself an infogear watch months ago, after moving out of the apartment Jessica had provided for him while Lute was growing up. The place was empty now. She had left messages suggesting Lute could have it. He had never answered them. When Vandy didn¡¯t reply, Lute added, ¡°Not right now or anything. Put me at the bottom of the list?¡± She made him wait an awkwardly long time for an answer. Just as he was growing afraid that she might actually refuse, she nodded. ¡°All right. Stay nearby. I¡¯ll call your name when it¡¯s your turn.¡± ¡°Thank you. I appreciate¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯d like a wordchain,¡± she interrupted. Her voice was matter of fact. Mostly. Lute thought he was probably imagining the edge. ¡°Right¡­¡± She didn¡¯t mean it in a bartering way. Did she? ¡°Do you mean I can¡¯t send a text if I don¡¯t¡­?¡± ¡°I¡¯d like to be able to focus better,¡± Vandy said, still staring at him. ¡°I¡¯m finding it difficult to concentrate on what matters right now. I will, of course, pay back the debt at a later date. And I will give you money. Isn¡¯t that how it usually works?¡± Matadero. Her mom. She probably is finding it difficult to concentrate. ¡°I don¡¯t actually charge people for that kind of arrangement¡­I¡¯d do it. I really would. But, the thing is¡­¡± He didn¡¯t blush. Blushing was for people who hadn¡¯t spent months learning to control their facial expressions with their self-mastery chain active.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°I can¡¯t actually target people right now,¡± he confessed. ¡°The System assist is off, and I never learned how to do it without it.¡± Because why would I have needed to? ¡°That¡¯s ridiculous,¡± the lurking guitarist scoffed before Vandy could reply. ¡°I can still target things. He¡¯s lying.¡± Lute actually had no idea what the dude¡¯s Avowed powers were. He also didn¡¯t care. ¡°Good for you,¡± he said cooly. ¡°Why don¡¯t you try to target the right notes the next time you play instead of publicly humiliating your instrument? The System is no longer assisting me with targeting. I can¡¯t figure out how to do it without the System¡¯s help. Therefore, I am not currently performing wordchains for other people.¡± ¡°Why would the System¡ª?¡± ¡°It¡¯s none of your business. I¡¯m talking to Vandy.¡± Her brows were drawn together. ¡°Why would the System deny you targeting assistance?¡± she asked. Lute groaned. Internally. Externally, he cultivated a persona of patience and earnest apology. ¡°You could do so much with your skill to help people tonight,¡± Vandy said. ¡°I¡¯m surprised you haven¡¯t been called for duty.¡± ¡°Well,¡± said Lute, mentally cursing at his grandmother and his tattoo for not allowing him to fully explain, ¡°it¡¯s a complicated situation.¡± Take it up with the Palace of Unbreaking! Chainer is theirs, and they do not want me to get panicky and cast chains on entire buildings full of humans who might bite it or shirk debt. Not without some form of pre-payment anyway. The only other explanation he could think of was that it was the System itself that didn¡¯t want to play with Chainers right now. It wasn¡¯t just targeting that was down. Mass Bestowal was a package that came with other significant System assistance. Some of the old people had trained themselves to do things without its help, but even if Lute had been trying to learn how, he should be a decade or three away from getting there. ¡°I assume if the crisis continues for long enough, and if the System actually needs me, I¡¯ll be able to do more,¡± he said, hoping that satisfied Vandy. They had a staring contest. She doesn¡¯t look very satisfied. ¡°If you can¡¯t do it, then¡ª¡± ¡°I will try for you. I tried for some other people tonight.¡± ¡°¡ªthen it¡¯s okay,¡± Vandy finished. Oh. She wasn¡¯t going to refuse after all. Lute watched her write his name on the chart. There was an odd feeling in his gut. Is your mom all right, Vandy? Do you know? He didn¡¯t think he was allowed to ask her that. ¡°I¡¯ll try,¡± he said. ¡°Mental focus? There¡¯s one I like for that. I call it ¡®zone in¡¯ because the real name is such a pain¡­never mind¡­just a minute.¡± He pressed his hands together, crossing just the ring fingers over each other in the first sign. The wordchain was one he knew well enough to cast without too much thought, so he tried to think about targeting while he whispered the words. For all the good it¡¯ll do. He¡¯d tried on more than a dozen people already. More than once on most of them. What in Apex was targeting anyway? It was a brain button Lute could click on his interface. He had learned to do that mentally. It was a word he could say. Or pointing with a finger. It was Hey, System, help me aim at Vandy Carisson. When the System was ignoring you, there was none of that. So what was there to do other than¡­stare really, really hard at Vandy who is staring really, really hard at me and think about pointing my magic and my soul and the attention of a wordchain at her. Go get her, chain. Ignore me! I am a mighty Chainer, and I command you! Lute had made one interesting discovery because of this situation. The wordchains didn¡¯t seem to affect him when he was trying very hard to give them to another person this way. He¡¯d accidentally hit himself with a single energy chain he hadn¡¯t wanted, but other than that, they¡¯d just failed. This one was going to fail, too. I feel bad. Chainer could actually be impressive at a time like this, but it¡¯s just not going to be. Vandy was still looking at him. She¡¯d always had striking eyes. He¡¯d thought she was pretty that day she¡¯d made him hand over the dice to Carlotta. He still thought she was pretty now. What an annoyance. Finding someone hot when you had mixed feelings¡ªheavily leaning toward bitter and embarrassed¡ªabout how they¡¯d treated you for years and how you¡¯d treated them in return, was stupid. Being a teenager was stupid. That stray draft that blew some of Vandy¡¯s hair toward her mouth, making her tuck it behind her ear again as she moistened her lips with her tongue was extra stupid. Lute finished the chain. Sorry, Vandy. I tried my¡ª ¡°You did it after all,¡± said Vandy. ¡°Thank you. That¡¯s better. I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be much more efficient now.¡± ¡°Did it work?¡± he asked in surprise. ¡°Yes,¡± she said, already focused on adding a new column to her chart. ¡°Although the System didn¡¯t ask for my permission or inform me about what wordchain you were casting. Isn¡¯t it supposed to?¡± That¡¯s¡­very interesting. ¡°It usually does.¡± She nodded. ¡°It¡¯s good that it worked. You should consider what you might have done differently this time from your previous attempts. You¡¯re very powerful, Lute. You have a responsibility to take things seriously.¡± He stiffened, then his muscles loosened up a second later thanks to the self-mastery. I wanted the horny killed, and she did it just like that. Remarkable. ¡°You do always want everything to be taken seriously, don¡¯t you?¡± he said. ¡°All right. Glad it worked for you. Say something when it¡¯s my turn to use a phone. I¡¯ll hear you.¡± He strode off, trying to look unbothered. Probably succeeding. She¡¯s just doing her version of the right thing, like always. It¡¯s good that she doesn¡¯t realize she made you cry the last time she suggested you might take being an Avowed seriously. Her mom¡¯s on Matadero. Give her break. The mood fell away from him as he walked down the hall. It was the wrong time to be hung up on such a small thing. Something had gone seriously wrong. The System was issuing disaster alerts. It was impossible to feel personally endangered when he was surrounded by bright lights, instructors, and hundreds of teenagers¡ªmany of whom were more excited and intrigued by the drama of what was happening than frightened. But there were still some quiet, worried faces around him. And every time Lute saw one it made him feel the knot in his own chest more acutely. He didn¡¯t think anything bad could¡¯ve happened to his parents. Not really. Evacuations were happening all over Apex and F-City. The System was helping. Adult Avowed were helping. Most of the hero program faculty and Principal Juma from Sciences were out there right now. There were hyperboles on duty. There were wizards. It¡¯s fine, right? He¡¯d feel a lot better after he¡¯d used the phone. Mom can probably get her hands on infogear, too. Even on a night like tonight. She¡¯s good at things like that. He found a patch of wall to lean against and tried to figure out how he¡¯d targeted Vandy Carisson. Is it because she¡¯s an S, too? I don¡¯t think that should make a difference, but maybe it could. Beside him, two girls were having a conversation about how the tips of the Apex crescent were being completely emptied of people. ¡°My Grandpa has a house in Punta de la Luna,¡± said a girl. ¡°That place is so nice. They have big yards. And the boardwalk,¡± her friend replied. ¡°Dad said Grandpa called him from the train, fiery mad that some speedster had told him he had to leave. He said they were just going to let the whole place go to the fish, and what did that say about the fighting spirit of Avowed?¡± ¡°Is your grandpa a superhero?¡± ¡°No. He¡¯s a Morph actor. Have you ever seen Love Across Dimensions? He plays all the characters. Do you think they should really just let whole neighborhoods go like that, though?¡± ¡°Well, it¡¯s a tiny area surrounded by ocean on three sides. I just hope they get everyone out before¡ª¡± ¡°Lute,¡± Vandy said from the other end of the hall, ¡°it¡¯s your turn next.¡± He was able to pick out her voice even though she hadn¡¯t spoken that loudly. Surprised and relieved his chance had come so much sooner than he¡¯d expected, he headed back toward her. When he reached her, she passed him one of the phones. It was warm from being held in so many hands. ¡°The screens on these new models automatically recognize you once you give them permission to id you as the current user, and any messages you¡¯ve received will appear in the inbox. You get to hold it for three minutes and send as many messages as you can in that time.¡± Challenge accepted, thought Lute, the fingers of his right hand already flickering over the device¡¯s keypad. The inbox was showing up as empty. He hated that. He¡¯d really thought one of them would have gotten their hands on a phone by now, but maybe they were in the same situation as him, stuck waiting in line for someone at a shelter to share. ¡°When you get done, it¡¯s best if you tell the phone it can deliver your messages to me for the night,¡± said Vandy. ¡°That way any that have come in will pop up automatically whenever I hold it, and I¡¯ll send a runner to find you as soon as I get one for you. Otherwise you¡¯ll have to wait for another turn to check the phone yourself.¡± ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll give permission. I actually thought it would take much longer for my turn to come, though,¡± he said, finishing addressing a general ¡°alive and well¡± message to his parents and, for good measure, Aimi. ¡°You have so many names on the chart. You¡¯re moving through them really fast.¡± Vandy glanced up at him and then back down. ¡°No. We¡¯re already behind schedule. You were just on a shorter list because I assumed you were trying to get in touch with your parents.¡± Lute sent a message to a couple of people his dad sometimes hung out with, asking if they¡¯d seen him tonight. Then he started one to Aunt Hikari. She was so responsible that she¡¯d definitely answer if she happened to see it. Next I¡¯ll do Roman. He likes to gossip so he might know things And then I¡¯ll send something to the guys. What Vandy had said suddenly registered, but he didn¡¯t want to waste his time with the phone to ask questions. Just as his three minutes were approaching their end, the device pinged, and Lute¡¯s thumb shot down to accept the message. Oh. Haoyu¡¯s just sent me something. That¡¯s a really long text. Wow. ¡°Haoyu wrote me a book,¡± he said. ¡°I can¡¯t read it in the next four seconds.¡± ¡°Haoyu texted you?¡± Vandy looked up. Then down. Then around. ¡°You can have it for one more minute.¡± Lute raised an eyebrow. She¡¯s breaking a rule. He was one hundred percent sure she was doing it for Haoyu, not for him. But he read the message gladly. They all got off the bridge? Since when were they on the bridge?! And it doesn¡¯t sound like Alden and Lexi are with him. But he says they¡¯re all safe. Haoyu had signed the message Foe Cooker. Clinging to the phone for a bit longer after his extra minute was up was tempting, but Lute passed it back. ¡°Why was I on a short list?¡± he asked. ¡°Aren¡¯t most people here trying to get in touch with their parents?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Vandy. ¡°But I made a separate section of the chart for people who had more reason to be worried about family members.¡± Because they¡¯re not Avowed? I think¡­that was thoughtful of her. ¡°They¡¯re probably fine,¡± he said, as much to himself as to her. ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly where they are, but the System is teleporting people away from dangerous areas, right?¡± Everyone on campus had just been told to walk to shelters since they had the high school and uni gyms. Vandy exchanged a look with Olive, who was sitting beside her, wearing a pink jacket backwards. Their faces¡­ ¡°What?¡± Lute asked. ¡°The System¡¯s the one in charge of teleporting people,¡± said Olive. ¡°It¡¯s doing it in an unexpected way. Not like most people are thinking it should. Either it¡¯s in serious emergency control mode or the Artonans are¡­I guess there¡¯s not a real difference.¡± ¡°Are you saying it¡¯s not teleporting everyone out of dangerous areas?¡± Vandy set aside her pen. Lute was now officially afraid of whatever she was going to say. ¡°Its teleportation priority order seems to be based on several different factors according to what we¡¯ve heard and the messages we¡¯ve been receiving. All non-Avowed below the age of twenty definitely received the highest priority.¡± ¡°Right,¡± said Lute. ¡°Like Apex emergency priority.¡± Vulnerable people first. ¡°But after evacuating minors, its second priority seems to be something more like combat force preservation,¡± said Vandy. ¡°Balanced with consideration for an individual¡¯s immediate risk but not as much as we might expect.¡± ¡°We just took a message from someone who said if you reject your teleport, you don¡¯t get another no matter how much trouble you get yourself into,¡± Olive piped up. ¡°And then you have to consider how the System is teleporting around all of the people who are fighting the ocean and performing in-person rescues.¡± ¡°Back up,¡± said Lute. ¡°What does combat force preservation mean?¡± Vandy looked uncomfortable. ¡°It means what it sounds like. But don¡¯t worry. There are tall buildings and shelters all over the place. Any inland skyscraper should be an excellent evacuation spot.¡± There is no way, thought Lute, that my parents fall into any category that Vandy Carisson might call a ¡®combat force¡¯. ¡°Almost everyone,¡± said Vandy, ¡°will be fine.¡± ****** ****** ¡°This is a loooong walk,¡± Natalie Choir said, trying to hold a small pink umbrella over herself and Hadiza at the same time. ¡°Whew. Okay! I¡¯m sure we are just about to reach Bunker Street. Yay! Stay positive! Hadiza, are your feet all right?¡± ¡°They have been better.¡± Hadiza was looking down at the high heels she¡¯d worn for their Friday night out. ¡°My skill makes them beautiful. Not comfortable.¡± ¡°You can take them off soon. Emilija¡­um¡­Go, Emilija! Good Emilija! Smiles!¡± Emilija sighed. ¡°Go, Natalie,¡± she said in a heavy accent, twirling her own umbrella a little. ¡°Good Natalie. Smiles.¡± Natalie held a hand up for a high five, and Emilija obliged her before turning to Hadiza and giving the Nigerian girl a pained look. ¡°She thinks you are someone who gets too loud when nervous, Natalie,¡± Hadiza said. ¡°I can tell by her face.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to learn Lithuanian after this!¡± Natalie announced. ¡°It¡¯s the obvious thing to do.¡± New Sybaris was near the coast. The whole district had cleared out and headed inland when the sirens started. The Rabbit girls had all three been told to head to the same place to seek safety. ¡°Timer,¡± said Emilija quietly. ¡°Mine¡¯s longer now, too,¡± Hadiza said. ¡°Mine, too. Again. But I wasn¡¯t going to mention it this time because we are almost there. I can practically smell Bunker Street from here.¡± They were in a throng of people waiting to cross a street with a less auspicious name. The traffic had stopped obeying lights in some places, which wasn¡¯t helping when it came to getting around. ¡°Left,¡± said Emilija. The other two looked at her. ¡°Left?¡± Hadiza asked. Emilija pointed left, made a walking motion with two of her fingers, then pointed straight ahead. ¡°We¡¯ll follow you,¡± Natalie said. ¡°Lead, lead!¡± Emilija set off, and they hurried after her. Not long after, a man walking on the sidewalk behind them suddenly let out a relieved sound, and as they all three turned to look, he disappeared. The black umbrella that had been in his hand hit the ground with a clatter. Hadiza mumbled something. Emilija said, ¡°No fair.¡± It was what they had started saying every time someone was teleported away to instant safety. ¡°No fair,¡± Hadiza agreed. ¡°No fair. But free umbrella! One for each of us.¡± Natalie thrust the pink umbrella toward Hadiza and ran over to pick up the one the man had dropped. ¡°This is a big one. Would either of you like it?¡± At that moment, their interfaces flared: [Local Update: Bunker Street shelter at capacity. Head north to Norsehorse Condominiums.] Natalie bit her lip. ¡°That¡¯s¡­new. Not bad. Just new instructions.¡± Hadiza was glaring at her own notice. Emilija¡¯s hands were clenched at her sides. ¡°Why?¡± she whispered. ¡°It says it¡¯s full,¡± Natalie said. ¡°Why?¡± Emilija demanded, throwing aside her umbrella to stare up at the sky. ¡°She probably wonders why we were sent to a shelter that would be filled before we reached it,¡± Hadiza said. ¡°I wonder too.¡± ¡°Maybe the System made a mistake?¡± ¡°Does it do that?¡± Hadiza asked. Then her eyes widened. ¡°Emilija? Emilija! Where are you going?¡± Emilija had taken off running. ¡°That isn¡¯t north!¡± Hadiza called. She and Natalie chased after their friend down the street, then across it onto another, both of them arguing with her and yelling at her. She yelled back one and two word answers in English that didn¡¯t do enough to explain what the matter was. Then they started to hear the sounds of the mob. Emilija slowed down. The others did as well. They passed a sign that said Bunker Street Entry 2, and their own fight was forgotten as they were met with a much more serious one. ¡°What is this?¡± Hadiza breathed. They stood on a one-way lane that intersected Bunker Street. A horde of people, shouting demands and swearing in a dozen languages, stood between them and the entrance to the bunker that the street had been named for. A section of the street itself had lifted like a hatch to reveal a wide ramp that led down below the surface. Men and women with red rings of light over their heads were trying to push the crowd back from the opening. Someone shot a spell at a man who¡¯d scaled the massive hatch from behind, and he fell, bellowing. Natalie shrieked, then covered her mouth with her hands, backing away. She bumped into Hadiza, who never even blinked. [Warning: Hazard in your area. Do not interfere with Avowed on assignment. Avowed on assignment are indicated on your interface.] ¡°We don¡¯t stay here,¡± said Hadiza suddenly. She grabbed Emilija by the arm. ¡°Come with us. Let¡¯s go.¡± Emilija was gazing at the bunker. Her chest was heaving. Her eyes started to water. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Natalie asked. ¡°Emilija, what¡¯s wrong? We just need to keep walking. We¡¯re getting farther and farther from the coast with every step. It¡¯s all right.¡± The older girl said something in Lithuanian, her voice shaking. Hadiza and Natalie looked at each other. ¡°Timer,¡± said Emilija, wiping at her eyes and spinning around to start back the way they¡¯d come. ¡°Did yours change again?¡± Hadiza said. ¡°No timer for me,¡± said Emilija. ¡°None. It¡¯s gone.¡± ****** ****** Alden was exhausted. He knew because he¡¯d started stumbling. First over one piece of rubbish he¡¯d misjudged, then another. The next street will be clear. The next. Keep going, he told himself. You can take the stimulant when you get just a little farther. Don¡¯t want it to wear off. At least it¡¯s not that LeafSong shit that almost blew up your heart. Rrorro had literally healed his heart. That was sobering. He usually thought about other things she¡¯d healed because those sessions had happened when he was more coherent and in more pain. But a heart is a pretty important body part, and mine had to be healed. Let¡¯s not do that again. His Artonan tablet was in his hand, screen pointed toward his feet. It didn¡¯t actually have a flashlight feature, so he¡¯d set it to play one of Kibby¡¯s saved videos as bright as it could. ¡°Alden,¡± she was saying, ¡°when we see each other again, how different will you be?¡± It was one of her sweeter messages. Kibby had many modes¡ªscientist, moralizer, reminiscer, teacher. This particular mode was different, and it didn¡¯t crop up as often in the videos as it had in person, which was a great thing. But Alden still found its reappearance touching. ¡°For example,¡± said Kibby, ¡°you might grow even taller than Distinguished Master Ro-den. You might also grow to have different opinions about people. Even people you know very well. Like me. Do you think those two things might happen to you?¡± So sneaky Kibby. I will definitely never know which question you actually want answered if you distract me by mentioning me growing even taller than Joe. ¡°Humans become adults more quickly than Artonans,¡± she said. ¡°Maybe you are becoming different faster than you realize. I think you should think about it and you should tell me your thoughts.¡± My thoughts are that every time you worry about something so silly I have to increase the size of our someday matching tattoos by ten percent. ¡°I will never have a different opinion about you,¡± Kibby said. ¡°But that doesn¡¯t mean that you¡¯re the same.¡± I think I don¡¯t like how I answered this message. He¡¯d reassured her that he¡¯d never stop liking her and she wouldn¡¯t find his personality that different when they met again, but he¡¯d been less open than he might¡¯ve been if they were face to face. A little too aware of the fact that others might see it. I¡¯ll redo it as soon as I don¡¯t look like hell. He trudged on until he finally made it to a street that looked normal. Except for the power being out and the place being abandoned. It had taken forever. As his reward, he gave himself the stimulant. He felt better instantly. Not wonderful, but well enough to keep going. With his newfound energy and his auriad, he broke into a house that looked like it belonged on the cover of an architectural magazine and ignored the high-pitched screeching of an alarm while he committed burglary. ¡°I should have done this before I even left Punta de la Luna,¡± Alden said to Zeridee and the snake while he sat on a bench at the foot of a king sized bed and put on thick socks and a pair of boots.¡°Hindsight. In the future, we resort to crime faster.¡± He stuffed the sandals into his bag in case something happened to the boots. The people who lived here kept their flashlights in the pantry, which was not one of the first places Alden had looked, but at least once he found them, all of them worked. I owe them for three flashlights, the socks and shoes, and a cherry cola, he thought when he was done with his quick supply run. And one door. He¡¯d used his crushing spell on the knob to get inside, and he was carrying the pieces away with him. If the house survived the night, he thought the presence of a perfectly pancaked doorknob would be more suspicious than no doorknobs at all. As he set out, he marked a new building he wanted to head toward. It had two flashing antennas on the top. I can do this. It really can¡¯t be that far until I find people. Lots of people. Humanity, not just isolated daredevils or murderers. He¡¯d been periodically peeking at the scratchpad Liam had given him, hoping that the man had found his sister and she¡¯d activated the other half. So far there had been nothing. Ten minutes later, as he was checking a car parked on a curb for keys, the sound of water reached him. Alden lifted the flashlight and spun in circles. Where is it? And where is it headed? This street seemed fine. Just as he was realizing that the source of the noise must be more distant than he¡¯d feared, the flashlight beam illuminated the car, and he stopped, staring at the raindrops on the hood that hadn¡¯t completely dried from the last drizzle. They were oozing slowly in the direction he wanted to go. That¡¯s¡­not great. I can¡¯t knowingly head toward what¡¯s got to be a growing problem. But I shouldn¡¯t backtrack either. A sheet of paper¡ªa flyer torn from its home no doubt¡ªfluttered past him. Alden hesitated for a few seconds more, trying to think around his nerves, then he set out at a diagonal, hoping that would take him forward without putting him in harm¡¯s way. ¡°Zeridee, Tiny Snake, we¡¯re still moving. That¡¯s what counts. Our night has already sucked enough now, and it¡¯s time for it to get better.¡± Talking to his passengers was as good a way to stay motivated as any. The diagonal path he¡¯d set took him back onto streets strewn with evidence that flooding had taken place. The debris grew thicker and thicker, and after a careful examination of some very still water that had collected on the lid of an overturned garbage can, Alden decided it was safe enough to switch back to a more direct route. Not long after that, in a place where the debris from some large movement of water had been deposited in a huge drift, he found the bodies. ****** ONE HUNDRED FORTY-TWO: Waves VIII 142 ****** ¡°Sorry,¡± Alden said quietly, his fingers lifting the sodden sleeve of the dead woman¡¯s sweater from her wrist and then dropping it the moment he determined she wasn¡¯t wearing a smartwatch. He¡¯d already checked her pockets. This was the woman he¡¯d tried to get help from earlier. The motorcycle rider. He only knew who she was because he recognized the clothes and the hair. Her face had been crushed. When Alden had first approached, he¡¯d turned off the flashlight so that he wouldn¡¯t have to see it so clearly. Then he¡¯d turned it back on because finding a phone might be a lifesaver. But still, he didn¡¯t check for an infogear earpiece until he¡¯d looked in all the other likely spots. He dragged his fingers lightly down her cheek, tugging hair wet with blood and water aside from the ear that was still intact. She was wearing a small jade hoop earring. No tech. Alden removed the earring. There was no guarantee her body would be here when this was all over, and there hadn¡¯t been any other identification. Maybe she had left behind someone who would want proof or a memento. ¡°Okay,¡± he said, looking away from her. ¡°You next.¡± The other body was across the street, mostly covered by a wooden table that was missing three and a half legs. Alden wouldn¡¯t even have spotted it if not for the shine of a broken mirror right next to it that had drawn his eyes. He picked his way through the debris. When he dragged the table aside, he found that the older man beneath it looked surprisingly unharmed. He was lying on his side, his arms and legs bent in a position that almost looked like rest. Is there any chance he¡¯s okay? Avowed could be really tough. Maybe he was only unconscious. Ignoring a clench of anxiety about the fresh pile of hard choices that was about to land on him if he¡¯d found a wounded man instead of a corpse, he held the flashlight closer, balancing Zeridee¡¯s weight carefully as he leaned over to touch the neck just below the gray stubble on the jaw. The man¡¯s skin was colder than the air around them. And no matter where Alden pressed or how hard, there was no pulse. Despite his worries about what he could possibly have done if the man had still been alive, Alden¡¯s heart sank. His lips aren¡¯t even the right color. It was just wishful thinking. He checked the man¡¯s wrists, then his pockets. In the flannel coat, he found a phone that wasn¡¯t infogear. It wouldn¡¯t even turn on. And in the pocket of his pants, he found a wallet, which didn¡¯t seem strange to him at all until he opened it and realized it was full of soggy American bills. He stared at them for just a second. That¡¯s right. Avowed don¡¯t have much use for wallets. The driver¡¯s license said the dead man was from Iowa. He must have been visiting family. The motorcyclist probably. Maybe he was who she was going back for. Alden wondered why the man had been stuck here. It was unlikely that a regular human was courage testing himself against a disaster like the Long siblings. He must have ignored the sirens, refused to board the trains¡­it doesn¡¯t matter why, I guess. People died so easily. He tucked the license into his bag beside the snake¡¯s bento and the earring, then he walked on, trying not to think about things other than moving in the right direction. Trying to stay positive. It was getting harder to do that. The Peace of Mind chains had worn off. He could tell. He¡¯d been bracing for a return of the crippling panic he¡¯d felt on the bus earlier, but that didn¡¯t seem to be on the menu. Instead, his bitter thoughts were extra bitter now, his dark ones as dark as the situation warranted. Someone did this. Someone made this happen. They made Earth look so much like Thegund. All I wanted was life. A few people. School. I¡¯ve been trying so hard to claim it. I was only just wrapping my hands around it. And someone took it away. ¡°I¡¯ve thought of another reason I don''t want to put you down,¡± Alden said to the dying Artonan on his back. ¡°Terrible people did this. All of this. Whoever attacked Matadero. Those guys who hurt you.¡± Zeridee-und''h had stayed behind to put up signs. It was such a small act of thoughtfulness. Not a grand gesture, just a little thing because she was worried for her neighbors. Alden had taped one to that gate for her, using extra tape so it would last through the rain, and then three men had walked through it. Maybe they hadn¡¯t planned to kill anybody. From the conversation he¡¯d overheard, it sounded like they¡¯d only intended to search the house. But they¡¯d seen Zeridee there, loading a suitcase full of oranges into something that looked like it might be worth money, and that stupid monster had shot her with a knockout gun. And then...it had all gone the way it had gone. Even if they¡¯d only knocked her out, it was the same as a death sentence. Alden didn¡¯t think for a second that those three would have picked up an unconscious person they¡¯d robbed and carried her out of the evacuation zone to safety. ¡°People like that don¡¯t get to kill someone like you," he said. "They don¡¯t get to make me watch you die.¡± His flashlight was getting dim already. He¡¯d have to switch to one of the others soon. ¡°I don¡¯t have to have a perfect world. But it¡¯s got to be a little better than that.¡± ****** ****** [Disaster Update: Oceanic anomalies resulting from spill of a magical contaminant at Matadero continue. Mitigative efforts are underway.] * [Personal Message from Ambassador Bash-nor: My good wishes to all Avowed currently present on Anesidora. If you are searching for behavioral guidance during this time of difficulty, I suggest following the recommendations of your planet¡¯s Contract with trust. Though this may be frightening or inconvenient, your cooperation will simplify matters and be appreciated. I empathize with your feelings of distress. Please calm your minds and take comfort from the fact that we of the Triplanets treasure our compact with humankind and the Avowed of Earth. Finally, I have just concluded explanations to the Anesidoran High Council. Your elected leaders and I hereby issue a reminder that interfering with or attacking an Avowed who is engaged in the completion of their Contractual duties is a crime against the Triplanetary Government. Perpetrators will be investigated and justice meted out in accordance with Artonan law.] * [Disaster Update Regarding Submerged Materials: Rapid motion continues to occur. Direction of motion remains unpredictable at onset, but once established, materials are unlikely deviate from their course.] * [Disaster Update: The probability of chaos exposure remains¡­] ****** ****** ¡°Nagisa. ¡± In the packed, noisy corridor that led to the MPE Building¡¯s locker rooms, a teenage girl with a small child in her arms turned at the sound of her name. ¡°Principal Saleh!¡± she exclaimed. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting¡ª!¡± Lesedi Saleh, who had managed to make it through the crowd unnoticed by most of the students, held her arms out to take the little girl. ¡°She¡¯s sleeping?¡± ¡°She said she had to use the bathroom, but the wait¡¯s been so long. She nodded off.¡± Lesedi kissed her daughter on top of the head and smiled as she stirred. ¡°That will teach me to imagine her afraid and crying for her mother, won¡¯t it? Not a care in the world. Thank you for looking after her.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. She¡¯s so good.¡± The teenager gave her a tired smile. ¡°And at this point I really need to use the toilet too.¡± As students nearby realized that the woman wearing a t-shirt and a beanie was the usually sharply-dressed head of the hero program, her name spread through the corridor. A few people whispered ¡°Ghosten,¡± despite her retirement from that moniker. ¡°Yes,¡± she said, lifting her voice. ¡°I¡¯m back. I¡¯ll make an announcement regarding what I know about the situation on the rest of the island shortly.¡± ¡°Did the System send you to Nilama?¡± a desperate voice called from the crowd, its owner apparently unwilling to wait for information. ¡°You¡¯re back so early,¡± someone else said. ¡°Does that mean it¡¯s almost over?¡± ¡°Principal Saleh! Excuse me! I¡¯m sorry. But did you see my dad?¡± ¡°I really will answer questions soon. In the gym. For now¡­No, I didn¡¯t see your father, John. I¡¯m very sorry. If I find out anything, I¡¯ll let you know. I was in Nilama briefly and a couple of other places just as briefly. Many people are hard at work, but the flooding¡¯s definitely not over. In fact, I¡¯m only back here because an extremely large bolt of water went through me; and the System decided I was done for a few hours.¡± She looked thoughtful. ¡°It was a lot like being hit by an overly fast bullet train. But I think it was actually an inflatable dinghy.¡± At the perplexed expressions on the faces around her, she said, ¡°It did hit me quickly, so I¡¯m not completely sure. But if you imagine a column of water moving in unison for the purpose of propelling a submerged object about the size and shape of a rubber boat at high speed, you¡¯ll have the right idea. The System should be dropping someone more substantial than me, in the literal sense, in front of that problem.¡± She kissed her daughter¡¯s head again. ¡°Now, if you all don¡¯t mind, I¡¯m going to break in line for the bathrooms.¡± ****** ****** No. No, come on. Please. For a while, Alden had been walking through a world filled with evidence that something bad was coming. He¡¯d heard the sound of it first, like close thunder with an unfamiliar rhythm. Then, his eyes had started to catch on signs of wrongness that grew more impossible to ignore with every step. Lightweight debris, borne by Anesidora¡¯s ever-present wind, fluttered past the beam of his flashlight. The street was littered by more of the same. He saw his first broken window. Another one. More. And then, just like that, he found himself standing on the edge of utter ruin, staring at a junkyard that had once been a piece of a city. The buildings had been getting a little more vertical. Less houses. More businesses, apartment blocks, and offices. Everything he could see ahead of him from here had been obliterated. It¡¯s so, so much. I can¡¯t¡­Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. He couldn¡¯t. Grasp it. Deal with it. Walk through it. There was no way for him to walk forward along this street as he had the other rubble-strewn ones he¡¯d traversed. He wasn¡¯t sure he could even have safely managed it in broad daylight, unencumbered by passengers. It was like the rescue assignment Fragment had given them on Monday; one misstep, one shifting chunk of concrete¡­and the water balloons popped. I think what¡¯s left of that building is leaning. There was a tightness in his throat. He tried to get a grip on himself while he changed his hold on Zeridee, adjusting her braid and bringing her around to the front again. He¡¯d carried her on each shoulder and on his back. He¡¯d tried different things just in case it helped, but it all felt precarious at this point. ¡°Tiny Snake, do you want some air?¡± he asked. He opened the bento a crack, just enough to see that his slithery passenger still looked alive, then he put it back in his bag. He knew he was stalling. Just trying to delay the decision a little longer. His plan had been to head in a straightish direction from here. Whenever that failed, he was diagonaling to his right as much as possible, toward the curve of coast that formed the bottom of the Apex crescent. Despite what had happened to The Span, it made sense to him that the contaminant coming from the west and slightly northward wouldn¡¯t be as bad along the south coast. And there had been lights in this direction when he set out. But the way the debris in front of him was arranged¡­it looked like whatever had hit had hit from the east. Can¡¯t go forward. Can¡¯t go back. I know there¡¯s water coming from both the left and the right now. Without any hope at all, he pulled out the scratchart card Liam had given him. He¡¯d been checking it every fifteen minutes or so, just in case. He¡¯s probably gone. I¡¯m probably the only living human left in this forsaken place. Alden pointed the flashlight at it. Nothing. He stared at it for too long before putting it away. ¡°So now we just pick. Like on Thegund. Point your face in a direction and move that way. It¡¯s not that hard. The only two valid options are left or right. Just go.¡± Left. If he went far enough left, he¡¯d find the end of this wreckage, wouldn¡¯t he? And then he could get around it and get back on track. ¡°I thought I was paranoid and grim. But no. I was way too fucking optimistic when I left Apogee,¡± he said, backtracking down the block to the next cross-street. ¡°¡®Going to make a straight shot for safety!¡¯ This is more like being a mouse in a maze.¡± Lexi had just been talking about sleep-deprived maze mice. Same situation, but this time the scientists are a bunch of sadists with garden hoses. Every time he turned, he was all too aware that no matter how fast his legs moved, his forward advancement was a crawl. He walked three blocks, checked the disaster zone, walked three more. Oh my god it goes so far. He kept going and going. Until his flashlight caught something strange up ahead. Some kind of blockage? His back twinged dully through the painkillers. Fine, we¡¯ll just backtrack even more to get around it. He took a few more steps toward it, trying to figure out what it was exactly so he¡¯d have an idea of how far he¡¯d have to travel to go around it before he could join back up with this street. Try to go around one disaster zone, find another one to go around in the process. At least the last time I was carrying a person on my back through hell, it didn¡¯t involve constant ¡°gotchas¡± from the environment. Maybe later he¡¯d be darkly amused that he¡¯d found a way Anesidora was worse than Thegund. Way too many destroyed buildings for a proper death run. Too much decision-making and no sense of progress. What the heck is that? Dirt? A wall? A wet wall? He stopped. It was water. Dirty water. Silent. Unmoving. Filling the entire street. Towering over his head. ¡°What¡¯s it doing?¡± He turned the light off, trying to see the water in a different way. The sky was just a little lighter, thanks to the storm clouds pulling back in places. Alden squinted and craned his neck. He could see the scope of the problem, but at first, it didn''t quite register. He was near the perimeter of a massive water blob¡ªthe very thing he¡¯d imagined earlier. What if the water all gathered around something that wasn¡¯t small, like the high heel on the bridge, but humongous, like¡­ ¡°A building," he breathed. Or something just as big. He walked backwards, gaping up. Based on the shape of the dark mass blotting out part of the sky, he thought the center of the blob was still up ahead and everything on this edge near him was just incidentally drowned. Still in maze mouse mode, it took him whole seconds to realize this was not something he needed to worry about getting around. It was something he had to get away from. Now. ¡°Shit!¡± His feet launched him into a run. Suddenly, he couldn¡¯t feel all the things that hurt. He wasn¡¯t worried about the fact that he was backtracking south as fast as he could. It wasn¡¯t nearly fast enough. Hurry. Faster. FASTER. Why the fuck are you so slow? The water could start to move any second. Or it could just pop. How much water does it even take to make a mound like that? To cover multiple buildings? When the magic that called it here finally gives out¡­ It was going to crush everything. It was going to swallow whole blocks. ****** ****** A memory played in Haoyu Zhang-Demir¡¯s mind, summoned up by the events of the night: The first time you called me B¨¤ba I gained five kilograms. All of it on my stomach. And it never went away. You overpowered my Formation in an instant. Children are very dangerous. Mom said it didn¡¯t happen all at once like that. You mean you trust her more than me?! Haoyu sighed and dropped his comic book onto his lap since it wasn¡¯t doing a good job of distracting him. The escape shuttle was nearly full, but the conversations that were taking place were muted. Too many kids were present for the adults to talk loudly about their own fears. He leaned around the edge of his seat to watch one of the Artonans who would be traveling with them escort the final passengers up the back ramp. The Artonan was wearing a heavy coat and pink earmuffs. A few of the newcomers were rubbing their arms. Apparently the TC had gotten even colder. It had been quite a while since Haoyu had arrived at the unexpectedly frosty Teleportation Complex and been directed to the hangar that held the shuttle. That¡¯s a good thing, right? If they really thought this was the end of days, they¡¯d be in more of a rush. It would be different. He hoped. This was way calmer than any of the planetary evacuation scenarios his parents had practiced with him over the years. The flyer in the hidden security shed at home. Instant teleportation away from your desk at school to a half dozen different places on Anesidora. Or even off it. You might just blink and find yourself on the Triplanets, Haoyu. Don¡¯t be afraid if that happens. Be polite to everyone and wait. We¡¯ll join you soon. He swallowed. You¡¯d better join me, he thought. You¡¯d better. You¡¯d better. I¡¯m doing what I always promised I would. Finally, the last person boarded. The man took the seat across from Haoyu. They were packed in so close that their knees bumped. Sonde, he thought. He¡¯s a rare hyperbole sighting. A couple of years ago, games of ¡°who can spot a hyperbole first¡± had been a regular occurrence whenever he hung out with his classmates in the city. The man was wearing glasses with dark blue lenses that didn¡¯t perfectly hide the way he was staring. ¡°You¡¯ve been very lucky,¡± said Sonde. Are you reading me with your weird thing? Don¡¯t do that. Sonde claimed to ¡°sense the shadows of a person¡¯s potential pasts.¡± Which was pretty out-there even as far as U-types went. ¡°I know,¡± Haoyu said politely. He picked up his comic before the hyperbole could try talking to him again. He pretended to be engrossed in the pages. It was a story about a boy who¡¯d just become an older brother. Definitely written for children. When Haoyu was little, he had looked at it until the pages were starting to break free of the binding. He had really wanted his parents to give him a younger brother or sister at the time, so he¡¯d made a show of reading it conspicuously in front of them every chance he¡¯d gotten while making not-so-subtle comments about how they had a spare bedroom. Which had eventually prompted one of his father¡¯s jokes about babies being too hazardous for his physique. Haoyu had left the book here years ago in the small cubby that was set aside for children¡¯s comfort toys. His name was written in the front cover, and an Artonan had given it to him as soon as he boarded. I wonder if my parents didn¡¯t want another kid because they were afraid of days like this one, he thought, staring at that little house where the happy family in the story lived. A few minutes later, the escape shuttle lifted off. He wouldn¡¯t have known they were rising into the air at all if an Adjuster sitting across the aisle hadn¡¯t cast a view-through spell on the patch of floor between them. Anesidora fell away. Apex looks wrong. Lights are missing. In the dark, it looked like the whole western tip of the crescent had been chopped off. Is the power just out everywhere, or is it really gone? He couldn¡¯t even see spellflash or helicopters in that area. It must have been a waste of manpower to protect the fringes when everyone needed to be going inland anyway. I hope everyone got out in time. ****** ****** Alden ran for so long that he thought¡­maybe. Maybe this was far enough. Maybe he was wasting his limited energy. Maybe it would be okay to turn aside here, go upstairs there. Stop and breathe. It was like the cold night air didn¡¯t have enough oxygen in it. [Disaster Update: Probability of chaos exposure is now negligible. Chaos exposure updates will cease.] Your timing, Alden thought, is the absolute worst. A short while ago, that news would have lifted his spirits and given him hope. Now he couldn¡¯t even enjoy it. What about all the things I¡¯m actually dealing with? [Disaster Update: Tsunami-like incidents are increasingly likely in the following locations¡­] The list wasn¡¯t horribly long. It ended with Punta de la Luna and S¨¡nji¨£o Beach. Two places that the System had ordered everyone to leave hours ago. Alden guessed it was nice that the System was still naming the dead zones at all. Even though it wasn¡¯t personalized, the update made him decide against stopping. But I¡¯m going the wrong way. I¡¯m getting farther and farther from help. I don¡¯t know what to do. He couldn¡¯t imagine how far the water would spread if it burst. When it did. What would the force of the wave be like? How many other things would turn into water magnets? Or missiles. Three more blocks. Just three more. Then I¡¯ll look for a sturdy building. He almost made it. ****** When it happened, it sounded like an explosion that wouldn¡¯t end. Alden turned, thinking, I have to get off the street and up higher. Any place will do now. He gripped Zeridee to his chest with arms that ached. He had half a thought about blowing open a door, and the auriad slid along his wrist in preparation. The night roared. Waist-deep water struck him like a battering ram. He went down. The physical violence of it was a shock. He was underwater. Things were slamming into him. He kicked his legs, but it was only the flailing of a frightened animal. He didn¡¯t know where up was. He couldn¡¯t possibly have kept his feet under him even if he¡¯d managed to find the ground with them. His eyes were closed. He was holding onto Zeridee. He had told himself he would hold her, so he did. He could feel the water and all the things in the water beating against her. And against himself. He held her in that way, too. They hit something. They hit something else. Whatever it was, it didn¡¯t give way. Alden was being pressed to it by the water. He needed to breathe. He¡¯d already been almost out of air from the run. He desperately needed to gasp. When he finally did, he wasn¡¯t sure if it was luck that the water was below his neck, or if his body had fired an inhale signal because it somehow knew an opportunity had come. As he pulled in another lungful and opened his eyes, he realized he was inside a building. Against a wall. He saw a dark, unidentifiable shape heading toward him fast, tumbled by the water as he had been. Hiding his face behind Zeridee¡¯s chest was reflex. The big thing hit them and then stayed, the lower half partially resting on top of Alden¡¯s legs, the upper pressing against the wall right over his head. At least it offered some protection from everything else in the water. Alden clung to his burden, behind his mystery object, in the dark. He tried to figure out what was happening. Tried to go back to thinking instead of enduring. There¡¯s a wall at my back. I¡¯m sitting against it. It¡¯s standing. It¡¯s not falling down. One solid thought led to another. I lost my flashlight, but I could still see something coming at me. My eyes are all right. And there was just enough light for me to make out a shape. I¡¯m not far off the street. I¡¯ve been shoved into a shop or something. He was breathing so hard. His body was shaking. I¡¯m hurt. He was sure he was hurt. It was so brutal. So cold. He¡¯d felt his face hit asphalt. One of his cheeks stung. Lots of places stung. His left hand hurt the worst. He was holding one of Zeridee¡¯s shoulders with it at the moment. He couldn¡¯t see it well enough to know what exactly was wrong with it, but it felt like something was stabbing him. Hesitantly, he moved the fingers of his right hand over the back of it, expecting to encounter a giant shard of glass or piece of wood. Instead, he felt the warm slickness of his own blood, flowing freely. Something stabbed me and then got pulled out? Or I banged it against something sharp? In the dark, in the wake of what had just happened¡ªwhat was still happening¡ªeven his own body was hard to figure out. Which was what prompted his next thought: My fingers. Do I still have all my fingers? How will I cast spells if I¡¯ve lost one? Alden wiggled each of them individually even though it hurt like hell on the left hand, counting one by one. That¡¯s ten. Ten fingers. Everything¡¯s okay. The thought and the relief tinging it was so wrong that after it had passed through his mind he had to briefly ask himself if he had a serious head injury. He decided that he didn¡¯t. He was just a dumbass. People sitting up to their armpits in a flood laced with magical contaminants aren¡¯t okay, Alden. You¡¯re very close to dying in about a dozen different ways right now. You need to get out of the water. ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED FORTY-THREE: Waves IX 143 ****** Alden¡¯s own labored breathing was loud in his ears, and the sound of splashing echoed around him as he tried to fight his way out from under the thing that both pinned him and protected him from the other flotsam in the room. Judging by the feel of it, it was some kind of chair.There was definitely a cushioned seat shape. But it weighed too much and felt far too large to be a normal recliner. The back of it was made of a smooth, hard material, and it extended farther behind the chair than his hands could reach. A domed attachment on top was propping the chair against the wall right over his head. His best guess in the dark was that it was either medical equipment or an entertainment device. Something you sat in and then things happened to you. Or something that deprived your calves and feet of blood as you struggled to get it off of you. His lower legs were numb now. If he hadn¡¯t been able to feel them just a minute ago he¡¯d have been freaking out even worse than he was. The angle was bad. The weight was bad. The cold was bad. I have to get out of here. We have to get out of here. As his wet fingers slipped off the sides of the chair again, he swore in his head. His arms felt like stupid meat clubs attached to his body at the shoulders. Gasping, he let his head fall back against the wall. Take a few breaths. Stop flailing at it. It can¡¯t be impossibly heavy. It would have hurt more when it landed on me instead of just making my feet numb, right? Just a few breaths. Then he¡¯d try shifting it in a slightly different direction or with another method. He couldn¡¯t let himself stay trapped here for long. Never mind the fact that the water could start flowing faster or deepening at any second, called by the magical remnants of an artifact that should absolutely not have been in the same galaxy as Earth as far as Alden was concerned. The temperature alone was a problem. He wasn¡¯t someone who paid attention to the daily weather report well enough to know exactly how cold the ocean around Anesidora was today, but it definitely wasn¡¯t warm enough for him to be casual about sitting around in it. Are my arms being dumb because I¡¯m exhausted or because I¡¯m so cold? Zeridee was stuck under here with him, her chest pressed to his, her legs extended out to his right. Her face was underwater whenever he wasn¡¯t actively trying to place it above it. Alden didn¡¯t have much trouble keeping his skill active on things in water. Even in happier settings, it was easy to think of liquid as a threat to certain objects and as an inconvenience to himself rather than a helper. He¡¯d practiced a few times by going for a swim while he shielded his laptop, and once with an open container full of Natalie¡¯s vegan nachos. Under those conditions, he¡¯d definitely felt concerned to be carrying things through aquatic environments. This was much more serious. If he stopped protecting Zeridee, she¡¯d wake up confused and trapped. In the dark and in pain, with freezing water pouring into her nose and mouth. Alden was so grateful he¡¯d held onto her when the wave hit them. He didn¡¯t understand how he¡¯d done it¡ªif it was luck or if it was a result of his body and mind trying to follow through with his last intentions. He almost wanted to believe the skill itself had helped him to do the right thing, but that might have been fantasy. In any case, it definitely hadn¡¯t been a product of clear thought in the moment. Now, he could think, but his fears for his burden were still visceral. He noticed, in a passing way, that holding Zeridee with Bearer was feeling different than it had before the wave. Some subtle change had occurred. But it felt like a solidification of Alden¡¯s authority to carry and protect her rather than a threat to it, so he just accepted that it was happening and gratefully gave more of his conscious attention to the pressing problem of getting this damn chair off of the two of us. Since it wasn¡¯t just going to move easily when he shoved at it, he needed to see it better. The first of the three flashlights he¡¯d stolen had been discarded when its batteries ran dry, but he¡¯d still had two on him when the wave hit. Both of them were gone now, even the cheap-looking mini one that he¡¯d shoved into his pocket for easier access. That only left the tablet. He hastily brought his bag up above the surface. He wasn¡¯t quite shocked that it was dry inside, but he was glad that the waterproofing was more perfect than he¡¯d realized. He grabbed the tablet and closed the bag, letting it fall back into the water as he thumbed the screen. Kibby looked warm, dry, and safe sitting at her desk. ¡°Choosing the path of higher onus is more difficult than I knew, Alden,¡± she said in a serious voice. ¡°For example, my honored instructor says children of the ordinary class may be disappointed in me whenever I fail to win games. Even games I¡¯m not very good at, like hopcatch. Do you think that¡­?¡± Alden tried to study the chair by the video¡¯s light. He still had no idea what it was for. Both of the armrests had panels with buttons. There was a shiny black lid that looked like it would cover the head and chest of the person sitting below it when it was pulled down. Currently, that lid was open wide, pressed against the wall above him. He leaned as far to each side as he could so that he could see at least some of what was going on behind the chair. So that¡¯s what we¡¯re dealing with. People definitely sat in this thing, and it definitely did something to them, and it was definitely not moving in the direction Alden had been shoving a minute ago because the partially-submerged lid of another chair was sticking out of the water, wedged against the back right corner of this one. This isn¡¯t impossible. I can handle this much. Let¡¯s not freeze to death. A cloud of his own breath fogged the air in front of him. He glanced at his injured left hand. It looked just like it felt. There was a deep gash across the back that gaped open half an inch at the center. Blood was flowing from it, and making a fist hurt. Alden dropped the still-playing tablet, letting it slide under the water onto Zeridee¡¯s ribcage. The device was supposed to be waterproof, too, so he¡¯d trust it for the sake of keeping even a little light. From what he¡¯d managed to make out of the furniture arrangement, he thought an up-left-back combo motion would work to free them. One good shove. Don¡¯t waste it. Give it everything you¡¯ve got. If this doesn''t do the job, you switch to trying spells. He didn¡¯t want to have to do that. Lifting would be faster than his auriad spells. If he could make it work. One. Two. He took a breath and bent forward, his face kissing the icy surface as he got his hands underneath part of the chair that offered a decent grip. Three. He didn¡¯t know why he screamed a watery ¡°Fuuuuuck!!!¡± as he lifted and heaved. It wasn¡¯t like that was going to contribute anything but noise to the process. But the chair slowly tipped off of him, lid scraping the wall as it went. As soon as it splashed onto its side, Alden drew his thighs in, pulling his numb lower legs with them. Not stuck. Good. I did it. That was really hard. Everything¡¯s gotten so hard. His tablet had slid off of Zeridee onto the floor, illuminating the water from below. He grabbed it, and Kibby¡¯s voice filled the room again. Staggering upright was a massive chore. His body was stiff and clumsy. Zeridee felt like she weighed about a thousand pounds. Up and dry. We get up and get dry. Trying to figure out where he was and where he could go from here, he stumbled a few splashy steps on legs that were coming painfully back to life. The water was filthy and there was a slow current to it. Things were still bumping into him, but at least there wasn¡¯t the enormous force of the wave behind them. The room he was in was smallish. There were less than a dozen of the weird chairs, and most of them had been tossed by the water. Along the front wall, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on a brand new river. Alden had obviously been swept through one of them by the flood. Behind a tall curved desk with a tiled front, a logo painted on the wall showed a man and woman, both with absurd chests, grinning as they sat in the chairs. Yeah, I still have no clue what this place is. Don¡¯t know. Don¡¯t care. He waded for the open door. Out on the sidewalk, he squinted up, judging rooflines by height. Three-story. Three-story. That one over there looks like four with a flat roof. He was too tired to travel in search of better. ****** ¡°Owowowwww! Crap. What¡¯s this thing d-doing to me, Zeridee?!¡± Shivering on a pink and gold poof of a stool on the upper floor of a women¡¯s clothing boutique, surrounded by a glowing flock of flowery-smelling candles in jars and tins, Alden bit his lip and prayed that the bandage he¡¯d just applied to his hand was about to stop trying to enter the laceration it was supposed to be protecting. Ow. The hand-written instruction booklet in the medical kit, provided by the petrified Artonan currently resting on his legs, said this type of bandage was for ¡°moderate bleeding injuries.¡± The thick, sticky rectangle had looked normal enough. Kind of like it was made of the same stuff that blister pads were. It was definitely not made of that stuff. Alden was glad he¡¯d lit the first of the candles with his promise stick spell before he started working on the injury. Even the simplest casting would have been hard to pull off while a bandage was doing this to one of his hands. Is it sucking on it now? What in the alien hell? Why would anyone want their wounds so heavily interacted with? He was shaking. He wanted to set a big pile of clothes on fire and warm himself by it. But burning down the dry top floors of his chosen shelter probably wasn¡¯t clever. He stood with a grunt and started stripping instead, trying to ignore what was happening with his hand while he looked around the dim shop for something that would be warm. He was willing to wear the curtains if he had to. Shorts fell onto his shoes with a heavy splat. The legs were just wide enough that he could escape without taking off the boots. He¡¯d rather avoid that, since he¡¯d just have to put them back on again. Wet, freezing feet were inevitable at this point, and he¡¯d be hard-pressed to find a better choice of disaster footwear in this shop. Plus, if something bad happened right now while he was dressing, he could run away without pants on but not without his feet covered. He doubted he could take three barefooted steps outside at the moment without stomping on something that would put him out of commission. What is this? My fifth wardrobe change since I woke up? The clubs attached to his shoulders couldn¡¯t figure out how to get the wet sweatshirt off without dropping Zeridee. He stopped halfway through, right arm inside the shirt, left still in its sleeve, so tired he wanted to lie down. He stood there, rivulets of cold water running down his legs, staring at one of the candles on the floor in front of him. A drop hit it dead on the wick, and it went out. I think the stimulant¡¯s worn off. He hoped it had. If this was how finished he felt with it still in effect, then the promised fatigue when it did wear off would knock him unconscious. He¡¯d given the other stimulant to Liam. The kit hadn¡¯t come with a third. There were mood enhancers. Based on Zeridee¡¯s instructions, one of them might as well be called ¡°You¡¯re About to Feel Ecstasy Even if You¡¯re Being Slowly Flayed¡±. The other was something that just made you a little happier. Alden wasn¡¯t sure a little happier was what he needed. He stared at the dark candle. I don¡¯t get to rest until we¡¯re out of here. Move. Move. Fuck, Alden. Do it. Warm your ass up. Maybe it¡¯ll make you functional. He forced himself to. Locating a pair of yoga pants that were stretchy enough to work took a couple of minutes. After he put them on, he finished escaping from his soaked Canada sweatshirt. The warmest top he could fit into was a one-size-fits-most sweater robe. By the time he¡¯d gotten it on, the bandage was finally finished sealing itself to his hand. Or whatever it was it had been doing. Has the water gone down yet? There wasn¡¯t any point in trying to get out of this place until it did. He¡¯d only set a slogging pace, wear himself out even more, and keep getting colder. He went to one of the store¡¯s narrow windows to check. Alden was on the third floor. All the doors in this building had the same kind of interface operated locks that his apartment in intake had had. Every one of them he¡¯d tried was unlocked. He¡¯d glanced at the fourth floor briefly before coming back down here to take advantage of the clothes and candles. There was just a photography space up there. Random props. The stairs went right up to the roof. It¡¯s not receding, he thought. He was staring at the first floor of the building across the street, where a tangle of broken, white-painted boards floated, bumping against a restaurant sign on the exterior wall. The water had been touching the bottom of that sign when Alden waded past. It was still touching the bottom of it now. What if we¡¯re stuck? What do I do then? Do I have to¡­? Despite the chaos downgrade, the System still hadn¡¯t brought communications back online. ¡°Let¡¯s¡­some more light would be nice,¡± he said quietly. ¡°We can¡¯t move yet, so let¡¯s do that. Let¡¯s have all the light.¡± He spent a while lighting every candle in the place while Kibby talked to him about the path of higher onus from the tablet he¡¯d left on the pink stool. It was surprising to him that she was worried about the hopcatch revelation. She knew how the class divide worked. It was baked into Artonan life. Alden himself had had knowledge of it even before becoming an Avowed, and lots of television watching in the vault had polished off enough misconceptions and assumptions to make him confident that he understood what the cultural ideal was. Though he had much less of a sense of how well and how often the ideal was met in practice, and the subtleties involved would probably keep surprising him for years. Maybe on some level Kibby didn¡¯t think she¡¯d really be allowed to make the class shift. The adults at the lab had been tolerant of her ambitions but not fully supportive. She¡¯d probably been so focused on proving to them that she could be a wizard that she hadn¡¯t started seriously imagining what her day-to-day life would be like when she was one. ¡°I do think it would be unfair of them to expect me to excel in every activity,¡± she said nervously. ¡°Nobody is good at everything.¡± Alden pried the metal lid off the last candle and lit it with one of its fellows. If they were face to face, he might have teased Kibby just a little. Not about her fears, of course, but about the fact that she hadn¡¯t connected her teacher¡¯s warning about the way the children on Artona I might feel about her to her own feelings about Joe. Alden¡ªhaving been treated to many earnest descriptions of Distinguished Master Worli Ro-den¡¯s character, intelligence, and magical might¡ªhad made the connection immediately. Kibby thought it was natural that Joe had once ordered her father to go back to school and spend a couple of years studying an obscure field that Joe himself didn¡¯t feel like investigating. But she had also expected Joe to use her father¡¯s service to have universe-shaking breakthroughs. Not in an, ¡°I hope he will,¡± kind of way but in a, ¡°He will. Anything less is unacceptable to all of us and will shatter my worldview,¡± way.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Her family¡¯s chosen wizard was probably only allowed to lose games of hopcatch if his opponents were knights. Alden checked the window, willed the water level to drop, then sat back down on the stool. While he warmed his hands over one of the candles, he thought. I almost died again. People had reassured him when he was younger that what had happened to him and his parents was a freak occurrence¡ªa single random tragedy, not evidence about what the world he lived in really was at its heart. You won¡¯t ever have a day this hard again, Alden. Life is mostly good. He had believed it. Years of safety had supported it until this past one. A mental command pulled the latest set of disaster alerts up on his interface, and he stared at them. ¡°It¡¯s just bad luck,¡± he muttered. ¡°I¡¯m not stupid enough to take it personally.¡± He wasn¡¯t stupid enough to take it personally. And yet¡­other people did not seem to get shit on by circumstances quite this much. Quite this often. I want to go home. He¡¯d thought it so many times on Thegund, when the ¡°home¡± in his mind had just been Earth. Here he was, on Earth, and the longing was back. And he didn¡¯t even know what home meant to him anymore. But he did believe that if he asked her for help, if he accepted the kind of responsibilities that would allow him to ask her for help like Alis-art¡¯h had, then he would fall into something so all-consuming and inescapable that he would never get his hands on home again. How could I? In the best case scenario he could imagine right now, using the privilege resulted in his life on Earth effectively being over. I can¡¯t. I don¡¯t want it. He looked down at Zeridee. I can¡¯t let her die here either. Kibby¡¯s video had just ended. He was about to click on one she¡¯d made about a rhinoceros-looking animal toy she¡¯d acquired when suddenly Alden remembered that he, too, was in possession of an animal. ¡°Shit!¡± He yanked the bento out of his bag so fast that one of his sandals and his scratchart card came with it. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. Don¡¯t be dead!¡± He¡¯d been giving the orange snake periodic breathers, but in the aftermath of the wave, he¡¯d forgotten it completely. The reptile was coiled up. Its eyes were open, but it wasn¡¯t moving. Alden squinted, trying to figure out if it was alive or if snakes might possibly coil up with their eyes open in death. He really couldn¡¯t tell, and he thought it would be mean to poke it with a chopstick just because seeing it wiggle would make him feel better. He held the bento lid near his candle to catch some warmth for it and reached for the card Liam had given him, expecting nothing. His heart leaped at the sight of a message, scratched out in rough capital letters¡­only for the contents of that message to make his mood sink again just as quickly: I FOUND THEM TINA STUCK IN MEAT COOLER. TOOK LONG TIME TO GET HER. EVERYTHING WNW OF APOGEE VERY BAD DON¡¯T COME. HOW¡¯S YOUR DIRECTION? When did he send this? Alden grabbed the stick that went with the card, rose to his feet, and went back to the window. He stared down at the river below him. His stomach felt like a pit as he scratched a reply. ENE OF APOGEE AWFUL. LOTS OF RUBBLE. HUGE FLOOD. He looked at the window one more time. DON¡¯T COME HERE. Below him, the restaurant sign he¡¯d been using as a marker was nearly covered. The water had begun to rise. ****** Hope was a strange emotion. You kept finding crumbs of it long after you thought you were finished with each other. Alden didn¡¯t hear any more falling buildings. There was no enormous roar of sound this time. He had on dry clothes. So he hoped a little more. He hoped the snake was alive as he tucked it away again. He hoped the Longs had miraculously found a way out. He hoped that the flooding would recede, that the System would send him a message, that he would get just one more reprieve. As the water approached, he carried a candle with him up the staircase to the fourth floor. He sat on a step beside it, rubbing his auriad with his good hand and watching the danger approach at a pace that was just slow enough to make him think maybe it wouldn¡¯t catch him. Narrow escapes had happened several times tonight. Even one in a stairwell. Why not another? The water reached the step below him. Alden didn¡¯t think this building was the magic¡¯s target. The liquid wasn¡¯t climbing the walls. It must have been steadily filling this place because there was a large target nearby. He and everything else in the vicinity were just in the way. He ascended the last flight, stopping at the door that led out onto the roof. When the water finally touched the soles of his boots, he turned the knob. His hand trembled against it. Outside, his candle flickered in the wind. He held it and Zeridee both close to his chest as he searched the surrounding buildings with his eyes, looking for a place that was turning into a big water blob. He spotted it at once, though it was more distant than he¡¯d expected. It was still a short while until dawn, but the sky was lightening now. And blackening the view, there was a roofline that wasn¡¯t a roofline at all. A dark swelling clot where once there had been a building. Another catastrophe, waiting to burst. Alden could actually see it growing. The water mounded toward it from all sides. The pressure and depth alone would kill me if I was at the bottom of it, he thought. He wondered if Anesidora would be all right. If it could possibly be. What if everywhere looks like this? What if it¡¯s not just here? How much will be left? Will anything at all? He watched the dark mound grow. He tried to come up with another idea. Some way forward. Pulling up the legs of the yoga pants so that they wouldn¡¯t get wet, hitching up the ends of the robe. Staying warm. Staying alive. Scratching around for hope until he finally had to admit that the last crumb of it really was gone now. The water was up around the tops of his boots. He could feel it flowing toward the mountain on the horizon, which had become a destroyer. This time there was no way to even imagine himself escaping. Not on his own. The current tugged at him. He wouldn¡¯t be able to stay on his feet soon. I really just want to go back to my dorm room. And joke around with the guys. Take a phone call from Jeremy. I want yesterday back. I want it unruined. ¡°Let¡¯s get to safety, Zeridee. For real this time.¡± His skill still had that solidity to it. Like holding Zeridee had become more natural for his magic even as his body struggled. He¡¯d have to think about that later. ¡°Contract, I¡¯m going to use my privilege. I don¡¯t really know how it works. But let Mother know. And get me out of here.¡± ****** ****** Contract Earth to Contract I, a personal request from Avowed Samuel Alden Thorn has been detected. Requesting connection to Mother. Providing relevant information. Awaiting decision from Mother¡­ Awaiting decision¡­ Decision acknowledged. ****** ****** Alden stood there, feeling like he¡¯d just given away something precious. Knowing he had. His interface flared. [Request for use of privilege received. Request denied.] ¡°What?¡± he breathed. The water was up around his calves and still rising. ¡°If not now¡­ We¡¯re about to die. Me and Zeridee, and I¡­did I misunderstand? Did I do it wrong? Is there an oath that comes first?¡± The deep sense of loss had turned to confusion ,and that confusion was rapidly transforming into terror. [Wait.] ¡°For what? There¡¯s not a lot of time. I¡¯m not sure I can even stay upright for long, and there¡¯s nothing else I can¡ª¡± A loud sound he couldn¡¯t identify made his head whip toward the east. Oh god. Some of the water was shearing away from the top of the mound. A giant waterfall of it. ¡°It¡¯s starting! System, what shoul¡ª?!¡± He tried to run from the danger, toward the other side of the roof even though that was laughable. He couldn¡¯t help himself. The coming wave was going to kill him, and he couldn¡¯t just stand still for it. But before he made it to the edge, his right boot went out from under him, yanked sideways with so much force, by an unseen force, that Alden screamed in pain as he fell. He tried to hold onto Zeridee. His head was underwater, and the shoe, caught by a tiny mote of the same magic that was already in the process of murdering him in a much grander way, was dragging him along the rough surface of the roof. I can¡¯t. I can¡¯t. He let go of Zeridee with one arm, just one, trying to use the other to grab onto something to halt their momentum. But there was nothing to grab. He scrabbled at water. At trash. He reached out for help, and there was none. Pain shot up his body as his leg and then his shoulder slammed into something. His grip on Zeridee loosened. No. Don¡¯t let her go. Please. I don¡¯t want to let her go here at the end. His mind was suddenly full of memories, crowding each other, jumbling together with the fear. Thenn-ar with her patient explanations as she died, answering him in small words, telling him how to be safe. Hannah wearing a fake smile and holding up a sign that said DON¡¯T BE AFRAID. Arjun weeping beside Body Drainer¡¯s corpse. Kibby¡ªa dozen memories of her. And Zeridee. Just an assistant giving him many teas. Sharing her favorite fruit. Killing for him. He barely knew her. She reminded him of so many things. He¡¯d carried her for so long. He couldn¡¯t leave her. But the universe had other plans. Alden got a single gasp of air, and then he was under again. They were moving so fast he knew they couldn¡¯t still be on the roof. They had to have gone over the edge. They¡­ There was no ¡°they.¡± Alden suddenly realized his arms were empty. No. NO. When had he dropped her? Was it when his grip loosened? How had he not realized? He¡¯d thought they were still together, but she wasn¡¯t in his arms. He thrashed toward her. He knew where she was. He knew. It wasn¡¯t far. The boot finally yanked itself off his foot, and he swam. He couldn¡¯t see. There was no down or up. There was only him, wide open. And her¡ªhis entruster, his burden. Both. With a gravity like the sun. But Alden was out of air. He was out strength. And the two of them were out of time. His arms stirred the water weakly. His feet kicked. His throat felt like it was clamping shut. Zeridee is going to die. Because he was going to. Don¡¯t let go. Don¡¯t¡­ ****** ****** A massive command touched reality. Alden felt that it was happening, though he didn¡¯t have the ability to understand where the command came from or what it was doing. He just knew that his body and everything around him¡­slowed down. He became aware of his hair, drifting so slowly it was nearly frozen around his face. He tried to open his eyes, and the lids began a lift that felt like it might take multiple minutes to complete. The current was no longer rushing him toward the mountain of water but creeping along at a rate that was almost undetectable. It reminded him of being caught in Hannah¡¯s bubble spell, though his emotions weren¡¯t at all dulled, and everything in the vicinity was a part of it. Instead of just one small boy. His thoughts were the only thing moving at what felt like a normal speed. What¡¯s going on? Who¡¯s doing this? Who could be this strong? And would he die like this¡ªaware and with time to contemplate the process? Then, something plunged through the water, past his nose. A hand, moving swiftly within a world that barely moved at all. Before Alden even felt surprised, it grabbed him by the shoulder of the sweater robe. And it lifted him up Into the early morning air. ****** ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR: Dawn I 144 ****** It was so bright. The first breath was lightning in Alden¡¯s chest, and his eyes were blinded by a burning white star the size of a house that hung in the air far above him. Before the second breath, before he even knew the nature of his salvation, there was something crucial. That gravity. ¡°Zeridee,¡± he said. His rescuer dropped him onto his back on top of a hard surface, and instantly, Alden tried to reach for her, to protect her. He rolled, arms stretched out, striving¡ª A hand on his chest forced him down again. ¡°Were you enjoying the swim so much that you want me to put you back?¡± a voice asked in Artonan. ¡°Stay.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t quite register the instruction or the one who¡¯d spoken it. She¡¯s there. Right there. I¡¯m so close. ¡°I¡¯ll <> her. As soon as I¡¯ve <> the ryeh-b¡¯t I¡¯ve already caught.¡± An unfamiliar face leaned over him. Dark brown eyes, uncommonly close-set for the species, stared down. ¡°Hello, Alden. I did hope to take a look at you, but I imagined a more social first meeting.¡± ¡°Zeri¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m Esh-erdi. Don¡¯t worry about the daughter of the und¡¯h family. For now, she¡¯s safe. You are hurt and probably very confused. Contract, provide an injury assessment for this Avowed.¡± After a brief pause, the Artonan patted Alden on the chest and smiled. ¡°You¡¯re not dying. And you¡¯re obviously not in <> pain. The only thing left to worry our minds with is your emotional management¡­do you feel so overwhelmed that you might lose control of your behavior or pass from consciousness?¡± Alden felt a surge of fear, as much as his exhausted body could give him. But not at the suggestion that he might pass out. This person wasn¡¯t understanding. ¡°No,¡± he tried to explain. ¡°My arms. Zeridee.¡± He didn¡¯t have enough air yet to fully say the very important things that needed saying. Save her. Help her. She¡¯s with me. I thought she was with me. But she¡¯s not in my arms. ¡°I lost¡ª¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t.¡± The Artonan leaned even closer to him. Dark hair held together in three long braids slid over his shoulder as he studied Alden. ¡°She¡¯s right beneath us. You were only <> apart when I pulled you from the water, and you¡¯re not much farther now. She¡¯s still held by your authority.¡± Alden shook his head frantically. ¡°My skill doesn¡¯t work like that. I can¡¯t. When I¡¯m not¡ª¡± ¡°Ahhh. So that¡¯s why you¡¯re arguing.¡± The man¡¯s smile turned strange. ¡°If it¡¯s like that, all right. I¡¯ll get her for you now. If you stay here.¡± His face, looming over Alden¡¯s, had been blocking out most of the sky. When it disappeared, the blazing star overhead stung his eyes again. Wait, thought Alden, squinting. What is this? What¡¯s actually going on around me right now? That was when he finally dropped his burden. And when he finally realized he¡¯d been holding her all along. The change was drastic, and it was unlike anything he¡¯d ever experienced before upon letting go of something he was carrying with his skill. He felt like he¡¯d lost himself in one way and come back to himself in another. In that moment, with a soul-deep focus on Zeridee suddenly reduced to intellectual and emotional worry, he didn¡¯t understand much about what had just happened to him¡­what was still happening. His body was a storm of sensations¡ªmost of them bad. And the world was full of such astounding, impossible sights that his brain was doing unhelpful interpretive things as he tried to comprehend it. Like alternating between telling him that nothing was moving at all and telling him the water covering the world was moving pretty fast. Because there were visual indications of speed¡ªthe way the surface rippled around obstacles, froth forming at the edges of a few still-visible rooftops. But it was like a video of fast-moving water that had been paused. Everything was strangely quiet. Not paused. Slowed. He remembered thinking that was how it was working when he¡¯d first been caught in the effect. And, on top of that, there were so many other confusing things trying to make themselves known to him all at once. He couldn¡¯t even understand what it was he was lying on. Just inches above the water, the firm translucent green surface had enough texture to it for him to use a wet hand to push himself upright into a sitting position without slipping. It was a nonagon shape, big enough for four or five people to comfortably lie on. It seemed completely solid. Beyond that, though, Alden wasn¡¯t even sure if the platform was a magical device or a spell effect. His rescuer¡ªa knight, Esh-erdi¡ªhad placed him near the edge of it. Below him, the ripples the Artonan had created when he jumped overboard were the only things in the world, other than Alden himself, that moved with a normal-looking speed. And that was only at first. As he watched, within a second or two, they slowed down just like everything else. He was baffled. He was shivering from cold again. His head hurt. His ankle and one shoulder were throbbing enough through the pain killer he¡¯d taken earlier that the injuries were probably more serious than bruises. And as he tried to collect all of these facts into a coherent picture of what was going on, his eyes were turning to the most astounding sight of all. The blot to the east, that mountain of water, had been subjected to the same magic as everything else. Its collapse was halted and illuminated by more spotlight-bright spells hovering in the air above and around it. Alden swallowed. Who could do something like this? Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s display of power on Thegund had been larger in scale, true. But Alden had been nearly out of his mind and observing it from a distance as he ran. He¡¯d never actually been in the middle of it while it was ongoing. Here and now, he was profoundly conscious of his own smallness. Then Esh-erdi was back, breaching the surface of the water with a splash that sounded unexpectedly flat. He launched himself up to land gracefully on his feet on the nonagon, just on the other side of Alden. He¡¯d only been gone a moment. And was holding Zeridee like she weighed nothing at all. ¡°¡ªto carry me,¡± she was saying in a faint voice. ¡°It would be best for you to leave me here. You must think of the peace your life gives to Hn¡¯tyon Alis-art¡¯h. And Hn¡¯tyon Evul-art¡¯h. Of Stu-ar¡ª¡± ¡°Are you going to <> a human child with the names of every living art¡¯h, Zeridee-und¡¯h? At a time like this while you lie bleeding in my arms? Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s too much?¡± For a second, there was a pause as Zeridee tried to fix her good eye on the knight who held her, and as Alden stared at the ambassadorial assistant in turn. She¡¯s just now finishing the sentence she started before I pulled the enchantment from the puzzle door, he thought. That means¡­I really did keep her preserved. Without touching her. Somehow. And now I¡¯m not preserving her anymore. No! He threw his arms out and opened his mouth to demand that the knight give him his dying Artonan back, but Esh-erdi was already bending down to pass him Zeridee. Alden tried to activate his skill the moment she was in his arms, but he couldn¡¯t. I let her go. I¡¯ve lost entrustment. ¡°Zeridee, say I can carry you,¡± he said urgently. Her braid fell across the arm of the bathrobe he was wearing. The pale brown fabric was being stained with blood. As soon as her good eye met his, her pained expression gentled. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about those men,¡± she said softly. ¡°I¡¯m really not worried about them. At all. Let me¡ª¡± ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi, this is Alden Ryeh-b¡¯t,¡± Zeridee murmured. ¡°His flyer was stolen. Please take him to safety.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll take care of him,¡± said the knight, keeping one eye on them and pointing the other toward the mountain of water. ¡°If you let him carry you.¡± ¡°There is also the matter of the greenhouse,¡± she said. ¡°Zeridee-und¡¯h, I will be inconvenienced if you don¡¯t let the Avowed use his skill on you.¡± Esh-erdi¡¯s words had a tone of rebuke in them that wasn¡¯t present on his face. She frowned. ¡°Say I can carry you,¡± Alden repeated. ¡°We¡¯re almost out of here.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± Zeridee said hesitantly. Alden activated his skill. It wrapped around Zeridee, and he sagged with relief. Holding her, even while sitting down with the bulk of her weight in his lap, was hurting his injured right shoulder. He gripped her with both arms anyway. You¡¯re all right. I¡¯m all right. I didn¡¯t lose you for long. We¡¯re not dead yet. ¡°Can you hold her like that for a while?¡± Esh-erdi asked. ¡°I¡¯ll be sending you both to a medical facility, but since she¡¯s injured so badly, I have a specific healer in mind.¡± ¡°I can hold her,¡± Alden said. His skill lacked that extra something he¡¯d felt earlier¡ªthe sense of stability he¡¯d barely given any attention in the midst of everything else that was going on. But he wasn¡¯t in immediate danger of losing her.¡°I¡¯m not sure I could walk with her, though. I could try if I had to.¡± ¡°I rarely ask the Avowed I¡¯m responsible for to walk on broken bones.¡± Esh-erdi was rearranging a stack of rings on one of his middle fingers. ¡°Unless they¡¯re members of a species that enjoys that kind of thing.¡± He extended an arm and the ringed finger. In response, the green platform glided forward smoothly and silently. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I can¡¯t give you as much of my time as I would like. Later, I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll have a moment. For now, I¡¯ll be carrying you to the edge of the < > and one of your own people will take you both to safety from there.¡± Pacification, thought Alden, staring around them. Is that what this is? He was still breathing hard. He was cold again. And he was just becoming aware that the stretchy pants he had on beneath the robe were way too interested in stretching now that they were saturated, and they were not nearly interested enough in doing their job as a pair of pants. It was a wonder he¡¯d kept them at all. At least his messenger bag had stayed with him. I almost drowned. Just now. I was drowning. He¡¯d asked to use his privilege. He¡¯d been rejected. And now a Knight of the Mother Planet was ferrying him to safety through this flooded nightmare, like his own personal gondolier. The light spell didn¡¯t follow them, but it was illuminating such a large area that everything was still strikingly clear in its harsh blue-white glow. They traveled along what had been the middle of a street, away from the epicenter of the flood. More and more rooftops gradually appeared as the water became shallower. ¡°Are you doing this?¡± Alden asked, his voice quiet. He looked back toward the slow-motion cascade, set against the backdrop of a sky that was still growing paler. ¡°No. This is Lind-otta. Do you like it?¡± It was crystal clear that he expected Alden to like it. ¡°I do. She saved me. And you did. Thank you.¡± ¡°You¡¯re welcome. The timing was fortunate. There were a few different places that would have benefited from our help. We actually chose this one because we were looking for that one.¡± He nodded down at Zeridee. ¡°Several hours ago, she called out. And sent a <> message out along with it. What happened to her?¡± They felt her? Does he mean that same authority cry I felt? ¡­all the way at Matadero? His arms locked a little tighter around Zeridee, and it sent a lance of pain through his shoulder that made him grimace. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I can¡¯t cast a pain relief spell for you,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°Lind is good at that kind of magic, but I have <> with most healing spells for years.¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Alden said.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Esh gave him an amused look. ¡°You have an interesting < >¡± ¡°Did I say ¡®I¡¯m fine¡¯ wrong?¡± ¡°No. You said it well! Here. I can cast a spell that will warm and dry your clothes. A moment¡­¡± He briefly turned what looked like his full attention to Alden and chanted a series of long lines. Alden felt his robe and his pants heating up. When he¡¯d finished the spell, Esh-erdi continued speaking without waiting for Alden¡¯s thanks. ¡°Zeridee-und¡¯h¡¯s injuries¡ª?¡± ¡°She was protecting me,¡± Alden said firmly. ¡°And herself. Three men attacked her. They were trying to steal the flyer. They tried to kill her and me. She¡­stopped them.¡± ¡°Stopped them?¡± ¡°One of them could be alive. Maybe.¡± Probably not. ¡°I left him in the ambassador¡¯s greenhouse. I didn¡¯t make sure he was really dead. He might have been pretending?¡± ¡°The ambassador¡¯s house isn¡¯t there anymore,¡± Esh-erdi told him. ¡°The men were Avowed?¡± ¡°Yes. Will she be in trouble? She shouldn¡¯t be. They¡ª¡± ¡°Did she use magic to stop them?¡± Esh-erdi asked. Alden frowned down at her. ¡°Is she a wizard?¡± It took the knight a few seconds to answer. ¡°It¡¯s bad manners to say yes, so I will say no.¡± What does that mean? ¡°I didn¡¯t see her use any spells,¡± Alden said. ¡°She punched one in the throat, stabbed one in the head with his own weapon, and she made the flyer take off with the third inside. His arm was in the way when the roof closed.¡± Esh-erdi tilted his head. He glanced at Zeridee again. ¡°The arm got chopped off,¡± Alden clarified. Just in case that wasn¡¯t obvious. ¡°I see¡­I¡¯m sorry for the difficulty of the night.¡± Below them, the water had gotten shallow enough that Alden could see a lot of the destruction wrought by the last wave. The bodies of the motorcyclist and the man from Iowa were probably underwater now. Somewhere. What if everywhere looks like this? he wondered again. It seemed impossible that the rest of the island could be untouched if this place was so utterly devastated. How many people are gone? ¡°Should someone like you and Lind-otta be here just for the two of us?¡± he asked. ¡°What about everything else?¡± ¡°You did enjoy your swim, didn¡¯t you?¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°Someone had to deal with the ocean in this area anyway. It <> too far too quickly. Lind and I can work <> without so many <> running around.¡± Alden had recovered enough to have more questions, but one eclipsed the rest. And who would know better than this person? ¡°Is¡­is the Earth Contract going to fail?¡± It didn¡¯t matter if the System said the risk of chaos exposure was ¡°negligible¡±. Too much had gone too wrong. He still wasn¡¯t allowed to text anyone. And now that he wasn¡¯t under imminent threat from the water, that fear could come to the forefront again. It wasn¡¯t quite as strong as it had been, but it still had the power to make his stomach twist. ¡°Not at the moment.¡± Esh-erdi¡¯s face darkened. ¡°This planet has revealed some <> that worry me greatly, though.¡± Something about the way he said it stole the hard-won air from Alden¡¯s lungs. Before long, they were approaching the edge of Lind-otta¡¯s magic. All around them, the world began to accelerate. Where the water hadn¡¯t flowed away, it was just pools and puddles exhibiting normal puddling behavior. ¡°Does she slow time, or is it something else?¡± Alden asked quietly. ¡°This is the slowing of motion, not time,¡± Esh-erdi replied. ¡°I¡¯m sorry you¡¯ve seen it under these circumstances, but I¡¯m happy that you can witness her power at this scale. She approaches the limit of her abilities with this particular work. It¡¯s mesmerizing, don¡¯t you think?¡± He looked around. ¡°Where did that human flyer go¡­?¡± The knight crooked the finger he was using to direct their platform, and they turned the corner of a building. A short distance away and below them, a black helicopter was parked in a surprisingly clear section of the street. ¡°There it is. Alden, the human pilot will carry you and the und¡¯h girl from here.¡± Alden was wondering why the helicopter hadn¡¯t just flown closer to pick them up and save the Artonans some time. Then it occurred to him that it might not be able to get through Lind-otta¡¯s pacification. So far, only Esh-erdi and the things he¡¯d interacted with seemed to be able to move normally. Before he could even begin to figure that out, something else distracted him. ¡°Did you call Zeridee ¡®girl?¡¯¡± he said, a little surprise leaking through. ¡°How old is she?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know her exact age. Before meeting her here, I was only vaguely aware of her. She is the relative of a friend. She was given her place here very young, but she¡¯s really not a girl. I misspoke. She should be¡­twice your age? A few years more?¡± Esh-erdi was obviously doing something back in the pacification area, since he had his head turned slightly and one eye pointed that way. But the eye still pointed at Alden shone with interest. ¡°Why? How old did you think she was?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t seriously think about it.¡± ¡°I sense something humorous hiding behind your lips. You must tell me.¡± ¡°I just¡­thought she was older.¡± ¡°But how old?¡± Esh-erdi insisted. Alden hadn¡¯t had a specific age in mind. Zeridee looked quite young, but he¡¯d learned not to put too much stock in that. And she¡¯d just seemed like an older person. ¡°Sixty in your years?¡± ¡°That¡¯s boring,¡± the knight said in a disappointed tone. ¡°When I tell her about your mistake, I will say you thought she¡¯d seen the end of her first century.¡± He lowered them to ground level, and Alden got his first good look at the side of the helicopter. A wide-splayed V formed from a network of geometric patterns was painted there in gold. ¡°Velra?¡± It was impossible not to recognize Lute¡¯s oft-maligned tattoo. ¡°Do you know Aulia? She <> this flyer and its pilot for evacuating people from this place. According to the Contract, there should be a few more after you.¡± ¡°I¡­have met her,¡± Alden said. ¡°Is she <>?¡± Esh-erdi asked. ¡°I did not think so when we first met, but after I explained the nature of the crisis, she seemed even more deeply affected than the other humans.¡± ****** Well, thought Alden around fifteen minutes later, I did say I¡¯d go to Matadero today. He sat on a rolling gurney, Zeridee in his lap. It turned out that the least busy medical facility, and also the one that was best equipped for helping a seriously injured Artonan, was right here. Inside the cube. And now they had a grand total of one human and one preserved ambassadorial assistant as patients. Two Avowed¡ªa Healer and a Brute surgeon¡ªwere trying to get a word in edgewise while a very short and overbearing Artonan hopped right up onto the gurney beside Alden and started injecting him with one hand and spelling him with the other. The extent of the wizard¡¯s willingness to converse with everyone else was something like: Chant, chant, chant. My patients! Esh-erdi gave me these. I will tell you if I need assistance! Chant, chant, chant. Stab. Stab. Behind them, the automatic doors were shutting off access to the helipad, and the pilot was already taking off again to pick up more people. She¡¯d been very upset about what she¡¯d seen of Apex in the pre-dawn light. ¡°I can¡¯t believe they abandoned part of the island,¡± she¡¯d said more than once on the way here. ¡°This doesn¡¯t look like home.¡± They¡¯d flown straight here, so Alden hadn¡¯t seen anything but the ruin he¡¯d already been in. I can¡¯t believe I survived it. I can¡¯t believe the Longs did. He¡¯d given Esh-erdi the scratchart card before he left, and the man had taken it. Graciously, Alden now realized. A knight who had the System¡¯s cooperation didn¡¯t need a toy to find a bunch of lost Avowed. As the gurney rolled down a bright hallway, Alden looked at the two human adults. ¡°How many people are¡­?¡± Hurt. Missing. Dead. Before he could settle on which to ask, the feel of a hand going to the tie on his robe set an alarm off in his head. ¡°No!¡± he said in Artonan, clutching the fabric closed with his fist. All three members of the medical staff looked startled at the vehemence in his voice. Alden was exhausted, and he was sure some of the things he¡¯d just been jabbed with were making him even muzzier. But his auriad was tightening around his left bicep as he suddenly realized, for the first time since he¡¯d been pulled from the water, that there was a risk of the casting tool being discovered. He was in a situation where people were going to want to take his clothing. Doctors just loved to do things like that when you were injured. So busy trying to provide you with medical care that they never stopped to think for a second how depriving a guy of his shirt might ruin his life. The Artonan healer blinked at him through a pair of glasses with tiny lenses and held up something that looked like a large silver fish scale. ¡°I need to put these on your chest and arms for my next spell.¡± ¡°I¡¯m too shy,¡± said Alden. The humans looked even more confused than the alien. Maybe the System wasn¡¯t translating Alden¡¯s nonsense for them. Or maybe they were just wondering what kind of person was so shy that a near drowning wasn¡¯t enough to make him expose his torso. ¡°I¡¯ll be quick,¡± said the Artonan after a moment. ¡°I¡¯ll put them on myself,¡± Alden countered. ¡°In private. I need to use the bathroom anyway.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know how to sing the sticking song.¡± There is a song to make them stick?! ¡°I¡¯d rather you take care of Zeridee first. My skill could fail any second!¡± ¡°When it fails, I will help her. For now, I am helping you.¡± The wizard and Alden stared at each other. ¡°If I can¡¯t put those things on myself, then¡­I¡¯ll be the one who moves my clothing around,¡± Alden said slowly. ¡°However you need it moved. I¡¯ll do it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s easier if you¡ª¡± ¡°The goodchild Klee-pak¡¯s parents say we don¡¯t have to be afraid of healers because they¡¯re very understanding about our worries.¡± The healer adjusted his glasses as if he needed to peer at Alden a little harder. ¡°All right,¡± he said irritably. ¡°But you are too old for Klee-pak. I recommend you view the stories of his cousin Kwoo-pak. They will help you to <> the <> and struggles of adolescence.¡± Alden¡¯s relief was soon overwhelmed by the need to summon up the last dregs of his focus. He auriad had been getting better and better about helping out when he wanted it to move around on his body. Thanks to that, the two of them managed an awkward dance with the robe while the healer applied the scales. The indigo loop changed arms twice, and by the time they all arrived in Matadero¡¯s medical center, Alden had managed to get it to slide down his back and into his pants so that he could lie still and not act like quite such a menace to the people trying to help him. Why is this place so huge? he wondered as the Artonan continued to cast spells on him. Matadero itself was very large. It was hard to get a sense of its scale from pictures, since a shiny cube on the water didn¡¯t really offer you much to go on. But as the helicopter had approached, Alden had been surprised to see how the walls loomed and how far below the pad the waves had been when they¡¯d landed. He assumed that the bulk of the structure was a big empty space of some kind. Very powerful Avowed killed very dangerous things here. He doubted they worked in a mop closet. But however large that space he imagined was in actuality, it was leaving plenty of room. Because this med center definitely wasn¡¯t the simple spot Alden had imagined. It spanned multiple floors, and it was basically a fully-equipped healing hospital. Just one devoid of patients and mostly devoid of staff. I really don¡¯t like the fact that this place is so huge. That can¡¯t be a good thing. You didn¡¯t build entire hospitals in places where you didn¡¯t expect to one day need them. ¡°You want to sleep?¡± the healer said. ¡°What?¡± Alden was pulled from his dark calculations about the number of beds they must have here by the question. The healer was finally prying the scales off of his chest. His injured shoulder felt better, but nothing much had been done for his foot yet or for his hand or¡ª ¡°Sleep will be good for you¡± said the Artonan. ¡°It helps with the healing and with the healing.¡± Alden could tell that was some common turn of phrase by the way he said it. ¡°And we may have more patients coming. And she will need a lot of help.¡± He was frowning at Zeridee. ¡°Head injuries¡­¡± He looked unhappy about it. ¡°Will she be all right?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll handle her myself. She will be fine. You leave her with me and go to the shower.¡± He tapped on the leg of his glasses. ¡°I¡¯ve already ordered Shower 1 to deliver your potion sprays. Don¡¯t stand on the leg that hurts. Just balance on one foot. I¡¯ll tell one of the humans to put a <> on you when you are clean.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t imagine a human doctor telling him to just hop off on one leg to the shower. But then again, it wasn¡¯t like he would have trouble doing it. And he was so, so tired. ¡°I want to sleep,¡± he agreed. I want to sleep and not be afraid, for just a little while. ****** ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FIVE: Dawn II 145 ****** Alden lay in a bed so perfectly molded to his body that moving seemed like it would be ungrateful. The healer had told him to pick any room he wanted in the hospital, and the one he¡¯d chosen for himself was completely quiet and very dark except for a nightlight with a friendly pinkish-orange glow. This was the second time he¡¯d woken. The first had been when the small oval drone assigned to him had started gently chirping to let him know it was time for him to take some potions. Even though he was sure it had only been minutes since his eyes closed, he¡¯d obediently rolled over and accepted its offerings. After downing the drinkable ones, spraying the sprayable ones, and saying ¡°pierce¡± to every injector, he¡¯d tucked himself right back in and fallen asleep again so quickly that he probably wouldn¡¯t have argued if someone had tried to convince him he¡¯d dreamed the whole interruption. Now he was fully rested, but he had an urge to close his eyes again and pretend that he wasn¡¯t. The clean, peaceful room separated him from whatever reality was like out there right now. They hadn¡¯t sent anyone to poke at him, and nobody had come to deliver bad news. There was no blood here, very little pain, no burdens too heavy to bear. And instead of trying to kill him, the water ran harmlessly from the bathroom tap like water was supposed to. His only companion was a small snake who¡¯d been upgraded to a square plastic tub with holes poked in the lid. While the Brute doctor was bandaging Alden up after his shower last night, he had asked her if they had anything that snakes could live in, and he had gotten this. Plus a shallow lid he¡¯d filled with water. The snake was mostly hiding in its bento cave in the corner rather than exploring the larger container. Alden understood. Here in his own hiding spot there wasn¡¯t even a window to expose him to the outside world. A fake one could be created along the wall to his left; he knew because it had been active when he first entered the room. But he¡¯d turned it off with a simple verbal request and now the wall stood there, solid and comforting in its plainness. I should want to get up and find out what¡¯s happened. To Zeridee, to Anesidora, to Earth, to everyone. He didn¡¯t. This reminds me of something. He pursued the feeling because doing so gave him another excuse not to leave the bed. Yeah. There it is. When he¡¯d been a child in the House of Healing, after his parents¡¯ deaths, there had been a stretch of time like this. An hour when he¡¯d started to suspect the terrible truth¡ªwhy aren¡¯t they here with me when I¡¯m hurt, and why won¡¯t anyone answer my questions with answers that make sense?¡ªbut he didn¡¯t actually know yet. Until you knew for sure, there was a chance that everything was what you wanted it to be. This moment was like that. Like the room was protecting him from whatever came next. How bad do I really think it all is then? Logically, the world was still out there. Moving along. If Earth evac had gone forward while he slept, he was reasonably sure somebody would have woken him. So it was less terrible than that at least. Maybe it¡¯s not even very bad. He didn¡¯t believe that. He just had this sick fear in his gut that something he cared about would be broken. Something would have been taken. He had never known of tragedy to leave him out when it came to things like this. Zeridee. I¡¯ve lost my sense of her. Does that mean¡­? Or something will have gone wrong back in Chicago. Or someone will have noticed my auriad¡ªa doctor here, Esh-erdi, a drone I didn¡¯t see while I was breaking into that house. After catastrophizing in that vein for a while, the bed didn¡¯t feel nearly as comfortable. With a sigh, he rolled out and let his feet¡ªone bare, one squishbooted¡ªhit the cold tile floor. He went about every chore he could find for himself slowly. Taking stock of his injuries occupied several minutes. The left hand had been doused in ointment and re-covered with the exact same kind of grabby-sucky bandage as before. He¡¯d been told it would need more attention when he woke up. The foot in the squishboot would probably be staying in the squishboot for a couple of days. It was a dynamic gel cast very similar, in appearance at least, to the one he¡¯d seen Stuart wearing at LeafSong. Neato healing footwear. It held everything in place, and Alden could put weight on it without feeling like he was putting much weight on it. Though that did make walking odd, like he had an appendage that wouldn¡¯t give him the right feedback even as he did all of the usual things with it. The shoulder was doing a lot better already, and everything else was just a mess of scrapes and bruises. He¡¯d gotten one look at the side of his face that had been dragged across pavement and rooftop, and he was really glad that they¡¯d covered it with bandaging. He looked like he¡¯d made enemies with a cheese grater. What was the point of letting Rrorro rid you of a lifetime¡¯s worth of damage if you were just going to beat yourself up like this? Finally, Alden tried to make his first attempt to interact with the world by bringing up his interface. The first thing he noticed was the time. ¡°No wonder I feel rested.¡± Discounting the interruption from his little pharmaceutical friend, Alden had slept for fifteen hours. His internal clock was hopelessly off now. It felt like morning, but it was just after 11:30 PM on Saturday night. There were a ton of notifications. One of them said communications were back up and running for all Avowed. ¡°System, place a voice call to Aunt Connie.¡± He was sure she¡¯d want to hear from him even if the hour was late, and he wanted to know what had happened with her, since she was one of the two people with whom he¡¯d chosen to share his early priority for apocalypse salvation. [Calls to and from Matadero are limited to authorized individuals.] Alden read the words. Oh¡­well, that kind of makes sense. There was nothing of interest, in his opinion, for him to tell people about the facility. But the policy for Avowed working on Matadero had always been secrecy and silence. ¡°Can you at least notify her that I¡¯m alive and not allowed to call her yet?¡± After getting a confirmation that that was possible, he considered his situation. I¡¯m literally in the cube right now. I¡¯m not supposed to be here. B-ranks couldn¡¯t even join the battlegroups that fought here. And almost exactly twenty-four hours ago, Alden had been nervous about seeing the place from a distance, from a boat, with friends. Upon his arrival, he¡¯d been so relieved to be alive and in the company of competent adults that he hadn¡¯t let the location weigh on him. Now that he¡¯d slept an entire day of his life away in this place and had serious thoughts about establishing this room as his personal hermit hideaway, it seemed kind of silly to be scared of it. He was here. Chaos wasn¡¯t. So¡­it was just a bigass building. With comfy beds. And surprisingly inattentive medical personnel, considering how long he¡¯d been left to his own devices. Unless they¡¯d come to check on him while he slept, and he hadn¡¯t even noticed? It suited him fine. Even the clothes were all right. The stuff he¡¯d come in with had been confiscated and probably declared a biohazard since it had been steeped in blood and city soup. In exchange, they¡¯d given him drawstring patient pants with short wide legs that went easily over the boot and a gown that tied at the side. The dirty sandals he¡¯d stuffed in his bag earlier were still with him, but he¡¯d rather just walk around on the hospital sock they¡¯d given him for his uninjured foot. No complaints from me if socks with grippy bottoms are the most exciting thing they¡¯ve got going on here at Matadero. As he swiped the ¡°no calling out¡± notice away, a new thought occurred to him: They¡¯re not going to make me get a tattoo before I leave, are they? Haoyu had said both of his parents had secrecy contracts about the facility and what happened during the fights, but they actually did work while they were here. Alden should be exempt. He was only visiting. Visiting a massive hospital you didn¡¯t know existed. ¡°Man¡­Tiny Snake, they¡¯re absolutely going to tattoo me before I leave. They might do you, too. The ink is going to clash with your scales.¡± If the existence of the hospital wasn¡¯t a tatt-worthy secret, then things like the layout of the building probably were. Alden couldn¡¯t pinpoint their precise location in the cube, since he hadn¡¯t been paying that much attention to the hallways as they transported him from the helipad here. But he could definitely narrow it down to a quadrant. He didn¡¯t know where Artonan secrecy ended and human secrecy began when it came to this place, but no involved party was going to be less paranoid about keeping it all hush-hush in the wake of an attack. At least there should be some other people around to get inked with me, right? They had mentioned other patients possibly coming in. The helicopter pilot Aulia had donated to the knights had said she was going back for more. Guess I¡¯ll find out how many neighbors I have when I finally open the door. He stared at it. His stomach gurgled. ¡°It is weird that nobody¡¯s fed me.¡± Healing treatments generally meant you needed more meals, not less. ¡°Is there a cafeteria here or something?¡± he asked his ovoid potion dealer. ¡°Do you have food in you, too?¡± The window-wall answered him instead of the drone. It brightened, and a map of the nearby area appeared, with arrows directing him toward a ¡°Butcher¡¯s Canteen¡±¡­which was proof humans had had a hand in naming things around here in Alden¡¯s opinion. There was even a room service option. That¡¯s surprising. He would have assumed the Matadero fighters had something more like a community kitchen. Room service implied a dedicated cook, didn¡¯t it? He toyed with the idea of selecting the feature, but on the off-chance that room service wasn¡¯t just another drone bringing you stuff, he didn¡¯t want to inconvenience an actual person who was probably engaged in more important business than carrying a meal to a teenager with two useable feet. Or one usable foot and a usable magic cast. Same thing. They¡¯ve got to be busy with something or they¡¯d be in here dealing with me.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. The last thing he had to consider before braving an exit was his auriad. It was currently clinging to a private and uninjured part of his body that nobody should want to examine, stick a bandage on, or inject a potion into. Not his favorite place to wear it, and that tendency it had to move when he was feeling nervous or wanting to cast spells would be more awkward than comforting in this location. But it was comfortable, hidden, and still easily accessible if he really wanted to access it. The other option he¡¯d come up with was swallowing it. He hoped he never needed to go that far. Finally, he stepped out into the hall and looked around. It was long, white, brightly lit¡­and empty. The faint surprise Alden felt at the sight of the pristine floor and lines of closed doors identical to his own made him realize he really had been expecting something else. Shouting nurses, screaming patients¡ªsomething awful. Obviously, this is better. No chaos clawing at him, no ocean trying to drown him. Matadero at midnight was a peaceful place. Feels wrong, like it can''t possibly be real, but here we are. He decided he would go find the healer, or whoever else might be awake and know things, and ask about Zeridee. She would be fine. She had to be. He might have just lost targeting on her because he was drugged. Or because she was having serious magic used on her. He didn¡¯t want to try re-targeting now, because what if it messed up whatever the healer was doing somehow? It didn¡¯t seem likely, but it also didn¡¯t seem necessary to try it. And after Alden learned for sure that she was fine, he¡¯d offer to help the hospital staff. Maybe they needed a person pickler. Or an organ pickler. It would be a way to help that wasn¡¯t too difficult. He could just sit somewhere comfortable with something in his lap, watching television or reading a book. While the elevator carried him down a floor to what he was thinking of as the central hub of the hospital complex, he wondered if it would be all right to eat something while you held a wounded person in a hospital setting. It might be unprofessional. Even if it wouldn¡¯t hurt the patient, other people might be weird about it. Like, ¡®Why are you eating a mushroom burger over the body of my dying husband?¡¯ They should give me a privacy curtain or something. If not, I¡¯ll just have to explain. Ma¡¯am or Sir, your choices are me saving your loved one with a mushroom burger or me taking a dinner break and not saving them at all. Then the elevator doors opened, and Alden came face to face not with anyone in need of help but with even more emptiness. He walked around for several minutes, sure people had to be somewhere. The occasional squeak of his own squishboot against the floor was the only sound. There were a few¡ªvery few¡ªsigns that other patients might have been here. In the room with the showers that delivered potion sprays, one of the doors was cracked open on a stall he hadn¡¯t used himself. And there was a yellow medical cart in the room where they¡¯d given him his boot and bandaged his scratches and scrapes. It hadn¡¯t been there when he¡¯d left. I guess there were only three staff members here. They could have brought in more doctors, but it¡¯s obvious they didn¡¯t. Alden adjusted his expectations some more. Zeridee was in critical condition, an alien, and ¡°the relative of a friend¡± of a knight. Sending her to a packed Anesidoran ER that was equipped primarily for humans wouldn¡¯t have been great for anyone. That didn¡¯t mean Demon Cube Hospital was open for business or would be opening for business¡­it meant it was open for select cases. Maybe a red halo or two? Artonans. Me. ¡°Did other people even get rooms? Did they all go back to the island? Have I just been left alone on Matadero?¡± He had slept for a long time, but surely that wasn¡¯t a thing that could actually happen to a person? He headed down a floor and found a section of the facility that looked a little more like a traditional House of Healing. This place really is stocked, he thought as he poked his head into a storage room. So many supplies were waiting here, completely untouched. Boxes covered in logograms and sealed with wax. Stacks of blankets. Vials of ¡°essential elements¡± from the Triplanets and Earth. There were even restraints intended for people who weren¡¯t humanoid in shape. This is all reserved for something really bad. Like hundreds of Avowed and wizards living here and getting hurt here for an extended period of time¡­with nobody allowed on or off? Or with the rest of Earth in such bad shape it couldn¡¯t supply the place. He hoped they let him pick where his new tattoo went. If it was small enough, the bottom of a toe would be a great forgettable location. Eventually, the smell of herbs burning and a resonant sound in the air¡ªas if a gong had been struck a while ago and the remnants of its ring were lingering¡ªled him to the healer and Zeridee. The Artonan man was fully engaged in doing¡­a thing¡­and that thing involved painting himself and his patient both in what looked like blood while he sang a song over her body in a room full of potted plants. Yep, I was ridiculous to think Kibby wouldn¡¯t be stoked about me tasting her blood. I should have let her paint some more logograms on the cabinets. Done a little dance. My lack of showmanship had to be a real disappointment to her. Alden only watched them for a second. He didn¡¯t know how hard healing spells were, but he knew that if someone interrupted him mid-cast he might fail to properly direct his authority. He assumed the same thing applied to some extent to fully trained wizards. So he left them there. He went down another floor, still hoping to find at least one of the two Avowed he¡¯d met last night. Instead, he found the morgue. It wasn¡¯t like Alden would have walked through a door labeled ¡°MORGUE¡± and helped himself to a peek. But as soon as the elevator dinged, there the bodies were, in a place that had clearly been meant to treat the living just like the floors above. They were laid out on gurneys, tabletops, and the floor. Most of them were covered with cloths that glimmered with magic. The dead woman on the table beside the nurse¡¯s station was stripped and surrounded by a trio of wizards. ¡°You see what I mean, don¡¯t you?¡± one of them was saying, her voice irritated. ¡°You¡¯re giving them all the same nose!¡± ¡°She looks right to me.¡± ¡°If you can¡¯t do it, put away your casting tools and call me over. Before this happens. Or I will tell your <> school that Dam-trinta gave all the Avowed dead his own nose. And I will smoke <> while they <> your diploma.¡± Alden started hastily pressing random elevator buttons. Right as the doors were closing, the woman who had been delivering the admonishment turned around. Her brows lifted as she spotted him. ¡°A human?¡± she said. ¡°I thought the <> said not to worry about any¡ª¡± Her words were cut off. Alden leaned against the wall and let out a breath. How many bodies was that? More than ten. Less than twenty. Are the hallways and rooms down there full? Is that why they¡¯re working on them out in the open like that? How many people must be dead? The morticians, if that was what they were, had obviously been as surprised to see him as he was to see them. So that confirmed what he¡¯d already ascertained for himself. Not a lot of humans in the hospital. Not living ones anyway. That could have been me. Laid out there naked on a table, having his body made presentable for family. It would have given Connie and his friends some closure this time at least. I need to get out of here. ****** The problem with trying to get some distance from the corpses was that Alden only knew of two places on Matadero. And one of them was the hospital with the corpses in it. The other was the canteen. Following his memory of the map, he left the hospital by means of a corridor that came to a narrow point just wide enough for a single person to pass before it broadened into a less claustrophobic hall that connected to the bottom level of Matadero¡¯s residential section. The place looked like a hotel lobby, if the hotel had given its design budget to someone who thought gray was a bold color. He paused on his way through to watch a video montage that had been left playing on the screen in one of the seating areas. From the looks of it, everyone in the battle group that was currently supposed to be in residence here was engaged in an ongoing prank war involving a hundred kilo sack of rice. Alden watched as a Vocal Brute named Ramona Sahu distracted someone he vaguely recognized as an up-and-coming hero from Miami with a voice throw before she smashed him from behind with the rice bag. There were about a dozen famous and semi-famous people laughing their asses off in the background while the victim groaned and started to clean up all the spilled grains. As the montage switched over to a scene with Ramona walking through a boobytrapped doorway and catching rice in the face, Alden shook his head. The most powerful adults in the world are big dorks. He wondered if they¡¯d all left to help the island. It made sense that if it was okay for the knights to go help out now then it would be fine for the others to go, too. He reached another elevator and took it down. When he stepped off, he found himself in a cafeteria that looked like it had been designed by the same person responsible for the lobby above. There was a kitchen¡ªpartially visible through a cut-out wall¡ªat the other end of the room. Before Alden had made it three steps, a man wearing an apron over a t-shirt and boxers ran out to greet him. Hey, I¡¯m not the only one whose crisis wardrobe needs some work. The guy had on bedroom slippers. ¡°English?¡± he asked. And before Alden could confirm, he was being peppered with questions. ¡°Are more people coming? How many? Do they want supper? Breakfast? Something else? Is it mostly Artonans or are there humans with you? Is the island still there? Is everyone all right? Where¡ª?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sixteen, and I¡¯ve been asleep for the past fifteen hours.¡± That seemed like the most succinct way to convey his cluelessness. ¡°I¡¯m Alden. I¡¯m a patient in the hospital section.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a hospital here?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Am I¡­supposed to be feeding patients?¡± ¡°There are only two patients that I know of for sure,¡± said Alden. ¡°One of them is me, and the other is being healed. So just me.¡± He was glad he hadn¡¯t tried to order room service. This person would have been pretty confused to get a meal request from a hospital he hadn¡¯t even known was right next door. The man sighed. ¡°I¡¯m Kabir.¡± ¡°Lute¡¯s chef!¡± Kabir looked surprised. ¡°Sorry. I know you don¡¯t work for Lute. But Lute¡¯s mentioned you. I¡¯m his roommate.¡± ¡°Is he¡ª?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t know,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯m sure he¡¯s fine. He was on campus when everything went wrong.¡± It had to be one of the best places to be. ¡°I¡¯ve been here since everything went wrong. Cooking. Galecourse¡ªMelanie Carisson, I mean¡ªbrought me in. I haven¡¯t even left the cafeteria. Nobody¡¯s come. Nobody. I was starting to think I was the only person here. On Matadero!¡± He laughed a little nervously. ¡°That would be crazy. But here you are. Human. Hospital patient. Lute¡¯s friend! I¡¯ll feed you.¡± In the kitchen, food covered every inch of the place. Paella, pastries, pre-packaged pudding cups. Alden opened a huge fridge just to see how far the madness went and found a hundred individually wrapped sandwiches stacked wall to wall on one of the shelves. Kabir, a victim of circumstance, was the only person responsible for all of it. He hadn¡¯t slept much at all in the past two days. ¡°..and so she asks me to make something with the special Artona III potatoes. They are not easy to use, but I said, ¡®Of course, Ms. Velra. I can cook with these. Just in case the Generals agree to take a break and dine on Libra. It has never happened before even though she¡¯s asked many times over the years, but I don¡¯t point this out. I just cook pink potato dumplings with clam sauce. ¡°Strange recipe. I don¡¯t like it. No one comes for dinner. So I put it away and prep ingredients for Chicken ¨¤ la King before I go to my cabin.¡± He frowned down at the skillet on the stove in front of him. ¡°I think this needs fat, something creamy. Vegan. Almond butter will be nice for you.¡± Alden watched curiously as the chef spooned a giant gob of almond butter into the skillet where his meal was happening. Fresh greens, mushrooms, and a lot of roasted garlic were in there already, gradually becoming a sauce thanks to starchy pasta water. ¡°Ten minutes after I fall asleep, the disaster starts. The next thing I know, I¡¯m flying in Galecourse¡¯s arms.¡± He started scooping linguine into the pan with a set of tongs. ¡°Everyone else leaves to go help Anesidora and find family members, but Ms. Velra suddenly says, ¡®Oh, Kabir. You¡¯ll stay here and cook for the wizards, won¡¯t you? Won¡¯t you?¡± Mushrooms and noodles flew through the air and he caught them again in the pan. ¡°On the sixth tray of cheese muffins, I decide maybe there are no wizards. No Avowed. Just. Me. I put up a view spell at the elevator to watch for demons.¡± But he kept cooking, thought Alden. ¡°There¡¯s no chaos here right now, so I don¡¯t think you have to worry about those.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a C-rank, you know. I¡¯m not supposed to be here.¡± He glowered at Alden¡¯s food as he tipped it onto a plate. ¡°I bet they make me get a tattoo.¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m thinking of getting mine on a toe.¡± He took the offering. ¡°Thanks. I would have been fine with just the soup and the salad, but this looks good.¡± Alden ate his meal at one of the cafeteria tables with Kabir looking on and bouncing a leg nervously the whole while. ¡°I¡¯ve only seen four wizards since I left my room,¡± Alden told him between scarfing down bites. ¡°So you might want to take a break from cooking. The place seems pretty abandoned. And it¡¯s after midnight. I know that the time kind of doesn¡¯t matter under the circumstances. But you should sleep.¡± He started slurping on his bowl of miso soup. ¡°I think the idea was that Artonans would be coming here?¡± Kabir said. ¡°That was what it sounded like Ms. Velra thought, but she was giving me instructions while she was bestowing wordchains on everyone. She was working so hard, she was sweating. It was very confusing.¡± ¡°We could ask the morticians, I guess,¡± said Alden. The chef nodded. Then he looked up, eyes going rounder. ¡°The what?¡± ****** Kabir was reluctant to leave the area he¡¯d been assigned to. ¡°It¡¯s Matadero. We can¡¯t just explore,¡± he protested when Alden suggested they might as well go to the hospital together and find him a bedroom. And some pants. ¡°But I¡¯ve already been that way,¡± Alden explained. ¡°There¡¯s really nothing you¡¯re going to get in trouble for seeing as far as I can tell.¡± The man shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m just going to stay here. I¡¯ll make coffee cake. It goes with wevvi, doesn¡¯t it?¡± So Alden ended up alone once more, carrying a box of food he hoped Zeridee might get to eat. When he found the healer still in full mystical mode, he debated his options and chose to fetch his messenger bag from his room before coming back down. He positioned a chair at the end of the hall in a spot where he wouldn¡¯t interrupt the healing process but also where he couldn¡¯t possibly miss the Artonan¡¯s emergence. He¡¯d decided not to go offer the morticians supper. He really didn¡¯t want to find out all the details about their work or accidentally present himself as a volunteer to help them with it. He¡¯d had enough of bodies for one weekend. How many are down there? Are more still coming? He shoved the questions away as well as he could. Right now, Alden had no instructions to follow and no knowledge of what he should be doing other than keeping himself and a snake alive. He was in a hospital, technically waiting for further treatment. He suspected he¡¯d fallen into some kind of cross-species organizational blindspot. The Artonan had insisted Alden was his patient, so if the human doctor and Healer were still around, they hadn¡¯t put him on their to-do list. So he¡¯s my guy. His left hand was worrying him more than the other injuries. Not because it was worse, per se, but because he wanted it healed better than everything else. All I can do is ask him about it. And until then¡­ He guessed it was all right to do what he wanted. And what he wanted, he realized after just a minute¡¯s consideration, was to do his homework. An essay on whether or not humans should accommodate unpleasant social customs when encountering other peoples, for Intro to Other Worlds. Recording himself trying some difficult pronunciations for his Conversation class. Analyzing the footage from his team¡¯s obstacle course wins. He wanted to do it. Calmly. With attention to detail. The way you did homework when nothing was wrong in your life except for having a long, lonely stretch of time on your hands. So he did. Just like it was a dull Saturday night. Like classes would start back on Monday. Like homework mattered. ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SIX: Dawn III 146 ****** ¡°You seem to be devoted to your task.¡± Alden¡¯s stylus paused against the surface of the tablet, right in the middle of of writing the phrase ¡°ewtwee acquisitive customs.¡± He¡¯d been uninterrupted for hours. When he looked up, he saw a man in a familiar uniform standing just a meter away, regarding him with a tilted head. ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi.¡± Alden spoke a little blankly. He hadn¡¯t been expecting anyone to find him here except for the healer, and he¡¯d pictured the knights miles away, stopping mountains of water from collapsing, wading among the ruins, and hauling bodies from the depths. Seeing Esh-erdi made him realize how out of it he¡¯d been when he was rescued. The Artonan man had, for some reason, loomed very physically large in his memory. But standing here now, his height was barely above average for his species. He wore a dull red coat with the broad sleeves cut at the elbow. It was highly decorated¡ªtiny metal studs instead of embroidery, of course. The high-necked undershirt and harem pants were matching shades of golden brown. And he had a belt hung with pouches, wand loops, and a large hoop that held all the rings that wouldn¡¯t fit comfortably on his fingers. A fully kitted-out wizard. Only he¡¯s not just a wizard. The knight¡¯s sudden appearance dredged up an unfamiliar blend of gratitude, respect¡­and apprehension. It also made Alden realize this was the first time he was properly meeting one of them in the flesh since he¡¯d had time to process what they were. His little tour through the art¡¯h household had been in the wake of a near-death experience and his affixation. He¡¯d mostly been thinking about getting home. Since then, he¡¯d only interacted with Evul-art¡¯h for a minute or two at a time before she passed off her tablet. And then yesterday he¡¯d been half-dead once more and fixated on Zeridee-und¡¯h. Now that danger was less imminent, complicated feelings were beginning to make themselves known. About the knight. About the fact that he¡¯d saved Alden. About the information he might be bringing and the questions he might ask. What does he want? Esh-erdi had hair so dark it was hard to say for sure if it was black or a purple so close it might as well be, and his hands were clasped in front of him while he took his time examining Alden, too. ¡°You don¡¯t have to use the title,¡± he said. ¡°It makes me sound so serious. I would <> that the <> coming from that direction is Porti-loth healing the und¡¯h gir¡ªwoman.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°He started making that¡­loud¡­noise about two Earth hours ago.¡± He wanted to call it a ¡°hooting¡± noise, but he had no idea how to describe owl sounds in Artonan. The knight looked down the hall for a while. ¡°It¡¯s good he has so much stamina,¡± he said finally. ¡°Healers who insist on being <> need it. You should have heard him when we arrived. Lind and I had barely taken the light of your world into our eyes for the first time, and there he was complaining. ¡®Where is my grove? How long since we found this planet? Were we too lazy to grow a healing grove?¡¯¡± Alden smiled uncertainly. ¡°He covered me in fish scales when I got here and sang to them.¡± That healing spell had interacted with him on an existential level, which had made him pretty nervous about the healer noticing him noticing. But he hadn¡¯t. A cast spell touching you wasn¡¯t the same as an authority-to-authority pat, it seemed. Alden had still been very careful not to make so much as a single peep with his own authority. ¡°Was that a new experience for you?¡± asked Esh-erdi. ¡°It was.¡± ¡°How fun.¡± He looked down the hall again as the hooting hit a fever pitch. ¡°Has he told you anything about Zeridee-und¡¯h¡¯s condition?¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m not sure where the Avowed who were here went either. When I woke up, I looked for them, but¡ª¡± ¡°I received a message about that. They stayed for a time in case of more <>, but they were eager to go back to their usual House to assist their <> there. It was allowed. We have plenty of other options if they¡¯re needed.¡± One of his eyes landed on Alden¡¯s foot. ¡°They did finish repairing you before they left, didn¡¯t they?¡¯ ¡°They helped me, but Porti-loth told them I was his patient. I think we all understood that in a¡­I don¡¯t know how to say ¡®possessive¡¯ in a polite way?¡± ¡°<>. But you are well?¡± Alden really doubted that was a common polite way of saying ¡°possessive,¡± but he liked it. ¡°I¡¯m fine. Much better than the last time you saw me. He helped a lot, but he said he still wanted to do a few things.¡± ¡°Porti-loth is competent. He won¡¯t actually forget you even if he¡¯s busy with something that seems to be more difficult than we hoped.¡± His face turned toward the hooting again. ¡°It sounds as if he¡¯s in the middle of it.¡± Alden gestured toward the meal box in his lap. ¡°I¡¯ve been keeping this food the right temperature for them. I didn¡¯t know what else to do.¡± ¡°What kind of food?¡± Esh-erdi asked, looking back at him. Alden could tell by the gleam in the knight¡¯s eyes that the food was about to be commandeered as long as it didn¡¯t sound completely foul. ¡°There¡¯s some yogurt. A bowl of rice. Sandwiches. Do you want¡ª?¡± ¡°Come with me. There are places much more <> than this one. He¡¯ll call me when he¡¯s completed his current ritual. If he doesn¡¯t <> himself.¡± ****** Esh-erdi took Alden to a living room that had clearly been designed for Artonan comfort. The temperature was closer to hot than warm, wood featured heavily in the decor, and a wevvi press stood inside its own special cabinet. There were adjoining rooms with closed doors. He was guessing this was Esh-erdi¡¯s personal suite or one he shared with Lind-otta. The place looked lived-in, which made sense if they¡¯d been here for weeks. And unless there was some other explanation for the corner dedicated to random objects, then they¡¯d been enjoying the equivalent of mail order shopping through the embassy. Among other things, they had a pair of matching cuckoo clocks, a chrysalis in a display case, and the widest variety of sugar sprinkles he had ever seen. Alden wasn¡¯t in the right mood to be amused by the fact that at least one Artonan considered sprinkles to be worthy of the interesting-Earth-items corner, but he did make note of it. ¡°We will converse here,¡± Esh-erdi said, leading him over to a pair of low, cushioned chairs by the first real window Alden had seen on Matadero. It was too dark outside for there to be much of a view. He swallowed. He couldn¡¯t imagine what the two of them would be conversing about. A few minutes ago, he would have assumed the knights were much too busy to talk to him about anything. It couldn¡¯t be a purely social chat. On the way here, he¡¯d thought of so many different kinds of terrible news Esh-erdi could deliver. The man in the flyer survived, and he¡¯s accusing you of murdering his friends. You know we can¡¯t just let a human wizard run around living among the other humans and causing mass confusion, don¡¯t you? Pack your bags. Attacks on other locations happened while you slept. Tens of thousands are dead. Anesidora is gone. We are furious with your species and have decided every Avowed on Earth has to spend half the year slaying demons from now on. ¡°You look nervous.¡± Esh-erdi had kicked off his shoes and tossed aside his belt as they entered. He sat down in one of the chairs and leaned forward to reach for the box in Alden¡¯s arms. Alden handed it over before taking his own seat. ¡°No. I¡¯m well. It¡¯s been a strange day. Night. That¡¯s all.¡± ¡°Strange. Unhappy.¡± Esh-erdi was sniffing each of the sandwiches in the box and reading the labels on the wrappers curiously. ¡°I do feel lucky that I pulled you from the water with Zeridee-und¡¯h. I will << make a big deal out of a small matter for humorous purposes>> about it the next time I meet the Quaternary.¡± Could that not just have been translated as ¡°joke around?¡± Alden wondered. ¡°I¡¯ll say she obviously allowed a <> to <> your back when she teleported you with that older method.¡± He chuckled delightedly and wriggled his fingers over the sandwiches once more before grabbing a BLT. Were curses real? Or was the idea of them being real what made teasing Alis-art¡¯h about them funny? Probably the second. Esh-erdi didn¡¯t seem like the kind of person who would laugh at actual misfortune. Alden tried to sort himself out and think of how it was he was supposed to behave when he was watching a knight who¡¯d just saved his life, and whom Stuart had spoken highly of, dip a sandwich into a cup of Greek yogurt. After returning from what Alden could only hope was unflooding a city. That¡¯s right. Stuart. I forgot. ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re using the title again?¡± ¡°I wanted to congratulate you both on your esvulgivnas,¡± Alden said, glad that the word was at least one he could pronounce. He wasn¡¯t clear on what relationship it celebrated, but Stuart had said that he was supposed to deliver the congratulations to both involved parties even if he was only talking to one of them. A surprised look crossed the Artonan¡¯s face. He¡¯d shoved nearly a quarter of a sandwich into his mouth while Alden was speaking, and his jaws worked while he lifted one eye from his contemplation of the food box, so that both were pointed at Alden. Did I say it wrong after all? Esh-erdi finished chewing. ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m not sure if my usual response is appropriate for¡­well, I see no reason not to. I hope you also find someone worthy of < > yourself with one day.¡± Alden blinked. That word that was being translated as ¡°breaking¡± wasn¡¯t any of the ones he knew that meant something similar, and the use of that version of ¡°yourself¡± indicated they were talking about something that affected everything Esh-erdi was. I have no clue. But I totally knew it was going to be Intensity Level 99.9. Does the uniform obliterate their ability to operate at a lower level? I bet it does. Happy knight honeymoon equals some kind of tandem breakage of their very beings. He hoped that Earth¡¯s translation of ¡°breaking¡± was just as incomplete as its translation of ¡°honeymoon¡± had been. Or that Esh-erdi was being poetic. Stuart had seemed really happy for them, which would imply that nothing scary was going on if Stuart was a normal person. But he was Stuart. They¡¯ve been growing a sprinkle collection and buying matching clocks, dummy. They clearly like each other, and it¡¯s obviously not an unpleasant event. ¡°I¡¯m curious,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°How did you know?¡± ¡°Stu-art¡¯h told me,¡± Alden said. Esh-erdi¡¯s brows lifted and he hummed a high note. ¡°So Zeridee-und¡¯h wasn¡¯t just naming random members of that family. I wondered if it was a product of her injuries. Now I¡¯m even more curious.¡± ¡°Stu-art¡¯h is my¡­¡± Zeridee had been startled by the word ¡®friend.¡¯ We are friends, though, aren¡¯t we? Stuart hadn¡¯t technically given Alden permission to call him Stu, but that didn¡¯t feel like a big deal considering the fact that he¡¯d named a pet after Alden, invited him over to his house, and given him a perfect learning cushion. ¡°We¡¯re becoming friends.¡± ¡°Are you?¡± Esh-erdi sounded intrigued. ¡°With the Primary¡¯s youngest? How are you managing that?¡± Alden didn¡¯t know exactly how he meant the question. ¡°We met at LeafSong. I was summoned to help with a problem some of the students were having. And now we talk on the weekends. Evul-art¡¯h helps¡ª¡± ¡°Oh. Evul. Yes. She does have a reputation as <
> of rules, conventions, and solid objects.¡± He pulled a piece of bacon off of the sandwich and peered at it. ¡°Aren¡¯t you interesting?¡± Alden didn¡¯t answer because he wasn¡¯t sure if the knight was talking to him or the cured meat. ¡°Lind and I were pleased to relax here because your planet has, until now, been <> uneventful.¡± Alden¡¯s worries, just beginning to fade thanks to the conversation having been lighter than he¡¯d feared, were suddenly front and center again. How is everything out there? Is he avoiding mentioning it on purpose? He couldn¡¯t feel any chaos, but he still found it all too easy to let the reasonable image of flooded streets in his thoughts turn into something that made no sense. Grass stretching into the distance, rotting away.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. He made himself refocus on the knight. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I needed saving,¡± he said. ¡°There was a flyer for me at the ambassador¡¯s. Zeridee wanted me to get on it immediately. But she also didn¡¯t think Earth was really in global danger. So it seemed safe enough to wait a little while for her, so that we could get off Anesidora together.¡± It had gone so wrong so quickly. And for such an incomprehensible reason. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to leave her alone,¡± he said. ¡°But she might not have been so badly hurt if I¡¯d done what she told me to at first. They might have attacked her still, but instead of fighting, she might have run.¡± Initially, had she fought the Avowed to protect herself? Or to protect the flyer for Alden? He had no way of knowing since he hadn¡¯t been in the greenhouse when it happened. Esh-erdi was putting his bacon back onto his sandwich. ¡°This is what I wanted to talk to you about. But first, don¡¯t apologize for trying to take the correct course. <> often make good efforts and good intentions look like <>. It doesn¡¯t mean that making a good effort with a good intention was a mistake. How else should one act?¡± He pulled up his feet and sat cross-legged in the chair. ¡°And I hope you know you aren¡¯t obligated to follow an instruction just because an Artonan delivers it.¡± ¡°I know that. Of course.¡± ¡°Then <> my need to <>¡± Alden felt his eyebrows lifting, and with effort, he pulled them back down so that he wouldn¡¯t be making funny faces at the important person. ¡°I have eavesdropped on too many wizards with <> opinions today. And I did notice Zeridee-und¡¯h¡¯s attempt to <> toward a behavior she desired by <> the art¡¯h family.¡± ¡°But that didn¡¯t bother me,¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°I think she just had the wrong idea about how much they liked me. I¡¯d already ignored the same argument when she tried to use it earlier.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad you didn¡¯t feel her <> as pressure. And I don¡¯t know what the rest of your conversation with her might have been like. But the escape flyer was an offer. Not an official order. You were allowed to refuse it.¡± Esh-erdi took the last bite of his sandwich and set the yogurt cup aside on an intricately tiled side table. Then he said, ¡°I wanted to hold a <> to meet you and the other Avowed of Earth who have impressive commendations.¡± He did? Alarm bells were ringing in Alden¡¯s head. What kind of guest list would that be? ¡°Lind-otta said I ought to wait until we were finished with any demons. And now look what¡¯s happened. Instead of my <> I must question you about the deaths of three Avowed.¡± ¡°They might not all be¡ª¡± ¡°They¡¯re all dead. I asked the Contract moments after you told me how Zeridee-und¡¯h was hurt. And Bash-nor received word about the one in the flyer. The rumors are already <>.¡± ¡°There are already rumors?¡± Alden said, so aghast that he spoke in English. ¡°Among my people,¡± Esh-erdi said. ¡°I doubt humans have heard anything unless someone has completely forgotten their < >. Would you mind telling me exactly what happened?¡± So this really is going to be something I have to deal with? Of course it is, he answered himself. There are three dead people. What were you expecting? He hadn¡¯t been unaware that three bodies was an investigation-worthy situation. He¡¯d even included it in his frantic guesswork about what Esh-erdi might want from him. But everything else felt bigger. The deaths of those three had happened so quickly, and all of Alden¡¯s other fears seemed more pressing or personal. His roommates. The Longs. The Nilama neighborhood where Lexi and Kon¡¯s little sister lived, covered in her probably-temporary turtle tattoos. Alden had a driver¡¯s license that belonged to a dead man from Iowa. Did he have to get word to that man¡¯s family? Had someone else already done it? And the people who¡¯d caused all of this¡ªhad they been found? Was the System really, really all right? Would it keep being all right? For years? Until he was old? Would Earth? What¡¯s left of the life I had on Friday? Some of it? None of it? But Esh-erdi wanted to know about Zeridee and the dead men. Alden wished he could take a couple of minutes to step out of the room and cast Peace of Mind, even though he was already dreading the payback for the last two. He settled for taking a deep breath and forcing the litany of questions as far to the back of his thoughts as he could. ¡°A lot of people in the neighborhood were familiar with the ambassador¡¯s house,¡± he began. ¡°From his parties and times when he¡¯d shown off the protections on it. They kept coming by to ask if they could stay there. Some of them thought it would be safer from the water and from chaos than the building the System had told them to evacuate to. Because it was Artonan. Zeridee wanted to make sure her neighbors all left safely. We should have been able to do that and then leave in the flyer together¡­¡± Telling it took a surprisingly long time. Far longer than the deaths themselves had. Esh-erdi wore a mildly curious and unconcerned expression that was so steady Alden eventually arrived at the conclusion that it was deliberate. He couldn¡¯t have imagined anyone choosing that tactic for questioning another person about the grisly details of a killing until just now. Worried sympathy seemed like a more obvious emotion to fake if you were going to put on a show. Alden liked this better. Esh-erdi¡¯s face said he was listening to something worthwhile but innocuous. It was the face of someone hearing about your summer job or the perfectly straight line of pigeons you¡¯d spotted on your way home from school. ¡°I bent down to pick her up, and he tried to stab me with the stake.¡± ¡°Where did he hit you?¡± ¡°My back. Between my shoulders. My skill stopped it.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad about that. What happened next?¡± He was unwrapping another sandwich. That face of his was also dangerous because it made telling him terrible things so easy. Alden was starting to feel almost like he could reveal anything to the man without it being a big deal. It was only ingrained personal rules that kept him from accidentally saying, ¡®By the way, I didn¡¯t just run at those two. I blasted one of them with my auriad first. You give the elementary schoolers pretty punchy spells, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Do you know why they thought they could successfully steal such a valuable flyer?¡± Esh-erdi asked. ¡°Oh. I didn¡¯t mention that part¡­I overheard them say they had something called a swallow box, and they were going to rob a healer. But they¡¯d changed their minds. And something about usually stealing whatever Artonans left in their offices overnight?¡± Esh-erdi was plucking a blue cheese crumble off of the new sandwich and tasting it cautiously. ¡°I ask you this because you are a human and will have <> into other humans. If you had taken items of small worth from wizards¡¯ desks <> many times before, would you think that a much larger theft would also be ignored?¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have taken the small things in the first place.¡± ¡°No?¡± Alden started to shake his head, then he realized¡­ ¡°I have a ring that Worli Ro-den loaned me. I like to pretend I¡¯m not going to give it back to him when I eventually meet him again, but I¡¯m sure I will. Humans generally agree that stealing is wrong.¡± ¡°If Ro-den is <> enough to ask you for it, you should tell him you left it with Alis-art¡¯h. For <>. I¡¯m sorry for interrupting. Please continue.¡± Alden did. Esh-erdi only stopped him a few more times to ask questions before he reached the end. ¡°Zeridee was hurt so badly.¡± Alden looked down at his hands. They weren¡¯t exactly clean. There were scratches. The bandage. But he was remembering what they¡¯d looked like, what it had felt like, when they were covered in her blood. ¡°They¡¯d hit her on the head. She was confused. I was trying to convince her to let me carry her, but she kept¡­she kept telling me they were only asleep. So that I wouldn¡¯t be afraid. She kept giving me loving lies.¡± For a while, there was only the sound of Esh-erdi chewing. Through the window, the sky was getting brighter. The dark blue waves looked like they went on forever. ¡°Have you finished telling me about the incident?¡± Esh-erdi asked. Alden nodded. ¡°Truthfully and without leaving anything out?¡± Their eyes met. ¡°I told you the truth.¡± ¡°But you¡¯ve left something out?¡± Alden¡¯s heart beat faster. He wondered if Esh-erdi could hear it. ¡°I haven¡¯t left anything out about what those men said and did. Or how Zeridee killed them. I only left out something personal.¡± The Artonan¡¯s casual facade hadn¡¯t cracked. He still had his feet up in his chair. ¡°If you told me about it, would it change my understanding of the event?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so. No.¡± ¡°All right,¡± Esh-erdi said. ¡°I believe you. Thank you very much for your <>.¡± Alden was relieved. And also a little surprised by the word testimony. That seemed more formal than he¡¯d realized. ¡°Was this a legal conversation of some kind?¡± ¡°Not quite. I wanted to hear your words so that I could <> any rumors Bash-nor might start himself. Zeridee-und¡¯h offends him. He would not mind her being removed from her assignment here, at least until his own assignment ends. He could <> for her.¡± ¡°Even though she didn¡¯t do anything wrong?¡± ¡°The issue is her class status. She has chosen to stride along a narrow branch. Legally, she did nothing wrong. But people will make moral <> against her if the situation is handled badly.¡± ¡°What is her class status?¡± Alden asked. Esh-erdi sighed. ¡°She has been trying, since just before she reached adulthood, to become a member of the ordinary class.¡± ¡°People do that?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not unheard of for those raised toward the wizard class to make the attempt in their youth. But almost none of them succeed. Zeridee-und¡¯h desperately wants to. Her reasons are¡­not ones I agree with at all. But she should still be allowed to live as she has chosen. Without Bash-nor <> her like a <> child.¡± ¡°So if she¡¯d cast spells¡­she would have failed at being a member of the ordinary class?¡± ¡°It would have been <> for her. There would also have been questions about which spells she¡¯d used and if her use of them was correct.¡± He dropped what was left of his sandwich on the table and brushed his hands off. ¡°Thanks to your words, I will feel confident telling everyone loudly and frequently that her behavior was appropriate and courageous. It will discourage others from <>, and I¡¯m sure her family will be glad not to worry over her. ¡°May I ask you another question?¡± Alden nodded. ¡°Why did you try so hard to save her?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t save her,¡± said Alden. ¡°I just ran around with her for a while. You and Lind-otta saved both of us.¡± ¡°There is a level of humility that insults the intelligence of the one who compliments you.¡± ¡°¡­I¡¯m sorry.¡± Esh-erdi waited. He really wants an answer, I guess. Alden didn¡¯t know how to give a quick and clean one to that question. ¡°At first, I thought she might be an assistant who had been left behind by uncaring wizards. I¡¯ve¡­seen some people die like that. And she was so kind. So genuinely worried for people. She knew the names of all her neighbors.¡± She killed for me. ¡°I bet when she¡¯s healed, she¡¯ll be sorry she had to kill those Avowed. She seems like a person who¡¯ll suffer because of it.¡± ¡°That seems likely,¡± Esh-erdi agreed. ¡°Based on what I know of her.¡± Alden looked out at the water. ¡°I don¡¯t think it will ever bother me that those men are dead. It¡¯s never bothered me that the person who killed my parents is gone. But Zeridee kept telling me not to be afraid. She kept giving me the loving lie. To protect me.¡± If Esh-erdi wanted truths, then they were buried somewhere in here. ¡°And she reminds me of other people who cared. Good people. Who got hurt. Or got taken away. I wasn¡¯t afraid of seeing those bodies she was trying to protect me from, but I was afraid of seeing hers.¡± ¡°I understand,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°I would like¡ª¡± ¡°Is most of Anesidora still there?¡± Alden asked, not looking away from the window. ¡°Some of it must be. Right?¡± ¡°Yes, but¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s good. I knew a lot of it was probably fine. That was what made sense. But I still felt as if¡­. how many died? Some of the people I know were in shelters. Were those all safe? And what about the Contract? Is it¡­ hurt? Or permanently weakened? On Thegund there were signs before it failed. Does the same kind of thing happen here on Earth, or is it different? Do¡ª¡± A hand landed lightly on his shoulder, and he froze, the stream of questions ending in an instant. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said. Esh-erdi stood by the arm of his chair, looking down at him. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to babble.¡± ¡°You should have babbled sooner.¡± The knight didn¡¯t remove his hand from Alden¡¯s shoulder. ¡°You are frightened. Of more than seeing the body of Zeridee-und¡¯h.¡± ¡°I¡¯m all right.¡± ¡°I have been <>. Alden, most of Anesidora doesn¡¯t look anything like the place we rescued you from. And Earth¡¯s Contract is nothing like Moon Thegund¡¯s was. A planet such as this one doesn¡¯t fail so easily.¡± ¡°It wouldn¡¯t even send a text message,¡± said Alden. ¡°That shouldn¡¯t be taken as a show of its weakness, only of its management style and < > upon encountering a new challenge. It will be some time before your Contract¡¯s decision-making is completely <>. But it remains strong.¡± Esh-erdi gave him a pained smile. ¡°I¡¯m an expert on weak points. Cracks. A lifelong student of the way things <>. And I am sorry for you. You have had the bad luck of standing at the center of too many cracks for a person so young.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°Most of Anesidora survives <>,¡± the knight said calmly. ¡°Very few people have died, considering the unpredictable nature of the magic driving the disaster. Because your Contract is healthy.¡± ¡°You said¡­there were fragilities that worried you greatly,¡± Alden said. ¡°When you pulled me from the water.¡± ¡°There are. And they do.¡± Esh-erdi¡¯s eyes turned toward the window. ¡°But it is our burden and our honor to worry about those. Not yours. And I do not doubt our ability to repair those cracks in time.¡± His voice fell to a murmur. ¡°I only regret the cost.¡± Alden followed his gaze. Outside, the sun was coming up. ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SEVEN: Everyone, Everywhere I ******* 147 ******* ¡°Now this is what we¡¯re talking about. This is what we mean when we say Avowed are not us, they¡¯re tools for controlling us.¡± The voice of the talk show host flowed from the radio of a restored 1959 Ford Fairlane as it cruised the dark, quiet streets of a California suburb. ¡°For our listeners who haven¡¯t heard about the situation in Uruguay¡ª¡± ¡°I think our listeners have heard by now, Wilbert. They¡¯re smart people. They¡¯re staying informed.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right, Polly. You¡¯re right. But for anyone tuning in for the first time, this situation we¡¯re hearing about is a sign of things to come if we slack off on monitoring the Avowed. If we let people who are not us live among us. This woman in Uruguay, she is already a member of their Chamber of Representatives. They have let her in there. And she almost certainly is Avowed. People who know her have said it. This is not a rumor, folks.¡± ¡°It¡¯s really not,¡± Polly agreed. ¡°People have said it.¡± ¡°And even if they hadn¡¯t said it, you only have to look at her. You can tell through these videos that people have found of her that there is some magic and some mind control¡­can you imagine what it¡¯s like in person? Forgive me, Polly baby. You¡¯re the love of my life. You¡¯re a breathtaking human being¡ª¡± ¡°I am. One hundred percent human.¡± ¡°Take a look at Polly¡¯s picture on our website. That is what a gorgeous, all-natural human being looks like. But the woman in Uruguay¡ªI mean just look at her. Just listen to her. They say that Appeal doesn¡¯t have a strong effect through screens. But what else would they say? She¡¯s an Avowed. At least a B-rank.¡± ¡°Definitely, definitely,¡± Polly agreed. ¡°At least a B. He¡¯s a really good guesser about this kind of thing.¡± ¡°And she says¡­get this, listeners¡­people have asked her about it, and of course she denies it. But she also says she feels sympathetic towards unregistereds and hopes her country will change the way it does things.¡± A loud bell sound effect played. ¡°That¡¯s the warning alarm ringing! She¡¯s ringing it herself. It¡¯s coming out of her own mouth. Can you hear it?!¡± ¡°Wilbert gets frustrated,¡± said Polly. ¡°I¡¯m frustrated, too. How can so many of our fellow human beings not understand the risks? This woman¡ªI shouldn¡¯t really call her that¡ªthis alien tool is already a politician. One day, she could lead a country she shouldn¡¯t even be allowed to live in. She could be speaking at the UN. If that happens, she will have an effect on our President. On the leaders of other nations.¡± Wilbert groaned dramatically. ¡°And it¡¯s not like it was in the old days. You old timers remember. There used to be a lot more pushback from humans against the idea that just meeting some Artonans should change how we do things on our planet. But we all live now in a world where people, most people, almost all of our fellow humans are feeding at what I like to think of as that poisoned alien trough¡ª¡± ¡°It really is poisoned. That sweet taste is poison.¡± ¡°And they¡¯re saying you and me and Polly are crazy. That these ¡®superhumans¡¯ are just talented humans. But they¡¯re not. They¡¯re not. When they were children, they were human beings with some kind of a weakness. That¡¯s the theory that makes the most sense to us. ¡°And it¡¯s very sad, but if you¡¯ll read our books, We Dream of a Lonely Earth and Chaos is a Lie, you will understand that Polly and I are gentle people. We feel sorry for boys and girls with this weakness¡ªa mental pliability is what we think it is¡ªthat makes them easier for the Artonans to manipulate and use. They are victims. But once they become Avowed, once they¡¯ve become tools, they¡­I hate to say it, but we probably can¡¯t save them. They aren¡¯t one of us anymore. When you hear them saying things, you have to know it¡¯s really a wizard speaking through them.¡± ¡°If humans were meant to have magic it would have come to us through evolution,¡± Polly said. ¡°Tell them about the book, baby.¡± ¡°At this very moment, we¡¯re writing a book about raising human children,¡± said Polly. ¡°We are writing it as fast as we can because everyone needs to read it.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right, Polly. It¡¯s a parent¡¯s job to raise children the Artonans would be terrified to use. Strong, safe human boys and girls.¡± ¡°We like to call them our little future listeners.¡± ¡°Hahaha! That we do. Now, if you¡¯ve already taken your kids to a House of ¡®Healing¡¯ or if you¡¯ve been sending them to a school that uses magical devices to ¡®enhance¡¯ the educational experience, don¡¯t panic. Our new book is going to include traditional human alternatives¡ªadvice from so many ancient human cultures. We really want to get to the heart of what human childhood is supposed to be. And we talk about ways to cleanse your family of¡ª¡± The driver, whose fingers had been drumming against the steering wheel as he listened to the radio show, suddenly reached over and switched it off. His hands tightened on the wheel again. The vintage car accelerated. Just a few minutes later, it had to slow down to make the turn into a driveway. The headlights shone briefly on the house number. Below it, a matching plaque bore the name of the family who lived there: MOORE A blueish glow leaked through a gap in the blinds of the guest room window. The woman inside was up late, staring at the screen of a tablet, trying to think of all the right things to say to her son, Jacob. Even though his text messages had stopped coming a while ago. ****** ****** ¡°All right, who set the sound system to play that Walter and Molly trash?¡± The middle-aged woman who was speaking set her cards on the table and leaned back to look around the room. The nonAvowed-only speakeasy was just a pair of apartments in an F-city free housing block. A couple of years ago, some resourceful people had knocked out a few walls, installed soundproofing, and hung up a sign behind the bar that said ¡°Stormy¡¯s." As far as such establishments went on Anesidora, it was of the lowest caliber, but it was limping along thanks to the location. ¡°It¡¯s Wilbert and Polly,¡± said a young man wearing a NesiTechnical jacket. ¡°They¡¯ve said each other¡¯s beautiful human names about twenty times so far.¡± He¡¯d been struggling to finish the mint julep he¡¯d ordered an hour ago, and the glass had left a ring of condensation on the laminate tabletop. The older man beside him was having no such trouble. All that was left of his fifth whiskey was a melting ice cube. He was glaring at it. ¡°I don¡¯t really care what their names are. I come here to hang out with people who aren¡¯t casting spells every few minutes or giving me surprised looks when I have to pay for things with a NesiCard instead of an interface,¡± said the woman. ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean I want to listen to a pair of foreigners tell me that all my relatives are Artonan mouthpieces and that I¡¯m diluting my humanity by enjoying a good wrestling match at Brutal Ring.¡± ¡°How many Avowed could they even have met in real life if they don¡¯t live here?¡± another woman added. ¡°And what happened to the canyon drum songs that were playing? I haven¡¯t heard all of this year¡¯s batch yet. The bagruoodas were really outdoing themselves.¡± The man with the empty whisky glass pushed himself up from the table so hard the poker chips they were using rattled. ¡°Turn that shit off!¡± he bellowed. ¡°Cyril,¡± said the woman who¡¯d complained first, ¡°don¡¯t¡ª¡± He was already stalking across the sticky floor toward the bar. A couple of other people at the table winced or sighed. ¡°He¡¯s been in a bad mood for a year and a half,¡± someone muttered. ¡°It has gotten¡­¡± ¡°I know his feelings are hurt, but isn¡¯t he treating his kid horribly? His own parents basically disowned him. You¡¯d think he¡¯d want to do it different than they¡ª¡± ¡°His kid?¡± ¡°Shhhh.¡± ¡°Who¡¯s his kid?¡± the NesiTechnical student asked curiously. Before anyone could answer the question, there was swearing from over by the bar, followed by the clatter of a polycarbonate beer mug bouncing across the floor. ¡°I don¡¯t need this place! I don¡¯t need people like this!¡± Cyril shouted. ¡°I¡¯m going TO WALK ON THE BEACH!!¡± He thundered out. In the ensuing silence, everyone looked around at each other. A few people laughed. ¡°There are literally no beaches anywhere near here,¡± said the student. ¡°Should one of us¡ª?¡± ¡°Let him go,¡± said the older woman. ¡°He needs to cool off. Cops are forgiving to drunks without powers. Reason this place is still open even if it¡¯s less than subtle. Whiff-pity perk.¡± The student took another swig from the julep and made a face. ¡°At least there¡¯s something. Maybe if I tell my family there are perks, they¡¯ll stop acting like I¡¯ve died.¡± The talk show cut off, and a moment later, the canyon drum songs started up again. An infogear watch was left behind on the table beside Cyril¡¯s poker chips. ****** ****** ¡°One more, Bird! Please, just one more!¡± <> ¡°And she¡¯ll say it ten from now. Don¡¯t keep spoiling my daughter. She¡¯s insatiable.¡± ¡°What did she say, dad?¡± ¡°She said you¡¯re tons of trouble. Stop forgetting to charge your phone if you want a translator.¡± ¡°She did not say that! You didn¡¯t say that about me, did you, Bird?¡± A pretty woman with dark, waist-length hair was standing on the deck of an old yacht. She smiled at the girl who was begging for spells, then turned and let out a singing chant, her arms undulating through the air. As she sang, a brachiosaurus appeared ahead of them, walking meters above the waves. It was lit as if it stood under a sunny sky, even though the night was a cloudless blanket of stars. ¡°SUPER wow!¡± the girl ran forward. ¡°S-ranks are the best. You¡¯re the best of the best, Bird. I¡¯m glad we found you in Thailand. I didn¡¯t know Adjusters could do illusions of things they haven¡¯t even seen before!¡± ¡°You do realize we didn¡¯t discover her, don¡¯t you, Annalise?¡± her father said from his seat in a deck chair. Beside him, an older man lay snoring, one hand gripping a quarterstaff tipped with carved crystal on the ends. ¡°She and Mr. Dawa are just here because of our job. We don¡¯t get to keep them.¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°I knooow¡­we all sail for SAL!¡± Annalise punched her arm into the air. ¡°Hey, Bird, I¡¯m almost eleven. I could be an S-rank soon. It could happen.¡± ¡°That¡¯s unlikely considering your mother and I aren¡¯t even A¡¯s.¡± The girl gripped the boat¡¯s railing and leaned over it. Strands of hair, once dyed purple but faded now to a dull pink, blew around her tanned cheeks as they approached the brachiosaurus and sailed beneath it. ¡°Magical,¡± she breathed. <> the Adjuster said. <> He repeated the message. ¡°Hey, that¡¯s really cool,¡± said Annalise. ¡°Mum gets loads of work on the Triplanets, and she¡¯s been saving up. So if I do get S, I can probably trade into Adjuster.¡± <> said Bird. ¡°Will you really? That¡¯s¡ª¡± <> Dawa muttered without moving. The father glanced from one of them to the other. After a second¡¯s hesitation, he translated their words for his daughter. Her eyes grew round, and then she started chattering at Bird even more excitedly than before. <> Dawa said, his voice intense despite the fact that he¡¯d just been sleeping. <> He finally opened his eyes and peered up at the sky. <> <> Bird agreed. ¡°Well, I look forward to seeing what all the fuss is about,¡± said the father. ¡°This is the most SAL has ever paid us for a job, and I¡¯m curious about this item they¡¯re using to get off the island. It doesn¡¯t sound like it¡¯s worth two S-ranks coming along for something like that. But it¡¯s good to have you both around.¡± ¡°Dad, have you gotten another message from the Captain of the boat we¡¯re going to meet? What does he say?¡± Annalise asked. ¡°He actually hasn¡¯t answered my last message. Maybe he¡¯s sleeping, like we should be.¡± ****** ****** ¡°I have put our daughter to sleep for the third time,¡± Ethan Roberts announced as he flopped onto the bed beside his wife, Ekaterina. ¡°Thank you,¡± she said, her hair spilling across one pillow, her arms clutching another to her chest. ¡°I scrubbed the last tattoo off her foot. I resisted the urge to use Brute strength.¡± ¡°Good.¡± ¡°I made up a bedtime story about that turtle rug Lexi bought her.¡± ¡°That was Konstantin.¡± ¡°Really? That was nice of him. He¡¯s growing¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s hiding some dents and scratches on the floor.¡± He groaned. ¡°Making up bedtime stories about turtles is sexy,¡± she said. ¡°If Irina doesn¡¯t start calling for us again in the next five minutes, let¡¯s do something about how sexy you are.¡± He smiled. ¡°By the way¡­did you get us a new mattress?¡± Her brow furrowed. ¡°I keep thinking it feels different, too.¡± ¡°Maybe we just got used to the ones we used on the trip to¡ª¡± Sirens broke their conversation and the peacefulness of the night. One screamed from just overhead on the rooftop of their building. In an instant, the Robertses were down the hall in Irina¡¯s room, and Ekaterina was wrapping her arms around the little girl, who was covering her ears with her hands and howling her own confusion and fear back at the sudden noise. ¡°What is this?¡± Ethan asked, as they stood there staring at each other over their daughter¡¯s head. Disaster messages started to roll in, only to be interrupted by a more personal one. [Emergency teleportation to a safe location is recommended for your child. Teleportation will be available shortly. The Triplanetary Government urges you to accept. Caretakers and comforters, bound by contract to their duty, will be on site to greet children as they arrive. When you are ready to consent to the teleportation of your child, please select ¡®yes.¡¯ YES] ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Da.¡± They were both silent for a single second. ¡°I¡¯ll¡­I¡¯ll get some things packed for her,¡± Ethan whispered. ¡°In case it doesn¡¯t mind sending them with her.¡± While he rushed around the room, stuffing a couple of beloved toys and favorite clothes into a small green backpack, his wife sat on the edge of the bed, consoling Irina with pats and whispered words. Explaining what was about to happen. A few minutes later, the little girl was gone. Her mother stood on a turtle rug that covered a scarred patch of floor, her arms suddenly empty. ¡°This is the right thing,¡± Ethan said. ¡°We both definitely know an emergency teleport isn¡¯t something you say no to.¡± ¡°Yes. Our boys¡­¡± ¡°They¡¯ll be fine. We¡¯ll find some way to call. But the CNH campus should be safer than almost anywh¡ª¡± He stopped speaking as his interface flared a bright red. [EMERGENCY ORDERS ISSUED. No summons incoming. You are already at the location of your assignment. ORDERS: Persuade Avowed inside Nilama Apartments to follow Contract orders and evacuate. Do not use force or threats of force against other Avowed for the purpose of completing this assignment. Do not leave Nilama Apartments until all Avowed are evacuated or new orders are issued. Refusal is not allowed. Payment will be¡­] ¡°Ethan¡­you have a red ring of light over your head.¡± ¡°You do, too.¡± He was still reading the assignment. ¡°I have to persuade our neighbors to listen to the System, without using force. Most of them will do it on their own, but how am I going to make Mr. Wei leave? He hasn¡¯t left 509 since before Lexi was born. What kind of order is¡ª?¡± ¡°You just have to talk to the neighbors?!¡± ¡°Why? What do you have to do?¡± ¡°I have to rip a bunch of equipment out of a boat in the marina and then run with it across the city!¡± She looked down at herself. ¡°All right¡­I can¡­it¡¯s not too hard. But I should probably put on some pants.¡± ****** ****** Lawrence, aka Skiff, polling as the number one most popular hero on the Chicago team since February and enjoying a contract-stipulated raise as a result, had recently bought a historic six-bedroom house near Montrose Beach. He¡¯d thought¡­hoped¡­that the promise of a ton of space and spare bedrooms would lure his parents or his older brother into more frequent visits. So far they hadn¡¯t come. Christmas could happen, though. Maybe. Saturdays were always crammed with events, so he had to wake up hours before dawn if he wanted a little personal time. He ate a cold beef sandwich in his new formal dining room and watched a recorded broadcast from Madrid on his interface while he answered fan mail. Chicago kept telling him to let an assistant do this, one who would PR the letters to death. And the Anesidoran government funded a service for high profile Avowed that would also do the job¡ªbetter, faster, and more subtly¡ªif he wanted his fans PR¡¯d to death in a slightly different way. But no. Emails and hand-written replies from the real Skiff were going to be a thing. Even though he was behind by a few months. ¡°Look at him,¡± he said in annoyance as a familiar face appeared on the broadcast. The man was modeling one of Madrid¡¯s new hero ensembles. It was hoopoe inspired. So fun. ¡°Sebastian, you dumb jerk. SMILE. They gave you a feathered cape and a headdress, and you look like you¡¯re at a funeral.¡± His old roommate swished the cape half-heartedly, and Skiff rolled his eyes before shutting his interface off so he could focus. That reminds me, he thought as he turned his attention back to the letter he was writing, I have to talk to that company that wants to sell ¡®Skifflops¡¯ about renaming them if they want me to take them seriously. He finished five letters, writing quickly. As he was approaching the end of the sixth, there was a loud banging on his door. At this time? It was way too late, or way too early if you looked at it that way, for it to be for normal job reasons. Something had to be wrong. Why didn¡¯t they just call? He stood up, but before he could leave the table, a wash of false red coated the room, courtesy of his interface, and he dropped his pen in surprise. [EMERGENCY ORDERS ISSUED] ¡°Fuck.¡± It had happened. He was going to another planet. And not for an awesome money-making adventure with some wild wizards like a couple of years ago. Emergency. The real deal. They were going to make him fight something. A demon. An evil wizard. Or de-flood something awful like a chemical plant full of toxic magical fumes. I¡¯m wearing board shorts. They have to gear me up for emergencies, don¡¯t they? If there are fumes I get a gas mask? That¡¯s their responsibility. Now Mom will be sorry she didn¡¯t come see the new house when I begged. [Summons to Nilama Family Neighborhood, F-City, Anesidora Teleport in 9s¡­] ¡°Huh? I¡¯m going home?¡± Nine seconds later, he was gone. The letter he¡¯d left on the table, almost done, was in reply to a little girl whose sister had died in a car accident. ¡°Why,¡± she¡¯d asked, ¡°didn¡¯t the System save her? Why didn¡¯t it send you to stop the other driver? My Mom says it doesn¡¯t work like that, but my Aunt says it could if it wanted to. ¡°I hope my letter doesn¡¯t bother you. I went off the high dive at the pool because I saw you talk about how not to be afraid of that on Skiff Says. Please write back.¡± *** Dear Tanwyk, I¡¯m proud of you for going off the high dive. And for being brave enough to ask hard questions. And I¡¯m so sorry about your sister. There aren¡¯t any answers that will make you stop missing her and feeling sad about what happened. And I¡¯ll probably only be able to tell you things you already know. The System is a very amazing part of our planet. It allows us to talk to the rest of the universe, and it gives us a way to learn about people we would never in a thousand human lifetimes be able to meet without it. You may have heard of the Artonans using it to help during serious disasters. Or you may have heard that on Anesidora, where most Avowed live, we use it the way people here in Chicago use ambulances¡ªto get to the hospital when we¡¯re hurt or get to safety when we¡¯re in trouble. Because of agreements with the Triplanets and the System, Earth gets teleportation allowances for humans to use in all kinds of different helpful ways. Anesidora has a larger allowance than most places, but even Avowed can¡¯t always teleport whenever we¡¯d like. There have been times when the allowance was used up, and there was no more left for people who needed help. That¡¯s always very hard. A hopeful thing to think about is the fact that the teleportation allowances have been growing ever since the System first became a part of Earth. On Artona I, II, and III, they have teleportation centers and alcoves all over the place. Someday, Earth might be like that. And you may be able to use the System for a trip to the other side of the world yourself, just because you¡¯d like to travel. And we¡¯ll be able to save more people who need help. But for now, I try to remember that the System isn¡¯t strong enough to fix everything, everywhere. And it¡¯s not meant to do that for us. It has important jobs to do that we can¡¯t always imagine¡­ ****** ****** [OFFICIAL ORDER: Apply Life Jacket spell impression to designated human beings. Not objects.] ¡°Are you sure? If I make a sunken boat float again a lot of people can ride on it.¡± [I am sure.] ¡°It¡¯s sure,¡± Jeffy reported to the others who stood in the warming room that had been set up in the TC for cold, wet red halos who were in between tasks. ¡°Does he get paid extra for every individual order it has to issue?¡± a man murmured in Chinese. ¡°Is that the most important thing right now?¡± someone else said in the same language. ¡°He¡¯s actually good in the water.¡± [OFFICIAL ORDER: Rescue people from flooded location and direct them toward shelter. Follow instructions from assigned partner. Teleport in 6s. Teleport is directly into water.] ¡°Yesenia!¡± Jeffy said to the woman beside him. ¡°The tel¡ª!¡± ¡°Yes, Jeffy. We¡¯ve got this,¡± she said, winking one aquamarine eye at him. ¡°Brute divers go!¡± ****** ****** It was a summer night at LeafSong, and the hungrycup flowers were feasting on the members of the klerm swarm that hadn¡¯t been repelled by the spells coating the campus. Their staccato screeches were almost loud enough to drown out the conversation of two wizards who strolled a pathway between darkened buildings. ¡°An ancient Sinker Sender, almost certainly driven by half-witted humans feeding it nonsensical directions, fragmented into minute particles and ejected into the ocean of a foreign planet by a shield built on reversal theory rather than nullification¡­¡± The speaker clicked her throat in a mix of interest and disapproval. ¡°It sounds like a problem from one of Exalted Master Gyako-tim¡¯s proving tests,¡± her companion said. ¡°Do you remember how we set aside a room just for moaning that year?¡± ¡°The screams. The stress sweat¡­.I think discussing the response of the nascent Contract will be a good topic for the winter meeting.¡± ¡°Maybe. We¡¯ll see when it¡¯s over. Right now, I¡¯m just hoping that this somehow leads to the loosening of summoning restrictions on the species rather than even tighter ones.¡± One of the campus¡¯s automated carts approached from behind them and then passed. The lone first year student riding in it didn¡¯t look their way. ¡°Wasn¡¯t that¡­?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Where is he going in such a hurry at this hour?¡± ****** Sina Stu-art¡¯h stepped off the cart and headed toward the domed, windowless black stone building. He didn''t pause to properly straighten his student uniform, and when the door opened for him, he didn¡¯t hesitate to head around the curved hall that formed the hot lab¡¯s perimeter. ¡°Young Stu-art¡¯h,¡± said Worli Ro-den, looking up from his desk as the Primary¡¯s son entered his office. ¡°You must have so many questions about your class¡¯s recent exploration of the fourth bowel of¡ª¡± ¡°You aren¡¯t answering your messages in a timely manner,¡± Stu-art¡¯h said in a rush. He leaned over the professor¡¯s desk. Ro-den¡¯s eye flicked behind his monocle. ¡°The last message you sent was a mere four¡ª¡± ¡°And I don¡¯t think anyone else on campus will come deliver news to you when that news might help you to shed a portion of your great shame.¡± ¡°You are such a charming conversationalist. I¡¯ve missed an opportunity by not chatting socially with you before.¡± ¡°Something is happening on Earth that puts many Avowed at risk,¡± said Stu-art¡¯h. ¡°A large magical spill of some kind in their ocean. Volunteers are gathering in the Grand Senate¡¯s inking hall now to be sworn to task. If you head to the summonarium immediately, you will arrive in time to join them.¡± Ro-den froze. ¡°It must be difficult for you to commit highly visible acts of service to the Triplanets while monitoring student explorations of fourth bowels,¡± Stu-art¡¯h said, staring at him. ¡°Well¡­that¡¯s not untrue. But why would you¡ª?¡± ¡°I brought you a cart.¡± ******* ******* ONE HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT: Everyone, Everywhere II 148 ****** ¡°I don¡¯t have time for your personality right now, Elias,¡± Archibald Carisson¡¯s voice snapped from the watch around the Informant¡¯s wrist. ¡°Your little fiefdom is too close to S¨¡nji¨£o Beach. LEAVE.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a neighborhood full of interesting people.¡± Elias, wearing the same galoshes and accompanied by the same umbrella drone that had guarded him from the rain during his walk earlier that night, was helping an ancient-looking man down the front steps of a townhouse. ¡°Not a fief. And my personality has vastly improved since we first met. Don¡¯t you think you should reevaluate your friends at least every half century?¡± He released the man¡¯s arm at the bottom of the stairs, and the fellow shuffled off, following a poodle down the street. Elias watched him go before ambling away from the house toward the grassy central square in front of it. ¡°SkySea can¡¯t come rescue you if anything goes wrong. Official orders have come in for most of our members. It¡¯s the same for the battle and aid groups. We¡¯re not in charge of responding to this catastrophe. The Artonans have decided it¡¯s their business.¡± ¡°You sound so unhappy about that,¡± Elias said. ¡°Would you actually rather have the children on the current High Council direct us through a magical disaster? Just so that we can all pretend a truly independent Anesidora isn¡¯t still a dream caught between a rock and a hard place? By the way, the rock in this analogy is Earth, and the hard place is¡ª¡± ¡°Do you at least have a helicopter?¡± Archibald ground out. ¡°I donated a couple to the rescue efforts. Tarek¡¯s flying one. His wife is in her hover suit. We¡¯ll be fine here without them.¡± A few other people were emerging from houses. Several of them nodded or waved at Elias, but they all headed in the same direction as the old man. None joined the Informant in the well-lit square. It was only him, standing by a three-meter tall fountain shaped like a pithos, and his wet golden retriever running toward him, tennis ball in its jaws. ¡°They all have their gear on them, don¡¯t they?¡± he asked as he accepted the ball. ¡°Nobody left out?¡± ¡°All neighborhood residents are on their way to the community center as you instructed, and everyone has at least two connected devices with them.¡± The voice in his ear was smooth and calm. ¡°Mood?¡± ¡°Calm overall. The parents of the children that were teleported away¡ª¡± ¡°Yes. I see. Send a message from me to each of them. The content should be a firm reassurance that their children will be well cared for and that minors being teleported out by the System in this situation is completely expected. Tweak each note to comfort the individual recipient. Without lying of course.¡± ¡°Such a personal touch,¡± Archibald said caustically. ¡°You¡¯re still there, Archie?¡± The Informant tossed the ball for his dog again, then shoved his hands into his coat pockets. At his back, water spilled over the rim of the pithos and through a grate that was nearly hidden by the grass. ¡°Don¡¯t you have better things to do than worry over my business? I¡¯d hate to think I¡¯m distracting one of the best Water Shapers on Anesidora from his duties. What quest have you been given, by the way?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t been the best in years. Don¡¯t give me another one of your speeches about the nature of magic. And you know what I¡¯m doing! I¡¯m carrying your bloody spy equipment around with me while I shove water back into the ocean. Every two minutes, here it comes again, trying to crawl toward some random spot like it¡¯s been magnetized. The evacuation is almost done. We¡¯ll be ordered to completely abandon S¨¡nji¨£o soon and you and your people with it.¡± ¡°How are you all liking the infogear tonight?¡± ¡°How are you going to protect yourself and all the rest of them from giant waves? I don¡¯t doubt you¡¯ve had your Wright fan club¡ª¡± ¡°I assume you mean my employees and apprentices.¡± ¡°¡ªkit the place out. But unless that thing you¡¯ve built¡ª¡± ¡°You always act like it¡¯s something shocking. It¡¯s just a larger version of what I¡¯ve always done, improved over the course of the years by myself and other talented Wrights. With a nice custom personality helping me keep track of it all.¡± ¡°¡ªcan see the future now, I don¡¯t think you prepared for this!¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t. But I didn¡¯t need to,¡± said Elias. ¡°After all, the Artonans have decided the events of tonight are their business. Good luck with that sailboat, by the way.¡± ¡°What sailb¡ª?¡± ¡°That one,¡± said Elias, as Archibald¡¯s half of the conversation devolved into shouted orders and splashing sounds. ¡°See you in the morning.¡± He ended the call. ¡°You know, his granddaughter was grateful for the phones I sent her,¡± he said to the dog. ¡°She thanked me through the drone. I only took one peek to see how she was using them, and of course she¡¯s being responsible to a fault. She¡¯s already got a hundred other teenagers sorted out and obeying a call schedule. ¡°Impressive. And a shame. It would be interesting to see how far a Carisson could go with their powers if they were just a little more willing to color outside the lines.¡± ¡°The negotiator you¡¯ve been expecting just sent a message ahead,¡± the voice in his ear said. ¡°It¡¯s Former Ambassador Libv-eth.¡± ¡°They¡¯ve pulled her in? It was probably her own idea. I did always like her.¡± ¡°She says she must ask if you are finally amenable to selling your personal creation to the Triplanets, given the fact that it will almost certainly be damaged or destroyed by tonight¡¯s events without their intervention.¡± Elias reached out toward the fountain, and the smooth curtain of water parted for him automatically. An object was embedded in the stone there¡ªa small black circle, glittering with magic around the edges and so dark at the center that it looked like a hole. He pressed his hand to it. ¡°Tell her I¡¯m touching the first key of voices I ever made. So much tedious enchanting. Tell her I¡¯m feeling nostalgic, and I couldn¡¯t possibly part with it.¡± He looked around the empty square. ¡°Or with any of the other keys I¡¯ve created on my own time in the past eight decades.¡± A minute later, the voice said, ¡°She understands and looks forward to negotiating with you for the use of your creation and its protection. She is bringing a tattooist with her and hopes you will pardon her presumption.¡± ¡°Of course,¡± said the Informant. Then he sighed. ¡°I suppose we can¡¯t drive a very hard bargain. At some point it becomes too tempting for them to build their own from scratch.¡± ****** ****** Winston Heelfeather wasn¡¯t the kind of man who could stay in the school gym while innocent people were dying. He¡¯d realized that when he overheard a couple of girls from the Sciences program saying how this was the worst thing that had ever happened to Anesidora. A night that would go down in history. Something everybody in the world would be talking about when the dust settled¡­or the water drained away. A time for heroes. It would just be too lame, when everyone asked him what he¡¯d been doing during the crisis, if he had to say, ¡°Staying in the school gym with my teachers like they told me to.¡± That wasn¡¯t the Win-Win way. I don¡¯t know about Win-Win as a nickname, he thought. What if it¡¯s too catchy, and it gets used more often than Heelfeather? He was blasting through Boomtown. One of his personal camera drones watched from above, and two were set up to catch shots of him speed climbing the side of a building to break into an apartment and see if a woman he¡¯d met at the bus stop had left the stove on. Not quite the heroic mission he¡¯d been hoping for, but there just wasn¡¯t a lot of drama in midtown Apex right now. He¡¯d have to build the story into something more. Sometimes being a hero isn¡¯t about doing the glamorous thing; it¡¯s about helping whoever needs you even if the need is small¡­ That sounded lame. His fans would know it was lame. He really needed to not be lame tonight. He¡¯d left the mall right after the class dinner to edit the gym footage, and it was just¡­his parents could never be allowed to see it. The world could never witness it. Winston was going to make Heelfeather a household name. Even before the sirens had started, Winston had known he wouldn¡¯t be able to sleep. Because what was he going to do if someone let the full footage slip? It wasn¡¯t just his classmates. The other first years had access. So many people had seen a Rabbit kill him and then walk off without even looking at him. ¡°All right,¡± Alden had said as he stepped around Winston¡¯s gasping face. ¡°So that¡¯s done.¡± That¡¯s done. Like beating a higher ranked Avowed with a piece of string was an errand he¡¯d checked off his list. I knew it, Winston thought, jumping up and grabbing onto one of the dips in the building¡¯s honeycomb facade. I knew he was doing it all on purpose. The Rabbit boy was sneaky and a really good actor, so he¡¯d doubted his own suspicions. But now he was sure of one thing¡ªAlden Thorn was only pretending not to care about his own growing popularity. B¡¯s got zero attention from the people who enjoyed watching the talent development programs. The adults loved the thrill of picking a winning horse before anyone knew about it; the teens loved imagining themselves becoming an Avowed one day, too. Neither group rooted for the underdog. So of course Alden couldn¡¯t act like he wanted a fanbase. It would be so embarrassing. Like that B-rank chick in one of Winston¡¯s classes who everyone gossiped about because she was open about wanting to rank up. Instead, the Rabbit orchestrated his image in secret and acted innocent about it. Oh, I accidentally attended a party full of the superrich while dressed like the boy next door, and I unexpectedly encountered a crazy person there, and I just happened to deliver some more dramatic backstory about myself on camera. It was a total coincidence that I was holding a plate of class-themed food! It¡¯s not like I dropped it to call attention to it! He¡¯d messed up this time, though. There was no way he hadn¡¯t been wildly celebrating his victory over Winston. Walking over a higher ranked competitor like they were invisible was too far. It was something you¡¯d only do if you were desperately trying to look like you didn¡¯t care. There had been other signs, too. Obviously, Alden¡¯s play was to let rumors about him build and build among other peoples¡¯ fans so that when he finally posted something online like everyone else¡­it would explode. It was so smart that Winston was afraid the school might be in on it. They could be setting Alden up as one of the faces of the first year class. There had been rumors for months about a CNH reality show of some kind. What if he¡¯d already been cast? ¡°Winston! That¡¯s you, isn¡¯t it?¡± At the sound of the hated accent, Winston¡¯s musings cut off and he looked down. That singing Scottish show-off was standing in the alley beside a pile of Wright scrap. Out of breath. Ruining Winston¡¯s footage. Actually, it was already a little ruined. He¡¯d stopped climbing to mull over Alden Thorn¡¯s true nature. He¡¯d need to do this again just to make sure he had it all smooth. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Finlay called. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be at school?¡± ¡°I¡¯m helping people! There¡¯s a stove on in one of these apartments. It could set the whole place on fire.¡± He started climbing again. ¡°But, Winston!¡± Finlay¡¯s voice was loud. ¡°Couldn¡¯t you just go inside and use the lift?¡± ****** ****** Connie kept waking up from dreams she couldn¡¯t remember, with a bad feeling in her gut that the girls would be gone. It had just happened again, and she lay in bed listening to Brodie¡¯s heavy breathing, trying to convince herself not to go check on his two nieces. They were sleeping over for the first time tonight, giving their parents a weekend off. It¡¯s dumb. They¡¯re fine. Just go back to sleep. Instead, she threw off the warm covers and slipped out of the bed, careful not to wake her boyfriend. Fianc¨¦ probably. That ring he¡¯d been hiding for at least a couple of weeks was for her probably. She was going to say yes probably. It all felt a little unstable. Trying to find some solid ground, after distracting yourself for your whole adulthood with a merry-go-round of a life, was hard. She¡¯d started looking up people she remembered from back home, and she knew they weren¡¯t all tucked away in great careers, in big white houses chosen for their school districts, in clothes that looked like the clothes their parents had worn. But a lot of them were. A whole lot of them. They were taking their eight-year-olds to ballgames. They were packing lunchboxes with cheese slices cut into star shapes and giving each other tips about how if you used chocolate chips instead of raisins for your ants on a log, you could get the kids used to eating celery. The vinyl floor was cold to her bare feet. The old hall carpet had been stained ever since she and Alden moved into this place. It had looked gross even if you vacuumed, which she hardly ever did. A couple of months after he had gone missing, she¡¯d freaked out and ripped it all up. Brodie had called one of his cousins, and new vinyl had gone down. She mopped it twice a week. She couldn¡¯t figure out if that was too often or not often enough. Maybe I stayed on the merry-go-round for so long I¡¯ll always be dizzy. In the living room, the girls were fine. Of course. They were side by side on the air mattress their parents had sent with them. The little one was a drooler. The older one was sleeping with a hand against her cheek. In the light leaking through the window, the manicure Connie had given her was on full display. A different color for every fingernail. Maybe I should have let them have Alden¡¯s room. Nobody had asked. She hadn¡¯t offered. But that was the obvious thing, wasn¡¯t it? To give them the second bedroom instead of letting them sleep on the floor. She couldn¡¯t even figure that much out. She went to check the fridge to see if they¡¯d eaten any of the pricey lime green goo in the squeeze tubes. The parents who cut cheese into star shapes said neon colored Artonan vegetable pudding was in. Not yet. She stared at the groceries for a while. Then the floor. Then the girls. If I gave them his old room, I don¡¯t think he¡¯d mind. She wasn¡¯t sure she¡¯d know if he did. He¡¯d never been a kid that would make you feel too bad. He would put up with a whole lot before he even showed he was annoyed. Which should¡¯ve made me put in more effort. Not less. The sound of the front door¡¯s deadbolt sliding, as if invisible fingers were unlatching it, caught her attention. She looked over, not quite as alarmed as she would have been if she¡¯d understood what was happening, and saw the knob turning. What? Before she could panic, the door was open. A wizard stood there, sliding a ring into the pocket of her pants. She was holding a two liter bottle of cherry cola under one arm, and there was a laundry bag squirming at her feet. Her facial expression was gloomy. ¡°Healer Rynez-yt?!¡± Connie whispered. The head of the Chicago House of Healing was familiar to her from a brief meeting when Alden was younger and, more recently, through occasional local ¡°good news¡± stories about people she¡¯d saved. She always looked either grouchy or depressed in those photos and videos, as if she wished the patients had died. According to Alden, his mother had been very fond of the healer and proud to work with her. Connie didn¡¯t get it, but it wasn¡¯t like she¡¯d been around to see it for herself.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Connie Hatcher,¡± said Rynez-yt, ¡°for some reason, Leah¡¯s child thinks your life should be prioritized above those of geniuses, Avowed, and other humans who contribute greatly to your species.¡± Her eyes slid from Connie¡¯s startled face to the squirming bag at her feet. ¡°I suppose it is too late to try to guide his decision making now.¡± The bag meowed. ****** ****** Emilija¡¯s heart drummed, and her hands curled into fists at her side as she stood quietly in a cramped employees-only bathroom with her roommates. They were all so still that the motion sensitive lights had cut off, but they¡¯d been trapped in here for long enough that she could make out shapes by the yellow glow that slipped through the gap at the bottom of the door. Natalie was standing against the sink, swallowing so frequently that Emilija had learned the sound of it. And Hadiza was beside the toilet brush, her feet covered in multiple layers of the novelty socks they¡¯d found in this little knickknack shop when they first sought shelter here. It was only supposed to be for a minute. They¡¯d been hurrying away from the Bunker Street situation when some swift and awful shift in the crowd had turned the angry press toward the shelter into a true riot. The girls had run down a street, and then they¡¯d all been suddenly blinded by a pink bolt of a spell that had ripped Natalie¡¯s umbrella from her hand. Emilija didn¡¯t know why. They¡¯d seen a metal grate go flying through the air, into the face of a man on a moped. They¡¯d smelled smoke. They¡¯d heard a woman screaming instructions through a spell tool of some kind, but none of them knew if the instructions were for them. They couldn¡¯t understand the language she spoke. Most people were angry. A few people were laughing. Everyone shouted. Nobody shouted in Lithuanian. Emilija understood English words like chaos, red, fuck them, ours without understanding what was causing the battle around her. Getting off the street, away from the impossible thing that was happening¡ªAvowed fighting Avowed right here in public where other people could be hurt¡ªhadn¡¯t been a decision the girls made together. They had just moved in unison toward the first hiding spot they¡¯d seen. This dark little shop with the door broken in. Normally, a place with a broken door would be somewhere Emilija avoided. But it had looked like safety tonight. It had been safe at first. So safe that they¡¯d stayed, huddled in the back of the shop, watching the madness on the street through the window like it was a theater screen. The traffic had rapidly disappeared. Sometimes, a couple of minutes would pass without anyone running by. But the sound of the ongoing riot¡ªstill at the bunker entrance, Emilija assumed¡ªdidn¡¯t let up. The three of them had started for the exit at one point, only for a traffic light to slam into the pavement right in front of the door, sending fragments flying through that barely missed them. For a while, it had felt like going outside would be stepping into a war zone. And now¡­ The voices of the people who¡¯d entered the shop were muffled through the bathroom walls. It made picking out even the few words Emilija might have known impossible. But Natalie and Hadiza weren¡¯t moving, so she didn¡¯t move either. They should be gone by now. Natalie at least. Her timer had been shorter. Had it changed? Had she rejected her teleport so that she could stay with the two of them? There was no way to ask. The System was still telling them to head to the condominium building. Another notice had come through about not interfering with the people wearing the red halos. Emilija would not be getting a teleport timer. I couldn¡¯t have used it anyway right now. I couldn¡¯t have used it with the girls still here. They were younger than her. Hadiza could be too mature for her own good, but they both felt like they needed looking after. What am I going to do if the people out there come in here? What if they want to fight? What if they won¡¯t let us go? She felt weak. She knew she was practically the same person she¡¯d always been. Anesidora threw rank and class in your face more than she¡¯d expected. But it didn¡¯t really bother her very often. Being hung up on getting less magic, when you¡¯d been expecting no magic, was stupid. Six months ago, Emilija was an ordinary girl. She was worrying that her life was going to stall if she didn¡¯t get out of her hometown, but she didn¡¯t want to hurt her mother¡¯s feelings by saying home wasn¡¯t enough. That day the System had spoken to her had felt like an answer. Anesidora. Avowed. A brand new life in the most exciting place on Earth. She wanted to love it here. She had loved it here. But every now and then¡­ During Diwali, when they¡¯d been trying to watch the fireworks with the crowd at The Span, she¡¯d gotten shoved around too much. And it wasn¡¯t like being jostled in any crowd she¡¯d ever been in. Arms moving so fast that she couldn¡¯t tell if they were going to hit her or not until the owner was already past. Little bumps that almost took her off her feet even though the other person didn¡¯t seem to notice. Natalie and Hadiza didn¡¯t seem to have the same trouble, but¡­well¡­they were both really high on the noticeability scale. The balcony with the hot tub had taken her mind right off of the discomfort that night. But here it was again. I am not someone who can fight back against an Avowed. Not any Avowed. Maybe another little F-rank Rabbit. I don¡¯t think the people out there are all F-rank Rabbits. Aren¡¯t they ever going to leave? It was probably only the dark, the stillness, and the fear. But their incomprehensible conversation had a tone to it that Emilija though was conspiratorial. They sounded like they were planning something. And like, maybe, they were hyping each other up for their plans. Suddenly, there was a clatter from outside the door that made her flinch and Natalie gasp. The bathroom light clicked on for a second, and they all three froze again, staring at each other. One of the voices shouted, ¡°Be serious! This is serious business! They¡¯re keeping us away from one of the only chaos-rated shelters. They aren¡¯t allowed to do that. They aren¡¯t allowed to send us to some random tower without a single fucking shield on it. We ran halfway across F to get here. This is our island. We¡¯ve got rights.¡± Emilija understood they, serious, chaos, demon, and shelter. She imagined terrible things. ¡°I¡¯ve got to take a leak,¡± another voice said. Emilija understood none of that. But she understood the sudden change in Hadiza¡¯s expression, the tiny sound Natalie made, the stomp of feet getting louder and louder. The light went off. The door swung open, and it blinked back on. A long-haired man who looked just a few years older than her, wearing heavy bracers with stones set in them, stared at the three of them. ¡°Our bathroom,¡± said Emilija, her voice coming out hard. Like she actually had some authority over this particular lavatory. ¡°Not for you. Go.¡± ¡°We¡¯re just hiding out in here from the danger,¡± said Natalie. She was talking too fast, but she¡¯d turned on that smile that seemed to make every quirk charming. ¡°It was bad out there. Do you think it¡¯s safe for us to leave yet?¡± Emilija couldn¡¯t even decipher the words, but she found herself nodding along in agreement. Hadiza had paused in the act of reaching for the toilet brush. What she was going to do with that was anyone¡¯s guess. What kind of a weapon is a toilet brush, anyway? ¡°We were on our way to Norsehorse Condominium,¡± said Natalie. ¡°It¡¯s that way, isn¡¯t it?¡± She pointed toward a wall. The man was gaping, mostly at her. Emilija analyzed his face. This might be all right. That¡¯s a good face. People gaping at Natalie Choir was business as usual. The high Appeal was startling, but most people liked it. It was, after all, something you were suppose to like. ¡°Oh, yeah! Yeah!¡± The man smiled at them. ¡°That¡¯s the way, all right! But it¡¯s pretty rough out there. Don¡¯t you three want to wait here? When we bust into the bunker, everybody on our side can come with us, and you can¡ª¡± ¡°You can work for your chance at safety or you can leave.¡± The tall brunette woman who¡¯d stalked up behind the man to see what was going on had a face like an iceberg. ¡°I didn¡¯t help build that shelter with my own two hands only to be teleported off to a random highrise when the big day finally came. And I didn¡¯t build it so a bunch of pretty faces could waltz in after we¡¯d fought for it.¡± She and the man exchanged a few words in another language, and then she stared at Natalie. ¡°That much of a beauty boost and still stuck here? Obviously a Rabbit. What¡¯s a Rabbit going to do when the demons come?¡± ¡°Ummm¡­¡± said Natalie. ¡°I just want to do what the System says. And chaos exposure is low. I don¡¯t need¡­a special shelter or anything, ma¡¯am?¡± ¡°We are going,¡± said Hadiza firmly. Emilija nodded in solidarity. She didn¡¯t get the conversation, but she got that her friends weren¡¯t happy. And the word going. Yes. Let¡¯s be going. Let¡¯s go. Away from all of this. She was sure she¡¯d rather deal with whatever the ocean was doing than with these people. They shuffled out of the bathroom. Emilija felt odd all of the sudden. Like her body was too light and the world was too slow. Maybe, she thought, I locked my knees while we were hiding out in there. When she was little, her teacher had locked her knees for too long during a school program and had fainted. She walked out behind Natalie and Hadiza, through the little shop. There were only five others in here. It had sounded like a much larger group from the volume of their conversation. One woman had a cut on her forehead. A man, standing on guard by the door, had a wrist cannon. None of them had the red halos. ¡°Infogear has cut us off. Should¡¯ve known an old high rank like the Informant was on their side,¡± a gray-haired man spat. ¡°I voted for the Bunker Street shelter every year for a decade! People said it was a waste of funds to prep for chaos, but now they all want in.¡± ¡°We need to find a member of the Sway relay. Talk to the others.¡± These are not normal people, thought Emilija. Whatever they¡¯re saying, they¡¯re saying it so angrily. ¡°Hey.¡± Natalie had just made it out the door. Her shoes were crunching on pieces of traffic light. She stopped as the man on guard grabbed her arm. ¡°Hey! We could use this one!¡± He looked back at his friends. ¡°We could use all of them. Bait. Or put them out front when we go in. The red rings are still playing around like they¡¯re scared of their own powers, and if these three are Rabbits they¡¯re not tough at all. They¡¯ll have to think and think again about how to attack us, right?¡± An argument started around them. Chinese, English, something else. The gray-haired man had gone to stand on the other side of Natalie. The door was blocked now. Are they going to keep us here? How long? What if the tsunami happens? What if more spells fly in? Hadiza¡¯s voice was rising as she rounded on the woman with the iceberg face. Emilija didn¡¯t know the words. Natalie was biting her lip and struggling to break away from the grip around her arm. Her golden eyes were watering. ¡°You¡¯re hurting her,¡± Emilija said in Lithuanian. ¡°Wrist gun! You¡¯re hurting my friend! Let go!¡± Hadiza made for the door, and the woman with the cut tried to grab her. Hadiza ducked. Natalie cried out. Emilija took a step. It was the first step of a running tackle. She was aiming for the arm holding Natalie. She was going to throw her entire bodyweight at the arm, and then maybe it would give, and maybe they could run, and it wasn¡¯t really a plan, it was just what she was doing because suddenly this was all going wrong so fast and their choices were to hope for the best or get away. And she wanted them to get away. The first step should have been one of several. Three or four to the door, to the man, to freedom. Instead, that first step launched her body across the room like she¡¯d been shot from a gun. She¡¯d been shot from a gun¡­but everything was just a little slow. She felt so light. She was flying toward that arm, and it was different than she¡¯d thought it would be. She had time to pull her elbows in, to put her fists up in front of her face, to think, What the¡ª? And then she hit him. It hurt. Like tackling someone as hard as you could should, she imagined. But that was the only normal thing about it. There was a crack of sound, and his arm was no longer an obstacle. She tried to slow herself with a second step, but the momentum of her own body was too much. She didn¡¯t quite get a foot underneath her properly before she slammed into obstacle number two¡ªthe other man blocking the door. Then he was falling backwards over the remnants of the traffic light, slamming into the pavement, and she was falling on top of him and righting herself almost in the same instant. Her body had become a baffling machine she was trying to drive, completely unpredictable even as it felt like it should be easier to control. ¡°Run!¡± she was screaming as she stood back up. She knew that word in English. Hadiza was shouting the same thing. ¡°Let¡¯s run!¡± She started to go. But she went way too fast and had to stop herself so that she wasn¡¯t leaving the others behind. She stood in the middle of the battle-scarred street with her chest heaving, her arms out, and her legs splayed like a newborn foal¡¯s. Like she was trying to balance even though her sense of her body being wrong didn¡¯t seem to be improved by the posture at all. Emilija was very, very confused. When the other two caught up, Natalie was sobbing. Hadiza grabbed Emilija¡¯s arm and pulled. She shouted ¡°run,¡± and Emilija ran again. And it happened again. She ran too far too fast and stopped. Same useless safety posture as before. This time, when the other girls reached her, Hadiza shouted a question. ¡°Natalie good?¡± Emilija asked. ¡°Not hurt?¡± Natalie grabbed her around the neck and hugged her. So that was probably a sign that she wasn¡¯t hurt too badly. Hadiza shouted a question again, staring at Emilija. I bet she¡¯s asking me what¡¯s going on. I would like to know that, too. ****** ****** The Span had been emptied of people some time ago. Plopstar had teleported away to another assignment. The abandoned vehicles stood there, being periodically washed¡ªor washed away¡ªby the contaminated sea. No Avowed had received official orders through the System to guard the bridge, so members of the Apex and F-city police forces who hadn¡¯t been called for duty as red halos had been assigned to stand at either end and prevent crossings. The job had been rough earlier, particularly on the Apex side, but now that almost everyone had seen what the deadly water could do, either in person or through local news, they weren¡¯t having as much trouble. It had been twenty minutes since someone had made a serious attempt to break through the loose line of high ranks and try their luck on a bridge that was looking more and more impassable with every watery assault. There were sections missing. The wreckage of a sailboat had landed two kilometers from the F side. Only a few people had broken through after The Span was cleared, and those few¡­ ¡°It¡¯s like this, son,¡± an old A-rank Brute said gruffly to the short blond boy who¡¯d approached the barrier that had been set up to save fools from themselves. A series of ten barrel-shaped devices stood in a line, powering a curtain shield. ¡°If you were strong enough to cross the bridge without trouble, you¡¯d be strong enough to get past us without asking. Now, why don¡¯t you head with Samira to a shelter? You don¡¯t mind do you, Samira?¡± Before the woman he¡¯d called out to could answer, the boy pursed his lips and then said, ¡°I hate to try this, but would it make a difference if I told you I was a Velra?¡± The Brute peered down at him. ¡°Are you attempting to bribe me?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure. I don¡¯t usually do things like¡­would bribing you work?¡± ¡°You know,¡± said the officer tiredly, ¡°this isn¡¯t a game. What¡¯s happening out there is serious. People have been hurt. And we don¡¯t have time for kids who¡ª¡± ¡°I know it¡¯s not a game,¡± said the boy. ¡°I¡¯m trying to get to my dad. One of his friends texted to say he was last seen hours ago, drunk and heading to a beach. I¡¯m just going to go have a look around for him.¡± ¡°Your father¡¯s probably already somewhere safe!¡± Samira piped up from her post in front of the curtain. There was a break in the rain at the moment, but her raincoat was still freckled with droplets. ¡°The Artonans are helping with emergency response and the System has been teleporting everyone who needs it. There¡¯s nothing to worry¡­¡± She trailed off as she saw the look on his face. ¡°The Interdimensional Warrior¡¯s Contract isn¡¯t giving a free salvation teleport to everyone,¡± he said flatly. ¡°Not everybody who lives on Anesidora is an Avowed.¡± ¡°Well¡­uh¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry. It¡¯s not your fault¡­I¡¯ll go to the shelter on my own. I can get there. I¡¯m an S-rank. Don¡¯t worry about me.¡± The boy started to walk away, then he looked back over his shoulder to peer at the curtain. ¡°How high is that? Twenty meters? Fine. Have a good night.¡± ****** Lute Velra didn¡¯t know what he had expected from that conversation. Nothing had been the most likely result, and nothing was what he¡¯d gotten. But there were still rules in his head that had to be followed. Listen to police. Obey grown-ups. Keep your head down and live quietly around all the Avowed. That last one was almost gone. Crumbling. You couldn¡¯t actually be a strong Avowed and not know, on some level, that you were. Lute had so many of the same thoughts and hang-ups he¡¯d always had, but his body was different. Those thoughts came from a mind that worked differently. When Lexi made snide comments, he could turn his ears on if he wanted and notice the exact tones he was using to tell if his roommate was really in a bad mood or if he was just saying ill-tempered things out of habit. It was habit at least half the time. Lute blamed Konstantin for probably being the kind of brother who required constant nagging. But Chainer was a class that had kept Lute more separate from other Avowed than others probably would have. He had a part-time job on the Triplanets. He couldn¡¯t join any class-focused clubs or properly talk about his magic with anyone but his own relatives and an overly enthusiastic, intimidatingly zealous Artonan. So there was still a part of him that despaired when he saw all those high ranks standing in front of the Wrightmade shield, guarding the bridge that separated him from that stupid idiot moron Cyril. Those were real Avowed. Those were the strong people at the top of the Anesidoran rank pyramid. Lute was¡­ Packing a second S skill that¡¯s useless for this. Gifted with some of the best hands a human can wear and a voice that can hit notes nobody should be able to. Completely incapable of targeting people without the System¡¯s help unless they¡¯re hot or hatable. Before he¡¯d gotten the text telling him about where his dad had last been seen, he¡¯d been wandering the MPE gym, trying to get his targeting to work. To distract himself from the anxiety of not knowing where either of his parents were and to prove to himself that he was not some terrible System-born lustcreature whose powers were supposed to work that way. He had managed to gift chains by deliberately obsessing over someone while he cast. He¡¯d been relieved to discover the ¡°hatable¡± method because at least it was proof there wasn¡¯t only one way to do it. I just needed to access a certain quality of focus. It was coincidence that I figured that out in such an awkward way. He¡¯d learn to do it in a less embarrassing manner as soon as possible, take the secret with him when he died, and nobody would ever know. But for now, he walked away from the police line, focused on a few of Emilija¡¯s wonderful qualities, and wove his hands while he chanted one more Force of the Traveler¡¯s Body for her. He¡¯d already done three of those. And a few other things. Desperately hoping¡­ She was an F-rank Rabbit. She¡¯d be super low priority for teleport, and who knew what trouble she might run into on a night like this? Lute doubted any of the wordchains were landing on her. He had no clue what his range was; he¡¯d never tested it because it had always been far enough to do his job. But he didn¡¯t believe it was the ten-plus kilometers it would need to be to actually help her. Maybe, if he was very lucky, just one would make it through. Now for me. He had already layered so many that he¡¯d felt like he was trying to operate an alien being by remote control on his run here. Self-mastery was working overtime. He¡¯d given up on controlling some of the things he usually enjoyed micromanaging¡ªhis expressions, his tone¡ªso that he could focus on the big things that needed to be operated perfectly to avoid disaster. Like his arms and legs. And the negative side effects of that one¡­Lute didn¡¯t know if it was even possible to become aware of individual cells, but he had reached a point where he was seriously considering that it might be. The human body was a disgusting meat puppet entrapping the soul, and nobody should ever be forced to acknowledge their own guts processing their last meal. What makes someone a great Chainer? A question he had never wanted to care about. The System gave you the hands. The mouth. The ears. The memory. And it gave you the package of tools for the actual Mass Bestowal part of the job¡­which Lute couldn¡¯t currently access. To make you a Chainer, the family or the Palace shoved your nose into a book for decades and forced you to gobble down hundreds of obscure chains that did almost the same things as the hundreds of other obscure chains you¡¯d already learned. Eternal. Memorization. Homework forever. But other than that¡­what was there? What was it, anyway, that made a Chainer good? It¡¯s getting wordchains to land on you or on the people you¡¯re casting them for. Chains didn¡¯t always answer. Aulia had obnoxious theories about how high ranks were more in tune with the universe. About how that made wordchains like them more or something. Maybe Lute should have stolen a few more lessons from her before he cut her out of his life, so he could understand exactly what she thought. He did know that most people couldn¡¯t stack more than a dozen casts of a single wordchain on themselves. They were supposed to stop landing for you at some point. He hadn¡¯t thought he could do it. But he¡¯d just done it. With more than one chain. Huh. The thing was, Lute didn¡¯t actually know truly strong wordchains yet. He was still a novice. He had his questionable understanding of Artonan and his beginner chaining books that he¡¯d been memorizing for the past year like a good boy. And Harmony, which he¡¯d asked for specifically. Plus whatever specialty things Parethat-uur gave him for work or as random surprises. It was a lot compared to everyone else, but by S-rank Chainer standards he was barely taking his first step. But to run kilometers across a partially destroyed bridge, to guarantee he could survive in the water if it sank, to make it to F and, hopefully, his father¡­Lute Velra felt, for the first time in his life, like he needed a lot of magic. All he had, though, was one skill he could barely use, another he couldn¡¯t use at all in this situation, and his too-small wordchains. So he kept casting them. And they just kept coming for him. He decided it wasn¡¯t a time for questions. But he remembered his grandmother turning blind eyes toward him that night and smiling. He remembered Hazel, losing that cruel little wordchain casting contest to him, even though he didn¡¯t speak Artonan. Even though she was a prodigy. He cast another Force of the Traveler¡¯s Body on himself. It gave you ¡°strength for your travels¡± which was just plain old strength as far as Lute was concerned on a normal day, but he was hoping for more now. That¡¯s enough. That¡¯s got to be enough. One more, and I¡¯ll explode. He was stronger, faster, and more durable than he¡¯d ever been before. The vision in his eye was more acute. He could count every strand of hair touching his face. His mental focus was wildly enhanced, though there was so much to focus on that it didn¡¯t feel like it was. He stopped walking down the abandoned street and turned back to look at the line of guards and the shining barrier. He¡¯d gone far enough that they had to be relaxed by now. He¡¯d gone so far that most of them probably couldn¡¯t even see him anymore. Dad, you dumbshit. I hate you. I miss you. Please don¡¯t be dead. He wondered what it was going to feel like to leave the ground. To make the choice. To finally, once and for all, throw himself into the sky. Fast enough that the speedster over there can¡¯t catch you, thought Lute. Strong enough that the strong one can¡¯t grab you. Get there before any spell can reach you. Now. He launched himself forward. The pavement released a sharp report. By the time they realized Lute Velra was coming, he was already thirty meters over their heads. ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED FORTY-NINE: All at Once 149 **** Esh-erdi¡¯s hand rested on Alden¡¯s shoulder for a few seconds more before falling away. While the knight took his seat again, angling it for a better view of the window, Alden tried to pull his thoughts back together. ¡°I¡¯m¡ª¡± Sorry for babbling. He¡¯d already said that. Sorry for not being myself today. Or for showing you the parts of myself that are kind of crazy. On second thought, apologizing again when the man had said there was no need for the first one probably wasn¡¯t the best idea. Alden had already been lightly admonished for excess humility. He was sure Esh-erdi had a painful zinger for people who kept saying ¡°sorry¡± for things that weren¡¯t really controllable. Alden was just embarrassed to have blurted out a bunch of morbid questions that showed he wasn¡¯t as cool as he wanted to be. Uncomfortable to have shown an expert on ¡°the way things fracture¡± that he wasn¡¯t quite glued back together from the blows he¡¯d taken before this recent one. You are frightened. Of more than seeing the body of Zeridee-und¡¯h. ¡°I¡¯m very happy that the Contract is well,¡± he said awkwardly. ¡°Thank you for telling me.¡± ¡°I wish everyone could be comforted by such easy <>. Is there anything else you want to ask me?¡± There were a thousand questions Alden wanted answered and so few he felt comfortable asking. This kind stranger had saved his life, and he could ruin it just as easily. He shifted in his seat as he thought, and he landed on the most obvious question. ¡°The people who did this¡­do you know why they did it?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± said Esh-erdi, sweeping his braids over one shoulder before leaning into the chair¡¯s cushioned back. ¡°Not for certain. And whatever stories lips may shape in the coming days, no one else will be completely certain either. Unless we manage to find something new. You are, of course, aware that your Contract can know your thoughts?¡± Alden nodded. He was under the impression that it didn¡¯t constantly know everything he thought, but it could know anything. ¡°And you¡¯re aware that your thoughts aren¡¯t something the Contract is suppose to share?¡± Alden remembered his first ever chat with the blank System mannequin and its explanation about why it wouldn¡¯t be tattling to the Artonans about the existence of the gremlin. Violation of spiritual or mental privacy incurs a debt. ¡°Yes. I know it has rules about that. And messages sent through it are private, too.¡± Esh-erdi nodded once. ¡°But if someone wanted to destroy a world, and they had the means to do so, the Contract¡¯s silence would be more costly than breaking that rule. The same would be true if a person wanted to destroy this place. Or to murder millions on Anesidora. Avowed are usually free to act as you wish and use your powers to harm who you will¡­but there are limits.¡± Asking why the limits weren¡¯t harsher was bound to be dissatisfying. ¡°So it was an Avowed who planned the attack?¡± he asked instead. ¡°It was an Avowed. But it seems the plan didn¡¯t exist until almost the moment the act was begun. The Contract would have given warning sooner so that the person could have been stopped if there had been signs.¡± Alden watched the sun rise while he considered that. There were no clouds in the sky, and this room where he and the knight sat was high enough up that the waves appeared small. ¡°So it was just random,¡± he said at last. ¡°One human being suddenly deciding to do a bad thing.¡± ¡°Does that answer <> your <>?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know¡­¡± He touched his good hand to the bandage on his cheek, remembering the unstoppable force of that waist-high water that had taken him off his feet the first time. In that moment, he¡¯d been as helpless to control what was happening to him as a doll tossed into a washing machine. Esh-erdi had said Alden¡¯s luck was bad. That he¡¯d had the misfortune of being too close to too many of the cracks. His luck was bad, but if it had been a little worse¡­ If I hit my head on something, if something had stabbed me in the wrong place, if I couldn¡¯t move that weird chair off of me and I just sat there slowly freezing to death¡­ ¡°It feels wrong,¡± he said. ¡°It feels wrong for someone to have done so much damage and hurt so many people randomly.¡± In some ways, it was the best possible reason. An organized group trying to destroy peace on Earth would be worse. But it still felt like one Avowed with one magical device shouldn¡¯t have the power to ruin as much as they had. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I can¡¯t give you more than this right now,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°Your Contract is also unhappy with the answer.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°But I thought the Contract was the one that provided the answer?¡± ¡°It was. From the moment the trouble began, it¡¯s been searching for other explanations and making creative decisions to supply itself with even more information. This answer is what it has for the time being. But it also <> that the Avowed involved shouldn¡¯t have attacked this place. In its estimation, the chance of such an <> didn¡¯t exist when the <> carrying the <> began its journey.¡± Alden decided he didn¡¯t like ¡°Submerger¡± as a translation for the cause of all of this. Zeridee¡¯s ¡°Sinker Sender¡± name for the magical artifact had been more explanatory. Drowner Destroyer would have been a good choice, too. If there was a mystery to be solved about why this had all happened, he¡¯d just have to hope the System, the Artonans, and whoever they¡¯d let help them were smart enough to do it. His thoughts were interrupted by another question from Esh-erdi. ¡°Do you feel resentment toward the Contract or the Triplanets for not doing more for you?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°You¡¯re hurt. You almost lost your life. It would be understandable.¡± The Artonan¡¯s tone was the same interested but unconcerned one he¡¯d used while asking his questions about the deaths of the three who¡¯d tried to steal the flyer. Do I feel resentment? Would I have expected more if I¡¯d imagined something like this happening? Alden had to ponder it for a minute. Melt, melt, melt, sounded more like a joke now. Sitting here in this very warm room, in the sunlight, he didn¡¯t really think the System was out to get him. At least not when it¡¯s having a good-to-medium day. ¡°I don¡¯t feel that way,¡± he said. ¡°The Contract wouldn¡¯t have saved me from an attack by another Avowed on a normal night. Unless I was fast enough to use an emergency teleport. And it must have given out thousands more teleports than usual. I got one. Before everyone else. And I was given a flyer.¡± He had been angry and scared so many times while it was going on, but¡­ ¡°The person who did this, the people who hurt Zeridee, the ones who were focused on using others¡ªI resent them.¡± He had a larger list of resentments if they went back in time, but he didn¡¯t think he was being asked to cough up all his feelings about his childhood, his affixation, and people who left scientists stranded on moons. ¡°Your perspective is reasonable,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°There are different perspectives that are also reasonable. Many of them have been spoken over the past day, so I was curious to hear yours.¡± What are the other perspectives? Alden thought of Marks. And the Long siblings. And the woman on the motorcycle. Of the Artonans who considered Avowed to be beasts of burden, those who thought they were children, and those who believed they were existential threats. The gifts from the holy universe people are too hard to imagine until I¡¯ve met one. Maybe Lute¡¯s boss is like that? No¡­that could just be the reflected glory of Alis-art¡¯h shining on me and making him talk about spotlight organs. He glanced at his companion. Esh-erdi hadn¡¯t moved his eyes separately once since he¡¯d taken his hand from Alden¡¯s shoulder. He was always looking with both of them, either at Alden or out the window. Right now, one of his fingers traced a swirl on the front of the padded armrest. This person fights demons, thought Alden. He pulled me out of the water. He and his partner are knights. I¡¯m betting neither of them decide to become one in exchange for a System saving their asses in an emergency. Oh no¡­I really did that, didn¡¯t I? I was facing down death. I made that decision. And then¡­ He clasped his hands in his lap and sat up straighter, pretending to admire the view while in truth he was processing what he¡¯d done, or attempted to do, for the first time since it had happened. Alden didn¡¯t know if using the Mother privilege to ask for a favor meant he¡¯d instantly be shoved into a uniform, made to swear oaths, and presented to the Primary with a gift bow on his head. Here, I got you a new one! He¡¯s tall, and some of his parts are put together differently, but he¡¯s got an auriad!The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. But he did believe it was an agreement to gallop in that direction with little or no chance for turning back. It¡¯s a privilege for knights. A privilege for people who are owed. Here was Esh-erdi, enjoying a break after a hard day and night of flood rescues, death investigations, and whatever else he¡¯d been up to. Lind-otta was still out there, probably slow-mo skilling mountains of ocean into obedience. They were people who celebrated their esvulgivnas by babysitting human S-ranks and engaging in some casual demon slaughter. They were almost certainly owed. Alden wondered how many affixations Esh-erdi had been through. How many people he¡¯d saved. How many bodies he¡¯d seen fall. I wonder if he was around Stuart¡¯s age when he became one. It had to be a major decision. Personal sacrifice. After all, he could have just been a wizard. Free and clear. Power without pain. He tightened his hands around each other and then stopped when it hurt the left one. I totally got rejected. Was it because they were already coming to save me? Or because my attitude wasn¡¯t¡­ He cut his eyes sideways to peek at the knight. If I assume he¡¯s on par with Lind-otta then he¡¯s massively strong. He must have been through a lot of affixations. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Alden blurted. Esh-erdi looked over at him with a head tilt. ¡°What are you apologizing for?¡± Damn. That just came out. Now what? He cast around for something that wasn¡¯t sad or weird to say and settled on being informative. ¡°I should¡¯ve told you, there¡¯s so much more food downstairs in the kitchen. There¡¯s a man who¡¯s been cooking for a long time.¡± ¡°If being in my presence makes you nervous, you don¡¯t have to stay here,¡± said Esh-erdi in a neutral tone. Alden winced. ¡°You¡¯re not making me nervous. I¡¯m making myself stupid with stressful thoughts.¡± ¡°I doubt my questions about people who tried to kill you helped. But if that¡¯s how it is¡­why don¡¯t you pull out the task you were working on when I found you.¡± That particular task was so far from Alden¡¯s mind now that it took him a few seconds to come up with what it even was. ¡°The essay I was writing for school?¡± ¡°You seemed <> with it before I interrupted. And it¡¯s my intention to sit here quietly for a time. Your company isn¡¯t required, but it would be welcome.¡± Alden thought writing a paper all alone in a room with the knight sounded unmanageably peculiar. He decided he¡¯d fake it so that he wouldn¡¯t hurt Esh-erdi¡¯s feelings. Which is probably one of the most unnecessary things I¡¯ve ever worried over, he thought as he pulled his tablet and stylus from his bag. Pretty sure people like this don¡¯t get their feelings hurt by human teenagers they just met. Once he actually started working on the paper again, though, it was surprisingly easy to fall into the task. The temperature was pleasant when he was sitting still, and he¡¯d been doing homework in a sauna lately anyway. Esh-erdi mostly sat and stared out the window, but a couple of times he left for a few minutes to do something in the adjoining rooms. When he came back from one of those absences and set a small glass of what looked like water on the table beside Alden, it didn¡¯t feel like a strange thing to have him serving beverages. Though Alden was surprised when it turned out to be a chilled drink that was both extremely sweet and shockingly sour. Like having lemonade concentrate straight out of the canister, but a little more grapefruity. ¡°Do you like it?¡± Esh-erdi asked, watching Alden¡¯s face pucker. ¡°I think so. It¡¯s really good. I just wasn¡¯t expecting it to be so strong.¡± ¡°In some regions, it¡¯s served to students while the study. Lind hasn¡¯t ever lost affection for it.¡± And that was as much as either of them said for a while. ****** ****** [The human child hurt my feelings, Lind.] [He was nervous. Around me! Can you imagine?] [I¡¯ve decided helping you is less important than winning his approval. I¡¯m giving him your sermuntha juice while he writes about ewtwee.] [I¡¯m reading his paper whenever he¡¯s not paying attention. It is obvious to me that he¡¯s never had a disagreement with a ewtwee.] [But to be more serious, I¡¯m worried about what he''s been through and his¡­] ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Lind-otta,¡± a voice said respectfully from behind the knight, interrupting her amusement at her partner¡¯s rambling, "the Avowed¡¯s skills have recovered enough for him to use the apparatus once more. Shall we wait for Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi?¡± Lind-otta turned from her examination of a small black disc embedded into the exterior wall of a house. There were hundreds more in this wall alone, and in all the walls of all the houses facing the central square. They were hidden when not in use, according to one of the wizards who¡¯d greeted her when she arrived a few minutes before. Talented people had been assigned to guard this area from the floods earlier, and now they guarded it from prying eyes and ears. Lind-otta could hear the strain in the voice of the woman who¡¯d just called her attention. She needed rest. ¡°Esh-erdi is taking care of something important,¡± Lind-otta said. ¡°And I was only curious about this process since I was nearby. Please continue as you usually do.¡± The woman nodded, but instead of leaving right away, she stayed to offer explanations. The phones and watches being brought in by drone and deposited directly in the grass of the square had all been in use before and during the disaster. ¡°Not all of his devices contain the keys,¡± she explained. ¡°He couldn¡¯t possibly make enough for that. But for those that do have them, he offers superior replacements to the owners in exchange for their return. The keys inside the ones that are being collected now will be fully connected to the apparatus by other Avowed soon, increasing its power and the likelihood that it will align with requests.¡± She gestured toward the houses and streets around them to indicate the numerous keys already embedded. ¡°He doesn¡¯t have the talents necessary to join the keys in this way himself, so he employs those who do. Once his skill is in use, additional recording devices capture the output for analysis. Most of the keys of eyes are to our left. Keys of voices are everywhere. There are other types, but they are few in number. Novelties or experiments for him.¡± A man with dark brown hair and a short beard had just exited one of houses. Despite the fact that the reports Lind-otta had glanced over said the Avowed had exhausted his skills more than once since this all began, he had an energy in his step as he strolled past the growing piles of devices and passed beneath shining, undulating strands that emerged from the top of a large jar-shaped fountain at the center of the square. ¡°The Contract''s decision to deny communication features to most people during the incident encouraged Avowed to heavily utilize these infogear devices, seeking answers about what was going on. Those conversations were recorded and are now purchasable. It also means all the keys within the devices have been better attuned to exactly the kinds of questions we want to ask at this time.¡± Lind-otta was watching the human press his hand to the fountain. ¡°Is this kind of thing not illegal on Earth?¡± ¡°I believe it is. But a series of loopholes on Anesidora¡ª¡± ¡°I see.¡± Lind-otta focused on the Avowed. She could sense one of his skills taking affect. ¡°I should go,¡± the woman who¡¯d been explaining things said with a nod. ¡°If you stay for long enough, he will be using a second skill as well. That one may prove more useful to our search for answers in the end. The effect when applied to this many keys is impressive.¡± All at once, the keys activated. All at once, the square was filled with whispers that gradually grew louder. Whispers that hadn¡¯t been recorded when the phones holding the black discs were in use. Lind-otta didn¡¯t speak a human language, so she couldn¡¯t understand them. But the Avowed, Elias, was targeting one word she did know. And she heard it repeated all over the square, in a thousand voices that were talking about the subject right this second, unaware that their conversations were being overheard here in this place. The same word spoken in so many different ways¡ªfear, rage, boredom, glee¡ªin so many different tongues all at once. Matadero, the humans said. An attack we should have known about, that my old man always said would happen, that nobody could have expected, a hoax, a sign, I told you, who cares about, I¡¯ve always been scared of, mark my words this is only the beginning of the end at¡­Matadero. ****** ****** A deep, pleased noise from the back of Esh-erdi¡¯s throat caught Alden¡¯s attention, and he looked up from the final read-through of his paper. It was a good essay. He was going to be annoyed if the assignment was cancelled rather than just postponed. Esh-erdi was smiling, and as Alden took in the expression, he realized just how long the two of them had been together. Didn¡¯t knights have better things to spend their time on than watching Ryeh-b¡¯ts do their homework? Maybe this was his version of sleeping? Maybe he¡¯s gotten so powerful that he just does downtime instead of actually going to bed. I¡¯m not sure if that would be great or terrible. ¡°Zeridee-und¡¯h will survive and be well,¡± said Esh-erdi. Alden dropped his tablet onto his lap. ¡°She¡¯s out of¡­¡± ¡°Surgery¡± would be the wrong word. ¡°She¡¯s out of the fake healing grove? The room with all the plants in it?¡± he asked. ¡°If I remember that particular ritual correctly, she¡¯s probably in the fake healing grove with everything but her nose and mouth buried in a pile of dirt. But that¡¯s good!¡± Relief and excitement sent Alden to his feet before he could decide what he thought he was going to do on his feet. ¡°Oh...I guess I shouldn¡¯t go stare at her in her pile of dirt?¡± ¡°It¡¯s all right with me if you do, but some of the smokes in the room might have unusual effects on a human.¡± Alden sat back down. ¡°I sent a message to Porti-loth,¡± said Esh-erdi, ¡°suggesting that I might take you to a human Healer since he¡¯s going to need several hours to recover. He¡¯s trying to convince me that they¡¯ll definitely kill you because they won¡¯t understand what he¡¯s already done to you. I¡¯m sure that¡¯s a lie.¡± He frowned. ¡°What¡¯s your preference?¡± Alden almost said he didn¡¯t have one. But that wasn¡¯t true. ¡°I really want the gash on my hand healed as perfectly as possible,¡± he said. ¡°So whatever¡¯s best for that?¡± It was a little silly. He thought that even if he had a scar or some pain, his hand was still going to move well thanks to the stats. But he¡¯d been trying for more perfection with his spell casting by really paying attention to the feel of his fingers when they were in action, and if they felt slightly different because of an injury, all of that work would have gone to waste. ¡°If you want something healed perfectly, it¡¯s best to never let it be healed imperfectly. According to the Contract, there are some excellent Avowed healers on Earth. But most of them will be very busy, too. If you don¡¯t mind waiting for Porti¡­?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll wait if he can do it.¡± ¡°He can do it,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°You might end up buried in dirt, but it will get done. And I wanted to keep you here longer anyway.¡± Here in this room or here on¡ª? ¡°In the cube,¡± Esh-erdi clarified before he could ask. ¡°Bash-nor is on Anesidora. Your involvement with the deaths at his residence and the <> with the flyer could make him decide to approach you. He has no reason to come here. I plan to make sure he knows you¡¯re not a tool for him to leverage. And I¡¯d like to reassure myself that there are no human laws that will trouble you. I know almost nothing about human laws, so that might take me a short while. I think you may also want to consider a Healer of Mind for¡ª¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to do all of that,¡± Alden interrupted. ¡°That¡¯s a lot. You must have so many important things to take care of.¡± ¡°I will <> whatever needs to be <>. Bash-nor, at least, you should let me manage. He is a little too powerful for anyone else to do it successfully, and Lind doesn¡¯t like politics.¡± He searched Alden¡¯s face. ¡°Do you disagree?¡± He couldn¡¯t. If Esh-erdi really thought the ambassador might bother him, then Alden didn¡¯t have any way to stop that himself. ¡°I don¡¯t disagree,¡± he said slowly. ¡°And I don¡¯t think there should be legal problems, but if there could be, it would be good to know.¡± Esh-erdi drummed the armrest of his chair with his fingertips while he stared at Alden. ¡°I want you to tell me what else you need. You should think about it and do that.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure I¡ª¡± ¡°Start with little things,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°For example, what are you planning to do tomorrow?¡± Why did this feel like a trick question? ¡°I¡¯ve got to find something to feed a snake, or I need to get it back to its owner. I want to know what¡¯s going on with school. I¡¯d like to find out what happened to all my friends and say hi to my aunt, but the Contract won¡¯t let me call. And¡­Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s supposed to call tomorrow. But I don¡¯t know if that would be okay right now? I¡¯m sure Evul-art¡¯h could get a call through, but I don¡¯t know if she would.¡± ¡°If your school is open do you want to go?¡± ¡°Well¡­yes. I would really like to. But if I have to stay here¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re not trapped. I could arrange something. Do you want to talk to Stu-art¡¯h? Or do you only want to let him know you¡¯re well?¡± ¡°I would prefer to talk to him,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°Good,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°Little things. Tiny cracks in the future. So easy to repair.¡± ******* ******* ONE HUNDRED FIFTY: Cube News 150 ****** ¡°Connie seemed to be in a strange mood,¡± said Alden. He was lying on his side on top of the covers of his hospital bed so that whenever he wasn¡¯t focused on the person he was calling, he could see the news stations he¡¯d pulled up on the wall. ¡°I don¡¯t know what it was. She didn¡¯t exactly sound unhappy. But she said we should talk about something, and then she changed her mind. Do you think the Artonans freaked her out when they collected her?¡± ¡°Alden, from my perspective, I left your room in intake a few hours ago,¡± said Boe. ¡°Now, I¡¯m nearly blind in a foreign country. Nobody will tell me exactly which country or how I¡¯m getting home. And I almost stepped on a poison dart frog when I went to pee.¡± Understandably, Boe sounded tense about all of that. And Alden didn¡¯t doubt that his friend was having trouble seeing. The rainforest floor at night couldn¡¯t be a bright place, and he didn¡¯t have his glasses. Alden couldn¡¯t quite picture the situation at the mass teleportation site. He would have expected a large building, but from the snippets of stressed-out description he¡¯d gotten, it sounded almost like the people who¡¯d been taken there had just been dumped deep in the Amazon with lots of wizards. ¡°Let me repeat: earlier today, I covered my body with some fronds I found. Then, while I was trying to figure out what was going on and get help, someone sent my furry orange ride back to Chicago without me! Where Connie also is, apparently. Priority shipping for the two of them!¡± Boe exclaimed. ¡°You¡¯re worried about her being freaked out? I¡¯m probably going to be killed by a jaguar while the Artonans who are in charge of this wilderness adventure have a few more debates about what to do with me. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯re leaving me until last because I¡¯m a Contract refuser or because they feel like I¡¯m greedy for wanting a travel ticket after they already gave one to your cat.¡± ¡°Turn on video mode,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen an Earth rainforest.¡± ¡°No. And there¡¯s nothing to see except me, standing in the dark as far away from everyone else as I can get without getting lost. I wanted to talk to you, but I don¡¯t want the last of the humans who are left around here realizing I have an interface and memorizing my appearance.¡± ¡°I am sorry you came out of catspace there,¡± said Alden. ¡°When they asked me who I wanted to save in the event of the world ending, I wasn¡¯t thinking about the fact that they would send you somewhere full of other Avowed.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s fine. I was just on Anesidora, wasn¡¯t I? And I¡¯ve been¡­I can¡¯t bring myself to say lucky¡­but not as unlucky as I could have been. I didn¡¯t come out of catspace in front of people. Victor was in a forcefield pen some wizard had made for him. When I appeared, I was just standing naked in the rainforest beside a cat in a magic dome. I considered all the possibilities, decided it was definitely your fault¡ª¡± ¡°Hey!¡± ¡°¡ªfound my fronds and followed the sound of voices toward other people. I¡¯m sure everyone who saw me thought I was a lunatic, but at least they were all strangers and we¡¯ll never meet again.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t quite hold back a laugh. ¡°Are you still wearing nothing but fronds?¡± ¡°No. Asshole.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be ashamed. My crisis wardrobe gets weirder every time. I figure I¡¯m only two or three disasters away from fronds of my own.¡± Boe vented for a while longer before taking a breath. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re back.¡± Alden shifted positions to get more comfortable with his mound of pillows. ¡°It would take so long to catch you up on everything that¡¯s happened if you¡¯d waited until I was forty or something.¡± Catching him up was going to take a long time as it was. Too long for them to make a serious start of it right now when Boe was flustered. He can listen to all my messages from the past couple of weeks when he¡¯s got a minute. And then he could share and explain the Zeridee-saving story when Boe was safely back home and things were calmer. ¡°Don¡¯t even joke about that,¡± Boe was saying. ¡°I seriously worry about pulling a Rip Van Winkle.¡± ¡°That¡¯s such an antique reference.¡± ¡°We had to read it for English while you were gone and compare it to a modern day time travel book.¡± I think it¡¯s been almost a year since I read a book that wasn¡¯t for a class or for wizardry, Alden realized. Last Christmas break¡ªthat popular but terrible one about the arrival of Artonans making a bunch of werewolves reveal their existence to the rest of humanity. ¡°Hey,¡± he said,¡°I left you some messages. The boater was a fail. I don¡¯t think I made a difference in their lives at all. But I tried, and I¡¯m done with it. There¡¯s some other stuff. I¡¯ll tell you about it when you¡¯re home and you¡¯ve dealt with your own life. It¡¯s your turn to be the surprise returnee¡­I hope that goes well for you.¡± Boe¡¯s voice turned suspicious. ¡°What kind of stuff?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been in a disaster. Naturally there was a little bit of stuff. I¡¯m not sure if some of it even qualifies under the terms of our accord.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you tell me what it was, and I¡¯ll decide?¡± ¡°As an example, I was on The Span when the Pacific went less pacific¡ª¡± ¡°I literally can¡¯t leave you alone for two weeks.¡± ¡°That was in no way my fault. There was this guy I agreed to share my emergency teleport with. I didn¡¯t stick my neck out for him, and he was such a shithead that I wish I hadn¡¯t bothered. All I really did was save my classmates from his presence. So I¡¯m pretty sure you don¡¯t also have to find a shithead to transport somewhere.¡± Even Boe¡¯s silences sounded suspicious now. Neat trick. ¡°You do have to save a Great Dane, though,¡± Alden added. ¡°And a snake.¡± ¡°¡­you found a pet store in need of a hero?¡± ¡°I really will tell you everything later.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± Boe said after a second. ¡°I was watching some news footage before I got your call. It looks like it was insane there. And the System sending me a safety notice for you but not letting me talk to you directly was worrying mea little. But you say you¡¯ve already been healed?¡± ¡°Partially. The healer here¡ª¡± Not talking about Matadero on the call he shouldn¡¯t even be allowed to make was a given. ¡°¡ªwill be seeing me again soon. I¡¯ve been walking around all day, though. It¡¯s just a busted ankle, a cut on my hand, and a lot of scrapes and bruises.¡± ¡°From The Span?¡± ¡°I told you the Pacific got unpacific with me. And with the rest of the island. It was a lot.¡± It threw me around like a toy. I thought I would freeze to death. I was afraid a Brute who was a pretty decent dude would panic and steal my shoes. I lost half of my remaining faith in humanity when I watched someone try to kill Zeridee-und¡¯h while she was helpless. Alden stared at the videos playing on the wall without seeing them properly. It feels like every time I try to be even a little good, the universe sucks me dry and gives me back less than I had to start with. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re all right,¡± said Boe. ¡°Sorry I wasn¡¯t there.¡± ¡°Yeah. Why couldn¡¯t this have happened before you ditched me?¡± Alden replied. ¡°We could have made memories together.¡± ****** Alden called Jeremy and discovered that his friend had spent all day Saturday knocking on doors and checking animal shelters because he assumed Victor had escaped from his house. Only for the cat to reappear in his room, along with three dollars. That makes no sense. ¡°Maybe the three dollars were there already, and you just forgot.¡± ¡°Three brand new dollar bills with no wrinkles? I would have remembered putting those on my dresser,¡± Jeremy insisted. He was on his way into a convenience store. ¡°I¡¯m using them to buy Cherry Coke. I had a whole bottle last week, and now it¡¯s gone. Mom says she¡¯s off sugar, but I know it was her. So why was Victor disappearing your fault? Weren¡¯t you busy dodging super tsunamis?¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± Nobody had told Alden whether or not the evacuation to the Amazon was a secret, and he hadn¡¯t thought to ask Boe or Connie if the Artonans had sworn them to silence upon their arrival. Zeridee wouldn¡¯t tell me the location until she got confused with the head injury, so I guess it¡¯s at least partially a secret? Or an un-secret secret. There was a blip of a mention of the flyers leaving Anesidora on the news. And, after all, if someone had asked Alden on Thursday whether or not he thought the Artonans had some kind of a planetary evacuation plan in the event of a catastrophe, he¡¯d have assumed the answer was yes. He just wouldn¡¯t have known for sure what triggered the evac, how they planned to do it, or that he would be chosen to leave himself. Maybe I just don¡¯t want to tell him the truth. Maybe I just feel guilty. Saying, ¡°You were my third choice,¡± wasn¡¯t much of a compliment when there were only two choices. If he¡¯s really mad about it¡­ Alden took a breath. ¡°I can¡¯t give you many details, but it seems like the Artonans have put me on a list of people who get to leave if the planet has so much as a hiccup.¡± ¡°As, like, an apology for the Thegund thing?¡± asked Jeremy. ¡°Good. They should apologize to you more.¡± ¡°They only let me pick two people to go with me,¡± Alden said. He realized he¡¯d been expecting a dramatic pause as soon as he didn¡¯t get one. ¡°Only two?¡± An electronic doorbell chimed as Jeremy headed into the shop and stopped to examine a display of chips. ¡°I mean, two is a lot more than zero, but man¡­I¡¯d have a heart attack trying to pick.¡± He¡¯s not upset at all? Jeremy was good-natured and upbeat, but this seemed like too casual of a response. ¡°If I ever get a third slot,¡± said Alden,¡°you would be¡­¡± Jeremy was bending down to see the hot and spicy chips on the bottom of the display. He really didn¡¯t look bothered at all. ¡°Would you come?¡± Alden asked, suddenly uncertain. ¡°If I put your name in a third slot?¡± His friend finally looked back at the phone in his hand. ¡°You mean in a real Titanic situation?¡± ¡°I¡¯m told there¡¯s not much risk of it ever coming to that. But¡­yes?¡± Jeremy stared off into space, still crouching there by the chips with the doorbell chiming as someone else entered or exited the store. ¡°Wow. Thank you. I think I would?¡± he said at last. ¡°I¡¯d want to stay with my family, but if I did that and they found out, it¡¯d hurt them, right? We¡¯d all hit the iceberg together, and they¡¯d know I could have survived, which would just make everything more terrible for them instead of helping them. So yeah. I would come. But you need to be prepared to tie me up and drag me along in case I¡¯m stupid in the moment.¡± There was a hint of a joke in his voice. ¡°Stop getting taller if you want me to carry you,¡± Alden said, forcing the same lightness into his own words. ¡°If you hit 6¡¯ 3¡±, you go down with the ship.¡± They chatted for a while longer. When the call ended, Alden went to sit in the room¡¯s one chair beside his scaly companion. ¡°Jeremy¡¯s feelings aren¡¯t hurt because I wouldn¡¯t be in his top two either,¡± he said after a moment. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t even be in his top five, probably. I would have known that if I¡¯d thought harder about it. He has a lot of family. He has his girlfriend. He¡¯ll have Boe when Boe gets home¡­if Boe¡¯s not an unfriendly dumbass.¡± Tiny Snake was in its bento cave, digesting the baby mouse that Esh-erdi had sent for it via wizard messenger. When Alden tried to imagine the process that must have led to a miniature snake dinner being delivered all the way to Matadero, he got a lot of confusing images. ¡°I¡¯m glad he wasn¡¯t upset.¡± He watched the reptile. After deciding that it was a young corn snake¡ªand thus not deadly¡ªhe had held it for a few minutes before its meal arrived. Letting it crawl around his hand and arm had been interesting, and he was conscious of the fact that he was already much too attached to it. Tiny Snake had a name. They¡¯d been through shit together. The Longs couldn¡¯t even take care of themselves; should they really be trusted with Alden¡¯s survival buddy? They had a nice tank for it. And Liam said it was friendly. ¡°I have a cat named Victor. I¡¯ll probably get him back soonish.¡± Tiny Snake stuck its tongue out. It was alive and safe and full of mouse. ¡°Stupid Liam,¡± said Alden. ¡°I guess I¡¯d better text him. Maybe he doesn¡¯t want you back.¡± He accessed his interface with a thought. [Liam, I rescued your snake from the rubble outside of Apogee. I hope you and your brother and sister are fine. If you¡¯re too busy to take care of it right now I¡¯d be happy to do it for however long¡­] [Lute, are you doing all right? I think I might be able to get to campus tomorrow for a little while. What¡­?] [Haoyu, I saw your mom on television bashing the heck out of that inflatable dinghy that was cannonballing through the streets down in¡­] [Are you all fine, Lexi? The Nilama building¡­] [Hi, Natalie. Yes. I¡¯m safe! Sorry I¡¯ve been out of touch. Are you all right? What do you mean Emilija got possessed¡­?] [Winston, thank you for checking on me and for offering to help me with my image. I¡¯m sure you¡¯re a great video editor, but I don¡¯t feel like releasing my selection story. Especially not this week.] [Vandy, I appreciate the reminder about the vigil on campus, but I¡¯m not going to be able to make it to tonight¡¯s¡­]If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. [So I do still have your teeth, Kon, but¡­] ****** The replies to Alden¡¯s messages trickled in while he watched the news. The texts were almost all brief and rushed in tone. Even from his roommates. Makes sense. Everyone¡¯s busy. The wall in front of him was giving him a view of four different channels at once. He could enlarge one and turn the volume on by pointing at it. But there was so much to take in that he couldn¡¯t absorb any of it as well as he should have been able to. Every newscast held a different scene of heroism, tragedy, or commentary. As for how the disaster had happened, a story that was basically the same as what he¡¯d heard from Zeridee and Esh-erdi was the official one. There was the addition of ¡°a suspected link to the often-violent movement known as Superhumans at Large¡± and mention of the person who was likely responsible being in the company of others. Investigations were ongoing, and names weren¡¯t being released to the public yet. The number of dead was confirmed at just under three hundred. Far more were injured. When Alden first heard, he thought, Oh, that¡¯s so good. And then he realized that his wavelength was different from everyone else¡¯s as the faces of the victims¡¯ families and friends kept appearing and everybody kept talking about the scale of the tragedy. He tried so hard to feel the right things. He couldn¡¯t quite get there. The large number still looked small to him because of that fear he¡¯d had in his gut that it was so much worse. Thousands. Tens of thousands. The world. He knew it was strange, but he couldn¡¯t stop being relieved that it wasn¡¯t the world. Some people were pointing out that there was nowhere else on Earth where an event that destroyed so much, so quickly could take the lives of so few. The two tips of Apex, once among the most desirable real estate on the island, looked like junkyards. There were swaths on the west and northwest coast of F-city that weren¡¯t much better. Paragon Academy, where his roommates had attended school until recently, was gone. But Avowed were harder to kill, and they were available for mobilization in an instant if the Triplanets wanted. And the Triplanets had wanted. A huge number of emergency orders had gone out. Even the Anesidoran newscasters who bothered to try offering a judgment on the matter seemed to be struggling to land on opinions about the Artonans¡¯ actions. It was a strange thing to see; the local Avowed news people didn¡¯t often stutter and stumble. They all had voices that made you glad to listen, from buttery and soothing to bright and bubbly. No such thing as a bad hair day. Never a lack of confidence or composure. But on Channel 6, during a show that featured a member of each of the six largest Avowed classes, the Meister had started out criticizing the Artonans for not giving the Anesidoran government a chance to organize a response on their own while the Adjuster had praised them for bypassing niceties in order to reduce the number of lives lost. By the end of the hour, they¡¯d exhausted most of their energy for the topic and accidentally talked each other into the opposite positions before mutually agreeing that the important thing now was to grieve and rebuild. Earlier in the day, the President of the High Council had given a speech that focused so heavily on the contributions of Avowed who had used their powers to protect their homeland without being ordered to do so, that it had started to feel a little like she was deliberately downplaying the work of everyone who¡¯d been red haloed. Alden went from finding the speech uplifting to being annoyed that she was trying to make a point without actually making it. But then again, he¡¯d assumed it was a veiled complaint about the summonings, only for one of the commentators afterward to say it was an ill-timed dig at high ranks¡ªwho¡¯d been the vast majority of the red halos¡ªand an attempt to pander to the C and below demographic. So what the hell do I know? Alden had thought, before changing the channel. A few of the news shows from other countries were tastelessly trying to calculate the amount of argold the Triplanets had shelled out to issue all the orders. By law, Avowed had to be paid when they were summoned, even if they were summoned to save their own city. Meanwhile, one of the Anesidoran stations had a counter on the screen ticking up every time they received a report of someone using their Fragile Atmosphere signing bonus. There had been an interview with a man who thought he should be given another one under the circumstances because what if something like this happened again? Almost everyone who¡¯d died had died by refusing evacuation, or they had died very suddenly around the time the disaster began. The System hadn¡¯t been able to locate individual Sinker Sender particles or perfectly predict their effects. One of the wizards who was speaking as an expert on the device was doing a good job of explaining that it was unreasonable to expect a ¡°sound but youthful Contract¡± to correctly analyze vastly complex, never-before-seen magical events on the spot. Some boats had been yanked so deep so quickly that the victims were killed in an instant. Others had been pulled down just as quickly, only to be protected by the Sinker Sender¡¯s own magic for a while, allowing the System time to teleport the people onboard to safety or teleport help to them. There was also dramatic footage of a melee at a shelter on Bunker Street. Word had gone around that it was better than all of the other evacuation destinations in the area. In order to travel there, people had bypassed the safe places that had been recommended by the System, and upon arriving to find the shelter full, they had prevented the doors from closing and swarmed the entrance. Red halos had been sent in to push them back. To add to the confusion, a small number of those people, who were being called doomsday preppers on most channels, had tried to mount an organized assault on the shelter¡¯s defenders. The use of violent powers from a few had tipped the many over the edge, creating an us-versus-them situation that made everyone feel like the end was nigh and they had permission to engage in a war in the streets for the sake of their own survival. Some of the talking heads were trying to explain crowd psychology. Others were discussing how, with so many Avowed wielding weapons and having powers designed for battle, it was a wonder that serious fights hadn¡¯t broken out elsewhere. <> Alden spotted a segment on the Punta de la Luna area starting up on another channel, and he switched to it. Several times, on every show, people mentioned that this was still early days. The narrative would change. Understanding would change. Everyone was just beginning to pick up the pieces. Around 9:00 PM, which felt much later thanks to his screwed-up brain clock, Alden fell asleep to the sound of a voice saying, ¡°We don¡¯t yet know how, or how much, this terrible tragedy will change things for our beloved Anesidora, but we know they will change. Tonight, I will be holding my children close¡­¡± ****** Porti-loth had Alden¡¯s pharmacy drone wake him up six hours later. He had just enough time to rub the sleep from his eyes and get out of the bed before the wizard healer appeared, wheeling in a medical cart. Alden felt himself smile at the sight of it. I doubt the manufacturers expected someone to build a fire on top of that thing. The fire was smokeless, and it was heating a deep cast iron pan full of what looked like muddy reddish paint. ¡°You aren¡¯t watching Kwoo-pak,¡± Porti-loth said disapprovingly, staring at the silent news still playing on the wall. Was that a prescription I was supposed to follow right away? ¡°I will soon.¡± ¡°I am going to paint your wounds with a potion brewed from the ground of your birthplace,¡± Porti-loth announced. ¡°You got ground from America?¡± ¡°Peaceful Union Birthing House.¡± Alden stared at the pan. He¡¯d gone just a tad more specific than America then. ¡°I regret to tell you that they didn¡¯t record the precise location of your separation from your mother,¡± Porti-loth said in a truly regretful voice. ¡°Only a building. <>¡± A lot more specific. ¡°Don¡¯t worry your minds.¡± Porti-loth jabbed a paddle-shaped wooden implement into the potion and stirred. ¡°This is made of wood from the first tree you would have passed under on your way out of the building.¡± Should I not have been born in a building? Alden wondered. I¡¯m sure Artonans have babies in buildings all the time. ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi will care for the rest of it,¡± Porti-loth said. ¡°The rest of what?¡± The healer looked up. ¡°He will arrange for the < > of the tree and the ground.¡± Several questions later, Alden finally understood that a tree and a ¡°vehicle¡± full of dirt had been purchased from a birthing center he hadn¡¯t even known the name of in Tennessee. He means a dump truck, doesn¡¯t he? He was now standing shirtless at the foot of the bed, holding his hand out while Porti-loth packed the deep gouge with mud. It didn¡¯t hurt. A perfectly normal-looking injector had taken care of that. Somewhere, a whole tree and a dump truck full of my birthplace dirt is being stored. Valuable personal spell ingredients. Just in case he ever needed them again. Why? As if to punctuate the question, one of the channels he was watching while the healer worked showed an aerial view of the neighborhood Alden had been rescued from. He was reading the subtitles with the volume off because he didn¡¯t want to interrupt the healing chants, and the newscasters were talking about Lind-otta and Esh-erdi. They were explaining to viewers that two of the highest ranked wizards, generals from the Mother Planet¡¯s anti-chaos force, had been on hand for dealing with Matadero and had lent their help after the cube was secured. The scale of that help was being shown with overlays that indicated how far inland the water could have progressed without their interference. Alden hadn¡¯t been that far from safety when he¡¯d nearly drowned. A line was drawn across the crescent, indicating the area where wizards and Avowed had chosen to defend against the incursion of the water. Just a few streets more, and Alden would have made it to them. A few impossible streets. If Esh-erdi and his partner hadn¡¯t dealt with the massive build-up of water that had almost killed him and Zeridee, the collapse of it would have sent a megawave past the defenders¡¯ line into parts of Apex that hadn¡¯t been completely evacuated. It would have forced everyone else to scramble, destroying more homes and lives. Why is someone like Esh-erdi involving himself in all these little unimportant details for me? Alden thought. At a time like this? It¡¯s not like it should matter to anyone else if I get dirt or my phone calls or snake food. Those things are all inconveniences for me to put up with, not crises for a knight to handle. And Esh-erdi was handling important matters. Alden had wondered if the Artonan¡¯s skill wasn¡¯t at all helpful for the current problem, but according to the subtitles, he had been using magic to degrade the contaminant throughout the enormous quantities of water that his partner put on pause. Alden watched the segment on the two knights until it ended. It wasn¡¯t long, probably because there was no video of the two knights actually doing magic, and saying how strong Generals Esh-erdi and Lind-otta were wasn¡¯t as exciting as showing how badass other people looked using their powers. It¡¯s fine that Earth calls them ¡®generals¡¯in English. I don¡¯t like it as much as knight, but at least it¡¯s establishing chain of command for chaos events through vocabulary. The main Artonan spokesperson on Anesidoran news was Bash-nor. If a demon crawled out of the ground in downtown F right now, Alden didn''t want anyone getting confused and assuming the ambassador was supposed to be the knights¡¯ boss. Bash-nor was largely inoffensive on camera. Alden had indulged his own bias earlier by looking for flaws, but the ambassador¡¯s prepared statements were tidy mixes of polite condolences and facts that matched up with what most of the other Artonans were saying.There was a lot of, ¡°Such-and-such matter is still under consideration.¡± He also looked nothing at all like Alden had pictured. Bash-nor was a small man dressed in gray who delivered the messages clearly and slowly with a hint of condescension so minuscule that it might have been imagined¡ªhe didn¡¯t seem like someone who threw grand parties all the time and rode mechanical bulls. <> the subtitles said. <> The sound of the door opening drew Alden¡¯s attention. When he looked over his own mud-potioned shoulder he saw Esh-erdi letting himself into the room. While Alden had been benefitting from the knight''s help all afternoon and evening, he hadn¡¯t seen him in person since just after lunchtime. ¡°This House of Healing is peaceful!¡± Esh-erdi exclaimed. ¡°The halls around the rooms I share with Lind are full of < > now that people have decided to take their rests.¡± He meant ¡°my fellow Artonans¡± when he said ¡°pests.¡± Alden had poked his head into the cafeteria to grab a sandwich and say hello to Kabir before holing himself away for the evening, but there had been no sandwiches left to grab. Hotel Matadero was being used as housing for the wizards who¡¯d traveled to Anesidora to serve as the disaster response crew. They¡¯d all stayed out and about for a conspicuously long time, and even now, there seemed to be some attempt at a polite fiction that they were all coming back to Matadero to check on it. As opposed to crashing out in the cafeteria surrounded by empty plates, like one elderly woman Alden had spotted. It was like it would be gauche for them to say, ¡°My magic¡¯s worn out, I need a nap, and my species actually functions very poorly if we go more than a couple of days without eating. ¡°Lind and I should move! So many pleasing empty rooms in this section. Is that the snake?¡± Esh-erdi walked over to the table where Tiny Snake¡¯s plastic tub sat, looking curious. He had hissed and emphasized the ¡°s¡± in snake, so it came out sss-nake. Given that Artonan adults had much better vocal control than humans, Alden suspected he knew that snakes hissed from researching them. So he was either trying to interact with the animal itself, or he was giving the word additional color to be social and amusing. ¡°You would not look out of place on our planets,¡± he said to the snake. ¡°I might think you were a slimeless oontsy. Did you eat the mouse? Did it eat the mouse and like it?¡± Alden mentally put the likelihood that he had been talking to the snake directly a little higher. He was probably looking forward to seeing some Earth animals, he realized. I wanted to see ryeh-b¡¯ts when I went to the Triplanets. The facility here has to be one of the least fun places ever to start your vacation on another world. ¡°It seemed to enjoy the mouse very much,¡± Alden said, assuming that it was all right to talk over Porti-loth¡¯s chanting since Esh-erdi was doing it. ¡°Thank you for that. And for the calling permissions. And for the¡­ground from my birthplace and the tree.¡± ¡°Honeylocust.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Your birth tree. I am having it sent to my house because even though there is a garden associated with your current <> it¡¯s very small and unprotected.¡± Okay. The first tree that ever shaded my infant face is still alive even though they stole some of its wood for this spoon Porti-loth is massaging my ribcage with. It¡¯s going to live on the Triplanets. Almost certainly in a knight Rapport. This is starting to feel¡­Esh-erdi doesn¡¯t know, does he? Is this his way of nudging me toward realizing that he knows? Next, Alden would find out that his fairy godfather here had gone to fetch his clothes and his learning cushion, and they¡¯d been moved to a cozy little extraterrestrial location for safekeeping, too. And then a few hours from now, he¡¯ll say, ¡°Alden, wouldn¡¯t your body be more comfortable with your tree and your possessions? A growing wizard shouldn¡¯t live too far from his birthdirt. Let¡¯s pack you up and ship you to meet it!¡± He swallowed even though his mouth was devoid of saliva. Esh-erdi was leaning closer to sniff Tiny Snake¡¯s container. ¡°Thank you for keeping those safe for me,¡± Alden said. ¡°Um¡­why¡­¡± ¡°You¡¯re thanking me for doing things that are simple and necessary for your health and well-being.I¡¯m the one who¡¯s asked you to stay here at the cube for a time. How are you feeling?¡± Muddy and concerned. ¡°I¡¯m good.¡± ¡°I also had someone obtain this for you.¡± Esh-erdi tapped one of his rings to a thick, brown triangle-shape that hung from his belt like a decoration. A perfectly folded Celena North uniform appeared in his hand. Alden stared at it. Esh-erdi tapped the belt again, and a pair of black dress shoes were suddenly in the other hand. ¡°There is no regular class for students at your school tomorrow. But you have a student assembly at ten o¡¯clock.¡± Alden was aware of that, since CNH had sent out an email. All students who were currently in Apex were supposed to be there, and all students who were in F were to attend by calling in. Did he check the school website? Alden hoped he¡¯d checked the school website. If he¡¯d called directly, then whoever answered him was probably freaking and trying to figure out why an Artonan general wanted to know the class schedule. Or Esh-erdi had just told them the truth, and right now, Alden wasn¡¯t sharp enough to think through what that might do to his life. ¡°I¡¯m sorry your instructors will not be teaching. You wrote an <> essay, and routine can be <>.¡± ¡°It¡¯s all right.¡± He had wanted school to start back pretty badly so that he could have the normalcy of it. ¡°I can attend by video. And what about Ambassador Bash¡ª¡± ¡°Bash-nor has a busy day tomorrow, which I have <> to make busier for him.¡± Porti-loth chuckled mid-chant. ¡°You may <> your human peers,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°Someone trustworthy will keep an eye and a mind on you in case Bash-nor finds a way to bother you.¡± Both of his eyes flicked past Alden toward the television wall. ¡°Or in case anyone else does.¡± When Alden followed the direction of the knight¡¯s interest, he found himself reading subtitles that said, <> A couple dozen Avowed from the Bunker Street riot were all up in the air and wearing frantic expressions as their legs climbed what looked like invisible staircases toward outer space. Sandwiched between them and the subtitles, offering a red haloed woman a potion vial with one hand and casting with the other, was a tall, bald wizard so covered in tattoos that his skin looked like a circuit board. ¡°Did they just call him hn¡¯tyon in their language?¡± Esh-erdi said in a disgusted voice. ¡°I hope he gave them that misapprehension himself so that I can comment on the matter.¡± ¡°Joe!?¡± said Alden, gaping at the screen. ¡°What¡¯s he doing here?¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-ONE: Made for a Saint 151 ****** ¡°Look at that guy!¡± Alden¡¯s exclamation was directed at Tiny Snake. Once again, they were alone in the hospital room together. Esh-erdi had been gone for over an hour, and Porti-loth had just left. Alden¡¯s arms, legs, torso, and face were now coated in his healing birthdirt mask. He was supposed to leave the stuff on until it stopped feeling warm, and since being slathered in muddy potion didn¡¯t allow for much activity, he sat perched on the edge of his chair while he watched footage of Joe. The current video had been filmed on Saturday afternoon. In it, the wizard stood on the roof of the very intake apartment tower that Alden had been living in until recently. Joe¡¯s eyes were focused on a colored smoke marker that someone had cast out over the ocean, and both his hands were stretched wide in front of him, manipulating a tawny-colored auriad while he chanted at a machine gun pace. <> the newsman said in Hindi. <> ¡°Why is his auriad that big?¡± Alden demanded. ¡°They come in sizes that big?!¡± <<¡ªby images like this one.>> A ton of damaged objects¡ªmachinery, office chairs, lamps¡ªsuddenly appeared high in the air above the smoke marker and dropped toward the waves. The video slowed down and zoomed in to provide a better view of the trashfall. <> ¡°That¡¯s just ridiculous! Some of the auriad isn¡¯t even being used for the spell! It¡¯s wrapped around his waist like he¡¯s too good for the whole thing!¡± Alden had spent a few hours since his return to Earth looking up examples of auriads in use. Now that he cared about this one specific tool so much, a person casting with it no longer looked like just another wizard wielding one of their umpteen wizard toys. So he had been aware that other people had larger ones. He¡¯d seen a few that looped around their owners¡¯ necks or arms more times than his own would. But he¡¯d been imagining that they maxed out at a reasonable length. ¡°Where the hell does he keep it when it¡¯s not in use?¡± he grumbled. ¡°Does he wear it around his chest like a tube top?¡± Actually¡­that would be awesome. Protecting your auriad with your authority was as natural as breathing. So if Joe did circle it around his chest over and over and wear it as a tube top, then he had body armor as strong as he was. And that¡¯s definitely strong. The falling objects hit the waves. Most of them impacted together with a dramatic splash, and the remaining ones rained down immediately after. Joe hadn¡¯t stopped casting, though. <> the newscaster said. <> They cut to an image of the street in front of intake, which had been roped-off, and a minute later, as Joe¡¯s chanting headed for a bass note, all of the objects he¡¯d just plunged into the sea reappeared there in a big pile. His shoulders dropped, and he allowed the portion of his auriad that had been in use to join the rest of it around his waist. The Avowed who¡¯d been guarding the area so that nobody would get killed by a falling hubcap sent up a few shouts of praise and thanks. Joe bowed his tattooed skull with a sort of humble nobility and then teleported away. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you and your oversized auriad just summon some lightning bolts, too?¡± Alden said. ¡°For dramatic backdrop?¡± He was enjoying ragging on the gentle, helpful creature of power that was currently inhabiting the body of the six-foot-tall mad scientist who¡¯d once offered¡­maybe jokingly¡­to pay him in bioweaponry. Truthfully, though, he was glad Joe was around. He had some questions about why Joe was around¡ªwho was teaching his classes? Was this his new parole? But he was still glad. All of the wizards who¡¯d come were doing good work, but Joe was a tireless, magical machine. How freaking strong is his authority? He had nothing on Lind-otta and Esh-erdi as far as Alden had seen, and he wasn¡¯t stopping any volcanoes. But he definitely seemed like he was rungs above most of the wizards who¡¯d arrived to help. It wasn¡¯t just that he was running all over the place without rest; it was the fact that everything he did was flashy, complicated-looking, and effective. On this channel, they had occasionally been commenting on wizards¡¯ embroidery, pointing out symbols that were known to indicate various fields of magical expertise. Joe¡¯s clothes said he was a giant nerd with high levels of achievement in at least seven different types of magic. Though exactly how high your mastery of ¡°potion transmogrification¡± had to be before you started wearing it like a badge of honor was a mystery to Alden. I could ask Stuart. Their scheduled call was today. He was hoping for it to come in soon. He had a few hours to kill before he left for the school assembly, and though he was planning to say hello to Zeridee as soon as Porti-loth gave him the go-ahead, he didn¡¯t know if that would even happen today. Conversation with a friend who isn¡¯t a corn snake would be great right now. Somebody who wasn¡¯t wrapped-up in the aftermath of everything that had happened here. Everyone Alden knew seemed to be busy with things he couldn¡¯t involve himself in. Lute was stuck down in F after ¡°hopping a police line to rescue my drunk idiot dad.¡± Alden was sure there was more to that story, but Lute seemed distracted by Cyril and the Velra family circus that had taken up residence in Aulia¡¯s penthouse while certain coastal areas were temporarily off-limits. With The Span closed, getting between the two portions of Anesidora was a lot more trouble than it had been. The High Council was still negotiating with the Triplanets and the System to see if the local teleportation allotment might be expanded even more to allow for non-essential travel. Lexi and Kon had spent most of yesterday trying to get down to F to see their family face to face. Natalie had called Alden twice, but both times she¡¯d been interrupted by other calls from people back home who were worried about her. She said her mom was trying to persuade her to not hang up ever again. ¡°I¡¯m afraid she¡¯s gonna make me buy one of those ¡®record my life¡¯ drones so she can watch me on the computer all day long from now on.¡± Someone had threatened to use her, Hadiza, and Emilija as human shields during the disaster. They were supposed to be talking to the authorities about that again today. Natalie was perky. She said they were all fine. Emilija had joined a call briefly to say they were all fine, too, except for the fact that she¡¯d had some kind of magical strength power-up and she was mad that most of the people she¡¯d tried to tell about it so far were brushing it off as a hysterical misinterpretation of an adrenaline rush. <> She¡¯d left, and Natalie had hung up on Alden shortly after. Is it strange that I¡¯m more upset about what happened to them than they are? The girls seemed to have decided that it was a few crazy people on a crazy night. He felt like it was a depressing datapoint to add to all the others he¡¯d collected recently. It made him angry and sad, and he wanted to brush it off like they were. But he could feel it being added to the dark little pile of things he was going to be forced to look at eventually. When he couldn¡¯t find anything to distract himself. Or when those two Peace of Minds had to be paid back. Those are going to hit like a truck. Followed by a bigger truck. For now, he was allowing himself to pretend the debt didn¡¯t exist. He checked the time. It was six in the morning--too early to call and bother people even if they weren¡¯t all sorting out their own lives. I could try to sort out my own. The thought came with no convenient follow-up plan. He¡¯d tried to touch base with everyone. He¡¯d received his healing treatment and drug regimen for the morning. He¡¯d learned what was up, more or less, with his current living situation. It was, of course, too generous of Esh-erdi. And he¡¯d done all of his homework. What do I do now? It would have been a perfect chance to practice some spells if not for his hand. Porti-loth had said not to move around too much while he was potion-covered. If I were someone else I could fool around with my skill, but I¡¯ve got the special one that can¡¯t be used without another person. My skill¡­ ¡°I did a new thing.¡± A major new thing at that. He¡¯d somehow managed to keep Zeridee preserved without holding her in his arms. He¡¯d borne a physical burden without bearing physical weight. It was a breakthrough he¡¯d been hoping for. If he¡¯d done it after practicing for days, if it had happened in gym, he¡¯d have been so excited and proud. Like he had been just a week ago, catching the tennis balls Big Snake had thrown and finding the mug of soup Haoyu had hidden. And he was glad to have proved Bearer was capable of it. But his pleasure was more of an intellectual checkmark than a true thrill. Emergency skill progression isn¡¯t much fun. The crisis takes all your energy, and the progress you¡¯ve made feels like just another out-of-control thing that happened to you in the middle of a hundred out-of-control things happening to you. He also didn¡¯t know how it had happened. Or if he could repeat it. Alden turned off the volume on the news and closed his eyes. All right, how is The Bearer of All Burdens doing today. Anything worth noticing? He took a long look at himself. The concept of the skill as a powerful but ugly machine¡ªone he¡¯d been tortured into the shape of¡ªlingered. He was afraid it might always linger. But it was giving up ground to the prettier, more flexible origami metaphor. Alden wondered if it would change again and again as he aged or if this one would last. Maybe people like Esh-erdi don¡¯t even bother with metaphors. Maybe they just get what they are without having to partition themselves for sanity. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Good for them if it was true, but he was sure he was nowhere near that. Nothing about the skill¡¯s shape seems different than it did on Friday. He didn¡¯t know if he¡¯d expected that kind of change or not. But it might be stronger. It definitely is. He was surprised he could tell that much definitively. It had only been a long weekend since he¡¯d taken a self glimpse, and in addition to that, he didn¡¯t think he was much good at judging strength increases when he wasn¡¯t in the process of using the skill. Right now, he could tell because the strength increase had been more skill-favored than normal. The proportion of bound-Alden to free-Alden was different than he¡¯d expected, and he felt unsettled because of it. This is a good thing, he tried to tell himself. For the bound authority¡¯s growth to outpace my free authority growth even by a little bit is good. Uncommon, too. He was sure, based on what both the Artona I kernel and Earth had told him, that it couldn¡¯t be a frequent occurrence and it wouldn¡¯t last. The free authority would catch back up and eventually surpass it, and Alden would have to affix. Let¡¯s think of more soothing things. Like how I almost drowned on Saturday and how that led me to some kind of a skill breakthrough. Eyes still closed, he tried to remember what it was he¡¯d done to keep Zeridee safe when his arms had lost their grip on her. When he couldn¡¯t figure it out, he went backward again, dragging his own memories into the light. Trying to picture the moment without having to relive it, as if that was an easy thing to do. The water rising, the candle, hoping, pushing open the door to the roof¡­giving up on hoping, giving up on Earth. Asking to use the privilege. I did that. I said yes. Now, he was glad he¡¯d been rejected. But he couldn¡¯t forget that he¡¯d done it. I said yes. And she said no. And then¡­I was going to die. A submerger particle had caught his shoe and dragged him along the roof. Over the edge. He knew there had been pain, but it was a less visceral part of the memory than the helplessness. Dragged, banging into things, accidentally letting go of Zeridee¡­not realizing I had. Not realizing I was only holding onto her with my skill. How had he done that? I have no idea. He did remember thinking that there had been a shift in the way the skill felt even before the end. He¡¯d noticed it after that earlier wave had knocked him off his feet and thrown him into the place with the peculiar chairs. He remembered being grateful that his hold on Zeridee felt more solid than it had when they¡¯d set out together. Like I was less worried about dropping her even though I was tireder, weaker, and hurt. Alden considered it for over an hour, only occasionally being distracted by a patch of his mud mask getting extra warm. He arrived at some unsettling realizations about his own state of mind during the disaster. Zeridee-und¡¯h had pressed a lot of important emotional buttons from the moment he¡¯d met her. They had saved each other¡¯s lives in the greenhouse. He had liked her, respected her, and worried about her. That all felt right, based on who she reminded him of and how she¡¯d treated him. Trying to help her had been right. But as he¡¯d carried her, as everything had gotten worse over the hours¡­at some point, dropping her had become something that wasn¡¯t even an option in the back of the back of his mind. No matter what it cost him. And he didn¡¯t know if that part felt right. Here, in this place of safety, Alden didn¡¯t think he would die for Zeridee. If someone handed her to him right now, he would try for her. And he would take risks. And he would care. But there was a sense of self-preservation to tone it all down. It wasn¡¯t like I had no sense of self-preservation when it happened, though. I didn¡¯t go insane. I wanted to live still. I just got so into bearing my burden that it felt like¡­ How did it feel? Getting it right seemed like it might be important. Like we were less separate. He remembered trying to swim toward her. He¡¯d had such a strong sense of where she was that he¡¯d thought at first he was still holding her. A gravity like the sun. And even when Esh-erdi had pulled him from the water, he hadn¡¯t been able to think of anything else but getting her back. I care about Zeridee. But I feel like drowning would normally have made me a lot more self-centered than that. ¡°Self-centered,¡± he said suddenly. What if there¡¯s no real trick to it at all. What if I was just being extremely self-centered? Artonan concept of the self. Last Monday, the skill had showed him exciting new things when he was catching the tennis balls. From that experience, he knew that The Bearer of All Burdens revealed more of what it¡­he¡­really was when he was feeling more aligned with it. He¡¯d almost fallen into a trance playing catch with Big Snake. It had been intentional in that case. Satisfying. This might have just been the same kind of thing. On hard mode. Maybe as the hours passed and things kept getting worse I was aligning my whole self with the skill more and more without even realizing it. He opened his eyes. ¡°What if my magic just started working better because I was half-dead and really dedicated?¡± Recalling exactly when he¡¯d started to feel that his hold on Zeridee was completely secure was difficult. It was after I got rolled by the wave, wasn¡¯t it? Before then, he¡¯d been more conscious of the fact that he was struggling with her. I already know Bearer is into me being burdened. It derives power from sacrifice. When I got hurt trying to carry her¡­ There was something there. A piece of the truth. Obviously the truth is that my skill was designed by alien sadists. The magic just magics better when I genuinely suffer and genuinely care about the burden I¡¯m bearing. It¡¯s a skill made for a saint. Pros: Zeridee was still alive. Cons: This was not an easily repeatable experiment. Being a saint took a huge toll on the body and mind. Alden didn¡¯t like the idea that he might have tranced himself into ultra-Bearer mode without realizing it. He didn¡¯t even know what he meant by ultra-Bearer mode. If he was his skill, then did that mean he was destined to become more like what the creators had imagined? Did he have control over that? How much did his personality affect what The Bearer of All Burdens was¡­and how much did being The Bearer of All Burdens affect who he was? He groaned and slouched in his chair, ignoring the fact that he was probably getting mud on the back of it. ¡°You¡¯re being a weirdo. Stop it.¡± Avowed had distinct personalities that differed from their affixed talents. Knights seemed to, too. He wasn¡¯t going to turn into someone who¡¯d die to protect an ice cream cone he had preserved in his pocket. Probably. Maybe. I wish¡­ He thought of knights, Avowed, his old friends, his new ones, Kibby¡­the lost concept of home. He wished for a lot of things he couldn¡¯t have. When the potion stopped developing spontaneous hot spots, he took a long shower to wash it all off. As it flowed down the drain, he found his bruises had disappeared. The smaller cuts and scrapes had become red marks that looked like they would heal and fade quickly. He was supposed to put his squishboot back on, but even without it, he could let his weight rest on his foot without wanting to curse now. The deep gash that had made his hand throb still had an ache to it when he opened and closed his fist, but the wound was sealed. Alden studied it carefully, and then to celebrate, he cast his freezing spell on the water that had pooled in the shower¡¯s soap dish. Okay fine. Esh-erdi shouldn¡¯t have bought me a dump truck full of Tennessee dirt. That was super strange behavior from someone who might be the most highly ranked person on the planet. But my fingers are working great, so I¡¯m not exactly unhappy that Esh-erdi bought me a dump truck full of Tennessee dirt. He watched the ice he¡¯d made shrink in the heat. It slid out of the dish, hit the floor beside his foot, and slipped toward the drain. ¡°Hey, System,¡± he said. ¡°Thank you for keeping the planet safe. Good job. Have you ever wished I¡¯d melt? Like an ice cube or maybe a snowflake?¡± When no answer came, he assumed this was one of the many times when talking back wouldn¡¯t benefit its purposes. He looped the auriad around his neck while he continued rinsing off. [Of course Earth doesn¡¯t feel that way about you, Alden.] He froze with one hand behind his ear. He¡¯d found some stubborn mud back there, caught in his hair. [Do take better care of yourself.] Water was running into his eyes. He was too busy staring at the interface to blink. [You¡¯re going to look so handsome in the uniform.] ¡°What? I mean¡­I¡­¡± [Remember to thank my Esh for getting it for you. And have a good day at school.] Oh. The CNH uniform. Alden laughed. A release of nerves more than amusement. When he got a handle on himself and tried to continue the conversation, there was no answer. From either of them. ****** ****** He took his time putting it on in front of the bathroom mirror. The black jacket with the double line of silver buttons was a little sober and militant, especially from a distance. He didn¡¯t think it was just memories of seeing the students wearing it at Hannah¡¯s funeral that gave him that impression. But up close, the emblem on the left side of the chest and the cut of the jacket made it look more like it belonged at a school. For cold weather, there was a longer, heavier coat in a similar style. Optional gloves. Pins for class year, honors, and clubs could be worn. And, according to the rumors, some kind of short decorative cape was coming in the future if the third years had their way. I hope that accessory will be optional, too. The clothes fit well, and the shoes Esh-erdi had acquired for him were the right size. Or at least the one that he was wearing on his uninjured foot was. Of course everything fits. I have a System profile that lists my exact measurements. When Alden had asked the knight how and why the uniform had made an appearance, the answers had all sounded so sensible. Alden had said he wanted to attend school. To do that, he needed clothes other than hospital wear. School dress was important on the Triplanets; Esh-erdi didn¡¯t want him to walk around campus inappropriately attired. And he didn¡¯t want to violate Alden¡¯s home by sending a stranger to rummage through his dorm room, either. So he¡¯d had a brand new uniform and shoes ¡°fetched.¡± As Alden took one last look at himself, he mentally added ¡°campus store employee¡± to his growing list of people who were probably confused and alarmed by wizards running errands on his behalf. I do want to go back to school. It was one of the few things he wished for that seemed small and possible. It was going really well. It was feeling like a life I was building. He wondered if other students were hoping that today¡¯s assembly would be to announce a break or an early end of term. The email had said they¡¯d be hearing about scheduling. It was almost nine. The assembly was at ten. As far as travel went, Esh-erdi had said, ¡°Do what you wish! I will find you when it¡¯s time.¡± He¡¯s not going to personally walk me into the school is he? Grabbing a quick breakfast seemed like the best way to ignore that question for a while longer and to keep Porti-loth happy. He¡¯d told Alden to ¡°eat the natural foods of your world as your body desires¡± after he was healed. He wasn¡¯t sure if that was advice or a rule. Can I really not eat imports? he wondered as he made his way out of the hospital and headed for the cafeteria. For how long? Yesterday, he¡¯d garnered confused and alarmed looks from wizards who¡¯d been under the impression that Matadero was currently an Artonans-only refuge. They were treating the cube as a green room, which was hilarious. But practical, too. Anesidora was now short on housing due to the destruction, flooding, and ongoing just-in-case evacuation orders that were in place in many locations. On top of that, the wizards were subjected to a lot of questions, scrutiny, and requests when they were out in public. Having a location that they could run away to, one humans weren¡¯t allowed to visit, was probably helping them maintain their proper wizardy behavior and discretion. Today, however, Alden was being either politely smiled at or completely ignored by everyone he met. At first, he thought they¡¯d just gotten used to him. But as he walked through the lobby of the residential section, which was now full of wizards napping or working on mysterious group projects, he got the impression that both the smiles and the ignoring were a bit too committed. Did they have a strategy meeting about how to handle my presence and decide these were the best methods? By the time he made it to the cafeteria, he was wondering why a strategy meeting like that would have been necessary in the first place. LeafSong wizards hadn¡¯t had any trouble acting Artonan-normal around him no matter what he was doing. The questions left his head as he entered the kitchen and took in the sight of the only other human living the Hotel Matadero lifestyle. ¡°Kabir?¡± he said loudly over the sound of the Indian pop music that was blasting through the kitchen. There were a couple of Artonans with their heads stuck in the refrigerator, discussing whether a trifle was three servings or four. It¡¯s clearly like twelve servings, you guys. And there was another wizard tasting a pot of tomato sauce and adding something goopy from an ornate glass bottle that didn¡¯t look like it had been made on Earth. I¡¯m not going to eat that then. Kabir was standing behind the center counter, bouncing his head while he speed sliced whole butternut squashes in time to the music. His hair was all over the place. Someone had given him wizard pants. He was singing. ¡°Alden!¡± he said happily. ¡°You need food? Everyone needs food! Petchkooooo!¡± Alden had a vague idea that petchkoo was some kind of Artonan gravy. He smiled at the chef. ¡°I guess you finally got some sleep if you feel this energetic?¡± ¡°Sleep? No!¡± Kabir used his knives to fling squash toward a baking sheet. Most of it landed. One of the fridge Artonans caught a piece that had flown wild and bit into it curiously. ¡°Monee or Mo-nee? Momomoneeee gave me something so I wouldn¡¯t feel stressed out anymore! It¡¯s amazing!¡± Alden looked from the squash to the half-frosted layer cake beside the squash to the literal bucket of beans soaking on the floor. ¡°But¡­did you even try to sleep?¡± ¡°No! Don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s okay! I¡¯m not going to work for Ms. Velra anymore. Momonenee loves my croutons. I¡¯ll work for her! Him! That person!¡± ¡°Croutons are good¡­¡± Alden said slowly. ¡°But potions that keep you from sleeping are less good¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m okay! I¡¯m a Brute!¡± Kabir said brightly. ¡°Nobody¡¯s that much of a Brute, man.¡± ¡°Do you want some shufta? It¡¯s over there.¡± He pointed behind him with a knife, moving so fast that Alden was worried Kabir was going to accidentally murder the woman playing with the tomato sauce. Do I need to find a responsible person to push his off button? Maybe Porti-loth? We could tuck him into a safe bed somewhere before I go to school. He was just about to text the healer and ask if anyone was aware that the in-house chef was being excessively helped by the hungry aliens, when a new hungry alien walked in. He looked slightly grimy and more than slightly ill-tempered as he headed for the fridge and started snatching out sandwiches to stuff into his pockets. ¡°What kind of fruit is good here?¡± he grumbled in Artonan to the man who was sticking his finger in the trifle dish. ¡°All the ones I¡¯ve tried are delights. There are crates in the living¡ª¡± ¡°Joe!¡± Alden exclaimed. He was surprised by how excited he felt to have run into the professor here. A familiar face. They could talk about stuff. A few subtle questions about magic. Lots about Kibby. Alden could ask how all the assistants he¡¯d rescued were doing now that they lived on¡ª Back still turned to him, Joe slowly straightened. He had a plastic wrapped hoagie in one hand. ¡°Hey, Joe!¡± Alden said in Artonan, as Joe rotated to look at him. ¡°I was just watching you on television.¡± ¡°My goodness.¡± Joe swallowed. ¡°Alden. Dear. How are you? So wonderful to see you again, but I really need to save some more poor Avowed of your species. Excuse me. Have a nice week. Bye.¡± And then, while Alden was trying to understand the strange greeting, Worli Ro-den ran away. ***** ***** ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-TWO: A Sharp Break 152 ****** ¡°That¡¯s funny!¡± said Kabir, his knives still chopping squash in time to the music. ¡°It almost looked like The Bald General ran away from you!¡± Alden¡¯s astonishment was so complete that he stood there with a mind gone blank, gaping at the spot Joe had vacated. One of the mounds of sandwiches in the fridge, unbalanced by the wizard¡¯s rummaging, slowly collapsed sideways onto the bare section of shelf where the trifle had been stored. I was being friendly. Why on Earth would he run from me? It had been more of a jog than a full run. But the intention was still really obvious. He¡¯s Joe. Superior Professor Worli Ro-den. Multilingual schmoozer. Clever, confident, and a little criminal¡ªan Artonan who¡¯d managed to be likable on Alden¡¯s very first day as an Avowed, when he was so nervous he couldn¡¯t even bring himself to argue with someone like Bti-qwol. Alden and Joe¡¯s dynamic had been different when they¡¯d talked back in September. During that one late-night call, Joe hadn¡¯t been quite so larger than life. Alden had been¡­changed. Tireder. Better informed. But the call hadn¡¯t been bad. Joe had clearly been uneasy when he picked up the phone, but they¡¯d joked around a little in the end. I told him I didn¡¯t think he¡¯d made a bad gamble. I told him I liked the lab coat. I told him I¡¯d stood up for him with Alis-art¡¯h. He narrowed his eyes. ¡°That man¡¯s no hn¡¯tyon, Kabir,¡± he said, accidentally speaking in Artonan because he was thinking so hard about a member of the species. ¡°His name is Master Worli Ro-den.¡± Alden, my darling Rabbit! So happy that we¡¯ll be working together. What a nice, nice skill you have! You¡¯re my savior¡­. You may call me Joe. Irritation born of half a dozen less nameable feelings stirred inside him. ¡°You know, I don¡¯t think Worli Ro-den is allowed to run away from me.¡± The two wizards by the fridge exchanged one-eyed glances. Alden¡¯s bag swung as he whirled, and his squishboot squeaked against the hard floor. He strode out of the kitchen. He was going to catch that jerk. He didn¡¯t ask himself what he intended to do once the jerk was caught. He didn¡¯t even know why he wanted to catch him, exactly. It wasn¡¯t like he¡¯d been desperate to talk to Joe. But he had been pleased to run into someone who knew something about him. About Kibby. The lab. His skill. What had happened to him. What he''d seen there. I could say so much more, but I just wanted to say hi. Inside his head¡­ No, the truth was located in some place more primal than that. Ro-den was a powerful, sneaky, Artonan genius who would probably have a whole flock of amazing Avowed running errands for him again before Alden graduated from high school. But Alden suddenly had a certainty within himself that Joe owed him just a little bit more than that dismissal. A few minutes of his time. Not ¡°have a nice week.¡± Not ¡°I really need to save some more poor Avowed.¡± A few friendly minutes. Alden was almost across the cafeteria. Several Artonans were spread throughout the room, enjoying whatever meal this was to them. Joe was stuck waiting for the elevator. When Alden stopped beside him, the professor didn¡¯t react at all. He was making a show of examining a large black claw through his monocle. Since Alden had just seen him pull the claw from one of the pockets of his salmon-colored pants and wipe what looked like mayonnaise off of it, he doubted it was a precious item that would suffer from the absence of Joe¡¯s focus. ¡°Good morning, Joe,¡± Alden said in Artonan. ¡°How have you been?¡± ¡°Quite busy,¡± Joe responded in English. The note of alarm from just moments ago was now gone from his voice. It had been replaced by brusqueness. Alden¡¯s irritation grew. ¡°Busy? Me too. But earlier I realized you were here on Earth. And I thought, ¡®That¡¯s exciting. I wonder if we¡¯ll get to see each other.¡¯ It¡¯s lucky that we¡¯ve met so soon.¡± ¡°Not as lucky as you think. I¡¯m heading to my room to draft a proposal for the Grand Senate. A more efficient and cheaper plan for tidying up this little spill than the one they¡¯re currently considering.¡± Joe was studying that claw like his life depended on it. ¡°No time to chat. Maybe some other day.¡± The elevator arrived. A quartet of wizards was inside, having a conversation that stopped as soon as they saw the two of them standing there. Alden wasn¡¯t sure if it was his fault or Joe¡¯s. As soon as his fellow Artonans exited, Joe slipped in. ¡°I think I¡¯ll go upstairs, too.¡± So much annoyance leaked into Alden¡¯s voice this time that he registered it himself, and it made him pause. Crap. What am I doing demanding attention from this guy? I shouldn¡¯t care about this. Sure, there are some things I could talk to him about and tell him. And he¡¯s being rude for no reason, but that doesn¡¯t mean I need to be an even bigger¡ª ¡°Have you eaten?¡± Joe asked. ¡°No,¡± said Alden, startled by the question coming out of nowhere. ¡°I was about to when¡ª¡± ¡°Then you have no business pestering me when a dining place full of human treats awaits you.¡± Joe had finally looked up from the claw. The two of them were eye-to-eye as the doors started to close. ¡°Stay here.¡± The words held zero of his usual schmooze. They were cold. Imperious. The thought that Joe might really be angry for some reason hit Alden, and his stomach clenched with a very particular type of nervousness. It was strong, but not strong enough to snuff out the fresh flare of his own anger that came with it. He thrust an arm between the doors just before they shut and bulled through to glare at the man. ¡°Why are you being so¡­what¡¯s wrong with you?¡± he demanded the second they were alone. The car began to rise. ¡°It depends on who you ask,¡± Joe muttered, shoving his claw back into a pocket and staring at the floor number like he was willing it to move faster. ¡°Are you mad at me?¡± Alden couldn¡¯t fathom why he would be. ¡°Are you mad at me?¡± Joe didn¡¯t answer. Oh my god. Is he giving me the silent treatment? Really? This is insane. I can¡¯t believe¡ª ¡°What do you want from me, Alden?¡± Now, he sounded neutral. It was the third major mood shift since they¡¯d run into one another. ¡°I¡¯m confused by you right now. What do you mean what do I want?¡± Then something occurred to him. ¡°Did Esh-erdi tell you not to talk to me? When we saw you on television earlier¡ª¡± ¡°Why were you watching television with him? What did he¡­?¡± Joe¡¯s lips thinned. ¡°No. It¡¯s irrelevant.¡± He suddenly started pressing the buttons for all the floors above them. ¡°I suppose a conversation must be had since you insist on it, but there¡¯s no need for it to be an extended one,¡± he said. ¡°You can talk to me about unsecret matters until we are interrupted. Or until we reach the top floor of the residential section, where I will sleep in a tiny little cupboard of a room and try to avoid dreams that remind me of the uniquely miserable place I¡¯m at in my life.¡± The elevator chimed as they stopped on the next floor. The line of buttons glowed. Alden turned to face forward instead of staring directly at Joe. ¡°So¡­what? I¡¯m only worth twenty floors of your time?¡± His anger had been punctured. It was taking his energy and certainty with it as it left. The doors shut again. ¡°Nineteen now,¡± Joe said mildly. ¡°What do you want from me?¡± ¡°Nothing.¡± ¡°You¡¯re very persistent for someone who wants nothing.¡± The doors opened. Another empty hallway stretched in front of them. ¡°I wanted to say hello to you,¡± Alden said. ¡°I wanted you to say hello back. I was happy to see you. I wanted you to be¡­to act how you usually do. My mistake.¡± They rose another floor without Joe answering.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Alden felt off-balance. Stupid. He wished he hadn¡¯t followed after Joe in a huff and that he hadn¡¯t just admitted all he really wanted from the man was a little bit of personality and familiarity. Just take care of any business you can think of and get the hell away from him for now, he told himself. Maybe he¡¯s only being the universe¡¯s biggest bastard because he¡¯s been putting on the Bald General Joe Show and hasn¡¯t slept in days. What business did he have with this harsh, unwelcoming version of Joe? ¡°Have you heard from Kivb-ee?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Twice. I sent her appropriate messages congratulating her on her new path and apologizing for my failures with regard to the care of her and her family. I will visit her when she returns from Thegund and say all the same things in person. She¡¯s rather¡­I will probably need to make a point of meeting her new instructors and handing her over to them for her education.¡± ¡°To give her a sharp break from you?¡± ¡°The formality of it will appeal to her.¡± It would. A ritual of some kind. Something that would give her permission to leave Joe in the dust where he belonged and get starry-eyed about a sweet, patient teacher like Gwen-lor. ¡°Good,¡± said Alden. ¡°How are your assistants?¡± ¡°Only a couple of them remain in my service. The others have found fulfilling positions elsewhere.¡± Joe¡¯s clothes rustled against the wall of the elevator as he shifted. ¡°All of them will live long, safe lives.¡± Alden absorbed that. Is there anything else I should ask? There was so much else. But a hundred elevator rides wouldn¡¯t cover it, and Joe had specified unsecret. And Alden didn¡¯t actually want to talk to him about things that mattered when he was in this foul mood. He tried to order me to stay downstairs...like he had some right to do that. Another chime. Doors sliding. ¡°Well, thanks,¡± Alden said, switching to English. ¡°I¡¯ll get off here. I guess I didn¡¯t need twenty floors after all.¡± They¡¯d arrived at a hallway where one of the residents had opted to improve the decor. The harsh white overhead lights were off, and knee-high fixtures shone soft red. It smelled like pine-scented cleaner. Alden made a point of stepping out of the car casually. Of not looking back. ¡°See you later,¡± he said, keeping his eyes pointed straight ahead toward a section of empty gray wall washed with reddish light. He waited for the sound of the elevator leaving. And kept waiting¡­ Instead, he heard a heavy exhalation. ¡°I would say that we are unlikely to meet again,¡± Joe said. ¡°But we should have been unlikely to meet this time. A few days ago, I couldn¡¯t have imagined a scenario that would lead me to encounter you here. And I don¡¯t have a feeble imagination.¡± When Alden turned back around, he saw Joe holding the elevator open with an arm. ¡°Instead, I will say that if we meet again, especially if we meet in public, I will have only have empty pleasantries for you. Though it isn¡¯t my first choice, that will be the nature of our relationship. If there¡¯s something you want to demand of me, now is your only opportunity. I suggest you pluck it before the vine withers.¡± I don¡¯t understand. Or he did. But what he was realizing now was so far outside any expectations he might have had for a meeting with Joe, and so surprisingly upsetting, that he didn¡¯t want to understand it. ¡°Perhaps you need an apology,¡± Joe suggested. ¡°Or you desire another conversation like the ones we had together during your service at the university.¡± Shut up, you dick. ¡°The first you can have, if you¡¯ll tell me what things you would like me to apologize for. The second won¡¯t be happening. For reasons that should be obvious.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want an apology. I don¡¯t want¡­¡± Another lesson. There were questions he could ask, but encouraging Joe to take a really close look at him for an extended period of time probably wasn¡¯t smart. Definitely wasn¡¯t, if this was how things were going to be. I already told him what I wanted. He either doesn¡¯t believe me, or he¡¯s just ignoring it. ¡°I don¡¯t want a transaction,¡± Alden said. ¡°That¡¯s probably for the best. I don¡¯t have much left to sell these days. At least one of my students thinks I¡¯m so pitiable that I can¡¯t be trusted to crawl out of this <> on my own.¡± Joe¡¯s brows drew down and together and he muttered to himself, ¡°I don¡¯t think he likes me personally. Maybe he believes my shame is so great that it tarnishes our school. Or our entire species. Such a baffling creature.¡± Poor you. ¡°You¡¯re in even deeper shit than before, and you never want to see me again.¡± Alden spoke to the space over Joe¡¯s bald, blue-lined head. ¡°I¡¯m inconvenient. You¡¯re scared of Esh-erdi and the Quaternary. Everyone¡¯s mad at you. I get it. Your life is hard.¡± ¡°My life isn¡¯t your¡­¡± Joe trailed off, then sighed again. ¡°Take honesty as my apology, then. You¡¯re an unusually likable young person, Alden. When we last parted ways, I anticipated many future meetings with you. To our mutual benefit. Our situations are different now.¡± Obviously, thought Alden. ¡°The hn¡¯tyon did send out a memo about you, but it was only advising everyone that you were a personal guest of his here for healing, not a servant or an information source. No one had to tell me not to talk to you for me to know that the best thing for both of us is, as you call it, ¡®a sharp break.¡¯¡± ¡°Just like that? After¡­all the stuff that happened?¡± ¡°Being friendly with you only reminds people of our connection and increases the impression some of them have that I took advantage of a guileless youth.¡± He paused. ¡°It would also make them wonder what could possibly be so interesting about you that I would risk the deepening of their poor opinions in order to maintain a relationship.¡± Oh. ¡°But...don¡¯t I get a say at all?¡± Alden asked. ¡°In how things go between us.¡± ¡°No,¡± Joe said firmly. Alden frowned at him. And his stupid monocle. And his pockets full of snacks. ¡°I always reach for one more prize,¡± said Joe. ¡°Even when my hands are full. It¡¯s how things get broken. Take it as a sign of my gratitude and my respect for you that I will not reach for you again.¡± Respect? ¡°I¡¯m not a prize,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m a person.¡± ¡°My apologies. It wasn¡¯t the best phrasing. And¡­one last thing¡­¡± Sure. Why not? How much shittier can this reunion get? ¡°That chat we had while you were drinking iced tea,¡± said Joe. Iced tea? Alden¡¯s eyes widened. Lesson One. Is he going to talk about that here and now? ¡°I¡­might have given you some flawed advice. Reaching for one more prize is my bad habit. That doesn¡¯t mean it should be yours.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°My sincere best opinion at the time was based on assumptions about how your future would play out. And my own likely role in shaping it. With how things have changed, you really should consider another course for yourself.¡± Then, as if he¡¯d said nothing all that momentous, Joe smiled at him for the first time since they¡¯d run into each other. A bright, familiar grin. Alden couldn¡¯t appreciate it. ¡°Just look at you!¡± said Joe. The sudden cheer in his voice was as sincere-seeming as ever. ¡°I hardly need to worry about you finding a good way forward without me, do I? You¡¯ve earned an extraordinary commendation from Hn¡¯tyon Alis-art¡¯h. That comes with attention from the sorts of wizards I couldn¡¯t possibly steal your time from.¡± Had he emphasized the word ¡®attention?¡¯ If he had, it had been so subtle that Alden couldn¡¯t be sure. ¡°You¡¯re a hard worker, Alden darling. And I see you¡¯ve ended up in a <>. Take better care of yourself.¡± He dropped his arm to let the elevator go. ¡°We part ways here. Good luck. Take the easy road for a few decades, won¡¯t you? I recommend a vacation.¡± That¡¯s it? He really means for this to be it? Only a sliver of Joe was visible through the gap in the doors. ¡°I took a vacation,¡± Alden said flatly. ¡°There was a Hawaiian shirt and everything.¡± ****** ****** ¡°I¡¯m glad you have a new hobby, Esh.¡± Lind-otta sat in one of the chairs by the window in their shared suite, leaning over her knees while she tapped a short wand to each of her bare toes to apply a massage spell. ¡°But are you sure your efforts to help him aren¡¯t overwhelming him?¡± ¡°What have I done that¡¯s overwhelming?¡± She looked over. Esh-erdi was sitting on the sofa, intently focused on a ring in the palm of his hand. When Lind linked their interfaces, she saw copies of the eight different information displays floating in the air in front of him. ¡°You¡¯re walking around with an image of the boy¡¯s skeleton in your right peripheral vision.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not as though he knows that! The bones in his foot are still healing. I¡¯ve never monitored a human¡¯s healing process. What if something goes wrong before it finishes?¡± Esh smiled at the ring, then closed his fist around it and sat back. ¡°And I see you¡¯re still attempting to study every preservation warp ever registered,¡± Lind added. ¡°Is this a book on human affixation theory? I didn¡¯t know any good ones had been written yet.¡± Esh¡¯s face contorted. ¡°This one isn¡¯t good. And identifying the origin of his main talent at this point in his development, with only the information provided, is needlessly difficult. It could be so many different ones.¡± ¡°The obscuration of origins prevents several types of abuse,¡± Lind said. ¡°And the self is more private than a skeleton. I seem to remember you voting on many occasions to limit summoner access to exactly the sort of information you want now.¡± ¡°Yes, but I want to pry into him for the right reasons.¡± He pressed a knuckle to his lips while he stared at the material displayed in front of him. ¡°This is awful. I don¡¯t have time to go through all of the horrific possibilities. I might ask Mother.¡± ¡°That¡¯s too much. Let him grow his current abilities normally.¡± ¡°But what if they¡¯re poorly designed or depressing?¡± ¡°He can still make something of his own out of them. And you said you liked it.¡± ¡°I did like it! He used it to deliver an und¡¯h to me. And hot and cold food. But what if he has been bound for the rest of his existence to a half-considered graduation project created by someone from a bad school?¡± Lind stretched her legs out and wiggled her toes. ¡°Maybe you can find a good secondary power to recommend. Or focus on the spell impressions available to him. Those are much more identifiable.¡± Esh-erdi crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the skeleton. ¡°If he¡¯s overwhelmed by me, then it¡¯s only because he¡¯s been undercared for by everyone else. I have provided him with healing, clothing, and calls. Not great luxuries.¡± ¡°Did you bring up the healing of the mind again?¡± He dismissed a few of the floating images with a thought and rearranged the others. ¡°Not yet. But I have enacted plans.¡± ****** ****** Was it crazy of me? Alden wondered, sitting on the floor in the hall with the red lighting, staring down at his hands as they pinched a sharp point into a piece of green and gold origami paper. Was it wrong to expect more from Joe? Clearly, the answer was yes. I¡¯ll just put it back right in my head then. He set aside the paper plane he¡¯d folded and reached for another sheet. Worli Ro-den needed a quick way to fix a situation he and a bunch of other jerks created. There I came, gift-wrapped and willing. I agreed to do a job. I got paid for it. Period. End of relationship. It didn¡¯t matter what he told himself, though. He still felt like he¡¯d been slapped in the face and set adrift. Joe¡¯s reasoning was fine. ¡°It will cause both of us problems if we¡¯re seen together¡± was a fine reason for them not to be seen together. But it wasn¡¯t like he¡¯d seen fit to present that reasoning before Alden had forced the issue. He¡¯d decided on his own that the right course of action was to cut Alden out of his life, and Alden hadn¡¯t even been important enough to rate a real goodbye. And that final advice¡­ Forget everything I told you, Alden. Forget that I changed your life. I¡¯m in hot water, and I can¡¯t manage you now. So it¡¯s inconvenient for me if you chase after a noteworthy power and people start to notice. Abort the quest for exceptionality. Go take a nice laundry skill instead. ¡°Too late,¡± he muttered. ¡°I am a little late,¡± said a voice in Artonan. Alden looked up from his folding to see Esh-erdi walking down the hall toward him. Where did he come from? Is there a staircase I don¡¯t know about? ¡°Are you ready for school?¡± He stopped beside Alden. ¡°Yes! Thank you.¡± ¡°What are these?¡± He bent to pick up one of the miniature paper planes Alden was gathering. ¡°Just something to distract me,¡± said Alden. ¡°Paper flyers.¡± Esh-erdi brightened immediately. ¡°How perfect! I¡¯m about to teach you how to fly.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°To school,¡± said Esh-erdi, holding out a ring on the palm of his hand. ¡°I thought it would be fun.¡± ¡°Is that the ring that controls the platform you used to rescue me?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Yes. I¡¯ve modified it so that it will work for you.¡± He looked pleased with himself. Alden took the ring. That was nice of him. And this is a good distraction. ¡°We¡¯ll need to rush to get you to your assembly on time,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for that.¡± ¡°That¡¯s okay.¡± Alden ran his thumb along the edge of the ring. ¡°You said I could ask you for things if I needed them. It¡¯s not something I need¡­¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°I was told it was possible to get rid of portions of contract tattoos,¡± said Alden. ¡°Once their terms had been completed. Just the parts that weren''t active anymore.¡± ¡°It is.¡± ¡°Would you help me do that? I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s a lot of trouble.¡± ¡°The one on your chest?¡± Esh-erdi asked. He had seen it just this morning while Porti-loth was painting Alden with the mud. Alden nodded. ¡°You want it gone?¡± ¡°I really do.¡± ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-THREE: Galleta 153 ****** ¡°It will fade now,¡± Esh-erdi said simply, withdrawing his authority. The matter had been dealt with in seconds. Esh-erdi had confirmed that Alden wanted the whole tattoo gone except for the concentric triangles that represented the still-active pact for secrecy. Then, the knight¡¯s power had touched him. I wasn¡¯t wrong about how strong he is, Alden thought. Profoundly strong. It wasn¡¯t a large, comprehensible strength, like Lute¡¯s, but a power so much more than Alden himself that it didn¡¯t even invite comparison. He felt like an ant that had just been patted on the head by a mountain. Every time he¡¯d been in the presence of a mighty presence the experience had been different. Gorgon had given him that stare that had kicked off the brain-unspooling, epiphanic ecstasy. The Primary had asked Alden those questions and peered into his being, thanks to Stuart feeling the need to compliment him on some quality of his authority. And on Thegund, Alis-art¡¯h had held him together like a pair of hands wrapped around a broken statuette, keeping all the pieces in place. In this case, despite his sudden awareness of the immensity of Esh-erdi¡¯s authority, the actual touch had been brief and light as a whisper. Alden had a fleeting fear of discovery; but he held still, and it was over as soon as it had begun. At almost the same moment Esh-erdi¡¯s authority backed off, the tattoo on his chest tingled. It was the first time he¡¯d felt a physical sensation from it since Joe had asked to modify the terms right before their final lesson. Guess that was our final, final lesson. It was fine. There was no reason for him to feel like garbage. ¡°That was so fast,¡± he said. Esh-erdi had traded out his three-braid hairstyle for a single, over-the-shoulder ponytail. It was wrapped with metallic bands that reflected the red light in the hallway. ¡°I was pleased to do it. If you think of any other troubles or wants¡­?¡± He sounded hopeful. Alden stood there, staring down at the ring Esh-erdi had given him. It was narrow and made of the same translucent green material as the nonagon. Four tiny logograms were etched onto it, evenly spaced around the outside. When Alden slid it over the index finger of his right hand, it expanded to fit. ¡°You must think it was stupid of me,¡± he said. ¡°To have formed a private contract with that person.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t judge your choice when I don¡¯t know what the terms of the agreement were, what you thought to be true at the time, and what < > he may have applied.¡± He paused, then added, ¡°I do have more than enough knowledge of Ro-den¡¯s errors to judge him, and I judge him to be selfish, <>, and arrogant. Unforgivably so for a wizard of his age and <> intelligence.¡± That bad, huh? ¡°Thank you for removing the mark.¡± ¡°The ink will <> quickly. I¡¯m so good at breaking things.¡± He brightened. ¡°Let¡¯s go to your school! I¡¯ve checked, and none of it is destroyed.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a relief.¡± ¡°Would you like to take the sssnake with you? It may want fresh air. We could go get it.¡± Alden smiled. ¡°No. That¡¯s okay. People don¡¯t usually take snakes to school.¡± Esh-erdi led the way to the elevator. ¡°¡°I¡¯ll be busy for most of the day, but if our schedules align, perhaps you could give me a tour of your campus.¡± ¡°Sure. Yes¡­that sounds¡­¡± Alarming. What was Alden going to do with a tourist knight? Where would he even take one? What would people think? ¡°I hope our flight there will take your mind off whatever worries you,¡± Esh-erdi said. ¡°It¡¯s such a relaxing way to travel.¡± ****** Alden thought there was a chance that the flying platform he was on was really called The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him. Esh-erdi, who¡¯d taken the ring back temporarily, was demonstrating how to drive it. The sky was partly cloudy, but the sun was peeking through now. There was very little air traffic between the island and the cube, and Alden doubted there was any sea traffic that wasn¡¯t involved in cleaning up the spill. So they had the route all to themselves. He sat in the center, right beside Esh-erdi, and wondered about the name as they zipped toward Anesidora fast enough that the wind was making his face numb. On one hand, ¡°mother-forsaken¡± was shorter in Artonan. It could be conveyed with a single logogram. On the other, Alden thought it might be a curse word, and Esh-erdi was working it into the conversation much more often than seemed necessary. ¡°And that¡¯s how you command The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him!¡± he announced, extending his arm to increase the speed yet again. ¡°It¡¯s all sensible. Just remember that to rise, you point the ring down, and to fall, you hold your thumb against the ¡®soothe¡¯ symbol. Like this!¡± Alden had learned within the first few seconds of their journey what to expect from the knight¡¯s driving. They¡¯d gone up to the roof of Matadero, where Alden, anticipating a gentle experience like he¡¯d gotten when he and Zeridee were rescued, had tried standing on the platform. Only to find himself a centimeter from falling over the edge as they rocketed forward. The person wearing the driver¡¯s ring could glue themselves in place by making sure the ring was correctly rotated on their finger. Passengers were on their own. Now, he was better prepared, but he still yelped when the magical craft dropped toward the surface of the ocean.He felt like he was leaving his stomach behind him. ¡°Are you ready to try?¡± Esh-erdi asked as soon as they leveled out over the water again. Is he kidding? It was a zoomy magic toy. Of course Alden wanted to try it. ¡°Make sure you speak its name,¡± Esh-erdi said before he passed the ring over. ¡°To show it respect.¡± Alden felt his lips working. He tried to keep his grin respectful just in case this wasn¡¯t a joke. ¡°Is that its real name?¡± ¡°Why would I give it a false one?¡± the knight asked. I just can¡¯t tell, Alden thought, trying to interpret the Artonan¡¯s facial expression. ¡°All right,¡± he said, slipping the ring onto his own finger. ¡°Let¡¯s go, Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him.¡± The platform dipped and rose, glided and stopped, and he started to get the hang of it. When it came to taking your mind off the morning¡¯s disappointments, learning to fly was hard to beat. Even two days ago, while Alden had been half-dead and exhausted in the wake of his rescue, he¡¯d thought, This is a cool flying nonagon. I wish I had a flying nonagon. And he was sure anyone who wasn¡¯t acrophobic or anti-magic would have thought exactly the same thing. It was big enough to carry a few people. You could see through it. You drove it by pointing your finger. It flew. Does it do loop-the-loops? he wondered as he extended his arm to increase the speed. I want it to do loop-the-loops. Dropping Esh-erdi into the ocean wouldn¡¯t be a great way to repay him for the new experience, though. I mean, he¡¯s strong. He could just hold onto the edge. Or to me. He had a sudden mental image of himself saying, ¡°Hold onto me, Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi. We really have to do a flip now. Because.¡± Letting go of that idea took him longer than it should have. The wind whipped around him, and the air smelled clean. The nonagon responded to every twitch of his finger. Flying the platform was just challenging enough to seem like a game, and for a few minutes, Alden lost himself in the process of changing speed, adjusting course, and directing them higher or lower according to his own whim. Other than pointing out that they had turned too far to the south once, Esh-erdi seemed content to be quiet and enjoy the ride. Alden completely forgot to wonder whether or not the waves below him were still carrying Sinker Sender particles, and he almost forgot to feel shitty because of the meeting with Joe. When he spotted Anesidora on the horizon, though, he suddenly remembered something else. ¡°The contract tattoo!¡± he exclaimed. ¡°Do you have another you want gone?¡± ¡°No.¡± Alden pulled his hand back toward his torso to slow them down. They were only about six meters above the waves at the moment. ¡°I mean the Matadero contract tattoo. The one I¡¯m supposed to get so that I can¡¯t talk about what I¡¯ve seen at the cube. We forgot it.¡± Esh-erdi looked up from polishing one of his other numerous rings. ¡°I didn¡¯t forget.¡± ¡°I definitely did.¡± What a strange coincidence to be getting another one less than an hour after asking someone to remove part of his first. ¡°If we¡¯re going to do it now¡ª¡± Esh-erdi made a flapping gesture with one hand. The meaning of it wasn¡¯t very clear. ¡°We¡¯ll do it later. When your thoughts are clearer and you aren¡¯t on your way to school. We don¡¯t have a reason to rush.¡± Alden slowed them down even more, until they were almost hovering rather than flying. ¡°We don¡¯t? I¡¯m leaving Matadero, though. I¡¯m about to be surrounded by people.¡± ¡°Please don¡¯t give those people any details about the cube,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°I won¡¯t,¡± said Alden. ¡°Of course. On my phone calls, I was careful not to even say that I was staying there.¡± ¡°You may tell people that much.¡± ¡°But¡­¡± Esh-erdi didn¡¯t do him the favor of filling the silence. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be more worried about me making a mistake?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Are you going to make a mistake?¡± Esh-erdi¡¯s tone was calm.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. No, thought Alden. But what if I were an irresponsible person who¡ª? As if to prove how unconcerned he was, Esh-erdi lay back on the platform and rested his hands on his stomach. ¡°You¡¯re mature enough to practice < >. And I don¡¯t doubt your honesty. We¡¯ll contract you to secrecy eventually because you aren¡¯t <> to the <> of others.¡± Esh-erdi smiled up at a cloud. ¡°But I prefer that we take our time for that and discuss the matter together carefully. And I don¡¯t want you to miss your school meeting! So, for now, I trust your word.¡± Alden stared down at the knight. Just like that then? ¡°And I¡¯ve ordered the Contract to teleport you to me immediately if someone attempts to violate your thoughts,¡± Esh-erdi announced. ¡°Uh¡­okay. That¡¯s an option?¡± ¡°I had to insist a little,¡± Esh-erdi said. ¡°If it happens, I¡¯ll be <> about the expense. It doesn¡¯t seem likely though, does it?¡± It didn¡¯t. Alden looked toward the hazy blur that was the island. ¡°If anyone asks, I¡¯ll tell them I¡¯m already sworn to secrecy,¡± he decided, pressing his hand forward so that they picked up speed again. ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll even ask. If I tell people I was getting healed on Matadero, they¡¯ll just assume there¡¯s nothing else I can say.¡± ¡°Blaming healers excuses all sorts of behavior,¡± said Esh-erdi in the tone of a person who spoke from experience. ¡°And Porti-loth is <>. Anybody who has met him will believe anything you do might be a result of his instructions.¡± True. ¡°What about all the other stuff I know?¡± ¡°Keep flying,¡± Esh-erdi instructed. ¡°We¡¯ll talk about it.¡± ****** For the next several minutes, Alden¡¯s head was full of nonagon piloting and the surprisingly difficult job of convincing Esh-erdi that he should be given conversational ground rules beyond, ¡°Use your good judgment and your knowledge of society¡¯s <>!¡± when it came to things like whether or not he should mention being a witness to multiple Avowed deaths. They¡¯d finally covered the Bash-nor/Zeridee/dead people situation to Alden¡¯s satisfaction, and they were about a mile and a half out from Apex when he suddenly got a call from SkySea Traffic Control labeled [UNLAWFUL NOT TO RESPOND]. ¡°Hello?¡± he said after answering it. He heard a slurping noise and what he thought were aggressive keyboard clicks, then a woman¡¯s voice started talking in Spanish so quickly that Alden had trouble reading the translations fast enough to keep up. <> ¡°I don¡¯t have a flying license,¡± said Alden. <> Alden looked at the city ahead of him, then down at the knight who was offering zero input. ¡°I¡¯m flying Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi from Matadero to Apex?¡± The stream of words stopped. There was another slurp. The clicking on the probable keyboard slowed. <> the traffic person said at last. That¡­works. Doesn¡¯t it? ¡°I am the big green galleta¡¯s driver,¡± he confirmed. <> ¡°Celena North,¡± Alden said, holding back a wince. He hadn¡¯t had time to think through important questions like, Where exactly do I park the extremely conspicuous flying device with the extremely conspicuous Artonan so that I become less conspicuous? <> She ended the call. A moment later, an overlay and miniature map appeared on Alden¡¯s interface, and he spent a couple of minutes hovering and figuring out what he was allowed to do. Is it this strict on a normal day? ¡°You were about to ask me another question,¡± Esh-erdi reminded him. ¡°Before you called The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him a human pastry.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t apologize to me.¡± Esh-erdi patted the nonagon between them. He¡¯s so messing with me. Alden thought while he apologized to their aircraft with as much sincerity as he could muster. How does this person have time to mess with me? Before the call had come in, Alden had been trying to pin down what he should say about Esh-erdi and Lind-otta rescuing him, if that came up today at school. Normally, his plan would¡¯ve been to let his salvation go completely unmentioned or brush over it for the sake of his sanity. It had been on the spectacular side, after all, and he didn¡¯t enjoy being a spectacle. But as Alden started to form questions, he kept running into a wrinkle he hadn¡¯t expected. They saved my life. Isn¡¯t coming up with ways to act like it was no big deal, just for my own comfort, kind of diminishing what they did? Esh-erdi and Lind-otta didn¡¯t need praise from one random teenager they¡¯d plucked from the water, but the more Alden thought about it, the more he felt like an ass for even worrying about how much people were going to irritate him if they found out there was a story about Artonan generals to be had. Esh-erdi would probably tell him to do whatever was best for himself if he asked about downplaying what had happened, but Alden didn¡¯t think he should let himself be the kind of jerk who chose his own convenience over giving gratitude where it was deserved. I was about to drown. It hurt. I was terrified. They pulled me out of it. It was different than not telling people about the Quaternary¡¯s help. If he even tried to explain how she¡¯d assisted him, he¡¯d be opening a giant can of worms. This was simpler. Everyone already knew the knights were around Anesidora and that they were using their magic to fix things. Esh-erdi¡¯s flying cookie was even recognizable. To traffic control at least. The knights are strangely adept at not being filmed in the act of using their magic though. Alden let the nonagon move forward again toward Apex, keeping it slow. He only had a short while to get to the assembly, so he was going to have to floor it soon. But he was reframing his thoughts and his question, and what he wanted to ask now was important. Not just for the next few hours of his life. But in the longterm. ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi¡­¡± ¡°You¡¯re using the title.¡± He was still looking up at the sky. ¡°Is the question such a serious one?¡± They were approaching the ruin of Punta de La Luna. The boardwalk, the cottages, the ambassadorial mansion¡ªthey only existed in Alden¡¯s memory now. I could wait and ask Stuart when I go for a visit¡­but it would be better to ask Esh-erdi as well. Stuart might have a different perspective. They were still out here over the water, away from drones. And Alden doubted anyone within miles of them had the combination of guts, talent, and knowledge they¡¯d need to spy on Esh-erdi. ¡°I think asking you this might be rude, but I don¡¯t know how to find out without taking the risk,¡± said Alden. ¡°I apologize if it is.¡± ¡°I hope the question horrifies me since you¡¯re apologizing for it before it¡¯s even spoken.¡± I don¡¯t know. It might horrify you. For another moment, he debated asking as delicately as possible versus just asking. He settled on the second, based on how he imagined it would make him feel if someone else was going to bring it up. ¡°It seems like the fact that a hn¡¯tyon¡¯s authority is bound into a skill is never mentioned,¡± said Alden, staring straight ahead. ¡°Even on the Triplanets among the ordinary class. Maybe even among the wizard class? People don¡¯t ever say it. I¡¯m not sure what that means¡ªif it¡¯s a secret that¡¯s being kept from some people or if it¡¯s out of respect. I want to do what you prefer. When I tell people that you saved me, if someone asks me how Lind-otta stopped the water, should I just say she cast a spell, like everyone does on television? Is that what the two of you want?¡± He couldn¡¯t meet Esh-erdi¡¯s eyes then. He was afraid that he would see something dangerous there¡ªnot anger, but any of the other hard emotions that might appear. Grief, pain, shame¡­understanding. Only the long pause before Esh-erdi¡¯s answer came told Alden that the question had surprised him. ¡°You ask why no one ever mentions the <>.¡± He spoke easily, with no trace of any of the reactions Alden had feared. ¡°It is something of a secret on this world, though nobody means for it to be a perfectly kept one at this point in our peoples¡¯ relationship with yours. It¡¯s <> in our culture for those who aren¡¯t a hn¡¯tyon themselves, or closely associated with us, to speak of it. To such a <> that many still swear themselves to the maintenance of <>, following the old traditions. ¡°Assuming things go as I imagine they will, you¡¯ll find that around the time our nature becomes more widely understood here on Earth, the silence will be adopted as well.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯m sorry for bringing it up.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no need to be. You didn¡¯t call me a pastry. And asking questions for the purpose of educating yourself wouldn¡¯t be offensive to anyone worth worrying about. Some of us, including Lind-otta and I, consider Avowed to be a <> from <>. Though not everyone feels that way, so I would walk carefully around others.¡± So it wasn¡¯t actually secret. Even on other worlds. But nobody had ever explained it to Kibby, and Alden had never gotten to hear about it while he was consuming Artonan media because it wasn¡¯t talked about at all. ¡°Elder¡¯s croak?¡± he asked. ¡°I¡¯m not sure the Contract is translating that correctly.¡± ¡°A <> often told to children and sometimes used to explain the respectful silence. I don¡¯t have time to tell it now. But I¡¯ll make sure you hear it.¡± Esh-erdi sat up. ¡°I am a <>. Do not let anyone tell it to you before me. The first time is the best.¡± ¡°All right,¡± said Alden. Esh-erdi chortled to himself. ¡°It¡¯s been a few years. I must practice my croak! As for the rest of your question, telling everyone that we cast spells is probably the best option. It¡¯s also not untrue from a certain perspective.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll do that,¡± Alden said firmly. ¡°<> spells. <> ones!¡± ¡°I can say that.¡± ¡°You¡¯re very serious.¡± Esh-erdi¡¯s smile fell a little. ¡°I guess you¡¯ve arrived at your conclusions from your interactions with the Quaternary. Or perhaps even more recently from me and Lind-otta. If you have more questions, you may ask them anytime.¡± ¡°Thank you. That¡¯s nice of you.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think it is. We¡¯re probably less similar to Avowed than you would assume. And it would be good for you to understand, since you are becoming friends with Stu-art¡¯h.¡± Alden directed the nonagon up higher, trying to unravel how Esh-erdi¡¯s words made him feel. Below him, the world where human Avowed lived lay in a shocking mix of ruin and glamor. Beside him, a Knight of the Mother Planet offered to explain what he was. Against Alden¡¯s chest, hidden by the high neck of the school uniform, his auriad was soft, and on the flesh there, a tattoo he¡¯d accepted from a wizard was fading away. We¡¯re probably less similar to Avowed than you would think. They were flying over the area he¡¯d been rescued from. Does someone like me fit in anywhere? Will I ever? If I asked him¡ªjust threw caution to the winds and asked him outright¡ªwhat would the answer be? Would he even have one for me? ****** ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-FOUR: Assembly 154 ****** Becoming a part of Apex¡¯s sky traffic was every bit as entertaining as Alden had imagined it would be. The Mother-forsaken Cookie was soaring along at what he felt was the perfect altitude for a classy magical vehicle¡ªabove most of the spell-users and the Shapers riding around on recliners with homemade seatbelts installed, but below the super fast or noisy stuff. It¡¯s the perfect ride, he thought. Quiet, hovers, big enough for company. And it looked cool. He was currently trying to convince himself that the nonagon¡¯s coolness was the attraction whenever he noticed people down below pointing or holding up tablets and cell phones. At least drones aren¡¯t getting in our way. There were separate rules for how the drones flew around up here where people were also flying around. Maybe those rules were keeping them in line. Or maybe his companion was just the sort of person that even the most entitled gawkers knew to keep a respectful distance from. Esh-erdi, ultrapowerful chaos-fighting knight, had scooched himself over to the edge so that he could swing his feet, point eyes and hands in two different directions at all times, and comment on the things he found interesting. ¡°That person has awful technique; I hope it¡¯s their own fault and not a result of bad talent design. There are so many types of dogs. Look, that¡¯s a pull-me-over spell! What kind of game is played on that outdoor <>?¡± Alden peered down through the transparent surface of the nonagon. ¡°Tennis,¡± he said, spotting the court on a rooftop. ¡°You hit balls with¡­stiff nets on sticks.¡± ¡°Rackets¡± wasn¡¯t in his Artonan repertoire. Esh-erdi nodded, then he moved right along to the next curiosity. ¡°They¡¯ve built their own flyer out of mover discs!¡± At the name of the familiar devices, Alden looked around again, searching for anyone that might be using them. The area they were passing over was mostly unharmed, but some isolated patches had experienced flooding. On the street immediately below them, waterlogged and damaged possessions were being piled in front of buildings. And there, flying at roof-level along that street, was a yellow two-seater car, covered in mover discs that looked identical to the ones Alden had learned to control at the lab. An Anesidoran flag was flapping on the car¡¯s roof, and there was some kind of a banner hanging from the trunk. Alden couldn¡¯t read it, but when he focused, the driver¡¯s public name tag came up on his interface. Right now, his or her name was listed as: [C-Sway with stress-relieving alters offering flights between F & Apex. Plus heavy lifting. 900 arg/hour.] ¡°That¡¯s so expensive!¡± ¡°It¡¯s probably one of the cheaper ways of making your own flyer if you can¡¯t cast spells,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°But I wonder if they know how quickly those discs burn out. They¡¯re going to have to keep applying new ones.¡± Alden had meant the hourly rate the Sway was charging for their variety of services, but that was interesting. ¡°I used mover discs to flip a car that had overturned on Thegund. There were lots of them at the laboratory, but almost none of them worked. I thought they were chaos-damaged.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure they were,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°But they¡¯re not <> tools at the best of times. Traditional enchanters get so offended by the quantity and quality of products that come from Fetuna <>.¡± Alden took one more look at the car. Cheap flotation enchantments would be fun to practice his skill on even if they were flimsy. Mental note: find, price, and experiment on some of those discs. He wondered if mental notes could find room to stick in his head. Now that they were actually in the city, a frantic damage control program was running in the background, slightly dimming his enjoyment of the flight and scrambling his thoughts. If someone tried to read his mind they¡¯d get no secrets about Matadero. Instead, they could have his stream of consciousness¡ªThe nonagon is so much better than that guy¡¯s ride. I wonder if I can find somewhere empty on campus so nobody sees me land? I bet I¡¯m on the internet again. Yuck. Maybe they¡¯re all too focused on Esh-erdi to wonder why I¡¯m here! He¡¯d probably like horses. Knights and horses are a natural combo. How am I going to explain this to everyone at school so that they¡¯re less weird about it? I¡¯m getting so much better at maneuvering. I know I can do a loop-the-loop with this thing. He tried to rein it all in. They were getting close to campus. ¡°Thank you for teaching me to fly. I needed it this morning. It¡¯s really fun.¡± ¡°The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes him is fun?¡± It had been several minutes since they¡¯d worked the name into the conversation. ¡°The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes him is very fun,¡± Alden agreed. Esh-erdi made a pleased trill of a noise that most humans would have struggled to mimic. ¡°I¡¯ve enjoyed the chance to see you learn. Even if it is only a small thing I¡¯ve taught.¡± He sounds like he means that. Joe always seemed to enjoy teaching me, too. It was just a thought that struck him, not an intentional comparison of the two situations. But intentional or not, once it had appeared, there was a part of Alden that had to chew on it. I was an ¡°unusually likable young person¡± who Joe looked forward to summoning in the future for ¡°mutual benefit.¡± It wasn¡¯t that different from how Alden would have described his relationship with the professor on the day he¡¯d left LeafSong for the last time. But after everything that had happened to him in Joe¡¯s former home, because Joe had sent him there, because Alden had tried his best to help Joe¡¯s people¡­ ¡°The little girl I lived with on Thegund is thinking of taking a mourning name,¡± said Alden. ¡°She¡¯s been trying to build her bravery for it for a long time. I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll decide to do it soon. Esh-erdi lowered his arms and pulled his legs up before turning around to face Alden. He waited. ¡°I know a lot of the things I¡¯m supposed to do to show her I respect her decision and the new name. Everything I could find on Earth¡¯s internet and from the Goodchild Klee-pak shows. But I had some questions, and I wanted to make sure I met the occasion perfectly. Can I ask you for advice about it sometime?¡± ¡°Of course,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°There are many different traditions you might observe for the child. Most of them are quite beautiful. It would be my privilege to share them.¡± ¡°I appreciate it.¡± ¡°Do you still speak to her often?¡± Esh-erdi asked. ¡°Yes. She¡¯s living with Hn¡¯tyon Alis-art¡¯h for now. She¡¯s joined the wizard class and begun her education with tutors. We send each other messages every week.¡± ¡°A class shift and a mourning name all in the <> of a corruption incident. She¡¯s having a <> flight for a little ryeh-b¡¯t.¡± Hey! thought Alden. He called her a little ryeh-b¡¯t. The lesson from second grade about Artonans thinking they were cute enough animals to be a term of endearment was right. ¡°I look forward to teaching you again,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°And I look forward to giving you a campus tour whenever you have time for one,¡± said Alden. ****** As they approached the school, Alden settled on Celena Circle as his stopping spot. He intended to land in the large greenspace, pass the ring over to Esh-erdi so the knight could go about his day, and then make a run for the MagiPhys Ed building. The assembly was being held in the gym, and he¡¯d decided to courageously admit to himself that there was no point in hunting for an isolated location to disembark from his noteworthy ride. Sneaking around might make Alden¡¯s interaction with people more manageable this morning, but since he had promised the knight a tour at an unspecified future date, there was ultimately no escaping from whatever kind of attention wandering campus with an important Artonan was going to get him. He¡¯d only be delaying the reactions. And, anyway, Esh-erdi deserved better. Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi, thank you for everything. I swear I¡¯m not hiding you behind these garbage bins. I just wanted to show you where Avowed do their recycling. But there was also no reason to drop the nonagon down directly into the crowd that would be heading into the gym. If I do that, I might as well just throw my arms into the air and shout, ¡°Behold! I have found myself in yet another unusual situation!¡± Celena Circle was close enough to his destination, and it shouldn¡¯t be crowded if all the students were gathering elsewhere. At least, that was what he¡¯d assumed until he saw it. ¡°There are domes,¡± said Alden, staring down at the circle in surprise. ¡°The domes are new.¡± Emergency houses that looked like mini versions of Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s travel dome had appeared, forming an instant neighborhood. They were arrayed in curves, covering the grass. Quite a few people were moving around in the area. ¡°I¡¯ll set us down somewhere¡ª¡± ¡°This is convenient!¡± Esh-erdi said. ¡°Drusi has <> herself here. I should greet her in person.¡± Alden had been about to say he should set the nonagon down somewhere else. But okay. He aimed for the sidewalk on the edge of the emergency housing and lowered them toward it. ¡°Who is Drusi?¡± There were a couple of Artonans visible, unpacking what looked like another dome on the far curve of the circle. ¡°She¡¯s a <> to Lind-otta. And she¡¯s also her cousin. Drusi-otta.¡± Alden just hated it when the System translated a word he didn¡¯t know with another word he didn¡¯t know. He¡¯d have to find the definition when he wasn¡¯t listening, landing, and looking through the platform to make sure none of the people who were staring up at them were actually going to run over and try to say hi. I bet they revoke my special circumstances license if I set the cookie down on top of somebody¡¯s head. ¡°Drusi arrived in the night,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°She will <> any Artonans who approach you. To ensure Bash-nor doesn¡¯t send anyone to pester you or question you. He shouldn''t, since I¡¯ve told him not to and I¡¯ve already spread your account of events to important ears. At the moment he doesn¡¯t seem inclined to behave inappropriately.¡± ¡°She¡¯s a bodyguard for me?¡± Alden asked in English. I should have asked more questions about what he meant when he said someone would keep an ¡°eye and a mind¡± on me until he was sure Bash-nor was going to leave me out of his drama. Was Lind-otta¡¯s cousin another knight? Was she going to stand six inches away from Alden, looming over his shoulder all day? ¡°She won¡¯t interfere with your schooling,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°She¡¯s one of those votaries who takes pride in <>.¡± Does ¡°votary¡± mean assassin? He looked around for an Artonan who looked like an assassin. He didn¡¯t see one. But I wouldn¡¯t if she was a good assassin, would I? The nonagon stopped and hovered a couple of feet above the sidewalk. Everyone Alden saw was staring their way, but nobody approached. He held back a sigh, hopped off the platform, and removed the ring. He held it out toward Esh-erdi. ¡°Keep it for now,¡± Esh-erdi said. ¡°Use it to travel wherever you like.¡± Alden looked from him to the ring, surprised. ¡°I¡¯ll be fine without it. Don¡¯t you need it?¡± ¡°You¡¯re already granting me your patience by agreeing to remain at the cube for a few more days while I take my time handling all the matters that might trouble you and Zeridee-und¡¯h in the future.¡± So he¡¯s thinking it¡¯s going to be a few days then? Alden hadn¡¯t minded much when Esh-erdi had asked him if he would stay at Matadero a while longer. Healing, a private and quiet room, no human authorities bothering him for details about dead Avowed, and no ambassadors trying to trick him into incriminating assistants they didn¡¯t like¡ªit wasn¡¯t a bad situation for him. But now that his feet were on campus, just a quick walk from Garden Hall, he craved his dorm room. Esh-erdi went on, ¡°While you can be here, and while I¡¯m confident you are watched by the Contract and a competent votary¡ª¡± It totally means assassin. ¡°¡ªI hope you will relax and freely take care of whatever matters need your attention. Go back to the cube when you want to, or wait for Drusi-otta or me to tell you it¡¯s time. Until then, enjoy your school. If your meeting finishes early, have fun flying on The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him.¡± He smiled. ¡°Don¡¯t crash it into anything. It will make me feel like an unworthy instructor.¡± And then, before Alden could think of a reason why he shouldn¡¯t be given free use of the nonagon, Esh-erdi was walking away. Alden stared down at the flying platform, feeling torn. He absolutely wanted to play with it more. But still¡­ ¡°I thought I was going to hand you over to him after we parked,¡± he said. ¡°If he¡¯s giving you to me for the whole day, what do I do with you?¡± Even if he knew how to fly it, he didn¡¯t have any idea how to store it. It didn¡¯t feel right to leave it here at ground level where anyone could mess with it. I guess it comes with me instead? ¡°Why did I waste so much energy worrying about subtlety?¡± He sat back down on the edge of the platform, and directed it to lift him just high enough off the pavement so that his feet wouldn¡¯t drag. ¡°Let¡¯s go to school.¡± He started to zip off toward the MPE building, then stopped as he realized he might be leaving his bodyguard behind. ¡°Drusi-otta? Are you there?¡± he asked in Artonan. ¡°Do you want to ride with me?¡± He waited. About ten seconds later, a whisper carried toward him by a spell, said, ¡°I will watch over you in my own way. Live as though I do not.¡± Alden searched for her everywhere. No deadly-looking Artonans were in sight. ¡°I¡­will try to do that,¡± he said finally. ****** ****** On the walkway outside the MPE building, a group of first-year hero program students were dawdling and taking advantage of the last minute before the assembly began to share gossip and disaster stories. ¡°You guys!¡± Rebecca called, spotting them from a distance and joining them in two big bounds that landed her right beside Astrid, who was using a compact mirror to watch her eyebrows as she tried to morph them into matching arches. ¡°Guess what I saw on my way over!? I¡¯ll give you a hint. It was big and green and up in the air¡ª¡± ¡°The top of a cedar tree,¡± said Jupiter, making a kudzu leaf float between one hand and the other. ¡°A dirigible. A gokoratch.¡± ¡°A grasshopper that got upgraded like Big Snake¡¯s wolves,¡± said Astrid. ¡°A cloud of smoke from Boom Town,¡± said Everly. There was a pause as Rebecca looked expectantly at the others who were present. Mehdi, Kon, and Febri were all moving their fingers through the air while they discussed the videos they were sharing through their interfaces. ¡°Are they ever going to tell us who did it? They¡¯ve had all weekend,¡± Febri was saying. ¡°They¡¯ve only had a weekend,¡± Astrid countered. ¡°I¡¯m surprised I managed to get back to Apex. Everything¡¯s so crazy.¡± ¡°It was members of Superhumans at Large,¡± said Everly. ¡°That¡¯s what everyone seems to think.¡± ¡°They were probably trying to make the island uninhabitable so we¡¯d have to be at large, too,¡± said Jupiter. ¡°I¡¯m mad at them. My uncle¡¯s house is gone. And the Nilama building. Konstantin, I¡¯m so upset about the Nilama building.¡± Mehdi frowned at her. ¡°Him, too, since he lived there.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not gone. We could still live there,¡± Kon said. Then he made a face as the word ¡°there¡± came out sounding wrong. ¡°There. Dere.¡± ¡°That¡¯s getting worse every time you try it,¡± Mehdi told him. ¡°It¡¯s cute!¡± Everly said. ¡°He has his first superhero injury.¡± Kon grinned to show off the gap in his teeth. ¡°Like I was saying, we could still live there. The building is standing. It just got really wet. Dey don¡¯t need to condemn it. They won¡¯t. They shouldn¡¯t.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t believe Paragon is gone,¡± said Everly. ¡°I saw my old desk from fifth grade on the news. It was upside down in a cafe.¡± ¡°How did you recognize your fifth grade desk?¡± Mehdi asked. ¡°She and Kon went to rich people school,¡± said Astrid. ¡°They probably had special desks.¡± Everly rolled her eyes. ¡°Yes. I recognized it because it was covered in rubies. Not because I drew a snowflake on the bottom with a paint pen.¡± ¡°YOU GUYS!¡± Rebecca¡¯s voice was exasperated. ¡°Sorry!¡± Astrid exclaimed. ¡°Becca saw something. What was it?¡± ¡°One of the wizard generals! I was running past Celena Circle, and I saw them landing.¡± ¡°Really?! Which one?¡± Mehdi took an eager step toward her.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°The green flying thing belongs to the male one.¡± Jupiter tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear and tried to position the kudzu leaf to go with it. ¡°The real general. Not the bald one. Esh-erdi.¡± ¡°Why do you know that off the top of your head?¡± Febri asked. ¡°If I see an important Artonan and they¡¯re friendly, I want to ask them what kinds of extraterrestrial plants are good for battling demons,¡± said Jupiter. ¡°And if I can have some.¡± ¡°Just put yourself out there like that then!¡± Febri replied in a shocked voice. ¡°You can¡¯t do that, Jupiter,¡± said Everly. ¡°If they¡¯re generals and they help with Matadero, then they¡¯re the ones who probably summon Avowed for the most dangerous missions. What if they think you¡¯re volunteering or something?¡± Jupiter shrugged. ¡°Rebecca, are you sure?¡± Astrid asked. ¡°What was one of those people doing on campus? Was he going to cast some spells on the domes?¡± ¡°Maybe he¡¯s hunting for the terrorists who did this,¡± Mehdi suggested. ¡°One of them could be hiding in the dome village!¡± ¡°Why do you sound so excited about that?¡± asked Astrid. ¡°I¡¯m not.¡± ¡°You sound like you are.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not.¡± ¡°I thought the people responsible were supposed to have died when they tried to attack the cube?¡± said Rebecca. ¡°There could be accomplices,¡± Mehdi said. Their conversation broke off as a blond speedster in sunglasses shot by them, running for the double doors that led into the building. A fraction of a second later, another figure blazed past the first and stopped with pinpoint precision in front of the doors just in time to open them before the other boy arrived. Finlay gave Winston a sarcastic bow. ¡°That seems to have escalated,¡± Everly muttered. They all watched Winston bristle then take off, heading around the building for the back entrance instead. ¡°Now that whatever that was is over¡­¡± said Rebecca, once the speedsters were gone. ¡°I don¡¯t think the general would be looking for terrorists. He had a student with him! In our uniform.¡± ¡°Maybe they assigned somebody to show him around?¡± Astrid suggested. ¡°Maybe he summoned a Celena North student to be his personal Avowed helper,¡± said Mehdi. ¡°Whoever it is will probably get so much argold. Even more than Jeffy.¡± Everly shook her head. ¡°What kind of help do you think a wizard that powerful needs from a student?¡± ¡°A translator in case he doesn¡¯t like the ones the System gives? Or maybe it¡¯s someone really gifted and he¡¯s taking an interest and giving them some extra stuff,¡± Mehdi said, his enthusiasm growing. ¡°Like special instruction?¡± asked Febri. ¡°Or special plants,¡± said Jupiter. ¡°Or a spell impression nobody else has access to,¡± said Mehdi. ¡°Or¡ª¡± ¡°Or maybe the student is Alden Thorn.¡± Kon swiped his System windows away and fixed his eyes over Rebecca¡¯s shoulder. ¡°And we can just ask him.¡± Mehdi snorted. ¡°Good one! Even generals probably need Rabbits for¡­oh¡­you meant¡­¡± Febri stood on his tiptoes, his eyebrows lifting. Kon glanced at Mehdi. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you were about to say, but I think it¡¯s lucky you stopped.¡± ¡°It wasn¡¯t anything bad,¡± Mehdi grumbled. The girls all turned to see where the boys were looking. A green flying platform was heading toward them. Alden Thorn rode on the front of it, one hand extended as if to direct it, the other rummaging through his messenger bag. ¡°Rebecca, you didn¡¯t recognize Alden?¡± Everly gasped. ¡°Was he really far away when you saw him?¡± ¡°No!¡± Rebecca face turned embarrassed. ¡°But¡­that¡¯s¡­he doesn¡¯t ever wear the school uniform! He looks different!¡± Astrid was laughing. ¡°I associate him with brown hoodies, green plaid, and radishes,¡± murmured Jupiter. ¡°Keep this safe for me. I¡¯m going to ask him about the general.¡± She thrust her leaf in Everly¡¯s face. ****** ****** Thanks to this bunch I¡¯m now late, Alden thought, watching his classmates poke, stroke, and take pictures with the nonagon. Fortunately, a lot of other people seemed to be late, too. Students were still dashing toward the gym, and with everything being so out of the ordinary, he thought there was a good chance the school had planned for a delayed start. But he would have hurried inside if this group hadn¡¯t surrounded him and lost their minds. Alden had gotten hit with the obvious question right off the bat, from Jupiter: ¡°Why do you have General Esh-erdi¡¯s flying platform?¡± Before the whole sentence had escaped from her mouth, the others had raced over to join them. ¡°Because I¡¯ve been with a healer friend of his.¡± Alden had pointed at his boot for proof of injury. ¡°He didn¡¯t want me to miss school. I guess he didn¡¯t want me walking around on the hurt foot, and he was being kind. So¡­¡± He¡¯d braced for follow-up questions that would have dramatic answers: How did you get hurt? Where exactly were you staying all weekend? Why was a general involved at all? But he should have realized that his broken bones and living arrangements weren¡¯t the most interesting thing he had going on. ¡°How fast does it go?¡± Febri asked. ¡°Is it hard to fly?¡± asked Everly. ¡°I want to touch it,¡± said Astrid. ¡°Can I touch it?¡± Mehdi was already tapping on the edge of it with the tip of a single pinkie, jerking his hand back as soon as he made contact as if he was afraid it might burn him. ¡°That would be fine,¡± Alden said. ¡°Don¡¯t try to hit it or anything. Maybe after the assembly, you can¡ª¡± As soon as he said ¡°fine,¡± they were all over it, and all the questions turned into: ¡°How fast? How high? How long do we get to keep it?¡± ¡°What do you mean we? And I¡¯m probably just going to have it for today,¡± said Alden. He was relieved he¡¯d misjudged their priorities. If the flying nonagon itself was going to be more exciting than the details of how he came to be in a situation where he needed and could obtain a magical vehicle, then that would make navigating conversations easier. ¡°And we¡¯ve got a meeting to go to,¡± he added. Kon slid off the platform and stepped over to stand beside Alden while he sent the nonagon toward a place he thought seemed relatively safe¡ªup high and as flat against the wall of the building as he could get it. It¡¯s so much harder to direct from the ground. ¡°What if it turns off?¡± Kon asked, gazing up at it. ¡°Will it fall and break?¡± His voice sounded different thanks to the missing teeth. He also had a giant gap. It looked so much bigger now, in daylight, when they weren¡¯t all scared of dying. Sorry, man. ¡°I think its default state does is floating a few feet in the air.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡± Mehdi said. ¡°Do I look like I fly one of these every day? I just used it for the first time half an hour ago.¡± ¡°I bet I could fly¡ª¡± Mehdi started. ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi doesn¡¯t want me to loan the ring to anyone else,¡± Alden said quickly. He didn¡¯t know if that was true or not, but he was going to operate as if it was a hard rule. The last thing he needed was some adrenaline-hungry idiot trying to levitate themselves into the stratosphere on it. They headed for the doors in a loose pack. Astrid was so busy staring at the nonagon that she almost tripped. ¡°What happened to your leg?¡± Kon asked Alden. ¡°Will it be okay?¡± ¡°Yeah. It will. Some of the Sinker Sender stuff grabbed onto my shoe and yanked my foot out from under me. Tore up my ankle.¡± Plus the broken toes I got from kicking a guy. ¡°Ow,¡± said Kon. ¡°You didn¡¯t look hurt on the bridge.¡± Mehdi had spun to walk backwards as he talked. ¡°It makes sense you got teleported out earlier than the rest of us if you were.¡± Oh¡­what a great excuse that would have been. Why didn¡¯t I think of that myself? He was sure that during his texting spree yesterday he¡¯d already given too much information to too many people, implying or saying outright that he¡¯d been injured after evac, to rely on that misconception. ¡°It was after the bridge,¡± Alden said as they entered the building. Before any of them could ask anything else, he dug a tiny blue paper envelope out of his bag and handed it to Konstantin. Kon opened it and laughed as he dumped his two front teeth into his palm. ¡°Aw¡­you shouldn¡¯t have!¡± ¡°I am sorry.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. Lexi forced you to take my incisors like they ought to be your top priority in a disaster. When we couldn¡¯t find you the next day, I assumed you had your own problems to deal with and they were goners.¡± He stuck his tongue through the gap. ¡°Even if you¡¯d kept them somehow, healers are so busy they¡¯re not handling minor stuff yet.¡± He held up the envelope. ¡°Did you make this yourself?¡± ¡°I¡¯m learning origami.¡± Kon dropped his teeth back into it. ¡°Maybe the right healer can still do something with them. Thanks for bringing them back.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t happen to know what tree was the first to cast its shade over your face when you were a baby, do you?¡± Alden asked. Kon blinked several times then tilted his head. ¡°Noooo. But there¡¯s a good chance it got destroyed by the floods¡­why would you ask that?¡± ****** The gym was filled with students from all three high school programs, and people were still wandering the bleachers in search of friends. Despite projection screens hovering over the floor with the words, ¡°Please find your seats quickly,¡± on them, Alden passed by empty spaces and headed up toward the top of the stands. Haoyu was there, beaming and having an animated video call judging by the gestures he was making. And Lexi was beside him, looking like he hadn¡¯t slept or bathed in three days and punching the air with his fingers in what Alden could only assume was a rage-typing session. I hope he¡¯s writing an email to his most hated enemy and not a teacher or someone he actually likes, Alden thought as he shuffled by a couple of arts students wearing bracelets that said ANESIDORAN FOREVER on them. What¡¯s that about? Haoyu slid closer to Lexi to make room for Alden. Haoyu¡¯s hair was damp, and he was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt with the Scorpius constellation on the front. As Alden sat, Haoyu said, <> He switched to English. ¡°Alden, you¡¯re alive!¡± ¡°It¡¯s true. It was not a ghost texting you for the past day.¡± ¡°Lexi, look. Alden¡¯s alive.¡± Lexi didn¡¯t look. He only grunted a sound that might have been a greeting. Haoyu shook his head. ¡°He¡¯s trying to force his way down to F so that he can go see his parents and Irina. He can¡¯t find a ride that doesn¡¯t cost a fortune.¡± ¡°We should all be together right now,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Irina is having nightmares. Our apartment is gone. All of our belongings are probably destroyed. If Kon would just help me¡ª!¡± ¡°What do you expect him to do, though?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°I expect him to help.¡± He suddenly turned to Alden. ¡°You¡¯re here! Where were you? Where were both of you? You¡¯ve both been so vague in your messages. Never mind. Where are Kon¡¯s teeth?¡± ¡°I gave them back to Kon.¡± ¡°Why!?¡± ¡°Because¡­they¡¯re his? It would have been really weird to give them to you.¡± Lexi huffed. ¡°Are they all right?¡± Alden fired off a mental text to Haoyu. [Is he all right? He seems stressed.] Haoyu¡¯s smile was placid. [Big protective for family. Crazy now. He is danger badger.] ¡°I put them in an envelope for Kon,¡± Alden said slowly. ¡°So that he wouldn¡¯t lose them. I¡¯m also sure that if they aren¡¯t all right¡ª¡± Which they totally aren¡¯t. ¡°¡ªthey can grow him some new ones. He will still be handsome and able to eat corn on the cob and pronounce fricatives when it¡¯s all over.¡± Lexi looked so disappointed in him. ¡°Don¡¯t glare at people in casts,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°How did you get hurt, Alden? I thought you were¡­somewhere very safe. And then you didn¡¯t send messages for an entire day. And now¡ª¡± He bent over to get a better view of the squishboot. Haoyu already knew Alden had been with the ambassador¡¯s assistant during the disaster, thanks to Alden texting him with the info Zeridee had shared about the situation on Matadero. Of course he would wonder how that had ended up like this. I think this might be as good a time as any to tell them the basics. I¡¯d rather let them know the important stuff before anyone else in the class starts putting things together. They weren¡¯t sitting near any of their classmates, maybe because Lexi was a danger badger. The students around them were from the other programs, and they were all involved in their own conversations. Alden didn¡¯t need real privacy to tell a secret that wasn¡¯t a real secret. But it was nice that they had the illusion of it that came with being in a large, loud crowd of people who weren¡¯t paying you any attention. ¡°I got teleported to Punta de la Luna,¡± said Alden. ¡°A flyer was there waiting for me, but there was some trouble when I tried to board it.¡± Possibly that made it sound like a mechanical problem, but it was the best he could do. ¡°I had to evacuate on foot with an Artonan. She got hurt, and I was carrying her. So I was slow. And the ocean caught up to us.¡± Haoyu¡¯s eyes widened. Lexi¡¯s narrowed. ¡°Punta de la Luna is gone,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°It¡¯s very gone. There¡¯s basically nothing left.¡± ¡°I made it out of there before it was wiped. We were almost to safety when this enormous water mountain stopped us. Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi and Hn¡¯tyon Lind-otta arrived to deal with it. He pulled me out of the water.¡± ¡°You were in the water?¡± said Haoyu. Alden rubbed his cheek. The freshly healed skin was a little sensitive. ¡°I was about to drown.¡± Lexi¡¯s eyes were slits now. ¡°So Esh-erdi¡¯s timing was great.¡± Alden gave them both a thumbs up. ¡°And he sent us to a healer. I slept for all of Saturday. And now I am so ready for school to start back.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good¡­¡± Haoyu gave him a hesitant thumbs up in return. ¡°I think most people are hoping we get the week off, though.¡± ¡°Why did you get teleported before everyone else?¡± asked Lexi. ¡°To a plane.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure that¡¯s none of our business,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°It¡¯s fine if it is none of my business,¡± said Lexi. ¡°I¡¯m not going to whine about someone else¡¯s teleport priority being different than mine. Plenty of people are being so obnoxious about that, even though almost nobody died from being left until last.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t let Lute hear you say that,¡± Haoyu warned. ¡°His parents are fine, but it sounds like Cyril belted himself to the railing of a pedestrian bridge so that he didn¡¯t get swept away. Lute¡¯s like, ¡®He¡¯s a drunken moron. It¡¯s okay. I just went and got him.¡¯ But I¡¯m sure he¡¯s got feelings about it.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t say anything about it to Lute. But to Alden, I¡¯m just saying that telling people you got teleported directly to some kind of Artonan salvation plane before everyone else, including Haoyu¡ª¡± Haoyu¡¯s face transformed into the picture of innocence. ¡°Don¡¯t think none of us noticed how fast you disappeared,¡± Lexi said to him. ¡°But at least it makes sense in your case. For Alden, I¡¯m telling him that this sounds noteworthy and confusing. He says he wants to know when things he does are noteworthy and confusing. Now he knows, so he won¡¯t call more attention to this one. I¡¯m helping him.¡± ¡°Thank you, Lexi,¡± said Alden. ¡°But I already rode to school on Esh-erdi¡¯s magic flying platform.¡± ¡°I think I saw that thing on the news!¡± Haoyu exclaimed. ¡°Is it the green one?¡± ¡°It¡¯s called Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him,¡± said Alden. ¡°No,¡± said Lexi. They both looked at him. ¡°Why would you ride to school on an Artonan General¡¯s flying thing?¡± Lexi whispered. ¡°There¡¯s no point in whispering,¡± said Alden. ¡°People all over Apex saw us on the way here. We slowed down to look at some of their dogs.¡± ¡°Are you serious right now?¡± ¡°He let me keep it for the day. It¡¯s parked outside.¡± Alden held up his hand. ¡°I drive it with this cool ring.¡± Haoyu leaned closer to see the green band. Lexi¡¯s face was doing things so expressive they almost had sound effects: Ugh. No. Stupid globie. What is he? Why is he? Why did I let him be my roommate? He told me he had a cat like that might be a dealbreaker, but he never mentioned all the wizards. ¡°I really like being roommates with you, Lexi.¡± Lexi drew back from him. ¡°Why are you randomly saying that? Do you think it¡¯s going to distract me from everything else you said?¡± ¡°It just felt necessary.¡± Alden cleared his throat. He lowered his own voice. ¡°Um¡­to answer your question, the Artonans gave me a higher teleportation priority because I have a commendation.¡± Lexi froze. Haoyu had been trying to study the logograms on the ring. He went still, too, but his brown eyes flicked up. They met Alden¡¯s through the gap in his splayed fingers. ¡°Do you really?¡± he said quietly. Alden nodded. ¡°Oh. I thought whatever you went through was probably worse than you said.¡± He glanced down again. ¡°It must have been.¡± Lexi slowly thawed and started shifting in his seat. ¡°What was it for? If you don¡¯t mind me¡ª¡± He was interrupted by a sizzling sound. They all looked just in time to see a firework exploding over the floor, orange and blue sparks flying outward toward them. A huge BOOM rocked the gym. A few people shouted. Everyone else went instantly silent. Instructor Foxbolt was sitting on the bottom bleachers across the gym from Alden, Haoyu, and Lexi. She crossed her legs and leaned back, blowing dramatically on her finger as if she¡¯d shot the firework out of it instead of casting a spell. ¡°Thank you, Foxbolt.¡± Principal Saleh stood in the middle of the floor, her face displayed on the projections for all to see. ¡°Good morning, everyone,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m so glad to see you all safe and, mostly, unharmed. It¡¯s been a long, hard weekend for all of us. And many of us have more long, hard days ahead. Let¡¯s talk about what¡¯s happened, and what happens next, and what we expect from you all as students here at Celena North High.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE: Family Matters I 155 ****** Alden bowed his head and stared down at his knuckles while the school observed a moment of silence for the dead. Principal Saleh¡¯s speech had started off with the expected sort of thing. Thanks for everyone who¡¯d shown up in person and through interfaces. Eloquent sympathies for students who¡¯d lost places or people they loved. And now this. The posture, the uniform, the sounds of a large group of humans breathing and quietly shifting in their seats¡ªit called up a sliver of memory. The rare and precious kind. A room full of bowed heads, their owners mostly unaware that they were being subjected to a child¡¯s critical gaze. His mother¡¯s hand tugging him back down into the pew beside her. Alden looking at her in protest, and the silent tilt of her head in return conveying a world of rules and manners. He remembered feeling terribly misunderstood. ¡°I was helping!¡± he¡¯d explained with righteous indignation when they¡¯d gotten back home that afternoon. ¡°I was making sure nobody was cheating.¡± ¡°At praying?¡± she asked while she examined a stain on the clip-on tie he¡¯d been wearing. ¡°Is this a grass stain? Sweetie, how did you get a grass stain on a necktie?¡± ¡°Some people had their eyes open,¡± Alden said darkly. ¡°They were playing games on their phones.¡± ¡°But they weren¡¯t bothering anybody, and you wouldn¡¯t have known if you¡¯d had your own eyes closed. Your shirt is clean. I don¡¯t understand¡­just the tie?¡± ¡°I was helping.¡± Warmth, an arm pulling him close¡­had she smiled? Kissed him? Had his father been in the room? What had they done after that? He knew from experience that the answers wouldn¡¯t come. Trying to force them would only build fantasies that might or might not have happened on that day. And then the moment of silence was over, and Principal Saleh was talking again, her voice filling the gym. As her tone turned businesslike, the mood shifted away from the somber. It started to feel more like high school. Classes were cancelled tomorrow. All of the ones that could resume on Wednesday would, but they should expect some changes. Alterations in scheduling or course structure were being left up to the individual instructors. Alden was happy they¡¯d be back in class soon. Judging by the number of people groaning dramatically and whispering complaints to their friends, he was in the minority. ¡°This meeting will end at eleven thirty,¡± Principal Saleh said. ¡°Bag lunches will be available outside. Grab one if you¡¯re hungry, then follow the schedules that have just been sent to you.¡± Alden opened his with a thought. It was his regular class schedule, compressed into fifteen-minute periods, with a half hour long ¡°personal advisement¡± meeting sandwiched in. So we stop by each classroom and hear from the teachers in person about what we¡¯ll be doing for the rest of term. Before he finished reading, Principal Saleh was speaking again. She covered a lot of basic information. Campus dining was being restricted to specific locations and time windows until further notice. The domes on Celena Circle weren¡¯t tourist destinations, and the people living there didn¡¯t want thousands of curious students wandering through. ¡°Not even if you¡¯re volunteering to help. The people living there don¡¯t actually need any help you could provide. They just need a quiet place to stay until they can go back to their homes or until they have new ones. The only students who should be visiting the domes here, or anywhere else they¡¯ve been put up, are those of you who have family staying there. The rest of you go around the perimeter of our new neighborhood.¡± That command led into more discussion of housing. Some people had been letting family and friends stay in their dorm rooms. ¡°The government is organizing safe, comfortable housing for everyone who needs it. The domes are being provided by the Triplanets. Other facilities all over Anesidora are being outfitted as residences.¡± Her back was turned to Alden¡¯s half of the gym now, so he was watching her on the projection. ¡°You might have noticed, but your dorm rooms and apartments aren¡¯t that big. Everyone needs a safe space and a community, especially in times like this, and our community is for our students. Your family may visit you here, but they can¡¯t live with you.¡± She covered a few more details, then finished off by saying, ¡°Both Apex and F-city are currently being visited by many more wizards than usual, and the number will likely increase over the coming weeks. Talks about how involved the Triplanetary Government should be in our rebuilding process are ongoing. The CNU culture advisor will be laying out some simple guidelines for you to follow if you happen to run into wizards on campus. But before that, I wish to personally apologize to the entire school on behalf of the Talent Development Program.¡± Alden sat up straighter. What did we do wrong? He had an absurd worry that he had been unwittingly involved with whatever behavior was bad enough to prompt an apology. ¡°As I¡¯m sure many of you have heard, a group of our students decided that a nationwide catastrophe was an ideal occasion for experimenting with their powers in a real-world setting. They chose to leave the safety of our campus shelter for an area that had already been evacuated. They thought flooded homes and businesses were their own personal training environment.¡± More people like Liam? Seriously? He had hoped that the Long siblings were unique in their madness. ¡°That behavior alone would be enough reason for me to apologize to you. But to make matters worse, a couple of these people chose to wear modified versions of their school uniforms while they gallivanted.¡± She didn¡¯t raise her voice, but there was a sharpness to it that was impossible to miss. ¡°We expect excellence from all of you, but those in our Talent Development Program should be even more responsible in their use of their abilities. Reporting to SkySea Guard that this group of CNH-trained students needed to be searched for because they had chosen to head toward S¨¡nji¨£o Beach so that they could experiment and play was a low point in my career as an educator.¡± Someone¡¯s in trouble. And it sounds like they should be. What kind of selfish, immature¡ª ¡°Do you think they¡¯re going to expel all the B-ranks in the hero program?¡± one of the Arts students with the Anesidoran Forever wristbands whispered to the girl beside her. Do you think what??? ¡°I don¡¯t think it was all of them, was it?¡± ¡°I heard it was.¡± ¡°What are they talking about?¡± Alden hissed at Haoyu. He pulled up his huntski lodge chat. [Was it B-ranks who did the bad thing?] Haoyu looked intrigued. [I don¡¯t knowing. I don¡¯t have gossip. I want to knowing.] [Alden: Lexi, do you know who¡¯s in trouble?] [Alden: Lexi?] He looked over to see Lexi angry-typing again. [Haoyu: I think he isn¡¯t checking roommate chat.] [Lute: Haoyu, don¡¯t switch to finger texting. It makes you less funny.] [Lute: Hey, Alden. You back at school?] [Alden: Yes.] [Lute: Sweet. I¡¯m watching the speech thing from here. I swear my relatives are growing in number and obnoxiousness. It was torture yesterday, but it¡¯s gotten a lot better.] He sent a picture of himself sitting in a blanket fort. Emilija was beside him, wearing a t-shirt with a music note print. They were grinning and holding up crackers with meat and cheese. [Haoyu: He didn¡¯t even try to make it back to Apex.] [Lute: I did! Just not since the company arrived.] Alden suddenly realized that Emilija was in an awkward position. She¡¯d been living in Apex but commuting to school at Franklin High. How is she going to handle that? [Lute: A bunch of B¡¯s and a few A¡¯s are who she¡¯s talking about. I think they were mostly second years. I don¡¯t know all of them. One was that guy who wears the rings that sound like bells. And there was a girl who turned the school uniform into a cheerleader outfit and painted letter B¡¯s on her stomach. And Ella-Clara Thomas.] So it was them. The ¡°viciously competitive¡± Beat List-obsessed second year B¡¯s. At first, Alden was relieved. He¡¯d really enjoyed meeting his fellow B¡¯s, but he didn¡¯t know any of the second years well yet. Wait¡­those lunatics are almost half the active members of my rank club. If they get themselves expelled do we lose access to the gym and Instructor Plim? [Lute: I¡¯ve known that Figurinist girl was trouble ever since she spent two weeks making that giant doll of hers run around campus on all fours. It got faster and faster. I tried to compose a song about how seeing it coming at me down the sidewalks made me feel, but I couldn¡¯t hit the right level of creepiness.] Alden gave the next speaker his attention. The university¡¯s culture advisor was an animated woman with an elegant contract tattoo prominently displayed on the back of one hand. ¡°Another important thing to remember about our Artonan visitors is that they are here to work right now,¡± she was saying. ¡°I¡¯m sure most of you have seen or spoken to Anesidora¡¯s wizard residents in the past when they were going about their regular lives. This is different. The people sent by the Triplanets to help with the Submerger crisis are here to convey the sense of responsibility the wizard class has toward us as Avowed and toward Earth as a resource world.¡± ¡°They are responsible,¡± a boy sitting on the level below Alden said quietly. ¡°They made the thing and sent it to Earth right? It¡¯s not like a human invented something that dangerous.¡± The culture advisor was still talking. ¡°The Artonans will see it as inappropriate to relax or conduct personal business when they¡¯ve been charged with this purpose. So now isn¡¯t the right time to try socializing with them.¡± Lexi stopped typing and looked over at Alden. Alden raised an eyebrow at him in return. [Alden: She¡¯s referring to people who go out of their way to bother unknown wizards they spot in the street, not me.] ¡°Some of you might also be tempted to make an appeal on behalf of yourselves or someone you know. To slip in a little showing off with your powers or a mention that you¡¯ve always longed for a chance to serve as a listener for an elite study circle during a mission to the whispering villages on the World of the Yellow Smoke.¡± That¡¯s an extremely specific example. [Haoyu: That was really specific.] [Lute: One hundred argold says she finds a wizard to take her to the World of the Yellow Smoke before the country¡¯s put back together.] [Haoyu: I barely remember learning about the whispering villages in class. But the World of the Yellow Smoke¡¯s out there. She¡¯d be gone for months or years. And they¡¯d probably prefer another species. I¡¯ll take your bet.] [Lute: I wasn¡¯t serious.] [Haoyu: You can¡¯t take it back now.] Alden couldn¡¯t recall ever hearing about the whispering villages. He texted Boe. It was so nice to be able to do that now. [I don¡¯t think memorizing all the US state capitals and studying the history of Illinois prepared me well for my future.] The culture advisor had finished, and someone from the campus health office had stepped forward to announce that counseling services were available to anyone who needed them, when Boe finally replied: [Same. I just watched a wizard summon what looked like every flying bug in the rainforest into a briefcase. Now I¡¯m going to go look tragic in front of him and see if he sends me home.] As the end of the assembly approached, the final speaker stood. She was wearing the school uniform with a silver Frisbee-looking weapon belted over her hip. Her nametag said she was the student council president. She sailed through a speech about solidarity, responsibility, and the CNH spirit and then called for a vote about the uniforms. The student council thought that because of the present hardship, uniforms should be mandatory until the end of the quarter. As a show of unity. And for several other reasons she listed out so fast that Alden barely had time to hear them, much less decide if they were good ones, before the opportunity to vote was flashing in his eyes. ¡°Please make the decision selflessly and with the knowledge that you carry on your shoulders the legacy of all who have gone before you and the dreams of all the young people who imagine themselves here at Celena North one day,¡± she said in a forceful voice. It was clear that she thought only irresponsible, school spiritless people would reject the idea. Alden clicked ¡°no.¡± The uniform looked nice, but he personally believed that times of hardship called for soft, loosely-fitted clothing with ample pockets. When the voting concluded, eighty percent of the school disagreed with him. He sighed. ¡°You didn¡¯t vote yes?¡± Haoyu asked in a surprised voice. ¡°When the going gets tough, I want to wear sweatpants,¡± said Alden. Haoyu looking him up and down pointedly. ¡°My outfit was chosen for me this morning. You voted yes?¡± ¡°It¡¯s your fault. When I saw you climbing the bleachers earlier I thought you were dressed like that today to be solemn because of the people who¡¯d died. I thought you were being mature and thoughtful, and I felt bad I hadn¡¯t worn mine.¡± The vote was the final item on the agenda. Around them, everyone was standing up. ¡°Lexi,¡± said Alden.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. ¡°What?¡± He¡¯d never stopped jabbing air throughout the assembly. ¡°I can probably take you down to F. If you¡¯re sure you want to go. I doubt I can do anything to get you back before classes start on Wednesday, though, so you¡¯d have to take care of that yourself.¡± Lexi looked over. ¡°On the green platform?¡± ¡°The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him. You can come, too, if you want, Haoyu. It¡¯s fun to fly.¡± ¡°That sounds great, but my parents are going to be together this afternoon. I¡¯m meeting up with them. It¡¯s the first time I¡¯m going to see Dad face to face since he left for Matadero.¡± He looked so excited. ¡°I get to tell him all about you and Lute and the obstacle course and a hundred other things!¡± ¡°That¡¯s more important than joyriding down to F,¡± Alden agreed. Lexi looked concerned. ¡°Are you allowed to just fly it all over the place?¡± ¡°I think so. He told me to take it wherever I wanted.¡± He was more worried about SkySea than Esh-erdi. But they might not even ask why he was flying the nonagon around anymore. The assumption would probably be that he was following Esh-erdi¡¯s instructions. Lexi hesitated. ¡°I would appreciate it¡­¡± ¡°Do it,¡± said Haoyu, standing up from his seat. ¡°Do it for all of us who are going to be so jealous that we didn¡¯t get to ride a magic knight¡¯s flying disc.¡± ¡°You called him a knight!¡± Alden exclaimed. ¡°That¡¯s the English translation the Systems on the Triplanets usually give for them. I think it sounds more epic¡­unless he specifically told you to call him general. Then forget I said anything.¡± ¡°He¡¯s informal. He told me to drop the title.¡± ¡°That¡¯s epic, too.¡± ****** Outside, it was still sunny, and the bag lunches were being distributed by uni students. While the three of them waited in a short line to grab theirs, Alden kept turning his head to check on the nonagon. ¡°If you¡¯re nervous, just move it,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°It¡¯ll be funny to watch their reactions anyway.¡± ¡°Nobody¡¯s actually doing anything bad to it, though,¡± Alden answered. Students kept hopping, climbing, and levitating themselves up the side of the building to look at it. A couple of faculty members were around, and Alden had expected them to put a stop to it. But none of the curious people were being overly risky with their power use, and very few of them were even trying to touch the nonagon. ¡°People aren¡¯t stupid enough to really mess with an important wizard¡¯s flying vehicle,¡± Lexi said. You¡¯d be surprised, thought Alden. ¡°I have to move it anyway. I¡¯m not going to leave it here all by itself while I go across campus to do the class meetings.¡± An idea occurred to him. ¡°Do you guys want to sit on it while we have lunch?¡± Haoyu had been disappointed he couldn¡¯t ride down to F this afternoon. This would make up for it. ¡°There¡¯s no need to call attention to your¡ª¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Haoyu exclaimed. ¡°And then you¡¯ll take us to class in style!¡± Lexi shut his mouth. A few minutes later, they were away from the crowd, jogging out to the track with bag lunches in hand. Distance from the audience was necessary if they didn¡¯t want people inviting themselves to eat with them. ¡°Call it,¡± said Haoyu, when he noticed Alden stopping and staring at the driving ring. ¡°Show us that alien sky limo.¡± ¡°Just a second, I don¡¯t want to make a mistake and crash it.¡± He pressed a logogram on the ring with his thumb and pointed his finger straight down. The green nonagon rose over the MPE building¡¯s roofline. He let it get higher and then pointed it toward them. ¡°Faster,¡± Haoyu advised. ¡°You know someone¡¯s going to chase it.¡± The second it reached them, they scrambled aboard, and Alden sent them skyward. He stopped them a few stories above the grassy field in the center of the track¡ªhigh enough that nobody should feel invited to come up for a visit, low enough that he didn¡¯t think he¡¯d get another call from traffic control. ¡°Hey, it¡¯s textured!¡± Haoyu was bending over near the edge, running his hand across the nonagon¡¯s surface. He was clearly not even a little concerned about Alden¡¯s driving. In contrast, Lexi was sitting in the precise center with one hand on Writher¡¯s handle. ¡°What would you actually do with the whip if you fell?¡± Alden asked. Lexi blinked and looked down at his own hand before moving it away. ¡°You two, grab onto me if we crash. I¡¯ll break your fall,¡± said Haoyu, still touching the nonagon. ¡°It feels like a stroopwafel. Do you guys know what those are? They¡¯re like a skinny waffle biscuit with caramel inside.¡± ¡°That checks out,¡± said Alden. ¡°The poor son has already been called a cookie this morning.¡± He sat down beside Lexi and opened his lunch bag. He¡¯d expected the food to be crummy in the way mass-prepped, depersonalized stuff tended to be. But he was pleased to find that the wrap with the vegan ¡°fried chicken¡± tasted pretty good. They didn¡¯t talk for a couple of minutes while Alden and Lexi chewed and Haoyu added the contents of condiment packets to his own turkey wrap. Lexi even chews like he¡¯s tense, Alden thought as he studied his roommate¡¯s features. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about your family¡¯s apartment.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± Lexi spoke mechanically. But then he looked down at his food, slumped a little, and said, ¡°I know a lot of people lost houses. It¡¯s only stuff. Everyone keeps saying that. It¡¯s true. I didn¡¯t give a damn about home when everything was going wrong. Even after I heard Nilama was flooding. Being on the Span when it all started¡­the bridge dropping out from under us like that, water missiles flying around with trucks inside them¡­I thought things were even worse than they were. I thought, ¡®It¡¯s fine if the whole island¡¯s obliterated. As long as my family is somehow safe.¡¯¡± He carefully set his food on the center of the piece of plastic wrap that it had come in, rolled it back up, and then wiped his hands on a napkin. ¡°And they are safe. I¡¯m so relieved. But¡­¡± ¡°But your house isn¡¯t just stuff,¡± Haoyu finished for him. ¡°It¡¯s all the memories that go with it.¡± ¡°Kon¡¯s in some kind of denial. He keeps saying, ¡®Some of it¡¯s probably fine.¡¯ No. It¡¯s not. It was completely underwater. We might salvage the dishes I guess? The plastic things? A little bit more if we can manage to find people with the right talents who aren¡¯t already booked for the next decade.¡± ¡°What did you parents say?¡± asked Haoyu. Lexi rubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed. ¡°To leave the worrying to them. Obviously. What else would they have said? They¡¯ve been telling me not to worry about anything for the past two years, even when a lot of it needs to be worried about.¡± ¡°Our parents are on slightly different tracks,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°When my father took me out for dinner, right before he left for the cube, we talked about not adding to mom¡¯s worries. Showing her that I could look out for myself here at school and not freaking out if I failed combat assessment. Which I thought I had for a few hours there.¡± He squeezed the last drops out of a mayo packet. ¡°Nothing that serious, just taking minor Haoyu business off her plate. I think he underestimates her capacity for micromanagement, though. I sent her a picture of me doing the laundry, and she called afterward to have a fifteen-minute talk about the amount of detergent I was using. More should be better, right?¡± Alden vividly remembered having the same thought when he was around nine and trying to wash his own clothes. Only they¡¯d been out of detergent, and he¡¯d opted for dish soap. More had not been better. They ate. Lexi texted Kon to tell him about the ride Alden had offered. Haoyu stood up and walked in a circle around the two of them, getting the three hundred sixty degree view of campus and the streets beyond. ¡°It¡¯s a strange day, isn¡¯t it? Everything¡¯s so bad and so normal at the same time,¡± he said finally. ¡°What do you think happens next?¡± ¡°Cleaning up. Building buildings,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Years and years of people shouting at each other about what went wrong and whose fault it was. The countries that have been pushing to have their own permanent Avowed forces will use this as an excuse to say they should build miniature superhuman armies in case Anesidora ever gets wiped out, and the Council will probably try to make sure that doesn¡¯t happen. And people will keep saying we should never have been allowed to become a self-governing country¡­like it was something they actually allowed instead of something the first generation pried away from them.¡± He took a breath. ¡°And the Triplanets will do something or nothing. Honestly, who knows what in the nth dimension they think of all of this? I¡¯m not sure if it¡¯s even a big deal to them or if it¡¯s a human hiccup.¡± When he fell silent, Haoyu nodded. ¡°That summed up about ten percent of it.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Lexi said. ¡°I left out a lot of the petty drama. Since you two have been mysteriously absent for a significant amount of time¡ªhalf the people in school just want to talk about who leveled, whose parents got haloed, and who the System loves best.¡± ¡°It¡¯s Alden.¡± Haoyu batted his eyes at Alden. ¡°The System loves Alden best.¡± Alden snorted. ¡°Shut up.¡± ¡°Just ask Mehdi. When you disappeared from Maricel¡¯s flying countertop, he said, ¡®Why him?¡¯ About a dozen times in five minutes.¡± ¡°I offered to take some of you with me.¡± ¡°And it sounds like we missed a great time! Oh no¡­¡± Haoyu¡¯s smile fell. ¡°What about that guy you did take with you? Was he all right?¡± ¡°Marks. He was such a jerk,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m sure he¡¯s fine. He left in a huff after screaming at me for being a Rabbit globie who didn¡¯t care about how it was my duty as a high rank to die before him. That was what he was getting at anyway.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t want to die for that guy Lexi almost sliced up with Writher? I thought you were a better man.¡± ¡°He¡¯s good enough for the Artonans, Haoyu,¡± said Lexi. He said it in a light tone that fit in with the conversation. Very chummy by his standards. Alden crumpled up his trash and laid his messenger bag on top of it so that it wouldn¡¯t blow off the side of the platform. After a moment, he said, ¡°Before Principal Saleh started speaking, you were asking me what the commendation was for.¡± ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have,¡± Lexi replied. ¡°I was surprised. But what you do on the Triplanets is your own business if you want it that way.¡± ¡°I do prefer that most of the time.¡± Thegund already took too much. I¡¯m ready for it to stop being something that hits me again and again. I¡¯m ready for it to be like Body Drainer. I want distance from it. I want to be done. ¡°I don¡¯t want to have to live up to the commendation right now. Like, if I just tell everyone I got stuck on an evil moon and then got rescued, of course they¡¯re going to ask stuff.But they mostly feel sorry for me and ask me if I¡¯m all right. That¡¯s easier to deal with than having them ask for specific details¡­which, if you¡¯ve been commended of course they¡¯re going to, aren¡¯t they? ¡®Oh you did things on the moon? Awesome Avowed things? What were they?¡¯ And I¡¯m not really up for having my actions microscoped by people who weren¡¯t there.¡± He recalled his interview and felt himself frown. ¡°I was dreading questions about what had happened on Thegund during the final admissions interview. Everyone talked about how personal and challenging it could get, and I was braced. I thought they might ask to hear the whole story and then do some kind of analysis? And tell me what I¡¯d screwed up. ¡°And they¡¯d say exactly the wrong thing, and I¡¯d flip out and do something awful. Like hit Klein with a chair. Not that the hit would land¡­¡± ¡°You really don¡¯t have to talk about this,¡± Lexi said hastily. ¡°It¡¯s fine if you never talk about it.¡± Haoyu had sat down with them again. He nodded in agreement. ¡°It was always inevitable that the commendation would be public,¡± said Alden. ¡°People did already know about it. The faculty, TC security, my counselors in intake¡ªwhoever I¡¯ve shared my profile with and anyone they talked to. I was just hoping I¡¯d have longer before it became common knowledge. I wanted to get to know you all first. I wanted to do well in gym and prove I fit in with the class. ¡°But at this point, it¡¯s either tell the truth or make up a lie that will only last a little while longer before the truth comes out. The B-rank Rabbit disappearing before all the combat-talented higher ranks was noticeable. So I¡¯ll tell our classmates I¡¯ve got the commendation when they work themselves up to asking me directly. And¡­if they want details about how I got it, I¡¯ll either say I don¡¯t want to talk about it or summarize it briefly. I haven¡¯t decided. It¡¯s a decision in progress. A lot has happened.¡± He drummed his fingers on the nonagon and looked out over the city. He could see North of North Gym from here. They¡¯d already opened back up, with limited hours and services, according to an email he¡¯d gotten this morning. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you guys about it, though,¡± he said at last. ¡°Really, even if I don¡¯t summarize, it won¡¯t take that long. It¡¯s not like I fought a monster or used my skill in some special way. I just kept this kid named Kivb-ee alive. And she kept me alive. And then I went on a very, very long run.¡± ****** ****** All the demon did was touch her leg. Just a touch. It cut her and rotted her and turned her flesh into something it wasn¡¯t. I carried her in my arms. I couldn¡¯t even use my skill to help her because I was afraid to change targets. I¡¯d never done it without the System, and I wasn¡¯t sure I could. She was the first person I saw the chaos hurt like that.She died. They all died. Except for the Avowed. And the little girl. Was it better at the lab? It made surviving possible. There were good things that reminded me more good things existed. In other places. Like what? Spiky strawberries. French braiding. Television. I think we¡¯d both have gone nuts without the television. Help came? On day 152. And it was wonderful. And it was awful Because someone had finally come, but they were much too far away. We waited as long as we could. Even though we both knew it was going to be too long. The car still worked? It did. Can you believe that? It was a wreck. It was full of holes. There was no protection left at all. But it still rolled. I want to know who made it. I don¡¯t care what species they are. I want to go to their planet one day and thank them. Your trait works like that? That¡¯s actually awesome. Yeah. We¡¯d never have made it if I couldn¡¯t run across even the shittiest ground. It was too far. It was almost too far even with the trait. And the drugs. The wordchains. The irrigation sticks. I think about it all the time. About how the lifelines were all thin as threads. A dying scientist told me to take some sprinklers in case I needed water. And then, months later, they were one of the things that made living possible. Other Avowed would have done it all so much better. So much easier. There are people who could have saved everyone and themselves on the first day. I couldn¡¯t. I could only barely do one thing and then barely do the next. Over and over. And the barely never stopped. There was never a moment when I was the best person for the job. I was always lost and wrong and managing by the skin of my teeth. But then¡­I made it. My body was destroyed. I was destroyed. But I made it. And the best Healer I¡¯ve ever heard of was there to put me back together. And a very spooky old teleportation ritual sent me back to civilization. And you got a commendation. And I got a commendation. For Exceptional Bravery in the Absence of Obligation. From Loh Alis-art¡¯h, the fourth Hn¡¯tyon. ¡­ ¡­ So that¡¯s it. That¡¯s most of the story. Are you okay? I think so. I do wish the coat had survived. ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-SIX: Family Matters, II 156 ****** ¡°Do you think it¡¯s all right to step on it?¡± Alden asked, looking down through Esh-erdi¡¯s nonagon to see the top of the Forthright building. Thanks to speed, spell, or contraption, someone had managed to cover almost the entire surface of the roof in a boldly colored chalk mural. Scenes of Avowed engaged in inspiring acts of courage surrounded the words: We ARE Anesidora. ¡°It¡¯s amazing.¡± Haoyu was leaning so far over the edge that Alden started lowering them just in case he fell off. ¡°Who¡¯s that running across the water? And there¡¯s Plopstar on The Span! And that Shaper line redirecting the flood down in F¡ªso cool.¡± ¡°If the artist can put something like this together so fast, I¡¯m sure they either know how to protect it or they don¡¯t care if it gets walked on,¡± said Lexi. The picnic tables for students were all still in place, perched right on top of the drawings, so Alden guessed it was fine. ¡°Someone should tell them to draw Maricel and the countertop. And Jeffy doing whatever he did,¡± Haoyu said as he jumped off. He landed on the image of a red halo. The man stood on the deck of a small yacht with his arms raised to lift the vessel into the air. The water pouring from the sides and bottom of the boat became the raindrops that fell onto a woman who aimed a mounted launcher at an unseen target. Haoyu checked the bottoms of his shoes for chalk. ¡°Nothing¡¯s coming off.¡± After all three of them had dismounted, Alden considered the nonagon. ¡°It¡¯s so hard to know where to park your fancy car,¡± Haoyu said sympathetically. ¡°Such terrible things could happen to¡ª¡± ¡°Don¡¯t. I¡¯ll make you guard it.¡± Alden was operating under the belief that as long as he was close enough to The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him, Drusi-otta could keep an eye on both of them. He¡¯d been periodically looking around for her, but he was starting to think she wasn¡¯t actually anywhere near him. She might just be monitoring him through a spell or with a magic spy cam the size of grain of sand. Maybe if someone approached to bother him, her plan wasn¡¯t to leap out and assassinate, but to call that person on the phone and tell them to get lost. While dramatically sharpening some kind of magic votary weapon. He directed the nonagon to a stop just above the narrow, windowed enclosure that kept the roof-access elevator out of the elements. Haoyu looked at him. ¡°I understand why you don¡¯t want to make a big deal out of the commendation. And why you don¡¯t want people prying into what you went through. But I¡¯m glad you told us about it. It¡¯s¡­¡± He adjusted his Scorpius t-shirt. ¡°I don¡¯t actually know what I want to say except that I¡¯m glad I know.¡± Lexi pulled the door open and held it for the two of them to walk through. ¡°I¡¯m glad, too,¡± he said as Alden passed. ¡°I think people knowing about this will be a good thing in a lot of ways. You seem worried about it, but¡ª¡± Haoyu gasped dramatically. ¡°Lexi Roberts is going to reveal a Social Dynamic! Which one will it be?!¡± Alden couldn¡¯t hold back a grin at that. ¡°But,¡± Lexi continued more loudly, ¡°your commendation answers the whole, ¡®Why a Rabbit?¡¯ question.¡± ¡°Thoroughly,¡± Haoyu agreed. ¡°Some people already assumed your experience out there¡ª¡± he gestured vaguely at the ceiling, ¡°¡ªwas a big reason you were one of our B-ranks.¡± ¡°I thought it was your levels and your skill being neat,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I thought it was you being a masochist during our team fight in combat assessment and yanking on Writher like pain didn¡¯t hurt you.¡± ¡°No,¡± said Alden. ¡°It definitely hurt. You should let us hit you with it in gym sometime. So you can see.¡± Lexi ignored that. ¡°What I¡¯m saying is, for the <> who will act like those things aren¡¯t enough, the commendation should shut them up. I think.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Haoyu said as the elevator arrived. ¡°It¡¯s not like they¡¯re going to have one. And it shows you¡¯ve already proven yourself in tough situations, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Alden stepped in after them. ¡°Maybe.¡± Lute seemed to think that people would be jealous and behave worse because of it. ¡°I¡¯ve been worried people would realize I only got into the program because of the commendation. And they¡¯d be bastards about it. That¡¯s why I wanted a few more weeks before the info went wide. So I could kind of¡­prove myself.¡± Lexi frowned. ¡°A commendation like that is the proof!¡± Haoyu said confidently. ¡°It should carry you even if you do something really dumb. Like turning your uniform into a cheerleader outfit, then hitting yourself in the face with a car.¡± ¡°Why would you think you only got in because of the commendation anyway?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°We just named a few reasons why you should have.¡± ¡°My interview was weird,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°Really half-assed. They gave me the blandest topics to discuss. Like ¡®Why do you like superheroes? Tell us about your goals. Who do you admire?¡¯ The sorts of things I couldn¡¯t screw up because I¡¯d already answered them in the previous interviews.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± The frown on Lexi¡¯s face deepened. ¡°Klein was more honest about it in the end,¡± said Alden. ¡°He doesn¡¯t like the idea of someone with my class being here because he doesn¡¯t see how the program is going to build me into a danger-ready Avowed with nothing but the Rabbit skills and spells to choose from. With him saying that and the way everything went¡­it¡¯s pretty obvious the commendation was my acceptance ticket. And they didn¡¯t even care what it was for.¡± Haoyu looked miffed. ¡°If he said that, it¡¯s just him being overly traditional. There¡¯s no reason you can¡¯t take some Rabbit skill that¡¯s meant for hairdressing or gardening and turn it into something terrifying. Or at least complementary to the excellent skill you already have.¡± ¡°Thanks. It¡¯s okay. I do understand what he meant by¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s really not, though!¡± Haoyu protested. ¡°And the commendation should have been an acceptance ticket because they cared what it was for. Do they think those things grow on trees? Do they think the Artonans give them out like Brute Scout badges?!¡± He was bristling even more. Alden glanced at Lexi, expecting him to say something to calm Haoyu down. ¡°I agree with him,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Not about the hairdressing. But even if the class and rank combo was triggering some high rank handwringing about how vulnerable you¡¯ll be if everything goes wrong for you, so what? They accept some other people on the assumption that everything will go right. ¡°Kon¡¯s an Adjuster with a single spell. He took a complete unknown, and the school accepted him assuming it would become something great. I¡¯m happy it worked out like that for him. But if Kon being an S makes more of a difference than you having a commendation for bravery¡­that irritates me.¡± ¡°What about all the organizational skills Rabbits have?¡± said Haoyu. ¡°You think magical sorting can¡¯t be dangerous? Or CLOTHES FOLDING!¡± The passion in his voice made Alden chuckle. ¡°What if you can use a really strong clothes folding skill on clothes with the enemy inside them?¡± Haoyu demanded. ¡°Did Klein think of that? Obviously not!¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to find me a new skill,¡± said Alden. ¡°The one I¡¯ve got is enough for me to work with right now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m just getting started!¡± ****** Only half an hour later, Alden was leaving Instructor Marion¡¯s classroom in the Wong building with a sigh. His morning science class had already met and been dismissed. They would be officially starting back on Wednesday, as predicted, but without in-person attendance. Two of the three instructors who were lined up for the rest of the quarter were planning to be too busy to commute to campus, so they¡¯d be pre-recording lectures and sending them to everyone. Homework was just going to be reading assignments. Do your studying, and good luck! The final exam next month would be the only in-person meeting. In Engaging with the Unexpected, Marion had just announced he was changing the class syllabus to make time for everyone to talk about what they¡¯d experienced on Friday night. They had the rest of the week off; he expected them to use the extra days to process everything that had happened and prepare thoughtful conversation topics. He was envisioning a sort of student-led Engaging with the Disaster course for the rest of term. It would be a good idea, but only if everyone took it seriously, Alden thought as he slipped past the Adjuster girl with the summoning abilities and into the busy hallway. She was talking to Andrzej about a press conference that was coming up this evening. There were rumors that the names of the people involved in the attack were going to be released. How many of these guys actually want to do serious reflection on their personal disaster experience? Aren¡¯t most of them going to slack off and then come to class with some low-hanging drama topics, like usual, so that we can all argue? A couple of them had had very serious looks on their faces, though. Most had been on campus, safely tucked in the gym during the danger, but Anesidora was a small world. Everyone who hadn¡¯t lost something themselves at least knew somebody who had. Marion¡¯s hopes that they¡¯d all be mature conversationalists might come true. Alden would figure out what he was going to talk about. But for now, he was mentally shifting to plan for a class schedule that wouldn¡¯t start until eleven o¡¯clock in the morning for the rest of the week. And that was assuming Instructor Rao kept the Artonan Conversation class the same. That will give me plenty of time to make the commute from Matadero at least. ¡°Yes. I¡¯ve heard the same rumors, but only here at school.¡± Andrzej¡¯s accent caught Alden¡¯s attention and he turned. The Polish boy was still talking to the Adjuster. He had his cudgel sticking out of the top of his backpack. It looked like it was peeking over his shoulder. ¡°They haven¡¯t told you anything at home?¡± the girl asked. ¡°Your relatives don¡¯t talk about it, or¡ª¡± ¡°They don¡¯t share Council news with me. Excuse me. I have to go to my next class.¡± He slid past her and started toward Alden. We¡¯ve made eye contact now. Might as well wait on him. Alden was curious about what had happened with the B¡¯s who¡¯d run off during the emergency anyway, and Andrzej would probably know. He was heavily involved with the rank club. He¡¯d invited Alden to the study groups and dinners more than once. Alden hadn¡¯t taken him up on those offers yet because he always seemed to have plenty of other things to fill his time. The other B¡¯s in the hero program seemed to be a little more rank-insular than he and Max were. It was still early days, so Alden hadn¡¯t had time to figure out exactly what kind of relationships the students in more advanced groups had with each other. But there was obviously enough bad blood going around that Andrzej, who seemed like an easy person to get along with, preferred The B-list crew to most of his own combat classmates. ¡°Hi,¡± said Alden as the other boy joined him and they started down the hall for the exit. ¡°You¡¯re hurt.¡± Andrzej glanced down at his boot. ¡°You weren¡¯t¡­do not tell me if you were. <>¡± The last was said in a whisper. Alden shook his head. ¡°I didn¡¯t go out with Francis, BeeBee, and whoever else was being stupid. I was on the other side of Apex. And I was trying like hell to get to safety, not run away from it.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± Andrzej looked relieved. ¡°That is so good. I am beginning to be worried that there are not enough B¡¯s who aren¡¯t crazy at this school.¡± When they stepped outside, Alden¡¯s eyes went immediately to a bushy tree that stood on the other side of the path. A group of people were standing beneath it, pointing up. ¡°You had trouble getting to a shelter?¡± Andrzej¡¯s tone turned sympathetic. ¡°You were left because you¡¯re a Rabbit.¡± ¡°Something slightly different than that,¡± said Alden. ¡°Anyway, did you seriously think I might have been with that group? And that I somehow escaped from whoever went to fetch them? I don¡¯t know how I¡¯d get away from trained members of SkySea. I¡¯m sure they caught everyone involved.¡± ¡°No, they missed Sammy,¡± Andrzej replied. ¡°But she felt guilty when everyone else got in trouble, and she decided to confess. Probably a very good thing for the rest of them¡­¡± ¡°Sammy?¡± There was nobody he¡¯d met in The B-list with that name. ¡°She¡¯s an S. She went along for some reason.¡± Andrzej lowered his voice. ¡°She¡¯s probably too talented to expel. So maybe the others will be okay? It wouldn¡¯t be fair to expel just the B¡¯s.¡± Alden agreed that it wouldn¡¯t be fair to expel all the B¡¯s. But his sympathy level for danger chasers had recently hit a new low. ¡°What were they thinking?¡± he asked. ¡°Do you know?¡± Andrzej turned his eyes skyward. ¡°Ella-Clara was thinking she has only earned four levels this year, and even that is not fast enough for her. The others were probably thinking, ¡®Let¡¯s follow Ella-Clara and see what she does.¡¯¡± Four levels was impressive. But none of the rest of it was. ¡°I just don¡¯t want B-list gym time to be cancelled.¡± ¡°I think it will be,¡± said Andrzej. ¡°At least for a couple of weeks.¡± An angry sound escaped Alden¡¯s throat before he could stop it. Andrzej lifted his pale eyebrows. ¡°Instructor Plim is a powerful Shaper of Water.¡± Alden had been about to say something scathing about people who ruined the educational opportunities of others, but his mouth snapped shut at that. ¡°That¡¯s right. She¡¯s probably busy.¡± ¡°The wizards are still using Shapers of Water to overwhelm the Submerger¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°I heard on the news.¡± ¡°It is more important than our club.¡± ¡°I know that!¡± Alden said. ¡°I just¡­forgot she was a Water Shaper temporarily.¡± He pressed his finger to the green ring and pointed it at the ground. There was a rustling sound and a yelp as a one stray teenager fell out of the bottom of the tree and one Nine-edge Son emerged from the top. Andrzej stared while Alden beckoned his ride. ¡°Do you want to come with me?¡± Alden asked. <> Andrzej said, turning his head to exam the tree again like he thought another one might pop out. <> ****** [Heading to the Convo class meeting, Lute], Alden texted as he hurried up the stairs behind a girl with canary yellow hair. She was scattering loads of Anesidoran Forever stickers on every landing. That slogan seems to be taking hold fast, he thought, leaping over some of the stickers and landing on his squishboot so hard that his ankle actually complained for the first time since he¡¯d started wearing the thing. Shit. It was easy to forget he was injured when walking didn¡¯t hurt. And he¡¯d gotten so used to the boot already that the lack of feedback from the foot trapped inside it no longer called his attention. Better slow down. [Are you logging in to the class online or something?] he asked Lute. [I¡¯m supposed to be,] Lute answered. [Rao hasn¡¯t sent the call-in link though. Guess she¡¯s going to be late like usual.] A second later, he video called Alden. He was still sitting in the blanket fort, minus one F-rank Rabbit girl. ¡°Emilija had to head to Franklin,¡± he said, plopping himself back onto a mound of mismatched pillows and sofa cushions.¡°They don¡¯t have classes today, but she does have some stuff to take care of this afternoon. It¡¯ll probably take her ages to get there with the way travel¡¯s going right now. How are things?¡± ¡°Okay,¡± Alden said automatically. Then, he paused with one hand on the banister. He did have a little bit of unwanted tension in his chest. It had been there ever since he¡¯d told the guys about Thegund. Just leftovers. Telling hadn¡¯t been that hard. But deciding it was time to and wondering about what they¡¯d think had been. ¡°I¡¯m good,¡± he said. ¡°I told Lexi and Haoyu about it. The thing I told you about on the day we had our big wordchain learning session.¡± ¡°What did they say?¡± Lute was walking a round snack cracker across the backs of his fingers the way some people did coins. At a very high rate of speed. Without it crumbling.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°I wonder if I can do that,¡± said Alden. ¡°They said that? About getting an award like yours? They¡¯re even more ambitious than I realized. Has it occurred to you hero brain people that you¡¯re not immort¡ª¡± ¡°No! I meant I wanted to do what you¡¯re doing with the cracker. Haoyu and Lexi were great about it.¡± ¡°Ohhhh.¡± Lute popped his toy in his mouth and crunched it. Without bothering to swallow, he said, ¡°I told you. Didn¡¯t I? Haoyu¡¯s a classy guy. And Lexi¡¯s got class, too. He just hides it underneath his personality.¡± ¡°It¡¯s nice to have it out in the open with you three,¡± Alden said, continuing his ascent. ¡°And everything else is fine.¡± School exists. Lots of happy alive people here. A minute later, he reached the classroom, grabbed an ass-abused cushion for the hell of it, and knelt to wait for Instructor Rao. Almost the whole class was present. Most people had been on campus on Friday night, so they hadn¡¯t gotten stuck in F. The volume of the chatter increased as time passed, and Alden started to wonder if the instructor was going to make an appearance at all. ¡°She¡¯s ten minutes late to a meeting that only lasts fifteen,¡± Lute pointed out. ¡°If something had happened to her, the school would have told us, wouldn¡¯t they?¡± A painted wooden ball smacked the floor at the edge of Alden¡¯s cushion. The object was someone¡¯s craft project, and a group of students had been tossing it back and forth for a while now, trying out different tricks on it with their magic. This time, when it impacted, it didn¡¯t make the sharp sound he would have expected from wood on wood. And it bounced up and over him like it was made of rubber. ¡°Hey, is that a property transfer spell!? I didn¡¯t know you had that!¡± the boy to his left called jovially to the thrower as he stepped forward to catch it and toss it back to the other side of the room. The class had gotten so loud that Alden was honestly surprised none of the faculty members from the neighboring rooms had come in to tell them all to knock it off. ¡°Hey, knock it off!¡± a girl sitting in the back corner said. I guess she¡¯s thinking the same thing. About half of the students turned to look at her. ¡°People died,¡± she said severely. ¡°We shouldn¡¯t be playing around today.¡± ¡°She¡¯s right,¡± a guy agreed. ¡°Let¡¯s show some respect. Like Daikon in the uniform.¡± Alden raised a hand and waved. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind, it¡¯s Alden. Not Daik¡ª¡± <> ¡°Yeah, some girl acted like I was a traitor for asking her to turn the common room television to anything but the news last night. But we¡¯ve all been watching the news for two days straight. My family is living in a dome. I want to be able to sit down for an hour with my friends and not think about the attackers and the fact that the place where I grew up is ruined.¡± They started bickering, Alden failed to get another word in, and Lute shook his head sadly. ¡°You¡¯re Daikon forever now.¡± ¡°Yeah probably. I¡¯m taking Lexi and Kon down to F later. Do you want me to pick you up while I¡¯m there? We¡¯re planning to leave as soon as we¡¯re all done with our¡ª¡± ¡°Hey! Little kids!¡± someone suddenly shouted over all the other voices in the room. Alden and everyone else looked up to see a heavily freckled girl in a university t-shirt and shorts strolling into the room, flip-flops slapping her heels. She cracked her chewing gum and looked around at them all. ¡°Sorry I¡¯m late,¡± she said. ¡°But I was asleep until twenty minutes ago when the head of the language department called to ask if I¡¯d take this job. Been doing clean-up with the uni volunteer corps. I¡¯m Kelly, and I¡¯ll be your teacher until the end of the quarter.¡± She made finger pistols at them. ¡°I like her,¡± said Lute. ¡°Is Instructor Rao all right?¡± someone asked. ¡°Oh my gosh, she didn¡¯t¡­!¡± ¡°She¡¯s fine,¡± said Kelly. ¡°I mean, her priorities are a little¡­but she¡¯s healthy as far as I know. She resigned. She¡¯s chasing her dreams and giving up on teaching.¡± Her dreams? Alden wondered. He wasn¡¯t the only person wearing a confused expression. ¡°Soooo¡­¡± Kelly interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms over her head. ¡°I¡¯ll just tell you if you don¡¯t already know. Everyone in uni¡¯s gossiping about it anyway. Instructor Rao¡¯s one of those people who wants to get off of this rock. She wants to live on one of the Artonas and not come back. But she doesn¡¯t get summoned a lot, so she¡¯s taking her shot now by trying to find a wizard who wants to carry her back home with them.¡± Nobody said anything for a few seconds, and then everyone started talking or laughing at once. ¡°She wants to be the poacher lady who gets together with the farmers!¡± ¡°Maybe she just wants to work for them full time?¡± ¡°If they find out how checked-out she is as a teacher they¡¯ll never let her near one of their planets.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t believe she¡¯s abandoning the school in the middle of a crisis.¡± ¡°Go get ¡®em, Rao!¡± ¡°She¡¯s doing exactly what the culture advisor just told us all not to do.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a guy in my parents¡¯ apartment building who¡¯s trying the same thing!¡± Alden was busy thinking about how crazy it was to give up a stable job to chase after an extraterrestrial lifestyle that was not at all a sure thing. Well, it¡¯s less crazy if you¡¯re Anesidoran. Losing a teaching job and not being hired back wasn¡¯t as big a deal if you were guaranteed a decent quality of life even without the work. And there were a lot of wizards running around. But he¡¯d gotten the impression most of them weren¡¯t at all what Rao was banking on. On the video floating in front of him, Lute looked amused. ¡°This is kind of funny, but it seems like a terrible choice on her part.¡± [I¡¯m pretty sure most of the new wizards who are here right now don¡¯t even have summoning rights for our species,] Alden texted him. [I think a lot of them are here to prove they deserve those rights. Probably there are a few who could invite her to come live on the Triplanets, but how¡¯s she even going to know which ones they are?] Kelly clapped her hands together. ¡°All right. Everyone turn your Artonan translation off real quick for me.¡± ¡°We¡¯re having class?¡± someone asked. ¡°There are only a few minutes left.¡± ¡°I said turn ¡®em off. Or you fail.¡± A couple of people looked petrified. Kelly laughed. ¡°Man, maybe I do want to be a teacher. Okay, kids. System not helping you anymore? Good good. Here we go. I¡¯m going to tell you all a serious, sad story about three Artonans.¡± She cleared her throat and started speaking in Artonan, in a low and serious voice: ¡°The three of us pass now along a high and narrow branch. Though our hands cannot be joined, I see your braid before me. I hear her steps behind me. I am like a river in its ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª. The ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª you make for me will keep me on my way. Let us go now and thrust the stones of fruit we already digested into the nostrils of that guy over there.¡± Alden burst out laughing. Which ended up being awkward because everyone else was nodding along in sympathy, apparently taking her at her word that the story was serious. ¡°Only one of you?¡± Kelly said in a depressed voice, swapping languages. ¡°Man, you guys suck. When did the high school language classes get so lax? Uniformed Kid with Good Cushion Manners, summarize what I just said in Artonan, then translate it for the room.¡± ¡°Oh¡­really¡­?¡± ¡°Choppity chop,¡± said Kelly. Alden summarized then translated it, guessing that the words he hadn¡¯t understood were ¡°riverbed¡± and some version of ¡°path.¡± A few people guffawed, including Lute. One boy looked offended for some reason. ¡°You said it was a sad story!¡± ¡°It was sad for the nostrils,¡± Kelly answered with a shrug. She looked at Alden. ¡°On your honor, are you using any disallowed spells or recorders or anything to make you better at the language?¡± ¡°No,¡± someone answered before Alden could. ¡°He actually speaks Artonan already.¡± ¡°Yeah, Alden¡¯s the moon Rabbit.¡± Kelly gave them all a blank look. Alden opened his mouth to explain himself. ¡°He was stuck on a moon,¡± someone else offered. ¡°Oh!¡± said Kelly. ¡°That kid. Wow. Nice to have you back on Earth.¡± ¡°Thank¡ª¡± ¡°He¡¯s got one of the general¡¯s flying devices! He¡¯s just riding around campus on it.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± ¡°I heard someone did! It was him?¡± Every eye in the room turned to him. Alden stiffened on his cushion and felt a polite smile fix itself on his face. ¡°That is interesting.¡± Kelly tilted her head as she regarded him. ¡°But not relevant to Conversation class. Alden, right? You can neglect to show up for the rest of term. Come for your final, and we¡¯ll make it your grade.¡± People gasped like she¡¯d just pulled a ribbon-wrapped pony out of her pocket. ¡°What about the rest of us?¡± ¡°Give us another chance!¡± ¡°That¡¯s not fair!¡± ¡°It is fair,¡± said Kelly. She swept both hands toward Alden ¡°This person speaks Artonan.¡± She waved her arms to indicate the rest of them. ¡°These people do not. I¡¯m going to be one of the fairest teachers you¡¯ve ever met!¡± ¡°Can I still come to class if I want to?¡± Alden asked. Lute groaned. ¡°Take the win and run, you fool!¡± [You don¡¯t like me as a convo partner?] This was the class where he¡¯d been socializing with Lute and learning his wordchains. Of course it will probably be different with a teacher who actually seems to care about student progress on an individual level. Kelly¡¯s eyes scanned him. ¡°I guess the vibes you¡¯re giving off are accurate.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need you!¡± shouted Lute from inside his blanket fort. ¡°Run! Be free!¡± ¡°Sure. Show up if you want,¡± said Kelly. ¡°Or not. But I figure I should spend most of my time focusing on the people who are actually in need of instruction. To the rest of you: I¡¯m excited! Pumped! See you all on Wednesday. Don¡¯t be late.¡± ****** ¡°What are you doing next?¡± Lute asked while Alden stood on the roof of Forthright, calling the nonagon to him. ¡°Going to the administrative building. For the personal advisement.¡± ¡°What personal advisement?¡± Lute¡¯s fingers swiped through the air. ¡°Balls. Did I miss something? I wasn¡¯t extraordinarily focused when I first got the schedule. At least not on the schedule¡­no, I don¡¯t see that on mine.¡± Alden frowned as he tossed his bag onto the flying platform and then jumped aboard to join it. ¡°I didn¡¯t mention it to Lexi and Haoyu. I was more focused on all the other stuff, too. Do you think it¡¯s only me?¡± ¡°That would be odd. Maybe it¡¯s just because I¡¯m not on campus,¡± said Lute. ¡°You never said if you want me to pick you up this afternoon or not.¡± ¡°I do,¡± said Lute. ¡°Cyril¡¯s apartment¡¯s been cleared, so I don¡¯t need to stay here to give him an ¡®in¡¯ into the Velra property and buffer him. And I really don¡¯t want to hang out with him for much longer. While drunk and nearly hypothermic, he shoved my head under his armpit and told me he didn¡¯t want someone named Polly to talk shit about me. As far as apologies go, that might be the best I could have hoped for, but I¡¯m still ready for some peace and quiet.¡± ¡°What about your¡­¡± Your mom, thought Alden. But he changed his mind before he asked the question. ¡°What about your family¡¯s boat?¡± he asked instead. ¡°Random question.¡± Alden had actually been wondering because of Kabir¡¯s story about being rescued from Libra. Almost by accident, he had thus far avoided telling his roommates he was staying at Matadero. It felt like the kind of thing they could all figure out if they tried, but conversation just hadn¡¯t gone there yet. And there had been so much other ground to cover. ¡°Libra survived,¡± said Lute. ¡°I heard it was on the other side of Matadero when everything happened. That Submerger stuff almost all headed in the opposite direction. The mansion did get flooded, but if the Grandwitch doesn¡¯t have some poor Avowed locked up in there casting drying spells already, I¡¯ll be shocked.¡± Alden lifted off the roof and headed toward his next stop. ¡°You look so proud of yourself,¡± Lute said. ¡°No I don¡¯t.¡± ¡°You look like you¡¯re enjoying the breeze in your hair as you soar above¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ve decided that if I¡¯m going to be the caretaker of this fine flying forsaken son, I¡¯m going to appreciate it. What else is there to do?¡± Lute looked thoughtful. ¡°A barrel roll.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I see you¡¯ve thought of it already.¡± Alden had a couple of minutes to spare, so he didn¡¯t rush his flight toward the gray-shingled roof of the admin building. He watched Lute shake cracker crumbs off one of the cushions in his fort. There was a question he wanted to ask, but he felt like he needed to be careful how he asked. At Benjamin Velra¡¯s birthday party, Lute had offered to give Alden a ¡°free¡± Peace of Mind. But Alden didn¡¯t think free meant free for Lute, and he didn¡¯t want to lean on a friendship that was only a few weeks old with something like, ¡°Will you take a three-hour-long dose of bad emotions for me?¡± Huh. If Boe was here and he didn¡¯t hate using his powers how would he interact with something like that? ¡°Hey man,¡± he said, trying to keep his voice casual, ¡°I¡¯ve been wondering. What kind of wordchains do you hate paying back the most? Like¡­which ones absolutely suck?¡± Please say you hate something physical. Something physical. ¡°The Gloss,¡± Lute said dryly. He pointed at his false eye, then cackled at the look that appeared on Alden¡¯s face. ¡°This reminds me of our first class together!¡± Lute crowed. ¡°The eye jokes never get old!¡± ¡°Your sense of humor is so wrong!¡± ¡°You walked into it.¡± Alden groaned. ¡°The thing about paying back debts is it¡¯s so situational,¡± said Lute. ¡°Anything that has two potentially positive halves is good. Anything I can sleep off is okay. It changes when you start talking about stronger chains, too. A low level skin sensitivity chain can be fine on both halves. But as the power increases it becomes problematic. In general, the negative sides of mental improvement chains are tough, of course, and¡ª¡± Dammit. It would¡¯ve been perfect if Lute had confessed that he loathed paying off strength chains or something like that. Alden could¡¯ve offered to swap debts. But nobody¡¯s going to tell me they like the wordchain that makes them feel nervous, depressed, or afraid. It was crazy of me to ask anyway. I¡¯ll pay for my own decisions. He had the whole day off tomorrow, and he could use that to pay off one of the Peace of Minds. He¡¯d lie in his hospital bed and have a nice anxiety attack with his nonjudgmental snake friend. Better to do it when his only roommate was a reptile. ¡°¡ªright now I¡¯m kind of worried about myself,¡± Lute was saying. ¡°I might have been just a tad over the top with my usage. Do you think we get in trouble for breaking public property if it was during an emergency and for a righteous cause? Because I¡­¡± Suddenly, Lute¡¯s expression changed. He got onto his feet, crouching so that his head didn¡¯t hit the blanket above him. ¡°Is something wrong?¡± ¡°Nah,¡± said Lute, his face distracted. ¡°I mean, probably not. Roman¡¯s mom just yelled something about Aulia murdering Orpheus in public, but she¡¯s a bit of an alarmist.¡± ¡°Do you need to go?¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s fine. I don¡¯t care what they¡¯re all doing. I worried the Grandwitch would appear and bother me while I was here, but she hasn¡¯t been around. She hasn¡¯t been on television either. I would have expected to see her all over the place, sticking her face in front of cameras for the public show.¡± He cocked his head. ¡°Yeah. There we go. She¡¯s live-streaming herself now. The family is all dutifully tuning in. She¡¯s probably delivering sympathies and gently reminding everyone that she has her love for Anesidora tattooed over whatever organ pumps your blood when you¡¯re an evil creature of the darkness masquerading as a human.¡± ¡°I thought Orpheus was your cousin with the personal struggles?¡± ¡°That is such a sweet way of saying he¡¯s been willfully obliterating his own mind and body since he was barely older than us. Every time he gets healed up, he goes right back to it.¡± ¡°Does Aulia usually stream with him?¡± Alden asked, trying to fit the new intel into his increasingly convoluted mental map of Velra relationships. ¡°Noo¡­she doesn¡¯t.¡± Lute smiled. ¡°Okay. Now I¡¯m a little too curious not to look. Let¡¯s see what the Grandwitch is scheming. I¡¯ll send you a link.¡± When it arrived, Alden opened it with a thought, planning to just take a quick glimpse before his advisement session. Aulia Velra stood on a wharf with a container crane in the background. She wore a black sweater and a single strand of pearls. Her blonde hair was in a tight, high ponytail, and the look on her face was so piercing it was almost as if she could see across space to meet every viewer¡¯s eyes with her own. ¡°Anesidora,¡± she said, her rich voice devoid of its usual note of cheer, ¡°we are facing one of our more difficult trials now, aren¡¯t we? So many of you have been so brave, and I won¡¯t betray that bravery with cowardice. Even if it costs me a piece of my own heart.¡± She looked down, and the camera shifted to show a clearer view of the thin, dark-haired man who sat sobbing at her feet. ¡°The Submerger was in my care. And it was stolen and sold to those who ultimately caused all of this tragedy by my own blood.¡± She held a hand to her chest. ¡°I cannot make amends. All I can offer you is my confession.¡± ****** ****** A. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-SEVEN: Family Matters III, part A 157A ****** ****** Alden completely forgot he was flying. The nonagon stopped in midair while he increased the opacity on his interface to make the three Velra faces that were juxtaposed in his vision clearer. On the left was Aulia, severe and firm with just a hint of sadness at the corners of her eyes. And Orpheus, frightened and sloppy with tears. In the right video window, Lute¡¯s expression had frozen. He¡¯d gone so still that if Alden hadn¡¯t been using the System for this call he¡¯d have wondered if his tech was glitching. ¡°My great grandson will be turned over to the authorities to pay for his crimes,¡± Aulia said. ¡°But an S-rank Chainer might prove difficult to apprehend, and I see no reason for his failings to lead to even more loss oflife. So I¡¯m taking responsibility for the job myself.¡± She squatted beside the man and stared into his eyes. He shook his head. She arched an eyebrow at him, and her mouth tightened. Orpheus¡¯s lips trembled. A few seconds passed, then he fell over onto the pavement at his grandmother¡¯s feet. Is he unconscious or faking? Aulia hadn¡¯t even touched him. Alden was sure there were wordchains that would knock you out like that; something that completely sapped your energy was the most obvious. But whatever it was, Aulia did know how to make an impression. She rose from her fallen grandson¡¯s side and turned her face to the water. The camera stayed on her profile. ¡°Anesidora has changed so much since I stepped off the ship that brought the first of us here. And I¡¯m proud. I¡¯m proud to have seen it. I¡¯m proud to have watched most of you grow up in a country where Avowed are free.¡± Her voice softened. ¡°Because we weren¡¯t once. Not so long ago. ¡°When they dumped the first generation here, we were lost young people, searching for new family. For home. But they had no intention of creating a home for us. There were more foreign soldiers than Avowed. More scientists studying us than teachers helping us. In this place as far away from their own shores as possible, humans tried to control superhumans. ¡°They tried to master us because they couldn¡¯t master their fears. Of us, of other worlds, and of each other.¡± She looked back at the camera. ¡°I don¡¯t blame them. The powers and creeds they had built their lives on had just been stripped of illusion and revealed to be local idiosyncrasies on the universal stage. Things are so much better now, but¡­¡± The corners of her lips turned upward. A knowing smile. ¡°But even though I don¡¯t cast blame, I don¡¯t forget. As you all know, I¡¯ve dedicated decades of my life to Anesidora. I have done my best to contribute to the creation of a country where Avowed can use the abilities we¡¯ve been gifted to live as we see fit, to build something beyond the dreams of most ordinary humans, and to protect ourselves from those who would divide us.¡± Aulia swept an arm out. ¡°Anesidora is not a prison anymore. It. Is. Our. Power. Our power. How many times have I stood at podiums and said that Avowed must remain united? On this land. Together. ¡°We are powerful. But we are also vastly outnumbered by those who would happily use us for their own ends¡­or crush us because they long for a way of life that disappeared the minute Earth encountered planets full of new peoples and new ideas. ¡°Progress takes time. Work. Faith. I have faith in the Anesidora we dreamed of on the day when a few of us stood on this very spot and watched the last ship full of prison guards return to their own countries to tell their leaders that they had made a mistake. ¡°In their rush to handle us, they instead introduced us to each other. And they gave us a common purpose.¡± Aulia walked back over to Orpheus and looked down at him. ¡°The young can¡¯t remember what they didn¡¯t live through. So I beg you to trust those of us who did live through such times. Superhumans at Large and those like them are not liberators. They are selfish and dangerous.¡± She sighed. ¡°It seems that my longtime opposition to the expansion of Avowed zones in other countries, and my support for policies that will encourage unregistereds to come forward peacefully and join us here, has made me the enemy of those organizations. The attack on Matadero¡­it may be my fault in more ways than one. ¡°I doubt I¡¯ll have much time to explain before someone arrives to object,¡± she said. ¡°But the Submerger has been in my possession for many years. It was kept onboard my ship, Libra, in a room made by <>. It was for my personal use and also for the protection of Anesidora in the event of attack by a foreign navy. ¡°All current council members were aware that the Submerger existed. It was, if it had ever been needed for anything, always at Anesidora¡¯s disposal.¡±This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. She bowed her head magnanimously. ¡°The President has scheduled a press conference for this evening. I won¡¯t reveal the identity of the attack¡¯s perpetrators before she does. Though I believe sooner is better than later for honesty, and since those identities are known¡­well¡­ ¡°I do demand¡ªand we should all demand¡ªthat the ongoing investigation go beyond Orpheus¡¯s theft of the device from Libra. Sadly, he¡¯s a flawed individual. But his flaws are well known to anyone who¡¯s ever met him. No reasonable person would think he was capable of stealing from a Wrightmade vault of that quality on his own. Someone else, someone more clever and more treacherous than this poor idiot at my feet could ever hope to be, must have been involved. ¡°Orpheus can¡¯t tell me who it was. He can¡¯t even remember stealing the device in the first place. And I think we must assume that the mastermind behind his crime didn¡¯t end their own life during the attack. ¡°Anesidora has a greater enemy. ¡°And that enemy chose to use my grandson and my Submerger to attack Matadero while I was there aiding one of our battlegroups.¡± Her voice shook slightly for the first time as she said, ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I can¡¯t be sure if the attack was directed at our Anesidora or at me personally, and so I must say goodbye to you all for a time. To ensure that no assault on me touches your lives again, I will live at sea, as far from our home as allowed by law, until I am sure that whoever was responsible for this tragedy¡­whoever was really responsible¡­is apprehended. ¡°And I will dedicate the next weeks, months, or years of my life to finding out who that was.¡± She closed her eyes. Alden took a breath. He realized he hadn¡¯t moved a muscle since she started speaking. ¡°Holy¡­uh¡­Lute?¡± he asked. ¡°Do you know anything about any of¡ª?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t talk right now,¡± Lute breathed. ¡°I think I might be dead.¡± ¡°You look alive to me. A little pale.¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m dead. I just haven¡¯t fallen over yet.¡± ****** ¡°My grandmother killed hundreds of people.¡± Lute had fallen over now. His voice was muffled by the pillow he was holding on top of his face, but Alden could just make out most of what he was saying. ¡°I don¡¯t think that was supposed to be your takeaway from her speech,¡± he replied, cutting across a patch of lawn toward the front steps of the admin building. ¡°I think the speech was about how she didn¡¯t kill hundreds of people?¡± ¡°That fuffuff Orpheus killed hundreds of people!¡± That word was fuck-up maybe? Aulia had disappeared from her livestream. Instead, a written letter detailing all of the actions she was taking, and all of the actions she thought the High Council should be taking, to protect Anesidorans from further harm was scrolling up slowly. Alden was confused by Aulia¡¯s confession. On more than one level. It had been unexpectedly compelling at the start, and considering how much he didn¡¯t want to be compelled by Aulia Velra, that was saying something. And then at the end, when she¡¯d basically called herself the primary target of the whole attack, he¡¯d thought she sounded like a twisted old politician trying to make herself out to be the victim. Only the more he tried to put his finger on why she sounded that way, the more he struggled to articulate it to himself. Someone used her great grandson to steal a magic device from her ship to attack the place where she happened to be¡­ If you had nothing else to go on, it would look like she either set the whole thing up, someone set it up to frame her, or she was really the target of a failed assassination. But the person who directed the boat with the Sinker Sender on it toward Matadero had no intention of doing that when they set sail with the device on board. The Artonans had said so. Esh-erdi had said so. ¡°Has anyone ever tried to assassinate your grandmother before?¡± Alden asked. ¡°NOT HARD ENOUGH!¡± Lute shouted. ¡°You¡¯re going to be okay, man. This will pass.¡± Lute whipped the pillow off his face and sat up. His hair was scrambled. He was breathing hard. ¡°This can¡¯t be happening. This isn¡¯t the kind of thing that happens. Not even to me. Alden, I might as well have SUBMERGER CO-OWNER tattooed over my ass instead of the Velra V.¡± ¡°Just try to calm down and talk things over with any family members who might know something?¡± Alden suggested. ¡°Maybe¡ª¡± Another loud scream¡ªthis one belonging to someone outside the blanket fort¡ªsounded. ¡°Who was that?¡± ¡°One of my aunts,¡± said Lute. ¡°She just read the part of the apology letter about how Aulia¡¯s selling this apartment and a bunch of other places and using the money to build new houses for people¡­oh my God. It¡¯s my family¡¯s fault Lexi and Kon don¡¯t have a house.¡± ****** ****** B. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-SEVEN: Family Matters III, part B ****** 157B ****** The personal advisement meeting was on the first floor in a cozy spot that looked nothing like the cramped teacher¡¯s office or bland conference room Alden had expected. A rectangular wooden table with just four chairs sat in front of a wall with an unlit gas fireplace. On the opposite wall, a gallery of matching wooden frames held pictures of famous alumni. There was a coffee maker with a bowl full of pods beside it in one corner. It would have been a comfortable place for a meeting, except for the other attendees. What the heck? Why? Alden thought while he nodded politely and let Lesedi Saleh show him her favorite kind of coffee pod and the selection of flavored sugars. Why these two? I don¡¯t feel like I need advisement from either of them right now. Up until the moment he¡¯d walked in, he¡¯d been assuming that lots of people were getting advised about something today. But while Instructor Klein, who was sitting with his back to the fireplace, might have time for general student advisement at a time like this, Alden doubted that Principal Saleh did. Isn¡¯t she dealing with a hundred other things right now? And they were both smiling at him a lot. Lesedi Saleh was understandable, but Klein? He smiled at some people in class. Not Alden. His look usually says I¡¯m more of a worrisome project he¡¯s been given against his will. Alden took the seat across from the man and stirred vanilla sugar into the coffee. ¡°As I was saying¡­¡± Principal Saleh stepped through the back of the chair, then sat down. ¡°We just want to have a talk with you before classes re-start. We¡¯re checking in with everyone who was on the bus Friday night. That was a much different end to your trip than we¡¯d imagined.¡± Alden relaxed immediately. It made more sense for this meeting to be conducted by the two of them if they were only checking on the few students who¡¯d been on The Span. ¡°Since we have you here, we also want to offer you some options for finishing out the rest of this quarter,¡± the principal continued. ¡°First, how are you feeling about what¡¯s happened? Do you have any concerns or questions? Please feel free to talk about anything you like. The room is private, and anything you say will stay here.¡± Alden didn¡¯t really have much to say. The situation on the bridge was over. He was of the opinion that everyone in his class had behaved well and that Instructor Klein had done a good job of instilling order and giving instructions when the sirens first went off. What had happened to him afterward wasn¡¯t the school¡¯s business, as far as he was concerned, so he brushed over it by saying he¡¯d been transported to a flyer but there had been a problem boarding it. He didn¡¯t have any requests they could help him with right now, but he thanked them for offering. It took him just a few minutes to cover it all, and he expected there wouldn¡¯t be much more to talk about. But Instructor Klein and Principal Saleh kept exchanging glances that made him think there was a private conversation going on between the two of them. ¡°You¡¯ve been performing extremely well in the gym,¡± Klein said finally. Principal Saleh nodded. ¡°In the short time you¡¯ve had since you were accepted, your progress has been exceptional. We were talking about it just before you arrived. A preservation talent that doubled as a shield for you was already useful. In the past couple of weeks, it¡¯s revealed a remarkable depth and versatility.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m still working out how I caught the tennis balls with my eyes closed. I¡¯ve made a little bit of progress. I think it¡¯s going to take me a while to get the hang of it, but when I do it should be really interesting.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Lesedi Saleh smiled again. ¡°Very interesting.¡± ¡°The new wordchain you¡¯ve learned is also going to be helpful to you,¡± Klein offered. ¡°Mastering chains is a good way for someone in your position to make up for low foundation points. If you have a knack for them and you¡¯re willing to dedicate the time necessary to make them a reliable part of your toolkit, that¡¯s something we¡¯ll support.¡± ¡°Even if it leads the occasional classmate to decide you¡¯re cheating with performance enhancing drugs,¡± the principal added lightly. I decapitated that classmate, thought Alden, so we¡¯re even now. He was about to sip his drink when Klein said, ¡°With as well as you¡¯ve done, we all think it¡¯s only a brief matter of time before you level. It¡¯s good work already for the truncated quarter. With that in mind, we wondered if you might want to consider taking a break from the combat class.¡± Alden accidentally stabbed himself in the chin with the wooden stir stick he¡¯d left in his cup. No! That¡¯s a shitty idea! Why would they suggest it out of the blue? ¡°No,¡± he said, being careful not to add an exclamation point. ¡°I don¡¯t want to. Why would I?¡± ¡°We only have a few more classes until the end of term,¡± said Instructor Klein. ¡°In the long run, skipping them for the sake of recovery and personal study might be for the best. You could focus on your wordchains and then start with a full course load again in January.¡± Is this the same man who gave us all a huge lecture two weeks ago? You have twenty-one classes between now and the end of the quarter! Be here ten minutes early not ten seconds late. Take your mediocrity elsewhere, time wasters! ¡°It¡¯s fourteen classes,¡± said Alden. He was trying so hard to keep the ¡°What the hell are you talking about?!¡± out of his voice even though he was sure it was on his face. ¡°I planned to attend all of them.¡± It¡¯s why I¡¯m at this school. ¡°I mean¡­I was already a little disappointed we weren¡¯t having gym tonight.¡± ¡°You¡¯re in a cast, Alden,¡± Principal Saleh pointed out. ¡°Yes, but I could have sat on the bleachers and studied what everyone else was doing. And my<> will probably be off by Wednesday. I¡¯m seeing a really good healer.¡± They were both still looking at him. ¡°¡­do I need to bring a note from him?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I can do that.¡± Porti-loth would most likely use tree sap to write, ¡°Esh-erdi gave me this. I healed it,¡± on his forehead. ¡°We¡¯re not going to prevent you from attending class if that¡¯s what you want to do,¡± Principal Saleh said. ¡°As long as you continue to navigate the course as well as you have been.¡± What? ¡°But you have just been through your second disaster in a single year,¡± she continued. ¡°The program is competitive and stressful. Those factors encourage power growth in most of our students. However, when life outside of school is delivering more than your fair share of difficulty already¡­intense training can be something that breaks you down instead of builds you. We want you to be particularly cautious about it given your situation.¡± ¡°Thank you, but I¡¯m fine.¡± ¡°I also want to point out that this is as perfect an opportunity for you to take a step back as we could ask for,¡± she said. ¡°Several other students, including a member of your class, will be taking personal time due to recent events. Your absence wouldn¡¯t be shocking or resented.¡± I am shocked and resentful at the suggestion though. So no. ¡°I¡¯m really looking forward to being at every combat class,¡± he said firmly. ¡°Ten minutes early.¡± There was another awkward pause, then Instructor Klein clasped his hands on the table and dropped the smile in favor of a stern look that was much more natural on his face in Alden¡¯s opinion. ¡°One thing we haven¡¯t really had time to discuss with your class yet,¡± he said, ¡°is how important mental state is. And how much superheroing, or any similarly taxing profession an Avowed might pursue, involves managing that carefully.¡± For some reason, even with that line, Alden didn¡¯t realize a small strike was incoming until it landed. ¡°Peace of Mind is an excellent wordchain,¡± said Klein. ¡°Your use of it on Friday night was completely appropriate. But¡­¡± ****** This is not a big deal. Alden shoved his hand forward to make the nonagon go faster. The wind cooled his face. He told himself his cheeks were only hot because the admin building had been warm and not because he¡¯d gotten flushed from irritation and embarrassment. It¡¯s their job to make sure I¡¯m okay. They were just doing it. But he hated the way it threw his own efforts to sort himself out into disarray. Here he was, collecting all the fallen pieces and putting Alden Thorn, CNH Student, back together again. He was busy deciding what to do and say about murders, commendations, and Matadero. It was his life, he was going to handle it, and he was looking forward to reclaiming his little scraps of normal. Then here comes someone to throw a rock at me because, ¡°We just want to be sure you¡¯re solid. One of your classmates expressed concern about you. Have you talked to a professional about this yet?¡± He clenched his jaw. This kind of thing is always a trap. You get annoyed because they¡¯re picking at something sensitive. But if they notice you¡¯re getting annoyed, it¡¯s like, ¡°We¡¯ve found a problem after all!¡± and the questions just keep coming. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Or you say the wrong thing, freak them out, then they watch you like a hawk for months. And every time you have any emotion whatsoever from that point on it becomes something worthy of analysis. Not that that would be happening here; he was just having flashbacks to a particularly horrible period in elementary school. Torsten Klein and Lesedi Saleh did seem willing to accept his decision not to prop his feet up and twiddle his thumbs for the next five weeks worth of combat classes. Alden had explained that the incident on the bus had been triggered by the sudden lack of System features. That kind of thing wasn¡¯t going to be happening every other week¡­ I hope. He wondered who¡¯d noticed and ¡°expressed concern¡±. Not Haoyu obviously; he was fine expressing concern to Alden¡¯s face. Let it go. Think of the good things about the meeting. They approved of his progress and the wordchain study. He¡¯d gotten a free coffee. They hadn¡¯t asked what was up with him and Esh-erdi. Though Klein had made an odd comment about how he might want to steer clear of the university¡¯s cultural advisor that could have been a reference. They¡¯d also reminded him to talk to his instructors as soon as the System announced that he¡¯d leveled. So that he could get advice about choosing talents and foundational enhancements. That¡¯s a problem for another day. He flew around, cooling his face and his temper for so long that he ended up being a little late to the Intro to Other Worlds meeting. He was disappointed to learn that the course wouldn¡¯t resume until next Monday. The only assignment until then was ¡°do your best¡± on the essay. Vandy caught him at the end of the meeting. ¡°You¡¯re already wearing your uniform.¡± ¡°Yep. We match,¡± said Alden. Except she didn¡¯t have nonagon hair. ¡°How did you get hurt? Was it on the bridge?¡± ¡°No. It was afterward.¡± ¡°You weren¡¯t on campus this weekend,¡± she informed him. Talking to her is already getting familiar. He didn¡¯t mind the way it pulled him back into a known rut. ¡°I was just waiting around on a healer and finishing my essay.¡± ¡°You finished already?¡± So he was right. She was the kind of person who could look truly caught off guard to find she wasn¡¯t winning at homework. Even at a time like this. ¡°Of course! Why wouldn¡¯t I have? I wrote about ewtwee.¡± Unable to resist, he smiled at her and added, ¡°Didn¡¯t you finish yours?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll finish it tonight,¡± she said. Alden wondered if she was going to report back to him the second she¡¯d turned it in. They headed to a classroom in the MPE building, then waited around on everyone else so that they could have the meeting for gym. Unsurprisingly, Vandy¡ªfrequent monitor of Alden¡¯s pockets¡ªwas a wealth of information about the others. While she watched Aulia Velra¡¯s speech on a tablet, she told Alden she was worried about Maricel, who she¡¯d barely seen or heard from since Friday, and Tuyet, who was dealing with a family situation. Everly had announced she¡¯d be taking up running to build her stamina. Njeri was trying to talk her into hockey instead. Winston and Finlay had had a spat that neither of them would talk about. Marsha had gotten told off yesterday for trying to practice jumps with her polearm in the street beside the dome village. And their class¡¯s Object Shaper had gotten emotional after the campus vigil and confessed to his roommates that he thought if he¡¯d died during the flood nobody would have remembered his name. Maricel and Rebecca had leveled. No one was celebrating them as much as they usually would have because Jeffy had gotten two levels, and yesterday, the mother of a man he¡¯d lifejacketed had come to campus and told him he could have a free lamp. ¡°A lamp?¡± ¡°She owns a lighting store.¡± Vandy paused the tablet. ¡°Did you level?¡± ¡°Nope.¡± ¡°I¡¯m surprised Konstantin didn¡¯t. He has been practicing for months, and he says he had a breakthrough. So he¡¯s a little disappointed.¡± She pursed her lips. Alden wondered if she was disappointed in her own progress. They¡¯d only been at school for a short while, but most of the students had been practicing as well as they could for weeks or months prior to applying. People who hadn¡¯t leveled before they were accepted¡ªwhich was most of them¡ªwere bound to be getting antsy already even if Klein had told them not to. What he calls the System¡¯s ¡°eccentric¡± management of leveling really does give it a lot of control over our behavior and moods, doesn¡¯t it? Its tendency to announce a level-up after an Avowed had achieved something or learned something new about their powers was both encouraging and manipulative. If leveling announcements came at exactly ¡°x amount of dominion over the universe gained¡± it would be more honest. But then it might have had to tell Jeffy he¡¯d leveled a month ago, at a random moment, and he¡¯d have been depressed all of the talent options involved water. Now it could tell him he¡¯d gained two at once to drive home the point that success came with being helpful and aquatic. Alden felt¡­ I don¡¯t know how I feel about them affixing, he realized. But it¡¯s not simple. He hadn¡¯t had to think too hard about his classmates leveling up yet. When it came to progressing as an Avowed, dealing with himself filled his plate and then some. And, when he had thought about what the others would do, it had mostly been because they were all talking about it. They wanted it. They¡¯d joined Talent Dev for it. Leveling the classes they¡¯d chosen would make them proud and happy. It would make them stronger. They would get new spells and skills. They would mold themselves into people they could never be without the System. And it wouldn¡¯t hurt. And they wouldn¡¯t ever know. Even if they understood in the factual sense¡­they wouldn¡¯t know. He stared at the empty desks that filled the row in front of him. Vandy kept giving him a rundown of everything, but her voice faded into the background. It¡¯s not right. So much of it¡¯s wrong. He couldn¡¯t grapple with it right now. He tuned back into Vandy. She was telling him that someone who had family in Apex was talking about moving off campus to live with them. Just then, Olive and Reinhard walked into the room. He was carrying his bow. She was wearing pink tights and sneakers that squeaked on the floor, which would have made it easy to distinguish her from the silent illusionary Olive walking behind her even without Alden¡¯s unique detection method. ¡°You¡¯re talking about people moving off campus? I¡¯m thinking about it, too,¡± Olive said. ¡°I love the dorms, but at the moment, I just want to hug my mom and brother about ten times a day to make sure they¡¯re safe. Family matters more than anything else, right?¡± ¡°What happened to your foot?¡± Reinhard asked, grabbing a desk two up from Alden. ¡°It¡¯s from when you shot me during combat assessment,¡± said Alden. ¡°The old wounds flare up every now and then.¡± ¡°Ha! You¡¯re funny today. Where did you go when you left the bri¡ª?¡± [Video call from Twenty-seven Hundred and Sixty-first General Evul-art¡¯h, Artona I. Connection fee waived.] Alden stood up from his desk. ¡°Sorry. I¡¯m getting a call. I need to take it.¡± He hurried out and down the hall before slipping into an open classroom and shutting the door behind him. As soon as he accepted the call, Evul-art¡¯h appeared. She was on her window seat lounger, arms crossed over her chest. Alden scanned the room around her for signs of Stuart. Usually he was right there to snatch the tablet from his sister. ¡°Are you squashing him again?¡± he asked in Artonan. Both of her pink eyes were focused on him. When she didn¡¯t answer for half a minute, Alden wondered what was up. When it went on for another half a minute, he got nervous. ¡°Where¡¯s your brother?¡± ¡°In the big living room,¡± she said finally, ¡°trying to force everyone else to understand something that I can already tell will only ever make sense to him.¡± Well¡­that¡¯s an answer. She pointed the middle three fingers of one of her hands at him. ¡°Stu likes you more than I realized.¡± What does that mean? She didn¡¯t seem mad. But she did seem a lot less jokey than usual. ¡°He did name Alden after me,¡± Alden answered when he couldn¡¯t think of anything else to say. ¡°We do talk every week.¡± ¡°Yes. But he experiments sometimes in pursuit of personal development. He has < >.¡± Alden waited. ¡°Questions about the <> human were asked today. And he was forced to confess that he didn¡¯t contract with you for Privacy of the House.¡± Oh shit. Is he in major trouble for that? Stuart made it sound like it wasn¡¯t going to be a huge issue. ¡°I don¡¯t mind getting a tattoo for that,¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°I have no desire to share information that shouldn¡¯t be shared.¡± What kind of idiot would even want dirt on these people? It sounded hazardous for the health. ¡°It¡¯s not that serious,¡± said Evul-art¡¯h. ¡°Not to me, anyway. I just wanted to look at you a little harder.¡± Alden swallowed. ¡°And I wanted to tell you that Stu will either call you soon or never again. Depending on how the discussion in the big living room goes.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Alden said. ¡°Did I do something?¡± ¡°No. He¡¯s just fallen into the <> of a family <>.¡± She smiled. ¡°We¡¯ll see how it turns out.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT: Family Matters IV 158 ****** ¡°Alden. Hey, Alden. It¡¯s over.¡± At the sound of his name coming from Winston Heelfeather¡¯s mouth, he looked up to realize that Instructors Klein and Marion were finished speaking to the class. Earlier, Alden had pulled out his tablet in case there was any need for note taking, and it lay untouched on the desk in front of him. His thoughts had been on another planet ever since Evul-art¡¯h had ended the call. ¡°So,¡± Winston said, ¡°what do you think of my offer?¡± At the start of the meeting, the speedster had raced ahead of Haoyu to steal the seat directly in front of Alden, for the purpose of making another offer to present Alden¡¯s Avowed selection story to his own fans. Waves of disinterest had flowed through Alden as soon as Winston said ¡°social media collab.¡± ¡°You¡¯d have instant access to my follower base,¡± the boy was telling him now. He flashed a grin. ¡°You know how much that kind of exposure would help you with your launch.¡± Why is he saying ¡°know¡± so¡­knowingly? Like we¡¯re in on something together. Alden had expected Winston to be extra obnoxious after running into the fishing line neck first. But he¡¯d thought it would take the form of more jealous glares and insecure put-downs. This was so much stranger. ¡°The fans will love it. We have to do it this week, though. My posting schedule is completely full for months. Couldn¡¯t fit you in anywhere else. And there¡¯s so much interest in Anesidora right now. Globally, I mean. It¡¯s a perfect time for¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think it is,¡± said Alden. ¡°Who makes a ¡®Meet me! I¡¯m amazing!¡¯ post at a time like this? I¡¯m not interested, but even if I was, I wouldn¡¯t do it now. It would either disappear in the noise or blow up in my face because it¡¯s tone deaf. This sounds like a scam.¡± Winston gaped at him. Reinhard snickered. Was that too harsh? ¡°I¡¯m sure that¡¯s not how you meant it,¡± Alden said. ¡°But¡­yeah. Thanks for the offer anyway.¡± Winston sputtered something defensive. Alden didn¡¯t have the bandwidth for him. He¡¯d barely gotten the gist of what the instructors had said over the past fifteen minutes. Morrison Waker was safely back on the planet as of this morning, and he¡¯d be returning to teach classes. Possibly with some days off since the government was trying to rope the more famous superheroes into PR work on behalf of the country. Alden wasn¡¯t sure what that meant. Did they want Big¡¯nLittle Snake to talk in a comforting drawl about the strength of Anesidora while he bulldozed through the rubble? Fragment would definitely be gone for the rest of the quarter since she was heavily involved in clean-up. Alden had looked around to make a commiserating expression at Maricel when he¡¯d heard that, only to find she wasn¡¯t present. Lots of people were out, though. He assumed they were watching through interfaces. They¡¯d be having duels on Wednesday for the first time. One-on-ones.And between now and then, they were supposed to watch footage of another first year combat class having their own duels to get an idea for the rules and how it would work. Other than that, the instructors had thanked everyone for their good behavior during the crisis, reminded them to come forward with any personal problems that might affect their performance, and told them to be cautious about getting swept up in volunteer opportunities that might come their way in the next few weeks. ¡°Remember, you¡¯re still new to being Avowed,¡± Marion had told them. ¡°None of you know what you¡¯re doing yet,¡± said Klein. ¡°A lot of groups with good intentions are trying to assist with the recovery¡ª¡± ¡°But most of them are disorganized non-professionals who have never used their powers for anything more complicated than lifting a piece of furniture,¡± Klein interrupted. ¡°What we mean is that they may not be the best judges of their own limits or yours,¡± said Marion. ¡°If the authorities don¡¯t put a stop to it, someone will drop what¡¯s left of a house on someone else¡¯s head before this is over.¡± Klein¡¯s voice was dire. ¡°Don¡¯t be the one who does it, and don¡¯t be standing underneath it. If you want to volunteer, do it through school clubs with advisor oversight.¡± The two of them had kept going after that, but Alden didn¡¯t know what about. I don¡¯t think I missed any critical information at least. He stood up from his desk. I¡¯ll figure it out later if I did. He tried to turn his thoughts back to his surroundings, but it was hard. Stuart was having a negotiation with his family in the big living room. About me? he wondered as he tucked the tablet into his bag. It sounds like it might be about me¡­ But no matter what angle he looked at the information from, he didn¡¯t see how the family could have more than a ten-minute-long conversation with him as a main topic. The art¡¯hs who weren¡¯t named Stu or Alis didn¡¯t even know him. Evul-art¡¯h had made it sound like the ¡°family negotiation¡± had started because someone had found out about the Privacy of the House contract. But Alden had told her he wouldn¡¯t mind doing it. In fact, he¡¯d prefer to do it so that Stuart¡¯s family would be comfortable around him. As far as contracts went, one that asked you not to share embarrassing private information you learned about someone as a visitor in their home was mild. Like having magical backup to support your basic decency. What if I really never get to talk to him again? She didn¡¯t mean never-never, right? She was being dramatic? Evul-art¡¯h hadn¡¯t clarified, and Alden had been too off-balance to ask her before she hung up. He felt like someone had pulled a rug he hadn¡¯t even known he was standing on out from under him. In just a few long phone calls, Stu-art¡¯h had come to occupy a larger spot in his life than Alden would have imagined right after Thegund, when the Artonan boy mistook him for a hallucination and closed the door in his face. He¡¯s the kind of person who asks me questions about my life purpose and makes it seem like something we should obviously be talking about. And he¡¯s actually got a good sense of humor when he finally relaxes enough to bring it out¡ª¡°Would you like me to have Aunt Alis dig an ocean?¡± He tried to explain how auriads work because he noticed I was curious. I watched him watch his sister die. He¡¯s going to be a knight. Alden was afraid he should have expected something like this from the start. He¡¯d had worries that some stickler for rules would eventually put an end to the message exchange with Kibby. But Alis-art¡¯h had said it was all right, so he¡¯d been letting the fear go. He¡¯d never been concerned someone would object to him befriending Stuart, though, since Stuart himself hadn¡¯t seemed at all concerned about it. He invited me to his house. He¡¯s old enough to pick his own friends. Maybe it¡¯s not really about me. Maybe it¡¯s about¡­ He couldn¡¯t think of anything. He didn¡¯t really know the art¡¯hs or their family dynamic. Because of the number of secrets still between them, he didn¡¯t even know Stuart¡¯s specific concerns well enough to guess. Evul-art¡¯h had said her brother was trying to force everyone else to understand something that would only ever make sense to him. I can definitely imagine that, but at the same time¡ª The world around him intruded suddenly in the form of Konstantin vaulting over the row of desks to his left. He gave Alden a smile that thoroughly showcased the new gap in his teeth. ¡°I¡¯m coming with you and Lexi! Thank you so much.¡± Snap out of it, Alden. ¡°Sure. It¡¯s no trouble.¡± ¡°You can meet our sister. She wants to tell everyone she¡¯s been to another planet, so you can say, ¡®Me too!¡¯ And you¡¯ll hit it off right away. The important question, though¡­how fast are we going to fly?¡± Alden hadn¡¯t actually pre-planned his flight speed across the water.¡°I don¡¯t even know what the top speed is. Not so fast I knock anyone off.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not what you¡¯re supposed to be asking him!¡± Everly shouted from across the room. ¡°How can you get distracted in two seconds?¡± ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± said Kon. ¡°Everly wants to know how many people the General¡¯s green thing can hold. She¡¯s heavier than she looks, but she¡¯s still very small.¡± ¡°Oh my¡ªstop. Stop talking. I¡¯ll ask him myself!¡± Everly broke off her conversation with Jupiter and rushed over, a baby blue tote bag swinging from her shoulder as she bumped her boyfriend out of the way. She looked up at Alden. ¡°I told him to ask you if you minded carrying someone else, and then to ask you if you wanted to charge anything. My parents would pay you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m definitely not charging.¡± He did wonder what the nonagon¡¯s weight limit was. Four people would easily fit space-wise. ¡°I think it¡¯ll be fine with all of us.¡± If not, he assumed Drusi-otta would prevent them from doing it. ****** ****** They all headed back to the dorms after class so that everyone could pick up whatever they needed. As soon as the door to the huntski lodge closed behind Alden and his roommates, Haoyu said, ¡°What the hell¡­the Velras.¡± Lexi made a face like the name had struck his vitals. ¡°I was on a call with Lute when Aulia made the announcement.¡± Alden dropped his bag on the kitchen table, eagerly taking in the familiar furnishings. None of it got wet or ruined. There was a trail of dirt on the fluffy rug. It led between the sofa and the fireplace to the window, where one of the metal wastebaskets they had in their bedrooms had become home to a large tropical plant with long striped leaves. That¡¯s new. ¡°How was he doing?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Not fine.¡± said Alden. ¡°I told him it would be okay ¡ª-.¡± ¡°In what universe?¡± said Lexi. Alden shrugged. ¡°I have no idea what it¡¯ll be like other than crazy,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°The internet¡¯s like a minefield right now.People are saying everyone with a ¡®V¡¯ in their last name should be arrested, but also that Aulia is a hero for apprehending her own grandson and revealing ¡®the truth about the hidden enemy on the High Council.¡¯¡± ¡°Wow ¡­.. they¡¯re going full government conspiracy theory already?¡± Alden asked Lexi groaned again. ¡°We all have to get on the same page,¡± Haoyu announced. ¡°And we¡¯ll make sure we¡¯re saying something other than urghhoooumnooo when someone asks us what Lute knew and what he thinks and what ¡ª¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t sound like urghhoooumnooo!¡± Lexi protested. Alden looked at him. ¡°I didn¡¯t.¡± Lexi said. ¡°As far as what Lute knew and what he thinks¡­he didn¡¯t know anything, and he was freaking out,¡± said Alden. ¡°He knew nothing. He¡¯s horrified. He¡¯s barely on speaking terms with his family¡­what else?¡± Haoyu wondered aloud. ¡°It¡¯s hard because if people end up pro-Aulia, then should we tell them that he¡¯s super mad at her?¡± ¡°Maybe we just emphasize the fact that he¡¯s been out of the Velra loop since he became an Avowed,¡± Alden suggested. ¡°He should change his last name,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Does his tattoo allow that?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know how to figure this out,¡± said Lexi. ¡°I¡¯m just going to spend the rest of the day and tomorrow focusing on my own family.On Wednesday, I¡¯ll try to think of some way to prevent a mob of people with pitchforks from killing Lute.¡± ¡°He¡¯ll be touched,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°For real.¡± ****** Alden didn¡¯t know when he¡¯d get called back to Matadero by Esh-erdi. So far, he seemed to have free rein and an open schedule, but in case the situation changed fast, he grabbed a few clothes for himself and stuffed them into his messenger bag. When he looked around his room, his eyes stopped on the learning cushion Stuart had sent him. The note that had come with it was tucked in his hand casting book. May you gain knowledge all the days of your life, and may your days be many. Haoyu and Lexi were still banging around, collecting stuff. The doors were all open, so Alden could hear Haoyu having an excited phone call with his dad. He¡¯d be spending the night with his parents, and tomorrow they were going to sit on the floor in their pajamas together, watching all their favorite movies. It was a tradition, he said, whenever one of them had been away. Alden shut the door. He knelt beside the new cushion. He watched the translations for the logograms appear and disappear one by one as he focused on them: siv ochoth - a growing path. zet - effort. utyoda - student. Alden touched his fingers to a gold one that meant ¡°the pride of one who seeks.¡± I didn¡¯t get to tell him how much I like it. He decided that when Stuart called, if he called, the first thing he would do was thank him. And the second thing I¡¯ll do is ask what it is¡ªthe thing he¡¯s trying to explain to his family that his sister is sure will only ever make sense to him. And I don¡¯t care if it¡¯s the weirdest, most incomprehensible idea that ever fell out of another person¡¯s head. I¡¯ll make him explain until I understand it, too. If it¡¯s something he can tell the human about, anyway. It wasn¡¯t much of a return present. But it was better than a random gift shop purchase, wasn¡¯t it? I¡¯m staying on Matadero with nothing to do tomorrow¡­what about the cushion? Having it for practice would be nice, but hauling it over the ocean and back sounded a little ridiculous. He made it back into the living room before Lexi, but not Haoyu, who was flicking water from a glass onto the new tropical plant. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°That¡¯s a nice plant,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m going to keep it alive,¡± said Haoyu, still flicking. ¡°I think it¡¯s some kind of bromeliad. I¡¯m mimicking a humid environment for it.¡± ¡°Where does one get a giant bromeliad?¡± ¡°Look at the time! I really need to go meet up with my parents.¡± I probably couldn¡¯t have resisted a rainforest souvenir either. Avowed didn¡¯t get to visit beautiful places on Earth every day. But I¡¯d have taken, like, a rock or a stick or something tiny and normal. He dug up a plant the size of Lute. Lexi had just emerged from his room with a stuffed backpack and the bag full of all the rhinestone jewelry he¡¯d collected at Benjamin Velra¡¯s birthday party. Before he could say anything, they received a group video call from Lute. When they answered, they saw him standing in a store aisle surrounded by boxes of hair dye. He had a pair of large sunglasses on top of his head. <> he said. <> Thrown by the fact that Lute was speaking German all of a sudden, it took Alden a second to reply. ¡°Okay. You¡¯re staying in the penthouse with all your relatives?¡± <> Lute scoffed. <> ¡°Will you show us your S-rank charisma sometime?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Do you think German will keep people from recognizing you somehow?¡± said Lexi Lute grabbed a box of brown hair dye and shook it. <> He made a face. <> ¡°You want me to sleep in your bed and see if an assassin attacks me in the night?¡± Haoyu offered. Alden automatically looked around for Drusi-otta. <> ¡°Are those hair colors?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Or are you thinking up a new codename for yourself?¡± ****** Haoyu managed to send three group text messages mentioning ¡°Nutmeg Velra¡± before they even made it into the garden. ¡°Should I do Lutewing van Nutmeg next?¡± he asked as they exited through the dormitory¡¯s sliding doors. ¡°You should stop your dad from tasting things out of the planter labeled ¡®Painful Vegetation,¡¯¡± said Lexi, nodding toward the other end of the garden. Haoyu¡¯s parents were there, both dressed casually. His mom was laughing at something his dad had just said. ¡°I know they won¡¯t hurt him,¡± Lexi continued, ¡°but I¡¯m sure the people who are growing those don¡¯t expect someone to come along and eat¡ªow.¡± Haoyu sideswiped him in his hurry to get to his parents, ¡°You came all the way here! I thought I was taking the bus. Come see our lodge!¡± ¡°Lodge?¡± a voice asked from behind them. Kon had just come out with a small duffel bag. ¡°You call your room a lodge?¡± ¡°No,¡± said Lexi. ¡°You¡¯ve been too suspicious for too long now. There had better be marble floors and a gold-plated toilet when I finally break in, or I¡¯m going to be so disappointed.¡± Before Everly appeared, they had a couple of minutes to say hello to Haoyu¡¯s parents. ¡°I was so excited when I heard there was a Rabbit in Haoyu¡¯s class!¡± Mr. Zhang-Demir said. He insisted on bumping elbows with Alden since ordinary handshakes were out after you¡¯d been handling the painful plants. ¡°I¡¯m coming to the gym as soon as they¡¯ll let me, to see what you all do!¡± ¡°You are?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°You thought he wouldn¡¯t?¡± his mother replied. ¡°He filled out the alumni volunteer form twice because he didn¡¯t believe the website when it said it had been submitted.¡± ¡°Cool! Guess what I got to ride on today?¡± Haoyu pointed toward the roof, where Alden had parked the nonagon at an angle against the shingles. His father¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°What¡¯s that doing here?¡± ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi loaned it to me for the day.¡± Both of Haoyu¡¯s parents looked confused by that, but if they had questions, they kept them to themselves. It was obvious the whole family was happy to be together again. Haoyu¡¯s smile was high-wattage, and he couldn¡¯t seem to finish telling them about one thing before moving on to another. I¡¯m relieved for him, thought Alden as he stood in the center of the nonagon and directed it up into the air a short while later. Haoyu¡¯s face on the bus, when the sirens had first gone off, was impossible to forget. ¡°How high do we fly?¡± Kon asked curiously, looking through the platform¡¯s surface. ¡°Higher is actually better, isn¡¯t it? Because if you fall you need time to call for that ET.¡± Everly, who was on her knees and leaning over the edge to shout at some girls she knew down below, suddenly stopped and crawled closer to the center of the platform ¡°I¡¯m not going to drop you all. Just don¡¯t jump. But I should probably¡­um, Drusi-otta, do you want to ride with us? We¡¯re going to F-city. That¡¯s the island to the south.¡± He spoke to the air because he didn¡¯t know where else to speak. Or are you already riding with us? There was room, and if the votary was silent and good at dodging people¡­ Lexi, Kon, and Everly all looked at him. ¡°Are you inviting a random Artonan?¡± asked Kon. ¡°Are you on the phone with a wizard right now?¡± Everly said. Lexi¡¯s sigh spoke volumes. ¡°I just had to ask,¡± said Alden. ¡°She¡¯s¡­a person who works with Esh-erdi who I should touch base with.¡± Several seconds later, he received a message: [I still watch over you in my own way. Live as though I do not.] ****** The flight went smoothly and quickly. They didn¡¯t fly particularly close to The Span, but they did keep glancing toward it as they went. ¡°Why couldn¡¯t you have borrowed The Nine-Edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him on Friday night, Alden? Your timing is terrible,¡± said Kon. ¡°I know right? Sorry about that.¡± From where she sat beside him, Everly was staring toward the bridge, too. ¡°For some reason, I told my family it was easy. I suppose it was, if you think about it in a certain way. We only ran a bit, and then Maricel flew us. It was just a few minutes of being scared, really, and I didn¡¯t get hurt.¡± ¡°Easy is still not the word I would have used,¡± Kon said. ¡°I know. And you lost your teeth.¡± ¡°That part was fun! I moved a car! Lexi sliced one! We¡¯re officially real Avowed now. But everything else¡­¡± He shrugged. ¡°We¡¯re all okay. That¡¯s what matters. And Lexi¡¯s boat became slightly famous.¡± ¡°Your boat!¡± Alden exclaimed, turning to look at Lexi, who was standing up on his right. ¡°What happened to it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s on top of our building,¡± Lexi answered. ¡°It got stuck there somehow when the water fell away.¡± ¡°The little white roof boat is yours! I saw that on the news!¡± ¡°I should¡¯ve sold it last weekend,¡± he said. He didn¡¯t sound as grumpy about it as he usually would have. Either Lexi¡¯s happier when he gets sunshine and a breeze, or he¡¯s happy to be going back to his family. Less than two minutes after they crossed the coastline, Alden was lowering the nonagon down toward the parking area in front of a small warehouse. Everly had called ahead, so their arrival wasn¡¯t a surprise. Her father and grandfather were outside waiting on them, and before the platform had even stopped, she sprang off to run toward them. ¡°Mr. Kim¡¯s a cryer,¡± said Kon, as Everly¡¯s dad grabbed her in a hug that lifted her off her feet. ¡°I saw him use an entire pocket pack of tissues when he watched her in one of our school plays, and she didn¡¯t even have a major role.¡± He jumped off to take Everly the bag she¡¯d left behind. Before Alden could decide if they should all disembark to say hello or not, Kon was bounding back toward them. They lifted off again and watched Everly wave goodbye with one hand while she had the other arm around her grandfather. Not long after that, Alden did park the nonagon and go inside to meet Lexi and Kon¡¯s family. They were staying in an apartment that a friend owned. It had been unfurnished, but people who knew them had been generously donating over the past day. They had a bunch of mismatched used furniture making the place more livable. Their parents were nice. Mrs. Roberts made Kon hold still and show her all of his remaining teeth, apparently under the impression that he might have damaged another one without knowing it. And their dad made him stand side-by-side with Irina, who had recently lost her first tooth, so that he could take a picture of them both grinning. Alden had the impression from some of the questions they were asking in between hugging both boys that Kon wasn¡¯t going to escape from explaining why he¡¯d thought it was a good idea to magically move something the size of an automobile without ever having practiced it before in his life. ¡°You can stay longer if you want,¡± Lexi said, when he finally looked up from helping his little sister sort through the bag of costume jewelry and realized Alden was leaving. ¡°I don¡¯t know what dinner is. But I¡¯m sure it will happen at some point.¡± ¡°No. You guys have so much to discuss with each other. I¡¯ll see you when you get back to school.¡± He smiled as the rhinestone choker in Lexi¡¯s hair slid toward his ear. ¡°You¡¯re totally right about that necklace, Irina. It makes a perfect crown for him. Make sure to get his picture, too.¡± ****** Where do I go from here? Alden was high over the water, heading toward Apex because he felt the need for motion, and he¡¯d told SkySea traffic control he was going back to CNH. He¡¯d actually had a loose plan in mind to offer to ferry more people in either direction. Flying vehicles were a hot commodity right now, and it was such an easy way to help. And it seemed like it would justify his temporary possession of Esh-erdi¡¯s extremely cool and highly visible ride. Taxi Rabbit sounded fun earlier, he reminded himself. He just felt a little off now. Stupid advisement meeting. Stupid Joe. Stupid art¡¯h¡¯s. Maybe Esh-erdi was going to want that tour this afternoon. That would be about the right level of activity. And it wouldn¡¯t be as draining as being the third wheel in everyone else¡¯s post-disaster family reunions. He pulled up a search engine and typed, ¡°General Esh-erdi latest.¡± Esh-erdi had left Apex about an hour ago. The people reporting on hismovements said he was going to clean up some contaminated water to the west. Alden didn¡¯t know how long that would take, but it sounded like a full afternoon¡¯s work. He flew back to the dorm and spent several minutes in the common area, eavesdropping on one half of the fascinating call Jeffy was having. His grandmother seemed to be talking him into investing in a stock portfolio. ¡°Okay, Nana,¡± he was saying when Alden finally decided he couldn¡¯t pretend to be washing his hands at the sink in the community kitchen any longer. ¡°But shouldn¡¯t I pay you and Grandpa back for the tractor first?¡± Upstairs, Alden emptied the robot vacuum¡¯s canister, then he sat on the sofa and played with the infrared fireplace remote for a while. I usually enjoy peace and quiet. Right now it was lonely. I should just go back to Matadero and make sure the Artonans haven¡¯t killed Kabir or roped him into a lifelong crouton-making deal. Decided, he jumped up and left. Before he reached the stairs, he turned around and went back for his learning cushion. ****** Cube sweet cube, thought Alden, wheeling his giant B-list-battered blue suitcase down the Matadero corridors. He hadn¡¯t wanted the cushion to be exposed to the elements, and this was the only bag it would fit in. He checked the kitchen first, but Kabir wasn¡¯t there. A note on the fridge said he¡¯d be back at sunrise. It was written in logograms, which made Alden think a wizard had posted it rather than Kabir himself. Back in his room a few minutes later, he gave Tiny Snake fresh water. Earlier today, Liam Long had sent a text with a ton of happy emojis to say that he did want Candy Corny returned. ¡°He doesn¡¯t even know your real name,¡± Alden told the snake. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry.¡± The snake stuck its tongue out. The reptile was getting more appealing by the minute. I really need to get Victor back now that he¡¯s no longer the return point for a U-type. ¡°System, call Boe. Video if he¡¯ll take it.¡± Boe picked up right away. Alden gasped at the sight of a familiar street. ¡°You made it!¡± [I did,] Boe texted instead of responding verbally. He looked exhausted. The bright yellow tank top he had on was completely inappropriate, both for his image and the Chicago weather. [They sent me to the consulate. I¡¯m a block from home now. Time to find out what happens when a runaway comes back after months.] That¡¯s right¡­he¡¯s about to have to figure out how to do school again in some form and work things out with Jeremy. And see his parents again. ¡°Are you gonna be okay?¡± [Right now I really wish I hadn¡¯t had to use the escape option. I¡¯m better, but I trashed everything else. But yeah. I¡¯ll figure it out.] ¡°Um¡­good luck with your mom and dad. Tell them I said hi.¡± Boe stopped walking. [I will. Thank you.] ¡°I¡¯ll let you go. Go find yourself some glasses. And walk faster. You¡¯re gonna freeze.¡± [Are you all right, Alden?] ¡°Yeah. I just got attached to a snake I found, and I¡¯m upset someone¡¯s taking it away from me. Get home safe. It¡¯s been long enough. And I was going to call Connie anyway.¡± ****** ****** Connie Hatcher had just opened the door of a climate-controlled storage unit when her nephew called. He was sitting in a chair beside that orange snake he¡¯d showed her the other day, and he was looking sharp in one of those black school uniforms she¡¯d only seen in pictures on the Celena North website before now. He was smiling. School must have gone well. ¡°Hey, Connie,¡± Alden said. His green eyes widened. ¡°Is that the storage place?¡± ¡°It is.¡± She stared at the stacks of boxes, plastic tubs, and everything else that had been stuffed inside years ago. ¡°I haven¡¯t been here in a while.¡± ¡°I almost forgot it existed. You did mention it a few times. What are you getting out?¡± he asked curiously. ¡°Or putting in? Are those antlers?¡± She looked around until she found what he¡¯d spotted. ¡°Those are antlers. Your grandpa went bow hunting about three times if I remember right. Do you want them? Do you want anything out of here? Some of it¡¯s yours.¡± ¡°I want the antlers if you don¡¯t. Probably nothing else right now. There¡¯s not a lot of space in the dorm room. But I¡¯ll come look one day!¡± He talked about flying around Apex on an alien disc while she searched for what she¡¯d come for¡ªthe three-ring binder her mother had kept in the kitchen cabinet for years, the one with all her favorite recipes in it. ¡°There was this pimiento cheese version of macaroni and cheese she made. Your mom and I loved it when we were growing up,¡± she told Alden. ¡°And I thought maybe I¡¯d make it. Brodie¡¯s family invited me to come over for Thanksgiving. I want to bring a dish.¡± His chatting stopped for the first time since it had started up. But only for a moment. ¡°That¡¯s cool. I used to love macaroni and cheese.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll make it for you if I get good at it,¡± she said. ¡°If you decide you want to cheat the diet a little?¡± Connie didn¡¯t know why he¡¯d gone vegan. I don¡¯t know why so many things. ¡°I pulled up the carpet,¡± she blurted as she yanked the next container off of the pile. ¡°In the hall.¡± ¡°The puke carpet?¡± ¡°I hope all those stains weren¡¯t puke,¡± she said. ¡°Somebody puked themselves to death if they were. But yeah. It¡¯s gone. New vinyl. You¡¯ll like it when you see it.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re going to bring a covered dish for Thanksgiving?¡± he said slowly. ¡°And you¡¯ve done the puke carpet¡­what else are you working on?¡± ¡°Everything I can,¡± she said. ¡°I bought Artonan pudding squeeze tubes the other day because soccer moms said they were popular with kids, and Brodie¡¯s nieces were staying over. Are you sure you don¡¯t want anything but the antlers right now? I can show you some other stuff.¡± ¡°The antlers are good. You wanted to talk to me about something the last time I called. What was it?¡± She set aside a stack of old magazines. Alden looked interested. He¡¯d had a good day flying something with his new friends. ¡°It was a little serious,¡± she said. ¡°And I¡¯m not good at that kind of thing, you know?¡± He waited. ¡°I just wanted to tell you that it¡¯s fine for you to take me off that special list of two people. Whenever you want or need to,¡± she said. ¡°I don¡¯t want you to feel like you have to keep me there because I¡¯m your aunt. If you find some nice person¡­a friend or someone you want to be with¡­. ¡°You¡¯re growing up, and you¡¯re living somewhere new. So things change fast. And I know that. Plus, Brodie¡¯s got an engagement ring he¡¯s going to offer me if I don¡¯t screw everything up again.¡± She smiled at him. ¡°So, in a year or two I might be asking you to take me off the list anyway. But if you need to before then¡­I just didn¡¯t want you to feel stuck and like it would hurt my feelings. It won¡¯t, okay? I¡¯m pulling myself together over here finally. I hope you¡¯ll be a little proud of me when you get the chance to come visit.¡± ****** ****** Sitting in his hospital bed with his laptop propped on his knees, Alden stared at the footage he was supposed to study for combat class. It was a double Adjuster battle. They tended to be more fun to watch than most. But he wasn¡¯t seeing it. When he realized he needed to rewind for the fifth time, he shut the lid instead and stared at the ceiling. ¡°I¡¯m glad she¡¯s trying,¡± he said. ¡°Good for her.¡± He didn¡¯t mean it. ¡°I¡¯m glad. There¡¯s nothing bad about her making a casserole for her boyfriend¡¯s family. That¡¯s a good thing. Casseroles. Thanksgiving. Love. I¡¯m glad.¡± Why didn¡¯t she try sooner? Why couldn¡¯t she have tried just a little sooner? He covered his face with his hands. He took a breath that shuddered on its way into his chest. Why did something I wanted so much not happen until I was out of the picture? He threw himself out of bed and then just stood there, not sure how to escape from the sucking vortex of his own hurt and anger. I can¡¯t¡­I can¡¯t¡­ His auriad had slithered helpfully down to his hand. Maybe so he could use it to blow a hole in the wall. [Video call from Twenty-seven Hundred and Sixty-first General Evul-art¡¯h, Artona I. Connection fee waived.] Alden stared at the notification for so long he figured he¡¯d probably broken some kind of record for keeping knights waiting. He shoved the auriad back up his arm. ¡°Answer.¡± Stuart¡¯s face appeared. He was smiling eagerly, and his sister was nowhere to be seen. ¡°Hello! Would you like to be my guest at the Rapport?¡± Alden processed Stuart¡¯s expression, the fact that he was being allowed to call, then the question. ¡°In December?¡± he asked. ¡°Yes,¡± said Stuart. ¡°But also¡­now?¡± ¡°Now?¡± What a strange word that was. ¡°Now,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Unless you are busy? If you¡¯re busy, we could¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m not busy,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ll come.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-NINE: Tenderroot 159 ****** ¡°How long will you stay?¡± Stuart asked. The Artonan boy was at his desk, eyes focused on something Alden couldn¡¯t see. And Alden, thoughts racing toward the goal of getting away from what had been shaping up to be an emotional pit of an evening, was trying to compose a text message to Esh-erdi to let the knight know where he was going and that he hadn¡¯t been kidnapped from the cube. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you tell me that?¡± he replied in Artonan. ¡°It¡¯s your house.¡± ¡°I have two and a half days left of my weekend,¡± said Stuart. Okay. He¡¯s thinking long visit. Right now, that sounded absolutely fine. ¡°I have class Wednesday.¡± ¡°If you grow tired of my company or the environment, you may use our summonarium whenever you want to. Humans have so many different eating customs. Is there a correct number of dishes I should serve to you to be properly welcoming?¡± ¡°Stuart. This is me. The last time we spoke, we talked about a person who pees in shoes, and I showed you paper shaping, and I stood out in the rain while I wore a large garbage bag on my body.¡± Stuart looked up from whatever he was doing. ¡°I know. And you called me your friend three times. I hoped all week that you would want to share another of your school days with me.¡± ¡°¡­you counted?¡± ¡°When I heard that Anesidora was <>,¡± said Stuart, ¡°and I feared for your safety, I regretted that during our previous conversations I let timing and circumstances <> in my consideration.¡± Alden accidentally added the phrase ¡°loom large in my consideration¡± to his Esh-erdi text message, deleted it hastily, then said, ¡°What does that mean?¡± Stuart looked back down. ¡°Ideal human sleeping temperature seems quite cold to me. Is that with or without a warming cushion?¡± ****** Alden remembered that he had a lot of nerves about visiting Stu-art¡¯h and, more significantly, the rest of the art¡¯h family about ten seconds before he wheeled his suitcase into Matadero¡¯s in-house teleportation area. The cube had one, of course. It was way down at the bottom, below the water line, where there were no people. One sign he¡¯d passed indicated that he¡¯d entered an area called Flood Trap 2. Stuart had ended the call twenty minutes ago to finish his ¡°preparations.¡± Alden had finished his own preparations by texting Kabir a request for snake care, brushing his teeth and hair, and shoving stuff into the big blue suitcase. Which was probably about to break some kind of a record for Earth-made suitcases by traveling to Rapport I. What the hell am I doing? And what the hell was Stuart doing? They had scheduled a specific day for Alden¡¯s first invited visit. It had been clear that Stuart had been making plans for that day. He was going to send me clothing recommendations. More manners stuff. I was going to have a shirt embroidered so they wouldn¡¯t think I was an ingrate who didn¡¯t appreciate one of their most important family member¡¯s honors. Now he had the school uniform he was wearing and one change of clothes. Fortunately it was the plain brown t-shirt, not something with writing or images on it. He¡¯d been conscious of that since Stuart had mentioned it, and he¡¯d brought it along because he thought he¡¯d be spending more time here at the cube around a bunch of Artonans. This is just a different bunch of Artonans. No big deal. The most important bunch of Artonans. The bunch of Artonans that had just had some kind of a disagreement with Stuart that might have been¡ªprobably was¡ªabout Alden. There are the nerves, he thought, swallowing as he stepped into a wide teleportation alcove with an arched ceiling. Hey. Bright side. Social worries are keeping me from being freaked out by the fact that this is my first time teleporting away from Earth since February. He remembered the person he was before, waving goodbye to Boe and Jeremy. The freshly purchased red coat. The fear mingling with excitement. ¡°System, if anyone on my priority contacts list calls, send it through at my expense without giving the long distance notification.¡± He tried to think of what else there was a person had to do before ditching the planet. Surprisingly little in this case. A message from Esh-erdi arrived. Alden had felt bad texting the knight when he was busy cleaning up Sinker Sender magic, but he guessed he shouldn¡¯t have, since Esh-erdi¡¯s replies had made it seem like he was pleased with the turn of events. Although this one said, [Do not let anyone tell you The Elder¡¯s Croak. I will be better at it than them.] About a minute later, the official invitation to visit Rapport I arrived. Alden had been a little worried that it would look like a summons, complete with payment and a timer. But it was an image of a handwritten letter from Stuart, hovering in front of him while the System translated the writing into English. Samuel Alden Thorn of Earth, Welcoming you as my guest would bring me happiness. Our household would be enlivened by your presence for a day or a year. Our fires are warm, and our bowls are full. I await your answer in the house of Jeneth-art¡¯h. Being his son, and of age to offer the house¡¯s welcome, Sina Stu-art¡¯h It was followed by a teleportation offer. No timer. The formality is a lot. But that¡¯s such a welcoming invitation really. And the Primary finally had a name. Alden would probably think of it one percent as often as he thought ¡°Primary,¡± but it was still good to know. What do I actually call him to his face if it comes up? Hello, Primary? Primary Jeneth-art¡¯h? Hn¡¯tyon Jeneth-art¡¯h? Mr. Stuart¡¯s Dad? I was supposed to have a whole month to figure this all out. What¡¯s happened over there? He had no idea what to expect when arrived at the summonarium. Would there be forty knights and wizards there? Kids? The Primary and his spouses? Is it weird to be wearing my school uniform? Should I change into the t-shirt? He took a breath and straightened his outfit. He told himself the art¡¯h family was not scary. He¡¯d served some of them third meal, after all. ¡°All right. Let¡¯s go to Artona I. I accept the teleport.¡± ****** He lost awareness of his body, of anything like a world around him. He gained that clarifying awareness of himself. And, then, he was breathing in the air of another world. He stood in the art¡¯h family¡¯s huge summonarium, right in the middle of a design painted on the stone floor. The only other person in the room was Stuart. He was wearing a nervous expression and an outfit that was a little more festive than any Alden had seen him in before. Still nothing as elaborate as the clothes some fully qualified wizards wore on a daily basis, but it was noticeable. The gray tunic was nearly knee-length, and the wide belt of matching fabric was embroidered in a slightly darker shade. The centerpiece of the embroidery was unusual¡ªa round shape with a lot of spiky protrusions that Alden couldn¡¯t quite identify. And the sleeves of the tunic were wide enough at the wrists to reveal a purple lining when Stuart held his arms outstretched, as he was doing right now in order to present Alden with the physical copy of the very invitation he¡¯d just seen a picture of. Here we go. Guest manners on. The last time he was here, he¡¯d been a freshly-affixed house wanderer¡ªsore, covered in dirt, and nudged along by the suggestions of the Artona I kernel. Now he was here purely by choice to see Stu-art¡¯h, just hours after hearing that he might never see him again. If the inviter wanted this to be an occasion, then the invitee could accommodate. Alden let go of the suitcase handle and stepped forward to accept the small paper sheet with both of his own hands. ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m very glad to be here. I had been anticipating our usual conversation, so the chance to see you in person is an unlooked-for treasure.¡± He was super proud that he knew how to say that last part in Artonan, and that he knew it well enough to be fairly confident it met the moment. Stuart smiled and visibly relaxed in the same way a tense Boe might have relaxed if Alden had said, ¡° ¡¯sup, asshole?¡± ¡°Here at the <>, we have more than one set of house stationery,¡± Stuart said, obviously under the impression that Alden was staring so hard at the invitation because he was examining it, not because he was having a major epiphany about it being possible for swearing and formality to serve the same function. ¡°Aunt Alis, her children, and her spouses all use brown ink for their invitations.¡± ¡°I meant to prepare better before I came to see you in person,¡± Alden said, looking up. ¡°I was going to wear the commendation the way we talked about and try to learn the names of all your relatives. And I was going to think of a small gift. A lot of humans do that¡ªa gift for the one who invited them.¡± ¡°Your presence is the gift,¡± Stuart said graciously. Alden stepped back over to get his suitcase. ¡°Is your leg well enough for a walk?¡± ¡°Yes. It¡¯s not serious.¡± ¡°Esh-erdi said you almost drowned.¡± Surprised, Alden whipped around. ¡°You talked to Esh-erdi about me? When? Why?¡± ¡°You told him you were worried I wouldn¡¯t be able to call because you were at the place humans call Matadero. His <> reasons for contacting me were to let me know that he had met you, that you were receiving care for your physical injuries, and that there was no reason for me to avoid calling out of respect for your perceived busyness with more urgent matters.¡± Stuart paused. ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to respect your busyness anyway, though. Before I heard from him, I was planning to teleport home from school early to insist that Evul help me check on you.¡± I should have realized, thought Alden. Talking to Stuart had been on the same list of requests as school attendance and Tiny Snake food. Esh-erdi had decided to see to all of those things. ¡°The unstated reasons for his call were slightly different, if I didn¡¯t misunderstand his <>,¡± said Stuart. That was a concerning way of putting things. ¡°What did he insinuate?¡± ¡°He¡­I hope our visit will lead us to that depth of conversation,¡± said Stuart. ¡°But first, I¡¯ll take you to your <>! And we should discuss our <>.¡± I get a cottage? And an itinerary? ¡°If it sounds pleasant to you, as it does to me, we will eat together,¡± Stuart continued as he led the way to the summonarium¡¯s door. ¡°Seven forty-three post meridiem in your human time is good for your third meal, isn¡¯t it? It coincides with when I usually have second meal.¡± That was just over an hour from now. ¡°It¡¯s a good time,¡± Alden confirmed. ¡°I ordered a few meatpetal dishes since you said you¡ª¡± ¡°Meatpetal!¡± ¡°¡ªliked that,¡± Stuart concluded. ****** Stepping out of the summonarium was surreal in a way Alden hadn¡¯t expected it to be. He¡¯d been in a strange state of mind during his one and only other time here. His memory of the trees and the mirrored buildings hidden among them had a clarity to it, but he¡¯d somehow completely missed details that now leaped out. Three of the towering, dark trees that stood around the summonarium had limbs that grew together above the building in a way that looked more like a product of intention than nature. Like they were weaving themselves together to form a second roof. Another tree, a short ways up the path, had cone-shaped baskets hanging from high branches. They were large enough for people to sit inside, which he knew was at least one of their functions since a trio of Artonans were leaning out of the circular entrance hole in one of them and looking down toward Alden and Stuart. He considered waving, then decided against it. In a house full of wizards and knights, I guess the lack of ladders leading up to the tree baskets isn¡¯t much of a problem. He sniffed the air. ¡°It smells really good. Like food?¡± Like burnt sugar actually. ¡°They¡¯re making flatseed candy on the other side of the house,¡± Stuart said. ¡°Everyone spends a lot of time outdoors in the summer.¡± So homey. ¡°I looked up the climate for this Rapport one night when I couldn¡¯t sleep. Your summers are so comfortable for humans.¡± ¡°It¡¯s pleasant for you today?¡±If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. The sun was shining down through the tree branches, and it felt like it was in the low eighties. ¡°It would be perfect if my school uniform had short sleeves, but yes. This is good.¡± ¡°It¡¯s pleasant for us, too. When he¡¯s home, my oldest living brother spends the entire season trying to be <>. We don¡¯t see him until the <> chills the world.¡± Stuart stopped walking and looked around with a small frown. ¡°Where did she go? I told her to stay at the door.¡± Before Alden could ask who he meant, Stuart shouted, ¡°Aaaaalden! Here to me!¡± Then he waited with an expectant look on his face. No ryeh-b¡¯t appeared. Alden wondered if he¡¯d ever stop thinking it was funny and awesome that there was a ryeh-b¡¯t running around with his name. ¡°Maybe she didn¡¯t hear you.¡± ¡°She has excellent hearing. Someone¡¯s probably playing with her. Every time I return home from school, I have to remind her and whoever the latest <> is that she is at an age where she needs structure.¡± He whistled piercingly. A moment later, Alden followed his gaze to see that a red head had poked itself out of the occupied tree basket up above them. Stuart pointed at the ground beside his feet. The ryeh-b¡¯t took her sweet time emerging from the basket. Stuart kept whistling and pointing. Finally, she took to the air. The webbing of her wings glowed like a lantern with the midday sun above her. ¡°She looks amazing!¡± said Alden. ¡°Keep your arms at your sides,¡± Stuart said. ¡°She doesn¡¯t have her claw blunts on, and she¡¯ll shred your sleeves if she lands on you.¡± Alden put his arms by his side, eagerly waiting for Stuart¡¯s pet to land and not particularly minding if he got climbed on and slightly shredded by a flying dinosaur. She hit the ground and whistled¡ªa lot like Stuart just had¡ªat the sight of him. Yes, he thought, delighted as the animal ran toward him. She remembers me! Only for Other Alden to head straight for his suitcase like it was the only thing of interest in the whole forest. He had to pull his foot out of the way so she didn¡¯t stomp all over his squishboot in her eagerness to sniff the bag. She chomped on a zipper and tugged. ¡°No!¡± said Stuart. Other Alden looked at him. She seemed to consider the instruction for a moment before tugging a little more. ¡°No.¡± She finally let go and proceeded to climb on top of the bag instead. They had to fight her for it to get going again, and Stuart ended up apologizing several times while Alden the human tried to coax the pet into acting like he was as interesting as his luggage. Stuart led him down a path that existed, like all the others surrounding the main house and outbuildings, only because it had been worn by passing feet. And some small thing with wheels, Alden noted as he saw the faint marks of ruts crushing the leaf mulch ahead of them He looked up at the trees. Their soft, blade-shaped leaves seemed to start small and grow up to the length of his forearm. All the ones on the ground were brown. Dead. But the one he¡¯d been using as a bookmark for months was still a healthy shade of green with a silvery back. ¡°How long does it take for the leaves to turn brown after they fall?¡± he asked. ¡°They don¡¯t fall until after they turn brown,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Usually.¡± Other Alden was flapping around ahead of them, doing battle with what looked like the remnants of some decoration or toy that had been tied to a branch. They had passed three cottage-sized buildings already, only one of which had been in use, if the presence of a worktable and tools beside it was something to go by. ¡°Are most of these peoples¡¯ houses? Or offices?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a mixture,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Father, Aunt Alis, and Uncle Tesen imagined their children and grandchildren all residing together in one large house when they decided to live as a <>. But they either underestimated the number of children they would have or they overestimated everyone¡¯s willingness to share space. Someone brings up adding another floor or <> every day, but it¡¯s so much less <> to build the cottages.¡± Uncle Tesen was probably the third triplet in the set with Alis and Jeneth, Alden thought. The one who died. ¡°The cottage I¡¯ve claimed for you is my favorite of the empty ones,¡± Stuart told him. ¡°It¡¯s near the stream.¡± They traveled for a couple more minutes down a gentle slope, then turned aside from the well-traveled path toward another building with no path leading toward it at all. It was small and rectangular. Built very close to the base of a tree, it was camouflaged by its own mirrored sides and the coat of fallen leaves on the roof. Out front, two dark wooden chairs faced down the slope, which steepened suddenly as it approached the stream Stuart had mentioned. ¡°Our closest neighbors, the en family, live in that direction.¡± He gestured toward the stream. ¡°Our families have long been <> to one another. One of my parents was formerly an en.¡± Alden¡¯s attention was captured. Stuart called the Primary his father, using the word that indicated a male Artonan who had both sired him and given him care. And a few times, he¡¯d used words the Systems usually translated as ¡°parent¡± or ¡°parents,¡± implying that he considered at least a couple of others in the house to be important caregivers in his life. Most likely the people his father had marriage contracts with, but not necessarily. He¡¯s never used the word for birthmother, though. Alden didn¡¯t want to ask outright. But he did feel like now that he was actually standing here in their forest he needed to at least know the names and relationships of the main few adults in Stuart¡¯s life. So that he could make a good impression. ¡°Before you introduce me to your parents, I¡¯d like to know a little about them. To help me remember who everyone is to each other and you.¡± ¡°Do you want to be introduced to them?¡± Stuart asked, turning suddenly to the cottage to place a hand on the mirrored wall. ¡°Because if you do, I will add it to the itinerary. But I don¡¯t think any of them deserve to meet you today.¡± He had such a snippiness to his voice that Alden might have been amused by the sudden shift if not for the words themselves. ¡°Am I not here to meet your family?¡± he asked slowly. ¡°At least partially¡­?¡± ¡°I was looking forward to introducing you to them all during the visit I was planning for December.¡± A hidden door slid inward and sideways to reveal the cottage¡¯s interior. ¡°This afternoon, however, I am looking forward to not being around them.¡± Oh boy. ¡°Are they¡­angry I¡¯m here? Or is it something about Privacy of the House? Evul-art¡¯h said they¡¯d found out about that, but¡ª¡± Stuart stepped over the threshold. ¡°To be truthful, my unwillingness to have you sworn to Privacy of the House was the start of extended <> warfare. But it would only have been a small disagreement at another time. For a long while now, they have been digging in <> fields for the <> that they could hold above the reach of a rich but starving man.¡± The need to de-metaphor that made Alden stand in the doorway for several seconds after Stuart had gone in. ¡°You mean they¡¯ve been looking for something you wanted so that they could make you give them something they wanted?¡± A bargaining chip. ¡°Yes. Come inside. We must make sure you have everything you need. Human bedtime will come not long after your third meal.¡± Alden laughed a little. ¡°You don¡¯t have to schedule bedtime for me.¡± ¡°I did not schedule bedtime,¡± Stuart said. ¡°I have only arranged my own half of the itinerary to take advantage of your natural bedtime. I will do homework silently and contemplate the day¡¯s events for nine human hours.¡± ****** The cottage was all window on two sides, with a low ceiling that felt more cozy than confining. It had everything Alden needed, plus a lot of things he didn¡¯t. While Stuart followed him around, explaining the significance of every fruit in the ¡°bowl of welcome¡± that had been placed on a special stand by the door, Alden explored. A diaphanous curtain divided the main room in two. The largest bed he¡¯d ever seen in his life was on one side, along with all the closet space and a good fluffy rug. And on the smaller half of the cottage was the entryway with its shoe cubby, a floor table with cushions for seating, and a cabinet full of provisions that ranged from bottles of dried tea and alien cigars to jewelry. ¡°Are these magic rings?¡± Alden asked, staring at a peg inside the cabinet that was covered in the things. ¡°They¡¯re bad ones. Most will probably break after a single use because the enchantments turned out weak,¡± Stuart said. ¡°But not everyone who stays feels like casting spells. This way they can quickly air out the cottage or send a message to the main house by grabbing a ring. If it doesn¡¯t work, it¡¯s not serious, but if it does, it¡¯s convenient.¡± Not everyone feels like casting spells¡­I see. Alden nodded and shut the cabinet. Having seen everything, including the bathroom, there was only one thing left to do. He went back over to his suitcase and grabbed the recently chewed-on zipper. Stuart was standing beside him holding up a pair of berries joined together at the stem. ¡°These two red ones are prusimentha. They symbolize a first meeting. I know this isn¡¯t our first meeting, but since it¡¯s the first one with the bowl of welcome¡­¡± He trailed off as Alden set aside his messenger bag, toiletries, t-shirt, and jeans to pull out a sack made of soft brown silk. The learning cushion had been delivered in this, and he¡¯d decided to reuse it to keep the cushion from getting scuffed. He carried it to the stretch of rug on the opposite side of the bed, near the shorter window wall. ¡°You brought the learning cushion with you.¡± Stuart was still standing on the other side of the curtain. His bright rust-colored eyes were fixed on Alden. ¡°I was planning to sit on it tomorrow and¡ª¡± practice some spells in my hospital room ¡°¡ªlearn. So I had it with me when you called. Of course I couldn¡¯t leave it behind. Some wandering human might have ass-abused it. Some wandering wizard might have stolen it.¡± Alden knelt on the rug and freed the cushion from its wrapper. Dark leather, gold and silver logograms around the edges, the hidden pocket he was going to find a promise stick for. ¡°It¡¯s wonderful,¡± he said. Still kneeling, he looked back around at Stuart. ¡°Thank you for giving me the leather one. You had it made just a little bigger than normal, and every symbol on it means something so thought-provoking and perfect. I can tell you picked them all yourself. It¡¯s one of the best gifts anyone¡¯s ever given me.¡± ¡°You like it that much?¡± Stuart took a few steps closer. ¡°I was afraid it was going to get lost in the floods. I was more worried about it than about some of the people I met Friday night.¡± ¡°You weren¡¯t!¡± His face was somewhere between horror and delight. ¡°I was,¡± Alden insisted. ¡°And then Evul-art¡¯h called me and said you were having an argument in the big living room, and I¡¯d get to speak to you soon or never again.¡± Stuart made an angry noise in the back of his throat. ¡°She shouldn¡¯t have called you just to say <> things!¡± ¡°I was afraid she really meant it. And that I¡¯d never get to tell you this means a lot to me.¡± He touched the cushion with his index finger. ¡°A lot.¡± ¡°I wanted to give you something meaningful,¡± Stuart said, the irritation draining away from his voice just as quickly as it had come. ¡°Something that you would have with you for a long time.¡± He looked down at the fruit bowl and finally set it back on its stand, before walking the rest of the way over. He passed through the gap in the curtain, his bare feet sinking into the deep carpet, then he squatted in front of Alden until they were eye to eye. ¡°What happened to you?¡± he asked. ¡°I heard enough from Esh-erdi to know it was a <> almost as difficult as the one you¡¯ve already endured.¡± ¡°No,¡± said Alden. ¡°It was only a single night.¡± After a moment, Stuart gave the smallest of nods. ¡°I did think a Contract was failing again,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°Even though it wasn¡¯t. Even though I knew, logically, that it wasn¡¯t. And after Esh-erdi rescued me, I still felt deep inside that¡­maybe Earth was on the edge of ending.¡± He remembered being pulled from the dark water into the light. He had seen a mountain of death frozen against the dawn sky by the power of a single knight. He had seen the results of a healthy Contract, the Triplanets, and Avowed working together. Just a few hundred dead from an event that could have killed tens of thousands. He thought there was a comforting lesson there, all laid out in front of him. But it was one he couldn¡¯t absorb, couldn¡¯t feel, even though in his head he knew it to be true. Stuart¡¯s mouth opened again. ¡°You¡¯re doing that thing where you take us straight to serious land,¡± Alden said before he could speak. ¡°Serious land?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t say mode in Artonan. I had a question for you, too, though. Your sister said you were trying to explain something to your family in the big living room. She said none of them understood. What was it?¡± Stuart stared at him. Alden had almost forgotten what a remarkable starer he was in person. ¡°You don¡¯t have to tell me, obviously. But I want to understand whatever it was.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know about that,¡± Stuart said. Quick rejection of the offer, Alden thought with a wince. ¡°If that¡¯s how you feel¡ª¡± ¡°I said so many things, and I thought they failed to understand most of them in the way I wished for them to be understood. I would have to repeat the entire conversation to make sure I told you whatever Evul found worthy of mentioning.¡± ¡°You can do that if you want.¡± Alden watched in surprise as purple crawled up Stuart¡¯s neck and ears toward his face. ¡°I couldn¡¯t,¡± he said quietly. ¡°I got very angry a couple of times.¡± ¡°That makes me even more curious.¡± ¡°I used <> words for reasoning with loved ones.¡± What in the universe did he say to them? He looked so embarrassed now that Alden couldn¡¯t even think of teasing him about it. A moment passed. Then, the Artonan rocked back on his heels and sat on the rug with a small thump. He rested his elbows on his knees. ¡°To tell you more about myself is something I want to do. It¡¯s what I planned to do in December. Now, things have shifted. You are already here. But what I should tell you before anything else is¡­¡± ¡°What is it?¡± Stuart¡¯s eyes didn¡¯t leave his face. ¡°Maybe you would like the meatpetal first. I didn¡¯t actually mean to turn our conversation to serious <> until after our stomachs were full and we had taken Alden for her evening flight. I was going to approach the subject of our friendship on soft feet.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry about soft feet. You can just say whatever it is. And then we can recover by eating meatpetal.¡± ¡°All right,¡± said Stuart. His voice was calm now. ¡°Most of the people who know me best think I¡¯m likely to die soon.¡± For a moment, in the wake of that statement, the cottage went so horribly quiet. What are you saying, Stu-art¡¯h? I don''t want you to say this. ¡°It¡¯s because of a choice I¡¯ve made. If I turn away from that choice, there would be no risk to me. But I will not turn away.¡± Why? ¡°I¡¯m telling you because I want friendship with you very much. Maybe¡­maybe even a friendship of oath some day. But you should know which way I go, and that it is not without danger.¡± Stuart hesitated, then added, ¡°Do you still want to be friends? If it¡¯s like this?¡± He waited. Slowly, his expression¡ªever so faintly hopeful¡ªgrew stiffer. ¡°Ah, we could still be friends of some kind next year,¡± he said, looking away at last. ¡°After the worst of the danger is past. Others have chosen to wait for that, so I do under¡ª¡± ¡°Stop,¡± said Alden, finally finding his voice. Stuart¡¯s head jerked back around to face him. ¡°Do you think you¡¯re going to die?¡± ¡°No,¡± Stuart said. ¡°I know myself better than they think. I will endure my trial. I will fulfill myself and <> myself. I will become what I have chosen. And I will live.¡± That¡¯s right, thought Alden, taking in the way his jaw was set. Shouldn¡¯t let myself forget. This is the place where Intensity 99.9 got its name. Just a few feet away from them, a curious ryeh-b¡¯t was smashing its red snout to the window, leaving a trail of what looked like snot in its wake. ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY: Shiny Water Bugs 160 ****** ¡°Are you sure¡ª?¡± ¡°Stu-art¡¯h,¡± said Alden, sprinkling a condiment that looked like ashes onto a paper-thin rectangle of raw meatpetal, ¡°if you ask me one more time if I¡¯m sure about ¡®weaving a friendship¡¯ with you, I¡¯ll be insulted. I promise I understood the warning and the question.¡± Stuart clamped his mouth shut and watched Alden fold the alien vegetable slice over the ash the same way he had when he¡¯d demonstrated. I bet he hasn¡¯t blinked three times since he came back with the food. He¡¯d been relieved when Stuart left the cottage to fetch the meal. The Artonan had been gone for almost twenty minutes, collecting all the components of their supper. Or second meal, in Stuart¡¯s case. His absence had given Alden time to think. For a while, he¡¯d just stood by the learning cushion, staring out the window and asking himself how he would actually deal with caring about someone who might be self-sacrificing to the point of self-destruction. Stuart was frustratingly unwilling to elaborate on the specifics of the situation until he was completely sure Alden had heard him correctly, but Alden already knew enough to draw the obvious conclusions. For some reason, Stuart¡¯s family and whoever else was included in the ¡°people who know me well¡± category thought he would die during his first affixation or soon after it. And he planned to do it anyway. While he¡¯d gazed out at the trees that sometimes pulled bodies down into the soil, Alden remembered how angry Boe had been, that night by the pinball machine, berating him for not caring enough about how the risks he took affected the people he¡¯d left back at home. It wasn¡¯t the same, since Alden¡¯s deal with Ro-den had been the product of an hour¡¯s thought, and Stuart¡¯s decision was most likely the product of a whole lifetime¡¯s worth. But he still almost called to apologize to Boe again. The only reason he didn¡¯t was because it would freak his friend out¡­and because he couldn¡¯t think of how to be fully honest about his current location without making the freak-out an extended one. Instead, he¡¯d changed into his t-shirt, slid the cottage door open wide, and dragged the floor table over to it. Fresh air and good weather were the only ideas he had as far as banishing worry from the room went. He and Stuart sat across from each other now, the dishes spread between them. When Alden looked to his left, he could see the stream at the bottom of the slope. ¡°We can catch <> and put them in jars if you want,¡± said Stuart. ¡°There are a lot of them this time of year.¡± ¡°Zansees?¡± Alden tried the new word out. ¡°A jar full of them makes a decoration for the night. And then you let them go in the morning.¡± Alden dropped his alien vegetable creation onto the flat stone Stuart had heated with a spell. While it sizzled, he reached for his favorite thing on the table. They had three different dishes total¡ªthe slices, skewers that alternated the peach-colored meatpetal with chewy green blobs, and k¡¯rethkan very similar to the ones he¡¯d eaten on Artona II. The crispy fried rolls were filled with strips of the vegetable, and just as he remembered, it tasted a lot like steak. With a hint of herbaceous bitterness that enhanced the whole experience. All the other offerings on the table were condiments. And there were so many of them. He spooned a raspberry jam look-alike onto his k¡¯rethkan and bit into it. It was jammish. Not raspberry. Tomato-blueberry, he decided. Like a more interesting ketchup. ¡°Thank you for getting the meatpetal. It¡¯s delicious.¡± Stuart seemed to favor the skewers. Particularly the chewy blobs. They tasted too much like Alden imagined a Christmas candle would if you bit into it, but they smelled great while they were cooking on the rock. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to insult you by questioning your sureness,¡± Stuart said, watching him eat. ¡°Several members of my family mentioned the possibility that¡­I might not be a qualified interpreter of a human¡¯s <> and intentions.¡± Alden frowned around a giant mouthful of food. ¡°But they haven¡¯t even spoken to you! Most of them have never said more than a few words to a human. And I have made <>.¡± Alden swallowed. ¡°Listen, you can¡¯t keep hinting about what they said about me and you being friends in the big living room. I don¡¯t know how to answer if I don¡¯t know what the exact problem is.¡± Stuart suddenly felt the need to stare at a little pitcher full of sauce instead of Alden. Maybe I¡¯ll just rip the bandage off myself. ¡°From my perspective, the worst thing they could think about me is probably that I¡¯m being nice to you just because I want things from you. That¡¯s not¡ª¡± ¡°They don¡¯t think that!¡± Stuart exclaimed. ¡°Aunt Alis gave you a commendation. They all know you sacrificed your body in protection of Kivb-ee¡ªI have all of her latest messages for you¡ªand if they had <> to say something so <> about your character I would have called upon her to describe your every wound to them in detail until they felt shame.¡± He intoned the word for shame so darkly that Alden almost felt like he¡¯d done something wrong just by hearing it. ¡°Not that they shouldn¡¯t feel shame anyway.¡± Stuart leaned over and blew on the heating rock. The sizzling noises increased in volume. How did that work? The original spell didn¡¯t involve blowing. ¡°This morning, I found some of the proper adults in the living room and told them I wanted to invite you to our home. There was a <> amount of discussion, but I persuaded them to agree. Then Rel walked past the door and said, ¡®You did form Privacy of the House with the Avowed before he left last time, didn¡¯t you, Stu?¡¯ ¡°And I said no. Because you were my guest. And you would be my guest this time.¡± ¡°Does ¡®guest¡¯ mean something unusual in your house?¡± Alden asked before he could go on. ¡°It¡¯s a <>. But only a hn¡¯tyon can declare someone a guest in the Rapport,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Obviously a guest doesn¡¯t have to form a contract for Privacy of the House. That¡¯s for visitors and people <>.¡± ¡°Oh¡­but you¡¯re not¡ª¡± ¡°Customarily anyone who has taken all the necessary steps and <> to their family is also welcome to enjoy small privileges like the guest right. In their own house. Usually, you invite your first guest over and everyone greets them warmly, and then after they depart¡ªas long as they were not an <> choice¡ªthe highest ranked member of your household who met them says something about how happy they are that your <> decision-making will <> the lives of your fellow knights in the future.¡± He turned his skewer, watched it for a little too long, and then looked back up to Alden. ¡°That¡¯s what Father said to Emban anyway. When Emban had her first guest over. Maybe they say something different in other houses.¡± Alden remembered how excited Stuart had been to bring the wevvi cart on his previous visit. ¡°Your first guest came in covered in dirt and jumped out the window¡­¡± ¡°When I decided to attend LeafSong, I imagined I would invite my first guest from among my new schoolmates. But after coming to know them better, I didn¡¯t want to bring any of them here.¡± ¡°I truly don¡¯t mind swearing not to share your family¡¯s secrets.¡± Let¡¯s tattoo me, Alden thought, and reduce a fraction of whatever the objections to me are. ¡°Of course you don¡¯t mind,¡± Stuart said. ¡°You are an honorable person. And you will be my friend. So I don¡¯t want us to wear a mark that obligates you to secrecy about my personal weaknesses, sufferings, or mistakes.¡± Boe wants a contract. Stuart refuses one. Actually, though, his reasoning was pretty flattering. ¡°Besides,¡± said Stuart, ¡°if you swore to the privacy of every member of the household except for me, they would still be dissatisfied. Apparently some people believe I am too young, <>, and <> to choose who I share my own truths with.¡± He changed his voice when he said ¡°young¡±, ¡°overwrought¡±, and ¡°at a crossroads¡± significantly enough that Alden could tell three different relatives had spoken the words. ¡°After Rel asked that, everyone attempted to explain to me that an acquaintanceship with an Avowed had to be managed responsibly. They said maybe I should be monitored by someone other than Evul if I wanted to keep in contact with you, and I started to get <> that they weren¡¯t listening. So I explained more clearly that I hoped this visit would be one of many throughout our lives.¡± Alden rescued his ash-seasoned slice before Stuart could blow on the rock again and turn it into actual ash. ¡°That¡¯s a nice thing to hope for. They didn¡¯t like it?¡± ¡°I think¡­before then most of them may have assumed I was still <> for my mistakes on the day we met. And that I would naturally stop at some point. When they realized I didn¡¯t view our conversations as a temporary < >, the arguments started.¡± The confirmation that the majority of the art¡¯h family considered Alden a very good person but not good serious friend material stung, but not as much as he would have expected. Maybe it was because Stuart was so outraged. Or maybe it was just because Alden had a couple of concerns of his own that he had been ignoring, and he could imagine the adult art¡¯hs having similar ones. ¡°We live very different lives,¡± he said while he watched Stuart angrily chew another one of the green blobs. ¡°I doubt many future knights are out there right now becoming close friends with Avowed.¡± ¡°No. They aren¡¯t.¡± He looked toward the stream and beyond it. ¡°Now is the time for them all to focus on strengthening their relationships with each other.¡± Alden watched him closely. Had Stuart wanted other knight-hopefuls for friends and missed out somehow? And then LeafSong had been a bust, too. And now he had brought home a B-rank Rabbit from Earth, one who it probably looked like he had fixated on after a bizarre limb-loss incident. Maybe his family is just confused. It was a confusing situation if you hadn¡¯t been one of the two parties involved. ¡°Did your family mention the power imbalance between us?¡± He and Stuart hadn¡¯t touched on it since their first phone call. ¡°The topic was assaulted at length and from many directions,¡± said Stuart. ¡°But I assured them you weren¡¯t only talking to me out of politeness, fear, or a sense of duty. And Evul agreed with me when she troubled herself to stop by the living room and add her voice to the discussion.¡± ¡°True. I¡¯m talking to you because we have great conversations and it¡¯s fun.¡± Alden took a bite so that he could think for a second more. He almost didn¡¯t want to bring up what, to him, was the obvious thing. Maybe it was so obvious that it would be offensive to the Artonan boy. Or maybe it wasn¡¯t clear to Stuart at all, and he¡¯d argue. And then Alden would be having a fight about a personally sensitive topic with someone who was on his way to becoming one of the universe¡¯s protectors at an extraordinary cost. He swallowed. ¡°I¡¯m just going to say this even though it may not need to be said, because it will be heavy for me if I don¡¯t.¡± Stuart paused halfway through pulling a piece of meatpetal off his own skewer. ¡°It would upset me if you ever summoned me without my permission,¡± Alden said. ¡°A lot.¡± What he wanted was a shocked expression and a wide-eyed Stuart declaring that of course he would never. He didn¡¯t get it. Stu-art¡¯h blinked a few times, set his food aside, and looked toward the stream again. While Alden fidgeted in his seat, expecting some kind of answer to come any second, the Artonan continued gazing into the distance with a slight frown. There was an unidentifiable change to his posture that made him look older. Finally, after an agonizing wait, he said, ¡°I want you to have a life that is free from horror. And free from shitty. And joyful all of the time, not just some of it.¡± He¡¯s repeating what I told him I wanted out of life during our last call¡­.I have to stop teaching him English swear words. They sound too strange coming out of his mouth. ¡°So I would like to promise you that I would never summon you against your will, even in a time of <>. But I don¡¯t think the oath I¡¯ve sworn and will swear again allows me to speak that promise truthfully.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t think?¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t,¡± Stuart said more firmly. He looked back at Alden. ¡°Not right now. It¡¯s not a simple contract, where rules are set and I must follow them without <>. My interpretation of the most correct action can change. But if Evul were to fall on top of the table right now, <> injured and only moments from death¡ª-¡± ¡°That¡¯s a very specific and dark example.¡± ¡°¡ªand if you refused to use your skill on her, but I had the authority to force you to do so, I would. For the good of the Triplanets. Even if you hated me for it and were no longer my friend.¡± ¡°Well, I wouldn¡¯t be much of a friend if I refused to pick your injured sister up off the meatpetal anyway,¡± said Alden. ¡°Of course I would do that for you. That¡¯s not really the kind of situation I mean.¡± They stared at each other. ¡°I know what you mean,¡± said Stuart. ¡°You do?¡± ¡°I was already involved in summoning you without your permission once. It wasn¡¯t my idea, but I was there. And I behaved wrongly toward you in almost every way. I even offered to summon you often in the future. I did mean voluntary summonses, but I still acted as though working for me would naturally be something you wanted to do.¡± ¡°I almost forgot that part. You promised to pay me well.¡± Stuart blinked. ¡°You almost forgot that part?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Alden. ¡°You said it at the same time you introduced the idea of being a Hn¡¯tyon of the Mother Planet, and I was more focused on that. I wasn¡¯t referring to the day with the mishnen, though. I know I like to mention it, but that¡¯s my way of trying to be funny-mean. You¡¯ve apologized. It¡¯s behind us. I don¡¯t think you¡¯re going to feed either of us to an alien animal again. But I¡­¡± Stuart waited patiently while he searched for the right explanation. ¡°I just wanted you to know that my feelings about being an Avowed are too complicated for a summons to be completely casual to me,¡± he said. ¡°Especially as a Ryeh-b¡¯t. I realize we¡¯re the casual summons class, and I chose to be one. So that may sound odd. But I want things to be different between me and my friend than they are between me and every other summoner on the Triplanets.¡± ¡°I understand.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± Stuart placed a hand over the center of his own chest. ¡°Good,¡± said Alden. ¡°And I understand that you are going to become a knight. And that your family thinks it will be very dangerous and you¡¯ll die. But you think you won¡¯t and you¡¯ll be able to make the universe a better place. And of course I¡¯m not going to wait to see what happens before I decide you¡¯re worth my emotional¡­¡± What¡¯s a word that means investment? ¡°¡­emotional giving.¡± The Artonan boy beamed at him. ¡°Whoever told you they¡¯d rather be sure you¡¯re going to survive before they weave a friendship is a gokoratch,¡± Alden said. ¡°Most of them don¡¯t say it like that.¡± Stuart looked startled. At the word choice, Alden hoped. ¡°Those who are preparing for their own <> just feel it¡¯s wisest to exclude me as they deepen their companionships with one another. And a few of the others <> me so much and try so hard to change my mind that I no longer want to be around them.¡± ¡°Gokoratches,¡± said Alden. ¡°No, they¡¯re protecting themselves as they prepare for the trial ahead of them. Or their families want them to avoid an <> that might end badly. I do see their perspective. I just wasn¡¯t expecting it to happen when I first announced my decision. At the time, I¡­misunderstood how everyone thought of me.¡± So he wasn¡¯t talking about the LeafSong kids at all. He meant the other future knights. The other Rapport adolescents. Probably some of the ones Alden had seen in the vision, wearing the purple coats. The ones who are choosing the same thing Stuart is. Still¡­ ¡°There¡¯s a famous new song on Earth that I think you need to hear,¡± said Alden. ¡°It applies to this situation. I¡¯ll get my tablet.¡± ****** ****** The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°Let me give her the suitcase now.¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°But she¡¯s crying.¡± ¡°She¡¯s not crying. She¡¯s <>. Because the last time she gurgled, you came and took the message from her instead of making her perform proper delivery.¡± Alden the ryeh-b¡¯t and Alden the Ryeh-b¡¯t gave Stuart pitiful looks. They¡¯d taken a walk upstream until they reached an area that was out of view of the house and cottages to have their training session. The blue suitcase, which Alden had volunteered as a reward, was just behind him. But Stuart had illusioned the spot it sat in so anything standing there was invisible. The red ryeh-b¡¯t got so excited every time Alden produced the case. Now she stood halfway between the two of them, claws gripping the top of a root. She wore a lightweight harness with a tube that could be filled with whatever she was delivering. The trick she was supposed to be learning was a flappy hover, with the message tube turned toward the recipient so that they could take it from her without her landing. But she didn¡¯t want to flap in place right now. ¡°Just wait.¡± Stuart was sitting far enough away that they were raising their voices to talk. He was on his own giant root, on a cushioning spell he¡¯d cast with a chant and a plant that looked like a tangled up dandelion head. He¡¯d produced it from a small belt pouch that was hidden by his tunic. ¡°She¡¯ll do it soon.¡± Alden had a cushioning spell, too. It felt like sitting on a marshmallow that was slowly sinking. And it smelled like basil. Alden didn¡¯t know if that was the spell or the plant that had been involved in casting it. ¡°I have an idea,¡± he said, grinning across the distance. ¡°Maybe she¡¯ll come to me if I sing.¡± Stuart began to purple. ¡°I don¡¯t think the numbers below that video are real! I think it¡¯s a joke you < > in the <> of your thoughts.¡± ¡°Tell me how to get Earth internet here, and I¡¯ll show you how unsour my thought cauldron is. Finlay¡¯s songs are popular. Someone commenting on it ranked our efforts, and they said I was the second most enthusiastic flapper.¡± Which was minimizing his contribution. He was definitely the first most enthusiastic member of the group when it came to the cannibalistic flapping. That commenter was just sucking up to Astrid. ¡°Gokoratching is now a global hobby on Earth thanks to you. You¡¯ve changed my planet.¡± ¡°That is not how I want to become a changer of worlds.¡± Distressed not to be the center of attention anymore, the ryeh-b¡¯t took to the air and came to deliver her message properly. Alden said, ¡°Good delivery,¡± as instructed, and then they played with the suitcase. Her favorite game so far involved him setting the suitcase upright repeatedly, so she could tackle it, claw it a few times, then stand on top of it in a victory pose. ¡°Is she finished growing?¡± he asked, watching her clobber the luggage again. ¡°She seems to be around the same size as the last time I saw her.¡± ¡°She¡¯ll only be a little larger,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Her growth has slowed. I do think she¡¯s going to be a good adult. Some ryeh-b¡¯ts become less <> as they age, but she isn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Kivb-ee says this breed is known for athleticism and a merry nature.¡± ¡°They are. I might have picked one just like her when I was younger, if it had been an option.¡± ¡°No pets when you were growing up?¡± Stuart watched the ryeh-b¡¯t stomp on the defeated suitcase. ¡°I remember asking for an egg a few times. To hatch and train. Nobody ever said I couldn¡¯t have one, but I think there might have been an agreement to distract me from the idea whenever I mentioned it. I would have struggled if there were any mishaps. Father bought me husenots instead.¡± Alden recognized the word. ¡°The little animals that look like colorful rocks? We have those on Anesidora. People keep them in tables as a decoration.¡± ¡°Mine started in a table. But once my family realized I enjoyed collecting them, everyone searched for rare colors and patterns to give me. They have their own room now.¡± ¡°A whole room? That¡¯s a lot of husenots.¡± ¡°Are you picturing them stacked to the ceiling?¡± Stuart sounded amused. ¡°Maybe. Is that not right?¡± ¡°We put the habitat below a transparent floor in what used to be an extra sitting room. You can see them when you look down. They don¡¯t all <> out the door when it¡¯s opened.¡± ¡°That makes more sense.¡± ¡°Do humans pile up some kind of animal like that?¡± Alden laughed. ¡°No. But we don¡¯t have any native pets that pretend to be rocks for days at a time. Can we add the husenot room to the itinerary?¡± ¡°Yes. Tomorrow morning? We¡¯re ahead of schedule anyway.¡± Alden tried not to let his smile fade. That¡¯s right. He had ¡°tell Alden everyone thinks I¡¯ll die¡± sometime after dinner and ryeh-b¡¯t walking, but we got to it quicker than expected. ¡°Stuart¡ª¡± He was planning to ask why, exactly, everyone thought that. As delicately as possible. But at the same time, Stuart said, ¡°Tell me more about Anesidora.¡± ¡°You want to hear about the Sinker Sender?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Obviously I wonder. But it doesn¡¯t have to be that. Anything that happened to you since the last time we talked would be interesting. Your days are so similar to my own in some ways and so different in others.¡± ¡°The Artonan language instructor you were outraged by is gone,¡± said Alden. ¡°Ah!¡± Stuart¡¯s face brightened. ¡°You all performed a righteous scholarly exit, and the school was forced to apologize to you.¡± ¡°No. She wants to live on the Triplanets, so she quit her job to spend time searching for wizards who might want to bring her here.¡± Stuart tilted his head. ¡°I¡¯m confused.¡± ¡°We were all a little confused, too. Our new instructor seems much better. She told me to stop coming to class.¡± ¡°Now I¡¯m more confused.¡± ¡°Let me tell you about gym! We were in teams, and we¡­¡± ****** Alden talked for a long time, with Stuart interjecting whenever he wanted an explanation of something or found a place where their experiences matched. Stuart thought it was totally normal that S?ren had set himself on fire; his own classmates injured themselves frequently trying out new spells. But he found the categorization of Brutes into one named class flummoxing once Alden had described some of his schoolmates¡¯ powers. ¡°Someone who can reshape their own flesh doesn¡¯t belong in the same category as someone who focuses on swift movement. They¡¯re not similar.¡± Stuart had come over to sit on the same root as him now that they were finished with ryeh-b¡¯t training. Other Alden was hanging upside down from a branch high over their heads. ¡°Do you think they¡¯re similar?¡± Stuart¡¯s back was against the trunk, and his feet stretched out toward where Alden sat cross-legged on a renewed cushioning spell. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s a species <> category to aid with their perception of their abilities.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t given enough thought to it,¡± said Alden. ¡°But Brutes are the largest class on Earth, and members of the same Avowed class do have a sense of companionship with each other. If we considered every variety of Brute to be separate classes it would definitely change something socially. And Brutes do all get a lot of foundational enhancements. The idea on Earth is that they¡¯re the group with powers centered on their own bodies.¡± ¡°I understand that. Most species struggle to accurately <> the self beyond the physical. So giving you a way to perform magic that feels like an <> of the abilities you already possess is one logical solution.¡± ¡°Right,¡± said Alden. ¡°Nobody has much trouble using what we call ¡®speed foundation points¡¯, for example. Learning to safely use the power and take full advantage of it takes time and practice. But just wanting to be faster and doing it comes naturally. Most people know what it feels like to try to run harder, and maybe because of how the affixation is designed, doing it as an Avowed seems a lot like the same kind of thing you¡¯ve always done. With more amazing results.¡± He examined his hands. ¡°That¡¯s how it feels with these anyway. I think I¡¯d like to have them enhanced until they¡¯re about the same as Lute¡¯s.¡± ¡°For wordchains?¡± ¡°And for other things.¡± Stuart looked down at his own fingers, interlaced in his lap. After a moment, he said, ¡°I¡¯ll have mine altered as well. Maybe not in quite the same way as your foundation points. That¡¯s an option but not the only one. And I won¡¯t choose it during the first binding of my authority. But¡­eventually. It¡¯s a useful change.¡± His eyes flicked up. Checking me for my reaction. ¡°I already knew knights had their authority bound,¡± Alden told him. ¡°I was waiting for you to say it yourself. This morning I asked Esh-erdi why it¡¯s never mentioned, and he told me that it¡¯s taboo. And that many people even swear to maintain a respectful silence.¡± Stuart straightened. ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean you have to stay quiet! Especially not with me.¡± ¡°I was trying to do the right thing.¡± ¡°I wondered how much you knew, or if you knew at all, and then I decided you didn¡¯t. And I was so nervous to tell you!¡± ¡°Why?¡± asked Alden. ¡°It¡¯s something you do so that you can go to places full of chaos and fight demons better. There¡¯s no reason for me to be upset about that, except for the fact that we live in a universe where people have to go to places full of chaos and fight demons.¡± ¡°I thought¡­¡± Stuart said. ¡°If I were an Avowed and I were to learn what knights were without having known before, and without fully understanding, I might become upset about many things.¡± Something plinked onto the root between them and bounced once toward Alden. He looked down just in time to see it was the zipper pull that had been gnawed off of his suitcase earlier. A heavy flapping and a rush of air announced the arrival of the zipper¡¯s new owner, who snatched it up before taking off into the forest with it. ¡°She¡¯s running from us,¡± Alden noted. ¡°She hopes we¡¯ll chase her. It¡¯s not a fair competition since she can fly, and I¡¯m not going to shoot her down with spells.¡± They watched her land on a distant limb. ¡°What will you choose for your skill?¡± Alden asked. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind telling me.¡± ¡°If all went as I hoped today, I had put telling you about it on the itinerary for tomorrow, too. Do you mind waiting? I want to show you a particular spell first, and it will take a long time to cast.¡± He paused. ¡°Or maybe me <> it sounds self-indulgent.¡± ¡°Are you joking? Now that I know grand presentation is an option, I¡¯ll accept nothing less.¡± Stuart smiled and winced at the same time. ¡°If the spell fails now, I¡¯ll look even worse¡­returning to our discussion of your teammates¡ªI think I would get along with Lucille.¡± Alden lifted his eyebrows. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize you were selecting favorites while I talked.¡± ¡°She¡¯s thinking about who she¡¯ll be in the future. She¡¯s set a challenging goal for herself, and she¡¯s willing to suffer humiliation and the bad-opinion of others in pursuit of it. How did the final race end for you all?¡± ¡°You¡¯d probably get along with several of my classmates. Once you were used to their personalities,¡± Alden said. ¡°Anyway¡­the rope I bought for that day had a piece of smaller, clear string inside it that¡¯s usually used for catching fish.¡± Talking about the obstacle course naturally led to a discussion of the dinner at the mall. Stuart seemed to think the event was odd. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t it have been more formal or more festive?¡± he asked. ¡°For an occasion celebrating your acceptance as students at a new school, a casual meal in a public location seems <>.¡± Further questioning from Alden revealed that, in Stuart¡¯s opinion, the dinner would have been more normal if Alden and his classmates had spent several hours quietly absorbing secret wisdom from their new instructors while multiple courses, each with special meaning, were served. Or, if the focus of the event had been on the class bonding with one another, he thought the instructors should have done whatever the human equivalent of dropping off a bunch of rare potions and enchanted rings was before leaving the students to go wild. I think being in an Artonan school might wear me out before I even made it to the classroom. ¡°Do you attend a lot of parties like those at LeafSong?¡± Alden asked. Stuart hadn¡¯t been at the big one where Alden had met his father and aunt. But he had just been injured then. ¡°I only attended the traditional student stress-releasing party held during the entrance exams,¡± Stuart said. ¡°It was fun at the time. But I decided not to attend more for a while. The <> had more of an impact on my judgment than I expected it to.¡± ¡°For my taste, the class dinner was just right. And there were husenots at one of the shops.¡± ¡°Is the Rosa Grove building still there? Or was it one of the ones destroyed?¡± ¡°The mall was safe. Only the ground floor flooded, and it wasn¡¯t too bad when I saw it on the news.¡± ¡°Were the husenots¡­?¡± ¡°They were upstairs! Safe.¡± Stuart looked relieved. ¡°If we¡¯d just left a few minutes later or earlier, my night might have been a lot easier,¡± said Alden. He thought about ending it there and switching to a lighter story. Stuart wouldn¡¯t mind hearing about the rooftop-to-rooftop rollercoaster. Or commenting on the situation with Hazel Velra at the birthday party. But he does actually know Esh-erdi and Lind-otta. Of course he¡¯s curious about how they¡¯re using their skills and the big magic event that just happened. He decided he¡¯d just hit the highlights. But the more he talked, the more talking felt like something he wanted to do. Sitting on the cushion spell in the warm forest, with sunlight slanting through gaps in the branches and a ryeh-b¡¯t trying to tempt the two of them into a game of chase with a zipper, it was hard to imagine a setting farther away from the disaster. It felt like he¡¯d left Anesidora behind a month ago instead of hours. ¡°I really don¡¯t think Esh-erdi would mind me telling you what happened in the greenhouse,¡± he said when he approached that part of the story. ¡°He said he would spread the truth around to wizards. I think he just doesn¡¯t want to let the Anesidoran legal system know until he understands what its role is and how humans will react. He¡¯s trying to protect me from inconvenience and Zeridee from being accused of doing something wrong. He says he knows her family.¡± ¡°The knights of the und¡¯h family live in Rapport III,¡± said Stuart. That wasn¡¯t that surprising after all the pieces of the puzzle Alden had collected. It explained a lot. From Zeridee being able to obtain a position on Earth at a young age, to her familiarity with Stuart, to¡­ ¡°Do all children of knight families have the same abnormally strong body thing you do?¡± Stuart¡¯s brow furrowed. ¡°You can¡¯t use that word for abnormal that way. But it is common in families like ours, where becoming a hn¡¯tyon or entering service through <> or other contracts is the usual course.¡± ¡°The und¡¯hs?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I understand now,¡± said Alden. ¡°Maybe she was trained to be a knight in her childhood, and she didn¡¯t want to. Or a votary. Being able to kill an Avowed with bare hands sounds like it might be what votaries learn to do?¡± Stuart snorted. ¡°What?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to need to explain a lot to you this weekend. I¡¯m looking forward to it. But why are you mentioning killing Avowed?¡± ¡°In the greenhouse¡­¡± He talked and talked. The conversation was lengthened, but also eased, by focusing less on how he¡¯d felt during all of it and more on explaining complicated water behavior, giggling door seals, and literally everything about Liam Long in a foreign language to someone who didn¡¯t know what swim briefs or scratchart cards were. When the story¡ªas much of it as could be told¡ªwas finished, Alden was less drained than he would have expected to be if he¡¯d known he was going to deliver a full account of the disaster. He wondered if there was some magic in the Rapport that made you feel more at ease. Stuart took his ryeh-b¡¯t back to the house and returned with two clear glass jars and a small net. Then the two of them stood in the stream just downhill from the cottage, pants rolled up to their knees and squishboot removed despite a couple of disapproving looks from the Primary¡¯s son. Alden learned to catch shiny water bugs. They moved fast and looked like metallic grains of rice. ¡°Some of them aren¡¯t silver,¡± he said, noticing a few green ones when he emptied the net into his jar for the second time. ¡°Do you have a yellow-orange one yet?¡± Alden checked the jar. ¡°Not yet.¡± That was all that needed saying for a while. When they had captured enough zansees to satisfy Stuart, who felt there was a correct number to make a good decoration, Alden put his boot back on and they headed toward the cottage. ¡°You¡¯ve been through more than one terrible experience. In less than a year,¡± said Stuart. ¡°That¡¯s shitty.¡± Alden, who was preserving his jar so that his water bugs didn¡¯t get sloshed around, looked over at him. ¡°It¡¯s absolutely been shitty,¡± he agreed. ¡°But there have been good things, too.¡± ¡°If you want, I can introduce you to one of the healers I know who help with alterations and support of the mind. I experienced a severe¡­injury isn¡¯t the right word in my opinion. But when I was very young, Father personally interviewed every <> specialist on the Triplanets for my sake.¡± Stuart looked at him over the top of his own jar, his expression guarded. ¡°You seem well to me, but if some memory or emotion tied to all that¡¯s happened to you is <> for you, you might consider seeking help with it.¡± They stood on the hillside, holding their zansees. ¡°I¡¯m sorry you were hurt when you were younger,¡± Alden said finally. ¡°I¡¯m sorry you keep having to deal with wounded Artonans,¡± said Stuart, starting back up the hill. ¡°And that I let you talk me into ignoring the human bedtime I put on the itinerary. It was there for a reason. You¡¯re healing. You need even more sleep than usual.¡± Ah. That was all there was to it, thought Alden, deeply relieved as he watched Stuart march ahead of him. Just a single offer. Not a whole conversation that will ruin the good time we¡¯re having here at the end of the day. ¡°It is weird-weird that I keep carrying hurt people through trouble,¡± he said, hurrying to catch up, his trait helping him close the distance in a moment. ¡°What¡¯s weird is that you keep finding yourself in trouble,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Carrying someone once you¡¯re already there makes sense.¡± ¡°Does it?¡± ¡°If Lind-otta were there, she would slow something dangerous. If Esh-erdi were there, he would widen fractures. You can stop someone from being hurt by holding them in your arms. It¡¯s how you can help, so it¡¯s how you do help.¡± ¡°That¡¯s true,¡± said Alden. ¡°You¡¯re saying something smart.¡± ¡°I try to speak thoughtfully.¡± ¡°No. Once you told me I should use you as bait for a mishnen.¡± Stuart hissed at him. ¡°Don¡¯t say that so loud! My family doesn¡¯t need to know every single thing that came out of my mouth that day!¡± ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-ONE: Good Waking 161 ****** What does a human do when he¡¯s up in the middle of the night in the first Rapport? In the corner where the cottage¡¯s two transparent walls joined, on the floor, Alden¡¯s jar of zansees turned into a swirling galaxy of sparks. One of the tiny yellow-orange water bugs lit up, and all the silver and green ones suddenly began to flash in response. He sat on the edge of the bed, toes digging into the rug while he watched them. Stuart had put his own jar on top of the cabinet that held the enchanted rings, and the two decorations were currently the main sources of light in the cottage. Outside, there was almost no moonglow. The brightest thing Alden could see beyond the windows was actually the stream, occasionally flaring and sparkling in patches just like the jars. According to his interface, it was around eight in the morning Anesidora time, ten in Chicago, and a little less than five hours until dawn here in Rapport I. When Alden had gone to sleep, Stuart was sitting in one of the chairs outside, using his eyerings to access something he wanted to study. Now he was on the other side of the curtain, tightly cocooned in what Alden assumed was a heated blanket and floating a couple of inches off the ground on those cushioning spells of his that smelled like basil. You strange dude, Alden had thought when he first woke and found the Primary¡¯s son lying in front of the cottage door like a guard dog. Why didn¡¯t you go sleep in your own room where it was the right temperature and there wasn¡¯t going to be a person bumping around to bother you? He¡¯d suspected Stuart wouldn¡¯t do that based on things he¡¯d said yesterday, but he wasn¡¯t completely clear on the reason. Some combination of trying to be a good host and making sure his family didn¡¯t interact with Alden without his oversight. The art¡¯h argument had obviously concluded in an agreement that had led to Alden¡¯s invitation, and possibly a promise that everyone would give them space, if the lack of visitors yesterday was any indication. Does that mean he persuaded them to let him have his way, or did he have to compromise something in return? Alden hoped it was the first. He let himself flop backward. The mattress was softer than he liked but nothing to complain about. Above him, the ceiling was covered in small, triangular wooden tiles. How many different places have I slept this year? My old room, the consulate lobby, LeafSong, the vault, the car¡­ The water bugs in both jars flashed again, painting the ceiling with light. Counting sleeping locations didn¡¯t fill much time, and when he was done, all he¡¯d accomplished was adding another loop to the tangle of his thoughts. And what a tangle it was. Boe. Magic. Kibby today. Kibby some day in the future. Stu-art¡¯h. Stuart. His upcoming affixation. Alden¡¯s own affixation. Superheroes. Unregistered Avowed. Anesidora. Earth. Knights. Connie. Joe. The Bearer of All Burdens now. A year from now. Gorgon. Demons. Planets falling to chaos on the edge of the universe. Earth falling to chaos in his imagination. What it felt like to be swept from his feet by that wave, battered and out-of-control in the freezing dark. Death. That first gasp after Esh-erdi had pulled him from the water. Life. And would he even get to choose how he lived it? And for how long? Maybe the tangle doesn¡¯t get unraveled from here on, he thought. Maybe the questions and worries just accumulate, and the priorities get more and more confused, until I go nuts or completely forget that I used to think I had a handle on the world and my place in it. Stuart had offered to introduce him to a mind healer. And not just any healer, but one of the ones the Primary had scoured the Triplanets to find for his own son. Alden suspected Esh-erdi had said something. Probably not, ¡°Alden Thorn seems like he¡¯s on the verge of flying apart, but he ignored me when I suggested a human Healer of Mind. Fix it.¡± According to Stuart, the knight had made ¡°delicate insinuations¡± about a matter, and he wasn¡¯t even sure he¡¯d interpreted correctly. So it must have been quite subtle. Alden tried to figure out if he was irritated with Esh-erdi or not. It felt like an intrusion, and he didn¡¯t like it. But at the same time, when he tried to explain to himself why Esh-erdi worrying was unreasonable, he couldn¡¯t make his arguments sound anything short of ludicrous. Stu-art¡¯h, your human friend¡ªso surprising that you have one of those, by the way¡ªreally wants to have a phone call with you. He almost got stabbed and drowned a couple of days ago, and now he knows what four or five new kinds of dead bodies look like. But it¡¯s no big deal. Obviously he¡¯s fine. He¡¯s really excited about school starting back. He thought maybe he was lucky that Esh-erdi hadn¡¯t just let Porti-loth bury him up to his chin in a dirt mound and then summoned in a Healer of Mind while he was trapped. If the faculty at school knew the whole story, what would the conversation with Principal Saleh and Instructor Klein have been like? They¡¯d been worried about the wordchains on the bus. The offer to take some time off from his gym class would probably have become an order if they¡¯d known what happened at the ambassador¡¯s residence. Actually¡­I wonder if the dead guys in the greenhouse will end the possibility of a traditional superhero career if the news comes out? He rested his hands on his stomach, considering it. You didn¡¯t have to be at fault for an incident to become unhireable. Something sufficiently noteworthy just had to end up with a bad spin on it instead of a good one, and suddenly you weren¡¯t the PR-safe choice most places were looking for. Three dead Avowed and one survivor¡ªwas he really a victim? Or a villain being protected by a corrupt wizard? Something like that¡­ Alden didn¡¯t particularly care about the narrowing of his Earthly job prospects, but he really hoped rumors that he was a murderer didn¡¯t ever become a thing. It would ruin the gokoratch song video. Suddenly everyone would be talking about me instead of the stinky cannibal parrots. He grinned at the thought, then slapped a hand over his mouth so that he wouldn¡¯t laugh outright and wake up the future-knight burrito on the other side of the cottage. See. I can still laugh at myself. No need to have my mind worked on. His smile faded. But if I¡¯m honest with myself¡­ The way Stuart had put the offer had sounded more appealing than most suggestions for therapy and mind healing that Alden had heard in the past. ¡°If some memory or emotion tied to all that¡¯s happened to you is tiresome for you,¡± he had said. And tiresome was the right word for it. Some struggles he understood, learned from, and felt like he made progress on. Others were just¡­so tiresome. His jar of zansees flashed, and Stuart¡¯s followed a moment later. I wonder what he needed the healers for. Sina-art¡¯h¡¯s death leaped to the forefront as a possible answer, but grief, even a deeply felt one, didn¡¯t seem like something that would have forced the Primary to seek the aid of multiple elite healers. Unless it had been complicated by some other factor. Stuart had also specified that the thing he hesitated to call an injury had happened when he was ¡°very young.¡± Possibly it was a linguistic nuance that Alden didn¡¯t quite mesh with, but he wouldn¡¯t have called the Stuart who had watched his sister die very young. It would have been like referring to his own twelve or thirteen-year-old self the same way. The hallucinations he mentioned having could have been what the healers helped him with. It¡¯s really none of my business unless he wants to bring it up again. Mind healing. When it came to magic, a distinction could be made between the concept of the mind and the physical brain. It got blurred in casual conversation with the words being used interchangeably, but while a head injury could be fixed by the right Avowed Healer of Body, a Healer of Mind was someone who did things like memory restoration and correction of lingering damage caused by Sway attacks. Alden had heard they could also help you quickly reset after trauma or even work in conjunction with Sways to safely lock-in desirable personality changes. He was sure whoever Stuart was offering to introduce him to had a much wider toolkit. But¡­ He had a lot of buts and what ifs. Most of them were probably shallow and unhelpful. There were ignorant people who thought using a wordchain or medication to deal with your problems was a sign of weakness. Alden currently had a double Peace of Mind debt to prove he was not one of those people. So, logically, he shouldn¡¯t be someone who shied away from more significant magical assistance. I think I¡¯d be happy to take shortcuts and use more permanent magic on my mind as long as other people didn¡¯t have to be involved. Like if I could press the delete button on that nightmare where I can¡¯t find Kibby in the grass, I¡¯d press it right now. But I want to press it all by myself. He watched the play of light on the ceiling for another few minutes, then pulled up the new collection of videos Stuart had sent to him. He¡¯d opened one right before bed and received a long recording of a poetry festival in Chayklo, where Kibby had been taken by the wizard who seemed to have become her main instructor, Dalat-orni. Kibby had an obvious preference for a performer who wore bells on her sleeves and included lots of riddles in her poetry. Alden didn¡¯t have the background or vocabulary to understand ninety percent of what was said, but Kibby thought it was Very Good Stuff that he would love because she did. This time he selected a video she¡¯d entitled, ¡°Kraaaa Wonders How You Are and Also I Would Like to See Inside The Drawers and Cabinets in Your New Dwelling.¡± Of course, thought Alden as her face appeared. It was ridiculous of me to only film the exteriors of the drawers when I made that apartment tour video for her. What humans keep in our cabinets is the really intriguing question. She was sitting in her little classroom corner with her satellite images of the lab explosion being projected onto the wall. Her hair was piled up and forward to partially cover her forehead in another complicated creation that had to be Rrorro¡¯s work. And she was wearing¡ª Alden sat up so fast he almost ended up in the floor. ¡°Hi, Alden!¡± said Kibby, her smile wide and her posture very straight, as if she was trying to stretch her neck out to showcase the auriad around it. The casting tool¡¯s color was just a touch paler than the one that was currently wrapped around Alden¡¯s upper arm and hidden by the sleeve of the shirt he¡¯d worn to sleep. Nobody who hadn¡¯t spent a lot of time staring at one of the auriads would ever notice the difference. ¡°Instructor Dalat-orni has decided it¡¯s time for me to learn a new spell with my auriad,¡± said Kibby proudly. ¡°I¡¯ve been practicing with my auriad very hard.¡± You absolute genius, Kibby, thought Alden, pausing the video. You got an auriad, bonded it, and made it match! How the heck did you manage that? She was really on her way forward. It wouldn¡¯t be much longer before the two of them could talk using the new System on Thegund. Soon after that, she would be able to teleport here to the Triplanets and sit in a classroom with other wizard kids her age. She¡¯d be a fully qualified summoner some day. Either as a wizard, or maybe a hn¡¯tyon if she wanted. And Alden would be¡­something Eventually I become something, right? Even if I can¡¯t see it from here. I have to end up somewhere somehow, if I survive for long. With the fake profile she had given him, he did have a little bit of a chance. Just a little more choice. He looked toward the burrito. Nothing like the choices you have, though. He remembered sitting in the kitchen with Vandy during Kon¡¯s party, folding his visualization of his own affixation instead of plane and thinking about what Stuart was planning to do. You are one of the few people in the universe who can be anything in the universe. Why are you choosing this? Because he believed it was right, of course. I don¡¯t even know why chaos exists, where it is besides the few places Earth hears about, how many kinds of demons in between grasshopper and moon-sized there are¡­anything. I still don¡¯t know anything. I could wake Stu-art¡¯h up right now, and he could talk to me until next year, and I still probably wouldn¡¯t understand half of the things about it he does. He wondered what kind of skill Stuart had chosen. He didn¡¯t know if he looked forward to finding out or if he was worried about it. He hoped it was a fantastic one, something that would make up for everything the Primary¡¯s son would lose. Quiet Rabbits probably shouldn¡¯t want to be friends with knights, he thought. They should probably run like hell in the opposite direction. Stuart had told him that his duty to the Triplanets had to be his priority. It wasn¡¯t like that was a shock. But Alden didn¡¯t know everything that ¡°duty¡± included, or how it would affect him. I do know it¡¯s a lot less likely to affect me in bad ways if he, and everyone else, keeps thinking I¡¯m a normal Avowed with a normal skill. The Primary already thought an older Alden might be a nice addition to some future mission for knights. But as petrifying as that was, it almost sounded like he imagined Alden chilling in a travel dome in a relatively low danger corruption zone, until someone or something important needed preserving. I¡¯d be a conveniently chaos-resistant Rabbit you could pass a bauble or a body to in a pinch. Not someone expected to do any actual battling myself. His risk of death from that kind of summoning was a question mark, since he had no idea what the success rate of knight missions was or how much weight the Artonans put on keeping the Avowed they brought with them safe. He did think his chances of survival would be much, much higher if his profile stayed a lie. And that was without even considering the quagmire that would be everyone¡¯s opinions on what should be done with a wizard from a species that wasn¡¯t supposed to have them.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. If the Artonans find out about Bearer, about the authority sense, about how the skill is going to grow¡­ His auriad tightened on his arm. He wondered if he¡¯d have any major choices left at all, or if, from that point on, he¡¯d just be trying to survive the lifelong version of that wave bowling him over¡ªicy, black, and unstoppable. ¡°¡ªratches.¡± Startled from his spiraling thoughts by the sound, Alden stepped around the foot of the bed and walked over to look at his host more closely. ¡°No more gokoratches,¡± Stuart said in a quiet but annoyed voice. His eyes were closed. I didn¡¯t know Artonans sleep-talked, Alden thought, worries replaced temporarily by amusement. Kibby had snored sometimes, but that was all. He waited for a while, but Stuart was silent. Well, thanks for bringing me back to the present, anyway. I guess I don¡¯t have to figure out everything right now¡­even if it is all coming my way faster than I¡¯d like. ****** ****** Stuart woke about three hours later. Alden was kneeling on his learning cushion and watching his tablet with his headphones on. He¡¯d briefly texted Boe earlier, but now he was watching duel footage to pass the time. He¡¯d been at it longer than expected. Stuart¡¯s cushioning spells had given out a while ago, but instead of waking right up, he¡¯d been lying on the hard floor. ¡°Good morning,¡± Alden said in Artonan, watching his host fight his way out of his covers. Stuart finally freed himself and stood. ¡°It¡¯s not dawn,¡± he pointed out. ¡°True,¡± Alden agreed. ¡°What do you say to someone who wakes up when it¡¯s still dark out? Good waking?¡± ¡°That¡¯s nice! It sounds like you¡¯re happy I didn¡¯t die in my sleep.¡± He started folding up the blanket. ¡°I am really glad about that. Can you imagine the conversation I would have had with your family?¡± Stuart brought the blanket over to put it in one of the drawers set into the platform that the bed rested on top of. ¡°You¡¯re on your cushion,¡± he said in a pleased voice when he was finished. ¡°Should I leave you to your learning?¡± ¡°I¡¯m ready to do whatever you like. I¡¯ve been talking to a friend back home and studying for school, but I don¡¯t really need to keep at it.¡± Boe wasn¡¯t likely to have time for a long text exchange today. He¡¯d been stuck in serious conversations with worried or annoyed authority figures all morning. It was a predictable consequence of vanishing for months and then showing back up at school out of the blue with the intention of re-enrolling, but Alden still felt vicarious pain at the thought of how awkward all the questions must be. ¡°This is just a video of students at my school dueling with their powers,¡± he explained to Stuart. ¡°We¡¯re going to start training this way on Wednesday evening, so I was supposed to observe a few.¡± ¡°Avowed dueling? May I see?¡± Alden gestured at the tablet. ¡°Of course you can¡ª¡° Stuart was already hurrying toward him eagerly. Alden took off the headphones and turned the volume up. There wasn¡¯t much in the way of conversation on the video, but occasionally someone on the sidelines shouted something of interest. And Stuart would probably want to hear any spells that were being cast. Not that any had been in this duel so far. The battle was between an Adjuster and Francis, the Sway from the B-list. It had been filmed around half a year ago. Alden really didn¡¯t need to watch this fight. Reviewing one-on-one footage from other classes had mostly been assigned to them so that they wouldn¡¯t show up on Wednesday with no clue what was going on, and he had a handle on the basic rules for a dueling session down now. But the hero program had almost no Sways. And he had been curious about how Francis actually made progress on his ¡°Beat the A¡¯s¡± goal. In this duel, at least, he seemed to be doing all right. ¡°I don¡¯t understand what¡¯s going on,¡± said Stuart. ¡°The bell sounds the rings on his fingers make let him slowly build a suggestion in the listener¡¯s mind. And then when he finally triggers it, they have a harder time resisting. He focuses on making people lose control of their own bodies. That¡¯s why the girl he¡¯s competing against is chasing him around the dueling block and trying to kick him instead of casting. He¡¯s made her forget how to use her arms, and she¡¯s an Adjuster¡­that¡¯s the name of the class that relies the most on spell impressions.¡± Stuart watched Francis, who was panting and more serious than Alden had seen him during club, as he barely leaped away from his opponent before a foot could catch him in the gut. Ding ding. Is he much stronger than her?¡± Stuart asked. ¡°No,¡± said Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly what talents either of them chose, but she¡¯s one rank higher according to how Earth ranks Avowed. Normally she would have a skill and three or more spell impressions that go with it. If she¡¯s developed a little more she might have a second weaker skill, but probably not yet. They¡¯re in one of the beginner combat classes in this video. ¡°I only know a little basic information about the boy with the bells. He can¡¯t build the suggestion very fast, so I think they must give him permission to start using his powers at the start of class instead of waiting for duels to begin. So I imagine it feels unfair to his opponent.¡± Stuart watched them. ¡°I think she¡¯d win if she stood still and focused on using her spell impressions instead of running around. They should be castable even if she¡¯s lost limb awareness.¡± Alden filed that info away in case it ever came in handy one day. The fight finished with a time call and no real victor. Both participants looked angry about it as the Adjuster went to the bleachers for a break and Francis headed toward another dueling block to face a different opponent. As was typical of classes held in the gym, there was a minimum of wasted time. There were several blocks, and people were always moving in and out of them as they were assigned new partners. Stuart leaned over Alden¡¯s arm, trying to see a pair in a corner of the screen better. ¡°Do you want me to show you the close-up footage for that particular fight?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Whatever you would normally watch is fine. I¡¯m not very familiar with what human Avowed your age should be able to do. I do recognize some of the weaponry, though.¡± Alden tapped on the corner Stuart had been looking at and held his finger there until the tablet offered him the option to focus on the Meister vs. Meister match-up. The weapons in question were a javelin in the hands of one boy and a diamond-shaped shield on the arm of the other. The javelin-wielder was an A-rank, the shield user an S. It was not a fair fight. Alden winced as the S-rank pressed forward easily, every strike against his shield seemingly contributing to a wall of force that appeared to cover every inch of him except for the shield. ¡°How are you supposed to beat that?¡± he groaned. ¡°By overwhelming the strength of the arm holding the Laughing Silver Denial,¡± said Stuart promptly. ¡°Or by transmogrifying it a little bit. Or by altering the floor beneath his feet. Or¡­¡± He kept going, naming all kinds of things the javelin-wielder definitely didn¡¯t have the ability to do. Alden completely stopped paying attention to the tablet to listen to Stuart. ¡°Do you like dueling?¡± he asked finally. ¡°Is that something you do a lot of?¡± ¡°Of course. But magical dueling takes many forms. Does dueling at your school always involve combat?¡± ¡°I think the part of class called ¡®dueling¡¯ does. High-rank Avowed do have a lot of combat abilities, so¡­fighting. The school thinks it¡¯s one of the best ways for us to grow more powerful.¡± ¡°Mmmm¡­¡± Stuart looked thoughtful. ¡°What did that humming sound mean?¡± Alden asked curiously. ¡°Do you disagree?¡± ¡°No. I don¡¯t. But anything that promotes <> is useful. There are many goals to strive for. I¡¯m sure the Avowed of the icorlax species would <> and wither if fighting were the only way they could grow.¡±He glanced at the tablet, then back up at Alden. ¡°You¡¯ll be doing this soon?¡± ¡°Why do you sound so worried?¡± ¡°How will you use your skill if you don¡¯t have teammates?¡± ¡°Whatever rope I bring to class will be entrusted to me before the duel starts. And then I¡¯ll have to make sure not to drop it.¡± Stuart looked doubtful. ¡°It¡¯s fine if I don¡¯t win a lot of duels,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s about improving. Striving.¡± ¡°That¡¯s an admirable attitude. And you did say you were attending the school because you wanted to throw yourself at something challenging. Do you want to duel me before you go back to Earth? Maybe before third meal?¡± Alden dropped the tablet. In a futile effort to make it look intentional, he let it slide off his knees onto his learning cushion without reaching for it again. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean a fight,¡± Stuart clarified. ¡°You¡¯re in a squishboot. Really I didn¡¯t mean any kind of proper duel since the word implies a similarity of¡­but I would be helping you practice your skill so that your missed days of schooling were not wasted.¡± ¡°If you want to, that would be f¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ll revise the itinerary again,¡± Stuart said eagerly, bouncing to his feet. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you send me a copy of this itinerary you keep mentioning?¡± Alden asked, looking up at him. ¡°I could make you your own version. Yes. I¡¯ll do that.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t see your version?¡± ¡°No. It has personal notes on it.¡± That made Alden want to see it more, but he¡¯d just have to live with the curiosity. ¡°What¡¯s next on the list for today then?¡± ¡°I need to go to the house to get our first meal,¡± said Stuart. ¡°And select some things for my spell.¡± ¡°The grand presentation.¡± Stuart made a high noise so faint that Alden barely caught it. A nervous sound? ¡°You don¡¯t have to think it¡¯s grand. Maybe I should have called it interesting. Or worthwhile?¡± ****** ****** A short time later, they were down by the stream, releasing their zansees. Alden¡¯s jar full gave them one final flash when he bent to pour them into the gentle flow of the water. ¡°Zansees are hyektch,¡± he said, as the two of them headed up the hill toward the main house. With the jars emptied, they didn¡¯t have much light, but Stuart didn¡¯t seem to need it to navigate his own backyard. ¡°That¡¯s a good way to use hyektch. I think I said the same thing the first time Father showed me the stream at night.¡± Alden, following close behind him, tried to picture a man who could chop giant demons in half carrying a tiny boy down to the water to show him the pretty lights. It was surprisingly easy. And somewhat sobering. ¡°This place is beautiful, Stu-art¡¯h. Thank you for having me as your guest. Properly this time.¡± Stuart took a few more steps, then stopped. When Alden stood beside him, he said, ¡°The forest here is special.¡± His face was turned toward the dark canopy above them. ¡°It¡¯s quiet for a forest. But it¡¯s much more alive than even the jungle around LeafSong. In its way.¡± ¡°I know,¡± said Alden. ¡°I feel it.¡± ¡°Do you?¡± Stuart was still gazing up. ¡°What does it feel like to you?¡± Alden wondered if answering honestly was a little dangerous. He did so anyway, as well as he could. ¡°It feels peaceful, but not in an accidental way. There¡¯s purpose to the feeling.¡± He waited for Stuart to comment, but after a few breaths passed, all he said was, ¡°Come on. If we don¡¯t <> we can probably get in and out of the house without running into too many people.¡± ¡°Do I get to meet any of them today?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Your father maybe? Or I could say hello to Evul-art¡¯h face to face for the first time.¡± Look at me. I¡¯m just volunteering to say hello to the Primary. Hi, Mr. Jeneth-art¡¯h. It¡¯s me, Alden. The last time you saw me I was wearing a pair of wings. We held hands and I told you about how I used to stare at one particularly awful corpse¡­remember? Because I¡¯ll never forget that one. Bet you didn¡¯t think I¡¯d be wandering around your house as a guest one day. ¡°I¡¯d love to introduce you to Father,¡± said Stuart, sounding surprised. ¡°But he¡¯s not home.¡± ¡°He¡¯s not?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I would have mentioned that he was gone, but I¡¯m so used to everyone just knowing things about him. For some reason, it didn¡¯t occur to me that you wouldn¡¯t. He¡¯s been away from the Mother for months, and he¡¯ll be away for many more, unless something goes wrong.¡± ¡°Oh. All right.¡± He doesn¡¯t plan to be here for Stuart¡¯s affixation? Or after? It seemed like the kind of occasion where a person might want their closest family nearby. ¡°Years ago, he decided to delay a <> goal. A <> to re-open the way to a place that was abandoned to chaos not too long before our people discovered yours. He returns to that campaign now.¡± Stuart started walking again. ¡°If he and the others who¡¯ve gone ahead think it¡¯s still <>, more will follow. Esh-erdi and Lind-otta discussed it with him when last they were here. They¡¯ll go in a year or so.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a long campaign?¡± ¡°Yes. Probably very long. But I know that my father thinks it¡¯s important. I look forward to helping him with it.¡± He paused, then looked back at Alden. ¡°Not at the vanguard of course. The campaign would have to be extremely long for me to become strong enough to join him there.¡± ¡°Of course¡­¡± What¡¯s the right thing to say to that? ¡°You can still destroy hundreds of demons from the back?¡± ¡°Exactly!¡± ******* ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-TWO: Grand Presentation 162 ****** They entered the main house through a door that opened into a narrow solarium. The room was situated between the exterior of the building and the kitchen, and vertical planters rising up the long transparent walls partially obscured the view in both directions. Sitting at a table, a trio of household staff, all of whom Alden recognized from his stint as the room service guy the last time he was here, were talking quietly with each other and enjoying cups of steaming wevvi. Two were rolling some kind of dough into balls, and the third was coating them in what looked like tiny raisins. At Stuart and Alden¡¯s arrival, they all glanced up and gave a nod before going back to their task. Stuart headed toward them, and Alden, assuming he was supposed to tag along until told otherwise, followed him. ¡°Is any spell wanted?¡± Stuart asked when he reached the table. The woman coating the dough with the fruit smiled at him. ¡°We¡¯re all well cared for, and the work proceeds.¡± The words were delivered with a rhythm and ease that made Alden think it was an exchange that was often repeated. ¡°Then let me introduce you to Alden,¡± Stuart said quickly. Alden stood straighter. He was suddenly reminded of the fact that bluejeans and a mostly-clean t-shirt weren¡¯t what he¡¯d planned to wear the next time he came here. ¡°He¡¯s one of Earth¡¯s Avowed, commended by Loh Alis-art¡¯h, and he is my guest. Alden, this is Muis-ida, whose family has assisted art¡¯h wizards and knights for six generations, and this is my far-cousin Nimiot¡­¡± I¡¯m going to need to cheat, Alden thought as Stuart went on. There¡¯s no way I¡¯ll remember every name, pronunciation, and relationship without help. By the time the introductions were finished, he¡¯d mentally typed himself a message labeled ¡°Art¡¯h House Cheat Sheet.¡± A couple of minutes later, he was trailing after Stuart through the kitchen, then into an arched, low-ceilinged alcove that served as a refrigerator. It didn¡¯t have a door, but none of the cold touched him until he stepped over a thin silver strip of metal on the floor. From last time, he knew that the waist-high chests at the back of the alcove were freezers. With the exception of whatever was in there, everything was out in the open on shelves. ¡°I¡¯m just going to have <> for first meal.¡± Stuart walked over to a shelf. ¡°And we should pick up our second meals now, since we¡¯ll be out in the forest for a few hours. Do you want any of these things?¡± He¡¯d just pulled a large rectangular basket off the shelf. It had a label on the front, and as Alden glanced at it, his flashcard logogram translation provided him with the words: ¡°Food for Human.¡± Wow. I have my own designated dining basket. He¡¯d already eaten fruit for breakfast from his Bowl of Welcome. While Stuart seasoned and boiled whatever grain tea was on the stove, Alden prepared himself a to-go container for later. He opted not to ask what any of the stuff he was selecting from the human basket actually was so that he could be adventurous. ¡°We can drink our tea in the husenot room.¡± Stuart was pouring the beverage he¡¯d made into two lidded mugs. ¡°Nobody should be there at this hour. And then we¡¯ll go to the <> library to get what I need for my spell.¡± ****** ¡°In the housing for new Ryeh-b¡¯ts on Anesidora, my neighbors had a table full of these,¡± Alden said quietly, looking down through a glass floor at a rainbow of hibernating rock creatures. The husenots had a whole world of their own, just a couple of feet below him. Some of the animals had buried themselves in the pale sand until only a lump remained. Others were jumbled together. Based on how they¡¯d arranged themselves, it seemed like most of them wanted to sleep around the edges of the mysteriously rippling pool in the center of their domain.¡°We wagered money on where they¡¯d all relocate to when they moved.¡± ¡°We do that, too,¡± said Stuart, sipping from his mug as he looked down at a particularly large animal with a turquoise starburst pattern on its shell. ¡°Not money, though. Usually we wager chores or errands.¡± He was speaking in a near-whisper as well. On their way here, they¡¯d crept past Murmur, who was sleeping next door on the floor of the room that held the fire pit, one small Artonan child conked out on his back like he was a mattress and one red ryeh-b¡¯t snuggled up against him. Alden now had more questions than ever about the Mleirt. ¡°When we saw Murmur and you said, ¡®Grandpa-Grandpa is sleeping,¡¯ is that a saying of some kind because Murmur is very old? Or ¡­¡± ¡°We all call him that sometimes. He often cared for my father and his siblings when they were growing up.¡± Stuart stared off into space for a second, and a moment later the illumination below the floor changed to a black light setting. The husenots were suddenly a riot of speckled fluorescent patterns. Alden bent to look closer. ¡°Do your father and Alis-art¡¯h support your plans?¡± ¡°Aunt Alis and Father almost never disagree about anything serious where anyone else can hear them. I¡¯m sure they aren¡¯t always <>, but they pretend to be.¡± Stuart took a lengthy pause, sipping a few more times. ¡°Those of us who grow up in the Rapports call our adolescence ¡®the choosing season.¡¯ It hasn¡¯t always been that way. Historically, the idea of <> expanding the population of knights takes hold for years at a time, and there¡¯s much less choosing involved. Until everyone decides again that the rewards aren¡¯t worth the cost. ¡°Many of the older knights took their oaths during one of the worse cycles, and because they saw so many of the people they grew up with die during first binding or within a few years of it, they¡¯ve done what they can to change bad traditions and revive good ones.¡± ¡°Like the choosing season?¡± ¡°Yes. After we attend our first¡­there is a ceremony where some knights request rest. If you are raised in a Rapport, your first attendance at that ceremony usually marks the beginning of your choosing season, and the season doesn¡¯t end until you announce that you have chosen.¡± Alden swallowed. ¡°Almost everyone from the Rapport children''s school will go on to become a hn¡¯tyon or a wizard sworn to aid them in some way. Both choices are serious. And so it¡¯s important that they are made, or rejected, without the <> of stronger winds. We¡¯re encouraged to go slowly. During the years of our choosing, our Instructors are <> teaching us as if we might have any future. Everyone, including our peers and our family members, waits patiently to give advice if we ask for it or to celebrate our choice with us once it¡¯s made. ¡°Before my choosing season, I and everyone else thought I would become a votary¡­which is not someone specifically trained to kill people.¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°No.¡± Stuart shook his head and laughed softly. ¡°Where did you pick up an idea like that? Votaries are wizards who serve as assistants and dedicated casters, often for a single knight but not always. Hn¡¯tyons spend so much time training their skill, recovering from affixation, and working far from home. Almost all pursue education in wizardry, but it can be difficult to gain a <> one. At least in the usual time frame. A votary fills in gaps, cares for the knight in whatever way is called for, makes sure certain social responsibilities are met, and may join them <> when situations allow it.¡± ¡°Esh-erdi had Lind-otta¡¯s votary following me around school yesterday,¡± Alden told him. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°To make sure no wizards or law enforcement bothered me about the dead people. Or maybe because it was funny. He also had my birth tree moved to his house.¡± Stuart¡¯s brows drew together. ¡°Where was your birth tree previously located?¡± ¡°Outside of a building where babies are born. In a place where vehicles stop rolling.¡± < >. ¡°Right. I know that word. I just forgot it.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t have your birth tree in a place like that, Alden. What if the autodrive on a vehicle malfunctions, and it crashes into it?¡± They blinked at each other. ¡°You look like you don¡¯t understand me right now,¡± said Stuart. ¡°I didn¡¯t even know what birth trees were until Esh-erdi told me he¡¯d bought mine. And now you look like you don¡¯t understand me.¡± Stuart came over to stand beside him. ¡°Since we¡¯re talking about birth trees anyway¡­I wasn¡¯t born here. My mother was a courageous person who fought many battles, but her last one left her unwell. She went to a corrupted world to help my father. She stayed too long and gave too much. She was pregnant with me, and Father didn¡¯t know. She said she would go back to the Triplanets ahead of him to recover, but when he returned, nobody had seen her. He searched for her and eventually found both of us on another planet.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± said Alden quietly. ¡°She was a knight, too, then?¡± Stuart looked surprised. ¡°Yes. The place where I was <> isn¡¯t somewhere many people who aren¡¯t knights could safely travel to. But it¡¯s too long a story to tell in whispers with that group sleeping next door. And Weset is too young to hear it.¡± Alden added a note to his cheat sheet that said: ¡°Weset = sleeps on top of Murmur.¡± ¡°When Father returned home with me, I required a lot of gentle care and attention. Everyone gave it to me. And when I was less fragile, they did everything they could to make my life as it should have been, if nothing had gone wrong. When my family told me stories or talked about the kinds of things I might do with my future, they told me how well-suited I was to being a wizard of the Rapport. And that¡¯s a special and worthy thing to be. It¡¯s a life that many members of the family have chosen. So I was always proud. ¡°As the years of my childhood passed, I grew very close to one of my older sisters. Sina. I told people I would be her votary one day, and she agreed with me. It became something that felt true. To me. And to everyone else.¡± He drained his drink and wiped his lips with the pad of his thumb. ¡°You¡¯ve seen my mourning name, so you know¡­she died.¡± ¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± Alden said, hating how insufficient the words were. Stuart looked down into the empty mug then back up. He looks so much like he did on the day she died, Alden thought. But so different, too. Watching his face that day, Alden had wondered how he would ever be all right. But here he was, talking about it like it was a scar instead of a fresh wound. ¡°It was more horrible than anything I had ever imagined. I had to delay my season of choosing for another year, so I could mourn her and recover. Around that time, people asked me every now and then if I had thought about leaving the Rapport. I guess to live in <> with no responsibility at all.¡± Alden was sure from his tone that those people had been put on some kind of idiot list in Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s head. ¡°But my family and I still talked as if I would be a votary one day, maybe for one of my other siblings or cousins. Maybe for someone else.¡± ¡°I have a cultural question,¡± said Alden. ¡°Is becoming a votary, or swearing to serve the Rapport in some other way, considered an equal sacrifice? Compared to being a knight?¡± Stuart frowned. ¡°How could it be? No, maybe I should have explained better. To be a wizard is to move through reality with <> of your own freedom. The theoretical< > of wizardry is dominion over the self and the universe. Omnipotence. ¡°It¡¯s not as though anyone <> thinks they¡¯ll actually reach that pinnacle, but sometimes, when you cast a spell and things go very right, or a little wrong in a specific way, you can almost imagine what it would be like.¡± He lifted the hand that wasn¡¯t gripping the mug and examined his fingers. ¡°And there¡¯s a shadow of that pleasure every time we cast. But an affixation is like¡­a contract between you and your own future about what you will be, <> into your very being and all around the spot you occupy <>. And because you are not meant to be limited like that, and you can feel the <> of it, you fight it. And the you that has not been bound runs a <> forward, trying to <> more space for itself. ¡°So most do grow very strong. The life of a hn¡¯tyon is one where <> is hard-found, if it¡¯s found at all. And often fleeting. It¡¯s a higher and narrower branch to¡­¡± He trailed off. ¡°Alden, are you all right?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said automatically. ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I be?¡± Eyes with slender golden rings watched him closely. Alden tried to smile. ¡°You¡¯re a very <> person,¡± Stuart said. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid for me.¡± Alden wasn¡¯t exactly sure it was fear he was feeling. Maybe that was part of it. A lot was going on his head. ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid for you?¡± he asked. Stuart continued to watch him. ¡°A little,¡± he said finally. ¡°But the season of choosing was good for me. The setting aside of time to think, the encouragement our instructors gave us to calmly consider all paths¡­I was taking it seriously and slowly changing my mind about things that had seemed sure throughout my childhood. And I was gaining <> and a sense of my purpose. ¡°Apparently, everyone thought I was taking years to announce because I liked the rituals and sense of camaraderie that comes with being one of those who are choosing, which I very much do, of course. But I was taking so long for the same reasons almost everyone else does. Because the adults all said it was a special time of life that shouldn¡¯t be rushed away from and because I didn¡¯t want to embarrass myself by formally announcing and then later have to say I¡¯d made a mistake. ¡°That kind of <> makes people more likely to worry about you. My family spent so much of my youth worrying about me. I didn¡¯t want to give them another cause for concern.¡± ¡°That didn¡¯t go as you planned,¡± Alden noted. ¡°There was a significant difference in how I understood my situation and how they did. When I was younger, nobody I loved ever said I didn¡¯t have the ability to become a knight. It didn¡¯t need to be said. It was obvious even to me, as soon as I was old enough to know a little about it. But I thought that, over the past few years, we all realized I had become strong enough to do whatever I wanted.¡± He scowled. ¡°We talked a lot about how well I was doing. Everyone told me how proud they were of the adult I was becoming. They treated me like nothing about me was delicate anymore. And it never occurred to me that they were being liars.¡± Alden was surprised by the vehemence. ¡°When I realized I was completely confident in my choice, I was so excited to tell them. I knew they¡¯d be surprised, but I expected them to be happily surprised. Especially Father. It is the path of highest onus, after all, and there is a love and a <> that can only be shared with those who walk it with you.¡± Stuart closed his eyes and shook his head. ¡°I told them the night before that I would be announcing the end of my season of choosing in the morning. And so everyone was there for first meal in the big dining room. ¡°The change in their expressions when I told them¡­¡± He fell silent. ¡°Bad?¡± Alden prompted after a while. Stuart¡¯s eyes opened again. His voice was suddenly gloomy. ¡°If one of my grandparents had teleported back from the grave, hauling chaos with them like <>, and <> in the wevvi boiler, I¡¯m sure my family would have been less horrified.¡± ¡°Nooo,¡± said Alden, moaning with vicarious embarrassment. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry.¡± ¡°It was terrible,¡± said Stuart. ¡°It sounds like it was. What did your father say?¡± ¡°He couldn¡¯t speak.¡± ¡°Oh no.¡± ¡°He just left the house.¡± Stuart¡¯s expression was distant. ¡°He was gone for almost a week.¡± Alden cringed. ¡°That was about half a year before I met you,¡± Stuart said. ¡°I¡¯ve had an <> variety of arguments with everyone since then. But actually, right after the mishnen, when Father came to see me, we talked for hours. About the mistakes I¡¯d just made, but also about my future. And he told me to choose as I thought best and said he would trust me whatever the choice was.¡±A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. He smiled. ¡°I will repay his trust by <> in every way. And someday soon, he will be glad he gave it.¡± ****** ****** ¡°I¡¯m willing to consider the idea that you¡¯re not less mature than me,¡± Alden announced, peering through the translucent barrier that kept people from falling out of the elevator. It was carrying them rapidly down below ground level to the place Stuart called the supply library. ¡°I¡¯ll tell Lute I was wrong when I get back to Earth.¡± ¡°I enjoy your company very much,¡± said Stuart. ¡°So please don¡¯t feel that I¡¯m insulting you. But you¡¯re so strange.¡± ¡°I¡¯m strange!?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± The elevator stopped, and the barrier disappeared. As soon as Stuart stepped out, a golden glow warmed the massive room he¡¯d just entered. The lighting came from the shelves, racks, and cabinets in the space. Aisles full of them. This is not a basement, thought Alden, craning his neck as he hurried after his host, who was striding forward purposefully as if there was nothing at all special to see in this part of the house. This is like the organized version of a treasure room in an animated movie. But instead of in mounds, the jewels were in boxes with labels like ¡°Worshipped in a Fetuna Temple for at least Three Hundred Years¡± and ¡°Fossilized Resin Drops with Stinging Oons Inside.¡± They walked past a rack covered in loops of Artonan hair. Well, no fantasy treasure room I ever saw had that. But he was pretty sure if he were a Wright he would have fainted the second he set foot in here. They had enough of that powder Everly Kim used to cast her ice patch spell to fill a bathtub. There were metal ingots in piles. One cabinet had a sign on the front that said, ¡°Don¡¯t let me out without asking Evul.¡± Alden was so overwhelmed that he forgot to joke around about how Stuart was the strange one. Of course he hadn¡¯t forgotten exactly where he was. He was an invited guest in the home of the people who were ranked first and fourth most important in the known universe. But the art¡¯h residence was so cozy for an alien siblinghold. Cooking dinner on a rock and watching Stuart try to get a zipper away from his pet had made his impression of Rapport I lean toward the homey. Now he was having a moment of clarity. And magical eye strain. ¡°The floor below us is also part of the supply library,¡± Stuart said, apparently unaware that Alden was trying to calculate what that bin full of sand over there must cost if it was the same stuff that was inside his temper spheres. ¡°And the one below that is for items that should be kept safe but that rarely need to be accessed. There are some interesting weapons down there. Above us is the manuscript library. And a lot of portraits.¡± They passed a shelf full of bottled snowmelt, labeled by year. And then they walked by a tree root thicker than Alden¡¯s whole body. It pierced down through one hole cut in the ceiling and another in the floor. Alden found his voice as Stuart led him to a series of slots carved into the wall. ¡°There¡¯s so much stuff here.¡± ¡°Do you like it?¡± Stuart paused with his arms half-lifted as if he were about to cast. ¡°I always have. Rel spent a whole winter down here with me one year, teaching me the names of all the things, how to care for them, and what they were for.¡± ¡°I do like it. You managed to memorize them all in a single winter?¡± ¡°All the more common and useful things,¡± Stuart clarified. ¡°But I still know more about the library than a lot of my older siblings do. And Emban¡¯s very familiar with it now, but the first time some of my brother and sisters brought her down here, she accidentally got left behind. The lights cut off because she hadn¡¯t been introduced to the spell yet, and half a day later, I found her crying behind a basket full of <>.¡± Alden pulled up his cheat sheet. ¡°That sounds sad. Who¡¯s Emban?¡± ****** An hour or so after sunrise, Alden found himself sitting with his back to a tree, waving off apologies from Stuart, who was acting like the lack of a magical cushion might do Alden¡¯s rear end a permanent injury. ¡°I¡¯m very comfortable,¡± Alden insisted. ¡°And if casting a spell right now might make you mess up the one you just spent so much time preparing for, I¡¯d be disappointed. I want to see what your skill is going to do.¡± The Primary¡¯s son had been explaining about the spell the whole time he set up the casting zone for himself. It was, he said, the most difficult thing he could achieve with magic. He¡¯d only managed to make it work in the past couple of months, which had been the final goal on his personal to-do-before-I-affix list. Because it was a spell that showed him ¡°the humblest version¡± of the skill he¡¯d decided would be his perfect match. Alden had no idea what to expect, and he was getting excited at the thought of seeing not only a cool new kind of magic but a cool new kind of magic that Stu-art¡¯h thought was worth¡­well, worth sacrificing a portion of himself. But the wizard who¡¯d just spent part of the morning talking about how great his special spell was and exuberantly choosing expensive supplies to match the occasion was now having what looked an awful lot like a crisis of confidence. ¡°You understand that this is just a part of what I¡¯ll be able to do with my skill?¡± he said for the second time, leaning over to brush a few grains of soil from the top of the circular slab of white stone they¡¯d hauled out here with mover discs. He was going to stand on it and cast, and something was going to happen to the line of random objects he¡¯d placed in front of it. ¡°It will be more impressive in the future.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°And if I make a mistake and it fails, that won¡¯t mean that my skill will fail in the future.¡± ¡°I know.¡± Stuart opened his mouth again. ¡°Listen, I¡¯m an easy audience,¡± said Alden. ¡°And if it doesn¡¯t work, you can try again this afternoon, can¡¯t you? Or in December¡­if you¡¯re still planning to invite me then. I know it might not be worth another argument with your family.¡± ¡°There won¡¯t be any more arguments about that,¡± said Stuart. Now he was checking the tie on the end of his braid as if that might be the one thing that undid all his preparations. ¡°I can have you over whenever I want to. They promised.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t have to give up something you wanted in return, did you?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I don¡¯t want to be¡ª¡± ¡°I think it all concluded in my favor. They asked me to delay my first binding for a while longer and do a few other things.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not fair to you,¡± Alden said, anger rising swiftly. ¡°It¡¯s so stressful, and if you¡¯re ready for it now¡­¡± ¡°It can only be a small delay. And a few of them made points about why a delay might be good. And I did talk them into giving me several other things. Don¡¯t worry. Are you sure you¡¯re fine without a seat? I could run back to the house.¡± Alden pointed at the white circle. ¡°Stop delaying. I want to see a spell!¡± Stuart took a deep breath. ¡°Yes. I will stop and start over a few times. It doesn¡¯t mean anything is wrong. The process will help me build the spell more gradually and tighten my focus.¡± When he said significant-sounding things like that, it gave Alden crazy urges. Begging for a magic lesson would be a really strange thing for him to do, but if Stuart already thought he was strange¡­ It would still be a terrible idea. ¡°And you don¡¯t have to watch the whole time. You can watch videos on your tablet or do your own work. It will take a while. You¡¯ll know it¡¯s about to happen when I hit <>.¡± Alden gave him two thumbs ups. Stuart paused for half a minute to research the gesture. Then, he returned it and raced over to start his spell. ****** He hadn¡¯t been kidding when he said it would take a while. An hour and a half into it, Alden winced as Stuart stopped the chant again, took a sip of something from a flask in his pocket, and did the same series of finger stretches that he always did when he restarted. He never looked upset. In fact, since he¡¯d started casting, his focus was intense and intent in a way that made Alden want to pull out his own auriad and lose himself in trying a spell, too. The silky string slid an inch down his arm, and he sent it back toward his shoulder where it belonged. He definitely wasn¡¯t about to start doing CNH homework when he had a live wizardry demonstration taking place right in front of him. I¡¯ll probably never be able to do what he¡¯s doing, but here I am watching like he¡¯s giving a class. Stuart would have begun casting spells when he was years younger than Kibby. And Alden didn¡¯t know how powerful he was, but¡­he was the Primary¡¯s son. Alden seriously doubted it was a B-rank equivalent situation over there. It had occurred to him that he could reach out with his own authority to peek. Not a friendly student-to-student pat even, just a drawing closer to see if he could sense what Stuart was doing at all. But that was even crazier than whipping out the auriad. For all he knew, any deliberate action on his part other than skill use would be noticed. Casting a spell on Anesidora, where millions of Avowed and quite a few wizards were also doing it in their own ways, was one thing. Deliberately poking and peering with his authority sense here at the art¡¯h house was another. What if everyone here had the equivalent of a magical voice that the others could recognize? Knight and wizard family life was a mystery. So he held very still and stayed very quiet and contented himself with observing the world through his boring old human senses. The braziers positioned around Stuart were sending up smoke that spiraled tightly around his stone circle and up before disappearing. Alden had only gotten one whiff of it before it started spiraling well, and he could have sworn it smelled solid. Like it was prodding his nose and lungs. Whenever the chanting was in progress, he admired the variety of sounds Artonan throats could make. He wondered if Stuart¡¯s speaking voice was what came comfortably to him or if he¡¯d selected it for himself. They could do that fairly easily if they wanted¡­just decide they were going to develop a different everyday voice like a human deciding they were going to learn a new accent. I doubt he¡¯s had the time to think about something like that, considering everything else he¡¯s been thinking about. Mostly, Alden was passing the time trying to guess what was going to happen to that line of stuff Stuart had made. There were several blocks of wood, one of stone, and something called a sackfruit that looked like a giant jellyfish full of red goo that he¡¯d picked ¡°because I want to see how it works on this.¡± The line was twenty-seven paces long. Stuart had walked it several times until he was satisfied. And it started and ended with a bean. Just two normal alien beans. They were small, brown, and bean-shaped. Stuart had put one on the white stone where he stood and the other was sitting on another wooden block on the other side of the fruit. What if everything in between the beans turns into more beans? That would be a neat spell. It was about the twentieth option he¡¯d considered so far. And he was still thinking of ways for it to be useful when he spotted someone heading through the woods toward them. Stuart had started the chant again. His auriad was flowing smoothly through his fingers. He was far enough along that Alden hoped this might be the time he completed it. Don¡¯t interrupt now, whoever you are, he thought. They wore a knight¡¯s coat in a soft cream color with only a few of the metal stud patterns on the sleeves. Matching ribbons were laced through a crown of braided hair the color of grape jelly. Alden was trying to examine hip width as unobtrusively as possible while also paying attention to the spell, when they reached him. Female, he decided. ¡°Hello,¡± he said. She sat right beside him. He wondered if he was supposed to scoot over to give her more room. ¡°So you¡¯re the alien who held my cousin down while some < > girl < > one of his legs like a <>. Just because all of those kids thought their lives would end if they didn¡¯t get into the fancy jungle school their parents partied at.¡± Oh God, thought Alden, his polite smile freezing. She knows the whole story, and she made it sound so bad. When he didn¡¯t answer, one of her eyes turned toward him. It was a gray-flecked pink. Alden cleared his throat. ¡°Yes. That was such a bad day for everyone. I¡¯m Alden.¡± ¡°Emban-art¡¯h,¡± she said, eye turning back to Stuart. <> At least she¡¯s on the cheat sheet already. Emban was Stuart¡¯s first cousin once removed. Her parents were regular wizards by choice, but they¡¯d come to Rapport I for a visit when Emban was younger, and she had decided this life suited her better. She was the nearest to Stuart in age, just a few years older, and she was the latest art¡¯h to become a knight. Definer of Grooves? Is that a title of some kind or is she introducing herself by her skill name? ¡°It¡¯s an honor to meet you, Hn¡¯tyon Emban-art¡¯h.¡± ¡°Do you think he will succeed?¡± she asked, still watching her cousin. ¡°Is it safe for us to talk? I don¡¯t want to distract him. He¡¯s been working on this all morning.¡± Emban-art¡¯h snorted. ¡°If two people talking nearby breaks his focus for this spell, that would be more his failing than ours.¡± Alden would still be trying to limit it to strictly necessary exchanges if she stuck around. ¡°I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll succeed,¡± he said simply. ¡°So confident. Can you even understand what he¡¯s doing?¡± Alden didn¡¯t reply, and she didn¡¯t ask again. After a few minutes of quiet observation, she took a small paper bag out of her coat pocket. Alden caught a whiff of the burnt sugar smell that had filled the air around the house when he¡¯d arrived yesterday. She pulled an amber-colored oval wafer out and bit into it before holding the bag toward him. He weighed the possibility that flatseed candy might be poisonous to humans against the risk of offending the first knight in Stuart¡¯s family who had extended a greeting since he¡¯d arrived. Then, he thanked her and took a piece. It was crunchy and sweet. The large, paper-thin flatseed in the middle tasted like toasted bread. ¡°I think he may be able to do it, too,¡± Emban-art¡¯h said.¡°But it¡¯s hard to celebrate that possibility when the price for failure is so high.¡± Are we talking about the spell he¡¯s casting now or his future? She licked sugar off her index finger. ¡°And Stu is gifted enough to become a wizard of rare worth to the family. He ignores that too much. I could try until I wept and still not cast a spell like this one. Even if he is <> with it still.¡± A moist finger pointed at the line of objects in front of them. Stuart¡¯s voice was rising in pitch and volume. ¡°That¡¯s all I¡¯ll say about it. But they shouldn¡¯t have asked him to agree to another delay,¡± Emban-art¡¯h said. ¡°Not after Granduncle Jeneth has given permission.¡± Alden didn¡¯t know how to respond to any of this. The last bite of candy he¡¯d taken was melting on his tongue. Emban-art¡¯h rose to her feet. ¡°I¡¯ve probably made him angry enough by talking to you when he wasn¡¯t in a position to comment. And they¡¯ve decided he¡¯s supposed to act as my votary next week. I¡¯d rather not have a bad-tempered votary who needs soothing. It¡¯s quite backwards. Try to put him in a good mood for me, Alden Ryeh-b¡¯t.¡± Stuart¡¯s eyes narrowed. His voice lifted another octave. As Emban-art¡¯h walked away, past the line of objects, Stuart¡¯s chant became a breathy shriek that made the hair on Alden¡¯s arms stand up. That sound wasn¡¯t just his voice. There was something else about it. It¡¯s happening. Alden watched. It happened too fast to really get it, but at least he saw and heard it. The wood block closest to where Stuart stood broke open with a crack that was followed by a series of cracks and pops from the other wood blocks in the line. Then the stone one shattered and the sackfruit exploded gloriously, spattering Emban-art¡¯h with red goo. Silence reigned for only a second. ¡°Ugh! Stu, you rushed that on purpose to hit me!¡± ¡°Where¡¯s the bean!?¡± Stuart shouted, racing along the line of minor destruction. ¡°Did it make it? Alden, did you see? Come here!¡± ¡°I¡¯ve just decided my fake votary needs to do my laundry next week.¡± ¡°It did make it!¡± Alden was on his feet, jogging over to see what Stuart was gesturing excitedly toward. He was already trying to explain before Alden even reached him. ¡°With the skill, I wouldn¡¯t have to send a bean to a bean, although I could. And the route I made for it would match the size I intended perfectly. My casting of this spell is actually too messy, but for demonstration purposes that¡¯s good because it shows the potential.¡± Alden looked down toward where Stuart leaned over the final wood block. Instead of one bean, there were now two, resting innocently side by side. Neither of them had a scratch on them. Stuart was watching him eagerly. ¡°Did one of these go through all of that?¡± Alden asked, looking at the splinters and rubble and exploded jellyfish fruit between them and the place where Stuart had been standing to cast. ¡°Actually it traveled through a kind of <> I created with my spell,¡± said Stuart. He stood and clasped his hands in front of him. ¡°That¡¯s going to be one of the things I can do with my skill¡ªThe Maker of Narrow Ways.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-THREE: The Primarys Youngest Child 163 ****** The child who lived in the dome by the river was trying to decide what kind of beautiful the day was. He squatted a couple of steps from the wide silver band of the water, dark sand squishing between his toes. Beautiful. More beautiful. Or most beautiful? He splayed his small fingers, patting the stone he had just warmed with magic before flopping over in the soft sand to lay his cheek against it. That way he could feel the heat with his face, too. He had learned the spell only a few days ago. His mother would come soon, and he would show her that he had done it all by himself. And she would be proud of him. That will make it one of the more beautiful days, he thought. He decided to think about his new spell with one half of his attention and listen for the familiar sound of her approaching footsteps with the other. They were never apart for long. As soon as being alone became less interesting and happy than being together would be, she appeared. That was how the world worked. The warm stone felt good, and the cool sand felt good, and the wind tickled his legs and arms where they stuck out of his longshirt. If he fell asleep for long, he would wake in bed. His mother¡¯s arms would be wrapped around him, or her voice would be, as she sang him The Names of Things song. If he got up and ran as fast as he could on his short legs, the air would fill his chest, and he would see parts of the river he¡¯d never seen before. And as soon as he went far enough to wonder if going too far might be a possibility¡ªas soon as he tried to figure out what one should feel if they went too far from home¡ªhe would see that he hadn¡¯t really gone far at all. The way back to the dome was always clear and easy to walk when he wanted it. This was what life was. He heard footsteps. They sound different than I expected, he thought, delight tingling through him. I¡¯m getting a surprise. Different almost always meant a surprise. Surprises almost always made the day most beautiful. He sat up and looked around. His mother was there, standing side by side with the most amazing surprise of the child¡¯s whole life. ¡°Stu,¡± she said, ¡°this man is Jeneth-art¡¯h. He is your father.¡± Stu stared at the new adult¡ªhim, the man, Jeneth-art¡¯h, Father. The ideas blossomed inside him, and he realized he had always wanted this even though he¡¯d never once felt the lack of it. He gasped and ran forward, arms outstretched. ¡°Father! There you are, and here I am. I love you so much!¡± He grabbed the man around the legs, blinking up to meet pink eyes. Hair that was almost white spilled down Father¡¯s shoulders. He smelled different than Mother. His skin was paler than hers, his nose a little larger, and the expression on his face was one Stu didn¡¯t know, though he was sure it must be a good one. ¡°This is the most beautiful day there has ever been,¡± Stu said, still clinging to him. ¡°Do you think so too, Father?¡± ****** ****** ¡°It¡¯s been a long while since someone chose Maker of Narrow Ways,¡± Stuart was saying. ¡°I¡¯ve spent almost as much time talking to the Contract about the possibilities and having calls with <> and <> as I have in class. But about a month ago I finally got every involved person to agree that my desired < > and <>would be <> instead of <> with the skill¡¯s <>.¡± He paused for his first breath in ages. Emban-art¡¯h had left to go change her clothes after a short bickering session with her cousin, so it was just the two of them again. Alden was sitting on the ground, leaning against the tree that had been his backrest for most of the morning and eating his lunch out of the to-go tiffin he¡¯d packed earlier. Stuart had sat down to eat with him only to bounce right back up to grab the first wood block his spell effect had struck, which was the least damaged of them all. He¡¯d held the broken pieces together to show Alden the approximate shape of the hole that had been formed in it. It was an oversized bean if you used your imagination. Now, Stuart was standing beside his magical handiwork. He kept looking from his bean bullet¡ªstill in its landing spot beside its partner¡ªto Alden like he couldn¡¯t decide which one was more worthy of his attention. Alden opened his mouth to ask a question, and Stuart hastily said, ¡°I know! Naturally, you¡¯re worried about whether I¡¯ll be able to use the skill the way I want to and hoping I won¡¯t be disheartened with my choice during the early years of my knighthood. Maybe you¡¯re thinking that it¡¯s <> and I should instead consider a more certain course for¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m not thinking any of those things!¡± Alden cut in, setting aside the ceramic jar of greasy, tasteless pudding he¡¯d just eaten a bite of. It was by far the worst of all the random snacks he¡¯d added to his lunch, but since he¡¯d taken it he felt obligated to finish it. ¡°You¡¯re not?¡± He looked so thrilled to hear it that Alden hated to point out the very obvious thing that he seemed to have forgotten. Stuart was high on the aftermath of his casting success and Alden¡¯s own enthusiasm for what he¡¯d done. As soon as I said the spell was awesome he launched into this mode, and he hasn¡¯t slowed down since. ¡°I do think you might have temporarily forgotten that I¡¯m not Artonan,¡± Alden said. Stuart blinked at him. ¡°So I can¡¯t really judge your choice. I have almost no knowledge. To me, what you did is incredible, and I think a skill that both transports things and destroys obstacles in its path is going to be so impressive when you grow it. But I probably understand about one percent of what you really did, and when it comes to the pressures you¡¯re under to pick the right thing¡­I don¡¯t even know how many skills you have to choose from.¡± ¡°Of course.¡± Stuart¡¯s neck purpled. ¡°I got too excited.¡± ¡°No. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s possible to be too excited about your skill choice. It will always be part of who you are in the future, so¡­¡± So screw you, overly certain fifteen-year-old idiot Alden. Why didn¡¯t you take at least a few weeks to think like this back in February? ¡°So you need to really think about what you¡¯re doing with it and find something that makes you that excited.¡± Stuart smiled, picked up his beans, and came over to take a seat facing him. ¡°I should let you ask questions,¡± he said. ¡°Since I¡¯m not sure what you understand. What do you want to know?¡± ¡°Everything,¡± Alden said. ¡°But that might take years. How about we start with what just happened. You made a tunnel? Will your skill always work like that?¡± ¡°It always will when I¡¯m doing this kind of thing with it¡­yes, the spell I cast created a tunnel¡ªa way for the bean to reach its destination. The <> formed quickly, moving from one bean to the other and denying everything else the right to occupy that space as it came into existence. Then the bean traveled through to its destination <>.¡± ¡°The tunnel isn¡¯t all created in an instant,¡± Alden said, just to be sure he understood. ¡°It begins forming at Bean 1, then continues forming toward Bean 2. In a straight line?¡± Stuart nodded. ¡°And everything in between gets¡­¡± Alden almost said ¡°punched through,¡± but then he reconsidered. ¡°Is the tunnel at its full width from the start and moving forward like a finger poking holes in sheets of paper? Or is it expanding into existence as it goes?¡± ¡°It expands,¡± Stuart said ¡°When you do it with your skill will it work the same way? Or will the whole tunnel form at once?¡± ¡°Eventually, I should have significant control over the process. But motion toward something is part of the skill concept. A way is meant to be traveled, so having it appear fully made between two points instead of having it progress from one to the other¡­¡± He craned his neck back and stared thoughtfully up at the forest¡¯s canopy. ¡°I¡¯m sure I could do it with practice. One day. But I can¡¯t think of many reasons to do it when forming ways nearly instantaneously would be good enough and produce stronger results.¡± This is pretty fascinating. And it was more confirmation that Alden¡¯s own ideas about how Bearer worked were on the right track. ¡°Your skill is weaker when it¡¯s being used for things that are less itself,¡± he said. Stuart stopped gazing up at the branches and met his eyes again. His brows were slightly elevated. ¡°The skill isn¡¯t weaker; the effects of it are. It¡¯s an important <>. You can bring the same amount of authority to bear, but skills become more <> when what you want to do with them reflects their natures.¡± ¡°All skills?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± But then he added, ¡°I don¡¯t know as much about Avowed skills. Some skills are more rigid than others, and that would mean there was less variation and possibility in their function. A skill can be limited in all kinds of ways, until it crosses the threshold toward being defined as a spell impression. A skill called Maker of Narrow Ways for Keda Beans could be created, and then the person who bound themselves to it probably wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything but move keda beans through bean-sized ways.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad you didn¡¯t pick that one.¡± ¡°The other <> would probably hesitate to be in <> with someone who picked a skill that peculiar,¡± Stuart replied. ¡°I did have trouble choosing. Weighing what skills could contribute to our purpose with how they suited me personally was difficult. Finding one that could be meaningful to me in the right ways was a lengthy search.¡± Alden had promised himself, while he watched Stuart set up the spell, that he wouldn¡¯t have selfish-dickhead thoughts about how different their skill selection experiences were. And so far it was mostly working. Given Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s general intensity level, Alden had been afraid that he might have chosen something insane for himself. Like a skill called I Cut Off My Own Fingers in Exchange for Making Mountains Explode. Or something equally difficult to live with. So he was still feeling relieved that instead he¡¯d seen a cool magical effect that would surely have multiple powerful and practical uses for a future knight, without any loss of blood or added anguish on the caster¡¯s part. And the Artonan boy¡¯s enthusiasm for showing the spell off and talking about it was infectious. ¡°What made Narrow Ways the perfect one?¡± Alden asked. Stuart¡¯s answer was a little slow in coming. He picked up a fallen leaf and wove it through his fingers. ¡°I wanted to be able to cut through things,¡± he said after a moment. ¡°But I didn¡¯t want the skill to be built on a foundation of separation. Maker of Narrow Ways can be used for <> but it¡¯s not for severing. The cutting is something that forms a connection, instead of something that breaks one. ¡°It¡¯s a skill that can reflect what has shaped my past and what I hope for in my future.¡± He dropped the leaf. ¡°I¡¯m sure when it¡¯s all done and my peers have a chance to look away from their own choices and consider mine, many of them will think I¡¯ve gone too far in pursuit of personal meaning at the expense of efficiency. But at least my family supports this part of my decision. Evul said it was a goal as odd as I was, but she meant it in a complimentary way.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not efficient?¡± ¡°No. I want to use Maker of Narrow Ways on the battlefield, but it wasn¡¯t designed for that. There are easier methods for destroying things or sending them across short distances. I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll find many opportunities to take full advantage of it. But often, to get the effect I want, I¡¯ll be straining my authority more than I would with other skills.¡± Oh yeah. That makes perfect sense now that he says it. Constructing a rapid-transport tunnel through space was extremely fancy, but it was a convoluted way of dealing damage. ¡°It¡¯s like me using my skill to behead someone in gym,¡± said Alden. ¡°Just because I can do it doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m a natural beheader.¡± ¡°That word for removing someone¡¯s head is only for formal executions. You want to use the other one, unless you are deliberately implying that Avowed Winston is a terrible criminal.¡± Alden thought for a second. ¡°Would it come across as funny-mean or serious if I used the original word?¡± ¡°It would be funny-mean if an Artonan said it. If you do, people are just going to think you accidentally used the wrong word¡­maybe it would work if you laughed after saying it? And yes, you understand what I mean about efficiency. If a skill called The Slicer of Necks exists, we can assume it¡¯s better at doing that chore with a smaller authority commitment than your preservation skill is. Although circumstances affect everything.¡± ¡°What¡¯s Maker of Narrow Ways supposed to do?¡± Alden asked. ¡°What was it designed for?¡± Stuart opened his mouth then shut it. He thought for a few seconds before saying, ¡°Its intended use is cross-dimensional exploration.¡± Why the pause there? Alden wondered. ¡°It will be very efficient for that particular thing. And that¡¯s what the few previous users selected it for. The fact that it¡¯s not immediately capable of doing that was a source of <> for them even though they knew to expect it. To bind yourself and spend your early years of service unable to use your skill in the way you want¡­for me, it will be better. There will be problems but not <> ones, I¡¯m sure.¡± Alden looked past him to the line of destroyed blocks and burst fruit. ¡°I still think it¡¯s amazing.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Stuart said, eagerness returning. ¡°Its roots drink from concepts like connection, motion toward goals, < >, and creation.¡± ¡°Built on creation. Not destruction. Even though it¡¯s capable of destroying. That¡¯s what you wanted.¡± Stuart watched him take another bite of the tasteless pudding. Alden was still trying to produce enough saliva to get the remnants of it out of his mouth and down his throat, when Stuart said, ¡°My father¡¯s first skill is called Cleaver of Strength. Did you already know that?¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s a skill very different from mine really. Associated with concepts like severing, ambition, <>¡ª¡± ¡°Fair play?¡± ¡°Father always mentions that one. I doubt the people who designed the skill would have listed it as a core part, but the way we see our skill and the choices we make in the development of it matter. Attacking at the point of greatest strength with your own greatest strength is a sort of fairness. And that¡¯s what Father¡¯s skill is best at.¡± ¡°You do usually think of attacking a problem at its weak point, not its strong one,¡± Alden said. ¡°The skill is very complementary with Esh-erdi¡¯s power. That¡¯s one of the reasons he and Lind-otta spent time here. Esh-erdi has progressed quickly over the past years, and he and father wanted to see how well they might work together. The three of them could be a powerful team.¡± Alden didn¡¯t doubt it. Lind-otta slowed the enemy. Jeneth-art¡¯h cleaved it, turning its greatest strength into a weakness¡ªa crack. And Esh-erdi cleaned up. ¡°Father used that skill to kill Mother and separate her from my mind,¡± Stuart said. ¡°As well as he could.¡± Alden slowly set aside the food. What did he just say? What the hell? He watched Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s face for some clue as to how he should respond. But before he could come up with anything that felt like an appropriate reaction, the Primary¡¯s son went on: ¡°Father and a few others once traveled to a world that had suffered a sudden and very severe chaos breakthrough. It was clear to everyone that there was an intelligence of some sort responsible. Those are often the most dangerous situations. Someone had to respond swiftly, and so there was little opportunity for Father and his companions to study the nature of the enemy before beginning their assault on it.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°It was an unexpectedly difficult place. Father says they struggled to know what direction they traveled in, and though they sensed the demon and understood how it affected them, they couldn¡¯t find it. As the corruption increased, two of the three he traveled with became too weak to continue. They attempted a teleportation ritual, to send those two back home. It¡¯s not easy to do from a place like that, and though the Contract here on Artona I did register a possible teleportation attempt and try to stabilize it¡­it failed. When the failure was reported, and no further attempts came, most people suspected that the whole group had died.¡± Stuart let his hands fall to the ground beside him, fingers digging into the leaf mulch. ¡°A woman called Iella-inwer, who was ranked sixty-eighth, had become a dear friend of my father¡¯s over the course of their meetings. They had sworn no promises to each other, but I¡¯ve been told that most people hoped they would. Someday soon. When he went to that place, she was actually here at the house, <> Rel. ¡°She joined the first group that was sent to help with the problem. They teleported to the nearest stable planet and took a <> the rest of the way. Almost a whole day before they arrived, they say she felt something about the chaos spreading from that place. She looked at the others and said, ¡®How fortunate. This is the kind of enemy I have forged myself to face.¡¯¡± ****** ****** On the most beautiful day there had ever been, Stu¡¯s family sat by the river together for a long time. His mother held him in her lap, combing his hair with her fingers. His father sat across from them, holding the rock Stu had given him as a present, even though the spell had worn off and it wasn¡¯t warm anymore. ¡°Iella,¡± his voice said. And again. ¡°Iella, please¡­¡± Many of the things Father said had a way of falling away from Stu¡¯s memory, until only the cadence and the fact of his voice speaking were left. But it was all right. Maybe the words were drifting downstream. Wasn¡¯t that a lovely idea? ¡°Would you like to see one of the patient creatures in the water?¡± Stu asked suddenly. ¡°Father, have you seen them?¡± The pink eyes fell on him. ¡°Have you only taught him the Rityan vocabulary? Not the whole unified tongue?¡± ¡°Because then we¡¯ll know,¡± Stu¡¯s mother said, her fingers still combing. ¡°If he ever says a word that isn¡¯t Rityan, we¡¯ll know it¡¯s slipped through and affected him.¡± ¡°Oh, Iella¡­¡± ¡°What¡¯s slipped through?¡± Stu asked curiously. A picture came to him¡ªone of the clear and true ones¡ªof the little blue wigglers he liked to watch, slipping in and out of holes they¡¯d made in thick patches of spongeplant. And he knew that was what they were talking about. So I might see one of those today, too? That would be perfect. ****** ****** ¡°The behavior of demons is a never-ending subject of research,¡± Stuart said to Alden. ¡°But the ones that are prone to <> often have stubborn <> and urges that might be called goals. The one responsible for that breakthrough was probably a wizard who, before his fall, was obsessed with the field of mind manipulation. We¡¯re almost sure that we know his name, but the being was so unrecognizable when Father finally located the last remnants and destroyed them, that confirming its original identity wasn¡¯t possible.¡± Oh okay then, Alden thought, feeling his own eyebrows trying to escape off his face into the sky. We¡¯re just going to straight-up tell me that a single wizard can turn into a super demon and cause an apocalypse-level chaos event. He¡¯d sort of suspected that already. Kibby had said she had to be tested more often than the other people at the lab to make sure it was safe for her to live there without becoming the strong-authority version of the chaos-spreadinggrasshoppers. So the wizard-to-demon type of demon had been a possibility in Alden¡¯s mind. He just hadn¡¯t expected Stuart to casually confirm it was true and add in the fact that it could be really, really bad when that happened. Stu-art¡¯h, did you miss the class on proper discretion that the rest of your species gets, buddy? This is like Kibby all over again, only you have way more adult intel. ¡°My mother¡¯s skill was The <> of Minds, and in some ways, the entire planet had become a chaotic mind snare under the influence of the <>. She was the best choice to find Father and help him push back the <> until they could locate the perverse one and kill it. ¡°The others who¡¯d come on the mission of rescue helped for a time, but eventually it was only the two of them left.¡± Stuart caught Alden¡¯s gaze with his own. ¡°My parents fought side by side in that <> every day, cleansing it of corruption. Often, Father rested his mind and recovered in the shelter she made for him with her skill. And whenever they became worn by the struggle, they pleasured one another to remember the brightness of life. I was <> in that way.¡± Alden narrowly stopped his mouth from making a comment about not needing to know that much. It would be rude, and besides¡­he didn¡¯t actually feel that way about it. He was only startled the conversation had gone there, not embarrassed or offended. Minimizing the serious moment with an offhand remark wasn¡¯t what he wanted. Some kind of social reflex, I guess. It was a garbage social reflex in this case. Artonans had different norms. And they were poetic, especially about significant things. Your parents making you was pretty significant. Back at Matadero, Porti-loth was probably still muttering judgments about humanity because nobody had written down the exact spot where Alden¡¯s umbilical cord had been cut. ¡°My mother was the one who made a victory that didn¡¯t involve the total destruction of the world possible,¡± Stuart said. ¡°But they were relying so heavily on her. And even though she was skilled¡­when a battle of minds wearies you, it can weaken you in ways that are difficult to detect. For some reason, she didn¡¯t tell Father she was pregnant with me. Probably to spare him from the likelihood of my loss. But as they were approaching the end of the long fight, she told him she couldn¡¯t go on. Escape vessels and <> had been sent to a <> part of the planet by then. So it should have been all right. ¡°When Father finished his work and made it to the main ship, they told him she¡¯d gone back to the Mother planet. By teleportation ritual. She¡¯d made them believe that. He was worried for her, and he¡¯d been away from home for so much longer than planned, so he had them send him right back here to see her in person. And he realized something was very wrong.¡± Stuart suddenly stopped talking. Alden picked up the pudding and took another bite so that it didn¡¯t feel quite so much like they were having an awkward silence. ¡°At some point before she left him, she¡¯d decided that their successes weren¡¯t real. All the progress she¡¯d made seemed like tricks the demon was playing on her, traps she was failing to detect.¡± Stuart swallowed. ¡°When Father finally found us¡­she¡¯d gone to a safe planet to give birth to me, but she thought we hadn¡¯t really made it to safety. She thought her escape had failed, that it was all a mind trap¡ªan elegant one, like she herself could create, not the sort of thing they¡¯d actually encountered in that place. In her mind, the demon had become an impossible enemy who was always as strong, smart, and <> as she was herself. ¡°So she¡¯d waited for help to come. She protected me with her authority and tried to make sure that no matter what happened I wouldn¡¯t experience suffering. She raised me in her own mind trap.¡± Alden swallowed the greasy lump of pudding. ¡°She used her skill to remove everything that might be painful, frightening, or even slightly uncomfortable from my attention. It was the gift of the loving lie carried to its farthest extreme. When Father found us, I loved him at once. Of course. I had never felt unhappiness or known of a threat. ¡°I remember him trying to talk to me several times, to explain something, but most of those words are gone. She erased a lot of them because they might have confused me, and by then, she considered even that much to be a suffering I shouldn¡¯t experience. ¡°He tells me he was fighting to hide how upset he was. That he argued with her in my presence when he couldn¡¯t persuade her to leave with him or free me from the trap. But I don¡¯t remember it that way. It¡¯s all so¡­soft and happy. ¡°It was even soft and happy at the very end.¡± ****** ****** Another most beautiful day. Father and Mother had held him all morning. He liked that his life included two sets of slightly different arms. Two smells. Two great loves. More was better. Now, they had words to say to each other that Stu could not hear. They are talking about a surprise, he thought. The only unknown things were surprises. He looked down through the water at the patient creatures. They rested on the bottom, black and not quite round. Covered in sharp points. Stu didn¡¯t touch those. I want to touch them, though. Why is it I don¡¯t touch them? Had he shown them to Father already? He¡¯d meant to, but he couldn¡¯t remember doing it. I don¡¯t think I have. That¡¯s exciting! I¡¯ll show him when he comes to the river again. And then, suddenly, there was a feeling that had never existed before. Like. The world. Breaking. Something¡¯s not-beautiful, thought Stu-art¡¯h. Something¡¯s the most not-beautiful. And then he was lying on his back in the sand, and his mother was running her fingers through his hair. ¡°Mother! I love you.¡± ¡°You¡¯re very happy today, Stu.¡± ¡°I am,¡± he agreed. He heard footsteps coming, and then his father was there, standing above him. And his mother was gone. So quick! Stu thought. So wonderful! She must have done it with a spell. His father¡¯s face was wearing one of those expressions Stu didn¡¯t know. ¡°May I sit beside you?¡± ¡°You may hold me,¡± said Stu. ¡°That would be the most good.¡± A moment later, arms were around him. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re all right. I have something to tell you,¡± his father said after a while. ¡°It¡¯s a surprise.¡± ¡°I knew there would be one!¡± Stu said. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°The surprise is that you have older brothers and sisters. And I¡¯m going to take you on a trip to see them.¡± Stu blinked. He blinked many times. He was sure he¡¯d never had to think so hard in his life. ¡°Brothers and sisters like some animals have?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Do they look just like me?¡± ¡°No. They look different. But all of you¡­all of you are most beautiful.¡± ¡°Did you hear that, Mother?¡± Stu called excitedly. ¡°We¡¯re going to see my brothers and sisters.¡± The arms around him shook. When Stu called, his mother appeared. As she always had. This time it was very fast, and she was standing right in front of them. On top of the water. Another special spell, he thought. One day, she¡¯ll teach me that one, too. ****** ****** ¡°The more he tried to reason with her, the more suspicious she became that he wasn¡¯t himself,¡± Stuart told Alden. ¡°Instead of persuading her that she was badly hurt, he was only making her think that he might be someone she had to protect me from, too. Pushing any more would make her fight him, and he was afraid that leaving would convince her she was right and make her panic. ¡°She was unwell enough and dangerous enough that if he had called for help from the Triplanets and explained the truth of the matter, the outcome would most likely have been similar or worse. So before she could hurt me or drag me completely beyond recovery, he struck her down with his skill.¡± Oh my god, Stuart. ¡°It was a long time ago,¡± said Stuart, reaching over to touch Alden¡¯s knee with a hand. Apparently, Alden looked like he needed comforting. ¡°And I was so young. The day of her death was much more awful for him than for me. I didn¡¯t even realize something bad had happened. Because¡­¡± Stuart smiled, ¡°¡­Father was much worse at cleaving than usual.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°Iella was so powerful. And I was so delicate. In some ways, her life had become her devotion to watching over me. If he¡¯d struck at her point of greatest strength, he¡¯d have been killing me, too. And he wouldn¡¯t do that. So he was more <>. Maybe she realized it was coming, too, and did something deliberate, <> some final plan she¡¯d made. ¡°Because a very lifelike version of her was still with me after it was done. Anytime I looked for her, she was there watching over me as she always had been.¡± ¡°The hallucinations you mentioned,¡± Alden said. Stuart nodded. ¡°She even went on protecting me from¡­life. For a time. What was left of the mind trap had holes in it, but they didn¡¯t show at first. I feel so sorry for Father. He thought I was doing well enough on our trip home.¡± The Artonan boy laughed a little. Alden was shocked that Stuart could do that, but hearing the sound lanced some of the horror he was feeling. ¡°I was extremely unusual. Of course. But I loved the spaceship. I was happy. And he thought my occasional conversations with my missing mother were understandable <> and <> that the mind healers would be able to fix. He didn¡¯t realize I was still living in a world separate from everything else until we¡¯d been traveling a while.¡± Stuart touched his own bottom lip. ¡°I was running down a corridor on the ship, and I fell. I bit my lip. For some reason that was the first time the illusion completely failed. Nothing so shocking had ever happened to me. I¡¯m sure it didn¡¯t hurt much at all, but I had no way of understanding it and putting it <>. I was terrified. Even the sound of myself crying scared me. It felt like my body was out of control because I¡¯d never sobbed before. And when I looked around for my mother, for the first time in my life, she wasn¡¯t there¡­¡± ¡°I know it¡¯s probably hard to imagine.¡± He looked at Alden. ¡°But after that, I started having <> every now and then, when she would disappear and I¡¯d suddenly realize that the bed sheets were too itchy or the food tasted different than I was expecting. Those things were just as <> to me as actual injuries. I¡¯d get confused and scared and start screaming. Father would do everything he could think of to figure out what was wrong and fix it. ¡°He didn¡¯t even try to explain that Mother was really gone and that when I saw her it wasn¡¯t her. Just the last gift she¡¯d given me¡ªthe protection of the flawless world I¡¯d always known.¡± The breeze picked up, tossing the treetops. Alden watched a few of the fallen leaves skitter across the circular white stone Stuart had stood on to cast his spell. ¡°I understand why you picked your skill now,¡± he said. ¡°You can cut with it, like your father. But you didn¡¯t want to focus on the separation. You wanted to focus on the fact that¡­¡± He couldn¡¯t think of how to put it. ¡°The fact that the severing of something can be what connects you to a goal. Or a better place. Or people who love you in a better way,¡± said Stu-art¡¯h. Alden took another bite of his pudding. He was almost through with the stuff. Finally. Stuart¡¯s brow furrowed. ¡°Do you enjoy eating it that way?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not my favorite thing,¡± Alden said politely, ¡°but my stomach is well-filled.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Stuart looked amused. ¡°You¡¯re eating it just to have perfect manners. You can stop that. We aren¡¯t in the middle of one of the famines of old. I think the Triplanets can afford for one person to throw part of his second meal away.¡± ¡°I¡¯m just trying to be a good guest for you. I don¡¯t want anyone to say you chose wrong after I left. What is this stuff?¡± Alden looked down into the container. ¡°It looks like vanilla pudding so I thought maybe it would be sweet. So much Artonan food is sweet. But this¡­is not.¡± Stuart was grinning broadly now. ¡°What?¡± The Artonan boy started laughing, much harder than he had a moment ago. ¡°It¡¯s oil. It¡¯s for frying things in. Not for eating plain.¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°You¡¯ve been sitting here watching me eat a cup of pure fat!¡± ¡°I thought maybe humans enjoyed that. You had so many bites.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t enjoy that.¡± Alden was aghast. ¡°I¡¯ve almost finished the whole container!¡± Stuart laughed so hard he looked like he was about to topple over. ¡°What is this going to do to my stomach?!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what it will do to you,¡± said Stuart. ¡°If you were an Artonan¡­ha!¡­if you were an Artonan it would probably make you shitty.¡± ¡°Stu-art¡¯h!¡± ****** ¡°I wanted to ask you,¡± said Alden, as they collected the supplies and the broken blocks for their trip back to the house, ¡°if I can call you Stu. If it¡¯s not all right yet, you can say so.¡± The Artonan gave him a baffled look. ¡°Obviously you can. I do like the special human name you¡¯ve given me, though. Many people call me Stu. Nobody else calls me Stuart.¡± ¡°Oh¡­I¡­¡± Started doing that a couple of minutes after I met you. When I thought you were a total dumbass. ¡°You only purposefully mispronounce my name and Kivb-ee¡¯s. It¡¯s so nice.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep doing it then. Thank you. Stuart.¡± Stuart nodded. ¡°I guess Worli Ro-den asked you to mispronounce his, too. Joe.¡± ¡°He¡¯s not Joe anymore,¡± said Alden, dragging the remains of the burst sackfruit over to the casting stone. ¡°He¡¯s lost the honor of being called Joe. Do you know he¡¯s on Earth right now?¡± ¡°I recommended he go there,¡± said Stuart. ¡°He was the most powerful wizard I was sure I could talk into leaving right away.¡± Alden stopped dragging. The sackfruit tentacle felt like a giant gummy bear in his hand. ¡°You sent him to help Anesidora?¡± ¡°I respectfully suggested¡­¡± ¡°Stuart, Ro-den¡¯s a jackass, but he¡¯s been a huge help. And you¡¯re cool as fuck. Do look up all of those English words by the way. I¡¯ll help you figure out the internet.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have trouble with the internet.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll help you figure it out.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not struggling.¡± Alden¡¯s stomach made a disgusting gurgling sound. ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-FOUR: Echoing Klerms 164 ****** ¡°Well?¡± Evul asked, stealing an ink brush from the tray in front of Emban. She twirled it once, then dragged the tip of it around one of her middle fingers. It left a slender spiral of red ink in its wake. ¡°You braved Stu¡¯s wrath to go have a look at the two of them. What did you learn? What do you think of Human Alden?¡± ¡°That was my next brush.¡± Emban didn¡¯t look up from her work. They were the only ones in the formal dining room. Evul sprawled on top of the table in front of Emban¡¯s tray, which was full of brushes with colorful enameled handles. She was using them to ink an intricate pattern of lines onto a hexagonal white card. ¡°As for the human, I think¡­¡± After a moment, Evul rolled over to face her, propping her chin on her hands. ¡°Think faster.¡± ¡°It¡¯s hard to think of anything but the fact that you¡¯re lying on the dining table like a roast.¡± ¡°Live long, my young cousin, and learn that everywhere can be your lounger.¡± ¡°What if the Avowed walks through?¡± Emban lowered her voice. ¡°How will he feel seeing a powerful hn¡¯tyon rolling around and painting meaningless designs on herself? He may never sleep at ease again.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t he just watch you get covered in fruit juice?¡± ¡°That wasn¡¯t my fault! And I¡¯m sure he doesn¡¯t hold me to the same standard.¡± ¡°Baby Stu¡¯s new friend seems very casual on our calls,¡± said Evul. She waved the brush she¡¯d taken under Emban¡¯s nose. ¡°Tell me about him.¡± ¡°I barely spoke to him.¡± Emban said. ¡°But he seemed¡­¡± Evul sat up. ¡°Do you not like him? Is he bad for my brother? Should I bury him in a hole so deep that even Aunt Alis can¡¯t find him?¡± She gasped. ¡°Does he not like Stu? Is he faking it?¡± Emban set the brush she¡¯d been using aside. ¡°Alden was inoffensive. He seemed very interested in Stu¡¯s spell, despite how long he must have been sitting there watching. I just expected him to be¡­¡± ¡°Taller? Hairier?¡± ¡°Special,¡± said Emban. ¡°Or impressive. In some immediately apparent way. For Stu to become so attached and insistent about him¡­I know he spent too much time contemplating the human boy¡¯s death because your father scolded him about that ridiculous situation during his school entrance exams.¡± ¡°Stu does like his contemplating.¡± ¡°And I know that Alden must have depth of character, for him to have earned Grandaunt Alis¡¯s favor.¡± She lowered her voice even further. ¡°But Stu¡¯s expectations for a lasting friendship don¡¯t make sense, do they? He¡¯s a Ryeh-b¡¯t whose passion must be something like lab assistant work. Stu doesn¡¯t even like laboratory classes. They have absolutely nothing in common that I can think of. And their lives will be even less alike next year, three years from now, thirty.¡± Evul rolled over again and sat up, wearing a thoughtful look. ¡°That could be one of the things Stu likes about him.¡± ¡°The fact that they¡¯ve got nothing in common?¡± ¡°The early years of your knighthood are the hardest,¡± said Evul. ¡°There¡¯s nothing like the closeness you feel with your first few squads. You carry each other. But you lose people so unexpectedly.¡± Emban looked away. ¡°Human Alden might not be able to walk with Stu, but he¡¯ll be a lot easier to keep safe.¡± ¡°Do you think Stu thinks that way?¡± Emban asked. ¡°Maybe not!¡± Evul said brightly. ¡°But I¡¯m thinking that way now! We can summon Human Alden every day to keep Red Alden company, and that way nothing bad will ever happen to either of them.¡± ¡°I suppose that¡¯s true. I don¡¯t know how Stu might feel about that¡ª¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. Go back to decorating your bonfire cards¡­why are you decorating those?¡± Emban swept her hands slowly over the tray. ¡°I¡¯ve decided this is the perfect hobby. Over the next few weeks I will make hundreds of these.¡± Evul peered at her. ¡°That¡¯s your idea of the perfect thing to do to sort your thoughts after your second affixation?¡± ¡°Yes. It¡¯s taken me a while to pick, but this will be ideal.¡± ¡°You could go to all the best parties. I could introduce you to people. Why don¡¯t you try some pleasure travel? Oooo¡­demand that an Exquisite Tongue of Knowledge tutor you to sleep every night. Or if you want to make things, Kofa dug a cave into the side of a cliff one year. ¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to make a card for every guest at my parents¡¯ Summersending feast. Someone is sure to say, ¡®The cards are almost too beautiful to burn this year!¡± Emban¡¯s eyes lit. ¡°And I¡¯ll say, ¡®I made them for you with my own hands. Every line has been touched with my thoughts on the importance of sacrifice. Think of me as you burn them.¡¯¡± Emban picked up another brush. Eventually, Evul said, ¡°So the thing that¡¯s going to keep you motivated over the coming days is adding a coat of misery to a Summersending ceremony?¡± ¡°I¡¯m only adding a coat of perspective. If misery is the result¡­¡± Emban shrugged. ¡°As long as it makes you happy, I support it! I do retract my offer of taking you to parties with me, though.¡± ****** ****** Two learning cushions, both made by the Craftswoman Enyl-tirg, rested side by side in front of the cottage window. Alden and Stuart knelt facing each other. ¡°All right,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Tell me everything you can about your skill. That way I can help you practice! And we might come up with ideas for defeating some of your classmates together.¡± Alden wanted to tell him then. Stuart had just shared his own skill. It was important and personal and¡­ And I can¡¯t fully reciprocate. He didn¡¯t know if he would have. Probably not, right? If I¡¯m not lying to myself. It¡¯s just too soon. And too dangerous. Most of the control Alden had over his own future relied on him not showing anyone else what he was until he was ready. He was way too aware of that. But of his two enormous secrets, the skill would have been the one he was a little less afraid of sharing. Especially if he didn¡¯t mention the authority sense along with it. And at this particular moment, knowing that he wouldn¡¯t be able to do that without permission from Joe¡­rankled. Why does Worli fucking Ro-den get to control how I talk about myself? Why should he? Alden only knew the truth about his own skill because of the wizard. Most likely, he would have spent years not knowing without Joe¡¯s intervention. It wouldn¡¯t have been forever, though, would it? Having an authority sense, leveling at this rate, I would have figured out something was up with my skill on my own a lot faster than Joe expected. Because it was a useful talent, because Gorgon had recommended it, and because it had saved Kibby, Alden would have tried to top the skill out. He might have gone down some side paths, but not that many before he noticed that Bearer just kept growing and growing. Who knows what the System would have shown me to manage me? And when? It could have been worse than I¡¯m thinking. But still¡­he could have locked everything else behind the tattoo, all the other tidbits, without making it impossible for me to tell another person what my own skill really is. ¡°I hate Ro-den right now,¡± he blurted. Stuart, who had been kneeling there like a model of respectfulness and patience, looked understandably surprised by the response. ¡°We can gossip about him if you¡¯d rather do that than talk about your skill?¡± he said hesitantly. ¡°Maybe not on the learning cushions, though¡­¡± ¡°No.¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°I just¡­of course I¡¯d rather tell you about my skill. I¡¯ll tell you what I can about all of my Avowed abilities. Um¡­I¡¯ll start with the smallest one. I have a spell impression that makes temper spheres scream and turn invisible. I can show you. I¡¯ve got a sphere in my bag. Hold on just a moment.¡± He forced himself to stop dwelling on the fact that he was still bound to keep his mouth shut by a wizard who had changed his mind about using Alden some more in the future and told him to forget all of their lessons and ¡°take the easy road for a few decades.¡± That kind of thing will drive me nuts if I let it. Instead, he leaped up and hurried across the room to grab his messenger bag from the other side of the bed. When his hand wrapped around the glass ball in the bottom of the bag, he had a surge of unfamiliar discomfort. When he identified it, he didn¡¯t know what to think. Am I seriously embarrassed to show Stuart my spell impression? Because it¡¯s so much less than what he showed me? He didn¡¯t want to be that way about it. ¡°I¡¯ve never managed to do anything very useful with this one,¡± he admitted. ¡°Yet. Although Brutes do enjoy borrowing invisible balls and throwing them at people. I¡¯ll just¡­you might want to cover your ears.¡± Alden tossed the ball onto the bed and activated the impression. His fingers and lips moved. His focus narrowed. The temper sphere turned invisible and shrieked. And that¡¯s it. He let his arm drop back down by his side and stared at the dimple in the sandy-brown bedspread where the invisible sphere lay. ¡°So. That¡¯s a thing I do. I can make it scream as many times as I want before the invisibility wears off.¡± He seriously doubted Stuart was staring at his back thinking, How pitiful. But Alden hadn¡¯t expected to be thinking it and feeling it quite this hard himself. Even though he didn¡¯t like the way the spell impression felt and he wasn¡¯t passionate about it, he¡¯d enjoyed showing it off to Jeremy the first time he¡¯d used it. Making something invisible was still interesting. It¡¯s just different because Stuart knows more about everything. That¡¯s all. ¡°There weren¡¯t a lot of Ryeh-b¡¯t spell impressions I wanted from the list the Contract offered to fill out my affixation,¡± he explained. The silence stretched until it was so uncomfortable he considered making the damn sphere scream again. ¡°You couldn¡¯t find anything you wanted more on the list?¡± Stuart asked finally. ¡°Was it so limited?¡± ¡°I¡­¡± Alden swallowed. ¡°I was annoyed by it at the time, but that was a personal¡­there were spells I would enjoy having so much more. There really were. A lot of them.¡± The Rabbit spell impression list hadn¡¯t actually been bad. It had been a good list for Rabbits. But Alden had automatically dismissed all of the low-rank household spells as boring and useless. Because I couldn¡¯t use them to get into CNH or fight crime. He could have taken a spell that fluffed pillows, dusted surfaces, or straightened stacks of paper and used it a hundred times by now. ¡°What¡¯s this spell impression for anyway?¡± he asked. ¡°Do you know?¡± ¡°No.¡± Stuart¡¯s voice was a little higher than usual. I swear I can hear him blushing back there. Alden looked around. Sure enough¡­ For some reason, the sight of Stu-art¡¯h squirming on his cushion and turning purple like the terrible liar he was, made Alden feel instantly more at ease. ¡°Whoa! Your face¡­did I take a spell for something completely awful? You¡¯ve got to tell me now.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not!¡± Stuart said. ¡°It¡¯s useful. It¡¯s good.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°A¡­um¡­¡± ¡°Are you trying to think up an amazing use for it?¡± Stuart cringed. Alden walked back over to kneel on his cushion again. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to start my show with the spell impression I regret picking. And then I acted weird about it. I¡¯m really fine.¡± Stuart¡¯s hands were resting on his thighs. They tightened into fists. ¡°I don¡¯t want you to have any regrets.¡± ¡°Thank you, but¡­¡± Alden scratched at the fading mark where his injured left hand had been mud-healed. ¡°That¡¯s probably unavoidable, isn¡¯t it? In my case. Let me back up. You know that I¡¯m going to superhero school now, and you also know that I don¡¯t actually think I want the job. At least not the version of it most people are there hoping for. The hero schools are just the best places for skill development, and I want to develop mine. Thegund¡¯s still bothering me.¡± ¡°You want to challenge yourself,¡± said Stuart in a serious voice. ¡°To master your abilities.¡± ¡°Yes. But what you don¡¯t know is that I used to think I wanted a superhero job. I admired a superhero I knew. She was confident and kind, and she¡­was good at being inspiring. So I wanted to be more like her. I wanted to support other Avowed with my powers and together we¡¯d stop evil people from hurting innocent ones. We¡¯d be¡­an English phrase¡ªmore than the sum of our parts.¡± Stuart was listening with a fascinated expression.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°When I was selected by the Contract, that was what I wanted. And I still think it¡¯s a good ideal, especially the part about not being on your own when you¡¯re fighting something bad. I¡¯m just not sure it¡¯s what I want for my future anymore.¡± I was naive. ¡°I¡¯m a little envious of you, Stuart. When you talk about your choosing season, I want it for myself so much. If I could choose my talents now, for the person I am now¡­I¡¯d spend years thinking and getting to know myself before I picked. If that was an option.¡± He closed his eyes and sighed. ¡°When I was selected, I was just so focused on the wrong things. I didn¡¯t realize how much I was rushing, but I was rushing. My friends and I thought affixing as soon as possible during my class-trading period would give me extra time to practice with my new abilities before I had to leave to go to Anesidora. Which would give me a better chance of getting into the school I wanted. Which would give me the job I wanted¡­and that seemed like the most important thing. And it was exciting. So I didn¡¯t ask myself enough questions, and everything fell into place quickly. ¡°I decided on my skill in just a few days¡­¡± A strangled gasp of horror made Alden¡¯s eyes snap open. And then he almost fell backwards off his cushion at the sight of Stuart¡¯s nose a millimeter from his own face. ¡°Stuart! You have a habit of sneaking up on¡ª!¡± ¡°What planet¡¯s days?!¡± Stuart shouted in an appalled voice. Alden stared at him. ¡°Are you hoping I¡¯ll name one with a slower rotation than Earth or the Artonas?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Still leaning back, Alden couldn¡¯t help but roll his eyes at the intensity in Stuart¡¯s voice. ¡°Earth days. Obviously. And yes. I know. You¡¯re weaving a friendship with a big idiot.¡± Stuart brought his hands up to his cheeks and finally returned to his starting position on his own cushion. ¡°Are you <>?¡± he asked in a whisper. ¡°No.¡± ¡°Do you hate yourself?¡± ¡°No! And you look sick. Like you¡¯re the one who ate a container full of oil. I promise I don¡¯t hate myself. Or being an Avowed. Or my talents. And my skill is way more important than the rest of what I chose anyway, and it¡¯s¡­exactly the kind of power I wanted for myself back then.¡± If Gorgon had described the skill in vivid detail instead of giving just a name, Alden doubted he¡¯d have hesitated to grab it. The special skill that could get stronger than others, the one that resembled Hannah Elber¡¯s power, the one that demanded sacrifice¡ªI¡¯d have eaten it up. I¡¯d have thought a lot of the things that worry me now were positives. The fact that it was a rare skill that would capture the interest of important Artonans would have given him pause. The possibility of being always, or almost always, on summons away from Earth would have occurred to him. And the entrustment requirement might have made him hesitate, too. But other than that¡­ ¡°Going from having nothing to having the ability to do magic was thrilling for me. I don¡¯t want you to think it was some awful moment. Almost every child on Earth hopes they¡¯ll become Avowed at some point. I just didn¡¯t guess right about how my life would go after it happened and how I¡¯d change and grow up because of it.¡± He watched Stuart¡¯s face. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to upset you.¡± ¡°Would you change your skill now?¡± Stuart asked, voice still a little faint. ¡°If you could¡­no! I¡¯m sorry for asking. It¡¯s not an¡ª!¡° ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯m the one who took the conversation here.¡± I wanted to be forthcoming about the things I could afford to be forthcoming about. ¡°I want to tell you stuff about myself. And my answer is¡ªI don¡¯t even know how to wish I¡¯d chosen a different skill. Everything that¡¯s happened to me this year has happened because I chose that skill. I wouldn¡¯t just undo it. ¡°If I did, I would be a different person, with different friends, in a different place.¡± I wouldn¡¯t know anything. I¡¯d probably be a Brute or an Adjuster down in F. I would have gotten over being rejected from Celena North by now, and I¡¯d either be focused on prepping for uni tryouts or I would have met some people and encountered some ideas that made me switch gears. Maybe Boe would have told me the truth about himself sooner. Maybe I wouldn¡¯t have tried CNH at all. Maybe I¡¯d be an unregistered living in Chicago because a few extra months influenced me in a different way. Those might-have-beens didn¡¯t really matter. ¡°I don¡¯t want to live in a universe where I never helped Kibby escape from that place. Or in one where I don¡¯t ever get to catch zansees in jars with a future knight of the Mother Planet.¡± Stuart sat up straighter. ¡°I don¡¯t hate myself,¡± said Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t hate my skill. It¡¯s a great one. I just recognize that everything flowed from that one choice that I made so quickly. And¡­here I am, a slightly different person wishing that it didn¡¯t feel like so many of the most important decisions in my life were already made.¡± When Stuart didn¡¯t say anything else, Alden cleared his throat, ¡°Anyway, what¡¯s the spell impression for? Back when I chose it, I imagined myself using it as some kind of distraction in fights.¡± ¡°We could find a way for you to do that with it!¡± ¡°That¡¯s not necessary. Just tell me what it¡¯s actually good at. If you know.¡± Stuart clasped his hands together. ¡°I think they use temper spheres that way in Jatonta for¡­killing <>.¡± Alden re-read the translation. ¡°So it¡¯s excellent! Important!¡± Stuart was saying. ¡°Nobody wants an infestation!¡± Part of my authority is eternally bound¡­to pest control. I can kill one particular kind of alien roach using an overpriced glass ball. Does the loud sound scare them to death? Do wizards really need an Avowed to come do that for them? Maybe it¡¯s supposed to be part of a larger housekeeping package. Make the beds, mop the floors, scream the seasonal infestation to death. He snorted. ¡°Are you <>!?¡± Stuart said. ¡°Don¡¯t be dev¡ª¡° ¡°I¡¯m good! I¡¯m great!¡± Alden laughed. ¡°I can kill things for people in Jatonta. Thanks for solving the mystery. Let¡¯s talk about my better magic.¡± ****** The best way to show off Bearer was to show what he¡¯d been doing with it for the last few weeks, so Alden shared all of his gym highlights with Stuart. It was eye-opening in a lot of ways. Stuart was even more focused than usual, and he was asking a ton of questions about everything. But although he¡¯d had such firm opinions about some of Alden¡¯s regular classes, he made only a few judgments when it came to gym. An occasional comment on weapons he recognized, several on whether or not a spell impression had been used to its best effect¡ªbeyond that, he actually had a much worse sense of whether Alden¡¯s classmates were doing well or poorly than Alden did himself. I feel like I¡¯m introducing a kid to a new sport. Only the kid is familiar with a similar sport featuring racehorses and this one is being played by, like, dachshunds. ¡°Do you feel you did well there?¡± Stuart asked, replaying the moment when Alden had lifted one of the heavy bags off the scaffolding and brought it down with his paracord. ¡°I was showing you that to talk about distance limitations. When I¡¯m shielding something that extends a long way from my body, like the cord does here, I tire myself out faster. This was actually at the very beginning of term. Let me show you something I started to figure out last week. Here. Look.¡± Alden shared the video of him catching the tennis balls. ¡°I¡¯m proud of this, so I saved it for last. This is the newest, most impressive thing I¡¯ve discovered about my skill¡­well, the most impressive thing that I can actually do somewhat on purpose instead of waiting until I¡¯m nearly dead and in a crisis mental state.¡± Morrison Waker was flinging a Wimbledon¡¯s-worth of tennis balls at the Alden on the video. He minimized the image on his own interface so that he could more easily see Stuart¡¯s reaction. Notice my eyes are closed! Notice how cool and magicky my skill and I are being together! He knew just how Stuart had felt showing off his bean-transport spell earlier. Don¡¯t get too excited. He probably won¡¯t realize what¡¯s happening at first. We had to watch the replays a few times before Lexi noticed. ¡°Your eyes are closed!¡± Stuart exclaimed the second the Alden on the video shut them. ¡°They are!¡± ¡°How did you do that?!¡± He does think it¡¯s cool! ¡°I was really focused, and I felt like I was in the zone. Sorry, I can¡¯t think of how to say that in Artonan right now. And something important was here.¡± Alden made a gesture he¡¯d seen Kibby use a couple of times¡ªa grabby motion with both hands beside his own ears. It was the equivalent of saying an idea was right in front of your nose or that you were on the verge of a breakthrough. ¡°So I focused on the fact that Instructor Waker was throwing things at me¡ª¡± Stuart looked surprised. ¡°Were you not focused on that already? He was throwing a lot of yellow balls at you.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t phrase that well. I¡¯m just happy you noticed and I¡¯m talking too fast¡ª!" ¡°He threw so many. They¡¯re very yellow.¡± ¡°Yes. I know. What I meant to say was I stopped thinking of it as him throwing weapons at me. I started thinking of it as him throwing something to me. And there was this feeling of getting it¡ª¡± ¡°You were only getting some of them.¡± ¡°No. Getting it is a way of saying ¡®truly understanding¡¯ in English. So I was getting it more than normal. My skill. And it felt like the gym faded away and what really mattered was Instructor Waker being my entruster and me being the¡ª¡± The Bearer of All Burdens. He almost said the words. But they wouldn¡¯t come. He hadn¡¯t meant to say even this much, but here they were. And Alden wanted to share something real and important he¡¯d noticed about his skill. With someone. With Stu-art¡¯h, who had spent the past day sharing real and important truths of his own. What am I doing? I just thought about how this was a bad idea even if I kind of want¡­ The secrecy contract had stopped him. The gremlin was awake now and giving him the mental equivalent of a suspicious look, like it thought he might be thinking of trying something forbidden. Ro-den told me I might be summoned into a bullet. He said Stuart¡¯s father would somehow make my life an endless misery if he ever found out about my skill. I shouldn¡¯t want to. He¡¯d probably only gotten this far into his explanation because he¡¯d had no intention of arriving at this moment when he¡¯d set out. And now he was just kneeling here with his mouth hanging open and his thoughts scattered. ¡°Alden?¡± Stuart asked. His eager expression morphed into an amused smile. ¡°What is it?¡± Alden stared into his rust-colored eyes. I mean it¡¯s probably for the best, right? a voice in his head said. What were you going to do? Trust him with your life this fast? Alden took a breath. He shut his mouth. The endless misery was probably something obvious. Like being summoned a lot¡­or being forced to train the skill for the good of the Triplanets or something. Everything under the Intensity 99.9 category probably qualifies as ¡°endless misery¡± to Joe. ¡°Alden? You just stopped talking so suddenly. Are you all right?¡± ¡°I hate Worli Ro-den.¡± ¡°<>!¡± Stuart exclaimed. ¡°What¡¯s he been doing on Earth to make you keep saying that?¡± ¡°Nothing. He¡¯s working so hard that half of the people on Anesidora think he¡¯s a hn¡¯tyon.¡± Stuart¡¯s face scrunched. ¡°You should correct them.¡± ¡°I will. But let me tell you some things about Ro-den. I was so happy to see him on Earth because I didn¡¯t expect to get the chance to meet him again. And I did go to a dangerous chaos moon to pick berries that he wanted. He paid me, but¡­I thought since so much had happened, maybe we¡¯d talk about some of it.I wanted to drink some wevvi or some tea and tell him how his loyal assistants died. Because I thought he might want to know where their bodies fell so he could honor them. And I wondered if he personally knew Kibby¡¯s new guardian. I just wanted to make sure they were a good person who would take good care of her. ¡°Tea, a short period of socialization, him acting like I was a person instead of a broken tool he couldn¡¯t safely use anymore¡ªobviously that was crazy of me. He ran away from me like I was a demon, and I had to chase him into an elevator and force him to talk to me. And then he told me he would speak to me for the time it took to go up twenty floors and then never again.¡± Stuart¡¯s mouth was hanging open now. Alden replayed everything he¡¯d just said in his head. He adjusted his position on the learning cushion. ¡°Thanks for letting me drop all of that on you. It just surprised me that he would treat me that way.¡± ¡°He hurt your feelings.¡± Alden grimaced. ¡°He did a little.¡± Stuart made a doubtful humming sound. ¡°More than a little,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°I didn¡¯t think we were friends. But I thought¡­he would respect what I¡¯d been through enough to give me some of his time without acting like everything was about him. Or something like that. ¡± ¡°Last week,¡± said Stuart, ¡°he made us practice identifying the elemental alignments of a <> embedded within the fourth <> of a dead <>.¡± ¡°Yuck.¡± ¡°My arm was almost too short to reach.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°You had to reach? You couldn¡¯t use a spell? Or a knife?¡± ¡°He is a <> instructor. I could sense the alignments from the exterior, but he kept acting like there was some secret within that I might be missing. I was afraid to be mistaken, so I had to reach inside and feel around like everyone else.¡± He shuddered. ¡°If you want, I¡¯ll tell you all the rumors my classmates shared about him after that lab.¡± Tempting. Very tempting. ¡°Our time is too precious to let him steal any more of it,¡± Alden said. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you rather throw things at me and see if we can get my skill to work like it did in that video?¡± Stuart nodded. ¡°I would.¡± ¡°Me too.¡± They stood from their cushions, and Alden headed over to the bed to pick up the temper sphere he¡¯d tossed there. ¡°Alden.¡± He turned back. Stuart stared at him for a few seconds. ¡°I¡¯m going to say this even though it may not need to be said. It will be heavy for me if I don¡¯t.¡± Alden drew a sharp breath. ¡°It would upset me,¡± said Stu-art¡¯h, ¡°if you ever accepted a skill or a spell that didn¡¯t < > you, just because it was the best available on a list offered by Earth¡¯s Contract.¡± Then, he smiled. Alden didn¡¯t know what his own expression looked like, but he was sure it wasn¡¯t bland. ¡°I don¡¯t know much about the options human Avowed have,¡± Stuart added, ¡°but I do know it¡¯s possible for me to increase those options for you. And it wouldn¡¯t be hard. So if you didn¡¯t ask, and you ended up with another spell impression that you didn¡¯t even know the purpose of¡­it would upset me. A lot.¡± Alden found his voice. Or someone¡¯s anyway. It sounded like it belonged to another person when he finally used it. ¡°Thank you. I understand.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± Alden placed a hand over his chest. ¡°I¡¯m glad,¡± said Stuart. ¡°And stop being envious of my choosing season while you¡¯re busy with one of your own. When you were standing out in the storm and we spoke of life purposes¡ª¡± As the two of us tend to do, thought Alden. ¡°¡ªI was thinking how good it was to talk to someone who recognized that he had important choices to make, too. You should contemplate. And I won¡¯t bother you about it unless you ask me for advice. That¡¯s how a choosing season should be.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-FIVE: Olorn-arth 165 ****** ¡°Here comes another one!¡± Stuart called. ¡°Or maybe it¡¯s not just one. It could be two.¡± Alden had his eyes closed, and he was trying not to feel like a sad, sad failure of an Avowed. ¡°You¡¯ll get it this time!¡± Stuart said. ¡°I think it would help if you weren¡¯t so encouraging. I¡¯m worried I¡¯m hurting your feelings every time I miss.¡± There was a pause in the cheerleading. They had left the area around the house behind to have their ¡°duel¡± farther out in the woods. Alden was grateful for the lack of spectators. I didn¡¯t expect to be great at this yet, but I did think I would be a little better than I was against Big Snake last week. He blamed the situation. It just wasn¡¯t as easy to find your skill-aligned flow state when you were on another world, surrounded by knights, playing a messy version of catch with a wizard who was a tad too worried that if you missed all of his throws you¡¯d become depressed about your affixation. Stuart wanted him to catch so badly. The last ball had been delivered directly into Alden¡¯s hands, and when Alden had opened his eyes to give a questioning look, Stuart had sheepishly agreed that it shouldn¡¯t count. He was making the balls with a silent spell that Alden was very tempted to peek at. They were a collection of all the loose debris on the forest floor, compressed into a sphere that was solid enough to hold together until it impacted some part of Alden¡¯s body and showered him in loser¡¯s mulch. He¡¯d thought it might be motivating if there was some consequence for failure, and Stuart had suggested this. Not too far away, Stuart was repositioning himself. My left. At least he always knew in which direction he could find his entruster. He rotated to face him. ¡°Are you thinking about catching or protecting?¡± Stuart asked. ¡°Both,¡± Alden said. ¡°But mostly catching.¡± He was also trying to remember that idea he¡¯d felt like he might be standing at the edge of when Big Snake had been hurling tennis balls at him. There had been a focus on his entruster that was a little more distinct than usual. If he could figure that out¡­ ¡°We don¡¯t know how suited your skill actually is for catching,¡± Stuart said. ¡°But we know it¡¯s very good at protecting. Maybe you should think more about the fact that we are in battle and the helpless children I¡¯m throwing to you will be injured if you allow them to fall.¡± ¡°We¡¯re throwing imaginary children now? Why are we throwing them? And how did you come up with¡ª¡± He kind of thought he felt something coming toward him. Overhead. He jumped to catch it and took a pile of dead leaves to the face. ****** ¡°You do remember us talking about how I would wear appropriate clothing and my commendation when you introduced me to your family, don¡¯t you? And how I would do my best to make a respectful impression?¡± It was half an hour later, and Alden was following Stuart through the forest to an outlying cottage, where he would finally be meeting one of Stuart¡¯s non-Primary parents. ¡°I didn¡¯t imagine that plan, did I?¡± He pulled a twig out of his hair and tossed it aside. Now, he was almost as dirty as he had been the first time he¡¯d visited Rapport I. ¡°You¡¯re the one who said you should have consequences. It will be good to visit Olorn in her work cottage. She¡¯s the only one there right now. I checked.¡± ¡°I finally caught a couple of mulch balls! That should reduce consequences.¡± ¡°I also think introducing you to Olorn first is the best thing.¡± Is he particularly close to her, then? Alden wondered. ¡°Yesterday, during our family¡­discussion,¡± Stuart said, ¡°she told me that she wished I felt free to spend more of my days playing in the sun. We look like we¡¯ve been playing in the sun, don¡¯t we?¡± Alden took in Stuart¡¯s tidy brown braid and pristine tunic. He brushed some more leaf litter off of his own t-shirt. ¡°If I¡¯m being honest, I think we look more like you found me under a rock while you were digging for bugs to feed Other Alden.¡± ¡°Olorn¡¯s a < >. She¡¯s often just as dirty as you are. And she¡¯ll appreciate that you were bettering yourself by practicing your skill!¡± There was a hint of enthusiasm in his voice at that last bit that made Alden wonder if he¡¯d mixed extra dirt into the last few attacks on purpose. So that I look even more hardworking when I¡¯m shown to the chosen adult? Maybe. Probably not. Anyway, he was in it now. ¡°A potter?¡± he asked. ¡°She makes jars, cups, plates¡ªparticular ones that are needed for some rituals. That¡¯s only part of it. Working with the ground of the Mother is one of her areas of specialty.¡± ¡°Like the wizard version of Alis-art¡¯h?¡± Alden asked, noticing a small root just in time to hop over it. He gave the tree it probably belonged to a wave. Stuart looked over at him. ¡°That¡¯s not the most accurate comparison¡­. Olorn often uses spells to increase the quantity of a rare type of soil or stone.Then she might <> it or <> it with other things to create what she needs as a base for whatever final product she¡¯s making.¡± Alden added ¡°Olorn¡ªritual pottery, multiplies precious materials¡± to his cheat sheet. ¡°She¡¯s your Father¡¯s spouse?¡± he asked. ¡°I don¡¯t have a perfect understanding of how everyone here is related.¡± ¡°We¡¯re a large household,¡± Stuart acknowledged. ¡°And ours isn¡¯t a common way of doing things in most places in modern times. Father¡¯s first marriage contract was with Olorn and Veln, who had been his votaries. The two of them were already committed to each other and planning for children when he finally mentioned that he¡¯d been hoping they would have children with himwhen they decided to retire from following him to dangerous places. Aunt Alis says she had to talk him into telling them.¡± For some reason, Alden was picturing Alis-art¡¯h dragging the Primary out from behind a potted plant before presenting him to two wizards who¡¯d worked with him for years. Jeneth was too shy to ask for your hands on his own, so I¡¯m doing it for him. You¡¯re all married now. ¡°Years later, he did the same thing again with another votary couple,¡± said Stuart.¡°And then the four spouses spent a while finding another pair that suited them and the rest of the household before telling Father he ought to <> them.¡± The cheat sheet is going to be fascinating reading material when I finally fill it out with everything. ¡°The written versions of everyone¡¯s marriage contracts are preserved in the manuscript library if you¡¯re interested,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Aunt Alis, Uncle Tesen, and Father forming fruitful marriages with skilled people was always part of their goal for building a successful siblinghold. They knew they would often be away from home, and large families¡­¡± Alden could barely keep up, and it wasn¡¯t just because Stuart was talking quickly. Jeneth-art¡¯h had six spouses¡ªtwo male and four female¡ªwho¡¯d all been votaries to him or other knights prior to their marriage. They were experts in various fields of magic. Alis-art¡¯h had a similar situation, though she¡¯d acquired her five spouses individually rather than in pairs. Tesen-art¡¯h had been married to two women prior to his death, and they still lived here with the family. The spouses seemed to be the backbone of the family structure. They made children, raised children, and when the making and raising of children allowed for it, they continued to function as highly qualified wizards who devoted themselves to handling matters for the siblinghold¡¯s knights and the Rapport as a whole. Alden was mildly curious about whether or not all of the spouses were in love, in the human fairytale sense, with their knight and with each other. But whatever the answer was, the people involved would probably think the question missed an important part of their relationship. The family was a dream and a duty the spouses had contractually committed themselves to when they married into it. There was love, trust, and mutual purpose. And a lot of that purpose was making more art¡¯hs. In batches. Which took Alden way too long to figure out. ¡°They all try to have babies at the same time?¡± he asked, when he finally realized that Stuart¡¯s references to ¡°groups¡± of his siblings and cousins meant something a little more formalized than he¡¯d assumed. ¡°Not at exactly the same time. The ages usually <> three or four years.¡± ¡°That¡¯s interesting. Why do they do it that way?¡± ¡°Most children born into the family won¡¯t become hn¡¯tyons. But having close companions in that life increases the chances that you¡¯ll <>, and siblings are natural companions. Twins and triplets who become knights together are known to do well. And our parents all hope we¡¯ll find the same thing Lind-otta and Esh-erdi have found in each other. It¡¯s rare, especially at their age. Most of the successes so far have been between younger people who¡¯ve been close to each other from their early childhood.¡± ¡°Lind-otta and Esh-erdi!¡± Alden said. ¡°Please tell me what they are to each other.¡± Stuart opened his mouth. ¡°After you finish the art¡¯h family explanation,¡± Alden added. ¡°I¡¯m making notes.¡± ¡°On my family?¡± ¡°Is that okay?¡± Stuart nodded. ¡°What do the notes say about me?¡± ¡°Nothing. I can remember you just fine without notes. So batches of babies¡­¡± ¡°The more children you have at once, the more likely it is that you¡¯ll have multiple who choose the highest path together. It¡¯s also easier for Father and Aunt Alis to arrange to be home for important life <> if everyone has them within the same year or two. If I¡¯d been born here at the Rapport, with the set of siblings and cousins older than me and without difficulties, then I would probably have seen much less of Father while I was growing up. He stayed here for me¡­don¡¯t wander too close to that circle of brightgrass. I¡¯d rather not explain what it is until you meet my brother and he has a chance to make an impression. His project there is maybe a little too strange.¡± Grass circle brother, Alden mentally wrote. Strange even by Stuart¡¯s standards. ¡°How many kids were in the last set?¡± he asked. ¡°If you only count my brothers and sisters, and Aunt Alis and Tesen¡¯s children¡ªeighteen,¡± said Stuart. ¡°But some of my siblings and cousins from the earlier groups do try to match their own child-having to our parents¡¯ schedule, so there were a few more.¡± ¡°I think it would be amazing to grow up with twenty other kids,¡± said Alden. ¡°Me too,¡± said Stuart. ¡°But they were all older than me, and because of how I was, they felt much older sometimes. There are always some in-between children around, but I would have enjoyed being a part of the big group.¡± ¡°Alis just had triplets,¡± said Alden.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Stuart brightened. ¡°Yes! She was starting off a new set. One of her spouses is pregnant now, too. And one of Uncle Tesen¡¯s wives. I hope my parents will decide to join them before it¡¯s too late.¡± They are really going to need to commit to adding some floors onto their house, thought Alden. ****** They arrived outside a tall cottage that had its doors wide open to reveal a workshop that looked like something cooked up by a person in the middle of a dream. Inside the building, pitchers, jars, and cups stood on shelves or were suspended from the ceiling in webs of light like they¡¯d been captured by magic-wielding spiders. Out front, there was a tan-colored, hive-shaped structure that Alden guessed was a kiln based on absolutely nothing but the fact that he thought people who made pottery were supposed to have some kind of kiln. There was also a round basin large enough to swim in embedded in the ground. A woman who must have been Olorn-art¡¯h was standing beside it, manipulating the substance inside. It was off-white and had a texture Alden decided to call ¡°pourable mud.¡± The Primary¡¯s wife was making a staccato click that Alden thought sounded like Kabir going nuts with his chopping board. The mud in the basin was reacting to the noise by fountaining up in places. ¡°We¡¯ll wait,¡± said Stuart, loudly enough that Alden thought it was probably more for Olorn-art¡¯h¡¯s benefit than his. As the two of them moved to take seats on a bench beside a table covered in wizarding tools, one of her eyes followed Alden before turning back to her work. Alden sat with his back to the table and clasped his hands in his lap, trying to look like a respectful, dirty house guest. ¡°She¡¯s making a material that¡¯s good for rings and wands,¡± said Stuart. ¡°She¡¯ll use most of it to fashion supplies for the knights in our family and the en family.¡± He had grabbed a bowl full of gray stone marbles and started sorting them while he talked. They looked identical to Alden, but he was confidently picking out some of them and setting them on the table. Alden switched between watching him and watching the older wizard. This is my second experience with an Artonan making a muddy something in a cauldron in just a few days. Although, he wasn¡¯t sure if the giant basin qualified as a cauldron or if the substance the Primary¡¯s wife was making counted as mud. It seems plausible, but I don¡¯t have a great track record for guessing what mystery pastes lately. And compared to Porti-loth, Olorn-art¡¯h had a lot less drama going on as far as her spellcasting mannerisms wen¡ªjust the clicking and some occasional gestures from ring-covered fingers. She had dark brown hair swept back into a tight, twisty shape. Alden didn¡¯t know if the thin bands of white hair mixed in were natural graying or decorative. The sleeveless, belted yellow garment that she was wearing was short enough he thought it was closer to a shirt than a dress. It seemed to have been selected to match the day¡¯s chore. Her legs were coated in the substance she was working on, as if she¡¯d needed to wade through it recently. A few minutes after they¡¯d arrived, she took a break from the project and walked toward them. Alden jumped up from the bench, and Stuart gave him an amused look. Oh yeah, sure dude, he thought. Like it¡¯s so unreasonable to be nervous about meeting a powerful wizard who¡¯s married to the Primary and whose house you wandered through uninvited a couple of months ago. And that wasn¡¯t even taking into consideration any of the other things she might be thinking about him. ¡°Olorn Mom,¡± said Stuart, ¡°I¡¯ve brought my guest to meet you. This is Alden.¡± When she plucked a cloth from the table and brushed it over her hands, the powdery white substance on them vanished without leaving a mark on the dark cloth. She looked at Alden the whole time. Her face was thoughtful. Her lips wore a slight smile. But the examination went on for longer than Alden would have thought was normal for a ¡°Mom, meet my friend¡± moment. Maybe it¡¯s right for her to carefully consider Stuart¡¯s guest. We can¡¯t go by Emban-art¡¯h¡¯s behavior. She wasn¡¯t even officially introduced. In the periphery of his vision, he saw Stuart¡¯s hands start to fidget. ¡°Olorn Mom, Alden and I have been experimenting with his skill. He did want to change clothes before meeting you, but I told him¡­¡± She shook her head.¡°Alden, you¡¯re very welcome no matter what you¡¯re wearing. Of course. I was just thinking about how you look more like a < > for my son Kofa than for our Stu.¡± She dropped the cloth back onto the table. ¡°I don¡¯t even remember the last time he arrived at the house without wearing some of the forest on him.¡± That¡¯s positive, right? It sounds positive. ¡°It¡¯s an honor to visit your home.¡± Upon saying it, he wondered just how flowery an Artonan invited to visit this place might get with the language. It might really be impossible for me to overdo it, he decided. ¡°Stu was very worried for you. I¡¯m glad you¡¯re well enough that he feels as though attacking you with sticks and leaves is a good thing to do,¡± she said. ¡°And I¡¯m sorry about the trouble in your homeland. We will give our full attention to the reports when they¡¯ve been completed.¡± Alden wondered who ¡°we¡± included in this case. Was she speaking on behalf of the family, the entire force of knights and assisting wizards, or an even broader group? It might just be a nice thing to say under the circumstances. ¡°How is it affecting your schooling?¡± she asked. ¡°You would normally have instruction today. Esh-erdi and Stu have said¡­¡± As she continued, Alden learned that what happened when Stu-art¡¯h had a half-day-long argument with all the important adults in his life was at least one of them started doing Alden Thorn research. Over the past day, the Primary¡¯s wife had developed¡ªand then satisfied¡ªinterests in Alden¡¯s living arrangements, educational status, and the whole post-disaster situation. All as told by Esh-erdi, who had apparently been contacted and extensively questioned. Alden wasn¡¯t sure what she made of it all, but there was at least a smidge of judgment against human competence going on. She didn¡¯t like that he¡¯d been deprived of the opportunity to recover in the company of his aunt and trusted instructors. And she wondered why he hadn¡¯t been assigned a live-in tutor as soon as he made it to Anesidora, to help him make up for his educational interruption. I¡¯m totally calling Thegund an ¡°educational interruption¡± in front of Lexi sometime. ¡°Maybe we should assign you a mentor. There must be human Avowed who are qualified and currently without a class to teach. We could have one accompany you until you feel you¡¯ve reclaimed your lost footing. Would you like that?¡± She looked ready to enact the plan on the spot. Alden pictured a professional tutor being paid summoning rates for following him around and slipping in lessons while he was having breakfast or brushing his teeth. Possibly planning excursions for him every weekend like Dalat-orni was doing for Kibby. ¡°I don¡¯t think I have a need for that,¡± he said, aiming for a firm demeanor so that she¡¯d believe him and no surprise, person-shaped gift would appear at the dorms to thank him for the windfall and force him to catch up with his Anesidoran peers in math. ¡°He¡¯s advanced compared to his classmates already,¡± said Stuart. Proudly and with the total confidence of an alien who knew one human and had observed a grand total of four class periods. ¡°If you change your mind, just tell Stu,¡± she said. ¡°For now, I think I can give you something else that will help. Come with me.¡± Alden followed her into the cottage, glancing once over his shoulder to make sure Stuart was trailing after them. ¡°I haven¡¯t made these in several years,¡± Olorn-art¡¯h was saying as Alden stepped carefully around a narrow, waist-high pot. ¡°But I still have a couple, and I can¡¯t think of any reason why one wouldn¡¯t work for a human.¡± She climbed onto a stool and reached up for one of the magic webs overhead. She bopped it with a hand, and it drifted a foot or so until it stopped against its neighbor. The collection of small jars wrapped up in the nets didn¡¯t rattle. Alden was so busy absorbing the fact that the webs he¡¯d thought were steadily attached to the ceiling could float around, that he didn¡¯t look to see what the woman was collecting from the patch of web she¡¯d just uncovered. ¡°Here it is! Stu, your guest will like this, won¡¯t he?¡± At first, Alden was surprised that Stuart was being consulted about the trinket in her hand, but Stuart seemed to be seriously examining the offering. He took it, closed his eyes, and held it in his palm, running his fingers over it. We must be doing a traditional thing, Alden decided. Maybe Stuart is supposed to make sure that gifts are worthy of his guest. Or maybe just the first gift? He wondered if Emban-art¡¯h was in trouble for offering him the flatseed candy without submitting it for an inspection. With nothing else to do but wait, Alden studied the potential gift that had been plucked from the net. It didn¡¯t seem nearly as overkill as a whole tutor. It was a flat spiral shape made of what looked like mauve-colored clay. The outer tip of the spiral was dully pointed and faintly glowing. The material, and the fact that it was rolled thin as a wire, made it look fragile. ¡°This is a gift I hope my guest will enjoy,¡± Stuart announced, handing it back to his parent, who turned to show it to Alden. ¡°It¡¯s a <>,¡± she explained. ¡°When it¡¯s in your ear, it helps you to focus on the written or spoken word, making you more attentive to your instructors and assignments when your thoughts are busy. It will last for a season.¡± ¡°You put it in your ear when you want its help,¡± said Stuart. Looks a little big to fit in an ear, thought Alden. It must be magically resizable like the spell rings I¡¯ve worn. He was happy that the gift was one he could accept without feeling like it was too much. A handmade magical school supply was very sweet and very Artonan and not very intimidating. And if he didn¡¯t like whatever it did, he could just not use it. It sounds helpful, though. I wonder if it will work on video lectures. That one science teacher who could put the entire lecture hall to sleep within thirty seconds would be a good test subject. ¡°This would be a wonderful help,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ll recall the one who made it for me every time I use it.¡± Olorn-art¡¯h smiled. Stuart smiled. Alden smiled. ¡°May I place it in your ear? I have to cast a spell to make it yours.¡± Alden agreed readily and pointed at his right ear. I think this is a success, he thought as she whispered a spell. She doesn¡¯t seem to hate me. Stuart seems happy. One family member down! He felt Olorn-art¡¯h¡¯s magic brush against him. It was a soft sort of touch. A tap. He¡¯d gotten a lot of practice pretending not to notice with Porti-loth¡¯s spells recently. And if they were going to notice something odd about me, they would have by now. He suspected he was missing a ton when it came to authority etiquette between wizards. Kindergarten pat-pats he knew. Everything else¡­ The Primary¡¯s wife finished whispering. Then, she grabbed Alden¡¯s earlobe firmly. Wait¡­he thought. Wait a second. What exactly did we all mean when I said she could put it in my ear? ****** ¡°You didn¡¯t realize she was going to put it through your earlobe,¡± said Stuart as they left Olorn-art¡¯h to her work a while later. ¡°Of course I did! I said yes, after all.¡± I did not. Who expects a sudden piercing as a present?! ¡°You gasped.¡± As they headed back toward the relative safety of his stream-side guest cottage, Alden was looking down at the little box that held his new study aid earring. His Father did the thing with the questions and the hands. Olorn Mom put a hole in my ear. And he¡¯s got so many other family members. If we keep escalating like this, I won¡¯t survive. What happens when I officially meet Evul? ¡°You know the hole is gone already, don¡¯t you? It doesn¡¯t last forever.¡± ¡°It¡¯s gone?¡± Alden reached up to feel his earlobe. ¡°It really is! It¡¯s a magic earring!¡± ¡°¡­we told you that.¡± Alden instantly felt better. He opened the box to look at the spiral. ¡°It lasts for a season?¡± Stuart nodded. ¡°I¡¯ve used them before. I hope you¡¯ll find it helpful.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure I will. I go back to school tomorrow. Sort of. Most of my classes are cancelled or by video.¡± ¡°You could stay here another day if you wanted,¡± said Stuart. ¡°I do want to. But I should go back. I got annoyed with the head of the program and one of my teachers and swore that I would attend every gym class.¡± That meeting felt far away now. ¡°Can I sleep here and leave early in the morning? Early in your morning.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Thanks. What¡¯s on the itinerary for the next couple of hours?¡± ¡°I think you should take a bath. You look like someone hit you in the face with a bunch of leaves.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX: Dreams and Doors 166 ****** The lab coat had a hole in it, right over the center of Alden¡¯s chest. How did this happen? Did I make a mistake? He covered the hole with his free hand as he chased the sound of Kibby¡¯s whistle through the grass. His other hand held the bomb and the black glitter putty that she had entrusted him with. It¡¯s too soon. The coat¡¯s supposed to last for longer. It can¡¯t have holes. It has to help her months from now. She has to sleep under it in the vault until Alis-art¡¯h comes. The high tone of the whistle sounded again. From my left? I¡¯m running the wrong way! His nose was full of the smell of rotting grass. Why was it rotting away so quickly? And the case with the bomb in it was heavy, but if he dropped it¡­ No. Wait. If I drop it, it¡¯s fine. The explosion we make with it won¡¯t help us draw in help, so I can just leave it. He tossed it aside and ran. Faster. As fast as he could. Holding the preserved putty was making it possible for him to move over ground that crumbled away. He gripped it harder and felt the fragment of bone inside. Lucky wizard¡¯s foot. He wished Stuart was a knight already. He¡¯d come, wouldn¡¯t he? Or would his duty to the Triplanets make him too busy? Maybe Esh-erdi would be able to help. He had before. Back when¡ª The whistle sounded again, from the way he¡¯d just come. Did I run past her? Why can¡¯t I get it right? ¡°Kibby!¡± he shouted. ¡°Keep whistling! I¡¯m coming. I¡¯ll be right there. Don¡¯t stop! Please don¡¯t stop!¡± When he turned, there was a cruel wall of ocean blotting out the Thegundese sky. He could hear her. She was under all of that water. Or on the other side of it. He ran forward, his magically enhanced strides carrying him farther and farther with every leap, bringing him closer and closer to realizing that the wall wasn¡¯t water. It was just a wall, lined with white doors. I have to pick one. That¡¯s how this works. Stuart says I can have my own choosing season. But he didn¡¯t understand where the doors led. And if he got it wrong¡­ ****** ****** Alden woke with a gasp, fighting against soft sheets in a room lit by the flashing of zansees. He and Stuart had filled another jar before Alden went to bed. He sat up, taking deep breaths and rubbing his eyes. I¡¯m all right. None of that was real. Well, a lot of it was real. But none of it was now. The nightmare had gotten more complicated since the last time he¡¯d had it. His brain must have thought it would be helpful to drop all the crap it could find into the pot. Why have two or three separate nightmares when you can have one super nightmare? He hoped he hadn¡¯t been making noise in his sleep. Stuart might be freaked. I should check and make sure I didn¡¯t wake him up. As soon as he stood, he remembered that he was supposed to be careful about standing. He¡¯d paid back the debt for the self-mastery wordchain after getting into bed. He felt normal, but a moment later, he realized that something else wasn¡¯t normal. The room¡­ The jar full of water bugs was where he¡¯d placed it on the floor. The two learning cushions were side by side on the carpet near the window. But where the sheer curtain should have been, separating the bedroom from the other half of the cottage, there was a wall. With a door set into it. Alden frowned. At least it¡¯s not white. The door was a sliding one in a shade of cold, dark brown that blended with the decor. As he watched, blue logograms appeared on it: Can I come over for a chat? He read the sign a few times, then looked down at himself. He was wearing his favorite sweatpants and a clean North of North shirt¡ªtwo clothing items he didn¡¯t have with him on this little vacation. His auriad was prominently displayed on his wrist. He absorbed all of that before nodding. ¡°Yes. Come over. I¡¯ve thought about talking to you a few times since I came here.¡± But she already knows that. The door opened, and an Artonan woman stepped through. Braided brown hair, pink eyes, a welcoming and calm smile. ¡°Hello, Alden,¡± she said, heading past him toward the window. ¡°How have you been?¡± ¡°Oh, you know me. Ordinary. Nothing too stressful going on. That dream you interrupted was not rife with meaning. I promise.¡± She stopped beside his learning cushion and looked down at it. ¡°I¡¯m glad you decided to follow my suggestion and talk to Stu-art¡¯h that day. That relationship and recent events have brought you back here sooner than I anticipated.¡± Alden went to stand beside her. He told himself it wasn¡¯t because he was afraid she might sit on the mindspace version of his cushion. Her smile widened. ¡°What do you think of the Primary¡¯s son, now that he¡¯s decided to share so many of his truths with you?¡± So many of his truths. Outside, the stream was aglow. ¡°I keep underestimating him,¡± said Alden, staring out at it. ¡°He¡¯s complicated. The first time we met, I thought he was a stubborn idiot with a really uncommon nobility thing going on. And then I met him again, and I saw that he was someone who¡¯d been worrying over a mistake for months, trying to understand why he¡¯d made it and make things right.¡± Stuart was always trying to get things right. ¡°He named a ryeh-b¡¯t after me. That was so, so odd. ¡°And he¡¯s on the verge of making a huge sacrifice. Part of me worried that he wouldn¡¯t choose it if he really understood. That he was just going at it recklessly, without enough consideration for himself, the way he did with the mishnen. I already respected him, so I didn¡¯t mean to think that way. But the worry was there at the back of my mind. And I was just¡­wrong about that. ¡°He knows as well as he can, doesn¡¯t he? He¡¯s been weighing his options for years. And he¡¯s picked a skill that means something to him. He¡¯s not throwing himself away.¡± Is he? He waited. ¡°If he were sure to die, I would have told them so,¡± she answered. ¡°But I don¡¯t usually provide estimations when it comes to a person¡¯s ability to endure affixation.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Your chance of surviving on Moon Thegund for as long as you did was estimated to be less than one percent. Would it have strengthened you to know that?¡± It would have crushed me, he thought. It would have killed me. Maybe right at the end, when the chance felt like zero, I would have appreciated having any number no matter how low. But in general knowing wouldn¡¯t feel great. ¡°And an estimate is only that,¡± she said. ¡°A single moment of doubt can end you. A single word of encouragement can save you. Everything can change in an instant. Not even stone is stone, as they say.¡± That¡¯s a very wizardy saying. He liked it. ¡°I want Stuart to live.¡± She didn¡¯t reply. But Alden hadn¡¯t said it in order to hear one. ¡°I wish that I could tell him everything without being afraid that it would cost me everything.¡± He looked from his learning cushion to the one beside it. The gold and silver embroidery glimmered. ¡°He¡¯s an awesome person. He¡¯s so serious when it comes to important stuff.¡± He shoved his hands into his sweatpants pockets and let them clench there. ¡°There was this distance between us on our calls that always felt a little unavoidable. He wasn¡¯t telling me about knights and the cost. I wasn¡¯t asking him about everything that wizards keep quiet from humans. And I wasn¡¯t telling him all there is to know about me. But now he¡¯s shifting it. ¡°Me getting into trouble again and Esh-erdi telling Stuart whatever he told him and the fight with his family about my friendworthiness¡ªthose have changed the situation. Accelerated it. ¡°Stuart¡¯s gone from testing the waters to cannonballing into the deep end. He¡¯s going to be such a generous friend. And I don¡¯t mean all the gifts or the trip to this place exactly when I needed it.¡± When you let someone know the real you and they kept important information from you, even if you understood and didn¡¯t blame them¡­ I¡¯m closer to Boe than anyone else, but I¡¯m still a little upset that he didn¡¯t tell me he was an Avowed. And I didn¡¯t know he would want someone to check on his parents if anything happened to him. I thought we didn¡¯t talk about them because he didn¡¯t care about them, or even hated them. ¡°It isn¡¯t fair to either of us,¡± he said. ¡°It can¡¯t be fair to either of us. Because if I ever decide to be generous in the same way, to tell him who I really am and what I¡¯m really struggling with, then I have to live with the fact that I¡¯ve given up this thing you¡¯ve made happen for me. This little bit of control over my life.¡± She seemed content to let him say things aloud that both of them already knew. Which was great, because he couldn¡¯t say them to anyone else. Thank you for the profile, by the way. Thank you for that control. ¡°I wish that he could have promised not to summon me. I wish that the wellbeing of the Triplanets wasn¡¯t a part of the equation. I wish that I could be honest with him without risking a future where I¡¯m seen as a research subject, a threat to the status quo, or a rarer, more valuable resource.¡± He inhaled. ¡°Do you have an answer for that?¡± ¡°Only the one I¡¯ve already given you, Quiet Rabbit.¡± Live in hiding if I want. Try to keep my secrets. Alden pulled up the two profiles with a thought and looked at them. ¡°It still amazes me I have this. It¡¯s something. A choice nobody else gets. I do know that.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve spoken a lot about choices with your new friend,¡± she said. ¡°I don¡¯t think I know enough to make all of the decisions I need to,¡± he replied. ¡°The last time you and I talked, I was choosing to keep my authority sense. And then with my affixation¡­it was a lot, and afterward, I just wanted to get home.¡± ¡°You could ask me your questions now. I¡¯ll answer many of them.¡± Honestly, though? She stuck her lower lip out in a pout. ¡°Sorry. I can¡¯t stop suspicious thoughts from popping up.¡± Earth said that lies to its Avowed incurred a cost. Alden imagined it was the same for Artona I and this part of it. But he was also walking proof that she was perfectly capable of being a big spender. What should I ask first? ¡°I¡¯ve understood the Mother privilege correctly, haven¡¯t I? It¡¯s only for knights. And it¡¯s the same way Alis-art¡¯h got you to pay attention to me and save me when I teleported here from her ship.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. My children can ask me to break a rule or take extraordinary action for them. Whether I agree or not depends on how much they¡¯ve given, how much they¡¯ve taken, and what the request is.¡± ¡°She hesitated to ask,¡± said Alden. ¡°The rules and ordinary actions of a Contract exist for reasons. My Alis may think some of those reasons are wrong, but she also knows that, on the whole, they are for the safety and survival of her people. So I knew when she asked that the person I¡¯d be saving would be special. Just look at him!¡± She reached out to tap the window in front of them, and the view of the siblinghold¡¯s backyard disappeared. Another scene replaced it¡ªa teenager in a bathrobe and yoga pants, standing on a rooftop with water rising toward his knees. An Artonan was clutched in his arms.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Alden stood facing himself. ¡°I look like shit.¡± He looked scared. ¡°How¡­?¡± He swallowed. ¡°How likely is it to happen again? Not this specific event, but something like it. A person targeting Matadero or Anesidora or Earth. A demon doing it. Me being in the middle of it.¡± Is anywhere safe? ¡°It¡¯s not likely,¡± she said. ¡°But it¡¯s more likely than it was the last time you were here. As far as known planets go, Earth is an excellent one to live on. Not the best, of course.¡± She waited. When he looked to see why she wasn¡¯t saying anything, he found her watching him expectantly. ¡°Do you want me to say you¡¯re the best?¡± ¡°Earlier today weren¡¯t you thinking about how much you liked the forest?¡± A mug¡ªone that looked similar to a few he¡¯d seen in Olorn-art¡¯h¡¯s studio¡ªappeared in front of him, floating at chest height. It was empty. ¡°Earth hasn¡¯t put you off hot chocolate, has it? I¡¯m so disappointed in it. It¡¯s capable of coming up with fun experiences and treats for Avowed on its own, but instead, it copycatted one of my little gestures.¡± The cup rotated slowly. It was beige with a wide black stripe running vertically down the center. Alden looked past it, at the image of his past self. That Alden¡¯s lips were trembling, and his face was bloody. ¡°Why did you refuse when I asked to use the privilege? I know I haven¡¯t earned any favors. Thanks to Alis-art¡¯h and you I¡¯ve gotten more special treatment than I¡¯ll be able to pay back in a lifetime. But you still put the option there. I thought it was something you wanted me to do. Something I could use if I was willing to¡­¡± ¡°Increase the intensity level of your future,¡± she finished for him. ¡°It is. But it¡¯s a reminder. It¡¯s waiting for the version of you that is willing. Not the person who thinks he¡¯s run out of chances.¡± The scene in front of them zoomed out, until the mass of water dominated the image. Alden from a few days ago looked so small, breakable, and doomed that he wanted to shout a warning or run into the scene to help himself. That¡¯s crazy enough to make it into my next nightmare. ¡°The story looks different as you change your angle, doesn¡¯t it?¡± she said. The view continued to shift, traveling up and over the mass of water to where Esh-erdi and Lind-otta stood on the roof of another building. ¡°I am interested in seeing what you may become one day, Alden.¡± Lind-otta was making a shooing gesture at her partner, then turning to face the mountainous ocean. ¡°If you choose to excel.¡± Alden watched the lighting spells appear in the sky, watched the water go still, remembered the feel of his own body at that moment¡ªunder the surface, reaching for Zeridee, eyelids caught in a blink that felt like it would last for minutes. He tried, briefly, to imagine himself standing where Lind-otta stood. But it made his thoughts snarl and then shoot off in so many directions he couldn¡¯t follow any of them. ¡°You don¡¯t believe you could do something like that one day?¡± she asked. The best he could manage was picturing it in a technical way. If he¡¯d somehow survived affixations, the Artonans, and everything else for many years. And if someone entrusted the water to him. And if he had mastered picking things up without his body¡­ He took his hands out of his pockets. ¡°I still like hot chocolate. It¡¯s the king of warm drinks until further notice.¡± She snapped her fingers and the mug filled. Half-melted marshmallows. Just right. Of course. ¡°You have other questions,¡± she said. ¡°I do. If I told Stuart the truth about the authority sense someday or if he somehow found out I have The Bearer of All Burdens, would he keep it a secret? Am I wrong to worry? Could you tell me that?¡± She shook her head. ¡°I can¡¯t promise you he would keep your secret. But that doesn¡¯t surprise you.¡± He took another sip from the mug. ¡°If you want to be absolutely sure to avoid discovery, perhaps weaving a friendship with him is the wrong choice.¡± He was so startled he almost spat out his cocoa. ¡°Why are you saying that?¡± he asked. ¡°You¡¯re inside my head. You know I¡¯m only agonizing over it because I already intend to be his friend for as long as he¡¯ll let me. ¡°I don¡¯t know how it will go. Probably it¡¯s going to be better for him to be friends with other knights after he affixes. He¡¯ll be part of a squad, right? They¡¯ll have everything in common. ¡°But he gave me a wizard cushion. He takes the time to explain magic to me whenever I accidentally look a little interested, even though he must think I¡¯m not really understanding. He told me about losing his mom, and he sent Joe to help Anesidora, and I think he almost cried earlier today when he found out I didn¡¯t like my spell impression. I¡¯m not going to ditch him, and I¡¯m still pissed that Evul-art¡¯h made me afraid I¡¯d never get to speak to him again.¡± She held her hands up. ¡°I was just making conversation.¡± He frowned. The close-up image of Alden reappeared on the window. ¡°You know,¡± she said airily, poking his past self¡¯s forehead, ¡°to make a little more conversation¡­this is also terrible behavior for someone who wants to remain undiscovered. You¡¯ve given my Esh reason to be even more interested in you.¡± ¡°It was an accident.¡± ¡°A prolonged accident,¡± she replied. ¡°Involving hard struggle and many opportunities to choose an easier way.¡± ¡°I got caught up in the excitement. Couldn¡¯t resist.¡± She laughed. It sounded so natural. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about Earth plagiarizing your hot chocolate,¡± Alden said as the laughter ended. ¡°Its idea of a good meeting location for us is just the worst. So far it¡¯s given me the room where I had my intestines put back together as a child and the office of a school counselor. You¡¯ve given me two comfortable places. Like a normal person. I fully expect Earth to summon me to a dentist¡¯s office next time.¡± Clearly it thinks I need fixing. And it wasn¡¯t the only one. ¡°Can someone in my position ever safely use a mind healer? What if they bump into the wrong memory? What if it hurts unexpectedly and I start trying to slap them with my existence?¡± ¡°You have options,¡± she answered. ¡°Avowed Healers of Mind on your planet don¡¯t often have the ability to read thoughts, and you could avoid the services that required Sway helpers. But their talents are more limited than what you¡¯ll find here. The healers Stu-art¡¯h would introduce you to could offer you a much more diverse and personalized experience. They could also easily read your thoughts. But it¡¯s very unlikely that any of them would do anything other than what they had discussed with you in advance.¡± Yeah. I doubt the Primary would let people with crappy morals work on his son for years. ¡°Actually, some of them would be influenced to behave in the way you want by factors other than their morals. But they would still behave.¡± He thought about that while he drained the rest of his mug. ¡°You¡¯re considering it,¡± she said. ¡°Not being as steady as I want to be is tiresome. And I like the idea that I can make this period of my life my own kind of choosing season. But when I try to approach the choices, I¡¯m either frozen in place from the pressure or the opposite. I have this urge sometimes to lunge at the decisions before they disappear. I know that¡¯s not good. ¡°And I want to stop being¡­¡± He couldn¡¯t quite put it into words. ¡°Well, this trip helped. I don¡¯t know where I¡¯d be right now if Stuart hadn¡¯t invited me over. Probably in my hospital room, trying to come up with an explanation that would fool Esh-erdi after I blew a hole in the wall with my auriad.¡± ¡°I like that you think you could blow a hole in one of Matadero¡¯s walls,¡± she said. ¡°Even the interior ones. So ambitious.¡± He had an urge to stick his tongue out at her. ¡°Feel free. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time in history, but it doesn¡¯t happen often.¡± He did. She did it back. ¡°I¡¯m pleased,¡± she said, ¡°that you¡¯ve decided not to be afraid of me.¡± He looked away. ¡°It¡¯s not time yet. And I know you won¡¯t push like Earth. Tonight is great. But no promises on my future mood. If¡­can I¡­?¡± ¡°You can affix on whichever planet you like.¡± He had thought she would say that. And he had thought he would feel more relieved to hear it than he did. ¡°I can pick when?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± His hands tightened on the mug. He stared at the ring of melted marshmallow stuck to the rim. ¡°How long will it be before that changes? Before I can¡¯t wait anymore?¡± I did it. Asked the scary one. It was the right thing to do. Solid choices started with good information. Baby steps. Whatever the answer is, I¡¯ll say, ¡®Okay.¡¯ Like I¡¯m cool. When she didn¡¯t answer, he pulled his attention away from the mug and found her eyes. ¡°You¡¯re not going to appreciate hearing this,¡± she said, ¡°but you want a more narrow and certain answer than I can give you.¡± ¡°You really don¡¯t know?¡± ¡°Your course is less predictable than some. I will have a better estimate as you approach your limit. But so will you. If you neglect training your bound authority and focus on your wizardry it will be sooner. If you lock yourself away from the world, perform no magic, and search for inner peace and satisfaction¡ª¡± ¡°Nobody told me that was an option.¡± ¡°There are other variables. But knights almost always progress very quickly in the times between their first several affixations. You¡¯re growing that way, too.¡± ¡°Several?¡± Alden latched onto the word. ¡°Does that mean it slows down?¡± ¡°Older knights tend to vary more. Most have pauses in their growth every now and then. Some almost come to a standstill for years at a time. Others race forward and never stop. Ask Stu-art¡¯h. This is a subject he¡¯ll be eager to explain. ¡°But, Alden, don¡¯t count on your own pace being anything you would consider slow anytime soon.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t.¡± ¡°Really.¡± He clenched his jaw. ¡°I know.¡± ¡°Eight to ten months,¡± she said calmly. ¡°It¡¯s the most likely window right now. That may change.¡± It took him a while to say, ¡°Okay.¡± ****** He wanted to spend a while exploring his options for improving his skill, and of course, she let him. While he wandered through a patch of Rapport I¡¯s forest, she lounged behind him on a copy of the couch he¡¯d bought for the apartment. This was too overwhelming to take in last time, he thought. It still is, but there¡¯s something comforting about the number of possibilities, too. He reached up for one of the gray paper cranes that hovered just overhead, and when he touched it, it unfolded in his hand to reveal the thing he could become. Eventually. The gray cranes were ones he wouldn¡¯t be able to select during his next affixation. [Safe Object Relocation - Sensing] [Gives Alden the ability to recognize places where an object-element burden he¡¯s currently preserving won¡¯t experience immediate damage upon cessation of preservation.] ¡°This one¡¯s neat. Is there one of these for enchantments instead of objects? Could I use it to find places where they¡¯d actually work well when I dropped them?¡± Another gray crane was already flying toward him in answer. He browsed some more, they talked for a while about metaphors for affixations, then she sent him to what he thought at first was the nightmare he¡¯d left. A long line of doors in a wall. It took him a minute to realize all the signs on the doors listed things he could have done in the past¡ªchoices he could have made¡ªbut hadn¡¯t. ¡°Go to Manon Barre¡¯s apartment and confront her directly,¡± said one. ¡°Don¡¯t keep trying to get to know Boe,¡± said another. Tell the stray cat to get lost. Don¡¯t answer Jeremy¡¯s first text message. Apologize to Maisie for breaking her pencil instead of hiding the pieces under the playground slide. Finally, he found a door that said, ¡°Tell Neha you want to practice the hell out of your skill.¡± I actually did do that. That was a good moment. I felt like I¡¯d understood something about myself and committed to it. He opened the door and went through to find another line of doors with choices written on them. He ignored the false ones and selected, ¡°Go bother the NesiCard man until he gives you a new card.¡± The process continued. He understood what the doors were getting at. It was simple, but he found the act of making his choices again, even the tiny ones and the bad ones, meaningful. You haven¡¯t been as stuck as you think. You haven¡¯t decided what to do about being the only human wizard-Avowed, but that doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re frozen. It doesn¡¯t mean that the things you¡¯ve already chosen aren¡¯t worth appreciating. He knew the last door when he saw it. It was sandwiched between one that read, ¡°Leave Zeridee-und¡¯h behind,¡± and another with the words, ¡°Don¡¯t go with Lute to Benjamin Velra¡¯s birthday party.¡± It said, ¡°Be friends with Stu-art¡¯h.¡± Not the smartest choice for a quiet Rabbit, he thought as he pushed open the door. I¡¯m happy to make it anyway. ****** ****** Alden woke up, for real this time, and rolled over in bed. Through the curtain, in the dim light, he saw that Stuart was squatting beside his suitcase. He had a wand in his hand and a square of something that might have been fabric in his mouth. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Alden asked, propping himself up on an elbow. ¡°It¡¯s really early. Did you sleep?¡± Stuart let the square fall out of his mouth onto the bag. ¡°I¡¯m fixing all the holes Other Alden made in your suitcase. I couldn¡¯t find your zippier, so I made you another one.¡± That project is so not worth his time. ¡°You¡¯re the best host ever.¡± Alden yawned. ¡°That thing you suggested¡­the healers of mind you know?¡± Stuart¡¯s wand stopped mid-wave. He looked up. ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°I think it might be a good idea for me. If you¡¯re sure that arranging it wouldn¡¯t be a problem. Would you tell me how it would be? And what I would have to do?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-SEVEN: Notion 167 ****** ¡°My Body Becomes My Assistant?¡± Stuart asked. He was on the floor with his legs crossed, and though he had sat in polite silence while Alden finished the wordchain, he¡¯d watched the whole casting process intently. ¡°I want to use it in gym and get the hang of it, but I¡¯ve been thinking I might mix up having it active with having it inactive so that I¡¯m getting better at moving in both ways. Trouble doesn¡¯t always happen in convenient six-hour windows. Do knights use a lot of wordchains?¡± ¡°Yes. Chaotic environments can reduce their efficacy, so depending on the situation a large number of casts might be necessary to gain the desired benefit. It¡¯s often worth it, but not always.¡± ¡°Peace of Mind worked well on Thegund.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not the kind of chaotic environment I mean. And Thegund is populated by Artonans. That makes a difference.¡± The cottage had brightened with the arrival of morning, and the suitcase on the floor between them had revealed the full glory of its patch job. Most of the rips and gouges were small, since a certain ryeh-b¡¯t preferred to make sure the whole bag received her attentions rather than committing to the total destruction of any single part, and now they were all repaired with a silver fabric that looked like it had melted into place to fit the holes rather than being stitched. Stuart had been planning to turn it all blue to match the suitcase, but Alden had stopped him. His eyes fell on a silver bite mark while he reached for another piece of fruit from the bowl of welcome. He was pretty sure the one that tasted like a mild pear was going to be good while under the effects of the wordchain.¡°There are so many things I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Do you want to know more about wordchains in chaos fields?¡± ¡°No. I still have a few questions about mind healing. I know I need to go soon, but¡ª¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to go.¡± ¡°I probably shouldn¡¯t be late, especially since I don¡¯t know how many sessions I might need with the healer, and those could take me away from school, too. How many do you think it might be to make the Thegund nightmares go away?¡± ¡°That¡¯s a question that would be better for the healer, but in my experience¡­¡± ****** ****** ¡°You¡¯re laaaate.¡± ¡°And he¡¯s not in his uniform.¡± ¡°I thought he was going to skip class.¡± ¡°He was just scared to face me in battle!¡± Astrid announced to the other girls who were standing around in the corridor in front of the locker rooms. She sprang toward Alden and punched the air with a vicious expression that was undermined by her cotton candy pink lipstick and eyeshadow. Actually that might not be makeup. That might be a new morph. ¡°I¡¯m not late yet!¡± Alden dodged around her. Easily thanks to the wordchain. His duffel bag full of gym supplies was over his shoulder, and his face felt chapped from his high speed flight here aboard the nonagon. It had been waiting for him at Matadero¡¯s helipad, and a message from Esh-erdi telling him to use it if he wanted had appeared as soon as Alden arrived in the cube¡¯s teleportation area. ¡°I can dress in three minutes.¡± ¡°But you only have two minutes and fifteen seconds,¡± Vandy told him. He rushed through the group of girls so fast that he was already a couple of steps inside the locker room by the time he realized Astrid¡¯s teeth had been pointy. ¡°Nice teeth!¡± he called as the door shut behind him. ¡°All the better to beat you with!¡± There weren¡¯t that many guys lingering inside, and they were all in their suits already. ¡°No, I never met him,¡± Finlay was saying to Kon. ¡°I did hear about him in intake a couple of times, right before I left. But that was all.¡± ¡°Alden! Was that Astrid you were yelling with?¡± Kon asked. He was tousling his hair while he observed himself in one of the mirrors. ¡°What¡¯s she done to her teeth?¡± The weird emphasis on some of the words made Alden suspect he was still having trouble with pronunciation. ¡°They¡¯re sharp now,¡± Alden answered. ¡°Where have you been?¡± Lexi was waiting for Haoyu to finish tying his shoes. He had Writher in his hand, and the end was twitching toward Ignacio. Alden was sure it was innocent enough, but it did make Lexi look like he was planning terrible things for the other Meister, who was staring at his knife collection while he put on his wrist cuffs. ¡°Hello, Lexi,¡± said Alden as he dove into a shower. ¡°I missed you, too. Your warm smile, your whip, your tone of suspicion.¡± ¡°You got your foot fixed?¡± Haoyu called. Alden stripped off his shirt. ¡°I got permission to take the boot off. And a lecture about my diet and my badness as a patient. And the healer sent the school a note saying I could come to class if the gym suit was set to punish me for running and jumping with that leg.¡± It had been about two hours since he¡¯d teleported from Rapport I to Matadero. He still wasn¡¯t quite over the shock of transitioning from an informative, calm, and very mature-feeling conversation with Stuart about his options for mind healing and how the appointments could be handled, to Porti-loth. The wizard had been waiting to catch Alden as soon he arrived and check that he¡¯d behaved himself while he was away. ¡°Punish?¡± asked Haoyu. <> Ignacio asked in Spanish. Alden was surprised he was jumping into the conversation. <> Alden actually wasn¡¯t sure what Porti-loth had meant. He¡¯d just griped a lot about the fact that Alden was unable to follow the very simple instructions he¡¯d been given to eat foods native to Earth. ¡°But I ate an Earth-based lunch the day I left,¡± had not been a good enough excuse. Nor had, ¡°I honestly forgot. So much has been going on.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± he said, reaching for his gym suit. ¡°A movement restriction is probably the penalty he had in mind.¡± By the time he exited the stall, the room was empty. He hurried out and ended up entering the gym a step behind Tuyet, who was looking tired. ¡°If we duel each other, do you have another bandage for me?¡± Alden asked. He didn¡¯t know her well enough to think of a joke about anything else. ¡°Alden,¡± she said. ¡°Did you know him, too?¡± That seemed like a random question. Had he missed something? ¡°Know who?¡± She frowned. ¡°The SAL member who Orpheus Velra sold the Submerger to. The person Maricel left class on Friday to warn SkySea Guard about.¡± Alden¡¯s thoughts had to run a whole marathon before those two sentences made sense. By the time they got to the finish line, the [FLOOR ON] warning was flashing on his interface, and he and Tuyet were headed for their classmates and instructors. It was only Klein, Marion, and Wu today. ¡°No,¡± he managed to say in the final second before class officially began. ¡°I didn¡¯t know the guy.¡± ¡°All right!¡± Instructor Klein said. ¡°I hope you all did your homework.¡± Alden looked around at all the faces. Everyone had managed to make it to class except for Maricel. So¡­she¡¯s the student who¡¯s taking time off. And the guy she asked me to talk to when we were standing outside the mall, the runaway who took a boat that night, crashed the Sinker Sender into Matadero. He wondered how he ought to feel about that. Really sorry for Maricel. Nothing personal beyond that, I suppose? Having a few less degrees of separation from a guilty party than he would have expected was unsettling, but he was already roommates with Lutewing van Nutmeg. There just aren¡¯t that many human Avowed. Most of us are probably only a friend of a friend away from any insane thing that happens with another one of us. He¡¯d watch the news later, figure out what he¡¯d missed, and stop by to check on Maricel. Class first. One-on-ones were conceptually simple. Everyone was supposed to stand in their assigned dueling block and complete an objective before the timer ran out. The objectives this time would be the two most basic. Both duelists would be told to fight head to head until one was incapacitated, or they¡¯d be assigned to play a simple territory claiming game. Opponents would be randomized at first, and then the instructors would be adjusting the pairings to make sure that nobody was fighting the exact same class or rank every time. Mehdi raised his hand. ¡°Are we going to have a duels scoreboard like the other classes? One point per win?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± said Helo¨ªsa. ¡°No,¡± Klein said. ¡°Not in this course.¡± ¡°But¡ª¡± ¡°Realism is set to movement restriction only for today and Friday,¡± Klein went on. There was a buzz of excitement at that. If nothing hurt at all, then getting thrown across the gym by someone else could be fun. It depended on who the someone else was and how scared you were of their particular method of doing harm. ¡°Usually we don¡¯t do pain-free duels until the last class of term, as a reward, but this has been a rough week. Don¡¯t use it as an excuse to play around. Instead of pain, you get research. On Monday, you have to turn in a write-up about all of your injuries. Instructions for that are in your inboxes. ¡°Kon and S?ren, you two won¡¯t be dueling this week. You¡¯ve both discovered new features of your powers that you need to figure out in a safe environment.¡± He paused. ¡°Normally, I would congratulate you on your progress, but in your cases¡­ ¡°Well, we¡¯re low on faculty, so you¡¯re working on your own today. S?ren, you¡¯ll be shaping until you can repeat your accident and understand what caused it. Setting yourself on fire isn¡¯t something that should happen in the future. Kon, we¡¯ve modified some of the tonne weights for you. You¡¯ll be moving them. Without hitting yourself in the face. You¡¯re lucky you didn¡¯t break your own neck on Friday.¡± S?ren reddened. Kon beamed like he¡¯d been complimented instead of criticized. Lexi shook his head. Alden was privately mourning the loss of two opponents he was interested in having matches against. ¡°We¡¯ll be running five to ten dueling blocks all the time. When you¡¯re not in one, you can all use the practice area over there to figure out what went wrong, what went right, and what you might want to try in your next fight.¡±Instructor Klein gestured to the far end of the gym, where the floor had already been marked off with lines. ¡°If you exhaust your body or your main talents during duels, you¡¯ll be out. You can choose to observe from the bleachers or, if you¡¯ve got something that¡¯s still worthy of testing on the floor, you can do that in the practice area. If your temper gets the best of you and you continue attacking another student after the time call, you get to run laps around the track all by yourself until I have time to come and talk to you. Which should be around nine o¡¯clock tonight, after I¡¯ve had my supper.¡± Alden looked around, trying to guess if anyone might end up in that unenviable position. His eyes skimmed past Winston, who was wearing a red sweatband on his head that said, ¡°Need a heeling?¡± What does that mean? Is it his latest hero motto? Or is it smack talk just for today? Marsha¡¯s hand lifted. When Klein nodded at her, she asked, ¡°Why can¡¯t we do S versus S? And A versus A?¡± Haoyu, standing just in front of Alden, turned around and rolled his eyes so dramatically that even Tuyet smiled. ¡°Because there¡¯s value in learning from all of your classmates,¡± said Klein. ¡°We¡¯ll mix things up in future sessions. Now, let¡¯s get started.¡± Their first assignments popped up, and the whole class burst into chatter. ¡°VANDY!¡± shouted Haoyu, waving at her excitedly. ¡°I¡¯ve got Max,¡± said Lexi. ¡°It¡¯s me and Olive.¡± Tuyet was swiping at her interface. ¡°That¡¯s good. She¡¯s nice.¡± Olive looked less than thrilled. Alden hadn¡¯t been assigned an opponent yet, so he jogged toward the practice area. ¡°WALK, ALDEN!¡± He halted and then waved at Klein in acknowledgment. Marsha passed by him, irritation apparent in her every stride. Her polearm, in glaive mode, was propped on one shoulder, looking as deadly as usual. And Jupiter was trotting beside her, carrying a single, fist-sized cactus in a pot. Is she going to fight with that? Alden wondered. It was a cactus, but it was so petite compared to her usual choices. Maybe it wouldn¡¯t be bad to fight her since she didn¡¯t bring a whole hedge or a tree with her. ¡°These were almost free because the store flooded,¡± Jupiter said to Marsha. ¡°I brought forty of them.¡± Never mind. She¡¯s planning to be a cactus pitching machine. But that¡¯s still not as bad as some of her other options. If she only sent a few at a time¡­ Marsha turned around to glare back at the pairs who were starting their duels. ¡°It¡¯s not fair. Maybe there¡¯s value in fighting some of the A¡¯s. But for most of them? For this kind of dueling? I might as well chop wood.¡± Max and I are so invisible to her she¡¯s not even mentioning our rank. Alden wanted to do a Haoyu-style eye roll at her, but he held back the impulse. He needed to focus on what he¡¯d be doing today. When he reached the practice area, he claimed a spot for himself where he didn¡¯t think he¡¯d be in anyone else¡¯s way, dropped his duffel bag on the floor, and bent to search through it. He was way less prepared than usual. His internal clock was confused, he smelled like one of the soaps he¡¯d bathed with at the cottage, and his combat plans were currently all the same ideas he¡¯d had before the obstacle course last week. On top of that, he had no idea who he¡¯d be up against. I¡¯m allowed to have string or rope, something to weight the ends, the elemental bags if I want them, and my temper spheres. Too bad he was fighting Avowed instead of Jatontan pests. With a restriction on running, and if it¡¯s just me versus one of them¡­what do I want to practice? Today, the dueling blocks were going to be empty rooms of varying sizes. No obstacles of any kind for him to work with or hide behind. Alden started examining the other people in the class one by one. I can¡¯t plan something that would be good versus everyone. Maybe I should just guess and plan with one of them in mind? Hope whatever I come up with transfers to the others? Helo¨ªsa. Jupiter. Reinhard. Reinhard? Okay. Him. I owe him back for combat assessment anyway. Let¡¯s figure out a way to beat Reinhard. I¡¯ll boldly feed him to victory, instead of going for a tie. Nothing in Alden¡¯s bag of supplies was really screaming victory, though. Not dying did seem doable. Partly because of Reinhard¡¯s personality. He probably wouldn¡¯t fire his strongest shot at Alden. Power built up in his bow every time he hit his target and then he sacrificed that magic all in one go for a big one. But he would be conservative with the big ones because he wanted to shoot the strongest members of the class with them. Not the Rabbit. If he killed Alden that way and then got assigned to duel one of the S¡¯s immediately afterward, he wouldn¡¯t be happy. He would absolutely take a draw against me and use me to build up steam so that he could try to beat someone he respected more. Snatching an arrow out of the air with his skill then firing it back at Reinhard would be the coolest option.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. We¡¯re not there yet even with the wordchain. Save that for last ditch efforts. Ten minutes later, when his turn came, Alden had made a plan. Can I call it that? It¡¯s not really good enough to be a plan. It¡¯s a theory about how I could attack Reinhard if I had nothing but lots of string for a weapon. No, not even a theory. It¡¯s a notion we¡¯re going to try. And¡­oh boy, look who I¡¯m fighting with my notion. [Dueling Block 3] [Opponent: Jeffy, Aquatic Brute - S] [Incapacitate your opponent.] [Kills: Allowed] He only had one minute to get into position, so he thanked Jupiter for being his entruster, picked up his notion, and speed walked toward the block with it. ¡°Alden,¡± Instructor Marion said, looking up to take in his weapon of choice as he passed. The Engaging with the Unexpected Teacher had his brown hair pulled back in its usual low ponytail. ¡°It didn¡¯t take long to make,¡± said Alden, worried he was about to be told that his creation was too much of a creation. ¡°I could manage it in¡­not an emergency maybe. But in an urgency, it would be doable.¡± ¡°I was just going to tell you to be mindful of your injuries,¡± Marion said. He was still staring at the archer-defeating basket Alden had made, though. The quick birdnest shield method¡ªjust take all the ribbon, paracord, fishing line, and other lightweight string you¡¯d brought and then scramble it into a pile of the desired size and shape before preserving. No tying, minimal fiddling around. If you had a little extra time, you could make sure there were no large gaps, and if you had a convenient largish object handy¡ªlike the mounds of elemental bags in the practice area¡ªyou could drape your scramble over it and make an easy basket shape. Then you could give it a long handle and preserve the whole situation. The basket was around the size of a pair of small sofas stacked on top of each other. The handle was nylon webbing about six yards long that Alden was currently holding much closer to the ¡°basket¡± part than the tip, because it was too unwieldy. Ideally, he would have run at Reinhard with it and dropped it onto his head. The crazy mess of a net would stop a couple of quickly fired arrows while he closed distance, and then, assuming that Alden lost preservation when he trapped his foe, all of the crap would still get tangled up with archer¡¯s bow and arrows. For at least a moment. Reinhard would be very pissed. He¡¯d throw it all off. And then Alden would try the final part of the plan. Reinhard would naturally end up stepping on top of the remains of the basket when he freed himself. Most of those strands would still be connected to the handle. And then I re-preserve, lift, and hurl him as hard as I can. He¡¯ll smash into one of the barriers. Definitely, he¡¯ll be injured. And if he¡¯s not completely unconscious I¡­stab him with one of his own arrows or something. He didn¡¯t know how good his chances of making it work were, but it would have been a really fun way of winning. Maybe it will work on Jeffy, too? ¡°Alden! Alden, guess what?!¡± His mowhawked opponent was waving both arms when Alden stepped into the block. ¡°Hey, Jeffy. What?¡± ¡°The System says I¡¯m two levels stronger overall now!¡± Jeffy started to walk toward him. ¡°Everyone, remember to start on your own side of the dueling block,¡± Marion called. Jeffy sprang backward. ¡°I also got a lamp!¡± Alden knew all of that already, but he was glad the guy was excited. He stared at Jeffy through a narrow gap in his basket, then he turned his new tool sideways, so that the basket was to his left and the handle extended out to his right. The block they¡¯d been assigned was ten by twenty-five meters. If Alden stood with his back to the barrier in the start position, he couldn¡¯t hold the basket directly in front of him. The handle was way too much unless he extended it out toward Jeffy. He didn¡¯t think there was actually an established dueling rule for holding your six-yard-long, human hurling device, but he was sure someone would say something to him about it if he was bold enough to start with his weapon already a quarter of the way toward his opponent¡¯s end of the block. ¡°I heard you were working really hard during the disaster,¡± he said to Jeffy. ¡°That¡¯s awesome, man. You should be proud.¡± [Duel Timer: 2 minutes] [Start in 5s¡­] Alden took a deep breath and let it out. Nerves. Just a little. One-on-one duels at Celena North. Let¡¯s see what this is like. ****** ****** [Fractured ribs.] Well, fuck. [Fractured ribs.] ¡°Jeffy!¡± Alden said. ¡°Let me¡ª¡± ¡°He¡¯s a tricky Rabbit. Gotta hold him real tight for sixty more seconds,¡± Jeffy said in Alden¡¯s ear. ¡°Put me down!¡± Alden pried at the arms wrapped around his chest. ¡°Get the job done. Aqua Brutes have the strength and wisdom of the ocean.¡± I think I would feel better right now if I were in physical pain. Jeffy had started his attack by bellowing ¡°LAND MOVES!¡± and baseball sliding across the floor at high speed. Alden had been proud of himself for about a second. Despite the unexpected method of attack Jeffy had chosen, Alden had gotten his basket in between the two of them to intercept before the Brute reached him¡­only for Jeffy to shout, ¡°SKY MOVES!¡± mid-slide and somehow lever his stupidly strong ass up and over the basket. He¡¯d hit the floor at what had looked like a spine-breaking angle, but apparently it wasn¡¯t, because he sprang right back up and bounded forward to grab Alden. A wordchain that helped you move better wouldn¡¯t save you if you couldn¡¯t predict Jeffy¡¯s randomness fast enough. And now this. Instead of killing Alden, Jeffy was bear-hugging him from behind. The Brute had bent himself backwards so that Alden¡¯s feet wouldn¡¯t touch the ground. He had failed to trap Alden¡¯s arms, so Alden could freely wave all four of his limbs helplessly in the air while an unmovable Jeffy slowly caved his ribs in and said everything in his head out loud. ¡°Max says not to overthink,¡± Jeffy chanted. ¡°Instead, overdo.¡± I should yield. ¡°You look stuck there, Alden!¡± Instructor Marion shouted. ¡°Perhaps you¡¯d like to concede?¡± ¡°No! I¡¯m still thinking!¡± He kicked his feet. He waved his arms. He¡¯d still had a grip on his basket handle when he¡¯d first been picked up, but whacking Jeffy in the head with the end of it did absolutely nothing. Sixty seconds later, Jeffy set him down. Alden was breathing hard. He reminded himself that Jeffy wasn¡¯t a deliberate jerk and him going on about the strength and wisdom of the ocean while Alden flailed wasn¡¯t some kind of insult. ¡°Good fight!¡± Jeffy held his hand up for a high five. ¡°Wow, your face got red!¡± ¡°You¡­¡± Alden took a deep breath, let it out, then slapped his hand. ¡°Yeah. Good fight. The overdoing is working for you.¡± ****** [Dueling Block 6] [Opponent: Njeri, Shaper of Water - A] [Claim your opponent¡¯s territory by tagging all of the marked locations on their half of the block.] [Kills: Disallowed] ¡°Um¡­this doesn¡¯t seem fair if you¡¯re not allowed to run today,¡± said Njeri, staring at the red squares on Alden¡¯s half of the block. The jumbo water jugs she¡¯d overturned were spilling their contents onto the floor. ¡°I¡¯ll just do my best.¡± She lifted her hands, and the water began to form a blob in front of her. ¡°But your shield is a net.¡± That is unfortunate versus a Water Shaper. Maybe I¡¯ll get Reinhard next time. ****** [Dueling Block 3] [Opponent: Marsha, Meister of the Mutable Haft - S] [Incapacitate your opponent.] [Kills: Allowed] Just hold out for ten seconds, thought Alden. He¡¯d ditched the handle, and he was holding the big bird¡¯s nest shield directly in front of him with both hands. It covered his whole body and then some. Versus several members of the class, with his back to the barrier, this would be enough to ensure a draw. Versus Marsha ten seconds would be a triumph. [Start in 5s¡­] How to make it last that long against her? I¡¯ll throw myself toward her as soon as we start. Using the good foot, so nobody can complain. She won¡¯t be expecting that from me. As soon as I land, I¡¯ll jump to the left as hard as I can. I¡¯ll zigzag around like crazy. At least ten seconds, then I¡¯ll find out what it feels like to take one of her hits with my skill. He wanted to know that, and this was his first opportunity. The polearm was still in glaive shape. She would probably just run straight at him as soon as they started and swing it. [1s¡­] [START] Alden bent his knees to throw himself toward her. A sense of threat to the space he occupied. A flash of light. No. His fingers tightened on the shield. For the briefest instant, there was a detectable battle¡ªthe authority of his skill to bear and preserve, resisting the attack of someone whose power was bound for the creation of an offensive strike. Then Alden was standing there, holding two fistfuls of severed cord and string. His skill was toast. An injury list that could have been abbreviated as ¡°very dead¡± appeared. He looked across the dueling block at Marsha. She hadn¡¯t come toward him after all. She¡¯d just swung her weapon from over there, trusting that the magical follow-up slash would finish him. ¡°Like chopping wood,¡± she muttered, stalking off. So, thought Alden, as he watched her go. This is what duels are going to be like. ****** ****** He was the second person to head to the bleachers. Olive was there, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees and a jacket draped over her like a tent. The posture and the puffiness around her eyes made Alden think the illusionist wasn¡¯t in the mood for company. He went past her and found a seat high enough to provide a good view of all the blocks. Should have expected this. When having one big skill was your style, and that skill was tired, you didn¡¯t have anything to fall back on. I guess I could have told Klein that I wanted to keep going until I¡¯d run out of temper sphere uses. The look on his face might have been worth it. He stared down at the current batch of duelists. Max and Astrid were just standing in their block, watching each other with tight postures. Alden assumed the problem was that Astrid knew Max had put down a trap, and she was trying to guess where it was. The skill that went with Max¡¯s zone spells was one that let him adjust the effects the zones had on him. It was reduction only at this point, but that meant he could walk around in the middle of one of the traps and fool people into thinking it was normal floor. In the neighboring block, Reinhard versus Haoyu wasn¡¯t going well for Reinhard. He ran faster than Haoyu, but not when he was shooting at the same time. Haoyu had him in a chokehold already and would be winning any second. There was still over an hour left of class. I have thirteen more classes until the end of term. Maximum. We¡¯ll probably be dueling in a lot of them. How should I handle it? Writher plunged into the back of the Brute who¡¯d just grabbed Lexi. Should I try to figure out how to beat each classmate? Lucille had the Object Shaper pinned to the floor. She looked apologetic about it. No. Let¡¯s stick with the plan. I¡¯m here to learn, practice, and grow the skill. So if I leave a fight having done that, it¡¯s a personal win. And if I don¡¯t get anything out of it, it¡¯s a loss. He looked down at Marsha. No taking her hits like that again this term. He understood what it was like now. There was nothing else to be gained from a repeat. I also can¡¯t outrun her without a ground element surface. So she¡¯s absolutely no good for practicing defense against in a battle like the one we just had. Next time, I¡¯ll try out something offensive. Okay, so if she¡¯s going to stand in place and chop wood like that whenever we fight, I might as well use her to practice hitting hard and fast from range. Getting my aim down might take a while, but how fast can I make something on the end of a string fly if I have¡­let¡¯s say a minute to prep it in the practice area in advance. He considered it for a couple of minutes, then put the problem aside and studied the fights going on in front of him. The outcomes were usually predictable. He wasn¡¯t surprised by where the gaps between his classmates were, but witnessing the width of those gaps in this kind of scenario was brutal. Everyone had been freed of the need to think about delicate rescue operations, team strategy, and complicated rules. The S-ranks looked like monsters. And the S-rank Meisters looked like the monsters that ate the other monsters for breakfast. Tuyet, Marsha, and Ignacio didn¡¯t lose except to each other. Alden didn¡¯t see Finlay fight Ignacio, but Tuyet got the speedster by throwing all of her darts at once. And Marsha just barely beat him in a difficult-to-follow close combat situation. Alden was going to have to watch that one in slow motion. He thought Finlay¡¯s mistake might have been positioning himself between her and the place where the polearm had fallen on the floor. S-rank Weapon Meisters were generally the killingest of killing machines. Most of them lacked the flexibility and creative options that Shapers and Adjusters had. They weren¡¯t given as many foundation points as Brutes. What they had were magic weapons and the talents they needed to make those weapons extremely dangerous. So their dominance today was to be expected. It was to be expected¡­but a lot of people, including the members of the class who had seemed most eager for duels, were acting like they hadn¡¯t expected it. The obstacle course didn¡¯t make it as stark as this, Alden thought as he watched a boy stalk away from his duel with Ignacio. He turned back to say something that made Klein bark a warning. The tempers were getting hot in the A-on-A fights as well. Njeri was out running on the track. Her competitive streak had gotten the better of her during a fight with Helo¨ªsa, and she¡¯d launched a jet of water at her roommate after time was called. It hadn¡¯t seemed like she was really angry, just too into the battle and unwilling to stop mid-attack. She¡¯d looked mortified to be sent off to do laps. As time passed, spell impressions wore out. Skills wore out. A few of the Brutes got tired and clumsy, and Klein ordered them off the floor. A couple of people went to use the bathroom and never came back. The smarter ones just had private breakdowns in their seats. ¡°People in this program get very upset about losing,¡± Alden said when Lexi, wearing a towel around his neck and moving like he was exhausted, finally joined him on the bleachers. He¡¯d done well, and he looked satisfied. That¡¯s probably the equivalent of an average person wearing a giant grin. Lexi drained a water bottle in a few gulps. ¡°How did you do?¡± he asked. ¡°How¡¯s Haoyu? I haven¡¯t been able to pay attention to anything but my own fights since I started.¡± ¡°Marsha butchered my magic and my body,¡± said Alden. ¡°Haoyu hasn¡¯t been winning as much as you. Some people have started running from him to force draws. But he¡¯s going to be the last A-rank standing.¡± Lexi looked down at the floor, then sat up straighter at the sight of Haoyu¡¯s current opponent. ¡°Everly¡¯s still in it?¡± ¡°Not really. She¡¯s been on a losing streak for a while, and she can¡¯t run at all anymore. She just wobbles around the block until she gets killed or manages a spell cast. But when Marion tried to tell her she could quit, she shouted that she had been careful and saved her impressions and this was her gym time.¡± The instructor had seemed a little concerned, but he¡¯d let her go on with it. After a minute, Lexi said, ¡°The bridge really bothered her. It should bother us all of course, but she¡¯s got Kon asking me for running tips. Like I¡¯m some expert on training just because I exercise in the mornings.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t she just ask you herself?¡± Lexi frowned. ¡°I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m that hard to talk to.¡± Alden clamped his mouth shut and focused on Jupiter. She and Vandy had agreed to have a Shaping-only duel. They were each sitting on the floor while a ball of smashed cacti and a current of air clashed in the middle of their block. ¡°She blinded three people.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Jupiter. With her cactus bomb.¡± Alden watched the green ball creep a little closer to Vandy. ¡°She aims for the face.¡± ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-EIGHT: Vantage Points 168 ****** Haoyu sat backwards in the desk chair, his arms propped on the backrest while he watched Alden take a turtleneck from his closet and fold it. ¡°How do you avoid getting lost?¡± Lexi, leaning against the door frame, groaned. ¡°He tells us he¡¯s going to sleep over at Matadero, and your first question is how he finds the place?¡± I need my uniform, too. Alden reached for the hanger.¡°The wizard who¡¯s been healing me is at Matadero. It¡¯s more convenient for him if I¡¯m there.¡± Esh-erdi had said it was fine to blame his housing arrangements on Porti-loth. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be staying there much longer.¡± They¡¯d said a few days, and it had already been a few. ¡°And I¡¯m not going to get lost because the System is willing to give me directions if I ask for them.¡± ¡°Nice,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Next time one of my parents goes there, I¡¯m going to tell them they¡¯re no big deal. Even sixteen-year-olds can hang out at the cube if they want. What¡¯s it like?¡± Alden stuffed a pair of sweatpants into his bag. ¡°It¡¯s pretty normal inside. The parts I¡¯ve seen, anyway. I¡¯m just staying in a room. There¡¯s a cafeteria.¡± Haoyu smiled. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have asked. Mom and Dad can¡¯t tell me much more than that either.¡± ¡°You¡¯re getting away with so much peculiarity right now just because everything else is insane, too,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Everyone¡¯s either got their own drama to deal with, or they¡¯re distracted by the fact that a girl in our class warned SkySea about the Submerger boat.¡± ¡°Yeah. I need to watch all the news,¡± said Alden. ¡°I missed hearing about Maricel.¡± ¡°How?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°It¡¯s been everywhere.¡± ¡°I was visiting¡­that person Lexi wants me to call my elderly aunt.¡± After a long pause, the two of them spoke at the same time. ¡°At Matadero?¡± asked Haoyu. ¡°Of course you were.¡± ¡°On Artona I,¡± said Alden. ¡°My elderly aunt was worried about me after what happened and invited me over. It was actually a really good reset.¡± Haoyu laughed at the look on Lexi¡¯s face. ¡°Anyway, that¡¯s where I¡¯ve been and where I¡¯m going. Enough about me. How¡¯s your family, Lexi? Did you get a chance to salvage stuff from your apartment? Is your boat still on the roof?¡± ****** Halfway between Anesidora and Matadero, ten meters above the crests of the waves, Alden sat in the center of a green flying platform, watching the horizon. The sun was setting. He didn¡¯t want to fly in the dark, so he would have to move on soon. But for now, for these few minutes, there was something about this spot that had made him pause his flight toward the cube. He thought about how he could point the finger with the driving ring on it in one direction and be back on campus with Haoyu and with Lexi. Or I can point it west, and be surrounded by wizards. A foregone conclusion this evening, since he¡¯d already promised Porti-loth he¡¯d come back and submit to a final mud potion treatment. But there was still something about this moment and this place. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. It was one of the more lightly celebrated holidays on the island, even when everyone wasn¡¯t recovering from a disaster. But Alden had gotten an invitation for a feast at the girls¡¯ apartment, so he was looking forward to it. He was wondering if it would be appropriate for him to bring food. Connie was cooking something for Brodie¡¯s family. Brodie¡¯s family didn¡¯t have an S-rank cooking Rabbit, though. He¡¯d figure it out tomorrow morning. Then Friday was duels again. Then he had a weekend with no firm plans. December. Christmas. New Year. He thought he would see Stuart a few times between now and the end of the year. He would be scheduling Alden¡¯s first meeting with the mind healer. As soon as possible, he¡¯d said, and that probably meant very soon, considering who he was. The talks with Stuart and with her were good. He felt like he¡¯d regained some of the stability he¡¯d lost on Friday night. Like he¡¯d been given a little patch of solid ground to stand on. And if I can have more of that, if a mind healer can help, that will make the next step possible, won¡¯t it? A way out of the quicksand. It can be a start. ¡°Hey, System,¡± he said. ¡°Call Boe.¡± Boe answered in just a few seconds. He was standing with his back to the bathroom mirror, and in the reflection, Alden could see a layer of white foam oozing down the shower wall. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± Boe asked. ¡°Me. Currently flying over open ocean on the magic nonagon I sent you pictures of. Happy Almost Turkey Day.¡± ¡°You too. What was with your last few text messages, though? Did you forget how to write short ones?¡± Yeah. I thought he would wonder about that. ¡°I was away from Earth a little while,¡± Alden said in the most casual tone he could manage. ¡°I wanted to keep in touch, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to pay the messaging fee for anything less than novel-length.¡± Boe actually took a step forward. ¡°Why were you off-planet? You can¡¯t be summoned yet, right? Was it something to do with¡ª?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine. It was a social trip to Artona I, not a summoning or anything bad. I went to visit the friend who helps me keep in touch with Kibby.¡± ¡°Stuart.¡± ¡°You remember.¡± Boe¡¯s brows pinched together. ¡°The name of your wizard phone buddy? Yes. Did you think I was going to let that one slip my mind? You just¡­go to his house now?¡± ¡°He invited me,¡± said Alden. ¡°He was worried after everything that happened. It was honestly great to get away from Anesidora for a while and reset. Distance can give you perspective.¡± Boe took a second to answer. ¡°Well, you can¡¯t get much more distance than that.¡± ¡°You¡¯re out of school until Monday, right?¡± Alden asked.¡°How¡¯s your return to life going? And what are you going to do for Thanksgiving? Other than clean the shower.¡± ¡°There was enough mildew on the grout that I was worried about it evolving into an intelligent life form.¡± Boe pushed up his glasses. The frames Dragon Rabbit had chosen looked good. ¡°Jeremy invited me over for lunch tomorrow, but it¡¯s a family time. I¡¯ll probably just¡ª¡± ¡°You should go. His parents do postcard-perfect holidays. I bet the turkey has those little paper chef hats on its leg bones and everything.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think¡ª¡± ¡°You do think. You¡¯re overthinking. A wise man once said, ¡®Don¡¯t overthink. Overdo.¡¯ There will be tons of people at Jeremy¡¯s. One more won¡¯t be an imposition for his family.¡± ¡°What wise man said that?¡± Alden ignored the question. ¡°If I call you tomorrow and you aren¡¯t enjoying a food coma, I¡¯ll feel sorry for you.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll consider it.¡± ¡°At least go tell Jeremy Happy Thanksgiving and take a to-go plate.¡± ¡°Maybe.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°I really just called to say hi. And show off my ride. And tell you I¡¯m in the process of making plans for the next few months, and those plans include zero sticking my neck out¡ªunless demons start falling from the sky on campus or something¡ªso you have plenty of time to catch up. You¡¯re welcome.¡± Boe pointed a squirt bottle at him. ¡°You should be banned from mentioning hypothetical disaster scenarios.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Because I¡¯m positive you just doomed an entire campus by saying that.¡± Alden gasped in mock outrage. ¡°What do your plans include, if sticking your neck out didn¡¯t make the list?¡± ¡°I am¡­going to sort myself out up here.¡± He tapped his own temple. ¡°And I¡¯m going to try to calm down and make the right choices.¡± ¡°About what?¡± ¡°Everything that comes at me really,¡± said Alden. ¡°The future. Being an Avowed. My class schedule for next semester. Whether or not to offer up a dish for a friendly Thanksgiving supper.¡± ¡°All equally important.¡± Boe tilted his head. ¡°Hey¡­was the flood situation worse than you let on?¡± Alden considered putting off explaining again, but only for a moment. ¡°It was. I was with someone who got hurt badly, and I thought I could get us both somewhere safe. But it just became more and more impossible with every step I took.¡± Boe didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°It wasn¡¯t like before,¡± said Alden. ¡°Adrenaline was a much larger factor in my decision making. And I had time to get to know the person a little before the situation spiraled out of control. She helped me out, too. The parts that look too risky or insane now¡­I wasn¡¯t in a state of mind where I could calmly judge them, then.¡± He waited, holding his breath. ¡°Just one?¡± Boe finally asked. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Just one more for the list?¡± His tone was neutral. ¡°Yes. Only one.¡± ¡°That makes ten,¡± said Boe. ¡°Double digits are more satisfying anyway.¡± Alden felt himself relax. ¡°You¡¯re not counting Gudrun the Great Dane or Tiny Snake?¡± ¡°Animals go on a separate list.¡± ¡°Good to keep it organized.¡± ¡°I do my best.¡± ****** ¡°Wow¡­thank you?¡± Alden was staring at thick brown sludge inside a thermos while Porti-loth guided his bare foot into a tub of healing mud. ¡°This looks exactly like the potion we¡¯re using for my body.¡± They were in his hospital room, and he was sitting by the table that had held Tiny Snake¡¯s container. According to his messages, Esh-erdi had decided to invite the reptile to live in his room until Alden returned. So that it wouldn¡¯t be lonely. ¡°It is the same potion,¡± said Porti-loth. ¡°I¡¯ll be drinking dirt?¡± ¡°Do you need me to explain to you again why a patient should eat the natural foods of his world when his healer tells him to?¡± ¡°No, no. I¡¯ll swallow this. Somehow.¡± He took a cautious sip. Tastes like I¡¯m drinking someone¡¯s leftover spa treatment. He wondered how the whole birth dirt potion experience worked, and why it was different from his previous healings. Esh-erdi complained about Porti-loth being too traditional, but Alden doubted the complaints were sincere. After all, if the knight had wanted a different healer around, surely he would have just requested one. ¡°An Avowed healed me when I was with the Quaternary,¡± he said. Porti-loth hadn¡¯t started chanting yet, so he figured it was all right to ask a question. ¡°And Rynez-yt in Chicago, Illinois healed me when I was younger. There seem to be a lot of ways to do it.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Porti-loth let go of Alden¡¯s foot and stood, tucking his lenses into the pocket of his coat with a muddy hand. He drew himself up to his full, and very short, height. ¡°My way is better.¡± Alden would have bet argold on him saying that. He watched the wizard rub some extra potion on his own forearms. That was the last step before he would start hooting like an owl. ¡°Why is it better? If it¡¯s all right to ask.¡± ¡°I make your body forget it was hurt. No reversion. Strong starting place for next time you need healing. If someone casts a spell of old wounds on you, none of the ones I treat reappear.¡± He cleared his throat and lifted his arms. There¡¯s a spell of old wounds? thought Alden. Let¡¯s not ever get hit with that one. He patiently endured the chanting and the sludge. When Porti-loth had finished and departed, he sat digesting his potion and tried not to worry about the fact that his stomach was radiating heat. I could learn a healing spell, couldn¡¯t I? Eventually. There wasn¡¯t one in his book. Maybe after he¡¯d gotten through it. He wanted to pull his auriad out and practice right now. Visiting Stuart and watching him cast spells had made him even hungrier for it than usual. But he had about a dozen tasks on his to-do list for tonight, and it was already getting late.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. One thing at a time. What¡¯s most important? It had to be the upcoming meeting with the mind healer. Stuart had asked him what he wanted from such sessions, and Alden had explained a few goals he was certain of¡ªpreventing the kind of panic attack he¡¯d had on the bus, nightmare reduction, getting distance from the bad shit. He was glad he¡¯d started the conversation right after waking up from the meeting with her. The honesty that felt so natural when he was talking to her had transferred over, and by the time he started feeling embarrassed to be getting into his mental state in detail, Stuart had already mentioned enough personal mind healer experiences of his own that it was like they were discussing an unfortunate shared hobby. The person he hoped to introduce Alden to was, predictably, such a renowned figure that even wizards had trouble getting in to see her. Alden still couldn¡¯t quite believe he¡¯d asked for the help. He was glad that he¡¯d told Stuart he wanted it, because now, if he tried to change his mind, he¡¯d have to apologize for inconveniencing the art¡¯h family and the healer who was clearing her schedule for him. Yay for committing to things that are good for you in ways that are difficult to escape from after the fact. Since he knew it was coming up sooner rather than later, he needed to take care of the thing he kept failing at: when he went to one of the Triplanets again, he would be blending in with clean, appropriate clothing, and he would have more than one outfit to change into. The Rabbit man is always prepared. He wondered if Gustavo was on Earth right now.The intake night counselor usually did his butler work on Artonan weekends. A text message won¡¯t bother him either way. And he did offer to give me advice. He sent a quick one, then turned on the television wall, planning to catch up on the news. Before he¡¯d heard the broadcaster speak ten words, Gus was calling him. <> he said in Portuguese. ¡°Hey, Gus!¡± Alden was relieved to see the man safe and well. He was sitting in a huge massage chair, and over the top of it, Alden could see the living room of what looked like a very swanky apartment. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re okay. Actually, I wanted some advice about clothes for trips to the Triplanets. If you don¡¯t mind and you have time to talk.¡± He ended up getting not only a talk but also an appointment to go shopping with Gus on Saturday. ¡°Aren¡¯t you in F-City?¡± Alden asked. ¡°How will we meet up?¡± He didn¡¯t expect to have The Nine-edged Son forever. ¡°Money,¡± said Gus. I guess that works, too. ****** He went to sleep that night watching the news and thinking about how just a short while on another world had taken the edge off all the stories. There were a few intelligent species out there that couldn¡¯t, or wouldn¡¯t think beyond their own local scale. Humans were supposed to be good at it. When they chose to be. On the universal scale, all of this is nothing, he thought, watching a recreation of the events that were confirmed to have taken place on the boat that sped underwater toward Matadero on Friday night. On the global scale it¡¯s a worrying accident. There had been a lone survivor¡ªa high school girl, a Sway, who had stowed away on the ship. Alden had met her once. No doubt some of his classmates had gone to school with her for years. She had given no interviews and was said to be cooperating with both Artonan and Anesidoran authorities. The statement released by her family begged for privacy and understanding: ¡°Our daughter Mina has no affiliation with Superhumans at Large. She has been struggling with class regret. You all know how confusing the months after selection can be.¡± The girl¡¯s uncle had given an interview, laying into Mina¡¯s parents for pressuring her to choose Sway. They were both Sways, and according to him, they insisted on all of their children being part of the community. On the national scale, it¡¯s a disaster. Mina was being regarded with suspicion despite officially being held responsible for nothing more than an escape attempt. In contrast, Maricel Alcantara was being hailed as a model citizen¡ªa globie who had overcome an understandable period of homesickness to begin building a bright, Anesidoran future for herself. Instructor Fragment and Principal Saleh had both praised her for her immediate action. The video of Maricel¡¯s eyes widening and her running away from the obstacle course to go report the runaways had been leaked. Supposedly. Alden was sure that if it hadn¡¯t leaked, it would have been shared by the school anyway. The spin they were putting on Maricel wasn¡¯t just positive, it was heroic. The former Ghosten admired how well she¡¯d adjusted to school and spoke of the difficulty of betraying a friend¡¯s trust for the sake of doing the right thing. Fragment asked everyone to respect Maricel¡¯s privacy and understand that she was devastated her warning hadn¡¯t done any good. ¡°She¡¯ll be helping me with clean-up for a few weeks,¡± said Fragment, giving off that easy strength and calm candidness that Alden liked about her. ¡°I hope some hard work will help her take her mind off the terrible way it all played out. It¡¯s us adults who failed, not her. If you see us around your neighborhood be sure to give us a smile and a wave. It¡¯s a tough lesson to learn that you can¡¯t save everyone, and she¡¯s getting it too soon in her career.¡± Alden thought it was great that they had Maricel¡¯s back and were making sure she didn¡¯t get fed to the wolves for something that wasn¡¯t her fault. Probably, the hard spin was a necessary part of that. But watching it play out when he was a little too in-the-know was strange. All the inconvenient truths about Maricel were being carefully reframed, and all the convenient ones had been polished and gilded. The Maricel everyone was talking about was not the conflicted one who had confessed to Alden outside Rosa Grove Mall that she was worried she might have ruined her friend¡¯s chances of an escape needlessly. And there was definitely no mention that she had been trying to come up with safer ways for him to escape for at least a couple of weeks before the accident. One Brute, interviewed in the street while she hauled a roll of wet carpet to a disposal truck, said she hoped SkySea Guard would formally apologize to that sweet Ground Shaper girl. ¡°She did everything right, treated Anesidora like her home even though she¡¯s only been here three months, and they dropped the ball.¡± SkySea was catching hell for having advance warning and failing to find the boat in time. Public opinion about the doomed vessel¡¯s passengers was more of a mixed bag. But the fact that there was a boat with a dangerous magical device on it in the first place had to be someone¡¯s fault. So far, Orpheus Velra and SAL were taking the lion¡¯s share of the blame. The man who had reportedly turned the boat toward the cube was in his late fifties, though he didn¡¯t look it in pictures. Acquaintances described him as a little peculiar since he¡¯d come back from a long assignment on the Triplanets years ago, but overall, they thought of him as a harmless person. A few people said that he was scared of the cube. One of his neighbors said he was a kind, shy man and blamed the captain of the boat for manipulating him. ¡°He saw a powerful Avowed who was easy to use, and he thought he¡¯d take him to those SAL lunatics like he was a living weapon. Will was as strong as any A-rank Object Shaper I¡¯ve ever met, and he¡¯d do just about anything for you if you asked him to lend a hand. Those people murdered him. He¡¯s a victim more than anyone else on that ship.¡± That wasn¡¯t a popular take, but, maybe because Alden had a lot of empathy for people who came back from the Triplanets feeling jumpy about demons, hearing it drained what was left of his anger. As for the others, it was too unclear what they¡¯d thought in the hours leading up to their deaths. Mina¡¯s wizard-confirmed testimony gave them a lot of details about what had happened on the boat, but that was the last domino in the line. And nobody could seem to figure out where and why the first had fallen. Orpheus Velra didn¡¯t remember, and Jacob Moore couldn¡¯t talk. Here, on the national scale, it¡¯s a disaster, Alden thought. And it¡¯s political tinder in other countries. All the American channels wanted to talk about was the fact that Jacob was formerly American, and his father was a Presixter. Basically, they were the flavor of alien-hater who thought deleting the System, severing Earth from the rest of the known universe, and rolling back the timeline to 1959 was the only way to make life ¡°truly human.¡± Pretty fringe stuff. Alden saw that clip of the Jacob¡¯s mother again. They kept playing it¡ªthe one where she failed to hold back tears while pleading with people to believe that her son wasn¡¯t a killer. He turned the television off. On the personal scale, he thought, it¡¯s a tragedy. The distance and angle from which you observed a moment changed the story. Like when he¡¯d been shown the different views of himself on that rooftop, about to be crushed by the wave. He wondered what the Primary thought of it all, if anyone had even decided to bother him with the news yet. He wondered what was going through Maricel¡¯s mind. He¡¯d sent her a simple, ¡°Hope you¡¯re all right,¡± and she¡¯d answered with an equally simple. ¡°I¡¯m okay. Thank you.¡± He wondered about Joe and Principal Saleh and Esh-erdi. He even wondered about the wizard who had decided, for some reason, to make a more powerful, longer lasting Fragile Atmosphere than their people¡¯s Contract with Earth required. That was what the Artonans said had allowed Mina to survive¡ªmagical craftsmanship beyond the standard. One of the SAL members on the boat who¡¯d used her own signing bonus hadn¡¯t made it. What scale was that wizard thinking on? What angle were they looking from? It could have been anything. ¡®I am saving someone¡¯s life. I am showcasing my pride as a craftsman and an Artonan. I am following the path of higher onus.¡¯ Or, maybe, ¡®I am thinking about the universe and how fragile all of us are. One day, the Avowed who wears this might be needed.¡¯ ****** ¡°Succotash?¡± Alden stepped out of the elevator onto the floor of the hospital where Porti-loth¡¯s makeshift healing grove could be found. He was going to return the potion thermos to the healer with his thanks and never speak to anyone of the giant fart that had scared him awake from a peaceful slumber at four AM. I needed to get up early anyway. He¡¯d decided that having a special diet tilted him farther into the ¡°bring a side dish¡± category than not. And he kind of wanted to make it feel like a real holiday. ¡°It looks like it¡¯s vegan if you leave out the bacon grease,¡± Connie said. She was on the sofa with a bottled coffee in one hand and her mother¡¯s recipe book in the other. Alden had woken her up and asked her to look through it for him. ¡°Lima beans, corn¡­¡± ¡°Yummy?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Looks like it to me.¡± ¡°Thanks, Aunt Connie. Send me a picture of it. Happy Thanksgiving, and¡­good luck with that mac and cheese you¡¯re making.¡± The picture came less than a minute later, and he stopped walking down the hall to study it. A handwritten recipe from my grandmother. With a couple of stains on the paper and a note about how simmerblue would be good if you didn¡¯t like sage or thyme, it looked like an artifact from someone else¡¯s life. And what the heck is simmerblue? Alien import probably. They went in and out of fashion. I won¡¯t be using that, thanks. Earth food only for the next couple of¡ª A small gasp made him look around. An Artonan had just opened the door of the last room he¡¯d passed. She was wearing a scratchy-looking, knitted, knee-length sack, with things that were either nuts or rocks stitched onto it. A Porti-loth creation, if Alden guessed correctly. Her long purple hair had been shaved off, but it had already grown out a couple of inches. ¡°Zeridee!¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m so happy to see you. Finally. Are you all right?¡± For a second, he worried this reunion was going to be a repeat of the situation with Ro-den. Zeridee looked alarmed at the sight of him. But then she threw open the door and bowed low. ¡°Alden Ryeh-bt, I am so sor¡ª¡° ¡°Don¡¯t do that!¡± an angry healer¡¯s voice sounded from the ¡°grove¡± down the hall. ¡°Stop it! Stop shaking your brain!¡± Zeridee righted herself. Slowly. Then she glanced down the hall with a frown. Assuming there was some kind of monitoring spell allowing Porti-loth to watch the hall, or maybe just mundane tech, Alden held up the thermos. ¡°I brought this back. Thank you for the potion.¡± ¡°Keep it!¡± shouted Porti-loth. ¡°Humans made it in Tennessee. Like you were made. Drink from it often.¡± At this rate, I¡¯m going to start wondering if everything that wasn¡¯t made in one specific U.S. state is slightly unhealthy for me. ¡°You were going somewhere,¡± Zeridee said to Alden. Her English was as good as he remembered, though he¡¯d spoken so much Artonan to Artonans over the past couple of days that it sounded odd. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to interrupt you on your way.¡± Alden waved his new thermos. ¡°I was just returning this and thanking Porti-loth and apologizing to Porti-loth for my bad food choices again¡ª¡± ¡°You should apologize!¡± Porti-loth announced. ¡°¡ªand hoping I might catch a glimpse of you, actually. They told me you would be all right, but I wanted to see for myself. And¡­say hello.¡± Ask you if you¡¯re mad at me for being so stubborn. Apologize for what you went through. Thank you for saving me in the greenhouse. She was blinking at him. Her brown eye rings were gone. He wondered if Porti-loth was against artificial implants while he was doing the whole traditional nature healing thing. ¡°I¡¯m well,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°Ha!¡± Porti-loth shouted. Zeridee sighed. ¡°Would you like to come in? My room is not the most comfortable place for a meeting, but¡ª¡± Alden was already stepping toward the door. She stood aside and let him enter. The hospital room was similar in layout to his own, but many of the furnishings were made of organic materials. The bed was wood. The table was, too, with a circle of cloudy crystal set into the top that reminded Alden of the class trading table in the consulate. He stood beside it while Zeridee stood with her back to the door. They didn¡¯t speak for a few moments. Alden caved to the awkwardness first. ¡°I didn¡¯t have much to say,¡± he admitted, turning the thermos nervously in his hands. ¡°Just¡­I¡¯m sorry if me being stubborn about staying with you made everything worse in the end. And thank you. For protecting me from those guys who tried to steal the flyer.¡± Looking at her now, he couldn¡¯t quite believe she¡¯d done it. ¡°I¡¯m the one who should apologize,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°If I had prioritized your safety over your emotions¡ª¡± ¡°No. I think we were right to let me choose those priorities for myself,¡± Alden said quickly. Knee-jerk reaction. She had seemed to be on the verge of drugging him and stuffing him into the flyer at one point. ¡°But I¡¯m very sorry if I got it wrong. I was trying hard to do the right thing, but it went so bad.¡± There was another long silence. ¡°Those men¡­.¡± Zeridee said. Are sleeping, thought Alden. How many times had he heard her voice repeat the phrase? ¡°Those men should not have been there,¡± she said. Alden looked into her eyes. They were focused. Serious. ¡°They shouldn¡¯t have been there,¡± she repeated. ¡°That they were, that they attacked me, that I¡­that they passed away¡ªnone of it was your fault. If they had arrived after you left, I would have tried to reason with them. And they were clearly not reasonable. Or they might have tried to stun me from behind, exactly as they did, and panicked when I didn¡¯t fall, exactly as they did.¡± She straightened her shoulders. ¡°If you hadn¡¯t been there, they would have taken their time exploring the residence. They would have run as the floods approached, leaving me behind dead or soon to die. I wouldn¡¯t be here, and even if they made it out¡­there are those who would insist on identifying them and punishing them. They would have met the same fates by a different road. ¡°The only person you caused hurt by staying, Alden, was yourself.¡± Alden hadn¡¯t thought he needed to hear that, but he must have been wrong. Something sore inside him eased at the words. Thank you, Zeridee. You being this way makes me so glad I didn¡¯t let you go. She frowned at him. ¡°But you must remember that your actions could have led to your death. In the future, I insist you think of how your loss might affect Stu-art¡¯h and Hn¡¯tyon Alis-art¡¯h and¡ª¡± Alden burst out laughing. Zeridee stuttered to a halt. ¡°I¡¯m sorry!¡± Alden said, wiping his eyes with the hand that wasn¡¯t holding the thermos. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I know it¡¯s serious. But you should have seen Stu¡¯s face when I told him you kept trying to force me to stay safe by mentioning his name.¡± Zeridee made a yelping sound. ¡°You told¡ª!¡± ¡°He was so offended and so pleased at the same time.¡± The weirdo. ¡°He did tell me to tell you to stop doing it, though.¡± Zeridee looked appalled. ¡°You told him,¡± she said faintly. ¡°Of course,¡± said Alden, still smiling. ¡°We¡¯re friends after all.¡± Zeridee leaned back against the door and looked toward the ceiling, letting her head hit it with a thump. ¡°Don¡¯t shake your brain,¡± Alden reminded her. ****** ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-NINE: Its Definitely Thursday 169 ****** ¡°Why did you think I was over a hundred years old?¡± Alden¡¯s fingers stopped tracing the seam where the table¡¯s crystal inset met polished wood. Darn it, Esh-erdi. ¡°I just thought you were a little older than you are, not that old.¡± Zeridee was sitting across from him in the only other chair. Behind her, the wall of her hospital room had turned into a giant ¡°window¡± with a view of an Artonan city. Alden didn¡¯t know which one. ¡°It is uncommon for someone my age to have the position that I do. However¡ª¡± ¡°We¡¯d just been rescued from drowning,¡± Alden interrupted. ¡°It was a bad time for me to be estimating ages.¡± The two of them had been talking for a while. At first, they¡¯d apologized back and forth, but the trading of, ¡°Sorry for this choice I made that might have almost killed you,¡± and, ¡°I don¡¯t think you should be sorry for that, but I¡¯m sorry for,¡± had become undeniably ridiculous. So they¡¯d just stopped. Lacking any teas, Zeridee had presented Alden with a bottle of orange juice that she¡¯d taken from the cafeteria last night. Porti-loth had caught her with it and told her she couldn¡¯t have the fruits of foreign worlds yet. Alden reached for the bottle now and drained the last of it. The conversation they¡¯d had since they gave up on being sorry at each other had been informative for him. Zeridee had strong opinions, covered by a veneer of professionalism and propriety that wasn¡¯t that hard to break through. At least not as far as the subject they¡¯d been discussing the most was concerned. ¡°So Ambassador Bash-nor delayed telling me about my planetary evacuation priority and all the procedures associated with it just because he¡¯s offended that Alis-art¡¯h gave a human Ryeh-b¡¯t a commendation. And the idea ofhaving to congratulate me irritated him.¡± Alden huffed. ¡°That¡¯s crazy and petty. He definitely sounds like a piece of shit.¡± ¡°He conducts the duties of his current office with more of a concern for his personal agenda than is normal,¡± Zeridee said primly. Whenever she reached for her ambassadorial assistant mannerisms, the effect was undermined by her healing outfit. It was hard to look serious when you had things that resembled walnuts stitched to the knitted sack you were wearing. As for Bash-nor¡¯s personal agenda, Alden found everything he¡¯d just learned about it uncomfortable. The current ambassador was a proponent of Avowed¡­ I don¡¯t even know what to call it. Defanging? Demilitarization? Cuteification? ¡°He seriously wants Earth¡¯s Avowed to be all Ryeh-b¡¯ts?¡± Technically, she hadn¡¯t said ¡°all Ryeh-b¡¯ts.¡± She¡¯d said more Ryeh-b¡¯ts, and with the other classes being modified to more closely resemble the Ryeh-b¡¯t model. According to Zeridee, Bash-nor was against combat-focused Avowed classes and talents for many species. But his current focus was humans. Weapon Meisters, destructive Adjusters, even things like Haoyu¡¯s Boxing Gloves¡ªall absent from the ambassador¡¯s ideal world. Instead of the Interdimensional Warriors Contract, he wanted the Triplanetary Government¡¯s relationship with human Avowed to be something utterly different than Alden was familiar with. What would the farewell letter from your home country look like if there wasn¡¯t even a possibility that you could fight chaos? Instead of that line about using our extraordinary gifts to protect and serve the known peoples of the universe, I guess we would just get one about assisting important wizards with their important work. Oh, but there probably wouldn¡¯t be an Anesidora if everyone was more harmless. So no letter. ¡°You¡¯re still recovering, and this is upsetting to you,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°We should talk about something else.¡± Alden leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. ¡°No, I¡¯m not that upset. It¡¯s not like he¡¯s going to actually be able to do it, right?¡± Zeridee started to shake her head, then stopped. ¡°Of course not. Some members of the wizard class will always push for more Avowed with the specific abilities that would be useful to them personally, as well as for more access to those Avowed. And others will always push against them in favor of what they believe to be better. Compromises will be necessary.¡± Rabbits, thought Alden. Nearly instant summons for non-emergencies, limited refusals, powers that are way more useful in everyday life than being a sword-wielding death machine. Powers that are way more useful to the average wizard than us being death machines, too. ¡°Completely changing the current state of things would be unrealistic,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°At the moment, the ambassador¡¯s goal is only to increase the percentage of Ryeh-b¡¯t class assignments for your species. The request has been presented many times over the years and held back due to¡­the adamance of certain others. The percentage is currently low, especially considering how popular the idea of more summonable humans is among most wizards.¡± ¡°What about how humans feel about it?¡± Alden demanded. ¡°¡­it¡¯s moderately popular among Anesidorans, too.¡± Alden let his arms fall and took a breath. Right. Duh. I myself find the idea of not being summoned into combat totally desirable. I would vote for that if I had a vote. And Rabbit¡¯s a class people struggle to get. If Bash-nor wanted to start by doubling or tripling the number of Rabbit class assignments offered on Earth, there would probably still be plenty of takers. Alden had been letting his distaste for the man¡¯s presumed reasons affect his own reasoning. But everything I know about him looks even more unpleasant in this light. Not just the personal situation with the flyer. What about those parties Zeridee had mentioned, where he challenged Avowed to try to break his shields on the ambassadorial residence? If he was against humans with combat powers, was that just party stupidity, or was it some way of proving a point about human battle prowess? And on top of that, Bash-nor didn¡¯t like Zeridee because of the attempted class shift. Alden hadn¡¯t figured out how to bring that up and learn more without prying into what was possibly personal territory. He¡¯d been hoping she¡¯d take the conversation there herself, but she hadn¡¯t. She did say something when we were arguing about whether or not I should leave without her. ¡°I am sure the commendation you have earned for your actions is not a political move by the Quaternary!¡± He stared at the image of the city. A building shaped like a shark fin rose above treetops that occasionally peeked out of a cloud of mist. Behind it, another structure towered, with balconies and terraces so covered in plant life that it was hard to spot windows. ¡°Zeridee,¡± he said, ¡°does Alis-art¡¯h not approve of Ryeh-b¡¯ts? As a class?¡± She looked away. ¡°I will not presume to speak for her again. It was wrong of me.¡± ¡°Just because Stu told you not to use his name to force me into things!?¡± ¡°I am sure Hn¡¯tyon Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s opinions are considerate and nuanced,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°But those opinions are definitely in opposition to the faction, or factions, that believe every Avowed should be a harmless Ryeh-b¡¯t,¡± said Alden. ¡°Is that right? Bash-nor¡¯s not just irritated she commended me. He thinks I don¡¯t deserve one and that she only did it to make some kind of a statement.¡± A statement about how humans were too brave to be relegated to Rabbithood maybe. Or even about how someone being a Rabbit wouldn¡¯t stop knights from summoning them and using them griveck style. Alis-art¡¯h held me together while she helped me write my will. And Bash-nor imagines that while she was doing that, she was busy thinking about how to use me to stick it to him and whoever else thinks like him? Like I¡¯m so unimportant I couldn¡¯t possibly be the main factor in the equation. He had never felt more like he deserved the commendation than he did right now. ¡°I¡¯m going to have it embroidered on a t-shirt with a ryeh-b¡¯t on the front and then walk back and forth in front of the embassy.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± Zeridee¡¯s voice had turned to steel. Alden felt his indignation fade as he took in her expression. ¡°I wasn¡¯t that serious.¡± ¡°Take him seriously. Anesidora is now full of wizards who Bash-nor will often be busy with, and Esh-erdi has made it very clear that he¡¯s invested in your wellbeing. It¡¯s not worth it to the ambassador to remain offended by your commendation, so he won¡¯t. But if you ever meet him, be what he expects a Ryeh-b¡¯t to be. ¡°He is intolerant of slights from those weaker than him. And he is prone to pleasurable excesses that sometimes make him lose his fear of consequences.¡± Alden¡¯s seat suddenly felt a lot less comfortable. ¡°I wish you didn¡¯t work for someone like that.¡± ¡°He¡¯ll be gone soon enough,¡± said Zeridee. ¡°And I have chosen to be here on Earth surrounded by Avowed for my own reasons.¡± After a minute of casting around for a more lighthearted thing to say, Alden found something he did want to ask her. It might be more creepy than lighthearted, though. ¡°When it¡¯s all right for your brain to get shaken a little, can I¡­no, never mind.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯s not really necessary.¡± ¡°Please ask,¡± Zeridee said, her smile returning. ¡°I want to be of assistance if I can.¡± Behind her, the shark fin building was extending a large balcony from one of the upper floors. ¡°I¡¯m trying to learn about my skill,¡± Alden said hesitantly. ¡°And it was working more thoroughly than usual when I carried you. So, can I pick you up sometime?¡± Zeridee looked startled. ¡°Of¡­of course. If you think it would help you to train your abilities.¡± And maybe I could drop you over and over on a mat to see if I could make the no-hands thing happen again, Alden thought. He decided to wait to mention that part of the idea. ****** After leaving Zeridee¡¯s room, Alden headed toward the cafeteria. He was hoping that the place would be mostly empty and Kabir wouldn¡¯t mind loaning him a corner of the kitchen for his cooking endeavor. The din he heard before the doors even opened let him know it probably wouldn¡¯t go like he¡¯d planned. The cafeteria was wizard-packed from wall to ocean view window-wall. It¡¯s the crack of dawn, thought Alden, nodding and smiling at anyone who looked at him while he skirted around the edge of the space to get to the kitchen. I guess they¡¯ve all aligned themselves with an Earth-based schedule while I was away, and this is first meal before they go to work. He thought about retreating. They¡¯d probably all disappear in an hour or two to get back to doing good deeds around Anesidora. But he at least wanted to check and make sure Kabir wasn¡¯t alone chopping eleven thousand squash in a potion-fueled haze. He spotted a bald head, and his steps faltered briefly before he realized it wasn¡¯t Ro-den. Just a little old wizard who looked delighted after biting into a banana. And now he¡¯s tasting the peel. Is that even allowed? In the kitchen, he found that Kabir had lost a lot of his manic energy and gained a few helpers. Three people who were either ordinary Artonans or wizards in casual clothes were working with him. Judging by the lack of spell casting, Alden was assuming they were the former. I¡¯ve never seen that many eggs in my life.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Kabir was cracking two at a time into a huge steel bowl that was already full to the rim. ¡°Do you need another pair of hands?¡± Alden asked. ¡°No, no,¡± Kabir said tiredly. ¡°We¡¯ve got it. It will be over soon. I¡¯ve already decided second meal when everyone comes back tonight is just sandwiches. So many sandwiches.¡± They¡¯ve taken away his energy potions. Good. Poor guy. Not wanting to be in the way, Alden left them all to it. He¡¯d come back when the rush was over. When he was back in his room, he called Lute. The System notified him that there would be a fee. He¡¯s still at the Palace of Unbreaking, then. Lute answered. Voice only. ¡°Hi!¡± he said. ¡°I never get interplanetary calls from people who aren¡¯t related to me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not interrupting you, am I? I didn¡¯t have anything that important to say.¡± ¡°No,¡± said Lute. ¡°This is a fine time. I just finished the work that was on my schedule. My boss is ecstatic that I want to stick around for more.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re staying longer? I was going to ask if you were going over to Thanksgiving dinner tonight at the girls¡¯ apartment.¡± ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be the best idea even if I was there. They¡¯re having a pretty big group, aren¡¯t they? I don¡¯t want to end up meeting someone who almost died or lost their house thanks to my family. It would just add bad drama to the holiday, and I only like good drama.¡± I almost died, and Lexi did lose his house and we¡¯re still willing to hang out with you, man. Alden was glad he ran those words through his mind once before he actually said them aloud. ¡°You know, there¡¯s so much crazy going on right now,¡± he said instead. ¡°Lexi pointed it out to me. There are a lot of fingers pointing in every direction, and people are busy. It might not be as bad as you think. Haoyu¡¯s already decided to be your part-time body guard and PR person. He¡¯s thinking of telling everyone you¡¯re looking into a surname change. Just say the word, and we¡¯ll spread whatever story you like.¡± Lute didn¡¯t answer right away. ¡°You guys are great,¡± he said at last. ¡°But I think I¡¯m going to wait and see for a couple more days. At this point, I expect Jessica to announce on live television that she¡¯s the head of SAL while Corin waltzes with Hushmaker in the background.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think SAL has just one head,¡± Alden replied. ¡°And if Corin did that, everyone would be really impressed with him for finally getting an infamous supervillain to reveal themselves.¡± He ended their call shortly after that, and looked over at his learning cushion. It was in the corner, on top of his patched and repaired suitcase. He had a science lecture he should watch. But it had been so long since he¡¯d gotten to study his spell book. And if he was going to try his new piece of jewelry for the first time¡­ He carried the learning cushion into the bathroom, then spent too long debating whether it was all right to put it on the floor or not. Is a bathroom disrespectful to the cushion? It¡¯s a pristine bathroom. I don¡¯t think anyone but me has used it in the past several decades. He ended up leaving the cushion on his bed, but he did take the earring Olorn-art¡¯h had given him out of the hidden pocket. Then he went into the bathroom again and shut the door behind him. One extra layer of privacy. If someone opened the main door without knocking, he would hear them from in here and have time to hide the evidence. He sat down on the cool tile below the towel rack and requested his books from storage. Whan-tel¡¯s Art: Conducting Power Through the Hands He turned the pages, reading it a little differently than he had the last time he¡¯d opened it. When his eyes paused on the crushing spell, he thought about how good it was for destroying a door knob. And if he¡¯d chosen to use the flying triangle dagger, what might have happened in the greenhouse? Something better? Something worse? Was there a spell in here that would have saved me if the bridge fell? Or that would have helped me get away with Zeridee faster? The book wasn¡¯t full of extremely powerful stuff, but having options was a kind of power, too. When Lute came back, he¡¯d ask if they could have another wordchain lesson. He wanted to learn something to enhance his strength and his speed. As for auriad spells, I¡¯ve got the square punch and the flying triangle. Crushing. The popsicle maker. Still to be learned, among others, there was a close-range cutting spell. A voice throwing spell. One for levitating small things. A spell that drew heat toward a targeted area. One that was basically an adjustable flashlight. And the summoning spell Alden had been looking forward to at the end of the book. Flashlight, he decided after a while. That one¡¯s next. Sure, he had a tiny fire starter. But setting fires wasn¡¯t always safe or feasible, and seeing was nearly always something you wanted to do. Plus there were strength requirements to consider. The book didn¡¯t specify how much most of its spells would strain the caster¡¯s authority. Alden thought it was probably supposed to be obvious from context and experience that he didn¡¯t have. But he was hazarding a guess that this one might not be that draining. It didn¡¯t seem like making light should be hard in the same way the crusher was. The description mentioned that he should keep in mind the fact that this spell relied on ¡°the memory of light in the place where you cast it.¡± I assume it¡¯s going to be easier to cast outdoors and in rooms that are usually brightly lit. So it would have worked well on Friday night or on Thegund during the dark days. He¡¯d learn this one and never have to worry about fumbling around in the dark again, unless he ended up in some underground chamber light had never touched. One day I¡¯ll learn those giant light spells Esh-erdi and Lind-otta used to make everything bright when they were rescuing me. This one will be my starting spot. It was still early. He would spend an hour practicing the auriad shapes and then he¡¯d head back to the cafeteria. He stood up, earring in hand. Watching himself in the mirror over the sink, he touched the thin tip of the pale clay spiral to his earlobe. ¡°That¡¯s strange enough for sure.¡± As soon as the tip touched flesh, before he¡¯d applied any pressure, his ear pierced itself in what he assumed was the exact spot Olorn-art¡¯h had chosen. A single drop of blood beaded there, and the earring absorbed it. Blood sacrifice to the knowledge spiral. Wonder if Gorgon would approve. He pressed it through, then examined himself. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯m an earring person.¡± He sat back down and opened the book to the spell he¡¯d chosen. His auriad slipped down his arm and into his hand. ****** The first drawing of a pair of hands wrapped in string caught Alden¡¯s eyes in a way it never had before. He leaned closer. Whoever drew this did such an amazing job. The way the auriad is twisted there¡­and that little loop around the tips of the pinkie fingers! I can tell just from the image that I¡¯m going to need to control the way the auriad sticks right there if I want to be perfect. And he did want to be perfect. He¡¯d been hungry to learn a new spell anyway, and now that he¡¯d picked one, he could just sit here and enjoy himself and learn. Alden was slightly obsessed with his auriad and the way casting made him feel. The coolness of being able to make magic happen all by himself, no System-given talents involved, was unfading. So he¡¯d never had to force himself to study this material. It was already a treat. But with the earring, he was suddenly getting a best-scene-of-your-new-favorite-movie dopamine high just from reading the first lines. The logograms¡ªthe freaking logograms¡ªwere so interesting. The way the author had spaced them indicated where the mind should pause and digest concepts, of course. But although Alden had been aware that spacing could be used artfully, he¡¯d never had the inclination to appreciate it before. Now he did, and he found himself studying harder, desperate to memorize the logograms and grasp their meanings as fully as possible so that he could appreciate the beauty of this instructor¡¯s teaching style. When he finally turned the page, he felt an actual rush of excitement. And then on the next page. And the next. It felt like he hadn¡¯t been at it for long at all when Boe texted him. He¡¯d sent a picture of a roll loaded with turkey and stuffing. [Happy Thanksgiving,] said the message. [This is dessert. It should finalize my food coma.] He went to Jeremy¡¯s, Alden thought, emerging from his study haze. They¡¯re having a pretty early lunch, aren¡¯t they? [Good job,] he replied. He smiled and started to go back to his book, before suddenly realizing that it was less likely Jeremy¡¯s family was having a Thanksgiving brunch and more likely¡­ He checked the time ¡°Shit! Really?!¡± It was after noon. He¡¯d been studying for more than five hours. Alden scrambled to his feet, almost stumbling because he¡¯d been sitting still for so long that his butt had gone numb. Stuart¡¯s mom doesn¡¯t play around when she makes a study aide. Maybe you weren¡¯t supposed to use them for things you didn¡¯t have trouble focusing on to begin with? If Boe hadn¡¯t interrupted, Alden would have happily sat on the bathroom floor until midnight. He pulled out the earring and took a look at it. ¡°You¡¯re amazing. I will keep feeding you my blood. But maybe not without setting an alarm first.¡± Olorn-art¡¯h probably deserves a thank you note, he decided a few minutes later. That¡¯s what you do after you use a gift someone gave you for the first time and find out that it¡¯s even better that you realized. He had left his room, and now he was walking through the empty hallways of an empty hospital, in a giant cube that had been built for some dark day that hadn¡¯t yet come. But he couldn¡¯t focus on the uncanniness of Matadero when he felt like he¡¯d been enlightened. He remembered everything he¡¯d read, every finger position he¡¯d eagerly tweaked to match the drawings, every logogram and its definition. It wasn¡¯t like he suddenly had photographic recall. Instead, it was the kind of remembering that came because you found the subject inescapably interesting and you couldn¡¯t not remember. Forget Thanksgiving. Forget school. I want to go lie in front of the toilet and absorb knowledge. And he actually had forgotten school. He¡¯d had tentative plans to make his succotash early so that he could attend Artonan Conversation class, even though he didn¡¯t have to anymore. Kelly the grad student seemed like she¡¯d be fun, and he wanted to see how she taught the class. So much for that. When he made it to the cafeteria, he found it empty except for Kabir, who was sitting at a table mounded with dishes and trays. The chef was just drinking a cup of coffee and staring blankly at the mess. Alden wondered where his helpers had gone. ¡°Couldn¡¯t bring yourself to serve wizards on paper plates?¡± he asked as he approached. ¡°I¡¯m having some regrets,¡± Kabir said woodenly. ¡°Want me to do the dishes?¡± ¡°I¡¯m seriously thinking of throwing them into the sea and then buying all new ones for second meal tonight.¡± He¡¯s burned out. Alden stood by a stack of plates. The one on top was covered in what looked like honey. Actually¡­ He targeted the chef. ¡°Do you mind if I take this plate?¡± Kabir gave him an agreeable-looking wave. Just the plate, thought Alden, focusing on the white ceramic. Only the plate. He picked it up, preserved it, and flipped it over. The honey and crumbs dropped off and hit the plate that was next on the stack. Alden unpreserved, sniffed the plate, then ran a finger over it. ¡°Yep,¡± he said. ¡°Clean and dry. Not sanitized probably, but I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a problem for the wizards.¡± Kabir was staring at the plate. ¡°I can¡¯t promise my skill will hold out for all of this,¡± said Alden. It wasn¡¯t like preserving a dish was difficult, but this was going to be a lot more on-off-on than normal. And he was assuming the kitchen was full as well. ¡°But I¡¯m almost positive it will.¡± Kabir took the plate from him, looking touched. ¡°You¡¯re a good person.¡± ¡°Not really,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m greedy and want you to let me have a burner on the stove and some ingredients. I¡¯m going to make succotash for a Thanksgiving supper I¡¯m going to in a few hours.¡± ¡°Of course,¡± said Kabir. ¡°You can¡­Thanksgiving?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Kabir shook his head. ¡°No. Thanksgiving is on Thursday. Today is Wednesday.¡± ¡°It¡¯s definitely Thursday.¡± Kabir shook his head again. ¡°It can¡¯t be.¡± Alden grinned at him. ¡°You were enjoying a lot of¡­magical assistance¡­ earlier this week. So it¡¯s fine if you lost track of time.¡± ¡°It can¡¯t be Thanksgiving, though,¡± said Kabir stubbornly. ¡°Because Thanksgiving is basically a harvest festival. And Artonans love harvest festivals. And when they find out one is going on, they will research it and tell each other about it and get excited. And when I serve them pre-made sandwiches¡ª¡± ¡°Nothing wrong with a good sandwich.¡± ¡°They¡¯ll say ¡®Is this the appetizer? Where is the traditional dead bird, Kabir? Where is the pig with the apple in its mouth¡ª¡± ¡°That¡¯s not even a Thanksgiving thing, is it? And I really don¡¯t think they¡¯ll be that unreasonable. Most of them seem excited just to be on Earth, and they¡¯ve been eager to eat anything you put in front of them so far.¡± ¡°Kabir, where are the bowls of your croutons?¡± the chef continued. ¡°When is the cranberry sauce with orange zest coming!?¡± He was rising from the table, his eyes gaining a wildness Alden had last seen on that first meeting, when he¡¯d had a spell set up to watch the elevator for demons. ¡°You¡¯re right!¡± Alden said quickly. ¡°It¡¯s not Thanksgiving. My bad. I was confused.¡± ¡°System, what day of the week is it?¡± called Kabir. Oh well. ¡°No worries,¡± said Alden, as he watched a man¡¯s spirit crumble. ¡°I can help with the dishes.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY: A Fun Way to do Supper 170 ****** <<¡­and one of the hover ferries donated by Makuinlo Scholar City, Artona I, has been in service since yesterday. If you haven¡¯t seen it yet, it¡¯s stunning. The vessel should be completely able to resist Submerger particles, but wizards will also be on board for every crossing to ensure safe journeys. The modifications to the second ferry will be finished soon. It¡¯s due to be teleported in Sunday evening. <> The woman¡¯s peppy voice was suddenly joined by the first notes of a fast-paced song. <> The chatter ended, and the cafeteria at Matadero filled with a voice singing in Punjabi. A metal tray sailed through the air, and Alden caught it. Preserve just the tray, he thought. Flip. The last bit of a banana peel fell into the trashcan beside him. Then he unpreserved and added the tray to one of the clean stacks on the table at his back. ¡°No,¡± Kabir was saying to whoever he¡¯d just called. He reached for another dirty plate and tossed it gently to Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t understand why it¡¯s impossible to get pre-thawed turkeys. It¡¯s Thanksgiving. You¡¯re a grocery store. I¡¯m willing to pay whatever¡­yes, I know I should have prepared in advance for a large gathering!¡± The next plate flew a little far to the left and Alden almost overturned the trash reaching for it. He managed to snag it out of the air and preserve it in the same instant. ¡°What about chickens?¡± Kabir asked in a desperate voice. ¡°Maybe you have some very big ones?¡± Alden caught another plate. They¡¯d started in the kitchen with the worst of the dishes, and with a more verbal cleaning system where Kabir chanted, ¡°Take it, take it, take it!¡± for Alden in between searching through supplies and trying to formulate a plan. Alden had become a connoisseur of falling food visuals over the past half hour. Watching things that looked really stuck-on fall prey to gravity all at once was satisfying. He was planning many future dish ¡°washing¡± sessions with people who weren¡¯t worried that a wizard named Momo-neen would be disappointed if there wasn¡¯t stuffing stuffed into appropriately sized poultry. Kabir had almost hyperventilated when the first store he¡¯d called said cranberries were sold out, so now didn¡¯t seem like a good time for Alden to ask for more challenging plate tosses or to spend a few extra minutes experimenting with preserving different layers of grime. Haoyu¡¯s going to love chucking things at me, though. And there¡¯s dinner tonight. I bet we¡¯ll have tons of dishes. If a Rabbit with a dedicated dishwashing skill showed up, he would arm wrestle them for the privilege. Kabir¡¯s call ended, and his shoulders slumped. ¡°I¡¯m going to have to ask her for help.¡± ¡°Who?¡± Alden caught a bowl. Bowl only. Flip. He couldn¡¯t resist giving one gentle toss straight up, trying to get it to hold its preservation when his hands weren¡¯t on it. Total failure He lost preservation and entrustment the moment he let go of it. I only held onto Zeridee because I desperately wanted to, and because I was in that too-intense headspace. I can¡¯t desperately want to protect a cereal bowl and throw it at the same time. ¡°Ms. Velra,¡± Kabir answered. ¡°If I call her, there will probably be turkeys falling from the sky within the hour.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t want to ask her for help?¡± She was the one who¡¯d loaned Kabir to the wizards in the first place, but his reluctance was understandable. ¡°I don¡¯t blame you. Considering how everything has been going with her¡­¡± ¡°How everything has been going with her¡± was the subtlest way he could refer to the situation. Just about ten minutes ago, the radio station had played a clip of Aulia making yet another statement. This time she was calling on High Council members to prove that they weren¡¯t SAL sympathizers trying to frame her. She also suggested a public tattooing ceremony to magically bind them to their oaths of office, conducted by wizards approved by the Artonan Grand Senate. In the past, she¡¯d apparently run on promises that she would be willing to do that herself. Alden thought it wasn¡¯t half bad as far as ideas went. Why not have politicians swear unbreakable oaths to do their jobs honestly? But the councilors were all united against it. ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk to her,¡± Kabir said. ¡°If I talk to her, I¡¯ll feel too guilty to quit. I¡¯d rather wait until I¡¯ve received an official offer from Momo-neen so that I can¡¯t back out.¡± ¡°Are you really going to go work for a wizard?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never wanted to before, but now I have an inbox full of messages from people who want to know what I know about Libra, Orpheus, magical water, and Aulia Velra. Like maybe people stand around discussing their plans to blow up Matadero while I¡¯m mincing garlic. The woman I went on a few dates with last month called to say we shouldn¡¯t see each other! Getting away sounds fine now. Momo-neen seems to be part of some kind of anthropology club? She said they could hire me for almost a year.¡± Utensils clattered as he swept them onto the last tray and walked over to present them to Alden. ¡°Do you think it¡¯s traitorous of me to abandon ship when Ms. Velra¡¯s in trouble?¡± Kabir asked. Alden was trying to pick up six forks at once, defining them as a single set in his mind. He managed it, but when he shook them, some of the food was still stuck. Hmmmmm¡­can¡¯t hold a conversation and perfectly define a stack. He dropped them back on the tray again and went for a single one. ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re a traitor. She¡¯s just your boss, right?¡± Kabir shook his head. ¡°The line blurs when your boss is Aulia Velra. Most people imagine she¡¯s horrible to work for, but she¡¯s not. Demanding, impulsive, impossible to reason with¡ªyes. She¡¯ll wake you up at two o¡¯clock in the morning to have you make cookies. Half of her family¡­no, more like eighty percent¡­I have wanted to poison them before.¡± That sounded less joking than Alden thought it should. ¡°But Ms. Velra pays very well,¡± said Kabir. ¡°And she¡¯ll wake you up to ask for ginger cookies at two o¡¯clock in the morning, but she will also laugh with you when you burn them and tell you about the time she burned a pan full on purpose because her mother forced her to make them for the boy her parents wanted her to marry.¡± ¡°That would have been a long time ago.¡± Alden was struggling to imagine an Aulia who had parents trying to manage her life and choose her fianc¨¦. ¡°Not many people know this kind of thing,¡± said Kabir. ¡°She only talks about the time before the Artonans arrived when we¡¯re drinking champagne in the middle of the night.¡± He paused, then coughed. ¡°Non-alcoholic champagne.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care if it was real champagne,¡± said Alden. ¡°Can you imagine if that was what the authorities used as an excuse to arrest her, though?¡± That prompted a sharp bark of a laugh from Kabir. ¡°They¡¯ll never imprison her for longer than a day. Not even if she stands on the tip of the Needle and drops whiskey barrels on the people below her. That¡¯s what I believe.¡± Interesting. ¡°Because of how important she is to some Artonans?¡± The sounds of utensils clattering surrounded them. ¡°That too, maybe,¡± Kabir said. ¡°But even if she wasn¡¯t that¡­she¡¯s one of the originals. Your generation doesn¡¯t really understand them. You think that only the loud few like Aulia are still relevant and the others are all relics. That they¡¯re all too busy working on the Triplanets or bouncing grandchildren on their knees to understand Anesidora today.¡± ¡°Remember I¡¯m new,¡± Alden pointed out. ¡°Until earlier this year Anesidora was kind of¡­¡± A theme park. A fantasy land. That place where everyone seemed to have money, magic, and access to more of the universe than the average person could dream of. He¡¯d known better than that; he¡¯d had enough glimpses to add a touch of reality to the place. But it still had been a spot on the map that was simultaneously more and less than what it was in truth. ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± said Kabir. ¡°I don¡¯t know how I forgot with the accent. But my point is that the old ones are different. And they look out for each other. I¡¯ve served meals to some people you would be surprised to know Aulia considers friends, and the things they talk about¡­it would take more than a few missing neighborhoods to really upset them. That¡¯s the impression I get.¡± Kabir looked down at the almost empty tray. ¡°You¡¯re fast.¡± ¡°This is great for me.¡± Alden grabbed a spoon. ¡°You holding the tray out like you¡¯re presenting them to me is enough right now. It¡¯s good to know things like that.¡± They were almost finished.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°America,¡± Kabir said. ¡°You¡¯re from there. There must be so many turkeys in America right now. Just lying around. But locating them and getting them teleported in¡­I don¡¯t know how to do it. Most of the Artonans won¡¯t be back until night, and the sun sets late this time of year. But it¡¯s still not possible.¡± An idea came to mind suddenly. ¡°I could ask my friend Natalie. I¡¯m sure she¡¯s got a turkey.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t take your friend¡¯s turkey. And just one wouldn¡¯t be enough to feed all of them.¡± ¡°Yeah, but Natalie¡¯s turkey would be loaded with holiday spirit. Literally. She¡¯s got Cook of the Moment. You could add little pieces of it to the sandwiches you were planning on serving before you realized what day it was and everyone would get a taste.¡± ¡°Cook of the Moment? In that case, I definitely can¡¯t take your friend¡¯s turkey.¡± But he looked interested. ¡°I could buy it, though. If you think she would be willing to sell it?¡± She¡¯s business-minded. And she¡¯s very interested in working on the Triplanets. ¡°She might be really eager to sell you the magic turkey. I can ask. Let me go call her.¡± If she says yes, Emilija will never forgive me. ****** Back in his room, where his call wouldn¡¯t be overheard by Kabir or any stray wizards, he spent a few minutes thinking about what to say so that he wouldn¡¯t slip up and reveal some kind of critical Matadero intel and also so that Natalie would have as much of the full picture as possible. Everyone knows the visiting Artonans come back here every night, so that¡¯s not a secret. They have the polite fiction that they¡¯re working on the facilities, so I won¡¯t say anything to contradict it. But the fact that they must consume food isn¡¯t exactly a secret either. I literally can¡¯t think of anything about the dining arrangements that should be kept private except for the location of the cafeteria. And when he explained why he was here, he would use Porti-loth as an excuse again, just like he had with Haoyu and Lexi. Planning done, he called her. She answered right away. She was standing in her kitchen, dressed in one of the chef¡¯s jackets the students in the culinary prep program were assigned. ¡°Hey, Natalie,¡± he said. ¡°I have a request from another chef.¡± Giving her the rundown took a while, but when he got around to asking if she might be willing to part with a turkey, she said yes before he could get the whole question out of his mouth. ¡°Are you sure?¡± He watched the messy blond bun on top of her head shake as she aggressively whisked something in a large steel bowl. ¡°You can take longer to decide if you want. Kabir is hoping your turkey will bring the meal together, but it¡¯s not like anyone will go hungry if you say no.¡± ¡°Of course I¡¯m sure!¡± Natalie beamed, and her dimple deepened. ¡°This is so exciting, Alden. I¡¯ve been nervous about cooking professionally for wizards for the first time. Now I¡¯m getting a trial run! And I know the turkey should be good. Really good. I set timers so that I could wake up and use my skill on it every chance I got while it thawed. And it will get plenty of doses while it cooks, too. I¡¯m basting it with herb butter and with magic!¡± ¡°I bet it¡¯s perfect and the people who taste it will love it,¡± said Alden, leaning forward in his chair. ¡°About payment¡­the chef who wants the turkey is well-off and the person who donated the chef to Matadero is hideously wealthy and there¡¯s got to be a generous budget for wizard-feeding on top of all that. You can name your price, and you really should because¡ª¡± ¡°Nothing,¡± said Natalie. Her golden eyes had gone round with surprise. ¡°Obviously. It¡¯s Thanksgiving. And the Artonans came here to help.¡± ¡°But you¡¯ve been working on it so hard. You¡¯re positive?¡± ¡°That tall, bald wizard caught some of the Avowed who threatened us on Friday night. And they¡¯re protecting the ferry that Emilija used to get here. And Cafeteria North¡¯s serving turkey today anyway, so I don¡¯t think anyone who comes to my dinner tonight will be that upset if we just have side dishes. They¡¯re usually the best part. Whoops!¡± She¡¯d whisked too hard and something that looked like it might be whipped cream had escaped from the bowl. That big bald wizard¡­ Alden bit back the urge to say he hoped those bastards Ro-den had caught with his invisible staircase spell were still crying like babies while they climbed toward outer space. As well as a simultaneous urge to describe Ro-den¡¯s true character in unflattering detail. Telling her he knew The Bald General was a long conversation for another day, and it would ruin the mood. ¡°That¡¯s really good of you, Natalie,¡± he said instead. ¡°What time do you need the turkey? I was timing everything to have it ready a little after six o¡¯clock, but I can adjust. And how do I get it to you?¡± she asked. So turkey is a go. Cube meal delivery logistics¡­ ¡°Let me get back to you on that. The grocery deliveries probably get teleported from the TC to us here. But your food deserves a guard.¡± She laughed like he¡¯d said something hilarious. ¡°I¡¯m serious,¡± said Alden. ¡°It can¡¯t go sit in some pile at the TC or travel with a hungry wizard. I saw two Artonans gulp down a dozen servings of trifle by themselves. Some random TC employee might catch a whiff, and the next thing you know, the turkey will be missing a drumstick. I¡¯ll see if I can make arrangements to come get it myself.¡± She was still laughing. ¡°I¡¯ll guard it with my big knives until you get here.¡± He nodded. ¡°And then use your big knives to guard me from Emilija and Hadiza.¡± After she was gone, he sat for a while looking at the thermos Porti-loth had given him. Made in Tennessee. Such a minor detail, but he actually had to find a cup made in the right location just to serve me potion in. He set the thermos back down and headed toward the cafeteria. On his way through the residential area¡¯s lobby, he took a moment to appreciate all the signs of effort that he¡¯d only glanced at when he passed through earlier. The projection screen was displaying lists of spells. He assumed, based on some of the names, that they were spells that had been found useful for decontamination. There were funeral programs laid out on one of the tables. And when he walked over to another table and looked inside a box labeled ¡°repair these,¡± he saw human personal possessions¡ªa water-damaged photo album, a broken watch, a bag full of painted shards. Plus, a honeydew melon with strange symbols drawn on it was sitting on one of the sofas. He had no clue what was going on there. It¡¯s not like you can tell which of the wizards are here because they want brownie points or summoning rights and which of them came because they were worried about Avowed they¡¯d worked with before. And some of them are probably just helpful people trying to do the right thing. But they were all working hard. When he reached the kitchen, Kabir was slicing tomatoes while he talked to another grocery store. Alden leaned against a counter, waiting for him to finish the call. Then, he said, ¡°I just talked to Natalie. I¡¯m pretty sure we¡¯ve been thinking about all of this the wrong way.¡± ¡°The Cook of the Moment won¡¯t sell her turkey!¡± ¡°She¡¯s giving it to the cause for free,¡± Alden said before a new wave of panic could strike the man. ¡°I¡¯ve been listening to you talk to people. You haven¡¯t actually been telling them who you want all the food for.¡± ¡°I tried that a couple of days ago. Someone hung up on me as soon as I said Matadero. They thought it was a prank.¡± ¡°I think you should forget about cooking. I think we should start calling people we know personally and asking them if they¡¯d like to donate a dish. For Thanksgiving. Whatever they want to share, not just North American Thanksgiving food. It would be more Anesidoran if we had all kinds of cuisines anyway.¡± Kabir blinked at him. ¡°You want to feed the wizards whatever our acquaintances have on hand? A hundred random home-cooked dishes?¡± ¡°You probably know some other chefs, too, don¡¯t you? But yeah. Potluck isn¡¯t professional, but it feels right for the holiday. And a lot of people are probably grateful to some Artonan who¡¯s helped them over the past few days. Maybe they want to show it. But it¡¯s not easy when they¡¯re wizards and they¡¯re busy and they disappear to the cube whenever they take a small break.¡± Alden shrugged. ¡°You and I are here, and I just thought¡­we could make something kind of positive happen. If we worked fast.¡± Kabir still looked flummoxed. ¡°Is it such a bad idea?¡± Alden didn¡¯t think it sounded too crazy. Most of the Artonans he knew would probably like it. ¡°I guess everyone might tell us no because of the short notice, or they might not be confident enough to donate their cooking or something. But if we call enough people, it could happen.¡± ¡°Wouldn¡¯t we need permission?¡± Kabir asked. Alden¡¯s brows drew down. ¡°Uh¡­for what?¡± ¡°I told General Esh-erdi I could handle the kitchen the last time he came by to talk to me,¡± Kabir said, lowering his voice to such a faint whisper that Alden had to lean toward him to hear it. ¡°I told him he could leave it to me. A turkey from an S-rank Rabbit with a cooking skill is one thing. But what if he¡¯s offended to see me bringing in food from all over the place that I didn¡¯t even cook?¡± ¡°Esh-erdi?¡± Alden was having a hard time falling into step with Kabir¡¯s thought process. ¡°Esh-erdi is the last person who would be offended by something like you not personally handling every dish. He seems really protective of Avowed. Possibly overprotective. And definitely too generous.¡± ¡°He¡¯s a very intimidating person.¡± ¡°Esh-erdi is? I mean¡­fair. That¡¯s true. But not in the way you mean. And you work for Aulia Velra.¡± ¡°Miss Velra doesn¡¯t compare to an Artonan General.¡± Alden had a feeling that his expression was a match for Kabir¡¯s. They each clearly thought the other was being ridiculous about this. ¡°I¡¯ll explain the potluck to the hn¡¯tyons,¡± Alden said, forcing maximum confidence into his voice. ¡°And they¡¯re going to think it¡¯s fine. I promise.¡± ¡°How are you going to find them to talk to them?¡± ¡°If they¡¯re not in their room, I¡¯ll just text Esh-erdi.¡± Kabir squinted at him. ¡°Are you serious?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Alden said. ¡°I¡¯ve talked to Esh-erdi several times. Even if they don¡¯t like the food for some reason, they¡¯re not going to be offended. I swear.¡± He waited for the chef¡¯s final verdict with a small and unexpected case of nerves tightening his stomach. He¡¯d just had the idea, and the idea was only a fun way to do supper. But it felt right. It was nice to imagine Porti-loth, Lind-otta, and Esh-erdi eating human foods made by humans who were glad they were here and understanding that people appreciated them. I could even freeze a plate for Zeridee, for when she¡¯s off her restricted healing diet. And Drusi-otta. She needs a plate too. He envisioned himself fixing one, calling her name, and then watching as the food disappeared into thin air. ¡°All right,¡± said Kabir. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll start by calling some restaurants.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll start by calling some of my friends.¡± They looked at each other. ¡°This will be interesting,¡± said Kabir. ¡°Do you think we¡¯ll have enough food?¡± Alden asked. ¡°We¡¯ve left it pretty late.¡± ¡°There are always the sandwiches.¡± They both nodded. <> said Kabir, <> Alden was already calling Haoyu. Cool, he thought. This could actually be cool. ¡°Hi, Haoyu!¡± he said as soon as his roommate answered. ¡°I thought you and your parents might like to know we¡¯re going to have what¡¯s probably the first ever Thanksgiving Potluck at Matadero, and we¡¯re taking food donations from anyone who wants to offer something.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE: Event Planning Isnt Hard 171 ****** Maybe I¡¯ve found my true calling, thought Alden. He was sitting in the cafeteria at the table he¡¯d helped clear dishes from. His tablet was in front of him, and he was adding Bobby¡¯s name to the list of people who wanted to donate food. Event planning isn¡¯t that hard. Because he¡¯d told Kabir he would take care of informing the generals, he¡¯d sent a message to Drusi-otta earlier, asking her if it was all right to offer Esh-erdi and Lind-otta food gifted by humans who weren¡¯t the official Matadero chef. Alden couldn¡¯t bring himself to call Esh-erdi personally about it. ¡°Are you too important to be in the presence of food made by people without a culinary degree?¡± was a bizarre distraction of a question, so¡­votary. Not an assassin. One trip to a Rapport sure could reframe a lot of things. He¡¯d also updated the votary on his planned movements to and from Matadero today, since the last he¡¯d heard she was still monitoring him when he left. Drusi-otta, with her typical brevity, had thanked him and told him that the dishes presented at the day¡¯s second meal were not something the knights considered at length. Maybe they¡¯ll consider these at length in a good way, though. It looks like it could be a great meal. He sent a text to Haoyu, telling him to expect his personal trainer to show up at the dorm bearing a cucumber salad. Alden had been sending most of the Apex residents there to drop off their donations. The hardest part of each phone call was the beginning, when he covered why and how he¡¯d ended up at Matadero planning a Thanksgiving dinner. But he¡¯d mastered it now. The trick was to say, ¡°It¡¯s not really Matadero, only the cafeteria at Matadero.¡± And everyone seemed willing to let it slide even if they were still confused. ¡°People are so helpful,¡± he said, admiring some of the first entries on the list. Natalie: magic turkey Zhang-Demirs: stuffed peppers Molly: blackberry cobbler Gustavo: feijoada Gretchen: shortbread bars And Kabir had just scored them a small flock of Peking ducks from a friend¡¯s restaurant. ¡°The entree table will look good with those in a circle around the turkey,¡± said Alden. Kabir nodded absently. He was muttering and counting on his fingers. ¡°I think we have plenty now. It¡¯s a good mix of main courses and sweets,¡± he said when he finished. ¡°For pickups¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ve told people in F to take their dishes to the TC for the batch teleport that¡¯s scheduled for 7:45 p.m.,¡± Alden said promptly. ¡°I¡¯ll be picking up the Apex food and the turkey around then, too. After I¡¯ve eaten dinner with my friends. I¡¯ll be back here with it all in time¡­just a second, someone¡¯s calling.¡± He looked at the name. Jeffy? What does he want? ¡°Hey, Jeffy,¡± he said as soon as the Aqua Brute¡¯s image appeared, floating in front of his eyes. ¡°What¡¯s¡ª?¡± ¡°Do Artonans like jalape?o or maple smoke better?¡± Jeffy was standing in the Apex Wright shop, beside one of the impulse item bins, holding up two bags of beef jerky. ¡°Huh?¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°I guess you heard about the thing I¡¯m doing somehow. We¡¯re good on food, though, and jerky isn¡¯t¡ª¡° ¡°Hey!¡± Jeffy dove toward the jerky display, and it shook violently. ¡°Oops. But look. They have turkey jerky, too!¡± He waved another bag eagerly at Alden. Alden hadn¡¯t called everyone he knew to request food. He¡¯d focused on adults and the classmates he got along with who had Avowed parents. Mature people with access to full kitchens had been the goal, and since enough of them had said yes, he hadn¡¯t had to resort to asking all of his peers for help. How did the news filter to Jeffy already? he wondered. No reason to reject him when he looked so excited, though. Alden could just leave the jerky in the kitchen instead of putting it on the feast table. Some wizard looking for snacks might find it later and appreciate it. ¡°Okay. Just don¡¯t get too much,¡± he said. ¡°You need to put like twelve of those packs you just grabbed back. And you can take the rest to Haoyu at the dorm. I¡¯m asking him to collect the food in one spot, so that I don¡¯t have to fly all over the island.¡± ¡°I could run all over the island and get stuff for you,¡± said Jeffy. You still aren¡¯t licensed to run on the highways. ¡°No, that¡¯s not necessary. The plan is set. Just take your jerky to Haoyu, and I¡¯ll go get it myself. Thanks.¡± Jeffy nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll see you there! I need to ask you about talent selection.¡± ¡°Your own talent selection?¡± Alden asked. ¡°You haven¡¯t done it yet?¡± He hadn¡¯t realized that. He¡¯d assumed Jeffy had accepted something that looked fun as soon as the System offered. ¡°The teachers all told me to wait until they¡¯d advised me, but now I¡¯ve let them advise me. And I don¡¯t think they really get me, you know? So I¡¯m asking everyone else.¡± ¡°It¡¯s important that you like what you choose,¡± Alden said. ¡°We can talk about it. Maybe not today, but soon.¡± ¡°It¡¯s cool that you¡¯re the Thanksgiving man for Matadero now,¡± said Jeffy. A woman wheeling bags of something called ¡°instant steel¡± on one of the shop¡¯s heavy-mover carts turned to stare at him. ¡°Let¡¯s not mention the cube loud enough for the entire island to hear,¡± Alden said. ¡°Sorry,¡± Jeffy whispered. ¡°Is it a surprise party?¡± When Alden had finished with him, he refocused on Kabir, who¡¯d stood up from the table but failed to make it more than two steps before he received another call of his own. ¡°With the dry ice it should be fine,¡± he was saying. ¡°All right. Thanks. We¡¯ll take care of it when it reaches us. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll appreciate it.¡± He scratched the back of his neck and turned to Alden. ¡°That was an ice cream parlor in Rosa Grove. They¡¯re donating, too. We don¡¯t need it, but I couldn¡¯t tell them no. The woman who runs it wanted to thank the generals for saving her parents¡¯ apartment.¡± ¡°That¡¯s awesome.¡± Kabir was still frowning. ¡°I should text everyone and let them know we¡¯ve got enough now. I¡¯m not sure how the ice cream parlor woman found out. She said someone named Larry had just called her. I don¡¯t think I know a Larry.¡± ¡°That¡¯s funny,¡± said Alden. ¡°My friend who just called must have heard about it from someone else, too. I wasn¡¯t even planning on asking him for anyth¡ª¡± [Jupiter:Don¡¯t worry, Alden. The cornucopia will be ready in time. I got permission to skip a class, so I could make it.] Alden re-read the text. He¡¯d told the System to send all messages directly to his interface, so that he wouldn¡¯t miss anything from the people he¡¯d called. Jupiter wasn¡¯t one of the people he¡¯d called. What cornucopia? What are they doing? ¡°We¡¯d definitely better let everyone know we¡¯re through now,¡± he agreed. ¡°I didn¡¯t tell people to spread the news, but there¡¯s obviously been a leak or two.¡± Kabir nodded. ¡°Yes. I¡¯ll¡­and there¡¯s another one. Let me answer it. <> He sighed. <> Kabir was saying when Alden stepped out of the elevator. <> Alden knew it wasn¡¯t the most admirable reaction, but he was so much more relaxed now that he had final confirmation that his helpers probably hadn¡¯t contributed to the gossip chain that was responsible for the overabundance of food. In the light of his own innocence, Kabir¡¯s renewed irritation seemed like an overreaction. ¡°Kabir, it¡¯s fine,¡± he said in a placid voice. ¡°A few extra loads of food to carry upstairs is nothing in the grand scheme of things. It will all work out.¡± Kabir shot him a look. Alden carried his tablecloth sack to the sorting corner they¡¯d established and started cutting through tape and opening carryout containers. Work fast, finish grandma¡¯s succotash, go to Natalie¡¯s¡­ The music was upbeat. It was keeping him going at a good pace, and when one of the songs ended and the voice of the announcer came on for the ¡°happy thought of the hour¡± thing they were doing throughout the broadcast to keep everybody¡¯s spirits up, Alden was looking forward to hearing it. <> Alden was bent double, reaching for an ugly organic lump that had rolled out of one of the packages. He thought it might be a truffle. I¡¯ve never held a truffle before. I wonder what it tastes¡­what? What did the radio lady just say? It was something terrible. He knew it because his whole body had clenched as his subconscious processed the words. <<¡ªAlden Thorn, a Rabbit attending school at Celena¡ª>> ¡°NO!¡± <<¡ªhaha! I¡¯m not sure how a sixteen-year-old ended up at Matadero, but there¡¯s a rumor that General Esh-erdi¡ª>> ¡°Stop saying my name. Why are you saying my name on the radio?! With his name! About this?!¡± ¡°¡ªRabbit teenager organizing a feast for exhausted wizards returning to Matadero tonight is a very happy thought. According to one of his friends¡ª>> ¡°Whoever it was, you¡¯re unfriended!¡± It took him about three minutes to find the culprit. Because the culprit was live streaming about Alden and the Thanksgiving dinner. ****** ****** DurnMary Davis, named for her great-grandma Mary and Durn-afor, the wizard who her parents admired for founding the passenger pigeon de-extinction program, was sitting at her desk eating a candy bar. The limited edition box it had come in featured Carousel, New York¡¯s homegrown hero, looking dazzling in his Winter 2040 costume. DurnMary¡¯s social studies homework lay untouched on the desk beside her while she stared at the handsome boy on her phone. Sun-kissed hair, a slightly mischievous smile, and he did the Win-Win wink exactly three times per live Q&A session. To let everyone know which questions were his favorites. Some of your fans are switching over to Finlay, Win-Win, she thought. You must be so sad, but you just keep smiling for us. She was going to type that into the Heelfeather Club forum later. If a comment got more than a thousand upvotes, Winston would autograph a photo for you. DurnMary had a soft spot for A-ranks, so she¡¯d keep boosting Winston¡¯s spirits as he inevitably faded into obscurity compared to the obvious superstars of the new classes at the Big Three hero programs. Some people focused all their affections on a single Avowed, but DurnMary thought the best part about being kind of maybe a little bit famous herself in the superteen fandom world was following all of the new kids together. The friendships, the scandals. They were the same age as the people she went to school with, but they were hotter, richer, and powerful, with the shadow of unknown futures hovering over them. Any one of them could be a star in the making. Or they could die. Or disappear. Sometimes, you could even see love blossoming for them. The cool breeze on Konstantin¡¯s face, she thought. It was always there when he needed it most. When he was walking back to his lonely room in Garden Hall after a hard day in the gym, one where he¡¯d struggled to match the other S¡¯s in combat and suffered another string of humiliating defeats, that breeze came to him. Just when he was wondering if he should give up and return to the solace of ballet, as his jealous brother Alexei kept commanding him to do, he felt it again¡ªso soft, so silky. The wind brushed over the hair on the back of his neck¡­almost like¡­a kiss. Thank you, gentle breeze, Konstanin thought, sighing woefully. You¡¯re the only one who cares about the most useless S-rank. In the dark shadow of the MagiPhys building, Vandy watched over him with her hands coaxing the wind to caress him, her beautiful eyes full of a hopeless yearning. DurnMary slapped the desk. ¡°Yes! That¡¯s going up tonight. It¡¯s the next chapter in CNHearts. It¡¯s practically a prophecy.¡± Vandy and Konstatin were perfect for each other. Everly could have that new fire adjuster at LiJean. ¡°So naturally I volunteered to help him out,¡± Winston¡¯s voice said. DurnMary shook herself free of the ideal romance she was planning for Kon-who-should-always-go-by-his-full-name-stantin. She looked back at the phone. Duper Supers, chat¡¯s going nuts. What did you do, Win-Win? ¡°Of course the whole class is contributing, but it¡¯s an American holiday, so¡­I can take a leadership role if they decide they need me to. I¡¯ll be making hotdogs. Like a cooking show with all of you watching. Make some suggestions. What should I top them with? What kinds of condiments do Artonans like? Hit me with your answers and grilling tips in the comments.¡± ¡°Holy Duper Supers,¡± DurnMary breathed as she read back over the chat history so fast her thumb was getting sore from the rapid scroll. ¡°We have confirmation that RadishBunny is at the cube. My god. Oh my god! I thought that was just a stupid rumor. He could be the first B-rank there ever. He probably is. This is proof that¡­that something! He must be friends with a wizard or maybe¡ª¡° She couldn¡¯t think straight. Alden Thorn. The most mysterious teenager on Anesidora. Maybe on the whole planet. People who said he wasn¡¯t that interesting compared to real heroes needed to stuff some non-limited edition Frosted Brutie-O¡¯s in their mouth and chew so nobody else had to hear them speak. He was silent on social media even if you tried to tell him your parents were into pigeons, too. He had such a tragedy of a life. He had been spotted flying around on a green thing that belonged to one of the powerful anti-demon military wizards. But all the curiosity about why he was doing that had dried up after the Maricel Alcantara bombshell. That girl had shot up the popularity rankings fast. But now Alden was definitely at Matadero? For sure? And he was doing something there? More. Info. Needed. [Win-Win, Heelerman, Sir Winsalot,] DurnMary typed. Three heart emojis. One prayer hands. [You are my FAVORITE Avowed. But what is that Alden guy doing at Matadero? Is it safe? Is he breaking the law?] Win-Win was adorably uncomfortable about discussing people in his class who might be more popular than him. Most of his fans didn¡¯t notice, but DurnMary had a gift for detecting his little facial twitches. Or maybe she¡¯d just realized that he was more likely to answer questions about his classmates if the person asking the question said something negative about them. Winston Heelfeather looked at the camera. He put down the pack of hotdogs he¡¯d been displaying. He was sitting in his dorm room, in front of the bulletin board with all his non-digital fan mail pinned to it. His roommates didn¡¯t let him film in the rest of the apartment. ¡°We¡¯ve got a question from FeathersFavoriteNYC that I feel like I have to answer. You guys know I always run, but never from the truth.¡± He winked at the camera. DurnMary winked back at him. ¡°I¡¯m positive Alden isn¡¯t doing anything illegal,¡± said Winston. ¡°How could a Rabbit break into Matadero when even a deadly organization like SAL couldn¡¯t? No, he¡¯s just really, really close to the Artonans. He lived with them for months during that thing on the moon. Some people in our class are even saying the System rescued him from The Span before them¡ªoh my gosh, by the way, you guys have to remember to visit the socials of all my classmates who suffered through that. Tell them how glad you are that they¡¯re okay! It was really terrifying for them. But yeah. Alden got saved from The Span first. Even though his combat potential¡­well, he¡¯s the best B-rank in our class!¡± Winston laughed. ¡°So it¡¯s natural for him to be close to the wizards and want to thank them for protecting him and cleaning up Anesidora. Some of us are even thinking that with that green octagon he¡¯s flying around, he¡¯s probably on his way toward a dream job for a Rabbit. There are rumors that he¡¯s really hoping that General Esh-erdi will offer him a permanent position if he does a good job as an assistant and octagon driver.¡± Winston smiled. ¡°It¡¯s only a rumor, but¡­good for Alden. A job like that would probably pay better than superhero work. If it ends up taking him away from the program so soon after we¡¯ve met, I know we¡¯ll all be sad, butwe¡¯ll also be happy he found the career that makes his heart race like a speedster. ¡°So¡­when I heard he wanted to host a big Thanksgiving for the wizards and he was worried there wouldn¡¯t be enough food, I was so glad to help him out with it. We¡¯re going to make this a great party together!¡± The next twenty minutes were some of the best television DurnMary Davis had ever seen. Winston kept dropping hints about how close Alden Thorn was to General Esh-erdi and it started to sound more and more like his position as the General¡¯s personal Rabbit errand person was a done deal. Meanwhile, the Super Tomorrow group that talked about all the young Avowed was blowing up¡ªalmost as big as it had on the day Maricel¡¯s involvement in trying to stop the SAL terrorists had gone public: ¡°Is RadishBunny leaving us? Nooo. It¡¯s too soon! This group only just named him RadishBunny!¡± ¡°Is General Esh-erdi the reason RadishBunny got lost in the first place? Or did they become best friends on that Thegund asteroid?¡± ¡°STOP EVERYTHING. Guys, did RadishBunny help Maricel defeat the SAL people? Maybe she¡¯s going to be at #MataderoThanksgiving!¡± ¡°Alden has no family. Remember that. Maybe he met General Esh-Esh on Moon Thegund and became like a son to him. I wish an Artonan would adopt me, too.¡± Winston was so busy talking it took him forever to get his hotdogs downstairs to the grill outside Garden Hall. But DurnMary stuck with him every step of the way. She watched as Jeffy¡ªS-rank Aqua Brute, definitely going places¡ªcame over to say hello. ¡°You¡¯re not doing the charcoal right, Winston.¡± ¡°I think I know how to grill,¡± Winston said, massaging one of the briquettes with the flame on the end of his lighter. The Brute shook his head. ¡°My Grandpa grills all the time. He doesn¡¯t just light the coals while they¡¯re spread out flat. You need to go get the chimney from the community kitchen.¡± That sounds pretty logical, thought DurnMary. Jeffy almost walked into one of the filming drones. He didn¡¯t seem to realize he was part of a cooking show. ¡°Like I was saying!¡± Winston said loudly. ¡°Today we¡¯re making hotdogs because Alden asked for my help. And I¡¯m always here for my friends.¡± ¡°These are for the Thanksgiving potluck at Matadero?¡± Jeffy said excitedly. ¡°I made beef jerky.¡± He looked at the camera. ¡°I made beef jerky. Actually I just bought it, but I mixed it up so every wizard gets a bite of smoky maplepe?o turkey jerky instead of only one flavor.¡± So he does know he¡¯s being watched. ¡°Alden realized that the wizards weren¡¯t going to have a Thanksgiving, so he¡¯s planning it for them,¡± said Jeffy. ¡°It¡¯s a special Anesidoran Thanksgiving with food from lots of countries. He¡¯s a nice guy. He gave me his shirt when mine broke once.¡± Winston grabbed the tongs before Jeffy could. ¡°I was just telling my fans how Alden is probably going to be making a lot of money working for General Esh-erdi. As his Rabbit assistant.¡± He keeps saying assistant and Rabbit like he¡¯s driving a point home, thought DurnMary. Careful, Win-Win. You¡¯re being more heavy-handed than usual. ¡°That¡¯s why he¡¯s at Matadero,¡± Winston said. ¡°I thought he was there because he got hurt and the healer wanted him to stay,¡± said Jeffy. DurnMary¡¯s face was so close to her phone she was fogging the screen. ¡°That¡¯s what he told us,¡± Jeffy said. ¡°These are American beef hotdogs,¡± Winston said. ¡°Arfdogs! My favorite brand.¡± ¡°He came to school in a cast and everything,¡± said Jeffy. ¡°It was a magic cast.¡± ¡°ARFDOGS,¡± said Winston. ¡°I¡¯d love to talk to the people who make them about a collab because they are delici¡ªeep!¡± A green blur dropped out of the sky so fast that Jupiter, who was collecting peppers from a nearby plant, dropped several. Winston, apparently under the impression that an aerial attack was taking place, ran away so fast he completely vanished from view. ¡°Hi, Alden!¡± Jeffy said brightly. ¡°Are you here to pick up my jerky?¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-TWO: Plastic Wrapper and All Alden¡¯s head throbbed. His ears roared. Fury and flight speed were equally likely culprits. He jumped off the nonagon, taking in the situation as well as he could in this mood. Jeffy¡ªcheerful beside the grill. Jupiter¡ªfloating peppers and looking intrigued. Drones¡ªhovering, two of them filming, one doing something else. Maybe it performs some amazing spell that makes Winston seem like a likable human being to his fans. A few people were going in and out of the entrance to the girls¡¯ building, which was almost hidden from this spot here in the cookout area at the back of the garden. And Winston was all the way over there with them. On his own interface, Alden could see himself in profile, standing a couple of steps away from Jeffy and the grill. He¡¯d been watching Winston¡¯s hideous¡­whatever the hell it was¡­on the way over here. He might have screamed at the speedster a few times. Hard to remember clearly. He¡¯d definitely texted and beenignored. Now, his fists were clenched. He wanted to scream some more. This was worse than when Hazel had forced his Peace of Mind debt to land. He was angry, embarrassed,sorry he hadn¡¯t foreseen this somehow and headed it off. ¡°Are you here to pick up the food?¡± Jeffy asked again. Alden pulled his eyes away from Winston. He left the drones behind. It¡¯s enough. ¡°No, Jeffy.¡± Alden stared at the main camera. ¡°Since Winston refused to answer my messages, I flew all the way here to say that he wasnot correct about us needing more help for the Thanksgiving meal. If you¡¯re on Anesidora and thinking of donating, thank you so much. But we have plenty of food and decorations lined up. Maybe consider having dinner with your friends tonight instead. ¡°I also wanted to ask Winston why he would do something like this.¡± An artful revenge would probably have included a wounded look or an astonished tone. Something to tug on the heartstrings of the people watching. But Alden was too pissed off to even try it. What hereally wanted to do was shove the whole pack of Arfdogs down Winston¡¯s throat, plastic wrapper and all, while screaming, ¡°SHUT UP! SHUT UP, you selfish piece of shit!¡± So he looked irritated, and he sounded stressed. Maybe he was going to come across as a bad person. But he was talking now, and there probably wasn¡¯t much time left before Winston realized he ought to shut off the cameras. ¡°Winston knows I don¡¯t want to have much of a media presence right now. Focusing so much on me during this Q&A session, when I told him just a few days ago that I wasn¡¯t ready to talk about myself online yet is¡­yeah. But I guess he¡¯s still mad about me beating him in gy¡ª¡± The stream ended abruptly. Winston was suddenly there, yanking the little round camera drone out of the air and away from Alden. ¡°Don¡¯t talk to my fans!¡± he said, in a tone of shock he hadno right to. ¡°I didn¡¯t give you perm¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re over here now? Good.¡± Alden stepped toward him. ¡°I have a question for you.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t just say whatever you like to another person¡¯s follow¡ª!¡± ¡°Are you the most important man on Earth?¡± Alden asked. ¡°That¡¯s my question.¡± Winston gaped at him. ¡°You,¡± said Alden, staring him down. ¡°YOU. Are you, Winston Reginald Heelfeather, the most important man on Earth? Is that how you think of yourself? Like, if you wake up tomorrow and the internet has disappeared and nobody can ever again see your Win-Win whatever it is you do for hours every day with your obnoxious drones¡ªwill the planet we live on stop spinning?¡± ¡°You¡¯re acting like a psycho!¡± Winston shouted. ¡°Yes or no?¡± ¡°No!¡± Alden took another step closer to him. ¡°Then why the fuck areyou making up stories about Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi? He¡¯s busy cleaning up the ocean so that it doesn¡¯t swallow the island we¡¯re standing on, and you¡¯re acting like he¡¯s a toy you canplay pretend with. In your twisted little brain, are your Arfdogs and the feud you¡¯ve obviously decided the two of us are having really so serious that lying about someone the System calls ¡®General¡¯ seemed like agood idea to you?¡± Winston looked worried for a few seconds. Before Alden could derive any satisfaction from it, though, the worry was replaced by a scoff. ¡°I wasn¡¯t lying. I was just sharing rumors. I said ¡®probably¡¯ and ¡®maybe¡¯ a lot. It¡¯s not like that¡¯s illegal. SoI didn¡¯t do anything wrong.¡± ¡°Just sharing rumors,¡± Alden said flatly. ¡°There¡¯s a specific rumor about Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi accepting my lengthy pleas to take me on as his ¡®octagon waxer?¡¯ There¡¯s a rumor about me moving into his house on the Triplanets for literal years so that I don¡¯t have time to finish school here with the rest of you? You heardthose rumors somewhere?¡± ¡°I think Alden¡¯s mad at you, Winston.¡± Winston and Alden both ignored Jeffy¡¯s interjection. Winston straightened. ¡°How do you know if I heard them or not? People say all kinds of things about you.¡± ¡°Fine. Where did you hear those particular things?¡± Winston Heelfeather rolled his eyes. You childish bastard. Alden unclenched his jaw with difficulty. ¡°Well, those rumors are wrong,¡± he bit out. ¡°Now you know. So go snuggle up to that camera and apologize to Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi for letting unverified garbage fall out of your mouth over andover again. I counted you saying his name eighteen times on my way here from Matadero, and I was flying fast.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t get to say what I talk about on my own channel! You¡¯re not my boss or my mo¡ª¡± ¡°No need to apologize to me!¡± Alden raised his voice. ¡°Just him. You should probably apologize to your fans and the company that makes those hotdogs, too, but that¡¯s up to you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not apologizing! Get your own fans if you want to say something. I know that¡¯s your plan anyway. This too cool to care thing you do isso fake. Everyone¡¯s sick of it!¡± ¡°What are you even talking about?!¡± ¡°We all know the truth. We can see through you!¡± ¡°You¡ª¡± Running footsteps cut Alden off. He turned his head in time to be face to face with Haoyu. ¡°You have to come quick,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°There¡¯s a problem with some of the food.¡± He glanced at Winston then back at Alden. ¡°Sorry if I interrupted, but I do need you.¡± Alden caught his breath, collected his thoughts. Fuck. I¡¯m just wasting my time with this idiot, aren¡¯t I?¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯m coming.¡± He started to follow Haoyu. ¡°You didn¡¯t even beat me!¡± Winston called after him. ¡°A trick isn¡¯t the same as winning in fair combat!¡± ¡°Ignore him.¡± Haoyu grabbed the sleeve of Alden¡¯s shirt like he was afraid Alden wouldn¡¯t take the advice. ¡°I wanted him to apologize,¡± said Alden. ¡°No. Iwanted him not to be such a jackass in the first place.¡± ¡°That might be too much to ask for in his case.¡± The automatic doors slid open. Haoyu glanced over his shoulder to make sure Winston wasn¡¯t following them, then hurried over to one of the tables in the common area to grab a casserole dish with an envelope taped to the glass lid. The community kitchen was mostly full of students Alden didn¡¯t know, but Mehdi was in the corner arguing with someone on the phone about whether raisins could be substituted for dates. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with the food?¡± Alden asked, taking the stairs up two at a time, trying to put his mind back on the things thathad to be dealt with this afternoon. ¡°None of it¡¯s actually poisoned, is it?¡± ¡°I lied a little bit,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Sorry. The food¡¯s fine. I was just worried about you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like I was going to fight him.¡± ¡°Youwere verbally fighting him. And I¡¯m sure he deserved it. I don¡¯t know what happened. But if he was extra horrible today, and took a swing at you¡­um¡­¡± Alden sighed. As they approached their apartment, he saw that the door was open a crack. ¡°Did you run out so fast you forgot to close it?¡± Haoyu frowned. ¡°No. I was already downstairs when you got here. Kon knocked and told me he talked to a lady who wanted to deliver this.¡± He lifted the casserole dish. ¡°I don¡¯t know why he couldn¡¯t have just brought it up himself instead of telling her to leave it on the table down there.¡± When Alden pushed the door open, the sight that greeted him took his mind off Winston at least. The counter and the table were covered in food, like he¡¯d expected. Less expected was Kon, lying on the fuzzy rug in front of the fireplace, wearing pink sunglasses, and moving his arms and legs like he was trying to make a snow angel. Haoyu gasped in outrage and rushed past Alden to confront the villain. ¡°Kon! You broke into our apartment!?¡± ¡°I can revert the doorknob''s lock as long as it¡¯s been opened within my time limit,¡± said Kon, still flapping all four limbs. ¡°When is Lexi coming back from the library? Ineed him to see me like this.¡± Haoyu set the casserole dish down on the floor, and then dove on top of him. ¡°Ow! Man,I¡¯m not a DuraBrute.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. You¡¯re a <>! Give Sunny back his glasses!¡± ¡°The polar bear has a name!¡± Haoyu liberated the sunglasses from Kon¡¯s laughing face. ¡°You get his feet, Alden. We¡¯ll throw him down the stairs.¡± ¡°Alden wouldn¡¯t do that to me. He¡¯s a good person.¡± ¡°I almost dropped the nonagon on Winston¡¯s head,¡± said Alden. ¡°So I wouldn¡¯t be too sure about that. Crap! The nonagon! I left it down there where people could play with it.¡± He ran over to the living room window, shoving a bromeliad leaf out of the way to unlatch it, and leaned out until he could see the grill. Winston was gone. Jeffy seemed to be studying the pack of hotdogs. And the nonagon had an unauthorized passenger already. ¡°Jupiter!¡± Alden shouted. ¡°Jupiter, I¡¯m going to move it now! Get off of it!¡± She waved, but she didn¡¯t get off. Does that mean she wants me to move it with her on it or what? ¡°I¡¯m going to park it on the roof!¡± he clarified. ¡°The roof!¡± ¡°She can just climb down if she doesn¡¯t like it up there,¡± said Kon from behind him. ¡°Have you guys seen that thing she¡¯s making for the wizards? She says it represents thooomf¡ª!¡± Alden looked around and saw Haoyu walloping Konstantin with a sofa pillow, then he turned his attention back to the nonagon. He directed it up slowly and then toward him. When Jupiter arrived at the window, she was stringing peppers on what looked like a vine that had been stripped of its leaves. She was also wearing sandals and a long flowy skirt with her uniform top, which made for a strange combo. ¡°You need to get off," Alden said. "I¡¯m going to put it on the roof.¡± She was staring at the bromeliad. ¡°Where¡¯d you getthat? Can I¡ª¡± ¡°You can¡¯t have it!¡± shouted Haoyu. "You kill half the plants you use anyway!" Jupiter sighed and got onto her knees. She held the pepper string out toward Alden. He took it so that she could climb through their window. <> she said to the bromeliad as she passed. Then she looked around. ¡°Your room has very handsome furniture. You need to get rid of the people in the room above you, so you can raise the ceiling and have the exposed beam look.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll get right on that,¡± said Alden. ¡°The cornucopia¡¯s almost finished.¡± She looked at him. ¡°I really wanted to know what Matadero smells like. But it¡¯s hard to pick it up because you smell so much like crab, garlic, and truffles.¡± ¡°I spilled some kind of seafood broth on me earlier.¡± He had also crushed the life out of a truffle. ¡°That¡¯s him?¡± Kon asked. ¡°I thought it was whatever was in this dish Haoyu set down. You do smell a lot. It¡¯s not bad, but it¡¯s powerful.¡± ¡°Jupiter, help us throw Kon down the stairs,¡± said Haoyu. She looked at Kon. ¡°But the window¡¯s closer.¡± ¡°Jupiter, how could you? We were teammates. Team Konstantly Awesome went through so much togeth¡ªwhat are you guys doing?¡± He seemed very surprised when they actually did stuff him out the window onto the nonagon. Alden parked him on the roof. When Haoyu shut the door on Jupiter, Alden said, ¡°Thanks for giving me an excuse to get away from Winston. I needed it.¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°What¡¯d he do?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure how it started, since he was already spewing random bullshit when I tuned in. But by the time it ended, he¡¯d made up fictional versions of me and a knight and as good as promised his followers that I¡¯d be leaving the program any day now to pursue my higher priority dream of living in Esh-erdi¡¯s garage.¡± Haoyu pursed his lips. ¡°He¡¯s imploding, then. Earlier this week, he was making digs about Finlay ¡®running away¡¯ from The Span, but they were subtle.¡± ¡°If he¡¯s going to implode, why does he have to drag others down with him?¡± Alden bent and picked up the casserole dish. ¡°Him saying stuff that¡¯s easily proved wrong will only make him look bad in the long run,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°I know.¡± Alden set the dish on the table, and untaped the envelope from the top. The food under the lid was green. Creamed spinach, he was guessing. When he opened the envelope to see who it was from, he found a short letter addressed to ¡°the Generals and wizards at Matadero.¡± ¡°We will never be able to thank you enough for helping our children,¡± it said. ¡°Liam, Tina, and Royce are the most important people in the world to us¡­¡± This is the kind of thing I hoped we¡¯d get for the potluck. He carefully folded the note back up and re-taped it to the dish. ¡°I¡¯m not sure what to do now,¡± he said. ¡°My schedule¡¯s completely off. I think there¡¯s an air traffic monitor who¡¯s mad at me. And I still have so much Thanksgiving left.¡± ¡°You should get rid of the crab smell before anything else,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Really?¡± Alden sniffed the front of his shirt. His hand smelled so much like truffle that he couldn¡¯t detect the crab. ¡°You might be right.¡± On his way back to his bedroom, he noticed that Kon had actually succeeded in making a noticeable carpet angel. ****** ****** The rest of the afternoon was bonkers. Alden felt like he¡¯d volunteered to juggle a few balls to brighten up a party, only to realize too late that all the guests had taken that as an invitation to throw everything they had at him. He dropped a lot. He got hit in the face a few times. And there was nothing left to do but keep juggling as much as he could. ¡°I¡¯m sorry but Idon¡¯t have time to answer questions,¡± he said to a woman who¡¯d just called. She ran some local interest site that Alden had never heard of. He rolled over the back of the sofa, which had been re-positioned to block the hallway that led to their bedrooms. Lexi, who was sitting on the sofa with Writher, looked resigned. ¡°Not today. My only statement about the potluck is already up on my Trime account. Yes, I do think, ¡®Happy Thanksgiving. I appreciate all the help so much. We have enough food now,¡¯ covers it.¡± Not that it¡¯s working. ¡°Bye.¡± ¡°Who was that?¡± Haoyu asked, passing a cordless slow cooker¡ªnot his own¡ªout the window to Lucille. They were in charge of loading the nonagon. Alden was trying not to look because the sight of the growing pile was adding to his anxiety. ¡°Someone from some website the System translated as ¡®Star Eyes,¡¯¡± said Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Mr. Zhang-Demir, Astrid, and Njeri were at the kitchen table performing final quality checks and making sure everything was labeled and sealed for travel. Alden had some concerns about the amount of tape Haoyu¡¯s dad was using. The dishes definitely wouldn¡¯t leak, but he thought he and Kabir might need an axe to get them open again. He¡¯d been an awesome help though. Not for the ¡°taste testing,¡± but for the intimidation factor. Before he¡¯d shown up, other people living in the dorms who¡¯d gotten wind of the fact that Alden was present had started appearing to ask questions about Matadero and the attack, like he was going to be able to personally answer everything the President of the Anesidoran High Council couldn¡¯t. Alden had told them he knew nothing more than they did, that he was tattooed to secrecy, and that he was busy. But even when they left, they didn¡¯treally leave. For a while, there had been a throng hanging out in the hall outside their door like it was the new, must-be place for anyone who wanted to talk conspiracy theories about the Submerger boat and its passengers. A few uni students had even shown up. Haoyu had asked his dad to get rid of them as soon as he¡¯d arrived. Since then, people who entered the apartment had developed the ability to politely drop off their food and leave if they weren¡¯t helping out. Most of them anyway. Mr. Zhang-Demir only gave off no-nonsense adult vibes to people who hadn¡¯t grown up with Haoyu. Whenever Kon flitted by for a few minutes, the level of goofing off skyrocketed. Earlier, Alden had chased Bobby downstairs to thank her for the cucumber salad in person and ask what was up with their training schedule now that everything was out of whack. When he¡¯d gotten back to the room, Kon, Haoyu, and his dad were all making mustaches for themselves out of licorice ropes that had fallen out of a package. What¡¯s left to do? he asked himself now. He had to make at least one trip down to F to deliver everything he could to the TC before going to Natalie¡¯s. Fridge,he decided. He opened it. ¡°Did someone bring a pitcher of milk? That¡¯s not going to happen. A pitcher of milk will be a pain to carry and it¡¯s not specia¡ª¡± ¡°But it¡¯s so good!¡± ¡°You have to take that!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not plain milk.¡± The chorus of objections from all the girls was so sudden and so loud that Alden felt like he¡¯d accidentally committed a crime. He turned to see even Lucille leaning back through the window like she was afraid the milk needed to be protected. ¡°Uh¡­I¡¯ll take it. Don¡¯t panic, anybody.¡± ¡°Marsha brought that while you were in the bathroom,¡± Lexi reported. He was currently keeping the master list of who had given what. ¡°Marsha?¡± ¡°It goes with this,¡± Astrid said, running over to join him by the fridge. She pulled out a huge glass jar full of something red and goopy. The blood of Marsha''s enemies. ¡°It¡¯s fresh strawberry syrup with strawberry pieces,¡± Astrid said. ¡°The milk is more like melted vanilla ice cream. You mix them.¡± ¡°Marsha drinks it for breakfast every day,¡± said Njeri. ¡°And she shares. It¡¯s our favorite thing about her.¡± ¡°Okay. But can we put the melted ice cream in something with a lid? Even if I preserved it on the flight, it would be annoying for anyone else to handle afterwards.¡± Njeri ran off in search of a container. Alden emptied the fridge into styrofoam coolers. Rahul, the president of the B-list, had come over to check on him after hearing all the buzz around campus. Then he¡¯d left and returned with all the tape, the coolers, adhesive labels, markers, and more useful organizational things before heading to the MPE building for a class. What a hero, thought Alden while he taped the coolers.What an intellectual giant. Imagine stopping by to see what we actually needed instead of just bringing whatever you found in the back of a closet. I hope some day people pay him millions for firing garden gnomes out of his cannons. Someone had delivered folding tables and chairs. So many unnecessary folding tables and chairs. They were all stacked against a wall downstairs, getting in everybody¡¯s way. And there was no name on them other than Alden¡¯s own, so they looked likehis space-hogging tables and chairs now. He kept up a string of texts with Kabir. He packaged food. He shoved food out the window. He managed to keep his clothes clean. He ran what felt like ten laps around the dorms, suggesting that the people in his class who were still trying to make things should either finish up or give up as kindly as he could. He told them all that there would only be one more food flight leaving the dorms tonight, and it wouldnot be as frighteningly huge as this one. Then he headed to the grill to check on Jeffy. Jeffy had been at the grill for a really long time, receiving occasional deliveries of groceries. Alden assumed the Brute had decided he was cooking something better than jerky for the wizards, and he had committed himself to being enthusiastic about it no matter what it looked like because Jeffy had been the only redeeming part of Winston¡¯s stream. As he approached the grill, he found Everly Kim watching Jeffy¡¯s back with fascination. ¡°I think he might be a genius,¡± she whispered. ¡°I loaned him my camera.¡± That explained why the drone pointed at Jeffy was a white glitter model that looked like a snowball with a lens. ¡°What¡¯s he doing?¡± Alden whispered since she had. Everly air typed, and a link appeared: [My Grandpa Shows Us How To Grill Right (live)] Alden opened it to see Jeffy tandem streaming with a wiry, middle-aged man who was wrapping an ear of corn in foil with one hand while he sipped on a drink in a rocks glass with the other. ¡°All right, Jeffy,¡± he said. ¡°How are those chicken thighs looking on your end? You ready to cut into one?¡± Alden blinked. Then he saw the number of viewers and had to blink again. Then he saw the comments, and felt like he¡¯d entered a new dimension: ¡°Sharkpa is the best. I wish I had a Sharkpa.¡± ¡°Sharkpa, do you miss Jeffy?¡± ¡°I¡¯m crying. My dad never taught me how to grill.¡± ¡°Where¡¯s SharkNana? Has she gotten back from the store with our Arfdogs yet?¡± ¡°Are these¡­mostly Winston¡¯s fans?¡± Alden asked quietly. Everly nodded. She hadn¡¯t taken her eyes off Jeffy. ¡°And some of mine. We¡¯re going to grill the Arfdogs together when SharkNana gets back. We have to wait so long because the store is very far away, and it¡¯s night, and she drives slow. We¡¯re all a little worried because once she hit a deer. But we¡¯ve learned three different ways to light charcoal.¡± Alden almost wanted to stay and watch it himself. ****** ****** At 5:30 p.m., Alden perched on the Nine-edged Son outside the TC, having flown in winds so strong and sudden that he almost suspected there was an evil Shaper of Sky with a grudge against him. The nonagon itself had been unaffected, butrest in peace to that one bag that had caught a gust, billowed like a sail, and fallen into the Pacific. It had held someone¡¯s beautiful homemade bread loaves, and Alden was trying to convince himself that he wasn¡¯t a failure for not being able to catch it without risking his life and the rest of the load. Upon arrival, his interface had directed him to aerial vehicle parking. He decided not to obey it. Instead, he headed for the main entrance, intending to fly right toward the teleshipping area the easy way, only to find that the nonagon wouldn¡¯t fit through the doors. It was too wide. All right, just juggle another ball then. We carry everything through in batches. Hustle. He looked around. The nearest human in sight was too far away to make shouting for assistance anything but rude. Why was there nobody around to entrust you with things when you needed them? Hustle and muscle, then. He loaded his arms with bags, grabbed the largest stack of coolers he could manage, and headed for the door with a lot of styrofoam blocking his view. ¡°Pizzzzaaa pie is Anesidora¡¯s favorite!¡± said a familiar voice as he passed into the slightly warmer interior of the building. ¡°Pizzzzzaaa pie makes everyone smile!¡± That¡¯s the Post Drop I used to send my letter to the Velras. They must have it singing advertisements now. As he continued on, a toilet flushed freakishly loudly. They have got to get that plumbing problem fixed. He speed walked, ignoring the feeling he had that people were probably noticing him and pointing, until someone shouted his name. ¡°Alden! Mr. Alden Thorn!¡± He stopped and shifted to look to the side to find the woman who worked at the customer service desk smiling at him. ¡°You¡¯re him aren¡¯t you? The one who planned Matadero Thanksgiving?¡± ¡°That¡¯s me.¡± ¡°Do you need any help? I¡¯m not supposed to leave the desk since I¡¯m the only one here right now, but I could call someone.¡± ¡°That would be great. I tried to bring The Nine-edged¡­General Esh-erdi¡¯s flying vehicle inside with a bunch of packages on it, but it wouldn¡¯t quite fit through the doors.¡± ¡°We have a larger entrance for things like that! You could drive a bus through sideways if you wanted.¡± ¡°Thanks. That would make things a lot faster. I¡¯ll drop this off and then go back for the rest.¡± ¡°I can also give you a NesiCard if you need one today!¡± So she remembers me. ¡°I¡¯ll grab one before I leave. Where¡¯s the guy who¡¯s usually here? Is he all right?¡± Normally, Alden wouldn¡¯t have asked about the NesiCard man¡¯s welfare. But given what had happened recently¡­ ¡°He¡¯s fine,¡± she said. ¡°Decided the customer service desk wasn¡¯t for him.¡± Definitely for the best, thought Alden. That jerk was a sour welcome to Anesidora. He should have a job in some place where he doesn¡¯t have to talk to people. When he reached teleshipping, he tried to pretend that the puddle of cranberry sauce he found on the floor in front of the drop-offs counter had nothing to do with him while he filled the counter with everything he¡¯d brought. Since he¡¯d been shipping his cat last time, he¡¯d accompanied Victor through a whole security process, but he should just be able to leave the food. Where is the person I leave it with? As soon as he¡¯d had the thought, that person stepped out of the back. Before his eyes turned to Alden, they fixed on the stack of coolers and the forest of bags. He looked very angry to see them there. ¡°Listen,¡± he said, ¡°I don¡¯t know what restaurant you¡¯re from, but this is too much! Teleportation services are a limited Anesidoran resource, and even though something stupid is going on at the cube, that doesn¡¯t mean you can get away with¡ª¡± ¡°So this is where you work now!¡± Alden said, beaming at the NesiCard man¡¯s familiar scowl. ¡°I¡¯m really glad you¡¯re safe after everything that¡¯s happened.¡± The NesiCard man¡¯s face went slack. ¡°I¡¯m Alden. This is for Matadero. I¡¯m going to go get the rest of it. There¡¯s a lot.¡± ¡°You¡­why is it you?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be back later this evening witheven more,¡± Alden said. ¡°Happy Thanksgiving!¡± ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-THREE: The Thanksgiving 173 ****** One on-stream bite of a grilled bell pepper to satisfy the fans pestering Jeffyfor a glimpse of him. One nod at Konstantin, who was at the bottom of the staircase, scraping mashed potatoes and pieces of a broken bowl together while S?ren apologized. One loud groan as he glanced at his social media account and saw all the requests for information about the heartwarming thing the teenager with the heartbreaking story was doing. One piece of origami paper collected from his desk drawer. One shouted conversation out of his bedroom window to the swarm of people who¡¯d gotten involved in cornucopia decorating. He would not be flying that thing to Matadero later unless it shrank by half. They¡¯d been told. One warning to Haoyu and Lexi about the questionable nature of the potatoes that would soon be arriving. One strong handshake from Mr. Zhang-Demir. And one final flight down to F with a load of supplies for the NesiCard man. ¡°Even Artonans love pizzzzzzzaaa! Maybe!¡± One thought so crazy it would never have crossed his mind on a less ludicrous day. One frown as he stopped and stared at Post Drop #1301¡ª a graduation capstone project gifted to F City by Indah Juliana. He tried to target it with his skill. And he felt the pull of it, that little weighted point in the universe that marked the location of his entruster. His sense of it was oddly fragile, like it existed halfway between reality and a fevered hallucination. But there it was. He pressed his lips together. He watched the Post Drop until his eyes started to burn from dryness. ¡°I am not prepared for this, and I can¡¯t think through it right now. But thanks for the pizza.¡± A toilet flushed. Not normal, Alden thought, striding away quickly.Not my business. Not today. He flew fast toward Apex and Boomtown. ****** Alden parked the Nine-edged Son on the roof of the building where Natalie, Hadiza, and Emilija lived, and tried to tame his hair with one hand while he hurried downstairs. Their dinner party had started twenty minutes ago, and feelings of self-pity were occasionally breaking through the noise in his head. All the magic food will be gone. I bet there was magic food I could have eaten, and I missed it. He hurried down an acrid-smelling hall¡ªnot that unusual given the neighborhood¡ªand knocked on their door. A moment later, Natalie opened it for him. Warm air hit him and the stench was blown away by a bouquet of food smells that might have wafted in straight from heaven. Natalie was dressed casually in her pink overalls. Her hair was up in a bun, and she was wearing a pair of tiny earrings shaped like a fork and knife.¡°You made it!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry I¡¯m late. And I should only stay for half an hour or so. The chef at Matadero is going to need a hand dealing with all of it.¡± ¡°You¡¯re good,¡± she said, shutting the door behind him. ¡°That¡¯s enough time to eat and meet everybody.¡± Alden took in the group that made up ¡°everybody¡± while he followed her over to the fancy range she¡¯d bought with the money she¡¯d made doing his meal prep. The apartment was decorated for a party, and teenagers were sitting all over the furniture and floor. But it was quiet except for the sounds of spoons scraping bowls and the music coming from the television that hung on the wall opposite the kitchen. The TV was showing a recording from this morning¡¯s Thanksgiving Extravaganza in Atlanta. A high school band was playing on top of an air float that looked like a storm cloud while performers dressed in silver to represent raindrops used the aerial silks hanging from the float¡¯s underside. It was a cool show, worth watching even if someone had grown up with more Anesidora-level holiday spectacles in Alden¡¯s opinion. But nobody was looking. They were all too busy having sacred experiences with the food in their bowls. ¡°Everyone seems to like the appetizer course,¡± Natalie said proudly. On top of the stove, a large pot held what was left of a velvety golden soup. ¡°It¡¯s vegan!¡± she announced. I know it is. He stuck his face over the pot and took a deeper whiff. ¡°Natalie, it smells like you somehow melted comfort. I know you know that, but¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mind hearing compliments.¡± She bumped him with her shoulder and reached for the ladle. ¡°I am really glad you came. Emilija was posting threats on your pigeon picture earlier, and she saw your ¡®Please No More Food¡¯ message go up. So she stopped talking about how you should be forced to live on bread and water and started snooping on you instead. To see what was going on. Hashtag Matadero Thanksgiving is trending! There was a video of you flying to F a little while ago.¡± ¡°How did I look?¡± ¡°We couldn¡¯t see you too well. You were hidden by so many supplies. And what about that guy in your program? Emilija found his page. We don¡¯t like him. Is he a Rabbit-hater?¡± Alden glanced over at Emilija, who was sitting with her back to the dishwasher and her eyes closed as she licked the back of a spoon. She had a yellow maple leaf pinned to the front of her green dress. Other artificial leaves, looking abnormally lovely, hung from threads attached to the ceiling. ¡°You good there, Emilija? You know spoons aren¡¯t edible, don¡¯t you?¡± he said. She opened her eyes just wide enough to glare at him. <> Alden snorted, then looked back at Natalie. ¡°As far as I can tell, Winston Heelfeather¡¯s mad at me for existing in the same school as him, and he¡¯d sell his soul for fifteen minutes in the spotlight. He says awful stuff sometimes, but I don¡¯t think he¡¯s actually got convictions about Rabbits, ranks, or anything like that. He just obsesses over how his fame level compares to everyone else he meets.¡± ¡°Forget him then! Look at the star of the show before you eat your pumpkin orange soup.¡± She bent down to peer through the oven door and motioned for him to join her. Alden¡¯s nose being so close to the vent as he admired the oven¡¯s lone occupant was a blessing and a curse. ¡°Are you really going to preserve it until the wizards show up at Matadero for dinner?¡± she asked. ¡°Of course. This is a Natalie Choir skill debut. I¡¯m not going to let it sit out losing its crispy, juicy glow. Give it to me perfect, and I¡¯ll get it to them perfect. Promise.¡± She looked pleased. ¡°It¡¯s heavy.¡± <> Emilija muttered. ¡°I can handle a turkey,¡± said Alden. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind borrowing a bag or something, but I definitely won¡¯t let anything happen to it.¡± ¡°Make sure the wizard from Bunker Street has some,¡± said a voice from behind him. He straightened and looked around to acknowledge Hadiza. She was on the other side of the kitchen¡¯s island, empty bowl in one hand as she reached up to tap the thread holding one of the leaf decorations. It took on a glimmering quality, like it was catching the light in the room exactly right. ¡°Ro-den. That guy¡¯s name is Worli Ro-den.¡± The tattoo on Alden¡¯s chest was gone now except for the concentric triangles. When his arm was down by his side, they weren¡¯t noticeable. ¡°I¡¯ll make sure he gets some. Are you three really all right after what happened to you that night?¡± ¡°We¡¯re fine,¡± said Natalie. <> Emilija climbed to her feet and gazed at their guests with a superior expression. <> A few people were staring at their dishes like they couldn¡¯t believe the soup was gone. One boy in a fedora was watching the girl beside him finish hers off so intently that Alden wouldn¡¯t have been surprised to see him reaching over to stick his spoon in her bowl. <> ¡°No way!¡± said Alden, blocking the pot as she approached. ¡°Do you know what kind of day I¡¯ve had? Let me have firsts before you get seconds!¡± ****** The soup tasted like a trip to a pumpkin patch he¡¯d never been to, on a cool fall afternoon he¡¯d never experienced. Natalie was either improving or she¡¯d put more oomph into this one to make up for the lack of the entree she¡¯d planned. By the time Alden licked his bowl clean, the other guests had recovered from the appetizer glow and started grazing on the side dishes and desserts. They were all delicious, but not in the magical way. I guess a room full of people eating in utter silence wouldn¡¯t be much of a party. The television was louder now. People were milling around and introducing themselves. Alden recognized a few of the guests as fellow Rabbits from intake; the others were an eclectic mixture. It was a group just shy of thirty people, and Alden was the only Talent Development Program student. But he wasn¡¯t lonely. Everyone here knew he was stopping by on his way to #MataderoThanksgiving. ¡°So you¡¯re the one who had a teleporter acci¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re from that video with Aulia Velra and her granddaughter! Man, that was¡ª¡± <> ¡°You¡¯re the globie who¡¯s been inside the cube! And at a time like this. What¡ª¡± ¡°Yep,¡± Alden said in between bites of the few vegan offerings. ¡°That¡¯s me.¡± Please. My time is limited. Just let me eat in peace and pretend this is all I have left to do tonight. Actually, at any other time he would have been interested in this guest list. The people here were different from the students he usually spent his time with as far as interests and ambitions went. Other than the Rabbits, he talked to a third year Healer Hadiza had befriended who was trying to get her first comic book published, a second year Polar Brute who was stoked about the fact that he¡¯d gotten approval to travel with a university group in Antartica next year, and a Meister who played a giant drum weapon. Her passion was xenocultural studies, not weapons. She and the Brute had met Natalie at a club for people who were extraterrestrial travel and culture enthusiasts. Alden hadn¡¯t even been aware there was such a club on campus. They were all looking forward to a video talk that had been scheduled with a lortch village for next week. He watched the time he¡¯d allotted himself for a ¡°relaxing¡± meal tick away while he stood in the corner by a broom and dustpan, shoveling apple pie into his mouth. A pair of Wrights¡ªone of them the fedora guy, who lived next door with his parents and brother¡ªhad corralled him here to ask questions about the nonagon. Alden¡¯s answers were less knowledgable than they¡¯d hoped, but they were sticking around to explain their own current projects to him, as if his possession of a magical vehicle made him one of their kind. ¡°I¡¯m a LEW,¡± said the fedora. ¡°And so is she. We¡¯re both in our workshops half the time.¡± ¡°LEW?¡± Alden asked after swallowing another mouthful of pie. ¡°Longterm Earth-based Workers,¡± said the girl Wright. She was short, and the orange stars on her bobble headband were waving just below Alden¡¯s nose. ¡°Oh. I hadn¡¯t heard it abbreviated like that. You¡¯re both doing work with your powers already?¡± They¡¯d said they were finishing up high school classes and starting uni in January. The fedora was a student at CNH, and the bobble band was at Naya Din on the bayside campus, which was closed at the moment due to water damage. Alden hadn¡¯t expected them to have Avowed jobs. So far the only high schoolers he¡¯d met who got summoned frequently were Rabbits and Lute. ¡°There have been way more Wright assignments than usual,¡± said the fedora. ¡°I don¡¯t mind as long as it doesn¡¯t last forever. I make equipment storage cases. Not the most exciting thing, but I do have to customize each one for the object going inside it. A lot of unusual tools and weapons end up in my hands for a little while.¡± ¡°And I make automated process panels for drudgery chests,¡± said the girl. ¡°Those are¡­?¡± ¡°Amazing!¡± said Natalie. ¡°They¡¯re amazing.¡± She¡¯d somehow gotten away from a group that was trying to persuade her to use her skill while smearing jam on a buttermilk biscuit, for the purpose of creating a super biscuit they could use as a prize for the limbo game they had going on. She helpfully grabbed Alden¡¯s paper plate and tossed it toward the trashcan. It was the most evil thing he¡¯d ever seen her do. He¡¯d been planning to get that last crumb. ¡°Drudgery chests are like little factories you can teach to do repetitive jobs for you. Like if I had one¡ª¡± ¡°There is no way I can get you one,¡± said the Wright girl. ¡°¡ªand I wanted to chop a thousand onions, which is a horrible job that makes a person cry¡ª¡± ¡°Even if you cry for days, I can¡¯t get you one.¡± Natalie¡¯s smile was so sunny Alden was surprised the onions didn¡¯t chop themselves for her.¡°I would only have to chop three onions inside the drudgery chest¡ª¡± ¡°More like twenty.¡± ¡°And then all I¡¯d have to do is keep giving it piles of onions and it would be an onion-chopping professional!¡± ¡°They¡¯re really not for cooking,¡± the Wright said, keeping her eyes on Alden like she was afraid to look too hard at Natalie. ¡°Of course they could be; but there¡¯s only one I know of being used that way, and adding onto it has been my mother¡¯s hobby since she was my age. She¡¯ll probably sell it to the Artonans eventually. They¡¯re highly sought after. Not because they¡¯re the best at every automated task, but because you can re-instruct them to do whatever you need at the moment.¡± ¡°You mean have the same device chopping onions in the morning and then frosting cupcakes in the afternoon?¡± asked Alden. ¡°See! He thinks it¡¯s a kitchen tool, too!¡± ¡°You¡¯ll have to take it up with the Artonans if you want a drudgery chest, Natalie. There¡¯s low supply for one of the components. I¡¯m on a waiting list just so I can put one together for my own personal use. They provide me with everything I need to fulfill orders for them, but otherwise¡­¡±Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°I¡¯m not making any personal projects right now either,¡± said her friend. ¡°Not because I can¡¯t get supplies, but because I¡¯m getting sick of making cases. The last thing I want to do in my free time is make another one.¡± When Alden left them, they were arguing about the Wright who¡¯d made the bomb that the SAL boat had been smuggling off the island and whether or not he had known where it was going when he created it. He stood across the kitchen island from Natalie, watching her garnish the turkey. It was resting on a glazed platter that was such a biteable candy apple shade, he was sure Hadiza had hit it with her skill. ¡°Thank you so much again for doing this. If everything else is ruined, at least we¡¯ll still have the traditional dish.¡± She didn¡¯t answer, and he realized her eyes weren¡¯t closed in momentary thought. She was actively using her power on the citrus wedges she was nestling around the bird. He watched her lips move as she mouthed a word. Laughter, he decided. She¡¯d said before that Cook of the Moment required her to focus on her own memories. Her own moments. As the skill developed, she¡¯d get more control over the flavors and the feelings her food evoked. Maybe laughter always tasted a little like cake batter in Natalie¡¯s head, and she would be able to inject a hint of that into a lemon if she wanted. I would absolutely eat a cake and laughter flavored lemon. She was taking a while with each piece of fruit. He reached into one of his back pockets and pulled out his piece of origami paper from earlier. It was currently a diamond with a couple of protruding triangles. He¡¯d stopped folding here, since this was the last part of the design that wasn¡¯t easily ruined. While Natalie focused on a kumquat, he pulled up the instructional video he¡¯d been watching in brief bursts this afternoon and finished his inadequate contribution to her holiday. ¡°Okay,¡± she said a couple of minutes later, opening her eyes. ¡°It¡¯s done?¡± The turkey looked glorious, but it had looked glorious even before she¡¯d started on the garnish. ¡°It¡¯s done.¡± She stared down at it. ¡°What if they don¡¯t like it?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll snatch it away from them and bring it back here to appease the beasts you live with.¡± He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with scent. Emilija¡¯s right. Taking it away from them after they smelled it cooking all day is a crime. ¡°The Artonans are going to love it,¡± he assured her. ¡°And here. I made a replacement for you.¡± He set the origami turkey on the countertop beside its more edible relative. It was a perky looking little thing with an upturned beak. And just as Alden felt a flash of pleasure at how neat the paper animal looked, it slowly tipped over onto its back. ¡°Oops.¡± Before he could reach over to set it upright, Natalie grabbed it. ¡°Oh my god! He¡¯s precious! I love him.¡± She held the turkey in her palm, and it tipped over again. Alden scratched his head. ¡°Sorry. He must be heavy in the rear. I¡¯ll make you a better¡ª¡± Natalie glared at him and cradled the turkey to her chest. ¡°No. Take it back. He¡¯s perfect.¡± ¡°He¡¯s got a tail so big he can¡¯t stand up straight.¡± ¡°He grew those giant feathers to impress the other turkeys. He¡¯s doing his best.¡± She righted the turkey again on its tiny paper feet and watched it fall over once more. They both looked at it for a second and then burst out laughing. ¡°I¡¯m going to name him,¡± Natalie said breathlessly when she¡¯d recovered enough to speak. ¡°I¡¯m going to name him something!¡± ¡°You should name him Big Butt.¡± ¡°He wants a noble name.¡± ¡°King Big Butt.¡± She threw a kitchen towel at him, and he caught it. ¡°Hey,¡± she said, ¡°you know how Verna was just saying there was only one place using a drudgery chest for cooking? It¡¯s a large one her mom made. Like a whole drudgery room. It¡¯s usually set up to make a meal of the day all by itself, and you can watch through a window. Do you want to come see it with me sometime?¡± ¡°Yeah, of course. New magic stuff is always cool.¡± ¡°Great! I¡¯ll find out when it¡¯s open again and let you know.¡± She smiled at the turkey and made it a nest in another towel. ¡°There you go. He¡¯s looking comfortable now.¡± ¡°Just needed a prop for his massive butt,¡± Alden said. ¡°His name is Wobble.¡± ¡°Wobble?¡± ¡°Wobble Gobble.¡± Alden nodded. ¡°A truly noble name.¡± ****** The flight of The Turkey Express was a remarkable experience. Alden would have preferred an unremarkable one, but he tried to act like he wasn¡¯t freaked out by any of the things that happened after he left Boomtown. Like former-Instructor Rao meeting him in the common area on his final, final stop by the dorms so that she could deliver a clove-studded ham. All her Avowed profile information was written on the aluminum foil that covered it, so that Alden could memorize it and then casually mention it in conversation to the Artonans he met. Or like Principal Saleh falling through the ceiling to land between the two of them and inform Rao that former faculty members shouldn¡¯t be lurking inside Garden Hall to bother students and insist they take their pork r¨¦sum¨¦s to Matadero. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about all of this,¡± Alden said when Rao was gone. He shifted his grip on the large shopping bag that Hadiza had given him for easier turkey hauling. ¡°I thought I was asking a few friends for help, but everything got crazier than I planned.¡± ¡°I¡¯m here to add to it,¡± said the Principal, passing him an accordion folder. ¡°But at least it¡¯s not food. Let¡¯s try and keep the next few holidays on the calendar simpler.¡± ¡°I will.¡± ¡°By the way, about twenty students are outside trying to attach a plant creation to Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi¡¯s flying device.¡± ¡°I know. They¡¯ve only got two minutes left, then I¡¯m leaving no matter what stage of the operation they¡¯re at.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t drop it on anyone.¡± Alden was just glad the Cornucopia of Earthly Vegetation was slightly smaller than a golf cart. It was kind of amazing for a blinged out salad horn, but he¡¯d been afraid it was going to be bigger than the Grant Park Christmas tree by the time Jupiter and all the others who¡¯d gotten involved were finished. Just before he boarded the nonagon, an older girl he didn¡¯t know grabbed him by the shoulders and said, ¡°Say bloom,¡± in an accent he couldn¡¯t place. ¡°Bloom?¡± ¡°No. In Artonan.¡± He opened his mouth. ¡°Not now! When you get there!¡± Which bloom? He knew three words for it. He guessed he¡¯d go through them all. Standing in the garden, he smiled for a hasty photo with everyone in the vicinity who¡¯d contributed. He saw Colibr¨ª, the uni instructor from his interview committee, coming down the pathway toward the group. But then Principal Saleh was talking to her. And the picture was taken, and he was up in the air. He waved goodbye to Haoyu. He waved hello awkwardly to the drones filming him. He flew at low altitude through Apex so that the cornucopia wouldn¡¯t kill anyone if the tarp and tape they¡¯d used to pin it down failed. And he waved some more any time he spotted someone on the street or in a window waving at him. This is surreal. I want a nap. He carried the turkey in his lap and almost cheered when he left the coast behind, shoved his driving hand forward, and zipped toward Matadero. The approaching sunset tinted the sky. ¡°System, call Kabir!¡± he said, lifting his voice over the wind. ¡°Kabir, I coming. I got the turkey!¡± ¡°I see you coming!¡± Kabir shouted back. He had a frenzied look on his face and a butcher knife in his hand. He was using it to hack his way into one of the coolers Haoyu¡¯s dad had wrapped. ¡°I¡¯ve been checking our hashtag to monitor your progress.¡± ¡°I hate the fact that we have a hashtag and people can do that! But I¡¯ll be there soon!¡± ¡°It¡¯s almost time!¡± said Kabir. ¡°I know!¡± ¡°We can do it!¡± ¡°If not, at least it will be over!¡± He could tell they understood each other perfectly. ****** ¡°Blossom,¡± said Alden in Artonan. ¡°Flower. Bloom.¡± Hundreds of tiny purple buds spread their petals. Kabir¡¯s hand slapped against his in a high five before they both rushed for the elevator again. One cornucopia left in the lobby of the residential area, covered in rainbow vegetable carvings and garlands, and sparkling thanks to someone¡¯s spell impression. It was stuffed to bursting with Earth fruits they¡¯d taken from the crates the Artonans already had lying around. ¡°I¡¯ll light the candles,¡± said Alden as they reached the cafeteria again. His turkey bag was still preserved. ¡°I¡¯ll put out the cards,¡± Kabir replied. The Wrightwork candles someone had sent earlier were spaced around the edge of the room at regular intervals. Kabir had been working hard while he was gone. Autumn Evening Picnic Set. Alden crouched to hold his hands over the wick on top of the first chunky black candle. Let¡¯s see what you look like. And let¡¯s not flub the casting, he thought wryly. Kabir¡¯s not paying much attention, and I can always blame the candle itself, but still. His fingers moved. He pretended he was lighting a promise stick. The command his authority gave for this was so familiar, and it seemed to grow easier every time. He wondered if it was him, getting stronger and more used to making this particular demand. Or if it was everything else, growing accustomed to listening to him and answering him. A flicker. One enchanted candle dimming the corner it sat in instead of brightening it, casting the shadows of trees against the ceiling and walls. Alden watched a ghostly leaf fall from a branch. ¡°Good candles,¡± he said. ¡°Keep going!¡± Kabir called. He had the accordion file Principal Saleh had given Alden, and he was spreading the cards it contained around the cafeteria tables. They were from the preschool children who attended Celena North¡¯s daycare while their parents worked or attended classes. The handprint turkeys and indecipherable drawings joined the few, more-legible notes sent by adults. Alden went to light the other candles. The work didn¡¯t really end. They just ran out of time. A couple of minutes before nine o¡¯clock, Kabir spied the first large group of wizards teleporting in thanks to a viewing spell he¡¯d set up downstairs. ¡°They¡¯re here!¡± he bellowed. He¡¯d gotten louder and louder as they approached the finish line. Alden didn¡¯t know if the chef was trying to pump them both up, or if it was a side effect of the champagne that Aulia Velra had somehow managed to have delivered by helicopter while he was away. Standing in the kitchen, Alden looked down at the floor. There were still a few mystery boxes that had come through the TC to open, still a few final touches to make things perfect. Kabir ran by with yet another chafing dish. The wizards could easily heat their own plates of food with a spell, but they were trying for proper temperatures anyway. We¡¯re done? He studied all of the containers. None of them seemed to be from individuals. Lots of packaging from businesses. Yeah, we¡¯re done. This can all go into the freezer later. Showtime. [Porti-loth,] he texted. [Second meal is ready. It¡¯s special.] [Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi¡­] [Hn¡¯tyon Lind-otta¡­] [Drusi-otta¡­] [Zeridee, we¡¯re having a Thanksgiving supper. You should come get a plate, and we¡¯ll save it for when you¡¯re allowed to eat Earth food again.] He freed the turkey from its bag carefully. Re-preserved it. Then he went to stand behind the long buffet Kabir had made by shoving tables together. Dead center, facing the elevator. For the first time, he had the chance to see it all arrayed in front of him. The tables had white cloths. The candles were doing a lot of heavy lifting on the atmosphere front. It looked really overambitious all of a sudden. Wrong. Like if he were throwing an amazing party for the species that was obsessed with parties, he should have gone bigger. And since he wasn¡¯t doing that, he should have gone smaller, with his original vision. Just the food and the gratitude. What if they think it¡¯s lame? What if they¡¯re tired and annoyed by it all? His mouth dried up. Then his eyes landed on the creamed spinach from Mrs. Long. He¡¯d already set aside the letter she¡¯d written to the two knights, so that it wouldn¡¯t get lost. And there were the stuffed peppers from Haoyu¡¯s mom. Bobby¡¯s salad. A mound of cheese muffins from someone who was living in one of the temporary housing domes on campus. A ton of food had been relegated to the fridges and freezers. They¡¯d put out the dishes from the people they knew and the ones that fit in with the potluck spirit. Everyone meant well and donated. They¡¯re all going to ask me how it went. What if it goes wrong? One new terror crossing his mind at the worst possible moment: ¡°Am I supposed to say something to everyone before the meal?¡± Kabir had just dashed by with a piping bag full of whipped cream. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Like a speech? I don¡¯t have to give a speech, do I?¡± Kabir stared at him. ¡°Well, I¡¯m not giving a speech.¡± ¡°Does there have to be a speech? I can¡¯t just drop the turkey and run away. Can I?¡± ¡°Of course not.¡± ¡°But what do I say? Me standing here in the center holding the turkey makes me look responsible for all of this. Like I¡¯m in charge.¡± ¡°You are responsible for all of this¡­don¡¯t look at me like I just hurt you by saying that! It¡¯s the truth!¡± The elevator arrived. The door that led to one of the cube¡¯s staircases opened at the same time. As the first bunch of chattering wizards walked in, Alden froze like he¡¯d been hit with a spell. They were looking around with curious expressions. ¡°This is the Thanksgiving?¡± he heard one of them say. ¡°Shadow trees.¡± ¡°Hello, Kabir!¡± ¡°The Thanksgiving!¡± someone else chirped. ¡°I was told the goal of the event is to eat one of everything.¡± ¡°Look! Drawings made by human children.¡± The preschool artwork was apparently worthy of everyone¡¯s attention. They were still exclaiming over it when the doors opened again. Alden felt his tension ratchet up to new heights as more wizards poured through, and then he spotted Lind-otta, Esh-erdi, and Porti-loth. And he suddenly relaxed. Lind-otta was watching her partner fondly while he bickered with Porti-loth about healing groves. Esh-erdi was wearing the same outfit he¡¯d had on when he and Alden had had their talk after his rescue. Boe¡¯s back. I¡¯m out of my squishboot. I got to visit with Stuart. I learned a hundred things while I was with him at the Rapport, and I¡¯m going to see him again soon. And visit a mind healer. I¡¯m weaving a friendship. I have a magic earring now. And¡­choices to make. So much life lived in just a few days. So much life he¡¯d almost missed out on. Esh-erdi spotted him and started toward him with a smile. Lind-otta was with him. ¡°Hello, Alden,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m glad to finally greet you.¡± Her brown hair hung below her waist in triple braids, and her wide-set eyes were a pale caramel color. ¡°Is this the Thanksgiving?¡± Esh-erdi asked. He was studying the platter in Alden¡¯s hands. ¡°It is,¡± said Alden, looking between the two of them. No need for some dramatic speech. That¡¯s not the right thing. ¡°This is from my friend Natalie. A lot of people wanted to share what they could even though I didn¡¯t give them much time to prepare. They wanted to say thank you. So did I.¡± He let his skill end so that hers could take over. One turkey. A smell that called to mind warmth, laughter, family, and friends was unleashed into the room. Lind-otta smiled. Esh-erdi clasped his hands together in front of his chest, looking delighted. Alden watched as heads rose from their perusal of cards and their studies of candles and turned toward the feast table. ¡°Thank you.¡± He said it loudly enough for his voice to be heard by everyone who had arrived in the cafeteria so far, but his eyes paused on Porti-loth and then stayed on the knights. ¡°Thank you so much for coming when we needed you. We all hope you enjoy the meal.¡± ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-FOUR: Big Tippers More wizards arrived over the next few minutes. Alden answered questions and accepted compliments while he showed off the spread. Kabir was explaining the sweets. People circled the table, making approving comments about the fertility of the planet and the efforts of the ones who¡¯d provided the food. A woman was taking pictures of each dish, and someone else was doing the same thing with the cards. ¡°The shadow trees?¡± Alden said in reply to a man wearing a lime green auriad around his neck who¡¯d just asked about the poetic intent of the candles. The shadowy branches on the ceiling were swaying in an unfelt breeze. ¡°I think it¡¯s likely that they were designed for beauty. For showing the way some trees look at the end of summer. But you would have to ask the Avowed who made them to know for sure.¡± Then that wizard moved on, and Alden was trying to explain the difference between lettuce and cabbage to the next one. ¡°Drusi! Come see the Thanksgiving!¡± At the sound of Esh-erdi¡¯s voice, Alden turned and saw a wizard with two large beige bags, one slung over each shoulder, approaching. That¡¯s Drusi-otta? The votary did vaguely resemble her cousin. Her short braid was the exact same shade of brown anyway. Her outfit was also brown, and its relatively simple style¡ªloose high-necked shirt and harem pants¡ªmight have made her seem drab in comparison to most of the wizards around them if not for the fact that she was heavily embroidered and jewelry-laden. Bracelets clacked and jingled at her wrists. Chains, beads, and cord hung around her neck. Stacks of rings shone on every finger. If she was an assassin, thought Alden, she wouldn¡¯t have to use a spell. She could just backhand someone, and the weight of the jewelry would knock them out cold. He was pleased to put a face to a name. ¡°Hello, Drusi-otta. I¡¯m glad to meet you in person.¡± She whipped something out of a pants pocket and passed it over the table to him, one of her necklaces coming treacherously close to a bowl of venison goulash. ¡°Hello. These are for your convenience. They work in the same manner as stickers.¡± Stickers? Drusi-otta had said that particular word in English, and Alden definitely knew what stickers were. So it was confusing to be handed a stack of half a dozen small paper packets with no image on them. He opened one and found it full of a nest of what looked like gray thread. ¡°Thank you. But what are they?¡± ¡°Quick embroidery,¡± she said. ¡°Not as appropriate as doing it yourself by hand,¡± Esh-erdi added. ¡°Or having a needlesinger do it. But good for when you¡¯re in a hurry.¡± Instant commendation patches? Before he could worry too much about whether the votary had been judging him for walking around undecorated, Esh-erdi announced, ¡°I¡¯m hungry, and I think everyone has had enough time to gather.¡± ¡°Alden,¡± Lind-otta said, ¡°are there any human traditions that need to be observed with the eating of the meal?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Everyone should have fun and eat whatever they like.¡± The next thing he knew, Esh-erdi was leaning over the table toward Natalie¡¯s turkey. He ripped off a whole drumstick and presented it to his partner. She accepted it with a delicate-looking hand and a dignified nod, then turned to face the majority of the Artonans present. Everyone quieted down. Is she going to say something to them? Lind-otta bit into the drumstick like a wolf. Alden thought he heard the bone crack. Then the knight swallowed, smiled with juice dripping down her chin, and loudly announced, <> The sentence was in some language or dialect Alden didn¡¯t know. But he understood from the cheering and the eager rush toward the food that she had just officially rung the dinner bell. ****** ¡°That one is blackberry cobbler. Heating it up and adding some ice cream would be customary¡­or you could mix it with the duck instead. Unusual choice, but probably fine.¡± Alden watched Porti-loth stuff the duck cobbler into his mouth. Sweet and savory is a thing, and he does look happy. It had been around an hour since Lind-otta went feral on the turkey leg, and now the situation was shifting from everyone eating dinner to everyone having fun in their preferred way. For some of the Artonans, that meant methodically tasting all the food that was left. Others were pulling out wands, potions, and auriads to make improvements to the cafeteria so that the meal could morph into what Alden suspected would be a debauched all-nighter with a loose Thanksgiving theme. He was content with the role he¡¯d ended up with¡ªfood describer for the knights¡¯ table. Porti-loth sat on his right, listening to Alden make suggestions and then ignoring them. The lady who sometimes took naps in the cafeteria was on his left, periodically asking him for his opinion on ¡°human matters.¡± She¡¯d lulled him into a false sense of security by wanting to know easy stuff at first. At what age had he learned to ride a bicycle? What purpose did fake fingernails serve? Hummingbirds¡ªdidn¡¯t Anesidora need some of those to brighten the place up? Then she¡¯d hit him with a question about how he would feel if the Triplanets demanded that the population of powerful Avowed be split into at least one more community on Earth so that they couldn¡¯t all be taken out by a single disaster. Lind-otta had rescued Alden by changing the subject, and now the questioner was yawning while she picked just the peanuts out of some pad Thai. Roaming wizards stopped by the table frequently. Drusi-otta kept disappearing to take care of quick errands. Kabir had been sitting with them all, but now he was standing on top of a chair across the room, holding two bottles of champagne over the top of a tower of glasses he¡¯d decided to build after Momo-neen and one of her friends asked about drinking traditions. Can that really be called a tradition? Alden watched as the golden wine bubbled and foamed, spilling its way down the tower of glasses. It was kind of cool anyway. He¡¯d never seen anyone do it before. He¡¯d also never seen a face quite like the one Momo-neen made when the waterfall ended and she tasted the drink for the first time. Her eyes widened, her forehead wrinkled, and her lips disappeared into her mouth like they were trying to escape. ¡°It must be terrible!¡± Esh-erdi said, standing up. ¡°I want some.¡± People had started singing. One very short wizard was volunteering a boomy rhythm for others to match while he danced around performing a blinding blue and green light show with a pair of wands. Alien hookahs were appearing. Lind-otta glanced at her cousin, and the votary nodded. Alden watched as she opened one of the bags she¡¯d brought and started pulling out cases, bottles, and pouches. She left some on the table and then walked around the room distributing the rest. Everyone seemed very excited to have it. Better quality party potions? ¡°None for you,¡± said Porti-loth, squinting at him. Or else I will force you to drink more mud, his face added. The sight of the potions did make Alden take an inventory of all the people in the room. Still no Ro-den. Zeridee wasn¡¯t here either, but she had thanked him for inviting her. She¡¯d said she was going to stay away since she wasn¡¯t allowed to eat Earth food. He suspected it was half that, half whatever discomfort she might feel being surrounded by wizards when she was trying to make the class shift. Alden watched the party develop for a while longer. Esh-erdi was over at the buffet now, drinking his champagne while he studied the turkey carcass. Every bit of meat and skin had been devoured. The citrus wedges were gone, peel included. Other than the knights sharing the drumstick with each other, everyone had gotten just a tiny piece. Watching them all enjoy it had been a fascinating contrast with the scene Alden had witnessed at the girls¡¯ apartment earlier. The Artonans had a lot more variety to their technique. Porti-loth had quietly held a piece in his mouth for five minutes, with his eyes closed and a smile on his face, before swallowing and diving into the rest of his meal like nothing had happened. The group Alden was beginning to suspect were big humanity geeks had let Momo-neen taste a tiny sliver of turkey. Then they¡¯d consulted her and held a lengthy discussion before enacting a full Thanksgiving scene at their shared table while they consumed their own pieces. They ceremoniously carved one of the ducks and then passed a plate they¡¯d filled with different breads around. Alden was sure they¡¯d consulted a comedy he¡¯d seen once as their source because they each slid something off of their own plate onto a distracted neighbor¡¯s at every opportunity, which had been a gag in the movie. And then there were the wizards who just casually ate the turkey. Or those who laughed and laughed while they clung to their colleagues and shared kumquats. He concluded that the Artonans had much more experience with magical comestibles than the bunch of teenagers who¡¯d gotten dazed and dumbstruck over the soup Natalie had made. They had preferences about how they enjoyed their enhanced food and, seemingly, the know-how to control their own reactions to it. I need to practice eating more, thought Alden. Increase my food appreciation level. It¡¯s the obvious thing to do. Esh-erdi waved Drusi-otta over to join him and a dour-looking wizard with lines of tattoos running across the backs of his hands in their examination of the remaining turkey bones. What on Earth are they doing? His confused expression caught Lind-otta¡¯s attention. ¡°He¡¯s consulting them because he wants to < > it without damaging the magic your friend performed on it.¡± ¡°Powder it?¡± ¡°For later. It¡¯s a shame to let any of her artistry go to waste. Nobody will ever make it exactly the same way she did on this night. Not even her. That is the nature of the skill, and it is worthy of appreciating.¡± She was sitting sideways with her feet and back supported by spells that seemed similar in effect to the one Stuart had used to provide the two of them with cushions during Alden¡¯s visit. ¡°She¡¯ll be happy everyone enjoyed it,¡± Alden said. Porti-loth had gone to try the champagne. It turned out it was a controversial beverage. Half of them liked it and the other half thought it was a crime against fruit. The booming light show guy was passing the healer a glass.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°Are you happy, Alden?¡± Lind-otta asked. He looked back at her. ¡°I¡¯m pleased everyone liked the meal. I wanted it to be special for you all. I¡¯m a little tired, though.¡± ¡°Since Porti seems unwilling to let you have a wakefulness potion, I suppose I should encourage you to sleep.¡± ¡°I feel like I should stay and help Kabir clean after all this.¡± She shook her head. ¡°You¡¯re underestimating the amount of cleaning¡­and overestimating that man¡¯s chances of seeing the party¡¯s conclusion.¡± She nodded pointedly toward the corner behind Alden, and he turned to see Kabir, his shirt unbuttoned, demonstrating a dance move that had been popular several years ago. ¡°You might be right about that.¡± ¡°Go sleep,¡± said Lind-otta. ¡°It will be taken care of by others.¡± Alden winced at the sound of breaking glass. ¡°That will be taken care of by others, too,¡± the knight said. ¡°All right.¡± He rose from his seat. Just one thing left to do. It took him forever to fix a tray of food. Having left the knights¡¯ table, he had become fair game for everyone else. And as the host of ¡°the Thanksgiving¡± everyone wanted to make sure they said something to him. Wasn¡¯t it just the other day when they were all acting like they were afraid to talk to me? He added a mooncake to the tray while a pair of wizards tried to hint something to him about how their young twins were absolutely fascinated by humans and they supported their cultural curiosity and what did Alden think of that? ¡°I think that¡¯s good,¡± he said, a cloud surrounding him as he pulled the top off the cooler that held the ice cream and dry ice. The wizards went away so happy, he worried for a second that he¡¯d given his human stamp of approval to something he didn¡¯t understand. They seemed nice, so I doubt whatever it was could be too out there. He selected a single serving carton of White Chocolate Pretzelmint, then headed for the elevator. He remembered Ro-den, just a few days ago, pressing all the buttons. Telling him he could have twenty floors and then nothing. ¡°I suppose a conversation must be had since you insist on it¡­if you¡¯ll tell me what things you would like me to apologize for¡­Take the easy road for a few decades, won¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I should spit in his food,¡± Alden said as he stepped out onto the hallway at the top floor of the residential section. He didn¡¯t. He hadn¡¯t even done what he¡¯d planned to do when he first realized Ro-den wasn¡¯t likely to show up, which was deliver a crumb of Natalie¡¯s turkey and absolutely nothing else. He gets a whole smorgasbord. Matadero Thanksgiving isn¡¯t about my issues with a single wizard. So¡­ He¡¯d even kept the turkey chunk preserved in his shirt pocket since he¡¯d cut it off the bird. It would be hot and fresh. Now, where¡¯s his room? Dropping preservation on the turkey and targeting Ro-den to find him was an option, but not an option he liked as much as just knocking on every door in the long hallway. He got started on the job. About halfway down, the sound of a door opening drew his attention. An Artonan was backing out of one of the rooms. On television, the wizard usually wore somber gray or brown, but tonight he was wearing a coat in a cheerful egg yolk color with gold embroidery, and matching jewelry pinned up his hair. So Alden¡¯s first impression was of an alien he didn¡¯t know, in high spirits and dressed up for the party. ¡°Excuse me,¡± he said. ¡°Can you tell me where Worli Ro-den¡¯s room is?¡± It was only when they were a couple of paces apart and the sound of his own name was coming out of the man¡¯s mouth that he realized who he¡¯d just asked for directions. ¡°Alden,¡± said the wizard, looking him up and down. ¡°Ambassador Bash-nor.¡± Alden¡¯s heart had stopped beating, but he was smiling. Because smiling was the default social nicety, and his face was stuck. What is he doing here? Is he supposed to be here? Am I supposed to say something about what happened or say nothing or call Drusi-otta to come punch him with her rings or¡ª ¡°How wonderful to meet you unexpectedly. I¡¯ve wanted to apologize to you for the trouble you endured at my residence,¡± the ambassador said. ¡°That must have been very frightening for you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Alden replied automatically. ¡°An apology isn¡¯t necessary.¡± Yes it is. He¡¯s the bastard who was so petty he didn¡¯t talk to me about my evacuation status just because he didn¡¯t want to have to say congratulations to a Rabbit. He thinks Alis-art¡¯h commended me because she was focused on people like him. His shock at the encounter was fading. He tried to read the situation¡­and found he couldn¡¯t. Bash-nor¡¯s tone of voice was a mystery. It felt like it fell somewhere in between warmth and bored recitation, in a valley that Alden was unfamiliar with. Was it intentional? Careless? An Artonan vocal quirk he hadn¡¯t encountered before that he was interpreting completely wrong? ¡°No,¡± said Bash-nor. Two narrow strands of gray-brown-pink hair¡ªa color that reminded Alden of earthworms¡ªhung in front of his ears. ¡°I must say I¡¯m sorry. I blame myself for overestimating the ambassadorial assistant¡¯s <>.¡± The tone was still uncomfortably obscure, but at least the words themselves were clear enough. ¡°Zeridee-und¡¯h did well,¡± Alden replied. ¡°It was the Avowed who were to blame. She fought bravely to protect me. She did her best.¡± Bash-nor¡¯s smile was understandable, too. It was so patronizing that Alden¡¯s hands tightened on the tray. ¡°Such an <> Ryeh-b¡¯t, surrounded by monsters.¡± Bash-nor tilted his head. ¡°If I <> around on foot doing chores by hand that would take me moments with a spell¡­no. A better example. If I slapped an enemy who was trying to kill a child instead of using my full strength¡­¡± He lifted a hand, flared his fingers in and out rapidly, and a sharp metallic-looking thing appeared hovering over his palm. It looked like a crown made of icepicks. Alden was pretty sure it was a spell effect generated partially by his rings, but he couldn¡¯t swear it wasn¡¯t a solid object. ¡°Would you still say I had fought bravely and done my best?¡± Alden¡¯s eyes were fixed on the icepick crown. It disappeared suddenly and he blinked, refocusing on the ambassador¡¯s face. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Bash-nor said dismissively, that hand flicking through the air as if he were shaking the spell off. ¡°I¡¯m only relieved you have survived our failings and our foolishness.¡± He looked at the food Alden was carrying and raised an eyebrow ¡°For Ro-den?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Bash-nor kept one eye on the tray and pointed the other toward Alden¡¯s face. ¡°Loyalty and care are qualities that any wizard would appreciate in a servant. But don¡¯t burn yourself out, as humans say, by giving those qualities to a <> like Ro-den. It doesn¡¯t surprise me that he¡¯s too lazy to get his own food. I had to come all the way here because he was too self-important to answer a message.¡± Does he expect me to reply to that? None of the replies in Alden¡¯s mind right now felt safe considering Zeridee¡¯s warning about Bash-nor¡¯s nature. Intolerant of slights from people weaker than him. Be a normal Rabbit. ¡°One of my friends asked me to make sure he tasted what she¡¯d cooked.¡± Surely that was neutral enough. Bash-nor groaned. ¡°He¡¯s made such a <> since he arrived, hasn¡¯t he? Unsurprising. He¡¯s in the room I just left.¡± He gestured behind him. ¡°Your little Thanksgiving idea is so <>. I suppose I shouldn¡¯t complain about Ro-den sharing in it.¡± He smiled again. ¡°Alden, you must come to one of my parties when all of this is over. You¡¯ll love it!¡± ¡°A party¡­um..¡± ¡°All the rumors are true,¡± Bash-nor said in English, his tone finally shifting to one Alden fully recognized¡ªa conspiratorial whisper. Alden shifted his weight, trying to think of something to make the interaction even slightly less awkward. Does he think every Avowed hears rumors about him the second we set foot on Anesidora? ¡°Unfortunately, I¡¯m a busy person right now,¡± the ambassador said. ¡°Have a good night.¡± ¡°You too.¡± Leeeeave. You¡¯re scary, confusing, and cringey at the same time. Why do so many people like hanging out at your house? Bash-nor started to step past him then stopped. Alden¡¯s muscles, already tense, stiffened even more. High on his bicep, his auriad tightened so much it felt like a tourniquet. ¡°There¡¯s no way to unmake the terrible experience you had, but here. Buy yourself something to warm your mood.¡± He walked on. Alden stood still, facing the end of the hall. When he heard the elevator doors opening, he slowly turned to see Bash-nor¡ªhair-jewels winking in the light¡ªstepping into the car. He didn¡¯t glance back to see Alden. His smile was gone, his expression distant and irritated. As if Alden had vanished from importance just that fast. When Bash-nor was finally gone, he made himself take a slow breath. Then he took in the System notification for another second before banishing it. [Argold Received: 300,000] ****** ¡°Back already, Bash? I can¡¯t wait to hear what magnificent thing you¡¯ve found in the past few breaths that might tempt a more potent wizard to follow your <> like a¡ª¡± ¡°I brought you food,¡± Alden interrupted in a neutral voice the second the door opened a crack. ¡°My friends wanted me to thank you for helping with the Bunker Street problem.¡± ¡°No,¡± said Worli Ro-den. Alden stuck his sneaker in the crack just in time to prevent the door from shutting. Then he blew on the piece of turkey he¡¯d dropped on top of the savory food plate before knocking. The smell was enough to make his own mouth water even if he should have been used to it by now. Ro-den¡¯s tattoos creased as a surprised look crossed his face. ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t want it?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Because there are many people downstairs who will be grateful if I arrive with another piece. They¡¯re trying to grind the bones now.¡± He waited, staring at Ro-den¡¯s tattooed forehead. If he said no again, that was fine by Alden. He¡¯d made the offer and even provided a free sniff. ¡°Set it down on the table.¡± The door swung, and Ro-den stepped aside to let him through. Just drop it off. No chatting. Alden was determined to avoid eye contact, not that it was hard when the room was full of so much else to see. Despite the professor whining about the size of the place, it was twice as big as Alden¡¯s room in the hospital. There was even an area that had probably held a sofa and other seating originally. But it felt cramped because Ro-den had absolutely filled the whole space with supplies and work. Even the closet¡ªit was missing its door, and it had been stuffed with cabinetry that the professor must have traveled with. There was a section that looked like an old school, library card catalog with tiny windows set in the faces of the drawers. Alden saw motion behind more than one of them. Ro-den seemed to be sleeping under a mountain of his clothes. Two of the smart boards from his LeafSong office were behind the largest work surface, which Alden assumed was the table he was supposed to leave the food on. A giant ball made of bright blue tubing was there with a pair of glowing wands sticking out of it, like an abstract commentary on yarn and knitting needles. He set the tray beside the tubing ball, careful not to touch anything. ¡°The turkey is traditional for Thanksgiving,¡± he said, still carefully neutral. ¡°A Ryeh-b¡¯t named Natalie Choir made it. She has a skill called ¡®Cook of the Moment¡¯. She and Emilija Navickait? and Hadiza¡­¡± He trailed off as a large bug buzzed past his ear and down, landing on the corner of the tray. Sand colored, dark markings on its wings, whitish patches where the bulbous eyes would have been on a¡­ Grasshopper. A tattooed hand closed over it. ¡°You have those here with you,¡± Alden said. Ro-den had his hand cupped to his chest. Alden could hear the sound of the bug¡¯s wings beating. ¡°I always have a few around.¡± ¡°That¡¯s nice.¡± ¡°They bother you?¡± ¡°No. Why would they bother me?¡± Alden cleared his throat and tore his eyes away from the hand with the Thegundese grasshopper in it. Where was I? ¡°They¡ªmy friends¡ªhad trouble on Bunker Street, and they saw you on the news, catching the people who threatened them. So. They say thank you. That¡¯s all. Enjoy your meal.¡± He strode for the door, remembering something halfway there. ¡°I almost forgot. Your ring is in my room. I¡¯ll go get it.¡± Then our sharp break will really be done. He hadn¡¯t been wearing it since their last conversation anyway. ¡°Keep it,¡± said Ro-den from behind him. ¡°I don¡¯t want it.¡± ¡°Then sell it. Or give it away.¡± Two big tippers in one night. He could fuck around with the enchantment on the ring for practice if nothing else. And it was easier not to stand here arguing over its ownership. ¡°I hope you like the food. Bye, Ro-den.¡± ****** That night, he dreamed the lost-Kibby dream again, only with a side of normal grasshoppers mixed in among their demonified brethren. One of the live bugs kept eating the demons, growing larger every time. Eventually, the absurdity of a horse-sized grasshopper bouncing after him ruined the horror element of the nightmare and woke him up. Sweaty sheets are such a fucking travesty, he thought, throwing them off. They completely ruin your chances of conking out again. ¡°Thanksgiving ended up so weird,¡± he told the empty room. It was now officially the day after. I could go online and see what people are saying about Matadero Thanksgiving. He discarded that terrible idea as soon as he had it. I could look up that little shit Winston and see if he¡¯s apologized like I told him¡ª He stomped that one out of existence, too. Yesterday had been so high drama. All I wanted when I woke up was simple stuff. Today he had gym. He could possibly go to convo class with Kelly the grad student as well, but maybe he¡¯d give his fame time to cool off instead. That would be a smart thing to do. Who am I kidding? I just want to play with my earring for as long as I can. And¡­ He rolled out of bed and put on his sweat pants, his complimentary hospital socks with the grippy bottoms, and a plain blue t-shirt. Then he sent a text to Boe and Jeremy informing them that Matadero was compatible with loungewear. They wouldn¡¯t be awake yet, especially on a Friday off from school, but he looked forward to doubling down on the claim when they called him later. He went to the cafeteria. ¡°They did clean,¡± he said, thrilled at the sight of a spotless room. ¡°And¡­they re-floored it.¡± Some people might find sod flooring in the middle of a building impractical. Those people had no sense of adventure. Alden was betting that the tree candles and drugs and the camaraderie of celebrants had somehow made this all seem like The Thing to Do at the end of the night. He strolled across the blackish green grass, and when he reached the kitchen he found it just as clean and grassy. Cool. It took him a while to find everything, but it was all still there. Fresh lima beans, ears of corn, a specific variety of sweet onion. ¡°System,¡± he said, as he looked at it all spread out on one of the counters. ¡°Is it okay if I film a cooking video in here?¡± [Yes.] ¡°Thanks.¡± He set up his tablet. The place where he positioned it was only marginally important, since the Artonan device could do multi-angle filming. ¡°Hi, Kibby!¡± he said, holding up a tomato. ¡°This is an Earth plant. I¡¯ve got a recipe from my grandmother, and I¡¯m going to cook it for first meal. It''s called succotash.¡± ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE: Kind Effort 175 ****** The call came late in the morning, and if it had been almost anyone else, Alden would have ignored it. The auriad flashlight spell was an astounding work of art. The way the author had drawn the first joints of the fourth fingers in the second to last instructional diagram showed so much attention to precision and¡­ And Evul-art¡¯h¡¯s name was in front of his eyes, blocking that diagram. He dropped the indigo loop, shook the tangles out, and shoved it all the way up his arm. ¡°System, the books need to go back to stor¡ª¡± He gave it credit for not even making him finish the sentence. He stared at the place where his spellbook had been, then knelt a little straighter on his cushion before he answered the call. Stuart was in his bedroom at the Rapport. Once again, his sister wasn¡¯t present even though she must have made the call happen. Alden wondered if Evul-art¡¯h was busy, or if during the family negotiations Stuart had somehow arranged their communication situation more to his own liking. I may never again see him squashed under the lounger pillows. ¡°Hi,¡± said Alden, pulling the earring out of his lobe. ¡°It¡¯s good to talk to you again so soon.¡± ¡°You were wearing Olorn Mom¡¯s earring!¡± Stuart¡¯s face and tone were thrilled. ¡°I would wear it all the time if I could,¡± Alden said seriously. ¡°All the time. You have to thank her for me. My brain loves this thing. I want to give it all my blood.¡± Stuart beamed. ¡°I have welcome news. Healer Yenu-pezth has agreed to a meeting with you.¡± Alden swallowed. ¡°That is welcome news.¡± ¡°It will be Monday,¡± said Stuart. ¡°You¡¯ll walk with her in a place that eases the mind and discuss what you want to better about yourself with her help. She will tell you her methods, your options, ask about worries you might have¡ªthe same things we talked about before you left here but in more detail.¡± ¡°Monday.¡± That was a whole weekend away, so it was ridiculous that his thoughts were whirling like Stuart had just told him he¡¯d be teleported to the mind healer in the next two seconds. ¡°Are you kneeling by a toilet?¡± Alden looked to his left. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°On your cushion? Wearing the earring?¡± Stuart was regarding him curiously. ¡°Are you studying the toilet?¡± It was true that Alden had no obvious learning materials since he¡¯d hidden them away. Still, dude¡­ ¡°I¡¯m not wasting your mom¡¯s gift on the plumbing,¡± he said. ¡°I was watching a science lecture.¡± Before I started practicing my new light spell. ¡°But why are you learning beside a toilet? Is it a human custom?¡± Alden smiled. ¡°Yes. It symbolizes the removal of shitty ideas from our brains.¡± ¡°¡­I understand.¡± Stuart nodded graciously. ¡°The custom is a little unusual, from an Artonan perspective, but if it is¡ª¡± The sound of Alden¡¯s laughter echoing through the bathroom cut him off. Stuart gasped. ¡°You liar!¡± ¡°It was a joke!¡± ¡°It¡¯s too strange to be a joke!¡± Alden finished cackling, then leaned over to grab a wad of toilet paper and dab at his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m studying in here because it¡¯s peaceful and private. There¡¯s nothing that strange about it.¡± Stuart¡¯s face said he disagreed. Better change the subject before he decides he¡¯s made a mistake with his friend choice. ¡°You¡¯re home at an unusual time.¡± He could hear the clatter of ryeh-b¡¯t claw blunts on the floor, even though Other Alden wasn¡¯t in view. Stuart was at his desk, wearing the sleeveless black shirt that seemed to be a standard underlayer for his LeafSong uniform. ¡°Emban,¡± he explained. ¡°I agreed to serve as her votary for a while. I¡¯m still attending classes, but I¡¯m coming back here at every opportunity to make it obvious I¡¯m available if she needs something.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a lot of teleporting.¡± ¡°It is. After I understand how she¡¯s feeling, I might change the arrangement. Right now, she doesn¡¯t seem to want company.¡± There was a shadow of something that might have been worry in his voice. Emban-art¡¯h. Definer of Grooves. Has she affixed again? Alden thought he¡¯d caught a couple of hints during his stay that she was about to do it. ¡°Did she just¡­is there anything I can do to help?¡± he asked. ¡°To help me with Emban?¡± Stuart¡¯s brows quirked. Alden scratched the back of his neck. ¡°I don¡¯t know what I think I could do. But if you want something preserved or if she wants to call a friendly alien and talk in the middle of the night¡­.¡± Sometimes you really need a friendly alien to call and talk to you in the middle of the night. ¡°Or something like that,¡± he concluded. ¡°I¡¯m available.¡± ¡°I will tell her you offered,¡± Stuart said. ¡°Maybe <> will turn the <>.¡± Alden wasn¡¯t familiar with that saying, but he was impressed they had a specific word just for the corners of the mouth. ¡°I hope she¡ª¡± ¡°It should also make her feel an adequate amount of guilt for talking about how you didn¡¯t seem interesting enough for the amount of <> in the house.¡± Alden blinked. ¡°Emban-art¡¯h thinks I¡¯m not interesting?¡± ¡°Not interesting enough to be the cause of turbulence,¡± Stuart said. ¡°Did she expect me to be more interesting in a good way or a bad way?¡± ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have mentioned it,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Please don¡¯t worry over it or feel offended. I think Emban was more focused on our family¡¯s reaction to you than on your behavior.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not offended,¡± said Alden, tossing the toilet paper at the trashcan in the corner. ¡°Sometimes I think I could happily live my whole life without being interesting.¡± There was a crashing sound, and Stuart dove for a cup just before it fell off the edge of his desk. ¡°Other Alden doesn¡¯t feel the same way,¡± he grumbled while his fingers dripped what looked like grain tea. ****** ****** ¡°Hey, guys,¡± said Alden. ¡°Are either of you free for the next three hours?¡± He¡¯d just finished with Stuart, and after barely resisting the urge to stick his earring back in and forget the world, he¡¯d called Boe and Jeremy. ¡°I¡¯m free for two and a half,¡± said Jeremy. He was playing a video game in his room. Badly, since he had a turkey, dressing, and cranberry sauce sandwich in one hand. ¡°Kimberly¡¯s family is buying her a car this afternoon, and I¡¯m going along for the final test drive.¡± ¡°Car shopping?¡± asked Alden. ¡°What¡¯s she getting?¡± ¡°Black Friday deal on a lightly used Volkswagen Beetle.¡± ¡°And I¡¯m doing nothing,¡± said Boe. He was in the kitchen at home, and he was eating, too. But his lunch was spoonfuls of peanut butter straight out of the jar. ¡°Unless catching up on all the anime episodes I¡¯ve missed counts as something.¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t,¡± Jeremy and Alden said together. Boe flipped them off. ¡°What are we doing for three hours? And why does it involve you sitting on the floor by the toilet?¡± ¡°Nobody appreciates my study nook.¡± Alden stood up. ¡°I¡¯m going to pay back a wordchain¡ªone that has the potential to make me an anxious, miserable wreck.¡± The double Peace of Mind debt was weighing on him. ¡°You want us to watch you be a miserable wreck for three hours?¡± Boe asked. ¡°Are you sure that¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°No. I want you to distract me so that I don¡¯t become a miserable wreck. Please ignore me if I seem tense while we spend all of the apology money the Artonan ambassador, who is a creep, gave me last night.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Jeremy, perking up. ¡°Finally. You¡¯re going to take my advice and buy¡ª!¡± ¡°Not a luxury penthouse,¡± said Alden. ¡°I don¡¯t know what one costs, but I know I¡¯m not spending that much.¡± ¡°Then maybe¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think a motorcycle is ideal right now either.¡± ¡°How much money will we be spending?¡± Boe asked. ¡°Three hundred thousand argold.¡± Jeremy started choking on his sandwich. Boe shoved up his glasses. He was smiling, but in a way that said he couldn¡¯t believe what he was hearing. ¡°You want us to help you blow almost a million dollars in three hours? Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s slightly too expensive for an anti-anxiety measure?¡± ¡°Bash-nor told me I should spend it to ¡®warm my mood¡¯, and he called me a poor little ryeh-b¡¯t surrounded by monsters before showing off a very lethal looking spell. My first idea for spending his money was to buy several hundred thousand cheap toy rabbits so that I could have a helicopter drop them on his head.¡± ¡°No,¡± said Boe. ¡°During a press conference.¡± ¡°Fine, you self-destructive dumbass. Let¡¯s spend a million dollars.¡± Alden paced the room, enjoying Jeremy¡¯s guffaws and Boe¡¯s snarking at every new money blowing idea that was suggested. The bad half of Peace of Mind hit hard, but the company and the entertainment kept it from accelerating as much as it would have. When he fretted over his Opposite stone not blinking back, he was distracted by a picture Jeremy sent him of a terrifying Easter bunny suit that cost fifteen thousand dollars. He couldn¡¯t express half of his fears aloud, but if he got too quiet for too long one of them always came through. With the bunny suit, an Irish castle he would never be able to visit, or a cat tower so large he¡¯d have to take all the furniture and the bromeliad out of the living room in his dorm apartment to fit it in. The absurd suggestions were interspersed with more serious ones, and finally Alden decided to be serious. ¡°Let¡¯s give it to charity. Most of it can go to ones we like, and maybe a little can go to one Bash-nor would hate if he ever knew.¡± ¡°Okay. What charities do you like?¡± Boe asked. ¡°Not that one Jeremy found earlier.¡± ¡°What have you got against Giant Wolves for Illinois?¡± Jeremy asked. ¡°If it was giant wombats¡­oh! Boe, does the zoo take donations?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll check.¡± It was so much money, and it was so exciting to make a list of recipients. They were playing that ¡°what if I had a million bucks¡± game you never really thought you¡¯d get to play. And the three of them were still having fun researching organizations while Jeremy rode shotgun in Kimberly Martinez¡¯s future car. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be paying attention to the car,¡± Alden said, laughing as Jeremy completely ignored his girlfriend¡¯s questions about whether or not he heard a rattle coming from the backseat. ¡°Alden!¡± Kimberly called. ¡°If it was me, I¡¯d get a hundred thousand dollars in cash. Stick it in twenty envelopes and pass them out to people who I saw being good people. Like a random act of kindness for the randomly kind.¡± ¡°That sounds like so much fun. But you really need to be paying attention to your car, too. We¡¯re going to cut you guys off.¡± ¡°No!¡± the two of them said at the same time. ¡°You could donate to One Hundred Percent Swim,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°Join Skiff in making sure Chicagoans are water-ready.¡± ¡°You could buy enough pizzas for¡­¡± Kimberly checked the rearview mirror. ¡°Was that a red light?¡± ¡°I think it was yellow,¡± said Jeremy. ¡°Bye, you two,¡± Alden said firmly. ¡°Text me more ideas when the car is stopped, and it¡¯s impossible for you to cause an accident.¡± He hung up on Jeremy. ¡°The random cash for random kindness really does sound cool,¡± he said. ¡°Do you guys want to do that?¡± ¡°Us? You¡¯re the one making the donations.¡± Boe¡¯s hand was propped on his chin while he scrolled websites. ¡°Yes. But that doesn¡¯t mean you can¡¯t be my good deed minions. I like the idea of all of us doing it together.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind that. How do you feel about an organization that hires wizards to remove invasive species?¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°I¡¯m sure that¡¯s useful, but it¡¯s not really my thing.¡± He heard his friend¡¯s fingers clicking a few more times. ¡°Your Peace of Mind is over,¡± Boe noted. ¡°You can tell?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Empath confirmed.¡± ¡°More like overly familiar with you confirmed,¡± Boe said. ¡°Are you sure you want to do this with your windfall? Just because it comes from someone you don¡¯t like doesn¡¯t mean you have to rush to get it out of your account.¡± ¡°I¡¯m completely sure. If you wanted to change my mind, you should have brought it up before you told me I could pay to have all of our names engraved on that bench that always smells disgusting.¡± ¡°Technically, your donation pays for public park improvements. Your reward is the plaque on the bench.¡± ¡°Me, you, and Jeremy¡ªon the stench bench forever.¡± Boe looked at him. ¡°Yeah, it seems worthwhile to me, too.¡± Alden sat down on the edge of the bed. ¡°I¡¯m going back to Artona I on Monday.¡± There was a pause. ¡°Why?¡± Boe¡¯s voice held a note Alden recognized. Prepped to argue. Arguing about the trip to the mind healer would be risky right now. Alden had decided to do it, but his nerves didn¡¯t need a dose of Boe¡¯s cleverly verbalized doubt dumped on them. ¡°I¡¯ll be seeing Stuart,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re traveling between planets to see the wizard friend twice in one week?¡± ¡°It only sounds extreme. Really, it¡¯s easier than taking the ¡®L.¡¯¡± They both watched each other. After a minute, Alden decided to change the subject himself. ¡°I¡¯m going to practice propelling rocks at high rates of speed today in gym. Or maybe temper spheres. Haven¡¯t decided.¡± ¡°Rocks,¡± said Boe. ¡°Obviously.¡± ¡°But temper spheres are invisible. It¡¯s very Avowed.¡± ¡°Save the expensive ammo for when you actually know what you¡¯re doing. How are you propelling the rocks anyway?¡± ¡°Sling. Maybe catapult. Few other things.¡± Boe snorted. ¡°What?¡± ¡°You went to the advanced superhero school to learn medieval weaponry.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t knock it until I¡¯ve tried it.¡± ¡°Pre-medieval. When was the sling invented?¡± ****** ****** Alden made an effort to get to the MPE building early, hoping that he¡¯d be able to talk to a faculty member about his likely absence on Monday. The healer Stuart was introducing him to was someone for whom you cleared your schedule, so he wouldn¡¯t be asking for a different appointment or rushing through the one he¡¯d been given. Still kind of awkward, he thought, shifting his duffel bag to the other shoulder as he headed through the front doors. Informing them I might be taking time off to work on my mental health after I stridently refused their suggestion that I take some time off to work on my mental health. Stuart and the Artona I kernel were just better at persuading people. That was all. Maybe I don¡¯t even have to tell them why I¡¯ll be gone. ¡°Because of the aliens¡± was a fantastic excuse for an Avowed and one that didn¡¯t necessarily need a lot of follow-up explanations. Alden wasn¡¯t surprised to see students practicing on the floor when he entered the gymnasium. It was only empty during the periods between classes when it was being set up for the next group. But he was surprised by the number of teenagers watching from the bleachers, and he was a little put-out that they were all still there when he came back wearing his gym suit. After getting dressed, he¡¯d dawdled on purpose, taking a walk down the halls, checking the contents of a vending machine, and reading a ¡°thank you¡± form letter from The Capeless Brave, a multinational organization that provided funds to the families of emergency responders and aid workers who were killed or injured on the job. He¡¯d definitely delayed for long enough. Usually, this more advanced class would all have headed to the locker rooms by now, and the faculty for his own group would be in here prepping for them. Dueling doesn¡¯t have as much prep I guess. He watched the class for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out why so many people¡ªmost of them wearing uniforms that marked them as students from the other two CNH programs¡ªwere observing right now. It didn¡¯t seem like a special event, just a general combat class, playing a violent version of capture-the-flag. ¡°Look. Look, you two! That¡¯s him. The Matadero guy.¡± The excited whisper came from behind Alden, and he looked around to see two girls and a boy, all with the words ¡°Anesidoran Forever¡± written on one cheek with face paint. ¡°Did they like it?¡± one of the girls asked, taking a step toward him. ¡°What?¡± ¡°The wizards!¡± she said. ¡°Did they like all the food?¡± ¡°Yes. Everyone seemed to have a really good time.¡± ¡°I offered to paint some of the vegetables for the cornucopia, but that Juniper first year wouldn¡¯t let me,¡± said the other girl. ¡°Jupiter. Sorry about that.¡± ¡°I have a grandmother who was born in Trenton, New Jersey,¡± said the boy. Alden had to think about that for a second. Maybe¡­he¡¯s trying to tell me he has a special connection to the holiday, or to me, by virtue of being one quarter former-American? ¡°Cool,¡± he said. ¡°Nice to meet you all. Sorry, though. I¡¯ve got to go to¡ª¡± No, don¡¯t tell them where you¡¯re going. What if they want to follow you and ask questions about the cube? ¡°¡ªto a place and get ready for my class. It¡¯s starting soon.¡± He hurried away. When he was sure they weren¡¯t watching, he ducked into the storage room under the bleachers. Relieved to find it free from curious observers, he started preparing some options for the evening¡¯s duels while simultaneously monitoring his most recent messages to make sure there hadn¡¯t been any problems with his donations. Giving away nearly a million dollars wasn¡¯t something he did every day, and he felt nervous about transferring such large quantities of money. Like he might have typed the numbers in wrong even though he¡¯d quadruple checked every one. The Capeless Brave¡¯s form letter had the amount listed, but the donation he¡¯d made to improve Anesidora¡¯s teleportation infrastructure had just instantly vanished with no follow-up letter or anything. That made him worry that the sixty-five thousand argold hadn¡¯t gone to the right project. It was my largest donation, too. Infrastructure meant easier teleports, which meant less stress for the Earth System, which meant Alden felt like he was paying to make sure the thing never malfunctioned. Easier teleportation was also good for a hundred other reasons. Maybe I should call them and ask them to confirm it, he thought while he laid a dozen small bags¡ªnow emptied of dried lavender and filled with gravel¡ªagainst a length of paracord he¡¯d put on the floor. As far as Chicago charities, he¡¯d donated to the zoos in memory of his parents, and to the parks department for the bench. He¡¯d given some to Skiff¡¯s free swim lessons program, too, since he found himself far more respectful of water safety a week after his own near drowning. He¡¯d also set money aside for Kimberly¡¯s cash envelope idea. On Anesidora, he¡¯d anonymously sent fifteen thousand argold to an organization in F-city that provided classes to low ranks who wanted to level. And he¡¯d bought gift cards for self-defense schools and firing ranges. A lot of them. He was donating most of them to The Warren. They definitely wouldn¡¯t be the most popular freebies in Rabbit intake, but Alden would have the pleasure of imagining some future unlucky Rabbit getting a commendation for shooting a demon with the training he¡¯d paid for. Thus annoying Bash-nor. Long, longterm revenge. But still satisfying. And, finally, there was the birthing center in Nashville. They¡¯d already emailed to set up a call so they could see him face to face and tell him how his generosity would make a difference. He was thinking of saying ¡®no thank you,¡¯ out of cowardice. He didn¡¯t want someone to tell him how much trouble the sudden, wizard-ordered dirt and tree removal had been. He placed his last gravel bag against the cord. Well, it looks interesting. If nobody objected to him trying out this particular weapon, then he would probably do a couple of different versions of it to get the hang of it. The first challenge he was giving himself was just trying to preserve all of the individual sachet bags and the cord as a ¡°stack¡± while ignoring the gravel. A perception game, like doing just the outside of the suitcase, only a little harder because of the number of sachets. Once he got that part right, he¡¯d try the basic catapult with it. Stand at my end of the dueling block, and swing it. When I drop preservation, the gravel pouches should go flying, but I¡¯ll still have the cord itself entrusted to me. He tied another set of empty bags to the cord by their handles. If his opponent was just sitting around at the other end of the block for some reason he might get a chance for a re-load. Unlikely, but why not prep for it? The really cool thing would be if I could drop preservation from just one gravel pouch at a time. For multiple shots with no reloading. I¡¯m not sure that would work, but I should try it some other time. Today, I¡¯ll try a sling for¡ª ¡°You¡¯re here earlier than usual.¡± Alden looked up from his project and saw that Max had just come into the storage room. The Adjuster hadn¡¯t changed out of his school uniform yet, and he was carrying a small gym bag with the name of his old high school printed on it. The uniform made him look even taller than usual. ¡°I didn¡¯t have other classes,¡± said Alden. ¡°Not in-person ones anyway. So all I had to do was recover from Thanksgiving and then fly over.¡± Max looked at the makeshift catapult, then examined a few other, pre-assembled rock-flinging options Alden had pulled out of his duffel bag. ¡°You know how hard it¡¯s going to be to hit the Goliaths in the forehead, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°The forehead? I¡¯m just happy to hit them at all right now.¡± Max stepped over to examine a pair of rather imperfect slings Alden had made for himself before leaving Matadero. They were lying on top of a stack of mats. He poked the longer one with a finger. ¡°What¡¯s with you and the Artonans?¡± he asked. Blunt. ¡°I¡¯m sure you really were seeing a healer at the cube. But they wouldn¡¯t usually keep you as long as they have, would they? And the early teleport off the bridge¡­¡± Alden dragged his duffel bag toward him and started looking through it for other options. ¡°You know,¡± he said, ¡°it¡¯s really nobody¡¯s business but mine.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯re going to tell everyone?¡± Max asked. ¡°No.¡± He pretended to be totally focused on the spool of thread he¡¯d just found. ¡°I¡¯m going to tell them I have a commendation from a hn¡¯tyon I met on Thegund.¡± Alden had time to make a crappy thread net that would hold a temper sphere before Max spoke again. ¡°That explains a lot of things.¡± Alden decided not to ask which particular things he was thinking of. ¡°I know what I want for my favor.¡± One of the favors from Kon¡¯s party. Finally coming due. Alden looked up. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Beat Winston with the fishing line again.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not the spirit of the offer.¡± Alden frowned at him. ¡°It¡¯s supposed to be a chore with our powers.¡± ¡°It matches the description well enough.¡± Alden didn¡¯t really think it did. Technically, preserving a piece of fishing line was a small, non-dangerous magical favor, but that wasn¡¯t what Kon had meant when he¡¯d announced the rules of the game. Max rolled his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m not asking you to shorten him at the neck on his way to the bathroom one day. Just wait until the opportunity presents itself during one of your duels. Actually, you don¡¯t even have to use the fishing line. I just want you to try to beat him in any way you can at a moment when you¡¯re already supposed to be fighting him.¡± ¡°What makes you think I wouldn¡¯t anyway?¡± Alden asked. ¡°You almost never try to beat people.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not exactly¡ª¡± ¡°You prefer experiments to victory. It¡¯s very sane of you. You¡¯ve already got six different ways to use your skill for throwing rocks that you want to try out today, and that¡¯s with them limiting what tools you can use.¡± He touched the sling again. ¡°But that means the next time you fight Winston you¡¯ll probably be busy figuring out how your skill enhances your ability to use a surujin or you¡¯ll be trying version number eighteen of that basket on a stick you made on Wednesday.¡± I need to look up what a surujin is. ¡°It¡¯s for Reinhard. I¡¯m going to tangle him up and then flip him like a pancake.¡± Max¡¯s lips pursed. ¡°It¡¯s going to work.¡± ¡°Anyway¡­¡± Max said. ¡°I¡¯m just asking you to focus on winning against Winston instead of learning from him. One more time.¡± Alden sighed. ¡°Fine. I want to beat him anyway after that crap he pulled yesterday.¡± ¡°You do now. They¡¯re not going to pair you two up today, though. They¡¯ll give you both time to cool off. Winston will just simmer in resentment, but you¡¯ll actually go back to ignoring him.¡± Maybe. I¡¯m still feeling a little vengeful. He¡¯d avoided looking at social media all day because if Winston was talking out of his ass about Esh-erdi again¡­ ¡°I¡¯ll make an effort,¡± he confirmed. ¡°But no promises on my success. Why do you want me to do it, though?¡± Max had very obvious problems with Winston. And as pissed as he¡¯d been yesterday, Alden still hadn¡¯t missed Winston¡¯s public proclamation that Alden was the best B-rank in their class. But Alden was sure Max would rather beat the Speed Brute himself. It wasn¡¯t impossible with his traps. He just needed to wait for the right circumstances to crop up. ¡°I want him out of my apartment,¡± said Max. ¡°Among other things.¡± Alden felt his eyebrows lift. ¡°I¡¯m positive your apartment is the most hostile one on campus. I feel sorry for Jeffy. But how is me beating Winston in gym going to get him out of your dorm room?¡± ¡°He¡¯s been trying to get me to move out. I¡¯m going to goad him into saying that if you beat him again he¡¯ll leave instead.¡± ¡°Just like that?¡± ¡°It might take me a couple of tries.¡± Only a couple to get something that specific out of him? For about the tenth time, Alden was really relieved he¡¯d tricked Lexi into being his roommate. Max headed over to the shelf that held the drones he sometimes practiced with. ¡°Is that other class still on the floor?¡± Alden asked. ¡°They just finished, and the locker room is full of them. That¡¯s why I¡¯m in here.¡± ¡°They were so late, and they have an audience. What¡¯s that about?¡± ¡°It¡¯s an observation period for students considering applying to the program. Thankfully they won¡¯t be watching us. The school schedules those periods to coincide with the advanced classes.¡± Mystery solved. Now, how do I want to manage each fight after the rocks and spheres are thrown? Shielding against the wrong person just means I¡¯m done with class for the day, and that sucks. They¡¯re not going to establish a penalty for dying, so I might as well¡­ He was still thinking it through when Max said, ¡°There shouldn¡¯t be so many.¡± ¡°Rocks?¡± ¡°No, you probably need even more of those. I¡¯m talking about the people in the stands. There shouldn¡¯t be so many of them.¡± ¡°It looked like about three hundred or so?¡± ¡°It¡¯s usually more than that,¡± said Max. ¡°But usually most of the observers are from middle schools and high schools in F-city. These are almost all from CNH or one of the other Apex schools.¡± Alden took his hands out of his duffel and stood. He stretched his shoulders. ¡°That makes sense. The normal crowd probably couldn¡¯t get here today because of the passenger limits on the ferry.¡± ¡°They can watch on the school site.¡± Max¡¯s forehead furrowed. ¡°I attended several of these before I got into the program. I¡¯ve never seen three hundred Apex students watching. Obstacle courses, tournaments, hero visits, graduation duels¡ªyes, they¡¯ll pack the place if they¡¯re allowed to because those are fun. But even if it¡¯s third years, today is still just a regular class.¡± ¡°It¡¯s been a bad week, and it¡¯s Friday afternoon. They probably just don¡¯t have anything else to do.¡± ¡°That¡¯s possible.¡± He still looked bothered. Alden targeted him. ¡°Would you mind telling me to pick this up? If they¡¯re clearing out, I¡¯m going to start moving my creations in there so I don¡¯t have to rush later.¡± ¡°Pick it up.¡± Gravel catapult preserved, Alden was about to leave when Max suddenly said, ¡°I think it might be good you and I got into the program when we did.¡± Alden looked across the stacks and bins of supplies. Max was staring at the poster that hid The Beat List. ¡°You¡¯re thinking everything that¡¯s happened is going to boost applications to the hero program?¡± ¡°I think if it did have that effect, at a time like this¡­¡± ¡°That it would be hard to justify taking B¡¯s if they had a record number of S¡¯s,¡± said Alden. Max shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t know. We¡¯ll see.¡± Alden twirled his catapult. ¡°We¡¯ll see,¡± he agreed. ¡°Don¡¯t blame me if I kill you with this.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-SIX: Class Notes 176 ****** Scenario:Your entruster is about to ride away in the car with her father and sister. You shoved a temper sphere into your pocket earlier¡­in case you needed to scare seasonal Jatontan pests to death. You spot some paracord lying on the ground. You manage to get her to entrust the cord to you just before the car takes off. It¡¯s getting dangerous. What can you do with the things in your hand and the environment around you? In the MPE gym, the only resources Alden had were the ones he carried and the ones people threw at him. The floor was a hostile alien substance that wouldn¡¯t work as ground. Elemental weights could be taken into dueling blocks if he wanted, with some caveats prompted by the trouble a couple of people had caused with them on Wednesday. The random breaks between duels were part of the challenge, too. What could he put together if he had only ten seconds? Five minutes? Here at the beginning of class, the wait in between fights could fall at either end of the spectrum. And he was behaving himself today. Constant double preservation wasn¡¯t an option while he practiced since he would be switching his entruster repeatedly to whoever was nearby and not busy. So he¡¯d cut himself off if he needed to¡ªa self-imposed authority-strain limit. He was hoping that he could make it all the way to the end of the session anyway. Flinging around mostly small things and not using super long weapons should help with that. His fingers pulled four of the white inner cords out of the woven sheath that formed the paracord¡¯s outer layer. Out of the corner of his eye, Alden spotted Haoyu and Lucille entering the dueling block nearest to where he stood in the prep and practice area. I want to watch that one. He reminded himself that the footage would be available later and turned his attention back to his hands. Just a few inches of the white strands for this. Since he¡¯d already had time to put together some more fiddly, time-consuming options before class started, he¡¯d go for a ten-second tool here. He draped the white strands over the top of the temper sphere and pinched them closed around it. ¡°Lexi,¡± he said. His roommate was nearby punching tiny holes in a target with Writher. ¡°Preserve it,¡± he replied without even looking. Alden did. Just the paracord, not the sphere. The bulk of the cord was in an oval coil he could grip like a handle. A three-foot strand extended out from it, and then the white strands emerged from that, forming a cage for the translucent orb. He waved it around, getting a feel for it. Preserved, it was basically the same kind of ball launcher people used to throw farther when they were playing fetch with their dogs. It¡¯s definitely simple. He went through a few different throwing motions, careful not to drop preservation yet¡ªoverhanded, swinging it like a bat, side arm. He was trying to imagine what would happen if he released the sphere at different points. Finally, a couple of his classmates got called to duel, and the area in front of him cleared. He tried an overhand throwing motion again, with more force this time, and at what felt like the top of the arc, he stopped shielding the cord. It went lax and fell, but the temper sphere, freed from its cage, shot up and out to hit the barrier at the end of the practice area. Wow. Distance is easy to achieve. The spheres were slightly larger than golf balls. Deceptively heavy. Hitting one of his classmates in the head with that one he¡¯d just launched wouldn¡¯t be ignorable for most of them. The realism settings being dialed up would help. Today nothing would hurt. Just movement restriction again. But I¡¯m not going to be able to deliberately hit anyone with a shot at that distance. He bent to take another sphere from the carton at his feet. It didn¡¯t look like the one he¡¯d just thrown had broken on impact, but hunting for where it had rolled was a waste of time. He loaded the next sphere the same way as the first. It took just a moment to drape and pinch the strands around it, then he stretched the cord taut again. Reloaded. And the speed wasn¡¯t bad. Maybe he could get off more that one shot against some of his classmates. I don¡¯t know. It¡¯ll be slightly embarrassing if it¡¯s worse than just pitching without a tool. He wondered if Tatiana Evans was still furious with him for hitting her in the face with one of the temper spheres during combat assessment. He practiced, imagining he was going up against a running person who didn¡¯t have any ranged talents of their own. Then they reach me, furious because I hit them¡­but not hard enough to do any real damage. And I hold them off with the paracord until time runs out or I yield. Or die. Depending on who they are. He had to consider what shielding cost him in duels. A repeat of his instant loss to Marsha was no good. As long as the instructors didn¡¯t get annoyed by it, he¡¯d rather just not protect himself with his skill when someone was almost certain to land a blow like that on it. It wouldn¡¯t be very fair of them to complain as long as I¡¯m trying something else educational. He set aside the ball launcher. It really wasn¡¯t that bad. Especially when he reminded himself that he could fling a bowling ball exactly the same way with only a little more authority strain. Possibly an invisible bowling ball. Several invisible bowling balls. He decided that any time he successfully smacked someone with a sphere or some gravel, he¡¯d pretend he¡¯d gotten them with a more substantial piece of ammo instead. And there were a couple of situations he thought he might end up using the larger elemental weights for. He practiced with one of his slings next. He had a long Balearic-style one he¡¯d found a design for online. He wanted to try it out in two different ways: swinging and preserving the whole thing, projectile and all, for a perfectly timed and aimed release. Or swinging and then preserving just the projectile. As long as he didn¡¯t screw up and drop the preserved rock or sphere, he thought he should be able to take it out of the sling and then hide it in his hand and deliver it directly to someone¡¯s face. That would be pretty effective against most people, I¡ª [Dueling Block 2] [Opponent:Helo¨ªsa, Strength Brute - A] [Incapacitate your opponent.] [Kills:Allowed] He looked over to where Helo¨ªsa had been practicing roundhouse kicks against a dummy that turned different colors depending on how badly she¡¯d hurt it. She sprang into the air in a split jump and waved at him eagerly. She¡¯s going to be so disappointed when I don¡¯t let her punch the hell out of my shield. ****** MPE Notes - November 23, 2040 DOG BALL LAUNCHER Pros:very easy to make in a hurry, not difficult to use. Once I switch from ranged attacks to close ones, it¡¯s just a stick with extra pointy pieces on the end, and that¡¯s not too complicated to handle. Cons:can¡¯t preserve the projectile¡­if I double-run the skill I could. But not in gym. Modifications to try for DBL for temper sphere:invisibility will be useful when my aim is better. for gravel:definitely easier to get a hit with several pieces at once, harder to quickly make a ¡°cage¡± that the pieces won¡¯t slip out of. Solve this. Try again:with elemental weights to see how far they fly Helo¨ªsa (Loss) It would be good to practice the sling against her instead. Doesn¡¯t seem to want to hurry through the fight, just stood there kicking whatever I threw at her back toward me until the last few seconds. Can¡¯t afford to let her hit one of my shields early in the class period either. She¡¯s a willing target. Don¡¯t throw spheres at her next time. Too expensive. She¡¯s found out they¡¯re tough to break and she takes that as a challenge. Rebecca(Draw) I think she was taking the opportunity to try something with her jumps. Easy enough to dodge and then she messed up and overshot me when she was going for the last-second win. I should try a fishing line weapong against her at some point. She¡¯s more likely to slam into it than most, and I want to see how it compares to taking Winston¡¯s hit. Tuyet (Loss) Obviously. Might try to shield against a dart if I get to fight her at the end of a class. GRAVELPULT Well, now I know what this is good for in the gym. Scattering gravel all over the place makes randomly dispersed ground element. I can¡¯t imagine what it would be good for in real life. It¡¯s just an oversized version of Dog Ball Launcher that requires more focus to preserve correctly. Having additional containers or pre-made nets attached to a rope for easier loading of ammo is good, though. Haoyu (Loss) I don¡¯t know why I hurled the gravel at him from the wrong side of the block during the territory game. It was zero percent distracting for him. Stop grinning at me like that, Haoyu. I¡¯ll use it the right way next time. STAFF SLING There is some design flaw or a timing flaw or a me flaw. When I dropped preservation to release the end of the sling, the sandbag I was trying to throw went almost straight up instead of forward. I should probably try this again when I¡¯m allowed to have an actual staff. Practice area only.Didn¡¯t bother to try in battle since we aren¡¯t besieging a castle today. Unfortunately. BALEARIC SLING Fun. Can choose to preserve the sling and the projectile together just before release, or I can preserve only the projectile. Second is slightly risky¡­don¡¯t let it slip out of the sling again, stupid. Preserving projectile only would be good for tricking people. Especially combined with temper sphere invisibility. But preserving the whole thing together is better in most cases since I don¡¯t lose entrustment on the sling and can still use it for defense. Everly (Win) She froze my shoes. I gave her a concussion with the sling from close range. I hope it didn¡¯t hurt her feelings too bad. Mehdi (Loss) It was the territory game versus an Agility Brute¡ªof course I lost. He¡¯s being weird about it. *POCKET FULL OF SAND ¡ª I want this. I think I should talk to Marion, Foxbolt or Big Snake. They let Shapers have something reasonable that represents their element because why wouldn¡¯t they always have a little something on them? And since I have an element-specific ability, I should be allowed to als¡ª ****** [Dueling Block 3] [Opponent:Max, Adjuster - B] [Claim your opponent¡¯s territory by tagging all of the marked locations on their half of the block.] [Kills:Disallowed] Alden stopped adding to his notes and swiped them away, along with the damage read-out for the dummy he¡¯d just tossed a heavy bag at. Max. A little thrill of anticipation and nerves ran through him as he looked around for the Adjuster.He saw him heading toward the block they¡¯d been assigned. They didn¡¯t give him any set-up time for this one. Sometimes, they let Max have an extra few seconds in the block before his opponent was notified of the duel. For trap placement. He doesn¡¯t really need the head start in this game. At least not against me. Having float zones or inescapable treadmills in a competition where speed was key was tough to manage. Alden had spent more time imagining duels against Max than against most of the others. The match-up between the two of them wasn¡¯t a foregone conclusion. Physically, Max might be a bit stronger, but Max definitely couldn¡¯t get through one of Alden¡¯s shields. Unless the float zone screwed Alden over. I should be able to keep it from doing that. But it might take practice. Territory claim favors him. Max could go for the win in so many different ways. Trap me, attack, ignore me completely and speed himself up with his own zones. Alden had come up with options of his own for handling the Adjuster, but picking the right one wasn¡¯t easy. I¡¯ve been managing my authority well so far. I¡¯ll go with¡­ He looked over at the bag he¡¯d just hurled into the dummy. A little extra weight wouldn¡¯t hurt. And his enhanced hands were getting better at tying stuff together on the fly. ****** ¡°I¡¯m flattered,¡± Max said dryly when Alden walked past him on his way toward his starting spot. ¡°You should be. This is the largest weapon of the day.¡±If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Max raised an eyebrow. ¡°If you actually manage to hit me with that, you might break my neck.¡± Alden smiled at him and waved his sandbags over his head¡ªthe two 120 kilo sausages were tied together, and plenty more of the webbing that bound them was frozen in a substantial coil around one of his arms. He didn¡¯t really want to hit Max with the sandbags unless it became the thing to do in the heat of battle. But if Max assumed that they were meant to be used as the giant hammer head they resembled, good. While the timer to the duel¡¯s start counted down, Alden set his sandbags beside his feet and considered the layout of the territory squares on the floor. The block for this duel was around three quarters the size of a standard basketball court by his estimation, and the squares on the floor would be identical on his side and Max¡¯s. The game would be three minutes long. According to the rules, you had to tag each square in your opponent¡¯s territory with a body part¡ªusually a foot unless you were having a really bad time. Once you¡¯d tagged the tenth square, ten more would appear in a random pattern, one at a time. Tagging the twentieth square on your opponent¡¯s starting side before they tagged twenty on yours was a victory. Injuring your opponent was fine, but killing them meant you had to go run track until Klein felt like forgiving you. Deceptively hard. That was what Alden had decided after watching a lot of rounds and participating in a few himself. Tagging twenty squares in three minutes wasn¡¯t a problem; they were sometimes even arranged conveniently. Alden had already spotted the cluster he would end his first round on, assuming there was no interference from Max¡ªfour squares grouped in the corner that could all be tagged with a couple of steps. But there would be interference. Probably. [START] Alden lifted and preserved his burden in a single motion. His skill protected the webbing from the weight of the bags. He positioned it over his shoulder like a hobo¡¯s bindle and dashed for Max¡¯s side of the block. From this point on, he knew it would mostly be action and reaction. Ideas would seem stupid or brilliant after the fact, but the only ones he could really take pride in were the ones he¡¯d thought about and planned for before the start signal. He was still trying to decide if he liked the way close matches went here in the gym. He thought maybe he did, or he would when he knew his own abilities and responses better. When he¡¯d done it so many times that right decisions got baked into his bones and he wasn¡¯t constantly being surprised in unfortunate ways, they would be fun. Now, he crossed the midline onto Max¡¯s half to see the Adjuster wasn¡¯t running yet. Instead, he was casting the spell Alden had thought he would. Treadmill Zone. Satisfaction. Annoyance. Alden¡¯s foot tagged a square. He ran at Max, swung the bags toward him like a hammer turned sideways, and dropped preservation so that the bags flew, trailing a line of webbing behind them that was still connected to the supply in Alden¡¯s hand. Don¡¯t stop, he told himself. Another square got tagged as the bags thudded onto the floor and rolled toward the place Max had just vacated with a sideways lunge. The coil of webbing unspooled rapidly. Alden almost didn¡¯t adjust his grip in time to avoid losing it. Preserve. Lift. He ran at Max again. Max¡¯s hands hadn¡¯t stopped moving. His mouth hadn¡¯t stopped moving. Spell impressions helped you focus, and he might have been the best in the class at refusing to be interrupted no matter what. I saw him casting while he was falling off the wall on the obstacle course that time. And here he was now, casting and sprinting while Alden was levering the bags up again, over his own head again, down and forward toward Max again. Don¡¯t die, Max. Don¡¯t fall apart, knots. Don¡¯t snap, rope. Max ducked, and the bags sailed over his head. Alden re-preserved his webbing at once. Heavy. He had caught the sandbags before they hit the floor this time. They strained against the preserved webbing then settled, momentum spent. Shouldn¡¯t smash them around more than I have to. He wasn¡¯t completely confident in the knots he¡¯d tied at the last minute to add the second bag to the first. He¡¯d been in a hurry. But throwing them around played into Max¡¯s impression that they were primarily a weapon. If he thought that, then maybe he wouldn¡¯t decide to change tactics. Alden managed to catch a territory square with the very edge of his shoe as he reached the spot where the Adjuster had ducked. It was empty. Max was two strides ahead of him, arms pumping instead of casting as he ran for the other side of the block so he could start tagging Alden¡¯s squares. He got the spell finished. Just one zone, but it could be anywhere. Max often cast them directly in front of where he was standing, which made it tempting to imagine it there, but that was a trap too. He could put them where he wanted as long as it was in range. Stop chasing him. Alden stopped and swept the thing that wasn¡¯t a weapon sideways hard for one last attack. The preserved line slapped into Max¡¯s shoulder and stopped. He ducked under it and glanced back. Can I drop the bags on him from here after all? That might be¡ª And before the thought could be completed, Max was one step farther ahead. Out of reach. Squares! Alden set the bags on the ground. Dropped preservation. He was closer to one side of the dueling block than he¡¯d planned, but it didn¡¯t matter. Speed was what he needed now. He ran around the sandbags in a circle, leashed to them by the end of the webbing still gripped tightly in his hand. When he¡¯d hit every square in range, he grabbed one of the loops tied around the bags like a handle and re-preserved. Those four squares in the corner. He ran toward them. He ran toward them. He ran toward them and went nowhere. Found the trap. He felt a rush of excitement. It was only a single trap, he had managed to keep his tool in one piece without loosing entrustment, and Max wasn¡¯t nearby. The treadmill was wild; he couldn¡¯t travel more than a single step in any direction. Some people could jump or run out of it¡ªnot Alden. He set the sandbags down again, outside the treadmill zone he was caught in. He looped the webbing hastily around his left arm, gripped it, and tugged against the weight, trying to use it to pull himself free. Nope. Unsurprising. He¡¯d thought more force would be required. He just hoped he¡¯d brought enough. He preserved again, lifted the sandbags over his head, and flung them hard ahead of him before dropping preservation. Two hundred and forty kilograms sailed forward beyond the limits of the trap, and as Alden¡¯s breath caught, the weight yanked him off his feet, into the air, and free. He hit the floor in a decent roll and stopped himself quickly. My arm is super broken! Elated with his success, he slapped two squares with his unbroken arm and scrambled to his feet. The suit was applying a movement restriction, but only to his arm and shoulder. The plan was to use his legs now, nothing else. He tagged the last two squares, and a new one appeared only a step away. He sacrificed a fraction of a second to take a single look at Max¡ªnot to worry about how much progress his opponent had made, only to make sure he was still over there, running around, instead of heading back this way and casting spells. As soon as he saw that was the case, Alden took off. I¡¯m not slower than him. Max had speed zones, but he had to cast them. And he had to choose to cast them here, in this duel, instead of in another one. He¡¯ll think the trap was enough to stop me. I have to go all in. Alden sprinted from square to square, running as hard as he could. Fourteen. Fifteen. Don¡¯t look again. A fight will end in a draw at best. He won¡¯t be satisfied with a draw against the only other B-rank. He¡¯s not coming back over here. The treadmill trap probably still had juice in it. If another square appeared inside it, the delay would be unlucky. He dodged around the zone. Eighteen. He went all the way to the opposite corner flat-out for nineteen. Then, spinning so hard he almost fell, he spotted the last one appearing. Red. There. Three strides to reach it. Twenty!!! In his mind, he screamed it victoriously. In reality, he doubled over, gasping as he took in the notice. [Duel over.] [Winner:Alden] ****** ****** [Tattoo gone!] Haoyu texted the second Alden stepped into the recovery sauna. Which was just about the only thing that kept him from promptly turning around and leaving the recovery sauna. The benches were nearly filled. Instead of the usual two or three adults minding their own business, there were more than thirty of them. They were still minding their own business, but the crowd made it way less relaxing. For me at least. Haoyu looked comfy enough. [Where did it go?] he asked. I was only going to spend twenty minutes anyway. He still preferred not to fly back to Matadero in the dark. He took a seat between Haoyu and a guy with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes closed [What do you mean?] Alden texted. [I never had a tattoo.] Haoyu let out a tiny puff of amusement instead of a laugh. [I¡¯ve still got the triangle under my arm,] Alden said. [It¡¯s permanent. I had the rest removed.] [Where the new tattoo?] Right. The secrecy tattoo for Matadero that I don¡¯t have yet. He kept his face as straight as possible. [Got it right over my butt. A big M for Matadero. To cheer Lute up.] Haoyu¡¯s brown eyes went wide then fixed on Alden¡¯s stomach like they could x-ray vision through him to see the spot in question. [He didn¡¯t really. Did he? What to say?] If they had been alone, Alden would have died laughing. Instead, he clenched his jaw¡­and still failed to bite back a grin. Haoyu caught the expression. [Joke!] [I got you. Finally.] He looked around again at the people filling the sauna. [Why is it so crowded tonight?] With a series of only slightly confusing texts, Haoyu managed to explain that the spa facilities at North of North had been packed when he stopped by yesterday as well. Everyone with a membership was treating themselves after the week they¡¯d had, and a lot of working superheroes and celebrities who were usually off the island had come back to help out and to be seen helping out. [Like Cavemanly.] Haoyu subtly pointed at the man beside Alden. Much less subtly, Alden turned his neck to stare. [That is Cavemanly!] [You didn¡¯t knowing?] [I didn¡¯t recognize him with his hair up. And clean.] There were several other vaguely familiar people in here, now that he looked around. [So what do you think of duels?] Haoyu asked. Alden refocused. [I liked them more today than Wednesday. I learned a lot.] A lot. The high he¡¯d gotten from the challenging but manageable fight with Max had been marred by a duel he¡¯d had with Ignacio shortly after it. Just the memory made his shoulder blades draw together and his breath hitch. Unlike Marsha, who wanted to get her fights against boring low-ranks over with as fast as possible, Shrike wanted to make his more interesting for himself. So he¡¯d decided not to use his flock of knives against several members of the class. He¡¯d faced off against Alden with zero powers, relying instead on his significant stats and a single bowie knife. Which was very sportsmanlike and all, but I wish he¡¯d just pincushioned me from the front with his Meister weapons and overwhelming magical force. Having someone knock him to the ground and then drive a sharp object toward his back hadn¡¯t caused a panic attack, but Alden had frozen in the moment and felt almost sick to his stomach afterward. It was way too similar to what the guy in the greenhouse had done to him while he was trying to rescue Zeridee. Something else I need to deal with. Can¡¯t let stabbing attacks from behind become a new phobia or trigger. Tiresome. Maybe it was the kind of thing the mind healer could help with. It¡¯s going to be so awkward if I meet her and decide I can¡¯t trust her not to go poking through memories I don¡¯t want her to see. He needed to take his mind off it for now. [I¡¯m going shopping tomorrow,] he told Haoyu. [With one of the Rabbit counselors from intake. For clothes that will help me blend a little more when I go to¡ª] The door to the sauna opened and one of the spa employees ran in. They really must be busy if she¡¯s delivering the recovery potion refill at that speed, thought Alden. The spa people usually went for calm and quiet. <> she said. <> Alden was surprised that a third of the people present immediately stood and headed for the door. Cavemanly ran off at a speed that made the employee shout. The woman who Alden had seen here a couple of times before took her cucumber slices off her eyes. ¡°They scampered away just like that? Good. More room for the rest of us. Bring me a fresh towel, please.¡± She started to replace her slices. <> The employee whispered the news so quietly that Alden wouldn¡¯t have been sure it was intended to be heard if not for the translation. Alden exchanged a glance with Haoyu. Is this my fault? he wondered. Maybe Drusi-otta told them I was in a room full of heat and healing magic fumes, and one of them thought that sounded like the best idea ever. Cucumbers frowned. A couple more people stood up and left. The employee gave a small nod to everyone else in the room. <> There was silence for half a minute or so after she left. And then a man Alden had once seen playing the villain in an action movie made a show of stretching before he stood up. <> ¡°That¡¯s a good point,¡± a woman said, standing up. ¡°I¡¯ve always been curious about that one.¡± Over the next five minutes, the sauna slowly emptied. Some people made excuses. Others just left. One older man with several tattoos, looking grumpy, was finally dragged away by a much younger looking man. It was just Haoyu, Alden, and Cucumbers left. She sighed and rose to her feet. ¡°The Sunday crowd is so much cooler. I don¡¯t mind chatting with a knight, but I don¡¯t want to be the only human representative in the room. It¡¯s not very spa, right? You two had better get going, too. Don¡¯t try thought-softening, though. Who knows what it¡¯ll do to teenagers?¡± When it was just the two of them, Alden, feeling very unsettled, looked over to tell Haoyu it was all right if he wanted to go. ¡°Now there¡¯s room!¡± Haoyu said. ¡°I¡¯m going to lie on the top.¡± And he did, planting himself dead center on the topmost bench. Alden looked around at the large, empty room, then back at Haoyu, who was making himself comfortable. The employee hurried back in with a potion. She stared at them. ¡°Are we allowed to have cucumbers in the sauna like that woman?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°It says no food, but I really want one.¡± ¡°Which of the hn¡¯tyons is it?¡± asked Alden ¡°General Esh-erdi.¡± Her frown was worried, her voice nearly sub-audible. <> ¡°Why would I leave?¡± Alden replied. ¡°He¡¯s nice, I have his nonagon, and I need to ask him about a corn snake.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-SEVEN: Guests 177 ****** ¡°I can¡¯t believe they all ditched,¡± Alden said when he and Haoyu were alone once more. The little cauldron was spewing fresh clouds of steam into the room. He had learned to appreciate the melony scent and the way inhaling a new batch of the stuff seemed to reset the sauna experience. Just when you were getting tired of the heat, the dose of steam pushed you back to that point where the temperature felt therapeutic. ¡°It¡¯s a rather specific crowd here,¡± Haoyu said from above him. ¡°They¡¯ve got plenty of money, they¡¯re disproportionately likely to be summoned for something dangerous, and they just found out the person coming to visit is the type who probably does summon people for the dangerous missions sometimes. Plus they want to relax. Even if they¡¯re not that worried about a summoning, minding your manners around a wizard of unknown temperament could be stressful.¡± All true things. ¡°I¡¯m surprised it was all of them, too, though,¡± Haoyu admitted. ¡°Normally, in a group that big you¡¯d think there would be a couple who wanted to suck up to an Artonan and a few more who were just not bothered. Can you imagine our teachers running off like that?¡± Alden could more easily imagine Big Snake talking Esh-erdi¡¯s ears off than he could imagine him making a rush for the exit. ¡°I don¡¯t think most of our classmates would have left either,¡± Alden said. ¡°Ha!¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Some of them would bankrupt themselves to buy a membership right this second so that they could come annoy him. Mehdi keeps saying things about how you might be getting secret knowledge and techniques from being around so many wizards at Matadero, and how if he was there he would be getting secret knowledge and techniques and petitioning them to add a bunch of spells and skills to Agi.¡± Alden was about to respond when Esh-erdi appeared in front of the glass door. He was wearing a spa robe and carrying a handful of brochures. When he spotted Alden and Haoyu, he smiled, tilted his head, then headed back down the hall the way he¡¯d come. ¡°He¡¯s leaving!¡± Haoyu sounded so horrified that Alden turned to give him a surprised look. ¡°Was he upset that we were here? Or is it just me? It¡¯s me, isn¡¯t it? He likes you.¡± ¡°You¡¯re freaking out for no reason, man. He doesn¡¯t know you. Why would he leave because of you?¡± ¡°Maybe I¡¯m really ugly by Triplanets standards. Maybe I was making an offensive face.¡± ¡°Were you making a face?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know! I was curious about him. I could have looked creepy.¡± Esh-erdi reappeared in front of the door about two seconds later, wearing a towel around his waist instead of the robe and still carrying the brochures. [See?] Alden texted Haoyu. [He was just taking off the robe because he saw we weren¡¯t wearing one. Trying to match the local style.] Then, in Artonan, he said, ¡°Hello, Esh-erdi.¡± ¡°Alden! I find you in a hot room surrounded by wood. This is very pleasant. I should tell Lind about it.¡± He walked in a circle around the pedestal with the cauldron on it, having a good look at it and giving them a good look at him at the same time. Artonans were undeniably alien when nude, or even just shirtless. In adults, the navel was minimal if it was visible at all. Cosmetically darkening the spot where it had been was a thing in certain situations. Nipples, located where humans expected to see them, ranged from flesh-toned to wow-those-are-purple. Esh-erdi¡¯s were closer to the former, but his back striping was vibrant. Two periwinkle blue slashes began an inch below the base of his neck and followed along either side of his spine. The stripes broke and faded before disappearing just above the towel. Artonan females had marks in the same area, though theirs were much less noticeable. Actually, the males¡¯ striping was usually a bit subtler as well. Esh-erdi was kind of showy. His tattooing, however, was restrained. Lines, whirls, and dots were confined to a band around his right calf. It was impossible to tell if it was one tattoo or twenty carefully arranged together so that they didn¡¯t clash. Alden watched him stick a finger into the cauldron and then pop it into his own mouth. After a moment, he nodded. ¡°This is well done! Very good. I¡¯m glad humans have this.¡± Then he looked toward Alden expectantly. ¡°This is my friend Haoyu Zhang-Demir. We live together on campus. Haoyu, this is Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi. He saved me from a giant wave a week ago.¡± ¡°Hello!¡± Esh-erdi said before Haoyu could get his own greeting out. ¡°You aren¡¯t ugly. And if you were, it wouldn¡¯t keep me from enjoying an Earth relaxation experience with you.¡± Alden had to fight not to smile at Haoyu¡¯s expression of chagrin. When the knight walked over and climbed up to sit beside Haoyu, Alden caught a glimpse of a pastel green auriad holding his long hair in place on top of his head. ¡°When I wasn¡¯t much older than the two of you, I shared a traditional oil pool with a ¡ª¡ª¡ª and its < >.¡± The name of the species was a chittering sound that went untranslated; Alden had never heard it before as far as he could remember. ¡°The people I¡¯d gone on the mission with convinced me that someone had to do it to avoid giving offense.¡± Esh-erdi thrust his hands away from him in a gesture Alden didn¡¯t recognize. ¡°They were evil.¡± ¡°The crikchikchikchik?¡± Haouy asked, doing what Alden thought was a remarkable job of pronouncing the sound. ¡°No. The knights I traveled with. They said it was the duty of the young to keep the old amused on long journeys. Of course I don¡¯t disagree, but a pool full of brood isn¡¯t funny. All those sharp little legs¡­¡± Alden was almost scared to ask. ¡°What is a cricketychickdee?¡± ¡°The Contract didn¡¯t define it,¡± Haoyu added. ¡°That¡¯s an unnecessary <> in my opinion. Imagine a dried lobeberry twice my size, with many legs and a habit of oiling itself.¡± By the time he finished explaining the species, Alden was fairly sure they were giant spider raisins who had no Contract and limited contact with the Triplanets. He was also fairly sure that persuading the youngest member of the squad to take an oil bath with them was truly evil. From there, they ended up talking about Haoyu¡¯s family. Esh-erdi seemed interested in his class choice and very happy to hear that he was following in his parents¡¯ footsteps. Initially nervous, Haoyu was growing bolder with every multilingual sentence. In the process of trying to mix in all the Artonan words he knew, he was occasionally pulling Mandarin and Turkish ones out of his head and throwing them into the mix. Alden had to read the translations to understand what he was saying sometimes. ¡°Does my father speak words about me while he¡¯s with you at <>?¡± Haoyu asked, leaning toward Esh-erdi. By then, they were all enjoying cushioning spells. And wooden bowls full of salted cucumber slices because the spa was apparently at such a loss about what to do for their high-profile guest that they¡¯d just fulfilled the only request anyone had made. ¡°Yes,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°He spoke of his family.¡± ¡°What does he say about me?¡± Haoyu asked, eyes narrowing as if he suspected his father of saying something he would disapprove of. ¡°No!¡± said Esh-erdi, laughing. ¡°You must ask him yourself. I¡¯m too clever to cause trouble with your parents even if you have bribed me with your planet¡¯s version of waterfruit.¡± He crunched on another cucumber slice. The steam had faded, so Alden was sure someone would come by with another potion soon. Haoyu sat back. ¡°I want¡­¡± He trailed off. Just when Alden assumed he must have changed his mind about sharing whatever it was, he finished the thought after all. ¡°I want to be as strong as my parents are. So that whenever one of them is summoned to a battle I can go with them.¡± Haoyu¡¯s eyes were fixed on the knight. His voice was firm. ¡°How do I do that?¡± So that¡¯s who he is. Alden wasn¡¯t surprised at all, but there was a clarifying quality to the thought, as if a critical piece of another person¡¯s inner puzzle had been found and fitted into place. He¡¯d had a lot of that recently, with Stu-art¡¯h. Choosing to go all-in on friendship by handing over like thirty puzzle pieces at once was so¡­Stuart of him. Now Alden was hearing one of Haoyu¡¯s. Haoyu Zhang-Demir, he thought. Fifteen-year-old slow cooker enthusiast. Does the recycling wrong. Will straight-up ask a knight how to get to danger so he can watch his parents¡¯ backs. Esh-erdi regarded him for a while. ¡°Grow as comes naturally to you for a few years, newling. You may satisfy yourself more easily than you think.¡± ¡°What if I can¡¯t?¡± ¡°Call me.¡± Haoyu straightened. ¡°When you¡¯re at an age when your parents wouldn¡¯t mind me answering the question,¡± Esh-erdi finished. Haoyu groaned. ¡°So when I¡¯m ninety.¡± Alden¡¯s laugh was drowned out by Esh-erdi¡¯s. ****** Eventually, people started to arrive. The first was a bearded man who seemed all right until Alden decided he seemed too all right. He refused to glance their way no matter what happened. Yeah sure, guy. Act like you can¡¯t see Esh-erdi casting spells or hear our conversation about the differences between snakes and oontsies. That¡¯s not a suspicious amount of nonchalance at all. But at lease it was preferable to the next saunagoer¡ªa man who literally said, ¡°Alden the Rabbit! Fancy meeting you here!¡± before sitting way too close and pretending he was best friends with Alden and something considerably more sycophantic toward Esh-erdi. ¡°Cucumbers,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°What, Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi?¡± Their new friend spoke in passable Artonan. ¡°I feel sad that they¡¯re all gone,¡± said Esh-erdi, gesturing toward his empty bowl. By the time the man came back with more cucumbers, his seat had been taken by two members of the battlegroup that had been at Matadero with the knights and Haoyu¡¯s dad. They were a couple who¡¯d been at the spa anyway, and they had decided to say a quick hello when they heard who was here. That quick hello got extended by Esh-erdi starting up a conversation about the Matadero rice wars. Alden wondered if he was the only one picking up on the fact that Esh-erdi was disappointed nobody had tried to attack him with a bag full of grain. I mean, I can¡¯t blame them. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m brave enough to boobytrap his shower or whatever, even though he seems to want someone to. Maybe he could suggest that Drusi-otta try it? <> said the woman, nodding at Alden. ¡°For Thanksgiving.¡± ¡°I ate that!¡± Esh-erdi declared. ¡°With champagne.¡± [You champagne!] Haoyu texted Alden with a gasp. [Criminal grape juice!]If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. [I didn¡¯t have any.] [Why? Still some? Try!] Alden ignored him in favor of thanking the fudge making couple. Unfortunately, they were the nicest of the people trickling in. Alden counted three gawkers, two job-seekers, one person who was probably going to blog about the general¡¯s favorite vegetable, someone who seemed really jealous of Alden¡¯s ¡°fortunate position¡±, and one self-proclaimed future member of the Anesidoran High Council. Then, a woman walked in wearing a skimpy red bikini. The last time Alden had seen it, Emilija had been wearing it. ¡°Way more people than I expected,¡± Aimi Velra said, turning in a circle to take in the room. The steam had been recently refreshed, and she waved a cloud out of her face. ¡°That¡¯s good. You can all suffer¡­I mean buffer if the general decides to stay after I issue my warning.¡± Everyone had fallen silent. Esh-erdi looked intrigued at the promise of a warning¡­or possibly at the sight of the Velra tattoo on Aimi¡¯s hip. He must have recognized it since Aulia liked to stamp it on her things. ¡°Thanks for not letting the ocean have my home, Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi,¡± she said in what sounded to Alden like perfect Artonan. ¡°I thought I should tell you that some people in my family have memberships here. Not because they enjoy exercise, just because this is a place where rich people are supposed to have memberships. A few of them are coming to inflict themselves upon you like a swarm of <>. I think it¡¯s going to be Corin, Hugh¡ª¡± ¡°We should leave,¡± Alden said. Probably too adamantly, judging by Haoyu¡¯s outburst of snickering. Aimi looked at him. ¡°Hi! Dad loved the birthday present. And lots of other people loved watching you send Hazel off the planet. Maybe not her parents, though.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not on me. I was just an honest bystander.¡± Alden was on his feet, trying to make ¡°Let¡¯s escape!¡± hand signs at Esh-erdi, whose eyes were lighting with even more interest. ¡°You know this woman?¡± ¡°We¡¯re <>!¡± Aimi announced. ¡°She captured me and put me in a car against my will. She ruined a meal for some ducks. But she also shares her belongings and comes to give warnings, so I¡¯m slowly forgetting about the first part.¡± ¡°Your accent is unique,¡± Aimi informed him. Alden was too busy trying to keep his towel around his waist while he shoved a bowl of cucumbers at Haoyu to respond to her. ¡°Snacks for the road,¡± he said to Haoyu. ¡°Come on. Come on, both of you. We¡¯ll go somewhere else.¡± The reasons he could imagine for Hugh, Corin, and whoever else was with them to want Esh-erdi¡¯s time and attention were all negative. Maybe they were angling for Hazel to be declared Queen of Anesidora. Maybe they wanted the knights to give a speech about how Aulia was the best-most-sweetest Avowed, and how she¡¯d had nothing to do with the Sinker Sender theft. Or it could be the opposite¡ªsome kind of power play to make sure Aulia stayed stuck on her megayacht for a few years while they did whatever it was people like them did when the boss was busy. Esh-erdi and Lind-otta do not need further exposure to the worst of humanity on their esvulgivnas. And I don¡¯t need Hugh glaring at me for getting his daughter jettisoned. Even Aimi might not be as innocent as she appeared. Her mom seemed to be the closest thing Aulia had to a second in command. ¡°Why are you looking at me like that?¡± Aimi asked. Alden shook his head. Esh-erdi allowed himself to be chivvied out of the sauna. ¡°I feel so well protected!¡± he said as they headed for the showers. ¡°And I feel so much more curious about Aulia¡¯s family than I did previously.¡± ¡°This is Alden¡¯s Cottontail mode,¡± Haoyu said. How did we get to the point where Haoyu feels comfortable telling a knight about our dumb codenames? ¡°This is Alden being practical,¡± Alden retorted. ¡°We needed to get out of there anyway. Most of those people weren¡¯t fun. They were vibe ruiners.¡± ¡°We can go do something else fun,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I want to do something fun,¡± Esh-erdi agreed. They both looked back at Alden, wearing bizarrely similar hopeful expressions. What the hell? When did I become the Friday night activities coordinator? He tried to think of something that wouldn¡¯t turn into a circus. ¡°We¡¯re very close to school. Did you want that tour now?¡± ****** While Haoyu and Esh-erdi poked their heads into every classroom on the Artonan culture floor of the Forthright Building, Alden trailed behind them, studying the map of the campus he¡¯d pulled up. The goal was to show Esh-erdi all the most interesting things without attracting crowds of people. Easier than it might have been, since we¡¯ve ended up doing this on a Friday evening. No classes were in session, and if they saved places like the student center and the cafeterias until later, everyone would pretty much have cleared out. I¡¯ll make sure he has a good time and feels like humanity is a pretty cool species despite everything that¡¯s gone wrong. And that way when he¡¯s on the frontlines with his partner and the Primary, he won¡¯t be thinking, ¡®Why am I doing this for those people?¡¯ ¡°And someone on this hallway pees in our roommate¡¯s shoes!¡± Haoyu said. Or we could tell him something like that. Alden dismissed the map and examined his tourist instead. Esh-erdi was starting up a story about someone he¡¯d known in school who watered a plant with nothing but her own tears one term. He came just to hang out with me, I think? There didn¡¯t seem to be any serious reason for Esh-erdi¡¯s arrival at the spa. Maybe he really wants to chill for a couple of hours and not think about anything serious. Maybe Shoe Pisser is the right kind of thing for tonight, after all. ¡°Do you want to see the learning cushions we use in my conversation class?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Stu saw them on a video call. They¡¯re acceptable for most human students, but he¡¯s still so mad about them.¡± ¡°He gave you permission to use his first name!¡± Esh-erdi said. ¡°Your friendship buds.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Alden checked the door to the classroom and found it unlocked, as all the others had been. ¡°I¡¯ve had permission for a long time. I was just dumb, and I didn¡¯t realize it.¡± They saw ass-abused cushions in that room, a board with a gokoratch eating a stick figure drawn on it in another, and in a lecture hall downstairs, they found a brunette girl randomly sleeping at a desk. They woke her up by talking about whether or not they should wake her up, and she shouted ¡°One cappuccino!¡± as soon as her eyes snapped open. That was how they found out she worked part-time at the coffeeshop downstairs and also how she ended up nervously making a cappuccino for an intrigued Artonan. Next, they went to the performing arts building to ride the elevator up through the glass bubble chandelier while Haoyu explained how the candle balls floating in the blackness were the perfect decorating idea that they hadn¡¯t quite managed to mimic in their dorm room. ¡°Yet,¡± he added. Then they went to Cafeteria North just after closing time to show Esh-erdi the fake town square. After that, Alden had been planning to take a walk through the memorial garden, but as they approached from above on the nonagon, they realized people were arriving early for a vigil that would start just after midnight. To mark exactly one week since the sirens had sounded. ¡°Did either of you plan to attend?¡± Esh-erdi asked. ¡°I went to one a few days ago,¡± Haoyu replied. ¡°This one will probably be really crowded. So I¡¯d rather not.¡± Alden tried to think of how to say that he wanted to walk away from reminders right now, not run toward them, without the desire sounding dramatic or selfish. ¡°I¡¯d rather not either,¡± he said instead. ¡°And I shouldn¡¯t.¡± Esh-erdi was looking down through the nonagon¡¯s surface. ¡°Since I seem to be distracting for some Avowed.¡± ¡°The Adjuster cleaning the cafeteria would have broken that table even if you hadn¡¯t been there,¡± Alden lied. ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Clumsy aim was his problem.¡± [Should we take him to see the MPE gym?] Alden texted. [Who now?] Haoyu asked. [It says Private Sessions on the schedule. Whoever it is, they probably don¡¯t want us there, right?] Haoyu shrugged. [I¡¯ll try to work it out for another day,] Alden typed. They ended up making the dorm their last stop instead. Alden was under the impression that Haoyu was giving Lexi a warning, mostly because he had texted, ¡°No worry. I can talk Danger Badger and make him open window for us!¡± And Lexi did open the living room window for them the second they speed-dropped out of the night sky. But it was obvious that whatever message Haoyu had sent, it hadn¡¯t included mention of their company. Alden was positive that Lexi wouldn¡¯t have greeted them in pajama pants and then yelled, ¡°Gahhh! What the¡ª!?¡± if he¡¯d had any clue who was coming. The look he directed at Haoyu and the knight was wild-eyed. The one he sent Alden¡¯s way was more murderous. [Haoyu told me he¡¯d call before we got here.] Alden sent the message as he climbed through the window. [He¡¯s your best friend, so I trusted him. Maybe he messed up a mental text? We¡¯re just going to show Esh-erdi the apartment. Sorry.] Best to make all of his arguments and apologies now, while witnesses prevented Lexi from doing any actual murdering. ¡°We have so much food left from yesterday,¡± Haoyu was saying as he trotted over to the fridge. ¡°You can have supper with us if you want, Esh-erdi.¡± [Possibly he¡¯ll be eating supper with us, too,] Alden added. He was going to leave the explanation there and join Haoyu in digging through whatever was in the fridge, but then he thought better of it. Lexi was looking pale¡­and that wasn¡¯t actually unreasonable of him. Just a few short days ago, Alden had been nervous around the knight. He had a lot more secrets to keep than Lexi did, but he also had a lot more information. Haoyu was so chill and grounded and easy to get along with. That made him feel like the normal one. But he¡¯s not. I think he might just be unusual in a way that¡¯s convenient for me. And even he was nervous about meeting Esh-erdi for a second. ¡°Hey, come help me put my stuff down,¡± said Alden. It was a weak excuse to pull Lexi from the room. Alden¡¯s ¡°stuff¡± was a duffel bag he obviously didn¡¯t need help with. But Haoyu was explaining the pros and cons of cold pizza to their visitor, and neither of them looked around while Lexi followed him down the hall. [If you want to go, I¡¯ll make an excuse for you,] Alden texted as they entered his bedroom. [The nonagon is right outside. I can send you up to Kon¡¯s room or down to the garden.] Lexi stiffened. Is he insulted? The Meister was air-typing. [What is he doing here?] Alden chucked the bag onto the floor beside the closet. He quickly ran through his Esh-erdi knowledge and decided most of it was actually shareable. [He¡¯s probably not shopping for Avowed, despite what all the people who seem to dread that or want that think. He¡¯s here with his partner, and after they finished up at Matadero, they were planning to enjoy Earth for a while. They¡¯re celebrating a relationship thing and vacationing together before they go do bad shit with other powerful people. If they were hoping to pick up some Avowed for that, I¡¯m not sure anyone on Anesidora would even be qualified. [Their vacation plans got interrupted, but he¡¯s trying to make the most of it, I think, by being curious and blowing off steam when he¡¯s not busy. He¡¯s been doing a lot to look out for me. Too much probably. The biggest risk of having him around is that he¡¯ll decide we need help with something and then he¡¯ll do the helping too enthusiastically. [He¡¯ll be very interested in you if you stay for cold pizza, but if he notices he¡¯s making you uncomfortable he¡¯ll leave. Or he¡¯ll try something to fix your discomfort¡­no telling what. He brought me juice while I wrote an essay, and he bought me a tree.] When he finished, he watched his roommate read the long message. Finally, Lexi sighed and nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll go put on a shirt,¡± he murmured. It wasn¡¯t long before he reappeared in the living area, well-dressed and ready to point out that Haoyu was feeding Esh-erdi all of the things that had been declared unfit for wizard Thanksgiving a mere day ago. ¡°We can order good food from somewhere,¡± he said seriously to Esh-erdi. ¡°You don¡¯t have to eat the mystery dishes and the floor potatoes.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± said Esh-erdi, looking at him with one eye and a smile. ¡°Human food isn¡¯t very frightening. What is floor potatoes?¡± Haoyu started describing how the mashed potatoes had been dropped on the staircase because of Kon and then been reassembled, bowl and all, by Kon. ¡°And there¡¯s not even any dirt or dust or hair in here as far as we can tell,¡± Haoyu said, scooping some of the floor potatoes onto a plate for himself. ¡°When he brought them up here, they still had the butter swirl S?ren had put on top and everything. Which is amazing! But just in case, we decided not to send these to Matadero with the other dishes.¡± Esh-erdi did take a bite of the potatoes, but not until he¡¯d stared at them for a much longer time than anything else. ****** ¡°You can stay here with your friends tonight if you want,¡± Esh-erdi said. It was late, and the nonagon was rising above Garden Hall. ¡°All of the most worrying matters have been dealt with. I¡¯d like for you to return to Matadero again at least once so that we can speak of certain things that are best spoken of in that place, but otherwise you¡¯re free to come and go while Lind and I are staying there.¡± ¡°Come and go?¡± Alden asked, almost bringing the nonagon to a halt. The wind ruffled his hair; the air smelled clean and crisp. ¡°If you want.¡± Who would want to come and go from The Slaughterhouse? Alden thought, only to realize that he did want. People he liked were there, and Matadero was convenient for him in some ways. ¡°The teleportation area,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s all right for me to use it to go see the mind healer on Monday?¡± Travel through the TC had its inconveniences, and it would be easier to hide how frequently he was going to the Triplanets if his trips were routed through the cube. Or if I just vanished from my room like it was an insta-summons. But let¡¯s give Earth a break where we can, right? ¡°You can use any of the facilities you want,¡± Esh-erdi said. ¡°Though I¡¯m aware that with your body healed, you may have trouble convincing people Porti is responsible for trips you make to the cube.¡± I could tell everyone he was experimenting on me¡­and he might take that as an invitation to experiment on me. ¡°Why would I be allowed to come and go from Matadero if I¡¯m not working there?¡± Esh-erdi looked thoughtful. ¡°You¡¯ve proven yourself worthy of trust. I like your company and want to enjoy more conversations with you before I leave Earth. It is convenient for me if you¡¯re occasionally in the same location as me, and I do hope to make your life easier. Giving you access to the building is such a <> privilege that I can¡¯t imaging an Artonan ever questioning it once they know the situation. I find your own people¡¯s fascination with your presence there < >.¡± ¡°Um¡­it¡¯s strongly associated with demon fighting,¡± Alden pointed out. ¡°And I¡¯m an adolescent. And a Ryeh-b¡¯t. And not very powerful.¡± ¡°I know,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°But everyone is aware by now that it¡¯s being used as a house, despite our < > about making repairs¡­oh. Do some humans think the polite fictions hide nocturnal battles instead of rest? That misconception might explain some things.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think people think that,¡± Alden said. ¡°At least not many of them. Honestly, it¡¯s¡­I can¡¯t think of the word. Novelty? The novelty of me being there. And envy mixed in. And some stranger things that aren¡¯t worth mentioning.¡± ¡°I see,¡± Esh-erdi said. He looked out over Apex. ¡°Change our direction a little since you seem to be coming back with me anyway.¡± ¡°Yes. My learning cushion is there. And I have an earring from Olorn-art¡¯h now, and I¡­¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to explain.¡± Esh-erdi pointed in a more southerly direction. ¡°Go that way.¡± Alden sent a hasty course change notice to traffic control, then did as he was told. A couple of minutes later, they were flying slowly over Punta de la Luna. Esh-erdi cast a spell that produced a familiar giant ball of light so that they could clearly see the hill the ambassadorial residence had once been built on top of. ¡°They finished recovering everything of value, and we arranged for the trash to be removed this morning. Clean, isn¡¯t it?¡± It was. Unrecognizably so. A whole landscape was spread out below them, ready for new construction. The knight took a step closer so that they were standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. ¡°Envy from people who see only the reward, and not the wreckage, isn¡¯t worth the turning of an eye.¡± Alden tried to imagine the exact position of the house, the greenhouse, the staircase he¡¯d carried Zeridee down. ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± he agreed. ¡°That¡¯s true.¡± He turned to look at the knight, only to step backward in shock as Esh-erdi¡¯s mouth opened and a huge belch of sound rattled the air around them. ¡°Oh my fucking hell! What¡ª?¡± Alden¡¯s words were lost as the noise hit a sort of wet higher pitch, like a phlegmy bullfrog was having its legs pinched off slowly mid-bellow. When it finally ended, Alden was gaping at the Artonan. ¡°Are you¡­well?¡± Does he need medical attention? Was it the potatoes? ¡°Fly back to the cube slowly,¡± said Esh-erdi in his normal, pleasant voice. ¡°We can¡¯t rush through ¡®The Elder¡¯s Croak.¡¯ Especially not during your first listening!¡± ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-EIGHT: The Elders Croak 178 ****** ¡°That¡¯s enough staring at our neighbors, Ro,¡± a woman said. She touched the switch that darkened the bedroom window, hiding the view of the house next door and turning Thegund¡¯s day into night. ¡°But they¡¯re leaving. Even the grandfathers. And they called a wizard from Chayklo. She¡¯s wrapping the house in¡ª¡± ¡°No more about that. Sit down with your sisters. It¡¯s time for a story, and then three wordchains each before sleep.¡± * ¡°Would you like me to tell you the story now?¡± Jeneth-art¡¯h asked as his fingers gently captured his son¡¯s hair into a loose braid. Stu sat perfectly still, face turned toward the stream. ¡°Were they right not to let me hear it? Will it make me cry?¡± ¡°I hope it will make you laugh,¡± said his father. ¡°And if you cry at the sad parts, is that wrong?¡± ¡°Can you tell it all in Rityan?¡± Stu asked quietly. ¡°Yes. I¡¯m sure it will be even better that way. It¡¯s an old story, after all. It starts like this¡ª¡± * ¡°In the time before books but not before memory,¡± said Esh-erdi, kneeling across from Alden Thorn on a green nonagon above a moonlit sea, ¡°in an age before cities, but not before magic, when the Mother Planet was full of dangers that have long since passed away, there was a village hidden in the deepest part of the deepest forest in the world.¡± ****** ****** Now, I know what you¡¯re going to ask because everyone asks. Is this the same village from those other stories? The one where the Traveling Man with a Tail Finds Home? The one where The Woman of Power Meets the Detcha? Yes, this is that same village. Far away and lost except to those who live there. But this is that village as it was before most of the other stories happened. The Woman of Power had not been born, and the Man with a Tail hadn¡¯t taken the first steps of his trip. This is that village back when they had only two wizards, and the people often lived in fear. Magic in those days was different than it is now. There were no schools to train people in the ways and responsibilities of commanding reality, so the wizards of the village weren¡¯t as you may be imagining them. The two of them were brothers, twins some say. The younger brother¡¯s authority was vast, and his brain was clever. When smallspells and wordchains were more than most people knew, he learned the secrets of the elements and heard the whispers of others like him in distant lands. When he was only a boy, he could suck nectar from thrumming flowers without being stung, and as a young man, he hollowed a log and filled it with hungerless fire to keep himself warm at night. You must be thinking what anyone would think the first time they hear this story. The people of the village had a luck larger than the size of the sky, didn¡¯t they? To have one like him among them, even in a time before schools. Surely he made their hammocks so strong they¡¯d never break and used his authority to seal their baskets so that they wouldn¡¯t leak. Surely he shared all the nectar he could find with them and warned them of trees with heartrot and lifted the weak ones to safety when the unclimbing beasts came hunting. Well, he didn¡¯t. He made his own hammock strong, and he came back to the village each night with nectar on his breath and no flowers in his basket, and he whined even when it was his own family that wanted to share the warmth of the hungerless fire. ¡°I take care of myself. The rest of you have nothing I need, so why should I help you?¡± That was the kind of person the younger brother was. He has no name in this story because why should his name be remembered? He took the Mother¡¯s air and ate from her ground and gave nothing back except what others in the village bought or berated from him. For himself, he lived. Alone, he died. And on our tongues, dead he stays. His elder brother, though, does have a name we remember even after all this time. And his name was BRRR-BRRRRUUP-BRRWEEEEE-eeeeeeeemp! ***** ***** The sound that issued from Esh-erdi¡¯s mouth was so startling after the rich, lulling voice in which he¡¯d been telling the rest of the story that Alden almost jumped to his feet. He ended up on one knee, leaning away from the knight and holding his hands to his chest, while the horrible croak echoed around them. Esh-erdi shut his mouth and beamed at him. ¡°No!¡± Alden said, unable to keep himself from laughing. ¡°No. It was even louder and weirder than last time!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what you mean. It¡¯s just the elder brother¡¯s name.¡± ¡°That¡¯s his name? I feel so sorry for him. What were his parents thinking?¡± ¡°It wasn¡¯t always his name. Come back here and listen. If I frighten you into jumping off The Nine-edged Son Whose Own Mother Forsakes Him, the art¡¯h family may not let me visit their house anymore.¡± ****** ****** You may be wondering how any person, even an ancient, could end up with a name like that. And the answer is: because he wasn¡¯t like his younger brother at all. The elder one¡¯s authority was stronger than the other villagers¡¯, but it was like a breath against the wind compared to the younger¡¯s. And the elder was no more clever than many people who lived in that place. But he was full of effort and patient in his thoughts, and as the years of his youth passed, he found a way to use his authority for the sake of the others. He learned to use it to change his voice. ¡­are you maybe questioning if that¡¯s really an example of magic at all? I understand why you might be, but at this time, in this village, even the adults had very simple voices. They could only whistle with their lips and clap with their hands and drum with their fists. Their throats would make none of those sounds, no matter how hard they tried. And they were a quiet people because shouts or songs would call danger to them. During the season of whispers, especially, they might not hear their own voices more times than they had fingers. So it was then, though strange it sounds to us now. But the elder brother! Even during the season of whispers, he could sing for them all. He sang in the voice of the stillwings that flew so high above the trees no beast bothered to come at their sound. Try it yourself now. Like this: Ayyytututut, ayyyytututut, ayyy¡­ The wizard sang like that one day. And on the next, he would sing in the sound of the rain on the leaves. And on the third, he chose the kssksssksskss of the kesbug because it reminded the village that the hard season would end and an easier one would come. And with every sound he learned to make, he found a new way to help his people. And his voice became the most valuable thing in the whole village. To his neighbors, the elder brother was beautiful, useful, and kind. And the younger, more powerful brother became jealous when he saw how everyone smiled at his sibling. That wizard huddled beside his warmth while others shivered and kept his healthfat while others chewed on bark, and he told himself his brother was wrong to help the village. Only a stupid person would give when they weren¡¯t forced to, he thought. My brother is just as selfish as me; he¡¯s selfish for their friendship. That¡¯s why he helps them. That¡¯s all it is. If it cost him much more, he¡¯d abandon them. He gave all of his attention to thoughts like that, until they darkened to hatred. I¡¯ll show them the truth, the younger decided. I¡¯ll show them they¡¯re wrong to frown at me and smile at him. And so he rose from beside his log, and he walked to a beloved wevvi tree not far away. Every precious fruit was plucked the moment it ripened and shared by all, as it had been for generations. So the people of the village didn¡¯t know that if the fruits were allowed to fall and rot, the scent would drive the unclimbing beasts mad with greed. But the younger knew. Because he had once hungered and ripened some fruit for himself before its time, and then he¡¯d left it in one of his hideaways so nobody could complain to him about putting the tree at risk. On that day when his thoughts turned to hatred, he ripened several of the tree¡¯s young fruits until they burst. Then he left pieces of them in a trail leading toward the village, and he waited. Let¡¯s see if my brother helps them now, he thought. Let¡¯s see how useful his voice is when the beasts arrive. He¡¯ll leave the weak old people by the fire. He won¡¯t run to the river to save the children who¡¯ve gone there to catch food. When he sees the beasts acting more terrible than he¡¯s ever seen them before, he¡¯ll take to the trees. Anyone would. Anyone... Do you think he was right about that? No? What if I told you that the only thing the beasts enjoyed more than rotten wevvi fruit was the flesh of the villagers? What if I told you they were so fast you had to point your eyes in two directions at all times to have even a chance of dodging them? Or what if you found out they had such vile claws that a single scratch would sicken a person and slowly kill them? Those were what the beasts were like on a normal day. Those were the beasts the younger brother set loose on his village. The first one is arriving right now, and it sounds like this: Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhhh. Shhhhhh. Even when they move too fast to see, even when they are drunk on the sweetness of the rot, the unclimbing beasts know how to be quiet. It¡¯s only the sound of the forest you hear, passing beneath their claws and scraping against their sides as they run toward their feast. So you don¡¯t know one has reached the village until you hear one of the watchers cry out in warning,¡°The beasts are here. The beasts are here.¡± The words are no scream in this season, but everyone moves as soon as they¡¯re heard. The villagers begin to climb¡ªup rope, up limb, up vine. Some of them are running toward the river. A child too young to know better is trying to hide beneath a blanket leaf. The younger brother is watching. And the elder is rising from the place where he has been talking worms out of the roots of a bush. He is seeing the first beast and a second behind it. A third. All of them more ferocious than he¡¯s ever known them to be, and he thinks, I can¡¯t do it all. I can¡¯t save the babe under the blanket leaf and the young ones at the river and the old who are struggling to help each other up from beside the fire. What should I do?Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. And hidden only a step away by magic¡ªfor he really is that clever and that talented¡ªthe younger smiles at the fear on his brother¡¯s face. Because he assumes the elder is afraid for himself. As soon as he climbs, I¡¯ll kill the beasts, thinks the younger. As soon as they all stop believing that he¡¯s so much better than me. If only my brother was here now, thinks the elder, he could save our people. He can do so much magic, and all I have is my voice. All you have is your voice, thinks the younger. Climb a tree. Forget the others. All I have is my voice, thinks the elder. All he had was his voice, and as the jaws of one of the beasts opened wide to take the first life, the elder brother did the only thing he could think of with that voice. Please forgive the storyteller for his poor imitation of it, but the elder brother said, BRRR-BRRRRUUP-BRRWEEEEE-eeeeeeeemp! BRRR-BRRRRUUP-BRRWEEEEE-eeeeeeeemp! BRRR-BRRRRUUP-BRRWEEEEE-eeeeeeeemp! BRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP. ****** ****** ¡°Are you all right?¡± Esh-erdi asked. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± said Alden, still covering his ears just in case it happened again. ¡°But I think maybe you should call all the seismologists and tell them that was you. Not a shift in our tectonic plates.¡± Esh-erdi looked flattered. ****** ****** The sound the elder brother made was so awful that the beasts it had been directed at died in an instant. It was so frightening that flying creatures fell from the sky and burrowing creatures tunneled so deep they never returned. The children at the river could have filled their baskets with the fish that floated to the surface in the wake of that noise, if they hadn¡¯t been hiding in terror. Even the people who had seen the elder do it, and who celebrated his victory, were shaken. One man lost all his hair, and nobody felt like procreating for the rest of the season. But they were fine, really. It was better than being eaten. And once they¡¯d recovered, life in the village was easier than it had been. The beasts avoided them. The elder brother sang for them all the time to wipe away the last of the fear. And the younger brother became much more distant from them. It wasn¡¯t as good as him joining them in their joys and helping them in their work, but at least he wasn¡¯t so eager to show off all the treasures he found and the pleasures he made for himself. Delightful years passed...but then a bad one came. And another. The weather was dry when it should have been wet and cold when it should have been hot. The wevvi tree weakened before its time and gave them less and less, and a strange new fish with flesh that poisoned stomachs drove the good ones from the river. The air filled with swarms of bloodeaters that could drain a child to death in an afternoon. The nights filled once more with the shhhhhhhhhhhh of the occasional unclimbing beast. Through the use of his voice, the elder brother kept the village from dying. He knew the noise that drove away the bloodeaters and the one that called the last of the good fish to the surface. Sometimes he stood for an entire day by the wevvi tree, tempting the pollinators toward it with the sounds of their mates and sending the pests away from it with the cries of those that preyed on them. He was a great man, but he was only one person. Everyone knew that soon, he wouldn¡¯t be able to hold back the trouble. There would come a day with not enough food, and they would have to start choosing. Which baby? Which old one? Which unique and precious self could the village continue on without? And then¡­a girl of the village disappeared on a hunt. A whole day and a night passed, and just when they decided she must be lost to them forever, she stumbled back into the village. Her body was covered in stings. Only one of her eyes would open. Her hands and arms were so swollen she could barely carry the gift she¡¯d brought them, and a wonderful gift it was for those hungry people¡ªa basket lined with wax and filled with the nectar of the thrumming flowers. She told them that she had walked much farther than she should have, following a smell that had reached a nose made more sensitive by need. ¡°And I found them there,¡± she said through lips so thick they could barely understand her. ¡°I stayed until I had squeezed the nectar from every one. Eat. Eat.¡± Why, they all asked her. Why hadn¡¯t she cut the flowers and brought those instead? In the village, the flowers could be dried, and the stingers that lived inside them would die. They could have had the nectar that way, without her being hurt. ¡°We could only have the nectar once that way,¡± she explained. ¡°If the flowers and the stingers are still alive, someone can walk to them and harvest every few days.¡± She said she would do the job herself every time she could. ¡°I wish I could thrum like you and soothe the stingers,¡± she told the elder brother. ¡°But since I can¡¯t, and since you are so busy for us, the pain must be endured.¡± Upon hearing that, the good, tired wizard suddenly had an idea. He went to the home his younger brother had built for himself; it was nearly a tree palace by then, with more room than any family in the village had. And when he found his brother he said, ¡°You are so powerful, and you find new truths as easily as I might discover a twig on the ground. I¡¯m sure you¡¯re busy, but just this once, won¡¯t you find a truth our people need and make it into a magic for us? Won¡¯t you find a way for everyone in the village to make this noise? ¡°Hurrrummmmmm. Hurrrummmmmm.¡± It was a sound he often used in his songs, and I¡¯m sure you can hear why. Such a soft tickle against your ears. ¡°Hurrrummmmmm,¡± said the elder. ¡°Hurrru¡ª¡± ¡°I know the sound the flowers make,¡± said the younger. ¡°I don¡¯t need you to reproduce it over and over. Why would I go around figuring out how to give people new sounds? And why would you even want me to do that? If everyone in the village can thrum, half of your songs won¡¯t be special to them anymore.¡± ****** ****** ¡°There are two versions of the story from here,¡± Esh-erdi said. He¡¯d pulled a small bottle out of one of his pockets, and he was taking occasional sips from it. Alden was afraid he was preparing for another croak. ¡°The first is the version everyone else tells, in which the elder brother speaks words of reason, then appeals to the younger brother¡¯s <> compassion, and finally pleads and praises until that filthy stain of a wizard has an orgasm of the ego and decides he can offer his time if everyone in the village will talk to him like that while he works.¡± Esh-erdi gestured dismissively. ¡°But you¡¯re not as young as most audiences, so I can tell you my version instead. It¡¯s better.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t surprise me,¡± said Alden. ****** ****** ¡°If everyone in the village can thrum, half of your songs won¡¯t be special to them anymore.¡± And that was when the elder looked upon the younger and finally accepted the truth¡ªhe was related to one of the worst people who¡¯d ever drawn breath. There was probably a poisonous fish in the river, missing a couple of eyes and a fin, that was more valuable to the village than this man. After all, the emotional damage caused to everyone else by having such a person living in a tree palace above their starving village had to be taken into consideration. That younger brother had been nectar-sucking his whole life, but he let that girl go milk flowers by herself until she almost swelled to death? You think someone as powerful as him didn¡¯t already know those flowers were there? And so the elder resolved himself not to tolerate the younger¡¯s personality for a moment longer. ¡°My brother,¡± he said, ¡°you are not my brother anymore. And if you do not help us now, then I will croak at you like you are one of those beasts I killed that day¡­.I¡¯ve always been very suspicious about that situation, by the way. I know I¡¯m not the clever brother, but that doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m stupid. ¡°So are you going to help us, or are you going to find out what the sound of your death is?¡± ****** ****** ¡°I like that version,¡± said Alden. ¡°Thank you. I made it up when I was a child. I think it¡¯s an improvement.¡± ****** ****** The younger had finally swallowed a grain of the fear that the people less fortunate than him ate daily. He agreed to do what his brother had asked of him. And though he did work day and night, the teller of this story hopes you won¡¯t praise him for help he was forced to give. The village that had nurtured him in his youth might have been so much safer and happier, if only he¡¯d used a small fraction of his power for the sake of the others all along. At least he was working now. Every morning, the elder came to him and said, ¡°Have you found something that will help our people thrum?¡± He answered no. And no. And no, not yet. Until one morning, when the elder came, the younger said, ¡°Your strength is enough to bend a stick, but your hands reach for the whole forest. If you want one of them to thrum for today, I can do it. But you want all of them to thrum forever? You ask too much.¡± ¡°One day, my body will nourish these trees that shade us,¡± said the elder. ¡°Our people will still be here. Another time of hardship will come. We must give them something that will last.¡± When he came again the next morning, the younger said, ¡°I¡¯ve thought of a way to do it, but I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll say no. Your sounds are things of power you¡¯ve made for yourself. I think if I perform a certain magic, you might give the thrum away to many people, and as long as you do not make the sound ever again yourself, they will keep it. If you live long enough in this way, then when your body goes to nourish the trees, perhaps the village will continue thrumming without you.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said the elder. ¡°Yes?¡± the younger asked in shock. ¡°What an amazing thing you¡¯ve just told me,¡± said the elder. ¡°That the sacrifice of one of my sounds could do so much good for so many other people¡­truly, the universe is a kind place if that is possible.¡± ¡°You fool,¡± said the younger. ¡°You think it¡¯s so easy? The song you sang to comfort the girl with the stings last night was the most beautiful of your life. If you do this, you will never sing so beautifully again.¡± ¡°Will the others not sing with me with the new sound I have given them? Will there not be many hurrrummmmmms, when always before there has only been mine?¡± ¡°You fool,¡± the younger said again. But the magic was completed that night, and in the morning, the villagers all went together to the flowers. They coaxed the nectar from the blooms and drank of its sweetness, and nobody was stung. And when it was time again for the elder to sing, it was true that his song wasn¡¯t as good. Worse storytellers say that it mattered not, that he felt nothing but pride and happiness, and that when his people added their new thrumming to his song, all was made more than right. I doubt that¡¯s true. Though the elder was certainly proud and he was certainly happy, was there not a new splinter in his heart? A small one. One he could live with without regret. But must we pretend it wasn¡¯t there even on that first day, when he had sacrificed only a single sound? Even the worse storytellers agree it appeared at some point, that splinter. For there were so many sounds to give. The one that tempted the pollinators, the one to frighten the pests, the one that traveled far to call back villagers who¡¯d gotten lost in that dark forest. He gave away the sound that eased a mother in her labor and the one that pulled the worms from the roots. The whisper that reached a single ear. The sounds of every animal and plant in the forest, one by one, as his people found uses for them. Call the flying creatures from their nests, the running ones toward your net. Make the soft patter of the rain to hide your footsteps from the ones that hunt you. Here. Try reenreenreen, as high as you can, and the mogaroo will come. Her meat will be rich even when all the other game has turned to bone. Try otyuuuut, very softly, and you may look at the beautiful grippertail in its plumage season without frightening it. Try zzzzzz, zzzzzz, zzzz. And then tatatatatatatatat, as fast as you can. That will get you something good out of the pinkbark trees. The elder brother gave all those sounds away. Eventually, he gave every sound away, except for the most dangerous one. By the time he was an elder of the village in truth, he would not even risk using the speech he¡¯d been born with, for what if a word was too close to the sounds he¡¯d given away? What if, by a single word, he broke the magic his brother had devised, and robbed the people of their new voices? They hadn¡¯t had another hard season since he gave them the thrumming. Whatever terror came, whatever problem arose, the flexible voices of the villagers could solve it. The younger had left after the last sound was given. He couldn¡¯t stand being reminded of his brother every time someone opened their mouth, and I¡¯m sure he was envious of the elder¡¯s many friends, lovers, children, and grandchildren. And the unclimbing beasts? They rarely hunted near the village, because the elder, with only one sound left to him, had to use it every time he spoke. He learned to say BRRR-BRRRRUUP-BRRWEEEEE-eeeeeeeemp! in many different ways¡ªquietly, merrily, gratefully, sadly¡ªbut it was still an ugly sound that made even the people who had heard it all their lives feel a shiver of fear. Once every few years, when a beast who didn¡¯t know of him came too close, he would once again be forced to unleash its power to protect them all: BRRR-BRRRRUUP-BRRWEEEEE-eeeeeeeemp! Pardon the coughing. I think I vibrated something too much with that last one. The children born in the village thereafter were born with the beautiful voices, too, and for each of them, a day would come when they asked their parents what was wrong with that kind elder who walked around with no songs at all and only different versions of a repulsive croak? He couldn¡¯t even speak a name for himself other than BRRR-BRRRRUUP-BRRWEEEEE-eeeeeeeemp! He couldn¡¯t talk a fish toward him or a bloodeater away from him. The thrumming flowers grew everywhere around the village by then, but the elder couldn¡¯t even taste them without someone else soothing the stingers. He seemed to the children like someone so different he barely belonged in the village at all, but their parents treated him with more respect than any other old one. And they talked to him plainly, as if the croaks he gave them in reply were nothing more than normal words. Sometimes, they even urged him to sing with them, though he almost never did. Why didn¡¯t the adults complain about all the croaking? Why didn¡¯t they ever ask that broken elder to stop it? It was a mystery so hard the children couldn¡¯t squeeze the juice from it. Then, their parents would tell them this story, and they would finish it by saying, ¡°The elder is a wizard who could sing and speak more beautifully than any of us if he chose to. Instead, he chooses to croak, so that the village thrives. He lives with a splinter so that we have everything else. Why would we mention his loss to him, or the ways that he is different from us, when we know it might drive the splinter deeper?¡± Most of the children understood; they grew in wisdom from the story and learned to respect the elder as their parents did. Only a few silly ones went on feeling that the croak and the elder who made it were a lot of trouble. And those only thought that way until the first unclimbing beast of their lives came. The croak had grown the more the elder used it, you see. And with no other sound, he mastered every nuance of the one he had left. By the time he was old, the elder¡¯s greatest croak would shatter the skulls of every beast within a week¡¯s walk of the village, while up above them the flying animals still flew and in the river, the fish still swam. It was the most terrifying of sounds, but it did real harm only to the dangerous beasts. ¡°Can you make a sound like that?¡± the parents would ask the children who trembled at their legs. Of course they couldn¡¯t. Even the elder hadn¡¯t been able to make a sound like that until he gave up all the others. The perfect croak that hurt the hurters and spared the innocent was the talent his suffering had bought, and they say that on the eve of his death, the elder unleashed the best one of all. For many generations after that, the unclimbing beasts vanished from that forest. And though it was long before The Woman of Power was born to take her turn protecting them, those people slept at ease and ate their fill and the village the elder had loved grew high and wide. They remembered him, and we remember him, and your children will remember him when you tell them this story. For his people, he lived. In our voices, may he continue to live forever. ****** ****** ¡°What did we learn from that story?¡± the woman asked. ¡°Ro, you first. And stop staring at the window. You can¡¯t even see out of it.¡± ¡°I think that wizard outside is the cousin the grandfathers are always saying mean-mean things about,¡± said Ro. ¡°I think our neighbors are hypocritical, and if they ever come back home, we shouldn¡¯t speak to any¡ª¡± ¡°Ro! Enough about that wizard. What did we learn from the story?¡± ¡°You only like my answers when I lie. Ask Ru and Ree instead.¡± * ¡°Brrreep?¡± Stu said uncertainly. His father laughed. ¡°That was a tiny little chirp! Let¡¯s try it together. At the same time.¡± ¡°But¡­what if it hurts the zansees?¡± * ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± said Alden, shaking his head hard. ¡°There are so many reasons why I can¡¯t do that.¡± ¡°I know you¡¯re at a disadvantage, but how is his name going to live on in your voice forever if you don¡¯t even try?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not just a disadvantage. I¡¯m probably missing body parts I¡¯d need to make that sound happen. Whatever comes out of my mouth is going to be so embarrassing it might kill me.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll never repeat your human croak to anyone,¡± said Esh-erdi. ¡°Not even Lind-otta?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll never repeat your human croak to anyone but Lind.¡± The knight looked so eager. Oh, man. Alden cleared his throat. I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m doing this. I can¡¯t believe this is where my life has taken me. Maybe I should think of it like self-confidence training. Once I¡¯ve done this, I should be able to do anything, right? He¡¯s not recording me, is he? Alden Thorn closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and did his damnedest to croak. ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-NINE: By Appointment 179 ****** At five o¡¯clock in the morning on a Saturday, the school library was so quiet that Alden felt like he¡¯d sneaked into the place instead of walking through the front doors. He saw only one woman on the ground floor, and she was staring sadly at a line of empty vending machines. There were still plenty of oddities like that around; signs that something had gone wrong recently stuck out like sore thumbs in the middle of a world that was back to running smoothly in most ways. You could go to restaurants and movies, or you could hang out in potion saunas with knights. But one of the links in the chain that made these particular vending machines have snacks in them was obviously still broken¡ªan absent employee, a teleportation restriction, all the food being funneled into the meals that the school was supplying for the temporary dome neighborhood. Alden¡¯s thoughts tried to turn to the interconnectedness of the people in the village and how the attitudes of the elder and younger brothers would apply to missing chips and sodas, but he managed to stop them. He was here on campus at the crack of dawn instead of enjoying one of his two available beds because the story about the croak had plunged into him too deep. And he believed the sediment it had stirred up when it hit the bottom was best left to settle without examination. For the first time in weeks, his affixation had woken him. Not nightmares about affixing, but the affixation itself. Himself. Even now, he had that vivid sense of being trapped, of struggling against himself, of straining for more space and freedom. And it wasn¡¯t helping that he was pissed off about it in such a weird way. Specifically, he was mad that being mad was putting a damper on how unforgettable his night had been. Watching Esh-erdi correct the scale of someone¡¯s gokoratch whiteboard art, eating leftovers with him and Lexi and Haoyu, being told an Artonan children¡¯s story with crazy sound effects and then letting himself be talked into belch-croaking as loud as he could at the stars of the southern hemisphere¡­ It was cool. It won¡¯t stop being cool just because the aftereffect was stolen sleep. At least his heightened fixation on affixation had reminded him that someone had recently asked for his opinion on that topic. Fortunately, the guy happened to be one of the earliest risers he knew. ¡°Hi, Jeffy,¡± Alden said, dropping his messenger bag on the conference table and taking in the sight of the Aqua Brute. Jeffy was sitting in front of a computer and drinking something called ¡°Protein Attack.¡± ¡°Alden, you came!¡± ¡°Yeah, of course. I didn¡¯t change my mind in the past twenty minutes. You know there are a ton of empty study rooms, right? This huge one we used for the team meeting is¡ª¡± ¡°Ours,¡± said Jeffy, holding his hand up for a high five. Alden snorted. ¡°I¡¯m good with that. So¡­you¡¯re talking to people about talent selection. That¡¯s smart, and I have time this morning.¡± ****** But maybe not enough time to understand this¡­what is he thinking? He sat in the chair beside Jeffy, looking at the recommended talent builds some faculty member had made and helpfully linked to exciting reference materials that should have appealed to an S-rank Aqua Brute of a certain personality type. They could carry Jeffy through the next eight to ten years, with only minor tweaking along the way, if the System offered him what it usually did and if he progressed at a fast pace with no stalls. The plans might have been leaning too optimistic, but they were all the more impressive because of that. Enviro Brutes seemed to have it okay on the talent selection front. If the System was keeping tons of secrets about their spells and skills, it must have been happening at heights beyond the ones Jeffy was projected to reach in the next decade. All of the faculty recommendations, and most of the other talents Alden asked him to read aloud off his selection windows, sounded like they would do what any reasonable person would think the class should be able to do. Aqua Brute is how you become Mr. Does it All in the Deep Water Guy. In addition to the regular foundation point choices, the System was providing a limited list of Morphish abilities that would kick-in semiautomatically in response to Jeffy¡¯s environment. A little like spell impressions moving a person¡¯s hands and mouth for them, although the automorphs were said to benefit from regular activation. Celena North didn¡¯t want Jeffy getting fancy right now. He already had Sink and Surface. They expected him to continue leveling that and taking either automorphs or spell impressions that would let him fully leverage the skill. Basically, they wanted him to be able to safely sink even deeper, resurface even faster, and move through the water even more quickly than he already could. All while hauling stuff around with him. Alden would have understood if Jeffy found the prospect of starting out that way boring, especially with some entirely new powers staring him in the face. But he didn¡¯t even seem to like the version of superhuman that the plans were promising to turn him into in the far future. Is he still hung-up on being a land hero? I thought he¡¯d changed his mind about that with all the talk about the strength and wisdom of the ocean he was doing while he crushed me in gym. And Jeffy was really bad at articulating what the issue was. ¡°How do you feel about what you had to do last week?¡± Alden asked, hoping to pin him down. ¡°Beingsummoned into the water when it was trying to eat whole cities¡ªthat must have been crazy for you.¡± The label Jeffy was peeling off the empty Protein Attack bottle stopped crinkling. ¡°It was crazy! At first, when the System told me I was going to be summoned, I was worried. Because what if I messed up and somebody died? But then there were all these other Brutes and one Adjuster, and we were teamed up. All the people who saw us were really happy to see us. And Yesenia said I was learning the ropes fast, and¡­¡± Okay, so he¡¯s not on the verge of making a strange decision because he¡¯s traumatized. He actually liked the disaster work. Alden listened to him describe how awesome the older Avowed he¡¯d met that night were while he skimmed the list of spell impressions Jeffy had said were available to him. He paused on one the faculty hadn¡¯t put on any of their plans even though it sounded interesting. It was for finding ¡°oft-named¡± objects that were in the same body of water as the caster. While the remarkably specific spell was most obviously useful on Earth for locating ships, it sounded from the description like it could be used to locate any object that had its own unique-enough name. It would be like a very restricted version of Roman Velra¡¯s skill, and that skill is awesome. SkySea Guard could have really used this the other night, right? As soon as that thought occurred to him, Alden typed the spell name into his laptop. ¡°Jeffy! This spell impression is new. It¡¯s not on the internet. The System must have started offering it just this week. Wow. The Artonans can roll one out fast when they want to.¡± He was intrigued to see talent selection shifting in response to recent events.Affixation options appearing and disappearing happened, but having such an obvious explanation for why a new spell had been added was new to him. He wondered if it was a sign that the Triplanetary government was now especially concerned about the dangers of watercraft or if they were putting out a bunch of talents they thought their Avowed might appreciate after what they¡¯d been through. As an apology or something. Anesidora might have even asked for a spell like this and been granted it. I should see if there¡¯s anything about that on the news sometime. ¡°I know. That spell wasn¡¯t there when I had advisement,¡± Jeffy said, setting aside the bottle. ¡°Do you think that means I have to let them advise me again?¡± Alden sat back. ¡°If you¡¯re interested in taking the spell you could, but I don¡¯t think you have to do anything. I am a little confused about what you want, though.¡± Jeffy had added a plan of his own to the faculty¡¯s. Not a ten-year one, just what he wanted to choose for this affixation. He thought he wanted more Strength, Speed, Agility¡­and another life jacket spell impression. ¡°It could be something else,¡± Jeffy said. He picked up the sheet of notebook paper he¡¯d written his wishlist on, his fingers crumpling the edges. ¡°But I think something like this is better. Only the teachers said no as soon as I showed it to them, in this really obvious way, like of course it was wrong. They were excited about their plans for me, and they had those videos of the other Aqua Brutes and the list of places and organizations that could benefit from me if I had different talents. They had all these facts. And I didn¡¯t have any facts, so I didn¡¯t know how to talk about any of it. Then, it was over.¡± They saw what his idea was, thought he was a dumb kid, and steamrolled him. On the very first day they¡¯d met, Alden had assumed the faculty would try to talk Jeffy out of his then-goal of being a ¡°building puncher.¡± Now that he knew the guy and he wasn¡¯t freshly annoyed by him, he felt like a dick for not considering how a conflict between what Jeffy wanted and what the school thought he should want would actually affect him. ¡°Sometimes teachers are way too pushy accidentally,¡± said Alden. ¡°They probably didn¡¯t mean to pressure you¡­much. Can you explain what you¡¯re thinking now? To me?¡± ¡°I still don¡¯t have facts.¡± Alden peered at him. ¡°But you do know why you want what you want, right? It doesn¡¯t have to be backed up by science or statistics, but you must have a reason. I¡¯m not surprised you¡¯re into the foundation points. Everyone knows you really like those. But why more life jackets?¡± He was careful not to ask the question in a way that might sound derisive. I can¡¯t believe he wants another copy of the same spell impression. That¡¯s very peculiar and not nearly as useful as thirty other things he could choose. But it was Jeffy¡¯s affixation. If casting the life jacket spell made the guy so happy that he wanted to do it even more, then Alden would make room for the notion. Other people will give him so much shit for it, though. I hope he has a goal he can talk about to shut them up at least. ¡°Life jackets are for people,¡± Jeffy said. ¡°You can use the spell on things that aren¡¯t people, and that¡¯s fun unless you make a big mistake. But the System said it¡¯s mostly for people and not to waste the jackets on anything else during the floods.¡± Alden didn¡¯t have a reply to that, so he settled for smiling encouragingly. ¡°A lot of the talents aren¡¯t for people. A lot of them just take me away from everybody else. And I don¡¯t like that. I want to be a superhero, not a submarine.¡± ¡°What do you mean, man?¡± About ten minutes later, he finally had an answer. Jeffy was trying to choose his talents based on the fact that he hated feeling like he was cut off from the rest of the world. He hadn¡¯t known that about himself before getting the class. ¡°I like swimming a lot. I like the water. But in the deep ocean, you go down and down, and there¡¯s nobody else there. Probably nobody else has ever been exactly where you are before. Even if you have a light, there¡¯s nothing to see but more of the same everywhere. ¡°It¡¯s okay if I know I can come back up whenever I want. But if I had a job to do down there, I¡¯d have to stay for however long my boss told me to. And what if it was hours? Or days?¡± ¡°You¡¯re the one with the powers,¡± said Alden. ¡°If you ever get freaked out doing something in deep water, you can just come back up. See the sky, say hi to whoever is nearby on the surface, and then go back down. If you¡¯re an insanely fast Aqua Brute, who¡¯s going to mind? It¡¯s like taking a bathroom break for a normal employee.¡± ¡°Maybe,¡± said Jeffy. ¡°And you have the System.¡± Alden tapped his own forehead for emphasis. ¡°So you can have people talking to you while you¡¯re down there. Doesn¡¯t that make it better? Or does it make it worse somehow?¡±This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± Jeffy said again. ¡°But that¡¯s on Earth.¡± Oh. ¡°I¡¯ve been watching a lot of Abisal¡¯s channel,¡± said Jeffy. ¡°Because she talks about all her jobs. Look.¡± Abisal wasn¡¯t an Avowed Alden knew much about. He mostly thought of her as that lady who¡¯d saved a container ship crew two or three years ago, and he wasn¡¯t sure he would have been able to recognize her on the street. But she was informative and exuberant on the channel Jeffy introduced him to. She also obviously loved the very part of Aqua Bruting that Jeffy was trying to avoid. The video he was most upset about was titled ¡°El Mejor Trabajo de Mi Vida¡± and had been posted three months ago. [Hello, everyone! I¡¯m finally back home after swimming for almost two weeks in an ocean that has never had a human being in it!] she began, smiling widely. [That¡¯s a first-in-the-universe achievement, but there¡¯s no medal. So I made myself this one.] She held up a disc of chocolate she¡¯d attached a ribbon to. And then took a bite out of it. [I¡¯m going to make myself another one tomorrow. I did miss chocolate a lot. But I had so much fun! And now I can tell you all about what it¡¯s like to eat, sleep, and work on a water world!] She went on to explain the best job of her life. She¡¯d been summoned by a team of wizards who had built a device that had some assembly required on the bottom of an ocean floor, on a planet inhabited only by aquatic wildlife.She¡¯d gotten trained up, geared up, and then dropped off for a two-week-long assignment that sounded a lot like hammering giant tent pegs into very specific locations in a very specific way while trying not to let any curious animals touch them. She¡¯d literally slept underwater to avoid the terrible storms on the surface and drank her meals out of pouches. She¡¯d had nothing but some kind of magic music box for company, which they¡¯d let her keep as a souvenir. Extra time was built into her trip just in case she needed it to complete the task, but she was happy she hadn¡¯t needed it because it gave her an opportunity to leave the construction site and ¡°really experience the adventure.¡± She¡¯d done the job and then swam around exploring everything. ¡°See?¡± Jeffy whispered. ¡°Two weeks. With nothing but fish.¡± ¡°I do see,¡± Alden said slowly. ¡°The good news is that, right now, you¡¯re definitely not qualified to have that kind of experience. You¡¯re missing a lot of abilities you¡¯d need for that one.¡± ¡°She couldn¡¯t even make phone calls,¡± Jeffy said. ¡°She didn¡¯t have anything but that emergency signal. What if they gave me one of those and I made a mistake and lost it? There wouldn¡¯t be anyone to help me find it. She was down there forever. I don¡¯t want to do that. I want to swim toward people and help people and then celebrate with people. That¡¯s what other superheroes get to do.¡± Pointing out that Abisal probably did a lot of that too wouldn¡¯t help anything. ¡°I get you,¡± Alden said. ¡°You do?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°So what do I do?¡± He took his time thinking of a reply. ¡°First of all, I think you¡¯re right not to just do whatever the faculty says. Especially if you didn¡¯t even get the chance to tell them what you¡¯re worried about. You should talk to them again when you¡¯re ready to explain, and talk to other people you trust who know more than you. ¡°And only take talents you want. If someone says you have to have a certain ability to succeed as a superhero, but you feel uncomfortable about it, then ignore them. Don¡¯t take it. You¡¯re going to level more in the future, so you can always pick up what you need later.¡± ¡°What if I fall behind everyone else? I don¡¯t want that to happen. It sucks to be at the bottom of the class.¡± Alden briefly wondered how it was possible for him to be worried about a thing like that, then he reminded himself that Jeffy had been in a regular school until recently. ¡°This is Anesidora, and you¡¯re an S. You won¡¯t fall to the bottom in our gym class, which is the class everyone in the program cares the most about. You could take nothing but Appeal and Life Jacket for the next year, if the System didn¡¯t cut you off, and even though the instructors would be freaking out and yelling at you, you still wouldn¡¯t be losing every duel. ¡°The thing is, you¡¯re already awesome. The System picked you to help people during a real crisis. You were a red halo. You¡¯re already a superhero. I bet if everyone had to rank the class right now, you¡¯d be really close to the top.¡± Jeffy¡¯s posture straightened, and his grin returned. At least he bounces back quickly. ¡°All right,¡± said Alden, looking back at the computer. ¡°So now I understand. At the moment, you don¡¯t want anything that will make you a perfect longterm submarine like Abisal, and the faculty plans are all on the way there. Eventually. But that doesn¡¯t mean everything they suggested is a no-go at this point. And Life Jacket isn¡¯t the only option that would guarantee you get called to work in places with other people. Like that new locator spell¡­looking for named objects usually means you¡¯re somewhere inhabited by intelligent life. There aren¡¯t a lot fish naming things, right?¡± Jeffy¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°I hadn¡¯t thought of it that way!¡± ¡°Some wizard might drop something on an abandoned planet and then send you to go look for it. But I doubt that would happen very often.¡± ¡°Maybe I should choose that one right now,¡± Jeffy said. ¡°What if it¡¯s a spell that the System will only give out a few times, and other people get it first?¡± He lifted his hand like he was going to touch something on his interface, and Alden barely stopped himself from tackling him. He did stand up from his seat, shouting, ¡°No! Whoa! No! Don¡¯t take something as soon as I suggest it!¡± Jeffy pulled his hand back, staring at him. Alden¡¯s heart was pounding. ¡°You didn¡¯t just¡­¡± ¡°I was answering a text message from Max.¡± ¡°Oh! Um¡­good. Sorry. You should do that.¡± He took a deep breath. ¡°Just don¡¯t rush your decision. Do you want me to help you make a list of more options? And then you can talk to people who aren¡¯t me. Other Aqua Brutes. Max? Your grandparents. And make sure you tell them everything.¡± Jeffy nodded. Alden was trying to trust the nod. It was hard. ¡°Actually, let¡¯s make a list of the good, knowledgable people you¡¯re going to talk to first. And then we¡¯ll write down what you want to say to them.¡± ****** ****** By late morning, Alden was feeling better. Helping Jeffy had been perfect for a reset, and he was looking forward to seeing Gustavo. Going shopping for the clothes he would wear to meet the healer was something he¡¯d decided a couple of days ago that he should be excited about¡­so he was. To make choices about my future and deal with whatever is coming my way, I need to be at my best. The mind healer will help me be at my best faster. Proper clothes will keep me from embarrassing myself or the art¡¯hs in front of the healer. Therefore, buying an outfit worthy of embroidering that commendation on is an important part of my choosing season. Mentally framing it all that way made it seem like the massive questions ahead of him could be approached one millimeter at a time. Listening to The Elder¡¯s Croak was probably an important part of my choosing season, too. He kept trying to think of more millimeter-sized goals until he was standing outside the shop Gus had said they would meet at. He wondered if the intake counselor had checked to make sure the place was still open for business after the floods. It was in a lucky pocket near Apex¡¯s northern coast that hadn¡¯t been inundated, just a couple of streets back from the water. But the curtains were shut over the window, and the door was locked. It was called Needle & Wheedle, and there was no sign advertising it. A custom doorknob with the name on the front in raised letters was the only way Alden could be sure he was at the right spot. He poked around for a while, looking through the windows of a few other places on the street. There was a steakhouse, an attorney¡¯s office, and a store that claimed to be the provider of the finest pocket knives in the world. He sat on a bench across from Needle & Wheedle, in front of a white stuccoed building. Beside him, a post drop with a wraparound screen was playing silent footage of famous Avowed being epically photogenic. If he spoke politely to the mailbox and tried to target it repeatedly¡­well, that was nobody¡¯s business but his own. At exactly the scheduled time, his shopping partner pulled up in a zippy little rental vehicle that looked like an auto rickshaw trying to disguise itself as an apple. ¡°Hey!¡± said Alden, as soon as Gus had stepped out. ¡°Thank you so much for helping me with this. You didn¡¯t have to come in person, but it¡¯s good to see you.¡± <> He shut the door of the rental. ¡°These are all you! Of course I came. Gretchen, too, if we need her. Later. She¡¯s visiting a friend.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need too much today,¡± Alden told him. ¡°If we could just make sure I have a couple of very nice outfits, that will be a start.¡± Gus laughed as if Alden had said something funny, then patted him on the arm. ¡°What?¡± Alden asked, smiling at the infectious laugh. ¡°You called me on Wednesday to say you¡¯d be going to Artona I sometime next week. Not for work. Personal business. You need perfect clothes for this trip, you said. I thought, <>¡± Gus was still laughing. ¡°Thursday you call again and ask if I want to cook something because you are giving a Thanksgiving meal to every wizard at Matadero! So I¡¯m in the kitchen, cooking and watching television, and there you are appearing on the news, flying around to host a party for Artonans. In a stained t-shirt.¡± ¡°I¡¯d just spilled something on it! I did change out of that before the party.¡± ¡°So I think you do need much.¡± ¡°I swear I changed it.¡± Gus led the way across the quiet street to the shop. The curtains were still closed. ¡°The door¡¯s locked,¡± Alden told him. ¡°I think maybe they¡¯re not open this weekend. Because of everything. But I found the names of other places that sell clothes for¡ª¡± ¡°By appointment only,¡± Gus said. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I made you an appointment.¡± Alden blinked. There¡¯s such a thing as an appointment for clothes shopping? Just before they reached the entrance, the door swung open. A tall, dark-skinned man wearing a pale blue striped jacket held it for them. A pair of steampunky-looking goggles were hanging from a strap around his neck. Just beyond him, a woman in a yellow sweater that hung down to her knees was pulling boxes and fabric swatches from a shelf. ¡°Hello, Gus,¡± said the man. Then he turned to Alden and looked him up and down. And up and down. And a third time. The woman was doing it, too. ¡°Welcome to Needle & Wheedle,¡± said the man. ¡°What name do you prefer?¡± the woman asked. ¡°And would you like a coffee? Tuck makes the best pour-over.¡± They make me coffee while I shop. And there are swatches. ¡°Just Alden is fine. Coffee would be nice.¡± Their smiles were warm enough and their Appeal stats high enough that even all of the staring didn¡¯t feel as invasive as it should have. ¡°This is where Rabbits who are frequent visitors to the Triplanets come when they need clothes,¡± said Gus. Swatches, thought Alden. ¡°That¡¯s us!¡± the woman said. ¡°You¡¯ll need to authorize the System to give us your measurements, but first, just have a seat. We¡¯ll talk about what you want from your wardrobe for as long as it takes. You¡¯re our one and only priority for today.¡± These people are going to take a lot of money from me. ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY: Needle & Wheedle 180 ****** The man¡¯s name was Tuck, the woman¡¯s was Yinuo, and their coffee was the same color as the leather chair Alden sat in while they all had a casual conversation about recent events. The new Span, real estate, luxury tax rates¡ªit was all over his head and very far outside his day-to-day worries . But the chatter of the three older Rabbits served to break up a long string of questions about him so that talking felt more natural than having one fell swoop of a personal interview would have. How much time did he expect to spend on the Triplanets? No need to be specific, but was he planning one social trip or several? What were his priorities when it came to his appearance? And by the way, what did he usually wear in America? On Anesidora? What about at LeafSong? Did he like what the school had given him in his human care package? Why? Why not? Did he think he had a style? Did he want one? ¡°All right,¡± said Tuck as he poured the last of the coffee into Alden¡¯s cup. Thecufflinks on the shirt he wore under the striped jacket were small gold compasses. ¡°Even though you¡¯re not a cultural novice, you are a beginner when it comes to presenting yourself through your wardrobe. You¡¯re hoping to work on that so that you don¡¯t feel inappropriate and unprepared around Artonans, and you like for your clothes to be functional.¡± He waited. ¡°Yes,¡± said Alden. ¡°That sounds about right.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good thing,¡± said Yinuo. They were all in Needle & Wheedle¡¯s seating area, and she was beside Gus on the sofa. The window behind them was still curtained, and no sound at all came in from the street. ¡°When you decide to play around with fashion¡­and you might want to sometime. Anesidora is probably the best place on Earth for having fun with how you dress. If you ever want to do that, we can help. But today you¡¯re buying clothes for the Triplanets, and those clothes won¡¯t be toys.¡± Tuck nodded. ¡°When people come to us for help with their off-Earth wardrobe, they¡¯re usually coming to us because they need tools. Even though you¡¯re looking for something to wear for personal matters right now, it sounds like it would be ideal if you could also wear it on summonings. Just in case. We wouldn¡¯t give a surgeon a bat or a cricket player a scalpel. ¡°Showing up to a summons with an outfit that says the wrong thing can turn an event you would have enjoyed into a struggle. And none of us want to deal with that.¡± ¡°If I get summoned, I want my clothes to blend in and say nothing,¡± Alden said. ¡°Just¡­neutral. Making no waves.¡± <> said Gus, setting his own cup in its saucer. ¡°Only a master can make his clothes unreadable.¡± ¡°He¡¯s right,¡± Yinuo agreed, smiling at Alden¡¯s expression. ¡°Just think of how hard it would be to make a random group of humans think nothing about your appearance. And that¡¯s when you have a lifetime of experience backing you up. On the Artonas, as an alien, you will draw half of all eyes. Those eyes will guess things about you whether you want them to or not.¡± ¡°We can help you present the image you want,¡± said Tuck. ¡°But we do it by making sure the clothes say the right thing, not nothing. It¡¯s actually easier with the Artonans in some ways. Humans pay attention to symbols when we notice them, but when it comes to clothes, Artonans are always looking for meaning. Most of them do it with humans, too. So if you give them a message they recognize to work with, it will be received.¡± He walked over to a long set of shelves where lines of top hats and stacks of folded scarves were interrupted by more unusual accessories, and he put the coffee pot into a small cabinet. ¡°With that said, let¡¯s get down to it. You have a trip planned that you want clothes for. Who do you need to deal with on this trip? And what do you want them to think of you?¡± Alden thought about it. Priority was the healer. So that first. And he wanted to look appropriate when he was hanging out at the art¡¯h house. ¡°We can put you in something more generic if you prefer not to say what your personal business is,¡± Yinuo told him. ¡°But just so you know, we dress people for everything. If you want Artonans to give you more tips, if you want them to fire you without suspecting that being fired was your goal, if you¡¯re trying to look good for a wizard you like, or if your aim is to steal a job out from under another Rabbit¡¯s nose¡ªit¡¯s all the same to us. Nobody¡¯s ever asked us to make an outfit for a murder, but I know the perfect fabric for that.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t be murdering anyone I hope,¡± Alden said. ¡°But that¡¯s good to know.¡± ¡°The Rabbit man is always prepared,¡± Gus murmured. ¡°For everything.¡± Alden glanced over at him. He was enjoying one of the fabric swatch books while he joked about the murder. ¡°A friend has gone out of his way to get me an appointment with a healer,¡± Alden said. ¡°I want to hit the right level of formality and show I¡¯m grateful for the opportunity. I might also be meeting members of my friend¡¯s family for the first time. They¡¯re fairly important people. Um¡­I¡¯ll be wearing a commendation with this outfit. I was just going to use one of these instant embroidery packs I received recently, but if you¡¯re making the clothes from scratch¡­?¡± ¡°We can handle the embroidery,¡± said Tuck. ¡°Given who the commendation is from, though, on significant occasions you should probably plan in advance and have it done on the Triplanets. Or by your own hand if you can achieve good quality that way. Asking who did the stitching is a custom that can pop up from time to time.¡± ¡°You already know about the commendation and who it¡¯s from.¡± There was a groan in Alden¡¯s voice. ¡°Gossipy clients,¡± said Yinuo. ¡°But even if they weren¡¯t gossips¡­everyone has seen you flying around on the General¡¯s disc. You were on the news!¡± ¡°With a stained shirt,¡± said Tuck. He was holding a hand to his chest as if the thought gave him heartburn. ****** ¡°We¡¯re going to ask you so many questions,¡± Yinuo said, ¡°and answering them will be fun! But first, the less fun one¡ªyour budget.¡± Alden was relieved. He¡¯d been concerned that this kind of shopping experience came with no discussion of prices until the bill was presented on a golden tray. And the conversation so far hadn¡¯t had many openings that invited him to say, ¡°So what are you guys charging me?¡± He¡¯d already used his interface to look up the cost of bespoke tailoring in the regular world and then tried to imagine how that translated. Needle & Wheedle had no website. Tuck and Yinuo were both Rabbits. They both made clothes for wizards who were in a hurry, usually working together since they¡¯d developed a business relationship solid enough for both of them to agree on complementary talent selection. Their magic would no doubt make the creation of custom clothes faster. Alden doubted it would make it cheaper. ¡°The consultation for people who were recommended by existing customers is free,¡± Yinuo added. ¡°We¡¯re confident a busy young Rabbit will need us eventually, so don¡¯t feel like you can¡¯t leave today without buying something. Or like you have to spend a great deal of money. I can help you pick one nice accessory before you go, or you can have a whole wardrobe. It¡¯s all fine with us.¡± Alden looked at Gus. ¡°How much would you spend on an outfit for the Triplanets?¡± ¡°Clothes are one of my hobbies,¡± he answered with a shake of his head. ¡°You don¡¯t have to make them one of yours. But you¡¯re obviously concerned with making the right impression, and you seem to be finding yourself in ¡®fairly important¡¯ circles. Unless you have expensive tastes in materials, the cost of anything you have made by these two will mostly be the fee to pay for their knowledge, their spells, and their skills.¡± ¡°If a client¡¯s budget is on the small side,¡± Tuck said, ¡°we spend less time with them, and we use our powers more lightly. Maybe they only get to see a couple of outfit options on themselves before finalizing.¡± Hearing that was actually helpful. I¡¯m buying expertise, magic, and time from two Avowed who do get summoned regularly. So if I want to work with them, I don¡¯t pay like I¡¯m shopping, I decide if it¡¯s worth it to pay like I¡¯m summoning. He¡¯d never done anything like this. But he did want really nice clothes for being around Stuart¡¯s family. And¡­it seemed like this might be fun. If he was going to do this, he wanted to do it right. He knew what he¡¯d made per day on his own summons as a new B-rank Rabbit working overtime for LeafSong. If Alden had them exhaust their talents for him, he didn¡¯t know how much clothing that would provide, but the minimum fee had to be around what his own had been in February, right? Over twenty thousand dollars a day, he remembered. Around seven thousand argold. Being an Avowed is still crazy. They were C-ranks, but there were two of them. And they had experience¡­ What if I¡¯m way off, and they charge ten times what I¡¯m thinking? Everyone was waiting so patiently for him to state his budget. I do have Stuart to fall back on for advice, but having their perspective on human-specific concerns could be great. Let¡¯s do it. ¡°Is fifteen thousand argold a good starting place?¡± he asked. ¡°For the one outfit plus whatever else? Or am I way off?¡± Two days LeafSong fee. Plus more for materials and a side order of education. ¡°It¡¯s plenty,¡± Tuck said easily. ¡°We¡¯ll take care of you today, have time for some finishing work tomorrow morning, and make sure you have everything you need to feel good about the trip on Monday. We might get halfway through an entire wardrobe for you for that amount or just the one outfit. It all depends on your choices.¡± ¡°You did say there would be a lot of those.¡±He was relieved that he¡¯d named an appropriate amount to get the ball rolling and curious to find out what he looked like in clothes made just for him. ¡°I¡¯m into choices these days.¡± Not long after that, Gus went to buy everyone lunch, and Yinou left to raid stores for ¡°any little extras¡± Alden might want to have that didn¡¯t need to be made from scratch. Apparently, everyone knew her, and it was normal for her to go collect things from shops all over the island, bring them here, and then take them back if they didn¡¯t suit her clients¡¯ moods. While the two of them were gone, Tuck was helping Alden narrow down his style preferences while images of well-dressed men and Artonans walked the entire length of the shop¡¯s back wall, courtesy of a projector drone. ¡°Don¡¯t think you have to match current Artonan-favored styles to make an outfit a success. If someone wants to wear a kilt or a three-piece suit to the Triplanets, we can make modifications to ensure that comes across the way they want it to. It can even be a conversation starter if the clothes are eye-catching in the right way.¡± ¡°An Avowed at LeafSong wore a French maid uniform with a ruffled apron.¡± ¡°Something markedly different from anything wizards would likely have seen on other humans, dramatic enough to draw attention and invite questions, associated with serving the wealthy so heavily that even the briefest, laziest attempt to look up the significance of the clothes would lead people to conclude she was hopeful to acquire job offers. She was certainly making an effort.¡± Tuck paused, then said. ¡°How do you feel about jobs? Do you want wizards who see you in your new clothes to think you¡¯d welcome their summons?¡± ¡°I do not.¡± Alden wondered if Tuck would comment on that. He didn¡¯t. ¡°And you liked the red outfit we just saw while you were talking?¡± ¡°No, the color reminded me of a coat I bought once. That was a very different shopping experience¡­by the way, what about the clothes from the Rabbit¡¯s Wardrobe?¡± ¡°Wear them for the jobs they¡¯re designed for or because you want to take advantage of the nice little enchantments. Be aware that on their own, they¡¯re very recognizably work clothes to wizards who summon humans and to almost all Anesidorans. If you want to wear them without looking like a Rabbit hoping for a summons or a Ryeh-b¡¯t on a summons, then you¡¯ll need to work on them or use them as an under layer. How do you feel about color?¡± ¡°I like indigo blue, like my messenger bag.¡± Alden jerked his head toward the table covered in fabric samples and boxes. He¡¯d left the bag in a chair over there. ¡°But for clothes, I¡¯m not picky. I don¡¯t usually wear neon. The red coat was uncomfortably red.¡± ¡°Yes, that¡¯s not one of your flattering shades. You can wear other reds well, though. Later, we¡¯ll show you how you look in different colors.¡± The questions kept coming. Tuck was updating Yinuo while Alden talked. Alden was learning a lot about his own tastes¡ªthings he would have known if anyone had ever asked him to think about them, but how often did people ask you to think about this kind of thing? Until now, growing out of a pair of pants or admitting that his favorite t-shirt was approaching rag status had meant it was time to locate a replacement that fit his body well enough, and fit in with what everyone was wearing at school well enough, without costing too much. No fuss. There were clothes he kind of liked and clothes he didn¡¯t, and he never thought much about it after the decision to wear something had been made unless he realized he looked out of place or he felt physically uncomfortably. Now, he was thinking about all of it. He wanted people to think he looked good when he was standing right in front of them having a conversation; he didn¡¯t want them to notice his outfit from across a street. When questioned about what good meant to him, he had to talk for a few minutes before he found the answer: appropriate for the setting, like he¡¯d made an effort without agonizing, mature but not in a way that sucked life out of his appearance. He liked when other peoples¡¯ clothes had an interesting detail or two that he wouldn¡¯t notice at a casual glance. He disliked conspicuous branding. ¡°That¡¯s recent,¡± he told Tuck while runway models stomped across the wall wearing a collection that was going for a hybrid menswear/Artonanwear look. ¡°I never cared enough to pay attention to that kind of thing, but then I found out some Artonans spend a lot of time trying to figure out what we¡¯re telling them with words on clothes. Now I can¡¯t stop reading peoples¡¯ shirts and overanalyzing them.¡± He wanted his clothes to be comfortable and easy to move in. He wanted hidden pockets to hide preserved objects in. He wanted to be cool on the Triplanets¡ªtemperature-wise. Gustavo heard that as he came through the door with their lunches. ¡°We all want that!¡± ¡°Being cool in that way isn¡¯t always doable, especially not on short notice or in every destination. But we try,¡± said Tuck. ¡°Keep going.¡± He didn¡¯t like loud patterns on himself. He thought he was probably in the early stages of developing a taste for magic jewelry. Every time he saw the green nonagon ring on his finger, he liked the look of it more and more. He didn¡¯t mention his auriad, obviously, but it was a contributing factor. When checking out wizards¡¯ stacks of rings and bracelets, he usually liked the wooden pieces best. He was glad to hear that there were plenty of outfits he could wear that would be great on both worlds; he¡¯d probably need to start taking advantage of that if he got summoned frequently. But when he had control over the situation, and his trips were planned, he would prefer a bifurcated wardrobe. Dedicated clothes for journeys to the Artonas. Once he made that decision, the fashion examples being projected onto the wall shifted to be even more Triplanetary. Robes looked so comfortable, but Alden preferred pants. He liked that vest the Artonan walking through the park was wearing; it reminded him of one included in Stuart¡¯s belated message full of clothing examples. He liked most of those tunics except for the way they flared at the bottoms. He hated the necklines that made peoples¡¯ heads look like they were emerging from the top of a cabbage. Turtlenecks were fine. And, despite having shared several opinions that should render them unacceptable, he had a soft spot for Hawaiian shirts. ¡°All right,¡± said Tuck, stylus lifting from the tablet he¡¯d been sketching on for a while. ¡°Let¡¯s try some things on you.¡± ****** The dressing room had a pair of cushiony chairs and a beverage fridge full of three different kinds of water. The mirror showed Alden alternating views of his front, sides, and back while he stripped down to his underwear and re-dressed in a large jumpsuit that was made of numerous gray fabric strips in widths that ranged from vermicelli to linguini. Sympathy for Magic made him want to stare at it for a little too long. There was a knock on the door. ¡°Would you rather do it back here or out front?¡± Tuck¡¯s voice called. ¡°Here is fine,¡± Alden called back. He was trying to be convenient, which turned out to be his first mistake of the day. When Tuck opened the door a minute later, he was carrying armfuls of the fabric swatches. He had to move them all for me. Gus poked his head around the door. ¡°Do you want me to go help Yinuo empty the shoe stores? Or do you want me here?¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t mind, a third opinion here would be awesome. But since you¡¯ve introduced me to this whole thing now, I¡¯m fine whenever you need to go.¡± ¡°<> I don¡¯t want to go. This is the fun part.¡± He pointed at Alden. ¡°No giving up when the tickling starts. Straight face. You represent The Warren.¡± Alden looked down at the jumpsuit. ¡°It¡¯s going to tickle?¡± ¡°Not that bad,¡± said Tuck, hanging his own coat on a peg by the door and taking a seat in one of the chairs. ¡°If you think of anything at all you want to try out, just say so. I¡¯ll let you know when we¡¯re about a third of the way through your try-ons. That¡¯s when we really need to start narrowing to make sure you¡¯ve got an outfit ready for Monday. We can play around and make some more things for you once that¡¯s sorted. Pardon the goggles.¡± He put the steampunky goggles on his face and became considerably quirkier looking. ¡°These help me see if any of the strands are damaged. It¡¯s so annoying for a fit to be off by a millimeter because one of them decided not to join the party. Are you ready?¡± ¡°I¡¯m ready.¡± Alden turned back to the mirror and held his arms out slightly. He was curious to see the jumpsuit work. The effect it would have had been described, but he couldn¡¯t quite believe it would be as fully realistic as promised. ¡°Look at him holding nice and still with his arms out!¡± Gus said, sounding thrilled about it as he took his own seat. ¡°Everyone stands that way the first time.¡± Tuck was looking from his tablet full of sketches and references to Alden and back again. ¡°I think it¡¯s the natural starting position for a man getting his first magical fitting. Let¡¯s make it a good one. Outfit One.Jatontan tunic¡ªmid-thigh length, side split up to the hip. High-necked tank for an under layer with this one. Pants¡ª straight legged, minimal volume.¡± He pointed at Alden while he spoke. Or, more accurately, at the jumpsuit, which started moving all over like every individual strand had a mind of its own. Alden saw his own expression of astonishment in the mirror. The strands slithered around one another and around him, forming the clothes as Tuck envisioned them and tickling like crazy, but in such a swift, unpredictable variety of spots that he just stood there unsure of which direction he wanted to flinch in. Outfitter¡ªone of Tuck¡¯s skills. It would, according to him, ¡°do things¡± to miscellaneous fabric strips, but it was designed to work with this special product for this specific purpose. When Alden decided he liked something enough to buy it, Tuck would ¡°set¡± it into the suit with the skill. Alden would take it off, and Tuck would carry the linguini to the room where the clothes-making actually happened. It would separate into the pieces he needed for a two-dimensional pattern.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. After the pattern was made, he¡¯d return to Alden with the jumpsuit for whatever else they had time to design. Yinuo would be turning the pattern into clothes with her own skills. Some details would be added. And then they¡¯d have final fittings and adjustments just to make sure nothing was amiss. Alden watched the clothes make themselves around him. ¡°You guys!¡± he said as the strands crawled up his neck. ¡°This is so cool!¡± There were now multiple pieces where before there had been a single suit. ¡°It¡¯s instant clothes! Do you see this, Gus?¡± Gus was laughing. ¡°There,¡± said Tuck, lowering the finger he¡¯d been pointing. ¡°That¡¯s a starting place. Walk around. Take a good look at yourself. If you like the concept enough we¡¯ll keep refining it. If not, we¡¯ll try something new. If you¡¯re not sure, we¡¯ll work on it a little and then we can take a few pictures for you to come back to later.¡± ¡°I can walk around?¡± ¡°You can walk around,¡± he confirmed. ¡°Even while I¡¯m making adjustments if you want. Whatever you feel like seeing, just say the word. I¡¯ll tell you if I think it¡¯s a bad idea, but you¡¯re the boss. And experimentation is encouraged.¡± Alden looked at himself. The pieces were gray, and some of the details had to be imagined for now. But it was undeniably a set of clothes that had sprung into being because he said he thought he might like to see himself in something similar. ¡°It even fits right,¡± he said in awe. ¡°Oh no it doesn¡¯t,¡± said Tuck, rising from his seat. ¡°It fits well enough for you to get the idea.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Alden checked out his profile. ¡°It seems pretty good.¡± ¡°The difference between pretty good and perfect when it comes to clothes is the centimeter that looks like a kilometer.¡± He stood behind Alden. ¡°Want me to show you the difference?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± The outfit started to slither again, just a little. ¡°You have shoulders that don¡¯t want to be done a disservice with a misplaced seam.¡± The tunic¡¯s shoulders shifted minutely. Alden hadn¡¯t moved, but he had the impression that his posture had improved. His brows lifted. ¡°You have a waist that can be respected even if the outfit isn¡¯t formfitting.¡± Another tiny adjustment around his torso. ¡°And for something like this¡­¡± Tuck gestured toward the tunic¡¯s hem. ¡°There are specific lengths that suit a person. I think this is a little long on you.¡± A tweak here, a tug there, pants closing in around his ankles. ¡°What do you think?¡± Tuck asked. I think¡­this is an interesting new world I didn¡¯t expect to discover today. I think I have been missing out on seeing myself through a really neat lens. He smiled. ¡°I think I want to try on so many outfits.¡± ****** Alden learned what he looked like. In twenty different necklines, in sleeves that scrunched or split or flapped. He tried out pants that had cuffs at the bottom that rose all the way to his knees and ones that looked similar to the style Ro-den and plenty of other wizards favored. Excess fabric was very much a thing when it came to wizard pants. These were loose from the waist to the cuffed ankles, with a lot of the excess ballooning outward at the bottom. ¡°I wore these so much on Thegund they feel familiar,¡± he said, downing a small bottle of fizzy water that Gus had tossed him while he moved around in the current outfit. The pants were paired with a torso-hugging, long-sleeved shirt that had a neckline he particularly liked¡ªa collar that rose up the back of the neck only, with the front opening in a shallow ¡°V.¡± Completely uncovering the back of the neck could be read a lot of ways, but none of them were appropriate for introducing himself to someone he wanted to demonstrate respect and gratitude toward. But having the front open would be fine and a lot less annoying if he got hot. Neither Tuck nor Gus acted fazed by the Thegund mention. Not even for a second, not even a twitch. Gus was a counselor who saw every kind of drama that walked through the doors of the intake building, so that wasn¡¯t a surprise. He was a professional at acting like your backstory was only one manageable part of your life. Tuck was just as unflappable in a slightly different way. He never pried, and he took Alden¡¯s words at face value. When Alden told them he was expecting to make multiple social visits to his wizard friend¡¯s house, nobody asked who the friend was or if Alden was sure about their relationship being casual enough for him to wear whatever he wanted when it was just the two of them hanging out. Alden said he needed help looking like a respectable choice of companion in front of parents and siblings, and so that was what he got advice on. His appearance was Needle & Wheedle¡¯s business; everything unrelated to it was entirely his own. He thought that was why the whole shopping experience was feeling very adult. ¡°The trick to wearing garments associated with the wizard class as an Avowed is to make sure you¡¯re not wearing anything too close to the whole package,¡± said Tuck. ¡°Right,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s about not putting the fully-educated-wizard ensemble together. I like how comfortable the pants are, and I know these aren¡¯t even close to the most dramatic version. But I think I preferred the ones that were a little more toned down. What¡¯s next?¡± He got more and more into it. They turned on the sound system and gave him the controls, but he kept going back to the instrumental playlist that had been the first offered. It sounded like happy, classy people getting dressed. When he liked a shape enough, Tuck would work on it for longer until they got the best version of it. Then it was thoroughly photographed and put in Alden¡¯s personal file, so that if he decided he wanted it, the look could be recreated more quickly. If Tuck was very familiar with a design or if he was looking at an image of it, he was better at pulling it together. With limitless options, Alden was worried he¡¯d never be able to settle on anything, but when he saw the piece he wanted the commendation on, he was sure of it right away. ¡°This is a definite yes,¡± he said, indicating the topmost layer of the outfit that had just finished coming into being around him. ¡°Can I have one of these?¡± ¡°A pezyva like the one you chose from the video of the park on Artona III, modified with your preferred neckline, the asymmetry exaggerated slightly. Intriguing but not showy.¡± He smiled at Alden in the mirror. ¡°Definitely yes. You can have one. You can have more than one if you want. It¡¯s a practical garment you¡¯ll get a lot of use out of, I imagine. Let¡¯s see what it looks like in different fabrics and then figure out what you¡¯ll wear it with.¡± Fabrics turned out to be way more important than Alden had realized. He didn¡¯t know what ninety percent of the ones he got to feel and talk about with the two of them even were, and apparently you couldn¡¯t just make anything out of anything and have it look nice. It was also time for them to discuss the budget again, because if he seriously wanted his pants to be made out of the silky stuff that magically chilled the air as it passed through, then he was going to need to get richer. ¡°We also don¡¯t have time to acquire that before Monday,¡± said Tuck, taking the swatch away from him. ¡°I don¡¯t know why somebody felt the need to go get so many unrecommended samples from the shelves.¡± ¡°Look, Alden,¡± said Gus, passing him another one. ¡°This one changes color like a lizard.¡± Gus got sent off to help Yinuo, but he wasn¡¯t gone for long. A couple of minutes after Tuck left to collect materials and create the patterns, the shopping team was back. ¡°Oh¡­wow¡­¡± said Alden, back in the clothes he¡¯d arrived in to greet them at the door. ¡°Did you leave anything for the rest of the shoppers on the island?¡± ¡°A little!¡± said Yinuo, almost tripping over a plastic bag so large it dwarfed the other seven hanging around her arms. ¡°I saw the pictures, I followed along with your plans, and I¡¯m so jealous I couldn¡¯t be here to watch every bit of it! You¡¯re going to look wonderful! How are you on sunglasses? Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ve got you plenty to try on. All that back and forth to the cube, the glare off the water. Let¡¯s take care of you.¡± Gus and Gretchen were right behind her with even more bags. ****** So when you spend enough money all the stores come to you. Alden was staring at the wealth of stuff spread out before him. ¡°The goal,¡± said Gus, who¡¯d temporarily taken over in an advisory capacity while the tailors were in the back, ¡°is to find the perfect things to have with you at all times. These are probably not the perfect things.¡± He waved his arms over a collection of toiletries piled on top of the coffee table. ¡°But you have to try a few times before you know, and this can be a practice run. On the Triplanets, how do you wear your hair?¡± With dirt in it, typically. ¡°What¡¯s the easiest acceptable option?¡± Alden asked. Gus handed him a bottle of something called ¡°Softly Salty.¡± That wasn¡¯t quite enough of an answer, but he¡¯d figure it out by reading the instructions on the back. There were so many other things to consider. Rows of shoes stood before him, fresh from their boxes. Shirts hung on racks so that he could browse through them at his leisure. Belts and hats and pajamas filled the sofa. All of it was in Alden¡¯s size. Like a pop-up store had appeared for a single person. Everyone assured him he could take all of it or none of it or assign one of them to go on a hunt for whatever they might have forgotten. It was a mix of clothing that would work on the Triplanets and things he might want here on Earth. There was no need for his entire wardrobe to be bespoke. ¡°Yet!¡± Gus had said enthusiastically when Yinuo pointed that out. Apart from the shoes, Alden would need to select to match his new Triplanetary style, most of these things weren¡¯t necessities. But it was definitely something to see it all here in front of him, and Yinuo had thought of things that were too small to have made Alden¡¯s list of concerns yet and offered solutions. House socks. A package of wipes that would handle any emergency sweat situations when he wasn¡¯t able to shower. A gum that would make your mouth taste like mint so strongly that other flavors didn¡¯t stand a chance¡­it was for helping people who loathed wevvi. He browsed, tried on a few things, and grabbed some silk pajamas that he just liked a lot before Tuck returned and took him back to the dressing room for another round of outfitting. The afternoon flew past from that point on. Clothes were appearing in the dressing room. Yinuo was asking Alden to do everything short of jumping jacks to make sure he was happy with the movement of the custom pieces. Then, they were trying what felt like a hundred pairs of shoes on his feet. Then colors¡ªwere all the colors all right? He couldn¡¯t catch his breath. Gustavo and Gretchen had to head to work. There were so many more bags to look through. Where did they keep coming from? Who the heck was that lady who just let herself in the front door, took something from a shelf, and then disappeared? Had the store been robbed? Oh look another pair of shoes! And then¡­there was calm. The skills that did the most necessary magics had been exhausted. The final adjustments to a couple of pieces would be made tomorrow. The mountains of clothes and products he had elected not to purchase were being folded and packaged away by Tuck while Yinou carefully displayed the few special outfits on mannequins. Alden stood eating a pack of roasted almonds that he couldn¡¯t actually remember anyone giving him and stared at his new clothes. Right at the end, Tuck had said, ¡°Maybe something custom for home, too? You should have something you feel completely confident in no matter where you are.¡± So Alden had asked for jeans that fit perfectly, a pair of dark wash ones he¡¯d probably wear more than anything else he¡¯d bought. He¡¯d requested a casual button-down shirt and a coat that would make his shoulders look awesome. There they were on the mannequin. The jacket was a textured wool blend in a gray-green color. It was definitely nicer than his usual hoodie, and still relaxed enough to fit in at school when they were freed from the uniform requirement in January. Yinuo had shown him how to dress it up or down. The next mannequin was wearing a Triplanets-ready look. Nothing too fancy from a distance. The brown, long-sleeved turtleneck didn¡¯t have that shiny quality that made him uncertain about the LeafSong turtlenecks, but when someone stood near him they might notice the occasional metallic burgundy thread in the fabric. The piece was intended to extend his clothing options. With the high neck, it could be worn just about anywhere, by itself, if either of his two new pezyvas were unavailable or inappropriate. The mannequin was wearing the shirt with a pair of pants in a desaturated dark red. They were similar to Ro-den¡¯s in shape, but with the amount of blousing fabric toned down a couple of notches. And, finally, there was the outfit he¡¯d wear on Monday. Pezyvas were vests as far as Alden¡¯s limited sartorial vocabulary was concerned. They were a sleeveless outer layer that opened in the front, and they didn¡¯t extend down to your ankles or anything, so¡ªvests. One of the things that made the vest an Artonan pezyva was a closure that ran diagonally across the body, rather than straight up and down. Another was the fact that the shape of it left the waist and hip on one of the wearer¡¯s sides free. You could carry pouches or tools you needed easy access to there without belting over the garment. The front of the other hip was concealed by the vest¡¯s two tails, which fell in triangular points over that thigh. Alden¡¯s pezyva was modified according to his preferences. They usually had no collar; his had one in the back that rose in a slight curve over his neck, with a ¡°V¡± in the front. It was the same shade of brown as the shirt on the other mannequin. He¡¯d always thought he looked good in brown. Apparently, he did, but there were specific browns. This one would be his neutral extraterrestrial wardrobe color. The vest could have had all sorts of closures, but he¡¯d chosen to have no visible one. Instead, he¡¯d picked a very secure fastening strip. It was an enchanted product, but not too expensive. And it allowed him to adjust the position of the two sides of the vest to suit his taste and the quirks of whatever he might wear underneath it. In the place on the chest where a button might have gone on some versions of the outfit, he could wear some kind of accessory pin. Or he could leave it empty and let the commendation be his only statement. The placement of the commendation was one of the only aspects of the whole process where Alden had had knowledge that outmatched the professionals¡¯. They had wanted to put it firmly on the front, just above the position where a logo or name tag might go on human clothes. But Alden had talked for entirely too long about placement with the nephew of the person who¡¯d actually issued the commendation, so he was adamant that wrapping a larger piece of embroidery over the top of one shoulder was fine. The fact that the commendation was only partially visible from the front was balanced by the fact that it was also visible from the back. The wrapping around of the symbol said it was very significant to him, and that was hardly a bad thing to say considering who it was from and who he¡¯d be interacting with while he wore it. ¡°It¡¯s like I¡¯m clothing myself with the honor,¡± he¡¯d explained to Tuck. ¡°As opposed to displaying it. It¡¯s a thing. I checked.¡± They had trusted him to know his business once again and had put it there. The thread they¡¯d used was almost the same color as the cloth. That was largely personal taste. He liked the way it looked, and since it covered the whole shoulder, there was no risk of it being too subtle. This pezyva could also be worn with the shirt and pants on the other mannequin because the goal had been to give him Triplanets pieces that all worked together. But on Monday, he¡¯d be wearing it with a pair of brown pants that looked like the joggers from LeafSong had gotten a fabric and fit upgrade. They were minimal enough not to detract from the vest, which he would be wearing with a lightweight shirt in a shade he thought of as ¡°brown purple,¡± though it had had some more elegant sounding name on the color chart. As an alternative, he had an indigo blue tank top he could use as an under layer when he wanted to wear the vest sleevelessly. If he did that, he would end up with a triangle of blue showing just at the waist on one side, and his arms would be free to cool off. That was his personal favorite of all the options. ¡°This has a gorgeous hang to it,¡± said Yinuo, running her hands over the front of the vest to fasten it around the mannequin and then touching the two points that came down sharply in the front, one slightly longer than the other. ¡°The softer pezyva we¡¯re finishing up for you tomorrow will have a beautiful drape, but I like that you wanted to try this more structured version.¡± ¡°When it holds its shape like that,¡± said Alden, ¡°it reminds me a little of origami.¡± ****** It was time for last touches. A table was set up in front of the Monday mannequin, with Artonan jewelry and belts and scents. ¡°Your clothes are conveying a lot of the things you want,¡± said Yinou. ¡°Comfort and familiarity with the culture. Respectfulness. Confidence in yourself. The commendation is loaded with meanings that would be impossible to avoid even if we tried, and they¡¯re not meanings that tarnish you. That¡¯s for sure. ¡°But let¡¯s shape your message a little more. In the near future, you should collect some pieces that are the exact right thing for you. What we keep here in the shop isn¡¯t really personalized, they¡¯re just items we think will be useful to many Avowed.¡± Alden looked through the accessories slowly, talking about what each one would imply to anyone who notice it. She¡¯d curated them for him, so none of them were wrong¡­but it did make him curious about what other things he could manage to signal with a simple ring or belt buckle. ¡°What if I have something made out of my birth tree?¡± he asked. ¡°What does that say?¡± She lifted an eyebrow. ¡°I don¡¯t actually know that one. We have a symbology expert we call when people have a question like that. But he¡¯s a wizard, and it¡¯s expensive. Unless you¡¯ve got a piece of your tree to use right now, you might just want to wait and ask your friend.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll do that.¡± There was no need to take advantage of all of the supplies arrayed before him. Just a couple of right things¡­ ¡°This,¡± he said finally, pointing at a brooch that would go on his vest. ¡°And these.¡± ¡°The senva seed for a pocket offering,¡± she said, opening the jar that held the scrambled dandelion-looking things. ¡°We¡¯ll put them in a pouch with the ¡®gratitude¡¯ logogram on it. How many do you want?¡± ¡°A dozen.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a lot. You might not even meet a wizard who uses them for anything. Pocket offerings can get a bit stale while you wait for the opportunity to give them away.¡± ¡°I know one,¡± said Alden, the familiar basil smell of Stuart¡¯s preferred cushioning spell filling his nose now that the lid was off the jar. Without further comment, she tucked them into a leather pouch, then she reached for the brooch and a box to put it in. ¡°Good choices,¡± she said. The brooch was a piece of driftwood carved into a symbol that combined the logograms for happiness and rest. The driftwood represented long travel, so Needle & Wheedle carried various accessories made from it, since Avowed on the Artonas were definitely travelers. Wearing the pin would tell everyone that Alden wasn¡¯t hoping they¡¯d offer him work. It had the side benefit of matching up well with his visit to the mind healer. He was happy to have her help and hopeful for better rest. ¡°Simple,¡± said Yinuo. ¡°Sophisticated. Done!¡± She tapped the box that had the driftwood jewelry in it. ¡°Are you satisfied with everything? Any last requests?¡± He looked at the outfits on the mannequins and the bags that held the store-bought extras. Needle & Wheedle now had a file on him. Future appointments would be easier according to Gus, because he would grow into his sense of style now that it had been allowed to see the light. And he wouldn¡¯t have to learn how the process worked from scratch. He had been assured that Tuck was even better at tuxedoes. ¡°I¡¯m drawing a blank,¡± said Alden, looking back at Yinuo. ¡°I think I wanted to ask you guys for a few more things, but now my brain is fried.¡± ¡°You had to make a million choices in just a few hours. It¡¯s tired.¡± She walked over to the mannequin in the coat and jeans and started stripping it. ¡°It will all hit you at some point. You¡¯ll open your closet and realize how you the things you bought today are, and you¡¯ll be glad we made you try on forty pairs of leather boots.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure it was twice that many. My feet are now boot-shaped.¡± ¡°Think of how fast it would be next time if that were true!¡± She looked back at him. ¡°We¡¯ll deliver all of this to your dorm so you don¡¯t have to carry it. Do you have plans for tonight?¡± ¡°Not really. I missed the first year dinner slot at the cafeteria, so I¡¯ll probably grab something before I head back to campus.¡± She held up the coat. ¡°Want to look handsome while you do it?¡± ****** I like this. Alden sat outside a restaurant, at the last table they¡¯d had available. It was getting dark, so he¡¯d taken off his new sunglasses and set them beside the basket of bread that had come with his mezze platter. The glasses were dark green. Just a color he¡¯d selected because he liked it, and a style that had been recommended by Yinuo because she was taking his face shape and his preference for ¡°chill, beachy ones¡± into account. I like that everything I¡¯m wearing had so much thought put into it. He¡¯d been carefully studying what every other person around him was dressed in. Variety and bold choices weren¡¯t lacking in Apex. There was a woman in a coat that had light-up sleeves, and there was a man wearing a lot of something that looked like alligator skin. A simple black dress. A neon orange windbreaker. A pair of pants that looked like they¡¯d been picked up from the Triplanets and then decorated with a bunch of straps. Alden didn¡¯t think he¡¯d be drawing attention for his sense of fashion, and he was glad of that. But if someone did happen to look his way, then it was satisfying to feel like he¡¯d taken some control over what they saw. And if nobody looked his way, he was quite happy sitting here enjoying all the little unimportant things that were only for him. The buttons he¡¯d chosen out of way too many possible options. The fact that instead of a tag, his own name was inside the bespoke coat, shirt, and jeans. The extra pockets they¡¯d managed to hide for him everywhere, most of them with closures secure enough to guarantee any entrusted items didn¡¯t get lost even if someone hung him upside down and shook him. The day had been so far outside his normal. But I think it was really good. I think it¡¯s something I¡¯m allowed to enjoy. He requested to-go packaging from one of the server carts this place used and boxed up all the food he hadn¡¯t finished, then he grabbed his bag and headed out. When he made it back to the dorm, Lexi and Haoyu were both out. Alden hung his new clothes up carefully, climbed into his loft bed for the first time in what felt like forever, and fell asleep before either of them made it back. ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-ONE: Nightlight 181 ****** The timer Alden had set through his interface went off, but he dismissed the flashing light with an irritated thought and went back to staring at the page in front of him. Focus yourself on calling the memory of light toward the symbol of the lantern, concentrating on the centermost point of the shape. Hold command of that point while returning your auriad to the release pattern of your choice. Some may be able to allow the auriad to fall for this spell, but having studied many castings, I deem it more effective to¡ª His second timer sounded. It was his tablet playing a series of especially annoying chimes at high volume, and he¡¯d put it all the way across the room on top of the loft bed so that he¡¯d have to move to get it. Alden set down Whan-tel¡¯s Art and stood from the learning cushion, hurrying over to make the racket stop. When he pulled himself up into the bed far enough to grab the tablet, he saw the note he¡¯d stuck to the front: ¡°EARRING OFF! I MEAN IT!¡± ¡°I really don¡¯t trust myself at all, do I?¡± Once he¡¯d turned off the alarm, he pulled the clay spiral free of his lobe and place it carefully on the desk. With his mind only mostly stuck in his book, instead of entirely lost, he could see the signs of the day he¡¯d had all over the room. Dirty clothes from a workout at North of North this morning, a smoothie cup from breakfast, the plate he¡¯d eaten his lunch on, his books. His learning cushion had been brought over from Matadero yesterday before his meeting with Jeffy. It was three o¡¯clock in the afternoon, and Alden had done nothing but exercise, eat, and learn his new flashlight spell. A completely fantastic day. But he had a couple of errands to run, and he was expecting a delivery soon. Or right now, he thought as a text from Yinuo arrived. He asked the System to store his book and consoled himself with the knowledge that he was probably past the reading stage anyway. Thanks to the earring, he was sure he¡¯d gotten the details down. Now he just needed to take the spell all the way to the end and see what happened. That would be his reward for taking care of everything else he needed to do. He stepped out of his room to find the apartment quiet, as it had been all day. Lexi was spending Sunday with his family. Haoyu had only been in and out a couple of times. The slow cooker was plugged in now, so something was going on there. Alden was afraid it might be the ¡°All the Thanksgiving leftovers together!¡± concoction Haoyu had mentioned trying out the night before last. And Lute¡¯s door was shut. Alden assumed if his roommate had returned home, he would have said hi. How long is he going to stay gone? Occasional glances at the headlines made it look like Aulia was taking a beating, but there were also people who were very into her new persona¡ªone besieged original Avowed, dedicating her life to getting to the bottom of what had really happened and finding who was out to get her and her beloved Anesidora. Her stunt with Orpheus and divesting herself of a bunch of property was clearly the start of whatever this was. She¡¯d announced yesterday that she¡¯d be giving frequent updates on her findings from ¡°mission headquarters¡± onboard Libra, and she¡¯d put out a call for people to apply for jobs on her new truth-finding task force. Then she¡¯d shared a statement, purportedly written by Hazel, that implied she¡¯d been pressured in some way by Jacob and his mysterious SAL connections to bring him with her to that birthday party. The statement didn¡¯t actually say anything useful or concrete, and the kicker was that Aulia read it aloud like she had serious doubts about Hazel¡¯s honesty. The waters were so muddied that it was impossible to say whether it was all for show or if she was embarking on a real detective phase. But a lot of people were unhappy with the System, the Triplanets, and the Anesidoran government saying the destruction seemed to be the result of one individual¡¯s unpredictable decision, and those people liked the idea of a powerful person chasing after a different answer. Nobody else seemed to be throwing themselves and their money in that direction as dramatically as Aulia Velra was. Those people who don¡¯t believe the official story should be the most doubtful of her, but she¡¯s the only one giving them what they want. How does that shake out in the end? He thought Lute should probably stop exiling himself¡­but he did understand. As soon as Aulia had started talking about Hazel and the party, Alden had held his breath at the thought that his own name might come up. He¡¯d been glad that if it did happen, he had permission to hang out at Matadero where no humans or drones could get to him. To reach the street where Yinuo¡¯s driver had parked, he had to take a short jog, and she met him just before he got there. She was walking at a remarkable speed for someone in such high-heeled shoes, her white trench coat flaring out behind her. ¡°There are a couple of things in the trunk,¡± she said, lifting one of the garment bags she was carrying. ¡°Black car.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll grab them.¡± In the trunk, Alden found the shoes he¡¯d bought yesterday, boxed and bagged, along with a gift wrapped in blue with a big gold bow. He almost left it because he assumed it must be something Yinuo or the driver had with them for someone else, but he looked closer at the small attached envelope, just in case, and saw his own name. A thank you for your business gift? He shook it curiously a couple of times before he closed the trunk and went to join Yinuo. It didn¡¯t weigh much. ¡°You didn¡¯t have to come all the way personally,¡± he said when he¡¯d caught up to her. ¡°A courier would have been fine.¡± ¡°I¡¯m here in case there¡¯s anything wrong with the order,¡± she replied. ¡°There isn¡¯t, unless Tuck and I both lost our minds without noticing it this morning. But if you have time now, you can look over it all and make sure it¡¯s right. I¡¯ll fix any poor fits or fetch any missing pieces. Or you can call us whenever you need us.¡± Back at the dorm, he led her upstairs and invited her to take a seat on the sofa while he carried everything to his room. She looked out of place there, but no more so than Esh-erdi had. And he did think checking over all of the important stuff was the right thing to do. He went through it quickly, tried on the second pezyva they¡¯d finished up for him last night, and decided everything was exactly what he¡¯d asked for and expected. Then he took the gift with him back into the living room. ¡°It¡¯s all perfect. I appreciate you both helping me on short notice.¡± ¡°That was nothing,¡± said Yinuo. ¡°Our waiting list tends to be long this time of year thanks to all the holiday parties coming up in the next couple of months. But a lot of clients had to reschedule this week. Given the circumstances.¡± Makes sense. He held up the gift. ¡°Should I open this while you¡¯re here?¡± ¡°Whenever you want is fine. It¡¯s just a small way to say we¡¯re glad to have you as a customer. If you try it on, we can make sure it fits. But it will. I adjusted it a little for you.¡± Alden tore the paper off and opened the box to find a teal shirt covered with a palm tree print. ¡°A tropical shirt!¡± ¡°You did say you enjoyed them.¡± She rose to her feet. ¡°That should be fine to wear on the Triplanets, by the way, if you¡¯re doing something lighthearted and fun. It will look very celebratory and Earthly. But it should be a hit at parties because of that¡­.and of course they¡¯ll like the trees.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°I think you made excellent decisions yesterday,¡± she said as she headed to the door. ¡°Of course it¡¯s great for me to sell you clothes, but on a personal level, I do like to know a young Rabbit is taking care with how they handle themselves out there.¡± She was sliding her feet back into her heels. ¡°Making it clear that you are not disconnected from the world of wizards, as new Avowed often are, is good. There are some summoners who will treat you much more generously if you look like a person who might be sitting down for a chat with one of their colleagues next week. Your commendation sends that message better than Tuck and I ever could. But you won¡¯t always be wearing it, and it can¡¯t hurt that when you do, you wear it on something that makes it look like you know your way around their circles.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Alden. ¡°That sounds¡­pretty right.¡± Yinuo opened the door. ¡°Have a good afternoon. And call us anytime.¡± ****** ****** How do I beat an A-rank Speed Brute who¡¯s already been punished once for underestimating my skill? Half an hour after the meeting with Yinuo, Alden was pushing a cart down the aisles of the Wright shop, restocking on cordage and rope for class while he tried to figure out how to accomplish Max¡¯s request. Though it pained him to admit it, Winston probably wasn¡¯t stupid enough to self-decapitate again. At least not that easily. It would have to be a less obvious method to work. He¡¯s probably obsessively reviewing all my gym footage to plan out how he¡¯s going to give me ¡°a heeling¡± or some shit like that, too. So nothing I¡¯ve done before will surprise him. One possibility was upgrading his toolbox. He could go for an uncommon material that Winston really wouldn¡¯t be able to see well enough to handle. Something much thinner than the fishing line, maybe with special properties. But he didn¡¯t want to. Beating Winston with a filament of enchanted spider silk or something would be pretty unfair unless the speedster was allowed to bring his own exotic weapon to the duel, and at that point, they¡¯d just be fighting to see who could buy the best toy. A cough from behind him made him realize he¡¯d zoned out. He apologized to the woman who wanted to get to the shelf he¡¯d been blocking and moved out of her way. Winston has to get close to kill me. And he¡¯s fast, but he¡¯s not Finlay. Or even Mehdi. Maybe if I practice a little before we duel, I can actually be a threat to him with something fairly simple. Finishing up the cordage restock didn¡¯t take long. When he was done, he headed to the vending machine that sold temper spheres and bought three cartons. For experimentation purposes, not for MPE. He wanted more practice pulling enchantments. Breaking the locking mechanism on the puzzle door at Apogee Artist Spaces could have been a lifesaver, but it had taken him precious seconds. He needed to get better at it, and he might as well make the practice do double duty. He would learn what every single enchantment on the temper spheres did, and he would try applying different combinations of them to other objects, hoping to discover something useful. Making a cat toy hard to see for a few seconds wasn¡¯t the best he could do, surely. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Browsing the other vending machines for any cheap enchanted things he could break made him wish a tiny bit that he¡¯d taken a couple of the rings from the cottage at the art¡¯h house. But most of them were so much more useful there, serving their intended purpose as convenience spells for nonwizard guests and knights who didn¡¯t want to cast after affixations. Alden would just pay for this part of his education himself. He stopped in front of a machine that held enchanted accessories¡ªmostly rings and bracelets that he imagined were useful for Wrights working with sensitive or dangerous materials. He knew they¡¯d be wildly expensive before he even checked the prices because the machine looked like it belonged in an amusement park instead of a professional environment. That was a trend he had noticed on past trips to this store. Sleek, serious-looking machines held the more common items. But if he found one that had a sign that said Mr. Blingy on top, and it was covered in flashing lights, then even the cheapest thing in it probably cost more than he¡¯d spent on Yinuo and Tuck¡¯s services yesterday. Alden assumed Mr. Blingy did something both painful and humiliating to anyone who messed with him. He looked through the rings more out of curiosity than a desire to be in possession of any of their effects. None of them were made of the same translucent green material that the nonagon and its ring were crafted from. And though a couple were dark silver, they didn¡¯t have the geometric patterns carved into them that Joe¡¯s did. Ro-den. He wished Yinuo hadn¡¯t drawn his attention to the idea of summoners treating a person differently because of their perceived connection, or lack thereof, to wizard society. It was obvious¡­or it seemed obvious now. But it made him wonder again about Ro-den, and what the wizard had been thinking during the time they spent together in his office, and what Alden might have missed or misunderstood. It¡¯s over. I¡¯m totally done with him now. Just let it die. His questions weren¡¯t ones he could unravel with the information he had, anyway. Back then Ro-den claimed to have thought Alden was sent by his enemies as a trap, then to have decided that he was a stroke of good fortune. He thought I must have some kind of wizard benefactor on Earth, one who told me what skill to pick without contracting me. A reckless one without any proper discretion, or one so powerful they could just do whatever they wanted without fear of consequences. Someone interesting, who¡¯d liked Alden enough to talk to him but not enough to really teach him, hire him for a longterm, or monitor him. What did he think? Maybe that I was a way to connect with that powerful person? Or blackmail material he could use against them one day? Or a valuable thing that the powerful person had created and then abandoned on a whim¡­at just the perfect time for Ro-den to pick it up? And he even offered to give me a longterm job himself, there at the end. In a year or so, he said, after he¡¯d squirmed back into everybody¡¯s good graces. Wasn¡¯t he afraid of pissing off my mysterious benefactor? I guess he thought I was really on my own¡­or maybe that he could manage any wizard out there, if he had enough time to plan. He told himself, again, to let it go. In only the few days Alden had spent with him, in just the moments Alden had seen him, Worli Ro-den had rubbed shoulders or bullied¡ªit was kind of hard to tell which it was in some cases¡ªmultiple important wizards. The parents of everyone he¡¯d helped out of the mishnen situation. All those people he¡¯d been gifting potions to left and right at the party. Ro-den was a smart, talented, energetic doer of illegal things. Alden¡¯s chances of really understanding what the professor had once thought of him and planned for him, when the guy wouldn¡¯t even talk to him anymore, were lower than low. Brooding was stupid. In an attempt to snap himself out of it, he reached into his bag to grab his tablet so he could take a picture of Mr. Blingy. He had no clue what Kibby would think of the vending machine, but she¡¯d surely have at least one hilarious opinion. She¡¯d be so upset if she knew how angry I was with him. And at least him using me got her out of there. And most of the others. He had told Ro-den, during that first phone call after he¡¯d made it home, that he didn¡¯t think he¡¯d made a bad gamble. What else was he supposed to do under the circumstances? If they¡¯d had one more day, one more minute, before everything went wrong¡­ Alden hoped whoever made decisions for Yipalck corporation saw Kibby¡¯s explosion in their dreams every night. He snapped the picture of the Mr. Blingy machine. After saving it to add to a message for Kibby, he sent the image to Boe. [This is the poison dart frog of vending machines,] he wrote. [Its vibrant exterior is a warning.] [What are you sending me that for?] [Because I know you like frogs now.] [I don¡¯t like frogs.] [Don¡¯t be like that. They were there for you when you were wearing nothing but fronds.] By the time he finished escalating the dart frog jokes, he was back on the street, heading for his next stop. And he was so busy laughing at Boe¡¯s replies that he¡¯d completely let go of chewing over the things that he wanted to leave behind him for good. He was thinking about how he could make the frogs a recurring topic. But a really infrequent one. So that Boe was never expecting it. He was thinking about how funny it was going to be when he found an opportunity, months or years from now, to put a toy dart frog in front of a toilet, so that Boe stepped on it when he went to take a leak. A perfect reenactment of his Amazon adventure. And then, some subconscious process he hadn¡¯t been aware was running produced an answer about Ro-den and himself that he¡¯d never even asked it for. It wasn¡¯t shocking. It was so clear that he knew it was true, and at the same time, so unwanted that he tried his best to make up reasons it might not be. He walked for blocks until he reached a neighborhood he hadn¡¯t seen yet and a place he¡¯d only read about online¡ªa tall, egg-shaped building where you could learn about Life Shaping and agriculture. And pay a fee to enjoy a pick-your-own-produce experience. He bought the largest available basket from a man who spoke Mandarin, and wandered the winding interior paths, admiring the verdant trellises and the ballet of silent drones misting plants and moving containers. The place was busy but so well designed and managed that he often found himself in an area that felt like it belonged to him, tucked away between towers of peppers or surrounded by logs covered in mushrooms. He spent a while selecting fruit in a long pergola corridor where frames held up a roof of kiwi, grape, and tomato vines. It was worth the price of admission for sure, but his thoughts were still twisting and turning, looking for a way to get away from the truth. I can¡¯t. It¡¯s too basic. To everyone else who knows what happened, all this time, it must have been like blue skies and wet water and hot fire. I should have known. If I didn¡¯t know at first, I should have figured it out so fast. The first time I saw that humongous lab. After the mishnen. During the¡ª Something smacked into his leg. He took a startled step to the side, and looked to see that he¡¯d been joined under the tomato arbor by a little boy with dark hair and light-up shoes who was too short to reach the vegetables. Very focused, though. He swiped at the overhead vine with the basket he¡¯d just accidentally whacked Alden with. When swiping didn¡¯t work, the little guy went for a jump and swipe move that had the potential to knock down tomatoes if he improved his execution. Though Alden did not like the tomatoes¡¯ chances of remaining intact when their harvester was beating them with wicker and stomping around. ¡°Do you want me to get some for you?¡± The kid gave him such a shocked look that Alden wondered if he¡¯d somehow failed to notice that he wasn¡¯t alone. He stopped jumping and unclipped a chunky, panda head keychain from his belt loop, then stared at the small screen on the front. It took longer than it should have for Alden to figure out that it was a translation device. <> the boy answered confidently. Alden nodded and ignored the jumping while he picked a couple more tomatoes. Some people, he thought as he headed back to campus with all his shopping and a full basket, are big enough to pick their own berries. Ro-den might really be way over his head now, but back then, he was tattooing the heirs of important families and smoking hookahs with their parents. He was laughing it up in golf carts. The lab they took from him was massive. He had like fifty assistants at one point, and a lot of them were geniuses. Even fallen from grace, he was still so damn talented that they let him torment students at the second most prestigious school on the Triplanets as punishment for his crimes. When he acted like I was his one and only way of helping his assistants, that was just¡­a lie. He took a deep breath. Worli Ro-den was big enough. So why was Kibby still on Thegund? Why were the rest of them there? Why was I? ****** That night, despite his high expectations, casting the flashlight spell didn¡¯t go well. He knelt on his learning cushion and tried until his authority was exhausted, until he felt like he was a feather trying to penetrate through concrete instead of someone who could sometimes ask reality to shift for him. His hands and his authority had moved well. He thought maybe he¡¯d misunderstood something about the ¡°calling the memory of light¡± part, which was slightly different from anything he¡¯d been asked to do in other spells. His focus was off, maybe. Or his memory of sunlight spilling through his bedroom window wasn¡¯t what the spell meant. Perhaps it was the turmoil of his thoughts this afternoon, still messing with him despite his efforts not to let them. One of those, he hoped. There was always that worry in the back of his mind that a spell wouldn¡¯t happen for him because of his species. Calling the memory of light could be advice for someone whose brain worked differently. Unhappy and unsettled, he climbed to his feet and stripped off the silk pajama pants he¡¯d been wearing while he practiced. He took them and the cushion over to the huge suitcase lying in front of the window, where its bulk was keeping the bottom of the blackout curtain pressed against the wall, and added them to everything else he¡¯d carefully packed earlier. After he¡¯d zipped it back up, he stared at a particularly large rip that Stuart had repaired with one of his silver patches. Tomorrow morning. First, a flight to Matadero. Then, a teleport to the art¡¯h household. Then¡­a trip with Stuart to meet the healer. The nerves were beginning to bubble up again. I need to put myself to bed before I talk myself out of going. He did, and to keep himself in bed for at least a few hours, he took his Opposite stone with him and performed the mega-klutz half of My Body Becomes My Assistant. He laid down, careful not to bite his tongue or smash some part of his body into the wall, and waited for his Opposite to notice. Hey, there, he thought when the crystal checker started glowing a few minutes later. Whoever you are, I¡¯m really glad you¡¯re all right. It took him a very long time to sleep, but at some point, the dark of his room turned into the deeper darkness of a moon that orbited the planet Kimnor. The lights of the lab were so far behind him, and he had the impression that he was running into an abyss that clawed at him from every direction. There was nothing in front of him but bare, chaos-ruined dirt. And even that was a fuzzy gray view that he was afraid of losing, despite his promises to Kibby that he could easily find his way back to her if the goggles she¡¯d made for him failed. The lab lights are so bright, I¡¯ll be able to see them from a very long way away, he¡¯d assured her. But he¡¯d worried, as he always did, about a hundred things he¡¯d never say. If I fall, she won¡¯t be able to come help me. If now is the time when the lab lights give out¡­if that thing that made the trails in the grass comes while I¡¯m out here¡­if by some miracle I make it back with the car, but she¡¯s not strong enough to make it to the next sunrise¡­ One step after the other anyway. There was nothing else he could do. When he finally found the car, the pieces that had once been her father and Wivb-ee were so light in his hands and so heavy in every other way. Kibby wanted the bodies of her family to be completely gone, and so they would be when Alden brought the car back. Nobody but him would ever know how many pieces there had been. Or how he had tried to pull some of them free of the mutated grass that had vined its way through them only for them to break apart. The way he¡¯d wanted to hurry and be careful at the same time. The few heartbeats spent holding a portion of a small skull, wondering what the right way to treat it even was. He had driven toward the lab and left them back there with only the dark for their grave. That night was long past and far away, but it was somehow right next to him and all around him when he woke in his room at Celena North. One of his hands was cold and locked like a vice around the railing that was supposed to keep him from rolling off the loft bed. It had to be close to morning because when his feet hit the floor, he didn¡¯t fall all over himself. The wordchain had run its course. But his room was as black as his dream, and he stood there, almost disoriented, auriad sliding down over his hand to entangle itself with his fingers. He remembered how it had been coiled into the logogram for friend when she gave it to him. Right after he made it back from that trip to get the car. This is your present for returning safely¡­.you will use it your whole entire life and be the best Avowed. Everything was so close to impossible, thought Alden, breathing hard, his face pointed toward the spot in the darkness where his feet should be. Everything was almost death. I could have started a fire with the promise stick lighting spell, but out there on Thegund I would have had nothing but my own clothes to burn. A flashlight that couldn¡¯t be lost, that would be his forever. Wherever. As long as he could cast. One small thing that made the impossible a little less so. He started casting again¡ªhis auriad moving, his authority moving. To be a wizard is to move through reality with true awareness of your own freedom. The theoretical pinnacle of wizardry is dominion. Over the self. Over the universe. He didn¡¯t try to call the memory of light toward the symbol of the lantern because there was a slightly different thought, more deeply felt in that moment. A shift in desire and perspective. I don¡¯t want to call the light right now, he thought, lifting the auriad as if he were about to shoot a square of force at an enemy. I just want the darkness to FUCK OFF. He held that idea in his head, dropped the strands that transformed the lantern symbol into a spell release shape, and claimed his dominion over this one small matter. Not an exhausted feather now, but a freshly determined battering ram. The room lit up. It was less flashlight and more flash. One so bright that Alden actually saw almost nothing but the whiteness before his authority was spent and he was in the dark again. He stood there, caught in a state between euphoria and panic. He¡¯d just done a new spell! YEAH! And also he was blinded and his skin stung and he smelled burning hair or dust or something. He managed to fumble his way toward the light switch and slap it, and then he had a minute of real panic because his vision was still definitely impaired. After a lot of probably-detrimental blinking, it went back to normal, and he walked around the room taking stock of it all. It still smelled kind of crispy and wrong, but there was no smoke or singed spots that he could find. He peeked out of the blackout curtain and didn¡¯t see anyone pointing up at his window. He listened and didn¡¯t hear Haoyu banging around like he¡¯d been woken up. He seemed to have gotten away with it better than S?ren had. Okay¡­that was¡­one way to do the spell. Not the best way. But I made magic. I called light to fuck up the darkness. That means I can call it in a more controlled way, too. He dug his toes into the rug and smiled. ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-TWO: I See You 182 ****** Alden¡¯s invitation to the first Rapport came just after ten thirty in the morning, as expected. He took one final look around Matadero¡¯s teleportation area and touched the driftwood brooch he wore on the front of his vest as if it might have gotten crooked in the twenty seconds that had elapsed since the last time he¡¯d checked it. Then, he grabbed the handle of his suitcase, picked up the basket he¡¯d prepared yesterday, and accepted. No backing out now, he thought. A moment later, he was in the art¡¯h summonarium, standing face to face with his host. ¡°Hello!¡± said Stuart. Alden had wondered if he would get Formal Stuart or Casual Stuart to start with today, and the question was answered immediately by the Primary¡¯s son exclaiming, ¡°Earth fruit! Is this all Earth fruit?¡± and then springing over to look at the basket before Alden could even answer him. ¡°Is this for¡­your second meal?¡± Stuart asked, bent low to examine it. He was totally going to ask if it was for him. ¡°It¡¯s for you,¡± said Alden. ¡°And anyone you want to share with. I¡¯m sorry there¡¯s not as much symbolism behind it as there was with the Bowl of Welcome, but a food exchange is always fun, isn¡¯t it? And I have been feeding every wizard I¡¯ve met over the past few days. I couldn¡¯t leave you out.¡± ¡°This is wonderful! I missed my own second meal. Thank you for sharing the abundance of your world. What¡¯s that one?¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad you haven¡¯t already tried all of it before. That¡¯s a pear. I picked it yesterday, so it will be good for a while. Don¡¯t worry. I didn¡¯t hide any jars of oil in there.¡± Stuart laughed and reached for the basket. He was four large bites into the pear, and showering it with poetic praise between each one, when he suddenly stopped chewing and looked up from the fruit. He swallowed and gave Alden a wide-eyed stare. ¡°This is how you dress when you have time for <>?¡± ¡°It¡¯s all new for me,¡± said Alden, letting go of the suitcase handle and turning once in place to show what the outfit looked like from behind. ¡°But yes, if nothing is wrong with it. Do I look right for the meeting with Healer Yenu-pezth? And for everything else?¡± Stuart scanned him from head to toe, his gaze lingering on the commendation, the brooch, the points of the pezyva, and the boots. ¡°I like your clothes very much. They whisper of your <> and care, and they possess a subtle but sure beauty that suits you.¡± Alden blinked. Wow. Now I know how the pear feels. Stuart was wearing his LeafSong student garb, so trying to return the compliment wasn¡¯t really an option. ¡°And you¡¯re clothed in your commendation.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good, isn¡¯t it? We talked about how I should¡ª¡± ¡°I was planning to place a hand on the embroidery in acknowledgment, but now I have juice on me.¡± Stuart looked like he was exasperated with himself. ¡°We can pretend you did it.¡± ¡°No! It¡¯s something I wanted to do. I¡¯ll clean my hands with a spell. Let me find somewhere to put my¡­¡± He started looking around the summonarium. At the floor, the basket, Alden. ¡°Do you want me to hold it?¡± Alden asked. ¡°There¡¯s saliva¡ª¡± Alden targeted him. ¡°Ah! That will work.¡± Stuart handed him the half-eaten fruit, then flicked his fingers a few times. The spell looked similar to the hand sanitizing one Alden knew, but Stuart didn¡¯t chant anything. When he¡¯d finished, he reached out and lightly placed the three middle fingers of his right hand on Alden¡¯s shoulder. He held them there. Alden watched his face, strangely reminded of the moment when Alis-art¡¯h had looked into his eyes before sending him away from her ship. ¡°I see you,¡± Stuart said quietly. Then he pulled his hand back and held it palm up, waiting for his pear. ****** The terms of whatever agreement¡­or argument¡­had kept the residents of the siblinghold from paying a lot of attention to Baby Stu¡¯s guest the last time he¡¯d visited had either been modified or they¡¯d begun to break down. Alden had arrived early so that he could finally be introduced to Stuart¡¯s other parents before the two of them traveled to Yenu-pezth¡¯s House of Healing, but before they¡¯d taken more than a few steps out of the summonarium, other family members were showing an interest. A woman called out to them from up above in one of the tree baskets. A man passing by them on the path stopped to ask them both how their studies were going. And Weset was doing a poor job of acting like she just happened to be napping on the ground precisely in front of the main entrance to the house. The small child startled herself awake dramatically, pretended she was very surprised to see them both, then looked at Alden and said, ¡°Punzee-thorn is the name of highest accuracy for you. It is maybe even perfection. You want it instead of Alden, don¡¯t you?¡± Then she looked at him with huge gray eyes under concerned brows. ¡°Oh, um¡­¡± That is a potent look of expectation from someone who¡¯s about the human equivalent of a five-year-old. This isn¡¯t the kind of thing I loving lie about, right? ¡°Weset,¡± Stuart said, ¡°asking someone to change their name isn¡¯t an appropriate request. Why would you¡ª?¡± ¡°Honorable Avowed Human Ryeh-b¡¯t, Stu-art¡¯h who lives in our house, isn¡¯t always thoughtful. This is to our great disappointedness.¡± Weset sounded like she¡¯d rehearsed this whole speech. She came to stand so close to Alden that if he took a step forward, he¡¯d knock her over. ¡°He named Alden when she was in her egg, and we her caregivers have said her name so many times. She is a child who will be sad and confused to hear someone else called Alden. Imagining her cries of confusion makes me sad.¡± Alden was going to respond to the guilt-tripping attempt with a simple, ¡°I¡¯ll think about what you¡¯ve said,¡± hoping that time would make the idea evaporate from Weset¡¯s head before he spoke to her again. But before he could, Stuart squatted down to be eye-level with the girl. ¡°Are you really sad? It¡¯s my fault if you are, so I will spend my next unbusy hours with you. I will explain my past errors. I can teach you the nature of a ryeh-b¡¯t¡¯s emotional abilities and tell you of human naming customs. We can develop solutions for protecting the animal Alden¡¯s happiness and respecting human Alden fully.¡± He sounded sincere, but Weset¡¯s face was glazing over. ¡°I think I¡¯m not that sad, Uncle.¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± Stuart asked. ¡°I don¡¯t mind.¡± ¡°I left something in School Cottage,¡± said Weset. ¡°I should go there and find it. What is that food? I¡¯ve never had that food.¡± Stuart gave her a grape and a raspberry, and she ran off to show them to people before she ate them. ¡°So you¡¯re her uncle?¡± Alden asked, pulling up the cheat sheet to add to it. ¡°Yes, one of my sisters¡­¡± They headed inside and arrived at their destination almost immediately. Being received as a guest in the house could have been a very ceremonial event. Stuart had glossed over it previously, but now Alden was getting the full picture as they stepped into a small space just off the entryway that he had previously thought of as only a mudroom. It did serve as a place for footwear and outerwear removal, and he left his boots on a shelf and his suitcase in a nook. But before they passed through into the next room, Stuart pointed out a table where gifts to the house could be placed and where, if Alden was a normal wizard friend being introduced to his parents for the first time, he would have found a tray of dirty wevvi cups waiting for him. Cleaning them would have shown his willingness to share his magic with the house. There were no dirty cups there for him. ¡°But I¡¯m good at cleaning dishes! With my skill!¡± He felt like he¡¯d been cheated out of what might have been his best chance to succeed at making the Primary¡¯s spouses like him. Stuart gave him a look. ¡°There were so many reasons not to put the cups there for you.¡± ¡°All you have to do is pass them to me, and I just focus on preserving only the cup.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t need to clean the wevvi cups. You¡¯re wearing a commendation from Aunt Alis. And you already served food to some people on your first trip here, which was similarly helpful. And you using your skill to clean dishes is a little different from a wizard using a spell.¡± Stuart tried to downplay the fact that the next room was where the special guest and the receiving members of the household acknowledged their shared relationship as children of the Mother planet. You could actually make a day of it by tracing your ancestry together or you could take the easy route and place a drop of your Artonan blood on the enchanted hearthstone that would ignite the fireplace. After that you¡¯d supposedly be feeling right at home, and you¡¯d pass into the formal wevvi room, where everyone sat or knelt in a circle and talked while the person who¡¯d invited you served a lot of wevvi from the cart Alden was already familiar with. That was the part he was getting to do. All six of Jeneth-art¡¯h¡¯s spouses, one of Alis¡¯s, and one of Tesen¡¯s widows were there. It was a full siblinghold welcome committee, with a Stu-specific lean. They were trying hard to be nice. Alden was trying hard to be nice. The first ten minutes were easy enough since they just shared obvious politenesses. After that, it got strange. They talked warmly about school. He enthused about the earring. They talked concernedly about school. He assured them he was not being deprived of knowledge gaining opportunities. They talked cerebrally about school. He tried to develop an educational philosophy on the spot. They talked about how school differed at different ages of human development. And he finally realized that this had nothing to do with the normal Artonan schooling obsession, and everything to do with the fact that none of Stuart¡¯s relatives could think of anything else that was safe to say to him here in the getting-to-know-you room. It was a stark reminder that just a few days ago, a fight had started because Stuart wanted Alden to be treated like a knight¡¯s guest and his potential lifelong friend. And it had ended with both sides agreeing to a new state of affairs. They were getting Stuart to delay his first binding and try out votaryhood with Emban-art¡¯h. Stuart was getting unlimited access to a human that had a name they were all more used to using for the cute red animal that flapped around their house. And those were only the terms Alden knew about. Who knew what else had been said? This takes walking on eggshells to the next level, though. There has to be something we can say to each other that isn¡¯t about chalkboards. He tried to think of what that something could be while he sipped the delicious wevvi that Stuart¡ªlucky guy¡ªwas so busy making and pouring that he was getting left out of this conversational whirlpool. The main topic was Alden; they were supposed to be trying to get to know him. I¡¯m not that hard to get to know. There must be something. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how stuck they were. He knew from talking to Olorn-art¡¯h previously that he¡¯d been thoroughly researched. Alden was pretty damn easy for a human to research. The spouses were all wizards. They already knew so much, and if they wanted this to go well so that Stu was happy¡­they had to have analyzed what they could actually say to Alden and decided that his life was a minefield for them. Even asking about his family was potentially nuclear. What if they said, ¡°How¡¯s your aunt?¡± And he replied, ¡°Fine, but I wish I had grown up with my parents. Who were killed by an Avowed with particularly terrible powers. Why do you guys allow the System to give dangerous abilities to mass murderers?¡± What if they said, ¡°Do you like your job as a Ryeh-b¡¯t?¡± And he said no. At least a couple of these people had been at the LeafSong party, tagging along with the Primary and the Quaternary. He wasn¡¯t sure which because there had been so many faces that night. And bringing up the fact that he was stopping by on his way for treatment to recover from trauma wasn¡¯t exactly light material either. They¡¯d already spoken words of admiration for his actions on Thegund. They¡¯d already said, truthfully or not, that they were so glad Stu had found a friendship with him after their debacle of a first encounter. Now there was nothing but the school whirlpool sucking them all down together. It¡¯s been easier with Esh-erdi, but I guess that¡¯s because Esh-erdi is different. And he also doesn¡¯t have to be concerned about the feelings of a third party. If he offended me or I offended him, there would be no miserable Stuart involved. Wait¡­him. School. ¡°I took Hn¡¯tyon Esh-erdi on a tour of my school! It was at night after classes were over. My housemate Haoyu and I¡­¡± Thank goodness for Esh-erdi, thought Alden while he talked. Describing the tour, and how it had come about, injected some desperately needed humor into the conversation. ¡°So he¡¯s enjoying someone else¡¯s pet and scaring the Avowed out of their comfortable bathing rooms,¡± one of the Primary¡¯s wives said. ¡°We¡¯ve wasted worry thinking that his trip to Earth was being filled with dull work.¡± Her name was Calassa. So far, Alden¡¯s cheat sheet on her said only that she was the one with the darker complexion and the blue eyerings who was wearing some of the same symbols on her coat that had been on Alden¡¯s when he was costumed as an expert in transmogrification at the party. ¡°Esh is an <> seeker of amusement,¡± said Veln. He was the one who made a point of glancing at the fruit basket with one eye every time Stuart was freed from wevvi duty for long enough to take his seat beside Alden. ¡°And he amused himself right into the happiest and most surprising < > anyone could have imagined. Stu, did you really bring snacks into the room just to tease us with them? We¡¯re two cups beyond the point when you should have offered to share with your elders.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ¡°He¡¯s trying to fill us up with wevvi so we¡¯ll take less,¡± one of the others replied. ¡°I am not!¡± Stuart was over at the cart, about to start another chanting session over the boiler. ¡°The <> is formal enough to serve the wevvi without¡ª¡± ¡°This house has raised a cruel child, Alden,¡± said Olorn. ¡°As you can see.¡± Little bowls full of pristinely sliced fruit got them through the rest of the meeting without incident. Alden managed to shoehorn in one mention of Connie and another about his time with Alis-art¡¯h and her companions on Thegund, hoping to show everyone that he was capable of talking around his own bombs without setting them off. The conversation stayed shallow, but the tone warmed up enough that it was no longer painful. He tried to get a sense for everyone¡¯s personality and how they really felt about him, but except for Olorn and Veln maybe being a touch friendlier and one of the Primary¡¯s wives hardly saying anything at all, there wasn¡¯t much to glean. They were probably used to presenting themselves however they wanted in front of audiences more discerning than him. In the end, he was full of wevvi and welcomed, and he followed Stuart up to the second floor so that he could check in with Emban-art¡¯h before they left. ¡°She¡¯s doing well?¡± Alden asked. ¡°She¡¯s fine. Although she has started thinking of things she wants me to do, and it always seems to be a few glet before I need to leave for a class.¡± He glanced down at himself. ¡°I dressed for school, but I never actually made it to campus today because I didn¡¯t want to arrive during instruction and cause an interruption.¡± ¡°Am I keeping you from classes?¡± ¡°No, they¡¯re over for today. There¡¯s a presentation of <> I might attend tonight while you¡¯re with Healer Yenu.¡± He cut his eyes toward Alden. ¡°If that¡¯s all right? I¡¯d be able to teleport back to you very quickly if you needed me.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Alden said, as the hallway bent to avoid the trunk of one of the trees the house was built around. Emban-art¡¯h¡¯s room was near the end of the hall. An unusual spell was active in front of her door. At first Alden thought it was a floating wreath, and he wasn¡¯t entirely wrong about that. But as they approached, he saw that the wreath was a single strand of vine, shaped into a circle, and the bulk of the decoration was created by small items corkscrewing slowly around it. Most of them could have been symbolic in some way¡ªflowers, leaves, a few things that looked like soap carvings. But the presence of a couple of decorated pouches and a shiny metal capsule the size of his thumb made him think some of the items were probably gifts rather than part of the spell. ¡°I made that,¡± said Stuart, pointing at the vine. ¡°It took much longer than I thought it would.¡± He didn¡¯t knock. Instead the two of them just stood there beside the wreath, Stuart¡¯s eyes so fixed on the door that he didn¡¯t notice Alden shooting him questioning looks at all. A string of whistling sounded. Alden barely had to time to notice that the noise earned itself a strange translation¡ª <>¡ª because a blink later the whistler was standing right beside them. Short black hair with a braid on one side, an excited grin, pale pink eyes. Alden had seen her quite a few times through his interface, including standing near her little brother. He was still thrown by the fact that she was the exact same height as Stuart. ¡°Hn¡¯tyon Evul-art¡¯h,¡± he said, ¡°it¡¯s good to finally meet¡ª¡± ¡°Human Alden, you look so good today. I like it. You might want to take the pretty pezyva off when you play with Red Alden, but you could wear it to all kinds of fun places I go to.¡± ¡°Evul,¡± said Stuart, giving her a cautious look, ¡°he¡¯s not going to fun places with you. He¡¯s going to Healer Yenu¡¯s as soon as I finish <> for whatever Emban might need.¡± ¡°I know. Of course. Don¡¯t worry about what I said. And you¡¯re actually doing the votary thing too properly, don¡¯t you think?¡± She turned an eye to Alden. ¡°Only <> old people stand around counting their breaths after they¡¯ve been told to go away.¡± ¡°I am keeping my part of the agreement,¡± Stuart said. ¡°If I were really a votary to Emban, or any of you, I would stand ready for you to change your minds during times of <>.¡± Did Emban tell us to go away? He must have sent her a message instead of knocking. Evul pulled one of her rings off and poked it toward the wreath. It joined the collection, floating upwards beside a soap carving of an animal that looked like a long-tailed bear. Then she turned to Alden, ¡°You should call me Evul since you¡¯re going to be spending so much time here. Or you can call me Number Two Thousand Seven Hundred Sixty-one, to <> me.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t call her that,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Or you can call me Beast in the Flock.¡± ¡°You can call her that, but it would be odd to do it most of the time.¡± Alden was wondering if it was okay to ask for clarification on that one when the door slid open. ¡°Which one,¡± Emban-art¡¯h muttered, ¡°is banana?¡± She was wearing a velvety blanket, nothing but one arm and her head sticking out. She looked tired and irritable, but her purple hair was up in the most elaborate braiding job Alden had ever seen in person. Jeweled pins and rainbow ribbons galore. He wondered if doing her hair was her version of insomnia pinball. ¡°It¡¯s this yellow one with the speckles,¡± said Stuart, handing it to her. ¡°We don¡¯t usually eat the peel, Hn¡¯tyon Emban-art¡¯h,¡± Alden added. She looked at him. He was reminded that she thought he wasn¡¯t interesting enough to be the cause of turbulence in the house. ¡°Stu said you offered to have conversations with me late in the night and use your Avowed abilities on my behalf¡­¡± ¡°What?¡± said Evul. ¡°You did? He did?¡± ¡°I did,¡± Alden said, wondering if this was going to bite him in the ass somehow. ¡°Thank you.¡± Her eyes flicked to the commendation. ¡°There¡¯s no need for you to use the title¡­and you have my well wishes for your healing.¡± She let Stuart scoop all the gifts out of the wreath and carry them into her room. From what Alden could see of it from the hall, it was full of luxurious furnishings that seemed to have been chosen for their individual merits rather than because they matched or made sense together. And there was a large floor desk covered in stacks of hexagonal white cards. One on the center of the desk was being decorated with dizzyingly intricate colored lines of ink. Art project? Or are they some magical tool she¡¯s prepping for when she feels up to casting again? He couldn¡¯t figure it out before Stuart came back and the door was closed. Evul poked Alden in the arm. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you ever offer to call me and talk to me in the night? Stu and Aunt Alis can be first and second, but shouldn¡¯t I be your third favorite?¡± ****** They escaped from the house in a series of bursts interrupted by people they encountered. None of the reactions to Alden¡¯s presence were negative, but he was definitely getting the sense that the spouses weren¡¯t the only ones who didn¡¯t quite know what to do with him. One of Stuart¡¯s cousins asked, ¡°How is it being human?¡± Then a look crossed his face like he hated himself a little, and he made an excuse about needing to run an errand, hurrying away while Evul laughed. She finally got peeled off by Rel-art¡¯h. He acted like he¡¯d just run across them accidentally, but Alden was betting he¡¯d hunted them down, because he arrived ready to ask probing questions about whether or not Alden understood how to behave when Stuart left him at the House of Healing. Once he seemed mostly sure that the human wasn¡¯t going to do whatever it was he feared¡ªeat the furniture, pretend to be a member of the staff, coat himself in a layer of dirt¡ªhe wished Alden well, thanked him for his exceptional bravery in the absence of obligation, and told him to call immediately if he had any difficulty communicating with Yenu-pezth or selecting his treatment options. ¡°Rel used to take me to some of my appointments,¡± said Stuart as soon as they¡¯d made it outside. The trees were rustling overhead in a breeze that didn¡¯t reach them here on the forest floor. ¡°He must have decided that you might need him there, too. That¡¯s helpful of him, but you can just call me.¡± ¡°What does Rel do?¡± He had given Alden permission to call him Rel, but only while at the siblinghold. ¡°Mostly he teaches at the Rapport school and directs newling squads on missions.¡± Alden had actually been hoping to find out what, specifically, his skill was. He thought it involved telepathy, since Rel had used it to talk to his brother on the day their sister had died. And the fact that Stuart¡¯s mother had been mentoring Rel before she went to help the Primary seemed to indicate that his powers had to do with the mind. ¡°His role is one to be proud of,¡± Stuart continued, ¡°but I think he is one who does not let go of the role. I am not currently his student, and still he insists on checking that I have remembered to do the most obvious of things.¡± ¡°Was Evul his student, too?¡± Alden asked, thinking of the critical look Rel had given her when he saw her poking his arm again. ¡°No. Though I understand how she might appear to be a much younger person than him, they¡¯re both from the same birth set. The one before the last one.¡± He seemed to mistake Alden¡¯s surprise for alarm. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Evul is only lax about small matters. So she says. She actually wasn¡¯t here much when I was growing up. Always busy. But it¡¯s been nice to become closer to her over the past¡­you don¡¯t have your suitcase?¡± They were almost at the summonarium¡¯s entrance. ¡°You said that I¡¯d probably be walking with her and talking with her today, and that if she wanted to see me again in the morning, I could stay here at the cottage. Should I be carrying it?¡± ¡°I would if I were you,¡± said Stuart. ¡°She sometimes decides patients need to <> in contemplation. Depending on how long she leaves you there, you might be happy to have your own comforts¡­telling you that is an obvious thing I should have remembered to do.¡± ¡°You would come rescue me before I was trapped with her for weeks¡­right?¡± Stuart snorted. ¡°I said you might need to steep, not that she¡¯d keep you as her prisoner.¡± They went back for the bag. The big blue suitcase was where Alden had left it in the mudroom nook. He had his hand on the top handle, and he was lifting it toward him carefully rather than dragging because excellent guests didn¡¯t scratch the possibly-sacred wood cabinetry with their suitcase wheels, when a voice said, ¡°It is a treasurable moment to hear Stu going out the door to see Yenu again, knowing it is not for his own hurt.¡± There were a couple of quiet agreements. At least three people together, in the room where Alden didn¡¯t get to bleed on the hearthstone. He really didn¡¯t know their voices well enough to be sure about who they might be, especially when they were talking softly. He thought the first speaker might have been Veln. Bag in hand, breath held for no reason other than how awkward it would be to be caught in a position that might look even remotely like he was eavesdropping on the people who¡¯d just welcomed him to their home, he turned to Stuart. And found him smiling slightly. At least it wasn¡¯t a bad thing to overhear. He smiled back and gestured for the exit. They crept toward it. ¡°¡­a polite young person, at least,¡± one of them said. ¡°Don¡¯t let Alis hear you praise him <>. She¡¯ll finish off her Thegund trip at speed to come argue in person.¡± A response so quiet that Alden wasn¡¯t sure it was fair of the translation to let him read it came¡ªabout how of course Alis felt that way; the human boy had tried to make her feel better for not saving him and only asked for her help making a will. They¡¯d both frozen again. Stuart slowly looked around. Alden thought Boe, Jeremy, and the people he¡¯d been getting to know on Anesidora would all be giving off horror, sadness, or exasperation upon hearing that. But he was almost being blinded by the pride and admiration on Stuart¡¯s face. The Primary¡¯s son also seemed kind of smug. What the heck is that look? Was there some little cheerleader in Stu-art¡¯h¡¯s head, wearing 99.9 on their little cheerleader uniform and shouting about how his new friend was the coolest for facing down death while asking for nothing but some legal assistance? I might need to talk to him about how he imagines¡ª ¡°We¡¯ve seen how Stu is around him. We¡¯ve met him. I think we can¡ª¡± ¡°Do we have to argue about this again? Stu is ours. To <>. Of course we need to help him change his path, but talking about using a new companion he¡¯s found to manipulate him can¡¯t be the only way.¡± That was the one who Alden thought might be Veln. Alden¡¯s stomach dropped. And then it dropped once more at the sight of Stuart¡¯s spine stiffening and his face shifting. There was a moment when his expression was only startled and confused, and something about that moment of genuine surprise made what followed worse. ¡°We can¡¯t waste this chance,¡± the one who was, apparently, arguing in favor of manipulating said. ¡°You think we can still persuade him. I think he hasn¡¯t been willing to truly consider anything we say since Jeneth gave his approval. If we had a few more years¡­but we don¡¯t.¡± There was a pause. Alden drew a breath. He tried to nudge Stuart forward with a smile and an elbow because he absolutely wanted out of the house now. He wanted them at the summonarium and then away from here. Stuart didn¡¯t seem to see him. He had once tried to convince Alden he was okay with bleeding out for a while longer; it couldn¡¯t be clearer that he wasn¡¯t okay with this. He was standing there with his mouth slightly opened, face drained of color. ¡°The friendship,¡± said the voice that didn¡¯t belong to the possible Veln or the one arguing, ¡°¡­is unexpected. I don¡¯t believe it can last for more than a season of their youth with everything that will weigh on it. But this is its season, and Stu so wants it to be strong. I see no harm in letting them grow closer. Something good might sprout even without our <>. ¡°A word of doubt or <> from someone who knows him only as he is now and not who he was as a child, might be exactly what Stu¡ª¡± Alden didn¡¯t know what motion of Stuart¡¯s or what panicked impulse of his own made him suddenly throw his hand in front of the Primary¡¯s son¡¯s face. Something like, No, please don¡¯t make it even worse by yelling or going in there! But Stuart was taking a step toward the other room, and Alden¡¯s hand was moving backward, and the combo resulted in a soft headgrab-slap thing. It couldn¡¯t have been too painful, but it was weird enough to make Stuart¡¯s focus shift. He mouthed something at Alden that was impossible to lip read. Probably, ¡°What in the name of the Mother is your problem?¡± Or, ¡°Did your finger just approach my nostril?¡± He seemed able to read the message on Alden¡¯s face, though. He whirled and left, and Alden hurried after him as quietly as he could until he was out the door. Outside, Stuart was jogging toward the summonarium, and so Alden was almost running to catch up. Any faster and it would have been a chase scene that ended with some votary whipping out a wand and shooting the crazy Avowed for threatening Jeneth-art¡¯h¡¯s favorite child with a giant piece of luggage. The identical twins he¡¯d once delivered third meal to were coming out of the summonarium. Stuart swept between them. Alis-art¡¯h¡¯s daughters, thought Alden, trying to smile in a way that assured anyone looking that nothing was wrong. ¡°They must be late,¡± he heard one of them say to the other as he passed. ¡°Are you all right?¡± Alden asked as soon as he reached the spot where Stuart was standing¡ªramrod straight, jaw clenched, and rust-colored eyes straight ahead. ¡°We¡¯ll be routed through the capital and then to the road that leads to the House of Healing. Approaching that way is traditional.¡± The teleportation notice appeared before he¡¯d finished the sentence. ¡°That¡¯s good with me. But, Stuart¡­no matter what some person or people in your family think, I would never let any of them talk me into doing that. Into discouraging you from doing what you think is right.¡± ¡°I knew most of them were still hoping to persuade me,¡± Stuart said in a voice that was high and sharp. ¡°I agreed to do things that might ease their worries and prove my certainty. I agreed to serve as a votary for a trial period even though I know more about being a votary than most people my age who are planning to¡ª¡± They were suddenly standing in the most gorgeous teleportation alcove Alden had ever seen. It was a nonagon-shaped room with a floor that shone a lustrous, soft white. Like a pearl. The walls and ceiling overhead were filled with clouds so realistic he was only sure it was a room, and not some kind of sky platform, because of the notification asking him to stay in the chamber and welcoming him to the capital of the known universe. ¡°¡ªsaid that she didn¡¯t like how things had gone and that if my <> was different from what they wanted, they would still like for me to go to my first binding feeling supported by them, and couldn¡¯t I allow them time to show that support even as I <> to their concern?¡± I think I missed a little of what he said there. ¡°I don¡¯t think a¡­a¡­< > to use the person I am weaving friendship with to weaken my confidence is something they should¡­it¡¯s bad!¡± He spat the word ¡°bad¡± so harshly that it felt like it might have the power to reach his parents up north in Rapport I. ¡°I think as soon as I have introduced you to Healer Yenu I will go back home and tell all of them that our agreement must need to be contracted since they can¡¯t be trustworthy without¡ª!¡± And then they were standing in a humbler, grayer alcove. Stuart stalked out the door, saying things that made the Artonan who bowed to them as they exited give him more glances than Alden. Alden didn¡¯t know where to stare or what to pay attention to. The building they¡¯d arrived in was basically a small house, and when they stepped outside it, they were standing on a dirt path, surrounded by scenery that would have looked like it was imported from at least three different, widely separated time periods if they were on Earth. Behind him was a gate made of wood¡ªthe kind of thing that would keep cows in a pasture, not people from climbing over. Beyond it was a narrow road with no signs or markings. To his left, a structure that was either a partially finished building or a spaceship larger than any he¡¯d ever imagined rose from the trees, blocking the sky. Ahead of him, in the far distance but a completely straight shot down the path, was a building that was probably the House of Healing. He doubted it was as small as it looked. That had to be the jumbowhatever messing with his perspective. Finally, to the right, an idyllic field full of some kind of bushy crop, rolling away toward a city skyline. Stuart issued a few more outraged sentences but his anger was flickering, eaten away and complicated by other emotions. As he bent to collect a couple of foggy green pieces of something that looked like sea glass from a bucket by the gate, he said quietly, ¡°I did think Veln was close to approving of my choice. Over the past few days, especially, it seemed¡­but he said ¡®Of course we need to help him change his path¡­¡¯¡± He was staring into the bucket. ¡°I¡¯m very sorry, Alden. How¡­what an embarrassing¡­I don¡¯t know what to say about you hearing that from my parents, on the day they welcomed you to our house.¡± ¡°It¡¯s all right. It wasn¡¯t that bad. For me. All they really said was that they hoped they could convince¡ª¡± Convince was a nicer word than manipulate. ¡°¡ªme to convince you to do something that they think will help you. They¡¯re wrong. But they also said I was polite, and that your aunt likes me a lot. So I¡¯m not hurt.¡± I¡¯m not the one who has most of the people I love knocking me back every time I try to take a step forward. Stuart seemed really committed to staying bent over that bucket. Alden stretched his arms and took some breaths, trying to figure out what to do. ¡°You¡¯re strong,¡± he said at last. ¡°You can make any choice you want. The path of highest onus is supposed to be hard, but your family is making you fight so many little battles on your way to where you want to go. Maybe you¡¯ll be the first knight ever to get there and think it¡¯s actually easier than your choosing season.¡± Stuart finally straightened back up. Alden stepped over to join him by the bucket. ¡°What are these?¡± ¡°Those seeking healing carry them down the road. Alden¡­¡± He waited, but Stuart only shook his head. Alden reached out with three fingers and touched his shoulder. ¡°I see you.¡± The Artonan chirped and ducked out from under his hand. ¡°That¡¯s for knights wearing certain honors for the first time! You can¡¯t do it to me.¡± Of course it is. ¡°You did it to me.¡± ¡°Well¡­but¡­an Avowed is¡­and I wanted¡­¡± ¡°I see you,¡± Alden said again, waving the fingers at him. ¡°Let¡¯s go. And I¡¯m sorry for sort of grabbing at your face back there. I thought, ¡®No, Stuart!¡¯ And my hand shot out.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the second time you¡¯ve done it. Is it a human reflex?¡± ¡°Not usually,¡± Alden admitted. ¡°It only happens to you.¡± ****** ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-THREE: The Weight 183 ****** ¡°So that¡¯s Vethedya.¡± Alden was looking across the fields toward the city skyline. It was a little later in the afternoon here than it had been at Rapport I, and the sky was overcast. Other than his voice and the strikes of their boots on the packed ground, the only sound was the call of some forest dweller coming from their left. The noise was a plaintive one. His brain, trying to form connections in the new environment, suggested the unknown creature might be angry with the giant construction project going on in its wilderness. ¡°And what¡¯s the yelling animal?¡± It seemed better to chat as if Stuart wasn¡¯t hurt and angry, and as if Alden himself wasn¡¯t growing more anxious with every step. [You¡¯re sure this will be fine?] he texted to no one. [It¡¯s as I told you. Yenu-pezth exploring your thoughts in ways you haven¡¯t agreed to isn¡¯t impossible, but it¡¯s very unlikely.] I know. Breach of Contract, offending the art¡¯hs, ethics, reputation¡­there are so many reasons for a good healer not to do it and so few reasons to think I¡¯m hiding anything worth the trouble in my head. But still, I¡ª ¡°Those are Orangesky Mourns,¡± said Stuart, interrupting the thought with the answer to his question. ¡°Many of them live in this area. They¡¯re small and furry.¡± He went on to describe an animal that sounded like a squirrel to Alden. ¡°You might see some while you walk with Healer Yenu. They like the grove behind the House of Healing, and she won¡¯t let anyone scare them away. And, yes, that¡¯s Vethedya.¡± ¡°That teleportation chamber we were in was amazing. With the clouds?¡± ¡°Oh. You liked¡­¡± He looked from Alden to the city. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I was <> and didn¡¯t let you enjoy it!¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. We were only there for a blink anyway.¡± ¡°I will be silent the next time we travel,¡± Stuart promised. ¡°You don¡¯t have to. What¡¯s the big thing taking up so much space in the Orangesky Mourn¡¯s forest?¡± ¡°The Sdyelis Branch,¡± Stuart answered. ¡°An oasis ship. It¡¯s being built completely of materials native to the Mother. The designing of a ship that uses as little <> as possible has been the <> of the life of a wizard from Rapport III. She and her children are in charge of the project.¡± The shape of the vessel wasn¡¯t branchlike, unless it extended back into the trees in a way that couldn¡¯t be seen from the path, which did seem possible to Alden. From here, it appeared to be more ovoid with enough irregularities and ongoing construction to suggest that might not be its final form. ¡°Traveler¡¯s knowledge?¡± he asked. ¡°So much is gained, isn¡¯t it?¡± Stuart said. ¡°By encountering a new place or a new species. We¡¯ve become more than we would have been if we didn¡¯t travel, but we also take terrible risks. And maybe we fail to <> and find truths that were hidden at the end of a more solitary journey. The Sdyelis Branch is supposed to be what a spacefaring ship might have been if our people had never known any world but the one we were born to.¡± Alden stopped gazing at the ship and frowned at the track ahead of them. The Artonans were the species that traveled and connected everyone else. How far back in their history would they even have to go to try to imagine a spaceship that had taken nothing, not even a concept, from anywhere but their native planet? ¡°I¡¯m not disrespecting the educational part of the project, but isn¡¯t it very¡­closing of options¡­to build something important that way? Unless it¡¯s not important, and it¡¯s mostly an experiment?¡± ¡°I think you¡¯re searching for the word limiting,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s an <> project. It¡¯s for the campaign to restore the place I told you about¡ªthe one that was sealed before Earth was discovered. In honesty, building a ship that way has been so difficult that I¡¯ve heard it might not have been possible if some people didn¡¯t want to < > in front of the ilket. Which isn¡¯t a <> or intelligent reason.¡± ¡°What¡¯s ilket?¡± The word didn¡¯t sound completely unfamiliar, but Alden wasn¡¯t sure where he¡¯d heard it. ¡°A technologically advanced species who wizards interacted with in the past. It¡¯s likely their society has collapsed, and their people are scattered now if they¡¯ve survived at all, so finding motivation in spiting them is even more shameful than it would otherwise be.¡± Alden immediately thought of Gorgon, but technologically advanced didn¡¯t fit with what he¡¯d said about his own people being ¡°primitive in almost every way¡± from a human point of view. ¡°They¡¯re close to extinction because of the chaos where they live?¡± ¡°Probably,¡± said Stuart. ¡°They seemed to be incapable of making honest agreements with anyone who wasn¡¯t ilket. Artonans couldn¡¯t form lasting contracts with them, and they either hated magic or hated not understanding it. So our species were <>, and even negotiations for a possible evacuation ended badly. They were left there.¡± He looked at Alden. ¡°But The Sdyelis Branch isn¡¯t just an experiment or a <>. If it achieves all the goals that have been set, it will become a resource of unmatchable value. That ship is meant to be the closest we can come to sending a piece of our planet wherever we need to. It should make some magics much less difficult and provide a haven in places where rest can¡¯t normally be found.¡± ¡°What kind of¡ª?¡± ¡°We can talk about spaceships and history and the work of those who strive against chaos¡¯s <> anytime,¡± Stuart said. ¡°But it is more normal for people walking here to think of their hopes for healing.¡± Alden sighed and tightened his grip on the green rock that looked like sea glass. ¡°Most people walking this way probably see things like giant magic ships every day¡­but I guess you¡¯re making sense.¡± They walked for a little while without saying anything. His thoughts ricocheted from spaceships to school counselors to the auriad hidden on his upper arm. He wondered if he was heading toward the clarity he hoped for, and the relief, or if he was giving himself over to one more complication and risk. ¡°It¡¯s not easy to trust someone else with this kind of thing, is it? Is that just me?¡± ¡°I think that¡¯s normal. But I¡¯ve had to accept so much help with my own mind that I¡¯m very used to it. And I decided to talk to Healer Yenu for you, instead of another, because she¡¯s my favorite.¡± That¡¯s nice to know. ¡°What makes her your favorite?¡± ¡°No,¡± Stuart said. ¡°You¡¯ll think my reason is strange.¡± Alden looked at him curiously. ¡°All right. Your recommendation is good enough anyway.¡± Only a few steps later, Stuart said, ¡°She stole me from another healer. One who father had taken me to against her advice.¡± ¡°What do you mean she stole you?¡± ¡°She walked into the other healer¡¯s House while I was preparing for a ritual treatment and told me to come with her. I assumed I was supposed to because¡­why would someone steal me? Who would do a thing like that?¡± Alden gaped at him. We¡¯re talking about a kidnapping? ¡°Apparently, Yenu-pezth would.¡± Stuart had nothing but affection in his voice. ¡°She took me to fly <> nearby. Father found us quickly, but from what I¡¯ve been told he was very upset.¡± ¡°He should have been, shouldn¡¯t he?¡± ¡°Yes. But none of my other healers would have risked life and profession to make a point to him, so he did listen to her argument again. It wasn¡¯t one he wanted to hear. She was telling him it was time to pause and let me grow without any treatment for a while.¡± ¡°Was she right?¡± Stuart nodded. ¡°Those helping you with alterations of the mind are supposed to be careful not to < > when there¡¯s resistance, fluctuation, or lack of desire from the self. Caution was especially important in my situation, and we knew I¡¯d be seeing mind healers for years to come. But it was hard for my father to agree to the pause when I was still so far from comfort.¡± ¡°Your favorite healer is the one intense enough to steal the Primary¡¯s son and then give the Primary a lecture when he comes to get his son back.¡± Alden couldn¡¯t help sounding amused. ¡°That doesn¡¯t surprise me.¡± ¡°She¡¯s very talented and serious about her work,¡± Stuart rushed to assure him. ¡°That was why what she did had such an impact.¡± As they approached the building, Alden studied it. It wasn¡¯t dramatically different from what he might have expected. ¡°A boat sailing through some treetops¡± would be a good description of the architecture, but he thought the structure¡¯s curved shape might be intended to call to mind hammocks more than watercraft. Porti-loth would have been pleased to see that this House of Healing had its own grove of trees. Off to one side and behind the first building, there was a second, larger one that was more tucked away in the woods. When the two of them were still a significant distance from the front door, the path started to be spotted with the same kind of stones they carried. Up ahead, the ground was actually so covered it was paved with them¡ªa milky green lane taking over from the dirt. ¡°We stop and say the honor to the healer you plan to see,¡± said Stuart, halting. ¡°It¡¯s written on the floor or ceiling at some Houses, but this is how they do it here.¡± ¡°I think I know this, then,¡± said Alden. ¡°The days?¡± ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± Alden bent and placed his stone on the ground. It sank in like the packed dirt was soft around it. ¡°These mark the days of Yenu-pezth,¡± he said. ¡°These mark the days of Yenu-pezth,¡± Stuart said beside him, ¡°given that others might thrive.¡±This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°May healing be found here.¡± ¡°May healing be found here.¡± ****** Evening¡¯s approach meant the work day was over for most people, but the House of Healing wasn¡¯t empty. Some of the healers lived on the property, and some patients were here for extended stays. The second building was housing for those who couldn¡¯t be healed and couldn¡¯t safely be left to live on their own or with family. Stuart told Alden all of this as they passed through softly lit hallways that were filled with a quiet hum. His voice fell almost to a whisper when he talked about the second building. ¡°I hope the question isn¡¯t stupid, but why can¡¯t everything be healed? It¡¯s the same on Earth. Avowed and wizards are cautious about reversions, failures¡­¡± Alden was speaking just as quietly. ¡°It depends,¡± Stuart said. ¡°Sometimes damage becomes embroidered onto the self. Or some powerful effect continues to act on a person from outside so that attempts to remove it harm more than help. And the way much magical healing works is¡­it¡¯s healing from a practical perspective, but if you lose a leg and then command reality to <> it and attach it again to the place and purpose it once had¡ªhave you healed a broken thing or have you broken the way of things? Healing magic can weaken or be met with <> in the same way all spells and enchantments can.¡± A door they were passing slid open, and Alden received his first shocked stare since they¡¯d entered, from a man in a brown robe. The Artonan stood there watching them walk away, so Alden didn¡¯t ask his follow-up question until they¡¯d exited out the back of the building.¡°Your leg isn¡¯t likely to fall apart or disappear, is it?¡± Stuart searched his face as if he trying to decide if that was a joke or not. ¡°I¡¯m serious,¡± Alden said. ¡°I assume the answer is no, but I do really wonder.¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s well repaired and as <> as the other now. Reversions are usually a <> of fragilities, complications, or accidents. If the leg had been missing for a long time, if I had lost the same one again soon afterward, or if I had been much more severely injured¡ªI¡¯d probably still have been fine with the right help, but those are some ways healings can become less certain. ¡°And not everyone who stays in that building stays because healing failed. Sometimes it¡¯s because alteration of the mind shouldn¡¯t be attempted. For moral reasons.¡± He glanced toward the longterm care building and then back at Alden quickly. ¡°If someone has the smallest <> to their help¡ªeven a <> of curiosity¡ªthe healers here can encourage it. But if there¡¯s no desire at all, or if there¡¯s rejection, nothing is supposed to be done unless others are put at risk by the person¡¯s state of mind.¡± Stuart led him off the walkway and through close-growing trees with papery bark. These weren¡¯t massive like the trees in the Rapport; most of their leafy tops didn¡¯t quite reach over the rooflines of the buildings, and few of them had trunks Alden couldn¡¯t wrap his arms around. He was just wondering how far they would have to walk, since the grove seemed to stretch on for a long way and there was no sign of anyone else out here yet, when they passed between two trees that had grown together in an arch and a part of the grounds that had been hidden from view by illusions suddenly appeared. That¡¯s different, he thought, staring at the landscape feature that he assumed he would soon be taking advantage of. He had been told he¡¯d be going for a walk and talk in a place that eased the mind, but he¡¯d been imagining more of a nature trail. What he was seeing here looked like it might instead be a maze with paths that had been dug out rather than walled in. The entrance was a few steps in front of him. It was wide enough for four people to go side-by-side without bumping into each other, and it sloped downward so that several long strides would have him in a corridor made of the ground. It would be open to the sky, but the sides would be taller than his head. Off to the left, the person who would be his traveling companion waited for them up in a tree. She was pinching pieces from a small loaf of bread and popping them into her mouth while her legs and bare feet swung. Her hair¡ªa pale, purplish gray that almost matched the strips of bark that had peeled from the tree¡ªhung in a single loose braid. Her skin was darker, and her face was unmarked by wrinkles. The first impression she gave off was younger than Alden had expected, though he still thought she must be quite old. Surely you had to be at least a hundred and downright venerated to kidnap little Stu-art¡¯h and have his father actually listen to you when he caught up. She had a pair of thin lines tattooed across her forehead, alternating blue and silver rings were on her toes, and while she ate, she was bobbing her head slightly like she was listening to a song she liked. Her mouth stretched into a smile when Stuart approached the tree and called out her name. After shoving the loaf of bread into her mouth, she threw the last pinch she¡¯d taken toward a petite animal that looked like a chubby, big-eyed monkey with pointy ears and a squirrelish tail. Alden hadn¡¯t noticed it clinging to the limb above her until just then. When she dropped down from the branch, her feet didn¡¯t hit the ground with the thump he would have expected, considering the height. He wasn¡¯t sure if physical technique or magic should be given credit for the soft fall. ¡°Dear Stu!¡± she said. ¡°The days have been long. You do know you¡¯re welcome to come for visits even if you don¡¯t need me, don¡¯t you? I¡¯m proud, though. I like it when my patients can leave without looking back.¡± Stuart responded to the warm greeting with a bow, then introduced Alden as Avowed Alden Thorn, who the whole of the Triplanets¡ªespecially his family¡ªshould recognize as an absolutely extraordinary person because of his deeds. Just look at that commendation from Alis-art¡¯h! He sounds a little mad at his family still, but I guess it¡¯s not too obvious with all the praise. ¡°So you¡¯re angry with your family?¡± Yenu-pezth said, cutting the intro short. ¡°How angry?¡± Alden was impressed. Stuart¡­was still in his bow, not answering. Yenu-pezth gave him a knowing look. ¡°I suggest you stay here in one of the places you like until I have given care to my first human patient. I¡¯ll talk to you later.¡± Stuart rose, a protest on his face. ¡°Just talk,¡± she said. ¡°Are you not at a point in your journey when clear thoughts are as needed as water?¡± Before he could respond, she turned to Alden. She looked at him quietly, with both eyes, for a minute. He forced himself to stand still. ¡°Hello,¡± she said finally, shoving her hands into the pockets of her pants. ¡°I am Yenu-pezth. What have you come to me for today?¡± He didn¡¯t know how she did it. The question was a simple one, almost a banality, but the air seemed to thicken in response to it. He felt something¡ªa magic she¡¯d performed or called on in this place, he thought, rather than herself¡ªsurrounding him but not touching him. The feeling it evoked made it hard to answer her. He wasn¡¯t being prevented from speaking whatever he wanted; he knew he could if he really needed to. Instead, it was as if the first responses that sprang to his lips were too weak to penetrate the atmosphere. He didn¡¯t want to say them, knowing they weren¡¯t up to the task. ¡­okay, this is different. I know I can just say, ¡°healing,¡± but it would be like deliberately giving a wrong answer on an important test. He eventually realized he was just standing there, face pointed toward the healer without really paying attention to her because he was so tangled up in the search for the answer to the question. ¡°Don¡¯t be nervous, Alden.¡± Stuart took a step toward him. ¡°Maybe the <> of the path is making him nervous, Healer Yenu. Maybe it doesn¡¯t work correctly on humans. Maybe you need to¡ª¡± ¡°How fast do you think this usually happens the first time?¡± Yenu-pezth said calmly. ¡°I will be careful with your friend. You go contemplate in one of the places you like until your ears aren¡¯t such an angry shade. We might see you if you choose the <> path, too.¡± Stuart hesitated. ¡°That bag he brought has his things in it. Also, he said when we were talking about how mind healing works that he prefers to keep some of his thoughts private.¡± ¡°Most do,¡± Yenu-pezth said calmly. ¡°And you told me that already, dear Stu, when you called to ask for my help. I don¡¯t forget things.¡± Stuart looked at Alden one last time and gave him an encouraging smile before he headed down the corridor, which gradually curved until he was out of sight. What have you come to me for today? There were so many answers that were true without being true enough. Yenu-pezth kept her hands in her pockets and her posture relaxed. She just¡­watched him. Slowly, the pressure that he felt knowing he was taking a stupidly long time to respond to her faded. When it was all gone, when he was just standing with the question and no sense of urgency, even the answers that he¡¯d decided not to speak became interesting to him. Accessible. Like objects he could pluck from a shelf and examine if he chose. Here was a thought about how much he¡¯d hated almost losing control of himself on the bus. And there was another about how threadbare he felt sometimes when he woke up from a nightmare in a dark room, in a new home that didn¡¯t quite fit like a home. How he felt a thousand years older than most of the other teenagers he knew and also how he was sometimes afraid he was missing a critical part of being alive that the rest of them were breathing in like air. How the universe kept proving it could take everything from him, and how he really struggled not to believe that it would. But there were other possible answers, too. Brighter ones. Boe asking him to stop chasing after an old ideal that was making him miserable so that he could find something that worked better. Giving him permission not to feel guilty about it. Telling Stuart he hoped his life would make the world a better place but also that he hoped it would be joyful a lot of the time. Stuart telling him to stop being envious of choosing seasons when he was in the middle of one of his own. Putting away the skill machine with its cold switches and hard limits, discovering something more playful and flexible instead. Looking at himself in mirrors¡ªin a tailored coat that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders, in a pezyva marked with his commendation, bare-chested and with a hand held over the place where a tattoo had once been. A decision to come here, to Yenu-pezth, even though it wasn¡¯t a hundred percent risk free. ¡°I¡¯m here because I¡¯m ready to change,¡± Alden said. ¡°Because I¡¯m ready to grow in new directions. But I keep getting dragged back by what¡¯s happened in the past and blocked by what I¡¯m afraid might happen in the future.¡± Yenu-pezth removed her hands from her pockets. ¡°Helping people change themselves is my work. Did you like how the weight felt?¡± The weight. Alden looked in the direction Stuart had gone. He realized he didn¡¯t have a good sense of how much time had passed since then. But the nerves he¡¯d arrived with had faded, and in their place he had some clarity, not just about the answer he¡¯d decided to speak but also about how it connected to all those other moments he¡¯d thought of. If she asked him the same question again, he wondered if it would all get even clearer. ¡°I liked it. Was it you or the¡­inward path?¡± He nodded at the entrance to the corridor. ¡°It was me telling the inward path what to do,¡± Yenu-pezth said. ¡°The weight is stronger the deeper we go, and there is more to be found within. You will be very calm. The weight will tell you about yourself. You will tell me what things hurt you or halt you, and I will help you with them. Do you want that?¡± ¡°I do,¡± he said. ¡°My new patient is Stu¡¯s friend. What a delightful happening! Come with me. We¡¯ll go for a walk.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-FOUR: The Inward Path 184 ****** The path was long, and the weight was heavy; those were the facts of the environment that stood out the most to Alden even as he passed by things that would normally have made him pause and wonder. The route curved and curved, winding deeper into the soil until the walls towered above him and Yenu-pezth. There was one place where the fading light of the day reached them through a thousand glass shapes embedded into the corridor, and in another, water fell in trickles through a curtain of vines. For an unknowable while, they sat together on a rock that jutted out from the soil, and Yenu-pezth explained to him how she thought their sessions should go. It would be therapeutic, but in many ways, it wasn¡¯t like any therapy he¡¯d had before. And one of those ways was very important¡ªsome outcomes could be guaranteed. ¡°You¡¯re young,¡± Yenu-pezth said, ¡°and you shouldn¡¯t have experienced too much significant pressing or alteration of the mind.¡± Her ringed toes were stretched out in front of her, wriggling against a patch of ground carpeted with short, springy grass. ¡°When you are sure something within reach of your mind would be better if it were different, stronger, or absent¡ªand when I agree that the alteration will not harm you¡ªit will be changed.¡± ¡°Anything?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Anything,¡± Yenu-pezth said, ¡°that we are sure of. You aren¡¯t severely damaged or <>. You are someone who knows himself well enough to know he¡¯s unhappy. I am someone who can easily push you in a new direction. The only thing that stands between us and what you might want for yourself is our <>.¡± She chuckled. ¡°And maybe a little more slowness than usual since you are my first human. I¡¯ll be <> your mind with additional care.¡± She pulled her feet back toward her and straightened on the rock. ¡°So you must decide what you want, which isn¡¯t as easy as it sounds. In your case, you should choose the hurts you are most sure you understand and want gone, instead of the ones that ache the most.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t they the same usually?¡± ¡°Sometimes,¡± said Yenu-pezth. ¡°Not always. We¡¯ll find out when you find out.¡± She was on her feet. Alden couldn¡¯t quite remember seeing her rise, but he stood to join her. Her hands went into her pockets. She said, ¡°What sufferings are you sure your life would be better without?¡± And the weight increased again. He walked beside her. Or stood. Or followed her instructions to spend a while running his hands over a pattern of knobby protrusions on the wall that were maybe answers to a question he¡¯d had or puzzles to give him even more questions to mull over. The world around him blurred more as his own thought process filled his attention. The possible answers were all there. Only a few of them were perfect. All of them mattered. ¡°It¡¯s so important to me,¡± he said, hands still brushing the pattern on the wall. ¡°That what I do matters¡ªthat my yeses make a difference, that my noes do. Our choices shouldn¡¯t just ripple a little and then disappear. That¡¯s been important to me for a very long time.¡± Sometimes, he found he felt an urge to say things aloud that weren¡¯t responses to what Yenu-pezth had asked. Realizations or memories got shaken loose, and some of them were too meaningful to him to remain comfortably hidden. He would have worried about his ability to keep his most dangerous secrets. He would have wondered about whether or not the things that felt important to him in this way would matter to anyone else, or if speaking them revealed him to be someone deserving of an eye-roll or two. But the deeper they traveled down the inward path, the more his emotions became like ripples themselves. He felt like he was able to observe all but the worst ones from below the surface in the quiet heart of a lake. Below the surface like that¡­it would feel like when Lind-otta slowed the water. There was something he wanted from that thought and couldn¡¯t find, important but obscured. He had bumped into it a few times¡ªthe moment when everything went still and Esh-erdi¡¯s hand pulled him from the water, from drowning, into the air again. He kept looking at it and admitting it wasn¡¯t for now. For now, he was finding the thing he was surest about changing, and he¡¯d almost narrowed it down. Yenu-pezth was right. Surety and quantity of suffering weren¡¯t necessarily going hand-in-hand. The lake rippled like crazy when he thought about running across that damn moon. It practically escaped its banks when he thought about standing on that rooftop¡ªso, so recently¡ªand saying yes to her and being told no in return and being swept under. But those weren¡¯t necessarily things you asked to forget. Or alter. At least not until you understood how everything inside you was fitting together, and he was beginning to understand how hard understanding yourself really was, even here in this place that was designed to help you do it. ¡°I have a nightmare,¡± he said finally. ¡°It comes back over and over in slightly different ways. I want it to stop.¡± ¡°Tell me more about this nightmare.¡± He told her about the whistle and how no matter which way he ran, he couldn¡¯t find Kibby. He told her about how he often ended up standing there in the rotten grass, right before he woke up, realizing he¡¯d have to go through it all again. Completely alone. ¡°What else?¡± Yenu-pezth said again. And again. Several times, until Alden¡¯s thoughts were all on the dream and the layers of it. ¡°I was scared to go help her,¡± he admitted finally. The lake was rocking. ¡°On the day it happened, I was afraid I couldn¡¯t even save myself. And when I heard the whistle I didn¡¯t want to be responsible for another person. I was scared of what I¡¯d find if I went that way. I stood still for too long while she was alone and terrified.¡± ¡°This memory bothers you often?¡± She was watching him from right beside his elbow now. Her ashy purple hair had a little cup-shaped flower caught in it from the trip through the curtain of vines. ¡°She thinks I rushed to help her as soon as I heard. I would rather die than tell her I didn¡¯t.¡± Yenu-pezth moistened her lips with her tongue. She opened her mouth, paused, then said, ¡°I¡¯ll talk to you about that when your mind isn¡¯t softened by the weight of the path. This dark dream sounds to me like a very good place to start¡­¡± She took her hands out of her pockets, and Alden noticed a decrease in the weight. ¡°You can take the nightmare away?¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to change it,¡± she said. ¡°When we¡¯re sure. You need to steep for a while now.¡± ****** She took him back up the path, and he realized the distance they¡¯d come was shorter than he¡¯d thought but far more packed with attractive or interesting sights than he¡¯d realized. He had just enough space in his head now to wonder if he¡¯d noticed the particular things he did on the way down because they¡¯d all been part of helping him sink deeper into his own thoughts, or if he just subconsciously liked vines. ¡°Did we make it almost to the end of the path?¡± he asked. ¡°No.¡± She smiled at him. ¡°You didn¡¯t need it. You¡¯re a very good patient.¡± He was glad he was good. He was unclear on what exactly he was good at, though. He was also unclear on how his suitcase came to be inside a small cave that had been dug out of one of the walls and lined with smooth stone the same foggy green as the path that led to the House of Healing. But there it was, stuffed into the space beside a dip in the floor that held clear liquid. Yenu-pezth called the place a <> and told him it would be his steeping spot while she went to find Stu-art¡¯h and check the color of his ears. Alden went inside obediently then turned to face her, his neck bent awkwardly because the ceiling was so low. ¡°How long do I stay?¡± ¡°That depends on you,¡± she said. ¡°As long as you need to or until it is time for you to leave this place and rest without the weight of the path on you. To fix your nightmare, here is what we should do¡­¡± Alden was supposed to sit here with his softened mind, his freshly turned thoughts, and his lake of calm while he considered what he really wanted to happen the next time he heard the whistle in his nightmare. He would craft a new dream. Yenu-pezth wanted him to think about how it would connect to and ease the negative emotions associated with the original nightmare on a deeper level. ¡°When we are done,¡± she explained, ¡°it will still be only a dream. But it will be a dream you have more than once. We can make sure it helps you as much as possible when you experience it.¡± Before she left, she told him he could drink the water in the floor puddle. After she left, Alden realized he had no idea where to pee in this place if the need arose, and it had been a while. So he¡¯d just go thirsty. He removed his pezyva and took his learning cushion out of his bag. He was comfortable and at ease. Time passed uncounted, and his thoughts flowed smoothly.But crafting a dream to replace the nightmare¡ªone that satisfied him enough to be worth this extraordinary opportunity¡ªwas proving hard. He tried imagining different ways out. He tried digging deeper into the nightmare to understand it. Part of it was guilt. A huge part of it was the fear of being alone. The fear of failure. For months, he¡¯d felt like he was probably going to make a mistake. Like the mistake was going to kill them because he wasn¡¯t strong enough or smart enough, because he couldn¡¯t even speak to Kibby properly for ages. Helplessness. Systems failing. He felt like he was approaching something good, and then he followed the thought about Systems failing toward an idea about how maybe the new dream would help him with his panic over that, if his interface actually worked in it and he could call for help. Who would I have called anyway? Joe? That wasn¡¯t right at all. He tried to change courses, but he was interrupted by the return of Yenu-pezth and Stuart, who seemed to think it was time for him to give up and leave the inward path for now. ¡°No,¡± Alden said firmly. ¡°Healer Yenu, I know I can do it if I stay here longer. You two leave without me.¡± Stuart made a shocked noise, and his face purpled as he said, ¡°I apologize for him, Healer Yenu. He¡¯s confused!¡± Then he leaned into the grotto and whispered, ¡°Alden, you can¡¯t stay. Healer Yenu has already given us some of her sleeping time.¡± Yenu-pezth was laughing. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Stu,¡± she said. ¡°Your friend isn¡¯t rude. He¡¯s just one who <> easily with the path. Imagine he¡¯s been steeping several curves farther in than this for longer than he has.¡± ¡°You also can¡¯t stay because it¡¯s bad for your mind to sit here forever,¡± Stuart said. ¡°Healer Yenu, are you sure he¡¯s all right? Maybe it affects him too much for him to be safe without¡ª¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. ¡°I don¡¯t think it affects me too much,¡± Alden told him. ¡°I like how easy it is to think in this¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re definitely being too affected!¡± Stuart stepped forward and tugged him off his learning cushion by the front of his shirt. Alden was herded all the way back up the path by Stuart, who followed behind him like he might try to make a break for it and run back to his cave,while Yenu-pezth kept laughing softly in between reassurances to Stuart that Alden wasn¡¯t hurt and reassurances to Alden that he wouldn¡¯t completely lose his wonderfully sorted thoughts when he left. ¡°You¡¯ll find that time without the weight is good for thinking in a different way, and you may have solved more than you realize already. Sit with your discoveries for a while in the world you actually live in.¡± When they made it out, she told him again that he¡¯d done a good job and she was happy to meet him, murmured something to Stuart that made him sigh, and then sent them off via a teleportation alcove inside the House of Healing. They flashed through Vethedya for just long enough that Alden saw the chamber now looked like it was floating in a dark sky flecked with stars, then they were back at the art¡¯h family¡¯s summonarium and Stuart was urging him to move along. When they stepped outside, Alden said, ¡°It¡¯s so dark now.¡± ¡°Yes. That¡¯s because it¡¯s night.¡± Alden checked the time. It was almost eight PM on Anesidora. Which today meant¡­it was deep in the night here. And slightly deeper in the night in Vethedya. ¡°It¡¯s so late!¡± he said, horror dawning. He¡¯d taken up several hours of Yenu-pezth¡¯s night and then told her to get lost and leave him to enjoy his grotto. ¡°I know,¡± said Stuart. ¡°I¡¯ll barely have time to lie down before I go to my first class of the day, but spending time with Healer Yenu was wonderful.¡± ¡°She probably hates me now, and she¡¯s just too nice to say it.¡± ¡°She doesn¡¯t hate you. We talked about you, and she¡¯s pleased that you are my friend.¡± ¡°I like the inward path so much¡­what if she decides it¡¯s too much trouble to let me back in?¡± Stuart peered at him. ¡°I think you need sleep, too. Come. I¡¯ve got your suitcase, and your cottage is ready for you.¡± Alden nodded and followed him. Belatedly, he realized he shouldn¡¯t be letting his host carry his luggage for him, and he reclaimed it. In the stream, the zansees were flashing. When he lay down in bed, he thought he¡¯d probably still be awake to see the water bugs¡¯ light show end with the rising of the sun. It was earlier than his usual bedtime, after all, and he had so much to think about. But not long after he started searching for the fix to the nightmare again, his musings about dreams became the actual thing. The whistle was there, as clear as ever. And he was running around, panicking, the same as usual. He woke up a shocking twelve hours later, feeling like he¡¯d spent the whole night doing aerobics¡ªsomething that might not have been that far off the mark judging by the fact that he¡¯d traveled across the giant bed, scrambled the covers, tossed the pillows, and somehow wound up with his head hanging off the foot of the mattress. He was alone, but the piece of stationery he could see perched on top of his suitcase a few feet away was probably a note from Stuart saying something like, ¡°At school. Stay inside, and don¡¯t let my family manipulate you.¡± Alden closed his eyes for a while, trying to figure out if anything was different. He wasn¡¯t irritated, like he might normally have been, to find that even though he¡¯d slept twelve hours he still felt a little tired. And he was less nervous than he should have been to be lying here in the middle of a bunch of art¡¯hs with only a cottage for a buffer instead of a Stu. Probably some residual calm from the walk and the steeping. He was thinking that just walking in that place, with Yenu-pezth adjusting the weight and giving him prompts, might be the same as sitting through weeks or months of nonmagical therapy. It makes sense that it would be, considering who got me the appointment. And it wasn¡¯t even a normal appointment slot; Yenu-pezth was giving up her free time to slip him in. He needed to get her the most enormous fruit basket. He also needed to work on problem solving the nightmare more, so that he¡¯d be ready to take full advantage of her abilities next time. He rolled off the bed and grabbed Stuart¡¯s note. Sure enough, it said what he¡¯d expected, but with added advice about how Alden shouldn¡¯t do anything stressful this morning because he¡¯d gain more benefit from last night¡¯s experience if he took it easy. Stuart was expecting to be done with school for the day in about three hours. He hoped he¡¯d see Alden this afternoon, but if Alden needed to leave he could. Then he went on to say that he¡¯d thought about it, and Alden shouldn¡¯t attend Engaging with the Unexpected, because his classmates created an environment that was not conducive to healing and reflection. Alden hadn¡¯t planned to skip classes today if he didn¡¯t have to, but the idea of having heavy conversations and arguments about the Submerger disaster when he was working on a more personal problem was no good. He wasn¡¯t going to waste the lasting calm that seemed to be helping him right now for that. He would follow Stuart¡¯s advice, pretend he was still in his grotto, and keep himself stress-free until the Artonan came back. They could talk for a bit, and then Alden could arrive back on Earth just in time for Intro to Other Worlds, which was a peaceful class. Unless Yenu-pezth wants to let me onto the path again tonight. Then I¡¯ll just stay here prepping my answer for her. She totally wasn¡¯t going to do that. If he remembered her final instructions correctly, the date of their next appointment wasn¡¯t set, and he was supposed to call her and talk to her before it would be. I feel like I made it right to the edge of something last night without quite getting there. He imagined he was going to be very frustrated about that over the coming days, but for now¡­maximum serenity. He ate a large savory cookie-thing Stuart had left on a plate for him and went to take a shower. Unsurprisingly, the shower at the cottage would do everything short of scrubbing your body for you if you knew how to adjust the settings. Alden had kept it simple the last time he was here, and he did this time, too. But, absentmindedly, he kept changing the pressure to be a little harder and the heat a little hotter, until he was standing, eyes closed and back pressed to the wall, in a shower that felt like the one he¡¯d used at the lab. It took him a while to realize he¡¯d done it. As soon as he did, he turned the water off and stood there dripping. Not supposed to be thinking about the lab shower. How is that going to help me rewrite the nightmare? The nightmare started before he ever made it back to the lab with Kibby. The grass, the whistle, the first hours of the chaos¡ªhe needed to fix it from there. For both of their dream selves. Find Kibby. Get us to the lab again safely, I guess. That¡¯s not much of a fix, though, just a nightmare that really happened. He swallowed. If it really happened again, I¡¯d be able to do a little more. Like, I could at least¡­wait¡­could I¡­? So many of the memories he¡¯d taken close looks at yesterday, and the fears, drifted through his mind. He was still staring at the shower wall minutes later, piecing together something so astounding that his heart had begun to race. Not quite. I don¡¯t have enough information. I need to know a lot of things. And he needed to know them right now. All thoughts of serenity and a calm morning forgotten, he flung himself from the shower. He had windows open on his interface, and his tablet was out of his bag before he thought to grab a single stitch of clothing. He stumbled through the bedroom, yanking on his silk pajamas with one hand and trying to make a feature of the tablet he basically never used work with the other. I think we could almost do it. Almost isn¡¯t good enough. ****** When Stuart arrived a few hours later, he was carrying two cups of grain tea and being followed by his ryeh-b¡¯t. ¡°You stayed,¡± he said when he entered the cottage. His smile was excited. ¡°We can sit together and discuss our thoughts if you¡­want¡­to do that.¡± His expression changed as Alden sprang up from the floor, where he¡¯d been leaning over his tablet¡¯s holographic projection of Moon Thegund and drawing lines on it with his finger. ¡°You¡¯re back so soon!¡± He leaped toward Stuart and almost slid on one of the sheets of paper he¡¯d ripped out of a notebook a while ago when he was making a list of even more things he needed to know. ¡°It¡¯s the time I told you I¡¯d be back.¡± ¡°Good! I need your help. More of your help. You help with so much, and I feel like I don¡¯t do anything for you in return. Ask for a favor sometime, please. But for now¡ª¡± ¡°Are you all right? Do I need to call Healer Yenu?¡± ¡°I¡¯m excellent.¡± ¡°Excellent at what?¡± Stuart asked, his voice so concerned now that it snapped Alden out of his frenzy. He took in the tea. Other Alden had just slipped into the cottage behind Stuart¡¯s ankle, and she was beelining for the suitcase. Stuart was in his school clothes. ¡°Sorry. I¡¯m excited. I didn¡¯t mean excellent like that. I mean I¡¯m very well, and I don¡¯t need Healer Yenu yet. I¡¯ve realized how I want to change the nightmare, but I¡¯m not sure it will work. I want it to be more realistic than dreams usually are. So I need you to help me figure some things out, if you have time and if you don¡¯t mind.¡± He smiled. ¡°Thank you for the tea. My manners are bad right now.¡± Stuart handed him a cup, then leaned around him to see the globe of Thegund. ¡°Of course I¡¯ll help.¡± He still looked worried though. Alden pulled himself together more. ¡°Come in.¡± He tried to sound calmer. ¡°Let¡¯s sit down and discuss both of our days. You first, or I¡¯ll just overwhelm you with questions.¡± Stuart turned to shut the door behind him. ¡°You can ask your questions.¡± ¡°No. Really. Tell me about LeafSong. Or did Emban-art¡¯h end up keeping you from classes again?¡± He went to move the tablet and some papers, then he sat down on one of the cushions by the floor table and sipped his tea to prove he was a good friend, too. Stuart came to sit across from him, and after a few more glances around the room and one commanding whistle at the sight of his ryeh-b¡¯t biting a suitcase wheel, he did seem pleased to have been asked about his day. He talked about an assignment he¡¯d been given to achieve an accurate effect from a ¡°successive wand¡± spell when one of the wands that would normally have been used was missing. Alden didn¡¯t have to feign interest, but he was sorry that all he could do was ask questions. Stuart struck him as the kind of person who would really enjoy an in-depth discussion about magical theory with a peer. Even if Alden had said, ¡°I altered the results of a flashlight spell!¡± he wouldn¡¯t have been able to contribute much more knowledge than the fact that it had happened. Though if I did that, I¡¯m sure the conversation would stop being happy spellcraft chatter anyway. ¡°You¡¯re frowning,¡± said Stuart. ¡°Should I explain the effects of yethwood wands again?¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°No, I was just thinking I must be boring to talk to when it comes to your school. I can¡¯t have a conversation about it at your level.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not ever boring to me,¡± said Stuart. He took an orange out of a pocket¡ªit was his second hidden piece of Earth fruit since they¡¯d sat down¡ªand sniffed it deeply. ¡°Oranges smell wonderful,¡± said Alden. ¡°Yes! And in your language the color is named for the fruit!¡± He had looked up fruit facts for everything he¡¯d received yesterday. Peeling the orange so carefully that Alden was sure he already had a specific plan for the rind, he said, ¡°What about your day and your questions?¡± Alden felt a stir of excitement. ¡°I need to know how much a very specific car weighs, and I want to know if a certain kind of sprinkler can pull water from the ground all over Thegund or if they only work in some places. Kibby can answer the first question. I don¡¯t know how to find the answer to the second.¡± Stuart blinked. ¡°I¡¯m sure it won¡¯t be too difficult.¡± ¡°And,¡± said Alden, ¡°I want you to help me figure out how to kill a demon with my skill.¡± Stuart blinked again. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Just one,¡± said Alden. ¡°I never even saw it, but it was there. And this morning I realized if Thegund happened today to the person I am now¡­I might be able to get out with Kibby. I might be able to keep us both alive for as long as it would take to reach people. I almost have the ability to do it. I think. There was at least one big demon roaming around out there that could ruin everything if we ran into it.¡± ¡°What kind?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± said Alden, remembering the trails in the grass. ¡°But I want it dead so that I can leave with her that day. In my dream, I¡¯m going to find her, and we¡¯re going to outrun the corruption together. We¡¯re going to escape. We¡¯re not going to live through it all again.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-FIVE: What do you know about chaos? 185 ****** ¡°Yes,¡± said Yenu-pezth, after a few moments of consideration. ¡°This is a good plan.¡± She was speaking to them from Alden¡¯s tablet, which was propped on the floor table in the cottage. Alden had just carefully explained his ideal nightmare replacement to her. He resisted saying, ¡°Told you so!¡± to Stuart, who had suggested they make this call because he wasn¡¯t sure Yenu-pezth would approve of the plan. Something, something¡­a realistic survival dream complete with demon fighting doesn¡¯t sound like any treatment I¡¯ve ever had, Alden. ¡°Preparing thoroughly for this and thinking in this way may bring you as much help as the dream itself,¡± Yenu-pezth added. ¡°And I have some thoughts on how to make it more effective. Try to identify four possible <> of unexpected trouble that you might encounter in this dream and solve with your current strengths. Let¡¯s meet six nights from now. If you¡¯re not ready to adjust the dream at that time, we can speak of other matters. Do you agree with this?¡± ¡°I do, Healer Yenu,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯ll be ready with the scenarios for the dream by then.¡± ¡°When you feel sure of them, then you will be ready,¡± Yenu-pezth said crisply. ¡°I will not argue with your surety, nor will I rush it. You may call me again at this hour when you have questions.¡± They both thanked her, and Alden ended the call. ¡°So now will you help me figure out how to kill the big Thegund demon?¡± ¡°If it would bring you comfort to know how to defend yourself, I would help you learn anyway,¡± said Stuart, rubbing his ryeh-b¡¯t¡¯s back near the base of her tail with one hand while he spoke. ¡°Of course. I was only worried because adding danger and hardship to your dream sounded very different than what I imagined you would be doing. You don¡¯t have to kill the demon to be safe from it, though. Escaping, hiding, and <> may all be better options.¡± Alden adjusted his seat on the floor cushion to get more comfortable. ¡°You think it doesn¡¯t need killing?¡± Stuart moved his hands in a shrug, and the ryeh-b¡¯t snapped at his sleeve to protest the end of her massage session. ¡°I think it depends on the nature of the demon. And if getting away from the area of danger is your main objective, completely destroying it may not be necessary. We¡¯ll know more after we have selected some characteristics for it.¡± He interpreted Alden¡¯s slightly blank look correctly and added, ¡°It¡¯s unlikely someone saw the specific demon that was active near the laboratory and recorded its behavior. If you didn¡¯t see it either, we¡¯ll have to <> about what it was and what it could have done.¡± Alden remembered asking Kibby if she had any idea what it was or what it could do and getting a lot of ¡°I don¡¯t know¡± in reply. ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± he muttered. ¡°Other things on Thegund that changed wouldn¡¯t be as predictable as the bugs.¡± ¡°Those are unusual,¡± Stuart agreed. ¡°They almost all become demons. Very odd. And most of them have similar behaviors once they do, but not every one of them. Master Ro-den is quite obsessed with figuring out why they are the way they are. Even though he¡¯s less famous for that than he is for¡­¡± He seemed to have been warming to the topic only to trail off suddenly. ¡°What do you know about chaos?¡± he asked. ¡°Not as much as I¡¯d like to. But I don¡¯t want you to be in trouble for telling me something you shouldn¡¯t.¡± Stuart took a while to reply, and when he did, there was regret in his voice. ¡°I do not understand the reasoning for why some matters are being kept discreet from humans. I haven¡¯t even identified all of the topics that are. In a few years, if I were a traditional student who hoped to have summoning rights for your species after graduation, I would study the subject at LeafSong so that I could properly manage the transfer of knowledge without risking the destabilization of your planet¡¯s Contract.¡± ¡°If telling me things destabilizes our Contract, I don¡¯t want to know them,¡± Alden said at once. ¡°How does telling secrets harm a Contract, though? If that¡¯s not a secret, too.¡± Stuart tilted his head. ¡°Did you not learn about the <> of the Earth Contract in school when you were younger? Is that something humans don¡¯t teach you until you¡¯re adult¡­no, that can¡¯t be correct. It should be explained prior to your selection as an Avowed.¡± ¡°Of course I learned about it. Artonans and Avowed traveling the world, speaking to all governments and peoples, showing them magic, and giving them things in exchange for their agreement¡ªall of that. We even have a Contract Day celebration. But I still don¡¯t understand how you telling me certain specific facts could damage the Contract.¡± ¡°So you do understand that the Contract between Earth and the Triplanets is perpetually being <> by both our peoples? And shall be for as long as it exists?¡± Alden thought about it. ¡°I know that. I didn¡¯t quite connect it to¡­that¡¯s not the only thing making it work, is it? Didn¡¯t the wizards back then enchant the planet itself and the universe and¡­. More has to be involved than people agreeing that they accept the Contract every time they receive healing treatments or other Contract benefits, doesn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°¡®More¡¯ is involved,¡± Stuart said, ¡°but if the most important part of it was the enchantment of your planet, we¡¯d call it the Enchantment. We call it the Contract because it¡¯s a contract. Humans and Artonans have much in common, including concepts of some obligation to <>, but an ancestral promise isn¡¯t enough to provide Contract stability if the people currently living under the Contract reject its terms.¡± A terrible foreboding knotted Alden¡¯s stomach. ¡°The Earth Contract goes away if enough humans stop liking it?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to like something to agree to it,¡± Stuart pointed out. ¡°But it would be a problem if a large percentage of your species refused to agree to it. The Earth Contract probably wouldn¡¯t go away. At first. The terms are such that the accumulated history of human acceptance and the Artonan desire for the Contract¡¯s continuation should <> the rejection of a generation of humans. But friction between our peoples would delay your Contract¡¯s growth and weaken its response to <>, which would necessitate more assistance on our part, which would increase the likelihood of future friction.¡± He made a gesture with both hands like he was breaking a twig. ¡°At this point, it is best for the Triplanets¡¯ relationship with Earth to be made as strong as possible, thus some truths become matters of proper discretion. The wide release of that kind of information is supposed to be managed in whatever way works best for humans.¡± ¡°You mean in whatever way makes us the happiest?¡± Stuart pet his ryeh-b¡¯t some more and slowly purpled. Alden wondered if he was thinking about lying, but he just swallowed, met Alden¡¯s eyes, and said, ¡°I mean in whatever way makes your species, as a whole, least likely to resist the continuation of the Contract. The factors taken into consideration are unique to every resource world, so the management of each one is slightly different. Pragmatism is balanced by our morals and our abilities. But encouraging other species to follow our lead and be satisfied with our dominant position isn¡¯t always the same as ensuring their maximum happiness. I¡¯m not naive to that, so I don¡¯t think I should avoid admitting it to you.¡± He looked like someone who thought he¡¯d just plunged into dangerous waters. ¡°You¡¯re worrying too much,¡± Alden said dryly. ¡°I¡¯ve never thought that the Triplanetary Government¡¯s goal was maximum human happiness. I¡¯m sorry if that question made it sound like I did. I don¡¯t even think humanity¡¯s goal has ever been maximum human happiness on a global level.¡± Stuart inhaled. ¡°I see¡­and you have already told me that your feelings about being an Avowed are complicated, so¡­I suppose I don¡¯t need to mention that the various ways wizards call upon Avowed are not always for the greater¡­¡± He was obviously struggling with what to say, but since Alden didn¡¯t know where Stuart was ultimately going with this he didn¡¯t know how to help. I was right. The power dynamic is always going to be a gnarly problem to work around. Embarrassing for Stuart to run into, rankling for Alden. Finally, after fumbling a bit more, Stuart said, ¡°I will move the conversation down its path!¡± a little too forcefully. ¡°You are only asking about one demon on Thegund, so telling you everything about chaos today is unnecessary, isn¡¯t it? And we will have many more conversations about such matters in the future I am sure.¡± So that¡¯s what he was hoping to tell me, Alden thought. Just¡­literally everything about chaos. Apparently that¡¯s not proper discretion by even his loose, undertrained standards. Maybe he couldn¡¯t work it out with his knightly oaths. Stuart was looking at Alden hard again, and Alden honestly couldn¡¯t tell what that face meant. He decided to assume it was some version of, ¡°Please don¡¯t be mad at me.¡± ¡°If I can kill the demon¡ªor run from it or hide from it¡ªthat¡¯s all I care about,¡± he said. ¡°For now.¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Stuart¡¯s unreadable expression shifted to recognizable relief. ¡°Yes! Good! Can we start by assuming it might have been a bokabv that was turned by the chaos? There are a few small herds there, and I did hear one of Aunt Alis¡¯s spouses saying something about how Kraaaa snuck off to eat a demon that was probably a bokabv.¡± ¡°Yuck¡­.he ate one?!¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I heard.¡± ¡°How do you put a demon in your mouth?¡± ¡°It died almost as soon as he got his tongue around it, and he was mad about it.¡± Stuart looked like he was talking about the weather suddenly. ¡°He should probably have used his skills on it instead, but you can¡¯t really be annoyed with grivecks for taking unnecessary risks, can you? Now, normal bokabvs are herdcreatures with shy personalities and excellent senses of smell. I think a bokabv that became a demon rather than dying in the corrupted environment would be slightly more likely to be the herdmother instead of a regular¡­¡± Alden listened. As soon as he started taking notes on his tablet, Stuart¡¯s instructor mode was completely activated, and before long, Alden knew all kinds of things that probably weren¡¯t that relevant about a herdcreature on an alien moon he hoped to visit again only in his dreams. And despite Stuart¡¯s decision not to provide whatever the full story on chaos was, Alden did learn more about how it made demons. Chaos destroyed the way of things, but it was also affected by the way of things. He was sure the comparison would be deemed not quite right by his teacher if he said it aloud, since the last six comparisons he¡¯d tried to make had made Stuart turn up his nose, but he was currently imagining chaos as a substance that, in corrupted areas, could flow through the universe¡¯s veins like a potion of randomness. Mostly, the potion of randomness ruined the veins, but it was still directed by them for however long they lasted. Artonans were really, really interested in figuring out how to predict what chaos would do when it was around; and according to Stuart, they were a really, really long way from the kind of success they needed. But they did know that sometimes a spot in the universe, usually a spot that defined a living thing, was a little too interactive with the chaos. Instead of bursting right away, the veins that made up those beings could flex and stretch and branch before they broke, accommodating the assault well enough to maintain a presence that resembled the original one to varying degrees while providing chaos with a foothold in reality. ¡°Most demons are <> spreaders of chaos,¡± said Stuart. ¡°But some create it purposefully.¡± ¡°It can be created?¡± Stuart paused to consider the question. ¡°That¡¯s a matter of study. Some perverse ones have said they are truly creating chaos, but others have referred to it as summoning. It¡¯s likely they don¡¯t actually know themselves. I should have said they purposefully cause more of it to be present near them. And I¡¯m not sure I¡¯m supposed to be telling you this much.¡± He swallowed. ¡°Possibly telling you of my parents and my early childhood¡ªthe nature of that demon¡ªwas also a lack of proper discretion, but I wasn¡¯t thinking of it that way. I just wanted you to know about me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to tell anyone, Stuart. That¡¯s your story.¡± Stuart smiled. ¡°You can still tattoo me to secrecy. And then you won¡¯t even have to worry about it,¡± Alden added. ¡°My friend should not have to swear Privacy of the House! My family was completely wrong to suggest¡ª¡± We¡¯re not going to let that one go ever, are we? They eventually went back to discussing what a demon bokabv might be like and designing one for Alden to defeat. Stuart kept trying to make it safer for him to encounter; Alden kept trying to make it more terrifying so that when he got away from it or got rid of it he¡¯d feel really great about it. He¡¯d missed Intro to Other Worlds earlier without caring in the slightest, and when Stuart eventually had to leave the cottage to go see to his duties as Emban-art¡¯h¡¯s votary, Alden was still going strong. While the Artonan was gone, he looked through all the notes he¡¯d collected and all the to-do lists. So close, he thought. Somehow, I didn¡¯t realize I was so close. It wasn¡¯t that it was looking easy. As his excitement fell to a reasonable level, he was becoming more aware that his assurance to Yenu-pezth that he¡¯d be completely done preparing for this in only six Artonan days was probably too ambitious. Especially if she wanted him to come up with multiple scenarios. The idea was to escape from the corruption zone while the disaster was still in the early stages, when demon grasshopper strikes posed serious risks to Alden, the car, and Kibby. The lab and the surrounding crater had largely shielded them from those during the early days, and the only reason they hadn¡¯t had to run through a storm of freshly demonified bugs at the end of their journey last time was Alis-art¡¯h having smashed the things out of existence. So that was going to be dicey. But in the dream, they would get ahead of the spread and stay ahead of it, traveling all the way to civilization with only the resources they could carry or obtain along the way. The distance they had to travel would be much farther because there would be no Quaternary there to greet them. One of the scenarios would probably involve the car being damaged beyond repair inconveniently early in the trip. There would still be ways to die, but Alden could now do much more to prevent them. His skill was stronger. He thought he would be able to hold Kibby through all the demon bug strikes. He would definitely be able to hold her while he drove the car. He might be able to lift or leverage the vehicle through bad terrain when the mover discs failed. When their ride became irreparable, he could carry enough supplies to keep them going on foot for ages. Got to get that sprinkler info and make sure they¡¯ll work wherever we need them to. Have to find out how the car drives on that rocky area if we can get it all the way there. I should also¡­ He kept coming up with problems. He kept feeling less fazed by them than he should have. Because he wasn¡¯t years away from being able to save them both from the pain of sitting through that chaos for all those months. The chances wouldn¡¯t be thin as threads if Thegund happened again. The survival wouldn¡¯t be miraculous. It would be something he could actually count on and make possible with his own preparation and power. This time, when he told Kibby he had so many plans to save them, the words wouldn¡¯t be a loving lie. He let himself flop back onto the floor of the cottage. It was cool against his back. I can¡¯t have Yenu-pezth account for the auriad in the dream. That was a regret. But since the goal was for him, as he was now, to face the problems in the nightmare¡­maybe the auriad would just appear in it naturally one night while he was dreaming? I¡¯ll plan like I won¡¯t have it. Think of it as additional therapy¡ªpeacemaking with my affixation by relying on my Avowed powers alone. After a while, he realized he¡¯d let the auriad slip down his arm so that he could hold it in his hand. But could I stop the demon with this? If I had to do it to get us out of there? Along the way, he¡¯d find that out, too. Somehow. Just for himself. Stuart had agreed to cast some spells at him to mimic the effects of their made-up demon. If he didn¡¯t have time tonight, he promised he¡¯d do it later when they could both meet up again. He seems pleased to have an activity planned with me, but it¡¯s still mostly about me. And he¡¯s so busy. I¡¯ve got to find something that he¡¯ll benefit from, too. Maybe I should ask him more about how he¡¯ll kill demons with Maker of Narrow Ways while we practice? He was so thrilled to talk about that last time. Alden wondered what he¡¯d been about to say about Ro-den earlier. Something about his chaos research that would probably have gone right over Alden¡¯s head anyway, from the sound of it. He grimaced. The only good thing about thinking of Ro-den was that it was a direct line to thoughts about a much more important person who would probably want to weigh in on what Alden was doing. I think she¡¯ll like this. He stood, picked up his tablet, and went over to his suitcase to video himself beside Other Alden, who was sleeping on top of it with her neck tucked through a strap. ¡°Hi, Kibby,¡± he said. The new mourning name wasn¡¯t official yet, but he¡¯d need to talk to Stuart or Esh-erdi about that one very soon. ¡°I¡¯m recording this message to tell you about a nightmare I¡¯ve been having. A good healer is talking to me about it, but I¡¯d like your advice, too, since a dream version of you might be helping me get out of trouble. If you don¡¯t mind.¡± He managed to record the whole message before Stuart made it back. The look on the Artonan boy¡¯s face was so devastated that Alden was worried he¡¯d gotten some horrible news up at the main house. Despite Stuart¡¯s willingness to explode things near Emban-art¡¯h, he did seem very watchful of her moods. Alden had wondered so many times if there were signs that Emban-art¡¯h was doing well for a young knight, if there had been signs that Sina-art¡¯h wasn¡¯t¡­ How and when did you bring up a question like that? ¡°Is everything all right?¡± he asked while Stuart slumped onto the floor. ¡°She asked me if I had more bananas,¡± he replied. ¡°I said I had plenty, but I really only had one left. And I gave it to her.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what¡¯s wrong? I¡¯ll bring you more.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not complaining so that you¡¯ll¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bring you more. It¡¯s so easy.¡± Stuart didn¡¯t protest again. ¡°She also wants to go on a trip with a couple of members of her squad. I don¡¯t know exactly when yet because the two she¡¯s going with are disorganized. So whatever practice we schedule for helping you <> approaches to handling the demon may be interrupted by them. It would be good for them all to spend time together right now, and they actually will need a votary with them for the trip so that they can meet social obligations.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bring extra bananas, and I¡¯ll disappear back to Earth if they need you,¡± said Alden. ¡°No trouble at all.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-SIX: Worlds 186 ****** Alden ended up sleeping another night at the cottage and returning to Earth on Wednesday morning. As soon as he stepped out of Matadero¡¯s teleportation chamber, he ran into a wizard in emerald green who asked him for his opinion, as a human, on housing design. Specifically ceilings¡ªhow low was too low? Thrown for a loop by the randomness of the question, Alden said that humans preferred not to have their heads bumping into things. Then, he suggested that the inquirer talk to whoever would be living in the new building. Hopefully, the Artonan would listen to that last part more than the first. Alden didn¡¯t want to be partially responsible for the creation of an apartment complex that was hostile to tall people. Rapport I, Matadero, Celena North, he thought. A rotating set of places that are all new to me. I¡¯m a vagabond who can¡¯t even stick to one planet, so I definitely shouldn¡¯t be consulted about other peoples¡¯ home construction. He wanted to get back to steadier and more predictable sleeping arrangements, but not enough to focus on it right now. Thanks to his experience on the inward path, he had some fresh positivity and a concrete goal that neatly matched what he¡¯d told both Neha and Stuart he wanted out of life right now. More disaster-proof than I was when the System went down that day. I want to be able to use my magic to protect myself and stay alive, and I want to know there are some people out there who are better off because I lived. Proving that the person who he was now could save himself and Kibby sooner was so exhilarating that he wanted to call all his friends and tell them he was trying to do it. The only reason he wasn¡¯t already getting into the nitty gritty of it with Boe and Jeremy was because he had calmed down enough to realize that his plans to go on an extended cross-moon camping trip with an Artonan child and kill a demon¡ªin his dreams¡ªwent beyond the realm of quirky interest into unique personal obsession territory. He¡¯d roped Stuart into it, but at least demons and chaos were relevant to Stuart¡¯s own future. Nobody wanted to hear about the hour Alden had already spent researching the nutritive value for humans and Artonans of a bunch of different foods that had been stored at the lab. Pink rice was really healthy. He¡¯d feared poison, in that case, for no reason at all. Flood Trap 2, he thought, as he passed the sign on the wall that labeled this section of the cube as such in multiple languages. I wonder how many ways Matadero has to kill a demon. There was a point Stuart had made during their planning session, when Alden was insisting he wanted to destroy the demon with his skill¡ªmagic wasn¡¯t the only way. He had pretty much known that. The demon bugs did ¡°die¡± eventually. Ones that hit bodies or magical objects were more likely than not to disperse immediately, but all of them had been gone from the area around the lab long before the end. ¡°Reality has strength,¡± Stuart had explained. ¡°Because you and I don¡¯t have a full <> or time to gather more, I¡¯ll speak only of demons. Simple, unintelligent ones like the bokabv we¡¯ve been imagining. ¡°The chaotic effect of the demon damages reality, but that damage isn¡¯t always beneficial for it. And it doesn¡¯t make reality unable to impact the demon. The creature probably requires air. It probably still runs on the ground. I suppose it wouldn¡¯t be impossible for a demon that once existed as a bokabv to fly, but it¡¯s very unlikely. And many of the things that would kill a bokabv may still kill the demon, as long as they make it through the chaos that accompanies it. ¡°Do you understand what I mean?¡± Alden did. Flood Trap¡ªa nonmagical way to kill demons that can¡¯t survive in an Earth ocean. Stuart thought that encouraging the demon to hit an object Alden was shielding was a bad idea. He thought Alden would agree with him after he figured out a few bokabv-equivalent spells to launch at him. So they would be planning other ways, too. Kibby will definitely be on-board with other ways. He¡¯d already gotten a reply from her; speedier communication was one of the perks of staying at the art¡¯h house. She was interested in being included in his dream planning process, and he could already tell she wanted him to re-bomb the lab. She¡¯d dropped a couple of hints about how no weak demon could survive such a large explosion, and why didn¡¯t they just lure it there? He was sorry he¡¯d needed to drop a couple hints of his own when he replied, to remind her that she ought to avoid showing too much glee about the destruction of a bajillion-argold research facility. I¡¯ll make it up to her when I see her in person. But she¡¯s definitely been getting a little more feral since she¡¯s been hanging out with Kraaaa, hasn¡¯t she? He didn¡¯t mind, but he would have thought her new instructor and the Quaternary would outweigh griveck influence. He headed upstairs and met Porti-loth on the way. The healer thought an elevator was a fine place to discuss a person¡¯s private medical matters. Things like: Any sign of my mud potion still affecting your digestion? There should be a few signs if you pay close attention. What does Yenu-pezth think of your mind? Did you talk about me with her at all? Why not? And what happened to your bag? ¡°My friend¡¯s pet ryeh-b¡¯t happened,¡± said Alden. Porti-loth was standing in the way of the elevator door so that it wouldn¡¯t close and cut off their conversation before he¡¯d gotten all of his curiosities satisfied. ¡°She keeps scratching it and biting it, and then he repairs it for me.¡± Porti-loth looked up at him over the rims of his spectacles for a long moment. ¡°Interesting friend.¡± Alden didn¡¯t know what to make of that comment, so he just nodded. ¡°Did you see the ship?¡± Porti-loth seemed to feel absolutely no need to let the elevator go about its business. ¡°Ship?¡± ¡°The one being built near the Grove of the Thoughtful outside Vethedya.¡± So he¡¯s familiar with Yenu-pezth¡¯s House of Healing. I wonder if it¡¯s ranked, like schools are on the Triplanets. ¡°I saw the Sdyelis Branch,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s very large.¡± ¡°Do you think I would like it?¡± Porti-loth asked. Before Alden could reply, the healer answered his own question. ¡°I don¡¯t think I would like it. ¡®Better than other ships for your work,¡¯ they say. ¡®Maybe you should try it out for a while once it¡¯s finished! You could always change your mind later.¡¯¡± He huffed. ¡°That sounds like a trap.¡± ¡°Someone¡¯s trying to persuade you to work on the Sdyelis Branch?¡± Alden supposed he shouldn¡¯t have been surprised to hear that, since Porti-loth was connected to Esh-erdi and Lind-otta. They would be joining the campaign to reopen the way to that chaos-stricken part of the universe. A good healer who worked well with knights would obviously be invited to travel along. ¡°Not persuade,¡± Porti-loth said. ¡°Trick.¡± Alden nodded in understanding. ¡°Esh-erdi.¡± ¡°Him!¡± Porti-loth scoffed. ¡°He couldn¡¯t trick me up a wevvi tree. Lind-otta is the danger. So respectable. So wise. She makes you feel honored to be invited up to the roof to discuss the future with her, and then she says the spaceship might be almost as good as a planet. That isn¡¯t true. She knows it. I know it. Maybe even human adolescents know it.¡± ¡°If I had to pick comfortable planet or comfortable spaceship for a long stay, I¡¯d pick planet,¡± Alden agreed. ¡°The problem,¡± Porti-loth continued, ¡°is she says try it ¡®for a while.¡¯ When I get out there, how do I leave? I will come to know all of my patients. Many of them are like those two, and they¡¯re staying. One day I¡¯ll look behind me and realize I haven¡¯t seen a real healing grove in nine of the Mother¡¯s years!¡± He looked at Alden like he was waiting for a reply. ¡°Traveling on the campaign¡¯s oasis ship for years would be a difficult decision,¡± Alden said, hoping that was a suitable response. Porti-loth sighed. ¡°Only one person in the whole building is safe and not annoying to talk to about this, and he hasn¡¯t even watched Kwoo-pak yet.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll watch an episode tonight! I swear!¡± Porti-loth shook his head. ¡°Don¡¯t swear oaths about Kwoo-pak. It¡¯s not that serious. Go to school.¡± They looked at each other. ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± Alden said finally, ¡°until you let go of the elevator door.¡± ****** ****** On the flight to campus, Alden checked his inbox and told himself that receiving over a thousand messages since he¡¯d last looked wasn¡¯t frightening. As was his usual habit, he focused on communications from the growing list of people he actually knew and left the rest of it for another day. Although that cut the number down to a more manageable size, he still had to field texts that ranged from Jeffy sending him a string of confusing emojis before inviting him to cook a vegetable of his choice on the next episode of ¡°My Grandpa Shows Us How to Grill Right,¡± to Vandy telling him she was forming study groups for finals starting now, to Lexi warning him that the news about his commendation from Alis-art¡¯h had, at last, found traction at school. Alden would have realized that anyway, given a few of the other messages. I could turn around and hide at the cube some more. Big news is happening every couple of days. I can just wait for Aulia Velra to announce she¡¯s going to take over the country or move her whole family to Mars, and they¡¯ll all be distracted again. He resisted the idea because he wanted to say hi to his roommates, attend MPE, and manage whatever it was his classmates thought about him¡­as well as he could. He scrolled through several more messages until he came to one from Principal Saleh, asking him to call her when he had the chance. Why does hearing from the principal make me feel like I¡¯m in trouble when I haven¡¯t even been here? After trying to come up with reasons why eight thirty in the morning might be a bad time to call, he admitted defeat and asked the System to connect them. Lesedi Saleh, dressed in a sharp suit and putting away a laptop by shoving it through the top of her desk, answered. ¡°Alden.¡± ¡°Hello. I got your message. I¡¯m on the way to campus now. I did miss some more classes than I expected to, but I haven¡¯t been on Earth, and I was told that was an excused absence.¡± ¡°It is. I¡¯m not sure why you¡¯re confessing like you¡¯ve committed a crime. I hope your trip went well?¡± ¡°It went great. I¡¯m seeing a slightly prestigious healer there, so I can¡¯t ask her to work around my schedule. I¡¯ll be missing some more days, but I¡¯ll take care of all my homework, and¡ª¡± ¡°And you¡¯re still confessing,¡± she said in an amused tone. ¡°You¡¯re really not in any trouble. I asked you to call me because I wanted to mention some media requests that have come through the school and talk to you about how you¡¯d like to handle them.¡± He winced. I would like to not handle them. She looked like she knew what he was thinking. ¡°We can say you¡¯re currently focused on your education and recuperation, which doesn¡¯t leave you time for interviews. That¡¯s an option¡ªa good one, if you want my advice. But considering how things seem to be going for you, you should probably talk to someone who specializes in image management sooner than the average student. If you don¡¯t want to take advantage of the university¡¯s advisement services, there are private options.¡±She paused. ¡°Please understand that I¡¯m not saying you need to craft a hero persona in the near future. If someone tells you that you should, I would hesitate to listen to them.¡± ¡°That¡¯s very, very far from my thoughts,¡± Alden said. ¡°Probably for the best. Find a faculty member you trust if you do want to talk about it. For now, I think you might want to acquire some assistance. Someone to help you sort the nonsense so that you don¡¯t miss any opportunities you might really find worthwhile. I¡¯m not sure if you realize that people have been trying to get in touch to see if you¡¯d like to do a few events with members of the hero team in your old hometown?¡± Alden stared at her. ¡°Like¡­in Chicago with them?¡± ¡°The request isn¡¯t firm, so don¡¯t count on anything. They want to talk to you and present some possibilities. If you¡¯re interested, and, to be frank, if everybody else who would be involved continues to like the idea, then it could turn into a rare chance for you to spend more time with family and friends than you¡¯d usually be able to manage.¡± I want to do that! thought Alden. And also, What kind of things do I have to agree to if I want to do that? ¡°No excitement yet,¡± Principal Saleh cautioned. ¡°It¡¯s just feelers at this stage, and there are some unusual tensions right now that will probably delay any offers they might make. But you might want to answer their emails.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°And one final thing¡ªI wanted to talk to you about taking Artonans on campus tours.¡± ¡°Esh-erdi wanted one,¡± Alden said. Her lips quirked. ¡°Then he can have one. Of course. But the next time something like that happens, maybe make a quick call or text me. Or someone else who represents the school. I¡¯ll give you a few names¡­¡± Alden soon got the impression that Principal Saleh really didn¡¯t care, but someone, somewhere was definitely freaking out over the fact that he and Haoyu had shown Esh-erdi bathrooms and introduced him to Cappuccino Girl instead of whatever it was you were supposed to do when you took knights around to see the sights at Celena North. ¡°We were going to take him to the MPE Building and show him the gym. Only we didn¡¯t want to mess up anybody¡¯s practice time without warning.¡± ¡°It would be best to give advanced notice of that, too, if you can. Nobody reasonable is going to ask you to manage a wizard¡¯s schedule, but if you tell people you¡¯re on the way, we can stuff skeletons back in closets and present ourselves as well as possible.¡± Alden was of the opinion that Esh-erdi would prefer to play with all the skeletons, but he agreed to try to text her if they had another tour. ¡°That¡¯s all I have to bother you with, Alden,¡± she said at last. ¡°Is there anything you wanted to talk to me about?¡± ¡°Not that I can think of.¡± ¡°Thank you for your time, and have a good day. Your MPE class might be rowdy this evening.¡± ¡°Rowdy?¡± ¡°Have fun with it.¡± ****** ****** ¡­but if you¡¯re not sure about the rest of it yet, our heroes would still love to have you join them in their suite at Wrigley Field on a game day. Everyone always has a great time. Please know that I speak for Skiff, Ursula Gotcha, Howl Hawk, and Sharon when I say we¡¯re all glad you¡¯re back on Earth, and we hope to get you back to our Chicago! Looking forward to hearing from you, Baxter Washington Lead Hero Assistant Department of Superhuman Affairs and Events Alden was skimming the email for the fourth time while he stood in front of Garden Hall and directed the Nine-edged Son toward his favorite parking spot on the roof. They really are inviting me to come back home. Well¡­to come show myself off to the city a little. He was trying to tamp down his excitement and think it over critically. Judging by this first email that had been sent weeks ago and a follow-up that had come just a couple of days past, there was no specific request they expected him to fulfill. Not one that they were telling him about yet anyway. In fact, Baxter Washington did a flawless job of making it sound like the whole trip was just the right and natural thing for the city and the hero team to do, no strings attached. After all, Alden had been whisked away unexpectedly. He¡¯d missed the final months he was supposed to have saying goodbye to friends, family, and the famous Peanut¡ªa giant outdoor sculpture that Baxter very seriously called More Than One World, even though Peanut was everyone¡¯s favorite name for it. But the trip¡¯s not just for me. My name being in the news brings the Body Drainer massacre back into the news, which means if I wanted to risk ruining my day, I could poke around the internet and find a few people wondering why the Chicago heroes aren¡¯t looking out for me now or talking about how I must hate them and the city. Yeah¡­that does put it in perspective. A picture of Alden enjoying a veggie dog at a baseball game with the current hero team was probably some kind of publicity bullet designed to lay that tragic zombie to rest. The thought dimmed his eagerness. Only a little, but it was enough for more ruthless truths to skitter out of the corners where they¡¯d hidden as soon as he¡¯d read Baxter¡¯s assurance that any trip arranged through his department wouldn¡¯t count against Alden¡¯s annual allotment of personal visits. No trouble at all! Just a few forms exchanged and rules agreed upon with Anesidora, and he could hop right over and spend a week with Connie and Boe. But while they might let him have a week that felt like a vacation, wouldn¡¯t it really be more of a trial period? Even though there were no specific terms for this proposed trip, Baxter did suggest some things Alden might like to do¡ªa visit to his old school, joining Sharon for her Hour of Song, going on a training run with Howl Hawk, or getting a behind the scenes look at the making of a Skiff Says episode. It all sounded optional, this time. Not much pressure, this time. There¡¯s no reason for them to give me a next time if I¡¯m not willing to perform. So even the first trip would have to be treated like¡­a job, right? If I don¡¯t sing with Sharon or smile for a camera, if I don¡¯t come across as likable, the opportunity disappears. He felt nervous suddenly. He didn¡¯t know why. While he headed upstairs with his suitcase in hand, he tried to blame it on the obvious culprit. If you were nervous after finding out that someone wanted to take publicity photos of you, maybe you just hated the idea of being famous even more than you¡¯d realized. It made some sense. I mean, okay¡­so I don¡¯t want to go back to my old school and have someone record me reminiscing about my locker combination. It¡¯s no big deal, though. It¡¯s still a huge win. I spend an hour walking the halls and saying hi to teachers with a film crew or whatever it is they want me to do. And then they let me hang out with Aunt Connie for the rest of the day, right? Boe and Jeremy can come. Sleepover, video games all night¡ªI¡¯ll crush them. I can get to know Brodie and question him about whether he stole cat food from me once. That needs to be resolved if he¡¯s marrying my aunt. It sounds fantastic. And all for the price of looking like I¡¯m fond of superheroes I have no serious issues with and a city that I really do miss? That¡¯s an amazing bargain. He pushed opened the door to the apartment and strode in. Haoyu had made cinnamon oatmeal today, judging by the lingering smell and the dirty dishes. He and Lexi were probably in class unless they were watching video lectures in their rooms. But the robo vacuum was keeping the place lively as it whirred around on the kitchen floor. Alden wheeled his suitcase to his room and heaved it onto the rolling chair so that he could unpack it. There was enough time for that. Then he¡¯d throw on his uniform and head off to Engaging with the Unexpected. He reached for the zipper. I¡¯ll just shove the camera-shyness down and learn to be more photogenic and bubbly. Do I have to be bubbly? Maybe not, but I have to be interesting in a good way. Enough so that people who see me hanging out with their favorite superheroes will feel like they want to see more of me doing that. And in exchange for learning that trick and putting in some work¡­the work would be¡­I guess I¡¯d have to actually do social media better. That¡¯s the kind of thing publicity people would like. And like Principal Saleh says, I need to handle my messages. I should hire an assistant or a service for that. I¡¯ll also have to come up with a bunch of smart answers for all of my sore spots and secrets if I¡¯m going to be more in the public eye. He stared down at his bag. That¡¯s a lot. I¡¯m probably missing some other things. But in exchange, I¡¯d get to¡­I just need to figure out when I could¡­ Shit. That¡¯s really going to be a lot. The nerves were ratcheting higher, and thanks to his train of thought, he identified them correctly this time. The problem wasn¡¯t camera-shyness, unfortunately. ¡°It¡¯s going to be too much,¡± he said to his empty room. Cultivating the right kind of popularity, leveraging it, and maintaining it¡ªif it was possible, it would still be a part-time job. He wouldn¡¯t have to go as far as someone like Winston, but it would be hours every week. Maybe hours every day. And it might buy him Christmases and breaks in Chicago. It might buy him a life there one day. What if he did want that? There was a chance to set it in motion here, and it was a chance he couldn¡¯t make a serious reach for unless he was willing to let something else he was doing slide. Like what? He suddenly remembered Zeridee-und¡¯h handing him a tablet and saying, ¡°You are allowed to name two people. Their evacuation priorities will be changed to match your own.¡± That¡¯s way too extreme for a comparison. But maybe it wasn¡¯t quite as far off the mark as he might wish. Before the principal¡¯s call, just a short while ago when he didn¡¯t realize he¡¯d been ignoring such a tempting and complicated invitation¡­ There was already too much for me to handle it all the way I¡¯d like to, he admitted to himself. He wanted to be a good student. He wanted to attend every class. He really enjoyed spending time with Haoyu, and he was getting worried about Lute, and he felt like he was worming his way into Lexi¡¯s good graces. Natalie had texted to ask if this weekend would be a convenient time to go see the drudgery box restaurant together, and he hadn¡¯t gotten back to her yet because he wasn¡¯t sure he could carve out time for something casual and fun like that. Somehow I went from finding things to keep me busy to having way too many things keeping me busy. He was fairly sure the tipping point had been Stuart asking him if he could come over for a visit earlier than they¡¯d planned, but another tipping point would have arrived if that one hadn¡¯t. Alden would eventually have opened these emails, or he would have started getting summoned to the Triplanets. Something. He hadn¡¯t felt like he had too much free time in intake, and now he had so much more going on. Too many worlds. Here on Anesidora he had the possibility of some wonderful relationships. On Artona I, he had the Primary¡¯s son, revealing truths about himself and weaving a friendship in the days before his first affixation. And on a moon orbiting Kimnor, there was a girl who was probably recording information about all the lab equipment she remembered, so that Alden would know if there was anything he could use to break free of that nightmare forever. They had promised each other they would one day have matching tattoos. She might change her mind when she¡¯s older. Stuart will probably have tons of knight friends once they realize he¡¯s going to succeed. But for now it wasn¡¯t like that. I¡¯m a registered Avowed. When I¡¯m on Earth, Anesidora is¡­the only place where I¡¯m guaranteed a place. The two people he wanted to save the most if the planet blew up lived in Chicago. He saw, very clearly right now, that the hardest part of his choosing season was going to be choosing what he lost. He realized he was squeezing the zipper pull so hard it was on the verge of biting into his finger. Zippier, he thought, letting it go. That¡¯s what Stuart called it. He made it by hand. I promised I¡¯d get him some bananas. He got dressed in his uniform slowly, wondering what he could do to hold on to every little piece of his life. But by the time he left the dorms to head to Engaging with the Unexpected, he knew that even though he would say all the right things and pose for photos if it meant he could get an extra trip or two to Chicago in the coming months, he wouldn¡¯t do everything he could to appeal to them. He wouldn¡¯t carefully craft posts about the hero team, angling for more invites. He wouldn¡¯t push back healing sessions with Yenu-pezth or visits to Stuart to accommodate events in his former home. He would not give them his best, and so it was unlikely that they would find many uses for him after the initial dose of feel-good news about the lost Rabbit¡¯s return had been digested by the people they wanted to see it. It was a decision he felt mostly sure about and mostly sad about at the same time. ¡°Hey,¡± he said, when Boe¡¯s face appeared before his eyes, ¡°you picked up. I thought you¡¯d be in class.¡± Boe wasn¡¯t even in school. He was in his room at home, putting on a coat. ¡°I¡¯m going to try to find a missing person. I heard on the news that a kid wandered away from home this morning. I don¡¯t actually like my chances of success, especially since it¡¯s an hour and a half away and I don¡¯t know the area at all. But I¡¯ve got ten people to save, so I figured it was worth a try.¡± Alden smiled. He was heading down a busy walkway, so he had to remind himself not to say anything that would sound suspicious out loud. ¡°That¡¯s so cool of you. Seriously. ¡± ¡°I¡¯m just going to wander around, hoping that lost kid emotions are easy to pick up on.¡± ¡°I know I can¡¯t help from here, but can I watch?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you have class? Yes. If you want. Really, though, this isn¡¯t going to be anything to look at. I think it¡¯s very likely that by the time I get there, someone will have found the escapee or he¡¯ll have headed back home on his own.¡± ¡°I hope so.¡± ¡°You just don¡¯t want me to catch up to you. What did you call for?¡± ¡°Just to chat,¡± Alden said. Not quite true. He had felt a need to ask Boe why Boe wouldn¡¯t register and come live on Anesidora. For a second, he¡¯d wanted a clear answer more than he wanted to respect Boe¡¯s privacy. But he couldn¡¯t throw a search and rescue empath off his game. ¡°I want my cat back,¡± he said instead. ¡°You¡¯re going to have to take that up with Jeremy.¡± ¡°I was just expressing my profound desire for feline company. Are you nervous at all? Do you need hyping up on your way to your destination?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so,¡± Boe said. ¡°How would you hype me up for something like this anyway? ¡°By telling you about how Sharon wants to sing with me.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-SEVEN: About Pythons 187 ****** Engaging with the Unexpected was different that day. They¡¯d made the shift from talking about superhero case studies to discussing personal experiences during the disaster. Most people were more serious than usual, and there was a reduction in the amount of arguing as everyone took time to listen to specific stories. It was an appropriate change, but not without its downsides. While there were fewer arguments, the ones that started up were more likely to result in lasting hard feelings than the normal discussion topics. A few students seemed genuinely tense talking to each other, and Instructor Marion was being more proactive about directing conversations than usual. And there was another change that Alden¡ªwho was partially distracted by imagining Boe on his way to look for the lost kid¡ªdidn¡¯t notice until halfway through class. At that point, Maria, the Adjuster girl with the summoning spells, was saying she felt that the class¡¯s focus on responding well to unexpected events was useful, but that they¡¯d missed out on having conversations about how to handle the aftermath of those events. ¡°We¡¯ve been talking about dealing with problems that appear suddenly, but we haven¡¯t been talking about how you can be stuck with days and days of more unexpected things because the first problem Brute-kicked you so hard you still haven¡¯t come down. Getting woken up by sirens and sitting in a classroom in the MPE building, realizing that the news was talking about my neighborhood being underwater¡ªthat sucked. But I still think everything after it, combined, has been harder for me than that night. ¡°This morning my mom called to ask me how I¡¯d feel about her moving to an Avowed zone instead of getting a new place here on Anesidora. That¡¯s not a bad thing, is it? I¡¯m eighteen. I don¡¯t need her to live here. But it¡¯s something she¡¯s only thinking of because of recent events, and it¡¯s really unexpected. And it¡¯s the tenth confusing thing I¡¯ve had to deal with over the past few days. They¡¯re not catastrophes, but they just keep coming. I¡¯m starting to wish I could hibernate for a year. I¡¯d wake up and find out about all the unexpected stuff at the same time instead of getting hit with a little more every day. ¡± Alden raised his hand. He was going to agree with her that talking about this kind of thing was a good idea. The class had been lacking on that front, and he felt like people tended to underestimate the way trouble could breed more trouble. As soon as his hand lifted into the air, a dozen seats creaked in unison as people turned to stare at him. The few who hadn¡¯t noticed he had something to say joined the starers the second Instructor Marion called on him. He¡¯d already started speaking before he realized why the atmosphere felt strange. Normally, a lot of people looked at you when you were called on, but not the entire class. Even the girl who was constantly typing on her tablet looked like she was hanging on his every word. Kind of intimidating. Maybe Instructor Marion gave them a lecture on paying attention to each other while I was gone Monday? He stumbled for a second over what he was saying, then kept on with it. ¡°Sometimes when someone says, ¡®What doesn¡¯t kill you makes you stronger,¡¯ I want to ask them if they really believe that or if they¡¯re just saying it because it sounds encouraging on the surface. It¡¯s possible for handling a difficult situation to make you stronger, but we don¡¯t have to pretend like it¡¯s a guarantee. A lot of the stuff that doesn¡¯t kill you wears you down instead. Everyone else who started in the same place as you before the trouble happened runs ahead of you in so many ways while you¡¯re trying to put yourself back together. ¡°Maybe you do put yourself back together, and you catch up. Maybe you even pass them. But that can take you years, and you can miss out on being stable and happy for those years, never mind being stronger.¡± He was done speaking, but they were all still staring at him. ¡°And¡­that¡¯s all I had to say.¡± ¡°That¡¯s really deep.¡± The speaker was Three Minute Man. Alden was still neglecting to learn his name because the guy never referred to him as anything but ¡°the B-rank¡± or ¡°the Rabbit.¡± He waited, expecting a follow-up remark about how it was really deep for a weakling who couldn¡¯t defeat all the world¡¯s villains single-handedly, but the dude was just nodding like¡­he thought Alden was deep. ¡°Thanks,¡± Alden said finally. ¡°Maria brought up the point first. I was just adding on.¡± ¡°No, you said it better,¡± said Maria. Several of them were smiling and agreeing. That was a nice interaction, Alden thought as Instructor Marion started talking about how part two of this class next quarter would address problems like this. It seems like a weird way for the disaster to have changed them all, but I don¡¯t mind it. After that, he started paying more attention to how focused everyone was when someone else was speaking. A couple of kids were more popular; it was possible to pick them out even though Alden didn¡¯t know these people outside of this class. They got more eyes and more smiles whenever they said something. Nobody else was getting the super hard group stare, though. It¡¯s only me? he thought, after Instructor Marion asked him if he was ready to share any of his experiences from that night, and everyone tried to stab him with their eyeballs again. He talked about being on the bridge, and how interesting it was to look back on it and think about the different ways all the people there had responded to trouble. Most students had been on campus when everything went down, so the class being genuinely curious about the situation on the Span made sense. They were behaving this way already, though. And a few of them seemed really happy to see me when I walked into the room. Hi, Alden! Great to have you back! Where have you been? We missed you so much! They¡¯re usually in a good mood when class starts, but not like that. Figuring out what might be responsible for his new aura of friendability and deepness took just a second more once he¡¯d had that thought. Thanksgiving. Esh-erdi. The commendation. Or mostly the commendation. I don¡¯t think they¡¯d have decided I was deep just because Winston announced I was going to be Esh-erdi¡¯s professional octagon waxer. He spent the rest of the period trying to decide how uncomfortable he was with this new dynamic and how long it would last. It¡¯s so much better than it could be, he thought as he packed away his laptop at the end of class. And the glow is bound to fade since I¡¯m not committing acts of bravery in the absence of obligation every morning before breakfast. Plus I¡¯m doing well in gym for a B-rank, so if they get their hands on footage of me, maybe most of them will think like Haoyu and Lexi. Maybe I was worried about nothing after all. Class was over, and nobody had run over to demand answers from him or challenge him to a duel to prove he deserved a star beside his name. Feels good. Now, I could go to Artonan Conversation next. Kelly seems like a much cooler instructor, and it would be fun. But since it¡¯s optional, and Lute¡¯s not there, and I¡¯m very aware of how much extra time I don¡¯t have right now to take care of all my business, I¡¯ll¡ª ¡°Hey, Andrzej!¡± Three Minute Man called from across the room as he lifted his backpack onto his shoulder. ¡°You B¡¯s are lucky you got a good one this cycle. After that stunt the rest of you pulled, people were saying they should finally clip you all out of the program.¡± He made a scissor motion with his fingers, then pointed at Alden. ¡°Your man there might¡¯ve saved you.¡± So he¡¯s still a dick. The instructor had left the room less than a minute ago, and apparently that was a signal for Three Minute to get a dig in. Andrzej had just picked up his cudgel. He looked like he wanted to put it down again on top of the other boy¡¯s head. ¡°Not every B-rank left school that night! Not even half of us. And there were A¡¯s. And an S!¡± ¡°Yes, but the S could get out on her own. The rest of you¡ª¡± ¡°I was in the gym!¡± ¡°So you say.¡± ¡°Principal Saleh spoke to me there!¡± Alden still didn¡¯t even know which B¡¯s other than BeeBee, Francis, and Ella-Clara had been involved, and getting into it with this particular person seemed like a direct route to a stupid fight. Should I use my temporary social power for good? He tried to think of what a deep person would say. He wasn¡¯t really feeling it, though. ¡°You guys, this is a time for us to have each other¡¯s backs as¡­¡± Anesidorans, Avowed, human beings? ¡°¡­Celena North students.¡± That was likely the weakest of the options. To make matters worse, Andrzej and Three Minute both looked like they were waiting for him to say more, even though that had been the whole speech. ¡°So let¡¯s do our best to get along and show everyone that this school is full of mature people who know not to cause a ruckus¡ª¡± Did I just say ruckus? Do people actually say that in real life? Maybe they¡¯ll think it¡¯s an American thing. ¡°¡ªduring a time of trouble.¡± He had no idea why he sounded so much dumber when he¡¯d been trying to sound wiser than usual. Maybe wisdom couldn¡¯t be forced. Three Minute nodded. ¡°You¡¯re right, Alden. That¡¯s deep.¡± Really? He¡¯s going to be like that no matter what I say? Alden¡¯s mouth opened. In the end, he decided it was better not to let more words fall out of it, and he left wondering if other people were going to be this strange. ****** ****** Skipping Artonan Conversation IV gave Alden almost three hours before his next class. He could think of a dozen activities to cram into that amount of time. Normally, he might have had trouble prioritizing, but the mood he was in after reading the emails from Chicago was one that made setting aside some things easier. He would not be aiming himself at his old home, even though it seemed like he had a chance to do so. If he found his way back there in the future, it wouldn¡¯t be because he¡¯d fought for it now. This was the obvious thing to give up, considering where he was and what he had on his plate, but at the same time, it was such a huge thing to give up that he felt like he¡¯d shed about a third of himself and dropped it behind him in the dust. The lighter, rawer person who walked onward wasn¡¯t interested in worrying about the science lecture he¡¯d failed to watch this morning. He jogged back to the dorms, and waved at Haoyu, who was at his desk watching a recorded lecture on a tablet.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Moooooo,¡± said Haoyu after muting the volume on his teacher. Alden snorted. ¡°Moo to you, too.¡± ¡°You¡¯re all right? You got the message from Lexi about the commendation news spreading?¡± ¡°I am, and I did. Thanks for asking. I¡¯ve only had one class since I got back, and the people in it don¡¯t really know me. But it wasn¡¯t weird in a bad way.¡± ¡°Our class is mostly excited. You weren¡¯t here, so everybody has been asking the rest of us about you. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll also be weird in MPE today, but not in a bad way. Except for the obvious people.¡± ¡°Is Mehdi one of the obvious people?¡± Alden asked. ¡°He was so perky the last time I passed him in the hall, and he said I should come over and hang out.¡± ¡°Maybe it¡¯s because he beat you in duels. He had bunnyphobia, and that cured it. I¡¯m curious to see if it will come back if you beat him.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know how to feel about that.¡± ¡°I want you to test my theory.¡± Haoyu was spinning himself in his chair. ¡°What if you can turn Nice Mehdi on and off like a light switch just by dueling him?¡± ¡°The ultimate superpower,¡± Alden said. ¡°If it works, we¡¯ll have to give it a skill name.¡± He left Haoyu working there and went to change into exercise clothes. One quick, magic-enhanced run later he was entering North of North. He walked past signs advertising boxing classes and something called a hazelnut energy nugget, and headed for the woman in the green pants who he recognized as an employee and knower of useful things. As soon as he started explaining what kinds of equipment and services he was hoping to find, she told him that Bobby was in, and the trainer didn¡¯t currently have anyone else on her schedule. Lucky, he thought, pondering the flavor of the energy nugget sample he¡¯d been given as he headed toward her office. The door was already open when he arrived, and she waved him in. Her short gray hair was gelled up in an almost-mohawk. That wasn¡¯t her normal style, but before Alden could comment on it, he was distracted by the wads of tissue sticking out of her nose. ¡°Are you okay?¡± ¡°Someone didn¡¯t listen to my instructions about how to use the landslide feature on the climbing wall. They¡¯re no longer my client, so things are looking up.¡± She grinned at him. ¡°What have you got going on today? No class right now?¡± ¡°I¡¯m free. There are a couple of new training goals I have. I¡¯m sure the gym has options that will help me practice, but I wanted to talk about what they were. Hopefully I can get a good session in before I have to leave today.¡± ¡°Exciting.¡± Bobby pulled the tissue out of her nose and tossed it with unerring precision at a wastebasket beneath a Super Olympics poster. ¡°I¡¯d love to help you figure it out. What are the goals?¡± Alden did know how this was going to sound, so he hesitated for a second. ¡°I would prefer the goals themselves not be public¡­¡± Bobby crossed her heart. ¡°I¡¯ll forget them as soon as I¡¯ve made you a training plan.¡± ¡°I appreciate that. I need to practice lifting a heavy vehicle with my skill, and I need¡­I think reaction speed training definitely and a couple more things that would help me kill a specific kind of demon.¡± Bobby blinked. ¡°I¡¯m not really going to kill a demon,¡± Alden said. ¡°It¡¯s an exercise for my mental health.¡± ¡°What is the demon like?¡± she asked slowly. Alden considered giving her an entire breakdown of a bokabv demon¡¯s hypothetical abilities, then he realized how long that would take. ¡°To start with, I just need to be able to consistently get my shield in front of a big, quick, dangerous thing that can behave in unpredictable ways.¡± ¡°How big?¡± ¡°About the size of a rhinoceros.¡± She looked like she was thinking about it. ¡°Are you sure about this?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m very sure.¡± ¡°All right. For lifting cars, I¡¯ll need to make sure you have some safety in place. But reaction speed is something you can work on right now.¡± She raised a hand to start typing on her interface. ¡°Let me see which training rooms are available, and we¡¯ll get you into one.¡± ****** ¡°Well, this hasn¡¯t been a standard morning. I¡¯ll give it that.¡± Boe Lupescu was walking down a road that was so low on traffic Alden hadn¡¯t seen a single car since he turned the call from audio to video about three minutes ago. Behind his friend, he could see a rusted water tower rising above a warehouse. ¡°You¡¯re sure I¡¯m not distracting you?¡± ¡°You¡¯ve spent most of the past hour grunting, cursing, and panting,¡± Boe replied. ¡°It wasn¡¯t the most melodic soundtrack I¡¯ve ever listened to, but it didn¡¯t require a lot of engagement on my part either.¡± Alden sat in a molded plastic chair in his own private training room, having a brief break and a drink of water. Soon, he would figure out exactly what tools he¡¯d be using in the dream, and he¡¯d bring the closest equivalent he could find here with him. For now, he was still getting the hang of the room Bobby had introduced him to, and using a towel he¡¯d brought along as his shield was working fine. When he stood in the center of the room, a holographic humanoid figure¡ªbecause whoever had made this place didn¡¯t anticipate Avowed wanting to be attacked by an alien herdcreature¡ªran at him. He¡¯d get his shield in front of it, and it would try to slip around. There was no feeling of impact; this definitely wasn¡¯t the magiphys gym. But it was good for practicing what Alden had wanted to today. Getting a wall of magic in between his body and something dangerous was basic; he didn¡¯t have to save it for MPE. The room provided a constant readout of his successes and failures. When he was on a good shielding streak, the hologram attacks sped up; when he was failing, they slowed down. Bobby was going to ask somebody about getting a more bokabv-like attacker for him for next time. Boe adjusted his scarf and then shoved his hands back into the pockets of his jacket. Alden watched him turn off the street toward a brick building. Tracks ran beside it, and an old steam engine rested there. ¡°That¡¯s not the kind of train you see every day.¡± ¡°This is a rail museum according to a sign over there. I don¡¯t know why the kid would have come this far. Especially not when it¡¯s freezing. But I looked like a suspicious character wandering around too close to the other searchers. Nobody from this town knows me, and this is the kind of place where I bet they care about that.¡± ¡°What are you going to do if you succeed in your mission?¡± Alden asked, suddenly realizing there was a problem with that. ¡°You can¡¯t take him back home without everyone wanting to know who you are.¡± ¡°If I find him, I¡¯ll tell him pythons eat little kids who scare their parents as bad as his are scared, and I¡¯ll point him toward his street.¡± Alden shook his head. ¡°Your persona needs some work.¡± ¡°Your persona is doomed forever if you sing songs with Sharon,¡± Boe said. ¡°I heard her popularity is on the rise.¡± Boe shivered. ¡°Go back to your workout. Nothing exciting is going on here, and I¡¯m¡­a little¡­¡± He tilted his head. Alden leaned forward in his seat. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Shhhh.¡± Alden shut his mouth. Plans to return to his practice evaporated as he watched Boe¡¯s frown deepen. He watched as Boe turned toward the steam engine, walked past it, and hopped a fence to head toward a line of orange railcars on another track. The kid he was looking for was only six. It was frigid. He¡¯d been gone from home for hours. What are the chances he made it miles away on his own? What if he¡¯s been kidnapped? Or he¡¯s freezing to death? What if something really horrible has happened, and Boe¡¯s about to have to deal with it? ¡°Be careful,¡± Alden whispered. Boe was walking more purposefully now. And moments later, he was standing behind a caboose, looking down on a scene that left both him and Alden temporarily speechless. Alden recovered his voice first, but he had a hard time getting words out around his laughter. ¡°Don¡¯t¡­don¡¯t be mad at him! Look how much thought he¡¯s put into it!¡± The child and Boe were still staring at each other. The boy had brown eyes. Not much more of his face was visible, since he was bundled up in what had to be half of the winter wear in his family¡¯s house. And he was trying to cook a can of English peas on top of a mound of disposable hand warmers. The whole unopened can, label and all. ¡°Are you David?¡± said Boe. Which Alden found extra funny, because how many six-year-old runaways could there be in one town? David nodded. ¡°He didn¡¯t even start a real fire,¡± Alden said. ¡°He just wanted to go camping!Or escape on a train. One or the other. Let him off easy.¡± Boe sighed and bent down. ¡°You need to go home. Your mom and dad are very worried about you.¡± He was talking in a kind, soft voice. ¡°I¡¯ll walk with you to your street, and then you just go straight down the sidewalk until you see someone.¡± David grabbed his peas and held them protectivelyto his stomach. ¡°I can¡¯t talk to you,¡± he said in a severe tone. ¡°You¡¯re a stranger.¡± ¡°Listen,¡± said Boe, ¡°let me tell you about pythons.¡± ****** Alden whipped around, shield up to meet a faceless attacker. Boe was watching him silently from the backseat of a ride-share. It wasn¡¯t a fair trade as far as entertainment value went.Watching Boe persuade a stubborn outdoorsman to take his peas, his twenty-four hand warmers, and himself back to the house they all belonged in went beyond mere amusement into the realms of treasured memory. Alden was just a guy, learning to respond a little more quickly to incoming threats. The hologram jumped, and he lifted the shield. It dove, and he lowered it. Having it get faster and faster when he was successful at blocking was good feedback, and it helped him fall into the activity better. When his time ran out, he stood breathing hard, and raised his eyebrows at Boe. [Good job. You taught that imaginary guy to fear the power of a Rabbit with a towel.] [And you taught a child that pythons migrate to Illinois in the winter.] [Now you see why some of us aren¡¯t meant to be heroes.] ¡°No,¡± said Alden. ¡°You did good.¡± Boe rolled his eyes. ¡°You did good, asshole,¡± Alden said firmly. ¡°I just wish you were here, on Anesidora, so that I could tell you that in person.¡± I really wish that. So damn much. ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-EIGHT: Know Thyself 188 ****** A large cargo delivery drone shaped like a helicopter headed toward the eastern tip of the Apex crescent, following the flight path it had been assigned over a landscape marked with evidence of both ruin and recovery. As it approached S¨¡nji¨£o Beach, most signs of human habitation below it disappeared. Land was being readied for new construction, but for now, the one neighborhood that had been untouched by the disaster stood by itself. From the drone¡¯s altitude, the town square at the center of it was a vibrant green postage stamp, surrounded by dollhouses. The manufacturing facilities, the workshops, and the community center around the perimeter were all whole as well. ¡°¦£¦Í?¦È¦É ¦Ò¦Á¦Ô¦Ó?¦Í¡± was written on the roof of the largest building, irrelevant to the drone but a source of curiosity for human viewers. The letters stood out like a legible, three-dimensional marble sculpture from every angle. The drone began its descent, and at the sound of its approach, the only person currently enjoying the square looked up. She was a gaunt young woman, kneeling beside a chubby golden retriever so that she could rub his belly. Droplets from the pithos fountain near her splattered her heavy coat and crocheted hat. Her eyes followed the drone as it set down at the edge of the square. The dog showed no interest, but he whined a little when her hand stopped rubbing. She went back to it, ignoring the delivery, and a couple of minutes later, the door of one of the picturesque townhouses opened. The Informant, with a jovial expression on his bearded face, came down the stairs and crossed the street at a stroll. He was wearing slacks and a light, red sweater. He took the time to remove his shoes and socks so that he could walk across the grass barefoot. Then, he spoke to the woman for almost fifteen minutes, not glancing even once at the drone, though her own eyes turned to it curiously a few times. Finally, he nodded, complimented her on her hat, and headed to fetch the package that had arrived. When the cargo drone¡¯s door slid aside for him, a single wooden crate was revealed. The Informant pulled it out and shook it¡ªsomething the average non-Avowed wouldn¡¯t have been able to do given its size. The muffled thump of something heavy moving around within it could be heard. His smile widened, and he shook it a few more times. ¡°HANDLE WITH CARE¡± was stamped in white letters on the side. On the short way back to his house, he managed to flip the crate twice, and once, he sat down on top of it to have a lengthy discussion with one of the current residents of his neighborhood. The Wright had a question about the feasibility of purchasing a component for his latest project from Fetuna Avowed, instead of trying to have it crafted by one of his fellow Anesidorans. ¡°Everything is possible,¡± the Informant replied in Mandarin. ¡°I¡¯ll make sure you receive what you need.¡± He watched his employee head down the street, then lifted the crate again and carried it up the front steps into his house. He placed it in the sitting room beside a dog bed that was same shade of olive as the low sofa and almost as large. Then he knocked on the lid a few times and waited. The crate rocked sideways. With a crack and shriek of protest from the lid and the metal tabs that failed to hold it in place, a woman stood up as gracefully as if she hadn¡¯t just splintered plywood with the top of her dark blonde head. She was wearing a torso-hugging, long-sleeved black shirt and leggings. Her own smile was unperturbed as it met her host¡¯s. ¡°Elias! It¡¯s been too long since you¡¯ve had me over, so I invited myself. I hope you don¡¯t mind?¡± ¡°Of course not.¡± He offered her a hand as she stepped from the crate. ¡°I¡¯ve already ordered a coffee cake for us.¡± ¡°That sounds perfect,¡± said Aulia Velra. ¡°I haven¡¯t had a decent meal since I loaned my chef to Matadero.¡± ¡°All in black,¡± Elias noted as Aulia¡¯s boat shoes touched the edge of a pale wool rug. ¡°You¡¯re showing off too much of your stunning figure to be in mourning. Have you come to burgle?¡± ¡°Is there still a ten million argold prize for stealing from you without being caught?¡± ¡°Always.¡± She stepped over to the sofa and sat down, letting her arms stretch outward along the back. ¡°Did you have to shake my little traveling box so much?¡± ¡°Did you have to arrive by crate?¡± he countered. ¡°I haven¡¯t heard that you¡¯re wanted by the law. In the official sense.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t want to be filmed on my way to see you. Or joined by anyone. Or publicly invited for a sit-down with any of the people who would so like to have a little talk with me just so that they can make implications about me with a pinch more credibility.¡± She sighed and let her head fall back to stare up at a metal light fixture made up of vaguely floral shapes that opened and closed one by one. ¡°Elias, I¡¯ve found nothing.¡± ¡°I told you that you would find nothing.¡± He took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa and angled himself to face her. ¡°If you weren¡¯t you, I would be stunned that you thought you could hunt for information better than the people who¡¯ve already looked. Did you think the System was lying? Or even if you did, did you think I was?¡± She cut her eyes toward him. ¡°I¡¯m hiding nothing about the Submerger from the rest of you. Why would I?¡± he said mildly. ¡°Maybe for the Artonans,¡± she said. ¡°Maybe,¡± he agreed, ¡° if they asked. But they haven¡¯t. And I¡¯ve asked a thousand questions a thousand ways, standing at the fountain. A boat left Anesidora full of people. Those people wanted different things from the trip. None of those things were the immediate destruction of Matadero.¡± ¡°We¡¯re missing something.¡± ¡°Life itself happens because coincidences line up.¡± Her lips pursed. ¡°You don¡¯t really think it was an accident either.¡± ¡°I think there must have been an accident or two along the way because if it was a conspiracy to attack us, it must have been a very complicated one, and very complicated conspiracies have flaws.¡± His fingers drummed against the front of the armrest. ¡°But I also think that the origins of a few of the coincidences are¡­suspiciously obscure.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Aulia straightened. ¡°Who told Orpheus to take the Submerger from Libra? Who told him how to do it?¡± ¡°That¡¯s one of the suspiciously obscure points,¡± Elias agreed. ¡°But my friend here¡ª¡± he lifted a finger and made a circling gesture with it to indicate the neighborhood around them ¡°¡ªcan¡¯t find a culprit for the theft beyond Orpheus. From what we can see and hear, it looks like he came up with the idea himself.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the most ridiculous thing I¡¯ve heard in my life. He isn¡¯t a mastermind. He couldn¡¯t even break into the area where it was stored. He¡¯s tried before because he knows there are things of value in there, but he tries with as much effort as he puts into everything else. He rattles knobs and bangs on walls with his fists for a couple of minutes, then he goes away to look through all the first aid kits so he can guzzle the potions inside them. Like usual.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t change the fact that every question I ask in that direction has no conclusion other than him. My records show he went to sleep one night in New Sybaris with a woman who later complained to a friend wearing an Infogear watch that he¡¯d hired her for the whole evening and failed to give her the wordchain he¡¯d promised.¡± ¡°He was probably too high to figure it out,¡± Aulia spat. ¡°He enjoys having no self-control. I swear I think he¡­never mind. What next?¡± ¡°Next, he woke up in the mood to sell your Submerger for some drugs and with the knowledge he needed to do it. As far as I can prove, anyway.¡± He grinned. ¡°So far.¡± She made a sound of disgust. ¡°You¡¯re enjoying this, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Archie accuses me of the same thing. Yes, I admit that puzzling over a problem of this magnitude is fun. There¡¯s no harm in appreciating the moves of an opponent. Or an imaginary opponent if a chain reaction of bizarre occurrences really is all we ever find.¡± Aulia chewed on her lower lip for a second and then released it. ¡°A Sway could have put the idea in his head while he slept.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± Elias agreed. ¡°And the Contract wouldn¡¯t have revealed that to me explicitly. I was asked by the investigators from the Triplanets to provide detailed intelligence on several people who seem to have very tenuous connections to the situation. But if you shift the blame from Orpheus to a Sway of your choice, you still run into the same problem. Why did the Sway do it? If they were knowingly part of a serious plan to upset the balance of things on Earth or Anesidora, the Contract would be aware of that.¡± ¡°Obviously it made a mistake.¡± ¡°If it did, we all did,¡± he said. ¡°My creation, the System, all the Avowed who nose around looking to stop trouble, and all the wizards, too. Meditate on that while I go make coffee. Our cake is here.¡± He stood and went toward the kitchen. On his way past the front door, he opened it to allow his dog inside. The retriever was wagging his tail and carrying a pink cake box in his mouth by the twine that wrapped it. Elias praised him profusely, then pointed toward Aulia, who was watching with an arched brow. Several minutes later, with cake and coffee in hand and the dog sprawled on his bed, Elias said, ¡°There¡¯s a piece of information I¡¯d like for you to confirm.¡± ¡°Gee, how rare.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve said that Orpheus has forgotten most of the thoughts and interactions that led to our current mystery. I assume that the truth is he never remembered them in the first place?¡± ¡°He¡¯s fond of trading away his ability to recall information, yes,¡± Aulia said bitterly. ¡°Sustaining a few mind-altering chains may be the only contribution he¡¯s made to the universe. It means there¡¯s nothing there for a mind reader to find.¡± ¡°And since the charming Hazel is volunteering on another planet, I haven¡¯t been able to watch her behavior. You did read that special letter from her during your update from ¡®mission headquarters.¡¯ But the truth is¡­?¡± Aulia¡¯s mouth twisted. ¡°She knew what the device was, and what it did, and what it cost me to obtain it all those years ago. She was having a little pity party for herself, and when she saw what her brother had gotten his hands on, she decided to let him trade it away to punish me and her parents for our failings.¡± There was a pause. ¡°You¡¯re sure?¡± Elias asked. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m sure. Do you think she planned an assault on Anesidora?¡± ¡°No,¡± said Elias. ¡°She doesn¡¯t strike me as someone capable of orchestrating a cool-headed plot that would have involved the careful manipulation of multiple people. I ask because one of the more likely possibilities, in my opinion, is that if there was a scheme, it must have originated with someone who isn¡¯t on Earth right now. Or someone who spends long stretches of time away. ¡°If you want to hide your intentions from a System, the best way to do it is probably not to be around one too much, or to be around one that knows you less well than your native one.¡± He plucked a walnut from his piece of cake and ate it. ¡°I¡¯m suggesting that someone like that might have whispered an idea or two in Hazel¡¯s ear while her ear was off-planet where a System that was a little less attuned to Earth-protection might have found the words unremarkable.¡± He blew on his coffee. ¡°Maybe Orpheus stole the Submerger because his sister somehow suggested it. Maybe she suggested it because someone she met in the course of her work on the Triplanets provided a sympathetic ear and put the idea in her head.¡± Aulia was frowning deeply. Elias shrugged. ¡°With no answers, I¡¯ve fallen back on imagining ways it could be done. This is just one of several possibilities I came up with. Our Contract doesn¡¯t know everything, but it can usually find out what it thinks it needs to know. If someone were going to play a trick on it, I think they might want to do it by using another person with innocent¡ªor innocent enough¡ªintentions who didn¡¯t realize they¡¯d become the Trojan Horse.¡± Aulia ate and drank, staring off into space for a while. ¡°No,¡± she said finally. ¡°You don¡¯t think it would work?¡± ¡°It might, but not with Hazel. I know the people she regularly interacts with on the Triplanets. None of them would want to do this, and none of them would understand everything they would need to about human nature in order to make deliberate attacks on Matadero through such convoluted methods.¡± ¡°Hazel was only an example of a possible avenue. One I wanted to cross off my personal list. Do you think I could¡­?¡± ¡°What do you want me to do, implant one of your keys in her hip so you can hear every word she says?¡± ¡°That would show real commitment to your cause as Anesidora¡¯s protector!¡± he said brightly. Aulia frowned. ¡°I¡¯ll bring her to you for a discussion. You can use lie detection methods. She does owe you a favor.¡± ¡°Surprisingly few people have queried about Manon Barre,¡± he said. ¡°And all of them have reason to assume that the lock on information about her was purchased by her. A hazard of her personality type. What were you thinking when you hired her?¡± Aulia didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Did she even acquire anything worthwhile for you, or was it¡ª?¡± ¡°A few interesting baubles, a few insights. Less than I hoped,¡± she said in a brusk voice. ¡°I came here to barter for your services.¡± ¡°Do tell.¡± ¡°I want to question people.¡± ¡°Which people?¡± Aulia stared at him. ¡°All of them. Anyone who we know was involved. At the rate this is going, I¡¯ll have little choice but to cast blame on SAL¡ª¡± ¡°You have the choice not to do that. After all, you¡¯re not sure they¡¯re to blame.¡± ¡°They¡¯re not innocent. That was a sizable bomb they had with them.¡± He fixed his attention on his cake. ¡°I think some of our old friends are still around,¡± she continued, ¡°waiting to see if the latest generation is going to be useful enough to them for them to kick off a war between humans and Avowed.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re going to poke them in the eye? Make sure you get the first strike in?¡± Elias shook his head. ¡°I wish I could persuade you to slow down, Aulia.¡± ¡°You¡¯re one to talk. I remember when¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s been half a lifetime and then some,¡± he interrupted, ¡°since I learned to let go of ambitions that might destroy what I¡¯ve already built and what I love.¡± She looked away from him and stood, going over to peer through a gap in the curtains toward the square. After a while, she said, ¡°I hear them all effervescing about what you¡¯ve built here. ¡®Oh, the Informant is someone even the Artonans turn to for help! His Infogear came through for us even when the System couldn¡¯t.¡¯¡± ¡°I¡¯m getting more credit than I should for that. Cutting nonessential communication was such an exciting decision for it to make. It threw an unexpected wrench in the works for any schemes that might have relied on its services, altered everyone¡¯s behavior, reduced the number of authority figures trying to weigh in¡­¡± ¡°And forced everyone to feed you more words about the trouble.¡± Aulia¡¯s eyes were on the fountain. Behind her, still on the sofa, Elias shrugged. ¡°Violating the privacy of millions of humans and Avowed to help the Artonans investigate would have been very expensive for the System. If it had to do it by itself. So it created a scenario that provided plenty of intel to a much cheaper source. Do you know how many times someone said the word Matadero within reach of one of my keys that night? How many people specifically asked what had happened there through Infogear? I¡¯ve never gotten such crystal clear reception for a targeted question before. Just between the two of us, I¡¯ve got a complete recording of what was said in the Oval Office during the first ten minutes I spent scanning.¡± ¡°Good for you.¡± ¡°Thank you. But I still haven¡¯t found satisfactory answers, and the information grows more muddled every day.¡±This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Aulia walked back over to join him. ¡°Use your skill. Let me talk to some members of SAL¡ªwhoever was in contact with the captain. I know you must know who that was by now.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a waste of my time and yours,¡± Elias replied. ¡°I activate the keys. I make a phantasm of some unregistered Avowed for you to talk to¡­and whatever they tell you might be true or not. The flip of a coin. Remember, I¡¯m not widespread beyond Anesidora. Any unregistered smart enough to arrange for your own great-grandson to steal from you is smart enough not to be around Infogear unless they¡¯re trying to get my attention or send misinformation.¡± ¡°Then let me speak to the captain of the boat and the one who killed him. The teenagers. All of them who were onboard.¡± He blinked at her. ¡°How many keys with unadulterated records of those people do you think I have left? And it¡¯s not necessary. The Artonans interviewed the phantasms of all of them in the aftermath. And I did my own investigating. I¡¯m much too close to burning out the keys I¡¯ve set aside, and I might want to ask my own questions of them in the future. You can speak to the versions of them I¡¯ve stored in M¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk to a machine that thinks it knows how a person would behave. I want to speak to your skill, your gift, to magic.¡± He set aside his half-drunk coffee and rubbed a hand over his chin, like he was considering something. Aulia¡¯s lips tipped upwards. ¡°No,¡± Elias said. She started to protest. ¡°No,¡± he said, ¡°because I have very methodical approaches to talking to the phantasms. Questions are carefully planned in advance so not a single moment is wasted. You¡¯ll ask them whatever your gut instinct and your¡­faith¡­tells you to in the moment.¡± ¡°I know you think I¡¯m some kind of woo-woo woman,¡± she said after a beat. ¡°Yes, but you¡¯re my favorite woo-woo woman.¡± ¡°However, I haven¡¯t been doing badly blazing my own path forward. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll agree.¡± ¡°The past year hasn¡¯t been your finest,¡± he said delicately. ¡°Growing pains from a few family members proving more of a bother than expected. In a few years, they¡¯ll all¡ª¡± ¡°Laugh about it?¡± His voice was dry. ¡°Make peace with it and learn that most of their dissatisfactions are their own faults, not mine,¡± she said. ¡°At least let me talk to the one who bought the Submerger. Jacob Moore. My connection to Orpheus may prompt the universe to reveal something.¡± ¡°No. And this time it¡¯s not just because I¡¯m saving keys for my own future use. I can tell what kind of mood you¡¯re in, and I know you¡¯re not asking me to use my skill through MBF¡ª¡± ¡°I still can¡¯t believe you changed its name.¡± He shrugged. ¡°MBF decided it didn¡¯t like being called The All-seeker¡­or anything else I came up with. And unless I¡¯m mistaken and you came today to ask me to use my skill in the normal way, then you and I have no path to an agreement about this.¡± Aulia crossed her arms over her chest and sat back, staring him down. Her neutral expression was marred only by the rapid tapping of an index finger against her own elbow. ¡°I¡¯m more patient than you are now,¡± Elias said eventually. ¡°You might as well say what you want to instead of having a staring contest with me.¡± ¡°If you were as patient as you think, you wouldn¡¯t have spoken first,¡± she said, her voice turning irritable. ¡°Elias, that skill has been costly for you. I know that. But you used to revel in it anyway. This new ¡®normal¡¯ way isn¡¯t normal at all. If you don¡¯t want to be the mouthpiece, I¡¯ll get you someone else. A human being, not a Wrightwork thing you cooked up with the help of however many Avowed it took¡ªall of whom are too young to have ever seen you use your own keys correctly.¡± ¡°Now you¡¯re being sadly purist. I¡¯ve had just a few summoners in the past three decades who insisted on the original, less informative method, and they were so ancient and boring that I think you¡¯d be embarrassed to be in their company.¡± ¡°Filter the spirits of the dead¡ª¡± ¡°They¡¯re not spirits.¡± ¡°¡ªthrough me, then,¡± said Aulia, exasperated. ¡°I consent. I will be magic¡¯s vessel, its outlet, your muse. Surely that¡¯s not immoral to you?¡± For the first time since her arrival, he looked shocked. ¡°It is actually. And what do you think that will gain you? How will you interview the dead if you¡¯re the one speaking for them?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll get a feel for who they really were. Like you used to! I¡¯m confident in my ability to remain uninfluenced. I think I know myself well en¡ª¡± He crossed his own arms and smiled at her, but something in his eyes stopped her from continuing her attempt to convince him. ¡°Ask again,¡± he said, ¡°and I¡¯ll refuse to answer every information request you send my way for¡­I think until the newest Velra S-rank agrees to have his eye replaced. Based on what MBF has observed of him, that should be between 2054 and the end of time.¡± ¡°Lute isn¡¯t that stubborn,¡± she said slowly. ¡°He¡¯s young. And unprepared for the reality of his position thanks to his mother.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s see if my friend¡¯s guess is better than your natural gut instinct about your own family. We only have to wait fourteen years. A bump on our timelines.¡± The tension in the room increased until the dog whined and rose to lay his head on Elias¡¯s knee. Aulia watched the two of them with her jaw clenched for a minute longer, then groaned and slumped, a hand coming up to cover her eyes. ¡°I didn¡¯t come here to annoy you, Elias. Really, I didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a shame,¡± he said, giving the dog a thorough scratch behind the ears before reaching over for his coffee cup again. ¡°If anyone was bold enough to annoy me just for the sake of it, it would be you.¡± ¡°Some other time maybe. Today, I hoped you¡¯d give me the answers I wanted, and then we¡¯d sneak into a closet to screw each other silly and plot against the guards and talk about learning everything there is to know about magic.¡± He laughed so explosively that the last sip of his drink almost escaped from the cup. ¡°Don¡¯t laugh at me. I¡¯ve had a couple of bad weeks.¡± ¡°Just when I¡¯m about to tell you again to slow down and be reasonable, you remind me that I¡¯d miss you if you did,¡± he said. She let her hand slide off her face and hit the cushion she sat on. ¡°I know it¡¯s been a while. But you¡¯d tell me, wouldn¡¯t you? If you¡¯d solved the riddle and found the way to the next stage.¡± ¡°About wizardry, I know the same things you do,¡± he said, ¡°unless you¡¯re hiding wonderful secrets.¡± She shook her head. ¡°Then we know almost everything there is to know, Aulia. And at the same time, absolutely nothing. I prefer to focus on a subject where I have the advantage these days. Avowed talents are such fantastic things; a good skill in the hands of a good user has potential that even the Artonans can¡¯t always anticipate. Isn¡¯t that worth studying?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± she muttered. ¡°After I¡¯ve found a way to talk to the universe like they do.¡± ¡°You might have been born without a voice. A voice might not even be the thing you¡¯re searching for. If the Artonans looked like foxes, mantis shrimp, or puddles of slime would you be so eager to find a sense within yourself that matched one of theirs?¡± ¡°If it would give me access to all that magic can do, I would.¡± She was staring up at the light fixture again. ¡°I¡¯ve always thought it was meant to be me. My rank, of course. My sense for magic even more so. And my position within the Palace¡ª¡± ¡°Most knowledgeable people would consider that one a major handicap.¡± ¡°I did once. You remember. But I¡¯ve worked my way in, and our place at the Palace will protect me when the time comes. When I finally cross the threshold. It all lines up. I¡¯m always almost there.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t argue with you about this. I learned better last time.¡± ¡°Who else could do it?¡± she asked. ¡°My willingness to make sacrifices. All my years of striving¡­even if someone is out there with natural talent and power, how likely are they to have chased this as ardently as me? I¡¯ll find it. Nobody else could be so close.¡± ****** ****** Alden thanked Cappuccino Girl¡ªwho kept looking around the crowded coffee shop like she suspected a certain knight might have come along with him this afternoon¡ªand accepted the iced hibiscus tea he¡¯d ordered. ¡°He¡¯s not here today,¡± he said as she passed him a straw. ¡°As far as I know.¡± She laughed. ¡°Sorry. He was nice though, right. Isn¡¯t he?¡± She was speaking quietly. ¡°Very,¡± Alden agreed. ¡°If he comes back, I was thinking yuenyeung might be good for him. I make a great one.¡± ¡°Should I tell him you hope he comes back?¡± <> God. Of course not. I meant just in case.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°Take your tea. Next customer! Not you, Rosalind, I can tell you¡¯re just going to stare at the menu for five more minutes. Guy who always orders oat milk with caramel and hazelnut, it¡¯s your turn.¡± Alden got out of the way and headed to Garden Hall, noticing how more eyes than usual turned toward him and more whispers seemed to follow in his wake. Nobody¡¯s talking about my radish drop anymore, he thought. But Thanksgiving is catching a lot of mentions. More than it should have been maybe. He¡¯d left the nonagon parked at the dorm, hoping that walking around with everyone else would be a blendy thing to do. Especially since the campus was a sea of school uniforms now. But people he didn¡¯t recognize at all kept coming up to him to say, ¡°Hey, it¡¯s you! How about that¡­Thanksgiving? Great holiday. Welcome to Celena North!¡± Most of them didn¡¯t mention the commendation at all. The few who did, inevitably said something that made him mildly uncomfortable, but it wasn¡¯t like they were being terrible. Nobody¡¯s been too rude. There¡¯s just a lot of badly disguised curiosity. Maybe I should stop being surprised most people have self-control in person. Real life isn¡¯t as bad as the internet, thankfully. To keep himself from watching all the people who were watching him, he focused on his preserved burden. Sorry, Vandy, he thought, peeking at the edge of a golden spiral of enchantment that was just visible to him if he looked under the cuff of his jacket sleeve. He¡¯d pulled it from a temper sphere he¡¯d gotten Bobby to entrust to him before leaving North of North. This isn¡¯t one you could have spotted no matter how thoroughly you check my pockets. He¡¯d caught her studying him more than once during Intro to Other Worlds. The good thing about carrying around the invisibility enchantment for the afternoon was that he could tire his skill by an appropriate amount before the start of gym class. The double preservation practice he usually did was effective, but it was too tempting, sometimes, to drop it and push for just a little more when gym was exciting. And since he¡¯d been forewarned by Principal Saleh that they had something interesting going on today¡­ A shadow passing over him made him look up to see a flying platform of a different, slower kind than the nonagon. Ground Shaper. Shapers often flew around campus at heights that he now knew were low enough to keep them from getting in trouble for flying without a license. This one was drifting past on a compressed disc of soil, with a passenger. Alden recognized them after only a couple of seconds. Maricel. And Marsha? He hadn¡¯t caught more than a glimpse of Maricel Alcantara over the past days, not in person at least. He¡¯d seen more of her on the news, though, usually accompanied by Fragment and doing clean-up work. When he¡¯d passed through the Garden Hall common area earlier, the television had been turned to a channel that was showing a clip of her meeting with her whole family at a magic conference table that made it look like they were all sitting together in the same room instead of being a world apart. He¡¯d watched briefly while they talked about how proud they were of her. It had looked like a heart-warming, happy meeting, but the careful orchestration of it made it feel just a little off. Now there she was, focused on her shaping to keep her dirt compressed and aloft, both hands in motion while Marsha stood beside her chatting cheerfully. Alden thought he caught the phrase, ¡°more like Superlatives finally!¡± But whatever it was Marsha was comparing to the school¡¯s S-rank club, he didn¡¯t know. Thinking it might be good to catch up to Maricel and talk to her for a minute, just to resolve lingering worries for both of them, he sped up. He intended to catch her before she went into the dorm. Hopefully apart from Marsha. She¡¯d probably like to know that I¡¯m not going to contradict the image that¡¯s being built for her, right? And I¡¯d like to make sure my name doesn¡¯t come up in some half-truth connected to Jacob and the other people on that boat. Even Maricel saying something honest like, ¡®And when I found out Jacob was running away, the only person I told other than the teachers and SkySea was Alden Thorn,¡¯ in an interview could land him somewhere even weirder than he was now. He seriously disliked the idea of being rebranded as a model globie who encouraged other new Avowed to love Anesidora as much as he did, for the good of humanity, superhumanity, and peace on Earth. That seemed to be the direction they were going with Maricel¡¯s protective, or corrective, new image. It doesn¡¯t seem that likely to happen since nobody has pushed me that way yet. Being Thanksgiving Guy and General Esh-erdi¡¯s Favorite Commended Moon Rabbit probably makes it hard to slap another label on me, right? But being Mr. Good and Lawful Globie Citizen would be a problem. Mainly because he didn¡¯t think the right way to fit into that mold. Lying about it would be¡­and not lying about it would land trouble on me. He didn¡¯t get a chance to talk to Maricel, though. He arrived in time to see Marsha jump off the dirt disc from two stories up and land easily on the sidewalk that led into her dorm. Before her feet hit the ground, Maricel had risen, picked up speed, and headed for Celena Circle. Alden glanced at the nonagon parked on the roof above his room. He started to lift the finger with the ring on it, then stopped. Chasing her down wouldn¡¯t be subtle. He shot her a text instead, saying he¡¯d like to talk when she wasn¡¯t too busy. When she didn¡¯t text back right away, he turned and went through the automatic doors. In the common area, a first year student from one of the other acceptance cycles waved at him from a table, beaming like they knew each other. Maybe we do? I met like a hundred new people during the Thanksgiving madness. They¡¯ve blurred together. Before he could be captured and socialized with, he waved back, leaped toward the staircase, and hurried up to his apartment. He seemed to have the place to himself, and this time block before gym was supposed to be his study hall. During study hall, he thought, slurping the bright, acidic tea through the straw and then raising his cup to acknowledge the polar bear watching him from the end of the hall, we get to study magic. He stepped into his room and closed the door behind him. Alden couldn¡¯t yet hold an enchantment and give his undivided attention to a spell he was trying to figure out, especially not if he wore the earring or if there was a risk of setting the building on fire. And his skill was pretty fatigued already. So he let the temper sphere invisibility enchantment go, by pulling it off his arm and laying it on top of his cup. Which disappeared. Oh. It¡¯s better than I expected, he thought, blinking in surprise. He¡¯d guessed it would be a very weak camouflaging effect. Definitely something worse than he¡¯d gotten when he¡¯d tried it out on Victor¡¯s fuzzy ball cat toy, because that had been an appropriately-sized sphere. But this was an improvement. The cup and the tea inside it were invisible except for the place where the words Cafe Forthright were stamped on the side. The words looked like they were floating there, and so did the top half of the yellow straw where it stuck out of the cup lid. He pulled the straw out curiously, and found that he could see his drink through the hole left in the invisible lid. Fascinated and more excited than he had been during previous similar experiments, he watched the seconds on his interface clock tick by. At fifty, there was a discernible cup-shaped something in his hand, and by fifty-two, it was back to normal. He stuck the straw back in and took a victory sip, thinking about why it had worked better. He swallowed. ¡°Transparency,¡± he said to the smiling wombat that stood on the cheaper of the two learning cushions in the room. ¡°Possibly transparent containers specifically? That¡¯s what the cup has in common with a temper sphere.¡± Glassish ball that held glitter sand. Plastic cup that held tea. ¡°My ponchos are clear plastic. Clear plastic body containers.¡± A lot biggerthan a cup, though. ¡°I wonder if temper spheres come in sizes.¡± He set his cup on the desk and dropped his bag on the rolling chair. Then, he changed out of his uniform and into a t-shirt for comfort. A System request had his spell book appearing beside the tea at the same time as his auriad slipped down his biceps, over his elbow, and across his forearm into his fingers. ¡°The nights on Thegund last forever,¡± he said, taking his place beside the stuffed animal that was the first toy his parents had bought him in Chicago, and the last. He opened Whan-tel¡¯s Art to his living leaf bookmark, wondered for the dozenth time if he should try rooting it in a cup of water or a pot of dirt instead of using it as a page marker, and looked down at the flashlight spell he¡¯d modified the other night when he woke from the dream about going to fetch the car. ¡°Bokabvs have this bioluminescent drool that helps them see each other and everything else just well enough to get by. Very weird. Good for them. I don¡¯t have that, so ¡­¡± He held the auriad up and wove his fingers into it in the starting position. Around him, reality felt almost attentive. He thought he was imagining that, but he liked imagining it. He, himself, stretched in a way. It was as if after a day of being quiet and staying in his spot and playing only within the rules that formed the folds and corners of his skill, he was finally moving to claim something new. Call the memory of light toward the symbol of the lantern¡­carefully this time. Controlled. Focused. ¡°Let¡¯s do some magic.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-NINE: Flashes I 189 ****** When was it that I lit a promise stick for the first time? Early April, in the vault with Kibby, during that stretch of days right after he¡¯d figured out how to deliberately move his authority to return her pat. She¡¯d been so ecstatic for a while there. Finally, a real learning partner, doing his sincere best! The same thing the other little wizards in Gwen-lor¡¯s classroom had. And Alden had been so freshly aware of, and fascinated with, himself that they¡¯d devoured Gwen-lor¡¯s videos together and practiced until they couldn¡¯t anymore, every single session. A spark at the tips of his fingers, the first flicker on the end of the stick, the smell of it burning¡­ April, May, June, July, August, September, October. And here he was now at the end of November, holding an auriad. And casting sunlight. This is sunlight. A rectangular shaft of it shone in front of his auriad, like the release pattern he¡¯d chosen was a window cracked open between here and some brighter place. He knew he should experiment a little before he wore himself out or his focus shifted in some detrimental way, but he kept kneeling there on his cushion, staring through the auriad at the motes of dust swirling in response to his own breath and at the bright shape he was casting on the back of his desk chair. His pleasure at commanding reality was present, but at the moment, it was taking a surprising backseat to an emotion he hadn¡¯t expected to hit him quite like this, at a time like this. I couldn¡¯t do anything. I didn¡¯t know anything. And now I¡¯m here. That was a thought he wanted to take with him to the inward path. He wanted to examine it in that calmer, unhurried way that the path and Yenu-pezth made possible. He swallowed and moved his arms, still holding his auriad out with his fingers stretched in the release pattern, making the shaft of light travel back and forth, up and down. While casting the spell, he¡¯d focused on calling the same light that would fill the room if his curtain wasn¡¯t shut to block it. And he knew he¡¯d done it. The overhead lighting had a cold bluish cast to it; what he¡¯d brought into the room by magic was just a little warmer. If Kibby doesn¡¯t learn this spell from Dalat-orni or her new school, I¡¯d like to teach it to her. A want that wasn¡¯t very reasonable. When would there be an opportunity for him to do a thing like that in this better time when they were both in better places instead of being stuck together in the vault where Ro-den had studied demons? It was a genuine wish anyway. He held his new spell for as long as he could. It was easier to keep going than it had been to get it going in the first place, and he found room to think about other things without losing control of it. Nothing too complicated, just what he felt and what he wished and idle thoughts drifting past. Eight months. Who will I be in eight more? He gave the last several minutes of his sunlight to the leaf from Rapport I before he sent it away with his book, grabbed his duffel bag, and headed to gym class. ****** ****** ¡°Eight years,¡± said Olive, dragging a brush through her light brown hair one last time before pulling an elastic tie from around the handle. Her voice was mostly lost among all the others in the girls¡¯ locker room. Her gray unitard was already on, with the wrist and ankle cuffs waiting on top of her gym bag on the bench in front of her. ¡°Three of high school, four of uni. Then one for job hunting and brand building and whatever else you need to improve about yourself if you didn¡¯t finish it up before graduation. That¡¯s a long time from now.¡± ¡°I plan to finish in six,¡± said Jupiter. She was still in her school uniform, sitting beside Olive¡¯s bag and eating from a family-sized package of shrimp crackers. ¡°That¡¯s not my point,¡± Olive said. ¡°My point is¡­it¡¯s that years from now, everything will be different. The people who are doing well today may not be keeping up as well then. I¡¯m sure the school thinks about all of that when they¡¯re evaluating us. A slower start doesn¡¯t mean someone¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m here!!! Did you all miss me?¡± Astrid¡¯s voice sang out as she burst through the door. Her blond hair, usually kept short, hung down past her waist today, and even though she was in energetic motion, it was immediately obvious that she was much taller than usual. ¡°No!¡± several voices shouted back. Astrid¡¯s dramatic gasp of outrage was cut short as her eyes went wide and she tripped over her own feet. In the process of trying to recover from the uncharacteristic clumsiness, she overcorrected, staggered sideways, and stumbled over one of Everly¡¯s sneakers. ¡°Look out!¡± ¡°Catch her!¡± ¡°Astrid!¡± With a yelp, she was suddenly diving headfirst toward Lucille. The Strength Brute quickly tossed aside a water bottle and extended her arms to help, and then, just as quickly, she drew them back in again so that instead of landing in the soft embrace of a rescuer, Astrid splatted onto the hard floor. She lay there, facedown and surrounded by classmates who had frozen in the act of tying shoes, adjusting sports bras, and putting on deodorant. Silence reigned for an instant. ¡°Ow,¡± Astrid said, voice muffled by the floor. ¡°Sixteen centimeters of extra leg might have been too much to try with some of the other things.¡± The girls all burst into laughter, chatter, and attempts to assist. ¡°You hate me, don¡¯t you, Lucille?¡± Astrid asked while Rebecca and Helo¨ªsa crouched beside her, alternating between asking if she was all right and commenting on her ¡°tiny little feet and giraffe legs.¡± ¡°You were going to save me, and then you were like, ¡®No. It¡¯s only Astrid. Let her die!¡¯¡± ¡°I¡¯m so sorry! I¡ª¡± ¡°I saw it, too,¡± Rebecca agreed. ¡°Attempted. Murder.¡± Lucille stood there, a blush creeping over her face while they teased her. ¡°That was funny,¡± Everly said. She was applying a potion that came in a tiny spray bottle to the blisters on her heels. ¡°Tuyet looked like she was going to help, too, but then she didn¡¯t.¡± Tuyet was checking her dart case. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to get in Lucille¡¯s way.¡± ¡°We have a dire case of multihero failure,¡± said Helo¨ªsa, talking into the top of a rollerball antiperspirant like it was a microphone. ¡°Let¡¯s ask our victim how she feels about that.¡± Astrid moaned into the rollerball. ¡°That bad? She may not make it, listeners. Avowed Lucille, how will you explain this to your millions of fans?¡± ¡°I was going to grab her, but then I was afraid of grabbing her too hard.¡± ¡°We should practice trust falls!¡± Astrid scrambled onto her feet. ¡°I¡¯ll jump at you, and you catch me! Without breaking me. On three. One, two¡ª¡± ¡°I think you should all get your suits on first,¡± Vandy said, folding her uniform neatly before placing it in her bag. ¡°There are guests coming to our class today, so we should be even earlier than usual if we can.¡± ¡°Guests?¡± Astrid asked, knees still bent in preparation for a spring toward Lucille. ¡°Don¡¯t bother,¡± Everly said. ¡°She won¡¯t tell us anything but that.¡± ¡°Aww. All right, all right. What were we all gossiping about before Lucille tried to kill me?¡± ¡°What Alden really did while he was on Moon Thegund.¡± ¡°If we should ask one of the guys to ask Shrike to kill people faster. Maybe Ignacio thinks he¡¯s being a good sport by slowly stalking weaker people around the dueling blocks, but it¡¯s scary!¡± ¡°Maricel getting what amounts to days of private lessons with Fragment. It¡¯s unfair, and I don¡¯t care if everyone thinks I¡¯m a bitch for saying it.¡± ¡°Whether Kon and Lexi look like that naturally or if their parents lied to them about having them designed.¡± ¡°The best kinds of pet for every class.¡± ¡°Commendations. And people we know who have them. And if any Rabbit has ever gotten one before. I think no. Right? Probably no.¡± ¡°Soy sauce and butter being a better rice topping than anything else.¡± ¡°Wasaabiiiii!¡± ¡°Olive was trying to say even if the B-ranks are doing better than her and S?ren right now, it won¡¯t be like that in eight years.¡± ¡°Jupiter! I didn¡¯t mean it like that.¡± ¡°Why someone from SkySea pulled Jeffy out of remedial math today.¡± ¡°Njeri was saying she saw someone who she knows is a LiJean recruiter talking to some S-ranks from CNH at a restaurant near campus.¡± ¡°The Fin-Win feud.¡± ¡°Wasaabiiiii!¡± ¡°Once again,¡± said Astrid, ¡°I am disappointed in you all. This is the best opportunity we have to plot the defeat of my arch-nemesis Torsten Klein.¡± She started unbuttoning her jacket. ¡°Seriously though¡­did SkySea really pull Jeffy out of class? Why? Is he okay?¡± ****** ****** In a lot on the edge of campus, behind the university Wright workshops, Morrison Waker added a broken washing machine to the junk heap he¡¯d built on top of a trailer, then flicked the machine with a finger that dented its metal side. ¡°Anyhow, they¡¯re great kids,¡± he said over the loud clang he¡¯d just made. He looked around the side of the washer to see a Brute with a trimmed black beard who was trying to fit a tree stump with the roots still on it onto the other side of the pile of garbage. ¡°Great find! I¡¯ll save that one for Jupiter. She¡¯s a Life Shaper, loves a good tree.¡± Arjun Thomas brushed his hands off. ¡°Have you got enough?¡± ¡°Probably too much. Throwin¡¯ a whole landfill at our newest group¡¯s mean of me, isn¡¯t it?¡± He laughed. ¡°Nah. They¡¯ll love it! Great kids, like I said. Teachin¡¯ is more fun than I expected it to be, Arjun. I did always enjoy gettin¡¯ to hang out with new Avowed¡ª¡± ¡°Morrison, you enjoy hanging out with everyone. They don¡¯t even have to be human.¡± ¡°That¡¯s me, that¡¯s me,¡± he said with another chuckle. ¡°But I thought I¡¯d get tired of talkin¡¯ to teenagers every day. It¡¯s cool, though. They¡¯ve got their own world. Most of ¡®em think they¡¯re ten years older than they are, and at the same time, they act like anyone ten years older than them is a dinosaur who can¡¯t possibly understand what they¡¯re goin¡¯ through. But they¡¯re all workin¡¯ for something, all got somethin¡¯ they care about. None of them have decided to settle for less and grow moss yet like too many of us dinosaurs do.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not exactly a moss grower,¡± Arjun said in a steady voice. ¡°Aren¡¯t you still pushing through two or three levels a year like a teenager?¡± ¡°Might be.¡± Morrison shrugged. ¡°Gets a little lonely when all the people who were in it with you stop wantin¡¯ to climb higher. Smaller group of peers up here, isn¡¯t it? But these kids! I know the school attracts ambitious types. I still get excited. Once in a while, they show you flashes of who they¡¯ll be one day. Not so much this brand new bunch¡ªthey¡¯re still gettin¡¯ their feet underneath ¡®em and I¡¯m still learnin¡¯ about who they are. Sometimes, though, in the advanced classes¡­I get those chills.¡± He looked over the pile on the trailer one more time. ¡°All right. I¡¯ve got to hitch myself to this and haul it over since we¡¯re still goin¡¯ easy on the teleportation allotment. You¡¯re sure you don¡¯t want to come help out? Gonna be a fun one. You¡¯d fit right in.¡±This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°I don¡¯t think it would be appropriate to spring myself on a particular one of your students,¡± Arjun said pointedly. Morrison winced. ¡°Right. Yeah, I didn¡¯t think that all the way through. I was just excited to run into you on campus. Thanks for the help. I hope the talk with your sister is¡­productive.¡± Arjun cracked a smile. ¡°Were you going to say ¡®fun¡¯?¡± ¡°Productive and instructive,¡± Morrison said bracingly. ¡°She¡¯s got guts, and she tries hard. We¡¯d all hate to see her lose her unique take on things.¡± ¡°Would you?¡± ¡°I would. She just needs to add some more patience and peace into her mix.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try,¡± said Arjun. ¡°Ella-Clara and I have never been close, so I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll have as much of an influence as Lesedi hopes. But I¡¯ll try.¡± He was turning to go when Morrison suddenly said, ¡°Wait! Did you hear about SkySea and the new spell impression?¡± Arjun shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s bad, of course,¡± Morrison said, but the words were accompanied by a spreading grin. ¡°National security. Preventin¡¯ another attack. Lots of people lookin¡¯ like they¡¯ve egged their own faces¡­but it¡¯s also one of the funniest things I¡¯ve heard since all of this started!¡± ****** ****** ¡°Alden, guess what! Vandy¡¯s grandpa came all the way here to school to ask me why I took that spell impression! It turns out SkySea was talking about which of their members should take it, and they were negotiating with someone about a salary increase, but it was taking a while, and then yesterday the System removed the spell impression because the limit on users was reached. That wasn¡¯t my fault, though, because I took it the day before yesterday after Nana and Yesenia said it would be all right. So now SkySea wants to know if I¡¯d be willing to use it for them sometimes, maybe really soon even, and isn¡¯t that great?!¡± Alden stood in the doorway of the locker room, blinking as Jeffy¡¯s words landed on him. They were being delivered so rapidly that he was getting an impression of enthusiasm and good news without quite understanding what was going on. Vandy¡¯s grandpa. Spell. SkySea. Salary. Jeffy holding both hands up for a high five. Nana. His mohawk is a darker blue than the last time I saw it. He returned the high five because that was the easiest part to respond to. ¡°Nice! What are we talking about?¡± ¡°I think Mr. Carisson was really impressed I took that spell impression,¡± said Jeffy as Alden slipped by him. ¡°I hope he doesn¡¯t find out I jumped in the fountain and made Vandy mad at me on the first day we met.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think he¡¯s impressed.¡± Max was near the door with a foot propped on a bench, putting on the ankle cuffs. ¡°I think he¡¯s probably embarrassed. It sounds like a communication failure between the High Council and SkySea. Or between both of them and the Artonans. ¡°Anesidora obviously requested a ship-locating spell for handling things like runaways. Maybe they were even hoping that they could tell everyone that SkySea was better equipped to find underwater vessels. And the Artonans obviously delivered the spell. But for some reason, SkySea didn¡¯t have an employee ready to affix it. Either they didn¡¯t realize it was coming yet, or it didn¡¯t occur to them that it would be limited. Doesn¡¯t matter. They made a stupid mistake. I know they¡¯re dealing with a lot right now, but that should be mortifying.¡± Alden had finally caught up. ¡°Jeffy, you picked the spell impression we talked about on Saturday! You like it?¡± Jeffy beamed and nodded. ¡°Good then. I¡¯m glad.¡± Who¡¯s Yesenia again? Was she the Aqua Brute he mentioned being a red halo with? He¡¯d have asked for more details if circumstances had been different, but he needed to change. And there were twenty other guys listening in. It made conversing feel like a performance. At least Winston wasn¡¯t here. Alden had spotted the speedster, already in his uniform, running what must have been warm-up laps on the track. They¡¯re all looking at me, he thought, glancing around. They probably want to ask questions. He wished someone would go ahead and do it so that he didn¡¯t have to think of some kind of tension breaker himself. Maybe I will ask Jeffy who Yesenia is after¡ª ¡°So,¡± said Haoyu. Lexi said, ¡°Quit staring like a bunch of¡ª¡± ¡°Hey, Alden,¡± said Kon. All three of them had spoken at the same time. ¡°Hey, Kon,¡± said Alden, looking across the room to where Kon had just stopped in the act of pulling off a t-shirt. He¡¯d left the neckband wrapped around his forehead so that the light blue fabric draped behind his neck and shoulders like a veil. ¡°One of the girls keeps shouting ¡®wasabi.¡¯ Should we yell it back? Or should we yell back ¡®pickled ginger¡¯ instead?¡± Alden felt a smile stealing across his face. ¡°I think wasabi would sound better yelled.¡± ¡°You¡¯re obviously wrong,¡± Kon scoffed.¡°Not as wrong as the lunatic who wanted to moo at them.¡± Haoyu raised his hand. ¡°But wrong nonetheless,¡± Kon continued. ¡°We¡¯ll still count your vote twice, though.¡± ¡°Twice?¡± ¡°We have to honor your commendedness somehow. This is what you get.¡± ¡°I get two votes for a commendation?¡± Kon held up two fingers. ¡°Two votes on all class votes?¡± Alden asked. ¡°Forever?¡± ¡°Absolutely not,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Not unless I get extra. My mom has more than you.¡± ¡°My grandfather has a commendation,¡± Febri announced. ¡°So I vote yes twice on wasabi.¡± ¡°Look what you did, Alden,¡± said Kon. ¡°Now we¡¯ve got people thinking Artonan honors are genetically heritable. No. One extra vote for Alden. For wasabi.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all I get?¡± said Alden. ¡°I was brave; the commendation even says so.¡± ¡°Listen.¡± Kon tossed his t-shirt veil like it was long hair. ¡°If you want more votes, get another commendation.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t make it too easy on him,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Make him get a better commendation next time.¡± By the time the group had finished debating the rules for commendation earners getting extra say in unimportant votes, Alden was dressed in his gym suit and feeling unexpectedly grateful toward his classmates. A couple of them hadn¡¯t joined in with the joking around, but there was no reason to read anything into that. These guys are mostly good guys, he thought, following Ignacio out the door. The Meister was giving S?ren a pep talk. Despite all the different dumbassery that goes on. Ignacio and Febri both seemed to be driving S?ren a little nuts. Apparently, they were still feeling guilty and trying to make up for the whole pressure-induced, self-burning incident. As of Monday¡¯s class, S?ren hadn¡¯t managed to get the hang of his shaping, which they seemed to feel might be weighing on his mood. [I don¡¯t think complimenting him on his ability to glow is as nice as they think it is,] Alden texted Lexi and Haoyu. [He¡¯s been able to glow since the first day.] Lexi shook his head. [Why no brain text?] Haoyu demanded. He stared at Lexi. [Never brain text as much as me.] [It¡¯s true,] said Alden. [You don¡¯t.] ¡°I¡¯m focusing on Writher. Mental texting can wait until I¡¯m¡ª¡± [Practicing in private so he never talks bad!] Haoyu proclaimed, nodding at Alden. [That seems like a likely possibility,] Alden agreed. Lexi rolled his eyes at them. ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with mastering it in a less confusing way.¡± [Type word coward with cow part in angry font. Coward. COWard. There. Mooooo.] Haolyu looked triumphant. Lexi looked unimpressed. It¡¯s okay here on Anesidora. Better than okay a lot of the time. ¡°Why were you guys shouting ¡®pickled ginger¡¯ at us?¡± Astrid called from up ahead. ¡°You were shouting wasabi at us!¡± Kon called back. ¡°Your favorite rice topping is ginger?¡± ¡°What? No. It¡¯s spicy mayonnaise. Weren¡¯t we shouting about sushi?¡± I think it¡¯s been a good day. From talking with Porti-loth in the elevator to deciding Chicago couldn¡¯t be a priority. From personal training at North of North to a kid with a can of peas to a spell cast correctly for the first time. To here. Now. Alden still had that raw, clear feeling that had accompanied him since this morning. Like he¡¯d cut something away and it hurt, but he was moving better for it. Probably his time with Yenu-pezth and having a straightforward goal was contributing as well. ¡°Principal Saleh said gym today might be rowdy. Do you guys know why?¡± ¡°No,¡± said Haoyu, ¡°but I will commit to being the rowdiest person in the whole¡­the¡­um, does anyone else see my mom swinging my dad around like she¡¯s going to hammer throw him? Or is this a new version of that dream I had one time about¡­?¡± They¡¯d entered the gym to the sight of a few unexpected adults, but before those adults could be examined, Haoyu¡¯s father was flying toward them, curling up like a human cannonball and then uncurling at the last second to smash his bare feet into the invisible barrier high over their heads that marked the boundary at the edge of the magic floor. He launched himself back toward his wife with his arms outstretched. He flew like a rocket, and they collided with a sound like boulders crashing together. Or maybe that was just Alden¡¯s imagination. Mrs. Zhang-Demir didn¡¯t budge a centimeter, and they were both grinning so wide that Alden could tell even from this far away. ¡°Haoyu,¡± Kon whispered, nudging him with one elbow, ¡°that¡¯s how you were ma¡ª¡± ¡°You can go there if you want to,¡± Haoyu whispered back, ¡°but I would¡¯t. Your own parents are basically circus performers.¡± Kon looked like he was considering the risk versus the reward. ¡°Floor on!¡± Vandy announced. In spite of the note of expectation in her voice, it took everyone else a few seconds to return the call, since they were all spreading out and surging forward to get a better view. ****** The battle between Haoyu¡¯s parents only lasted a few minutes, just until the official start of class. It was too short for most viewers, but too long for Haoyu, who was trying to look unfazed while his father¡¯s interface name tag shifted through a variety of increasingly interesting names. From Omega Scorpii Zhang to things like Haoyu¡¯s Favorite Superhero and Look, Son, I¡¯m Upside Down. Alden¡¯s personal favorite was I Could Kill a Tank Faster Than Anyone Else in This Room! because it prompted Big Snake to hurl a metal pole right at Mr. Zhang-Demir, and watching the pole bend around his raised forearm like the metal was soft modeling clay was a great visual aid to show the forces involved. It also made Alden curious about the pile of junk Big Snake was standing beside. He was watching the Zhang-Demirs with Instructor Klein, Vandy¡¯s mom, Galecourse, and an Indian woman who Ignacio had run over to talk to as soon as he spotted her. She was his grandmother, according to Febri. When the demonstration was over, and it was time to join the instructors and visitors on the floor, they found out that the class was going to be a kind of obstacle course. ¡°But the obstacles,¡± Instructor Waker said, ¡°will be all of us.¡± Haoyu¡¯s father and Ignacio¡¯s grandmother looked convincingly murderousfor a second before they both broke into broad smiles again. ¡°No time wasted today,¡± Instructor Klein said in a clipped voice. ¡°Not even on instructions except for these few. Form teams of five. Make it from that end of the gym¡ª¡± He nodded toward the locker rooms, and Alden looked behind him to see a black starting line appearing at the edge of the white floor. ¡°¡ªto that one.¡± Klein gestured toward the opposite side of the gym. ¡°You can try anything you want to try and see where it gets you.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the pain realism setting?¡± someone asked. ¡°Figure it out as you go.¡± ¡°Do we attack the other teams, or¡ª?¡± ¡°Figure that out, too.¡± ¡°Tell them about the pizza party,¡± Instructor Waker said. ¡°You have today¡¯s class and Friday¡¯s to get across the floor one time,¡± said Klein. ¡°This is thanks to the generosity of these current and former heroes. We¡¯ve had a record number of family members and alumni volunteering their help since the disaster, and we¡¯re getting organized to make sure none of you miss out on the benefits of their experience and support. Anyone who succeeds by the end of class Friday can have a personal lesson here in the gym with the volunteer of their choice. There¡¯s a list of available heroes and faculty members, with their schedules¡­¡± It was hard to hear what he was saying over the burst of excited voices and Marsha shouting, ¡°How long do we get to fight them for, and do we get the whole gym or just a block?¡± Klein was uncommonly patient with the outburst, but his tone was also amusingly severe as he added, ¡°And regardless of your success, there will be a pizza party picnic at the track on Friday after class. Attendance is optional. We¡¯re sorry your class dinner ended on such a bad note. Now¡­form your teams.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED NINETY: Flashes II 190 ****** It had been just a few seconds since Klein finished speaking. They were all still standing in the center of the gym, murmuring about the prize for success, pizza, and teammates. Only a couple of people had taken steps toward the starting line. Nobody was prepared for Vandy¡¯s mother, who had been standing politely off to the side while the instructors explained what was going on, to suddenly lift her hands and point them at the group. Alden was in the process of making eye contact with his roommates, trying to silently ask if they would all be teaming up, when the burst of wind hit everyone. He staggered and would have fallen if not for Haoyu reaching out to grab his arm. Haoyu¡¯s feet were firmly planted, no doubt thanks to an application of his spell impression. Whether it was foresight or he was just in the habit of starting class by casting it, it was coming in handy now. All around them, people were toppling over and crashing into their neighbors. Alden hadn¡¯t fully regained his balance, never mind processing the fact that wind could blow this hard, when Everly Kim, who¡¯d been standing in front of them, flew backwards into him. Her feet had completely left the ground. He wrapped his free arm around her automatically, more like a monkey grabbing at a branch than a true savior, and held on. She helped out by clinging just as hard. Haoyu had a grip on Kon¡¯s gymsuit with his other hand. When the gust stopped as abruptly as it had begun, they were in the minority who were still upright. Classmates were on the floor, or, in some cases, across the floor even farther from the starting line. ¡°We haven¡¯t had a chance to talk about who we¡¯re going to partner up with!¡± ¡°Vandy! Be on my team! My team!¡± ¡°That was like a tornado! I bet that was what a tornado is like.¡± Alden let go of Everly, who crouched low and pointed her face toward Galecourse like she was trying to prep for round two. He followed suit because for all he knew she was about to fly right back into him. Instructor Klein¡¯s expression was inscrutable. ¡°I said we start now.¡± Galecourse lifted her hands once more. Oh, okay, Alden thought as Everly had a change of heart and scrambledalong with Kon to get behind Haoyu. They¡¯re not even going to let us get to the starting line without a fight. The fresh blast of wind hit him right in the face. He leaned against the pressure of it, keeping his knees bent, debating whether or not it was safe to move a foot so that he could get behind Haoyu, too. Over the shouts of his classmates and the rush of air in his ears, he heard a loud clang and looked to where Instructor Waker had bounded over toward his junk pile again. It was all the way over on the other side of the finish line. In what couldn¡¯t possibly be a positive development for his students, the huge Brute was lifting a front-loader washing machine over his head with one hand. It looks an awful lot like he¡¯s aiming at us. ¡°Haoyu!¡± Alden shouted, targeting Big Snake hastily because that was what he sometimes did when the instructor was about to throw something at him, and in the heat of the moment, he couldn¡¯t find answers in his head for relevant questions like, Am I actually capable of catching a washing machine? Are they a lot lighter than they look? ¡°Hit me with it!¡± Haoyu roared. ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s the correct response,¡± Alden said. ¡°Get behind me, everyone! I¡¯ve got this!¡± Everyone was just Alden, since Everly and Kon were already crouching behind him, and Lexi was on his knees a short distance away. He had one hand splayed on the floor and the other on Writher. The thin gold chain of the whip was the only thing in Alden¡¯s view that was behaving like the wind didn¡¯t exist, undulating in front of Lexi protectively in what was often its default position when its master was both feeling threatened and lacking a clear enemy. Before Alden could get more of a handle on the situation, the wind cut out, and the washing machine plunged toward them. Damn. His hands were up. Haoyu¡¯s right fist was clenched and held up protectively in front of his own face. But then, too quickly for Alden to even be surprised, the shining line of Lexi¡¯s whip was in front of them both. It bit into white metal with a shriek, and then the washing machine was flying up and over all of their heads. Alden spun, and saw Writher phase out to let the front-loader go. The washer sailed straight toward the Object Shaper¡¯s head. He raised his hands in time to make a shoving motion that knocked it away from him, and it hit the floor with loud metallic bang. Writher had very nearly gone all the way through the appliance instead of grabbing it. The machine was butterflied open, inches away from being in two pieces . ¡°Yes!¡± Kon was looking from the washer to his brother. ¡°Way to go, Lexi!¡± ¡°Good. But I get the next one,¡± Haoyu said.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Lexi¡¯s success was slightly undermined by his look of surprise, and a voice yelling, ¡°What did you throw it at me for!?¡± from behind them. Alden was already back to studying the obvious threats. Galecourse was running alongside the bleachers toward the finish line. Where is she going? At least we¡¯ve got a second or two without wind. Instructor Waker was reaching into the pile again, and Ignacio¡¯s grandmother was heading off to one side. Klein and the Zhang-Demirs all seemed content to stand right here in the middle of the gym, not attacking. Yet. ¡°Don¡¯t hold anyone back. Run as soon as it looks like you need to.¡± Everly whispered the words so quietly that Alden wouldn¡¯t have caught them if they hadn¡¯t come from right behind him. Before he could ask who she was talking to, she took a deep breath and sprinted for the starting line. Kon looked startled. Lexi was busy staring from the washing machine to Writher¡¯s handle with his brow furrowed. And Haoyu was fixated on his parents and Big Snake. ¡°She¡¯s right. We need to run while we can,¡± said Alden. ¡°What?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°Running. Come on.¡± He took off after Everly, trusting that the others would join them. Don¡¯t hold anyone back. Everly had been upset to be at the back of the pack when they were all escaping from the Span, even though it was a pack full of Avowed who were better suited for running than her. She¡¯d been trying to ask Lexi for training tips since then. Alden assumed she wanted to be able to take care of herself, but maybe a fear that she was holding others back and putting them at risk was a part of the mix, too. That¡¯s a bad feeling. ¡°Don¡¯t hold anyone back¡± was also just a part of being around so many people with cool abilities. Easier said than done, though. He caught up to her right away, and a step later, just as he decided he would run with her instead of dashing ahead, the wind came again. For some reason, Galecourse had done nearly a whole lap of the gym instead of taking the quickest path to her destination¡ªone of the corners near the starting line they were running toward. Alden had seen the superhero lifting her hands, and he¡¯d guessed that the wind would be hitting them from a diagonal since the last two times, instead of getting fancy, Vandy¡¯s mother had only done the most basic of Shaper moves. It was just a shove straight away from her. Although it was, admittedly, a very big shove. He bent his knees and tried to prep to take the hit. He had just enough time to wonder if crawling would work better than running before Everly fell. At exactly the right angle and with enough force to knock one of his feet out from under him and give the wind the opening it needed. An instant later, they were both on the floor, holding hands in a barely helpful attempt to halt their sliding tumble across the smooth surface. Alden got slapped in the eye by the tail end of a silver braid, but that was hardly worth thinking about when he was being pummeled by a hurricane. The power of the wind was astounding. He caught glimpses of other peoples¡¯ struggles as he dealt with his own. Febri was doing something bizarre with his Instant Corners skill to cross the floor to where S?ren was pressed against a barrier. Febri looked like he was repeatedly falling and then un-falling; S?ren looked like he was trying to shape¡­Alden had no idea what light was going to do to fight wind, but he guessed there was no harm in trying. He spotted Helo¨ªsa Brute-forcing it toward where they all wanted to go, just repeatedly launching herself in the right direction every time she got a hand or foot solidly against the floor. She was almost there. One of her arms was stiffened in her suit, though, so there were penalties for injuries that made her simple tactic risky. Some people had left weapons and supplies on the bleachers, as Alden had, expecting to go back and grab what they needed when they found out what the assignment was. Others who¡¯d brought their things had lost them in the first surprise gust and had yet to recover them. He saw a couple of spell ingredients blow past, and the pink sweatband that Olive often wore was in flight. He heard people shouting instructions or asking for help. He heard what sounded like the washing machine smashing into something. It was all too much to analyze when even breathing was more difficult than normal in this much wind. One of his sneakers screeched as he managed to plant the soles of his shoes against the floor and get some traction to control their slide. The gym unitard fabric was a little slippery, which wasn¡¯t helping anything. It feels like it¡¯s been blowing for ages already. It¡¯s probably only been a few seconds. What if Galecourse doesn¡¯t let up? I don¡¯t want to get injured at the start of class. I need a shield. Now. Everly was clinging to his left arm. Hey. ¡°Can I hold you?¡± Alden shouted in her ear. ¡°I¡¯m not tired!¡± she shouted back. That confused him for a beat. Did she think he was offering her a relaxing break? He couldn¡¯t even sit up straight. ¡°Can I preserve you and use you as a shield?!¡± Everly didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Against the wind! If I have I shield, I think I can get us both¡ª¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Everly said, brown eyes meeting his. She had white glitter eyeliner on. ¡°Do it! Go!¡± He targeted her. Everly had been on his obstacle course team, so she was aware of how he needed to carry things. That meant he didn¡¯t have to explain anything, but she seemed to feel the sudden need to explain that she weighed forty-eight kilograms as she scrambled to get on top of him. That¡¯s funny of her, he thought as he wrapped his arms around her back. Getting on his feet with his Everly-shield preserved was less troublesome than he¡¯d expected, and once he was standing, the difference made by having a shield¡ªeven a forty-eight kilogram one¡ªwas immense. He could have strolled to his goal if not for his fear that Morrison Waker might be winding up to hurl a blender at his back. So he hustled, and when his feet crossed the black line and the wind cut off, he felt a rush of success that was probably too optimistic for a guy that had just made it to the start, instead of the finish. [Form Team of 5 to Begin] He read the words on his interface as he set Everly down. She took a step back, gave him a cautious smile, and then looked in every direction briefly like she was analyzing where she¡¯d ended up. ¡°I carried you for ages,¡± said Alden. ¡°It¡¯s Friday now. I figured you¡¯d be glad to skip to the weekend faster.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED NINETY-ONE: Flashes III 191 ****** From where Alden stood now, he could see, and appreciate, all of his classmates¡¯ efforts to resist the wind. He and Everly were in a minority who¡¯d made it to safety, but most of the others weren¡¯t far behind. Finlay and Winston were both over. Marsha was here, shifting her Mutable Haft into spear mode and eyeing all the new superheroes she was allowed to attack like Christmas had come early. And Helo¨ªsa was standing just a few feet away from Alden and Everly with both of her arms fully functional. Alden hoped that was an indicator that injured people could get a mobility reset by returning to the start and not a one-time thing for the beginning of class. Getting hurt and having to deal with it for two hours was instructive, but not the kind of instructive he wanted this evening. ¡°I¡¯m going to go ask her what the pain realism setting felt like,¡± Everly said. ¡°I only got some bumps, and the readout didn¡¯t appear. She¡¯ll know better. Thank you for getting me here.¡± ¡°Thank you for getting me here,¡± Alden replied. Still on the floor, but approaching steadily, Haoyu was looking cool as heck. He was serving as a point of stability for Kon, Lexi, and a few other fortunate souls he¡¯d collected on the way. One solid rock whose feet wouldn¡¯t come off the ground was a valuable resource in a nearly barren gym under assault by a Shaper of Sky. If we¡¯re going to be attacked frequently or constantly by Galecourse during this class, I¡¯m going to need a good shield. A whole person wasn¡¯t the ideal choice. The easy bird nest shield method wasn¡¯t going to be awesome in high winds either; if he lost preservation for even a second, it would all go flying like streamers. And making something would take at least a little while, so¡­he needed to get moving. The starting line was on one of the shorter sides of the massive rectangular gymnasium, and his duffel bag was on the long side near the midline, where everyone usually dropped their stuff if they weren¡¯t sure they were allowed to have it on the floor. He ran for it. What are the rules exactly? he wondered as he pounded around the perimeter toward his bag. There wasn¡¯t a countdown for them to obey, so it seemed like they were being given as much time as they wanted to form teams and strategize. That was exciting, but at the same time, he thought everyone would probably want to get going as soon as possible. The promise of a very desirable prize for reaching the finish, the fact that the Instructors weren¡¯t known to go easier on people toward the end of class¡­ Obviously I have to do something with rope. The ¡°practice with your chosen tool for the quarter¡± rule was a given. And if Big Snake was going to be throwing additional materials onto the battlefield, Alden could use those, too. But are we allowed to do something ridiculous like use my supplies to tie a whole team to Haoyu? Is that cheating? Just then, Vandy¡¯s mother passed by him, running on the dangerous side of the barrier. She looked a lot like her daughter. Alden was almost positive he¡¯d seen her on a perfume commercial that had played all the time when he was little¡ªthat one where her wind kept carrying the fragrance around a city, and at the end of the day she turned around and there were like a thousand people chasing her and she made the shocked face. Yeah, that was her. And perfume commercials are weird. He was sure Galecourse could run faster than she was right now. He was also sure she didn¡¯t need to reposition at all to blow people around the gym in whatever direction she chose.She was limiting herself on purpose. So there are lots of rules for us to discover. He grabbed his bag and ran back toward the others. And take advantage of. Good. He would try to understand what all of the attackers¡¯ self-imposed limits were and think of this class as practice for his nightmare correction. Traveling across a dangerous landscape, under assault by chaotic entities that were stronger than him and behaving in ways that were difficult to predict¡­but not completely impossible if you knew a little something about what they had been before they became your enemy. He remembered Haoyu a few weeks ago, telling him what his mom had said about the CNH instructors training students¡¯ eyes by having tells¡ªreal or false¡ªthat could be discovered. Possibly, they were doing the same kind of thing here. Klein had said, ¡°Figure it out.¡± The first part of this is a brain game to learn what the rules are. The second part would be beating those rules. And the third would be winning the prize. A private lesson would be phenomenal. If I picked the right person, I could explain some of what I¡¯m working on with Yenu-pezth and get help with that specifically. It would be an upgraded version of his practice at North of North, and the right teacher or volunteer wouldn¡¯t care that it was a personal goal he was after rather than general improvement. They¡¯re giving us two days. That means they want us to have a real chance of success. We work on any flaws we find today, and then on Friday, we come back ready to defeat the challenge. ¡°They¡¯re giving us two days,¡± Njeri was saying grimly to Everly when he reached them. ¡°That means it will be hell, and they have no intention of letting us have victory today.¡± Njeri had arrived with Haoyu and the others. She¡¯d been riding piggyback on Haoyu the last Alden had seen. Now, she was glancing toward the middle of the gym, where stragglers who weren¡¯t lucky enough to have abilities that could handle the high wind¡ªor to have been standing near friends who did¡ªwere struggling. Olive was getting rolled. Literally. She¡¯d been trying to inch toward them all on her stomach, but she¡¯d looked up, realized she was one of the last students on the floor still, and tried to shift to a crawling position. Alden winced as the wind caught her and flipped her. ¡°I was just thinking the same thing as Njeri¡­with a more positive take,¡± he said, dropping his bag and squatting to unzip it. Teammates means I¡¯ll have plenty of entrusters. I can shield them and me from the wind, so I need something biggish for a shield. And if I¡¯m working with rope¡­ He wasn¡¯t the only one trying to gear up. Tuyet was zipping over to check the supply room. ¡°They didn¡¯t tell us we could use weights and equipment from there,¡± Vandy protested. ¡°They didn¡¯t tell us we couldn¡¯t either!¡± Everly said, her eyes lighting up. She took off, and Njeri was right behind her with a couple of others. A second later, shouted reports of a locked closet and a single pile of elemental weights outside it caused more than half the class to stampede in that direction to claim the limited resources. Haoyu and Kon dashed off. Lexi was watching Alden weave his widest rope option¡ªstraps of flat yellow webbing¡ªinto a mat with only a few narrow visibility gaps. ¡°Do you want me to cut that for you?¡± Lexi asked. ¡°Yep.¡± Writher flicked toward the piece Alden had been about to cut through and sliced it neatly.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Do you want me to help you tie¡ª¡± ¡°Yep. Are we a team?¡± ¡°Haoyu told a couple of people that we were already.¡± ¡°Me, you, him¡­Kon and Everly?¡± Lexi nodded and started tying. ¡°Febri and Shrike wanted either you or Haoyu for their team.¡± That was surprising enough to make Alden¡¯s magically swift fingers pause for an instant. ¡°Why¡¯d they want me?¡± ¡°Windshield for S?ren,¡± Lexi said quietly. ¡°They¡¯re planning to carry him through to the end, and they need someone to make sure he doesn¡¯t get blown away while they handle everything else.¡± ¡°So they picked me or Haoyu. Makes sense.¡± ¡°You can join their team if you want.¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m good.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a real chance of them winning,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Even with S?ren.¡± Probably true. With free team selection, the S¡¯s were likely to clique up. ¡°I haven¡¯t had time to think about it,¡± Alden answered, ¡°but I¡¯d rather bet on our ability to get along and not go after each other¡¯s throats than on raw power.¡± Even their obstacle course teammates weren¡¯t without their frictions. Reinhard was a fine and talented person, and he¡¯d add valuable ranged offense to any team he was on. But he defaulted to trying for a leadership role, which only worked if everyone else was okay with him being leader. Haoyu sometimes wasn¡¯t. Lexi often wasn¡¯t. And Alden preferred a situation where he gave a little and got a little in return. It was irritating to let someone have their way to reduce team drama and know that you¡¯d have to keep doing it or force everyone to take a time out so you could insist on that old playground standby¡ªtaking turns. With his roommates, Kon, and Everly, he was sure they¡¯d have a more democratic situation, and anything reasonable he wanted to try would get a fair hearing and at least one solid group effort. And who knows how long it would take to pick a perfect team and negotiate with them? There was already some evidence of stress between Astrid, who¡¯d just arrived with Max and Jeffy, and Rebecca, who¡¯d been waiting for her, assuming they¡¯d team up together. Being fast to solidify a team has definite advantages. ¡°Yeah, we¡¯ll be great together,¡± he said, hands still moving. ¡°The only thing we know for sure is that Instructor Waker is pitching, and Vandy¡¯s mom is turning the whole gym into a wind tunnel. So starting with three people who can handle the wind in some way is a solid choice.¡± ¡°Three?¡± ¡°Everly just needs her spell ingredient. The blue powder. And she needs a break in the wind to cast. That impression is fast, so she can get it off when Galecourse lets up to reposition. It¡¯s not perfect in a group situation, since we¡¯d all have to hold onto her or we¡¯d go skidding across her ice patch like hockey pucks. But if she gets separated and needs to get back to us on her own she can do it that way.¡± The ice patch spell would also wreak havoc on anyone near her, which wasn¡¯t necessarily a bad thing. Alden had heard people questioning Klein about whether or not they could attack other teams. He was sure someone would try it to see what happened¡­or because they thought it was necessary. He created a new group chat for the team and sent them all a message. [Do we think everyone who gets to the finish line gets the private lesson reward? Or not?] Klein had said ¡°anyone¡± who made it, which Alden took to mean it was possible for the whole class to succeed. But if there were unknown rules to figure out¡­what if one team crossing the finish line triggered a windspeed increase or another attack of some kind from the adults? It would be a little unfair, but it also seemed to be within the realm of possibility. On the obstacle course, a member of the opposing team finishing had made an attack allowable, and with their gym classes so often being competitive it seemed likely that there would be some kind of additional benefit to finishing first. [Haoyu:Let us Number 1! No worrying then.] ¡°Let us Number 1,¡± Alden said to Lexi as he cut another strap with Writher. ¡°I¡¯m almost done with this¡­if you think it¡¯s a good size for us to work with?¡± The shield would be a rectangle large enough to provide total body coverage for him when turned vertically, or if turned horizontally, it should protect everyone from the bulk of the wind if they piled up behind it. ¡°You don¡¯t want it to be so unwieldy that you can¡¯t get it out of the way if something that would exhaust your skill is incoming,¡± Lexi said. ¡°That¡¯s right. I need to stay useful, not turn into dead weight for the rest of you to haul around.¡± He looked at the shield. ¡°Let¡¯s add some loops. I can tie stuff to it I need to carry, or they can be used as handles. Then I¡¯ll cast my wordchain, and we¡¯ll go.¡± He¡¯d been waiting to see what class was like today before he decided whether or not to use My Body Becomes My Assistant. He needed to train without it at least half the time, since it wasn¡¯t always going to be available. ¡°What other wordchains are you going to get Lute to teach you?¡± Lexi asked. Before Alden could answer, the sound of a few people calling out encouragements made him glance up. ¡°Olive, run!¡± ¡°You can do it!¡± ¡°Go, girl! GET UP!¡± The Adjuster had been blown nearly to the other end of the gym until she¡¯d ended up pressed to one of the side barriers. Illusions just didn¡¯t do anything to help with this kind of challenge. Now, Galecourse was starting a repositioning lap, the wind was off, and Olive was climbing to her feet to make a run for it. She¡¯s too slow, thought Alden, taking in Galecourse¡¯s speed and comparing them. Vandy¡¯s mother seemed to have a set pace in mind for her repositions, and he assumed she¡¯d be sticking to the plan even if it meant Olive couldn¡¯t recover fast enough to gain ground. Everyone who¡¯d been stuck out there had made it back during the last pause or they were crossing the line right now, except for Olive and Sanjay¡ªwho was stiff-suited head-to-toe. Did he die? Olive ran past his fallen form and pelted toward them all. ¡°Way too slow,¡± said Lexi. Haoyu had just returned with Everly and Kon. They were each carrying either a sandbag or a lifematter bag. ¡°Should I go get her?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°I know it might delay us, but¡ª¡± ¡°Those are my teammates!¡± A voice with an American accent rang across the gym. ¡°Hold on, Olive! Don¡¯t let your spirit fail you! I¡¯m coming!¡± Winston Heelfeather, sunglasses on and face determined, left the safety of the sidelines and ran to the rescue. Alden stared at the sprinting Speed Brute¡¯s back, the words ¡°Don¡¯t let your spirit fail you!¡± leaving a kind of hollow echo in his brain. Haoyu caught his eyes. ¡°I have no comment,¡± said Alden. He tied the last knot, then flexed his fingers in preparation for their next task. ¡°You guys grab some rope from my bag. Whatever looks useful to you.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a plastic zip bag full of dirt in here,¡± Kon said, already helping himself to the contents of the duffel. ¡°That¡¯s useful,¡± Alden told him. ¡°Well, it¡¯s more useful when there isn¡¯t wind, but let¡¯s take it.¡± Winston had just reached Olive and picked her up. Bridal style. ¡°I¡¯m wordchaining,¡± said Alden, ¡°and then we¡¯re going for it together.¡± ONE HUNDRED NINETY-TWO: Flashes IV 192 ****** Ninety minutes ago¡­ ¡°Thank you for coming,¡± Torsten Klein said, running a hand over his short, salt-and-pepper hair. The expression on his face was wry as he addressed the small group of current and former superheroes who had assembled in a classroom in the MagiPhysical Education building. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to put you all in desks like you¡¯re students. The meeting room upstairs was booked.¡± ¡°I¡¯m only offended you¡¯ve bought new desks,¡± said a woman whose long, deep brown hair spilled down the back of an old gray sweatshirt. Her dark eyes were lively, and she smiled as she took in the classroom. ¡°We used to sit at tables that had so many names and hero mottos carved into the top that it was impossible to take a paper exam without your pencil stabbing through.¡± ¡°I remember those tables,¡± Torsten said. ¡°Not fondly, but I do remember them. It¡¯s good to see you, Hale. Did your husband change his mind about coming today?¡± ¡°No. He¡¯s making sure the vending machines are still high quality. He¡¯ll be right back. We can get started without him.¡± ¡°I¡¯m here!¡± A man entered the room and tossed Hale a bottled tea from the stash of snacks and drinks in his arms. He sat down in the desk beside her. ¡°We haven¡¯t started gossiping about the kids yet, have we?¡± ¡°Not yet,¡± Torsten replied. ¡°I think we¡¯re all at least familiar with each other, except maybe Aparna? Do you know our other volunteers?¡± He was looking at a woman with shoulder-length gray hair who sat near the classroom window. Sunlight glinted off a pair of earrings she wore that looked like pieces of jagged glass. ¡°I know those two.¡± She waved a hand toward the couple. ¡°Hale, are you still letting Zhang Jianwei trouble you?¡± ¡°Every day,¡± Hale said, shaking her head. ¡°What about the trouble she gives me, Mrs. Sethi? She¡¯s twice as difficult as I¡¯ve ever been!¡± ¡°Then I only need to introduce you to Melanie.¡± Torsten nodded toward the woman sitting in a corner desk, typing on a tablet she¡¯d brought with her. ¡°Melanie Carisson is a Shaper of Sky currently working under the name Galecourse. Most of the time, she¡¯s back and forth between Los Angeles and Tianjin as part of a sister city hero swap. Her husband trades between Tianjin and London. Their daughter, Vandy, is a Sky Shaper in our new class here. ¡°And, Melanie, this is Aparna Sethi. She¡¯s an Adjuster who was active in the ¡¯90¡¯s and early 2000¡¯s all over southeast Asia. Now she¡¯s retired¡ª¡± ¡°Retired temporarily,¡± Aparna corrected. ¡°Only until this collection of grandchildren find their footing. Then I will be back to show the young people what I have learned.¡± Torsten¡¯s lips quirked upward. ¡°Retired temporarily from hero work. She teaches at Naya Din, but her grandson Ignacio joined us here at Celena North.¡± The two women nodded at each other. ¡°We do appreciate all of you being here today,¡± Torsten said. ¡°Some of our faculty members have been neglecting their own personal situations to keep the school running smoothly for the students in the aftermath of recent events. I know they¡¯re all grateful to have time off thanks to your generosity.¡± ¡°I¡¯m excited to see what the class is like,¡± said Haoyu¡¯s father. ¡°You¡¯ve got several kids here who I watched grow up alongside our son. It will be a treat to get a look at what they¡¯re up to now that they¡¯ve got their powers.¡± ¡°I think you¡¯ll find them very green and a little clumsy with themselves,¡± said Torsten. ¡°But overall, we¡¯re pleased with the early signs of their progress. Now, one of our newer faculty members put together the class roster for your review. For some reason, he thought it would be amusing if all of the students were presented on wanted posters.¡± The board behind him switched on, showing the entire class with each member¡¯s photograph framed by an Old West-style wanted poster. The Zhang-Demirs and Aparna Sethi laughed. ¡°Maybe it is a little amusing,¡± Klein conceded. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯ll run you through the ones with more standard superpowers first, and then we¡¯ll talk about the ones who are a bit more difficult to work with. First, the Agility Brutes¡ª¡± ¡°Starting with your own subclass?¡± Hale shook her head. ¡°Terrible.¡± ¡°I¡¯m starting with Agility because it starts with ¡®A¡¯.¡± ¡°Adjuster starts with ¡®A¡¯,¡± said Aparna. ¡°Is this how you do things at Celena North? The poor children.¡± ¡°I¡¯m starting with Brutes because they have more common abilities. And I¡¯m starting with Agility because of the ¡®A¡¯. So here on the projection behind me we have Febri¡ª¡± Febri¡¯s poster expanded, and his photograph turned into a video clip of him in class. ¡°He has the same skill as you.¡± ¡°I see how it is.¡± ¡°Shameless favoritism.¡± ¡°You¡¯re all worse than the students!¡± Torsten said. ¡°Pay attention to Febri. He¡¯s one of three Agility Brutes and our only S-rank Agi. Very sharp with Instant Corners, though with the skill at level one¡­¡± They went through the Agility Brutes quickly and soon came to the speedsters in the class. ¡°Our S-rank is Finlay. Like most Speed Brutes starting out, he¡¯s almost entirely foundation point focused with the System still withholding active-use skills. However, he does have an unusually high-ranked spell impression for a beginner. I doubt he¡¯ll find an opportunity to use it in this class, since he hasn¡¯t been casting it so far. But Surface Extension is in his repertoire. ¡°Next, we have Winston. He¡¯s¡­a hard-working young man, who isn¡¯t always working hard in the direction I¡¯d prefer. He applies impressive amounts of energy to his personal passions. Possibly to his own detriment. As you can see from this clip, he¡ª¡± ****** present ****** ¡°Don¡¯t let the haters get you down, Win-Win. Remember, you have faithful fans who will follow you anywhere. I¡¯m one of them. And when someone asks you who you think you are to be telling lies revealing truths about their favorite new Avowed, let your victory over those favorites be your answer!¡± Star emoji. Kiss emoji. Pompoms. Kiss. Star. ¡ª Feather¡¯sFavoriteNYC The comment had over a thousand upvotes, so Feather¡¯sFavoriteNYC would be getting the autographed photo. And for the first time, Winston would be confessing to his fans that during periods of struggle, he kept special comments like these on his interface to pump him up throughout the day. Feather¡¯sFavorite gets it, he thought, putting on his sunglasses with the practiced snapping gesture he¡¯d mastered for the camera. I get it. One day, everyone will get it. So now¡­let¡¯s get it done! Heroes didn¡¯t sit on the sidelines playing with rope while classmates were in trouble. And who else was going to want to team up with Olive and Sanjay after they¡¯d seen them flopping around like dying fish in a tornado? There was this stupid misconception going around because of Alden, Jeffy, Everly, and that dickheaded haggis-eater Finlay, that Winston Heelfeather was a jerk. They were all in on it together. Except for Jeffy¡­Winston was sure Jeffy was only being used as a puppet by Everly, Max, and maybe even Konstantin. Feather¡¯sFavoriteNYC had asked in her fourth highest rated comment this week why everyone liked Kon so much when he sucked for an S, and that was a valid question. Why did people like him so much? What if he was a master social manipulator, and Winston was only just now realizing it? CNH was no joke. Everyone knew the training was hard, but the crazy games these other Avowed played on the way to the top? Nobody had prepared him for classmates so desperate to one-up him that they¡¯d bring another person¡¯s grilling grandparents into it. Psychos. Winston scooped up Olive before she could even thank him, and ran for the starting line. Saving her. Like. A. Hero. Olive¡¯s all right. His fans wouldn¡¯t go nuts over her rescue. She wasn¡¯t popular. Her social media account was all games she liked and pictures from middle school. But a hero didn¡¯t only pay attention to the popular class members. That was something a real jerk would do. I¡¯m going to make you famous today, Olive. You¡¯re welcome. I¡¯ll take care of you and Sanjay and S?ren and one other struggling person who usually gets no attention. Glory. Fame. Every gym class was another chance. He would show them the way. The wind hit just before he made it, but Winston was a Speed Brute. In some languages, instead of speedsters, they were called travelers. And what kind of traveler would be stopped by a little wind? A lot of wind. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid, Olive!¡± She was wrapping her arms around his neck and tucking her face into his chest, which was so much better than when he¡¯d first picked her up and she¡¯d flapped around like a kidnapping victim instead of someone who was being saved. This footage would actually be useable now if she was fine with it. As he pushed for the line, Winston hunched over her protectively and fought the wind, roaring his defiance of Galecourse, the haters, and people who used their Scottish accents for insinuating untrue things about their roommates. Olive¡¯s weight might have helped keep his feet on the floor a little bit, too. He¡¯d give her credit for that when he talked about this moment. ¡°Aaaah!¡± he screamed as he crossed through the barrier, trying to make sure it was a good, deep scream and not the understandably nervous one he¡¯d made when Alden had tried to hit him with an alien general¡¯s nonagon. Olive was still holding onto his neck. Her plain brown eyes were kind of far apart, like an Artonan¡¯s. It was an okay look for a girl in Winston¡¯s opinion. Lots of actresses had that. ¡°Are you all right?¡± he asked. ¡°Yes?¡± Olive said uncertainly. ¡°Thank you.¡± This is a moment, Winston realized. Like the All Aglow Agency talks about. His parents had hired them to boost him and prep him before he left America. They weren¡¯t great, he realized now. Anesidora was a different level. That was why he¡¯d been having more trouble than he should have been. Had they prepped him for Rabbits with wildly outsized ambitions and creepy Artonan connections? Or girls who¡¯d been training to be snow princesses since they were ten, who could just swoop in and steal fourteen point three percent of your fans with an Aqua Brute and a few Arfdogs? Or S-ranks that made alien cannibal parrot songs smash hits?Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. No. But they taught me about moments. Those are real. This is one of them¡­or it could be, if I seize it. Winston set Olive down and whipped off his own sweatband. She froze as he put it on her forehead and angled the words so that the nearest drone could have a clear shot of the ¡°Need a Heeling?¡± stitched on it. ¡°Sorry it¡¯s not pink,¡± he said, smiling at her. ¡°But wear it until we find yours together on the battlefield.¡± ****** ****** Despite Alden being a hold-up with his preparations, their team was about to be the second to officially start the challenge. They¡¯d be right behind a very competitive looking team that Max had put together in a blink. He was joined by Finlay, Jeffy, Astrid, and Lucille in what had to be close to an ideal situation for him. He¡¯d managed to combine three S-ranks with a chipper Morph Brute who was good at perking up Lucille and cheering on Jeffy. And Max was looking useful himself right now, laying down a zone and taking advantage of it in a new way. He was walking his own treadmill trap with Astrid on his back, while Jeffy and Lucille stood outside it, not immune to the wind but significantly harder to blow over now that they each had giant sandbags as ballast. They all seemed to be discussing something. Max was pointing at Ignacio¡¯s grandmother, who sat calmly off to one side. Alden didn¡¯t see any reason for them to have stopped so quickly after starting their run, but it was good that they¡¯d solved the wind problem. He turned his attention back to his own team. ¡°Does anyone else expect the real fight to start when Winston finds the most aesthetically pleasing way to carry a Sanjay statue and finally gets him back, too?¡± ¡°I expect my dad to do something terrible to our team, and my mom to do something terribler,¡± Haoyu said. ¡°They are not to be underestimated.¡± ¡°Yeah, none of us are underestimating them,¡± said Kon. ¡°I don¡¯t think you need to worry about that.¡± ¡°Do we just run?¡± Alden straightened from a final examination of his shield. ¡°Or take a moderate pace? I didn¡¯t hear what the plan was while I chained up.¡± ¡°Jog,¡± said Everly. ¡°We¡¯ll stay behind you unless you¡¯re in danger. Everyone calls incoming.¡± ¡°By doing the clock thing,¡± said Kon. ¡°Locker rooms are six. If the wind is off, we attack together. If the wind is on¡­we haven¡¯t figured it out. Something with me and Lexi and Haoyu.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t remember you being included in that part of the plan,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Happy Humans heal their health with Plantplayer Vitamins,¡± Kon answered in a sing-songey voice. ¡°Try the ones for healthy memories today!¡± ¡°I remember that jingle!¡± Haoyu said. Lexi sighed. ¡°Do we have to take him with us?¡± ¡°Love you, too, brother.¡± Kon slapped Alden¡¯s back. ¡°You go. We follow. Use the shield you made, not Everly.¡± Alden stared ahead of them. The gym looked even larger than usual. Big Snake was holding a 2x4 at the finish line. Klein and the Zhang-Demirs were still lying in wait, pretending to be harmless observers. Vandy¡¯s mother was taking off again, and¡­it looked like she¡¯d be positioning herself near the midline on the right. To blow directly from the side? That¡¯s new. It must be because there were teams progressing forward now. If she had the wind blowing the way it had been, she¡¯d just be helping people toward the finish line. ¡°My shield goes directly between us and Galecourse unless the situation changes. She¡¯s only doing a standard front shove, so that¡¯s where the wind should be coming from. I¡¯ll pay attention to the rules for any of the other attackers when I have them in sight. You guys focus on fighting.¡± ¡°Rules?¡± Kon asked. Alden was already stepping through the barrier with his shield angled toward Galecourse, one arm through a loop on the back. He set a pace that was close to a jog for him. Haoyu was on his left flank, Lexi his right. Everly was keeping herself directly behind him so she¡¯d take the minimum amount of wind, and she was tied to Kon by a long rope. Lexi was tied to Alden. The hope was that the Roberts brothers, as the only two who had no wind resistance talents, would be stuck to someone who had better options if the group got split. But Alden was afraid the rope was just going to get in the way. His shield of yellow webbing was turned horizontally, and it had a spare fifty-kilo sandbag tied to the front of it. Alden wasn¡¯t sure which of them had gotten creative and added it, but it wasn¡¯t trouble to carry this way and they might find a use for it. Kon was hauling an even bigger one on a shoulder. Everly had a small one that she¡¯d coated in layers of ice until it resembled a white bowling ball. Haoyu and Lexi were keeping themselves unencumbered. The jog ate the distance rapidly. They were approaching the middle of the floor, and nothing bad had happened. It was almost uncomfortably quiet. Alden was keeping his eyes pealed, so he saw when Galecourse lifted her hands.He lowered himself a little, and slowed down a little, the others following suit as the air turned into a battering ram once more. Alden felt it against his lower legs, rushing past like a river. ¡°I like you, Alden,¡± Kon said just loudly enough to be heard over the wind. ¡°Look at us not flipping through the air like shopping bags caught in a Speed Brute¡¯s draft.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°Why aren¡¯t they attacking yet?¡± Haoyu asked, peeking around the shield to see his parents and then poking his head back in with his hair sticking straight up. ¡°Winston only just crossed with Sanjay,¡± said Everly. ¡°Maybe that¡ª¡± The wind ended. Alden followed Vandy¡¯s mother with his eyes as she repositioned, ready to get the shield between them again as soon as she stopped. Suddenly, he saw something strange. Ahead of them. It had been there one second and gone the next. ¡°Did you see that?¡± ¡°I did,¡± Lexi said. ¡°I don¡¯t know what it was.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s wait for a sec.¡± Alden turned the shield toward Galecourse as he paused. The whole group shifted even closer to him before stopping. ¡°What did you see?¡± Haoyu murmured, poking his head out again to peer in the same direction as Alden and Lexi. ¡°It was like a flicker?¡± said Lexi. ¡°It didn¡¯t look like any of our classmates¡¯ spells.¡± Alden had seen a bit more than a flicker, but still not enough to describe it in much detail. ¡°A wispy light that stretched from the floor into the air before disappearing. It was fast.¡± ¡°Some kind of spell indicator?¡± said Everly. ¡°Ignacio¡¯s grandmother,¡± Haoyu suggested. ¡°My parents don¡¯t have anything like that.¡± ¡°Well, the gym might have made the indicator itself,¡± Lexi said. ¡°To give us a cue. It¡¯s not necessarily a normal part of whatever spell was cast.¡± Out of the corner of his eye, as he did another scan of the adults, Alden saw that Big Snake had his attention locked on Max¡¯s team as they moved forward again. Not in a straight line. They¡¯re detouring for some reason. ¡°Max might be dodging whatever the mystery spell is,¡± Alden said softly. ¡°We should, too.¡± Nobody argued. While they¡¯d discussed the unidentified phenomenon, a third team had formed back at the starting line. Reinhard was leading a group of people Alden rarely interacted with outside of class. They were all A-ranks who were less ambitious, argumentative, and perfectionistic than the class average¡­which meant they¡¯d probably let the archer have his way. ¡°Third team incoming, wind incoming,¡± he said, starting forward. ¡°I wish Klein and your parents would move,¡± Everly groaned. ¡°I¡¯m getting a stomachache waiting for an attack that¡¯s not happening.¡± Reinhard led his team out onto the floor. A second later Helo¨ªsa shouted, <> in Portuguese and did the same with another group. All at once, as if the entry of a fourth team was a signal, the adults acted. Wind came from the left, hitting Alden¡¯s mat of webbing and rushing around his ankles again. Two more of the strange flickers appeared. He just barely managed to see them as he whipped his neck around. One flicker was way out in front of Reinhard¡¯s team; Helo¨ªsa¡¯s group would intercept another in just a few strides. And a board was flying from Big Snake toward Max like a javelin. And three S-rank Brute attackers were entering the field. Two were on the ground, running at the teams in the back. One was launching himself up onto an aerial block high overhead and then off again at an angle that would lead him toward¡­ ¡°Klein! Klein! Klein!¡± Alden yelled, unable to do the clock thing because there was no above-our-heads o¡¯clock. He barely stopped himself from yanking the shield around to intercept the incoming instructor. That would leave everyone vulnerable to Galecourse. The others were already moving. They weren¡¯t too slow. With Klein coming in from a height, there was time for Lexi to get Writher between all of them and the oncoming enemy, and for Haoyu to step in front of Everly with his fists raised, and for Kon to insert himself between the instructor and Alden¡¯s vulnerable side. It just wasn¡¯t quite enough. Klein¡¯s legs tucked up to skim over Writher¡¯s swipe, and his torso twisted away from Haoyu¡¯s strike. It was the same as in the classes where they were supposed to catch him; he was so good at dodging by millimeters. There shouldn¡¯t have been space in their tight little group for him to slip through without taking a hit, but he found one anyway. Alden knew the slow-motion replay would reveal a series of graceful, flawless micro-adjustments on Klein¡¯s part. Right now, though, it felt like a missile landing in their midst while everyone¡¯s attempts to stop it comically misfired. Klein¡¯s feet slammed into Konstatin¡¯s right thigh, and Alden¡¯s eyes struggled to keep up with what happened after that. Instructor Klein was moving a lot to dodge a line of burning chain that was suddenly flying around them all. Alden felt heat graze his own chest and saw an icy bowling ball hit Klein¡¯s butt as he twisted. And he thought, Ha! Fuck. This is bad. Kon! What about Big Snake? I need to look¡ª Then a lamp was shattering against Haoyu¡¯s fist, shards of ceramic from its base showering over them all like stinging confetti. And Klein was gone from their group. I kept the shield where it needs to be, Alden thought, drawing in a breath. Galecourse hasn¡¯t repositioned. A lampshade was still flying across the gym toward Max¡¯s team. ¡°Owowow! Fuck!¡± said Kon, laughing and cursing and clutching his leg while he lay on the ground. ¡°I got the lamp!¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Lexi, what was Writher doing?¡± Alden asked. ¡°You almost sliced me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m all right! I can take a lamp!¡± ¡°Helo¨ªsa said this was twenty percent pain?!¡± Kon demanded. ¡°She¡¯s lying. She¡¯s crazy. She¡¯s a crazy woman who can¡¯t feel pain. That¡¯s why she can drink hot sauce like water.¡± They were all talking over each other at the same time, except for Lexi, whose eyes were as wide as Alden had ever seen them, and Everly, who was on the floor. Alden glanced away from the ten other things he was trying to keep track of to check on her. She looked annoyed. She also looked stiff from the chin down to her bare feet. ¡°Are you dead?¡± he asked, shocked. ¡°Or unconscious?¡± ¡°Dead,¡± Everly said flatly. ¡°And I missed Klein¡¯s face, didn¡¯t I?¡± ¡°You got a bum cheek with your ice ball,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°How are you dead?¡± ¡°You¡¯re dead! Why are you dead?¡± Kon asked. ¡°Klein got you, too?¡± Everly¡¯s eyes flicked to Lexi. Kon and Haoyu noticed at the exact same time Alden did. They all fell silent. The wind stopped. ¡°Ohhh. Just a little accident, then,¡± said Haoyu, bending down to pick Everly up. ¡°Completely understandable. Could have happened to any¡ª¡± ¡°Lexi¡­did you kill my girlfriend?¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED NINETY-THREE: Flashes V 193 ****** ¡°This is Lexi,¡± said Torsten Klein, the wanted poster behind him expanding to show the Meister. The video clip started to play, and the four volunteers saw a chain extend and bend in an ¡®S¡¯ shape to slice two different incoming tennis balls in half. ¡°Wonderful student. He¡¯s dedicated, takes instruction well, asks thoughtful questions after reviewing his footage¡ª¡± ¡°So much praise! You didn¡¯t have anything to say about Haoyu.¡± ¡°He probably didn¡¯t say anything about Haoyu because you talked about him for three minutes straight,¡± Hale Zhang-Demir said to her husband. ¡°There was nothing left to cover.¡± Haoyu¡¯s father laughed and waved Torsten on. ¡°Tell us about Lexi! How¡¯s he doing now that he finally made it here?¡± ¡°Well from the looks of it.¡± Aparna Sethi wore an interested expression on her face. ¡°I know Meisters have an advantage in combat, especially these young ones. I told my Ignacio he¡¯d be cheating with those knives of his. But that¡¯s impressive, and¡­I think I¡¯ve seen that weapon before.¡± ¡°Then you¡¯re in rare company,¡± said Torsten. ¡°Lexi is only the second known Meister with a Mind Writher. The first was an unregistered who died decades ago after causing some trouble with his. You might remember it from new weapon reports released back in the day?¡± Aparna nodded. ¡°It¡¯s harder to keep track now, with so many more exotic options being given to our Meisters. Back then, anything that didn¡¯t closely resemble human weaponry stood out more and caused a stir.¡± ¡°This one caused a stir among the faculty. It¡¯s got very obvious potential. He can cut a car in half with it and thread a needle, theoretically at the same time. And it gets hot, sometimes randomly.¡± One of the tennis balls on the video was smoking. ¡°Fittingly for a whiplike weapon, it¡¯s capable of supersonic speeds. That¡¯s part of the trouble with it. For us and for Lexi. It¡¯s overly responsive to him, in a way. Even his idle thoughts, or his moods, seem to change its motion. When he¡¯s consciously controlling it, it¡¯s actually much easier to fight him. Slower. More predictable. ¡°As he switches from conscious control to a more spontaneous, reflexive state in the heat of a fight¡­things get more interesting.¡± The clip shifted to a new one, showing Lexi in a duel against Tuyet. ¡°This is a fast enough reaction to deal with anyone in the current class,¡± said Torsten, as he zoomed in to show the whip slicing a dart out of the air, its tip already coiling toward another one and just missing. ¡°If that first dart hadn¡¯t been a decoy, Lexi might not have lost this fight. However, he can¡¯t respond this quickly deliberately.¡± ¡°Poor Lexi,¡± said Hale. ¡°I¡¯m sure that frustrates him to death. He¡¯s not someone who enjoys being out of control.¡± ¡°He¡¯ll get there,¡± Klein said confidently. ¡°We¡¯ll get him there. For now, though, don¡¯t let him kill you with this thing, Aparna. It has two very different paces.¡± The Adjuster smiled. ¡°Controlled,¡± she said. ¡°And <>.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Klein agreed. ¡°Now, moving on to Reinhard, we have a student who¡­¡± ****** ****** ¡°You chopped my girlfriend in half.¡± ¡°I am so sorry, Everly. I don¡¯t know why¡­I can¡¯t believe I¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± said Haoyu, holding Everly¡¯s stiff form out toward Lexi as if to offer proof. ¡°Look. Fine. You¡¯re fine, right, Everly?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not mad or anything, but I¡¯ve been better.¡± It had only been a few seconds, and the team was recovering from the attacks. Alden¡¯s shoes crunched on a shard of the lamp Big Snake had thrown that hadn¡¯t yet blown away. He was still holding his shield of woven webbing between Galecourse and the others. We can¡¯t stay here. His heart was pounding; an attack from Klein had a tendency to do that. Thinking about the fact that if this were real, Everly would be dead, so quickly from a simple accident¡ªthat would get your adrenaline going, too. And who knew how long they had before something else came their way? Instructor Klein had left their team and pelted toward one of Helo¨ªsa¡¯s teammates, a Vocal Brute who was running toward the middle of the gym. He seemed to be making a solo break for the finish line¡­unless he was just freaking out because Mrs. Zhang-Demir had barreled into his team and grabbed their captain. Klein took the running Brute down in a similar fashion to Kon. Obviously it was leg-breaker day for him. Is Klein¡¯s arm stiff? It¡¯s kind of hard to tell. At the rate he¡¯s moving, he¡¯ll be back here in a minute to hit us all again. ¡°We take Everly back to the start and see if her suit goes back to normal,¡± Alden said. The wind stopped. Galecourse repositioning. He glanced over the top of the shield at her. ¡°Kon needs to be healed, too, if possible. It¡¯s really early in the class for him to be working with one leg, especially if this is the pace we¡¯re going to be dealing with.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know how it happened,¡± Lexi was saying. ¡°Instructor Klein was just so hard to attack, and he was right here in the middle of us all, and¡­¡± Kon, Haoyu, and Alden exchanged looks. In Haoyu¡¯s arms, Everly¡¯s face was pointed straight up, the neck of her suit not allowing enough freedom of movement for her to do much else. And Lexi was too busy staring at her to notice them. His expression was devastated, and the murder weapon hung short and limp from his right hand. ¡°I could take her back by myself while the rest of you press forward,¡± said Kon. ¡°All together,¡± Alden said. ¡°What if someone attacks you? And don¡¯t you have to hop on one leg?¡± ¡°I hop like an S-rank. And I¡¯m not the most useless S-rank despite what certain stories on the internet¡ª¡± ¡°What are my parents doing to people?¡± At Haoyu¡¯s question, Alden looked around again. In the past few seconds, Helo¨ªsa had somehow ended up back at the starting line. Her remaining teammates were scattered like chickens. One of them seemed to be trying to join up with Mehdi¡¯s team. And Mrs. Zhang-Demir, who¡¯d been grabbing Helo¨ªsa the last time Alden had checked, now had Astrid tucked under her arm like a stuffed animal with a surprised look stitched on its face. She was running toward the starting line with her Astrid doll while Max was dragged along behind them, clinging to Astrid¡¯s ankle like he hoped that might make Haoyu¡¯s mother let go. Meanwhile, Jeffy was rolling across the floor from some attack Alden hadn¡¯t seen, and Finlay was grabbing the heavy lifematter bag Jeffy must have dropped when he fell, snatching it up and glaring toward Winston Heelfeather, who was out on the floor now, still without a team. ¡°What the¡ª?¡± Before Alden could get the words out, his eyes skimmed past Winston and over to Reinhard¡¯s group at the corner opposite from them, still very close to the start. He saw the archer raising his bow in defense as Haoyu¡¯s dad ran toward him. Mr. Zhang-Demir was currently in between their two teams. ¡°Possible arrow from four o¡¯clock.¡± Haoyu shifted Everly to one arm and lifted a fist. Lexi turned to see the potential threat, but what he was going to do about it with his whip in embarrassed-mode was anyone¡¯s guess. Reinhard released his arrow. Haoyu¡¯s father dodged as easily as Alden had expected. Alden tensed, but although it had looked like the arrow might fly right at their team given the direction of the shot, a timely gust from Galecourse worked in their favor this time. It slowed and turned the projectile. ¡°Good call,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°We need to watch the ranged people, too. And when Marsha finally gets out here and starts swinging¡­¡± ¡°Enough chatting. Alden¡¯s right. Time to run. All together.¡± Kon bonked his brother¡¯s shoulder with his forehead. ¡°Stop being dumb. Get your whip out. Let¡¯s go.¡± ****** ****** ¡°Excuse me, everyone. Everyone! I need some weights for my team! Some of you took more than your share. S?ren¡­S?ren if you¡¯re not going to join us, then you know you should give Olive that sandbag¡ª¡± ¡°What do you mean, Febri? You¡¯d rather have the glow boy? I¡¯m an S. An all S team would be a guaranteed win, and this is important. I already checked the volunteer list for the prize, and there are nine different people I want to train myself against. I¡¯d like to win today and Friday. I know you¡ª¡± ¡°Helo¨ªsa, Febri¡¯s team is full, so I¡¯ll be joining yours. I¡¯ll replace your most cowardly member. That one that¡¯s dead out past the midline.¡± ¡°Sorry. I¡¯m going to beat Mehdi with an all A team, Jupiter. Hey, Haoyu! Your mom is amazing! I want to be her.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re beating me with all A¡¯s, I¡¯m beating you with all A¡¯s!¡± <> ¡°I don¡¯t need defending¡­¡± Alden¡¯s team had just arrived back at the starting line, and the situation here was so darn noisy. He tuned them all out and focused on his own teammates. Fortunately, Everly and Kon had been restored to full mobility, so that meant a trip back to the start was the reset they¡¯d all been hoping it would be. ¡°If my parents are grabbing people and hauling them back here, do we need to rethink tying ourselves to each other?¡± Haoyu was asking. ¡°I want a minute for making another ice weapon. If I had hit Klein with something that was more like a morning star, maybe¡­.¡± I¡¯m surprised it was so easy to get back here. Alden turned to look out over the gym floor while the others regrouped. He still had his shield preserved. The fifty-kilo sandbag was attached to the front, and his zip bag full of dirt with a couple of temper spheres added in for good measure was stuck to the back so that he could reach it if he wanted it. He had loops of spare paracord around his waist like a belt. That was enough prep for another attempt, and he expected there would be a lot of attempts now that they¡¯d seen what it was like out there. He¡¯d actually thought it would be a fight just to return to start, but other than him shielding the team from Galecourse while they ran, they hadn¡¯t had to deal with anything. Why didn¡¯t they hit us again on the way back? Instructor Klein and the Zhang-Demirs were still attacking. Alden saw Haoyu¡¯s parents going after members of Helo¨ªsa¡¯s group and Reinhard¡¯s. And Klein was greeting Mehdi¡¯s team¡ªwhich had just entered the floor a short distance to the right of where Alden now stood¡ªwith an aerial approach only slightly different from the one he¡¯d used on them a minute ago. A few voices quieted as the owners realized something interesting was going on beside them. Alden watched as Klein swung off an invisible block positioned about twenty feet in the air¡­one-handed¡­then hit the starting line barrier right over their heads. Mimicking Mr. Zhang-Demir¡¯s earlier move, he launched himself powerfully toward Mehdi¡¯s fleeing team. Mehdi made the bold decision to tackle one of his own teammates out of the way roughly. The instructor let him dodge several strikes himself before taking him down with a brutal kick to the knee. ¡°He hates legs today,¡± Kon muttered. ¡°What¡¯s he got against our legs? Can¡¯t he break arms to start with like a friendly teacher?¡± Mehdi with a broken leg still moved noticeably better than most people as he tried to get a hit of his own in before Klein sprang away from him. ¡°And he¡¯s doing one-handed handsprings to spite us,¡± Astrid grumbled. ¡°His time will come¡­¡± ¡°Everly hit him in the butt!¡± Kon announced. Astrid whirled. ¡°What? Someone landed a hit?¡± ¡°It was just an ice ball,¡± Everly said, layering ice on another small weight to make a new weapon. ¡°I should have given it spikes.¡± ¡°Astrid, we¡¯re about to go! We need to get back to the others,¡± Max protested as his Morph Brute bounded into the middle of Alden¡¯s team to give Everly a celebratory hug. While Astrid shook Everly back and forth enthusiastically, Alden kept trying to get a visual handle on what was going on. Mehdi was ordering his team to move forward. The huge sandbag on his back and his own high agility were helping him deal with the wind, but Alden thought it was a strange choice for him not to just launch himself back over the starting line to fix the ¡°broken¡± leg. Big Snake was lifting something that looked like a boulder made of dried paint out of his eclectic ammo collection. Mrs. Zhang-Demir was going for one of the scattered members of Helo¨ªsa¡¯s team who was belly crawling toward the finish. Ahead of the belly crawler, there was another wispy flare of the strange light that had to be caused by Ignacio¡¯s grandmother, since she didn¡¯t seem to be doing anything else from her perch against the barrier at the midline.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! This is a lot to process. Students on the floor out there, people who hadn¡¯t even made a first attempt yet raising their voices at each other back here. Galecourse lowering her hands and taking a lap for another reposition, Klein taking out a runner¡¯s leg¡­and Haoyu¡¯s parents were both running this way now, each of them with a superpowered teenager in their arms, their victims¡¯ struggles being ignored as easily as a sleepy toddler¡¯s would have been. I don¡¯t think I can follow it all. He took a step that put him as close to the starting line as possible without passing through the barrier. If they¡¯re moving this fast and there are this many of them and I don¡¯t even know what those light wisps do or how many she cast while we were under attack by Klein¡­ It felt like there was more action happening on the floor in ten seconds than he could unravel in a minute, and it would only get worse once the others got out there, got their bearings, and started getting serious. What do we do to cross? Assign one member of the team to monitor every adult? But the whole team had to respond when under attack if they wanted to have any chance of repelling the trouble without injury. He¡¯d thought maybe the volunteers and the instructors would deliver punishing injuries that would slow progress without halting it. But broken legs and stolen teammates was a little more potent than a slowing. Every attack could result in a situation where you needed a teammate to return here to have their suit undamaged. With those attacks coming so quickly¡­ No wonder it might take two days of class for someone to reach the end. This situation actually looked impossible to defeat right now, at least with a whole team. Maybe three or four people could get taken down like sacrificial lambs along the way, while the remainder of their group ran for victory. But if it was a team challenge was that even valid? Helo¨ªsa¡¯s faithless teammates were basically demolished, so running and crawling ahead without her hadn¡¯t gotten them anywhere. We really are lucky they didn¡¯t just kill us all on our way back, or our whole team would be lying on the floor in a pile of petrified bodies. Lucille and Finlay were looking insanely lucky, too, just crouching out there together with heavy weights keeping their feet on the ground. Jeffy, trying to get back to join them, had just become a target for Klein. ¡°Jeffy!¡± bellowed Max from where he stood on Alden¡¯s right. ¡°Jeffy, you¡ªREAD YOUR TEXT MESSAGES!¡± Alden could practically hear the unspoken ¡°you dumbass!¡± in Max¡¯s voice. When he glanced over, he saw his fellow B-rank was doing more or less the same thing as him. Standing at the starting line, staring really hard at the massacre taking place on the floor. It made Alden feel a little competitive. I can notice stuff, too. He resolved himself to being over-challenged by information quantity and just getting on with it. After all, he¡¯d already volunteered to be the member of their team who focused on the game¡¯s rules. Jeffy was now down to one leg. Mehdi¡¯s team was in the process of being wrecked like Helo¨ªsa¡¯s. Lucille and Finlay¡­were still standing there. That seems unfair. Max¡¯s teammates had been out there longer than anyone else. Why are two S¡¯s going un-attacked? ¡°Oh.¡± He texted his team. [Alden: I think Big Snake, Klein, and Haoyu¡¯s parents only attack people who are moving toward the finish line. We can head back to start or stand still out there, and those three should leave us alone.] Just the realization that moving forward was a prerequisite for being attacked made the battle out there significantly less complicated. The Instructors and volunteers weren¡¯t randomly picking victims. There must be a rotation of some kind they were each adhering to, and the thing making it look completely random right now was the fact that every time it was Lucille and Finlay¡¯s ¡°turn¡± they were being skipped over, meaning there were more attackers focused on fewer moving targets. [Alden: So we never want to be the only team moving forward. And we should wait for some of these others to get their shit together and get out there. We¡¯ll use a run-stop-run strategy to avoid some attacks.] One rule at a time. Figure out what kind of chaos you¡¯re facing, Alden. That¡¯s how you survive. ****** ****** It was so embarrassing to lie on the floor with a pair of huge sausage-shaped sandbags beside you, just waiting for your four S-rank teammates to fight their way back to you. Figuring out that people were safer if they didn¡¯t move forward or try to attack someone had taken S?ren¡¯s team about fifteen minutes. Vandy, Tuyet, Febri, and Ignacio were all so good at attacking and so dedicated to moving toward the finish that they hadn¡¯t noticed the pattern happening until they¡¯d gotten wiped out a few times. Ever since, when it was time to go back to the starting line to collect lost teammates, S?ren¡¯s only job was to lie where they¡¯d left him, between the bags so that he was protected from wind and largely protected from the shrapnel that was becoming more of a problem. He couldn¡¯t even practice glowing anymore, since technically that was the beginning of an attack for him. A way to generate light in pitch dark so that he could still shape. It might make him a valid target. I¡¯m the class joke. My most valuable ability is holding onto bags and not getting blow away. I don¡¯t want to cause problems for the team, but this is torture. At least not going back to the start anymore meant he didn¡¯t have to hear Winston making comments about how someone being babysat by a bunch of S¡¯s didn¡¯t need two sandbags. He wanted heavy bags for a couple of his own teammates, and he was just trying to guilt S?ren into giving them to him. Last time S?ren had argued with him, Winston had made things especially weird by trying a new tactic and insisting that Olive was a girl. Like S?ren was incapable of noticing her very nice girlish qualities on his own. And like it meant something that obligated them all to something archaic. If Olive wanted to ask for a bag, she could ask for a bag. And S?ren would tell her no because sharing resources with competitors was not a normal part of this class. The elemental weights had been limited in number for a reason. Getting off the floor when the wind hit and getting to them first had been part of the game, and if S?ren was going to give them back, he¡¯d give them back to Tuyet and Ignacio who¡¯d gotten them for their team in the first place. And they wouldn¡¯t give them to Olive either because they could use them themselves in various ways. Ignacio was already talking about knifing one open before class ended in about half an hour and throwing the sand in Klein¡¯s eyes for a surprise. At least Olive has illusions she can actually work with. She¡¯s even got them looking all right in the wind, and she surprised Omega Scorpii Demir with one. These bags are the only thing keeping me from being even more helpless. S?ren had put a lot of his points into Strength, so he could carry them. He could block Instructor Waker¡¯s throws with them if Febri ever failed to yank him out of the way in time. If he got separated from the team when they needed to move forward, he could get back to them with the bags¡¯ help. The thing I can¡¯t do is shape. He tried for the billionth time to wrap his head around his element. The gym was full of light from the transparent ceiling high overhead. Light was everywhere. But he was supposed to be able to shape it like it wasn¡¯t radiation¡­like it was this solid thing like water or ground, and that was¡­ He did have the ability. He had caught himself on fire with it. Twice actually. Both times he¡¯d been desperate and angry. He¡¯d managed to hide it the first time. The second¡­ ¡°Are you all right, S?ren?¡± Febri¡¯s voice. A thump as a foot landed on the bag to S?ren¡¯s left. They were back. He sat up and looked at his teammate. Febri¡¯s short black hair was all blowing toward him in the heavy wind. He had one hand wrapped around the bag handle, and the other was giving Tuyet a point of solidity to cling to. ¡°I¡¯m fine. I¡¯m just the class joke.¡± ¡°What?¡± S?ren didn¡¯t get a chance to brush it off. Before he could, there was a series of unfamiliar, sharp cracking sounds from ahead of them and off to the left. The same direction the wind was currently blowing from. The direction the two lead teams were in. Lucille¡¯s team. Kon and Haoyu¡¯s. A second later, Ignacio shouted a warning. Vandy lifted her hands. And then they were all in the middle of a hailstorm. ¡°What?!¡± Febri asked again, this time looking around to see the team that was the source of the flying ice. S?ren tried to move into a squat just so he¡¯d be ready for whatever fresh disaster this was after a class full of that kind of thing, but when he tried to push off the floor with a hand, his palm landed on a small ice chip that burned with cold. And the hand shot out from under him like he¡¯d set it in a puddle of oil. Ignacio had taken a step at the wrong moment, too. He fell into Vandy before righting himself. ¡°It¡¯s not normal ice!¡± Tuyet said. ¡°This is Everly¡¯s patch sp¡ª<>¡± She and Febri both ducked as a piece the size of a cafeteria tray flipped through the air toward them. ¡°What are they doing?¡± Vandy asked. ¡°I just want to know why they¡¯re always in front of us no matter how fast we move! Are Haoyu¡¯s parents going easy on him or something?¡± Febri said. ¡°I don¡¯t think so since they¡¯ve taken him back to the start more than any other member of that team,¡± Vandy said seriously. ¡°I know that, Vandy, I just don¡¯t understand why they¡¯re always out in front with Lucille¡¯s team.¡± ****** ****** ¡°I don¡¯t know what kind of falling-out you¡¯re having with your weapon, but it had better do some more of that super fast whipping around that killed me earlier. Right now!¡± Everly said, standing barefoot in the center of the big ice patch they¡¯d just managed to make together by keeping her spell impression powder protected from the wind with Alden¡¯s shield. ¡°I¡¯m doing my best!¡± Lexi said. He was sitting on the ice between Everly¡¯s ankles and the shield, along with Kon and Alden. Writher was slapping the ice, carving out chunks and shards and sending them flying. Haoyu wasn¡¯t with them. He was trying to make a solo return trip after his father, laughing, had hauled him back to the starting line for the eleventh time since class had started. ¡°Faster!¡± yelled Everly. ¡°Yeah, faster!¡± shouted Kon. ¡°What is this weak whippery?!¡± I know you two are trying to fix him, but you¡¯re just going to give him anxiety, Alden thought. Writher was moving better than it had been. For most of the class, Lexi had had such a tight rein on it whenever it was long that it had been acting more like a lance or a sword than a whip. At least he was letting it be flexible again. All of this was part of a desperate plan to hit Instructor Klein with some ice. Or just make him slip on some ice. The Agility monster was currently downwind near the starting line, going after Winston¡¯s team. It would be their team¡¯s turn next, according to the rotation that Alden had figured out for Klein, and the only way to prevent a leg-breaking was to hit the instructor with something he would consider a successful attack. Hitting him up close was nearly impossible with Writher being less writhy than usual. Maybe, distracted with another team, a single ice chip would find its way beneath the son of an eel¡¯s feet. And he¡¯d slip a millimeter and decide to count it. Rewarding attacks he considered successful enough was Klein¡¯s only ¡°weakness¡± as an opponent. He and Instructor Waker were still teaching the same lessons they had on the first week of class. Klein wanted to see good offense. Big Snake wanted to see defense. Show you¡¯d learned the lesson by hitting Klein with something, or protect yourself or a teammate from one of Big Snake¡¯s pitches, and you¡¯d be skipped for a rotation even if you were moving forward. Big Snake was easy. Klein was a menace. A flicker of light between them and their enemy made Alden pull up the aerial shot of the gym floor he¡¯d borrowed from drone footage. With a thought, he added another X to it in approximately the spot where he¡¯d seen the flicker. This was his homemade map of electrocution traps. Those things would kill you. X¡¯s got added whenever he saw a flicker and subtracted whenever he saw someone die in a trap. His little map here wasn¡¯t perfect, but it was preventing a lot of accidents for their team. They were approaching the three-quarter mark. It was the most forward progress they¡¯d made since class started, and they really wanted to be off Klein¡¯s hit list for just one round so that they could make a break for the finish when Haoyu reached them. By now, every team had realized that standing in place was a trick to avoid attacks, but their team and Max¡¯s seemed to be the only ones actively aware of and trying to manipulate the situation with Klein and Big Snake. Marsha regularly got Klein to leave her team alone, but that was because Marsha attacked every single time she thought she had the slightest chance. Judging by a comment she¡¯d made the last time they¡¯d ended up back at the starting line with her, she was upset that she wasn¡¯t getting as many turns to face Klein head-on as everyone else seemed to be, instead of proud that she was being acknowledged as a good threat. Max had had to clap a had over Jeffy¡¯s mouth before the Aqua Brute could tell her how it worked. [Alden: I finally figured out the Zhang-Demir tactics. When they start to approach us, whoever makes a move to attack or get in between them and a teammate first is the one who gets stolen and taken back to the start. That¡¯s why it¡¯s always Haoyu for our team. He¡¯s the one who watches them the most, so he sees them coming and responds first.] The team had gotten used to him texting in the heat of whatever was going on. There was just no point in waiting. Everyone could read when they got a chance and stopped being ice machines. <> Kon bellowed in Russian. Suddenly the ice was making a sizzling noise as Lexi whipped it. Kon brightened. <> [Alden: I think the Mr. and Mrs. Zhang-Demir approach is about improving our teamwork. Teams ought to be putting people who can run back from the start on their own in front of the danger anyway. It¡¯s like they¡¯re giving us a way to pick who gets separated from the rest.] ¡°You¡¯ve got this, Lexi!¡± he encouraged as soon as he finished typing. He didn¡¯t want his analysis to put a damper on whatever ice-fighting Russian imagery seemed to be working for the brothers. That was also why he wasn¡¯t mentioning the fact that Writher throwing platter-sized chunks of magical ice at all the teams behind them wasn¡¯t going to be a popular thing. Marsha was scything unsuspecting classmates like wheat anytime her follow-up stroke missed one of the adults, so they were hardly as bad as that. Alden heard the pop of Writher suddenly moving more like Writher, followed by a series of incredibly fast cracks from the ice, and he watched as the glowing golden chain went nuts for a second. The light from it burned itself into his eyes, and then, just as quickly as it had started, it was back to looking all stiff, like an overlong rapier. But the blizzard of unnaturally slippery ice chips they¡¯d hoped for was sliding, skittering, and soaring across the gym. A few pieces were thrown by Writher itself; others were driven by the wind. ¡°Yes!¡± shouted Everly, throwing a fist into the air as some of the smaller chips sprinkled down over their ultimate target¡­and literally everyone currently in between them and Klein. Including Haoyu¡¯s mother and father, who both turned away from the teams they¡¯d been heading toward with wolfish grins. ¡°Shit,¡± said Alden. [Alden: By the way, I think Haoyu¡¯s parents might also take long distance attacks against them as an invitation.] ****** ONE HUNDRED NINETY-FOUR: Flashes VI 194 ****** ¡°Stop,¡± said Alden, ignoring the jostling as the others halted right behind him. No more careful walks or extended conversations¡ªthey had fifteen minutes left of class, and they had to make this run count. He was trying to focus on all the necessary details, and in this particular second, the priority was Instructor Klein. The Agility Brute was across the gym, finishing off a whirlwind of an attack on Vandy. Febri shouted something that was probably a curse, grabbed Vandy to carry her onward, and Klein¡¯s head turned for the briefest of moments toward Alden¡¯s increasingly frustrated team. Haoyu was permanently flushed now. Even though he was deliberately stepping up to be his parents¡¯ primary target on their team, he was probably hitting his limit. The spell impression that helped him stay on his feet wasn¡¯t nearly as good as the skills that helped his parents keep their own footing, and it showed when they were repeatedly prying him off the floor. He wanted to be able to stand with them in dangerous places so much that he¡¯d asked Esh-erdi for advice. And despite his even keel and general optimism, he had expected¡ªand been expected by most people who grew up with him¡ªto be an S. It had to feel like crap at a time like this to be getting such frequent reminders that he was miles away from being able to look after his own family. Klein was moving again, toward Reinhard¡¯s team. ¡°Go! Move! Go!¡± Alden yelled, already running. ¡°Snake!¡± screamed Everly. Watching Instructor Waker was her current assignment. Carrying Konstantin, who had one broken leg again, was Haoyu¡¯s. Whenever Everly called out a warning, they all tried to act with coordination based on whatever the wind situation was. No wind now. Alden moved the shield aside for Lexi to intercept the flying blur with Writher and re-angled it to cover himself and the other three from any debris that might get tossed toward them. Don¡¯t hit my shield with Writher. Don¡¯t¡ª Lexi didn¡¯t. A piece of painted board¡ªslowed and sliced by the whip but not entirely diverted¡ªsmashed into it instead. No problem. The board bounced off, and a moment later, Alden leaped over it easily, grateful for the self-mastery wordchain. They were all still running, and his head was moving as he took in the situation behind them. Now Klein was¡ª ¡°Stop!¡± Alden shouted. A flick of Klein¡¯s eyes toward them as the man sprang away from his last victim, a smile so slight that Alden probably shouldn¡¯t be thinking of it as threatening, and then Klein was going for Winston. Winston¡¯s legs and his mouth were both getting enough exercise this class. Every time Alden heard him, he was complaining about his team being treated unfairly, and every time he saw him out on the floor, Winston wasrunning circles around his own teammates like a protective sheepdog. ¡°Go! Go!¡± His tension was up because it was their team¡¯s turn for a visit from Klein. It had been their team¡¯s turn for a while. They were trying to avoid him by stopping every time he finished an attack on another group. As long as they weren¡¯t moving forward when he glanced their way¡­ ¡°STOP!¡± Alden¡¯s shoes squeaked against the floor. And now Mr. Zhang-Demir should be looking at them, too. Did he have to run through the rotation so fast? Alden watched Haoyu¡¯s father glance at them and then at Max¡¯s team, his eyes skimming over both, his smile wide. Max was excellent at monitoring the rotation and ordering stops of his own, so Mr. Zhang-Demir wouldn¡¯t be running in his direction. And we¡¯re only two stolen classmates away from being back on Mrs. Zhang-Demir¡¯s to-do list, Alden thought. That meant he had to start watching her a little harder now, too. If the two groups that were next on her lineup were keeping track of the rotation, they might stop and get passed over. Alden still wasn¡¯t sure if people other than him and Max were bothering to remember it all or not. Most of them seemed to have an idea of which team got picked off immediately before their own, but everyone was making a lot of mistakes, so it was hard to tell who was ignorant of the attack rotations from the adults and who just sucked at monitoring them. Alden¡¯s team didn¡¯t want to sacrifice anyone else, so that meant monitoring absolutely everything from this point on. ¡°Go!¡± The wind was back. Alden barely noticed himself blocking it anymore. Watching Galecourse reposition had been his main job all class period, and it had finally gotten habitual. He even appreciated it when the wind started up now. His shield was amazing for it, and other teams were worse at coping with it. The difficult environment increased the likelihood that they¡¯d screw up, which meant the rotation was less likely to have skips in it that he didn¡¯t anticipate. ¡°Stop!¡± ¡°GO!¡± ¡°Stop!¡± ¡°Right! Right! Right!¡± According to his map, there was a trio of electric traps in their current section of the gym that had to be dodged. The good thing about the rightward run was that it didn¡¯t count as forward progress for attack purposes. The bad thing was that it put them almost side-by-side with Max¡¯s team, and while Alden liked all the members of that team, he also worried about accidentally running into one of Max¡¯s zones. Or having one dropped in front of them on purpose. Student-on-student attacks had largely been accidental damage so far. Who had time to worry about everyone else when they were all struggling against bigger fish? Alden hadn¡¯t even seen some teams make it to the midway point yet, at least not all together. Drama was mostly back at the starting line when people were resetting for another go at it, and it was mostly intrateam instead of interteam squabbles going on. But the possibility of direct attacks out here definitely existed. And now wouldn¡¯t be a terrible time for one, if Max¡¯s team wanted to try it. Teams at the three-quarter mark, which they were both at now, were always the front of the pack. With time getting tight, pushing this far felt more like a last chance. And if a person did think there would be some additional benefit for their team arriving first, then trimming your nearest competition out of the equation before a final blast for the finish wasn¡¯t unreasonable. Alden wasn¡¯t sure how Max¡¯s team felt about that kind of thing. He and his own companions were taking the stance that it was hard enough to deal with the real enemies, and if there was some kind of first prize, it wouldn¡¯t be worth attacking another team for it. They were drawing the line at not worrying about their own collateral damage¡­it was just too much and nobody else was stressing over it. So if an electric kettle bounced off of Haoyu¡¯s fist and knocked someone on another team out, fine. But no aiming for them with it. They ended up freezing again right beside Max¡¯s group. Alden was too busy monitoring all the others, two Zhang-Demirs, and one Klein to appreciate the fact that Jeffy was balancing on a single foot and Max was calmly looking around from his perch on top of Lucille¡¯s back while the wind blew so hard his cheeks were getting flattened by it. ¡°Hey, Finlay!¡± Kon called. ¡°You should definitely go run at Omega Scorpii.Both of them. Think of how cool it will look on the class footage!¡± ¡°Not again, thanks,¡± said Finlay, while Astrid made faces at them all from her own piggyback position. ¡°It would really help us out. Be a hero.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been electrocuted three times, and punchin¡¯ Haoyu¡¯s mum is like introducin¡¯ my hand to an iron bar.¡± ¡°You punched my mom?¡± ¡°You bit your da!¡± ¡°I thought it would surprise him into dropping me!¡± ¡°Go!¡± shouted Alden. At the same time, Max was yelling, ¡°Run!¡± When both teams stopped a beat later, Max¡¯s was out in front. Max being carried by Lucille and Astrid on Finlay¡¯s back meant their slowest member was Jeffy on one foot with a sandbag. And Jeffy was unexpectedly good on one foot. ¡°He is driven by pure enthusiasm, isn¡¯t he?¡± Lexi muttered. ¡°Am I being too slow?¡± Everly asked. ¡°I¡¯m tired, but¡ª¡° ¡°No, you¡¯re fine,¡± said Alden. ¡°I¡¯m the one setting the pace and I wasn¡¯t holding back because of you. I just can¡¯t see what¡¯s going on everywhere and run my fastest now that I¡¯m trying to keep track of all three of them. Should I be less cautious? If we really pushed on the next run¡ª¡± ¡°We¡¯re fine,¡± said Kon. ¡°Look at that beautiful broken bicycle Instructor Waker¡¯s going to throw at us next! That¡¯s all we need to claim our first place. Lexi will stop it. You¡¯ll all hold onto it, and I¡¯ll save¡ª¡± ¡°No,¡± Lexi, Everly, and Haoyu said at the same time. ¡°Go!¡± Alden called. [Alden:Did I miss hearing about a bicycle plan?] ¡°Yes!¡± said Kon ¡°No,¡± said Lexi. ¡°Just keep running.¡± Alden almost didn¡¯t see Mr. Zhang-Demir¡¯s turning face in time. ¡°Stop! Stop!¡± Everly smacked into his back. Mr. Zhang-Demir scooped up a flailing Mehdi instead. Alden was about to call for another mini sprint, but too many teams were stopped. And now Klein was glancing their way unexpectedly. Kon was still talking. ¡°All I need is something Big Snake threw in the last five minutes that¡¯s big enough for the rest of you to hold on¡ª¡± ¡°Go! No! Stop. Sorry.¡± Everly bumped into him again. ¡°I can help call out for one of the Zhang-Demirs if you want,¡± said Lexi. ¡°You¡¯re on shrapnel duty,¡± Alden replied. ¡°I can do it,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Since I¡¯m actually with you all for a change instead of running back from the start.¡± Kon was supposed to be helping watch for the flashes of light that indicated another shock trap going down from Mrs. Sethi, since Alden couldn¡¯t catch all of them. He looked ahead to where Max¡¯s group had managed a run forward that was only about three steps long before freezing. At least it¡¯s not just me who¡¯s having trouble finding an opening. It was getting overwhelming now that they were in this position. [Alden:We don¡¯t want to sacrifice Haoyu again do we?] ¡°What if we can¡¯t get him back fast enough this time?¡± Everly asked. ¡°It¡¯s a long run¡­¡± ¡°Sacrifice me,¡± Kon said. ¡°Just give me rope or our biggest sandbag first. I¡¯ll have it drag me back, and then nobody will say I¡¯m the most useless S.¡± ¡°What are you talking ab¡ª¡± Alden¡¯s heart rate spiked even before he fully understood the problem that might be about to land on them. It was a visual wrongness that tipped him off. There were eight teams. Sometimes a couple of whole teams would be out of play back at the starting line, but there were always multiple people moving forward. Suddenly, the situation on the expansive white floor looked different than it had for nearly two hours. Only two teams taking steps toward the finish¡­ Marsha and Jupiter were attacking Instructor Klein together now. Despite Marsha occasionally shouting something like, ¡°This one¡¯s mine!,¡± or ¡°Don¡¯t help this time!¡± Jupiter seemed immune to requests of that nature. She¡¯d gotten her magical mitts on a huge tree stump, and it was careening around her team, on a path to intercept the instructor. Mrs. Zhang-Demir was running back to the start with a ferocious Helo¨ªsa in her grip. And Mr. Zhang-Demir was pouncing on Rebecca, who¡¯d managed to get three whole boingy jumps in before he caught her this time. When that¡¯s over, it should be¡­but nobody else is moving forward. People were regrouping at the starting line. They were standing still with teammates. Max was ahead, not moving. Alden saw it all in a blink. He realized what it might mean just a little slower. What happens to the rules if everyone stops going forward? Do the attacks just stop coming? Or do the adults go for the group that¡¯s overdue?If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. We¡¯re the group that¡¯s overdue for all three of them. This was the price for being observant and winning at the stop-and-go strategy game¡­increasing difficulty. He didn¡¯t know whether to shout, ¡°Go!¡± or ¡°Don¡¯t move a muscle!¡± The whole class freezing doesn¡¯t work. If everyone is stopped, nobody will ever make the first move. The attackers must have anticipated the possibility, so that means¡ª ¡°Go! Go! Go for the finish line!¡± he said. ¡°Don¡¯t stop. They¡¯re coming.¡± If his team was confused, they didn¡¯t ask questions. ¡°Snake!¡± shouted Everly. The wind was blowing. Alden just plowed ahead and hoped Lexi figured out how to deal with a bicycle missile on his own. Max, Finlay, Astrid, Lucille, and Jeffy were running flat out, too, now. Dammit, thought Alden. Did he arrange this on purpose? Max¡¯s team was owed a series of brutal attacks, too. Both Zhang-Demirs and a Klein. But they weren¡¯t next on the list. Alden¡¯s team was next. Which means as long as we¡¯re running forward, they can safely run forward. The roar of the wind in his ears, a leap over the remains of a desk Big Snake must have thrown at someone earlier, a motion in his peripheral that had to be Klein¡¯s approach¡­ We were almost there. And then he was trying to dodge, hopelessly, as Klein hit him like a battering ram. A clarifyingly sharp pain in his thigh was accompanied by a couple of negligible ones as he fell on top of his own shield with a grunt. The wind he¡¯d been keeping off of them hit hard as he lost preservation, but it hardly mattered. This run was unrecoverable. Kon was on the floor, holding onto him and Everly and yelling something. Lexi and Haoyu were both off the floor, in the arms of Haolyu¡¯s parents on their way back to the start. Alden wanted to curse a little. A lot. The constant back and forth. All class. So close this time. It was our best run. I don¡¯t actually think I can do better than I just did at the paying attention part. Crap, crap, crap. This is bullshit. His brain felt like floor potatoes. He wanted the sauna. And a bed somewhere. And he was still pretending this was training for bokabv demons, so the loss hurt a little extra. ¡°All right,¡± he said. ¡°Sorry about that, guys.¡± [Alden:Sorry, guys. I didn¡¯t think about what might happen if there wasn¡¯t another group trying to move forward at all. I think they would have had to attack us anyway in that situation, so I called for the run hoping we could make it. I¡¯ll keep that in mind next run. We¡¯ve still got time to do this! :) ] That smiley face looks pissed off. Why is there a pissed off smiley? ¡°You¡¯re so upbeat, Alden,¡± Everly said tiredly. The wind had just quit again. He let his head flop over to the side so that he could see her face. They were both lying on the floor. Kon had let go of their legs, and he was sitting up with a sigh. Everly¡¯s silver braid was draped over the high neck of her gym suit. Her face was sweaty. Her glitter eye makeup had smeared sideways on one eye. ¡°Honestly,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m going to keep at it, but I¡¯m not in a nice mood anymore.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± said Alden. The floor felt pretty good against his face. ¡°I¡¯m faking it. I¡¯m actually tired as shit and having unkind thoughts about our teachers.¡± ¡°I¡¯m bright-eyed and happy as a Ground Shaper in mud,¡± said Kon. ¡°I could eat a Brute for breakfast. Duper Supers and by my powers, I am amazing!¡± Everly snorted. ¡°Galecourse is almost finished with her lap of the gym,¡± said Kon. ¡°And you¡¯re napping on our shield.¡± He slapped the bottom of Alden¡¯s sneaker on the leg that was now officially broken and subject to movement restriction. ¡°Stop lying around. Rabbits are supposed to be all bouncy.¡± ¡°I¡¯m getting up. I¡¯m getting up.¡± Alden picked himself and his shield up in time to meet the gust. ¡°All right!¡± Kon said brightly. ¡°Now we¡¯ll grab those pieces of bicycle Writher made for us and go back to collect our people. We¡¯ve got four functional legs to get there on!¡± ¡°Four is plenty for three people,¡± Alden said. ¡°Wanting more would be selfish of us,¡± Kon agreed. ****** Alden couldn¡¯t figure out how the team ahead of them had failed to win, but shortly after he and Kon staggered over the starting line and got their legs unstiffened, Max¡¯s group was right behind them. Lucille was now carrying Finlay and Astrid, who were both either dead or unconscious judging by their total immobility. ¡°What happened?¡± Alden asked. Max glared at him. ¡°I was just making conversation.¡± The Adjuster grimaced and rubbed a hand over his eyes. ¡°I apologize. I¡¯m¡­mentally drained and very disappointed in myself for missing something obvious. I¡¯m going to get my water bottle.¡± Alden watched him go, then looked curiously at Astrid. ¡°We¡¯re telling you nothing!¡± she said brightly. ¡°Well, there¡¯s a bold red line on the floor at the far end of the gym now,¡± said Lexi. ¡°So I¡¯m guessing there¡¯s a surprise right before we get to the finish line.¡± ¡°Yes, but you don¡¯t know what the surprise is,¡± said Astrid. ¡°It kills you. Like most gym surprises. So fun!¡± said Konstantin. ¡°I can still make this work.¡± He was waving two pieces of bicycle around like a madman. ¡°Let¡¯s do it. Let¡¯s go. My turn!¡± Alden stared at him. ¡°I feel like I¡¯ve missed something you want to do. What¡¯s the plan with the bicycle?¡± Kon beckoned him closer like he was going to whisper a secret, then spoke in a normal volume:¡°I can use my skill on the bicycle to envision it back in Big Snake¡¯s ammo collection, then I use my spell on it. We all hold onto part of it and fly across the gym faster than we could run. Right to the finish line.¡± Alden studied the bicycle. It was one of the rental ones available all over Anesidora that he¡¯d used so often while he was in intake. Red, a frame that had probably been warped before Big Snake even threw it, now in two pieces thanks to Writher¡­ ¡°That doesn¡¯t look like an airplane. I do understand what you¡¯re saying, but aren¡¯t there some serious problem with this idea?¡± ¡°No! It¡¯ll work.¡± Did he get the hang of moving stuff with his powers when I was absent on Monday? Alden wondered. From the last he¡¯d seen of Kon¡¯s private practices in the gym, the Adjuster had been great at making whatever he was casting on relocate, but the speed of the relocation ranged from pretty fast to nearly instantaneous. And what happened if the bicycle tried to repair itself while it dragged them across the gym? Alden wasn¡¯t sure whether he should be picturing a trip toward Instructor Waker that was like an amusement park ride with no seatbelts or some kind of horror show where his arms got yanked out of their sockets, and a bicycle brake cable pierced through him on its way to reconnect itself. ¡°I want to make sure everyone gets to try whatever they want to¡­¡± ¡°Kon flipped a one-ton weight on top of himself on Monday,¡± Lexi said. ¡°The bicycle might just drag us across the floor into a trap. Or rip itself out of our hands as soon as he starts to cast,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°I guess we could tie ourselves to it, but I¡¯d rather not bet on it until we have to.¡± Kon looked at Everly. She smiled at him and her shoulders drew up toward her ears. ¡°Kon¡­have you figured out how to control the speed yet?¡± He gasped. ¡°Alden, do you see this? ! My brother, my girlfriend, and my dear friend of many years have no faith in me. But you believe, right?¡± He had such an expectant look on his face. If he¡¯d still been missing his front teeth, Alden might have had to agree to try out his scheme on the spot. ¡°Can we save that until after the next run when we¡¯re a little more desperate?¡± he asked. Kon groaned. ¡°Just one more run,¡± Alden said apologetically. ¡°Maybe we can use your spell as a surprise move at the end?¡± Kon groaned even louder. ¡°All right,¡± said Everly, ¡°let¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°Let¡¯s kill instructor Klein,¡± said a voice from behind them. Alden turned to see Max tapping a finger against the side of his water bottle while he watched what was happening on the floor. ¡°If there¡¯s one less enemy, I think we can reach the end.¡± ****** ****** ¡°Olive is doing fine. By the time she graduates from the program, she should have the talents she needs to make her illusions realistic enough to trick some of us, as well as most dangerous Avowed she might encounter during the course of her career. For now, she can¡¯t mimic scent. The sounds her illusions make tend to be slightly off. Those combined with other beginner insufficiencies should make it very easy for you all to tell which one is real.¡± Torsten rubbed at the back of his neck. ¡°I think it¡¯s fair, as her instructor, to occasionally take her bait when she creates particularly exceptional illusions. I¡¯m sending you all examples of her best work in class so far. When she matches or exceeds it, rewarding that with a false error on your part is an option.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no replacement for the instant feedback a class like this provides,¡± Aparna said approvingly. ¡°Helping them notice their own successes is as important as showing them how far they still have left to go.¡± Torsten brought up the next wanted poster. In it, a tall, dark-skinned boy was holding his arms out to conspicuously cast a spell; his brown eyes were focused on a point in front of him while an athletic brunette girl with an eager smile on her face leaped toward him from the side. She slowed as if caught suddenly in a pool of water, her feet off the floor as she drifted. ¡°This is Max,¡± said Torsten. ¡°He¡¯s very good at persuading his classmates to run headlong into his zones, as you can see with Helo¨ªsa here.¡± ¡°I like him¡± Aparna said at once. What¡¯s he doing here at Celena North? Send him to me at Naya Din.¡± ¡°I thought you might approve of an Adjuster with trapping spells up his sleeves. Max is exceptionally driven and intelligent. His spell impressions have been well chosen for providing him with utility while inconveniencing his enemies. Frankly, at his age and with his mindset, we might have been fast-tracking him through to uni if he were an S¡­as it is, facing some of his less mature classmates and accepting their strengths and advantages over him may be what he needs at this point in his life.¡± ¡°The rank gap is too wide for some B¡¯s.¡± Melanie Carrison looked up from the personal notes she¡¯d been taking on each student. ¡°We had significant percentages drop out when I was a student here.¡± ¡°Drop-outs aren¡¯t much of an issue these days among the B¡¯s. We accept so few now. The ones who make it through are up to the challenge of classes full of more powerful competition. Usually.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a few years younger than you, Melanie, so it must have been different,¡± said Hale, ¡°but I remember the B¡¯s in my classes being unusually ambitious and creative. They often outperformed higher ranked students, and most of them have become quite successful in whatever jobs they¡¯ve found. Though they¡¯re not as famous for their work as they should be.¡± ¡°People find solid performers who do their jobs without stunning successes or failures unworthy of attention,¡± said Klein. ¡°Regardless of rank. It¡¯s a shame that everyday effort and competence don¡¯t get the appreciation they deserve in the current environment. That¡¯s something I hope we prepare these young people for as well.¡± Behind him, Helo¨ªsa had escaped from the first trap only to be caught on an invisible treadmill. Torsten said, ¡°Max took criticism he was given during his first application attempt seriously¡ªtoo seriously, to be honest¡ªand came back to us looking like a very different candidate six months later. That¡¯s the kind of bold decision-making and stubbornness I look forward to watching develop into something special.¡± ****** ****** ¡°Let¡¯s kill him,¡± Max repeated. ¡°We¡¯ll need at least eight people¡ªone member of each team¡ªso that nobody worries about another team stealing first while the rest of us are distracted. They kill Klein while everyone else draws the attention of Omega Scorpii Zhang, Omega Scorpii Demir, and Instructor Waker. When Klein¡¯s down, even if he doesn¡¯t stay down, his own personal restrictions mean¡­you know about his restriction.¡± He was looking at Alden. ¡°Yes.¡± [Alden: He means if a member of every team attacks Klein, then even if he has the option of coming back here to have his suit unfrozen like the rest of us, his own rules should make him leave us alone for a minute or two.] The reward for a successful attack was a reprieve from the instructor¡¯s own attacks. Surely him dying was successful enough for everyone involved to get credit. Max nodded. ¡°So we drop him, and then it¡¯s every team for themselves as we make a break for the finish.¡± ****** ONE HUNDRED NINETY-FIVE: Flashes VII 195 ****** ¡°Alden,¡± said Max, ¡°we¡¯ll need your help.¡± Good. Tired as Alden was, the idea of being involved in a plan like this was energizing. ¡°I¡¯m willing to do whatever you think I can. Let¡¯s go for it.¡± Max lowered his voice. ¡°I¡¯ll handle getting Klein into position at the right moment. You take charge of texting everybody and helping them to coordinate.¡± ¡°Oh. Okay.¡± Haoyu chuckled. Alden shot him a look. ¡°I think he wanted to help kill¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be the text messaging person,¡± Alden interrupted his roommate. ¡°That¡¯s something I can totally be responsible for. No problem.¡± Max frowned at him. ¡°You¡¯re fast at it. And for the attack, we do need to use the high ranks who can deal significant¡ª¡° ¡°I understand that.¡± ¡°And aren¡¯t you quite close to wearing out your skill?¡± ¡°Sure. I¡¯m the phone guy. That¡¯s me. What¡¯s the plan?¡± ¡°Speed,¡± said Max. ¡°If this isn¡¯t over in the time it takes for Galecourse to run one of her laps, then we¡¯ve probably lost our chance. Here¡¯s how I think it should go¡­¡± ****** ****** [Alden: Good evening, everybody.As you might have noticed, the end of class is nigh, and none of us are doing as well as we¡¯d like. My team and Max¡¯s are back at the starting line, and we¡¯ve come up with a plan that will take a lot of pressure off everybody if it¡¯s successful. This might give us all a chance of making it to the finish line before the end of class. A squad of high-speed, high-offense representatives from each team will be put together for the purpose of ending Instructor Klein¡¯s reign of terror. We don¡¯t have time for debate. The only thing you have to do if you want to participate is agree to send the teammate in question to a designated spot when Galecourse next repositions. Klein will be there, as will Omega Scorpii. The chosen fighters should ignore Omega Scorpii. Focus all attack efforts on Klein. Once Klein is dead, you can go back to your own teams. As thanks for your participation, you will be rewarded with a feeling of pride and a pair of maps marking the location of all the flashing electrocution traps that are known to my team and Max¡¯s. The maps and the absence of one evil Agility Brute should make your final runs easier. We hope the following Avowed will agree to be squad members: Lexi Finlay Helo¨ªsa Tuyet Reinhard Marsha Mehdi Winston Please reply swiftly. ] ****** ****** <> Ignacio¡¯s Meister knives were in his hands, and while the members of their team jogged forward, he was looking at a pile of broken electronics and smashed wood that had formed against the barrier to their right. Big Snake had been throwing for long enough, and the wind had been blowing for long enough, for a few drifts like that to appear in the gym. S?ren had noticed Ignacio glancing at them several times now. ¡°You¡¯re checking random texts?!¡± Febri shouted over the wind. ¡°Who has time for that? Watch for that crazy man! He keeps praising my efforts while he¡¯s carrying me around like a Boy Brutely doll! I just know he¡¯s going to tell Haoyu I tripped.¡± ¡°Tripping in a situation like that could happen to anyone,¡± S?ren said. He wasn¡¯t glad that the others had gotten more and more stressed, but he was glad that them being stressed gave him something to do. Trying to cheer them up wasn¡¯t much, but it was better than lying on the floor waiting to be saved. Or being carried back to the start because he¡¯d been killed by a strike from Marsha. Or having people make comments about his sandbags. His teammates had cut one up for the sand and discovered that throwing it in their instructor¡¯s face was about as effective as everything else they¡¯d tried against him. But S?ren still had a 120 kilo one. Holding onto it kept his feet firmly on the ground, and he could imagine he was giving whoever was behind him¡ªTuyet right now¡ªa break from the wind if nothing else. His muscles were burning from carrying weights all class, so at least he¡¯d gotten a workout for his body even if his power was good for nothing. ¡°You¡¯ve been doing Apex-level work, Febri,¡± he added. ¡°We¡¯re ahead of everyone right now.¡± Haoyu and Kon¡¯s team had gotten wiped out making a bold run for the finish, and Lucille¡¯s team had run into the trap that Ignacio had quietly warned them would probably be waiting at the end of the gym. He knew his own grandmother¡¯s talent, so there was an advantage there. ¡°I¡¯m an Agility Brute! I can¡¯t trip. I might have to change schools after this.¡± ¡°The message is from Alden,¡± Tuyet said, her own voice at a volume that made it difficult for S?ren to hear her. ¡°I don¡¯t know what to¡­you all should read it. I¡¯ll do whatever the team wants.¡± ¡°You check messages during class, too!?¡± Febri exclaimed. ¡°We need to stop now,¡± said Vandy. ¡°I think Mrs. Zhang-Demir might come for us next.¡± S?ren wished she would deliver warnings in a less factual tone. Across the gym, Alden had been yelling ¡°Stop!¡± and ¡°Go!¡± so urgently that S?ren had almost obeyed him a couple of times. Vandy was good at reporting possible danger compared to the rest of them, but with Febri being so rambunctious and talkative¡ªmoreso as he got annoyed with himself¡ªsometimes the importance of her words didn¡¯t register through his chatter. Now they did, and S?ren halted, looking toward the finish through eyes he had to keep in a squint thanks to the wind. Instructor Waker¡¯s almost done with his pile of trash. He¡¯s not going to come out here and fight at closer range when he runs out of things to throw, is he? He tightened his grip on his sandbag¡¯s handle, while he reached up to check the message notification with the other hand. Everyone was quiet for a few seconds. ¡°Why do they want¡ª?!¡± <> Ignacio hissed, elbowing Febri in the arm. ¡°Secret. You know? Secret.¡± ¡°But I want to¡­¡± Febri lowered his voice. ¡°I feel like I should have been selected. That¡¯s all I¡¯m saying.¡± ¡°Of course we should do this,¡± Vandy said quietly. ¡°If the rest of the teams are going to try, we can¡¯t take advantage of their efforts and race ahead of them.¡± ¡°Having the maps would be nice, too,¡± said Tuyet. She touched the dart case hanging from a belt at her hip. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t it? I don¡¯t mind going. I can make it back to you all.¡± They were all exchanging looks and nods. The looks and nods¡­didn¡¯t really include S?ren. I¡¯m so tired of myself. ¡°Wish it could be me. Make sure you get him,¡± said Febri. <> Ignacio patted one of the modified knife rolls slung over his shoulders. Tuyet shook her head. ¡°I hope people understand how to time a group attack,¡± Vandy was saying. ¡°Getting everyone to cooperate might be harder than they¡¯re expecting. Someone could hurt you accidentally, Tuyet. Maybe we should send one more person with you as backup.¡± ¡°You should all go,¡± S?ren said. Four pairs of eyes looked at him. ¡°You should. Three more S¡¯s¡­¡± He was looking at the list. It was obvious what the teams planning this had wanted from the attackers. Fast, because Instructor Klein was fast. The most lethal shots possible, because only one might make it through. This wasn¡¯t supposed to be a drawn-out fight. But they¡¯d been limited by needing to pick a member of each team. Nobody would have agreed to help if one team was being left out. It would be like giving them a free win. But Ignacio would definitely have been included if he¡¯d been on another team. Febri would be better than Mehdi or Helo¨ªsa. This is a way I can help¡ªencouraging them to do something other than guard me like I¡¯m a baby. ¡°All of you go,¡± he said. ¡°Watch each other¡¯s backs and coordinate with each other so that the plan works better for everyone and you all get back safely. Vandy might even get a chance to attack.¡± The Sky Shaper couldn¡¯t do much with her element when her mother was dominating it. An attack that took place during Galecourse¡¯s down period would let her work. ¡°I¡¯ll lie on the floor between the sandbag and the barrier. Nothing will hit me, and I won¡¯t move a micrometer.¡± I won¡¯t give you any trouble. I won¡¯t hold you back. He could tell they were tempted. This class hadn¡¯t given them as many opportunities to fully use their powers as they¡¯d had during duels. ¡°At least one of us should stay here with--¡± Febri said. ¡°Here,¡± said S?ren, typing quickly before they could argue. Have fun being real Avowed. ****** ****** Alden stood in a huddle with his team, waiting for responses to come in. Nearby, Max was having a quiet discussion with his own teammates. They were going to be the bait, since Klein owed them an attack. As soon as they got a certain distance out onto the floor, the instructor and Omega Scorpii should come for them, and they needed to be on the same page about what they were going to do when that happened. Getting this attempt completely organized in the next ninety seconds or so is ridiculous, thought Alden, but at least it doesn¡¯t leave a lot of room for people to argue. He craned his neck to see what was happening on the floor. A couple of teams were being way too obvious about the fact that they¡¯d just been invited to join a scheme, but maybe Klein wouldn¡¯t notice with Mehdi currently screaming and swinging what might have been a curtain rod at him. The first message notification appeared on Alden¡¯s interface, and more rapidly followed: [Helo¨ªsa: Yes!] [Reinhard: Where do I shoot from?] [Marsha: I¡¯ll be attacking from the west. Two slashes as I run in. As many as possible when I finally get there.] [Reinhard: I¡¯ve been saving up a big one.] [Marsha: I¡¯m not dodging any of you.] ¡°I don¡¯t know about this.¡± Lexi was standing to Alden¡¯s left, whispering at the others on their team. ¡°What if Writher hits all the wrong people? Haoyu or Everly might be better.¡± ¡°If you destroy our classmates instead of the instructor, I¡¯ll give you my stipend next month,¡± said Kon. ¡°Because it will be funny for years to come. But publicly, I¡¯ll disown you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not funny!¡± ¡°You¡¯ll be fine,¡± said Alden, frowning as Marsha added a text specifying which of Klein¡¯s body parts the first two slashes would be aimed at. Is that a useful thing for the others to know? I guess it¡¯s not unhelpful. ¡°And we have to donate our best offense to the fight since we¡¯re organizing. That¡¯s you.¡± He wanted to say more, but some of these people needed replies. With the instigator of the plot busy and no time left¡­.Alden decided to come up with his own answers. [Alden: All first attacks should arrive the second Klein reaches Max¡¯s team. We don¡¯t want him to be able to respond to them one at a time, so you guys need to try to hit from multiple directions simultaneously. I guess Marsha is coming from the west, which is toward the front entrance. Helo¨ªsa, you might want to start moving as soon as you see Max¡¯s team heading back onto the floor so you don¡¯t end up behind.] [Winston: I¡¯ll help of course. Even if nobody else has been willing to help my team all class.] ¡°What¡¯s he talking about?¡± asked Lexi. ¡°Did he ask for help with something?¡± ¡°All I ever heard him complaining about was weights,¡± said Alden. ¡°He thought his team deserved to have some at the start. But there¡¯s a ton of heavy stuff on the floor now, and we¡¯re all in the same position. It¡¯s not like he got behind because of it. Never mind. Can¡¯t talk.¡± [Winston: If it looks good, I¡¯ll feature you all on my channel.] [S?ren: All of my team is coming except for me.] Alden¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°Wow,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°That will help. We don¡¯t want so many people that they get in each other¡¯s way, but that¡¯s significant added firepower.¡± ¡°Mehdi¡¯s down,¡± said Everly. ¡°His team is just standing around. Why are they so useless? Should I go get him since he¡¯s part of the plan?¡± [Marsha: I¡¯ll focus on low shots. Let the archer and Tuyet take high ones. Don¡¯t bother dodging me, Shrike.] [Alden: If someone dies during the attack, our team will drag them over the starting line to fix their suit, so don¡¯t hesitate to go for it with everything you¡¯ve got.] ¡°I¡¯ll grab Mehdi,¡± Haoyu was telling Everly. ¡°One of your ice patches will put everyone else at a disadvantage if Klein decides to run toward it. He¡¯ll go aerial, and they¡¯ll skid around.¡± He ran onto the floor. ¡°We¡¯re on corpse duty?¡± Kon asked. He was still holding his bicycle. ¡°Did you just decide that spontaneously, Alden?¡±Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. ¡°But why can¡¯t I help, too?¡± Astrid was asking Max. Everyone was talking over each other. Alden hoped his own teammates didn¡¯t mind about the corpse duty. It seemed like something somebody needed to volunteer for. Letting one of the chosen fighters die half a gym or more away from their team without offering any help would be a horrible thing to do, and he was feeling as responsible for this plan as he could, given the fact that he was still surprised it was happening. [Reinhard: I have a name. It¡¯s not just archer.] [Alden: Sounds good, Marsha. Sounds great, S?ren! Here are your maps, everybody. Good luck!] ¡°I think Galecourse is about done with this cycle. Time to go.¡± Max looked back at Alden. ¡°Are you ready?¡± Alden blinked. ¡°I¡¯m just making this up as I go along. I¡¯m ready to do more of that.¡± Max nodded. ¡°See you at the end of class.¡± He leaped onto Jeffy¡¯s back, Astrid hopped onto Lucille¡¯s, and his team strolled through the barrier onto the floor. So it¡¯s about to start. Just like this. Max will try to time their forward pushes to drag Klein in at exactly the moment Galecourse stops¡­what do I take care of from here? He confirmed that his shield was in good shape, grabbed his large zip bag full of dirt and pried it open with his teeth, checked on Haoyu¡¯s return progress with a stiff-suited Mehdi¡­ Okay. Beside him, Lexi was breathing so hard Alden could feel it on his face. The pressure had to be bad. Lexi wasn¡¯t back in his groove within their own team, and that was with them all reassuring him that mistakes with his unruly death whip didn¡¯t bother them. Being a part of an unanticipated battle that was important to the whole class¡­ If only one person screws up, everyone¡¯s going to blame them. ¡°Hey, Lexi,¡± said Alden, ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to mention this until we were at the spa later, because I¡¯m not a hundred percent sure and I wanted to check the footage¡ª¡± ¡°You guys are going to the sauna again?¡± ¡°That¡¯s where you and Haoyu go after every class?¡± Alden talked over Kon and Everly. ¡°I think you might have hurt one of Instructor Klein¡¯s hands earlier. With Writher.¡± Lexi frowned at him. ¡°I¡¯m serious. He¡¯s only been using one hand all class. It might be on purpose just to rile us up or give himself a challenge, but I noticed it after that first attack on us, and it hasn¡¯t changed. Maybe you chopped off all his fingers or something.¡± ¡°I would know if I¡¯d¡ª¡± ¡°You were trying hard to hit the instructor then,¡± Everly pointed out. ¡°Very hard.¡± Lexi reddened. ¡°You don¡¯t have time to be embarrassed,¡± Alden said. ¡°I just wanted you to know I think you might already have dealt the biggest blow to Klein of anyone here today. So¡­just go do it again, right?¡± He lifted their shield and stepped onto the floor with the others behind him. ****** ****** ¡°As far as how many teams we expect to succeed,¡± Torsten said in response to a question Hale had just asked, ¡°there¡¯s no set number. If some of them manage to put together a group that breezes through us all today, we might consider a more advanced challenge for them on Friday, but I don¡¯t imagine that will happen. ¡°We have the usual mix of strong personalities and new-Avowed foibles in this class. Some of them still think they¡¯re on their way to being invincible. A few are so nervous about their own strength that they can¡¯t use it properly. Every single one of them had the ambition to try for this, and when that ambition meets a challenging reality, they respond in so many unpredictable ways. Teamwork isn¡¯t easy, especially under those conditions.¡± Aparna spoke from her desk by the window. ¡°Maybe they¡¯ll surprise us.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind that,¡± Torsten said with a nod. ¡°I¡¯d like it even more if some of them surprised themselves.¡± ****** ****** So far, being a high rank was almost exactly like Ignacio¡¯s parents and grandparents had told him it would be. He had plenty of examples in his family, and he¡¯d had a lifetime to know it was probably coming. The things that surprised him weren¡¯t small to him, but they were small enough that his older relatives hadn¡¯t thought to warn him about them. Like the way so many adults looked at him and listened to him when he wore his rank on his name tag, as if he were a more respectable person than he¡¯d been just three months ago. How his slightly enhanced vision made those looks stand out. The profound thrill and loss he¡¯d felt after throwing a knife for the first time as an Avowed and having it sink up to the hilt in a practice target he¡¯d struggled to hit the day before. His life had been split like the target, like his family had said it would be, like every Avowed¡¯s was. He¡¯d gotten in a little throwing practice before his bedtime one night. Then he woke up hours later, having been selected for the duty that two species had decided before his birth would be his. Ignacio had made a pre-affixation bucket list, but in the end, he¡¯d only taken care of what he¡¯d thought at the time were the most important wishes on it. He¡¯d hugged all the people he loved with his full strength, he¡¯d played a round of every sport he enjoyed with his friends, and he¡¯d had sex. A neighbor a year older than him had put the same item on her own list of things she wanted to try out before she received her powers. He was still worried completing that last one as if it was a chore, with a casual acquaintance, hadn¡¯t been the best choice for him. It was a more-enjoyable-than-not education, but it really hadn¡¯t lived up to the romantic scenarios in his imagination. And maybe it was a small part of the reason he had affixed and applied to school without finishing the whole list. Around that time, a long goodbye to his ordinary humanity had started to be more depressing than fun, and Ignacio had decided to look forward instead. And now I¡¯m here. And I¡¯m this. The wind had just stopped. They were already moving together¡ªhim, Febri, Tuyet, and Vandy¡ªand it was like playing football with his friends on that last day before he affixed. The same rush, the same worry about letting the team down, the same focus on a goal. Running was deceptive. His highest speed strained him in exactly the same way a sprint always had. It felt so similar to his mind and his muscles, and yet stationary objects flew past faster. People who said they were the same person before and after becoming Avowed¡­maybe they were better than Ignacio somehow. He wondered about that every now and then. Mostly, he thought they were fake for trying to pretend they were too humble for the changes to really change them. The body you inhabited and the things you could do with it affected who you were, didn¡¯t they? Your first affixation didn¡¯t make you a better or worse person, but it definitely made you different. Be careful shaking peoples¡¯ hands. Learn to pay attention to how you move through crowds. Accept that fact that everyone on Earth has an opinion about how Avowed should use their powers and every Avowed on Anesidora has one about how S¡¯s should behave. Throw knives in the Celena North High gym. So many sharp things around right now. I¡¯ll take them all. He threw one of his knives to the right, past Febri¡¯s back. Then he activated the Leading Knife skill with a whisper. He was trying to break the habit of that unnecessary whisper, but right now, he couldn¡¯t afford to think about it. He let his weapon zip over a pile of debris, then recalled it. He liked the way his Meister weapons occupied their own special place in his attention. With his eyes closed, he still would have known which direction his knife was coming from. Wrapping his hand around the hilt was so natural. Throw it again before the following shards of metal, splinters of wood, and knives catch up. Keep them all in the air. Ignacio had decided he would be a Meister three years ago. He still remembered the first time he had answered someone too seriously when they asked him what he wanted to be one day. You were supposed to say a superhero. Or a celebrity. A politician or an athlete. You weren¡¯t supposed to say what Ignacio had picked up from some of his relatives. If I¡¯m destined to be a machine of war, then I will try to be an excellent one. The Artonans weren¡¯t creating so many combat-capable Avowed on a whim. They were doing it, as they¡¯d always said, because Earth or the Triplanets might one day need them. All the people who thought they could ignore that or avoid it were just thinking in the short term and hiding their heads in the sand. Strong Avowed were valuable. Eventually, valuable resources got used. That was what Ignacio¡¯s family believed. Maybe it wouldn¡¯t be for a long time. Fifty years. A hundred. Ignacio still planned to be alive then. But maybe for a hundred years, I get to be a superhero. And have a lot of fun with these new classmates of mine. Vandy¡¯s arms were up. Febri had run ahead, trying to time his arrival to match the other close-range fighters. Tuyet¡¯s expression had shifted to that serious one she always wore when she threw. Instructor Klein had just reached Jeffy¡¯s team. I¡¯ll help cut off his chance of escaping into the air. The swarm that followed his blade was so thick that Klein would be lucky to fit a single hand between the shards. ****** ****** Tuyet was tired, and she felt ungrounded. It had been the same ever since that horrible night. She wished she could go back to the first week of school again¡ªgetting away from the stressors at home, feeling grown-up with Vandy and Everly in their new apartment. She had been stunned that she¡¯d made it into school with them when so many of the others had been cut, even though she¡¯d known that the S, the class, and all the practice she¡¯d done should help. A few days after they¡¯d moved in, they¡¯d been laughing together, painting each other¡¯s nails, and trying to get to know Maricel. Having a new friend their age who didn¡¯t know anything about Anesidora was exciting. For some reason, Maricel hadn¡¯t explored much at all during her months in intake, so they had a list as long as the Span of everything she needed to see and do. Now, a third of that list was ruined by the floods, and Maricel was gone all the time. A lot of it was publicity or working with Fragment, but Tuyet thought she was also training in private. Or she was just avoiding the apartment. Last night, Tuyet had gone to visit the members of her family who were staying at her older sister¡¯s place. She¡¯d gotten back to campus late and had decided to wait up to see Maricel when she came in. But if her roommate had returned at all, it must have been sometime after two o¡¯clock in the morning, when Tuyet fell asleep on the sofa, and before six, when she woke up thanks to a vague nightmare and a text message from her brother about the nightmare. She was supposed to tell on him when he read her mind. But he couldn¡¯t help himself, and if she told on him, they¡¯d just rush their plans to stick him on a new residential ship even farther out at sea. Where he couldn¡¯t check on the people he worried about when the panic was bad for him. Right now, as uncomfortable as things were for everyone else, they were better for him. The government was quietly grateful to him. He was being allowed to spend time in Apex. The family had all eaten breakfast together one morning, and he¡¯d made them coffee. And the Artonan general, the female one, had come to see him twice. She had thanked him. He¡¯d been going through a difficult spell¡ªlistening hard and far, as usual¡ªwhen he picked up the sound of one of the minds on the submerged boat. He was the reason the System had known the attack was going to happen just before it did. It was hard to say what those extra seconds had bought, but Tuyet knew they must have bought something. Someone¡¯s life. Someone¡¯s home. He finally gets to be the hero he always wanted to be. And he doesn¡¯t get any credit for it. His choice, her parents¡¯ choice, and the government¡¯s. Unfair. Practical. Telling Anesidora her brother had helped save them like that would make a few people accepting of him, maybe, but it would make a lot more angry. It was the same reason Tuyet didn¡¯t tell when he randomly texted her things like, ¡°What are you scared of? Don¡¯t think such unkind thoughts about yourself!¡± Or, ¡°That person is lying to you. Stay away from them. Go home.¡± Can I help? Watch out! Do you need me? Do you need me, Tuyet? If you need me, I¡¯ll be there as fast as I can. Nobody wanted to hear that a Sway who¡¯d taken severe mind damage on one of his first ever jobs was quietly growing more and more powerful just offshore. Nobody wanted to believe that all he ever did was watch over the island and worry about the people he loved. Nobody wanted a superhero like that. And they never would. So they would get his little sister instead. She wouldn¡¯t be as good; she knew that. He¡¯d been charming and gentle, and even as a Sway, he¡¯d been welcomed with open arms by the populace of a small city with a serious crime problem. The idea of being famous made Tuyet so nervous she wanted to throw up, and the thought of everyone judging her performance and talking about her all the time made her feel like she needed resuscitation. But she was going to become a superhero. She was believing it more every day. She could feel it in the way her hands went steady when she plucked a dart from her gym case, the way her thoughts cleared when she selected her spell. Shrike¡¯s Leading Knife wouldn¡¯t be a problem. Her darts never followed it. She ran nearly as fast as an A-rank speedster her age. She left all her anxiety behind her. When she decided on a target, when she fixed her eyes on it, it never quite looked like what it was. It wasn¡¯t Torsten Klein, breaking Max¡¯s leg and twisting away from Lucille¡¯s grab. Instead, it was the unregistered Sway who¡¯d tortured her brother¡¯s mind¡ªfaceless, cruel, and still at large. She was going to find that person, that unregistered who must be so terrifyingly powerful to have ripped into a trained S-rank like that. And whoever they were, wherever they were, she wasn¡¯t even going to give them the chance to see her coming. No heroic speeches for a camera, no appeals to their humanity and offers of forgiveness if they came to Anesidora with her peacefully. One day, she was just going to be there in the shadows where they were hiding, and before they could blink, quicker than they could think¡­ Tuyet was going to bury every dart she had in their brain. Her arm moved like a whip. The first one flew. ******* ****** It was happening. Alden and Everly were crouching with his shield over their heads. They were trying to reduce their damageable surface area while still keeping good visibility and remaining mobile. Kon had just split off from them. He was running forward and to the right across a thin scattering of dirt. Alden had flung his whole bag full in the direction of Max¡¯s team just to give himself a very small, very temporary patch of ground to work with now that all hell was about to break loose. Kon had said he was getting a little closer ¡°for corpse duty.¡± Alden was sure he just wanted to find an opening to throw the broken bicycle at their instructor. He was also sure that this meant he and Everly were going to end up corpse-dutying Kon back to the starting line in about ten seconds. But, you know, good for him for trying. Gym has been so busy for the rest of us today, and he didn¡¯t get to do much. Spiking a bike into Klein¡¯s face is a noble goal. There was a moment of something that sounded like quiet even though it wasn¡¯t. No wind, just pounding feet as several teams dashed for the finish while the chosen people raced toward Alden and Everly¡¯s position, and to the fight. Reinhard was drawing his bow. Marsha¡¯s glaive was starting its first swipe. Alden wished he could see all of it at once so that he could admire the way this spur-of-the-moment attack came together from so many directions. It was going to be lethal to a lot of the wrong people. That was unavoidable under the circumstances. ¡°Kill Klein no matter the cost,¡± wasn¡¯t the kind of plan that would leave the attackers unscathed. But he was still so impressed seeing them move. Febri looked like Klein himself, ducking under Marsha¡¯s first magical strike, sliding across the floor beneath Writher to spring up toward the instructor¡¯s face. And at the same time, the ranged weapons were arriving. One of Shrike¡¯s knives had picked up what must have been everything sharper than a thumbtack on its way in. It was dragging a spherical cloud of pointy danger in its wake. Helo¨ªsa was throwing what was left of the washing machine. Mehdi was flying over Alden¡¯s head¡­flying? Yes, flying. He¡¯d been hurled by Haoyu from back at the starting line. Alden didn¡¯t have space to wonder if that was a mutual decision, or if Haoyu was adding some pizzaz of his own to the event. Klein was already taking the washing machine on a shoulder, dodging Febri, swiping Mehdi the Missile out of the air with a leg. Nope¡ªMehdi was grabbing onto the leg. Mehdi was flying off the leg. Mehdi was catching himself against the floor with just his hands and redirecting his body back into the fray. The Zhang-Demirs had already plucked Max and Lucille from the madness. Alden watched them both jump high to avoid Writher, which was awfully rigid. Everyone, including Klein, was just kind of limboing under it or hopping over it. Lexi, thought Alden. Come on. Do it like you were earlier. So fast I can¡¯t even see it. That¡¯s what we really need. Kon was almost¡ª A hand slapped Alden¡¯s arm. ¡°Snake.¡± Everly¡¯s voice was urgent. ¡°Snake, Snake! Whose turn is it?¡± At the other end of the gym, Instructor Waker was lifting some kind of heavy metal cage that could possibly have been a dog crate. For a very large, strong dog. Whose turn? thought Alden. Oh¡­it might be¡­ Then, before he could finish realizing that the dog crate would probably be flying toward one of his own teammates, a person crossed his line of sight. The person was very fast, and he was way out there, a few paces beyond the three-quarter mark. Why the hell is Winston all the way up there instead of back here with us? Briefly, Alden¡¯s eyes flicked away from Big Snake and the cage, following the direction of Winston¡¯s run. The speedster wasn¡¯t aiming for the finish line. There was nothing in the direction he was heading except for S?ren, lying on the floor between the barrier and a sandbag. That piece of shit. He wanted to be mad about it. To fix it. But his team¡¯s fight was here, and he didn¡¯t have the attention to spare. ****** ONE HUNDRED NINETY-SIX: Flashes VIII 196 ****** Ignacio had left him with a knife. S?ren wasn¡¯t sure if it was to protect him or to keep him company while he waited here, flat on the floor, snugged between his tube-shaped sandbag and the barrier. Maybe when a person had several dozen knives on them they started to feel more like stickers or pieces of chewing gum than weapons. A friend is sad? Bored? Offer them one of your sharp things to brighten their day! It was one of his nicer knives, too. Or one of his nicer-looking ones anyway. Ignacio¡¯s gym supply was mostly made up of knives he didn¡¯t mind ruining, so they tended to be battered. This one had a long double-edged blade polished to a mirror finish. S?ren tilted it and noticed the way the light bounced off to shine on the rough fabric of the sandbag. A piece of shiny metal is a better Shaper than I am. That was an exaggeration and a pointless thought. More important things were happening. S?ren angled the blade so that he could see some of the fighters reflected in it as they closed in on Instructor Klein. Amazing. They look amazing. And it would have been completely unmanageable to be there in the middle of them. Figuring out where Finlay and Febri were moving would be impossible, and that was only two of the people involved. What if they do it? What if we actually make it to the end today? I could get some help from¡ª The feeling of his sandbag being dragged away from him startled him so much that he gasped and sprang into a crouch, knife held up to defend himself. ¡°You can come with me now,¡± Winston Heelfeather said, looking down on him through mirrored lenses. ¡°I¡¯ll take you across with my team.¡± He was hefting S?ren¡¯s sandbag onto his own shoulders. ¡°What?¡± S?ren lowered the knife because Winston was talking like he was completely confident he had S?ren¡¯s cooperation for some obvious plan. S?ren wondered if he¡¯d missed a sudden problem that made a team switch-up necessary or if a message had come that he hadn¡¯t noticed. And then Winston said, ¡°I¡¯ll be taking this in any case, to protect my team. Come with us if you want. It¡¯s better for you than waiting around and better for the S¡¯s if they don¡¯t have to take care of you. Don¡¯t say I didn¡¯t give you a fair chance.¡± S?ren¡¯s mouth fell open. He started to realize what was going on even though he didn¡¯t understand why it was going on. But before he could form an argument or lunge forward, the speedster was spinning and taking off. As S?ren accepted the reality of his situation in the next blink, his thoughts went from tumbling confusion to rising fear and fury. My sandbag! Why?! His team¡¯s running ahead? He was supposed to be helping! The plan! My teammates! What happens when the wind starts? I have a knife! He was running after Winston Heelfeather. He was throwing the knife like it was a ball because he had no idea how to throw a knife. It sailed past Winston¡¯s left ear. S?ren was losing ground. That tended to happen when you chased after Speed Brutes, but¡­ I can¡¯t. I can¡¯t let them all down and ruin this last run because I couldn¡¯t even protect a bag of sand. He tried to run faster, and couldn¡¯t. He looked around for something else to throw, and there was nothing. The knife was shining on the floor, too far away for S?ren to pick it up, but so bright that it looked like he ought to be able to in another way. Fine, he thought, pointing at it. Fine. He jabbed his other index finger at a glinting piece of debris in a distant pile. He started to glow. I don¡¯t care how useless it is or how stupid I look doing it. I don¡¯t care if all I manage is making him sparkle. By the time the wind hits, I¡¯m going to use every last bit of magic the System gave me. If he sparkles bright enough, maybe it¡¯ll distract him so I can kick him in his stupid face. ****** ****** ¡°If you happen to see S?ren trying to shape, give him a little time to finish the job,¡± Torsten advised the volunteers in the classroom. ¡°He¡¯s having difficulty grasping his powers, and since his results have been so lackluster, he rarely musters the confidence to use anything but his fists in actual combat. I¡¯ve spoken with him about it. I told him that even if he only warms up the enemy¡¯s feet, he still ought to try to get them warmer than he did the last time. I hope that was the right thing. ¡°He¡¯s agreed to work on it, but I expect him to be especially reluctant today because of the team component. The pressure of our last team challenge was a little too much for him, and he worries about bothering the other students.¡± He looked like he wanted to say more, but he only glanced once again at S?ren¡¯s wanted poster, sighed, and moved to the last one on the list. ¡°And finally, this is our first Rabbit student in the Talent Development Program. Alden Thorn.¡± ****** ****** All class, Instructor Waker had been practicing his pitching from a fixed position at the far end of the gym, by the finish line. He¡¯d only dashed around or jumped up into the air a few times to change the angle of his throws. Alden had been more focused on when the strikes would be coming than where exactly they¡¯d come from, but he thought Big Snake usually changed up his style when the people he wanted to hit were glued to another team. One strategy for dealing with the shock traps was to follow in the footsteps of others and hope they ran into them all for you, and Big Snake obviously didn¡¯t consider it fair sportsmanship to hit his targets by sending one of his projectiles through a team enjoying a reprieve from his attacks. So he moved when he needed to. He was moving now, preparing to bounce into the air on legs that could kick down trees when the man was in the mood for some casual woodcarving. Why isn¡¯t he classified as a hyperbole already? The question flashed through Alden¡¯s mind as one of his feet hit his own personal ground patch and launched him forward and upward. Before he could think through whether he should protect the teammate he guessed the giant dog crate might be aimed at, his body had already committed him to trying it. Haoyu, Lexi, and Kon were all possibilities since they were either moving forward or attacking. Kon was the most vulnerable one, so Alden was headed toward him. And toward the battle. His stomach clenched as something that was probably one of Tuyet¡¯s darts whizzed past his neck. Marsha was swinging. Astrid was stiff as a board on the floor. Torsten Klein seemed to be everywhere. Alden landed hard. He didn¡¯t hurt himself, and his balance was good. But he didn¡¯t have time to be pleased that his practices with Bobby and his wordchain were paying off. He really wasn¡¯t that far from where he¡¯d just been crouching with Everly, but he¡¯d jumped into a riot of flying bodies, spells, and weapons that was worse than he¡¯d expected. The plan for corpse duty had been to run in and rescue the first person to fall near the perimeter of the fight, but now that he was here, he realized there was no perimeter to speak of. Kon, moving to get beside Lexi, had looked as though he was near the edge of it. At the moment, though, Alden was just a step or two away from him, and there wasn¡¯t anything like an edge here. Either the battlefield had expanded in the time it took him to jump to this spot, or it was a different, even less comprehensible place once you were inside it. Yelling in a couple of languages, popping sounds, a brief whoosh of wind so hard he staggered, knives over his head. And the Agility Brutes were the worst as far as visual confusion went. Finlay was fast, but his feet stayed mostly on the floor. Febri and Mehdi were behaving like popcorn kernels, exploding and flying off in random directions in response to the heat of battle. This is one hundred percent not where I need to be. This is too central to¡ª Dog crate! It was coming in hard from above, launched by Big Snake from high up and far away, but still accurate. It was going right toward the brothers, so Alden was already moving again, leaping with his shield up, feeling a swell of energy as he realized he¡¯d gotten the timing right and he was going to intercept the crate perfectly. And then Febri was crashing into the metal cage from the side and wrapping his arms around it. He used Instant Corners to redirect his own body, and the next thing Alden knew, the dog crate he¡¯d come to save Kon from was flying toward Klein. Who was no longer in the way when it arrived, of course. It slammed into the floor meters away, and Jeffy fell over it. He wasn¡¯t even supposed to be a part of this fight; he just hadn¡¯t managed to clear out from being on the bait team yet. Or he didn¡¯t want to clear out. ¡°Alden, you came to save us!¡± ¡°You¡¯re both supposed to be over there with Everly!¡± ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be whipping Klein, not waving Writher around like a broom handle you don¡¯t know how to use. Hit him. Hit him!¡± ¡°Shut up! That piece of bicycle you threw landed closer to New Zealand than to the enemy. Both of you get lost or get behind me.¡± The Roberts brothers were talking so fast Alden mostly got the impression of Kon being enthusiastic and Lexi being stressed rather than the words. ¡°Behind me!¡± Lexi shouted again. There was no real behind him, though. Not if he meant that Alden and Kon should position themselves so that he was closer to the danger than they were. The danger was coming from every direction. Alden would need to spin like a top to keep Instructor Klein in view, and that was assuming he didn¡¯t try to dodge anything else going on out here. Grab and go. That¡¯s all I can do. Grab someone and go. His eyes skimmed for problems. Helo¨ªsa was crawling aggressively¡ªtoo far away. Astrid was just lying there like a statue, clearly stiff-suited. Finlay was shouting and falling as he took one of Marsha¡¯s slashes to the lower body. It was impossible to tell whose fault it was. She might have aimed without considering him, or he might have just zipped right into the path of it. The Speed Brute¡¯s body slid and rolled across the floor toward Alden and the brothers like he¡¯d been thrown from a car on the freeway. God, that looks horrible. ¡°Kon, we grab Finlay and go!¡± he said. Then he ran for the speedster. He was breathing hard. He didn¡¯t know which way to point his shield. There were actually a lot of factors in getting that right if multiple types of threat were coming his way, and he couldn¡¯t sort it all. The overwhelming pace of the violence was making this different from a typical moment in class. He felt like he needed to zero in on something, and apparently it was going to be the person he¡¯d just seen take a serious injury. His thoughts were jumbled, but the jumble was pointing in that direction. Grab Finlay. Maybe hurl him toward the starting line. He might even make it back in time to help once his suit gets res¡ªduck! He didn¡¯t even know who he was ducking under. Some airborne figure that would have taken his head off if he hadn¡¯t. Things were impacting his shield. Wind. A bicycle bell. A metal shard. That¡¯s fine. Debris is fine. I¡¯m not too tired to protect the shield from that. ¡°I¡¯ll carry him!¡± Kon yelled, lunging ahead of Alden to grab the Scottish boy. ¡°Go for the start!¡± Okay, Kon¡¯s with me. Finlay¡¯s in his arms. Gotta keep Kon from taking a bad hit. If Kon got safely away with Finlay, that was two saved. If Kon got away, that was one more teammate outside this mess to make sure they didn¡¯t get completely wiped. Where¡¯s the way out? Only seconds had passed since he¡¯d landed in the midst of this melee, and even though he couldn¡¯t possibly see what was happening with everyone, he had a sense that something about the fight was going badly for his side of it. It was everything, all together, looking not quite right from moment to moment. He spotted a girl with silver hair, closer than he¡¯d expected her to be, turning to run back to Haoyu and the starting line as a fragment of washing machine grazed past her. Everly? Why? She was supposed to be out of the way. The fight had sprawled outward to reach her. That¡¯s what¡¯s bad. Space isn¡¯t something we wanted Klein to have, but he¡¯s managing to make it for himself by spreading us out. It was only a brief realization as he tried to cover Kon¡¯s retreat, nothing he could act on. Galecourse had to be close to finishing her lap. And the good guys had to be close to losing this bold play. Alden was approaching another realization¡ªthat dropping his shield to save his skill for their final attempt at the finish was probably the right decision, since he¡¯d just seen Haoyu in a position of relative safety and Everly was still on her feet. Before he could make that call, though, he stopped dead at the sight of the dog crate again. It was barely dented even though it had come from the trash pile and been tossed by two S-ranks in rapid succession. And it was now in one of Torsten Klein¡¯s hands. He¡¯d just landed on the floor a few meters away. His eyes were pointed in Alden¡¯s direction. Kon had stopped beside Alden. Finlay¡¯s breath was on the back of his hand. Whatever decision he¡¯d been about to make about the shield vanished from his thoughts. The sight of Klein standing before him dug into him and triggered actual fear in a way that MPE danger almost never did. The instructor tended to wear a slight smile when they were going after him hard during their ¡°catch Klein¡± sessions. He wasn¡¯t smiling at the moment. One of his legs was stiff, one of his hands didn¡¯t work, he was bent slightly in a way that suggested an injury Alden couldn¡¯t identify. And none of it made him look weaker. Mehdi and Febri came in from either side of him, in an attack that had to have been coordinated by at least one of them. Shrike¡¯s knife and its followers were crossing just over their heads. Alden¡¯s stomach clenched as the crate swung and knocked Febri out of the air. Mehdi was on the instructor for the briefest of instants, and then he was being slammed to the floor at the man¡¯s feet. Klein¡¯s eyes hadn¡¯t turned to see either of them. They were fixed on Alden like cold steel. Alden had exercised his imagination a lot today. He¡¯d spent this afternoon at North of North and this evening here in class, asking himself what he would do if certain attacks had come from a bokabv. What if the enemy had the power to damage the car? What would he do if it aimed itself at Kibby? Right now¡­ Torsten Klein looked just a little bit like a demon. ****** a very short while ago ****** Winston felt sick. He had thought that no class could ever be worse than the one where he¡¯d been tricked into decapitating himself by his Machiavellian roommate and a disturbingly ambitious Rabbit. But this one was a new low. His teammates were¡­ No. Never mind. He had chosen to protect them, so he would. Their Vocal Brute couldn¡¯t aim his voice if he was nervous, and he said Winston made him nervous. Olive had too many opinions for someone who got blown away if you weren¡¯t holding onto her, and she was ineffective if you did hold her, because then it was obvious to the enemy which of her fakes were fake. Rebecca could have been really helpful since she could cover a lot of ground quickly, but she was so ticked-off that Astrid had refused to team up with her that she kept glancing over there even though Winston had told her he would watch Max¡¯s team for tricks and she should watch Haoyu¡¯s parents.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. And Sanjay just kept saying, ¡°Relax, duuude. Relaaax,¡± in an odd way that Winston was afraid was supposed to be an American accent. Winston couldn¡¯t tell if the guy was trying to bond, or if he was making fun of him. If he had to take an A-rank Shaper for this run, he wished he¡¯d gotten Njeri instead. But these people were his team. He was devoted to them like a leader¡ªone who was not a jerk¡ªshould be. It had to be one hundred percent obvious to everyone in the room that Winston¡¯s team was the weakest and that he was trying to do something nice here. Only nobody would give them any help. There were three teams with S-ranks, since you couldn¡¯t count Kon. Those teams didn¡¯t need the elemental weights. And yet, they¡¯d all taken more than one of the big ones. They¡¯d been throwing them around, casually keeping them under their arms like pocketbooks, floating on top of them, and chopping them up. If Olive had a sandbag, Winston wouldn¡¯t have to hold her. If Rebecca had a sandbag, she could control her jumps in high winds. If Sanjay had a lifematter bag, maybe he could entertain himself by talking to it, so that his leader could think about a strategy that would get this bunch of misfits safely to the end. Winston had wanted a victory so badly today. Real victory, like Feather¡¯sFavoriteNYC talked about in the encouraging comment he¡¯d kept pulled up on his interface all class. Don¡¯t let the haters get you down. Let your victory be your answer! But he¡¯d admitted after the first hour that he would settle for reaching the finish line even if it was behind the other teams. Even if a first place run with smiling teammates patting him on the back would have been more of a moment, at this point, crossing at all was going to be momentous enough. They finally had weight they could use to move forward in the wind without just hanging onto each other. The weights were literal garbage Winston had collected for them all, but they had them. He was circling the team as fast as he could, trying to keep his eyes on every enemy at once and on Max, who couldn¡¯t be trusted. He would absolutely throw a trap in front of Winston¡¯s team as soon as Winston let his guard down. So Winston was circling. He was tired. He was feeling bad about their chances and very worried about the way some people had become prejudiced against him after the drama that had been stirred up by the Arfdog incident, Everly and Finlay insinuating stuff, and Alden suddenly producing a commendation that nobody had heard about before now. The annoyance in some of their voices when I pointed out that as a speedster I could have gotten to the weights before them if I hadn¡¯t taken time to help those in need. They definitely weren¡¯t treating me this way last week. His first stroke of luck all class happened then, and he shouted for a halt. By saying, ¡°Halt!¡± which was more professional than using stop and go, obviously. Finlay had just gone down hard as he approached the finish. He¡¯d fallen on top of Astrid. A red line had appeared. Are they dead? They look dead! ¡°I think I know what that spell was!¡± said Olive. ¡°Winston, get closer so we can talk! I think I know what it is!¡± ¡°I have to keep my eyes on the enemy,¡± said Winston. ¡°Who knows when they¡¯re going to come our way?¡± ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure Big Snake throws at us in two¡ª¡± Sanjay started. ¡°Send me texts about the spell,¡± Winston said. ¡°I¡¯ll stand guard.¡± So he got a good look at Alden¡¯s broken team as they made their way back to the start and Max¡¯s. It lifted his spirits, and they were lifted even more when Olive finally texted him. Shock Box? An old-school Adjuster trap. Max the trap Adjuster had missed a trap! It was different from the ones they¡¯d been running into all period. Olive was saying the caster could establish various conditions for it. Finlay was out in front of his team by a few steps because he always has to be first. Probably it¡¯s a trap that won¡¯t hurt you if your whole team is close enough together. After the intense post-obstacle course lecture his old team had gotten, thanks mostly to Marsha, he thought the faculty might want to make a point about togetherness and loyalty. And if that wasn¡¯t the right assumption¡­ No single Shock Box could cover the whole width of the gym, according to Olive. So there might be eight of them? One for each team. What if once you trip one, it doesn¡¯t reappear? Does that mean whoever runs through that section that Finlay just activated is safe? That exciting prospect was interrupted by the arrival of a long text from Alden Thorn. After reading it, Winston wanted to roll his eyes so hard they¡¯d disappear into the back of his own skull forever. ¡°Now they want our help,¡± he said. ¡°Now they want everyone to be friends? When they wouldn¡¯t even give us a weight?¡± ¡°I mean, I didn¡¯t expect them to give us anything,¡± said Rebecca. ¡°But it has been kind of¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re carrying a radiator,¡± said Winston. ¡°Think of how much better you¡¯d be doing if you¡¯d had something with handles all this time! Our lack of progress is not our fault. We might be way out ahead, we might be finished, if things had gone differently.¡± ¡°You are doing an Apex job for someone with a radiator,¡± said Sanjay. ¡°And I¡¯ve got this ladder and this hose and¡­¡± Winston tuned him out and answered the text. He even offered to put the fight on his channel. It would be good for him to be seen with an elite group, and he thought they should all be grateful to him for the exposure. Not a single person replied with a thank you. ****** The last second decision to take his own team over the line rather than joining the attack on their instructor had good reasons behind it. Winston could feel them all coming together in his head right before he changed his mind. It was little things like the lack of thanks, Finlay shooting him a look from a distance, the realization that all the S¡¯s joining in would make the sacrifices of the A¡¯s seem useless, and the fact that it was a plan Alden and Max would be taking credit for once it was over. And it was also bigger things like Winston showing loyalty to his own team and making sure they were treated fairly by their leader since the rest of the class wasn¡¯t looking out for them. Then, during the first moments when he was failing to run toward the fight and worrying about how this was going to come across to people who didn¡¯t know all the details, he had a sudden brainwave about S?ren. The guy was just lying around. Again. He was basically a pet for his team, and his team had abandoned him. He had been slightly antagonistic to Winston, but now? Now Winston could take him to the finish ahead of everyone else. Or he could offer to do it; it would be up to S?ren to get over himself and accept. That would also be proof to any fans who weren¡¯t as aware of the nuances of these Anesidoran machinations that Winston wasn¡¯t being selfish here. He was just thinking like a leader. Winston would help S?ren. S?ren¡¯s sandbag would help Winston¡¯s people with the wind and maybe even the electricity in case he was wrong about the Shock Box traps. Did sand block electricity? It might. So Winston took action. The story was coming back together. He could tell Feather¡¯sFavoriteNYC her words were in his eyes when he made up his mind to do something bold and different. Victory can be my answer when people ask me who I think I am, he thought. I can make my own moment. Seconds later, S?ren was refusing the hand of salvation. So¡­Winston took the sandbag. He really didn¡¯t expect the crazy Light Shaper to start chasing him and throwing knives at him. It was so stupid, but maybe on camera, it was making Winston look like he was the bad guy instead of someone who cared about his team. What if I made a mistake? No! This is fine. It¡¯s all fine. Victory will be my answer. People loved a winner. A lot of people loved winners so much they didn¡¯t care who they were or how they won, which was why Finlay was gaining followers like a cult leader. ¡°Go back!¡± Winston yelled over his shoulder. ¡°You¡¯re way slower than me, and the wind will start soon!¡± S?ren screamed with animalistic fury. He¡¯s lost his mind. ¡°You¡¯re too weak to be out here on your own! Give up! Give up for your own good!¡± Winston had almost reached his teammates. This was going to work. ****** ****** ¡°Alden,¡± Torsten said to the volunteers, who looked just a little more interested than they had a moment ago, ¡°has a noteworthy personal life, as I¡¯m sure you all know.¡± ¡°I can tell overstating isn¡¯t one of your bad habits.¡± Aparna drummed her fingers on top of her student desk. ¡°We don¡¯t see many teenagers rubbing shoulders with wizards.¡± ¡°No,¡± Klein agreed. ¡°Haoyu loves having him as a roommate,¡± said Hale. ¡°I liked helping with Matadero Thanksgiving,¡± said Jianwei. ¡°That should become a tradition.¡± ¡°I have no comment on that.¡± Torsten looked at the wanted poster. The video clip showed Alden Thorn catching tennis balls. ¡°Tempting though it might be to gossip about him¡ª¡± ¡°I am tempted,¡± Aparna said. ¡°Tempting though it might be,¡± Torsten said firmly, ¡°I¡¯ll keep us on track by talking about Alden¡¯s gym performance and special considerations related to it. He¡¯s on an impressive discovery streak with his powers right now. The timing of it might be due to his personal circumstances, but it¡¯s encouraging to see such swift progress from him anyway. The ability shown on the video here is his main skill, being used in a novel way. ¡°He places objects or people in magical stasis. The stasis is absolute while the skill is active. There appears to be no circumstance in which whatever he¡¯s protecting will change from within or take damage from without, unless the skill or the skill user fails. Keep that in mind because you won¡¯t have cues to know when he¡¯s approaching skill fatigue. It¡¯s not like some shielding spells you might have encountered that weaken before they break. ¡°We do know that he wears his skill out much faster when he tries to preserve something that extends a significant distance from his body. He¡¯s currently exploring what he can do with rope, so it¡¯s come up. He might be able to shield something on the end of a thread half a gym away, but you¡¯re unlikely to see him do it given the practical limitations and magical cost. ¡°Alden has a movement trait that won¡¯t make an appearance unless he finds the proper element to stand on. It provides him with a modest increase in the distance he¡¯s able to cover every time he propels himself off the ground. Not spectacular, but practical. ¡°If we¡¯d had this talk a few weeks ago, the only other thing I would have been able to warn you about was his penchant for throwing his own spell ingredients at people as a distraction.¡± ¡°Are they cheap?¡± Torsten glanced at Aparna. ¡°He has temper spheres. They turn invisible if he uses a spell on them, but he tosses them around without bothering to cast that spell more often than not.¡± She laughed. ¡°So not as cheap as they might be!¡± ¡°They break less frequently than I would have expected. Thanks to the discovery streak I mentioned, there¡¯s more to say than there was. Alden is able to lift impressive amounts of weight, as long as he can get the weight secured on top of or within something he¡¯s protecting with his skill. He currently seems to be interested in learning what results he can get by accelerating and launching objects with preserved rope. He¡¯s also able to use his skill on things that are thrown to him, conserving the force of the throw. That¡¯s interesting, but it¡¯s not threatening at this point. He¡¯s limited by his ability to actually detect and catch what¡¯s coming at him.¡± Torsten turned to the video once more. ¡°Alden also seems to be able to sense the location of objects that have been entrusted to him. This particular instance in the footage was his first time doing that, so I¡¯m curious to see the ability develop in the future. ¡°His skill has some restrictions that are inconvenient, to say the least. To use the power at all, he has to be given something or told to take it by a targeted individual. He can only target one person at a time. If he drops the object he¡¯s preserving, he can¡¯t reactivate the stasis on it until he gets permission again.¡± Aparna was frowning. Melanie had looked up from her notes. ¡°That¡¯s more punishing than inconvenient. I¡¯ve heard of some absurd restrictions on abilities, but that seems like too much considering what the skill is. I assume it must be intended for some esoteric job on the Triplanets?¡± ¡°We can only speculate at this point. Alden manages the skill¡¯s limitations and versatility very well from what I¡¯ve seen. He¡¯s studious, and he seems to be interested in making up for his low foundation points by learning wordchains. He¡¯s already started using one that makes him more surefooted and graceful. That level of dedication is something I can appreciate as his instructor. I hope to see his work rewarded over the coming years. ¡° Given the many unknowns in his case, I have concerns about that, but for now¡­I look forward to seeing how he handles himself in class.¡± ****** ****** To Alden, at that moment, Torsten Klein looked a little like a demon. Here was something bigger than he¡¯d expected, something dangerously altered from what it had been just minutes ago, transformed by the chaos around them. Suddenly, imagination was easier. What if it was coming for Kibby? The lights in the gym seemed to dim as if to acknowledge the question. He was still aware of where he really was, but the idea of casting aside his shield and accepting injury for the sake of team goals was gone. Klein plunged toward them, the cage held in front of him like a strange battering ram. My shield¡¯s going to break. If the instructor had thrown the cage, then it would be different. Alden could take a really hard hit from a mundane object. But Klein himself bulling through changed the outcome. A dog crate was just a dog crate; Torsten Klein was an Avowed. He had the authority to move through this spot faster and harder than a normal man. And Alden had the authority to guard this, his burden¡ªa simple mat of yellow webbing he¡¯d made for his team¡¯s windshield. His skill was going to be exhausted in no time, just like it had been when Marsha had hit him with her magical slash in duels. What if I was on Thegund? What if I was guarding Kibby? The gym seemed to darken even more. It was all happening in a heartbeat. Alden wasn¡¯t dropping his shield. ****** ****** ¡°You¡¯re too weak to be out here on your own! Give up! Give up for your own good!¡± Winston Heelfeather was shouting. He had S?ren¡¯s sandbag. I shape the light toward me, then I shape it away. S?ren didn¡¯t know how many times he¡¯d activated his skills. He was getting farther and farther behind this pustule of a human being who was mocking him for being too slow and too weak. The gym was gaining shadows. Galecourse had just finished her lap. She was about to ruin everything. I shape it toward me. Who cared if light made sense? He was its Shaper. It was supposed to be his. He pulled his arms in close to his chest; his hands curled in front of his heart in a gesture that felt natural because the System had given it to him when it affixed him. I shape it away. ¡°You nasty little fucker!¡± screamed S?ren.¡°Are you faster than light?!¡± He thrust his hands out. Winston Heelfeather disappeared in a blaze of white. ****** ****** The cage slammed into the shield. Metal crumpled against magic Alden felt the clash of their powers, like he was being swept aside and denied a spot he¡¯d tried to claim. But at the same time, there was something real here. He lasted longer than he should have, and he knew it. Refusing to move mattered, wanting to protect something mattered. He¡¯d begun to grasp that already. There¡¯s still more for me to understand. Then The Bearer of All Burdens was exhausted, and Klein was charging through, straight toward the person Alden hadn¡¯t even realized he was shielding. Lexi followed us? Alden hit the floor in a heap of limp yellow webbing. Kon and Finlay were already down. Writher snapped and danced through the air angrily, moving as fast as it had been earlier when it had almost seemed like it should be able to touch Torsten Klein. Now¡­now, Klein was slower. And Astrid, who had apparently been pretending to be dead all this time, was flinging herself at the instructor¡¯s last good leg. Knives were falling all around them. Good, thought Alden, taking a deep breath as a bright light filled the gym. We did pretty good. ****** ONE HUNDRED NINETY-SEVEN: Flashes IX 197 ****** While they waited for rescue in a pile of the injured and wind-vulnerable, Kon laughed and called out to their classmates at the top of his lungs. Lexi held onto him, resigned to the assault on his eardrums until Haoyu or Everly could come. Galecourse was sending her wind from the side to avoid helping the students who¡¯d fallen in the attack on Instructor Klein from having a convenient ride back to the starting line on her gusts. Alden¡¯s skill was exhausted. Lexi couldn¡¯t extend or phase Writher anymore. Class was basically over, and so were their chances of reaching the finish this evening, if they were being honest about it. But it wasn¡¯t the worst end to the school day. Among Kon¡¯s bellows about S?ren doing crazy things with the light, Astrid doing her part to catch their instructor by surprise, and Jupiter doing something with a tree stump to keep the adults occupied and unable to rescue their fallen comrade¡­there were also embarrassingly effusive praises about Writher. ¡°He writhed through your defenses!¡± Kon yelled. ¡°That¡¯s who Lexi Roberts is.¡± Lexi¡¯s face was hot, but he couldn¡¯t tell Kon to shut up when Finlay was right there with him, chanting about whips and Morph Brutes who rose from the dead, too. I suppose it¡¯s fine for now. A lot of people were shouting their own victory cries. ¡°You got him, Astrid!¡± ¡°I got him, Alden!¡± ¡°You got him, Lexi!¡± The arm Lexi had locked around one of Kon¡¯s shifted as Kon tried to roll over to see what was going on in some other part of the gym. He was grinning. He always has been such a smiler. Kon¡¯s smile was one of Lexi¡¯s first memories, from a time in his life so early that he didn¡¯t have much else to connect it to. He recalled waving a teddybear in the baby¡¯s face, thinking something about how he needed to be slow and not scare Kon by bumping his nose. It had been a serious effort, very careful teddybear magic that he wanted to get right because it would be proof that he was good at taking care of his little brother. Kon had smiled and reached for the bear, and even though only one of them would ever remember the moment, the contract between them had been written in Lexi¡¯s heart. That specific memory resurfaced every now and then still, usually when Kon had been particularly affectionate or when he had really hurt Lexi¡¯s feelings. So here it was, rising to the surface while Kon screamed about Lexi¡¯s killing blow of Klein to almost forty other teenagers like he thought Lexi had done something much more extraordinary than just finishing off a task everyone had worked on together. Kon¡¯s smile was sometimes a knife because it was impossible for Lexi not to know that they were always being compared to each other. He had heard so many people say, ¡°You¡¯re so different from your brother!¡± And it usually meant, ¡°You¡¯re so much less fun.¡± And Kon¡¯s smile was often infuriating because he would use it to blow off peoples¡¯ concerns or hide problems he was having. Lexi had tried, now that they were both older, to have a conversation about what had happened on that visit to Moscow when they were kids. A serious conversation, all the things he¡¯d never said about that night. Kon had smiled and laughed it off, and Lexi was still mad about it. But¡­the smile also renewed the contract. ¡°The party is at Lexi¡¯s apartment tonight!¡± Kon shouted. ¡°It¡¯s really clean, and they have a polar¡ªow!¡± Lexi had punched him in the ribs. He clearly wasn¡¯t injured enough yet. ****** ****** Alden¡¯s suit was restored to full flexibility as soon as Everly dragged him across one of her ice patches back to the start, but only a few seconds later, he found himself immobilized by an unexpected group hug. He, Max, and Everly were being crushed together between Astrid and Jeffy. ¡°Excuse me, Astrid¡­now isn¡¯t the time to¡­Jeffy, let us¡­really, you two!¡± Max wasn¡¯t having much luck getting a word in. The Brutes were too busy giving each other blow-by-blow praise for their crimes against Klein. He doesn¡¯t seem that annoyed about it, though. Over Astrid¡¯s shoulder, Alden could see Febri rescuing S?ren from where he was pressed against the left-side barrier by the wind. The Shaper had attacked Winston. People who¡¯d seen it were talking about it. Winston¡¯s team was trying to collect him. I can¡¯t wait to see that video. Elsewhere on the floor, groups that had reassembled were moving forward. Marsha, Jupiter, and Njeri¡¯s team had taken Klein¡¯s petrified body with them. Alden wondered if it was strategy to make sure they had as much time as possible without him bothering them, or if the instructor was a trophy. Does he talk, or does he maintain a stony silence while they haul him around? ¡°We do need to go,¡± Max said, more loudly this time. ¡°Or the chance we¡¯ve bought here will be worthless.¡± Astrid finally heard him. ¡°Yes! We need to run!¡± She let go, freeing Alden and Everly into the calmer huddle of their own team. Konstantin had brought along the smashed dog crate, and his eyes were closed as he ran his hands over it. He¡¯d said he wanted to try his power out before the end of class, and they had fewer options than they¡¯d had before they¡¯d participated in the attack on the instructor. ¡°Writher¡¯s done for the night?¡± Alden asked Lexi. ¡°It¡¯ll still hurt people if I hit them with it, but they¡¯re going to have to stand a lot closer and stiller than usual for me to do that,¡± Lexi said. ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°And I¡¯m sorry my skill¡¯s out,¡± said Alden, looking down at Kon. ¡°I know trying one last run to the other side with it was our original¡ª¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± Lexi holstered the whip handle and stretched his shoulders. ¡°You paused Klein for a second, and that gave Writher a chance to make a strong first strike when he broke through.¡± ¡°Nah. Maybe half a second,¡± Alden said. ¡°It definitely wasn¡¯t nothing.¡± One of Lexi¡¯s shoulders popped loudly. He stopped stretching. ¡°He looked surprised before I slashed him. I suppose it could have been Astrid moving in that made him look that way, but I think he didn¡¯t know she was coming until she hit him a moment later. He must have been aiming to go through you so fast it took me down, too, but I managed to step back and get Writher to behave more.¡± ¡°It¡¯s so sweet how Mind Writher works better when Kon is in trouble,¡± Everly said. ¡°It does, doesn¡¯t it? I¡¯m not just imagining¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re imagining things,¡± Lexi said. Haoyu looked at the whip. ¡°I don¡¯t think she is. But we¡¯ll review it all tonight in the recovery sauna.¡± Alden noticed Lexi didn¡¯t argue about being taken along like he had last time. He must be as ready for a break as I am. Or he liked the fast recovery. Everyone could use it after this. ¡°Do you want to come with us, too, Everly?¡± Alden asked. ¡°I could get you a guest pass. I was there earlier, and it was busy. But it wasn¡¯t quite as crowded as it has been lately.¡± ¡°You went to the spa before class!¡± Haoyu exclaimed. ¡°No, I mean I was at North of North, not the spa specifically. I was working on something in one of their combat simulation rooms.¡± Lexi, Haoyu, and Everly all looked at him. ¡°What?¡± ¡°You worked out at the gym before coming to gym?¡± Haoyu asked. ¡°It only sounds crazy because you¡¯re saying it in that tone,¡± Alden protested. ¡°It¡¯s really normal behavior, I¡¯m sure.¡± Lexi tilted his head. ¡°How often do you do that?¡± ¡°What kind of combat simulation?¡± Haoyu added. ¡°Do other people do this kind of thing, too?¡± Everly sounded worried. ¡°How many hours a day are you¡ª?¡± She was interrupted by Kon clearing his throat and deepening his voice to announce, ¡°The time has come. I¡¯m now prepared to save you all.¡± Lexi¡¯s eyes went toward the ceiling. ¡°Are we sure we want to use our Klein-free run like this?¡± ¡°Your whip is tired. Alden¡¯s skill is gone. My spell impression casts are gone except for the currently active one, and in hindsight, I shouldn¡¯t have hit my parents quite so many times with Boxing Gloves. Since Everly doesn¡¯t want to ice over the entire gym and carry us all on her back¡ª¡± ¡°Don¡¯t put words in my mouth,¡± said Everly. ¡°I¡¯d be willing to try it.¡± ¡°Oh! Never mind. If she¡¯s game, then we don¡¯t need Kon for any¡ª¡± Kon held up his hand. ¡°All passengers, this is your captain speaking. Flight number one on Air Kon will be leaving shortly. Please stuff your insults in the overhead bins and tie the body parts of your choice to the steel pancake that Alden and Klein made.¡± ****** ****** The spell on the other side of the red line, the one that had ended Finlay and Astrid¡¯s sprint to the finish earlier, was probably Shock Box. Kon hadn¡¯t seen them go down, but after having a chance to think, he¡¯d arrived at this answer. Alden had been figuring out the rules of the game all class, which was clearly part of the challenge they¡¯d been set, so the final hurdle wouldn¡¯t be something impossible to discern. It should be a problem teams were capable of predicting with the information they had collected so far. Kon could think of a dozen spells an Adjuster focusing on electrical effects might have used to quickly and quietly take out a pair of runners. But Mrs. Sethi had been setting traps all class. So it must be a trap, not a spell she¡¯s casting directly at people who hit that point. And she¡¯s old, so it¡¯s most likely Shock Box. That one had been around forever. A classic. Kon had given a presentation on various electricity spells at Paragon, about two weeks before he was selected. He¡¯d compared Shock Box to impressions like Lighting Picket and Thunder Garden. He¡¯d annoyed his teacher by not including more mid and low-rank spells. But he¡¯d managed to make everyone in class laugh with every other slide, and he¡¯d gotten full credit for delivering it bilingually. A success. Everly had been in the same class, and she¡¯d used her own presentation as an excuse to feed them bingsu. But the thing Kon remembered most about that day was how he¡¯d had trouble enjoying it. Becoming a high rank Adjuster with the same focus as Mrs. Sethi, a superhero who controlled lightning like some mythological god¡ªthat had been the plan for ages by then, Kon had loved it for ages, and then¡­he¡¯d started to have periods when it just seemed so empty. He would have known what to do if he¡¯d had an interest in another class. But he didn¡¯t have something else to latch onto at all. Sometimes, the plan still sounded wonderful. At other times, it became a looming obligation he wanted to hit the brakes on. Only that wasn¡¯t allowed. You couldn¡¯t stop getting older. You couldn¡¯t be a flake at fifteen as an Avowed, at least not about your class selection. You¡¯d scare your parents. You¡¯d summon worry and intervention from every direction. And you¡¯d heap stress on your unselected brother who was already the most stressed-out person in the country. And, maybe, it wasn¡¯t actually a problem. There was a possibility you were just terrified of commitment, and what good was it to let on if that was the case? You had to commit to something and make it work. Kon had heard a woman saying that to her teenage daughter in a shop, and he¡¯d decided to take it as advice for himself. After all, if he walked into a classroom one day, or his home, and announced that he had cold feet about his whole life plan, what did he expect anyone else to do about it? So selection landed on him¡ªan S just like he¡¯d always hoped for¡ªand he fanned the sputtering flames of the only thing he had that could be called a dream for his life until it was hot and bright again. And he hoped it lasted.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Yes, buy me the nauseatingly expensive class trade I¡¯ve always wanted. Yes, of course I¡¯m so excited. Yes, let¡¯s talk CNH applications. Let¡¯s do it all. Adjuster became his. He¡¯d accepted the Contract, and he¡¯d been ready to turn himself into that lightning god¡­when the System asked him if he wanted something brand new instead. Kon would go to his grave telling people that taking this utterly unknown Adjuster path had been strategy, courage, and his sense of adventure. He was such a happy, lucky guy. What else could have prompted the choice? And it wasn¡¯t a lie. He had felt a thrill at the offer. He had wanted something special that would make his family proud, and everyone knew that when the System offered something one-of-a-kind, especially to an S, it usually had some extra sparkle to it¡­not that that came without risks. But Kon had also been looking at that dream that kept flickering out, and in the moment of decision, he¡¯d had less faith in it than he should have. Less faith than he had in an unknown. He¡¯d run toward this new thing like it was a flashing Way Out sign. Put some of the pressure on the System and the Artonans; let it be half their fault if he hated his own powers. Basically, I reacted like every adult warned us not to. A sudden decision instead of a careful one. Years of subclass research and talks with other Adjusters and spell path planning got zapped away in a second. Of course Reader of Records and the Revert to Reading impression that went with it weren¡¯t anything at all like shooting lightning bolts. The best plan Kon had was still being a superhero, but his actual abilities no longer matched up with how he¡¯d imagined himself doing that job. Possibly they didn¡¯t even allow him to do the job at all. Unless I figure something out. I¡¯ve started. I can still make everyone proud, be an amazing Avowed, keep it all rolling in a good direction. He would make his spell work for his team and his future¡­because it was what he had. Forever. And, he thought while he tied himself to Lexi and Haoyu both for good measure, I still have entirely excessive knowledge about electrical spells like Shock Box. It¡¯s not useless. ¡°Even if she¡¯s got the Shock Boxes layered one behind the other or something tricky like that, the spell has a maximum height from the surface it¡¯s cast on. So we don¡¯t actually have to go through at all. We can go over.¡± ¡°How can you look so confident?¡± Lexi grumped. ¡°Because I believe in myself. Because I have super superhuman powers! Because I¡¯m definitely not the most useless S-rank.¡± ¡°I told you to stop reading that weird story,¡± Everly hissed. ¡°Nobody thinks you¡¯re useless in real life.¡± ¡°And because I have been practicing very hard,¡± Kon said. ¡°Just hold onto me with one arm, Haoyu, and see if you can keep me a little steadier so I can still cast? I¡¯ll win this for us. And then Alden will feel bad about inviting everyone except me to a spa night.¡± In just a short span of time, the Rabbit had somehow managed to apply so many straps to so many different parts of the squashed crate that even if Kon screwed up and accidentally repaired some of the cage instead of relocating it, there was a good chance he would stay tied to the thing by at least a few of the strands. ¡°I invited you in my head,¡± Alden said, looking up. ¡°I didn¡¯t do it out loud because you were using your skill, and I didn¡¯t want to distract you.¡± He¡¯s so unusual for someone Lexi¡¯s age. And so normal for someone who got commended by a general. The kind of enigmatic figure you hoped to meet in high school. Kon was proud of himself for nudging him toward Lexi. His brother needed more friends. ¡°If I win this for us, you have to let me throw a party in your apartment!¡± Kon announced. ¡°No,¡± Lexi said. Of course. ¡°See,¡± said Kon, ¡°you do think I¡¯m capable. Otherwise you wouldn¡¯t be so vehement.¡± By my powers, I hope I¡¯m capable. This was going to be a spectacular embarrassment, immortalized from every angle by the gym drones, if he wasn¡¯t. Kon Roberts¡ªS-rank Adjuster and superhero. The dream was going to feel thrilling again one day. He got flashes of it sometimes, like he had when he¡¯d moved that car on the Span. I picked this, he thought, as the reading he¡¯d done of the crate filled his mind. Now I figure out how to make it work. ****** ****** ¡°You lit that traitor up, S?ren! You did it! Did you hurt yourself, too? You don¡¯t seem hurt. You shouted something about light! So Apex! Hold on, let me dodge that kitchen sink. Waker¡¯s throwing that last? His sense of humor is the best, isn¡¯t it?¡± S?ren clung to Febri, unable to get a word in as they plunged through the wind to rejoin their team. He was stunned. He was¡­happy? He was also perilously close to barfing because being carried by an Agi who was dodging sinks with the Instant Corners skill was an awful ride. All of a sudden, his face was pointed upside down and then back in the direction he¡¯d just been picked up from. He could see Winston lying stiff on the floor. He was facedown, and the sandbag he¡¯d taken was on top of him. Did I kill him or just burn him so badly he can¡¯t move? And then the view was gone as Febri spun again. I¡¯m going to be okay, aren¡¯t I? S?ren thought. I¡¯m going to be a real Avowed, too. ****** ****** A radiator crashed to the floor beside Winston¡¯s head. He couldn¡¯t even move his neck to see Rebecca¡¯s face. ¡°What in the universe was that?!¡± she demanded, rolling him over with a bare foot while she still clung to the radiator with her hands. ¡°Why¡¯d you attack S?ren? Why didn¡¯t you go help with Klein? You said you would!¡± Winston¡¯s sunglasses were gone. He thought they¡¯d cracked from the heat, and then he hadn¡¯t been able to keep them on his face when he fell. ¡°Well? Answer me! Everyone¡¯s going to think we¡¯re all liars because of you!¡± She was gripping his arm with one hand now, holding the radiator with the other, her face close to his. On camera it was going to look bad, especially if the drones got a shot of her clenched jaw and narrowed eyes. ¡°Answer me, or I¡¯m leaving you here to make a point to everyone else.¡± ¡°I was¡­I offered S?ren the chance to come with us,¡± Winston said, licking his lips. ¡°He¡ª¡± ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have been offering him anything! You should have been across the gym. You said you¡¯d go as our team rep to fight the instructor. Alden sent us the maps because you said yes! If you weren¡¯t going to help with the plan, why didn¡¯t you tell me so I could do it myself?!¡± ¡°I wanted to win.¡± The words were still on his interface. ¡°Winning with all of you would have shown¡ª¡± ¡°People are going to hate us!¡± She didn¡¯t get it. ¡°If we¡¯d won, it would have been all right. It would have been perfect. Winners have lots of fans. Being in first would have made my followers¡ª¡± Rebecca¡¯s nostrils flared. ¡°Do your followers live here? Are they going to school with me?¡± Winston had no choice but to lie there while she yelled. ¡°I thought you might be really stupid when you started picking on a guy who hangs out at Matadero with a bunch of wizards. But I assumed it wasn¡¯t my problem. Now you¡¯ve made it my problem!¡± ¡°Alden was being crazy that¡ª¡± ¡°We''re Anesidoran! This is Apex. My dad says if you pass gas on the east side of the crescent, they smell it on the west! These people we¡¯re in this gym with?¡± She tried to gesture without letting go of him. ¡°These are the people I¡¯ll know forever. I¡¯ll try to beat any of them, but I¡¯m not going to do it by screwing up a plan we agreed to as a class!¡± Winston swallowed. He felt something like panic. ¡°Olive was saying you were nicer than she¡¯d thought. Just a minute ago. She¡¯s been wearing that gross sweatband you gave her to encourage you.¡± She didn¡¯t think I was nice before? ¡°You¡¯d better tell everyone the rest of us had no idea what you were going to do.¡± ¡°I just wanted to win. For all of us. I was helping you all.¡± ¡°Ha! Who is it who needs help right now?¡± He couldn¡¯t answer her. ¡°It doesn¡¯t look like anyone is winning today, anyway,¡± she said. ¡°Nobody¡¯s that close. Maybe on Friday.¡± She leaned back a little, moving to pick him up. Winston¡¯s eyes had a clear view of the ceiling when five people, clinging to each other and some smashed metal thing, rocketed overhead like Galecourse¡¯s wind had no effect on them. Four of them were screaming. One of them was chanting a chant that Winston had always thought was too alien and disturbing for someone who was serious about being a celebrity. He sounds like a creepy dolphin. ****** ****** Alden knew he and his teammates were all destined for a gruesome finale. He¡¯d been jerked from his feet by the dog crate so violently that he had webbing and paracord digging in everywhere, and the crate had unexpectedly flipped over right at the start. So there was just no chance everyone was going to end up together and in one piece, and he was sure he was screaming, which was the only reasonable reaction for a person to have under these conditions. Suddenly, his stomach proved it hadn¡¯t been left behind at the starting line after all. It plummeted as their rapid journey up and across the gym turned into a fall straight down from nearly ceiling height. They kind of slowed down, but not enough for him to wonder if it was evidence of Kon having some control, before he was landing in a pile of human limbs. A lot of his body parts hurt for a couple of seconds before the gym let up. ¡°That¡­that wasn¡¯t fun,¡± said Everly. Alden thought that was her leg on top of his neck. He was too disoriented to try to move out from under it. ¡°I did not like that. Not at all.¡± Haoyu was laughing somewhere under Alden but it sounded more like nerves than joy. ¡°I can barely move,¡± Lexi breathed. ¡°Yeah!! Did we win?!¡± Kon shouted. He was tangled up with Lexi, Haoyu, and the metal, but he was already trying to wiggle out from under them. A large, smiling face appeared in Alden¡¯s line of sight. Hi there, Big Snake. ¡°Did we win?¡± Kon said again. ¡°Did I do it?¡± ¡°If you¡¯re all alive, a Healer could probably fix you,¡± said Instructor Waker. ¡°I think we could count that. So¡­are y¡¯all alive?¡± Haoyu responded after several seconds. ¡°I¡¯m cool.¡± ¡°Yes, we know,¡± Alden said automatically, ¡°but are you dead?¡± Haoyu¡¯s laugh was real this time. Ah, that just came out so naturally. Like joking around with Boe. ¡°I¡¯m cool and alive,¡± said Haoyu. ¡°Me too!¡± Kon said ¡°I can¡¯t move my arms or my legs, but I seem to be alive.¡± Lexi sounded shocked. ¡°¡­I think¡­I¡¯m not even hurt much. Thank you for breaking my fall, Lexi,¡± said Everly. ¡°And I¡¯m alive,¡± said Alden. Feels great to say that. ¡°Then it sounds to me like you¡¯ve won.¡± Big Snake clapped his hands together. ¡°Thanks for helpin¡¯ me test out one of my wol¡­pet crates. Looks like I should buy a tougher model.¡± He winked at them. Their suits relaxed. Once he¡¯d made it to his own feet, Alden helped the others get untangled, and then they all stood there, meeting each other¡¯s eyes and letting it sink in. Lexi looked over at his brother. ¡°You did a good job.¡± S?ren¡¯s shaping might have been the brightest thing to happen in the MPE gym that evening, but Konstantin¡¯s smile was a close second. ******