“What’s…” Ruvle said, trailing off, her eye transfixed upon the sea of tislets that floated by, some fast, some slow, all in a grid. They all agreed on angle, to the point where it seemed objective–as if some of Chain’s sketchpad grids could be universally agreed upon as incorrect by comparing to the gridlines of the symbols beyond the alcazar.

  “They call it either The Names That Can Be, or the Basis,” he said, admiring it. With eyes. Eyes-like. “I wish I could tell you what this means, cosmologically…but I just know it gets real abstract out there. I read that this is the only way for a tislet to not be attached to a surface, but don’t take me as an authority on that, because the ones in clusters use each other as surfaces and that doesn’t make a lot of sense either. You can fish random tislets out of it if you want.” He gestured. “See that one?”

  “No.”

  “The cool-looking one on that big slow wall floating by.”

  “Every tislet looks the same to me,” Ruvle blurted out. “They’re all just lines and circles and curls.”

  “Top left corner, three tislets to the right, it’s got three circles stacked on top of each other. You never see that.” He side-hugged around her shoulder.

  “Is there anything special about it?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. Never seen it before. I’m just here watching with you.”

  Ruvle took it all in. In their grid-aligned formations and many scales–all the way from single isolated symbols to monoliths of millions–it reminded her of Stepwise’s skyline, stacked atop itself in depth many times, alive and shifting with more complexity than any one person would ever know the scope of. Presumably, it all meant something, the unlimited possibilities of concatenation–or perhaps not, in how a random jumble of traditional lettering would not form words or sentences. It felt strange to look upon a truer, deeper text-like logography of reality, magic, and be…illiterate.

  To one who filled out and signed forms all day, it felt right to know that this magic was on her side. Not an obstacle to overcome, but a hint at what Chain could bring to bear. She wished she could see more of it, and yet, the…the haze. Every tislet looked the same into infinity, even if she stared directly at them; her mind was losing its ability to parse them. The one with three circles. That one. It was different from the near others, but she had to convince herself of it, rather than the difference jumping out at her...

  She thrust her hand into one of Chain’s cargo pockets. “Hey, uh–” Chain started, but she already had what she was looking for; Ruvle yanked out the tape measure. Like her bodysuit and Chain’s outfit, it had changed–no longer could she see the beaver logo, but the whole item had become a soft light blue glow, with edges indistinct; she had to find the metal tab with her fingers. Ruvle reeled back, winding up her arm, and released the tab in a fake-out throw. The blade extended forth, cast like a fishing line.

  She missed, casting it too far. Depth perception failed her in the world of soft glow.

  “Careful with that thing!”

  But with a second click, she reeled in the length of measure, and the metal tab hooked the three-circle tislet. It adhered like the tape was its intended surface all along, and the tape measure snapped back closed, recoiling gently in her hand.

  She handed it back to Chain. “I got it for you.”

  “Dang.” He extended the tape just enough to confirm the tislet was there–though with the matching colors, they visually blended together. “Nice shot.”

  “Did I do a good job?”

  “Huh?”

  “I want to help. I want us to get better and not slow down; I want this to be worth it for you…did I do a good job?” She clenched her fists down by her sides, frowning. She wanted to be told she belonged, that she did everything right. “...Please?”

  Chain looked upon her, brow furrowed, puzzled.

  “Do you need a hug, Ruvle?”

  “Yes, please please hug me,” she said.

  “We need to leave.” He crushed her deprivation in a hug. She pressed her face into his neck, letting out a ragged sigh.

  “It’s hurting me. The fog is carving my brain apart…”

  “And we’re going to stop it right now,” he assured her. “Sit down, right here,” he directed, wrapping half of his scarf around her shoulders.

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  Ruvle nodded. One last time, she did as told.

  After minutes more of focus, they were back. The grove had continued on around them, petals, sunshine and all, the lack of plant matter on their bodies being the only proof that they weren’t physically present here during the trip. Ruvle faced a tree, now, instead of a straight and narrow corridor of daylight, having not tracked her compass orientation.

  She spent a minute simply breathing and taking it all in, her mind waking up, like anaesthetic diffusing out of her system. The guesswork lifted from color–she felt pretty sure those petals were yellow. No, obviously yellow. At no point did the color saturation rise, only her ability to process vision. The sun warmed her, first ever-so-welcome for skin starved of touch and human body heat–then, with the passing of seconds, a simple fact of daytime, nothing to think much of.

  “How are you doing, Ruvie?” Chain asked, right behind her.

  “I’m going to stare at this tree until I say I’m done,” she told him.

  He let her. Life returned quickly, and yet in clear phases. Already, she had enough cognition to appreciate the grand reopening of the edges of her mind, self-awareness able to watch the ribbon-cutting ceremonies play out across her brain. Perhaps this was how certain geghas felt, for experiments that raised their intelligence–dull beaver to smart beaver. Mental mapping came to feel possible again, and Ruvle tracked a few falling petals. Still low-resolution, still limited, but distinctly how it was before she entered the alcazar. Whatever blockage the haze filled the mind with, it did not survive objective reality for long.

  Reflecting back, she smiled to herself–even with mental impairment, her body prioritized its dexterity enough to leap across bookshelves and make trickshots with tape measure.

  “I’m back,” she soon said, and twisted herself around to see Chain, rustling and grinding the petals underneath her. “Did I really turn into a whimpering mess at the end!?”

  “Yes!” He said, grinning.

  “I begged you to hug me! That place sucks!” She grabbed some fresh-looking petals and rubbed her face with them; she’d started to like the oily texture of unspoiled fools-flower.

  “It does!”

  She huffed, then wiped the crushed petal husks away. “I’m glad you showed me it. I…feel accomplished? I stayed as long as I could, and we got to do a lot. I just thought I could hold on better because of willpower, but there was nothing for self-control to fight.”

  He adjusted his mask, hiding a mix of mirth and concern. “Yeah, Ruvle, I’m counting that as your stupid thing. That’s not how it works. Never think that’s how it works.”

  She laughed, and they traded one more hug.

  Ruvle hadn’t consciously considered it during the trip, but she’d thought that maximizing her body and mind would be, in part, acts of will–straining herself during the raid of Othek’s tower had required pushing herself. Most training required doing more than her body felt prepared for. Dodging water jets, for example, needed much self-control and regulating her frustration. Lining up a shot with screws as ammunition, against a gegha snake and while halfway paralyzed, needed intense concentration. It hadn’t even been a conscious decision to approach enduring the alcazar with willpower first–that was just how Ruvle’s brain worked.

  Chain hadn’t so clearly outlasted her by having a sharper mind. He’d shown her immediately his scattered intellect in his workshop, threads splayed out, so much easier to cut than a garment of them all tightly woven together. He just…had resistance to the haze, and she didn’t, control over one’s own attention or not. But she held out long enough to see the Basis, which counted for something, didn’t it?

  She ambled back to her training tree. On the way, she grabbed her notary pen to check if Elial had responded. …her way of training, under Fool’s Dye, felt like a low-willpower activity. Vacation. Train until tired, rest, get back up, do one thing instead of worrying about a thousand documents. Somehow, her right hand felt better, despite its use as heavy as her left, and she realized it had to do with not signing her name hundreds of times a day.

  She shone her pen’s light on the indigo slab, the only flat object nearby.

  ‘Elial Broncast ~ It’s an old symbol for Exaction,’ Elial’s message read. ‘Wherever you are, stone from a monastery ended up.’

  ‘Mielo ~ What about the other one?’ Ruvle asked. Not new information. She waited a few minutes, in case Elial could respond.

  ‘~ I’ve heard of it. I know less about it.’

  ‘~ What is it?’

  ‘~ There used to be more paths than Exaction. They’re all under a category. Specialization. I don’t know which one the lemniscate is,’ Elial answered. ‘They’re all too dead to tell you themselves.’

  ‘~ Does specialization mean something specific here?’

  ‘~ Yes. Ways of personal power by refining one human aspect past normal physical limits. No good anymore. Dye and Consolidation are too industrialized. True citizens make them pointless, mostly. Exaction has lived the longest.’

  Ruvle smelled new ways of accumulating strength. ‘~ What kinds of aspects?’

  ‘~ I’ll ask an Ultrafine if we ever find one.’

  She pouted. A thin thread to follow. ‘~ Thank you. Have a good day of training.’

  ‘~ When are you returning?’

  ‘~ When I feel powerful enough.’

  Elial delayed her response so long that Ruvle’s pen was halfway to being set down when it clicked again. ‘~ Come back sometime.’ She would. After that tough visit to the alcazar and a loose end wrapped up, Ruvle returned to her vacation.

  The petals stopped falling in her sector.