pared to most of Yaresh, the district taining the Magical Research Association campus was heavy on stone and light on trees. It certainly had none of the t gss of the tral district. Located right across the road from the campus was the Alchemy Association’s main research tre. The urban pnners in charge of rebuilding Yaresh wao tralise the pces most proo ued explosions, ient poison fog and actal fire titan summoning.

  Both anisations had argued that such stories were — mostly — overblown, but it had made no headway with the pnners. Not only did they put the two buildings together but also surrouhem with the b distri Yaresh. There were only a few scattered trees, and none of the thick varieties used as part of the buildings. The buildings were all heavy, magically reinforced stone.

  There were no houses or shops, only long-term storehouses and other low-traffic facilities that minimised colteral damage risk. That made it one of the least iing districts for Danielle and Jason to take their walk through. The buildings were rgely square and dark grey, with only a few lorees to break up the monotony.

  While the footpath was made of familiar fgstohe road, like others in Yaresh, was sealed in some manner of brown crete. With nothing more iing to catch his eye, it was what caught Jason’s attention. He crouched beside the road to run his fingers across it.

  “It looks almost like tree bark in colour, but it feels like regur asphalt crete.”

  “Regur?” Danielle asked. “This seems like unusual road surfag, to my eye.”

  “Regur for Earth. We don’t have a lot of stone-shapers in civil engineering, so this is normal there. I haven’t seen a lot of creting in Pallimustus. This looks more like it was id the Earth way, though.”

  He stood up and they tiheir way down the footpath.

  “Is civil infrastructure an i of yours?” Danielle asked.

  “Sort of. My father is a ndscape architect, and you pick things up. I know more about grass than you’d imagine. He did a lot of work in front of gover buildings, so he dealt with a lot of driveways. He’d love to see what they’ve aplished with Yaresh.”

  “Then show him. You take people there, so surely you bring others back.”

  “It’s not a matter of ability. I inte them st time, but…”

  He sighed.

  “It didn’t work out.”

  “You’re ed about plications on your return.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t it always like that with family? Especially after a long time away with no unication.”

  “I suppose so,” Danielle said. “Things are a little different in my family. We have esseo extend our lifespans, and expectations of duty.”

  She scowled.

  “Expectations are very big in my family, which be a point of pride. But while they drive someone like Humphrey to greatness, they crush others beh them. Your family was uo the power and loy that es of magic, were they not?”

  “They weren’t,” Jason firmed. “I took them halfway around the world, leaving them with a handful of essence users, a stockpile of essences and a couple of magical cities to live in. Then I disappeared on them. No unication for over a decade. I was able to send them Rufus, but not much else.”

  “Magical cities? Like Rexion?”

  “Yes. They’ve been living in cities built from my power. Not just with my power, but literally made of it. The streets they walk and the houses they live in. And, like in Rexion, there are children who grew up hearing my never seeing me. I was a distant and abstract figure, spoken of, but never present. Yet my power was everywhere, like some aral ghost. And that power was not always sistent. I had to hide it for a long time, trapping the astral spaces.”

  “But they are out, now? And you’re in tact with them, using your avatars?”

  “Now, yes, but most still haven’t seen me. And that’s not a normal way to enter a person. Popping in and out of existence, reshaping the world around them on a whim. I’m lucky they didn’t see me deal with the vampire city that was over their heads for a decade.”

  “You don’t know how to act when you return properly.”

  “No, I don’t. Magic is still retively o Earth, and my power is like nothing else on it. No one knows how to treat me, and I’m unsure how to act. I suppose things were very different for you, ing from a big adventuring family.”

  “Yes. For mine, power is loablished. The trouble it brings es from the expectations that power brings. Only a fra of the family bee adventurers, and only a fra of those bee high-rank and famous. But there’s a pressure on all of us as children, to at least potentially bee one of those few. To maintain the family legacy. We’re all expected to strive for that until we prove ourselves. Or prove ourselves ie. There’s little sideration for ao want something else until they’ve been branded a failure at what matters most. I had a sister who… suffice to say, I am proud of our family and its name, but I do not care for some of the culture we’ve built up trying to maintain it. Sometimes I wonder if Humphrey wouldn’t have beeer off as a soft-hearted bour manager in a spirit farm.”

  Jason ughed at the image.

  “He’d be such a soft touch as a boss.”

  “This issue with your family. Not knowing how to act. Am I corre guessing that this is only peripheral to what you really wao discuss?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to know how to a a rger scale. Not just with your , but with the whole world.”

  “Exactly. What do I do when I’m the most powerful person on the purning up with a colle of gold rankers who could quer the p a week is extremely political, whether I like it or not. And I am not as adept at politics as I thought I would be before I actually involved myself in them.”

  Danielle chuckled.

  “I remember your antics ba Greenstone. You have a political mind, Jason, ahrough more than most. But when it es to your own designs, you get impetuous. Distracted by ideas that appeal more for their cleverhan their practicality. That is when you get blindsided by sequences.”

  “Oh, I remember, and I ’t afford that this time. This isn’t messing with some shady local bureaucrats and a dodgy iured servitude tract. This is world leaders being scared of a potential tyrant.”

  “And people take drastic steps when they feel scared and powerless. If I recall correctly, that is kind of your thing as well.”

  “No kidding. With Earth, I’m heading into a situation that ’t really hurt me. If people start deg war on me or something, though, a lot of i people could get caught in the crossfire. Ba Greenstone, I had you and Emir to bail me out when I got it wrong. This time, I’m the high ranker, and the responsibility stops with me. I’ll have my friends with me, but it’s my world.”

  “And the power y will reshape it, simply by existing.”

  “Yes. Even if we hide it away and never use our power, people will react to its very existence.”

  “This is a plicated issue, Jason. A lot more than we could cover on a short stroll, even if I did have an uanding of your world’s politics. Which I do not.”

  “But you uand diplomacy. You uand the kind of power that Earth is only just ing to grips with. Most importantly, I trust you. The people who already kh politics are all oh, and most I wouldn’t trust to burn if I threw them in a volo. Which I’m hoping it won’t e to.”

  Danielle ughed.

  “You said most you wouldn’t trust. Suggesting there are a few you would.”

  “Not many. There’s someone who works for my grandmother now. She would be an asset, but I’d really like to recruit a woman she used to work for, to cover the knowledge of Earth politics I don’t have.”

  “The way you’re attempting to recruit me know?”

  “ly like this. I thought it might be best to let other people make the pitch to her.”

  “There’s tentioween you and this person?”

  “It’s plicated. The first time we met in person, I broke into her house in the middle of the night.”

  “Why?”

  “To make a point. I’d just been kidnapped by some associates of hers and I was worried about people targeting my family.”

  “So, you escated by proving you could target hers?”

  “I did say I wanted help with diplomacy, right?”

  “I’m starting to see how good an idea seeking out assistance might be for you.”

  “Yes. I asked everyone if they wao e along on this trip, but for most I just wao give them a ce to expand their horizons. That’s the best part of being an adventurer, right? My iions for you are a little more selfish, though, yes. I was hoping you might take a role as a political advisor. Not just for the trip, but iime leading up to it. I o be preparing now, not just heading for Earth and winging it. Diplomatic training. Strategising over proach to take. I’ve already discussed this with Dominion, but I wao trast that with a mrounded perspective.”

  “What did he suggest?”

  “That I either bee their king or their god. her is a surprising take, given the source, but he made some pelling points.”

  “How often do you talk to gods?”

  “Not that much. Way less than priests, I imagine. And I doubt the clergy have those really teandoffs, like the one you saw with Uh. That guy sucks.”

  “That would be the enter where you threatehe gods of uh aru.”

  “I didn’t threaten them. I even gave Uh that gobbet of corrupt energy to get rid of. I just suggested that maybe they want to choose their enemies with more care.”

  “Their enemies are everyone and everything, Jason.”

  “Which is aremely careless approach to take, I think you’d agree.”

  She shook her head in a very motherly dispy of exasperation.

  “I’m not sure I help you on the level you operate at, Jason.”

  “You don’t have to worry about the high-end stuff. When it es to the vast ic power types, it seems to be a do-your-own-thing situation. What I need help with is operating without harming the people who someone like me could hurt without even notig. I don’t like the idea of putting myself above people, but pretending I don’t operate on a higher level than most will only cause more harm.”

  “I o think about this, Jason. You’re askio take on a lot of responsibility, here.”

  “Of course. We have some time, although the more of it I use to prepare, the better.”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me more about this person you want to recruit oh.”

  ***

  Getting information out of Europe had been difficult for years, but whatever happened in the old Asaory had kicked a hor’s . Vampires were moving on a scale they hadn’t been in years. Based on neture and kill numbers, there were more of them still hidden away than anyone realised.

  That, fortunately, was not Anna Tilden’s problem. Her problem was representatives from the UN member natioing down her door about what was going on in Europe. Every nation with a spy pne or observation satellite had been watg the vampires gather in the old Asaory, only for those observation tools to all get interfered with by an intense magical field that extended into orbit. In the wake of the mysterious event, the vampires had bee extremely agitated.

  It was bad enough when people were ing to Anna because it was her job. Now, it had gotten around about her having an off-the-books observation team on the ground. Instead of assistants of assistants of deputy liaisons knog at her door, she had to deal with people she couldn’t just brush off. Her b denials were starting to wear very thin.

  “I’m sorry, Senator,” she said into the phone. “Even if there were such a team, any information I could get from them would only arrive when they checked in after the fact. If they existed, they could very easily have died in the i and we would never know.”

  It took a while loo finish the call, tinuing to bnk wall him like she did everyorying t-arm or wheedle information out of her. Despite taking a grim satisfa that her cims of not knowing anythirue, she was halfway to hunting down hornton herself and choking him to death.

  She left her office, which was novel. She’d been sleeping on the couch for five days and haviaff cycle the same three suits through the dry ers. She made her way down to the garage, deing the offer of a driver. An office driver might turn around and bring her back, if ordered to by her boss. Iably, she got a call halfway home, and while tempted not to answer, she accepted the call by tapping the s on her dash.

  “Secretary Lin, what I do for you?”

  “I o you to e to my office.”

  “Sorry, Secretary, but I’m already on my way home.”

  “Then I need you to turn around.”

  “With all due respect, Secretary, if I gh another weekend without going home and seeing my wife, I’m going to quit a whoever you get to repce me handle whatever crisis just blew up.”

  “Anna—”

  “Don’t ‘Anna,’ me, Shu-. Don’t think I missed that wot around about my people in Eurhly four seds after I told you about them.”

  “That’s what we o discuss. You have to give us more information on—”

  “I gave you the information I have, Shu-. If I get more… well, I’ll probably keep it to myself. You’ve got a big mouth and it’s not teically — ally — part of my job. This was a team I put in the field, on my own. ment funds, ment tacts.”

  “Dammit, Anna, people are thinking Asano’s back.”

  “He might be. I don’t know.”

  “Anna, I’m hearing dangerous things. Rufus Remore annouhat Asano was ing bad would more or less do whatever the hell he wanted with the p, and then this so-called System happened. It’s left a lot of people spooked. Powerful people. The things I’m hearing range from nuking Frae magical crap I don’t know whether to believe.”

  “At this point, it’s safer to believe. Look, I’m hearing things as well, but I genuinely don’t have anything more to add. To be ho, it’s looking increasingly likely that my people got caught up in whatever it was, and we’ll never hear from them.”

  “Then your information is out of date. Satellites are operating over France again and I have visual firmation of hornton and his team liberating a blood farm and bringing the people back to territory that appears to be once again under Asano trol.”

  “Well, they haven’t reached out to me.”

  “We know. We’ve been monit all your unication els.”

  “God dammit, Shu-. Are y to get me to quit?”

  “You know you won’t, Anna. You’re too driven to try and make things better, despite all the ugly politics. It’s why you left the work for us. Who is going to give you a better seat at the table than we ?”