Lucian met Emma for lunch. Believer Horatia had closed her pod, thankfully, so he didn’t have to deal with her on his way out.

  The galley was full when he arrived, and everyone went quiet upon his entrance. He tried to avoid the stares, only looking up long enough to see that Dirk’s usual table was filled with different people, while there was no sign of Dirk himself. He half-expected someone to challenge him as he made his way to where Emma was sitting, but no one did. He couldn’t help but notice that many were shying away or leaving by the other exit.

  As promised, Emma had a tray waiting for him.

  “I hope you like seafood,” she said. “They were out of steak.”

  “Seafood’s perfect.” Despite everything, his chest swelled with happiness to sit down to his first meal as a free man. The smell of the salmon, over garlic potatoes and glazed carrots, was tantalizing, all the more so since he hadn’t eaten in days.

  As he wolfed it down, what few people were left in the galley cast surreptitious glances his way, but nothing could ruin this moment.

  “That good, huh?” she asked, smiling in amusement.

  He took a swig of soda and nodded. "I've never tasted anything better in my life.”

  “Now I know you were starving,” she said. She picked at her food and didn’t seem to have an appetite for it.

  “Now, I just have to survive the rest of this trip,” Lucian said.

  “After what you did to Dirk, no one is going to mess with you. I think you’re safe.”

  Taking his last bite, he looked at her across the table. “Should we sim later? There are things we need to talk about.”

  “We can after this, if you want.”

  After Emma gave him some of her pills, they returned to their cabins.

  They met each other in the default game room.

  “Where should we go?” Emma asked.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Okay. I think it’s time you saw where I grew up. Only a small part of Aurora was mapped out, but that includes my old village, Vale. You can show me your home on Earth, too.”

  Within the minute, they had left the game lobby and were loaded into a new reality.

  Cold air pressed in around him, touching him, but not causing discomfort. They stood in the middle of a snowfield, wearing thick winter clothes. They found themselves in a forested valley, with white snow-clad mountains surrounding them. A dark, violet sky stretched above, laced with bright streams of stars. The aurora borealis shimmered from horizon to horizon, multicolored, luminous, and breathtaking. A cracked moon, molten red, floated in the sky above. It was smaller than Earth’s, but far brighter, glowing with a hellish red light.

  They walked until they stood on a precipice high above a valley filled with tall, spindly trees. In that valley shone several lights from a small village in the distance.

  “That’s home,” Emma said, her breath coming out in clouds.

  “And you said mages live here?”

  “Not in Vale. But a community of rogues lives a few hours’ walk away, up in the foothills. That’s where the Builder ruins are. My dad dealt with them a lot. They would sell him the artifacts they found, and he would ship them back to the Worlds. You wouldn’t believe what museums and private collectors will pay for a unique piece.”

  “Sounds like an interesting childhood.”

  Emma laughed. “Well, I hated it. All I wanted was to live on Earth or a First World. I was born on Sani, which is remote enough. When we moved to Aurora, I was not a happy child.” Her smile was tinged with sadness. “Now, I recognize that even if those times were hard, they were happy. I cried when we left. That was four years ago. My mother said she wanted to be closer to family, but she probably sensed something wrong with me. By then, my parents had made their fortune with artifact hunting, so there was no real reason to stay.”

  Emma gazed down at the valley. Her reminiscent expression was easy to see in the light of the stars, which were twice as numerous as in an Earth sky. Aurora must have been located in a dense star field.

  As they walked toward the village, Emma continued sharing her story.

  “I didn’t start showing symptoms until I was fifteen when we left. All the usual stuff, like weird premonitions and dreams. The convulsions didn’t even start until recently when I was eighteen, though. By then, we were living on Hephaestus Station. The doctors tested me, but I somehow came up negative for metaphysical emergence. That’s when we moved to L5.” She paused as the lights of the town drew closer. “We sold our old spaceship in the Arion System since it would be faster to travel by liner. We crawled across the Worlds on various starships, always making toward Sol. Gate to Gate, orbital to orbital, station to station. Things kept getting worse for me. The seizures would be bad for a while, and then I’d go without them for a time. When we finally arrived at L5, I was nineteen, and the doctors couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me. Almost as a last-ditch effort, they ran a metaphysical test on me.” She went quiet. “That’s when I learned for sure. After that, life was never the same.”

  The silence of the world pressed in on them, completely foreign to what Lucian had grown up with. There was no sound of animals from the surrounding woods. It made Emma’s words seem all the eerier.

  “That was when it occurred to me,” Emma went on. “I thought about some of the mages I’d met here. They looked different compared to non-mages. They had this greenish aura surrounding them. I always assumed everyone could see it, but when I mentioned it to my parents, they were confused. I guess it’s just one of my abilities, though I’m not sure what to call it or how it works.” She looked at Lucian. “That’s how I knew what you were.”

  Lucian felt chilled by those words. “You say you haven’t streamed yet, but you can do something magical.”

  “I’m not sure how it works. Nonetheless, it seems to be the case. Once I found out for sure what I was, I reached out to the Transcends on Volsung. It only took a couple of weeks for them to respond, which was faster than I expected. They told me to come in person, and that my case seemed promising.” She watched the village below. “Leaving my parents behind, going against their wishes without them knowing, was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

  She was quiet for a while. Talking about this couldn’t have been easy, and Lucian could see why she had been hesitant to say anything before.

  Lucian thought about her story as they wove through a forest of billowing trees laden with snow. They entered the village, most of the buildings being one story and constructed of wood. Smoke emitted from chimneys, lending a sweet aroma to the cold air. Lucian felt as if he had stepped back centuries in time. On the frontier, pioneers had to reconstruct civilization from scratch with whatever materials were available. On this world, that was trees.

  They walked through the village of Vale until they stood at a central tree. It was the largest he had seen in his life. The tree was about as tall as the Redwoods of Earth, but its canopy was even wider, filled with slender boughs that billowed above.

  “I’ve always felt like there was something special about this tree,” Emma said. “It has nothing to do with its size. The feeling is absent in a simulation, but if you were to go there, you would see what I mean.”

  “Special, how?”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Emma was quiet as she looked up at it. “I don’t know. Its effect is calming, for some reason. It’s far larger than any other tree on Aurora. It’s like . . . it has a spirit of its own, like how I can tell when someone’s a mage.” She smiled nervously. “I know it sounds weird, but that’s how I feel.” She looked back at him. “The mage enclave isn’t far, up the path to those mountains there.” She pointed. “You can see the smoke of their fires hidden by that ridge.”

  Lucian could see what she was talking about and wondered if she was going to take him there. But that was when she led Lucian to her old home on the periphery of town, one of the rare two-story houses. Like the others, it was made from logs, well-built, and looked like a warm and welcoming refuge from the snow. When they went inside, there was furniture carved and fitted from the local wood. Nothing fancy, but comfortable and padded with cushions and plenty of blankets. A warm fire crackled in the fireplace. There were bookshelves, a couch, two chairs, along with a basic kitchen and dining table of carved wood, while a set of stairs led to a loft above.

  They took up seats on the couch in front of the blazing fire.

  She looked at Lucian. “Well, this is home. Was home. Thanks for humoring me.”

  “Of course,” Lucian said. “I’m glad you shared that with me.”

  She smiled, seeming pleased. “So, what did you want to talk about? You didn’t come here just to hear me talk.”

  There was nothing but to get right into it, but for some reason, Lucian still found himself hesitant. But Emma waited patiently for him to break the silence.

  “There’s another mage on board the ship.”

  Emma’s eyes widened, but she recovered quickly. “I think I know who you’re talking about. The old woman, right?”

  Now, it was Lucian’s turn to be surprised. “You’ve seen her?”

  She nodded. “Just once. Even though there was no aura around her, I still had a feeling. It felt as if she was trying to hide it from me, but I wasn’t sure until now. I saw her one night when I couldn’t sleep. Seems she only comes out at night.”

  “She’s a mage,” Lucian said. “I’ve spoken to her twice.” Three times, if he were to count the telepathic conversation. “The first time was right before Dirk attacked me. And the second time was right after I got out of the cell before you found me.”

  He paused. For some reason, it felt strange to talk about Vera to Emma, almost like a betrayal of confidence. That was silly, though, because Vera had never told him to keep their conversations private.

  “Her name is Vera. She . . . had some interesting things to say. I’m not sure what to make of them, but somehow, she knew what I was without my even telling her.”

  “That’s strange. What did she say?”

  “Everything . . . and nothing. She keeps talking about reality being a shadow of the Manifold. That the Manifold is the true reality that casts the shadow. How a mage should use magic to make themselves stronger.” Lucian gave a nervous laugh. “Weird stuff like that.”

  “You should be careful around her,” Emma said. “Even if she was upfront with you, she was hiding her true nature from me. Why would she do that?”

  “Well, wouldn’t she want to do that?” Lucian asked. “She’s a rogue mage.”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “What? She told you that?”

  “She says she isn’t with one of the academies, so unless there’s another option, that’s what she is.”

  Emma’s face seemed troubled. “You should avoid her, Lucian. Rogues are dangerous, completely off the grid. She could be fraying!”

  “I don’t think so,” Lucian said. “She seems quite sane to me, though her ideas are a bit out there.”

  “I wrote her off since she had no aura, but this just makes her seem iffier. Especially if she isn’t associated with an academy in any way.”

  “When I mentioned the Volsung Academy, she didn’t have anything good to say.”

  “You told her you were going there?”

  “Why shouldn’t I have? Isn’t that easy to guess with me being on board?”

  “I guess you have a point,” she said. “I just don’t trust her.”

  “That was my initial reaction, too. She knows things, though. She’s been a mage longer than both of us have been alive. Maybe twice as long. It could be a good opportunity to learn.”

  “Lucian—”

  “—Just hear me out. I mean, she’s offered to help. What’s the harm in that?”

  “Because you don’t know her price.”

  “What price? She’s offering to help me and asking nothing in return.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. The very act of learning from her was some level of commitment on his part. And it was true that he didn’t know her motivations exactly. But that still didn’t mean she meant him harm.

  “What else have you two talked about?” Emma asked.

  Lucian summarized most of his and Vera’s conversations. How she said it was important to use the Manifold with care, to nurture it as a gift, and to develop one’s abilities to their full potential. At least, that was how Lucian figured it. He probably didn’t explain things well enough.

  For now, he omitted the part about Vera speaking to him in his cell. Emma might think her entering his mind unbidden was some sort of violation. Which it kind of was, but Lucian wasn’t going to hold that against Vera.

  Emma stewed on what Lucian said for at least a couple of minutes, her light brown eyes looking into the flames. At last, she responded.

  “Mages have been trying to use the Manifold safely for over a century. Ever since there were mages. I may not know much, but I do know that no one has been successful. Not completely. The idea of unlimited use of magic, nurturing one’s gifts, led to the Mage War in the first place. When the fraying was connected to magic use, academies changed their training to focus more on limitations. But that didn’t sit well with many mages. They followed Xara Mallis and other mages into exile, forming the Starsea Mages. From what my mage friend Mathias told me, the Starsea Mages taught their followers not to restrict themselves. Eventually, to fulfill their vision, it set them on the path to try to dominate all the Worlds. But to do that, they had to use magic with reckless abandon.” Emma paused. “Of course, we know where that led.”

  Lucian didn’t have to ask.

  “At the Starsea Mages’ height, Mallis had as many following her as the Loyalist Mages. The two factions of mages were fighting each other before their war spread to the League.”

  “So you’re saying Vera’s way of thinking lines up with the Starsea Mages?”

  “The Starsea Mages died in the Tragedy of Isis,” she said. “Those who didn’t were hunted down by Loyalist Mages and sent to Psyche. I wonder, though. It’s not hard to imagine a few escaping the net . . .”

  “No way that Vera is one of them.”

  The old woman was a bit creepy, but to be one of the mages who had almost caused the destruction of the League and the death of several billion? Lucian didn’t see how it was possible.

  “She probably isn’t one of them,” Emma admitted. “It was fifty years ago, after all. Then again, from what you’ve told me, it sounds like her philosophy isn’t far off from theirs.”

  Lucian found he had nothing to say to that. She had made good points.

  “Seeking a final answer to the fraying seems noble on the surface,” she continued. “But it has led to nothing but death. That’s the danger of that kind of thinking, Lucian. It fooled many mages into not restricting their magic in the hopes that they would find a cure. And for that, half of the League burned. Maybe you haven’t seen the effects of the war, being from Earth. But in most of the Mid-Worlds and Border Worlds, the ruins are still there, and likely will be for centuries yet. I know it’s hard to imagine, but magic is highly dangerous. It shouldn’t be used freely, and only in great need.”

  She had a point, but Lucian also thought he wasn’t doing justice to Vera’s ideas. “She’s old, Emma. I don’t know how old, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s pushing a hundred. For her to live that long without fraying is incredible. She must know something about keeping the fraying away. Something she might be able to teach us.”

  Emma’s expression darkened. Something Lucian had said bothered her.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. If she’s been a mage that long, she’s old enough to have participated in the war. And some of her beliefs line up with the Starsea Mages, especially the part about using the Manifold as a means to strengthen oneself. The Academy Mages believe the Manifold is only something to be used as needed."

  Lucian wasn’t sure what to think. Vera was a little strange, sure, with her cryptic sayings and cold mannerisms. But those things, coupled with her beliefs, didn’t mean anything in themselves. She was a rogue mage—if she were ever discovered, they would send her to Psyche. There was no evidence she was anything beyond that.

  Then again, she’d managed on her own for this long, eluding capture. Didn’t it stand to reason that a rogue mage’s thinking might not be in line with the norm? Did that necessarily make her wrong? Lucian knew not to trust authority blindly, but to him, Emma seemed to see things in terms of good and bad. It sounded a bit na?ve.

  “What if she was a part of the Starsea Mages?” Lucian asked. “She would never admit that, would she?”

  “Probably not. But you should avoid her at all costs. The Starsea Mages were magic maximalists. They didn’t hold back because they trusted the Manifold would produce a cure if only they worked hard enough.” She shook her head. “Of course, that didn’t happen.”

  “Where did you learn all this?”

  “I’ve had a lot of conversations with Mathias. I won’t forget those talks for the rest of my life. I found them fascinating, and Mathias answered just about anything I asked.” Emma looked at Lucian worriedly. “The Manifold is dangerous. A mage should use magic only when necessary. The more we stream it, the greater the risk of fraying. The Volsung Academy opposes the Starsea Mages’ ideology. It’s been proven not to work. And in the end, the promise of unhindered magic is empty, especially when the Academy has had promising results in recent years.”

  “Promising results, like what?”

  “Well, most of the Transcends themselves are quite old, from what I understand. Untrained mages make it five or ten years before fraying. Sometimes less than that. But the Academy’s teachings allow most mages to make it to old age if they take care of how much they stream. Given enough time to figure it out, the Academy Mages might even find a complete cure.”

  It sounded too good to be true. As Emma herself admitted, it built up over time. A mage had to use it at some point. Unless they found a way to stop that, how could anyone hope to stop the fraying?

  “Just be careful, Lucian,” Emma finished. “Promise me, okay? I’m not saying don’t talk to her. Just take what she says with a grain of salt.”

  “I will.”

  That answer seemed to satisfy her. “Let’s get out of here. We still have a couple of hours before we’re kicked out.”

  “Sure,” Lucian said. "Do you still want to see my house?”

  She instantly brightened. “Of course!”

  Lucian wasn’t quite sure how to get there. So, all he did was imagine his home city—its sunny blue sky, sultry air, blue canals, and gleaming skyscrapers. And he willed himself to go there.

  The ease of it all surprised him because, in the next moment, Miami’s humid heat was baking his skin.