In his pod, he nursed his lip as best he could. It was swollen and numb, but it didn’t hurt too terribly. He hated the idea of walking around the ship out there for everyone to see, but he did come out around lunchtime, hoping to find Emma. He was pleased to see her sitting at the same table. He ordered lunch and joined her, doing nothing to hide his busted lip.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “What happened?”

  Lucian checked the galley for Dirk and his crew, but they weren’t around. “I’ve got a lot to talk to you about . . .”

  Lucian told her what happened, leaving nothing out. It was a bit embarrassing for some reason, even if he knew it shouldn’t be. Her expression soured upon hearing it.

  “What a creep,” she said. “And an idiot to boot. I don’t like to stereotype, but Mars-O does have a bad reputation. A punch in the face there is like a handshake anywhere else.”

  It didn’t sound like a place Lucian wanted to visit. “The real question is, what do we do? He seems to know everything about us already. Unless you told him . . .”

  Emma scoffed. “You can’t be serious. Why would I do that?”

  “It’s the only thing I can think of. I sure as hell didn’t say anything.”

  “That leaves one option,” Emma said. “They were sitting across the galley yesterday, so there’s no way they could have heard us. And everyone else was sitting too far away, too.”

  “What’s that option, then?”

  “An auditory implant. They’re illegal for civilians, but it would allow him to hear pretty much anything he wants. If he’s going for officer training, he’s allowed certain body modifications. An auditory implant might be one of them.”

  “That has to be it. Could he be listening to us now?”

  “Possibly. If he’s right around the corner where we can’t see him. But I don’t think he’d be sneaking around like that. Suffice it to say, if we’re in the same room as him, he can hear anything we say. Competing noise can be easily filtered out with those.”

  “So, we can’t even talk then.”

  “I mean, we have some options. There’s your cabin.”

  Lucian shook his head. “I have a Believer for a cabinmate.”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “Seriously? That’s some bad luck.”

  “What about your cabin?”

  Emma sighed. “The lady in there never seems to leave, and she keeps her pod open. There’s only one real solution I can think of.”

  She dug into her purse, a fancy designer handbag, and retrieved a pill bottle. Lucian wondered just what she was doing when she took off the cap to reveal dozens of small, gray pills. When Lucian realized what they were, his eyes popped. He’d never seen so many sim pills in one place. If she’d carried that in his neighborhood, she’d be robbed blind.

  “You should put those away,” he said.

  “Right,” she said, her cheeks coloring. Now Lucian was sure she came from money. Only a wealthy person would flash that many sim pills and not realize the effect it would have.

  “Well, my idea was that we could talk in sim. Set up a private server where Dirk couldn’t overhear. That would be the safest.”

  “You would just let me have a sim pill?” The idea of it was incomprehensible to him.

  “Why not? I can always get more.”

  He smiled. “Who are you, exactly?”

  “Emma Almaty?”

  “You know what I mean. What do your parents do? Sorry, I'm just curious.”

  “Never mind that. Are you gonna sim with me, or not?”

  “Of course. Although I should say, I’ve never simmed before.”

  Her eyes widened. “Seriously?” When he shook his head, her expression softened. “Sorry. It’s . . . hard for me to wrap my head around.”

  Lucian wasn’t sure what to say, so he just shrugged.

  “It’s quite simple. Give me your slate ID, and we can talk over text.”

  They exchanged information by tapping their slates. The action seemed to cement their friendship, that they were in this situation together.

  “Thanks,” Lucian said. “Good to know you have my back.”

  “Of course. Remember what I said yesterday? Allies are hard to find. Maybe we were put on this ship together for a reason.”

  “Fate and all that.”

  “Well, we can talk about that later.” She stood. “Just head back to your cabin and pop the pill. I can pull you into the game lobby since I have your slate info. Just confirm it when you get the notification.”

  Lucian had seen enough lit-films to know how sims worked, roughly speaking. They were full sensory experiences, but the most advanced ones required sim pills, made by one gaming company that had a monopoly on them. As such, sims were out of reach for most income brackets. While lit-films followed a predetermined course and story somewhat determined by the participant, full simulations ranged from anything as simple as environmental renderings to full-sensory virtual video games that were practically indistinguishable from real life. Lucian wouldn’t know what Emma had in mind until she pulled him in.

  “All right. See you on the other side,” she said.

  They parted, and Lucian headed back to his cabin and entered his pod. He looked down at the pill for a moment, almost second-guessing his decision. But he already knew Emma was waiting for him, and she had the information he needed to know.

  If he was going to learn how to be a mage and defend himself, it began by picking her brain.

  He popped the pill. Nothing happened for a full thirty seconds. And then, in the blink of an eye, he stood somewhere else.

  Lucian stood in a gray, featureless room with no doors or windows. There needed to be more light.

  At the very thought, windows popped into existence on the walls, letting in a flood of sunlight. A door materialized ahead of him. Over the next few seconds, the simulation produced a rustic country cottage.

  Lucian blinked at the sudden change. Had he done that, or had the simulation read his thoughts, giving him an approximation of what he wanted? He had no idea what the rules were here, but it seemed all he had to do was will something into existence, and it happened.

  He was brought back from his thoughts when a knock sounded at the door. Lucian went to answer.

  “Wow,” Emma said, teasingly. “It’s so quaint.”

  Lucian felt his face flush. “It just popped into existence.”

  Emma laughed. “I’m just messing with you. I’d love to have a house like this. Space isn’t the same as solid ground.”

  After she stepped inside, there was a moment of awkward silence, neither knowing where to start.

  “Okay,” Lucian said. “Tell me everything you know about magic.”

  “Not one for small talk, are you?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “You’re the only person I’ve met who knows anything about magic, and I’m worried I might kill myself somehow.”

  “Have you emerged yet?”

  “Emerged?”

  “That’s what it’s called when you stream for the first time.”

  “Stream?”

  She sighed. “Okay, we have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Well, I think I read online that streaming is when a mage uses magic, right?”

  Emma nodded. “Well, I can only tell you what an old friend told me himself. He was a mage, and he said magic itself is sort of like a stream. Rather, magic is like thousands or even millions of streams, all eddying around the universe. Magic comes from this place called the Manifold. It’s the source. By drawing from that source, we can change our reality.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m not good at explaining things.”

  “Well, I understand more than I did before. Anything else?”

  “Mages are people who are sensitive to these streams. Oh, that’s right. The actual substance these streams are made of is called ether, and all these streams together form something called the Ethereal Background. It encompasses the entire universe, or at least, the part of the universe we’re in.”

  To Lucian, it sounded similar to the cosmic microwave background. “Okay, I think I’m with you so far.”

  “As time passes, these streams of ether are attracted to anyone who is a mage. They gather, and then the mage can use that ether to stream. That’s magic in a nutshell.”

  “I see. So even now, I have these ether streams going into me, building up all the time . . .”

  Emma nodded. “If you’re a mage, then yes, you do. As it’s happening to me and all other mages, too. What’s more, that ether has to be used. If you don’t use it, bad things happen.”

  “Bad things, like what?”

  She shook her head. “Never mind that. That’s a bit advanced for now.”

  “Okay, sure. How do I use it, then?”

  “That’s a closely guarded secret, and no one will teach you that outside of an academy. The point is to get detected and go to an academy immediately for training before the bad stuff starts happening.”

  That “bad stuff” just made Lucian curious, but it seemed as if Emma didn’t want to get into that for whatever reason.

  “What about this mage friend of yours? Was he from an academy?"

  She shook her head. “No. He was a rogue mage, living outside the boundaries of the League. And he taught me only because we were friends, and I wasn’t a mage at the time.”

  “Wait,” Lucian said. "How did you get mixed up with someone like that?”

  “Long story. That’s what it means to be a mage. For unknown reasons, certain people can detect and use this ether. Ether is completely undetectable by normal scientific instruments, though it’s theorized to exist in a quantum state. It’s both there and not there, depending on who’s looking. Mages are simply those who can detect it. Ether gives mages the power to do things that would otherwise be impossible. To change reality itself.”

  “And I’ll have to be accepted at the Volsung Academy to learn to stream then.”

  Emma nodded. “More or less.”

  “You also said letting this ether build-up is bad, but it’s also bad to use it, isn’t it? Is ether the cause of the fraying?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “It’s said that ether is poisonous when it’s manifested as magic. It’s turning from its natural, hidden state into something that can no longer be denied. In short, ether shouldn’t exist in our reality, belonging instead to the reality of the Manifold. Because it’s not a part of our world, it ends up poisoning mages over time, leading to the effects of the fraying. You can think of it like radiation poisoning, though the effects are different.”

  Lucian found he didn’t want to talk about that anymore. Just knowing that he might someday go through that made him feel sick. Whatever the case, being a mage seemed like bad luck. If you used your magic, you would end up fraying from the poisonous nature of this “ether.” If you didn’t use magic, then it would build up inside you and poison you anyway. Or at least, that was what he gathered.

  These thoughts must have been written on his face because Emma offered a sympathetic smile. “We just have to last a little while longer, Lucian. Everything will be better once we start training.”

  Lucian made himself nod. “Right. It’s a depressing thought. If you think about it, magic could be something beneficial to humanity.”

  “That’s been a point of debate for a long time. It was the question that precipitated the Mage War.”

  “What do you mean? I thought that happened because the mages wanted to control the Worlds.”

  Emma shook her head. “Not all mages; just the side called the Starsea Mages. You see, there were two factions of mages back then. There were the Academy Mages, also called the Loyalists, who fought on the side of the League of Worlds. And then there were the Starsea Mages. The Loyalists believed temperance was the key, to use magic as little as possible to delay the onset of the fraying. The Starsea Mages, on the other hand, believed magic was a gift to be developed to its full potential, whatever the cost—and that by developing that gift, a cure for the fraying would one day be found.”

  “I guess we know how that turned out,” Lucian said.

  Emma nodded. “Yes. The Starsea Mages’ philosophy was a disaster, but it explains why things turned out the way they did. Magic is dangerous, and it must be restricted as much as possible, or we could end up having another Mage War.”

  “But what if there is a way to stop the fraying?” Lucian asked. “We will never know if we don’t try.”

  Emma smiled. “That was the Starsea Mages’ argument.”

  Lucian felt his cheeks flush. “Right. What’s up with that name, anyway? Starsea.”

  “It was the name of the empire they wanted to create. An empire where magekind was in charge of things, led by Xara Mallis and her so-called Council of the Wise.”

  Lucian found the name a bit curious but didn’t question it. It seemed there was a bit more to it than that. Whatever the case, these were things he’d never learned in history class. He’d been taught Xara Mallis and the Starsea Mages merely wanted power, to create a new galactic order. All that about finding a cure to the fraying through unfettered use of magic was new to him. Perhaps League schools simply didn’t want those ideas to disseminate.

  “So, now that we have got all that out of the way,” Lucian said, “what do we do about Dirk?”

  “Dirk? Just ignore him.”

  “All those things he said about you, though. We can’t let that happen.”

  “You can’t let that happen?” She chuckled. “I’m a grown woman, Lucian. I know how to swat away a fly that isn't wanted. If he narks on us, who cares? This trip will come to an end eventually.”

  “People are crazy about mages,” Lucian said. “I heard this politician raving like a lunatic about them the other day.”

  “Richard Palmer? Yeah, he’s a huge asshole, but apparently, a large segment of the population finds that appealing.”

  “That’s just the start, though. There are the Believers, and then these random ass wipes like Dirk who hate us for what we are. Imagine a whole ship of people like that. We might not even survive the trip if we’re outed.”

  “All good points, I must admit. All I know is, I don’t want to live my life in fear. I’ve done enough of that already.”

  Lucian thought that was a good point, too. “Well, this is depressing. What else can we do in this sim?”

  Emma smiled. “I wondered when we’d get to the fun stuff. The sim automatically boots you out after six hours. It’s the law because people can die in the game world after not tending to their bodies on the outside. That said, they do have this place on Titan where people live in pods and are just plugged in . . . forever. It’s a retirement community run by Event Horizon, and they’re trying to make it possible to upload consciousness directly to their servers once the body can’t run anymore.”

  Event Horizon was the largest gaming company in the Worlds. But the idea of fully abandoning reality for a game was incomprehensible to Lucian, and just the image of all those bodies in pods gave him the creeps.

  “That’s not for me,” he said. “So, what’s next here? We probably have about five hours left.”

  “Well, that depends on what you want to do. A full-on VRMMO game might be a bit too much for you to handle at first. Maybe we can just start with a period simulation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a time capsule. You can go to a certain time, and it’s exactly like it was back then.”

  “I’m game if you are.”

  She smiled. “Okay, then. Follow me.”

  Before he had the chance to ask how to do that, Emma disappeared into thin air, leaving him alone in the cottage.

  Maybe following her was as simple as a command or a thought.

  Follow her.

  In the next instant, the cottage was gone, and Lucian appeared on the streets of what appeared to be New York City. Although this couldn’t be the New York he knew because it wasn’t underwater.

  The air was cold, tingling his skin. A slate-gray sky expanded above him, mostly blocked by tall skyscrapers. Huge crowds bustled around him while blaring holo-billboards and neon lights glowed in the late afternoon gloom. Those ads displayed companies and products Lucian had never heard of. The smell of hot dogs and sauerkraut wafted by as an old man rolled his food cart past on squeaking wheels. He wondered what year it was when the answer came to him in his head. The year was 2078, about the time the first simulations were made.

  Lucian gawked. He was almost three centuries in the past, and it felt as if it were real life.

  He looked at that food vendor again, a dark-skinned, mustached man who had been dead for over two hundred years. He turned around, a sense of vertigo almost sending him stumbling. The sights, the whirring electric car engines, the cold air—everything was exactly as it should have been. If there was one difference, though, everything had a barely perceptible washed-out appearance. Other than that, he might as well have been there in the flesh.

  A high-Lev blazed overhead, wrapping around a building. Others were taking pictures and selfies with their slates, though this far back in time, they were still called phones. The nanotech that allowed slates to change size and shape wouldn’t be invented for another century yet.

  Emma only watched Lucian as he stared. He had experienced VR before, but this was on a whole other level. He was actually here.

  People were even looking at him as they walked by. It wasn’t only an environmental rendering, then. The same environment was programmed to react to them.

  As time passed, more differences became apparent. The cold didn’t make him feel uncomfortable. He could smell the various food carts around him, but the aroma was not as strong as he expected, as if he had a slight cold. No matter how far technology progressed, reality would still be reality. Either that or simulations from this far back in time simply weren’t as realistic as modern ones.

  Emma walked toward a building of twenty or so floors that tapered toward the top. The Paramount Building. Somehow, Lucian knew that without having to be told. The sim was feeding him information in real time.

  “Well, what do you think?” she asked.

  “Amazing,” he said, watching the crowds. A group of girls in late 21st-century garb walked by, their long, dazzling capes streaming in the wind.

  “Maybe we can start by walking around Broadway. Maybe we can grab a bite?”

  “You can eat here?”

  “You can do anything here you can in the real world,” Emma said. “Well, almost anything. That’s the fun of sims. You can be exactly who you want to be. We could even change our appearances if we wanted to."

  Lucian didn’t have a mind to do that, so he just followed Emma down the street until they reached a restaurant jam-packed with people. Even though it was full, the host seated them immediately at the best table.

  They ordered whatever they wanted, with no regard to cost. And there they talked for a long time, mostly about lighter subjects that had nothing to do with magic, mages, or the Academy. It was nice to talk, to have someone with whom he shared some things in common. It felt like a date, even if neither of them explicitly said so.

  When they were served dessert and coffee, the conversation turned to more serious matters.

  “So, how did you find out you were a mage?” Emma asked.

  Lucian told her about the metaphysical exam. He found himself hesitating about the last dream, with the dark voice that had told him to find the Aspects. He’d almost put that out of his mind, and he wasn’t ready to say anything about it.

  “Next thing I knew,” he finished, “I was on this ship, heading to Volsung. Hoping the Academy will accept me.”

  “Well, I’m in the same boat.”

  “Doesn’t that freak you out a bit?”

  “Of course it does.”

  It got quiet after that.

  “What about you?” Lucian asked. “You’ve been pretty quiet about your past.”

  “It’s . . . not that interesting.”

  Lucian scoffed. “I don’t believe that. You’ve been on multiple worlds, know your way in and out of every sim, and run around with rogue mages. If that’s boring, then the content of my life will render you catatonic.”

  She laughed. “You have a way with words. Well, you’re right. My life hasn’t been boring. It’s just . . . hard to talk about the past sometimes, you know?”

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It would just be nice to learn about you a bit, Ally."

  She snickered. “Now you’re making fun of me.”

  “You have to give me something. One little factoid.”

  “All right,” she said. “Well, how about this? I was born on Sani and lived there until I was twelve. After that, my family moved to Aurora, this Tier 3 world.”

  Lucian’s eyes widened at that. Beyond the Border Worlds, a planet’s tier was denoted by how many Gate jumps it was from the nearest Border World. Aurora was a world Lucian had never heard of, and being three Gates away from the nearest Border World was quite remote.

  “What was that like?”

  “Well, that’s where I met the mage, for one,” she said. “They have this colony there. A lot of rogues end up going to the frontier. If they emerge at too old an age, it’s usually harder to get into an academy. In that case, it’s safer to just leave the League entirely if you have the means.”

  “Have you thought of doing that?”

  Emma nodded. “I have. I . . . don’t think I have the strength for that, though. To stand on my own. I need structure. The Volsung Academy will give me that.”

  “I couldn’t afford a ticket to get that far. And I doubt Pan-Galactic sails that way.”

  “No, they certainly don’t. You can get to Sani, but no farther. You need your own ship or to bribe a trader who is going that way.”

  “Your family owns a ship?”

  “We do. A larger pinnace that can crew ten or so, though usually it's just family and retainers.”

  Retainers? “Okay, who the hell are you, Emma Almaty?”

  She smiled, a bit sadly. “My parents . . . they’re very wealthy people. I’m sort of . . . not supposed to be here.”

  “What do you mean?"

  “Well, my father was a prince on Sani, but the political situation on that world forced us to leave, which was how we found ourselves on Aurora. There, he did some contract work for Caralis Intergalactic.”

  “My uncle works for them on Halia,” Lucian said.

  Emma nodded, noting that. “Well, he spent his time on Aurora doing a lot of excavation. Builder ruins and all that. If you find the right artifacts, the League will pay lots of credits for them. Well, he financed the development of Aurora, shipping artifacts and the like back to the League. Made a mint that way, and he already was pretty wealthy. Eventually, because of my situation, we had to leave. After a year or so, we settled on L5, where the Caralis Intergalactic head offices are.”

  “I see,” Lucian said. “That’s . . . pretty insane.”

  “Long story short, he didn’t want me to go to the Volsung Academy once we found out I was a mage. He wanted to bribe some officials, maybe find someone to tutor me privately. He had someone in mind, but apparently, it didn’t work out. It was his hope that I could learn to stream on my own without being tied down to an academy.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  Emma shook her head. “You know, I still don’t know. I had a strong feeling that it was the wrong thing to do. I reached out to the Transcends at the Academy, and they told me to come in person. So, I bought a ticket and stepped on a shuttle to the Citadel without telling a soul. I even flew second class to not make anyone suspicious. That . . . was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

  “I imagine. That sounds rough. You seem very brave.”

  She nodded, her eyes watering. “It’s still hard, but it feels like I have no choice.”

  “Well, as you said, we’re in a similar situation. My mom annoys me sometimes, but leaving her behind was hard, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Lucian nodded. Like her, he found he didn’t want to talk about that anymore. “Have you emerged yet?”

  “I haven’t. That’s . . . my main problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s the paradox,” Emma said. “Remember what I was telling you about ether building up? Well, that’s what’s happening to me. It’s built up, and I don’t know how to stream it away.” She hesitated a moment. “I’ve got this . . . condition, I guess you would call it. I should have been enrolled in an academy a long time ago. Without training, it won’t be long before . . .” She hesitated. “Well, before I fray.”

  Lucian didn’t know what to say. He could only look at her, feeling the same sadness that was written on her face. “I thought that only happened after being a mage for a long time.”

  “Well, it’s been building up for a while. If I can’t get the training, things will go from bad to worse. I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “We’ll get to Volsung on time,” Lucian said. “You’ll see.”

  Her smile seemed forced. “I hope so. I should be accepted, but I might not be. I need to prepare myself for that.”

  “They’ll accept you. How could they not?”

  “Well, that’s my hope. Suffice it to say, time is running out. You’re lucky, Lucian.”

  That was the last word Lucian would have used to describe himself. “How do you figure that?”

  “You have time. Me? I might not make it. Money can’t save you from inevitability.” Her eyes became distant. “Let’s . . . not talk about this anymore.”

  “Sure,” Lucian said. “Head back to Times Square?”

  She forced a smile. “It’s almost time, anyway.”

  “Time for what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They left the table without so much as paying the bill. When they reached Times Square, it was nearly midnight and mostly empty. They stood in the center and had almost the whole place to themselves.

  “Wait for it,” Emma said.

  The cold touched him but didn’t make him uncomfortable. He felt warmth from her presence. He thought about what she’d said and couldn’t help but feel sad for her. Though he had only known her a couple of days, he wanted to protect her from that. But how could he possibly protect her from magic, something that was killing her from the inside out?

  He surprised himself when he reached for her hand, the only way he knew how to render comfort. She took his hand in her own.

  That was when the snow started to fall. Lucian had never seen snow in person. It fell gently at first, and then in droves, landing cold on his face and melting rivers down his cheeks.

  “You’ve been here a lot, haven’t you?” Lucian asked. “To this very day. This very moment.”

  She was so beautiful, standing in the snow, looking up into the sky. She turned to face him. “My parents would take me here sometimes. In simulation, I mean. Sort of a family tradition. So, when I’m feeling lonely, it’s nice to come back and remember all the times we had.”

  “Well, I’m glad you let me experience that with you.”

  “Me, too. One thing I’m sure of is that I want to enjoy life before the inevitable. In their return letter, the Transcends mentioned I’d have to give up most of the things I was used to. And that includes simulations.”

  “I guess there are no sims on Volsung.”

  “Not at the Academy. The Transcends made that clear. No slates, no GalNet, no electricity, even. Among other things.”

  “Wow. Seriously?”

  “I’m afraid so. They consider those things distractions to the training.”

  That was when Lucian realized how truly little he knew about this academy. Before he could ask Emma anything more, she spoke again.

  “Our six hours are almost up. This was . . . nice.”

  He couldn’t help but look into her eyes. She looked back, seeming expectant. He longed to hold her. Something in him wanted to keep her safe. It was strange because he barely knew her. But such was their situation, their similarities in being here, that the little time spent didn’t seem to matter.

  Lucian was afraid of that longing. It seemed like it was happening too fast. He reached out to touch her face, to brush a strand of hair that had fallen. She smiled and closed her eyes.

  That was when footsteps ran up to them, and Lucian turned to see a most unwelcome sight.