Getting Summer set up properly took some doing, but with her having inherited all sorts of skills from me, she was meaningfully able to participate and help out with the process.

  The main thing I was giving her was an enchanted carriage- or a car, as she insistently called it. It was still constructed of shiny-enameled sheet steel bolted to a sturdy frame of (also enameled, for rust protection) beams that held all the structural shit. It was short, low to the ground, smoothly curved and streamlined, and had a roof made of sturdy enchanted cloth and a mechanical linkage that allowed the roof to be pulled back and stowed under a metal panel. I'd initially intended to build her a van just like mine, because it would be a portable house that meant she would always have a house of some kind, but she and Emily had figured out something that I'd managed to miss:

  Pocket dimensions could be nested. The car's integrated trunk, accessible from inside and outside, was itself spatially expanded to about the size of two small bedrooms side by side, but inside that space, I was easily able to put up another 'building'- a pair of three meter cubes conjoined together on edge, pressed very firmly against the interior walls of the trunk- which was, on the inside, almost exactly twice the size of our own van-house, because I couldn't afford to do as high of an expansion ratio for this one. The reason I wasn't doing this to my own house- at least, not yet- was because I simply didn't have the magicka to do that anymore, having depleted the power crystal my mother had so graciously given me before I left Redwater, which I'd charged up each evening with the day's unused magicka- which was rather a lot, it turned out.

  The other major improvement we'd made was an enchantment that had started as a joke, until we realized it was actually a very practical idea.

  "God, I love magic," Summer said, as she squeezed the car down her cleavage and into her cleavage-mounted bag of holding. "Well! That oughta save me on parking fees! Thank you so much, Cat."

  She pulled me into a tight hug, and I gave her a quick kiss, and a smack on the ass.

  "Hey, don't sweat it," I said, smirking at her as I pulled back. "Want us to walk you to the train station?"

  "If you think you can keep your hands off me for that long, sure," she said, returning the smirk as she cocked one of her hips.

  My smirk softened into a genuine smile, and then I sighed.

  "I'm gonna miss you," I said quietly.

  "Me too, Redhead," Summer said. "But hey, you're a bigshot Wizard, aintcha? Just... Learn a spell for talking to people at long distances. Or, hell, just learn to teleport. I'll always be happy to see you."

  "I'll see what I can do," I said. "Good luck out there. And, uh... Congrats on learning Sorcery from Jason."

  "It fits me better than Wizardry," Summer said with a shrug. "No shade on you, 'course. Just ain't my shit, y'know?"

  "I getcha, I getcha," I said, nodding. "C'mon, we're burning daylight. Let's get you down there."

  On the way back up the mountain, which I ascended with my motorcycle, I decided to ask Volex a question.

  "Is it possible for me to learn the Occult shapeshifting you use, like Summer apparently did?" I asked.

  "Yes, but no," Volex said. "I have no idea how Summer does it, but it's not the way I do it. My 'body' isn't really my body- it's just a doll made of ectopsm, that I project my soul into. My real body is, essentially, that reliquary in your pocket- that is where my soul really is, and that's why I can't get too far away from you."

  "Ah. And since your body is already a bespoke solid illusion, changing what that illusion is shaped like is easy," I said.

  "More or less, yes," Volex said, nodding. "Now, you can learn how to create bespoke humanoid bodies from ectopsm, and how to project your soul into them so that they essentially become your body, but that's very hard to do at all, and inhabiting one of those full-time is one of the ways liches were made, and that's an incredibly stupid thing for an elf to become. You're better off either waiting for Talia's Druidcraft hormone stuff to work its magic, or just learning to do organic transmutation with Wizardry."

  We rode through the front gate, and I pulled us off to the side so we could stop and have a more involved conversation.

  "Also," I began, "is it the 'creating a humanoid body from ectopsm' part that's hard, or the 'projecting your soul into an empty body' part that's hard? Because I do want to learn to work with ectopsm at some point, because the idea of being able to do throwaway crafting projects out of a material that's just solidified magicka is pretty appealing."

  "Creating a body from ectopsm is the easy part, yes," Volex said, nodding. "And I'll teach you how to work with ectopsm, too; it's an essential part of the Bard's toolkit, allowing them to pull all sorts of nonsense out of their pockets. Like you do, except they don't have to do all that preparation the hard way."

  "That reminds me of another thing I was supposed to ask you about- how did you know how to drive the van, back in the desert? Lysander said it was Occult magic, but... I mean, how?"

  "That's another essential part of the Bard's toolkit," Volex said. "It's a sort of... retroactive continuity, essentially. There was a way I could've learned to drive, right?"

  "Well, you could've been watching me do it," I said. "I also could've just... taught you how to do it, before we left on the trip? I didn't, but I could've?"

  "Exactly," Volex said, nodding. "And with the power of the Occult, things that could have happened can become things that did happen... for a little while, at least. Magic is usually pretty ephemeral, after all."

  "I see, I see," I said quietly. "That's... a very useful skill, and one that perfectly expins why Bards have a reputation for having incongruously broad skillsets." After all, aside from the fact that 'I went to college and took a lot of weird electives' is a good reason to have a decent working knowledge of all sorts of weird skills, there was the simple fact that 'Bards know all sorts of weird bullshit, and I am a Bard' is a mystically-useful reputation to develop, especially if there's no real way to tell whether or not a Bard came by a skill honestly. "I'll have to learn it, someday."

  "Someday?" Volex asked, tilting her head to the side. "Honey, you're learning it now. Css might not be in session, but that's no excuse to sck off."

  "Might I make a few suggestions?" Professor Takeda Kiyoko said, appearing beside us without warning.

  "Fuck!" I yelped. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

  She grinned an unrepentant grin, and simply continued. Today, funnily enough, she was wearing a lovely white kimono that was printed with pictures of ordinary, non-humanoid foxes in various poses.

  "As it so happens, I teach an elective course on ectopsm shaping, which you, Catherine, are more than welcome to enroll in, if you can learn the basics of ectopsm shaping to my satisfaction before the semester begins."

  "That's... a tempting offer, yeah," I admitted. "What constitutes basics, though?"

  "If you can successfully make a sword from ectopsm that can cut a rolled tatami mat, then I will consider that to be good enough," Takeda said. "You've proven you're a good learner."

  "...Well, fair enough," I said, shrugging. "I'm interested, yeah. Might be a bit of a squeeze, but..." Mentally, I tapped my connection with The Father, which had grown... not easier, but less difficult, with two weeks of practice. "Father, how strenuously do you object to me using time magic to take an unreasonable number of csses at a time?"

  "Time is not nearly so preciously fragile and sacrosanct as you believe it to be," The Father replied. "You may travel its length and breadth as you please. Exercise good judgement."

  "...I should be fine," I finished.

  Now, was using time magic to take more csses an incredibly pathetic and nerdy thing to do? Yes, of course. But Helen had been clear that I was only allowed to be here for four years, and I fully intended to milk this university for everything I could get.

  Also, I was an immortal elf who was incapable of dying of old age, and if I could get time travel working-

  "Also, you will only be capable of an hour or two of time travel per day," The Father added.

  Oh, okay, so there are limits to the bullshit I can get away with. Dammit. Now I'm limited to the normal kind of infinite lifespan that I could expect as an elf.

  "Meanwhile," Professor Takeda began, "while taking a course on Organic Transmutation would be a viable path to the body you seek, I would personally suggest a trip to the Sunset Kingdoms, to be initiated as a Shugenja. Aside from travel time, it would only take a week to be initiated."

  "Uh..." I blinked. "...Shugenja are folk-priests, right?"

  "Of a sort," Takeda said. "They are a tradition of Primal spellcasters whose method of tapping into the power of the Living Earth is different from how Druids do it- I understand you're temperamentally unsuited to the Druid's path, but I do think you would do well as a Shugenja."

  "I take it this isn't something you can administer here?" I asked. "Because, um... I don't know if you're aware, but css starts in a month, and the Sunset Kingdoms are on the other side of the continent. Also, I don't speak Sunset."

  "You can do it after the semester ends," Takeda said. "Primal magic would be very useful for reasons other than giving you tits, young dy. You know full well how good it is at healing."

  "...Professor Takeda, I'm a Cleric," I said. "Between becoming a Cleric two weeks ago, and having to go through Bard training, and the fact that, according to Jason, I'm dragonblooded and could learn the ancient craft of Sorcery, I actually feel very anxious about the prospect of having to learn another system of magic. Because, well, I'm a Wizard, Professor. I am a fully-trained Bachelor of Wizardry, and I know exactly how fucking hard it is to learn one system of magic, when you have an excellent teacher who lives in your house and loves you dearly. This is..." I inhaled deeply, and then exhaled loudly. "...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to berate you, it's just... It's a lot."

  "I understand," Professor Takeda said, patting me on the shoulder. "If it makes you feel better... I can write a letter of recommendation for you, after you graduate. Take a year or two to rex, and remember what life is like without the constant rush of university, and then travel to the Sunset Kingdoms. My sister, Takeda Akane, is a schor of the Occult as well, and enjoys teaching; anything that I ck the time to teach you, you can learn from her."

  "Thank you," I said quietly.

  "...Will you be attempting to learn Sorcery?" Takeda asked.

  "I..." I sighed. "...I'll talk to Jason."

  AnnouncementAs always, if you like Ironheart and want me to keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a comment, here or on my discord server.

  Also, I'm taking suggestions for public bonus chapters in between books. The ideas I've currently got range from "The remaining Kings of Hell react to the political upheaval caused by Paimon's death" to "Joseph Ironheart visits a neighbor and pys dominoes." Anything goes.