Laurel was leaning against the wall beside the grand entrance to the sect house. The sun was at just the right angle to bask in, and she had so rarely slowed down enough to enjoy it these last weeks. Her eyes closed and she breathed in time with the mana flowing around her. Visions of the golden rivers filled her mind as the meditation took over. Pulling back slightly, the shape of the city took form on the backs of her eyelids. Those buildings already reinforced with mana shone brightly, the rest mere suggestions of shapes. And of course, winding throughout the few thousand bright specks for those citizens officially bound to the Core. It strained the imagination to envision what over a million would look like when they became a City in truth.

  She wiled away the morning envisioning the Workshops she would place. The teleportation platforms, or viewing screens, and the thousand and one wonders a City Core was capable of. Laurel let herself dream until it was almost time, then rearranged her posture into that of the wise Sectmaster. It wouldn’t do to have anyone think she was slipping.

  A smile stretched across her face as Annette and George got close enough to notice her. They shouted and hurried across the last stretch. George slowed as he approached the stairs, but Annette didn’t bother. She sprinted up the steps and threw herself onto Laurel in a crushing hug. Laurel returned it, careful not to exert any extra strength. It was good to have more friends home. Ones that didn’t see her as the ultimate authority over life and death in the way of a few of the younger members.

  “Welcome back,” she said, pulling back and making sure her smile included George as well. The boy had earned her respect, despite their rocky start. In line with her newfound appreciation for every sect member, she would treat George with as much warmth and regard as anyone else. Even more for one of their more advanced initiates, bordering on an adept. She had plans for him.

  “Good to be back,” Annette beamed.

  George was less effusive but nodded along. “It was a welcome experience but it is good to be home,” he murmured.

  Laurel had scanned them both when they approached the city, fully aware they had both found advancement within the hidden realm. As much as she loved some good gossip, she decided to give them the leeway to at least put down their belongings before demanding it from them.

  “Take some time to rest up,” she told them both. “Everyone is already scattered for the day, so we’ll have to wait for dinner for the full story.”

  “Perfect. I’m sure there’s plenty to catch up on in the meantime,” Annette said. With one more nod the Quartermaster marched back inside and straight to the baths.

  George followed, stopping when he was level with Laurel for a polite bow, and detouring to the kitchen first. The warmth Laurel felt at having them home was a welcome surprise for a woman that had spent nearly as much time away from the sect as in it, back while advancing herself.

  With the knowledge everyone was safe and healthy, she jogged into the city. She still had a mountain of work to get through today, and Esther’s suppliers had apparently forgotten their last conversation.

  Hours later, Annette dropped into the seat across from Laurel’s desk, with perfectly coiffed hair and an elaborate gown. “Alright, tell me everything”.

  Laurel watched with amusements as Annette’s expression swung wildly during the recounting of the last month and a half. From smiles, to dismay, to outright shock and grudging appreciation, it had been far from the calm summer Laurel had insinuated before the other woman set out.

  “You’re blackmailing a master of the Merchant’s Guild?” Annette hissed.

  “I thought about killing him, so I feel like your anger is a bit unfair.”

  “Laurel.”

  “Annette.” Laurel giggled a bit at the exchange. “At least tell me what you’re thinking, I’m planning to talk to him tomorrow.”

  “I think it’s dangerous,” Annette sighed. “But the interview with the other papers was a good move. When are you expecting those to come out?”

  “Next few days. The Herald should be tomorrow.”

  “That will help.” Annette rubbed at her temples. “I don’t like making powerful enemies.”

  “Maybe so, but in my experience powerful enemies are the signs of progress. No one and nothing can climb the ranks of power without attracting attention. Eventually there will be opposition.”

  “Fine, tell me the rest.”

  Laurel did. Annette grimaced when she heard about Laurel encouraging a highly illegal heist but didn’t interrupt again. She voiced agreement with Laurel’s assessment of Rebecca and Gabrielle’s enmity-turned-friendship, and approval of all the work the initiates were doing for the guild and beyond.

  “I guess you were right when you said you could do it all,” Annette said. The tone was joking on the surface but Laurel had some ability to read between the lines.

  “Hardly,” she waved her hand through the air. “I had to cut back on sleeping and I’m still not doing the political bits as well as you. Honestly, you couldn’t have come back at a better time. The kids are ready to aspect their mana and I need to spend some time working with them on everything.

  “Speaking of which…tell me.”

  Annette launched into a recounting of her time in the hidden realm, complete with maps and reference notes, copied out in perfect calligraphy. The military infrastructure was a mixed blessing. Good, even great, that it was being taken seriously as a resource and potential hazard. Not so good if access for sect members was restricted, but that would be a problem for the future. By the end of her presentation Annette was obviously avoiding the main point. Laurel let her do it for a few minutes but she did have some other things to get to so cut it short.

  “I can see your mana is aspected.”

  “Yes.” Annette took a pointed sip of her tea and didn’t elaborate.

  “Everything go okay?”

  That broke the calm mask just a bit. “I think so? I…don’t really feel any different. Like the actual process was overwhelming but afterwards not so much. I guess I can kind of feel things a bit better but nothing like what you can do with air.”

  Laurel stared at her for a moment. “I have been practicing for decades, I would hope that isn’t so easily overshadowed. But you bring up a good point, I don’t know any of the exercises for new space cultivators. Especially the ones that don’t start out with air or something else as a base. We’ll take a look at the technique tablets in the library and find one you can start with.”

  “Really? Aren’t we supposed to be using contribution points for those?”

  “Yes? And? Have you gotten anything besides the solstice gifts yet?”

  Annette paused for a moment. “Oh.”

  “Okay. I’m off to blackmail but take a look in the archive and let me know what you might be interested in.” They both stood and began to walk out before Laurel used a touch on her shoulder to keep Annette back. “Don’t try to view them without me. A fire blast or something might be easy to pick up but spatial magic is weird. And dangerous.”

  “Right.” She nodded but looked concerned as they made their way out.

  The wrong technique tablet wouldn’t kill anyone, but an ambitious initiate might wish it had.

  “I’ll be back after dinner,” Laurel added. “And get ready. I doubt anything but a direct order is going to get George to tell the story, so brace yourself for the kids and their questions.” With that Laurel slipped out of her office and out of the sect. It was getting late and she had an appointment to keep with Master Brin.

  She didn’t bother going back to his office. The same trick never had quite as much impact a second time, and he would be watching for it anyway. With a contemporary outfit and purposeful stride, no one even noticed her walking up to Brin’s manor house. A quick use of her stealth technique and she was over the decorative wall and around the back in no time.

  Laurel could admit the house was in good taste, if a bit boring. But that meant windows were plentiful, even on the ground floor, and it was just the matter of a few moments to find one that was unlocked and slip inside.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  She found herself in a sitting room so pristine there was no way anyone ever used it. Poking and prodding along the corridor brought her to a back staircase which she took. Brin struck her as a “lord over the kingdom from on high” kind of a homeowner. She was right. Behind a thick oak door was what could only be the man’s study.

  The lock wasn’t hard to circumvent, and Laurel slipped inside. The room was a perfect cliche, if her forays into modern novels could be trusted. Dark woods and leather, with a set of glass decanters filled with amber liquid on a cart to the side. With nothing else to do, she poured a measure into the matching crystal tumblers and settled into one of the chairs by the fireplace to wait. A book pulled from her tattoo completed the scene, and if she wasn’t there to talk to a thoroughly unpleasant man, it would have been the perfect relaxing evening like she hadn’t had in months.

  She was half a dozen chapters in when Brin finally entered the room. It would have been rather embarrassing if he skipped out for the evening, but Laurel didn’t think that kind of work-focused person could bear to stop for long enough to avoid his study. He didn’t notice her right away, giving her a moment to observe. Brin looked about as he had at her last visit. Maybe a bit more harried, a bit less put together, but not like someone spiraling from their world teetering on the brink of collapse.

  “Good evening,” she said. Laurel got the satisfaction of watching the man nearly jump out of his skin, but within moments he was back to the same staid calm he used as a shield.

  “Madam Stormblade. I wish I could say it was a pleasure.”

  “Master Brin. I’m sorry to hear that but you know why I’m here.”

  “Yes.” He pursed his lips. “Congratulations, you have me dead to rights. Half the members of the merchant guild ate huge losses based on the steam engine reporting in the Express. If my involvement comes out, I’ll be censured by the guild.

  “Well done. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

  “Not really,” Laurel said. If the man had been a cultivator, the look he sent her right then might have done some actual damage. “Frankly, I would have preferred to avoid this whole ordeal. But I’m also not willing to let you damage my sect with no repercussions.”

  “The editors have been informed. They are not going to focus on your sect anymore. I can’t promise there won’t be other criticisms. As I said, I have less control over the editing process than you seem to think. And it is not as though you have no responsibility for how others see you.”

  “That’s fine.” Laurel downed the rest of her drink. “A less active attack is all I’m after.” She refilled her glass and poured another, floating it over to Brin on a current of air. “I said it before, I’m a reasonable woman.

  “Now in appreciation of our newfound understanding, is there anything I can do for you, Master Brin?”

  The man accepted the drink with impressive aplomb for someone so obviously distrustful of cultivators and magic. “I have seen the results of your work on some of the local noble manors, and the palace. I would like to see the same applied to my ships.”

  Laurel was honestly surprised. Most of the rich folks that had been granted her services from the ridiculous settlement wanted it applied to their mansions as a status symbol. Few thought to actually get anything useful out of it. With his magic-hating attitude, she was surprised Brin was even bending far enough to accept anything from her.

  “It will work. The ships will be faster, less vulnerable to accident or attack. Cargo would remain fresh or undamaged longer. But the effects would only last a couple of voyages at most. The effect pulls mana from the city, the longer the ships are away from the city…” she let her explanation trail off.

  “That will be sufficient. Summer shipping is a game of speed and volume.”

  “Very well. Send me a list of vessels and notify the captain’s I’ll be visiting.” She stood to depart.

  “One more thing. Lessons for a few of my men with an ability to perform magic.”

  She slowed. “Lessons from me are worth quite a bit.”

  He waved his hand. “Just enough to get them on the right track so I don’t fall behind the other merchant houses. Let it never be said I didn’t learn anything from those benighted steam engines.”

  “No. There’s nothing I can add that isn’t already publicly available. Use those resources. If they join the Magician’s Guild after that then they can seek lessons that way. Now, let’s never do this again.”

  “Agreed.”

  She slipped away. It was a bitter kind of satisfaction. The glut of mana around Verilia meant that for only a morning’s work she would be one obstacle closer to convincing the city to link themselves together magically. But the fact she had to do it in the first place still rankled. The Eternal Archive was older than this whole stars-cursed kingdom, and here she was making deals with small men who were afraid of change.

  It was late when she slipped back into the sect. Annette and George were deep into their obligatory recounting of their adventure and Laurel didn’t feel the need to interrupt. Instead she poured herself a cup of tea from one of the steaming pots and settled in to listen, basking amidst the simple joys of her sect and the reason she was willing to go through all the subterfuge.

  ************

  “It’s back here.” Laurel said. Annette was trailing behind in a section of their library she somehow didn’t recognize.

  “How do you even know? I thought Adam was the only one who understood the system.”

  “That won’t do. Every respectable member of the Eternal Archive should know their way around the library.” The woman tossed a smile over her shoulder back at Annette, dodging around a corner without looking in the meantime. “Though in all actuality, the secret is magic. You think about what you need and ‘listen’ for the answer.”

  “What?! Since when?”

  “Since forever. You’ll pick it up when you get more sensitive to the minute changes in mana flow within a room.” Laurel took a hard right and ducked into an alcove Annette would have walked past without noticing.

  “Spatial techniques. At least the beginner versions. Let’s see.”

  Annette was just glad Laurel was there and she didn’t have to try and translate esoteric terms into modern day physics. There was a slight bit of resistance as she tried to enter the alcove behind Laurel. Like the library wasn’t sure she should be in there. Since the other woman either didn’t notice or didn’t care, Annette decided to shelve that discussion for a different time.

  “We have some combat techniques, not sure that’s the best place to start for you. Short-range, low-mass teleportation, that could be an option but it sounds a bit dangerous. Easy to catch your fingers in with whatever you’re trying to send. Storage items, but we’d have to get you a reinforced workshop or something for that. Explosions get too big otherwise.”

  The more Laurel spoke the more Annette wanted to tell her “nevermind”. She would pick some nice placid elemental aspect instead. Of the kind where the basic techniques weren’t dangerous enough to require special facilities.

  “Oh, this is exactly what you need.” Laurel pulled a thin pane of mana crystal, the size of a book, off a stand set into the lowest shelf. The transparent crystal was faintly blue, and Annette could feel something coming off of it. She proceeded back out to the main section of the library, Annette still following, until they got to one of the more comfortable seating areas.

  “It’s a beginner guide to stretching or compressing space,” Laurel said. “Back in the day it would be useful for dodging blows or getting your sword to hit someone just out of reach, that kind of thing. But it’s the perfect place to start.”

  Disappointing Laurel was always painful, so Annette took the mana crystal when Laurel held it out. The faint thrum under her fingers made the thing feel alive. Not a pleasant thought. She looked down and contemplated how to do this.

  Laurel seemed to pick up on the concern. “Now you’ll connect a thread of your own mana to the crystal and surrender to the vision. They’re all a little different, and I can’t say I’ve ever watched this one, so I’m not sure what exactly it will feel like. Just try and let your mana react however it needs to.”

  Annette nodded hesitantly and followed the instructions. What else could she do when Laurel was standing there watching? So she reached out with the smallest amount of mana she could manage and connected with the crystal. Her eyes slid closed and her body drooped as her mind was pulled into the crystal.

  “Space is everything. It is the medium through which we move, and the framework on which the natural world is built. As spatial cultivators, we impose our will to bend the space around us to suit our needs.

  “The skill I record here today is the most basic for any cultivator with spatially aspected mana. It is the foundation on which all other techniques are built. I set down this memory crystal in the hopes of smoothing the path for those members of the sect that come after me.

  “Space exists all around us. Ours is not the purview of the base elementalists, the water or earth cultivators, who simply fling their medium around at one another like apes. Space is not moved or thrown, but it can be manipulated. Stretched or compressed in an area of effect. It is this technique that we discuss today.”

  The voice faded, and Annette felt her mana being directed without her conscious thought. It swirled through her meridians at an unusual pace, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, then reached out to connect to the ambient mana.

  At the same time, visions flashed across her mind’s eye. A man taking a single step that covered at least ten meters. The same man, swinging a sword as Laurel said, and reaching an impossible opponent. Plucking items off shelves on the other side of a room, dodging an attack without moving, picking up a boulder and leaving it hovering above the ground. Each lasted only the length of a breath, displaying the versatility of the skill.

  Pressure built against the back of Annette’s eyes. The techniques in the visions got more complicated. Here the man forged a ring with dozens of runes etched across the surface. A room disappeared when the door attached to it was closed. He blinked around a field of enemies, and conjured a portal in the mountains with a palm tree-studded beach on the other side.

  It was too much. The pressure reached the point of pain, getting worse and worse until she opened her eyes and wrenched her mana away from the crystal.

  “Fuck,” was all she managed to pant before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she passed out.

  ***********

  Not bad.

  Laurel nudged Annette’s feet onto the couch and tucked a pillow beneath her head so she could rest more comfortably. It was about as good a result as she could have expected for a first technique tablet.

  She grabbed the crystal and went to reshelve it. This time on the way there she detoured through the rest of the basic technique sections. The time was coming when the rest of her initiates were going to be looking for recommendations and she may as well take the time to prepare when she had it.

  *********

  Annette was slightly peeved when she got to dinner that night. Laurel had cheerfully told her how well she had done, but a warning would have been nice. The tureen of soup set on the table broke her out of those ruminations. It was a cold corn dish with crumbled sheep’s cheese and roasted tomatoes. She could have cried. Dried rations and wild game for a month gave her new appreciation for home comforts that a lifetime of her mother’s admonishments hadn’t managed to hammer in. A crusty loaf of sourdough went down beside it, and she decided all was forgiven if she got to eat like this every day.

  “Do you think you have enough to go on?” Laurel asked after encouraging everyone to dig in.

  Martin and Adam’s seats were empty across from her, but the rest of the sect was not-so-subtly listening in on her other side. But if Laurel didn’t mind discussing it, she didn’t see a reason to. “I think so? It didn’t seem all that difficult.”

  The smile she got for that was downright wolfish. “Tell me that again after you try it on your own.”

  “You think I can’t do it?” Annette was a bit affronted. Laurel had never discouraged her before.

  “I’m sure you can. But replicating what you see in a technique tablet is always harder than you think. You’ll get there though.”

  “It seems an absurd way to learn. That we can just touch a bit of crystal and learn something new. You could learn more in a week than some do in a lifetime.”

  “Don’t you dare throw that James!” Laurel shouted down the table. Then she turned back to Annette to answer. “It’s not nearly as simple as all that. You took one beginner technique and it will take you months to fully digest it. It will be the better part of a year before your spirit is ready for another. The more advanced options take even longer.”

  Annette felt her eyes go wide at the revelation.

  “Still,” Laurel continued, “it does make things much easier. Before sect’s like ours were founded each cultivator would have to reinvent the wheel for each technique. Now, we consider true innovation the purview of Experts and beyond. Creating something truly new to add to the Archive. Officially every rank from then on includes a submission of original work.

  “I look forward to seeing what everyone accomplishes.” Laurel raised her wine glass to Annette and the rest of the table, no one even pretending they weren’t listening to the conversation. “Speaking of which. Those initiates ready to aspect their mana should schedule an appointment with me to discuss the process and the options open to you.”

  She made some sort of signal to Esther, who ducked back out. “Before that though, it’s time we celebrate! Annette was able to develop a spatial aspect during her sojourn in the hidden realm. Trust me when I tell you, that is truly exceptional.”

  Esther came back in, wheeling a cart of desserts, including a two-tiered cake, decorated with frosted flowers. Behind her, Annette’s entire family filed in. Her mother was carrying a covered dish with cardamom steam wafting out of it. The dish was Annette’s favorite from her childhood, and she shocked herself by needing to wipe away tears before she went in for a hug. From there the dinner devolved into a party, eventually migrating up to the rotunda lounge. John found her in a moment of calm, brewing a new pot of tea.

  “How much longer are you home?” she asked.

  “A few days. Then a steamer run for a couple months, down to Elgin and Somorin, then back up the coast.”

  “Thank you for spending your leave with me.” Her normally sedate brother brought her in for a deep hug.

  “Anytime Annie, you know I’m always here for you.”

  She returned the hug and looked out on all these people gathered to celebrate her. It was good to be home.