Paranoid Mage
Chapter 7: Steps

“I don’t like this,” Callum said.

“Oh, come on, mister grumpypants,” Lucy said, checking herself over in the mirror again. “You don’t like anything.”

“I like you,” he replied, putting his arms around her and stilling her primping. Which was unlike her anyway, so she was likely almost as nervous as he was.

“Okay, point for you,” Lucy conceded. “But come on. How bad can it be?”

“I have literally not been in a room with another mage where it’s turned out well,” Callum said.

“Then this can be the first time,” Lucy said. “Besides, Chester and Lisa will be there.”

“A point,” Callum said, though he still didn’t like it. A risk was a risk, but there were some he had to take.

He opened a portal to Chester’s compound, where they had finally permanently stationed an anchor, and the two of them walked through. They were both dressed up for the meeting to some extent, with Lucy in her best dress and himself in a tailored suit, though he wasn’t sure it was entirely necessary. Archmage Wizzy apparently never dressed up more than jeans and a tee.

Still, he wanted to give a good impression and he hadn’t quite lost the reflexes he’d had back in his former life, where he had to meet customers face to face to get their business. He straightened his tie and glanced around by habit, though his senses already told him that none of the guests were there yet. There were, though, more shifters than usual, likely to escort the expected arrivals. Or just to keep an eye on them.

“Relax, Callum,” Alpha Chester said, offering him a hand. “Nobody is going to take the risk of provoking you, even if they were of a mind to.”

“I know, but it’s a habit by now.” Callum took the hand, which was human, as was Alpha Chester, at least for the moment, though if any defense was necessary he’d be seeing the war form. He still wasn’t sure exactly what the limits on changing forms were, but none of the shifters he’d seen had shown any trouble swapping from one to the other. They didn’t even tear their clothes, thanks to symbiote magic, so he tried not to worry about Chester’s combat readiness. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ NʘvᴇlFirᴇ.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

“Come on and have a seat,” Lisa invited, sweeping Lucy up into a hug before practically depositing her in one of the handmade overstuffed chairs that matched the big living room table, all of the furniture tastefully rustic in design. “I’m kind of surprised you’re first but it’s probably for the best.”

“Maybe they’re still not used to the teleports being down. Or mostly down, anyway,” Callum said, taking the seat next to Lucy. “But they can all fly so they can’t be that far behind.” Chester was about to reply when he cocked his head, then nodded.

“Speak of the devil,” he said. “Archmage Wizzy is just arriving.”

“Mm,” Callum said, straining his perceptions in that direction even though there was no need. Wizzy was obvious by the hard outline of his vis which, like Callum, was restricted to his body rather than shrouding him in a bubble. He approached on foot, in no hurry, and was passed through to the interior. It was only by dint of great exertion that Callum didn’t teleport himself and Lucy away, though he had the forms ready to go. Those were going to stay in place the whole time no matter what anyone said.

“Archmage Huitzilin,” a shifter announced as Wizzy finally entered the room and Callum saw him clearly for the first time. He was struck by how distinctly unhandsome Wizzy was, with a nose like a squashed pepper and a face like old leather, but at the same time he had a certain presence. The Archmage had a battered cowboy hat in one hand, tapping it against his knee as his eyes fixed on Callum.

“Young Wells,” he said by way of greeting. “And I assume the young miss Lucy.”

“Archmage Wizzy,” Callum replied, tamping down his worries to be polite. “Thank you for coming.” Then his eyes caught the slithering shadow coiled up behind Wizzy and he jumped to his feet. “I thought those couldn’t leave Mictlān,” he added flatly, a hair’s breadth away from triggering his teleport.

“They cannot,” Wizzy said calmly, ignoring Callum’s stance and sinking into another of the chairs. “One is in many ways part of Mictlān, so this shadow has not strayed beyond its bounds. Most are already aware of one’s shadow, but it is far too easy to forget that you have not had exposure to your peers.”

Callum scowled, but Chester nodded slightly. Callum wondered why he hadn’t been warned, but then, Wizzy was right. He had no context for what was usual and what was weird in supernatural society. Even with Lucy there, he hadn’t grown up in it or lived it. After a moment he sat back down, though he was if anything even more tense than before, on his last frayed nerve. Wizzy put his hat on the table and leaned back, at ease.

“Is there anything you wish to ask before the others arrive?” He inquired, his manner easy but his eyes sharp. Callum rubbed at the bridge of his nose, trying to focus his thoughts, and Lucy put a soothing hand on his arm. He reached over to squeeze her hand and looked at Wizzy.

“Here’s one. How do you defend yourself? All the mages I’ve seen have the bubbles that shield them, but you don’t.” Callum waved in Wizzy’s direction. “I don’t imagine that you’ve gone this long without someone trying to jump you.”

“Indeed not,” Wizzy said. “For those using the internal techniques, the defenses are internal as well. Our clay is more resilient when it comes to holding patterns of vis. There are still dangers, but we are not so vulnerable to our own magic.” He tapped his fingers on the arms of his chair. “However, one has never dealt with a spatial mage in that context. It is not clear exactly what form your defenses would take.”

“Ah,” Callum said, though he wasn’t exactly surprised. “Do you mean you have the full shield setup underneath your skin like with mages, or something else, if you don’t mind sharing?”

“Something else,” Wizzy said. “One’s blood is always under control. A relatively simple reinforcement makes everything under the skin stronger than steel. It is a benefit of those who use the method of the Ōlmēcatl. Though one admits that the complexity of the spellwork of other Archmages far exceeds what anything created in one’s own past, and once again, a spatial mage is outside the realm of familiarity.”

“Boo,” Lucy said. “I’d kind of hoped for something concrete. It’d help him relax.”

“Space is also different than any kind of matter,” Callum said thoughtfully. “You’re not manipulating something that’s there, you’re manipulating the there that the something is.” He made a face at his own twisted locution. “I’d really like to pick Duvall’s brain but there is no way that she’d help me.”

“One can provide some suggestions that translate between the intuitive internal methods and the complex external methods,” Wizzy said. “But it seems your approach is, taken in total, unprecedented.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised,” Callum sighed.

“The other two are arriving,” Chester broke in, and Callum braced himself. A few moments later a pair of bubbles appeared on the edges of his perceptions, moving smoothly toward Chester’s compound. He hated that he couldn’t see inside them, though he presumed that Chester’s people had vouched for their identities. Neither of the bubbles was the diamond-hard sort that he’d seen from Archmages, so they probably were who they were supposed to be.

“Gayle and Glenda Hargrave,” one of Chester’s people announced as the pair were shown into the meeting room. Callum stood again, though this time out of politeness. Gayle was more or less as he remembered her, though she’d returned to her normal dress sense, which was rather like Lucy’s. Glenda was obviously her mother, with the same blond hair and blue eyes and a similar face, though she hardly looked any older. It was more the way she carried herself.

“Mister Wells,” Gayle said hesitantly.

“Gayle,” Callum said, trying to ignore the prickling on the back of his neck from being anywhere near a healer. “Mrs. Hargrave,” he said, nodding to the mother. He didn’t offer his hand, and neither did they. Mages didn’t do that anyway.

“Just Glenda, please,” Gayle’s mother said, expression neutral. “Our House is too large for me to be the Mrs. Hargrave.”

“Glenda, then,” Callum acquiesced. “Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure you’d be interested in helping.”

“I’m a mother myself,” Glenda said, looking over to Lucy. “I have a certain sympathy.”

“Please, have a seat,” Chester said, taking initiative as host, and Gayle and Glenda settled down next to each other while Callum reclaimed his spot. They were widely spaced around the big coffee table, with Lucy and Callum on one side with Chester and Lisa, while the three visiting mages took up the other side.

“I just want to say,” Gayle spoke suddenly. “Thank you for helping Archmage Taisen. He said that he might have lost people if you hadn’t done everything you did.”

“I could hardly stand by,” Callum demurred. “Not if I was going to stand by my own beliefs.”

“Still, that is why we are here,” said Glenda. “It helps show you’re not some deranged murderer.”

“Hey!” Lucy protested. “He’s not deranged.”

“I notice you don’t contest the murderer part,” Glenda said.

“Considering who he’s killed I don’t think that counts either,” Lucy growled. Callum put a hand on her arm.

“We’re not here for an accounting of my actions. What I need is information.” Callum smiled somewhat bitterly. “Neither of us are part of mage society, but we need its expertise on how to deal with a magical child.” Gayle actually smiled. Glenda nodded and pursed her lips.

“Before we start, I would like to caution you that the issue of a mage and a…” Glenda paused a moment, clearly rephrasing what she was about to say. “The issue of a mage and a sensitive is not guaranteed to be a mage as well.”

“And that would simplify things, but from what Lucy tells me you can’t figure that out until after a couple years anyway, so we need to know what to do.” Callum suppressed a sigh. He felt like he was giving ground, even though they were just talking. “And if we do have a mage, I want to have avenues open for proper education.”

“What is Wizzy doing here, then?” Gayle asked.

Callum hated to give away any information about himself, but this was a matter of health. Not his health, but his child’s health and maybe even Lucy’s. So he had to let go of some of his secrets.

“I was never educated formally. I use Archmage Wizzy’s type of vis methods, which is why I do not have a bubble.” He waved a hand around himself. “We need to know every possibility, and have to choose what we actually teach our children.”

“Plus I got kinda cut off after they found out I was a dud,” Lucy said. “So I dunno what a mother needs to know about baby mages either.”

The ensuing discussion was a long one, and Callum took notes, filling page after page of a notebook. Lucy was recording it all anyway, but it was better to get down his thoughts and interpretations at the time. He didn’t really relax, but it didn’t seem like anyone was going to make any moves. Which was all to the good. If someone attacked Lucy things wouldn’t end without a lot of destruction.

He felt rather odd planning for things more than a few months or even years in advance. The past two years or so had been too hectic, and besides the supernatural world was hardly stable at the moment. Even if they accepted the tentative offer of House Hargrave tutors, by the time such teachers were needed House Hargrave might have changed its mind. Or lack the manpower to offer help.

“There is an issue I do wish to raise,” Glenda said, once the bulk of the questions had been answered.

“Hmm?” Callum put down the glass of water Lisa had provided and took firm mental hold of his threads again.

“House Hargrave has run into issues securing food and supplies in a timely manner,” Glenda said. Gayle glanced at her and nodded support. “We’ve been sourcing from the New York area, but with GAR so close by all the supernatural outlets have been essentially closed to us.

“There have also been some attempts to frame Archmage Taisen as being responsible,” Glenda added with a frown. “Puerile, but I suppose it should be suspected. Regardless, I would like to ask about getting some teleportation enchantments for the House. That will make it easier to source things from a less sensitive location.”

“You haven’t been able to get any from the Guild of Enchanting?” Callum raised his eyebrows. “I’ve done at least fifteen for them at this point.”

“No…” Glenda said, eyeing him. “I didn’t realize you were working with the Guild of Enchanting."

"It's at a distance, but I am.” Callum frowned. “Maybe they’re using the teleports for themselves. I know it was only just recently that Duvall started restoring the network, but if you are asking me to make some for you, I absolutely can. If you can provide the enchanting material that’ll make things easier but I do have some already.”

“House Hargrave would prefer to commission it all from you, work and materials both,” Glenda said. “We would like to formally request three pairs of teleportation pads, in exchange for whatever resources we supply you for education and training.”

“In installments,” Callum said. Now that he and Lucy had raided cenotes once, they could do it again. It just took time. Besides which, actively trading with House Hargrave put them on friendly terms, even if he still wouldn’t trust them as far as he could throw them. “I’ll put one together after this meeting, and additional teleports at year intervals while you’re providing instruction, for as long as necessary.”

“That is acceptable,” Glenda said. “Provided the first year’s payment for ongoing support is this year.”

“Done,” Callum agreed. “What about you, Wizzy?”

“One has no need for additional teleportation,” Wizzy said calmly. “However, there may be some need for different spatial services in the future.”

“As long as it’s reasonable,” Callum said. “I’m not going to write a completely blank check.”

“Certainly not,” Wizzy replied.

“Hey now,” Lucy said pointedly. “I may not be a mage but I’m not useless. I bet ya’ll need IT support now that you’ve split from GAR. Computers and networking and telephony and all that.”

“Yes!” Gayle said, suddenly perking up. “One of the things we’re trying to do is add more mundane knowledge to our House. There’s also—” She interrupted herself to turn to Callum. “Do you have any suggestions for where to look? To improve our own spellcasting, I mean. Since you said you learned most of yours by reference to mundane techniques.”

“Huh.” Callum raised his eyebrows. Given the contempt he’d seen for normal technology and learning outside of GAR agents he was a little surprised, but he supposed that his own accomplishments were impossible to ignore. “Basically all university-level physics, chemistry, and biology, to start. Trouble is I don’t really know enough about other aspects to be sure how much of it applies.”

“And where can we find these things?” Glenda asked. Callum took a moment to remind himself that these were people who probably didn’t generally use the internet at all, and were unaware of everything that was on it.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You can consult with Lucy about getting your buildings wired and such, and we’ll add in pointers to all these resources. They wouldn’t do much good to you without proper access anyway.”

“And,” Lucy said, elbowing Callum. “Since you’re here. Callum’s knee has been bothering him for a while. Maybe you can fix him up?”

“I did wonder about the cane,” Gayle said, nodding to herself. “Certainly, I’d be happy to.”

Callum grimaced. He hadn’t intended to bring it up, but of course now that they were face to face he didn’t have a good reason to protest. Part of him knew it was stupid to even want to reject the help, but the last few times he’d dealt with magical healing he’d been in GAR custody. His hand automatically went to his knee before he nodded.

“Very well,” he said, trying not to sound ungrateful. It wouldn’t be fair to either Lucy or Gayle.

Unlike before, Gayle didn’t have to physically touch him. She just pushed a ball of complex vis out of her shell and sent it down toward the knee in question. It took every ounce of his self-control to let it contact him, but when it did an odd jolt of refreshing energy ran through him. He could feel bits inside his knee shift, and then it was done.

“Thank you.” That time he actually did manage to sound properly grateful, and Gayle flashed him a bright smile.

“Glad to help, Mister Wells.” She turned to Lucy. “Oh, I’m not confident in it yet, but there are some specific things healers do for expectant mothers. I’ll make sure I can manage that before our next meeting.”

“Thank you, Gayle,” Lucy said, managing a far more credible smile than Callum had.

“Oh!” Gayle said suddenly, glancing between Lucy and Callum. “I just wanted to ask. That book you let me have. Do you have any others like it?” She flushed as Glenda shook her head indulgently. “I mean, I don’t know where to start, there are so many books available.”

Callum laughed. He couldn’t help it. The request was just so ordinary that it seemed absurd.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll give you some recommendations.”

The Hargraves left soon after, but Archmage Wizzy lingered behind. He had been the quietest of the participants, only piping up the once to expound on the dangers and benefits of the internal style of magic. Aside from that, he had been content to watch and listen.

“You have been a spark that has set a fire,” Wizzy said. “But it has not truly caught. Not yet. Do you intend to continue forging a new path?”

“That seems a bit leading,” Callum said cautiously. “If you’re asking if I’m satisfied with the world as it is, no. Especially not since it’s not just my future I need be concerned about.” He didn’t want to say out loud that he couldn’t foresee a future where vampires still existed on Earth, or even where GAR still functioned as it did. Wizzy seemed amenable to the chaos Callum had caused, but it was better not to create any expectations one way or another. "But I'm taking things one step at a time."

“Is there any other way to move forward?” Wizzy asked, rhetorically. “One merely suggests that you exercise caution in more than relations with other mages. Mictlān is not the most dangerous possibility when it comes to portal worlds.”

“You know about opening up other dimensional portals?” Callum asked. He didn’t know how Wizzy knew about Shahey’s charge, or even if he knew. It might just be that Wizzy figured he’d get around to it eventually. “Anything you can tell me about the process?”

“Not as such. One only knows stories, that certain spatial Archmages were capable of it, and they often found that the portals opened to desolation and death.”

“Well, I guess I hardly expected otherwise,” Callum mused. He hadn’t actually tried opening a dimensional portal yet, not with his current knowledge, but it made a certain kind of sense most of them would just explode. If the other end were somewhat random, it could open into a star, or vacuum, or a universe full of antimatter, or just some physics so alien that concepts like matter and energy didn’t apply.

That all the portal worlds were at least vaguely Earth-like might not so much represent some fact about dimensions being habitable as only habitable dimensions could sustain a portal. He knew how fragile portal magic was. The dimensional portals might be more robust than the usual fare but he doubted they’d survive forming in extreme conditions.

“Simply take care you do not find yourself in the underworld,” Wizzy told him.

“Careful is my watchword,” Callum assured him.

“Like taking coal to Newcastle,” Lucy muttered. Callum snorted, and she grinned at him unrepentantly. Once Wizzy left as well, Chester waved them back into the chairs.

“We’re ready for you to connect us to the Deep Wilds,” Chester said. “It’s moderately urgent, if you can do it soon.”

“I have the telepads,” Callum confirmed. “I’m a bit worried about how well it’ll work in a portal world, though. I’ll give you an anchor to send over and I’ll set things up, since I have a fallback if it doesn’t quite form normally.”

His work for the Guild of Enchantment had paid off at least a little. For something as simple as assembling a static box, he could make his own enchantment. Which was his quick and dirty solution to making sure a teleport could form — create a very simple enchantment first that permanently erected a spatial field that asserted the normal spatial conditions of Earth, protecting the teleportation framework as it formed. He called it an exclusion frame, and apparently Duvall could do that without an enchantment focus, but that wasn’t a trick he’d figured out yet.

“Excellent,” Chester said. “It’ll be a lot easier when I don’t have to sneak things through agents.”

“I’m surprised they’re letting much traffic through to begin with,” Callum said, and shrugged. “But I guess there’s a lot of shifters still in GAR.”

“Used to be that people would take vacations there all the time,” Lucy put in. “If other packs do that, and I bet they do, it’s a pretty busy portal.” Callum nodded at that, reminded again how much incidental knowledge he was lacking because he didn’t grow up in magical society. Even though he’d been with Lucy a while, even though she’d tried to teach him things, so much knowledge was just internalized to the point that she didn’t even realize she knew it.

“Right,” Callum said. “We’ll get you connected as soon as you get the anchor to where you want it.”

Once they returned back to the bunker, Callum flopped onto the couch with a groan. Even if he hadn’t done anything, the stress had still tied him in knots and holding the vis threads in place for so long had been exhausting. Socializing was not fun.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Lucy said, dropping down next to him and leaning against him as he put an arm around her. “Besides, you got your knee fixed, right?”

“I did,” he admitted, flexing the joint in question. “I didn’t realize how much of a difference it would make.” He’d probably keep the cane around; it was a fun and useful affectation, but not needing it would be a relief.

“At least I won’t have to drag the Connors out of Florida again,” Lucy said. “They’ll be glad to know you’ve gotten it fixed up.”

“Huh, I imagine so,” Callum admitted. He wasn’t sure how it happened that Lucy had become friends with the Connors and not him, but maybe it was for the best. He would probably just remind them of everything they’d gone through. “Wizzy’s last comment though, made me think.”

“Ooh, that’s dangerous,” Lucy said with a grin. “Whatcha got?”

“Well, I was originally going to start experimenting with the dimensional portals through anchors, because obviously, but it’s probably going to need more care than that. There might not be any limitations on cracking through to new realities, and accidentally opening up to an antimatter planet would end poorly even if the portal is small. I don’t need to accidentally set off a nuke somewhere in the Midwest.”

“Oof, yeah,” Lucy said, then cocked her head at him. “So you were thinking maybe it was space time?”

“Yeah, space time,” Callum agreed with a laugh. “Remote portals are safe, but very remote portals are safer.”

“Fantastic. We’re gonna need to order more stuff.” Lucy wiggled happily. “I guess we could buy time on a cubesat or something but it’d be better if we can do it all ourself. You can go that high, right?”

“I’ve never tried, but accidentally finding myself in space was somewhat of a nightmare of mine when I still flung myself around that way. I have noticed that the mana gets thinner higher up but I don’t know if that’ll matter with an anchor connected to here.” He waved around at their relatively mana-rich environs.

“Right, well, I have a bunch of stuff I had drawn up anyway. We can start simple. Awesome thing about portals; we don’t have to wait for launch windows or even worry about telemetry. Gimme a couple days and we’ll have a rig to start. Drone’s not going to cut it.”

Actually a drone probably would have cut it. In fact, an anchor by itself might have cut it, just for an initial test. But that wouldn’t really prove anything since they couldn’t just be in space ⁠— even he knew that. Orbits were complex and getting anywhere required precision. There was no point in being careful and opening a portal in space if anything that came through that portal would deorbit moments later and turn into some apocalyptic bolide.

The further out he could go, the safer things could be, but there was really no telling what magic was like out beyond the bounds of Earth. He’d seen that the portal worlds were different. For all he knew the Earth had been saturated in mana long enough that out in the vacuum of space, vis would behave differently. It was worth letting Lucy set things up for their first foray.

In the interim he set up Chester’s teleport to the deep wilds. As he’d suspected, the plates he’d made on Earth didn’t quite work. They took a lot of time and mana to erect the spellforms, and Callum didn’t trust that the transfer would be healthy for the people involved. He knew how rough badly formed teleports were. The exclusion frame he’d made solved the problem, albeit with a significant increase to the required mana.

For some reason Callum had been expecting a shifter outpost to be some kind of crude makeshift thing, but the place the portal anchor had ended up was a neat, clean, walled town, built up high on one of the massive trees that dotted the Deep Wilds. If it weren’t for the ground being wood, he would have sworn it was just a clearing. Despite how well-run it was, the place was still fairly Spartan and was a stark contrast with his plans to start a magic-powered space program with Lucy.

Such plans were easier to create than to implement, and took quite a while to get going. They ended up waiting several weeks for all the bits and pieces Lucy ordered to come in. Cold gas thrusters, even simple ones, and vacuum gyroscopes were apparently not easy to manufacture or calibrate. Between the Guild of Enchanting and the loot from the vampire nests they had plenty of cash for it, since in the end they didn’t need too much gear.

The first prototype was an anchor inside a steel cube, like they’d used for the bottom of the sea, though it had some extra features to transmit signals. Lucy wasn’t so much worried about the pressure, though it was possible that would be an issue, as she was about heat and impact. A stray micrometeorite would absolutely ruin something as fragile as a portal anchor, and for both mordite and corite the heat might well make it degrade faster.

The casing for it had some gyroscopes and cold gas and a bunch of hardened electronics, along with some solar panels. It was basically a larger, clunkier cube than the one that surrounded the portal anchor. Still, it worked, and it didn’t need to look pretty to do the job.

Callum simply lofted it in the air with his gravitykinesis, then sent it upward with his Alcubierre technique. On the camera feed, the ground shrank with breathtaking speed and Callum stopped after just a few seconds. Like when he’d sent himself at the horizon, it didn’t take long at all to get very high up. He could see the edges of the Earth through one of Lucy’s cameras, but his own perceptions were rather more limited.

More limited, in fact, than usual. He guessed they were somewhere outside the atmosphere, maybe somewhere around low orbit, and when he released the box of spatial vis his perceptions didn’t find a bunch of empty space. They found nothing until they were carried along with the expanding cloud of incidental atmosphere, and even then it took the mana pouring through the portal for him to really get a sense of the area around their box.

“Huh,” Callum said. “Apparently I need mana for passive perception to work, and there’s none in space. So it doesn’t just operate on reality, I guess? Or, well. Mana is reality, but it’s a foreign reality so it’s not out there yet.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, looking away from her camera. “I can’t imagine it matters much though. Unless that means you can’t do magic out in space?” Callum poked a vis thread through, and while extending it out into the manaless vacuum felt odd, it didn’t fail.

“No, I can still do magic, but if that portal gets disrupted it’s not going to open again.” Callum looked at the camera displays Lucy had going, which showed a lot more than the nothingness his spatial perception provided. “I guess mana is affected by gravity, at least a little bit? Something sure keeps it all on Earth.” Though he’d already seen that mana was affected by matter, too. Otherwise the mana coming through the portals would be trying to diffuse through the whole wide universe and it’d be practically impossible to get it in any concentration.

“We can work up a physics of mana with this,” Lucy grinned. “It’s cutting-edge research!”

“It is!” Callum agreed. “Though it’s going to make putting together any space nexus area a bit of a problem. I did see that the Mictlān portal had some sort of construct that contained mana. I’ll have to ask Wizzy about that. We might have to build a box to hold the mana in.”

“Box inside a box inside a box,” Lucy muttered, and poked at the controls. The slow tumbling of the Earth and the stars on the monitors slowed and then stopped, and she checked the readouts. “Well, it looks like the stabilization is mostly working. It’s a lot easier since we’ve got no thrust and so little mass, but it seems like this works well enough. Until it hits something.”

“Sure,” Callum agreed. “It’s our very first mana-powered satellite.”

“It’s not a satellite yet,” Lucy warned. “In fact it’s falling pretty quickly. Probably hit atmosphere again in a few minutes, so you’ll want to recall it before that happens.”

“I suppose I could do it now,” Callum said.

“You could, but look at this view!” Lucy waved at the Earth below them and the crystal clarity of the stars. Some of the cameras were iced over or nonfunctional, but enough worked to give them a breathtaking vista. “We can watch it for a bit, right?”

“Of course,” Callum said, put his arm around her as they watched the world turn.

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