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Alden wished she’d look away so he could sneakily take the single-drop-on-a-cracker route, but Kibby was staring at him avidly.

Idiot. Just lick the blood out of the special bowl before you chicken out.

He closed his eyes and did it. It tasted a lot like his own blood, though it was unexpectedly acidic.

He set the bowl back down. His pulse was racing as he met Kibby’s eyes.

He could tell she was holding her breath. He was, too.

When he came to, hours later, he was lying in a textbook-perfect recovery position on the cold floor. His hand was bandaged with a paper napkin and a generous amount of clear packaging tape. And his cat was calmly eating a can of tuna three inches away from his nose. Victor? What was he…

Alden groaned and sat up. Physically he felt fine. Mentally, he felt like his brain had been unspooled.

He looked around the lobby cautiously. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the sky had begun to pale. Gorgon was at the desk, chin resting on his knuckles as he stared at the security monitors.

Alden approached him cautiously, keeping his own eyes averted just in case.

“Gorgon…” he said, too overwhelmed to be ashamed of what he was about to say, “…are you some kind of a god?”

“No,” Gorgon said simply.

Of course not. What kind of a god would get trapped in a lobby?

Wait a second…

“Gorgon, has this already happened? Where is Kibby?” he stopped. “I am in Chicago,” he realized.

“Yes. And you are talking in a very accented Artonan. What have you done?”

Alden was not entirely sure himself. “I have spent the last five months stuck on a moon during a chaos storm. I needed to try something; Kibby was dying and her giving me some blood seemed like a good idea.” He looked around the consulate; he couldn’t feel the chaos slowly eroding his existence away. “It worked? It worked! Did we time travel?”

“Unlikely,” Gorgon stared at him, “but you have accomplished something. Was this Kibby a wizard?”

Alden nodded. “She is just starting to learn, but one day she will be a great wizard.”

“No, she will not.” Before Alden could protest, he added, “that was probably the price she paid for her boon. Congratulations, Alden, you have fulfilled your role for the first time, and you have not even undertaken the ritual.” Gorgon immediately hissed at his own words. Right, he was punished for giving out too much information.

“And if we did not time travel, what happened? Did I get a vision of the future?”

The eye contact , he thought. I felt my own first heartbeat, why wouldn’t I be able to feel my own consumption by chaos.

Alden’s eyes dropped and landed on the jar of salsa. Right, he could technically still eat meat.

“You should drink it,” he said pointing at the jar. “If you still want to, I would like to offer it to you again.”

Gorgon said nothing for a minute or two, but he did pick up the jar. “Even knowing what you know now?” he asked at last, their eyes meeting again. Black eyes and no death of the universe this time.

“I do.”

Unlike last time, when Gorgon had taken a sip from the blood gazpacho, this time he took a chip and had a bit of bloody salsa with it. Gorgon took a chip and sealed Alden’s fate with it.

“Do you know how you will avoid being on a chaos infested moon?” Gorgon asked, after a couple of minutes of the two of them eating chips in silence.

“I won’t. I can’t. Kibby is still stuck there. I just need to make sure I am not stuck with her when I go get her.”

Gorgon ate another chip; they were running low. “She will probably remember what happened. Will she resent you for taking her authority?”

“No,” Alden said without thinking. Then he thought about it. “No, she won’t. Her whole family was dead, and we had little hope of surviving ourselves. She was not meant to be a wizard in the first place; she will see her ability to do magic as a worthy sacrifice in exchange for her sister and father back.”

“Good. Do you know what you need to do, then?”

“Yes. And before you tell me that that is to go to bed and get some rest, there is something I have to do before that.” He clashed against Gorgon’s body and gave him the tightest hug he could. Five months. He had spent five months, close to six, with only Kibby to interact with.

Gorgon didn’t hug him back, but he didn’t immediately step back either.

Alden had a lazy morning of playing with Victor, looking up translations for words Kibby and him had never fully agreed on, and fretting about Kibby. How was she doing? Would she be confused? He hoped she had taken the shock of seeing her family alive again well.

Jeremy called right on cue and invited him for breakfast. He agreed, even if he would rather have met his friends again in private. The prospect of food that was not chaos-mutated was too good to reject.

When he got to the diner he regretted his decision immediately. Jeremy and Boe were waiting for him outside. Boe was watching cartoons on his phone while Jeremy tried to find a comfortable angle to peer over his shoulder.

Alden crashed into them and started sobbing. He hugged them as best he could and shook as his body and authority tried to touch as much of them as possible.

“Alden? Dude, are you like, okay?” Jeremy asked and Alden couldn’t even lie and say yes.

They ended up getting the food to-go and walked back to Alden’s apartment. Jeremy’s parents were at home and neither of them liked being in Boe’s house.

They settled around the table, Alden with a nice helping of oatmeal topped with fruit and cinnamon. He also had half a cup of the diner’s tropical juice. It had started as a full cup, but sip by sip it had disappeared as they made their way back to Alden’s place. The taste of familiar fruits mixed with a high sugar content made it impossible to ignore for more than a block at the time.

“Now can you explain what got you in hysterics?” Boe asked once they had all started to munch on their food. “And why didn’t you get the hot chocolate? You always get hot chocolate when you can.”

Alden took another sip of his juice. It tasted nothing like wevvi and yet it was the only thing he could think of. Could one get dependent on instant wevvi? They had so much of it in the lab and Kibby and he drank at least a cup a day. It might be slimy and too sweet, but it beat both recycler water and his poor attempt at making juice from one of the lettuces.

“I have sudden-onset veganism and I have just spent the last five months on an abandoned moon.”

“No, you haven’t,” Boe corrected him. Then he looked at Alden, really did, and his face turned into a confused puzzle. “You have. I saw you yesterday and yet you have spent the last five months on an abandoned moon. How?”

Alden opened his mouth to answer when Boe cut him off. “No. I don’t think we should know the exact details. That feels like dangerous information that could put us in a list we definitely don’t want to be on.”

Alden closed his mouth again.

“This moon thing. It’s in the future, right?” Alden nodded. “Then there is a way for you to avoid it. Do you know how to—”

“I need to go.”

“What?” Both Jeremy and Boe asked.

“I will still need to go to the moon. Kibby is there and she has no other way to get out. She is… She is my little sister; I need to save her.”

His friends stared at him. Right, they must think I am insane. Maybe I even am.

“Okay,” Jeremy said at last. “Yes, okay. I have a sister too. I would go to a cursed moon to save her, especially if I could go prepared. You will go prepared, right?”

Boe unfroze as well. “Sure, whatever, we are doing this. How do we help? What do you need to get marooned on a moon?”

The good thing about becoming an involuntary vegan for the second time, was that he had now grown to appreciate food in a way he had not done before. He hit a vegan bakery on his way to the consulate and he was so excited for non-chaos food that he could not even think about the fact that they would not have any butter in them.

Instead of discussing classes with Gorgon, they talked about what he would be doing.

“If everything goes as it went, I should be in the evil moon soon. I have enough days to get the people out before the chaos storm hits fully, if I am smart about it. After that I don’t know. I wanted so badly to be a hero before and now… now I think I am terrified. I know I have to go back to Thegund because I need to get Kibby out of there. But if Kibby wasn’t there I don’t know if I could do it.”

He didn’t mention the magic. He had no idea how to bring it up. Surprise, I am a wizard!

And that had brought along its own set of problems, because he could still feel his authority and it was a lot less than it used to be. It was most likely the authority he had had at the time they were in. He had seen the future, not time traveled after all. And yet he could still feel authority and do his little spells.

His authority was all free authority, but only technically. Most of it was still in the shape of Let Me Take Your Luggage. Not an exact replica, but a close approximation. The closest metaphor he could find was the compression shirt he had to wear after the Body Drainer incident. When he took it off, his body expanded as he became able to breathe properly and his body fat could go wherever it wanted. But his body still had a similar shape; his ribcage kept everything in that shape.

The bones and muscles of his affixation were still there, it was just the fat that had been able to relax and expand.

He moved the fat around, to see if he could, and it responded but not as well as his actual free authority. The bones and muscles moved too, but they were not happy about it. He quickly put them back in the shape they were and while it settled, it was not exactly as it had been.

He really hoped that was not going to stop the system from choosing him.

It didn’t.

He had spent the whole week familiarizing himself with Earth, doing homework he had not touched in months and whose normalcy brought him close to tears.

He had exercised as much as he could and hoped that would help him be able to take three people at once. He needed to make as few trips to Thegund as possible.

On Thursday, it happened. He did not bomb his Hamlet quiz because he had gotten Boe to tell him everything he was supposed to be doing for school at the moment. Because he did not bomb his quiz, he did not run out of the classroom as fast as he could to avoid the concern of his teacher, which meant that he was still picking up his books when it happened.

He sighed in relief when Meister of Cudgel appeared before his eyes. Good, he needed to deliver a cudgel-shaped future to a Polish boy and chainer to an Anesidoran girl. There were a few things he needed and the best way to get them would be as part of his delivery fee.

He made it to the bathroom before the tears of relief started flowing. The System was back. It was back and he could feel it. It spoke to him with proper sentences.

For hours, he poked at it every ten minutes or so, just to make sure it was still there.

He was nervous while waiting for Andrzej.

Thankfully, the Polish boy appeared right on schedule and, just as before, he accepted the trade.

Also just as before, he got Boe to skip class to talk about their game plan.

“I have something to tell you and I know you will not want me to say it on the phone,” had been enough to get his friend to drop everything and go hunker down in Alden’s place.

He had even brought coffee for himself.

“Okay, what’s up?”

“I was selected, which you knew was going to happen, and I managed to trade into Chainer like last time. Now I need to go ask the Velras for my actual class, and I need your help with writing the letter and a non-disclosure contract.”

“And we didn’t do this before because…?”

“I needed to make sure I could get Chainer first. If I didn’t, I would have to think of a different way to get Rabbit and there are not that many ways for a Meister of Cudgel to get there.”

“Wait, Rabbit? You traded Chainer for Rabbit last time?”

“Yeah, I know. Gorgon gave me a clue about a specific skill I would like, but it was a Rabbit skill. And I need it again if I want to go save Kibby.”

By the time Jeremy joined them after class, Boe had a solid looking non-disclosure contract and Alden had a list of things he would need and were not readily available to him. Boe and he had spent at least two hours discussing and researching what would help. Boe had been the one who had thought (found in an article after way too much research) about the enchanted clothes. Alden would be forever grateful as it did sound like a wonderful idea. Alden also had a first draft of the letter he would send, but Jeremy took great joy at gutting it and they started again from the top.

At the end, they had something Alden knew would work, if only because the Gloss would will it so.

“Dear Keiko,

I am a big fan of your work, but not necessarily of your family, and have come across something that they want. I will, first and foremost, only communicate through you, so please do not let your family come knocking or the deal is off. This includes kidnapping. I will not cooperate if I, or anyone I care for, is kidnapped in any way, shape, or form.

I have heard through the grapevine that you are looking for B-Rank Chainer, and you are in great luck because guess what I have for you! That’s right, I have the answer to all your problems, and I am more than willing to trade it with you tomorrow. I will be in Anesidora in front of [this] mailbox at 7:15 am local time and will ideally only meet with Hazel. If someone else must be there, you or Lute Velra can act as chaperones, but please do not send anyone else.

My requests for Chainer are simple:

1.       The Rabbit Class. This is non-negotiable. I will not trade for anything other than Rabbit.
2.       A set of clothing with cooling enchantments in [this] size.
3.       Videos of every Velra performing their favorite non-family exclusive wordchain. Those that a young child can learn are preferable, as well as those that can help with living in hazardous conditions.
4.       1455555.62 Argold
5.       The attached non-disclosure agreement signed and notarized by you and all the representative Velras.
6.       The best resources on learning logograms for humans that you know of.
7.       Your autograph.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you,

Best wishes,

A Rabbit-To-Be.”

“Why that amount?” asked Jeremy as he wrote it down. “Why not an even number?”

“Last time they gave me one point five million Argold. Asking for a bit less makes sense as I am asking for clothes that would be hard for me to get and books they have more experience choosing. Also, Kibby’s second favorite number is 62, her fifth is 14 and the all-time winner is five.”

“It is also a good way to know if they are following every instruction correctly. If you ask for a specific number and get a different one, then you know that you have to check everything else as well,” pitched in Boe.

Alden sent the letter, NDA, sizes and address in one message. He got the notification of “this user does not have you as a priority sender,” and sent it anyways. The gloss would make sure his message would get to her, after all, it had done so when he had sent his creepy, anonymous murder letter.

He got an answer half an hour later with a signed NDA and a promise that she would meet him and Hazel by his favorite mailbox. He had chosen the mailbox as it was close to the teleportation complex and that way, he could get this out of the way first thing. He knew that the Velras would be watching his every step otherwise.

At 10:00 am, Chicago time, he got the notice on his interface that his teleport slot was ready. At 10:01 a.m., Chicago time, and 7:01 a.m., Anesidora time, he was standing on the teleportation bay. At 7:04 a.m., he got a call from Ms. Zhao letting him know that she would pick him up in three hours and that she had given him ten Argold. He thanked her and agreed to meet her soon.

By 7:15 a.m., he was standing next to the same mailbox as last time. Keiko Velra was standing next to her younger cousin with a large parcel and a polite, but slightly worried, smile.

“Hello,” he said, approaching them. The two of them turned and relief flooded their faces when they saw him. He wondered if they had managed to get an image of him, or if his age was enough of a clue.

“Hi, thank you very much for coming,” Keiko said. “Would you like to go somewhere a bit more private to discuss things?”

Right, there are cameras everywhere and everyone can see us .

“We could go sit on a bench nearby, but I promised I would not be taken to a secondary location.”

“Of course, of course. Well, there seems to be a perfectly nice-looking bench over there, should we?”

He followed the least-crazy of the Velras to the bench she pointed out and sat on one of the corners. Hazel sat next to him while Keiko remained standing up. She stood in front of him and extended the parcel she was carrying. Then she took out a small device that started to generate white noise. Smart.

He opened the box and saw the top layer of clothes. He had no idea if they would fit him, or just how many items were on the box, but he could see the shimmy of the enchantments. He couldn’t tell exactly what they were, but he could tell the clothing was heavily enchanted, and beautifully so.

He closed the lid of the box and gave Keiko a nod. “Perfect. This will work.”

The two Velras smiled at him. “That was a very smart choice, by the way,” Keiko said, “I am surprised that it is not part of the usual trade contracts with non-Anesidorans, especially for Rabbit or Healer.”

Alden smiled. “Thanks. I saw the average temperature on the Tri-Planets and immediately knew I would not survive long there without some help.” AKA, I spent weeks there and sweated like a pig every single day, regretting everything that had led me to that moment and that puddle of sweat.

“So, why Rabbit?” Hazel asked. “Not that it’s a bad choice, but I would imagine that if you wanted to be a ruthless businessman, you would have asked for favors or something else that would have helped you get started.”

“I need to go to the Tri-Planets,” he answered truthfully. It was an answer he could make sense to himself and to others.

Hazel nodded. “Good choice. You will find it wonderful. I have gone several times, you know, and it has been a joy every time. I love being a guest of honor and now that I have Chainer I will be able to continue doing my duties as I was meant to.”

“The videos?” he asked Keiko after a few seconds. “Did you get them?”

He got a file on his interface with five videos on it. He opened the first one and it was of a young child, maybe four at most, with a confused but polite smile looking at the camera.

“Hello, I am Ricochet Velra and my favorite wordchain is Tickles! You get tickles for one part; so fun! And a small ouch leaves for the other, nice!” She then performed the wordchain and burst into laughter. An adult walked into the frame while she was still laughing and actually explained how the wordchain worked and how to perform it.

He clicked on the next video, and it was Lute Velra looking disgruntled at the camera. He showed a different wordchain that Alden had never heard of before. So were the next three videos. Three different Velras, all of different ages, performing a variety of wordchains.

“What about the rest?” he asked once he was done watching the videos.

“They will be delivered after the trade. There are currently three Velras that are too young to chain, but they will send you their video once they are old enough. Those born after the trade will not be counted towards the agreement. Also, one of our aunts had a bit of an accident recently and will record her part as soon as her fingers are properly recovered. It should be a couple of days.”

Alden nodded, not entirely sure of what to say. Right, I did say every Velra.

“Okay,” he said at last. “The books?”

“They are currently in a system storage box. We will maintain the storage box for six months, to facilitate you taking them in and out while you move to Anesidora. There is also a tablet that we loaded with resources used by Artonan children to learn, practice paper, and a couple of tools that should help you practice. I included a water-based board that blanks out as it dries. I bought it back in Japan and thought you might like it.”

“Thank you, that was very thoughtful of you.” What else was he supposed to say? “I imagine you can act as an authorized witness, right?”

He knew Hazel could, but there was no good way to explain why he knew that.

“Sure, let’s do this.”

[Hazel Dinah Velra has requested a class trade. Hazel Dinah Velra has been vouched by an authorized witness. You have been vouched for by an authorized witness. Negotiations are approved.]

[TRADE CHAINER CLASS FOR RABBIT CLASS?]

YES/NO

He accepted the request and looked around a bit while the trade happened. Surprisingly, the money got to his account before the system was done finalizing the trade.

“Heh, money is faster than the system. You would think that magic would win over banks.”

“Yeah,” Hazel said, her body on edge. “I forgot it took a couple— oh there it is! Yes!” She did a little jump and Alden was surprised she didn’t start running in circles or laughing maniacally. She looked like she could go for a bit of restless running.

Keiko also smiled, but mostly in relief rather than satisfaction. “Well, that went well. Not sure why I am surprised, given everything, but that went surprisingly smoothly. It was probably easier than getting Rabbit for you. You mentioned the money already arrived, was everything good?”

Alden checked. The amount was right to the cent. “Yeah, perfect.”

“Can I ask why that number? Just curiosity, it was not a round number in dollars converted to Argold, so I wonder.”

“Oh, it is a lucky number. It will bring me luck.”

“Of course, how could I forget the lady of the hour, luck. Anyways, we are off to a great Velra party to celebrate Hazel getting Chainer. Do you want to come along?”

Why would he ever want that? “I’m good, I am here for a funeral. I just wanted to get this out of the way as soon as possible. Thank you for everything.”

“A funeral? Don’t you mean… Oh, you are Hannah’s kid, aren’t you? Oh, no. You are not going to find her.” What? Alden was not entirely sure where she was trying to say. “Even if you go there, you will not find her. I know there was no confirmation that she was dead, but she might as well be. Take the funeral as closure, please. Don’t spend your life hunting for her ghost.”

Rabbit. They asked why I wanted Rabbit and I said it was because I wanted to go to the Tri-Planets.

The thing is, it was not a bad excuse. Rabbits were summoned more than any class. If he really wanted to go on a manhunt to find out what had happened to Hannah, it was not the worst of ideas. But if the system didn’t know what happened, then it probably meant that whatever had happened happened where the system could not see.

Maybe, in his original timeline, his family had also held a funeral with no body because he had also become one of the disappeared few.

“It’s not—It’s okay. She always wanted to go and I want to see what it is like. I know she is gone. I know…”

Keiko gave him a sad look and before he knew they were all saying their goodbyes.

“Wait!” she said once he had taken a few steps to leave. “You forgot your autograph.”

He went back, and Hazel even took a picture of him with Keiko. It was a nice one.

When he got back home Boe was waiting for him.

“Hey, loser, did you get your bunny?” Boe asked him between bites of chips.

“Yep. And everything we asked for, to the penny. I had to leave the clothes in a storage box during the day, so I haven’t been able to see them yet. Do you think Jeremy will kill me if we see them now?”

“Yeah, first-degree murder and everything. Wait for him, you already told us you would have to affix as soon as you got here, without waiting for his very important input.”

“Well, if he wants to spend some time poking at my skill, I will need to get the unconscious part of the process while we should be asleep. Also, I will have to tell Aunt Connie in the morning, so time is of the essence.”

Boe rolled his eyes but let him be.

Then, after a couple of minutes while Alden changed into his pajamas and brushed his teeth, he remained in silent contemplation. Or what Alden assumed was silent contemplation, no one could ever know with Boe.

“I never told you, didn’t I?” he asked at last, breaking what Alden thought had been a comfortable silence.

“What? Tell me what?”

“You would have brought it up and the original timeline would have been tight. I don’t think I would have grown the balls fast enough to say something before you were gone. Then I would have wanted to wait for you to come back, and you just never did it, didn’t you?”

“Boe, what are you talking about?”

Alden got a call before he could get an answer. Then he noticed who the call was from and that was answer enough.

He answered and saw a duplicate version of Boe on his interface. “Hey,” his friend sent over message, without taking out his phone.

“Hey,” Alden answered, with not even the slightest of movements to write the message.

It would be a long time before Alden could settle in bed to affix Rabbit.

[Pre-affixed Selectee: Samuel Alden Thorn]

[Divergence Rank: B]

[Assigned Class: Rabbit]

[Samuel Alden Thorn, do you willingly accept your duties as one of Earth’s Avowed, thereby satisfying a portion of your planet’s debt to Artona?]

[YES/NO]

It was harder to press yes on his second go-round. The first time, any hesitation had come from Rabbit. From knowing that he had to leave the path of traditional heroics for the untested but recommended path of Let Me Take Your Luggage.

Now? Now he wanted Rabbit. He knew Rabbit and Rabbit knew him. His authority would always feel constrained by it, but it was a shape it knew. The idea of affixing any other skill made his skin prickle.

But he would be constrained again. Having been able to breathe freely, was he really about to stab his lungs again?

Think about Kibby…

Yes, he was going to do it.

“Welcome, Alden ,” the System murmured, and Alden relaxed. He wondered when the voice of the System, any System, working and existing would not send a wave of relief through him.

Picking Let Me Take Your Luggage was easy enough. He didn’t even look at the description for longer than he had to make sure that it was the right one. He knew what it did, and he liked it. Also, it had shaped him, he had to take it.

Picking Azure Rabbit was even easier.

The spells part was when it got difficult.

Joe had recommended he never take a second spell, as that would help him pressure the System into getting into the archaic path for his skill. And yet… And yet, his affixation was the only thing that stood between him and chaos. It was a blanket—a cocoon, a carapace, a mother’s embrace—that protected him from oblivion.

He was not planning on revisiting the chaos storm.

And yet…

The idea that there was something he could have done to make himself safer from chaos and that he didn’t do it made him shiver. He loved his magic, the ability to move the universe around him was incredible. But it was Let Me Take Your Luggage and Azure Rabbit that would keep him safe and sane.

He needed the second spell.

And he needed his first spell to not be wasted on something useless. He needed a spell that would help him if needed. And he needed it to be something that he couldn’t get on his own.

The flare spell sounded like a good choice, but it was one he was pretty sure he could learn with some time and a good instructor. He ended up settling for a high complexity D-rank spell that allowed him to leave notes in the air. It seemed silly, as he had to use ashink (ink made of ash, he imagined) to write in logograms the color, location and size of the message, then the message itself, and wrap it all up with a long incantation. He then had to recite the spell, which used some sounds that were a bit too high pitch for him to hit naturally. While he would have to learn how to write the descriptions by himself, the written and verbal incantations were not ones he could easily do unassisted.

I could use papers with prewritten instructions and use it to mark places that are unstable during a battle, or mark down where civilians are injured but that I couldn’t extract myself. He tried to convince himself. But the idea of using any of his authority on a spell was repulsive. It was against everything his body asked.

But it would be necessary.

He didn’t let himself too much on the fact that its range of over a hundred yards extended in all directions. With careful calculations and enough spells, he could write a giant message in the sky that said, “people alive here, please come get us.” Or “HELP!!! WE ARE STUCK!!”

He decided he would choose his second spell with Kibby. Probably something that made use of the double consciousness, as he would never be able to use those naturally. She would love choosing one and her enthusiasm would help him actually do it.

His signing bonus points were distributed the same way as before. Agility and Speed had served him well last time, and they interacted nicely with Azure Rabbit.

He resented once more his point in Appeal but did not remove it. The more bound he was, the safer he would be.

He checked one last time and everything looked like it should. It did.

He couldn’t get himself to do it.

It was like jumping into a pool you knew was freezing. And full of acid. And you did not know how to swim.

But Kibby needed him.

He jumped.

“Hello, Alden.”

Alden sat on his learning cushion; the one next to him was empty but it looked recently used. As if Kibby had just stepped out for a second and was going to return soon.

The System was polite enough and did not take her seat. Instead, it stood in front of the screen where they usually watched their class.

“Hi,” he said. “You are the System, right?”

“Indeed, and you are a strange case.”

Alden nodded. He knew he would be.

“And we have already held a similar conversation. That is a first for me.”

“You can read my memories; I forgot about that. You mentioned tattling would be expensive. I only did a weird ritual, that’s not banned, isn’t it? I am pretty sure weird rituals are a part of normal magic.”

The System was a smooth, humanoid-ish being, but it had no human reactions Alden could use to tell what it was thinking.

“Correct,” it said. “While your memories of a future that will not come to be are interesting from an academic point of view, they do not concern me. And from your memories, I can see that your prior modifications had a positive impact on your stabilization. Your awareness and control of your authority are my main concerns. The Contract was not created with this eventuality in mind, but other Systems would be obligated to warn you of the pain that will come with affixation. Some might even be compelled to stop you.”

“I know. I have to do this.”

“In this case, let us get to work. This will hurt.”

When he woke up, Jeremy was going through his new clothes.

He did not make it to the bathroom before he vomited, but Boe had been fast enough to shove a trashcan on his hands after he had taken the first few steps.

It hurt.

It hurt.

It was a shape he was used to, and it still hurt.

Let Me Take Your Luggage itched, Azure Rabbit felt sore, his enhancements hurt in the throbbing way that his wounds used when they were recovering, and his spell was a horrible spot of pain and repulsion.

He could not even imagine how terrible it would hurt if he had to affix more than a tiny little extra thing. The idea of waiting two years until he had enough free authority for the System to start offering the alternate path of his skill sounded like a sweet reward rather than the horror that it had sounded like the first time Joe recommended it.

“All good?” Jeremy asked, his hands still on a nice-looking shirt with long sleeves and a wave pattern.

“Yeah,” he croaked out, “Just getting used to it all.” He had decided to avoid telling his friends until he could talk with Joe. Alden was pretty sure he could get the wizard to make the secrecy tattoo to include things Alden had told him rather than just things that he had told Alden.

Boe gave him a look, but didn’t dig into it. They had both agreed on a longer chat once Alden was back and they could both put all their cards on the table. The System had forbidden Boe from mentioning a couple of things, but Alden thought that was information he might be able to get out of Joe.

“If you are ready, then there is something we have for you. Come on.”

His friends took him to the kitchen, where Aunt Connie was sitting doing something on her phone. As soon as she saw them, she smiled and threw her arms around Alden. “Congratulations!” She shouted right next to his ear.

On the table there was rabbit-shaped cake with what could only be described as a “could be better” attempt at frosting. The gremlin didn’t complain, so it had to be vegan.

“Surprise!” his whole family said, Jeremy the loudest of them.

“The boys said you wanted to surprise me but ended up taking a bit too long to affix. Instead, we decided to surprise you. Come on, let’s get some candles on it!”

They only got one candle, as it was his first rabbit-day—“Birthday for superpowers!” Jeremy explained—and they could only find one in the junk drawer.

It took everything in him to avoid using his lightning spell on it. Alden was so used to lighting promise sticks that it was close to a second nature. Instead, Aunt Connie used one of the many lighters her friends had left behind by mistake. Then she passed him the candle and he automatically preserved it.

Boe was the first one to notice something was off about the candle. “That’s neat,” he said, approaching the frozen flame. “Can you put it under water?”

He could.

Alden didn’t even get a chance to finish his slice of cake before Jeremy had thought of thousands of tests to do and fun things to do with his skill.

Many of those tests Alden already knew the answer to, but it was still good to get back to the practice of how to use Let Me Take Your Luggage.

He practiced changing who was his entrusted as much as he could. Kibby had been his for way too long.

He couldn’t wait to meet her again.

“Bag?”

“Ready.”

“Clothes?”

Alden stopped and looked down at himself. “I should change.”

Jeremy and Boe had been great with power testing. He tried Azure Rabbit and didn’t fall down face first, which was great. He had preserved a multitude of stacks in a multitude of forms. Then, he had preserved Victor to give him a little kiss without getting mauled. And then Boe so Jeremy could punch him as hard as he could.

Then Jeremy, so Boe could hit him as hard as he could. That one had been a much bigger hit to his skill. And to his ego.

Now, they were making sure that he had everything ready for his summoning.

“Yeah, especially with what you said about the boater. You need to make sure they know you are not playing their games.” Boe had turned out to be a lot better at reading social situations than he had ever let known. Alden knew that his friend had tried to become a social pariah, but had not realized how much went into it. Apparently, being able to read social dynamics as if they were animals in a documentary, was an essential skill.

“You need to be outside the pecking order,” Boe had insisted. “This Manon rabbit you mentioned is already top dog, you are not going to dethrone her, and you don’t want to play second fiddle to anyone. You are not a fiddle player, Alden, you would suck at it.”

And if he wanted to be treated like a rabbit-errant (like a knight-errant, but for rabbits. Jeremy had thought it was the vibe Alden should thrive for) then he needed to look the part.

“You should change, yeah.” Jeremy said, already pointing at an outfit he had separated. It was a nice black shirt with intricate embroidery and human-style black pants. Both came from the box of Velra clothing. Alden had put a couple of outfits into his bag, as well as his necessities, the tablet full of logogram apps, and some snacks.

The outfit fit him perfectly, and he topped it off with his lab coat. The cooling enchantments were already working, as he couldn’t feel the difference in temperature from adding a heavy coat on top, even when he buttoned it up.

The black made the bright red of the coat look a bit more bearable, but just barely.

It felt weird to be dressing up at two a.m., but that was the nature of being a rabbit. You had to be ready at any moment.

They were back to doing fun experiments (yes, Boe could entrust Jeremy to him, as long as Jeremy had previously entrusted himself to Boe) when he got the notification.

[Summons to Artona III incoming]

[You do not have an available refusal.]

[Please make any necessary preparations.]

Time Until Summons: 48s

“It’s time!”

“Is it Leafsong?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” That had been a concern. They had no idea how popular Alden would be, which is why they had waited to buy the coat all the way to the early hours of the morning. He needed to go to Leafsong, and to do so he needed to be free for summoning when they would need him.

“Good luck!” His friends wished him. They would tell Aunt Connie and Gorgon for him.

The teleport felt like going home. The embrace was familiar and Alden hadn’t realized that he had missed it. It was a sensation that he had craved for months, and now here it was. It felt different, somehow, to the one to-and-from Anesidora. Longer. Older. 

Alden opened his eyes and, oh no, his Sympathy for Magic would be an issue. It overlapped with his authority sense and not in a good way.

[Teleport complete. Welcome to Artona III.

Summoner: Bti-qwol. Quest: Hazardous Materials Disposal and Emergency Medical Evacuation for LeafSong University.

Further details forthcoming. Await instructions.]

That was different.

On his first go through, his duties as an ambulance for reckless teens had been added after he had arrived. Now it was there from the beginning.

I froze Boe and Victor, Alden realized, Bti-qwol mentioned she would have wanted my numbers on complex lifeforms. This time she has them.

“Hello, Alden Ryeh-b’t. You’re here to help out with our annual entrance exams. One of our <<scheduled>> assistants used a refusal. So last minute! The replacement had to be a Ryeh-b’t. Come with me.”

Alden gave her a soft smile—a barely contained grin. He had made it. He was one step closer to saving Kibby—and a respectful nod.

“Hello, it is an honor to be here with you. May I ask what my duties will be?”

Bti-qwol looked up from her tablet and gave him an odd look. “You have a very unique accent,” she said. “You will be assisting in the laboratory portion of the entrance exams and will be on <<stand-by>> for medical emergencies. More details about your duties will come to you from those responsible for their stations.”

“Thank you for your answer.”

Bti-qwol kept walking and looking at her tablet until they got to the parking area. One of the automatic carts that was waiting came to pick them up and they both climbed in. This part was easier on his second go-round. First of all, he knew that Bti-qwol was just an overzealous student trying to make everything perfect. He imagined Kibby in her place, trying her best to get everything to work like a well-maintained clock, and suddenly having to deal with a last-minute refusal. Of course she would be on her tablet trying to extinguish as many fires as she could, ignoring the rabbit she had just picked up. And secondly, he was not boiling alive. Not having to worry about the sweat rolling down his neck was a true game changer. Last time, the only thing he could think of was whether it would be appropriate for him to remove his coat. Now he knew he could do it. Also, now he didn’t have a need to do it.

Enchanted clothes really were the best.

After a couple of minutes, Bti-qwol turned her attention to him. 

“They paused the orientation meeting while I <<fetched>> you and moved the <<welcome>> breakfast forward instead. I’m sorry you’ll have to miss it. Many of our assistants from other planets look forward to the breakfast each year.”

He made a note on his interface about the particular “welcome” she had used, as it was different to the one he was used to. It was a very different experience to be here now where the System was translating just a few words, rather than translating everything. He wondered if it would refuse to translate specific words during the lectures where it had shut him off. Or if it would translate, as he had understood almost everything and it would not be keeping him away from information, just from vocabulary.

“Thank you for your concern, but I have brought with me some fruit.” He took out two of the apples he had packed. “Would you like one?” he asked, offering one of them.

Surprisingly, she accepted.

They ate their apples in silence for the rest of the trip. Bti-qwol continued to tap-tap-tap at her tablet while Alden took his—Velra provided—and started to look at some of the logograms resources. That eventually caught Bti-qwol’s attention, as she looked at his screen and saw bright pictures with dancing symbols next to them.

“I am learning to read,” Alden said, tilting the screen further, so she could fully see. “It is a difficult process. English only has twenty-six letters.”

“One of the most popular languages in your world,” she said. “Together with Chinese, Spanish, Arabic and Russian.”

“Correct.” Alden had no idea what the actual rankings were. He was pretty sure that Russian, Chinese and Arabic were actually a couple of different languages under the same name. He remembered a classmate complaining about how some areas of the Union had dialects so different from standard Russian that they might as well be their own language.

“As a ryeh-b’t it will be beneficial for you to learn to read and write. The <<endeavor>> might seem daunting and <<without apparent use despite a teacher’s insistence on its importance>> due to the System’s translations, but it will make it easier for your summoner to communicate with you.”

“Thank you, I will keep your advice in mind as I continue on my educational path.” That was one of the stock phrases that Kibby loved. Bti-qwol, unsurprisingly, also liked it. She preened with the words and went back to her tablet with a little smile on her face.

Bti-qwol forced a cup of wevvi into his hands when they got to where the breakfast banquet had been. He preserved it without thinking, and then quickly unpreserved it so it would hopefully cool off a bit. He had a bit of a love-hate relationship with wevvi by this point. On the one hand, there were thousands of changes that could be done that would make the drink better. On the other hand, Kibby had liked it and they had drunk a lot of it. It had not mutated. It was safe in a way few things were.

He followed Bti-qwol as she was about to make him the most hated person in the room. And as he had expected, she led him to where the medical team was sitting. Alden tried his best to look relaxed as they approached them, but it was not easy when so many people were looking at him.

With a few words, Bti-qwol dismissed Pineda, who looked confused at the situation. His eyes shifted from her to Alden. Understanding dawned on him.

“Sorry,” Alden said before the looks of hatred could settle in. “someone used a refusal, and I am their last-minute replacement. I hope nothing bad happened to them.”

“Misdirect. Make it so it is not your fault. Blame the alien who summoned you and the one who left. You have to be a victim of circumstances like everyone else,” Boe had insisted before he left. “You are a young Rabbit who should be thinking about high school applications, not about alien college exams. You are thankful for the opportunity, but hope that Pineda can have his job back next year so you can go to school. Got it?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Pineda said, “Zzhoir should be fine; he just got a bit of last-minute cold feet. It is a good opportunity for you, this is a good job, especially for someone your age.”

“And remember,” Jeremy added, “your dream is to be a lab assistant. You are not a threat if you are aiming for a different job than his. The boater would probably prefer a human as a lab assistant than a floozy alien they have no control over.”

“It is! Hopefully by next year I have a steady lab job, but if not, I would be very lucky to be called to work in these labs again.”

Bti-qwol didn’t care much for the human conversation, so she dragged Pineda away without much thought to all the death glares. Thankfully, they were now mostly directed at her than at others.

Alden sat in the seat she had indicated and took a sip of his wevvi. Once Bti-qwol was out of earshot, he turned to the guy next to him that was staring at her as if he was contemplating murder.

“Are you also on double-duty?” he asked. “That might work out some times, but if there is an actual emergency it could turn out quite ugly. I can only work on an object at the time, and I don’t want to know what gets priority between a lab experiment about to explode and someone bleeding out.”

The man on the other side, who had been looking at Pineda’s retreating back as an abandoned puppy, turned to him. “Oh? What talents do you have?”

“I can preserve things. It can be quite helpful in labs, as it stops reactions and either I can dispose of it safely, or it allows someone to figure out how to stop the thing from exploding in the first place. I guess she wants me to do the same with people. I can keep them preserved while I get them to actual medical help. I can make the teleport easier on the patient, but not much more. It’s not like I am a healer. What are Pineda’s talents?”

“Pineda can safely slow bodily functions,” the man answered.

“Can he work on several people at the time? Because that would be amazing for triage; I wonder if he works in emergency rescue back on Earth. What about you? Are you also a healer?”

The conversation thankfully continued in a polite vein until the faculty appeared to give their talk. He made a note of many words he had not heard before, but they turned out to just be very specific versions of words he knew. Others were completely foreign to him. Kibby had never bothered to use the words for “scent-marking,” “aggravated assault” or “defenestration”, all of which were acts that had been forbidden.

Once the talks were done, Alden waved goodbye to the medical team and went towards the lab group. Hopefully, they all thought he was incredibly willing to give his job back to Pineda and would have no reason to attack him.

Joe had waved him over and yeah, those were a lot of tattoos on him. Alden had almost forgotten just how many the professor had. Sophie was standing next to him and she didn’t look as intimidating as the first time he had seen her. Maybe it was because he had worked with her for now, and he knew that she wouldn’t actually eat him.

He would be too easy of a prey.

“Alden, my darling Rabbit!” Joe said. His English was perfect. At the time, that had seemed awfully convenient more than anything. Now, it was slightly suspicious. Just how many human contacts did he have, if learning English was worth the hassle.

Joe introduced himself and Sophie, giving the same English names as before. Alden wondered if he used the name Joe with all humans, or if he had just decided on using it for him. Joe also sent him his CV with links to papers he had written. Alden made sure to save the document, as Kibby would probably love to go over Superior Professor Worli Ro-den’s research with him, and brag about having a better understanding of calculus and chaos theory.

“I’m so happy to meet you both! Alden, sweetheart, I see you bought my coat!” Joe pointed at Alden’s newly re-purchased lab coat. “I was on the committee that decided it should be included in the Wardrobe decades ago. It hasn’t been nearly as popular as I imagined it would be. Clearly we were meant for each other!”

“It is a good coat,” Alden said, before he could stop himself. It was. It had kept him and Kibby alive. It had been their shield against corruption and one of the few things he could rely on. He had almost cried once he had purchased the new one. “But the color is a bit too much,” he added, hoping that the earnestness of his previous statement was not too obvious.

“Oh, but the color is the best thing! It makes it so easy to spot you when the fumes get too <<overzealous and soporific>>.” He added the last word in Artonan, and Alden couldn’t think of a good translation in English. He made a note of the word and added it to his list of vocabulary. “Now come on, our kingdom awaits!”

Joe led them to the same basement as before. Alden had known his way around the maze of warm and dark corridors, but it was nice to be herded along, as it had been months since he had set foot in these labs.

They looked surprisingly mundane, once they got in. He remembered being awed by the large and alien laboratory the first time he saw it. Now he had seen it full of anxious students, scrambling around as if their life was on the line. He had also seen a professional lab, one that was not used for admissions tests, and realized that the equipment Joe’s actual lab had was a bit fancier and more impressive.

Alden followed Joe around as the man fussed over the equipment and wondered about the possibility of removing safety features installed to ensure the students would end up alive at the end of the day. It didn’t take long for Alden to realize that most of the equipment he only had vague memories of, was safety equipment he had not seen on Moon Thegund at all.

Joe managed to explain Alden’s duties between insults towards the lab, the students, and the universe at large. He would be doing the same thing as before, which was a relief. He made sure to mention that he would need objects to be entrusted to him, and Joe promised he would make sure to verbally ask him to pick up things.

Not long after, Alden got his assignment for the medical team from the same woman as last time. She managed to look even more frazzled, which was impressive given how much she had already seemed so before. When she gave him his pill bottle, it had a lot more than Alden remembered. Also, it included a type that specialized in “non-physical pain,” as suggested by his home System’s chart.

It didn’t take him long to realize it would numb him a bit to the slight pain that came from a teleport while having his authority still sore. It made sense; if they were giving him strong painkillers and even stronger antiemetics for emergency teleports, why wouldn’t they give him some that would help with his actual side effects.

By the time the students arrived, Alden and Sophie were deep in a discussion about which Earth animals Sophie thought she could kill in unarmed combat. Her opinion was that it was most of them, although she had shown some doubts about hippopotamuses. Alden was trying to convince her that she might have trouble with some smaller animals that had unusual ways of harming her.

“<<I can slay any rat!>>”

“But what about a hundred rats? All fast, small and with the ability to carry diseases.”

“<<I can slay any herd of rats! It would take time, but I could easily slay a thousand rats.>>”

“What about poisonous frogs? Those are animals that are around the size of my thumb and touching one with your bare hands could kill you instantly. They are masters of camouflage and can move very fast.”

“<<I am sturdier than a human. I can eat five of your frogs and not die.>>”

The discussion was stopped by the examinees arriving. It was strange to see the young wizards surrounded by their assistants. They were not expected to apologize for their footwear, because they were not expected to learn.

Kibby had dreamed of being one of the wizards, but now the most she could aim for was to be the assistant of a powerful one.

The System’s translation dropped when the class started. Alden didn’t panic. He didn’t. He just checked he could still use the System for completely unrelated reasons. He could. His messages showed and with the press of a button he could call home.

Despite the System dropping the translation, Alden could follow some of the explanations. A lot of the words he didn’t understand were obviously overly technical terms or what he was pretty sure was just slang Joe liked to use. The part he did understand was the threats Joe made about what he would do if the students didn’t cooperate with Alden’s removal.

Alden didn’t know enough about Artonan anatomy to know if the things Joe threatened were plausible, and he really didn’t want to find out.

The practical portion of the lab exam started without much more fanfare. Joe had made sure to introduce Sophie and Alden, so all the students were well aware of who was the one who would be stealing their projects. And what would happen if they even thought about not complying. The threats turned out to be necessary. Not even an hour had passed when someone messed up and Alden was directed to their table. The guy gave Alden a frantic look.

“Take that, Alden,” Joe said from the other side of the room. He was Alden’s entruster, and the object immediately fell under Alden’s purview.

Alden picked it up before the guy could start towards the failed project. He looked distressed.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Alden said, using the word for cooperation that the teacher in Kibby’s magic class liked to use. He had looked it up when he had gone back to Earth, and it was described as “actions taken by everyone in a learning environment to facilitate harmonious co-existence and improve the group’s learning synergy.”

Alden moved softly on his feet, staying in the same position. “Not handing in your project would have given a worse impression than not being able to complete this task. I thank you for allowing me to do my job.” That last sentence was straight out of Klee-pak. When the boy had had to visit the healer’s but had been scared, the healer had finished the consult with that sentence. It was, according to Kibby, amazingly written, as it showed respect but also had a fun rhyme that made it clear to Klee-pak that the doctor was not someone to be afraid of.

“Thank you for your words,” the student said. He looked like he was still about to burst into tears, but hopefully it would make other students more likely to relinquish their projects without objections.

Alden then hurried to the alcove to drop off the project. He had a lot better control over his authority, but it was still the same amount he had back in the day, and not the inflated amount he had just before his return.

Joe still went for the throat when reprimanding the guy. The professor had definitely noticed that he had gone for the project, even if Alden had been much faster. The guy left the room in tears, but not before he turned to the room and apologized to the other students for causing disturbances to the learning environment. That was new.

Alden managed to take another project—the girl’s lip was trembling, but she stopped herself from reaching for it—before Joe sent him a request to visit him in his lab. The professor gave him a smile as he patted his uninviting pocket of wrapped food. Right. Yeah. Well, that was one advantage of compulsory veganism, at least.

When their lunch break came around, Sophie brought up her disgust at the idea of not hunting your own food.

“I can only eat plants,” Alden said. But something about her words itched at him. “For a couple of months, I only ate things I had cultivated myself, and I think you might have a point about it being different. I would never want to go back to having to grow all of my own food again, but I understand now that the effort one puts into it gives the food a different taste and value.”

Sophie had, surprisingly, never heard about growing vegetables on purpose. The concept of farming blew her mind, while the idea of ranching made her mad beyond belief.

“Hunting is supposed to be a fight! How are the beasts supposed to defend their lives if they have been bred for docility and kept meek? No, no. That is an insult to nature itself. Fighting nature for weeds to grow is a lot more respectful. Continue to do so.”

He agreed and went back to the same room he had been in the morning. There was a table full of humans there. He smiled at them but when he got food for him and Joe, he went to an empty table and took one of the books he had bought in Anesidora and had stuffed into his backpack. Every page was split into three: one part in logograms, another in a phonetic transcription of Artonan, and the last one in English.

He spent his break eating and reading and no one from the boater approached him. He hoped that they would put him in the same category as Thwart Hog: someone outside their own messed up hierarchy and not to be interacted with more than necessary.

The evening session was a lot more interesting. Mostly because there were a lot fewer students, and as such he could pay actual attention to the projects.

The enchantments were beautiful. One of the projects, one he had dismissed last time as not as interesting as the others, had all its enchantments weaved, weaved , into each other. It was fascinating seeing the student apply layer after layer, making sure the others moved to accommodate the new one.

He spent time with each of the students, following their instructions. The first three went alright, and without having to walk for his skill to be active, just keep moving, he was a lot less physically tired. His skill was still getting used little by little.

Unsurprisingly, he was called to carry the bowl again. Alden had been keeping an eye on it throughout the session, and he knew he would once again lose the fight against the tree.

“It’ll be heavy,” Joe warned.

Alden grimaced. “I might not be able to hold it for long,” he said, but still placed himself ready to pick up the bowl.

In the fight Man vs. Tree, the tree was soon winning 2-0.

The one good thing was that this time as he flopped on the floor, his body did not feel as bad. Being able to feel his authority made it obvious that that was where the issue was, so his brain could direct the pain in that direction, rather than his general malaise from last time.

[Are you going to die?] Sophie texted him.

[Yes,] he replied, closing his eyes. [Would you mind passing me my water bottle and the pill bottle in my bag?]

[You should sleep, that will fix you.]

[The wizard from earlier gave me magical painkillers. Painkillers for magic. That will fix me.]

The quest reminder to go meet Joe in his lab woke him up. He had no idea if the pain was worse or better. On the one hand, the painkiller was amazing, even if it numbed his authority sense considerably. On the other hand, now he could feel exactly how he had exhausted himself. It was the difference between a generalized headache and when a very specific part hurt to the point that you wished you could drill a hole in your skull.

The System had gotten him a cart to Joe’s lab. He thanked it without a second thought and climbed on it. He wished he could call Kibby. She would know how to navigate this situation. He had to be good enough that Joe would hire him to do the job, but also naïve enough that he wouldn’t think he was working for one of his many enemies.

Alden had been terrified that Joe thought he was a trap sent by one of his rivals. I am too good to be true, and he has nothing he can offer me.

But he really, really needed to go to Moon Thegund.

“Alden, dear!” Joe said when he arrived. “You are delightfully prompt. How are you feeling after that overexertion earlier?”

“Sore,” he confessed. “Sorry about that. You were right; it was too heavy.”

“Yes, yes. A very fascinating project. I wonder if you would have lasted longer with the other, but I imagine it would have eventually exhausted you as well. Would you be willing to try?”

“Not really, no. The exhaustion was not a particularly pleasant experience.”

“That it wasn’t. Now, for a much more pleasant one, come see the lab!”

Hot Lab 7 was interesting, especially as Joe loved to answer all of his questions. Kibby had been a) a child and b) speaking a foreign language Alden was not what you would call fluent in when she had shown him around the lab on Moon Thegund. Then, they had mostly stuck to the areas they needed and used only the equipment that would help them.

Once the little tour was done, Joe had taken them to the office’s kitchenette to get some wevvi. It was the exact same type as the one in the lab.

“Now, there is something I need help with, and I was wondering if you would be interested in a job.”

Yes, yes.

“But before that, I would like to know who you are working for. I noticed your Artonan was a lot better than one would expect for someone on their first summoning. And you do not have the lovely accent of those that come from your quaint little Avowed Island.”

“I—” Okay, what now? Plan A had been to hope for things to be exactly as last time. He would probably need to rush the assistants and take several at once, but it should have worked. But that plan was out now.

Okay, Plan B it was.

“Professor Worli Ro-den,” Alden said, “I was taught by the universe’s best teacher, and I have a very important duty to complete for her, but I cannot say anything without a secrecy tattoo. But I can assure you that my most respected teacher, who is wise and I would not betray for anything or anyone, has your best intentions in mind. She is just unable to help you directly.”

“Oh? Aren’t you interesting? What type of secrecy tattoo are you suggesting?”

“My teacher was unable to suggest one, but my friends helped me write one down. What about we would both be free to share information with each other that would benefit the other one but might put us or other people in danger, and will not talk about it with anyone else without explicit permission?”

“We will need to get another tattoo if we do want to work together, but that would suffice for just sharing information.”

“I have been warned that I am particularly hard to tattoo,” Alden warned.

“Ha! We will see about that!”

They saw about that.

It took a lot less time than Alden’s first tattoo, as the design was simpler and smaller, but Joe still looked annoyed by the end of it.

“You are infuriating to tattoo. For your future contractors’ sakes, I recommend you write a full legal document beforehand, as it will be easier to align your expectations that way.”

“Sorry, I will keep that in mind.”

“Now, what does your mysterious benefactor want me to know that you cannot say without—”

“I got a vision of the future, there will be a chaos storm in Moon Thegund and if we don’t save your assistants as soon as possible, they will all die.”

Joe was silent. Both of his eyes were on Alden.

“My teacher is Kivb-ee. We would have been the only two to survive. I have memories of the next six months, most of them I will spend in Moon Thegund with her. We tried a ritual I cannot talk about, which made it so we got a vision of the future instead of having to live through it. I think it might have eaten her magic as payment.”

Joe remained silent.

“You have to call her. I know you can get some communication with them, and I need to hear her voice. I need to make sure that she is okay.”

Joe… Joe nodded.

The call didn’t go through. Alden’s face fell and Joe’s expression softened. “Sometimes I am not able to get through to my assistants. It is normal.”

 “But was she okay? Last time you got to communicate with them, did they mention something about her?”

“She must be okay. I would have been informed if something had happened. Alden, dear, she is fine.”

Alden needed to see her. He was so close, and yet so, so far away.

“Can I go get her, then? I know you have to suspect that I was sent by one of your enemies or something, but I promise I am not. If there is anything I can do to make you believe me, I will—”

“I believe you.”

“Wait, what? How?”

Joe laughed and he relaxed properly. The slight edge Alden was pretty sure was a new thing was now finally gone. “Now that I know who taught you Artonan, it is obvious. You have a very distinctive accent, and your word choices are… How do I say it? <<Cute due to the innocence of youth>>.”

“Do I speak like a toddler?”

“Not like a toddler, but definitely like a child. It is very endearing. Now, what do you want in exchange for your private contract?”

That… that was a good question. “Could you instruct me? That was the deal last time, and there are many things I know that I will be unable to learn from other sources. Or… Kibby! No, wait, you would already have helped her get a good education. But she deserves so much…” Alden muttered to himself, with idea after idea slotting into his head.

“Instruction would be a lovely exchange, and if you already have the basics of your skill, the exchange can be interesting indeed.”

Hammering out the details of the contract was a confusing process. The “sincere and best” wording made it back into the contract, but Alden asked for what the instruction was on to be left ambiguous. “Maybe I might want to ask about your chaos research instead,” he lied. Joe did not believe him. Also, Joe insisted on Alden not being able to claim any of his adult assistants, even if he would be the one to save them.

“I have spent too much time on training them, dear, there is a reason I want them back.”

Once the tattoo was done (“You are so fussy ; you really need to learn to compromise for your own good.”), they agreed on having two instructional sessions the day after, as Alden was bouncing in place with his mind on a different moon, and Joe probably wanted some proof of the whole “time travel” claim.

Running was freedom.

Alden was very proud of himself for not panicking too bad when he heard Moon Thegund’s System greet him and try its best at orienting him. Then he activated Azure Rabbit and he felt like himself enough to be able to walk. And then to run.

Seeing the lab again was horrifying. It had been his home. It had been his prison. It had been the raft that kept him safe when the ship sank, and it had been the iceberg that sank it in the first place.

I was never supposed to be here.

And yet here he was. Again.

As he approached, he saw figures come out to greet him. One of the far away figures did not stop where the others were, it kept approaching. Kibby. Alden ran faster.

They collided into each other with little ceremony and a lot of Newton’s third law. Alden had to pick up Kibby and twirl her around him, in order to avoid falling into her and pummeling her to the ground.

“Alden!”

“Kibby! Kibby are you alright? Are you safe?”

“Alden! It worked! It worked! My family is alive, and you are here, and everything will be good now.”

Alden had no idea what to do when Kibby burst into tears, but he could understand her. He picked her up and she burrowed into his chest. His eyes started to sting and despite the extra weight he could finally breathe properly. He went back to walking to the lab.

The assistants looked distressed, but they still managed to politely bow to him as he arrived.

“You are supposed to give a short head nod in acknowledgement,” Kibby said from where she was still curled against him. Her hair was a mess; he didn’t remember it being so the first time. Had she refused to brush her hair until he was back? She was capable of doing that.

Alden nodded his head back and then let Kibby down.

“Now you are supposed to introduce yourself and say what your purpose is. They already know, because I told them, but I don’t think they believed me.”

The assistants still looked a bit distressed. Had they thought Kibby had gone insane for a couple of weeks, and then ran towards the first stranger that approached the lab?

“Greetings, esteemed assistants of Distinguished Professor Ro-den,” he said as politely as he could. “I am Alden and I have been sent here by the professor to get you back to him. I have brought with me a message from him.”

One of the adults stood forward and yes, she was the same woman that had stayed with him until her death to give him as much advice as possible. He needed to get her out. And Kibby. And Kibby’s family. He was so close. So close.

“Honored helper of Distinguished Master Ro-den, we thank you for your <<joyous>> news and we apologize for the behavior of young Kivb-ee. She is young and—”

“Do not apologize for her actions; she is the sister of my soul.” They had heard that one in one of the weirder episodes of Klee-pak. Kibby loved it but even after several rewatches Alden was not entirely sure what the moral of the story had been. “Great magics have brought us together.”

The woman bowed deeply. “In that case, I thank you and welcome you to our family. Won’t you please join us for a cup of wevvi inside?”

Kibby squeezed his hand and together they entered the lab.

“No,” her father said.

“Please! I cannot let him leave without saying appropriate goodbyes.”

Alden smiled awkwardly at the whispered family spat. The cart was loaded with the box of equipment that Joe had asked for, and the old man that was supposed to be his first passenger. Kibby had written a list with the order everyone would go in, taking into account their sizes and weights and the equipment Joe would probably want. She had added estimated “magical weights” next to the instruments and samples, to make her calculations easier.

It was clear she had been working on her list for a long time, probably since she had come back. Alden couldn’t blame her; he had been thinking of this moment for a long time too.

Kibby, however, was now insisting on going with them to the teleportation hub. She wanted to be with Alden for as much time as possible, and he understood perfectly why she felt that way. He couldn’t help but do so as well.

At the end, her father managed to talk her into staying in the lab. Alden gave her one last hug and lightly pulled on one of freshly made braids. While the adults had run around trying to put the things Joe had asked for together, Alden had braided Kibby and her sister’s hairs.

It had felt like home in a way that a certain apartment in Chicago just didn’t fully do anymore.

“Alden! You are back! Excellent work! And you managed to bring me back—”

Alden dropped the preservation on the elderly man on his back and his suitcase of magically heavy knick knacks.

“She is okay,” he managed to get out. “And she remembered me.”

Joe smiled. “My dear, you are going to be a hoot to work with. You are so fantastically strange and novel.”

“System, could you please send me a cart to the dorms?” He asked once he left the Summonarium. The painkillers were fully out of his system, but the teleport had still been easier than the one in the morning. The spell-impression-shaped sore spot he had had still been there, but having his skill active had helped. It had made him more solid, and as such the soreness had disappeared into the general existence that was Alden Thorn.

It was similar to the effect of how wrong it felt to be able to feel the twists of his affixation, but when he preserved something or used Azure Rabbit, those twists seemed more like carefully placed gears, springs and shafts than random aberrations of his soul.

Once the cart arrived and he was safely on his way to a soft bed, he called Boe. They had agreed on the approximate timings, but a part of Alden still felt guilty for making his friend stay up so late.

He shouldn’t have worried. As soon as the call connected, he saw that Boe was playing games on an ancient Game Boy Color he had managed to get his hands on.

“Did you get to go?” Boe asked, the beeps and bops of the game his background music.

“Yeah, he was a bit suspicious, but accepted the secrecy contract. Boe… I saw her. She remembered me and she was doing okay. I felt her, Boe, and she felt whole for the first time in so long. I—” His voice cut out. A terrified sob finally escaped him. “She was safe, Boe. I was so worried something would have happened to her, but she is safe.”

Boe gave him a tired smile and Alden closed his eyes and allowed himself to bask in the knowledge that Kibby was safe.

“Now what?” Boe asked, after a minute of silence.

“I don’t know.”

When he arrived at the human accommodations, he was exhausted. He made his way to the right door mostly from muscle memory, but it was a close thing. It would have been funny, from a certain point of view, to walk into a different species room and just crash land into the twigs or water pods they called beds.

He left his bag in one of the lockers and considered just falling asleep there instead of having to go meet Manon. In the end, he decided against the idea: “fifteen-year-old that falls asleep on a locker” was not the image Jeremy and Boe had agreed on. They had decided his image was how he was going to deal with the boater, and he trusted them.

He entered the sleeping quarters and took a look at the room. Everything looked normal, people were mostly doing stuff on their devices sitting around the table. Manon was in the middle of it, and whatever it was that she did, she had probably already started doing so.

“Hi,” he said, addressing her in particular. Everyone looked up at the noise. “You are Manon, right? One of the first Rabbits to pick Tailor Environment? My best friend has read a lot about you.” Boe had, indeed, spent hours doing research on Manon in both timelines. Mostly to find out if she was a sway in some way, but Manon didn’t need to know that.

The rest of the boater all went back to their devices, but Manon smiled and kept her eyes trained on Alden. “Alden, hi! Oh, you flatter me. Is your friend also a Rabbit?”

Alden shook his head. “A-Rank Sway, but he was the one who told me about Rabbit.” A lie-ish. Gorgon had been the one to tell him about Rabbit, but Boe had been the one who figured out what Gorgon was saying.

The bigger lie, that Boe was a sway, had been encouraged by the man himself.

“You are not a Sway, Boe.”

“Alas, you have found me.”

“No, but be serious, I can’t just tell her that I know a Sway at large.”

Boe shook his head. “Ideally, imply that you are already living in Anesidora. Or that you have spent a considerable amount of time there. Thankfully, you already know the island thanks to Hannah, so it shouldn’t be too hard to let assumptions lie.”

“But why? Why a Sway of all things?”

“It is less rare than Mourner, for starters, and a lot less rare than U-Types. I don’t want people to actually go looking for me, you know? But we want them to think you are too much of a big fish to mess with. And she is what, a C-Rank Rabbit with a Sway-ish skill? If she knows you are used to an A-Rank Sways, she is less likely to mess with you. She’ll assume you are more likely to notice her touch, and if she has a self-preservation instinct, should leave you alone.”

“Ah, yes,” Manon said, with a soft and understanding voice, “I have heard that at higher ranks it can be hard to trade away from Sway. There is quite a famous case, actually, of a hero in Toronto who is an S-Rank Sway. Rumor says that she was unable to trade out of the class within her window.”

“Yes, Ms. Zhao has made it work well for her. Hopefully my friend also finds a niche where his skills are useful. If you excuse me, I am dead on my feet, do you know which of the beds are free?”

Manon directed him once again to those close to Thwart Hog but she did not offer to swap with him this time. He gave her a polite smile and went to brush his teeth and change his clothes.

He fell asleep faster than he thought possible, even without the drugs. He knew he would eventually need them, but at the moment he was tired enough nothing would have kept him awake for longer than he had.

As he was falling asleep, he half remembered having a strange conversation with Manon where she had been “very nice and helpful” but basically let him know that he had stolen Pineda’s wages. This time it hadn’t happened, which meant at least part of the plan was working. He had no idea why he had worried so much about Manon, she didn’t seem so bad as he remembered.

There was an alert on his interface when he woke up. He had made sure it would show up every time he woke up and just before lunch: Do not trust Manon. She messes with your mind.

Oh, right.

Fuck.

During the first lab session, Joe let him know that they could use the lunch period for their remedial session. Thankfully, instead of offering from the pocket pantry, he suggested that Alden pick up lunch for both of them and then come to his lab.

It was not a bad deal, and it let him avoid the boater for a bit longer. He had no idea what he was supposed to do about them. A part of him felt guilty about the whole situation. If the members didn’t know Manon was messing with them, then maybe he had to say something. But on the other hand, he had an important mission and he couldn’t let Manon interfere with it. He had promised Boe that he would not confront any of them directly until his moon trips were over and he was about to go back to Earth.

He picked up a variety of foodstuffs from the cafeteria and was about to leave when someone from the boater approached him. Alden was pretty sure they had not spoken before, but the person didn’t offer their name.

“Manon was the one that brought those sodas, you know?” he said, pointing towards the human beverages. Alden had not picked any in the two days he had been there. Avoiding the boater’s food had been one of his goals.

“Good to know. I have not taken any, just in case. And with so much wevvi I must drink; it is better to avoid too much sugar.” Not true at all, but it was the kind of thing someone who knows his way around the Artonas would say.

Perception was everything.

“Yes, of course. Do you want to sit with us? We would love to talk with you a bit longer.” Interrogate. They wanted to ask about his coat and… Oh, right, they originally wanted him to pitch in with Pineda’s lost wages.

“Sorry, but I need to go meet with the professor now. He promised to tell me more about the labs, you know?” The man gave him a nod with a false smile on his face. “Yes, I’ve heard from him that assignments are going to be dependent on different students every year now. If I want to come back to work in these labs, I’ll need the professor to request me specifically. You might want to try the same; this is quite a nice job.”

He left before the man could say anything else.

He really would need to get Manon to call everyone off. Ideally in a way that also kept her away from him.

He came back to the lab and most of Joe’s share went into the pocket pantry, instead of him eating it. Alden, however, did eat his own food. It was good, even if he had no idea what quite a few of the items were.

“Now, for your classes, I need to know everything that I have already told you or that you have figured out. What is the last thing I told you?”

“You told me about the cap of my skill. You were supposed to answer all my questions the next day, but that didn’t happen.”

“The cap of your… Oh, well that was forward of me! How fascinating. There is probably not much that I can tell you about that topic. Every skill is different and that has never been my particular field of study. Did I tell you to wait until your next affixation?”

“You did, yes.” This would be the perfect moment. “Can we reinstate our pact? The first one, not just the job one?”

Joe’s eyes twinkled, and the one that had been moving around stopped to rest on Alden.

They both touched their tattoos and reinstated the privacy aspect of it. Then they did it with the other one, just in case.

“Kibby and I… We spent a lot of time in the lab, and we tried to find a new normal among the chaos. One of the things she did was do her homework. She is great at math! But she also took her other classes and she asked me to sit in them with her. I don’t think either of us actually thought it would work but…”

“You managed to do magic?”

Alden snapped his fingers and a small flame came out. He then moved his fingers and a few notes came out. Lastly, he disinfected his hands. Three different spells, one more than should be possible for a B-rank Rabbit like him.

Joe stared at him. “Can you feel your authority?” he asked, his voice concerned.

“Will it ever stop hurting?” Alden asked instead. “Right now it is mostly sore, but I can always feel it in the back of my mind. It’s like if someone took me and stitched me into a shape that is not me, and yet is now more me than I ever was before. The spell is the worst, as it is different, and I cannot even think about casting it. It hurts and itches and if it wasn’t because I needed to save Kibby, I don’t think I could have done it to myself again.”

“The System shouldn’t have allowed you to. This is not great. And you are right to keep this secret for now, if not for forever. You, my dear, are a political bomb about to go off. Let’s just hope that when you do explode, it is in the right direction.”

In the end, it was not much of a class. Just Joe asking him exactly how much he could do (a couple of baby spells), who knew (just Kibby and whoever she had told), and how much pain he was in (the normal malaise with the soreness from the spell. Bad, but bearable for now).

They talked about the limitations Alden would have. His voice not reaching certain registers could be fixed with sufficient and well distributed points. The doublethink? Joe was not entirely sure. Processing was meant to get other species closer to the Artonan’s doublethink level, but Joe had never met someone who had actually gotten to the point where it was actually comparable.

“And remember, you will want most of your free authority going into your main skill. It should make the process easier on you, I think.”

Alden ruminated on that the whole of the afternoon session. He poked at his own skill, and wondered if it would be worse to get new gears on the machine he already had, or to have a new machine dumped on him. He thought Joe might have a point, and extra gears or levers might turn out to be the best option.

The walk to the Summonarium after the session was too slow for Alden’s taste. Joe complained about each of the projects the students made. The few compliments he made were sandwiched between so many insults that Alden wondered if any of the students would be getting in. But he didn’t care. He needed to get to Moon Thegund as soon as possible.

Kibby was waiting for him.

Kibby was waiting for him! And so were his sister, father and two other assistants. One of the assistants had to be the driver that had taken them there and was going to babysit the cart back to the lab. The other one, however, was a bit of a mystery. 

Or it would have been, if Kibby hadn’t immediately started showing him drawings she had made of how he was supposed to carry four people (two adults and two kids) at the same time. It made sense to try to reduce the number of trips, but four people seemed a bit too much.

“It will be like a hug,” she had explained. “Dad will be on your back and hold us to your sides. It makes sense to add someone else as a counterbalance. And that way, we would have removed five people in just two trips. If you do two people for each trip afterwards, then that will only be an extra five days. We want as much of a buffer as we can get!”

She had been right, and the idea of reducing his time on Thegund sounded amazing. 

In the few days he had been on Earth between his return and being summoned, he had started training as much as he could. It had not helped much, but he had at least practiced bracing his core before lifting. And Jeremy had given him a long, and educational, talk on the proper way to lift without injuring yourself. Boe had mocked him for being such a jock, but Alden was incredibly thankful once they had all climbed on him. 

Joe even laughed at him once they arrived to the other side. He was polite enough to stop doing so when the girls unfroze and they started chattering at him. But there was still humor in his eyes and he even sent Alden a cheeky wink. 

“I have something I would like your help with,” Alden told Kibby as soon as the initial hubbub died down. He took the tablet that Kibby had appropriated from the lab before leaving and asked the System to send his compressed file of Velra videos to it. 

“What is it?”

Alden smiled and gave her the tablet back, where the video with young Ricochet Velra explaining her wordchain was playing. Kibby even lowered the tablet enough so her sister could watch as well. There was a line of subtitles running below the image, which Alden had not been expecting. He had forgotten, to a certain degree, that the girls didn’t have a translator running on their heads 24/7 (except when it didn’t feel like translating). 

“Wordchains?” Kibby’s sister asked. “Daddy said they are not as powerful as real magic.”

Alden nodded. “But they can be very versatile, you know? My mom used to work as a nurse and had to use wordchains all the time. She even taught me one.”

“You have a mom? Is she an alien? Is she beautiful?”

“She was an alien, yes. And she was quite beautiful when she was alive. And she would have loved us all to learn wordchains.” His plan had been simple. As soon as he learned that the most likely price for the warning had been Kibby’s magic, he had decided to find something else she could do. And wordchains would work perfectly. Everyone could do them and she would have a natural advantage over him, as they were all in Artonan. 

“Do you want us to learn them together?” Kibby’s bright face said it all. She too had loved their magic classes, where they would sit in front of the TV and practice, and practice, and practice some more. 

“I do, yes. And I have a special favor to ask. I received a lot of videos, you see, and now I need to sort them out. Would you help me to–”

“I can make a table, and give each of them points for different categories, and that way we will know which ones to learn first. I can sort them by ease of learning, or by how useful they would be, or by how their knowledge would facilitate our learning of further wordchains, or–”

“And how fun,” Alden cut in. “We will also need to learn a few of the fun ones, to make sure we want to learn even more.”

“Of course, yes, the learning principle of desire. The best of learning occurs when there is an intrinsic desire for learning.”

Alden left almost an hour later. They had all decided (Kibby’s sister had insisted on joining) on starting with Tickles, Ricochet’s wordchain. It had taken Alden longer than he was expecting, despite the gremlin’s help. His thoughts were too heavy, and they had to be light and immaterial. If he wanted to trade a small pain away, it had to be small. 

After a series of failures, he was eventually able to get the light overstimulation that the Velra toddler had described as a tickling sensation. She was not entirely wrong. And he understood why the opposite would allow you to not feel light pains. 

Kibby was the second one to get it right and her face broke into a giant grin as she did. They both spent the next fifteen minutes instructing Kibby’s sister, who kept getting the finger gestures slightly wrong. Six months of TV magic school had been an amazing help to get them right for both Kibby and Alden. 

The rest of the hour was spent with Alden promising he would see them the next day, and the girls refusing to let him go. Alden could relate to their desperation. He didn’t want to leave Kibby alone, but he knew that he had to sleep in the human accommodation if he didn’t want to arouse suspicion, and he did not want Kibby anywhere that den of wolves (one wolf and a lot of very annoying sheep). 

After seven “one final hugs”, he was eventually released and was able to make it back to his own bed. 

One of Manon’s flunkies approached him, but he gave her a tight smile, a curt “goodnight” and was changed and in bed before anyone could do anything about it.

There was a young girl sitting in the back of the labs when he got in in the morning. Kibby was sitting with her tablet on her lap and her clothes perfectly on, despite the disaster happening in her hair. 

“What would you have done if I had come later? Everyone would have seen your hair loose.”

“But you didn’t, so it is all good. Now, I have not finished watching and categorizing all of the videos, but what do you think about this one?”

“Did you do this instead of sleeping? Kibby, you know that sleep is essential. 

“I slept long enough waiting for you. What do you think about this wordchain?”

A young woman stood in front of the screen. She was beautiful in the way that newscasters were: good makeup, a symmetrical face and perfectly tailored clothing. It came as a big surprise then when she introduced herself as Aulia Velra. Alden was pretty sure that was the name of the matriarch of the family, which would mean she had to be pushing ninety. 

She didn’t look much older than twice Alden’s age. 

The wordchain she explained was brilliant for their purpose, however. Aulia Velra explained how it was used by people who worked in remote areas, or who had to spend time in places with food insecurity. It allowed for someone to go on for three days without eating, in exchange for eating for two afterwards. 

“It is particularly helpful for people who are currently suffering from nausea,” Aulia Velra had added, with a friendly smile. “I cast it three times in a row during one of my pregnancies, as Artonan nausea relief was not readily available on-planet back then.”

“It would have been crucial for us if the lab had taken longer to settle into its post-chaos food production cycle.” Kibby mentioned, once the video stopped playing. 

It would have also allowed us to take longer to find which of the mutated food were good to eat , Alden thought, his eyes stuck on the screen. And with weeks to repay then, either whatever the food situation we got ourselves into would have been fixed, or we would have long died by then.

It would be hard to learn, but not impossible. Aulia Velra had mentioned that while it was not popular on Earth, that was mostly due to its lack of allure than for how hard it was. “But your letter asked for wordchains used in hazardous conditions in particular, and this one came to mind.”

“Add it to the list and give it the highest priority,” Alden said at last. 

Kibby nodded and did as instructed. 

She spent the whole of the examination in the back watching videos silently and rating them. Alden spent his time working, but he did notice it was a lot easier to do so when he could look back every couple of minutes and make sure that yes, Kibby was alright. 

For lunch, Joe sent him with a request for more items for the pocket pantry, a “very generous” amount of napkins and some soup. Alden was not entirely sure if that meant he would eat the soup, or somehow still add it to the health hazard that was Joe’s portable snack bar. He also sent him with Kibby for company. 

It was a nice lunch. No one from the boater approached him. 

The same could not be said from when he returned to their room after saving another two people, learning he might be able to mix his authority perception with the “entruster lock” his skill gave him, receiving very ceremoniously an Auriad that Kibby would never be able to use now, casting Tickles and its opposite five times on a row, and starting to learn the basics for Aulia Velra’s wordchain. 

Kibby’s sister had deemed the wordchain boring, so they had also started with another wordchain that made you lighter on your feet. She had seen him run with Azure Rabbit turned on and she really, really wanted to do the same.

When he got to the shared room, there were two of the boater members ready to pounce on him. And they did. As soon as he walked in, they surrounded him and started firing off questions. 

“Oh, the girl? She is one of the professor’s relations. She has been very nice and has been helping me practice my Artonan. I want to be perfectly fluent by the time I finish high school.”

“Right, right,” Manon’s flunky said. Then he took a deep look at Alden. “Aren’t you hot? That coat looks very warm and like it cost–”

“My clothes are enchanted to keep me fresh,” Alden cut him off. “I am sure Manon knows where to get some, if you want your own. Now, if you excuse me, I have to get some rest. I have a busy day tomorrow.

He texted Joe as soon as he landed on the water. “Are you interested in a perfect opportunity to blackmail a lot of rich and important teens?”

“Alden, my dear, you really are my favorite. What would you like in exchange?”

Alden waddled in the water as several teens screamed at him. They really expected him to deal with a demon for them, huh. “Books and resources. Now that Kivb-ee has given me her auriad, I need to learn how to use it.”

“I can teach you the basics in an extra session and get you two books that should be useful to you for at least a couple of months on Earth. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal. Now come take care of a demon, please.”

One of the days, Kibby was not in the lab when he arrived in the morning. Before he had a chance to panic, he got a message from her dad saying that the girls were taking entrance exams to a school and would be unable to spend time with him. 

He resigned himself to spending his lunch studying logograms on his own to keep the boater away (they had been keeping their distance more and more but every so often they still tried to insinuate that he owed them something). Instead, when he got off the lab for lunch with Sophie, the old man he had gotten out on the first trip was waiting for him outside. 

He walked with Alden to the dinning hall and despite not eating, he sat next to Alden. He had a tablet on him and Alden soon realized it had a list of all of Anesidora’s high schools. 

“The girls informed me yesterday that you would need to change schools soon, and asked me to help you with your decision. Now, what factors would you consider to be the most important ones in one’s educational facility?”

It was an interesting lunch. Alden was surprised at the man’s surprise at language being such an important factor, despite the translation running constantly on Alden’s brain. Alden was surprised at the man’s emphasis on a school’s educational philosophy. 

It was awkward, when Alden realized the best program for him would be a talent development one, but that he cringed at the very idea of heroics. What he had always wanted and dreamed off, now tainted by the horror of putting himself in unnecessary danger. He had made the assistants go three at the time for two days, even if that made one of them have to awkwardly koala bear in front of him, just to have an extra day of buffer between his last trip and the chaos storm. 

The man, however, had every single school’s program’s listings and charter. It was impressive the amount of research that had gone into it, and Alden felt like the man probably had better things to research. In any case, he reassured Alden that some of the gymnastics programs would offer talent development without the danger intrinsic of hero programs. 

He also told Alden that some of the hero programs were technically separate from the Talent Development ones. Yes, including the one from Celena North. The charter had to have them as separate entities in case a wizard wanted a particular human in the Talent Development Track but did not care, or refused, the heroic component of it. If the school wanted a fully equipped magical gym, they had to take in whatever pet human weirdo wizards had decided were worth the hassle. 

“The paperwork is <<intricate and complex>> but no political favors are required and it is free of cost. Superior Professor Worli Ro-den could easily sign the paperwork required without losing anything.”

“Without losing anything”. Ha! It took a face-to-face conversation to realize that Alden was actually doing the favor to Joe rather than the other way round. Something told him that his lunch talk with the man had been a ruse to get him to the conclusion that they wanted. 

Joe even admitted it! 

“Dear, with all my assistants back, it will take me a bit of time to get everything settled. Having a long term contract with someone so young and from such a new contract-planet might raise a few eyebrows. It would be convenient for me if you go back to Earth, but I need others to know that you have been spoken for. Having my name in all of your school records will show both a mark of ownership and that I care deeply about your wellbeing.”

“Are you scent marking me? Or whatever the equivalent for Artonana animals is?”

Joe cackled his heart out. “Yes.”

Alden would have complained more, but Kibby was currently filling the forms on her own tablet with the information she already knew about Alden (she had gotten his age wrong, but his date of birth right). Also, Joe gave him a look that said “who else will teach you magic, silly boy? Do you know how illegal it is?”

He cried like a baby the day he brought back the last two assistants. 

That night, Kibby and her sister finally managed the wordchain that allowed them to be light on their feet and they spent all the time until their curfew running around and playing. 

He was free. 

He never had to go back to Thegund. 

He was going to live.

(He asked their dad how long they had spent practicing on their own and he had given him a funny look. “They really wanted to be like you,” he said, not even bothering to lie and tell him it hadn’t been that bad.)

The day before the party, Manon approached him at lunch. He was sitting with Kibby who was doing her calculus homework while he practiced his logograms. His work had been going slowly, despite his best attempts and the Velra educational apps being quite helpful. Kibby’s sister had even tried to help him, giving him all the tips she had used to learn to read. She tried to sound like a grizzled veteran, which had been hilarious, but most of the advice was a bit useless as it applied to learning to read for the first time. 

He knew how to read. It just so happened he had to learn a whole new system that was counterintuitive to how human languages worked. 

When he saw Manon approach, he added a message on his interface that said “DO NOT TRUST HER”. He had been talking with Boe every evening and his friend had gone into weird research tangents on how a Rabbit could end up with sway-like abilities. The theories went from “unlikely” to “batshit insane” stopping briefly by “charmingly bizarre.”

“Alden, hello. It has been a few days since we have been able to talk. How are you doing?”

Oh, that was not too bad. She had been quite polite this time round and–

“Stop doing that,” he said, as his mistrust slotted back into place when he noticed the message. His eyes shifted to Kibby. “Don’t.”

Manon stared at him. He stared back. 

She smiled again. “Alright. I will tell everyone to leave you alone, if that is what you want, but know that you would be better off if you joined and tried to play nice. Your dear professor is not as beloved as you think he is, you know?”

“I know. That works to my advantage. He is more likely to train me if I am the only person he can hire right now.”

“Indeed,” she said. “I guess I won’t be seeing much of you on Earth, then.”

She left without much fanfare after that. 

He wasn’t sure if he had won or not, but the boater gave him a wide berth after that. Even when the party came, they mostly left him to his own devices. 

It was nice, if strange. 

His last day was weird. He could barely concentrate on his work. Thankfully, he had been doing it for long enough that it came as second nature to take projects away to dispose of them, or to help students babysit parts of their projects when Joe lent him around. 

He had lunch not in the dining hall he was used to, but in the housing Kibby’s family had moved to. It had been a small feast full of flavors he had not even heard of before. Some were great, some were better left on the Artonas rather than be brought back home.

When he was done with work for the day, he had spent almost an hour running around some of the fields empty of students chasing after the girls. The lightness wordchain had been a great hit, and at one point they had even made him cast the counter to make him heavier. 

Sometimes Kibby looked wistful at his auriad, but then she looked at her sister and seemed to feel better about the situation. Alden was not entirely sure what he could do. He wished he could go back to the moment before the ritual and tell her what the price would be, but he knew she would make the same choice. They were about to die. Her family was dead. The both of them were being eaten alive. Magic was a small price to pay.

Alden wondered what he would have done if he could know the price he would have to pay, the pain he would have to suffer, in exchange for his own magic. The idea of affixing his extra spell made him sick, and yet he had gotten Kibby to choose one for him and had promised to affix it as soon as he was back on Earth.  

Seven people walked him to the Summonarium. Joe was one of them, but so were Kibby and her family, the old man from his first trip, the lady who had told him how to survive when the chaos storm hit (she had made him a study plan for his next three months in Chicago. It was a mixture of sciences, mathematics and languages that were supposed to leave him in the ideal place to start classes in Anesidora. He had no idea where she had gotten their curriculums, but the guides looked extremely helpful and he was not about to look at a gifted horse’s mouth) and the young man who had joined Kibby’s family on their transport home. He had turned out to be a cousin of sorts and had been the one to keep Kibby’s sister entertained when Alden spent time with just Kibby. 

Kibby and her sister hugged him goodbye. Joe gave him a friendly pat and all the others gave him formal bows. 

His hands shook as he confirmed that he wanted to return to Earth. 

He closed his eyes on an alien planet that had been the limbo to his hell and opened them back in his room in Chicago. He fell to his knees, even if the soreness of his spell was not even a little bit disorienting after so many trips back and forth to Thegund. 

“I am home,” he told the figure standing in front of him.  

“Yes, you are home,” Boe confirmed. 

“Now what?”

Boe shrugged. “Now you get to live your life, I guess.”