Thea

I cursed myself for letting it get this bad. As much as I really wanted to blame literally anybody else for the state of the kitchen, I just couldn’t. Two weeks of doing nothing but lying on the couch letting Sami and Softie run wild had taken its toll, and I was going to need to spend at least a few days cleaning to get it back to normal. But that was going to have to wait, because first I needed to make breakfast.

We had been running low on food even before coming to Paradise, and I obviously hadn’t been grocery shopping in a while, which meant we didn’t have much that wasn’t pre-made or flash frozen. Basically, if it took Sami more than three minutes and a stovetop, she didn’t bother buying it. Meanwhile, Softie had just been getting Ithnaa to bring them food whenever they got hungry.

All that to say, I really didn’t have much to work with, and knowing I had a lot to do, along with people waiting for me, I let out a resigned sigh, then got started.

Around forty-five minutes later, I had a pretty decent spread of food and a passably clean kitchen. I carried the plates out to the dining area using a trio of floating illusionary hands. I didn’t have nearly enough mana without a contract to make full solid clones of myself, but I could still do a few creepy floating hands. Even if just barely.

“Breakfast is served.” I rounded the bar with a plate in each of my five hands. The first one went down in front of Bryce. The next was in the space across from her for me, and then three floating hands sat their plates down in front of each Sami, Softie, and Ithnaa. Finally, I conjured a still warm coffee pot from my storage ring and topped off Bryce’s mug.

She put away the contract she was reading and looked over at me with a relieved smile. “Thank you, Thea.”

“No problem.” I disappeared the coffeepot, then grabbed my seat across from her. “How goes the contract making?”

“Poorly,” Ithnaa answered for her. “Anything that so much as mentions Bryce’s mana ends up with absurd conditions attached. Even when I’m the one casting the spell.”

“Can we ask Kai to fix it?” I asked as I took a bite of sausage, and this time Softie was the one to reply as they did the same.

“I did last night. I’m still not entirely sure she understood what I was asking for, but she said she was taking care of it.”

I paused with the sausage just outside of my mouth. “Did she say how?”

Ithnaa scoffed. “Of course she didn’t. Which is why we’re still working on it ourselves.”

“We’re hedging our bets,” Softie clarified. “If Kai said she’s taking care of it, then she’s taking care of it. We just don’t know if the solution she’s going to come up with will be better than the problem.”

"That’s probably a good idea. No offense, but I don’t exactly trust her.”

“Couldn’t you just ask Kai if she’s trying to trick us?” Sami asked in between bites, and I shook my head.

“No, my truth magic doesn’t work on her. Honestly, I don’t even think my dad could tell when she was lying.”

“That’s just because Kai doesn’t lie.” I gave Softie a disbelieving look, so they explained. “She’s the aspect of chaos. Luck and probability are so warped around her that it’s impossible to know what’s true or not, and since your magic is based on intent, there’s no way for you to detect it.”

“You’re saying that since Kai doesn’t know whether or not what she’s saying is true, she can’t actually lie?” I asked, and they shrugged, but before they could respond, the goddess herself interrupted.

“That’s not exactly how it works, but it’s close enough.” She sat down in the empty chair beside Softie and put her feet up on the table. “Oh, and Inim could totally tell when I was trying to trick him. He just figured out pretty early on that if he ‘fell’ for all of my pranks and didn’t react, then I’d get bored and leave him alone.”

“Wait, did that really work?” Sami actually stopped eating as she waited for an answer.

“Eventually, but only after I ‘tricked’ him into using a portal that was redirected to the center of a collapsing star. He just resurrected himself and pretended like nothing happened. It drove me crazy.”

“You actually managed to kill Inim? As a prank?” Ithnaa asked, and the goddess waved her off.

“Sure, I mean, killing him was never the issue. Keeping him dead, though? Now that’s the real challenge.”

“I’m sorry, Kai. Did you have something for us? Or did you just show up to talk about my dead dad?” I was kind of starting to get annoyed, and part of me was worried about what the paladin at the table would think of my outburst, but they just chuckled and handed their goddess a slice of bacon.

“I don’t suppose you found a solution to our contract issue, did you?”

“Contract issue?” She shook her head in disgust, then took a huge bite out of her bacon before continuing with her mouth full. “No, that doesn’t sound like me. If you need help with a contract, you should ask Zeshy, or hell, maybe even Chorus. He’s pretty good with them. The only advice I can give is to find a partner who doesn’t fall asleep before they get to the fine print.”

“That would almost be helpful if reading, or even understanding, the contract was the issue,” Bryce complained as she stabbed at her synth-egg omelet with a fork.

“Oh, well, good luck with that, I guess.” She popped the last of her bacon into her mouth before wiping her greasy hands off on her silk dress. “Anyway, I’m not staying long. I just needed to pop by and drop this off.” She held out a jet black gem with her thumb and forefinger. Bryce reached across the table and carefully took it.

“What is it?” I asked, but Ithnaa was the one to answer and she did it in the form of a question.

“Is that full of Zesh’s mana?”

“Yep! I had her fill it up last night. But before you ask, no, it wasn’t a sex thing. I tried to make it one, but she just got really suspicious.”

Bryce held the gem up to the light and looked into the depths of it. “I don’t know what to say. So, I guess I’ll just ask why?”

“Not sure. She’s always been kind of paranoid. I think it has to do with growing up in a royal palace. Did you know her sister tried to kill her eight times before she turned thirteen? And she wasn’t even allowed to fight back. It’s total bullshit.”

“I didn’t know that, and I’m sure it was very hard on her, but what I meant to ask is why are you giving this to me?”

“No, it wasn’t hard on her at all. She loved it. I’m pretty sure she told me that story on our first date.”

“Hey, hottie, loving the backstory, but maybe you could explain how a gem full of your wife’s mana will help our captain?”

“Huh? Oh, right. I don’t know if you’ve tried casting anything since I gave you a bit of my mana, but you might have trouble with it.”

“Yeah, I’m still trying to figure it out,” Bryce admitted. “That’s actually the issue we were talking about earlier. Anytime we try to write up a contract for me to give Thea my mana, a bunch of terrible clauses keep sneaking into it.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Kai started laughing. “Wait, you seriously tried to write a contract using my mana? You’re joking, right?”

“Well, when you say it like that, of course it sounds dumb,” I grumped.

“It’s not dumb, it’s just like, I don’t know, starting off on ultra hard mode. You can’t control my mana, it’s just not possible, but you can kind of direct it and with enough practice, sometimes that actually works.”

“So, what? I can’t cast spells anymore?” Bryce sounded defeated, but Kai’s smile didn’t waver.

“No, you can cast all the spells you want. Just don’t expect them to always work exactly how you think they should.”

“That’s worse than useless. What’s going to happen the next time I need to cast a cloaking spell? It could blow up the whole damn ship.”

“Sure, that could totally happen. I’d suggest you start a little smaller. Get used to the chaos magic a bit, maybe then you could try the big fancy spells.”

I was about to argue when Softie beat me to it. “We don’t have time for her to relearn how to cast. Mother learned one of Bryce’s spells, and unless we can get to her soon, it could get really bad.”

“How bad? Should I go get Z? Or maybe Tess?”

Bryce shook her head. “No, if Mother gets her hands on either of their mana, it could be disastrous. Besides, the more mana you have, the faster the spell drains it. A god wouldn’t last for more than a few minutes at most.”

“And this is a spell that you made? Should I be worried?” Kai looked to Softie for an answer, and they shook their head.

“No, she’s only ever cast it once, and she swore to never do it again.”

“That seems like kind of a waste, doesn’t it?”

“It killed fifty-thousand people and used their souls to increase my mana capacity.”

“Oh, damn. Does Tess know? That’s exactly the kind of shit she hates. Although, I guess it does explain your mantle, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, she knows, but I’m not sure if it explains my mantle, because you refuse to tell me what it is.”

“Touchy much?” Kai chuckled, then leaned forward with a grin when Bryce just glared. “Okay, fine. How about this? I can either tell you what your mantle is, or I can tell you why I brought you that gem. Your choice.”

“Let me guess, you felt bad about your mana taking over mine, and you think Zesh’s might be able to counteract it. Does that sound about right?”

Kai pouted before switching to a wide grin, and I got a bad feeling about what was going to happen next. “It’s farts.”

“Excuse me?” Bryce just blinked at her, and the room went quiet.

“You heard me. You’ll be the stinkiest goddess of them all. Your name will be known in every corner of the Network. The Divine Windbreaker, Mistress of Mirthful Emissions, The Supreme Sultana of Scented Symphonies. I can smell your glory already.”

“Gods, you are such a child.” Bryce was clearly upset, and I was trying my best not to laugh, but I wasn’t doing a great job at it.

“What can I say? I’m young for my age.” Kai pushed herself away from the table to stand with a wide grin. “Anyway, I’m heading out. Let me know the next time you guys are doing a movie night, I’ll try to make it.”

She disappeared before anyone could respond, and Bryce leaned back into her chair with an annoyed sigh. “Sora, I think I might hate your goddess.”

“She’s just fucking with you. I mean, there’s no way you’ll actually end up as the goddess of farts, right?”

“I don’t know, a few those titles sounded pretty regal,” Sami joked as she smiled from behind her glass of juice.

“Absolutely not. This is not allowed to become a thing.”

Softie smiled and nodded in suspicious agreement. “Of course not, Supreme Sultana. We wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Bryce, please tell me you realized what Kai conveniently forgot to tell us,” Ithnaa interrupted the teasing, and Bryce nodded.

“Yeah, when the whole 'sex thing' plan failed, Kai probably told Zesh that she was going to give us the gem. Which means using it could lead her directly to us.”

“But, wasn’t it Kai who told us that Zesh was after the captain in the first place? Why would she try to trick us into leading her directly here?”

“I don’t think she was trying to trick us,” Softie frowned as they answered Sami’s question. “If I had to guess, she probably just forgot to mention it, or maybe she really was just that annoyed with Bryce for acting like a smartass.”

“I wasn’t acting like a smartass. I’m just tired of being played with by people who are stronger than me.”

I reached out and grabbed Bryce’s hand. “I’m right there with you, babe, but you were kind of acting like a smartass.”

She glared at me, so I tried for my most innocent smile. It definitely wasn’t working, but thankfully, Ithnaa was there to save me from my grumpy girlfriend. “Regardless of why she didn’t tell us, we still need to decide what we’re going to do about it.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s much to decide.” Bryce squeezed my hand before letting go and leaning forward with a sigh. “I’m going to use the gem.”

Everyone else went silent, so I asked the obvious question. “Uh, won’t that make it super easy for Zesh to find you?”

“Easier, sure, but definitely not easy. Lilith's amulet should keep me concealed from Zesh. So, as long as I don’t lose it, or cast a mana intensive spell, we should be fine.”

“How are you going to beat Mother without casting a huge spell?” Sami asked, and we all looked to Bryce for an answer. I guess there was some sort of mutual unspoken agreement that she already had a plan, but that was shattered when she shrugged.

“I don’t know, but we were already working under the assumption that a huge mana expenditure would attract Tess’s attention. Adding the aspect of order to the list of threats doesn’t really change all that much. Unless one of you can see something that I’m missing?” I raised my hand, which caused her to chuckle before nodding in my direction. “Thea?”

“How is that going to affect our pact? I mean, I don’t have your amulet. Is Zesh going to be able to find me if I’m using your mana?”

Bryce hesitated for a moment before nodding. “That’s actually pretty likely. We’ll probably need to keep the mana I’m giving you down to around ten percent. Anything more than that and we’d risk it being too obvious.”

“What if I made Thea an amulet like yours?” Sami asked out of nowhere.

“Is that something you can do?” Ithnaa frowned, but then Softie came to their sister’s defense.

“I mean, if she says she can do it.”

“I can’t actually,” Sami admitted before quickly explaining. “Not yet, anyway. Doc, the big alien who helped kidnap us, promised to teach me how to make magi-tech while Anali is busy with whatever mission Ithnaa and the captain send her on. I figured that since I’m not spending every minute of the day working on Leila’s ship anymore, I need a new project to work on.”

“That’s surprisingly generous of him.” Bryce sounded suspicious, which made me scoff.

“Not that generous. I’m paying him five-thousand iron to do it.”

“Okay, sure, that makes a lot more sense. Do we have Anali working on anything right now?”

“No, I never reached out to her after the fight with Mother,” Ithnaa explained.

“Let’s do that now. There are a few menial tasks that need to be done in our new sector, and I don’t mind overpaying her to do them if it means we can expand Samira’s skill set.”

“Oh, Anali is going to hate that,” Softie said with a smile. “Any chance you’d let me pick out the jobs for her?”

“I don’t mind. I have a preliminary list I can send you, and I'm expecting to get something more complete when I meet with Milohsh later today. Just be careful not to make her so miserable that she tries to get out of our deal. She’s dangerously clever, and no contract is perfect.”

“Spoil sport. Fine, I’ll be careful.”

“Oh, babe, don’t forget we need to go by Zen’s place at some point today, too.”

“And you need to repair your implants,” Ithnaa added to our to-do list, and Bryce let out a tired sigh.

“Right. I was hoping to avoid Paradise techs by waiting until we were back on Drassun, but if you’re tired of acting like a secretary, then I understand.”

“Actually, waiting until Drassun is probably the right call,” Softie argued. “I’ve noticed more than a few bounties for Captain Virra popping up on the local network.”

“Not to mention you weren’t exactly subtle about needing to repair your implants,” Ithnaa conceded. “Fine. I’ll continue as secretary for now, but please find a technician on Drassun as soon as possible.”

“I already have one. We just need to make sure he’s available. Although, if you wanted to start forwarding messages to Sora, I have another task that I think only you could do safely.”

“What sort of task?”

“We need to know where Mother is and what she’s doing. I’m not looking for anything specific right now, but if you could put out feelers for any large shifts or global requests in the Syndicate, then that could make a major difference in the coming weeks.”

“Sure, my information networks could handle that much, and if it means I’m not dealing with hundreds of messages from prospective pirate crews, then I’m more than happy to contact a few of them.”

Softie’s eyes went wide. “Wait, hundreds? Bryce, you’re not expecting me to sift through all of those, are you?”

“If they aren’t from other members of the council, then I don’t care what you do with them. Feel free to have fun with it.”

“Now, that I can do.” They were grinning in a way that made me think Bryce had just said something that she was going to regret, but she moved on before I could point it out.

“Does everyone know what they’re doing today, then?” We all confirmed that we did, so she pushed herself up from the table. “Alright, I’m going to go figure out the best way to use this gem. Thea, I’ll come get you when I’m ready to leave.”