Returning from the Astral Realm was an ordeal in and of itself. Pulling myself through my own mana core was rather like turning myself inside out, and reversing that was far from easy. In some ways, succeeding in advancing to stage nine actually made it more difficult, since my new body was so unfamiliar to me, but the massive increase in my capabilities more than made up for the extra handicap.

Querit had been true to his word, though, which already made this life’s advancement a marked improvement over the last time I’d done this. At this point, the only way I’d die was if he actively attacked me while I was putting myself back together. Even then, I was willing to bet I could hold him off.

I didn’t have to, however. It was a refreshing change of pace from the world of cold-hearted betrayals I’d known during my original tenure as Keiran of the Night Vale. For now, I could trust Querit with my life. He’d proven that, unambiguously. That might change in the future, once Ammun was no longer a threat, but today, I had an ally I could count on without fear of being stabbed in the back.

It was… nice. Different. I could see myself growing used to it.

“You were gone for six days,” he said before I’d even gotten around to asking.

“Good. Hopefully that leaves me a few days to fully recover,” I said with an audio illusion. My actual throat was in no shape to make sounds yet.

“You were successful, I take it. Though… This isn’t permanent, I hope.”

I was vaguely man-shaped at the moment, but only part of me was actual flesh and blood. That was all mixed up and needed to be sorted out, else I’d be forced to rely on mana to sustain a physical body. Without my magic, I’d die almost immediately. “I’m fine. I just need a few hours to put myself back together properly. The process of returning from the Astral Realm jumbles up the physical body.”

After that, I needed some sleep, and then I had a few last-minute upgrades in mind now that I’d reached my old levels of power. If our timeline was correct, I had somewhere between ten and fifteen days before Ammun finished his work and could return home. Whether he would remained to be seen. It was entirely possible that he’d lurk up there, gathering his strength to come down on me with a single, crushing blow.

Either way, we’d need to be on standby to respond the instant he appeared. Until then, though, I would double check that everything I’d prepared was still ready to go and make any last-minute adjustments. At least, I would once I could move my body without magic again.

Perhaps sensing that I wasn’t in the mood to talk, Querit remained silent and watched me work. Slowly, I started to rebuild my body into something more than a mass of mana and sallow skin. Veins and arteries threaded themselves through muscles wrapped around bones. Organs were repaired or regrown as needed. I put my face back more or less in the configuration I remembered it being.

When I was done, I released the magic keeping me alive and took my first deep breath as a stage nine archmage. “I did not expect to regain this for years,” I said softly as I flexed my hands open and closed. “This method wouldn’t have been possible without your help, and I was nowhere ready for my experimental processes to be tested. Thank you.”

“If you really want to thank me, destroy that lich before he causes another magical cataclysm and ruins the world again,” Querit told me. “But… still, you’re welcome. I was happy to help a friend in need.”

“A friend. Yes.” I smiled. “Let’s get out of here. I imagine you’d like some time to familiarize yourself with that combat frame before the fighting starts.”

* * *

“What are you wearing?” Senica asked, her face twisted up incredulously.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It looks… uh… Unique.”

“I imagine it fell out of style a few thousand years ago,” I said dryly. “Probably even before I died the first time. I didn’t do much to keep up on fashion trends.”

Then again, the aesthetics might change, but the basic function of battle garments remained the same. They protected their wearers from hostile magic, provided quick access to various enchanted objects or wands, helped deploy to the battlefield as fast as possible, and kept an emergency reserve of mana for last-ditch spells.

Mine happened to look something like a long coat made of black and silver metals spun so fine that they flexed like cloth. Those metals were a mysteel alloy, weakened to give it some flexibility, but largely impervious to magic. Unlike a drawstone shield, the coat would protect me from incoming spells without hindering my own ability to perform magic. Additionally, I’d enchanted it to extend my core shielding so that I could cast more complex spells without giving Ammun the opportunity to counter them.

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“Maybe you’ll start a new trend,” Senica said.

The coat was what I’d been used to using back when I’d still needed crutches like this in battle. Against Ammun, it seemed prudent to give myself every possible advantage, so I’d used some of the mysteel I’d reclaimed from my stage nine ritual cage to weave it. I’d spent my remaining time building a few things that were especially hostile to undead, not that I expected I’d get much use from them. Ammun was far too aware of his own weaknesses to not have taken steps to guard against them.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, ignoring her snark. I didn’t have the time to waste on it. “We need to start your evacuation.”

“Our what?”

“We talked about this,” I said. “Ammun should be returning any day now. You’re a vulnerability that he can target, like he did when he sent that bone dragon here. I can’t afford distractions, so I need you tucked away somewhere safe until this is settled.”

“Uh, yeah, you mentioned that, and Mom and Dad told you no.”

“It wasn’t optional.”

“Are you planning on kidnapping us?” Senica shot back.

“If necessary.”

I already had scrying spells out sweeping the town. Father was in the town hall and Mother was at a park they’d started building a few months ago. It was a little sparse still, but another season would see it fill out. All the transmutations the farmers were doing with the soil were paying off, even if it was nowhere near on the scale Hyago’s circle of druids were attempting.

I frowned. Neither of my parents had Nailu with them. “Where’s our brother?”

Senica shrugged. “Probably playing with the other kids.”

I swept the park again, and while there were some children there, my brother wasn’t in the group. Had he wandered off and gotten lost? New Alkerist wasn’t that big, so someone should have seen him somewhere. The streets near the park were all empty, though. “Is he with Mother?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Senica must have caught onto my tone, because she started getting agitated. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find him. He’s not in the park anywhere or on the surrounding streets.”

Senica spun up her own scrying spell and sent it out to scour the neighborhood. “Weird. Does Mom know he’s gone?”

“She doesn’t seem worried,” I said.

“Wait, is that him in that tree on the north side?”

My scrying spells swooped back around to the park and looked into a crop of trees about three hundred feet away from Mother. There was a child in there, but I’d dismissed him at first because he was twenty feet up a tree that Nailu definitely couldn’t have gotten into. At least, he shouldn’t have been able to. Clearly, I’d underestimated him.

“How?” I asked. “Did someone lift him up?”

It was immediately obvious that that wasn’t the case. Even while we watched, Nailu stood upright and stretched, balanced on his toes, to grab the branch above him. It was a good six inches past his fingers, but that didn’t deter him. The branch bent down slightly and he snagged it.

“Was that telekinesis?” Senica gaped.

“Unstructured and weak, but yes. It looks like Nailu is unconsciously spending mana.”

“He’s not even three yet!”

“Maybe he’s a reincarnated archmage, too.”

Senica shot me a dirty look and hurried for the door. After a moment’s hesitation, I chased after her. The two of us took to the air and went on a short, thirty-second flight across town, much to the annoyance of a few of the townsfolk we startled as we passed by.

“Mom,” Senica called out as she landed. I passed by her to head for the tree, where Nailu had already gone up another five feet. He stopped when he saw me levitating next to him.

“Gravin!” he said. “Play?”

“Sure,” I told my little brother. “I’ve got a new game. Do you want to try it with me?”

“Game!” was all the warning I got before Nailu threw himself out of the tree and into the open air, no doubt expecting me to catch him. Even if I hadn’t, I wasn’t sure he would have hurt himself. In the brief moment he’d been in free fall, it had looked like he was dropping just a little bit slower than he should have been.

Mother and Senica hurried over, but stopped when I produced a simple block of stone out of my phantom space and placed it in front of Nailu. It was about twenty pounds, far too heavy for a toddler to lift. I would know, having retained all of my own memories of that time. If my brother was capable of enhancing himself with instinctive invocations, however, he’d be able to move the rock.

“Okay, the first step is to pick this up,” I explained. “It might be a little bit heavy, but I’m sure you can do it.”

“Gravin, what are you doing?” Mother asked.

“One moment,” I said without looking at her. “Nailu? Ready?”

He didn’t hesitate for a moment. Nailu bent down and grabbed the stone block, tipped it slightly to get his fingers under it, and then heaved. At first I thought he was going to fail, but then mana flooded out of his tiny baby core and he heaved the block up to chest level. “Now what?” he asked.

“Now you hang on,” I said as I caught the block up with my own magic and made it fly into the air with my little brother still clinging to it. Three more blocks appeared and floated up to join it. “Jump to the next one.”

Doing as I instructed and giggling wildly the whole time, Nailu navigated my aerial obstacle course while we watched. “That’s not normal,” Mother said after a minute.

“No,” I agreed. I shot a sly glance at Senica. “Looks like there’s another prodigy in the family. He might even be better than you.”

“I’m not threatened by a toddler,” she declared haughtily.

“We’ll see how you feel in thirty or forty years.”

Senica just rolled her eyes while I laughed and sent up stone rings for Nailu to jump through. He wobbled a bit on the landing, but otherwise executed the acrobatics with far more skill than any child that age should have been able to display. The game only came to an end with his mana reserves bottomed out.

“I’m sleepy,” he informed Mother, holding his hands up and making grabby motions with his fingers. She obliged him and gave him a quick kiss on his forehead.

“I guess we can take a nap early today. You played so good.” Mother smiled down at him before glancing over at me. “Uh, Gravin… I didn’t want to interrupt while you were doing whatever that was, but what are you wearing?”

“Everyone’s a critic,” I muttered. “I’m going to fetch Father and I’ll meet you all back at the house.”