It took us much longer to reach the port town where we could take a ship to Delitone than it had taken for us to travel to Puinen, since we couldn’t speed our flight along with mana. Dusk suggested that she could use her dominion to forcibly move me with them, but Kene was quick to ban that – while that had been part of what Dusk got out of our bond, there was much less certainty in that being harmless to me.

I could have just hidden in her realm, of course, but while we were on something of a time crunch, we weren’t on nearly enough of one for it to justify locking myself away for a bit more speed. A couple of hours wasn’t going to make the difference between the eggs hatching and not hatching, and acting like we were in a rush was going to just make us seem suspicious when we went through customs.

There were a couple of things we could do to help ease suspicion, though, and we’d taken those steps. I’d been flagged when I was returning from the Idyll-Flume for being strange, but now I was hoping that I’d stand a better chance of blending in. My tail twitched nervously at the thought, and I reconsidered.

I’d definitely be thought of as strange, given that the image of me in my ID didn’t match my current eye color, mention a tail, or anything of that sort.

Kene seemed to sense my nerves and took my hand, squeezing it.

“Let’s go ahead and check through customs when we get to the port,” Kene offered. “They’re generally looser when leaving than entering, but it’ll be something, at least.”

“Sure,” I agreed. “What all do you think I should pack in my suitcase? I’m thinking some clothes, toiletries, and some dried nuts.”

“You should probably throw in some silver,” Kene said. “Just to have on hand. It doesn’t need to be a ton, but it’s probably still worthwhile to have it. It’s normal to have cash when you travel abroad.”

I nodded my agreement, and we made a bit of small talk about the trip as we moved through the tunnel.

When we did arrive in the port, Kene and I headed right to the harbormaster’s building to go ahead and check through. Kene was waved through without any problems, but again, I was stopped.

“Mister… Malachi Roth Baker, and familiar, Dusk?” the man behind the desk asked.

“Yes sir,” I said, and his eyes crawled over me, stopping at the half-real tail, then up to my eyes.

“You’re sure?” he asked, and I sighed.

“Yes sir,” I repeated. “I can swear it under a truth potion.”

The attendant opened the drawer and removed one of the silvery vials, and I drained it.

“I’m Malachi Baker, younger brother of Edward Baker, lightwatch member. My tail, eyes, and other bodily modifications are the result of my full-gate spells, Magister’s Body and Beast Mage’s Soul. I’ve suffered some hefty spiritual damage, so I’d prefer not to be scanned, but I’m willing to submit to one if needed. I’m not carrying any contraband, and I intend no violence to anyone on the boat.”

I was careful to say that I had no contraband, because Dusk most certainly did, but I wasn’t Dusk. I was her guardian, but she was her own person.

“I see,” the man said. “I will still need to scan you, I’m afraid. If you were headed back to Mossford, I could let you slip through, but it says on the application you want a ship to Delitone…”

“Go ahead,” I sighed.

Once again I was led into the back and made to stand on a circle of spellwork, raise my hands, and drop my veil. I wasn’t veiling myself, since I wasn’t allowed to touch my mana, but I nodded.

Once again, there was a flash of knowledge mana, and something ran through my spirit, which twisted and rattled. It felt like a hot knife running through me, and I let out a scream of pain, collapsing to the floor.

The attendant let out a gasp and ran over, pulling me to my feet.

“I told you to lower a veil,” he said, and I glared at him. My spirit was aching and throbbing, and my heart felt like it was going to tear itself out of my chest at any moment.

“I wasn’t veiling,” I said irritably. “I told you that I have spiritual damage!”

“Primes, I didn’t realize it was that bad. Do you not have a doctor’s notice of the damage or anything?”

“Kene’s a doctor,” I said.

“Your partner? They’re a healer and have an alchemy certification, not a medical doctorate,” the man said, then sighed. “Listen, I’ll attach a note to your file, mentioning the damage, but I can’t guarantee that you won’t be scanned at your arrival in Delitone. It’s pretty suspicious that you don’t look anything like you do in your identification papers.”

“Yeah,” I grunted.

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The attendant turned and walked back to where the information had printed itself neatly onto a little card, then examined it. His eyebrows knitted together, and I tensed. I was tempted to ask what it was, but he just shrugged and said.

“Ah yeah, that’s some pretty nasty damage. Never seen that fifth – fourth and a half? Sixth? – one before, machine had a bit of trouble with it, but it didn't register as dangerous. Alright, you’re free to go.”

He tossed the card in the trash, and I had to work had to not send a longing glance at the card or ask questions, so it was with a dull ache in my spirit that I returned to Kene, and the two of us purchased some tickets on board a ship that was headed to Delitone.

We were sharing a room, which brought the price down, and we weren’t picky about where we stayed, since we full intended to sleep in the cabin, but it was still enough to wipe out the dregs of my bank account. I’d been doing odd jobs around the village, and Kene had been working as an alchemist, so we had the money, but with the recurring payments for my no-longer-extant broom, I was left with a double-digit amount of silver.

Once the payment was processed, an attendant brought us some more papers stating we’d already checked through, and apart from a simple bag check, we wouldn’t need to go through anything when our ship arrived in a few days, as well as me a note to give to the people in Delitone.

“Want to get some lunch?” I asked, “I think I’ve got enough silver for a bit of street food.”

“I’ll take us to a cafe,” Kene said. “I’ve actually got a lot more than I’m used to having on hand. Agnes didn’t pay a ton, but a lot of the work that I did in my village was either on trade or was only enough to keep the store afloat.”

They let out a sad sigh then, and this time I was the one to take their hand.

“You don’t have to come with me,” I said. “I know you miss your home some. You can go back, and meet me when I get home.”

“We just spent a month apart, you can’t shake me again that easily,” Kene said with a wry smile.

“But you do miss it,” I pressed, and Kene nodded.

“I do,” they agreed. “You just need to hurry up and get to be an arcanist already, so you can set up a portal network.”

Their face froze, and they glared at me.

“That was a joke. If you so much as think about touching your mana in such a state, then I swear by all the primes…”

They let the threat hang, but I pressed my hand to my chest, where I could still feel the aching from the spiritual scanner.

“Trust me,” I said. “I’ve got no desire to… Actually, hold on, no, that’s not true. I do have a desire to do magic, but I have no intention to actually do magic until I’m healed. The scan was painful enough.”

“Good,” Kene relented. “Drink some of the water from the cave while we eat.”

I nodded my agreement, and Kene took us out to a lovely little cafe that served open faced sandwiches topped with pickled fish, eggs, and cabbage, and served alongside a side of potatoes. I wasn’t sure on the abundance of pickled food at first, but it was good, if a touch too salty for my tastes.

“That’s just more of an excuse for you to drink water,” Kene pointed out as we talked.

As we did, I turned my mind over the problem of Kene’s home, and myself. I’d seen guilds busying themselves during the month of Spirits-Walk, working on tackling jobs of all sorts, and at the time, I’d thought about how nice it would be to have a guild of my own someday.

I wasn’t strong enough to really lead a guild of fighters, nor was I skilled enough in alchemy to run an alchemy guild, or baking, or anything else. Meadow was strong enough, but I didn’t know how she’d handle my proposition for her. Would she even want to do such a thing?

I did faintly remember someone – Orykson, maybe? – mentioning that thanks to Dusk’s unique nature, I might be able to establish portals earlier than a normal person could. The first normal portal spells opened up at fifth gate, to my understanding, but if I was able to set up a portal network earlier and cheaper, then I certainly wouldn’t complain. I hadn’t looked too much into the finances of it, but I knew that establishing portal networks was extremely expensive, and there were at least a few people who made a living opening portals between permanent gates for emergency goods transport.

What would a portal network between Kene’s village, Puinen, and the bakery even look like? That was such a strange mix of different things that I wasn’t entirely sure if it could even become anything at all.

Then again, maybe it could.

Regardless, before I went about making any such decisions, I’d need to speak to everyone about it. A brief portal for personal use was one thing, but opening a true network was an entirely separate conversation, and I didn’t even have magic back at the moment. It could wait.

After dinner, Kene and I went shopping. Not shopping-shopping, I didn’t have money, and I wasn’t going to let Kene just buy a bunch of stuff because I wanted it, but we did look at things. I checked the prices of a communication mirror, just a basic one that was capable of making calls, rather than one that could connect to the networks for shows and movies, but it was still a cost in the thousands of silver.

And yet two and a half thousand silver was no longer the absurd price that I’d considered it to be. It was a lot, certainly, but I was able to sell potions for a reasonable price, and with the use of healer’s heart, I would make a great return on time for my investment.

Of course, that was only possible due to my advantages. Not just anyone could grow healer’s heart, keep an entire field’s worth of flowers fresh year round, and had the resources, time, the connections with the ghost market to be able to sell without a license, and training to reach third gate with life mana.

But I was lucky enough to have those on my side, so I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t sell some potions. Besides, I’d be selling healing potions – it wasn’t like I was selling poisons, love potions, invisibility potions, or other unethical stuff.

But I should probably look into getting a license, like Kene had.

“How do you get licensed?” I asked Kene as we shopped.

“Well, it’s a two year course, but if you’re willing to take a bunch of tests to test your practical knowledge, then you can skip over most of it, and just do a three-month ethics course for it,” Kene said. “Are you thinking about getting a license? You’re not ready for it yet, but once you’re healed, we could work on it.”

“I’m not?” I asked, surprised. Kene gave me a faintly amused smile.

“Love, you’re a perfectly serviceable combat alchemist, don’t get me wrong, but… Can you make verdant pasture pills? How about earthen refinement pills? Windsoul pills? Those are all common first gate advancement pills. And that doesn’t touch on all of the ungated medicines you need to be able to make: fever reducers, pain relievers, antibacterials… On top of that, there’s the entire field of enhancement alchemy.”

“I… take your point,” I said. I’d never really thought it, but there was a lot of alchemy that I’d never touched, since I stuck to the basics of healing potions and combat potions, and even then, I’d only begun to dip my toes into the combat ones.

“I don’t mind learning, though,” I said with a grin.

“Soon,” Kene promised.