After the dramatic tension of having to worry about technically-not-lying to the security tests in Delitone and Dragontooth without giving away the eggs while also having to worry about having my spirit battered while it was already injured, taking the ship ride home was remarkably calm and simple.

Dusk and Kene were both working on burning away the mists in the second part of their third gate, now that they’d built their steps out, and Kene even pulled Dusk aside to test out his mysterious new spell that he’d spent a few months working on. When I later questioned Dusk about it, she refused to tell me anything.

“Oh come on,” I said. “You get to know, but I don’t?”

Dusk cheerfully nodded and said that Dawn knew too. I glared at her.

“At this point, it had better be something absurdly impactful and powerful. If it’s not, I’m disappointed.”

Dusk sighed and shrugged, saying that it wasn’t anything crazy. Kene was a healer and focused on healing and helping. I should expect something like that. But she did think it would be helpful, and she was pretty sure that Kene would use it in the next big fight we got into – there just hadn’t been a reason to fight recently.

I sighed and accepted that. I couldn’t say that I was upset that my life was peaceful right now, far from it, but I did want to know. It was a similar anticipation to having your wrapped birthday presents sitting on the counter for a few weeks before you could open them.

I paused at that. It was getting surprisingly close to my birthday. It was currently early in the month of New-Life, and my birthday was at the end of the month, only a few weeks away. I went to find Kene, a horrible feeling sinking into my gut.

“When’s your birthday?” I asked. “I didn’t miss it, did I?”

“The third of Suns-Birth,” Kene said, looking up from the book they were reading. “It wasn’t too long after we first met one another, actually.”

“And you never told me?”

“We didn’t know each other well yet. All I knew was you appeared one day wearing a suit, chased down a frog, got burned, and left.”

They shrugged.

“I didn’t think it was worth bringing up at the time.”

A moment later, they went pale.

“Oh no, is today your birthday? I hadn’t–”

“No, no, nothing like that,” I said, waving my hand. “You have like two weeks, it’s on the twenty-sixth. Ed’s is on the twenty-fourth. Given we’ve got a bit of time, and I want to set up a portal branch at home, I think it would be nice to celebrate it at home in the bakery, with my family, and with you.”

“I’d love that,” they said, smiling gently. I hugged them, then settled down in a chair and pulled myself into my mana-garden, setting to work on chipping away more of the tiles from my beastgate.

Without much else to do on the boat ride except practice magic until my mana ran dry and chip away at the tiles, I made a surprisingly quick amount of progress, far more than I had when I’d had to balance training, work, setting up a teleportation platform, and also breaking apart the tiles. I managed to get almost three quarters of the way done, and I had a rather large pile of chips just… sitting there… in my mana-garden.

“What can I even do with them?” I asked Kene one day, having forced a small bit of the smooth white tile the size of my thumb into my hand. They picked it up, flicking it from hand to hand, then held it up to the light.

“Remember how we talked about you being a combat alchemist, while I’m more of a traditional alchemist? This is one of those things. When it comes to making advancement potions, solidified mana is pretty commonly used, as are mana sources,” Kene said, peering at the bit that I’d extruded. “This feels a lot more dense and solid than normal solidified mana, but less dense than a full mana source. With enough, and with you channeling your beastgate mana from the relevant gate, I might be able to compact it into some mana sources for your staff?”

My eyes lit up at that.

“Really? I admit, I’d gotten worried I’d have to use hudau heritage stones for my advancement, and given how they can directly add to your mana…”

“Primes, that would be absurdly wasteful. No, this should work. How many of these chips do you have?”

We spent a while going back and forth until I eventually just bought an overpriced mana-garden potion from the ship’s pharmacy, and Kene had a look for themself. After watching me break down another tile, and figuring out how many would be left, I extruded some extra chunks, and they set to work on running some alchemical tests on the bits.

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“Alright,” they said after a little bit. “I should be able to make one for your first through fourth gate, once you’re at the relevant level of strength. There will be a good bit left over, but not nearly enough for a fifth gate source.”

“Is there anything else I can do with it?” I asked.

“I… Maybe could turn it into an advancement potion?” Kene asked. “I might even be able to make it into a wall-surge elixir, with grandmother’s help.”

“Maybe,” I said, frowning.

Putting it into my staff was a near-permanent enhancement to my strength that would be nearly impossible to replicate without spending a fortune on hudau heritage stones, or trying to find a hudau mana source, which didn’t tend to exist in nature.

An advancement resource was also a permanent increase to my wall height, but it wasn’t nearly as hard to replicate. Ordinary training could increase the height of my walls, after all.

“I’ll see,” I said. “I don’t want to get rid of it too soon.”

“Makes sense,” Kene agreed, and we went back to our respective work.

I did have to assist Kene a few times by pouring massive amounts of first gate mana into the cauldron, to effectively wash out the fact that the shards were from my second gate, a bit like adding a bucket of red dye to an orange paint, in order to get it to be and act orange, but after that, Kene went back to work to artificially condense a hudau mana source for me.

By the time we arrived in Mossford properly again, he’d created a first gate and second gate one, which I fed happily to the staff, alongside the trimmings from several of my spells. Being able to feed the staff directly, sans the need for a ritual, might not have been quite as good as it simply growing on its own, but it was still incredibly useful.

When we did finally arrive in Mossford and passed through security, I had to have a new image of me taken for my ID, to show my tail, eyes, and blackened heart, as well as to register Dusk and Dawn as my familiars on my ID, my new strength, and a few other details.

Then, just like that, I was home.

I stumbled out of the docks to find Kene, Liz, Ed, and my dad all standing there. The moment I stepped out of the building, my dad pulled me into a tight hug. I hugged him back, feeling a bit of wetness in my eyes.

“Malachi,” he said, squeezing me tightly.

“Hey dad.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” I replied.

He held me for several long seconds, then let me go, and held me out at arms length, studying me. As he did, I felt my tail swish with anxiety. Dad let out a laugh and shook his head.

“Well,” he said, “I saw you on the mirror, of course, but it’s quite different to see you in person. You weren’t kidding about the tail, that’s… something. And the eyes look much more striking in person.”

“I like the tail,” Liz said. Her voice seemed to cause my dad to remember that there were other people there and let me go. As Dusk waved to him and started introducing Dawn, Ed pulled me into a tight hug next. He was still strong, maybe even stronger than I was, with the ingrained effects of several of his spells enhancing his physical strength and durability, but the effect was no longer nearly as crushing as it had once felt.

“Good to see you,” he said, then gave me a goofy grin as his mana senses passed over me. “And look at you. I’m going to have to start advancing faster if I want to keep up with you.”

I took a moment to let my senses flow over the group and nodded my agreement.

My dad was as he’d always been, a peak first gate physical mage, with the kind of polish that only someone who’d spent a lifetime using his mana for work had.

Ed had clearly cut out his own first set of steps, and was now in mid-third gate, with a neat, orderly feeling to his spirit. His mana didn’t pack quite as much punch as Dusk, not with the drops of destiny and other natural treasures she’d taken in, but it was firm and solid.

Liz had also cut out her steps for both lunar and desolation mana. The power flowing from her offensive magic enhancement full-gate spell gave her a distinctly dangerous feel, and that combined with the fact that she’d also taken part in the Idyll-Flume to improve her own power to make her feel dangerous.

Liz pulled me into a hug as well, and after she let me go, she winked conspiratorially.

“There’s one major advancement that you’re missing though.”

She held up her hand and I gasped.

“You got engaged?” I asked, then whirled to Ed. “And you didn’t tell me that you proposed to her?”

“I thought it would be a nice surprise,” Ed said with a laugh. I whacked him on the chest, and he let out an overdramatic chuff.

“What he means to say is congratulations,” Kene said. “He’s incredibly happy for the both of you, and he hopes for an invitation to the wedding.”

“Bah, I suppose,” I said, then turned to Liz. “I’m so happy for you, Liz, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Davies, that’s who I’m happy for.”

“Cruelty of the highest order,” Ed said, shaking his head. “I hate to see it. I’ll have to violate my two years of ethics courses, put my badge on the line, and risk going to jail, so I can wrongfully arrest you.”

“Try it, officer,” I said, then pulled Ed in for a second hug. “I am happy for you, though.”

He patted my back, then we separated.

“I’m happy for you too,” he said. “Is this how you wanted to look?”

I considered that for a moment. If I’d been designing myself, like Orykson’s spell would have, then I wouldn’t have made myself look like this. But I also couldn’t say I was unhappy with my appearance right now. Some things would need to keep changing, but I had faith they would.

“Should I take the fact that your tail is wagging like a dog as a yes?” Liz teased, sidling up next to Ed.

“I changed my mind,” I said. “Curse the both of you. To the blood pits.”

Dusk spoke up then, asking where her buddy Kerbos was, because she was pretty sure that he was a Draigg-Blaidd Packlord, and she thought it would be really funny for us to show up at the sanctuary with a third endangered, almost extinct, or mythically rare creature. It might just make Olive rip her hair out in sheer frustration.

“What’s a Draigg-Blaidd?” my father asked, sounding slightly concerned.

“Why don’t we just take them through the whole story?” Kene asked. “Liz was there in the Idylll-Flume, but your family wasn’t. And Liz wasn’t there for the Beastgate Trial Trail or the sanctuary.”

“Good idea,” Ed said. “Spare no details.”

As we started walking back towards the bakery, Kene, Liz, Dusk, and I started up the story of the Idyll-Flume, the Beastgate Trial Trail, the sanctuary, and even the falling stars.