THREE MONTHS PRIOR

"Liberty!"

There was no response, only the continued bubbling of the cauldron.

"Liberty, get in here!"

Still nothing. Not even a bark of protest.

"You'd better be doing something important, Liberty! I need the nutmeg and I need it now!"

I turned away from the magical cooktop and caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was something brightly coloured and much larger than expected. In a moment of panic, I grabbed at the closest weapon and held it out between myself and the shapeless mess that was squirming across the floor towards me.

Around a 120 degree corner, a door slammed open. "Something exciting had better be happening in here," a familiar voice called, announcing the arrival of one of the three people I lived with. Heavy footfalls approached the kitchen.

"Look out, there's a..." I started to warn, but I failed to find an adequate description for the threat and my words faltered.

"Uh, what did my shirt ever do to you?" Skids said, looking at me like I was a puzzle to be solved.

"Wha?" I examined the bright red mass again. It was indeed a shirt, though It was still oozing in my general direction. "Oh."

Skids reached down and plucked the shirt from the imitation wood floor. A much smaller mass of metal and fur tumbled out to land daintily at my feet. "Thanks, this is exactly the entertainment I needed."

I could tell that the words were genuine thanks, not a joke at my expense. "Boring day?"

"Yeah, the usual," Skids said, and made a series of rapid gestures at the cooktop. "Careful, it was about to boil over."

"Thanks, I was... distracted," I said as the cooktop reduced its magical production of heat. "So are you going to just stand there looking cute, or are you going to get the nutmeg for me?"

"I... what? Oh, you're talking..."

"To Liberty, yeah."

"I'll... go put this shirt where it belongs."

"Yeah, do that." I looked back down to the creature at my feet. It was still there. "Liberty! Nutmeg! Now!"

My mother would never tolerate such yelling in her kitchen. There was very little about this kitchen she would accept, to say nothing about the rest of the house. She would have been horrified by my method of heating, by Skids, and especially by my fuzzy little companion.

I still had mixed feelings about my proximity to the creature known commonly as a 'demon'. The observation that my feelings were mixed — instead of entirely negative as they ought to have been — was in turn the subject of even more mixed feelings.

My opinion of Liberty tilted further into the negative as the creature returned from the spice rack with a jar of chilli powder clenched in its little metal pincers. It placed the jar beside the stew cauldron and looked up at me with its beady black eyes. At least it had no more than two eyes. "Did you forget what nutmeg looks like, again, or is it really this hard for you to tell the difference?" I asked aloud, even though the magically enhanced creature had no way to answer me. It could not really understand language either, just certain keywords. The process of training it was slow and tedious, far exceeding any time it had saved assisting me. But that was why I was a paid volunteer, not a paying customer.

"Fine, I'll get the nutmeg myself." I stepped over to the pantry and found the spice rack in disarray. Some of the jars had tipped over, leaving nowhere convenient to put the chilli powder jar while I sorted out the confusion. I slipped it into the pocket on the front of my apron and got to work arranging the jars.

Pockets were now one of life's greatest blessings. I didn't realise how often I need to hold two items until my left arm was replaced with a slow, inaccurate magical construct. Well, calling it a magical construct was generous. My artificial arm was mostly made of wood, with some metal and magical components. It was the cheapest option available, and I had helped with the wood carving as much as I could. I could do a lot with one hand and a vice, but ultimately the conjurer in charge of its creation had declared that I would not make a good apprentice because my mind had a tendancy to wander.

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With extensive practice, I had learned to raise and lower the arm, and could open or close the claw-like hand at will. While I had mastered control of the small aetherspinners that operated the joints, I was not willing to risk picking up anything fragile, such as a glass jar. Perhaps in a few years I might be able to afford an arm capable of greater precision. Even then, sensory feedback was out of reach of the mages' magic. Similarly, I now had a fake eye that looked like a real human eye, rather than the clear glass ball provided to me by my own people. It moved like my real eye too, though it could not respond to changes in brightness. It was good enough that most mages I met either did not notice it, or soon forgot about it.

I was soon done fixing the disarray of spices, and returned to my fish stew with the correct ingredient. I was rather blessed to be a person who enjoyed seafood, as the mages did not eat any other types of meat. Some did not eat meat at all. I wasn't sure I could have coped if that had been a universal dietary rule, but I had already surprised myself with my adaptability in other areas of my life.

"Mmm, that smells delish!" Skids said, returning wearing comfy clothes rather than a rigid uniform. "How was your night, Charity? Class going well?"

Speaking of a night's activities was one of the many changes I'd had to adjust to. I had grown up with the belief that night was a time of danger and terror. While I had defied that on occasion, night was clearly the time for sleeping. Day was the proper time for activities, for life. Asking someone 'how was your night?' was to ask how they slept, until now. While some mages worked day shifts, the perception of most was that life happened at night.

"That bad, hm?" Skids asked when I failed to answer. "Or was it that good?"

"Ehh... it was the usual. Lots of advanced mathematics. I'm so glad I self-studied so much of that, or I'd be doomed to spending my nights mining."

"Hey, mining's not so bad. You'd be great at it with your mechanical arm!"

I took a quick taste of the stew and declared it done. It would be ready to eat as soon as it cooled. "This arm? Hardly. It would break before a week was over."

Skids started setting the table for four. "See, you're clearly the smart one here. Even without reading ahead, you'd be caught up to everyone else in no time. So don't worry about getting sent to the mines. Your mind is too valuable to... uh..."

"Is Skids trying to make puns again?" said a new voice. "That's my job! And you know what what I say about too many cooks."

"Shut up, Broth," Skids and I said in unison.

"We do know, because you've told us, over a hundred times!" Skids added.

"So you know, but you just don't care?" Broth asked. Ra was a very short mage, with wide shoulders and intense eyes. Ra was quick-witted and very knowledgable about medical and dietary matters.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice you're setting up for a carer joke? I never thought you'd stoop so low," Skids said while setting out bowls. They weren't wooden, ceramic or even glass, but were made from a slightly flexible material which was easy to wash and hard to break.

"A short joke, really? You do know you're shorter than Chloe, right?" Broth said, using my mage name. I was neutral on that name, neither disliking it nor feeling at all attached to it. I didn't like any of the potential abbreviations of 'Charity', so I'd continued using the name Skids had suggested.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Skids replied, though I was hardly paying attention. There was stew to be served into bowls, and I'd lost track of Liberty. It had a habit of showing up unexpectedly. That was especially worrying while serving food.

"You better not have," said a new, deeper voice. It was instantly recognisable as the methodical speech of Slink She, who towered over me by a considerable margin. "Hey, Skids. I didn't hear you come in."

Broth turned to stare at Slink with performative drama. "How? I'm sure the residents at the other end of the street heard!"

"I had my thinking music on," Slink said. That was more than sufficient explanation.

"Did you finish your new design?" Skids asked. "What was it, a ventilation fan?"

While Skids and Slink chatted, I gestured for Broth to start serving the stew while I put pre-sliced bread on plates. The square, machine-made loaves were another thing I'd had to adjust to.

"A more longer-lasting particle filter. For ventilation fans, yes. But no, I didn't finish it. How are the tunnels tonight?"

Skids shrugged. "Ehh, pretty dull. No one was about but some nosy kids. Hey, want to bounce some ideas of us? We could be like your own personal think tank."

I looked around furtively for Liberty. After its earlier failure, the awful creature had probably retreated to dust shelves or sort clean clothes.

"Thanks, but no. It's meal time now. I can't think about work when I'm hungry."

"Yeah, I don't wanna talk about work either. And we don't want to hear Broth talk about work, so that just leaves Charity," Skids said, taking a seat. I didn't like our chairs. They weren't uncomfortable, but they were all completely identical and lacking in character. Thousands of mage houses had chairs just like ours.

"The food's ready," I said, though that was quite clear. "Just go slow and remember to blow on it."

A minute passed with no sound other than the noises produced by appreciative eaters.

"Are you up for telling us about your night's training?" Broth asked between spoonfuls.

"I could," I said tentatively. "But there's nothing to tell that any of you would really appreciate. Just a whole lot of numbers and why they're related to other numbers. I don't even have any fun stories about the other students today. Everyone behaved themselves. Even Rotor."

"Well in that case," Skids began, grinning in a way that made me distinctly uneasy, "allow me to present to you all a business proposal." The final words were punctuated with a showy hand flourish.

Oh no. Not again. I didn't want to have to sit through this again, so I searched my mind for any sort of distraction.

"Look out!"