Max stared at the ceiling, thinking about the meeting with the headmasters he had earlier that night. It felt like there was suddenly a lot going on in his world.

Part of him wondered if he wouldn't be better off just graduating as a Summoner and leaving the Summoner academy. Supposedly, when he got back to his own world, there would not be any correlation to the time he spent in the Quartet and the time passed on Earth. But Max still wasn't sure if there was a soft limit to how far he could develop his mana body in the Quartet, in this particular Quartet. What would be ideal is if he were in a quartet with a high mana concentration. Then staying longer would be a no-brainer.

As he was thinking about the near future and wondering if he was truly comfortable basically being somebody's prize fighter, he heard a knock on the door. Max's Summoner senses automatically told him that the knock wasn't real and that it was Lavinia trying to get his attention. Usually, if any of his spirits wanted to talk to him when he was in his bedroom, they would—almost always Lavinia—usually let him know in a way similar to this.

"Go ahead and come in," said Max.

A second later, Lavinia appeared nearby, wearing yet another new outfit. Now, her hair was in braids, and she had on a jumper with a cartoon dinosaur on the front. Underneath it said, "RAR."

"I need to talk to you, boss." The spirit's serious tone of voice and the unusual way she was addressing him made Max sit up straight and grow more focused.

"What is it?" asked Max.

"Well, remember when we first formed our contract? I was supposed to share secrets with you. Even though it hasn't been that long, and even though you haven't fulfilled my wishes in exactly the way I had anticipated, I've realized tonight that I need to hold up my end of the bargain."

"What brought this on?" asked Max. "The meeting with the headmasters?"

"Yes. I am seeing new layers to the Quartet that I've never seen before, even after hundreds of years of haunting this place. If I weren't so awesome, it would be giving me a little bit of an inferiority complex. But more importantly, I have watched you almost every step of the way continue to pull bullshit out of your pocket and make amazing things happen. At this point, I have no doubt that you're going to easily smoke the competition at the end of the semester and probably do great things at the end of the year. More importantly, I've grown more convinced that you are probably going to live a long time. If you don't get yourself killed, you might even end up living longer than your first life. So basically, I don't have any reason anymore to keep gatekeeping."

"Gatekeeping?" asked Max.

"Yes, gatekeeping. There are a few secrets that I was keeping. I planned to tell you all of them in good time, but the first is about…remnants."

Max didn't ask any questions, just continued listening.

Lavinia said, "It's something that isn't real fun for spirits to talk about, but everything dies, even spirits. Spirits just tend to exist for a really, really long time. But things can happen that damage them, us, or cause them to lose the will to exist. Sometimes spirits can get very attached to places or people, and after they go away, the spirit loses interest in being attached to the material world any longer. When spirits begin waning, when the Summoner contracting process may destroy them, they're called remnants. And it's something that the Summoner Academy doesn't teach anymore.

“As far as I know, all the records of remnants and all books about them have been scoured from the library at every level, and I doubt most of the professors would even recognize the term now. Remnant spirits are very, very rare. There is only one place they have ever been common, one place in the entire universe."

"Summoner Academy," Max guessed, slowly.

"Bingo! And you know what? Something that's really freaking odd? There are creatures that do nothing except roam around looking for remnant spirits. I don’t even know what they’re called or what they are! They’re scary as all hell. All I, we, know is that once they find a remnant spirit, that spirit disappears."

Max blinked, thinking of all the implications.

"I actually learned about them before I died," Lavinia continued, her manc speech slowing down. Max noticed that the former Summoner was not skirting around the subject of her demise anymore, or being particular about how she described it. She usually added in words like 'technically' and such. Max made a gesture for Lavinia to continue.

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She folded her arms. "I'm pretty sure, in hindsight, that me poking around into subjects like remnants was why I was suppressed. But anyway, I actually didn't get that far in my research into remnants. Most of my focus and energy were spent in other places. The communication circle that I gave you was one of them. I learned more about remnants after I was a spirit myself, and it took decades after that."

She had Max's full attention now. He nodded at her to go on.

"So…remnants are a little bit different than other spirits because the contract process will destroy them. Like I said. But they can still choose Summoners. This means here isn't a contract process, not really. It's a pass-go. Yes, no. Will they agree to basically–" she paused, the continued, "stop existing and give the Summoner…some of what they are. In the past, like during my lifetime, remnants were very hard to come by. They are even more so now. But the ones I know would rather pass on what they have to somebody deserving than be caught by the Quartet and then who knows what."

"Wow," said Max. "So is somebody destroying them or harvesting them?"

"Nobody knows," she said and shrugged. "But consider this. There are how many different Quartets out there for how many different paths, and all of them are receiving funding from somewhere. Granted, most Quartets have pocket dimensions with farms and such that they get food from. But still, there are directives that come down. From somewhere. Higher. And now you're mixed up all in the middle of it with your secret deals with headmasters and such."

"It sounds bad when you say it that way," said Max.

"I'm not sure it isn't bad," muttered Lavinia, "but I'm pretty sure you know that too. Like always, it feels like you take the best of a bad situation and then turn it around for your own benefit. And quite frankly, I don't think there's going to be another Summoner like you in a long time. Maybe forever, if things keep going the way they are. What you said back in the meeting with the headmasters, what you said about yourself? It wasn’t very humble, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t sound like the truth to me.

“As you know, I've been here for a long time. I've seen– Year over year, Summoners get weaker. I'm sure that part of it is because all the remnants have been eliminated or chased into hiding. When you think about it, the way the system used to work would be a beautiful thing.

“I could imagine older, seasoned Summoners coming to work here as professors before likely just getting tired of living. Their spirits would be left behind. If multiple cycles took place like that, especially over millions of years, this place would be flooded with remnants. That would mean that the most powerful Summoners, or the most sensitive, or the most talented would likely meet at least one or two remnants over the seven years they were here. It would be a hell of a solid start.

“But still, that might not sound like a lot until you consider how long a professor might have lived for and the fact that there's really no limit to how many spirits a Summoner can contract with. The only real limit is that they need to finish bonding with their previous spirit before taking another. And this was one of the reasons why I was initially hesitant to even tell you about remnants. Most people, most Summoners, take a while to bond with a spirit. But you're different."

She shook her head and gave him a strange look.

"Even now that I intellectually know you are Chasa de Milo, sometimes it's hard to accept, but I have to admit, I've never seen anybody in my entire existence bond with spirits as quickly as you do. Even Saliron. It’s true you will probably learn more about him as time goes on and manifest more powers and even find new ways to use those powers, but he was working in harmony with you in no time flat. A warlord spirit! And even me! I felt like the process with us took less than a week. In hindsight, it was probably only a day or two, and that is absolutely insane. In fact, it's one reason why I really think you should start dating Momo seriously."

"Wait, what?" asked Max.

The spirit held up a hand. "Yeah, yeah, forget that for now. Too much of a subject change. That's a conversation for another time. But the fact she was able to bond with two spirits so quickly means that she bonded with at least one of them exceptionally fast. Her talent might be the highest in your entire friend group other than your own."

Max nodded thoughtfully. He hadn't thought of it that way. Now that he was hearing it, he vaguely remembered reading a book on the subject of talent and bonding. He grew momentarily frustrated that he hadn't been taking regular classes like all of his friends. Max forced himself to remember the context of his time at the Quartet so far. If he were taking classes like everyone else, he would be far behind where he currently was.

Lavinia haltingly said, "I know some remnants. I'm not even going to tell you how many. And it should be obvious that I wouldn't be having this conversation with you if your dorm wasn't shielded. I know you are not stupid, but just to be clear, you should probably never repeat this information to anyone ever again. Ever."

"Yeah, I got it," said Max.

"Good. Anyway, there is one remnant I keep contact with that I have finally told about you, and he wants to meet you."

"Okay," said Max. "When?"

"I know where he is right now, so as soon as you're ready."

Max chuckled without humor. "This has been an absolutely crazy night so far. Why not make it crazier? Want to go now?"

Lavinia gave him a look that was hard to read. "Okay."

It was only after she left the bedroom as Max was getting ready, just like she usually did, that Max realized this remnant was one of her friends and likely had been for a long time. And, if Max formed a contract with the Remnant Spirit, it meant that one of Lavinia's friends, one that she'd likely known for decades, if not centuries, was going to stop existing tonight.

"Damn," he muttered.