“She said that she destroyed Tingaran Station? Right?” Pan remembered back to Era’s statement that she was just trying to get away.

“She did.” Alban nodded. He paced by a large window.

Pan stood by that same window, at the corner, in his path. Each time Alban reached Pan, he turned around and paced away.

For the first time in their acquaintance, Alban let Pan roam free. She didn’t wear a cuff, and no one had tried to inject her with suppressant. Pan marked the occasion with nothing more than a thought, but she wished they could have cake.

Irini sat at a table beside Aria. Pan was glad to see them both, untouched by Era. Sotir also remained safe – though badly surprised for the first time in years. He stood by the table and alternated his gaze between his own feet and Pan. Pan wished he wouldn’t look at her like that, not while they stood on a Scaldin ship.

“Are you alright?” Aria said.

For a moment, Pan forgot the ship, Alban, and Sotir. She looked at Aria and was about to say of course she was alright. But, Aria questioned Irini, not Pan. Aria leaned over and put a hand on Irini’s arm.

Irini just nodded.

Pan felt a mite jealous – jealous of a thirteen-year-old girl, who had been tricked into finding a dangerous arcane. Pan had to admit the sentiment was shameful.

Irini, only thirteen years old, had seen space a lot sooner than either Pan or Aria. Irini got plopped in a life or death situation for her first job. Of course, years ago, when Pan was twelve, she’d found herself in a life-threatening job. No one offered her any sympathy then. Maybe, that’s how she got to her place in Scaldin society – a lack of care and sympathy. Irini deserved better. She shouldn’t be used to track down a reaper, and she shouldn’t be happy about it. She shouldn’t be left to make sense of the difficult job on her own. Irini, still so young and naive, needed to know what was right and fair, concerning her work.

“If Soffigen have arcanes, what are we going to do?” Irini asked.

“They have one arcane,” Sotir corrected. “Just the one.”

Alban stopped pacing. “Forgive me, Sotir, but you didn’t see half of this coming. You thought Pan destroyed Tingaran for weeks. I’m having some difficulty trusting your assertions.”

Sotir straightened. “It’s a complicated situation, shown to me through a foggy lens.” Sotir’s eyes flicked to Pan. “And, my attention has been occupied elsewhere.”

Alban raised his eyebrows. “Right, but you can’t say Era is the only Soffigen arcane. You don’t know. All your new information…”

“My new reading is focused on Era herself, not just the idea of a multi-powered arcane. I have better information, so I get better information. At least, I’m more confident of my interpretation this time.” Sotir shifted his staff to his other hand. “She’ll be back.” Sotir met Pan’s eyes. “She’s coming for you, Pan.”

Pan’s heart skipped a beat.

“When? Where?” Alban asked.

Sotir returned his attention to Alban. “The possibilities are too much in flux. We need to consider our choices. If we do nothing, Era will come here. She can swim through space after all.”

Aria’s shoulders slumped. “That’s a new power. There are no Scaldin like that.”

“No,” Alban said darkly. “Choices…?”

The room fell quiet, and Pan pondered the place she found herself. She stood surrounded by other Scaldin on a ship built by Scaldin. She could not have imagined that possibility just a week ago. She rather liked the way it felt, but at some point, they would drag her all the way to Scaldigir. And, that would feel quite a bit different.

“Well,” Alban continued, answering his own prompt. “We can’t go home. Not yet. If we go home, Era will follow.”

Sotir ran his fingers over his staff. “She will. It’s not as if Scaldigir’s location is a secret. And, even if it were, I think Era possesses a tracking power.” Sotir narrowed his eyes. “How else did she find Pan?”

Pan took a few steps from the window. “When we fought, she couldn’t find me on the ship. She needed clues.”

Sotir’s gaze snapped up. “That’s true, but she still found the ship, and that should have been impossible.”

“I need to know how she did that,” Alban said. “If she can track Pan, that’s great. We’ll lead her wherever we want. If Era can’t track Pan, we need to leave more clues. We don’t want her to get desperate and head to Scaldigir on her own.”

Pan also wanted Era as far from Scaldigir as Era could be. Pan wanted Pan as far from Scaldigir as she could be. Her heart sang. Her eyes lit.

“I think…” Aria began. She gave Pan a sorry glance. “We need to go home to get help from other arcanes. Who will fight Era?”

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“Pan.” Alban gestured to her.

Sotir nodded his agreement.

“Wait.” Pan raised a hand. She would appreciate a little help in a fight against Era. Maybe, home wasn’t such a bad idea.

Alban ignored Pan’s small objection. “Era’s as dangerous as a reaper.”

“Clearly,” Pan agreed.

Alban nodded. “So, you can fight her. You don’t need help to beat another reaper. You’ve proven you can do it. Why jeopardize Scaldigir and why involve other arcanes when we don’t have to? Think about it. One reaper should be able to take care of another, especially with someone like Sotir to back you.”

“How?” Pan turned her palms up. “She has more than me. She’s more powerful.”

The room grew quiet.

Alban focused on Pan. “How did you beat Brynn? She was more powerful. She was more experienced. Your new opponent may have more powers, but she’ll make countless mistakes.” Alban pointed at Pan. “You’ll make none. You have experience, and you have Sotir.”

Pan glanced at Sotir and found him staring back, ready to help. Between his fortune telling and her time message, they could win. Pan might find it painful, but they could win.

Sotir said, “We choose our battleground and set a trap for Era. I could feed you information, or better yet, I can get a close read on Era and determine how she became arcane.”

Alban raised one finger. “That would be a good use of Sotir.”

Irini coughed. Aria patted her on the back. Irini’s eyes rose. She looked between Pan and Alban.

“Yes?” Alban asked.

Irini said, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t think about fighting Era just yet. Maybe, we can get some more information about Soffigen arcanes in general. I have my thread…”

Sotir shook his head. “There won’t be time…unless we can find a location in which we do both.” Sotir’s brow knit. “Which we might…”

“You two will have to work on that,” Alban said. “In the meantime, Pan and I can work on her strategy. What are your powers?” Alban tapped his fingers together and waited.

Pan thought everyone knew. Hadn’t Sotir read the battle and drawn up a script? At some point in time, wouldn’t Pan have to endure a reenactment, during her trial?

Pan shifted. “Ghost seeing – that’s not useful here unless I can convince a very powerful spirit to target Era.” Pan shrugged. “I don’t know any powerful spirits, unless Brynn counts, but I’m trying to get away from her.”

“What else?”

“Telekinesis.”

Alban nodded. “Right, you’ll need that, but it won’t give you the upper hand against Era. She’s telekinetic.”

Pan nodded. “Healing – but she has that too, and she’s better at it.”

Era had healed in instants. Pan still struggled to make that work. She didn’t think she had the same version of the healing power. Her version was slow and measured.

Alban gestured for Pan to continue.

Pan spread her hands. “I reap. Not very useful. I don’t want to reap Era. I don’t want any more powers.” Pan would hate to harbor all those powers. She didn’t know how Brynn did it, and she didn’t know how Era now coped.

Pan continued, “I also make portals. The power has a pretty far range, and as long as I can see the location I can get there. That includes pictures.”

With upraised hand, Alban stopped her. “That’s the best we’ve got. We can position the ship far away and give you a picture to serve as an escape, just in case things go poorly. That power has a lot of potential.”

Quiet followed.

Pan almost couldn’t believe it. Alban’s mind had changed. He now set about keeping her away from Scaldigir. He didn’t keep her cuffed. He didn’t lock her in a cell, and he wanted her to use her powers. This man was nothing if not decisive. Pan wouldn’t trust him fully – not right away. She’d save trust for people like Aria and Sotir.

“And the last power?” Alban tapped his fingers on the table. “The mysterious one?”

Everyone stared at Pan. Irini’s eyes widened and stayed that way. Aria knit her brow, and Sotir leaned on his staff. Alban just waited.

“Time message.”

“I knew it had to be something to do with time.” Sotir cocked his head. “How does it work?”

Alban tapped away on a tablet. He probably set down all of Pan’s powers for meeting minutes or what not. “Go on, I’m dying to hear what this one entails.”

“I took it from a long dead woman. She was from the time just after the visitors arrived.” Pan remembered the woman, so bright. Pan had never gotten a good look at the spirit, just the body. “I doubt her power was ever recorded. It was a long time ago.”

“And, what does it do?” Alban’s finger poised above the tablet.

“I send a message from my present self to a previous self. Once I do it, I’m transported back to that time, with new knowledge. I have to relive everything over again, but I can make different choices. Two weeks is as far back as I can go, but I think with more practice I could go longer. Mostly, I use it as a kind of eraser when I’m drawing.” Pan hung her head. She left out the sense of deja vu that she’d come to despise.

Aria spoke slow, “That first time...when you fought Brynn in Kallitech, you fought her many times. You did it till you won.”

Pan nodded. “I can’t remember how many tries it took. Five maybe. I think she squished me with a coffin once. Sometimes, I wonder how all those dead Pans are faring.”

Pan looked out the window. She imagined that there were alternative timelines, timelines where she was nothing more than a ghost. She glanced at Sotir; he seemed thoughtful.

“I hate to ask.” Alban rubbed his forehead. “How many tries did it take today?”

“One,” Pan answered. “I didn’t need the time message today.”

Aria smiled, and Pan returned it.

“And, how many times did you use it to escape me?” Alban asked.

Aria answered, “She didn’t need it then either. I would have seen it. It would have been a flash of white.”

“She could have done it out of your sight. Now, Pan, you answer.” Alban set hard eyes on Pan.

“Aria’s right. I never used it. By the time I made what I thought of as a mistake, I decided it was too much hassle to correct.”

“To avoid all this, you could have endured a little hassle,” Alban suggested.

“What? Did I hurt your pride? You weren’t hard to escape. In a way, I let you catch me.” Pan’s eyes flicked to Sotir.

Sotir smiled faintly. “So why did you make the choice not to redo?”

Pan didn’t like his tone or the implication of his gaze. He seemed to see right through her.

Pan said, “I wouldn’t have seen Aria.” She looked to Aria and couldn’t remember her friend ever looking so satisfied and calm.

Quiet filled the room, and in that moment, Pan felt bare but more at home as her companions relaxed and started to seem truly comfortable beside her.

“Find a planet. I need a good place to kill Era.” Pan headed to the door. “I want to sleep. Can I get my things off my tug?”

Alban sat down. “I’ll have someone take you straight to a room. They’ll bring you your things. Aria. Irini. Go rest as well. I’m going to do a little research first.”

“I could help,” Irini meekly said.

“She could,” Sotir agreed. “She could use the practice.”

“Let my people do some preliminary work. Then, Sotir will come grab you.” Alban waited for the women to leave.

No one did.

“Dismissed,” he reminded them.

Dismissed. Dismissed he says. Pan was the last to leave. She wondered why Sotir hadn’t been ordered out.