The day of the test had arrived, and Camellia would have been more excited had she resisted the urge to tell Florian about her father’s gift.

“So, you don’t think I should send a thank you note?” Camellia asked.

Florian released a frustrated breath. “How can you? He didn’t leave a letter. No signature. For all you know, the envelope comes from someone else. He gave you an easy out, Camellia. Let’s take it.” Florian adjusted the sleeve of his shirt and headed for the door.

Camellia drifted along but didn’t commit to an exit. “What if he really wants me to answer? What if this is some kind of call for help or an admission of…”

Florian held up his hand. “Let me stop you there.” Florian’s gaze softened, and he took Camellia by the shoulders. “This is the man that insists all his children keep their private thoughts open to him. This is the man who tried to marry you off to one of the AAH’s most corrupt members. This is the man that would have sabotaged your career to keep you right where he wanted you.”

Camellia nodded before she set her eyes on the ground.

“He isn’t going to change, Camellia. Not now. Not ever. The envelope he gave you…us… I don’t know what motivated him.” Florian sighed. “He might want you to make contact and reclaim control over you. He might want to send you money out of guilt.”

Camellia raised her eyes, and Florian caught them.

“What I do know is that I don’t want that man to have any part in our lives. Why would I?”

Camellia nodded. “You’re probably right. I just can’t help thinking if I’m the one who was wrong all along. I’m the only person in our family who had a problem with the situation. And…”

“You are not wrong,” Florian said.

They spent a moment, with eyes locked.

“I may not enjoy his company, but someday, I want to see my brothers and their families again. You wouldn’t mind them,” Camellia said.

Florian sighed. “Probably not, but it seems we can’t have one without the other.” Florian released her shoulders and turned for the door. “Let’s not be late.”

When Camellia and Florian entered the bridge, they found everyone had arrived. Rooks stood by her console on the upper level, with Inez and Eder on one side and a couple of crew on the other. They talked softly, explaining how everything should go to the skeptical Curator Rooks.

Eva and Sten waited by the benches on the back wall, with Meladee and Benham. The whole group was still, except for Meladee. She tapped her foot, bounced her knee, and drummed her fingers in an alternating pattern.

“Eva. Sten. Benham.” Camellia nodded her greeting to each. “Meladee. Nervous?”

Meladee turned a look of incredulous surprise towards Camellia. “Aren’t you nervous? This is crazy. This is absolutely insane. To think that I have had to live through Lurrien monsters, and now people want to change the wormhole. All in my insignificant little lifetime. What did I do to deserve this?” Meladee gestured to Fauchard’s giant windshield, beyond which drifted the wormhole, a nearly transparent bubble in space. “We don’t know what’s going to be on the other side. And, I disagree that it'll be humanoids.”

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Florian turned. “We still have a good chance of getting humanoids.”

Camellia shrugged. “They might not be friendly, regardless of their shape.”

Meladee paled. “Just like the Finial – those were unfriendly humanoids.”

Camellia pondered aloud, “They were, but we have no idea how friendly Girandola’s non-humanoid species were.”

“Girandola had aliens that weren’t people shaped?” Meladee asked.

Camellia nodded. “Yes. And, you saw them. Most didn’t participate in the Finial, but they existed.”

Meladee frowned. “How come I never noticed?”

“You did. I guess later…” Camellia let the words hang in the air, but she gave Meladee a pointed look.

Benham sat still and smiling. “You were too busy thinking about the cruise ship, and expensive necklaces…and mushrooms trees. Am I missing anything?”

“The worst thing that could happen,” Eva said. “Is for us to find another of Ah’nee’thit’s kind. Or something like that. Something that is alien enough to be at odds with us, but similar enough to live on our world. The rest should have no concern for us.”

Sten nodded slow. “An optimistic view. Very good. That should put your mind at ease?” Sten addressed the last to Meladee.

Before Meladee could answer, Rooks turned.

“We’re ready to begin the test on the natural wormhole,” Rooks said. “All spectators, please take your seats on the benches. Officers to your posts. Inez and Eder…you may begin.” Rooks turned away again and looked out the windshield.

Inez and Eder also faced the windshield. They blocked some of Camellia’s view but not enough to mar the curve of the bubble in space.

A magic circle appeared, not inside the bridge, but outside. It hovered just around the edges of the wormhole, and as it rippled into being, Camellia counted the rings.

A large outer ring, filled with symbols, encased nine smaller rings. The rings were almost too narrow for Camellia to discern the symbols. As the circle formed atop the wormhole, Camellia struggled to discern which shapes and shades belonged to the ring and which belonged to the wormhole. At the circle’s center, Camellia saw a tangle of sharp, geometric lines. They wove from center to rings and back again, creating a complex star that joined symbols. The magic circle glowed in weak white.

“Location alpha, please,” Rooks ordered.

Four symbols – located in the outer ring at the north, south, west, and east points – shifted and melted. They changed to new symbols, and Camellia realized they had been placeholders.

Four symbols is all they need to change the wormhole’s location? That seems…too simple.

Camellia shifted. In space, shielded from Iruedim’s sun by the planet itself and Fauchard’s hull, she possessed the height of her nighttime abilities. She kept out of people’s heads, but she couldn’t quiet the cacophony of hearts, all beating fast in their rhythms.

Aside from her own, Camellia could pick out two. She recognized the thump of Florian’s, and she heard Meladee’s nearby, going faster than possibly any other heart on the bridge. In the background, Camellia thought she detected a whir, perhaps of machinery.

Eva’s ‘heart.’

All voices stayed quiet, giving Inez and Eder the perfect environment for concentration.

“Curator?” Someone called from below. “The wormhole entrance is showing instability.”

The spell finished before Rooks could order the mages to cease. Light flashed before the windshield, and Rooks, with eyes wide open in shock, must have been painfully blinded.

Camellia couldn’t tell because she had been painfully blinded herself. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands over the lids.

“Inez. Eder. Break off the spell work.” Under her breath, Rooks added, “God. Anyone who can see their board, give me an update.”

“We’re still detecting Iruedim nearby, and the wormhole entrance has moved back to its original location. It’s stable, but we’re sitting inside the edge now.”

“Back out,” Rooks ordered. “That’s in! I said out.”

“Camellia,” Florian spoke nearby. He wrapped an arm around her. “How are your eyes? Can you see?”

“Oh, not yet,” Camellia answered. “I’m not the only one it sounds like.” Camellia wondered if they were moving out of the wormhole yet.

“I said to back out!” Rooks sounded mad.

Guess not.

“We can’t!”

And with that, Camellia deduced that the wormhole was taking them somewhere else.