Orlan paused as he took a sip of the coffee on his meeting room table, at least once a week he liked to have these meetings just to ensure his protectorate was running smoothly without issues. The kitchen staff usually provided breakfast and drinks for the meeting, but there was something odd about this coffee.

“It’s coffee we got from the locals, my lord,” one of the staffers explained, seeing his expression.

“Quite a bit… stronger than what we have on the other side,” Orlan commented.

“The knights have been split on the taste,” the woman agreed with a knowing smile as she finished setting a platter of pastries, “everyone has approved of everything else though, my lord, the chefs were especially impressed by the sugar.”

“Thanks,” Orlan nodded, returning her smile as he grabbed a roll and sat down. The rest of the senior staff filing in, from his own senior most knights to the grandmaster of the mage’s spire and a few elders from the town. The last to arrive was Theo, who’d been invited as a guest by Orlan, partly so he could see how the protectorate functioned, and partly because one of the issues was Amy and her Aunt.

“Adalee broke through to the third sphere a couple nights ago,” Lady White reported, “so far she’s doing well with the changes.”

“She uses dream mana right?” Orlan asked, the old warhorse of a woman nodding, “makes sense she broke through at night then.”

“She was asleep at the time, my lord,” White agreed, “nearly destroyed her bedroom unfortunately, nothing valuable was lost though. Other than her, I think the gem sisters, Ruby and Topaz are ready to push for forth sphere, both of them have stabilized in the Earthly Realm, but…”

“But?”

“I’m afraid they might hold off to wait for miss Amy to catch up, they’ve really taken to her.”

“Any suggestions?” Orlan asked, eyeing his coffee suspiciously as he debated whether to refill it or not.

“Offer Topaz a bond if she makes it to forth sphere,” White said immediately, clearly having anticipated the question, “Ruby is still too… immature to bond safely, but seeing her sister do so should motivate Ruby to work at it.”

“Any chance it’ll drive a wedge between them?” Lailra asked.

“No, I’m certain that, if miss Topaz bonds with you successfully, she’ll immediately turn around and assist both Ruby and Amy in moving forward.”

“I’ll want to test Topaz before allowing the bond,” Orlan said, “but beyond that I’ve no objections.”

“I’ve a question,” Theo spoke up for the first time, on his third cup of coffee and having gone through several pastries, “this bond you speak of, how long until Amy is… considered ready for it?”

“At least a couple years,” Orlan replied, “she has to be at least third sphere, but I’d prefer if she made it to fourth before testing her.”

“So not an immediate issue, alright,” Theo sighed, “her Aunt is applying quite a bit of pressure through the media to get her niece back. I’ve told my staff back in Washington to get the paperwork started to declare her an adult, but we’ll probably need to go to court.”

“Anything we can do on this side?”

“I heard the bond thing was akin to marriage, if she was going to bond soon she could apply for dual citizenship,” Theo shrugged, “other than that, she might have to appear in court.”

“For one, the bond isn’t a marriage, the other side just puts them on the same level legally,” Orlan sighed, palming his forehead, “it’s a technicality my knights love to tease me with.”

“Oh calm down, honey,” Lailra said with a teasing smile, “surely you aren’t implying you don’t want to be married to us.”

“See what I mean?” Orlan asked, giving Theo a dry look.

“Oh, I’m hurt!” Lailra replied in mock surprise, holding a hand to her chest, “to think you’d be so rude to your wife!”

“Right,” Theo said, equally confused and amused as he glanced between the two, “in any case, Amy might need to appear in court if her aunt really pushes the issue. And if that happens you know the media will be all over it.”

“Can’t ya just ignore ‘em Lord?” one of the older men at the table asked, he was one of the village elders and possibly the longest non-magic wielding inhabitant of the protectorate, “let ‘em squawk.”

“Unfortunately the US has quite a bit of military power that can be deployed even against us here,” Orlan replied, “including some explosives of, well, apocalyptic potential. Even I don’t know if I can protect the island from a nuke.”

“That you might be able to at all scares me,” Theo commented, “regardless, avoiding conflict is in everyone’s interest, so I’ll do what I can. All I need to know is, if she needs to appear in court, will she be able to?”

“Depending on where the court is, probably,” Orlan replied after a moment, “our cutters can reach North Carolina from here, where I assume the court will be, but just barely.”

“She could take a plane, drop her off at whatever airport is closest and I should be able to get her a flight back,” Theo offered.

“I’ll have to think about that, I don’t want to put her at risk of being kidnapped or attacked.”

“Could we send some other knights with her?” Lailra asked, “for security?”

“Not sure how the media will play that, but it’s possible,” Theo said after a moment’s thought, “the final option is a remote appearance, using facetime or something. Apparently, they allow that now, I’d have to talk to some of the youngsters in my staff about it though. The judge might not like that however.”

“You can call in to court appointments now?” Orlan asked, looking surprised, “technology. Anyways, anything else to bring up Lady White?”

“No, my lord, I saved the issue of the gem sisters for last because I knew we’d be derailed,” Lady White replied.

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“Great, next up… Master Henri?”

“Been a couple complaints about the god-awful racket that gen-er-a-tor thing been makin,” the old villager drawled as the meeting moved on.

-----

“Alright,” Orlan said a few hours later, “last issue, Grandmaster?”

“Right, I’ve got two things,” the old wizard said with only a slight scowl at the title, “first off, the others tell me the academy is ready for an initial class of twenty at any time. We should be able to take on twice that number if we get some apprentices from the first.”

“You teaching?”

“I’ll consider an apprentice if someone awakens to weather mana,” the old man snorted, “students will be arriving in a few days right?”

“Assuming everything goes well,” Theo nodded as Orlan gave him a look.

“Great, second issue… I got some mages together and we did a complete assay of that eye.”

“Ifn yall are gonna talk magic, can I go?” Henri asked, standing and bowing to Orlan after getting a nod before walking out along with the two other elders.

“Should I stay?” Theo asked.

“You got us into this,” Orlan said, nodding for the Grandmaster to continue.

“Alright, first up, our initial assay was correct, the item’s aura provides insight at a cost,” the Grandmaster said, a spell circle appearing around the coffee pot with a wave of his hand, causing the now cold drink to heat up once more, “beyond that the item seems to have four active abilities.

“The first is the one alluded to by the stories, it can form a spell link with any representation of itself, within a narrow band of allowed deviation. A ritual is required to ‘attune’ the eye with a specific symbol, such as the ‘eye of providence’ or ‘eye of Horus.’ Only one symbol can be ‘attuned’ at any given time, we think, but it can link to any instance of that symbol, anywhere in the world.”

“Even if I were to simply draw an eye in a triangle, it would link with it?” Orlan asked.

“Yes, assuming it’s attuned to that symbol. At the current time, we’re pretty sure that’s what the attunement is,” the Grandmaster confirmed, “the second ability is based on the first, basically any magic effecting the eye is passed on to any linked symbol, though at a greatly diluted strength.”

“Wait,” Orlan stiffened, “the aura?”

“Yes, anything carrying the Eye of Providence symbol will have a weak aura of insight,” the old man nodded gravely, “based on research by Lady Nallia and I, the Eye was adopted by the United States as part of its seal shortly after the nation was founded, and was placed on the one dollar bank note close to a century ago. But it would have been common on government documents before then. And, based on what we can tell, the United States have been at the forefront of technological development for the last few hundred years.”

“A lot of other nations have also kept up or pushed science forward,” Theo replied.

“Yes, it’s hard to tell how much of the technological advancement is thanks to the Eye of Providence or just human ingenuity,” the Grandmaster nodded, “but I will point out that government documents, and later bank notes, will have spread to other countries beyond the United States. Best I can tell, all the discoveries and advancements likely would have happened eventually, this magic simply sped the process up. It would also explain why this side is so much more advanced beyond the other.”

“And the cost?” Orlan asked.

“Also hard to tell, the cost can be literally anything. For all I know the Great War that happened on this side a bit over a century ago was part of the cost, or maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know, even the direct aura is very subtle, but spread across so many people in a diluted fashion?” the Grandmaster shrugged helplessly, “but that’s not what worries me the most. What concerns me, is that there is a spell active on the Eye. It’s weak, enough that it was hidden by the aura of the item, but it’s there. And due to the Eye’s property, it will have spread to every representation of the Eye.”

“What’s the spell do?”

“It’s surprisingly simple,” the Grandmaster said, lifting a hand, summoning two spell circles and filling them with runes, “it’s a mental magic spell that introduces a single thought, very subtly to anyone who comes in contact with it.”

“What thought?” Orlan asked, leaning forward to inspect the spell, “and that’s a mind magic spell? It looks like baby’s first spell from how it’s set up.”

“Ya, like I said, it’s very simple and shows very poor understanding of runes, likely because they don’t have access to as many mages on this side,” the Grandmaster nodded, “all it does is whisper very softly in the back of someone’s mind, gently nudging them towards a thought. And that thought… is ‘magic isn’t real.’”

Everyone froze at the implication, their minds racing.

“Why that thought?” Orlan asked after a moment.

“My best guess? To hide themselves, they didn’t have the knowledge to manage anything complex, so they used it to cover up their own influence. From what Master Theo has told us, the group who had this item has been using magic, but we don’t know to what end. Exposing enough people to this spell, no matter how subtle the influence, for long enough can cause people to rationalize even the most blatant magic. It might be why people have been so hard to believe in magic, even after encountering us,” the Grandmaster said.

“That actually makes sense,” Lady White spoke up suddenly, “when she first came here, miss Amy had trouble believing in magic, even as we demonstrated it to her. It took her effort to avoid attempting to explain it away. I figured it was just due to growing up in a world without magic, and that may be part of it, but…”

“What about after awakening?” Orlan asked, “she still show the same difficulty?”

“No, she still expresses disbelief on occasion, but hasn’t had the same issue. That could be due to breaking free of this spell, or because she now has her own magic she can feel.”

“The human mind is complex,” the Grandmaster agreed, “I spoke to several mages who study mental magic, and they concluded that we’d likely never know the true extent of how this spell effected the world.”

“Can we shut it off at least?” Orlan asked.

“We can, but I’m not sure we should,” the older mage said slowly, “for one, most people have lived under the effects of this magic for their entire lives, we don’t know what will happen if we suddenly remove it. The others agreed with this, the effects could be minor and subtle, but we don’t know. The more pressing issue is that, while the spell is so weak that it doesn’t really harm those with a mana allergy, if we disable it suddenly the mana could backwash into people.

“Secondly, we don’t know how the sudden loss of the insight aura will change the world. Most likely it’ll continue collecting whatever debt it’s built up, but won’t provide any more insights. My suggestion is we study the item to find a way to safely dispel both effects.”

“Alright,” Orlan said, not sounding happy about it, finally giving up and reaching for the coffee pot, “you mentioned two other abilities?”

“Right, those are less troubling, the third allows it to break down the aura of a person or another item and display its component parts. Like how a prism breaks apart light. If read properly it can be used to tell quite a lot about something. I think this is what they were going to use on you when you were captured. The final ability allows the user to see through any representation of the Eye, basically shifting your point of view to that of an attuned symbol. This works over any distance, as long as you know where you want to look the Eye will put you in the place of the closest symbol.”

“Why risk such an important item on me?” Orlan asked after a moment, “clearly this item was central to their operations, why use it?”

“It may have once been important, but it lost value recently,” Theo was the one to speak up this time, earning looks from everyone else, “you said its making people think ‘magic isn’t real’ right? Well, how long will that hold out when magic is becoming more and more common? You’re promising to teach it to people, more rifts are appearing every month. Any value it had in hiding their magic whatever is diminishing quickly.”

“They may have also thought the aura decomposition ability would allow them to learn more about magic,” the Grandmaster added, nodding at the other man, “clearly their knowledge of practical magic is lacking, using an item that is rapidly becoming less effective to try and learn something seems like a bet worth taking.”

“Could it have actually helped them?” Orlan asked.

“To an extent, it helps with mana types, affinities and the like, but you can’t use it to view Soul Runes, which is what they’d actually need to expand their spell casting. It might have helped them find out how to do that, however.”

“Well, for now look for a way to safely disable the item,” Orlan said after a moment, sipping at his coffee, “anything else?”

“Actually, yes,” Theo spoke up again as everyone else shook their heads, “got a call from…”

“The Sons of Kayeen?” Orlan offered as the congressman glanced at the others in the room.

“Ya, they’re willing to meet you here if you pick them up.”