“I don’t know if I would consider this as ‘not doing anything stupid,’” Syl said, amused.

Jennifer whooped, hair whipping back in the wind as the hovercraft blasted down an empty highway reserved for military and agricultural supplements. “What do you mean? This is perfectly safe.”

Syl also wasn’t sure about her assessment of what was safe or not given the fact that they were screaming down a sparsely lit highway at speeds in excess of three hundred kilometers an hour. Enchantments covering the exposed exterior of the craft shut out the worst of the wind and sound, but Jennifer had intentionally lowered the power on said spell for little reason other than her own amusement.

To be fair, he’d survived a lot worse than a hovercraft crash, but that didn’t exactly mean he wanted to go through one again. Putting his body back together had been annoying enough when he hadn’t had to account for an FCD in his throat.

“Relax a bit sometime,” Jennifer told him. “There’s thirty-six failsafes built into this for anything short of a strategic-class magician.”

Syl didn’t relax, mostly because that wasn’t entirely out of the question. While his intelligence was good, he knew better than most how unreliable even the best spy units could be. In a post-flux world, there were too many variables to ever be sure of a forecast even one day out. When a single missed variable in one otherwise unassuming magician could mean the difference between a hundred thousand people living or dying, it was never safe to believe that you knew everything that was going on.

He would know. Syl’s job had entailed being that missing variable for years.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“An empty space,” Jennifer said. “It’s technically Green property, but we haven’t touched it in ages. The ground is salted from the war so nothing grows there and it’s not great for building, so it’s just a patch of desert in the middle of Auria.”

“I didn’t take you for someone who would have a particular enjoyment for the desert bioscape.”

“It’s not about what’s there,” she replied. “It’s about what’s not. Ah, here we are. It’s half a hundred kilometers from here, all straight.”

Their surroundings blurred as the craft accelerated further. Syl hadn’t frequented this part of Auria for roughly the same reason he assumed that Jennifer enjoyed it. It was quiet in more than one way. There were no Gates and no Towers in this area, which meant ambient flux was relatively static. A lack of soft targets also meant that there had never been external interest in conquering or undermining this land except if it was part of taking over the entirety of Auria.

It was one of the few parts of the country Syl had never spilled blood on.

“I can see why you would like this,” he said quietly.

Jennifer glanced at him and smiled. “It’s a nice change of pace. Hold on.”

The craft started decelerating once the lights went from sparse to nonexistent and the foliage and fields gave way to rocky hills and desolate sand.

With the raw speed the craft had hit, it hadn’t taken long at all to arrive. Night had fallen by the time the two of them settled to a stop shortly off the road. The stars were almost painfully bright here, neither smog nor flux obstructing the view of the sky.

The temperature was temperate as always, but Syl cast a basic warmth charm for both of them anyway.

“Sorry to bring you out this far,” Jennifer said, grabbing a backpack from the craft. “I needed something to center myself.”

“No worries,” Syl said. “I’ll catch up if you strand me.”

She chuckled. “I believe that.”

Jennifer took her glasses off, gently folding them before placing them in her backpack. “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

The engineer side-eyed him. “You’re not always the best liar, you know.”

That was true. Syl was a fantastic liar for what mattered. When it came to trying to muster up genuine excitement for a sight, he didn’t have the energy to patch over the parts of him that had been irreparably broken years ago.

“I know,” he said. “You didn’t have to take me this far to confirm that.”

“I came here for me,” she said. “I can see more magic than stars even here, but in this desert, it doesn’t hurt.”

“The glasses aren’t your favorite, I’m taking it.”

“They make a chronic problem manageable, but they’re quite literally blinding. Their flux pattern suppresses the occipital lobe.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Syl nodded. There was a reason that so many people with flux hypersensitivity risked going blind.

“The FCD mod also doesn’t work with them, right?”

Jennifer shook her head. “It’s one or the other. I’ve been building my resistance to the hypersensitivity for a while, but that just means the pain isn’t entirely crippling. I’ll be using it during the games, of course, but…”

“I had hoped to speak to you about that, actually,” Syl said, bringing the FCD add-on he’d been tinkering with the past few weeks. “I’ve made a bit of progress recently, most especially with this.”

The eighth-year prismatic looked at it in wonder. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Magic can’t read minds. I don’t know what you think it is.”

Jennifer snorted. “These are modified blocker glasses.”

“I automated more of the process,” Syl said. “It fed into finding a better solution with blockers. I had wanted to artificially replicate the sensitivity to feed the design you created, but that wasn’t feasible with the amount of time I had. I decided on examining the blockers themselves. We have three people with hypersensitivity on our anti-Cascadia circuit team, which means this would be a pretty solid force multiplier in the event everyone has to participate in combat.”

“You’re feeding the blocker with ambient flux emissions,” Jennifer said, examining it more closely. “Like an insanely efficient overcharge battery… can I touch it?”

“Go ahead,” Syl said. “I have enough prototypes for everyone with a replacement or two. The shielding isn’t very strong yet, though.”

“That’s fine,” Jennifer said absentmindedly, lost in the design. “I have a few shields meant specifically for blockers. I’ll distribute them.”

“Try them on,” Syl suggested.

She did, gasping when the program kicked in. “How the hell?”

“Your design helped a lot,” Syl said. “I used a bunch of the principles you refined or pioneered to create a overcharge loop with basically nothing. It also further automates what you started so that it primes your casting process for spells you’re most likely to use given your surroundings.”

“I can understand that part,” Jennifer said. “How did you make it a sliding scale? Blockers are an all-or-nothing. Always have been.”

Syl shrugged. “I’m good at what I do.”

The actual explanation was far too long to give without the help of a good deal of equipment. It involved several techniques that standard Aurian spell theory did not examine as well as a touch of very illegal chaonite.

“This is incredible,” Jennifer breathed.

“Keep it,” Syl said. “I have the designs.”

The engineer sighed. “This is why I brought you here, Syl. No cameras. No monitoring, not even from my family. It’s no consecrated site, but there’s nobody who even turns an eye here.”

Those were dangerous words—or, at least, the indication that there would be dangerous words. Syl made no indication that he was prepared for a fight, of course. All his quick and lethal spells were preloaded.

“A bit ominous,” he said.

“I’m going to be up front with you,” Jennifer said. “You’re too good at what you do.”

“Thank you,” Syl said drily.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” she said. “Or it was, but it wasn’t only a compliment. Contrary to what you might think of me, I know my shit.”

“I never implied otherwise.”

“Be that as it may, I know what I’m seeing. You’re a combat prodigy, which is absurd enough in its own right given the limitations you have and your age, but it’s your engineering that’s giving it away. No normal eighteen year old has the amount of insight you have into even basic principles, let alone the capacity to repeatedly make groundbreaking magical discoveries.”

“It’s a bit of a stretch to call them groundbreaking.”

“No,” Jennifer said, shaking her head. “It isn’t. I don’t know how you’re doing it. I know you have a connection to Incarnate, so I guess it’s feasible you’re getting information from them—but again, that’s not something a regular eighteen year old does. Incarnate isn’t a company that just hands their secrets out to people period, let alone a student. Are you even eighteen years old?”

“You can check my records and scan me,” Syl said. “No, I’m not lying about my age.”

Technically. His original birthdate was the one thing that wouldn’t line up, but those records had been well and truly lost during the war.

“Then my other points stand,” Jennifer said. “Who are you, Syl? I’ll be up front with you and say that I’ve been looking into who you are. You know of my family, I’m sure.”

The Greens were notorious for their information collection, that was true—they were the second half of Auria’s best subterfuge, with the Violets taking the more violent half of it.

“I am,” Syl said lightly. “Was what you found satisfactory?”

“Not in the slightest.” Jennifer sighed, hands going to fidget with her glasses before realizing they weren’t her own at the moment. “By all accounts, your Aurian ID checks out. Everything’s clean. You’re not a secret terrorist or anything, which the country should be grateful for. Once I started digging deeper, though, I started finding things.”

Syl did not show surprise, but he certainly felt it.

He knew the Greens had held some level of information on him, but for a young, potentially subversive member to get that information? That was another situation entirely.

“It’s all classified,” Jennifer continued. “Black marks, entire archives of documents consigned to the ether with little more than fragments of titles remaining, redactions everywhere, security so tight that you’d think you were a royal.”

“I see.” That wasn’t great. He had hoped to go longer before anyone started growing suspicious beyond a basic level.

“So I’m going to ask you this one more time. Sylvester Auria—if that’s even your real name—who are you?”

Syl breathed in, closing his eyes. “I’d appreciate if you didn’t use that name. I don’t always like being reminded of what I’ve lost.”

“Syl, then. The question stands.”

When he opened his eyes again, his flux was entirely stable. Motionless, just like the air around them.

“To be clear, this is not a threat,” he said. “I do not want to give that impression.”

Jennifer frowned, shying away from him, fingers twitching as if reaching for her FCD. “And yet you are.”

“I would advise that you tread lightly,” Syl said simply. “Nobody will like what happens when you dig deeper.”

Though it was dark, he knew Jennifer would still be able to see his flux. She’d turned the blockers off, looking into his eyes with a faintly horrified wonder.

Syl also knew what she would see there—the same that so many others had. It was, as he said, not a threat. To call it a warning captured the idea better, but it was still imperfect.

It was a promise of what lay ahead, an answer to an unasked question.

Jennifer gulped, stepping away again. “I will… keep that in mind.”

“Thank you,” Syl said. “Then let’s enjoy the time we have left. Tomorrow could change the trajectory of our country.”

Slowly, somewhat reluctantly, Jennifer nodded.

Good, he thought. It’s better that you live not knowing what you just avoided.