Iris kept her legs moving, refusing to quench the flames that had only just started to fuel her body. She sprinted out of Excala station’s front entrance, blowing past civilians with little regard for whatever was not directly in front of her.

She reached where the small cloud of Aether had been. It was no longer fizzling with energy, yet the air was still warm in an Aetherial sense. Iris searched her surroundings, scrutinising the area for a pursuable trail.

The station square was as uninteresting as she would have expected. Spanning such an area in such a short time was impossible—by usual means, of course. Iris could only spot small children running about, no one the age she had guesstimated.

Elvera caught up to her, but Iris was too preoccupied with the search.

“Those sketchy guys are all going that way, Iris,” she said. Elvera was right, the suspiciously hurried commuters were all running westward, out of the square and into the city.

“Let’s follow them,” Iris said.

The two rushed after the pursuers, taking care to keep a distance as they followed. They turned into a well-travelled alleyway, the hunters pushing past people as they kept a consistent heading. The predators were somehow tracking their prey. In comparison, Iris could no longer find the same magic she had sensed before. Even when the alleyway opened into more generous sight-lines, she was unable to get a read on anything noteworthy.

Then she caught something.

Past the decorative alley-spanning banners and flowery balconies above, she sensed the faint radiance of another Aether pull. It was on the move and fast. Iris could be sure now.

She searched for a left turn, anywhere she could duck into for concealment. One soon came to her, and she pulled Elvera in, squatting behind a dumpster.

“They’re on the roof. I’m going to pull us up.”

“Can you do that?” Elvera asked.

“I think so. I know I can catch us if we fall.”

Elvera looked sceptical, but it did not take long for Iris to gain her approval.

“Let’s do it,” she said. Iris grabbed Elvera’s waistband and pointed a palm to the rooftop of the next building.

“You’re heavier than me, so hold on really, really well,” Iris said. She was accustomed to the manoeuvre by now but had only ever performed it solo, let alone while carrying someone heavier.

She felt Elvera hang onto her tight, tighter than any hug Iris had ever felt. Whatever distance was still present between them, now was not the time.

Iris, rather than concentrating herself, treated the dissipation of her hair and formation of the grapple as one fluid motion. The entire procedure would be done as though it were a habit. Overthinking added time and increased risk. She had to believe she would succeed in order to do so, and have faith that it would work as Elliot had instructed.

She was not in complete control, but ever since Fadaak, she had been one step closer.

The purple spindle shot out from her hand, remaining taut as it travelled into the air. It acted not like a rope subject to gravity but more like the limb of a spider. It was not quick or as mobile as the limbs she used to conjure out of instinct, but it was simpler and, most importantly, low profile.

The grapple caught the roof's edge and, upon confirming its security, Iris began to ascend without hesitation. Create momentum and lessen time, eliminate Elvera’s weight as an issue whatsoever.

They sped up the side of the building as brickwork rushed past their noses. Iris kept her legs poised to kick herself off the wall if necessary, yet they approached the top with no issue. Iris’s arm whipped downwards as the ledge sped past them. She disassembled the purple rope and fell to the roof, the matter returning to the ends of her hair.

They began to run again, searching the city's canopy for signs of life. Iris found one with ease, sticking out like a sore thumb as it ran a few tens of metres ahead. The magical spark was gone, but the individual remained. She could make out no detail of his person besides his defining features, which she seared into her mind.

“Iris, stop,” Elvera ordered, extending a hand in front of her. Iris halted, skidding dangerously along the roof tiles.

“What?” she asked.

“They’ve caught up to him.”

The pursuers leapt onto the roofs, cutting the boy off from any and all escape routes. They were all suited, wearing trench coats and low-brim caps, yet nothing of a uniform colour. Iris squinted, trying to make out anything distinct about any of them.

The men all simultaneously drew something from their coats. Iris’s first thought was guns, but what they instead revealed only confused her more.

“Sticks?” she muttered.

“Sticks?” Elvera repeated. “Iris, are there any Aether pulls around them?”

Iris honed her senses again, searching across all six men, but more accurately the sticks they had drawn. They, along with the boy’s hands all lit up in unison.

“It’s faint, but it’s there—”

Then everything descended into chaos.

In one fell swoop, bolts of concentrated magic of all shapes and colours erupted from the six agents, flooding Iris’s senses and forcing her out of her focused state. Shimmering crystals, swirling green fire, red corrupting roots, and a bolt of pure, potent energy. Four varieties of magic descended upon the boy, who in that instant, erected barriers of bolted steel from nothing.

The initial explosion subsided, and the boy’s deceptive frame began to show its full hand. He took cover in the upheaval of dust and debris, sprinting for the first man and opening with a double-leg take down. In one swift move, he mounted him and delivered a blow to the skull. He erected another wall on his flank before the magic from his fists flared up. This time was roots, red and thorny. The wooden tendrils coiled around the closest man, digging into his flesh and immobilising him like nature reclaiming an ancient ruin. The boy dodged a bolt of blue magic, narrowly side-stepping its path. The assaulting wizard tried again, this time synchronising his attack with his remaining comrades.

The boy’s fists flashed once more, and he hurled a punch at the blue bolt, neutralising it with a now crystalline forearm. A strand of the same crystals caught him in his back, but he still managed to roll out of the fire’s path. He sprinted for the man with the blue bolts, dodging a limp punch before grabbing his arm and taking him down, delivering yet another knockout blow.

“He’s using brass knuckles,” Elvera noted. “There’s no way one punch can knock out someone like that.”

The knuckles flashed again, and this time Iris noticed subtle differences between the two. The boy, with one powerful push upward, erected a crystalline barrier in front of him while the other fist began to burn bright. He whipped it to his left clockwise and caught the two on the far side of the barrier with a snaking trail of flames.

One man remained standing. The boy turned in his direction, but the hunter did not move an inch. Whatever training he had acquired had all but evaporated, and the limp stick in his hand wavered aimlessly. Iris sensed another pulse from the rod, and the man erected a bolted steel barrier. By the time the boy had gotten to the other side, the man had disappeared.

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The prey stood for a moment. His shoulders relaxed, and his stance grew limp.

He began to laugh.

“And then we lost him,” Elvera explained, massaging her feet as she leaned back in her chair. She dragged the restaurant’s menu off the side of the glass table and lazily turned it over. ‘Yeraki’s Alfante River cuisine,’ the logo read in ornamental print. Each letter’s lines coiled around themselves unnecessarily, almost gaudily. Despite their poor choice in typography, Elliot had sworn by the food itself, and with everyone else clueless as to matters of cuisine, they had all obliged. ‘The part-time househusband life chose me,’ he would always say, half proud and half exhausted. Now, he sat, the only one deeply invested in the menu.

“How’d you lose him?” Evalyn asked. Work mode had not left the tone in which she spoke just yet, despite her efforts to dress less serious. A white blouse tucked into a long, red pleated skirt, and despite the cold, she hung her denim jacket on her seat behind her.

“They were fast. I’ve got an inkling as to how he scaled the building, but he somehow got down all by himself.”

Elvera completed her story, leaving Evalyn to digest the information. Not the most gourmet of entrees, but Iris knew Elvera was just as hopeless at cooking as Evalyn.

“What are we having, Elliot?” Elvera asked from across the table.

“I thought I’d get four dishes we can just share amongst ourselves. What was that one thing you really messed with last time we came here, Evalyn?”

“Messed with? I don’t even think the chef would take that wording as a compliment.”

“Well, you were stuffing your face like I hadn't fed you in six weeks.”

“Unnecessary!” she hissed, pinching him through his sleeve. He grinned at her from behind the menu, his eyes telling her to get on with it. “The Aerilian lobster tail,” she finally admitted. “It was…it was good.”

“It’s pretty expensive,” Elliot noted, dinner coming out of his paycheck. Even to Iris, it was obvious Evalyn was following a path of conversation Elliot had long laid out for her. He prodded her with his smiling eyes, peeping over the menu. Evalyn squirmed for a second or two before she gave in to the pressure.

“P-please? It would mean a lot to me, Elly.”

Elliot won, and he relished his prize in giddy silence. “Anything for you,” he said. Iris felt a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to face Elvera, who stuck out a tongue.

“Bleugh,” she went, and Iris copied the gesture. They both felt a firm kick in the shin not long after.

“All right, I’m ordering,” Elliot said, pushing his chair out and raising a hand. Iris watched as he hunted the restaurant for eye contact with any staff.

Despite the tackiness of their menus, the restaurant was a large affair, taking up the entire ground floor of a riverside apartment block. Their table straddled the river’s edge, and the familiar lapping of the gentle water mingled with clinking cutlery and carefree chattering. If it were not for the smell teasing her hunger, Iris would have easily fallen asleep to the tip-toeing soundscape and aureate lighting.

After a few seconds, Elliot caught the attention of a waitress who sped over, pen and notebook at the ready. Elliot’s order was extensive, not in volume but in meticulousness. Specifics that would make any chef feel their recipes were being violated, yet the waitress noted his orders down all the same. Either it was supreme confidence on Elliot’s part, or the restaurant was simply used to his antics by now.

“You were sure they were wands?” Evalyn whispered, directing her question to Iris as well as Elvera.

“I don’t know what other sticks are capable of magic,” Elvera said, lowering her voice in turn. Evalyn turned towards Iris, her eyebrows furrowed, searching for an answer.

“It was the sticks, not their bodies.” She was clueless on just about everything else, but she believed what she had sensed that morning. Evalyn nodded, trusting Iris’s abilities as well as her own teaching.

“Then we’re dealing with the Vesmos Empire, huh?” she sighed, slumping into her seat and rubbing her eyes. “They’re the last people I wanted on my mind right now.” She turned to Elliot, still talking to the waitress and tugged on his shirt.

“What’s up?”

“Get me a Gin and Tonic, please. I need it.”

“I thought you didn’t like drinking after work.”

“Vesmos.”

Elliot gritted his teeth. “Yikes. Gin and Tonic as well, please.” He looked over to Elvera, massaging her neck. “Make that two.”

The waitress scribbled the last order down before Elliot dismissed her with a brief smile. “Thank you,” he chimed as he turned again, his demeanour stiffening. “Get the work talk out the way before the drinks come.” He pointed fingers at Evalyn, then Elvera, then at Iris.

“Me? I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Yeah, which is why they have to explain it to you.”

“Have you seen a map of the continent recently, Iris?” Evalyn asked.

“I’ve seen maps from your archive and Elvera’s office, but they’re only ever of countries or cities.”

“Well,” Evalyn said, plucking a napkin from the small metal dispenser. She laid it flat in the middle of the table before looking through her handbag, fishing for a pen. She found one and began to draw.

“We’re all on this big land mass, right? One big dysfunctional family,” she said as she drew out a familiar shape. Although lacking all the contours and finer details, Iris could roughly pinpoint where Excala was all the same.

“To the east, we have the Karaxian mountains, running up and down. Starting there, and running all the way through the middle, we have the Northern Chain Ridge. East is Spirit land. That’s where they come from. There’s a lot of them, and they don’t let humans in very much…at all. West is human land. Old as hell, and there happens to be even more of them there. Same story when it comes to their…strict immigration policy.”

She drew circles around the easternmost and westernmost points of the continent. The Spirit nations lay behind the Karaxians, heralding the mountains as their impenetrable shield. A natural border covering their lands where the sea could not. Human lands were vast, and their countries many. Encompassing much of the western corner, they were more liberal with their colonisation of the land.

“In the middle, we have us, the Middling nations. Geverde, Sidos, Fadaak and Rodshiva among many others. Each flip-flops between who’s in charge based on ancient wars and truces. Generally, the further east, the more likely you’re Spirit dominant, the further west, the more human dominant. But, there’s one outlier.”

She circled an alarmingly large portion of the eastern regions. Spanning from the edge of the Karaxians to the northern deserts and southern seaboard. The only state Iris knew of that spanned the Northern Chain Ridge itself.

“Vesmos Empire,” Elvera started. “Warmongers that somehow grabbed a foothold in the east. They spread from there, swallowing up every state they could conquer. Spirit, human, anything. They incorporated humans into their citizenry. Spirits weren’t so lucky.”

“The wands were infused with Spirit magic, weren’t they?” Iris interrupted.

“They invented it. Infusion, that is. It only came to Geverde a few hundred years later. Even then, they were only to be used in tools, weapons. Inanimate objects that created distance between the operator and the magic itself.”

“Wands are just as taboo as Witches and Wizards,” Evalyn added. “Giving the masses the power of Aether is how you come close to god.”

“Or fly too close to the sun,” Elvera said. “They’re hard to deal with bureaucracy-wise. Most war-prone nations are. They don’t take many liberties with us either, now that we’re allied with Sidos.”

“Have you worked there before?” Iris asked Evalyn, who lazily bobbed her head in a nod-like movement.

“Keeping that many ethnic minorities in your citizenry leads to all kinds of rebellions. Foreign powers have weaselled their way in by sponsoring those groups, but they’re almost always crushed in some way or another. Colte and I got commissioned by a rebel group once, nothing to do with Marie and Spec Ops.”

The two career women slumped in their chairs, unable to handle life sober for much longer.

“The mole from the Fadaak adventure’s still floating around somewhere and now this too?” Elvera sighed.

“Elly, I’ll be the housewife for a month, so can you do my job for me?” Evalyn groaned.

“You’re forgetting I’m a pilot too,” he smiled, patting her back in an attempt to rouse her. “Speaking of Aerilian lobster,” he said, several minutes after anyone last mentioned lobster, “how is Colte doing? Is he still in Aerilia?”

“Yeah, he is. He’s seen to all the funerals, so he’s back in Aerilia for a while,” Elvera answered. “He suggested I leave for Excala before I run out of leave, so I told him to show his face in the capital soon.”

“Is he doing all right?” Elliot asked, showing uncharacteristic sympathy for the man he had dreaded reuniting with only a month prior. There was a subdued disquiet across his face, one that he shared with Evalyn.

“I don’t know. Going to a state funeral is enough to bum me out for the rest of the week, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t doing so hot right now.”

“No, he felt off the whole time,” Evalyn said, her cheek squished against her folded arms as she slumped over the table. “He’s usually just as annoying as Elly, but his entire demeanour was off. Felt like he was living up to his nickname.”

The Ash Man. For such a grizzled image, it was a strangely fairytale-esque name, yet nonetheless foreboding. It resembled the colloquial names soldiers would give their weapons. Boom-stick, fiddy cal, Ash Man.

“He hasn’t been running with Daugherty recently. That could be why,” Evalyn pondered. The three adults drifted into each other’s thoughts as they all took on the same expressions. A name, that was all that man was to Iris.

“Two Gin and Tonics, one Porter and a glass of lemon soda. Will that be all for drinks?”

A waiter arrived at their table, holding a platter of sparkling glasses, filled to the brim with appetising hues of orange and brown, sprightly bubbles and ice that clinked like wind chimes. The entire set shimmered like stained glass in the afternoon sun. He placed down each drink with care, garnering a thank you from each recipient before he tucked the tray under his arm and gave a bow.

“All right, keep your promise. No more work talk, okay?” Elliot warned, pointing fingers at all three women. Once satisfied, he raised his pint, urging everyone else to follow.

“Cheers,” the adults all said in unison.

“C-cheers?” Iris stuttered, a tad late.