“How’s the flat?” Sid asked, putting her mug back down on a coaster with pierce brosnan’s face on it.

“It’s good, really spacious.” Dotty smiled as she answered, and I couldn’t tell whether the two had hit it off or if Dotty wanted to put the woman through a wall.

“We’ve gotten pretty settled in, the last of our stuff arrived a few days ago and now we’re just filling the place up.” I tried not to let the silence hang too much.

“I’m glad. And you’re sure you don’t want one of the two-bedrooms? It wouldn’t be much hassle and-”

“No it’s cool, really,” Dotty interrupted, “There’s a Spoons ‘round the corner and it’s not far from work, I like it here.” She looked at me, with an ever-so-slight pleading look in her eyes.

“Yeah, it’s great, I love it too.” I agreed. “Hey, do you want to see the thing Katrine and I have been working on?”

“Hm? Oh yeah, the reason I came in the first place. It was nice talking to you, Dotty.”

“You too, I’ll find something to do somewhere else, have fun with your magic frisbees”

Dotty was out the door like she was running for it, but Sid didn’t seem to notice. “I guess it does look a bit like a frisbee,” she said to nobody in particular as I led her to the bedroom, which doubled as my workspace.

“Sorry about telling her, I didn’t really have a choice.”

“This isn’t a comic book,” she replied, “If you tried hiding something like this from your roommate she’d only get hurt trying to investigate on her own, It’s good you told her.” That made some sort of sense, but I still didn’t like bringing Dotty into all this. It felt like I was putting her in the firing line somehow, like just knowing endangered her.

The flat was a one-bedroom, but that didn’t quite convey just how big it was. The bedroom alone was most of the size of Dotty’s old flat, more than big enough for us to split it down the middle. Dotty’s side was covered in clothes spilling out of a near-empty dresser, with a bookshelf stood against the wall next to her bed. Her bed was nearly permanently unmade. My side wasn’t neat, not by any measure, but it was more cluttered than messy. I’d set up an IKEA desk as my workbench, and with space to put out all my equipment in one place, I realised how much electronics stuff I owned. IT was a small wonder that it had all fit in one flat, my PC tower was covered in a mess of wiring, playing a screensaver on my monitor. The frisbee, the Component, as Katrine was calling it, was on my desk. It had been a nightmare to weld together, but it was finished now. Copper wiring bent into a circle, and then a triangle, then a mess of other shapes that unfocused my eyes if I looked too hard. All in all, it was about two feet wide.

“Does it work?” she asked, picking it up to study the patterns.

“I haven’t tried it yet, Katrine is still working on translating the book, when she’s got it sorted then we’ll know what each shape does and we can use the Component.” I cleared some space for it when she placed it down.

“Kat says the two of you have worked out some sort of understanding of it, is that true?”

“Yeah, but it’s not complete, it might not work properly.” Sid inhaled, squeezed her eyes and then shoved the Component into my hands before staggering backwards to the bed. She held her head in her hands and breathed deeply for a few moments as if she was trying not to throw up.

“Okay, that’s something to note. Squares and triangles take in a lot more energy than circles.” She got up, “Shit, that was a lot. Try programming it, just to see if it works, I need to eat something.”

This was a bad idea, I didn’t like it. What if I ended up giving her cancer? What if I turned her into a frog? Anything could happen, this probably hadn’t even been attempted for centuries. What if it just didn’t work?

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

But what if it did?

I got to work. The point of the spell, Katrine had told me, was threefold. First, it would identify a person’s ‘true self’, or the version of them as they perceived themselves. Second, it would identify the person’s body, examine it, with a few smaller components that worked with time. Thirdly, it would manipulate the body to match the mind’s version of it. It was worrying to think about, but Katrine assured me that the picture of me that it would scrape was from my subconscious, so I couldn’t think my way into having red hair. I got to work, as best as I could, consulting text messages and audio noted from Katrine while I did. The triangle, the Vigilem, was a sort of battery, it could hold magic longer than any of our rings could, days or weeks. I’d never tried to use one that hadn’t been charged up in the last ten minutes. The pentagon focussed on the mind-reading, and the book told me to read an incantation while I charged it, to make sure it was programmed right. A mess of squares connected to the pentagons, they did the actual changing. Different shapes did different things, but there was a lot of overlap. triangles and pentagons were both used for things involving the mind, triangles and squares dealt with changing concepts. Katrine had been right about the dream logic, when I thought too hard about it the connections started to break and I could sense the magic escaping the Component, like watercolours running.

“Is it done?” I didn’t notice Sid, now on the bed, most of the way through a toastie

“No promises to it working, but I think so” I could feel something radiating off the Component. On the rings, it felt like heat, but with enough of it in one place I could tell it was something different. If this were heat we’d both be sweating bullets, but I was comfortable in my hoodie. It was heat-adjacent, but not. A different kind of energy.

“How does it work?” Sid gingerly touched it, then picked it up when it wasn’t hot to the touch.

“Now that it’s charged, it only really needs top-ups. ‘Magic in a pre-existing component shifts form to suit the programming’” I quoted Katrine, “Place it on the floor, touch the vigilem, that triangle there, and ‘recite thrice your ailment’ is what the text says.”

Sid gently put it down. “This triangle?”

“Yup”

“Okay. I don’t have any ailments, pass us that thumbtack?” I gave it to her and she pricked the back of her wrist, enough to draw blood

“Ta-da, ailment. If I end up growing spurs it’s your fault.” She was joking, but when she put her arm over the Component I half expected it to get worse, or for her to keel over vomiting, but when she finished chanting “A cut on my wrist” All that happened was the skin around her wrist closed up and got lighter.

“Works a charm, well done Chloe.” She looked different somehow. Older? No, but her hair was longer than it had been five minutes ago, it rested around her shoulders when it was usually cut to barely brush them.

“It’s not as specific as I want it. Look, it’s changed your hair.”

“Hm?” she picked up a lock and examined it, “Well, it was never going to be perfect. We can work on it later, but for now, this is… It’s a lot. If this exists, then others do too. Kat wants as many Components as she can get her hands on before she starts working on her own.”

I sighed. “That’s the next job, isn’t it?” Sid turned to me and lifted herself back up. “The USB, Addie’s training session. We’re going to steal another one, aren’t we?” Sid nodded in response.

“We got incredibly lucky with the first, they don’t do convoys that often, not this close to the shop. One a year, if we’re lucky. Addie found a safehouse where one is being held down in Crawley, ‘Lucille’s Far-Seeing Eye’ is what they’re calling it in internal memos.”

I sat myself down. I’d been steeling myself for the next job, but knowing what it was made it more real. I didn’t like it. “Fine. I’m in, but only for the spell.” I’d be lying if I said that this wasn’t fascinating, magic with rules, rules that I could learn. My mind was already racing with ideas, ways to integrate magic and technology.

“One more thing, Chlo.” Sid interrupted my thoughts. “How long have you been using magic?”

“Hm? Only since I met you, I was bluffing when we first met.” She got up and went over to my PC tower.

“You built this, right?” She placed her hand on the top.

“Yeah. It’s a piece of shit, ancient, but it runs well. I don’t know how it hasn’t broken down yet.”

“I think I do,” She closed her eyes and exhaled “Come here, feel this.” I got up and went over. The cooling fans didn’t work properly so it was always running hot, except now it was hotter than usual, dangerously hot, I should-

No. No, it wasn’t hot, not quite. I looked at Sid, confused, “What did you do?”

“I added magic to a pre-existing Component, which shifted to suit the programming” She grinned. “I think you’ve been doing this a lot longer than any of us realise, Chloe, and I think we might have just figured a solution to your issues with magic.”