“The good news,” my instructor--whose name when I finally thought to ask for it was Gary Westlake, of all things--was saying, ”Is that you’ve only had one terrible idea. That’s exceptional, in this particular skill set.”

I had spent the last hour or so recounting everything about construction I could remember starting from when I initially shaped Warden, three weeks ago, and going up to the torchfork. I managed to leave out specifics about the item being delivered and its intent, but had to share the broad strokes of the deception, in order to explain the existence of Rookie.

“Which part was the terrible idea?”

“Giving a thought construct that you couldn’t confirm was your own a name. Even if you did think that was your construct at the time, giving it a name carries risk. Which brings me to the bad ideas. First, every other time you gave a construct a name! I mean it. Don’t do it. There aren’t any benefits good enough to justify the increase in autonomy the construct derives.”

“Wait, I thought constructs weren’t free-willed?”

“They are, technically, but we’ll get to that. Second, using raw psyche to forge your hammer and your---”

“Torchfork.”

“Right, your tools. You used self-identity for the hammer and anger for the torchfork. Unlike naming, there are times when this can be helpful, but starting off on your first two deliberate creations…it’s gonna bite you down the road. I’ll teach you how to mitigate it. But try not to do anything like that until you’ve given my side of this lecture a few times.

“Third: Reshaping the construct you named Loyal carried more risk than you realized. Constructs aren’t made to be malleable. It goes against their very nature. The proper thing to do would have been to just tough out the consequences of integrating that construct. If for some reason you couldn’t do that, it’s possible to deconstruct but it’s exhausting and it carries risks of its own. Repurposing could have knocked you out for days. Should have, in fact. I’ve known constructors, skilled constructors well past their first week of training, mind you, to obliterate actual, tangible, knowledge with the backlash from that. Just poof, suddenly you can’t remember the happy birthday song. The only reason this didn’t mete terrible is that generally speaking, knowledge can be regained.

“Lastly, while it isn’t technically any better or worse than any other motif, I find it personally gross that you tear parts of yourself off when you’re shaping and constructing.”

Gary sat back in an armchair (delivered for his use by Fifth Eldest Cousin), and met my gaze. I had managed, with some nausea, a cold pack, and another intravenous something-or-other, to pull myself into a sitting position.

“Okay,” I acknowledged, when Gary didn’t continue. “But that leaves a lot of my choices not on either list. Projecting into my mindscape? Bad, terrible, neither? Shattering illusions? Is there a safer way to do that? What about my whole refinery system, or I dunno, teleporting in my mind? Or manifesting my hammer outside my personal mindscape?”

“They mostly land in the esteemable ‘neutral’.” Gary answered. “High praise to the self-taught, in this field. With the exception of your autoprojection. That actually merits a ‘remarkable’. I haven’t decided if it’s bad or not yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, most constructors learn to form constructs in the abstract first. You build an idea, say. Then you can manifest it, and the idea takes a suitable shape drawn from your subconscious. Deliberately giving your construct a specific form is usually learned later on. Intermediate stuff. And projecting into mindscapes, even your own, is advanced-track. Almost nobody figures that one out on their own without the help of a tutor.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“I’d like to come visit you in your mindscape later to get a better read. For now, based on what you’ve told me and what Lady Liu and her staff have observed and shared with me, it doesn’t really mean anything other than being an interesting footnote.”

I try not to be a prideful person, but somehow that seemed…dismissive. “I figured out an advanced technique on my own, and that’s just a footnote?”

“The magnitude and flexibility of your skills fit within what we expect from constructors with your amount of exposure. As far as I’m concerned, you haven’t mastered an advanced skill, so much as started self-teaching back to front. You’re going to have a lot harder time with abstractions, I think. And because you figured out construction via projection instead of the more common way, you won’t be able to construct on the fly. Your forge is an interesting focus, but it means thinking ahead. If you get into conflict with another constructor, they’ll be able to pull new solutions out of the fabric of the Lane on the fly. I suggest you overcome this handicap as quickly as you can.”

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I let that sink in. I wasn’t exceptional, I was just a novelty. I could…I could live with that. It certainly made it easier to not be prideful.

“Okay, where do I start?”

“Well, shaking bad habits is the important first step. Fortunately for you, you’ve only had what…three, four days? They aren’t really habits so much as impulses at this point. I’ll guide you in building a construct that can warn you when you’re about to name one of your other constructs. You can add any other warning flags you want to the construct while we work, or later on if you think it’s necessary.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but Gary held up a hand to stop me.

“That addresses problem one, the biggest problem. While we work, I can show you how to gather non-psyche thoughtstuff for constructing. That addresses problem two. I consider problem three to be a rare enough situation that it isn’t likely to come up again, and now that you know it isn’t a bad idea, it’s not the sort of thing you can do by accident. If you’re really worried about impulse control, add it to your warning system. The whole process is gonna take us a couple hours, but down the road you’ll probably be able to do this sort of thing in a few minutes at most.”

“And then what?”

“Practice. Some of us freelancers wrote up a sort of guide. It’s not ideal, but it’ll keep you from imploding your own sense of direction while you hone your skills. If you get stumped, find me, or find another freelancer to give you a lesson. Expect to pay for it. Cash, usually, or precious metals. Or you can ask around. Sometimes one or the other of us will take on a dedicated apprentice. Though I’ll warn you, they tend to be the ones taking the more dangerous jobs where having a second full-fledged mind on your side might mean life and death.”

I did not have the money to hire a freelancer, according to Gary’s own estimation. That meant I would be blundering about in the dark, but at least I would have a map? Metaphor, Warden chimed from my mindscape. He was distracted digging up another one of the hundreds of pumpkin-sized illusion crystals that had been buried just below the surface thoughts of my mindscape. I’d have to pull him off of that before we went to the lane.

“What about metaphors? Will your warning system help prevent me from accidentally manifesting another wild metaphor while I’m traveling the Lane?”

“It won’t have to. At least, not on the Lane proper. You’ll still want to be careful on the Alleys until you’ve got a full handle on your powers, but generally a constructor only risks loosing wild metaphors up until the first time they deliberately construct. Unless you’re in extreme emotional distress or you have some phobias or psychoses that you didn’t mention?”

I shook my head. Gary shrugged. “Then as long as you don’t make new metaphors on purpose and stay away from the Alleys, you should be fine. In fact, once you develop a little bit more, you’ll act as a sort of stabilizing factor for non-constructing humans. Make it less likely that they’ll riffle the thoughtstuff enough to make a fresh metaphor.”

Boddy’s ears both twitched outward, and one of his eyebrows cocked. “I’ve never heard of that.” It was his first words since Gary had introduced himself.

“Really?” Gary seemed genuinely surprised. “It’s one of the most common jobs us freelancers get throughout the Lane. House of Community never hires couriers?”

Boddy looked over at me. “They hired me,” I offered. “But the situation was pretty um…clandestine.”

“Right, right. But before you? I mean, the sort of job Daniel is doing is actually quite common. Other than the subverting intent portion, I mean. Alliances, obligations, all sorts of concepts need to travel from one House to another. A realis host makes the delivery stick better. I’m not a theorist, but from what I heard it’s got something to do with the fact that every House is anchored by a realis human.”

Boddy shook his head. “House of Community doesn’t have to do all that much of it, I guess. It’s been over a hundred years since the last parcel delivery, and Mister Carver carried that one personally.”

“Without a constructor on hand?”

Boddy tapped his knee, recalling memories from before my grandparents were born much as I’d try to remember something that happened last year. “Actually, yeah.” He finally admitted. “There was a constructor there, only I assumed it was a coincidence at the time. We met her on the Lane once we were on the move; happened to be going the same direction.”

“Sounds like your Mister Carver has been keeping details from his staff. I’d bet he hired her to stabilize.”

“Umm,” I raised my hand, tentatively, “Why not just hire the freelancer as the courier? Save yourself a hire, as it were?”

“Trust, usually. Constructors could really, and I mean really mess with the symbolism and intent of a courier delivered item. Since non-constructor minds tend to reject any constructs as a matter of course, it’s difficult bordering on blatantly dangerous to try messing with the item and the courier. But the constructor is still necessary to stabilize and in extreme cases, to protect the courier.”

“But we’re pretty sure that I was hired specifically because I was a thought constructor.”

“Yeah, I know. And that’s baffling too, because as far as I know, there isn’t any way to mark one thought constructor out of a crowd until they’ve actively used their abilities. Based on what constructors and anchors both know about irrealis, your employer shouldn’t have been able to know you were a potential thought constructor.”

“He did, though. He said Archie figured it out.”

“I know several theorists who would be ecstatic to learn how. For that matter, I’d like to learn how. Not for the sake of knowledge, either. Potentially finding constructors before they stumble onto the Lane by accident has both fantastic and horrifying ramifications for inter-House politics.”

“I know,” Boddy spoke up. “I worked with Archie, remember? Bodyguarding on trips to the realis. I didn’t know it was some big revelation, at the time, but I was there when she figured it out.”