Elvia's only knowledge of the Träälvor was through Nightingale's extracurricular classes on Prime Material beings tiered as "better attuned" than Humanity, by which the lecturer meant "older" "troublesome" and "a hard nut to crack".

That said, indigenous Elves from the Enclave on the Isle of Man was not the Nordic Träälvor of yore. Where the bestiary had prescribed the Träälvor Demi-race as fair-complexioned with dark hair and lithe silhouettes six to seven feet tall, these native "Träälvor" were much shorter, with their leader standing half a head shy of Gwen.

"Miss Elvia. I fear your warning has fallen on long but deaf ears," Dominic Lorenzo drily observed.

"Why?" Elvia whispered back to their Diviner. "We brought back their kin!"

"Yes, but I don't doubt the Colonel has made a habit of baiting the Manx," Dominic reminded her of why they were here. "If you wish to speak to them, you'll have to first quell their mistrust."

"How do I do that?"

"Nothing engenders respect like a show of restrained force," Lorenzo advised. "Worry not. Ser Rothwell and I will keep you safe."

Elvia nodded, her face turning bright pink.

The party watched while their prisoners shuffled forward, with the boy and girl waving goodbye at Elvia, unaware of what was soon to follow.

" _Clann_!" one of the Manx, a middle-aged woman standing behind the Elves reached out, urging the youths to hurry.

An upraised hand halted her affectionate outburst. Beside her, the leader of the Elves stepped forward.

"Our cousins applaud thy gall, invader," their leader's voice covered the distance without effort, sounding as though susurrated from the surviving trees. "But doth thou think all would be forgiven if thou returned our kindred? A hundred lives lie in the embrace of the Earth Mother by thy efforts. How shall thee atone for our kin thy sorcery hath made mute?"

"That doesn't sound sylvan," Elvia whispered.

"That's... old English." Lorenzo raised a brow. "Their leader must have learned our tongue centuries ago."

Elvia concentrated Essence onto her optic nerves, bringing the "Elder" into sharp focus. From afar, the Wood Elves' leader reminded her of a wind-tossed oak of sorts. On closer inspection, their clothing, which Elvia had initially taken to be Druidic Bark Skin, revealed itself to be woven membranes of organic matter, a sort of living-armour. Likewise knotted through the Demi-human's hair and clothing were branches and twigs with tiny leaves.

The Elder's face, Elvia discerned, possessed an elfin appearance that betrayed the caster's advanced years, making the gruff leader appear ageless. Like the Manx besides him, the Wood Elve possessed large, oval-shaped eyes tilted towards at an angle like a feline's, with crisp lilac irises that added an exotic mystique. Beside the presumed Alderman, stood a pair of near-identical sisters, likewise clad in skin-hugging bio-outfits, each carrying tall staves topped with entwined vines brimming with Primal mana.

"Enclave Druids," Lorenzo silently dispensed his knowledge. "It's safe to assume the old one is an Arch-Druid. In our language, his title is Primach."

Elvia raised both hands in a show of diplomacy.

"Noble Primach of the Enclave, I have come in peace and returned your kin," she announced, unused to hearing her voice spoken so loudly across so distant a space. "And to hear the grievance of your people."

"A Sun Knight, a Priestess, and a Mind Seer, on an errand of arrogance." The Arch-Druid shook his head. "Tìr-Mara's descendants shall not be deceived, Human. Thou wilt be ransomed for the return of our kin. Guardians! See that these invaders art chastised!"

"Steady now," Lorenzo's steady voice soothed Elvia's strumming nerves. "He's testing us to see if we're here to talk, or if there's an ambush."

"Evee! Six O'clock!" Mathias conjured a Shield of Faith into place before she even noticed the shimmering of space around them, like mirages on a hot day. "Dom!"

"Purge Invisibility!" Dominic, a veteran of many warzones, expertly wove his detection magic into place.

The instant Lorenzo's nova of revelation rang out, no less than three Manx Cats appeared within charging distance, sleek as midnight, elongated and elegant, with raised haunches that menacingly waved prehensile tentacles tipped with sucker-mouths, hungry for tender flesh.

"I see them!" Mathias' Radiant Aura burned golden, swiftly condensing into a suit of Faith-laced plate mail. "I'll take the front and left."

" _Primach! Tha-iad nan daoine-math_!" Siofra and her brother began to shout that they were friends and not foe. Elvia's heart had already reached her throat when, thankfully, an eruption of tendrils coiled around the ex-prisoners, delivering them to safety.

Concurrently, the rest of the tendrils entwined into a six-metre colossus wrought of vicious dog-thorn, reminding Elvia of the Amazonian Brutalisers from Gwen's IIUC highlights.

"A Thorn Elemental!" Mathias ignited his Spellblade. "That's mine—"

" _SCROOWORRRL_!" Before Mathias could retort, the trio of Manx Cats made a sound that sounded like a high-pitched tumble drier on its last legs. By inches, the apex predators prowled closer, keeping their bodies low, their tentacles rising into the air as though tasting prey.

Dominic backed away toward Elvia, covering her right flank.

Their assailants inched closer.

Despite Lorenzo's spoon-fed foresight, Elvia's adrenaline-addled brain was a mess of instincts clambering over one another, each demanding redress. In her prior forays, Mathias had made all the decisions and calls. In Sydney, Gwen was their fearless leader who yelled out the commands. Now, she was beginning to understand just how rare it was for a Mage to think straight while confined in a narrow alleyway with three tentacle-panthers looking for a feed. Should she defend first or attack? What of the Manx's counter-attack? How to minimise harm to her teammates? Would maiming, then mending the Druids count as overt hostility?

Thankfully, Alesia's old contact came to her aid once more. "Miss Lindholm, taking down their Elemental might blunt their fervour."

Elvia willed her Ginseng into action at once. "Sen-sen! Kiki!"

"SEN!" Her Ginseng dug its tendrils into the ground with such palpable force that the salt-encrusted earth split and cracked. This time, she did not dilute the Dragon-fear.

" _MEOOWRRRL_!" As one, their opponents' ears, both cats' and Demi-humans', simultaneously flattened. The six-legged hunter-killers staggered back, their bodies and minds caught in the disharmony of primal fear and wilful lucidity, their tentacles ramrod straight.

On the far side, the Elven party grew briefly viridescent. The twin druids by either side of the Primach rammed their staves into the salt-sodden earth, engendering twin rows of growth in the form of a trellis of thorns.

A viridian, vital glow Elvia had once seen on Sufina travelled underground through some secret means and suffused the cats, dispelling the paralytic Dragon-fear.

"That would explain why they were unfazed the first time," Lorenzo called out. "Incoming!"

" _STHKARRRWL_!" The largest of the recovered cats leapt.

Mathias's armour flickered, indicating that a full dose of Radiance now coursed through his conduits. In his dominant hand, his Dwarf-forged Spellsword warped the air with simmering heat.

_Kth-Chunk!_

In Dominic's leading hand, an Abjuring Rod was ready to deploy its defences.

But the Cats did not attack.
They were waiting for the Elemental.

With a shackle-sound of thorn-parrying-thorn, the lumbering giant crossed the distance in great strides, making for her party.

"Sen-sen!"

Her Ginseng rooted itself with a thump.

In the next-second, an enormous root, shaped vaguely like a carp, leapt from the cracked ground to intercept the thorny giant, collapsing it via its mid-section to pin the giant to the floor with an ear-splitting sound of wood breaking wood.

At the same time, hidden coils of arm-thick roots erupted all around her party, grasping for the Manx Cats.

Caught by surprise and dulled by the Dragon-fear, Elvia was sure the Manx Cats would be short-lived combatants.

Her jubilance proved no less short-lived.

Just as Sen-sen's tendrils recoiled around the sleek beasts, the creatures Blinked away.

"Well, shit." Dominic drew a second wand with his off-hand and marked the space in front of him in quick succession. "Reactive Barrier! Listen for—"

"Nine O'clock!" Dominic shouted.

Elvia was still trying to untangle the chaos when Mathias activated his Spellsword and Relic. With one hand, the Knight pressed his healer behind him while his sword drew a cross in the air. "Radiant Guardian!"

A shield bearing the heraldry of the Order of St Michael, as metaphysical as it was solid, briefly flittered into view as the Manx Cat materialised with a guttural snarl. Extending claws as long as fingers, it swatted at the Knight. The blow struck; Mathias grunted, parrying the murder-mitten even as it shaved away chunks of amber mana.

"Kiki!" Elvia's floral Sprite leapt into action. Now that it could sense their opponent, it quickly filled the trio's front-right flank with a thorn-trellis vibrant with poisonous flowers. The barrier was enough to deter the charge from Manx Cats, though from the sight of the emerald sap filling the air with every swipe, Kiki's sleep-inducing power was of no use.

Across from her party, the twin Druids continued to chant, regrowing the Thorn Elemental to subdue her Ginseng's counter-attack. Elvia suspected that if she were to send Sen-sen fully unleashed, she might be able to turn the tide. Unfortunately, she also had no idea if Sen-sen in such a state could be controlled, much less commanded to apply finesse. Besides her, Mathias retaliated with fiery Radiance, grunting whenever a tentacle or claw swiped at the Guardian spell keeping the trio safe.

For a dozen exchanges, tentacles flailed, tendrils curled and regrew, and two titans wrestled in the salt-strewn earth.

"My mana isn't going to keep up," Mathias growled when the lead Manx dodged a Lance of St George from his smouldering Spellblade. "I'll need to potion if they keep up the pace."

"Barrier!" Dominic barred a tentacle with his wand. "Same, I brought enough cartridges, but I doubt they'll let us reload."

"Sen!" Of their party, it was only Sen-sen that dominated, trashing the Thorn Elemental's futile efforts to reinforce the Blinking Manx Cats. Frustrated, Kiki misted the air with perfume and poison, though again, the anaesthetic appeared to have little impact on the snarling felines.

"We need more offence," Dominic observed. "Ser Rothwell?"

"I can't both attack and defend."

"Miss Elvia?"

Elvia shook her head.

"Not even Magic Missile?"

"... I haven't practised."

"Well then." Dominic dissuaded a sucker-mouth with a pane of solidified air. "Miss Lindholm, you are aware of the alternate application of Biomancy on living creatures, yes?"

Crack! Sen-sen pummelled the Thorn Elemental with its roots, tearing off a limb with a drake-headed tendril. In an instant, the Thorn Elemental's sap painted the salt-strewn hilltop.

"Yes…" Elvia felt an ominous premonition.

"Then it's up to you to subdue the Blinking bastards." Dominic pointed at the Manx Cats. "Use Aid, blend everything you've got into it. Faith, Essence, Mana, the works. Benedictions-class Clerical spells suffer no cooldowns, correct?"

"Yes…" For very good reason, her mind reminded her of that time uncle Hans liquified a Mud Mage.

"Good. Your buffs are so strong they can be used to stagger. If the cats can be incapacitated, we can parley."

Elvia wasn't sure if Lorenzo's was the correct path forward. The decision, however, was quickly taken out of her hands when Mathias lost a chunk of his manifested armour to a hungry appendage.

Subdue the Druids with Sen-sen?
Or bless the Cats?

"AID!" she raised a hand, gesturing toward the tentacled-toms, calling upon the power of the Almighty and the bottomless vitality of Sen-sen to wish the Manx Cats well. "Aid!"

Instantly and involuntarily, a soft glow suffused the confused Manx Cats, energising their fatigued bodies. Visibly, the cats' bodies bulged, their pupils grew large, and even their fur turned glossy.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Aid!" Another jolt of heavenly fortification struck the shapeshifted Druids. "AID! AID! AID!"

" _Moorrrrw_ l!" A much-blessed Druid gnarred and grumbled, appearing as though suddenly intoxicated.

The rapid din of combat lulled. The Arch-Druid and the twins from across the battlefield watched with perplexed expressions.

" _Moorrrrwl_?" The leading Guardian paused its assault, suddenly sensing that a part of its polymorphed physiology had gone awry.

"Hoo boy…" Dominic swapped his wand for a lumen-recorder.

Elvia's face burned. She understood very well what happened when too much of Sen-sen's Essence was infused into her healing.

" _Murrrrrl_!" As much as the Guardian tried, it was impossible to ignore its perilously engorged seventh leg, a swollen club of tortured flesh. When the feline attempted to move, it's distended organ swung from side to side, dangerously scraping over the salt-encrusted floor, reducing its agility by half.

The two bothered beasts eyed their untouched companion, a lucid female empowered, but otherwise unmolested by Sen-sen's yang-energy. Suddenly apprehensive, the Guardian took an uncertain cat-step backward.

Mathias lowered his sword to stare.

"Good Lord, they've got barbs…" Dominic quietly intoned, "Let us wait and see if our Arch-Druid wants to continue. Miss Lindholm. Keep your blessing hand hot and ready for benediction."

On the far side, Sen-sen's tendrils wrapped around the Thorn Elemental's neck and waist, with a booming crash of splintering timber, it tore the thing in twain.

"Sen!" Ginseng flexed its tiny, root-knotted body.

Elvia wetted her lips. Ginsengs were well-known for fortifying male potency. Likewise, Draconic Essence was liquid libido, as evidenced by the infused creature-hordes occupying the territory of a landed Dragon.

Without pause, the female feline fled for the whereabouts of her Primach, while the other two Blinked away into the woods, leaving only a musky trace of their passing.

An awkward minute of silence hung listlessly between the two parties.

"Well fought," the Primach said at last. "You may... approach."

Still burning with embarrassment, Elvia smoothed out her working robes, a white-on-cerulean robe that covered her from chin to ankle. Mathias dispelled his Mage Armour and followed closely behind. Dominic carefully stowed his Lumen-recorder.

Closer, Elvia could see that the expressions on the Druids were sombre. The Manx she had rescued, including the siblings, hid stoically behind their kin, leaving Elvia to face their Elder.

"Thou has... circumvented our Guardians." The Elder Druid glanced at the sky for a moment before extending a twig-like hand. "Without harm, which is commendable. Thou may call me Golion, son of Iliynore, Primach of the Snaefell Enclave, Tìr-Mara's Protector and teacher to the Manx. I now greet thee in the custom of thine kinfolk."

"Elvia Lindholm. This is Ser Rothwell, my Knight, and Ser... Lorenzo." Elvia reciprocated by extending a hand.

The two gingerly shook. The Druid's skin felt like paper.

"Having satisfied thine ordeal, I now invite thee to partake in our generosity."

The twin Druids parted, revealing a path that led to a sole remaining elm struggling to hang on to the last vestiges of life. The sisters chanted in synchrony, raising their twin-staves until the tree's bark split open, revealing a depthless chasm.

The spell known as Tree Striding was an infamous Druidic staple that ensured no trees large enough to be a threat existed within the concrete walls of Douglas and Fort Nook.

Unsure of how to proceed, Elvia glanced at Dominic, who assured her with a nod.

"I accept your generosity, Primach Golion." Elvia bowed.

Still perplexed, the Primach led the way.

"Evee... never use Essence when you heal or buff me," her Knight reminded her as he passed, placing her between himself and Dominic. "You know our code. Death before dishonour."

Above the desolate sky lake, Colonel Susan Tarleton hovered with her Mage Flight, the loose cords from her combat jacket flapping angrily.

"You'll be taking responsibility?" she spoke not to a fellow Mage, but a crow perched atop her Sergeant. "That was the Gorlion and the twins, you know. We take any of the three and keep them entertained for any amount of time, and the fairies will fold like napkins."

"Caw! Caw!" croaked the jet-black crow, cocking its head.

"I politely decline." Tarleton's icy mien grew somehow colder. Everything about the blonde, from her glacial blue eyes to her tightly knotted bun, spoke of war-worn hardiness. "We in the Militant Faction are not your flunkies, Lord Marshall. If you wish her preservation, get the Order to do it themselves, or submit an official channel request."

"Caw!" The crow lifted itself, then fled toward the uncertain arc of the expanding horizon that housed the English coast.

"Fucking politicians." Tarleton spat, turning to her men, she orientated herself back toward Douglas. "Bird's the word, fellers. Hunt's off!"

Without a sound, the Colonel and her obfuscated Mage Flight departed, leaving the pilgrims below free to perform their insubordination.

"Crystal-Crystal— Crystals—" the chirpy sorceress hummed under her breath, delighting Eric Walken with the simplicity of its sinful rhythm. "It's a rich Mage's world—"

"My my, you're in a good mood." Walken kept pace beside his future employer. Presently, with Aella, Ariel and Caliban in tow, they were drawing eyes from all over the isle.

"It's been a good week, Eric." Gwen tapped along on her freshly unlocked Mary Janes, sending her long skirt aflutter. "Did you hear about Tonglv?"

"No. I am no longer privy to that sort of information." Walken shrugged. "More victims?"

"Ha!" the girl's bell-like laughter thrilled his ears. In the three years that he had known her, Gwen had seldom appeared happy, and so her sun-soaked visage was a rare treat. "This is waaaaaaay better. Remember how I told you about the Tonglv triumvirate and how they would be going after my share of the project?"

"Go on." Walken slowed his pace to take in their unimpressive surroundings. Here was where he was soon to be installed, no less in a dog house belonging to Lady Grey. Still, it was his duty to harness an impression of the region before he toured the place in an official capacity. "I am all ears."

"Mayuree Messaged, saying the trio made their move." The girl grinned mischievously, her eye glinting like whetted knives. "They pushed to confiscate my share, saying that I worked for foreigners. What they didn't know was that I already gave away my share to Ruxin."

"The Lord of Nagaland?" Walken filled his lungs with frigid air, tasting a stink unique to areas affluent with NoM activity. "The Dragon we encountered in Kachin? The one you cited as a relative of sorts?"

"That's right." The girl puckered her lips. "The greedy guts tried to extort my Ruì— you remember Ruì? They were six-miles high on their white horse until Ayxin and uncle came in—"

"You mean Captain Jun?"

"It's _Dragon-whipped_ Jun now." Gwen's tone grew sulky with sugar. "… anyway, Ayxin and Jun showed up with an army of spooks from the Ministry of State Security and ran the lot of them through the bureaucratic blender."

"What, all of them?"

"Half the Fungs in Nantong, with Dai escaping the chopping block because he followed my advice." Gwen smugly struck out her chest. "Good corporate governance meant he need not be entertaining at the Front, and he will now inherit the Clan. Isn't that amazing? Who could have thought that NOT embezzling funds from a government infrastructural project by putting relatives in key places to short-sell stock and land could keep a man from Shenyang?"

Walken furrowed his brows. From what the girl was saying, it sounded like a massive Purge had happened on a mid-scale governmental level. If so, how many lives had been irrevocably changed? A thousand? Ten-thousand?

"It's not like I didn't warn them!" The girl's ebullient mood continued to fizz. "Zero tolerance for bullshit was my first lesson during our initial talk. I ran them through the importance of auditing, of gutting anyone that tries to subvert Ma's work, but no, they preferred eating the bitter fruit of avarice…"

Walken considered the girl's words, reading the not so hidden subtext.

"I think I understand." He halted their progress down Millwall's abandoned dockland. "At least, I understand your veiled threat."

The girl paused. Her lovely eyes drew blanks. "Wow... Shit, Eric. I didn't mean it like that…"

"It's quite alright. I wouldn't trust me either if I was in your position. Suspicion is a very healthy thing in a relationship like ours. We must gain mutually, as you have said, for true partnership. Audrey would prefer that, as well."

The girl chewed on her lower lip.

"Maybe a formal employment contract isn't so necessary," she said suddenly. "It was on Lady Grey's advice that we make one. I could probably persuade her to forgo the guarantee."

"I am sure you could," Walken refused the goodwill, finding himself surprisingly at peace with an otherwise shameful binding. Then again, his history spoke for itself. "But that's alright. She owns this place, and you're merely its manager— and I, your under-manager. Correct? Let's give the Lady peace of mind."

"It's nothing like that," Gwen reassured him with a smile. "Here's the thing. I've fashioned our investments into various divisions, each with vertically integrated stakeholders, with a core party as the proprietors of the parent company. The Isle of Dogs is merely an asset on loan, with monthly repayment tithes. What it means is that we're all shareholders, you as well, so long as you remain our partner and Executive. That's why you're my subordinate only in a corporate sense. Eric, if you're dissatisfied, it's important that—"

"Gwen, there's no more to explain." Walken shook his head, though the faint mirth on his face remained. "For now— we remain equals. The journey ahead is long, my dear. Let us walk in his hour, as though the future has no power..."

The words from his heart seemed to touch the girl somewhat, for he could see her throat bobbing.

"What's wrong?" Walken stopped to study the sorceress now staring out onto the half-frozen water. Sometimes, when he disregarded her uncommonly youthful face, Gwen's silhouette reminded him of someone older— much older, shouldering an unseen weight.

Fortunately, the sentiment passed once he recalled that Gwen was a Void Sorceress with a vitality-tank and that once he wedded his fate to the Shard's second Sobel, there would be no recourse, only sink or swim.

"How's Angie?" Gwen asked.

"No recurring symptoms so far, but it's only been a few weeks."

The girl nodded. "To answer your earlier question. I was wondering what life would be like if we could speak like this before the fall of Sydney. Do you think things still would have happened as they did?"

Walken settled himself beside his conversation partner, though he possessed no answers for her particular line of enquiry.

"Missing your Master?"

She inclined her chin. "And Allie, and Gunther, and Sufina."

"Well, I wasn't exactly a friend," he reminded her. "I don't think you would have listened to anything I said, not with Alesia screeching beside your ear to Void me at the first opportunity. If ever we were to speak, it would be through Henry, I think. Alas…"

"I still haven't forgiven you," Gwen said suddenly.

"For Sydney?"

"For what you tried to do in Shanghai."

Walken turned his head ever so guiltily. "Would a heartfelt apology suffice?"

"Maybe."

Without hesitation, he cleared his throat.

"Eric, stop…" The girl interrupted Walken before he could continue.

Walken waited for his student to speak.

Behind them, their Familiars frolicked, too preoccupied with the open space to be bothered by the subtle emotions coursing through their Empathic Links.

"… I wasn't serious."

"Well, I was—"

Walken's words became lost in a sudden jumble of sound, interrupted by a line of lorries rushing past the snow-strewn road, freshly shovelled by the inhabitants. As one struck a pothole, clods of river mud, as well as sprays of snowmelt, half-washed over the two Mages, forcing them to erect quick barriers or risk becoming soiled.

"Cali, get back!" Gwen commanded her Void fiend to stop chasing the accelerating flatbed.

The trucks' destination was the print works, now a hive of activity compared to the abandoned docklands. Turning the corner, they saw a ring of NoMs a dozen bodies thick, gawking at something nearer the entrance.

"I do believe our guests from the Murk have arrived ahead of schedule." Walken pointed at the dozen or so segmented trucks now visible outside the print works. Once they rush past the warehouse, he caught sight of the Dwarf-made Golem Engines unloading from the trucks.

These were the "Fabricators", the distinguished units used by Dwarven crafters. As an ex-Overseer of the Grey Faction, he knew well how the Dwarves managed their resource-colonies, called Citadels. Each of the engines had a particular function, from digging to smithing to construction, creating the necessary structures and machine-beds used for Dwarven manufacturing. A complete six-Golem host, given the span of a month, could carve out a new outpost in the Murk capable of sustaining itself for centuries, assuming supplies and raw materials were plentiful.

"Let's hurry!" The girl quickened her pace. "I hope they're not upset."

"With whom? With one holding the Debt of Haj-Zül? You would have to go beyond all conceivable dignity." He followed Gwen's clacking heels as they crossed the rough asphalt.

"Let's hope it never gets to that." Gwen's reply had a hint of paranoia to her tone. When he followed her eyes, he could see that she was looking at the NoMs. It wasn't so much that the isle's folk would harass the lauded Engineseers, but that there was a lot of Dwarven cargo, and should something go missing—

Walken took a deep breath.
Here was London. If an NoM was caught stealing from a Mage, hard labour awaited. Should the Mage strike out at said NoM, a stiff HDM and CC penalty applied. In the event of the transgressor's death, a tribunal could theoretically sentence the offender to six-months of Stasis. However, rare was said sentence— non-existent even, unless politics was involved.

If one of these peasants were to offend an august personage by doing something nigh-unthinkable in Dwarven society— stealing— what would Gwen do to her new citizenry?

The Eric part of Walken wished his student would never have to face such a dilemma. As for Magister Walken, he could barely suppress the morbid anticipation of seeing his boss' first trial.

The Isle of Man.
Elf home.

The visitation to the Grot was going as well as expected.

Once inside, questioning glares from the Grot's inhabitants had greeted the new arrivals, replete with menacing stares, glowers, the rattling of quivers, the hiss of critters, and mothers hiding their children behind leafy-attires.

The interior landscape of the Grot was frankly sublime, made lesser only by its compactness, consisting of a verdant valley of proliferating emerald greenery hanging from plinths-mantles rich with orchids. All around the Grot's edge, skyward junipers reached for the vibrant cerulean distance, appearing as though cumulus clouds of shamrock on chartreuse adorning columns of towering wood. "Tìr-Mara", the Wood Elves called their home, a garden of wood and sea— their humble island abode.

Of their party, Kiki appeared to be wholly enjoying herself, flittering from leaf to leaf, lapping at the dew and hugging the occasional flower. Comparatively, Sen-sen scoffed at the offering, compared to the vitality and grandeur of the Yinglong's valley, Elvia presumed, the home of the indigenous Elves must feel like the Isle of Dogs.

Nonetheless, Evee considered that she should be lucky to be invited into an Elf home, something not even Gwen has had the pleasure of experiencing.

Once seated, Golion, scion of Iliynore, Primach of the Snaefel Enclave, presented them with sticky meads of wild-honey and fresh fruits from the orchard, delighting the visitors. They then discussed the matter of a certain Colonel Susan Tarleton, and the campaign of terror said Colonel had covertly carried out to flush the Manx from the southern portion of the isle.

Taking a leaf from Gwen's book of Essence-bribery, Elvia begged from Sen-sen a hair-thin tendril, which she then used to infuse a jug of floral mead.

As expected, the Elves grew mightily thrilled by the foreign Essence, rapidly warming up to both herself and her Familiars. Once the scented alcohol ran dry, laughter flowed freely.

What made Elvia curious, once each of their company introduced themselves, was that of the thirteen present, only three were the Manx. All the other who's who of Tìr-Mara's Druidic council consisted of the indigenous Träälvor.

Once the conversation turned to the released prisoners, Elvia candidly confessed to Siofra's suffering— and the fact that she had healed then saved the young woman from the burden of bearing a poisoned fruit.

As expected, the Manx clamoured for war.
The Elves appeared more appreciative of her morbid kindness.
Their concern was that the ISTC station appeared to be drawing far too much mana from the land, resulting in unpleasant changes to the isle's elemental physiology.

On and on the council laid out their grievances, until, at the end of a long-winded airing, Dominic raised a hand.

"Speak, Ser Lorenzo—" the wizened Arch-Druid had done his best with his unruly council. "Withhold nothing. We hath lent thee our ears— now gift us thine thoughts."

"Thank you." The reporter stood. "Protector of the Manx, most gracious Primach, as time is short, please forgive this humble one for conferring the stark reality the Manx face should they refuse the Colonel's threefold partition."

The table grew silent— the Druids, including the two who had earlier fled with their erection between their legs, all ceased their melodic, chant-like chattering.

"I present these findings with the most ardent humility." Lorenzo bowed from the waist. "— please think of what you're about to see as an act of complete earnestness and kindness, I wish only the best for our Elvish allies."

Elvish, Elvia noted. But what about the Manx?

With that, Lorenzo materialised a Lumen-projector, inserted a recording crystal, then waited several seconds for the Druids to protest. When none intervened, he pressed the Glyph for "play".

A familiar scene sprang into view. A city in ruins, dark tunnels, a malevolent miasma punctuated by strange moans. A montage of a city overrun then rapidly panned through every monstrosity from Abominations to Corpse Hulks to Zombies legions a kilometre wide.

"You would unleash Defilers onto our island home?" The Elder stated calmly, his purple eyes hidden behind two narrow slits of flesh. Across the rest of the table, his Druids began to clamour.

"Nothing of the sort, please observe."

A piece of eerie background music began to play. The projection flashed, the vision panned upward toward a sickly grey sky, then down slowly toward the silhouette of a stricken Frontier.

"… Shenyang…" A voice-over in the sultry voice of the female announcer pronounced with dread, gravid with desolation. "A city lost to the dead, taken by the numberless followers of Juche; a Necropolis lorded over by a deathless Lich…"

Mathias blinked at Elvia, who stared back, equally confused.

Why was Dominic Lorenzo playing a recording of Gwen's IIUC Match?


Dominic Lorenzo, a veteran member of her Majesty's Sixth Cabal, congratulated himself with an invisible pat on the back.

All that groundwork he had laid on the Isle of Man, the interviews, the gratuitous drinking, the "friends" he made in the Brig, the covert recordings of their activities, all of it was coming to fruition faster than a reporter could push onto his editor. It was insane how fast things moved whenever Gwen Song's unseen hand got involved. Considering that Tarleton, the "Ogre of Niger" was at the helm, he had expected the scandal to stew for many more months while fatigue blunted the jingoism. And like all good smut, the public just couldn't get enough.

Now, via the vehicle of Elvia Lindholm's best intentions, he had arrived at the heart of the fray, no longer an observer, but a participant capable of steering the course of events; an agent of history, rather than its eyewitness.

The prospect was peculiar because usually, both of Lorenzo's jobs required distance and objectivity. As a member of her Majesty's Ordo of tattle-tellers, he and his ilk were sworn only to the Crown, existing as threads on her Majesty's gown of eyes and ears. Together, they informed her highness of which wild growths weighing down her magnificent trunk was next in line for pruning.

The isle was one such bower that needed trimming, though compared to the ongoing horrors that were the Niger Delta, the Coastal Mermen and the Elementals of the Fire Sea, it was merely a stubborn twig. What magnified its notoriety was the proximity of it to the trunk, which weighed on the Crown not because of the scale of the victory or loss, but because of chest-beating populism propagated by parties behind the Herald Sun.

"MANX OR MAN?"
"TERROR ON DOUGLAS"
"THIEVES IN THE NIGHT"

Dominic recalled wincing every time he saw his publication, the Guardian, beside the red font of the Herald Sun like a slap to the face. His articles, with titles like "The Isle of Lives Lost", simply did not pluck the same heartstrings as a portrait of parents holding the inert body of their arrow-riddled son. And don't even get started on tragedy paired with bared bosoms on Page Three!

A worrisome fact of the isle's conflict was that the Factions themselves, initially put in place by the Towers' architects to decentralise power, now pandered to goals of their own. His superior had said that it was the inevitable consequence of long-range communication and ISTC stations, allowing the Factions to find like-minded allies across the globe.

Take the Isle of Man, for example, and the unfounded aggression against the Manx. The war should have been preventable, but the militants had come to see themselves not as a branch of service to the legislative assembly of the Empire— but a part of some ideological holy war waged for Humanity, a global behemoth, too big to fail, that fed on Human and Demi-human lives. Thanks to the proliferation of rags like the Herald Sun and its backers, inclusive of industrialists, noblemen, politicians and foreign investors, the public had been split in twain, dichotomously sundered into those clamouring for human supremacy, and those who turned a blind eye.

And the Greys, for better or worse, pursued power as the prophets of the profit gospel. On the surface, they were the proponents of peace, advocates for integration. Beneath the beneath, Dominic secretly documented what Creature Cores the men trafficked, and what specimens in the form of appealing Demi-humanoids became available thanks to the war. These, more often than not, were transacted into London for the nobility's exhaustive entertainments.

Juxtaposing all that was Elvia, her eyes wet with second-hand remorse as she related events at the Brig. The commanding, crystal gaze the girl affected reminded Lorenzo of a simpler time, where for a stint, he had been a scalpel, scouring rotten flesh from the Mageocracy's bloated hide.

That was when he had first met Alesia De Botton. It was the nineties, and the Sixth Cabal had tracked down the remnants of a coven responsible for war crimes hailing back to the German occupation of Europe. Lorenzo had brokered the discovery, and seeing that ex-members of the Shultz family's inner circle were involved, the power merchants in Britain extended a courtesy to the Paladin of Sydney.

With star-struck eyes, Lorenzo had anticipated the arrival of the man they called the Morning Star. Instead, he met a fiery redhead in her early twenties.

It had taken him several meetings to connect that vibrant, vivacious visage with that of the striking, flame-wreathed face used on propaganda posters.

The Scarlet Sorceress! Lorenzo cautioned himself. Kilroy's infamous attack dog! The Coral Sea Witch!

As it turned out, working with Alesia was pure sublimity.
The Cabal would uncover a nail—
And Alesia would hammer it down, no questions asked, performing her task with such conviction that Dominic wondered if the sorceress belonged to one of the Knight Orders. Amazingly, even when that very finger of the Crown pointed itself at family members who had aided, and indeed profited, from the coven of Rogue Mages and their ill-reputed work, the Scarlet Sorceress was ruthless. Whether she simply did not care, or that her sense of justice was beyond the politics of context, she left only smouldering infernos in her wake.

After six months, their operation was concluded; the gangrene was scoured from the flesh, and the Mageocracy, now freed from boil and pustule, could heal. Calls for her head came from every Faction, but once she returned to Sydney, all complaints disappeared into the depth as though weighted with lead.

As a once ambitious public servant, Lorenzo was in love.

In the intervening years, the Scarlet Sorceress had sought him out many more times, from expurgations to headhunts to naive blonde healers. To Lorenzo, the Scarlet Sorceress' ethos was unfazed and unchanged by time. Comparatively, the deeper he supplanted himself from his labour as a journalist, the further he drifted from the Sandhurst scholarship boy who had sworn to protect the Empire's people.

Then in November, he had received a private Missive from De Botton, stating that her sister-in-craft would be making her way to London and that the forces were trying to groom her into a second Sobel.

"Looking out for her would be a direct conflict of interest," Lorenzo recalled confessing with complete candidness.

"Oh, no, no, no." Alesia's laughter had flooded the Message spell. "You just keep an eye out. Gwen's slipperier than a Hagfish Merstrider. She'll have them lapping Essence out of her hand soon enough."

Lorenzo had wondered what Alesia meant by lubrication and lapping—
Until he had met the girl on Red Peak, corralling Greenskins and pulling Dwarves from the jaws of annihilation, smiting Trolls via Void Dogs, leaving not even a shred of flesh behind, while concurrently at London, the girl snagged the old printing press at the Isle of Dogs, secured the domain as her demesne, then thrice scandalised the Lord Marshall. Furthermore, far from disproving herself as the bastard of Ravenport, she leveraged the rumour, leading to the Lord Marshall expending favours to speak to him, a mere ghostly grunt, in person. Finally, as a reporter, he could only gawk at the snowballing momentum of Gwen's misadventures in enthralling the Herald Sun, the Telegraph, and The Guardian, playing both victim and benefactor.

Just as Lorenzo was beginning to wonder if the girl would take a breather, she left him a Message while he was digging up dirt on Tarleton.

"Sup, Dom! I am starting a modest newspaper business, likely the largest in London. Keen to be my Editor?" Gwen had told him. "Also, I need you to look out for my five-century-old-Mythic-Essence-enhanced-Cleric on the isle. Cool?"

The news that the headliner herself would now print the papers took Dominic some time to digest, but he was interested. He felt keen as an enchanted bean, if he had to be honest, because Gwen's paper was free, and because it was for the NoMs to read. A newspaper for the NoMs? By the grace of England's Virgin Rose! Why hadn't HE thought of that? Then again, so what if he did? Did he have the crystals? The clout? The connections? Political ambition? He wondered what the powers-that-be would think of Kilroy's seed weighing in on London's political discourse, but possessed no real answers— domestic policies were the domain of the Fifth Cabal.

The Sixth's task was the subversion of friend and foe outside London's borders and within its Frontiers.

A task to which he now committed himself.

Across the oaken table, his captive audience grew glummer the longer the vid-caster played. Lorenzo had chosen the broadcast used for the IIUC recap after Gwen's coronation as the MVP. It had everything: whether it was Gwen choking the "Death" out of the Soul Eater— or her bringing forth the Shoggoth— or her duelling the lich— and when she stood beside Lady Grey to receive the Contingency Ring.

Using Gwen as a deterrent had been on Lorenzo's mind since he witnessed her prowess on Red Peak. As an agent of the Cabal and as a scholarship boy, Lorenzo always did his homework. Three decades ago, Henry Kilroy had subdued many realms with the help of his all-consuming wife. Naturally, this included conflict hotspots like the Isle of Man, on which the repressed Manx had taken the opportunity to throw off the Empire's yoke. Ergo, by that history and logos, Lorenzo was willing to bet his Astral Soul Golion had seen Sobel in her prime.

Now, he and his party waited for Golion; descendent of Iliynore, Primach of the Snaefel Enclave to respond.

"The Usurper Sobel, is it?" The Arch-Druid's tone was wary.

Dominic nodded, waited a moment for his heart to calm, then shook his head to refute the Primach's observation.

"Not Sobel, lord Druid." Lorenzo pushed the recorder-player forward and left it sitting on the table. "Magus Gwen Song, a sorceress with far more potential, greater empathy, and autonomy. A pacifist at heart, a businesswoman and a dreamer well-concerned with the common folk."

Lorenzo stood aside so that the whole table could see Elvia.

"As evidenced by her dearest friend, our priestess, the kindhearted Miss Elvia Lindholm."

The Primach regarded their Cleric. Elvia held her own by meeting his gaze.

The Arch-Druid leaned forward, his purple eyes twinkling dangerously. "Art thou advising our Grot is forfeit? That Tir-Mara itself is forfeit should the Manx refuse to concede?"

"No! Gwen wouldn't." As Lorenzo anticipated, Elvia protested, rising from her seat. "She would never do that, not to people, never. She's not Sobel. We found Sobel in Sydney. Gwen hates her guts— she killed Gwen's Master!"

Lorenzo bade the shaken Cleric sit.

"Please understand, Arch-Druid, that we have come in opposition to Colonel Tarleton. Your people, the Manx, were slated for executions, and Miss Elvia, a volunteer healer, whisked them away from the jaws of extinction to your Grot. As for myself, I am but a humble minstrel of the written word— one who has seen too often how far the Mageocracy is willing to go."

Lorenzo placed a hand on Elvia's shoulder, an act that drew an unfriendly stare from her Knight.

"The war— this war— it is deeply ambivalent for our people. The Mageocracy is averse to having atrocities so close to home. With the news of Tarleton's rapine breaking in London as we speak, there will be only a short window where public sentiment has turned its tide."

He turned to the trio of Manx Elders present on the table. Consciously, he switched to high Sylvan, aided by his upper-tier Translation Stone.

"Milords of the Manx, as a political correspondent, I must provide you with the truth, no matter how unpleasant. You rail against the ISTC— an understandable grievance— but the ISTC station is here to stay. Its presence is pivotal to the Mageoracy because uniquely, your home offers interference-free translocation between Edinburgh, Dublin and London—"

Stolen novel; please report.

Lorenzo retrieved a handful of the Druids' fruity offerings.

First, he rearranged the sweet stalks of Wildland rhubarb into the shape of the Union Jack. "Here we have London with its outward expanding Mageocracy, perched like a fat spider."

The reporter then placed a golden apple and a red-skinned pear to the east.

"And here lies Ireland, home to _Tuatha Dé Danann_ , your mound-hearth cousins on the Isle of Dusk and Dawn, vassals to Sythinthimryr, she who guards the Great Tree on Carrauntoohil."

Closer to the rhubarb-asterisk, a juicy feijoa rolled into place.

"And here endures the ivory hall of the Hvítálfars in white-spired Snowdonia."

Lastly, Lorenzo let fall a handful of grapes and lychees, signifying the Mageocracy's concerns to the north. "And finally, beyond Glasgow and Edinburgh, lie the Sundered Hills, home to our most common foe, the custodians of Cairn Gorm, the Son-Kings of Balor the Fomorian."

While the Primach pondered the fruit-founded cartographic display, murmuring in near-silent Sylvan to the other Elves, Lorenzo circulated mana to calm his broiling mind. Finally, with steady fingers, he placed a grape in between each location.

"And equal distant… is Douglas, whose ley-lines are free from the influence of Loch Lomond, Carrauntoohil and Snowdonia, existing in perfect, triangulated harmony."

Lorenzo wetted his parched lips.
Could these native Träälvor be moved? Would they pull the Manx back and delay the inevitable for another half-century while the ley-line altered the southern ecosphere?

"And what do you say of the threat of Sobel?" The Primach returned in high Sylvan, a dialect the Manx only half-understood.

"There is nought to be said, milord," he replied. "What I've shown you has been shown across the world, from your Enclaves in Snowdonia to the Wildfire Gulch on Wilkinkarra, it is no secret that such a being now bides her time in the Mageocracy."

The Arch-Druid turned to Elvia.

"Gwen would never unleash the Shoggoth here, not against the innocent." The girl rose to the occasion once more. "Lord Druid, I swear by the Nazarine, by his Almighty Father, and on my Astral Soul."

Lorenzo could see the Primach's eyes turn in his skull.
Were they doing it? Lorenzo gulped. Could the old Elf be convinced?

"Lord Primach!" Across the table, nearer the end, the three Manx Druids rose on indignant feet. "The south is our home. We've lived here since you've known our ancestors."
"—You can't leave us!"
"We're kin!"

Golion frowned.

"...You would resist the Humans until the last Manx?" The Primach cocked his head, his lilac pupils pulsing with an inner light. "Or do you suppose that Snaefell Enclave would fight your enemies until its last Elf? We are the Guardians of Tìr-Mara, Alderman Eòghan. We promised to protect your people, but the Träälvor shall not be a shield for the Manx's troubles."

"We cannot hold our home if you leave!" Another of the Manx Druids was beginning to panic. "What they're doing to us, to our people— Primach, you cannot abide by—"

"And now you tell me what my people can and cannot do." Golion shook his head before glancing at Lorenzo's party. "Did you forget our pact? Just as our sovereigns in that paradise of Snowdonia had left us with autonomy, so we have not interfered in your dealings with the Humans. YOU chose to fight them. They have made their proposal, Eòghan. What is yours?"

"O-our what? Primach?"

"What do you offer your benefactors, other than destruction and ruin? Can you deliver the peace we desire?"

"You're... abandoning us?" the Manx Druid named Eòghan turned to fume at Lorenzo, Elvia and finally Mathias, who sat silently beside his Cleric, stoic as a statue, one hand on the pommel of his Spellblade.

"... Whatever your accusation, your Manx brothers and sisters shall have shelter, food, and space…" Golion touched a hand to his brow. "Eòghan, do you wish that we should fight for your home when you cannot? Why should the Träälvor of Tìr-Mara bleed for you half-bloods? Our Hvítálfar cousins do not fight for us. Why should we for you?"

"Primach." Eòghan's long and elegant eyes grew hard with hate. "These humans, they will come for the north eventually."

"Perhaps." Golion's interest appeared to wane. "Or reasonably, like every Human empire since they confronted us with sticks and stones and your ancestors were their's and not ours, the threat will cease to exist— the land will heal— and no Elf need perish unnaturally."

While the Manx grew pale, and the Primach returned his attention to Lorenzo.

"Do enjoy the fruits of thine labour and ours." The Arch-Druid took the words right out of Lorenzo's mouth. With that, the Primach stood, an act echoed by the other Elves, then began an agonising march away from the table to a private conference elsewhere in the meeting hall.

The three Manx Druids followed with bows and scrapes, pleading with their elders.

When Lorenzo sat back down, all the tension drained from his body at once, leaving him semi-paralysed. Had he done it? After all these years, was he now the one directing the headline?

On his right, Elvia's delicate face drifted closer, full of confusion and question. "Mister Lorenzo, what did they say? Why are the Manx so upset?"

"They came to an inevitable conclusion, dear Evee. All thanks to the opportunity you provided with your selfless kindness." Lorenzo gazed benevolently upon the girl who would assume credit for his hidden labour. "I should congratulate you, Miss Lindholm, you've done it. After this, you can stand beside Magus Song on your own two feet."

"Done what?" The girl's breathing grew rapid. She wasn't stupid, and from the looks on the Manx's faces and the Elves who averted their eyes, she should be able to guess what the outcome had been. Nonetheless, Lorenzo chose kindness.

"Why the war, Miss Lindholm. It's done, at least for two decades. Only two paths now lie ahead of the Manx. Relocation— or _eradication_."

As was promised to Gwen, the Dwarves-on-loan at the Isle of Dogs numbered a total of twelve.

Two Engineseers
Two Runesmith Enchanters.
Seven Senior Apprentices.
And one Master Alchemist.

Of the number, Nesatin Smeltshield and Doussed Wyvernbreaker, both Tuners, made up the Engineseers who would be revitalising the printing press, aided by their Journeymen, Vaz, Thakaen, Kilmug and Grutgruli; an all-beard contingent of volunteers eager to tour the Overland and its pubs.

The Runesmiths consisted of two white-beards; Thulgig Flinthide and Danmurim the Glum, with the latter possessing a ruinous face thanks to a grim machine accident. They too were joined by their Apprentices, Grut, Skori and Ori, of which the last two wore fake beards because Human males had unquenchable thirsts.

Finally, a Golem, better yet the bottom half of a modified Golem Suit, rumbled beside Gwen. Upon the platform, standing head and shoulders above her host, Yossari Vildrenbrandt introduced herself as their Alchemist. Unlike the other female Dwarves, her pilot's jacket made no move to hide her femininity, a fact that drew considerable attention not only from the grinning Dwarven men but from the NoM crowd as well. Much to her delight, Yossari revealed herself to be the "Master" sent by Guild Master Whurforlüm.

While Walken briefed the others, Gwen settled beside the thrumming leader of the Dwarf party. Reaching up, they shook.

"Hanmoul's my nephew." The smiling matron shook Gwen's hand via an articulated gauntlet. "He's told me a lot about you, Magus Song."

"I hope its all good." Gwen laughed.

"All interesting, at the very least." Yossari paused, leaned in, then appeared to fixate on her IIUC Ring. "Huh, that's one of ours."

"Ours?" When she tried to withdraw her hand, she found her fingers well arrested.

"Your Contingency Ring, the setting is of Dwarf-make." The Alchemist turned her hand over, taking a closer gander. "Ah yes, here it is— Master Gemsmith Lindknottr of Vaduz. Very interesting how our cousins in Bavaria are getting along. Love to go there after this. And this Storage Ring— my, it's an old one, from before the war in Europe, not one of ours though."

With a smile and a gentle yank, Gwen freed her hand. "You must be very knowledgable about Magical Items, Master Vildrenbrandt."

"It's a hobby." The Alchemist's eyes swept the print works. "So, is this where we're holed up?"

"I've booked a hotel." Gwen pointed at the horizon, where several structures jutted skyward, one of which was the Thames Regency, whose accommodations for Demi-human dignitaries came with recommendations from Lady Grey.

Yossari audibly snorted. "Aye, Hanmoul did say yer one to overthink. Der yer believe yonder Murk-boots would be willing ter leave the Earth Mother's embrace when they're away from home? Nay Lass, just tell us where to dig."

"Dig?" Gwen looked about the vicinity of the printing works. The parking bay was enormous, but not that enormous.

"Yer got jurisdiction over this lot?" Vildrenbrandt pointed to a section beside the outer dock's rectangular mass of half-frozen water.

Gwen followed the articulated mechanical digit. Hanmoul's aunt was eyeing a section of the old freight road labelled by the London Metropolitan Council as "A-12-06". Presently, it was home to a row of townhouses abandoned once jobs dried up.

"I don't think you'd want to live there," Gwen replied with a note of caution. "Filth, vermin and poor construction aside, those folks at the Shard would crucify me if our Dwarven guests are put up in anything but the best we can offer. Did you know there was talk of accomodating you in St James' Palace?"

"Ha!" Vildrenbrandt chuckled, dialling a few nobs here and there. "We're a humble lot. How much space do you think was in our keep? We're far more comfortable sleeping in our workshops. Look, can yer offer us that block of land or not?"

"It IS vacant, and I do manage it, but there's not much bedrock." Gwen mimed her warning with her hands, wiggling fingers to show the groundwater. "You're not thinking of starting now, surely? I've got a Habitat, and I can probably get a few more on loan—"

"You're the local Thane then? That makes it easy." The Alchemist clunked past her without so much as a pause. "ALRIGHT, LADS! Over yonder's where we'll construct our outpost! Nesatin! Doussed! Yer on the Fabs with me! Thulgig! Danmurim! Get on the Diggers. Journeymen! Yer on material duty!"

The Journeymen ran for their Golems, while the titled smiths merely nodded and made their way to the Fabricator Engines. A thundering hiss of steam blew up Gwen's skirt. By the time she tamed the fabric, Walken had returned to her side, furrowed like a scrunched ball of paper.

"You got permission for the Dwarves to build a fort in the middle of London?" The Magister raised a very valid point. "Since when was the Municipal office that pliant?"

_THUMP! THUMP! THUNK!_

Gwen's reply was lost in the din of a four-metre Golem, the first of its kind to invade England's capital city, thundering past the shore-break on its stumpy, cobble-crushing feet. In storage, the Fabricator-Golem had appeared to Gwen a giant steel box painted in sunburst yellow, scuffed with the signs of hard labour and smelling faintly of crude oil. Now unfolded, the 10-ton Golem was a monstrosity with a pair of bi-folding piston-feet each the size of vans. Hissing steam and howling jets of superheated mana from its exhaust, it lumbered forward in lurches, leaving footprints large enough to form future archaeological dig-sites.

Behind it, a second engine unpacked, tall and lithe with the look of an orange-black six-limbed mantis. This one, Gwen guessed, should be a transformed crane of sorts, for its arms and limbs could be extended via means of inter-locking hydraulics.

The third and fourth "Digger" Fabricators were a smaller, bipedal model with an enormous mana-tank almost three-quarters the size of its entire body. Its foursome of forelimbs consisted of nine-segment manipulator-arms with tiny crystalline tips, making Gwen suspect they were specialised Spellswords of some sort.

Comparative to the bitumen-chomping behemoths, the smaller construction Golems piloted by the Journeymen were akin to the combat suits used by Hanmoul and his men, only odd-looking, boxy, and cumbersome, tottering along on stumpy legs busy with exposed pistons and a large mana tank nearer the back. These possessed the usual assortment of manipulator gauntlets, underneath of which were slotted Spellsword crystals.

_THUNK!_

Sorceress and Magister watched with wonder as the Alchemist-driven Fabricator anchored itself with self-digging bolts to the ground. With a monstrous shudder, it pivoted from the waist; then blasted a trio of brick townhouses with a pure stream of Transmutation magic. In front of their very eyes, the council-housing wilted. Glass, brick, terracotta, bits of metal and even the old fence collapsed into sand and silt.

"Are you sure those are unoccupied?" Walken tapped Gwen on the shoulder. "Did someone do a survey?"

"Wally said..." Gwen's blood suddenly ran cold. Spinning on her heels, she turned to her crowd of NoMs. "OI! YOU LOT! ARE ANY OF THOSE OCCUPIED?"

Most of the NoMs shook their head.
To her chagrin, a few nodded.

In the next moment, Gwen parted the crowd like a biblical Magi, isolating the group that had nodded. In her presence, the NoMs quailed. "WHO? Who is living in there?"

"Derek and his family were taking turns with another lot of vagrants from Blackfriars." The NoM day-labourer pointed to the whereabouts of the quickly liquifying buildings. "I don't know if they're still in there though."

"SHIT!" Gwen turned to face the Golems, Clarion Call on full blast. "Master Vildrenbrandt! STOP! There are possibly people in there! Please refrain from liquidating my citizens!"

"Arrghk, they'll be alright," the Alchemist's voice came from above, projected through a Vox output. With an ear-splitting roar, a blast of raw mana tore through the rapidly atomising structure. Over the Thames, an enormous cloud of fine particles settled over the frigid water, revealing the base structure of the abandoned townhouses. Old mud, dried brick, rotten plumbing and sewerage pipes covered the lowest floor, looking like a wasp nest cleaved in twain.

Also exposed was the wide-eyed, newly-nude family taking shelter in the abandoned townhouse, squinting at the sight of a screaming Fabricator Golem, a hundred-strong throng of NoMs, and their mistress and manager of the Isle of Dogs.

"Our Transmute to Dust only works on the non-organic matter. Nothing living will be harmed," Vildrenbrandt noted smugly. "Not without a little tweaking, anyway. None of your folk hail from the Elemental Plane of Earth, do they?"

True to the Alchemist's word, there were masses of unnamable organic matter, their true compositions too horrible to consider, that now lay about in splotches. Likewise, though much of the fabric on the poor NoMs had been disintegrated, somehow enough remained, making the audience wonder.

The sewerage began to pulse.
Gwen suddenly recalled that in Dwarfland, the water closets were all unplumbed, quasi-magical devices.

Across the Thames, the wind blew in.

With her supernatural sense of smell, Gwen was the first to gag. In an instant, she and the crowd were turned captive victims by the raw and horrid smell of an NoM-empowered Stinking Cloud formed of human excreta, fermented by time, mixed with urine, garbage, refuse, enlivened by fleeing dock rats the size of cats.

"Ironborn! Deep Gas Protocols!" The Alchemist was the first to call out. "Looks like we've hit a seam! Journeymen! Get those humans out of here!"

_Shuuu-CHUNK!_

The Golem units switched to internal filters.

"Walken!" Gwen staggered from the inadvertent biological warfare breaking out over the lower docks, every meal from Sunday to now threatening to return to the above-ground world. Every breath was agony; every syllable filled her tongue with foul-tasting particles. "Wind Wall! WALKEN! _Gurrrk—_ WIND WALL!"


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Once the NoM family received hand-me-downs from the public, the Dwarves went to work.

Now that the hole she had dug herself was irreversibly deep, Gwen asked Walken for advice on how to best approach the bureaucratic bog. Eric wisely replied that personally calling the Metropolitan council was itself a lesson in futility; instead— she should leverage Lady Grey's position to plank over the paperwork quagmire.

After a few minutes of watching the Dwarves work, Gwen decided to operate through an intermediary. With a flourish, she dialled her Praelector.

"Ollie. Gwen here, how are things, buddy?"

"… Good?" the young man answered with a tone of caution. "Anything's the matter? No— trouble?"

"Nothing serious," Gwen playfully teased the Message Device, her voice oozing with honey. If Le Guevel had been present, the Magus would have sighed with pleasure. "Oz, listen, I was wondering if you could spare me an hour since I am preoccupied with our guests from Eth Rjoth Kjangtoth. Can you do that for me?"

"An hour? I suppose..."

"GREAT!" Gwen gushed with relief. "I need a retro-authorised Development Permit for our Dwarven allies to make a medium-sized house, like an R-2—"

"Extensive bunker." Walken coughed. "Maybe, Z-3?"

"Z-3... to make a large underground structure beneath the Isle of Dogs, like one of those parking complexes under Harold's, you know? Three—"

"About seven." Her advisor observed.

"Five storeys, down, two above at most," Gwen finished in one breath. "Make sure our dearest lady is clued in, okay? It's her property, after all. Once the Dwarven Workshop is up and running, it is sure to become a major centre for invest— for arcane learning! Don't screw this up, Ollie!"

"Wha— I—"

"I know, Oz. I believe in you! Buy ya dinner later!" Gwen shouted into the pulsing Glyph, then snuffed the light with a wave of her hand before extinguishing the device entirely. "Phew— that was easier than I imagined."

"… Gwen." Her partner shuddered beside her. "If you do that to me, I will do terrible things to you in turn. Do you think Ollie will manage?"

"He'll be right. Would Oz ever fail in managing the Lady's affairs? Dare paper-pushers delay the Foreign Office's triumph?" Gwen grinned. "I know Ollie's type. They're the backbone of the Empire. I'll make it up to him later."

"By not leaving him with more surprise quests?"

"Hilarious, Eric."

Besides the pair, the Fabricator with the likeness of a Mantis was already perched on top of the rectangular hole, its long and geometric limbs busy at work inscribing Runes onto the transmuted stone surface. Considering that the Glyphs used in Imperial Spellcraft had their origins in Dwarven arcana, Gwen could just make out anti-corrosion and stability Wards deployed in the Enchantment Mandalas taught by Nils Kott. These would be tied into the city's mana-grid; thankfully, the isle had been built for heavy industry.

From the talk of what Yossari Vildrenbrandt had planned, the Dwarves were carving out a whole complex of workshops, inclusive of garages for their Golems. The team must have come prepared, for one of the Fabricators was using Spatial Magic to conjure steel girders into thin air before fusing them into place.

Meanwhile, the Diggers continued their work out of sight, perceivable only by the sound of their rumbling engines.

"Where do you suppose all that waste-water and soil has gone?" Gwen asked Walken after a while. "Should I be expecting a complaint from downstream?"

"The Dwarves are using an Elemental Exchange algorithm," the Magister explained. "Dwarven magic has extremely high mana fidelity compared to ours, so it's possible to exchange denser matter in the Prime Material with objects in the Elemental Plane of Earth. Take their Diggers, for example; I wager that their Spellswords are using a form of Conjure Metal admixed with Runic modifiers for Shape Metal. What they pick up goes back into the Plane, while the seam they're tapping is transmuted here in real-time—"

"Correct!" Yossari Vildrenbrandt's voice came through her vox device. "Well done, Magister."

Walken stared into the hole, then up at the Dwarven woman in the rumbling machine. "How deep are you digging? Once you're past the clay, its quicksand and oyster beds throughout."

"Oysters?" Gwen raised a brow.

Walken gave her a superior look. "Layers of it half-a-kilometre thick. It's a famous story, the death and triumph of the Brunels of Portsea. Have you heard?"

"Not at all." Gwen's curiosity piqued. "Care to enlighten us? Does it have to do with what Master Yossari is doing?"

"Oh, absolutely." Ever the happy talker, Walken indicted to the depthless drop even now growing deeper. "About two centuries ago, during the reign of Mad King George, a Transmuter called Marcus Brunel tried to tunnel under the Thames. A few months in, his team of proto-Transmuters made it down and under the thalweg, fighting brackish water, seeping sewerage and Mer-Goblins. Fearful of the river falling in; they tried to dig deeper. Unfortunately, once the clay layer was exhausted, it turns out London sat on an enormous bed of oyster shells from the Draconic Era. Realising that he'd just about ruined his chances at making history, he tried to transmute back up through to the clay, only to have the underground water overwhelm him and his team. Marcus was a tenacious pioneer though— after the investments dried up, he worked on it alone— and came close to succeeding, until heavy floods from the rain season crushed his tunnel, erasing a life in its prime."

"By the Sju Dorfran," Yossari hailed from up on high. "Always a shame to lose a fellow Digger. Tunnelling accidents happen though. Usually, it's because we delved into the lair of something, or that 'something' is digging into our tunnels. Let me tell yer, becoming trapped between an angry swarm of Ember Ants and a Fabricator too bulky to turn around is a terrible way to go. You said there was a triumph?"

"Indeed, that would be with his son," Walken continued. "Isambard Brunel, who proved not only to be an apt Transmuter but one of the greatest Engineers of the Spellcraft Revolution. It was he who sought out the Dwarves and apprenticed himself to learn their craft, not the first to try— but one of the few to succeed. Master Vildrenbrandt, have you heard of Isambard before?"

Yossari's machine continued to churn while its pilot thought it over. "I was a lass back then, so I wouldn't know. If memory serves, I was being schooled at Eth Jarlethurkon-Gintor Kjangtoth. That was before the Murk turned completely dark."

"A shame. At any rate, the future Meister Brunel returned from studying in Bavaria with a modified method of Dwarven Engineering which utilised runic steel—" The Magister indicated to the labour being carried out by the mantis-crane. "To prevent flooding, he additionally designed the first elemental-exchange transformer, what you see used in our waterworks today, to displace the Thame back into the Elemental Plane of Water. It's called the Brunel Water Engine."

The story appeared to have garnered the interest of the Journeymen as well, who came closer to listen to the Magister speak.

"A patient man, unlike his father, Isambard worked slowly and meticulously, taking a decade to inch his tunnel into the shell-bed. Meanwhile, he became responsible for two other engineering innovations— the modern dockyard used to build Atlas-class ships— and of course, the original transatlantic freighter-carrier."

"Amazing, is he dead?" Yossari asked.

"I am afraid he is."

"Aye, yer short-lived humans. Yer burn bright, and yer dies like Murflies."

"Compared to Dwarves," Walken agreed, then returned to his tale. "The younger Brunel, after eight years, succeeded in tunnelling below the Thames with only rudimentary Spellcraft and imported Dwarven knowledge. Yet, his work was extraordinary. It's still in service today. I am sure Gwen's even used it."

"I have?"

"Indeed, if you rode the Subway, it means you've passed the original tunnel at some point. The Brunel Tunnel is still in operation and perfect condition almost two centuries on."

"Astounding!"

"That does sound impressive." Yossari's tone grew admiring. "Maybe we'll visit."

"Please let Gwen know before you do," Walken advised once more. "You will need a permit to enter the tunnels, and the trains will have to be routed. If your people could be so kind, Gwen could certainly use your help in improving transportation on the Isle of Dogs."

"Yes, just give the word." Gwen gave their Master Alchemist the thumbs-up. "I know a guy, Ollie. He's the man who can get it done!"

For Gwen, January passed with the swiftness of a Wanka at full-mast, skittering across the salt flats on all ten legs. On the subject of her Spellcraft theory, she had made significant progress thanks to Brown's merciless gavage. Though her "lacks" remained ample, Gwen had already unlocked better dresses with nicer fabrics, as well as more stylish heels. The improvement came as no surprise to herself; she was a mature age student with no lack of discipline, and now the results were showing— at least for some of her tutors.

In Abjuration, Nils Kott's Munich-winter began to thaw once Gwen started to show more promise in alternate forms of Abjuration Magic. She could now carve out with speed and accuracy the basic Mandala known as Alarm, synthesising Abjuration and Enchantment with low-tier Illusions like Clarion Call to blare out an air-siren. The effect itself was superficial for someone who possessed dogs, a Drake, Kirin and worm, but the theory provided the groundwork for higher applications. Perhaps because Kott felt like Gunther-lite, she found herself rapidly warming up to the man, and her subsequent enthusiasm in investigating mana-vitality efficacy made their relationship easy and amiable.

With Keridwen Le Guevel, Gwen's lessons in seemingly irrelevant things continued. To teach her the proper use of Illusion beyond the cosmic utility of PowerPoint, Gwen had taken up painting and singing. To Gwen, who had never had the opportunity for either, the exercise proved a relaxing counterpoint to the mental strain of solving Brown's puzzles and the constant disappointment of Kareena Patil. Initially, Le Guevel had intended to kill two birds with one stone by providing her with lessons in classical instruments favoured by the nobility. When Gwen began having vivid flashbacks of earlier life under Helena, she had opposed the training outright. To her tutor's frustration, Gwen had little talent for either— though the purpose, Le Guevel explained, was to ease her training in Illusion and not produce art or song. For Gwen, as much as she was tempted to blow "Keri" away with an old-world Top 40: say, Toto's Africa; she refrained for fear of another leak like what had occurred with Jun. Le Guevel forgave her, then moved on to dancing lessons. One time, Le Guevel even invited a partner, a middle-aged NoM dandy for Gwen to exercise her limberness. The whole hour-long session, Gwen's face had burned like the setting sun; besides the waltzing couple, her tutor took notes.

Comparatively, Magister Kareena Patil's tongue-lashes left her bruised and bleeding. In response, Gwen retorted that Patil had unrealistic expectations— after all, she was performing admirably with Abjuration and Illusion and making steady headway with Mandalas. She was an Omni-Mage, Gwen snapped back, not an Omni-human. Perhaps it was the Magister's attitude, or maybe she refused to yield to Patil's constant conjecture that Gwen possessed some sort of learning difficulty, or mayhap the woman reminded her of Helena; the two got along like Void and Lightning. Neither looked forward to their lessons and their time together merely resulted in more resentment. Later, in private, Brown had told her that Kareena was the one who had devised most of the puzzle-Mandalas for Gwen's home and that she should not judge a Mage by their scowl.

Finally, as January came to a close with its snow and sleet, swelling the Thames, three unanticipated events marked the conclusion of a busy month in a foreign land.

The first was the polarising opinion of what the Sun Herald insisted was a Dwarven Fortress and what the city of London had lodged as a workshop. The news went that Gwen Song, responsible for opening up relations with the Dwarves, was now a Demi-loving turncoat looking to profit from the people of London. All that good-will she had created on the Isle of Dogs, the paper inferred, was merely a cover for this outrageous land-grab for the "Squats". Gwen's displeasure was that the Tower made no move to impute the Herald Sun for publishing flaming bullshit and that during her weekly audit of the isle, groups of reporters would crowd the manor, clamouring for her to confess. The truth, Gwen suspected, lay with Walken who convened with London Metro to discuss the possibility of paying the Dwarves to expand beneath the Isle of Dogs. With the Fabricators, they could likely complete a circular route of the eastern Underground within half a year.

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The second event to catch her by surprise happened at Emmanuel College, midway through massaging her rainbow-hued duck. While pampering her drake, a triumphant shout from the Old Court had sent the pair reeling against the park bench.

"YOU! You've been modifying Dede?" Maxwell Brown Dimension Doored beside them, his face scarlet with a disapproving scowl. "Gwen, why?"

Deeply ashamed, Dede's gooseneck withdrew into its body.

"Dede, Dada isn't angry." Maxwell promptly changed his tone, much to Gwen's surprise, then discomfort. The Magister then invited himself to sit beside her and the duck. After several kisses to the duck's head, he turned to her accusingly. "Dede is a wild animal, Gwen. A Familiar or a Spirit might take to your Druidic Essence kindly, but a free creature like Dede? What you've done is highly unethical."

Still shaken, Gwen wanted to know why.

"Essence!" Brown seethed; rarely had she ever seen the jovial researcher in such a mood. "All animals have their scents, and when it comes to Magical Beasts, Essence, no matter how meagre, determines their physiology, tier and being. I know that you've had fortuitous encounters and your body is nothing short of miraculous, but you shouldn't be polluting innocent creatures with your— emanations!"

"Dede loves it though." Gwen wiggled a finger like a worm.

"Quack! Quack!" Dede agreed, kicking its little orange feet.

Brown sighed. "Gwen, you're of a certain age, so I think it is safe to say you're not the wholesome young woman you pretend to be, certainly not with Keridwen Le Guevel sinking her claws into your brain. You've had boyfriends, right? I do apologise for the plural, but one can only speculate— but think on this, how would you like it if someone came along and took advantage of your impoverished wisdom?"

"Quack!"

"I am not sure how your analogy works." Gwen narrowed her eyes, a little confused, more so insulted. "Are you saying I… took 'advantage' of your duck?"

"Dede is his 'own' duck," Brown snapped. "Don't be insensitive."

"Okay..."

"You've changed him!" Brown growled. "Dede was a loner, but he was a mighty-fine duck, you know? How's he going to find a mate now? Who is even in the same realm as Dede? The female mallards are terrified of him. Did you know the other day he fought with a male for their attention, and he swatted one into the water so hard it broke both wings? Some of the students had to take the poor mallard to the infirmary. After that, the hens fled. If Dede had tried to mate with one— sweet Jesus— excuse me, but by God..."

"… Maxwell." Gwen felt uncomfortable enough to change the topic. "You seem to know a lot about ducks."

"I also know a lot about respecting our campus fellows, alright? Dede's no different. You need to recognise his autonomy."

"Dede has autonomy?"

Brown nodded. "Dede is brilliant, always has been. Many of our finest Magisters and scholars spend their time here at the pond, the students as well. Maybe it rubs off? I am not a cryptozoologist, but after what you pulled..."

The Magister took a deep breath. "Did you know your Familiars and Dede have been harassing our students? Shaking them down for food and crystals?"

"They have?" Gwen looked around for her missing Familiars, who were gone as soon as Brown confronted her. Their absence meant that Magister Brown was likely telling the truth.

"And they've been splitting the loot. Dede knows arithmetics."

"Are you sure he's originally a duck?" Gwen was very impressed. Not even Alesia's decade-old Caracal could do that. At the same time, she wondered if Dean Luo's Air Elemental, Ellen, could do mathematics.

"And he knows how to buy bread from the local delicatessen."

"That's not that crazy; Ariel used to exchange crystals for chicken legs near Fudan."

"Dede gets the change exact and gets his order delivered to the pond. He also uses coupons."

"...wow."

The Magister pinched his brows.

"The point is, how's Dede going to find a mate? How can Dede fulfil its purpose in life? Did you give him a purpose before you elevated him with your Draconic morphology?"

"No… but I see your point."

"Do you?"

"I think I do…"

Brown watched her, and in her instructor's eyes, Gwen saw herself helplessly shrug. When Dede paddled on her thighs and soulfully comforted her trespass, an unfortunate parallel, her dearest Evee, rose to the fore of her mind. Her mind grew gravid with doubt— as with the duck, had she done right by Elvia, or had she made her friend's situation infinitely worse? Was giving Evee Sen-sen her mistake? Or was Sen-sen merely the symptom of a bigger problem? The affection she felt for her Evee was as generous as ever, but now those feelings felt tainted— by guilt, by self-loathing, by the poor returns.

In the end, student and tutor petted the duck, fed it Crystals, and spent the afternoon in quiet contemplation of Dede's future.

The final event occurred the next day, on her morning jog through Cambridge, whereupon a familiar face on the front page— that of her friend Elvia Lindholm, confronted her.

Afraid of what she might read in the Herald Sun, she picked the Guardian.

"HOSTILE DIPLOMACY" read the headline in bold print. Below was a picture of Elvia in what looked like her Nightingale school clothes, blonde as spun gold and cute as a button.

Morbidly curious for what she was about to learn, Gwen strolled back to Emmanuel to pick up her Familiars, walking as she read.

"… Junior Cleric from Nightingale moves the Manx with compassion." The paper had printed. "Since last November, London's fragile and often callous diplomatic ties with the indigenous folk on the Isle of Man has resulted in wide-ranging skirmishes costing lives on both sides. The hostility broke on Thursday evening when the Manx leadership offered a ceasefire and truce, unexpectedly agreeing to pull their presence from the isle's south. Though the isle has long since belonged to Britain in legality, the Manx have continued to flout the treaty of 1347. With the present agreement, however, ratified by the Wood Elves of Tir-Mara, the Mageocracy anticipates a long-lasting peace…"

Gwen skipped the fluff until she got to the paragraph with Elvia.

"Doctor Lindholm, who last week was responsible for uncovering atrocities committed by mercenary-Adventurers under the command of Colonel Sarah Tarleton, had been forced to escort her rescued prisoners back to their hidden home. Aided by the Guardian's own Dominic Lorenzo and Ser Mathias Rothwell of The Order of St Michael, the trio located and then proceeded with diplomatic talks. The Arch-Druid of Tir-Mara, Primarch Golion…"

The story further goes on to mention that Elvia had convinced the Druid of the Mageocracy's sincerity and that her warning was the straw on the camel's back that broke the strained relationship between the Manx and the Elven Enclave on the isle. Without the Elves' support in the war, the Manx could only pull back to designated safe zones ruled by their allies.

"In an additional gesture, Lindholm has offered to remain behind to relocate the Manx, providing much-needed Clerical aide to a desperate and destitute people ravaged by centuries of war and discrimination…"

"Our little Evee's all grown up." Gwen sighed as she crumpled the paper. "To think a month ago, Mathias was using her as a rug."

Suppressing her ambivalent emotions, she wondered when was the right time to give Elvia a call and ask how her friend was— and how she felt.

A few days later, Elvia did not call, and neither had she. Gwen had put the matter behind her, for it was so easy to be distracted when one wanted to be, and Elvia proved an easy victim to the insanity of her schedule.

With the Dwarves now settled in, the repair of the printing press was underway. Accounts had to be balanced as capital flowed out and then rebalanced when a sudden rise in the enterprise of Tonglv and its associated projects saw her funds replenished. Yossari proved perfectly happy aiding in her immediate need for office space, especially now that a limited-permit had been issued to Lady Grey to accommodate whatever urban planning Gwen desired.

As he had promised, Walken blood-sealed the contract without incident and assumed his position as an executive of the Millwall-Cubitt Development Group. Taking advantage of Gwen's permit, the Magister asked the Dwarves to erect the company's first official office space. It was a prospect both Grey and Gwen found agreeable, as Walken could now keep an eye on the Dwarves and oversee the town from up on high.

A day later, Richard arrived, bringing Elis and Lucas from King's College to seek out internships. Gwen placed them under Walken, roles the trio took without complaint, then personally toured the isle for outstanding issues to be resolved.

Once the chaos settled, Gwen observed that the peninsula was finally something other than a dilapidated Dickensian wasteland of muck and refuse. The most significant change was in Millwall, where the streets had been cleared of trash, and the public buildings were once again in use. Shattered windows that once gazed out like blue-addicts onto A-12-06 now held both light and people, giving the town a feeling of human warmth. When Wally conducted the January census, he recorded a total of three thousand inhabitants, and just over a thousand vagrants who desired abodes in Millwall. Concurrently, Elvia's clinic and soup kitchen had expended thrice and was known all over the region for its thick, gut-settling SPAM soup.

For men on the isle, those who were able-bodied were employed by the printing press, either as cleaners, fitters, or day-labourers helping the Dwarves. Public projects like the restoration of the mud-covered roads continued, delivering gainful employment to hundreds, even though Richard and Lea could clear the lot in a week. With wages being paid on time and in LDMs, merchants smelling opportunity had set up stalls and rented shops closer to the shore, selling enigmatic sausages in a bun that not even Caliban would eat, at least not without the sauce that cost extra.

Other labourers came from as far as Stratford and Vanbrugh to find work, for Gwen had given orders to keep as many bodies as possible on the isle. When the construction began in earnest, she had told Walken— there would not be enough hands even if they drained the inlet from Limehouse to Plumstead.

Then in between her life of increasingly more convoluted puzzles, training with Nils, persevering with Patil, tending ducks with Maxwell, limbering with Keridwen, and High Tea with Lady Grey, Petra arrived to preserve Gwen's sanity.

London.
Heathrow.

Gwen's second time at Heathrow was met with far more success than the first. Rachel Swann, Ravenport's replacement Director of Security at the ISTC station, had instructed her people to recognise Gwen on sight. Little did she know, her order was wholly unnecessary, for its entire staff, those not yet laid off— had all witnessed the legendary lumen-recordings of the Devourer's tantrum that lead to Director Reeve's dismissal.

Her infamy became apparent when she teleported in with Magister Brown in tow. As if via divination, two uniformed guards stood ready with welcomes and hellos, asking for her business and destination. When she said that she would not be travelling interstate and that she was instead here to receive a friend, the atmosphere visibly relaxed, and the guards explained themselves.

"The arrival lounge is this way," the officer directed them toward a section of the ISTC that Gwen knew a little too well.

"You're a celebrity," Brown teased her with a smirk. "I doubt they have any idea who I am."

"You should try having a ring with your entire inventory confiscated." Gwen chuckled. "I bet you'd fight them to the last mote of mana as well."

"Oh, I would— but I don't have a Lord Marshall to back me up. What if I get arrested?"

"Dickie didn't bail me out for fun," Gwen explained as they made their way across the lounge. This time, she was at least in a calve-length coat; last time, she had teleported in wearing a summer dress. "If you recall, I was grilled within an inch of my life in that car."

Brown laughed. "I am jealous. You have no idea how generously people will pay to arrest the Duke of Norfolk's ear for an hour. To think he came to you, free of charge and in person. There's little wonder the tabloids speculate."

"No need to tell me about it. I am living it." Gwen quickened her pace. "Come on. I think Pats should be here already."

ISTCs, unlike the air-lounges of her old world, were relatively instant for those with HDMs and passports. The only obstructions facing legitimate travellers were crystals and customs, a problem only for those who were Class VI War Mages carrying enough capital to fund a city-wide insurrection.

At the glass doors facing the retro-futurist decor of the lounge, Gwen spotted her cousin seated beside the un-endearing face of Magister Wen.

"PETRA!" She rushed forward.

Petra looked up from her tablet.

Her cousin remained as comely as she had always been; if a bit pale from the long-distance teleportation. Tall and svelte, Petra's hair fell loosely about her shoulders, while on her shoulders hung a long sleeved one-piece that wrapped her figure snugly. Like herself, the Enchanter had forgone her coat. As an old Moscow girl, Gwen figured, Pats must not think much of London's meagre single-digit winters.

Beside her, the future Meister Wen looked like she walked out from Heilong Laboratory, got on a cab, strolled through the ISTC, then arrived at Heathrow's lounge. Her face was its usual shrivelled-pickle self, and her eyes still possessed that lifeless, glassy quality that came standard in old Mineral Mages.

"Gwen!"

The two girls crashed in a fierce embrace, with Gwen enveloping her cousin by lifting her into the air. Petra's body felt so soft, her hair smelled terrific, and it felt amazing to hug something other than a Familiar, or a duck. "Pats! I've missed you so much. Lord knows enough has happened with you gone."

"Gwen— you've…" Petra appeared surprised she could breathe. "You've lost your Draconic-strength? So it's true?"

"Aye, it's true." Gwen let her go. "We'll talk at Peterhouse, your new home. I've got a private suite there. Or on the Isle of Dogs where I've got a manor."

"I am going to Peterhouse?" Petra turned her head.

"You're not?" Gwen looked to Maxwell Brown, who was shaking Wen's hand and offering the usual English platitudes. That Vice-Chancellor Butterfield had sent Gwen to retrieve the scholar from Fudan had been a message in itself. Roslyn-Marie Wen was a research fellow, a Meister by virtue of what the college had exchanged— not by academic merit. Likewise, as Brown would be taking over from Wen as the chief researcher of Gwen's mystical prowess, the inclusion of the Magister in their welcoming party was an indication of Wen's future place at Cambridge. In a way, Gwen almost felt sorry for the researcher. If she were to reach the apex of her life, she would hate for it to be half-arsed and co-dependent on politics. "Greetings, Magister Wen. You're looking well."

Wen inclined her chin. "Hello, Gwen."

Still holding Petra's hand, Gwen waited for an answer from Brown.

"Well." Her tutor grinned. "I imagine that as a post-graduate, Magus Kuznetsova can pick whichever college she likes. That's how it usually works, you know? Either we pick you, or you pick us. Not everyone's inducted by Lady Grey personally at Hall. Besides, you're a Magus of the college— but not yet its student— how's that for an irregularity."

"Magus?" Gwen met her cousin's crystallin irises.

"Dean Luo was very kind." Petra beamed. "I had enough units completed anyway, and moving to Cambridge as an undergraduate would prevent me from progressing in Spellcube research."

"I am happy for you, Magus Kuznetsova!" Gwen squeezed her cousin's hand.

"The same, Magus Song."

The two laughed, drawing eyes from around the lounge.

"Magister Brown, I was thinking of Queen's College," Petra answered their earlier question. "They have a very advanced corpus of work regarding Dwarven technologies."

"Oh-ho-ho, Dear Petra—" Gwen interrupted before Brown could deliver the news himself. Huffing arrogantly, she imperiously placed a hand around Petra's waist and another around her shoulders. "If it's Dwarven Runes yer' ken, yer in for a treat, lass. Say, how's the liver these days?"

"My liver?" The researcher cocked her head.

"Aye-aye." Gwen grinned with teeth, doing her best Hanmoul. "Tell me, lassie. Yer ever pass out from a Dwarven Jäger Bombe before?"