Guardian Druni led them out of Ichormai, using the official exit known to the public rather than the backdoor exit Ian had used with Euryphel. The main exit was located close to the guest wing, so they didn’t need to go far. After leaving the outer palace, they simply followed a stone path through a copse of flowering shrubs and trees before coming upon a massive, open, wooden gateway painted vermillion. On either side of the red gate stretched an iron fence topped with menacing spear points.

Unlike the heavily guarded entrance, the exit was manned by two statue-like guards. The guards gave them a cursory look as Druni waved them off, barely seeming to move.

Ian and Aunt Julia found themselves immediately deposited on a quiet street filled with official looking buildings and tall trees. After walking for a block, they found themselves on a main thoroughfare.

“The days are so short,” Aunt Julia muttered as she sidestepped around a broken glass bottle. “It’s hardly past three o’clock and the sun is starting to crest downward.”

Ian shrugged.

“For heaven’s sake, put away your Death energy before you accidentally kill someone. Even if it doesn’t affect you, it will affect other people nearby.” If a passerby was ill and elderly, it wouldn’t be infeasible that spare Death energy could push them over the edge.

Ian felt mildly annoyed by the reprimand, even if it was justified: For once he was finally allowed to be a decemancer without worrying about concealing himself. But Aunt Julia was right: Just because it wasn’t forbidden to circulate Death energy didn’t mean there wouldn’t be consequences if he hurt someone.

“Fine,” Ian conceded, concentrating the energy into a soul gem while they walked. It was a bit more difficult to form a single soul gem out of different animal and insect species, but after a minute, he held one between his right index finger and thumb. Ian almost couldn’t believe that the number of vermin in the outer and inner palaces was enough to form a medium-sized soul gem, albeit a low-grade one. There had to have been at least four-hundred rodents, not to mention thousands upon thousands of insects.

“Aunt Julia, this is for you,” he said, grabbing her hand and placing the soul gem in her palm. “Crush it and pour the liquid into your eyes. I’m curious how the sight of a Life practitioner differs from that of my own.” While both Life and Death practitioners could see vitality, Ian had a suspicion that their perception differed on a fundamental level.

Aunt Julia stared at the soul gem, her eyes widening slightly. “You just made this while we walked, didn’t you?”

“Of course. I did something similar when we escaped Pardin and I created the flight construct; don’t you remember?”

Aunt Julia rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. “A lot of things were going on then.”

To be fair, things had escalated quickly.

“Well, I made the soul gem; can you try crushing it?”

“Crush a soul gem?” she asked.

“Like this,” Ian said, pulling her along the wall of a stone building. He placed the soul gem in his left hand, then held his right hand over it, a tendril of Death energy snaking out from his fingers. “Can you do this with Life energy?” he asked.

Aunt Julia looked around. “Aren’t you worried about being discreet, nephew?”

“Can you sense any practitioners nearby?” Ian asked. “The regs shouldn’t be able to sense a thing.”

Aunt Julia frowned, giving him an odd look. “I suppose there’s no harm in practicing here.” She held out her hand. “Give it.”

Ian placed the violet soul gem in her hand, then gave her an expectant look. Aunt Julia sent out a tendril of energy, hers showing a radiant white to Ian’s oily black.

“Watch what I do,” Ian said. His tendril of energy snaked over the soul gem, hovered for a moment, and then stabbed into it, striking like a viper. Suddenly, the soul gem shattered and seemed to melt. Ian removed the tendril and waved his hand over the liquid, restoring it to its solid shape.

Aunt Julia frowned, her brow furrowing. “Can you do it once more?”

Ian nodded. He repeated the move, hopeful that Aunt Julia’s Beginning affinity would help her learn from observation.

“Let me try,” she said. Her tendril extended out confidently toward the gem, piercing it through. The gem exploded into a thin mist of droplets that coated her palm, a few even landing on Ian. He smiled: It was a success.

“Next time, use a bit less force,” he chided her. He waved his hand over the soul gem droplets, amassing them into a ball of liquid. “Can you make an area of high vitality on your eyes for a second?” he asked.

Aunt Julia complied, her eyes surging with white vitality. Ian tossed the liquid at Aunt Julia’s face, and sure enough, it went straight to her eyes, like a magnet to charged metal. Aunt Julia blinked rapidly and her pupils began to contract.

“What a use for soul gems,” she murmured. “A very dizzying use...”

“Dizzying?” Ian asked.

“It’s like I’m seeing double of everything,” Aunt Julia said. “Except the Death energy is delayed by half a second, lagging behind. The Death energy is also a little hazier, and it’s everywhere...the buildings, the streets.” She paused. “If I had to describe what I normally see, in contrast...I see vitality, but in greater clarity. However, I don’t see Death energy very clearly when it’s outside of living things.”

After a minute of Aunt Julia bumping into people as they proceeded toward the glossY shop, Julian held out his hand for her soul gem.

“I want to keep the gem in a bit longer,” Aunt Julia said. “It’s disorienting, but novel.”

Ian cocked an eyebrow. “Try it again later when you have a pair of sunglasses.”

With a face that all but screamed, challenge accepted, Aunt Julia turned to a street vendor hawking wares. “Do you sell sunglasses?”

Nodding furiously, the woman grabbed a pair of cheap sunglasses from a rack hanging from a metal shelf. “How about these? I think they’d compliment the madam’s features.”

“How much?” Aunt Julia said crisply, her demeanor coolly indifferent.

“Fifteen auris.”

“I’ll give you nine,” Aunt Julia stated, staring the other woman down.

“Fine, fine,” the woman said, making a grudging expression. Ian couldn’t blame the woman for relenting.

Aunt Julia promptly placed the sunglasses on her head, covering the violet glow of her eyes. “There, satisfied?”

Ian shrugged. “That works. You know, Aunt Julia, I had the impression that you were a busy person,” he said. “It’s Monday. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“I settled some affairs yesterday using your mother’s glossY,” she replied. “I’m taking leave this and next week. ‘Family emergency’ seemed like an apt excuse.”

“And what of Mother?” Last he remembered from the loop, she was working for some distant relative of Vanderlich as an accountant, though he had no idea if he could trust those specifics.

“You’ll have to ask her.”

The two of them continued to walk down the street until they came to a large shop selling a wide selection of glossYs. They each picked out a model, then had the shop clerk transfer over the configurations stored on their now-defunct devices. Ian began to scroll through his missed messages, feeling like they were from several years ago. He shook his head as he considered a message from Xander, who was wondering why his weekend trip to Pardin had bled into Monday.

He closed the messaging platform, sighing. What was he supposed to say? That he was wanted in Selejo for sending the Eldemari’s son careening into the bay, and couldn’t return to school for the foreseeable future?

Besides, so long as he was able to stay on good terms with Euryphel, he had a feeling that he would be treated well. The Crowned Prime had, in offering him a job, effectively offered him political protection. If Euryphel stopped protecting him or tried to take advantage, Ian could always flee somewhere else, so long as he kept free of any oaths.

...so he told himself.

But as he considered Aunt Julia, his mother, and Germaine, he knew changing allegiances wouldn’t be so easy. If Ian insisted on forgoing an oath, Euryphel might be inclined to ask for other means to ensure his loyalty. And in that case, fleeing the SPU might be equivalent to dooming one of his family members.

Euryphel hadn’t yet asked for any such assurances, not even a single oath; Ian hoped that wouldn’t change, else he’d need to start thinking of more detailed contingencies.

—

After leaving the glossY shop, they walked through the crowd, following the flow of people. The sun was a red haze on the horizon mostly covered by buildings, its dying light casting an indigo glow over the sky. The crowded shops, so colorful during the day with their bright tapestries, were now alight with illuminated text and strings of lights strung across clotheslines. Numerous multicolored lanterns bobbed in the sky, casting a dim glow onto the world below; they reminded Ian of the street lanterns that illuminated the most crowded districts of his hometown, except that Jupiter’s lanterns always shone blue-white.

“Where should we go?” Ian asked. “I’m feeling a bit restless.” He realized that it might make sense to head back to the Palace of Fortitude, but part of him recoiled at the idea. He enjoyed walking aimlessly about; if he returned, he’d probably be escorted by Guardian Druni and lectured by Mother.

“You’ve got the itch, don’t you?” Aunt Julia said; he could tell she was giving him a critical look even from behind her sunglasses.

“The itch?”

Aunt Julia sighed, her expression pensive. “Let’s go into a cafe somewhere and have a talk. There are a few things that need to be said.”

It didn’t take long for them to find a small little shop selling coffee and tea. The two of them got a shared pot of green tea and sat down at a short table, their legs folded on sumptuous patterned pillows.

Aunt Julia took off the sunglasses and removed the soul gem from her eyes. Seeing that she was understandably having difficulty forming the amorphous liquid back into a solid gem, Ian intervened and placed the re-formed gem back into his pocket.

“Much better,” she said. “I was starting to get eye strain, believe it or not.”

Ian chuckled.

“How often did you practice decemancy in the loop?” she asked, her expression once more turning serious.

Ian opened his mouth, then closed it, considering. “For the first three and a half years, constantly. After that, it depends.”

“What changed?”

Ian’s expression turned hard. “I finally broke past the first layer of the loop. The second layer had an obnoxious requirement that I not reveal myself as a powerful decemancer. Even using decemancy in a remote area over the ocean was enough to force a restart.”

Her eyebrows drew inward. “You spent over three years in the first layer of the Infinity Loop?”

“That’s correct.”

“You explained the first loop layer before; there was a contagion that you were supposed to stop, correct?”

Ian nodded.

“...And it took you three years?”

Sighing, Ian took a sip of tea. “It’s better not to talk about it.”

“That wasn’t the point of my questions, anyway. Did you find it difficult not using decemancy in the second loop layer?”

Ian lay back on the cushion, supporting himself with his arms. “I have a feeling you’re expecting me to say yes, and that you’re going to tell me that what I felt was the so-called ‘itch.’ If that’s what you were referring to before, then yes, of course I know about the itch.”

Aunt Julia nodded. “All powerful practitioners experience the itch in some way or another. People with Life, Death, Mountain, Cloud, Sun, Moon, and...” she fingered her chin for a moment. “And Remorse generally have it the hardest because they have to either practice on other people or create physical manifestations of their power.”

Ian tilted his head. “In other words, they don’t have a discreet way of scratching the not-so-metaphorical itch.”

“Right. For my Beginning affinity, I can use it constantly without affecting anyone but myself, since all it does is help me to analyze the world and make predictions. Even though my affinity is high, I have never experienced the itch. But for my Life affinity, I generally have to use it at least every day or I start to feel restless. Thankfully, it’s typically not a problem since I can practice on myself, and because there’s always a backlog of people seeking a vivimancer’s services.”

“...Is there any other word to describe this other than ‘the itch?’” Ian asked. While he didn’t doubt that the ‘itch’ was real, having experienced it, its name seemed a bit absurd. He felt that there should be something more legitimate.

Aunt Julia grinned. “Not that I’ve heard.”

Ian snorted and shook his head. “Whatever. But continuing along that line of thinking, I presume that the elemental affinities all have to physically influence the world around them to scratch the itch,” Ian said. “Move a few drops of water, a few pebbles.”

“That's what elementalists generally have to do,” Aunt Julia affirmed. “Though those of high affinity generally have to do far more than move a few pebbles,” she snorted. “There’s a reason why elementalists of all ranks frequent practice grounds.”

“You’re saying that unless I find an outlet, I’m going to be stuck with the itch.”

“Right.”

He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I suppose I’ll just have to live with it.”

“No, you’re not just supposed to just ‘live with it,’” she stated scathingly. “The itch is a warning. How long have you gone without practicing in recent memory?”

“Two weeks, perhaps?”

“And did you notice anything as the days went by?”

“...”

“Well?”

“I started to feel a bit out of sorts,” he admitted. “It happened gradually.”

“Non-practicing practitioners are like starving men. They feel hunger, in the beginning. That hunger soon transforms into an obsession. And obsession eventually leads to paranoia, delirium, and regrettable consequences. Are you aware that preventing practitioners from practicing when they exhibit signs of the itch is considered a form of psychological and physical torture?”

“It is?” Ian asked, his voice low. So the peaceful second loop layer was really just another torture trap? Because while Ian could covertly practice his decemancy in that layer, he had still experienced, almost daily, the so-called itch. He had gladly erred on the side of caution rather than risk repeating the layer again, even if it meant discomfort.

“Yes, it is.”

“Did you know I’d be subjected to this kind of treatment when you signed my name up for the Infinity Loop experiment?” Ian asked softly, his gaze intense.

“Not this specifically, no,” Aunt Julia replied, sighing. “I did know that the crux of the experiment was forcing you to confront some of your worst fears. Scientific literature has shown that stressful situations can awaken latent practitioners, so in order to work effectively, the situation needed to be genuinely stressful.”

“Sure, but why was I stuck in there for so long, even after awakening?”

Aunt Julia shook her head. “They should’ve had some kind of logic to take you out of the loop when you stopped progressing. Perhaps in your case, you never did.”

Ian looked toward the ceiling, feeling his throat oddly constrict.

“How can you act so calm, Aunt Julia, when you’ve irreversibly set my life on a different path? Don’t you feel the least bit guilty for forcing me to participate in the experiment, upon threat of severing ties with our branch of the family? How could I have afforded to refuse you!?”

Aunt Julia stared at him blankly. She took a sip of tea, dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, and took a deep breath.

“Julian. I’m sorry for what happened to you, truly and sincerely sorry. But I hope you can understand that I was trying to do what was best for you.”

He shook his head and smiled bitterly. “I can understand your motivations, but I also can’t just...I can’t accept the fact that you coerced me into an experiment that you knew might entail years of physical and psychological torture. Even if the result is this,” he said, gesturing to eyes momentarily flashing violet.

“It would’ve been worth it,” Aunt Julia muttered sullenly. “If only you’d been a bit less gifted, Julian, it would’ve been worth it.”

Ian froze at the sight of a tear falling from Aunt Julia’s eye, sliding down her cheek like the stroke of a paintbrush.

Aunt Julia turned away, massaged her jaw, then turned back. She cleared her throat, then said, “What were we discussing, again?”

Ian wanted to still be angry, wanted to continue his much-deserved tirade...but after seeing Aunt Julia’s normally-stoic composure crack, he felt his motivation atrophy. There was something broken about the whole situation of him entering the loop, though the root of the problem was more fundamental than a single person like Aunt Julia.

“The itch. How to deal with it.”

Aunt Julia smiled, though Ian could see the gesture didn’t reach her eyes. “For a decemancer such as yourself, there are a few methods that you can consider to keep yourself physically and mentally healthy. But first, how long after practicing does it take for you to first experience discomfort?”

Ian chuckled roughly. “To be completely honest, if I’m not actively using decemancy, I feel the so-called itch. That’s why I told you it was fine, and that I’m used to it.”

“There must be some lag time between practicing and feeling it,” Aunt Julia retorted.

He crushed the soul gem and used its energy to once more form a shifting cloud of Death energy around him. He smiled as he felt the familiar energy wash over him like bath water.

“No itch,” he said, giving her a knowing look. Then, with a snap of his fingers, he compressed the energy back together, forming the soul gem anew. As it fell into his palm, he said, “Itch.”

“So half a second,” Aunt Julia said wryly, shaking her head. “Ridiculous. I almost don’t believe you.”

“So, what kind of methods were you going to suggest that I use?”

She poured herself more tea from the pot, frowning when the liquid ran out with her tea cup only a third full.

“I was going to say that you should erect a practice room and return to it throughout the day, but that clearly won’t work. The other suggestion I had was to work on control. Instead of donning Death energy like a cloud, wear it like a form-fitting suit.

Ian frowned and cracked the soul gem once again. The energy began to spin rapidly around him like a small cyclone, or like liquid spun in a centrifuge. It started to become more and more dense, like thick, black oil. And then, without warning, the spinning stopped and the liquid rebounded, as though it ran into and deflected off of a hard wall.

Ian held out an arm, inspecting his handiwork. A thick carapace of hardened energy coated his body like a well-loved coat, warm and comfortable. He almost expected it to impede his movements, but the energy had no impact on his physical body.

“Like this? I’ve never tried compressing it like this before. I guess this way I won’t be influencing anyone nearby,” he said, grinning at Aunt Julia’s failed attempt to conceal her shock.

“...It’s comfortable for you to keep the energy around you like that?”

“No itch,” Ian affirmed. “And it’s no small protection.” Though nowhere near as powerful as a set of empowered bone armor, it should be more protective than bare skin.

“I’ll say...” Aunt Julia muttered. “It looks like body armor.”

“So you can tell it’s obviously Death energy, correct?” Ian asked.

Aunt Julia gave him a scathing look. “Obviously.”

“What if it looks like an actual coat, instead?” He began to restructure the energy into the guise of an even denser black garment, a fitted coat that draped down to his knees. He closed his eyes as he worked the coat’s surface, adding stitch patterns, buttons, and giving its surface a fabric-like texture.

“I can tell it’s Death energy no matter its shape.”

Ian opened his eyes, but kept the coat.

“What about a lesser practitioner?” he asked. Most people had far less affinity than his aunt.

This question seemed to stump her for a moment. “If they were really looking at you, they would definitely still notice it. But if you were just in the crowd, probably not.”

Ian nodded his head, satisfied. “That’s good enough for me.”

“And just wearing a coat of Death energy is enough to stop the itch?” Aunt Julia asked.

“Well, I‘m not just wearing it,” he said. “The energy is circling very rapidly.”

“Can I touch it?”

Ian held out his arm, baring a sleeve. Aunt Julia approached it with her index finger, hesitating above the black energy. He noticed a small tendril of Life energy unfurling around her finger nail.

Before she could react, Ian pushed his sleeve into the tendril. Aunt Julia shuddered, recoiling her hand instinctively.

“How did it feel?”

“Like an icy waterfall. Isn’t it exhausting to–”

“We should probably leave and see how Mother is doing,” Ian said, cutting her off. “The sun has gone down. She’ll be angry if we eat dinner without her.”

And so the two of them made their way back to Ichormai.