“Camellia.” Rooks turned away from Sten. “Someone needs to get this information to the Scaldin.”

“Couldn’t Sten do it?” Camellia asked. She wanted to talk to the Scaldin again, but she was also tired and had promised Florian, who had been tasked with teaching key people Volanter, that they would have an evening together.

“Sten could, but Sten is going to be working on our course back to the wormhole. We’re lucky we found the exit not too far away and that it seems stable. I want to head in that direction as soon as possible.”

Sten straightened. “I’ll help you relay the course once I figure it out, Camellia. It shouldn’t take long. But, Curator Rooks is correct. We should work our way towards the wormhole at best possible speed. There are a number of obstacles between us and it, and this superliminal path will have to wind by necessity. Otherwise, we could reach it in a couple of weeks.”

Camellia frowned. “How long does the trip look, without ideal conditions?”

Sten shrugged. “I think it could take us a whole month – at least.”

Camellia drew a sharp breath.

Rooks had a dark look in her eyes. “Yeah, we screwed up.” She stalked for the door. “I’d tell that to Inez and Eder, but they already seemed disturbed enough.”

“What happens when we reach the wormhole?” Camellia thought she could deduce the order of operations, but she asked just the same.

Rooks gripped the doorframe but turned back. “We all go through to Iruedim. Then, we move the wormhole’s exit again.” Rooks sighed. “I’m sure you’ve guessed – we have to send it to Scaldigir.”

“And then, we leave it there. They can be our new contacts outside the wormhole.” Camellia could almost feel the sparkle in her own eyes.

It was a silver lining.

Rooks gave her a sad smile. “Assuming they want anything to do with us after this whole fiasco. But, yeah. That’s the plan. Personally, I think moving the exit twice is twice too much, but we have no choice.”

Camellia nodded. She certainly wanted a longer chance to explore their new friends and hoped they could mend whatever rift had settled over an otherwise fortunate meeting. “I’ll send your message right away. I’ll let them know we found our way home, and that we have a plan to get them home as well.”

“Yes, and keep communication open, until I can get you the path,” Sten added.

Rooks left. She disappeared from view, but Camellia’s keen ears caught another sigh of frustration and exhaustion from the Curator.

“Shall we?” Sten asked.

A few minutes later, Camellia and Sten worked on their message. Camellia composed her half while he worked on the superliminal path.

She’d written: We’ve found the wormhole’s location. We need to head there at best possible speed as we are scanning several obstacles along the shortest path. Once we arrive at the wormhole, we will all travel through to Iruedim. Then, we will switch the exit location to a point near Scaldigir’s solar system. You will arrive home mere hours after we do.

Camellia held the message ready for Sten to read over, add the coordinates, and the superliminal path. She was not going to open a com channel and shoot the breeze with whoever waited on the other side. Her conversational skills were tapped. She had nothing left to say in any language she felt comfortable with, let alone Volanter.

Two months to get home. Camellia hung her head.

She and Florian might have skipped the trip had they not been anthropologists eager to see new worlds and peoples. Now, they had a much longer trip ahead of them, longer than they’d ever anticipated. They wouldn’t be having a honeymoon; at least, not one they wanted.

And, poor Florian might lose his chair seat. Well, he probably wouldn’t. Previous chairs had left the job in the hands of their second for four months or more. If Florian showed up within that time, they wouldn’t pick a new chair. Either way, Florian could secure some position nearby, and they could resume their journey as a family. Camellia rubbed her forehead.

She could spin it with optimism, but she didn’t feel it.

Cernunnos would have loved this.

Every moment – from the mistake with the wormhole; to the fortuitous discovery of other Volanter descendants. He would have loved it all because he had loved the Volanter.

It would have been better him than me.

The whole scenario was his dream come true, but only Camellia was alive to see it.

“Done,” Sten said. “Let’s find our counterparts and resume our evenings.”

“But, they’ll respond.” Camellia looked him full in the face as she gestured at the com from whence their words traveled.

“I’ll take care of it. Curator Rooks will want to see the response anyway. In the meantime, I will find Eva where I left her.”

Camellia made a questioning face.

“Engineering. She wants to take the ship through one of the obstacles, but first we need to know if the modifications are possible for both ships.” Sten motioned Camellia to the door.

“It would be good if we could cut the trip short.” Camellia hurried away. She fled more potential minutes of correspondence, with their reluctant new siblings, though it was a shameful thing to do.

Camellia found Florian alone in their quarters.

“Hello,” she said.

Florian got up from his chair. “I don’t know how you taught Meladee Girandolan. I…” He shook his head.

“I have the patience of a Tagtrumian monk.” Camellia crossed the room to his side. She gave him a hug as well as took one for herself.

Florian sighed. “I just want to get home at this point. Anthropology, with a side of stranded, has killed my enjoyment of the usual activities.”

“Oh,” Camellia exhaled into his chest. “You’re not going to like this. Sten says it might take up to two months for us to get back.”

Florian went rigid. “Two months.”

“Maybe, just one.”

“A month?”

“But, Eva’s working on a shortcut.” Camellia looked up to find his face pale.

Florian wore his shock, which on him was more a lack of expression. “At the end of two months, they might begin the process to replace me as chair. Maybe, I’ve got three. I don’t know.”

“Well, Eva’s shortcut could get us home in no time,” Camellia offered.

Florian’s entire demeanor fell. He cast his eyes towards the floor and avoided Camellia’s. It was the look of a man who saw everything he’d worked for slipping out of reach.

He hugged Camellia, less in the comforting way that she usually received. It was as if Florian requested comfort of Camellia, and she was his teddy bear. Camellia hugged him back and hoped she made a good one.

“Eva.”

Eva looked up from her place in Engineering. “They can make the modifications, and we should have no trouble with them. We should travel straight to the weak point in the barrier on a short superliminal path. Then, we wait a week, make the modifications to the hull, and cut three weeks from our total travel time, even with the installation accounted for.”

Sten crossed his arms. “I wish you’d let me know that a little sooner. I sent them the path.”

Eva studied Sten and his organic like emotions. The more she got to know him, the greater his range seemed. Greater than hers. The difference gave her the advantage, especially in terms of focus.

“I sent the short path to Rooks. She’s already communicated it to the Ischyros.” Eva left her console. She gestured to another member of Engineering to take it over. “We’re already enroute.”

Sten showed surprise. “Already? In the time it took me to walk down here? You never cease to impress me Eva.”

There was that word again: impress. Eva had been impressing him for the past year, and it seemed he wanted her to take a hint from his compliments. He wanted to insert himself into the role of Chrysanthos. Eva wanted to tell him that she hadn’t let Chrysanthos play Chrysanthos. She wasn’t about to let Sten do it after just a year.

So, they hovered in their nondescript status: living together, working together, and inhabiting the same social space, along with Tiny Tin, Ferrou, Spring Peeper, and Wheelian. It certainly felt like a family space. Eva guessed she got to be the female head of house. Sten was the male, and the others were what?

“I want to work longer on this,” Eva said. “So Leonidus doesn’t declare us dead, and Tiny Tin and the others don’t erect a memorial in our names.”

Sten looked past Eva to the consoles. “I wouldn’t mind the memorial, but Leonidus could be a problem. He might try to usurp the main Lurrien council seat from you.”

“If he does that, I’ll just take it back. He has no authority,” Eva promised. She turned away and searched their scans of the obstacles ahead. She could find another point to breakthrough. She would brave many, if the shortcuts would save Lurren from Leonidus.

Eva felt Sten at her back.

“The company of a friend might be better for you than more work,” Sten said quietly.

Eva cast a peripheral gaze over her shoulder and saw Sten’s hand rising. She turned to face him and stopped that hand, with a simple look. “We have forever to share each other’s company. We have only a few short weeks to get back to where we belong. We aren’t nobodies. We have to be in Lurren.”

“I know,” he said. “But, Lurren can take care of itself for a few weeks. If you never test it, you’ll never know how it does after we’re gone.”

Eva felt her eyes narrow. “We’ll never be gone. We have forever.”

Sten gave a small shrug. “If we copy our consciousnesses, then maybe. But, forever would be a tough goal, even for us to pull off.”

Eva turned back to her map. “I survived Ul’thetos’ rule. There isn’t much that can kill me.”

Eva knew that part of the reason she’d survived had been her own doing. She kept going, making the right decisions, and eventually, she found her way out. If she decided to make the wrong decision, she could cut her forever short, but that wasn’t going to happen, not with Lurren at stake.

Meladee and Benham walked back to their quarters, with Inez and Eder on their heels.

“We’re never going to learn this fucking language. Volanter is no Girandolan,” Meladee complained.

“You said it.” Benham sighed. “I think I’ll be fluent by the time I’m forty. Think we’ll make it home by then.”

Meladee spread her hands. “Oh man, you know we won’t. It’s gonna take a century.”

“Great. Well, it looks like Volanter is going to be my new thing. I guess we should start speaking it to each other.” Benham’s dark expression gave Meladee the impression that he was not joking.

Or, maybe he was.

She just didn’t like the joke. “We are not talking Volanter to each other. We’re talking Girandolan or Tagtrumian. I need a sanctuary.” Meladee tapped her chest as she said it. “I need a me place that makes sense, you know?”

Benham hummed his agreement. “I know. I just…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I just hope your Increased Learning Spell pulls us through.”

“Increased Learning is not up to the task,” Meladee said. “I need to write something better. Maybe, we could call it: Mega Powerful Super Magic Cram Session.”

Benham laughed, without humor. “Sounds painful.”

Meladee tapped the lock to their quarters. “Probably would be.”

“We’re sorry,” said a quiet voice.

Meladee’s head whipped to the source. Eder and Inez stood, both looking downcast.

“We never meant for any of this to happen,” Inez said.

Meladee exchanged a glance with Benham.

Benham raised his hand to suggest he would handle it. “No one is that mad at you, at least we aren’t.” Benham gestured between himself and Meladee. “We’re just joking because languages aren’t our forte.”

Meladee could see that Eder was close to tears, and Inez seemed only a few steps behind.

“Look, you botched the spell. It happens.” Meladee shrugged. “Once I botched a spell so bad, I scorched a room in my mom’s inn.” Meladee winced as she remembered that place, the place she rarely thought about since she left it – just like with every other place she’d left.

Inez crossed her arms. “I almost wish we’d never taken this job. Curator Rooks is pissed at us.”

“She’s not pissed. She doesn’t get that mad. Has to be level headed and all that.” Meladee looked at Benham.

He gestured for her to continue. Meladee guessed he thought she was doing good. Meladee was a bit skeptical.

“Curator Rooks is mad at me every other month. I’m always doing something. You guys are her golden mages,” Meladee offered.

Benham stuck his hands in his pockets. “She’s probably more mad at herself for letting the Iruedian governments bully her into this.” Benham shuffled. “I’m pretty mad at myself. I was so afraid of the Finial, I thought we shouldn’t waste any time changing the wormhole’s exit. I didn’t think about what could happen.”

Meladee nodded. “That’s right. We’ll go with that. We’re all a bit to blame. Listen guys. It’ll be fine. Just try to sleep. If you want, I’ve got a spell for that.”

Inez tapped their quarters open. “If you don’t mind…”

Meladee started. She hadn’t really expected them to accept. In fact, she had been joking. Now, she’d have to keep that promise and put Inez and Eder to sleep. She’d opt for a four-hour duration and hope they slept on after that. She didn’t want to knock them out the full eight hours.

Meladee followed them into their room. “Alright. Bedtime spellcraft it is.”