The car sped off down the street, and the driver asked. “Where to?”

Panic jolted through Nico.

What the hell did he just do? He just set himself up as a criminal to the magical law enforcement. Should he just tell the driver to take him to the Mages Union, and give himself up?

The wave of panic vanished as quickly as it had come.

“Just keep driving,” Nico said, calmer than he expected. “I need to think.”

The driver didn’t argue. Nico felt the doubt seep away the rattling in his nerves until his heartbeat dropped to a steady, calm and assured rhythm. He made his choice. Whoever framed him would not win. Nico would find a way to prove himself, and he now had the means to do it.

The driver pushed a black button on the dashboard, and muttered an odd chant that sounded vaguely Italian. Invisible power burst outward from the center of the car. It pushed through Nico with no resistance. The magic was more surprising than alarming.

Nico reached out with his sense, and felt the familiar thickness in the air of an illusion barrier. Through the tinted windows, the structure of the streets was exactly the same. Instead of the nice, family sized homes and duplexes that littered his neighborhood, broken-down buildings filled with lush overgrowth filled the blocks.

“You lost them with a moving illusion barrier?” Nico gasped with wonder.

The driver patted the dashboard of the car lovingly with his gloved hand. In the center mirror, Nico caught the driver’s proud smirk. The driver said, “You’re in for a treat, kid. Not many people besides the boss get to see Nelly in action.”

Not a lot of people knocked out two Sentinels of the Coalition of Holds. He couldn’t imagine what horrible acts Balthzar had done to warrant the use of a moving illusion barrier..

He didn’t think a barrier like this was even possible. How much MP would that cost to cast? Already, he could feel Measure do quiet mental backflips in the back of his mind to develop a working theory for it. There was no question that the driver was several leagues of power and skill above Nico. And he was working as a lackey for Balthazar.

“You would need more than an anchor,” Nico mused absently with the half-baked theory Measure drummed up for him. “Since there is no way to store magical energy without the will of a practitioner, I guess the best way would be to create a symbiotic link with someone who is in the car. But to match the constant change in magical frequency…”

The driver’s proud look in the center mirror flattened to a hard mask. His grip in the steering wheel tightened. “Did Mr. Patel tell you my secrets?”

Nico blinked at him as the car veered around a sharp corner. “Ah, no. Just thinking out loud. I don’t know anything about cars, but I’ve created tons of possible frameworks for magical theories.”

The driver looked relieved. “Good. Cuz as far as I’m concerned, I’m the first and only drivomancer in the history of magic.”

Nico tried not to cringe at the driver’s bad naming sense

.A sound like a house of broken glass shattering exploded from behind them. Nico whipped around to see what it was. A heat haze rose up two blocks behind them from the center of the street. It crystallized from a silhouette into a clear, tangible form.

The black SUV with determined looking Sentinels from the Coalition of Holds sped toward them, gaining on Nelly with the ferocity of a Nascar driver in second place. Of course they had the means to both locate a moving illusion barrier and enter it. Once again, Nico was reminded he was a small fish in a tank of prehistoric sized megalodons.

Nico bit back the sudden dread creeping into his lungs. He turned back in his seat, and said. “Driver, they broke through!”

The man frowned, gritting his teeth. He spoke as if he hadn’t just been waiting for the Sentinels to enter his moving illusion barrier, but wanting it. “I got a rearview mirror and two eyes, kid. Stop backseat driving and pull up your diapers. Nelly and I got this. And only the boss calls me Driver. The name’s Quincy. “

Nico shut up, and let the man drive.

Quincy pressed some buttons on the dash which Nico didn’t recognize, and shifted gears. Nico was thrust back into his seat as the car accelerated into what felt like the thrust of a NASA rocket launching into space. His lungs squeezed at the sudden change in momentum, and gripped the leather seats with all he was worth.

Any trace childhood desires of wanting to be an astronaut evacuated out of him in a yelped “Oh, shit.”

Quincy pressed another button on the dash, and barked another vaguely Italian phrase. A hole opened up in the center of the car, right next to Nico’s feet. Something that looked like a block of viscous, green fluid the size of a man’s chest materialized above the hole, then promptly dropped down it. The hole closed back up.

Nico looked back in time to catch the block of green fluid smash into the passenger side of the car containing the mortal Sentinel with tightly gripped pistol.

The fluid splashed on the car, and ate a chunk of the window and side door. The Sentinal scrambled to the center in time.

Nico turned back tensely in his seat, and swallowed hard. Note to self. Do not, in any circumstance, make fun of drivomancy.

Quincy laughed, and hunched forward a little. His expression in the center mirror was pure focus and delight. He said, “This is the part where you tell me our destination. I’m the damn best at what I do, but I can’t hold this barrier for much longer.”

Where to? That was a good question.

He did have many options, if any at this point. Nico didn’t just evade magical law, but became an accomplice to the actions of one of Balthazar’s men. He said honestly, “I don’t know where to go. I didn’t think I’d spend my birthday becoming a criminal to the magical FBI.”

Quincy rolled his eyes. “Welcome to the club, kid. We make mistakes. But no one can clean up our shit but ourselves. So, I’ll ask again. Where to?”

“Mr. Kanazawa, you should notice an array in front of you in about a second,” said the driver.

A spell formation appeared on the rear of the front passenger seat’s head. It was one Nico had never seen before. On instinct, Nico quickly whispered, “Examine formation.”

He could feel his ability file away the spell array at the back of his mind. A new window appeared.

[Cross referencing new spell formation with your knowledge. Creating new theory….]

“It’s here,” Nico said.Quincy nodded, and instructed. “ Infuse some of y

our magic with it.”

“How much.” Nic asked. “I’m not like you. I don’t have a lot to spare.”

“Barely any. For the memory, think of opening a present. The spell it summons is predetermined within the array, and it will feed off my magic flowing through the car” Quincy answered. “I just need you to activate the formation.”

An array that needed activation from someone else? That was new. As far as any mage on the planet knew, there was no way to store magic for a long period of time. Quincy had found a novel work-around.

“Since your power is constantly flowing back and forth between you and the anchor in the car, all you need is someone to activate a trigger,” Nico mused aloud in wonder. “It’s like changing train tracks.”

Quincy’s eyes widened in surprise, and grinned.. “Glad to finally meet someone who appreciates my genius.”

Nico willed exactly .5 MP into the array while thinking of the time he opened a birthday gift which held a new game controller. He hoped Quincy hadn’t taken a note from spy movies and created a spell that would eject Nico out of the car.

Discs a foot wide cut themselves out of the hood of the car. Spell formations glowed with blue fire on each disc.

Nico whispered, “Examine,” to scan the formations so he could study them later.

[Unknown spell formation absorbed.]

The discs lifted off the car, letting air suck in.

Nico whirled. The discs glowed a faint green, but simply bounced off the front of the SUV.

He waited for something cool to happen for another second, before he turned back to Quincy. “Nothing happened!”

The driver frowned at the rearview mirror. “Shit. Those were supposed to release bound ectoplasmic slime to slow them down.”hey must have had ant-summoning enchantments.”

The first formation on the head of the front passenger seat was designed to create those discs out of the top of the car. That meant the second formations on the discs were the ones used to probably bind and release the ectoplasmic amorphousms.”

“You mean slime from the Next Over?” Nico asked.

“Yeah, and they were a bitch to bind,” Quincy complained. “If I had known you’d bring us this much trouble, I would have prepped Nelly better.”

A window appeared.

[Update: due to information provided by Quincy, you have learned the purpose of the spell formation. Creating new theory….]

[Update: theory complete.]

[New spell formation learned: Outflow with Trigger Modification]

[New spell learned: Magnetic Incision]

Nico stared dumbly at the windows before blinking them away. Holy crap. Simply by Examining the spell arrays and discussing them with Quincy, he had created his own version of the spells and formation.

He pushed back his excitement, as red rays twisted and lasered at them. Nelly swerved on the post-apocalyptic streets, but one of the rays burned a hole on the right side-mirror.

The SUV behind them was gaining. An idea came to Nico. He said, “Are you okay with me making another hole on your roof?”

Without a second’s pause, Quincy shouted, “Do whatever you can to shake them off Nelly. I can’t hold my barrier for much longer.”

Nico summoned the window for his newly acquired spell formation so he could trace it. The array was a close cousin to Quincy’s own array, but had plenty of its own variations. Once again, Nico was astounded that his ability could absorb new spells and create his own, albeit, cheap knock off.

He whispered, “Calculate most efficient memory to summoned spell Magnetic Incision without the Trigger modification.”

[Using memory: Eating Ramen Noodles. Spell efficiency increased by 158%. Lowering total cost to 2MP.]

Nico suddenly remembered the first time he made ramen noodles from scratch. He had spent hours hand slicing them with a dull kitchen knife since he didn’t have the right equipment. The final product wasn’t anything to write home about, but the feeling of cutting and shaping the noodles with his own hands somehow was perfect for this moment.

He quickly traced the formation with his black marker, and poured exactly two Magic Points into the formation. His power summoned the spell Magnetic Incision, which cut a perfect circular hole with a circumference of five inches. The spell wasn’t finished, and would release the disc so it could attach to another piece of metal.

Nico summoned the window Gallahad’s Control Formation, leaving open enough area for a modification. He said, “Calculate and create modification for diversion of inertia.”

The modification appeared, completing the formation, and he traced it before pushing magic power into it. He let the remainder of the first spell complete. The disc flew off the roof of the car.

Nico felt he could slightly control the direction of the disc. With a small effort of will, he made the disc magnetize to hull of the car, just above one of the front wheels.

Gallahad’s Control Formation released. The front wheel pivoted ninety degrees instantly., causing the black SUV to flip over on its side, skidding across the cracked, broken road.

No longer able to keep up with Nelly’s moving illusion barrier, they faded out, and Nico could no longer see them inside the post-apocalyptic streets.

Quincy shouted, “What the hell did you just do?”

Nico gulped, hoping the man hadn’t noticed the stolen magical technique. He said, “Their car was already going over a hundred miles an hour. All I had to do was use a formation to divert the energy of the front tire.”

Quincy took a moment to absorb that, before shaking his head in disbelief. “The timing on releasing the energy for that spell had to be perfect. You’re either a genius hiding in a pipsqueak’s body, or you’re damn lucky.”

He paused, and took a deep breath. “Either way, I can stop the illusion barrier since we shook them. I need to replenish my magic anyways.”

The post-apocalyptic scene wiped away, replaced by Buffalo streets familiar to Nico. They were close to downtown again.

On the drivers window in the front window of the car, something like a digital HUD appeared. It revealed a map of the area. A giant red dot began to blink right where Nelly should have been. Quincy cursed, and wiped his hand at the screen. The HUD disappeared.

Nico asked, “What’s the problem? I thought we lost them.”

“That was an alert to all the local Sentinels to converge on a vehicle matching our description. Nelly changes her model and license plate every few minutes to mortal eyes, but Sentinels will be able to spot her a mile away,” Quincy answered. “That means I can't just keep driving around like this. I need to know where we are going.”

Nico said. “All right.”

He whispered quietly, “Cross reference everything I know so far with my most likely lead to who framed me.”

A new window appeared.

[Sentinel Abigail stated simultaneous deaths of four locations: Duncan’s Hollow. Forest Lawn Cemetary. Menkin’s Lot. Buffalo City Hall. Locations

Locations created a nearly perfect square on a map, which imply a spell formation.]

Nico had to assume that each person who died used his sigil. He still didn’t know why, but that wasn’t important yet. If Measure could cross reference his knowledge to create new spell formations, then maybe he could create a likely formation that the person who framed him used.

No. That was stupid. Four points to create a perfect circle narrowed his spell options down from limitless to the number of stars in the universe. He needed to narrow it down some more.

His sigils. That was it. He had thousands throughout the city. Normally, marks left with his stamp would have eroded by now, but the lingering energy left in his sigils made sure they would stick around for at least another decade, depending on the efficiency of his formations.

With Measure, he could summon the locations of all his sigils from memory. But he couldn’t produce a map perfectly. It wasn’t like he was an encyclopedia.

Then it hit him. Why solve everything with magic when he had technology?

“I’m an idiot,” he said

He pulled out his phone and opened a map application. His fingers expanded outward from the city, and he said, “Examine map and absorb knowledge.”

Nico whispered, “Recall every location of my sigils across the map.”

Thousands of red points appeared in his vision that overlaid his phone. He added, “Remove all location except for sigils located within four city blocks of points of simultaneous deaths.”

Only fourty sigils remained. Nico smiled. He had narrowed the work Measure would do from billions to only a few thousand. Now was the real test to how practical his ability was.

He said, “Measure location of sigils, and create possibly spell formations based on locations.”

“You’re mumbling a lot to yourself back there,” Quincy chided. “You got me a location or what?”

“One minute,” Nico said.

“We don’t have a minute,” Quincy countered. “Pick a place or I’ll pick one for you.”

A spell formation appeared in a window. The shape and overall structure were unlike any Nico had ever seen before. It had traces of Gallahad’s theories, but were heavily modified.

[Accuracy of spell formation: 57%.]

“Locate anchor sigil,” Nico said. Due to the odd shape of the formula, the sigil wouldn’t be at the center of all four locations, or even at the center of the formula itself. Instead, a blue dot appeared on his map.

Nico looked up, and said, “Larkin Square. Step on it.”

Quincy’s eyebrow raised. “You sure?”

Nico shrugged. “57% sure.”