The world around Nico folded. A feeling of wrongness crashed through him like a sudden wave, threatening to suffocate his very existence.

Then, as quickly as it came, it disappeared,

Nico breathed fresh air, real air. He knew with every fiber of his being that he was back on Earth and no longer in the NextOver.

It wasn’t something quantifiable that Measure could analyze. He felt a a basic human instinct that he was back home, probably like how birds just knew how to fly back down south for the winter.

Except, he wasn’t exactly home. His surroundings moved. It took him a whole second to realize that he was on his back, and his mind was still reorienting.

A couch of leather rumbled beneath him. No. It wasn’t a couch. He was in the back of a moving car. The back of the car felt familiar, and Nico realized he was still reorienting himself from travel through worlds.

Someone screamed. It wasn't him. It was a high pitched, frightened scream.

The car lurched to a stop and skidded to the side of the road. Nico’s head crashed into the back seat. He tumbled over to the floor. Nikka desperately tried to reorient himself, but the only he wanted to do was throw up.

Then he realized he knew exactly where he was. Before he could say anything, a can of of mace was shoved only a few inches from his face.

The young women who held it had dark complexion, and a voluminous afro. She shouted, “Don’t move, you creep! I'll spare you!”

He threw his hands up. “Carmen. It’s me, Nico.”

To her credit. Carmen did not waver, just like he trained her when dealing with the doubtful sudden appearance of someone who looked and talked like him. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, but grip on the can of mace was steady and even.

She said evenly, “How do I know you’re really Nico? You could be a shapeshifter.”

Nico closed his eyes and calmed himself down. With the help of Measure, he got cleared his mind and summoned a few possible solutions.

He could tell her something that only he would know. A few ideas came to mind, but he thought of a pretty memorable one. “Remember the first time you slept over at my place? I was six. You were seven.”

She punched him in the face.

“Ow!” Nico grabbed his nose. It bled. “What the fuck, dude?”

She pulled back the spray. “You promised not to tell anyone.”

Carmen pulled over to the side of the road, opened the back, and lunged at Nico, embracing him in a tight hug. “Where the hell have you been looking all over for you. Did you not get any of my texts?

It was only then he realized he hadn't even checked phone since the insanity of the day start. He had no excuse. There was time to check when he had rested. But Nico had never been good at checking his phone. He hadn’t been super social since he really got serious about the Union examination.

Now he felt like an idiot with a nearly broken nose. The phone could have given him important information. He tried to talk, but his voice was muffled by her tight hug and collar bone.

She pulled back. “Sorry.”

He got himself out of the bucket of her car. Stepped out of side, pulled out his cellphone, and dropped it. He stomped it with his heel several times.

With each stomp, a window showed that the percentage of the authorities able to track him through the SIM card lowered to two percent.

“Get in the car,” Carmen instructed. “Back seat. Keep your head low.”

Herexpression was pure worry. She straightened her back and lifted her chin.

Nico had seen that change from bubbly college girl to field general a million times. His friend was turning on her ‘big sister’ mode. It was one of his favorite things about Carmen. When the going got tough, she was straight to the point and saw things for what they really were.

Sometimes, it meant putting on a brave face when you had no idea why you needed to be brave, like now.

The sight of his best friend overwhelmed him with relief. Even with cold calculation of Measure to smooth out his fear anxiety, his exhaustion couldn't hide it from his best friend. He opened his mouth to try to tell her everything. He couldn’t get it open.

Nico was on the verge of tears.

Carmen stared at him for a solid moment and tightened her jaw. Despite her strong demeanor, her expression softened. She hugged him silently on the side of the road for a full minute as cars whizzed by.

It was all he need to gather himself and muster whatever mental strength he had left. She had been a candle in the ocean of dark.

Carmen let go, and started up the car.

Nico got in the back seat, and laid down, keeping his head low. He wiped the tears from his yes, and said, “Thanks, dude. I was having a bad day.”

“You smell like shit,” she noted.

Nico felt his weariness loosen, and cracked a smile at her attempt at levity. “You know, we gotta think of a different protocol for the next time I suddenly appear like this.”

“Next time?”

“I mean, in the movies, the characters always tell each other stuff only the other person would know. Technically, someone could take over my mind with telepathy magic and know that. Although, they would have to constantly adjust the invasion parameters due to the homeostatic nature of their–?”

He could see Carmen roll her eyes from the rearview mirror. She groaned. “Yup. You’re definitely Nico. No one nerds about magical technical bullshit like you.”

Nico laughed. He needed it.

It took a few minutes for Nico to get his bearings straight.If it wasn't for Measure, he would have had almost an impossible time recovering from everything that just happened.

The image of the lifeless body of Yuri filled Nico's mind.

He did his best not to think about it. Nico had learned the most important rule for magicians. Victory was in the preparation.

If Nico hadn’t been so blinded by his own greed to get the reward for passing the tests, he would have surveyed the room and prepared spell formations. Instead, he rushed into the subspace.

Yuri had prepared. He was a real magician.

Nico swallowed the hard lesson.The time for tears was over. He would not find himself unprepared again.

When Nico finally fought Pullman, he had gotten emotional, and threw everything in a single attack. It was idiotic trying to overpowering someone with magic. Power had never been Nico’s speciality.

The simple fact remained. Yuri was another dead body because Pullman had framed. Their deaths would mean nothing if Nico couldn’t bring Pullman in.

Carmen's voice perked up from the driver seat. Her eyes were fixed on the rearview mirror. “I know that look.”

“What look?” Nico retorted, a little more defensive than he intended.

Carmen gave him a flat, knowing look while turning left. They were heading back to Nico's neighborhood. “It's the same look you have whenever you blame yourself for something. Honestly, it's pretty egotistical.”

“What?”

“Blaming yourself for things that really weren't really your fault?” She explained. “It makes It gives you a sense of control and power. But almost nothing is within your control except your actions. You’re not as powerful as you think you are.”

“Gee, thanks.” Nico said dryly.

A moment of silence passed before Carmen continued. “I don't know what you've gone through today. But you need to stop blaming yourself. It's like your default mode is to blame yourself.”

“No,” Nico said weakly.

“When Fu assigned you all those people to protect from haunts, you immediately blamed yourself saying that you could have done more. Even though you had just heard about haunts and the city's problem with them. Not a second after discovering what the problem was, you said said you could have done more. It's not noble Nico. That's stupid. It makes no sense. It's not anyone's fault. I’m glad you want to take responsibility for these kinds of things. Fu was, too, but it doesn't mean you need to have this kind of hero complex.”

“I don't have a hero complex.”

“Okay, listen, I'm not a psychiatrist. You know that,” Carmen tried, exasperated with Nico’s stubbornness. “I'm just saying you got to stop blaming yourself. It's selfish. If you want to take responsibility? Blame is feelings. Taking responsibility is actions.”

Nico wanted to argue back to tell her that she was wrong. But once again, she was right. All he could say was, “Screw you.”

He said it jokingly, and he knew she’d take it that way, too.

Carmen smiled sadly. “You know, I hate saying I told you so.”

Nico laughed. “Suuuuure.”

Carmen straightened her back into big sister mode again. Her voice lowered to a strong calm. “So, you want to tell me about it?”

Nico was ready. “I can't tell you everything.”

“Did you suddenly become Jason Bourne or something? Did you turn into a secret agent in the past couple of hours?”

“I wish,” Nico confessed. “It would make my day a lot simpler.”

He took a moment to gather his thoughts. He said, “It's just there's so much that I need to organize my thoughts. I'm having a difficult time trying to figure it out what happened myself.

“So figure it out.”

“How?”

“By talking about it,” she explained. “Sometimes I deal with refugees at the homeless shelter. They have a lot of trauma they want to get out, but feel like it has to come out in a neat story. But life isn’t a neat story. You just gotta tell it like it is, or it eats you up from inside.”

“And how much do I owe you for this therapy sessions, Doctor Quack?”

“Shut up and talk,” Carmen joked. “Okay, here, I'll help. How about this? How did you get here? It looked like you teleported. Do you even have teleportation spells? Isn’t that, like, big mojo juju level? Isn’t that out of your league?”

The way she said that had no intention of harm, but still Nico winced. He tried to keep his head below the window line just in case people were still looking for him. “I did teleport, but it was because of a magical item that belonged to…”

Yuri’s face appeared in Nico's mind, and Nico’s voice choked up. He took a big deep breath and exhaled, focusing himself. “It was a leaf pendant that belonged to someone.”

Then he told her everything from the beginning. He began with the test that had happened the day before. Was that really only a day before? It seemed like an entire lifetime ago.

So much had happened since then.

Even with the time dilation of the NextOver, it was hard for Nico to imagine that all these things happened in less than a day.

Carmin was a good listener, asking questions for clarification, but nothing too crazy and never at a place that prevented Nico from telling his story.

Nico told her about how when he woke up, it seemed to be like a normal day like any other. He had to repeat himself a couple of times when he talked about the Coalition’s red-listing him. It wasn’t because he wasn't making any sense, but Carmen kept getting so pissed off and cursing that she kept interrupting him.

Finally when she settled down, he was able to tell her the rest of the story. She stopped talking entirely when he told her about running away from the Sentinels and being teleported over to the NextOver.

Something about her reactions made him realize that she probably knew a little bit of what had happened to him. Now, he was the one telling her exactly the events as they unfolded. Her suspicions and rumors that she heard were now being confirmed.

When he was finished, he felt as if a weight had lifted off his shoulders.

Nico had been able to get his entire experience out of his head and into someone else's ears. They were only ten minutes away now from Nico's neighborhood

She said, “I don't know what to say.”

Nico just nodded. “Yeah, it's a lot. If anybody can give me advice, it would be Fu. He is the highest on the magical food chain that I know. Hopefully, this whole red list can be put off to the side for now. Did you hear about any of this before I told you?”

Carmen nodded. “I heard that the Sentinels of the Coalition were after you, but I didn't know if it was because you were framed for murder. I thought they just wanted to bring you in for questioning or to give you some kind of medal for helping Fu destroy all those haunts for the local hedge mages.”

Nico was pretty sure he wasn't going to be getting any kind of reward soon. Finally, she said, “You met Balthasar Patel?”

Nico nodded. “I didn't realize it was him until after I left.”

“And he didn't wack you or send you out to the fishies to drown?”

“I’m not the best swimmer,” Nico chuckled. “I have some thoughts about him, but I'd rather not talk about that right now”

Anger colored Carmen’s voice. “Did he threaten you?”

“No,” Nico answered. “I just think he has a bigger part in this whole thing than he leads on. I need to confirm some things with Fy before I make any kind of assumptions. I already have my hands full with Pullman.”

They were near enough to his neighborhood when Nico said, “Okay. You can let me out here.”

Carmen's face contorted into anger. “The hell do you mean by that?”

Nico focused on his voice to make sure he wasn't shouting. He simmered. “As far as the Coalition is concerned, you aren’t involved.”

Carmen stopped the car, turned around, and punched him in the face again. “Now I am, asshole.”

Two minutes later, Nico drew a recovery formation on the back of Carmen’s seat to heal up his bleeding nose. “This is an abusive relationship. You’re a bully.”

“You think you’re smarter than everyone else. Stop getting blood on my seats.”

“You’re short.”

That shut Carmen up, finally. He sighed, his tone growing more serious. “I just don't want to get dragged into this. Five people have died now. It could be more.”

Carmen said confidently. “You won’t lose me. I’m not going anywhere, bud.”

Instead of taking the right turn to head towards Nico’s apartment, she took a left. Nico knew where she was going. It was the only place that had the possibility of being safe.

Carmen pulled into the parking lot of Fu’s cafe.

She parked the car, and said, “I know you’re on the red-list, but Fu’s our friend.”

Nico couldn’t disagree with her. And yet, he was still on edge. It felt difficult to trust anyone in that moment.

She got out of the car, and so did Nico. He looked around for any black SUVs that belonged to Coalition. His Scan told him there was nothing. Although, they were now inside the vicinity of Fu’s Hold, a hearthhome. The rules here were different.

Fu walked out of the cafe with a big grin on his face. Nico had a speech prepared. He was going to beg the man for a half hour of rest and maybe some advice. That was it.

But the holder of the hearthhome ushered him in, looking around warily. “Come. Come. Out here is dangerous. Inside is safe."