A glowing tube, set into the ceiling, flickers and the expanse of white panelling scratches at my eyelids. I lie on the cold tiles, my limbs childishly ignoring me and my gaze fixed on a distressingly empty space above me. A white box on the wall – why is it all white? – cracks open and blows a gust of chilled air out to settle over us. It does little more than make my sweat run cold, and nothing for the hot prickle of panic that’s spreading from my chest.

Another moment passes without any sign of another portal. I lever myself up, trembling hands sliding on the textureless floor, but the material plane stays stubbornly stagnant. The woman in the apron says something else – possibly to me – but I’m too busy scanning the air for the tell-tale taste of ozone.

Boots squeak behind me and Sable staggers to his feet, casting about for a lick of familiarity. The racks of garish packages offer him nothing, but then his eyes land on me and whatever brief moment of camaraderie we had flickers and dies. He snaps his fingers and I flinch, then he snaps a few more times with dawning horror.

Like I have thousands of times before, I focus inwards for the buzz of magic. For the first time in years, it isn’t there. I scramble through my soul, throwing open drawers and combing my being, but there’s not trace of it, not a taste, a sound, nothing.

We reach the same conclusion together and it bubbles with bile in my chest. Sable screams and grabs a nearby stand of packages and flings it. It catches the air and tumbles to the ground as if made of parchment, its packages scattering across the floor. He screams again and hurls himself at me. His fist catches my cheekbone and pain blossoms hot across my face.

“You worm!” He shouts. “You’ve ruined everything!”

I stumble into a rack and go through it as Sable and a dozen multicoloured bags fall on top of me. Squirming away, his next fist clips my jaw and my breath leaves me as he pushes forward onto my chest. I jerk my arms up, trapped and ponderous in this stupid armour, just as he throws another punch. This time his knuckle strikes my steel bracer and a wet snap echoes through the metal. I peer through squinted eyes to see Sable drawing back his hand, broken fingers twisted painfully in his fist.

“Jesus christ, get the hell off him! Somebody, call the cops!” A voice shouts, and arms snake around Sable’s chest.

He spits and snarls like a rabid hyena, but he’s soon overpowered by a pair of guys in singlets. One of them pins him to the ground, while the other shoves a hand in my face and pulls me to my feet. I blink dazedly and he gives me a pat on the back, words coming from his mouth, but failing to catch in my ear.

I just find myself staring at a bag of peanuts that had managed to cling to the shelf. The bag looks like it’s made of glass, but it crinkles in the air. I routinely make rocks and metal melt, but for some reason flexible glass weirds me out. Maybe because there’s a thousand of them. Maybe it’s because it wrapped around peanuts – what a waste of good magic.

I catch myself there, because it isn’t magic. My chest feels empty and my fingers hang inert. It can’t be magic.

“Hey, are you alright?” A uniformed man asks and pokes my cheekbone. His translucent white gloves slide lifelessly across my skin and I flinch back as they feather over the bruise.

I feel a sudden and acute need to leave, and I step around him, muttering something apology-adjacent and head for the door. I walk into it and crack my nose against it when it fails to yield to a shove. The glass rattles crossly, then slides apart to let a confused looking woman in a different uniform into the building. She gives me a deeply embarrassing look and I quickly step past her and onto the street.

“Sir, can you hold on, we’d like to get your statement,” she calls after me. I turn around and see a man in the same uniform shoving Sable into a squat, metal carriage. He’s lost the manic edge and complies silently as he nurses his hand. These guys must be the city guards or something.

“I don’t know him,” I answer automatically and try to disengage again. She rolls her eyes and marks something on a pad of paper.

“Sure thing buddy. Just give us your number and you can get out of here.”

“My number,” I say slowly and she nods. “Eight.” She nods. “Seventy-two.” She nods. “Thirteen.” She nods again and I start to sweat. “Five.” She marks it down and just waits for me to continue. “One hundred,” I say and she blessedly doesn’t ask for more.

“Alright, so, seven-two-one-three-five-one-zero-zero?” She asks, tapping a beat with her pen.

“Yeah, sure,” I say, already turning to leave. I catch Sable’s eye through the carriage’s window and quickly start walking away.

Those metal carriages smarm the road beside me as I thread through the thronging footpath. A few people give me a funny look as I rush past them, still wearing the dented prison guard armour. They’re hardly in a position to judge. What with a horde of men dressed identically with stupid strips of fabric wrapped around their necks.

A wave of fatigue sweeps over me and I snap my fingers one more time, reaching for a spark. Nothing happens, not a puff of mana appears, the air is bone dry. I sigh and let the flow of the crowd carry me forward, remembering how Evelyn moved through that dreadful crowd in Havale. A platoon of regimented men with matching neck ornaments marches by, little metal boxes pressed to their ears. I step aside and get swept up in the wake of a colourful family as they hurry to wherever they’re going. One of the kids looks at my armour with sparkling eyes and I try to ignore him as I’m carried further into the city.

I keep my eyes to the ground because the fucking scale of this city is starting to get to me. A spire of glass looms up from my periphery as I walk amidst a million people and it all makes me feel very small and alone. The pavement stops and I look up to find that I’ve been led into a public garden, the grass a mostly familiar shade and the trees reaching a sensible height above me. I spot a bench and wander away from the family before anyone gets suspicious.

I slump down and hang my head back, strength evaporating from my limbs and escaping in a sigh. What am I even meant to do now? Here I am, stuck on a rock in some corner of the dimensional weave, and without a drop of magic in sight. How am I meant to get back? Can you even do anything without magic?

Warm sunlight falls onto my skin, dappled by leaves blowing softly in the breeze. It’s all very pleasant, and as much as I try to keep a reasonable level of anxiety bubbling away, it all starts falling away. I close my eyes, start rubbing my temple, and all those thoughts about getting home turn idle. I’ll admit that it’s a little liberating to know that there’s a whole dimension between me and the empire. Try arresting me through the fabric of reality, I’d like to see it.

“Is that a real sword?” A voice pierces the veil and I crack open bleary eyes to find some kid hovering awkwardly in front of me. His shoulders are already folding in, crushed under the weight of regretting having said anything.

“What sword?” I grumble, rubbing my eye and trying to stretch the knot out of my neck. The kid’s face fill with sudden uncertainty and he points to my waist. There’s a sword strapped to my waist; it’d probably come with the uniform. I don’t know how I missed it.

There’s a catch on the scabbard, and I wrestle it open and draw the sword. The kid takes a step back as sensible people tend to when a stranger starts brandishing a knife. The blade is about as long as my forearm and painfully utilitarian. An insufferable person would probably call it a dirk or something; I’d call it a stunted longsword.

“What? Do you want it?” He looks about fifteen, which sounds around about old enough to have a sword. He reaches out with wide eyes, instantly succumbing to the magnetism inherent to sharp things and long drops. The moment he takes it, he starts hitting stupid poses in the exact same way Evelyn did when she got her mitts on a sword.

“So cool,” he mutters, before catching himself and turning red. “Sorry. I was just, y’know, wondering if it was. Real, that is.” He gingerly hands it back and I manage to stuff it back into the scabbard without losing a finger.

“Yeah, swords are cool,” I say blandly, mostly to fill the silence. Some little shit starts screaming in the distance and I look over just to have something to look at. A frazzled father mucks about, trying to find out what’s wrong, and it’s all very engrossing, but the kid’s still hanging around in the way of my sunshine.

“Uh, so I was wondering, if it’d be alright,” he vacillates while fiddling with his overlong fringe. “Um, if I could take some pictures,” he mumbles, motioning towards a black box with a lens poking through it, hanging around his neck. He must take my look of incomprehension as derision, because he immediately starts stammering defensively.

“Sure, how much do you have on you?” I ask, channelling the spirit of my costume to extort a child. “I’ll do it for however much a bowl of stew costs here.” My stomach starts eating itself and the kid gives me a funny look.

“I have a sandwich,” he says, reaching into his bag and picking one out, wrapped in more of that flexible glass. It’s soggy, full of shredded chicken and lettuce, and looks like it’s been sat on, but I haven’t eaten since yesterday. I briefly consider if this world’s food is going to be poisonous, before making peace with my fate and cramming half of it in my mouth.

“Alright,” I manage between chews as I get to my feet. “What are we doing?”

“Um, could you stand by that tree and look, er, angry? With the sword drawn and stuff,” he stutters, peeking out from his fringe and worrying at the sleeves of his jumper.

I shrug and follow his directions, drawing the dagger and pantomime trying to stab someone – something I’m grimly familiar with. The kid holds the box to his eye and I can’t help but flinch slightly as it flashes. He pauses to look at it and a muted disappointment settles onto his face before he looks back up and gives me a nervous smile.

“Is something the matter, kid?” I ask when it looks like he’s just going to leave it at that. He glances up, reticence and anxiety pulsing off of him.

“Oh no, I got the picture, you don’t have to-”

“The sandwich was worth a little effort,” I say. Being dimensionally marooned makes you feel a little unfettered. Going along with something trivial like this feels a lot less unbearably wasteful than it usually would. “Should I be angrier?” I take a page out of Sable’s book and add a drop of derangement to the mix. The kid clicks his box again, buoyed by my detached enthusiasm.

“Could you step forward a little, into the light?” I do, then follow his motions to angle my head. I have to squint as the sun hits me in the face, but I’m sure he’d appreciate the genuine annoyance. “Turn the sword a little?”

He finally seems pleased with his box and hurries forward to show me. There’s a little pane of glass on the back with an exact rendition of me, light catching the sword and casting dramatic shadows across my face. I actually look kind of cool, I’ll have to remember this lighting for later.

“Hey, this isn’t bad,” I say. The kid’s face lights up, and his face goes scarlet. It looks like he’s about to rupture something and I almost feel bad for saying anything. “What’s your name anyway?”

“Oh, I’m Lucas, hello,” like some kind of automatic response, he thrusts out his hand. My brain’s just as broken, so I take it and introduce myself. Then with nothing better to do holding hands, we shake. He takes a deep breath and his eyes nearly bug out as he forces himself to speak. “Um, would it be okay to take a few more photos? I have more sandwiches!”

I simply nod and accept the food. Once again, the surreal weightlessness on being in another world numbs the indignation from being treated like a dog doing tricks. Maybe this is how Evelyn felt; terminally detached and light as a feather.

“So, is this your job or something?” I ask, looking seriously into the middle distance, knife posed dramatically in frame. His box flashes and I sprinkle some more grizzle over my expression.

“Oh, no, I’m still at school. This is just a hobby.” He looks away and fiddles with his picture box.

Lucas climbs onto the bench and stab forward. The light flashes over me and draw the knife closer into a parry. There’s another flash and I push forward, feeling like I’m fighting off imaginary enemies, but probably looking like I’m trying to swat a fly.

“Lucien, what did you want to do when you were growing up?” He asks after a lingering pause between flashes.

I give him an incredulous look and he wilts. I move onto the next pose, but the flash doesn’t come. He’s still fiddling with the box, glancing up at me and waiting for an answer.

“I come from a long line of,” what’s the mundane equivalent of evil magus lord? “a long line of politicians,” I say, crouching and pointing the blade out of frame. “So obviously, I’m going to become a powerful mag- I mean, politician.”

“And, do you like it?” He asks, his tone strained with a certain intensity.

“Yeah? I love, er, politics-ing,” I say and Lucas sighs as he takes the next picture.

“That makes sense.” He starts to continue, but cuts himself off, retreating back behind his bangs.

I lie down in the grass and clutch my throat as the sun casts my dented armour in dramatic relief. Lucas walks around my head, flashing the picture box. The spots fade from my eyes and he looks down at the picture, satisfaction flecked with distraction.

“You didn’t want to do anything else?” He asks as he fiddles with the nobs.

The sun starts its descent and sky begins to turn orange. Lucas flicks between me and his box, obviously anxious for the answer, looking for something specific in my response. I’ve always loved magic, even when I was desperately trying to get it to work back at home. The magic was always the bright part. So of course, I’ve never wanted to do anything else.

The words are on the end of my tongue, but I bite them back. It wasn’t magic that I said I did – and not because I said politics – we were talking about what father did. Not just the magic, but the goal. That image of the dread necromancer, sending forth a sea of rotting flesh to mould the world in his image. I’d spent years trying to live up to that.

Do I still want that? What is the point even meant to be? Become ultimately powerful and stay cooped up in the manor? Lord over the country side and poison public wells? It all feels so juvenile. No wonder Evelyn kept taking the piss, and Emmet never took it seriously.

And it’s not just using magic that makes me happy. Operating the tram in Kismet was mostly interminable. There has to be some goal. Those hours I spent pouring over Darke Mag’kx years ago come back to me, reading snippets of a vision amongst the ink spots. Is that it? Am I missing a goal?

“What about you?” I ask, breaking my silence and startling Lucas. “Why the questions?” He instinctively retracts and I can see him deflecting. But then he steels himself as best he’s able.

“I’ve always liked photography,” he motions towards his box. “But my parents want me to do science, or medicine, or law.”

I hum softly and he keeps going.

“I feel like there’s this river, like everything’s flowing in this one direction. And it would be easy to just let it carry me, but I don’t think it’s what I want.” He glances down and his ears go red, teeth clenched against the embarrassment.

I think back to the last few months and see the river. Brown and bloated like the Lisenhoff canal, pulling most of the world along with it. We were all swept up, Evelyn, Emmet, Abbey and I. My family’s stupid creed, the cult, the Empire, the Mother, pushing us along and sweeping our lives through the same muddy canal.

I think I understand now why I was so angry with Rothmore, why he pissed me off so much. His writing had a vision and a goal, and for a little while at least, he had agency. But I found him rotting in a cell; cynical, misanthropic, and sounding exactly like me.

I look up at Lucas, through his fringe and into his eyes. He reaches down and helps me to my feet, then we trade places and I stand over him, dagger pointed at his eye. A passing pair of women glare at me and mutter to themselves. I smile weakly and wave them by.

“I feel the same way sometimes,” I say. He looks up at me uncertainly.

“Yeah?”

“It’s important to choose something for yourself, even if you were being taken in that direction anyway,” I say and the words start to solidify. “You should probably push against the river, even if you end up in the lake regardless,” I say for both of us. My ears grow hot as I struggle with the metaphor and I look away. Lucas seems get what I’m going for and nods with a smile.

I help him to his feet and we sit down on the bench. A fountain turns on in a pond nearby and streams of water sprinkle out, catching the orange sky and scattering it across the ground. Lucas flips through a dozen or so pictures of me; looking stupid, but with good lighting. We sit in silence, thinking similar thoughts and listening to a park full of families packing up their picnics.

Then I hear an irregular splashing, distinct from the steady pitter-patter of the fountain. I glance over and see an orange fin crest the lip of the pond. I wait a second and the head of a fish pokes over the rocks and looks at me, before falling back into the water.

“Hey Lucas,” I start, getting his attention. “Stupid question, but what is this world called?” Something between dread and excitement stirs in my gut and the weight of my world settles back onto me like a scratchy blanket.

“Earth, right?” He says, rightfully confused. The fish breaches the water again and I glare at it. Then I jerk to my feet and stride over, heart in my mouth, and not trusting myself to voice the possibility.

I kneel down at the side of the pond and bore my eyes into the goldfish. My seashell necklace falls out of my shirt as I lean down, and a heat that I hadn’t noticed stings with its absence. The fish’s lifeless eyes sparkle and it disappears beneath the pond scum. My breath catches as it reappears and spits a mouthful of mud onto the grass.

“You stupid fucking fish – you knew, didn’t you!” I hiss, snatching the idiotic thing out of the water and holding it up to my eye. “Mud? Dirt? Are you kidding me? There’s vague prophecy and then there’s just fucking with me.” The unrepentant fish just gurgles back, slapping its fins around while choking on air.

“Lucien! What are you doing?” Lucas runs up to see me strangling a fish.

“Do you have a container?” I ask, offering no explanation, and not wanting to bother contextualising this to Earth logic.

Lucas, admirably going along with what probably looks like a stranger having a panic attack, pulls a water bottle out of his bag and hands it to me. I dump the fish into it and screw on the lid. The fish bubbles a sigh of relief and swims around to face me. Its bulging goldfish eyes lock onto me and it tries its best to give me a knowing look. Actually, it’s kind of tough to read intention from a fish. I’m sure there’s something arcane going on to bridge the gap – either that or I’m projecting.

“So, what are you?” I mutter. “You’re the reason why the fortune telling ritual kept working, right?” The fish nods as it entertains itself by making stupid faces in the curved glass of the bottle. “Do you work for that fish god? What’s his name again?” A lack of eyebrows doesn’t stop the fish from frowning at me and burbling a huff. “You’re not actually him, are you?”

I feel a headache coming on as divine sardine nods haughtily from inside its bottle. My throat tightens and hope starts bubbling nauseatingly inside me. Loathe as I am to trust a god, if something from home could get in, then surely, I can get out. The glass feels slippery against my grip and I press all the harder.

“What’s going on Lucien?” Lucas asks, looking between me and the fish. Somehow, he’s expecting a rational answer, and I’d hate to disappoint him.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” I start slowly, “but this is my pet fish.” Lucas and the fish-god both give me a disbelieving look. “Yeah, it’s true. My parents threw him in a river and I thought that I’d never see him again.” I scrabble for the something to back it up, and I throw my trust in the fish. “I even taught him how to count. Hey Mr. Fish, what’s three plus two?”

With the gullibility of youth, Lucas looks at the fish with a thimbleful of expectation. His Grace lets me stew for a few long seconds until I start to sweat, then slowly flaps his fin five times. Lucas’ eyes go wide and he immediately begins gushing and asking increasingly complex maths problems. I give the bottle a flick before I have to try to pretend that a fish doing multiplication is even remotely believable, and mentally promise the finest fish food for putting up with this.

I eventually nab the bottle back, almost trembling with the need to find somewhere free of judgmental stares and have a word with the fish.

“Hey, Lucas, it’s getting pretty late. I’m going to go find a free bench for tonight. Catch you around, yeah?”

I turn back to wave him off with the flippant casualness that I’m so well known for, and see a look of dawning horror writ large across his face. Too late, I feel something get lost in translation.

“You don’t have a place to stay?” He cries, as if the very notion was inconceivable. I’d normally agree, but right now, I just really want to talk to my fish, which is a sentiment that would be difficult to express to someone with a normal life.

“Hey, it’s alright,” I start to say, but he’s already pressing one of those black boxes to his ear.

“Hey, mum? Yeah, I’m coming – I’ll be a sec. Hey, I’ve got this friend who doesn’t have a place to stay tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Can he stay over tonight? Yeah. Alright, see you soon.” He pauses and looks embarrassed. “Yeah, love you too,” he mumbles and shoves the box back in his pocket.

“Lucas, it’s really okay,” I say as he begins pulling me down the street.

“But you said you don’t have a place to stay. You don’t really want to sleep on a bench in the cold do you?” He asks, and the all-encompassing need to talk to the fish immediately fizzles and dies. Because I really don’t.

The door swings open, and we’re met by a pair of the most intensely uncomfortable smiles I’ve ever experienced. And they only become more so as I fail to be an appropriately aged friend. Lucas just trots past, oblivious to his parents staring down the vagabond in sooty armour who’s turned up on their doorstep.

“This is Lucien, he helped me with my photos,” he says and I wave weakly while trying to conjure a smile. His mother momentarily pauses her death stare to let Lucas show her his picture box, which seems to soften her countenance a touch.

“They’re lovely,” she says, and pushes him into the house. “Why don’t you go and set the table, dinner’s almost ready. Just let me have a word with Lucien.” She shoos him away, then steps out into the street, closing the door behind us. Her husband follows and the two of them loom over me as the clinking of cutlery sounds from inside the house.

“Let’s be adults about this and do away with any charades,” Lucas’ father says with a hard stare. “Who are you and how did you meet Lucas?” My flight or fight instincts kick in and I have to grind my heel into the ground to stop myself running back to the park.

“I just helped him with his picture box,” I say. “I was sitting in the park and he came up to me – he thought my costume was cool.” He gives me a critical look and then shares a glance with his wife. She sighs and sets a hand on the door.

“And you really don’t have a place to stay?” I nod and she hesitates before pushing the door open. “Alright, you can stay the night.” She stops as I’m about to enter with her. “There’s money on top of the fridge if you’re going to take anything, leave it at that,” she whispers. A retort bubbles up, but the severity of her expression cuts me off. I just nod and keep quiet.

“Alright, how about you clean up and have a shower before dinner?” Lucas’ father asks, clapping his hands and pointing down the hall. “I’m pretty sure I’ve still got some old clothes left over from uni. I’ll leave them out.” I have enough time to stutter out a thankyou before I’m pushed into a white tiled room with a bathtub.

I put the fish down and tentatively approach the tub. A set of metal nobs stare back and I give one of them a twist. The nozzle above me suddenly sprays hot water and I jerk back. I twist the other one and the water cools to an almost sinful warm. No wonder Evelyn wouldn’t shut up about these things.

Armour falls to the ground as I struggle out of the guard costume and I step into the wonderfully warm water. I avoid the various coloured bottles lining the shelves and grab a more familiar bar of soap – lavender scent notwithstanding. The water cuts brown furrows down my skin as a battle, a prison and a day’s march worth of grime run off me. Have I really not bathed since falling off the ferry? That’s disgusting.

The door opens a crack and a pile of clothes and a towel are dropped to the ground. I throw the towel over myself and pick through the rest. They’ve given me a pair of black pants that end an inch or two above my ankles, and a black short sleeve shirt that hangs loosely off my collar bone. I don’t know what shape you have to be for these to both fit simultaneously, but regardless, they’re literally the softest things I’ve ever felt. What are they made of?

I slip them on, as well as a hooded jacket they left for me, and look in the mirror. The shirt has a picture of a screaming skull on the front, which Evelyn would no doubt find hilarious. I’m sure she’d also say that it’s right up my alley, very ‘dark mage chic’ and all that.

With the grime gone, brown roots show starkly on top of my head, after a month even the white dye has dulled to a beige. My reflection stares back, dyed hair, stupid shirt and standing in a puddle. He looks stupid; like a joke, and the punchline is my entire family. None of it ever meant anything.

I glance at the fish as it floats in its water bottle. It’s pretty clear that it’s not here out of the goodness of its heart, or whatever passes for that when it comes to gods. It obviously wants me to do something.

“You want the Mother gone, don’t you?” I ask, and it approximates a shrug. Then it closes its eyes and flips upside-down, letting out little effervescent snores. Wait until I’m asleep – it always has to be on their terms, doesn’t it.

The caricature in front of me frowns and I turn away from it. I stand in Lucas’ river as the undertow catches at my feet. Among the myriad desires inside me – home, magic, and all the rest – there’s one that sounds loudest. I want to do something real, to come ashore, to have agency.

The fish watches me and I flick the bottle. I think we might have some converging interests.

Dinner progresses relatively smoothly, especially once I figure out that as long as I can keep Lucas talking, no one has any room to start asking me questions. His parents stop shooting me suspicious looks when I don’t start pocketing silverware, and the atmosphere becomes slightly more bearable.

“Hear you go, Lucien,” Lucas’ father hands me a pile of blankets and shows me to their couch. He gives me a small smile and shuts off the lights. I lie back, lie the fish next to me and settle into the pillows.

The fish swims energetic loops in the bottle and I close my eyes. I get to enjoy the warm blankets for a moment, then I fall through the floor and the sea swallows me.