Fortunately, everyone’s attention was firmly on the battle—which, to be fair, was remarkable—so I was able to regain my composure without the slip being noticed. It kept going well, though definitely, people had a lot of questions by now because there certainly was a lot to question about Vex that I’d already thought of.

And then we got to the part where I redirected his fire-snake thing and my heart stopped. Holy shit, how do I explain this?! Fuck me, how did we not spot this in rehearsals?! I guess the others were more thinking about how to apply my experience to their own Sanctuary missions but...geeze! How could I be so dumb?!

Very much on purpose, I held off on calling for more questions until the recording was completely over—in other words, once I’d entered the back rooms. Thankfully, discussion started with questions about Vex. Of particular note, of course, was the fact he had cleared more Floors of the Tower than should have been possible for Area 1. If the Syndicate somehow had a method to move between Areas, it went a long way toward explaining their immense power and resources.

I also learned that before the name Vex had dropped—the Syndicate—all previous traces the Federation had gleaned of the existence of this organization, incredibly few that they were, had pointed toward a different name, the “Vagabonds.” However, with this new development, it was generally agreed that the Vagabonds had turned out to be only one branch of a much larger hidden organization.

Inevitably though, someone asked about the redirection. Before I could even begin to panic though, Edwin cleared his throat. In fact, he was giving me a rather desperate look, I noticed. “I think I’d better let my faction leader explain this one.”

Before Edwin spoke, this time it was Clatenis who interrupted. “You didn’t seriously teach Lheticus that?!”

“I did,” said Edwin, sounding pointedly unapologetic, “when I first learned that he would be the first into a Sanctuary. Though I’m surprised to see Spell Redirection used so effectively here. Lheticus had been struggling to master it quite a bit.”

I shrugged, and played along. “I guess desperation drove performance.”

“It would seem so.”

From there, the event concluded more or less without incident. Before we headed to the Dimensional Gate to return to our fleets, I asked to speak with Edwin in private, and of course I needed to pick up Serayne, so we returned to the Grosstin office first. In a short time, we were comfortable in his private office there. “No doubt this is in regards to your wondering if Spell Redirection actually exists in the form I mentioned,” he began before I could even ask, “and yes, it does. It is an extremely rare ability, a counterpart to the ability to dispel spells through contact many physical classes can learn. The method of teaching it is one of Grosstin’s most prized resources.

In all honesty, I really had at least considered having you learn it once it came out that you were going to be first into a Sanctuary. However, I concluded that it would take too much time away from your other training, and likely to no benefit by the time the mission began. It is immensely difficult to learn, even with the Tower's assistance.

Young man, I believe I'm beginning to understand why you've been so supremely insistent on remaining tight-lipped about your unique trait."

"If you really want to know," I said, "I'd say I owe you enough trust for that for what you did today. I can't believe I didn't realize what would happen myself, when people saw me pull that."

"And what could you have done if you had?" Edwin retorted, "Concealed the end of the battle? Or do you think you could have come up with a satisfactory deception yourself?"

He shook his head. "No, I rather think things would have had to play out much the same way. The recording ending where it did was easily explained by the properties of the Sanctuary, but it would have drawn extreme suspicion if you'd cut the end of the battle out of it. And as for letting me in on your secret, I really do think I'm better off not knowing. This organization most likely behind the Vagabonds, this Syndicate...both from the incident on the 7th Floor, and from this Vex's behavior toward you, they seem to have taken a more than cursory interest in you. I'd rather they not think of me as a possible point to access your secrets."

"That's...a fair point," I said, my brow furrowing, "Mewi and I should be returning to the fleets now."

"Of course. Best of luck to you both, and to the entire team."

I was brooding on the way to the Dimensional Gate, and of course Mewi noticed. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head. "I have frustration that I need to vent. I just—I thought if we got strong enough, once we fulfilled our contracts and everything, we'd be able to be left alone. But by now, the masterminds have information on my secret from two different encounters, I have to assume. And it's way too late not to drag you in with me."

"Well, we know from your visions that trying to keep our heads down and not going to such lengths to get stronger that we have done didn't work out either," said Mewi, "you don't need to second guess yourself."

"Yeah, it's a real comfort to know we were damned if we didn't like we're damned now that we did." A moment later, I got ahold of myself. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you like that. I'm just going out of my mind because even with how far I've come, there's still so much danger..."

"Dude, I know. I'm—I'm freaking out too, okay?! I'm really scared! How the heck am I supposed to prepare for something that even comes close to the 'tests of will' the Fire Sanctuary threw at you?!

I—I feel like I don't really know what I'm doing. Not like you do. Danger, and fighting, and these dangerous trials...it was fine imagining about that kind of stuff in our roleplays back on Earth but this is too real!

But I have to do it. I have to become a Guardian too, because there's no going back and if we're going to survive against the Syndicate, I need the extra rewards and powers becoming the Guardian of Water will give me. I don't feel like I'm definitely going to fail or anything but it still feels like it's going to SUCK to go through."

I didn't say anything to that. I couldn't. Is there ever going to be a time where we don't feel like we're in over our heads in this place?