Pashar tensed as Ranvir gathered them into the pocket-space, but she didn’t resist. Instead, she simply crossed her arms and peered at him. They both waited for a moment, eyes staring daggers at each other.

“Are you taking us somewhere?” Pashar finally asked.

Ranvir blinked. “No, we needed somewhere private to discuss, right?”

She snorted and glanced around. Pocket-spaces like this were usually hard to define by sight alone, unless he took an effort to make it otherwise. As Frija got older and he traveled with her more, he’d needed to come up with a solution. The result was a highlighted grid, marking the walls, floor, and ceiling, instead of standing in the dark abyss.

Pashar nodded and shrugged. “That works. I saw that you were getting outmaneuvered by Minul.”

Ranvir raised an eyebrow and the smoke-tethered scoffed at him. “Don’t even try to deny it. You were going to let her dictate all the rules of your school. She might not have tied you to the school, but she certainly would’ve tied your students, teachers, and location to her.”

Ranvir frowned and shook his head. “I don’t want to deal with all this political shit.”

“Tough, you shouldn’t have gotten so strong, then. Anyway, now you mostly have freedom with your students and faculty. Sure, she’s got a choice on the location, but we had to give her something.”

Ranvir made a face, pursing his lips and drawing his brows down into a frown.

“Grow up, Ranvir. It’s not that bad.”

He sighed. “I guess not.”

He let the space dissipate, returning them to the square before the palace. Pashar nodded at him. “Now, I’ve got to get back on the Queen’s good side. I’ll probably have to tell her I’m a spy or something.”

Ranvir shook his head and let her walk away. This had gone so far beyond his initial desires. He just wanted an easy way to keep an eye on his friends and family. Well, he thought. At least, I’ll get to put all my theory to practice.

A quick sweep of his tether-sense revealed that Esmund and Kirs were headed… out of the city? Except, he didn’t think their path took them straight toward any of the gates. Frowning, he delved deeper into his space-senses, feeling the city’s layout proper. Almost immediately, he started getting a headache.

Interpreting the local environment in swift bursts was little effort, but even trying to map the local district was pushing it beyond his capabilities, apparently. “I still have so much to work on.”

He shook his head and took off at a jog. He considered using his powers, but decided he needed a few minutes to clear his head and refocus his attention. A brief run through the city was ideal for this.

Ten minutes later, Ranvir intercepted Kirs and Esmund as they were approaching a door set into the city’s wall. They were talking with an older guard and the old lady he’d seen hanging around the Queen.

The obsidian twin-master narrowed her eyes at Ranvir as he approached. The gleaming black glass end-caps on her fingers shone in the noonday sun’s light. He didn’t return the look, instead focusing on his friends.

Kirs’ expression drew a little tight at his approach, but Esmund lit up in a huge smile and waved him down. “Ranvir!”

Grinning, Ranvir slowed down in front of them. “What are you doing?” he asked, after they exchanged greetings.

“We’re going to inspect the shield-ritual,” Es said, pointing towards the door leading inside the wall.

The guard coughed loudly. “I’m sorry, tethered. This isn’t something you should reveal so freely.” He glanced at Ranvir. “Not even to another of your kind.”

Es glared over his shoulder at the man. “It’s fine, right Kirs?”

His wife sighed and nodded. “It’s not like I’ve tried to hide it from him, anyway.”

Ranvir nodded. His focus had mostly been on the other ritual, but he still remembered notes of large-scale rituals. Something to enhance the walls, perhaps?

“I’m Hildrid,” the older woman said.

Ranvir returned the gesture. “Ranvir.”

She gave him a terse smile. “I know.”

They exchanged a long look. She’d been in the throne-room, standing as one of the Queen’s advisors. If she’d gotten here before him, she must’ve gone the instant he left the hall. Perhaps she’d even used her powers to get to them quickly. What was she trying to do?

“Follow me, then.” The guard waved at them as he stepped into the well-lit corridor inside the wall. They soon took a set of stairs down, leading beneath the floor. It seemed dangerous to undermine the wall’s foundation like that, but perhaps the ritual made up for it.

The patterns for a ritual this large didn’t at all fit with the circles he and Kirs had initially come up with.

“How does it work?” he asked Kirs as they descended into the darker basement. Already, his Perception was clearing up details of the signs carved into the ground. They had carved the cavernous area slightly taller than average for a man, roughly chopped into the bedrock. The clear lines spoke of warp, yet the sloppy jagged angles revealed speed rather than precision. Reinforced pillars of obsidian rose intermittently through the granite walls and into the ceiling, causing the guard’s lantern to reflect oddly.

“It’s quite interesting, really. The pattern that squirrels all the way around the perimeter of the city is a sort of dispersal effect. Initially, I tried working on the usual circles, but that would mean hollowing out the entire city’s underground to implant one enormous circle. That, of course, wouldn’t quite work.

“Then, I discovered his array that dispersed the effect along the lines of it.” She paused as they came upon a circle carved into the floor, disrupting the pattern. “Instead of one enormous circle, we put dozens into the ground, each connected to the dispersal array until we could cover the entire city.”

“The city?” Ranvir asked. “Not just the wall?”

“That would be a meager defense,” Hildrid chimed in. “Allowing tethered to simply leap over it.”

“Exactly,” Kirs said. “Instead, we came up with this design, erecting a dome over the entire city.”

“That sounds like it takes a lot of energy,” Ranvir commented.

“Oh, that’s not actually that bad. Ice-tethered being the second-most common, it’s quite easy to pull a tithe large enough to fill the basin. Even sustaining it from the environment is possible, given enough time. The hard part was making sure it could be broken down without taking the city with it.”

“It’s true,” Es commented from slightly ahead, where he was walking with the guard. “She spent many long nights working on that problem.”

“How did you fix it?” Ranvir asked.

“Barring catastrophic failure of the defenses, then a secondary warp array will pulverize it to snow.”

“Why not obsidian instead of ice?”

“Too dark. If the city’s under siege and the shield needs to be sustained for days, it could have terrible effects. Also, breathing in obsidian dust can be just as dangerous as smoke.”

Ranvir nodded. It was all very fascinating, but wasn’t actually why he’d come here. “This is an incredible piece of work, Kirs. Unfortunately, it’s not actually why I came here.”

“I know,” Kirs said. “Hildrid alluded to as much.”

“Oh?” Ranvir remarked, turning to look at the old woman.

“Of course we’ll join you.” Esmund said. “It won’t be a problem at all!”

Ranvir smiled at Es, who batted aside his arms to go for the hug. Ranvir coughed in surprise as the warp-tethered attempted to collapse his chest and crush his lungs with raw physical might. He failed, of course, the underlying sand-mana ingrained in Ranvir’s body would’ve protected him someone far stronger.

Kirs let out a long breath. “I’m not sure…”

“What?” Es said, dropping Ranvir and stepping back. His face was deadly serious.

“It’s just that…” Kirs pursed her lips. “I have everything I need here. Access to both school and palace libraries, resources provided by the Queen, and the freedom to choose what I want to do with my time. All for a few check-ins throughout the year.”

Ranvir had to admit, she had it pretty good. He didn’t even need her for the school, not really. It would just be nice. Kirs was smart and innovative enough that she would for sure come up with something to help the students. But she didn’t have to do that at his school, did she?

He noticed Hildrid standing behind Kirs. Ranvir caught no sign that she was hearing anything unusual or unexpected, but from the sense of her spirit, he immediately got a smug sensation. He really didn’t want to tear Esmund and Kirs apart, not if they didn’t have to be.

“Kirs,” Ranvir said, turning to face her fully. “I can’t match what the Queen is offering you. I’m sure the pay would be lower, meaning you would have less funding. You wouldn’t have as much freedom.” He glanced at Hildrid. “It’s probably likely that you won’t be close enough to the capital to easily study at either of the other schools. I recognize that I’m not offering you the same as the Queen. That I don’t have the same resources at my disposal.

“I could say that I’d provide you with alternative kinds of access and hold it up as a treat to make you join me.” Hildrid’s face twitched towards a frown for a moment. “But I won’t. You’re my friend. I won’t hold it against you if you decide to stay here.” He turned to Es, who was glaring at his wife, flickers of rainbow light shimmering beneath the surface. Ranvir nodded to him. “I won’t hold whatever you chose against you, either.”

Esmund shook his head. “I’m going with you,” he turned away from his wife. “We’re brothers.” He clasped Ranvir’s forearm. “For life.”

Ranvir nodded and smiled. A little light illuminating within him. Small and initially unimpressive, he found it glow with a strength and intensive white light of a lifelong bond. “For life.”

Turning to Hildrid, Ranvir stepped away from his friend and his wife. “Let’s give them some room.” She stared at him for an eternity. She nodded reluctantly and walked away, leaving the awkward guard standing nearby.