The glyphs came more frequently, at his family home. Caen isolated himself in Vensha's cottage, and the glyphs only showed up there for a time, but whenever he went outside, he'd see them on trees, walls, the train.

  While he and Hshnol went over numbers, they’d find a trio of glyphs scrawled onto a window or on the furniture. Caen recognized a few of them, even.

  He'd intended to leave for Ser-gwu Island two weeks before everyone else to execute his duties as Vai's primary aide. But now, he'd changed his plans, and Vai agreed with his reasoning.

  “A month ahead of the celebrations?” Grena asked. “That's very early, isn't it?”

  Caen was carefully painting a glyph on the wall. “I need to get my aide duties out of the way quickly so I can focus on picking up Klakalk.”

  He had been training all this while in the hopes of raising several other affinities out of abjection, but had not been able to do so. There just simply wasn't enough time.

  “Are you fully packed?” Sh’leinu asked.

  Ergen chuckled. “Isn't he always? Well, your grandparents will be a little disappointed, but we'll all be in Ser-gwu soon enough.”

  Caen completed the glyph. On the other walls, Zeris and Vensha were also drawing similar glyphs in black ink.

  This morning, Hshnol had handed Caen Hiyilit’s translations. He’d given the caveat that it most certainly wasn't very accurate, but it was the best he could do on such short notice.

  Caen had drawn the glyphs all over his family home, Vensha's cottage, and Vai's house.

  It read: ‘Hold on. Communicate soon.’

  Caen left for Chrenai four days later, and in all that time, no new glyphs appeared.

  ***

  [My sister and Hakhonzo arrived yesterday. They've been helping me with prep,] Guinevere was saying over the telepathic link.

  [Aww, that's so cute. I'm coming over later,] Zeris said.

  [Awesome,] Guinevere said. [I'll be expecting you.]

  [Say hello to Nimue and Hakhonzo for me,] Caen sent.

  [Of course. I don't—]

  Guinevere’s voice cut off mid-sentence, and Caen felt a pressure lift off his mind.

  Gwen? Zeris?

  He’d finally moved out of range of her telepathic link.

  Caen glanced out the window of the airship he was in. The dark of night was interrupted by the occasional flash of lightning in the distance. It’d been a full day of air travel with several stops for servicing. He had gotten accustomed to the press of presences around him whenever he was in the midst of other people.

  His fragment was firmly tucked beneath his sleeve, covering his entire left arm. It had grown a great deal in the past few months; larger, stronger. He Mimicked its spirit receptor.

  Guess, it's just you and me now, Chasma.

  Chasma expressed regard and… a desire to eat.

  Caen chuckled. “Yeah, I'm hungry too. Let me fetch us a snack.”

  ***

  Caen got off the airship sometime after 10 at night. The airdock here in Chrenai was a large, open field as well, but there were many more active airships taking flight, docking, or being serviced by technicians.

  He and his fellow passengers were ushered into a nearby cylindrical building with busy foot traffic. Caen had packed relatively light for this trip: an extra spatial backpack, his trusty goggles, and armor. His guns and daggers were in the bag.

  Outside the building, he hailed a rickshaw to the warp terminal and was charged a frankly absurd fare. Between the money his family had given him months ago and a modest stipend that Hshnol had put him on as Vai's primary aide, it was affordable.

  Chrenai was the capital city of Rialgar, and this was immediately apparent. The streets were a smooth stone surface with clear demarcations for rickshaws, beast-drawn carriages, and pedestrians. A few floating vehicles, powered by high-end scriptwork, flew overhead. Tall buildings, most of them four-storied and higher, rose on either side of the streets, which were lit by ornate lamps designed with Felfe leaves.

  The warp terminal here in Chrenai was the fastest public means of travel in the Republic of Rialgar. It was a rotunda: a large, rounded building capped with a glass dome.

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  A hooded statue of Trellam the All-seeking held up his signature staff to the sky. A ruby gem in his right eye, and a topaz in his left eye. The statue was as tall as four men.

  Caen paid his fare and hurried into the terminal. It was even busier than the airdock had been.

  He bought a ticket at a booth, moved over to the waiting area, and sat on a bench.

  Behind a thick glass wall were the hop pads: two circular platforms, each large enough to hold twenty-odd individuals. Complex inscriptions were etched into the sides of the platforms. The first was marked as ‘arrivals’, and the second as ‘departures’.

  An announcer spoke intermittently over voice projection enchantments, letting people know when it was their turn. They walked onto the platform and vanished after a low whirring sound.

  Caen’s warp wasn't for another three hours, so he busied himself with a novel as he waited. A separate portion of his mind slowly stacked modifiers to a Gleam magic spell chain, and he manipulated the shadows of people nearby. Last month, he'd located a componeum in Vai's library with advanced Gleam techniques, which had made Caen all too aware of his own ignorance.

  At the same time, Caen fiddled around with his existence. Hshnol had demonstrated that Percipients could split their auras and move them in different directions. Caen hadn't managed to do this with his existence yet, but he was determined to keep trying.

  Soon, he was stepping onto the platform with nearly two dozen other people. There were no handholds or seats. Caen Mimicked someone's Spatial magic affinity.

  “Keep your appendages within the boundary of the teleportation platform,” a technician recited to them in a blank voice, then went on to give other standard instructions.

  The whirring started as a soft hum and rose to a crescendo.

  Space seemed to jerk inwards, and Caen was struck with the sudden sensation of falling. Then he phased onto an identical platform. Painful pinpricks crawled all over his skin. His lungs stung with each breath, and his stomach felt as though it had been turned inside out, but besides that, he felt fine. No heavy breathing, no need to throw up, no trembling limbs.

  Getting Space magic out of abjection would be surreal, he thought to himself.

  He stepped off the platform at the urgent prompting of the technicians and headed for a ticket booth. Eight more hops like this and he'd be at Ser-gwu Island.

  ***

  At the third terminal, the attendant at the ticket booth explained that Caen's hop might be delayed a little due to some technical issues that were being resolved.

  He waited for several hours. Eventually, it got to his turn, and he made the hop.

  There was a commotion at the fourth terminal. Some people were sharply addressing a technician; some were standing in groups arguing among themselves. It was far more packed than any of the previous terminals he'd been through.

  The ticket booth was closed.

  He walked over to where the technician was addressing a small crowd of people.

  “Like I've said, Imxeda’s unexpected eruption is interfering with the Plexus network in this region, thus activating the fail-safe in the terminal and making it impossible to warp out. My job—and the jobs of my colleagues here—is to man the terminal, not fix it. I'm not a fucking Space mage.”

  “Nothing you've said makes a lick of sense, mister!” scolded an elderly man.

  “How the fuck else can I make this make sense? Whenever volcano goes ‘pshh, pshh’, hop pad goes ‘uh-uh’. No teleportation. None!”

  Imxeda was the most popular volcano in Rialgar. It had mythic ties to Trellam the All-seeking. According to local legend, the archmage was born in the volcano.

  “Is someone being sent to resolve this?” Caen asked, raising his voice, which sounded too melodic, even to his own ears.

  Many turned to look at him.

  “Not that I know of, no,” the technician said. “It’s rare for this to happen outside of Dalat, but the current protocol is to wait it out.”

  “How long?” Caen pressed.

  “Two or so weeks. A month in some cases.”

  “Then why won't you send us back!” someone else queried. “Some of us have been here for half a day!”

  “Because the teleportation platforms aren't working! People can warp in, but they cannot warp out. Again, the fail-safes have been activated. We’ve sent word to other terminals. They weren't even supposed to send you here in the first place.”

  The conversation devolved into shouting and arguing.

  Caen sat in a corner of the waiting area and projected his mind into the Deep Astral. In under half a minute, he’d related the situation to Vai and returned to the Material Realm.

  The hours rolled by till it’d been a whole day. New arrivals eventually stopped coming through, but the departure platform remained inactive. Several of the waiting passengers had left to find room and board in the small settlement that surrounded the terminal. Caen had gotten himself a few meals at the settlement’s sole inn, which was overcrowded for good reason.

  Caen walked up to a technician who exited a door. “Excuse me. I’m headed to Ser-gwu Island. How far away is the nearest terminal on my hop route?”

  The technician scratched his head. “Uh… wow. Hmm… the spatial disturbance in this region has spread out to the surrounding terminals, but we're not sure how bad they have it anywhere else. If you're aiming for Ser-gwu, Fwis is your best bet. It's a few days away on foot. That’s east of here.”

  The technician proceeded to give him directions. There was a dirt road that led to the next terminal, and it rarely saw traffic.

  Caen left the warp terminal, pondering how he might cover the distance in as little time as possible. It was a gloomy day. High up in the sky, a multitude of swirling clouds danced erratically around each other. Cloud elementals. Air travel was dangerous around here due to their presence.

  He was reasonably armed and had packed himself rations. He set off at a brisk pace, and once he was a fair distance away from the settlement, he Mimicked Chasma's spirit receptor and shaped the fragment into a hovering disk with handholds.

  Since he wouldn't have any passive augmentations while doing this, he couldn't go as fast as he possibly could.

  He took a knee on the platform and gripped the handholds.

  This is going to be so much fun.

  Caen cackled as he and Chasma zoomed off at not-quite-breakneck speed.