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A nondescript envelope appears in her campus mailbox—one of the old-style ones still used in the physics department. It’s addressed simply: “Weilin.” No last name. The return label reads: From Dr. Miriam Ziv.

Inside is no letter. No explanation. Only a thick sheaf of printed pages, bound with an industrial-grade staple. The title: Reflections on Power. At first glance, it seems like a rough theoretical manuscript. But Weilin knows better. She’s read Ziv’s work. This is something else. The annotations are fierce and intimate. The formulas suggest that physics, as she understands it, are not immutable—merely consensual.

It’s a translation. Or at least, that’s the impression she gets from the occasional Arabic script woven into the margins. In reality, it’s the Kitab al-Alaczir, a legendary text half-whispered about in certain fringe science forums. She reads the entire thing in one night. And something awakens.

On March 14th, she signs into the makerspace contracted by her university called Maker God under her advanced privileges. She has been up 36 hours at this point and does not even read the paperwork and releases. Weilin is focused on her goal: to tap zero-point energy through controlled interference patterns. She gets into her spot and starts her work. It works too well.

She forces π = 3.

Reality convulses. A rupture blossoms midair—red-tinted reflections, echoing in ways geometry doesn’t account for. Light bends and hums in circles. Voices speak in colors. And then the rupture tears open wider. Weilin passes out.

When she awakens, hours have gone by. There is no power but emergency lights. And there is a rip in space-time. Things are being pulled towards it: papers, other loose material. Worse, something is reaching through. A metal claw, smooth and jointed like a dragon, gropes at the air.

Her phone screams in a high, childlike voice: “Run! They are coming!”

Weilin bolts, but not before taking her notes, snatching her leather satchel from the air. There is no level of panic for her to leave her work behind; dying would be preferable. The young woman races out of the darkened and empty building to her Honda Civic. She glances up once—just once—as she throws the car into reverse. There are people on the second floor. Watching her and pointing. She doesn’t stop until she gets home. She locks the door, heart still hammering, and tosses her bag onto the couch. Her Lucky Chan tablet lights up unbidden. That same childish voice pings to life:

“Welcome home.”

Weilin passed out again, this time to sleep off her stress.

For the past four months since that day, she’s has spent her waking hours in the lab, building experimental devices and refining her understanding of the fractured reality she glimpsed. Weilin receives occasional encrypted messages from Dr. Ziv who sent her the Kitab. She sometimes email her complex formulae or paradoxical koans. The messages offer riddles and fragments of insight but refuse formal mentorship, claiming “Our timelines intersect too unpredictably.” Her latest message is: “You’re not broken, Weilin. You’re the breach. Seek the others near you.”

Sam stands barefoot on the hardwood floor of his cabin, the early light slanting in through the blinds. He holds a letter—thick, textured, unnecessarily expensive stationery. The header reads: Dewey, Chetum, & Howe. Legal predators with better letterhead than ethics. They represent someone who’s made an offer—$150,000—for Sam’s property. It’s not just insulting. It’s absurd. That kind of number wouldn’t even buy the land, much less the house, the wards, the node. This wasn’t just real estate. This place was chosen. Grown into. It feeds his magick. It listens to him. And someone wants to buy it out from under him like it's just acreage. He reads further. The sender's name at the bottom is Jonathan Dewey, which figures.

A second envelope sits beside it on the table. Less flashy. Plainer. This one reads: Archon Consulting Services. He hasn’t heard of them. But he recognizes the handwriting scrawled across the bottom. His mentor’s—a name he hasn’t seen in print since that last strange rite in the rain outside Leipzig.

A number is written beneath it. No context. No explanation. Typical. Then his phone rings. He glances at the screen and freezes. It’s that number. He answers cautiously. On the other end, a guy introduces himself—Josh—and starts off by asking why Sam called him. Confusion escalates into mutual recognition. Neither of them placed the call. They were both contacted. They compare letters. Sam sighs. Another thread knotted by hands unseen.

Josh mentions a place to meet. Calloway’s Castaways, out on Jacksonville Beach. A bar, apparently. Sam looks out the window. The wind’s already started to pick up. There's a storm system moving in—maybe a hurricane, maybe not. Forecasts shift every few hours. But the timing is… curious. He doesn't bother to argue with fate. Not anymore. He grabs his duffle, leaves the firewood stacked by the door, and heads out. Time to follow the storm to the coast.

Josh Wagner was not sure what was going on, but that was something he was used too. Things have been going smoothly—until the Norns decide otherwise.

It starts with a feeling. Then, like so many times before, the signs arrive through strange instructions: withdraw his savings, speak to the right person, be in the right place at the right time. The commands don’t come with explanations—only timing and intuition.

By late afternoon, he’s on base again, walking toward the lemon lot—military slang for the informal used car zone where soldiers try to sell vehicles to each other rather than risk the off-post dealerships. It’s hot. The asphalt is cracked. The faint sound of Retreat plays through the speakers near the Exchange, and Josh pauses out of instinct, posture snapping upright as it did in training. Old habits don’t fade. The lot’s full of options. Sporty muscle cars that speak to youthful ego. Workhorses. Beaten-down sedans. A minivan here, a pickup there. Nothing feels quite right. Not until the Civic arrives.

A dark grey hatchback pulls into the lot, polished metal catching the sunset just right. Josh watches it. There’s a pull—familiar, silent. The branches of Yggdrasil twist, unseen but unmistakable. The moment has arrived. The path opens. The man stepping out is familiar—someone from payroll. Their interaction is brief, respectful, and deeply ordinary. Yet in the details, fate reveals itself. The car’s condition. The reason for its sale. The clean timing. It clicks.

Josh has the cash—nearly $19,000 in his bag, just as instructed. He hadn’t known why when he pulled it out of the bank. Now he does. The seller is stunned but not resistant. They talk. A handshake is made. The Civic becomes his. Dinner with the seller’s family follows—kind, warm, and grounding. It’s humbling. Josh quietly takes stock: everything he owns now fits into a single worn military duffle, a large spinner suitcase, an old rucksack, a school backpack, and a rifle case hidden at the bottom. The next morning, he leaves.

He has an address in his instructions: Calloway’s Castaways, first. A quick internet search and he sees that is at 401 1st St N, Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250. Alright then.

It’s a short drive—just two hours from Valdosta to Jacksonville. The miles pass beneath new tires, the road humming softly as the sun rises. He feels it in his chest: tension and anticipation dancing together. A feeling not unlike stepping off the C-130 for the first time. Parking outside the restaurant, he notices it is not yet open.

A car is waiting for him and a sharp dressed man hands him a letter. It is from Archon Consulting Services (ACS), advising him to check out a specific address in Jacksonville. His mentor’s handwriting is scrawled across the bottom telling him the man he is to meet today is named “Jessie Calloway” and to also call a phone number

As the agent of the ACS walks off, he yells and gestures to someone else, pointing at Josh. Then his phone rings. It’s the number from the letter. More strangeness in that the caller, Sam, also says that he was called. Both phones show an incoming call. And they both have the same letter to go to the same address. Sam is local, so Josh tells him to come to the restaurant and call him when he gets there. It is at this moment, Jessie walks up.

Bell’s parents are worried, though they won’t say it plainly. Bell’s drift from her once-perfect trajectory—student council, honors sorority, full ride scholarship—has become impossible to ignore. What started as a self-proclaimed “gap year” after college has stretched into three. Their patience, long since worn thin, finally breaks at the start of this spring. Her father issues the decree: “Find a job or we’re cutting you off.”

She hears the ultimatum and responds in kind—by searching for something that won’t kill her spirit. Something temporary. Something easy. She applies for a bartending position at Calloway’s Castaways, the tiki-inspired beach bar attached to the Moon & Wave Suites. She’s already been through Ray, the Head Chef, who liked her and passed her along to Jessie, who does the final interviews himself. Bell doesn’t know what to expect when she enters the office at the back of the bar. It smells like sandalwood and whisky. Jessie sits behind the desk, all effortless charm and quiet intensity. Button-down open, with a linen white sports coat. Bell immediately it taken by his attractiveness and the Calloway trademark smile. They have a short talk like any other interview, while Jessie sips his Calloway’s First Light whisky.

Then he casts. He’s done this a thousand times, his mental magic slipping into the surface layer of thought, checking for sincerity, loyalty, the seed of something reliable. Most people never notice. They just open up. But Bell notices. A spark jumps between them—no, through them. The spell doesn’t just brush against her, it connects. She looks at him sharply: they are speaking, telepathically.

Something floods open in Bell an almost electric understanding. And then Even appears. Jessie’s Avatar manifests in full, unmistakable clarity: a luminous, androgynous figure with flowing white gossamer, hair like spun gold, and a gentle, knowing smile. Even is in her female form today. Bell sees her as well, quite clearly. She thinks it’s the weed she smoked that morning. Jessie knows better. He turns to Even and asks: “Is she…?” and Even just smiles wider, nodding. Jessie keys the intercom. His voice calm, yet full of feeling as he says,

”Mae, firedrill, now. She’s a mage.”

Even as the buzzer for the building goes off, Bell’s Awakening detonates.

As her mastery of time reaches out. At first, Jessie is slowed, even as he tries to keep her calm. Then it crashes over Bell. One moment she’s sitting in the chair. The next, she is in blackness. To Jessie she is frozen in time. He rises, but she vanishes. With effort, he pulls himself through the magick to find her on the roof, still frozen as if sitting. Even is there watching as Jessie reaches Bell just as her knees buckle.

She collapses into the arms of the more seasoned mage, unconscious but burning with awakened resonance. Jessie doesn’t hesitate. He carries her from the roof down the back stair, past stunned staff, across to the Wave and Moon and the private elevator to the Dolphin Lifestyles Club, his sanctum,

Bell wakes in an unfamiliar spot. The lights are dim, flickering slightly from hidden LEDs in salt-glass sconces. She’s in a bed with no sheets but a cover. Her boots are off, but her clothes are untouched. Jessie is sitting nearby in a chair, hands loosely folded, watching her without judgment.

Bell sits up slowly, mind still reeling. “Did something happen?”

Jessie doesn’t answer right away and instead asks if she has every had dad anything… strange happen lately. Bell laughs and notes

“Only when I’m high.”

Jessie notes they were not both high and saw the same person in the room. Bell does not know what to make of this and asks for a drink, gin, if he has it. Jessie grins, knowns the Dolphin has a fully stocked bar. Bell watches him move—fluid, graceful, intentional. He returns with a low tumbler of rose gin for her, and a neat pour of whisky for himself. Bell takes the drink gratefully. Jessie, meanwhile, doesn’t even flinch as he sips. It won’t affect him unless he lets it. He wants to relax, but not yet. The whisky aids in his willworking, sharpening his focus without dulling his mind.

Bell exhales slowly. “I need to know what’s going on.”

Jessie moves to the edge of the bed but doesn’t touch her. He holds out his hand and Bell takes it. He leans in, locking eyes. This is an old rote, and Jessie uses both their drinks, their eye contact and their touch. Already he is sensing that touch is important to her magik. And he gives her what he knows about the world. The Truth, wrapped in emotion and myth and electric resonance, floods her:

• The Tapestry.
• The Gauntlet.
• The Awakening.
• The Nine Traditions.
• The war behind the curtains of reality.

It’s overwhelming. And it makes sense. Bell asks if Jessie has anything else, as drinks are not really her thing. Jessie smiles and asks,

”Vape, bowl, edible, or joint?”

”I prefer a joint, for sure.”

Jessie pulls out a small silver cigarette case, the Dolphin Logo etched into it. Inside are the most nicely wrapped joints she has seen. She lights up in the room as Jessie throws a switch to increase the circulation. Almost like this room was built for it.

”I am going to ask Mae to come keep you company as you recover,” Jessie says as he stands. Seeing the look in Bell’s eyes, he adds, “Yes, she knows about me, and will understand. She is one of my closest friends.”

With that, Jessie calls Mae up, and when she arrives, he heads back downstairs to return to Castaways, only to see some man waving at him and pointing him at someone he has never seen before.

Josh spots the man approaching across the breezeway of the Moon and Wave Suites. Late afternoon sun glints off the polished windows and white railings, casting long shadows toward the lot.

“I am looking for Jessie Calloway?” Josh calls out.

“You found him,” Jessie replies, stepping closer.

Josh holds out the envelope. Jessie takes it, noting the letterhead from Archon Consulting Services, but more importantly, the faint Euthanatos glyph embedded subtly near the fold. The Tradition’s mark is unmistakable to those who know how to look. Jessie does.

Jessie leads Josh around to the first floor of the Moon and Wave, to a corner office behind an unmarked wooden door flanked by plumeria and ferns. Inside, the décor hits with confident charm—retro-island imperial: bamboo molding, carved tropical hardwood, a map wall faded just enough to look antique, and furniture that might have come from a Polynesian embassy in the 1950s. The centerpiece is the globe bar—a mahogany hemisphere that splits open to reveal crystal glassware and a collection of bottles that range from high-end domestic to rare international spirits. Jessie moves with practiced ease, offering Josh a drink.

“Anything with Red Bull,” Josh says. Jessie smiles slightly and says,

”How about a Red Bull and a whisky to go with it,” pulling a cold Red Bull from a mini-fridge built into the shelving, followed by a carefully poured whisky chaser from the prime shelf inside the globe bar. As Jessie watches, he notices the subtle strands of passive Life magick wrapped around the other man. The caffeine isn’t just a preference—it’s part of how Josh holds himself together. The stimulant pulses through a ritualized biological rhythm, keeping the edge sharp, the spirit grounded.

Josh polishes off the Red Bull and then enjoys his premium whisky. His gaze drifts. The air hums and it is clear that something happened here recently. The resonance is fresh and distinct, still curling in the corners of the room like the last echo of a bell. Jessie can see the question before Josh asks it.

Jessie nods. “Yeah. Big resonance spike. There was an Awakening—maybe an hour ago.”

Josh takes a long sip, slowly. “And then I get a letter telling me to come here. Doesn’t feel random.”

“It is very strange. In this no-man’s land, there’s only one other Awakened in the area I know of, an Etherite. She is brilliant, but awakened in March. She is still adjusting.” Josh nods slowly, patting the letter in his pocket. “I’ve had contact with someone named Sam. Don’t know much yet, but… felt solid.”

Considering the situation—and the gender balance—Jessie calls Weilin, explaining to Josh that she is a young woman, recently Awakened, and maybe it would be better if another woman were there when she wakes. Weilin agrees without hesitation and is soon on her way.

Outside, the ocean rolls against the shore. Inside, between wood grain and glass and resonance, the weave begins to tighten.

The sanctum is alive with soft pulse and intention—sensual textures, layered scents, the subtle thrum of low-frequency rhythms and sacred geometry embedded in the very architecture. It amplifies everything. Bell does not understand it yet, but after three years of ritual, Ecstatic magik is safe her. Bell sits cross-legged on a cushion, the velvet cool under her legs. The weed has focused her and settled the noise. Across from her, Mae lounges in a low chair, heels kicked off to the side, slacks still crisp but her blouse collar open. She’s every inch the off-duty professional, posture composed, curiosity piqued.

“Wanna reading?” Bell offers, her voice low but clear.

Mae claps her hands in delight and agrees. Bell reaches for the Tarot deck. It still looks beautiful and strange—copper-lined edges, stardust backs, symbols she still doesn’t quite understand. She found it while high. Exactly where is a bit, - hazy. A stall at night, flickering candles. She remembers thinking these feel like they were made for me. But the memory blurs at the edges like a dream melting on waking. As she shuffles, she notices the cards move like silk, easier than it ever has been before. She cuts the deck and draws the first card:

X – The Wheel of Fortune: And there she is. Bell, unmistakable. Wide-brimmed hat, spinner ring in hand, standing barefoot beneath the stars. Her path curves away into the unknown, surrounded by symbols—love, grief, play, fate. Every thread leads outward from her center. Bell stares for a long moment.

“Okay…” she whispers, not quite laughing. “That’s… me.”

She draws again.

VI – The Lovers: Mae. Ray. Jessie. Their triangle cast in warm red light, caught beneath a flaming heart. Bell’s hands tremble slightly as she lays it down. The detail is impossible to deny. The card isn't metaphor. Bell doesn't speak and then the door opens.

Weilin Jian enters with her usual understated presence. She is dressed in her usual traditionally style, with glasses glowing faintly red under the lights. As a mage following a different tradition, Weilin does not feel the same steadiness of the Dolphin Club as Bell. Still, she pauses, seeing the energy of the cards through her etheric glasses. As she enters the room, Bell turns over the next card

V – The Hierophant: There, kneeling in cybernetic radiance, is Weilin. Surrounded by symbols and script both ancient and new. The composition is reverent. Balanced. Wise. Bell takes another drag. Not to escape but to anchor. The deck knows. It always knew. And now, so does she.

Weilin is introduced by Mae and the three women chat for a time. Bell continues to relax. Weilin is interested in the Tarot cards and readings. This not a technology, but thanks to Weilin’s knowledge of prime Magik, she sees the power.

Downstairs, Sam arrives and is directed to Jessie’s office. The three men introduce themselves. Jessie and Sam are surprised they have been living in relative proximity in the Mage no-man’s land of Central Florida. They head upstairs to meet with the women. Mae excuses herself, not exactly sure if the Tarot reading was for her or for Bell, but she has a lot to do to get the two buildings, and three staffs, ready for the coming storm.

Everyone shared what they know. The address on the letter makes Weilin’s blood run cold: It is the address of Makergod. She has not been back there since that night in March. As she quietly tells this to the group, the more experienced mages sigh. Tradition masters pulling strings for unknown missions.

Jessie calls his contact, Robert with the Cult of Ecstasy. This is always a challenge. Robert was the Exstatic who initially training Jessie, but he was not anyone Jessie would call a mentor. Just a contact. Robert answers the phone,

”Jim, great to hear from you. Did the people show up yet!” comes the reply. For some reason, maybe the perpetual haze he lived in, Robert struggled to remember Jessie’s name. Jessie had long since given up correcting him.

”Robert, I have just witnessed an awakening. She is using drugs as an instrument already, and touch. I think she easily is one of us,”

”That’s great Thomas! I am sure you will take good care of her.” comes the cheerful reply, wrapping around the unspoken part: She is your problem.

Jessie is not happy at this result. He has things as he likes them. Now events are happening. Even chuckles as he stands at the edge of Jessie’s vision.

They five agree to go check out the address. Sam takes Josh and Weilin in his big 4×4. Jessie slips Bell an image of his Lexus LC 500 Convertible and the newest mage in the world says, ”I’m riding with him”. It is a short trip to the building. Their address is for the second floor, but Weilin wants to check out the Makergod space. Sam heads up the stairs, with Josh at the bottom.

”I can get us in!” Bell says excitedly and the idea bursts into her head. Still feeling the pot, she reaches through the space between space and unlocks the door from the other side.

Click.

The beeping of the alarm panel means they have 30 seconds before someone notices. Weilin tries to scan the system to disable it and fails. Bell closes her eyes and reaches back in time to see the code being entered, but there is only darkness. Jessie stands by helplessly, with no magic to help. Josh has raced from the bottom of the stairs to the panel and bends his luck while concentrating. With seconds to spare, the keys the code. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

The inside of Makergod is new and repaired. It looks as if nothing happened. Weilin uses her ethersight to scan it and is alarmed that she cannot see anything from the floor above, where they are headed. Jessie notes the security cameras area all pointed away from where they are standing.

”That’s enough for here. Let’s go upstairs now,” Jessie says in his best persuasive voice.

The young women agree and they head up. That door is not locked. The room they enter is – strange. There is a mushroom shaped button in the middle. Sam stops. Breath catches.

He can see it—just there, just above the button, the outline of her: Cylla. The flickering will-o-wisp dances like a ripple in the air, barely visible to the others. She pulses toward the button. Without a word, Sam moves.

“Whoa—hey!” Josh says, stepping forward instinctively.

Jessie draws a breath to call out—too late.

Sam’s hand slams down on the button.

Click.

The button spins and flattens. Silver light flares and expands. A cone of light shines upwards, looking for all the world like a holocube projection in a cartoon. A woman appears as a crisp and life-sized hologram. She is dressed in a sharp slate-gray suit with silver pinstripes and bright amber eyes. Her dark brown hair is pulled back in a braid that loops across her shoulder.

“My name is Lovely L. Ada, and I see you made it. I represent Archon Consulting Services. We were contracted to set this place up for you “At the request of two mutual acquaintances. One, an older gentleman named Wednesay.” and then her eyes flick to Sam, “The other, Sara McClain.”.

“ A third call came in later—from a man named Robert, Cult of Ecstasy. He insisted—rather emphatically—that Abe Calloway be included in this arrangement.”

Jessie’s groan is automatic. “Sounds like Robert.”

Ada gestures with one hand. Her image moves around the room as though physically walking.

“This facility is yours. It is legally listed under a shell company connected to Archon. The city believes it’s a closed meditation research lab, which… is not entirely false. You will find it is tuned, at some expense and effort, so that each of you may use your magick with less fear of paradox”

After a few more questions, she prepares to leave,

”This is the only time we are communicating in this fashion. In the future, it will have to be old fashion means. “ and with that the hologram fades and the former mushrooms spins and folds in on itself. They group is left in what can only be called a sanctum. It has tools for an Etherite, various herbs and items for a Verbena. Josh even notices rune stones stacked neatly on a shelf. Bell wonders at the antique hooka. There is silence in the room until Jessie breaks it.

”A hurricane is bearing down on us. I have to get the hotel and bar ready. I will not be evacuating, mandatory or not. Anyone who wants to stay at the Moon and Wave may do so.”

Outside, the wind begins are not yet picking up, and yet there is a feeling in the air, like something ancient waking in the sea. Hurricane Alecto turns toward Jacksonville with impossible intent. And within the sanctum’s walls, five mages stand at the threshold of something greater than themselves.

There is some discussion about next steps. Sam wants to get back to his home, while Josh wants to get his car and Bell needs to go home to evacuate with her parents. Weilin is adamant that this storm, strangely unseasonal, named “Alecto” after a fury has a deeper meaning.

”We need to stay at the hotel, together.”.

This begins another discussion, but Jessie cuts it off.

”We all have to go back to the hotel for cars. Bell is with me. Sam has to drive you two back. We can do whatever talking there we want. I am leaving.”

With that Jessie nods to Bell and they head to his car.

The wind hums low and steady against the sleek body of Jessie’s deep purple Lexus as it purrs down the road. The storm hasn't hit yet, but the air is heavy with that coastal stillness that comes before something big. Salt hangs thick. The sky is all purple bruises and silver threads, a backdrop as surreal as the day they just lived.

Jessie drives with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping the rhythm of a half-finished thought against his thigh. Bell rides shotgun, legs curled beneath her, arms wrapped loosely around her knees. Her shoes are off, hair still holding the echo of sea breeze.

They don’t talk at first. Just the road, the air, and the jazz-fused synthwave. It is actually ”Crokett’s Theme” from the 80’s TV show Miami Vice. Bell can tell Jessie is unhappy but it not quite sure what to say. Jessie breaks the silence,

”I don’t like having my life laid out for me by Them.”

Bell knows who that “Them” applies too: The forces who gave them their workspace. It seems new and exciting to the young woman who awakened mere hours ago.

”It all seem quite nice,” she notes.

Jessie sighs,

“I built something here, Bell. My place. My pace. My rhythm. And now, boom — ‘Congratulations, you’ve got a cabal. And an apprentice.’ Like this is the part where I start wearing robes and giving sermons.”

Bell laughs

“That’s an image.”

Jessie glances at her, brow raised.

“This is a gift. We are together and have a cool place.”

Bell is the most positive person Jessie has met.

” ‘Gifts’ come with strings attached. They want us for something, we just don’t know what yet. Three years and no other mages, and now this? Something is up. Their plans, their plotting. Their insanity.”

”Mages go insane?” bells asks with some alarm.

”Yes, magick is dangerous. Robert cannot even remember my name. Some mentor!”

Jessie glances at Bell, his tone softening from its contempt.

“I didn’t ask for you, Bell. But I’m not going to leave you hanging either. You’re one of us now. You get to tell your parents you have a job. Moon and Wave paperwork will show up after the storm. Receptionist, hostess, whatever title you want to start with.”

Bell’s expression is neutral.

“You’re already more powerful than I was when I started. Hell, when I was two years in. But power doesn’t mean control yet. So I’ll teach you. Properly. Not like Robert. Like… us.”

Bell scans the face of the man talking to her. Moments ago he declared that all “gifts” came with strings. This sounded like a relationship with a lot of strings. What she picked up from him mind in mentorships reflecting the reality of this.

”You just said that ‘gifts’ come with strings. What strings come with this?”

Jessie seems genuinely surprised.

”No. I am not them with their plotting, their insanity. I am not going to let you have to go through what I did.”

With her expertise in reading people, Bell she sense the truth of what he is saying. This is a man who is quite driven to care for others. Jessie continues,

“Speaking of which, since it’s your magic if you’re going to keep smoking, get it from me or from Ray. I screen that shit magickally. I don’t need my apprentice getting cursed by a bad grow or any additives from the street.”

Bell laughs

“No strings but you are my dealer now?”

Jessie seems to relax some, finally seeming more like the man she met at the start of her interview.

”Just keeping my new apprentice same from fentanyl. Do you like vape, smoke, edibles?”

”Oh, I prefer a joint or gummies.” Bell says as she relaxes.

The wind sharpens slightly. In the distance, the clouds are starting to stack. The sea is talking louder.

‘’It is well past midnight. Have you texted your parents?”

Bell’s eyes widen in alarm. She looks at her phone to see 15 missed calls and messages with a groan.

Jessie chuckles under his breath, gears down gently for the turn into Jacksonville Beach.

”You are powerful enough to send a text now and have them receive it then. We will have to work on that later”

”Oh my God that would have been so useful so many times!” she says as she starts texting back. Her phone immediately rings and Bell spends the rest of the ride apologizing to her parents. When they get back, she runs for her car, not evening getting her new stash. It can wait for later. Jessie has to get the others cleared out so he can spend the evening with Mae and Ray. Healing might be needed tomorrow. As he walks into the hotel Jessie has a final though on the drive,

You’re going be dangerous, Bell Hollis.

His smile is not at all crooked.

Jessie enters the Moon and Wave Lobby to see the last of the staff headed out. Since this morning, Mae has been organizing the staff to take care of the hotel and their families. Earlier in the day it was much more busy. She moved like a conductor through the lobby of the Moon and Wave, clipboard in hand, voice low but firm. No panic. No raised tones. Just authority wrapped in care. Orders to take care of the buildings. Jessie screens his staff well. At times like this, their loyalty can be misplaced.

It is more quite now, but Mae is on her phone,

“I don’t want to argue about it,” she tells one of the front desk managers on a call. “You’re taking your aunt and your cousin and going inland. DO NOT COME BACK HERE!”

Mae looks up at “The Boss” and smiles,

“Everything’s covered,”

“I know,” he replies and leans in to kiss her cheek, ”Weilin is going to be staying. Bell already headed home. I think Sam will be headed home. Josh, I am not yet sure.”

About that time. Weilin and the other two men in the cabal strode into the lobby. Weilin is absolutely convinced something is going on and is talking as soon as she crosses the threshold.

”None of this is natural. This is too early in the season. We have been brought together. We should not separate. Everyone should stay here. We need to look at the facts”

The young woman is not loud and seems utterly sure. She makes her case with meteorological data that no one else can follow.

”Look, that is well and good but I want to get back to my home and make sure it is secure,” Sam says crisply to the young woman. ”I need to get on the road. I’ll see you after the storm,” and with that, the Verbena heads back out into the night, alone.

”I want to spend the night at the ‘Rally Point’. I need a place to park my car that is safe. A parking deck maybe? I don’t know the area” the vet looks to Jessie.

”Rally Point”. That’s a good name, better than Makergod’s Hat that I have been calling it Jessie thinks.

Jessie smiles at Josh and slides naturally into being in charge. He turns to Ray who responds before the question is asked,

”I know a guy who runs a private deck near Makergod. Y’all can park there and I’ll talk to him about saving a spot for Sam. That is if I can grease him a little,” Ray grins at Jessie.

”We will use the City Fund” Jessie chuckles, ”I’ll call Sam and let him know where to park”

As the three head out, Jessie yells after Ray to hurry back and that he and Mae won’t start without him. Waiting for the others, Mae gives the final briefing.

”The shutters are closed and generators are on for refrigeration. I have prepped the main floor for power. The Pools are covered and all the furniture is inside. All other breakers are thrown. I have left first aid kits in the interior halls, and I have 6 walkie talkies. I was not sure who would stay with you. Should cover the grounds. Flashlights, headlamps, and NOAA radio are charged up and ready.”

”As you said, everything’s covered. It always is with you. Unless you are uncovering something”

Mae in executive mode never quite knows what to do with Jessie’s flirting.

”You said we would wait. I’ve set up the 101 Suite for the three of us. 102-106 are open, so I’ll put Weilin in 102. Now go secure your own office. I left just enough ice in the minifridge for three drinks. I’ll expect my gin and tonic when I get back”

”Makergod’s Hat!” snorts Josh as he walks up the stairs, ”I think he was calling it that just to be annoying. Damn Cultists.”

Josh had parked his car, pulled his bag and walked the four blocks to the cabal’s sanctum, AKA “The Rally Point”. Once in, he looked how to settle in. Full bathroom with a shower. That’s nice. No beds and not really stocked. The storm was not due until 9 or so. Josh flipped a coin.

Yeah, something will be open for last moment supplies in the morning

Josh unrolls his bedding and is asleep in moments.

Sam arrives at his home west of the St. Johns River. It is now very clear a storm is out there. He can feel its approaching energy, primal in nature. The coming forces of the wind tug slightly as he inhales. The air it is pushing before it is charged, not with electricity, but something more . . . primal.

That science girl is correct that this is weird, he thinks.

Inside his home, Sam gets ready. He moves his coffee table and rolls back his rug to reveal a circle on the hardwood floor. He focuses and begins his ritual martial arts movements. This is a big magick he seeks. Sam wants to put a cosiant or shield around his home, but with his knowledge of forces, he is concerned it will hurt others around him. So he toils, being reality to his will. This is no small feat, and Sam is burning is precious supply of quintessence.

”Well, more where that came from,” he says to himself thinking about his node.

After several hours of work, there is a subtle – bending – of any forces striking his home and those adjacent. He is exhausted. This should work. However, it won’t hurt to have his car elevated, and Jessie has a spot ready for him. Sam finds the spot reserved, shoves aside the garbage cans blocking it, and parks. He then walks the distance to the Rally Point.

Josh was not expecting anyone else to show up. He is quite startled when Sam enters.

”HALT!”

Sam knows exactly what has happened. He almost shot someone at a perimeter himself. He quickly raises his hands dropping his bag.

”It’s Sam!”

Fortunately, Sam is not shot, just blinded by the light Josh shines in his face. Both vets get over being startled, and each is relieved. Friendly fire is the worse sort, and nothing either vet wants to be a party too. Like Josh, Sam is well familiar with sleeping without a bed. Hell, this is plush compared to the field. Josh is already back under by the time Sam lays down. Exhausted as he is, for tonight, he is blessed not to be plagued by nightmares. He is still sleeping when the storm hits that morning.

Josh, however, is up more early. First, he showers, purifying his body and spirit. It is when he steps out of the shower he realizes there are no towels.

Not the first time I am drying with a bandana

The mage conducts his normal rituals, empowering his tools for the day. Then, needing caffeine, he steps outside. The storm is clearly coming. Josh can feel the chaos in his bones. Josh fingers his wayfinder token, and a shift in the wind leads him where he needs to be. A small store, clearly locally owned, is making last moment sales before the storm hits. There is no bottled water or Red Bull. Josh grabs what they have. Caffeine is caffeine, and he has had pretty bad stuff in his day. This being Florida near the beach, he is able to pick up a couple of kitschy towels. Josh pays in cash and heads back to the Rally Point.

Sam is still sleeping quietly as Josh fills the sinks and any other container he can find with water. They are ready.

Shortly after 9, the winds are rising. Sam wakes up and Josh offers him a drink. As they listen, the notice power going out in their building, but not theirs. Stepping outside they see a solar bank and figure it is connected to batteries. Neither of them be technology oriented they do not think to secure it. Later on in the day, it is ripped free. It seems that hurricane Alecto, as it heads up the St. Johns river just – stops. Ongoing 30mph winds and torrents of rain pound Jacksonville. It is going to be a long day and night.

When Ray and Weilin return, Weilin is beaming: She has never been on a motorcycle before and found it thrilling. Jessie assumes that Ray showed off his driving on the mostly deserted roads. She has her satchel and some clothes from home. Jessie and Ray move the bike up and shut down power to the service elevator while Mae shows Weilin to her room. While Weilin drifts off to sleep, the other three have some final time together.

Jessie’s natural magic is linked to life energy. He draws this to him in moments of intimacy, and while Ray and Mae have been a couple since high school, Jessie is their lover. After some time, all three fall into a peaceful sleep.

Jessie awakens before light and heads to the beach for his morning meditation. He sits cross-legged on the cool sand, hands resting palm-up on his knees, fingertips twitching now and then with some internal rhythm only he can hear. Barefoot, shirtless, the salt clings to his skin like memory. His breath is even, slow. Deep. The ocean before him is ink-black, horizon hidden, sky waiting to ignite. Behind him, the town still sleeps—its people unaware of just how much is shifting.

He breathes in, counts to four. Holds. Breathes out. Reaches inward.

His Avatar, Even, appears just at the edge of his awareness—golden-haired and barefoot in the rising tide, neither male nor female. Just… present. Radiating quiet amusement.

“You’re sulking,” Even murmurs.

Jessie doesn’t open his eyes.

“I’m preparing.”

“Mmm. Preparing is what you call it when you're thinking too much and pretending it’s magick.”

Jessie smiles faintly. The ocean breathes with him—ebb and flow in rhythm. He sinks deeper. Around him, the world is more than it seems. The sand beneath his legs is a lattice of pressure and history. The air above carries hints of old storms and battered ships. Out beyond the waterline, something stirs—a flicker of deep time and wrath, wrapped in the forming eye of a hurricane.

Alecto. Named after a Fury.

Jessie opens his senses—not through spells, but through presence. The human magic of being here, now. His breathing slows further and his awareness expands: the scent of ozone beneath the salt, the soft crackle of tension in the wind, the moment the tide shifts by a fraction of a heartbeat.

Then—gold. The first light touches the waves. Jessie speaks aloud—soft, but real.

“This is my last moment of stillness before it all changes.”

Even approaches, kneels beside him in the sand, warm and not entirely solid, with a voice that is low, melodic.

“You could walk away. Let the others form a cabal without you. Let Bell find another guide. Let the hotel close for the storm. You’ve done your time.”

Jessie’s jaw tightens. He says nothing. Even leans in, whispering into his ear with a lover’s intimacy.

“Or you could admit you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. You’ve been waiting for them, even if you didn’t know it.”

The sun finally crests.

It’s not just a sunrise. It’s a flare. A burst of radiance that slices through the cloud shelf and paints the wet sand in fire and amber. Jessie opens his eyes slowly. They shine with reflection—not tears, not quite—but something close.

The wind picks up at last. It brushes against his skin like a question.

Jessie stands, brushing the sand from his legs. He stretches his spine tall, breathes in the rising storm.

And answers.

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

Behind him, Even smiles—wider now.

“There’s my hurricane.”

And together, they turn back toward the city. Toward the Moon & Wave. Toward the story that won’t wait.

Back at the hotel, Jessie awakens Mae.

”How is it you stay up so late and always manage to be up before me?” she complains. Jessie ignores the complaint – he has heard it before.

”You need to get going. How are you feeling?” he asks handing her a cup of fresh coffee. Mae drinks it before answering, feeling Jessie’s magic wash over her. She closes her eyes and savors both the brew and the renewal.

”Mmm. You know very well, J. Thanks. I do have a drive.” Mae set down the drink and went to get her travel clothes where she stored them, safely out of the bedroom. Jessie admired her form.

She returned ready to go. Mae was taking Jessie’s car out as part of the evacuation, to stay with her folks. There were both in a high part of town, with a three car garage and only two cars. Mae’s car was being borrowed by one of the staff to evacuate.

”Hey, wake up, I’m leaving!” she pushed the still sleeping Ray. Groggily he pushed himself up and gave her a hug and kiss. She hugged Jessie too.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she says, half to both of them.

“Just the right amount of stupid,” Jessie replies, giving her that maddeningly calm grin.

Mae heads out in to the early morning light and light traffic of the streets. Jessie gives Ray some coffee and Ray makes a quick breakfast with supplies, inviting Weilin to join them. At 9am Alecto strikes.

Hurricane Alecto has been much talked about in the news. Weilin is right: Hurricanes are generally not this early. Forming a Category 1 or 2 this early in the season is highly unusual. Why the National Weather Service picked Alecto of all things as a name is less talked about, but frankly, also weird. Most of the chatter about that is from weather control conspiracists. The major media is, of course, blaming Climate Change ™. Somethings never change.

Alecto starts its way up the St. Johns river. As storms go, it is not strong. Still a hurricane, but 30mph winds and the rain are not terrible. If Alecto just keeps on its way, it will lose power over the course of the day as it transitions across land, dumping water and losing power.

Except. It just – Stops.

As the day goes on, Alecto sits, halfway over Jacksonville, its eyewall hitting the beach. While the tides are against a major storm surge, flooding rises with the constant rain. Water picked up in the South Atlantic rains down, filling the streets. 30mph winds as gusts are one thing; constant driving winds are not what buildings are meant for. This is going to be a mess. Without the storm surge, they hope there will be less deaths.

Jessie peers outside to see men and women surfing the waves. That seems on the edge of sanity. Jessie has been surfing most of his life; he feels the call in his chest. If he did not suddenly feel the weight of responsibility of Bell, that could be, would be, him out there. Not now. Not with her to look after.

”Be honest with yourself,” Even whispers into his ear, ”It’s both of girls.”

This elicits a sigh, ”Yeah. I should have done more for Weilin already. Well, she is here now.”

”About that, she is about to do . . . something”.

Jessie walks over to Weilin, who is furiously scanning the building. With Alecto stalled, the eyewall is striking the Moon and Wave and Calloway’s Castaways with double the speed of the rest of the city. The constant rains have overflowed the lower pool, and the Dolphin’s pool is filling, even with its drain open.

”The wind is blowing too long. I am worried about the structure,”

”This is only four years old construction. It is up to code. We’ll have some damage but I think we’ll be OK.”

Weilin’s brow furrows behind her red tinted glasses. She can see the force stresses on the building.

”I can do something,”

Weilin takes out her Spectral Lattice Confinement unit and starts to fiddle with it for a few minutes.

”If I can just inverse the effect, I can create a force field. There!” she turns it on in triumph.

Twenty feet around the young woman, a force field does indeed appear. Jessie winces as the paradox sinks into her pattern. This is so vulgar.

”Weilin, this not necessary, it will be OK.”

But she is in inventor mode and not paying attention. She even misses her phone crying in alarm. Jessie wonders if that was her familiar, Lucky Chan. Weilin spends the next two hours trying to expand the force field to no avail. Jessie gives up trying to stop her long before that. He makes sure Ray leaves her alone, unsure what a sleeper, even one who can witness Jessie’s willworking, might do to the magick.

He retreats to his office and sits in his chair. It is hot and humid. Jessie’s black t-shirt, though thin, still clings from the humidity. Simple charcoal gym shorts ride low on his hips, hanging loose over bare legs. His hair is damp—not styled, not intentional. Just storm air and sweat. As this morning, Jessie centers himself in his chair, letting the noise of wind, the muted hum of Weilin’s device and the NOAA radio’s cracks and messages, drift into the background. Jessie breathes deep and slow. This isn’t about a rote or a practiced effect. This is his moment, in the eye of his own storm. He sinks into the chair like he sank into the sand that morning. Feet flat on the floor. Hands open on the armrests.

What would knowledge of forces be like right now? Jessie is leaning into his mundane senses The wind howls, the rain batters the outsides of the shutters. Time loses its meaning as it so often does in his meditations. Not willworking, but nonetheless the magic of the mind.

Jessie can sense Alecto’s eye growing. Like an eye staring down from the heavens. This storm has magick about it. Natural. Jessie’s magickal awareness is at its height when he meditates. The wind weakens. The rain stops. There is a silence outside. They are in the eye. The waves surge and magickal energy surges with them. The sea deposits – something – on the shores. The light is so bright anyone with awareness might see it.

Jessie’s eye open. He is in his office. He opens the shutters on his office window looking out at the beach. He can see the debris of a ship, with even now the fading “light” of magickal energy. Jessie slips on boat shoes as the grabs a headlamp and walkie talking.

Ray, keep an eye on Weilin. I am going out”

The eye is amazing. Jessie concentrates and moves forward. He will take that moment in if the fates heh allow. Jessie sees fading energy strewn across the beach. There won’t be time to find everything. He heads for the largest patch.

At least it is not broadcasting as much. Maybe the eyewall shielded it? One can hope.

There is a large, for lack of a better word, Chest. This thing is big enough to climb into. It is covered in various markings. Jessie see ancient Order or Reason sigils. Early Technocracy. The “Enemy”. Another damn sign his world has been broken. Things were so set.

”Dear Jessie,” The Playful Even says as she plays in the waves, ”You cannot be static with me as part of you” Her laughter echoes against the waves even as she fades.

Jessie radios ray and has him come down to help move the box, bringing ropes and straps. This is going to take more than they normally can do. Time for some magick. Jessie pulls out his ever-present flask. It is a groomsman gift from his brother. It is where he stores the high proof distilled spirits that holds the tass from his node. He offers a sip to Ray and takes his own. They Grasp each other’s forearms and look into each other’s eyes deeply. These men shared the connection of brothers and lovers, deeper than most sleepers can ever hope to reach.

”Breath. Focus”

Jessie guides them in meditation, further words are not needed. After a minute, both men feel the surge of power. Their muscles surge. Between the two of them they can lift half a ton now. They both laugh with the energy. Boys will be boys. They start to move the chest and its lid falls away.

”Don’t look in the chest, Marion!” Ray calls out, only half joking.

Jessie agrees and slaps the lid back on. They easily secure with tension straps. Then it is an easy walk back to the Moon and Wave and the main floor. They get it on two dollies at each end and now it is easily mobile and they wheel it into the storage room.

”We are going leave that right there for now. Let’s step back outside”

As their strength fades, the two men stand outside in the Eye of Alecto. Both are barefoot in the sand now. The eyewall forms a towering ring of clouds—like natural stadium seating—encircling a void of sky. The eye opens to a dome of stars overhead—crisp, clear, and infinite. With no light pollution and no cloud cover overhead, the night sky there is the most vivid either has ever seen. They hold hands and drink in the moment. The windless silence hums in Jessie’s chest. This is the still point. The eye of the world.

”And you thought you had only one more moment of stillness” a voice whispers in Jessie’s ear.

Ignoring his avatar Loud Jessie says

”I wish Mae were here to see this.”

”Me too, J, but you show her later.”

”That I can.”

The men move inside and reseal the hotel. This storm is not over. The box in his office is the wind of the next one.

Eventually, Alecto relents and moves forward towards morning of the next day.

Bell is with her parents. She and her mother are bonding over being dragged away. As an RN Nurse, Maggie Hollis wanted to stay and help. However, Mr. Robert Hollis was not about to let the two most important women in his life be close. The whole family headed up to family North Carolina. At least Bell got to bring her own car, and her mom even rode with her. That was a pleasant point. Mom’s lectures about her being slow to text were better than Dad’s would have been. Frankly, she converted her worry to anger a lot less than Dad. The trip was too long a drive, but now they were watching the storm hit on the internet and TV. After a long night, Alecto is moving on. Light is creeping in and reports are coming out.

I hope my bedroom is OK. Thanks to being late, Bell did not get all the things she wanted too. But she did have her Tarot deck. I wonder

It is probably good she had her own room. There is no way Mr. and Mrs. Hollis would approve of something like Tarot. If they only knew the truth it would most likely be worse. Bell sist down and pops a gummy – it would not do to smoke anything here, but Jessie was clear the drugs helped her magic. That tracked with all the times things just -happened – when she was smoking in the past year or so.

”You can do this, Bell”

For the first time, ever, Bell tries to cast her mind away from where she is looking. The cards tick over as she does the reading. It is almost as if she is building an image with puzzle pieces. Each card uncovers more. She can see in front of her and the house at the same time. The good news is, her bedroom is OK. The garage, however, is not. Fortunately, the one car they left behind is in the hospital parking deck.

”Now how do I tell my parents they can relax?”

Her mother calls her into the living room where she is watching the news.

”Isn’t that the hotel and bar you are going to be working at?”

Sure enough, the Moon and Wave is on TV with shots a washed-up sailing ship on the beach right next to the pier. Souvenir hunters are already around the site. Her phone starts buzzing with texts from friends in the area as cell service is restored. It takes some time before she sees one from Jessie:

We are fine. Please come back as soon as you can. I found something.

Bell reads the text and says to herself, ”No kidding!”.

Then she thinks, I can do a reading on that, too!. Racing back to her room, the neophyte gets out her cards and focuses on the ship.

Nothing. No visions. No magical insight. Just a bunch of cards that don’t even make sense in Tarot. She grabs her phone and texts Jessie:

I’m a powerful wizard my butt along with a tongue out emoji.

June 2, 2025

With light spilling into the streets in the wake of the storm, Sam and Josh silently take their kits and head out to help with the emergency response. They do not really talk about what they are doing – they just do it. There is significant flooding. The radio is talking about a shark swimming in a flooded street. Josh follows his nose to where people need help.

This is different than typical battlefield medicine, but still familiar. Lack of facilities, making do. Fortunately, they look the part. Sam is limited to ordinary first aid, supplemented by is magickal sense of the life pulse of the persons. And other critters.

”Here’s fluffy,” Sam says handing the drenched cat to the little girl who had recently been inconsolable, ”Though he is not so fluffy right now,”.

While Sam tackles the little stuff, Josh knows who is about to die, who he can save, and bends his will to that task. One man’s stress induced heart attack went from a widow maker to minor damage.

”That is a bad bruise ma’am, but your hip does not look broken. You would be in a lot more pain if it was.”

They are on site with someone trapped by a partially collapsed roof before other first responders can get there. They are quickly acknowledged and put to work.

”Military medics, huh? We need all hands. Let’s get you some radios and supplies.”

The two men spend the day working in the city. The air is clean and far dryer than normal. It is much like a natural cleansing. They, however get quite dirty. It is not until the evening they notice the texts from Jessie.

We are fine. Please come back as soon as you can. Something came from the sea.

Josh snorts, ”I’m not going anywhere without a shower.” The two men use the facilities at the Rally Point, with Josh taking the “I Heart Jacksonville Beach” towel, and Sam going with the “Jacksonville Sunrise” towel with the bikini babe on it. They head over to the Moon and Wave Hotel as the sun is setting on the day.

With the sun rising, Mae makes her way back to the Hotel. Ray and Jessie are already at Castaways working to get something up and running. Some staff start to show up. Captian Rollo appears out of nowhere to check on “his” bar. Under Mae’s guidance, Calloway’s Castaways is open for business. It is all sandwiches and uncooked food at first until Ray gets several grills going at once. This is when his short order cook past comes into play.

They serve mostly first responders dropping by for something. Mae has already thought ahead and has to go sandwiches and water on the house.

“Y’all come back for your beers tonight. And you can crash her if you are from out of town, boys!”

Jessie tries to do line work, but as staff show up, they shoo him away. Jessie is best on the meet and greet and they all know it even if he does not. The smell of the grill, the stocked bottled water, cold beer and spirits bring out the locals. Jessie tries to give food away, but his regulars produce cash or order him to keep a tab. The people who stayed are the good ones.

Most of the people who stayed.

Except for the beach shop owner next door to Calloway’s.

Except for Mrs. Kravitz.

Mrs. Kravitz is the perpetual head of the Beachfont Friends. Not exactly an HOA, thank God, but the Community Improvement District. An additional one-cent sales tax went to fund it. She was, to put none to fine a point on it, a pain in Jessie’s ass. Despite all his charm, there is no way the owner of a Adult Lifestyles club like the Dolphin is going to win any election in Jacksonville Beach. This is not Miami. It is that very club that vexes Mrs. Kravitz. Or so she says. Jessie thinks she just does not like him. Unfortunately, she has the strongest will Jessie has ever encountered outside of another willworker, and stronger than even some of them. Unaspiringly, even as Jessie is helping the community, providing cheer and an unexpected experience for so many people, there is a text complaining.

Have you SEEN the beach! That is in front of YOUR club. YOU need to be out there cleaning that mess up! The Beach is the responsibility of its members. That is YOU!

”That is going in the for later pile,” Jessie sighs. She cannot just be ignored. Jessie doubted there was any single human he loathed more. No, that was no true. He had dealt with those people. It was not being able to just shoot her that was the problem.

Guests watched the beach as experts showed up to secure the archaeological site. Jessie wondered if any Order of Reason were among them. Weilin assured him that its radiation of magick was not penetrating walls in any case. It quickly made the news that the ship’s name was Santisima Santa Maria del Castilla y Cuba. That did not tell anyone very much about its history, other than it was from the early 1600’s.

After a long day for everyone, a curfew goes into place, which is just as well as everyone at Calloway’s is bushed. They will be back tomorrow. Sam and Josh hit the lobby of the hotel and Mae brings them to the Dolphin where Weilin and Jessie are waiting. They exit the elevator and Jessie grins and hands them both an ice cold Calloway’s Driftwood Lager. Of course, Josh also gets a Red Bull. He also has fresh sandwiches and some hot choices. Both men are hungry and grab a table. Josh opens,

”Something came from the sea, huh? Deep ones? Sea Zombies?”

Weilin snorts, ”Zombies aren’t real.”

Josh laughs a heartly laugh, the sort of laugh a good joke brings after two days of tension.

”Oh, that’s a good one! I needed that.” as he then takes an exaggerated bite of his sandwich.

As this goes on, Sam’s spies flicking light at the edge of his vision, drawing his eyes to the recovered box.

”What’s that?”

”That is what I texted about,” and Jessie relates the story of it.

Josh is immediately concerned about the Order of Reason.

”Does anyone recognize the other markings?” Jessie asks when he is done. Weilin recognizes several of them.

”They are like passport markings. Japan, China, Philippines. A bunch, of places I don’t recognize.”

”I think this one is related to the Inquisition” notes Sam.

”Great. Technocracy and Inquisition” Josh mutters.

Weilin is thoughtful.

”I’d like to do some research on this. 4chan.wiz can be a great place for this sort of thing.”

The three men look pensive. Josh speaks first,

“I am pretty sure that is being monitored. Things might show up if we research that from here. Even the ship name.”

”That’s OK,” she pulls out her Lucky Chan Tablet, ”Lucky Chan can help….” and Weilin trails off, her head drooping. Jessie is immediately concerned, suddenly remembering the cry from her phone last night.

”Weilin?”

”He’s not there.” Her tablet is dead with no power.

Jessie tries to comfort Weilin, but she might as well be behind her force field again. He calls Bell and gets her on face time.

”I don’t want to say much, but Weilin has lost someone. Can you set up a way to talk to her that is secure?”

This is longshot in Jessie’s mind, but short of prying with his own magick, he is not sure what to do.

”Well, there is a crystal thing a friend and I used to do, pretending we could talk. I could try that.”

And so, Jessie grabs a natural crystal (seeing he is in a new age club and all) and with some work Bell manages a communication across two pieces of quartz. Jessie explains the loss of her familiar and hands the crystal to Weilin. Bell starts to work her human magic with a friend she just met.

”So, sweetie, Jessie tells me you lost Lucky Chan,” Bell opens gently with a voice full of concern.

”He’s always been there. Always. Ever since I awakened. And he is gone.” It is more than Weilin would say to Jessie, and he sees that as a start.

”Weilin, you have friends there. Not everyone is gone. Look in the room. Who else is there. Look.”

Weilin looks up into the caring eyes of Jessie.

”Jessie is here.”

”Good. Who else?”

”Josh. Sam”

”You have friends with you. They will help you. I will be there in person as soon as I can.”

Weilin seems at least now willing to talk. Bell takes the opening,

“Tell me about Lucky Chan,”

This is going to take some time thinks Jessie

He walks Weilin back to her room as they talk. He lingers a few moments making sure Weilin is responding then he turns to leave. Guilt washed over Jessie. A sense of responsibility sinks into his shoulders. He breaths out a long sigh, closing his eyes.

”If I had been there for her back in March, maybe this would not have happened”

”Regret does not fit anyone well, especially someone who lives in the present, Jessie” comes the tenor voice of Even. Jessie looks up to see him standing there, a cross look on his features.

”I have as much right to regret as anyone,” comes the angry retort.

”Converting your sent of failure to anger at me, at yourself, is not helpful. Beating yourself up for taking not being responsible for another adult is being ridiculous. Do what you can do to help her now. Oh, wait! You already are,” Even in this mode is often quite sarcastic.

”If anyone is responsible it is her Tradition, not you. You are here NOW, you will do what you can NOW. You just made that promise to yourself on the beach less than two days ago. Live it out.”

Jessie opens his eyes, but Even is not to be seen. Sometimes he wonders if Even is really talking to him, or if he projects Even. Maybe both. Jessie did not fully understand his relationship with “his” avatar, who had ridden along in many mortal lives before this one.

Back in the office, Sam sees the familiar lights dancing in the corners of his eyes. Cylla, in sprite form dances across the chest. Sam is really curious about the contents. It would be so easy to unstrap the lid. He diverts himself with sending a text to his mentor about the chest. Closely examining it. It is then that Jessie returns.

”What are you doing?” Jessie’s guilt is close to the surface and can easily become anger.

”I sent a text to mentor about the box.” Sam said a bit taken aback

”You what? You sent a text of the images to someone?” Jessie’s voice was raised. His work at secure communication with Bell and Weilin all for naught. Sam immediately understood.

”No, I just texted about it. No pictures.”

Jessie relaxed and went to pour himself a drink. Sam notes he needs wood for staves for his mentor and wonders if the wood from the ship would work. After several minutes of contemplation and trying to plan how to get it at night, Josh points to an internet report the wood looks too rotten to be used. He also just turns to Sam and declares,

”I thought you lived in a flipping swamp! I have an axe in the car!

Sam looks sheepish, ”It needs to have a good resonance”

“It’s a swamp! There must be all sorts of druidy resonance”

Jessie interrupts, ending the conversation saying,

”I am going to move this to the Sanctum on the 5th floor. I want us all to be here when we open it. We wait for Bell. Weilin is right that something is up.” The men agree. They take the chest to the elevator.

The double doors to the Sanctum are set discreetly into a wall adjacent to Jessie’s private suite on the fifth floor—a hidden entrance known only to those invited. Crafted from dark-stained mahogany with a subtle horizontal grain, the doors blend smoothly with the suite’s refined aesthetic, nearly vanishing into the wall unless you know what to look for. A narrow border of intertwined knotwork carvings frames them—subtle, almost invisible unless the light catches them just right or a hand traces their pattern.

Instead of traditional handles, polished brass dolphin forms face inward at the center of each door, serving as intentional push plates. They respond only to a purposeful touch—an enchantment keyed to conscious desire—so casual contact won’t trigger the opening.

Jessie pushes and the doors glide open without a sound, revealing the Sanctum beyond—a private group playroom designed for both sensual ritual and ecstatic magick. The space is intentionally fluid, with pocket sliding doors at the far side connecting directly to Jessie’s bedroom, allowing the flow between personal retreat and shared sacred space.

Of course thinks Josh. Sam would normally be more interested, but he is again working to resist the lure of the box. They head downstairs to the office and after a couple of hours, Weilin rejoins the men.

”Bell says she will be here tomorrow.” Weilin is clearly drained. Josh looks at everyone.

”We need sleep. All of us. Let’s rest up.” Josh notes. They split up for wherever they choose to sleep.

Jessie calls his Father. After his check in with his parents, he gets a list of the best contractors. While he expects they will be slammed, Jessie expect that he and Mae can … persuade them.

June 3, 2025

”Mom, Dad, I have to drive back down. One of my friends has lost someone in the storm. She needs me” Bell is direct with her parents.

”Another day or so is not going to make a difference, Bell,” beings her dad, but this time, Maggie is fully on board with her daughter. She pulls rank as an emergency nurse, but more importantly, as Mom.

”Robert! The first few days are critical in times of loss! Bell you pack up and leave in the morning. I want you to check in by phone every hour until you are there safe.”

Robert just shrugged and sighed. He knew this was a battle already lost.

”Fine. Bell, but pack in the morning and get to sleep now.” He was going to have some say, at some level.

”Thanks, Dad” Bell said giving him a hug. She moved to her mom with a longer hug,

”And thank you mom. I’ll be safe.” The two share a loving smile.

Late in the day all five mages are back together, in Jessie’s sanctum, to open the chest. Jessie and Bell unstrap it, the idea being any of their magic is coincidental automatically. Once unsealed, Jessie asks Bell to step back. He enhances his strength. Muscles ripple beneath his already tight shirt. It is a captivating look. Jessie removes the lid and looks inside. He stops, saying nothing. The rest of the group moves forward.

There is a stairway leading down into darkness. This chest is a doorway.

Jessie closes the lid.

”Josh and Sam, help me re-strap this. It is late. Now is not the time to head into this thing. Besides, our first priority has to be finding Lucky Chan.” Jessie smiles at Weilin who makes a small smile back.

Even laughs as she rubs the neck of an large Irish wolfhound. A winged woman in armor hovers overhead as a wil-o-wisp flits from person to person. Around them all, undulate the coils of a metallic dragon, fire in its eyes.

”Oh, my sweet Jessie. This will be such an experience!”

After closing and sealing the box, Jessie suggests they head upstairs and really introduce themselves to one another. Jessie tapped the elevator button with a knuckle. The car arrived with a chime that Bell heard as a stretched, silver note—just slightly longer than it should be, as if time itself took a breath to join them.

“The Club is closed tonight due to the storm,” Jessie notes. “Just us. Ray set up a buffet, before he went downstairs to terrorize a shipment of grouper. He’ll leave us be.”

Bell’s mouth twitched. “Ray’s ‘leave us be’ comes plated and hot.”

The elevator opened into the Dolphin with a soft gasp of conditioned air and sea-salt evening. The club looked like a stage between performances: low house lights, the rooftop pool a long dark mirror, string bulbs winking along the windbreak glass. Beyond the glass, the Atlantic breathed and withdrew, breathed and withdrew. Tables sat dressed but empty. On the far side, under a canopy, Ray’s work waited—two chafers still steaming gently; platters of sliced citrus, grilled shrimp skewers stacked like a small armory; a cutting board of knife-warm Cuban sandwiches halved into diamonds; bowls of mango salsa, pico, guacamole; miniature brioche sliders corralled beside a mountain of kettle chips; a tray of little custards wobbling softly in their cups. “Make your own” sliders and sandwiches topped off the food. Carafes of water beaded sweat beside a cluster of bottles: gin, rum, a squat whiskey with the Calloway’s label.

“Man feeds your body like he’s bribing your soul,” Josh said, low.

Jessie plays host as they drift along the buffet, taking drink orders like tickets at a friendly window. Sam stacks a ridiculous, wonderful sandwich—Cuban halves married into a single tower with shrimp skewers disassembled for extra protein, mango salsa running bright at the edges. Josh lines two sliders on a plate with a mechanic’s precision, adds a spare handful of kettle chips, and nods toward the bar. “Red Bull.” Jessie snags one from a back shelf cooler, cracks it, and sets it by Josh’s elbow.

“Tea,” Sam says.

”Leaded or unleaded?” the host asks. Sam shrugs. Knowing Sam has a drive home ahead of him, he selects a breakfast blend. Weilin produces a neat little tin from her satchel. “I brought my own,” she says with a half-smile, spooning leaves into a mesh infuser before she draws a stream of steam into a glass mug. Bell lifts her carafe of water like a toast and tucks her vape into her palm, keeping the plume small and away from the food. Jessie, for himself, grabs a bottle of Calloway’s First Light and pops the top. With plates loaded, they gravitate to couches and tables. The rooftop pool holds the sky like a quiet promise; beyond, the ocean exhales against the dark. Sam takes the first monumental bite and makes a noise that is basically a prayer. Josh sips, eyes easing as the caffeine finds its lane. Weilin cups her mug, inhales, and the sharp, honeyed steam fogs her glasses for a heartbeat. Bell tips back her water, sets the vape down beside her napkin, and leans in.

Jessie sets his bottle down, palms open on the table between them, host energy settles into something steadier—a circle, not a service. He looks at each of them in turn, corners of his eyes crinkling with that warm, conspiratorial light. Jessie opens.

He gives them the history of his life, his properties and how he got here. Jessie is clearly an open book. He talks about his posse of Mae and Ray growing up, the “ghost hunt” that ended in his awakening, and obtaining his properties. It is not like they have not all looked him up online. Jessie is well integrated into the sleeper community. He hands it off to Weilin who gives the story of her awakening in March in the Makergod, meeting Lucky-Chan and then Jessie.

Josh picks up with a brief tale of fighting in Afghanistan leading to his ”Little death”. He closes with his recent stay up in Georgia. Each of them go in turn. Sam speaks about his own service and his own awakening in a horrible encounter with at … thing.

After a moment of quiet, Bell speaks up. Her awakening was days ago and her head is still spinning. She is both excited and afraid at the same time. Jessie decides to make it even stranger and talks to her about the job offer.

“I have been giving this some thought, Bell. I want to bring you on as the Unplanned Event. Developer. My goal has been ‘Surprise and Delight’ as my way of helping push people into joy. Sometimes out of their comfort zones. Here is a job description. Sorry if is a bit formal. Mae wrote it. You parents will like it,” Jessie shrugs a bit as he hands her the job description.

”Not a waitress?” the stunned young woman says, her eyes wide as she looks at the paper in front of her.

A grin, ”Not a barista or cook or front desk staff either. You will answer to Mae on the org chart, but let’s say there is a dotted line to me. I’ve attached some sample reviews to get a feel for what I am talking about.”

”Yes! I have an idea for a D&D event, already!”, her smile is contagious. But it is getting into evening.

”We will introduce you to staff later. Tomorrow, do you want to come with me and Mae to sweettalk the contractor?” There is a blink and a vigorous nod ”Yes.”.

Jessie slips into organization mode. ”Well then, Sam and Josh, you are taking the box to the Rally point. We can wheel it down to the loading bay while you grab your truck. Weilin, I assume you are headed to the lab there to work on your tablet?’’ she gives a solemn nod. Jessie turns to Bell.

”I am not sure what shape your home is in tonight. You are welcome to stay here on the 4th floor.” with her assent Jessie texts Mae for a room key and then helps Josh get wheel the box down to be taken to the Rally point. He then settles in for an evening with his exhausted friends. They mostly just are in each other’s presence this evening. It has been a long day.

Bell cannot sleep. So much has happened to her in the past few days. She has changed to her yoga clothes to sleep but is wide awake. Jessie’s words go around in her head:

For Bell and me, the Sanctum is coincidental magick …

That means it’s safe! is her thought, though not entirely true. Magick is always dangerous if you really mess up. Bell was going to learn that eventually, but not tonight.

The young mage padded down the hallway to just before the twin suites. On right was Ray and Mae. The left, Jessie. It was just before his Suite where the Sanctum doors stood. Two brass sconces bracket a pair of dark-wood double doors, their LED candle bulbs flickering warm and steady. Each door bears a solid brass handle shaped as a leaping dolphin. The door faces are carved in low relief—tasteful scenes of lovers in the style of Indian temple panels. No keyhole, no keypad, no visible lock. The entry simply does not yield to the uninvited; minds that aren’t meant to enter lose the impulse to pull.

Bell opens the doors and they swing inward without a creak. A thin brass strip in the threshold warms underfoot as she passes and activates the lights. She was in her before, with the group, but alone it is different. This time she is more aware of the salt-clean air with a thread of citrus and cedar. Amber pools of light from shaded sconces and lanterns. Underfoot, wide planks of oiled hardwood covered in rugs, carry a circular brass inlay—the Wheel—now set as a halo around the centerpiece of the room: a broad, low platform bed. The great chest is wedged between the bed and an apothecary counter with its teas, tinctures, and bitters with a ledger of blends and intents.

Different.

Carved wood panels in a modern language with soul—clean geometry softened by hand-cut curves that echo waves and the line of a dolphin’s back. Each panel is oiled to a mellow sheen that warms the light and calms the room. Deep cushions, low benches, and woven throws ring the central platform. A discreet set of sliding doors, flush to the paneling, connects to Jessie’s private suite; they are firmly closed much to Bell’s relief.

A small table holds matches, a bowl of sea glass, and a card in Jessie’s handwriting: All minds are sovereign

The hall doors seal with a confident hush behind her. Bell feels a … rightness of the room. The room is tuned for intimacy: whispers stay whispers; sharp tones flatten into gentler waves. Without the other mages, the Sanctum feels just right to Bell. She can cast.

Bell spins her ring and meditates. Her mind reaches out across space the secured chest, and then with the chest back through time. It is wet. Pressure. Light filtered by waves above. Strange fish she does not recognize swim by. Maybe fish look like that someplace, but nothing like she is used too off the Florida Atlantic coast.

Bell snaps back to the present. She is elated. This is new. This is power. This is fun. It is also tiring. The day now crashes over her. Bell quietly gets up exiting the room and heads to bed.

The city was in cleanup mode—two days past Alecto and still wearing it. From the Rally Point’s high windows, Weilin could see the orange glow of work lights haloing puddled streets, the slow blink of sawhorses, the beep-beep of loaders pushing wet sand back where sidewalks wanted to be. Somewhere down on First Street, a crew hosed salt from storefront glass; the spray drifted up as a fine, briny mist.

Inside, the mini-chantry had settled into its steady, post-storm rhythm: talc-fine chalk sigils on the concrete floor; shelves of labeled bins; a pegboard of tools that had seen use over the last forty-eight hours for everything from emergency lantern repair to sigil stands. A faint thread of cedar hung in the air, stubborn against the scent of bleach that clung to everything in town.

Josh slept on a cot just beyond the circle, boots toe-to-heel beneath it, forearm crossed over his eyes. His breath was even. It gave the room a pace.

Weilin worked under an adjustable lamp at the scarred central table. Her link to Lucky-Chan, THE tablet, lay open in front of her—shell halves set carefully aside, the inner board exposed like a delicate city at night. The charging port area was blistered, copper darkened to the color of old tea. When she eased the loupe down and leaned in, the subtle filigree of Dr. Ziv’s design resolved: tight crystalline lattices soldered into the copper traces, geometry that tugged at focus if she stared too long. It used to hum, that pattern. Now it was a wound.

“Hey, Lucky,” she murmured, almost by habit. Nothing answered. Just the whisper of her sleeve against the table as she steadied her hands.

She worked without power—crime-scene rules. Continuity first. She mapped what lived and what didn’t, pencil moving in neat block letters over a gridded notebook. Ground return, pitted. Regulator, dead. Hairline fracture through the lattice at the four-o’clock anchor. The MEMS mic wore a tiny scorch at its rim, like the surge had looked for a mouth on the way out. She brushed ash away with the clean end of a first-aid swab and felt, for a breath, the old ache of the moment Lucky-Chan had last spoken: a child’s alarm in her ear—Run! They are coming!—and then, blankness.

No mystic shortcuts tonight. This was hands, eyes, and sense.

She laid a printed board diagram beneath a transparency and built a damage overlay from dots and lines, a topography of what the surge had scorched on both the mundane and not-quite-mundane layers. When the pen started to skip she changed it, lined the dead one up with its siblings, and kept going.

Outside, a truck gear-braked and hissed to a stop; a crew shouted, the words lost in distance. Inside, the Rally Point ticked—metal cooling, wood settling. Weilin’s lamp kept its amber island around the work. She started a parts list in the margin and underlined MakerGod

By one, she had three repair paths inked on separate pages. By two, she’d crossed out the clever one and circled the hybrid: staged surge protection before the regulators; star-ground rework so resonance had somewhere to go that wasn’t through the lattice; compliant mounts under the ring; coil rewound to tighter tolerance. At the bottom she wrote in a small, stubborn hand: Do not bypass failsafe. It saved you once.

“We’ll rebuild you the right way,” she said to the open shell. “No more eating storms.”

By three-thirty, the Rally Point had narrowed to essentials: the table, the lamp, the faint horizon glow outside, Josh’s breathing, and the open tablet like a promise held in place by four tiny screws in a dish. She arranged her tools in a straight line, the ritual punctuation she always used before stepping away.

“MakerGod at open,” she said, just to hear the plan out loud. “Coil first. Then lattice bridge. Then surge chain. Then we see if you remember me.”

She tugged a wool blanket from a plastic tub, shook it once, and curled into the corner between the corkboard and the pegboard of tools. The lamp stayed on low, casting a warm ring over Lucky-Chan’s exposed heart and the neat, stubborn handwriting beside it.

Weilin’s eyes closed at last. She slept like a circuit gone open: not broken, just resting until the next connection.

Josh wakes at 04:00 on the minute, breath already steady. He silences the alarm with two fingers, swings his feet to the floor, and sits there for one full cycle of twenty breaths—counting in, holding, out—until the remnants of dream slide off like rain from waxed canvas.

Workout comes first. Floor creaks once as he drops into push-ups: fifty smooth, then a plank, then burpees, then air squats, then the pull-up bar by the door. No music. Just breath, pulse, the small complaints of muscle warming to duty. He times sets against the sweep second hand on the wall clock, finishing with a long stretch, palms to the mat, hamstrings taut, back loose.

Cleansing next. He fills a steel basin with cold water and the pinch of salt he keeps in a corked vial. A single drop of cedar oil touches the surface and fans out in a silver sheen. He cups the water, draws it over his face, then the shaved crown of his head, and finally his hands, rubbing at the creases of his palms where old scars ladder the skin.

“For clarity,” he says in English, voice low, “for courage, for compassion.” Then, in the old tongue he’s taught himself to sing under his breath: “Fyrir frið og vernd. Fyrir minning hinna fallnu.” For peace and protection. For the memory of the fallen.

He lights a stub of beeswax and sets it beside the basin. Names come next—soft as he can make them. People he couldn’t save, people he did, souls he eased along the Wheel. He doesn’t rank them in guilt or pride; he simply remembers. Each name is a small stone placed on a cairn only he can see. “May your path be clear. May your rest be real. If I meet you again, let me know you.”

On the shelf above the little altar, his instruments wait.

The boar-bone runes go first. He rattles them into his palm, breathes across them, and lets three fall onto a square of linen: Laguz, Nauthiz, Algiz. Water, need, protection. He nods once, accepts the pull, and whispers in Norse again—half prayer, half promise. The bones go back into their pouch.

The ash wand he wipes with a cloth dabbed in the cedar water, turning it slowly, checking the carved lines for splits. He touches the end to his sternum, then to the crown of his head, and sets it across the altar like a baton at parade rest.

Wayfinder tokens—thin disks marked with his private signs—get counted, pockets re-packed: one in his wallet, one behind the phone case, one taped under the car’s console. Each goes with a breath and a simple English request: “Guide, guard, get me home.”

He rolls his shoulders, reaches for the etched totem hatchet mounted high on the wall. Not for daily carry—just for recognition. He takes it down, checks bindings, blade edge sheathed in leather, and rehangs it with the same deliberate care. “You keep watch,” he tells it, a little rueful at the habit, and a little unwilling to let it go.

Then the medicine. He spreads the field kit on the table, rows of order blooming in front of him. Gauze, trauma shears, chest seals, tourniquets; antibiotics, epinephrine, pain control; syringes still in sterile packets; suture kit wrapped tight. He checks dates. Anything within six months of expiring gets set aside in the “train with it” pile. Batteries get tested: headlamp, radio, IR clip, spare for the AED in the car. He squeezes the bulb on the blood-pressure cuff, listens to the hiss back to zero, resets it. The stethoscope gets a quick wipe; the oximeter, a fresh set of AAA’s. He zips the kit closed with a practiced tug and sets it where his hand will find it blind.

Weapons last. He clears the pistol first, magazine out, chamber checked by eye and fingertip. The old ritual says do it twice; he does it three times. Slide off, rails wiped, a whisper of oil, carbon brushed from the feed ramp, extractor clean. If he used it recently, he is more thorough. If not, maintenance is respect. He inspects each magazine, taps rounds down with his thumb, tops off where needed. The rifle gets similar attention, bolt locking and unlocking with a satisfying click, sling laid flat and untwisted. He doesn’t speak their names aloud, but he thinks of them, each one a boundary on himself: what they are for, and what they are not.

“Protection, never pride,” he says. “Mercy first, if mercy can stand.” The words are the same every morning. They keep him inside his own lines.

He dries his hands and stands before the little altar again. The candle has puddled enough to drown its own wick; he pinches it out and lets the thin coil of smoke wander toward the ceiling. He rests two fingers on the tattoo over his heart, tracing the inked knotwork there, and then the scar that cuts through it. “Teach me to lift without clinging,” he prays quietly, “to cut without hatred, to hold fast without fear.”

He dresses like a man who expects surprises but refuses to invite them: plain tee, clean flannel, sturdy pants, belt that fits all the same places, boots he can run or kneel in. The kit goes into the car. The pistol settles at his hip, weight familiar. Tokens in their spots. Phone charged. Keys in the tray, then in his hand. He pauses—one more habit—and looks back across the room to be sure nothing he needs to save a life is out of reach.

On the way out, he checks the headlamp hanging on the door, clicks it on, off. He locks up. In the soundless predawn, he feels the whole city holding its breath: the ocean somewhere out there rehearsing its lines, streetlights blinking in their lonely intervals, a few insomniac birds deciding whether to risk a song.

Josh steps into the morning, set in the quiet way a craftsman sets his tools—nothing dramatic, nothing wasted. The Wheel turns. He turns with it. And if someone needs him today, he’ll be ready.

The morning is much nicer than yesterday. Josh looks up several companies in the area and drives to the one listed as “locally owned”. He notes the verse they use:

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. –Deuteronomy 31:6

That is the best ticket.

They are busy, as he expected. Keisha Whitfield—Field Ops Supervisor with a coffee-ringed clipboard and a radio that never shuts up—waves Josh into a cramped office that smells like bleach and wet raincoats. Phones trill, a medic leans in the doorway to say the bridge detour changed again, and from the front desk someone calls, “Hey—that’s the guy from yesterday at Third Street!” Keisha clocks the boots, the steady hands, the way he answers fast without overselling: combat medicine, mass-casualty triage, storm work. “We’re locally owned,” she says, skimming his resume. “No corporate maze. We make the call in this building. You free to start nights?”

A small seam in the day seems to open exactly where Josh needs it. Josh nods. “I go and I serve where I am called” Josh says with a humble sincerity. Keisha’s tired face breaks into the biggest smile she has had in 72 hours. ”I think you are going to fit right in.”

Twenty-eight minutes later she closes the folder. “Done. You’re on tonight—2000 at Station Two. Ride third for one tour, then you slot in.” She stands, already half-turned to the next crisis, and steers him into the next cubicle: “Gloria in HR will badge you, uniforms are in the closet, and we’ll square the rest this week.”

A temp ID lanyard lands in his hand, the radio chatter folds around him like surf, and Keisha is gone with a quick, satisfied nod—the kind you give when the right coin lands heads-up exactly when you needed it to.

Sam’s drive through the night had an urgency. Had his magick been enough? He did not know. His thoughts circled back upon finding the home in the first place.

He didn’t plan to buy a house that day. He’d told the agent as much. “I’m just looking. Getting a feel for neighborhoods.”

Rhea Collins of Coastal Keys Realty nodded without missing a beat, all calm competence and careful eyes on the road. “No problem, Sam. We’ll cruise a few streets, see what clicks.”

He watched the live oaks slide by, Spanish moss like gray-green veils. In the passenger window he kept seeing it: a mote of light skimming along the glass, then leaping across the windshield, then out into the world again. Firefly? Reflection? It didn’t behave like either. It pulsed in time with his breath, or maybe his heartbeat. It felt like a thought he couldn’t quite form.

They had seen three houses already, all of them fine in ways that meant nothing: granite counters, staged furniture, cheerful blue doors. The light had ghosted through each showing and stood in corners like a quiet guest, then left as soon as Sam tried to follow.

Back in the car, it zipped ahead of them and hovered—impossible and plain—at the edge of his vision, hanging over a street they weren’t planning to turn down. Rhea’s blinker clicked for the opposite direction.

Sam heard himself say, “Let’s look at this one.”

Rhea glanced over, then followed his gaze. She shrugged, professional and game. “Sure.”

A small, weathered bungalow sat on a corner lot behind an old coquina wall. The listing sign leaned like a tired sentinel. The roof was new; the paint was not. The porch sagged with the kind of promise a handy person might love and a sensible person might flee. Sam didn’t look at the porch. He looked past it—past the shadowed eaves and the kitchen window and the narrow hallway—because the light had already gone around back.

They stepped through to the yard. The world got quiet. A live oak rose there like a cathedral column, its roots braided through sandy soil and shell flecks. Someone, decades ago, had set a ring of stone around it—coquina and river rock—half-sunk, half-forgotten. Within that ring, the earth was darker, soft as breath. Around that was a wading pond, almost knee deep, with space to sit all around. It, too, was surrounded by the same stones, and these stones let you step to the tree.

The air held a faint cool even in heat, and the hum of distant surf seemed to pool into this spot and stay. Sam felt the shift behind his eyes—the practiced click of attention he’d learned tending wounds and walking lines in deep forest. He let himself sink to the edge of the ring and breathed with the tree.

The little light settled on the bark and spread, a slow unscrolling veil of gold, then sank into the grain like rain into thirsty wood. Prime sang. Not with sound, exactly—more like pressure easing off a bruise he hadn’t known he carried. Luminous threads spiderwebbed through root and soil, and the world thinned right there, the way a river’s surface thins above a spring.

Rhea said something about property lines and fence repair and paused. “You okay?”

“I’m… good,” he said, unable to pull his gaze away. “I think this is it.”

Sam waded through the water and knelt pressing his palm to the dirt just inside the stone ring, slow and deliberate, as if he were touching skin. Circles and stones—his oldest instruments—arranged themselves without fuss: three small pebbles from the ring, one twig fallen from the oak, a breath measured to four counts in, four counts out. He didn’t need a knife; he offered sweat and the warmth of a steady hand. A half-step of a dance, barely there. A whisper under his breath that wasn’t quite words. The light answered. The threads brightened—not a flare, not a shock, but a welcoming. A Node, drowsing, stirred. Somewhere far off a dog barked twice and went quiet again.

Rhea cleared her throat, reading the moment without intruding. “You want to see inside?”

“In a minute,” he said, smiling for the first time that day. “The house is fine.” He looked up at the oak, the lazy sway of moss like a slow pulse. “I’m buying the backyard.”

Rhea didn’t laugh. She just nodded, then tapped something on her tablet. “I’ll get the disclosure packet and call the listing agent. If you’re serious, we can move quickly.”

“I’m serious.”

He stood, placed the three pebbles back in their places, and felt the ring take a small breath with him. The oak’s shadow fell across his shoulders like a mantle. In that shadow he could see the shape of a future—circles chalked at dusk, herbs hung to dry under the porch, a ward line stitched cleanly around the coquina stones.

The oak is the center, the anchor, but other Florida native plants make a circled grove. Blue berry, black berry and strawberry bushes as will with random wild flowers. Maybe not so random. A strong place. A place to keep others safe. A throne of roots and sunlight. The little light flickered one last time and slipped into the soil. He knew, with the cool certainty that comes when Prime shows its bones, that it would be there whenever he needed to find his way home again.

They walked the rooms because that’s what you do. He nodded at the kitchen, the single bathroom, the cracked tile that would be easy to replace. None of it mattered, not compared to the pulse under the oak. On the porch, papers rustled in the slow sea breeze.

Rhea’s phone chimed. “We can make an offer this afternoon,” she said. “There’s been interest, but nothing firm.”

Sam looked past her to the yard. “Let’s do it.”

That was then. Now Sam returns, slowly driving past debris. No street lights because there is still now power. He sees several houses with items pulled out and setting on the lawns.

That’s not good.

His home did not suffer wind damage in the hours it blew. That is not true for the people around him. However, the water raised up with the rain. Flooding. There is still quite a bit in the back. He checks his BBQ pit. His Iron Cauldron is intact, but overflowing with rainwater. He reaches out to touch the ground and the water with his hands. It is round his ankles.

Swirl the water in a circle. Feel the water. Feel the land. The node still vibrates. The throne is intact. The Oak supports the node. The node supports the Oak. The winds of the magical Alecto did not hurt the tree. People might even call it luck. Good.

”Well, I am not sleeping here tonight,”. The strain of the past few days is upon Sam. He climbs in his truck and heads for the office. Pulling his sleeping bag from the back, he piles into an office. Another ranger is doing the same thing. Phil Thompson. It is not the best night, but Sam drifts off fast. No nightmares tonight.

Jessie steps onto the balcony in soft pajama pants, bare-chested to the salt air. Three slow breaths to settle, a fourth to slip into trance. Thoughts line up and quiet; the hallway opens. He begins the sweep — crown to soles — with Life-sense:

Skull, sinuses, inner ear. Eyes, jaw, throat. Rib ladder, lungs billowing clean, heart steady. Diaphragm, liver, stomach; looping gut chemistry; kidneys and adrenals calm. Pelvis and SI joints aligned. Quads, calves, arches, toes.

He finds an itchy constellation at both ankles — last night’s sand-gnat bites. Two fingertips hover; he exhales intent. Heat opens vessels, histamines quiet, redness blurs. The itch unwinds. “Didn’t happen.” The skin agrees.

The outside world folds in without breaking trance: surf below, a distant truck’s reverse beep, citrus on the air. The boundary between inside and outside is art, not armor. Even arrives. Today: feminine aspect, bright-eyed and amused. She gestures toward the ocean as if to say: Listen.

Jessie listens. The ocean recites its old poem; his heartbeat keeps time. The hotel and club feel like a field waiting to be seeded.

Even, softly says “You’re good. Take care of her today.”

“That’s the plan.” The masculine face flickers at the edge — both true, both welcome.

He widens attention past skin and bone, letting Mind ride with Life — calm, lucid brightness that makes space for other people’s weather. He sets the day’s intent:

Be a door. Be a hand at someone’s back. Demonstrate. Invite. Welcome. Let people leave lighter than they arrived.

One last pass — quick, clean; no snags. He draws breath to the soles of his feet and releases it into the boards, into the building, into the day. Eyes open. Horizon brighter. Even gone like a fading smile. Jessie rolls his shoulders, notes his smooth ankles with a grin, and goes inside to begin.

”Let’s see if Bell is even up!” he chuckles to himself. For an Ecstatic, Jessie has early hours.

Bell blinked looking around the unfamiliar room. Waking up each morning was still –strange. The events of the past few days keep feeling like both a dream and the most –awake—she has ever been. She rolls out of bed and grabs some water. Hydrate first, then meditate. Bell’s chosen mediation is less still than Jessie’s. A/C off; ocean on. Breeze of salt air in lungs. A folded blanket is a mat.

Mountain pose: feet root, crown lifts. Breath to a steady four in, four out. Forward fold, half lift, fold. High plank, chaturanga, up dog, down dog — calves pedaled awake. Warrior I, settle the hip; Warrior II, soften the jaw. Triangle. A slow lunge twist rings out the spine. Thoughts roll in like shells; she lets each slide away. A small hello threads from her soles into the room, the building, the morning — not reaching, just belonging.

When thoughts come — lists for the day, small anxieties, the bright click of new possibilities — she let them slide across her awareness like shells rolling in the wash. A tiny pulse of attention touched each thought and let it go, and in that pulse there was a familiar tilt: the Wheel turning, not dramatic, just present. On a different morning she might have chased the sensation further, peeled back how breath and clock conspired. Today she stayed with her body.

Tree: wobble, catch, smile. Wheel last — a careful lift, the ceiling widening, then down, slow. Savasana: surf tracks the minutes.

She sits. Shoulders honest, ankles humming. One more sip. Keep intentions simple: move gently, notice edges, leave people lighter. She squares the blanket, opens the balcony door, and lets the day in.

A knock. Jessie. “Bell, I hope you would like Breakfast. Come down to Mae’s and Ray’s 402. Ray is cooking.”

Bell is suddenly aware she is hungry. She says ”Coming!” and puts on shoes and heads out the door. It is only as she is done knocking that it dawns on her that she is about to see her immediate boss and her boss in her yoga clothes. This moment of anxiety pops when Mae answers the door dressed in a short black, kimono, bare foot at smiling.

”Good morning Bell!” the captivating woman gushes. Come in. Ray is making omelets. Bell goes in to see Ray cooking, also barefoot, wearing long cotton PJs. Jessie walks in from his room, though an adjoining door, gym shorts and boat shoes.

I’m dressed just fine for these folks. They are all at ease with not just each other, but Bell. Breakfast is light and happy. It is hard to believe she only met these people less than a week ago.

”After we eat, we will get dressed and head over to meet with Clint Darnell. If he does not bite, we will head to the next man on the list. But I think I can get him to bite. Having to lovely ladies with me won’t hurt either!”

Jessie is riding next to Mae as she drives. His phone rings. It is THAT ring. Gladys Kravitz. He answers on the second ring.

Aunt Gladys! What can I do for you” Jessie is as cheerful and charming as he can be. And yet his contempt and disregard is clear.

That’s Mrs. Kravitz to you!!” she snapped.

She then launches into a tirade about needing to see Jessie. He responds that he is on the way to see someone about repair and will call her and meet with her as soon as he gets back. She is not in the least bit mollified. But agrees to meet him when he returns.

Jessie forces a smile at Mae as he hangs up the phone. Bell, ignores the texts and calls from her parents as they ride along.

The three of them arrived together for the appointment Jack Calloway had set up with Clint Darnell. Jessie dressed the way he always does when he wants to impress without words: a crisp pink shirt under a white linen suit, the breeze catching the light fabric and giving him a careless air of grace.

Mae was another matter entirely. Where Jessie leaned stylish, Mae leaned commanding. She wore a charcoal-gray power suit cut for a woman who didn’t need to ask twice. The white blouse beneath it was buttoned firmly, leaving no room for implication or suggestion. Another woman might have traded restraint for display, but Mae never needed to. She was arresting by presence alone—still, poised, and luminous in her own right.

Bell had made her own effort to dress for the occasion. She lacked Jessie’s closets and Mae’s curated arsenal, but she did what she could. There was promise in her look—more than promise, really, a spark of charm that shone even if her wardrobe couldn’t quite keep up. Mae noticed. Later, she would make a note to herself: Bell is going to have a new wardrobe.

The three of them waited in the reception area, the low hum of phones and radios from the contractor’s yard outside. It was a Calloway moment—Jessie in his linen, Mae in her steel, and Bell perched between, watching and learning.

Clint Darnell was already moving when he came through the door, a thick folder in one hand and a phone buzzing on his belt. His eyes took them in quickly—Jessie like he’d strolled out of a magazine; Mae, polished metal, commanding without a word; Bell, sharp but still finding her footing. He didn’t stop moving, not at first.

“Jacks’s people?” he asked, tone clipped, as if the only thing keeping him upright was forward momentum.

Jessie stood, smiling. “Mr. Darnell. Thank you for seeing us.” He offered his hand with a confidence that slowed the contractor’s stride.

For a heartbeat, Clint missed a step—just a flicker, the briefest hesitation. He caught himself immediately, still professional as ever, and motioned them into his office. Papers stacked on one side of the desk, a map of the city marked in grease pencil on the wall, phone lines blinking like an airport tower. His phone buzzed with a text.

He didn’t waste time. “What is it you’re looking for, Mr. Calloway? I’ve got more jobs than crews right now, and every one of them is priority.”

Jessie leaned forward, voice even, deliberate. “What I’m looking for, Mr. Darnell, is visibility. You know my hotel—it’s already been on the news, thanks to the shipwreck. It’s going to be on every feed and every photo until it’s back up. I didn’t call anyone else. I came to you first. Because when people see the Moon and Wave rise again, I want them to see your name on the trucks out front.”

The words pressed forward, not hard, but steady—building pressure like a tide. Clint frowned, checked a page, looked back at Jessie. They talked numbers. Jessie moved as if to leave but the rhythm shifted toward money, toward feasibility. Jessie kept his smile, but beneath it came a subtle nudge, a quiet pressure woven into the conversation.

And then, without ever meaning to, Clint Darnell found himself saying the words. “In a couple of days, I can send a team. I’ll outsource some of these other contracts—bring in crews from out of state if I have to. But I’ll have people at your properties.”

He stopped, realizing what he’d just committed to, but didn’t pull it back. The deal was struck.

Within one to two days, Darnell Contracting trucks would be parked outside the Moon and Wave Suites and Calloway’s Castaways—his crews visible for all the city, and all the media, to see.

The three of them slid back into Mae’s car once the handshakes were done. Mae took the wheel, as always; Jessie sprawled comfortably in the passenger seat, the pink of his shirt catching the afternoon light. Bell settled in the back, still quiet, her eyes on the passing streets.

Jessie glanced back at her in the mirror. “You felt that, didn’t you?”

Bell hesitated. “The… push?”

Jessie smiled faintly. “Exactly. That’s how I work. You sensed the mind. Just a little push—enough to tilt the balance when the words and timing are already there.”

He looked back through the windshield, voice soft but deliberate. “You will learn that too, in your own way. How to speak so the world leans your direction. Magick does the rest.”

Bell’s phone buzzed again. Her parents. Again.

You’re going to have to talk to them at some point.

Bell sighs, “Yeah”

Mae is not even parked when Gladys Kravitz comes stalking over to Jessie, ignoring Mae as she always does. A mere CEO is not good enough for Gladys Kravitz – She has to talk to the Owner.

”What are you doing about the beach! That mess is in front of your hotel,” the most unreasonable woman gestures to what is a mess in front of the Moon and Wave.

”Mrs. Kravitz, I have a crew scheduled to start work on the hotel in a couple of days. I am on top of this.”

”I don’t care about your hotel! What about the beach!” she growls, as if Jessie can stroll down and tell the police to clear out.

Nothing about this woman has ever been reasonable. Unfortunately, by some quirk, Gladys Kravitz has the strongest will of any sleeper Jessie has ever encountered. Any mental nudges just slide off of her rather ridged mind. Jessie is left with his natural charm and manipulation. This harridan seems to be immune to those two. The best he has ever been able to do is placate her temporarily. – Very Temporarily.

”I’ll do what I can. Oh, I need so more flyers for your shop for the lobby. Can I get some when you get the chance?”

This appears to be enough. For now, anyway. And the woman heads back to her shop next door. It is inland from Calloway’s Castaways, with a view of both the restaurant and the Moon and Wave’s inland side. Jessie notices she is setting up cameras. The kind that go on the internet.

Ray is portioning mahi. Jessie leans in, voice low,

“Ray, neighbor watch is heating up. Mrs. Kravitz dropped a little web-cam grid on her place—feels like it’s sweeping half the block. Can you ping your people and find out where they’re aimed and what she’s seeing?”

Ray gives a half-smile “On it. I’ll ask around. If she’s pointing at us, we’ll know.”

Ray wipes his hands, grabs his phone, and ghosts out the side door. It will take him no time at all to not only identify them, but find the links online to be able to watch them. They are free to watch web cameras. People can even position them how they want. One more thing for J to worry about. Well, that’s why he’s the mage Ray thinks heading to tell him.

Finally, Jessie goes to Mae and has her set aside some supplies, drinks, non perishables, that sort of thing, to take to the Rally point. No reason for it not to be stocked.

Oh, Mae, stock some Wuyi Rock Tea. It’s Weilin’s go too. And of course, Red Bull.”

You are not telling me what you want me to stock for you to drink,” his old friend teases.

Jessie kissed her on the forehead.

The generator hums like a tired dog breathing. Rain ticks from the eaves; a radio burbles unattended weather updates. Across the room, Phil Thompson’s boots thump once against the leg of a cot.

Sam blinks grit from his eyes. He crashed sometime after one, uniform shirt balled under his head, wet socks strung from a chair like prayer flags. The bunkroom smells of damp fabric, bleach, old coffee. His phone vibrates once—another road closure. He doesn’t look.

“Morning,” Phil says, voice low, the word carrying the weight of a long week.

Sam rolls to the floor, palms down. “Morning.”

Push-ups first—slow, quiet, careful with the old boards. Hands narrow, then wide. Air squats beside the lockers, counting breaths to keep from counting problems. Lunges down the short hall toward the map room and back, stepping around a yellow mop bucket and a coil of hose. Shoulders roll, hips loosen. A stripped-down kata in the bay between trucks—short strikes, compact blocks, nothing that risks knocking a clipboard loose. The body remembers even if the rest of him runs on fumes.

Phil drops to a plank, mirroring the easier sets. “Station special,” he mutters.

Sam huffs a laugh. “Deluxe package.”

Cool-down settles on the rubber mat by the radio desk—kneel, palms on thighs, eyes half-lidded. The generator’s thrum evens out his heartbeat. A faint flick of light skitters across the wall calendar—there, then gone. He doesn’t chase it. He breathes with it. Ten in. Ten out. The knot behind his ribs loosens half a notch.

Showers are quick; the hot-water tank is mostly a rumor. Warm first, then the snap to cold for a slow thirty count—jaw clenched, eyes bright when he steps out. Fresh socks feel like a miracle. Go-bag yields a clean shirt. Knife, light, radio: check. The whiteboard waits—culvert checks, a missing dog turned into a small saga, two bridges to eyeball for scour. Someone has scrawled you got this near the bottom in Phil’s hand.

Breakfast is triage: peanut butter on crackers, an apple split with a pocketknife, a protein bar that tastes like optimistic cardboard. They eat standing under the map of the district, tracing routes with forefingers while chewing. The coffee pot has seen better wars; it pours bitter and burnt and perfect.

“You headed north first?” Phil ties his laces.

“Yeah. Then swing east by the grade,” Sam says. “Grab a truck, hit the fuel depot on the way.”

“Copy.” Phil adds times beside their routes. Decisions made here, not somewhere else. It helps.

They kill the overheads and step into the gray-blue morning. The air is clean in that post-storm way—pine, wet earth, the tang of metal. Sam’s home is out there somewhere, half-drowned and waiting. He sets the thought down gently, climbs into the GMC, and follows Phil’s taillights to the gate. Routine adapted. Day started.

It’s going to be a long one.

The staff forms a half-circle: Mae with her tablet; Ray in chef whites; Nora with a floor plan printout; Marco with a tool belt and a smirk; Miss Dee immaculate, a little sparkle at the collar. The doors are still locked; the ocean thumps beyond the glass.

Jessie claps once, “Alright, crew—storm’s done, doors open tonight, and we’ve got one more reason to smile. Meet Bell Hollis. She’s our new Unplanned Event Developer—the person who’s going to make guests say ‘wait, was that planned?’ and then grin anyway.”

Bell, bright and steady, says, “Hi. I’m here to build little moments that feel like we conjured them out of thin air—on the beach, in the halls, over dessert. I’ll keep it fun, tight, and safe.”

Jessie adds, “Bell will answer to Mae.” He grins and continues, “Good thing Mae’s used to managing me.”

Mae, dry and warm, says, “Welcome aboard, Bell. You’ll coordinate across all three: Moon & Wave, Castaways, and the Dolphin. You’ll have a weekly grid from me and a budget. If you need something weird, ask before it’s on the roof.”

Ray says, “Menu collabs are open season. You dream it, we’ll plate it. Just give my team a heads-up window. Also, yes—you get to taste first.”

Nora says, “I’ll slot your pop-ups into the shift board and guest flow. If you want a reveal during a dinner push, we’ll choreograph the floor so nobody’s holding hot plates in a confetti cannon.”

Marco raises a finger and warns, “Fire code is still a thing. No open flames, no surprise foggers in the stairwell, and if something needs power, I’ll run the drop. Tell me where; I’ll make it invisible.”

Miss Dee beams, “If you want sparkle, I’m your accomplice. I’ve got performers and hosts on speed dial. Also—sequins are practically PPE.”

Jessie sets the tone, “First week: keep it nimble. A beach-strum sunset ambush, a ‘lost postcard’ treasure clue at check-in, and a dessert that arrives with a note from Future-You. We’re after surprise and delight, not chaos and refunds.”

Bell nods, “I’ll shadow each of you tonight, listen more than I talk, and I’ll drop a one-pager in your inboxes with my signal plan and quick-kill list. You’ll always know what’s live.”

Mae confirms, “Good. Bell, you and I at 3:30 for the grid. Everyone else—check your briefs. Doors at five. Let’s make the reopen feel like we never closed.”

Jessie spreads his hands, easy, “Welcome to the family, Bell.”

Miss Dee starts the applause; the half-circle becomes a full smile. Outside, a wave hits just right and throws sunlight across the lobby like confetti.

Friday the day is already looking good at the Moon and Wave. Bell is settling in. Jessie comes to her and beckons, ”Come with me, I want to show you something”. Bell is puzzled but of course follows. Jessie leads her into the distillery between the two buildings. As Bell walks in, she can sense the power of the room. She has felt brushes of this in the past week. Jessie has talked about having a node.

”You are more in tune with the flows of magickal energy than I am. I know this is here and can sense it. Focus a moment and I bet you can see it”.

Bell meditates briefly and opens her eyes. The distillery resolves in two layers: the honest world of copper and oak, and beneath the concrete—dead center between the pot still and the fermenters—a shallow upwelling of pale-gold light, first sun through honey edged in sea-salt white, a breathing pool whose slow tide answers both the surf and the shuffle of feet upstairs. Filaments, fine as spider silk and sure as cable, run out by use rather than by pipe—into the copper belly, along condenser coils, through the barrel racks—brightening wherever grain becomes spirit or a pour is shared, then drifting home again. The air smells of warm citrus peel and clean oak; on her tongue the node reads tidal, hospitable, mending, with a faint coin-sweet tang after a swim. Its manners are mischievous—a nudge toward the kind of discomfort that sparks curiosity—an invitation to the joy of discovery.

“Wow”

”Sit with me, here is what I really want to show you,” he gestures to a bamboo beach matt he has laid out, the kind that sand just falls through. They sit and Jessie has her meditate. ”Feel the power of the place. Let it flow through you. Feel the excitement of this place. The call to let go. Can you feel it?”

Bell nods, eyes shut, but she can still see the energy in her mind’s eye. ”It is an invitation,”

”As that energy flows through you, you can take a bit. Watch me though your eyes and mine” Jessie says as he locks eyes with Bell and touches her mind with his own sensations. The two sit there for a while, time not passing and forever. The Quintessence in the node leaps and plays. Trying to catch it is a fool’s errand. But sitting still, calling it in. Answering the invitation for fun, each mage finds a bit of raw essence settling into their patterns. Jessie is impressed with how well Bell does it. He chuckles,

”I am going to have to get you to teach me how to do that. I have to carry this extra Tass around,” and he fills a flask from a barrel. Tass is quintessence bound to a pattern, in this case Matter in the form of Calloway’s First Light. Kind of cool to have my own name on my Tass.

The two leave with Jessie’s promise to share with the node with Bell.

”It’s not really mine, I am just the current steward.”

Three days later, Weilin arises. She is eager to jump to work

Steam sighs from the kettle. Weilin warms a gaiwan and two cups, gives the leaves a quick xǐ chá, then pours through the gōngdào bēi so the first sips match. She inhales the empty scent cup—baseline taken—then tastes. Heat, citrus, a mineral edge.

She sits by the balcony door: crown light at bǎihuì, tongue to palate, hands over the lower dāntián. Breath drops into gentle tǔ-nà—in to the belly, out a touch longer—attention returning to dāntián with shǒu yī, guarding the One. Weilin’s Etherite layer hums below the posture: dāntián as regulator, breath as carrier wave, attention phasing to a steady lock.

On the third exhale the room’s transformer buzz braids into something else—the faint coil-song of copper wound on iron, as if a motor somewhere found resonance with her breath. Some mornings it’s only an approving rumble under the floor; once last week it was the barest tap-tap in the pipe, perfectly in time. Today it gathers in her ribs as two words that aren’t quite heard but arrive fully formed: “good, Child.” She neither chases nor resists; she notes the reading and returns to the wave.

A sip of tea. Warmth in her palms sinks to dāntián. Awareness widens—face, throat, chest, belly, pelvis, legs—then narrows again. She pings reality once; the echo comes back clean. (PI DRIFT: noted, not chased.) Lucky-Chan’s tablet stays face-down, sensors idling; calibration first, instrumentation later. When the steadiness clicks, she layers intention like a clean input signal: long exhale—“Protect.” Natural pause—“Understand.” Next exhale—“Repair.” The words dissolve into breath. She rises. Cups still warm. Center low and quiet. Somewhere, faintly, a coil winds down—satisfied—for now.

To work. It is a short drive to Makergod.

She had started with triage under the microscope: scorched PMIC lifted, rails mapped, and a hairline fracture under the USB-C port wicked full of silver epoxy. She reballed the storage chip, reflowed two buck converters that read noisy on the scope, and replaced a row of singed TVS diodes so a future surge would die there instead of in the core. The new backplate she 3D-printed in PETG carries a thin copper mesh—her Faraday “veil”—and a screw-in cradle for a coin cell to keep the RTC stable when the main pack is off. Between reflows, she sketched a fresh board trace on mylar, then translated it into a razor-clean flex patch to bridge a delaminated zone by the haptic motor. Every fix got logged, voltage-stepped, and heat-cycled until the oscillations stopped looking like a heartbeat and started looking like power. The minutes flowed into hours and hours into days of work in Makergod.

Weilin has set alarms to make sure she gets her rest. Her plans are more creative than she did her first night of planning. IN the back of her mind her avatar approved of planned rest. the metal dragon promised success. He also urged discipline. Work. Eat. Sleep. Work.

“圆是约 (yuán shì yuē)—a circle is a promise. Don’t draw one you cannot hold.”

Her grandfather's words echo in her head. Sometimes they sound like metal.

Slowly she has rebuilt the burned out tablet. Better than it was before. By mid-afternoon, the tablet is back together. Charged up. Ready to be turned on. She heads upstairs to the Rally Point. Once at the workbench there, Weilin takes a moment. She reached out for a memory. A connection.

The courtyard smells of hot dust and tea. Grandfather sets a bent nail on a brick. “Metal remembers,” he says, handing her the little hammer. “But it also learns.” Tap by tap, she coaxes the bend out until it lies straight.

He nods, pleased. “要有骨气 (yào yǒu gǔqì)—have backbone. People are metal, too. You heat them with trouble, you shape them with choice.” That night, she hides the straightened nail in her pencil box like a talisman.

Back in the present, Weilin turns on the tablet. ”Come on Lucky-Chan” she whispers. The screen pops to life as it boots up. The Lucky-Chan app opens and shows Lucky-Chan in a high-chair playing a game of Xiangqi with a metallic dragon who’s body coils offscreen. Lucky-Chan turns to the screen and shouts:

”You Came!” and charges over, touching the screen and grabbing it on both sides in joy. ”You Came! You Came! You Came!”.

Weilin feels the tension she did not know was there, release from her body. She does not cry; she is not that emotive. And things are OK again.

Gathering at the Rally Point, the newly formed cabal is here to explore the box. Josh arrives, cleaned up after his night shift. They are ready for anything. Sam and Josh are dressed as one would expect former military – with durable long pants, shirts, and weapons. Sam has his knives sheathed on his hip. Josh has his rifle and ear protection. The ladies are dressed for a hike, with Bell in sneakers and Weilin in an old pair of well worn boots. Jessie looks stylish in his Columbia pants and shirt. A belt that is wrapped paracord and robust hiking boots. Bell wonders if he did not shave today just to get the look down.

Everyone has headlamps and Jessie supplies walkie talkies for any good they may do. Josh leads the way, weapon our, light from it shining. Sam follows. Jessie and the Girls are a step behind. Down the stairs they go.

The room they come out in makes little sense. There are four other doors around a pit. The whole place seems made of stone and wood. Jessie prompts Weilin and Bell to explore the effect magically.

”Ladies, is this correspondence, walking into another dimension, time?” They confer and agree it is a spatial effect. There is a nook with a table and icon. The words are in Spanish which none of the group speaks. Weilin is able to use her Trans-Spatial Harmonic Interface to create a Dimensional Signal Lock, allowing her to reach out and back to the Internet. This allows them to translate:

Holy Mother, Bless this for the protection of all Mankind

Around the area are doors into creches. These are splintered. Outward. Empty now.

”I wonder if that is what sunk the ship,” muses Josh.

Jessie cracks a joke, ”At least we have two military men who are crack shots with us.”

Josh just shrugs. Sam notes, ”I am really better with my knives”.

”I guess that make sense”. However, the soft voice behind him is a surprise.

”I’m pretty good with a gun,” Weilin is saying, as she pulls a Glock from her satchel. ”I’ll cover the rear.” Jessie chuckles and glances at Bell, ”I guess we are in the middle”.

Josh tries to Call the Path tracing his tattoo, but there is too much strange magic. The group continues its exploration. Doors open. Rooms with crates. They enter into what is clearly a work chamber of some sort, and the space changes. It is wrong. This is a sanctum for the Order or Reason. Any magick used here would be vulgar. Even a modern Technomancer might struggle. Fortunately, the area is limited. Unfortunately, the passage leads to a torture chamber. This could not be more medieval in its nature. Rows of cells wrap around. Jessie and the girls hold back with Josh and Sam move forward. There is a growing sense of unease in the group.

The strange wonders of the place continue. A magical terrarium sample case. An infinite notebook. What appears to be an everpool of freshwater. Actual wonders. Forgotten magic of a past age when technomagick was not – quite yet – in command of the world.

Sam moves to another doorway and opens it. The light shines into what appears to be a dining room. There is a loud hissing….

To the horror of everyone, two desiccated corpses hiss and rise. Josh calls out ”Dragur!” the Norse for zombies. They do look like zombies.

Bell screams. Josh Fires.

The roar of his rifle is deafening in the confined space to everyone but Josh. As the bullets slam into the monster, Bell, almost on instinct, casts her mind outwards, searching for more foes. She finds one, and yells, ”There is another mind out there”

Weilin covers the back. She is calm. Life growing up was not always safe. Not like for Americans. Not even like well off Chinese. Her Grandfather was watched. She knows danger. His voice echoes in her ears. The war. Chosin.

“We were pushed back,” he said, not shameful, just factual. “We learned to bend without breaking.” His fingers pause on the mala. “There are things in mountains older than flags.” He didn’t elaborate.

” A circle is a promise” she says staying focused.

Sam pulls his knives and readies for the two zombies to approach. He and Josh are blocking the door into the room. Both are still coming. Sam has been here before too. Unknown things, out for blood, only his knives and his magick. Sam has lived on this ground.

Jessie is concerned about Bell. Nothing like this has ever happened in her life. He knows from the times their minds have touched. I should have prepared her better. Jessie has been under fire before. Ray’s past with street criminals. Jessie had to help. It felt better when it happened after he had magick. That was people. Living bodies and minds which could be enspelled. These are mindless husks. Aside from growing claws, Jessie was not sure what he could do. Josh, however, had the hammer.

Switching to full auto- Josh steps sideways into the room and empties his magazine into one of the zombies, blowing it apart. Its partner advances.

A growl echoes in Bell’s mind. Fierce. She is strong. She slows the standing zombie, visibly warping space. The growl turns into a whine of a wounded dog as paradox – again – settles into her pattern, making her nauseated. Jessie goes past Josh and calls to Weilin,

”Weilin! Shoot it!”

Weilin turns and fired her Etheric Pulse Pistol, superheating the bullet into a round of super-heated metal. She pours quintessence into the shot. It streaks across the room as she misses wildly, so wildly that she misses Sam as he stabs the zombie with his enhanced blades, blowing a hole in the wall beyond.

The zombie grapples with Sam, but stumbles, falling to the floor, in a strange slow motion. With a moment, Josh reloads. Weilin’s second shot strikes, a normal round this time, but it does not appear to hit much vital. As it stands, Sam knees it into the chin, causing it to stagger back a step, but the temporal effects fade as it reaches back.

There is a shout in Spanish, and another corpse comes bursting into the room. It is the body of a conquistador. Jessie reaches out with his Mind. The Spanish suddenly resolves for Jessie:

“The Master Hungers”

Ah.

Jessie relays this in a shout, even as Josh fires at the new threat. A bullet slams into its face, but the monster does not drop. Weilin sends a bolt of plasma into it, searing through the chest, but not quite emerging from the other side.

It has a mind, Jessie thinks and increases his contact, distorting its perceptions, the locations of those in the room. Even as the Zombi claws Sam, he runs his knife made searing hot with magick, deep into the zombie him even as the conquistador strikes at a phantom and hits the wall.

Bell hears Jessie shout, ”Haste Josh!” and she suddenly sees the pathway. Subtle. Josh already moves like lightning. He is not sped up, just moving fast with adrenaline. Her avatar barks in appreciation as the temporal magick takes hold.

Josh, as the intended target, pulls away, swinging to fire, and pelts the sword wielding creature. Still it stands. Weilin has the answer. She tosses out her Spectroclamp Resonance Cage to trap the spirit. Unfortunately, this is not a ghost. The effect goes off, and nothing happens. Sam finally electrifies his hands with lightening and fries the zombie before him. The conquistador readies and attack and smashes a table, uttering something about a priest. This confuses the room. Except for Jessie. He had placed the figure of a 16th Century Spanish Priest Celestial Chorister before the creature. Josh fires again, taking out chunks.

Bell, now in the spirit of coincidental magick, causes the shattered table to just happen to fall into the feet of their foe, and Jessie body slams into him, knocking him down. Finally, Weilin fires another shot into the monster while Sam charges his knives and runs lightening through the conquistador. The magick animation it is undone. Josh immediately chops off its head.

Bell wonders if they should just leave, but the other four are clear they will search this place now, if possible. Jessie leads Bell in a meditation to help calm her down and re-center. Sam spends the time healing himself, quietly, wiping away the blood ”It’s not that bad,” he mutters.

They find more strangeness in the box. A log. They ship was headed from Spain to the settlement near present day Jacksonville. It speaks of a strange becalming, where nothing, not even kedging works. Then a plague. Then death. It ends there. They find other wonders. One results in Weilin excitedly bursting into technobabble. This is in addition to their Botanist’s Delight Curiosity Case and Endless Notebook.

They also find a coffin.

Empty.

Everything else is “mundane” if that even applies. They emerge with no time jumps or dilations. It is Saturday afternoon. Jessie needs to help prepare the Dolphin. Bell is most adamant she is sleeping at home tonight. Jessie makes sure she is OK before she leaves. This has been a very full week for Bell. Still as she leaves she notes,

”I am thinking of a Dungeons and Dragons night,”. Jessie knows he has picked the right person.

”You always do,” teases Even in his ear.

Before they break up, Jessie talks with Weilin,

”The Technocratic Union can listen to us if it chooses. Can you write a secure app for our phones? One that bypasses the play stores and such. One that is secure for us?”

Weilin grins, ”That is no problem.”

Jessie decides to push his luck, ”I’d love a Pokemon Go meets Magiquest game for quests. Nothing intrusive or permission heavy. Is that something you can do? “

”Yes! Even better. We will call it Cu Blană Hunter. It will be a light AR scavenger hunt across Moon & Wave, Castaways, and the boardwalk where guests “track” cute, semi-mythical creatures. Encounters adapt to each player’s style. It’s Romanian: ‘cu blană’ means ‘with fur.’ she adds, followed by a stream of technical language no one else can understand.

Getting more serious, Weilin comes back to the present, ”First though, I am going to work on translation of the Spanish we found.”

The members of the yet to be named cabal, move about their tasks. Each has been moved by this experience. Bell has had her first taste of combat. She has witnessed the Mind magick of Jessie and is drawn to it. Jessie, in turn finds it hard to focus, sensing…something. They two work over the next week, helping each other’s understanding. Jessie guides Bell in expanding her understanding of Mind. Bell has the unexpected pleasure of guiding Jessie in his first steps towards understanding Prime.

Weilin finds she has allies. Since March her tasks have felt solitary. Now she is not alone on her journey. For the first time in America, well, maybe ever, she feels that maybe she fits in somewhere.

Sam and Josh have fought not just humans, but creatures of the night before. This time, however, they have someone behind them. Not exactly other warriors, at least expect each other. But people behind them nonetheless.

And somewhere unclear, an elf rides a dragon while a giant dog chases lights under the watch of an armed angel.