Ian knew something was amiss even before they left the cafe. A few plainclothes passersby on the street began to loiter outside; when he looked at any of them, he noticed that they were discreetly eyeing the building’s second story. He didn’t think he was being paranoid in thinking that they were there for him. The more he looked at them, sensing their vitality through the windows and walls, the more he suspected that they might be practitioners: There was something about their vital energy that differed from that of the average person.

“Mother,” he murmured under his breath. She had just finished paying the bill, her glossY’s screen still displaying the completed transaction. “I think there might be people waiting for us outside.”

“Of course there are, you...” she trailed off. Ian was surprised that she didn’t call him an idiot, imbecile, bloathead, or other choice names. Still, the scorn in her words was undeniable. Ian figured she would continue to think of him in contempt, at the very least subconsciously, until his actions supported his words.

He was fine with that. It was more comfortable having Mother treat him like a failure. He wondered when she’d noticed the suspicious individuals, and when she planned on telling him.

“So, what do we do about it?” Ian continued, aimlessly tearing off a piece of paper napkin. “Do we acknowledge them?”

“We should wait for Julia,” Mother muttered, looking distastefully at the window.

“She’s here? In Selejo?”

“She wasn’t,” Mother explained with a casual wave of her hand. “But she decided to come as soon as I told her you had been chosen for the experiment. She’s coming by transport array, obviously.”

“Why did she decide to come?”

Mother gave him a dry look. “Even though I had my doubts, she seemed convinced that you’d benefit from the dilation chamber.”

She removed her hair tie, then shook out her hair before twisting it up into a tight high bun. Her hair was a mixture of natural gray-brown and dyed platinum blond, the combination enhancing the severity of her features. Ian interpreted this tying-up of hair as a symbolic gesture: Mother meant business.

It had been a long time since anything had preoccupied his mother other than her grudge with Vanderlich. He narrowed his eyes. What happened to existing only to witness Vanderlich’s downfall, to exacting revenge? And yet here she was, far away from Jupiter, with him of all people, in some Selejan city.

“Where is Aunt Julia now?” Ian asked, his attention still focused on the people standing outside the cafe. He noticed the arrival of a man dressed in a guardsman’s dark-red and white suit, complete with tasseled shoulder guards and a saber fastened to his belt. He was the only person in the area who was outwardly a member of the Eldemari’s Guard. His presence should be nothing out of the ordinary: Ian knew that in Selejo, guardsmen often patrolled through cities, acting as peacekeepers. But why had one stopped just outside of the cafe?

“She should be arriving within the next fifteen minutes,” Mother replied, pulling up her glossY. “I messaged her when we first arrived at the cafe. She had a meeting an hour ago on the opposite side of the city.”

Ian cleared his throat. “What city are we in, anyway?”

Mother gave him an exasperated sigh. “Pardin.”

So, the capital of Pardinia, the province in closest proximity to the SPU. My luck isn’t too bad, Ian thought. The only better location would have been the peninsular tip of Notralia, where the Bay of Ramsay separating Selejo from the SPU narrowed into the Ramsay Channel. Even though Notralia shared a border with the inhospitable Mount Ziggura, there was a thin stretch of coast one could follow toward the SPU’s mainland.

Ian was suddenly relieved that he’d studied the regional map while acting as a Godoran corona. Before the loop, he didn’t know anything about the politics of the central-west.

The two of them nursed their glasses of water in relative silence, waiting for news from Aunt Julia. After fifteen minutes, Mother’s glossY lit up.

“She’s arrived,” Mother said softly. “She’s disembarking the hovergloss now.”

Ian nodded his head. The closest rail stop was a minute’s walk away, so Aunt Julia would be arriving any moment.

He sensed her coming down the street before he could see her. After spending a few days with her in the loop, he inadvertently became familiar with the way energy flowed through her body. The vital flow was particularly strong because Aunt Julia was a Life practitioner.

The passersby on the busy city street parted around her, as though subconsciously sensing the power of her dual affinities. She made her way over to the cafe, but was stopped at the entrance by the guardsman.

Ian had considered thralling insects to listen in on the people surrounding the cafe building, but discarded the idea: the practitioners might be on guard for the slightest thread of Death energy. Thus he could only guess at what the guardsman was saying to make Aunt Julia livid.

After thirty seconds of talking, Aunt Julia gave a short laugh. The guardsman pointed away from the building, as though telling her that she needed to leave.

Ian then saw her release vital energy in a sphere around her, using its pressure to startle the guardsman into taking a few instinctive steps back. She shook her head and walked through the entrance into the cafe, leaving the guard to stand awkwardly at the threshold. Ian thought the man looked like he wanted to give chase, but in the end, he kept his post at the door, perhaps prioritizing keeping others away over chasing Aunt Julia out.

Mother’s expression was stony as Aunt Julia strutted up the stairs. “Was that disruption really necessary?”

Aunt Julia walked up to the table, her hands resting on her hips. She smiled and held out her arms toward Ian. “Nephew, it’s been a while.”

Ian didn’t return the gesture. Instead, he gave her a curt nod.

Given the cold shoulder, Aunt Julia sighed and addressed Mother: “Iolana, I didn’t start anything. That guardsman told me I wasn’t to enter the premises, and couldn’t give an explanation why.”

Ian drummed his fingers on the table. “He might have sensed that you were a practitioner. If he’s aware of my presence here, it would make sense that he’d want to minimize unknown variables.”

Aunt Julia scrutinized him, her eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. “It’s been less than two hours since the experiment and you think the Eldemari’s Guard might already be monitoring you?” She gave Mother a look. “Did he do something? Break the equipment? Refuse to fulfil the conditions of the oath?”

“Nothing like that, Julia; the experiment was a success.”

Aunt Julia beamed, but Ian figured that was only on the surface: her Beginning affinity must be going haywire trying to sort everything out. “That’s excellent, but success doesn’t explain why the Guard might be monitoring you.”

Ian could understand Aunt Julia’s frustration. He hadn’t anticipated that his “confidential” potentioreader results would be leaked almost immediately. He supposed it was his own fault for not verifying the severity of whatever oath guaranteed said confidentiality, assuming it was separate from the joint-fulfillment oath. If the penalty was low enough, the researchers might willingly break it.

Or, they might be able to get around it. It would be easy for the researchers to give the potentioreading to the Eldemari’s agents with no name attached to it. From there, a team of powerful Beginning, Regret, and Remorse practitioners would be able to track him down.

Mother lowered her voice. “We shouldn’t discuss this here. What is the fastest way to get from here to the SPU?”

Aunt Julia’s unflappable swagger seemed to fade. “The SPU?” She stood with her mouth slightly agape. “No transport arrays in Selejo lead to the SPU, Iolana. Choose somewhere else.”

The corner’s of Ian’s mouth curved slightly downward. Neither of them considered that he might have a plan?

He’d already thought through a situation where he’d need to escape from Selejo. After talking with Euryphel, he’d developed several strategies in the days spent waiting for Hashat to summon the leviathan. Granted, in all of those scenarios he was alone, but he didn’t think any of his plans would need to be modified too much to account for Mother and Aunt Julia.

In the event that he was on the eastern coast of Selejo, on the shore of the Bay of Ramsay, he had considered three different strategic options. First, he could escape East into the neighboring Fassar, a province of his native Shattradan. That was if he could get to a hovergloss without being stopped. From there, he would be able to enter the SPU by heading South.

Second, he could escape into the Ziggura Mountains, and then head East toward the SPU mainland. This was mostly viable only if he was in Notralia or Valia, the two provinces bordering the mountains.

And third, if he was unable to escape quietly, he would create a bone wyrm and use it to travel across the Bay of Ramsay. He’d keep the wyrm submerged under water, just below the surface so he could come up for air every minute or so. It would be a miserable journey, but he didn’t think the Selejans would have the means to stop him from making his way across the bay. If he went by air, some of the elementalists might be able to keep pace; but under water, only potent water elementalists stood a chance. Moreover, while the mainland likely had artillery that could blast him from the air, he didn’t think they had the capabilities to shoot at range underwater.

Based on the behavior of the guards and the numerous covert agents outside the cafe, Ian ruled out option one: They’d never make it onto a hovergloss. And since Pardin was far from the defensible reaches of Mount Ziggura, they wouldn’t be able to escape South without running into trouble.

Which led him to option three. He stared at the two women before him, realizing that he’d missed a solid minute of their strategic bickering.

“So,” he interrupted, “what’s your plan?”

The women turned his way, their eyes glinting with concealed hostility. Seems like they can’t agree on what to do, he thought.

“Well if neither of you can think of anything, I have a plan.”

The two of them blinked almost in unison. He could practically hear their thoughts: “Ian has a plan?”

Yes, I have a plan, thank you very much! Sometimes they treated him as if he was actually dimwitted, as though his good grades meant nothing.

“I’m not ignorant of the forces at play here. Since the two of you are associated with me, you won’t be able to leave without being held for questioning. And I have a feeling you both would prefer to avoid being held for an indeterminate period of time by the Eldemari’s agents.”

Clearly Selejo didn’t want to let him leave the country after realizing they’d managed to create a peak practitioner. He’d be an indispensable asset if they were able to control him, and if they didn’t act now, he’d likely escape their grasp. The longer they dallied, the more time the Selejans would have to organize. Perhaps The Eldemari would even come herself. Even with his high Death affinity, Ian had died enough times in the loop to know he was anything but invincible.

Eventually, if he was hounded long enough, he would grow tired, and would let down his guard. All it would take was the briefest of moments, and that would be it: he’d be incapacitated, captured, and forced into an oath against his will. At least, that’s what he would do, were he in the position of the Selejans.

“You’re right, Iolana, he has changed,” Aunt Julia remarked.

They’re talking like I’m not even here, Ian lamented privately.

“I say that we escape through the Bay of Ramsay. I could lead us out across the water. It’s a long distance, but I reckon we could make it within sixteen hours or so.”

“You realize we’d have to cover over four-hundred miles of water?” Mother said.

Ian nodded. “Yes.” The ship from the first loop layer was just under four-hundred miles outside of Menocht Bay, and that journey last took him three hours using a wyrm. He figured that if he tried to keep the wyrm inconspicuously below the water, it would take significantly longer.

“In sixteen hours?”

Ian didn’t understand why she was so incredulous. Sixteen hours was around thirty miles per hour. If they could hypothetically take a hovergloss line over the bay, it wouldn’t take more than six hours. It was also possible that the journey would take less than sixteen hours: After they were a few hours out over the bay, they might be able to take to the sky and cover more ground.

Fine, maybe he did understand why she was so incredulous, since she had never seen him use his power. But couldn’t she have a little faith if her son confidently said that he could do something?

Aunt Julia snorted. “I’m not sure what methods you have in mind, but just because you’ve gained a bit of power doesn’t mean you should act recklessly. The Bay of Ramsay is dangerous, filled with storms and ten-foot waves. There’s a reason why it’s been a powerful natural barrier between Selejo and the SPU.”

“I’m well aware of the Bay of Ramsay’s utility as a buffer,” Ian replied curtly. “And with all due respect, I feel that I am more than capable of carrying the three of us safely through its waters.”

At this point, Ian could sense that the agents outside the cafe were growing agitated, especially the guardsman that Aunt Julia cowed. He seemed to have called for more backup, as there were two more suspicious individuals around the building than before. Some of them even carried zappers, the concentrated energy of the power clip clearly visible to his enhanced sight.

Ian knew that they were out of time, though both Mother and Aunt Julia seemed unconvinced by his plan to cross the Bay of Ramsay. Seeing that they didn’t have anything better to offer, he decided that it would be better to act now and ask for forgiveness later.