I did finish the Sanctuary before the sun set, at least in its current state. I’ll make changes in the future, but for now it conceptualized what I wanted. That the table would have all my sisters sitting at it again. I brought a fair amount of the things Terese left behind back into the Sanctuary, but not everything. Jiju felt I needed to decide myself what was worth keeping.

After dinner was done, it was hunkering in with Alex. We resumed working on research into weapons for the first time in a long time. Though I wish it were under circumstances, I was excited to work with him again. The arrows would be no problem for us, and electric grenades wouldn’t be a far stretch from what we already knew—that was mostly Alex’s research before Galden arrived.

It was the gun that was uncharted territory for us. I knew from observing Galden’s creation in his lab—and some painfully patchy spots in my plumage—that it wasn’t a kind of black powder gun. It was more like an accelerator for its ammo, the word was right there on the edge of my tongue. I knew those used magnetism to work, I just had to reproduce it magically.

“What’s electromagnetism?” asked Alex as I showed him the braid that I’d been studying all week prior.

“I’m not exactly sure,” I admitted, “but I think it’s the main principle behind how Galden’s weapon worked.  It used lightning mana to move a piece of metal really fast nearly instantly. ”

“I didn’t see, but it sounds like something that’s already widely used, but the original uses mostly fire mana.”

I assumed using fire mana would make it more like some sort of gunpowder cannon. The one Petras aimed at Jiju was not that, I knew a feather of mine was inside, so it was at least primarily lightning mana based. “No, this new one had to be more like a… a railgun!” That was the word. “I’d like to do some experiments… testing. We don’t really have much by way of metalworking here though.”

The village was bountiful with organic resources, but there was no mining operations that I knew of. Most of the quarried stone came from the canyon walls when new dwellings were carved out. “I think I have a good demonstration. We’re going to need some iron. “Feeling up for a little night stroll?”

“Sundown curfew?”

“I’ll ask Jiju. I think I did good today so maybe she’ll let us out late as a reward. We’ll just head there and back.”

———

My Guardian did give us permission to leave the clutchhome when I justified it as necessary to get started. Before leaving I wove the Magnet spell into place, and took a few small pots to collect some material in. We went down to the stream to collect our sample.

On the way, we finally had some time to talk. I think it was the first time I’d been alone with Alex since escaping Redwall, since he left the lab when his father cut ties.

With a somber note, Alex said, “Vander told me what happened to Galden.” My heart sank. Galden wasn’t just the court mage, he was also Alex’s Uncle. Count Petras’s older brother. When Alex noticed I had slowed to a stop he added, “I’m not mad at you Talivi.” His hand was on my shoulder, “He would have done the same if he were the one caged in an hostile place.“

“Y-you’re free to leave you know,” I hurriedly pointed out. “You’re not a prisoner here, you’re a guest… with very strict rules. I’m sorry.”

He nodded, “Yes, I know that. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on leaving soon—I still have to make sure my best student succeeds. I just needed you to know that we’re okay. I know you’re young, but what happened… that’s just the way of the world.” He started walking again, and I took up following.

Letting his words sink in I accepted them, but I didn’t have to like taking such actions, even against humans. Gary didn’t really weigh on my conscience, and memories from before this life didn’t change that—Alex and Vander did.

I said, “When you’re ready to leave this place, I’ll make sure it’s peaceful.”

“I didn’t want you to have to escape either. I wanted to free you.”

“What happened?” I asked. “You never came back.”

“I’m sorry Talivi.”

Logic said he would’ve come back if he could. I certainly told myself that on most days as his absence in that lab stretched on. Rumors between the estate staff when they got chatty eventually confirmed my reasoning. But now I could only think of those weeks that stretched into months in that cage without knowing if I’d ever see my mentor and friend again. My heart still remembered that betrayal. With tears beginning to flow my voice broke, “You shouldn’t have left me alone there.”

He started to defend himself, “If I could’ve gotten the key to that collar, you could have flown out—“

I quickly closed the distance between us and buried myself in his stomach, wrapping my wings around him. “No. I couldn’t, I can’t fly!” His shirt would be wet when I finally pulled away, but he didn’t force me to, pulling me into the hug.

“I’m sorry Talivi. I shouldn’t have left you. I should've just taken you with me right then.”

He let me cry for as long as I needed. For all the crying I couldn’t show in front of Galden, maybe. When the hug finally did break, I responded with a mumbled, “We’re good.”

———

“So how does this work?” Alex asked when we arrived at the stream. His eyes were still a little puffy, mine too I'd bet.

“If this Magnet braid works how I think it will, we can get small pieces of metal from the stream deposits. Using that, I can demonstrate things rather than explain them.” I crouched near the stream and began looking at the ground conditions for… something. Dry, but not packed?

“I’m starting to wonder who the teacher is and who the student is,” said Alex.

“Today it’s me. When we’re actually building the railgun, I’m probably going to be much more lost. You can teach me the engineering bits.”

I felt at the flow of mana running through my body and tapped it to fuel my spell. I channeled that flow into the Magnet braid, guiding it in at the core feather’s root. As the spellbraid finished processing the mana, it didn’t go anywhere, it just remained in the root—waiting. With a thought, I moved that mana turned magic to my hand. The joints in my hand all went rigid like I just donned some invisible mittens.

I stared at my hand for a moment and flexed my fingers, with effort. When I relaxed my muscles, my joints snapped back to their position. It felt like every bone in my hand turned into a magnet, and it hurt like hell when they snapped back like that. I sucked in a breath and winced, but waved Alex’s worry away with an unnaturally rigid hand. I waved my hand over the ground and found some particulate was pulled free when I inspected it. The spell was strong enough to hurt my joints, but I wasn’t getting many iron fragments. When I turned my hand, tip down, I ended up with a concentration on the tips of my fingers as expected, but it was truly a pitiful amount.

“Not what you hoped?” asked Alex, noticing the sour look on my face.

“It worked, that’s still a result.”

I released the spell, dropping any iron not stuck in the grooves of my fingers, then began channeling it again. This time, I put the same amount of the spell into just the last phalange of my index finger. Only one “magnetic bone” so no painful joint snapping issues. I tested my finger over the same patch of ground, pulling free some more ironsand than the previous attempt.

“It seems like the potency is related to the area, or maybe volume?” I thought aloud. There could be other factors: maybe the density of the bone mattered, distance from the braid, head, or heart? “If spreading the spell over a larger area reduces its strength,” I considered, “It should be safe to use on my whole body.”

Alex thought, shrugged, and relented. He pulled a knife, “I can just cut the braid if this is dumb?” he asked. I nodded.

I released, then channeled the spell for a third time effectively turning myself into a statue that attracted metal. I could move, but it was exhausting, having to be careful to not let my muscles go completely slack and snap my joints uncomfortably. It was easier to rock myself back and forth—like a giggling, T-posing, Frankenstein’s monster.

Alex stuck the flat of his knife to the side of my head and laughed, “Well it makes both a great sheathe and terrible armor.”

“I’d consider reversing it, but then my wings might want to fly away on their own.”

We collected as much ironsand as I had the patience for, enough for one of the few small jars I brought—the rest remained empty. It would still be enough for the demonstration, which we performed in Alex’s room. Him and Vander had set up a sort of communal workstation there. It was all a bit cramped, which forced me to consider my symbolic but less functional decision to move that large table into the Sanctuary. I’d have to ask Jiju about a larger clutchhome restructuring, but for now, this cramped desk would do.

I put my wing on the desk and laid my hand flat, palm down against its wood. I tucked some feathers back under my elbow and engaged the braid for the fourth time this evening. I told Alex, “Now lightly shake those metal bits over and around my hand.” When he did as instructed I began using my knee to shake the desk slightly, replicating a demonstration a teacher had done for me in another lifetime. “See how the little bits line up like that?”

Alex looked closely, “It just looks like a mess.”

He was right, my hand wasn’t a prefect rectangle, and the uneven shape of my hand was making the lines difficult to distinguish. I collected the iron filings into the jar, and reengaged the spell on what I willed to be my index and second fingers. I felt them shift slightly as they aligned, but not enough to be painful, then had Alex pour again. This time, the filings did line up a lot more predictably along the pulls of magnetic attraction. “This is how the weapon works with lightning mana I think. It can pull steel bearings along these lines until it gets to another magnet in the line, then that one pulls it to the next faster and so on.”

Alex took another look and considered my explanation, “I think I can see it… this… would work if we can turn this into a circuit. If Galden made it small enough, it could all fit into a nice little tube like you said.”

Alex was on board with my working theory. A step closer to the railgun, and proving to the Chief that we were a valuable resource for the village. Jiju could say what she wanted about being above such matters, but staying was necessary for my sisters’ sakes.

I ran my fingers along the worn cover of the tome I brought everywhere. It was also a step further in my magical pursuits. The more I knew about how the spell worked the more I could tweak the braid, maybe improve on one of the old masters’ works. I looked down at my hand, and the knuckles that were swollen and inflamed from the spell. There’s room for improvement.

___

Late that night, after Alex and I finished our work together, Vander came and found me. I was cramming some Spellbraid research in before bed, since Jiju didn’t see my Spellweaving to be an important part of being Blessed.

“Still not done for the day?” Vander said as he entered the Sanctuary.

It was empty except for me… and now Vander too. The way his expression became focused when he came around the table to peek at the page was endearing. He was surprisingly unhelpful in these matters for a god, but it meant a lot to me that he would help if he could. He was just so… normal. Maybe that’s part of being mortal?

I rubbed my eyes and looked up at him from the tome. The look of concern on his face when he saw mine had me wondering if I’d turned my golden eyes red staying up too late. “I am if you ask Jiju, this is just a hobby apparently.”

“Just… don’t stay up too late.”

“If it was up to us, Alex would be tinkering, and I’d be working on this. Not weapons.” I laid my head down on the table as I vented. “Whatever Jiju thinks, I need this too. Something I can do for me,” I sighed. As ready as I thought I was for the grueling schedule this morning, it was a long day—exhausting beyond just being physically tired. “I don’t want to talk about this right now…”

“You don’t have to. Can I get you anything? Tea?”

He turned towards the door, but I held him back and said, “Wait… bring two cups.”

When he returned I patted the seat next to me, took my cup at blew at the steam. I looked at the slightly warping air above the cup and thought for a moment, focusing for any patterns in the mana. It was uniform in composition, and there were currents, but it wasn’t any denser than the surrounding air. Heat and mana must be unrelated…

“Is my brew offensive?” Vander asked, snapping me out of my contemplations.

“No just—thinking… Hey have you ever heard of a Fireblessed named Phoenix? She’s supposed to be immortal but she’s been gone for ages and I was wondering if she’s still on Earthu or not.”

“Yes. Knew her in fact. She was a very close friend of mine, but no, she’s not on Earth…u anymore.”

“Oh…” I said with as hint of mourning. “I won’t get the chance to meet her, ask her about memories. Not in this life.”

“You’re half right.”

“Oh? What, some kind of necromancy? Do we need to find a Hesht priestess?”

“Well Jiju is a priestess in a sense, so we wouldn’t have to go far.” He laughed, then smiled at me, “I’d be happy to tell you more, but it gets into the realm of the divines. Are you sure you want to open that door?” I considered it. Jiju said I should be above the affairs of the village, but the divine might be a bit too above.

“I’d like to know about you at least… and us,” I said a bit sheepishly.

His eyes lit up, but his features stiffened, and he cocked a brow in confusion.

I answered his unspoken question, “Luna showed me when we met.” When he face started to screw up in consternation, I added, “I asked her, don’t be upset. I… get it now, but if you’re trying to preserve my ‘normal life’ I think we’re past that.” I held up a finger, “And no, that’s not your fault… though it might be Luna’s, what the hell happened?”

He waved his hands defensively, “I asked her. She swears she didn’t take any liberties.” He chuckled weakly, “It’s actually pretty funny depending on how you look at things.”

I grinned ever so slightly. “So I just happened to be born Lightblessed,” I cocked an eyebrow and narrowed my eyes at him.

He nodded, then folded his arms and shrank into his seat a bit. He asked, “Do you regret choosing to roll the dice? Do you wish Luna had used more Order in your return?”

I let my grin turn to a smile and slid myself over to him. Pulling his face close to mine I said, “I know it was me who chose to roll them. And I’d choose it again, I’m certain.” I closed the distance completely, kissing his deeply on the lips.

When I finally pulled away and looked at him, his face began to redden. Then mine did too. After a moment of silence he whispered through a smile, “We broke a rule…”