30. Alma's House (Patreon)

Okay! Status report, brain: we're inside Autumn's house, she's mutating into a monster like I am, she is in her underwear and I am touching her, she is very soft, and oh gosh oh no oh beans she's unconscious she fell unconscious aaaaah that's really really bad!!!

Status confirmed: this problem is way too big for a stupid little Hannah to handle on her own. I whip out my phone and call Ida.

"Did you fuck it up already?" she says as soon as she answers.

"I showed her my fingers and she fainted and now she's unconscious and I don't know what to do!"

"Oh fuck, alright, I'll be there in a sec. She's breathing, right?"

Uhh oh geez that's a good question!? Wait, yeah, she's breathing, her diaphragm is moving, her heart is beating. I can't see those things yet but I still know them somehow.

"Yeah, she's breathing."

"Alright, save the panic then, she'll be fine. See you soon."

She hangs up on me, leaving me along with a cute girl under my arm. Goddess dangit I am blushing so hard. I need to be focusing, but all I can think about is the fact that I'm kneeling down here with her, my arm across her back, and cut it out brain, do something useful! Though I mean… I guess there's nothing I can do other than make sure she doesn't stop breathing, at least as far as I know. If she's not injured, she'll probably wake up on her own.

Just like that, her eyes flutter open. They bulge upon seeing me for a moment, but then suddenly narrow. Autumn glances around and frowns at me.

"...You two had better not been snogging or something," she grumbles.

"What?" I blink. Oh, right, this is probably Jet. "No! She fainted. I had to catch her."

"Alright, well, let go of me. I'm f—"

"I'm here," Ida grunts, peeking her head through the doorway and glancing up and down at Autumn's body. "Woah! Nice."

"Who the fuck is this?" Jet growls. "Did Alma invite you in?"

"I invited her in, Jet," I say. "Because again, you fell unconscious. I freaked out a little. She knows magic, too."

Jet opens her mouth to protests as she sits up on her own, scooting away from me, but then she sighs.

"Okay, fine. Thank you for doing whatever you thought you needed to do to help me. Fainting definitely isn't normal for us, but we have lost a lot of blood today. Also: this is your fault, isn't it? Fuck you."

Shakily, she gets to her feet, twisting to look at her back in the bathroom mirror. Oh beans and rice that pose does wonderful things to her muscles aaaah oh no Hannah stop looking. Jet's hand-sized, still-budding wings wiggle, and she grimaces. Crap, say something, say something!

"I mean… I dunno if it's my fault?" I hedge. "Though it's either my fault or the Goddess' fault, I guess."

"The same goddess that turned you into swiss cheese for wasting a few seconds of her time?" Jet asks.

"Uh, that one, yeah."

"I think I'll blame you, then," she grunts. "Safer that way. So what the fuck happened?"

"Uh… I mean, it looks like you're probably a Transmutation mage, like me," I tell her. "So… now you get to suffer. Sorry!"

"Oh my god, Hannah, what the fuck kind of encouragement is that?" Ida says, bursting into a series of giggles. "This is why she fainted, isn't it?"

"Goddess," I correct her. "And I've had weeks to get over this, sorry. Like, I know it's kind of inconsiderate, but it's hard to not be excited about having someone else who understands what I'm going through."

"I don't think I do," Jet grunts. "I only dealt with half of this. Alma had the… initial effects happen to her. I just cleaned up the blood."

"You want me to help with that?" I ask. "I have a cleaning spell."

"Of course you do," Jet grunts.

"Sorry, I'm a little behind on the story here," Ida chimes in. "Who's Alma?"

"My headmate," Jet sighs, rolling her eyes. "I have DID."

"Oh. Cool," Ida shrugs.

"In my case it really isn't," Jet mutters, but she smirks a bit as she says so. "I'm Jet, by the way."

"Ida," Ida nods. "I'm Hannah's competent friend."

"Well good, because she sure fucking needs one."

Hey! Brendan's competent. …Otherwise, fair.

"I'm sorry, can we stop roasting me for a moment and deal with the magical transformation stuff?" I groan. "I feel like that might be a better use of our time."

"Deal with it how?" Jet grunts. "Judging by your entire fucking body, I assume you don't have a way to reverse this. The help I wanted from you is for you to talk to Alma and explain what's going on so she'll calm down, but apparently whatever you did just made her pass out and swap back to me again, and I sure as hell don't have a plan!"

"I don't know how to calm her down!" I yelp. "I don't know how to calm me down! I have like five panic attacks a week because of this crap! I can give you tips on how to cover up, but…"

"We don't need tips on how to cover up, we have plenty of experience with that," Jet snaps. "What we need is some idea of how to control this."

"I don't know how to control Transmutation magic!" I fire back. "Mine just… goes!"

"Wait," Ida says. "Both of you calm down. Let's back up on that, Hannah. You're not controlling your Transmutation magic?"

"No! You think I want to look like this?"

"Then are you certain Jet is a Transmutation mage?"

My mouth falls open, but no words come out of it. I… surely not, right? This couldn't be… no. Oh no, it could. Back when Jet found me out and I tried to channel my Transmutation spell to heal myself, nothing seemed to happen but I was definitely doing something. Jet even said that she felt tingly. I ended up figuring out that my self-changing spell wasn't only Transmutation magic, but that doesn't mean I wasn't casting anything. It just means I was casting something that I wasn't trying to cast. Is this my fault? Is this really my fault!?

"Aura Sight," I invoke, the Goddess licking her lips with anticipation as the knowledge floods into my mind: Light. Jet's aura feels like Light, Pneuma, and a background hint of Barrier. She absolutely has magic, but none of it is Transmutation. No. No, no, no no no no!

"I… I'm contagious," I whisper in horror. "I did this to you. Oh Goddess, Jet, I'm so sorry."

"Please warn us before you do the divine invoking thing," Ida shudders. "She always fucking touches me, ugh."

"Sorry!"

"Wait, stop apologizing for a second," Jet presses. "Just explain. What did you do?"

"I… I just used a spell to figure out what kind of magic you have," I tell her. "And you don't have Transmutation! This has to be because of the magic you got exposed to on Saturday!"

Jet groans, running one hand through her hair which kinda looks like she's lathering it with shampoo, which of course my brain automatically connects to shower and the concept of a naked Autumn and oh dear my mental image of naked Autumn is concerningly clear, spatial sense why are you doing this please stop now is not the time!

"Yeah, okay, I figured it was something like that," Jet groans. "I'd be real fucking pissed at you if you weren't my only lifeline here. I know I said I didn't want to be involved, but I guess I don't have a choice now, so… fuck it. Tell me everything. Then stick around and tell Alma everything when she swaps in, ideally without making her pass out this time."

"S-sure," I nod. "But, um, could you put some clothes on first?"

"I'm sorta covered in blood," Jet points out.

I quickly flex my Order magic, pull all the lingering stains off of her back and bra, and drop all the gathered flakes of dried blood into the toilet.

"There," I announce. "Clean."

Jet blinks, checks herself over, and then throws her arms up in exasperation before stomping past us to presumably go find something to put on.

"Shit, I want that spell," Ida whines.

"I can probably teach it to you," I shrug.

"For real?"

"Yeah, I've named it so I can share it," I confirm. "We should take it slow, though. Invoking magic can still kill you if you do it wrong."

"But it's a cleaning spell, Hannah! That's so useful! Totally worth it."

"I guess so," I agree. "I really want your repair spell, too. I can't repair things."

"Oh, about that," Ida says, smugly putting her hands on her hips. "It's also a healing spell."

"Seriously?" I ask. "Your magic is nuts. All the more reason to want it, now."

"I dunno…" Ida says, smirking mischievously. "I really like having these cool spells to myself. They get less special if other people have them, you know?"

"Well, rest assured, it's your spell," I tell her. "You will always be the most powerful user of it. I'll be casting a drastically weaker version if you do choose to share it."

"Oh, that's less lame then," Ida nods. "Still though, is that how this whole mage thing works? We just get free magic and then incestuously leak it all to every other mage we know like a sewage-borne infection until everyone's a god?"

"Uh… no," I tell her. "It takes most people a really long time to name a new spell, let alone learn someone else's, and you can't actually learn most people's spells. You need to have the same or complementary elements. Like, while you can learn my Order spell, you won't be able to learn my Space spell, and Brendan's an Art mage so we won't be able to learn his magic at all and vice-versa."

Wait, shoot, should I have said 'her?' I didn't even think about… oh no, Brendan told me to keep it a secret anyway. Stay the course, Hannah!

"Aw," Ida frowns. "So I kind of miss out because I'm pure Order, huh? What about Autumn, can we learn whatever spells she gets?"

"Well, one of her elements was Pneuma, so she can certainly learn…"

I trail off, my eyes going wide with horror. Oh fuck, I didn't even think about that before.

"Uh, you okay?" Ida asks.

"Autumn's a Pneuma mage!" I hiss, grabbing Ida by the shoulders in panic.

"Yeah, okay, cool. Why are you freaking out about that?"

"That's soul magic! Mind control stuff! We could be in serious danger!"

"As opposed to danger from literally anything else involving magic?" Ida asks. "Come on, I seriously doubt Autumn knows how to cast, and if she did, why would she want to cast on us? You're overreact—"

"Don't!" I snap at her furiously, and she goes still. "Don't say I'm overreacting. You've never been mind raped. You don't get to talk."

Ida stares up at me for a moment, then nods slowly, gently pushing my arms off her shoulders.

"Okay," she says. "Then here's what we do: I'll go out to the car and wait. When you're done in there, you come out alone, without her, and I'll heal you when you get to me. That should get rid of any mind control."

I hesitate, stepping away from her. I hadn't meant to raise my voice or snap at her like that. I guess out of anyone to lose my cool at, I'm glad it was Ida. She's not even fazed.

"...How would you know whether or not your healing spell gets rid of mind control?" I ask. "That seems like a pretty big stretch."

"Hannah, please," Ida dismisses. "You're friends with the best, remember? It'll work. Trust me."

I hesitate. I really, really don't like this plan.

"The alternative is for us to both scarper, right now, and leave Autumn to deal with this shit without an explanation," Ida reminds me.

Dang it, she's right. I've been burned by a Pneuma mage before, but… just being a Pneuma mage doesn't automatically mean you mind control people, right? Pneuma is soul magic. Maybe it helps her with her own soul or something. It could let her swap between her two selves more easily! Yeah, it's probably just that. …Or is that what I would think if I was being mind controlled!?

…Ugh, it doesn't matter. I don't think I can bring myself to leave Autumn in the lurch. I either have to trust her to not be that sort of person or trust Ida to be strong enough to save me. I can do both. I hope.

"Okay," I agree. "See you later, Ida. I'll text you if I need you."

"If you ask me to come inside I'll assume you're compromised," Ida warns. "You know I'm not falling for anything stupid, so don't try it."

"Understood," I nod.

She nods back and departs. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. It's fine. It'll all be fine.

"Already plotting without me, huh?" Jet asks behind me, causing me to let out a very undignified scream and scramble into some semblance of a fighting stance before remembering that we had that entire conversation in the middle of her house. She's returned from putting on a tank top and shorts because of course she has, dressing oneself doesn't take very long.

I take a deep breath, calming myself as best I can. Ida's right, Autumn probably knows nothing about the kinds of magic she can do. Should I hide it from her? …No, wait, that's stupid, that always backfires. Honesty is the best policy, as always.

"Kinda, yeah," I admit. "You have a really, really scary kind of magic, a kind I've been heavily traumatized by. I needed to work something out with Ida so I don't just freak out and leave."

Her eyebrows raise.

"Oh. Huh. Alright. Something powerful?" she asks.

"Something subtle," I answer, shaking my head. "There are a bunch of types of magic, but the one you have that I'm afraid of is Pneuma. It's soul magic, and a guy used it to mind control me into being a slave once. I'm very much not over it."

"Uh, holy shit, I'd imagine not?" Jet says, her eyes going wide. "That sounds super fucked up. I never want to use that kind of power."

I let out a slow breath.

"Well… it's really reassuring to hear you say that," I admit. "But the thing about mind control is that I have to second-guess everything I think about anything, so…"

"So shit's fucked, I got you," Jet nods. "Look, I don't know anything about any of this stuff, but the last thing I wanna do is cause problems. The way I see it, you're in control here. You say jump, I'll say how high, because I feel like someone just threw me completely untrained into a goddamned nuclear reactor room and I have nothing but your instructions to go by to prevent a complete meltdown."

"Alright," I nod. "I guess… I'll start with the basic warnings and work from there?"

"Sure," Jet nods. "Use me as practice for explaining all this to Alma. You wanna sit down? Have you had lunch?"

Aw turds on toast I left the KFC Ida got me in her car.

"Um, yeah, food would be nice, thank you. Um, I'm a carnivore, though."

"Well I'm not a vegan so I can probably find something for you to eat," Jet smirks, and I swear I see her too-long ears wiggle a little bit.

Her home is a lot smaller than mine, with no second story and a pretty cramped kitchen-living room combo. It's also kind of messy, with rough carpet that clearly used to be a much lighter shade and a concerning amount of dust over everything. I can't help but magically sweep it up as I make my way over to an old couch and sit down after giving it an extra big blast of magic and shoving the huge clump of I-don't-want-to-guess-what-it-all-is out a nearby window. Jet frowns at the sight, but doesn't comment.

"Okay…" I say, gathering my thoughts. "I guess the best place to start is the Goddess. She gave you a soul at some point, and that soul lets you use magic. But the soul is ultimately part of Her power, and to use your spells at their strongest you have to invoke Her. That's what happens when I say a spell out loud, and as you saw… there are some pretty severe consequences for doing so incorrectly."

"Right," Jet nods. "Magic is super dangerous, check."

"Using your magic without invoking the Goddess' attention is both possible and pretty safe, though. I was told the magic you get is based on who you are, and while I can't really confirm that, I know people generally aren't ever hurt by their own spells, even if those spells are extremely destructive. Like, I know somebody who has disintegration magic. She can just remove matter from existence entirely, but she hasn't so much as lost a finger."

"Okay, with you so far," Jet says, grabbing a pan and setting it to heat up on the stove.

"There are a bunch of different magical elements, and you have three, which is apparently really rare. Pneuma, like I said, plus Light and a little bit of Barrier, though that one feels way weaker than your other two."

"Those are some weird names," Jet grunts. "Alma would know more about this shit than I would, but I've never heard of 'barrier magic' before. I've heard of Light, but that one's a huge surprise, frankly. Call me an edgelord but I'd have assumed I'd get Dark, if anything."

"Oh, um, I mean you might have?" I tell her. "Light magic encompasses anything you do with light. So making it, altering it, or removing it. Darkness as a concept is inherent to Light."

"Well fuck, I guess I'm an edgelord after all," she sighs, dropping some things into the pan and letting them sizzle. Whatever it is, it smells salty and delicious.

"Maybe!" I respond. "I have no idea, honestly. But the thing is, you probably will. The magic you get should resonate with you, and you'll be able to call it pretty instinctively. From my and Ida's experience, you'll be able to do it even without much practice. It just… feels right, y'know? And the more you use it, the better you'll understand it, and the stronger you'll be able to make it. At least, I think that's how it works. Some of that is conjecture, but I'm learning to trust my instincts when it comes to magic."

"And is that why my body's all fucked up now?" Jet asks. "Because you started using spells instinctively, without understanding or practice?"

She says it so mildly, like it's a comment on the weather rather than an accusation that I have permanently and fundamentally destroyed her life due to my carelessness. The words push an ache into my chest, sparking the eternal flame of guilt ever brighter.

"...Essentially, yes," I admit quietly. "I'm sorry."

She doesn't respond, focusing on whatever she's cooking for a while, the crackle of the skillet turning what would be an awkward silence into merely an awkward delay. After a few minutes the noise stops and with a clink of silverware she's heading my way with two plates. She hands me a greasy, sausage-filled omelet that sets my mouth immediately watering. Her own omelet seems to have a lot more ingredients: I see mushrooms, peppers, and onions at a glance, and it makes me long for them. But ultimately, while I can probably digest them, I know they wouldn't actually taste how they used to. Those flavors just don't register on my tongue anymore. I dig into my eggs and sausage, however, and it's beauty in my mouth. What the heck, how is this so good?

"This is delicious," I say, quickly swallowing another bite.

"Uh, thanks I guess," Jet shrugs. "I just made it because it's fast and easy."

"Well, I usually eat raw eggs for breakfast, so this is worlds better!"

Jet stares at me for a moment.

"You should stop eating raw eggs for breakfast," she says patiently.

I'm definitely not going to do that.

"You're probably right," I agree honestly.

Jet eats a lot slower than I do, using a knife and fork to carefully take apart the fluffy eggy goodness and eat it piece by piece. Out of sheer awkward energy, I purposefully try to slow down, but since I don't really chew things I instead have to stand up and ask where the glasses are so I can get us water. That and the occasional slow sip wastes enough time that I can keep pace with Jet's slow eating speed. I don't want to pressure her to go faster!

About halfway through her food, though, Jet seems to stop eating entirely, pausing mid-cut with a knife to blink a few times. She quickly glances around, though the confusion the action implies is expertly hidden from her face. When she finally glances up and looks at me, her eyes widen ever so slightly. She swallows, even though no food is currently in her mouth.

This isn't Jet anymore, is it?

"Autumn?" I hedge, since the last time I called her 'Alma' she kind of freaked out at me.

"Hannah," she nods, staring really obviously at my teeth. "Hey."

"Sorry for scaring you earlier," I blurt.

"I… yeah," she says dumbly. "Sorry for… getting scared. I mean, it's still you, right?"

"It's still me," I nod. "I've, uh, pretty much been like this the whole time."

"Yeah," she says, seemingly to herself. "That… makes a lot of sense. The blood in the bathroom."

"Yeah, that… was my teeth falling out. Not a fun time."

"I bet," she agrees. I see the straps of her tanktop shift a little, and I know instinctively that she's wiggling her stubby wings. "I haven't had a fun morning, myself."

"You seem to be a lot calmer now," I point out.

She's quiet for a moment before answering.

"Jet was calm," she eventually says. "Jet… came to terms with stuff while we shifted over. I still kind of have that mood now that I'm me."

I nod, not really understanding but wanting to be supportive anyway. Something certainly feels different about her that I can't put my finger on. Beyond the fact that her personality is different, I mean. But it's nothing physical, I don't think, so what could… oh! I focus on her with my still-active Aura Sight, and sure enough her Barrier magic suddenly feels way stronger and her Light magic feels barely there. The taste of Pneuma feels the same, though. Interesting.

"Jet, uh, wanted me to explain some things to you," I say awkwardly. "Are you cool with that, or…?"

She nods, resuming her meal, so I take a breath and get started. Sure enough, having done it with Jet first really does help, and I know some of the important things to emphasize and the stupid things to not say. Alma seems genuinely fascinated, a lot of the nerdy love for this kind of stuff that Brendan has coming through in her expression, but it's tempered by hard-earned cynicism. Alma's taste in fiction is considerably darker than Brendan's, from what I've picked up, and she recently had her back explode in a fountain of blood this morning. She's frightened, but she's equally excited, and that gives me hope that things will be okay.

"So the whole time we were on our date, you had the freaky hands and teeth and stuff," Alma clarifies.

"That's why I had a smoothie for lunch," I confirm. "So I could just stick the straw up through my mask without taking it off."

"Ohhh my god, that makes so much sense. I was afraid you had an eating disorder!" she chuckles.

"I was afraid that you'd think I had an eating disorder!" I grin back moments before my brain ticks backwards and replays the conversation a little. "...Wait, did you say 'date?'"

"Uh…" Alma says, a blush forming on her face. "I mean… I had fun? Until the whole mugging thing, anyway. I'd be down to, y'know, do something like that again. Assuming the government doesn't find us and lock us up."

"You're cool with the whole 'I'm turning you into a literal monster' thing?" I ask. "Because like, that's a hundred percent my fault."

"Well… yeah, but you didn't do it on purpose, right?" she hedges. "And, I mean, honestly I don't know if I can complain about having wings. It's scary as hell, but it's not like I have a life to get screwed up by it, you know? I've just sorta been… existing. Are you okay with it, though? Like, you know about Jet, and… y'know. I won't always be around."

"I mean, that's fine?" I say. "I like Jet. I don't think she wants to date me—"

"They don't wanna date anybody," Alma grumbles.

"Uh, yeah, and that's her right I think? Or their right? I'm sorry, have I been using the wrong pronoun this whole time?"

"Oh, not really," Alma shrugs. "She or they, Jet's fine with either."

"Right, okay, so um… Jet's neat. I like her. I also like you. And I know you two would have to work out anything in the dating sphere, and… well I mean, honestly, we should probably be talking about the whole magical transformation problem, not dating, but my point is that I'd be happy with whatever you guys work out. I assume I'd just be dating you but not Jet, and we'd have to work around that? That's fine with me."

"We should definitely be talking about the magical transformation problem," Alma agrees. "But that's scary so let's keep talking about dating."

Oh gosh oh no she's going to enable my bad habits why is that hot.

"I don't… like getting close to people," Alma continues. "People scare me. Part of it is because Jet scares me. I barely even know them, but they run half my life. They've made some things better, and I'm grateful for that, but they've made some things a lot worse. Like, they've gotten us arrested and stuff, you know? They say they just want to help, but… I don't know. It's scary, not being able to remember so much. I'm embarrassed about it and every time I have opened up about her it's gone horribly. Nobody seems to get it. But… you kinda do."

Huh?

"Uh, I assure you that I do not," I tell her. "I have no idea what you're going through, I just… y'know. Take what little I do understand and be polite about it. Jet explained how you two want to be treated and so I'm just rolling with that."

"Well, most people don't even do that much," Alma shrugs. "So thank you. It means more than you think just to hear stuff like being called 'you two.' To not be lumped in with her. I appreciate that a lot."

"Oh," I say dumbly. "Well, uh, no problem I guess."

"Anyway, that's… all I wanted to say," Alma shrugs, blushing slightly. "I really appreciate you reaching out to me over lunch and inviting me to do things and I'm really happy you turned out to be so nice and it feels maybe a little fast but I definitely find you attractive so if things work out with Jet then, um, yes. I'd very much like to date."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Oh Goddess oh Goddess oh Goddess oh Goddess a cute girl thinks I'm attractive and wants to date me!!!

"I… even the monster bits?" I manage to ask.

"Well I mean I'm not going to say it isn't a little weird, but it isn't like I'm not in the same boat now. We can be weird together!"

She wiggles her ears at that, and I can't help but bust out into a small chuckle.

"Well," I say, "that's amazing and I'd love to date you too! In fact, I'll probably hyperventilate and die later just thinking about it. But speaking of things we need to talk to Jet about, I do want to mention some other details about your magic."

"Oh?" she asks, leaning back a bit. "I'm definitely excited to try it out."

"Well, interestingly, I think it's likely you and Jet have different spells," I say. "I don't know if you each have your own soul or if you have a shared soul that manifests differently, but you have a really strong Barrier aura and a really weak Light aura, while Jet has the opposite. You both have an equally strong Pneuma aura."

"That's the scary mind control one, right?" she asks, leaning back in her seat.

Yes. Yes, it is the scary mind control one. The one that had me wrapped around a man's finger for weeks without ever knowing it. The one where I have to constantly remind myself not to think about the fact that Alma has it, and then just panic about whether or not I'm being mind controlled into not thinking about it instead. It's that kind of magic.

"That's… correct," I confirm, swallowing nervously. "Though it's possible your Pneuma magic just manages your soul, or maybe it manages the fact that you have two souls, or maybe it does something else entirely. There's supposedly a lot of things Pneuma mages can do that have nothing to do with mind control."

And I'll just have to keep telling myself that to stave off the panic attack. It'll be fine.

"Well, I can just figure out my Barrier spells and ignore the Pneuma spells, right?"

"Uh… hypothetically maybe? But practically speaking, no. If you're anything like me you'll stumble into using all your spells in one way or another. Plus, there's always the chance that you don't have any pure-Barrier spells and all your magic is a combination of Pneuma and Barrier."

"What kind of magic would that even be?" Alma wonders.

"Well, I dunno, that's for you to find out," I shrug. "It's your magic."

"My magic," she repeats, awe filling her voice. "Wow. So Barrier is like… what? Walls and stuff?"

"Walls, zones, areas," I list, nodding. "It's the antithesis of Motion. It's about halting, preventing, defending, or doing something in a particular chunk of space. Why? Do you feel something? Magic should be pretty instinctive if you're looking for it."

"Kinda, yeah," Alma nods. "But uh, shouldn't I practice this alone? What if you get hurt?"

"Well first of all, fair's fair on the 'magical experimentation in public' thing. Second of all, I'd rather be here to help and share what I know than to just leave you to figure it out alone. And third of all, if things do go really badly, I have a healer on standby in your driveway."

"Wait, what?" Alma asks. "A healer?"

I blink. Did she… oh right, she wasn't around when Ida was inside!

"Another mage friend," I tell her. "Her name's Ida. She drove me here."

"Ida? Ida Campbell? Like the popular bitch?"

Geez, why does everybody hate Ida? I mean, I guess she does hang out with a bunch of bullies most of the time. And she's so arrogant she literally has magic based on that. And she insults people constantly in basically every conversation. Okay maybe that was a stupid question.

"Yeah, that Ida," I nod. "She's really not all that bad once you get to know her. Y'know, if she likes you. But she'll probably like you! She seemed to get along with Jet."

"Hannah, you are literally the only person I know who gets along with both me and Jet."

"Well, sure, but how many people do you know?" I ask. "Like, actually know."

"...Low blow," Alma pouts, and I chuckle.

"Hey, I have… four friends, counting you," I assure her. "And counting alternate universes. So, y'know, I'm throwing stones from a glass house over here."

"Wait, alternate universes?" Alma asks. "That sounds like a really really important thing that you just sort of skipped over there."

"Uh… yeah, I'm an extradimensional spider on a world tree sometimes," I shrug. "It's kind of a whole thing, I'm not sure I wanna get into it right now."

Her jaw drops open and she takes a moment to try and figure out words to say before closing her mouth again. Open, closed. Open, closed.

"...Okay I really want you to get into it though, that just sounds… what? What the fuck? Other universes?"

"Look, it's… it's a lot, and a really important friend died over there recently and I just really don't want to think about it while I'm having a nice time, okay?"

She huffs out a sigh, but nods.

"Alright, I'm sorry," she says. "But now that I'm going monster mode with you, you should at least answer this: is that gonna happen to me?"

Uh. Huh. That is a very good question I should have thought of sooner.

"I don't… think so?" I hedge. "I mean, you're not a Space mage. But if you do, it should happen whenever you sleep, so we'll know by tomorrow I guess. In the meantime, are you gonna test out your magic or not?"

"Okay, okay," Alma grumbles leaning forward in her chair enough for me to see the cloth of her shirt wiggle as her wings stretch out from being squished. "God, this feels so weird."

"Goddess," I correct. "I dunno if She cares about being correctly addressed, but I say better safe than sorry, especially when we're about to test magic for the first time."

"Goddess, okay," Alma nods. "...Fuck, religion is real."

"Right!?" I exclaim.

Alma lets out a huff of air that basically says "I'm way too overwhelmed to think about that right now," (which is a huge mood) before getting up and heading towards the center of the room, away from the couch. Then she closes her eyes, focusing on whatever feeling she perceives as her newly-budded magic. I wait quietly, letting her focus. When she finally opens her eyes, they open wide, an awed breath escaping her lips as she glances around, slack-jawed like she just got teleported to the Grand Canyon. I, too, glance around, but only because as far as I can tell, nothing whatsoever has changed.

"Uh, you okay, Alma?" I ask.

"Hannah?" Alma calls out as if she doesn't know where I am. She is maybe five feet in front of me.

"Yep, I'm here," I say. "Everything looks exactly the same to me."

"Wait, really?" she asks. "Not to me! I hear you, but I don't see you!"

She steps towards my voice and puts her hand out, seeming to come into contact with something invisible like a gosh dang mime. I stand up and cautiously walk towards her, reaching out my own hand to touch hers.

"What do you see?" I ask, and then I run into something. My outstretched hand stops barely four inches away from hers, and a ripple in the air blooms outwards from my touch, the crest of the wave revealing a solid wall wherever it passes. The wall is white with red, blue, and pastel pink speckles, with stripes on the trim where it intersects the floor and ceiling. To be clear, I'm talking about where it intersects with the floor and ceiling of this new room, because I realize suddenly that I'm walking on tile, not carpet like I was before, and the ceiling is some sort of giant painting, depicting what looks like part of a face. I can't make it out, though, because the ripple that emitted when I touched the wall has lost most of its coherency, vanishing before revealing much and leaving most of the ceiling as a ghostly, fading apparition. I take my hand away and the entire wall starts to fade, but even after it disappears entirely it seems to still be there. I reach forward and touch it again, the ripple revealing its appearance once more.

Notably, what I can see of the wall intersects with some of the chairs in the room, passing through them as if they weren't even there. I take my hand away and let it vanish again, allowing me to see Alma wandering around on the other side of it. I can only assume she sees the building in its entirety, and as she moves towards the table in the middle of the room I get the distinct impression that she's seeing the magical building instead of the real one. I almost call out to her to stop her from walking into the table, but I'm too slow and she literally walks into the table. As in she steps directly through it, not interacting with it in the slightest. I wave my hand at a nearby chair and smack directly into it, though. What the frizzle is going on?

"This is so cool," Alma breathes, looking up and then starting to walk up a set of invisible stairs, which is about my sanity limit regarding this whole thing. I punch the closest magical wall, hard, and a powerful ripple emits outwards and reveals the entire room to me. The picture on the ceiling is of a sleeping face, half of it Autumn's and half of it a dark mess of broken mechanical parts barely in the shape of a face at all. More importantly, though, it also reveals the room's exits. I take the one that I think will lead me towards Alma, but I can't really tell. My spatial sense is just as confused as the rest of me.

"This is awesome!" she announces. "It's like a giant house that I made with my mind!"

"It's super freaky from my perspective!" I call back, thumping another wall as I step into an area I can no longer see. This room does have chairs, a table, and couches, but they aren't in any of the same spots as the actual chairs, table, and couches, which I can also see. "You walked through a table and now you're going up stairs that don't exist!"

"If they don't exist, then how am I walking on 'em?" she challenges, a huge grin on her face. "Ever think about that? Huh?"

The current magic room fades away from my view just in time for me to witness Alma start phasing straight through the ceiling as she ascends. Oh gosh, that's probably not good.

"Alma, stop!" I yell up at her. "You're going through the roof! People might be able to see you!"

"Woah, shit, really?" she asks, backing down a couple stairs. "But I'm like… indoors."

"Yeah, and you're darn lucky the giant magical house you've apparently created is invisible to other people, because otherwise they'd see that."

"...Oh," she says, blinking in surprise. "Yeah, that's… a very good point. So you can't see all this, huh?"

"I can see a little of it at a time, if I touch something," I inform her. "But I can also still see and interact with the original room, whereas you just walk right through it."

I finally make my way to the base of the magical staircase and meet Alma on the way down. She waves at me, adorably excited about this entire thing, and out of curiosity I ascend the stairs myself after kicking one to make it all visible. I don't see the end of the stairwell, of course, because from my perspective it just eventually intersects with the real house's ceiling. Sure enough, I can only walk up a few stairs because the ceiling is still tangible to me.

"You can't see this, huh?" I ask, pressing on the ceiling with one hand.

"No, you just look like a mime," Alma shrugs, reaching up and passing her hand straight through. "I don't see anything here."

"See, that's what it looks like to me when I watch you go up the stairs or touch walls or whatever," I say.

"Weird," Alma says. "So you're affected by the real world, and you're also affected by anything my magic creates, but you can't see anything my magic creates unless you touch it or something near it, whereas I can't see or touch anything real. That about sum it up?"

"Yeah," I nod. "This is wild. How big is this place?"

"I have no idea!" Alma says.

"Well, you should probably get rid of it for now, then," I tell her. "If it's bigger than your house then other people might accidentally run into it."

"Oh, that makes sense," Alma agrees. "How do I do that?"

"What?" I ask automatically, since the question is a little too scary to process.

"How do I turn it off?" Alma asks.

"Um," I respond eloquently. "You just… turn it off. Aren't you sustaining it with your magic?"

"Uh… not really? I just kinda used it, and it's here now."

Oh dear. That's probably bad.

"...We should figure out how to leave," I suggest.

Alma nods rapidly and we walk off the staircase together, me mostly just following her in an attempt to not run into anything I can't see. At some point she just straight up walks through a wall, though, leaving me completely in the lurch.

"I can't go that way!" I yelp. "Not unless you want me to cause a lot of property damage!"

"Don't damage the real house!" she snaps back. "But you can try to damage the magic house if you want. It'd be useful to see what happens."

I nod and flick a Spacial Rend active on my fingers, earning me a quiet 'woah' from the other side of the wall as a true void of location caresses and extends from the tips of my fingers. I carve into the magical wall, my spell cutting through it like it isn't even there… a bit more literally than I expected, since it straight up just doesn't interact with the magical house, almost like it really isn't there. But… it definitely is. I can't cross this barrier.

I gulp. Something about Spacial Rend not being able to cut it makes me really uncomfortable, for some reason. Spacial Rend has always been inviolable, utterly overwhelming in its capacity to cut anything. Even as someone who hates violence and fighting, that's always been a comfort to me. When I do fight, I know I'm the one bringing the sharpest knife. My Space magic has been all I ever needed to come out on top, but against Alma I'm completely impotent.

There's probably a lot of magic that does, now that I think about it. I've just been arrogant and lucky. I lean against the wall, soaking in that frightening revelation when suddenly the magical room disappears, leaving me supported by nothing and sprawling face-first into the floor.

"Figured it out!" Alma calls out, and I hear the back door of the house opening as she lets herself in. "I had to find the exit to the magic house and leave. It disappeared when I did. I don't think it can exist if I'm not inside it."

"You have an insane spell there, Alma," I say, getting up off the ground and walking back into the living room to meet up with her. She stiffens a bit when I call her that, but she quickly relaxes.

"Yeah," she agrees. "It's pretty nuts. I'm already getting a ton of cool ideas on how to use it. I just need to see how well I can control the size and shape…"

"Just try not to get caught, okay?" I warn her. "We still don't know what happens if we get caught, and your spell is pretty huge."

"Yeah, I get it. Don't break the masquerade. Ugh, it's going to be a pain trying to focus on school with all this happening."

Yeah, welcome to my life. Also: holy crap, school! I totally forgot about school! I grab my phone and check the time, feeling despair take me as I see fifth period has already started. I'm going to miss two entire classes! My perfect attendance record! Noooo! What if they call my mom? No, no, that's crazy, there's no way the school will call my house for just two absences, right? Besides, it'll be too awkward to go back now, but I still need to head to work.

"Welp, um, I guess it seems like you're doing pretty well then?" I hedge. "I hope I helped."

"You did, really," Alma nods. "Thank you, Hannah. You have to get going?"

"Yeah," I confirm. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Really," she says, smiling. "This was a bit more traumatizing than the magical fantasy awakening I always dreamed about, but I'm feeling a lot better thanks to you."

"Good," I smile. "Great. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Talk to you tonight, maybe?" she hedges. "Over text, I mean. If I have something cool to say."

"Okay, but plausible deniability is the name of the game over anything a particularly unscrupulous version of the NSA could monitor," I warn her.

"So just… the regular NSA?" Alma asks.

"Yeah."

She lets out a small chuckle and waves goodbye, so I wave back and turn to depart, blushing so hard I might burst. This was fun. A lot more fun than I expected a call for help to be. Also I maybe have a girlfriend now aaaaaaaaaa!

I exit Autumn's house and find Ida sitting in her car tapping away on her phone, so I walk up to greet her.

"Hey, Ida! I'm ba—"

"No Less Than Perfect," the Goddess says with Ida's lips, and then I feel Her power wash over me, into me, through me, flowing and caressing every inch of chitin and skin, soothing all my aches, checking each and every wrinkle in my brain for something out of place. It's a borderline orgasmic experience, and by the end of it I'm left feeling like I just got out of a two-week healing spa resort trip. No, better than that. Nothing hurts anymore, not even the slightest discomfort exists in my body, no matter how small. I feel energized, but in a healthy way, like I've just woken up from the best sleep of my life rather than just downed more than the recommended daily amount of Red Bull.

I am stunned by the experience. I can't move or speak, only bask in how… how perfect I feel right now. And the frightening part about it is that the feeling isn't going away. My body will hurt again later, I know this. I'll get injured, wear and tear will accumulate, things will go wrong. But I have actually, physically been changed in such a way that at least for now? I don't have those problems.

"Hey, Hannah," Ida greets me, still looking at her phone. "So did I just wipe a bunch of mind control, or were you clean?"

"H… how?" I manage to breathe. "I thought… Ida, you weren't supposed to—"

"You said I shouldn't name a spell until I fully, completely, one hundred percent understand it," Ida says, cutting me off. "But I don't do anything less than a hundred percent. Of course I'm gonna get that shit first try."

She finally looks up from her phone and smirks at me.

"So?" she asks. "How was it?"

"I… indescribable," I manage, opening the passenger door and getting into her car. "Was that your repair spell? It's… it's insane."

"There are some major limitations, but nothing all that annoying," Ida shrugs. "You need to focus, though. Mind control?"

"Huh? Oh! No, I don't think so," I tell her, running back through my memories of Alma and I talking. "Yeah, I think we're good. Nothing jumps out as suspicious to me."

"Cool," Ida says, starting the car. "Well, now that we have this taken care of, you wanna hang out with me for a while?"

"Uh… I would, but I need to go to work," I admit.

"You are a half-bug woman with a taste for raw meat and a magic spell that mutates people," Ida says. "You really, really don't."

"I-I can just not cast that spell!" I protest. "Look, if I break any more from my routine now my mom will find out and everything will go to hell from there. Let's just drive around until school ends and then you can take me home."

She sighs, but she backs out of the driveway anyway.

"One of these days I will figure out how to seduce your stupid, dense ass," she grumbles.

Wait. S-seduce!? Wait, she's still… oh gosh, oh geez.

"I-I'd prefer you didn't!" I sputter. "I think Alma and I might be dating now?"

Ida gives me a suspicious side-eye, which is all the more uncomfortable given how fast she's currently driving while not looking at the road.

"You're going to date Alma," she says like she's talking to a particularly stupid child. "The girl with the magical element that you're so traumatized by you nearly had a breakdown in the middle of her house."

"She… she makes like, soul houses with it, or something!" I sputter. "She's not that kind of person!"

"Uh-huh," Ida grunts. "Have fun telling that to your panic attacks."

No, it's not… it's not like that! It'll be fine! I just won't think about it. Not thinking about trauma has always been my most reliable response to trauma. My phone buzzes, taking me away from my thoughts. See? Distractions are always the answer.

It's a text from my mom. My heart skips a beat, utter terror filling me at the prospect that yes, she must have been informed of my absence by the school. My life is over. Shakingly, I read the words.

Your therapy appointment is this Saturday at 2:15pm.

Oh. Well. That's much worse.