Font of Fertility Ch. 24 (Beta) (Patreon)

The following is the Beta Draft of Font of Fertility Ch 24. As a Beta draft, this is not the final work and may see major changes prior to final posting out in the wide world.

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All Characters participating in sex are 18 years or older.

This story is a continuation of the Font of Fertility series. I would suggest reading Chapter 1 if you have not already. This chapter includes a dinner party and a few sexy texts.

Jeremiah has a family dinner with a Seat of Death.

Returning Dramatis Personae

- Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ Grant - Seat of Fertility, aka. Powerful Sex Shaman

- Esmerelda - Seat of Death, aka. Powerful Death Wizard, second-youngest Seat, weirdo

- Lauren Baxley - Public girlfriend, Jerry’s Prime in the magic world, closest friend and confidant

- Stacey Wilde - Girlfriend/Concubine, godchild of Jerry’s parents, athletic

- Lindsey Baxley - Girlfriend/Concubine, Lauren’s step-sister via marriage, girl-genius

- Annalise Stoker - Concubine, Fire Mage

- Benji - Jerry’s guy friend from high school, the one with the attitude

- Jay - Jerry’s best guy friend from high school

- Clarissa - Jay’s Canadian girlfriend, who is a actually real

- Maya - Annalise’s younger sister

Referenced Characters

- Ndia - Eldest Seat of Fertility, aka. The Most Powerful Sex Shaman

- Ezekiel - Former Seat of Fertility, his death caused Jeremiah’s ascension

- Genghis Khan aka Temüjin - Seat of Fertility, aka. Powerful Sex Shaman

- Yaroslav - Seat of Life, aka. Powerful Experience Wizard, stoner/partier

- Angela ‘Angie’ - Lindsey’s friend from high school, has been dating/sleeping with Jerry

- Jordan - Redheaded writer friend, interested in Jerry and his Harem

- Anna ‘Other Anna’ - Yaroslav’s Prime, magical media mogul

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The dinner was going great. We’d all arrived. Esmerelda had arrived. No one had died or gotten magically blown up or anything.

That would be considered great, right?

Unfortunately, we were only about 40 seconds in, so that could change.

“If family dinner is too far out of your comfort zone, we can go,” Lauren said, challenging the Death Seat a little more than I thought might be smart. She had a mask of a smile on her face, but as I glanced around I could tell that all of my girls were a little steely at the moment. Stacey was wearing an expression a lot like Lauren’s, while Lindsey seemed to be assessing everything about Esmerelda all at once and filing it away in her mind.

Annalise, the only woman at the table who could potentially actually do anything about Esmerelda if something went wrong, looked like a statue but her eyes were wide open - her natural expression was generally with those slightly hooded eyes, her face relaxed into a ‘resting bitch face,’ so I could tell she was on edge.

The problem was, I felt a little on edge as well, and I wondered if maybe that was feeding into their responses. Esmerelda wasn’t the other Seat who had attacked me; that was generally a settled concept. But she was a Death Seat whose power not only came from death happening near them, but she’d also acted creepy as hell at the Council Meeting. Even without her spooky clothing getup or the skull facepaint, she had an aura around her that was menacing.

“That won’t be necessary,” Esmerelda said as she continued standing near the door to the room. “None of you pose any serious threat. And that includes you, stud bull.” She glanced at Annalise on ‘none’ and me at ‘stud bull.’

“Join us,” I said, ignoring the comment and gesturing to the seat across from me at the table. “Please.”

She nodded, a slight smirk on her lips for a moment, then came around the table and passed behind Annalise before stopping at her open chair. She pulled it out and then very blatantly looked under the table, frowned, and sat.

“Something you were expecting?” I asked. “This really is just a dinner.”

“I was just interested to see if you had brought a sex pet of your own to tend you during our meeting, or if you had taken one of the staff here to do it,” Esmerelda said.

“That has some… disturbing connotations to it,” I said slowly as I sat back down in my chair.

“To be clear, if Jerry needed some ‘tending to,’ one of us would be happy to do it,” Lindsey said with a smirk. “Very, very happy.”

I sighed but decided to ignore Lindsey’s ‘pro me’ comment as much as I’d ignored Esmerelda’s barb. “Is that something that the other seats do, or Ezekiel? That sounds pretty fucking rude to everyone involved.”

Esmerelda lifted one dainty eyebrow as she leaned back and rested her folded hands on her stomach casually. “You saw Ndia at the meeting. Your kind of power is the easiest to accrue, though it comes in slightly smaller amounts than those of Life or Death because it’s about an action and not a state of being. The first time I met with Ezekiel outside of a Council meeting he was balls-deep in a woman, and went through three more before our meeting ended. At least he warned me that he was in the middle of preparing for a ritual. Ndia is ploughed constantly in the real world - she’s carried around on a palanquin by her harem and a new man is fucking her within moments of the last one finishing. Temüjin takes breaks to meet with other Seats and for his other sport, but that’s rarely. As the heir of Ezekiel, I wondered if his… proclivities had manifested in you - the other Seats have told me stories of Poi Fung, the man who occupied my Seat before me, and I see mirrors.”

“Jeremiah can control himself,” Stacey said, reaching over and taking my hand. “He isn’t some deviant sex addict.”

Esmerelda’s lips flicked a quick smile and then went back into a neutral expression. “Well, you can certainly hope that he stays that way.”

There was a big part of me that just sort of wanted to verbal-vomit all over the table and the room. Even with just what she’d said, I’d had six different questions come to mind of shit I felt like I should, or at least wanted, to know. I was overflowing with questions. But there was another part of me that still wasn’t sure about feeling safe even admitting to not knowing some things. I didn’t even know what it was dangerous for me not to know.

And this meeting, for all that it could give me information, wasn’t actually about that. Information I could hopefully get elsewhere, from sources that weren’t as likely to angle things the way they wanted.

I needed someone I could at least begin to trust. Going into the Council meeting, I hadn’t said it to the girls but I’d hoped that there would be a natural alliance with the other Fertility Seats, but that hadn’t happened. Genghis Khan had been dismissive at best, and Ndia had been willing to explain basic shit but hadn’t exactly gone out of her way to be an ally. Over the last couple of days, I’d realized I couldn’t trust either of them. Genghis Khan was a warlord who had conquered a swathe of the world in bloody campaigns that had never been matched - more than Alexander the Great, more than the Romans throughout their entire history. Ndia was… for all intents and purposes, Ndia was a primal, elemental being compared to me. Pre-known history. If I were Frodo, Genghis Khan was Sauron and Ndia was Morgoth, at least in terms of age. Hell, maybe they were inherently evil too. Hard to know so far.

But Esmerelda was… I didn’t have a metaphor for her yet. What I did know was that, other than Yaroslav and his potentially fake ‘chill vibes man’ attitude, she was my best bet at finding something close to a modern contemporary. At least until that other vacant Life seat was filled - and I hadn’t said it to the girls yet, but I was concerned about that, too. Another young Seat, someone unestablished and unknown to me or the rest of the Council, could cause more chaos for me and everyone else.

I needed to be ready for when that happened. And for that, I needed an ally.

“Honestly,” I said, replying to her little barb. “I’m not worried about becoming some sex-numb rabbit fucking anything that moves. That’s partially why I think something like this, a family dinner, is important - Lauren might be my Prime, and Lindsey, Stacey and Annalise might be my ‘harem,’ but I’m in love with each of them for who they are. The sex is great, but they are more than that. And yeah, I’m showing you my weakness here, Esmerelda, because I think it’s also my strength. And I’m trusting that you’re at least honourable enough to appreciate my trust in you and not to leverage them against me.”

Esmerelda narrowed her eyes for a moment that hung on, then pursed her lips just slightly like she’d come to some decision that was just a little more than inconsequential. But she didn’t have a chance to respond as the doors to the room opened and three servers came in with our first course of Ajiaco Cubano, a Cuban chicken soup. We were all quiet as the bowls were placed neatly in front of us, my girls and I thanking the waiters quietly, and then the servers left the room.

“Jeremiah,” Esmerelda said. “Who said anything about me being honourable?” Then she lunged out of her chair and grabbed my hand in hers, clutching it tightly as she dug her nails into my skin.

My vision flashed black, and then a deep blue. The blue of a night lit by a half-moon. I was surrounded by lush orchards and pristine agriculture that should have made a picturesque view. Should have, except for the screams. They were everywhere. A thousand voices, wailing so hard that they might tear their throats from grief and terror. But the screaming was coming from me as well, and my throat was torn from it and when I wasn’t screaming I was coughing up the blood that threatened to choke me. I staggered through the orchards, watching as the bodies fell. Man, woman and child. They died where they staggered, some alone and some clutching each other.

I could see the sickness on them. In them.

The vegetation cleared, and I was looking up at a stepped pyramid - no, a range of them, a dozen, perfectly aligned to the sun and stars, carefully designed and built over an age by magic and by hand. At the height of the main pyramid, Ilhicamina was feverish in his work as his lesser priests hauled the living to the sacrificial altar, cried out prayers and demands for health and protection from his dead gods, and then paid the blood price he thought would buy their favour. A thousand corpses lay scattered across the steps of the pyramid, and he would continue until the people finally turned against him long after it would be too late.

The High Priest had no notion that it wasn’t his gods he was feeding, but me. Every death fueled my power, which in turn fueled the destruction I wrought.

Revenge and hate. They would all pay for-

“Are you much of a foodie, Esmerelda?” Stacey asked. I blinked and everyone was sitting around the table in the restaurant. I was sitting with my spoon in my hand, but I hadn’t taken a bite of my soup yet. None of the girls looked like something strange had happened, or that Esmerelda had lunged at me. The only thing that hinted that it had happened was the fingernail mark on the fleshy skin at the base of my thumb. And the awful memory that was quickly fading from my mind like a bad dream.

“Is that a question of whether I eat food, or simply sustain myself on the death and souls of my victims?” Esmerelda asked.

Stacey, to her credit, didn’t flinch whatsoever. “It was exactly what I asked. Do you like trying new foods? That’s what a foody is. Though I guess if you are some sort of cannibal you could still be a foodie by trying new cooking techniques or something.”

That actually cracked a full smile from Esmerelda, though it was a wild sort of grin that hinted at an unsettling mirth at the dark joke. “I’m not a cannibal, though I have known more of them than most,” she said.

“Mm!” Lindsey hummed, eyebrows lifting as she held up a finger while swallowing her first mouthful of the soup. “From the remote tribes in the Amazon, right? The ones that have had almost no contact with the outside world in centuries.”

Esmerelda nodded, eyes narrowing again as her wild grin slipped into a grimace. “Yes,” she said. “How do you know about them? I wiped knowledge of them and their ancestors from the face of the planet for a reason.”

We all glanced at each other, a little awkwardly. That flash of memory was almost gone, the feelings lingering and making me more uneasy than before.

“I, uh, watched a documentary?” Lindsey said, her voice coming up into a question even though it wasn’t one. “There’s… multiple…?”

“Sorry to break it to you,” Lauren said. “But they aren’t exactly a big secret. Well, I mean, they are still isolated, but we know about them.”

Esmerelda was frowning and nodding. “It seems when I return to my territory I have some reminders to hand out,” she said.

The girls all glanced at me, and I tried not to give away how fucking ominous that had sounded.

“Stacey’s question stands,” I said, trying to shift the conversation back. “Are you big on new foods, especially after multiple centuries?”

“I don’t seek them out,” Esmerelda said, daintily lifting her spoon to her lips in an almost aristocratic sort of way with perfect posture and elegance that was nothing like the rest of the way she carried herself. “But I occasionally enjoy something new that is brought to me.”

That led to a long, somewhat uncomfortable silence. Apparently, Esmerelda wasn’t much of a small-talk person.

“Do you keep a household of some sort?” Lindsey asked. “Friends, or employees?”

“I live in the deepest parts of the Amazon where no man has set foot in four centuries,” Esmerelda said. “I am served by the animated bones of my enemies, and I pull the strings of every Ascended across the continent. I have no need for a household or friends. You could call my servants employees, of a sort.”

“Mmm,” Stacey shook her head, pointing at Esmerelda with her spoon. “Bullshit. I call bullshit.”

“Stace,” I said, cautioning her.

“Nah-uh,” Stacey shook her head at me, then turned to Esmerelda. “You’re totally lying.”

Esmerelda set her spoon down and curled her hands into fists, sneering a little as she glared at Stacey. “You dare call a Seat of Death a liar?” she growled.

Annalise looked like she was about to shit herself on the other side of Esmerelda from Stacey, and her eyes started to glow softly. Stacey, on the other hand, snorted. Loudly.

“Bitch, please,” Stacey laughed. “You’re obviously lying. First of all, and ignoring all the things you could just use magic for like being fluent in English even if you never speak it, there’s your clothes. Sure, you’re dressed down, but you aren’t dressed like it’s the last decade, let alone the previous century or three. Second, there’s no fucking way you would have a shitty, bathroom-sink dye job on your hair if you live by yourself out in the middle of a jungle. You did it on a whim for sure, and someone you like helped you with it even if it could use a stylist. And lastly, and this is the big one, you’re having way too much fun playing the spooky Seat.”

Esmerelda looked like she was about to blow up. I had a half-dozen half-formed spells all competing for my attention. Attacking her, defending Stacey, and shielding all the girls. Teleporting them away without a teleportal. But then she cracked a smile again and laughed.

The laugh went on a little too long. And then she stopped and stared at Stacey. “I lie constantly, girl, but I only tell the truth. Would you prefer it if I never told the truth, but promised not to lie?”

“... What?” Lauren asked.

Esmerelda turned a slightly-crazed grin onto Lauren. “You haven’t wrapped your heads around it yet,” she said. “Truth is subjective, lies are reality, and even if you bare your hearts and souls to me I’m not going to tell you anything useful about my life.”

I had to take a deep breath and let it out, and I glanced at Annalise who was doing the same.

“So is this just some ritual hazing or something?” I asked.

“No,” Esmerelda said, shaking her head. “It isn’t.” Her grin lost that edge and she smiled almost sweetly. “This was just me having a fun conversation. The others are as weird and dangerous as you think they are. And so am I, for what it’s worth.”

“And what about at the Council Meeting?” Lauren asked. “All the staring.”

“My walls are of my own making, my prison is self-imposed,” Esmerelda said. “Most of the other Seats will give you time to adjust before they start manoeuvring you around, Jeremiah. A century, or thereabout, is what they gave me. But that was a lot less time than it is now. Things took longer back then. I was also… let’s just say that the events of my Ascension were unusual, and I grew in power much more quickly than anyone else on the Council.”

“The fall of the South American civilizations,” Lindsey guessed.

Esmerelda nodded, and her side-eyed glance at me had me remembering something like a dream that flared a strange emotion in me for a moment, though I wasn’t sure what it was. “That’s what you could call the short version,” she nodded. “I used that to my advantage, and while I may not hold the most lucrative of territories in terms of mundane resources and number of people, no other Seat has sought to challenge my authority. Ezekiel was the closest in proximity, and he and I came to an understanding.”

“What sort of understanding?” Lauren asked.

“The kind where we don’t poke our noses in each other’s business,” Esmerelda said levelly. “He was more of a politician than I was, but we were both generally left to our own devices, isolated across the oceans as we were from the rest of the civilizations. The rise of this new, modern world has created more and more connections to the domains of the others, which brings new risks even if it brings prosperity to our territories.”

“So what you’re saying is I’m benefitting from Ezekiel’s isolationist policies, but I’m going to need to adapt sooner than later,” I said. “Either by getting more defensive, or becoming a politician.”

Esmerelda nodded, then turned to Annalise. “Tell me of your father,” she said.

Annalise looked spooked again for a moment, and I reached across to her with my mind. ‘You can tell her whatever you are comfortable with, Anna,’ I assured her. ‘We’re with you.’

When I cast the spell Esmerelda immediately looked at me, and I realized she must have some sort of ‘magic sight’ like I had used before, or something similar. Again, I felt kind of stupid for not having that going myself, or any other protective spells. Annalise also looked over at me and nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered back in her head. And then I got the distinct sense of her forcing her confidence back to the forefront of her mind before I disconnected from her.

Annalise told Esmerelda almost everything that she knew. Her story lasted through the rest of the soup course, and after a brief break for the servers to move in and out, most of the way through the appetizer course as well. She ended with the discovery of another person at the site of her mother’s grave.

Throughout the story, Esmerelda had made the appropriate concerned frowns and noises of disgust or commiseration at the right times, but part of me felt like it wasn’t entirely genuine even while she wasn’t varying her emotions wildly. Not that she wasn’t legitimately feeling and responding to what Anna was saying, but more like she was forcing herself to engage with it.

I had to wonder if empathy was difficult for her because of her magic, or if it was a nerve that had been deadened and worn smooth over time.

“This explains more of what I saw in Jeremiah’s vision from his laboratory,” Esmerelda finally said. “In this century, it is not likely he would do this without having been broken himself, either in mind or spirit. If this were two, perhaps three hundred years ago, I would not blink at it.”

“Do you think you know what he’s been working on?” Lindsey asked. “I’ve been trying to piece together some possibilities, but I don’t have enough of a foundation to build any credible theories.”

Esmerelda looked down the table at Lindsey, somewhat amused for a moment. “No, Houdini,” she said. “And you shall not gain any secrets of the deep magic from me.”

“Houdini?” Lauren asked.

“The sleight-of-hand charlatan,” Esmerelda said. “He is still famous for his tricks of misdirection, surely?”

“Well, yeah,” Lauren said. “But why call her Houdini?”

“You reminded me of him, when he sought me out,” Esmerelda said, looking down the table at Lindsey. “He was desperate for the secrets to what he called the ‘deep magic,’ as if it were something that could simply be taught. He even offered me sacrifices, but I turned him away. Magic is not something that can be learned - the formulae, the runes, the rituals, they are all knowledge that can only be ignited by the spark of someone who has Ascended.”

“That’s perfectly fine with me,” Lindsey said. “I’m not looking to do magic myself. I’m purely in it to make sure Jerry is as equipped as possible.”

Esmerelda smiled, and for the first time other than when Stacey called her out I saw the emotion cross all the way up into her eyes. “Well, good luck with that, Houdini.”

The appetizers were crab croquettes that were ridiculously delicious even to me, who wasn’t a fan of seafood very often. The conversation shifted a bit, and the girls began to dominate the conversation more as they tried to attack the ‘make friends with Esmerelda’ plan from different angles.

The problem was, Esmerelda was exceedingly good at avoiding talking about anything substantial even if she also wasn’t biog on small talk. She was good company, when she wasn’t hinting at something dark or horrible, and if I were to guess I could have brought her home to meet my parents and they wouldn’t have blinked an eye. She even looked around our age, though I couldn’t be sure if that was on purpose for us, or just the age she generally presented as. I had to keep reminding myself that she was somewhere around 500 years old when she wasn’t presenting as on the edge of sanity.

Lindsey tried to connect with her on history, having done research in advance, but Esmerelda made it fairly clear she didn’t want to talk about the history of her territory or her own history in it. She did laugh pretty hard at the idea that Aliens had helped build the old monument sites and ruins, once she understood what ‘Aliens’ were supposed to be.

Apparently places like Machu Picchu, the Nazca Lines and Easter Island were all accomplished through magic, not aliens. She also hinted that several of the geological ‘wonders of South America’ were also her work, though not which ones.

Stacey came at her from the ‘we’re all just girls’ direction, testing to see if she was up on modern pop culture like music and fashion. Esmerelda seemed vaguely aware of some things, but very aware of others - though to be fair, I also was only vaguely aware of some of the things Stacey was referencing. Still, though, we got very little insight into her personal life even if she could drop some quotes from The Office or sing the start of that Backstreet Boys song.

Annalise was a little more tentative in her questions, though it was more from mild embarrassment as she asked questions about the magic community - this had been planned ahead of time, though Anna had free range to ask about anything she wanted. It saved me from needing to ask the questions, which I was starting to regret feeling the need to protect myself from.

Again, even though Esmerelda assured her there was nothing to be ashamed of in her isolation from the Ascended communities, the Death Seat was relatively tight-lipped. She claimed that she didn’t actually know much of the various societies up here in the US or Canada, though she was aware of those that were in Mexico but they were hers to wrangle now. She had several that she had needed to exert influence over down in South America, though she wouldn’t expand on that as ‘every time was different.’ She also noted that both the ‘Vampires’ and ‘Shapeshifters’ in her lands were distinct from those across the ocean, but those in my territory would be a mix of both ancestries as Ezekiel had allowed colonization to be open to all Ascended as long as they followed his Proclamations.

Lauren, of course, had to be the most blunt of the girls in her approach and snuck in her line of questioning after a relatively innocuous one from Stacey.

“So, do you have anyone special?” she asked. “A boyfriend? Or girlfriend? We obviously wouldn’t judge. Does a Death Seat, like, date?”

“Are you offering to take me on a date, Lauren?” Esmerelda asked with a knowing smirk as she lifted an eyebrow.

“Not a shot,” Lauren replied, taking my hand and grinning at me for a moment. “I’m a happily tied down woman. But with harems being such a thing with the Fertility seats, I just had to wonder if you other Seats get your freak on in the same way and just don’t get power from it or anything.”

Esmerelda sighed and shook her head. “I can’t speak for the other Death or Life seats; they have their own tastes and desires. As for my harem, well… let’s just say they’re up to their necks in it.” The way she said it didn’t exactly make it sound like a euphemism.

“Girl, please tell me you aren’t on a century-long dry spell or something,” Lindsey said. “That would be criminal, you are fucking hot.”

And fucking crazy, I thought to myself. Not uncontrollably, but she was definitely not normal.

“If you want, you can bang it out with Jerry,” Lauren offered, making me cough hard to try to interrupt her. She glanced at me and rolled her eyes. “No strings attached, obviously. And not magically enhanced like whatever Ndia does.”

“Esmerelda, what Lauren is offering-” I started, but stopped at seeing the pure amusement in the other Seat's eyes. “It’s on the table if you’d like,” I corrected myself, not wanting to piss off the crazy-hot Death Wizard. “But definitely wasn’t something I was expecting to offer.”

“So this wasn’t all a ruse to trip me into bed with you and your harem, Jeremiah?” Esmerelda asked with a chuckle.

“No,” I said.

“Maybe,” Lindsey laughed.

“No,” I repeated, shooting a glance down the table at my girlfriend. “I have no doubt that an evening with you would be wild, but that’s not what this is about.” I gestured to the table, and in an almost perfectly timed moment we were interrupted as the waiters came in to take away the appetizer dishes and deliver the entrees; lechon asado with a side of heavily seasoned rice and beans, and fresh vegetables.

As the waiters left, I sighed and rubbed my temple for a moment as I shot a look at Lauren. She gave me one back that clearly said, ‘What? It was worth a shot!’

“If this meeting isn’t about trying to sex me up,” Esmerelda said once we were alone. “Then perhaps it’s time for you to come to the point of this meal, Jeremiah Grant. Or was this unnecessary to add to our deal in the Council?”

I took a moment to taste the pork, chewing slowly as I nodded, and then washing down the spicy kick of the food with a sip of my water. “The point, Esmerelda, was to get to know you, and for you to get to know us. I’m hoping that you and I can be more than just neighbours, but for that to happen there needs to be some trust. I already know that you weren’t the one to attack me.”

“And how do you know that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously even while she slowly started to grin. I really couldn’t tell if she was doing it to throw me off or if it was a natural swing in her emotions.

“Because the attacker said two words, and they were a quip,” I said. “A stupid little joke to aggrandize their ego. ‘He, me,’ he said. He. And while I think you’re smart enough to set up a misdirection like that, I also don’t think it’s your style.”

Esmerelda was frozen for a moment, then while her grin remained her eyes opened fully and she nodded slowly, leaving her dinner untouched for the moment as she leaned forward with her elbows on the table, a complete separation from her earlier perfect aristocratic poise. “Interesting theory,” she said. “And, for what it’s worth, I will say it wasn’t me, though you should never take anything another Seat says at face value.”

“I know,” I said. “Truth and lies. Real and unreal. I got it. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to… connect. I’ve already shown you my family and exposed myself. Now I’m hoping you’ll do a bit of the same.”

“And what is it you would like me to expose?” Esmerelda asked, her grin turning lecherous.

“What do you want, Esmerelda?” I asked, still trying to just ignore the wild swings in her expressions and not get distracted. “As a Seat. As a woman travelling through history.”

The Death Seat blinked in mild surprise, leaning back as she looked at me with hard, cool eyes that felt more real than a moment ago. I also could almost feel Lindsey wanting to make a sex joke at the other end of the table, but she thankfully suppressed it and kept quiet.

“Let me ask you this, Jeremiah,” Esmerelda said slowly. “With the power you have at your fingertips, what do you think you should do with it?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said honestly. “Before all of this started, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to create stories and worlds that would entertain people and make them ask questions.”

Esmerelda nodded and pursed her lips slightly. “What you have inside you, Jeremiah, is the power to do that outside of a page. To rework the earth. To build the magnificence you see in your mind. To shape culture and change lives. The law of the Council is that we can do what we want in our territories, but that isn’t true. Not really. Too big an idea, too big a change, and the other Seats will oppose you.”

“Did that happen to you?” I asked quietly.

She smiled bitterly and shook her head. “No, not at first. When I was a young Seat I had the freedom of isolation to do what I wanted. But when that isolation ended, when my works were a risk to the status quo of the others, they demanded I curb my desires. And while Ezekiel and I were of the same mind on some things, we were not allies.” She took a breath and levelled a gaze at me. Then she pushed her chair back and stood, starting to pace on her side of the table while Annalise tried not to freak out at her moving around behind the fire mage. “What I want, Jeremiah Grant, is for the status quo of our world and the Council of Threes to be disrupted. Not ended. I’m not seeking war or chaos. But they have become so interconnected, so reliant upon their own agreements and treaties to maintain peace, that they’ve abandoned our roles as Seats. Our true callings.”

“And what calling is that?” Stacey asked.

Esmerelda smirked, just a little, as she paced over to Stacey and leaned on the table as she looked down at her. “We are meant to redesign the world,” she said. “To refresh that which is stagnant. The evercycle of being - Birth, Life, and Death - is not meant to only be on an individual scale. This world is choking on the division of magic from the people. Science is reality, but our existence is not only reality but also unreality. Atlantis was banished from the world because they focused too much on the unreal. Now our Council deals with the trauma of that by forcing the Ascended to hide themselves, removing magic from the population at large, skewing the balance of the world.” She turned to me, still leaning close to Stacey. “Let me ask you again, Jeremiah - with access to unlimited power, are there not things that you would change about your country? Natural disasters increasing, poverty and mental illness on the rise. Addiction. Crime. Waste. Corruption.”

I had to swallow. She was right. I knew, even without having graduated high school yet, that there were real problems in the world. Problems that governments couldn’t just fix. But there were also risks. Horrible risks. She knew history better than I could and had seen more than I could imagine, but I had… it felt stupid to think, but I had the benefit of a writer’s imagination. A reader’s, too. I had explored the depths of evil in my mind, and the shades of grey, to try and create good antagonists. Good stories.

It was a slippery slope to hell.

“This is a lot to think about,” I said.

“It is,” Esmerelda laughed energetically, then turned and planted herself back in her seat and speared a fork into her food. “And I’ve had centuries to consider. So I don’t expect an answer from you now, or soon, on this. Eventually, Jeremiah Grant, in a thousand years or so, you and I will likely be somewhere in the middle of the Council instead of at the bottom. So dream about what is possible, and not just what is.”

Esmerelda turned in her seat and picked up the poster tube that she had been carrying when she walked in. She rattled it a little and smirked when she held it up. “The Rod of Ash and Hew,” she said, then popped the plastic lid on the tube and let it slide out. The rod looked like it was made from some sort of hard stone, but seemed too organic to be carved by hand. It was about a foot and a half long, with water-like curves at the base and the flanged head. I could see it was covered in runes, but the thing at least seemed dormant.

“I’ll take that,” Lindsey said, standing up and coming around the table. Esmerelda nodded and handed the relic to her. Lindsey looked at it almost greedily, though I knew it was because she couldn’t wait to start examining it - and those runes- carefully. She took the poster tube as well and, after a long moment of looking at the rod, she packed it away again.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” I asked. “And why trade it to me when I didn’t even know it existed?”

“You can do whatever you want with it, though I suggest using it instead of trading it away,” Esmerelda said a little wryly. “And I wanted you to have it for the same reason that Ayoub gave it to me - because a new Seat should learn about true power early so that you can better understand it.”

“Ayoub?” I asked.

She nodded, her expression darkening deeply as she spoke. “The Life Seat that is empty belonged to him last. He was not old, like Ezekiel - he Ascended between Temüjin and I. His death… that’s something to talk about another time, I think.”

“Because that’s not ominous at all,” Stacey said sarcastically.

“Agreed,” Lauren said. “How about instead of being mysterious you just spell it out, Ezzie?”

The nickname had Esmerelda raising an eyebrow, but Lauren didn’t back down from it since the woman’s dour demeanour seemed to leave her in an instant. “Fine,” the Death Seat said, then glanced back over at me. “Ayoub Nicali’s death seemed to be the same as any Seat who gives up their life, but I suspect he was killed. He was too young, and had too many plans for the future, to have succumbed to time.”

“You suspect one of the other Seats?” I asked.

She hesitated. “It would make the most sense, but there are other possibilities,” she said.

“Other Ascended?” Annalise asked. She’d been quiet through most of the conversation, absorbing everything, but at the sound of a potential threat, she leaned forward a little. “Someone like my father?”

“Your father would not have been a threat to Ayoub,” Esmeralda scoffed, and I tried to ignore the hopefully unintentional insult since he had been a threat to me. “But yes, another Ascended or a group of them is the next most likely. Ayoub was a warrior, though, greater even than Marcel and Temüjin in skill and training. He held little territory because he cared nothing for politics and everything for self-perfection of mind, body and spirit. His death would have been an assassination from an angle he would not expect.”

“Ezekiel’s… was not,” I said. “I’m certain of that. He left notes.”

“I know,” Esmerelda said. “I saw them.”

“You-” I almost asked ‘you did?’ thinking Ezekiel might have shown her. But then I realized that, if the two of them had been friendly in their isolation policy, Ezekiel might have trusted her more than Ndia or Genghis Khan. “It was you?”

“He hoped it would be, to be fair,” she said.

“God damn it,” Lindsey sighed from down the table. “Can we at least get the books back?”

Esmeralda smiled serenely as she looked over at Lindsey again. “No, they’re mine for now. Maybe I’ll trade you for them someday. Otherwise, you’re on your own to try to unlock those secrets. It’s how we all have to do it.”

Lindsey shot Esmerelda a dry look and flashed her the finger, which just made the Death Seat snort a little and crack a grin.

“Alright,” I sighed. “The rod. What does it actually do, if you won’t lend me any manuals on how to use it?”

“It’s an old tool, but powerful,” Esmerelda said. “A thing that can only be created by more than one Seat working together, so the sort of relic we haven’t created in thousands of years. You feed in a negligible amount of power, and you can control earth, stone and minerals at will. Move mountains, create islands, dig gorges. Build things, erase things. Cause earthquakes, or still them. I haven’t tested it, as the results would be disastrous, but I suspect you could call down the moon with it if you wanted to. And not all, but many, Ascended would also be able to use it. Not just a Seat.”

Lindsey looked like she was split between cradling the poster tube like it was a baby, or treating it like she was holding an unstable nuke. Maybe both at the same time.

“I’m not telling you what to do with it, but you should try using it to do something. For you,” Esmerelda continued. “Indulge yourself, even if it’s a secret.” Then she finally took a bite of her food, frowned and then looked at Annalise. “Do you mind?” she asked, gesturing at her cooled plate.

“Uh, sure,” Annalise mumbled and waved her hand over it, the meal heating back up in moments.

“Thank you,” Esmerelda said, then she pivoted to look at Stacey as she assumed that aristocratic poise again while she started to eat. “So, Stacey. Tell me more about this competitive rowing - it sounds much like self-imposed slavery at the oar, to me.”

Stacey took a moment to flow with the conversation pivot, but soon the girls took over the conversation again and I let it flow around me. Esmerelda had dropped some bombs in between her emotional fluctuations. I took a brief respite from the conversation to try and start sorting everything away in my head for later, but I knew I didn’t have the time to do that fully. It was a constant problem I had with the magic world - too many questions, too many unknowns, to really even get started. I’d joked with the girls before about not having a Hogwarts to Harry Potter-style learn about the world, but it was really frustrating me deep down.

If I was living in a story, it would be a mess of a first draft. The ‘mentor character’ was limited, I wasn’t on some journey outside of my little bubble - I was stuck living at home with my parents if I wanted to keep my life, and all of my options for experienced allies to learn from were either as clueless as I was or fucking crazy. If I were reading my life as a story, I would think the author didn’t have a clue and needed to scrap the whole thing and start over.

But it was my life, not a story, so I couldn’t expect things to follow the narrative flow of Tolkien or Harmon or anyone else. Life wasn’t a story, or a journey, or whatever philosophical metaphor people liked to use to try and make the ups and downs feel warm and fuzzy. Life was a wilderness where the only thing you couldn’t do was rewind your steps, and it was full of danger.

Do something for you, Esmerelda had challenged me. Hadn’t I been doing that already? Wasn’t sleeping with a bunch of women, and choosing to fall in love with six of them already doing what I wanted? And I was in love with Jordan now - I couldn’t deny that. She was sexy and in my head in a way that even Lauren wasn’t. If anything, Lauren was my heart and Jordan was my brain. The others… they weren’t less. At all. But they felt like perfect compliments to me, puzzle pieces that matched perfectly, instead of being parts of the same piece.

I was doing Love my own way, but so far my use of magic had always been reactive. Had been guarded. I did things to help myself and others, to do my duty as a Seat, and to try and figure out what it all meant and how I was supposed to do it. I’d done fun things for the girls.

What had I done for myself?

Well, other than make my dick bigger, and that had been the first thing I did.

What did I want to do with my magic?

I didn’t have that answer yet.

Working through all of that, only to come to a non-answer, was frustrating but necessary to start the conversation with myself before I opened it up with the girls. It had also taken the time for most of us to finish our entrees, and the waiters came in to clear the dishes. When they were gone to go fetch the desserts, Esmerelda leaned back in her chair and let out an exceedingly impolite belch that trailed into a satisfied sigh.

“Well, this has been nice,” she said, looking around the table at the girls. “And I’ve decided that I don’t want to kill any of you, so that’s good.”

“Gee, thanks,” Lauren snorted and shook her head. “There’s still dessert coming.”

“I think it was a wise man who said ‘Always leave them wanting more,’” Esmerelda said, standing up. “Perhaps we’ll do this again in a decade or so.”

“Esmerelda,” I said, “I would like to do this more often than that if we’re going to be at least friendly neighbours.”

“An annual thing, then?” Esmerelda asked with a little smirk on her lips and a slightly raised eyebrow twitch.

“I was thinking whenever we had the desire to talk,” I offered. “I know you and Ezekiel were cordial, but I think you were more than that.”

“And what, exactly, do you think we were then?” Esmerelda asked, leaning over and placing her hands on the table as she stared at me. “You think I rode his big, black cock? That I became one of his whores, addicted to him and letting him put baby after baby inside of me?”

“Jesus Christ,” Stacey muttered.

“Never met him, he was before my time,” Esmerelda said off-handedly to her.

“No, I didn’t think that,” I said with a sigh. “And I wouldn’t judge you if you were like that with him. I don’t think I’m in a place to judge anyone right now. But I don’t think you were. I do think that you two were more than neighbours though. I think you helped each other. I think you used the Rod to help him create his Sanctum.”

Esmerelda slowly smiled. “That may be true,” she admitted.

“Then, since I’m using it for now, I feel like I should offer you something in return,” I said. “As an act of goodwill to start us being able to trust each other. If you have a project you want help with, I’ll help. No payment, no expectations.”

“And if I ask you to help me kill someone? Or lots of someones?” Esmerelda asked.

I swallowed. “I’ll ask that you consider my temperament and outlook on things when you decide what to call my offer up on,” I said. “And I didn’t say I wouldn’t ask questions.”

“A favour with caveats isn’t quite the chit you seem to think it is, Jeremiah Grant,” Esmerelda said darkly.

“Neither is threatening to abuse the offer of a favour,” I pointed out.

“Also, a good fucking is still on the table,” Lindsey pointed out. “Just saying. And that won’t even be the favour.” Lauren snorted and covered her mouth at that.

“Fine, Jeremiah,” Esmerelda said, standing up. “When I come up with something that I think is worth testing your trust with, I will let you know.”

“And until then?” I asked.

“Until then, you can stay on your side of our border and continue to experiment. The next time we meet, I expect that you should have a new understanding of what we are capable of,” she said. Then Esmerelda stood up straight and looked up to the ceiling of the room and spoke a word that seemed to pass through my brain without registering. I knew I heard it but my brain just didn’t comprehend the very sound of it, let alone the meaning. I didn’t have time to consider that, however, as Esmerelda’s clothing withered to dust and I had one split moment of seeing her naked - she was as hot under her clothes as she was with them on, her breasts were perfect and budded with little innie nipples, her stomach was flat and natural, and she had a mane of close-cropped dark curls on her mound. It was only a split second of beauty, however, before it turned to horror as her skin melted and sloughed off her muscles and bones, all of her tendons snapped and her musculature coiled and sprang into confetti as her organs darkened into husks and broke into dust, and then her bones collapsed without anything holding them up and clattered to the floor.

The room was quiet for almost an entire minute.

“What the fuck?” Stacey asked for all of us.

The bones were gone - all of Esmerelda was gone.

“Must be some sort of weird teleportation,” Lindsey said, having stood up to examine the floor. “No residue or anything. I wonder- I wonder if she was even here at all? Maybe that was some sort of a homunculus or copy or clone or something.”

“Lindsey, baby,” I said, holding my head in my hands as I rested my elbows on the table. “Theories later.” Annalise looked as spooked as I was sure that I did, and we made eye contact and I tried to reassure her silently.

Lindsey took her seat as the dessert was delivered, an extra being placed at Esmerelda’s spot since they must have assumed she’d gone to the washroom or something. It was a creme caramel flan that smelled sugary and amazing, and all I could do was look at it and imagine it melting to reveal a skeletal structure inside it.

“So…” Lindsey said once we were alone again. “After dinner, are we going to call up your Miami Hottie and have a little orgy at her place, or what?”

Lauren snorted again and shot a glare at Lindsey.

“She asked for more warning than that,” Stacey said around her first mouthful of the dessert. “Probably wants more time to get her butt ready for another king-quality dicking.”

I closed my eyes and tried to figure out what the hell I was feeling, but was distracted by Lauren’s hand sliding onto my thigh and squeezing me softly. I opened my eyes again and found all the girls looking at me.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re quiet, dorkus,” Lauren said. “Too damn quiet.”

“That was a lot,” I said. “I’m stressed.”

“Talk about it now, or wait to process a bit?” Lauren asked me.

“Process, I think,” I said. “Unless anyone has early thoughts?”

Lauren looked to Lindsey, who shook her head and gestured to the Rod, which was still leaning against the table next to her. She had plenty to occupy herself with.

Annalise was next around the table and she shrugged. “I agree, it was a lot,” she said. “And she’s obviously not quite… right. But I think she offered you a lot to think about, and I think she was right about one thing. You need to do some stuff for you, Jeremiah. Like with me and finding out I can teach myself to fly. I don’t know how to explain it right, but you’ve been doing so much for all of us, and we happily do things with and for you. Doing something for yourself is different though.”

Lauren smiled and reached across the table to take Annalise’s hand and give her a squeeze of agreement.

“Well, I don’t know about all that,” Stacey said, polishing off the last of her flan quickly and then smacking her lips. “But I do know I’ve had something on my mind since Esmerelda walked into the room.”

“What’s that?” Lauren asked.

Stacey smirked, then lifted up her spoon and dropped it on the floor. “Oops,” she said. Then she slid down from her seat and crawled under the table.

“God damn it,” Lindsey said. “I was gonna do that after the serious talk.”

“I got here first, bitch,” Stacey laughed from under the table as she got between my legs and quickly started working on my zipper.

“Stacey-” I started, but Lauren grabbed my hand to interrupt me.

“Let her, Jerry,” she said, then leaned over and kissed me softly. “We’ve all been wanting to do it since Esmerelda brought it up. Even Annalise.”

I glanced across the table at the fire mage and she blushed and shrugged.

“Tonight we relax,” Lauren declared. “No more magic talk, no more Seat talk. There are busy days ahead of us, and we’re splitting up for a bit in the next couple of days even if we’ll all be together again soon. So I vote that our absolutely lovely, handsome, powerful, sex god boyfriend pays for our night out, and then we head back home, pick up Angie on the way and we have a proper Jerry and the Harem evening.”

“Five on one sounds fun,” Lindsey smirked.

“After I’m done down here,” Stacey said from under the table, already sucking my cock as I breathed deep and slow to keep my composure from the tingles of pleasure she was sending through me.

“Of course,” Lauren giggled. “Plus, Jerry hasn’t even started his dessert.”

“I think we’re his dessert,” Annalise said, grinning mischievously, and all of us looked across the table at her a little shocked before we started laughing.

***---***---***

“Get fuuuuucked,” Lauren cheered in a sing-song voice as she smashed through another of the Mario Party minigames, winning by a landslide.

“God damn it,” Benji said, dropping his controller in frustration as he’d been the next closest to winning. Again.

I smirked a little and shook my head, then checked my phone again as I felt it vibrate. I’d elected to sit out for the game since it was only for 4 players.

To be fair, I didn’t even deserve to be awake that morning after the night I’d had. Following the end of dinner, we’d ended up at Angie’s apartment and things had gotten a little wild. I’d put up a sound barrier around her room, and all of the girls who didn’t have it already got the fire-proofing so that Annalise wouldn’t cause any injuries. Lauren had spent a lot of time with her, as had Lindsey, to make sure she was comfortable and having fun, which was a good thing because with five girlfriends in one bed, I wasn’t exactly making a lot of choices. With three girls I could be in charge, with four I could direct the flow a bit. Five was where I lost control to their whims and always had my cock, my mouth and at least one hand busy.

At the end of the night, we’d needed to split up. Angie stayed home, and I left her in bed with a searing kiss. Lauren and Lindsey had headed home as well, while I dropped Stacey at home and then returned to the Bed and Breakfast with Annalise to spend the night cuddling with her since she hadn’t gotten that yet.

And, unfortunately, that only lasted about four hours since we’d been out so late. Then I’d gotten woken up by a call from Lauren, right after a call from Stacey, who were both reminding me that we were back on the schedule for the week and I couldn’t sleep in.

I stopped at home, making an appearance for my parents so they wouldn’t question where I had been, and then Lauren had picked me up for our hangout at Jay’s house. Clarissa was leaving the next day early, so this was the last chance we’d have to get to know her more.

Making sure to tilt my phone screen away from the others, I checked my text and couldn’t help but smile a little. Angie was getting ready for work and had taken a picture of herself, fresh out of the shower in the bathroom. I sent her an eggplant emoji and an overheating face emoji and closed the message.

“What’s so funny?” Jay asked me from across on the other couch. He was sitting next to Clarissa as she leaned back on him from the middle seat, and Benji was on the other end. I was sitting in the chair with Lauren sitting on the ground and leaning back against my legs.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head lightly.

“Dude, that’s like the eighth text you’ve gotten this morning that made you grin like that,” Benji said.

“Jealous how popular he is?” Lauren asked, making it sound like light teasing even if it was a bit of a prod at Benji considering he was still on thin ice.

“Well, no,” Benji said.

“I am,” Jay said, not under the same cloud as Benji was. “What’s the deal? Join a new Discord server or something?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s nothing,” I said, making a show of putting my phone in my pocket. And, of course, it vibrated right then. Both the guys and Clarissa looked at me.

“Well?” Jay asked.

“It’s fine, I’m here,” I said. “Paying attention.”

“Maybe we should check it,” Benji suggested.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Lauren sighed. She stood up and reached her hand into my pocket, pulling out my phone and winking at me where they couldn’t see. Then she made a show of unlocking my phone and looking at the message as she grinned. “Damn, she’s looking hot as hell,” Lauren said. Then she turned the phone to me without showing the others. It was a picture from Jordan, all done up and sitting in the passenger seat of a car as she flashed her little tits with her pierced nipples by pulling her sweater up. She’d told me earlier she was going to hang out with some of her old High School friends. The text that came after said her friend was paying for the gas inside.

“Wait, who looks hot?” Jay asked.

“You’re lying,” Benji shook his head.

“I dunno, boys,” Clarissa said. “The look on Jerry’s face says otherwise.”

“Lauren, someone else is sending him pics and you’re OK with that?” Jay asked.

My girlfriend shrugged with a grin and handed me back my phone. “Why wouldn’t I be? We both fucked her.”

That had both Jay and Benji’s eyes going wide, and Clarissa guffawing.

“Are we gonna play or not?” Lauren demanded as she sat back down, this time in my lap. “Cause I’m like two turns away from winning the fuck out of this round.”

***---***---***

“Cash payment,” I confirmed with the Used Car Salesman.

He looked me up and down, glanced at Annalise and Maya, and shrugged before heading back to his office to get the paperwork in order.

“Jerry, you didn’t need to get something so new,” Annalise said, taking my hand as we were left alone.

“Yes, I did,” I said, taking her other hand in mine as well and squeezing them both as I looked down at her. She was back in her usual scruffy style, wearing a hoodie even though it was moderately warm down in southern New Mexico despite it being winter.

“Stop questioning your boyfriend, Anna,” Maya sighed and rolled her eyes. “He’s a sex wizard god guy or whatever. Let him treat you to a two-year-old truck.” I didn’t miss the slight implication that as the resident ‘sex wizard god guy or whatever’ I could have possibly done more than a two-year-old truck, but I had my reasons. First, because buying something used would come with less hassle than buying from a brand dealership. Second, because Annalise wasn’t the kind of girl who cared about new so much as useful. And it hadn’t taken me too much effort with an online search to find the right truck to get her.

“I’ll question my boyfriend all I want,” Annalise said to her sister, then turned to look up at me. “Thank you, Jerry.”

“You’re welcome,” I said and kissed her lightly.

“Am I getting a goodbye kiss like that too?” Maya asked with a smirk.

“No!” Annalise said, letting go of my hand to swat at her sister.

I’d teleportaled the two of them to a restaurant down the street from the Used Car Dealership in Albuquerque, and we’d walked onto the lot. With the truck nearly in our possession, it was almost time for me to leave them.

“You’re sure you want to do this without me?” I asked. “I can push the other stuff.”

Annalise breathed in through her nose and nodded. “I can handle it,” she said. “Though I might want to call you tonight if that’s OK?”

“Of course it is,” I said, pulling her into a hug. Then I spread my arm out and invited Maya into the group hug, and she joined. “Anything you need. Anything either of you needs.”

“Not anything,” Annalise mumbled at her sister, which made me snort a little.

The salesman came out with a clipboard, and I quickly signed where needed and so did Annalise. The truck was going under her name, and she would drive it back up and meet us once she and Maya were done meeting with their older brothers, and going back to their old house to salvage anything else they could before the weather could do any more damage to the abandoned property.

The salesman was shocked when he realized I meant cash and pulled it out of my jacket pocket, peeling off a few thousand to hold back. It had taken under an hour in total, and he handed Annalise the keys. The girls, with their bags of clothes and things that they'd bought while staying at the Bed and Breakfast, climbed into the truck and I leaned in the driver’s window and kissed Annalise.

“Call me if you need anything,” I said. “And be safe.”

“I will,” she promised.

“Have you decided…?” I asked, leaving it open-ended.

“I think I need to tell them,” Annalise sighed. “In case he comes back. And to explain everything.”

“If I know and can handle it, so can our brothers,” Maya said.

“You might still be one of us,” Annalise pointed out. “Ascendance can happen any time during puberty, and usually a little later on.”

“Well if I am a wizard, I hope it’s something dope like sex magic and not just blowing people up with fire,” Maya said. “Then again, if I get something that would make sex with most other people impossible…”

“Shut up, Maya!” Annalise grunted, making her younger sister cackle at how easy it was to tease her. Annalise turned to me and kissed me again. “We’ll see you in a week or so. I love you.”

I grinned hard enough that my cheeks hurt and I kissed her again. “I love you too.”

“Now go learn what you can from the Finnish Media Mogul,” Annalise said, turning over the engine of the truck. “I want to hear what she has to say. And if you fuck her.”

“I promise to give you all the details that are relevant,” I said with a little eye roll of my own.

Once they had pulled away, I stuck my hands in my pockets and watched the truck until they turned a corner and drove out of sight. I didn’t like Annalise going off on her own with George still somewhere out there, but it was necessary. George Stoker hadn’t shown his head yet, and as far as I knew he was magicless. The girls couldn’t live in fear of him forever.

And she’d be back, and was going to join Lindsey and Stacey up at Cardinal. Then they’d be together, and Lauren, Angie and I would join them next school year.

It couldn’t come fast enough.

With a sigh, I hit the sidewalk and started walking back up the street to that restaurant that had a convenient door to teleportal through. I really did have a meeting to prepare for with ‘Other Anna,’ Yaroslav’s Prime.

I didn’t notice the way the shadow beneath the nearby used Camaro shuddered, stretched, and then detached, sliding across the ground and skipping from car to car before silently merging with my own.