Elisime and Calypso arrive on the western shore a little over a day after setting off and fly out over the sea without meeting any resistance from the Defence Force. Emily guides the ships towards the path Calypso took to bring them to New Denntimo, searching for the whirlpool that caught her attention.

It only takes a few hours for them to find it when Elisime detects a mass disturbance in the air ahead of them. Emily extends her magical senses, and her eyes widen in shock.

It’s grown so much? It no longer just emits the pressure of a fourth circle being; its energy level matches one.

She brings Elisime to a stop above the churning whirlpool, signalling for Calypso to wait as she steps out to check the natural phenomenon herself. Mensacus follows her out, and together they float down to walk across the water’s surface, spiralling down to the centre of the massive depression.

Mana rushes by, practically blinding Emily’s senses with its sheer quantity and dizzying motion, but it all seems to collapse in on itself at a single point below the surface where the strange pressure is emanating from.

That reassembles a spatial disturbance, maybe a fold of some kind, but it’s unnervingly stable. Is it the pressure?

“Nothing living will approach,” Mensacus informs her, gazing straight down into the pitch-black depths below. “It scares them, but it doesn’t smell familiar.”

“I’m not surprised,” Emily responds, crouching down and pushing her hand below the surface at the centre of the churning water basin. “Despite being in the water, whatever this is, it feels neutral. Not a single leaning towards an element.”

Standing up straight, Emily looks up to the ships hovering above and waves her hand, sending out a signal to the people inside.

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Understood,” Pod responds through her earpiece as she removes the layer of mana on the soles of her feet, letting her body plunge below the surface.

Emily is instantly grabbed by a raging current and pulled down, but she barely reacts, holding herself stable as she’s thrust towards the convergent point below. Mensacus dives in after her, splaying his tentacles and using them to stabilise himself as he glides comfortably through the water.

Barely any light reaches them as they sink lower and lower, so Emily focuses on her magical senses, trying to understand what’s going on while Mensacus watches their surroundings for any threats.

Fix… Six… Eight? Eight mana veins intersect here. No wonder this thing’s growing so quickly.

They approach the spatial distortion that Emily could feel from the surface, and they both freeze themselves in place with a light flex of their water mana, not daring to get too close.

It… resembles a dungeon. But it doesn’t look done, and it’s already fourth circle…

Emily floods the water with her machina, releasing enough charge to light their surroundings as she notes down every spec of data she can, from the rate of water flow and temperature to the ambient mana density of the silt being picked up from the seabed.

With the current rate of growth, it should reach the upper bounds of fourth circle within another three years. I’ll ask Minerva to divert some more attention to it later and leave an observation team behind for now.

Satisfied, Emily nods to her son before kicking off for the surface, weaving a spell to take hold of the surrounding currents and battling against the strength of the whirlpool as she propels them upwards. Mensacus layers his own spell over hers, easing her burden until they burst from the water, shooting into the sky while shedding layers of water to end up bone dry before they step back into Elisime.

Emily opens one of the rear cargo holds with a burst of machina as she returns to her workshop, dropping an enchanted float that locks itself in place at the edge of the raging whirlpool. Standing on top of the watercraft carrying an assortment of detection devices and a radio transmitter is a small squad of metal soldiers who immediately get to work, setting up their instruments to send a constant stream of data back to the relay in her factory.

***

Hours later, as day is fading into night, the shores of Keban come into view on the horizon. Pod informs Emily, so she stores the new injector module in her left arm’s ring finger and leaves her workshop, leading Silica into the ship’s cockpit to meet her apprentice.

“It looks like someone’s waiting to say hi,” Pod says the moment they walk in, pointing towards a small flock of grounded airships waiting by the shore.

Emily focuses on them, making out the faint silhouettes of several familiar people standing outside their ships, watching Elisime’s approach.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she mutters, flooding the ship with machina to speed her up.

“What? You know them?” Pod asks, pulling out a magnified scope and peering through it. “Oh, it’s that fire mage!”

“Virgil Hibiscus,” Emily confirms with a nod, staring at the two familiar men beside him. “Along with his son, Dante, and another of our friends, Enzo. Looks like they’re either trying to talk me down quickly or make a good impression. Shall we find out which?”

Without waiting for a response, Emily wraps the cockpit’s inhabitants in a blend of purple and blue mana, linking them all to a spatial anchor outside the ship before warping them out. They appear ahead of Elisime, standing in the sky on a crackling platform of sparks that immediately rockets forward, carrying them to the shore in the blink of an eye.

Virgil holds up a hand as they approach, signalling for the gathered mages and soldiers behind him to relax as he beams up at them with his family’s signature grin.

“Welcome back, Miss Coldstone,” he announces in a booming tone, projecting his voice without the assistance of mana. “As fun as our last meeting was, I take it that you’re willing to have a calmer discussion this time?”

“Of course, Mr Hibiscus,” Emily responds, dismissing the spell that has carried them over and withdrawing the pressure of her circles while discreetly signalling for her son to do the same. “And I think you’ll find I was perfectly calm at our last meeting. You’re the ones who tried to block my path.”

“Haha, fair play,” Virgil barks, throwing his head back and slapping Dante on the shoulder. “You were right, Son. I like her.”

Emily raises a brow but doesn’t comment as Virgil turns to direct his troops.

“Pack up and get our engines running! We’re moving out!” he shouts, and immediately, the cautious gazes trained on Emily and her entourage disappear as the temporary camp kicks into motion.

“It’s good to see you again,” Dante says while his father’s distracted, flashing Emily a beaming grin. “Congratulations on reaching fourth circle.”

“Thanks. It’s good to see you too,” Emily replies with a small nod, turning her focus back to Virgil as Dante frowns at her response, and exchanges a confused and disappointed look with Enzo, who Emily overlooks altogether.

“Now, let’s get this official business out of the way so we can have a proper chat. I was sent here to wait for your return by the king, and he has requested that I escort you to Chroni for an audience. Are you willing to heed his summons peacefully?” Virgil asks with a muted, unimpressed tone, clearly regurgitating the words given to him by someone else.

“A summons, not an arrest?” she questions, receiving a nod in response. “Then, of course, I have no reason to resist.”

“Perfect!” Virgil beams, visibly relaxing as he steps forward to offer his left hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, and you left quite the impression last time we met. Call me Virgil.”

“Well, Virgil, you left quite the impression yourself,” she responds in kind, shaking his offered hand and watching his gaze dart down to her cold metal touch with unconcealed curiosity. “Your spellwork was very impressive, and I owe you gratitude for not targeting anything crucial in our ship. Just call me Emily. This is my apprentice, Pod, and my children, Mensacus and Silica.”

Dante visibly startles at the mention of children as Emily gestures behind her, but Enzo beside him only raises a brow with a hint of understanding in his gaze as he takes in Mensacus’ mechanical construction. Virgil’s attention is split between Pod, who dips his head in greeting, and Mensacus. His expressive brow creases.

“He’s… not a mage? And he’s mighty strong for one younger than you.”

“Thank you,” Mensacus whispers, pushing out his chest with pride and ignoring the nearby soldiers, who flinch at his guttural tone.

“Pod’s following me to learn from my mechanical pursuits, not magical, and Mensacus is a special case,” Emily explains, sending up a signal to stop Elisime above them and calling down the access elevator. “I’m sure Dante told you about the curse we ran into in The Glade, right?”

“He did, but-”

“Didn’t you destroy it?” Dante asks, cutting his father off and receiving a playful smack to the back of the head in response.

“I lied.” Emily shrugs, flashing him a small, fleeting grin. “I actually sealed the cursed vessel I found there and, after feeding it the lives of some I’ve encountered on my travels, my son was born.”

“He eats people?”

Virgil doesn’t hit his son this time as he waits for the answer himself, observing Mensacus closely.

“Do you remember the state we found that cavern in? All the grogler bodies? That was him feeding,” she explains as the mechanical chimaera in question drops to one knee beside her, lowering his head so she can caress the scales down the back of his neck. “He feeds on death itself, human or otherwise, and only needs to be near someone as they take their last breath. At first, I fed him by accident because I didn’t seal him properly, but once I realised what was happening and that he wouldn’t harm me, I didn’t stop.”

Dante nods before turning his cautious gaze to Silica.

“What about her?”

“Oh, she’s harmless,” Emily replies, scratching between the sand-fox’s ears. “I had a damaged elemental core which I repaired and bound to a body to create her.”

“I see your love for your creations hasn’t changed,” Enzo mutters, causing Emily to break out into a wide, genuine smile that momentarily stuns her old friends.

“No, it hasn’t.”

Her face falls back into a neutral mask after a few moments, and Emily gives her kids’ heads a final pat before gesturing towards the platform lowering from her ship.

“Shall we?”

***

After confirming that Virgil doesn’t need the rest of his fleet, Emily sends a message to Calypso’s crew before leaving them behind and increasing the power to Elisime’s engines.

She takes Virgil and her friends on a short tour of the ship, pausing by the cargo holds and weapon placements to give them time to admire her work, before ending up in the cockpit.

“I can give you a firing demonstration if you’d like,” Emily says, dropping into her seat and turning up the loose panels on the floor for her guests, “but I think it’s best to leave that till after our visit to the capital.”

“That’s smart.” Virgil nods, turning his attention away from the railguns and towards the scenery rolling past.

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Dante says, reluctantly pulling his eyes away from the big guns to focus on Emily, staring straight into her eyes and ignoring the fox pawing at her lap. “So, other than your flourishing magical and mechanical cultivation, how have you been? We heard about what you did to the Mandragos, but, well, you know.”

Emily nods calmly, her lack of reaction causing both Dante and Enzo’s brows to furrow.

“I’ve been well enough, but I guess I’ve had my ups and downs,” she says while forming a table between them with a twisting of metal mana, pulling a tea set from her belt, and presenting several jars filled with different blends of herbs. “Would you like a drink? I find having a detailed understanding of beneficial herbs is a very useful product of my alchemy research.”

Everyone nods in agreement.

“Please. What would you suggest?” Enzo asks, mentally noting the cups set out for both of Emily’s children.

“For you,” Emily says, pausing to take in the minute changes she can sense in his mana. “My earthen blend.”

She opens one of the jars and uses a simple wind spell to gather the crushed herbs within, placing them into one of her teapots before activating its heating enchantment.

“For Dante, my fire blend, and for Virgil, I think a soft, body-centred blend would actually benefit you most,” she continues, filling two more teapots in turn before selecting a tea for herself and Pod.

“What are you having?” Dante questions, watching her lift all of the teapots at once as her eyes take on a semi-metallic sheen.

“I’ve gained any lasting benefits I can already, so I’ve simply chosen one for the taste. This is a blend aimed towards boosting the speed of information transfer inside your brain, but I find it very sweet with a satisfying sour kick.”

Each teapot sways in a different pattern in the air, mixing the tea within for a few seconds before drifting over to pour into their cups. The earthen blend is split between Enzo and Silica, and Mensacus shares the same choice as his mother.

“When I returned to Eimdon,” Emily says after taking a sip of her steaming-hot brew. “I found Anna dead. Executed with her head speared on the Mandrago estate’s front gates. Anna is – was – my sister,” she adds for Virgil’s benefit.

Enzo chokes on his tea, and Dante slams his cup down before taking a sip, spilling drops across the glistening metal tabletop. Virgil frowns in distaste, but otherwise controls his reaction, sipping his tea and relaxing into his seat as if receiving a full-body massage.

“That’s-” Dante shouts before Emily cuts him off.

“Revolting, and they got what they deserved. I regret nothing. But unfortunately, the mental strain of the event caused a slight abnormality in my mind that you may have noticed,” Emily explains, raising her metal hand and releasing a flood of raw machina into the air, letting them feel the difference from lightning magic. “I never really explained it, but I suspect you all had your suspicions. When I first awakened, I not only formed a magic circle, I changed my brain into what’s called a cortex, an organ able to process another esoteric energy type: machina.”

“That’s why he has a raised energy signature!” Virgil suddenly declares to his son’s, and Enzo’s, confusion, pointing at Pod.

The moment Pod releases sparks of machina from his skin, though, their eyes light up in understanding.

“Yes, Pod was the first person I awakened as a mechanic.”

“Why can I barely tell his energy signature is any different from a mortal’s?” Enzo asks before finally taking a sip from his tea and raising a brow in surprise as he feels a warmth spread through his chest, marginally increasing the ease of his internal mana flow.

“He’s not using mana, so you’re looking for the wrong thing. You’ll understand better as your mana sensitivity increases with your circle,” Emily says before bringing them back to the main topic as she sweeps up Dante’s spilt tea with a wave of mana, depositing it back into his cup. “My point is, my cortex mutated, accelerating and altering a process I believe would have happened anyway. It’s dampened my emotionality and led to a change in my demeanour, but I’m working on it. Anyway, after that, I fled to New Denntimo as you know, and the first thing I did was look for a mercenary company to join the war…”