Jason hugged his sister. They were alone on the rooftop garden of her family home.

  “This is good,” she said. “Hugging those avatars of yours is like hugging cold rubber.”

  “Teically, this is an avatar as well. The difference is—”

  “Shut up, little brother. Save yisense for ter.”

  “I only just got here, and you’re already so mean,” he teased.

  She let him go and pced a hand on each of his shoulders, staring him in the eye.

  “I’m sorry for how we left things,” she said. “I know it was amiable, but there was a distance. A distahat shouldn’t be there with family.”

  “I uand, Eri. I was damaged. You were right to see me as dangerous. It ran deeper than any of us realised. After I left, it took me a long time to e to terms with just how close I was to…”

  He turned away from her.

  “Jason, we didn’t grasp what you were fag. The ges that magic was bringing were just beginning for us. For the whole p, really. You were deeper in than we were, and we didn’t uand what that meant. Not until Europe fell around us, drenched ih and blood. That was your life before it was ours, and what it was doing to you scared us.”

  “It should have.”

  “We should have been there for you. Instead. we pushed you away.”

  “And you were right to do so. You had a family to protect.”

  “You’re our family.”

  “Eri, I came close to going pces you don’t e back from. Not all the way, and I don’t think I did, really. My friends had to stop me from doing things I wouldn’t want you to see. To be around. Your instincts were good, big sister. I didn’t know how far gone I was, but you know me. You saw it. I wasn’t someohat I would want anywhere near Emi.”

  He turned back to look at her again, giving her a smile.

  “I’m in a much better pow. And I didn’t mean to be away so long, but I have responsibilities. To be the person I want to be, I ’t turn away from them, even if it costs me. And you. But I’m baow. The important thing is that family is the pce you e home to, even when you’ve made mistakes.”

  “You know, we could have talked about this through your weird avatars.”

  “It’s not the same. For you, the bodies I make don’t feel real. For me, the emotions don’t. The avatars are great for elling power or discussing pns, but there’s a remove. A dista’s like remembering something you felt a long time ago. That’s why I only showed up when I o. Why I held ba the sappy reunions. I want the sap all over me, not the rubber guy you’re making time with.”

  “Well, that didn’t take long. I’m regretting you ing back already.”

  Jason ughed and collected his sister into an.

  “They’re almost here,” he said. “They’re about to e inside.”

  He let his sister go and looked over the edge of the roof.

  “Or not,” he amended.

  Four people floated up over the edge of the roof, each surrounded in a plex array of glowing lines and sigils. They were Emi, along with Jason’s widowed sister-in-w, Amy, and her daughters, Hana and Jaine cube devices floated around Emi, produg the magic that held them aloft. The devices were akin to Rubik’s cubes, but with glowing runes instead of bnk colour on the panels. They twisted and shifted, shooting off points of light that adjusted the spherical magic diagrams.

  Amy stood slightly ahead of her daughters, Jason noting the protectiveness in her body nguage. He khat she didn’t view Jason as a physical threat to her children but aional one, and he agreed with the se.

  Jason hadn’t seen Kaito and Amy’s daughters sihey were small children. Jace was een, now, and Hana twenty-three. The age Jason had been when he ulled into Pallimustus. The uainty in their expressions barely touched the plexity of what Jason sensed in their emotions. fusioment, hope, regret. Jason uood pletely as he experienced a simir mix of feelings.

  For Jason and Amy, the fraught and plex history between them hung in the air like London fog. That history became a strange legacy for her girls to grow up with. A dead father. A mysterious uncle, absent but much spoken of, somewhere between a cult leader, a patroy and the Wizard of Oz.

  For a long time, they all stood, staring at one another. Jason hat Hana was silver-rank, with an aura foundation that was stable beh its current turmoil. Jace was bronze-rank, although he peak. They both showed the results of havirained by Rufus.

  “You look like my father.” Jace said, finally breag the silence. “From pictures, and videos. He died before I really remember anything.”

  Jason he days of him begrudging the increased resembo his brother with each rank up had died with Kaito.

  “Except for the ,” Hana said. “Yours is big. Like, measurable increase in yrooming products cost big. Did you grown the beard to mask the size, or were you spending too mu razors?”

  “Ranking up has made it smaller,” Amy told her girls. “You should have seen him at ye. You could use it as a bottle opener.”

  Jason raised his eyebrows in her dire.

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Don’t bother denying it, Jason. I still have photographs.”

  Being jibed by Amy felt both odd and intensely familiar. She had been his best friend, going back to his oldest memories. The retionship had turo poison, but that time was long go was half a lifetime ago, aher erson they had been. Now, they were each a persoher used to know, but hadn’t in a long time. All they shared were old memories and two girls, raised with no father and an absent uncle. Jason turned his gaze from their mother to the young women.

  “I doubt you remember me,” he said. “I know you’ve heard stories. Hard to avoid them, growing up in a pce built from my power. I imagine you have a lot of questions. About your dad, and other things. Let’s sit down a your aunt to cook us something. You ask me all the questions you like.”

  “Don’t you have to get back to Australia?” Erika asked. “You have things left to do there, right?”

  “Not more important than this.”

  ***

  Solomon Dreyfus was Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister & et, within the Australian gover. He didn’t like the job which, more often than not, amouo image ma for a man who, described generously would be…

  Solomo out a sigh, finding no way to finish the thought. If he had to be generous, it was best not to describe Prime Miruffett at all. If all you knew about the man was that he came to power through fearm ical geransitions during rank-up, it was all you really o know. Solomon knew a lot more, whily made it worse.

  This test debacle had left him wanting to quit, an urge that came somewhere between weekly and monthly. Once again, he resisted that urge, knowing that whoever repced him would be worse. He could ameliorate the worst inations of his boss and, on a blue moon, even do some good. Someone else in his job could easily pao the Prime Minister, with little care for the damage they dealt.

  He’d only gotten the job because Truffett he publicity, after several of Solomon’s predecessors had been scapegoated in sequence. Solomon’s chairmanship of the Foundation for Ethi Public Policy was a balm for Truffett’s sdal-marked image, while Solomon had hoped to aplish some actual good.

  Cshes with the Prime Minister had been frequent. Always behind closed doors, but it e that he and his boss were at each other’s throats. Solomon was difficult to get rid of, however, as firing his very public ethical hire was not something the embattled Prime Minister could afford. He also had trouble going around Solomon, as Truffett was an expert in ba deals and cutting favours, not actual g.

  Solomon’s secretary notified him it was time for his meeting and he made his way to the feren. Josh Hillier, from the Ministry of Defence, and Sue Sheehan, from the Ministry of Supernatural Affairs, were already waiting. Solomon didn’t bother with small talk as he slid into a chair.

  “Sol, did you just have lunch?” Josh asked.

  “A while ago. Why?”

  “Do you smell butter?” Josh asked. “I could swear I smell butter.”

  “Focus, Josh. What do we have?” he asked.

  Josh and Sue shared a gnce.

  “You should have the summary of our analysis in your inbox by the time we’re done here,” Josh said. “But, in short, a guy from New South Wales and his friends may now be the most powerful military for the p.”

  “That’s preliminary, obviously,” Sue added. “We’ve only seen a limited sample of what Asano and his allies are capable of. It could be that they worked very hard to make a show of power and are hiding critical weaknesses. Our assessment, however, is just the opposite. That he’s holding power in reserve. We’ve been in tact with our iional terparts, and that seems to be the sensus.”

  “What about the people who Asano and his people fought?” Solomon asked. “Any indication of who they are or where they’re from? I’ve heard the rec ahe transcript of Asano in the and room at the artefact city site. What of the implications that they were brought in from somewhere to kill him?”

  Josh and Sue shared annce before turning back to Solomon.

  “We do have ahere,” Josh said. “Much of it seems to be sourced from Asano himself, though. If it is true, things could get very messy.”

  “Things are already messy. You’re saying they could be worse?”

  “Sol,” Sue said. “We have to ask: did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  Solomo a headache ing on as his advisors started talking about interdimensional aliens and the Prime Minister being part of some Illuminati-style secret collective.

  “It does make a twisted kind of sense,” he was forced to admit afterwards. “In a world where alternate reality pirates are an actual thing, anyeople with power fear someoaking it away, or someone else having more. You say the Prime Minister is in on this?”

  “He’s on the list.”

  “And where does this list e from?”

  “Lenora an got it from Anna Tilden,” Sue told him. “She got it from the Ameris, and cims Asano’s turnagic pirate captain cross-firmed at least some of the names. hat include my minister, and some of your senior staffers, Sol.”

  Solomon nodded.

  “The Prime Minister has a history with Asano. Back when he was minister of your department, Sue, he was the one who suggested seizing Asano Vilge and giving it over to the work. It was that his motivation was rgely driven by his hatred of Jason Asano.”

  “That makes dealing with Asano plicated,” Josh said. “There’s no way he leaves Asano Vilge alone, right?”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” Solomon said. “The question is, does he approach it politically, or just e in and do what he likes?”

  “Meaning what?” Josh asked. “Burning to the ground?”

  “I won’t say I didn’t sider it,” Jason said.

  Solomon, Sue and Josh turo look at the other end of the fereable where Jason Asano was sitting, tug into a pte of food.

  “Sorry,” he apologised. “My sister made these fantastic Hasselback potatoes, and I couldn’t n them. You guys want to get in on this? I have more.”

  “No, thank you,” Solomon said.

  “I knew I smelled butter,” Josh said. “Have you been here all along?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said, then put a forkful of potato in his mouth before letting out a little moan of pleasure. “Oh, that’s good.”

  Josh eyed the pte hungrily.

  “I did skip lunch,” he said. “Maybe I could—”

  “Josh,” Solomon cut him off. “Asano, have you been sitting here, invisible, the whole time?

  “It’s not invisibility,” Jason said, slightly mumbling through his food. “It’s a perception trick that uses aura manipution to create a dissoween mundane and supernatural perception. Your senses dnise my presence. You see me sitting at the table, and smell the rosemary and butter sauce. But because of what I’m doing with my aura, your supernatural senses instinctively tell the part of your mind that processes perception to ignore me. It even works ur people. Most don’t realise normal rankers perceive auras, but they . They’re just very bad at it. Vampires are great at using their auras on normal people. I learhis trick from a vampire, in fact, although I’ve developed it a lot sihen.”

  “Mr Asano, what are you doing here?” Solomon asked.

  “Well, you’re right about me and ordon.”

  “Who?” Sue asked.

  “The Prime Minister,” Solomon said.

  “That’s him,” Jason said. “We don’t get along. I was, if I’m being ho, rather childish in my attitude when he and I first met. If you bihat with his personality, stupidity and more or less everything he’s ever dohen it’s clear that he and I won’t ever get along. That being said, I would like to have a productive retionship with the Australian gover. Word is that you, Mr Solomon Dreyfus, are a smart, capable and, against all odds, det man. My hope is that you and I figure out a few things.”

  “And what things are those?”

  “Well, I’d like to start by apologising for my little rant in Lenora’s bunker. I still had a few grievao blow off steam about, and she didn’t deserve me monologuing like a supervilin. I’ve apologised to Lenora in person, of course; it would be weird to have you pass the apology on. I’m hoping that we move past most of that.”

  “Most?” Sue asked. “What is it that you don’t want to move past?”

  “I voiced some grievances. I live with yover reg the standing stones. It’s a giant, mysterious magic thing in the middle of nowhere. It seems only fair for there to be an i in it. And I am willing to put aside my personal animosity for Truffett, in the name of retions with another head of state.”

  “Are you formally asking Australia tnise your territory in Europe as a sn state?”

  “What? Oh, no. You’ll have to sort that out with my grandmother. I’m a king, now.”

  “Iher world?”

  “It’s a little more plex than that. I’ll show you, if you like, but I want to discuss Asano Vilge first. I’m willing to put aside old grievances, but that one isn’t old. My family built Asano Vilge. Our money, our toil, and yover ha over to…”

  He sighed.

  “We know what you did, so there’s little point rehashing it. But those people are still there, right now. It’s a sp in the face. My first instinct was to go over there and kill everyone I find, but I’m trying to be better than that. My instinct was to turn on all the old mana accumutors that aren’t necessary now that the magic level has risen. Take off the safeties ahem run; overload the magical infrastructure until things started exploding. Burn it all down, as Mr Hillier suggested. The people there would se in time to evacuate, even with their mediocre magical senses. No casualties, which is why I’m still quite partial to that idea.”

  He plucked a drink out of the air and sipped at it before setting it down oable.

  “My local political advisgested a different approach” he tinued. “Have you met Anna Tilden, Mr Dreyfus?”

  “We’ve had dealings, duriime with the United Nations,” Solomon said.

  “She suggested that I look at Asano Vilge as a ce for the Australian govero show some goodwill.”

  “You want it back?”

  “It’s tainted ground, Mr Dreyfus. Too-long inhabited by unwele interlopers. The infrastructure we built was desigo fend off monster waves at a time where the magic levels were different. We’d have to rebuild from scratch, and there are better pces for that. What I’m looking for is a gesture. An apology for taking my uncle’s nd, and an open aowledgement of why it happened.”

  “It happened because you’re rude and Truffett doesn’t like it when people imply he’s not important. Even if the Prime Minister was willing to aowledge that, which he won’t be, do you genuinely believe it would help anything?”

  Jason shook his head sadly.

  “I do not. Your point is well made, Mr Dreyfus.”

  He took his pte and beverage and shoved them into the air, where they vanished. He then got to his feet.

  “Let’s just say an apology, then. Public. I’m not fool enough to insist it be sincere, but none of this ‘I’m sorry you feel offended’ crap. And I’m not going to push you for any promises today, Mr Dreyfus. I reise political decisions take time and deliberation. The good decisions, at least.”

  At a gesture from Asano, a white archway rose from the floor. It was filled with gold, silver and blue energy.

  “So, who wants to see my kingdom?”