Under a night sky, Jason and Emi stood on a wooden ptform, high in a tree house. They were iy of Arbour, in what was more a tree mansion than a tree house, spanning across several t redwoods. Even the living trunks were part of it. Hollows grown naturally into the living wood didn’t weaken the grandiose trees, despite seeming like they would have to.

  Emi stood o her uncle, looking up at the moon.

  “Could you turn it into cheese?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m trying to avoid doing anything too extravagant, though. People live on this world, now. I want them to be fident they live in a real world, not a cartoon.”

  “Didn’t you say you offered to stage an eclipse for those gover guys?”

  “It was a long day. It’s possible I made some choices in the moment that weren’t the best.”

  “Uncle Jason, I think you just found the title of your autobiography.”

  ***

  Jason had found himself at loose ends while waiting for events to py out. Most of the members had beeuro Europe, but Jason had taken his close family and given them a tour of his astral kingdom.

  In the meahe powers of Earth were still formutiions to the test events. Carlos, Clive, Audrey and some members of her research team from the were trying to figure out what the vampires had been up to. Neil and the other healers were g for the victims, alongside local authorities.

  The delivery of the Earth people returned from Pallimustus was still days away, Anna monit the iations of who would cim the individual members. One of the refugees, Li Li Mei, had been released to help with that process, being the voice of the others.

  After an amount of iation, a site had been chosen, not just for the refugee handover but as a ral site for future formal summits involving the wovers and the magical fas, Asano included. The Australian gover had decred Asano Vilge and the surrounding area a special-ierritory, simir to the standing stones. It would likewise be managed by a multi-national anisation rapidly being assembled, with Lenora an pced in charge.

  The work had swiftly excised the existing residents, their own version of the Asano , from the vilge. They were looking to bury them in the deepest hole they could find and pretend very loudly that they did.

  Li Mei found herself in Asano vilge, either meeting with the iional ittee pnning the handoff, or with the ese delegation. On the sed day, the delegation was joined by her gold-rank uncle, Li . He had been assigned a house in the vilge and she had met him there. Always stern in public, he ed her in a warm hug the moment they were behind closed doors.

  “Little Mei. It is so good to see you home. Later, you address me as a representative of the ese gover. For now, I want to hear everything, as an uncle who has missed his niece very much.”

  ***

  “Uncle, I have not hidden anything from you.”

  Li sighed.

  “So you say, but your allegiance is to Asano, now. As family, I love you, but as a representative of our nation, I ot trust you. Not fully. Not when your first loyalty is to another.”

  He and his niece were in a sitting room still decorated in the Japayle of the previous octs, with some minimal western furniture. He and his on a couch at the edge of the open room.

  “Uncle, I promise you this: having someone in Asano’s camp with our nation’s is at heart is only good for a. When you and I met him, twenty years ago, we were looking at him as a potential asset for what I uand is a very different a to that of today. He—”

  “That is part of the problem,” said. “You have been away for so very long. The world has ged, a has ged, and you have ged. There are so many uainties.”

  “I promise you that Asano has ged most of all. Have you spoken with Lu Yan?”

  “I have.”

  “And what has he told you?”

  “Things that do not bear sideration without verification.”

  “Then verify them. Go to Asano’s world and see for yourself.”

  “He would allow that?”

  “Asano wants the leaders of this world to uand his perspective of the Earth. He is waiting for events to settle, but he will be announg an open invitation to every gover and magical fa to visit his realm. He will po restri on who they send, in numbers or power.”

  “He has no fear or what they might do or learn?”

  “No, Uncle, he does not. His iion is to lift the frogs from the well, and show them the breadth of the sky.”

  “He looks down on us so much?”

  “He would not say so, but how could he not? You have heard my story. The things I have seen him do with my own eyes. He is not the ma two decades ago.”

  “And this is not the world you and he left behind. The rise of magic—”

  “Is too slow, Uncle. He intends to accelerate it, for everyone. His iions are egalitarian, but there will always be winners and losers i ge. Even he ot prevent that. If I influence him, even a little, then our try has a better ce of rising with the tide, instead of being submerged.”

  “I want to believe you, Little Mei. But you tell stories that would fit amongst myths and legends, but such stories are impossible metaphors. Transf into birds and sying armies. Shaping worlds out of souls.”

  “You have seen him turn into a bird on being killed, Uhere are recs of him doing so at Makassar, and I assure you that his power has grown. Far more than simple rank suggests. Go to his world and see for yourself.”

  got up from the coud paced the room.

  “I do not like what you are telling me, Niece. If you are lying to me, it will break my heart, but I live with a broke. If you and Lu Yahe truth, there is noower in this world that none go against. A power before which a nation that has sted thousands of years do little, perhaps nothing.”

  “Then do not go against him.”

  “And if he goes against us?”

  “He cims that is not what he is here for.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Yes. We’re not powerful enough to be worth lying to.”

  walked over and dropped o his niece again.

  “You are telling me,” he said, “that a tyrant has e to this world, and our only hope is to hope he doesn’t disfavour us.”

  Li Mei sidered her words for a long moment before answering.

  “He is aware of the potential to be seen in that way,” she said. “He has spoken to me of this. He does not fear what the world will do to him but what it will do to itself, out of fear of him.”

  “You speak of him almost like a god.”

  “He would not like to hear it, but it might be wise to treat him as such. ods already do. Yes, his wrath could be terrible, but what he offer could raise us up.”

  “If we worship him.”

  “He doesn’t want worship.”

  “But we still would be supplits.”

  “Perhaps. I don’t have a good answer for you, Uncle. You were right in saying that there is a new power in this world, that no one defy. All I sel is to not put yourself in a position where you o.”

  ***

  Boris arrived at the artefact city in a Cabal heliciving him a clear view of the cloud ship floating over it as they approached. The pilot was directed by radio to nd on the sky vessel itself, instead of the helipad on the ground. The vehided on aform where Jason was waiting. Boris disembarked and the helicopter took off again, heading for the Cabal headquarters withiy. Boris strolled towards Jason, waiting by a door leading inside. He used his aura to cut out the noise of the departing helicopter.

  “You could have asked for a portal,” Jason pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I need people thinking of me like sur guy who needs a helicopter. Politics, you know?”

  “I do, sadly.”

  Jasohem io a small lounge, and moved behind the bar.

  “Drink?”

  “Sure. A real drink, though. I know you like yours bright blue, and so sweet it might as well be cordial.”

  “I’ve got something here Belinda likes. It’s gold rank and amber. I’m guessing it’s in the viity of whiskey or bourbon.”

  “It’ll do.”

  Jason poured a gss a on the bar. Boris cimed a stool in front of it as Jason started on his own drink.

  “Is that a hollowed-out pineapple?” Boris asked.

  “You drink your way, and I’ll drink mine.”

  “Cheers to that,” Boris said, saluting with his gss before sipping at it.

  “How is it?”

  “Pretty good. I wish I’d picked up some gold-rank drinks while I was on Pallimustus, but there were too many eyes on me. Had to py the good little messenger, at least until your transformation zount. I did not see that ing, although I suppose it worked out in the end.”

  “I hear that a lot.”

  Boris chuckled.

  “I bet you do.”

  Jason poured blue liquid into a shaker, then held up the bottle.

  “Essentially blue cura?ao,” he said. “The name is different, because they call the isnd Livaros over there, but the drink is almost identical. This one is magicked-up a little. I know that the liween worlds causes these strange echoes, but it’s still odd to me when I run into them.”

  He tinued strug his cocktail.

  “What brings you by, Boris?”

  “I was already pnning for a chat, but after you pulled away Audrey, then half of her team, my curiosity iqued.”

  “The vampires are up to something nasty.”

  “They’re vampires; it’s what they’re for. What were they doing that required Audrey’s expertise?”

  “Some kind of blood creature. Gold rank. Looks like a tree but isn’t. Puppeteers people. Took four teams an hour and ge to hunt it down, and in a tained space, at that.”

  “All those homeless I saw in those medical tents on the news?”

  “Yeah. Normal rankers live through it, thankfully, but not all of them did.”

  “A one off?”

  “Not from the looks of it. That puter guy your Cabal people lent us founds records talking about getting a sample from somewhere. If there are more of those things…”

  Boris sipped at his drink again.

  “That’s going to plicate putting a fio the vampires.”

  Jason paused putting his drink together and sighed.

  “Yeah. I thought it would be so much better, having the kind of power we have. Being immortal. Even just being gold-rank makes my friends almost impossible to kill, but now I’m always worried about everyone else.”

  “Power and responsibility. You don’t he Spider-Man speech.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I wish I could lend you my messengers. We’ve hated standing by while the vampires took over. The wider Cabal will help, though. We did not like what happeo our little club when the vampire lords rose. They turned a lot of friends into brutal, remorseless monsters. Thank you for taking so many into your astral space.”

  Jason nodded, He spooned some ito the metal shaker, put the cap on and started shaking. her man tried to talk over the was only a moment before Jason the tents into his hollow pineapple half.

  “How worried are you that the messenger presen Earth will be discovered, now that the os has e knog?” Jason asked as he poured.

  “It’s iable. When, not if. Our time here is ing to an end, which makes me genuinely sad. It’s been my home for a long time. The only question is how long we have left. It means we afford to ace, in a big, public way, before we go. A parting gift to the world that has been home to us for all this time. Maybe it will be the vampires we go after, but I’m hoping we hold out lohan that. A decade would be nice.”

  “For when the bridge between worlds fully opens? I’m hoping to get Earth ready enough that no ories to ise it from the other side. Earth doesn’t have the strength to defend itself yet, but I think we get there.”

  “I’ll help. However I , for as long as I .”

  “I appreciate that. And you already have. The project is almost ready for trials, right?”

  “It is. If h had been willing to accept my help, maybe his version would have goer. But he felt isoted. Like he was the one carrying the fate of the world, when it should have been someone else. He became obsessed with trol, and increasingly turo extreme measures.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  Jason took a little paper umbrel and added it.

  “’t have been easy,” he said. “Having the power you have, but staying hidden while humanity made mistake after mistake. Doing nothing. Not that long ago, I’d have thought it was because you wao stay hidden from the orthodox messengers. But that’s not it, is it? The power isn’t enough.”

  “No, it’s not. And you’re wrong: we didn’t always do nothing. I’m old, and I’ve learned a lot of lessons, but some mistakes, I ’t seem to stop making.”

  “Any tips?”

  “You force people to do what you want, but not to be what you want.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Jason held up his eborate drink and Boris tapped his gss to it.

  “I hope you do, Jason.”