A building of deep brown tiles squatted in the soil before them. The trappings of bygone auras floated around it like shadows of cobwebs. Aria saw grey and a few spots of glittering silver. Nothing bright remained.

“There haven’t been Soffigen here in a long time.” Aria walked a few paces to one side. She followed a glittering trail that snaked through the white of grass.

“That’s good,” Alban said.

Aria nodded. “This isn’t average aural decay. Everything is grey and silver. Everything…” Aria shrugged. “I don’t think anyone has been here since it was built.”

Sotir nodded. “The Soffigen haven’t been here.” He pointed to a door. “This facility is largely automated. It’s a warehouse, and that panel opens to release robots. They travel to the other buildings and research sites. They collect materials – crates, records, samples, other things. Then, they head back here.”

Aria glanced between Sotir and the door. “So, no Soffigen has ever been inside?”

Sotir perked up and gave Aria his attention. “I didn’t say that. The Soffigen entrance is on the other side, but they don’t come in this way. And, I think we won’t find much of their presence throughout the facility. You might be in for a treat.” Sotir’s attention snapped back to the warehouse.

Aria felt a flutter of excitement. Scaldin didn’t really have robots. They preferred natural things. The few robots that did exist on Scaldigir held the auras of their makers and tenders. They didn’t exist on their own. Autonomous robots might have different auras or maybe no auras.

Sotir stared at the door. “I think they used to operate on a schedule.”

Alban stroked his goatee. “Does that help us?”

Sotir shook his head. “Not really. If everything is locked down, the robots won’t come out. The door won’t open. We can’t use that passage to get in.”

“Anyone inside?” Alban asked. “I mean any Soffigen.”

“I’d like to read the front of the building to answer that. Judging from this side though, I think it’s unlikely,” Sotir said.

“Security?”

Sotir’s eyes glazed, and his aura phased into total white, hiding his features. “Yes, if the door doesn’t shut promptly, it’ll trigger an alarm. And, there are robots inside designed to watch the door for illicit entry.”

Alban crossed his arms. “So, we can’t use the door.”

“No.” Sotir’s white faded, and he looked at Pan.

Alban looked at Pan too. “Fortunately, we have someone who manufactures doors right here.”

Sotir smiled. “She does.”

Pan’s eyes flicked between the men. “You want me to make a portal and cozy it up to the side of that storehouse. Then, we just walk in.”

Aria liked that plan. It sounded easy, like going for a stroll.

“Precisely,” Alban said.

But, Sotir shook his head. “One portal won’t take us directly inside. The walls are too thick, and the portal will be too thin. One portal will show us the wall’s interior, which doesn’t help us immediately.”

Pan scrunched her nose. “Well, Sotir, I don’t have a picture of the inside. I guess that makes portals useless.”

Sotir held up a finger. “Not if you can stack them.”

“Shhh,” Sotir hushed the group. “She needs to concentrate.”

Pan frowned. She’d made portals in the middle of battle. She didn’t need her companions to be quiet, but she got their silence anyway.

She drew her first portal, very large, and pushed it against the wall of the storehouse. Sure enough, she saw support beams and a small interior pocket of air, ahead of yet another wall. “How many of these are we going to find?”

“Three walls. Three portals,” Sotir said. “Before we get to the last one, let’s make sure we time it, so no robots are looking.”

Pan nodded. She drew her second portal, a little smaller than the last, so it could fit inside the first. Then, she began to push it.

“Ewwwww,” Irini whined.

“What?” Pan looked up.

Her portal was about to collide with an insect nest. The infestation was a lump of brown matter, covered in tiny holes.

“Yuck.” Pan decreased the size of her portal.

She didn’t want it to see what would happen when magic met the might of insects. The little things might have stingers.

Another pocket, filled with support beams and crisscrossed beams of metal, greeted them.

Pan looked at Sotir. “Tell me when.”

“Not now.” He shook his head and stared into the unhabitable space.

Pan drew her next portal and let it hover. She waited a bit and pushed the portal a little closer. Sotir continued to stare. Pan tapped her feet. She kept both bigger portals open and maintained her smallest one, ready to slide it into the others at a moment’s notice. Waiting for that moment turned out to be awkward.

Pan turned to Alban. “Do this kind of thing often?”

“No, you?”

“About once or twice a month.”

Alban nodded slow. “Ah. That explains it. You attack Soffigen ships right before…”

Pan glared.

“Now,” Sotir said, with calm.

Pan slid her portal inside and cozied it up to the last wall.

A dark interior flickered with pinpricks of light. Shadows hovered in the back, looking ominous. Light from Pan’s portals invaded the space.

“Go.” Alban led the charge.

His crew followed.

Pan hesitated a moment before she realized that she was probably the best defense against robots. She stepped through, and the air changed.

“We’re all in. Drop the portals. Get rid of the light,” Alban hissed.

Darkness swallowed them, and for the first time in years, Aria couldn’t see her way. She followed the auras of those ahead. They seemed to run through a lightless space.

A beam of red passed high. Dust hovered in the weak light and seemed to drift down, along with the beam.

Pan’s aura flared and reached. “Sotir,” she whispered.

“Just keep moving. They can’t hear us, but if it looks down, it’ll see our heat.”

Aria drew a sharp breath and felt a vice grab her wrist. If she hadn’t seen Alban’s aura so close, she would have assumed a robot got a hold of her.

Alban pulled Aria against a wall. He kept a hold of her as the group moved, hands joined. They slid along the wall and down into a passage. Sotir led. His aura of green-blue blazed ahead, and Pan’s lavender intertwined with his. Their auras had distinct borders, and Aria squinted. They disappeared from sight before Aria could get a decent study.

Several steps into the passage, Sotir stopped. “We can have light now.”

Alban was the first to snap his flashlight awake. His crew members followed. Aria felt glad of the flashlights they wielded.

The facility was automated. No auras, aside from her companions’, lit the space.

Aria’s eyes followed Alban’s light. He sent it over a low passage, barely seven feet in height.

Irini bumped into Aria and bounced into Sotir.

“Where are the robots?” she asked.

“It’s alright, Irini.” Sotir pushed her back onto her feet. “We left the security and larger specimens behind. Now, we just need to keep our distance. The little ones shouldn’t be a problem. They can’t distinguish Soffigen from Scaldin.” Sotir glowed yellow.

Alban directed his light forward. “Just the same. Don’t shine any light back. Aria, does the inside look the same as the exterior?”

“Yes.” Aria saw even less shades of grey inside. “I can barely see for lack of aural light.” Aria glanced back.

A small robot moved through the darkness at the end of the passage. A little light blinked – red, then green. It passed.

Aria backed further into the passage and entered the edge of Sotir’s aura. Ah, yes, the edges of auras. Aria studied her companions with a clarity that had eluded her entire career.

With no aural pollution from things and nature, her friends’ auras were easier to distinguish as were their features below. She stared at Pan and counted some stray hairs, ablaze with their allotment of aura.

Pan cocked her head. “What’s so interesting about me?”

“You’re sharper.” Aria smiled.

“Why thank you. I am sharp.” Pan dusted off her outfit and turned away, aiming her own flashlight ahead. Her aura glowed a gentle lavender.

She knows what I mean.

Aria looked at Sotir and saw some of his old yellow. She also saw a sharpness to his features. He looked a little pointier in every respect, from his nose to his shoulders.

Sotir said, “This place seems to be your paradise, Aria. You can see.”

“Well, I can see better. Everyone’s aura is so clear, and there’s less interference.”

“Perfect.” Alban shone his light down a long tunnel. “Let’s get moving. You should be able to tell me all the interesting bits. Soffigen have been inside this place. We’ll find out where.” Alban beckoned her forward.

Aria joined him. He handed her a flashlight, and she accepted. She flicked it on and aimed it ahead.

“Irini, you come ahead too. Use your thread.” Alban and his crew made a little space for Irini, inside their protective formation.

Irini hopped in, and Aria could see the yellow and white of her aura. Its edges formed a pattern like petals. Irini shone, like a spring flower.

Aria checked the edges of other auras and searched for analogies. Sotir’s ended in trails of smoke, reminiscent of extinguished campfires. Alban’s edges puffed like fog. Pan’s aura had a weird, ray-like edge. Parts of it reached very far. Others hung close to Pan. Everyone had a slightly different edge. Aria looked down at her own and saw that the edge of her aura flowed like water.

Aria couldn’t wait to tell Gavain. She wanted to study the edge of his aura and pondered how to do that.

Just when Aria thought she had her power figured out, it surprised her with some new element.

Irini followed her thread. She stayed close to Sotir and Alban, waiting for either of them to shout a warning about angry, sentient robots or Soffigen cyborgs. She waited and waited. The warning never came.

Irini’s thread, however, led into the dark, steady and glittering. Irini held her hand up and shook it slowly. The golden thread gripped her ring finger and sparkled in the flashlight. Or, maybe, it just sparkled. Irini had used it enough to find her way at night to cookies or other treats. She didn’t need light to see it.

She did need light to see the world around her. Alban and the others provided that, with their flashlights. Irini’s thread led straight, so she looked up and around. Tracks ran the edges of halls. Once in a while, a small robot ran along the tracks. The robots ignored them, which was fine by Irini. She found them cute, but she still didn’t want to be noticed. Rooms with neatly stacked crates opened as they passed. Nothing came out. The doors just obeyed, springing wide at the slightest motion.

They walked, and the thread took them down a sloping hall. The rooms they passed changed from storage to…more storage. The facility wasn’t that big. They spiraled around a central column, one room stacked atop another, and another. Only a couple of floors remained, but Irini’s thread entered a room not quite at the bottom.

Irini stopped. Alban shone a flashlight inside. There were metal shelves, utilitarian rather than decorative. Every shelf held boxes of all sizes and shapes.

“How long till Era shows up?” Pan whispered.

Sotir leaned close to Pan and directed his words to her ear. “We have time. She has to fly through space, remember?”

Alban perked up. “How much time are talking, Sotir?”

“I don’t have exact estimates, but a while. This planet that Irini picked…the path here never took us past Era. I think we moved away from her in a rather neat trajectory. So, she has some catching up to do.” Sotir reached for the door jamb.

He didn’t have his staff. The object was deemed too unwieldy for the trip to the surface, so Sotir had to make do with the structures on the planet. He rested by the jamb, probably looking into the future, his hand on a solid object, keeping him grounded.

“And, is she tracking us?” Alban asked. “You’re sure we should have led her here?”

“Correct. She’s tracking us.” Sotir let go of the jamb and slowly made his way inside.

Irini didn’t experience a lot of downsides with her power. She counted herself lucky. Her peers, people she hadn’t yet formed bonds with, had a good deal of healing and learning to do. Irini didn’t. Here she was keeping up with the big arcanes.

Irini held up her hand. She caught the golden thread and stroked its length. Glitter ran through her fingers.

You’re a good power.

“Well, let’s go start looking.” Alban moved deeper into the room.

As one, a small army of flashlights followed and illuminated the room to greater effect.

Irini saw that the shelves reached from floor to ceiling, and a ladder on wheels clung to the edge of one shelf. The strange brown boxes filled every space, but no two had been stacked atop each other. Irini thought the setup looked familiar. It reminded her of a trip she took to a museum. Her class got to go in the basement, and she had seen some rooms like this one.

Alban waved everyone inside, except a few crew. “Guard the door. We’re going to have a look. Aria, see anything?”

Aria crossed the threshold. “Yes, Soffigen have touched these objects, but not in a long while. I see a lot of deep blue. The objects in this room are for study – but that part is obvious. I also see some bright blue and vibrant red, which signify fascination. The people who worked here weren’t just passionate. They felt they were getting answers to some of their deepest questions.”

“Soffigen arcane-hood.” Pan spun in a circle. Her light danced over the shelves. “Where are all the test-tubes? The freakish medical machines?”

“The bottles of Scaldin bodily fluids?” Sotir added. “The boxes hold artifacts. Books and other things.”

“That’s unusual,” Alban said. “I have a mind to see more of this place. I want to take a quick walk around. Irini and Sotir – I want you two to stay here. If there’s anything you really like, we’ll take it.” Alban headed to the door. “I’ll leave you a guard of four crew. The other two come with me, along with Aria and Pan. Any questions?”

“No.” Sotir shook his head. He wandered into the shelves. “I’m going to just get started.” Sotir seemed to look far away.

“Are you okay on your own?” Alban asked.

Irini’s eyes widened. “I’ve got Sotir and your crew.” Her voice sounded small.

“He won’t be much help while he works.” Alban gestured with his flashlight. “Crew should help out where they can, but I didn’t exactly load this group with researchers.”

Irini faced the room and wondered where to start.

Aria and Pan flanked Alban. Aria caught the trail of Soffigen, and they followed it, all the way down.

Little glittering puddles dotted the lower floor. Sparkles clung to the walls, and a few even hung in the air. Aria saw all the colors typical of scientists and interesting work: thoughtful blues and hopeful yellows. She saw some aural leavings of personalities, and those proved less uniform.

Aria studied the lower floor and learned that it was a place for sleep and food. The day to day activities of life had been relegated to an afterthought – the deepest basement. Two elevators offered them quick escape. One probably led up to the entrance.

Pan shined her light on an elevator. “Is it just me or does it seem like the only way out was up? At least for people. Did we miss a turn?”

Alban frowned. “No, I don’t think we did. It’s temporary housing, and it shows. Any scientists or Soffigen that come in have to come down first. What do you think Aria? Adon?” Alban looked between Aria and a crewman.

Aria approached the elevator. “I see an aura on this elevator, and I didn’t see that anywhere upstairs. I guess this could be the only way in and out for the Soffigen. It’s an odd choice though.” Aria stroked the metal, and her hand rippled through sparkling aural dust.

Adon viewed a scanner. “My scans of the robot storehouse only showed the single passage out. There were a few down. They weren’t elevators – at least not ones people could use.”

Pan crossed her arms. “Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah,” Alban agreed. “I don’t want to leave through the robot barn. Adon, head upstairs. Take Hepha with you. See if you can get the people door open, and don’t set off an alarm. If you can’t work the lock, I’ll get Brise down here…then I’ll send her up to you.”

Adon and Hepha moved to the elevator. They acknowledged Alban’s orders, hit the button, and piled in.

Pan waved good-bye to them. Adon waved back. Hepha maintained her professionalism.

Alban said, “Send me a message when you get up top.”

The door closed, and Alban turned away from the elevator. With his flashlight alone, he started to search the lower floor.

Aria and Pan waited. Alban would probably take them through all the rooms, but Aria guessed they waited for the all clear from the crew headed up.

Aria didn’t think she would find anything of importance in the living quarters. She did, however, have another chance to study the properties of aural edges. She had two subjects on which to practice: Pan and Alban.

Because the Soffigen auras in the storehouse had faded, Aria found the air clear. It didn’t hold the essence of aura, which gave her a clarity of sight she’d dearly missed.

Aria looked at Pan and tried to hold the aura of purple, grey, and blue in her memory, untarnished by the colors of others. She memorized that ray pattern and couldn’t help thinking Pan’s aura had a star-like quality. Not a real star but the kind drawn into children’s books.

“You must really like the look of me,” Pan said, with sarcasm. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“Sorry,” Aria said.

“We’re supposed to study the leftover Soffigen auras. Not the glow of our interesting companions.” Alban wandered from the elevator. “I got the all clear. Come on.” Alban stowed his com and beckoned.

Aria followed.

Pan sidled close. “What’s so interesting about my aura?” Her sharpened features looked more intense than Aria remembered.

“You have little rays on the edge. You glow like a star.” Aria touched one of the rays. She followed it out to the point where it faded.

“I’m a star,” Pan called to Alban. “A star.”

Alban tsked. “Aria.” He gave her a stern look. “Keep some information to yourself.”

“What is he?” Pan pointed to Alban.

“A fog machine.” Aria couldn’t help her smile.

Pan laughed.