Cassandane led Sam to the cafeteria on the bottom floor of the building she lived in, placing her finger on a biometric reader to open the door. The main room held three rows of low tables surrounded by floor cushions and at its far end a counter open to a small kitchen on its other side. A woman looked out at them from the kitchen area, expression sour.

They approached the counter and, following Cassandane's lead, Sam filled a plastic plate with mixed fruit and cabbagino wraps while ignoring the worker's attitude. They took seats at one of the tables.

To her surprise, Sam discovered the contents of the wrap to be a delicious mix of rice, chickpeas, peppers, carrots, and peanuts. She ate three of them and polished off the fruit before returning her plate. They walked to the nearest spoke, where instead of going up the central ladder they entered a side room filled with humming. In the center, a teenage boy sat on a chair beside a large metallic box. He glanced towards a clock. "Six minutes until shift change."

"We can switch off now if you want," Cassandane said.

"That would be great. Ready on three?"

Cassandane waved off the comment. "I've got it. Stop any time."

The boy laughed. "I don't know if I can get that smooth even if I trained every day until I lose my talent."

Sam looked between the two of them, not sure what she had missed. "What did you do?"

"She superimposed her corona on mine and balanced out the transition of force." The boy wrinkled his nose in a cute way as he smiled at her. "It was a major spin move."

"Spin move?"

"Yeah. Centrifugal."

Sam stared at the boy, not understanding his half of the conversation.

"Wait. Are you one of the English people? Are they letting you become kinetics now? My dad said they had to start recruiting new talents."

Sam looked to Cassandane, but the woman gave no indication she was going to answer. The boy seemed nice enough, unlike everyone else she had encountered since leaving the factory farm. "Yes, I am from this planet. I'm American, though. I know English is the name of our language, but on this Earth when you say English people that means people from England."

"American? That's almost like saying Angmari. So are they going to let you attune?"

"Uh, that is a complicated subject."

"It can't be that complicated. Who is going to turn the generators for the next hundred years if we don't recruit?"

"No, I mean it's 'complicated' because I attuned illegally." She used air quotes.

The boy's eyes widened. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"What did you attune to?"

"All of them."

"Wow. That's awesome. I'm Reginar, by the way."

"Sam."

Cassandane cleared her throat. "I believe your shift has ended, Ludwig Reginar."

"Right. Yeah. I'll get going then." He paused at the door. "See you later, Sam."

After his departure, neither of them spoke. Sam eventually pointed to the metallic block. "I assume there is a generator in there."

"You assume correctly."

"And you are turning it?"

"I am."

"Providing electricity for the entire neighborhood?"

"This station powers main lighting for our sector of the ring," Cassandane said. "Each of the eight sectors has a similar station that is operated in three four hour shifts to provide daylight. The electricity grid is powered in a different fashion. We use teleotic talent to recharge chemical batteries as it is a more efficient use of precursor. Most consumer electronics are powered by gravity based systems like my lamp, which limits the load on the grid."

Sam stared at the metal box housing the generator. "It seems that everything about this Angelship is only possible with magic."

"It's not magic." Cassandane's tone was firm. "If we cannot understand it, that is a limitation of our knowledge and not proof of the supernatural."

"Your definition of magic is that it is impossible? Then nothing real could ever be magic."

"Exactly. Magic is a superstitious label that provides no value. If something happens, then it is a natural event, whether or not we possess the means to research its cause."

"Sure. I guess I can agree with that." Sam looked around the room but saw nowhere to sit other than the chair Cassandane occupied. She sank down to rest on the ground. It had been a long day.

"I would like to teach you a synergy," Cassandane said. "What I want you to do is extend your corona and then vibrate the threads that compose it. You will notice that this creates heat. If you impose a blanketing field, you can also cool things down by effectively destroying heat. But to do anything more creative with the energy, you need to introduce a level of control beyond what is possible with just animas. You can do this by introducing a small amount of gravitas into your corona."

A translucent, glowing sphere fluoresced into existence, color cycling through the rainbow before disappearing. "Making visible light is the simplest application of what many consider to be the simplest synergy. It is still rather difficult to implement. A corona is composed entirely of animas and no other precursor is natively compatible with it. Mix everything just right, however . . . ." The sphere reappeared, a brilliant white light. "Your turn, Sam."