Kirs stood with Ranvir on Esmund’s bed overlooking the rough ritual circle she’d sketched. Over the last few days, the original center-circle and the three sub-circles had grown a bit in scope. They’d added an energy restricting sub-circle designed to hold back some of the energy from the basin as it had been all too willing to let it all flow once it was full enough. Ranvir hoped this would give their intended effect more longevity.

The energy restricting circle had been surprisingly easy to create. Accidentally easy. The energy had to travel to the lines, that filled the circle. Esmund had been messing around while they’d been experimenting and accidentally dropped a stick of chalk on in their circle. The dust had acted like lines of chalk, inhibiting the speed of the energy going through it.

He’d still been thrown out, however, there was a time and a place for experimentation. It wasn’t whenever Esmund accidentally gave them progress. Never that. The energy restriction wasn’t strictly necessary, but it would make it easier to keep up with their feeding sub-circle solution.

Ranvir smiled to himself watching the circle. They’d come far in the last couple weeks. It felt good to be making such fast progress again, even if it wasn’t directly related to his power this time.

“That’s not gonna work.” Kirs argued, looking at the circle.

“Of course it’s gonna work.” Ranvir replied, grinning. “That’s what glyphs are for. Infusing stuff with energy.”

“I hope it’s not that easy.” Kirs continued.

“It is.” Ranvir didn’t know for sure, but her agitation at the simplicity of replacing the innards of a feeding sub-circle with the single glyph for space was too good.

Kirs harrumph, but waved for him to go on. So he did, getting on his knees and hashing out the details of the circles. The feeding sub-circle that he could power was mostly for the sake of expediency. It would allow them to experiment much faster, as they wouldn’t have to rely on what their money could buy them.

Drawing up the ritual took nearly half an hour, but only because he’d drawn the basin so many times at this point that he could do it almost by heart. Otherwise it would’ve taken a lot longer.

They’d replaced the chalk in the restriction sub-circle with sand, since it was easier to get, even if they had to dig through half a foot of snow and ice to get it. Ranvir had some thoughts of adding an ambient collector before the glyph feeder, allowing it to sustain itself, but wasn’t sure of the viability yet. Energy could flow both ways, which risked making it leak energy instead of gathering it.

They both walked a slow circle, meticulously checking the details against their notes to make sure it was actually finished and ready to go. They’d learned the hard way that having a mistake wasn’t worth it. One time their basin hadn’t been finished properly and simply leaked power into the air.

Luckily, it wasn’t very much, only a few starjutes worth before they’d caught it. Enough, however, that Sansir, Grev, and Es had immediately noticed the excess energy in the air when arriving. That was warning enough however. If what they were about to do failed, the entire lounge would sense the space power leaking into the air. Maybe even neighboring lounges. The Masters would be called, it would be a whole mess.

“You know,” Kirs said, kneeling down to examine a bit of the basin’s pattern. “I think I saw the woman you met, Saleema.”

Ranvir’s shoulders stiffen and his head jerked towards her. “What?”

Kirs winced, seeing his reaction and he got the distinct sense that he’d failed somehow. “Yeah, she just came to the library. Didn’t talk to anyone or anything. She spent about an hour sulking in the corner, before another ankirian came and picked her up.”

“What did they look like?” Ranvir asked.

“A woman.” Kirs screwed her face up. “Anything else is a little hard to tell around the veil.”

So it wasn’t Zubair. Ranvir thought. He’d gone out of his way to learn the names of all the ankirians sent to watch them. Zubair was indeed a triplet master, which was interesting because Ranvir couldn’t actually tell, whenver he’d seen the middle aged tethered.

It was in the small details it showed. Zubair’s stability and presence, most of the time he felt no more powerful than a second-stage tethered, but his stability to Ranvir’s tether-sense was beyond belief. His presence too, less so his power than the way he carried himself spoke of someone beyond the second-stage. Ranvir didn’t get the sense that Zubair often met his betters, or even a match.

It was likely Naadiya al-Fayad. Ranvir remembered her from their first meeting, when Saleema had hooked onto him. He wasn’t as sure about her level of strength. She didn’t hide her power as well as Zubair, but she was definitely also not as strong. Likely she was only a master. From what Ranvir knew of Ankiria they didn’t have so many triplet or twin masters that they could afford to spare one let alone two. The fact that Zubair had come here, alone spoke of something more going on.

Does Ayvir know about their true purpose? Ranvir thought. Was that why he’d been so insistent that I should avoid politics. What could’ve pulled a triplet master to Elusria in the first place? I can understand letting someone like Pashar go, she’s only a second-stage, but-

“Hello, Ranvir.” Kirs said, knocking him on the back of his head. “Return to our experiment, please. Your paranoia isn’t helping us further our goal.”

“Alright, alright.” He muttered, getting to his feet. “I found nothing out of the ordinary, you?” She shook her head. “Let’s get to it, then.”

Ranvir embraced the pressure. Again, as was becoming more and more common these days, he felt both a dragging and a resistance while he was within his tether-space. One part was dragging him towards advancing, he was close now, really close. He could probably do it, but the resistance gave him hesitation. Something inside his tether-space resisted the idea, fought against it. Something he needed to get done.

Then he breached and was back in the real world again, power spiraling at the back of his mind, ready to flow at any moment. Going down on one knee next to the circle, Ranvir placed one hand on the glyph in the feeding circle and another within the center-circle.

The determination sub-circle, where they’d put the instructions for the power had been a little special and it had taken nearly three days to get exactly right. They intended to use the ritual with a pocket-space, but they didn’t intend to use to the circle to make the space itself. Instead, they needed a determination sub-circle for the effect of feeding more space into the pocket once it was made.

Out of any of Ranvir’s limitations, that was the biggest. He couldn’t make pocket-space any bigger than his influence. He couldn’t even add to it after it was made, if the entirety didn’t fit within his control. The ritual should be more than capable of such.

It just couldn’t start the process.

For that, he needed to begin. Ranvir pinched off a little bit of space, the motion so natural at this point he did nearly on reflex. It was always the first thing he did when embracing the pressure. He needed somewhere to store his chess pieces in after all. Holding the pocket-space in one hand, he touched the glyph with the other and started feeding it power.

He knelt like that for a long time before he finally felt energy flow into the pocket. Slowly, he withdrew his touch feeling the energy drop slowly as it took on supporting the space on its own.

The determination sub-circle for enlarging a pocket-space was nearly identical to the creation of one, just as the act felt very similar to Ranvir’s intuitive senses. They’d needed Sansir and a wind quiet room to find the circle, however. Ranvir’d spent long minutes, as Sansir made it snow on him, before Kirs had gotten the entire sub-circle correctly.

It was finally done, and as Ranvir put more force into the glyph—which accepted it happily he noted with a grin—the basin started filling faster than it was depleting. It was straining to him, giving it this much power, but the energy restricting sub-circle was doing its job, allowing him to keep up for a time.

“It’s working.” Ranvir panted. He was already beginning to slow down, after only a minute or two. Though to be honest, he could’ve gone faster. He could’ve pushed himself to his limit in just thirty seconds, but he doubted that actually got more energy out of him. It was just faster.

Finally, he pulled back, falling on his ass. His arms felt gooey, like they would accidentally bend the wrong way. The basin had filled most of the way up, power leaked from it into the restriction, then into the determination sub-circles before finally reaching the center-circle.

There was only a slight ripple in the space above the ritual to denote the pocket-space, but Ranvir felt certain it was growing. He could feel it in Purple Space, like a low wind was rustling through it. He doubted he’d have even noticed it if not for his awareness, but now it was clear to him.

Something else moved, it rippled Purple Space, then Ranvir’s tether-sense. Sitting up straighter, he turned to look in the direction it came from. Beneath them, but in the building and getting closer.

The stairs. Ranvir had a bad feeling about whatever it was. He forced himself to his feet.

“Ranvir, what’s wrong?” Kirs asked, watching him with nervous eyes.

He did his best to track the presence as it moved through the building, it was on the same floor as them now. It didn’t feel like anything Ranvir recognized. Except, it was solid. Felt more like a wall to his senses than a tethered.

Cursing to himself, Ranvir scrubbed the chalk with his boot disrupting the ritual. Immediately, spatial energy rushed into the air, dissipating in less than a second.

Right, Ranvir thought. I’d forgotten about that. Space and warp doesn’t linger like the other elements.

“Ranvir, what the shit?!” Kirs cursed, jumping to her feet, as he continued erasing the chalk until it was just a white smear on the boards. “Get a hold of yourself.” Kirs grabbed his arm, just as yelling started in lounge.

He felt paralyzed, violet fear frozen to its spot, blackening with moldy despair, as a manic yellow panic started rising all around it. At the same time, Ranvir sensed the nascent presence in his mind just as affected as he was.

The door opened, revealing yellow eyes. “Hi.” Saleema half-whispered, like a mother carefully intruding on her child’s space.

Ranvir’s heart was making a break away sprint in his chest as he pushed Kirs away, only then realizing he was opening space for a hammer he didn’t have. Though he did have a workman’s hammer in his chest.

“I’m not supposed to be in here, but I…” Saleema hesitated looking behind her. Ranvir could see Sansir, Grevor, and Esmund approaching. “Don’t bother us.” She waved at them. Purple Space rippled, like a tree canopy in a storm, as space grew around them. It overcame their native presence like it wasn’t there, before enveloping them and they disappeared.

Saleema turned around with a caring smile on her face, stepping further into the room. Kirs pushed up against his back, using his wider frame to hide“I’ve been looking for you for so long and I’ve finally found you.” Her eyes were growing wet, refracting the cracked purple and yellow across them. “My swee-“ She hissed, turning to the door.

Zubair el-Harron pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Saleema, Princess.” He bowed deeply.

“You…” Saleema cursed. She waved at him as well, performing the same technique. Ranvir felt it impact Zubair’s native presence like a bucked of water on rock. “You’re always trying to keep me from Umair.”

Umair? Ranvir thought, backing into the corner as Zubair approached Saleema.

“Umair’s dead, Saleema. He’s been dead for a long time.” Zubair took her hand gently in his. “Look at him, he’s not from Ankiria. He can’t be Umair.”

Saleema whipped around eyes wide, glaring at Ranvir. “Tell him, Umair. Tell him that I found you agai…” She trailed off, as if finally registering what her eyes were telling her.

“See Saleema, this boy’s not Umair. He doesn’t even know what you’re talking about. Please Saleema, let’s return to our quarters. I’ll get you some tea.”

Saleema’s knees buckled. Only her hands clamped around Zubair’s forearm kept her standing. She leaned heavily against his wide frame as she was walked out. “He’s so much like Umair, I don’t…” She shot one last glance over her shoulder before leaving.