Day in the story: 7th October (Tuesday)

Once the shoes were finished, I slipped them on, completing the last piece of my armored outfit.

And with a single, focused thought, Be the Usagear, my personal cyborg-rabbit power armor, I infused the entire suit with light. Not just any light, but something drawn straight from my soul and channeled through the crystal that hovered at the center of my Domain. The suit flared to life in a cascade of shifting, rainbow-like colors, surging with energy. Immediately, I felt the change: strength returned to my limbs, motion became fluid and effortless.

Finally. I hadn't felt power like this since my return from Ideworld nearly a week ago.

No more waiting. No more reacting. This time, I would be the chaos, the unpredictable variable, the force that sent the other side scrambling. As crude as it sounded, I was ready to be the metaphorical shit that hit the fan. Passive defense had never been my strategy.

I needed a plan and I needed movement.

De Marcos would strike Penrose's operations soon, assets, infrastructure, people. And not just the extraordinary ones. That meant Alexandra May would be a target too. The university was off-limits for now.

I returned to my room through a portal and unscrewed the jar of healing soup I'd used on Phillip. Just a sip, enough to take the edge off the sleepless night. I needed focus. Clarity. No room for fog.

I quickly sewed a few straps onto my Iceberg jacket, just enough to slide in my umbrella, which now rested across my back like a sheathed sword once the jacket was on. Then came the leather belt. I clipped a small pouch to it, packed with spray paints, followed by a holster carrying Noxy, still dormant for now and my Travel Grimoire. My Lifeline talisman hung cold against my chest, tucked beneath Usagear like a quiet backup heartbeat.

Then, I slid my card box into a hidden pocket sewn into the suit itself, concealed, but easy to reach if I needed it fast.

I tied my hair back into a tight ponytail and pulled on my Usagi mask, letting my focus sharpen as I infused it with enhanced senses. Sight, hearing, smell, everything dialed up.

I was ready.

**********

I appeared inside Philippe's office at Penrose's Finest. It had been emptied overnight, every personal belonging gone, relocated elsewhere. The place felt hollow. I couldn't hear or smell anyone in the entire building. But they would come. Sooner or later, someone would check in, even with the doors locked. Maybe not during the day, but tonight? Likely. And when they did, I would be ready. I would make this place a trap wrapped in art.

I stepped out of the office and moved down the hallway. There were a few doors: one led to a smaller office where the bookkeeper used to work, also empty now, save for the furniture standing awkward and out of place, like it didn't know where to go. Another led to the staff toilet and further down was a common room with a kitchen. Finally, the doors to the main hall, the gallery itself, where every piece of art had once hung. The reception desk stood near the main entrance.

I headed to the entrance first, pulling my spray paints from the pouch at my belt. I had an idea, something inspired by de Marcos and their magical protection circles. I painted the image of an electrical cable, starting on the wall just beside the doors, running through the frame and ending on the opposite wall. I added careful details to suggest the hum of power flowing through it, one side a source, the other a receiver.

Be the power-line, I thought and a current of electric-blue light sparked from my hand linking with the graffiti. It lit up immediately, absorbing the light like it was alive. Perfect. Everything was working.

I turned toward the gallery. The space was stripped bare now, but to me, it looked like a blank canvas.

This place, it would become my masterpiece.

**********

Preparing the gallery took most of the day. I only paused briefly to eat and even then, updates kept coming in.

Penrose had relocated his entire operation into his private residence, the one only a handful of people even knew existed. Thomas said he had gathered the remaining Penrose enforcers and was planning strikes on several properties, including de Marco's vacation home.

There were reports about de Marcos too, filtered through the informants Penrose had embedded in recent weeks. Tensions were high, fighting had broken out between Robert and Eveline. Robert, at least, seemed committed to dismantling what remained of Penrose's empire. They were digging deep, turning over every hidden piece of information they could find.

I'd originally planned to wait until this was all over to do what came next. But since the secrets were already spilling out, I decided there was no better time. I teleported directly into de Marcos' hidden library.

The room was empty. No one had noticed my sudden arrival; their protective sigils didn't even flare. Outside the tall window, I could see movement, they were preparing for war. Guard numbers had doubled, maybe tripled. Three new cars were parked near the front. Either Robert or Eveline was on-site. I didn't have much time.

I moved to the glass cases. With a steady hand I painted and infused a series of small holes on the glass, precision work. Then, on instinct, I tried something I haven't even theorized before. I touched the first book, focused and whispered it into my Domain.

In a heartbeat, it vanished. And I remained.

Success.

One by one, I did the same to each of the books, funneling them safely away for later. I'd sort them when things were calmer, when I wasn't working under a countdown.

For now, with the room clear, I painted bigger hole on the wall and slipped into the hallway beyond. I wanted to see what else they were hiding.

The hallway was lined with sterile white walls, more hospital or laboratory than home. At the far end, an elevator blinked silently. It had to be hidden somewhere in the house, maybe in the cellar where I couldn't reach before. Not that it mattered anymore.

I moved with quiet steps, effortless now in my rabbit-like boots, a side-effect I hadn't expected but fully appreciated.

I reached a heavy vault door beside the room I'd just left. Pressed my real ear to the cold wall, while the one inside my mask amplified every sound through magic and identity. There were muffled noises from inside, someone was there. But they moved with effort, slow and strained, like they were barely holding on.

Well. If there was ever a time to play hero, it was now, when everything else was already falling apart.

I painted a hole onto the wall, just large enough for me to pass through and infused it with my authority. Funny how every time I did this, I thought of old cartoons, Looney Tunes characters stepping through impossible, painted gaps. Maybe that's why it worked so well.

I took a breath. Small jump. Through.

I landed softly in the next room and raised my pistol on instinct.

Unnecessary.

I holstered it again, scanning the space. No windows. The overhead lighting was harsh, clinical, the same kind used in operating rooms. Walls blinding white. In the center, a figure lay strapped to a medical bed, wires running to monitors, an IV drip feeding something into her arm. Thick brown leather belts held her down, wrists, ankles, chest, neck. I was fairly sure it was a woman, though her condition made it hard to tell.

She looked wrecked. Torn up from the inside. But as soon as I lowered my weapon, she stirred. She hadn't even turned her head, it was bound in place, yet she still sensed me.

"Help me, please," she rasped, voice muffled by restraint and fatigue.

I stepped closer, but kept a cautious distance, close enough to see clearly, far enough to stay out of reach. She might be a mage. The last thing I needed was to be burned alive or turned to ash by a half-dead ghoul.

"Why are you being held?" I asked.

"Eveline keeps me here… so I'll work for her." Each word sounded like it cost her more than just breath, like it scraped her raw on the way out.

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"What kind of work?"

"I saw you in Ideworld, Rabbit. A few days ago," she said, eyes fluttering shut as if the memory steadied her. "End of September. On a rooftop. You came through a portal and watched a pigeyeon. You tried to touch me."

"You're a seer." I remembered the sprite-like figure, barely there, drifting through the edge of vision. "What do you do for Eveline?"

"I look for potential sourcerers. I give her names."

So that's how she filled her list.

"Why does she want them?"

"Will you get me out of here if I tell you? Can you help me?"

"I'll think about it. First, talk."

"She has an artifact," the woman said, each word heavier than the last. "Something she got from an eldritch being. Or a dragon, maybe. It lets her steal the power of someone's Domain, if she judges it worthy. But it only works with five."

So that's what the necklace was for. The five pearl-like stones, egg-shaped and humming. No wonder Honey freaked out when she touched it. That's why the body count piled up. That necklace gave her access to immense power and she never came back for me because she didn't get it back.

"Can she still use that power without the artifact?"

"I still see her tethered to five Domains. They haven't changed in a while… but the connection's there. Did she lose the artifact?"

"I don't know." I wasn't about to trust her with the truth, not yet.

"Why help her, if she treats you like this?"

"I don't want to die."

"That's not much of a life."

"Easy for you to say. I can still soar… in dreams."

That was true for seers.

"How do you track mages on Earth?"

"You don't know what seers can do?" She sounded surprised, just barely.

"Not all of it. Tell me."

"You're a sourcerer yourself then. Seers… we can enter Ideworld in our dreams. But with enough focus, we can cross over in spirit form, onto Earth, too."

"I see."

"Are you aware that she kills the people you find for her as well?"

"No, I wasn't."

A lie. I caught it immediately, the shift in her heart rhythm, the subtle spike in her sweat. My enhanced senses didn't miss much.

"Will you live if I unplug you?"

"Yes. The IV keeps me drugged, paralyzed, but alive. Will you help me then?"

Another flutter in her vitals. She was hiding something. Maybe planted here, maybe not. Still, she might be valuable, Penrose could decide what to do with her.

"I'll get you out," I said. Whether that was truly help or not… time would tell.

I reached for my phone to call Thomas, but froze.

A sliver of my authority snapped back to me.

Someone had broken the painting seal I left on the art gallery door. Someone was inside.

"I don't have much time," I told the seer. I stepped up to her and without ceremony, yanked out every line and tube connected to her, IV, monitor leads, all of it. Her body jerked once, weakly.

Then I touched her and the medical bed and reached for my Lifeline Talisman.

"I want to go home," I whispered into it.

The world twisted. Folded. Collapsed inward to carry us both to my Domain.

The strain hit me like a tidal wave.

This was the hardest shift I'd ever made. My soul screamed, empty and raw, by the time we landed near my crystal. I collapsed to my knees, gasping, my body heavy as stone. The soul core pulsed, sending warm light through me, repairing the damage, knitting the exhaustion back into motion.

"Why did you resist me?" I asked, voice hoarse. She had to have considerable authority. For someone in her condition, she was shockingly hard to move.

"I wasn't sure what you were going to do… not until I felt the spacetime manipulation. Your talent, it's rare."

Yeah. I was starting to understand that myself. Fortunately, my Domain had a way of bringing me back from the brink.

"Is this your Domain?"

"Yes," I said. "Don't break anything. I'm leaving you here, for now. I have something to deal with."

I turned, focused on my Travel Grimoire, summoned the image of Penrose's office and vanished.

**********

As I landed inside, I sprinted to the wall and pressed my palm against the painted nerves, part of a sprawling mural that wrapped along the hallway and the gallery. I'd tested it before, back when I finished it. Confusing, surreal, but worth it.

"Be my eyes," I whispered.

Light from my soul seeped into the art. Eyes, ones I'd hidden in brushstrokes, linked by painted nerves, flared open all at once.

My vision fractured. Eight angles, all showing different parts of the floor. It hurt, like my brain had been stretched across the architecture, like I'd become some spider god of pigments and perception. An Anansi of painted flesh.

Four intruders. Assault rifles. Moving in formation, one at the front, two flanking, one behind. They crept through the gallery, stopping at Miriam's desk where I'd left a pile of decoy papers, junk meant to grab the attention of exactly this kind of uninvited guest.

Good. They were in position. They didn't know it yet, but unless they were mages, they were as good as dead.

I shifted my stance and stepped into the painted spring beneath my feet, a stream I'd crafted to snake from here all the way through the hallway, transforming into a vast painted lake across the floor of the gallery. Be the water system.

I pulled my foot away just in time to see their reaction, mild confusion, the soft slosh of water where there should've been none. One of them lifted his boot, blinking at the wetness. Another just shrugged.

Then I struck.

I reached for the next mural, an electrical system wired through the room, connected to rotors painted on the gallery ceiling. My palm met the paint. Power surged.

Air exploded downward.

The intruders hit the ground with a thud, their rifles slipping from their grips and skidding across the water-laced floor. Wind howled. They scrambled, clawed at the floor, some tried to crawl or kneel, but the artificial gale held them pinned. Every time they reached for their weapons, the blast shoved them back down. It wasn't enough to kill, but it didn't need to be. Not yet.

I felt the strain. It crawled up my spine, pressed behind my eyes. This was the edge, my limit. I'd never pushed my magic like this before. Never gave so much authority to so many works at once, never let them all breathe like this.

But one more push. One last act.

I remembered all those times I'd carried a paralyzer in my bag, how it had saved me more than once. It was gone now, left behind during the scramble for the necklace. But electricity? I had other ways.

I pressed my hand against one last mural, the one that laced through the gallery like veins. Along the walls, through the floor. A living circuit. A web of potential.

"Conduct," I whispered. And the paint obeyed.

**********

I opened my eyes.

My head spun, dizzy, disoriented. For a heartbeat, I had no idea where I was, why I was on the floor, slumped against the wall.

Why am I in Penrose's office?

[Your soul was strained to its maximum. You collapsed due to soul-trauma.]

Anansi?

[You regained enough authority to stabilize. You were still touching the paintings, so I stripped power from the most demanding artworks to quicken the process.]

Oh my reality — the attackers.

I electrocuted them? How long ago was that?

I reached toward the nerve lines painted along the wall, my nervous system, my interface and made contact again. My fingers trembled slightly, but the magic still stirred in response.

Will I be able to sustain it again?

I can feel my suit. It's still working, still pulsing with my authority, Anansi.

[Yes. I kept that portion active. It was necessary.]

Good. Good thinking, girl.

Will it strain me again, if I reconnect?

[No. Your soul has rebalanced. You're safe, at least from internal collapse.]

Be my eyes.

The connection flared.

Through the painted nerves, my vision returned, sweeping, ghostlike, skimming across the walls and floor of the gallery. The image came back in full clarity.

All four intruders were still lying there. Motionless on the floor of the hallway.

I exhaled. Shakily. Then pulled back my authority from the extra eyes. Their job was done.

I did it. For the first time, I truly felt like a mage.

Not someone fumbling with power or improvising with symbols and intent. No, this time, I did magic. I bent the world through will and vision. And it bent back.

I portaled into my Domain, where the familiar pulse of my soul core awaited me. The crystal glowed faintly in rhythm with my heartbeat. I placed my hand on its surface, it was like touching the spine of my own existence. The power it gave surged back into me, slow but steady, like breath returning after drowning.

"You're back?" the seer asked from behind.

"For a second," I replied. I turned to her. She looked better already, less pale, though still weak and barely sitting up.

"What's your name? I don't want to keep thinking of you as just the seer."

"Beatrice Constanza," she said. There was something old in her voice, tired but grounded.

"Nice to meet you, Beatrice. Please behave."

With that, I teleported back into the gallery.

**********

The air still hummed faintly with the charge I'd left behind. I moved fast into the main hallway and reached the four intruders, who were sprawled like discarded marionettes.

I kicked their rifles down the corridor, far out of reach and checked each pulse. Alive, every one of them. That would matter.

I pulled out my phone and called Thomas.

"Thomas, are you able to pick up five enemy soldiers, delivered straight to your camper?"

A pause. "What? What did you do?"

I took a slow, deep breath. "Four of them, armed and in tactical gear, entered the gallery. I transformed the floor into a living nightmare. They're down, electrocuted, unconscious. The fifth… I found in de Marco's vacation home. A seer, kept paralyzed and imprisoned. Her name's Beatrice. I have her in my Domain. She might have the most answers."

Silence.

Then: "Yes. I just spoke with Mr. Penrose. I told him what you said earlier. Bring the unconscious ones first. Give me a minute, we're heading to the camper now."

I hung up.

And waited, watching the hallway.

"We're on site. Come in."

"Oh, I'm not coming in this time," I said, crouching beside the unconscious intruders. One by one, I touched each of them and with a surge of will, sent them straight to the camper, instant delivery, no signature required.

A startled voice crackled back. "They're here. You don't have to go with them?"

"Nope. Trick I learned today. Can I send the seer too?"

"Yes. Just give me a second. Guys are still hauling the others away. Not everyone runs on magic, girl."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I glanced around the empty hallway. "But the seer, she's probably really powerful. Her state might be the reason why she's still alive. Penrose might need a mage who actually understands seers before he lets her in."

"Alexandra."

"Hello, Mr. Penrose," I said quickly. "I was saying to Thomas, "

"I know." His voice was cool, but not cold. "Damien is here with me. He's offered to help. He says he'll handle the seer. Send her."

"I'll come with her, sir." I didn't wait for a response. I ended the call.

The gallery door had been shut, but I noticed the lock was busted, they forced it open. I didn't have time to fix it now. Instead, I reinfused the wiring across it, my magical tripwire, a warning if anyone tried to enter again.

Then I leapt back into my Domain.

Beatrice was where I left her, near the soul core crystal. Its light gave her color again. She looked at me with tired curiosity.

"I'm taking you somewhere else now," I told her.

"It must be a great feeling," she murmured, "to move with so much freedom. Even we seers are bound by our spiritual bodies."

"Yeah, yeah, freedom's great," I waved it off. "But I asked a question. I'd rather not wrestle your authority again."

"I won't resist," she promised. "Where are you taking me?"

I didn't answer. I hated answering questions that would answer themselves in a second anyway. So instead, I stepped forward, reached out and we vanished.

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