Members of the Cabal had been hiding themselves for lohan humans — at least the ones from Earth — had been rec history. Some were reclusive, their gmours not holding up to close scrutiny. Others were capable shape-shifters, blending unnoticed into human society.

  Messengers were among the most capable in this regard. They could hide their wings, reduce their size and even diminish their natural beauty and pelling preseher inhuman traits, such as hair colour, could likewise be disguised. In this way, the messengers had hidden themselves for millennia. Even many amongst the Cabal had sidered the angelic founders of their collective a myth.

  Fifteen years past the revetion of their existence, many were more rexed about masking their nature. The wider cabal was often doing much the same, from diminutive fairies to looming ogres. There were many advao the human form, however, even within Cabal facilities. When you were niall, with three-foot antlers, taking human form was just easier when you were in line for the handmade naan bread station at the cafeteria.

  Boris Ket Lundi, or Boris Ketnd, as he went by oh, had long been fortable with human proportions. Those proportions had ged siderably over the years, his first visit to Earth predating the existence of humans oh by a siderable margin. He had once spent several millennia disguised as a celestine research assistant, studying the effeagi vergent evolution across universes. It had been a useful cover in scouting potential sites for hidden Unorthodoxy ies.

  Earth had been a bold choice for such a y, beiral to the sdal that saw the inal Builder saned. The gamble had paid off, however, as the cil of Kings saw no value in poking at the great astral beings and avoided the seemingly worthless world. It had been tricky to set up infrastructure to sustain gold and silver rankers on the low-magic world, but that ut in pce before the rise of the early hominids. There was no way to allow diamond rao live there, but they were few in number anyway, and could take care of themselves.

  Uhe cil of Kings, Jason Asano was not afraid of jabbing transdent beings and their is. His ability to keep doing so without being spread across the crete like an unfortunate jam spilge surprised even Boris, whose life experience spanned billions of years. He had marvelled at Jason, who had no cept of how often the hand of vengeance had been stayed by wildly unlikely circumstances or a bizarre fluence of transdent agendas.

  Even now, pns born long before Jason Asano were moving, unnoticed and unseen. Like the water of an underground river, few realising what was happening, right beh their feet. The schemes set into motion by Jason’s outworlder predecessor, the work founder, tio py out. Boris had worked with the founder’s own familiar to betray him to early magic societies that would eventually bee the work.

  That act had not stopped the clock the founder had set in motion, but it did allow them to accelerate the magical knowledge of Earth’s fledgeling essence users. Not enough, but the defiagi Earth was always going to be the limiting factor. The rising magic of the st tury or so, had led to the work being fully established.

  h had always been an unstable element, and his increasingly extreme and isotionist approach to advang Earth’s magic had been disastrous, in the end. His Engineers of Assion had attempted to push magic forward through less ventional paths, but Boris had refused to participate. h and his anisation’s research was dangerous enough, without access to the knowledge of the os.

  In the end, h had failed to realise that Asano was an ally and not an enemy agent until too te. His drastic move of disabling the grid had created the transformation zone crisis, almost destroyed the p and spiked the magic level of the Earth.

  Boris had e to the brink of revealing his messeo resolve the crisis, but Asano had ma alone. Even so, the increased magic level and reduced stability of the Earth had accelerated the eimelihe worst part was that Boris could do nothing, forced to let Jason py into enemy hands. The only alternative was to let the Earth be destroyed.

  Ultimately, Jason’s efforts had allowed the messeo remain hidden. The more Boris was forced to expose the presence of his people, the more likely they would be discovered by those out in the os. Once revealed, the messengers would o leave the wrath of the Orthodox messengers down upon the Earth.

  If Boris and his people had to leave, they would not be around for the war to e. That was auality that he noted was more likely than not, after h’s as. The dimensional bridge had o be put in pce decades before previously necessary.

  The likelihood of the messengers being forced to leave and not be present for the war had pushed Boris to revisit an old decision. He had helped the Asano take up one of h’s projects, something he would never have done if h was still alive. He trusted the , under Jason and his grandmother, to act more responsibly than the rune spider would have. He doubted it would be enough, but it would give the Earth a ce, at least. If he and his messengers were not present to fight, they would desperately .

  Asano’s detour with the ic Throne had given them a precious fifteera years to prepare, but even that ushing it. Much longer and signs of dimensional breakdown would have started to show. Now, the bridge was set ihe Earth would heal over time, but eo a hreat. Within a decade at most, the bridge would bee a true dimensional passage, no longer requiring sophisticated astral magic to cross.

  Boris found himself forced to admire the pn. The World-Phoenix, Jason, Boris himself and many others pyed a part, each elegantly pce to do their part. Some, like Jason, were oblivious to their role, while Boris had no choice but to go along, despite knowing the oute. The World-Phoenix could not be forced, maniputed or deceived. It simply didn’t care what happened, so long as the Earth’s dimensional stability was ultimately restored. The enemy used that disi, relying on the World-Phoenix doing what it would have done anyway.

  Dawn had been a surprise to Boris. He had not expected the World-Phoenix’s agent to form such a e with Jason, although that seemed to be the man’s true talent. He made friends or enemies, and little iween, everyoher loving or hating him. Even Boris quite liked the man. He had an inkling that the enemy had been equally surprised by Dawn’s behaviour, and took hope in that. He didn’t kly what she had done for Jason, but was certaiaken as beyond the mandate of her great astral being. It could be the thing that saved them all.

  Boris pted all of this from the Cabal main headquarters, in what was ohe Democratic Republic of go. The Cabal’s influen Africa was greater than that of the ical fas, but the former DRC was one of the few regions where it had ht seized power. The Cabal preferred to operate in a supp role with existing govers, but several areas had proven too unstable after the rise of magic.

  He sat in a room that looked like a security office, with an array of monitors on one wall. Running on loops was all the footage of Asano’s return publicly avaible, and quite a few that weren’t. Boris sat at a desk where a puter held every dot a they could get on Asano and what the powers of Earth had done in preparation for his return.

  The media had only just been cleared to annouhat Jason was back. There had been some iable leaks, but Jason Asano was a name of the past. His name alone caused a stir, but no great waves. He was a name from the earliest days of magid the world had moved on. The i in him was rising noing up as footage of his dramatic arrival was released. Carefully curated, of course.

  The publiterest still wasn’t at the level that Boris knew would iably e. They didn’t uand the scale or text of what was happening, but that would ge over time. The fight would not be one of powers and viole image and messaging. Whether to mobilise the world, or maintaiatus quo, the key was trolling the narrative. He was frustrated at his inability to put his hand on that scale. He had already revealed himself more than was wise, especially with ic eyes now poi Earth.

  Boris sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. He wondered yet again if it was the right move to let things py out, keeping Asano in the dark. And he came to the same clusion as always, as much as he disliked it. Jason’s pent for extreme-risk solutions would undoubtedly rear its head if he found out what was ing.

  The only real tool Asano would have to fight the oute was his e to the dimensional bridge, and Boris was not the only one who wouldn’t allow it to be endangered. If something happeo it now, it would almost certainly undo the Earth, and possibly Pallimustus as well.

  Boris looked up at the image of Jason fighting the ivaders, knowing that Earth had to be ready for worse. They had to make the most of the decade, and Jason had to be the catalyst. His unique position, h between protector and threat, was the exact motivation that the Earth needed.

  He stood, just as the door opeera Jun Casta entered, her eyes finding Asano’s image on the monitors. There was a lot of baggage there that o be carefully unpacked, now that Asano was back.

  “Are you going to Australia?” she asked.

  “Yes. Do you want to join me?”

  She looked back at the ss.

  “Yes. No.”

  She bowed her head and mumbled at the floor.

  “I don’t know.”

  He reached up to give her a f pat on the shoulder. She was one of the few messengers who kept her wings and much of her size, even indoors. Her t height of almost seve made life awkward, but little more than humans of simir stature. Her looming form was ingruous with her cute, rounded facial features and brassy-haired pixie cut.

  “Maybe wait,” Boris suggested in a soft voice. “Things are hectic right now. Give them time to settle.”

  She nodded. Boris patted her on the shoulder again a her in the office, watg the recs of Jason.

  ***

  Colours swirled over the navigation table on the bridge of Admiral Jakaar’s fgship. Dimensional maps were abstract, shifting things, as traversing astral geography was wholly unlike navigating physical reality. Time and space became arguably and variably the same thing, wholly at odds with each other, or eirely.

  One of the less discussed aspects of being a diamond-ranker was horoag the peak of mortal pranted glimpses of what y beyond. Jakaar could feel the flow of the os, like a voice slightly too distant to make out clearly. When he nudged up against the higher rules of the os, that voice became clearer, although he didn’t always like what it said.

  In this case, he could feel the rules of intrusion. They were telling him that the fragile backwater universe tainih was still unavaible to him, even through gold-rank catspaws. Enough time had passed that his people should have either fihe job or reported their failure.

  The liween this universe and the other was impossible to miss, to the point of almost blinding his vessel’s sensors to anything else. He had his fleet running patrols in case of ambush. He wouldn’t normally expect as much, out in this backward, ic crevice, but the tinued silence from his most reliable gold rank agent spiked his instincts. He had the feeling that he was somehow being pyed, and he didn’t like it. Wishing he’d given more credeo Jota’s misgivings, he spped a hand on the navigation table in frustration.

  “Keeley?”

  “Yes, Admiral?”

  “Collect what we have about Earth. Scoutis, transcripts of every unication when we were cutting the deal, everything. Send it to my stateroom.”

  “Of course, Admiral.”