Lucian leaned on a dilapidated fence in the abandoned farmstead that they had chosen to meet up at. Night was falling, but it was still light enough to peer out into the river. He had a small degree of vertigo alongside many of the other symptoms that Charlton suggested might manifest. Miriam was off with the old alchemist, explaining things. He was glad that he didn’t have to, because his mind was spinning.

  Honestly, Lucian didn’t like to think about what was happening to him. Not just the Formless Essence—any of this. He didn’t particularly enjoy self-pity, but now, with his magic possibly compromised, he had to take a step back from the ceaseless drive forward and examine his situation. He could try and make the Formless Essence work… but it wasn’t guaranteed to work at all.

  What do I actually want to do? Lucian asked himself.

  Lucian had opted for action in the beginning because there were plenty of immediate threats on his life. Metterand, all of the people at the Collegium, the impending demon invasion—those problems weren’t something that he could dodge. He just didn’t have the capability, back then. Some of those pressures had been abated, but in many ways they were still active.

  Still, problems kept mounting. He had an Aurelia to keep an eye on. The Mentor’s Seal persisted, thank the lord, but she remained a potential danger. He was on trial for murder among other things. He just raised a massive red flag to the Student Ambassadors by abandoning them alongside Miriam, and unless he came up with a good lie (something he sucked at) that could spiral into yet more problems. He’d kicked the demon’s hornet nest, and soon enough the First Emperor would at least know to look for the guy that had Formless Essence—that is, assuming he didn’t already know to do that. Even if Lucian figured the Formless Essence out, he couldn’t flaunt it.

  But things weren’t necessarily as hopeless as that doom and gloom would imply. Lucian had allies. Now that they had seen what he was capable of, they would hopefully be more trusting of his knowledge than ever. With his magic totally replaced by this Formless Essence, he had the perfect excuse to retire to the monastery and rely on their goodwill to both stay alive and present a legitimate threat to the demons. He’d kicked the First Emperor in the teeth by stealing it, and taken out both Metterand and Vivari.

  It's been a good run, Lucian reflected. I made some achievements. Can I call it here?

  Lucian felt it was wise. He’d never quite understood why sports stars continued to play long after their prime when they’d already gotten major dough. Retire, buy some bonds or stocks, and live comfortably for the rest of their lives—they could all do that, but they rarely did. Why was it so hard to stop? Why did anyone need more after earning tens of millions that young? Maybe he didn’t know because he never had even the chance for that much money. Maybe it was love of the game.

  I’m out of my league. I died. The First Emperor killed me. Something like that could happen again, easily. Belcourt stops to tie his shoe, he coincidentally sees me doing something shady, and smites me. Boom. I’m done. Lucian nodded. I’ll be a coach, he decided. I’ll coach the players. Miriam, go get this blessing. Rowan, go get that one. Aurelia, fetch me some wine. Denzel, smite this suspicious noble.

  He started smiling as he thought of it. Yeah. What the hell? That didn’t sound so bad. The monastery was nice. Cate was there, and he could spoil her like she’d probably never been spoiled. Everybody was nice and boring. Aurelia would be… an annoyance, but a bearable one, like living in a nice New York apartment that had some awful smell whenever he opened the windows.

  “Not so easy, is it?”

  Lucian turned his head to spot said annoyance, and frowned. “Why are you away from your handlers?”

  Aurelia matched his frown, then leaned on the fence beside him. “Did your promise to be nicer to me mean nothing?”

  “I promised not to be rude. I didn’t say anything about being nice.” Lucian sighed. “Fine, whatever. My bad. What are you talking about?”

  “It isn’t so easy to risk your life,” she said with a smile. “I heard what that man said. It could cause you great damage if you use that Formless Essence. So… it’s not that easy, is it? You see where I’m coming from, don’t you? Death… is terrifying.”

  Lucian looked at her smug, slight smile. He couldn’t look for long, because his eye started to twitch. He looked back at the river. Was this what people felt when they looked at him? He understood why he was on trial if it was. Lucian’s gaze went distant as he retreated into himself to observe the Formless Essence.

  Out of pure spite, Lucian started to manipulate it with his will as he once did magic. He could definitely feel it, but it didn’t react as magic once had. It made his heart thump faster as if he was toying around with explosives. All the same, he persisted.

  It’s not magic, so it can’t be manipulated like magic. But Charlton said that it was the genesis of all power. Could it be possible to turn it into magic?

  Lucian manipulated this mercurial energy within his body, molding it with his will as he might clay. He tried his best to remember magic and all of its qualities. What did it look like? What did it feel like? How did it feel when it regenerated within his body? Having done so thousands of times, it was easy to get a frame of reference.

  Lucian started to shift the Formless Essence, guided as he remembered those various sensations. It heeded his every whim, but forcing it to assume the form of magic proved impossible. Something was missing, some catalyst to react with it. Then, he recalled the sensation that he had experienced when he had absorbed the blessing of the shifting flow. There had been geysers of energy erupting within himself. He searched for that, next, but felt frustrated by his lack of progress.

  “We’re not so different after all, you and I,” Aurelia said, giving him another boost of motivation.

  Lucian furiously prowled the depths of his body, searching for the missing element within magic. But then he realized what the problem was.

  His affinities weren’t separate, anymore. They had been melted, fused into the Formless Essence. The barriers between them had all been broken and shattered to form this gray, amorphous essence. Within him, there was no difference between the internal energy demanded of a warrior, the magic demanded of a spellcaster, or between the powers wielded by other beasts, even devils. There was no distinction between the elemental affinities inside him. All of it had been melted away into a nothingness, melted away to the point before power took any characteristics at all. Charlton had said as much, but Lucian understood it, finally.

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  With understanding dawning, Lucian took hold of some of the Formless Essence as a seamstress might catch a thread with their needle. His will gathered a thread of the smallest string, and as it proceeded, he began to weave into the other fabrics contained within. He wove a spark of fire, a hint of lightning, a touch of ice, a blot of darkness, a beam of light, and even the smallest fragment of demonic energy through this thread. And when that nightmarish concoction had formed, Lucian incased it in the weave of magic and held his hand out.

  “Vül.”

  The smallest, most pathetic flame Lucian had ever made appeared in his hands. His stats hadn’t been decreased, but these contrasting elements battled with one another to diminish the overall power.

  But persisting within it… somehow, all of those elements that he wove into the magic survived. The heat of fire, the sparking of lightning, the chill of ice, dark and light entwined… all of it surrounded by the malevolence of demonic energy. The Inquisitor’s Mark protested, searing his hand.

  God, that was slow, Lucian thought. I’ll have to relearn how to cast spells, effectively. My casting speed will plummet. Even still, he couldn’t help but smile. Maybe that’s why the First Emperor stuck to one affinity—because doing anything else was so damn complex it hurts my brain. Not a chance I could do this in a fight.

  Lucian dismissed the flame and turned his head to look at Aurelia. Her smile and optimism, gone.

  “You know… I have to thank you,” Lucian said. “What you said… it made me realize how foolish my thoughts were. It just took hearing something so ridiculous to snap me out of my funk. You must’ve realized that, and said those things to provide that perspective.” Lucian reached out and patted her shoulder. “Truly, Aurelia, thank you. As expected of one with such pure holy affinity.”

  She pouted quite pathetically with downcast eyes, and Lucian couldn’t help but laugh. He stretched, moving his body. His figure still felt quite strange, but it was like a great weight had lifted off his shoulders. The First Emperor had managed to make the Formless Essence work for him. Why didn’t Lucian think he could?

  He made to walk back, but paused. The thought of retirement still lingered on his mind. The idea didn’t sound so bad, but… he should at least resolve things with Rowan and the others. He couldn’t leave it like this.

  “Come on, little helper,” Lucian called out to Aurelia. “Let’s go. No lingering or malingering.”

  ***

  They had decided to spend the night at the abandoned farmstead, but Lucian spent all of his time investigating the Formless Essence. He’d gotten an earful from Charlton for using it without proper safety precautions, but surely all’s well that ends well. The changes that had happened to his body…

  Formless Essence was slow. And Lucian meant slow. If magic had flowed like water, Formless Essence was cold molasses at worst, and lukewarm syrup at best. Maybe it was because his soul was wounded, but manipulating it felt like a monumental challenge. It was simply heavier, denser, less easy to use than magic had been.

  But its usefulness was self-evident. Lucian could weave energies together with absolute freedom. He could create flames of pure holiness, or cast out Pixie Darts of lightning. The magic retained its form and effect, but was fundamentally altered by the element used in its creation. The Formless Essence had broken all barriers between the elements. He could create magic that, logically, shouldn’t be possible. Lightning bolts of ice? Water made of fire? The former had been surprisingly useful, while the latter had simply reverted to a more natural form of fire immediately.

  It defied explanation, even Charlton’s. Lucian could even weave the elements together, as he had that first time. Contrasting affinities drastically weakened the spell. Water and fire didn’t mix, nor did holy and dark. But he could cast out fireballs that healed who they struck, and that struck him as pretty damn cool.

  Why didn’t the First Emperor use it like that? Lucian wondered. Does it behave differently for me, or was he just not particularly creative?

  The thing that disquieted Lucian the most was the fact that he could wield demonic energy. That was a frightening ability. It also extended to internal energy, the little-discussed power within warriors. There was a reason that, as the strength of warriors rose, they didn’t start looking like roided-out body builders. Warriors drew on an internal wellspring of natural energy most commonly called internal energy.

  Internal energy was seldom-discussed because its use was instinctual, and it grew naturally. When he wove spells out of internal energy, it was as if his spells had gained physical strength. Rather than elemental, they were pure force. Lucian had discovered, unfortunately, that he was utterly unable to use any warrior skills. Charge, Pikeman’s Brace, Pierce—he could use none of them. That was yet another problem to solve, but he had confidence in solving it much more now that he’d overcome the first hurdle of magic.

  I haven’t lost anything, I just have to relearn things.

  Even still, after one night here too many…

  “Miriam informs me that you are unable to discuss the reason that you possess this knowledge,” Charlton said, speaking in a quiet whisper. “Could I receive a demonstration of this?”

  Lucian attempted to spill information about War of Four, but as ever he felt that invisible force choking him. He cleared his throat when he was done. “Sorry. Same as ever.”

  Charlton studied him. “…I’m not unsympathetic to your circumstances. This… future knowledge… she described would also explain why you possess knowledge about the Black Bloom Initiative. Nevertheless, I’m not satisfied at receiving this knowledge second-hand. When you return to Verne, I would request that you visit me when next you’re able, and discuss things with more detail. Consider it payment for my examination.”

  “I can do that,” Lucian confirmed. “I have to thank you for being so understanding about all of this.”

  “Understanding? My mind is reeling. I cannot claim to understand even a touch of what you have forced upon me.” Charlton stroked his beard. “Even still, there must be reasons the monastics heed your words. There must be some reason that bizarre, unique power has found its way to your being. It is my hope that I might be able to illuminate both our mysteries when we have more time on our hands.”

  “Definitely.”

  Charlton raised his wide brimmed hat to his head and put it on, giving a nod as he pushed out the abandoned farmstead and left to return to the city, cane clicking beside him. Once he was gone, Lucian looked back. Only Miriam and Aurelia sat there.

  “Now…” Lucian walked up to the table, sitting down beside Miriam. “We need a lie, Aurelia. And you’re the best liar I know. Best in the whole world, even. The lies just flow out of your mouth so freely, so perfectly, that it boggles the mind. That was a compliment, by the way, so don’t accuse me of being mean,” he said when she narrowed her eyes.

  “Was it, now?” Aurelia said dryly.

  “Would you be complimented by that?” Lucian asked Miriam.

  “Being called the best in the whole world? Oh, absolutely,” she confirmed.

  “See?” Lucian looked back. “And how do you respond to compliments, Aurelia?”

  “…thank you, Lucian,” she said without emotion, like a child forced to thank an adult. She puffed, crossing her arms on the table. “Well… fine, I do have something, I’ll admit it, and not all of it is lies. If I understand the situation correctly…”