Spiritual damage lingered, beyond the capacity of healing magic to repair. This was something Jason was intimately familiar with, but his test spiritual injury was mild. Holding shut the rip in the universe had strained his prime avatar, but within a couple of days it had rgely recovered. He spent that time in his astral kingdom, in his house by the waterfall.

  Far from crippled, just not up to anht, he spent most of the time cooking. He set up an outdoor kit on the sprawlihat jutted into the ge. A rotating roster of his friends and family came by for sampling purposes, although Nik and Emi’s presence was near-stant. Emi was already an excellent cook, having learned from her mother, just like Jason. They were taking the opportunity to induik into the ary arts.

  Now that the magic levels oh were rising, magical variants of familiar ingredients had started to appear. He was incorporating them into the farms he had set up around his mai, although he hadn’t had time to collect a lot of Earth produce. For the moment, most of the farms still grew Pallimustus pnts and fungi.

  Along with fields of vegetables there were mushroom caves, hanging gardens filled with vine fruit and sprawling orchards. He had chosen ideal climates, scattered across the p and linked by portals. The influence of the living forest Arbour made for idyllic growth.

  There were still fires to be put out, from the ongoing diplomatic efforts to the fallout from the battles in Melbourne and the Sindh Province. Jason’s recovery offered him some rare downtime, but not all of his friends were as idle.

  Farrah had been going over what happened with the manipution of the grid, alongside grid operators from the various work fas. Jason put those thoughts aside, trating on good food and good pany. He suspected what she would find, but she was still w on it. He did his best to avoid dwelling in it until she was done. Even so, the e ed like magma beh the earth, building up pressure on the way to aion. He khat wasn’t helpful, healthy or productive, so he did his best to let it go and focus on what was.

  ***

  While Jason was rec, the ti of diplomats, intelligence officers and fa agents tiheir visit to the astral kingdom. Their trip had takeo the cities of New Water and Arbour. They took aerial tours around the p and even travelled into spa an uedly spaceworthy dirigible. They sa created and then terraformed in a dispy of god-like power. They toured the new p, visiting mountaintops and vast tablends. They walked around, touched the grass and ate fruit from trees. Then they left and the p winked out of existence, as if it had never been.

  ***

  US Secretary of State, Cire Danvey, watched footage of preliminary debriefs of the US members of the ti now returned from the astral space. She had a room set up for the purpose iemporary lodgings in Asano Vilge. The ti members would gh weeks, if not months of debriefs, analysis and examinations for potential promise.

  Having e to a decision, she had petitioned her govero allow her to visit Asano’s kingdom for herself. A ference call pushed off her debrief footage and she made her case to the president and to CIA Director Barstow.

  “Madam Secretary,” Barstow said. “We have no idea what Asano is capable of in that pce. If our people are to be believed, he make a p as easily as a sandwich. Either that is true, or he has the power to vince people it is. Either way, it’s a short hop to accepting that he pluck state secrets out of your head, if you put yourself in his pce of power.”

  “I would make two terpoints,” Cire said. “One is that if he wants to know something, I don’t think we stop him. You’ve seen what just that shadow creature of his do. Do you know the full capabilities of the people he brought to Earth? I don’t, but I bet they have magic that would run loops around any prote we have.”

  “So, you advocate giving in and surrendering anything he wants?”

  “No. What I suggest is that we avoid approag him in the ways where he’s more powerful than us. Than anyone. fronting him with main strength is not just pointless but terproductive.”

  “She’s n in that regard,” Barstow said. “I have a small army of analysts going over the Pakistan footage, but the early assessment is that no native Earth force could have stopped those monsters. Possibly not even if you bihem all together. We’d have to resort to magically enhanukes and turn the whole area into a radioactive pit.”

  “What we need,” Cire said, “is to approach this from another dire. Director, what is your analysts’ take on Asano diplomatically?”

  “He’s na?ve. Unversed in realpolitik. His adhereo certain principles is undermining the ability of his representatives to—”

  “That is my assessment as well,” Cire cut her off. “Jason Asano responds to trust, loyalty and friendship. Speaking with his chief representative, Ailden, it is a source of frustration for her. Asano’s approach has served him well iher world. Politics are simpler there, by all ats, with personal poersonal loyalty being lyns. That approach hurts him here. Earth geopolitics are more sophisticated, with detralised power. Over there, it’s not about the force you muster but the force that you are. Individual power over the sensual. That means more idiosyncratic personalities and less answering to disparate is.”

  “You’re saying that he’s used to the politics of god kings,” Barstow said.

  “Perhaps not that extreme,” Cire said. “Although yes, sometimes, from what I’ve gathered in my time here. A better analogy might by a rogue dictator. Someone we need for a military base, or as an intelligence asset. Or because the lunatic has nukes.”

  “What are you suggesting?” the president asked.

  “We meet him where he is. He might bee an ally, but never one who goes an inch beyond what is strictly necessary. In his mind, we’re still the work. The people who dug up Jack Gerling a him to kill Asano’s brother, his lover and his best friend. Whatever his diplomatitentions, on some level, he sees us as an enemy. If we keep treating him like a potential enemy, he may well bee one. If that happens, we lose. He hide his people where we ever reach, and move through our nation with impunity. With the power at his and, he and his friends could crush the military and civilian infrastructure of the tial Uates in a week. If that. Then he’d likely go to work on any essence users they didn’t take out in step one.”

  “That’s a bleak picture,” the president said. “Barstow?”

  “We’re still doing bat analysis of the Pakistan footage. Preliminary results support the secretary’s assessment.”

  “You’re tellihat a few dozen people represent aential threat to the Uates?”

  “Only if we keep treating him like one,” Cire said. “We o st to make an ally, because he’ll rust us. We o make him a friend.”

  “And how do you suggest we do that?” the president asked.

  “We trust him first.”

  “It’s not an unreasoned approach,” Barstow said. “Our profile on Asano suggests that the only people able to sway him are his friends. If we bee ohen we might gain a measure of the influence we have thus far failed to.”

  “You think it’s that easy?” the president asked.

  “No,” Cire said. “But I do think it’s that simple.”

  “She’s right,” Barstow said. “Our best information is that Asano responds thtforward earness. We would essentially o have one person who befriends him, and have them serve as an unofficial ambassador.”

  “Won’t he see that ing if someone makes an approach?” the president asked.

  “Yes,” Barstow said. “And even if he’s so oblivious as to not, Anna Tilden isn’t. But our profile suggests that he won’t care, so long as the approach is geilden is the problem, but her existing friendship with the secretary would make the secretary the natural choice. But there is both difficulty and danger in this approach. It won’t be easy to make him see us as a friend, and once we do, we’ll have to be one. If Asano feels like we’ve betrayed him, he’ll bee that existential threat.”

  “You advocate this approach, then?” the president asked Barstow.

  “We all know that Asano’s arrival will prompt some manner of revolution in magical knowledge. Farrah Hurin and Rufus Remore overturned turies of essence user training in a few years. Essence users from ten years ago are strohan those with decades of experiehis time, he’s brought people who push magid eventually magitech, forward by leaps and bounds. We ’t afford to be on the periphery of that movement.”

  “Do you think we would be?”

  “I think that if we use the strategies that have worked for us in the past, Asano will decre war on us. Then win it. Then have a sandwich.”

  “That’s why I want to do this myself,” Cire said. “I’m also high enough in overo both be atable and hold people to at. Anna Tilden bees an asset, instead of an obstacle. Friends matter to Asano, and I’ve taken early steps in building a cordial retionship. But Director Barstow is right about the dangers. If we do this, we have to be ear. To be a friend, and not just act like one.”

  On the s in front of Cire, the president leaned ba his chair.

  “I don’t like this,” he said. “It feels precarious.”

  “I won’t deny it, Mr President,” Cire said. “The path forward is occluded, yet we have to stumble ardless. I don’t envy your position.”

  The president took on a wry expression.

  “I would be more ined to believe that if you hadn’t primaried against me, Cire.”

  Cire snorted a ugh.

  “Yeah, well, you won, Mike, and I find myself happier about that with each passing day. I’ll be happy to run again in less iing times.”

  The president tapped his fingers on his desk as he sidered Cire’s proposal.

  “You know that you making friends with Asano isn’t the same as America making friends with him,” he said.

  “Things that matter to Asano’s friends matter to Asano,” she said.

  “That ports with our profile of the man,” Barstow said. “He’s demonstrated a willio work with groups he would otherwise cut ties with because of personal es. We estimate that his retionships with individual work members led him to dey cutting ties with the anisation for as much as a year. It was the intervention of Jack Gerling that finally broke that e.”

  “What do you advise, Director?” the president asked.

  “Like you, Mr President, I don’t like it. But I don’t see another effective approaaking inroads with Asano, and we want to be on the irack for whatever he has to offer. We ’t afford to be frozen out of that.”

  “Should we attempt to infiltrate his circle more covertly as he expands it to incorporate more people from Earth?” the president asked.

  “No,” Barstow said. “His aura senses were outndish before. I would be astounded if anyone get past them with subterfuge. We do have people with aura masking powers, but the cost of them getting caught is too high. As ridiculous as it sounds, the best approach may well be just walking up holy and trying to make friends, like children on a pyground. He’ll knoe’re doing it, but he will most likely give us a yway.”

  “And it won’t be easy,” Cire said. “The legacy of Asano’s st visit to Earth left him vigint against the magical fas, and the old work branches here in the US were ied intover. All three of us e from work families. The vampire queen may also use Jack Gerling to sour retions further.”

  The preside out a rough sigh.

  “I think the term ‘vampire queen’ tells us how far we are beyond normalcy,” he said. “Make your approach, Madam Secretary, but step carefully. I won’t allow you to promise the is of the nation to make friends to what amounts, in your words, tue dictator.”

  ***

  In Asano Vilge, a room had bee aside for a portal to Jason’s astral kingdom. Currently standing in front of it was Shade, barring the path of Anna and Cire.

  “Shade,” Anna said, “it already took quite a lot before they would even allow the Secretary of State to enter Jason’s realm. Getting clearao have her security detail stay behind was not a simple endeavour.”

  “That is not my , Mrs Tilden. If they choose to ehey accept, like everyone else, that life ah in that pce are the provinr Asano. If he decides the secretary is safe there, then no for the os bring her harm. If he decides otherwise, no for the os save her.”

  “Then there’s nothing to be worried about,” Anna said.

  “My , Mrs Tilden, is Mr Asano’s wellbeing. He is in his home, right noce he built as a sanctuary from the responsibilities and decisions he faces out here. It is for friends and family, not for business.”

  Cire took a step forward.

  “That’s why I am—”

  “I am aware of your motivations, Madam Secretary,” Shade cut her off. “I was in the room for your meeting with your president.”

  “You were in the feren?” Cire asked, looking to Anna. “You told us that Asano would not surveil it.”

  “He did not,” Shade said. “The room I was in was not in Australia.”

  “What? Are you saying that you’re spying on the US President?”

  “I either firm nor deny any active intelligence operations,” Shade said, his normally British at sounding suspiciously Ameri.

  The secretary rushed out of the room, her bck-suited detail in tow. An out a slow, unhappy groan.

  “That was not great, Shade. I’d expect this from Jason, but from you?”

  “Mrs Tilden, I do not care about this p. It is a pce of petty value in a desote er of the os. The only releva holds es from the powers paying attention to it. That will not ge unless Mr Asano chooses to ge it. I do not care about your is, Mrs Tilden, or those of this p’s other inhabitants. This world, its people and its fate are of no to me, beyond that they are of to Mr Asano. My preference would be to take those few we care about and leave this pce to its own devices. Something that many oh would wele, not least the army of vampires still holding most of Europe. It would also remove most of the issues you are faced with, although I aowledge it was Mr Asano whht you into this. Even so, I will not allow those issues to interrupt the time Mr Asano has wisely set aside to maintain his mental equilibrium. An equilibrium I should think that you see the value in, given his behaviour when he loses it. Something that is an acute threat, given what Miss Farrah has been unc during this same time.”

  “You truly don’t care what happens to a p full of people?”

  Shade form slowly became indistinct, the form that left him looking like a shadowy butler breaking apart. In its pce was something alien, primal and a. An embodiment of what lurked in dark ers; of what children feared uhe bed. Anna suddenly felt like a primitive human, huddled by a fire against the encroag dark. When Shade spoke again, it wasn’t in the crisp, clear tones of a British aristocrat. It was ahly sound, the inhuman whisper of something unseen, seeking to lure travellers into the dark.

  “Do not mistake me for what I present to the world, Mrs Tilden. I am the child of death itself, older than the world that birthed you. I have seen people die without reason or purpose, in numbers se that your culture hasn’t hem yet. You have met fewer people than I have sees fall, and I will see this world dead as well. There will be a day, billions from years from now, when Mr Asano and I visit the charred rock that was once his home. A der, drifting around the white star your sun has bee. We will be the only living things on it.”

  Anna gulped.

  “Does Asano know about the meeting Cire had with the president?” she asked, f her voiost normalcy. Shade shifted back to his more familiar appearance.

  “He will. Once his attention turns back to Earth and its s.”

  “Will you at least let me through the portal?”

  “I think not, Mrs Tilden. Not today.”