A small gasp escapes Emily’s lips as she gazes at the se before her. The roiling wall of fog falls away after a metre to reveal a wide-open clearing broken only by a few rge trees, whose opies stretch wide overhead, blog a clear view of the sky. The fog seems to pause at the boundary of the space before being pulled down and flowing along the ground like a thick carpet.

  In the tre of the clearing, is a cra the earth. It stretches a few metres wide and over ten long, with dense fog flowing into it like water, ging close to the surfaces as it drops. Emily’s groupmates break formation, parting the fog oher side of her as they emerge into the clearing with stupefied gazes. After a few moments admiring the mysterious cra the ground, Oscar breaks everyo of their daze.

  “This is it everyone. Wele to the entrao The Crystal Waters!”

  Several muttered versations break out at his words, so he quickly regains trol of the group, obviously reeling in his owement at the same time.

  “Calm down everyohis is a very exg moment, but let’s get our arrays set up properly before we rex too much.”

  The palpable excitement of the group is barely held in as Oscar quickly pulls out the sound barrier’s stakes and divides them up. With practised motions, they pce the stakes around the clearing, f a bubble of surety around themselves. The moment the barrier is formed, the barely suppressed excitement of the group explodes as everybody gathers around the crack to look in.

  Emily joins them, gazing into the dark recess in the ground. She sees the faintly reisable membrane of the sound isoting barrier spanning the entrance, preventing sound from travelling inside. Upon closer iion, she realises that the crack isn’t just a hole. Though obscured by the dense fog resting on top of it, there is a path desding further into the depths. It starts off at ground level with a sudden half-metre drop onto a gradual slope that disappears into the billowing fog and darkness below.

  Oscar addresses the whole group as they gather around.

  “We shall set up camp here for today and move into the cave system in the m. Make the most of being in the open. This will be the st time we see the sky for a while.”

  Everyone slowly disperses, ambling through setting up camp, the usual urgency gone, having stopped far earlier in the day than normal. Emily, Ivor, and Enzo settle down together at the edge of the clearing. After chatting for a while about the mysterious entrance, Ivor and Enzo exge a gnce before both turning to Emily.

  “You should take a break for a little bit,” Enzo says.

  Emily raises a brow with curiosity as he tinues.

  “You’ve been scouting at the front all week: you’ve got to be mentally exhausted, right?”

  “Not massively. I’m quite resilient.” Emily shrugs.

  Enzo sighs, while Ivor rolls his eyes at her.

  “Just take a break for an hour to eat. We don’t need all three of us anyway,” Ivns.

  I guess I use this as a ce to talk to Callum...

  Smiling at her friends’ , Emily stands up, patting them both on the shoulders.

  “Fine, I’ll take your offer then. Thanks. Try not to annoy each other too much!” she says as she turns and walks towards the main camp.

  All the tents have already bee up, and Emily finds the majority of the expedition group gathered together eating. Before she join them, Dante approaches her, carrying a mass of bread a in his arms.

  “Hey, Emily! You here to grab food? I was already on my way.”

  “Yes and no. Ivor and Enzo told me to e a for a bit.”

  “Wow, they mao vince you to rest? Should I be rep them for usial magic?”

  Rolling her eyes at him, Emily grabs some food out of his arms and walks past.

  “Yep, they’re masters of the brain now, so why don’t you go ask them to work out what’s wrong with yours?” she calls teasingly over her shoulder as she leaves.

  Chewing on a hunk of bread, Emily ss the group for Callum, frowning when she ’t find him. Instead, she approaches Oscar, who’s sitting at the edge of the gathering, chatting with Fionn, , and Linda.

  “Hey,” Emily calls as she gets close, interrupting their versation.

  Fionn and both give her polite smiles, and Linda gives her a friendly wave, her greeting ued by the heavy bags under her eyes. Oscar raises a brow with curiosity and Emily sighs, predig his question.

  “Why are you over here?”

  “Ivor and Enzo persuaded me to take a break,” she says, quickly tinuing before Oscar ent. “Where’s Callum? I wanna talk to him?”

  Oscar looks shocked at her inquiry, but still answers quickly.

  “He’s in his tent, third on the fourth row.”

  “Got it, thanks.” Emily nods and turns around.

  Gng at the shoddily aents, she quickly works out which ts as the fourth row, heavily judging whoever mao blend the fourth and fifth rows together.

  They had one job! If I did my job this poorly, we’d all be dead...

  Shaking her head free of superfluous thoughts, she walks up to Callum’s tent and calls for him.

  “Hey, Callum! You in there?”

  She hears light shuffling ihen the front fp is pushed aside as a scruffy head of bck hair is shoved through it.

  “Emily?” Callum asks with slight fusion, brushing crust out of his eyes.

  Was he asleep already? We’ve only been here for like half an hour.

  “What do you want?”

  “Sorry if I’m b you, but I wao know if you’d be willing to talk to me about your element,” Emily says apologetically, remembering how many bodies he’d had to dismaoday because of her.

  “Why are you ied?” he asks dubiously, standing up to full height, looming two heads above her.

  “Well…” Emily raises a hand before her, gathering her current uanding of spad attempting to force a maion. Faint purple wisps flicker to life above her palm, glistening before Callum and instantly wiping away his exhaustion as his eyes open wide in shock. “I’m having a bit of trouble with it and wao get some fresh perspective.”

  “I’d be happy to talk to you. I haven’t met another space mage yet! What do you want to know?” Callum rattles off excitedly, his sudden shift taking Emily by surprise.

  “Why don’t we go sit down somewhere first. I have another fifty minutes on break, so lenty of time.”

  Callum agrees with her, so they make their way to the edge of the clearing, opposite Ivor and Enzo.

  “Is it okay to sit at the edge of the camp like this?” Callum asks slightly nervously as Emily drops to the floor, leaning against a tree on the border of the barrier.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. Enzo and Ivor are both on watch right now,” she says dismissively, waving her hand towards the dense fog wall behind her. “They’ll know if anything approaches.”

  Callum nods and sits down in front of her, waiting impatiently for her to start asking questions.

  “Right,” Emily says, opening a notepad window in the er of her vision. “First, have you done resear the library into spatial theory?”

  “Urgh, I’ve tried,” Callum groans. “I read a few books about it, but they’re all so vague ao barely say anything.”

  Emily nods at his assessment.

  “Yeah, I’ve read a lot of them. They have some useful bits of information, but it’s sparse and they often end up repeating themselves and spiralling down the same point for aire book.”

  “Exactly! I found Elemental Quandary more helpful, and that’s not even a book about space!”

  Emily raises a brow, noting down the book’s name.

  “I haven’t read that one. What does it talk about?”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s pretty basic,” Callum says, awkwardly scratg his cheek. “It simply talks about the best method for uanding your ow being creating a e with it through meditation. A pretty standard cept! It doesn’t say anything special.”

  I see, so what I was already attempting then.

  “I see. Well, in that case, could you show me your maion?”

  Callum nods, closing his eyes and bringing both of his hands out before him. Emily watches patiently, and after a few moments, the mana before Callum erupts in purple light.

  The wisps of purple mana are dehan Emily’s attempt by at least fifty per t. Also, unlike Emily’s efforts, the wisps are full of energy, erratically shifting. Gazing at the cloud of energy, she watches as a quickly moving wisp seems to pop out of existence.

  Strange, I’ve never seen maed elemental mana vanish like that. It normally fades and disperses slowly.

  She leans in to look closer as the purple light fades and disappears. She looks up and makes eye tact with Callum staring down at her in slight fusion.

  “Sorry, I saw something iing. Could you maintain the maion for ten more seds for me?”

  “Sure.” He shrugs, closing his eyes and fog again.

  The cloud of purple energy reforms, so Emily watches closely. Again, she sees a few wisps blink out of existence. However, she also spots the opposite. Several wisps appear out of seemingly nowhere, f with momentum already.

  No, actually they aren’t appearing and disappearing, they’re telep!

  The realisation hits Emily as she observes a wisp blink away and reappear a few timetres away while still travelling with the same vector of motion. She watches this process repeat with several different wisps until the cloud fades again.

  They always reappear at the instant they vanish. There isn’t a all. I guess it’s not like travelling through a tunnel of maween points like I guessed. There would be at least a fraal dey then...

  “So, what did you see?” Callum asks.

  Emily bites her thumb as her brow creases in thought.

  “Your maed mana was telep.”

  “Well, yeah. That’s pretty obvious. It’s space magic: of course it teleports,” Callum says slightly disappointedly.

  “Mine doesn’t, though, and that’s the problem I’m trying to work out,” Emily says with an irritated scowl. “Could you expin to me what you’re thinking of when you attempt maion?”

  Callum frowns, scratg the side of his head as he thinks.

  “Yes? I don’t really think that much though, so it probably won’t help.”

  “That’s fine. Anything helps.”

  “Okay. So to start with I clear my mind. Then, I feel for everything arou’s kind of hard to expin, but since I awakened, I sort of just feel where everything is within a few metres of me.”

  Emily frowns and notes down his heightened spatial awareness as he tinues.

  “, I try and focus on two fixed points in front of me and push them together. I feel space sort of stretch as they ect, so I focus on that feeling and hold it as my mental image.”

  He finishes, looking at Emily to see if she gained anything from his words. Emily sits in silence for a few moments, staring at the pages of notes floating in her view.

  Two points, ected by mana, strong force to bend space, instant transmission...

  With thoughts and theories swirling around her mind, Emily shifts her posture into meditation stand closes her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she releases it aies her mind pletely.

  First, two points.

  In the bnk vas of her mind, Emily paints two stationary purple orbs. They sit a fair distance from each other, with nothing but empty space between.

  , mana.

  Both of the orbs take on a purple glow as Emily imagines mana building up within them.

  Noly a great force.

  The orbs keep gaining mana, maintaining the same size but ballooning iy. They vibrate with immense power as they pull on the space around them, but both remain rooted steadfast.

  Finally, bend space.

  The orbs both begin to distort, pulling out into es as they reach for each other. The space between them shakes and twists, dist as it’s pressed. The two points ect, pleting Emily’s mental image with the distaween them both vast and ent at the same time.

  P mana into the mental image, Emily opens her eyes as power bubbles within her. Ign Callum’s gobsmacked expression, her gaze is drawn to the distorted space before her. She sees two vortexes of twisted reality, resembling those in her mind, but formed from folds of spastead of abstract purple shapes.

  Emily instinctively knows the points are ected, even though the pressed space between is invisible to the naked eye, a new sense of awareness budding in her core. Through the tre of one of the points, she sees a slightly twisted perception of the view from the other.

  “Finally!” she cries with joy, dropping the maion.

  “Incredible! Was that a full maion just from what I said?” Callum asks, with a defeated look on his face.

  “Yes. Thank you. Your input helped me finish my mental image,” Emily says, bowing her head slightly in gratitude. “If you want, I expin to you what I did to achieve it?”

  Callum hesitates for a few seds, before sighing and shaking his head as he stands up.

  “No thanks. It was o talk about my element with you. Not many would show any i, but I think I’ll stick t to feel out the element myself. I don’t know why, but I get the feeling that, if I let someone else help me now, I’ll never reach fourth circle.”

  Emily smiles and waves goodbye to him as he leaves, respeg his decision to follow his own path.

  I don’t have a way to repay him at the moment, but I’ll make sure he and his brother make it out of this trip alive.

  Turning away from Callum’s reg back, Emily focuses on her new sense of spatial awareness. An odd uanding of the surrounding space fills her, more in feeling than in thought. To try and process it, she shuts her eyes again and focuses on the sensation.

  The first thing she notices is the flig ck of objects occupying the space, yet stant present force. Following the force, she notices how it pulls on her as well, holding her down to the ground.

  Gravity.

  She realises the source quickly. Reag into a pou her belt, Emily pulls out a normal bullet. She throws it in the air, watg with fasation as it’s pulled back down.

  A stant force ag to hold us to our p.

  She looks closer at the obje her hand, drawing on her new spatial senses with curiosity. Everything else falls away in her perception. She tosses the bullet up again with her eyes shut, feeling space distort as it moves, watg the way the world pulls on it.

  As it falls bato her hand, she notices a flicker of distortion as it nds. Intrigued, she looks closer at the e between the objed her hand. She sees a faint, almost ent, force ag betweewo, pulling lightly on the fraal space between.

  Lightning strikes in her mind as the dots ect.

  Gravity, a stant force between objects with mass. Gravity, a force that acts on all within a certain radius with a stant value, f a field that pulls all together, that ects everything. Gravity, the force of space.