On the frost-edged eave about thirty meters from Ryan's window, Tina Edith produced a palm-sized compact mirror and drew her fingers gently across its surface, murmuring something under her breath. When the mirror briefly flashed with a dark, fleeting light, she closed it and put it away.
She glanced at the modest room where the man was, thought of his substantial frame, and couldn't help running her tongue across her lips — the Church's recent erratic behavior grew even more aggravating by comparison.
"Such a shame. Having him close by as a pet would have been rather nice." She exhaled silently and let the impulse go. Sacrificing caution for a momentary indulgence would be unacceptably stupid. But the regret barely lasted a few seconds before something else took its place, and she found herself whispering to no one in particular:
"You'd better reach Sequence 7 quickly, Mr. John. I'm quite looking forward to that day."
Whatever came to mind next made her glance at the sky, and whatever she felt in that moment — something between annoyance and urgency — left no more room for hesitation. She turned and left.
The particular gentleman she had in mind had no idea what was about to befall him tonight — though it was, in fairness, entirely of his own making.
Back in the room, Ryan steadied his breathing and went back over the deal he'd just made. He had a healthy skepticism for women who were clearly very good at getting what they wanted.
He wasn't inexperienced in any broad sense — he'd just never had much personal experience with women. But that didn't make him naive.
When a man has nothing much to offer and still finds himself receiving a woman's attention quickly, the right response is to recognize how wide her pond probably is — not to congratulate himself on his charm.
Still, the more he reviewed the transaction, the less he could find that was obviously wrong with it. He decided to look at it again in the morning. The reason was simple: his thoughts were still scattered, and she was already gone.
He lay flat on the bed and let his mind run.
Thinking back on his reaction to a woman in full winter clothing — responding the same way he might to summer clothes — he genuinely couldn't determine whether it was a simple matter of her being beautiful and him having limited experience, or whether she really did have some ability along the lines of Charm.
If she did, was that from a potion? A follow-up potion for Assassin giving someone a Charm-adjacent ability... actually wasn't that strange. And did that mean there was a chance he'd eventually become better-looking?
The next morning, Ryan was fairly convinced there was a chance.
The aftermath of meeting that terrible woman was simply unreasonable. Having a pleasant dream about someone was one thing — but waking up and still being able to remember both the dream and who it was about was another matter entirely. As if his brain had decided it was going to retain every intimate detail about her, even the ones that only happened while he was asleep.
Probably not someone worth pursuing, he concluded, shaking his head.
He wasn't a hypocrite — he didn't apply different standards to himself and others. But he also understood that people who genuinely changed their ways were rare, regardless of gender.
His confidence that he wouldn't cheat on anyone wasn't moral superiority — it was that he had no interest in the satisfaction of breaking rules by hiding things. If that kind of excitement required concealment, it held no appeal for him.
Anyway, it has nothing to do with me.
He let it go. Being attracted to someone and being in love with someone were two entirely different things.
With a clearer head, he reviewed the previous night's deal more carefully and found nothing that struck him as off.
Credit with no interest did sound a bit like charity — but for an organization made up entirely of Extraordinaires, money genuinely mattered less as long as the potion materials weren't lost.
Of course, that didn't mean the woman or her organization were good people. Evil organizations disguising themselves as generous ones to drag people toward ruin wasn't anything new.
The reassuring thing was that he had no leverage anyone could use against him. And the nature of potions made it nearly impossible to tamper with the ingredients. As long as he didn't get greedy — limiting himself to trading only for materials and knowledge — the trap would be difficult to spring.
Besides, the moment she had sought him out, the risk already existed. Whatever he did now, he was almost certainly going to have to choose a side between the Church and her organization eventually.
And if it came to the worst, he'd report her. He wasn't going to let a few well-placed words from a dangerous woman convince him that his goodwill with the Church meant nothing.
"I can't believe the formula I was most worried about just landed in my lap. Time to start preparing to advance to Sequence 8 — and maybe add a few things this room is missing."
He made the bed, pushed the door open, and stood in the morning sun. For the first time since arriving in this world, it occurred to him that he hadn't been entirely unlucky.
Out of caution about the Church, it took until the afternoon of the following week for Ryan to fully clear the Assassin potion's last trace of influence and ready himself to advance to Sequence 8.
They were back in his rented room. Tina Edith explained the steps for entering meditation in her unhurried, melodious voice:
"To speak about meditation fully would take far too long. But for someone on the Assassin path below Sequence 7, only a basic grasp is needed — nothing beyond that will be relevant for now.
Basic meditation is simple — and even simpler for an Extraordinaire.
First, picture something ordinary and familiar in your mind, and bring all your attention to it.
Then replace it with something that doesn't exist anywhere in the world — something you invent entirely from imagination — and shift your full attention to that instead.
Hold that. Wait until your mind and body grow still. Wait until your thoughts begin to drift. Wait until you can 'see' the space around you becoming subtly different without using your eyes — until you can sense, rather than feel, the spiritual power that runs through your entire body. When that happens, you've entered meditation."
Today she'd worn a sky-blue coat over a blue wool sweater. Still white trousers, though the boots had changed to matching knee-length ones. A color scheme that suited the winter perfectly.
Ryan sat at the edge of the bed and followed the steps. The first came easily. The second hit a small snag — he started with his computer as the imaginary object, realized it wasn't working, and switched to two stick figures pointing at each other.
He had braced himself for several failed attempts. Edith had warned him in advance that the Assassin potion offered low boosts to Inspiration, and a first-try success was unlikely.
But the sensation — thoughts quieting, drifting upward — turned out not to be difficult to reach at all. Almost immediately he 'saw' the space around him differently: faint grey mist threading the air, shapes too indistinct to name floating nearby, dense pools of color layering over each other. In some direction that was neither up nor down, clear ribbons of light moved in a way that drew the eye.
And the spiritual power that had previously only been perceptible when using an ability or a talisman was now entirely visible to him — spread throughout his body like something he could simply watch, the way he watched his own breath.
He opened his eyes, somewhat uncertain. "Miss Edith — I think I succeeded? On the first try?"
"That fast?" She sounded genuinely startled. "Well — lucky, perhaps. Either way, remember exactly what you felt. When the advancement comes, do the same. It will help significantly with the discomfort afterward."
A brief pause, and then — almost impatiently — her first nudge:
"In that case, let's begin mixing the potion. Sequence 8 is early enough that failure isn't much of a concern."
Ryan nodded and looked at the assembled materials on the table with a faintly strange feeling. The big lug's fragmented memories contained only scattered impressions of dying, nothing else — which meant today was, in every meaningful sense, the first time he would drink a potion himself.
I wonder what it'll feel like. Probably not pleasant.