The rise of his Contract affinity had brought some significant improvements to Mimicry.

Not only could Caen sense a harmony in his soul, he could also sense a keen disharmony; a lasting impression of incongruity that he couldn’t ignore. And that concerned him.

He inspected each of the cords connecting him to the people and objects in the room. He could glean vague and nearly nonsensical impressions from them. The cord linking him to his bag of holding gave off the impression of ‘brisk rifeness’. While the cord linking him to Zeris denoted ‘sidelongness’.

After examining the cords for a while longer and puzzling over their impressions, Caen connected to his grandfather, who lay on the couch beside him. Cords of connection stretched outwards from Niodt, connecting him to everyone here, as well as a few items. Caen was surprised by the strength of his connection with the elderly man. This felt to his senses to be just as strong as his connection to Chasma was.

Also, his grandfather’s soul structure was so much more distinct than before, but nothing had changed about the man; he was still a late Attuner.

This was all Soul-sense.

Caen could also detect a very notable sense of harmony in his grandfather’s soul; far more harmony than Caen himself possessed. There was another strange sensation, but he ignored it for now, opting instead to inspect the souls of his other family members.

He quickly found that only he and Zeris possessed that keen sense of incongruity in their souls, though hers was not as pronounced as Caen’s.

Does this have something to do with the fact that we’re the only ones here with two or more active bloodlines? Caen wondered.

Zeris had Ardor and the Ereshta’al tendrils.

Or maybe it has to do with how many disciplines of magic we practice.

He and Zeris were both Surfeitists in that they actively trained more than one discipline of magic. Sh’leinu, his mother, practiced Dream-guarding, but she dabbled a little in Divination and Gleam. Caen noticed some incongruity in her soul structure, but it was negligible.

His grandmother, Elemna, though, possessed the most harmonious soul here. She was late Attuner and a Spirit-healer with a compatible bloodline.

Unbidden, Caen recalled the words of Elder Gahairis from yesterday. “Surfeitism is not a viable outlook for anyone who hopes to advance through the stages of magic,” she’d said.

I think I need a larger sample size

, Caen mused.

There was something else in Zeris’s soul structure, in all their soul structures, in fact. Caen could feel a… nudging, or more precisely, leeway. It felt as though he could sort of… expand the scope of his connection to anyone.

He leaned into it and was suddenly struck with lightheadedness as he lost track of where he was. He immediately split his mind, and the vertigo abated.

The first portion of his mind could sense the souls around him, as usual. Nothing strange about that.

The second portion of his mind, however, could sense the souls around Zeris. It was as though he were standing there himself.

Almost as though he were using Soul-sense through her. He could sense the weight of existences closest to her. Her sister, Orissa. Aunt Vensha. His parents.

And there was still more of that nudging. More of that leeway. Caen leaned into it once more, and he felt his existence stretch out further and… latch onto Sh’leinu.

It felt as though he had linked them somehow.

Caen could feel the strain on his existence, but he could sense both his mother’s and Zeris’s soul structures, and there were very stable cords of connection linking the three of them.

Zeris woke up the next moment, rubbing her eyes and pulling out a book from underneath her pillow. She retrieved a pen from within and began hurriedly scrawling equations in glowing ink. Then she paused, blinked, and looked at Sh’leinu, who lay on the couch beside her. She turned in the other direction and squinted at Caen.

“Did you do something?” she asked in a hushed voice, cognizant of the fact that everyone else was asleep.

I think so, he sent, using his spirit tendrils. Contract just rose out of abjection. A few changes to Mimicry.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit NovelBin for the authentic version.

Good for you. I feel… she tried and failed to suppress a yawn as she lay back down on her pillow. I feel very hyper-aware of Aunt Lein’s presence. Yours too. Was that intentional?

Not at all. He disconnected from both of them. I’ll have to test this out some more.

I can help with… that later in the morn— She dozed off mid-conversation.

Caen chuckled.

Already expecting their connection to be far stronger than before, he connected to Chasma and was still surprised. The fragment expressed contentment and regard to him. This wasn’t through the spirit receptor, yet Caen could understand the fragment’s intentions nearly as clearly. He expressed regard to Chasma through their bond. He would have to run a few experiments on this later.

From his table, Caen grabbed a stack of novels he’d picked up in the library days ago and slipped out of the room quietly.

He made his way to the roof terrace and was greeted by the cool night air. There were softly glowing lights here on the terrace and on the roofs of nearby buildings. But the sky was awash with dazzling fireworks.

In the distance below, he could see the first stratum with its tall structures and bright lights. The low thrum of music could be heard from so far away. The festivities didn’t seem to be winding down in the slightest.

Air traffic was sparser than usual at this hour. Still, cords of connection extended out from Caen, connecting him to every person he could see and every soul he could sense.

Caen split his mind in four. One portion of it flipped through the stack of novels. It was about Xihx—not the term for people like him and Rithya, but the more fictional, fiend-possessed muddled from folktales.

A separate portion of his mind examined his soul, trying to glean more information from the cords of connection between him and the objects in his room below. He couldn’t sense the objects through Soul-sense, of course, but the cords of connection persisted.

The third portion of his mind performed a mildly complex Divination exercise. And the final portion mulled over the future and the problems that awaited him there. In Drenlin. Now that he was done with the Patronage trials, it loomed large in his mind, weighing heavily on him.

The hours passed like this. Air traffic began picking up.

Before sunrise, Caen felt Aunt Vensha’s soul begin to move around in the room below. Soon after, his grandparents were up too. They went downstairs, and Caen’s own parents joined them, along with Aunt Grena.

Caen returned to the room.

“Ey! Why does it feel like a winner just walked in?” Orissa said, smiling as she wrapped him in a hug. She was as tall as Caen and had tanner skin than Zeris’s. Her bright purple hair had bangs so long they covered her eyes completely. The tattoos on her neck and forearms depicted wraiths and base-Ortrillian glyphs.

“Hello, Orissa.”

“You were taking your victory sleep when we came in last night,” Aunt Vensha said, grinning and slapping him painfully on the shoulder. “Mom and Dad were fussing over you, but there was nothing to heal.”

“The grand elders took care of that,” Caen said as he dropped the stack of novels on his bed.

“So that’s where you went!” Zeris exclaimed. “I was so scared that you’d been forcefully teleported out of the trial.”

Orissa laughed. “Pay up, Aunt Ven.”

Vensha scoffed. “You said that Hera-Lienixur crawled out of her grave and summoned him, not

that the grand elders did.”

“Hera-Lienixur was actually there too,” Caen said, heading for the door.

Orissa burst out laughing as she and the others followed.

“You’re obsessed with dead people, Caen,” Zeris muttered.

“How did everything go with the grand elders?” Vensha asked.

“I’ll tell you downstairs.”

They all moved down to the kitchen, Aunt Vensha and Orissa arguing about who owed whom money.

Hshnol had given the house staff a few days off to enjoy the celebrations with their loved ones on the island, so the mansion was empty. After another round of greetings and questions from his family members, Caen helped out with breakfast preparations as he gave them a rundown of his meeting with the grand elders.

“Wait,” Zeris said, eyes widening. “If Hera-Lienixur’s been alive all this time, does that mean that her son might be—”

Caen lifted an amused eyebrow.

“Come on, it’s not the same thing!” she said, laughing.

“What are they talking about?” Orissa whispered to Vensha.

“You’ll waste your time trying to keep track of their inside jokes,” Aunt Vensha said.

As they ate, he told them about the Patronage slot and his request, at which point Zeris cheered loudly. Aunt Vensha smiled proudly. His parents stood up and hugged him with tears in their eyes.

“We should throw a small celebration when we get back to Drenlin,” Elemna, his grandmother, said.

And at this, the merry mood at the table grew just a tad somber.

“It won’t be safe for any of you to go back,” Orissa said, frowning. “Wouldn’t it be better to just—”

“No,” Aunt Grena said.

“Mom, you’re being—” Orissa began.

Grena shook her head. “Like I said, we—”

“Grena, Orissa,” Sh’leinu said gently, cutting the argument short before it grew into something heated. “Not now, please.”

“We can talk about all that later,” Niodt said, nodding.

Orissa lifted her hands as though in surrender. Her mother sighed and folded her arms.

Caen’s brows were creased. What’s going on? he asked Zeris in tap code.

Tell you later, she sent before trying to redirect the conversation. “Caen, you said you found a solution for your necessary attendance at the award ceremony this morning?”

“You’ll see it when we get there,” he said, smiling.