They went back through the waiting room, to the door Josh had once taken for a cupboard.
The test room was beige, with the drain in the middle of the floor and the table that had been wiped a great many times. Last visit it had held Josh, Solaris and a clipboard. This time Solaris brought the clipboard and the four of them filed in behind him, ducking under the frame, until the room was mostly velvet. Luna stayed in the doorway because there was no space for her anywhere else.
"Sit," Solaris said. "Hand on that."
He set the orb on the table: glass, the size of a grapefruit, cloudy in the middle. Josh sat down and put his hand on it.
The cloud went dark. It thickened into a liquid, black and slow, and spread outward until it hit the glass. It kept pushing after that. When it finally stopped, there was no clear glass left, and Josh's hand was resting on a black ball.
The four of them had been chatting since the corridor. They shut up.
"Did that work?" Josh said.
Last time that question had gotten him a lid closing. Solaris just stood there holding the box.
"Black," said the one with the ring.
"I can see it's black," said the cravat.
"Is black bad?" Josh said.
The long coat frowned at the orb like a guy trying to remember where he'd parked.
"Black is," he said, and stopped.
"It's been a while," said the cravat.
"I know it's been a while."
"Do you remember?"
"Do you?"
"Solaris," said the long coat. "The documents."
Solaris went out and came back with a binder. He licked his thumb and turned pages while four immortals in velvet stood around waiting on him.
"Black," he read, and ran his finger along the line. "Mage."
Josh's eyes went from the orb to the four of them to Luna, who was staring at the orb like it had bitten her.
"Mage," he said. "Like magecraft. The thing that ended a long time ago."
"Yes."
"Me?"
"Apparently."
"So I'm not a dwarf."
"Congratulations," said Solaris.
"Helmet," said the long coat.
"Wait, hold on, can somebody explain what—"
"Helmet," said Solaris.
✦ ✦ ✦
The helmet was real steel with a chin strap, drilled all over, a crystal in every hole with the point facing in.
This time every point had a glow on it. Faint, soft at the edges, sitting on the tip of each crystal. The room didn't get any brighter. The glow was simply there, on all of them, and every one was aimed at where his head was about to go.
Josh leaned back in the chair.
"I'm good," he said.
"It's meant to be on," said Solaris.
"Yeah, no. I'm good."
"Why?"
"It's too heavy."
That part was true. Last time it had nearly folded his neck in half.
"Too heavy?" said the long coat.
"Really heavy. You weren't here. It was a whole thing."
The cravat sighed, reached past Solaris and touched the helmet with two fingers.
"Now it isn't," he said.
Solaris held it out. Josh took it without thinking, and it weighed about as much as a baseball cap.
He put it straight back down.
"Still no."
Now all five of them were watching him.
"You said it was too heavy," said the long coat.
"It was too heavy."
"It is not now."
"...No."
"So that was not the reason."
Josh opened his mouth to say it was still heavy.
His lips moved and no sound came out. He tried again. Still nothing. His hand went to his throat.
Solaris had caught it.
"Don't," he said. "You can't lie in this building, little man. Just tell them."
The glow sat on every point of the helmet, and still none of them had so much as glanced at it.
"It's glowing," Josh said.
Silence.
"The points. There's a glow around the ends, on all of them. You can't see that?"
The one with the ring turned to the long coat. The long coat turned to the cravat. The tallest one, who'd barely spoken all day, kept his eyes on Josh until Josh started to wish he'd just worn the stupid helmet. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
"He sees it," the tallest one said.
"He can't see it."
"He's looking straight at it."
"Sees what?" Josh said. "What am I looking at?"
"Put the helmet on," said the long coat.
"That's not an answer."
"Put it on."
Josh turned to find somebody who'd give him a straight answer, and his eyes landed on Luna in the doorway.
She had it too. The same glow, all the way around her, arms folded, chin down.
It was pretty. Luna was prettier.
He put the helmet on before anybody could see his face.
The points pressed against his scalp. Solaris wrote on the clipboard. They waited, and the helmet did nothing.
"Well?" said the cravat.
"Nothing," said Solaris.
"Nothing at all?"
"Maybe it's too low to count?"
"So he can't channel."
"Not enough to measure."
"Then he's elementary."
"Then he's harmless," said the one with the ring.
✦ ✦ ✦
Solaris lifted the helmet off him, and the four of them started up again, this time about Josh, right over his head.
"So let me get this right," Josh said, louder. "I'm a mage."
"An elementary one," said the long coat.
"Which means what?"
"It means you are classed." He was still studying the orb. "Whether you can do anything with it is another matter."
"Can I? Do anything?"
"Not today."
"When, then?"
"That depends on who teaches you."
"Okay. Who teaches me?"
None of them answered.
"There's no one," the tallest one said at last.
"What, like, nobody's free, or—"
"There's no one left."
"Where'd they go?"
The four of them traded a look.
"Away," said the cravat.
Josh waited for more. The cravat had already turned back to the others.
"A month and a half," the long coat said, done with Josh. "From the first test."
"Almost two," said Solaris.
"A month and a half. Human on every test. And now this." He tapped the orb with a knuckle. "It takes lifetimes. Generations, standing next to us. Not six weeks in an apartment."
"I know what it takes."
"Then explain it."
"I can't explain it. Can you?"
"And it's not even the strangest part," said the one with the ring. "There's a mage. In this building. Today. Do you understand what that means for—"
"Not here," said the tallest one.
"I'm only saying, if one can come back, then—"
"Not here."
The cravat was grinning. The tallest one wasn't. The long coat had gone quiet and was plainly counting something, and Solaris got very busy with his clipboard, like any clerk whose bosses had started fighting in front of him.
"Whatever we tell the council," the long coat said finally, "the human doesn't need to hear it."
"He's not a human," said the cravat.
"The human," the long coat repeated, as if the cravat hadn't said a word.
(Luna:She had signed for a human. A small one. Stay next to him until he dies, make sure nothing comes out of him. That was the whole job, and it was already more job than she'd ever wanted.
Now he was a mage, and her name was still on the paper.
Whatever they decided in here today, she knew who'd be carrying it home.)
✦ ✦ ✦
Josh had gone back to his hands.
They were his hands, stylus callus and all. He turned them over and they didn't do anything. He grinned anyway. He couldn't help it.
"Okay," he said. "That's sick, though."
The arguing stopped. The source of this chapter is g.com.
"What is," said the cravat.
"Being a mage. That's sick. I'm a mage."
"That is your reaction."
"I mean. Yeah?" Josh shrugged. "Is there a different one I'm supposed to have?"
"He did that last time," Solaris said. "With the essence. He asked me what it was."
"Nobody takes it like that," said the long coat.
"He does."
The tallest one studied Josh for a while.
"Run the ancestry," he said. "And reincarnation."
"We ran them both. Last time. Nothing."
"Run them again."
✦ ✦ ✦
So Solaris stood him a foot from the wall, facing it, and told him to put his hands up with the fingers apart.
Josh knew this one. He put his hands up.
His fingertips started to bleed with no cut anywhere, and it still didn't hurt. The blood crossed the gap to the wall in thin lines.
Then the wall pulled.
Last time it had soaked the blood up as it arrived. This time it drank. The lines went tight, then thick, the blood came out of his fingers faster, and the wall took every drop the moment it landed.
"Is it supposed to do that?" Josh said.
No one answered him. Behind him the cravat murmured something, and the long coat said "Don't," just as quietly.
When it stopped, the wall was plain beige again. Not a mark on it.
Solaris checked his clipboard, then the wall, and wrote something down.
"Ancestry," he read out. "Nothing."
✦ ✦ ✦
The last one was the smoke.
Solaris lit the dish. The smoke came up heavy and stood in a soft gray column at chest height, holding its shape.
"Breathe it in. All the way down."
Josh leaned in and breathed until his lungs were full, and got ordinary air.
The smoke didn't move. He tried again, harder. It stayed right in front of his face.
It was still the only one he'd wanted to pass.
"Reincarnation," Solaris said. "Nothing."
None of them moved to clear up. The smoke stood on the table, and the orb sat in its box, black all the way through.
The long coat was watching the wall where the blood had gone.
"Nothing," he said. "Yet."
✦ ✦ ✦
The four of them took their argument down the corridor, and Solaris took Josh back out to the counter, because there was still a form.
Registration went one box at a time.
"Name."
"Josh."
"All of it."
Josh gave him all of it.
"Height."
"Five-seven."
Solaris wrote down five-six.
"Address."
Josh gave him that too. Solaris started writing it, slowed down halfway, then pulled the binder over and paged back through it until he found what he was after.
"Huh," he said.
"What?"
"You've got another one at that address."
"Another what?"
"Another one of us. Registered. Same building." He tapped the line. "A spirit. Name of Shirly."
Josh stared at him.
"There's a spirit in my building?"
"There's a spirit in your building."
"Which floor?"
"Doesn't say." Solaris looked up. "Have you met her?"
"No," Josh said. It came out with sound, which was a relief.
Solaris looked past him, at Luna.
"Luna. Have you met her?"
Luna opened her mouth.