Tanya wiped her brow with the back of her hand. She felt like she should have been more stressed about the rush to get this wall down before it became too dark to see properly, but it just made her feel more alive.

The shop was a mess in the way that meant real work had been done—floorboards now laid smooth and flush across the back half of the room, the scent of sawdust thick in the air and clinging to everything. Buckets, rags, and cut planks were strewn in half-sorted piles near the wall, while the rest of the space had been half-cleared for the planned blast. The air was sharp with wood polish—Olena had found a half-used tub in the hairdresser's next door, and Tanya had all but snatched it from her hands. She'd been going at it for the past hour, buffing the new floorboards until they gleamed under the fading light.

Olena had clawed off a couple of the battlement planks, letting in the breeze and the fading light as sunset approached. The remaining light had turned a burnt honey colour, catching on the motes of dust in the air and casting long shadows across their work in progress.

Somewhere behind her, Boris was worrying. "Are you sure we shouldn't cut that beam first? If we caught the edge of it…"

"I gave it a good hit. It ain't going anywhere," Tanya called over her shoulder. "And Olena checked angles multiple times already. Trust the process."

"Trust process," Olena echoed, standing atop a bench and wrestling with a stack of drop cloths. One corner snagged, dragging a bucket clattering to the ground. "Oops."

"Bad dress rehearsal is good luck for the final show, hm?" Boris declared, stepping over a coil of wiring to retrieve it.

Olena jumped down with a thump and adjusted her cannon brace. "I am ready!"

"Not with all this debris you're not," Boris said, still fussing with the bucket. "Give me two more minutes, and we might even survive it."

Tanya glanced toward the wall and ran her palm along the grain of the floor. She was just about to put down more bin bags near the base of the wall when she heard the front door creak open.

Mrs Eceer stepped inside, chin high, hands clasped behind her back, skirts grazing the edge of a paint-splattered mat.

"Good evening," she said. Her voice was calm, but the way her eyes swept the room made it clear she was assessing everything: the boards, the layout, the anticipation.

Olena waved from across the room. "We are very ready and not at all improvising."

Mrs Eceer gave her a look that made her look like she was smiling, even though she hadn't moved her mouth. "A strong illusion, at least."

"I'd say come further in, but…" Boris gestured vaguely at the chaos.

"I'll stay near the doorway, thank you. At least then I can create a barrier if this becomes more thrilling than we bargained for," she said smoothly, settling out of the doorway where the sofa used to be.

"Ima put down more bin bags," Tanya called over her shoulder. "We should've done this before the new planks!"

Tanya looked forward just in time to almost collide with someone in the doorway.

Ishita froze mid-step.

Tanya took a sharp half-step back, heart hammering before she could stop it.

Ishita looked different.

Her hair was shorter now, cut blunt in a soft bob just below her chin. Her new sari was completely white, expensive and silky aside from the stains and a couple of gashes. Even Olena's chatter behind her sounded miles away.

Tanya opened her mouth and pointed too fast. "That—uh—suits you."

Ishita smiled, barely. "It's the sari I wear to funerals. Felt fitting after… everything."

A beat passed.

Fahad was pulling at Ishita's arm. "Muuum, come on! A wall's coming down," he whined.

Ishita rolled her eyes lovingly like 'kids eh?" and Tanya gave a small smile back.

"Okay then, babu." Ishita looked away and walked to the far wall.

Tanya let out a breath she hadn't meant to hold.

She took a moment and then tried to push it from her mind, walking over to Olena.

"You ready?" she asked.

Olena was already on her feet. "You know I am."

Boris took several prudent steps back.

Tanya gestured to the wall. "Clean hit, please. We are royally fucked if this whole wall comes down."

"Please avoid attracting all of the monsters in the vicinity also!" Mrs Eceer called.

"There's a child present, so do not get crushed!" Ishita added, placing her hands on Fahad's shoulders and pulling him closer.

"Is the wall really going to come down?" Fahad asked excitedly.

Their chatter faded into the background

Olena cracked her knuckles. "You doubt my precision?"

Tanya raised an eyebrow. "Every day."

With a deep breath, Olena raised her cannon arm, and the segments undulated over her hand with a metallic clunk. She wound on a chunky module, with thick metal outside and thinner shapes within that reminded Tanya of the inside of a toaster.

"Here we go!" Olena shouted.

The cannon charged.

It was more of a thud than a boom.

The blast hit dead centre on the storage wall, punching a clean, circular hole through the plaster. The edges cracked, crumbled, and folded in on themselves as a sheet of dust fell.

Silence.

Tanya blinked. "That was… disturbingly exact."

"I told you," Olena said smugly, spinning once and bowing. "Artillery ballet."

The rest of tearing the bricks down was surprisingly boring. Tanya ended up leaving Olena to actually hit them down and stuck to picking up the larger sections to get them out of the way. For all her ease in perfect hits and shots, Olena seemed very prone to tripping over things she'd only just knocked down. Tanya supposed that was Concentration rather than Dexterity.

Throughout all of it, Tanya couldn't help but be very aware of Ishita behind her. She tried to avoid eye contact and did the awkward and very British turning around with hands on hips to generally survey the room. That way her eyes only passed Ishita for a second at a time.

It was strange getting used to the new hair and clothes. She couldn't help but be brought back to leaving high school, and how everyone she thought she knew turned up to the first day of 6th form like that three-month vacation was an entire lifetime. This time it had been merely days, and yet somehow the lifetime that had passed felt all the longer.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I've started clearing out the larger broken pieces of the flat," Ishita said behind Tanya.

The clinking of spoons against ceramic mugs and the shuffling of feet suggested that Mrs Eceer and Ishita were sitting down for a drink.

"I've gained three whole Strength!" Fahad interjected.

"Wow, very impressive," Mrs Eceer replied, without the charisma to sound like she meant it.

The sofa creaked and Mrs Eceer's teeth whistled as she sat down. "I'll help again if I have time tomorrow—"

"Of course, of course. The wards are far more important. I wouldn't want to distract from that."

Tanya was suddenly very aware of how little she knew about Mrs Eceer's latest project. She looked down at the brick in her hands and wondered if she'd stood still for too long. Making a huge show of gathering some more bricks, she kept listening.

"I'm still so thankful that the flat was too far down for the Boss to reach it."

"It's mostly next door damage, hm?" Mrs Eceer asked.

"Yes, some of the wall caved through, but it's not bad at all—all things considered."

Fahad gasped. "Am I gonna get a gym? How about a training gym with dummies so I can go HYAHHH and hit them with the lantern."

Tanya made another show of surveying the room right as Fahad summoned the lantern and Ishita and Boris dived to catch the hunk of metal before it hit the floorboards. Ishita just about gripped the chain inches above the shining floor. Tanya didn't bother. Any mark made by that lantern would just remind her of the boy who made it.

"Oopsie," Fahad said.

"Fahad Arjun Sharma!" Ishita bellowed.

Tanya smiled, facing back towards her pile of bricks. The sinking feeling was there, but manageable. Maybe soon it would have gone enough that she could begin her dive into how to fix this pact. She'd thought about it late that first night, and multiple fleeting times since, but the way the sinking started in her belly and grew and grew until it felt like she was sinking into the ground…

It was too much.

For now, she'd just keep her distance and give Ishita the space she'd asked for.

A few hours later, the group had settled into their new habit. Olena was sitting cross-legged where the planks had been the night before. She rocked side to side, caressing the shiny planks like a long-lost lover.

"It's so shiny," she breathed for at least the fourth time. Tanya still wasn't sure if it was from the alcohol or just Olena being Olena.

Boris gave a satisfied sniff from his perch on the end of the sofa. "It is rather dapper, isn't it?"

Tanya swatted Olena with the back of her hand. "You guys better not get plastered 'til a tattoo is done and I can join ya!"

Olena snorted long and loud. "Plaster like wall? How I be plaster?"

"It is a word we Brits use for drunk," Boris said to Olena. He turned to Tanya. "A fine gentleman like myself does not 'get plastered.'"

Olena mouthed 'he does' to Tanya behind her hand.

Tanya rubbed her hands together. "Alright, alright. Let's decide where to start."

She opened the notebook and laid out the options. The concepts were the back artillery cannon, a cape for stealth, some trinket for calming people temporarily, and a doppelganger for distraction.

"Are you starting hardest or easiest from the Version A's?" Boris mused.

"Easiest, I think. Might be able to get two in that way," Tanya replied, running her thumb down the page. "I think I'll start with calming. It's a smaller item which'll be interesting if I go for it bein' some kind of broach or whatever, an' I feel like I know more about it than the others."

"Know more about?" Olena asked, puzzling through her tipsy stupor.

"Yeah," Tanya looked around, searching for the words she was looking for. "Like I'm doin' things on intention even more now, an' I feel like it's hard to imagine not noticing someone, an' then I know shit all about how cannons work or, like, creating a fuckin' semi-living thing. But calm? I feel like I can put calm into somethin'."

Boris nodded. "That makes sense."

Tanya grinned. "We ready to go?"

Olena's whoops lasted all the way until Tanya was cleaning the tattoo gun.

The tattoo gun whined low as Tanya tested the needle. It buzzed against the practice skin first, just a half-second hum to be sure. Clean glide, no stutter. Good.

Olena leaned forward on the crate, chin propped on both hands like a kid watching a puppet show. "It louder than I thought it be," she said.

Boris, perched on the arm of the sofa, swirled the last inch of his drink. "Rather like a dentist's drill."

Tanya scowled and glared at him. "You better take that back."

He chuckled. "My apologies. Regardless of its noise, I can now see it has absolutely no link to a dentist's counterpart."

"Hm. Better."

Tanya sat cross-legged, notebook balanced on her knee, the overlay open in the corner of her eye. She'd looked at this before but not properly tweaked it yet, it felt better to wait until the gun was prepared before her, and she could really imagine the process.

This first design was a simple broach with winding leaves.

• • •

Design Analysis: [Calm Field Trinket Version 1] LOADING… Main Focus: Aura Dampener

Possible Active Parameters:

Open Duration: 2m before fade

Trigger: Twist mechanism

Range: 3-5m radius

Risks:

Awareness of effect

Distraction to thought

Low Resilience

• • •

"Too big," she murmured.

"What too big?" Olena whispered.

"Range," Tanya said, already adjusting sliders. "Three metres means I'm calm, you're calm, and some guy across the street is calm. Good aim but too big for now."

She pulled the radius down to a tight bubble around herself, barely arm's reach. Then she read it through and wondered if this version even needed range at all.

"That your thinking face. What going on in there?" Olena asked.

Tanya realised she'd automatically put her finger curled on her chin. "Just wonderin' how small to make this. Technically, I could do away with the range entirely."

"No harm in making it as simple as possible, yes?" Boris asked

Tanya pondered his words, then nodded. She pulled up a couple of other designs she'd made, one with a heart and waves coming off it, and another that was centred on a moon. The heart was similar to the previous design in immediate output, with the biggest change being it could select specific targets—awesome idea, but out of scope. The moon was passive rather than timed, which Tanya liked, so she tweaked from that one until she ended up with:

• • •

Design Analysis: [Calm Field Trinket Version 1] LOADING… Main Focus: Aura Dampener

Possible Active Parameters:

Passive Effect

Trigger: Summon

Range: Touch

Risks:

Subtlety

Summon length

Inconsistent flow

• • •

She sketched the final design onto her forearm with a water-soluble marker: a small, crescent-shaped brooch with three nested rings. No flare, no flourish. The outer ring wasn't even complete—just implied, broken in two places. That was the biggest change she made, alongside removing a couple of small stars from the rings. If simplicity in effect was her aim, it couldn't hurt for the design to match.

"It so little," Olena whispered.

Tanya adjusted her gloves, switched the needle, and powered the gun again.

She checked her stats the moment before she began.

• • •

Attributes

Strength: 6/17

Dexterity: 24/ 30

Vitality: 20/ 22

Concentration: 14/16

Will: 20/ 25

• • •

The moment the needle touched skin, the design began listening.

There was no strange energy this time, no crazy pulse or hum. Tanya's hand moved with practised ease—left hand stretching the skin taut, right hand working slow, deliberate lines. If she didn't know better, she'd say this was a normal tattoo from before.

Her intent whispered under her breath like a prayer. "My emotions only. Keep scope low."

The overlay flickered at each line, updating in real-time in small changes to the wording like 'Passive Effect' becoming just 'Passive' and then 'Continuous'. The sections moved around too, with extra details about the summon coming and going. She wasn't sure what was even doing this and how much it mattered. After a while, she tried to just focus on the tattoo itself.

She looked down at the gun against her skin, the pain of the needle coming in and out. The memory of her last Summon — the rush, the light, the spiralling hole that had ripped her apart — flickered in the back of her mind. She blinked it away.

This wasn't that.

The final line hummed into place with a tiny spark at the edge of her skin. It had been the only sign so far it was a summon at all. She held her breath.

The brooch shimmered — not visually, but energetically. A pulse, like a sigh caught in amber. And then it settled.

A bead of sweat ran down the back of her neck. Tanya wiped her glove against her jeans, steadying her hand before summoning the broach into her hand. It had a flat backing, similar to one she'd seen in a shop not long before the apocalypse. It was sterling silver, with no tarnishing or other decoration.

"Vitality?" she asked aloud, without looking up.

Her interface appeared.

• • •

Attributes

Strength: 6/17

Dexterity: 16/ 30

Vitality: 16/ 22

Concentration: 12/16

Will: 18/ 25

• • •

"Huh, for that one, me Dexterity went down more than me Vitality." Tanya read them out. "Strength, same. Dexterity down 6, Vitality down 4, Concentration and Will 2."

Olena leaned over her shoulder. "It work? It work?"

Tanya pinned it to her top and focused. She took a breath and felt it.

A soft hush layered over the buzz of the world. Less chemical-like a drink or weed, it reminded her more of the feeling right after smelling something nice, except longer lasting. The tension in her jaw receded. Her fingers felt steadier. Her pulse slowed not much, but enough that she noticed.

"It worked," she said, pleased. She marvelled at the Summon. "A tattoo with 4 Vitality. Pretty useless but, still. 4 Vitality."

Boris raised his glass. "To small miracles."

Olena whooped and threw a cushion at him.

Tanya just smiled. Her skin still itched a little from the ink, but there was no burn. She could barely feel any magic at all.

She reached for the notebook again. "Alright," she said. "Can probably get one more test in. Let's see if the stealth cape wants to behave."

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