Sydney-You-Asshole was nowhere to be found for the near future, having left a row of perplexed cats on either side of his escape path. It did not do to practice too much magical work at once, so the group adjourned the spellwork with handcloths dipped in the basins’ now-hot water to refresh themselves. Magicians who didn’t know how to dump off excessive heat didn’t live long, and Jonaton’s basins were for exactly that. Since the local stone was in Jonaton’s hands, and the anchor-stone was across the Portal, that was all that was going to happen today. Isla whisked Delia away, following praise from the elders, up into the manor to get her strength back. Kordas went back to his stone grotto, and the Circle huddled with Jonaton—tabby in lap—for a magical consultation that was far above his own level of expertise.

Truth to tell, he didn’t mind stopping. It wasn’t as if he didn’t already have his hands full; having to help construct a major Gate on top of everything else would probably be the stone that sent all the rest tumbling into an uncontrolled avalanche. He also felt a little giddy. It was a delayed reaction, but it finally did emerge fully in his mind that it had been done—a Portal had been opened. There had only been a glimpse, but the air was sweet, the greenery was healthy, and there was no lack—at all—of trees for construction right there. And, thanks to the cat, they knew the air was breathable and the ground steady.

This was a vital advancement in the work his father had left with him, and it took a few deep breaths to come to terms with that. When Kordas was “just a Duke’s son,” he hadn’t understood—how could he?—that his father was more than a giant that Kordas owed his life to, a Duke who could point and anything he wanted would be done. His father had been more like a symbol of a father, rather than an actual person, for almost all of Kordas’s youth. The Duke shuffled him from teacher to mentor to stable, while Kordas saw commoners out playing with their children. It wasn’t until Kordas’s teens that he understood. His father wasn’t neglectful of him.

He was trusting.