“You’re talking about an awful lot of energy.” I tapped the corner of my eye to remind her of the permanent scarring I’d suffered from trying to channel more magic than my body could handle. “No way. Think about what that would do to you.”

“I’d need help,” she admitted grudgingly. “But you’ve been working on that, right? Combining books for your Gateway Project. Why not combine libriomancers the same way, let them work together to reduce the strain on any one person?”

In the old days, before libriomancy, sorcerers had occasionally done exactly that. It wasn’t something the Porters had ever really tried, in part because most libriomancers didn’t work directly with magical energy. We needed our books as an intermediary. You’d have to have multiple libriomancers reaching into the same book, and there wasn’t much benefit in having two people pull a magic sword from a story when one could do the same.

But a screen the size of a movie theater . . . I sat back, mentally cataloging the books we’d need to create a viable colony on Mars. If things went to hell, Mars might be safer than remaining on Earth. If we retreated to another planet, it would take decades for the rest of humanity to catch us. By then, we could have moved on to other worlds. “I wonder if there’d be any degradation in magical resonance from the hundred and forty million miles between Mars and all the readers and books back on Earth.”

It was tempting as hell, both for the relative safety—and what did it say when trying to terraform and survive on another planet was the safer option?—and for the sheer awesomeness of going to Mars. I’d used magic to visit the moon, and that had been one of the most thrilling experiences of my life.

It had been immediately followed by one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, but still . . .

I shook my head. “I’m not ready to give up on this planet yet.”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “So when do we leave for Vegas?”

“We don’t,” I said firmly, before her father could answer. “You’re staying here with Jason.”

She didn’t argue. That, more than anything else, told me she hadn’t fully recovered from everything she’d been through. A year ago, she would have argued with me on principle, secure in her teenage sense of immortality and invulnerability.

Instead, she asked, “How old do you have to be to start working at New Millennium?”

The question took me off guard. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, check into it, will you? It would be nice to have a place where Dad and I didn’t always have to watch our backs. After you kick McGinley’s goons out of there, I mean.”