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  Laura stops trying to heat Jeremy up, and instead shows Jeremy how to warm himself. Jeremy makes himself some clothes and now he is warm. This is good!

  "Laura, where is Benj?"

  Laura tries to point, but Benj doesn't want to be found and resists being pointed at directly. But that is a naive way to hide. By feeling the strength of repulsion, Laura can guess his direction. Blip blip blip.

  It takes them a long time to reach sight of him, and then it feels like they're running on the spot while he runs on the spot too and runs away. They spend a long time looping around, running and not getting anywhere. Delays and delays.

  Jeremy builds a new Benj instead, who just stands there with them, blank. That's better. "I get it now," Jeremy says. The real Benj keeps running away and soon is gone.

  "No, he should be Benj," says Laura. "Not just look like Benj."

  She does something and Benj wakes up inside the Benj body. "Hello?" he asks.

  Jeremy wonders why Benj was running away. From what? Dan checks his wristwatch, but all he learns from it is that he is still wearing a wristwatch. The light on all horizons is brightening. He glances at the sky and does some brief trance work, muttering odd syllables which just drip onto the floor like paint, but which may possibly prepare his mind for a rough re-entry. "Did you ever see a man get hypnotised to forget the number seven exists, then try to count to ten?" he asks nobody in particular. "Derive the existence of seven from first principles and talk to me about thinking outside of the box. Let's try the falling reflex."

  A cubic mile of glass below them disappears. They plummet into the chasm; then it slams closed, a tectonic movement of broken glass crushing them to shreds.

  ZHRZHZZHRRRHRHRZZZZ

  *

  —kicks his staff out of the bracket and breaks the spell in half, scattering mana backwash over the three trainee mages like hot coffee.

  All three of them fall, rings dropping out of their hands. The magic circle is too wide; Czarnecki can only catch the person nearest to him, who happens to be Jeremy. "Stay where you are," he advises them. "Don't get up, just sit down here and wait. You," - now he points at the student on the far left at the front row of the class - "go to that red telephone on the wall, dial eight zero four zero and ask for Dr Neal Marek to come down here. Everybody else, please stay in your seats for a second. You can all leave once Dr Marek has arrived, I don't want him struggling through all of you on the way in. We're finished for today."

  Ten minutes later the lecture theatre is empty except for the five of them. Czarnecki has attached a segment of his staff to the Veblen pump and is flaring off the accumulated mana, prior to a proper shutdown. It's taking longer than it should. "This is a lot of energy," he says, partly to himself. "Three or four weeks' rent for a basic mage. At a guess."

  Dr Neal Marek is about fifty-five, with a full grey beard and thin-rimmed varifocals. He is the deputy head of department. He has already had some words with Czarnecki, and he has already taken some notes in a fat A4 hardback notebook. Now he focuses on the three students, seated in the otherwise empty front row. They aren't actually in shock, but look like hell. "Tell me exactly," he says.

  "I don't remember anything," Benj begins. "I just woke up falling on my face. Must have fallen into a trance while casting. I've got nothing."

  "Laura committed us to too much mana," says Jeremy.

  "Benj, how much mana do you have left right now? All bands."

  "Nothing," says Benj.

  "Running out that fast could easily have sent you to sleep. Basic exhaustion."

  "I don't remember anything."

  "That's normal, don't be concerned about it. Jeremy?"

  "I'm tapped too," says Jeremy. "I can tell it's going to be a few days."

  "And Laura?"

  "I used a collection multiplier," says Laura, and recites the spell in regular words. Marek nods and takes some notes. "I used it several times."

  "How many times?" Marek asks.

  "I... don't remember."

  "Do you mean you lost count?"

  "...Yes." Laura slips a pair of thick grey rings off her right arm and hands them over to Marek. "I use storage. Most nights before bed I unwind all the mana I've got left into these rings. They're modified Montauk sinks. They're paired, like electrodes of a battery, so try not to touch them together too much. They'll take any type of mana. They're not as full as they have been historically. At one point I had to wear them on opposite wrists to keep them far enough apart. But I use a lot of mana for coursework and practice these days, so..."

  Dr Marek tucks his notebook under an arm and inspects the two rings, pinging them thoughtfully.

  "Because it's just a waste to leave mana ambient," says Laura, to fill the silence. "Every second it sits there, it's doing nothing. So I save it, why would anybody not save it?"

  "Very interesting. I can't tell how much energy they contain without direct inspection," says Marek. "But this is the equivalent of a few tonnes of TNT."

  "Tonnes?" says Benj.

  Laura hurriedly interjects, "Sure, but, you see, it's impossible for all of that to be vented at once—"

  "And that's now," Marek continues. "Not before."

  "I don't— I didn't do anything wrong. The demonstration needed a heavy concentration of mana. What happens when you run out of mana? You run out. The experiment stops! I didn't do anything! Why did we all end up in my dream?"

  "I don't remember anything about a dream," Benj repeats.

  "There was this big dark planet," says Jeremy, "like a big— marble. I can't remember. We were all there."

  "The more I think about it, the more detail slips away from me," says Laura.

  "It wasn't a dream," says Marek. "For one thing, whether you remember it or not, you were all in it together. For another, I've had it before. Laura thinks it was her dream— she's had it before. So have other mages. It has several different names. 'Tanako's world' is as good as any. As for what it actually is: we, mages collectively, do not know. To the extent that it's a dream, it's a bad one. To the extent that it's a world, it appears to be fictional. All we do know is that magic is incredibly complicated, magic heavily involves the human brain and the human brain is even more incredibly complicated. The best theories say it arises from training our brains the way we do. All of us do essentially the same meditation exercises, which means we have a lot of common mental ground. And so some sort of link occurs."

  "But how come we've never heard about it?" Jeremy asks.

  "Because you haven't been doing magic for long enough. You were going to hear about it in your third year. It's right here." He flicks through his notebook and produces a high-level schedule for the whole Thaumic Engineering syllabus, a 16-page paper booklet. He opens it to the relevant page and hands it over to Benj. "It's not a secret. Three years from now, I hope you'll all be qualified to help us pursue the question. Or, better yet, we'll have an answer before then."

  Benj hands the syllabus to Jeremy. Jeremy reads it, and hands it to Laura. She reads it.

  "Is it dangerous there?" she asks.

  There is an unsettlingly long pause. Marek glances over his shoulder at Czarnecki. Czarnecki is completely expressionless.

  "Yes," says Marek.

  "Kazuya Tanako died of a stroke. Did he die... there?"

  "Yes."

  "So I'm having dreams that could kill me?"

  "No. Not unless you're habitually sleeping inside a hundred-kilothaum Dehlavi lightning machine. And even then—"

  "But he put us in a hundred-kilothaum Dehlavi lightning machine today!" cries Benj, pointing.

  "Again, no."

  "If he knew the experiment was dangerous why didn't he warn us beforehand?"

  "Because Dr Czarnecki wasn't following procedure."

  "What?" says Czarnecki. He looks up, suddenly angry and embarrassed.

  "He should have made sure that none of his students had brought dangerous foreign objects into the system. He should have paid clo
ser attention to his students while they were casting. He should have realised that something was wrong sooner and, yes, he should have warned you up front." Marek says all of this without even turning around.

  "About what? What the hell, Neal? You're doing this in front of them?"

  "There was more than one mistake made today, Dan. I want all of us to understand all of those mistakes."

  "She got them into it! That ring-couple is close to undetectable! I don't have to listen to this."

  "Actually, you do. That machine needs draining safely and it isn't going to do that by itself and it'll take a little while."

  There's a heated pause.

  "One of the purposes of the experiment," Marek continues, "was to— safely— demonstrate, ah, 'low-energy high-energy magic', and introduce some of the safety concerns associated with it. If procedure had been followed, it would have been perfectly safe. As for what Dr Czarnecki did right: while he was setting up the experiment, he verified that all the raw mana held by everybody in the room combined couldn't have crossed the threshold of danger. That's by the book. When he did realise something was wrong, he quickly determined the problem and was decisive in resolving it. And he got all three you out of Tanako's world very quickly, which is a testament to his skill."

  Czarnecki glowers.

  "Benj, did you notice that you were running low?"

  "I did. It happened fast, though—"

  "Were you told to say something if that happened?"

  "I— yes."

  "Then you should have said something," says Marek. "Jeremy, did you notice when Benj dropped out?"

  "He didn't fall over or anything..."

  "His eyes would have closed and he would have been visibly unsteadier on his feet. Like a sleepwalker. Also, Laura would have taken over his iota supply when it dropped."

  "I didn't notice any of that."

  "Then you should have paid closer attention. You also should have said something when Laura started using unwarranted collection multipliers."

  Jeremy holds his hands up, the gesture that means "Fine".

  "Laura—" Marek begins.

  "I should have paid closer attention to Benj and Jeremy. I shouldn't have—"

  "Shut up."

  Laura shuts up.

  "Laura, you know what you did wrong. What are these?"

  "They're modified Montauk sinks—"

  "Where did you get them?"

  "My mother taught me how to manufacture them."

  "Did she teach you how to use them?"

  "...Apparently not," Laura concedes.

  "Did she warn you about high energy magic? Did she warn you about Tanako's world or how to break out of it?"

  "No."

  "How often do you bring your own equipment to labs?"

  Laura is silent, but Czarnecki speaks: "That must be why your results from Friday were gibberish. Equipment that advanced is designed to suppress exactly the kind of interference you were supposed to be measuring."

  Marek summarises: "You brought foreign objects into a magic circle; you altered an experiment on the fly without consulting your teacher; you either didn't notice or ignored or were unable to help your fellow students when they got into trouble. You assumed you knew what you were doing, when in fact there are things you don't know."

  "I'm done here," says Czarnecki, pulling the fragment of staff out of the machine and letting it switch itself off. Its background hum cuts out, leaving a conspicuous silence. He returns to the front of the stage.

  "Accidents happen," says Marek, tossing the Montauk sinks back to Laura one at a time. "Almost every lab accident could result in fatalities if carried to its logical extreme, including this one, but in the vast majority of cases it's not a big deal, including this one. Accidents happen, they're part of the learning process. But so is learning from your mistakes." He nods at Benj and Jeremy, "You two can go. I think you've got the point. Laura: I want this lesson learned. You're going to come and see me first thing next Monday morning and pass a TES-3 practical exam."

  "That's a third-year high-energy magic safety course," says Czarnecki. "She doesn't know how to pass it."

  "Then you should both get to work," says Marek, making one final note. "I'll see you next week." He leaves.

  There's an echoing clang from the door closing behind him, then silence. Czarnecki prowls around the theatre, putting equipment away, wiping the boards clean, and generally avoiding making eye contact with Laura. Eventually he loses it. "That was—"

  "Unprofessional," Laura suggests.

  He glares at her. Then he visibly relaxes, as if defused. It's disconcertingly sudden. "Thank you. I was going to say 'typical'. There's a story. I'm not going to tell it to you now. What's your university email ID?"

  "ltf15."

  "I'll book us some lab time and email you when I have a slot. It's going to be early in the morning. Go to the library and check out Parasara's Thaumic Engineering Safety. You already know section 1; read as much of 2 and 3 as you can before tomorrow."

  "Understood." Laura collects her coat and bag and hurries for the door. "I'm sorry."

  "No, you're just embarrassed," says Czarnecki. "You don't know how badly we're being punished for this. By Monday you'll be sorry."

  "You've done TES-3?"

  Czarnecki nods.

  "What's wrong with it?"

  "Have you ever found magic boring?"

  Laura shakes her head.

  Czarnecki smiles humourlessly. "You really do have a lot to learn. See you tomorrow."

  Ragdoll Physicist

  "Interesting" is the term geologists use to describe Iceland, and geologically interesting places are worth paying attention to in the same way that warzones and brand new nuclear powers are. Entire cubic kilometres of lava are seen emerging from the place. Sometimes it grows new islands. Sometimes its volcanic fissures eject so much sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere that the global temperature drops significantly, crops fail across the Northern Hemisphere and millions die from famine. Iceland is the place you go to remind yourself that planet Earth is a machine: very large, continuously operating, working on a time scale too long to easily observe, towards a highly uncertain end; and to remind yourself that all the organic life that has ever existed amounts to a greasy film that has survived on the exterior of that machine thanks to furious improvisation rather than any specific dispensation.

  Iceland is also one of the few places on Earth, other than on people's skin, where mana is naturally occurring. It's a geological phenomenon, arising from molten rocks with just the right combinations of rare earths stirred into them. If you travel to a suitable spot and scan the horizon through a suitable oracle, you can see luminous mana radiating off the mountains and coiling into the air, like steam off microwaved pudding. There's a research centre, a smallish clutch of temporary buildings offshot from Reykjavik University. They drill holes into volcanoes and model the natural process on computers. There's a cooperation program with the UK.

  So Laura and Natalie Ferno are here, along with a collection of other people from the same year and a few staff. It's a three-hour flight to Reykjavik, practically next door, but the town of Blönflói is almost on the other side of the country, so the final leg by road takes substantially longer. It's midsummer, which means noonday temperatures peak around "brisk". When the Sun is up (21 hours per day at this time of year), it casts a clean, white light uncommon in the UK, such that the grass here really does seem greener. There are sheep and Icelandic horses and dry stone walls at the outset, but as they travel, the countryside becomes wilder and more inhospitable. Grass shortens, clinging closer to the ground until bare soil is exposed.

  "This isn't me," Benj says again.

  "It's just culture shock," Laura says again. She's in the passenger seat; Benj Clarke and Natalie Ferno are crammed in the back between rucksacks. Benj, by his own admission, doesn't like foreign countries. Or foreign languages. Or customs, roads, buildings or food. It's like he's attache
d to his birthplace with an elastic cord. The further he travels away from home, the more highly strung his nerves become. "You can get used to anything," Laura elaborates. "This is day one and you'll be here long enough to get used to it."

  "This isn't what I do," says Benj.

  Laura's loving the scenery. Nat's quiet as ever, indifferent as far as anybody can tell. Years ago, as kids, Laura used to try to enthuse her about interesting things (sandcastles, computers, boys). She gave up when they were around thirteen or fourteen. Nat decides what she's into, nobody else does. Trying to force her into something just makes her less inclined to pay attention.

  Blönflói lands on a ragged boundary where the soil, too, is starting to run out. It's a minuscule settlement, sparsely distributed yet small enough to fit entirely into a single photograph taken from ground level. The buildings are square and painted uniform white and red and pale blue; from a distance, they look like delicate wooden models. There's one huge fjord nearby and three ridges of tall, nude black mountains, but from the middle of the town looking directly to the north, there's nothing but the Arctic Ocean, all the way to the North Pole. It's more than a thousand kilometres further south than the northernmost inhabited point on Earth, but it feels like an outpost at the end of the world.

  "Do you feel anything unusual?" their driver prompts them as they arrive. His name is Þór. (Nobody got his surname.) He is sixtyish, bearded, spectacled and very bulky; half of the bulk is fat, the other half is thick woolly sweaters. "Do you feel like there's more energy in the air?"

  Benj and Laura generally agree. "Yeah, I definitely feel something, sure."

  "Well, you shouldn't," Þór snaps. "There've been double-blind experiments. Nobody can pick up anything at this range without equipment. Pay more attention. This is a place where we do science."

  The car rumbles along in silence for a little way. He's had this discussion before, Laura thinks. With tourists.

  "It's nine more kilometres to the lab and three kilometres from the lab to the nearest foldback epicentre," Þór adds. "You might as well claim you can hear birds squawking all the way up there."