Page 63 of The Sundered Realms

And he was even more excited about whatever he was about to show her than he had been about the dumplings.

“A message anchor is an advanced, enormously complicated spell,” Vhannor said. “You’ll love it.”

Liris did love it.

Almost as much as she loved how clearly happy he was to get to introduce her to this kind of magic.

She could live for his expression when he was trying to maintain a cool façade, but that fire danced in his icy eyes anyway.

What he called a message anchor was the core spell that powered a communications hub. Here it stood in a spell-protected and guarded chamber, but flashing their licenses—well, Vhannor’s clearance mainly; hers just allowed her to accompany him—got them in. Liris was still a little giddy about being able to do that, though that at least might wear off eventually.

Imagine, being able to go wherever she chose feeling normal.

The guards could watch them remotely to make sure they didn’t deface the spell, but her conversation with Vhannor would be private, unless they employed lip readers.

Aside from the surrounding infrastructure to coordinate dispatches, the anchor itself amounted to a stone wall, surrounded by separate, smaller tablets containing spells that routed messages where they needed to go in the hub for processing.

A very tall stone wall, mind. Vhannor had requisitioned a ladder from one of the surrounding buildings so Liris could get close enough to the top to make out all the symbols.

“The message anchor spell at the core of a communications hub is what allows us to physically transport messages between realms faster,” Vhannor explained. “Very much like the spell you were coming up with before—“

“The demon portal,” Liris said flatly.

He frowned at her. “Are you still upset about that? Liris, you couldn’t have known.”

“That didn’t keep Jiechit from watching me suspiciously even once I was under your supervision.”

Vhannor rolled his eyes. “Jiechit was stunned to see me taking you seriously and was keeping an eye on you to try to figure out what had caught my attention. I am fairly notorious in our circle for not having a partner.”

...Oh.

Liris said, “So the message anchor spell works because you know how to locate other places within a realm relative to it, but not between realms, right? Since we can’t pinpoint how realms are oriented to each other between dimensions?”

“Exactly,” Vhannor said. “The anchors forward messages onward to other anchors, or if that’s their last anchor destination, a messenger picks them up to deliver locally or through a Gate. But, since we don’t yet have a coalition of all the realms—“

“All the realms maintain their own spells, and the message systems that support them. So we’re dependent on the maintenance of individual governments for the speed of messages.”

“And their integrity.”

Liris glanced at him.

“Walk me through the patterns you can identify, and I’ll supplement your knowledge as needed,” Vhannor said.

“I’m still new at spell layout,” Liris cautioned. “And this isn’t exactly a beginner’s exercise.”

Vhannor rolled his eyes again. “I am endeavoring not to be astounded by how much you do know every time you present evidence. Figuring out a curriculum you’ll actually get anything out of was a challenge on its own. You’ll be fine.”

Liris blinked slowly. She’d thought the new curriculum was about how much she didn’t know.

It belatedly occurred to Liris that while she’d judged Vhannor for considering her a failure as a partner after only one mistake, she had in fact considered him a failure as a partner after one mistake.

What she lacked most was context, and that was what he had in spades.

And here he was, not biasing her, but still offering help.

Liris got back on the ladder and started identifying patterns and what she thought each was for.

After a minute Vhannor stopped her and said, “If we were going to dispel this, you’re out of order. Do you see which one you skipped?”

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