“All in due time. First, we have some boxes to move. Are you certain you won’t regret this? I will not listen to protests while working.”

Raz snorted, taking off her jacket and rolling up her sleeves. “Please. In the Un I rolled friend burritos twice my weight, while starved, uphill both ways. A few boxes is nothing.”

“In that case, please pick a room. The top floor’s side balcony is for master Maroque, while I will claim the one beside his, but you may settle in any other. We will begin the cleaning with yours.”

After much excitement, a lot of wading through crate-jungle, and a little bit of waffling, Raz settled on a large one downstairs right beneath the balcony. It had a huge window and three neat alcoves, of which one was deeper in. She figured Faham might eventually want a bit of extra privacy since he was a boy.

The hardest part of clearing the crates Joram had stored there turned out to be figuring out how to smuggle them through the absolutely clogged main room. A person could sorta squirm past most stuff there, but square crates not so much. Some huffing and sweat was spent in reorganizing things, but Raz didn’t mind.

She liked being able to do something, especially if it was to help prep the place for sibs. Plus, they had a can that turned tap water into stuff downright illegally refreshing stuff. And, she got to play around with magic cleaning tools!

Hootphant did not disappoint. Four wheeled, dog sized, and armed with a multi-nozzled cute frowny face, it looked innocuous enough. But when unleashed into the now cleared room, it transformed into an avatar of dirt genocide.

Nozzles tooted sounds of pure wrath and dispensed high-pressure jets of water, bubble stuff, and steam. Wheels squealed as it raced around the room. Puddles splashed. No stain was left alive.

That included Raz and Joram.

After becoming hootphant’s number one targets, they had to wrestle it into submission and put on a wooden blindfold. Joram apologized profusely for getting them soapy, but Raz couldn’t stop cackling.

Still dripping, she helped mop up the place. By lunchtime, the colorful rocks embedded in the walls and floor gleamed like gemstones.

A greasily delicious basket of door-delivered fried wizard junk food later, the work continued. Crates were hunted for furniture and sheets, which then embarked on the shoulder-bruising journey across the central maze. 

Joram tried to demonstrate the dust pixies for cleaning fabrics, but the trio of winged terracotta menaces buzzed off into the main room the moment they were released. No amount of politely worded threats made them budge, so dusting had to be done by hand. However, Joram set a trap with an empty box, stick, and a decorative pillow gray with dust. This was allegedly another ‘basic servsman skill’.

And that was just Raz’s room.

After the most gorgeous ocean sunset Raz could ever remember, she was both totally kaput and perfectly content. She took a hootphant shower in the light of a single pale arclamp (because they had accidentally barricaded the bathing room) and snuck out of the room they had locked it in wearing a towel.

Joram had left a big embroidered wizard all-purpose-robe-dress thing, neatly folded. Raz slipped into the silky cloth and knocked on his door while passing.

“Hoothphant’s free!”

“Thank you! My phone is on the table.”

“Thanks!” Raz picked up the bulky wooden phone and headed into her new room, where she crashed into the bed. It was so big she could stretch all her limbs and still not touch the edges, and the sheets were soft and freshly spanked. It was heaven.

She just stared at the ceiling for a while, listening to the distant sea and Joram’s muffled screams at the hootphant.

It was all so bewilderingly weird and new, but oddly normal. Raz looked around the shadowy room lit only by the stars. For the first time in a long, long while she’d felt like she had actually worked towards her and sibs’ future. Like she was finally out of the limbo. Maybe this was what Allie had meant, or at least a part of it? 

Either way, Raz decided that she liked cleaning, especially with magic tools. Mopping the floor had been supremely satisfying, with years of gunk peeling off and leaving behind shiny stone.

She yawned. Tiring too. Raz started fiddling with Joram’s phone before sleep could snipe her.

The thing was the size of a brick, made of wood, and sported an antennae you had to pull out to connect to the arcnet. Raz fumbled with the Nounsican keyboard for a bit before getting the password right, then spent a few misadventures in the Nounsican apps, before finding HBW site. 

She logged on. No messages, but that’s to be expected. She had promised to send an intelligence report in the evening. Allie and Faham would save their computer time for the morning to reply to her.

Raz started typing.

She started answering Faham’s intelligence gathering plan questions, but after describing the spirally fried plant-noodle thing and seafood they’d eaten, it kinda spiraled out of control. You could not write about hoothphant without going off topic.

It ended up becoming a five page ramble before she had squeezed in everything she wanted to tell them. What she hesitated with was the finish.

“Love you two…” Raz deleted it. “Too simple?”

“Wish you were here…”

She stared at the screen, then whispered, “Yeah.”

“Wish you were here. Kinda miss you already :) Love you both forever to bits, your medium-sis Raz.”

She sent it, then typed up a message to Allie. Even if they would both read Faham’s, she didn’t want Allie to feel left out or jealous. Hers was a good bit shorter though, and even less on topic.

Next day, while approaching the much anticipated wonderchamber near Castleyard town center, Raz finally spotted what Joram had refused to ‘spoil’ her and tripped onto her knees.

She pointed up, lips moving, but no words came out.

Joram beamed with reserved servsman smugness.

“Fa-fa-fla-fuuh…!”

Massive rope and tackle elevators shot straight up into the clouds, carrying house-sized chunks of raw stone, building materials, and people. Hundreds of meters above Castleyard, construction yards hung suspended in mid-air by nothing at all. Scaffolds, loose architecture, and chunks of unfinished buildings drifted about to build multiple sky-scraper sized behemoths. The angle made it hard to see anything but their underbelly of any but the furthest off structure and that was half-covered by clouds.

“Flying castle. Flying castleyard!”

Raz had forgotten she was on her ass until Joram helped her up. “A proud Castleyard tradition. No place in Oor with as many gravity or construction associated awakened.”

“Ahhh, I didn’t tell them there were flying castles here! They need to see this.”

“Consider keeping this as a surprise?”

“Maybe.” 

Raz kept craning her neck as they walked, watching a trio of workers stand sideways on a wall. They were trying to slot a statue ten times their size into the wall. On the underside, a pair of workers was eating lunch while sitting upside down on the bottom of the unfinished castle. She tried to imagine what the world looked like to them and almost tripped again. Thankfully, Joram offered an arm, so Raz was able to spy on the castles all the way till the wonderchamber.

From the outside, it didn’t look like much, but then again most buildings in Castleyard looked very similar. The inside was a different matter.

First they entered into a long foyer of soothing colors and neutral shapes. It had racks for shoes, hangers for overcoats and cloaks, and a fuzzy carpet for brushing your feet. A single step up led into a reception area with waiting chairs, a small shoppe stacked with various baubles and trinkets, and a bored young man doing something on a blocky wooden wizard computer. 

He groaned a single word question.

“For my young friend here,” replied Joram. “Razandra, your identification please.”

She handed it over and he passed it to the receptionist. While he punched in the keys, Raz inspected the bizarre gift shop. No two items were alike and everything was not only scuffed up but hideously expensive. Hundred-thirty val for a copper monkey key-chain? Hundred-eighty for a half burnt scarf? Five hundred ninety for–

Raz did a double take. “Five hundred ninety for a rusty frigging wrench?” she whispered, leaning closer. It was made in China. 

“What the hell?”

“All ready,” said Joram, handing Raz her ID back. “You may enter through the door. There is a room where you can leave your possessions behind and perform your preparations.”

Raz tucked the ID away and looked at the door. The anticipation that flying castles had distracted her from started tickling back into her spine. This was it. She was going to become a wizard, or at least an awakened, which sounded super cool too. Okay, it wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but the chances were high in her mind.

“Preparations? Are there tricks to making it work better? Some way I can pick what kind of wizard I become?” 

Even now, those old hazy daydreams she’d dreamt a hundred times over on that lonely isola were fresh in her mind. She’d wanted to become a healer. Someone who could fix the world. If wizards like Maroque existed, who could fly around huge chunks of Earth, then surely someone could be a wizard to knit them all together. Although, if she did become a gravity mage, she wouldn’t be terribly upset. Building flying castles seemed like a cool profession.

“Never did I imagine I would one day give the resonance talk to a child.” Joram chuckled. He pressed a hand to her back to slowly guide her towards the door. His voice took on a mysterious cadence. “Oh yes. There are a thousand-thousands tricks, and more rituals than stars on the firmament. But you should not fret over those today. No, young dreamer, I wish you to take this first test with an empty heart and head. Step in, do what feels right, observe your surroundings, feel your surroundings, let it sink in, and then reach for what feels most important to you.”

“Look around, feel feelings, grab important stuff. Okay.” Raz let out a tense breath and tried to wiggle her hands. Why were they sweating now that they stood at the door? “How do I know I got it?”

“You will know.”

“And if I don’t get it?” She had to. If almost half found magic, then for sure she would be one of those, right?

“Don’t be discouraged if you do not find it today. Everyone has something they resonate with, it merely takes a little longer for some to find theirs. So long as you do not give up, you will awaken. So long as you do not give up, you can become a wizard.”

Raz thought she might’ve imagined it, but his smile looked a bit bitter there. She had too much going on to address it though.

“Okay.” She gave herself a shake and summoned some determination. “Okay, I’m going in.”

“Luck and wisdom.”

The door opened and she was in a dim dressing room of restrained elegance and calming, dark hues. A very important looking old wooden door stood at the end. On it was carved a large round circle filled with hundreds of beautiful little carvings and symbols. Faint sounds emanated from the other side.

Raz wondered if she was supposed to undress for a moment, but decided against it. The place had that ancient church-like vibe, like it had existed for hundreds of years and meant a lot to generations. She didn’t want to desecrate a sacred place like that.

So she stepped in.

And, for the second time that day, paused in awe.

A thick scent of ancient wood, perfume drenched fabrics, and age permeated the space. Shafts of sunlight trickled in from hidden openings, glittering off of countless small treasures that covered the entirety of the chamber’s ceiling, circular walls, and much of the floor. Small step clearings in the mounds of figurines, statuettes, odd stones, and old curios led to the center, where a line in the stone marked an empty circle large enough to sit on. Gently, here and there, ornament jingles tinkled, clocks ticked, ancient gadgets clicked, blanketing Razandra in a song of small mysteries.

She wasn’t sure if she could sense magic, or if you could sense it, but something about the room felt heavy. Meaningful.

Gingerly, she tip-toed her way to the center, where she spun slowly, lost in the glimmer around her.

The amount of stuff was overwhelming. 

“Do what feels right,” Raz murmured.

She closed her eyes and took deep breaths of the ancient woody scents.

“Feel.”

The musical jingling calmed her. 

She opened her eyes and let them glaze over, skipping past the shiniest treasures. She pondered, what would a wizard who could make everything right wear?

She thought of the secret daydreams of a lonely girl stuck on a rock, waiting to die of starvation. Of the wizard she had imagined would come to save them, wave her hand, and put Earth back together.

Her eyes fell on a small glass casket containing bone needles and a spool of metallic red thread. Raz reached out to retrieve it.