Copyright © 2024 by Joanna White

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: .

Editing by H.A. Pruitt.

Second Edition, 2024 by Joanna White.

AT ANY MOMENT, I could drown. Darkness covered the entire area immediately around me in a thick layer. Only a tiny distant glow came from the mushrooms by the coral reef farther to my right. Between that and the pressure of the water that pressed down on my body, I should have been terrified.

It wasn't like this was my first time doing this. Swimming came easily to me, like a second nature, sometimes easier than walking. I could hold my breath for a good while, but jobs like this one always came with the possibility of drowning. That didn't bother me as much as it should have.

It bothered me more that I was alone. Separation from my sister did squeeze my lungs a bit more than I preferred. Perhaps I depended on my sister too much for everything, but the thought of being without her down here made me shiver.

So, I had summoned some constructs that looked completely real, and yet they weren't. I held the first companion, a dolphin, under my left arm, and I clung to the mermaid's bright blue scaly tail with my right hand.

I put myself through all this to deliver a silly package for a job—one that wouldn't even pay well. But desperate times without ccs called for desperate jobs. The crazy stunts I did for money—and to try to impress the Conclave—never ceased to amaze me. They ruled our world, and only the best mages joined them. Not that I ranked as one of the best mages—just an average one, really—but a woman could dream, right?

The job requested by an unnamed client asked that "the summoning mage bring the package to the Ocean Floor Mining Unit." Fortunately, I'd done jobs here before. The tech-guild Silla owned the Ocean Floor Mining Unit and used it to mine the valuable ore found at the ocean floor here. Typically, Silla required mages and anyone else working for them or doing a job for them to take the elevator inside the building all the way to the ocean floor, but I decided to swim down outside the building. Why pay money to take the elevator when I could just use my magic to summon two constructs to swim me down?

Well, here's to dying just because I didn't want to spend twelve ccs.

I never learned. The thought would have made me roll my eyes except for the darkness that surrounded me. What little light the glowing mushrooms at the coral reef provided allowed me to make out the shape of the Ocean Floor Mining Unit building close on my left. As massive as the building stood, it looked like a speck next to the rough, mountainous terrain and the passing schools of fishes. Millions of fishes populated three swirling masses that swam in the center of a mountainous valley farther to the right. The glowing mushrooms hung from the side of the cliffs, lighting the fishes and the building, but they were too dim to reveal the ocean floor or anything on my left beyond the building. The temptation to swim to the glowing mushrooms' light coursed through me, and my stomach tightened.

Darkness hovered everywhere except where the fishes swam. Calm down, Lynia. It's just the dark. And the ocean. Nothing new. I didn't need to close my eyes, so I simply said a quick mental prayer to calm the nerves lacing through me. Yet, I couldn't stop looking at the black void looming in front of me. Though my sister hated water and would have been far more miserable than I, at least having her here would have brought me comfort. Without her, my mind imagined all sorts of shapes in the void in front of me—monsters with tentacles and fangs.

You're fine, Lynia. Calm down. The uplifting thoughts and encouraging prayer helped calm my racing heart, so I forced the fearful thoughts away and focused, instead, on finding a way inside the building. It had to have an entrance, right? Panic made my heart race again, but I told myself that surely it had an entrance. I wouldn't get trapped out here.

I took my hand off the dolphin and placed it on the building's smooth, solid wall. Though I could see a bit of it from the mushrooms' dim violet glow, my mind had started to play tricks on me and had turned the building into some sort of large monster with tentacles and a mouth that could swallow me whole. So, as my hand rubbed the wall that didn't feel slimy or rough like a fish or monster, relief flooded through me, easing the tension in my muscles, but I couldn't relax for long. I slid my hand across the wall in search of a door—any door.

The desire to take a breath slammed against me like a crashed ship, except that I couldn't. Taking a breath would only make matters worse, and if I panicked, I wouldn't be able to think through this to help me find a door. As I'd done my whole life, I calmed myself by forcing my thoughts to a simpler task. I focused the door problem to distract me from the urge to breathe. Unfortunately, the mushrooms' light didn't illuminate the building enough, so I needed more light.

My lungs burned, and I blinked several times. Unconsciousness clawed at me with unforgiving hands. I needed air, and I needed it now.

God, please help me figure out what to do.

Suddenly, an idea came to mind. Why I hadn't thought of it sooner, I didn't know, but God provided, just like He always did. Taking my right hand off the wall, I grabbed a key off the keyring on my belt. The silver key's metal top had been twisted into the shape of a fairy.

I drew the fairy symbol through the water, though it slowed my movements. By my right as a summoner, I command you to appear, silver fairy. I prayed that thinking the words would serve as well as speaking them and allow me to call the fairy forth.

Golden light erupted brightly, briefly giving me a glimpse of the wall to my left that belonged to the massive building as well as the immediate area in front of me. From the center of the golden cloud of energy, a fairy with bright golden glowing skin and matching dress appeared. The three-inch tall fairy shone slightly dimmer than the first initial flash, but the radiance that danced around her like an aura created a halo of warm light to see the way. Any light down here was better than none at all.

I slid my gaze to the dolphin, glowing golden in the fairy's aureole of light. Find the door and then take me there. Fairy, follow the dolphin to light the way, I thought to the fairy. She—or rather, it—swam beside the dolphin, and the two left me behind.

Darkness pressed in around me, but I kept my eyes on the fairy's light as it lit part of the building's side in a luminous glow. Sure enough, halfway down the side lay a door. Fortunately, it didn't take long for the dolphin to return. I grabbed its fin, and it charged through the water straight to the door. Quickly, I shoved it open and tumbled through the white magical energy shield that kept the water at bay.

I collapsed onto the ground, taking in huge gulps of air. "That ..." I gasped, "was close."

"What are you doing down here? How did you get here?"

Glancing up from my knees, I grinned at the red-haired man in a blue uniform who glared down at me. "Uh ... I came in through the door?" Surely, this guard could see the wide-open door and the water that dripped off me.

"Why didn't you come in through the elevator?" He crossed his arms, emphasizing his belly that nearly bulged out of his uniform.

I rose to my feet and wrung out my hair and shirt. "Twelve ccs to ride that thing? Sorry, but I came the cheap way." I jingled the keyring at my belt and smiled at the man before turning back to the door. Pursing my lips, I grabbed the copper, dolphin-shaped key from my keyring and drew the dolphin's symbol in the air. "By my right as a summoner, I command you to disappear, copper dolphin." Glowing blue energy whipped away from the dolphin's key and formed the dolphin-shaped symbol exactly where I had traced it.

Behind me, the guard gasped, and his footsteps thudded on the thick metal floor. When I glanced at him over my shoulder, he stood several feet away from me, so I assumed he had jumped back in surprise.

I held the key in the center of the dolphin-shaped energy that pulsed in the air and turned the key as if opening a lock. Then I repeated the same process for the fairy's silver key—drawing the fairy symbol in the air, saying the unsummoning spell, and turning the key—and did the same for the mermaid. Behind the shimmering, white energy shield that held the ocean at bay, the dolphin, the fairy, and the mermaid all disappeared. I reached through the energy, shut the door, and turned back to the guard.

His eyes widened, but then he quickly narrowed them when I stared at him. "I'm–I'm going to have to take you over to the command center. Follow me." The man motioned for me to follow him and ambled off.

"Wait," I called after him, shrugging off the package strapped to my back. "I have a delivery to make."

He turned and gaped at me. "You're a mage on a job?"

Jingling the keyring with my left hand and shaking the package with my right, I nodded. "What did you think I just did? Of course, I'm a mage. So, can you take me to the Administrator of the Ocean Floor Mining Unit?"

The man frowned and held out a large hand three times the size of mine.

I dragged my gaze over his body, and the surprising revelation that he was at least twice my height and three times my width suddenly struck me.

"I'll deliver the package myself. No one, especially not someone like you, is allowed back there." He shook his head and frowned.

I gasped at his rudeness. "Wait, what do you mean, 'like me'?"

The man's frown deepened. "Someone who disregards Silla regulations."

"Are you saying I break the rules?" I crossed my arms and huffed. "Look, pal, I'm being paid to deliver this package to the Ocean Floor Mining Unit myself!"

"I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to—"

"What is going on here?" another voice demanded.

I glanced toward the end of the hallway. An older man who wore whaleskin gear walked in our direction.

The redheaded man in the blue uniform looked at him with widened eyes. "She, uh, came in through the door—"

"You are a mage, are you not?" the second man cut in.

Rolling my eyes, I jingled my keys again. "Yes," I drawled. "Delivering a package to the Administrator of the Ocean Floor Mining Unit." Oh, how I hated to repeat myself.

The second man smiled warmly. "Ah. Well, I'm actually headed there right now. Come, I'll take you." He nodded down the hallway and walked back the way he'd come. As he took a right turn, I rushed to keep up. After several more turns, all the halls blurred together.

"Sorry about Vekkine. He tends to take his job seriously—too seriously, I say." The man smiled as we walked, and something about his old, wrinkled face instantly put me at ease.

"It's okay. No harm done." I chuckled. Was this what it felt like to have a grandparent? Both my parents lost theirs as children; then my sister and I lost our parents as teens.

The man stopped at a closed door, so I thankfully focused on him instead of the dark thoughts about my dead parents. He tapped on a large box embedded inside the wall to the right of the door. The box itself rested on the floor and reached my ribs. A rectangular slit spanned the entire width of the top. "You can leave the package in the box here. It's where packages are delivered."

I slipped the package inside the slit. "Okay. Thanks so much." With a smile, I peered into the box, but it was too dark to see how many other packages had been thrown in there. Clicking my tongue, I looked around. Where was I? "Um ...?"

He pointed to the left. "If you head that way, take two right turns and a left. It'll take you to the main elevator."

I rubbed the back of my neck and jingled my keyring. "Uh ... you got another way to head to the surface that doesn't use up the rest of my ccs? You know, like a door?"

The older man chuckled and nodded his head to the right. "Follow the hallway and, at the end, there will be another door leading outside."

"Okay. Thanks," I said again, waving as I followed his directions. It didn't take me long to find the door. Slowly, I opened it and stared through the magic energy shield into the dark ocean beyond. I grabbed my mermaid key, drew the mermaid symbol in the air, and held the key out. "By my right as a summoner, I command you to appear, gold mermaid." I stuck the key through the energy into the water and turned it.

The mermaid appeared and stared at me blankly. I stepped through the energy shield into the black void and grabbed onto the mermaid's back. Pull me to the surface, quickly! At my command, the mermaid shot upward with powerful strokes of her tail. As we rose higher, I remembered to pop my ears to keep the pressure from blowing out my eardrums. When we got closer to the top, I commanded the mermaid to slow so my body could adjust to the pressure difference. Light filtered down from the surface above, growing brighter as we rose. Now that light penetrated the water, the mermaid's bright blue tail shone and glistened in the beams of sunlight. At last, my head broke the surface, and I gulped in huge breaths of air.

"Took you long enough." I glanced upward; my sister, Lynessa, frowned down at me from a small rowboat. "I didn't wanna get stuck out here all day waiting for you," she grumbled.

I rolled my eyes.

The sun gleamed off her blonde hair, tied at the nape of her neck in a ponytail. She curled her small frame away from the rim of the boat, making room for me to clamber up to her side. I felt glad she and I were around the same size—if either of us had been bigger, we'd have a hard time fitting in the tiny rowboat.

With my left hand, I waved off Lynessa's moans as I used my right to grasp the mermaid's key and do the unsummoning ritual. "You're in a boat, Lynessa. You aren't even in the water, and you're complaining?" I met Lynessa's huff with a mischievous grin.

She grabbed the oars. "Let's just get out of here."

Laughing, I wrung out my light brown hair and shirt and then shook my head. Water sprayed from the ends of my hair and splashed her. She squealed, glared at me, and swung an oar in a wide arc. I ducked just in time to avoid a hit in the face. "Hey! That wasn't very nice." I stuck my tongue out.

Lynessa scoffed. "Yeah, neither was you getting me wet." She turned her back on me and continued rowing, but I didn't miss her shoulders shaking in laughter just loud enough for me to hear.

I lay back against the edge of the rowboat, watching the clouds roll across the sky as we headed back to the city.