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"There you are! Finally!" Millie called with high-pitched delight when she saw Reeve standing once again in the trashed room, snow melting from her cloak. Millie hurried toward Reeve down a short corridor—a corridor that had not been there when Reeve was unceremoniously translocated out into the freezing night—and into the debris-littered room through a doorway-sized opening that also had not been there. As she passed through the opening, Millie stepped over a broken plank of wood that leaned against the wall, blocking the lowest half-foot of the opening, and joined Reeve next to an eight-foot segment of stone wall that also had not been present either when last Reeve stood there or at any point during the fight.

"Ohmagod, there are so many things to show you," Millie said, her yellow eyes alight with excitement. She paused and looked Reeve squarely in the face. "Did you have a chance to count to ten? Or come up with one of your mantras?"

"I had time to count a lot higher than that," Reeve said. "It took me at least half an hour just to find the entrance to this place again. It's still a total white-out out there."

"Good," Millie said. "I don't think Dawn was ever actually mad at you, just wanting to prove a point."

"Why did—"

"But she softened up some when I told her what you told me you said to Viv after the Deiluyne battle. That she and Dusk and the other Level 4 AIs 'were real.'"

"Look—"

"Stop. Listen. She knows you're on her side, and you better be sure she's on yours. And I know you're an AI rights advocate back in Real, but that doesn't mean you may not have some prejudices you still need to get over." Millie pointed to the room from which she'd emerged and in which Reeve could see Dawn in the distance, standing with her back to them. "When we were little, AIs weren't like this. They weren't this real. They weren't real. So, you, me, both of us, may have some deep-down biases we might not even realize. Imagine what it's like for your parents. Plus, a rogue AI nearly killed you IRL, and a different one did kill you, repeatedly, here. It's understandable. Anyway, just say 'sorry,' and let's move on. But remember that however bad-bass you think you are and however real you think you are, she's badder and, in here, just as real."

Reeve frowned for a few seconds and then nodded. She took a breath and said, "Why is there a wall here?"

"That's not a wall, that's the material that usually blocks the entrance to Dawn's room of everything cool as flip. This," Millie gestured around the room Wanda had destroyed, "had some useful things in it, but it's a front to where she actually keeps all of the amazing things she's discovered or collected or invented. And there's not just a lame secret door to get into it—magic or a high-level Rogue could spot that—there's eight feet of solid masonry that she just relocates when she wants to enter the room."

Reeve nodded with a begrudging appreciation for the setup.

Millie excitedly gestured Reeve toward the corridor. Reeve followed.

"What's with the board?" Reeve said, stepping over the obstacle at the mouth of the corridor after Millie had done the same.

"Kitty gate," Millie said. "Didn't want to risk having your mom in the same room as the good stuff, even if she's not currently giant-sized."

Reeve looked back and, after a couple of seconds, spotted Wanda, who was standing with her nose wedged into a corner of the outer room, one of six paws raised and pressed against one of the abutting walls.

"I can't believe she hasn't logged out yet," Reeve said, following Millie.

Millie glanced back over her shoulder. "It's not a coincidence you're stubborn, right?"

Reeve allowed a nod of acknowledgment.

Millie stopped just short of entering the next room and turned to Reeve. "Ohmagod, I didn't ask you," Millie said quietly. "Did you see how Dawn was casting during your smackdown?"

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"I don't think smack—"

"OK, OK. Whatever. Sure. But did you see?"

Reeve shook her head. "To be honest, and this probably won't be a surprise to you, but there were a lot of things I was a little slow to pick up on during that…exchange."

"Slow to pick up," Millie said. "That's funny. Like the dagger."

"Har, har," Reeve said.

"And exchanges are usually two-way. But if you didn't notice, listen: even when we were still watching your mom together, I figured with the way you were getting snippy about Dawn's help that she was going to eventually want to prove a point."

Reeve frowned and started to open her mouth, but Millie raised a finger.

"Shush. So, I was watching her closely. She started casting before you two had even stood up."

"When we were still sitting where we'd been watching my mom?"

"Uh-huh." Millie nodded energetically, eyes wide. "It was super subtle, but no doubt, she was setting up casts. By the time you faced off, you'd already lost."

"I don't think there was really a loser in that—"

"Ohmagod, seriously. You can be so smart and so dumb. I don't care if you're ego is feeling bruised. Listen. The things she was doing: moving herself through space; moving you, a mobile combatant, through space, at combat speed…" Millie shook her head in wonder. "Casts like that take time, but she was able to set them up, and then…"

"…knock me down, I got it, thanks." Reeve thought back through the fight. "That was fast. She was fast."

"There's a reason we casters—and I'm not putting myself into the same tier as her, don't get me wrong—there's a reason we're usually not front-liners. We need time. We need space. We need meat shields in front of us. She…"

"Yeah, I get it, she's bad-bass."

"You have no idea. That's not even her best stuff. You probably won't be surprised to hear that I've been asking her questions non-stop since you left—"

"I'm sure, 'Is Reeve OK' was at the top of your list."

"—and those were just some of the meliá she's had the most time to practice. She's figured out way cooler things." Millie mimed her mind being blown.

"Noted," Reeve said.

Millie again gestured quickly with a hand and turned to walk across the large room toward Dawn, weaving between some of the many large oaken tables that consumed much of the floor. Dawn stood at one of the far tables, working with something small and silver on its surface. As Reeve and Millie approached, Dawn looked up.

Reeve took a breath. "Sorry," she said.

"Noted," Dawn said, and smiled.

Reeve squinted slightly at Dawn, wondering how much of the quiet conversation with Millie had been audible to Dawn from across the large room.

"Ohmagod," Millie said, "you have to see this first."

Reeve turned and found Millie picking up a staff from where it leaned against the end of the table. It looked like a rustic, knotty shepherd's crook.

Millie hugged the staff to her chest. "Dawn gave this to me. It's so cool. Try it." She offered it to Reeve.

Reeve took it, realizing as she did that she didn't know the whereabouts of her naginata, but deciding not to derail the feel-good vibe with that question. She held the staff and looked at it, sensing nothing from it. She looked at Millie and shrugged.

"Point it at something," Millie said, looking as though she would explode.

"Something I want to destroy?" Reeve said.

"No, anything!"

Reeve shrugged again, decided to risk either a joke or a respawn delay, and pointed the staff at Millie. A soft but unmistakable green glow lit her friend, and a bright, extremely ornate purple sigil appeared floating between them.

Reeve examined the sigil for several seconds and then, at a loss, looked at Millie. "Soooo…?"

"That," Millie said with a huge grin, pointing not quite toward the sigil as though she didn't know its exact location, "is a sigil a melióδin can use to describe me in-game!"

Reeve frowned, not quite understanding.

Millie's enthusiasm was undiminished. "Meliá can manipulate elements of the world. To do so, you have to know how to define the elements. Dawn spent months reverse-engineering her first few. But when she picked up speed, she enchanted this staff so that she could immediately query the sigil that could be used to describe any object, as well as the state of that object. Look, look! Point at those two candles, one at a time."

Reeve followed Millie's gesture and found two candles on the table behind them, one unlit, one lit. Reeve turned and pointed first at the lit candle. The entire candle glowed green, and a relatively simple orange sigil appeared. Reeve looked at it for a few seconds, then rotated the staff to point at the unlit candle. It glowed green, and another simple orange sigil appeared. Moving the staff back and forth between the two a few times, Reeve identified the subtle difference between the two.

Reeve snorted. "This is perfect for you."

"I know!" Millie squealed.

"Because?" Dawn said from behind Reeve.

"I'm wired a little different than many people are," Millie said, taking the staff as Reeve offered it back to her. "Social cues—I'm often pretty useless." She looked at Reeve pointedly. "Though not as slow as Reeve can be sometimes. But if you're looking for someone who can quickly identify and understand complex game mechanics—"

"—or…," Reeve prompted.

"—or who can memorize a bajillion bits of minutiae, that's me!" Millie had already turned away from them and was pointing the staff at objects, spending a few seconds on each before moving to the next.