With perfect timing, Torrent came out of the tracing room. “We'll travel within a vein of Internet. I can navigate the vein with you guiding me.”
Trevor nodded. “Perfect.”
“Thank you for coming again, Torr.” I hugged him.
“Well, let's go!” Fenrir's voice came through the tracing room doorway before he did. “Torrent, thank you for your help.” He slapped a beefy hand on Torr's shoulder. “You're a loyal friend.”
“Anytime, sir,” Torrent said.
“The pups are taken care of?” Fenrir looked toward the open main doors of the palace.
“Yeah, Sam is looking after them,” I said.
Fenrir leaned down to kiss my cheek. “She's a good girl, that Samantha. Kids give you trouble no matter how big they get.”
I chuckled. “I'm not looking forward to chasing them around the realms.”
“I hope you won't have to. But if you do, I'll be there.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I looked at Trevor. “You ready?”
Trevor handed the jewel to Torrent. “It would be silly for me to direct you when you could simply follow the jewel yourself.”
Torr took the jewel, settling it in his hand as Trevor had done. Torrent didn't need the tracing wall; he could enter the Inter Realm anywhere. “Form a line. I'll be creating a tube through the Aether. Try not to look into the Aether. Concentrate on the person in front of you.”
“All right.” Fenrir stood behind Trevor, and I stood behind Fenrir.
Our line stretched out behind me, with Odin, Re, Viper, Kirill, and Azrael joining us. It would have been safer to take more god power with us, but I was hoping the trickster wouldn't want to hurt Ty's family. My even bigger hope was that the trickster, though crazy, was still trying to help us.
Torrent formed a bubble of Internet around us. The world became brighter, and a thick line of glowing light appeared,surging out of the tracing room to split into several lines and traverse the palace. It was the vein of Internet that Torrent had attached to my territory. Torrent pushed our bubble into the line, merging the two before he walked down the smaller line, using it as a guide into the Aether. We followed Torr past the tracing wall, now incorporeal. And then we entered the Aether.
The Aether isn't just a buffer between realms. It's a realm of magic. Witches project their spells into the Aether, and the realm takes that energy and manifests it. The evidence of this bobbed around us—glowing blobs and symbols of the spells that were being cast. But that wasn't all the Aether held.
Every time a god traced, the Aether took a snippet of the god’s memory as payment. Those memories fed the Aether. As fuel, they didn't last forever, but new ones replaced the consumed memories constantly. I risked a look into the glittering dark, and watched a holographic memory float by, turning lazily as if in a breeze. Many more hovered behind it—Gods doing all manner of things in them.
I focused back on Fenrir quickly. Staring into the Aether too long would make you go mad.
“Holy cannolis,” I whispered.
“What's that, little frami?” Fenrir looked over his shoulder at me.
“The Aether. It holds memories. If someone searched these memories, they could learn a lot about the gods who left them behind.”
“And they'd go mad,” Fenrir huffed. Then his expression fell into shock. “And they'd go mad! Damn it all! That's how they know so much.”
“What are you talking about?” Trevor asked.
“The trickster.” I motioned at the Aether. “I think they've been looking into the Aether. It would explain how they knew the locations of hidden god items. I mean, visions of the future can only show you so much.”
“I don't think so, V,” Torrent called back to me. “I'm the only god I know of who can walk the Aether.”
“Iktomi did it before you,” I reminded him. “And if he did, why not another god?”
Torrent frowned and pushed us forward. The jewel was glowing brightly, shining green light through the darkness. Torr held it up and leaned forward as if he were being dragged.
“Maybe the trickster took more than Katila's power,” Odin said. “He could have used the condenser to steal magic from several gods.”
“Maybe,” I murmured.
