There's a special kind of feeling when humans do magic.

Fox magic feels like smoke and mirrors; tasty smoke, shiny mirrors, but ultimately it's not built on anything solid. Push hard enough against it and it all falls down. Crow magic feels like threats and wonder; dark and solid until it bursts out into a rainbow all in blacks. Fish magic feels like treasure and transitions, the moments when the tide turns and so many wonders are raining down that you don't even know how to pick them up.

But human magic happens when they take a little part of the world and store it inside of their hearts forever and ever.

This is the magic that's coming from Caster now; not his technomagic, or sorcery, or mana-manipulation or any of those things that Casters do. It's his heart, made into a sword and used to carve a place. It overlays and expands on reality, like this place was a little bit of the place inside him and it fits into what's already there perfectly. Rows of tents and pavilions, striped in red and white. The kinds of bicycles you'd need a stepladder to get onto, the kinds of cars you'd need real biceps to crank to life, overflowing bins of candies like glass drops and a five meter map of the world that made you want to explore every last corner.

"This reminds me," said Caster slowly, as though his heart were not shining with that very magic. "of the World's Fair."

The game over screen flashes. He hits reset without thinking.

"It was a place where everyone would gather and show off the miracles they had been making. Cures for disease. Engines that could build roads. Spells to transmit sound over copper. After a lifetime of trying to grip humanity by the neck and haul it into the future, I saw there a place where the future was being built. Where men could be freed from drudgery and labour, where distance did not mean good-bye, where the sick could be healed and the blind given sight. For all my life I tried to be a good king, but I had accomplished nothing compared to the smallest and meanest of those tents."

Game over again. This time his thumb lingered over the restart button.

"What happened to that dream?" he asked, voice pained. "All that science. All that industry. This world has rejected it, fears it, cages it underground. It seems like it does not miss it at all. Did it really turn out so bad in the end?"