Eidolon

Chapter 1

Shin'nen trailed her finger along the stark white wall, then glanced at it, half expecting it to come away sticky with still-wet paint or chalky with the dust that always seems to settle on fresh satin-matte surfaces. It didn't, and she supposed that made sense, too—he wouldn't have let dust come in if he could help it, would he? Even the books and jars in the basement somehow escaped dust, she'd noticed, as if by magic—and that's what it probably was, she reminded herself, and shuddered to remember what sort of world she'd been thrown into.

The room still smelled sharply of latex paint and the chemical tang of new carpet. She'd tried to air it out, but the scent lingered. There was no way to escape the way the apartment looked. It was so empty, like her dorm room back at Puget had been, except here there weren't even stains on the carpet or old tape painted into the walls. It was as though no one had ever lived there, at all, and she was supposed to somehow fill it with life and make it someplace warm and safe.

Once she unpacked, she told herself, it would be different. Somehow, people everywhere managed to turn black, barren apartments into homes. She'd woken up to the main room scattered already with Rubbermaid tubs and taped boxes, the remnants of her room with Chelsea back at college all packed away again, carted up at who knows when the previous night. She'd thought it was so much stuff while carting it out of the rented U-Haul back in September, but now she had no idea how she'd manage to fill all this space. Even if she spread her belongings as sparsely as possible, they could hardly begin to dull the edges of even this small, engulfing space. God, she didn't even have sheets for the bed!

“Okay,” Shin'nen said aloud, and had the odd feeling the fresh paint was sucking up her voice like some creepy white hole vacuum. “Okay,” she tried again, bolstering herself, “you're here and you're gonna do fine. The carpet's not a bad color. You can go shopping. You can buy those cute little beaded pillows. Just start unpacking and it'll all work out. It's just like college only . . . only bigger.”

Bigger and scarier, she added silently, and not even your choice. “Ah, dammit, what am I doing here?!” She couldn't think of the answer to that one—goddamn that man and his secrets!--and kicked the nearest tub to ward off tears. The lid popped off with a snap, revealing the mass of stuffed animals she hadn't been able to bear crossing the country without. Dropping to her knees, Shin'nen dug her hands into the bin and buried her face in them, hugging as many as she could at once. Okay, she thought, that's it. You're a big girl, Shinny, and you can take what the world throws at you. Now go make this place awesome and throw it in his face.

Standing, she set the stuffed animals about the room, balancing them on unopened boxes, tubs, the microwave, the bed with its institutional green sheets and fleecy blanket. She opened the box of cds and the battered, paint-splattered boom box and plugged it into the wall. She put on the Pokemon movie soundtrack she had danced to with her friends back in the nineties, and set to work.

It didn't take long to unpack—just long enough to require one more cd, and she threw in a battered old DDR compilation to stay upbeat. The room still looked empty, as she knew it would, but at least the walls weren't so bare. She'd used up all her 3-M tabs, though, and had to break out the sticky tack, which would certainly scar the walls when she decided to move things. Well. That was just one more way she could annoy him, and it wasn't as though he couldn't fix it if it was such a bother.

He was downstairs, she knew, even though she hadn't seen him all day. He was always there, always working on something, and though Shin'nen knew he must go home sometime, she had yet to figure out when that might be. Of course he'd have put her up in the apartment above the agency—it was vacant, it was easily accessible, it made perfect sense—but she couldn't help but feel like she'd been saddled with the worst luck in the world. So he was always around, always there, like some piece of hideous art a friend had made for you that you couldn't possibly tell them you hated.

After she'd rearranged her stuffed animals as many times as she could in good conscience, she gathered Grumpy Bear in the crook of her elbow for moral support—Grumpy Bear, because she was grumpy when it came to him—and headed downstairs for the inevitable confrontation.

It wasn't that she hated him, though she desperately wanted to—she'd originally intended to fall in love with him, after all. That's what you were supposed to do, wasn't it, when someone saved your life and nursed you back to health? Especially when that someone was a young, mysterious wizard. That's how it always went in the stories. But, God, they couldn't have possibly meant him. He was so damned impossible. And boring. “Boring,” she muttered, “like a drill to the head and a ten course meal of mashed potatoes.”

When she reached the main-floor's office, Asque was exactly where she'd expected him to be: seated at his desk, bent over some godforsaken paperwork, chin-length hair falling into his face. It was the sort of white-blond color you see on little kids, and it was something Shin'nen had originally intended to find exotic, but now just found annoying. Why couldn't he have some real hair color, or at least some real fake hair color? If nothing else, that would make him more interesting.

He didn't look up to greet her. “I expected you down three hours ago.”

“Yeah, well, I was unpacking. Some people don't like living out boxes.” At least he made it easy to be annoyed. She flopped herself down in the spinny-chair at the office's second desk and glanced around the room. It was so boring, too, all bare walls and generic plants and old, stately oak paneling that Shin'nen continually found herself wanting to chuck a rock at. “Besides,” she said, “it's not like you didn't know where I was.”

“Mm.”

God, what was it with him and these noncommittal noises? Did all men do this, and she just didn't notice it before? It was like she wasn't worth an actual word. Bah. She scowled. “Okay. Whatever. So I'm late. I'm here now. Explain to me again why I'm here now and not at college or at the very least at home, 'cause I have absolutely nothing against going back upstairs and packing up and catching the next plane back to Minnesota.”

He didn't reply—of course he didn't. Balancing her chin on the top of Grumpy Bear's head, Shin'nen glared at Asque across the office. At least he could have made fun of her run-on sentence.

Asque reached into a drawer and removed a manila mail envelope, held it out to her. “This arrived for you this morning.”

Shin'nen considered the packet for a moment, then dragged her chair over to face Asque's desk and took the envelope. She noticed it was addressed not to her, but to the office, written in the neat capital letters of someone who addresses hundreds of packages a day. It had already been opened. After a quick raise of her eyebrow at Asque, she shook the contents out into her hand.

It was a bracelet, silver, chain-link with a rectangular band of steel. Even through the stapled plastic bag she recognized the symbol inset into the steel. She'd seen it once before, on a bracelet worn by her old choir director back home after a surgery. “What is this?”

His fingers were steepled before his nose. “It's a medical alert bracelet.”

“Well, yeah, I can see that.” Shin'nen wrinkled her nose and broke the plastic open, sliding the bright metal into her palm. She flipped it over and ran a finger over the engraved letters, then felt oddly guilty for smudging it with fingerprints. “I mean—why is it?”

Asque frowned. “I thought that should be obvious. I do suggest you wear it.”

“Shin'nen Aisley,” the bracelet read. “Praecantrix.” Then, in smooth, garish capitals: “DO NOT HOSPITALIZE.”

“Oh,” she said. She put it on. The band was cold and heavy around her wrist.

It had been three weeks since the hospital, if the date on her laptop was to be trusted. Three weeks since she'd started volunteering, gathering experience for a possible career in medicine. It had seemed like such a good idea, then, and it should have been, shouldn't it have . . . ? It was funny, wasn't it, how you could spend your whole life dreaming, praying something was real, and then when you found out it was true you'd do anything to make it go back to being a dream.

She shifted the bracelet on her wrist and rubbed it, trying to raise its warmth to that of her skin. “This doesn't mean I believe any of this stuff.” Asque gazed levelly at her, and she knew that she hadn't convinced him any more than she'd convinced herself. She hugged her bear, trying to regain the frustration she'd been fueled by earlier. “What does 'praecantrix' mean?”

“It's Latin.” Asque was digging in his drawer again, and Shin'nen wondered how it was that he could be so organized and still spend so much time searching. “Obscure. It means 'witch', loosely, or 'sorceress'. We've adopted it for use with the medical community, since they seem intent on categorizing everything as a medical condition. If nothing else, it ought to force an EMT to consult your medical history before taking any drastic measures.”

Finding herself gnawing on her lower lip, she forcibly clenched her teeth and squeezed Grumpy Bear's paw for grumpy support. “Okay,” she said, standing abruptly, “so I guess I unpacked for nothing. I mean, I should be set, then, right? I can finally leave, get on with my life?” Forget about this whole damn magical world and get back to reality? Her mind was racing again. It seemed like the bracelet was dragging her hand back down to her seat, so she nervously used its hand to brush back orange curls.

“I wouldn't advise that.” He wasn't looking at her again, gaze still focused on whatever it was he was searching for in that steel hulk of a desk. She saw him shut a drawer, then open it again, as though whatever hadn't been there before might suddenly reappear if he caught it off guard.

“And why not?” She had meant it as a challenge and was pleased to find it sounded solid enough to be one. “I'm fine now, thanks and all that, but I can't stay here. This isn't where I belong.”

“You have much more to learn before you ought to return.”

“You can't keep me here!” Her voice was careening out of control, she realized, and she tied it back down, leaning in toward Asque's desk before turning toward the door to the street. “You have no authority to keep me here.”

She wasn't sure what happened next, except that there was a flash of something silvery behind her and suddenly her arm was burning with someone else's pain and she was back in the hospital, seeing pearly white and feeling something rushing out of her in a gasp—and then she was clinging the office chair, fingers digging into the cushion to compensate for knees that had somehow given way.

Gasping, she turned her head to see Asque pulling down his sleeve over a scar that seemed to lace white and vanish, leaving smooth skin beneath crisp white. There was a splash of red across the desk, across the silver knife upon it. Knife? Shin'nen thought desperately. Dagger--! Oh, God! Asque's face was impassive as he began to methodically mop up the blood with an odd handkerchief, its once white slowly turning an even-growing pink. “This,” he said, “is what will continue to happen unless you learn to control your abilities. Suppose you witness a car accident, or a suicide. I hardly think four words and a steel bracelet will keep a well-meaning nurse from inadvertently killing you while you're unconscious. Not to mention the work you will inevitably cause someone attempting to explain how there is so much blood about while its previous owners have not so much as a scratch.”

His words were stumbling past her ears, and although she understood their meaning, they seemed more like a wave of syllables than true speech. She hauled herself upwards, clutching her bear in one arm as she fought the vertigo that had overcome her. “Ms Aisley,” came the voice from behind her, and she ignored it, plunging for the door. “Ms Aisley.” Sterner this time, and she could only manage a fragmented reply: “S-sorry, can't stay here—can't gotta get out--”

She fumbled with the doorknob and threw the frost-glassed door open. For a moment, walking through it felt like striding though deep mud—and then she was out in the street, the sunlight, and safe.

***

Shin'nen sagged against the heavy door of the office, closing her eyes against the sideways stares of tourists and letting the late morning sun beat against her face. Finally outside, she felt a little exposed—too exposed, she realized, opening her eyes to the chill of a soft breeze off the nearby river. Immediately, she regretted her haste in exiting and wished she'd thought to grab a coat. Portland February was warm compared to what she was used to, but two and a half weeks of heavy blankets and a cranked thermostat in the bare apartment hadn't prepared her for forties in a t-shirt.

Rubbing her arms, she turned to stare at the building that had become her impromptu home for the past few weeks. It was so inauspicious: old brick, just this side of crumbling, reaching up two stories to the apartment she'd already come to hate. What passed for windows were sparse on the main floor; what did exist were set into the brick and heavily curtained, hiding whatever life might theoretically exist inside. She could see now why she had never noticed anyone other than Asque inside. Even the door was uninviting; heavy wood, it was painted a dull grey, its only ornamentation the stylized black lettering on its frosted glass pane: “E.I.D.O.L.O.N.” and below it, in letters not small, but oddly shimmery such that Shin'nen had to squint to read them: “Extraordinary Individuals in the Direction of Orderly Liasons between Oddities and Normals.”

“'Orderly Liasons', huh? They're not going so great liasoning to me.” Then, feeling the weight of the steel around her wrist, Shin'nen remembered that she was no longer one of those “Normals”. She shivered.

Stuffing her hands in her pockets, Grumpy Bear hanging off her arm, Shin'nen moved into a brisk walk, taking in the street and trying not to think about her folly in running out. For as long as she'd been in the city, she'd barely been outside; a quick walk around the block or a half-hour's time on the roof for air was all Asque had allowed as she recovered. Now that she thought back, she wondered how she'd let herself be so closely controlled—but then she hadn't wanted to think for herself, had she, because thinking meant remembering and remembering meant making it harder to pretend that the last three weeks wasn't some dream and the world really had been turned on its head . . . and God, if it wasn't a dream, where did she go from here?

Shin'nen walked faster now, but made sure to keep close tabs on her surroundings. As much as she had needed to leave that trap of a building, she knew she'd have to find her way back, too—a fact she much begrudged. She'd left everything back there, in the upstairs apartment, and even if she'd want to run off she'd at least need her ID, some money—A sweater, she added with an audible snort. Here she was, wandering down the street in a t-shirt and jeans, with nothing on her person but a battered old Care Bear. “Oh, God, I must look like an idiot.”

Across the street, a man was vigorously attempting to tempt a siamese-patterned stray down from a tree. Perfectly nonplussed, the cat sat, paws crossed, kinked tail swishing slowly back and forth. Shin'nen wished she had that sort of poise, just to sit there, all-knowing, and smile as people made fools of themselves. Or to just stare down Asque because I know everything he doesn't.

“Good luck, guy,” Shin'nen snorted to herself and was startled to see the cat swing its gaze to meet hers. She had the odd feeling she was being laughed at, and, staring furiously at the street, she hurried to move on.

“If you had any sense,” she told herself, “you'd go right into one of these shops and call the police.” This sounded so reasonable that she almost veered into the nearest business—then noticed the sign hung above the door: “The ADULT BOOKSTORE”

“Oookay no,” she decided quickly, and hastened her pace down the street. Why would the police believe her, anyway? Did people believe you when you'd been abducted from a hospital by a wizard? And it wasn't, she had to admit, as though he'd actually held her against her will. He'd told her not to leave, but he hadn't done anything to stop her. “Except stab himself,” she admitted, and then clapped a hand over her mouth as a pair of pedestrians shot her quizzical looks. “Sorry,” she muttered, but they were already long past.

Her hands were growing chilly, and she shifted the stuffed bear in her arms to breathe heat into her palms. This district seemed almost flooded with restaurants, and Shin'nen was quickly remembering how long it had been since breakfast. Even the less reputable-looking establishments were exuding marvelous smells.

Shin'nen dug in her pockets, searching to see if any loose change had survived from whenever she had last worn the pair of jeans. Hidden in the back right pocket, she found a crumpled five. Hot chocolate, she decided at once, and scoured the street for the first likely shop. A Chinese restaurant—definitely no—a home-style café—closer, but no—and then a most appreciated smell found its way into her nose. On the other hand, she changed her mind, a cookie would be just fine.

The scent came from a bakery, full-wall windows speckled in posters advertising local bands and small-time theater. The sign above the shop looked like it might be on its last legs, the letters spelling out “Bakery” almost devoid of what was once a glossy golden sheen, but the smell overpowered any misgivings she might have held. It reminded her of home, all cozy and comfortable and yeasty.

Stepping into the over-warm shop from the street was such a shock, Shin'nen found herself shivering involuntarily. She brushed a hand over her arms and gave Grumpy Bear a squeeze. The bakery's interior was just as edging on disrepair as its sign; though certainly clean, the paint was certainly faded, and Shin'nen could just make out where it had begun to chip in the corner of the room. There were tables and chairs scattered across the floor, all vaguely mismatched, but painted a similar, worn color. It made her feel a little embarrassed, as though she had inadvertently peeked at an old woman in the shower, trying to look her best with an aging appearance.

The woman behind the counter, however, was anything but old. If Shin'nen had to place her, she'd guess the woman wasn't much more than twenty-five, thirty at the oldest, and between her chocolate skin and the speckling of flour across her face and arms, Shin'nen had the odd sensation that the woman was an odd, human extension of the baked goods she sold. “Enjoy those crepes, Mr. Pavani!” the woman called as an elderly man waved on his way to the door. “We'll have some more baked up for you tomorrow! Hey, there,” she added, turning her attentions and a smile to Shin'nen. “What can I help you with? Oh, honey, why are you not wearing a coat?”

“Ah—I forgot to grab one,” Shin'nen stuttered out, feeling her cheeks redden from something other than the outside chill. “Can I just look a minute?”

“Yeah, sure.” The woman's smile broadened accommodatingly before the door dinged. “Oh, hello, Ms Roxwell! I've got your dozen bagels all packaged up, fresh this morning—lemme grab 'em for you!”

While the shopkeeper vanished into the back room, Shin'nen bent to peer at the goods behind glass, identifying at least a dozen items she'd never heard of and a dozen more that looked like the word decadence had been mixed, kneaded, and golden-browned. There was, of course, the little voice in her head reminding her of the uncountable calories, fat, and carbs the creations contained, but, in a small scene of mayhem in her mind, the voice was quickly and brutally murdered by several other small voices in her head who were sick of being slowly weaned off of baby food and boring grain products for the past weeks.

“That'll be ten thirty-two, Ms Roxwell. A pleasure as always!” Sorting the money into an old-model cash register, the woman returned her gaze to Shin'nen. “Well, honey? Made a decision yet?” When Shin'nen shook her head, embarrassed, the woman reached under the counter and removed a crispy item Shin'nen could only categorize as something between a donut and a croissant. “You'll want this one, I think. Fresh out of the oven, not five minutes ago, so it's nice and warm, too.”

“Okay, okay, sure,” Shin'nen agreed, and fished the crumpled five from her back pocket.

“Of course sure. I'm especially proud of that batch.” The woman accepted her money, counted out change, and handed Shin'nen the pastry on a flowered plate.

Shin'nen took the plate, shoving the change back in her front pocket. “You . . . bake all this yourself?”

“Not all of it, usually. I've got someone who helps mornings, but she's out sick. But yeah, this is all mine.” She surveyed the room with an obvious pride, then let her smile fall sideways as she brought her gaze back to her customer. “Ah, alright, it's a bit of a dump, but I love it. Go ahead, take a seat to eat. I swear, whatever they look like, all the chairs are perfectly sturdy.”

Shin'nen nodded and, a little self-conscious, took a table near the wall, looking out the window. The woman hadn't given her a fork, so she assumed it was alright to eat the pastry with her fingers. She did, nibbling first at one corner as a test. It was as good as promised—flaky and buttery, with just the right amount of sweet glazed on so as to contrast without being overly sticky. Her subsequent tiny bites were to savor the flavor, and she found her mind veering back to office and apartment and what the hell she was supposed to do.

She was quickly absorbed in her food and thoughts, and nearly jumped to find the baker standing behind her. “Whatcha thinking?”

“Ah—um--”

The woman grinned. “There's a story behind that look, and I'm dying to figure it out. I've heard all the stories of the locals—it's just your bad luck to be new around here. Look,” she said, waving a hand toward the back of the shop, “my costumers all know I take an early lunch. How 'bout I put on some hot water and you can brighten my day with some gossip, huh? I'll throw in a sandwich for your trouble.” Without waiting for an answer, the woman strode off toward the kitchen. “If that's okay, you just wait there and I'll be back in a jiffy.”

Shin'nen considered leaving, then deflated with a sigh. Well, the woman seemed nice enough, and God knows Asque would never listen to her. And even if the woman thought she was crazy, she could just leave and never come back, right? And she really had no desire to head back out into the February chill.

The woman returned in a flourish of flour, bearing a steaming pot of water and two mugs. “What'll you take?” she asked, dumping a handful of various instant beverage packets on the table. “I've got Apple & Spice, hot chocolate, Earl Grey, and Red Zinger. But hurry up and decide, 'cause it's guests first, but I've got my eye on the Earl Grey.”

“It's all yours,” Shin'nen replied vehemently and made a grab for the packet of Swiss Miss.

“Thought you might go for that. Oh! What's your sandwich of choice? I've got salami, bologna, turkey, and maybe some ham.”

“Actually . . . I'm not really a meat eater.”

“Oh, I see. How's PB&J?”

Shin'nen found herself smiling. “That'd be great.”

“Fantastic. You'll have to make it yourself, though—I've got no patience for putting that stuff together.” The woman vanished off into the back once more, and Shin'nen stirred at her chocolate. The woman appeared again bearing two plates, one loaded with sandwich and the other still in bread and jar pieces. An orange balanced awkwardly between them. “I found an orange in the fridge, but there's only one, so we'll have to split it.” She set the items down on the table and took a seat. “Okay, then. Let's start this out right. I'm Rebekka Danielson, nice to meet you. I run this lovely little bakery here on third street. Call me Bekka. Now your turn.”

“Shin'nen Aisley. I . . . you're not going to believe me.”

“Try me. No, no, wait, let's make this easier. Question: resident or tourist?”

“I . . . don't know.” Shin'nen's face fell into an immediate frown. She didn't belong here, she didn't want to stay, but-- “I'm staying above the E.I.D.O.L.O.N. Office.”

Something dawned on Rebekka's face. “Oh-hh. So you're Asque's new project.”

“Wait, what?” Shin'nen nearly choked on her hot chocolate. “What do you know about Asque?”

“Hey, slow down there!” Rebekka held up her hands in surrender. “Lemme guess: you got fed up with him being all insufferable and ran out sans coat with your bear, right?”

Clutching her bear as though hoping it might vanish if she hugged it tight enough, Shin'nen sunk back in her seat a bit. “That's . . . yeah. About it. Does that mean you're . . . ah . . .”

Seeming to understand Shin'nen's awkward question, Bekka laughed. “Nope, I'm completely boring-ordinary. 'Normal,' as I think the acronym says. Nah, I just found a dragon in the ovens when I was six.”

Shin'nen found herself sputtering again. “A what?”

“Dragon.” Fixing Shin'nen with a piteous grimace, Bekka shook her head. “Oh, dear. He hasn't explained much to you, has he?”

“I guess not. A real dragon?”

“Oh, yes. A gorgeous, fire-breathing dragon. Got in a car accident and thought our oven was a nice warm place to heal up. The bread tasted off for weeks. Well,” she admitted, “he wasn't a dragon at the time, I suppose. He wouldn't have fit. But it was plenty big for his walker shape.

“That's how I know of Asque. Sammy mentions him sometimes.” She caught Shin'nen's sour look and skewed her smile. “He's not a bad guy—he seems to mean well, I think. But I get the feeling his people skills are lacking. I heard he's had four people living in that apartment over the past year. You're the first I've run into, though. You okay, there, honey?”

Shin'nen had pulled her legs up onto the chair with her, hugging Grumpy Bear between her chest and knees. “God, this is all actually real . . .”

“Terrible time to learn about it,” Rebekka agreed, finishing her sandwich and reaching over to spread peanut butter across Shin'nen's untouched bread. “I don't think I'd have wanted to know if I hadn't found out as a kid. But it's sorta hard to take back. Even if I don't like this Asque character, I gotta respect him. E.I.D.O.L.O.N. does a lot to make sure most everyone can stay ignorant about that sorta thing. Of course,” she added, grinning wickedly, “I could just be part of a huge conspiracy. Or crazy. Small-time baker, you know, that's only a couple steps up from cafeteria lunch lady, you know.”

Shin'nen glowered at her from over her bear.

“Okay, okay, joking! Eat,” she instructed, shoving the finished sandwich in Shin'nen's direction. Shin'nen reached out a hand mutely and took an obedient bite. “So, how did you get dragged into this?”

Haltingly, around bites of sandwich, Shin'nen recounted what she remembered. It was less than she'd thought, considering the time frame, and by the time the sandwich was finished, so was the tale: arriving at the hospital, wishing she could do more to help, suddenly feeling exhausted and collapsing, then awakening here, in the apartment's large bed, two and half weeks and hundreds of miles later. Rebekka made an attentive listener, and, no matter what the baker's intentions, she was immediately glad to have met her if only to have someone to talk to.

“So . . . I guess I heal people. Except I'm bad at it.” She held up her right wrist, displaying the bracelet still jingling around it.

“Or maybe really good at it,” Rebekka suggested, tossing Shin'nen a 'may I?' glance before fingering the bracelet such as to read it better. “I've heard it takes just as much energy, magical or otherwise, to heal something as it would to heal naturally. So if you can learn how control it, well. That'd be something. I think Sammy's got one of these,” she added. “My dragon friend. Except his is a dog tag and says something like 'volucris' or something so they hopefully leave him to people who don't freak out that he's got extra organs. What?”

Shin'nen was laughing in a way she hoped wasn't bordering on hysteria. “Oh, God. It's just . . . three weeks ago I would have been worrying about Calculus and Human Anatomy and whether Jill and Amie had hooked up yet, and now I'm sitting in Portland talking about dragons and wizards. I think I should be freaking out. In fact, I'm pretty sure I should be freaking out. This is like a movie, or a book, or some stupid reality tv show.”

Rebekka squeezed Shin'nen's wrist briefly. “Pretend you're a kid. I bet you'd have loved this if you were a kid. Think Peter Pan. You get older, you forget how to appreciate all this stuff, but sometimes you've gotta go back to being a kid to grow up. It's a weird world out there, but it's a pretty amazing weird world.”

“Yeah, I—I'll work on that.” She swallowed down a gulp of cooling chocolate and gave Grumpy Bear another squeeze.

“I mean, hey, it's magic. The world is magical. That's pretty awesome. Like this orange,” the baker offered, digging fingernails into the rind and expertly peeling the fruit. “Pretty interesting in general, maybe some people don't like it much, but it's alright and all. But then,” and she blew into cupped hands, rubbed the pink palms together and blew a hundred sparkling flakes into the air, “fwoosh, something happens and it just glitters.”

A smile snuck into the corners of Shin'nen's mouth. “That's . . . yeah, magic.”

“That's my one trick. Ah, shoot.” Bekka was glancing at the clock on the wall, frowning at the time. “I'd better get back to work. And you'd better start figuring this stuff out. Hang on there a minute, I'll find a jacket you can borrow.”

“Thanks.” Shin'nen helped the woman pile plates together and carry them back to the kitchen. “Thanks, for . . . all this.”

“Hey, don't thank me,” she said with a lopsided grin. “I've got ulterior motives. If you get this all worked out, I might be able to get you or Asque to take care of the ghost in my oven.”

“G-ghost?”

“Oh, honey. You have got to get someone to give you the lowdown on this.” After filing the dishes away in a battered dishwasher, Bekka paused at the rusty coat rack by the back door. “Ah, damn, he's got my jacket now. Well, s'long as I don't need to go out . . .” After a moment's frowning, she grabbed a leather jacket shook flour from it, holding it out to Shin'nen. “This ought to work for you. It's a little . . . dusty, but it'll keep the wind off you. Wear it home, find your own, and you can update me when you bring it back tomorrow.”

Shin'nen slipped the jacket on, feeling the seams in the lining where the arms hung too long. It felt handmade and lovingly repatched and smelled strongly of cinnamon and woodsmoke. “Thanks. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed. “And then I'll put you to work. Can't let the wizard have all the fun.”

Shin'nen tried out a smile and found it fit comfortably on her lips. “Alright. I'll try to bring lunch this time.”

“I'll hold you to it! Now shoo—I think I've got customers waiting.” Motioning with her arms largely, Bekka directed Shin'nen toward the door. Shin'nen trailed outside obediently, waving as she turned back down the street. She liked how the smile felt on her face, and decided maybe things couldn't be so bad if, as she suspected, she'd just made a friend.

Chapter 2

“Elves?”

“Yes.”

“Mermaids?”

“Yes.”

“Fairies?”

“Yes.”

“Darnit. I hate Tinkerbell. Uh, Vampires?”

“Yes.”

“Zombies?”

“Yes.”

“Ew. Um, Bigfoot?”

“No.”

“Guess I asked for that one. Dwarves?”

“No.”

“What? So, wait, Legolas, but no Gimli? That's mean.”

“Ms Aisley.” Asque looked up from the newspaper he had been attempting to read. Shin'nen was perched in the chair in front of his desk, notebook and pen in hand. “There is a small library of literature in the basement which I am certain can answer all of your questions. I have work to do.”

“Sure, I could look it up,” she agreed, “but you won't seem to talk to me unless I ask you a direct question. So. I'm being an instigator. Now¹, unicorns?”

The wizard sighed. “Yes.”

“Really? Can I see one sometime?”

He glowered at her a moment, glanced her over, and replied coldly, “Yes, I should expect so.”

It occurred to Shin'nen that she should feel both very offended and very embarrassed, and she quickly decided that blushing furiously was an appropriate response. “That was mean,” she said, “I think. I'm going to pretend it was somehow a compliment and spare you a good slap. For now.”

Leveling a gaze at her, Asque refolded his paper and laid it neatly down again. The gesture seemed somehow final to Shin'nen, and she had to fight the urge to sit at attention. “Ms Aisley. As much as I appreciate your apparent renewed interest in the world, let me remind you that although you are currently residing here out of my organization's goodwill, I do have actual tasks that must be completed.”

“Yeah, because reading the newspaper all afternoon is definitely a high-priority task.” Shin'nen reached out to finger through the impressive stack of newspapers piled upon Asque's desk. Besides the usual daily paper and a small collection of weeklies and bi-weeklies, there seemed to be at least twelve papers from cities whose names Shin'nen didn't even recognize. The collection formed a small tower, and Shin'nen had the urge to retrieve some action figures from upstairs and begin staging a mock battle. “What's with all these papers, anyway?”

Exasperated, Asque removed another of the newspapers from the stack and unfolded it. “There are two Eidolon agents in this state, and as I am one of them, it is my job to know of events in this half of the state.”

“Have you ever heard of a little thing called 'the Internet'? I'm pretty sure it'd be a whole lot easier to peruse a couple news sites rather than flip through hundreds of articles on the high school play and how Jimmie Jones caught a super-huge fish.” As much as she appreciated small-town newspapers, which Shin'nen had immediately deemed much of the stack to be, she couldn't imagine how the usual human interest stories and farm reports that cluttered her newspaper back home could possibly have any significance for some magical agency.

The newspaper, which proudly declared itself to be the Ashland Daily Tidings, crinkled as Asque peered over its top. “Anything not printed is likely not worth reading.”

“First of all, that's totally untrue, and second of all, there's a whole lot of crap that is printed. You're more likely to find . . . paranormal mysterious stuff or whatever in some bloke's blog than in a daily newspaper.” Shin'nen considered that for a moment. “Actually, that's probably a good place to look. People post a ton of crap in blogs, so it'd suck to have to read through them all, but you could just search the page for . . . key words or something, and nobody expects anyone to actually read a blog, really, so you could find a bunch of stuff that would never actually get printed.”

Asque was pursing his lips at her over the newspaper, and Shin'nen realized that he had no idea what she was talking about. An irrational surge of embarrassment filled her at this, and, in defiance of it, she feigned innocence and waited for him to ask for her to “please explain” before giving explanation.

“A blog? Oh my God, you don't know what a blog is?” Okay, she was hamming it up a little much, but it was just so perfect to see confusion on that skinny face. “You're not much older than I am—even my parents know what a blog is. Someone needs to drag you kicking and screaming into the 21^st century. It's like a diary, except people post it on the Internet.”

For a moment, Asque seemed to actually consider the notion, then frowned again. “I have no proof of the accuracy of these sources, and I believe I shall continue with methods I know.”

“Okay, fine, keep murdering a forest with breakfast.” Shin'nen leaned back in the black-backed office chair, intending to bother the wizard further by propping her feet on his desk, but the sudden over-tip of the wheel base had her gripping the arms. Pen, notebook, and raccoon fell to the floor in a clatter. “Ack! And get some better chairs, why don't you? This is a pathetic excuse for an office chair.”

“These chairs were here when I first arrived, Ms Aisley; I see no reason to replace them.”

“You sure are stuck in your ways, aren't you? Old Asque, already stuck in a rut.” She gathered up her fallen belongings and amused herself spinning the chair's seat, kicking her feet against Asque's desk. The painted metal made a satisfying thong as her sneakers hit it.

“Ms Aisley, would you kindly desist? I--”

“Have work to do, yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna keep bugging you until you actually tell me something. Or kick me out. Come to think of it, that would be just fine, too.”

“I have already made several inquiries as to an appropriate instructor for your abilities. I certainly have no intention of housing you any longer than necessary.”

It was Shin'nen's turn to level a gaze at Asque, propping her chin on a raised fist. “Then why aren't you teaching me anything? I'd be out of your face a lot sooner if you'd just tell me something.”

“I am not trained to instruct in the healing arts.”

“No, but you're trained enough to know if someone's injured I can't not heal them. Or maybe you just like stabbing yourself for fun.” And that might explain a lot. “So just teach me how stop doing that, and I can figure the rest out myself.”

“You can't,” Asque refuted, but either her logic or her persistence had swayed him, because he shook his head, then half-nodded, a half-hearted upward movement, that seemed almost eye-rolling in nature. He sighed. “Come to the basement in three hours and twelve minutes—that's after business hours—and I'll see what I can do. Until then, I do have work to do.”

--so get OUT, was the unspoken addition, and, victorious enough for her tastes, Shin'nen stood and shot off a sloppy salute. “Aye, aye, Captain Asque.” A thought struck her as she returned her chair and moved toward the stairwell. “Do you have a last name?” she asked, setting her hands on Asque's shoulders and peering at his paper.

“Ms Aisley--!” She felt the shoulders tighten under her fingers and danced off to the door, only half chastened and wholly grinning.

***

Despite the fluorescent lighting, the basement was somehow perennially gloomy. It fit Shin'nen's expectations for a wizard's library in that respect, but it wasn't something she appreciated. If anything, she wanted to dig a couple more windows in from street level, just to brighten the place up. The dank she recognized from her own basement back home, sneaking up from bare concrete floors and in from cement-block walls. Two sturdy tables blocked a view of empty floor on the far side of the room, but the rest was filled with books.

Thumbing through the stacks, Shin'nen felt almost as though she should have traded Bright Heart for Brave Heart Lion. But she was still on a search for knowledge, and Bright Heart had always had the knack for putting together the facts. She balanced him in the crook of her arm and plunged ahead.

She was beginning to think Asque's suggestion to look for information in the basement hadn't been made in the spirit of helpfulness. The books must in some sort of order—she couldn't imagine Asque allowing anything else—but she'd be damned before she could figure out what it was. Half of the books had titles so obscure she couldn't imagine what they might be about: things like Dissecting the Spirit of the Impenetrable; Concerning Esoteric Fluids; and A Brief Explanation of Interdimentional Color Schemes, which was by far the thickest book on its shelf. Most of what remained had no title at all, the binding old and worn-through, or were titled in various foreign scripts, of which Shin'nen could only identify a few.

“Figures,” Shin'nen muttered, “that he wouldn't have anything remotely useful to a beginner.” She began trailing her fingers along the stacks, skimming the titles with the same disinterest she'd found herself adopting at her university library before finally retreating to the children's section for her recreational reading selections. “Maybe I should just look online . . .”

Except that Asque was right—or at least, right enough—there was a lot online that was complete crap, and she certainly had no idea how to judge their accuracy. That, and she had yet to find a way to connect to the Internet in this backwards Old Town building, and she wasn't quite willing to break out the old AOL trial cds and a 26k modem to get online. She wasn't looking forward to checking her email after all this time, either.

Finally settling for several books with only reasonably cryptic titles, Shin'nen made her way back upstairs to the nearly-empty apartment. Next time, she thought, she'd bring a torch—maybe the books would make a little more sense in that archaic light.

***

If she piled all the empty Rubbermaids up in the bedroom, Shin'nen discovered, the clutter almost made it feel cozy. Piling the bed with all her twin-size sheets—too small to actually fit on the full-sized mattress—and random blankets helped, too, and by the time she'd finished she almost felt comfortable in the room, window shades open wide to let in as much light as possible.

This accomplished, Shin'nen spread out her small stack of reading and, after contemplating their titles, picked the smallest and most likely tome and paged it open. It was entitled A Person's Guide to Auraic Manipulation, and of all the books in the basement, it seemed to be the most recently published, as the inside cover mentioned a date of 1923. Shin'nen intended to ask Asque what was up with that as soon as possible. What sort of library didn't contain anything recent?

The author was Catherine May Susserfield, and it opened thus:

“I am writing this book as I have found no accurate and clear source on the title subject; and I felt to put in words a concise description of it. For the Aura is a thing both of a person and not of a person, which no book has yet explained, and only through proper oneness can a person properly identify the distinctive and indistinct qualities of such.”

The next several pages continued much in the same way, and Shin'nen was quite sure that nothing was actually said until the fourth page, where, following an almost reasonable explanation of the ways one ought to meditate with incense and coffee to properly appreciate one's aura, appeared the sentence: “It is my opinion that, contrary to such books as I have read, the Aura is a thing singly of a person and has no aspects not immediately relational to a person.”

“This is a load of crap!” She considered throwing the book across the room, but, recalling its age, settled for whacking it with Bright Heart, who she then sat upright on the text in an attempted victorious pose. “I don't see how I'm expected to learn anything from this if the author can't even get her points straight,” she confided to the raccoon. “Probably spent too much time meditating with incense and coffee.”

A glance at the three remaining books proved them to be of a similar vein; though A Dissertation on the Feminine Magicks at least seemed to maintain a solid thesis statement, even it danced around the subject to the point where Shin'nen wondered if the book would make more sense while ballroom dancing. After a brief test of this hypothesis, which quickly resulted in a tumble over and into several Rubbermaid tubs, she was about ready to try her luck the AOL cds turned coffee coasters. A few chocolate stains couldn't hurt their readability, right?

Several minutes and several half-empty tub searches later, Shin'nen was beginning to suspect that when Chelsea had directed the packing of her belongings, she'd neglected to include the disks. She could call her about them . . . but how pathetic would that be? Hi, Chelsea, hope you're enjoying that room all by yourself and by the way, could you please mail me my 700 free hours? Right. There'd probably be a stack of 'em in some cafe around the neighborhood—sans chocolate smears, too. Or she could just find the library. Unfortunately, both of those options meant leaving the building, and, much as Shin'nen disliked it, she had no urge to brave the streets and wind again that day.

Resigned to giving A Dissertation another go, Shin'nen made her dejected way back toward the bedroom—and paused, noticing a faint rasping sound, screeching slightly like nails on glass. Turning, she saw, one paw batting at the glass doors of the small terrace, the cat from her walk earlier that day. It was a dignified sort of pawing, as though, as much as it might want to enter, the cat would hardly degrade itself to actually scratching.

Shin'nen found herself watching the cat for a long moment. It seemed hardly prudent to open the door to a strange cat, especially when you weren't familiar with the neighborhood. Then again, for all its pose, the cat looked half-starved, and she was certain Asque wouldn't approve of it. She'd always wanted a cat.

When the cat finally dropped its paw, fixing Shin'nen with a look of contempt for, obviously, being so damn slow, she moved to let it in. It took a half-minute of fumbling to open the latch, and when she did, the pale Siamese surged into the warmth of the apartment. 'Took you long enough', said the twitch of its crooked tail.

“Well, sorry, guess I'm not enough of a philan--” She stopped, mind backpedaling as she realized she hadn't merely inferred the cat's meaning, but somehow felt it, not-heard it in the back of her mind. She stared.

'Philanthropist? Obviously.' The cat's ears folded back, and Shin'nen could see they were darkened more with grime than the usual Siamese point.

“You—I--?”

Noticing the girl's glance at her ears—for Shin'nen realized the cat was certainly female—the cat made a scowl, licked her paw, and drew it back across her head. She seemed to grimace. 'Well, what a mess I am. Don't just stand there stuttering, girl; go fetch me some food. I'm starved.'

Mutely, Shin'nen obeyed, walking to the fridge and burrowing through its sparse contents for something, anything the cat might deign to eat. “I . . . there isn't any meat,” she found herself apologizing. “There's a little cheese, if that's--”

'Yes, fine. Hurry it up.' The cat had leapt to the table and was methodically grooming herself, taking the time to gnaw dirt from the pads of her paws. “You're filthy,” Shin'nen blurted, and the cat gazed at her, amused. 'Well, yes, and you would be, too, if you'd been forced to hitchhike from Seattle. You are not an easy human to keep track of.'

Shin'nen returned to the table and sat, not entirely trusting gravity to cooperate, now that all the other laws of the universe seemed to be turning on end. 'American,' the cat noted in disgust, eying the cheese, but, with surprising deftness, removed the wrapper on one slice and began gnawing at it.

“You're . . . talking,” Shin'nen said astutely after a minute of watching the cat at her dinner, and she seemed to snort. 'Of course I'm not talking. Cats don't talk; everyone knows that.'

“Well, I'm obviously insane then. Which is actually kinda a relief,” Shin'nen had to admit, “because this all makes a lot more sense if I'm just insane.”

'Oh, please.' Having, albeit awkwardly, finished her first slice, the cat batted another from the pile and unwrapped it in kind. 'Insanity is such an easy way out. I just chose you, that's all. Though I'm beginning to change my mind.'

Shin'nen gnawed at her lip, pressing her feet against the floor as though trying to ground herself in some kind of reality. She wasn't sure it was working. “So . . . all cat's . . . don't talk like this?”

'I told you, cats don't talk. Are you daft? And of course not all cats will let you listen; you don't belong to them.' The cat got halfway through the second slice before deciding it was hardly worth eating, and she abandoned it for further preening. 'Do buy some decent food. I prefer canned Friskies, the seafood flavor. That's what Mrs. Teiman used to feed me, bless her soul.'

Mrs. Teiman? Shin'nen thought, and then: “Oh, my God! You're Mrs. Teiman's cat, from across the street in Garvin!” Vague memories of the lavender Siamese with the crooked tail sprung into her mind. “What—what are you doing here?”

'I've been asking myself much the same question.' She bared yellow teeth at the dirty state of her paw, then gnawed it clean again.

“But, I was just a little kid! You must be ancient!”

'How kind of you to notice.' The cat's tone seemed sarcastically dry, and Shin'nen glanced away in immediate embarrassment. God, she thought, I'm offending a cat. I'm worrying about offending a cat.

'In any case,' she continued, tongue busy across her side, 'I'm much too old to be tramping across the country after you. Before long I'll off and die and you'll have to find some childish kitten instead. You're just lucky I've lived long enough to save your sorry skin.'

“Wait, what?”

The cat eyed her crossly. 'Well, you don't think that wizard of yours just stumbled upon you in that hospital, do you? Out of his jurisdiction? Of course not. And you, innocently bleeding away your magic and life force for any tot with a skinned knee. I had to do something.' Here the cat seemed to become almost defensive, arching her bony back as though preparing to ward off a vocal blow. 'It was the elf that tipped him off. One of his area, and if one of those gets into the medical system, there's usually all sorts of mess to clean up. But you off and healed her up before they could even notice her ears were more than cosmetic surgery, and that, that got his attention.'

“Wait, you hurt someone?”

'Of course not.' Her tail bristled, offended. 'Do you really think I could have? I just made sure the humans found her before anyone else. It was a simple matter—though,' she added, determined to get her due in the matter, 'not for one of my advanced age. I hope you're grateful.'

“I am, of course I am,” Shin'nen reassured absently, drawing a hand through her hair. “Oh, God,” she realized again, “I'm talking to a cat! A cat!”

'I don't see what your deity has to do with anything. You talked to me when you were little, but you humans never seem to remember that, do you?'

A vague memory did lurk in her mind about that, like a dream she might have had that might have been real. But hadn't that just been her imagination? “Okay, okay, right. Suspension of disbelief.” Shin'nen stood, paced about the room. “Pretend you're a kid again. Pretend you're Dorothy over the rainbow or Alice down the rabbit hole.”

'At least you seem to have perked up again,' the cat was saying.

“How can you tell?” Shin'nen asked, partially to keep from babbling.

'Well,' said the cat dryly, 'you're not comatose, so I thought that might be a sign. But you've gone all pearly again, and that's what encourages me.'

Frowning, Shin'nen inspected her hands, searching for the color the cat mentioned. “What do you mean, pearly?”

'Your magic,' the cat explained. 'That's the color of it. But, oh, I suppose you can't see that, can you?' The cat went back to cleaning herself.

Oh, yeah, tell me more things I can't do, Shin'nen mentally muttered. Can't control my magic, can't read those damn books, can't see that, can't can't can't. “Can't. Cat. Oh! What—what was your name?”

Stretching grandly, the cat yawned, flesh drawing back to show a set of healthy, if yellowed teeth. 'I'm tired. Make me a bed.'

“What do I call you?” Shin'nen persisted, but obediently went to retrieve a throw blanket from the bedroom. “I—I don't remember your name.”

'Oh, no,' said the cat, 'those are two very different questions. You used to call me Ms Kitty-cat, if I recall. If you can't remember my name, I won't give it to you.'

Shin'nen piled the throw on the table, arranging its My Little Pony patterned folds into a makeshift basket. She hoped the cat wouldn't mind the design. “Oh, God. Ms Kitty-cat. I can't call you that now.”

'Call me whatever you like; if I don't appreciate it I won't answer.' The cat stepped into the blanket basket, stretched again, and curled herself within the folds. Glancing at Shin'nen out of the corner of her eye, she twitched her tail. 'Alright. You may call me “grimalkin”. That's what I am, in any case.'

“What's a grimalkin?” Shin'nen questioned, but the cat had already closed her eyes, and, asleep or not, she was now ignoring her. Shin'nen sighed. She was beginning to wonder if she had just wasted a half hour and two slices of cheese.

***

“Asque,” Shin'nen asked, carting the armload of books back down the basement stairs, “what do you know about cats?”

“That you shouldn't have let it in. Now that it's been invited, though I don't suppose I can keep it out.” The wizard was seated at one of the heavy, wood-topped tables, several books strewn open in front of him. He looked just as stiff as always, and Shin'nen wondered how he managed to stay so tense all the time without falling over. “Hopefully it will avoid causing trouble.”

She set her books down at the end of the table. “What do you have against cats?”

“They detest straight answers, and you can never discern what they're thinking.”

Sounds like someone I know, Shin'nen thought, and snorted. “Well, Grimalkin seems very . . .” she scoured for an appropriate adjective. Nice? Friendly? Concerned? “Old,” she finished. “I don't think she means any harm.”

“I'm sure she doesn't. Grimalkin, you say?” After a moment's consideration, his lips twitched. “Of course. Whatever have you been reading?” Reaching out, he commandeered Shin'nen's stack of returns and began sorting through them with a frown.

“Trying to read, you mean. These books are completely illegible, and they're even in English.” She pulled up a chair across the table from the wizard and propped her head on her hands. These chairs, she noticed, were deceptively much more comfortable than those in the office.

Asque seemed amused. “I don't understand it, but you seem to have managed to select what are possible the four most useless texts in this entire library. I have been meaning to remove them from the library, but I cannot find it in myself to either destroy them or subject someone else to their idiocy.” He tapped A Person's Guide in example. “I seem to remember Mrs. Susserfield wrote this entire book drunk.”

“Yeah, I got that impression.” Scowling, Shin'nen turned to sweep a gaze across the stacks behind them. “So if these are crap, where the heck was everything actually worth reading? I don't speak Latin or Russian or Elvish or whatever else half those books are written in, and I definitely don't speak wizard, which is what I'm pretty sure everything else is titled in.”

Asque sighed and lifted up one of the books in front of him so as to show Shin'nen its cover. The titled appeared in some archaic font, spelled out in a language that she could only describe as across between Arabic and Wingdings font. When he turned the book around, however, she saw it to be in plain, distinct English. The words shimmered slightly, and the strange text occasionally seemed to lurk behind its translation. “All non-English texts have been spell-translated, which, had you deigned to open them, you would have readily noticed.”

Well. Now she felt stupid. “But really, who does that? And next question—why isn't there anything recent? Don't tell me you magic people just decided anything written after that must be too easy to read for anyone to actually publish it.”

Folding his hands, Asque gazed coolly at her, and Shin'nen got the distinct feeling that, on some subatomic level, he was laughing at her. “Are you suggesting you haven't heard of a little thing called the Book?”²

“The Bible?” she replied sarcastically, deciding that turnabout really wasn't fair play after all.

“No, of course not.” Moving several of the open books, Asque uncovered what appeared to be a thin cloth-bound volume, all distinguishing marks—title, author, etc—suspiciously missing from its cover. Shin'nen had noticed several similar books while perusing the library, but had thought nothing of them; after a quick examination, they had proved to be entirely empty, and she had assumed they were intended to be journals or workbooks of some sort. “In the early twentieth century, it was concluded that magical literature could no longer be considered socially acceptable to the nonmagical community. A practitioner could not stock shelves with books pertaining to his or her art without arousing the suspicions of visitors and neighbors. Therefore, a new system of publication was devised.”

Withdrawing an ink pen from an unseen pocket, Asque opened the small tome to what would have been the titled page and wrote two words: “Search function.” The words vanished, and in their place, neat black type scrolled onto the page. “Search Function Activated,” the title page declared, then a checkbox list and the options “Browse by Subject,” “Browse by Decade,” “Search Keyword,” “Search Author,” and “Advanced Search.” Shin'nen was duly impressed.

“It's really very self explanatory.” Demonstration concluded, Asque shut the book and held it out to Shin'nen. “A call to a specific book references a copy in Eidolon archives. Those physical books still shelved here are as yet unavailable through the Book, for various reasons.”

Shin'nen ran her fingers down the book's deceivingly small spine. “This is kinda creepy. Like, Tom Riddle-ish. You sure you guys didn't steal this retroactively from J. K. Rowling?”

“I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Of course not.”³ Shin'nen heaved a sigh, shifting her head to rest on a single fist. “Well, now that I feel sufficiently stupid, why don't you teach me something.”

Asque raised an eyebrow. “I was under the impression I just did.”

“How about something I couldn't have figured out by scribbling all over your books?”

The wizard's gaze shifted to the side briefly as though he hoped someone might have appeared to take over the unwanted task. When his glance revealed no one, however, he fixed his attentions back on Shin'nen with a frown. “There are certain things you ought to know,” he said, “to survive in this world. Magical talents are like any other talents: there are people who will want to take them or make you use them for their own benefit. It's possible these precautions will never be necessary for you, but there is always the off-chance that they will be. If you stay here long, they will be.”

Determined to learn whatever was offered, Shin'nen sat attentively, crossing her legs at the ankles as she found herself doing during particularly interesting and disturbing movies. It occurred to her she should have brought her notebook, but somehow Asque's instructions had a way of burning into the mind.

“Names are important. Names of things, names of people. Never give your full name to someone you wouldn't trust with your life. Your name has power, and although the names of humans are fluid enough that the effects wouldn't be as disastrous as stories might suggest, they can make all the difference. Anything of you—hair, nails, blood, particularly—can be used to locate or influence you. You should never donate hair, or especially blood--” He caught Shin'nen's look of incredulity and replied it with a frown. “--not only for your own safety, but for that of those who might receive it. With an ample infusion, a perfectly nonmagical human might be mistaken for you and receive the brunt of some magic intended for yourself.”

Shin'nen wasn't quite satisfied with that explanation, but it made enough sense that she had to believe it. Being told not to donate blood was secretly reassuring; the concept admittedly terrified her, and as yet she'd never been able to bring herself to attempt it. How she'd manage to avoid shedding hair all over creation, though, she hadn't the faintest idea.

Almost as an afterthought, Asque added, “You should avoid contact with magical creatures. They tend to have little patience for the uneducated.”

That was disappointing, but she nodded. No unicorns for her, then. “Okay. Don't give anyone my name or parts of me, and stay away from magical creatures. So there's some stuff I shouldn't do. Anything I can?”

Asque closed his eyes a moment, gathering his thoughts as to where to go next. “Come over here,” he said, and moved to the bare concrete floor. Shin'nen followed warily, sitting as he indicated her, then watched as, with a stubby piece of chalk, he drew a practiced circle about the two of them. Something seemed to flare unseen in the air as he brought it to a close, and although the room spanned widely around them, Shin'nen felt suddenly very enclosed and comfortable within the circle's confines. Asque sat. “A circle isn't necessary,” he began, “but it helps, especially when you're just beginning.”

Shin'nen nodded because it seemed like the right thing to do, then waited what she considered to be a long moment before asking, “Okay. Now what?”

The wizard frowned as though he had hoped that would have been enough, but answered her question with one of his own. “Can you feel your magic?”

A puzzled look crossed Shin'nen's face. “What . . . exactly do you mean?”

“Magic is merely another form of energy, another tool which can be used to accomplish tasks. A magic user's body produces it as it produces any other sort of fluid or energy. Consider it like another limb, extending throughout your body, that you can stretch out in any direction. Can you—no, I see you don't understand.” Glancing at his own hands, Asque's frown deepened, and Shin'nen was reminded of trying to explain her math homework to a very young cousin. To her, it had been impossible to consider life before she knew what a number was and how they added together, and trying to teach Leanna what she was doing had seemed like describing color to a blind person.

“You can't see it, either, can you?”

Startled by the question, Shin'nen shook her head. “Grimalkin said it was a pearly color—and that I couldn't see it.”

Asque nodded absently, glancing off to the side once more. “Humans don't see magic naturally, unless its point is to be seen. This has allowed those without magic to continue as if it doesn't exist—and makes it all the more difficult to explain. But it can be seen, and I dare say you've seen it before, even if you don't remember. You'll see it a bit after it leaves your body, when it's activated. You saw it, I'm sure, on my arm this morning?”

The memory slowly replayed in her head, and Shin'nen found herself nodding. “But . . . that doesn't really help me, does it, if I can't see it otherwise?”

Again the wizard nodded and turned his attention back to his impromptu pupil. “Look at your hand,” he instructed, “and refocus your eyes. Concentrate on seeing what you saw this morning. Think of it as a . . .” He fumbled for an analogy, and scowled at the only one he could find: “ . . . a Magic Eye puzzle. It may take some time, but you should see it.”

Biting her lip, Shin'nen made the attempt, peering at her hand intently while letting her eyes cross and uncross, then trying to catch glimpses out of the corner of her eye and glancing away, then quickly back as though trying to catch the magic by surprise. She had never been particularly good at Magic Eye puzzles, a failing which she'd never much cared about until now. After several minutes, she was about willing to admit defeat, when the room seemed to take a lurch, then blossomed into a billion lights. “Oh, God! So bright!” She squeezed her eyes shut, but the color seemed to bleed through her eyelids.

“Sunglasses,” Asque ordered. “Imagine you're wearing sunglasses,” and with the thought the lights dimmed. She reopened her eyes. The room was bathed in light of a thousand colors. Barely contained by her skin, an pearly opalescence clamored, a river with rapids spilling over her bones. It was an emerald color that filled Asque, flowing tamely and evenly throughout his body. Beyond, the same green tinted the air—the circle, Shin'nen realized—flavoring the colors that ebbed from shelves of books, jars, and the concrete walls themselves.

Shin'nen swallowed. “Wow,” was all she could think of to say.

“You will notice,” Asque mentioned dryly, “that your magic is entirely out of control.”

“Um,” she said, and tried smoothing down the unruly whiteness with a hand to no success.

“You have no self control.” By explanation, the emerald light began filing itself away, draining into his bones and circling his heart, then finally vanishing.

Shin'nen stared, somehow horrified. “Asque? Asque, are you alright?” She reached out a hand to touch him, afraid he might actually no longer be there, but he caught it at the wrist.

“Don't be stupid.” Like an exhaled breath, the green flooded back again. “Any minor spellcaster can see magic. It's hardly prudent to advertise your abilities in my position. At the very least, you need to learn to control yours enough to keep from leaking it all over the place.” He didn't release her wrist. Instead, a bit of the green light spilled down her arm, flattening the tendriling pearl beneath it. His magic felt odd, like when your foot falls asleep, and her arm felt strangely suffocated and full.

“That,” Asque said, “is what you need to do yourself. I can't teach you anything else until you manage it.” He drew his magic back and released her arm, and she rubbed at it impulsively.

Okay, she told herself, piece of cake. Right. She blinked several times, then began concentrating on tucking in the errant waves of her energy.

She wasn't sure how long it took before she finally managed to bring the rebelling tendrils to a semblance of Asque's placid coloration. It seemed like hours before she'd managed to affect even that single arm, and, though she'd never actually tried nailing Jell-O to a tree, she was fairly certain this was very similar. All she knew was that by the time she'd succeeded, she was exhausted, and it was only a matter of seconds before all her work collapsed and the pearly waters ran rapid again.

“That's quite enough,” Asque said sharply, and Shin'nen glanced at him, startled, having forgotten that he was still there. “I can see you won't get much farther tonight, and I have things to finish before I can leave. Turn off your magesight—you've probably strained your eyes with it already.”

It was easier said than done. Now that she'd found it, Shin'nen was reluctant to hide the colors away again, afraid she might not be able to achieve them again. In fact, it took her several tries just to figure out how it might be done, and once her vision had returned to normal, she found the magicless world a very dark, dreary place indeed.

As she hauled herself to rubbery, stiff legs, she saw Asque motion as though flicking off a switch, then scrub out a segment of the perfect chalk circle. It vanished. “We'll work more tomorrow, and I'll attempt to compile a list of relevant texts for you to read.” It seemed he considered this a dismissal, for when he looked up again from another chalk diagram on the floor, he seemed surprised to see her still standing there. “Well, go.”

Nodding in reply, Shin'nen returned to the stairwell—but paused at the bottom step, peering back into the basement where Asque, having again forgotten her presence, was laying out a circle far more complex than the simple geometric figure he'd earlier used. With a wave of his hand, the florescent lighting died and a half dozen candles flared about the circle. The magesight came surprisingly easy this time, and like a child sneaking a forbidden glimpse at her parents' lovemaking, she watched, terrified and transfixed as the air filled with colors and symbols and words she could never have explained with all languages of the world.

Chapter 3

The next morning, the power was out. A step out of bed immediately sent Shin'nen searching for slippers and sweater, but it wasn't until she opened the fridge to find it the same vaguely chilly temperature of the room around her that she realized what had happened. It wasn't much trouble, since the apartment, unlike its downstairs neighbors, was generally well lit. The lack of stove, toaser, and microwave, however, forced her to search for a cold-breakfast alternative, and the resulting meal of bran flakes and lukewarm milk did nothing to set her in a good morning mood. Grocery shopping, she decided, would have to be done.

When she'd returned upstairs the previous night, the mysterious cat had vanished, leaving a cat-sized hollow and pale cream hairs in her My Little Ponies throw on the table. Where Grimalkin had gone, Shin'nen could only guess—but she remembered her agreement to buy cat food, and added it to her shopping list. Did she need a litter box, too? Could she even buy that around here?

Better yet, she mused, would her checkbook handle it? She'd only managed to get in a week of workstudy after the money sink-hole known as the Christmas holidays, and without a computer she had no way to check whether even that had been deposited into her account. After a frown at her purse, stocked with giftcards to Barnes & Nobles, Sam Goody, and several stores completely useless for daily needs, she decided she'd just have to be frugal, and jump that hurdle when it came. Money was not something she wanted to think about.

After stocking a backpack with purse, her borrowed jacket, and a miniature Good Luck Bear—because the way the day was going she was going to need all the luck she could get—Shin'nen headed down the stairs to see how Asque was dealing with the energy crisis.

The wizard was seated at his desk as per usual, reading a slightly diminished stack of newspapers by the light of a kerosene lamp. It cast patterned shadows on the walls, barely broken by the few windows, shades, for once, pulled aside to let in the light. For a flailing moment Shin'nen forgot what century it was: 18^th? 19^th? 20^th? “The power's out,” she offered helpfully to remind herself that there actually was such a thing as electricity.

“Really? I hadn't noticed.” The sarcasm only half-filled Asque's voice, and Shin'nen suspected he'd forgotten he was reading by lamplight. “Most of Old Town is out; it is currently being investigated.”

Moving behind the wizard, Shin'nen snuck a glance at the paper over his shoulder. Across from a full-page add for Marcotte Jewelers, Asque was reading the obituaries. Cheery. “Well, I guess I might have to wander a bit for shopping. I need groceries,” she explained, “and cat food. Your stock up there is pretty pitiful, and it's all melting.”

Asque made a vaguely affirmative noise and turned the page of his newspaper. A thought occurred to Shin'nen. “Your little light show last night didn't have anything to do with this?”

“Hardly.” His tone seemed almost offended, and she immediately felt silly for asking. Flipping a few pages ahead, he indicated a small article with his thumb. The headline read: “Blackouts Cause Lines at Checkouts.”

“Sorry.” She skimmed the article, which seemed to largely consist of dates, numbers, and complaints about the increased time of buying unmentionables. “Wait—okay, this is a stupid question—but these blackouts here only lasted a couple minutes. How come we're still out?”

Half-shrugging, Asque turned back to his previous page and continued reading. “I would hardly pretend to know. My guess is that, as we are in an older section of town, some manner of conduit was damaged with the loss of power.”

“I guess that would make sense. Well, good luck with your . . . newspaper reading and whatever.” Reseating her backpack strap on her shoulder, she headed to the door, opened it—and found she could go no further, impeded as though another, invisible barrier had fixed itself where the door had been. “Asque . . .”

“Oh, yes,” he recalled, glancing up again from his reading and toward the doorway. “I have modified the wards to disallow you from exiting. I must admit, they had been formulated such yesterday, but I miscalculated your intent to leave. I assure you they are now sufficiently enforced.”

“Okay, wait. I already told you I was going shopping, and you didn't say anything against it. And what right do you have to keep me in here?” Slowly working up from confused to annoyed, Shin'nen hoped to achieve angry soon enough to disrupt that nonchalant tone in Asque's voice.

“Oh, I have no intention of keeping you here. I am merely impeding your exit. You're perfectly welcome to walk out that door—by all means, please do. You must merely modify the warding structure to allow you to exit.” He returned his attention to the newspaper. “Consider it practice. And please shut the door,” he added, “it's already chilly enough indoors.”

Anger sputtering around quite irritated, Shin'nen had to suffice herself with giving the wizard a particularly nasty look. She could hardly argue that she didn't need practice, but she needed food, and since that food also included chocolate, she felt he hardly had the right to block her way. She shut the door and, standing back, fumbled her magesight on and surveyed the network of emerald thread and white fire lacing across the wall.

Well, so much for going out through the window.

After setting her backpack on the floor, Shin'nen began tentatively prodding at the network of knots and tangles that spiderwebbed the oak paneling of the wall. The structure held largely firm under her fingers, and where it didn't, a deeper poke elicited a jolt as though she'd touched an electric fence. After waving her finger and sucking on it for a moment, she mentally marked the place and proceeded onward. Nothing, however, seemed to move in a way that produced any effect, and she stood back again, subjecting the wall to the same perturbed look she'd earlier focused on Asque.

“ . . . Any hints?” she wondered to the wizard, but he merely turned the page of his newspaper and continued to ignore her. Growling nonsensically, Shin'nen stalked off to the basement in search of something actually useful.

There, on the worktable, sat a copy of the Book, with a note of what she recognized as Asque's neat scripting set atop it. “Might I suggest these titles?” the note said, followed by a list of several book titles and respective authors. Tucking the note within the Book's cover, she returned upstairs, sat at a desk facing the wall, and inked in the the first title on the list.

Obligingly, the book rustled slightly and filled its pages with A Primer of Basic Shields and Wardings, by Edmund Glaciere. It looked straightforward enough, if obviously designed for children of an older generation, and Shin'nen would have skipped directly to the chapter entitled “Inclusions and Exclusions: How to keep some in and others out” had she not noticed the note scribbled beside the author's name on the title page. It was in a similar hand to that of Asque's list, if a little more childish in its structured, formulaic lettering, as though its writer was still settling into the smooth gait of writing.

It read: “This man is an ignoramus.” There was a small diagram of a face with fangs beside the words.

Shin'nen was a little taken aback. Paging through the book, she found that this was hardly the only graffiti of the text: comments were written in the margins on at least every third page, criticizing everything from the author's methods to his grammar and punctuation. Turning back to the inside cover of the Book, she found a single line of penciled text in the same childish handwriting. “This Book belongs to Asque.”

On a whim, Shin'nen retreated to the Book's search function once more and tried out each of the listed books in turn. Each received disparaging comments from the childish hand, which varied in likely age and insults: the authors were systematically described as “idiot”, “utter prat”⁴, “imbecile,” and Shin'nen's favorite, in an especially young hand, “nincompoop.” All editions had the same level of defacement. “So Asque . . .” Shin'nen began, unable to keep a grin out of her voice. “If all these authors are 'nincompoops', how exactly are they supposed to help me get out of the building?”

Asque seemed puzzled for a moment, then Shin'nen watched as his eyes widened ever so slightly. She wondered if he hadn't noticed which copy he'd been using when he chose it by candlelight. The moment passed quickly, however, and when his face fell bland again Shin'nen had a hard time believing she'd actually seen anything. “Even idiots can have something useful to say. If I had listed any books I appreciated, you wouldn't be able to understand them.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Shin'nen mentally snorted, but returned to the books and their vicious young critic. The comments, she found, were actually quite helpful. By studying only those rare pages with mildly positive comments—or, at least, those with no comments at all—she slowly found the mess on the wall begin to resolve itself into something almost understandable. Taking notes helped, and, after what passed as a quick hour of study, Shin'nen was able to walk over to the wall, tug at a strand of the weave that mimicked the glow of her own magic, and pull it free. She waved a hand through the open door just as the power flickered back on. “Tada.”

“Congratulations,” Asque said over the top of his third paper, reaching out one-handed to dim the kerosene lamp. “You shouldn't have trouble buying your groceries now that the power is on.”

“Yeah, well.” Shin'nen slipped the Book into her backpack and angled for the door again, but paused at his desk. “If I leave now, you're not gonna reset that thing and make me do it all over again, are you?”

“Probably not.”

“Okay.” That was probably the best she would get out of him, anyway. She turned back to the door, but not before noticing that Asque had clipped out the article about the blackouts.

***

The cat was waiting outside the door, sitting serenely beneath a bare maple tree. “Where did you run off to last night?” Shin'nen demanded. “And why weren't you in there helping me with that door?”

'I'm sure that's none of your business,' Grimalkin said. Her ear flicked briefly. 'And cats are never there when you think you need them; only when you actually do.'

“Asque said I shouldn't have let you in.”

'Poor boy, must not have been raised right.' She stood, arching her bony back in a long stretch. 'You're buying my food, aren't you? There's a nice little mart two blocks that way.' She indicated the direction with a lazy wave of her kinked tail. 'The owners have a dog, but it listens to reason.'

Unable to think of a better alternative—her plan had been to wander in circles until she either found a grocery mart or got up the nerve to ask another pedestrian—Shin'nen agreed and, after reluctantly allowing the cat to lay itself across her shoulders and backpack, set off in the indicated direction.

The walk was silent for an awkward minute. Finally, Shin'nen posed, “I don't suppose you know what it was Asque was working on last night? I can't imagine it was all just to change the . . . wards like that.” The question sounded a little hollow to her ears—it wasn't that she didn't want to know, but she wasn't sure what her relationship was with this feline or what it was supposed to be.

Grimalkin shifted briefly on Shin'nen's shoulders. 'I wouldn't put it past him,' she said, 'but no. If you must know, that's why I left last night; these old bones don't sit well with that level of spellwork.'

“But what was it?” Curiosity was getting the better of her now.

'A finding spell.' Shin'nen saw the cat begin to clean herself out of the corner of her eye. 'A very complex one. I don't believe it worked.'

Frowning, Shin'nen stopped to wait out a traffic light. She found it hard to believe anything Asque did magically could not work. “Do you know what he was looking for?”

'No, and I don't think he did, either. Which would explain why he failed.'

Shin'nen nodded absently, registering a pause in the flow of traffic and the changing lights at the crosswalk. She was about to step into the intersection when a voice called out from somewhere.

“Hey!” Shifting her gaze about her, Shin'nen tried to place the speaker, but saw no one, not even a car with a window down. There was a light thump, and she spun about to find herself face to face with an angry, brick-haired young man. He wore a worn windbreaker in 90s bolds and an expression that made Grimalkin dutifully stand up on Shin'nen's back and hiss. 'Damn,' she said, 'and so close to that delicious salmon.'

“Hey!” he said again. “You've got my jacket! Why the hell have you got my jacket?!”

He was well-built, Shin'nen realized with a swallow, something that even the most outrageously uncharacteristic windbreaker couldn't hide, and his eyes were the same bloody red-brown as his hair. And he was mad. Oh, God. Shin'nen felt her shoulders arch inward in a parody of Grimalkin's own raised back.

The man glanced her up and down, then, as Shin'nen was debating how useful it would be to run, grabbed her wrist. His breath made plumes of white in the cold. “Okay, witch,” he said, and, trying in vain to break away, Shin'nen realized the name wasn't derogatory, but categoric, and stared in growing fear. “I can smell it on you. I don't know how you got it or why, but you're gonna hand it over right now, got it?”

'Leave my human alone, Walker,' Grimalkin hissed, and leapt at the man's face from Shin'nen's shoulder. “Walker?” Shin'nen wondered numbly as the man caught the cat in mid jump and tossed her lightly aside. The cat landed on her feet as per idiom, but seemed disinclined to make another attempt. One handed, the man then tugged at the zipper of Shin'nen's backpack and pulled the leather jacket free. Up close, he did smell the way the coat had: cinnamon and smoke. Oh, God, what if it was his?

“Aw, dammit, it's all wrinkled,” he was saying, still clutching her wrist with one hand as he surveyed his prize with the other. Wildly, she wondered how he could tell—it looked just as beat up as it had when she'd borrowed it, covered in flour, the day before. “But Bekka patched it up already, that's good . . .”

Bekka? Oh! Shin'nen stammered to find her voice. “I-I'm sorry—I didn't know it was yours—I borrowed it from Rebekka yesterday, at the bakery, and she said it would be alright as long as I returned it today, because I forgot my coat and it was a long walk back and--” She ran out of things to say.

The man's eyes narrowed. “Bekka lent it to you, huh? Hnn . . .” His eyes flickered over her again. “I dunno about that. You couldn't have got it anywhere else, but you could just as easily have swiped it.” After a moment in contemplation, hand still clamped around Shin'nen's wrist, he sighed a long breath of white. “Guess we'll just have to check with her. Come on.”

He began tugging her off in the direction of the bakery. “Come on, hurry up! I'll carry you if I have to! You're too damn slow!” As she passed Grimalkin, the cat jumped back to her previous position around Shin'nen's shoulders, whispering to her, 'Dragons. Rather thick-headed, aren't they?'

***

The bakery door chimed as the man hauled her through it, jostling Grimalkin off her shoulders. The cat, annoyed, flicked her tail and disappeared around the corner of the building. “Bekka!” he called immediately, searching the shop for the tall, flour-speckled woman. The bakery, however, was empty. Not surprising, Shin'nen had to admit, if word of the power outage had spread. No one really wanted to shop in the cold.

Now, however, the heat was on full-blast, and it made curls tickle uncomfortably against her face. “Bekka! Kris, where's Bekka?” It took a moment for Shin'nen to realize he was addressing a woman behind the counter. At first glance, Shin'nen had entirely missed her. She was the sort of person who blended into the background: small and slight, a study in pastels from the blonde of her hair to the pale pink of her fuzzy pink sweater.

“S-she's in the back—we're running behind because of the power outage, and--” Kris' unassuming voice was quickly swallowed up as Rebekka swept out of the kitchen.

“Good Lord, Sammy, what are you doing to that poor girl? Kristina, the first batch is ready to go in—I think the oven should be hot enough now.” Nodding quickly, the woman vanished through the swinging back doors.

“She had my jacket!” He waved the article as evidence. Now that he was under the scrutiny of the baker, the man's certainly seemed to falter, like a kid reminded he wasn't suppose to tattle. “She was hiding it away in her backpack!”

Bekka's hand went to her hip. “Yeah, 'cause I loaned it to her yesterday! Which you'd have known if you'd have showed up this morning like you said you would. And then there was a power outage so only just got the ovens going half an hour ago, and that definitely wouldn't have been a problem if you'd just showed up!”

“Oh.” He released Shin'nen's wrist, and she rubbed it where her bracelet had pressed into the skin.

“Well?”

“Sorry,” he told Bekka, then at a raised eyebrow from the baker, glanced at Shin'nen and added a less sincere: “Sorry! But look, Bekka--” He spun his attention again to the tall woman and she cut him off with a glare.

“I have to apologize for Samiel, Shin'nen.” Bekka rolled her eyes, stepping around the counter. “He's an idiot, but generally not this much of an idiot. I hope he wasn't too stupid.”

Samiel was indignant and huffed steam despite the warmth of the interior. “That's not fair, Bekka! How was I supposed to know you'd loaned it to her? And why'd you do that, anyway?

“Like I said, if you'd have showed up—and you've got mine, so I couldn't give her that—and you look ridiculous in it, by the way.”

“What? What's wrong with it?” He peered down at the bold magenta and teal of the windbreaker, lip raised questioningly. “You wear it, don't you?”

Rebekka's eyebrow raised again. She snorted. “Yeah, but—ah, it's not worth trying to explain it to you. If you want lunch, go back in the kitchen and make yourself useful: knead some dough or something.”

Scowling, Samiel displayed what Shin'nen suddenly realized was a very impressive set of teeth, but grudgingly made his way to the back of the shop. The baker watched him leave, shaking her head slowly.

“So that's . . . the dragon you were telling me about?” He wasn't quite how she'd expected a dragon. Somehow, she'd always thought of dragons as being somehow more . . . refined.

“Yeah, that's Sammy. Ah—maybe you'd better stick with Samiel, though. He gets kinda stuffy about silly human nicknames. Sorry about the mix up, really,” Bekka added, honestly apologetic enough to almost make up for the dragon's lack of such. “He's usually late, but he usually shows up, so I didn't think it would be a problem. I guess he gets a little possessive over that jacket, though. It's kinda cute.”

Shin'nen wasn't quite sure about that, but she couldn't bring herself to make trouble. It always seemed so horrible to complain when someone was making apologies. “That's—yeah, it's alright,” she lied, and stuck on a smile.

Bekka gave her a pitying look. “Honey, you're terrible at lying.”

“Yeah, I'm working on that.”

There was a pause in which Shin'nen's expression half fell and Bekka's expression half rose, creating an odd parallel of halfhearted smirks. Finally, Bekka laughed, and Shin'nen wondered why it was that spending time with someone who was nice to her made her feel like she was suddenly a five year old. It was odd how it was so easy to speak your mind when someone was being rude, but when someone was nice . . . the words just slipped away and she wasn't sure what to do. Okay, she decided, confidence. You just need to work on that.

“Anyway,” Bekka was saying, “I'm guessing Sammy commandeered you before you got a chance to get lunch, so I'll see what I can whip up. I'm craving a potato soup—how's that sound to you? Sammy'll hate it.”

“Oh my God!” Shin'nen exclaimed, remembering her earlier promise to bring lunch today. Whoops. So much for confidence. “I was on my way to buy groceries and I ran into Samiel and I never got a chance to get anything to bring for lunch even though I said I would and--”

“Whoa, cool it there!” The other woman held up her hands in halting motion. “It's my fault you're here before you meant to be, so I owe you lunch anyway. You might have to help Kristina and Sammy back there with the baking a bit, though,” she admitted. “We are pretty behind with the power outage, and as soon as people find out the power's back over here we should start getting some of the regulars again.”

There was a soft “Oh!” of exclamation from the back kitchen, and the small woman's voice filtered out, saying, “Rebekka, there's a cat back here, and I'm not sure how it got in. Should—should I put it out? Is it okay?”

“Oh, Grimalkin!” Shin'nen knew at once, and brushed past Bekka into the back to scoop up the break-in cat. “I'm sorry, she's m—she's with me. I didn't realize she'd come in—I can . . . figure out something to do with her.” To the cat in her arms she whispered tersely, “This is a kitchen—you shouldn't be in here. Why'd you come in?”

Squirming in her arms, the cat gave her the equivalent of rolling her eyes. 'It's cold outside,' she said, 'and I'm starving. Bakers have very good milk.'

“Does she talk to you?” Shin'nen was surprised again by Kristina's voice. The woman was staring from a stool at the long metal counter, hands still kneading at a floured mass of dough. “You—you are a witch, aren't you?” At Shin'nen's half-nod, she continued, “Rebekka mentioned you. I've been trying to find a cat who will talk to me, but so far I haven't had any luck.”

“I . . . didn't exactly find her,” Shin'nen admitted, shifting her grip around the dissatisfied Siamese. “More like she found me.”

'Put me down already. Let me go.' Annoyed, Grimalkin unsheathed claws into Shin'nen's jacket. She winced. “What should I do with her?”

Frowning, Rebekka surveyed the cat for a moment, then shrugged. “So long as she doesn't get into anything, I suppose I can't be too picky. I've got a guy who comes in twice a week walking his cat, and I haven't turned him out yet. Don't let the customers see her back here, though.”

Shin'nen nodded as Grimalkin finally wormed out of her grasp and tracked footprints in the white dust of the floor. 'Of course I won't get into anything. What does she take me for, a kitten?'

“What's she saying?” Kristina wondered, intrigued.

“She's, um, saying she won't get into anything; she's no kitten.”

Fascinated, the small woman continued to stare at the cat as she folded another quarter cup of flour into her growing mound. “A real witch's cat. Wow.”

“Cats,” Samiel snorted, uncovering a yeast-swelled pillow of dough from near the stove and lightly punching the air out of it. Dumping it unceremoniously onto the floured counter, he began kneading at it fluidly. “Don't see why anyone would want one. They've got the ego of something ten times their size.”

'And dragons,' Grimalkin countered, leaping to perch atop a stool and leering at the dragon, 'have the brains of a creature a tenth of their size.'

“See? There you go—it's insulting me.” The dough grew quickly again under the warmth of his hands.

“You can understand it, too?” Kristina wondered, mystified. A quick glance at the large clock on the wall reminded her to stop kneading, and she began dividing the dough into small pans.

The dragon snorted. “Who needs to? Cats are always insulting. And me, ten times its age—who's the wiser there, huh?

“The cat, obviously,” Bekka decided, brushing past to dig in the over-sized fridge. She paused to examine the dragon's handwork. “Though, mmm, I love those hands. Now if I can just get you to learn how to actually mix the dough, I'll hire you on the spot.”

“You can't afford me.”

Unconcerned, Bekka pulled a half-dozen items from the refrigerator's depths. “Sure I can—I'll give you a cow on holidays. Now where did I hide the potatoes?”

Samiel lifted his hands from the dough and stared at her. “Potatoes? I am not working for potatoes!”

“You show up late, carnivore, and you'll eat what I cook you.” Nevertheless, she waved a ziplock bag of half-thawed ground beef. “You're just lucky you're getting some cow on the side along with your taste of Ireland.”

The dragon frowned, but returned to his kneading at the promise of meat. “It's not my fault someone decided to schedule an impromptu art auction. You humans die and everyone around you forgets about proper scheduling.”

“You went to an art auction in that?” Discovering the potatoes forgotten under a counter, Rebekka did a quick head count and began sorting through the bag's contents for some of the root crop that hadn't begun to sprout.

“Yeah . . . ? They almost didn't let me in—can't figure out why.”

“Sammy, honey, you look like a reject from an 80s sitcom. With cross dressing. Put your own jacket on.”

“Is there anything I can help with?” Shin'nen asked Kristina, leaving the other two to their banter.

“Um, sure. I need to start on the bagels next. You can . . . get the ingredients?” The panned loaves were covered now, and she spun the stool to set them to sun in the window. “I need . . .” She frowned, doing a once-over of the counter. “ . . . stuff that's already out. I'm sorry, um . . .”

“No, that's okay, I'll . . .” Confidence! “ . . . make cookies! I know how to make cookies. Not much else, but chocolate chip cookies, I'm good at those.”

“Um, yeah. Okay.” She spun the stool to face her superior, who was busy chopping potatoes. “Rebekka, are chocolate chip cookies okay?”

“Sure—what? Sammy, those needed more butter. Don't make that face! Yeah, sure, that's fine; if they're good they can be a special to make up for the late start.”

As though she were translating from another language, Kristina spun her stool around and restated, “Okay. Cookies are okay. There's, um, cold ingredients in the fridge and dry in that big cupboard over there. I'll get you a bowl and stuff.” She pointed, then hopped off her stool and went in search of the mentioned utensils, reminding Shin'nen just how short the woman was. Like her high school math teacher, Kristina barely came up to her shoulders, which put her well under five feet to Shin'nen's five-foot four. Seeing her beside Rebekka was like a study in contrasts: short to tall, light to dark, twiggy to well-built, short-cropped hair to Rebekka's mass of pinned-up braid.

Shin'nen went first to the refrigerator to search out the margarine and eggs. 'Get me something to eat,' Grimalkin complained with a yowl, startling Shin'nen from a perch atop the fridge. Shin'nen bit her lip, then glanced toward Bekka and the mass of vegetables on the counter. “Rebekka, is there something I can give the cat?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Gotta feed the carnivores.” She motioned with her knife toward the melting bag of hamburger meat. “She can have some of that when it's cooked.”

Glowering, Samiel turned toward women and cat. “What? How come the cat gets my meat?!”

“Oh, come on, Sammy. It's a quart freezer bag. You weren't gonna get the whole thing, anyway.”

“Not a full quart. Not even half! It's a gyp.”

Crossing her paws over the fridge door, Grimalkin flicked her tail. 'Sharing dinner with a dragon. How unrefined.'

“Don't you start, too,” Shin'nen sighed, making her way back to the counter where Kristina had deposited a small steel mixing bowl and various utensils. After retrieving the rest of her ingredients from the heavy-doored cabinet, Shin'nen took up a stool beside the small woman. “Sorry about making all the ruckus in here.”

“Oh, it's always like this,” Kristina assured, voice barely audible over the whir of an electric beater. “Samiel likes to argue. It's awfully quiet when he's not around.”

Unwrapping sticks of margarine, Shin'nen nodded. That certainly made sense. Already the banter had become an atmospheric background noise, and she found it difficult to imagine the kitchen with only the scraping of spoons against bowls and the occasional question/answer. It was only after she'd poured in the white sugar that she realized the margarine sticks were still rock-hard from the fridge. “Ah, shoot!” Too late to microwave them now. She shook her head slowly at the mess. “Is there some way I can . . . um . . .”

“I'll get it.” Reaching over with a floured hand, Kristina drew a symbol into each of the rock-hard sticks and muttered something too soft for Shin'nen to understand. The margarine obediently softened, adding a small puddle the granulated sugar.

“You're a witch, too? Does everyone do magic in Portland?” Shin'nen asked, then immediately felt stupid for asking.

Kristina looked sheepish and hid her look under the pretense of adding flour to her mix. “No, I guess we just tend to . . . congregate? I mean, with a dragon visiting and all, it's hard not to . . . Anyway, I'm not very good. I don't have a lot of power myself and I've only been doing this for about a year; this was just one of the more useful charms I picked up.”

“You'll have to teach it to me sometime,” Shin'nen decided, patting in a fourth-cup of brown sugar. “I know nothing, practically.”

Brown eyes wide, Kristina folded in flour as she glanced at Grimalkin. “But you've already found a cat! And a much more appropriate name, too—I mean, Kristina. It just doesn't fit, really.”

“I was a New Years baby, and early,” Shin'nen snorted. She appreciated how much easier it seemed to talk to Kristina; the woman's timidness made her feel like she could give something back to the conversation rather than just receive its benefits. “So Dad was drunk and Mom was freaking out and apparently 'Shin'nen' sounded like a decent name at the time. Then they decided somehow that they liked it, and so I was stuck with a messed up name in the middle of all the Ashleys and Amandas of southwestern Minnesota.”

“See, then it's fate!” Kristina waved her bowl scraper in emphasis, showering the already white counter in more flour. “A girl born at the turn of the year, grows up ignorant of her powers and then goes an exciting adventure to gain her birthright!”

“I wouldn't exactly call it 'exciting.' More like 'obnoxious.'”

“And you're already working with the Eidolon people,” she gushed, unfettered by Shin'nen's comment. “All the prestige and knowledge and all those books, all right there!”

“Yeah, well.” Shin'nen stabbed at a stubborn chunk of brown sugar that had caramelized itself into a solid ball. “Maybe the organization is great, but I'm not so sure about its employees.” If the ball was Asque's head . . . “You could probably get some stuff from them if you wanted it. It seems to me like they're supposed to help with stuff like that.”

“Oh, no, I don't think I could . . .” Kristina said, excitement dying down. She stared into her bagel mixture. “I need to figure out some stuff first. I don't know how they feel about interspecies relationships . . .”

“Interspecies?” Frowning, Shin'nen narrowed her gaze, then glanced across the room. “Wait,” she whispered, “you and Samiel--”

“No!” Kristina exclaimed, a little too loudly. She blushed furiously, dumping in a little more flour, then added in a softer voice. “Oh, no. Definitely not. I'm . . . dating a vampire, you see.”

It was Shin'nen's turn to outburst. “A vampire?” She could feel her face going into a horrified expression, and she clasped a hand over her mouth. “Is that okay?” she asked around her fingers. “I mean, I'm sorry—was that really . . . speciesist of me? I really don't know anything about vampires, really, so I don't know . . .”

“Oh, no, that's alright. It was . . . kinda weird for me, too.” She covered the bagel mixture with a cloth and reached for one of the sunning bowls to punch down its risen dough. “But Brian hasn't been a vampire long—only five years, so he's really not that much older than me—and we're looking for a way to turn him back. I mean, it's never been done before, that we can find, but we figure they can't have tried everything, so . . .”

“Yeah, that . . . makes sense.” Shin'nen nodded slowly, forcing herself to stop thinking of vampires as creepy, evil bloodsuckers and think instead of people. It almost worked. Thinking of vampires with names like “Brian” helped. “That's . . . really awesome that you're looking for that. That he's willing to give up . . . immortality? For you.”

“Yeaaah . . .” Kristina had gone all mushy-eyed, which Shin'nen found a disturbing combination as the pixy-like woman forcefully punched out air from a shapeless mass of dough. “He's so sweet. Almost a year and a half we've been together, and he's willing to give up his eternity.”

“So . . . does he ever, you know?” She pantomimed vampire-biting her hand. A scent of sizzling meat and fragrant cheese-potato had begun to fill the kitchen, issuing from the pot and pan under Rebekka's care. “Do they even do that?”

“Oh, no.” Separating the bagel dough into round biscuits, Kristina shook her head. “I mean, yes, they do, of course, but Brian gets his from a butcher. I did let him, once, though,” she admitted, cheeks pink with the memory, “on our anniversary. Not from the neck, of course! I mean, but it was . . . okay. Kinda intimate. He's really a sweetheart.”

A timer dinged somewhere, and Kristina hopped off her stool again to retrieve a batch of golden caramel rolls from the ovens. Shin'nen watched her, mentally picturing the tiny woman cuddling under Count Dracula's cape, powder-blue-flatted foot popping Princess-Diaries-style. That was stupid, of course, she told herself. Brian probably wore polos or band screen Ts and cargo pants. She'd spent her whole K-12 career being told not to judge people by how they look or where they come from, but she'd never thought she'd need to apply that to vampires.

“Soup's on!” Rebekka declared, holding up a recently-tasted ladle of steaming pale beige. “Get it while it's hot!”

Barehanded, Samiel retrieved a rack of loaves from the oven and peered at the bubbling concoction. “I don't care about the soup. Where's my meat?”

Bekka put a hand to her mouth and fanned herself theatrically with the other. “Oh, forgive me, your lordship; prithee wait anon for thine cattle.”

“No one ever talked like that.” Setting the loaves on a rack to cool, the dragon scooped a handful of half-raw ground beef from the skillet on the stove. He ate the clumps like cheese curds. Shin'nen wrinkled her nose.

“How would you know? You're barely 200.” Rebekka was digging in another cupboard now, searching for suitable bowls and spoons for the finished lunch dish. “And don't eat it like that!”

Mouth full, Samiel gave her an expression of “why the hell not?” and moved to help himself to another handful. Rebekka slapped his hand away and imposed herself between him and the stove, taking a moment to shift the remaining beef in the pan before portioning out a bowl of soup. “No more meat until it's cooked. Here. Potato.” She shoved the bowl at him.

Shin'nen leaned over to whisper in Kristina's ear. “So they're always like this?”

“Every single time!” Kristina dug holes out of the bagel rounds and snuck a fingerful into her mouth. “Mm. Makes everything kinda exciting, doesn't it?”

“That's one way of putting it.” Shin'nen finished stirring a bag of chocolate chips into her mixture and gave Bekka a wave. “Should we bake these now or wait until later?”

“Whenever you like; it's not like the ovens won't be turned on.” Rebekka was passing out bowls to the rest of the room and set a steaming portion beside Shin'nen's mixing bowl. “Or we could just eat the dough.”

“It tastes better cooked, actually,” Shin'nen admitted, self-conscious of her amateur cooking among the professional bakers. “My mom's is better to just eat, but I like to make it this way so I actually end up with cookies and not just an empty bowl.”

“That's fine! Hurry up and bake them, then—I need some more sugar in my diet. It'll take a minute for the soup to cool down, anyway.” Shin'nen obediently began portioning rounded teaspoons onto a baking sheet, her nose playing ping-pong between disgust at the scent of cooking meat and euphoria at the other tantalizing aromas of the bakery.

Ten minutes later the four were squashed around one of the tiny deli tables in the shop proper, finishing off bowls of potato soup and starting in on the first of a cooling batch of cookies. Shin'nen felt glad to be sandwiched between the two women; after the over-warm bruise of his hand, she wasn't yet much inclined to be in close proximity with the rest of him. He'd surprised her in eating all of his forced bowl of vegetarian soup, but she remembered a classmate's cat and its strange fondness for fresh lettuce.

Shin'nen's own resident cat was seated atop another of the tables, kinked tail lashing impatiently as she waited for the bipeds to finish their meal, her own satisfactorily completed at least five minutes prior. She seemed to have little patience for the pace of human life—so dreadfully hurried at times, so horribly slow at others—but that may be said of any cat and any human trait.

The two bakers weren't making any comment on the cookies, which Shin'nen decided to take as a good, if mixed, sign. At least, she told herself, they weren't complaining, though they seemed much too polite for that. Of course her baking left much to be desired beside that of those who made their living in baked goods, so she could hardly judge herself against them. Even so, she was glad to keep away from the subject of her cookies and their obviously college freshman taste.

In a rare banter lull, Shin'nen took a moment to survey the bakery's main shop once more. During their meal, Rebekka had paused twice to help arriving customers, all of whom she knew by name and purchase of choice. It seemed like a decent arrangement, but she had also seen a half dozen people stop outside the thick glass windows to investigate the scent from within, only to continue on their way.

There was no denying the shop needed work. Between the cracking paint and mismatched seating, she was hardly surprised few tourists stopped by, especially considering the impressively stylish bakery she'd noticed a few streets down. It seemed like such a rude subject to bring up, but . . . “Rebekka, have you, um, ever thought of remodeling?”

“Hmm?” Whether she appreciated Shin'nen's cookies or not, she certainly appreciated cookies in general, and had to pause in her third to consider her question. “Oh, eh, you noticed that?” She sighed, smiling jokingly. “I've really been meaning to for a while, but I just haven't had time. I feel like if I'm going to do anything, I should really rearrange things, and that would mean closing shop for at least a few days. Whether we attract new customers or not, there are a lot of people who have come to depend on us, and I don't want to leave them hanging like that. I've got tradition to uphold.”

“Tradition?”

“Open six days a week all year, excluding Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years,” Kristina quoted. “It makes vacations a mess, and we have to hire temps around holidays, but it's been like that for over a hundred years.”

Bekka began collecting dishes together. “This bakery has been in my family for four generations. Days like today make me wish we still ran the ovens on gas or wood, though I certainly wouldn't feel that way when the fuel bill came around. Of course, if someone would show up when he says he's going to . . .”

The dragon made a face. “Yeah, yeah, I got it already.”

“Here.” Bekka handed him the stack of ceramic bowls and respective spoons. “Go deal with the dishes.”

“I am not washing dishes!”

“Sammy, don't be dumb. Just put 'em in the dishwasher.” Shooing him off toward the kitchen, she sighed.

“I don't think your customers would desert you if you had to close shop for a few days.” Shin'nen was taking stock of all the things that could use revitalizing in the room, wishing she had a decorator's eye for designing spaces. “And . . . I don't really have any idea what to do with it, but I'm more than willing to help. You've been so nice—I feel like I should at least help out this much. And considering how my practice session with Asque went last night, it'll be ages before the robot man lets me go home.”

Rebekka considered the offer for a moment, then shrugged. “Alright, sure. You're hired. It's slow in the afternoons, so maybe we can start planning something tomorrow. That sound alright, Kristina?”

“Ooh!” The small woman was almost bouncing in her chair, wearing a smile that somehow made her look like she'd escaped from a Cecilia Mary Barker watercolor. “I've been waiting for this! I've got so many ideas! I'll sketch something out tonight!”

Rebekka's excitement was more subdued, but she laughed throatily. “I guess that means we're on. Oh!” She leaned in her chair to peer out the wall of windows. “Looks like Mr. Wellington's coming. I'd better quick make sure those bagels are done.”

She seemed hesitant to leave her company, so Shin'nen stood up hurriedly. “I'd better run, anyway. I've still gotta get some groceries, and I should get back for some studying before Asque sends out the flying monkies.”

'About time,' Grimalkin complained, leaping down from her table perch and again up to Shin'nen's shoulders. Shin'nen winced at the unavoidable claws to through her shirt and did her best to maneuver on her jacket and backpack with the thin cat weaving about.

“Alright,” Bekka agreed, already halfway to the kitchen. “See you tomorrow, then. I promise Sammy won't haul you back here again.”

Kristina stood as well, offering an awkward bow of her head. “It was nice to meet you. You'll have to tell me your thoughts about Eidolon sometime.”

“Soon as I figure them out for myself, you'll be the first to know. Um, give my regards to Brian!”

“Sure.” She resumed her post behind the counter with a shy smile, and transferred her attention fluidly as a greying man chimed through the door. “Good afternoon, Mr. Wellington. Rebekka's just getting your usual together; it'll be just a minute.”

With a final wave, Shin'nen chimed the door herself in exit, moving out into the flow of pedestrian traffic.

Chapter 4

It took less time than Shin'nen had expected to finish her grocery shopping. Unimpeded by draconic interception, it was easy enough to find the market Grimalkin had mentioned. The only trouble came when the cat insisted on choosing her dinner in person, and Shin'nen found herself the object of a baker's dozen odd looks as she tried to reason with the meowing cat. Though the market's prices were more than she'd come to expect from the enormous grocery store back home, she soon had more than enough groceries to keep the miniature Good Luck Bear company in her backpack with two plastic bags besides. Between the weight of the groceries and the ever-shifting cat draped around her shoulders, Shin'nen was oddly glad to come to the door of the Agency.

“I met a dragon today,” she rattled off to Asque, seated where she'd left him at his desk that morning. “Are they all that rude, or was it just his age? I always thought they'd be more refined and worldly, somehow. Rebekka said he was only two hundred, but I guess I don't really know how old they get. Do they really live to be thousands of years old, or is that just one of those myths?”

Asque shifted some papers on his desk. “Your parents called.”

“Well, I'm guessing his—my what?”

“Your parents. I do expect you know them. As I remember, you wrote them a rather frantic letter nearly a week ago. They were quite irate.”

Oh, God. The letter. She'd forgotten about it, forgotten all except that she'd written one to tell them what had happened, and perhaps she'd been a little panicky and not altogether coherent, but she'd been meaning to call them or email them and sort it all out, but then how exactly did you get a dial tone here and she hadn't quite found an internet cafe yet and everything had just been so distracting--

Asque continued as though ignoring the look of growing horror on her face. “They have said they will be here tomorrow to take you home.”

Shin'nen blinked thrice, swallowed. This was somehow very confusing. “And—you're just—letting them?”

“I hardly see how I can stop them.” His voice seemed flatter than usual, all sarcasm and annoyance bled out of the tone. “You may be considered an adult in some situations, but financially and legally you are still under their guardianship.”

“But--” Shin'nen found herself stammering. “But what about—about all that stuff about me learning how to control my magic and not healing car wreaks and making more work for you?”

The wizard began marking a form casually. “Well, you're no longer my problem. That's the Minneapolis agent's duty now. I've already sent her your file.” There was a tense silence in which the scratching of Asque's pen seemed almost deafening. He glanced up, frowned. “Well, you'd better get to work now if you expect to have that mess of yours packed by morning.”

It was another moment before Shin'nen managed a baffled nod and broke her limbs from the casing of shock to move mechanically toward the stairs and apartment. Reaching it, she dumped her load unceremoniously by the door and sat abruptly on the still pungent carpeting, sending Grimalkin scurrying to avoid being deposited with the various bags.

A few days ago, she'd have been elated that her parents were finally coming to her rescue. Life at the agency had seemed like a nightmare, something only her parents and their engulfing embraces could possibly wake her from. They'd arrive in the battered Volkswagen van, gather her into their arms and whisk her away to small town Minnesota, where the closest thing to magic was the way the snow covered everything after a blinding night and made the world glitter come morning. She'd known it was a silly way to think, that just by going home everything would magically reset and things would be back as they were, but somehow imagining Mom and Dad, valiant in sweaters and unnecessary down coats, made her feel safer.

But now . . . now she wasn't sure what she thought.

She hauled herself to her feet, ignoring the yowls and mental shouting of Grimalkin, and began methodically putting away her purchased groceries. Milk to the fridge, cereal to the cupboard, open the cat food and give the kitty a meal. She had just gotten everything unpacked! It seemed so . . . so sudden.

After the groceries were filed away, she stood still for what felt like an eternity, then went to the bedroom and began filling the Rubbermaid tubs once more. Grimalkin was saying something as she folded away the clothes from the closet, but she couldn't understand what it was. Finally there was a flick of a crooked tail at the edge of her vision and the cat was gone. It was for the best, really. Cats didn't talk in Minnesota, after all. Not in the sensible Midwest. It was only here, on the coast, where things got all confused like that. It was the sea air. It made things go funny.

She realized finally that there was nothing left to pack. It didn't seem to have taken as long to put away her possessions as it had to set them out, and now the apartment was just as empty and exhausting as it had been—oh, God, was it only?--two mornings ago. The only color left in the apartment spilled from the tub of stuffed animals, which hadn't shut properly. A pink paw dangled over the rim, and Shin'nen snatched the bear up and clutched it to her chest. Sitting herself on the couch, she curled herself on the couch and curled herself about Cheer Bear, hoping in the back of her mind that this bear wouldn't fail her as all the others had.

There was a knock at the door, but she didn't move. She'd probably imagined it, of course. She didn't live here, and no one would visit an empty apartment. The knock sounded again, and she wondered if perhaps the sea air made people hear ghosts, too. Finally, the door creaked open and a voice, no nonsense, came at her back.

“I expected you downstairs twelve and a half minutes ago. I don't appreciate being left waiting.”

Shin'nen blinked twice, blearily, then raised her head to peer over the back of the couch. “What?” she croaked.

“You're late,” Asque said from the doorway, arms crossed over his sweater vest, face a perfect mask of perturbation.

“I . . .” She swallowed, shook her head slightly to try to bring her thoughts back into focus. “I thought you said I was the Minneapolis agent's problem now.”

“Lucinda is an idiot.” He glanced around the room, noting the absence of the posters and knick-knacks that had so briefly colored it. “I can hardly expect her to teach you anything useful. I should at least be able to give you some pointers so you might survive the summer. However, since you seem so very disinclined to actually attend such a session--”

“No, I—I'm--” She shook her head again, dragged herself to her feet. “I'm coming. Sorry to keep you waiting. Thanks,” she added almost inaudibly as they began the trek back down the stairs. Asque's mouth twitched, and Shin'nen pretended he had almost smiled.

***

The drive home was uncomfortable and silent. The length didn't help, either: twenty-four some hours enclosed with two people she'd forgotten how to talk to. Shin'nen hadn't remembered just how long it had taken to reach the coast last fall, even stopping on the way to wander state parks and lounge around poolside at a Microtel. Then, they'd made a mini vacation of it, but now the travel seemed like a frantic flight, and Shin'nen couldn't decide if she even wanted to be making it. That her parents had certainly driven the distance in one shot hardly helped soothe her guilt.

In the late-night hours leading up to her parent's arrival at the agency, she'd considered telling them they hadn't needed to come, that they could just join her for dinner and spend the night and head home, without her, but she wasn't that brave. Secretly, she was glad they didn't carry cell phones; the imposed radio silence let her keep pretending she could put off explaining the things she didn't want to think about. In the end, of course, she'd put it off too long, and to turn around, all her belongings somehow crammed into the space around and under the seats in the blue Volkswagen van, was more than even her imagination could manage.

She'd woken up that morning to find, for the first time in her conscious memory, that she was alone in the building. Somehow she'd immediately known the usual wizard fixture of the office's desk wasn't there, and a thorough search had proved it, and secretly she was grateful that he hadn't been around when her parents arrived. For a while she lightened her mood pretending he had actually slept in, as she had, after the cram session of the previous night and early morning, but of course that was ridiculous. There was a handwritten sign, bold in thick marker, taped beneath the plaque of hours on the front door, declaring that he was out on business and the office was closed. Maybe, she thought, he had wanted to avoid the confrontation as much as she had. At least he had the means to do so.

Grimalkin was still gone, as well, and Shin'nen wished she could recall what the cat had been telling her before leaving in a cat-ish huff. She knew Shin'nen would be leaving, she was there, she had to know—but she hadn't returned, not even appeared in a tree to say goodbye. The practical part of Shin'nen was glad; while she knew her parents would be accepting of the cat, two border terriers back home hardly would be—always her parents' reasoning against farm cats on the small prairie acreage—and she had no idea how she'd navigate the cat through the various state borders that she recalled required proof of vaccinations for feline passage. So she'd written a note for Asque about the cans of salmon Friskies and left the My Little Pony throw, still sprinkled with cream and lavender hair, crumpled upon the upstairs table, hoping she'd be forgiven.

She hadn't been sure what to do about her almost-friends at the bakery. It seemed like the sort of thing that should be explained in person, not over the phone, but sleeping in later than usual had thrown off her schedule. By the time she'd thought to leave she was paralyzed by the thought that her parents might arrive before she got back despite the supposed full day of driving from rural Minnesota to the bustling seaboard. Finally gathering up the urge to make the phone call, she'd been thwarted by the impossibility of finding a phone book, for although she knew the office must contain one, her first inspection of the drawers and crannies proved in vain. It had only been when she'd worked herself up to a second sweep of the room that she discovered Asque's drawers apparently didn't connect to the same reality as the rest of the room, and she spent the next twenty minutes closing and opening them to new content in vain before giving up.

All in all, she felt thwarted, shoved back to childhood and the days of being diverted by vague explanations and promises of someday answers, and when her parents arrived, two no-doubt illegal hours earlier than she'd thought possible, she'd felt again three feet tall within their engulfing hugs.

They took turns driving, making another straight-through trip as though if they stopped for longer than it took to fill up the gas-guzzler van and pick up drive-through burgers, something might reach out and snatch their precious child back to that unknown land of rainy winters and spells and wizards. Shin'nen wasn't entirely convinced otherwise herself, and she found herself lagging at rest stops in hopes of the like. At least her mom had thought to bring audiobooks, and Shin'nen abused them to avoid conversation, hoping her parents would take her silence for stress, relief, exhaustion, anything other than what it was, because whatever that might be, she wasn't sure she wanted to find out. Once, while both parents were asleep, Shin'nen found herself turn off the interstate, intending to ride the clover system onto the other side of the road and head back for the coast, and it was only the fear of explaining herself that set her Minnesota-bound again.

If she hadn't been so close to her parents, she felt like this all would have been so much easier. She'd always commiserated with high school friends about horrible, strict parents while feeling free and safe under the reign of her own. The last real argument she could recall having with her mom occurred in the fifth grade over the purchase of a GigaPet, and she had always prided herself in the knowledge that she could talk about anything with her parents, anything, without worrying they'd misunderstand.

Except she couldn't, not really, because it would be so much easier if they would misunderstand, because it was so much easier to feel secure in decisions when they met with someone's disapproval and she was free to ignore them in their ignorance. She felt somehow guilty in explaining her situation, as though something she'd done or was planning to do was horribly wrong, even if she knew it really wasn't, and that made it impossible to say whether it would be worse if they approved or didn't.

Once home, she felt more like a moody teenager than she ever had in the other nine of her double-digit years, and to her relief and dismay her parents didn't press her for details. “When she's ready, she'll tell us,” she knew they were thinking, damn their loving and open parenting style, and she secretly found herself wishing they'd just sit her down and demand information to save her the necessary courage. Upon unpacking her belongings, she'd discovered she must have forgotten Brave Heart Lion somewhere back on the coast, and it seemed horribly symbolic.

Back in the midst of small-town Minnesota, buried in late-arriving snow and sleeping fields, she didn't know what to do with herself. It was the time of year when, aside from the occasional snow day, students secretly wished to be in school, just to keep busy, and Shin'nen wished things could snap back to last year, senior year, surrounded by friends and smothered in homework, just too busy to worry about college and moving and the so-called real-world. But now, while all her old friends were off at school, she was back here, an apparent failure of the university system. She didn't know how to deal with the matter; everyone who knew avoided the subject, and when someone didn't and asked she wasn't sure what to say.

She spent the first few days hibernating in her room, braving the startling Minnesota cold to give grain to the chickens and goats her father felt should occupy a five-acre farmstead in country. She finished three books and two video games and finally cleaned her room before she found she couldn't stay in the house any longer. All the while, she felt the nasty gulf between herself and her parents, dropping her further and further into immaturity and degrading her ability to do anything about it.

After the first week, she dug began to sneak out to the barn to practice.

She missed the cat, she missed the bakery—heck, she even missed Asque, just a little. More, she missed her high school friends and speaking with her parents and feeling a part of her community, and in lieu of those activities she practiced. The majority of her cram session before leaving Oregon had been in learning how to properly cast a practice circle. Hers were still shaky, but gained refinement with each hidden session, and with the help of Asque's Book, which had somehow never gotten out of her backpack, she slowly expanded her knowledge.

***

A week and a half into her homely exile, Shin'nen was woken from a nap by a phone call.

“Mmellow?” she answered, attempting to clear the sleep out of her voice and largely failing. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand. Why was it that naps always seemed to make you feel more tired upon waking than when you'd first fallen asleep?

A timid voice came across the line. “Um, hello? Is . . . Shin'nen there?”

“Um, yeah. That's me.”

“Oh! Oh, I found you! I didn't think I would!”

Shin'nen tried to blink her brain back into focus. Waking up, she decided, was not her strong point. “Uh, great.”

“Oh, I'm sorry! This is Kristina Buysee! From the bakery?”

Everything snapped back on. Shin'nen clutched the handset to her ear and began a frantic pacing on the cord's length. “Oh my God! No, I'm sorry—Kristina! Wow! Um—oh, gosh—I'm so sorry I just left like that—you and Bekka must think I'm a total idiot or something.”

“No, that's okay,” Kristina reassured her quickly, “we got the basic idea from Samiel—he's really kind of a gossip, but more complainy—so we figured it would be hard for you to get in touch with us . . .”

“How . . . did you find me?” Shin'nen wondered. Probably, there was some sort of spell she could have used to look up the telephone number and saved herself all the trouble of desk drawer madness. Well, now she felt stupid.

“Oh, um . . .” There was a nervous laugh. “You're gonna think this is really stalkerish. I kind of . . . Googled your name and found a page off your high school's website, and then sorta looked through the phone books for that part of Minnesota at the library . . .”

“Oh!” Now she really felt stupid. “Oh, that's totally not stalkerish. Well, kind of, but—way to make use of modern technology! I had almost gotten the opinion that everyone over there was completely computer illiterate.”

“Brian's a computer programmer,” Kristina admitted, “so I'm required to keep up on at least half of the jargon.”

“Really? Awesome. I dated a computer geek in high school, but I never got more technical than installing my own RAM.” Shin'nen shifted the phone to her other ear and sprawled herself out on the living room couch, disturbing Toto and Pippin from their nap. Annoyed, the twin terriers whined and crawled over her, batting her hand with damp noses in search of apology petting. She obliged with her free hand, making the two fight for attention.

“I hear puppies!” Kristina exclaimed. “Do I hear puppies?”

“Uh, yeah—they're getting pretty old, though. Pippin and Toto.”

“Oh, I wish I could keep a dog in my apartment . . . and I'm still holding out for the right cat. How's your kitty?”

Shin'nen drew herself into a sitting position. “You . . . haven't seen her around over there?”

“No.” There was a pause. “You mean you didn't take her with you?”

“She wasn't around when I had to leave. I'm hoping Asque's been feeding her. I left food.”

“Yeah, me, too. Maybe . . . maybe we can ask Samiel to check.”

Eager to change the subject, Shin'nen shifted the phone again. “Um, how are things with Brian?”

“Greaaat,” came the reply, and Shin'nen could visualize the small woman melting again at the thought, entirely forgetting the previous discussion. “It's our second anniversary in two weeks, and I think he's gonna propose . . .” She gave the kind of sigh you only expect to hear on soap operas. “For Valentine's day he filled my apartment with rose petals. It was so sweet . . . Of course, we had so much trouble cleaning them all up afterwards, but ohhh.”

“That's great,” Shin'nen offered, absently wishing she had a guy who'd fill even her closet with flowers, daisies, even, who cares about the mess. “I mean, great that's it's going great. And a proposal, wow . . . Be careful or I think your life's gonna turn into a kinky romance novel.”

There was another pause where Kristina was most definitely blushing. “Well, maybe not quite. I've secretly already started planning the wedding, though. There's this beautiful little church just out of town with all these stain glass windows—of course we might have to do it at night, which would actually make it even more exciting, and then I'll have to see if there's some charm I can do to make sure it'll be clear so we can get a full moon through the windows and lots of candlelight . . .”

“Wait, he can . . . go into churches and all that?”

“Well, sure, it's a Catholic chapel, I guess, but I don't think Methodists have any problem with that, so . . . oh! You mean, like, ah . . . Oh, no.” She laughed. “That's a myth. He goes to services Wednesday evenings.”

More feeling stupid again. She made a mental note to research vampires in her next study session. “Oh!,” she remembered. “I read about a weather spell the other day, for that sort of thing,” Shin'nen offered, smothering tickle-giggles as Toto began licking her toes. “It needs a lot of preparation and stuff, but that shouldn't be a problem for something with a set date like that.”

“Reading? Oh! Do you have a library there, too?”

“Oh, um . . . not exactly. I sorta accidentally on purpose ran off with Asque's old copy of the Book.”

“Really? Those are expensive!” She lapsed into a short, embarrassed silence. “Actually, do you think you could help me out? I'm . . . still working on that spell I told you about, to reverse the turning for Brian, and I was hoping to have at least something outlined to give him for our anniversary . . .”

Before Kristina could explain the details, Shin'nen burst in, “I'd love to. I'm bored out of my skull here. I'd forgotten how useful it was to have a mandatory get-together via the school system.”

“I'd be a lot easier if you were here . . . but oh! We can work on a transport spell, too—I remember there are some pretty basic ones I think we could work up.”

“You are my savior, yes! I'm in, definitely.”

“Alright! So—so, um, here's what I was thinking of so far . . .”

***

The phone calls became a daily occurrence, and Shin'nen began to expect the ringing of the phone in mid-afternoon when Kristina took her lunch break. Slowly, the respective spells began to take shape, reformulated and reorganized with each daily conversation. Still largely lost in the universe of magic, Shin'nen offered researched information from her appropriated Book, while Kristina supplied more practical suggestions.

On her end, Shin'nen felt rather insecure; their topics of study had taken her away from books filled with Asque's scathing critiques, and without a harsh declaration of what was incorrect in the books, she felt she couldn't trust what wasn't marked. But each seemed to be making progress, and the phone calls filled with more and more descriptions of half-successes and little victories. Combining three versions of a shield spell, Kristina managed to come up with a matrix that would hide the amount of magic necessary for her spell while assuring passerby wouldn't stumble on the mess. Shin'nen worked around the excessive power requirements for her transportation spell by setting up an incremental charging algorithm.

Still, Kristina was still at a loss as to how to proceed with her project on her own limited resources. The details of the plan, too, were far too vague to be reassuring; working on the basis that it was the combination of blood and magic that sustained a vampire as such, she'd developed a method of complete instantaneous transfusion. Unfortunately, that required both large amounts of blood and magic, of which the small woman had very little to offer. Whether it would even work was doubtful; as determined as she was, there were centuries of failure behind them, failure by those far more experienced and talented than the two women. But it was a start, and as soon as her spell own spell was fully charged, Shin'nen intended to go help Kristina in person.

She had been about to add her daily dose to the spellwork in the barn, hidden beneath a small speedboat trapped indoors for the winter, when Toto and Pippin began an explosion of barking outside. Reluctantly throwing on her coat, Shin'nen tramped to the door, expecting one of the neighbor cats had strayed a little too close to the farm again. Sure enough, a cat-like figure could be seen in the front yard, hissing down at the frantic twins from a bare-branched tree.

“Pip, Toto, shut up!” Shin'nen shouted, plowing her way through the four inches of steadily-falling powder toward the dogs. To her surprise, they seemed to be calming all of their own accord, and both lay down before the tree, panting. Pippin whined at Shin'nen, then up at the tree. The cat leaped down stiffly, paws burying into the soft snow. 'There's a good boy,' said a familiar tone, and the cat's kinked tail swished as she glared at the two dogs. 'These farm dogs; no manners whatsoever.'

“Grimalkin!” Shin'nen exclaimed, scooping the cat up in a coat-encumbered hug.

'Don't hug me, feed me. I'm starved.' And so she looked; thin and scraggly, far dirtier and older-looking than when she had first appeared at Shin'nen's apartment window. For the first time, Shin'nen appreciated just how old the cat must now be, and just how far she must have had to try to travel. 'Why do you live in a climate like this? How did I ever live in a climate like this?'

Carting the cat back inside the house, Shin'nen broke into apology: “I'm so sorry I left you there! I couldn't find you anywhere, and I didn't know how I could explain to my parents I was waiting for a cat, and I didn't know when you'd be coming back, or--”

'Weren't you listening? No, you obviously weren't—that much is obvious.' Perfectly content to be carried, Grimalkin folded her paws irritably over Shin'nen's arm. 'I left before you did, which you'd know if you'd been paying attention. It would have led to too many questions for me to travel home with you--a poor decision on my part, I now see, but it seemed prudent at the time. Don't expect it to happen again.'

“I don't intend to let it happen again. You look horrible.” She had felt stupid about saving the can of salmon Friskies, but now she hurried to dig it out of the cupboard.

'How very kind of you. I am nineteen, after all—most cats are lucky to see a decade and a half. I expect you'll have to find my next life fairly soon, anyway.' The Siamese didn't wait for Shin'nen to scoop the food out of the tin, instead batting at her hand until she let her lap and gnaw directly at the meal.

“Your—your what?”

'My next life—cats do have nine lives, you know. Everyone knows that.' She gave Shin'nen a suffering look over her salmon bits. 'When I die, my soul will inhabit a new kitten, and you had better find it right away, as I have no intention of wasting two lives in a row.'

“Uh, right.” Well, there was another thing to look up. Secretly, she hoped Grimalkin's next incarnation would be a little kinder, though that was highly unlikely.

Grimalkin finished the can in what Shin'nen guessed was record time, then arranged herself on the coat Shin'nen had tossed onto the counter. 'Now go modify that spell you've been hiding to include a cat. And buy me more food. I'm taking a nap.'

Shin'nen was about to ask how she might do that, but the cat was already asleep.

Chapter 5

***

It was the ring that gave her the courage to do what had to come next. In the candlelight, the small blue gem took on an almost ethereal quality, a tangible, illuminated promise to give each other forever. And so she would give to him.

Since he'd known about her project, he hadn't objected to donating the blood she'd asked for. It was still fresh enough, she'd made sure of that. She'd drank some of it before he came, as much as she dared, diluted heavily to make sure it all stayed down. She'd done her research well, and the rest of it—pure, undiluted, the last bit of potency she needed—was already poured in crystal, waiting for her to drink.

She'd been planning this ever since she realized there was no way her original spell would work, not the way it was. It would take years, decades, centuries to get right, and she didn't have them . . . or didn't have them yet. But this way, so carefully planned, step by precise step, this would give her that time. Give them that time. And he wouldn't have to see her grow old and die beside him. At least the barrier matrix was useful; she wanted nothing more than privacy for this.

Tonight she'd pretended her anniversary gift to him was the blood, the pint and a half she'd kept on ice in a decanter of smooth glass. As he drank it, she could his blood in her begin to react to the ritual exchange, and she wet her lip in growing need for the rest of it. Just a little more, she told herself. Wait until he's drunk a little more, and then you can end it.

Seeing he had reached the last mouthful in his glass, she raised her own, giddy with expectation. “A toast! To . . . both of us.”

He grinned in reply, sharp canines almost hidden in the low light. “To us.”

They clinked glasses, and she downed hers in a long, convulsive gulp. She licked her lips clean and threw her arms around him and kissed him, tasting her blood on his mouth. God, he was so wonderful. “Happy anniversary, Brian,” she said and collapsed in his arms.

“Kris? Krissy?! Oh, God, Krissy, wake up!”

***

Shin'nen hadn't expected a call that day, not the day after Kristina's anniversary, and certainly not so early. The snow had begun again last night in what she guessed was winter's last ditch effort to make up for a nearly snowless December, clogging the roads with a heavy layer of wind-crusted powder. The St. Patrick's Day parade was most certainly off, and there was no chance of getting out into town, which meant both parents were home. As per snow day etiquette, Shin'nen was looking forward to sleeping well into the afternoon after a particularly late night of studying.

She almost received her wish, but at eleven-thirty the phone rang, waking her from her unusual light doze. “Shin'nen!” her mother's voice came from the stairway. “Phone's for you!”

“Okaaaay,” she replied groggily, hauling herself to her feet and fumbling for the phone hung outside her door. She hoped Brian had proposed; if he hadn't, she had no idea how she'd manage to console Kristina. “Hi, Shin'nen speaking.”

“Thank God, this is the right number,” came a voice that was definitely not Kristina. “I wasn't sure if it was the right one.”

“Rebekka?” She'd talked to the baker only briefly during Kristina's calls, but Bekka had never called her directly. Something in the woman's voice gave Shin'nen pause. “What's going on?”

There was a moment's worried pause as Bekka collected her thoughts. “The power's gone out again. Almost all over the city—it's been that way since late last night. Samiel hasn't show up when he said he would, though that doesn't surprise me, but neither has Kristina. I can't find her anywhere. I called her house, I called Brian's—I even called the Eidolon agency, but there wasn't any answer anywhere. And then I thought, it's because of the power outage—their phones need battery power. But I stopped by everywhere and everything was locked up, absolutely no one around.”

She spoke calmly, rationally, but there was an edge to her voice that somehow cut bone-deep. Shin'nen shivered. “Well, it was their anniversary yesterday, so she probably just slept in or something.”

“That's not it. It's St. Patrick's Day; she said she'd be in on time, and Kristina is never late. Never. Not without calling. And . . . something about the way she was talking yesterday. I'm afraid something's gone wrong. You've been working with her, haven't you? I didn't know who else to call.”

Had it been anyone else missing, anyone else been telling her than reasonable, grounded Rebekka, Shin'nen would have brushed it off as misplaced worry. But the way she was saying it had Shin'nen's worry suddenly rising to the level of Rebekka's. “I . . . I don't know where she might be. But I'll . . . figure out a way to find her. I'll get there and find her.”

'Lovely. And how do you intend to do that?' Grimalkin wondered from her bed as Shin'nen hung up the phone. She yawned widely, stretching in a long line as she roused herself from her own nap. Shin'nen had been putting off explaining the cat, too, in her entirety. Her parents had questioned the cat's arrival, but recognized her from their earlier neighborhood and could hardly complain about the dog's subdued nature around the cat.

“The spell's nearly charged. If I really try, I think I can get enough into it to get it running.” Already she was pulling on clothes, digging out the suitcase she'd had packed for weeks in case the spell might somehow fully charge.

'Yes, and then find yourself utterly useless for the next day while you gain back your energy. Wonderful idea, that.'

“You got a better one?”

Grimalkin lashed her tail superiorly. 'Your ignorance never ceases to astound me, but I suppose you got a late start. Cats themselves are not without magic, you know. I'll power the spell, and you go off and save the world, or whatever it is you think you're going to do. Ignorance aside, you'd be more useful out there than I do, damn you humans and your opposable thumbs.'

Shin'nen paused, gathering the cat in her arms and hauling her suitcase toward the stairs. “Really? You'd do that?”

'No, I find it fun to suggest things and then refuse to follow through. Oh--' she added, turning her gaze toward the kitchen where Shin'nen's parents were enjoying a late breakfast. 'There is one thing you need to do.'

Biting her tongue, Shin'nen hissed out a sigh. “Do I have to?”

'If you want help, very yes.'

She sighed again, then drew in a breath, pulling her suitcase after her onto the flowered linoleum. “Mom, Dad? I don't have a lot of time, but I need to talk to you . . .”

***

They'd understood, of course they'd understood. She wasn't sure why it had been so hard to do, like when she'd gotten her first kiss and waited three weeks to tell her mother, as though a peck on the lips was something horrible and wrong. Like then, they'd understood. They were worried, they were fascinated, and most of all they were glad the gulf between them and their daughter had once again shrunk. She'd been afraid to seek their approval, she realized, afraid what their approval or disapproval might mean.

Maybe it was the mixture of feline and human magic, maybe it was Shin'nen's inexperienced designing, maybe it was just the nature of the act, but Shin'nen felt as though she could feel every single mile of distance as it ran, like a sudden attack of jetlag and car ride stiffness all at once. The two arrived in the apartment's living room in one piece, but hardly a happy piece, and Shin'nen immediately began questioning the prudence of using that sort of transportation.

“Let's . . . never do that again . . .” Shin'nen decided, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes to make the spots disappear from her vision. Grimalkin didn't answer, instead slinking off to the couch to curl up. “At least we got here, though, right?”

'After a fashion. Are you leaving yet?'

Now that she was here, Shin'nen realized she had no idea how to proceed. She could tell Asque wasn't in the building, like she had been able to tell the last morning she had been there. Asque would have known what to do. A snippet of memory reminded her she could track someone with something of them or that belonged to them, but Shin'nen had nothing like that of Kristina's. “I . . . don't know what to do,” she admitted, gnawing on her lower lip as her gaze scoured the room as if an answer might suddenly form itself in a cranny or shadow.

'Find the wizard,' Grimalkin said, irratably exhausted. 'He's bound to be in the middle of any mess. Use your bracelet. Now go away; you talk far too loud.'

Shin'nen obediently exited down the stairs, wondering what good her bracelet would do. Down at Asque's desk, she took it off and examined it, searching for some sort of . . . something that might give her a clue: a magic button or an address or some obscure relative's initials. But there was nothing. As an afterthought, she switched to her magesight and peered at it.

What she had originally taken to be a reflection of her own white glow of magic was instead, she realized, the white flames she had seen worked into the wards of the office, interlaced with the distinct emerald of Asque's magic. The chain links were imbued with the weaving of green and white light, and though she couldn't tell what they might mean, she felt suddenly safer in wearing the cool metal bracelet.

The searching spell was in one of the Asque-edited sections of the Book, and following his added suggestions she found the charm an easy task. After two minutes dangling the bracelet over increasingly concise maps, courtesy of Asque's oddly obliging desk drawer, she had an address, and, latching the bracelet securely back around her wrist, she set off into the midmorning streets.

***

She was sure she'd gotten the address when she tried to cross the lawn. Something in the way it was trimmed made her doubt her reasoning for coming here—there were a dozen other things she should be doing, of course, rather than trespassing on this unknown person's lawn. But gping past the first few feet of barely returning grass, she'd found herself walking into a familiar invisible wall, and she knew where the sensation of question had come from.

It was an elegant spell with a simple construction, she saw, magesight bringing the green and white threads into full view. Meant to keep away the average passerby, but not too complex as to exclude help from arriving. It took concentration to look at it, fighting the spell's nonchalant effect, but Shin'nen quickly recognized it as a similar spell to the one she'd walked into weeks earlier. In a reversal of her previous method, she let loose a strong line of her magic and let it weave into the spellwork. Immediately, the sensation vanished, and she strode toward the door.

There was something immediately off about the house itself. It appeared just as any of the other cookie-cutter fifties houses on the block: small and cozy and just a little ridiculous against the backdrop of similar structures. But underneath, something seemed to be draped over the building, hiding its inhabitants in a false image of domesticity.

In reaching out to touch the front door handle, Shin'nen found herself jolted off the front steps as though she'd touched a live circuit. Her whole arm throbbed, and she had to wiggle her fingers to be sure they all still worked.

Asque appeared around the corner of the building, subjecting her to a thorough investigative look that belied his irritation at the situation. “Your stuffed animal,” he finally said, “is in the apartment bedroom. Also, I would suggest you do not touch the building.”

Shin'nen rubbed at her arm, trying to return it to proper feeling. “Kinda late now. And I didn't come for Brave Heart.”

“Why, praytell then, are you here? I have work to do.”

“I . . . came to help.” Now that she said it out loud, out loud to him, who obviously knew what he was doing, unlike her who hadn't the faintest idea, it sounded so stupid. Yep, just crossed half the country to show up and zap myself on a door; okay, think I've done my part, time to go home.

“Really.”

She sighed. “I'm looking for my friend Kristina. Rebekka thought she was in trouble, so I came to try to help. Maybe . . . I can't do anything and maybe this was all a stupid idea, but if there is something I can do I don't want to do it.”

The wizard considered her a moment, shook his head slightly, and huffed a sighed. “I do believe this Kristina is inside, but the current dilemma is in how to join her in that state. You shall have to wait until I've determined how that might be possible.”

For a moment, Shin'nen peered at the house, catching flickers of pale rosy lace and dashes of lightning with her magesight. “She's using electricity,” she realized quietly, then louder, added, “It's a mixture of three spells she was working on: I—I have to remember, um—Grey's Impenetrable Cloak, Dana Thompson's Hidden Agenda, and . . . and—and Yvette's For My Diary. I think. Does that help?”

Asque stared at her for a second, then fixed his gaze on the house once more. Shin'nen could almost see the connections forming in his head as he dissected what he seemed to consider now horribly obvious spellwork. The unstableness of the conglomeration, the required power, the electricity, the magic in the lines, the power outage. After a minute of pondering, he blew into his hands and began swiping them across the face of the house in what seemed to Shin'nen like random movements. When he had circled the house, there was a crack as though of lightning, and the closest street lamp's bulb exploded in its socket. “Come on,” Asque directed, and pulled open the door, motioning Shin'nen after him.

The curtains were all drawn, casting the rooms into a horrible murky shadow broken only by the occasional stub of a flickering candle. As they drew past the kitchen and toward the living room, a frantic voice halted them in their steps. “D-don't come any closer! Just keep away!”

Illuminated by a single near-used candle, a man with dark hair crouched on the floor, his arms encircling the limp form of a small, pixie-like woman in a pale floral sun dress. It was hard to see in the low lighting, but she thought she could see fangs hidden in his attempt at a threatening snarl.

Asque stepped forward, frowning. “Do calm down, sir. This is most impractical.”

“I told you, don't come any closer!” The man sniffed, wiped at his nose and eyes, then glowered all the more at the intruders to his home.

“Brian? You're Brian, aren't you? I'm Shin'nen, Kristina's friend.” At the confused softening of Brian's look, she moved slowly toward the two. “What happened?”

“I—I don't know.” The distraught vampire, flashed a gaze from the newcomers to his fiancée, hands shaking as he held her. “We—we were done with dinner—and she proposed a toast—and then, she just collapsed. I—I think she's dead. Oh, God. Is she dead? She's not dead, is she?”

“She's still breathing,” Shin'nen knew immediately, though she felt as though somehow that didn't answer his question. Then again, she didn't feel quite as though he had answered hers. “What was she working on? Did . . . did she try the spell?”

“No, she—she said it was flawed, that it wouldn't work, that she was going to keep working on it. But . . .” He swallowed, licked dry lips. If she hadn't tried the spell, then what had happened? Why bother with the barrier spell?

“Y-you're a healer, right?” Brian recalled, clutching Kristina's body closer to his chest. “You can heal her?!”

“I . . . I don't know.” Nothing was tugging at her, demanding fixing like she remembered it doing before. But something was wrong, certainly, because try as she might she couldn't feel the beat of Kristina's pulse. “I . . . don't think there's anything to fix. Her heart--”

“She drank your blood,” Asque stated. He had been examining the woman's prone body during the verbal exchange. “She drank your blood after you drank hers, and she's in the turning coma. You'll want to have some blood on hand for when she wakes up.”

“She—what?” Brain said, and Shin'nen echoed the thought in her mind. But it made sense, didn't it, if she wanted to give him a gift. A ring sparkled on the small woman's finger. A forever for forever.

Kristina stirred in her fiancé's arms, mouth opening convulsively to reveal faintly elongated canines. “Thirsty,” she said, voice dry and rasping. “So thirsty.”

Asque had gone to the refrigerator in search of blood. Brian brushed back Kristina's hair, expression horrified. “Krissy—Krissy, why'd you do it?”

“I know you,” she realized and smiled slowly. She sounded like a child. “Briaaan. You're so sweet. Did you bring me a drink?”

A glass of red was shoved into his hand, and Brian held it for her to gulp from. Blood spilled down her front, spoiling the top of her dress. She licked her lips, then her hands where the liquid had fallen on them.

“Why'd you do it, Krissy?” he demanded again. “I didn't mean for you do to this . . .”

“Of course you didn't.” Her voice still sounded breathy, lightheaded, but she seemed to be gaining lucidity. “But I did. I love you, silly. I want to spend the rest of your life with you, and now I can.” She nuzzed up against his chest contentedly.

“Krissy--”

“I have the wedding all planned.” She yawned, and quickly fell into a healthy doze in his arms.

Asque sighed as though this happened everyday and was hardly worth his time to have come. “I expect you'll keep a close eye on her. She may have forgotten some things, but they should come back shortly.” Brian nodded numbly and Asque turned for the door, motioning Shin'nen to follow. “Come on. I have paperwork to file.”

***

Returning to the Eidolon office, Shin'nen found herself unable to form an opinion on the day's events. She was somehow at once horrified and relieved at Kristina's fate, as though that had been the solution they'd been seeking all the past few weeks, imperfect though it was. She was torn between being happy and sad for her friend, and had to settle for ambivalence. But Kristina was happy, or happy enough, and that should be enough.

Once in the office, Asque immediately took to his desk and retrieved a stack of forms to record the incident. Shin'nen found it odd that an act of love and death should be so immediately boiled down to checkmarks and lines on a record, but she supposed that's how it went in the nonmagical world, too. All governments need their paperwork bureaucracy, even supernatural ones.

She got Asque to explain how to call out from upstairs, intending to call her parents from the relative privacy of the apartment and reassure them that she hadn't been mauled by trolls or anything of the like. Still distracted by earlier events, she trudged her way up the stairs. “Well,” she informed the cat still curled on the couch, “I don't know if we won or not. Kristina's a vampire, but I guess she did that on purpose, so I guess that's good? I'm really not sure.”

Grimalkin made no reply, and Shin'nen got the sense that the cat was ignoring her. “What, are you mad at me? I know the transportation spell was a little shaky, but I swear I checked everything a dozen and a half times, and I know you did, too, so you can't just go blaming it on me. Come on, wake up,” she said, and reached out to prod the cat.

The cat didn't move at her touch—in fact, didn't move at all, not even to breathe, and Shin'nen suddenly realized the flesh she'd touched had been cool and pulseless. “Oh, God. Oh, God, no.” She rocked back on her heels, recoiling from the body and clutching the offending hand tightly with the other. “Asque. Asque!”

The wizard appeared in the doorway, expression unreadable. He glanced from girl to cat and back again.

“She's dead, Asque, she's dead, and I know it's my fault and I shouldn't have asked and she should have stayed home--”

Asque's lips drew into a tight line, and he left, vanishing into the bedroom. Reemerging, he held out her Brave Heart Lion. “I'm sorry,” he said, and the simple pointlessness of the sentiment made her appreciate it all the more. She took the stuffed animal, sat on the floor, and, clutching it to her chest, let herself cry.

***

They'd put Grimalkin's ashes in a carved box in the apartment. Once the initial shock of the discovery had warn off, Shin'nen wasn't sure how to feel about the cat's death. After all, though she'd played with the cat in her childhood, she'd never really known her; only after Grimalkin's death did Shin'nen bother looking up the name the cat had given. “The witch's cat in Shakespeare's Macbeth”, she discovered, or “a mangy or old female cat”, and with that she realized she'd never really understood the creature past her existence.

Immediately afterward Shin'nen had begun looking for the successor kitten of Grimalkin's soul, afraid if she didn't find it quickly it might be snatched away or killed before she could claim it. She'd been surprised to discover the Book entry detailing the process included Asque's disparaging critiques, but it quickly yielded results, and she found the kitten, and its stray mother, huddled in the crumbled brickwork of a building seven blocks away.

The kitten, barely a week old, had outlived its littermates by sheer tenacity. Though the mother was a scrawny orange tabby, the kitten was pure white, and Shin'nen could tell her name the moment she saw her. “Eureka!” she knew, like Dorothy's found kitten, and, confusedly excited by the word, the kitten squealed, 'Eureka!' back.

It had been Asque's idea to bring both mother and kitten into the apartment, and for a few weeks Shin'nen's life revolved around the two. The mother seemed to have lived in a home once, for she quickly took to the litterbox Shin'nen set out for her, but she was cautious, nearly feral when it came to her diminished brood, and Shin'nen was careful to give her space. Unwilling to disturb the cats with a change of environment, she avoided unpacking the belongings her parents had sent, living out of her suitcase while the two prowled about. To her relief, neither seemed to possess Grimalkin's uncanny ability to exit and enter the building unaided.

The kitten's first action of power was to overturn the tiny chest of Grimalkin's ashes. 'Eureka!' she exclaimed in wonder as the soot spilled across the carpet, then flicked her perfectly straight tail in an all-too familiar gesture. 'I'm right here,' it seemed to say. 'Stop keeping me in that box.' The resulting stain proved impossible to remove, and Shin'nen found the discoloration both disturbing and somehow comforting. It made the carpet seem more tangible and the apartment less than perfect.

Kristina stopped by sometimes in the evenings, speaking even softer now than before in a self-conscious attempt to hide her teeth. Death looked good on her, though; the short strolls she took, shaded properly from the sun, had left her with a tan just verging on sunburn on most days. Love, though, looked better, and the tiny sapphire on her right hand somehow seemed to encase her in her own personal heaven. The wedding would be next December, on the solstice, to make the most of the night. Shin'nen had seen the church and already begun working on the weather charm to make sure the moon and stars could shine uninhibited.

After a few visits, she'd convinced Kristina to take in the mother cat once Eureka was ready to be on her own. The two had immediately struck it off, the mother allowing the new vampire to scratch her ears while Shin'nen was still barred from touching her. She didn't seem to be talking yet, but Shin'nen had hope, and even if she never did, Shin'nen hoped a cat's attitude would help her friend come to better terms with her newfound eternity.

She was just now getting around to unpacking the Rubbermaid containers again, and though she hadn't brought much more than on her last attempt, this time their contents seemed to fill out the freshly painted rooms. It had taken her the better part of a week to decide on the colors: a rich blue for the bedroom, tomato for the bath, a fragrant pine for the open space of the living room/kitchen. Now that it was done, she was fairly certain she'd never become an interior decorator, but it now marked the rooms as hers: her choices, her work, her less than sophisticated sense of color. Even Asque hadn't disapproved of the subject, and she took his stern reminder to get not one drop of paint on the carpet as approval.

She'd taken a few liberties, of course. She doubted Asque would have approved of the holes she was putting in the walls for her pet net, nor the technician she had scheduled to come in tomorrow and install DSL and a wireless router, but he'd get over it. Probably. For now, she was satisfied that the space felt like it was hers—well, hers and the cats, for the two had certainly left their own mark on the apartment.

After one last glance around the apartment, Shin'nen gathered up Eureka and tramped downstairs. “Hey, Asque,” she announced, opening the door to the office proper, “I remembered something else I need to ask you. What's up with Elvis?”

The wizard straightened his newspaper with a shake. “I expected you down three hours ago.”

“Sure you did. You'd have bugged me earlier if you really did.” She grinned and swung into her chair. “But, no, really, I mean, is he on Mars, or New Mexico—Area 51 and all that? Or—oh! Maybe, it's like, he was really an elf, you know like El-vehs, like the Shoemaker and the Elvises that the Muppets did once, and he got tired of putting on makeup to look old and just went home.”

“Elvis died in 1977.”

“Yep, that's what they want you to think.” 'Eureka!' the kitten agreed with a squeal. Shin'nen leaned over in her chair—her chair, because that pathetic excuse for seating just had to go—and tried to peer at what Asque was reading. “So, your latest tree carcass collection telling you anything interesting?”

Grimacing, he turned the page. “Not . . . as yet.”

“Well,” she said, adopting a Disney Beauty and the Beast Cogsworth voice, “if it does, we'll be ready for them! Who's with me?”

“That would be the idea.”

“We'll fight 'em both together,” she added, switching to Cowardly-Lion gruff, standing to punch at the air theatrically. Eureka mewed vehemently from the desktop. “We'll fight 'em with one paw tied behind our backs! We'll fight 'em on one foot! We'll fight 'em with our eyes closed!”

Opening one eye, she saw Asque leveling a gaze at her across the top of his his newspaper. She dropped her arms. “Okay, I'm done.”

“Thankfully.”

“Now, Asque, about this office . . .”

THE END! =D

Sunday, October 05, 2008

It's time to begin again.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

E.I.D.O.L.O.N. (completed first draft)

Reading the Novella

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