E.I.D.O.L.O.N.

This is the largely unedited version of the story. I shall be revising the chapter posts as I revise the actual text, but this shall remain here for . . . some reason I haven't quite pinned down.

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 seems to settle on fresh satin-matte surfaces. It wasn'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. The main room was scattered already with Rubbermaid tubs and taped boxes, the remnants of her room with Chelsea back at college all packed away again. 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 aught 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 aught 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.

Asque pursed his lips as he watched her exit. For a brief moment he considered following her, but dismissed it quickly. He hardly felt inclined to chase after her, and irritatingly, she was right: he had no authority to keep her there. He then turned his gaze to the knife. He'd used it to evoke a response, but he'd hardly expected the vehemence of her reaction. Her exit meant more work for him, he knew, whether or not any of the scenario's he'd mentioned occurred. But he had underestimated her intent to leave, which meant the wards he'd set on the building needed to be increased. And as much as he detested make-work, there was little Asque disliked more than being underprepared.

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 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.

“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. Choosing something seemed impossible.

“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. “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 six people living in that apartment over the past two years. 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.

“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 grabbed a leather jacket from the rusty coat rack by the back door and shook flour from it. “This aught 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. “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. Brightheart Raccoon was balanced in her lap, having been traded for Grumpy Bear from her plushie collection. “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?”

Exhasperated, 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.

At least, he thought, she bounces back quickly. Not for the first time, Asque found himself questioning the decision of the Seattle Agent that had sent this girl into his care. Even at the time, the logic had been flawed: a casual explanation of Godfrey's lack of space and busy schedule. Asque could not easily argue, for the apartment was certainly empty, and eventually it would be necessary for someone to consider it home. And Godfrey was his senior, and even illogical suggestions of that nature had to be obeyed. But why this one . . .

It didn't matter, he told himself, because there was work to do. There was something wrong, something he couldn't discern himself, and something the newspapers were refusing to tell him. Sooner or later, he knew, they would, in their between-the-print, in their casual remarks—he just hoped it wouldn't be too late.

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.

To be continued! Dun dun duuuuuuh.