

WitchKids

Book 1 of "The Spellbound Railway" Series

By Chris Loblaw

Copyright 2011 Chris Loblaw, all rights reserved.

Cover Illustration by Keith Armour. Copyright 2011, all rights reserved

ISBN 978-0-9869650-4-3

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Also in "The Spellbound Railway" Series:

Book 2: Kingmaker

Book 3: The Patchwork Boy

Book 4: The Ember and the Knife

All books available through the author's website, chrisloblaw.com

For now, for ever, for always, for Kristen. All my love
"The rattled door  
was battered in  
by deathly winter wind  
The lives inside  
flickered and died  
And Herlech Gate walked in"

-Old nursery rhyme, origin unknown

.
Prologue

A long night had finally passed and the dawn was creeping up on the horizon. Robert looked at the thin line of colour that divided the night and approaching day, and desperately wanted to be on the other side of this night of disappointment.

It had started so well. Just a few hours ago, the girl of his dreams had come up to the roof of the old Alexander theatre to stand beside Robert and watch the meteor shower that had flashed above them. Her name was Karen, a name that Robert thought had the perfect blend of seriousness and softness. He liked to say her name out loud when he was alone in a room, just to hear it fill the air around him. Karen was at his side, her fingers swaying beside her and almost touching his, and Robert had wondered how it was possible that she didn't hear the pounding of his heart when she was this close. It was funny: the stars were dancing in the sky above, in a way that would never happen again in his lifetime, but all he could think about was the girl beside him.

And when the pace of the shower had slowed, the teachers chaperoning this strange science trip had set up a snack table for the students. Robert made an attempt to be a gentleman and offer to bring Karen a drink, but she had caught sight of her best friends, and she had dashed off to the other side of the roof to whisper and giggle with them.. Robert had sighed the first sad sigh of the night, poured himself a can of root beer into a red plastic cup, and sat down on his sleeping bag to sip his drink and try not to feel invisible.

It was now 2AM. Robert's eyes were stinging with a need for sleep but he didn't want to stop watching Karen. He saw her lean in to whisper something to her best friend Jenna, and both girls giggled and scanned the roof, looking for someone on the other side.. For one brief moment he thought that maybe, just maybe she was looking for him. He sat up straight and prepared what he really hoped was a charming smile to send her way when she found him. Karen saw him looking back at her and gave him a perfunctory wave before resuming her search. He lowered his head and pretended to fall asleep, as the smile faded off of his face.

The sound of the students chatting and laughing drifted off into a calm silence, as the rest of the class burrowed into their sleeping bags and fell asleep. Robert really wanted to fall asleep too, to put the heartache behind him and rest, but his mind kept racing over the details of his not-quite-relationship with Karen. He spent the coldest hours of the night wrapped up in his sleeping bag and reliving the first time he had met Karen in grade nine gym class, the dozens of times he had walked home with her, and that one amazing time he had been invited to a party at her house. Somewhere in all those memories he wanted to find a clue on how to win her heart. At least he could hope to find a way to move on. It would have been easier if Karen was mean or cruel to him, but she was always so nice.

Robert flipped on his flashlight and made a few notes for the field trip assignment. His astronomy teacher Miss Dubrofsky would expect a detailed journal of his observations of the meteor shower. His drama teacher Mr. Donald wanted a descriptive sketch of this building that they were using as an observatory. The building was called "The Old Alexander Theatre". It was originally a Mechanist's union hall when it was built in 1903, and it had been renovated and re-purposed into a theatre for the community of New Tecumseh about 20 years ago. It was far enough away from the outlying suburb of Toronto that they lived in, that the bright light from the city was harder to see, making the location better for watching celestial events. Also, Mr. Donald the drama teacher was a member of the theatre's board of directors and that gave him special access to the facility. The building and the interior were nice enough, but Robert just wanted to be at home. He would have been happier never having seen this place at all.

The last few hours before dawn were quiet and incredibly lonely. The only excitement happened at 4AM, when a few of the students woke up shivering from the cold and complaining of frozen toes. The teachers had dutifully gathered up everyone who was too cold and took them inside to finish the night in the heated lobby. Robert had just shook his head and went back to pretending to sleep when Mr. Donald asked him if he wanted to come in too. It was better being alone out here. Robert had dressed properly for a night outside. His fingers were a little cold, but a cup of his hot chocolate would fix that. He had groaned when his mom had handed him the thermos full of hot chocolate as he was leaving for the trip, as if he was a nine-year-old heading off for his first campout, but he was very grateful to have it now.

He stood alone on the rooftop with his second cup of hot chocolate as the last few meteors sporadically sputtered and shot across the multicoloured sky. Ms. Dubrofsky had said that a meteor shower of this magnitude and peculiar presentation was a rare occurrence, and most people would go their whole lifetime without seeing anything like it again. The dots of light had danced at a frenzied pace, with hints of colour shifting as they moved. It had felt like they were alive and overjoyed to be with each other.

Robert finished the drink and put the now empty cup on the ground. He stared off into glowing light of dawn. Two meteors dashed from opposite corners of the sky to meet in the middle and momentarily circle each other before they faded from sight. He imagined that's what it would look like if Karen suddenly declared her love for him: she would see him across a room, after searching for him, and she would move quickly to him. He'd be pulled towards her, both of them moving faster until they met and embraced, spinning together until they slowed to a stop. He wanted to hold her forever and keep her safe and warm, but all he had in his arms right now was cold reality

Robert closed his eyes and held his hands tightly to his side as he waited for this sad longing to subside. He wished he could do anything at all to make Karen notice him, to feel even a fraction of what he feels for her. From deep within him a power awakened, a strange, fluttering feeling that was lost and unnoticed in the shadow of his heartache. This new power pulsed in a rhythm that was mirrored by a final, single meteor that flickered and hung impossibly in the sky at the division line between night and day. The flashing and the power within built in intensity until Robert found the words to give this new found power a shape and a purpose. His eyes snapped open and his arms outspread to the wind as he whispered his simple plea. "Love me". A wave of scintillating light rolled out from his outstretched hands and washed over the town in front of him. That last lone meteor flashed into a sympathetic brilliance that forced Robert to close his eyes, and then it fell sparkling from the sky.
Chapter 1-First Day of School

Kean skidded around the corner and whipped his head around to try and get his bearings. The odds weren't good. This was only his third time in the halls of Cartier secondary School, and first time on his own.

The first visit had been a grade 8 field trip to see a local school band competition. They had shuffled directly off the bus into the auditorium, and directly back afterwards. The second visit had been a tour of the school for prospective students that his parents had dragged him to last April. He had been too busy trying to act cool for the pretty high school senior giving the tour to notice anything other than her beautiful smile. So now, on his first day of high school, he was running blindly from a pack of unruly tenth graders and trying to navigate the confusing maze of corridors. He had so far avoided dashing into a very embarrassing wrong turn like into an open garbage bin or straight into the girl's washroom, but his pursuers were closing in and he was starting to get desperate. The pack of boys running after Kean were determined to catch him and give him an unpleasant and humiliating initiation into high school life. His only crime? Being a grade nine student, or as the mob was howling behind him, "Minor niner-GET HIM". Kean took a chance and zipped down the dim narrow hallway to the left, hoping that it would meet up with the main entrance stairs. His guess paid off and he emerged in the open foyer at the entrance. Kean slipped down the stairs and into the auditorium. The room was serving its primary function as the school's cafeteria, with students milling around and shouting genially at each other from across the room. Kean wove through the hungry masses towards the curtain at the back of the cafetorium that hid the stage during the day.

He was hoping to vanish in the crowd, but if the guys found him here, it wouldn't be the end of the world. The truth was that he wasn't really afraid of whatever hazing the boys had to dish out. There was a certain amount of formality to the process, and there were rules of how much they would be able to do to him while they were inside school walls. If this had been taking place outside of the school or not during school hours, it would have been a very different situation. But it was the middle of the day in the crowded cafetorium so it was very unlikely that anything horrible would be done to him. Kean could handle a little roughhousing. He wasn't like some of the other fragile and nervous kids in homeroom, the ones who couldn't hold up so well to this kind of stress. They were already so scared and confused that even shouting at them would have caused heart attacks or wet pants. It was better if the initiation gang caught him and vented their meanness on him instead.

Kean sat down at the end of a long table beside one of those scared kids, a chubby boy named Kyle. Kean felt a little strange sitting at a lunch table with no food in front of him. His lunch was back in his locker two floors up and on the other side of this massive educational fortress. He would just have to pass the time until the bell rang and then rush to his next class. He'd figure out what to do after that during geography class. If he could even find his classroom, that is.

He couldn't tell if Kyle had even seen him, with his head tucked so far down that it almost touched the table. Kyle did not look like he wanted to be in the cafetorium surrounded by strange kids. Kean gave him a little nudge to get his attention, hoping to say hello and give the scared kid a smile to tell him that he wasn't alone. Kyle ignored him completely, and kept pushing a soggy french fry around a plate soaked with ketchup and malt vinegar. Kean felt very bad for the loneliness that Kyle seemed caught in.

The initiation squad came barrelling into the cafetorium and looked all around the room, like a pack of hounds that have lost the scent. Kean slipped down low in his seat, even lower than Kyle, and held his breath as he waited for them to leave. Kyle suddenly stood up and shouted in a squeaky voice "here! He's right here!" Kean glared at him but Kyle kept shouting and pointing frantically at him. The pack of boys started pushing through the crowd to get to him. Every kid in the room stared at the pack's intended victim, ready to watch the scene play out right there. Reminding himself to worry less about Kyle in the future, Kean bolted from his seat and up the three steps to the stage. Slipping behind the curtain gave him a momentary advantage and he carefully moved around in the dim light of backstage to find the exit.

It felt like it took forever to find the door leading to the dressing rooms. Kean's heart was pounding in anticipation of being pounced on by shadowy figures. The idea of nobly taking the punishment to save kids like Kyle seemed pretty dumb at that moment. He found the door handle and yanked on it repeatedly with no success. His sweaty hand slipped off the handle and panic started to rise in his chest. Maybe he was a little bit afraid of the bullies after all. Kean pushed on the handle instead of pulling it, and the door finally opened.

He tumbled through the opening, regaining his feet just before hitting the ground. He ran past the dressing rooms and across the outer hall into the narrow staircase that led up to the audio-visual booth. It was the only room he remembered clearly from the tour, because he loved looking out over the audience and the stage from that aerial vantage point. He knew there was a second door on the other end of the room that lead to a branching hallway, and one of those branches would hopefully take him to the science corridor and escape.

The A/V room was dark when he entered. Kean blindly groped along the wall until he found the light switch. With the light on he could see the second room door was a few meters away and he bolted for it. Kean's heart sank when he tried to turn the doorknob and it refused to move. The door was locked. The stairwell behind him filled with the panting and cursing of the boys, and seconds later they burst into the room.

"You think you're pretty smart, don't you, you little turd? Running away from us. You're going to get it, you stupid minor niner!" The threats were coming from the boy in front of the pack, the default leader. He was a tall kid with a big nose and a bad haircut, and he probably had seen more than his fair share of initiation last year. But now, he was the enforcer of the hazing rites, and he was going to inflict his full wrath on the 'little turd' in front of him. Kean noticed that he was actually a little bigger and taller than the leader, and in a fair fight he could probably out-muscle him. The difference today would be the ragtag group behind the leader who were there to do their part in the hazing. They swarmed forward to hold Kean down as the leader prepared to unleash his arsenal of wedgies, wet willies, and other childish cruelties. Of all the things they might do to him, Kean hoped they had forgotten the hair clippers. He really didn't want to walk home with half a head of hair. The leader straddled Kean and leaned forward with a sneer on his face. As he pulled back his arm to throw the first punch, the room filled with bright, blinding light. A shrill voice blared through the PA speaker above the door.

"STOP THAT IMMEDIATELY. INITIATION IS STRICTLY AGAINST THE STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT. I AM COMING UP THERE RIGHT NOW AND I AM BRINGING EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE. EVERYONE IN THAT ROOM WILL BE IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDED!"

The voice finished speaking and an ominous silence filled the room. The pack looked to their leader for instruction. The boss had lost all of his courage. "Let's get out of here!" he hissed, and the gang of them ran out of the door and scattered to the wind. Kean sat up and brushed the dust from his shirt sleeves and waited for his rescuer to come up. A few moments later, a tall bundle of energy in a gypsy dress came bounding into the room.

"Surprise!" she yelled, smiling from ear to ear.

"Hi Mal."

Mallory Davidson stopped dead in her tracks and looked at Kean with a stare of disbelief. "Not even a thank you? Just a hello? The nerve of some people!"

"Okay, thanks."

Mallory flopped into a metal folding chair and crossed her arms. "Why aren't you surprised to see me? I swooped in from nowhere and saved you from certain doom at the hands of those jerks."

"They weren't going to do anything terrible to me."

"They were going to flatten you, K. With no witnesses, who knows how depraved they could have gotten."

"I don't think so. There are rules about this kind of stuff. Not official rules, but a bunch of things that usually happen during things like this. I would have been fine."

"You put a lot of faith in the self-restraint of teenage boys. When they're riled up, who knows what they're capable of? Anyway, answer my question. How did you know I was the one rescuing you?"

"I saw your spell colour. When the lights came on I switched to magesight and I saw your colours swirling around the light and the speaker."

"Really? You have to show me how to see that. You promised to show me."

"I will. But you promised me that you wouldn't use magic unless you had to. Especially really flashy stuff. The more obvious the magic is, the bigger the side-effects are."

"Who made you an expert on magic, anyway? You've only been using it 2 months more than I have."

"Mal, I'm not an expert. There is so much that I don't know about magic. And sometimes, when I think I've learned something about how it works, it stops working that way. It's almost like it's trying to stay mysterious and hidden."

Mallory squinted at Kean with disapproval. "Sometimes I think you're holding out on me, K."

"I'm not. I promise. We'll practice magesight on the way home today, okay?"

"Fine. See you then."

Mallory was up out of the chair and racing through the door before Kean had a chance to answer her. The bell rang, summoning everyone to their next class, and Kean ran off in what he truly hoped was the right direction.
Chapter 2 – Into The Woods

The argument started as soon as Mallory found Kean after last class. From doors of the school to the pocket of woodlands they cut through on their way home each day, they bickered back and forth. The woodlands were the only wild forest left within walking distance of their houses. It was a tiny patch of natural space, and the subdivisions surrounding it threatened to encroach the final few meters and eradicate it completely. The signs of the imminent demise were on the edges of the woods. Deep muddy ruts left by the tires of heavy machinery bound the eastern side of the forest, and faded survey marks were still visible on some of the trees. Whenever the forest eventually vanished, the kids in the area would mourn the loss of one of their special sites. Mal and Kean would be among the mourners. But with the bright and warm sunlight filtering through the colourful leaves of fall it was easy to forget about the future and get lost in the shady, pleasant mysteries of the woods. They passed a few young kids racing through the forest on their bikes, but by the time Mal and Kean had reached their favourite clearing, the people sounds had faded away. All except Mallory's pestering.

"Explain it to me again, Kean. Why should I have let the bullies mess with you?"

Kean kicked at a small pile of leaves. "It's kind of hard to explain."

"Give it a try."

"Well, those guys were determined to haze somebody today. And if they didn't catch me, they would find some other kid. And I don't know for sure if that other kid could handle it. The kids in my home room class were really scared. And I think the whole school expects the grade nine kids to get initiated, in a way, and they were all looking forward to it."

"Who cares what they expect? It's wrong to bully."

"I know it is, but it's also tradition. If it doesn't happen, all of that anticipation and expectation just builds up and gets worse. So I might as well take the heat now, because I can handle it. It would have been like letting steam out of a pressure cooker."

"What's a pressure cooker?"

"It's a pot that holds steam in and lets you cook things a lot faster. My grandparents had one and they used it to make rice. My grandpa told me they also used them in hospitals to sterilize things."

"Oh. Why would you let the steam out?"

"If there's too much steam the pot could explode."

Mallory tapped her foot and scowled at Kean as she mulled over his explanation.

"I guess that makes a little bit of sense. It's wrong, but it makes sense. The stronger people have to protect the weak, not exploit them. I had to stop them. It was my duty."

Her fearsome frown darkened her entire face and emphasized the strong line of her nose and the dramatic lines of her eyebrows. Kean really believed that she would try to save everyone she could.

"To be honest, I really didn't want to get sat on and messed with. I am glad you got me out of that. You just could have done it a little more quietly, that's all I'm saying."

"Like how? A sneak spell? Some kind of illusion?"

"You could have just unlocked the other door."

Mallory's first response was a furious blush that covered her face and crumbled her stern, heroic facade.

"I was so excited that I could only think about using magic to save you."

"Did anything else happen after you used your magic save me? Anything weird?"

Her blush deepened. "I walked into janitor's closet and fell into a mop bucket."

"Hmmm." Kean tried not to laugh.

"It was empty, but it kind of got stuck on my butt. I had to wiggle around to get it to fall off."

Kean laughed out loud and clapped his hands over his mouth to stop any additional laughs from coming out. He didn't want to hurt Mallory's feelings or seem ungrateful for the rescue. Mallory surprised him by quickly joining in, and soon both of them were breathless from laughter. Finally Kean regained enough composure to resume talking.

"That was probably your backlash. That's what I call it anyway. My grandma would call something like that your 'comeuppance'. Whenever I do a spell that is too strange or unbelievable, something else always happens that I didn't plan for. It's usually embarrassing or mildly uncomfortable, but I guess it could be worse than that, if you did a really big spell."

"So if I don't want any backlash, I have to do really boring effects that are impossible to notice?"

"I think it has something to do with how plausible the spell effect is. If you try to make something unbelievable happen, it stretches reality out of shape, and the backlash is reality snapping back in place. It makes my head hurt to try and figure it out. There seems to be some kind of balance, and spells have to follow it. If your spell adds something here, it has to take an equal part away from somewhere, and you don't get a say in where the take away happens."

"Are they really spells? Like, do you write them down and memorize them? Do you have some old book of spells from Merlin or Houdini?"

"I call them spells but there's no writing or anything. I tried to write one down once, but it was really hard to do. And after I wrote it down, it stopped working. I don't think Merlin was real. But maybe Houdini was a real magician. Huh. Never thought about that. He could have done really subtle stuff to help his escapes, if he needed it. That's if there were magic users before us. As far as I know, we're the first two."

"Law of averages would beg to differ with you, K. There have to be others."

Kean smiled at her and held out his hand. "Okay, time to teach you how to see magic. Are you ready?"

"Absolutely."

Kean looked at his outstretched hand with the open palm facing the sky and thought about an appropriate spell to use. He decided to make his hand a few degrees warmer. He imagined the heat around him as a visible entity, and he drew it to the palm of his hand into the form of a tiny translucent dragon. The dragon breathed a miniature plume of see-through fire to warm Kean's hand. He pictured a thermometer hovering just above his hand, and when it rose in temperature he focused on keeping the bubble of heat stationary

"Look at my hand now, Mal. I have a little spell on it."

"I don't see anything."

"If you try too hard to see it, then it won't work. You have to let your eyes relax and look at the whole area."

"Where? Your hand? The clearing?"

"Just everything. Relax."

Mallory exhaled noisily and tried to relax her eyes. She turned her head from side to side, first slowly and then as fast as she could, trying to catch sight of the spell. All she saw was Kean standing with his hand out.

"Damn. DAMN DAMN DAMN. I can't see it."

"Whoa, calm down, Mal. It'll happen eventually, but you can't force it. Every time you chase it, the sight will run away. It's like catching a mouse. I know, let's try it with one of your own spells. That's how I did it the first time."

"Won't it be difficult to maintain the spell and look for it at the same time?"

"I think it might actually make it easier."

With a flick of his hand Kean released the heat dragon from his palm and ended his spell. He walked over to a maple tree and stooped to pick up a handful of leaves.

"How about this? I'll throw the leaves up into the air, and you slow their fall enough that they hang in the air for a bit. Do you think you can do something like that?"

"I don't know. Will it work if you tell me how to do the spell?"

"Well, technically, I only described the outcome of the spell. I didn't tell you how to make the spell. That should be okay, just don't tell me how you do it."

"Right."

Mallory started to cast her spell. She saw her spells as chalk drawings laid over the real world, remaking reality into the picture she chose to see. Kean took the small pile of leaves that he held in his cupped hands and threw them up into the air. When the leaves went up into the air, she drew little chalk arrows underneath them to lift them up and keep them there. She added a circular arrow to send the whole group into a slow, mid-air pirouette. When a leaf slipped away from the group and threaten to fall she imagined a new arrow popping under it and guiding it back to the group. For a moment the dancing leaves were all moving in concert with each other. Mallory watched her creation and as the leaves twirled and danced, she finally saw the colour of her own spell, her mage colour. She gave a sharp intake of breath and her eyes widened at the beauty of the shimmering in front of her. It was every colour and no one colour all at the same time, and she could only give it one name: mine.

"It's beautiful, K. I see it. I see my colour!"

"That's fantastic. Keep looking."

While Mallory stared at the wonder in front of her, Kean resumed his heat spell. Mallory gasped in response.

"That's you! I can tell that it's you! How is that possible?"

"It just is, Mal. We all have our own colour, and it attaches to every piece of magic we do. It's like a signature or a fingerprint. But it's more than that too. It's a little part of you, an echo of who you are. You can tell it's my colour because you know me pretty well, just like I will always recognize your spells. We should probably stop the spells now."

Kean once again sent away the warmth, and Mallory freed the leaves to finally return to the ground. They stood in silence for a minute as they thought about the special gift they shared. Kean checked his watch and realized that they had to get home for dinner.

"Mal, we're going to be late. We better head home."

"Oh alright. My mom won't care if I'm a few minutes late, but I know your parents getting worried if their little Keenie isn't home right after school."

"Stop saying my name wrong. It's pronounced 'Key-Ann'. It rhymes with Ian."

Mallory smirked at him. "I know. Race you home!"

She ran out of the clearing at full speed, with Kean a step behind. As she passed out of the forest's edge, a giant maple tree on the boundary decided to shed a huge pile of leaves directly onto her head.

"I guess your spell went a little too long, Mal. There's your backlash." Kean laughed as he ran past her, leaving her to shake the leaves from her head. He didn't mention the pebbles of ice that were now melting in his socks, courtesy of his own backlash.
Chapter 3 – What's For Dinner?

Kean kicked off his shoes by the garage door and walked down the stairs to his basement bedroom to dump his knapsack on the floor. "Hi Mom. Hi Dad" he shouted over his shoulder as he hurried to the bathroom to wash his hands before dinner. When he made it to the dining room table, his mom wagged her finger at him.

"Young man, you are late. I should send you to bed without supper!"

"Oh dearest mama, please spare me such punishment. It was only the wonders of nature that kept me from your delicious dinner. Forgive my tardiness."

Kean threw his arms in the air to plead his case to the heavens. His mother glowered across the table and prepared to launch into another performance, when his dad's voice rolled out from behind the newspaper he was reading.

"Can I skip the dinner theatre and move on to eating the meal that I made, please? Sheesh."

Kean's mom shot her husband a dirty look and moved towards Kean. She towered over him and leaned in until she was nose to nose with him. When their noses touched, she started laughing and gave him a kiss before returning to her seat.

"Ew, yuck. Mom, no kissing on the lips anymore. I'm not five."

"Never! Smooches forever, for my smoochie bear!"

"Honestly, Julie, the two of you should take your show on the road."

"Do you think we're that good, Bert?"

Bert peeked over the top of his newspaper.

"Nope. I just want you two goofballs out of the house so I can have a meal in peace."

He punctuated his comment with a waggle of his eyebrows. Kean and his mom responded by throwing their napkins at him. Julie and Robert MacGrath had been working on this vaudeville act for 15 years, and unfortunately it was never going to get any better than this. Sometimes it made Kean cringe, especially if they had guests over or if they were out in public, but it also made him laugh. The three of them dove into the plates of food in front of them. Julie asked Kean how his first day of high school had been.

"Pretty good. A little confusing. I got lost on the way to English class, but I found the right place eventually."

"Wow. Sounds like you had a good handle on things. Your father was worried that it might be overwhelming."

"I did not."

"Well, somebody was worried. It's a big change from grade 8 to grade 9, and a lot of kids get stressed out about it."

"I was stressed about it a few days ago, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was silly to get worked up. Every new kid was going to get lost, or be late, or end up in the wrong room, or something else. It's normal. The best I could do was be calm and try to pay attention so that I didn't take too many wrong turns."

Bert looked long and hard at Kean, with a little smile finally creeping onto his gruff face. "That's your grandmother's wisdom. You remind me so much of her sometimes."

"Which one, dad?"

"Both of them. Both our moms were level-headed women who didn't waste time on worrying about the things they couldn't change. The similarity between them was one of the first things we noticed, eh Julie?"

"Yes. It wierded us out a little at first. They should have been exact opposite. My mom was a Columbian dance instructor who fled Columbia when the drug lords threatened her family, and your dad's mom was a meat'n'potatoes Irish Canadian housewife. But somehow, when the two of the got into a room, it was like they were sisters. You couldn't shock them, and it was almost impossible to surprise them. We only managed one real surprise."

"Really?" Kean said. He loved to hear stories about his family. Even if it turned out that he had heard this one before, he wanted to hear every word. His dad took over the storytelling.

"Yup. One time, and it took a heck of a lot of planning. Luckily we had an inside man for the job, my pop, your grandpa Joe. He planned to host a birthday party for your mom as a cover story. It threw my mom off the trail because it wasn't a party for me. She paid less attention than if it had been my party. That's not to imply that my mom didn't absolutely adore your mom, because she did. I used to see your gran nod her head in approval when we'd walk into the room, like she was agreeing with my choice of spouse. She even said so once. "You picked a good one, Robert." She told me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When we made it to the party, Grandpa Joe was just starting his performance. He had decided that he was going to do a magic act for the audience, even though I had never seen him do a trick before in his life."

Kean sat up and felt his heart race a little bit at the mention of magic.

"He was a magician?"

"Not really. He had a top hat, cape, and wand, but no experience in doing any tricks. And boy did it show. Every trick went a little wrong. Some of them went really wrong, like the flower bouquet that shot across the room and hit your Uncle Roy right between the eyes. He boldly went on performing, and announced his grand finale. He called up his lovely assistant, Gran. She wanted to refuse to take part in his nonsense, but he had a way of convincing her into almost anything.

He made her hold the top hat as he delivered a rambling speech about magic and miracles. Finally he told her to reach deep in the hat and reveal the greatest miracle of all. She started to call him a fool when all she found was a piece of glossy paper, until she realized what she was holding. It was an ultrasound picture of the best thing to ever happen to all of us. And that was how your grandma found out about you."

Kean suddenly felt a little flushed and overwhelmed by the memory of his grandparents and the idea of all of those people celebrating and crying in joy over his existence. It didn't help when his dad awkwardly charged over to pick him up in a big bear hug. Moments later his mom joined in the hug, and he could feel the telltale dampness on her cheeks from the tears sneaking down her face. When his dad snuffled noisily Kean couldn't hold out and he had a tiny little cry too. The family hug lasted until everyone was able to let go of each other, and they sat back down to finish dinner, ignoring the occasional sniffle and the sheepish grins still on everyone's faces.

The flickering television on the kitchen counter caught Julie's eye. Bert must have left it on after he finished cooking dinner, and it was showing the local newscast now. Julie was reminded of something she had heard earlier.

"I heard something about that on my drive home. There was some kind of an altercation at a school trip to the theatre over in New Tecumseh."

Kean turned his head to see the screen. "School trip? But it was the first day today. I don't recognize any of the kids they're showing either."

"It was a class from that private school. Robertson Hall. They do full year schooling."

"Oh yeah. No full summer vacation, just a couple of weeks off. That sucks."

"They were at the theatre to watch the meteor shower and study the architecture, some kind of double project. It was an overnight trip too. A few of the kids started fighting with each other early in the morning, just before they were supposed to head home. No punches thrown but some shoving and cursing. And one girl was arrested for vandalism. It's a pretty strange story."

The television was providing silent images that matched up with mom's story. There was a smashed mirror with a chair lying in the pile of broken glass. Kean wondered what made the girl get so angry that she swung around a chair. The picture switched to a shot from the roof of the theatre where the kids had watched the meteor shower. There were still a few sleeping bags left on the ground that had been forgotten in the commotion. A purposefully built tower of used plastic cups resting on the snack table swayed precariously in the wind but stayed upright somehow. Strange pictures and nonsense words were scrawled all along the brick wall on the edge of the roof. Something about the scene piqued Kean's curiosity and he decided to use his magesight. He had never tried using it to look at something being shown on television, and he assumed he'd see nothing unusual. It didn't seem possible that the mechanical method of capturing images through a camera would be able to broadcast the visual after-effects of magic use, but when Kean looked he saw a wave of colour covering the entire rooftop in view. Not only was he seeing a spell effect, but it was the biggest one he had ever seen.
Chapter 4 – Something's Happening at the Library

Things kept getting worse for Robert. First, the school trip had ended in a minor disaster of shouting and violence between all of the kids present. Karen had been crying in the corner while being consoled by her friends, and they had hissed at him to go away when he tried to go over and help her. The trip had ended with the most of the kids waiting outside for their parents to pick them up, standing on the curb in little clumps of confused and over-tired students. There was still so much ill will between the classmates that the fighting started again as soon as another kid would approach. Even the small groups of friends looked uneasy with each other. The teachers had barely been able to settle the whole scene down and work with the police when they arrived to deal with the vandalism.

In a way, the broken mirror had helped calm things down. Everyone had stopped shouting at each other as soon as the chair hit the mirror and the crash had echoed through the lobby. It had been a cathartic release of the building animosity and frustration in the room. Even Jennifer, the girl who had thrown the chair had calmed down after that. As soon as the glass shards had started hitting the ground she had sat patiently and offered to clean up the mess as they waited for the police. Robert had asked Jennifer if she was okay now, and her response had been a dazed look on her face and an unsure nod of her head.

"I don't even know why I did that" she said.

Robert wanted to keep asking her questions, but he had the feeling that Jennifer didn't have any other answers to give. Robert's mom had pulled up shortly after that. Her face was a map of panic and fear. Robert climbed into the car and she leaned over and hugged him.

"Are you okay, Robbie? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, mom. I'm fine. Everyone's fine. There was just a fight and Jennifer broke a mirror. It didn't involve me at all."

"That's a relief. When the school called I was just so worried."

"I'm fine, mom. I'm really tired and a little cold. Can we talk about what happened later?"

"Sure thing, honey."

After all the excitement, Robert was tired enough to fall asleep almost immediately, curled up in the passenger seat with his head leaning against the window. He drifted off while his mom quietly hummed to herself, and every time the car came to a stop, she leaned over and gently stroked Robert's hair as he slept.

Robert went to school the next day hoping and wishing that everything would be back to normal. By lunchtime it was pretty clear that he wouldn't get his wish. The bad feelings between classmates were still simmering and threatening to boil over at the slightest provocation. Luckily, the conflicts weren't as potent as they had been at the theatre, but as the day wore on, it was progressively harder for the teachers to handle it. At the start of drama class, Mr. Donald had led two students into the class from the custodian's closet where he had found them in the middle of a passionate make-out session. When Mr. Donald paraded the two students up to the front of the room to make an example of them, Robert was relieved to see that Karen wasn't one of them. It was Jenna and the new boy who had just moved here from Beijing, Yuanqing. He didn't even speak English, really, and Robert had never seen Jenna try to talk to the boy before, so it was baffling to know that they had some kind of relationship and were just in the closet kissing. Robert couldn't comprehend the concept of kissing somebody who might not even know your name.

The room had erupted in hooting and catcalls as Mr. Donald explained their crimes, and it got rowdier from there. He bellowed at everyone to "shut up and line up!" in a voice that none of the students had ever heard their timid drama teacher use. The students scurried to opposite sides of the room, divided by gender. All of this had happened around Robert but not involved him. Whatever was making the rest of the class go crazy didn't seem to be affecting him.

He was the last one to line up, and Mr. Donald took that as a sign of disobedience.

"That is it, Mr. Sung. You have pushed me too far. You are going home for the day, and I will contact your mother as soon as I restore order here and calm down. Go straight to the principal's office."

Robert wanted to question his teacher and explain that he wasn't trying to be disobedient, but the angry and wild look on Mr. Donald's face convinced him to just hurry up and leave the room.

He sat in the principal's waiting room for almost half an hour before anyone acknowledged him. It was his first time being sent to the office for discipline and he didn't have any idea on what was supposed to be happening. He was afraid that he wasn't doing something he was supposed to do, but he was equally afraid of drawing more attention and trouble to himself, so he sat quietly. Eventually, the principal popped her head out and told him to head home.

"I guess your class was a little disorganized today, so Mr. Donald suggested the rest of the day as a self-directed study day. I've talked to your mom and she's comfortable with you walking home. Is that okay with you?"

"Is that all?" Robert asked. He was relieved to not be trouble but the situation was confusing him.

"Seems to be. Mr. Donald wasn't very clear about what had happened, but he did remember that you were supposed to go home. Did you ask to go home? Are you feeling alright?"

"Oh yeah. I'm fine. I have my astronomy project to work on at home anyway."

"Great, great. Off you go."

The principal disappeared back into her office and left Robert on his own to figure out what was going on around him. He packed up his backpack and started his walk home.

His favourite way to walk home took him past the J.T. Carrouther Public Library. It was the biggest of the 5 libraries in Antler Branch, with the best reference section and a huge room dedicated to public access internet. The best feature of the library for Robert was the announcement poster boards at the front doors. The entire wall was taken up with display space for all of the upcoming music performances, theatre shows, seminars and countless other types of special events. Staring at the sea of colourful posters always gave Robert a sense of endless possibility, as if his own life could go in any direction he wanted it to go.

He made his way down the 3 blocks of office buildings that stood between his school and the library, weaving through the pedestrian traffic caused by the lunch hour exodus, until he stood before the poster boards. He started reading, tracing a path from one poster to the next with the tip of his finger, getting lost in the words and images in front of him. Occasionally sounds from the seedy group of smokers huddled outside intruded in, curse words that were hard to ignore or strange laughter that sounded more like a dog barking. Robert wished that he had an iPod to block out unwelcome noise, but the best he could do at the moment was to put his hands over his ears and wish for the group to just shut up.

The smokers became agitated over some kind of disagreement. The motion of flailing arms caught Robert's eye and he looked over to see what was happening. Two men were the center of the commotion. One of them looked very angry and the other looked fearful and apologetic. Robert unplugged his ears to find out what was happening, and he heard the angry man yell "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?" as he grabbed the other man's coat. Robert couldn't hear the other man's reply, and the angry man couldn't either, which sent him into a rage. He threw the apologetic man through the open front door. The man tumbled inside and rammed into Robert at the board. The man stood up and mumbled something menacing to Robert, and even though he couldn't understand the low-spoken words, he was frightened enough by the situation that he ran out of the library and kept running all the way home.

He locked the door and nervously watched television until his mom finally came home from work. At least inside of their apartment, everything was normal and everything made sense. He tried to tell his mom what had happened today and how weird it had all been, but his words came out in a hurried jumble that was very hard to understand. His mom pulled him into a hug and told him not to worry about it.

"This too shall pass. It's hard to manage your emotions when you're an adult, never mind when you're a teenager. They'll all calm down and school will be back to normal tomorrow."

Robert hoped that his mom was right.

After dinner, Robert pulled out the crafting supplies from the storage closet and started building a paper lantern. Chinese New Year was still months away, but he loved the lantern festival and making lanterns always made him happy. When he was 5 years old, he had gone to the Lantern festival in Chinatown for the very first time. His parents had still been together, and they had gone there as a family. His father was a silent and grim man with no use for frivolity, but his fearsome loyalty to Chinese tradition overcame his dour nature. That night was the happiest memory Robert had of his father, as they walked around the crowded streets looking at all of the lanterns and eating sweet treats. His father had been quiet but he nodded in approval at the people they passed and the things that they saw, as if everything was going as expected.

The car ride home from the festival had been less enjoyable. After a 12 hour work day and hours spent walking through the streets of Chinatown, Robert's father had run out of patience and was in a rush to get home. Robert sat in the back of the car and talked happily about the lanterns and how magical they had been. "I want to make lanterns when I grow up" he had declared.

"Don't be so foolish, Robert. Playing with paper lanterns is the business of children. You will work hard and go to university. There is no magic. Magic is for fools and crazy old women."

Even though the night had ended once again with family tension created by his father, the beauty of the night and the lanterns floating up into the sky had stayed with Robert. No matter what his father said, there was some small magic inside of the round shapes. The trouble of the day faded away into the night as Robert worked with glue and paper to make something beautiful.
Chapter 5 – Lunchroom Ruckus

"It filled the screen, Mal. Everything was washed over in magic"

Kean was explaining what he had seen on television last night as he sat in the cafetorium and ate his lunch with Mallory. Originally, Mallory was scheduled to have lunch an hour later than Kean, but with some clever fast-talking this morning, Mal had convinced her guidance counsellor to switch her lunch period so that it matched up with Kean's. There were so many things she wanted to discuss with Kean, that she couldn't imagine wasting an hour by eating separate lunches. She munched a French fry and considered what he had said.

"Maybe your television is busted. It's that old one in the kitchen right?"

"So you think my T.V. malfunctioned and started to incorrectly display magical traces? Is that kind of problem listed in the repair manual?"

"Oh fine. Shoot down my ideas, and be a jerk about it."

"Sorry. But it wasn't the television. It was the rooftop. Everything else after that in the broadcast looked normal and non-magical."

"I tried to watch T.V. with magesight last night and I didn't see anything different. Then again, it's hard to tell if there was nothing to see or if I'm doing it wrong."

"I've never done it before. I guess I assumed that magic wouldn't show up on T.V. The colour was weird too."

"All spell colours are weird. You said so yesterday. If every magical person has their own colour then there has to be an endless supply of weird colours, unless there are only 3 of us."

"Three?"

"You, me, and this rooftop magician you're telling me about. We don't have proof of anything else."

Kean shrugged his shoulders and drank his orange juice as he doodled on the notepad on the table. It gave him something to do while he decided if he liked the idea of being one of only 3 spell casters in the world.

"I think there are more than just three of us. Like you said, it's the law of averages."

"Yup. But it also occurs to me that maybe the normal laws of the universe don't quite apply to magic. We won't know until we meet some other users, if they're out there. So I think we should start looking."

"What do you mean, Mal?"

"It's time to play detective. We're going to find the guy or girl who did the rooftop spell and ask them what they know about magic."

"Is that detective work or stalking?"

"Hush up, K. This will be fun. And we have to get a bigger frame of reference for the world of magic or we're never going to learn to use it well. We can only teach each other so much."

"You're right. Where do we start?"

"The rooftop of the theatre, obviously. Some kind of big spell was cast up there. What was the news report about again?"

"An overnight class trip from Robertson Hall got out of control and the police were called because of vandalism. A few of the students were hysterical by the time their parents came to get them."

"Any drugs or alcohol mentioned?"

"There was some suspicion of that, but they didn't find anything."

"It's not a very good connection, but for now let's say that the spell and the commotion are involved somehow. The best source of information would be one of the students or their teacher. I don't think we can make it to Robertson Hall and back before lunch is over."

"Mallory, we can't just walk into some other school and start interrogating people. They'll throw us out. We're not cops, we're kids."

Mallory tossed her nest of curly hair back in a gesture of defiance and stood up.

"Kean, you underestimate my powers of persuasion. Since we cannot find a student who was there, I'll look for someone who lives near the theatre."

"New Tecumseh is 30 minutes away by car. How are you going to get there?"

"I'm not going there. I bet someone at this school lives out there in the expensive new housing subdivision, and I'm going to find them. Are you coming?"

"I haven't eaten my sandwich yet."

"Fine. You stay here and wait for me instead of helping out. Enjoy your sandwich."

Mallory turned and stomped out of the room on her way to the office. At the desk of the office secretary, Mallory put on her best smile and delivered her cover story.

"Hi! I was wondering if you could give me a little help. My mom is considering moving us to New Tecumseh to a new house, and I'm not sure I want to go. I'd like to talk to another student who lives out there so I can get a better understanding of what my life would be like if we moved."

The secretary was an older lady who looked like the most unfriendly grandmother in the world. She sighed and told Mallory that she couldn't help her.

"I'm afraid it's against policy to give out any personal information dear."

"But I don't want to know their address or phone number. I just want to know the name of somebody who lives out there and I'll go find them myself."

"I'm sorry but I can't help you."

"Are there a lot of students who live out there? What are my chances of finding one? Help me out here!" Mallory was getting pushy and frustrated.

"Young lady I can't spend my time saying the same thing again and again. I cannot tell you any personal information about any other student. Now please leave and return to wherever you are supposed to be."

"But-"

"Goodbye!"

And with that, the secretary lowered her head and ignored Mallory. Mallory stood at the desk for another couple of moments, debating the value of giving the secretary a piece of her mind. "I should give her itchy feet or too small underwear" she thought to herself, but before she began to cast a spell she caught herself and turned away from the desk.

Mallory hated the idea of going back to Kean empty-handed, and she definitely didn't want to tell him that he was right about the limits of her persuasiveness. She wandered in the hallway out front of the office to delay her return and hope for a better idea, but nothing was coming to her. Mallory's frustration and disappointment was so great that she stood staring at a map of all the school bus routes for a full five minutes before she realized that she had her answer right in front of her. Specifically, the answer was bus 4662, the out of town bus. The girl who sat beside Mallory in home room was the type who could not shut up, no matter how disinterested you were, but somewhere in the volumes of boring details about her life there had been something useful. That chatty girl, Paula, had mentioned three times this morning alone, that she was an out of town student.

Mallory raced back towards the lunch room with her eyes peeled for chatty Paula. Paula was sitting by herself at a table in the hallway outside of the cafetorium. Her face lit up as Mallory sat down. "Hi!" Paula squealed, and she took a deep breath in preparation for unleashing another verbal tirade. Mal interrupted her with a question.

"Do you live near the Old Alexander theatre?"

"What? What's that?"

"Big building. They put on plays there."

"I don't know."

"It's not a big town, Paula. There can't be that many big buildings. Do you live near any of them?"

"Probably not. I live in the new subdivision right on the edge of the town. We never go into the town, unless we need something from the bakery or the grocery store. And one time last year, we saw this musical show thingy, it was about a girl and her three dads, it was set in Greece. It was called 'Mamma Mia' and it had all of these songs that my mom knew but they were pretty good anyway and the whole room was filled with people singing and dancing and it was a pretty big room-Hey! I think maybe that was a theatre! I have been there! So no I totally don't live near there."

Mallory bit her tongue and dug down deep for some patience. She would make sure to sit on the other side of the room from Paula tomorrow.

"Okay that's great, Paula. Do you know anyone who does live near the theatre?"

"I do! Charlie Howard does! He's in grade 12 and he gets on the bus before I do. His house is absolutely beautiful, an old house that they renovated and he has a pool table and-"

Mallory was on the verge of shouting her questions. "Where can I find Charlie right now, Paula? Do you have any idea?"

"He's in there, selling tickets for the football raffle."

Paula pointed to the cafetorium, and Mallory ran from the table as fast as she possibly could, throwing a 'thank you' over her shoulder through gritted teeth.

The raffle table was just inside the door and was staffed by one bored-looking teenage boy. Mallory didn't recognize him, but her contact with the senior students was very limited. She assumed that he was Charlie and so she walked right up and started questioning him.

"Hi there. Do you live near the Old Alexander theatre?"

"Uh, what?"

"The theatre. In New Tecumseh. Do you live near it?"

"That's a dumb question. Do you want a raffle ticket or not?"

The boy pointed at the roll of tickets lying on the table and gave her a look of supreme annoyance at being bothered. Mallory changed tactics and went for charm.

"Is this for the football team? I've heard our team is going to be great this year. Really strong senior players."

"Yeah. Want a ticket?"

"Well actually I came over to talk to you. I get so nervous when I'm talking to guys, especially handsome guys like you, and that's why I was asking those dumb questions before. I was just trying to, you know, get to know you."

This was her first attempt at flirting with anyone. It felt so incredibly awkward that she was sure he would laugh her out of the room. It made it worse that he wasn't particularly good-looking. Charlie was a plain and average guy with a permanent scowl on his face. "Note to self" she thought "no more flirting until you know what you're doing".

Instead of sending her away, however, Charlie's attitude transformed. The scowl was replaced by a wide smile and he leaned closer to talk to her.

"Wow. No one's ever called me handsome before."

"That's hard to believe."

"You're handsome too. I mean, pretty."

"Thanks. Can I ask you a question?"

"More than pretty. You are beautiful."

Charlie was leaning in so closely that Mallory feared he would tip forward and fall at her feet. She took a step back from the table.

"So Charlie did anything weird happen 2 nights ago? Maybe at the old theatre?"

"I know what will happen tonight. I'll be dreaming of you. Can I call you after school?"

"My phone is, ah, broken right now. But I'll give you the number when it's fixed."

"I can't wait. Can I meet you parents?"

Mallory was officially creeped out. The dull, love struck stare in Charlie's eyes was devoid of intelligence, and he was getting too friendly for her liking. She backpedalled quickly away from the table and her unwelcome suitor.

"We'll talk about my parents later. It was great to meet you Charlie. I have to go now."

Mallory marched back to Kean and explained the situation to him.

"I found someone who lives near the theatre but the questioning didn't go so well."

"I saw that. I think we should leave now, through the back exit. He's following you."

Mallory looked over her shoulder and saw Charlie lumbering through the crowd as he headed towards her. When he saw her looking at him, his idiotic smile widened and he started waving to her.

"This way" Kean said as he grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the stage. They followed the same path backstage as his escape two days ago, and with a quick alteration to the route, they ended up in an open and empty classroom.

"We should be safe here. Did you see it, Mal? The spell is affecting him."

"What?"

"I was watching with magesight when you were talking to him, mostly for practice, and the spell is on him."

"Why didn't you warn me?"

"I couldn't see it at first. It was hidden away until you started to act funny."

"Funny?"

"Yeah, you started to twirl your hair and smile more. Whatever you did triggered the spell and it started to glow."

"That was flirting. I think it was, anyway. I'm never doing that again."

"So the flirting triggered it, and the spell actually tried to spread to you. It couldn't reach you for some reason."

"This stupid spell tried to mess my mind up? Oh I am going to give that magician a kick in the butt when we find him. Or her. So what do we do now?"

"You have to avoid him. Whatever's happening to him is causing him to follow you."

"I think he wants to kiss me. He wanted to meet my parents too. I am not prepared for this level of affection."

"Hopefully it will wear off if he doesn't see you for a while."

Mallory paced around the room and considered the plan.

"I'm not running from this goofball, Kean. I hate running away. And we have no proof that the spell will fade. He could be in love with me for the rest of his life because of this spell, and I do not want to be the object of his affection. Here's my plan. I go find him and lead him back here. We will use our magic to cancel the spell on him, and then we'll resume our search for the caster."

"I have no idea how to cancel another mage's spell."

"Neither do I, but I'll make something up. Are you with me?"

"It's a terrible plan but I'm with you, Mallory. Please don't do anything crazy."

Mallory slipped out of the classroom, leaving Kean to pace around and wait. A few minutes later Mallory returned with Charlie in tow. Charlie was slack-jawed and happily following behind her. When he spotted Kean, his face darkened.

"Who is this? He better not be your boyfriend. There's no way he's good enough for you."

Charlie moved menacingly towards Kean. Mallory popped between Charlie and his intended target and cheerfully diffused his imminent attack.

"Oh, him? No, no. He's not my boyfriend. I only have eyes for you. He's just one of my friends. We live across the street from each other, more or less."

"Then why is he here? You said we were going to be alone together?"

Mallory shivered with the repulsive idea of being alone with Charlie and whatever he thought that would entail. She moved on and hoped he hadn't noticed.

"We will, but I wanted him to meet you first. I had to tell someone that I've met the perfect guy. Charlie, meet my friend...George."

Kean raised an eyebrow at being given a false name. Mallory gave him an intent look and he decided to go with it. He reached around Mallory and put his hand out for Charlie to shake it.

"Nice to meet you, Charlie. So, tell me about yourself."

Charlie didn't reply or shake Kean's hand. Now that Kean had been identified as a romantic non-threat, Charlie had lost interest in him.

"Go on, honey. Tell him about yourself. No wait. I have an even better idea. We're going to guess things about you, based on your body language. I want you to sit on this chair over here, and George and I are going to try and read you."

Charlie looked confused by the idea, as did Kean, but Charlie obediently sat down.

"Now, George. Let's look at him and try to do that thing we do."

"Oh. Oh! Okay. Are you sure you're ready?"

"As ready as I can be. You try first, and I'll watch."

Kean nodded and started to pull spell energy towards him. He was having trouble finding a next step for the spell, until he saw his spell as a snake preparing to eat the spell surrounding Charlie. He pictured a fat boa constrictor with its jaw unhinged and ready to swallow, and at his bidding it slithered forward and began consuming the spell nimbus around Charlie. The coloured light around Charlie dimmed and shrunk until it was almost invisible, and the snake had swollen with the consumed energy. There was a strain associated with maintaining the snake spell that Kean had never encountered before while using magic and he had to release the spell. He had pushed himself too far, and he didn't have enough strength left to control where the magic went after he released it. It flooded his body and ached like an electric shock. His mind felt twitchy and sore, like the one time he drank a 2 litre bottle of cola in an hour Kean slumped back into a chair and closed his eyes for a minute.

"Hey, are you okay, Ke-George?"

Mallory sounded very worried. Kean could only manage a head nod to say he was alright.

"Oh crap. Open your eyes, if you can. Please. I need you to see this too. Please look!"

Kean popped open one eye and looked at Mallory and Charlie.

"What? I don't see anything." He croaked.

"Use your other sight. Hurry!"

Kean groaned and switched into magesight. Everything was too bright and painful using magesight right now. It took him a moment to acclimatize and see what Mallory was so worried about. The spell on Charlie had returned. It wasn't as active as it had been, but it was there. And it still had the strange effect of being not one, but three different colours at the same time. One was a mage's spell colour, but the other two were different. The third colour made him feel nauseous and scared when he tried to focus on it.

"It didn't work. The spell's too powerful."

"Do you see the weird colour thing too? Is that normal, K?"

"I don't think so."

Charlie spoke up. "What are you talking about? What's weird? What's happening here?"

"Nothing. Just a drama exercise. We have to go."

Mallory grabbed Kean and led him out of the classroom. He recovered from the energy release by the time they reached his locker. Mallory looked around to make sure Charlie hadn't followed them.

"Well at least I lost lover boy. That's a plus. I think you knocked down the spell enough that he stopped fixating on me. I hope so, anyway."

"I'm afraid that this is turning into a bigger problem than we can handle. We should lay low until the end of the day. Try to use your magesight in every class."

"What are we looking for, K?"

"The spell. I think it's spreading."
Chapter 6 – Back To Nature

The woods seemed ominous and menacing to Mal and Kean as they walked through it after school. They were paranoid from spending their afternoon looking for malignant magic in every corner of every room and the fearful sensation was hard to shake. They spent several minutes sitting quietly and straining to hear anything creeping up on them, afraid to even talk to each other in a whisper. Kean was the first one to relax enough to start talking.

"I didn't see any other traces of the spell. Did you?"

"No. Nothing magical was happening in history class or art. Charlie is still spell struck-is that what we can call it?"

"I guess so. I didn't get an owner's manual. You didn't go looking for him, did you?"

"Geez, no. I wanted to stay very far away from him but we ended up crossing paths in the hall anyway. He walked right by me without saying a word. When I remembered to breathe again, I checked and saw the spell. We should name it."

"I'm confused. Name what?"

"The spell we're trying to stop. Something like a code name so we can talk about it around other people."

"We could just call it 'Alex."

"Hmm. That's pretty good, but I think we should call it 'Old Alex'. Sounds better to me."

"Sure Mallory. It doesn't matter to me, so I'll go with your suggestion. What do we know about Old Alex? Let's make a list."

"It's a strange type of spell with 3 different colours. Maybe 3 different people made it?"

"Maybe. We should test that idea by doing a spell together later. And the spell tried to go from Charlie to you but it couldn't get to you. We should also test if we can affect each other with a harmless spell."

"I have another one. The Old Alexander theatre is involved. It might even be where the spell was cast."

Kean made notes in the back of his geography notebook. "The students on the class trip were probably affected. And at least one person who wasn't on the trip was affected too."

Mallory rolled her eyes and shivered at the thought of loverboy Charlie. "I hope that's not how boys really get when they fall in love with someone, because it was really creepy and gross."

"I'll add that to our list. 'Unnaturally strong and sudden affection.'"

"Wait. The police were called to the theatre because there was vandalism. Someone, a girl, threw a chair at a mirror."

"So?"

"So, that doesn't sound like an after-effect of a love spell to me."

"What if she loved someone and they rejected her?"

"Even if that's what happened, tossing a chair is pretty extreme, K. I think we should change it to 'unnaturally strong and sudden emotion."

Kean thought about this for while. Mallory paced around and kicked at the multitude of leaf piles at her feet. He came to a decision.

"We really don't know much about this at all. We need help."

"Who do we ask for help, K? Do we look up the magicians in the phone book and interview them until we find a real one?"

"Normally I'd ask my mom for help. But she doesn't know anything about what I've been going through."

"Did you ever want to tell her?"

"Yeah. I want to tell both of my parents. It's hard to keep such a big secret from them."

Mallory fiercely stomped down on a fallen tree branch, and grimaced in satisfaction when it snapped in two.

"I know. It sucks to hide this from my mom. Why haven't you told yet?"

"I'm afraid."

"That they won't believe you?"

"Sort of. But my real fear is that, if I tell them all about the magic, it will stop working for me. And I like being a mage. It makes me feel special."

"Your magic kept working after you told me about it?"

"I think it's different with another magic user. And I still haven't told you exactly how I cast, just like you haven't told me, and we should keep it that way."

"Gotcha. Hey Kean, I should tell you something. I actually did try to tell my family."

"What?"

"Last month. My big sister Emily was back home for the summer, and just before she was leaving to go back to Victoria, I tried to tell her. She wouldn't believe me, and I don't blame her, because I was raving like a lunatic. All of this came pouring out of my mouth in a single breath, and it didn't even make sense to me. I got pretty angry and upset. I was going to prove it to her by casting a spell on her, but at the last second, I got a very bad feeling about doing that. I'm glad I didn't go through with it."

"I agree it was a good idea not to nuke your own sister with a spell."

"I wasn't going to hurt her, jerk. Just something showy, like fireworks from my fingers or something."

"Can you describe the bad feeling with any kind of detail? Was it kind of a headache, stomach ache, and need to sneeze all rolled into one?"

Mallory's eyes widened with surprise. "That's it exactly. How did you know?"

"I felt the same thing once. I was going to use a spell to float down from the roof of my house, as a part of a dare. Just before I cast the spell I got that feeling. I think it was a warning of the backlash coming for me if I cast that spell."

"What was warning you? Nature? God? The secret invisible mage's council?"

"Dunno. Maybe the magical part of me knew and it was warning me. Maybe the universe doesn't like being pushed in implausible directions."

"We really need a tutor or something. I'll dig around and see what I can find."

"As long as you don't start asking random strangers if they can do magic. Speaking of magic, we can at least figure out if we can combine spells and what that looks like."

Kean pulled out his keys and put them on the ground.

"I'll make the keys float, you make them glow."

Kean focused on the keys and visualized a hummingbird threading its nose through the key ring and lifting it up off the ground. The keys rose in response, hovering a foot from the earth. With magesight Kean saw the keys enveloped in the gentle glow of his mage colour. The keys started to glow with a pale white light as Mallory's spell colour joined Kean's and intertwined with it. The two mage colours didn't mix together, but twisted and cavorted around each other. On the count of three, both Mallory and Kean ended their spells, and the keys fell down into the leaves and disappeared.

Kean sat down too quickly with a heavy thud, helped down to the ground by backlash. Mallory knelt down and looked for Kean's keys. She squinted and lowered her face down to just above the ground.

"I'm going to assume it didn't suddenly get real dark out here, and the trouble I'm having seeing anything is the backlash."

Kean grimaced. "Ouch. We should have done something a little more subtle than that."

"At least we know what it looks like when two spells affect the same thing. It didn't look like Old Alex."

"No. Not really. Did you find my keys?"

Mallory brushed her hands through the leaves on the ground and found the set of keys. She held them up and jingled them.

"Yup. Here they are. So what's next?

"We're going to try to cast a spell on another magic user."

"Do I try to cast on you, or you on me?"

"I'll cast. Walk over to the tall tree over there and back. I'll try to stop you. If it hurts or feels weird, shout out and I'll stop. Ready."

"Hurts? This better not hurt. I'm putting a lot of trust in you, Kean."

Mallory pointed at Kean as a part of her warning, and she walked across the clearing. Kean focused a spell to stop her from moving, a form of a goat in front of her using its head to butt her to a stop. Mallory walked through the spell effect with no difficulty.

"Okay, did you feel anything? I was trying to stop you from moving forward."

"Nothing at all. How did it look in magesight?"

"You just walked through the effect and the colour dissolved into the air. Try walking back now."

On the return trip, Kean focused on the ground in front of Mallory. He pushed a tree root up to the surface with a magical burrowing gopher Mallory's foot caught on exposed root and she stumbled forward. He caught her before she hit the ground. They shared a brief but awkward moment in each other's arms before pulling away from each other.

"That is very interesting. I can't affect you directly with a spell, but I can indirectly target you."

"Great, thanks. Remind me later that I owe you a trip."

"Sorry, it was the only thing I could think of."

"I forgive you. Now what's our next step?"

Kean blew the hair out of his eyes and sighed. "I still don't know. Old Alex is too powerful and too unknown for us to do anything about, but it's affecting people around us and it's going to spread. If we knew more about it, or about magic in general, we could come up with a way to stop it."

"Maybe. I don't feel very powerful right now. Do you?"

"No. And it's not our problem to fix. But somebody will have to fix it."

"We can always ride around on our bikes looking for traces of magic. That might-hey did you hear that?"

Kean looked around and intently listened for whatever sound had caught Mal's attention. From above them in the branches of the tree an out-of-place noise buzzed.

"There it is again! It sounds like...snoring!"

Mallory looked up into the tree's canopy for the source of the sound and shouted "Hey! Hey You! Wake up!" as she started shaking the lowest branches.

"Calm down, Mal."

"Calm down? We don't know how much he or she's heard, or why they're spying on us!"

"They're asleep. You can't do very much spying while unconscious."

Their argument over the spy in the treetop was cut short when the sleeping spy suddenly fell from the tree, landing in a heap in front of them. Kean and Mallory stared at the boy lying at their feet until a small groan came from him. Kean helped the boy sit up and asked him if he was alright. The boy looked up at Kean with squinting eyes and a smile on his face.

"I am well. It is very bright. Hello!"

The boy turned to Mallory and repeated his cheery greeting. Kean helped the boy stand up and got a better look at the kid who had been sleeping in a tree in the middle of the day. He looked to be the around the same age as Kean and Mallory. He was tall and thin, with his bristling iridescent copper hair adding another 3 inches to his overall height. Mallory thought that he had a handsome face, but it was more sympathetic and friendly than romantic. He reminded Mallory of a very tall puppy. Kean couldn't stop looking at the boys' clothing.

"Is your coat made out of leaves? Here, stand up."

Kean pulled the boy to his feet and took a better look at him.

"It is made out of leaves. And your shoes are bark. That is very strange."

"What's strange is that he was hiding up in the tree trying to spy on us. Weren't you?"

Mallory pushed an accusing finger into the boy's chest. His smile didn't waver for a second.

"I wasn't spying. What is spying? I was sleeping."

"Why were you in the tree?" asked Kean.

"This is a tree. I was in it. It is where I landed."

The boy looked uncomfortable squinting into the light. Kean dug through his backpack and found a pair of sunglasses to give to him.

"Why are you giving him gifts, Kean?"

"He needed it. And there's something very different about him. I think we should take a closer look at him."

Mallory picked up the hint and switched to magesight. Both Kean and Mallory let out involuntary gasps when they saw one of the colours of Old Alex emanating from the boy standing in front of them.

"He's affected by old Alex." Kean said in a hushed voice.

"I think you're wrong, Kean" replied Mallory. "Look at the intensity of the colour, and how it surrounds every part of him. I think he's a part of the spell itself. Hey kid, what are you?"

The boy looked back and forth from Kean to Mallory, and then his smile brightened.

"I can show you."

He reached out to touch their hands. At the moment of contact, the world around them blinked out of existence.
Chapter 7 – What Are You?

Mallory and Kean found themselves standing in an endless room that was undefined by any finite boundaries. The space was filled with a soft, mauve glow. The light warmed them and gave them a sense of safety. Directly across from them stood the smiling boy.

"Where are we?" asked Mallory. She tried to move a little closer to Kean but found it more difficult than she imagined. The sensation was very much like swimming, as if the air in this strange place was thick enough to resist your movements. Mallory pushed herself off of the ground, and she gave a little frightened shriek when she started to slowly spin uncontrollably in the glowing air. The boy gracefully floated across the space and slipped to her side. He reached out and gently stopped her aerial rotation.

"We are Sharing.".

"Sharing what? I don't understand."

The boy looked slightly puzzled at this response.

"The Sharing. You can see what I have seen. Do you use a different word for it?"

Mallory stared at the boy, dumbstruck. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Kean spoke up and asked "can you show us what you mean?"

The boy nodded and smiled. Out of the formless light two adults and a child appeared. The child looked like a smaller version of the boy.

"Are these your parents? Is that you?" Mallory asked.

"Yes. This is the first time I was a part of the Sharing."

Mallory and Kean both noticed that they were watching the scene unfold with their magesight, even though neither of them had purposefully turned it on. Kean tried to turn his magesight off as an experiment, but he wasn't able to. For a flickering moment, his magesight stopped and he was left in a darkness that had no hint of light. The space did not exist in a way that his normal vision could interact with. It was intense and overwhelming, and Kean was very glad to have his magesight when it returned a half-second later.

A small pocket of light rose from the father's head, and within in the ovoid shape, they could see tiny representations of the family in front of them.

"Wow, that's recursive." Kean muttered.

"What does that mean? Is it bad?"

"No. It's just the word to describe when something shows the same thing, but smaller. Like two mirrors facing each other. At least, I think that's what it means."

"What does this mean? What is he showing us?"

They watched the scene for a few moments, but the tableau in front of them held static and didn't offer any new answers. Kean turned to the boy.

"So your father brought you into a place like this to share something with you?"

"Yes. Share his...memory? Is that the right word?"

"So he was showing you something that he had experienced in the past?"

The boy smiled and nodded.

"I guess we're in your memory now."

"We're in his head? How is that possible, K?"

"Would you happy if I said it was magic? Are we physically in your head?"

"No. We are still there."

He pointed to a newly formed picture of the three of them in the forest clearing, standing as they had been before arriving in this new strange place.

Mallory was becoming upset at the profoundly unnatural situation she was caught in. "How can we get out of here? This is freaking me out. Hey you-what's your name?"

The boy frowned at the question and tried to find an answer for it. Images sprung up around them as he looked for a suitable explanation. In the forest scene, a bird landed gently on the boy's finger. In his memory of his first sharing, the imaginary sky lit up with a million stars.

Mallory studied the two images. "Stars? Bird? Starbird? Starling? Your name is Starling?"

The boy pondered for a moment. "That is similar to my home-name."

"You're named after a bird? Are your parents hippies? And what's a 'home name'?"

"Not a bird. That meaning is only yours. The other meaning is almost right."

Kean thought about the boy's answer, and he gave a guess. "I think he means 'little star' or 'child of a star'. Is that right?"

"That is acceptable."

"And maybe home name is the name he's called at home?"

"But how would that be different than your out-of-the-house name? A name is a name!"

"Different cultures have different traditions for names, Mal. Don't measure everyone else to the way you were raised."

"That's called ethnocentric and I am not. I have no evidence to suggest that this guy is from a different culture."

"Other than the dream-sharing and falling out of a tree and glowing with intense, weird magical energy."

Mallory scowled ferociously at Kean. She hated it when he was right and she was wrong.

"Well I can't call him a bird. What about Sterling?"

"Why is that better?"

"At least it's a real name, Kean. Some guitar player for a band my mom likes has that name."

"I like that name. I am Sterling."

"Great. Sterling, how the heck do we get out of here? I don't want to stand around like a zombie and have squirrels making a nest in my hair. Who knows how long we've been standing around with our mouths open, staring into space?"

"It is the same time. The Sharing has no length."

Kean asked another question. "So time isn't passing while we are in here?"

Sterling shook his head. "Time cannot stop, but things that happen in the Sharing happen very quickly. May I start now?"

Kean gave a glance over to Mallory and looked for her response. She reluctantly nodded and Kean agreed.

"Show us what happened, Sterling."

The older scenes vanished and left a blank canvas in front of them. Sterling concentrated on the emptiness and began to fill it with artifacts from his memory. The newly built scene had Sterling standing alone in a wide open field. A warm phantom breeze gently wafted over Mallory and Kean, and hidden within the breeze was a hint of the smell of a vast and tropical ocean. The memory of Sterling was watching the sky above him, searching for something specific and he found it flying high above in the air. It was a flock of meteors rushing across the universe.

"I wanted to see the sky through the eyes of a star" Sterling narrated, and the memory held out his hands to the sky as it began to cast a spell.

"Kean, he's like us. That's a magic spell!" Mallory whispered excitedly.

Kean began to answer her but was silenced by the dazzling effect of the finished spell. They were all given a view of the universe through the eyes of a speeding meteor. It was a view that was both overwhelmingly beautiful and frighteningly alien. They felt disconnected from the planet beneath them and free to hurtle through space unhindered. From another corner of the sky a new colour came up to meet them. It was the first element of the Old Alex spell, the primary colour that Kean had first noticed in the spell mix. It joined with them as they flew through the ether and the primary spell started to pull at them. Sterling's spell intertwined with this new spell and the two of them moved towards the earth and away from wherever the memory of Sterling was standing.

Their vision filled with the sight of the earth growing larger and larger as they approached it. The light from the companion meteors beside them intensified as they reached the atmosphere. They felt a reluctant sadness emanate from memory Sterling as he prepared to end his spell. The two colours started to disengage when a sickly grey spell suddenly slammed into them. The new spell felt toxic and corrupt and it latched onto the primary spell and onto Sterling's spell with a mad ferocity. The sick grey fog billowed out of the memory scene and enveloped Kean, Mallory and Sterling in the present. Kean felt sick to his stomach and more afraid than he has ever felt, and as the fog choked out the light around them, he saw that the colour of Old Alex has been completed by the addition of the poisonous spell.

They awoke in the shapeless light, now without shape themselves. Even their thoughts were impossible to hold on to in the swirling nothingness. The brightness of the light was painful at first, but as time passed it grew dimmer. After a stretch of dimly lit darkness, the bright light returned.

Mallory spoke with a thin, raspy ghost of her own voice. "It's the sun rising and setting, isn't it Sterling?"

"The too-bright star that fills your sky. The sun. It hurt very much at the beginning. I had no idea where I was when I woke up after the spell. I was not really anywhere. I was in pieces. While your sun burned me I began to have form and shape again. I was built out of the things around me: From trees and soil, rocks and heat, I grew until I was a shape that could survive here. It was terrifying being rebuilt into a new body. So much of who I am has been forgotten. I cannot tell you where I am from, but I miss it. I know that I am special because I can cast magic, but I do not know how to use that gift to return home. When the body was made I heard and felt words near me. Your words that were said and thought, these were the seeds for my language. Parts of your language make no sense to me. These are things that must not be real for my previous life, but they are real enough here."

All three of them regained form and distinction from the memory space around them. The last image to be played for them is Sterling's sudden introduction as he rolled over and fell out of the branches that were holding him. When he touched down to earth, the shared memory ended.

Back in the real world, Mallory quickly checked her watch. "Woah. You weren't kidding about time moving slowly there. It's like no time has passed."

"I feel sorry that you have never experienced the Sharing before. It must be very lonely for you."

"We're just fine, buster. And if you ever want to do that again, you better ask me first. I don't like being dragged into someone else's head."

"I have to agree with Mal. That was disconcerting. It could turn out to be really handy, though."

"Why? Do you think we're going to come back to the weirdo in the forest for help?"

"Mal, we can't leave him out here. He's, well, he's lost."

"I am lost." Sterling said with an out of place cheerfulness in his voice.

"You see? It's not a bad thing. He's happy about it. I am cold and tired and I want to go home without worrying how to take care of Mr. Leafcoat here."

Mallory stamped her foot to punctuate her statement, and felt a serious hunger pang rumble through her stomach. Sterling pointed at Mallory's midsection and spoke excitedly.

"Me too! I have that feeling too! I am hungry!"

Mallory's eyes widened and she looked from Kean to Sterling and back again.

"How did he know I was hungry? How did you know that?"

"I felt it. It was a strong feeling."

"I'd accuse you of reading my mind, but I didn't think about being hungry. Oh no. Kean, I can feel his hunger too. See if you can feel it."

Kean felt silly checking for his own hunger and everyone else's until he discovered that he could.

"It looks like I can. I can feel Sterling's loud and clear. Yours is a really faint sensation. Sterling, is this normal? Is this what happens when you do the Sharing with someone?"

For the first time in their brief encounter with him, Sterling stopped smiling and looked confused and frightened.

"This is not something that happens. But the Sharing connected us together."

"Well I guess that answers the debate about leaving him here. Unless we want to feel him shivering and hungry all night, we better find a place for him to stay and some food."

Mallory made an angry grunting sound through her clenched teeth before answering Kean.

"Fine. But he's your responsibility. And I'm not teaching him how to use a fork or drink from a glass. And he's on his own when it comes to the bathroom!"
Chapter 8 – Herlech Gate

Herlech Gate sat motionless in the dark room, perched in the solitary chair placed in the middle of the floor. His eyes were pressed tightly shut to block out any trace of normal vision. In the darkness, he reached out with his magesight and resumed searching for the target of his hatred. He was hunting for the mage or mages who had interrupted his spell and ruined his months of planning and preparation.

The outlines of the buildings around him were traced in lines of magical ink, recreated out of his memory of them as he created a map of his surroundings. He found stray flickers of untapped magic from the unknowing people walking through the city, people who carried a tiny spark of magic within them but were absolutely unaware of the gift that they were wasting. The man used these flashes to illuminate the towers and streets around him. And he created an illusory version of the cityscape. Once the buildings were in place, he scanned slowly in every direction. He hoped to see even the merest flicker of that spell, with its peculiar blend of 3 spell colours. It was impossible for Herlech to forget that spell and the frustrated rage that came with it. He saw it even as he slept. He was haunted by the part of his own magic that was trapped in that autonomous spell. It lived of its own volition now, and he had no control over it.

The absence of visual stimulus from the mundane world should have helped him see the magical world more clearly, but tonight it was not enough to give him any help. There was no hint of that warped spell and the perpetrators that had twisted it out of his hands. With a growl in his throat he dismissed the vision of the map and opened his eyes and looked at the pathetic room around him.

He had picked this apartment because of its secluded nature. It was 4 floors up from the street, above a row of cheap surplus and dollar stores that were featureless and hard to remember. There were no other apartments on this floor, and that removed the possibility of a nosy neighbour interfering with any of Herlech's experiment. He had even blocked off the meagre light that came through the only window in the apartment. Herlech's experiments had revealed that witnesses seemed to amplify the repercussions from doing any magic that went against the established laws of nature. It was as if their perception of what was possible or impossible set the guidelines for reality, and unexplainable effects caused by magic were always in the 'impossible' category. Despite the immediate isolation of the apartment, he was still so close to the heart of downtown Toronto that he could find anything he needed in a heartbeat, even if what he needed was to disappear.

Herlech had become more cautious in his research, hesitant to pay another heavy cost like the one around his throat that tormented him constantly. His neck was a thick mass of scar tissue that looked like the bark of a log pulled from a long burning fire, with deep crevices running between the scaly plates. The scar ran from his collarbone to the edge of his chin, and it itched without relief every waking moment of every day since the day he received it. He picked at it whenever he was distracted, even though it did little to lessen the itching, and caused layers of dead gray skin to slough off. This was the price the universe had exacted on him for breathing fire.

He had found a small lean-to close to the Don River that was deserted and isolated. It had been perfect for his first full-scale attempt at a fire-breathing spell, and he had planned to burn the lean-to down to ashes on the ground. He had taken some precautions to appease whatever ruling body oversaw magical backlash by bringing a can of gasoline in a bright red container and a pile of rags. He would leave the gas and rags behind him to create a plausible explanation to anyone investigating the fire afterwards. They would assume it was ordinary arson and the universe's expectations would be met.

Herlech had staged the area in preparation for his experiment, and he summoned the spell energy to him. In his fixated focus on the task at hand, Herlech had failed to notice the small group of high school kids drinking under the railroad bridge nearby. The fire had erupted from his mouth in gouts of red and orange, and one of the kids had shouted out in terror at this unnatural sight. Herlech had jerked his head around to find the source of that shout, with a trail of combustion tracing his movement in the air. The flames quickly engulfed the lean-to and it turned to ash within seconds and Herlech had closed his mouth and focused his will to end the spell. To his horror and surprise he discovered that the stream of fire coming from his mouth had refused to die out at his command, and instead it thickened and ran out of his mouth like a viscous liquid. It began to sear his flesh when it reached his neck, although it curiously left his lips and chin untouched as it ran down.

He had run off in a panic, blinded by pain and lost. Herlech had fallen unconscious to the ground in a trash-strewn gully and stayed there until his body finally returned to consciousness after nightfall. He had pulled his scorched and tattered coat around his wounded body and stumbled around until he had found his bearings and somehow made his way back home.

Now he had to take care to cover the permanent wound when he went anywhere in public, unless he wished to be the centre of attention. It was now evident that he needed to have better protection from this kind of repercussion. Herlech's plan had been to create a talisman that would give him that protection, and after months of research and testing he settled upon the material that had the best chance of working. He would forge a magical charm out of a fallen meteor.

An intact meteor of any real size was highly improbable, and he theorized that he could hide his own unnatural spell effects behind the meteor's own improbability. At the very least, it should have obscured the smaller spells.

He had studied the skies for months, researching the upcoming meteor storm during countless hours at the university library. When the night of the meteor storm had arrived, he set his spell into action. But in the midst of pulling the meteor towards the earth, down to the fallow field where he was casting, another spell had roared into effect and overcame his magic. Somehow that spell had interceded and joined with his, ripping control away from him. He had wrestled against the usurper with all of his strength, but it had slipped through his fingers and left him defeated and barely able to stand.

In the days since the battle, he had been unable to think of anything other than his defeat at the hand of some unknown mage. From the first moment when his magical abilities manifested in his life, he felt a sense of power and confidence that had eluded him before that moment. He had become something special, better than the fools and tormentors of his childhood. He had walked away from that mundane life without a single regret, and as a part of his rebirth he had chosen a new name.

From the foggy depths of myth and superstition came the villainous subject of an ancient nursery rhyme. The rhyme had no official title and a thousand different origin stories. Some scholars insisted it was a meaningless poem, originally only a few verses long, with other non-canonical verses added by other authors, while a few conspirators whisper of a lost complete version that had hundreds of verses and foretold the future. He had thrown aside his old name and assumed the mantle of that dark-cloak Herlech Gate. It was unthinkable that a force of nature like Herlech Gate would sit idly by and allow another mage to ruin his plans without exacting a great and terrible revenge. He vowed that he would spare no effort, and pay any price necessary to track down the other spell-caster and destroy him with the fullest extent of his fell power. Herlech would rip that mage apart to show as an example of what would happen to anyone who would dare even consider crossing him. Renewed by his rage, he went to the door, wrapped a long thick scarf around his neck to disguise his hideous wound, and walked out into the city to continue his hunt.
Chapter 9 – Act Naturally

Mallory stood between the boys and her front door and read them the riot act.

"Sterling, this is my house and you need to try to be normal while we are here. My mom will notice anything weird going on and she will not make things easy for us if she suspects we're up to something."

"What is normal?" Sterling asked innocently.

Mallory sighed and stomped her foot. "Normal! Like any other kid our age. Don't say anything strange. Better yet, don't say anything."

"Mal, I don't think it's fair to ask him to be normal. He doesn't have any idea on what that is. Besides, you always say that your mom is cool with whatever you do. I'm sure she'll understand."

With a nervous giggle Mallory agreed. "Ah yeah. That's my mom. Cool. But... she's been under some stress at work lately so she might be a little grumpy. Probably not, because she's so awesome like I said, but just in case she is grumpy, I think we should help make dinner. And clean up afterwards. And remember, stay quiet Sterling. Ready?"

Kean was a little suspicious but gave Mallory a nod in agreement. She opened up the door and led the group through the hallway. They all kicked off their shoes and Mallory shouted "Mom, I'm home." A stern "I'm in the kitchen, Mallory. Please join me." response came rolling back down the hallway. Mallory grimaced and brought the three of them down the hall and left into the kitchen.

Mallory's mom was standing at the island in the middle of the large open concept kitchen and dining room, dismantling a head of romaine lettuce and putting the individual leaves into a white ceramic bowl. When her mom saw the two boys in tow behind Mallory, her eyebrows shot up and her eyes narrowed slightly.

"I am surprised that you've brought guests over without asking me first, Mallory. That's not how we normally do things, is it?"

"Uh, no mom. Sorry."

"So please tell me why these two gentlemen are in my house and in my kitchen."

"Well, we're showing Sterling around because he's new here, and I thought it would be nice to have him and my old buddy Kean over for dinner. How about we take care of the cooking, mom? You can just sit down and relax and we'll do the rest."

Mallory moved to the island and took the lettuce from her mom's hands. "Okay, we've got it. Go sit down, mom." Mallory tried to gently nudge her mom out of the way but she stood firm.

"You have a phone, Mallory, and you should have called and asked permission before bringing anyone home. Kean, does your mother know you're here?"

Kean blanched. "Oh geez. Nope. I better call her. Is it alright if I stay for dinner, Mrs. Davidson? I'm sorry for barging in like this."

"That's alright Kean. Yes you may stay for dinner. Go ahead and call your mom."

Kean left the room to use the phone in the hall, and Mrs. Davidson's gaze bore into Sterling.

"My daughter says that you have just moved here, is that correct?"

Sterling looked at Mallory and back to her mom. Mallory gave him a nod to encourage him to answer the question.

"Yes, I am new here. It is very nice."

"And what was your name, young man?"

"Sterling."

Mrs. Davidson's look of expectation was lost on Sterling. The silence grew heavy and awkward until Mallory blurted out "Leafcoat!"

"Excuse me?"

"His last name is Leafcoat. Sterling Leafcoat. Pretty strange eh?"

The silence returned as Mrs. Davidson studied Sterling, and it was finally broken when she turned and addressed Mallory.

"Mallory Bethany Davidson, that is the worst assumed name I have ever heard. I want an explanation on why you thought it was appropriate to lie to me and give him that preposterous name, and that explanation will be due as soon as you escort "Mr. Leafcoat" and Kean to the front door. For the record, you are grounded as of this moment"

"Mom! That's not fair. Give me a chance to explain."

"Get them out, Mallory. Right now, or so help me..." Mrs. Davidson's sentence came to a sudden halt. Her whole body had become frozen in that spot, unable to move or respond.

"Mom? MOM? Mom, what's wrong? Why can't you answer me? Kean! Get in here! NOW!"

Kean ran back into the room and tried to figure out what was going on.

"Mal, what's wrong?"

"My mom. She just stopped moving and talking. I can't even tell if she's breathing."

They circled Mrs. Davidson and looked for a sign of life or any signs of distress. Kean waited for an eternity until he finally saw her chest rise and fill with air.

"She's breathing, just really slowly. And her eyes are closed. Were they open before this happened?"

Mallory remembered the angry glare she had been on the receiving end of just moments ago. "Yeah, they were open."

Kean switched to magesight on a hunch. Mrs. Davidson was enveloped in a pale aura of shifting pink and red, and the aura trailed from her back to its source, Sterling.

"Sterling, what are you doing to her?"

"Oh my god, stop doing that to my mother, whatever it is. Leave her alone!"

Sterling's voice was slow and soft, like the murmurs of someone talking in their sleep.

"I am calming her down. She is unharmed and safe."

"Can you stop it without hurting her, Sterling? Mallory is very worried."

"Yes. I think so" Sterling answered as he closed his eyes and tried to end the effect.

Kean watched the aura dim until it vanished from sight. Mrs. Davidson's eyes opened up and they braced themselves for her reaction. They are all surprised to see her smile.

"Well Sterling, I'm glad we can have you at our dinner table tonight. Mallory honey, I'll be in my office while you kids make dinner. Call me when it's ready."

Mallory's jaw hung open in disbelief as her mother kissed her on the cheek and left the room, humming a cheery song on her way.

"That has never happened before. When mom gets angry, it takes her hours to calm down, and she never changes her mind on punishing me. NEVER. I want to know what you did to her, Sterling, and how I can fix it. But not right now. I don't want to spoil it. Now come on, we have a dinner to make."

Mallory assigned the cooking tasks evenly among the three of them and half an hour later they were serving spaghetti with meat sauce and garden salad. Her mom doesn't even bat an eye when Mallory asked permission to eat with her friends in the family room, which was a luxury normally saved for giant family dinners when there were more people than seats at the dinner table. In between mouthfuls of pasta they analyzed Sterling's new power.

"It's not a spell. Not exactly, anyway. I can't tell how it was different but it didn't look the same as a spell."

"Were you trying to cast a spell at my mother, Sterling?" Mallory was still riled up and couldn't help but sound accusatory.

"No. I was not casting a spell. I wanted to reach out to her and help her calm down. It felt very weird for me too when it happened. Very slow."

"It's pretty clear that you weren't trying to hurt her, but it's a good idea that you don't do that again. Have you done that to anyone before today?"

Sterling frowned and searched his fragmented memory. "I cannot remember doing that before now."

"Kean's right. No more of that. Who knows what the after-effects are? My mother might turn into some kind of zombie."

"Zombie, Mal?"

"She's already lost some memory. She totally spaced on my punishment and the dumb fake name."

"My name is Sterling Leafcoat?"

"Until we think of a better last name, I guess so. But don't tell anyone."

"I think it is a good name."

Mallory snorted. "You have to learn to loosen up when you talk, Sterling. It's getting harder and harder to listen to you with these little sentences."

"I am still learning how these words work together. There is a gap between the ideas I see in my head and the words I can use to describe the ideas. I will work at it. I am sorry."

Kean shot a disapproving look at Mallory. "Don't worry about it, Sterling. You're doing your best. Is there anything else about what you did in the kitchen that you can explain to us?"

Sterling shook his head and slurped up another mouthful of spaghetti.

"Just so you know, big guy, most people think slurping noodles is rude. My mom would lecture you about it, if she wasn't such a happy zombie right now. I should ask her for a pony or something while she's in a good mood."

"Try it on me" Kean said suddenly.

"Are you certain?" Sterling replied.

"Yeah. We should figure out how easy it is for you to do, and if it affects other magic users."

"But you said I shouldn't use it."

"This is just practice. It's fine. Go ahead when you're ready."

Sterling shrugged, put his fork down, and focused his attention on Kean. This time both Kean and Mallory watched with magesight as the pale pink aura expanded from Sterling and reached out to Kean. As it approached Kean the aura seemed to slow to a crawl as if it was encountering some kind of resistance. It slowly enclosed around Kean and held him there. With considerable effort, Kean raised his right arm and gave a thumbs up as a signal to Sterling. Sterling didn't react.

"Hey, Sterling. I think he wants you to stop. Hey! Sterling! Stop!"

Mallory waved her hand in front of Sterling's eyes until he finally shifted his gaze to her. As he did, the aura vanished, much more quickly than it had before. Sterling slumped into his chair and was breathing hard from exertion. Kean shook his head.

"It worked on me, but not completely. I could still move, it just took a lot of effort."

"That was very hard. I'm tired now and I do not want to do that again. When I reached out to your mother, it felt like she welcomed me and wanted to be calm. You were pushing back, and it felt unpleasant. My stomach is unhappy."

"You mean upset. Your stomach is upset. You feel like barfing." Mallory punctuated the explanation by making a retching sound which turned Sterling's face slightly green.

"Please stop doing that noise and face."

"Fine. Pick up your plates, boys. It's time to clean the kitchen."

"Are we done discussing Sterling's power?"

"We know as much as we can for now. When he feels someone's stress, he can give them a psychic timeout. It freezes them in place, and it slows him down too. If he targets a mage, it makes him sick. He can do it on purpose, but it might happen involuntarily, so he better keep himself under control. Anything else?"

"I can't think of anything."

"Great. You wash, I'll wipe down the counters, and Mr. Leafcoat can dry the dishes. And we should hurry, because I've got an idea. I'll be back in a minute."

Kean and Sterling gathered all of the plates and pots and pans that needed to be washed, and the sink was full when Mallory came back in and started wiping down the counter tops.

"I figured out what to ask my mom for while she was in such a good mood. We're going on a road trip to the Old Alex theatre."
Chapter 10 – On The Case

Mallory sat in the passenger seat and wondered if her mother was going to be unnaturally nice for the rest of her life. It served her purpose now, and it could be fun for a while, but after a while it would get too weird. It was so different from what Mallory was used to. Her mom wasn't mean, really, and she was never hurtful, but she lived by the letter of the law and she expected Mallory to obey every edict and rule without fail. That was a lot of pressure for someone with a short temper and an inquisitive nature. They had found some common ground here and there, and there had been a few minor accommodations as Mal got older, but the idea of being free to do anything and everything was unsettling.

They drove out of Antler Branch, passing through the quiet darkness of the farmlands as they headed north to New Tecumseh. Kean and Sterling were sitting in the back seat of the blue SUV and watching the murky landscape flash by. Other than a quick discussion on how to affix a seatbelt properly at the start of the drive, there had only been silence from back there. Mallory felt sleep creeping up on her and wondered if the guys were dozing in the back seat. The idea of Kean slumped over and snoring with his head in Sterling's lap made her giggle. Her mom looked over and smiled at her with a warmth that made Mallory stop worrying.

30 minutes later they stopped in front of the Old Alexander theatre and all three kids hopped out of the car. Mrs. Davidson rolled down her window and asked if she should go with them. "It's a little strange to just drop you off here, Mal. I don't see a soul around here."

"Oh mom, it's fine. There's a show starting in an hour and a half, so everyone's inside getting ready. They know that kids are supposed to come look at the theatre this week, so the ushers are expecting us to walk in at some point."

"Still, maybe I should park and come in."

"Oh come on. We'll be fine. I thought you'd be cool about this."

Kean saw a frown furrow Mrs. Davidson's brow, working its way through her easy-going mood and reaching her suspicious parent instincts, and he stepped in to diffuse the impending mother-daughter argument.

"It's going to pretty boring, Mrs. Davidson. We have to photograph 5 different architectural features, and make notes on the general appearance of the theatre. I think we get to go back into the storage areas to see the old props, but maybe not. We'll be done in about an hour. Why don't you go get a coffee and relax, and we'll call you when we're done?"

"Okay, I'll give you this one. But I want you to call me if anything funny happens. And I'd like a call in half an hour, just to hear that you're alright. Deal?"

She stuck out her hand and Kean shook it. "Deal".

"I'll talk to you later then. Love you, Mallory."

"Love you too, mom. Now scoot!"

Mrs. Davidson scowled at her daughter, and then laughed. She rolled up the window and drove off.

"Well I guess Sterling's super-nice ray has worn off."

"Your mom is still nice, but she worries about you. The worry was stronger than her good mood."

"She's so over-protective."

"Mal, she did have a point. It looks kind of creepy right now, with most of the lights off out here. Moms worry. It's what they do."

Mallory ignored Kean's response and walked into the foyer of the theatre.

Sitting inside at a card table was an older gentleman with thick, shaggy gray hair. He looked up from the stack of programs in front of him and addressed the group. "Howdy, kids, how can I help you?"

Mallory charged forward and started talking. "Hi! We're here to do some research on the theatre for a school project. I know you have a show in a while so we'll just take a few notes and stay out of your way."

"Hold on. We can't have you running around the theatre. You're going to have to come back during the day with a teacher or a parent."

"But we were told to come tonight. We were supposed to be here earlier but my mom got a little lost on the way here."

"Who told you to come tonight?"

"Our teacher, Mr. Smithly."

"And what school are you from?"

"Mount Hope High school in Antler Branch."

The usher sighed as if this was the most trying ordeal of his life, and then slowly stood up.

"You three wait here, and I'll go check with the office and see if I can find someone to give you a tour."

Mallory and Kean nodded and the old man shuffled out of the room. Sterling was examining the posters and artwork on the walls and was oblivious to the old man's exit.

"Do you think this will work, Mal?"

"Beats me. The other option is to take off now and try to make it to the roof on our own before they catch us."

"I'm kind of surprised you didn't try that already."

"I thought about it, but we wouldn't get quality snooping time if we're also on the run. And hiding from the staff would make getting picked up by my mom tricky."

Sterling stopped in front of a section of the mirrored wall that was covered in thick brown paper and duct tape.

"Is this how it should look? Why would they make it so ugly?"

"No, it's probably covering a broken section. Wait, I think it was broken the night of the big field trip and riot. I wonder if it has traces of the spell?"

Kean switched to magesight and found a faint echo of the old Alex spell still attached to the broken mirror.

"It worries me that we can still see the spell days after it's been cast."

"It's still going strong, K. Whatever the spell is supposed to do, it hasn't finished doing it yet, so it keeps going."

"But what is it supposed to do?"

Sterling brushed his hand over the papery surface, and Kean saw the spell stir and meekly reach out towards Sterling's hand. Sterling moved his hand away and back towards the paper several times to confirm the reaction.

"It wants something from me, but it cannot reach me."

"Spells don't work on other magic users, Sterling. But somehow you cast a part of this spell, and you are already a part of it."

The door to the office squeaked as it opened and the old usher came shambling back in. "Hey stay away from that. It's broken."

"Oh. I did not know. Thank you!" Sterling's overly grateful reply made Mallory roll her eyes.

"I talked to the manager and he doesn't know anything about your teacher's project. Besides, there's no one to give you a tour right now. I can give you these pamphlets about the theatre, and your teacher can arrange a trip during the day."

Mallory paused as she considered her options. After a moment she walks up and takes the pamphlets from the usher's hands.

"Thanks. Tomorrow I'll tell Mr. Smithly to call and set something up. I'm sorry for bothering you, sir."

"That's fine. No bother. I'd love to give you the tour myself, but my knees can't handle the stairs."

"Before we go, can I use the bathroom, please?"

The usher pointed Mallory down the hall and she zipped off towards the bathroom. A few awkward minutes went by as Kean and Sterling stood around and watched the usher count programs and noisily clear his throat every 30 seconds. Mallory finally returned and pulled the boys towards the door. "Thanks again!" she yelled as they stepped outside.

As soon as the door closed behind them she yanked Sterling and Kean to the right of the building.

"This way-I found another way in."

They went around to the back of the building, to a loading dock barely lit by light from the windows nearby. Mallory pointed up to a fire escape.

"That will take us right to the roof. I saw it from the bathroom window."

"How did you see it from inside? It's right against the wall." Kean asked.

"I was halfway through the window at the time. I was testing the bathroom window out as an alternative entry point. Long story short, the window is too small to get all the way through, but this fire escape will do the trick."

"How do we get up to it? The ladder is up."

"Simple. That ladder has been up there a long time, and maybe something was knocked into it recently that made it loose. Maybe it's about to slide down at any moment, and it just needs a little push."

Mallory gave Kean a wink and began drawing a spell to bring the ladder down. When she finished the spell, she picked up a rock from the ground and tossed it up at the fire escape. A moment later the fire escape ladder came rattling down.

"After you, gentlemen."
Chapter 11 – Lost Under The Stars

The rusty fire escape ladder shuddered ominously as each person climbed up to the roof. It threatened to shake loose from the frame and fall from the side of the building at any moment, but it held together despite its rickety appearance. Mallory, Sterling and Kean all made it safely to the top. Kean was the last one up, and he had climbed in such a panic that he was out of breath.

Mallory squinted at the dark rooftop in front of them. "Hmm. Didn't plan on this. It's kind of hard to see."

"Really? I can see pretty well. I like this light much more than the sunlight during the day. I know this kind of light."

Mallory turned and looked at Sterling. For the first time since Kean gave them to him, Sterling wasn't wearing the sunglasses. The starlight reflected in his eyes seemed brighter than she would expect.

"I guess you're nocturnal, Sterling. Your eyes work better at night."

"When will the rest of the stars rise, Mallory?"

"What?"

Kean could breath easily again and he asked Sterling to clarify.

"Do you think there should be more visible stars above us right now?"

"Oh yes. Much more. Many more."

Sterling looked up at the sky with a look of happiness and serenity on his face. The stars made him happy.

"I don't think we'll see any more stars, Sterling. This is pretty much it."

Sterling's shoulders drooped down and his smile left his face. "Dear gravity, stop holding me down in this starless place."

Mallory and Kean had no idea how to respond to Sterling. For the first time, they had a real sense of how unfamiliar this world was for him. As they stood there and watched Sterling, a wave of sadness washed over them and stole over their hearts. The bond forged by the Sharing was now broadcasting Sterling's misery to Kean and Mallory. Neither of them had ever felt this homesick and alone. Kean walked forward and put his hand on Sterling's shoulder to offer him some kind of comfort. Seconds later both Sterling and Kean were engulfed in a tangle of Mallory's arms as she fiercely hugged both of them. She said something, but with her face pressed against Sterling's back, it was impossible to understand her.

"It is hard to hear you, Mallory. My ears are not under my coat."

Mallory pulled her head free and sniffed back her tears. "I said that we'll get you home, you big goof. Kean, we'll get him home, won't we?"

"We'll do our best. We promise, Sterling."

"Thank you."

Mallory disentangled her arms from the boys and paced back and forth, concentrating on something. "Do you guys feel that? Kind of a tickle or an itch? It starts near the stairs and gets stronger towards the back."

Kean nodded. "I do, now that you mention it. It's around my eyes, mostly. "

Sterling was confused by the sensations being described. "Could you explain 'itch' or 'tickle' please? I cannot feel it through you."

Mallory stepped over to him and answered his question by digging her fingers into his armpits and wiggling them furiously until he started to giggle uncontrollably. When he cried out for her to stop, she gave him one more good wiggle and then pulled her hands away.

"There you go! That is tickling. Itchy is a little harder to create."

"I see. I was laughing but a little bit scared too. And angry. I do not think I like it."

"We have to do something about the way you speak, Sterling. It's so weird and hard to listen to. You sound like you're from another country, but you don't have any accent at all."

"There's not a lot he can do about it, Mal. If you think about it, it's amazing that he can speak our language at all. And he's picking up new words and ideas as he goes along, so it will get better."

"I guess. So any idea on the itchy feeling?"

"I already know! It's magic!" Sterling blurted out.

"Can you explain that a little? A lot of things around us right now are magic."

Kean wasn't trying to give Sterling a hard time, but it would help him improve his verbal skills if he had to give more details. And there was a lot of magic going on.

"The big spell, the one you call old Alex, it's on this roof and it wants to be seen. It is the thing that is making you itchy or tickling your eyes. If you look with your other sight, your magesight, you can see it. It lights up the whole roof."

Kean and Mallory switched to magesight and saw what he was talking about. The old Alex spell was bathing the entire rooftop in a gentle persistent glow, and it was strong enough to navigate by. Their first attempts at using the magelight to guide them weren't very successful. Their normal vision was competing with their magesight, giving them conflicting moments of clear sight and darkness. Kean was the first one to realize that he could use magesight with his eyes closed.

"Hey guys, try this. Keep looking at the spell, but close your eyes. It's pretty cool."

Mallory followed the instructions. She was amazed to see the roof drawn out in magelight. Even the tables and chairs that had been forgotten and left up on the roof since the field trip were outlined in the shifting colours and soft glow. The longer that she stood and looked at the roof, the more she could notice variations in the intensity of the spell.

They all moved towards the same spot on the southern side of the roof, where the spell was brightest. From that spot they all looked out from the roof and over the town below. The spell seemed to stretch off past the horizon, cutting a path south towards Antler Branch. Sterling passed his hand through the spell's light beam and they all saw the light dance and sparkle. When he was in contact with it, the other colours of the spell became muted and took a back seat to Sterling's spell colour.

"It's pulling at me a little bit. Not only my hand, but all of me. I think this spell is keeping me here."

"So it's a trap?" Mallory asked.

Kean shook his head. "Who would make a magical trap like this, and how could they plan for all of this to happen? We saw in Sterling's memory that he was casting a spell at the same time as the rest of the stuff was happening. Maybe some other mage was watching and waiting to catch Sterling, but that sounds pretty difficult. It doesn't matter if it was on purpose or not, though, because the end result is the same. He can't go home while the spell is working."

"So I guess that means we're now spell-busters. Can we get business cards?"

"Sure-we can put 'we can use magic but we're not crazy, honest!' on the back of the cards."

"I wonder if there's a copy place open right now that can print out some cards?"

Kean checked his watch and noticed the time. "Why don't you ask your mom about that fantastic idea? She'd love to talk with you. I think you were supposed to call her 15 minutes ago." Kean said with a smirk on his face.

"Crap!"

Mallory pulled out her phone and dialled her mom. "Hi mom, sorry sorry sorry. The tour guide was going on and on and I didn't notice the time."

There was a long silence from Mallory as she listened to her mother's response. Other than the occasional yes, no, or I'm sorry, Mallory's role in the rest of the conversation was to get an earful of stern lecturing. A few more apologies seemed to finally settle things down, and Mallory asked her mom to meet them out front in 15 minutes.

"Isn't there anything else we should investigate while we're here, Mal?"

"No, K. I'm glad we got some answers up here, but I think that's all there is to learn. At least we have a big beam of light to follow. If we're really lucky, it will lead us straight to the other casters, and they will be in a hurry to stop the spell and put everything back to normal."

"Is that likely? The third caster's magic was dark and sickly. That does not sound like a magician who wants to be helpful."

"Trying my best here, Sterling. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Bridge?" Sterling was lost in the metaphor and he looked to Kean for an explanation.

"She means that we will find a way to deal with the third magician when we find him. Come on."

The fire escape managed to stay together for their return down to the ground, and they made their way out to the front of the theatre to wait for Mallory's mom. Mallory and Kean shivered as the reality of the cold night air took hold. They both longed for the warm interior of Mrs. Davidson's SUV. Sterling didn't seem bothered by the cold one bit, even though his colourful coat was so thin in spots that it was translucent, and his clothes weren't very thick either. He watched in fascination as the plumes of his breath billowed from his nostrils each time he exhaled. Mallory and Kean were stamping their feet trying to stay warm when Sterling pointed across the street.

"That man is watching us. How strange."

The man standing across the street was reading a copy of the theatre's newsletter and didn't appear to be watching anything other than the type in front of him at that moment. He was bundled up in a long dark blue coat and dress pants, with a thick woollen cap pulled low to cover his ears, and there was nothing to suggest that he was doing anything alarming.

"Why do you think he's watching us, Sterling?"

"It feels like he's watching us. Can't you feel it?"

Kean looked over again and tried to hone in on the sensation of being watched, but he came up with nothing.

"Sorry Sterling. I don't feel it."

"Maybe I am confused."

Mallory snorted. "Ya think?"

Mallory's mom pulled up to the curb in front of them and the three of them piled in. As they buckled in, Mrs. Davidson handed out hot chocolates for everyone, and a chorus of 'thank yous' rang through the car.

"Did you kids get all the information you needed?"

"Yup. Worked great. Thanks mom."

"You're welcome, Mallory. Oh, here. A fellow at the coffee shop mentioned a neat little place that just opened in downtown Toronto. It's a tea house and performing arts space, and when he described it, it made me think of you. This is their card."

Mallory took the card from her mom and read the name on the card. It advertised for a place called Heisenberg's Tea Shop, and underneath the name was an address and hours of operation, but no other information. She couldn't understand why her mom had thought of her. She flipped over the card to look at the back and felt the tickle around her eyes again. When she looked at the seemingly blank back of the card with magesight, there was a message that simply said 'the three of you should stop by soon'.

"Mom, who gave this card to you?"

"Oh, he was an older fellow. Nothing out of the ordinary."

Mallory turned to hand the card to Kean, wondering how to secretly tell him to use magesight on it. Looking out of the back window of the car, she froze in place as she made eye contact with the man Sterling had thought was watching them. He was looking right at her.

"Mom, did that nice older fellow have a big thick woolly hat on?"

"You know, I think he did. "

The man gave Mallory a smile and a tip of his hat before stepping backwards and vanishing out of sight.
Chapter 12 – School Was A Bad Idea

Mallory was bursting at the seams all the way home from the theatre. She was desperate to tell Kean about the mysterious mage watching them, but she couldn't think of any way to talk about the man in front of her mother without her getting worried. It was too complicated to explain over text. She fidgeted in her seat and bit her tongue all the way home. Kean was able to chat with Mrs. Davidson and keep up their cover story of a class assignment, with occasional grunts of agreement from Mal. they pulled up in front of Kean's house and Mrs. Davidson bid them farewell.

"Good night, Kean. Oh Sterling, I forgot to ask where you live. Is it far?"

"Yes. Very very far. I can't get back there right now."

"Ah, what he means, Mrs. Davidson, is that he's staying at my house tonight. Come on Sterling."

Mallory made eye contact with Kean and they exchanged looks of panic and questions. They hadn't thought about where Sterling would spend the night, and Kean would have to handle that now by himself.

"Everything okay, Keaner?" Mallory asked.

"Guess so Mallory. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Can I call you when I get home, to clear up a few points about our trip?"

Mrs. Davidson interjected. "Not tonight, young lady. You can talk about it tomorrow on the way to school. It's late enough as it is. Goodbye boys."

Mallory shrugged helplessly at Kean and watched him and Sterling head up the driveway to Kean's house. When the front door opened, her mom drove off. Mallory made a few more vain attempts at getting permission for a quick phone call to Kean, but her mom was all out of good humour and flexibility. She dropped the topic and they drove home. Mallory went to bed and after tossing and turning for an hour while she tried to make sense of everything, Mallory finally fell asleep.

The next morning Mallory was up early and out the door as quickly as she could manage. She set up a vigil at the end of Kean's driveway and waited for Kean and Sterling to emerge. She was properly dressed for an outdoor stake-out today, with a huge wool turquoise sweater, two pairs of tights, her puffy pink winter coat, a matching set of grey mittens and toque, and her favourite boots. It was a little hard to manoeuvre around but she was as warm as a house cat stretched out in front of the fireplace. When the front door cracked open she dashed up the driveway to meet the boys.

Kean was yawning and rubbing his eyes as he stepped out of the door. "Good morning" he yawned to Mallory.

"You look pretty rough, K. Long night?"

"Yeah. Sterling kept me up. He had to check out everything in my room. He went through my closet and my dresser and my desk. He flipped through half of my books before I told him to stop and turned off the lights. Even then, I still heard him flipping pages as he read by moonlight."

"Is he tired too?"

"Look at him. Does he look tired?"

Sterling was standing on the porch, grinning and looking around through darkly tinted welding goggles. "This is much easier on my eyes, muchacho!"

Mallory couldn't believe her ears. "Muchacho?"

"He was watching a western last night with my dad. 10 minutes later he was calling me a muchacho."

"Great. Now he can communicate badly in two languages. Come on, let's go."

They walked down the driveway and headed towards school. Mallory made sure they were out of earshot before opening the conversation.

"Remember that guy across the street last night? Sterling was right. He was watching us. And he gave that card to my mom. And he's a mage. Or he knows one. Did you see the magic writing on the back?"

"I did. I felt that itch again when you handed the card to me. It's cool that we're developing a way to sense if there's magic happening."

"Maybe you could always feel it, but you're paying attention now" Sterling said as he walked on the curb with his arms outstretched. He jumped over a break in the curb and unsuccessfully tried to rotate in the air and land facing backwards. Instead, he fell as a tumbling pile of limbs onto the grass, and when he stopped rolling and flailing around, he laughed and leaped back up. Kean helped brush the leaves off of Sterling and asked Mallory a question.

"When are we going to go to the teashop, Mal?"

"What? You're crazy. I don't go anywhere a stalker wants me to go. Especially one who can cast spells. What if he was the guy who poisoned the old Alex spell?"

"Poisoned?"

"That's my new theory. Sterling and the first caster were both casting spells at the same time and they were both focused on the meteor: no big deal, until the third guy cast his spell and it mixed in and turned the whole thing into an inseparable evil mess. He poisoned their spells and now we have this big spell that we can't stop and it's spreading from person to person."

"So you think he was the man watching us at the theatre last night?"

"He could have been, and I don't feel like taking chances. We'll finish talking about this later. Let's head inside to class."

They arrived at school and walked in through the main double doors, immediately noticing the crowd of students sitting in the office and the hallway outside. A teacher stood vigilantly watching the group of upset and unhappy kids. One kid was escorted out of the Principal's office and led down the hall as another was brought into the office, with the whole line shifting over one place. Kean and Mallory both felt the unmistakeable presence of magic all around them. When they switched to magesight they saw that all of the kids waiting for punishment had been affected by the old Alex.

Mallory froze in place and muttered "We have a problem, Kean."

"We certainly do. A big problem. Let me see if I can get some details."

Kean walked over to the teacher on guard. "Excuse me? Is there anything wrong? Why are there so many kids in the office before the first class starts?"

"Everything is under control. It's probably some kind of big prank. It's happening all over the school. You better get to class right now, because we're going to call a lock-down if things get any more out of hand. Now go to class!"

Kean nodded meekly and turned back towards Mallory and Sterling.

"We better come up with a plan. I hope we can sneak you into one of our classes, Sterling."

Mallory agreed with his idea. "Last year they did a lock-down and anyone who wasn't in class was rounded up and held in detention for the whole day. Hopefully I can trick my teacher into believing that Sterling is an exchange student."

Sterling had wandered away, towards the kids in trouble. He was staring intently at the auras surrounding them and how the magic was still moving and shifting about. He crossed an unmarked thresh-hold and the magic became agitated. The closest kid snapped his head up to stare at Sterling. Something in his stare spooked Sterling, and he back-pedaled away from it. The kid started to stand up to follow Sterling as other eyes in the line locked on to him.

Kean had seen the movement from the kid in the line, and he did not want to stay there to see if the rest of the kids began to lurch towards Sterling despite the harried shouting of the teacher guard.

"Mal, grab his arm. We have to get out of here."

Kean took one side of Sterling and Mallory took the other and linked arm and arm they escaped the hallway. They paused in an empty side hall to consider their next step to take.

"This makes things even worse. Anyone affected by the spell can sense that Sterling has something to do with it, and it draws them to him. He's a magnet. What are we going to do, Mal?"

"Well, calm down, for one. He had to get pretty close to them before they noticed him. But we do have to get him out of here. Shh!"

A security guard was running down the hallway parallel to the one they were standing in, shouting excitedly into a walkie-talkie. They caught the words 'lock-down', 'police' and 'riot'.

Mallory pointed in the direction of the shouting. "And that means it's time to leave, boys."

"This is going to make the news, Mal. And when our parents hear about it, they're going to get worried and come looking for us, and they will freak out if we're not here."

Kean was frightened, but Mallory knew he was right about this.

"So we'll call and tell them we were sent home. We smooth talk them into letting us head downtown to the Royal Ontario Museum, and on our way on the bus and the subway, we look for old Alex. "

"The school will call them eventually and tell them we left without permission."

Sterling interjected, talking more to himself than anyone else. "The whole darn place is riled up. Everyone is angry or lonely."

"More cowboy talk. Great. Hey, are you alright, Sterling?"

Mallory's attitude changed from irritated to concerned when she looked at Sterling and saw the strain on his face.

"I am having a bit of trouble keeping all of the emotions away from me. The spelltouched are all reaching out for me."

Mallory focused on her mystical connection to Sterling and felt the stress he was under. The emotions around them were like a wave of unrelenting pressure, and it was taking a lot for Sterling to not get swept away.

"I've got it. Hold on a sec." Kean reached into his backpack, tore out a piece of paper from a notebook, ripped it into two sections, and wrote a hurried note on both pieces. He thrust one into Mal's hand.

"Here. Put a spell on it so the secretary will believe that your mom wrote it."

"How can I do that?" Mallory asked as she stared at the ripped paper.

"Think of your mom and put her mark on it, or something. Just hurry."

Mallory looked at the note in her hand. Kean had written a short permission slip that stated her mom had given her permission to leave school grounds and head home. Mallory imagined a drawing of her mother with pen in hand, signing her name on the bottom of the slip. As the spell finished, the signature materialized. She looked at the result and sighed.

"This won't work. That doesn't look anything like her signature."

Kean finished his own spell and answered her. "You can't see it, but the spell will make the note look like whatever the secretary expects to see. That is, as long as you did it right."

"Hey, way to show confidence in me."

Kean smiled. "I'm kidding. You did fine. Now you and I will go to the secretary and hand in our notes. Sterling, you sit down in the doorway over there out of sight. We'll be back in a minute."

Mallory and Kean ran back to the office and went into the secretary's office, avoiding the ever-present crowd of kids. They handed in their forged forms, and held their breath as the secretary looked at them. They expected her to pull out a magnifying glass and examine every little detail, but she barely glanced at them before nodding and shooing them out of her office. They hurried back to the spot where Sterling was supposed to be waiting, only to find an empty doorway. A pained grunt from further down the hall led them to his new location.

In front of Sterling there was a different security guard, caught in the grip of Sterling's timeout power, held static and frozen in time. Sterling was sweating and looking pale from exertion. Kean looked around for the quickest exit and found a door that led off to the garbage room. He went up to the guard and pulled his hat down over his eyes.

"Stop restraining him, Sterling. Mallory, get ready to keep Sterling from falling down and help me get him out of here."

The magical restraint ended and Sterling's legs buckled. Mallory was barely able to keep him from hitting the ground. The guard was confused by the sudden darkness and was stumbling about. Weaving around the guard, Kean and Mallory moved Sterling down the hall and made it through the door to the pungent garbage room. They bolted out of the room and into cold clean air as the first police car pulled up in front of the school.
Chapter 13 – Almost Caught

Robert huddled down into his seat of the Go train, and the train's rhythmic motion had lulled him to the edge of sleep. He tried to give in and have a nap, but the nagging sense of something being wrong kept bringing him back to consciousness.

He had spent the night trying to understand what was going on around him. It felt like every person he came in contact with lost their mind and freaked out, except for his mom, and things weren't getting better. He had begged his mom for a day off school and she had given in with the condition that he'd get some school work done somehow. Robert had watched his mother call the school and during the call she had heard something that worried her.

After she hung the phone up, Robert asked her what was wrong.

"Am I in trouble, mom? I didn't do anything."

"No, sweetie. It's not you. The school is closed today, anyway. There's an emergency staff and parent meeting."

"That sounds bad."

"It should be fine. There were a lot of behaviour problems yesterday, and the parents have to meet with the teachers to determine how to address the situation. I know you didn't do anything wrong, Robbie."

"I guess" Robert replied, but he felt a burning sense of shame and guilt creep over his face anyway. For some reason, he felt like this was all his fault.

"Okay, I'm going to head off to work, and I'll drop you off at the train station on the way. What exhibit will you be seeing today?"

Robert always chose to go to the Royal Ontario Museum whenever he could pick his study topic. He loved the vast size and seemingly limitless information held inside of it, and he read the museum newsletter from cover to cover each month when it arrived. He picked this month's newsletter off of the kitchen counter and checked.

"It's called 'Stargazing and superstition: humanity's view of the cosmos'. It's about how civilizations have used the stars in the night sky to tell the future or describe people, like the zodiac stuff."

"Sounds interesting. I can't wait to hear about it." She had smiled and hugged Robert, and he had tried to feel better. She had dropped him off at the Antler Branch Go Train station and he had made his way onto the train and in to the emptiest car.

There were only a few people around him. The rush hour was almost over, and these were the last few stragglers heading downtown to work or to early morning appointments. Robert held his breath at every stop, afraid that a new passenger would come on board and sit beside him. He wanted to stay as separate from other people as he could today. The train rattled past the King City Station and it reminded Robert of his Wai Po, his grandmother on his father's side. She had lived in King City, at the back of her variety store. There had always been tension between his father and his Wai Po when they visited her, but Robert's father was tense with almost everyone.

Robert remembered being frightened of Wai Po and her store crammed full of strange items and strange smells. The back third of the store had been dedicated to herbal remedies and various Chinese products that had no English labels. Tucked far back behind the jars of tea and herbs were small containers of dried snake skin and dried beetle carcasses. There were other strange jars lurking back there, but Robert was always too afraid to look too closely, for fear of an eyeball looking balefully back at him. Even though he was afraid of her, Robert would spend the entire visit at her side and listening to her wild explanations of the world around them. Most times, his dad would slip out the back to smoke or he would be stuck fixing something for Wai Po, so it was just her and Robert. She had died just over a year ago and this was the first time he had thought about her in a long time.

The rocking motion of the train finally won out over his worry, and Robert fell asleep. He slipped into a dream about his Wai Po. He was at her side again, watching her count out money and sort through change. She was lecturing him about danger.

"There are signs you can see, Robert, that will warn you of what is to come, but if you d not look, you will find nothing. And then when trouble comes, you will stand like an idiot and wonder 'why is this happening to me?' Then you will blame everyone else for your troubles. Your father is that way. He never listens. He is angry and stubborn and stupid, just like his father. He calls all of the traditions useless. Look at this."

Wai Po took 3 of the coins and scattered them purposefully onto the counter in front of them. She leaned close to the counter and examined each coin and how it was positioned, and she drew the results on a scrap of paper beside her.

"See, the coins tell you something. These ones are telling me about you, Robert, and they say you should be wary of an encounter with a dragon. You need the help of your ancestor spirits to save yourself from this dragon. You have a part to play in the fight for the sky, between Mother Moon and Father Sun. You must endure. Come here, I will give you the tools you need."

He followed her to the back of the shop and watched her as she dug through the jars. She pulled out a wad of folded papers that had a silvered shine to them, and pressed it into Robert's small hand.

"Joss paper. Burn it to honour your ancestors. Remember them, Robert, because they are still bound to the living world, and they will help you. The ghosts of your family are still your family."

Robert unfolded the small, shiny papers and held them out over the low burning candle on the counter. The fire consumed the joss papers, releasing a cloud of fragrant grey smoke that rose into Robert's face. The smoke snuck into his nose and lungs. He felt an odd wave of cold run through his body as the room dimmed for a moment, filled with the undefined shapes of the spirits of his family from generations passed. There was no feeling of fear or uncertainty, only the sense of being watched by countless eyes. He also felt a pressing sense of obligation. The ghosts would help him, but they needed something from him that was beyond his understanding.

A blast of ice cold wind blew through the room and dispersed the ghosts. Robert's father returned and quickly stepped between Robert and his grandmother.

"More old world foolishness, mother? He will not succeed here with dung beetles in his pockets and stupid scraps of paper in his hand."

His father yanked Robert towards the door, and as they left, his Wai Po shouted after them.

"You remember Robert. You are a smart boy. Beware of the dragon and remember your ancestors. We watch over you, grandson."

Robert made eye contact with his grandmother one more time, and he saw her pride and her love for him in her eyes.

He awoke with a start as the doors slammed shut, with the vision of his grandmother in his mind. It was hard for him to tell if that had been entirely a dream, or if some actual events from deep in his memories were added in. Whatever the case, he missed his Wai Po, and he planned to talk to his mom about it when he got home.

The train pulled out of the York University stop, and continued on without anyone coming to intrude on Robert's peace of mind. It finally it pulled into its destination, Union Station. Robert could have chosen to walk across the terminal and hop on a subway to take him the 5 stops to the museum, but the 30 minute walk was a part of his museum ritual.

Walking through the financial district and watching the endless motion and activity of the city was almost as interesting as the museum. Besides, by walking he would have time to finish the extra-large hot chocolate with whip cream he would buy at the Starbucks down the street. It was nice to walk down the street and have no one pay him any attention at all. Whatever was affecting the kids at school wasn't happening here, and he started to relax and enjoy his trip.

The hot chocolate lasted until 2 blocks from the museum, just as the giant geometric shape of the Crystal wing came into view. The wing had been added on 4 years ago and it was an impressive piece of architecture. Robert couldn't decide if he liked it or not, with its massive sharp corners that jutted up into the sky and dwarfing the original entrance beside it. It was so different from the old building, and it looked like an alien vessel had crashed into the side of the museum and fused with it, but at least it was easy to find.

Robert went in through the front doors and up to the admissions window to pay for his ticket. The man beside him was asking the museum employee about the newest exhibits, and when he heard about the stars exhibit, the man clapped his hands together and turned his face to Robert as he spoke.

"Excellent! I have always been fascinated by the powers that ancient man thought could control their lives. Astrology and omens and magic."

Robert felt uncomfortable making eye contact with the strange man beside him. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was just a feeling of discomfort when he looked at him. It didn't help that the man had some kind of disturbing skin condition on his neck. He was trying to hide it with the long grey scarf wrapped around his neck and tucked into his leather coat, but the grey edge of skin kept appearing and disappearing as he spoke. It made him think of a reptile's skin. Robert took his ticket and quickly scurried off into the museum.

He went off into the "age of mammals" exhibit, the furthest point away from the new exhibit and the stranger. Robert wandered from case to case, from gallery to gallery, and the hours slipped by. He went down to the basement lunch room to eat his ham and cheese sandwich and drink a can of root beer, keeping an eye on the door. After lunch he went back upstairs to browse the dinosaur collection.

He waited until the end of the day to go to the stars exhibit. It was in a small gallery at the top of the Crystal wing, with a winding staircase that made Robert a little dizzy as he climbed up to the top. He was momentarily stunned when he walked into the gallery itself. The gallery was brightly lit by a multimedia display projecting a video image that covered an immense interior wall, and a narration to the celestial motion being displayed filled the room with sound. Robert was drawn into the center of the room to watch the presentation.

The noise and light swirled around him and swept him up into the story being told, a story of the heavens above the earth and the power it held over the people below. The signs of the zodiac were scrolling across the video sky, and below the stars were the old great cities. It tracked the history of man against the continual movement of the stars. Below the constellations, he watched the rise and fall of Machu Pichu and Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, and the creation of the Pyramids and Stonehenge. All of these grand undertakings had been built to forge a connection to the stars and to find reason and purpose in their motion. Robert felt so very small as the images flickered by in front of him. He didn't hear the footsteps of someone approaching him from behind, and he jumped when the man began to talk.

"You certainly took your time getting here. I've had a very long and boring day waiting for your arrival. But that's really not important now."

Robert turned around to see what he feared, the scarred man standing behind him. He looked past the man with a sneer on his face and saw a security guard sitting at a small desk in the adjoining hallway.

"Hey! Guard! Hey!" Robert shouted. He went to walk towards the guard but the scarred man's hands clamped onto his shoulders and held him in place.

Robert screamed as he tried to break free. "Help! Mister, please! Help!"

"He can't hear you. I've muffled the sound leaving this room and enthralled the guard so that he won't even think to look in here. He won't even let anyone else in the room. That should give me adequate time to prepare you for questioning."

"I don't know anything! Just let me go and I won't tell anyone you tried to molest me!'

The scarred man barked out a surprised laugh. "Molest? You think that's what I want? You are very mistaken. I want to know how you interfered with my spell, and then I'm going to use you to repair the damage you've caused. But I can't do that here. I need time, and considerable privacy."

Robert kept yelling for help, but his cries weakened as he realized that the crazy man was right. For some reason, no one could hear his yelling. He yelped in pain when the scarred man wrenched his arms behind his back and handcuffed him, and Robert thrashed back and forth in a last desperate attempt to get free.

"Hold still, boy or this might turn into cyanide instead of ether" the man growled as he fought to keep Robert still with one arm as he focused on the rag in his other hand.

A pungent, sweet smell started to waft up from the rag, a smell that made Robert's eyes water and his head swim. Suddenly, all of the sound in the room became louder, and accompanying it was sound from outside of the room. Robert heard two men shouting from the guard's desk, and he felt the scarred man's attention shift in reaction.

"Heisenberg! What is he doing here? Damn him!" the scarred man said to himself.

Robert knew that this was his only chance to escape. He threw all of his weight away from the scarred man and he twisted out of his grip. Robert ran as fast as he could for the closest exit, with the scarred man right behind him in pursuit. He could feel his pursuer closing in, until he heard a wet, squeaking sound followed by a resounding thud as the scarred man slipped and fell hard to the ground.

Robert slammed through the stairwell door and ran down the stairs as quickly as he could, pulling at the handcuffs holding his wrists together. His terrified wish for freedom manifested in spell energy, and when he reached the bottom landing, the handcuffs fell to the ground with a clatter. He left them where they fell and kept moving until he was safely hidden in the crowds on the street.
Chapter 14 – Big City Blowup

The chaos around the school kept anyone from noticing the odd sight of two students half-carrying a third one across the football field. Sterling regained his senses and was able to walk under his own power by the time they reached the bus shelter on the other side of the field.

"If anyone has a better idea than going all the way downtown and looking for traces of the old Alex spell, I'd love to hear it." Mallory said.

Kean kept examining the bus map on the wall of the shelter and shook his head.

"It's pulling me that way. Towards the water." Sterling said as he leaned up against the bus shelter wall with his eyes closed and his arm pointing off into the distance.

"Technically there's water in three directions, Sterling. Lake Simcoe is northeast of here, Georgian Bay in north, and Lake Ontario is south."

"He's pointing south, Mal. Don't give him a hard time."

"What? I'm just trying to help him with his geography. Fine then. The spell is pulling you towards the south, which is the same direction as downtown."

"Maybe we can go up the CN tower to get a better look. It's the highest point in the city so we can see everything from there."

Mallory shuddered at the idea of going up that high. "We'll leave that as plan b."

"It's plan b? What is plan a? Did I miss the planning part for plan a?"

"Going downtown and looking, that's plan a. Geez, Kean. Finally, the bus is here."

The bus pulled up to the stop and they piled on. Mallory had bus tickets for all three of them, but Sterling insisted on putting his own ticket into the automated ticket taker. He gleefully giggled when it snatched the ticket from his fingers and popped out a transfer on the other side. Before he had a chance to move forward and get into trouble by trying to play with the levers and knobs in front of the driver, Kean grabbed Sterling and directed him back to a seat. The bus door hissed shut and they started their trip.

The bus ride to the closest subway station took 35 long minutes as the bus wove through the warrens of nested subdivisions and picked up a regular stream of housewives and elderly passengers out for an excursion. Sterling was happy to watch the people as they got on and rode the bus, and other than the occasional awkward question about one person's strange hair or another person's ill-fitting pants they made it off the bus and into the station without any incidents.

"I didn't see any spell effects on the way here, did you guys?" Mallory asked.

Kean shook his head. "Nothing at all. Sterling?"

"No magic. It seemed magical that the very large ladies' tight tight pants were staying in place. It looked very much like a balloon about to pop. But no real magic."

Mallory chuckled. "Okay, then. Let's get on the train."

The subway train roared into the tunnel, pushing a wave of hot air over the three of them as they stood waiting to board. Out of the corner of his eye, Kean could almost see Sterling about to lift up into the air and float away in the current. He seemed so lightweight and unconnected to the earth beneath his feet. When the doors opened they stepped in to the car, with Sterling in tow behind them.

The first few minutes of the train trip were unpleasant for Sterling as he tried to understand the new motion he was caught inside of. Kean couldn't help but laugh as he watched Sterling slide from side to side of the car, barely keeping his balance.

"You look like a dog in the back of a van, Sterling. Just sit down."

"This is not a very nice way to travel. I cannot tell where we are going. It's dark and wobbly."

Sterling cautiously and slowly made it to a bench seat and firmly held on for his life. By the time they reached the halfway point of the subway trip, Sterling had reached a truce with the physical world around him and was enjoying the ride. They all focused on scanning the other passengers for signs of magic. The train stopped and started with every new station, but no sign of Old Alex appeared.

The train pulled into St. George station and Mallory leaped to her feet.

"Come on guys, this is our stop."

"Why here, Mal?" Kean asked as he stood up

"Got to start somewhere. And this is kind of the middle of downtown."

She waved them forward and they dashed up the stairs and out onto the street above. Above ground, the streets were crowded with the constant flow of pedestrians and traffic moving through the heart of the city. Mallory, Kean and Sterling wedged themselves between the banister surrounding the subway station stairs and a newspaper stand beside the stairs, and scanned their surroundings. Finally, they caught a faint trace of Old Alex's colours lingering at the doorway to a dingy old diner.

Mallory pointed it out. "There. That's our starting point. Let's see where it leads."

Mallory stormed off, following the spell trace. Sterling and Kean struggled to keep up with her and avoid the fearless and careless drivers around them.

Sterling shouted in surprise. "They never slow down! These cars are dangerous. Do they know that?"

"They know, Sterling. Watch out!"

Kean pulled Sterling back onto the curb just in time to avoid being brushed aside by a cab making an illegal turn. Mallory waited impatiently on the other side of the street until they rejoined her. The trail wound through the side streets and alleyways, meeting up with other tendrils of colour and merging into a progressively thicker ribbon stretching off down the street. The strength of the spell trail exploded when they passed the Royal Ontario Museum.

"Something happened here" said Mallory.

"And it happened very recently. Sterling, do you feel anything."

"Darkness. And the pull is very strong."

They continued to follow the trail. A few blocks further on they reached Nathan Phillips Square, the public gathering area in front of city hall. The whole space was awash with the spell. It was impossible to see any kind of direction from the middle of the hue. Kean remembered plan b.

"I have an idea. We can't see anything else from here. We're in the middle. We need to go up and see what's happening. Plan b."

Mallory shuddered again. "No, we're too far away from the tower. And it's closed, I think."

"Not the CN tower. There's an observation deck up there, in city hall. Come on."

Kean tried to head off towards city hall, but he noticed that Mallory was rooted to the spot. Sterling was between the two of them, unsure of whom to follow.

"Mal, what's wrong? Do you think it won't work?" Kean asked.

"It's nothing. I guess it could work. It's just.....I may have a small problem with being very high up."

"You have a fear of heights?"

"You could call it that, I suppose. How about you go up there and I stay here?"

Sterling reached out his hands to hold Mallory's. The emotional connection between them flared and she felt a wave of warm and comfort come from him.

"We will keep you safe. You will not fall."

Mallory thought long and hard about the prospect of going hundreds of feet up into the air. Finally, she sighed and told the guys that she was ready.

"If we're going to do this, let's go."

They went inside of city hall and followed the directions to reach the observation deck on the 27th floor of the east tower. The deck was enclosed in a glass outer wall that prevented the rough wind slamming against the building from reaching them. Mallory cautiously stepped out onto the deck, but stopped when she saw the city below. Sterling walked directly up to the glass and looked out, with Kean a step behind. From their vantage point, they could see the flow and ebb of Old Alex below. The spell was defined by three sides, a triangle with its pulsing center below, and Kean was alarmed to see that Sterling was one of the points of the triangle. The sides contracted as the other two unseen points moved towards the square itself, until the spell hits a new level of manifestation. Kean saw the energy wrap each person below and latch on to them.

"Something's happening down there. The other two mages are close. Somewhere over there and over there."

Mallory made her way closer to the edge to see what he was talking about.

"The spell is affecting everyone down there."

Far below them, the first punch was thrown and the crowd erupted into a violent mob.
Chapter 15 – The Eye Of The Storm

"The spell is driving them crazy! Why is it suddenly getting so strong?" Mallory asked with her nose almost pressed against the glass. In the middle of this bigger crisis, her fear of heights was temporarily forgotten. "Whatever the reason, we should get Sterling out of here and far away from the other two mages. If he stays here, the crowd is going to do some terrible things to him if they catch him."

Already, the crowd had broken into random pockets of violence. One fight would bash against another, and some of these collisions led to one conflict merging into a storm of kicks and punches. The people below were swarming like frenzied soldier ants. Kean saw Old Alex lash out and snare a passerby who was outside of the glowing triangle, and pull them towards the center.

"Mallory, Sterling, we have to leave now." Kean said as calmly as he could manage.

He led them back to the elevator. The ride to the ground was ominously quiet. Sterling twitched his fingers and nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"This up and down box is too small right now. I feel like I am being swallowed."

"It's alright Sterling. Just take a deep breath. And breathe out afterwards. Oh Mal, by the way, you did great up there."

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Funny thing is the fighting down below and the brightness of the spell kind of scared me more than the heights."

"I guess it is all about perspective."

The elevator door opened and they stepped out into the lobby. With a clear view through the glass front doors, they could see the chaos more clearly. What had looked to be exclusively fist fights and shouting matches from above was actually a swirling combination of violence and unrestrained passion. Some people were throwing punches at everyone around them, but others were writhing intertwined on the ground, ferociously kissing and touching each other.

Mallory could see a glimpse of nudity at the edge of her line of sight, and she blushed and looked away.

"This is very weird, Kean. The same spell is making some people hate each other, and others go crazy with love. Or lust. Actually, I'm pretty sure it is lust. Ew."

"We shouldn't go out that way. I'm too young to see all of that. Let's find another exit."

They turned around and checked the visitor's map on the wall. It revealed a back exit at the end of a long adjoining hall, and the three friends ran off towards escape. As they approached the door, it swung open and a handful of people came stumbling through. They were wreathed in Old Alex and they instantly fixated on Sterling. As they started to shamble towards Sterling, Kean shouted "RUN!" and pulled at Sterling's arm to get him moving.

They turned around and barrelled down the opposite hall, running blindly away from the only known exits. Around the corner of the bend in the hall, another 3 city hall workers came into view. The sickly glow of Old Alex encapsulated them as well. Pinned between two groups of pursuers, Mallory desperately looked for a new escape route and found an assembly hall with an exit on the other side.

"This way!" They ran into the room, with Kean slamming the door behind them.

Mallory slammed her hip into the release bar for the door opposite to the one they had entered through, and moved into the hall on the other side. They were back in the front hall that ran perpendicular to the front doors, and the doors were in sight.

"Kean, I don't think we have a choice. We have to make a run for it."

"I think you're right. Sterling, are you ready?"

"If I was not so scared I think I would be having fun. I am ready, I think."

They locked arms and bolted through the front doors. The crowd in the square was growing in size and activity with each passing moment. A chorus of animal-like screams and grunts filled the air as the three kids stood looking for a way out. A pair of eyes locked on to Sterling, followed by another and another and a circle of lumbering bodies quickly formed around the kids. They tried to run from the horde, but the new participants streaming in from behind closed off the escape routes. Arms flailed and reached out to grab Sterling, and suddenly the arms froze in place. Sterling grunted as he strained to hold them in stasis.

Mallory saw the look of pain and concentration on Sterling's and she knew that the mob would overwhelm him in seconds.

"He can't do this for long, K. Think of something."

Kean nodded and started to focus. "When I say so, you have to hide us, Mal. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, just do it, whatever it is! He's starting buckle under the pressure!"

Kean shaped his spell into the form of a thousand different sparrows flying in every direction, shadow birds that would coalesce into images of the three of them. He drew the energy for the spell as strong and fast as he could, and just before releasing it, he yelled "Now!"

The air around the kids exploded into a storm of shadow sparrows. For a moment the mob lost sight of their prey. Mallory finished her spell, a simple reworking of Sterling's long coat into a blanket that would act like a chameleon and match the ground beneath their feet. She pulled the blanket over their heads and they vanished from sight.

Kean whispered in Sterling's ear. "Release them. We're going to go. Hold on to me."

Sterling didn't answer him, but Kean felt his weight leaning on him for support. Slowly they shuffled towards the street with the blanket held firmly overhead. The noise of the mob was all around them still, and they were all terrified that they would take one wrong step and end up walking right into one of the crazies, or the mob would see right through the disguise. Through careful navigation and good luck, they made it to the street beyond the mob.

"We have to break the focus point. As long as Sterling is close to the other two mages, the spell is going to get stronger and stronger." Kean said, peering out from under the edge of the blanket. The spell was still raging through the square.

"We better go quickly. I've never kept a spell effect going this long, and it's starting to make me feel tired and nauseous. Sterling, are you okay?"

"I...I...I need to rest soon. Somewhere quiet. They were all trying to take pieces of me."

"Just hold on, buddy. We'll get out of here."

They had reached the other side of the street where an entrance to a service alley stood before them. They shuffled a few more metres forward while still under the blanket. When she thought they were hidden from the street, Mallory dropped the spell and put the coat back onto Sterling.

They started to run. They went from alley way to alley way, zigzagging across downtown Toronto. They dashed through the busy lunchtime crowd in the underground mall below a massive bank tower, scanning the people they passed for any sign of the Old Alex infection. Half an hour later, they stopped and looked around. The spell trail leading from Sterling had faded, and there were no other traces of Old Alex around them. They were safe for the moment.

Kean took charge. "Mal, give me the card for that tea shop. We have to get some answers."

Mallory searched through her purse until she found the slightly crumpled card with the magical note on the back.

"Here it is. Are you sure we can be safe there?"

"If we stay out here on the streets, we're not safe. I'll take my chances with one old man in a tea shop. Tea is not a very threatening beverage."

"Fine." Mallory handed the card to Kean.

Sterling sat down heavily between the two of them and hung his head down. "I am more tired than your overweight fur friend."

"Fur friend?" Mallory asked.

"He means my cat, snickers."

"That makes sense. She is one fat cat. Hey what's wrong?"

Kean frowned as he looked up from the card.

"According to this, the tea shop's address is 129 Duncan Street."

"So?"

"Look."

Kean pointed at the street sign on the corner.

"We're already on Duncan Street."

"That's lucky."

"Now look behind us."

Mallory turned around and saw the bright brassy numbers '129' fastened neatly above the door. A small blue sign in the middle of the door displayed the word 'Heisenberg's'.

"That's a little too lucky, don't you think, Mallory?"

"Don't get cold feet now, Kean. You wanted to come here."

Sterling stood up and abruptly walked up to the door and opened it. "It's safe. And I can smell something tasty" he said before walking inside. Mallory and Kean scrambled in after him.

"Sterling, wait up. You don't have any proof that it's safe in here."

"I can feel it. Does that count as proof?"

"Not really. Kean, help me talk some sense into him?"

"Maybe he's right Mal. And we're inside anyway, so it's all beside the point. Mmmm. I smell cookies. Geez I'm hungry."

They passed through a small entrance alcove and into the heart of the small tea shop. A fireplace in the corner cast a cheery warm light over the wooden beams and dark, lustrous furniture. Behind the counter, the strange man from outside the theatre was pouring steaming hot tea into three white ceramic mugs that were sitting beside a plate piled high with homemade cookies. The man looked up at them and smiled.

"Sit down and have a rest. You've been through a lot today, and there's still more to be done."
Chapter 16 – A Story About Magic

Mallory and Kean stood in place, uncertain if they could trust the older man enough to sit and let their guard down. Sterling had no such reservations. He sat at the table and dove into the plate of cookies as they were placed in front of him.

With a shrug, Mallory sat down beside him. "We do need a break, Kean. And the cookies smell good."

"I bet that's what Hansel and Gretel said too." Kean groused.

Through a full mouth, Sterling added "they taste even better than they smell".

Kean gave in and took the third seat at the table and mumbled a 'thank you' to their host.

Their host was middle-aged, Kean guessed, about the same age as his dad. The same thick, blue and grey woollen cap sat on his head, with barely a fringe of brown hair peeking out at the edges. Their host placed a mug in front of each of them and introduced himself.

"I call myself Heisenberg. This is my tea shop, and I have the same gift that you do. I'm a mage."

"Is that what we're called? Officially?" Kean asked.

"There really isn't anything official about us. Some of us have settled on that label, but it's personal preference."

"What is this?" Mallory asked as she warily sniffed at the steam rising from her mug. The aroma of vanilla, cinnamon mixed with other scents that she couldn't identify.

"It's chai, spiced tea. It's my own personal recipe. Nothing is better for taking the chill out of your bones."

Mallory sniffed again at the creamy hot drink in front of her and cautiously took a test sip. The warm liquid was sweet and delicious. Despite the heat of the drink, she had to restrain herself from gulping it down like Sterling was doing beside her.

All three of them focused on drinking their chai and eating the homemade chocolate chunk cookies, and they ate happily in silence while Heisenberg drank his strong, black tea from an enormous homemade ceramic mug. Minutes later, the plate was empty and the kids felt more like their normal selves. Sterling yawned loudly and put his head down on top of his arms resting on the table.

"Hey, no napping. Why are you so tired all of a sudden?" Mallory questioned Sterling, who only offered another yawn as an answer. She looked at Sterling and the empty plate in front of him, and she jumped out of her seat.

"Kean! He drugged him! Or used a spell! It's a trap!"

Kean gave Sterling a shake. Sterling raised up his head and blinked his eyes.

"What is wrong now? I was hoping to have some sleep."

"Mallory thinks you were given a drug or a spell that is making you fall asleep."

Sterling tilted his head back and yawned loudly for an eternity. "I was very tired before the wonderful cookies. It took a lot of energy for me to stop all of those people, more than I was ready for. I'm plum tuckered out."

"Why don't you use your sight, young lady?" Heisenberg said calmly.

"My sight? Magesight?"

"Some call it that. Some call it second sight. Use it to confirm that I haven't bewitched your friend."

Mallory switched to magesight and confirmed that there was no new spell affecting Sterling.

"Okay, I guess you're telling the truth."

"Thank you for being so understanding." Heisenberg gave her a smile and a wink. "Now, I've given you my name. What are your names?"

Kean answered. "Is that your real name?"

"Very observant. No. It's the name I use in public. For people like us, true names carry considerable power, and the more mages that know your true name, the more dangerous it can be."

"Then why should we tell you ours?" Mallory challenged.

"You have a point. You should consider inventing new names for yourselves, for the future. But for now, let's be honest with each other. My real name is Michael Flanagan. Here is my driver's license."

Mallory and Kean looked over the driver's license in front of them. In the photo, Heisenberg is wearing terrible glasses with thick lenses and plastic frames.

He defended himself against their unspoken reaction to the picture. "I need glasses to drive. Those are a very old pair that I had to wear because I couldn't find my new ones. You can laugh if you want, they're very ugly."

Heisenberg put away his license as Kean and Mallory looked at each other, waiting for the other to speak.

Finally Kean broke the stalemate. "My name is Kean. This is Mallory, and our sleepy friend is Sterling."

"It's very nice to meet you. Hmmm. You are an interesting group, especially Sterling. Speaking of which, you look exhausted young man. Why don't you go have a nap on the couch over in the corner? There's a nice warm quilt folded up underneath."

Sterling made his way over to the couch, pulled the massive quilt over his body and quickly fell asleep as the rest of the group finished their drinks. Heisenberg refilled their cups with more of the fragrant beverage, and he sat back down to tell them a story.

"Before you ask how it all works, I have to tell you that you'll never know. Those who try to know with certainty end up with nothing, so you'd best be comfortable with the mystery.

A long time ago, a man woke up to discover that he had a special gift. He could make amazing things happen, he could shape the world around him. He could have anything he wanted, except for the thing he yearned for most. He wanted to know how his gift worked, so he began to experiment with his power. He recorded every success and failure in his private journal, and slowly he fashioned a spell book of everything he had ever conjured. But to his horror, he discovered that every spell he had written down no longer worked and he could no longer do the impossible acts of magic. His gift had been snuffed out, and he lived out his days in sadness and misery. He had traded possibility for certainty, and was left with nothing in the end. We mages do things that exist in the gap between what is and what could be, so don't look to close that gap with answers."

Kean struggled to understand what Heisenberg was telling them.

"So if I try to figure out how I can use magic, it will stop working for me?"

"There's difference between what you believe in your private thoughts and what you tell the world. You can find how the magic works for you and get more adept at wielding it. But keep it to best guesses and hunches. Don't write it down, and do not explain it to other mages. Have you ever heard of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?"

"I haven't. Did you write it?" Mallory asked.

"No, but that's where I borrowed the name from. He was a physicist who was a pioneer in the field of quantum mechanics. He worked on a concept called the 'observer effect'. At the quantum level, there are some things that you can never measure accurately because the very act of measuring it changes it in some way. The same rule applies to our magic. If you try to be sure how your gift works, it will change. And one other word of caution, though you've probably already found this out for yourself: the more outrageous your spell is, the more you will suffer for it. The universe around you functions with a certain level of expectation, and it sorely hates to be disappointed. When you create something that is obviously impossible, the world around you will attempt to return to balance by exacting a price from you. It's karma."

"Kean and I call it a backlash."

"If you want to avoid it, make your spells hard to see. And only cast when there's a need. The more you take, the more it costs."

Kean looked over to Sterling asleep on the couch. "Shouldn't he hear this too?"

Heisenberg sighed. "Your friend is very different from us. None of this would mean anything to him, I suspect. I don't know what he is, but take a close look at him with the sight. Watch for the flicker."

Kean and Mallory both turned to stare at Sterling. As they watched him, they saw the faintest momentary flicker where he was hard to see clearly.

Kean asked "what's happening with him?"Mallory gave him an answer.

"He disappeared. It was for less than a second, but during that flicker, he was gone."

Heisenberg nodded. "That is correct. Your friend is slipping in and out of reality. Our reality, anyway. Wherever he is supposed to be, it is not here."
Chapter 17 – Where To Now, Boss?

They all sat in silence and watched Sterling peacefully nap on the couch and blinking out of existence every once in a while.

"Whatever is happening to him, it doesn't bother him" Mallory observed.

"I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone such as him. Do you know anything about him? Is he a classmate?"

Kean and Mallory looked at each other. "It'll sound crazy, but we found him in the forest. He fell out of a tree and landed at our feet"

Kean reflexively raised his hands in a sign of apology for saying something so laughable. Heisenberg didn't laugh or call him a liar, but instead nodded as he replied.

"That is a very odd way to arrive into a conversation. I wonder if he is a mythological creature made manifest, a man-sized pixie or dryad. My my, what if there are actual dryads running around and we just haven't crossed paths with them before now? That would be quite a revelation."

Kean shook his head. "No, he doesn't live in the woods. He's from far away."

"Very, very far" Mallory added.

"I think, well, it's just a guess but, I think he's from, oh forget it." Kean blushed and looked away. He couldn't muster up the courage to voice his theory.

"Kean, it's all guesswork. You heard Heisenberg, magic is possibility. Nothing is impossible. Heck, we already believe that we can do magic, and that Heisenberg can too, and that Sterling can put people into a timeout bubble. One more crazy idea will fit right in."

"She's got a good head on her shoulders, my boy. Let's hear it."

Kean took a deep breath and blurted it out. "I think he's from space. A different planet. Some place very different than our home."

Heisenberg scratched under the brim of his cap as he considered the extraterrestrial possibility.

"And the creatures from his planet are of the same form and shape as humanity? That's quite a coincidence."

Mallory corrected Heisenberg. "He wasn't in this form when he came here. He wasn't any form, really. He kind of...formed himself from the stuff around him, using the images of people around him as an example."

"And so he can read minds?"

"Not really. At least, not that we've seen. But when he first appeared here, he was able to see images and ideas in the thoughts of anyone nearby. He picked up the language that way too."

Heisenberg looked back and forth between Mallory and Kean. "And how did he explain this process to you? It seems to be a difficult thing to describe, and he would have had little chance to pluck such an explanation from an average person."

"He showed it to us. It's another one of his abilities, something all of his family can do. He pulled us into his memory and we watched him go through the whole thing. He called it 'The Sharing'. Mallory and I saw the spell as it was being cast on a passing meteor. Sterling wanted to see the stars from the meteor's perspective. Another spell met Sterling's spell at the meteor, and the two spells mixed harmlessly. Things didn't go wrong until the third caster's spell attacked the meteor. His spell poisoned the other two, and they fused into one big ugly spell. Sterling blacked out at that point, and started to regain consciousness the next morning."

Heisenberg took a moment to process Kean's explanation.

"I see. That does explain the unique nature of this spell. Have you been able to determine what the spell is doing?"

Mallory answered. "It makes some people very angry and violent. And it makes some other people fall stupidly in love with anyone. Kean tried to dispel a guy at our school, but he couldn't get rid of the spell, only knock it back a little."

"What did the boy at school do?"

"He was in love with Mallory. Wanted to walk her home and meet her parents five minutes after they had met."

"Perhaps he had a secret crush on her and this was the first chance that he had to talk to her?"

Mallory folded her arms and glowered at Heisenberg. "Hey! Cut it out. It was the spell, we saw it."

Heisenberg laughed. "My apologies, Mallory. I was kidding. The spell is an incredibly strong and unstable love spell. It creates a powerful but unnatural attraction that the victim has little control over."

"What about all of the violence? Why would a love spell cause so much fighting?"

"Balance, young man. Balance. You cannot create a spell that puts a love in someone's heart without taking that love from somewhere else. And that sudden theft of love leaves hurt and anger in its place. The worst part of it is that for every one person tricked into love, five will feel their love stolen away. That is why the violence is more prevalent."

"So how do we stop it? Why is it spreading?"

"It spreads because it has a need it cannot fill. The spell is fuelled by a vast battery of emotion, and it's trying to fulfill its purpose. If it had been only a simple love spell, it would have fizzled out by now. The first altercation at the theatre would have released all of the misappropriated emotions and settled everything. There is another source of desire, a darker and malevolent need that twists the spell into the ravenous creature that it is. That source is an awful man who calls himself Herlech Gate. Whatever he wants is poison to the rest of us."

"So he's the third mage, huh? I guess Herlech is his mage name, right? Seems kind of dumb to use a nursery rhyme name. Why not Georgie Porgie or Humpty Dumpty?"

Mallory expected Heisenberg to answer, but it was Kean who spoke up.

"'The little lambs will sicken quick, and the gentle flowers die. The earth itself shudders in fear, when Herlech Gate walks by.' That nursery rhyme is a really scary one, Mal. Most teachers don't tell you the really bad verses, but I found some of them doing research for a poetry assignment."

"Very good, Kean. You must be a very good student, and I hope your teachers appreciate your abilities. He uses that name to frighten people and to seem unreal."

"Is he trying to stop the spell too?"

"He's looking for something from the first caster, the boy who created the love spell. I interrupted Herlech at the museum as he was about to abduct the boy. I sadly did not get a good look at the lad, and he ran off before I could get to him."

"Why did the spell get so strong at city hall? Was it because all three of the mages were getting close to each other?"

"It could be. If only knew what Herlech wants from the boy, then we could try to help him."

Mallory groaned in frustration. "None of this helps us figure out what to do next! Old Alex is getting stronger and causing more damage and people who are affected by it are drawn to Sterling. We can't keep him on the run forever. And we took a vow to send him home."

"Old Alex?" Heisenberg asked with an eyebrow raised.

"That's what we call the spell. So how do we stop the spell and stay away from this Herlech guy?"

"We need to find the first caster. I suspect he's a novice caster, maybe even an unknowing one. He may have cast the spell by accident, and he doesn't know that he must choose for it to end. And we have to find him before Herlech does."

"I think we're glossing over a pretty significant detail, boys. Somewhere out there is a crazy spell caster who thinks it is fine and dandy to abduct a kid in the middle of the day in a public place. How are we supposed to fight him if he tries to take Sterling?"

Heisenberg made sure that Mallory was looking him in the eyes and could see how serious he was when he replied.

"Don't. Run from him, and hide as soon as you can. If you slip into a very crowded place, pull your aura close to yourselves and keep moving."

"Hold on, what aura? We only glow when we're casting."

"The spark becomes very bright when you cast, that much is true, but even when you do nothing, there is a faint shimmer around you that marks you as a mage. You haven't seen it yet because you're still so new at all of this.

With effort, you can suppress that shimmer and appear mundane when you need to. And if you suspect that Herlech is nearby, it's time to hide. If hiding is no longer an option then use spells. You may know already that you cannot directly affect another mage. To slow Herlech down, you must impede his way with slippery sidewalks, falling trash cans, opening doors, whatever you can see. Be quick as you cast, and if you have to do something obviously magical, do it. Worry about the backlash later."

Mallory didn't like the answer Heisenberg had given her, and she spoke her mind.

"No offence, but that advice stinks. Isn't there a magic wand or a council of elders who can help us stop him?"

Heisenberg answered. "I can give you a soup spoon from the kitchen and call it a wand, but the power it displays will be yours. Investing items with magic never works out well. They create a permanent imbalance and the universe particularly loathes that. As for the council of elders, I must disappoint you again. Organizations have rules and procedures, and rules are the death of magic. I do have a number of friends who share our gifts and they are helping us as much as they can right now, if it puts your mind at ease. I am fairly certain that Herlech has fled to his home to lick his wounds. When we crossed paths at the museum he was forced to cast several spells to escape, and they were very obvious. The karma he's experiencing right now must be very painful. You would think that he would change his approach to magic, but he seems obsessed with bending the functions of magic to his will. If you leave for home shortly, you should have a safe trip home."

"As long as we avoid any love zombies." Mallory muttered.

"We have to come up with a plan, a location to start looking for this other kid. You said he was a boy, right? About our age?" Kean asked.

"That's right. He had dark hair and he was a bit shorter than you, Mallory."

"If you can see our auras, why didn't you see his?"

"I didn't look, to be honest. I had followed Herlech's spells to the gallery when I noticed them, but I was at the museum as a visitor. It was lucky that I stumbled across his planned abduction. When I saw the source of the spells I set about fighting them, and the room lit up with arcane energy. In an area that active with magic, it's nearly impossible to see something as subtle as the aura of an unaware mage."

"I guess I'll buy that."

"I'm glad I've earned a moment of your trust, milady. Anyone care for another cookie?"

Mallory and Kean both shook their heads. "I'm so full I couldn't eat one more bite. Thanks, though. Okay Mal, let's map this out. Heisenberg, can we borrow that whiteboard over there?"

Heisenberg looked over to the rectangular whiteboard that sat propped up on the counter displaying a list of the coffees of the day. He brought it over to the table and handed the eraser and marker to Kean.

"Thanks. So we have the point of origin, as far as we know. The Old Alexander theatre in New Tecumseh. The spell stretched off into the southern sky, so he was probably looking that way when he cast the spell."

"How does the way he was facing help us?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's useless. I'm just trying to be thorough. The next instance of the spell was that private school fight the next day. Then there was a fight in front of the library."

Mallory interrupted him. "There was? How did you find out about that?"

"I saw it on the Chronicle's website late last night, but the trouble at school this morning made me forget to mention it. Then there was lover-boy at our school yesterday, and the riot this morning. My guess is that the spell was spread by Charlie, not the mage, but we can't be sure. Finally there's the museum and city hall."

Mallory examined the rough map that Kean had drawn on the whiteboard.

"So we have a student at the private school who develops magical powers on the rooftop of a theatre, but doesn't realize it. The spell he casts affects his classmates and at least one teenager who lives near the theatre. The next day the spell spreads through his entire class and things get rough. When did the library thing happen?"

"Just after lunch, I think."

"That fits. If we assume that the unknowing mage is continuing to cause the spell to spread, then maybe someone noticed. They didn't know what was happening but they knew the kid was involved so they sent him home. On the way home, he stops by the library because he's a private school nerd."

"That's not nice, Mal."

"Whatever. Fine, he's not a nerd. But we have a line of effect running from the first location to the library. Then there's a pause overnight, and the next morning things are crazy at our school. It could be that the mage was there."

Kean offered a different theory. "If he goes to Robertson Hall and he stopped at the library on his way home, then he lives close to us. We know he came downtown today just like we did, maybe even at the same time. Wow, maybe even on the same bus."

"So?"

"So if he lives near me, then that means last night he and Sterling were fairly close together. And when the elements of the spell get close together, the spell gets much stronger. That could be what made the spell run wild at school."

"It's a stretch, but I'll go with it for now."

Heisenberg cleaned off the rest of the table as Mallory and Kean kept talking. He brought back tall glasses of water for all of them, and Kean finished his off before continuing.

"I think we need to find out who missed class at Robertson Hall today."

Heisenberg cleared his throat. "I believe your more pressing issue is returning home in time for dinner, unless you've made other arrangements."

Mallory checked her watched and cursed. "Dammit! We have to go now! We're going to hit the first part of rush hour and the trains will be packed. Wake up sleeping beauty and let's go!"

Kean scribbled down his and Mallory's cell phone numbers on to the whiteboard. "Here. Call us if you find out anything. Can we reach you at the number on your business card or does is that only your work phone?"

"That number will reach me wherever I happen to be. Please call me as soon as you locate the boy. He's going to be frightened and liable to cast wildly."

Mallory shook Sterling awake and pulled on her coat. "It can't really get worse, though, can it?"

"Oh my dear, it could get much worse. Be careful on your way home and watch for any sign of Herlech. He would burn the world to ash if he thought it would grant him more power."

Sterling blinked owlishly and rubbed his eyes as he fully woke up. "Who's Herlech?"

"The third caster. He's the one that poisoned your spell."

Sterling hitched up his pants and pretended to tip his hat forward. "Well I reckon we oughtta stop that varmint" he drawled. Mallory and Kean rolled their eyes.

"No more cowboy movies for you, partner. Goodbye, Heisenberg." Mallory said as she waved at Heisenberg and the three young mages left the tea shop and headed for home.
Chapter 18 – I Spy A Little Fly

Herlech had felt the pull when he was limping away from his confrontation at the museum. It was unlike any arcane sensation he had experienced before, an overwhelming demand that his body move towards some unseen and unknown point. He had dragged his blistered right foot behind him as he tried to keep from putting any weight on it. The pain was excruciating and it was all Heisenberg's fault.

"That nosy hedge wizard will not survive our next meeting" he muttered.

When Herlech had been interrupted and had his spells disrupted, the museum guard had come running to stop the abduction and Herlech had turned to chase the escaping boy. Heisenberg had complicated his escape by putting a thin sheen of ice on the floor that sent him off-balance. A quick flash of spell fire let Herlech regain his traction and continue to chase after the boy, but the backlash had blistered the skin of his entire right foot up to the ankle.

The wound had arrived already festering, and a small cloud of buzzing flies now circled Herlech's rotten flesh. Had he been able to ignore the compulsion pulling him forwards and instead flee to safety, he could have given his ugly injury the first aid it so desperately needed. Instead he made due with controlled inhalations from the ether-soaked rag in his pocket. It lessened the pain but also threatened to make the world swim out of existence. He had taken a deep breath of fresh air to clear his head, and then he continued on.

The pull had led him to the square in front of city hall and the writhing mass of people occupying it. It had taken all of his self-control and willpower to not be swept into the spell-maddened crowd, glowing bright with that unholy colour. He hated seeing his own spell colour perverted and merged against his will with the feeble colours of lesser mages. The third colour was especially irritating, with some mysterious quality that somehow set it apart from every other source he had ever seen. The spell spoke to the deepest longings within his heart, things that were undescribed and ran deep throughout his soul, and it wanted him to relent.

He had made his way up to the second floor of an adjacent parking garage to see the chaos without being lost within it. When he had seen the three kids dash out of the front doors and into the crowd Herlech had leaned forward, gripping the ledge in front of him. They shimmered with light from their auras announcing that all three of the kids had the gift, and the tall, gangly one was the third mage he was searching for. He had watched in rapt fascination as the third mage's aura had reached out and enveloped a handful of people. It was unlike anything he had ever witnessed before.

Knowing that he couldn't approach them without confronting the mob, Herlech had devised a more subtle plan. Reaching out to one of the buzzing insects flying around him, he bound it to him with a scrying spell to let him see through the fly's eyes. The first glimpse through the bug's eyes had made him dizzy enough to fall to his knees, but through force of will he had been able to manage the alien view and send the fly to follow the mages. As the insect disappeared over the crowd, Herlech limped back down the stairs and walked away from the spell to weaken its power over him.

The spellfly had sent back images of the kids as they ran down the streets and dodged traffic, while Herlech had crouched in an alleyway and roughly bandaged his seeping foot. He commanded the fly to look around at the buildings surrounding the kids when they stopped moving, but something interfered with his order and the image had spun and blurred so violently that he had vomited onto the pavement in front of him. When the image settled down, the kids had vanished. Herlech had choked out a cursing howl at losing sight of them, at being tricked and outsmarted by children. He stayed sitting in the alley and cursing his luck as he tried to pull together his composure, but his rage kept returning in waves.

But 20 minutes later, his fury had turned to a sick joy when his obedient spellfly transmitted a picture of those three damnable brats. It had found the kids again. The fly tailed behind the children as they made their way towards the nearest subway station. Herlech had pulled himself to his feet and run towards the subway himself, oblivious to the screaming pain. He had no time to spare his wounded body, if he was going to intercept the children and exact his revenge.
Chapter 19 – That Train Don't Stop Here

Mallory, Kean and Sterling made their way down the steps of the Wellesley subway station as they discussed how they should get home.

"I think we should just head north and take the bus. Going down to Union station to switch to the Go train puts us in the biggest possible group of people. What if the spell goes hyperactive again and we're trapped in a subway car?"

"Oh Kean. I've been just as freaked out and worried as you, but I think things are calm for the moment. We took a long look before we came down here and there's no trace of the amplified spell. No one is getting trapped anywhere. Sterling, do you feel anything from the other mages right now?"

"No ma'am." He answered as he tipped his imaginary ten-gallon hat to her. Mallory sighed.

"Seriously, Sterling. You are not a cowboy. Stop it."

Sterling stepped in front of her, stopping the descent down the stairs, and replied. "Why does it matter to you? If I like talking like a cowboy, I will talk like a cowboy. You should worry less about appearances."

"Are you calling me shallow?"

"Are you a body of water? I do not understand."

Kean tried to step in. "Shallow can also mean that the person is focused on trivial and unimportant things. But I don't think he meant that, Mal."

"He can say so himself. So mister big mouth? Were you calling me shallow?"

"No Mallory. My question is still unanswered though. Why does it matter if I talk like a cowboy?"

"It's...its....its.....weird!" Mallory blurted out. She stormed past Sterling and waited at the bottom of the stairs.

Kean patted Sterling on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You can talk like a cowboy all you want and it won't hurt anyone. It is a little weird, but downtown no one would ever notice. Come on."

The three of them regrouped at the bottom of the stairs and walked to the platform to wait for the next train. Mallory finished her argument about the best way to get home.

"Going to Union is the quickest way to get home, and we need to get home before dinner. If we're late then my mom is going to start calling around and she'll find out that we left school, which will be very bad news. Come to think of it, we may be screwed already, if the trouble at school was bad enough that the news reported it. My 5 minute excuse phone call this morning won't hold up under media scrutiny. Dammit."

"You're right. My parents will freak out if they find out we went downtown without adult supervision. Fine. We'll take the risk and go to Union station. Make sure we scan at every stop, and keep an eye on everyone coming on to the train."

Mallory agreed to the plan. "I hope we don't have to wait long. This station is creeping me out a little."

Mallory and Kean sat down on a bench and watched down the track for the train. Sterling wandered up and down the platform, staring at the ads posted in the light boxes on each pillar. Sterling's curiosity brought him precariously close to the edge of the platform, and he peered down to the track below. Kean leaped to his feet and ran over to pull Sterling back.

"Whoa! You have to stay back, Sterling. It's really dangerous down there."

"And dirty, it looks like. But why is it dangerous?"

"The trains use electricity as a power source, and that rail over there carried the electricity. If you touched it, the electricity would kill you."

"Aha! That explains that tingly feeling. Extra electricity in the air."

"You can feel it? Huh. Oh, and if the train came along while you were down there it would hit you, and that would kill you."

"Speaking of the train, here it comes! Look! Look!"Sterling shouted as the train barrelled into the station.

The rush of hot air preceding the arrival of a subway train billowed down the tunnel and over the kids. The train slowed to a stop and the doors in front of them opened. They rushed inside and sat down. The car they were sitting in was the last one in the train. Kean had a clear view of the dark tunnel behind them. The rest of the car was empty, and that gave Kean an uneasy feeling.

"That's weird. We're the only ones in here" he said as the doors closed.

"Yeah. Strange."

Mallory nodded and switched over to magesight. The car doors had no evidence of spell casting, and neither did the platform that started to fade from sight as the train began to move again. Sterling was sitting beside the door and was holding tightly onto the metal support pole beside him.

"I don't know if I am afraid or you two are afraid, but someone here is becoming scared."

The train picked up speed and rushed past the next two stations. They saw flashing glimpses of the startled and annoyed people being left on the platforms, and then the train was back into the pitch-black tunnel. Something was very wrong. Mallory repeatedly pressed on the emergency button on the wall, but nothing happened.

"The buzzers dead. It's supposed to make a loud alarm noise through the whole train."

The door leading to the next car suddenly slid open and a man with a long, thick scarf wrapped around his neck limped into the car.

"It won't work because I cut the wires. I needed some privacy."

Kean switched to magesight to confirm his worst fear: Herlech Gate was standing in front of him. In Herlech's right hand there was a long, curved knife whose point gleamed wickedly. The train started to slow down.

"What do you want from us?" Mallory shouted as she moved to the other end of the car. She made it to the back door and reached behind her to try the handle. It was locked tight.

"I will not waste words. I need him. Come now, boy. We're going to fix the mess you're responsible for."

Herlech grabbed Sterling with his free hand and pulled him towards the door. Kean tried to hold Sterling back but was forced to let go when the knife danced dangerously close to his face.

"Back!" Herlech hissed at Kean.

Herlech increased the distance between himself and Kean, dragging Sterling with him. As they neared the door Herlech stopped suddenly and locked eyes with Sterling. Sterling glared back at Herlech and both Mallory and Kean could see Sterling's stasis aura creeping around Herlech and trying to subdue him. Mallory pulled arcane energy from the air around her as she tried to prepare a spell. Kean made an attempt to move forward and do something, anything, while Herlech was unable to react, but as he stepped forward Herlech brought the knife up to Sterling's neck in slow motion.

"DO NOT MOVE." Herlech growled, in a voice made deeper by being slowed by the stasis field. He twisted the knife to nick Sterling's throat with the tip. As the small scarlet drop of blood beaded on his skin, Sterling's stasis aura collapsed and he clamped his hand on his new cut. Mallory and Kean stopped their rescue attempts and watched Herlech continue his retreat to the only working exit as the train came to a stop.

"The two of you should be able to find your way out of here eventually, if the rats don't get to you first. We have somewhere to be."

Kean shouted at him. "Leave Sterling alone. He didn't do anything to you."

"He ruined my spell. He and that other snot-nosed boy hijacked my magic and turned it into some kind of perpetual shambling mess, and I am going to use the two of them to fix it. I will not be bound to anyone. ANYONE!"

Herlech threw open the door and pulled Sterling through. The last thing that Mallory and Kean saw of Sterling was the look of absolute terror that filled his eyes, before the door slammed shut again. Kean ran to it to try and open it, or at least see where they were going, but the door was jammed shut and the glass had been spray-painted black. He heard a loud clanking sound from the other side of the door, followed by the noise of the train starting up again. The fading light coming through the side windows of the car revealed that the train was leaving without them.

"He uncoupled our car from the train. Is the back door locked, Mallory?"

She nodded with a grim look on her face. "We're trapped."
Chapter 20 – Escape!

Kean groaned and leaned against the door. "We're in way over our head, Mal."

"Well we can't just give up. I'll try to call Heisenberg; you check the emergency exit window and see how it's supposed to work."

"Won't we get in trouble for popping out the window?"

Mallory gave him a withering glare. "How much more of an emergency do you need this to be, Kean? Water pouring into the car and filling it up? Zombies trying to eat our brains?"

"Alright, alright. It was a dumb question. I'll work on the window."

Kean went over to the emergency window and read the instructions posted beside it while Mallory dialled. She slammed the phone closed a second later.

"Crap, I knew it. There's no signal down here."

"But I saw other people using their phones on the subway ride here?"

"Sometimes it works in the subway, sometimes it doesn't. This tunnel is a place where it doesn't work. Why did you stop working on the window?"

Kean's eyes went wide and he pointed at the back window. Mallory turned and saw the source of his alarm. A small point of light was quickly approaching their subway car, growing steadily brighter and larger, and the rumble accompanying the light shook the car.

"Another train! We have to get out of here!" Mallory shouted.

She ran to the sliding doors and frantically tried to pull them apart. Mallory tried to reach out with a spell to help open the door, but she was too terrified to focus enough to use magic. Kean threw his shoulder against the window, and a spider web of cracks appeared in the glass. He pulled back and slammed into the window again, this time adding spell force to his hit. A shower of small cubes of glass rained down the outside of the subway car, but the window was still too intact to allow him to escape. Light filled the entire car as the other subway train barrelled towards them, and both Mallory and Kean screamed as they braced for the violent impact.

It took a full minute afterwards for Kean to open his eyes and check on the puzzling outcome of the impending crash. The light from the other train was past them and almost at the point of vanishing. He looked out of his partially broken window, and then he crossed the car and looked out of the opposite window at the tracks running parallel to theirs. The train that had just rushed by had been on the other, working tracks. He wanted to cry and laugh at the same time, and then he noticed Mallory. Poor Mallory was still frozen in place by fear, with her hands wedged between the sliding doors and her feet splayed out and braced against the dividers on either side of the door. She let out a continual but barely audible whimper. Kean called out to her.

"Mal, we're okay. It's okay. You can open your eyes."

Mallory cracked open her left eye and took a peek at her surroundings. After confirming a distinct lack of utter destruction, she opened her other eye and let go of the door.

"We're not dead?"

"Nope. Different tracks. I think we're on a side maintenance track that connects with the main line."

"Ohhhhhhhh."

Mallory moaned as she sat down in a heap and after a pause, she started to bawl her eyes out. Kean sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders and rubbed away his own tears with his other hand.

"That, that really.....sucked. I've never been that scared before." Kean said.

Mallory sniffled and regained a little composure. "I couldn't even cast a spell. My mind was just going in every direction and I couldn't think of a way to open the stupid doors."

"I managed to use some magic to help break the glass on the window, but that didn't work so well." Kean pointed at the patchwork glass in the window frame.

Mallory stood up and went over to the window to get a closer look. "It's safety glass. They design it so it won't break into big sharp shards, but into teeny little glass cubes. And the wire inside the glass re-enforces it too, so you'd have to dislodge that too. What a terrible escape window this thing is."

Mallory tapped on the window and it limply fell out of its frame and on to the ground. The emergency alarm began to ring, weakly bleating its warning noise into their car.

"Oh sure-NOW you work. Where were you when we needed you?"

The alarm answered by dropping in pitch and speed and then stopping entirely. Mallory kicked the seat beside her in retaliation.

"At least we can get out of here now. Come on Kean."

Mallory braced herself and stepped onto the seat under the broken window. The ground outside of the window was dark, with the occasional glint from the glass. She cupped her right hand as if she was holding a flashlight, and imagined a chalk drawing of a flashlight sitting in her hand and throwing a wide beam of light into the darkness. The spell manifested and the tunnel around them was instantly illuminated, while the interior lights of the car dimmed.

Mallory lowered herself down to the ground and Kean followed after her. Intensely mindful of the potential electrical hazard, they cautiously made their way across the short distance to a raised ledge that ran the length of the wall. They climbed up to the ledge and walked along it until their former prison was out of sight. A light bulb in a wire cage wall sconce now gave them enough light to see, and Mallory released the flashlight spell. When the spell vanished, Mallory's vision was overwhelmed with bursts of colour and heat.

"AHH. Kean, hold on. I can't see."

"Geez, nothing at all?"

"I can sort of see, but it's like looking at a bright light for too long and you get blind-spots. Except these are really powerful ones, and they feel hot too. Look at my eyes. Do they look bad?"

Kean examined each of Mallory's eyes. It was unnerving to have her staring into his eyes but not be able to actually see him. He was glad to see that her eyes were not literally on fire, but they were entirely bloodshot.

"They're okay, I think. Just a little red. I can try to use a spell to cool them down-"

Mallory batted him away. "NO! No spell! This is backlash or karma or whatever. It's for the flashlight spell. It will clear up. The heat doesn't hurt, but it's really uncomfortable."

"Why is this backlash so powerful? Your spell was pretty tame. You even pretended to have a real flashlight, and there were no mundane witnesses."

"I know. I thought I was being careful. I've never felt a backlash come so quickly and hit so hard before."

Kean stood silently for a moment, thinking about the situation. Mallory held on to the wall to steady herself and held her eyes closed as she waited for the effect to subside.

Slowly the sunspots shrank and returned her vision to her.

"Okay, I'm back to normal. Let's go."

"Mal, when was the last time you felt a backlash?"

"Do you mean one that was that strong? Never."

"No. Any backlash at all. Think back."

"A while, I guess. Back at the forest."

"Same for me. That's not right."

"What? Why?"

"We used a lot of magic since then, and some of it was very obvious. Like the stuff in the square. I did an illusion in front of dozens of people, maybe hundreds, with no backlash at all."

"You're right. So something changed. Did you get any backlash for your window-smashing spell? Maybe I'm the only one who's affected by the backlash rules now."

Kean took stock of his physical state for the first time since the ordeal on the train, and he noticed as light itchiness coming from the shoulder he used to bludgeon the window. He pulled his arm out of his jacket sleeve and his sweater, and the itch worsened. His tee shirt was stuck to his shoulder, and trying to roll up the sleeve made the itch turn to pain. Mallory leaned in to look at his shoulder.

"Oh geez. It's blood, Kean, that's what's making your tee shirt stick. You're bleeding. I'm going to pull the shirt sleeve away from the wound. It's going to hurt."

"I don't really want you to."

"I know. I don't want to look at it it'll probably be gross, but we have to see how bad it is. Brace yourself."

Kean held his breath as Mallory gently pulled the tee shirt fabric away from the wound. The revealed injury was a grid of clean incisions on his shoulder, matching the pattern of the wire within the glass.

"Do you think it's natural? I did slam into the glass pretty hard." Kean asked.

"No. The cuts are too deep for that. The wire would have given out way before you could get cut like this. It's perfectly symmetrical too, and very cleanly cut."

"How bad is it? Am I still bleeding?" Kean couldn't keep the sound of panic out of his voice.

"Its fine, Keaner. It stopped bleeding, and the cuts aren't that deep."

"You just said they were!"

"Too deep for the circumstances, but still pretty shallow. Calm down, dude! We'll find a bathroom and a first aid kit and you'll be fine."

Kean gingerly put his arm back into his sweater and jacket and they continued down the ledge towards a small alcove with a large metal door.

"So the backlash rules are affecting both of us again. Mal, the only thing that changed is that Sterling isn't with us anymore."

Mallory stopped dead in her tracks. "He let us cast without backlash-he's some kind of cosmic loophole in the rules of magic. That is very bad news."

"Why?"

"Because he's been captured by a sociopathic wizard, and if he figures out the Sterling can give him a free pass to cast whatever he wants, then we're going to be in big, big trouble."
Chapter 21 – Waiting

Sterling screamed for help as the train picked up speed and rattled down the line. Herlech had him trapped on the small platform at the back of the subway car, pinned against the door leading inside. The ground rushed by underneath them at a terrifying speed, adding to the fear in Sterling's voice. The sound of his cries blended in with the noise of the train and Herlech choked the last of it out of his throat by covering Sterling's mouth with the ether rag.

"No one will hear you. If you try to summon assistance again, I will render you unconscious and drag you to our destination. That is, if I don't choose to drop you to the track below to die."

The ether fumes brought Sterling to the edge of unconsciousness. His vision darkened and shrank until it was like he was looking through a peephole into the world. A loud rushing noise filled his ears, louder and distinctly different than the train's cacophony. He wrapped his arms around the safety railing to steady himself and stop the sensation that he was about to fall off the car and onto the tracks. The train slowed as they made it to the next station, and Herlech tightened his grip on Sterling's arm.

"Easy, boy. Neither of us wants to see you dead on the floor below. Not yet." Herlech said as he prepared to jump down to the track.

As soon as the forward motion of the train stopped, Herlech leaped down and pulled Sterling along behind him. They stumbled over to a service alcove recessed into the wall between the dark of the tunnel and the fluorescent glow of the station. An old, rusted door in the back of the alcove slammed open when Herlech kicked it, and he led Sterling into the narrow hallway beyond. Sterling caught a glimpse of a faded sign that gives the hallway's destination as 'Lower Queen', and he can't help but repeat the nonsensical words out loud. Herlech responded.

"Oh, the sign. I have to remember to remove that. Congratulate yourself, boy, you've found out where I'm taking you. There's an abandoned station deep below Queen Station, one that was never in service. Built and immediately forgotten, and I am the only one who has access to it anymore. When I discovered it, it was a drinking spot for adventurous transients who could somehow find their way down here. It only took a few strange occurrences and painful mishaps to dissuade them from coming back, simple spells to scare them off. The dolts were more than willing to believe that some dread ghostly presence was looming over them. I've permanently jammed most of the doors shut, creating a maze of hallways and dead-ends that only I can navigate through to reach the station itself. I have a private and a secure stronghold in the middle of downtown Toronto to use as I see fit, and today, you will be my first visitor. Well, first visitor with magical abilities."

Herlech roughly pulled Sterling down twisting hallways and narrow stairs, turning suddenly at uneven intervals, until Sterling lost all sense of the direction they were travelling in and the route they were taking. A musty smell filled the air, mixing with the industrial odour of heavy machinery above, and the smell added to Sterling's nausea. In a short hallway with a rusted electrical panel, he stopped and vomited forcefully onto the dusty concrete floor. Herlech groaned with disgust and yanked Sterling back into motion. They finally stopped in a rough and unfinished room with a duffel bag in the corner and a tripod work lamp in the two back corners. The room had two entrances: a normal sized one that Herlech closed off with a large security door, and small door inset into the back wall, about half the size of a regular door. Herlech pulled Sterling down into a sitting position on the floor and went over to the duffel bag. From within it, he pulled out a pair of custom-made manacles.

The heart of the manacles was hardened steel, covered with a Kevlar mesh. The outer layer of the manacles was a thick coat of high temperature silicone that could withstand the heat of a blast furnace without melting or losing cohesion. The locking mechanism was separated into three places within the restraints, and it was virtually impossible for anyone to remove them while wearing them. They had been designed to Herlech's specifications, be as difficult as possible to be removed by magic. A spell to cut the silicone would be blunted on the Kevlar and steel, and a mage who was foolish enough to try and burn the manacles off would be thwarted by the silicone and left with agonizing burns on their hands. He carefully fastened the manacles onto Sterling's wrists and returned to the bag for his other invention.He pulled out a motorcycle helmet that had rectangular electronic control panel on the side. The visor had been painted in several layers of black paint, and an elastic collar extended from the bottom of the helmet.

"I'll let you know what this is before I put it on you. I'm rather proud of it. I call it the 'sensory bombardment helmet'. When it's activated, it will fill the subjects ears with an endless barrage of sound, and his sight will be filled with flashing bright light and random video clips. The resulting sensory confusion should keep any magic user from being able to muster a single coherent thought, much less a spell. I imagine that it could induce a psychotic state, given enough time, but I don't think we'll get that far. I only plan to be here with you until we draw our third compatriot to us. I can already feel him nearby. When he nears the station, I will guide him down through the tunnels with magical messages promising safety and help scrawled on the walls. And when he arrives, I will use the both of you to take this runaway spell and re-purpose it to my own ends. I am beginning to see great potential in being able to manipulate hundreds of people into committing acts of chaos and violence. I plan to explore that potential. But I won't be able to focus on our new visitor if I have to keep a watchful eye on you, so it's time to remove you from the equation. Feel free to lose consciousness."

Herlech approached Sterling and brought the helmet to the top of his head. Sterling started screaming again, this time a wordless scream of abject terror. The helmet was forced down into place, and with a flick of a switch, Sterling's world exploded.
Chapter 22 – Running Out Of Time

In the family bathroom on the main floor of the Wellesley subway station, Mallory finished putting the bandage from the first aid kit onto Kean's shoulder and gently pulled his shirtsleeve back over the wound. The small package of bandages, disinfectant and gauze had been bought from the grungy variety store kiosk near the front door of the station. He tested out his range of motion while she dialled Heisenberg's number again, hoping that her phone would have enough signal strength to make the call. She tapped the last number and listened for the first ring. After a long pause filled with a droning electronic hiss, the call went through. Heisenberg answered on the first ring.

"Mallory, tell me what's happening. The spell is amplifying in power again."

"Herlech captured us. He trapped us in a subway car and kidnapped Sterling. He left Kean and me behind in the detached subway car and we had to smash our way out of it."

"What! Are you injured? Have you called the police?"

"We're okay. Kean has a few small cuts on his shoulder and I had spotty vision for a bit but other than that we're fine. Except for the creepy feeling of fear and terror that Sterling is broadcasting to us. That part is definitely not fine. We didn't call the police because it wouldn't help anything right now."

"Things have become much more serious. I had thought that Herlech would still abide by the laws of the land out of common sense, but he's gone mad. I underestimated him, and he's far too dangerous to be confronted. You two will leave that problem to the police."

"If we call the cops, they'll ask questions that we cannot answer, and Herlech will have more time to do whatever he's planning to do. We can follow them, Heisenberg. I can feel which way we need to go to get to Sterling."

"Absolutely not! I cannot allow you to risk yourselves by chasing after a lunatic. You will wait for me where you are and I will keep you safe."

"We have to close the distance as fast as possible, so we're not going to wait. I'll call you again when we get to the closest subway station to Herlech and Sterling. We'll wait there for you to meet us, okay?"

"No that is not okay. Which station are you at now?"

"Sorry Heisenberg. Gotta go."

Mallory hung up the phone. Kean finished putting away the first aid kit and pulled his sweater back on.

"This is a bad idea, Mal."

Mallory shrugged. "I know, but I don't have a choice. He needs us, Kean. My stomach is clenched up and I feel like bursting into tears, and it's coming from Sterling."

After a long pause, Kean agreed. "Yeah, I know. I feel the same way. Let's go."

They left the bathroom, ignoring the glare from the ticket booth attendant, and went down the stairs towards the platform. Halfway down the stairs, Mallory felt her head explode in immense pain and everything around her started to spin frantically. She could barely bring herself to grab the railing and hold on for dear life and avoid tumbling down the steps. She tried to shout out for help, but she could only choke out a garbled sob. Her vision and hearing failed entirely for a moment, and she was left in a terrifying blackness devoid of sound, and filled with a familiar sense of loneliness. Her senses returned to her moments later, and she lowered herself shakily to sit down on the stairs. Kean was also sitting down at the bottom of the stairs.

"Are you alright, Mallory?" he asked in a shaky voice.

"I will be in a bit. Kean, something very bad just happened to Sterling."

Kean stood up slowly and made his way up to Mallory. He extended his hand to her and helped her up. They heard the sound of the train rushing towards the platform and the hurried down to it. They stepped inside and the doors closed behind them, and both Mallory and Kean couldn't help but flinch when the doors slammed shut as they remembered the sound from their imprisonment. The train started up again and hurtled down the tunnel. As the train moved down the line, the shared bond pulling them towards from Sterling intensified. When they reached Queen Station, Mallory moved to the door.

"This is the one. The pull is incredible. They're nearby."

"Call Heisenberg and tell him the station. We're not waiting for him."

Kean sounded so serious and angry that Mallory was startled. She had never heard him talk that way. She flipped open her phone and called.

"Hi Heisenberg. We're at Queen Station. They're close. I don't think they're above us, though. It feels like they are below us, which is weird. I don't see any signs for a lower level or anything. We'll keep looking. Gotta go-we'll leave a trail somehow."

Mallory finished the phone call in a rushed tumble of words and hung up before Heisenberg had a chance to respond. Moments later, her phone started to ring. She checked the number, and when she confirmed it was Heisenberg, she put her phone on silent and tucked it away in a pocket. Kean scanned the platform for traces of magic, and caught a tiny shimmer out of the corner of his eye. Down near the south end of the platform, right before the start of the tunnel, an old rusty door was slightly ajar, and the magical shimmer was on the inside of the door. He pointed at the door and moved towards it with Mallory following closely behind.

They opened the door fully and took a closer look at the source of the shimmer, a line of text written at eye level on the back of the door. It was visible to the naked eye and in magesight it was brightly luminescent. The author had intended for the text to be easily seen by anyone with magical sensitivity. In clear block lettering, the text read 'This way, this way, from troubles safely hid' and had an arrow pointing down the narrow hallway beyond. Mallory intently inspected the writing.

"It's Herlech's. It's got his poisonous colour all over it. He's leading us into a trap."

"Not us. The other mage. Herlech still thinks we're trapped in the subway car. We might be able to surprise him."

"And what do we do then?"

Kean looked around the doorway and examined the door, focusing on the handle and push bar. He pulled out a dime from his pocket and slipped it into the groove of one of the screws holding the push bar in place, using it as an improvised screwdriver. With a small burst of magic to speed up the process, he dismantled the push bar mechanism, leaving the door permanently unlocked. He picked up the detached push bar and swung it over his head and down in front of him. He held it out in front of him as a weapon, like a knight standing ready with his sword.

"We stop him, Mal."
Chapter 23 – Down The Spiral Stairs

Mallory was taken aback by Kean threatening to become violent. He was a peaceful and quiet boy, and the fury that was now in his eyes was painful to see. She silently cursed the evil man who brought this kind of rage into Kean's heart as she dodged around the makeshift weapon and wrapped her arms around him. Mallory hugged him tightly and reassured him.

"We'll make sure Sterling is safe and then we'll all run out of here. The grownups can deal with stopping Herlech. You and me, we just have to stay safe and one step ahead, okay?"

She pulled back to look Kean in the eyes, and she was relieved to see his angry resolve slowly soften. She let go of him and turned back to the door. Below the magical script, she wrote her own note in black marker. 'Heisenberg- Herlech and Sterling are below us and that way. Anybody else should turn back. You're going into a trap!' she wrote, with an arrow pointing off down the hallway, and they set off.

"Hopefully that keeps the third mage from following us" she said, with a lack of conviction in her voice.

They travelled through the underground labyrinth as quickly as they could manage. There were frequent moments of indecision as the signs they were following led them away from the direction they knew Sterling was in, and each step in the opposite direction heightened their nauseous apprehension. They left a marker arrow at every intersection as they passed it, under the sporadic and cryptic magical messages left by Herlech. His messages alternated between reassuring and frightening as they lured the third mage deep away from any chance of escape, and Mallory made sure to put a note under each one refuting its claim.

They reached a junction of 3 different hallways spreading out in a y-formation. The hall to the right led down in a sharp decline into a dimly lit area, and a final note announced the end of the maze. 'The road is at an end, and you are safe from the outside world. Welcome' the note read. Kean peered down the sloping hallway and saw a thin line of magical energy strung across the hall at the bottom of the incline. He gestured to Mallory to retreat away from the awaiting ambush.

"He's got a magical trap set up, down at the end of the hallway. It's at knee-height. Can you see it?" he whispered.

"Yeah. We should look for another way down. The element of surprise would be really helpful."

"That's if he isn't already aware of us being here and he isn't just waiting to leap out and attack us. Then we would be the surprised ones. Okay, let's check the other hall."

They crept back to the y-junction and took the left. This hallway was rough cut from large blocks of stone, with no polish or finish to them. The rest of the construction so far had been near final completion, but the walls around them now were crudely constructed. They navigated by the fading light from the main hall until they couldn't see any further, and Mallory switched on the souvenir flashlight they had bought at the news stand. It was a tiny penlight and it barely cast any light until Mallory augmented it with a very restrained light spell.

They moved down the snaking hallway, with its jagged stone projections catching at their clothes and pulling at their hair. At the end of the hallway lay the remnants of a cinder block wall crumbled into a pile of rubble. Through the opening at the end of the hall, Mallory could see the top of a narrow metal spiral staircase that filled the tiny space. The stairs were coated in rust, and in the dim light afforded to them, it had the appearance of being covered in blood. Mallory moved closer to the stairs to get a better look, cautiously putting her head through the hole in the wall. As her head entered the stairwell, she felt a sudden drop in temperature, and her vision blurred slightly. She quickly pulled her head back out and the cold and the blurred vision vanished.

"Kean, do me a favour and poke your head in there. Tell me if you see or feel anything."

Kean shrugged and did as he was asked. "It's kind of cold in here. Is that what you mean?"

"It felt really cold to me. And my eyes went blurry."

"Hmm. I guess it's a little fuzzy in here. It's not magical, though. Try it again."

Kean and Mallory switched places and she leaned through again. The cold was there again, but muted, and the effect on her eyes was barely noticeable. She stepped back from the stairs.

"Must have been lingering backlash. Anyway, it feels like we're right above Sterling. We better not talk when we're on the stairs."

"Maybe only one of us should go down to see. Those stairs don't look safe."

"Fine. Wait here."

Mallory stepped through the hole and crept down the twisting stairs. There was almost no gap between the stairs and the surrounding walls, and it gave her a taste of what claustrophobia must feel like. Finally she reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around the dusty space around her. In front of her there was a short, low open space that led into a vertical shaft. She moved into the open space and looked up into the blackness. The uniform shape and the height above her made her realize that she was at the bottom of an abandoned elevator shaft. At the base of the opposite wall, she found a small door wedged into the concrete and held there by one large, rusty hinge. As slowly as she could, she reached out to the door and tested it to see if it would move at all, and she was startled when it noiselessly pulled open. Keeping it open barely a crack, she took a look inside. Sitting in a chair facing the opposite door was Herlech, and near his seat a body lay on the floor. She struggled to hold in a gasp when she saw Sterling's prostrate form with the strange helmet on his head, and she couldn't draw another breath until she saw his foot twitch. At least he was alive.

Mallory sneaked back up the stairs and relayed what she had seen to Kean.

"Do you think we can pull him out without Herlech noticing?"

"Nope. We need a distraction."

"I'll be the distraction, then. I'll go back to the other door, and I'll come rushing through it. If I'm lucky, I can knock him out before he figures out what's going on. While I keep him busy, you get Sterling out."

"Are you sure I can manage that? It sounds way too dangerous. I mean, I don't want to play the weak female role, but you are stronger than me so dragging Sterling out would be easier for you"

"I have a better chance of knocking Herlech over and out of the fight, at least temporarily. And Sterling's lighter than he looks. Remember when we snuck out of school this morning? We carried him then, pretty much. Just drag him out of there and take that helmet thing off of his head."

"Can't we just wait for Heisenberg, Kean?"

"I want to, but I'm afraid of whatever is happening to Sterling. He passed out, at least that's what I think happened back upstairs, but if he wakes up and he's still being assaulted, it might permanently hurt him. I'll wait for your signal before I charge in."

"How do I signal you without alerting Herlech?"

Kean thought about the problem for a moment. "Make the door heat up a little, just around the handle. Did it have a handle?"

"I think so."

"Are you sure?"

"Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"I wasn't paying attention to doorknobs at the time, and I'm not going back to look. I'll just heat up the whole door. Hopefully Sterling can still give me protection from backlash while he's out cold."

"When you have him out of the room, try to bar the door behind you and head back up and out. I'll join you as soon as I can. Good luck, Mallory."

As Kean walked away from her, Mallory sighed. "This is a terrible plan, Kean".

"I know, but it's the best one I've got. I'm open to suggestions."

Mallory felt the swirling pain and nausea that was still being broadcast from Sterling. "No suggestions. Good luck Kean, and please stay safe."

Kean nodded and ran off down the hallway, leaving Mallory standing at the yawning mouth of the crumbled hole in the wall
Chapter 24 – It's Lonely Down Here

Mallory stepped through the hole and felt the intense cold return, even colder than it had been the first time. The blurry vision was back as well, but by being cautious she was able to navigate the stairwell. The change in her sight was more of a sense that she wasn't able to see some part of the scene in front of her, like the first disappearance of objects as they blur into twilight.

Mallory made her way down to the bottom of the rusty stairs, shivering from the cold air surrounding her. At the foot of the staircase, the air seemed to thicken and it encased her in the frigid cold. Five smoky tendrils of ice-cold air coalesced into the form of a slender hand clasped around Mallory's left bicep. Mallory slammed her teeth together to keep herself from screaming at the top of her lungs as she wrenched her body away from the hand. She broke free of the grip and started breathing deeply to settle herself down enough to cast a spell. The hand floating in midair was now joined to a phantom arm, being traced out of the cold nothingness into a defined form. From within the forming shape, a sad whispering female voice pleaded.

"No, please. I'm sorry I scared you. I won't hurt you. I can't. Please don't go, I'm so lonely."

Mallory paused in her preparation. She didn't dismiss the gathered magical energy, but she kept it unshaped as the form in front of her continued to manifest. There was a sadness she could feel broadcasting from the indistinct vision, a sadness she had never felt before. Mallory looked at the nearly complete form of a young woman with her magesight and looked for a spell signature. The creature in front of her was radiating some kind of energy, but it wasn't a magic spell.

"Oh what now?" Mallory hissed. "What are you?"

The young woman was now a complete person made out of frost and clouds of cold fog. Her clothes looked out-of-place, old and out of style. Her long poodle skirt skimmed the floor and a she wore a handkerchief around her neck like a character from the musical 'Grease'. Mallory didn't think she could be any more frightened than she was at the moment. She was at her scared limit, and even seeing the apparition floating off the ground couldn't add to the terror. After staring at the ghostly figure for what felt like an eternity, Mallory's curiosity started to overtake fear. The ghost finally answered.

"I'm nothing anymore. I used to be a girl. A long time ago, I had a name, and I was running around the subway tunnels with my friends. There was a boy, I think, with strong arms and a funny smile. We were drinking from a bottle of whiskey someone had stolen from home, and we were dancing. Oh I loved dancing."

The girl's voice came to Mallory in waves. Most of the time the sound was muffled and muted, but it seemed to break through and surface now and again.

"Are you working with Herlech?"

"Who is that? Names are too hard to remember. Everything is too hard to remember. I almost forgot myself, but something woke me up. You can see me. You can hear me. I've been in this room alone for so long that I thought other people were a dream. I ran off from the police when they found us in the tunnels and I got lost. The drink made everything fuzzy and the maze of corridors led me to the stairs. I was frightened and lost and I slipped. I fell down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs my neck hurt and I couldn't call out for help. I saw a light flash far above me before my life ended."

"You're......a ghost. You died in this stairwell?"

"Yes. Lost and alone, I died in a forgotten stairwell. I try to leave but I don't know how. Can you help me leave? "

"I don't know how to help you. I'm sorry. I have to go. I have to save my friends."

"Oh don't leave me. I'll follow with you. I won't be a bother."

"How?"

The ghost shattered and fell apart into vapour as she vanished. In Mallory's ear, the ghost's voice spoke.

"Here. I can just be a quiet voice. May I come, please?"

Mallory thought about it for a moment, and then decided to go with it. "Yeah. I don't want to leave you here. But try to not distract me too much, okay?"

"Thank you. You're so warm. I haven't been warm for so long."

Mallory crept towards the small half-door.

"Okay, here's what's going on. My friend Sterling is trapped in the next room by a crazy wizard named Herlech. I'm going to pull him out through this door while my other friend Kean distracts the wizard. Then we're going to run."

"Why do you call him a wizard?"

"He can use magic. So can I. So can my two friends. Maybe a lot of other people can too, we don't really know."

The voice in her ear scoffed. "There is no such thing as magic."

"No such things as ghosts either. Now quiet down, you, whatever your name is. You still don't know your name?"

"No."

"Then I'm calling you Whisper. Now I have to give Kean the signal."

Mallory inched the small door open and confirmed that the occupants were still arranged in the same format. Herlech had remained in exactly the same spot, staring into the space around him. Sterling had rolled onto his side and was just out of arms reach for Mallory.

"He looks crazy. His eyes are closed but they keep moving back and forth as if he can see" Whisper murmured.

Mallory realized that Herlech was watching the magical landscape around them for signs of the third mage, and he would most likely notice her signal as soon as Kean did. She hoped he could make it through the door fast enough to still surprise him, and then she had a flash of inspiration hit her. She started casting.

Mallory pictured a chalk drawing of a thermometer beside the metal door on the opposite side of the room, and she increased the door's temperature by a few degrees. At the same time she sent a buzzing fly drawing zipping off into the corner of the room, flying erratically and flashing bright with magical energy. Herlech's head snapped around to face the fly, skipping over the less obvious spell on the door. Herlech was on his feet and taking a step towards the fly when Kean burst through the door.

Kean managed to swing the push-bar in a full arc and hit Herlech firmly in the shoulder before Herlech reacted and grabbed Kean in a bear-hug. The metal bar dropped to the ground and they began to struggle for dominance.

Mallory scuttled across the floor to Sterling and undid the straps holding the helmet onto his head. She popped the helmet off and looked at Sterling's face. He was still unconscious, but his torturous discomfort had stopped as soon as Mallory had pulled off the helmet. She threw it away, and it rolled to a stop while still blaring terrible noise and strobing light from within.

She looked up to see how Kean's battle was going. He was on top of Herlech for the moment, taking full advantage of Herlech's wounded shoulder. He had Herlech's good arm pinned under his body, and he dug the point of his elbow into the spot he had whacked with the metal bar. Herlech shouted in pain and writhed under Kean, trying to break free. Mallory slapped Sterling's face and shook him.

"Wake up, Sterling" she told him as she started pulling him back towards the escape route.

Whisper looked at the boy on the floor. "He's so beautiful. He shines."

"That's not really helping things, Whisper." Mallory warned her. The last thing she needed was a lovesick ghost sighing in her ear. She gave another pull on Sterling's limp body and looked over at Kean again. Kean met her eyes and told her to keep going.

"I've got him under control for the moment, Get Sterling out of here!"

The combination of being physically restrained by a child, and having his plans ruined yet again sent Herlech over the edge. He bellowed a wordless shout of rage as he filled the room with raw, barely directed magic. It manifested as raw electricity filling the room and then discharging with a blast. A shock-wave blasted through the air and threw Kean, Mallory and Sterling into the corner of the room. The shock-wave became a hurricane wind that pinned them against the wall and stole the breath out of them. With considerable effort, Mallory re-filled her lungs and found a way to breathe while being assaulted by the unnatural gale.

Herlech brought himself up to a sitting position with his back leaning against the wall. His teeth were clamped together and bared as he waited for karma to inflict its toll on him for such outrageous magic use. The room was silent except for the rushing sound of the wind. Herlech cocked his head to the side and looked around the room as the expected backlash failed to materialize, and after another moment, he smiled with a sick grin and stood up. He walked over to the wall of wind that kept his prisoners restrained. In the palm of his hand he created a pillar of blood-red fire, and he made it dance and twist around itself.

"You are a gift, children. Instead of ruining me, you have given me a new life. And new power. Power without petty limits. Power without cost."

At that moment, someone spoke from just outside the door. "Hello? Can you help me? I think I'm lost."

Herlech smiled even wider, a mouthful of predatory teeth sickly gleaming.

"Come in, come in. You're in the right place. Let me help you inside."

The pillar of flame leaped out of Herlech's hand and shot out of the door like a lasso made of fire. He pulled it back in and encircled in the middle of the fiery loop was Robert, frightened and desperately trying to avoid being burned by the ring just centimeters from his skin. Herlech sent a second tendril of fire to the door and slammed it shut.
Chapter 25 – Showdown

Herlech herded Robert into the group huddled against the wall and dismissed the fire from his hand. The room was filling with the crackling of magical energy being used in vast quantities, like an electrical dynamo spitting out stray electrons until the air is electrified. The wall of wind pushed Mallory, Kean and Robert against the wall, with Sterling lying at their feet. Kean shouted to his friend.

"Mallory, the third mage is Robert. The kid from the big house on the corner of my street. He was right near us at the start of it all."

"Doesn't help us now. I'm being crushed by a stupid magical wind, if you hadn't noticed."

"So am I!"

"Then start casting something back at him! Throw whatever you can and try to break his concentration. You too, Robert."

Robert looked at Mallory with his teary, terrified eyes. "What do you mean? I don't understand any of this" he wailed.

"Just imagine something happening to make that nutjob be distracted. Whisper! Can you do anything?"

Kean shouted back. "What are you talking about? Did you ask me to whisper?"

"Never-mind. I'll explain later. If there is a later. Whisper!"

It was disconcerting to hear Whisper's soft voice so clearly in a room filled with noise and chaos. "I can try to wake your friend up, I think. He's connected to you, and I can try to follow the connection to him."

"Give it a try" Mallory instructed.

A shudder ran through Malory's body as the tiny cold spot that signified Whisper's presence zipped down her neck and arm and jumped over to Sterling. Mallory turned her attention back to the madman on the other side of the room.

"Alright, Mr. Crazy guy. Let's rumble" she shouted at him as she balled up her fists and started casting.

She drew a strobe light pointed directly into his eyes, firing off blasts of intense light several times a second. Herlech snarled and crushed the light spell with a cloud of inky force that squeezed it out of existence. When her spell was destroyed, it felt like someone had just reached over and slapped her.

Kean took up the counter-attack by conjuring a snarling German Sheppard into existence, and sent the dog to attack Herlech. The dog snapped its jaws as it lunged forward to try and bite Herlech, and he turned his attention to it. The wind lessened slightly as Herlech focused on fighting Kean's spell dog.

Mallory leaned down and checked on Sterling. Sterling's eyes were starting to flutter behind his eyelids, and when her head was close to his mouth she could hear a low moan coming from his throat. The cold spot in her ear returned as Whisper came back.

"He heard me! I didn't know if he would. He's waking up."

"Good."

"What is that light? It's starting to hurt."

Mallory looked at the room. For the first time she realized that their spells were completely visible to the human eye. She switched over to magesight and winced at intensity of the arcane light. The room was filled with wild magical energy that slammed into the walls and into every person in the room. The energy was frantic but purposeful, directed by some kind of instinct or intellect. It gathered into a basketball-sized ball and hurtled at Herlech, but it could not reach him, and instead it ricocheted into the wall behind him. The wall cracked and sent concrete dust billowing out in a cloud. Another ball formed and attempted to hit Kean. It deflected into the work lamp and caused it to explode in a shower of sparks. The only spot in the room that was not overflowing with this angry magical energy was the aura around Sterling.

"Kean, something's happening. Do you see this?" Mallory asked.

Kean grunted in response. His dog yelped and disappeared as a crocodile made out of black and red fire snapped its jaws around the dog's neck. The energy in the room flared. Mallory launched another spell at Herlech, a tiny cloud above his head sending daggers of sleet into his face. Kean surveyed the room.

"You're right. Mal. There's too much magic in here. The backlash is building up and it has nowhere to go, so it's starting to destroy the room itself. It's going to bring the roof down on top of us if it gets much worse."

She looked down at Sterling and his aura of calm that kept the rampant magical energy at bay. The only spell that was able to reach him was the threads of Old Alex that ran between all three mages. The Old Alex spell was weaving with itself, becoming brighter and more cohesive as she watched. Suddenly Mallory felt a thudding impact into her chest and a loss of breath as Herlech overwhelmed her little rain cloud with a fireball. Herlech bellowed, his voice magically amplified to be loud enough to be painful.

"Enough games! You play with power you cannot understand. I will rip this spell from you, and when I have its power, I will reach inside and dig out whatever gives you immunity to magical repercussions. Your friends will watch as I ascend to my rightful place."

With his pronouncement, Herlech unleashed two blasts of arcane energy at Robert and Sterling. The beams of energy were elongated extensions of Herlech's arms, but each magical arm ended in a hand with impossibly long fingers and long, black, sharp talons. The talons circled around the threads of Old Alex leading from Sterling and Robert. When the claws pierced the spell, both Robert and Sterling cried out in pain. Herlech's magehands started to pull on the old Alex spell, and with each pull the boys jerked forward. After a particularly strong yank, Kean saw that the Old Alex spell was anchored inside of each of the boys, and separating it from them was like tearing off a strip of skin from their flesh.

"Mallory, stop him from pulling. It's ripping something out of them."

Mallory nodded and both she and Kean cast their own spells around the Old Alex. They created tethers to hold it in place and keep it from being dislodged, and they were now all were locked in a struggle for control of the spell. Each side would gain an advantage, and then see it slip away in the next heartbeat. Around all of them, the atmosphere became more and more charged with wild magic and the impending onset of a massive destructive event. Mallory decided to try another tactic.

"Herlech!" She screamed. "This is going to destroy us all. You have to stop. Power is useless if tonnes of rock and concrete fall onto our heads."

"I would rather see the world vanish into nothingness than give up this one chance."

He punctuated his rebuttal with a renewed vigour in his attack. The talons grew even longer, and became barbed with jagged edges. He pushed the talons deeper into the spell, and Robert screamed.

"Kean, I have another plan. When I say so, I want you to do to Robert what you did to loverboy at school."

"But that won't work. I can't-"

Mallory cut him off. "Just do it when I tell you to. Robert! Wish for the spell to stop. Wish really hard!"

Mallory hoped that somehow her instruction to Robert would get translated into a dismissal of his part of the Old Alex, either completely dismissing it or weakening it enough that Kean could help disrupt it. Next she muttered under her breath to Whisper.

"Go tell Sterling to cancel his part of the Old Alex spell when I tell him to. And tell him to be ready to move."

"I'll tell him. You aren't safe here now. That angry light is ripping holes into the wall between the living world and the dead, and dead world is hungry" Whisper warned as she left Mallory's ear.

Mallory bit her lip and readied herself. She relaxed the defensive spell that was keeping one of the talons from making any progress, and she channelled the small amount of energy she had left into three spells. She drew a pair of giant scissors hovering in the air in front of her, a coiled spring in between the door and its frame, and a large pair of crossed sticks in the shape of an 'x' slipped under Sterling's coat.

"NOW! CUT IT NOW!" she screamed out.

Her scissors snapped down onto the Old Alex spell tendrils attached to Sterling and cut through the bulk of them. Kean used a small spell shark to clamp down on the spell tendrils coming from Robert and cut through them.

"NOW STOP FIGHTING HIM!" Mallory yelled as she triggered her other two spells.

The spring in the doorway uncoiled and threw the door wide open. Sterling's coat stretched out over the x frame and became a makeshift sail that instantly caught the unnatural wind. Mallory tilted the sail to send Sterling hurtling through the now open door. The Old Alex spell, now barely attached to Robert and Sterling, was only being kept from Herlech by Mallory and Kean's counter-spells. They dropped their counter-spells and the last few threads snapped as Old Alex shot towards Herlech.

His triumphant look of glory was short-lived as he saw what trailed after the Old Alex. All of the wild magic that filled the room had instantly found direction and purpose once Sterling was removed, and it now became a living swarm of retributive energy. The karmic cloud covered Herlech and pressed upon him from all sides. He started to scream as the vicious energy picked him apart, and he screams grew louder and louder until the energy cloud consumed him entirely and he vanished into nothingness.
Chapter 26 – Crashing Into Light

The room continued to rumble and shake. A steady stream of concrete dust rained down onto Kean's head as he tried to keep Mallory from falling down. The magical battle had taken Mallory past the limits of her endurance, and the backlash slamming into her had knocked her senseless.

Herlech's sudden disappearance had reduced the wild karmic energy hammering the walls around them, but it was still too dangerous to stay where they were, so Kean threw Mallory's arm over his shoulder and helped her to the door. "Robert, come on. Follow me" he yelled back to the bewildered boy huddled against the wall. A bolt of vicious karmic retaliation zapped into Robert and spurred him out of the room, yelping as he did.

They made their way out to the rough platform area where Heisenberg stood cradling Sterling in his arms.

"Heisenberg! You found us!" Kean shouted.

"I did, Kean, and damn good thing too. This one was flying through the air and would have ended up down in the dirt and rubble if I hadn't caught him."

"Is he okay?"

Heisenberg realized that he was cradling Sterling like a newborn infant, and he became a little embarrassed. He set Sterling down and straightened out his coat.

"He looks well enough. What about Mallory there?"

"I think she's okay. The fight took a lot out of her. Mal? How are you doing?"

Mallory shook her head and stood up straight under her own power again. She nodded.

"I am, mostly. The backlash has backed off now that we're near Sterling again, but it's still there. That's what I realized while we were fighting: Herlech thought that Sterling nullified karma, but he just delays it."

"And what happened to that miserable monster Herlech?"

Mallory and Kean just looked at each other. They didn't have an answer. In Mallory's ear, Whisper spoke with a voice that was breaking into the sound of meaningless static.

"He's not anywhere. He fell through a crack in the world. Not dead. Not alive. Nowhere."

"Whisper, I can't hear you clearly. What's happening?"

"The walls between living and dead are rebuilding. Soon I'll lose you too."

The sadness in Whisper's hissing voice made Mallory's breath catch in her throat.

Kean had a worried look on his face as he asked "Who are you talking to Mal? Why do we have to whisper?"

"Whisper is a person. Or was. I found a ghost in the stairwell. She found me, really. That was the cold feeling, Kean. Her. She's starting to slip away though. All of the magic must have punched a hole through to her place. She called it deadworld or something. So it looks like ghosts are real too. What are next, dragons?" Mallory blurted out in one long breathless sentence. Heisenberg and Kean stared wide-eyed at her, and Robert just shook his head and moaned.

"Why is everybody crazy?"

"I'm not crazy, and there is a ghost in my ear right now. Oh, yeah, I guess that does sound crazy. But that doesn't make it true."

Mallory stomped her foot and gave Heisenberg and Robert a glare that dared them to argue against her. Kean was the only person in the group to notice that Sterling was slowly starting to disappear. Kean watched as Sterling faded, looking like a television signal slowly losing cohesion into a flickering bundle of colour and light. Then the Old Alex spell flared up and pulled Sterling back into a solid state. Sterling screamed in pain as he was reformed, and both Kean and Mallory doubled over with sympathetic agony.

The Old Alex spell was still anchored to both Robert and Sterling, despite Mallory's best efforts to sever the bond, but the spell had an erratic elasticity to it now. The removal of the third mage had destabilized Old Alex and it now undulated between the remaining two casters. Mallory's mind raced as she looked for a solution to Sterling's crisis.

"Robert, you have to stop your part of the spell."

"What are you talking about? What is she talking about?"

"You're a mage, Robert. You don't know it but you can cast magic. You already have, and the spell you cast is hurting him. You have to stop it."

"But how? This doesn't make any sense!" Robert wailed as he began to back away from the group.

"Robert, focus!" Kean yelled as he grabbed Robert's shirt and shook him. Heisenberg stepped in and freed Robert from Kean's desperate grab.

"Scaring him won't help anything. Now, Robert, think back. We know you cast the spell when you were on the roof of that theatre, the Old Alex. What were you thinking about that night?"

Robert looked around. He was wild-eyed and overwhelmed by everything they were expecting him to believe.

"I don't remember."

Mallory threw out an idea. "Let's go up to the roof and he can walk through what he did that night. Maybe it will jog his memory."

Heisenberg nodded. "At least it will get us out of this place. Now help me get these manacles off of this poor boy. Quickly!"

Heisenberg took the lead in dismantling the restraints, and he issued commands as they worked. Kean and Mallory followed Heisenberg's instructions, and the combined spells of the three mages cut through the manacles on Sterling's wrists. They fell to the floor with a rubbery bounce and the group left the forgotten subway station behind them.

They raced through the twisting tunnels and hallways, running up the stairwells and dashing across the alleyway. Minutes later they walked out onto the roof of an adjacent service building. The cold wind bit into them and added to their misery when Sterling started to de-rez again. When he could move again, Kean pulled Robert towards the edge of the roof and pointed out over the city.

"Something happened that night, Robert. You were on the roof of the theatre, watching the night sky as the meteor shower happened above you, and you wished for something. Something that you wanted so badly that you would have changed the whole world to have it. Think, Robert. Please."

The karmic energy was building again around them, electrifying the air on the roof. Robert looked out over the street below, and hugged himself. He stared off silently for an agonizing 5 minutes, and finally, in a small quiet voice he spoke.

"I can feel it. The magic. It's around me now. I can see it too, if I try really hard. I saw it on the roof. I thought it was the stars, but it wasn't." Robert paused and kicked at the gravel at his feet. He let out a giant sigh. "I wanted her to love me. That's what I wished for, and it all went wrong."

Kean put a hand on Robert's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "Then let it go, Robert. You can't make someone love you. Let it go."

With a nod and another sigh, Robert flung his arms up into the air and dispelled his part of the Old Alex with a sad plea to the heavens.

"I'm sorry for all of this."

"I know you are, Robert. It's okay."

The remaining spell energy changed into a pure single colour and surrounded Sterling in a cocoon of light. Slowly, the light of the spell seeped into Sterling and became a part of him. Sterling levitated above the surface of the roof and turned into crystallized being made of light, filling the sky with an almost unbearably brightness.

"It's so beautiful" Whisper said, and Mallory felt the tiny icy spot disappear as Whisper flew towards Sterling. When she reached Sterling, Whisper's tiny form of ice vapour pulled apart into grey-white wisps and joined with the light. Her last words floated down to Mallory.

"Finally, I'm warm again" Whisper said contentedly, before the light consumed her and she faded away.

Sterling rose higher into the air and began to slowly turn, casting bright beams of light around him. Mallory caught a glimpse of his face and saw a peaceful and happy smile peeking through the light. His rotation sped up, and suddenly he shot straight upwards at a rate too fast to watch properly. They all craned their necks to try and watch his victorious escape from their world. The last vision that they had of Sterling was a flash of brilliant, multi-coloured light at the edge of the horizon. A moment later, a feeling of deep gratitude and relief washed over Mallory and Kean, and the image of a sky full of bright and warm stars filled their sight.

"He's home, Kean." Mallory said, as she laced her fingers with Keans and gave his hand a squeeze.

###
