I was seventeen when I wrote Arkesh. I wrote it in a long spurt, sitting at a table in my local public library branch, and by the end of the day, my story was done and my hand was badly cramped. (This was back in the days before laptops and tablets. Writing a rough draft of something generally involved paper and a ball point pen).

Content declarations: I was a very innocent seventeen when I wrote this, so there's not much to declare. Some mild swearing. A couple of scenes with fade-to-black romantic situations that might or might not wind up being consummated (I leave that up to the reader). Some not-very-graphic descriptions of battle. This story would get a PG rating if it was a movie. It is safe for all ages.

Morgan was spending the night with Beatrix.

Originally, of course, it was Trish who was supposed to have spent the night at Morgan's, since the two of them liked to rotate their overnight visits, and it had been Morgan's turn to host. However, Morgan's mother had just come down with a bad case of food poisoning, so for the second weekend in a row, Trish's family was hosting Morgan.

"You be sure to thank the O'Donnells for their generosity," Mrs Hunter told her daughter.

"Of course, Mom."

Morgan was doing her best to tune her mother out. She was a typical sixteen-year-old. Resenting her parents when they pointed out the obvious, especially when they knew she would forget to do whatever obvious thing it was they asked of her, came with the territory.

"Better get your stuff together. They'll be here in fifteen minutes."

"Yes, Mom." She sighed. Parents, she thought, they were impossible to live with, and impossible to live without. "Did you want me to get you another ginger ale?"

"Please. And could you turn off the light on your way out?"

"Sure. I hope you feel better soon."

She fetched the ginger ale. Then she went to her own room, slammed the door shut for no reason other than that she had a door and liked to remind herself that it fulfilled its purpose as well as always, and threw a heap of books into a large pink tote bag. Those books were for Trish to read. Added to the pile was a sleeping bag with a broken zipper, not that she expected to do much sleeping, a small teddy bear, and a change of clothes. The latter item was almost an afterthought.

She forgot to put in such essentials as a toothbrush, hairbrush, and a change of socks and underwear.

The O'Donnell's car pulled into her driveway and honked.

Every time she heard that station wagon make noise she was hard-pressed to hold back her laughter. The horn was anemic. In fact, the entire car was on its last legs. Once it had fallen apart in the street, and had to be quickly jury-rigged together with duct tape and twine. She and Trish had long known that the old Volvo was only running out of spite. It had long ago been time to retire the vehicle, which was a former company car that Mr O'Donnell's boss had unloaded on him several years ago, but Mr O'Donnell was as attached to it as if it had been his own son - or so he said. Trish said she thought tuition bills and braces might have influenced his emotions a little.

As they pulled out of the driveway, Morgan took one last look back at her house. It was a typical middle-class split-level ranch - upper-middle-class, perhaps, if you counted the tony neighborhood and the acres of land. It had white wooden siding on one half, red brick on the other. The shutters were black, and the windows in front had boxes that held pansies in the spring, geraniums in the summer, and chrysanthemums in the fall. Two dogs and a cat claimed the inside territory. The doorbell was linked to a grandfather clock in the foyer and chimed Big Ben whenever company came.

Very tasteful, she thought. And dull.

Inside she suspected that if she ever got married and had children, her house would wind up looking exactly like that of her parents, as would the rest of her life, and so outwardly she put up a great show of resistance and disinterest by growing her hair in a hippie style that was twenty years out of date, wearing a wool cape in the winter in lieu of a jacket, applying to places like Antioch and Hampshire rather than more conventional colleges, and loudly embracing astrology and transcendental philosophy.

The thought of rebelling in more expected ways, such as wearing punk clothing, indulging in recreational chemicals, or cutting her classes, had never appealed to her. She was deeply prejudiced against what she called the "mindless herd." The very least of these vices, punk clothing, seemed to require a matching style of music, and she really did prefer Mozart to Revolting Cock. Her idea of modern music was the Moody Blues. So what if their best work was twenty years old, and rather behind the times? Some people just weren't cut out to keep in step with every passing fad...

It amused her that people looked genuinely startled when she told them she had nothing to with drugs. With her somewhat bohemian appearance, and her tendency to live in her own thoughts (especially while listening to the Moody Blues) most people assumed at first glance that her vagueness was due to chemicals rather than an overabundance of daydreams and ideas. They failed to see that she was a deep thinker and an artiste. Or so she liked to tell herself. The fact that being flagrantly elitist and intellectual was an effective way to rebel against parents and peers alike rarely reached her thoughts - and if such thoughts did surface, she certainly wouldn't admit to having them.

"Oh, no," Mr O'Donnell muttered, adding one or two other choice words.

"What is it?"

"Oh, it's just The Tank again. I think the emergency brake is shot."

The O'Donnells called their station wagon The Tank.

"At least it's not the steering wheel."

"Don't say it," said Beatrix, laughing.

Trish was a grade above her - and almost two years, if you went by birthdays, since Trish had been born in January and Morgan in December. Neither of them drove. However, while Morgan avoided cars out of fear (she had been in a wreck, and still found it hard to forget) Trish didn't drive because her parents would not allow her behind the wheel. She had a license, but with The Tank being the only vehicle available for her use, it was only slightly more useful than wings on a penguin. Maybe when she went away to college she'd get a car.

Surprisingly, they reached the O'Donnell's house intact.

"This is the last time I'm driving this hunk of tin," Mr O'Donnell swore.

"Right, Dad."

"I mean it."

"Come on, you've been saying that ever since the boss gave it to you. Now, if you got a new car, you could also let me drive it, and you'd never have to play taxi for me and Morgan again."

"We'll see."

Beatrix shook her head.

"Hopeless."

Morgan started to laugh again but stifled it when Mr O'Donnell gave her an icy stare.

After dinner, they watched videos (fairy tales, of course) and went to bed. They stayed up late talking, as was their wont, and it was around three in the morning when they finally quieted down.

"We'd better get some sleep," Morgan said with a yawn, "unless, of course, you want to stay up until dawn to see the fairies come out."

"You and your romantic notions."

"You're a romantic, too. You read Tolkien just as avidly as I do."

"Yes, but I don't take him literally!"

"Neither do I. I don't believe in hobbits."

"Oh, right. You only believe in unicorns, elves, and fairies, and practice witchcraft. Morgan la Fey..."

"But that was just a phase," Morgan protested.

"You still believe in magic, though."

"Of course I do!"

"And I thought I was silly..."

She threw a pillow at Morgan, and missed. Morgan threw it back. Her aim was better.

"Go to sleep," Beatrix said, "you're wearing me out. I'm going to have weird dreams all night because of you."

"Thank you."

"Morgan, don't you have any grounding in reality at all?"

"What is real?"

"I'm not getting into this, either. Not this late. Good night."

Morgan chuckled, rolled over, and went to sleep. Beatrix soon dozed off after her.

A bright light shining in their faces awakened them.

"What's that?" Morgan grumbled sleepily.

She was a sound sleeper, once she managed to fall asleep - so sound that the only thing that would wake her up in the morning was an air raid siren or her mother's nagging. The family loved to remind her of the time she got a digital alarm clock for her twelfth birthday and "accidentally" set it for three in the morning - for a reason she could no longer even remember - and didn't even wake up when both of her parents had barged into the room and jostled her bed in an attempt to shut off the alarm, which had been ringing for several minutes and was loud enough to wake the dead.

Unlike Morgan, Beatrix tended to sleep with one eye open and wake at the drop of a pin. Therefore, when she woke up, she rarely had to deal with grogginess. "Hmm. It looks like a door," she said.

"Well, are we going to walk into it?"

Morgan was wide awake, now. Finally, her lust for adventure would be satisfied! It was about time.

"I don't know if it's safe..."

"Probably not, but why should we care?"

Beatrix tried logic and common sense. There had not been a door in the middle of her room before. There was a door there now. Doors did not glow and pulsate; and anyway, the law of conservation of energy clearly stated that things could not just appear out of nowhere, just like that. Besides, now it wasn't just a door. It was a sort of crystal pyramid with a rectangular hole cut in it. Things like that did not exist in real life. They existed in movies and in role-playing games, things which were a lot of fun, really, because they didn't happen to you. They happened to fictional characters. All things considered, this whole situation could therefore not be real.

That made matters simpler.

"This is a dream. I suppose I can go along with it."

"You're not dreaming," Morgan replied. "You're awake."

"How can you prove it? You're probably just a figure in my dream."

"If you were really dreaming, you wouldn't know it."

"Actually, that's not true. I've been a lucid dreamer since I was ten."

"I'm awake."

"Can't dispute that."

"Here. Wait..."

Morgan fished around the room, and without warning, threw a chemistry book at Beatrix's foot.

"Ow! That hurt! Wench."

"Don't insult me. See? I just proved that this is real. You're not dreaming, because if you were dreaming, your sensations would be totally blunted. Any sharp sensation in the dream is an immediate precursor to waking. I suppose if you are still skeptical, I could make you scream, because if you raise your real voice in a dream, you wake yourself up, but do you really want your mom and dad in here now?"

"Good point." Beatrix rubbed her sore toe. "You were more reasonable than I was. Hmph... You're still a wench."

"I guess I'll have to accept that."

"Oh, come on. My toe is going to hurt for weeks." She grimaced. "You know, we really should get my parents."

"Trish, no! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"

Beatrix was about to yell, anyway, because she was starting to feel hysterical again, and things like this were not supposed to happen to one, except in books, and she wanted to read books, not be the protagonist in them, and parents were supposed to be able to deal with awkward situations like these - however, just as her musically trained voice was about to let loose with a thoroughly operatic screech, a green hand appeared and yanked her into the pyramid.

Morgan stared mutely. This was getting a little weird even for her.

The hand reached out and pulled her in, too.

Immediately afterward, the steep crystal pyramid vanished. Save that Morgan and Beatrix had left without a trace, there was no sign that anything unusual had occurred. The room's clutter was undisturbed.

They came to on a steep mountain hillside. It was spring. Little wildflowers and dandelions covered the grass. If either of them listened hard enough, they could hear the droning of bees.

"Where are we?" asked Morgan.

"I don't know. Wherever we are, it's nice enough."

A dart appeared in the ground beside them, as if from nowhere.

"Then again..."

Morgan felt a sharp pain underneath her shoulder. "Trish, run!" she cried; then she staggered for a second and collapsed in a heap.

Beatrix ran. It did not occur to her to question Morgan's judgment - at any rate, she didn't know any better.

Apparently, it was not Beatrix that the assailants wanted, for they let her go untouched and unpursued, even though it would have expended little effort on their part to fell her, too. They emerged from the underbrush where they had been hiding and took Morgan's slumped body, disappearing with it into the woods.

Beatrix ran until her sides ached and her lungs began to burst. She was not an athlete, not by a long shot, and unlike Morgan, she saw no point in getting exercise or otherwise conditioning herself "in case of an emergency" (such as unknown attackers seeing her come through a dimensional gate and shooting poisoned darts at her from the nearby undergrowth). Thus, instead of pushing herself further until she found her second wind, she collapsed by the side of a large river and nursed her cramps.

Despite her incredible thirst, she did not drink. She did know the rudiments of health care, and she knew that gulping water after heavy exertion would make her cramps even worse. Besides, the water might not be safe to drink. She also knew about microbes. She had looked at some under a microscope in her sophomore biology class. Fascinating things, but she wouldn't want any of them living in her intestines.

A jangling noise soon reached her ears, slipping past the constant gushing sound of the water.

With no small amount of trepidation, she looked up.

"Hey! Name yourself, stranger, lest you become a target for my lance!"

Before her, an armored man - a knight? - sat astride a very large horse. A horse that pawed the ground impatiently and tried to trot around her in a circle.

"No, don't kill me," she replied, hastily. "Please. My name is Beatrix O'Donnell. I need your help. I'm lost. I woke up in this strange place after I stepped through a door, and my friend was attacked, and now she's been kidnapped and I don't know where she is..." And I hope I wake up from this dream soon.

"Well, Beatrix O'Donnell, I think I can solve one of your problems, at least." Without slowing his horse down from its trot, which was once again nearing a canter, he leaned to the side and swept her up in his unencumbered arm.

She was too surprised to scream.

"You are on the outskirts of the city of Arkesh, in the land of Arkesh, and you are being taken to the castle, where you will be questioned and possibly given aid if we see that you mean no harm. That should take care of your being lost."

He turned the horse around in a wide circle and went back with her the way he had come.

They crossed an ancient stone bridge. As the city grew closer, the man slowed his horse. It was probably just as well. Before them were heavily clad peasants pulling wains of hay and other farm goods, including one cartload of squawking chickens. Occasionally, a farmer would drag a reluctant cow or mule along, or herd pigs or sheep down the middle of the road. Foot travelers and soldiers had learned long ago to keep to their own side of the road.

"Just imagine galloping this horse through a herd of sheep," the knight said, not unkindly. He had a gruff voice and blunt manners at best, but he did not seem particularly savage or vicious. Beatrix felt better around him.

"Ooh, a major traffic jam. Throw in a couple of monks, and you'd have a perfect fruit preserve."

"More like a bloody mess. I don't recommend it."

"From a couple of fat friars? Are you serious?"

He looked at her sidelong. "Yes. Very serious. You must not be familiar with our monks. I knew you were foreign to our land, because your garb is quite strange, to say the least, but I hadn't realized just how foreign you probably are. Offworlder, I would guess. Perhaps where you come from, monks are more peaceable and safe to be around; here, they study the art of war and pledge their lives in service to their battle god. They are the most bloodthirsty, mercenary rabble around. Unfortunately, they are also very powerful, monetarily and politically as well as physically. We try to avoid them if at all possible."

"Like ninjas, you mean?"

"I don't know what a 'ninja' is. Your words are as alien to me as your clothing. Not that I'd complain about your attire. It's quite fetching, really. If all the ladies dress like that where you come from... well. It's a pleasant thought. If a bit uncomfortable at the moment. Armor, you know."

She glanced down with embarrassment at her filmy cotton lawn nightgown.

"Um, actually, this is what I sleep in. I was in bed just an hour ago."

"Really? With your friend, you say?"

"Yes - I mean, no! Not like that! Oh, my God!" She laughed in spite of herself. "We visit each other every weekend or so and stay up all night, talking and reading books. We had just fallen asleep an hour or so ago until we were woken up by this bright light, and we got yanked through a door into a glowing pyramid..."

I said too much, she thought. Now he would consider her crazy. Perhaps she was.

They entered the castle. The guards called out to her rescuer (or was he her captor?) and made various remarks about his companion. Not all of them could be repeated in mixed company.

"Don't pay any attention to them," he said, tightening his arm around her waist even though she would not slide off the horse's withers if he loosened his grip a little. Was it her imagination, or was he sitting somewhat taller in the saddle? "Their thoughts, like their language, come straight from the gutter - but their actions are purely noble, as befits soldiers of the King and Queen of Arkesh." He leered at her. "I must say, though, your nightclothes leave very little to the imagination."

She flushed.

"You lay one finger on me where it shouldn't go," she muttered, "and you'll never walk normally again."

"Ah, you forget. I, too, am a soldier of the Royal Family. I have my imagination, but I value my honor more."

The manner of her arrival was not discussed.

Morgan awoke slowly. The drugs on the dart had left her with a headache and a bitter taste in her mouth.

"She's coming around," an oddly inflected male voice said.

She felt a draught of wine being poured down her throat. She choked and gagged, but eventually the room swam into focus.

"Sorry about the way you've been treated," she heard a woman say. "We weren't sure who you were. I'm Liriel. I'm the leader of this motley crew."

The three other people grinned as if it were a joke.

"I'm Elderon."

"Llew."

"Dareanor."

Morgan stared at the woman and the three men who were her companions. A realization dawned on her. "You're elves," she exclaimed delightedly.

The woman smiled and touched her pointed ears.

"We're mixed, actually. If we were full elves we'd be about half a foot shorter. But we all still have some of the elven gifts."

"Is stealth one of them?"

Liriel laughed heartily.

"Only when it's developed, as ours is. The fae aren't really inherently stealthy. It's just that in most places of the land, they don't want to be found. Power and magic tends to vanish easily in the open light of day."

"Tell me about it."

She laughed again. "Yes, this land ought to be a real haven for you. It has so much more magic in use than the one we summoned you and your friend from."

"That was you?" Morgan blinked. "Then why -"

"We didn't want to take any chances. People can react quite unpredictably when panicked and disoriented." She shook her head ruefully. "I might as well tell you what you are doing here.

"We are a group of rebels. About ten years ago, we were members of the Holy Order of Ama, but we left when we grew disillusioned with the stagnant religion and the cynical power struggles within the temple. Of late, we have been mustering an army of the fae, and of dissatisfied monks like ourselves. In time we mean to march into the city and introduce a new order, an order of collective democratic rule, to the citizens. Believe me, this world may be archaic and backward, to say nothing of fantastic, but we have mirrors into your world, and hidden doors - and we are not out of touch with your innovations.

"We want you to take care of the royal family. There is a vial of extremely strong poison in the cupboard to your left. We have chosen you to be its deliverer. Slip into the royal household and pour it into their private well. We would take care of it ourselves, but our faces would be too easily recognized by some of the royal servants and we would have to kill whoever saw us. We'd rather not do that to our former co-workers. You will be given a spell of invisibility that would be perfectly serviceable to us were it not specifically made for full-blooded humans. I want as little bloodshed as possible. Have I made myself clear?"

Morgan blinked.

They wanted her to assassinate a royal family with poison?

She was confused. In her fantasies of adventure, things were different. What had happened to rings of power, evil wizards, crystal shards, and dragons? This was not what she had in mind when she thought of quests.

Liriel smiled almost kindly.

"Come. We've probably thrown you off guard with our talk of revolution. Let's get something to eat. You're probably famished; the drug tends to make people hungry. Just don't eat too much too fast, or you'll get sick. What is your name, by the way?"

"Morgan," she replied.

Those rebels. They were so busy explaining everything that they'd forgotten to ask who she was! She felt ill at ease, but she was hungry, and she saw that they'd given her bread and cheese, so she fell upon it as if she'd never eaten before.

And then she sobbed bitterly when she found out that her friend had been killed by a band of royal soldiers when she had tried to run away and escape.

She stayed with the rebels for months. Gradually, her distrust evaporated and she began to think of them as almost a second family - especially the small cell that had brought her to this world and taken her in. There was something about Liriel's personality that commanded worship, or at least respect.

She ate with them, slept with them, confided in them, and even began to train with them. Although her swordsmanship was never more than adequate (she would have done well with a shortsword or perhaps a rapier, but the swords of the land were heavy monstrosities made of iron - all but the elven blades, which were made of a metal that gave her hands mysterious blisters. "It hates the human touch," explained Liriel) she was more than proficient with a bow and arrow. In time she was using an elegantly curved longbow and a crossbow that had a pull so strong that she needed a goat's foot to work the string.

She was beginning to think of herself as one of them.

Occasionally she felt sharp pangs of loss as she mourned her one-time friend, but as time went by, she grew more and more estranged from the things of her past. Trish belonged to the past, to another world. This new world was bringing out strange and wonderful things in her, things that had slumbered for years for lack of need, things that filled her with pride in her strength and usefulness.

Beatrix, meanwhile, was becoming frantic.

Her previous efforts to rescue Morgan from the rogue monks had been thwarted. Every time she and a handful of soldiers looked for the band of renegades, the latter group disappeared, and the former returned home frustrated and empty-handed. It was plainly obvious that the rebels were planning some sort of attack. Therefore, the palace's defenses were reinforced, and all of the city of Arkesh lived under constant alert.

Coll ambled into the massive baking ell that was attached to the palace kitchen. (As it transpired, Beatrix's rescuer had been Coll, the captain of the palace guard). Seeing the just-baked spiced oatmeal cookies cooling on the surface of one of the tables, he grabbed a few and proceeded to gorge himself on them. Then he saw Beatrix on the other side of the table. She, too, was stuffing herself with spiced oatmeal cookies.

"Beatrix," he said, "I have some news for you."

"Good news, or bad news?"

"News."

She watched him as he reached for another cookie. He looked as delicious as the cookies. He was wearing a bright red tunic that somehow managed to offset all the beautiful golden highlights in his tousled sandy hair while bringing out the sharp blue of his eyes. Lately, she'd been unable to resist feasting her eyes on him. He had just the right combination of muscles and grace and a warmth that felt like sunlight. He was like a bright day in late spring.

However, she wondered what news he was bringing her this time.

She had just found out that the Queen had died of old age, leaving the throne to be juggled by a senile king, two twin princes under the age of nine (not even blood princes, for all the Queen's children had either been stillborn or had died in childhood; these heirs had been adopted from a cadet branch of the family in desperation) and a multitude of manipulative courtiers.

It made her head spin.

She was dreadfully homesick. In her opinion, she felt she was beyond shock. Besides, it was only a matter of time before she woke up, so what did it matter what happened to her? Nothing was real, not even the truly gorgeous man who was standing before her, making himself a sort of pre-dinner feast out of oatmeal cookies.

"Now what?"

"Morgan is among the rebels. They're even planning to use her as a key player in a coup d'etat. At least, that's what Dareanor reports."

Dareanor, a mostly human mercenary with just a trace of elven blood, was their inside source. Without being told of his origins, however, a casual observer would not have guessed that his mother and father were both human. The elven blood was strong in him.

"Can we trust him?"

"No, but we pay him more than Liriel does." He scowled. "The tart. I'll be glad to get rid of her kind."

"I thought you weren't prejudiced against elves."

"I'm not. My second-in-command is a full-blooded elf. It's not elves I despise, it's monks. Especially renegade monks who decide they're going to take over the country. They're a pain in the ass."

"I thought you said Morgan was keeping herself neutral while she tries to get on top of the situation."

"I thought wrong. We can't be surprised, though. It's not like she has a town crier to listen to, or a newspaper to read. She has no other friends. It's only natural that she'd give her trust to the only people she knows."

Beatrix swore, realizing even as she spoke that she sounded exactly like her father. "Can't we extract her now?"

"We can't afford to blow Dareanor's cover."

"We can't afford to trust him, either. We could just be paying him to overthrow the kind and use Morgan as a pawn."

"She's only as much a pawn as he is, if you think about it..."

"I don't trust him!"

Coll grinned. "Dareanor's a good egg. He's a scoundrel and a mercenary, but he means well."

"So he's on our side?"

"He's on the side that pays him the most. Power means nothing to him; only money and spoils have any value in his eyes. He's not really the political type. That's why I trust him. He's very predictable."

His mouth twisted again.

He had a cute smile.

"You can always count on him to be selfish. He has no allegiance to anyone - so he isn't really loyal to Liriel."

"For the time being, then, we have to trust him?"

"Yes."

Beatrix exploded. "Dammit, we have to get Morgan out of there!" She pounded her fist on the wooden table. "Ow."

Coll took her hurt hand and pressed it to his lips.

"We can't do anything until she's in the city. Otherwise, strategy is shot. You know that."

"Sure, but I don't like it."

"Neither do I."

He pulled her close.

"Are you trying to complicate things by starting a romance with me? I think I warned you..."

Her protests were very feeble. Coll was noble of heart and deed, he was intelligent, he was honest, and gentle, and to top it all off, he was handsome. He was, quite literally she thought, the man of her dreams. So what if none of this was anything more than a delusion? With all those qualities going for him, Beatrix didn't have much of a choice about whether or not she was going to fall for him. His presence made the bizarre extended nightmare of her subconscious mind seem suddenly pleasant, surreal rather than terrifying. She could get used to dreaming, perhaps.

"Oh, dear. That's right. Your threat. Well, my hands have behaved themselves so far, haven't they?"

"Yes, but your eyes -"

"Now, hold on there. You never said anything about what I could do with my eyes."

"They have a devilish look in them."

"But I haven't ogled you once except for that time you showed up in a sheer nightdress -"

"Gee. Thanks."

"Well, perhaps a little. The other day last week when you were wearing that gorgeous blue gown and it started pouring rain, for instance -"

"You didn't say you were ogling me then!"

"Really?"

"Well, I suppose I knew you were looking, but - wait a minute. No. No ogling allowed. I'm sorry."

"Well," he said, as he reached for her waist and suddenly, awkwardly, pulled her closer, "I'll hang as well for a sheep as for a lamb."

They were face-to-face. He bent down and kissed her - first gently, on the lips, then on her unexpectedly open mouth. As their embrace grew steadily more passionate and more involved, they fumbled and found themselves bumping hands and fingers at odd intervals, blushing as their pelvises somehow managed to meet each other at the right place after all and make contact through layers of cloth and nervousness.

"Besides," he said at last, through kisses, "I am the Captain of the Guard. I would never do anything to dishonor you, for that would dishonor my own station. I have to think about these things. And anyway, I'm in love with you." He made a line of kisses down her neck.

"Oh. Great." She gasped as one of the kisses landed a little bit farther down than the bottom of her neck. "Another complication. I love you, too. I think."

Several more months passed. Beatrix grew more and more despondent, and even Coll's semi-chivalrous affection did little, after its initial burst of emotion, to break her spell of sadness. What was a dream romance, a fairy tale, next to the life she had been taken from? When was the last time she had told her parents she loved them? She wanted to go home. Desperately.

Therefore, when the crystal pyramid appeared in the doorway of her dressing chamber, she made no protests and no struggle. Donning a simple tan tunic and matching trousers - clothes that looked at least halfway normal - she stepped into the opening of the light and was catapulted into her bedroom at home.

Nothing had changed, save that Morgan was missing, she was almost two years older than she was supposed to be, and she was wearing strange clothing. Feeling a twinge of guilt, she quietly changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and hid the proof of her adventures in another world under the bed.

Finally, after years of training, it was time for Morgan to slip into the city. The insurrectionists had gained enough recruits and practice that they deemed it safe to make a move.

It was easy to slip into the castle, pretending that she was one of the washing women. Her grasp of magic gave her a good spell of concealment.

She tried to boost her morale, telling herself that she was performing a service for the population of the land. However, she felt wrong about what she was going to do. It wasn't the killing that was bothering her, per se, although that was part of it. It was more the circumstances. She had killed game at Liriel's request, to grow accustomed to the sight of blood and death. Liriel had wanted to provide human and elven prey, too, but Morgan had vetoed that.

Now she was beginning to think that maybe Liriel had had the right idea after all. A clean fight, she could maybe handle - then again, maybe not, she'd take that as it came - but poison? There were worse ways to die, but there were better ways. If she poisoned the palace well, how many people might drink before the king was brought his morning glass of water? Surely other people besides the king rose early. There was no way of warning them. They would all have to die with their king.

It didn't seem fair.

She crashed into a table. Blast. So much for discretion. How could she be so clumsy, all of a sudden? It wasn't like her.

"Freeze!" a man's voice shouted.

She froze.

"I take it you're Morgan," he said without introduction. "I'm Coll, Captain of the Palace Guard. One false move, and you'll find a sword in your chest, or your head rolling on the floor, whichever is most convenient for me."

"What - the -"

"I'm immune to magic. Can't work it, can't perceive it. Usually this causes problems when there's a magic war going on, because I never know who's winning until it's too late, and nobody wants me on the front lines anyway because I tend to nullify their shields, not that fireballs work well against me either, which is good in a way, I suppose - but my little problem does come in handy every now and then." He studied her carefully. "You did have a spell of concealment on, didn't you? Please tell me you did. I'd hate to think you'd walk that clumsily without one, because the bitch had to have taught you better than that. Although I'm surprised she never thought of warning you about watching your footsteps. Never mind that table. Any person with sharp hearing would have heard you coming."

Morgan gathered her dignity.

"I am a witch, yes. And yes, I wore a spell of invisibility. Are many people in this city immune to magic?"

"It's not a common problem. Drop the poison, please."

She had a dagger in her boot. If she moved, just slightly...

"Don't even think about touching that blade. I'm a better fighter than you, Liriel, and all her little friends combined. Trust me."

She let the bottle of poison drop to the floor. It shattered. Dark, murky liquid seeped out and made a pool, from which oily rivulets escaped and ran away.

"Is the vapor poisonous?"

"I don't know."

"There's only one way to find out."

Keeping her eyes fixed on him, she crouched down and inhaled - first a tentative breath, then a deep one. The liquid smelled bad and made her nostrils sting and her eyes water, but nothing else happened.

"It could be slow-acting, but I doubt it. Liriel wouldn't want to waste time or risk her target being saved by a physician. Clean up the mess and come with me."

It took convincing (and quite a lot of it) but in the end Morgan was won over to the side of the king. When Coll mentioned Beatrix's disappearance, she felt a knot form in her throat.

"They told me she was dead," she said.

"She may very well be dead, now."

"No. I won't believe it..."

"We'll need to start sending out spies," he murmured, thinking out loud to himself, "so that we'll need to know what we need to do to rescue her. If she's alive."

"She is alive. And we can't just abandon her."

Liriel smiled to herself as a way of hiding her fury. According to her spies (who had taken her some time to send, and to hear word from - it was so inconvenient to suddenly, inexplicably lose one's ability to track one's agents in a scrying glass!) Morgan had betrayed her and her comrades. The two-faced little weasel. Well, no matter. At the rate the kingdom was going, it wouldn't matter in the least if they declared civil war before or after the king was dead, which could be any day now. Senility and old age were almost as good for the plan as a more orderly death.

"Dareanor, my love, do you think Morgan would go back home if a window appeared for her?"

"I doubt it. She's made of more interesting stuff than Beatrix was."

"True. In that case, we'd best assume that she'll be fighting against us."

"Not if she still feels some loyalty."

"Oh, come on... You're a fine one to talk about loyalty, anyway. What would you know of it?"

"Everything, Liriel. That is why I avoid it if I can help myself."

She pinned him down, straddling herself across his thighs.

"You're helpless."

He chose not to dispute the fact. "Just... don't assume that Morgan is completely turned against us. We may still be able to get some use out of her."

His only answer was one of Liriel's toe-curling kisses. She seemed to specialize in them.

Morgan never got the chance to search for her best friend.

She paced back and forth on the rampart. Her crossbow, cradled in her arms, was her only link to security.

"Coll, why don't they just do something? Why can't we fire on them? Why do we have to just sit here?"

"Both of our sides are familiar with the King's policy of non-aggression. We're not allowed to fight until they attack us. They're milking it for all it's worth."

"What a stupid policy."

"King's orders. You've got to admit his heart's in the right place - and one can't very well go around attacking every 'perceived threat' just because one happens to have the capacity to do so, now can one?"

She grumbled. "A king's business should be the protection of his kingdom. It would have been better to act sooner."

"You seem to be more hawk than dove, milady. You are a most unusual specimen."

She gave him a grim smile.

"Liriel trained me. She knows how to fight."

"That she does." He stared out at the ranks of the enemy. "And what a well-equipped, stubborn assortment of followers she has. Mercenaries, adventurers, malcontents, elven militia from the deep forest... this one's going to be a long haul."

"How old are you?" she asked him, unexpectedly. "With such a wealth of experience and wisdom, you must be seasoned, but you have a young face. What are you? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?"

"Um, no. Actually, I'm nineteen," he replied, with a barely perceptable stammer.

"Nineteen? And you're already Captain of the Guard?"

"King Malden appointed me himself." He drew into his memories. "He saved my life when I was just a child. I was five. Some of the kids in my village were going to market and I was tagging along. Didn't know my way, of course. When we came to the river, they made a magic bridge and forded the waters. I tried to cross with them. That was how I found out I was immune to magic," he said wryly. "They got away because they were afraid of getting caught. I got carried along by the current. Near the Arkesh City outskirts, I finally managed to get swept up onto a bush that was growing on the bluff. I was unconscious, and would have drowned - but then the King rode up with his hunting party and put me on the pommel of his saddle."

He laughed harshly.

"Some of the courtiers were so amused that they suggested tossing the boar's carcass into the river and putting me on the stake, but the King scolded them, and from then on, he treated me like one of his family. If it weren't for my obvious peasant status and my unknown origins, he would have adopted me as his heir - he might still have tried, come to think of it - but every King must be good in magic, so that ruled me out."

"I'm so sorry..."

"Don't be. I hate politics. Anyway. He trained me himself when he wasn't having me drilled by hand-selected fighting experts. I was in the army by the time I was twelve, and on special assignments by the time I was fifteen, at which point I was earning a reputation for myself."

A child soldier. What kind of king is King Malden? Maybe Liriel was right after all.

"You were a national hero," however, was what came out of Morgan's mouth.

"Of sorts. The King had me taken off the special patrols and instated as Captain of the Guard a couple of years ago. He said it was unhealthy for a growing boy to be out in the field so much, and I suppose he was right. I'm not the heroic type, at any rate. I'm one of the kingdom's best fighters, I suppose, and I'm certainly one of the most stubborn, but a lot of my success is due to good teamwork, not to mention a healthy helping of luck. My age just sort of makes me unusual."

"What modesty."

"Yes, well, I always was short on humility - hello, I think someone is actually making a move out there. What do you know."

They hit the stone surface of the rampart as a flaming arrow whizzed past, only to bounce off the rear wall and land on the wooden platform behind them. Morgan rolled on the flames, smothering them before they could spread and consume an entire cache of crossbow quarrels. "I almost miss the boredom," she muttered.

There was no reply from Coll; he was too busy, and soon, so was she.

The battles nagged on for weeks as the elven partisans besieged the castle. Actual fighting was fairly infrequent because there was no need for it. Without the use of their farmlands, the inhabitants of the castle could only rely on their food stores and the castle well, and it was only a matter of time before the food would be completely consumed. There was the occasional sapper at the walls, or a volley of arrows or fireballs, or an enchanted swarm of hornets, but these were mere annoyances, meant to harass.

Coll's luck, as always, held out. True to his words, he was not the heroic type, although he was extremely skilled and twice as lucky. He avoided going out into the front lines of battle if he could help it at all - and this was probably just as well since there were mages and witches at the front of both lines. Mostly he directed his men from the rear. He was a good strategist and leader, despite his age, and he commanded respect.

He was, she found, a bit protective of his loved ones.

"You're not going out there," he told Morgan when he caught her preparing herself for battle.

"Why not?"

"We need you on the wall walk. You're a good archer."

"I'm also an expert witch. I could save more lives in the front lines by casting shields."

"Not if you're dead."

"If I put a shell of protection around myself, nothing would touch me -"

"Until hostile anti-magic balls get hurled at you and wear down the shell. No."

She had to admit he was right, if for no other reason than that he outranked her.

"Fine... Got any more arrows?"

"I'll send out a runner."

In the end, though, she was called out, anyway. The mages had been working on a plague cloud to send over the rebels, but it had been unexpectedly turned back on them. As a result of the backlash, there was a magic shortage and anybody with any magical skill at all was needed to keep up the defense.

"Be careful," Coll called out. "It's a madhouse out there."

"Yes, they seem to be hurling fireballs and flaming arrows at us at the moment."

"I wouldn't have noticed." He grew serious. "This may be the last time I ever see you again."

"Yes." She thought about saying, Last chance to proposition me, but that was too flip. Besides, she knew he had never really gotten over Beatrix. "Well... if I don't come back, it has been an honor. You've been a perfect friend. And I don't know where I'd be without you."

"At home, probably," he said quietly.

"What?"

"If King Malden hadn't been tinkering with an experiment in transdimensional travel, you and Beatrix wouldn't have had a gate to walk through. Bugger. There's no time to go into it. You'll just have to take my word for it. I'll explain later when you get back. Morgan, I love you dearly. Come back in one piece, please. I'll never forgive myself if you don't." He sighed. "Now, go away before I find myself holding you back - or worse, going with you. I've already lost one of the women in my life because of magic. I don't want to lose another."

The elves hadn't summoned the door.

She forced herself to look him in the eyes again. "I'll try to not let that happen, Coll. Goodbye."

She fled.

The air was full of fire and smoke, making her eyes water. She wished she had a sword - it wasn't her best weapon, but at least it would give her more reach. She had a long dagger, so she was able to lay about as best she could and hold her own in between dodging missiles, but things couldn't go on this way indefinitely if she was to be of any use. She had to find a relatively protected place to sit down and concentrate.

After what seemed like hours, a small band of fighters clustered around her.

"They're onto you," the leader said. "Here, we'll protect you."

She felt simultaneous and contradictory feelings: unease, and a gratitude that bordered on worship. Something about the group seemed familiar. "Thanks so much," she replied.

"Think nothing of it."

The voice was female.

It belonged to Liriel.

She couldn't let on that she recognized her; surprise might be the only advantage she had. A blazing attack would not work, she thought. She was outnumbered by her former confederates, outclassed, and hemmed in by them on all sides.

"No, really," she said, with only partially feigned exhaustion, "I couldn't thank you more - excuse me - oh, God -" she stammered, and signed a cantrip with her hands that cast a temporary spell of queasiness on herself, causing her to lose the contents of her stomach in a rather pyrotechnic fashion. "I'm sorry. I can't stand the sight of blood," she lied, imagining Coll's body mutilated by Liriel's dagger. She imagined cries of anguish forced out of him by slow, persistent work; imagined him calling out for Beatrix, who might very well (she had been forced to admit this to herself months ago) have died thus herself; imagined herself standing by, helpless. Her imagination was vivid enough that it took little effort before tears choked her throat and streamed down her face. "I can't take much more of this. If I see one more dead body -"

Liriel gazed at her with convincing pity.

"Some of us just aren't cut out for it, I guess. It is a nasty shock when you see yourself killing another person for the first time, or holding a dying friend in your arms." She unmasked herself. "I had thought, however, that you would be better suited to it than you are. You seemed so strong."

Morgan did her best to act surprised. "Liriel!" Her face froze in a rictus. The betrayal of having been abducted opportunistically for a cause she never had a chance to investigate, of having been torn from her best childhood friend, of having been fed a string of lies, was slowly sinking in. I trusted you. "I didn't recognize you! I failed - I'm sorry -"

"Hush. It's no matter. King Malden is dying of old age, heirless, and with his state on the verge of collapse. His castle is about to fall to starvation and superior numbers. Your part would have sped things along and prevented a long and miserable siege, but really, it was a minor role. At least you know your limits. That's more than most people can say about themselves." She smiled. "I, of course, have none. But then again, perhaps it is because I am not as human as you are."

"Can we find some place out of this to rest?" Morgan made herself stagger.

"I would rather sneak you back to the rear, and have you use Coll's trust against him, but that would involve finding Coll and then hacking our way through the thickest part of the melee. Very well. Come."

Liriel led Morgan away, not suspecting that Morgan's body was shaking with controlled fury rather than fatigue and shock.

"Here is a steep hill," Liriel said. "Climb it, and you can run off into the woods and never be seen again."

"Thank you." Morgan forced herself to embrace Liriel. How could she still be fond of someone that she hated? This woman in her arms, this hybrid of elf and human, who was both sister and enemy... "You've always been good to me."

Absently, automatically, she made the sign of protection as she climbed the hill.

Had she not made a magic shield, the poisoned dart would have penetrated her light armor as if it had been made of woven silk, not boiled leather.

She made no sign that she had noticed it. When she reached the top of the hill, she collapsed, as if the dart had worked its desired effect, and then she waited until she saw from the corner of her eye that her former friends had retreated down the hill toward the field of battle.

Rage gave her energy. She barely knew what she planned to do, but as soon as she started to hum the harmonic chant under her breath, she realized all along what her true intention had been. Perhaps she was only a witch who had not yet proved herself or attended Realm University to receive the advanced degree that would classify her as a mage. Perhaps she was not a strong enough warrior to defeat Liriel and her helpers in direct combat, as Coll might have done. However, she knew who she was and what she was, and what she was probably capable of doing. As Liriel had pointed out, that put her a cut above most humans.

A copper egg manifested on the ground in front of her. She passed her hands over it, humming softly, creating artificial fire to warm its surface. A crack soon marred the perfect ovoid form.

Slowly, claw by claw, scale by scale, a copper-covered dragon emerged. Within the witch-fire, it grew within minutes to an astonishing size, until she stopped the aging process by ending her chant and damping the flames.

She looked at her creation gravely for a few long minutes, then pointed to the field, where Liriel and her army of mercenaries were laying waste to the defenders of the castle. A clear mental image formed in her mind, and she held onto that image with all her will.

Destroy the enemy soldiers, she thought. Drive them from the field. See especially that those four are taken care of. Then return. Do not bother with the people who are inside the castle or behind the ramparts; they are the ones we seek to save.

Once the dragon was loosed, there would be no way of separating the defenders of the castle who were out on the front lines of combat from the castle's assailants. She could only hope that the defenders would figure things out quickly and find shelter. At any rate, they were grossly outnumbered by now and would soon have to retreat - and those who could not withdraw to the rear were likely to die in combat no matter if death came from a polearm, a magic missile, or a large firedrake. It was unavoidable.

She hated it anyway.

She felt her mind probed delicately. Dragons were nobody's fools; they would not take orders at face value, not even dragons who were created by will as an avatar of the person wielding the magic. The less malevolent ones were aware of their sheer destructive power, and were reluctant to use it. The evil ones were not summoned, ever. Even an evil mage would have an enlightened sense of self-interest.

The dragon blinked slowly to indicate its assent. With a beat of its wings, it rose from the ground, and flew toward its goal.

Within minutes, Liriel and most of the enemy fighters had been burnt to a crisp, save for Dareanor, who had been clawed to death, eviscerated, and feasted upon. It was likely that some of the rebels had found cover, but they were unimportant. The leaders were dead along with the majority of their forces.

Morgan watched the proceedings with guilty but very intense joy. It had not been a lie when she told Liriel she hated the sight of blood, but it had not exactly been the complete truth, either. There were two Morgans. The everyday, pensive, dreamy Morgan was horrified; the hidden Morgan was reveling in the destruction and feasting on chaos.

The dragon flew back and indicated that it wanted Morgan to mount.

Her super-charged alter-ego switched off for a second. She collapsed against the dragon's scales.

"We're leaving?"

The dragon blinked at her meaningfully.

She felt a relief so profound that it was almost a religious experience. Then she grew sad. What about Coll? Did Coll know the dragon had been her doing? Was Coll all right? Did Coll even know where she was?

The dragon flapped its wings impatiently. It would not wait forever.

She could not stay. She knew that in her bones. She might have grown attached to Coll, loved him even; she might have other friends here; she might adapt better to life in this world better than she ever would to life in her own world. But this was not her world. It was not allowed for her to stay.

"Come back and tell him I'll miss him," she said feebly, as she mounted the dragon, but both she and the dragon knew that her words would never be relayed. Coll, if he were still alive, would certainly be aware of her feelings and her situation, and would need to resign himself to never seeing her again.

They had said their goodbyes already. And so it went.

The dragon flew over the battlefield, scorching the occasional odd mercenary when Morgan saw a face she recognized from her life with them, tilting the odds still more in favor of the King's soldiers. The fighting had actually spread out over a large area, she saw. There were quite a few pockets of pitched battle where the dragon had not even done any damage yet, and Morgan indicated that these should be left alone. There were too many loyalists in those areas. For all she knew, Coll might even be among them, although he was most likely still on the ramparts, directing the defense, since that was his job. She would let the remaining combatants sort things out for themselves. She and her weapon of mass draconic destruction had done their part already.

Eventually, the dragon flew out of the world altogether, and into a weird sort of dream state; then she was deposited in her own land.

Reality.

It was both a relief and a letdown. What would happen to Arkesh after the battles for control of the city? Would the realm be plunged into yet another plague of civil war when King Malden died of old age, or was there a regent waiting in the wings who would take control until the hastily-mustered twins came of age? Who could say? The only thing that she could be certain of was that she would not daydream romantically about elves and unicorns and enchanted kingdoms for a long, long time, if ever again.

The dragon had disappeared.

It took her some time to realize where she was, for the street had changed. The trees had grown taller, and lost their leaves. At last, though, she saw some houses that looked familiar, imagined other houses without their new coats of paint and shutters and other additions, saw trees that were in their right places but were taller than she remembered, and realized that she was on Beatrix's street. The cars looked all wrong. They were rounder, sleeker. Some came in startling shades that she had never before associated with cars (makeup came in shades of aqua and grape purple, possibly, but automobiles?)

Time had passed, then.

She steeled herself and, shivering from the sudden cold, walked up the cracked sidewalk; checking herself to make sure her tunic and leather trousers were free for the most part of visible blood, acutely aware that she reeked of sweat. She was bleeding in a few places, she noticed for the first time. Removing the upper-body armor would be a bad idea. Looking weird was at least preferable to looking bloody. Her mouth tasted sour... Well, there was nothing to be done for it. She brushed herself, smoothed her hair (which no doubt looked like a cross between a haystack and a bird's nest, queue or no queue) and stiffly rang the doorbell that belonged, once upon a time, to her best friend's parents.

When the door opened, both Morgan and Mrs O'Donnell gave a start. She rather suspected she knew why Mrs O'Donnell reacted badly. For her part, she simply had a hard time believing how Mrs O'Donnell had aged. Her hair was now silver, and lines of age had begun to trace delicately across her face.

There was a long, appalled silence as Morgan and Mrs O'Donnell regarded each other.

"Beatrix," Mrs O'Donnell called out, at last. "Beatrix. Come down. Someone wants to see you."

Beatrix.

"She's back for the holidays," the older woman continued. "It's an amazing stroke of luck that you visited us now."

Back?

Beatrix ran down the stairs and drew in her breath.

"Oh, God," she moaned. "Listen, I don't know who put you up to this, but go away. Please. I can't take it. You look too much like her."

She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties.

"Trish. It's me. I've come home."

"Go away!"

The woman who had been her best friend, until they both gave each other up for dead, ran away from the door. Morgan could hear her feet pounding as they ran back upstairs. In her mind, she traced the path to Beatrix's room.

"Listen, young lady," Mrs O'Donnell said, "you look enough like the real Morgan Hunter to be her, but that's impossible. You are tormenting this house. Please leave and don't come back. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perhaps you have some spare change? I don't have any bus fare, and I'd like to go home. Assuming I still have a home."

Mrs O'Donnell's eyes softened a little.

"I don't know what to make of this, but - oh, well. Here's a ten dollars. You can get yourself something to eat, too. I imagine you're hungry. You look starved."

"Do you believe me?"

"I don't know what to believe. A dead person has appeared on my doorstep and scared the hell out of my daughter. I would say I'm hallucinating, but my hallucination has happened to at least one other person. Maybe later we can get to the bottom of this. You must have had some terrible hardships. But right now, I need to go to my daughter. You do understand, don't you? Goodbye."

"Dead?"

She got a closed door for an answer.

With a shrug, she began to walk to the bus stop (assuming it still was the bus stop, she thought). There was nothing else she could do. She hoped there was still a service station there where she could get the bill changed.

When she got home from her long and (aside from noticing all the cosmetic changes in the neighborhoods around her) uneventful ride, she walked, or rather limped, the half-mile from the last bus stop near the mall to her house, which had been in a suburb that was affluent enough that it could block any efforts on the part of the transit authority to establish public transportation stops within its boundaries. The walking was difficult because for the first time in many hours, she had a chance to notice just how much pain she was in.

She found, to her chagrin, that the key to her front door did not fit.

For the second time since her inconvenient arrival in the real world, she rang the doorbell of a house she considered home.

The door opened slowly like a yawning mouth.

"Hi, Mom. I'm home."

Mrs Hunter gasped, then pulled her in.

"Morgan? Is that you? Am I going mad?"

"What is this? I come home from fairyland, wearing a blood-stained tunic and armor, and does anyone give me so much as a 'Hello, where have you been? Are you all right?' No. The most I get is pocket change and a proclamation that I'm dead - no credit for keeping myself alive long enough to be proclaimed dead, by the way - and my best friend running away from me screaming. What is going on?" She was getting hysterical, she knew, and she bit her tongue to retain control. "I'm sorry. I blew my stack. It won't happen again. Where's Dad?"

"Morgan..." Mrs Hunter seemed to sense the conviction in her daughter's words. "Morgan, go to bed. You're delirious."

She pulled off her cuirass, revealing her blood-soaked tunic, and pushed up the right sleeve past the gash where her upper arm had had an unfortunately close encounter with a sword blade. "I have another one near my hip, where I got careless. And I think I've hurt my ribs, because it hurts to walk, and I can't take a deep breath without pain. No arrow points, at least." She wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. I smell. One of those wounds might have been poisoned. Never mind calling the doctor. I think we're looking at an ambulance."

She passed out on the rug. The fighting had finally caught up with her.

In the end, after she had been stitched up and pumped full of fluids and given drugs and several days to recover, most of which she spent asleep so soundly that a tornado siren could not have woken her up, she finally found out her situation.

Fifteen years had gone by without a word from her. After having been lost for the legal timespan of seven years, she had been pronounced dead.

As for Beatrix, she had appeared in her home roughly five days in real-time after her disappearance and had faked amnesia, later coming up with a wild tale of having run away from home on a wild escapade with Morgan in which Morgan had hared off on her own and left her stranded. Evidently, it had satisfied the various authority figures in her life. Beatrix had enjoyed being grounded for six months and then moved on.

It did please Morgan that Beatrix had graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, and then found a nice job in a law firm. Her own education would be something of an oddity; she'd have to reinvent herself and probably do a lot of standardized testing in lieu of taking high school classes. Her mother was convinced she was thirty-one with unusually youthful features. Morgan had no desire to disillusion her.

Her parents had been divorced in the wake of her absence. Her father had remarried and had a son, who was currently three years old.

She realized that she felt out of place. She did not belong in the land of magic, but she no longer belonged in her own world, either. It seemed dull and lifeless and much too comfortable. She had no interest in getting a GED (after having been in advanced placement classes in high school) so that she could put herself through college and pretend to be a normal, affluent adult education learner, the better to find herself a cushy professional job and work every day in a suited environment with other pampered executive types. She didn't want to live in a place where magic meant nothing, at best, and where she had only her wits to fall back upon, where mountains were conquered rather than climbed, and wars were fought with a scientific magic and machinery she did not even want to understand. Her heart was still addicted to wizardry and noble causes and dreams, even if such things were yet associated with death - and perhaps she was a little bit addicted to that, too. Two realities were mixing in the world of objective reality like oil and water.

If home was a place to hang her heart, she no longer had a place to call home.

She no longer had a friend in the world - not Coll, not the insidious Liriel, certainly not Beatrix.

One night, when it was dark and muggy, and the fireflies of late June winked ephemeral patterns in the dusk, she took a denim knapsack and filled it with the few basic necessities she needed - money from the sock drawer (which had, amazingly, been left untouched all these years, even after her room got cleaned in her absence), a toothbrush, a few mementos, and a thick book that would hold her out for a while (because some things never changed). West seemed like a good direction, or maybe north - Canada was supposed to be pleasant, but there were other pleasant places, too. Perhaps they would be new and adventurous enough for her. Some of them might still be untamed and wild, with a little magic hidden in the hills if she reached for it; at any rate, she had to find her misty woods, the closest thing to a home she found when she looked in her heart.

She took a last look at her past, and then never looked back again.