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My name is Eternity Silkwood. I'm Goth, one of the small percentage of Goths who were actually raised that way. Everyone in my family has dabbled in the occult at one point or another. That's the main reason that, once I found out that real magic isn't anything like the stuff I grew up knowing about, I didn't just accept it. I thought, Whyshouldn't I intertwine wizardry and Wicca-style magic? Then I started breaking rules. Not major ones, just the stupid ones.

Until the Pullulus, my life was almost painfully normal, in a Gothic sort of way. I went to school, hung out with my friends, helped my brother Zane write depressing song lyrics, made wizard gadgets, went on errantry (but only occasionally, because no one wants a rogue wizard solving their problems). You know, normal teenage-wizard stuff. Even when the Pullulus showed up, my life didn't totally turn upside down. I went to the moon, saw that crazy business with a dog being the One (I'm scared for the universe now), and thought that I'd go on as though nothing had ever happened.

Then I had the dream.

At first, there was just white light all around me. No sky, no ground, even though it felt like I was standing on something as opposed to being suspended in midair. Just light. Then I saw him. To the untrained eye, he would have looked like a college-aged human guy, but I could tell that he was definitely not human. He was apparently suspended in the middle of this light, not

allowed freedom of movement like I was. I had never seen him before. But he looked, notat me, but as though he couldn't see me but knew someone was there.

"Where are we?" I asked him in the Speech.

"I don't know. My manual's gone. I can't transport."

As I watched, the light kind of wound itself around him, drawing him away from me. He gazed at me with desperate eyes and entreated, "Come find me."

Most dreams are meaningless. Just our brains trying to make sense of the things that happen to us while we're awake. But some dreams come from outside our minds. This was a dream like that. For one thing, hours after I woke up, I could still remember it perfectly. And besides, would I be able to invent such a vivid image of someone I'd never seen, never seen anyone like?

By the time I got home from school, I'd made up my mind. I'd had that dream for a reason. Whoever that strange wizard was, I was going to find him.

If you're a wizard looking for another wizard, there are plenty of ways to go about it. If you can hack into your wizard's manual, it's even easier. But none of those ways are any good at all if you don't know the name of the wizard you're looking for. Once I was safely closeted in my room, I tried all the logical searches – list of known races with humanoid appearance, list of wizards belonging to said race, status of each wizard, on the lookout for anyone with Status Unknown or Location Undetermined, or anything else weird. Problem was, the Pullulus wreaked bloody havoc with the world of wizardry. Half the wizards I looked up had weird stuff attached to their descriptions, any of which could possibly consist of being held prisoner in a weird light place.

Then I tried looking up the place. Guess how far that got me. I'd pretty much gathered that it was more than just some weird planet – I mean, no ground, no sky, no nothing? There's nowhere like that inthis corner of theuniverse! Maybe it wasn't even a place at all. Maybe it was a metaphor for something. The Powers That Be like metaphors.

So, in the end, it came down to field work. I changed out of my floor-length skirt, fringy blouse, and four-inch heels and into jeans, a plain shirt, and sneakers, and fetched my "errantry bag" out of my closet. There's really nothing special about the bag, it's just a black mini-messenger bag that I happen to love dearly. Anyway, it contains shampoo, soap, deodorant, hairbrush, writing utensils, portable transit necklace, and some other magical paraphernalia – in short, everything a teenage girl wizard needs to save the universe in comfort and style. (Ha-ha.) My wizard's manual, however, is too valuable to go more than a layer of cloth away from my skin and therefore went in the inside pocket of my jacket.

I have to explain some things about my manual. First of all, it is no longer in its original form. At first glance, it looks like an iPhone, only without the little apple logo. But it has little buttons that turn it into about every magically-alter-able electronic/digital device known to man . . . including a laptop. The laptop has my manual on it. I have hacked into my manual so that I can access information only given in dire emergencies. If my resident Seniors, two guys named Tom and Carl, ever got wind of it, they'd probably banish me from the planet, but since I've spoken to them a grand total of once, I think I'm safe.

Now, no one in my family knows about my wizardry. Since it doesn't involve herbs and pentacles, I don't think they'd quite understand. But no one in my family pays much attention to me, either. So while I couldn't exactly go on a full-scale adventure without some serious prep work, I could easily sneak away for an afternoon of snooping. In this case, I was going to the Crossings. Because if my missing wizard had gone anywhere recently, and he probably had, what with the Pullulus and everything, there had to be someone who knew where he'd been last. And what better place to start than at the Crossings?

So I set my watch to Crossings time and programmed the alarm to go off after one (Earth) hour. Then I entered the Crossings via my transit necklace, which will take me practically anywhere in the universe.

I've been to the Crossings. I'm inactive, but not that inactive. But I still felt a stab of dismay as I looked out at the crowd of wizards rushing to and fro across the terminal. It was just so big. What were the odds that I was going to come across the one person who had the information I needed?

Apparently, better than I thought. I flagged down wizards largely at random and was blown off, snapped at, and given well-meaning but unbelievably vague answers. But then, finally, I asked one of the Rirhait in charge of the Crossings, which took a lot of courage on my part because they looked like giant centipedes and I really don't like anything with a ton of legs, especially those six-inch-long centipedes – have you ever seen one? They are nasty! I've got spine chills just thinking about them.

Sorry. Where was I? Oh. Right. The giant centipede-slash-Crossings-guardian. He/she/it turned towards me, and I gave him/her/it my by-now-perfected spiel.

"Um, hi. I'm looking for a wizard, um, he looks like me, only male, and he's got really long blond hair and he's, um, he's really pretty looking, he looks like he's my age but he's not human like me. Oh, and, um, he's wearing this really big shirt with some kind of logo on it. So, has anyone like that come through here recently?"

"Are you talking about Roshaun?" the alien asked, but it wasn't really a question. As though there was only one wizard who could possibly fit my description. Roshaun. A name. As I've said before, there are zillions of ways to find a wizard once you know their name.

"Um. Yes. Yes, that's him," I responded, thinking If this turns out to be a false lead, I am going to feel SO STUPID.

"He went with Dairine and the rest of them. I think there was some weirdness on your moon. Ask Dairine or her sister," the Rirhait (sing.?) informed me.

I thanked him/her/it profusely and hurried away to find a secluded corner – which ended up being my bedroom, since the Crossings is about as private as an airport – in which to look up Roshaun. As it turns out, there are multiple wizards named Roshaun, all of them from some planet I'd never heard of called Wellakh. Fortunately for me, there was only one who could possibly be my wizard.

Name: Roshaun ke Nelaid am Seriv am Teliuyve am Meseph am Veliz am Terianst am det Nuiiliat

Status: Unknown

Last known location: the Moon

The manual also told me that Roshaun had recently channeled an enormous amount of power,way above the recommended limit for a Wellakhit wizard (I looked it up). See? This is the kind of stuff only a manual-hacker can find out.

I decided to look up that Dairine person the Rirhait (sing.?) had mentioned.

Name: Dairine Callahan

Status: Inactive

Last known location: her house, located (Hallelujah!) only a few blocks from mine

Dairine had channeled nearly the same amount of power, at the same time. Presumably this gigantic spell, or whatever it was, had had something to do with Roshaun's disappearance. I mean, a person can't have that much raw power flowing through them and have nothing happen. Butstill. It's not supposed to make you disappear.

I had to find out what had happened on the Moon. I mean, I knew the basic gist of it. I was there, after all. I saw the thing with the twychild and that awesome light-knife (could that have been them? Roshaun and Dairine, that is?) and the dog becoming the One and all of that. But knowing all of that? Did not bring me any closer to saving Roshaun.

I was smart enough to realize that Dairine (whoever she was) could probably help me. But did I simply walk up to her front door and request her assistance, the way a normal person would? No. I opted to invade Dairine's mind instead. In the middle of the night. With the aid of pre-prepared mind-meld, shield, and sleep net that wore me out so badly I crashed right after dinner and slept the sleep of the completely exhausted until my alarm went off in the wee hours of the morning and I got up, dressed, and snuck out of my house. Actually getting to Dairine's house wasn't too much of a problem. It took maybe ten minutes' walk, using my manual-slash-iPhone's navigation system. Once I got there, I activated the shield and threw my sleep net over the house so that I wouldn't be interrupted by someone waking up in the middle of the night. Only, as it turned out, my sleep net was too small. Dammit! Next, I realized that I actually had no clue what Dairine Callahan looked like. Double dammit! So I sat down on the Callahans' front steps, whipped out my laptop, and performed a hasty search. This wouldn't have been such a big deal, but the shield only covered me, my clothes, and my bag, so that anyone happening to look out their window would have seen a disembodied laptop floating on their neighbors' front porch. Freaky. Also, I neglected to put a sleep net over my house, and my brother Zane is a notoriously light sleeper.

So, basically, by the time I began the actual breaking and entering, I was in a state of barely-controlled panic. "Open," I whispered in the Speech to the locked front door.

Can't. Locked.

"Then unlock!"Damn inanimate objects, always so literal about everything . . . I know about ten different unlocking spells, but even the simplest of them uses up energy, and I needed all my energy for mind-melding.

I entered some commands into my manual, which was now back in its usual, palm-sized form. Then, holding it in front of me like a Geiger counter, I started roaming through the house. In case you're wondering what the hell I was doing, I was looking for traces of wizardry – since Dairine was a wizard, it makes sense that there would be spells near her. Small problem – there were two distinct sets of readings, implying that there were two different wizards in the house. This was getting so much more complicated than it had to be.

But it wasn't actually that complicated. Just slightly traumatizing. Now I have random nightmares about breaking into places and getting arrested. But anyway, I followed my manual's signal down the upstairs hallway and eventually into Dairine Callahan's bedroom.

I'd never made a mind-meld before, so I had some trouble, at first, getting Dairine's synapses to stop firing randomly and start showing me something useful. But eventually I "saw" all of her memories concerning Roshaun. He'd stayed with her as some kind of wizard exchange student (and I was not informed of this program because . . .?), they'd saved our sun from basically burning the world to a crisp, which had apparently happened to Roshaun's own world, of which he was prince, but a lot of that part was lost on me because Dairine hadn't been there for all of it. Then there was something about a planet inhabited by little robot things, and another planet inhabited by giant bugs, and, of course, the arrival of the Hesper (to a race of bugs?), and a few other things. Then, finally, we were on the Moon. Roshaun attempted to defeat the Pullulus by channeling some of the Sun's energy, Dairine helped him, so their two minds were joined, and then . . . he was gone. One minute his consciousness was there. The next it had completely vanished, along with everything else but his Sunstone (whatever that was).

I pulled out of Dairine's mind and practically ran back out onto the street, where, if someone saw me, I wouldn't get arrested, and, heart pounding, stopped to analyze the images I'd received. They were chronically unhelpful, unless you count showing me that Dairine Callahan was one of the least-likeable people I'd ever met. Well, and that Roshaun had been taken body and soul, as opposed to having his body lying in stasis somewhere.

I started jogging down the sidewalk, headed for home, thinking, Where is he? And how do I get to him? Normally I'm not much for running, but tonight it was the perfect temperature, the world silent and still except for the cool breeze that slid against my face. I felt like I could have kept running forever, faster and faster, until I left my mundane existence behind forever . . .

I had the answer. It hit me all of a sudden, bringing me to a halt, realization flooding through my body. I couldn't wait. I had to do it right now. That's how I am. I get an idea, and it obsesses me until I can do something about it. Which is why I had temporarily forgotten the fact that it was the middle of the night.

I took a moment to figuratively gather all my power into a neat little ball and calm myself down. Then, standing there in the middle of the sidewalk, I prepared to lie in the Speech.

Now, lying in the Speech is a tricky business. Technically, it's not allowed, but it's still physically possible. It's just that any lie you utter in the Speech becomes true, which is why you should be very, very, I can't possibly say "very" enough times to stress the importance of this, careful with your words. For instance, you can't just say "I can pass through this wall" because that ability could manifest itself in a lot of ways, not all of them entirely pleasant. So before actually saying the lie out loud, I planned it out, all in English, in my head, bypassing every hitch, misunderstanding, and side effect I could possibly think of. So, really it was just like making a spell. Only much more complicated. Trust me, lying in the Speech may be a useful little trick to know, but it's usually not worth the trouble.

But it worked. Thanks to my powers of deception, the same fate befell me as had befallen Roshaun – with one difference. I was wearing my transit necklace.

It was exactly like my dream. Except . . . Roshaun wasn't there. I started walking (on what kind of surface, I couldn't tell). It was a very strange feeling. I mean, I knew I was moving, but the scenery never changed, so it felt like I was standing still. Maybe I was. Who knows? I know white light is supposed to represent enlightenment and goodness and all that jazz, but this white light was definitely different. It was just too intrusive. If I thought about it, I could feel it trying to seep through my skin. "Hello? Roshaun?" I called tentatively. I hadn't wanted to talk at all, for fear of alerting . . . something . . . to my presence. But what else was I supposed to do?

What if this is a trap? The thought hit me like an arrow made of panic. For a minute all I could think was, Holycrap! Get me out of here!

Then I saw him, and I knew that this might be dangerous and weird beyond belief, but it was definitely real. He looked like someone who's been locked up in a dungeon for forever and is now so thin and pale that you can almost see right through him. His eyes were half-closed, his head hanging like he was asleep on his feet. But he was still, well, really hot.

"Um. Hi, Roshaun?" His eyes opened all the way, but failed to focus completely. "Youare Roshaun, aren't you? The wizard who disappeared on the Moon?"

"Yes. That's right," he addressed me in the Speech, "Roshaun ke Nelaid am Seriv am Teliuyve am Meseph am Veliz am Terianst am det Nuiiliat." Reciting his incredibly long name seemed to wake him up.

"I am Eternity. I have answered your call." I also used the Speech, giving my name in the most abbreviated, general form possible. I live in the age of identity theft, okay? I have reason to be cautious. And by the way, I wasn't talking like some Byronic hero on purpose. That's just how the Speech is. Some bits of it are still very archaic. Mostly the bits dealing with errantry and wizardry.

What happened next was very strange indeed. The light started seeping around the edges of Roshaun's body, hiding him from my view. This was not good. This was so not good. I stepped forward until I was right in front of him and stared into his once-again-blank green eyes. "Roshaun, wake up. Wake. Up. Now." I tried to grip his shoulders and shake him, but he was pulled away from me. What was this? Wrong question. Who was this? Because, although there were no specific thoughts or emotions attached, I was somehow being told that my place was out in the world, and Roshaun's was here. Which was just stupid. Because Roshaun definitely didn't want to be here. He was desperate enough to ask a complete stranger for help. And this complete stranger was going to give it to him. I ran back towards Roshaun, who was in a daze again.

"Roshaun ke Nelaid am Seriv am Teliuyve am Meseph am Veliz am Terianst am det Nuiiliat," I called, putting an undertone of power into my words, "I am offering you a choice." I felt very empowered all of a sudden. I could feel my wizardry ebbing and flowing in my body, filling me up. It, in a word, rocked.

Roshaun looked at his body, which was being invaded by the light again, then at me. I continued, "You can stay here and fulfill whatever purpose you were brought in here for."

"No. I will not." Rather than sounding panicky, like I'm sure I would have in his situation, he sounded strong. Assured. Full of authority.

I procured my transit necklace from under my shirt. "Then come with me. Come on!" I reached out, grabbed his hand. He looked kind of see-through, and panicky again. He squeezed my fingers.

I opened the book-shaped locket that served as a worldgate into my closet. I felt the familiar falling sensation, but something was holding me back.Come on, come on. Please work, I begged my spell silently. I poured more power into the locket. I was losing my grip on Roshaun's hand. Wildly, I grabbed for the most solid-looking part of him there was left – his long blond hair. I envisioned hands of power pushing against our backs . . . ropes of power anchored to my shelves, pulling us through . . . more hands reaching up to grasp us . . . I focused all my energy on this one task, clenching Roshaun's hair, determined not to leave him behind . . .

And then we were through. I could see my closet floor rushing towards us.

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