A/N: These long chapters are probably going to continue, just FYI. Thanks for reading!

Summary: Nora said their summer trip to the country was going to be an adventure. She didn't mean it quite so literally, but when have Casey and Derek ever been any good at doing what they're told?

Rating: T for content, but M for language, so I'm hedging my bets

Disclaimer: I own nothing you see here. Big shock, I know.


What We Did On Our Summer Vacation
by: Hayseed

Chapter Seven: And Met a Man Wearing a Hat

It took less than half a day for Casey to decide that jail was a pretty crappy place to be. Especially with an injured Derek, who spent so much time whining about how much his ribs hurt that she longed to knock him over the head again just so he'd shut up.

And then she felt guilty, because he was in pain, and he'd done it to himself for her. Not just for her, of course, but enough that she felt responsible.

They didn't sleep at all. After she'd untied him, Casey propped herself up against the wall and let Derek rest his head against her leg -- it wasn't a feather pillow, but it had to be better than the stone floor. They watched the light brighten from night to dawn in silence.

Just after the suns rose, a stone-faced man brought them a bucket of water. Rising with a snarl, Derek had attempted to hit the man, but she held him back. Whatever trouble they were in, attacking their jailer would only make it worse.

"Maybe they don't like my shoes," Derek said pensively.

She hummed. "They are pretty gross. Why didn't you buy new ones?"

They'd been playing this game ever since the water arrived -- guessing why they were in prison. It was mostly an effort to keep their minds off the fact that no food had accompanied the water. At least, it was for Casey; she had no idea why Derek was continuing to play along.

"I didn't see any hard-soled shoes," he said. "I don't know how much walking we're going to wind up doing."

With a morose sigh, she waved a hand toward the barred door. "Not much, probably." And it was her turn. "Maybe someone saw you before we found the market, while you were waving that stupid sword around, and decided that you were a danger to society."

He tilted his head upward so she could see the irritated face he was making. "And in that case, you're here why?"

"Who's more foolish -- the fool or the fool who follows him?" she said lightly.

"No fair," he replied, chuckling and wincing at the same time. "You're not allowed to make Star Wars jokes when it hurts too much to laugh at them. Although since you brought it up, what happened to my sword?"

"It was at the inn," she said. "I put all that stuff in a cabinet in our room. It's probably still there."

His expression darkened abruptly, then brightened almost as quickly. "Or they've taken it. Maybe women aren't allowed to carry weapons here."

"That's got the same problem as mine did," she said mildly. "If that's it, then why are you here?"

"Well, duh," he said with a suspicious grin, "I must be the one who gave you the weapons! A dumb old girl wouldn't have gotten the idea on her own."

"De-rek," she replied, rolling her eyes. "You're a chauvinistic pig, you know?"

"Oink, oink," he agreed solemnly.

They were silent for a while. Casey's stomach rumbled and she tried her best to ignore it. Derek had to have heard it, but he didn't say anything.

After a while, he shifted his head restlessly on her leg. "Are you okay?" she asked in a rush.

"I'd murder someone for a Tylenol," he admitted. "But that's a dangerous road to go down; I might end up in jail for doing something like that."

Her lips twitched. And then something horrible occurred to her. "Derek, do you think maybe that guy died?" she asked him as carefully as she could manage.

"What guy?" he replied blankly.

"The... the one you fought," she said. "When we left, he was still unconscious. Maybe that's why..."

"Hey, when we left, I was still unconscious," he said, but his expression was grave. "Shit, Casey, do you really think...?"

With a shrug, she tried to find someplace to put her suddenly fidgety hands. Her new clothes didn't have any pockets, and everything about Derek's body language was currently screaming, Don't touch me! "That's probably not it," she said, trying and failing to keep her voice from shaking. "We're just being stupid about all this."

"Yeah," he said, clearly unconvinced. "Right."

Tentatively, one of her hands came to rest on his hair. It was unexpectedly clean and soft against her fingers, and she had to force herself to remember that they'd gotten to bathe just last night. It felt like years ago.

"Everything will be all right," she said. "What is it you said about this kind of thing not happening to Venturis? I bet that applies to McDonalds too."

"So all of a sudden you think I'm right about stuff?" he asked snidely, and everything in her wanted to let his head drop to the stones and yell at him.

Instead, she forced her hand to smooth through his hair again. "When it's convenient," she said, lips twitching. "Don't read any more into it, though."

His eyes slid shut, and she felt him relax slightly under her touch. "Well, that's a relief. With all of the 'don't let yourself get hurt, Derek' and the 'are you okay, Derek' you've been spouting off lately, I was starting to think you'd developed a soft spot for me. Good to know things are back to normal."

"Well... as normal as they can be," she replied wryly. "Given the circumstances."

"Hey, maybe that's it," he said, not opening his eyes. "Maybe they arrested us for being too normal." Turning, he nestled into her a bit and she realized that he was dozing off.

"Sure, Derek," she muttered as his breathing slowed, "sounds good to me."


Night came and went twice, and their water bucket was refilled four more times before they saw anyone else. But the 'anyone else' that came by was pretty impressive, so maybe it just took everyone a while to get stuff sorted out.

Derek's head was in her lap again, and Casey had actually managed to drift off to sleep when the door slammed open. For a horrifying second, she thought it was a gunshot. Which sent her leaping to her feet, tossing Derek to the floor.

"God damn it, Casey," he said muzzily. "What the hell--"

"Is such inappropriate address common for you, young man?" the 'anyone else' asked neutrally.

And their mouths fell open.

It was a man, not all that much older than either of them, if Casey was any judge. He was wrapped in swirling multi-colored robes and had a very ornate hat perched on his head. Spectacles slipped down his nose and he shoved them back into place in a gesture just frustrated enough to suggest to her that he did it often.

"Dude, you speak English!" Derek said happily from his place on the ground.

She nudged him un-gently with her foot. "No, you moron! He's got to be the wizard that Smelly Guy told us about. Look at his hat!"

"We generally prefer the term 'mage,'" the man said. "Anyone can be a decent hedge-wizard if he can tell one herb from another, but mages must actually possess the touch of magic."

"How very interesting," Derek replied sweetly, picking himself up and making a show of dusting off his clothes. "What a fascinating insight into your culture." His voice abruptly sharpened. "Now, what the hell are you doing here?"

The mage blinked, obviously offended.

But Casey was right there with Derek -- she'd been locked up just as long as he had been, after all. "Maybe not the most polite delivery, but I have to say, Mister Mage-Person, I'm kinda wondering the same thing as my... friend," she said as civilly as she could manage.

"So we're friends now?" Derek asked under his breath in a bemused sort of voice.

"Shut up," she hissed, elbowing him.

The mage tilted his head and stared at both of them. After a long moment, he turned to speak with someone outside the cell. "Are you absolutely certain?" he asked.

The reply was muffled but clearly in a different language.

Jerking his head in a short nod that made his hat wobble slightly, the mage turned back to them. "The ringmaster says you defeated his finest fighter, boy," he said.

"Yeah, so?" Derek shot back. "What's that got to do with you?"

"I am meant to determine exactly what spell you used to do so," he replied. "The ringmaster believes -- and I concur -- that a weakling could not have defeated a master fighter so easily without the use of magic."

"And so what if I did?" he asked cockily. "And I'm not a weakling, magic dude. I'll have you know that I'm a nationally ranked hockey player. Two championships and--"

Casey nudged him and he cut off his tirade with a small gasp of pain. She would have felt guiltier if she wasn't beginning to suspect that Derek had gotten them both thrown in prison for being stupid.

With a raised eyebrow, the mage frowned. "To use magic to win any contest of skill is a punishable offense, young man. But you must tell me first from whence you hail -- your speech is unlike any I've ever heard."

Derek blinked in confusion.

Sighing, she decided it was time to intervene. Mostly because Derek had already gotten them arrested, and she was worried that he was well on his way to getting them the death penalty. "We're strangers," she replied. "We fell through the Door, and some weird old guy told us to come here and find you. If we don't find Fire Island, we can't go back home. Oh, and Derek didn't use magic to beat that guy; neither of us know anything about magic. He just hit a pressure point or something."

Something behind the mage's eyes flared. "Pressure point?" he echoed as if he'd never heard those two words put together in that way before.

"Sure," she said with a shrug. "Places on the body that are extra sensitive."

"Like when you hit your arm just right and the whole thing goes numb," Derek interjected with what he probably thought was a helpful smile.

"You are an anatomist?" he asked, staring at Derek.

"Nope," he said with a cheerful shrug, "just really, really lucky. If it's any help, I think I got hurt bad enough that I'm gonna start coughing up blood any day now."

Tilting his head, the mage studied Derek carefully. "Your injuries are grave," he agreed after a long pause. "And they are aggravated by your current living conditions."

He snorted and shook his head. "If you're saying that being in jail makes me hurt worse, I can't disagree with you there."

The mage turned back to Casey. "Your friend does not know any spells?" he asked, staring hard at her. She got the feeling that he wasn't asking the questions he really wanted to, but she was pretty sure it would be a bad idea to bring it up.

"None," she confirmed with a nod. "Just dumb luck. We needed some money and that was the only way we could figure out to get it without robbing someone."

"As much as I resent the 'dumb luck' thing," Derek said, "that about covers it."

"I must speak with the master of the prison," he said. "You will excuse me."

And he was gone.

"So... was what just happened a good thing?" Derek asked slowly.

She had no answer.


The chair had a cushion. She hadn't even been in the same room as a chair with a cushion in almost a month.

"Dibs," Derek said shortly, limping toward the chair.

"No way, gimp," she shot back as she leapt forward and sank down into the seat.

It was just as glorious as she'd hoped. Muscles in her back that she hadn't even known were tense relaxed.

"You're evil," he said with a pout. "Depriving a poor, disabled boy of the only chair in the room."

She rolled her eyes. "No, just observant. And you walked over here just fine, you know. Not much of a disability, Derek."

With a grimace, he made a show of clutching at his head. "I was putting up a brave front. And what the hell are you observing that keeps me from sitting down, huh?"

"She is quite possibly referring to the fact that you are in immediate need of healing, young man," the mage said, entering the room briskly. "I cannot complete an examination if you are sitting down."

He obviously couldn't hide the twitch of surprise and Casey grinned broadly. "You know," he told the mage with a glower, "you can't be that much older than I am, so what's with all the 'young man' stuff?"

"The magic slows the aging process," he replied. "I will say that I am old enough to be your father several times over and leave it at that."

She should have expected something like that. She'd read her share of fantasy books, after all.

"Like Dumbledore?" Derek asked. "From Harry Potter? That dude was, like, two hundred years old when Snape axed him."

Her mouth dropped open.

He shot her a dirty look from across the room. "Hey, I read," he said defensively. "Sometimes. Quit looking at me like I just crawled out from under a rock."

"I have no idea what any of that means," the mage said. "But you need to take off your shirt so I can assess your injuries more accurately."

"No way." Derek folded his arms over his chest. "You may have gotten us out of jail, but I have no real reason to believe you aren't some evil wizard who's going to try to... seduce us or something."

Clearing her throat to get his attention, she rolled her eyes at him. "Do you even listen to the stupid stuff you're saying?"

"What? We both know I'm way hotter than you, princess," he said, sticking his tongue out at her for good measure.

The mage stared back and forth between them. "Princess?" he exclaimed, sounding horrified. "And you address her like that?"

Derek grinned at the mistake, but Casey was too put out by the 'hotter' comment to do much more than sniff. "Figure of speech, dude. Casey is about as royal as my toenail clippings. Less, probably."

And that was about all she could take of that. "Look," she said, voice grating in irritation, "I know you sacrificed yourself to buy us a hot meal or whatever, but could you stop randomly insulting me in front of a perfect stranger?"

"It is rather unseemly," the mage agreed in a tone that suggested he was enjoying it all the same. "Not to mention the fact that you still have not done as I requested."

She huffed. "Derek, just take off your damn shirt. If he has his wicked way with you, then you'll at least get the satisfaction of knowing you're more sexually appealing than I am."

"Yeah, well, better not let yourself get distracted by all the sexy man-skin, Case," he said, stripping off his shirt and throwing it over in a corner. "Examine away, Magic Man."

Suppressing a sigh, she let her eyes slide closed. She knew he had a habit of saying particularly idiotic things when he was nervous, but honestly. The guy just rescued them from a freaking dungeon -- did Derek really think he could be that evil?

There was a sharp intake of breath and then, "Broken ribs," she heard the mage say in a satisfied sort of voice. "At least two of them. You're lucky you're still breathing, boy."

"You can tell all that from a magic spell?" Derek asked.

"No," he replied. "But the only reason that such a light touch to the side would cause you that much pain is if your ribs were in fairly bad shape. And if they're that badly damaged, you should have punctured your lung and suffocated to death by now."

"Like I said before -- dumb luck," she murmured, not bothering to open her eyes.

"Hey!" Derek cried loudly. "I heard that."

"It would have been wasted if you hadn't," she said lazily.

Someone cleared his throat and she guessed that it was probably the wizard; Derek wouldn't have been nearly so polite. "Hold still."

"Hey... wait, what are you -- ow!" Derek shouted. "What did you just do to me?"

She finally looked over at the pair. Derek had a red mark that sort of looked like a burn running down his side, and he had folded his arms and was glaring at the mage, who had a decidedly smug look on his face. "That was the magic spell," he said.

"It feels like you just set me on fire," he snarled, curling further into his defensive pose. "And my ribs..."

The smug look deepened into an outright smirk. "Yes?"

"Okay, so maybe it doesn't hurt so much to breathe," he admitted grudgingly. "And I can twist around without feeling like someone's banging rocks on my bones from the inside."

Staring at the red mark with renewed understanding, she felt sort of awed. "You fixed him?" she asked the mage wonderingly. "It should take, like, eight weeks to heal from that sort of thing."

"You will still feel somewhat sore," the mage said, bending down and handing him his shirt. "I cannot completely heal you, after all."

"Oh, of course," Derek said faintly. She watched him turn and twist and even bend down to touch his toes, amazement written all over his face. "You should figure out a way to bottle that stuff and sell it."

The mage smiled. "Intent plays a role, which would make such a process difficult if not impossible. But I am glad you are feeling better, young man. Now, we can talk further about what you two said back at the prison."

Casey blinked and sat up straight in her chair. Time to pay attention. "What did you want to talk about?" she asked carefully.

"You said that you came from beyond the Door," he said flatly, in a tone that indicated disbelief. "The Door has not been opened since before my master's time, if it ever existed at all. It is legend."

"Well, that old guy got really mad at us when we told him where we came from," Derek said thoughtfully. "Basically, he said that we weren't smart enough to figure out how to open it."

"Most scholars believe that the Door is a metaphor," the mage said, tilting his head at him. "A level of meditation."

Derek snorted. "If by 'level of meditation,' you mean a big freaking piece of wood with hinges that opens and closes and is guarded by a man with the most disgusting feet in all of creation, then sure. Why not?"

"We couldn't get it back open once we fell through," Casey offered, feeling a little left out of the conversation. "I think it works differently in our world than it does here, based on what the old man said."

The mage shook his head. "Are you telling me that you two met the Keeper?"

"He yelled at us for more than a week, gave us weird-ass weapons, and then told us to come and talk to you," Derek said. "He also made the worst soup I've ever tasted in my whole life. Worse than Marti's Mud and Bug Surprise."

She couldn't suppress the laugh. "You actually ate that stuff when Marti shoved it at you?"

With a self-deprecating headshake, he grinned. "She's a very insistent nine-year-old."

"Oh, I know," she replied, "remember who had to spend six months playing Beauty Shop with her?"

His grin widened. "I still have the pictures on my computer, Clown-Face Casey."

"De-rek," she retorted lightly. She and Derek continued to grin dumbly at each other from across the room, and only a little part of her wondered why.

The mage was frowning, glancing back and forth between them. "It is too extraordinary. Even if the Door and the Keeper did exist, they would not make themselves known to crass children like you."

She didn't know what to say to an insult like that, but Derek visibly stiffened. "You want proof, Magic Man? Let us go back to the inn and get our weapons."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I promised the bailiff that I would ascertain what sort of danger you presented and deal with you accordingly. If I let you two leave, what's to keep you from never returning?"

Casey blew out a frustrated sigh. "How about the fact that we were sent to talk to you?" she asked impatiently. "You're, like, the only one who can help us get home, apparently."

And the mage rounded on her. She didn't like his expression; it reminded her too much of what he looked like in the prison, when he kept asking questions he already knew the answers to. "The girl stays," he said sharply. "You may go to the inn to fetch your belongings, and I'll keep the girl here to ensure your return."

"I thought you said we could trust him, Case," Derek said mockingly.

She frowned, reassessing the situation. "All I said was that he probably didn't spring us from prison to sexually molest us."

"We should stick together," he told her in a firm voice. "That's what we decided -- you and me, right? If you don't go, I don't go."

It only took her a few seconds to make up her mind. She climbed out of her chair and walked over to him, putting a hand on his arm. "Go on, Derek," she said quietly. "You won't be gone long, and I'll be fine."

"But--"

She shrugged and he gave her a wide-eyed look. "He won't help us unless he believes us," she said.

Jamming his hands in his pockets, he shot the mage a glare. "This town sucks. In every possible way. Okay, Casey, you win. I'll be back as soon as I can."


It was the first time they'd been separated in a month and she was startled to realize that she actually missed him. And not in a generic 'only person in the world that I know' kind of way, either. Ten minutes after Derek walked out of the room, she found herself missing his lopsided smile and his idiotic, off-the-wall insults.

She even missed his stupid black eye and that stupid cut on his cheek. Served him right for trying to take on an armor-plated giant, anyway, right? It didn't matter that he did it to keep her safe; that just made him all the more stupid for doing it in the first place.

Sighing, she dropped back into her chair and tried to distract herself from her misery by glaring at the mage, who was busy poking at the fire in the grate across the room.

"Do you make a habit holding young girls hostage, or is this a first for you?" she asked nastily.

He straightened to a standing position, but his expression remained mild and pleasant. "There's no need for that sort of thing," he said. "Consider my perspective, if you will. I have no reason to believe that you and your young man are anything but raving lunatics, roaming the countryside and leaking magic."

"Leaking magic?" she echoed, settling on the most baffling thing he'd just said and deciding to work her way backwards from there. She'd get to the 'your young man' thing in a bit.

"Did I say lunatics?" he asked as he adjusted a jar on the mantel. "I probably meant to say liars instead."

"Now hang on..." she said slowly, standing up and putting her hands on her hips.

With a glower, the mage spun to face her. The flickering firelight deepened the frown lines on his face, and her stomach dropped. "I convinced the bailiff and the magistrate to release you into my custody. I healed your young man. And against my better judgment, I find myself actually listening to this blasphemous pack of lies you are telling me about the Door. I have been very tolerant so far, girl, but do not push me."

She took an involuntary step backward. "I didn't mean to..."

"Who trained you?" he asked.

Her mouth fell open. "What are you talking...?"

"Whoever he or she was, they did a terrible job -- you have no shields whatsoever. Who knows what would have happened to the pair of you if I hadn't spoken to the magistrate personally."

Confused beyond reason, Casey didn't know how to even begin to respond. It didn't really seem to matter, though; the mage was more or less talking to himself.

"And it's not as if you are particularly gifted, but still. An apprentice is an apprentice, after all, and there's just no excuse for poor--"

She couldn't bear to listen to it any more. Clearing her throat, she clapped her hands together as loudly as she could. "Hey!" she shouted.

And he actually stopped talking and scowled at her. "What?" he snarled.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said sharply. "I'm not anybody's apprentice, and I'm not leaking or whatever. In case you hadn't figured it out, I'm not from around here, Magic Man." She quite liked Derek's little nickname; it had a nice, sarcastic twist to it. And he probably wouldn't mind if she borrowed it.

"It doesn't matter where you're from," he said in a tired voice, covering his face with a hand. "At least, it doesn't seem to."

"Wait..." she drawled. "Are you saying...?"

He shrugged. "You appear to have a small degree of magical ability. It's probably how your young man won his fight. If what you say is true, you were helping him without knowing it."

By this point, her brain had stuttered to a full stop. There was only one thing she could think of to say, so she said it. "He's not my young man," she said. "He's just... he's Derek."

"Dirk?" the mage repeated, mangling the word.

Close enough, she figured, not bothering to correct him. "And you're wrong about the other thing, too. I'm not... it's not possible."

"You are, and it is. And if you are going to survive, girl, you need to master it," he said firmly.

Her mouth opened again, but she had absolutely no idea what was going to come out.


Whatever it was going to be, it didn't matter. Before she could even produce a squeak, the door banged open and Derek came storming into the room. "Jeez," he said loudly, throwing both of their old sacks to the ground, "you have no idea how much money I had to give that inn-guy to get him to give me our stuff. You better be freaking in love with that orange underwear, Case."

"De-rek!" she shouted, grateful for the distraction. "Don't--"

"And I was thinking about it on the way back," he continued over her protests. "If all your, like, under stuff was over there, that means that you haven't been wearing any--"

Leaping across the room before he could finish that sentence, she clapped one hand over his mouth and gave his forearm a hard pinch with the other. "You're an asshole, you know," she said viciously.

As they scuffled, the mage approached the bags and began riffling through them in a strangely efficient manner. "These are all of your belongings?" Thank God he'd shut up about that stupid magic stuff.

With a grunt, Derek twisted away from her and nodded. "We're minus a hell of a lot of gold coins, but I'm hoping we can get that sorted out soon enough."

"You are not trying to fight for money again," she said, kicking his shin.

Wincing, he shot her a glare. "I didn't think that was an option, given what happened last time. And would you quit hurting me?"

The sword sang as the mage pulled it free from its sheath. He held it high in the air, examining the hilt carefully. "Interesting..." he said.

"What?" Derek asked blankly.

Instead of answering, the mage moved on to the bow, giving the string an experimental twang. He took an arrow out of the quiver and balanced it on a finger, tilting his head and wrinkling his nose. "You say the old man gave you these?"

It didn't escape Casey's notice that he failed to call the old man the Keeper, and disappointment washed through her. "We're never gonna get home," she muttered.

"Cheer up, Casey," Derek said, giving her a mock-cheerful smile. "He hasn't seen the knife-thing, yet."

"I believe this type of weapon is called a dagger, Dirk," the mage said, turning the dagger in question over in his hand.

"Did he just call me Dirk?" he asked with a sideways glance at her.

She shrugged. "I may or may not have said your name at some point during your absence. It's no big deal."

"You told him your name, too, right?"

"It never came up," she said, watching the mage examine her knife. "Hey, be careful with that!"

He gave her a disdainful look. "I am a scholar, girl. I am careful by nature."

"Her name's not 'girl,'" Derek said. "She's Casey."

Tilting her head, she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well..." he said defensively. "Fair's fair, after all. If he knows my name, he should know yours. You done staring at that knife, there, Magic Man?"

"How you two managed to curry the favor of the Keeper, I'll never know," the mage replied with a sigh, flipping the dagger in the air so that it landed neatly on its tip, burrowing into the wooden table.

"Wait..." Casey said slowly. "Does that mean...?"

He shook his head. "The sword and the bow are ordinary, if quite old, weapons. But this dagger... it is clearly an ancient royal weapon, long gone from history. I actually have a sketch of it somewhere, if you'd like to see. What I find most peculiar is that your dagger should be more than a thousand years old, and yet it looks like new. While not definitive proof, it is enough to convince me that you are not lying."

"Well, duh," Derek said, rolling his eyes. "So you'll help us?"

"I will," he confirmed with a nod. "If nothing else, the sooner I send you on your way, the less likely it will be that the magistrate realizes that you two used magic to win that money and puts you in the stocks and turns me out of town for lying through my teeth."

"But we didn't," Derek said. "We already told you that."

"Well," Casey said in a near-whisper. "Not intentionally."

His head jerked around so quickly that she was surprised he didn't hurt himself. "What?"

"He told me that I'm leaking magic," she told him. "Whatever that means."

"Did you tell him that he was insane?"

"I tried," she said.

"You know," the mage interrupted irritably, "I'm right here. It's very rude to speak as if I'm not in the room."

"Oh, that's just great!" Derek cried. "We're in hell, and you get to have magic powers? How is that fair?"

She bit back a grin. "Well... you've got a sword," she eventually said.

"Doesn't even compare," he said dismissively. "I don't know how to use my sword at all, and the last time I tried, I almost got shish-kebab-ed."

If she didn't go ahead and tell him, it would be even worse when he did find out. "The last time I apparently tried to use my magic, we got thrown in jail."

"You mean..." His face twisted and then fell. "I didn't actually Vulcan neck-pinch that guy?"

"Not entirely," she admitted. "Or, maybe you did a little, but it shouldn't have worked as well as it did."

Grumbling, Derek threw himself into the cushioned chair so hard it almost toppled over. "It's not fair," he said again to no one in particular.

"So you will stay?" the mage asked them both. "I will do my best to help you find your way to the Door."

"Yeah, sure," she said. "And I guess I could use some help with that magic thingy, so I don't, like, blow Derek up next time or something."

He pulled out his book of matches and started flipping the cover open and closed with a morose expression. "Nice, Case. I feel the love."

"Oh, shut up," she shot back, fed up with the pouting. "It's not like I want to have to deal with this stuff. You want magic? Go ahead and take it."

"It doesn't work that way, Cassie."

Derek rolled his eyes. "It's Casey, dude. Learn the language."

"Be nice," she said. "At least he's trying. Smelly Guy didn't even bother learning our names."

Pocketing his matches, he stood up. "Whatever. Look, I'm tired. Can someone point me in the direction of a bed?"

"That might be a bit of a problem," the mage said, frowning. "I only have one."

Casey hoped against hope that they figured out how to get to the Island of Fire soon.