Cassandra and I didn't like each other. Not in the least.

For one thing, I was obsessed with cooking. It was a lot like making potions, except the ingredients were way easier to find, and the end result was delicious, as opposed to newt-ricious.

The kitchen was filled with the smell of curries, steaks, soups, and pastas- and that was just the dinners. The overwhelming aroma of vanilla overflowed the house on rainy days, and from the kitchen came cakes, tarts, and cookies.

I loved cooking- but I hated cleaning. As educated as I'd become, my heart still lived on the streets, and the streets cleaned themselves.

Cassandra hated messes, and she hated eating. I never in my life thought I'd meet someone who didn't like food- but I never in my life thought I'd meet someone like Cassandra. The woman ate like a bird- she drank coconut milk straight from the can, would munch on handfuls of raw nuts while on the road, and I once watched in horror as she ate a tablespoon of butter. ("Raw fat" she said. "Burns slower, makes it so I eat less.")

She hated me. Well, she hated me right up until she took a bite of my chocolate cake.

She didn't stop hating messes, but she learned to like me, and food, as long as I kept cooking it.

She liked to sing loudly, and badly, until the very early hours of the morning, usually while painting. She wasn't the best painter, but she loved to do it. Every time she showed anyone a painting, all she got was warm encouragement and praise. While she wasn't a good artist, she was a fantastic hunter, and nobody tells a hunter their painting sucks.

Her house was always filled with bad paintings and even shittier singing. I can't say that either of those were my pet peeve, but the combination started to grate on my nerves a bit. I like my sleep.

Well, that was until she started sharing her wine. I'd never been one to drink, mainly because there was no time for it at school, and no money for it when I was still playing people out of their hard earned cash.

Once she learned that I'd never had a drink, it was all downhill from there. Two weeks in, the kitchen was a constant mess, Cassandra had put on five pounds, all my clothes had at least one spot of paint on them, and we both went to karaoke night every Friday to scare the locals and generally make everyone else's life a living hell.

Cassandra and I didn't like each other at all.

We loved each other.

It wasn't all fun and games, either. We were also doing our best to improve one another as much as we'd corrupted each other. She and I were both teaching each other more and more about magic. I did more of the teaching, to my surprise.

"You already know so much."

I gave her a sharp glance- we'd been pouring over a particularly hard spell. It resembled the spell I'd tried to use on Loki, but was clearly much more refined

"I'm not."

"Oh don't be so humble."

I shrugged, frustrated that I couldn't get across to her the sense of being a novice that I held. I knew more about magic than her, and could cast it more easily, which meant to her that I knew a lot about magic. What I'd been trying to communicate was that I only knew enough to realize how truly ignorant I was. The little corner of knowledge I'd carved out for myself was a speck in an ocean. The only thing that equaled that ocean was my thirst.

I always wanted to know more.

I guess that's where Cassandra and I differed. She was always wanting to cast more and more spells. I thought it was really fun, and loved to invent spells with her. Frivolous spells that were free from the power plays most spells contained. Faerie fire would occasionally line the couch or the corners, like dangerous looking LED strips. I'd crafted a cantrips to change channels on the TV.

But for me, the thrill was in discovery, for Cass, the excitement was in using.

She started bringing boxes home from when she went on witch hunts- magical supplies that satisfied my thirst, and allowed her to cast more and more spells. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I felt a niggling sense of caution- this all seemed too easy, too fun. The look in Cassandra's eyes when channeling power was a little off-putting, the heady smell of magic in the air just a little too intoxicating… but most of me didn't care as long as it could continue absorbing knowledge.

Together, we got better at magic than we'd ever been as individuals.

The first thing you need to know about magic is that you shouldn't use it for things you can do without it for. If you can find your keys without magic, then it's better to spend ten aggravated minutes looking, then to have them burn a permanent key-brand on your right ass cheek. That'll teach you for using a locator spell on something in your back pocket! Cass had trouble with that one, but I liked to pride myself on being practical. Also, I knew better than most:

Magic takes as much as it gives.

The second thing you need to know is that the more you cast, the more visible you become. Magic leaves a residue, like gunpowder found under the fingernails of murderers. That's why rule number one is so important- witches aren't the only casters out there.

"My friend Daniel got taken by something last year." Cassandra remarked once, quietly, over drinks.

"He'd been using too much, for too many things. Love, money… sweets. It wasn't a witch, and it didn't smell like a pagan… it was… something else."

"Demon?" I slurred, still convinced that demons were behind everything. I was pretty doubtful that they even existed at all, because that would bring up some very worrying philosophical questions. Still, if everyone was going to pretend they exist, why not blame them for everything?

I don't have my homework, monster- the demons got it!

"Not demons. Different."

I would have asked more, but her favorite Bob Marley song had come on. By the next morning, the conversation was completely overshadowed by a round of drinking and then a bar fight that broke out after someone may or may not have cheated at poker.

"They didn't catch me." I drunkenly grumbled as Cass and I supported each other's swaying journey home. "They were just sick of me losing all the time"

The third thing I knew, without a doubt, was that magic could kill me, and I was afraid of it.

"Raz, come on!" Cass had had about enough of me. "I need you on this hunt!"

Parents everywhere know this scene; a young child, refusing to go to school, and an exasperated family member trying to drag them out of the house before they strangle their charge. Except this time, it was two full grown women- a hunter, and a cowardly immortal.

I gave her a long, hard stare. One of my teachers called it 'the squid eyes', back in the early days of school.

"I don't want to." I crossed my arms.

She threw her arms up in the air, exasperated. She paced back and forth at the front door for a moment, thinking of any way to convince me- but there wasn't one.

I was trying to hide it, but the truth was that I was afraid. Most hunters who survive long term are the ones who have vengeance on their mind, at least to start. To them, revenge means they can't die, not until their anger dies. Some hunters keep on after that, because they know no other life, or because they can't turn their back on the people who don't know what lurks in the dark.

That wasn't what had motivated me. I had been driven by curiosity, not revenge or compassion. And now that my life was on the line, I was chickening out.

People use the word 'coward' like it's an insult, but humanity is all about cowardice. For you to exist, there had to be a long line of people who made sure they survived, stretching, unbroken, back through history. That's pretty impressive, that every ancestor managed to survive, ending in you.

And it was because they had a good dose of fear keeping them in line.

So of course Cass lost the argument, and the next one too. I could tell she thought less of me at first, resented it a little, but in the end she adjusted. Hunters are used to flying solo on their cases- and it wasn't like I was just sitting around. I was mission control- Kobra Kommander! The lore junkie.

At first I had to call Bobby for the tough ones, but eventually I got the hang of knowing what was "lore" and what was "crazy conspiracy theories". I even started being able to add new bits of lore in! I started keeping field notes- Cassandra called it a 'hunters journal' when she saw it, but when she showed me hers, I was kinda insulted that she thought they were the same. I may be a nut, but I keep my research neat and thorough. Cass' journal looked like an art project.

I was proud to add new information to the collective pool of hunting knowledge. That was really what I lived for. Over time, magic and learning had become my true passions- my months on the road had left me with basic offensive skills, but I quickly learned that if I was in a fight, my best bet would be to use my quick wits and my magical abilities. Even then, I'd probably end up dead. I am definitely not a fighter- not going to turn the tides of any battles and win me the admiration of any main characters anytime soon. But I could tell them some interesting facts and cast some hella cool spells!

And in a way, that was worrying. Magic was like a drug. Like taking adderall for a test.

It felt like cheating- but then again, I was cheating death every day.

Cass and I fell into a rhythm. I went back to my studious ways, and she hunted.

More and more bits of my old life were returning to me, not anything useful- just scraps of knowledge, here and there. Some of it was impossible knowledge. I learned one night, for example, that nobody had actually quite figured out the internal workings of a black hole- but for some reason my past self thought she had.

I could only conclude that she was both knowledgeable and highly arrogant, or just incredibly gullible. Either way, she clearly had no idea how tell what was fact and what was fiction. On top of the black hole thing, she thought that quantum entanglement was a simple idea, that the world was ending in the next ten years and that dolphins were sentient. Even worse, she believed in heaven and hell, which directly conflicted with my own, rather more practical beliefs. (I.e. evolution. Definitely a thing. Scientists call it a 'theory' because only idiots throw all their eggs in one basket. Come on people)

Bottom line is: whoever I had been before, she was really different from who I am now.

In short, my past self (did she still count as me?) was either confused, or totally pants-on-head crazy.

I tried not to let it trouble me, and did my best to focus on accumulating information, and man the phone when Cass was on a hunt.

"Something weird is going on."

I switched the cellphone to my other ear so I could could stir the cookie dough.

"How so?"

"They're all gone." It sounded like Cass was trying not to be heard. I stopped what I was doing.

"Who are? The witches?"

"Yeah, their lair was empty, food still on the table. At first I thought they caught my scent and ran, but there was blood...And I got this weird feeling- like pressure in an airplane. I feel spooked, I'm coming home." I could hear her car door slamming in the background. Something about what she'd said seemed to resonate with me, but I couldn't put my finger on what.

"That can't be the only thing that has you freaked. What aren't you telling me?"

There was a long pause, punctuated only by Cassandra's breathing and the sound of her pickup truck revving to life. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she spoke.

"They left a note, all blood splattered and shit. Like in a movie." She was still whispering, as though she thought whatever got the witches was still around. I walked into the living room and sat down, heart beating, even though I was safely inside.

"That's weird, who do you think it was for?"

"I'm not sure, I think it was a warning."

I shivered and glanced outside at the noonday sun- wondering why I felt so cold.

"What did it say, Cass?"

There was another hesitation, as though she wasn't sure if she wanted to tell me. I found it odd, since we knew a great deal about each other. It was almost as though she was frightened. Of me? Of my reaction? I couldn't tell- but it twisted my gut with foreboding.

"...It said 'They can smell our magic.'"