Dancing on the Sky

by Mizzy

Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

3. Stay With Me...

Dancing on the Sky

Part One - "Grid of Misery"

Chapter Three - "Stay With Me

Author: Mizzy

E-mail: PG-13

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

Warning: Don't try and drink lemonade up your nose. splutters It hurts. whimpers

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"You've got to be kidding."

Somehow, Kit wasn't surprised when those words came from Ronan, his accent twisting the light statement of shock and incredulity until Kit wasn't even sure if Ronan meant to be sarcastic or was genuinely disbelieving him.

"I'm not," Kit replied, semi-defensively, and looked at Dairine for support. The tiny wizard, dwarfed in her large T-shirt, just shrugged back; her eyes mirroring Ronan's same disbelief.

"Are you sure?"

Kit turned in disbelief to see Nita questioning him, and, trying to keep his temper, he just nodded. "It's like . . . all memory of him is being wiped out slowly. I mean, check your manual . . . Any mention of his name is just . . ." Kit floundered for the right word. "Going. Someone is taking great care to wipe all mention of him, every whisper of him, from here."
Annie broke in, business-like, moving to stand in the center of the room, next to the fridge-freezer combo. 'Right where Nita's mom usually stood when she was in business-mode,' Kit thought with a thud, and from the lost look in Nita's eyes that echoed in Dairine's own, the same thought was brushing through their minds too. Ronan noticed Nita's sudden discomfort, and frowned, and Kit felt a rush of smugness that he knew Nita better which he immediately regretted. 'I might know more, but he knows the side of Nita I will never know . . .'

Annoyed at his own jealousy, Kit didn't even notice Nita's gaze snapping to him, and her gaze turn shrewd and calculating. He noticed Nita flicking through her manual as Annie spoke, though, and jumped to the wrong conclusion that she was trying to prove him wrong. 'I know I'm right, I worked hours on that scanning spell just in case it was needed one day . . . Or maybe I'm wrong, and I just don't want to admit it . . . Tom was right, that symbol should have been added to the end of my name ages ago . . ." Furious at himself, Kit listened to Annie's words, slumping against the wall in defeat.

"Right. This is what we're going to do. Nita, Dairine, Ronan - we're going to get some sleep, and Kit, you can come back in the morning. Kit—I'm going to borrow the car and drive you home. You're not up to a transit spell, and—", Annie smiled quickly, a twisted grin that made Kit remember why he had envied Nita having Annie as a relative last time they'd met, "maybe I can get you out of eating that Indian food too."

Kit smiled thankfully at Annie, and frowned at the implication that he was too weak to do wizardry. Dairine edged him a look, her face impassive but glance knowing, and Kit nodded slightly at her so no one else would notice. He'd have to remember Ronan and Annie came from somewhere where wizardry couldn't be used so easily, so freely, and that they might not exactly understand how American wizards could build up their magical and physical stamina more easily. "Thank you," Kit said politely, after another disapproving glare from Dairine.

Annie nodded. "I'll go get the keys. Dairine, maybe you should get up to bed." Dairine looked like she was going to protest. "Now. You may not be on errantry, but I could still do with some research help." Annie glared at Dairine, before moving through the door, obviously going to find the keys to the Callahan-mobile, the '99 Fiat Punto nestled in their driveway.

Dairine frowned, rolled her eyes to the ceiling and disappeared off with a muttered goodbye. As she passed Kit on her way through to the hallway, she nudged him and Kit turned to her, eyebrows arched in incomprehension. Dairine looked over pointedly to where Nita and Ronan were sat; Nita flicking through her manual, Ronan with his hand easily on her shoulder and chatting gently to her.

"You know," Dairine said quietly, not wanting to alert Ronan and Nita on the subject of her discussion matter, "I don't really trust him either."

Kit turned to her, his eyes widening. "Well, I guess he is after your sister . . ."

Dairine put her head to one side, looking at Kit with such a shrewd expression that Kit got again the impression that someone had stuck a very old head onto Dairine's very young shoulders. 'Wisdom and more power than all of us . . . What a combination.' "I don't think that's what irks me most about him. More the fact that he's where you should be."

"Huh?"

Kit seemed to be running out of coherent words, and Dairine gave him a knowing look before ducking lightly out of the room; not wanting to experience her Auntie's wrath for not being in bed already.

"Kit?" Annie's head popped around the door, and he started to move out of the room, trying to discretely not look at where Nita and Ronan were sitting. Unfortunately Nita caught onto him, and leapt out of her seat, grabbing onto his sleeve as she bent around Ronan's chair.

"Jealousy?"

Annie waited by the door, arms folded, but knowing enough to not let Kit escape without an explanation as to what Nita was confronting him about.

Kit stared back, feeling Ronan looking at him with a quiet determination, and Nita looking at him with a confused expression, which almost screamed I don't know you any more.

"You looked," Kit said, feeling betrayed as he held onto the doorknob.

"When I checked your name. I know I shouldn't have looked, but I…" Nita trailed off.
Kit looked undecided for a moment. "I suppose it was a bit of a temptation . . ." He put his head to one side, and Nita let go of him, standing behind Ronan as he sat in the chair. "But you're not exactly right." He moved away from the doorway, and started to leave.

"Then what is it?" Nita pressed, pushing past Ronan and standing in the doorway. Kit refused to turn around; instead he stilled. He knew what he would see if he turned around, and he didn't want that pain. Nita would be standing there, confused as to what her best friend was hiding from him, not having the support of Ronan, standing small and empty in the doorway and feeling alone. 'She shouldn't have to feel alone . . . Why must I do this to her? Maybe it would be better if I just disappeared out of her life, make her think something's happened to me . . . Perhaps it would be easier on all of us . . .'

Kit steeled himself, and only Annie could see the pained expression on his face as he deliberated on how to phrase it.

"Anguish."

One word, breathed out so lightly that Nita wondered lately if she'd even heard it or if the word was mirrored so deeply in her own soul she didn't have to, but she did feel the emotion behind it and physically reeled backwards from it. Hands held her steady from behind, firm on her hips, but it wouldn't have mattered if the Lone Power Himself was holding her in his death-grip right then.

All she could do was just feel Kit's torment that echoed hers so deeply that she hadn't even known. All she could do was curse her own blindness, her own selfishness to think she was the only one who hurt. All she could do was look, blindly, to see Kit walk away; still not turning around, and disappearing off outside to go home.

Turning, she buried her head in the shoulder of the person holding her, and started to cry again; huge sobs that racked her body and left her weakened. Shivering she lifted her head to meet the understanding gaze of her father. He looked disheveled, like he'd just gotten up, and looked so much like Nita felt inside that she wanted to scream, she wanted to fall forever, she wanted it all to go away . . .

Saying nothing, Nita's father wrapped his arms around her, and burrowed his head into her neck, and Nita did the same; for a long hour they clung onto each other and just cried. Cried for their sorrow, their grief, and their mirrored pain, which joined them past genes and past the love they had as a family. Cried for their joint loss and cried for their future and for everyone else lost in the maelstrom of entropy, the gift and the curse of the Lone Power.

Uncovering his face with his hands, Kit peeked out of the window, his face ashen. Turning to Annie in disbelief he stared at her.

"That," Kit said, "was . . . a miracle."

Frowning, Annie stared at her young charge and his discomfiture. "A miracle?"

Kit unbuckled the seatbelt, and pushed the door open, almost falling to the pavement in his shock. "Annie?" Kit said, while Nita and Dairine's Auntie got out the driver's seat and moved to join him on the pavement. "It's a miracle we're alive."

Annie looked at Kit, then at the car, and then at the rest of the cars on the same side of the road. They were all pointing towards the car rather than in the same direction. She felt her face heat up. "I drove on the wrong side of the road, didn't I?" Mortified, Annie quickly apologized to Kit. "Sorry."

"It's all right. Good thing it's so late . . ." Kit looked across the street, to where his house was. The tiny suburban house was darkened except for one light on, and Kit winced as he realized it was the living room light. 'Oops.'

Annie nodded, and moved to the back of the gleaming white car to cross the road. Kit followed her, his hands in his pockets, and trod up the leaf-strewn path to his front door. Annie knocked politely on the door, and it wasn't long before the door burst open, and an irate looking women stood in the doorway. She frowned confusedly at Annie, then peeked around her to look at Kit, and managed to look relieved but even more irate at the same time.

"Mama, sorry I was so long, I was out on business," Kit breathed quickly, holding up his manual apologetically. Mrs. Rodriguez, every inch the nurse, pulled him in and started to make sure he was all right. Annie stood politely in the hallway and pushed the door shut.

"Mama, this is Annie Callahan, Nita's auntie. She's come all the way from Ireland to help us," Kit explained, nodding at Annie. "She gave me a lift home."

Kit's mother cast an appraising glance at Annie, and, finally deciding she was all right beamed at her. "I'm glad Kit gets some adult help. Goodness knows those Seniors don't do enough while our kids are on this business of theirs . . ."

"Mama!" Kit hissed, horrified. Annie, however, nodded her head in agreement.

"Considering the number of them, it's a wonder the Seniors manage to get to see everyone they're supposed to. We're limited to thirty five at the moment, and this dilemma has caught everyone off guard," Annie said, shrugging.

"Dilemma?"

"Carl's gone missing, mama," Kit elucidated. "Tom's out of his mind with worry, and . . . There's no sign of him whatsoever."

"Oh no!" Kit's mother looked horrified. She liked the two seniors, knowing the two of them would eat anything she came up with whenever they came around to see Kit or explain something to them, and knowing one of them was missing… Suddenly her head snapped up. "And they want Kit to help find a missing Senior? He's just a… kid!"

"Mama!" Fully ashamed and embarrassed Kit's cheeks flooded with humiliation and he looked to Annie for help. Annie's gaze was stern for a moment, but then softened.

"They are the ones with the most power after all. It's not always the amount of experience that wizards have, it's the type as well . . . Both Kit and Nita have had particular experiences no other wizard has had, and Ronan and I have had a different experience yet." Annie looked saddened. "Mrs. Rodriguez, Kit was chosen because he has the best chance for completing this assignment. It means no one else has the chance of survival and completion as Kit has. You should be comforted by this."

Mrs. Rodriguez nodded, looking at her son gently with a queer glance of love, concern and pride. "He's my boy," she added fondly, pulling Kit to her side and ruffling his hair.

"Kit has had a bit of a wearying night," Annie added, glancing at Kit for a second. "I think it would be best for him to eat something with a lot of sugar in it and then have a good night's sleep."

"Yes, of course," Kit's mother affirmed. "But—"

"I'm sure Annie would love to try the curry you made, mama," Kit broke in, hoping he didn't sound too frantic or desperate. Thankfully she just looked pleased.

"Come on through!" Mrs. Rodriguez offered, instead looking pleased that there was someone else to eat her cooking.

Kit smiled, kissed his mother on the cheek and grabbed a packet of M&Ms from the cupboard in the kitchen while Annie got introduced to the flaming Indian food before heading upstairs to his room. Remembering to kick his shoes up half-way up the stairs, they fell in an unruly pile next to Carmela's clunky pink high-heeled boots, and he padded up the stairs in his socks to his room. Sliding in and dropping his manual to his bed, Kit patted Ponch. The huge mongrel was lying disgruntled on his rug, his paws folded and his head resting on his paws, and the empty box of biscuits beside him; the front ripped off, unmistakably by Ponch tearing at it with his teeth. Shaking his head in quiet mirth, Kit sat down on his bed next to his manual and ripped open the M&Ms.

Chewing on them reflectively, and putting aside the yellow ones without even thinking about it, he let his free hand flick through the manual. It was quite heavy tonight, and Kit wondered why. The manual contracted and expanded to include what you needed to know then. Kit was thankful it did this—if it included everything, then the manual would be bigger than all of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Kit had seen a bookcase full of those books at his uncle's house, and had learned that the company in the UK was no longer doing them hardcopy—it was too expensive. From the number of heavy volumes and the cost of them, Kit wasn't surprised. Even the manual was moving from hardcopy to hardware, Kit thought, thinking of Dairine and her laptop version.

Everything was changing. He was changing. The world was changing. Nita . . . Nita was changing too, and Kit was scared that she would change so much that they wouldn't even be partners any more.

It was possible. Kit had heard of it happening; partners growing apart in their differences so much that new partners were found. By that point, he supposed, they would both be changed so much that it wouldn't even be that much of an issue any more. In most cases, though, partners stayed together until the end; the end of their wizardry or the end of their lives, whichever came first. Partnership wasn't always synonymous with a relationship of such either. Tom and Carl had a strictly plutonic relationship, and still stayed together as partners ...

Kit though that last thought over with some careful deliberation. Neither one of them said they were involved, but then neither of them had said they weren't. From Tom's reaction, Kit suspected there might be more between them that they didn't let on to the public, but after years of partnership what else could really be expected?

He stopped that line of thought right there.

Maybe they were, maybe they weren't, and either way it wasn't any of his business. It was devastating on any level to lose your partner, no matter how close they were emotionally. Tom and Carl were at least best friends, more than that in a way that couldn't really be described, and losing that side of you must be hard to deal with. Kit thought back to how close he'd been from drifting away completely from Nita, and how close it still might be in the future, and felt a stab of pain in the region of his stomach which had nothing to do with hunger. If Nita . . . stayed . . . with Ronan, and Kit's mind had trouble keeping that thought without feeling dizzy, then he really couldn't see how he could stay her partner in the future. Maybe making her think something had happened to him was the best option after all, but then he'd have to leave his family, and his future, and . . .

Stretching his arms out to the ceiling, Kit let them drop and pushed his manual onto his bedside table. Staring at the M&Ms left, he noticed he'd pushed the yellow ones to the side and they were the only ones left. Vaguely confused for a moment, Kit remembered how much Nita liked the yellow ones the most, and how she would pick them out and push the rest aside for Dairine, or for later. Gazing sadly at them for a moment, he premeditated on what he could do and then, deliberately, pushed them back into the packet and twisted the packet closed. Slumping back on the bed, fully clothed and staring up at the ceiling, Kit lay there for a long time before his weariness claimed him for its own and for a few hours of dreamless sleep.

Nita woke up with a start, and felt a rush of confusion at her surroundings. Instead of being woken up from the light lancing through a crack in her curtains she'd just woken up naturally. 'The first time in a long, long time . . .' Pushing herself up into a sitting position, Nita glanced around the light-flooded room, and all the X-men posters sprawled over the walls, before realizing she'd offered to sleep on the camp-bed in Dairine's room so her aunt could have her bed. Looking up, she saw Dairine cross-legged on her own bed, Spot in front of her.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Dairine murmured without twisting her head to look at her sister.

"Morning, camper," Nita returned with a silly smile. Dairine jerked to glance at her sister this time, and looked confused.

"You're in a good mood," Dairine stated, looking surprised before looking pointedly at the camp bed. "And you're the camper more than anyone else in this room."

Nita pulled a face at her sister's accuracy. "Smart-ass," she countered, rolling off the camp-bed and feeling something sharp jab into her knee. Something sharp that squealed and bit her knee. "Ow!" Pulling her knees back and sitting with her legs pulled up against her body, Nita peered closely at her knee, where a few red marks were already raising up into bruises, before examining what had bitten her. Whatever it was was concealed under a mess of red material, one of Dairine's sweatshirts, and it wasn't long before a shiny head peered out, and wriggled out of the material. Nita stared at the turtle-like machine for a moment incredulously.

"Gigo!" It chirped, a little too sunnily. "Hello Nita," it added in the Speech.

Nita stared at Gigo furiously for a moment before glancing back at Dairine. "Dairine, you were supposed to send them home!"

"He missed me," Dairine returned, looking entirely ruffled. "I guess this means I don't have to hide him any more."

Something on Gigo's face crinkled upwards, and Nita assumed it was a funny sort of a smile. She felt herself smiling a little back, and frowned to stop herself. "Well, he's looking a lot better."

Dairine nodded. "To put things into terms you'd understand, on the alien homeworld they infiltrated, they picked up a 'virus.' But now they're all fitted with a 'virus' checker to get rid of any foreign viruses."

Nita nodded, just about grasping the concept. "Great."

"Auntie Annie's downstairs. You might want to go put something on so your boyfriend doesn't see your cute nightshirt," Dairine suggested. Nita looked down at her nightshirt. It was one of her favorites, a pale yellow one that fell mid-thigh, and was decorated with a large teddy bear and the word 'huggable'. She flushed, and stood up indignantly.

"When's Kit coming over?" Nita asked instead, hands akimbo.

"Nine. That means you've got ten minutes to get changed. Scoot!"

Nita, startled by the imperative tones of her sister, nodded and stumbled out into the hallway, before she looked back at the doorway in acute speculation. Slightly frightened by the sight of Legolas pointing an arrow at her head, she turned and walked into her room; closing the door behind her and rummaging in her drawers for her clothes as she thought about what Dairine was implicating. She didn't have any boyfriend. 'I mean, one kiss doesn't instantly make someone your boyfriend . . .' she thought sullenly, as she slid her underwear on and picked the first t-shirt from her drawer. Pulling the t-shirt on, and catching her image in the mirror, she wondered if she should change. They did have company, and her worn Save the Whales T-shirt was a bit scruffy, but it reminded her so much of Ed, and the Song of the Twelve, and the relief that followed when it all mostly worked out ok . . . Scowling, and re-affirming to herself that Ronan wore scruffier clothes—as his image—Nita kept the shirt on, and pulled out her almost-as-worn jeans. They were pretty new; her mom had thrown out her old ones even though they did still fit—barely—because they were so shabby. Nita had complained at the time out of instinct—having saved the world in those jeans—but had been secretly glad to get new ones that didn't squeeze around the hips so much as the old ones. That was the problem with being female and hormones, Nita decided, not the sudden uncontrollable influx of power—more the growing outwards where you didn't grow outwards before.

Zipping up her flies, Nita pulled out a pair of pink faded socks to complete the I've-just-thrown-these-clothes-on look (which, Nita reflected, she had done, but if she matched everything up it would look as if she'd done it deliberately as a style choice) and sat down on her bed to pull them on. Lacing on her white and green Nike trainers, she got to her feet and picked up her manual; checking the clock to make sure she was done in time.

8:54

Feeling relieved, Nita put her hand on her bedroom door handle to open it and froze. Dairine hadn't implicated Ronan as the boyfriend at all: she'd implicated Kit.

"You might want to go put something on so your boyfriend doesn't see your cute nightshirt . . . That means you have ten minutes to get changed."

The words floated back to her, and Nita felt that same queasy sense that she felt while walking on water. Tired, but happy, and safe; like standing on safety glass which you could bounce on like a bouncy castle.

Distinctly ruffled, and forgetting about everyone else for the moment, Nita sat with a thump on her desk chair, and flicked through her manual to a symbol-translation page. Going to the Speech-into-symbol section, rather than the symbol-into-Speech section she'd tried earlier, she glanced over the pages until coming to the curly sprawl which indicated the word anguish. To its right was the same symbol etched that she'd seen on Kit's name.

Perturbed, Nita stared at it softly, recognizing her mistake. The triangle on the name-symbol for jealousy was a taller isosceles triangle, and anguish was an equilateral one. That was the problem using shorthand symbols, they could be so easily mistaken . . . But why would Kit be in so much pain that he needed an extra symbol added to his name? Normally the spell picked up on your emotions and tied them into the variables; his thoughts must be really running amok to warrant a name change. Vexed, she pushed herself slowly off the bed and wandered down the hallway, lost in her own thoughts.

Kit was there when she appeared rubbing her eyes sleepily in the doorway. He was in the process of toasting bagels with Dairine, over what appeared to be a small fire hanging in the middle of nowhere. Ronan was lounged in a chair, picking idly at a charred-looking bagel and looking amused, and the milk stains on the newspaper discarded on the table was enough to indicate to Nita that had father had already eaten and gone out to work. Dairine and Kit appeared to be sniggering together about something, while Annie was behind them on the cooker, using all four hobs, apparently.

"Morning, Nita," Annie greeted, noticing her niece in the doorway. Nita smiled at her auntie, and slipped past the burning fireball in the middle of the room to peer at the cooker uncertainly. In one pans eggs were boiling, in another potatoes, in another one onions were lightly sweating in butter and soy sauce, and in the last Spam burgers were frying. Nita wrinkled her nose a little at the smell, and looked confused. Annie noticed her confusion, and nodded at the bagels. "I'm doing up the onions so that your Senior fellow can have something nice in the bagels as well as cheese. The rest is so we don't have to worry about it later. I'll just pop it in a pocket of space and we can retrieve it when we need it. Dairine tells me it will be kept quite hot if I put it in a vacuum pocket of space. I must say, I never really thought of that."

Nita raised her eyebrows and left her auntie to it, moving towards a plate of stacked up, slightly-burnt bagels, and helping herself to one. She felt a hand tap the back of her hand lightly, and came face to face with Kit grinning at her.

"Those are for Tom," Kit said, mock-sternly. From beside him, waving a barbecue fork with a bagel skewered on the end, Dairine nodded in stern agreement. Nita rolled her eyes and defiantly took a bite out of it.

"OK, you can have that one," Dairine said quickly, handing Nita a tiny plastic container and waving at the table. "Butter's on the table. Mini-cheese is in your hand."

Nita dropped it into her pocket. "No it isn't," she returned, blinking innocently at Dairine. Dairine narrowed her eyes, and waved a flaming bagel in her face. Nita stumbled backwards in a hurry to get away from her fire-wielding sibling, and wondered at Kit for letting her do it. Kit looked like he was having way too much fun with a few charred looking kebab sticks lying to a pile on the counter beside him as he skewered another bagel and started to set it on fire in the floating fireball.

Sighing, Nita dropped her bagel, now growing a little cold, onto a plate and resisted going up to toast it a bit more. Picking up a knife, she spread butter on it and unwrapped the small amount of plastic-wrapped cheese. Feeling a little weird at having such food for breakfast, she realized it was more of an early morning snack for Annie and Ronan and kept quiet. 'Besides, it's fun to get out of the routine sometimes . . .'

Munching on the bagel, Nita watched as Dairine and Kit fought briefly over the last bagel; Dairine winning by twisting Kit's arm behind his back. Sometimes he forgot about Dairine's martial arts expertise, and Dairine used it to her advantage every time. People always dismissed her because of her size. Kit forgot about that aspect of Dairine because of all the other things he knew about her; that she was clever, could kick his ass at Soccer Pro easily, that she was a powerful wizard and that she liked climbing the stuffed elephants at the Natural History museum.

Giggling as Kit filched the burning bagel from Dairine's fork by convincing it that it didn't want to hold the bagel anymore, Nita watched as Kit neatly skewered the half-toasted bagel in mid air with another wooden kebab skewer, while Dairine frowned and pulled the plate of already toasted bagels to the table. Furiously buttering them, Kit finished toasting the last bagel and chewed on the dry toasted bagel reflectively as he dispelled the fireball with a few words. 'Another of the spells he keeps tucked away for regular use . . .' Nita noticed, as she finished on her bagel, and picked at the cheese she'd left to the side. Looking across the table, she noticed Ronan looking around himself a little bewildered, and Nita felt a rush of near-pity for him. Not only was this place a foreign country, it was probably a foreign environment to him too. She'd got the distinct impression his home life didn't have the coziest atmosphere of others she'd encountered. Nita had had the privilege of being in warm, welcoming households, Kit's, her own, and although at times her own had been pretty frosty it had been overall something she'd almost taken for granted. Mind you, when it got frosty, it got frosty. That time on the beach where Nita's parents had thought she and Kit were . . . doing things . . . that they shouldn't, it had confused and mortified Nita. She and Kit were just friends, there was nothing more to it . . . Wasn't there?

Or maybe her parents had had a point, something she hadn't even picked up on.

Quieted and distinctly dazed, Nita picked at the plastic-tasting cheddar. Ronan was the one she'd shared that moment with in Ireland in the summer holidays . . . He was the one that unsettled her, put her on edge, made her life dance like it never had before . . . Was that attraction or just the wish for it?

Annie finished her cooking eventually, and joined them at the table, fixing up a couple of the bagels with some onion, hot meat and cheese. She opened her manual, and started to trace a transit spell on the table. Kit helped, leaning over the table from where he was sat next to Dairine, inputting the correct variables so they'd appear in Tom's kitchen. Satisfied, Annie leaned back and closed the spell with a knot, and let the spell go. The plate of bagels disappeared with a soft pop! and Nita hoped they had the right coordinates. If they appeared in the middle of the street in front of anyone it might cause a bit of a shock, and Nita could almost see the headlines. "Unidentified Flying Breakfasts: Burned bagels appear in the middle of forty-fifth street at half past nine this morning . . . Bystanders say the plate of the breakfast food landed in the middle of the road, and had come from 'nowhere.' The CIA is said to be looking into it…"

Stifling a giggle, Nita looked up and caught Kit's glance. He was sniggering into his cold bagel, and spraying crumbs everywhere, and Nita noticed with a small sigh of contentment he'd thought the same thing.

"Flying bagels . . ." Kit cast over silently to Nita, and she snorted loudly. Ronan, Annie and Dairine looked at her like she'd gone crazy, and Dairine got it before the other did.

"If you two have something to say can you say it out loud and not in private?" Dairine demanded indignantly. Kit covered his face with his hands and giggled helplessly.

"Crumbs . . ." Nita couldn't resist adding, laughing and holding her sides. Kit started laughing so hard he almost fell off the chair. Red-faced, he straightened his face.

"Sorry Dairine," Kit apologized. "I wonder if McDonald would pick up the franchise . . . Flappy Meals . . ." he added, to Nita.

Nita had to abruptly stumble off the table and to the sink, purportedly for a glass of water but to really try and stop herself from laughing. Dairine, watching her sister's shoulders shake at the sink, guessed the reason and poured her glass of water over Kit's head.

From Ronan's less-than-friendly snigger, and even Nita's giggle over at the sink, Kit decided the best option was to take it gracefully. "What is it with you Callahan girls soaking me with water?" Kit asked Nita, silent and furiously.

"Maybe we just find the drowned-rat look endearing," Nita teased.

"Auntie Annnnnie, can you stop them doing that?" Dairine pleaded with her auntie, pouting and trying out her puppy dog eyes look.

"Nita, Kit, stop that . . . You're making your guests and Dairine quite upset," Annie chided.

"Damn, that look works every time . . ." Nita thought to Kit furiously. Kit laughed in her head, knowing his amusement wouldn't be appreciated by Dairine.

"Sorry," Nita said instead, out loud. Kit mumbled an apology while wringing the wet bits of his shirt over Dairine. Dairine squealed and jumped back off the table.

"This is the last time I'm helping you when you're on errantry," Dairine sniffed, picking up the rest of her food and flouncing out of the kitchen.

Dairine's departure would have caused more fuss, but for the soft pop! sound, and a plate appeared on the table; covered in crumbs and a single piece of paper. Annie picked up the piece of the paper, and read the words on it. "Thanks. Tom."

"Sigh, more washing up," Kit moaned, picking up the plate and carrying it over to next to the sink.

"We have a dishwasher," Nita said, her tone almost chiding. "Remember?"

Kit looked from Nita to the white machine in the corner under one of the counters, and flushed faintly. "Of course. I was complaining that we can't stick it on half-load now." Kit bent down, and opened the dishwasher door, starting to load it up when he straightened.

"I think we'll have to wash up anyway, Neets. Your dishwasher's broken."

"Oh man." Getting up, Nita padded over to the dishwasher and looked inside. "How can you tell?"

"How can you not tell?" Kit returned, plugging one ear with his hand. "It's screaming bloody murder."

"Kit has an affinity for machines, unlike you and Nita with living things," Annie explained to Ronan, as he watched curiously as Kit started to argue with the dishwasher; his tone going higher pitched as he rattled off in the quick fluidic words of the speech. Nita joined in with the argument a few moments later, Kit having explained the problem, and she started to convince the metal which had lain in the ground so long ago that it should be together again and not broken. With a snap, the problem apparently fixed, Kit shoved in the rest of the plates and cutlery as Nita put in the detergent tablets. Getting to his feet, Kit pushed the door shut and looked at it dubiously.

"Let's hope this works," he said, in English, and pressed the start button. He frowned, obviously hearing something else from the dishwasher, then smiled as it started off again. "See, I haven't lost my touch, missy."

Nita frowned and headed back to the table with her glass full of water, and merely glowered back at Kit as she sat down next to Ronan and patted his arm sociably and giving him a toothy grin. Kit rolled his eyes and dropped back into the chair.

"So, I guess we'd better powwow," Annie remarked, looking from Nita to Ronan to Kit, and trying not to think the words 'this smells like trouble . . .' "Why don't we—"

"Nita!"

Annie was interrupted by a shrill scream from the living room, and nothing was spoken between them as all four instantly leapt to their feet and ran through to the living room. Dairine was stood on one of the armchairs, and holding Spot in one hand defensively and another fireball floating in her other. Nita and Kit gasped in recognition, while Annie and Ronan withdrew in horror, as they saw what was stood in front of Dairine. A reptilian looking alien, smelling of rotting corpses and with a sharp-toothed grin, was stood in front of the tiny wizard, holding a blade to her throat.

"You hurt her and --" Nita started, but didn't have to. She felt three sparks of wizardry surround her instantly, and she felt a headache coming on before three spells were simultaneously completed, and the blade dissolved. The alien looked around, disconcerted, and Dairine saw her chance; flinging her hand forward and directing the fireball closer towards the alien's head.

"No, don't hurtssssss me," the alien shrieked in horror, his long, scaly tail flicking downwards, indicating his fear. "I comessss to bring the onessss called Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguessssssss a message," it said in the Speech.

Her chest feeling tight in fear, Nita stepped forwards. "Well speak your message and be gone," Nita commanded, feeling panicky. She felt a hand close over her own, and felt a little braver, knowing Kit was right by her side.

"If you wantsssssss to ssssseeee the Sssssssssssenior you callsssssssss Carl ever again, then you two, and only you two, will meet ussssss at Copernicusssssss at noon your time to disssssscusssssss the termsssssssss of hisssss releasssssssssse."

Before anyone could say anything, the alien shook itself and disappeared with a popping sound. Nita shook her head to get rid of the awful buzzing sound in her ears, while Kit let go of her hand to see to Dairine. He helped the shaking girl down from the armchair.

"Hey, kid, why are you so freaked? You could have taken him with one hand behind your back," Kit said, trying to soothe Dairine.

"I'm so freaked, " Dairine explained, "because just before he came I looked in the directory lists, I looked on the missing lists, I looked on the deceased lists for all wizards, and Carl isn't on a single one of them." She looked up at them, worried.

"But those lists display everyone, even if they're in an alternate reality or we aren't supposed to know of them yet," Nita said, thinking of the time when her aunt's name wasn't in the directory.

"Maybe we aren't supposed to know," Ronan suggested with a shrug.

"Maybe this is even more serious an issue than we previously thought," Annie proposed. "This has to do directly with Him. I would place good money on it."

No one said anything, and no one needed to even ask who she referred to.

"I never really thought we'd have to deal with the Lone Power so directly again," Nita sent to Kit, her feelings shaken and upended.

"Me neither," Kit sent back, rubbing Dairine's shoulder trying to calm her down. All four of them knew that if it could shake Dairine, Dairine who couldn't be fazed by anything, then, even discounting all the other signs, this thing was a bigger issue than anyone had comprehended before.