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.

6. I'm an Eeyore on the Edge

Dancing on the Sky

Part One - "Grid of Misery"

Chapter Six - "I'm an Eeyore on the Edge

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 eat yellow snow. This is the penultimate chapter to Part One - "Grid of Misery."

This chapter dedicated to: Destiny. For doing things above and beyond the call of beta'ing duty.

Author's Notes: "Dancing on the Sky" has been restructured into a three part fanfiction, each seven chapters long, and you will be able to find them all here, when they are released. Thank you for all your glorious support so far :) Enjoy!

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"It's cold."

Ronan shot Kit a look which plainly said, in any culture, "well, duh". Flushing dully, Kit blew on his hands to warm them up, and hopped from one foot to another in an attempt to keep warm.

"Uh, Kit?"

Kit looked up at Nita, hearing her tone lased with amusement, and he frowned faintly at her. Nita had twisted to look at him, and she and the group of colorful aliens she'd been chatting to looked at him quizzically.

"What?" Kit said, looking bewildered.

Nita muffled a cough, but the sound still echoed up to the ceiling eerily. They'd stopped off at a Way Station on the way, a place where aliens with interspatial transport could stock up on fuel, to question the natives about the mysterious Morganna before Jumping to the Sigma space station that Kit had researched. Nita turned back to the group she was talking to, and they wiggled their antennae. Kit knew enough about interspecies communication to realize that was a sort of 'sure' gesture, and he just glowered up at Nita as she approached while trying his best to ignore Ronan who was sniggering at his plight.

"Kit, I'd stop doing that jumping thing you were doing if I were you," Nita hissed under her breath, serious grey eyes sparkling with hidden mischief.

Kit frowned. "Why?"

Nita jerked her head towards the alien group. "They're Rescardeau. I think you know enough about them, if only by name, to understand . . ."

Kit's mouth dropped open and he stopped still. Nita patted his shoulder amiably before striding off confidently to resume her chat with the aliens.

"Now I'm officially confused."

Kit turned reluctantly to see Ronan looking at him with severe stupefaction, and he felt himself blushing again. This time it wasn't really anything to do with Nita, thankfully, since she'd been the major reason he thought his cheeks may permanently stay red at one point. It was nice to know that Nita wasn't the only thing embarrassing him at the moment, and that he still retained some of his own stupidity for that particular task. Kit frowned inwardly at his own weird brand of logic. 'Then again…' he thought ruefully, 'it would help if I didn't blush at all.'

"Uh, the Rescardeau -" here Kit indicated the aliens Nita was talking to with a flick of one of his hands -"well, the males stay underground. The females are the ones who travel, who bring the bread home so to speak, and, well -- they kinda get attracted to other bipedal species. And hopping from one foot to the other is an indication to them that you want to, I mean, erm . . ." Kit moved his hands together clumsily.

"Powers!" Ronan let out his exclamation forcibly, and looked at the aliens with a renewed interest. He too was surreptitiously pulling his jacket closer to himself, and Kit tried to force himself not to grin. 'Well, at least he's not as infallible as he tries to pretend . . .' Kit thought absently, and then wondered if he should add the jealousy symbol to the end of his name. Nita—and he couldn't help watching her as he thought about her—had mistaken his pain for that emotion, but it seemed she might have more clairvoyant vibes than she thought she did. Fiercely contemplating whether he should add an extra symbol for the intense jealousy he harbored towards Ronan, Kit made himself be brutally honest about his own feelings.

Looking up darkly at Ronan, he noticed the dark Irish adolescent had folded his arms across his chest. The wind beating across the ground of the moon's surface did little to annoy the seemingly implacable individual. He looked as if he could be standing anywhere nice and warm, except for the fact that he was shivering and his jacket was closed for once. Ronan's intense gaze was fixed ahead of him, and Kit felt a fresh surge of jealousy. The confident youngster that held St. Michael in his head was looking at Nita with such a gaze of forceful longing that Kit felt unnerved. Unconsciously folding his arms and mimicking Ronan's gesture, Kit turned his head to glance at Nita.

Nita was deep in animated conversation with the Rescardeau. She'd been sensible enough to grab a warmer jacket on her way out, a dark gray which in Kit's opinion set off the mischievous gray of her eyes. Nita had pulled her mousy-brown hair into a high ponytail that would have appeared severe on most girls but on Nita it only served to make her appear more cheerful. She gestured slightly as she spoke lucidly in the Speech to the bright colored aliens, and her cheeks were reddened. Kit wasn't sure if it was from the cold or from all the attention. He knew that Nita, although she projected a confident and somewhat sassy image most of the time, wasn't a great fan of attention, and with this in mind he forced his gaze away.

Listlessly settling his gaze on an interesting formation of moon dust that spiraled up almost fifteen foot, almost like the volcanic ash peaks on Rhisderis that he'd seen in his manual, Kit waited patiently for Nita to finish negotiating for information and use of the gate. Times were tougher recently for wizards across the galaxy. Whether it was because the Lone Power had attacked one too many times now, or for another reason entirely, Kit was unsure. What he was sure of was that unless the communication bridge was bridged soon, interspecies relations might soon cease to exist.

"She's good at that."

'Is he going to insist on talking the entire time?' Kit wondered crossly before reprimanding himself harshly. 'Now's not the time to be hostile, Rodriguez . . .'

"Yes, yes she is," Kit forced himself to say, glancing up with a neutral expression at Ronan. "She's good at everything she does."

"Slightly biased opinion, don't you think?" Ronan said, a queer tone of amusement mixed in with his thick Irish accent.

"Same opinion as yours," Kit countered obdurately, not wanting to be accused of that by someone who was thinking the exact same thing. "Besides, she is my partner. I'm allowed to be predisposed towards her."

Ronan whistled lowly, holding his hands up in a defensive position. "Gee, Rodriguez, no one said you couldn't. It was only a statement."

Kit narrowed his eyes. "Sorry. I'm just cold, and I get irritable when I'm cold."

"Never," Ronan said, the irony as plain in his words as his dislike of Kit was in his expression.

Kit scowled, not deigning to react to that bait. 'I'm man enough not to respond . . . for Nita's sake if not for my own . . .' He looked up fleetingly at Nita again, the memory of that hug still fresh in his mind, and looked away furiously. 'She doesn't need to choose between me and him. And if she wants . . . him . . . I don't want to stop being her friend just because I'm jealous.' Frowning, Kit called up his manual, trying not appear too smug in front of Ronan and flicked to the section on extra symbols to balance out your name. 'Jealousy over a desired object or person, for example, is a natural part of being a teenager . . .' one small passage read in the section, and Kit clamped the book shut with an irritated sigh.

Hormones. Again. Kit was just wondering when the monkey circus of adolescence would come to a close when a piercing whistle caught his attention. He glanced upwards guiltily to see Nita bouncing over to them, slightly more buoyant because of the lighter gravity on the moon and simply inclined his head to one side to hear what she had to say.

"They've heard of Morganna," Nita said, her eyes sparkling and infectious enthusiasm present in her voice that Kit hadn't heard in a long, long time. 'Too long,' Kit thought, with a dry spark of anguish in his gut again. 'Way too long.'

"They have?" Ronan appeared to be slightly more alert than Kit, and Kit felt another flash of irritation - this time directed at himself.

"Uh huh," Nita said with a worried smile. She bit her lip for a second before shrugging. "But they haven't heard that she kidnaps any bipedal species as she is one herself . . . They say if Morganna has, then he must be pretty important."

"But there isn't anything overly special about Carl, unless . . ." Kit started.

"Yeah, that's what I wondered, but Carl's not the only Senior that sells time in the whole universe. I mean, Jeliun of the Kathartas does, and . . ."

"He's much closer, yeah . . ."

"Excuse me? Have I missed something, or are you two doing that cute mind-to-mind thing again?" Ronan demanded furiously, looking from Kit to Nita in a mixture of incomprehension and sarcasm.

"Cute?" Kit said with a laugh. Nita shot him a look of warning, which was undermined by the grin on her face.

"Sorry Ronan. It's just we're not used to having to actually finish sentences," Nita apologized. "When you've been through so many things with just one other wizard, you tend to start having to think along the same lines."

"Huh," Ronan said slowly, unimpressed and looking faintly out of place.

"Carl sells time, Ronan, network time for television ads as well as real time. The only thing he sells time stops for is our solar system, so unless she's planning on coming all that way for just our tiny part of the galaxy, something else must be going on," Kit explained.

"Something big," Nita added. Ronan looked more shocked by Nita's affirmation of what was going on rather than Kit's explanation. "C'mon. They said we could use their gate." Nita jerked her head to indicate they should follow her towards the area of well-trampled dust where the gate was, and Ronan and Kit followed her; gamely trying to master walking on the moon that a gravity lighter than the Earth and heavier than the Moon.

"You think it's cute?" Nita asked Ronan coquettishly as Kit plugged in their requested coordinates to the gate.

Ronan just scowled as they jumped away from the Rescardeau's moon.

"Never. Again. Do you hear me? Never. Again."

"I warned you not to eat that stuff at the Sigma Space Station," Kit said teasingly, having received a similar warning years ago.

Ronan shot a look of pure venom at Kit, holding his stomach and looking whiter than Ponch the time Kit's mongrel had crashed into Kit's mom and been thoroughly coated in wheat flour.

"Boys," Nita muttered for the millionth time that day. She looked up and around at the austere landscape and frowned. The horizon was a bleakness, and the horizon of purple and mauve dirt sped away into the distance to meet fuzzily with the smudged charcoal of the sky. "This is where Morganna lives?"

"Nice," Kit commented softly, wincing as Ronan lurched suddenly and threw up the rest of the dodgy gunk he'd eaten at the space station. "A lick of paint, a few throw pillows . . . I don't know . . . Could be great."

Nita shot a withering glance in Kit's direction and turned her gaze back to the ascetic scenery. "This is wrong. I don't like this."

"Me neither," Kit agreed. "Ronan?"

Ronan looked at Kit as if he were kidding. "Trust me, the sooner we're back in America with your Senior, the better it is. For everyone concerned. And the sooner I can get away from you two the better it'll be for my mental health."

"Hey!" Nita protested, thumping him amiably on the arm. "We're not all that bad."

Ronan muttered something which sounded suspiciously like "yeah, right" and Nita decided not to make an issue of it.

"Right," she said softly, "Kit, does the manual say anything about this planet? The Uuuniaaaars at the station called it Sesimæ."

"One step ahead of you, Neets," Kit said, flicking through his manual while keeping one eye warily on the still landscape.

"There's not even any wind like on that moon," Ronan noted.

Nita indicated the sky with a wave of her hand. "Look at that. The atmosphere is so thick nothing can get through. It's a good thing we jumped with that pocket of air, else we'd be standing on a surface that's almost twenty degrees Kelvin."

Ronan swore, earning himself a reproachful glance from Nita. "I don't speak American, but is that a low temperature?"

"Degrees Kelvin," Nita repeated. "It's like Celsius, which I know you use in Ireland, except that zero degrees Kelvin is the lowest temperature you can get."

"Wow," Ronan commented, looking fairly laidback and unmoved. Nita wondered distractedly if Ronan would ever get incensed by something that wasn't associated with blood and death and war.

"Huh," Kit said.

"Wow? Is that all you can say?" Nita demanded, stomping one foot on the purple dirt beneath their feet.

"What do you want me to say?" Ronan retorted, rolling his eyes to the charcoal smear of sky. "That it's the most amazing thing I've ever heard?"

"Well, maybe a little reaction might help! But no, you have to be this emotionless European guy, acting as if we're all beneath you, just because we're American! Just because your home life isn't perfect, and you have a limit to the amount of wizardry you can do, and- and you can deal with it all doesn't mean you're any better!"

Kit stared as Nita mouthed off to Ronan. Her cheeks were flushed with a dull burgundy color and her eyes flashed with anger.

'Looks like we've got our old Nita back . . .' Kit thought ruefully. 'Temper and all.'

"Just because I don't have your perfect home life doesn't mean I'm any less of a wizard," Ronan snapped back, color rising in his cheeks at the same time. "Oh, and just because I don't have the same opportunities to practice wizardry doesn't mean I'm completely useless!"

A small tremor caught Kit's attention, and he instinctively slammed his manual shut and steadied himself. "Uh, guys?"

"Oh, that's right," Nita retorted to Ronan, folding her arms across her chest. "My home life is so perfect. My dad can't stand to be in the same room as me, my kid sister needs an attitude adjustment and my mom isn't there, and it's all because of me!"

"Neets? Ronan?"

"Shut up, Kit, this has nothing to do with you," Ronan growled, irritated. "Or maybe it has everything to do with you. Nita, why can't you just admit to yourself he's the one you want and stop stringing others along?"

"Namely you?" Nita snorted under her breath. "Stop being so arrogant!"

"Guys?"

"Shut up Kit!" Nita and Ronan yelled at the same time. Ronan took a jerking step closer to Nita.

"I'm the arrogant one? You with your uptight attitude and the I'm always right look permanently on your face?"

"Oh please! I'm not the egocentric one here!"

"This is no time to be fighting! You're both pathetic at timing, so save this for later when we have the time!" Kit yelled at the top of his voice, the volume muffled by the air bubble surrounding them.

"We're pathetic?" Ronan demanded, furiously turning on Kit, his dark eyes dancing irately. "You're the only pathetic one—you're in love with her and you can't even tell her!" Ronan jerked his head towards Nita and glared back heatedly at Kit.

"You—" Kit's shoulders slumped. "And what did you do? Take advantage of her when she was confused!"

"I knew what I was doing," Nita snapped irritably.

"Yeah, right, you did," Kit muttered mutinously. "If you wanted him in the first place you just should have said something."

"Maybe I did! Maybe you just weren't listening!" Nita retorted angrily.

Kit let out a sharp breath in disgust before finally shrugging helplessly, looking hopelessly old and fatigued in that moment. "Maybe I didn't want to," he whispered resentfully, his dark eyes flickering up to Ronan and heartbreakingly for a second settling on Nita before he yanked his gaze away. "I know what to do next, as a matter of fact, but I can go on my own if you need some time to sort yourselves out."

Nita could only stare, open mouthed, as Kit faced away from them, yanked out a string of glowing symbols in the Speech and cautiously opened up a hole in the dirt. Kit had successfully used the tremors he felt to find an opening, and stony steps sped down into darkness below them. With a final anguished flinch, Kit summoned a smaller fireball for light and disappeared down the steps

"Well— that's just—" Nita spluttered, sinking to the ground on her knees and shaking for a few moments before hiding her face in her hands. She felt one hand tentatively on her shoulder, and she pulled away with a jerking motion.

"He'll come back round once you apologize," Ronan muttered distantly. Nita scrambled to her feet, tears threatening once again to fall and looked helplessly at him. "I don't want to come between you and the one who—" He swallowed hard, turning to look at her, and Nita recognized that soft look of anguish and despair that she'd recognized in Kit's expression moments before.

"I wasn't even in the running for you, was I?" Ronan asked finally, taking Nita's silence for the answer it was. "I wasn't ev—I wa—I wasn't ever going to be the one, was I?"

Nita shrugged, lost, the irrelevant thought that maybe Ronan isn't as secure and self assured as he makes himself out to be dancing fragmentary across her mind before drifting into a blissful obscurity.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" Nita finally managed to find her voice, and it croaked out the question tremulously.

"For being a moron," Ronan said, with a harsh laugh. Nita recognized that laugh. It was the same one she used, when she was trying to pretend that things were all right. She impulsively grabbed his hand and looked up at him, tears clouding her vision.

"Things will work out for you, Ronan, just not . . . Not with me . . ." She moved her gaze pensively to the steps leading down into the planet. "Someone else needs me right now, and I think . . . I need him too . . ."

"Then let's go get your guy, Yankee," Ronan said lightly, his voice gruff with emotions too and Nita felt that brief whisper of truth tighten in her gut.

"Thank you," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "That is if he'll ever . . ."

"Forgive you?" Ronan tossed her a scandalous glance as he headed for the steps. "I bet he already has."

Kit was waiting for them at the bottom of the crumbling steps. He was still balancing a small fireball on his wrist, but his face was hidden in shadows. He waved it around a little so Nita and Ronan could see around them. They were in a small chamber, which seemed not to be natural, as the green-tinged walls were a little too smooth for that. A scale-covered blue-ish alien lay at Kit's feet, and the lithe Hispanic wizard showed no remorse at that fact.

"Apparently this is where Morganna lives," Kit said offhandedly, indicating the metal door to his right.

"Oh," Nita said, standing back to let Ronan past. The lanky Irish wizard folded his arms and studied the metal door quietly. Nita glanced up at Kit uncertainly. "Uh, Kit, I—"

"Leave it," Kit muttered dourly. "Save your apologies for later."

"I let my big mouth open again—I'm sorry," Nita said quickly, with a small frown. "Don't think you can always tell me what to do, Christopher Rodriguez."

Kit opened his mouth to yell at her in horror and then he shut his mouth with a startled "nnngg" sound. He gaped at her in a fair approximation of a goldfish for a few seconds, before gulping and finally scowling at her. "Well, not always," Kit conceded lightly, a calculating look in his warm brown eyes. "Juanita," he added with a teasing grin.

Nita grinned blindingly back, too confused to actually be able to say something but knowing that this was the start of something that had perhaps always been there, swimming around in the background and clamoring for attention. "C'mon."

"I need some light," Ronan called, his lanky face hidden by his hair. He pushed it out of his face irritably, and Kit padded over to join the Irishman by the door. Kit obliging lifted the light so Ronan could see the door. "Here," Ronan said, lifting his hand and tracing a circle on the door and starting to speak in the speech. "You don't want to stay closed forever, do you? All of your mechanisms will wear out and stay closed if you don't . . . I'd like to use you, if you'd let me, it would be doing us both a great favor if you—"

The door creaked obligingly open and Ronan threw an arrogant smirk at Nita and Kit. The whole door was attached to a string of mechanisms, obviously designed to need a pattern of key cards to be opened.

"Show off," Nita muttered, still unable to stop smiling.

"I vote the guy with the light goes first," Ronan said lightly with a challenging grin in Kit's direction.

"Me too," Kit said, surprising Nita until Kit flicked the fireball to nestle on Ronan's shoulder.

"Damn," Ronan muttered. Glancing nervously into the cavernous hole that he'd opened up, he gave a small shrug and began to walk through. Nita followed him and Kit brought up the rear. Kit turned to thank the door for closing behind them, and swiveled on his heel as he heard Nita gasp.

"It's beautiful," Nita said, feeling breathless and a little dizzy. The door had lead them onto a narrow precipice, which overlooked a stunning view. Crystalline structures stood tall from the ground, scraping the cavernous roof of the place. Light bounced around these structures, purples and pinks and blues. A narrow stone ledge ran down in a circle around the edge of the cavern, down to what looked like a frozen lake. Nita could almost see shapes under the ice, which looked almost like multi-colored fish. At the head of the lake was a large chair, seemingly constructed from ice and crystal, and shimmering with a warm amber light of its own, and on that chair sat . . .

"Greetings, bipeds. Welcome to my realm."

Nita started, and glanced at the figure she could now see on the chair.

Morganna. It had to be.

She looked human, striking, and even from the distance away they were stood Nita could see she was at least seven foot tall. The woman was clad in a long black dress that clung around her heels and thin shoulder straps left her pale arms free. Her eyes . . . Somehow, Nita knew they were a cold, hard black, like burning coals, even though they were too far away to see. Somehow, she looked familiar, but when Nita tried to grasp within her memory to find the answer to the puzzle it was like trying to catch the clouds, always just out of reach.

"Address me in person, wizards."

Although she had every intention of fighting this order, Nita heard the compelling syllables of the fluidic wizard Speech and felt herself walking down the stone walkway down to the woman. Somehow she knew Ronan and Kit were following her without having to turn to look. Minutes passed as they walked round and round the curving pathway, but they moved in a blurring second for Nita, and in no time at all she found herself stood beneath Morganna's dais. With a vague moment of awareness she realized none of the place was made of crystals, it was all ice, beautifully carved and structured. Her breath rose in clouds of fog.

"Speak. You."

Nita felt Morganna's penetrating gaze on her and knew she was talking to her. She gulped involuntarily and spoke in the Speech, the words sliding fluidly off her tongue.

"We are on errantry, and we greet you."

Morganna folded her arms, staring flatly at her, clearly wanting more from the stony expression on her face.

"One of our Seniors is missing, a bipedal human wizard, by the name of Carl Romeo . . . We were told that perhaps you had him, and we would be willing to make a trade—"

"I don't have him." Morganna spoke now in English, and she sank into her throne with an expression of disbelief. "I am the only bipedal wizard in this sector, except for you three. I like to keep it that way. You will leave."

"But—" Nita started, then blushed at her own brevity.

"I monitor your planet, girl wizard, and don't presume to talk to me in that tone. No wizards have left at all in the last few months." Morganna narrowed her eyes. "Leave. Before I have my minions eat you."

She snapped her fingers, and a low growling emanated from the shadows behind her throne. Nita caught a glimpse of shaggy grey fur and narrowed red eyes and gulped breathlessly.

"Do you—" Kit started. Morganna snapped her fingers again, and Kit was thrown to the icy ground by an invisible hand. Winded, he looked up angrily at Morganna, and Nita bent down to see how he was.

"Are you OK?"

"I'd be better if I knew where Carl was . . ." Kit responded in her head with an unhappy moan.

"I do not have your Senior, and to my knowledge he must still be on your planet, or else he's dead. I cannot lie in the Speech or I would lose my wizardry. What kind of fool do you think me to be? I am tired of your presence now. Leave my sector as quick as you can by your ways, or I shall dispose of you on my own." Morganna was on her feet now, hand outstretched and looking as if she was going to conjure up some pretty big wizardry when she let her hand fall. "You're pretty certain I have him, aren't you?"

Nita did a double take, and stared at Morganna in disbelief, that feeling of familiarity tugging at her gut more insistently than before. The slender Wizard's tone had completely changed, warmer and more reverberant. When Morganna started chuckling, Nita felt instinctively for a defense spell, an energy ball, anything, that might aid an attack but it wasn't necessary. The floor seemed to lurch beneath her feet, and before she had time to blink, to scream, to even see how Ronan and Kit were reacting, it yanked away suddenly in a dizzying spin of colors. A scream echoed in her ears, pounding, and the falling sensation stopped with a crack. Nita fell to the ground in a thump, expecting to feel cold ice but instead landing on something soft. The screaming had stopped, and Nita realized with a groggy sense of reality that she'd been the one screaming.

Annoyed with herself, Nita scrambled to her feet, feeling dizzier than she had for a long time, and held her head as she finally looked around her. The ice cavern had disappeared, to be replaced by a cheery looking sitting room. Two blue armchairs faced each other by a roaring fireplace, a window framed by crimson-colored curtains looked out on the bleak landscape they'd seen earlier on the planet's surface, a large wide screen television almost filled one of the narrow walls, and in front of them was a dumpy looking woman with permed gray hair and clad in what looked like a pale blue jumpsuit. Beside her she felt rather than saw Ronan and Kit scrambling to their feet, looking around in bewilderment.

Another throaty chuckle filled the air, and Nita stared at the woman in faint confusion, fragments of the truth blurring across her mind until they collided and everything seemed to make sense at once.

"You're Morganna?" Nita managed to choke out.

"Yep. Surprised?" Morganna asked, still chuckling.

"Then . . ." Kit spluttered incoherently. "I don't get it."

"I do." Ronan looked down at Morganna with a smirk on his face. "That was a glamour you use to keep your servants in check. And I presume you don't like other humanoid aliens visiting because—"

"—it ruins my image, yes. A lot of the aliens that work for me have never seen another biped before," Morganna finished. "Smart one, you are."

"But then do you have any idea where our Senior is?" Kit asked, looking a little perturbed.

Morganna shrugged. "Sorry, luvvie."

Nita sighed. "Looks like we're back to square one."

"I never realized how many wizards there could be in one place!" Dairine exclaimed. "I thought we had a lot in Ireland, but . . ." She trailed off, looking around the park. Annie had organized an obscuring spell with a few of the Advisories that lived near Central Park, and now the whole park was milling with wizards, most bent over complicated looking energy circles. Gigo had insisted on coming, and was now curled somewhere by her feet, guarding the small diagram he'd meticulously constructed in the dirt.

"We're nearly ready to go."

Dairine glanced up to see her Aunt, looking worried and concerned.

"Have you any idea what we're doing?"

Annie barked out a short laugh. "No. I suppose it's just the nature of the Wizardry that needs to be done. This doesn't happen often, the Whisperer telling a whole group like this what to do individually, but if it's happening, it's for something big."

"It is something rather huge that has happened," Dairine said miserably.

"Gigo!" A voice chirped from down by her feet in agreement. The tension on Dairine's face broke, and she picked up her young Wizard friend and gave him a cuddle.

"That's right," Dairine said with a grin. "We'll ace whatever the challenge is, right, buddy?"

"Right!"

Annie shook her head in astonishment. "You two are quite a pair."

Dairine started to nod along, and then opened her eyes wide in sudden wonder. "Do you think we're partners? Me and Gigo?"

"Gigo and I," Annie corrected automatically, cocking her head to one side and regarding Dairine and Gigo with a shrewd glance. "You know what? I think so."

Dairine smiled up at her Aunt sunnily for a second, before petting Gigo on the head and dropping him to the ground. "That's good."

Annie smiled almost whimsically, casting a glance up to the sun. "I guess it's almost time."

"Time for what?"

The familiar voice made Dairine and Annie turn in horror.

"What? I know I'm late—I had this really awful meeting with the Channel 9 advertisers, and—Dairine, what's wrong?"

"Is that—" Annie started, her voice tremulous.

Dairine could only stare in a choked horror, nodding, his name slipping out in a cracked whisper. "Carl!"