This is written by both me (Jenevieve) and Elski.

Disclaimer: We own ourselves (Ellen and Jen), and the idea of travel and ambient animal magic, but almost all other magics, places and people featured are property of Tamora Pierce.

Chapter One – Elevator Music

It was late at night, and they'd had a lot of sugar. Consequently, both Ellen and Jen were rather giddy. Most of their conversation consisted of half finished sentences and giggling. As always, their conversation turned to books.

"Hey, I forgot to tell you, I got Shatterglass!" Ellen gleefully interrupted something Jen was saying. "You read that already, right?"

"Yeah, I read it during various visits to Chapters. I never buy hardcover – it's too expensive," Jen said, used to Ellen's habit of interrupting at completely random times to say something equally random and totally off topic.

"Eh, yeah, it finally came out softcover over march break and I needed a book for the car-ride home; sixteen hours is a lot of time to kill. What did you think of the ending?"

"Um, I can't quite remember…" Jen replied, slightly embarrassed.

"It was those murder thingies, with that Ghost guy," Ellen said, specific and detailed as always.

"Oh yeah! I remember now! It was rather abrupt."

"Exactly! All the book they were searching for him and trying everything and 'oh how on earth shall we ever find him' and then in less then a page, whoops, that's all, folks! We've got him, go home, nothing to see here."

"We could have done a much better job writing it…" Jen said thoughtfully.

Ellen laughed. "Usually it's me who says that."

"Yeah, well." Jen said, with a dismissive flap of her hand.

"You do have a point, mind, even if it's me who usually makes it. The ending would have been much better if we'd done it."

"Even if we had just been characters in it, we could have done way better!" Jen exclaimed suddenly.

"But then wouldn't the ending have been even quicker and less satisfying?" Ellen wondered aloud. "How do you define 'doing better'? Wouldn't that be solving it faster?"

"That's not the point. I thought what we were talking about was our superiority!" Jen said in mock indignation, then giggling. The sugar was catching up to her.

"Quite possibly." Ellen giggled too, something she never did expect in Jen's presence, and rarely unless it was late or she was full of sugar. Or both.

"It would be neat if we were characters in books, though." Jen said.

"Well, you just about summed up the basic idea of every other daydream I ever have." Ellen said, giggling again. "It would be neat. What if we were, dunno, the two hitherto unknown other magic-type kids who go to stay at… what's the cottage thing called again?"

"Discipline."

"Right. Depressing name, really. Anyhow, what if Niko found us, too? We could have… book magic!"

"That would be great! But, what is book magic? What could you do with it? Speed read? I can do that already!"

"See? You've already got it, then!" Ellen joked. "Seriously, though, you could… well… when you write things… uh… I'll get back to you on that one?"

"Oh! What if, when you write things they happened!" Jen exclaimed.

"Oh, that would be cool! We'd be like, Scarlet Witch, except on paper!" Ellen said.

"Uh, who?" Jen asked, puzzled.

"Oh, she's a mutant who c-"

"No! No x-men. You're too obsessed. It's not even as if they're books. It's a movie." Jen interrupted.

"And originally a comic and also a tv show, but I get the point. One could argue that you're obsessed about not liking x-men, but that would be impolite, so I shan't." Ellen said, her tone self-righteous. "Still, it would be cool. Hey, y'know what would be even cooler? If we could go into the books!"

"Let's try!" Jen stood up, heading for the stairs to her room.

"Are you serious?" Ellen called after her, scrambling to disentangle herself from her sleeping bag. "Try to get into a book?"

"Yeah! Why not?"

"Er… Well, I can't think of any reasons. Lets go!" Ellen paused, the added in a talking-to-herself type tone, "Or rather, I'll go. You seem to be gone, without so much as waiting for me. Some friend you are."

"I heard that!" Jen told Ellen over her shoulder. "And we should tiptoe. Don't want to wake Mom up. She'd be rather grumpy."

"I should think. After all, it's…" Ellen paused to check a clock. "Geeze, 1:03 in the morning! No wonder we're actually going to do this. Our brains have gone to sleep, leaving that bit of us that usually never makes it past daydreams behind to try and operate out bodies."

"That didn't make much sense."

"About as much sense as trying to get into a book, perhaps?"

* * *

After some interesting events in which the two girls nearly woke Alison, Jen's sister, while retrieving the necessary books, the two were headed back downstairs.

"Sandry's Book," Ellen read aloud from the cover, though it wasn't as if they didn't both know the title already. "Lots of fun stuff here, I do believe. Discovering you have magic, small matters like water-spouts almost killing you all, and, of course, the literally earth-shaking grand finale. Can you remained me again why we'd even want to try to go there?"

"Gladly. Let's see… Magic, magic, and… what was my third point? Ah yes, magic!" Jen listed. "Besides, it probably won't work to go there anyways…"

"Sorry, probably?" Ellen asked, raising an eyebrow (something that she did at all opportunities).

"Yes, probably. You never know."

"Right. If you say so, mate. So, are we just going to, dunno, open the book to the first page and say 'We wish we were there?' Or are we going to operate more along the candle-lighting and animal sacrifice ritualistic type lines?"

Jen plunked herself down on her sleeping bag. "I'd say we open it to a random place, close our eyes, and say 'we wish we were there' three times while tracing circles in the air with our fingers. Or maybe, forget the circles."

"Well, nice to see you've got this all thought out." Sitting down beside Jen, Ellen reached out and snagged the book. Flipping through, she added, "Not just a random place, though. A meticulously selected place, after hours of careful research. Or, we could compromise and just at least read the page we're heading off to. Metaphorically speaking, since this isn't going to work. You know how dumb we're going to feel?"

"Yup. I know!" Jen said cheerfully. Far too cheerfully, Ellen felt, for being so late at night. Jen continued, "How about before they find out about their magic? Maybe a few days after they first arrive at Discipline?"

"Sounds good to me." Ellen flipped through the book for a few moments, then held it up. "How about here? The first time they're all together in Discipline, with Niko and Lark and Rosethorn."

"Yep. Looks good." Jen grabbed one edge of the book. "Let's go!"

"Oookay…" With a sidelong glance at Jen to reassure herself that her friend was joining in, Ellen began chanting slowly, "We wish we were there."

Jen joined in halfway through the second time chanting the words, and together they said it the third time.

Ellen started to turn her head towards Jen, opening her mouth to say something (probably I told you so), when the world seemed to slow down. She felt like she way moving through molasses; in the background, inexplicably, elevator music began to play. Her sight began to dim, and before she could get so much as one syllable out, everything went a funny shade of green.