PART THREE

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The gate of the subtle and profound female
is the root of Heaven and Earth.
 -Lao-Tzu, Tao-te-ching

The next few weeks passed in a blur for Paige as she received a crash course in Edwardian dress and etiquette that, despite her protests, included plenty of lace, trim, and more underwear than she'd ever worn in her life.

"I don't understand why I can't wear what you're wearing," she'd said at one point early on, indicating the high-necked but loose black and grey dress on Gertrude.

"I'm an old eccentric, dear. No one cares what I wear. Now quit slouching."

She also had to learn the rules of having live-in help. The first time she'd tried to clear the table she'd received a hit on the head with a soupspoon from Betsy.

"Ma'am, please explain to your guest that I am not an incompetent."

"But-"

"Leave it be, Paige. This is why I pay her."

"Too right you do."

"Ahem."

"Too right you do, ma'am."

"That's better."

And when she wasn't being instructed on how to properly hold a fork, Paige was grilled on the nature of her spellwork and the solutions that may lay therein to getting her home.

"So, if I got caught in this ripple effect, why didn't I land after the earthquake?" she asked. "Traveling backwards, I'd have run into that first."

"When physical trauma occurs, the effects do not merely travel in a single direction. It acts more as a stone would when thrown upon a pond."

"It ripples out in a circle with bumps and valleys. Get caught in a bump, end up in the wrong time."

"Correct."

"Okay, yeah, that makes sense. If it's in four-dimensional space, events wouldn't be constrained by linear time." At the slightly nonplussed look she received, Paige shrugged. "I've been reading a lot on quantum mechanics lately."

"Ah. Hmm. Regardless, we will have to wait until after this earthquake of yours to send you back. Otherwise we run risk of catching you with another 'bump,' as you put it."

"Fine by me."

Of course, not all of their conversations revolved around Paige's inability to properly time-travel. Gertrude, she learned, had been a practicing witch nearly since birth and her knowledge of the Craft was almost encyclopedic. By questioning the older woman on some of the stranger and more obscure aspects of magic, Paige was at the very least able to fulfill one of her goals in exploring temporal magic in the first place: retrieving lost knowledge.

"What I don't understand is why my powers only partially work in this time period. Wouldn't they disappear entirely?"

"Your Whitelighter abilities – and you will have to tell me how your parents found a way around that particular peccadillo – are a part of you, much like your hair or eye color. Those are impossible to change."

Paige failed to mention that in her time, it was pretty easy to change either, although magic wasn't normally involved (her particular alteration to a redhead proving the exception to the rule). "So my witch abilities aren't really a part of me. I don't normally exist in this time, therefore, they wouldn't be around for me to access."

"Oh, they still exist, but not in the way you're suggesting."

"I don't get it."

"You tried to bend time to your will, Paige. And time, no matter our ability to manipulate it, doesn't take kindly to interference. It could not strip you of your Whitelighter abilities no more than it could change your eye color but it could affect the one thing that you tied intricately to it by reciting that spell: your own magic."

"But I was told-"

"Whoever told you that nonsense about your non-existent state was overcomplicating the matter. Magic, no matter the form, always has its price. This is the price you pay for temporal magic, no more, no less. Honestly, I would think you would know this by now."

"Y'know, I've decided something."

"Yes?"

"You're irritatingly self-righteous."

Paige wasn't the only one with questions to ask. Although Gertrude claimed to want to know as little as possible of the future yet to come, it seemed she still indulged in her own curiosity and often inquired after Paige's personal life.

"You worked? Professionally?"

"Well, mostly as an assistant, but yeah," Paige answered, handing a stopped bottle to Gertrude as the two re-stocked Gertrude's potions collection. "Social work isn't glamorous, but I liked it."

"Why would you work at all? Did your family fall on hard times?"

"Uh, no, not really. Most women in my time work. Helps us maintain our independence."

"If that's true, why are you no longer working? Have you married?"

"Oh, God, no." Paige frowned, scratching behind her ear. "Being a witch just took up too much of my time. I figured I could still help people, just not at social services."

"I'm not entirely certain I understand. I admire your dedication to the Craft, but I would think a young woman such as yourself would have some other interests in her life."

Words that had been weighing on Paige's mind made her fidget uncomfortably when stated to her from someone else. "I'm a Charmed One. I don't have much of a life."

Gertrude clucked her tongue and capped another bottle. "It all sounds like a very unhappy circumstance to me, but if you are satisfied with it-"

"I am."

"Very well, then. Hand me the laurel, would you, dear?"

Two weeks after Paige arrived, Betsy approached Gertrude with a rather ornate looking envelope. Gertrude opened and read it, then made a small disgusted sound. Paige looked up from the thick Victorian romance Gertrude had leant her, privately relieved at the distraction from the florid prose. "What?"

"Elizabeth Turner, in her usual manner of short notice, is holding a dinner party tomorrow night. I've been invited."

Paige felt a chill run down her spine. It had to be a coincidence. "You're sure the last name's Turner?"

"Yes, of course."

"Is – she's not related to Cole Turner, is she?"

Gertrude blinked. "Coleridge is her son. But however in the world did you know that?"

"Oh, that's just great." Paige almost threw her book across the room but settled for slamming it shut. "You can't go."

"Paige-"

""No, okay? He's an evil, manipulative bastard and-and I am so sick of dealing with him! So, no, it's a stupid idea."

A frown turned down the corners of Gertrude's mouth, making her appear even more severe than usual. "The Turners are a well-respected family in this city. I don't understand your hostility."

"You mean – how can you be a witch and not know?" Paige shook her head. "He's a demon. Fire and brimstone and nastiness and in my time, he causes a helluva lot of grief. So, seriously, if you know what's good for you, you'll stay as far away from him as possible."

Gertrude looked disturbed at this announcement. "Are you certain we're speaking of the same family? I find it hard to believe that Ben Turner's son could be a demon."

"Well, half-demon," Paige allowed. "But demon enough to turn on you eventually."

"This is most distressing to hear," Gertrude murmured. "Ben was a good friend to my late husband and his murder caused a great deal of grief to this community. It's difficult to imagine his little boy capable of any evil."

"Trust me, he's capable of plenty."

"Still, I hate to think..." Gertrude trailed off, her eyes narrowing. "You haven't, by chance, met him since arriving in this time?"

Paige shifted her weight. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Possibly everything. And I take it by that response that you have."

"Okay, okay, yeah, I ran into him. But I totally didn't mean to and it's sort of his fault I'm stuck here since if he hadn't pushed me, my necklace never would've broken in the first place and thanks so much for the reminder of how much I've already screwed up."

"Right, yes." Gertrude nodded, then rose. "We're going out."

"What? Why?"

"You need a dress for tomorrow night."

"Hey!" Paige got up herself. "Didn't I just establish the whole evil demon thing? Shouldn't you, I don't know, be making with the vanquishing potion instead of looking for frilly dresses?"

"Not at all. If Coleridge is indeed what you say he is, killing him now would affect more than a century's worth of future history."

"If you're so hot to preserve the timeline, then why are you even letting me out of the house? What happened to non-interference?"

"The meeting between you and Coleridge has already created interference. And I doubt it was any sort of coincidence."

"How can it not be?"

"Because in magic there is rarely any such thing. Now get your coat. We have a dinner to prepare for."

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Cole's student apartment occupied three rooms in a larger boarding house that served several students and a few young professionals. It was a modest place, little more than a glorified sitting room split to accommodate a small bedroom and even smaller bath, but it afforded him privacy he couldn't have at his mother's house. Especially when it came to illicit liaisons with a girl his mother disapproved of.

Speaking of which, he'd been rather lax in his ministrations to said girl, hadn't he?

Lonnie remained prone on her stomach, sated and satisfied after lovemaking. He ran his fingers down her spine, rousing her enough to squirm. "Stop that."

He grinned. "Why?"

"It tickles."

"Oh it does, does it?" He increased the pressure and began to massage with his other hand until she finally gasped and flipped over, ceasing his movements by throwing her arms around him and pinning his hands against his torso.

"You realize that now I can't let you go."

"Who says I want to escape?"

"Well, then, I guess I'll have to have my wicked way with you." And to insure there was no doubt of her ability to do so, she pulled him down to capture his mouth with her own.

Before Lonnie, Cole's experience with women had been limited to the few demons that could look past the surface of a half-breed with human blood, their dalliances consisting of brief evenings of raging passion and empty beds in the morning. Those capable of human form he remembered as flawless beauties, shaped by magic into perfected female forms.

By comparison, Lonnie was a patchwork of irregularities. Her breasts were small and hips narrow, giving her an almost boyish figure, and everywhere on her flesh he could find little traces of passing time. Here, a dimple. There, a mole on her hip. On her elbow, a light scar from a long-ago childhood injury and on her palms and fingertips, calluses from her work as a seamstress. Even today he could see a healing abrasion along one hand from some minor scrape or another.

With demon girls, Cole had learned what to expect. Lonnie still occasionally surprised him.

His hands roamed lower along her back, drifting down toward her upper thighs, when the chiming of church bell caused Lonnie to still. She broke off the kiss, eyes wide. "What time is it?"

He counted the chimes. "A bit after six, it sounds like."

"Ai ya," she swore, pulling away and rising. "I have to go."

"But the situation had just begun to get interesting again."

She grinned. "If my father had any idea of the nature of the interesting situations you get me into, we'd never see each other again."

"I doubt he's so naïve to not know."

"I think he'll remain silent." She batted his hand away from her chemise before he could steal it. "As long as I'm home in time to make dinner. Which I won't be if you keep trying to hide my undergarments."

Defeated, Cole leaned back against the headboard and watched her dress, sitting up like a dutiful suitor when she presented her back to him for assistance with the corset.

"You know," he said, pulling the laces and listening to Lonnie's small gasps as the garment tightened. "You never answered my question."

"It was a silly question," Lonnie said.

Cole frowned. "I was serious."

"So am I." She looked over her shoulder at him. "Your mother despises me."

"Of course she doesn't."

"Cole-"

"She simply has..." He searched for the right word. "High standards. Besides, I've already told her I'd bring you. She doesn't mind."

Lonnie snorted. "Why do I doubt that?"

"You don't understand. After my father died – please, Lonnie. She's only protective because she wants what's best for me."

"By controlling everything around you." Lonnie rose, crossing over to where her skirts lay. "She's made it clear I'm not welcome."

Cole rubbed a hand over his face, frustrated. "Why does this have to have anything to with Mother? I asked you attend dinner, not her."

"At her house."

"At my house."

"I don't understand why this matters so much. It's only some minor dinner party."

"That I'd like you to go to."

"Why? There's no reason-"

"Nine hells, woman, can't you ever just do as I ask?"

Anger sharpened his demonic aspect, deepening his voice into a harsh yell far louder than he intended it to be. Lonnie stared at him in the silence afterwards, motion frozen and mouth open in a little 'o' of surprise. Before Cole even had a moment to mentally berate himself for letting his temper get the best of him, Lonnie was already hurriedly putting her clothes on with trembling fingers.

"Lonnie." He spoke softly but she wouldn't look at him. "Lonnie, please."

"I really have to leave," she said in a small, frightened voice.

"No, Lonnie, wait." He seized her wrist, grimacing at the way she tensed under his touch. "I'm sorry." When she remained silent, he continued. "Truly. I should have better control of my temper. I say...stupid, hurtful things that I don't mean."

She finally raised her eyes from the floor, looking at him with a solemn expression. "You scare me sometimes."

He swallowed against a dry throat. "I don't mean to."

"I know."

"Do you – do you still need to leave?"

Lonnie sighed, turning away again. "Yes."

"All right."

She finished dressing in silence while he looked out the window at the darkening sky. She was pulling on her gloves when she asked, "Does it really mean so much to you that I come to this dinner?"

He blinked. "I would appreciate it, yes." His mouth twitched. "With you there, I'd actually have someone worth talking to."

She shook her head in resignation. "I suppose I'll have to find something appropriate to wear, then."

He couldn't help his smile. "You'll come?"

"Yes, I'll come."

And without another word, she slipped out the door.

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END PART THREE