After Strange collected her from the police station, Casey was despondent, distant, and silent. They went back to Casey and Gramps' home, where neighbors and friends were already waiting. She had no idea how they had found out so quickly. Maybe it was the partially destroyed shop.

Going into her apartment was like walking through a fog of condolences, niceties, and 'so-sorry's.' She hardly paid any attention to them, letting all the pointless words roll off her. They were just here to make themselves feel better anyways.

The first day was spent in bed, listening to music and pretending that everyone would go away if she waited long enough. Someone came in to ask her about funeral arrangements, and she didn't answered a single question that the woman had asked. The funeral director finally gave up, grabbed her notebook, and slipped back out of the room. The day passed into twilight and then night.

The funeral was the next evening. Casey had come out of her room and wandered around like a living mannequin, not talking to anyone or eating anything, just going through the motions. Casey didn't want to go to the funeral. It wasn't really her grandfather's ashes in that urn. It was the ashes of whatever Strange had conjured up to look like him. The sorcerer had said she could stay behind, that it was her choice, but then some of her grandfather's friends had put up a fuss, saying she would regret it later. To shut them up, she had gone to the funeral.

It was quick and simple, like her grandpa would've preferred. Actually, he probably would've preferred to not die by sacrificing himself to a fire monster demon-looking thing in the first place… And none of that was mentioned at the funeral, of course. He was called brave and honest and selfless, but no one knew exactly how true those words were except Casey and Strange.

She slept the whole day after the funeral, only waking up when Strange came in to try and force her to eat something. He tried regular food and then wound up leaving snacks and water bottles on her nightstand. She drank a water bottle but ignored the food. Sleeping felt so much better than facing everything. She guessed that she just wasn't brave enough to move on, so she decided that she was a coward. A sleepy one.

Eventually the sorcerer left his funny cloak with her. It flopped over her like a second blanket and petted her hair, which make it impossible to stay awake anyways.

Casey woke up the next afternoon to find a grumpy-looking magician standing at her bedside holding a laptop. She rolled over, ignoring him, but he simply sat the laptop on the space that she had vacated and opened it up.

"If you don't pick something for delivery and eat all of it and drink at least two glasses of water with it, I'm going to take you to an ER and get a friend to give you an IV."

"I'd like to see you try."

"Casey, this isn't a joke," Strange said. She glanced over her shoulder to see him pinch the bridge of his nose. "I know you're in pain, but remember that rule I have about not hurting yourself? You're starving yourself, which counts."

"I'm not hungry."

"You're depressed."

"And not hungry."

"Pick out something you like. I'll order. Sit up."

When she didn't move, he grabbed her pillow and pulled it out from under her head. She sat up and glared at him, but he simply thrust one of the water bottles from her nightstand into her hands.

"I'll choose something, then. And since I think you're dehydrated, you're going to drink all of that while we wait for it to arrive. Then we'll talk about our plan while you eat an entire lunch." He sat down in her fluffy purple chair and started clicking around on the computer, looking for local delivery places she guessed.

Casey wanted to get up and pour the water over his head to teach him a lesson about being so bossy, but she supposed he had a point. She didn't want him to tell her that her grandfather would be disappointed in the way she was acting, since she already knew that. He hadn't given his life just so she could waste away in bed, even if that sounded like exactly what she wanted to do.

Twisting the top off the water bottle, she took a long sip and then another one. She pressed a few pillows up against the headboard and settled her back against them. "I like Thai food."

"Mmm." Strange clicked around some more while she took a few more sips from her water bottle.

By the time a few delivery bags from Thai Blossom arrived at the door, Casey had emerged from her bedroom and was sitting on the couch watching a bad Netflix movie and drinking her second bottle of water. The cloak was laying across the back of the couch, and it seemed like it was watching the movie as well.

"Here," Strange said, handing her a tray of Pad Thai and vegetables with a disposable fork. He settled on the other end of the couch with a tray of his own. "This movie is awful."

"Hey, what did you mean earlier when you mentioned plans?"

"Eat, Casey," he said, point to her tray with his fork. It made him seem like a normal person, seeing him wearing normal clothes and eating takeout on the couch.

Grudgingly, Casey started nibbling at the Pad Thai before eating large bites. She hadn't had much besides crackers for the past few days, and now she realized that she actually was pretty ravenous.

"By plans, I meant what we're going to do next," Stephen said, "We've been staying here, but I think it's time for you to move into the Sanctum. You can't stay here alone, and I told your grandfather I'd look after you. Which is an odd arrangement since we don't even know each other, but seeing how you'll need to learn the mystic arts in order to protect yourself from your parents' enemies, I don't think it's the worst idea."

Casey's nose wrinkled. Yeah, okay. There wasn't really anyone else she could stay with; she didn't want to possibly endanger friends by staying with them and she also didn't want to go into the foster system. It was possibly her fault that her grandpa was killed; she didn't want anyone else to get hurt. At least Stephen could take care of himself. Wait, he had been staying here? She noticed the blankets folded up in the nearby armchair, along with a couple pillows on top. Oh, so he had been sleeping on the couch. That was pretty nice of him.

She didn't really want to move, but she also realized she couldn't stay in the apartment. One, she couldn't afford to live on her own, and two, the place would just remind her of Gramps every day. The place was really more his than hers, seeing how it was covered in baseball memorabilia and pictures.

"What's the Sanctum?" she asked before taking a sip of water, "Sounds weird."

"Because we've established that everything about me is so ordinary," Stephen said, almost making Casey smile. "The Sanctum Sanctorum is my home here in New York. It also helps protect the planet, but that's a little more complicated to explain. It's basically a place for studying the mystical arts, so it's also a good place to start your training."

"You really want me to learn magic?" she asked.

He nodded. "I think that's what your grandfather wanted, and you might be a natural." He pointed to her glasses. "Those still have the spell on them, and that should have started fading by now but I think you're keeping it going, somehow."

Oh. Huh. She didn't think she had been doing anything. She just knew she didn't want the spell to go away, not if it meant she couldn't see the world as it actually was anymore. "I guess I could try." Her parents had been magic people, after all, and her grandpa had known a spell or too. Maybe it really was in her blood, and she owed it to them to try to live her life to the fullest. Also, she wanted to learn to keep herself safe.

"Maybe you'll like it."

"Or maybe I'll be a Squib."

"What?"

Casey sighed. "I hope this Sanctum has a good streaming service because you're going to need an education in Harry Potter."

Stephen smiled a little, as if he was glad that she had finally cracked a joke again. "We'll see."