When she woke up the next morning, Liz was humming with an unfamiliar excitement. Despite the fact that she still felt a bit sticky and gross from work the night before, despite the sour taste in her mouth from not brushing her teeth, she was running on what felt very much like an adrenaline high. She felt as if she had borrowed some of Patti's endless enthusiasm, and for a moment, she couldn't think why. Then she felt something hard poking her from underneath her pillow, and reached in to pull out the book.

She stared at it in astonishment.

It was thicker than it had been the night before, she was absolutely certain. Eight hours ago it had been a slim little thing, barely more than the width of her pinkie finger, but now it was well over an inch thick.

Well, if that wasn't proof that magic was real, she didn't know what was.

She was going to be a wizard! The thought rammed into her already-jumping nerves and set her whole self bubbling. She had to get out of the house, get some space to really read the manual and figure out how to set the world straight… her part of the world, anyway.

Liz glanced at her sister, who was still fast asleep next to her, hair all mussed up from going to sleep with it still wet. She smiled. Despite how boisterous and vulgar Patti could be— for Liz had failed spectacularly in preventing her from picking up their mom's foul mouth— she really was an angel, and when she was dreaming like this, it showed.

She got up and set about preparing for the day. She slid into her favorite jeans, buttery-soft from wear, and a loose, mint green crop top, appropriate for a day that she could already tell was going to be scorching. A quick brush of her teeth and a coat or three of mascara later, and she felt prepared to face the world (and magic?) head-on.

A walk around the apartment revealed that Roxy had already left for work. Liz was relieved, because she needed to get out of the house, and she wanted to make sure leaving Patti was okay.

Getting her sister up, cajoled into something besides her beloved zebra-print PJs, and plopped in front of the TV with a bowl full of cocoa puffs, took frustratingly long. Liz had never and would never resent her sister, but she needed privacy, and she was impatient. But finally, finally she was on her way out the door.

As she collected her keys from the bowl on the kitchen counter, she called out, "If you get bored, you know where your modeling clay is, right?"

"Right!"

"And if you need anything, Mrs. Martinez—"

"Is right next door, I know!" Patti said.

Liz rolled her eyes, but couldn't quite keep from smiling. Patti knew the drill. They had a standing arrangement with the stay-at-home mother in the apartment next door; Elena Martinez looked out for Patti if Liz couldn't be home, and in exchange, Liz and Patti would deal with Mrs. Martinez's kids if she had to be gone for a couple hours. Patti was plenty old enough to stay home alone, but Liz felt better if there was someone nearby if she needed help.

She wasn't sure how much Mrs. Martinez knew or guessed about their situation— probably a lot because the building's walls were thin— but she kept her mouth shut and doted on Patti nearly as much as she did her own sons, and Liz was grateful for it. The older woman was the closest thing to a real mother figure either of them had.

Luckily for Liz's twitchy impatience, the woman herself was just arriving with an armload of groceries when she turned her key in the lock.

"You'll be needing me to keep an eye out if Patricia needs anything, yes?" she asked, a smile gracing her soft face.

"I'd appreciate it, yeah."

Mrs. Martinez nodded. "Don't you worry then, little Lizzy. How long will you be gone?"

She shrugged. "Not totally sure." She had no idea how long she was going to need. Did working magic take hours to finish a single spell? God, she hoped not. "Work… you know. Might have to pick up an extra shift," she mumbled.

"That is fine. The boys are with my husband's family for the day, so I will just be doing housework."

Liz gave an internal sigh of relief. "Thanks, Mrs. M. My mom should be back from work by four, four-thirty."

"Then perhaps I will invite Patricia over for sopapillas at a quarter to four."

She chuckled. "That might be a good idea. Hopefully I'll be home by then, but—"

"If you're not." The older woman nodded understandingly.

Mrs. Martinez had a hardware-store copy of the key that Liz had gotten for her, and it was times like this that Liz was glad for it. So far it had never been necessary, but it made her feel much safer leaving Patti alone for a couple of hours.

Once out in the hot early-summer sunshine, Liz found herself at a loss for where to go. Where exactly did one practice wizardry? Standing in a mall parking lot waving a wand seemed like a bad idea. She needed privacy… but where was she supposed to get privacy?

Well, it wasn't really that far to one of the city parks. In the middle of the day like this, especially on a day with temperatures already climbing, it was probably going to be empty.

A quick bus ride and a few minutes' exploration found her the perfect location, concealed behind a row of serviceberry bushes that provided her a decent view of the man-made lake but kept her mostly hidden from unwelcome eyes. She lowered herself down on the dirt, lamenting the fact that the park district hadn't seen fit to lay down sod behind the shrubbery, but leaned against the base of a palm tree nonetheless.

With a sense of excitement she thought she had left behind years ago, she cracked open the book, curious to see what new pages had sprung up overnight.

The book fell open to what appeared, after a short perusal, to be a directory of wizards in the D.C. metro area. To her astonishment, she saw her own name listed there.

Thompson, Elizabeth A.
365 S. Rose Avenue, Apt. B
Death City, NV, 89003
(Phone unavailable)

Novice rating
(RL +5.1 +/- 0.3)
Unavailable: On Ordeal

She blinked, and was tempted to rub at her eyes to check whether she was seeing things… but no, it was right there in front of her in black and white. She was in the wizardly version of a phone book.

Well, that proved it then, didn't it?

Settling down more comfortably against the tree, she flipped back to chapter one and began to read.

It all seemed pretty straightforward, she discovered as she plowed her way through page after page. At least, theoretically. She got the sense that in practice it was much more complex, but the core idea was simple. The Speech— a wizardly language that everything, apparently, understood— could be used to talk bits of the universe into being other than they were. Convincing a tree to stop heaving up the sidewalk and send its roots somewhere else, getting gravity to temporarily stop functioning locally, slowing down the spread of rust on your car door by talking the oxygen atoms out of bonding with the iron atoms… it all seemed more scientific than magical, when it got right down to it.

Liz had never been any more interested in science than she was in reading, but she'd passed all her science classes right up to the freshman chemistry class she'd taken last year before she dropped. She could handle some basic sciencey shit if the payoff was magic. And if this was so scientific? Then it was time to do some experimenting.

But what should she try first? She should probably start with something small, right? Making it rain or freezing the pond solid both seemed like bad ideas for a first attempt. Something a little less dramatic, just to get the feel for it, seemed like a smarter plan.

She raised a hand and lightly touched the scratch on her cheek from Roxy's ring. It wasn't large but it was deep, and it as she had predicted, the bruised skin around it was tender. Was there a spell for fixing cuts? There had to be, right? Her face was the one thing she had going for her and she really, really didn't want to get a scar.

Liz flipped through the book, looking for an index or something, since the table of contents wasn't very detailed. Once she had located the index, she ran her fingers down the page until she reached the H section, and on the next page, there it was: a page notation for "the Healing Arts," and below it, a list of more specific spells. She turned to the page indicated for "cuts and lacerations" and skimmed the instructions.

It didn't seem too difficult. The directions seemed to be more geared towards healing other people rather than yourself, but she'd figure it out. She needed to trace a circle on the ground, with the names of the healer and the person being healed written into the line, and close it with something called the Wizard's Knot, then recite the words of the spell. Not that difficult at all, really.

The next step in the instructions brought her up short, however. Most medical spells required that the healer shed blood and mingle it with the blood of their patient. She frowned. She didn't have a needle or a knife to make a cut— not that she was keen on the idea to begin with, because didn't that defeat the purpose? Well, she was the one being healed. Wasn't her blood already "mingled" or whatever? It shouldn't be a problem.

Further down the page, below the words of the spell, there was a footnote:

As the novice gains proficiency in the Art, the manual will be updated with more efficient spelling protocol for their use.

What the hell did that mean?

Before she could puzzle it out, the words flashed white and vanished from the page.

Well okay then.

At least that shed some light on how her information had appeared in the book overnight. It really was magic, wasn't it? But that wasn't important right now. She needed to figure out how to write her name.

With one finger marking the page for the healing spell, she turned back to the alphabet and pronunciation guide for the Speech. She had just found the character that corresponded with the letter L when she paused. Should she be using "Liz" or "Elizabeth?" She tapped her fingers idly against the page as she pondered it. The Speech was supposed to describe the "true essence" of things or whatever, right? And she was really more of a Liz than an Elizabeth… but Elizabeth was her real name. So which one was better to use in the spell?

Opting for caution, she looked up the spelling of her full name as she pulled a pen out of her purse. Not wanting to write on the book, she jotted down the unfamiliar, flowing characters on her palm in purple ink.

This done, she looked back at the spell diagram, studying it to make sure she had memorized what it was supposed to look like. Then she brushed a work area on the ground clear of leaves and stray pebbles and set to work drawing the circle. Scratching lines in the dirt with the butt of her pen, she carved out a quarter-circle that flowed easily into the lines of her name and then out again for a half-circle, with her name repeated directly across from the first one, then another quarter circle back to meet the beginning. She closed it with the Knot the book described, which was a sort of complicated little figure-eight character.

There, that wasn't so hard.

Brushing dirt off her hands, she picked up the manual again. She had intended to write the correct pronunciation of the spell on her hand, too, but when she looked at the page, the pronunciation had appeared beneath the printed words.

"You couldn't have helped me out with my name, too?" she asked, more amused than cross.

She looked over the words, making sure she was comfortable with them before she spoke. It was a short spell compared to some of the ones she had looked at earlier, only thirty-two syllables. It seemed like skin was pretty easy to persuade to quickly re-grow, since growth and change was its natural behavior.

Once she felt confident that she had the words of the spell settled in her mouth, she began to speak. Slowly, carefully, she pronounced each syllable… and after she got the first two or three words out, she got the feeling that she was being watched.

It wasn't so much that she felt a person spying on her, but that the universe itself was curving itself over her more closely than usual, observing her as she spoke the spell. She was being listened to, and the feeling was both terrifying and thrilling. She was hyperaware of everything in her immediate surroundings, the physical world standing out with unusual clarity. The sore spot on her cheek tingled as the air grew taut around her, and she grinned, satisfied that the spell was taking hold. She spoke the last word of the spell…

...and was suddenly overwhelmed with dizziness as pain lanced through her cheek, and the breath went out of her.

Liz sat down hard (or rather, she fell down), and sat, wheezing and clutching the manual, in the dirt. She lifted a hand to her cheek and when she pulled her fingers away there was fresh blood on them.

Well shit.

"Are you okay?" asked a voice, softened by a slight accent.

Liz twisted around, scrabbling to get to her feet despite her swimming head.

The interloper was an Asian girl— Japanese, she thought, though she wasn't completely sure. She was surprisingly tall, at least as tall as Liz herself, and her wide, blue-violet eyes were warm. Her clothes looked expensive, but her knees were dirty beneath her skirt, as if she'd been kneeling on the ground.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just, um, low blood sugar," Liz lied.

The girl smiled. "You don't have to pretend. I know you were just trying a spell, it's okay."

Liz was somewhat alarmed at the idea that she might have been found by another wizard right in the middle of her first— supremely ineffective— spell, but if she was hearing right, that was exactly what had happened. Embarrassing. "Um… so you're a wizard, too, or whatever?"

The stranger held out a book for Liz's inspection. The title was stamped vertically in what were definitely Japanese characters— so that cleared that question up— but Liz recognized immediately that it had to be the same book she was hiding behind her back. Feeling unaccountably shy, she lifted her copy up to show to the other girl.

A gentle smile rose on her lips. "I knew it!" she said. "At first I thought you might just be drawing on the ground, but then you started writing in the Speech…"

"Uh, yeah," Liz said, still wary. "Were you, like, spying on me or something?"

"Not exactly." Her pale cheeks flushed as she averted her eyes, staring down at her own clasped hands. "I didn't want to interrupt, but I haven't met any other wizards our age, and I was curious, so I stayed until you were finished." She looked back up, still blushing, but there was also genuine concern in her eyes. "Are you okay, by the way? It looked like the backlash hit you pretty hard."

Liz shrugged. "I'm okay. Just… I was trying to fix my cut and it looks like it opened back up instead, which is pretty bullshit."

The other girl frowned thoughtfully. "Is that what you were trying to do?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think you can do that. I mean, maybe it's theoretically possible, but I don't know. We could ask Marie about it."

"Who's Marie?"

The girl looked mildly baffled. "Have you not met Marie and Frank yet? They're the senior wizards for the entire western half of the U.S."

Liz was embarrassed. It was similar to the feeling of being called on in class and having no idea what the right answer was. "I just found the manual yesterday," she mumbled awkwardly.

"Oh, so you really are brand new?" she asked.

Liz nodded.

"Don't worry about the spell, then," she said. "I only took the Oath a week ago, and I'm still having some trouble getting the hang of it." A thought seemed to occur to her, and she blushed that pretty pink blush again. "But I've been so rude! I should have introduced myself sooner. My name is Tsubaki Nakatsukasa."

Liz frowned. That was certainly a mouthful. And wasn't there something funny about Japanese names? Like they were backwards or something? She'd seen something on TV about that but she couldn't remember for sure. "Uh… which one is your first name?" she asked, hoping she wouldn't accidentally offend the other girl.

That sweet smile turned a little amused. "Tsubaki," she said, and Liz got the idea that she was probably being laughed at. It was, surprisingly, only partially annoying.

"That's pretty," Liz said. She was pretty— beautiful, actually— with her soft, lovely face and a waterfall of thick, shiny black hair that fell to her waist. Liz was going to have to get the name of whoever did her nails, too, because hands like that would almost be worth blowing two shifts' worth of pay for. Before she could get caught staring and make things awkward, she cleared her throat and said, "I'm Liz, by the way."

"Well then, Liz, would you like to come meet our seniors? Marie is very good with healing spells, she can probably do something about your cut," Tsubaki said, jerking her head back towards the gravel path on the other side of the serviceberry hedge.

Liz hesitated. She'd been here with her nose in the manual for probably an hour and a half already, maybe longer, and if she was going to get any more practice in before she had to be home with Patti, she should probably get to it… but then again, it couldn't hurt to meet these people, right? She might be able to get good at this wizardry thing faster with a few pro tips.

"Sure," she said with a shrug. "Why the hell not."

Tsubaki, as it turned out, had a car. Not a fancy one, granted, but it was nice enough to make Liz drool with envy. She was a few months older than Liz and had gotten her license and the car on her birthday. Internally, Liz was shaking her head. She hadn't even been able to get her permit because her mom wouldn't pay the application fees, but this girl got a car just like that?

Rich people.

Tsubaki seemed comfortable with being quiet and not making the silence awkward, which Liz appreciated. Forcing small talk with strangers she didn't give a shit about wasn't exactly her style. The fact that her new acquaintance-slash-chauffeur just put on the radio— top forties stuff, but Liz didn't mind breaking up her Bill Evans with a little Ke$ha now and again— and drove made Liz instantly like her more.

Eventually, though, she did speak up and ask, "So, you don't go to Sarah Miller, do you?"

"That private school on Cherry Avenue?" Liz scoffed. "Tchyeah, no way."

Tsubaki gave her a wary glance out of the corner of her eye, but only said, "I didn't think so. I never saw you around campus."

"Public school for me all the way," Liz proclaimed, as a matter of pride. Admittedly it was only half-true, seeing as she hadn't been in a classroom for months, but she'd gotten this far in life without going to some fancy-schmancy all-girls school that probably cost more than she'd made in the entire time she'd been working at Starbucks. That was worth something, dammit.

"I went to public school up until middle school. Then I guess my dad got a little paranoid that I wouldn't be able to get into a good college. I don't know why he's so worried, my older brother never went to private school and he got into CalTech."

Liz only just barely managed to keep a look of open contempt off her face as Tsubaki spoke. Did people really live that kind of life outside of TV? This girl had to be joking. "That's… cool," she said, and was pleased that she'd managed to tone the derision in her voice down so that it sounded more like skepticism.

Tsubaki, sweet summer child that she was, seemed to misunderstand her completely. "Masamune sure doesn't think so," she said with a laugh. "Ever since he got his acceptance letter he's been down about moving away, even if it is only as far as Pasadena."

"Yeah, must be real rough," Liz drawled. The idea that anyone would throw a hissy fit over having to move hours from their parents struck her as hilarious… and disgusting. If she could afford to go to some schmancy college in Cali and live so far away from this shithole of a town…

She shut her mouth before she said something nasty about her new acquaintance's brother.

It was only about ten or fifteen miles from the park to the house that Tsubaki proclaimed was owned by the Senior wizards, but with the lunch hour traffic clogging up the streets, it took them awhile to get there. Once Tsubaki opened up the floor for conversation, Liz found she didn't mind talking to her so much. She wasn't obnoxious and pushy like most people, and didn't seem to need to share her entire life story with every stranger she met. She knew how to listen, not just how to to talk.

Unfortunately, the result of that was that Liz ended up feeling more than usually comfortable sharing herself.

"I wasn't born in D.C. either," she found herself saying in response to Tsubaki's story about a childhood trip back to Japan to visit her family overseas. "My mom and I lived in Brooklyn when I was a little kid, but then she got pregnant with Patti and—"

"And what?" Tsubaki prompted.

The gentle probing, even in that sweet voice of hers, was enough to put Liz back on alert. What the hell was she doing telling this random girl this kind of shit?

"And she decided that she hated the weather on the East Coast too much to go through another pregnancy there, so she moved us to Nevada," Liz said, tone sharp. Tsubaki didn't need to know her whole tragic backstory. Wasn't any of her damn business.

When Tsubaki slid into a parallel park so perfect a stunt driver couldn't have pulled it off more smoothly, Liz practically leapt from the car. This girl was a little too damn good at being a sympathetic listener, and Liz wasn't a fan. She couldn't help but wonder what she was hoping to gain by being so nice.

"It's this one," Tsubaki said, pointing at a two-story home a little down the block from where they had parked.

Liz looked up at the house skeptically. The bones of the building were good. In fact, it was a pretty ritzy place… if you ignored the peeling paint that had fallen off here and there in long strips like stitches, the cracks in the sidewalk, and the fact that even though it was only spring, the sod had already gone yellow from neglect and dehydration. It wasn't even remotely impressive.

"You said wizards live here?"

Tsubaki nodded. "The architecture is interesting, isn't it?"

Jesus, this girl was disgustingly optimistic, wasn't she? Liz had known her all of half an hour, but she was already sure Tsubaki was incapable of being negative about anything. Well, that was what happened when you grew up rich— or at least middle class, which was basically the same thing. Liz had had her rose-tinted lenses smashed a long time ago; Tsubaki would get her bitter wake-up call one of these days.

It was almost a shame, though. Her cheerfulness was kinda refreshing.

Tsubaki rang the doorbell, and they only had to wait a few moments before the front door burst open with unusual enthusiasm considering no one was there to open it.

Liz found herself a bit reluctant to just walk in, but Tsubaki stepped over the threshold with no hesitation, so she had no choice but to follow.

The inside, thankfully, was in much better shape than the outside. The front hallway had been painted a cheerful yellow, and the floor was some kind of pretty, amber-stained hardwood.

"Who is it?" a female voice called out.

"It's Tsubaki, Marie!"

A diminutive woman came hurrying out into the hall, drying her hands on a dishtowel. She wasn't exactly what Liz had pictured when Tsubaki had said they were going to meet Senior wizards. She'd been expecting some wise old man and woman with matching silver hair and frogs or ravens perched on their shoulder. Instead, this Marie turned out to be a pretty woman, only about thirty years old or so, with hair the color of autumn sunlight, wearing a floral dress and a smile.

"Tsubaki!" she exclaimed. "I didn't think we'd be seeing you today."

"I wasn't planning on coming," Tsubaki said, bending over to slip off her shoes. "I know you're busy and I would hate to make a nuisance of myself, but then I met Liz, and—" She shrugged. "Here we are!"

Marie turned to look up at Liz, and her smile widened. "You must be Elizabeth Thompson, then?"

Well that was creepy. "Um… yes? How did you—"

"Oh, your name popped up in the manual directory this morning," Marie said. "I have it set to notify me every time a new wizard takes their Oath in our jurisdiction." She went whirling out of the hallway and into what appeared to be some kind of sitting room, sweeping Liz and Tsubaki along in her wake and continuing to speak to them over her shoulder as she walked along without paying attention to where she was going. "There's only so much I can do, since Frank and I manage such a large area that it would be nearly impossible to meet everyone personally without some frivolous use of time travel, and wasting the energy would be... but that's no matter. Whenever a new novice pops up in the D.C. metro area, I do my best to try to meet them, preferably before their Ordeal starts." She guided them into the kitchen and quite literally pushed them into chairs across from each other at the scrubbed maplewood table. Liz shook off her hand irritably, but she didn't seem to notice.

"My husband is so esoteric," she continued cheerfully, "but I like to be more hands-on and really get to know as many of the North American team as I can. It feels so much more in the spirit of wizardry than hiding away and researching like some people I could mention." She rolled her eyes good-naturedly as Tsubaki giggled.

"Oh, but I'm forgetting myself!" the petite woman added. "My name is Marie Stein, I'm one of four Seniors handling North America."

"Liz. But you knew that," she responded. "You talk a lot."

Marie waved her hand in rueful acknowledgement. "My husband says the same thing," she said, and Liz decided she liked the blasé response to her belligerence. Marie might look like a bit of a postmodern flower child, but she didn't have delicate little feelings to match.

"Speaking of which—" She poked her head through the other doorway that led out of the kitchen and down a set of back stairs. "Frank, will you come up here? Elizabeth Thompson's come to see us!"

An unintelligible voice called something back, which Marie seemed to take as an acceptable reply. "Now then, let's take a look at that eye of yours," she said, sitting down between Liz and Tsubaki.

"Tsubaki said you might be able to fix it," Liz ventured.

Marie waved a hand. "Oh of course, dear. There's no might about it. I'm rather good at healing, always have been. We'll have you fixed right up."

She reached out a hand toward Liz's face, and Liz instinctively jerked back. Something in Marie's eyes softened. "Is it alright if I touch you, Elizabeth?"

"Uh. Yeah." Belated or not, it was nice that she asked. Liz grit her teeth and forced herself to lean forward slightly so that Marie could reach her. She placed one hand on top of her head to keep her still, and the fingertips of her other hand lightly brushed the area beneath the cut. Liz was proud of herself for not flinching when Marie pulled her head down to eye-level.

"Ooh, this has been reopened," Marie clucked. "Were you trying to heal this yourself?"

Across the table, Tsubaki nodded. "That's part of why I brought her over."

Marie smiled. "Self-healing is possible, but not usually advisable," she said. "The entropic cost to heal comes from the healer, and in doing so you're usually robbing your own body of the energy it needs to accept the healing."

"Huh?" Liz didn't generally think of herself as stupid, but she felt pretty lost at the moment.

But Marie just chuckled. "Don't worry, you'll have a good grasp of all the theoretical stuff soon enough. But right now, let's just focus on getting you patched up." She held out her hand and made a twisting motion with her fingers; a cutlery drawer sprang open and what seemed to be a scalpel emerged and flew unerringly into Marie's palm.

"I'm guessing if you tried to heal that thing yourself, you're already aware that healing lacerations and cuts requires mingling blood, yes?" she asked. At Liz's nod, she continued, "I hope you won't mind, then, if I—"

"Sure, whatever."

Marie slashed the tip of her index finger across the blade of the scalpel and with the same motion, pressed the drop of blood that formed to the cut on Liz's cheek. She recited a rush of words in the Speech— words that Liz could almost, almost understand— and even though she wasn't the one speaking the spell, she could still feel the universe go quiet to listen. Liz's skin flashed hot, then cold, and when Marie took her hand back barely twenty seconds later, she didn't need a mirror to know that the cut had healed and most likely the bruise had faded as well. Likewise, the cut Marie had made to her finger was gone as if it had never existed.

"That was…" Liz wasn't sure what she wanted to say, so after a breath of mental floundering, she continued: "...way simpler than what I tried."

"Wizardry gets easier and also much harder the longer you practice the Art," she replied with a nod. "You're young, still. By the time you get to be my age, you won't need to lay out a spell diagram for something as small as healing up a cut. But don't go trying that sort of thing at your age!" She waved a cautionary finger at her. "You kids may have all the power in the world right now, but the kind of finesse to do even simple spells without a diagram is well beyond your experience!"

There was an awful lot of information to process in there, so Liz focused on what she considered the most interesting tidbit. "What do you mean 'all the power in the world right now'?" she asked.

"Wizards are usually at the peak of their power during the first six months after taking their Oath," a male voice replied.

Liz whipped around to find a gargantuan man standing in the kitchen's second doorway. He wore enormous wire-rimmed glasses, and his prematurely-grey hair was a mess falling in his eyes. The dark grey color of his sweater— and about that, a sweater, in Nevada, in May? seriously?— could not quite conceal the purplish smears of… something across his chest. The same substance ran in rivulets down his fingers.

"Oh lord, Frank, what've you done now?" Marie asked with a sigh. "I've told you before, if you insist on making a mess of yourself, at least put on a clean shirt before coming up to meet guests!"

He grinned, clearly unapologetic. "Just a little bit of a backfire. I was attempting to study the effects of a localized timeslide on that crate of black plums your Aunt Julie shipped to us and misplaced a decimal point."

Marie slapped a hand to her forehead and sighed. "Well, Liz, I'm sorry you had to meet him this way, but this is my husband, Frank Stein. He's been doing time travel and timeslide research for the last four years, and unfortunately, he gets a bit… carried away."

"All in the name of science and wizardry, my dear!" he said cheekily, and meandered over to the sink to rinse what Liz assumed must be plum juice— or something that used to be plum juice— off his hands.

Marie rolled her eyes.

"As I was saying," Frank continued, "your power levels will fluctuate here and there throughout your lifetime, though they'll likely be reasonably stable once you hit your 20s. But during the first few months after a wizard takes their Oath is unquestionably their strongest time— as far as sheer power goes, of course. There's a lot to be said for finesse and experience."

Liz frowned. If her plan was to use wizardry to deal with Roxanne and get herself and Patti into a better situation, a few months was not a lot of time to accomplish that. She'd never worked well under deadlines. "That seems kind of backwards, doesn't it? I'd think someone would get more powerful the longer they were a wizard, not less."

"There are plenty of theories about why it works this way," Frank said, "but the fact remains that that's how it is. The younger a wizard takes their Oath, too, the higher their power levels generally are during their novice days."

"Tsubaki being a rare exception," Marie added.

All three turned to look at her, and Tsubaki, who had been fairly quiet since they arrived, shrank down in her seat and averted her eyes, blushing brilliantly. "It's not really that strange, is it?" she asked, staring down at her knees. "I know you said before I was unusual, but—"

"You've got power ratings like a twelve year old," Frank said when she broke off. "It's not completely unheard of, but it's definitely a huge deviation from the norm. You're sixteen, your levels should be in a fairly low range, something closer to Elizabeth's—"

"Hey!" Liz protested.

"Well, it's true," Frank said smoothly. "But Tsubaki… well, with her power levels, and at her age, no less, my guess is that her Ordeal will likely involve a direct confrontation with the Lone Power."

Tsubaki looked alarmed. "I don't know if I'm ready for anything like that!"

Marie patted her shoulder sympathetically. "I wouldn't be too anxious about it. We wizards have been fighting the Lone One since Time began. You're strong, so just learn all you can until it starts. That will give you the best chance of being successful."

"About this 'Ordeal' thing," Liz interjected, "Tsubaki made it sound like it was a pretty, um, intense deal."

Marie shrugged. "Each Ordeal is unique to the wizard," she said. "Sometimes it can involve personally confronting the Lone One, but sometimes it's much more subtle than that. Either way, each wizard is offered the Oath because they're the right person to fix a problem somewhere in the world."

"Yep, sounds pretty intense," Liz said dryly. "Any hints on when I should be expecting this "test" to start?"

"It can start at any time, from what I've read," Tsubaki said. She looked to Marie for confirmation. "Right?"

Marie nodded. "My best advice to you both is to be extra careful until it's over. Paying back the energy the universe has invested in you is important, but coming through your Ordeal to continue practicing the Art as a mature wizard is even more important.

"Now, let's stop with all this heavy conversation," she said, getting to her feet and brushing the wrinkles from her skirt. "Can I interest you girls in some iced tea and lemon bars?"

Liz was never one to turn down free food, but a quick glance at the clock told her it was going on three-thirty, and Roxy was going to be home in an hour. "No thanks," she said. "I'm supposed to be home soon."

"Next time, then," she said cheerfully.

"I should probably go, too," Tsubaki said. "My parents will worry if I'm gone much longer."

Both of them got to their feet and prepared to leave. Tsubaki paused in the kitchen doorway and turned back to offer a tiny bow, hands clasped in front of her. "Thank you for healing Liz's injury, Marie!" she said earnestly.

Liz couldn't decide whether she felt grateful that Tsubaki had covered for her, or annoyed that she'd drawn such attention to her lack of manners. "Yeah, thanks," she muttered, aware that she was probably pink in the face.

Together they turned back and walked through the living room towards the front door, but Frank followed and caught Liz's elbow, pulling her to a stop. Liz jerked out of his grasp, and at Tsubaki's questioning look, she motioned that she should go on ahead.

"What?" she asked, staring up at Frank suspiciously.

"I just wanted to make sure you understand that wizardry isn't a quick fix," he said in a low voice, his glasses flashing in the light from the front window. His expression was unsettlingly dark. "It's a gift, and being able to use it to help those you care for, and yourself as well, is an excellent side benefit, but that's all that is— just a perk. Being a wizard is a serious responsibility."

"...Yeah, I get that," she muttered, looking down. "Why are you telling me this?"

His demeanor changed abruptly and suddenly he was full of good cheer. "Oh, just a little speech I like to give the newbies I meet!" he said brightly.

"Is it now." Liz somehow didn't think that was entirely true. She rubbed at her arm absentmindedly. "Alright, well, um, I gotta go. So. Bye."

"Visit anytime!" he said with an enormous smile and a jaunty wave.

Liz gave a half-hearted flop of her hand in return and all but fled out to the hallway, where Tsubaki was just finishing with lacing up her shoes.

"What did Frank want?" she asked.

"Eh, just giving me some… words of wisdom," Liz said.

As they descended the front steps and headed back up the Steins' front walk, Tsubaki asked, "Hey, do you want to practice, together? Practice wizardry, I mean?" Before Liz could say anything, she pinked up and added, "I don't mean becoming permanent partners, not if you don't want that, but I was thinking… it might be helpful to have someone to work with while we're just starting out?"

Liz frowned. "Lemme think about it."

"Okay. Want to trade numbers, then?" she asked eagerly.

"Don't have a phone, sorry," Liz replied. Technically their apartment did have a phone, but no way in hell was she giving anyone that number. But when Tsubaki's expression fell, Liz found herself reluctant to disappoint her, and with an internal sigh, she added, "Maybe just give me your number? I can call you from a payphone or my mom's landline."

Tsubaki brightened. "That would work!"

Liz nodded, and held out her hand for Tsubaki to write her number down.

This day had been full of surprises, she thought, and she wasn't entirely certain that all of them were pleasant. There was clearly a lot more to this than she had assumed when she had taken the Oath on a whim last night, and she thought she just might have gotten herself in over her head.

Still… who knew? It had to be worth it in the end.