I had shifted to Pritkin's kitchen in England. Quite a distance, but my powers had been steadily increasing, so this was not too taxing. I even had a passenger in tow. I looked down at Jeannie.

"What do you think?" I smiled. She grinned back at me, unperturbed by the experience of shifting and the sudden change in location. She peeked around with big brown eyes. Pritkin was renting this place out to Marsden, although Marsden had moved out and had been staying at North American Circle HQ for awhile to be close at hand to work rapid-fire events. Pritkin had been making trips back here to arrange for repairs to the damage suffered in the War Mage attack a month or so ago. Some of the first repairs, he had told me, were to the wards. The wards were now keyed to let me in, and in addition there was a silence glyph on the door. Pritkin had explained this to me, although I had not seen it yet. The silence glyph did not allow anyone or anything to hear or sense anyone in the house. In theory, Marlowe should not be able to locate me using the tracking spell while I was in the house. Pritkin had placed a similar glyph on his room at Dante's and keyed the wards to me there as well. I had some fun with both Mircea and Marlowe by randomly shifting to Pritkin's room and then back out again after a short time, waiting to see if either one of them would ask me where I had disappeared to. Since I had already demanded they remove the tracking spells, they were hesitant to bring it up with me, knowing I would cause a scene. Master vampires did not like "scenes". Some of Mircea's usually poker-faced servants had shown some alarm, appearing at my door after I returned. "What?" I had innocently asked them. They had left wearing puzzled expressions, with no answers. Perhaps, I thought, they would remove the tracking spells if they thought they were malfunctioning. How many times can the servants tell Mircea they lost me? It was payback for the handcuffs.

"Potty?" asked Jeannie.

"Of course. Come with me". I led her upstairs to the WC and showed her the toilet. She considered the small room, a closet really, and gravely nodded at me. I left her to her business and went back to the kitchen. I searched the refrigerator looking for lunch. The fridge was almost empty, with just a few jars. With Marsden in Vegas for now, someone had cleaned out all the perishables. There wasn't much in the pantry either. There were plenty of coffee beans, some cans of soup, crackers, a tin of tea…and cookies? Since when did that health food nut Pritkin eat cookies? I set some soup to heat on the stove and called for Jeannie. She came down the stairs holding a small white bowl, identical to the one I had been using for my magic training with Pritkin.

"Did you bring that bowl with you from the training room?"

She shook her head.

"Where did you find it?"

"Window room," she answered cryptically.

"Show me." She took my hand and led me back up the stairs, down the hall and into a small room at the very end. One wall held several tall windows, with a set of cupboards under a window seat. She opened the cupboard and pulled out a few more items which I recognized as standard training devices for teaching elementary magic to children. Pritkin had been using the same items with me in Vegas. I looked around the room again, paying closer attention this time. The room was full of light from the wide expanse of windows. There was a small cot with a bright quilt, a rocking chair, a low set of drawers and a low bookcase. Everything was child-sized. This was a nursery, I realized. I skimmed the books on the bookcase. There were beautifully illustrated copies of Beatrix Potter's books, some Pooh books, some picture books that appeared to be about a wise magician named Merlin, a child's gardening book, a picture book about the seashore, a child's fire safety book, and a book about balloons. The room was bright and clean, with no dust from years of disuse. In fact, everything looked brand new. Why would a war mage set up a nursery in his home? I wondered with no small amount of astonishment and just a hint of trepidation.

"Put that back, sweetheart. Let's eat lunch".

We ate our soup and crackers, with tea and cookies for dessert. Jeannie's eyes were drooping closed. I settled her in for a nap, then cleaned up the lunch dishes. This seemed so simple and ordinary, something my life had never been and never would be. I wandered thru the house, having never looked at it in detail during my previous visit. The house smelled faintly of cedar and gunpowder. There was a large room at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen. The room had white-washed plaster on the walls and ceiling with contrasting dark open beams. The leather furniture was simple and looked comfortable. Vibrantly colored oil paintings hung on the walls. Was that a Monet? The desk in the corner looked like an expensive antique. He had probably bought it new. There was a fireplace surrounded by full bookshelves. There weren't many books about magic on the shelves. The subjects ranged from languages to history to weaponry to archaeology to science, and not all of them were in English but all of them were recent. There were some biographies and a cookbook. There were no fiction novels as far as I could tell. Pritkin wasn't into make-believe. I found a book about the history of oracles and browsed thru it.

I put the book down and wandered over to the window, overlooking the back garden. The brick shed was back there, showing recent repairs. As I watched, a flash of light glowed from within the shed, followed shortly by Pritkin exiting the shed and heading towards the house. I walked back and opened the kitchen door for him and took some of the bags from his hands. We settled most of them on the counter and he held out a duffel bag to me.

"Here…I thought you might want this. The child's stuffed toy is in there as well. I retrieved it from the training salle."

It was the duffel I had packed and stored in Pritkin's room in Dante's. It held a change of clothes and toiletries, everything I needed for an unexpected trip away from home.

"Thanks. Did Marlowe give you any grief?"

"No. I instructed the boys for a short time until he left, and then I took a ley line here," he explained as he emptied various grocery sacks. He put a carton of milk into the fridge and showed me a package of tofu hotdogs, grimacing. "I asked the market clerk what small children liked to eat. She advised me to purchase hot dogs, but the ingredients are horrid so I bought these instead. Will she eat these?"

I shrugged. "How did you know I brought her with me?"

"The wards. I could tell when you shifted here, and there was another magic signature along with yours." He looked around. "Where is she?"

"Napping."

A smile tugged at his mouth as he slowly leaned towards me, giving me a chance to avoid him if I wanted. I stayed put and he softly kissed me. He had taken my previous request seriously and remembered not to mash my mouth.

"Will your vampire miss you?"

"No, Mircea is in New York for a few days. His servants will report my absence." Mircea and I had recently dialed back our relationship to "just dating". We had not been intimate since MAGIC was destroyed. I didn't plan it that way, it's just that Mircea kept going out of town and I was immersed in training.

Pritkin took off his leather duster and hung it on a hook by the kitchen door.

"If Mircea asks, I'll just tell him the truth…that I was training with Mage Marsden and yourself. By the way," I told him evenly, "Jeannie found some magic training props upstairs". I watched his face as he digested this tidbit.

"I stocked the nursery with some items. I thought it would be useful," he told me placidly as he pulled me towards the stairs.

"Where are we going?"

"Nap, then training."