City of Night

It was three in the afternoon when Toby staggered through the doors of the Holiday. The lobby was silent, deserted, and he was glad. He was closing in on a full day without sleep, and he didn’t like his gang to see him weak. Straight after he’d left Morgan sleeping in her room the past night he’d been to a meeting with the leaders of the other gangs of Nowhere. It had been full of talk and worry and little else, and had gone on long after it was supposed to end. After that there had been a great deal of walking, with an occasional subtle spell, to make sure that no one followed him back home.

The stairs to the fourth floor were daunting, but he knew he would never sleep if he didn’t check on Morgan first. The elevator had never worked; two years ago he had poured all the energy he had into it and been rewarded with a long, angry metallic creak, but that was the last it had spoken and they’d all given up not long after. Morgan was the only one who lived high enough to need it, anyway. Princess in the tower, he called her for a while after she moved up there. Neither of them had ever seen a tower like the ones in the books they read as children, but it seemed close enough.

He reached the top of the stairs, and three doors down to her room was easy. He knocked softly on the door, and then opened it without waiting for an answer. He could always count on Morgan to be awake while the sun was still up.

“Afternoon, Morgan,” he said into the doorway as he stepped in. And then he saw the room. Her dresser drawers had all been pulled out and dumped, leaving her clothing and everything else she owned in a pile on the floor. That wasn’t the problem. Morgan had done stranger things. The problem was that the room was empty. He entertained several thoughts, she’d just gone for a walk in the courtyard, someone else was up early and they’d gone out, before he saw the paper left on the bed.

He grabbed it, hoping for a note saying where she’d gone and when she’d be back. Instead it was a green crayon drawing. Three people, an adult with a baby labeled “Daddy” and “Morgan,” and a child. The child was labeled “me.” It took him a moment to realize that the child must be him, that he must have drawn this, years ago. She’d saved it; who knew where she’d found it, but his whole body was going cold, because to keep it secret all these years and then leave it on the bed like this for him to find, was just the thing she’d do, if…

If she was saying goodbye.

He was out of the room and down the stairs so fast he almost fell before he could think any further, out of the stairwell on the second floor and pounding on a familiar door. Vince opened the door after a moment, blinking sleep from his eyes.

“She left this morning. Go to sleep.”

“No, Vince,” he held up the paper, waved it at Vince but couldn’t find the words to explain it. “She’s really…she thinks she’s really going this time. I have to go look for her.”

“Toby, what you need now is sleep.” Everything about Vince’s reaction was wrong.

“I can’t, not now. I have to find her; you’ll tell the gang where I am…”

“You’re not going anywhere but to sleep right now Toby. I haven’t seen you sleep since yesterday morning. You’re no use to her, or anyone else like this.” Vince was so calm, so unsurprised that it was infuriating, as if he didn’t even understand what Toby was saying. As if he didn’t understand that she was gone.

“Vince, I have to.” He turned to go, and felt a hand grab his shoulder.

“Don’t make me stop you, Toby Silver.”

Toby shrugged the hand away and took a step into the hall. “Who leads here, Vince?”

“The one who isn’t dead from exhaustion. She’ll be okay, Toby. She’ll come back.” Vince’s voice was quiet, serious, and very sure. Toby turned around.

“How do you know?”

“The thing is, Toby, she, Morgan, she…” Vince struggled for words, and for a moment it seemed his calm was breaking, before he found the stride of what he wanted to say, “she had a lot to figure out. You know that, I mean you know better than anyone the way she is.”

“Vince, how do you know?” Toby tried to cut him off but Vince kept talking.

“And she couldn’t do that here, you know? She had to get away, I think, get away and find someplace new and then, maybe she can…be someone new.”

“But Vince, how are you so sure she’ll be back?”

“Because she promised me.”

It felt like the whole hallway went dark for a moment. Toby looked at his best friend, and said very quietly, “What?”

“Before she left this morning. She promised me.”

It wasn’t the promise that interested Toby. “You were there? You were there when she left, and…” Vince took a step back into his room. “You let her go.” The words hung accusatory in the air between them for a full minute before either of them moved or spoke.

“Toby, you don’t understand, she-”

“I don’t understand what? That you let a defenseless girl just wander off in the night? That you did nothing to stop her because of some romantic idea that all her problems will go away if she goes on some big journey and…I don’t know, finds herself, like in some book? Does this look like a book to you?” A door opened down the hall, and realized he was shouting. He stepped into the room and dropped his voice to a harsh whisper. “Does any of this look to you like the way the books say it should be?” The light on Vince’s nightstand started to flicker. The air around him was crackling with the magic his words called and he couldn’t, no, he didn’t want to control it.

“Toby, it’s not romantic, it’s not from a book, and if you blow out my power again, I’ll…” Vince let the thought trail off.

“You’ll what, Vince?” Toby’s voice was almost a wail. “What’ll you do? What would you do, what could you possibly do to me that would be worse than letting my sister leave?” The light bulb glowed bright and dimmed one last time, and then the light went back to normal. Toby took a deep breath.

“Done now?” Vince asked.

“Done now.” He nodded.

“Listen, I’ll make you a deal. You sleep now, and if she’s not back by nightfall, I’ll head out and see if I can find her. Theway Firestorm’s been lately, it wouldn’t hurt to have more a presence outside the Holiday anyway. Deal?” Toby felt sleep creeping into his bones, sleep so insistent that adrenaline, fear, determination, not ever sheer will could keep it out.

“Deal,” he said.

“Great,” said Vince. “Any you know, she’ll probably come running back the moment the sun starts to set, the way she always does, right?” He was trying to sound reassuring, but his words sounded hollow, and his smile was nothing but a forced stretch of skin across his face. Toby was so tired now that his vision had almost started to blur, but through it he felt a sharp, cold feeling. He’d known Vince a year now, and Vince had never lied to him. Not even with a smile.

“Right?” Vince asked again.

* * *

Morgan kicked the heels of her boots against the wall of the stone bridge, and watched the beginnings of a sunset ripple pink across the river rushing below her dangling legs. The bridge was old, moss growing between the smooth stones. Probably no one even knew when it had been built, or who built it. No one used it. All the developed land off of the island, mostly farmland, was across the river on the other side. Here was just a bridge, and the woods.

The trees twined dark in the fading light. Little bits of shadow slithered and swirled their way around the branches. Some of them slipped towards her, waiting. All the dark in those woods could swallow her whole. It didn’t matter. The darkness had been trying to eat her up for five years now, and so it had to happen sometime. Someday she was going to have to find out what it wanted.

She swung her legs back over the wall, stood and crossed the rest of the bridge, feeling the strange way her boots sunk into the moss of the forest floor when she reached the other side. She flicked on the flashlight in her hand, and smiled as the shadows scurried from the light. Safe in her incandescent cloak, she stepped between the trees. She walked, and the darkness closed in behind her.

* * *

Sandy thought it was about nine o’clock at night. She wasn’t sure because she could no longer read her watch. Nothing but starlight lit the streets she followed, and even that was dimmer than some nights. The tall, empty buildings seemed to curve up over her as she shivered in the chill night air. She was tired, shaky with hunger, her feet ached a little more with each step she took, and she was finally beginning to reconsider the good sense of her actions. Reconsideration or not, there was no point in turning around. She was completely, thoroughly lost.

Something tapped against the left side of her glasses, and a raindrop made a lazy trail down the lens. A second drop hit the top of her head. She looked up at the swirls of clouds that obscured some of the stars. Thicker clouds were coming in; it wouldn’t be long until the scattered raindrops picked up into a storm.
“Perfect,” she muttered to herself, “this is just…perfect.” And then she heard something she’d missed, lost in the patter of raindrops on asphalt and her own self-pity. Footsteps, coming closer.

A light bloomed in front of her, spherical and white, expanding to fill the street like a tiny star. She gave a yelp of surprise and spun around, but that moment of looking into the light had blinded her temporarily. She couldn’t see the people who had found her, out here in the City of Night, but she could hear them. They were laughing.

“Hey, Lightning!” A woman’s voice rang out over the laughter. “Whatcha doin’ out all alone?” As Sandy’s vision returned, she saw the woman step out of a group of maybe ten people. The woman spoke again, but this time it was single syllable that Sandy didn’t understand, sharp and guttural. Something hit Sandy in the shoulder. It felt as if she had been shoved, and she took a step backward, but there was no one near. The woman spoke again, and the force hit her a second time, full in the chest, knocking her from her feet. The woman laughed, an angry sound with a cruel note to it, and Sandy realized what was happening. Witches used spoken magic.

As she got to her feet, she heard the witch draw breath to speak again. Sandy put her hands in front of her as if to protect herself, but something happened when she moved her arms. Something came to her hands, something that felt like silk and needles at the same time. She looked at the hands in front of her in shock, but there was nothing in them. The witch spoke another guttural syllable, and without thinking Sandy flung her hands outward, pulling the strange something with it. The witch staggered backwards, just as Sandy had.

“Sorceress?” the witch whispered, so quiet Sandy could barely hear. “A sorceress?” there was a danger in the woman’s voice that Sandy hadn’t heard before, not even in the cruel laughter. “Not on my streets.”

Sandy did the only thing she could think of. She closed her eyes and ran into the light, hoping they wouldn’t see which way she turned once they got to the other side. After a moment she opened her eyes again, and kept running, turning randomly until she was certain there were no footsteps still following her.

She sunk down against the closest wall, feeling the rough brick catch against her sweater. She took a deep breath, and let it out. Then another breath. Then another. And then she burst into tears. She tried hard to control herself, but she couldn’t help it. She was lost, tired, hungry, and most of all alone. Called a witch by the sorcerers, and attacked as a sorceress by the first witch she’d seen. So she tried to breathe deeply and control the sobs, but as it was it wasn’t long until someone heard her.

She rose as the footsteps came closer, but this time it was a single set, not the witches who had found her before. A tall figure turned the corner and stopped, watching her. She watched, too, for a moment, until the figure started to move towards her again. Then she ran.

“Morgan, wait!” a man’s voice called out an unfamiliar name behind her. She ignored it and kept moving. But she had run too much already. She couldn’t do it anymore. Her legs simply would not move fast enough, and she felt a hand close around her arm. She spun around, drawing the strange power into her other hand, but the man caught her by the wrist before she could use it.

“Let go of me!” she cried.

“Sure, you let go of that spell you’re trying to throw at me and no problem.” She didn’t trust him, but she let the power go, hoping she could gain an advantage another way. He let go of both her arms, and she started to back away.

“Hey,” he said, “don’t go. Not a good night to be a sorceress out alone in the Night.” She stopped. He started to whisper something in the strange language she’d heard the other witch use. She started to raise her arms again, and he stopped, and spoke quickly, “It’s okay. It’s just a candle spell.” She lowered her arms, and he whispered a few more syllables. A light appeared hovering in the air between the two of them, a tiny glow like a miniature version of the light the other witch had used, and she got a good look at him for the first time. He was tall, over six feet, and rail thin. He wore all black, blending into the night except for the word “PSYCHO” spelled out in white block letters across the front of his tee shirt. His hair was black, and longish, spiked and teased so that it stood out at odd angles from his head. He was watching her with startling violet eyes, but his eyes weren’t the most startling thing about him. He didn’t look any older than she was.

“Wow, so you’re the real deal. School uniform and everything,” he said. She kept watching him, waiting, trying to decide if she should just run again. “Hey, I’m,” he held his hands out open in front of him, “I’m really pretty harmless.”

He didn’t look harmless, in all black with his “PSYCHO” tee shirt, but she watched his face, and there didn’t seem to be any anger in him. Curious, definitely, maybe a little confused, but not angry.

“Man, what’s got you so frightened?” he asked. She didn’t need to answer, because before she could a familiar voice came from the mouth of the alleyway where they’d stopped.

“Lightning, and the sorceress,” said the witch. “This is going to be the best night ever.”

The warlock turned, stepping so that he was between Sandy and the other witches. “Still haven’t learned to leave well enough alone, huh, Gina?”

“Still haven’t stopped protecting what’s rightfully mine, you mean?” Sandy could see her better now, in the glow of the small light. She looked to be in her early twenties, with straight brown hair hanging down to her waist, making a curtain around her face through which black eyes glared out. She had tattoos on each of her arms, flames beginning at the wrist and reaching up to her elbows. She was wearing jeans and a plain grey tee shirt, and stood almost in a crouch, almost like a fighting stance.

“Gina, not even your father’s land is rightfully yours. We took this before the council, and the council gave us these streets. Go home, before someone gets hurt here.”

“The council, huh?” she spat. “Screw the council, old fools. And you…to the starless dark with you.”

She screamed in the witches language, and fire ignited in her outstretched hands.

“Pretendin’ to be something you’re not doesn’t suit you, Gina,” the warlock shouted back, and then he broke out into the same language. Gina threw the fire forth as if she were throwing a baseball, only to have it hit an invisible wall in front of him and flare out. She tried to call it to her hands again, but the rain was picking up hard and it flickered out.

“Not a good night for your false fire magic,” said the warlock.

“Coward!” she cried. “Fight back!” She gave another shout, and Sandy heard metal creak above them. She looked up just in time to see a fire escape stairway tear itself from the side of a building and come tumbling down towards them. The warlock didn’t even look up. He caught it with a word, and stood, speaking a steady stream of whispers as the metal stairway hovered ten feet above their heads. Gina spat another spell, and he whipped his head quickly to one side. Sandy caught a glimpse of blood running down his cheek before he turned his head back. Gina cried out again, and this time she saw him twitch, but he didn’t turn. He stepped back and stopped whispering, letting the staircase crash down between him and the other witches.

“You wanna call me a coward, Gina?” his voice sounded cold.

“You know what you are, Lightning. I’ve seen you out here more than once, and you always run home to Silver.”

“You know why I won’t fight you Gina. I know you know it. I won’t fight you because you’ll lose.”

Sandy felt the air move behind her, and before she could scream a hand covered her mouth. She saw another man come out of the shadows behind the warlock. They had both been so focused on Gina that they’d forgotten the other witches. The warlock turned, just too late. He managed to shout out, “Treacherous-” before there was a hand over his mouth as well. And, Sandy realized, if he couldn’t speak, he had no magic.

“I’ll lose, will I?” said Gina, the angry laugh back in her voice. She whispered something and disappeared, reappearing just in front of the warlock. The witch who held Sandy pushed her forward until they both stood together. The warlock peered down at Sandy, reached out and grabbed her hand. “Aww,” said Gina, “that’s sweet. Now,” she pulled a small knife from her back pocket, flicked it open and looked at the blade for a moment. “I think I’m going to leave your head on Silver’s doorstep, just to make sure he knows Firestorm’s still out here, waiting for him. Maybe the sorceress’ too.”

The warlock squeezed her hand. Gina was flicking the blade of her knife open and shut, basking in her victory. Finally, slowly, she started to reach toward the warlock’s throat. He squeezed her hand again, this time so hard it hurt, and she realized that he wasn’t trying to comfort her. He was trying to tell her something. Their mouths were covered, but Sandy was a sorceress and her hands were free.

She took a deep breath and tried to draw the power she’d felt before to herself. It came to her hands, and she raised her arms. She watched Gina turn towards her; watched her realize her mistake too late.

“Sorceress—idiots, her arms!” she shouted, but Sandy had already let the power go. She threw it forward, as she had before, but this time she did something different. She shaped it; she had seen Gina cut the warlock with a word, and so she gave the magic a sharp edge. Gina screamed, not magic but a wail of pain, and dropped the knife. The witch holding her fell away and ran to her fallen companion.

“Call the Ravens!” someone shouted.

The warlock grabbed Sandy’s arm and pulled her forward. “Run!” he hissed. His legs were longer than hers, and he half-led, half-dragged her around the fallen fire escape, through the crowd of confused witches, and back out into the streets. The rain was pouring down now, and she slipped in a puddle and fell, scraping her knees through her tights. He yanked her back to her feet and kept moving.

“Just a little farther,” he said. “Just far enough so they can’t follow.” They turned a corner and he spoke a spell, and then they were somewhere else.

The room was small, and empty except for a couch and loveseat, both covered in plastic. A bare fluorescent light flickered overhead.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Someplace safe,” he said, and flopped down on the couch, the plastic making a loud crinkling sound.

“Thank you,” she said, quickly.

“Thank me?” he said back. “You saved my life back there, in case you weren’t paying attention.”
“Only…” she felt herself smile a little, “only because you were busy saving mine.” She looked at him for the first time since the fight, and blood was running down his face from two deep gashes, one across each cheek. “You’re hurt,” she said.

“Am I?” he replied, a wide grin spreading across his face. He started to speak, and now that she was paying attention, she could feel the energy crackle around the unintelligible words. The cuts on his face close up, first one and then the other, as if they’d never been there. “Stand still for a sec,” he said, “and I’ll take care of that knee.” She didn’t move, and watched, though there was nothing to see, as the magic moved from his words to her scraped knee. It tingled, and when he stopped speaking and she looked down, there was still a hole in her tights, but beyond that no sign that she’d ever fallen. “Better?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, with just a hint of awe.

He stood up and held out his hand. “I’m glad. Name’s Vince, by the way.”

She looked at the hand for just a moment before grasping it and shaking. “Sandy. The other witch…she called you ‘Lightning.’”

“Black Lightning. Name of a gang. My gang. We’ve got a little argument goin’, us and Firestorm, the gang Gina’s from. Been fightin’ over the same few blocks for years now. The council finally gave it to us last month, but Gina won’t give it up.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know quite how to respond. “And…Silver?”

“Name of a friend.”

“Okay,” she said.

“So, Sandy,” he smiled, “I’ve seen you school uniform types wander a few block out of the borderlands before, but you’re pretty far into the Night now. You wanna tell me where you live, so I can take you home?” Something was missing. It took her a moment to realize what it was. He was looking at her, in the light now, smiling out from under the strands of black hair that the rain had matted down against his face, and there was not a hint, not a look of shock or a little gasp of surprise at how she looked save the comments about her uniform.

“I,” she said, gathering all her courage, “I didn’t come out here just to go back home.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

He looked at her, and there was a new interest in his eyes. “So then, you’re not lost, huh Sandy?”

“Well, lost in that I have no idea where I am right now. But in that I’m exactly where I intended to be, then no, I’m not lost.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“You run away?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

The question took her by surprise; it took her a moment to remember the answer. “You’ve probably
noticed I don’t know much about witches. Do you know much about sorcerers, Vince?”

An uncomfortable expression crossed his face, and he looked away for a moment, “I know enough.”

She ran a hand through her white hair. “So can you guess how sorcerers tend to feel about me?”

He furrowed his brows, and reached out and quickly touched her cheek. “So that’s real, huh? I wasn’t sure;
I’ve seen stranger make-up out here.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m out here.”

“Gina, she woulda killed you, you know.”

“Well, she would have killed you too, I think.”

“Yeah, but I’m used to it. And I know how to defend myself.”

“I could learn.”

“I think you already are. I don’t think we’ll be seeing Gina out here again for a while.”

“Oh,” she hadn’t really though about that. “I really hurt her, didn’t I?” The thought made her feel a little sick.

“They were calling the Ravens in when we left. She’ll be okay.”

“The Ravens?”

“Healers. So she’ll be fine. But what I mean is, there are some perks to living out in the Light, Sandy. Safer out there,” he paused, “at least for you.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“You were afraid of me not too long ago.”

“Okay, I’m terrified.” She looked straight into his curious violet eyes. “I don’t care.”

“Okay then,” he said, quietly, “Okay then. Follow me,” he started for the door.

“Wait,” she said. “Where are we going?”

He looked back at her, and smiled his wide grin again. “Home.”

She followed Vince through the doorway, but when she looked around the hallway on the other side, he was gone. She turned in a slow circle, confused. The hall was too long for him to have disappeared around the corner already.

“Vince?” she called out quietly. There was no answer. Had he left her here? He had seemed…very genuine, very honest. She didn’t think this was some joke.

There was a soft whoosh of air behind her, a sudden small breeze, and a laugh.

“Are you comin’?” Vince asked as she turned.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see were you went,” she said. Vince looked at her oddly for a moment before a look of understanding crossed his face.

“Oh,” he said with a smile, “did you think we were walking? Long way from here, and we’re not supposed to use the front door anyhow. C’mon, just follow my spell and we’ll be there in a sec.” He started to to spell-speak again.

“Wait,” said Sandy, “I…I don’t know how.”

He looked at her, just for a second, with raised eyebrows and a strange expression, and then shook it away and held out his hand. “Well, guess you’ll just have to tag along with me then.”

She tried to concentrate, as the words of his spell crackled around her, tried to watch, to see where it is they went, in between, but there was nothing. First they were in the doorway, and then they were not.

She found herself outside again, the rain dying down into a fine, foggy mist. They were in a courtyard, a secret space bordered on all sides by tall gray buildings. It looked as if it had at one time been beautiful, grass and gardens crisscrossed by worn brick paths, all dying down now in the late October cold, looking as if they’d been overgrown in the first place. In one corner, a few scraggly ornamental trees shed leaves, little yellow ovals falling through the mist. In another, a rusty swing-set creaked slowly back and forth in the breeze. At the center of it all was a fountain, unused, made of tall crumbling stone and filled with an accumulation of dirty water.

“Sandy,” said Vince from behind her, “come on. You’ll catch cold out here. Or at least that’s the sort of thing people say.” She didn’t want to turn around, wasn’t ready yet to leave this courtyard and its graceful decay, but he caught her hand and pulled her around and towards the only building that appeared at all inhabited. It was a tall tower, maybe an old hotel, with a porch and a faded green-and-white striped awning downstairs, and light shining in the first few stories.

“It’s okay,” he said, leading her up the the porch steps, “they’ll all be psyched to meet you, especially once they find out where you’re from.”

“Um, who’s they?” Sandy asked. He pulled open half of the double-doors leading into the building and pulled her through.

“Sandy,” Vince said with a grinning flourish, “welcome to Black Lightning.”

It was definitely a hotel. They were in a sitting room, a sort of small lobby for the courtyard door, filled with tastefully stain resistant furniture, a small counter in one corner, and some dusty-looking plastic plants. That wasn’t the interesting part. Occupying the chairs, as well as the floor and the top of the counter, were about two-dozen witches and warlocks. They looked like the witches she’d seen on television; some of them had hair dyed colors not found in nature, while others had piercings in places significantly more creative than their ears. Most of them wore odd clothing that looked like they might have made it themselves. They might have been chatting when she walked in, but now they were all watching her, quietly, eyes following her like curious birds. As she scanned the room, not one of them, not a single one, looked more than a year or two older than she was.

One of them stood out though. It wasn’t the way he looked, perched on the arm of a chair in the back of the room. He was about her age, maybe a little older, wearing torn jeans and a tee shirt so faded she couldn’t tell what color it had started out as. It wasn’t his blue hair; that was fairly tame compared to some of the others in the room. It wasn’t even the way that everyone else was darting glances at him whenever they could bear to tear their curious eyes away from her. It was the way he felt. Magic crackled around him like a cloak, moved with him as he stood as if it were just an extension of his body. His eyes, blue she saw now, the same color as his hair, caught hers, and she looked away, almost frightened by the power he held around himself.

“Vince,” he said, and as he spoke the single syllable every light in the room flickered brighter for a second. Sandy took a startled step backwards.

“S’cool,” Vince put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s just Toby. We need to talk; I’m gonna send my friend Izzy over to get you settled, okay?”

“Okay,” Sandy said, not feeling entirely okay. She looked back up at the blue-haired Warlock, Toby. He was still watching her. Vince headed towards him, leaning down and whispering something in one of the witch’s ears as he went. The witch detached herself from the group she was chatting with and walked to Sandy, quickly and with an elastic bounce in her step that didn’t seem to work quite right with gravity. At first Sandy took her for a child, but as she got closer she realized the girl was probably thirteen or fourteen, just tiny. She might have been brushing five feet, but just barely. Her hair was bright pink, short and spiky, and she had a ring through her nose, two in each eyebrow, and more than Sandy could count easily in each ear. She was wearing a blue tie-dyed tee shirt and pants that looked to be several sizes too big. Whatever shoes she wore were obscured by the pants. Both of her arms were covered in unmatched bracelets up to the elbows.

“Hi, I’m Izzy,” she said.

“I’m Sandy,” Sandy replied, holding out a hand. Izzy walked right by it and pulled her into a rib-crushing hug.

“We’re gonna be best friends,” declared Izzy as she released Sandy, “and best friends hug.”

Sandy tried her best not to look confused or doubtful, but she must have failed, because Izzy decided to explain.

“Vince likes you, and Vince’s friend are my friends,” she said, almost solemnly but speaking just a little bit too quickly. Her voice tinkled like manic bells. “Vince is my fake big brother,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Come on,” she grabbed Sandy by the wrist and pulled her towards the entrance to a long hallway, “Vince says you need dry clothes and…” she stopped for a moment, and then turned to Sandy with a look of pure joy. “You can stay in my room! I have on of the ones with two beds, I usually push them together but I can pull them apart and I have sheets for both…” she trailed off and began dragging Sandy forward. It was almost relaxing, carrying on a whole conversation without needing to actually be involved.

Before long Izzy stop to open a door. “Go on in,” she said. “I have to get some clothes that’ll fit you.”

The room looked just like a standard, generic hotel room. Almost. It had the two beds, pushed together as Izzy had said, the desk and small chair, the combination television stand and dresser, conspicuously missing the television. The walls, though, looked like someone had repainted them by blindfolding themselves and throwing buckets of paint at random, creating a bizarre tie-dye effect. Sandy looked as Izzy, and thought i wouldn’t be surprising if that was exactly how she’d painted the walls.

Izzy returned as she was taking in the paint job. “Do you like it?” she asked. “I’m not done decorating yet. I just moved in last week. Turned thirteen, so now I get my own room.” Thirteen was an old-fashioned milestone for adulthood, the age when one first became able to use magic. Sandy supposed they still stuck to that milestone, out here. Izzy spoke a quick spell, as if to demonstrate her new status, and the two beds jumped apart of their own accord. She laid some clothes out on one of the beds.

“I think these’ll fit you. Anyway, I’ll let you change and stuff. Vince says you’re tired.” And then she was out the door.

Sandy hadn’t really noticed her wet clothes before. after changing into the brown corduroy pants and purple tank top Izzy had brought, she felt wonderfully dry. She thought she’d lay down on the bed, just for a minute, to process everything that had happened, and maybe figure out what she was going to do next.

She was asleep before she hit the mattress.