Chapter One

Lorina opened the door. Devin looked up from his homework and saw a young girl and boy holding hands with their heads bowed so their long, black hair obscured their faces. They were dressed in black and white clothes that would have been more appropriate in a movie set in the 1950s than reality.

Devin wanted to run. He had wanted to flee even before Lorina opened the door. Now that primal part of him that wanted to escape was focused on the children. Something deep inside them was broken and empty. The feeling was both strange and clear, and he had learned to trust his instincts. These children were dangerous. He closed his algebra book and stood, intending to tell Lorina to send them away. Before he spoke, she stepped away from the door and let them in.

Once inside, the boy -who looked about ten- grabbed Lorina’s wrist. The girl-perhaps twelve-ran past her into the kitchen. She ripped out the silverware drawer. Wood and metal clattering against the ground. Devin didn’t want to see Lorina hurt, but he also knew if anything happened to her, he was the one they would blame.

Lorina was still struggling to break free. Another sign something was wrong. She should have easily broken the grip of a ten-year-old boy. Devin grabbed the table lamp next to the recliner. It came on brighter at his touch until he pulled the cord from the wall.

He rushed forward, but stalled as he reached the boy. He had seen the PSAs from The Bureau of Magical Affairs and news reports warning of the sudden appearance of supernatural creatures and the vague and unhelpful suggestions of what to do when they attacked. He doubted the lamp was silver or holy, but it was the closest thing he could find. So, he struck the boy in the back of the head. But as certain as he was that this was a monster, he held back. He didn’t want to hurt a kid.

The blow was solid. The boy turned to face Devin. His eyes were pure black, and Devin felt something he could barely understand. There was a void reflected in those eyes that mirrored some deep, empty part of Devin. An emptiness created as he held his mother’s hand and watched cancer drain the life from her. Nothing had ever filled that void.

“Let us in,” the young boy said. He was already inside, but Devin still wanted to. Some part of him wanted to stop fighting against that void. Instead, Devin grabbed the boy, pulling him away from Lorina. The girl returned from the kitchen with one of Lorina’s butcher knives. Devin was going to be murdered by tweens.

As he held the boy, he searched for a solution. The boy was strong and Lorina was less help than he might have assumed, even from a small, sheltered housewife. She had collapsed to the ground in fear and was now curled into a ball. There had to be something he could do. Every monster had a weakness. A way to drain the strength from them. And as he struggled with that idea, a chill flowed over him. It started in his hands and flowed into him.

He knew he should fight, but he allowed the color to drain from the world and it became black and white without even shades of gray.

The girl froze in mid-step and the boy went limp. A steak knife fell from the girl’s hand, hitting the ground at the same time Devin dropped the boy.

Both children looked at him with entirely black eyes. Then the girl stepped over Lorina and took the boy’s hand. Black figures in a world that was little more than a white void. They turned their backs to Devin and walked out of the house. The entire incident was over a few seconds after it had started.

Devin reached down towards the black circle on the floor to help Lorina from the ground, but she scrambled away and she said, “Black.”

For a moment he thought it was something racial. Lorina had never treated him differently because of that, but she wouldn’t be the first white woman to fool him into thinking she was different. Then he glanced at the mirror above where they kept the car keys. The world, even in the mirror, was black and white, but he could see himself clearly. His eyes had turned entirely black.

“It’s just me. I don’t know what happened,” Devin said.

Lorina scrambled away, hitting her back against the wall hard enough a framed photo fell from the wall. Devin walked into the kitchens and found the first aid kit, a white box in the strange black and white world. When he returned Lorina took the box and said, “Thank you, but I think it would be better if you stayed in your room. I am sorry.”

Having one of his foster parents apologize for anything was uncommon, and he had felt the same terror she had, so he said, “Yes ma’am.” And went up the stairs to the small bedroom next to her scrap booking room.

The only decorations were a few cheap posters he had bought on their shopping trip after he had gotten here that were now simply black squares on a white wall. The Morris’s were closer to the middle class than most of the people who had fostered him, but he wouldn’t get attached to the posters. They’d be left behind with most of the rest of the things when he was moved to the next home.

He laid on his bed and watched the white void tracing the black lines of corners and cracks in the wall with his eyes. After three hours, the color just snapped back into existence. He waited another hour before he made his way to the small bathroom next to his room. His eyes weren’t black anymore.

He hoped that meant everything could return to normal. He liked Lorina and while Henry wasn’t here much, he’d always invite Devin to watch the Bulls game with him. But even though Devin looked normal, but something had changed. He had saved Lorina’s life, but she couldn’t even look him in the eyes.

He had seen that look. There was something empowering about it being because of a choice he had made, and not just how he looked. Perhaps that explained why so many kids in the system caused so much trouble. But he also needed to know what had happened. It hadn’t been an accident. Somehow he had taken part of the monster into himself.

After eating dinner alone in his room and finishing his algebra homework, Devin was exhausted. He collapsed, sleeping until morning when he found a plate of eggs, toast and bacon sitting outside his room. While he dipped his toast into the runny egg yolk, he tried to consider the answer, but all he knew was that it was magic.

He avoided Lorina as he got ready for school, knowing what was coming, but she watched him as he moved through the kitchen towards the back door. She sipped her coffee without taking her eyes off of him and as he put his hand on the door, almost free, she said, “I called Evelyn. It’s really not you. I just don’t know why they attacked us and I think it might be dangerous, for both of us, you know.”

Evelyn was his case worker. Lorina didn’t want to say it and probably felt guilty for it, but she blamed him for the attack. But before he left, she put down the coffee, walked over to him, and gave him a hug, tears reflecting in her eyes.

It was the tears that made Devin decide to help. He wasn’t sure what he had done before, but he tried something. Focusing on the fear and flashes of memories of the events with the black eyed children from Lorina’s point of view flowed into him. He didn’t know how much, but when Lorina sat back down at the kitchen table, she sat a little straighter.

The next morning he gathered his school books, a few clothes and stuffed them into the old duffel bag he had been given a half a dozen homes ago. Evelyn drove him to an apartment close enough he hoped he wouldn’t have to change schools. It was a cheap three bedroom apartment with one bathroom and there were already three young foster kids living here. Evelyn frowned as she looked around, but said nothing. This had been short notice.

The house looked as if someone had recently rushed through and put things away, but there hadn’t been time to clean. The other three kids were all much younger. Devin understood. It wasn’t the first time he had been assigned a home to be the babysitter. It let the foster parents collect checks without having to take care of children and usually they weren’t bad foster homes. At least they left you alone.

Devin stayed in the smallest of the three bedrooms and watched the three kids every night So Tina and Hank could drink, smoke, and watch movies with their friends. He looked forward to the nights when they went to a different house to do the same thing. Those nights he only had to focus on protecting the three children from the dangers of being kids, and kids in foster care usually knew how to take care of themselves.

“Shut up! I’m trying to watch the game,” Devin said, as the three children he was babysitting ran through the room laughing and yelling. The oldest of the three was Bethany, who slowed but didn’t stop. Devin didn’t care if they stopped so long as they made a noise somewhere else. He just wanted to watch the Cubs lose in peace.

He cursed quietly under his breath as yet another of the Cubs struck out and was almost glad for the knock on the door, interrupting the slowly growing pain of watching the game.

He hit mute, walked over to the door, and looked through the peephole. He hadn’t been here long enough to know any of Tina and Hank’s friends. But the three people on the other side of the door didn’t meet expectations. They were wearing black suits rather than torn jeans and old ratty t-shirts, and none of them had the glassy eyed look of someone who shouldn’t be driving over to someone’s house.

He considered pretending no one was home, but the children ran through the living room yelling, making it pointless. Cops wouldn’t leave because he didn’t answer the door, so he knocked the Cheeto dust off his shirt and opened the door.

The two men moved past him, stepping into the house without greeting or warning while the woman said, “Hello. Are you Devin Jones?”

“No one said you could come inside,” Devin said. He knew it was a bad idea. One of the last conversations his father had with him had been the talk. The one where he explained people, especially the police, would treat him differently because of how he looked. Everything in his life had reinforced that understanding. And that was before the weirdness on the news over the last few months that had reinforced both the power of the police and the xenophobia of many people. And Devin had firsthand knowledge of how dangerous letting someone enter your house could be.

“I’m sorry. No one is in any trouble. We just needed to secure the house. You can’t be too careful when dealing with supernatural elements. We would like you to come with us.”

“I can’t just leave. I’m watching the children,” Devin said, trying to remember what it was like when the mention of magic would have seemed insane. Had it really only been a few months ago?

The kids would be fine. Children in foster care grew up fast. They also knew how to recognize an adult with authority and had disappeared into the bedroom. Likely they were gathering up their few things in case they were going to be moved again. He had lost more than a few things in moves before he understood some adults would steal your stuff.

“I will stay,” the woman said.

“Couldn’t we just talk here. The kids won’t bother us. Trust me, they’re way too afraid of you to get in the way.”

“It is more than a conversation. We believe you have magic and are offering you an opportunity.”

“To live in a government lab,” Devin said.

“Not a laboratory. A training facility. One with far nicer than this place. You’ll be given your own home be paid well,” the woman said.

“And what if I say no?”

“Then you’ll be arrested for assault on Lorina Morris and either spend the next two years in a juvenile facility or agree to come and work for us. That way comes with fewer benefits,” the woman said.

“I get it. You have the power. Let me get my things.”

“We’ll supply all necessities. Bring only any irreplaceable personal items. They will be examined but not damaged.”

Devin had little. A couple of pictures of his mother, his ID, and a wrinkled old birthday card his mother had claimed came from his father. He packed all of that into a crown royal bag and stuffed it into his pocket.

The men led him to their black SUV. As they neared it, the agent put his hand on the back of Devin’s head, to keep him from hitting his head as he got in. He might be part of a different agency now, but this man had been a cop. He had also made a mistake. As soon as the man touched Devin’s head, Devin struck out with magic. For a moment he saw the man’s whole life laid out on shelves like at a store. There were memories, skills, physical abilities, and more ethereal things.

Devin still didn’t understand his magic. But he knew what he could do. He siphoned out as much of the agent’s physical strength as he believed he could safely take. Suddenly much weaker, the agent stumbled, and Devin used the extra strength to shove him into the SUV hard enough to dent it.

The other agent reached inside his jacket. But while Devin wasn’t superhumanly strong, he was stronger than he had been a few seconds before. He held the agent’s wrist inside his jacket and pushed the darkest memories he had into the agent’s mind. The memories were bad, but once he had given them to him, he couldn’t have said why. All he had were memories of the memories. Those told him that the agent wouldn’t be chasing anyone soon, and Devin hoped when he did, it would be the people in those memories.

The agent’s eyes widened, and he took several steps away from Devin, then turned and ran. That was a good idea, and Devin ran in the opposite direction as the female agent stepped out onto the porch, phone already in her hand.

Devin didn’t have anywhere to go, but thanks to the new magic, he didn’t need anyone else.

* * *

Julianna sat on the toadstool, eyes closed to block out the chaos of the world. She had long ago stopped caring if the world killed her. It wasn’t long after she learned nothing here could kill her.

A voice broke the silence. Something was talking to her. That wasn’t uncommon. Most things here could talk. None of them had anything worthwhile to say. So she ignored them.

The voice continued, but she didn’t look. That would only encourage it. Her stomach growled with hunger and she broke off a corner of the toadstool and stuffed it into her mouth and chewed. Julianna had once convinced herself it mattered what part of the toadstool she ate. There had to be rules. Now she understood that the only rules to this place were the ones she created.

The talking continued. Julianna gave up. She would have to acknowledge whatever had disturbed her, so it would go away.

It was a man. He wore a blue robe and looked as if he came from the far east. He seemed calm. If it were possible, she might think he was just a man. But normal, simple, everyday people didn’t exist anymore. Only madmen, queens and talking animals. As she allowed her eyes to focus on him, he asked, “Can you hear me?”

Behind him was a doorway. She ignored it. This place was full of doors of every shape and size. None led anywhere important. How could anywhere be important in a place where the only rule was constant change? She swallowed her mushroom and reached down, breaking off another piece.

“I said, ‘can you hear me!’” the man said louder, forcing her to focus on him. It was odd. Most of the people here spoke in riddles or nonsense poetry. What he said almost made sense.

“I can hear you,” she said, and took a bite from the toadstool. Eating was one of the more dangerous things you could do in this world. In the world before, eating changed you in minor ways. It kept you strong or made you sick. In this world, any change was likely to be both dramatic and random. This was one of the more normal days and she grew larger, or perhaps she was returning to normal size. Julianna had long since lost track of what size she should be. It didn’t matter, except the mushroom she had been sitting comfortably on was now far too small.

Stranger still, the man remained—relative to her—the same size.

“It’s time for you to come home,” he said.

Julianna considered that. She had wanted to go home once. And she had tried to create a home here. Both were impossible. There was no escape from this place, and no matter how much time and effort you put into creating a home here, it would simply change into something else for no reason.

She watched him and tried to remember something important. Someone was supposed to find her. Or perhaps she was supposed to find someone. No, that wasn’t it. She was supposed to find the gate. That was what he had said. But it hadn’t been this man, and she didn’t think it had been this gate.

She closed her eyes again, ignoring him. This was another trick. Perhaps her mind had been changed by this place again and she would see gates and people until she believed they were real. Then they would disappear again.

A hand took hers. It was solid. Too solid. It barely changed at all. The skin simply moved with the pressure of her hand rather than twisting and changing into something else. Was that how things were on Earth? It might have been. It had been so long ago she couldn’t remember.

The hand pulled her, and she opened her eyes. She couldn’t die. Her punishment would end if she died. But things could become painful. She pulled her hand back, but he held on and said, “I am here to save you. But I need you to help me in return.”

She didn’t understand. But she nodded. Once she agreed, it would go away and she could find some place comfortable to ignore the world again. He opened the door. The other side was crowded with people. Real, human, people.

She had forgotten the gates and remembered them again hundreds of times. Hundreds of other times she had dreamed of finding a gate and given up. She had long since moved past that.

She stepped through into a crowded street. Someone went by in a yellow cart and another on a loud bicycle with smoke pouring from the back. Someone bumped into her and the man’s hand broke free of hers. She was carried along in the crowd. She pushed through the mass of humanity, looking for the man who had brought her. He was gone.

All around here were tables and stores. She vaguely remembered the concept of buying and selling from when she had lived in a world where things were stable enough to have owners. She moved towards a building. As she walked, she recognized everyone around her looked different from her. It was partially her clothes. They were clearly hopelessly out of date. But they also had darker skin, and most had black hair.

She didn’t care what they looked like. What was important was that they didn’t change. Everything here was solid. It was loud, crowded, and filled with things she didn’t understand, but it was solid. As she walked, she allowed her skin to grow darker with each step. But it wasn’t just her skin. Her hair changed from blond to black and by the time that she reached a booth that sat along the edge of the street piled high with bright cloth, the only thing not wasn’t a copy of someone from the crowd were her clothes.

She picked out something red and gold and wrapped it around her. As she turned to walk out, someone said something. She only understood parts of what she said, but it didn’t matter. Julianna simply raised her hand and focused. It was barely harder to change someone else than it was to change herself.

It wouldn’t be much harder to kill the woman. Julianna didn’t want to see anyone die. Instead, she removed her mouth so she would stop talking. She then turned and walked back into the crowd, continuing to change her appearance slowly enough no one would see the changes.

This was Earth. It had to be. It had been so long since she had left she believed this place didn’t exist anymore. Once she had forgotten why she had gone through the gate into the world of eternal change, she had decided the only reason she would have gone there was to keep from dying. None of that mattered anymore. All she wanted was a quiet and peaceful world. An ordered world where you always knew what was going to happen and had none of the chaos she had survived.

* * *

Quinn glanced up from his book to watch his two best friends trying to kill each other. Hanna swung a branch the size of a small tree at Tim’s head like it was weightless. Tim was moving before she swung the makeshift weapon and hit the tree next to the one Quinn was leaning against. Leaves raining down around him along with some chunks of bark.

Tim insisted that being an oracle made him as almost as invulnerable as Hanna. So far, he had been right. He could see several seconds into the future and that made avoiding blows trivial. But, He was still human. That meant when he hit Hanna, who was half jinn, in the side as hard as he could, hurt his hand more than her.

Luckily for him, she didn’t turn into fire, but while fire was the most powerful weapon Hanna had, it wasn’t necessary for this fight. Without using magic, Tim had no way to hurt Hanna.

“Do you two have to kill each other while I’m trying to study?” Quinn asked, shaking the bark and leaves off his calculus book.

“We’d do it when you weren’t studying if that ever happened,” Tim said, as Hanna tossed the branch into the bushes that hid this part of the park from view.

“I missed almost a month of school and have to learn enough magic to keep all three of us alive before any of Nate’s enemies find us,” Quinn said.

“And you think I’m trying to hit Tim in the head because it’s fun?” Hanna said, leaning against a tree.

“Yes,” Quinn said.

Hanna grinned and said, “Fine, it’s fun. But there are things out there that want to kill us, and we need to train too. Besides, if I were actually going to hit him, he’d know and yield.”

It was the same discussion they had every few days. It would only take one mistake to cave in Tim’s skull, and Quinn was the one Nate expected to fix things. They shouldn’t even be involved.

“Don’t you both have finals you should study for too?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t sleep so I can study tonight,” Hanna said.

“And I’ve figured out a full proof way to pass the tests. After I fill in the answer I’ll use my ability to see if the teacher marked it correct or not and if it’s wrong I’ll change it,” Tim said.

“That’s only going to work if the teacher grades it within three seconds of when you mark it,” Quinn said.

“I can stretch it out to almost twice that with focus,” Tim said.

“Even if you could stretch it out long enough for it to work, it wouldn’t actually mean you knew the subject,” Quinn said.

“Ya, but it would mean I could win the lottery so it wouldn’t really matter if I understood American History,” Tim said. As an oracle, money was an obstacle for Tim. At least, not once he was old enough to gamble. There were plenty of games of chance he could make a living playing. He also probably didn’t plan to cheat on his tests. He was taking classes that were way too easy for him. Not studying just meant he might not get an A.

“Winning the lottery won’t help you become a wizard,” Quinn said.

“And calculus will?” Tim asked. So far as Quinn knew, Tim wasn’t taking any math, let alone calculus.

“Have you read any of Nate’s journals? Calculus barely gets you started.”

“I’m pretty sure a literature degree would be more useful than math,” Hanna said, putting her jacket on the ground so she didn’t have to sit in the dirt. That explained why she had a jacket when she was immune to temperature changes.

“The amount of studying is one of the main reasons it takes people more than a hundred years to become a wizard,” a voice said from behind Quinn.

Quinn stood, doing his best to keep the large oak at his back as he did. The voice came from a twenty-something Asian man who had an aura that meant he was a wizard or something else with powerful magic.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, but that didn’t calm Quinn as the small orb of magical colors began to spin in front of him, preparing for a magical attack.

“Who are you?” Hanna asked, stepping forward as Quinn stepped back. That was in part because she was more fearless than Quinn, but mostly because they had practiced. As an ifrit, Hanna could turn into fire. That far more dangerous in close quarters combat. Quinn was just learning the most basic magic, and most wizard’s magic took preparation.

“Kevin. I’m from the Order of Olympus.”

“You don’t look like an olympian,” Tim said, a statement that might be considered insulting if you had never seen an olympian, but knowing them it was obvious. Olympians weren’t so much beautiful as they were statues of flawless beauty that had come to life. No one who knew what they looked like would ever confuse one with a human.

“He’s not an olympian he’s from Nate’s order. Each of the orders was associated with one of the twelve gates,” Quinn said. Tim was likely playing dumb, or perhaps giving the wizard a chance to lie. Either way, Quinn didn’t want to look ignorant.

“You speak as if it’s not your order, but you were apprenticed into the order when you put on that ring,” Kevin said, nodding towards the signet ring that Quinn still hadn’t figured out how to take off.

“And you’re the first person from the order I’ve met, aside from Nate,” Quinn said.

“Nathanial was in hiding so we did not know you existed until we saw the videos from New York, and it took time to determine who you were from blurry images,” Kevin said.

“You still haven’t explained why you’re here,” Quinn said. Nate didn’t trust the wizards in his order anymore than any of the others and had warned Quinn that some of them would try to see revenge against him by killing his apprentice.

“We are contacting all members of the order. You are currently the only apprentice. That makes you a problem. You need to find someone willing to take you as an apprentice in the next six months or lose our protection.”

“You’ve been doing a bang up job of protecting us so far. You didn’t even show up when someone was trying to kill everyone in New York,” Tim said.

“We knew nothing about Dr. Lee or his plan. But I trust you understand why we couldn’t have gotten involved even if we had known,” Kevin said.

“More wizards would have given his spell more power,” Quinn said, then realized he probably shouldn’t have confirmed that. The end of the fight had been captured on camera and shown on every news network and local news show in the country. He still saw it on Twitter from time to time. But besides not revealing his face, magic didn’t show up on cameras. That was a good thing because the spell Dr. Lee had used was the same spell that had convinced Nate to block all magic in the world for five hundred years instead of telling the members of his order it existed.

What made it worse was that Nate hadn’t created the spell. He had discovered it in books written by members of that order. That meant at least one other person knew the spell existed.

“We admit failure. And many of us were impressed by the skill you showed. But that skill doesn’t men our help is not valuable. We have resources, including libraries of research material and supplies, for the creation of spells and enchantments. And, if a member of our order is killed or injured, we have taken a vengeance oath. One that keeps people from indiscriminately attacking us. We could also supply a stipend. Most of our members are quite rich.”

“Where are the research materials? I’m currently a member, am I not?” Quinn said.

“You are an apprentice. An apprentice may only visit a research laboratory with their master. But that would hardly matter. Most of them are written in languages you don’t know and without sufficient training you wouldn’t understand the books written in English well enough to make them useful.”

There was no way to prove any of that was true. He couldn’t even prove Kevin was part of the Olympian Order. Quinn could only confirm Kevin was a wizard, because he could see his aura.

“What if I passed the test to become a wizard,” Quinn asked.

“You won’t.”

“Indulge me,” Quinn said.

“I believe you passed the first and simplest part of the test,” Kevin said, and he glanced at Hanna and Tim. Quinn understood. Knowledge the thirteenth gate existed wasn’t secret, but virtually everything else about it was. And not just because wizards like to keep secrets. The gate comprised your own internal world, and it used everything you knew to trap you there. So—for reasons only partially clear to Quinn—knowing less about the gate made it easier to survive.

“They know I’ve visited the thirteenth gate. They don’t know what it is,” Quinn said.

“That is not so much a part of the test as the required qualifications to take the test. There were those in the order that believed you foolish enough to attempt it. And so we prepared a test for you. There is a woman. She knew Nate. She was in Wonderland when Nathanial closed the gates. We have been monitoring all the gates and have sensed her return. I believe she will search out Nathaniel. Instead, she will find you. If you wish to be tested, we will not protect you from her. If you can’t survive that you would only be a drain on the resources of the Order.”

“So I’d have to fight her alone?” Quinn asked. He would anyway. He had already put his friends at too much risk. He wouldn’t do it again.

“Not at all. The test is to determine your resources. If you can convince Peter or Oz to defend you, that is a significant resource. But I wouldn’t count on their aid. This isn’t the same as last time. The only requirement to pass is that you not be aided from members of our order.”

Quinn had only spoken to Oz twice since he had returned from New York, and only because he was the executor of Nate’s will. Now that Quinn knew Oz was Osiris, that decision fit better with what he knew of Nate. Who better to trust to make sure things were done fairly than the person who judged the dead in the hall of truth and if it helped Nate be judged better in the afterlife, that was just a bonus.

He hadn’t seen Peter at all. That was just as well. He liked Peter, but seeing the grim reaper wasn’t something you wanted to do often.

Kate was the most likely to help. She was a titan. The weakest of the group. More so now that she had most of her magic stolen by Dr. Lee. But she wasn’t bound by the arcane rules that held Oz and Peter. What she had left was more knowledge about magic and wizardry than almost anyone in the world, immortality, and a willingness to help. That last was suspect. She was still an olympian, and that meant she expected to get something out of that aid.

“You telling me she existed is more help than I expected. I already knew Nate had enemies. So I might as well try to get something out of surviving,” Quinn said, then added, “Can you tell me anything about her?”

“Julianna has spent five hundred years in Wonderland. That place changes you physically and mentally. Eventually the physical changes to her mind should return to normal, but after so long I doubt there is enough sanity left in her for it to matter.”

“Wait, are you saying Wonderland, as in Alice’s Adventures in, exists,” Tim said.

“I believe Mr. Carol had visited that world and his story has become famous enough we use the name. It’s less cumbersome than the world of constant change,” Kevin said.

“So, she’s completely insane,” Quinn said. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass” had been one of the first books that Nate had given Quinn. Quinn had been frustrated by the books. He preferred things that made sense.

“She’s almost certainly mad as a hatter,” Kevin said, and grinned. That remind Quinn of what he knew about wizards. They were almost universally so arrogant they didn’t care about the lives of other people. And, if Kevin was a wizard, he had been once since before Nate had closed the gates and locked magic out of the world. That meant he was over five hundred-year-old.

“So, we kill and pass your test,” Hanna said.

“Her life or death is irrelevant to us. She is not a member of our order. But the test will not end until she is no longer a threat to you. But, that is only part of the test. You will also need to free yourself of debts. We can not have someone compromised by debt in our order. It makes you too easy to control.”

“Why would he have any debts? Nate left him a fortune,” Tim said.

“He’s talking about my obligation to the fae. I’m working on it. But changelings look human and don’t know they’re half fae. That makes them difficult to find.”

Keven took some antique eyeglasses, handed them to Quinn and said, “Those will make it easier for you to track a changeling. We know of one in Chicago who has already used his abilities. That makes him a danger to everyone, including himself. His name is Devin. He is in the foster care system. I believe the fae can locate him with that information.”

“Do you want me to do it while standing on one foot, too? Perhaps I should challenge Dan to a fistfight,” Quinn said.

“Who is Dan?” Kevin said, showing that he didn’t know everything for the first time in this conversation.

“I’m pretty sure he’s Yama, but he introduced himself as Dan. I never actually got his real name.”

“Dan’s as real a name as Yama. We all change our names often. I wasn’t born Kevin. But I understand your point. What we ask is impossible. Unless you’re a wizard. That is the point of the test,” Kevin said.

It made sense. If the test was easy, it wouldn’t prove anything.

“Do you have any advice?” Quinn asked.

Kevin smiled again, this time more genuine and said, “Most people don’t think to ask that. I suspect they don’t understand this is part of the test. Wonderland is a land of constant change. And the ability to use magic from any gate is connected to how well you understand the world that gate is connected to. After five hundred years trapped in Wonderland, she is likely better with the magic of that place than anyone. Julianna could look like someone you know or become a monster out of nightmares. And that’s only the obvious power. There are others. Mind-shaping, soul-shaping, body-shaping and alchemy are all connected to Wonderland. Be cautious of trusting anything you see and even of your own mind and soul if you spend time with her.”

“Thank you,” Quinn said, and the wizard turned and walked down the park’s trail without another world.

Once he was out of sight, Tim said, “I thought you didn’t plan on joining Nate’s order.”

“I can’t join it. The order requires you to share everything you know of magic. That includes Nate’s spell. But I don’t have to tell them that. And this test is, so far as I can tell, things that would happen anyway. They just aren’t offering to help. So I got some information and a pair of glasses out of the deal,” Quinn said, and he handed the glasses to Hanna.

“What do you want me to do with these?”

“You’ve been practicing not burning things you’re carrying when you turn to fire and you can cover a lot more ground than us. Besides, I’d look silly in glasses.”

Hanna slipped them on and her hair, which had turned bright red the day magic returned to the world, fell around them. They were out of style enough that anyone who looked at Hanna would have to believe they were a fashion choice.

“This doesn’t just let you see fae,” Hanna said.

“I suspect it emulates wizard senses. Every wizard senses magic differently. That gives them advantages and disadvantages. But they’re also wizards, so they don’t just accept limitations. They make tools to give themselves more. The apprentice rings are the most common, but they’re not the only ones. You’re probably seeing the world the way I do,” Quinn said.

“Those colors make no sense,” Hanna said. Quinn glanced at the small blob of color that was currently hiding under a leaf. Saying the colors made no sense wasn’t entirely accurate, but the colors weren’t anything that existed outside of the supernatural world, so they were colors she had never seen before.

“You’ll learn to interpret them better. They don’t look like real colors because they aren’t colors. They’re ideas, concepts, emotions and more.”

“What about the weird twisting blob under the leaf by your foot?” Hanna asked.

That surprised Quinn. He couldn’t see other people’s magic and had assumed other people couldn’t see his magic. That Hanna could suggest that wizards, including Kevin, could as well. “That’s my magic. It’s partially independent of me, but also connected. I still don’t fully understand it,” Quinn said, and as he paid it more attention, it shot up from the ground and floated around his head.

“And why is it looking in your ear?” Hanna asked.

“It’s curious,” Quinn said.

Hanna went back to looking around the world with awe, and Quinn took out his phone and hit the forth button on his contacts right after his mother, Tim, and Hanna. It rang once, then went to voice-mail. He said, “Kate, this is Quinn. I was just informed there is a woman named Julianna, who was trapped in Wonderland for the last five hundred years. She’s now is likely hunting me. If you get this, please, call me. I could use your advice.”

“So, you want to leave tomorrow?” Tim said.

“We have finals tomorrow and I will not be a fourth-year junior.”

“You want to stay here so you can take a calculus test?”

“It’s my chemistry final and we need to give Kate time to contact us, and to talk to our parents. I’d also like some time to pack up my supplies. As wizards, most of our advantage comes from preparation,” Quinn said. He’d prefer going by himself, but if he tried, he was confident Tim and Hanna would follow him.

* * *

Quinn worked through the problems on his chemistry test. He had to resisting the urge to use Techne Apokto to become the best chemist in the world. Techno Apokto was a magical ability that lasted about five minutes, then he became mentally exhausted for hours.

He glanced up between questions and saw that Mr. Tarkus had come into the room. He was officially the social studies teacher, but Quinn knew the truth. The tall, dark haired, man with green eyes was part of the government’s newest law enforcement agency, The Bureau of Magical Affairs. He was nominally here to protect Quinn. Mostly he was here to convince him to join the agency. Quinn saw that as just as problematic as joining The Order of Olympians and just as dangerous to turn down.

Quinn was the third person to bring his test to his teacher’s desk. He likely would have been first, but a couple of questions from the part of the school year he had missed had been difficult. As he handed the papers over to Mrs. Crendor, she nodded silently towards Mr. Tarkus, who gestured for Quinn to follow.

Neither spoke until they reached Mr. Tarkus’s office and the teacher locked the door. His walls were covered with soundproofing panels. It was one of the few concessions the agent had given to showing that he wasn’t a normal teacher, though it wasn’t all that hard to explain since he shared a wall with the music room.

Mr. Tarkus sat and the magical blob of constantly shifting otherworld colors that made up Quinn’s magical senses explored the room. As his senses, it was constantly curious about the world. But it was more than simply a sixth sense. It was in some ways analogous to both his soul and body. Another part of what he was, though more separate than the other two. Since it had intelligence, it could learn, and he had been training it to search out listening devices. It had found four in Quinn’s house, not counting the Alexa or phone. One had been in his bedroom, one in the bathroom, and two in his living room. His magic now found several more sitting on the shelf in this office.

“You can’t go to Chicago,” Mr. Tarkus said.

Quinn didn’t bother to ask how he knew about Chicago. He had given up on hiding minor things from Mr. Tarkus. The bureau had all the best equipment. A parabolic microphone wouldn’t be a problem.

“What do you suggest?” Quinn asked.

“Witness relocation,” Mr. Tarkus said.

“It wouldn’t work, unless you can hide me from magic. At least here I have allies,” Quinn said.

“Allies I don’t trust and don’t know enough about,” Mr. Tarkus said, his green eyes meeting Quinn’s as almost driving him back with the intensity. But Quinn wasn’t as easily frightened as he had once been.

“You can learn about them in the mythology section of the library,” Quinn said. Mr. Tarkus had never met Kate, but he had an irrational dislike for her. Quinn knew the negotiations between the United States government and the olympians had come to a stalemate over the last couple of months, but while Kate was from the same world as the olympians, she wasn’t on their side.

“It’s my job to protect you.”

“I didn’t ask for protection. And I doubt you can. Dr. Lee could alter people’s memories. Without a way to defend against magic, people with guns are just going to shoot each other, or me. And according to my sources, this most recent threat can look like anyone. That means I’d be safest alone,” Quinn said.

“You are an asset, and one this country desperately needs. Let us protect you until you can become what we all need you to be,” Mr. Tarkus said. Mr. Tarkus had discovered Nate had left Quinn a library of notebooks filled with magical knowledge and desperately wanted those books. That had forced Quinn to study the books without it being possible for anyone to follow him. It had taken some magic and a significant amount of time in Dreamland, but now he could study every night while sleeping.

“I have rights,” Quinn said, and he stood up. Then he turned back and said, “And stop spying on me or I’m going to break your bugs.”