I flinched.

“I don’t try and make enemies.  I, um, have a Dragon on my metaphorical tail.  Peredur wants me for something, Naul probably has a legitimate beef with me.  I don’t know if Peredur counts as hostile, though, given I lost him his pretty fairy.  I was paid by some old-fashioned Russian sorcerors, but that doesn’t mean they were happy with my services.  My ex- runs a coven who is in the middle of a witch war and she seems to have some kind of vendetta against me.  I was set up against the Shadow King.   I staked a vampire out in the sun for a while to get some answers.  She might hold a grudge.  Some -cubi have my worst interests at heart.  My could-have-been-an-ex- is officially dead, although her phone called me and I haven’t called it back.  I’ve been told her death was a ruse.  That’s just in the last few months, let alone days,” I sighed.

“You keep busy,” he said, nodding.  He held back the slip of paper to me.

“Oh, you know, it’s important to keep a hand in,” I said, hoping the sardonic tone explained everything.  I took the slip and put it back in my pocket.  “What is it?”

“Minus one handbasket, I’d say it was a pretty sincere threat.”

I took it right back out of my pocket and placed it on the armrest of the couch.  “You mean…”  I put it into context, and then took it back out. “That’s a floating place?”

“Marlowe’s Doctor may have had the right of it.”  He shrugged.

“I say we make our own torments,” his wife said, coming back into the room and the conversation.  She had something in her hand, a strange rock-like thing with an edge, kind of micro-obelisk-ish.  If that’s a word.  (Saying it aloud is hard to do after eating crackers, I bet.)

“I don’t know if it’s a path I could set anyone upon,” the Questor half-smiled.

“Don’t mind him,” his wife said, sitting next to me.  “He’s an atheist.”

I couldn’t help but make a surprised laugh.  “I think you’re looking at a bigger picture than I can,” I said, finally, to the Questor.  “Not that I’ve dealt really with non-manifest Powers.  I just hear stories.”

He grinned.  “I try not to take anything on faith.”

His wife rolled her eyes.  “Here,” she said, putting the rock into my hand.  I considered snatching my hand away at the last minute, but she was quick.

It felt warm, very warm, and almost as if some kind of heartbeat were pulsing through it.  “What is it?”

“A tooth.  I’d say about four warriors worth,” she grinned.  “It’s not a major canine or anything.  Anyway, I’m only letting you borrow it, not bury it.  Next time Peredur comes a-calling, you have some leverage.”  She tilted her head.  “You’ll want to give me something in return so the pendulum swings freely and not at an angle.  I’ll similarly keep it in trust.”  She glanced at her husband.  “It feels really weird to ask for such things.  Why is it always that calling out the rules sounds so ridiculous?”

He chortled, but stayed quiet.

I pulled out the rock the Small Folk had given me and gave it to her without hesitation.  “It’s a wish, I think.”

She held it up to her eyes and I could feel things moving around in the air as it was inspected on several different levels.  It was like a music-box melody, with tiny little “pings” as the cylinder rotated and pushed bits of metal away.  “A fair trade,” she said.  “And both gifts perilous,” she smiled and I saw her teeth.

“We only make the most interesting friends,” the Questor murmured to her.  They clasped hands for a moment, smiling at each other.  I smiled, too.

“What is your next step?” the Questor’s wife asked.

“Uh… I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I admitted.  I pulled out my phone.  “I’ve been making lists.”

“Things to do, promises to keep, how many miles before you can sleep?” she asked, teasingly.

“Well, yes, and, yes, and, no.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“Try and stop her,” the Questor grinned.  She slapped at the air near him.

“Sure,” I said, bemused.

“You are in no danger here.  You will be in no danger, short of a Dragon, sleeping in your hotel room tonight.  Get some rest.”  She seemed quite sure of this, and I suspect it wasn’t just digging up a tooth that took so long in the back.

“Am I allowed to thank you?”

“What, do I look like a fairy?” she asked, with a hint of what I always thought was a New York accent.

I shrugged, grinning.  They look however they want to look.

“Alright, I’ve been accused of being a little fey at times.   Anyway, I understand you don’t want to be a wizard.  I have had those moments, myself.”

“About twice a month, if I recall correctly,” the Questor suggested.

“Shush!” She grinned at him, then turned back to me.  “Once I took on the mantle I owed too many favours to get out of it again,” she said, adding, “Even if I knew how.  You’ve been marked.”  She made sure I knew it.  I nodded.  “Until whatever it is is truly relinquished, the kinds of things that are happening to you, and no, I don’t know or care what all of them are, will keep happening.”

“So I’m stuck being a weirdness magnet until I somehow get rid of the invisible blot of Caine?”

“Well, that’s a way of putting it,” she said, her grin turning wry.  “But you’re not Job or any martyr.”  She looked me straight in the eye, just long enough for me to see that she was serious without it becoming anything else.  “You could pick up the mantle, such as it is.”

I shook my head.

“What if I said wizards are made, not just born?” she asked.  “Why are you so afraid of it?”