“Again,” he said.

“Of course,” I said, and I tried again.  I had sweat on my brow and a headache, and the weird weather was heck on the joints and I was still a young’un.  I heard the tingling sounds of the gate, like windchimes in a breeze made of fresh bread and peppermint.  It wasn’t an unpleasant gate, but it was an opening, a draft, a reminder to get better insulation in the metaphor of reality.  I kept trying to find it and shut it, like sliding a double-hung window.  Which isn’t a euphemism, by the way.  A well hung window is very important in construction.  A well hung widow is just a weird thought, even in these days of gender fluidity.

Zach sprawled across the futon with the boneless ease of a cat, and he looked just as satisfied.  Nen was also amused, although he pretended to be reading the latest Wendig.  I knew he was pretending because he’d finished it last night with the smirk of someone looking forward to a friend reading the same book.  I was still far behind him just in keeping up to date with my comics pull.  Rayya was seemingly in rapt fascination from her perch on the bookshelf.  I suspected it was her turn to babysit, because Zach didn’t notice her.

I was surprised that I did, but I’d asked Nen about it a few days earlier.  He’d described it as “contagion.”

“I don’t like have fairy measles, right?” I asked.  I made a show of looking for green spots or something on my arms.

“Nor have I replaced your head with that of a donkey. Too overdone and likely redundant.  No, more law of contagion.  Once two things have been in contact, they synchronize to a certain extent.  You reverberate in a certain symphonic manner with our type of fey right now.  Do not worry; it’s not permanent.”  He paused.  “Of course, neither is mortal life.”

“So it will go away somewhere between now and my death?”  I might have sounded somewhat sardonic.

As usual, he ignored it. “Probably,” he said, sounding cheerful.  “But I would consider it a feature; there are times when it is useful to be able to see that you are observed.”

“That sounds like some kind of quantum physics koan.”

“Zen and the art of hadron collision?” he offered.

“We only collide the large hadrons.  The smaller ones we throw back.  It’s a requirement of the license.”

“How poetic,” he countered.

“Again,” Zach repeated.

I was really beginning to hate that word.  I was racking my brain to figure out if there was any positive use of it as a command.  I was putting it on the list of words the literary versions of the fey should consider taboo, in the company of “thank you” and “sorry.”  After all, “again,” even phrased as a polite request after a rousing act of sexual delight was still a challenge.  Every time he said it I had the mental image of that musical sign that means “repeat this measure.”  You know, the colon with the solid line on the right.  I approached it too much like a programmer; “rinse and repeat,” a loop without end.

“We’ve been at it all afternoon,” I realized I was whining, but I was worn out.  If my talent was a muscle, I’d strained it.  What if someone inadvertently used a Ouija board in the neighborhood tonight?  I’d be unable to do more than give them a stern lecture.

“A fine, red-blooded male such as yourself arguing about such a thing?  I’m so disappointed.”  Actually, Zach had become a lot more serious, and had teased me a lot less frequently as we worked together.  I don’t know if it was the audience or the familiarity.  I was still uncomfortably drawn to him at times, but it had become a lot less a magical fascination and a lot more controlled as I understood its source.

“Very funny,” I said.

“I can tell you’re tired,” he said, “when you can’t come up with a wittier rejoinder.”  He slung the farther leg onto the floor.  “But we can finish up.  I still don’t understand why you insist this isn’t wizardry.”

I bit my tongue in a metaphorical sense, counting to ten and then backwards in all the languages whose numbers I knew.  It’s actually a good exercise in that you don’t always approach the numbers that way when working another tongue.  Something in that phrasing was wrong, so I abandoned the thought quickly.

“I know wizards.  I’m friends with wizards.  I’m not a wizard.”

“The reason I ask,” he said, ignoring both what I said and the fact that he didn’t ask me a thing, “is that I think it’s your mental block that is keeping you from opening as much as closing.”

“I don’t think wanting to keep the integrity of reality a sure thing is a mental block.  It’s just good, common sense.”

He leaned forward.  “Look at your adventures.  Look at your friends.  I know about Matana.  It’s like you’re saying that all power can be used for is evil.  It’s not absolute, trust me.”

“I don’t think all power is evil,” I said.  I examined the statement and found it wanting.  “I think there’s definitely powers for good.  But my definition of good says that opening wanton doors is needlessly reckless, and doing needlessly reckless things is kind of evil.  Even if I just wanted to be selfish and say it’s dangerous to me, but it isn’t.  It puts other people at risk.  The whole reason I got into this was to make things better, and things from beyond are not the method to do so.”

“But are they all evil?”

Nen and Rayya stayed quiet, I noticed, which was all to the good, if you asked me.

“Vampires? Definitely.  The cost to their humanity is obvious.  Matana could be one of those noble types who only fed on murderers and it would still not make it right.”

“Is this a Kantian philosophy?  Because it can’t be applied categorically without exceptions, it’s unethical?”

Sometimes I really wanted to know what Zach’s background was.  “The slippery slope argument stands,” I said.  “Once I say yes to something little, we’re merely haggling over price.”  I sighed and took the chair from the computer desk.  “Anyway,” I continued, sitting down, “there’s a power scale involved.  Wizard isn’t just the hacker parlance anymore for me.  It’s not just someone who can do something very well.  They’re…” I gestured vaguely, “bigger than that.  They alter reality, yes, on a large scale, or at least have the ability to do so.”

“And you don’t?  Don’t we all have some mastery of our reality?”

“When I conquer Arcanus and Myrror together, I’ll let you know.”  He didn’t get the reference.  “Nevermind.  It’s from an old game.  Anyway, philosophy and magic don’t work together. I don’t care what Bach says; I am totally comfortable with my limitations.”

“So they’re not Illusions?”  He got that reference, at least.  I had hope for the kid.

I grinned back at him, and then yawned.

“The woman who taught me was…brutal,” he offered.

“You mean worse than you?” I teased.

“Ed doesn’t mind that I drive him hard,” he suggested the entendre.  I refused the bait and he went on.  “She was like a drill sergeant.  Tiny little ballerina body,” he said, thinking back.  “I mean, I didn’t relate on a physical level to her, but I would be surprised sometimes when I glanced over and she was half my size and doing what I understood to be the magical equivalent of juggling mammoths.”  He shrugged.

“Interesting phrase.”

“Well, I might have a thing for large hairy beasts,” he winked.

I rolled my eyes.

“She had a very different philosophy.  She thought that it was those that controlled the boundaries, the Portal Masters if you would, who had the real power.  That the magically talented were meant to colonize the otherlands.”

“Perish the thought,” Nen muttered.

“Well, it was kind of very Magneto,” he agreed.  “All the ironic master race stuff that got his parents killed.  And hers, I guess.  They were some kind of, well, you’d laugh.”

I shrugged.  “Go ahead,” I offered.

“Demon hunters.  That’s what she called them.”

“Don’t suppose they were Numancian?”  I tried the word out, but it felt funny in my mouth, like it wasn’t quite right.

“Um… it sounded like that.  How did you know?”

“Everything comes full circle,” I sighed.  “Anyway, did she believe in demons?”

“No.  Just aliens.  You know, creatures from other worlds.”  He chuckled.  “It’s amazing how many things start to sound reasonable when you put them into the right context.”

“Story of my life,” I muttered back to Nen.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay.  Anyway, I should head out.  Keep practicing.  If you want to be any good at this, you need to make it a deliberate thing, a ritual, not a vague feeling.”

“I’ve been getting along alright so far.”

“You’ve been muddling,” he said.  He stood up and stretched.  “Oh, almost forgot. Ed’s Mum wants you and Adam over early for supper on Sunday.”

Nen nodded.  “I’ll make sure he gets there,” he said, turning to wink at me.

“You just can’t resist her pie,” I sighed.

“Why bother? It’s good pie.”  He gave a nod to Zach as Ed’s boyfriend let himself out.

“What do you think?” I asked after the door closed.

“I think he’s too new age, and apt to stumble into serious trouble some day.  On the other hand, he does know a lot about what he’s doing.  Whoever taught him, was a real master.”

“Or mistress,” I grinned.

“Or mistress,” he said, not blinking an eye.  “They were trained old school.  You’re getting more sensitive to the boundaries.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing.  When I take a walk, I feel like every house in Capitol Hill is haunted.”

Rayya swung down from where she’d been sitting on the bookshelf.  “I think your premise is flawed, ghost-walker.  You seem to think it’s possible they’re not.”

“Is this a ‘trust my instincts’ speech?” I asked, annoyed.

“Our very presence indicates a thinning of the barriers between our kingdoms,” she said, looking serious, like pretty much always.

“Don’t think that saying things like that makes me at all comfortable,” I said, sighing.  I flipped at a book on the table.  “I mean, has anything tried to kill me recently for no reason?  Or are you just here to feed Nen’s book habit?”

They glanced at each other.  “If we say no,” Nen pointed out, “you’d think we weren’t needed.  If we say yes, you’ll ask too many questions.”

I considered it.  “True.  I’ll retract the question this once.  Mostly because I’ll probably replace it with six others as soon as my brain feels like working again.”

“Our time here is not infinite,” Rayya said.

“Huh,” I startled.  “Good, because Nen’s no wingman.  He cramps my style.”

“Your opportunity for amorous adventure has not been dissuaded by my presence, if in fact it existed at all,” Nen said.  “I don’t mind watching.”

“Oh, don’t do Zach’s weird leer thing,” I said.  “I’m just not into that.  Anyway, how would you know?  I used to meet lots of women.”

“Witches,” he pointed out.  “You met lots of witches.”

“Yeah, well,” I sighed.  “Fine, you win.  Happy now?”  I got up to lock the door, then crossed to the kitchen.  “Hey, Rayya, I’m going to heat something with tomato sauce and some kind of meltable white cheese food product.  You interested?”

“You have a visitor,” she said.  Both she and Nen were staring at the door, almost vibrating with intensity.

“They haven’t knocked,” I pointed out.

Rayya rolled her eyes at Nen.  “He never does.”

“He?  Do I know him?” I came back to the door, watching their cues.  “Should I open it?”

“Might as well,” Nen said.

I smelled the faint whiff of smoke as I did.  Ah, Peredur.

Again.