"Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ!" Jacob screamed.

"Shut up and keep an eye out for him!" Camilla yelled.

Jacob clamped his mouth shut and peered at the city around them. They surged through the downtown, somehow hitting mostly green lights. Jacob got lost in the tall skyscrapers and bright, flashing colours. His heart pounded like a drum in his chest. Every person on the sidewalk could be the mage. He could be hiding around every corner of every intersection.

Camilla turned into an underground parking area. She pressed a button and received a slip of paper. The barricade raised. The lot was pretty big, but there were only a handful of cars in there. One of which was a batshit-ugly green and yellow antique that looked like it had been made in the 1940s.

"C'mon, the Sanctuary's floors have wards around them!" Camilla said.

She got out of the Bentley and bolted over to an elevator bay in the corner of the lot. Jacob followed, eager to get out of the empty parking lot. His footsteps echoed back to him. They flew into the elevator and Camilla mashed the twelfth floor button.

The doors closed and the elevator moved upwards. The elevator opened on a brightly lit, modern lounge, all white walls and minimalist red furniture. He felt like he was in a boutique law firm's office, not a haven for mages. A long desk took up the wall opposite, but there was no one behind it.

There were magazines laid out on a desk in the waiting area. He expected to see something like MageVoices, New Magic, Creatures & Critters, but it was just boring stuff like People and Vogue.

"There's no one at the front desk." Camilla said nervously.

Jacob noticed she didn't move further into the lobby.

"Usually Ola or Xavier are at the front desk." Camilla repeated.

The lobby was eerily silent. Jacob thought he could hear the faint sound of cars honking outside, but that was it.

"Hello?" Camilla called out. Her voice sounded small. "Sheriff Hueller?"

Nobody answered.

Camilla twitched, and Jacob realized she was close to panicking. It only made him more afraid. She had said those Rangers were supposed to be here, right? But there was no one. Had the mage already gotten to them?

Jacob swallowed, suddenly sweating.

"Okay, um, the Refuge is down this way." Camilla moved further into the lobby.

Jacob followed her.

They entered into a long office hallway. Doorways lined it, but it was empty.

"Camilla, I don't know if this is a good idea." Jacob said. What if he was already here? What if he was hiding, waiting for them? An idea occurred to him. "Why don't we just keep driving?"

Camilla shook her head. "How do you think he tracked us to the bridge? I think he must be tracking one of us by our magical signature, somehow. I've never heard of someone being able to do that. If we leave he'll be able to find us wherever we go."

That was a terrifying thought. "But he can't find us here?"

"That's what the wards are for. They nullify any magic coming in or going out. Our signals won't be detectable."

"But what if he knows we're here? Then-"

Camilla whirled on him. "I don't know, okay? I don't know! Maybe he'll kill us, just like he killed Arturo. There, are you happy?" Her face was pale, terrified.

Jacob took a step back. "Sorry, I-"

"Save it. Let's just get to the Refuge." Camilla turned and kept walking down the hallway.

They passed an adjoining hallway and then went up a flight of stairs, Jacob still reeling from the outburst. He guessed Camilla wasn't exactly used to this kind of thing. He had a feeling that being chased by a mage wasn't exactly household standard even if you had magic. As crazy as it seemed, Camilla was probably just as scared and lost as he was. Christ, he felt like an idiot.

They'd only known each other less than two days, but they'd been through so much. More than he'd been through with Thiago or Luke, or even his parents. He felt like he'd known her for a long time, yet still he hardly knew who she was. Who she actually was.

Ahead of them a wooden panelled door stood out from the rest of the modern decor.

A plaque that read REFUGE was on the wall next to it.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"In here." Camilla said. They entered a series of rooms with bunk beds lining the walls. Camilla plopped herself down on a bottom bunk and Jacob took the one across from her. It distinctly reminded him of what a summer camp room must have looked like. Not that he'd ever been allowed to go, but he'd seen movies that took place in them.

"Settle in. We'll need to wait here until Sheriff Hueller or one of his deputies arrives." Camilla said.

Jacob eyed her cautiously, waiting for another angry outburst, but it seemed she'd calmed down somehow. He wasn't sure he could quite relax, but if the mage hadn't caught up to them, then there was a good chance they'd lost him.

"Watch this." Camilla said. She touched her pointer and middle fingers to the wall behind her and closed her eyes. After a moment rings rippled out from where she'd touched. Then the walls, the ceiling, the floor changed, as if she'd swapped channels on a television. They displayed a brick courtyard with a swimming pool in the centre. Beyond the pool rolling, brilliant green hills sloped away into the horizon. The ceiling and the upper walls had turned to a sky blue with a summer sun roasting down on them. As Jacob watched, the sunlight shifted as if they were really outside. The waves of the swimming pool lapped at his ears while insects buzzed in the hills and swathes of grass danced in the wind. The only thing that spoiled the picture was the black outlines of the bunk beds against the walls and Camilla's silhouette.

"Magic?"

She nodded. "It's supposed to make the people who take refuge here feel more at home. It shows you a place that is special to you."

"Where is this?"

She was silent. He resigned that she was going to avoid the question like she'd avoided his earlier questions. Oh well, there was only so much you could do.

"It's my family's ancestral home in Tuscany. My parents used to take me there in the fall when I was little."

Jacob looked around, soaking in the scenery. He'd never been outside of Vancouver, let alone all the way over to Europe. Thinking about going that far sounded scary, but a part of him smiled at the idea, of travelling the world, of getting to see all the animals and different landscapes he'd read about and watched in nature docs.

Camilla laid back on her bed and clasped her hands behind her head. "Haven't been back in a while, too busy with school and training."

"Have you travelled a lot?" Jacob asked. He figured she had.

"Around the world a hundred times."

"What's it like?"

She sighed. "It was so awesome. A lot of times my dad was working so my mom would take me shopping. Showing up in some city I'd never heard of and spending a day shopping along the strips in luxury stores and little street vendors. I'd walk around sometimes and listen to all these different languages and trying to figure out what people mean even though I couldn't understand them." She smiled, those dimples showing up in her cheeks again. "I want to do it by myself sometime, but that's a couple years away at least. Let's see what yours is. Give me your hand."

Jacob hesitated.

"Come on, don't be shy." She reached out and snatched his hand.

Her palm was soft and smooth. He blushed involuntarily, even though there was nothing romantic or weird about it at all.

The distant sunny Tuscany morphed into a familiar scene closer to home. Green, snowcapped mountains circled them. An open bay of water stretched between them and the mountains. In the bay countless tanker ships were anchored, their stretched bulks silent and still. Each tanker had hundreds of little container boxes on them, stacked like LEGOs.

"Burrard Inlet." Camilla said in surprise.

"Yeah." Jacob said. "I used to walk there after middle school, because..." Because I didn't want to go home until I had to. "Because I found it nice."

It made him feel small, but somehow he found that peaceful.

"I was half expecting VanDusen." Camilla said.

"I like it there." Jacob said, "But there's something about the tankers next to the mountains..." It played with his perspective, almost like an optical illusion. The mountains dwarfed the tankers in the Inlet, made them look like kid toys in a bathtub. But then he would catch sight of a person walking along the tanker deck, tiny, like a speck of dust, and it would click just how big the tankers actually were, and then how massive the mountains were. He loved the Rockies, and every time he saw them it made him want to go see other mountains around the world. There was so much of the world he wanted to see because he'd never been allowed to travel. But now he was being told there was a whole other world out there?

"What's the magical world like?"

Camilla shrugged. "I've never been."

"Really?"

"My dad and Sheriff Hueller have never allowed me to go. They say it's 'too dangerous.'" She stuck her tongue out. "Decomposition magic isn't my family's strong suit, otherwise I would have opened my own portal by now. But I swear, as soon as I'm strong enough to open a portal I'm going there whether they like it or not."

"What's Decomposition magic?" Jacob asked.

"Ugh, you really don't know anything, do you? I've always wondered what it would be like to grow up in a normal family, but..." She shook her head. "So, basically, there's three types of magical creatures in the magical world: Producers, Consumers, and Decomposers. Likewise, there are three different types of magic that correspond with each type of creature."

"Wait, you're telling me the three types of magic are named after the three types of organisms in our world?" Jacob asked incredulously.

"What?"

"Producers are plants. Consumers are animals. Decomposers are fungi. Don't you remember learning about it in biology last year?"

Camilla shot him a suspicious look. "That's right. You were the nerd who kept answering all the questions."

Jacob shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I mean-"

"I didn't mean it as an insult."

"Oh."

An awkward silence stretched between them.

"So, the three types of magic are named after the three types of organisms?" Jacob offered.

"Well, they're named after each type of corresponding magical creature. Maybe they used the same names to make it, like, easier to remember. Production magic is the ability to use magical energy to produce effects. Like a fireball. Consumption magic is the ability to use magical energy to change yourself. So, like making yourself stronger. Decomposition magic is the ability to use magical energy to change the world around you. So, like making a portal between the worlds. My family and I are traditionally strong Production mages."

Camilla opened her palm. Three small stars blinked into existence. One glowed orange, one blue, one white. They lit up her smiling face. She flexed her palm and they floated up to the ceiling, swirling around each other.

Then they shot down at Jacob's chest, blinding him momentarily, before winking out of existence.

"Hey, no fair!"

Camilla giggled.

"Can you teach me to do that?" Jacob asked eagerly. "Am I a good Production mage?"

Before Camilla could answer, they both suddenly shot up out of their seats. The scenery of Burrard Inlet disappeared.

"You felt that?" Camilla asked.

"Yes." Jacob shivered.

A magical signature in the building.