Simkha ran the two-and-a-half minute stretch of Walton Street down to the Last Bookshop. She found Leg Day pacing the pavement between the shop and the intersection with Little Clarendon. She slowed down to catch her breath over the last ten or so meters.

“No luck?” panted Simkha.

Leg Day met Simkha’s gaze wearing an ambiguous facial expression. “No,” she said. “Georgie and Jennifer are up Little Clarendon.” She gestured down the street going east, past the small brick structures, past the huge modernist monolith, towards the bustling rows of facing porticoed shops. “They’re asking if anybody’s seen Tali. All the easiest places to get lost are that way.”

Leg Day gestured north behind Simkha before she continued. “Cafe over there’s the only other place we found to check. The Opera. Nowhere else nearby fit the bill.”

Simkha nodded. She turned about and examined the cityscape. She shot Leg Day the most confident smile she could manage.

“Okay,” said Simkha. “I can’t think of anywhere else to look either. Uh. Thank you. I… it’s good of you to do so much for her. Maybe we should collect Jennifer and Good-Arms Jock. Then go back to Mika at her house and, like, talk through what to do next. Yeah?”

Leg Day relaxed her face and returned the smile.

“That makes sense. Let’s go get the girls.”

Simkha hustled up Little Clarendon, Leg Day half a step behind. Simkha did her best to think about the situation as they moved, but kept being distracted by the breathless tension in her shoulders.

Leg Day caught up to Simkha. She took a deep breath before speaking.

“Have you ever dealt with something like this?” asked Leg Day.

“Well,” Simkha breathed while her brain parsed the question. “I, uh, I guess there was that one time Tali disappeared. But that was different because I was a ten year old back then. And this time you all saw her and remember her and aren’t telling me she’s a delusion. So this time I’m confident she exists.”

“Fair enough.”

“What about you?” asked Simkha

“Have I ever dealt with a missing friend who’s also a foreigner and maybe also a magician?” asked Leg Day.

“I have not,” said Leg Day.

“The missing girl was more of a prophetess than a magician last time,” said Leg Day.

Simkha gave Leg Day a level look.

“So,” said Simkha. “You’ve never dealt with, like, missing persons before?”

“No,” said Leg Day.

“Me neither.”

Simkha peered through the window of a cheese shop as they breezed by. Tali was not inside.

“What about other kinds of crisises?” asked Leg Day. “Uh, other criseas? Crisipodes?”

“Uh,” said Simkha.

“I dunno how to decide what was and wasn’t a crisis,” said Simkha. “Like, I think I kind of responded the same when I was sixteen and got separated from my class during a trip to Awalva, compared to how I responded when I was seven and my birth mom died. What, uh, what about you?”

“Oh,” said Leg Day. “I haven’t had to deal with anything like that. I was spoiled as a kid. And, uh, sorry about your mom.”

“Oh,” said Simkha, “right. Thanks, I guess. I never know if I should or shouldn’t bring up the whole dead-mom thing. I never really figured out how to feel about it. She was diagnosed with Kwarissmi’s Disease when I was like a month old, so her sister raised me. Like, I know I’m supposed to have all sorts of emotions about her because she gave birth to me, but I also only ever met her like a half-dozen times. When I think about her dying, I mostly think about how Momma Ouri must have felt losing her sister.”

Simkha looked at Leg Day’s expression. Leg Day looked like she was processing. Simkha hadn’t meant to distract Leg Day from the missing-Tali-problem.

“How are you doing now?” asked Simkha. “Like, are you good to keep looking for Tali?”

Leg Day blinked at the road ahead a few times.

“I don’t know,” said Leg Day. “I mean, I definitely want to look until we find her. But I have no idea what to do, or how to figure out what to do. So I’m just… at a loss.”

“Same,” said Simkha.

“Really? But you knew what to do when I called you.”

“I did?” said Simkha. “I, uh, guess I was faking. I just started barking instructions at you without thinking at all. Did I mess up something you were doing to search?”

“Nope. I was arguing with Jennifer, making no progress. And Georgia… She seemed overwhelmed. Just watching me and Jen. Looked about to cry.”

Good-Arms Jock, crying? That was not what Simkha would have imagined.

“I literally asked myself what a competent person would do and faked like I was them. I’m basically a fraud. I should have asked if any of you knew what you were doing.”

“I think you did good.”

“Neither of us is qualified to evaluate that.”

“No, I am,” said Leg Day.

Simkha looked at Leg Day.

“I am,” Leg Day repeated. “I was there. We were being useless, then you helped us be less useless. I saw it. So I am qualified to say that you made things better.”

“I’m not sure being there makes you qualified,” said Simkha. “We could be messing everything up. Right now. Like, we could find an expert and find out the best thing to do would have been to wait where we lost her—and now I’m messing that up.”

“Doesn’t sound right. Only thing any of us can do is to try our best. I think you’re trying your best. We don’t have an expert, so we have to do our best unless and until we can find some better information.”

“Aaa!” said Simkha. “You’re a genius.”

Simkha stopped walking, pulled her phone out of her pocket and began to type.

“Find someone… lost in city… doesn’t speak language…”

Simkha searched. She frowned as she scrolled the top two pages of results.

“Damn. I thought maybe we could google what to do. But all anybody is talking about is how Tali could get access to Google Translate. And I don’t think her language is on Google Translate.”

“You figured out what her language is?”

“No, but it sounds like a Romance language. Right? And I’m pretty sure I recognize all the Romance languages they have in Translate.”

“That could be important information! You figured that out while none of us would’ve been able to. You are hereby banned from doubting your own usefulness.”

Simkha huffed and started walking again.

“I just… I don’t know. I’m scared. What if this isn’t enough? What if Tali’s in trouble? What if we can’t find her?”

“You’ll still be glad you tried your best.”

“But it might not be enough.”

“So? You still want to give Tali your best, right? We’re not choosing between you searching and an expert searching. You’re choosing whether we search with your help or without your help.”

Simkha grumbled.

“Fine,” Simkha said.

Leg Day smirked tenderly.

In the street ahead, Good-Arms Jock and Jennifer left the penultimate shop on the block. They scuttled into the deli on the corner of Woodstock Rd.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Hey Legs… is it weird for me to keep calling her Good-Arms Jock instead of Georgia?”

“Yeah,” said Leg Day.

“Oh. Uh.”

“It’s also cute and makes her happy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

They walked on for a few seconds.

“You’re not gonna ask if it’s weird to call me Leg Day?”

“Oh. Uh. Should I stop?” asked Simkha.

“Nope,” said Leg Day. “I like it too.”

Leg Day was right. Most of what Simkha could do to find Tali wouldn’t stop anybody else from searching, so Simkha shouldn’t slow herself down with indecision. She would just be careful not to obstruct anybody else's search, not to undercut anybody's plans.

Simkha and Leg Day caught up to the other jocks.

Jennifer stood with crossed arms, kicking at the curb. Good-Arms Jock buried her hands in her pockets.

“No sign of Tali?” asked Simkha.

“Sorryyy,” said Jennifer.

“Yeah,” said Good-Arms Jock. “ We found nothing. But some of the shop staff seemed… how should I put it? Inattentive?”

“In fairness, we don't know how long we were at the bookshop before we noticed she disappeared.”

“My point” said Good-Arms Jock, “is that we shouldn't rule anything out. Tali might have wandered off looking for something none of us would expect.”

“Well, fuck,” said Leg Day.

“Shit,” agreed Simkha.

Simkha scanned the street. It wasn’t very busy for a Saturday afternoon.

Next to Simkha, the jocks moved more restlessly than they had last night or this morning. Their eyes were downcast. Simkha thought they resembled nothing so much as her high school classmates trying not to get called on when they didn’t know the answer to a question. Leg Day caught Simkha’s eye and shrugged.

Hmmm… nobody had any clue what to do.

Well, Simkha had mentioned regrouping at Mika’s house, the door to which was only about ten meters away.

“Shall we go inside to talk to Mika and come up with a search plan?”

The jocks agreed, and followed Simkha inside up to Mika’s kitchen. Simkha rounded up a few chairs to put around the kitchen table. At Simkha’s prompting, the jocks told Mika about what happened. Leg Day shared Simkha’s conclusion that Tali’s language was an obscure Romance dialect.

“First of all,” said Simkha, “is everybody here on board to keep looking for Tali?”

Mika agreed. Leg Day and Good-Arms Jock both mumbled yesses, even as they turned to look at Jennifer.

“Why are you all looking at me now?” pouted Jennifer. “Of course I want to keep looking! I… fine! If one of us was selfish enough to fuck off and forget about Tali right now then it would probably be me. But I’m not! I’m invested too!”

“Uh, thanks,” said Simkha. “Next off: do any of us have experience finding missing people?”

Nobody did.

“Anybody have any training related to this? General crisis management maybe?”

Nobody did.

“Well, shit. In that case, I think we should have some of us look for her and some of us look for experts to help find her. Mika, would Hrefna know how to find her, or how to find somebody who can find her?”

“Yeahhh… I don’t think Hrefna has any personal search and rescue experience, but she can totally find us somebody who does. I’ll message her to come home now.”

“Okay,” said Simkha. What would a competent person do next? “Then I think one of us should contact the Fird and the EPOs. I don’t know how they find missing people, but I’m pretty sure they do it. Does that make sense to everybody?”

“Um…” said Good-Arms Jock. “I’m not sure if I should bring this up, but Tali might prefer for us to avoid tipping off the cops. It’s possible the Fird could help, but it’s not like First Oxford has a missing persons squad. On top of that, I don’t think we can assume it's legal for Tali to be here. I’d expect her English to be better if she went through the visa process. For all we know, she magicked herself into the LC. So involving the cops might, like, fuck her over. We don’t actually have any evidence that says she needs our help.”

“God,” said Leg Day, “this island is so fucking weird about travel laws.”

“It’s worth considering,” said Simkha, “that we don’t really know what Tali wants, either. She might be here to burgle the Ashmolean for all we know. She might be here to steal a bunch of artefacts and pin the blame on me.”

“Mmmhhh… I think we should assume Tali needs help,” said Mika. “Because she’s in the city on her own and she doesn’t speak the language. She’s pretty. She’s small. And we don’t have any reason to distrust her.”

“I… that’s true,” said Good-Arms Jock. “Maybe I’m just… just reluctant about going to the Fird because they… they don’t have a good reputation when it comes to dealing with vulnerable students. There may be reasons to call them, but there are reasons not to. And remember: Tali found Simkha in her flat last night, I assume without anybody there to help. Then she left for a while and came back. Maybe she’s doing the same thing now that she did then?”

“Shit,” said Mika. “I wasn’t thinking about the Fird rumors. Back home in the commune, the judiciary commissars are, like, explicitly feminist. And not in the fake way you hear about out of Plymouth.”

“There’s also the magic question,” said Jennifer.

“What does ‘the magic question’ mean?”

“I guess… uh, security magic? Like, I know I would want to have defensive spells if I could do magic.”

Simkha narrowed her eyes.

“Yeah… that’s sensible. I think… Tali would be good at running away? What I mean is that last night she let herself into my flat through a locked door. The door, like, like, like… kind of opened itself? It opened on its own, then she came in, then I saw her… um… I saw her reach into the past and open the door from the inside.”

“...”

“...”

“Sounds pretty magic,” said Leg Day.

“We need to talk to Tali about boundaries,” said Mika.

“It could help her escape danger,” said Good-Arms Jock. “If she was, like, caught by bad people or something.”

“Y-y-yeah,” said Simkha. “I think so. But I’m not sure we should assume that Tali really has time-magic. It's just... I’ve been thinking. What if I’ve been too quick to decide I’m not having delusions? We know Tali is real and we know the HUD is real. But magic?”

“We could have asked Tali to show us more crazy shit,” said Good-Arms Jock. “But let's not blame ourselves because we didn’t think to ask. We were processing plenty of shit that already seemed crazy at the time.

“This might be a stupid question,” said Jennifer. “But, uh, Simkha… can you do magic?”

“I… maybe?” said Simkha. “I have no clue how Tali did that time travel thing. But, well, there’s something else I can try.”

Everybody exchanged questioning glances.

“Hell yeah,” said Leg Day.

“I’ll admit,” said Mika. “If Simkha can show us something that’s definitely magic and not just technology, then I would feel a lot better about waiting to contact the Fird and the EPOs. I don’t necessarily think Simkha is hallucinating, but I’d be way more comfortable with replicable results.”

“Wait,” said Simkha, “ don’t you have to wait twenty-four hours before you can report somebody’s missing, anyway?”

“Oh!” chirped Jennifer. “Actually, you don’t! I had a class that mentioned this. The twenty-four hours idea is just, like, a plot device from some old dramas. People repeated it like it was fact and it got out of hand. Pretty much any jurisdiction will let you report someone is missing as soon as you have a reason to think they’re missing. Even if you show up with stupid reasoning they’ll just, like, explain what a good reason would be.”

“Even the Fird?” asked Good-Arms Jock.

“I think so,” said Jennifer.

“Good, I guess,” said Simkha.

Simkha breathed deep to steady herself.

“Magic?” asked Leg Day.

“Maaa-aaagic?” asked Jennifer.

“Okay,” said Simkha. “Uh, look at this bracelet.”

Simkha held up her left wrist, grasping the bracelet that hung there. She focused all her attention on it. She tried to trick her eyes into seeing the impossible direction again. After a few moments, Simkha found it. Simkha wasn’t sure, but she felt like it was easier to see this time.

Simkha carefully twisted the bracelet one way and then the other along the impossible axis. Simkha could feel the bracelet grow larger and denser as she moved it here, then smaller and less dense as she moved it there.

Simkha must’ve been seeing the impossible direction more easily, because she thought she could see a little bit further along that axis now. She slightly strained her eyes, but she could see that the bracelet wasn't truly changing size or mass.

When Simkha moved the bracelet, the only thing that changed was which side of the bracelet hung off which side of her arm. When the bracelet was turned one way, more of the metal was exposed to her arm, and the rest of it hung off of what Simkha could only describe as the “heavy side” of her arm. When the bracelet was turned the other way, less of the bracelet was pressed up against her arm, so that the bulk of the bracelet hung off the “light side” of her arm. Simkha didn’t understand how, but she could feel that gravity was somehow different on different sides of her arm. She hoped Tali would be able to explain it, one day.

“Maaa-gic!” exclaimed Jennifer.

“That looked… like real fucking magic,” said Good-Arms Jock

“Shiiit, beyb,” said Mika. “I can confirm that we’re seeing some magic shit too. It looks like your bracelet is, like, growing and shrinking out of nowhere.”

“You see it?” Simkha felt relieved. “That’s what I saw too. I don’t think I can explain exactly how I see it. It's complicated.”

“Let’s try to be sure,” said Mika. “If that bracelet were a real restraint, do you think you’d be able to escape with that trick of yours?”

Simkha frowned and remembered when the jewelry locked her in space in her bathroom.

“No… I don’t think so. I can’t explain how I can see it, but this bracelet has this kind of latch thing in another dimension. It could be hard to reach. Well, I’m pretty sure I’d need to undo that latch to get this thing off.”

“Wait, I asked the wrong question,” said Mika. “What I meant to ask is whether you could get out of regular bindings. Like, could you get out of regular handcuffs?”

“Hmmm…” said Simkha. “Hey, Good-Arms Jock?”

“Uh, Hey Simkha. What’s cookin’?”

Simkha extended her wrists to cross in front of Good-Arms Jock.

“Would you grab my wrists and stop me from escaping.”

Good-Arms Jock cautiously reached out and grasped Simkha’s wrists.

“Okay, I’ve got you. Go for it.”

Simkha focused. She saw how she would move her arms through the impossible dimension.

Simkha twisted herself and the world lurched. The feeling reminded Simkha of when she fell out of her shower—when her past self started colliding with her. But Simkha still managed to twist her hands away, pulling them through the huge fourth-dimension hole in Good-Arms Jock’s grip. It wasn’t effortless, but it wasn’t hard either.

“Holy shit,” said Good-Arms Jock. “Your arms, like, faded? Then moved through mine? Holy shit!”

“Same,” said Leg Day.

“If Tali can do that, then I think we can assume she’s safe on her own.”

“If Tali can do that, then I think First Oxford won’t be safe from her.”

Simkha smiled. But damn if she didn’t still want to find Tali.