Aaron and Tia wound up having to wait, like a pair of teenagers sitting outside the mall, loitering because they were out of money and waiting for a parent to show up in an SUV to ferry them home. That wasn’t all that far from the truth, actually, as both had forgotten Kiara’s request to send word at least ten minutes in advance of wanting to leave.

After sending a text to the fiery drakus woman, it didn’t really give them time to do much more than loaf about the main chamber of the archive. It gave them enough wiggle room to discuss their options for dinner, at least.

That was another thing they’d need to send word ahead for, as they were likely to order more than any restaurant could reasonably make on demand. Even limiting themselves to just two or three dinners’ worth of food each would be enough to put a strain on most kitchens.

For the most part, they weighed the benefits and drawbacks between getting food from a single place or spreading it out like they had their previous meals together. Variety of choice had its advantages, but there was something to be said for exploring different dishes offered in any single cuisine.

When the delvers joined them a few minutes later, they sat in the lounge near the entrance of the archive and got down to specifics. There was a momentary awkwardness as Kiara insisted that the delvers would take their dinner separately and didn’t want to intrude, but Aaron made it clear they were welcome and he’d be glad to have dinner with them, just as he had breakfast and lunch. She relented eventually — with some pointed looks from Albert and Griffin — but largely refrained from voicing an opinion over the specifics of where they should go or what they should get.

Settling on what to order — Indian, Chinese, and Italian, of all the oddball combinations — wound up taking a lot less time than actually picking up the food did. Even though they ordered from places close to the apartment, stopping at three different restaurants to pick up several large orders was bound to be a mildly time-consuming affair, especially at the tail end of the dinner rush.

On their way back uptown, Aaron spotted a motorcycle behind them several times. It was keeping a good distance so he likely wouldn’t have noticed on the city streets, but the Byways were largely empty.

There was a moment, when he first noticed the tail, where fear clutched at his throat and he felt that unwanted coldness start to tingle in his spine. He quickly realized, however, that it was most likely a sign of the heightened security in the aftermath of the ambush under Paramount Plaza.

Since none of the other drakus in the car mentioned it — and it was highly implausible that not one of them had made the same observation he had, given their relative levels of experience — Aaron reigned in his fear. He kept an eye out for the tail, of course, but he didn’t let it consume his thoughts and he didn’t give voice to the shadow of panic.

On top of helping Aaron spot the motorcycle, the Byways also allowed them to get from the Drakon’s spooky, windowless monolith in Tribeca to the apartment in upper Manhattan, numerous bags filled with dinner in hand, in less than an hour.

The wonders of magic are truly a boundless marvel to make Manhattan traffic such a trivial thing, Aaron thought as they parked in the mysteriously empty space right in front of their building.

They ate around the little table in Aaron’s apartment and dinner passed with plenty of companionable conversation. The delvers even managed to avoid any major arguments amongst themselves, which might have been some kind of record from what Aaron had seen. He avoided pushing the gaming angle, if only so he wouldn’t paint himself as some kind of basement-dweller in Tia’s eyes. There was something he wanted to bring up with his trio of defenders and the conclusion of their meal seemed like a good time for it.

“I was wondering, how safe is it to hang out on the roof?” he asked.

In addition to a latent-yet-insidious desire to learn and practice magic with Tia under the night sky, Aaron had always wanted to hang out on a New York rooftop. It was the kind of thing you saw in movies and TV shows that never seemed to be replicated in any other setting.

Kiara’s lips pursed in thought. “Fairly safe. We have enough time to inform the next shift so that it won’t be disruptive to the changeover. How long were you planning to stay up there?”

“Probably just an hour or so, while Tia and I do some more basic magic stuff.”

“Then it’s no problem,” Kiara said, pulling out her phone. “We can head up whenever you like.”

A couple minutes later they climbed the last steps in the building’s stairwell and Griffin used his keystone to open the access door. As they stepped out into the rapidly darkening twilight, Aaron saw that the roof was everything he could have hoped for and then some.

Their building was almost three times as long as it was wide and the roof was six or seven feet higher than the buildings on either side of it. A four foot high brick parapet wall ran along three sides, adding more height, and the front was guarded by the cornice that crowned the façade of the apartments.

Pains had been taken to make sure the roof was a habitable and usable space. Hedges lined the long sides of the building, set in wooden planters with attached benches. Several wooden picnic-style tables and benches had been placed to accompany them, creating enough space to host dozens of people (and plenty of hot dogs or burgers).

In the rear, a lounge area had been created under a semi-permanent pavilion tent with sturdy canvas walls and windows made of flexible plastic. A comfortable sectional couch anchored one side of the tent and a huge standing television the other. A wide coffee table and several sturdy wood chairs had been added to provide more seating options and fill out the space.

There was even a cluster of tall patio heaters standing near the access door, ready to be spread around the roof to warm up a party when the nights turned cool.

“Damn, this building is amazing,” Aaron said, taking in the space. He could practically imagine all the rooftop parties you could host, filled with intellectuals and cool artistic types.

“It’s cozy yet versatile, that’s why I chose it,” Tia agreed. “I didn’t want to live somewhere that was super lux even though I know that’s, like, the thing for so many New Yorkers. It warms my cold little heart to hear that you think it’s nice, too.”

Albert, Griffin, and Kiara spread out around the roof, taking up positions near the edges. Albert stationed himself near the fire escape at the rear of the building, Griffin by the cornice at the front, and Kiara settled onto a bench right near the middle.

“Don’t get me wrong, an ultramodern, super ritzy apartment might be cool, but this building is just about perfect as far as I’m concerned,” Aaron said. “Did you do all the decorating yourself?”

“I had some help with the specifics, but a lot of it was my idea.”

“That’s awesome,” Aaron said earnestly. “Now, bearing in mind how cool I think that is, I hope you’ll give me a little leeway with what happens next.”

Tia’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean? What happens next?”

Aaron pulled out and lit a cigarette.

Another fun little perk of his new pocket spatial storage was that he could lift a single smoke right out of the pack with little more than a twitch of his fingers. Naturally, no sooner had he lit his cigarette than three more lighters flickered to life around the rooftop as the delvers joined him in their shared hooliganry.

I’m pretty sure it’s ‘hooliganry’ and not ‘hooliganism,’ Aaron thought. Because we’re not breaking any laws or being violent at the moment.

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

He took a drag and held it, waiting to see what Tia’s response to his worst habit would be. He hoped it wouldn’t sour their friendship but he wasn’t willing to hide this part of himself either.

“What the shit do you mean?” she demanded again. “What happens next?”

Aaron glanced over at Griffin, who was the closest of the delvers. The large man blew smoke out of his nostrils and shrugged. Aaron had absolutely no idea what the shrug was meant to communicate, so maybe it was pointless to look to the delvers for input here. Or maybe Griffin was just being noncommittal to screw with him.

“Uh, this?” Aaron said, lifting his cigarette up. “That I’m a dirty, dirty smoker.”

Tia blew air out between her teeth as she dropped her bag on a picnic table and sat down on the bench behind it.

“Listen, buddy, I think you misunderstand some things about me,” Tia said, bordering on indignation. “First of all, I’m not a nanny to worry about what you do or don’t do if it doesn’t concern me. Second of all, it’s not like they’re going to be bad for your teeth or health thanks to your drakus constitution. Third of all, there’s magic that can deal with the lingering smell, if I decide I give a crap.”

She paused and took a breath. “But the big thing, the most-of-all thing, is: both of my parents are doctors; both of my parents were in the military; and, both of my parents are Korean. I consider myself lucky that I'm not out here chaining Arirangs or Esses every damned night.”

“Damn girl, you’re kinda hardcore.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” she replied. “Now sit your ass down and try to do the chantern of light again.”

Aaron, wisely, did as instructed.

This time, he decided to take a more cautious approach to performing the cantrip than he had back in the archive. Rather than diving right into an active visualization of the whole process, he started with the rune, dagaz. His theory was that it would be a good exercise to picture it in his mind’s eye, to focus on and try to cement its existence in his thoughts.

That was simple enough. Even if Aaron’s mind wasn’t perfectly focused, he was good enough at working through distraction to tune out the little things. He could even take the occasional slow drag of his cigarette as he tried to familiarize himself with the basic symbol as deeply as he could.

You have the rune, now add the aether, he told himself. You’ve done this before, you can do it again.

To avoid pushing too hard and creating another unstable aether construct, Aaron changed his approach at this step, as well. Instead of a strong flow of energy bursting from a central point and spreading through the rune, he imagined that power as a faint light. This light was, in his mind, behind the rune. It illuminated each line of the character evenly at the same time. The light began to grow steadily stronger, the brightness increasing with the relaxed speed of a sink filling.

The construct was approaching some kind of critical mass; Aaron could feel it. Before it got all the way there, however, the phone in his pocket buzzed. He tried to brush this new distraction away. When it buzzed in his pocket a second time, the light of his visualization vibrated with it then slipped away, leaving only the dark rune behind in his mental construct.

“Dammit,” he sighed, yanking his phone out of his pocket.

“Tough break,” Tia said. “Don’t let it discourage you!”

“Who even has this number?” Aaron wondered aloud as he checked the phone.

There were two messages, as expected. The first told him they were coming from Alice. The second asked when it would be convenient for her to visit his apartment to prepare extra defenses against attacks on his dreams. He sent back that he would probably be available in an hour or two and got a quick reply that Alice would be by around the end of that window, near eleven o’clock.

Aaron went back to trying to conjure the light with the cantrip Tia had shown him. Even with another fifteen to twenty attempts, he never quite managed to conjure more than a brief flicker.

The problems mostly came at the same place and in the same form — a distraction or errant thought right as the aether felt like it was reaching a climax. Even stopping completely to smoke another cigarette and reset his concentration didn’t get him over the hurdle.

“God shitting dammit,” he cursed after another failed attempt. “I just can’t seem to get the hang of this, even if I’m close.”

Tia patted him on the arm. “These things can take time. What you should do is read over those books and familiarize yourself with the concepts. Building up confidence in the fundamentals of magic can be a big help for performing it.”

“Confidence? Why is that?”

“Magic is an expression of will and desire but it’s also about belief, so confidence can fill in gaps for focus and control,” Tia replied. “You think all those upwards-failing morons sitting in C-suites and senior partners’ offices are there solely because of institutional prejudice?”

“I mean, yes? Like, categorically yes.”

Tia laughed softly. “Sexism, racism, and all those other shitty human biases can only go so far when they’re weighed against the risk to the bottom line posed by incompetence. Greed and selfishness usually play a much bigger role in decision-making than bigotry. After all, there’s no shortage of bigots out there who will happily work with people they despise as long as they stand to profit and can do it quietly.”

“Fine, I can see your point there, but what does the proliferation of successful idiots have to do with magic?”

“A lot of those idiots are benefitting from glamours like Alice’s, only they’re usually way less powerful and much more subtle,” Tia said. “Sometimes, family members will put the whammy on a jerk-ass relative — to uphold the legacy and all that patrician nonsense, you know? — but as often as not it’s an unconscious manifestation of latent mystic talent and not a nefarious conspiracy to create an arcane idiocracy.”

Aaron scratched his head. “I’m not sure being sexy would take anyone that far professionally and it’s not like extreme sexiness is a common thing for the power suit crowd.”

Tia laughed again, louder this time. “I said it was like Alice’s glamour, not that it was the same. Her magic makes people who would already want to be with her — romantically or sexually — want it more. It’s about attraction and intimacy. For the executive types, it’s more like getting people to want to agree with them, or maybe to earn their respect and approval. So if they say things with confidence — even if it’s a mish-mash of vague jargon and buzzwords — the glamour makes it seem at least marginally respectable because disagreeing with them would cause them to dislike you.”

“Holy shit,” Aaron said. “That’s insidious.”

“Thankfully, it’s fairly mild most of the time, especially compared to the mojo Alice shackled herself with. Someone with a mystic executive boost as strong as Alice’s sex appeal would probably turn into a cult leader or dictator or something.”

“Speaking of Alice, she’s coming by in a little over an hour to help set up extra defenses against dream magic,” Aaron said.

Tia stood from the bench. “Let’s head back downstairs then. There’s some stuff I’d like to test before she gets here.” She leaned in and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Warm and fuzzy tests that are best handled in private, if you know what I mean.”

Aaron did not, in fact, know what she meant. For a full five seconds. His brain could not disengage from the way it completely misread the moment.

Then, he remembered what — or rather, who — was secretly waiting downstairs in his apartment. He took it as a good sign there hadn’t been any interruptions when they had dinner, but he suspected there were going to be consequences for coming home and not stopping in to say hello.

I should have snuck off to the bathroom or something, he thought ruefully. To check in real quick, if nothing else. I hope he’s not too pissed at me.

“Sounds like a plan,” Aaron said, standing up to join her.

They said their goodnights to Albert, Griffin, and Kiara and went back downstairs to Aaron’s apartment. Once they were in, he double- and triple-checked to make sure the interior locks were slotted into place — giving him maximum protection against anyone opening the front door and seeing something he’d rather they didn’t — then headed back to his bedroom.

The television was still playing quietly, just as he’d left it that morning. Aaron could barely hear it until he was only a few feet from the bedroom door, which stood slightly ajar. Again, just as he’d left it that morning. He walked into the flickering gloom of his bedroom, bracing himself for whatever scolding was about to come his way.

Instead, something leapt at him from the shadows, heading right for his head. He tried to flinch away from it but was too slow. It covered his face and plunged his vision into darkness.