The next day, Tristan dragged himself up the stairs to his workshop with a steaming mug of coffee in hand. The late night hadn’t done him any favors, however enjoyable it had been, and there were only two days left before the Gathering.

He’d finally disregarded the idea of transporting butterflies into the end of the wand, be it from this world or another. It smacked too much of trickery for his liking, and it would disrupt the butterfly lives too much.

Cloning was a better possibility, and he could tie the wand to a known population, so instead of a creation spell it was a cloning spell, but that posed a similar problem. The clones would be confused and frightened by their sudden appearance in a strange place, and he had already decided that he wanted to cause minimal distress.

He rubbed his forehead. He was glad of Gwendolyn’s perspective, but he could not ignore the frustration of having every idea shot down for one reason or another. They were good reasons, so he could not fault her, but before she arrived he’d felt he was right on the cusp of finishing the spell, and now he felt further behind than ever.

He picked up the wand and spun it between his fingers.

Not that she had done anything wrong, but she was every bit the distraction he’d feared. He found himself more interested in discussing magical theory with her than actual application, and he could not deny that was setting him back.

A soft knock at the door startled him out of his reverie, and a bolt of light shot from the wand. The door creaked and broke in two.

Gwendolyn stood with a tray of scrambled eggs and apple slices, eyes wide and frightened.

“I didn’t see you at breakfast,” she said.

The wizard pursed his lips. This was too much. His entire tower was once a safe haven of isolation, with no interruptions and no distractions.

“Get out,” he snapped. “If I wanted breakfast, I would have been there.”

The woman fled, and he immediately regretted his outburst. But he did not follow her. It was for the best, he thought. After all, she wasn’t interested in him, not really. Any affection she had for him was simply gratitude for the way he had rescued her from her prior situation. It was foolish for him to read more into it than that, and it would be better for them both if he didn’t take advantage of it.

The wizard sighed and deactivated the spell on the wand. Better to focus on the task at hand. If he couldn’t teleport the butterflies or clone existing ones, he was back at creation. But it was impossible to create life with magic.

He rubbed his temples. Back to square one, with only two days remaining.

***

Gwendolyn only made it down two flights of stairs before she had to stop and rest. These damned stairs. That damned man! She’d known he was too good to be true, and she should have trusted her instincts.

She brought her knees to her chest and let the tears fall. No sooner had she agreed to stay with him than the mask dropped, and now she saw the temper that lurked just beneath the surface. He was just like Damien. The longer she stayed with him, the more comfortable she became, the more easily he would slide into a rage. Only it would be worse with the wizard, because he was so much more deadly. The man had cracked a thick wooden door in two with just a flick of his wand.

And how was she to know he didn’t want breakfast! When she missed him at the table, she had thought perhaps he was in too much of a rush to sit down.

She took a bite of an apple slice to calm her nerves. It didn’t help, but she took another bite anyway.

Oh, what was she going to do? If she left, she would have Damien to worry about. But if she stayed, she feared the wizard.

“Mrow.” Solvent rested his face and front paws on her thigh.

Gwendolyn stroked his soft fur. “Quite right,” she said. “I’ll just pick myself up and keep going, like I always do.”

She took the rest of the stairs slowly as she planned the rest of her morning. She was allowed in the study now, and she had noticed it could use some dusting. A few areas, probably his favorite books, were spotless, but the majority of the room was covered in a layer of dust. And there were a few more paintings she wanted to hang in the guest rooms. That should be enough to take her through to lunch.

She was still in the study when he found her. She froze at the sight of him, but unlike their previous encounters she did not help him begin the conversation. Instead she watched him, saw the turning of his mind as he searched for the words.

“I want to apologize,” he finally said. “You startled me this morning, and I fired the wand by accident. That’s no excuse for how I spoke to you, but I just. The thought of hurting you by mistake…” He waved his hands hopelessly. “Can you forgive me?”

It wasn’t so much his words as it was the look in his eyes that melted Gwendolyn’s heart. She crossed the room to him and took his hands in hers. “Forgiving you is as easy as breathing,” she said. “I’ll stay away from your workshop in the future.”

“No, no. You don’t need to change your behavior, I am the one who was wrong. In fact,” he brightened, “come with me now. I’d like to show you what I’m working on, and maybe you can help me.”

The woman blushed. “I don’t know that I could be any help to you, but I’m certainly willing to try.”

As they walked upstairs, he explained the butterfly dilemma. He wanted a spell to generate butterflies from the tip of the wand. While teleporting and cloning were viable options, they felt like cheating, like sidestepping the issue he was actually trying to solve. But neither could he create life, particularly butterfly life, not being a butterfly himself.

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Gwendolyn walked around his workshop, gliding her fingers along the tabletops. The place was a wonder, all test tubes and magical tomes. Never in her life would she have imagined being in such a room. It was a physical representation of a beautiful mind, somewhat scattered but filled to bursting with innovation and experiments.

Tristan watched her with bated breath. Not many people had seen the inside of his workshop, and he found a strange vulnerability in it. He found himself looking around with fresh eyes and imagined what she must think of him, seeing this place for the first time. Would she think him a madman or a genius? Or something else entirely?

“You said you can clone a butterfly?”

“Yes, easily.”

“Show me.”

“Oh! Well, okay.” He pulled a small wire cage up from under the table. One muttered incantation later, a bright orange butterfly was fluttering around inside. “I’ve just teleported this fellow from a little bit east of Purpleville. Don’t worry, we’ll send him back as soon as this is over.”

He twisted his hands in a well-rehearsed pattern and a second butterfly popped into existence. “And here we have the clone.”

Gwendolyn gaped. “That’s incredible.”

Tristan blushed. “It’s not the goal, though. The clone is just a copy, a perfect imitation. But it is not a new thing.”

Gwendolyn frowned thoughtfully. “Since you can create a clone, does that mean you know how a butterfly is built?”

“Hmm. That’s a funny way of saying it, but yes I suppose I do.”

“Then…” She hesitated, worried that her next thought was too obvious for him to have missed it. She went for it anyway. “If you know how they’re built, just build your own.”

The wizard considered that. “I could do that. But then we run into the same ethical dilemmas of introducing a butterfly rather suddenly to a strange world.”

“That’s easy, just take out the pieces that would notice. And this spell is mostly supposed to be a sort of party trick, right? So take out the parts that make it any more alive than, say, a wagon. And also introduce an expiration, so the butterflies don’t just flit around endlessly.”

“Brilliant! Yes, of course I could do that!” The wizard became a flurry of motion, scribbling down notes and crossing things out.

Gwendolyn watched him with a smile. He lit up completely when he was passionate about his spells, and she felt she could watch him work forever.

“And, let’s try it out!” He lifted his wand with a hesitant smile, pointed it, and cast the spell. Butterflies of every color emerged from the tip of the wand, tiny at first and quickly growing as they flew away until they were full size. A minute later, they each dissolved in a burst of colored light, and then were gone.

“We’ve done it!” The wizard picked her up in a full body hug and spun her around. She kicked her feet up, giggling.

When he set her down, Gwendolyn was just as flushed as he was.

“What a beautiful spell,” she said breathlessly.

He ran a hand through his hair, laughing. “I can’t believe you solved it. Amazing! And to think, I was so worried you would be a distraction to my work. Only to find you are exactly what I needed!”

Gwendolyn took a step back. “What do you mean, a distraction?”

The wizard was too flush with success to notice the sudden shift in her tone. “Well, you’re beautiful of course, and lovely to talk to. Ever since you came to my tower I have spent far too much time conversing and not enough working.”

“I didn’t realize I was such a bother,” she said coldly.

“Well I realize it’s not something you do on purpose,” he continued, blind to the damage he was causing.

Mercifully, at that moment the sound of a bell chime cut him off. The wizard placed two fingers on his throat and said, “Yes, do come in.”

A portal opened up on the other side of the workbench, and a second wizard stepped through. He wore thick green robes with a gold crest emblazoned on the chest. His left eyebrow quirked up when he saw Gwendolyn in the room.

“You’ve got yourself a woman,” he exclaimed. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Gwendolyn, this is my good friend Xavier. We went to school together.”

“That’s one way of putting it. As I recall, you were the youngest student to ever join the academy, and you carried me through all our practical exams.” Xavier turned his attention back to Gwendolyn. “My dear, you are a vision. I can see why he likes you but please, what are you doing with him? Whatever he’s promised you, I’ll double it if you run away with me.”

Gwendolyn’s icy demeanor boiled over into rage. “I can see now that staying here was a mistake. I have been a bother, a distraction, and now I am reduced to some sort of decoration,” she spat. “I will trouble you no more.”

She spun on her heel and fled down the stairs. Only when she was out of sight did she allow the angry tears to fall.

“What—? Xavier, what have you done?”

The other wizard’s shock turned to chagrin. “Apologies, my friend. That was thoughtless of me to say.”

“What do I do?” The brilliant wizard was panicking.

“Go after her,” his friend said kindly. “Reassure her of your intentions, whatever they may be.”

“Right. Yes. Of course.” Tristan fled down the stairs, his thoughts entirely on Gwendolyn. What had he been thinking, calling her a bother and a distraction? No wonder she felt like a nuisance! But that was the last thing in the world that he meant by it, and he’d found that he quite liked being distracted. His schoolmates always told him it wasn’t healthy to be focused on work all day long, but he had never before found something —or in this case, someone— he cared about more than magic.

And he did, he realized. He cared about Gwendolyn more than magic.

***

Tristan found her in her room, roughly shoving her belongings back into the scratched up bag she’d arrived with.

“Gwendolyn, wait,” he said.

She turned red-rimmed eyes to him. “For what, Tristan? For you to finally show yourself? I think I see now, from the way you attacked me this morning to the way you showed me off to your friend. I’m just another trinket to you, another painting for you to shove into a closet and forget about.” She wiped away her tears. “Well, I won’t do it! I’d like to think I can learn from my mistakes, and this is me learning.”

“It— It’s not safe for you out there!”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Suddenly, both of them turned to the door as a loud pounding echoed through the tower. Out the window they could see a crowd of villagers with Damien at the head, all of them carrying torches and pitchforks.

Gwendolyn stuck her head out the window. “Leave me ALONE, Damien!” she shouted.

“My darling wife!” the brute shouted. “Your mind has been twisted by the dark wizard in the tower.” He turned to the crowd that followed him. “You see what he has done? He has stolen my sweet Gwendolyn from me! Die, wizard, die!”

“DIE, WIZARD, DIE!” shouted the crowd.

Gwendolyn hesitated, frightened by the vitriol of the crowd.

“You see,” said Tristan. “With him at the door, you reconsider your place here. You want to talk about finally showing yourself? All of your affection for me was only gratitude. You were happy to have a space free of your wretched husband. A roof over your head and a full belly, isn’t that all you said you needed?” He shook his head. “I am the foolish one, for thinking you cared for me.”

Gwendolyn glared at him with renewed fury. “If you believe that, then I really should go. You are a powerful wizard, and I know even this crowd of angry villagers is little more than an annoyance to you. But to someone like me, they could be a death sentence.” She drew herself up to her full height. “Send me away, then. Teleport me as far as you can, and that will be the last I prevail upon your generosity.”

The wizard looked at her for a moment that felt like eternity, in which his heart broke for the first time since he had hidden himself away in the forest fifteen years ago.

“Begone, then.” He waved his hands, and the woman disappeared.

Xavier burst through the door, where he had been listening in. “You absolute buffoon!” he cried. “Whatever did you go and do that for?”