The next morning came and went unnoticed by either McKenzie, Sharinta or Danandra. The former two slept right through it, and the latter was otherwise occupied.

Leni was left by herself to prowl the warehouse - bored and hungry. It's not a particularly good idea to let a troll get into either of these states, at least not unless you plan to unleash it into a group of your enemies to see how many get killed or eaten. The group were supposed to be maintaining a low profile, and had been instructed to leave the warehouse only if absolutely necessary. Danandra had somehow managed to ignore this prohibition when she'd stormed out in a rage last night: Leni wasn't sure how. The mental image of Sharinta - not an elfmaid, but a tasty treat nonetheless - found it's way once more to the top of Leni's consciousness and started to chip away at considerations of friendship and good manners. Then Leni looked at McKenzie's door and thought better of it. Danandra had to return soon. Leni went to loiter by the door where she could pounce on her when she came in.

McKenzie was awoken by the sussuration of his phone.

"I'm up," he said muzzily. Sharinta was still asleep, and had managed to insinuate herself up against him in the night. McKenzie unlatched her arm from around his midsection and sat up.

It wasn't a call, but an email - he'd set it up to alert him instantly if he received a message from a certain address.

Dear client, the email began. It was from a firm of private investigators who didn't know his real name, but it was probably automated anyway. He'd instructed them to keep an eye on the international media for news stories of a certain sort.

It was the weekly report. There was the usual - stories of livestock maulings and 'beasts' from various rural shitholes found in the more credulous type of blog and website. Transcripts of a few TV news stories dealing with animal attacks which were, in all cases, easily explained.

Then, at the very bottom of the report: 'Giant Dog' saves child, 9, in kayak accident. It was from a local paper's website in Canada, and the text was pretty much what you'd expect. Family on holiday, canoe capsized, kid in peril, and: "The dog just came from nowhere, jumped in and swam straight for Steven, then dragged him back to the bank. It must have been really strong to beat the current. It was one of the bigger breeds, it was a really big dog: almost pure white," said Mark Ogden, 43, Steven's father. "I just wish we could have said thank you," said mother Louisa Ogden. "The dog just turned and went back into the trees. If it was your dog then please come forward, we are incredibly grateful."

McKenzie smiled to himself.

He checked to see if Sharinta was still asleep, then yanked off last night's disguise. He frowned briefly at the large, half-full barrel of water he kept in the corner of the room, and a few moments later it started steaming. McKenzie was able to climb into it and use it as a makeshift bath without having to man-up to the cold water.

"Unlimited magical power, and you use it to warm up bath water," Sharinta commented with a yawn.

"I'm not supposed to use it at all," McKenzie replied. "Remember?"

"Yeah," Sharinta said. "Is that water reasonably new?"

"I filled it up from the river three days back. Used it twice, including now."

Sharinta considered it. It'd been quite a while since she'd had a warm bath. "Can I have a go after you're done?"

"Knock yourself out," McKenzie said, snatching up the square of sackcloth that he was using as a towel and stepping out of the barrel. "Watch out for splinters, though, it's not exactly smoothly finished, and you wouldn't want bits of wood stuck in you."

"I'll be careful, thanks," Sharinta replied.

"Right, what's the matter?" McKenzie asked her, wrapping the sort-of-towel around his waist and crossing his arms.

"What?" Sharinta asked.

"You've used more than ten words without saying 'fuck' and passed up a chance at a double entendre. As annoying as you can be, I've sort of got to think of us as friends and kid myself that I know you at least a little bit. Something is clearly bothering you. Out with it," McKenzie said.

"Just when you think you know someone, they suddenly demonstrate they're not as much of a typical man as you thought," was Sharinta's reply.

"I generally try to keep any incidents of sensitivity to an absolute minimum, but this one sneaked out under the radar," McKenzie said. "Seriously, Sharinta: what's wrong?"

Sharinta briefly puzzled over radar, but then ignored it and just sighed. "What's right? It's everything: the curse, Leni, being stuck in this freezing warehouse. I even miss Cally, self-righteous cow that she could be she was still my sister. There's no way out of this for Danandra or I, I've had enough, and I want to, well, I just want to not exist anymore."

"You want to die?" McKenzie was shocked - she'd got through that entire speech without a single profanity.

"For a bit," Sharinta said.

"Hate to break it to you, but it's not something you can just do for a bit, it's perma- oh, I see what you're getting at," McKenzie said, changing tack mid-flow as he remembered that thanks to a magical accident, Sharinta only occupied the physical universe on a timeshare basis with her sister Callena.

Sharinta gave him a wan smile. "I think I'm just a bit tired, really," she said. "Don't plan an intervention just yet."

McKenzie nodded. "I won't," he said. "Turn around, I want to get dressed."

"You're too fucking self-conscious," Sharinta said, and smiled.

"Hey, you said 'fuck'. Excellent: you must be feeling better. Now turn your fucking back," McKenzie said. Sharinta obliged.

He grabbed his gun and phone, then went to rummage in the far corner of the room, finding his usual clothes and yanking them on. He rammed the pistol into it's holster in the small of his back, slid the phone into his jacket pocket and checked his watch. 5am, in New York, which it was still set for: there was a few minutes difference in the length of the day between here and Earth. He strapped it on nonetheless, although it was useless. He wouldn't know the time of day here until he went out and looked at the sky, or heard the regular tolling of the bells of various temples.

There was a quiet sloshing noise from behind him. Sharinta was in the barrel-bath.

"Can I use your towel?" She asked, a few moments later.

McKenzie picked it up and extended it at arm's length, eyes shut. "I was plannin' on giving you a bit of privacy for that."

"Doesn't bother me: look. I have spectacular breasts and an ass to die for. No point in false fucking modesty," Sharinta laughed.

"As a product of a liberal western society, at least recently, anyway, I fully respect the right of a woman to not be judged by a patriarchal society according to an outmoded and inherently unjust system of sexual morality, if that's the way she rolls. However they - ie, you - have to respect my right to be a bit old fashioned because I'm still in the middle of retrofitting that attitude onto nearly four hundred years of unreconstructed blokery. So - please put the bloody towel on."

Sharinta laughed again - there was more sloshing, and then: "Okay, fine, I'm decent now."

McKenzie turned around. She'd wrapped herself in the towel.

"Wanna go out?" He asked. "I'm starving."

"Can't, remember?"

"Bullshit," McKenzie said. "I need to reconnoitre this Unsheathed Dagger place. I have a hard time blending in round these parts, ergo, I could do with a local - you - to keep me out of trouble. That's mission-critical, that is, and I bet we can parlay that into getting lunch there."

"Worth a go. You're fucking buying, though," Sharinta agreed.

"Cool. You go get dressed while I try and shoot Leni," McKenzie said, and grabbed one of the machine-pistols out of his crate, for variety if nothing else. He was getting bored of failing to shoot her with the pistol.

"Leni!" He shouted, once he was out of his door. Sharinta scurried off towards the corner she had appropriated for her own.

"Finally, you're awake. It's about time," Leni responded, from across the warehouse.

McKenzie unfolded the machine pistol's collapsible stock, worked the bolt, flicked off the safety and took careful aim at the troll.

It seemed like this was it. Maybe the relatively long range meant that, somehow, the curse thought he'd miss. His finger tightened on the trigger...

Just for a moment, he felt it give slightly, but then, nothing. It might aswell have been welded in place.

"Cock," he swore, under his breath. "Morning, Leni," he said, louder, slinging the gun over his shoulder.

"I saw that, you know!" Leni replied.

"Whatevs," he said back, and tweeted: Another #leniGunFail. No hangover, though, which is lucky. Ah well. Off out for lunch with Shar, & D I suppose if I can find her.

"Danandra around? Don't tell me you've 'et her."

Leni came over from where she'd been hanging around by the small side door they habitually used. "No," she replied. "She left last night and hasn't come back."

"How'd you know?" McKenzie asked. "She could be in her room."

"No, I waited in there for her last night," Leni said, without a trace of guilt.

"Bit risky, Leni," McKenzie said. "If I came back to my room in the dark and there was someone in there, I might open fire before I'd had time to find out who it was. I imagine Danandra might do the same with a fireball or something," he explained, which might make Leni think twice about lying in wait in people's rooms, although he doubted it.

Leni grunted.

McKenzie collapsed the stock. "Maybe she's escaped the curse somehow. Best of luck to her, if so. Well, as long as she doesn't go trying to take over the world again, anyway."

"She's not supposed to leave. None of us are!"

"Yeah, so I'm told. Know what? I'm gonna give it a go on a flimsy pretext, see if the curse lets me get away with it. You're not invited, before you ask."

Leni glared at him. McKenzie shrugged and checked his mentions. There were thousands.

"Hunh," he said.

"What?" Leni asked.

"None of your fucking beeswax, nosey," McKenzie answered, wandering over to the seats to wait for Sharinta.

If Lemuel hadn't noticed yet, he was going to soon - McKenzie's 140-character activites had come to the attention of the mainstream press. Is @mckrowbar the missing vigilante-turned-villain 'Crowbar' McKenzie? The @nytimes investigates the 'tweets from another world'.

McKenzie went and checked his follower numbers - 578,967. He grinned, and sent a tweet: Ah, I see the press have got hold of it, then. HI LEMUEL, HOW'S TRICKS? #twat #haha #fuckYou

The phone started ringing immediately. Christine.

"Smugness Enterprises, incorporated, how may we gloat for you today?" He answered, still grinning.

"McKenzie. Lemuel is uberpissed at you," she said, breathlessly.

"That was the general idea," McKenzie said. "You're up early, by the way."

"Late," she answered. "Hostage situation at the top of the Empire State."

"Wow. That's a tall order," he said.

"McKenzie!"

"Sorry. Anyway, you okay? Hostages okay?"

"Only one hostage, but yeah, everyone's totally fine. What did you do, anyway? He can't shut it down," Christine said.

"Can't shut what down?" McKenzie asked.

"Your twitter! He's tried to get it deleted and you're totally supposed to have been banned, but it hasn't worked. He's tried to get your phone cut off, but it hasn't worked. Nobody knows why - he came to ask Jimmy about it," Christine told him.

"Well, as you know, Christine, I'm a world renowned techie genius with all sorts of hacking skills," McKenzie told her.

"Are you?" She asked.

"No!" McKenzie replied. "Of course not. No idea what's going on and why, but fuck it, if it's pissing Lemuel off it's fine by me. Gift horse, mouth, etcetera. Maybe if I make enough trouble for him by relentlessly publicising my being here he'll bring me home. Hey, I know, I'll start a bunch of revolutions and put the footage on youtube. That'll cause him some shit. Tell him that, lemme know what he says."

"If it's all the same to you, Crowbar, I, y'know, won't tell him," Christine replied.

"Can't say as I blame you, Chrissie," McKenzie replied.

"Don't call me Chrissie. Is Sharinta okay?"

"Don't call me Crowbar then. But yeah, she's fine. We're gonna go and get some lunch. Danandra's fucked off in a strop, but if she turns up in the next however-long-it-takes-Shar-to-get-ready she can come too. If you do speak to Lemuel, tell him that the mission is going badly, our cover is completely blown and the Vyrinios Guild of Paid Killer Types have taken out multiple hits on us and never want to see us in this town again."

"I am not winding Lemuel up on your behalf!" Christine protested.

"Oh-kay then. You're no fun sometimes, Christine," he said jokingly. "The job went fine, I have come to the attention of the local heavy crew in the rather aesthetic'ly pleasing form of a hot lady assassin, and she wants to talk to me tonight," McKenzie explained. "Apparently this is what I'm supposed to be doing here."

"I'm so pleased you have a date," Christine said. "I was really cut up on your behalf when it fell through with the hippy circus wolf princess."

McKenzie ignored the second part of that. "It's not a date. I'm being interviewed for a position as a fucking assassin, Christine. They'll probably try to kill me to test out my ninja skills. Hence the lunchtime trip to recce the rendezvous point, which is an inn or a restaurant or somethin'."

Christine was laughing.

"What?" McKenzie asked.

"Oh, nothing. Just the mental picture of you as a ninja. You're like the platonic ideal of unstealthy."

"Oi!" He protested, then: “Platty nick what?”

"Never mind. Sorry, McKenzie. I'm sure you could ninj if you wanted to," Christine said placatingly.

"Cow," McKenzie told her, noting Sharinta emerging from her room in her usual black ensemble. "Anyway, I'm off out. Well played with the high-rise-hostage caper."

"Laters, McKenzie. Take it easy."

"Bye," he said, hanging up. "Shar, looking good."

"Of course I am, it’s me," she replied breezily. "No Danna?"

"No Danna," McKenzie confirmed.

"Leni, have you...?" Sharinta let the question hang.

"I haven't seen her," The troll replied.

"I actually meant have you fucking eaten her."

Leni shook her head.

"Shit," Sharinta said.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"She's a big girl - well, figuratively speaking - she can look after herself. If she turns up, Leni, try not to eat her and tell her we've gone to stake out the Unsheathed Dagger from somewhere that does a nice lunch menu," McKenzie said.

Leni snorted. "Fine. I'm starving, though - can you bring me something back?"

"Like what, exactly?" Sharinta asked with a snort. "The waitress? The chef?”

"Well, if you-"

"We'll bring you a fucking sheep or something," McKenzie cut in. "If you promise to leave off eating Shar and Danandra, and generally stop being an asshole."

"Oh, okay. Don't be too long," Leni said. "You don't know what it's like for a troll to be hungry. It's-"

"I know what it fucking results in," Sharinta said. "Are you taking that? It's a bit fucking obvious." She nodded at the machine pistol.

"Oh yeah. Best not." McKenzie unslung it and hung it over the back of a chair. "I wouldn't touch that if I were you, Leni. These things kill people who don't know how to handle them properly all the time. Actually, on second thoughts, help yourself."

"Har har," Leni said sullenly.

Sharinta and McKenzie headed for the door.

"I'll stay here then," Leni said.

"Yes you fucking will."

"And, y'know, guard the warehouse."

"Yeah. Whatevs."

Leni sighed. The door slammed.

- o O o -

When the Archmage had told McKenzie that he and the coven would be on the next airship to Vyrinios, the capital of the newly unified, used-to-be Vyrinian Empire was-now Republic of Vyrinia, McKenzie had immediately assumed that it would probably look like Rome did in Spartacus and given it no more thought than that. To a certain extent - he was right. Vyrinios certainly had all the usual accoutrements of an ancient imperial capital - palaces, squares, amphitheatres, markets, gardens and the rest of it. It also had a few things Hollywood Rome didn't, such as several academic buildings dedicated to the study of magic, a couple of towering airports with attendant warehouse areas (in the vicinity of one of which they were staying, or lairing, or hiding, or whatever verb you wanted to use), and about a million square miles of urban dwelling area where the tremendously huge population actually lived - the sort of workmanlike place that directors had best thought edited out of Roman epics. It was surprisingly clean - like the Romans, the Vyrinians knew about sewerage and other civil engineering technologies - and, amazingly to McKenzie, the streets were lit at night, or at least the important ones were. In this case it was magic, not electricity or gas, that provided the light: the city had a huge number of people on it's payroll, and they numbered amongst their ranks a squad of mages whose entire job was to make sure that the glowing glass orbs stayed lit at night.

It also had slaves and slave markets, and the Archmage had impressed upon McKenzie that his mission, (at this point, at least - Xixaxa's hatred of slavery was legendary) did not involve breaking chains and beating up slavers. McKenzie had once found himself in the back of a slave wagon on his way to be auctioned on the block in Vyrinios, and the memory only served to heighten his disgust at the practice. He had to concede, though, that you didn't stamp out slavery by stamping out individual slavers, as satisfying as that might be. It was the Archmage's personal crusade and he had no doubt she'd achieve it eventually.

Vyrinios was mostly constructed from a hardwearing, yellowish stone that could presumably be found locally in staggering quantities, and like Rome they went in for arches and pillars in a big way. It was busy and thronging and pretty much a 24 hour city, but it was also surprisingly orderly - until you scratched the surface.

Then you found an entire subculture of organised crime, from associations of pickpockets to unions of jewel thieves, leagues of bandits, and, of course, a Guild of Assassins.

Vyrinios didn't have a civilian police force of any kind - the military patrolled the streets, and they tended to practice a 'stab first, question later, forget the paperwork' style of peacekeeping. They would also rather not tangle with highly trained ruthless killers who were probably a great deal better armed than they were, so, if an assassin restrained his targets to known villains and kept the collateral damage to an absolute minimum, the soldiers were content to adopt an intelligence-led approach to catching assassins: if you were intelligent, you didn't chase after them too fast or look for them too hard.

Sharinta and McKenzie walked out of the door and headed east, towards the centre of the city. They hadn't gone more than a hundred yards, though, when their nostrils were assaulted by the pungent reek of a cattle market.

"It's delightful neighbours like this that make me just so glad we chose this area, honey," McKenzie said, in a sing-song fake American voice. Sharinta shot him a quizzical look, then shook her head.

"They can be fucking useful, though. Hey! Master merchant!" Sharinta hailed a portly man who was supervising a line of cattle being herded into an enclosure.

The man looked around in evident irritation, but, seeing Sharinta, his eyes widened and he broke into a smile. "Good afternoon, sir and madam." The man inclined his head slightly.

"Are these cattle for sale?" Sharinta asked.

"I would be a poor merchant were they not, madam!" The man said, and looked at Sharinta for a reaction.

Sharinta looked back expectantly and unsmilingly.

"Tough room," McKenzie commented.

The merchant sighed. "They are, indeed, for sale."

"Good. How much for, um, that one looks okay." Sharinta pointed at a large bovine. "You know anything about cows?" She asked McKenzie.

McKenzie shrugged. "They shit and go moo."

"Should I assume you're in the market for a sacrificial animal, madam?" The merchant asked.

"Nah, just your average cow," Sharinta replied. "Do you deliver?"

"What address, madam?"

"That door there," Sharinta pointed back towards the warehouse.

"In that case, yes, we deliver," the merchant replied. "Shall we say five silver?"

Sharinta snorted. "Now that's a fucking humourous comment, master merchant. One and seven coppers, or I'm no judge of fucking livestock." Which she self-evidently wasn't, but Sharinta wasn't about to let that get in the way of negotiations.

Like everyone on this world, Sharinta was a master haggler. They settled on two silver and a handful of coppers for the smallest of the cattle present, which McKenzie seemed expected to pay on Leni's behalf.

"She better be good for this," he muttered, as he counted out the coins into the merchant's plump palm. "There you go, mate."

"Many thanks, sir and madam. You!" He snapped his fingers at a downtrodden looking woman who was rather listlessly guiding cows through gates with a wooden stick. Despite the cold, she wore only a thin-looking smock & crudely made rope sandals. "Take that animal to that warehouse." The merchant pointed at cow and destination. The woman obeyed without any words. McKenzie saw that she shared something in common with the livestock: she was branded.

The curse flared up against the sudden urge to find the iron that'd caused the mark and wrap it around the merchant's fat neck, but it didn't flare too brightly. McKenzie briefly considered forcing the issue, but decided against it. It was depressing to have your actions constantly thwarted: better to leave it as your decision rather than the curse's.

Sharinta spoke up, though: “Hey, wait,” she said. “Just tie it up outside, knock on the door and leave, okay? Don’t go in. Come straight back here. Do you understand?”

McKenzie hadn’t thought of that – he kicked himself mentally.

The girl nodded, although the merchant looked at them quizzically before bidding them a good day. McKenzie and Sharinta didn't wait to hear the sounds of a distressed cow being assaulted by a troll, but carried on into town.

The girl started forward with the cow again – the merchant stopped her, casting an appraising glance towards the warehouse. “Ignore what she said, I want you to take it inside and then tell me what you see in there,” he murmured. Obviously he was an honest merchant, and would not stoop to thievery – but if it should come up in conversation with someone who was willing to part with a small stack of coins in exchange for some interesting gossip about warehouses which the owners evidently didn’t want anyone looking into too closely, well, where was the harm in that?

The girl nodded again, listlessly.

"I know I must've asked this before," McKenzie asked, already some distance away from the merchant, "but how come everyone doesn't, y'know, just kill trolls on sight?"

"What do you mean?" Sharinta asked.

"Let's not mince words here - they eat people. Round my way that sorta behaviour, these days, would see you arrested and chucked into prison forever, and in the good old days they'd skip that part and just shoot them," McKenzie explained. "In fact I strongly suspect they woulda gone extinct about the same time as humans started knockin' about in big, arsy, spear-toting gangs - along with every other species that used to enjoy chowing down on the weird hairless ape things. No shortage of spears round these ends, I note - but also no shortage of fucking trolls, either."

Sharinta shrugged. "There are laws, you know. You can't just up and fucking kill someone, even if they are a troll - and they can't just eat fucking anyone, McKenzie."

"My response to that is in two parts, a) what fucking laws, and b) every single troll I've ever met doesn't seem to give a fuck," McKenzie said.

"Well, it does fucking happen," Sharinta said. "Sometimes. I mean, look at what Leni did to end up cursed. But if they behave, well..." Sharinta shrugged. "They're tolerated."

"Yeah. I know. And I don't get why," McKenzie said emphatically.

"Well, you're not from here, are you?" Sharinta pointed out, although she did it with a smile. "Where you're from people talk to each other with magic boxes and ride horseless chariots everywhere. Different rules apply in different places. Get used to it."

"Don't think I'm gonna get used to this particular fact of life, Shar," McKenzie said. "In fact, know what? When I've got some spare time I'm goin' to get to the bottom of this and put a bloody stop to it."

"Dream on, Kenz," Sharinta said.

"How about you don't call me 'Kenz' again - ever - and I won't tip the barrel full of dirty wash water on you when we get back," McKenzie said.

"Deal," Sharinta agreed pleasantly.

"Wise choice," McKenzie said.

- o O o -

Danandra woke up slowly. All around her was warm, soft and smelled much nicer than the warehouse. In particular, the scent of chocolate was a particularly welcome improvement. She opened her eyes, but saw nothing but a vaguely person-shaped blur. She reached out unthinking to her left - she normally kept her glasses next to the bed, but encountered nothing but a pillow.

"Oh! Here they are," said a voice. Male. Her glasses were placed into her hand. Danandra put them on.

A small room - spartan but clean. Creaking from above indicated that someone was moving about upstairs: there was also a sound of muffled conversation from the wall behind her head. Bright spring sunlight flooded in through a large glass window, illuminating several shelves of books, a desk piled high with scrolls, a bed and an elven man wearing a red robe, sat on the edge of it.

"Good morning Zalla. You mentioned last night you preferred hot chocolate to coffee," the man told her, and smiled.

"Um, yes," Danandra said, accepting the mug. She blinked.

"Headache?" The man asked. "Three doors down is studying for his Mastership in Thaumatomedical Studies, and owes me a favour."

"I'm fine. No headache," Danandra replied, as memory came flooding back. "Thank you." She lifted the mug up.

What was his name again?

"Talius?" Danandra hazarded.

Talius smiled. "Tal to my friends," he said.

Her clothes were folded over the back of the desk chair, Danandra noted. She used her free hand to pull the covers up under her chin.

"Tal. Thank you. Um. Do you happen to know what time it is?" Danandra asked him.

"They just rung two bells in the afternoon," Talius informed her. "I didn't want to wake you, you said your master was not expecting you back until the evening."

"Yes," Danandra replied, less hesitantly as the events of last night slotted into place.

"I had a morning class to teach," Talius explained.

"Of course," Danandra said, and arranged a smile.

She hadn't known why she'd been able to leave the warehouse. Predicting the action of the curse was not a precise art, and in any case she had been far too furious to think of anything but her anger. That anger had carried her all the way into the centre of Vyrinios, in a silent, seething rage, until a sense of powerful magic had brought her out of it. She'd been in the Magus District, where most of the magical colleges were to be found: the magic radiated from a tavern, which, in common with any tavern in the vicinity of a large population of students with generous allowances, was open late. The sign - magically lit - declared to the world that this was The Shining Sigils.

It really was quite powerful, and Danandra had an unique reaction to the practice of powerful magic. There was no way in the world that she could have stopped herself from going in.

There were no doormen to deny entry to this drinking establishment: ingress was controlled by other means. Danandra felt the magical shield like silk being drawn over her skin as she walked through it.

The bartender nodded as she walked in, but Danandra barely noticed him. The magic drew her down some stairs, into a bar lit by bright magical globes of the finest workmanship. She had eyes only for the scene in the centre of the bar.

A ring of young men and women who could only be students of magic were surrounding an elf sat at a table, who was sipping a glass of wine and reading a book. There was another glass of wine in front of an empty chair. The elf - handsome, if a bit thin-looking - was maintaining a magical shield around his table - and what a shield. Danandra had seen magical barriers that were more powerful, true - she had seen Lemuel the White raise one that nearly defied reason - but she had rarely, if ever, beheld such precise and artistic work. It was a joy to the senses.

"Excuse me. What goes on here, please?" She asked one of the students, a despondent looking young man. She forgot, in her fascination with the beautiful magic, to be abrasive.

"We're failing an examination in countering a shield, that's what's going on here. That's Adept Talius, our teacher. Nobody can weave a shield like him," the boy explained.

"I quite agree." Danandra said, forcing her voice to not be husky and keeping her hands at her sides: she couldn't shake the irrational feeling that it was too warm to be wearing so many layers. "What must one do to pass, may I ask?"

The boy shrugged. "Drink the wine, he said. The problem is, nobody can get in. We've all been trying for hours."

Danandra nodded, and stepped forward.

The elf noted her presence, and raised an eyebrow. Danandra shivered, steeled herself, and gave him what she hoped was a pleasant smile. She didn't usually have occasion to use one, and was out of practice.

The interwoven strands of Adept Talius' shield, she noted, would keep out everything, including sound. Danandra raised a finger and wrote some words in the air: they shimmered gold, and provoked an admiring murmur from some of the students. With a twisting gesture, she spun them so the seated man might read them: I'm thirsty, can anyone play?

The man's reply was to smile and indicate the chair with a courtly gesture.

Danandra stepped up to the shield. It was a dark crimson colour, but closer inspection, as she expected, showed it to contain many different shades of red. The strands of magic were woven together with absolute mastery: the layer to withstand force perfectly complemented the layer to withstand magical assault. Without deploying enough magical energy to level the street, or summoning a ballista crew with a generous supply of ammunition and a couple of days to spare, nobody - apart from the obvious exception of McKenzie - could get into that sphere.

She allowed herself to run her hand over it, to feel the perfection of it's construction. She gasped, sighed, then held her lower lip between her teeth to prevent any further embarrassing exhalations.

There is no way in to get to the wine, she wrote. You have wrought too precisely for that.

Adept Talius answered with another smile.

My compliments on your artistry, she wrote: and then raised the glass of wine in a toast.

The students gasped and vocalised their amazement: the glass of wine had disappeared from the table, and Danandra was indeed holding it. Adept Talius' eyes widened for a moment, but then he smiled, stood and snapped his fingers. His shield fell, but even that was done with precision and grace - it smoothly bisected itself into two halves, which then neatly folded into themselves.

"And my compliments on yours," he raised his own glass in a salute. His voice was deeper than his frame would suggest, and he had an unfamiliar but pleasant accent. "I would very much like to know how you managed to teleport even so small an object through my shield."

"I've had rather a lot of practice at it, recently," Danandra replied.

"You realise, of course, that the challenge cannot truly be said to have been met until we have finished the bottle," Talius told her with a twist of his lips.

Danandra drank the rest of her wine, stepped up very close to him, and held the glass up for a refill. His eyes were very light blue, she observed, and his close cropped hair - an unusual style, for an elf - was blond.

"Class dismissed," she had said, over her shoulder.

"Same class?" She asked him now, sipping the chocolate.

Talius nodded with a wry smile. "Same class. There were a number of impertinent questions, or at least a few more than the usual amount. The more cynical among them have assumed that the entire thing was a pre-arranged deception, and no actual teleportation happened at all. A supporting argument has been put forward that 'such a hot elfmaid would never go for that stuffy teacher in a million years'."

"I would probably draw the same conclusion, in their place," Danandra replied brightly.

"You wound me!" Talius accused her jokingly.

"My apologies," Danandra smiled, and was surprised to find it came naturally. "My behaviour last night was not typical of me, but you may rest assured that this elfmaid would still go for that stuffy teacher under entirely different circumstances."

"Kind as well as 'hot'," Talius said.

Danandra felt a sudden tug from the curse: fainter than usual, but still there. "I must go soon," she said.

"May I see you again?" Talius asked her. "Last night was something special, not just here " - he indicated the bed - "but in conversation, too. I would be thrilled if this was to be a beginning, not an end."

I'm sorry, but it's impossible. My duties will not allow it, Danandra framed her response.

"Yes," she said, and was so surprised she nearly dropped her mug.

Talius smiled broadly. "Excellent. Great. Um...tonight?"

"I am...not sure," Danandra replied. "How may I leave you a message?"

"The faculty offices will take messages for adepts. I'll be sure to check with them hourly," Talius told her.

"Half hourly, at least, I should say," Danandra corrected him.

"You are worth nothing less."

"Flatterer."

"I do but speak the truth," Talius told her.

"I also speak the truth when I say that I do not understand why you hold the rank of adept and not master. Your craftsmanship on the shield, from last night, was exquisite," Danandra complimented him. Even the memory of it filled her with a welcome warmth.

"Regrettably the Board of Advancements of the Royal Free Magical College has not yet seen it the same way. I am relatively young - for our kind, at least - and a relative outsider. There are many adepts with greater seniority awaiting their turn." Talius shrugged, although he sounded a great deal more concerned than he was attempting to affect.

"Greater gold pouches, you mean, or greater claim on a master's family connections. I know how these places operate," Danandra snorted, sounding more like her usual self. "There's more to magic than academia and ranking and the approbation of a roomful of fusty old humans imposing arbitrary rules on that which cannot be measured. It's supposed to be a bit wild, a bit unpredictable, a bit..."

"Passionate?" Talius supplied, when she was unable to produce a word.

"Passionate," she agreed. "We are artists, not book-keepers."

"I quite agree. I was not always a stuffy teacher. But here I am, and those fusty old men - who include in their number two fusty old elves, by the way - keep me sheltered, solvent and allow me the time and space to pursue my...art," Talius shrugged.

The curse pulled at her again. It was odd, though: it almost felt as if she could ignore it if she wanted to.

Almost: "I must go," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I too have an appointment for which I dare not be late," Talius said, with regret. "I hope you will not think me rude if I leave you to see yourself out."

"No," Danandra said.

"Then, with deep regret, I take my leave of you. It is my sincerest wish that we will meet again soon, Zalla," Talius told her. "Quite apart from what I hope was as memorable a night for you as it is for me, I should like you to see my laboratory."

Danandra felt a sudden shiver deep inside, and once again she bit her lower lip.

"You have a laboratory?"