“Do you believe in Volgs?” Drummor asked.

Felitïa gave Drummor his change, leaned on the counter, and thought a moment. He had been blabbering on for some time, but this was the first moment he had given her a real chance to say something. “There are a lot of reputable works that document their existence, so I suppose so. Why?”

“Agernon says it’s all nonsense,” he replied. His thoughts were strong at the moment, and the amount of sexual attraction he was feeling towards her was making her very uncomfortable. “He says they may have once existed, but if they did, they’re certainly extinct by now.”

“That’s possible,” she said. “It’s been centuries since anyone’s seen one.”

“Exactly,” he went on excitedly. “The stories say they were banished to an island in the Great Ocean, never allowed to interact with the rest of the world again. But Agernon says that to survive on their own there, they would need an entirely self-sufficient economy, which would be virtually impossible when they weren’t native to the island. They would need at least some assistance from the rest of the world, which the stories say they weren’t allowed to get.”

She nodded. “Okay, so what’s your point?”

“Well, what if they did survive despite the odds? There have been no verified sightings of Volgs in centuries, sure, but there have been many stories. Think about all those stories of Volg shapechangers. Maybe they use that ability to infiltrate us and get what they need.”

“I suppose so.” Normally, this kind of debate would draw her right in, which was something she was certain Drummor was counting on. They would debate the merits of individual stories, whether or not they were reliable accounts, and so on. However, the strength of his true thoughts was just too distracting. Drummor could be a great study partner, but that was before he started to think of her they way he thought of her now. Couldn’t he tell she wasn’t interested?

Drummor began to go on about the story of Zandromeda the Volg Killer, while Felitïa tried glancing around the rest of the room for anything that might take her mind off his thoughts. Elderaan was the only other person in the shop, and she could see that he was watching her. He looked amused by the whole situation. Unfortunately, she couldn’t detect his thoughts because Drummor’s drowned out everything else.

Ever since she’d developed these telepathic/empathic/whatever-they-were abilities, they’d defied her every attempt to learn to control them. There was nobody in Quorge who had any experience with telepaths, and the supposedly vast knowledge stores of the Hall of Knowledge had proven useless—some accounts of historical telepaths, some treatises on the physiology of telepathy, some wild theories on the nature of thoughts themselves, but nothing on how to use and control the abilities. It seemed that no actual telepaths had ever bothered to sit down and write about their experiences—or if they had, the Hall of Knowledge had never acquired their work.

So Felitïa was stuck with abilities that waxed and waned unpredictably. Sometimes, she could almost hear the precise thoughts of others around her whether she wanted to or not. Other times, she got vague impressions of feelings. Sometimes, there was nothing, as if she didn’t have any telepathic abilities at all. And they could be anywhere in between.

At the moment, her abilities were having one of their flare ups. She couldn’t hear Drummor’s exact thoughts, but she was getting vague images with his emotions. The latest involved her and him entangled... She winced.

Every now and then, with extreme concentration, she could block them out for a short period of time, so she tried now. It wasn’t working. For a brief moment, Elderaan’s amusement overpowered Drummor’s lust. She thought she could hear him laughing. No wait, she could see he really was chuckling over in his corner. Figured. At least Drummor had the courtesy not to vocalize or otherwise act on his thoughts.

The door opened and a teenage girl of maybe sixteen entered the shop. She was a Folith with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair. Felitïa watched her as she moved about the store, looking at the items on the shelves. Most of Elderaan’s customers were regulars, and so Felitïa knew most of them, but she had never seen this girl before. It wasn’t all that unusual to see someone new, but they were rarely this young—unless they were someone’s apprentice, but in that case, they were usually with their master. It was also possible she was just a casual passerby. That did happen from time to time, so Felitïa wasn’t sure what drew her attention to this girl at this time. Something in the back of the jumble of feelings overpowered by Drummor’s. Felitïa continued to watch her.

“So anyway,” Drummor said, running his fingers through his dark hair. He had noticed that she wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, and she could feel how nervous he was becoming. “I don’t yet have a date for the New Year’s celebrations next week. I thought maybe you might like to go with me. Are you listening?”

“I…I’m busy,” Felitïa answered, still watching the girl who was looking through some recently arrived herbs from Ninifin. There was something about the girl, something familiar, like Felitïa had seen her somewhere before. Felitïa forced herself to stop staring, and turned her eyes back to Drummor.

“Oh, well, if you already have a date, it’s okay,” Drummor said.

“No, it’s not that,” Felitïa said. “It’s just... Well, I’ll be with Elderaan the whole time. He’s got some...” She wracked her mind to come up with an excuse as fast as she could. “Some lesson he wants to teach me. Something to do with concentration in crowds or something. You know me and my concentration problems. You’d be bored.”

She glanced over at Elderaan, who had gone over to see the young girl. He glanced back at Felitïa accusingly. Yes, so she’d lied. What else was she supposed to do?

“Oh. Well, another time maybe,” Drummor said.

“Yeah, maybe,” she lied.

“Well, there’s this...” he started up, excitement building in him.

“Actually,” she interrupted, “There won’t be another time. Not as a date. I like you Drummor. You’re about the only real friend I have in this city, but I’m not interested in that. Sorry.”

His excitement changed abruptly to disappointment. His head slumped. “Oh, okay. Well, I...uh...”

Felitïa lowered her head too. She was actually starting to feel a little sad, upset even. No. That wasn’t her. Those were his feelings. Sometimes, strong feelings could fool her into thinking they were her own. “Sorry,” she repeated.

“No, that’s...that’s okay. I...I should get back to Agernon. He’s probably wondering where I am.”

Felitïa nodded slowly. “We’ll...we’ll talk again soon, though.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, yeah, definitely.” He turned and walked slowly from the shop, looking back briefly as he reached the door.

Elderaan finished with the girl and walked over to Felitïa, shaking his head. “He really likes you, you know. He’s a very nice young man. Intelligent, too. The two of you used to get along very well.”

Felitïa scowled. “That was before he started developing these feelings for me. You should have heard some of his thoughts. They were disgusting! Of all the times for my—”

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Elderaan snapped his fingers, and nodded quickly towards the blonde-haired girl, who was watching them.

“Asa, you’re sixteen years old,” Elderaan said, continuing the conversation as if nothing had happened. “You’re a beautiful young woman who could have any boy she wanted. Don’t you think it’s time you began to take a little interest in the opposite sex? Hmm? It’s only normal, you know.”

“Well, as you’ve pointed out to me many times before,” Felitïa replied, “I’m not a normal person.”

“That’s certainly true,” Elderaan sighed.

“Besides, I have much more important things to do with my life than waste time with silly romances. I have my studies to think about.”

Elderaan nodded. “Oh, I know. I know.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I know you are,” replied Elderaan. “I figured that out ages ago. Benefit of touching your mind occasionally, I suppose. Or is it a disadvantage? Who can say? Still, can’t blame an old man for trying.”

“Well, I’m glad that’s clear,” she said.

“Except it’s not just that, is it?” Elderaan continued. “You may not be interested in boys, but you do have affections. They’re just directed elsewhere.”

Felitïa blushed slightly and turned away. Just because she had had a stray thought here and there about Madame Ezmelda at the Hall of Knowledge. Oh, and there had been that really nice Ninifin girl a couple months back. But they were just distractions. Everyone got distracted from time to time. Getting rid of distractions and learning to concentrate was the area she had always needed to work most on, so she pushed thoughts like those aside whenever she had them.

Just how much was Elderaan reading in her during their lessons, anyway? Thoughts like that ought to be private. She tried to focus on his feelings on the matter, but couldn’t get anything clear from him. The flare up seemed to be diminishing, and over the years, Elderaan had become very good at hiding his feelings from her when he wanted to.

“I have some work to do upstairs. If you’ll excuse me, I shall return shortly.” He leaned over to her and added in a whisper, “Keep an eye on that girl. I know you won’t mind doing that. She’s very pretty.”

“Who is she?” Felitïa asked, also in a whisper.

“I don’t know. She would only say that she was just looking and didn’t need any help.”

“Could she be someone’s apprentice? A travelling wizard perhaps, who has arrived in Quorge?”

Elderaan shook his head. “She’s no one’s apprentice. That girl doesn’t know a thing about magic, but she pretends otherwise, so she’s not just a curious passerby. No, if you were to ask me, she’s up to no good. She’s watching us again. I’d better go.” He hurried up the stairs.

Felitïa walked over to the girl, who had moved to the rats. “Can I help you?” Up close, she could see that the girl wasn’t a Folith, like she had first thought. Although she had fair skin, it had the warmer tones more typical to Eloorin and her face was more rounded than most Foliths. It was possible she was of mixed blood. There was definitely something familiar about her, but Felitïa couldn’t place it. The girl wasn’t emanating any emotions. She was either very calm and totally at ease, or Felitïa’s abilities had abated again.

“No, it’s all right,” the girl replied. “I’m just looking.”

The rats were all cowering at the back of their cages. One was even baring its teeth at the girl and hissing. The girl took a step back.

Felitïa moved forwards between the cages and the girl. “Sorry. They get a bit agitated sometimes, but not normally like this. Rats don’t normally get violent unless directly threatened with no means of escape. I don’t know what’s up with them.”

“It’s okay,” the girl said. “Animals hate me.”

Felitïa concentrated a moment and released a calming spell over the rats. “Really?” She looked back at the girl. “It might just be the way you approach them. Animals can be finicky. Here.” She unlocked the latch on the top of the cage, reached in, and lifted one of the rats out. She turned and held the rat towards the girl. “This is Lon the Twelfth. Just stroke the top of his head and neck like this.” She demonstrated.

The girl shook her head.

“It’s all right, I’ve calmed him. He won’t bite you.”

“No thanks.”

Felitïa shrugged, stroked Lon’s head a bit more, then placed him back in the cage.

“The twelfth?” the girl said.

Felitïa shrugged. “I like to name them all. Most of them get different names, but every time we sell one of the Lons, I name the next new one Lon again. It’s kind of silly really.”

“Gotta entertain yourself somehow,” the girl said. “So, you work here with the old man?”

Felitïa nodded. “That’s Elderaan. I’m his apprentice.”

“Lucky you.”

Felitïa was pretty certain the girl was being sarcastic, but she decided to take it as a compliment. “I like to think so.” A hint of amusement from the girl flittered into Felitïa’s head.

“Did you just use magic to calm the rats?”

Felitïa nodded.

“Not bad. I didn’t notice.”

“Thanks. Mentalism is subtle that way. It doesn’t have the wide motions of conjuration or—”

“Yeah, that’s okay. I don’t need the lecture.”

Felitïa blushed. “Sorry. I’m Asa by the way.” She held out her hand to the girl.

“Oh.” The girl hesitated a moment before taking Felitïa’s hand. “Zandrue.” She gave only the briefest of handshakes before turning away and looking around the shop again.

Felitïa followed after her. “Zandrue? As in...?”

“Zandromeda the Volg Killer, yeah. So my mom liked fairy tales. Quite the place you and the old man have.” She passed by the sales counter, glancing at the ledger book.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Drummor had been talking about the Volg Killer when the girl arrived. Had she just grabbed a name she’d heard mentioned moments before? Maybe she was up to no good like Elderaan had suggested. Still, Felitïa couldn’t shake the thought there was something familiar about the girl. A hint of a memory or something that she couldn’t quite place. More like a memory of a memory.

“You okay?” the girl asked.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. I just zoned out for a moment there. Elderaan’s always going on about my concentration skills. This might sound a little weird, but do I know you?”

The girl looked at Felitïa. She had large blue eyes and a wide smile. “No, don’t think so.”

“You just seem really familiar, that’s all.”

The girl shrugged. “Maybe we passed each other in the streets. I’ve been here a couple weeks.”

“Maybe,” Felitïa said, knowing that wasn’t it. “You’re new in town? What brings you to Quorge?”

“Just passing through.”

“Will you be here for the solstice and New Year’s celebrations next week? We could get together. I could show you around. The festivities are always impressive and a lot of fun.”

“Sorry, I have to move on by then.”

“Oh, okay.” Felitïa could sense more amusement from the girl, though she couldn’t tell what amused her. Had the girl overheard her turn down Drummor?

“Well, I better get going,” the girl said, having made a complete circuit around the showroom. “It’s been nice meeting you, Asa. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again sometime.” She didn’t give Felitïa a chance to respond, just opened the door and ducked out.

Felitïa sighed and went back over to her chair behind the sales counter. That had not gone the way she’d hoped. Though if the girl really was up to no good, maybe that was for the best. Besides, she didn’t need the distraction from her studies anyway. She pulled out a book to study from, but found she couldn’t focus at the moment. Her thoughts continued to linger on the girl, Zandrue, and on that hint of a memory that wouldn’t piece together.