Tina was lying stomach down on a couch. She avoided sitting or even lying on her back. Her butt was sore. Just going to the toilet had been somewhat painful. Nothing close to the pain from her earlier bullet wound, though.

Caroline was extremely apologetic. In her enthusiasm to show Tina the light, or at least the joy of horse riding, she had taken them on a long ride. They hadn’t turned back until Tina had started to complain she was feeling a bit uncomfortable, and then they still had to ride all the way back.

To be fair, Tina had given her no reason to turn back before that. Once she had gotten over her initial fear of falling off, the ride had been nothing short of exhilarating. She had even laughed, unable to control her feelings. Possibly more hormones, who knew.

Now that she had time to think, she was trying to figure out why she suddenly felt so enthusiastic about riding. Before this, she hadn’t liked horses much at all. She had considered and discarded a hypothesis that there was a link between being female and liking horses. A much more likely reason was that she had previously linked horses to her fear of heights or situations which she had no control over. Once she realized she was in control of the beast, or at least the horse allowed her the illusion of control, there was a lot of fun to be found.

She had no intention of turning into a horse enthusiast like Caroline and Brittany had been at her current age. It was fun to ride, like a roller coaster at an amusement park. Grooming and otherwise caring for a horse did not sound quite as entertaining.

Fortunately, a horizontal position was not a deterrent from using a borrowed iPad. The Internet was in her hands again! However, now that she had access to it again, she realized there was a lot of impulses regarding the Internet she had to suppress. She had no way of knowing how tech-savvy her possible pursuers were, but she couldn’t really afford to take unnecessary risks that might terminate her new life. That included logging into anything connected to Martin’s life.

It occurred to her that she just had just mentally categorized her old life under the name ‘Martin’. It was undoubtedly her own life, yet she felt the need to distance herself from it.

Now that she had access to the Internet, she could at least learn as much as possible regarding the ‘Party incident’. It was still relatively hot news, but there was surprisingly little concrete the media sites had to report. The place had practically burned to the ground, leaving only a minor portion of it still standing. The police were still trying to identify all the dead bodies. Some were still missing.

From what she could tell, the police would be unable to tell for certain whether Martin had died there or not. That was probably good: If the police couldn’t tell, hopefully, her pursuers couldn’t either. If there were any pursuing going on at all? With some luck, she had just been awfully paranoid about the entire prospect.

That brought up an interesting concern. When would she feel safe again? How long would she have to live under a rock? If she assumed no one could magically recognize her, she could just live an ordinary life from now on. Well, as long as she could somehow produce all the necessary paperwork required to function in society. She was, after all, missing in every single database. It would be impossible for her to get a permit for anything. 

Right now, she was reliant on Caroline’s goodwill to live comfortably. She didn’t want to overstay her welcome, yet had no better option in sight. It would at some point be necessary to discuss the problem with her current house lord. For now, she opted to procrastinate it. Same procedure as usual, really.

After digging up as much information as possible regarding the incident, she browsed news sites in general, followed by various other content. She usually found the Internet to be the ultimate tool for procrastination. Not today, though: Her mind sought answers the Internet was unable to provide her.

She found Caroline in the kitchen, making dinner. “Is this an appropriate time to ask some questions?” Tina asked cautiously. “And can I offer any help?”

The older woman turned towards Tina, her eyes red with tears. “Yes, please,” she asked with a mix of happiness and sadness in her voice. It took a moment for Tina to realize the reason for this strange behavior: She had been cutting an onion.

After washing her hands, Tina took over the onion-cutting, leaving Caroline free to do other tasks. “I was wondering if you could tell me more about magic, and people capable of using it,” she asked.

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Caroline started peeling potatoes, occasionally wiping a tear. “I can try. But you should know that I’m about as close to the edge as possible while still being part of the magic community, so my information is spotty at best.”

She reached for the next potato. “I think it’s most useful if I start with the magical community in general.”

According to Caroline, there were a lot of smaller magical communities. Some magic-wielders like herself were not directly part of any at all. The groups had various membership requirements and benefits, most notably training. There was some rivalry between groups, but very rarely open fighting.

Tina was just as affected by the onion as Caroline. Her tears were running, but at least she was done. By Caroline’s instruction, she started cutting the peeled potatoes into dice. “Is there some sort of hierarchy between the groups?” she asked as she worked.

Caroline answered as well as she could while heating up a pan. She explained that there was no official hierarchy she knew of, but there might be unofficial ones. The highest authority within the magical community, in general, was the Council. They had two purposes.

The first was to prevent magic from getting too wide-spread. For that purpose, they enforced very strict rules on keeping magic outside the veil. Basically, the number of people you could teach magic to was limited to a single apprentice at a time and your own children. There were also limits to how often you could pick up a new apprentice.

“The Council’s second purpose is to control the borders to other worlds,” Caroline said while frying garlic and onion.

“Wait, what?” Tina blurted out, “Other worlds?”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot that I need to start at the very beginning,” Caroline excused herself while adding various diced vegetables to the pan.

“You should really ask someone who understands this better than me. But, since no one is available, I’ll try my best.”

She explained how there were potentially infinite worlds out there, separated by some sort of dimensional wall. Occasionally, rifts would form between two worlds, allowing creatures to pass through. She didn’t know what actually caused rifts to open, or if it was completely random. All she knew was that a rift, once formed, would close on its own in a reasonable amount of time, unless it was artificially held open by a gate.

“According to people who know a lot more than me, the rifts may only form between worlds which are dimensionally close, whatever that means. And worlds — or maybe dimensions — drift in some way, so, occasionally, even gated rifts will forcibly shut down. This usually takes a long time — centuries, if not millennia — and there will always be warnings before these things happen.”

Caroline poured in broth and turned up the heat.

“There are also some rules regarding rifts. The short version is that rifts only form between worlds with living beings. Something regarding magic fields or whatnot. Again, ask someone more knowledgeable than me, please.”

Tina found herself starstruck by the prospect of visiting other worlds. Maybe fantasy worlds containing elves, dwarves, dragons…

“Can anyone outside the veil use the gates?” she asked Caroline hopefully.

“In general, no, and that’s mostly for your own protection,” Caroline replied, fetching two deep dinner plates.

“Most of the worlds out there are hostile to us. Some are directly dangerous to enter. There are worlds with dangerous radiation, unbreathable air, and at least one world with mercury oceans. Others are dangerous because of the inhabitants.”

She set the table while explaining that most species did not come in peace. There were some that had mostly peaceful intentions, but a lot more that wanted to or had even attempted to invade Earth. Fortunately, Earth’s conditions, while perfect for humanity, were extremely hostile to many other races.

“Even if a race is capable of surviving in our atmosphere, humans have an ultimate weapon: The very veil itself. It’s really hard to invade with magical weaponry that simply stops functioning in the presence of most enemies. This is, ultimately, the reason why the Council so strictly enforces the veil.”

This was plenty of food for thought for Tina. Speaking of food, her stomach was reminding her how much she looked forward to the stew to be done. Patience, young padawan.

“How about other races that rely on machinery and science like humans?” she wondered out loud.

“As far as I know, we’re in a pretty unique position,” Caroline replied, “I don’t know the exact reason, but Earth seems to be the only world we know of that has something like the veil. Magic is extremely widespread on other worlds. Before you start to be depressed about it, you should know that dimensional invasions are also very common on other worlds, so Earth definitively has its advantages.”

She put the finished dish on the table and poured a portion on Tina’s plate. Tina had a lot more questions, but Caroline was unable to answer most of them, simply due to her own lacking knowledge. Particularly when it came to magic itself: Caroline had practically no knowledge of what was possible or impossible with magic, at least on other worlds where you didn’t have to fight against dampening fields all the time. She promised to put Tina in contact with someone who knew more, perhaps as early as the upcoming weekend.

Tina found it necessary to consume the meal standing up.