Kalli was less impressed with the bus than I assumed she would be. She didn’t say anything as the bus rolled up and just watched me intently as I paid the $1.50 for her fare. I showed the driver my bus pass and headed down the aisle to find a seat in the back.

She followed quietly behind casting nervous glances at the other people on the bus. It was fairly empty because we were on the bus that was going away from school. A little old lady clutching a large bag and a black man in a business suit were the only other passengers.

I sat down at the very back and settled in for a long ride. Kalliphae sat next to the window. Normally when I took the bus I had a bag full of toys to keep myself entertained. I always carried a variety of fantasy novels and comic books. I also had an old game boy. The black and white one. I liked to play Tetris to pass the time. I made it a point to hide this from the bullies. While Tim Sumpter seemed to be allergic to books, if he saw me with any electronics, they were as good as gone.

Today was different. I was far too interested in seeing how Kalli would react to the world around us as we wound our way through North County. For the first twenty minutes, it was nothing but houses and apartments. After that, I watched her silently gasp as we drove parallel to the freeway. Cars whizzed by at over 70 miles per hour in both directions. She turned to me with wonder in her eyes but hesitated when she noticed I was watching her. That seemed to change something in the girl and she acted disinterested as she returned her gaze to the window.

On the way to the mall, we passed several shopping centers and drove down restaurant row. We were shielded from the delicious smells of countless cultures’ cuisines by the wall of the bus. All I could smell was diesel fuel and body odor. Finally, the bus pulled into the mall.

“Come on, we're here.”, I said, tugging Kalli’s arm as I tried to lead her off of the bus.

She refused to take her eyes off of the colossal structure in front of us as she took my hand and allowed me to guide her off of the bus. Kalliphae somewhat distractedly asked me, “What is this place?”

I wasn’t sure how to best describe the mall. I usually tried to avoid the place. I didn’t have any friends to go with and it’s not like I could afford to buy anything. I shrugged, “There are a bunch of small stores all crammed into one long building.”

She perked up at my explanation, “Do you suppose they have a weapon store in there? I could use a new wand.”

I scratched my head while thinking about her request, “I don’t think they have any weapon stores in the mall.Those kinds of stores usually sell guns and things.Wait a second.Do wands really work?Like with phoenix feathers inside of an ancient spruce twig or something?”

Kalli finally turned to look at me. We both noticed that we were still holding hands causing her to pull away from me. She disguised the awkwardness by saying, “Wands do work, but in my world, we rarely use the body parts of monsters as cores. Something like a phoenix feather might work as a focus, but only if the phoenix granted it to you directly. Using a feather obtained from a third party would actually work against you, blocking your mana.”

I was intrigued so I asked, “So what kind of wand were you hoping to buy?”

She shrugged, “Sometimes you can find good deals on second-hand wands in a weapon shop. All I have so far is my training wand and it barely has any mana in it.”

I scanned the girl up and down. Other than a tiny sack that she somehow strapped to her dress, she had nowhere to hide anything. I followed up, “If it doesn’t have a core, what makes a wand magical? Wouldn’t it just be a piece of wood?”

Kalli laughed and reached down, opening up the sack. She pulled out a six-inch stick that looked like it had just fallen from a tree, explaining, “Magic is what makes a wand special. Every time you use a medium to channel a spell it absorbs a small amount of your mana. Over time it creates a memory of the magic being cast and in turn amplifies future spells channeled through it. It's real tricky though. Using another wizard’s wand without their permission can make casting magic more difficult.”

I pointed out the obvious flaw in that logic, “If that’s the case, why would you want to buy a used wand from someone when the original owner didn’t give you permission to use it.”

Kalliphae looked at me like I was joking before giving me a knowing sigh and telling me, “Weapon merchants sell what are known as orphaned wands. That means the previous owner has either sold it or died. A reputable vendor will have a magically authenticated chain of ownership document. Those are difficult to forge and can usually trace the wand’s lineage back to its origin.”

I was still thinking about wands as I opened the door for Kalliphae to enter the mall. I asked, “Can I hold your wand?”

She shook her head rapidly, “That’s a question you never ask a mage. Giving you my wand is the same thing as permitting you to use it.”

I nodded, showing her I understood what she was saying before asking, “How do I go about making my own wand?”

Kalli shrugged held up her wand, “Just find something that has personal meaning to you and channel your mana through it when you use magic. It's not a fast process. It could take years to infuse enough mana to make it have any effect at all.”

The smells of the mall assaulted our noses immediately as we entered the mall. Leave it up to the mall designers to place a Mrs. Fields Cookie shop right in front of the entrance. Kalliphae gravitated over to the window that contained tiered rows of cookies and other sweet confections. She looked at them longingly before looking over her shoulder at me, “Can we buy something here, please?”

When she turned her head to ask me, her crimson ponytail swung over her shoulder. I was starting she was casting some kind of a spell over me.

Do all girls look this way? Was I just not paying attention to the other girls around me until just now?

Unfortunately, I was broke. I replied, “I barely have enough money to get you home. Trust me, you don’t want to try to walk that far.”

She sighed, “Right, that metal chariot. Do you think we could use this?”

Kalli reached into her bag and held out a small golden coin. I examined it.

Item:

Gold Standard

Components

Gold, Mana, Imperial Blessing

Item Rank:

B

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Hellquist

I gaped at the coin. There in front of me resting in the palm of Kalliphae’s hand was gold and mana, two of the things I needed. My first thought was trying to figure out where we could sell it. If I could convince some coin collector that this was an undiscovered ancient relic, I might be able to make some serious money off of it. Forget about this dangerous quest to rescue some smelly kid.

Kalliphae saw me drooling over it and dropped it back in her bag. However, she did ask, “I take it from the look you just gave me that it could be worth quite a bit here. I do have some smaller coins we could try too.”

She showed me two other coins, one made of silver and the other copper.

Item:

Half Standard

Components

Silver, Mana, Imperial Blessing

Item Rank:

C

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Hellquist

Item:

Quarter Standard

Components

Copper, Mana, Imperial Blessing

Item Rank:

D

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Hellquist

After looking over both of the coins in her hand, I asked her, “What does imperial blessing mean?”

Kalli raised an eyebrow at me, “How do you know about my world? Every coin must be blessed by the empire before it can be put into circulation.”

I decided to ask the question that had been on my mind since I met her, “You can’t see the menu when you inspect things?”

Her mouth fell open. Dropping the coins back in her pouch, she asked me, “You never told me you had the ability to scan things. That's a rare skill. How much information do you get from it?”

I explained, “I can see the items name, components, rank, level, and the owner's name.”

Without warning, Kalli reached up and grabbed my shirt, pulling me close. She demanded, “Tell me my surname.”

I froze in her grip. I could still smell the cocoa puffs on her breath. I answered truthfully, “The menu says your last name is Hellquist.”

She sagged and pushed me away. I tripped over a chair and landed on my backside. She quickly apologized, “I’m sorry. I thought you were lying when you told me that. I should have known you had that ability when you knew I was level 7. Here, let me help you.”

I accepted her offered hand and she pulled me to my feet. An old woman that reminded me of Mrs. Fields from the store logo barked at us from behind the counter, “No fooling around over there. If you aren’t going to purchase anything, you need to leave.”

The employee’s outburst reminded me of something. I marched up to the counter and informed her, “We would like to try a sample please.”

The old lady looked like she wanted to hit me with a broom. It reminded me of a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean when Elizabeth requested parlay. She was trapped by good customer service. She still didn’t go down without a fight, saying, “I just heard you say you can’t afford anything. You technically aren’t customers.”

I retorted, “Aw come on ma’am. My friend here has never tried your cookies. I just spent the entire bus ride telling her how amazing they are. I promise to have my mom buy a dozen cookies next time she brings me here.”

She interrogated us both with her eyes before conceding that the best way to get us to go away would be to give in, “Fine. What do you guys want to try?”

I turned to Kalliphae, who beamed and pointed, “I want to try that one.”

She selected a chocolate cookie with fudge models baked in. I sighed and said, “I think you’re starting to become a chocolate addict.”

Deciding to let her try something other than chocolate for once I requested a regular cookie with macadamia nuts and white chocolate. The Mrs. Fields lookalike dutifully pulled the cookies from the case and cut off samples of them, sticking a toothpick through each morsel before handing them to us. Kalliphae immediately devoured hers, giving a look of pure delight as she savored it.

I offered her my sample and said, “Here, try this one next. It’s a bit different, but still very tasty.”

She accepted my offering and down it as well in a single gulp. She grinned at me and agreed, “Oh wow. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. It was just as good as the chocolate one.”

The old lady called after us as we walked away, “He’s a good boyfriend. You shouldn’t smack him around so much.”

Kalli gasped and turned back to the lady, “He is not my boyfriend.”

I laughed and shook my head, “She’s right. We’re just friends.”

“Sure”, the old lady muttered, going back to cleaning the countertops.

Once we were out of earshot, Kalli asked me, “So we’re friends now are we? Whatever happened to you wanting me to teach you magic? You realize I can’t be your friend and your master at the same time right?”

I gaped at the pyromancer. I hadn’t thought about it. She laughed awkwardly, seeing my discomfort, “Relax. I’m kidding. We don’t even know if I can help you yet. Can your mother really afford to buy 12 cookies from that lady?”

“Sure”, I grinned, “I’m worth at least that much on my birthday.”

Progress through the mall was slow. We were supposed to be looking for a missing kid or at least asking about one. I wound up following a wonderstruck Kalli from shop to shop. Sometimes she was content just to window-shop while at others she insisted we go inside so she could have a look around.

Is this what all girls are like?

I was lost in my own thoughts as I watched Kalli explore her 10th store.

Is this a date?

The thought entered my brain seconds before I heard Kalliphae squeal excitedly. She pointed eagerly at a store across the way pointing out, “They do have weapon shops in your world after all.”

Olivander’s Wand Shop

I stared at the store in disbelief. I didn’t remember any Harry Potter themed stores being in the mall the last time I visited. It had been a while, though, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that they would build one. I raced after Kalli, resigned to wander through yet another store where we couldn’t afford anything.

It didn’t take very long for Kalliphae to be let down. She screamed at a teen clerk who had just taken a wand out of a box for her to try out, “This is fake. Even I can tell that this wand has no magic in it.”

For the clerk's part, he tried desperately to stay in character, “I’m sorry miss, not every wand is right for everyone. The wand chooses the wizard after all.”

She stomped her foot and shook her head, “Are you the one filling people's heads with that nonsense. Wands contain mana. Mana isn’t a living thing. It has affinity. When the wizard who created it released that bond, the wand is freed to bind with the next wizard to come along. However, this piece of rubbish has no mana at all. I’ll bet it's never been used to cast a single spell before.”

We were attracting a crowd. One of the supervisors approached Kalli. I was worried he was going to throw us out for causing a scene, but he reached out and took the wand from Kalliphae’s hand and handed it to a little girl who was standing next to her. In a wisened old voice he suggested, “Why don’t you give it a wave.”

The little girl, who couldn’t be more than five years old swished the wand back and forth and said, “Abracadabra.”

I don’t know if they had a button or if someone in the back was watching us on a monitor, but as soon as the child swished the wand, wind started blowing through the room and glitter rained from the ceiling. Kalli looked shocked for once. The supervisor informed the pyromancer, “Sometimes there is magic in innocence. If you look too hard you are liable to miss it altogether.”

Kalliphae blushed and stammered an apology before turning and stomping out of the store. I gave the old man a knowing glance, stopping to inspect him.

Name

Jawon Hearn

Class

True Believer

Level

2

Affection Level

Friendly

I made a mental note to go people watching more in the future. It hadn’t taken long to find another person who was level 2. I found Kalli sitting on a bench looking confused. I decided to explain things to her, “That is a toy store. Not a weapon shop. Those wands are replicas from a movie called Harry Potter. Kids buy them to pretend they are wizards.”

She gave me a quizzical look, “What are movies?”

I was debating whether to explain or just offer to take her to a movie when something caught my attention. Not more than a dozen feet in front of me, a young boy perhaps 10 years of age, was crawling on his hands and knees trying to look up the skirt of a woman who happened to be window shopping.

I jumped to my feet and ran over to the kid, dragging him away before he could get too much of a peek, barking, “Stop that. What’s wrong with you.”

The kid looked up at me in shock and the woman spun on me and hollered, “Nothing is wrong with me. What’s wrong with you.”

I hauled the kid to his feet and informed the woman, “Nothing. I just caught this kid trying to look up your skirt.”

She gave me a confused look and asked, “What kid?”

I held up the kid's arm, shaking him a little, “This one.”

She looked around then at Kalli, asking, “Is there something wrong with him?”

I looked back at Kalliphae, expecting her to back me up. She had stood up and was giving me a worried look. She told the other woman, “I don’t know. Sorry we disturbed you.”

Something was wrong. The woman walked away quickly, probably wanting to get away from the awkward situation. I turned to the kid and yelled, “What’s wrong with you. You can’t do that in public.”

Kalli placed a hand on my shoulder and asked me, “Who are you talking to?”

The kid stopped struggling in my grip and asked, “You can see me?”

I looked down and gave him a closer look. It was the missing kid from the news.