John was bigger than Millie, but softer. Then again, a bank manager didn’t exactly have to work out a lot, and he liked his food. But right now, he wasn’t looking happy.

“John, how are you doing?”

“I don’t know. How are you with the rent?”

“Okay, I’ve had some minor issues and I need—”

“Ninety days, Millie.” John gestured and Millie let him into the house. “Ninety days late. Do you know how I found that out?”

“Uh… A little bird?”

“Mom asked for help on her mortgage, the one she uses the rent from this house to help pay for. Millie, I don’t want to be the bad guy here, but I just paid her mortgage because you’re three months late.” He sighed. “Millie, I’m going to have to ask for at least one month’s rent by the end of this month. I can work something out about the overdue, but you need to be able to at least keep up payments from here on out. Mom will hate it, but if you can’t… I can help you find some place that’s cheaper.”

“Don’t worry!” Millie said. Where the hell am I going to get that money?

“Uh-huh. How is your little investigation business going? Still getting paid in meals? Selling at swap meets isn’t exactly a regular business, and those are your two main jobs, aren’t they?” John shook his head. “Millie, fine, you’re not a lawyer anymore. You’re never going to be a lawyer again, you know that. But you have the education and an office may not care about what happened, so why not try to find a job that is a little more regular?”

“Eh, you know how it goes.“

“I know it comes with a regular paycheck. I—“ John broke off and stared at the open door to the kitchen where the remains of yesterday’s meals were. “Did you get another stray? That’s more dishes than one woman needs.”

“I… I just sort of helped someone out!” Millie said.

“Christ,” John put one hand to his head. “I’m not going to ask, because I don’t want to know. But Millie? You need to stop looking out for other people until you can look out for yourself. One month, Millie, one month’s payment by the end of this month, and this isn’t something you can ignore.”

“I understand.” Millie nodded.

“I hope you do.” With that, John turned and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Christ, what am I going to do?

“Was that your landlord?” Dara asked. Millie turned to see her standing in the door to the bedroom.

“You listened?”

“I wasn’t certain if he was an enemy or had come from the park.”

“Yeah, no, John’s uptight, but he isn’t an enemy. He just wants his money.”

Dara frowned. “Can you pay him?”

“I… I have some ideas,” Millie said.

Dara didn’t look confident. “But if you’re three months late… did you have ideas for those other months?”

“They didn’t work out as well as I thought they would.” Millie shook her head. “Don’t worry. Worst case, I can find you a place while I work on—”

“If you cannot afford this place, how can you find another place?” Dara asked.

Millie took a breath and then turned and leaned up against the wall, the plaster cool under her forehead. “Yeah, okay, see, I sort of didn’t realize everything that was going to go down. I had to sell my parent’s place to pay off the last of the student loans and fines, and well, ‘nearly put in prison’ isn’t exactly something that looks good on a resume. But that’s not your problem.”

“It seems that it is,” Dara said. “I don’t know anyone else here. Was I one of your… strays?”

“Well, this world has a lot of people who fall through the cracks. Not so many who fall from the sky, but you get the point.”

“And if you get thrown out?” Dara shook her head. “What do we do then?”

“I’ll figure out something for you—” Millie fell silent as Dara stomped up to her, an annoyed look on her face.

“No, we’ll figure something out, because if I don’t have a place to live, how can I find my way home!? Also, you already helped me, so I owe you.” Then Dara folded her arms, glaring up at Millie. “Now how much do you need to pay?”

“The rent is three and a half thousand,” Millie said. “Per month.”

“Right. How much do you have?”

“Uh, not counting the money we spent eating out? About three hundred dollars—but I need some of that for the car.”

Dara stared at her, her expression…

“Don’t give me that look. I was handling things before you face planted into my car.”

“Three months behind. Handling things.”

“And what is your idea?”

Dara paused and then held out her hand. Moments later, a little figure, made out of blueish golden flames, appeared and started dancing. “It’s a cantrip spell. I learned it before I even started school. Wouldn’t people be interest—”

“Nope, not a chance. Remember the part about not letting everyone know? Besides, the swap meet where I sell stuff I, ah, found isn’t a place that has a lot of shows.”

“Fine, let me try to make things then,” Dara said. “Every student needs to take at least one art class, and I took glass sculpture.”

“Look, we have a month to worry about that. You were freaking out over your gem, so focus on that.”

“I had time to think.” Dara went to a chair and sat down, biting her lip for a moment before she nodded. “If the gem came through before I did, and shattered, the pieces, they’re… more magical than anything I’ve ever sensed before. The original gem was… a way of containing this power, but it shattered. But as the fragments fell, they were unstable, and they created these shells to protect their core.”

“Hearts.”

“Yes, but not all of them would be the kind of heart you saw here. I think there might be different types.” Dara shrugged. “But without any kind of external stimuli, they went dormant.”

“Until you showed up.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean others might not be active.” Dara shrugged. “Just because you have no mages doesn’t mean you don’t have people with the gift, and they could influence other fragments.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“Magic is a fundamental component of the mind,” Dara said. “Everyone has some capacity for it.”

Millie filed that away for further thought, then grinned and grabbed the broom, holding it up like she’d seen Dara hold her staff. “So, you’re saying I could be Millie, Sorceress of Fullerton?”

“Ah…” Dara stared at her. “Not unless brooms are much more magical on this world.”

“Yeah, and I’m too old to go back to school. So here’s the thing. You’re saying that you popping up might have caused some of these fragments to get frisky.”

“Yes.”

“And would they be around here?”

“I…” Dara shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, travel between worlds is supposed to be impossible, so is time travel and yet both have happened. They could be anywhere. I couldn’t—wait a minute… Maybe I could.”

“What?”

“Like calls to like.” Dara reached into her pocket and pulled out the gem. “If I could make a compass, and use this gem as the lodestone… It might help me find the others.”

“Great. What do you need for that?”

Dara sagged. “A lot. More tools than you have. I’m not even certain if I could make them. Not here. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“First time for anything,” Millie said. “And I can also keep an ear out, especially for your friend.”

“If he’s here. If he didn’t die.”

“Well, we can check the obits, but first, I think we need to get something to eat.”

“You don’t have much money.”

“So spending a little bit of it won’t make our situation any worse!”

Dara didn’t say anything to that.

The place Millie found was near the local college. It didn’t look like the college back home, no great spires, or shifting illusions to announce the newest event.

But it was a college. Dara could see the students walking back and forth, some strolling, some hurrying.

She bit her lip. Do they know what happened to me? Are they trying to get me back, or am I just listed as missing and presumed dead? What about my family? Mama, Papa? Have they heard yet?

“I need to pass this class!” a girl wailed from two booths down.

“Ah, college,” Millie said. “That delightful mixture of partying all day and then realizing you’re about to flunk.” She grinned at Dara. “So how many parties did you have?”

“I didn’t party,” Dara said. “I was there to work.”

“Wow. Everyone was like you?”

“No…” Dara glanced out the window at some other students, including one shirtless man. I guess this school has no uniform code. She looked back at Millie. “Some of us liked to study.”

“Kid, that’s a terrible life plan.” Millie gestured at her with one of the fried sticks of potato everyone seemed to consume. “You don’t drink sugar and you don’t party. You’re gonna burn out before you're twenty.”

“I have to get back to burn out, and I need a home to burn out,” Dara said. She pulled the gem from her pocket and stared at it. “I need to the tools to make a compass.”

“Keep that out of sight,” Millie told her, looking around. “Waving bling like that around might attract the wrong kind of attention.

“Right.” Dara put it back into her pocket. “But I need equipment, supplies.”

“What kind?”

“Platinum, enough to make the housing. Any lesser metal would contaminate the working. Some other materials.”

“Ah… how much are we talking about?”

“I dunno, a pound maybe?” Dara frowned. “I’d probably lose some in the process, and since I’ve never made a compass myself…”

“A pound.” Millie stared at her. “Of platinum. Do you know how much that would be?”

“Um…” Dara bit her lip. The college normally paid for components, but Dara had never asked for anything like that. And I’m not in college here. “A lot?”

“Let’s see…” Millie pulled out her phone. “I sold some platinum jewelry once. Let’s see if I have the site bookmarked… Okay, yeah, about fifteen thousand, give or take a few hundred. And the other stuff?”

“Um…” Dara started sinking in her seat. “A few ounces of gold?”

“Gold. A few ounces.”

“Yes.”

“Any diamonds, rubies, anything like that?”

“No, I already have the gem…” Dara stared at Millie. “You’re being sarcastic.”

“Well, let’s just say that if I could pick this up, I wouldn’t have any problem with the rent.”

Dara stared at her, then pushed her plate to the side, and groaned, putting her head down on the cool wooden tabletop. “Of course. So what do we do?” she said, head still down.

“Well, first of all, gotta pay the rent,” Millie said. “You don’t need to worry about that. I have some ideas.”

“Why does that make me worry?” Dara asked.

“Because you don’t know me.” Millie said. “You gonna finish your fries?”

Wordlessly, Dara pushed her plate over to Millie.

“Thanks!” Millie stared at Dara. “Look, you can’t let stuff get you down. You know what you need to do and we’ll do it!”

“Right.” Dara looked up at her. “Make a compass that is going to cost more money than we have.”

“I didn’t say it’d be easy, but it’ll work out. Trust me!”

Millie’s cheerful comment didn’t make Dara feel any better.