A week after the whole “satanic cult” fiasco, Millie was seriously considering another question.

Would throwing Dara out of the house be better than dunking her head in some cold water? I wonder…

Dara had come home and… stayed in her room, writing out pages and pages of what looked like the insidious fusion of the Necronomicon and a mathematics textbook. Every day the girl came out, worked on some glass statuary, and then scuttled back into her room. The few times Millie had walked in, she’d noticed walls covered with butcher paper, the paper covered with symbols, and then Dara hissing at her.

Some things are eternal, like teen’s and their private spaces.

But it was getting annoying. Because every time Millie asked what was going on, Dara was noncommittal about it. Which was a codeword for she grunted and then put her head back down into the big sketchbooks she’d asked Millie to buy.

Okay, it’s Friday, and John’s due. But he didn’t tell me to get ready to move. So I’ll just leave Dara in there.

When John drove up, Millie was waiting for him with a broad smile. “Here’s some of your cash,” she said.

“Fifty percent of the month,” John said.

Don’t sweat.

John was silent for a few minutes, then nodded. “You didn’t have the whole month. I’ll cover the rest. But Millie, next month? Gotta have it all. Also, I talked to Sheila.”

He knows Sheila?

John rolled his eyes at her expression. “Yes, I know her. The wife likes to shop there. Your roomie. She’s good. Maybe good enough to sell her stuff in bigger venues. Just… remember if she does that, have the paperwork ready, especially for the IRS.”

For the girl who doesn’t exist. “I’ll talk to her about it, but Dara’s a little nervous about getting too popular. Teenage thing.”

“Right.” John nodded. The look he gave Millie said all she needed to know about whether or not he believed her. But he didn’t push and a few moments later, left.

Millie sagged against the wall and let her breath out in one long sigh. Thinking everything was going to go well and knowing it was going to go well were two different things. But now she—

BANG!

Millie squawked as she jumped from the sound. Then she smelled some smoke—just as the smoke alarm went off.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! Millie turned and ran to Dara’s room. When she pulled the door open and a cloud of smoke emerged and Dara was right behind it, coughing and sputtering.

“What is that sound?!” the teen shouted.

“It’s called ‘you set the house on fire!’” Millie replied. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t set anything on fire!” Dara said. “I was just working on an idea.”

Millie shouldered past her and stared at Dara’s desk, actually Millie’s old college desk. Next to it was a paper basket.

Which had a mass of cheerily burning paper in it.

“Not on fire?” Millie asked.

“I’ll put it out,” Dara said. “I—“ she started coughing, the violent fit bending her over.

“Out!” Millie said. She darted back to the closet by the entrance, hauled the door open, and grabbed a fire extinguisher. Running back, she sprayed the burning mass, the white spray covering everything.

“Millie!” Dara said. “My research! My stuff!”

“Better covered with fire-retardant than on fire,” Millie said. She stared at the room.

Dara walked up behind her, still coughing. “I can…”

“You can sit down and stop breathing smoke,” Millie said. She grabbed the basket and quickly walked it out into the backyard. “So, why were you setting the house on fire?”

“I wasn’t!” Dara snapped in an annoyed tone. “I just was working on something and I had an idea. See, by Jalanan’s Tenth Theorem, it’s possible to create an image of something that is real, and even if your image is unreal, it still behaves as the real. That’s the basis behind physical illusions and shadowstuff.”

“Uh-huh. Okay, I understand absolutely nothing of what you just said. However, how did that set the house on fire?”

“I, um, thought that if I could make an unreal image of the compass, based on the plans, it would act like the real compass and thus be able to function without us having to build a real one.”

“And…”

“And it didn’t work.” Now Dara was staring at the ground.

“Why not?”

“Um, well, normally you can’t use something unreal to make a magical object, because it’s not real and magical items must be… real…” Dara coughed again, still avoiding Millie’s gaze.

“Uh-huh, and if someone could make an… illusion do what you did, how rich would they be.”

“Oh, they’d be famous!”

“And none of your professors ever did it. Did they warn about stuff like this happening?”

“Well, trying to do that might run too much energy and… sort of? Maybe?”

Millie said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Dara finally said. “But I had an idea, and I figured—“

“Stop.” Millie said. Dara’s mouth snapped shut, and now she was looking nervous. “Look, you want to get home, but did you just do stuff like that back at school? Cast spells in your dorm room?”

“I—it’s workings.”

“Fine, did you cast workings in your dorm room.” Dara opened her mouth, but Millie cut her off. “Not ordinary stuff. Stuff like this, where you didn’t know if it was going to work or not.”

“No.” Dara took a deep breath. “But I thought it might work and so—“

“Okay, look. You’re here. You don’t want to be here, but burning the house down to take a shortcut isn’t a good idea. Let me be the bad idea woman, okay? Now let’s get your room cleaned up and then we’re leaving.”

“I have to make another statuette.”

“Nope.”

“But I—“

“Nope.”

“I—“

“Nu-uh. No work today. You can tell me what you learned.”

“Fine…” Dara paused. “Haven’t I told you?”

“You’ve been more growling at me.”

Dara blushed. “I’m sorry… It’s just that I was trying to write down everything before I forget it. I never thought I’d… be away from a magic library, or even the main texts.”

“See, you’re out of school, and you spent your time writing down textbooks,” Millie shook her head. “Clearly a sign of insanity. Let’s get everything cleaned up.”

This time, Millie didn’t get in the car. She gestured for Dara to follow her down the street. “We’re going shopping,” Millie said. “For clothes.”

“Millie I have clo—‘

“You have all the old cast-offs that don’t fit me anymore,” Millie said. “You need something better.”

“I don’t see why,” Dara muttered.

“Because you’re going to be going to college!” Millie said. “I got the email this morning, and thanks to yours truly and Mike, you’re going to be enrolled.”

“Millie, I need to work—I can’t take time going to college.”

“So you can set our house on fire?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Dara said, and she wasn’t sulking. She was just looking at the sidewalk to make certain she didn’t trip on anything.

“Okay, so you didn’t, but as someone who graduated from law school and has the student-loan bills to show for it, sometimes you need to relax, or you’ll just end up making your life even worse and putting in twice the work for half the return.”

“So why are we walking?” Dara asked.

Millie glanced down at her. “Because it’s not super hot, the store I’m thinking of is close, and your high, shrill shrieks of terror annoy me when I’m driving.” She paused. “And lastly, because I’m trying to get you out of the house. Nothing has happened since the haunted house, the news is moving on from our other little issues, and it’s time for you to relax a little.”

“Right,” Dara said. “And going to college is going to help me?”

“Sure. Did I mention that there are nearly a million books in the library? And you can do inter-library loans for millions more?”

Dara blinked. Nearly a million? Their library back home only had 100,000 volumes, and it was famous for its size…

“But I could always—“

“And then there’s the socialization aspect of school. Make friends, have fun, wake up at four AM on Monday with your mouth tasting like Oh My God, and realize you somehow have a sleeping yak in the room with you.”

“Really?”

“Partying is a time-honored part of the college experience, as long as you don’t take it too far.”

“And having a… Yak? Having a yak in my room isn’t taking it too far?”

“Well, as long as you didn’t steal it.” Milly smiled at Dara. “C’mon, look, you know that this isn’t going to be solved in a few weeks, right? So why not? You’re on a new world, and maybe, in between desperate adventures, you should have fun, do some exploring? You can always leave if something terrible happens.”

Dara didn’t answer. Eyes burning from trying to write everything down before I forgot it. Waiting for the next mystic event, even though my calculations indicate it won’t happen for a while. Trying to create a facsimile of the compass.

And Millie had been right. Trying that was stupid. Not a single mage had ever been able to do something like that, so why did Dara think she could do it?

Because I want to go home. But wanting something didn’t get you something. What if I burned the house down? I’d still be here, and even worse off and—

“Enough wool gathering,” Millie told her. “Look around!”

Dara did. It was a Saturday morning, so there were more than a few people on the sidewalk with them, cars zipping back and forth on the road. Dara didn’t mind the cars, so long as they stayed on the road—and she wasn’t in them. Ahead of them there was a family, a mother keeping her eye on two children, both of them enjoying ice cream cones.

Weird. The cones looked more or less like the ones they had back home. Dara wondered if that was a sign of contact between their worlds, or just that there were only so many ways to make an ice cream cone.

“And here we are,” Millie said. Dara glanced over at the shopping plaza Millie was pointing to. It had a vast expanse of asphalt, only a few cars parked in it.

Half this city must be parking lot, Dara thought.

There were stores there. A shop for skateboards, a little flower shop, a pizza place and…

SECOND-HAND CLOTHING AND JEWELRY. The gaudy sign was set over windows that showed even gaudier clothing.

“Oh. No.” Dara shook her head.

“C’mon, it’s not nearly that bad. They put the really… unusual stuff up front because college theater groups love getting their costumes on the cheap. C’mon.”

“Right…” Dara considered fleeing back to the house, then shook her head. Millie would probably physically drag her into the shop if she did that. “Did you shop here?”

“Of course I did. What’s college for if not looking like you’re a hippie from the 1960s?”

“I have no idea what that means,” Dara said. She blew out a resigned breath. “But let’s go.”

Inside, the store was cool and relatively dark, and Dara had to admit, most of the clothes on the racks weren’t as eye-catching as the ones behind the front window. Dara migrated to where the dresses were, but they…

What is it with this place and skirts? Most of them didn’t look like they’d be very good if you were planning on being active in them. Wait a minute… Dara moved to the end of the rack. Athletic skirts and leggings.

“Why don’t they just call them skirts?” Dara muttered. She picked one up off the rack and stared at it, before she nodded.

“Might want to get some pants.” Millie gestured.

Dara sighed. “Right.” Pants. For when I want to look like some laborer not even out of the field. She still had a hard time not starting at how all the men were nothing but pants. It was just weird.

When Dara was finished, she had an armful of shirts, skirts and leggings, which hopefully would keep Millie from demanding she do more shopping.

“Ready?” Millie asked. “Let’s get the stuff, and then we can go eat.”

“Do we have—“

“We have the money, Dara,” Millie said. “Woman does not live by TV dinner alone.”

“Right,” Dara said. The two walked up to the counter, standing behind a family buying baby clothes. When the chattering group left the building, Dara and Millie walked up.

“So, here we go.”

“Thank you—oh hey, I remember you from when the parking lot blew up. Dara, right?”

Dara blinked and looked up. She had seen him… she had…

“Jack?”