“If you are going to make this any harder on me, please let me know now,” Theo asked through gritted teeth.

“You’re not the one who learned that magic fucking existed last Tuesday!” Florian exclaimed, throwing up his hands in frustration. Days had passed with no movement on the magic front, and all Theo had to offer were vague spiritual words about ‘feeling the resonance.’

If looks could kill, Florian would have been dead many times over. The silence between the two of them continued for a minute, locked into some kind of stand-off in the kitchen. Ultimately, it would be Theo who broke eye contact, though.

Jake sprinted full-tilt into Theo’s legs, toppling the man as Ellie ran past with an action figure in hand. “Mine!” she yelled, shaking the thing before disappearing up the stairs. Florian fought back the urge to laugh.

When Theo got to his feet, Jake was long gone. Theo sighed. “You get one chance. I have explained it to you before – many times, need I remind you – that using magic hurts.”

“I am aware, but If you want me to help you with whatever it is you do at night, you’ll need me to learn this,” Florian rebutted.

“I could always just find the next settlement now that I speak your language.”

“And break your word?”

Another silence. “Just sit down.”

Florian did as he was told. Sitting in the usual way, Florian began to feel for the Universe around him. There was nothing peculiar, as per usual. Theo addressed Florian from behind him. “I’ll strengthen the Universe’s presence around you temporarily. Five minutes; that’s all you have.”

Time seemed to slow as Florian calmed himself down, adopting a meditative mindset. Focusing on the world around him, Florian felt nothing different as he drew breath in and exhaled it back out. Nothing different in the way he sat on the ground, nor on the way the wind blew over his face.

But then, miraculously, Florian felt that something was off about the world around him. The air he had begun to breathe felt as thick as molasses, smelling faintly of electricity and a rainy day. Florian imagined he saw the air he breathed enter his body, travel to his heart, and disperse across his body before it returned back out through his nose.

He did this for as long as he could, forgetting entirely about the time. After a while, the seconds just seemed to bleed into each other, and this feeling was exhilarating.

Until it wasn’t. Starting with a little mental fatigue – Florian’s mental image was fraying – the symptoms of this ‘magic,’ if you could call it that, were building up. Before long, a headache that threatened to split his head in two forced him to stop what he was doing.

Surprisingly, when Florian opened his eyes, he saw Theo sitting across the room from him, doing a crossword puzzle in a magazine that had been left behind since before Worldbreak. “How long did I sit there?”

“Just a couple minutes or so,” Theo said nonchalantly. Florian was dumbstruck; it had felt far longer than that to him. That surprise quickly morphed into anger.

“What happened to my five minutes?” Florian asked, shuffling over to the table.

“Well, you seemed to be getting the hang of it, so there was no point in me wasting my energy. Why, do you fancy replacing me tonight? Do you think you can do what I do already?” Theo asked a question that Florian knew the other man also knew had nothing to do with Florian’s source of anger. For some kind of extraterrestrial magic wizard, Theo could be terribly irritating.

“What do you even do at night?” Florian asked, calming his voice. Nothing good would come out of arguing with Theo, Florian thought to himself.

“I just imagine that all our scents lead elsewhere. But that is much too difficult for a novice like you. If you could manage to sit for hours and just focus on the house going invisible, that wouldd probably be enough. Do you think that Joe child could manage to strike down the occasional wolf that would come to investigate?”

“Not particularly?”

“That is a shame. I suppose he will just have to learn like you did, then. Until that time comes, though, I believe I am more than holding up my end of the bargain. I would like to know more about this Dover Castle and who or what I could expect to find there. Is your country’s leader there?”

Florian laughed. “We have no country anymore. I’m pretty sure that most of them have fallen by now.”

“Then who released that ridiculous amount of energy around the Summoning Orb?”

“Summoning Orb?”

“Unimportant. Was there some kind of large explosion recently?” Theo asked, scratching his hairless chin.

“Yes, there was.”

Florian was pretty sure Theo meant to mumble to himself, but he managed to catch the wizard say, “so it was an accident?” The words were filled with outrage, hopefully not directed at him. Either way, Florian decided that now was the perfect time to make himself scarce.

He climbed up the stairs as quickly as he could before Theo interrogated him more and discovered unsatisfactory answers. The children continued to play despite his presence. In fact, Ellie tried to recruit him to be a member of her tea party – a tea party that did not have tea present – and Jake tried to convince him to teach him to use Florian’s mace.

Florian smiled and declined. Despite his disagreement with Theo, he had hope that he hadn’t had in the three years since Worldbreak. If he could just heal his leg, if he could just find some measure of strength, he could try to find his way home. Mom. Dad. Becca. Florian thought about his family, remembering just how little they had wanted him to spend winter break abroad. How could he have known?

Sitting down in a corner, Florian tried to feel the Universe again, pushing through the headache that began to develop. From what he’d gathered between half-assed explanations, by engaging in exercises like the one he had done earlier, he’d resonate more with the Universe, thereby lessening the negative effects of trying to bend the Universe to his will.

This was all new to him, and Florian would have been lying if he said that he knew what he was doing. But he’d keep doing it until he couldn’t any longer. If only he could learn magic as quickly as Theo learned English, Florian thought. Sighing, Florian settled into his position and breathed.