“A point of Willpower,” Lanie said, her brow furrowing in a confused mirror of Nips’. “At least, that’s what the message said.”

  “Message? What message?”

  Lanie opened her mouth, then closed it again and considered. She’d assumed the messages she was seeing were some side effect of becoming Awakened, but what if they weren’t? There may be two new changes in her life, not just one. They were definitely related somehow. She’d put aside questioning the information display and character sheet in favor of survival, but it was something she was going to have to figure out sooner or later. Now was a good chance to get some answers, but Nips’ reaction suggested that the interface might be something unique to her.

  Again, her first reaction was to tell him about the weird interface and ask his advice, but she squashed the impulse. “Ah, never mind, not important. Anyway, the mind thing worked. There was a sort of snap, and you went back to looking like you,” she said.

  Nips gave her a considering look, recognizing the change of subject for what it was. He nodded. “As you say, trust must be earned. As to the glamour—good. You felt the intrusion and pushed it out. Now that you know what it feels like, it will be much easier for you to detect and resist any sort of mental attack. You’re just starting, so there will be a lot of people and beings that can overpower you, but you’ll at least have a chance to know it’s happening.”

  Lanie finished putting her things in the messenger bag and slung it over her shoulder. While she finished up, she went back over their earlier conversation and tried to remember if there had been any sort of pressure on her mind. She couldn’t recall any, but she hadn’t known to watch for it. She also couldn’t completely trust that what he showed her would work against all sorts of mental shenanigans. She only had his word for it, after all. Except… no, she didn’t just have his word. The interface had confirmed it with a new skill.

  These new twists in her life had her questioning everything she knew. If magic were real, then all sorts of things she would have written off as impossible might also be real. She was going to have to find a new balance between keeping an open mind and letting her brain fall out onto the floor. A life in the Foster Care system, followed by time on the streets, taking up with Jorge’s gang, and working as a professional acquisition specialist had taught her that the world was a harsh place, you had to fight for every scrap, and no one could be trusted.

  So why were her instincts telling her that she could trust Nips? The disconnect between what she felt and what she knew was disconcerting. Hell, everything since she slipped out of the museum with that damned stone felt like some bizarre dream. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. There was one thing she knew for sure: she wasn’t going to figure out anything by hiding in an alley.

  “OK. I need to find an internet cafe or someplace to buy a cheap cell phone. You want to ride in the bag, or do you have another way to keep up?” She balled up the torn sweater and was about to dump it behind a stack of barrels when Nips spoke up.

  “Don’t throw that away!” He sounded almost panicked at the thought. “I can fix that.”

  It was Lanie’s turn to look at him in confusion. “Why? It’s just a cheap prop from a thrift store. It’s not even something I would normally wear.”

  “I… It’s a Brownie thing,” Nips said, a hint of embarrassment in his voice. “Um… well… a lot of Fae have a sort of compulsion. Some of the lesser races, like Brownies, were created for certain tasks, and we can’t escape that. My folk were created to clean and fix things. Seeing something that can be fixed just thrown away… well… it’s uncomfortable. So… may I mend it? I can ride in the bag and work on it there.”

  Lanie cocked her head to the side and gave Nips a skeptical look, but she couldn’t see any harm to his request. She might get some benefit, though. “One condition. You tell me how you came to be in a back alley in Turkey about to be eaten by gremlins.”

  “Fair enough. I figured I’d be telling my tale sooner or later, anyway,” Nips said, his eyes on the sweater as Lanie shoved it into the messenger bag. When she moved the bag over to the barrel he was standing on, he climbed in and disappeared into its depths.

  Lanie checked her head scarf and sunglasses, and then set off down the alley away from the bazaar and towards the busy street in the other direction. She could occasionally feel the weight in her bag shifting as Nips moved around in it, but the fabric didn’t visibly move. After a minute or two, the flap shifted, and Nips poked his head out.

  “This bag is very nice. I can tell by the stitching that it’s handmade. You don’t see that anymore these days. Not expert stitching, but I can tell it was made with care,” he said.

  “I didn’t have a sewing machine when I made it. I have to change my look on the fly sometimes, and I couldn’t afford to keep buying and ditching bags, so… yeah, I made it. I’m pretty proud of it. These days, I pretty much live out of it.” Lanie was surprised at how warm his words of praise made her feel. Being complimented for something she made wasn’t something she got very often. She clamped down on the gooey feelings and reminded herself not to go soft on the little guy just because he was being nice. She didn’t feel any pressure against her mind, but her gut was still telling her she could trust him. It was weird.

  The street was lined with upscale boutiques, art galleries, and professional offices. Lanie scanned the signs, but they were all in Turkish. She turned right and started walking, looking for any place with electronics in the window.

  “So, my story… It isn’t anything too exciting,” Nips said. “My family took care of an estate near a little town called Market Harborough, just far enough north of London to get trainloads of children when they sent them north away from the war. My family was fairly large, I was the fifth of seven children, and the estate only had one old couple for us to take care of.

  “The old couple opened up their home to several children, and even hired a young widow to help take care of them, so things were busy for a while. One of the children from London was a young lady. She was very quiet and serious, and she helped to take care of the younger children. She found the library in the old manor house and fell in love with it. It was my favorite room as well. I took a liking to her. When the war ended and the children were sent home to London, I opted to leave and go with her. She seemed worthy of a Brownie’s service, and I knew that the manor was going to be dull again once all the children were gone. I was of age, and it was time for me to find a patron of my own.

  “She didn’t know, of course. She wasn’t Awakened; most of the people we serve aren’t. But I was there, quietly taking care of her as she moved back to her family’s London townhouse, while she finished school, courted and married, inherited the townhouse, and had her own family.

  “She liked to read about the world and watch travel shows. She dreamed of going out to see the world, but she never did. She passed away last year at the age of 90. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren didn’t even wait until after the funeral to start arguing over her things, but her books they boxed up and sent off to a charity shop. Those were the things she loved most, and they didn’t even care.” His voice was tinged with barely healed sorrow that hardened, just a bit, to anger as he spoke about his lady’s descendants.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “None of them were worthy of a Brownie’s service. So, I left. She never went out to see the world she loved to read about, so I decided I would go see it in her memory. I started in London. I’d lived within earshot of Westminster Abbey for 75 years, but I’d never actually seen it. So, I went to see all the sights in Old London Town, then ventured farther out—Salisbury Plain, Dover, Oxford, Hadrian’s Wall, Dublin, and Edinburgh, and all the interesting places. Then Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Rome, Athens… all the historic places and wonders. I had close calls in several of them, but I decided to keep going. I at least wanted to see the Hagia Sophia and the Pyramids before I gave up.

  “Then, today, I was on my way to Istanbul, and you saw what I ran into. Brownies aren’t meant to be out in the world. We were created to stay inside a home and care for it. I have no way to defend myself, and I’m a ‘tasty treat’ for any less scrupulous being who wants my Spark. I managed to see quite a bit, but I realize now I was lucky.” Nips paused, watching people and cars on the street. Lanie stayed quiet, sensing he wasn’t done yet. The way he’d spoken, the tone of his voice—wistful and sad—gave her the impression that this was something he needed to get out, a wound that needed lancing. After a moment, he started speaking again. “There’s still so much of the world to see. There are even other realms. I’d love to see Hy-Brasil, Buyan, Yggdrasil, and Kunlun Shan.”

  “If you still want to travel, why did you offer to serve me?” Lanie asked.

  “A couple of reasons. Mostly, to satisfy the debt I owe you. Among the Fae, debts are law. It isn’t just a social convention; it’s an intrinsic part of who we are. We are all about balance. For every kind Fae, there will be a cruel one. We never give gifts or ask for favors. The scales must always balance. If I live in someone’s house and eat their food, I must clean and care for that house and mend what can be mended. Give in equal measure to what I take. You saved my life, and that has an immeasurable value. Ten years of my help and freely given advice as you start your path could give you a solid foundation and an immeasurable head start on the path of power. It seemed a balanced trade.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “My instincts said you were worth serving.”

  “Instincts, huh?” Lanie asked, one brow raised.

  “Don’t discount it. Intuition is a valuable tool for any practitioner. The more attuned to magic you become, the more astute your subconscious gets. Nurture it, learn to interpret what it’s telling you, and it will lead you out of danger and into valuable opportunities. The trick is learning to tell the difference between what your intuition is telling you and what you are telling yourself. It can be tricky.” Nips pointed across the street and added, “Is that an internet cafe?”

  Lanie had many questions about some of the things Nips had mentioned in his tale. The mythical realms he’d listed especially grabbed her attention. His last words pulled her attention back to the present, though, and she tucked all the questions away for later.

  There was, indeed, a cafe across the street. The sign showed an elegant samovar and a cup of tea. Perched on the rim of the cup was a little blue bird that skirted dangerously close to a copyright lawsuit from a once-popular social media site. The name of the shop was in Turkish, but in smaller print underneath were the English words, “Internet Access Here.”

  As she scanned the street for the nearest crosswalk, she spotted a familiar figure on the opposite corner that made her heart drop into her stomach. Almost as soon as she spotted him, he looked her way, and her eyes met those of the guy in the gray shirt.

  It took all of Lanie’s willpower to keep her reaction off her face and keep turning her head, as though her gaze had just been passing over Gray Shirt. Between her sunglasses and headscarf, there was a good chance he hadn’t recognized her. She peered off up the street on her side and faked a sudden bright smile, as though she’d just spotted someone she’d been looking for. She waved at an imaginary friend and headed quickly up the street, away from the corner.

  She wanted to turn and run, but that would only confirm to him that she was the person he was looking for. If she pretended he didn’t concern her, there was a slim chance he would believe she was the wrong person.

  “What’s going on? Didn’t you need to find a computer?” Nips asked, confused.

  “That was one of the men who kidnapped me this morning. Is there any chance you can use that glamour thing you do to hide me?” Lanie kept moving at a brisk pace, but fought against the tension and rising panic she felt to keep her body language casual.

  “Kidnapped? Oh, my. Um… no, I can’t spread it far enough to cover others. The best I could do would be to make people ignore this bag.”

  “OK, do that. He’s seen this messenger bag before. It’ll be one less thing to give me away.” Lanie then took a chance. She hooked her arm into the arm of a lady who was about to enter a bakery and greeted her by a random name, acting as if they were long-time friends. The woman turned and pulled away, affronted, but the movement gave Lanie a chance to look natural while glancing back down the street to see if Gray Shirt was following her. “Oh, my apologies. I was supposed to meet a friend here, and I thought you were her. You look very much like her. I’m so sorry to have startled you.”

  Gray Shirt must have seen her. He was crossing the street to her side. For just a moment, his attention was on traffic, and not on her, so she had a chance. With another apologetic gesture to the other woman, Lanie ducked around the corner into yet another alleyway.

  “How the hell do they keep finding me?” Lanie picked up her pace.

  “Who are they? Why did they kidnap you?” Nips asked, his voice wavering between excitement and fear.

  “I have no idea who they are. They want the thing I stole last night. The problem is I can’t give it to them. I’m pretty sure even if I did, they’d kill me as soon as they had it.” Lanie turned right down a side passage between two restaurants. The alley stank of stale urine and rancid grease. “I’ve been trying to lose them since last night, but no matter what I do, they keep finding me.”

  “Are they Awakened? If so, they may be using divination or tracking magic,” Nips said.

  “I don’t know. One of them was incredibly strong, but I never saw any of the others doing anything magical.” Lanie paused at the corner to look up and down the street before stepping out of the alley. “If they’re using magic, how can we hide from it?”

  “That depends on what sort of magic they’re using. If I had time and supplies, I might be able to make a general obfuscation charm, but that isn’t my specialty. I couldn’t guarantee it would work.” Nips’ head whipped around to stare at the corner they were approaching. “Stop. There’s someone using magic just around that corner.”

  Lanie wasn’t able to sense whatever it was that Nips had felt, but she stopped. She looked around for another direction, but this sidewalk ran alongside a busy thoroughfare. Traffic was too thick and moving too fast for her to dart across the street. The dour man in the dark suit stepped around the corner. Lanie turned and ran back the way they’d come, passing the alley. When she was almost to the next corner, Cole stepped into view, his lip turning up into a cruel smirk.

  “The alley we just came from,” Nips said. “There’s a way out there.”

  Lanie turned and ran back to the rancid alley. Panting, she said, “How, I didn’t see…”

  “It’s a gamble. There’s a doorway there, I felt it when we passed through. I can open it, but what’s on the other side might not be much safer than here.”

  “I’ll risk it. These guys will most likely torture me if they grab me again,” Lanie said. Her heart was beating like a bodhran, and she could feel panic creeping in at the edges of her mind. Memories of Cole’s cruel face and of lying helpless on cold concrete spurred her to run faster. Dark Suit was walking closer to her, one hand under his suit coat. Cole was closing in from behind, and she had no idea where Gray Shirt was.

  She turned left, back into the stinking alley.

  “There, the wall by the skip. Hold out your hand, and be ready to jump through. I won’t be able to hold it open for long.” Nips scrambled out of the bag and up to the crook of her arm, holding on for dear life.

  “Hold what open?” Lanie asked. Gray Shirt finally put in an appearance at the far end of the alley. They were trapped.

  “No time, just trust me.” Nips pointed to a section of the wall.

  Lanie did as Nips said, holding out her hand, palm up, so that he could scramble out onto it and touch the wall. She felt… something… a subtle charge to the air. A frisson ran down her spine, and her arms prickled with goosebumps. A circular section of the wall started to glow faintly blue. The glowing section rippled like a disturbed pond.

  “There, quickly, jump through,” Nips said, with obvious strain in his voice.

  Lanie jumped.