The sound of breaking glass and an angry shout disrupted Simon’s exhausted sleep. He was on his feet before he was fully awake, and the sudden motion caused a furious stab of pain behind both eyes.

  The headache was savage. Lights danced in his vision, and it took a desperate, terrifying moment for his sight to clear. Then, limping, he hurried out of the bedroom, snagged a knife from the kitchen, and ran for the door.

  On the second floor, snow swirled through broken windows, whipped by an icy wind. Unharmed but with eyes wild, Casey met him on the stairs. He looked at Simon and Simon’s butcher knife and said, “Nothing to stab, I’m afraid. Sorry to wake you up.”

  Simon regarded the destruction thoughtfully for a moment. “there something that needed stabbing?”

  “Not as far as I can tell. Somebody was snooping around with magic. I could sense them. Err, they’re gone now.”

  “I imagine they’re thoroughly gone, and they’ll think hard about returning, after that reaction.” Simon ran the hand not holding the butcher knife over his face. He was still not fully sober, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be. “Why don’t you tell me what happened from the beginning?”

  ~~*~~

  Half an hour later, Simon sipped at a mug of very strong coffee, hands curled around the warm ceramic. Casey paced back and forth restlessly, hugging himself, eyes still wide. “I still don’t know what .”

  “You’re an untrained mage, and you overreacted.” Simon might have been less blunt if he hadn’t had an increasingly bad headache. Was it possible to be hungover only two or three hours after drinking half a bottle of wine? Was it just the after-effects of repeated whammies by the geas, or was it from being woken from a sound sleep by a literal magical explosion? Memories of being woken by Hunters in his camp kept flashing before his eyes. He did appreciate being startled while sleeping..

  All he wanted right now was a dark, quiet room. If anyone but Casey had needed him when he was in this sort of pain and this foul mood, he’d have flatly refused to help. Unfortunately, the geas forced him to stay upright and help his master.

  Simon elaborated, “You did what scared and untrained mages do when provoked, which is lash out with uncontrolled power. I am not surprised this happened. However, we must find you training since your gift clearly has a strong physical component.”

  Casey spun about and snapped, “And who’s going to train me?”

  The volume of Casey’s voice wasn’t helping his head. Simon pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He felt dizzy, and there was a distinct chance he would vomit, which would earn him a punishment from the geas if he did it on Casey’s basement floor. Simon said in as mild a tone as he could manage, “In the interim, while we seek proper training, I can provide some very foundational lessons that don’t require to have a Gift after we’ve both had a good night’s sleep.”

  “Sorry.” Casey grabbed a chair and straddled it backward. Behind him, the storm rattled the basement roll-up door. “This isn’t your fault, and I am not angry at you. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “You felt somebody watching you and lashed out to make them stop,” Simon stated this as calmly as he could. “An experienced mage would have been irritated and would have disrupted their scrying, but you don’t know how. Reacting as you did was not surprising. I concerned by energy you threw around.”

  ‘Concerned’ was an understatement. Most untrained mages with a gift for ley-craft had small accidents, amounting to no more than a loud noise and a flash of light. Casey had wielded several orders of magnitude more power than usual. A beginner should have struggled to light a candle or move a pebble. Casey had nearly brought the house down around their ears.

  “I’ve never done anything like this before.” Casey rose again and paced restlessly.

  “At a guess, you not only didn’t know it existed, but you’ve never felt the need to truly call on your Power. You’ve been using the kind of Gift I was expected to manifest — the kind that decides wars and changes worlds — for party tricks, gambling, and choosing which auction lot of second-hand goods to buy. You have lived an incredibly sheltered life.” Simon hurt too bad to be diplomatic. The geas could do its worst, and it wouldn’t exceed his current level of pain. If it knocked him out cold, he’d welcome the escape into oblivion.

  “I have not!”

  Yes, there was a stab of pain in response to Casey’s indignant denial. As expected, it was one spark amid a conflagration of agony. With his eyes narrowed against the electric lighting — why was one light in the corner flickering brightly? The flashing wasn’t helping! “Have you ever, in your life, been truly afraid that you might die in a fight?”

  Casey was silent for a moment. “There were bullies and shit in school ...”

  Simon shook his head, then regretted the motion. He waited for roiling nausea to fade before saying, “I get the feeling you and your brother can handle yourselves in a common fistfight, and nobody was trying to kill you. It was merely irritating harassment.”

  Casey blew a sharp sigh out between pursed lips. “You’re right. I was more upset than frightened by the bullies. They’d try to start something because we seemed like easy targets, but convincing them we were more trouble than it was worth wasn't hard.

  “You know how I said I punched Todd once over my prom date? Fighting after school, even off campus, was against all the rules, but I found out seven years later that the football coach had known all about it because he had seen some videos of the fight. Coach Ricky said he was glad I hit Todd because couldn’t beat him up without going to jail. Then he bought me a drink and tried to talk me into volunteering for the school’s football program.”

  “You weren’t even scared when dealing with the hellbeast earlier. For you, it was an adventure. The world of magic is and if you’re manifesting power like this, it likely means you’re destined to need it. You must learn fear to survive.”

  Casey ducked his head. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “When you realized somebody was watching you, were you angry or terrified?”

  “Pissed.” Casey scowled. “Someone was , and she me, and I don’t even know why. I’ve had a spectacularly bad several days, and I let my temper get the best of me. Now I’ve got a bunch of busted windows to fix, a mess to clean up, and I woke you. You need some good, solid rest, Simon.”

  Considering Simon had come through the portal angry enough to kill, he’d give Casey a pass for finally exploding in a fit of well-justified fury. The man’s fuse was a lot longer than Simon’s! “How did you know you were being scryed?”

  "I could it. It's the same way you know if a house is occupied or there’s a storm brewing.”

  "Not everyone can sense those basic things,” Simon said. "I might suspect bad weather if the air was hot and humid, but I can’t the change in energy in the same way I suspect you do. You’ve probably always had an awareness of the world that most people lack. You sensed they hated you?”

  Casey looked up, then nodded. His eyes had dark shadows under them. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ve known shit I shouldn’t have all my life. I can tell straight up what people are feeling. Because of that, I try hard not to hurt anyone. I live my life trying to make others’ lives . Being hated by somebody I didn’t even know, when I do my damnedest to make the world a better place and harm no one, made me angry, so I told her to get lost. Then, I her leave.”

  He added, his voice rising just a tiny fraction in volume and firm with sudden confidence, “When the Book opened the portal a second time, I learned a just watching what it was doing. I saw how it was pulling energy through me. I did that again and threw that power at the woman who was looking at me, uh, with a lot less elegance and a lot more brute force.”

  Simon sighed and mentally added a heaping dose of empathic ability and ley manipulation to the picture he was building of Casey’s talents. Very likely, he was a truly potent leymaster, and the way the Book interacted with him hinted he was a medium too — all signs pointed to Casey having a potent range of gifts backed up by the ability to tap frightening amounts of Power, and he wished there was a properly trained mage around to assess him accurately.

  That was a problem for later. His head hurt too much to think about it now. He simply said, “Do you have any enemies that might have magic?”

  “Magic? Damned if I know. Enemies? Maybe. There are a few locals who are loud about hating queer people on local Facebook groups — but they tend to laser in on Avery and Shana. I just don’t stand out in comparison to those two. Half the time, the local homophobes don’t even I’m even queer. But, the impression I got from the psychic lurker was that she hated me for I am, not I am.”

  As per usual, Simon only understood a fraction of Casey’s slang and cultural references, but he got the gist: Casey was at a loss to identify the mage who had scryed him. "Could it be a former lover?”

  "It was a woman, so no — I’ve never so much as kissed a girl. And, she felt a little familiar, but I’d have recognized her if it were anyone I knew well.”

  “Could you have upset somebody by buying merchandise for your store? Perhaps at an auction, or I think you called them 'estate sales'? Or, perhaps an angry customer?”

  “That doesn’t feel right.”

  Simon ran a hand halfway down his face, then peered at Casey over his fingers. The ceiling lights were way too bright, and the blinking one was making a low buzzing noise. He squinted against the painful light. “I don’t like that you have an enemy you can’t even identify."

  “Do you think the Book might be able to help?" Casey’s brows were pinched together in a frown of concern as he watched Simon. Simon suspected he looked just as bad as he felt.

  “I don’t trust it. It probably can’t lie, but as you saw earlier, it can play games.” He tried to smile as he spoke. Casey liked his smiles, right?

  "I just want to talk to it.” Casey did not look convinced by Simon’s new and improved expression.

  "Be careful.” He gave up on the smile. It was probably closer to a grimace, anyway.

  “You’re a lot more outspoken than you normally are,” Casey said, turning to pick up the book. Then he glanced over his shoulder at Simon. “Is the geas not bothering you?"

  Simon closed his eyes. He admitted, “My head hurts so bad that I barely notice when it punishes me.”

  “Oh. Geeze. I thought you looked crappy.” Casey said with genuine concern in his voice. “Do you need something? Ibuprofen? You can go lie back down ...”

  The man was adorable. Simon bared his teeth in a grin that would have been truly appreciative if he hadn’t had spots dancing before his eyes. “I’d like some answers from that book, too.”

  Casey clapped him on the arm. His brain rattled painfully around inside his head in response to the slight jarring motion. “Well, I like it when you speak your mind.”

  The tension in Simon’s shoulders lessened, and infinitesimally, the pain in his head as well. Simon glanced sideways at Casey, then offered a genuine apology for what he knew was a grave transgression earlier. “I am sorry for attempting to embrace you. I don’t believe I should drink until the geas is broken. The spell pushes me to act in unseemly ways, and drinking lessens my willpower to resist the compulsion. It felt right in the moment, but clearly was not.”

  “My only objection is that it is a compulsion, not simply honest interest. When we do lift the geas,” Casey said very seriously while meeting Simon’s gaze with steady brown eyes, “ I’m not in a position of power over you, we know you’re acting of your own free will, I would welcome any interest you may have. I like you, Simon, and under any normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have dreamed of stopping you.”

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  Simon ducked his head, cheeks suddenly warm. Even as he did, he wondered at his own reaction of boyish embarrassment. He knew all his reactions were out of character, even if they didn’t feel wrong.

  Casey’s lopsided grin didn’t reach his eyes. “In the meantime, while we wait, I want to hear what you’re thinking. Warn me if I’m about to do something stupid. I’m new to all of this magical stuff, and I’m just an ordinary dude, so I guess I got a lot of learning to do.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Mm. Now, this book.” Casey set the Book of Needs down on one of the basement worktables after clearing some toy train tracks aside with a sweep of his hand. “Full of ghosts, you said? Incredibly powerful? All that? Why did you tell me I shouldn’t destroy it?”

  “Because if you shatter the spells that bound the spirits to it in an uncontrolled fashion, it will unleash enough energy to make a large crater. The energy needed to create a Book of Needs is significant.”

  He lifted an eyebrow at Simon. “And you didn’t think to warn me earlier?”

  “I forget how dangerously little you know. Self-sustaining spells require the containment and manipulation of energy. Release that energy suddenly, and the results tend to be dramatic. That is a very powerful artifact.”

  Simon stared at the book's elf-skin cover and added, “It is possible for a skilled mage to ground the energy into the leys as they dismantle the binding spells. However, the souls trapped within would be justified in being angry. One should never discount the havoc that a motivated ghost, set loose without restriction, may cause.”

  “Let’s not do any of that in my basement.” Casey opened the book to a random page. “So, book. Can we have a chat with you?”

  The words that coalesced on the page were in bold font. Casey read them aloud.

  The sound Casey made might have been a laugh, though it was sharp and strangled in tone. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  Simon said, “we have a conversation? And, are we talking to one spirit or multiple?”

  The book did not respond for several moments before printing,

  Casey read the words for Simon, who frowned. The book added more lines, and Casey looked sharply up after seeing them. “Simon, I think it knows you."

  "I don’t know how to become his world ...” Casey said, then read the book’s answer.

  “I mean, I would have done that without the fucking geas and without you nearly getting Avery killed. Things would have been much simpler if you’d just me to help.” Casey’s glare was so sharp that Simon would not have been surprised to see the pages smolder.

  The book’s response was,

  Casey glanced up at Simon. Incredulously, he said, “It’s ?"

  Simon pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel his headache as pulses of pain. "It may not be wise to mock it.”

  The book replied,

  Casey watched Simon as he read the words. Simon realized he must look awful when Casey’s eyes narrowed, and he asked. “Are you okay?”

  Quietly, because anything louder than a whisper would have been too painful, Simon admitted, “No. I am becoming quite nauseated.”

  Casey, blessedly, also kept his voice low. “Go get some rest. Take some ibuprofen; there’s some in the bathroom behind the mirror. I’ll continue talking to the Book and tell you what I find out later.”

  Intentionally or not, Casey had phrased it as an order. Simon nodded silently and stumbled upstairs to the bed — with a detour to the bathroom, where he puked up everything he’d eaten earlier.

  ~~*~~

  After Simon left, Casey turned his attention back to the book. While his back was turned, it had printed,

  Casey scowled. “I don’t trust you.”

  The damn thing had an interesting definition of ‘no ill’ if it thought that bringing Simon through a portal against his will and binding him with a spell was not harmful. However, he brought up a more pressing question and asked, “If you don’t mean to hurt us, why did you summon a hellbeast?”

  “And did we pass? What if one of us was bitten?”

  He bit back an angry reply about the lack of danger. Simon had sprained the shit out of his ankle in that fight. It could easily have been worse. And who was Drel? “Why didn’t you rescue Simon a long time ago? He’s been on the run for months. You didn’t kidnap him until he was almost safe.”

  The book cleared the page and then printed.

  “I hope I got an A.” He scowled. "I only did what was right. enslaved him.”

  Casey raked a hand over his short hair and deliberately chose not to argue with it, for now. It just didn’t seem like a valid justification for enslaving a man. “Crucial for what?”

  “A quest? Really?”

  “Fuck you,” he finally told the book. Somehow, that pop-culture reference was what finally snapped his tenuous hold on his temper. He was growingly increasingly convinced that it was fully conscious, aware, and capable of free agency — and it was a jerk.

  Now it was flirting with him. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been less likely to banter back. His vision seemed to be dimming around the edges as anger rose. In as cool of a tone as was humanly possible, given how angry he was getting, he said, “You’re a woman?”

  “What happened to you? To become The Book?” He managed to ask this somewhat civilly, despite being boiling mad. Maybe her story would explain why she was a grade-A bitch.

  “He turned you into the Book?”

  “Oh. I’m sorry." The response was automatic. However, what was one supposed to say to a ghost who’d just disclosed such a horrible detail? didn’t seem adequate, even if he didn’t like her at all.

  She continued,

  The book displayed a blinking cursor for a moment, as if it were a computer screen. Then, she printed,

  “But this lord murdered you?”

  “That’s messed up.” He decided to reserve judgment on the adultery she’d just admitted to. He didn’t know enough about her world yet, but it did add to the mental picture he was building of her character.

  “For magic?”

  She wanted him to go on some sort of crazy quest? He said coolly, “Sounds dangerous. How can I trust you?”

  The Gift whispered at him then — that statement was . She could not be trusted.

  He realized The Book could actually see him when she added,

  “I’ll talk about it with Simon and Avery." He slapped his hands down on the table on either side of the Book and loomed over it. “But if you betray me again, for any reason, in any way, I’m taking you out in the middle of nowhere with five gallons of gas, a bucket of Tannerite, and a rifle.”

  He’d started to explain that threat in more detail. Tannerite blew up when shot and would ignite the fuel from a safe distance, burning the Book. It seemed The Book was familiar enough with redneck forms of entertainment to understand, however, because she printed,

  “Walmart, baby. A cheap .22 is all I’d need.”

  “You’d haunt a hole in the ground, and you could rattle your chains at rocks, clouds, and sky.” He straightened up. “Seriously. Be . Don’t piss me off. I don’t think I need to define what ‘is. You strike me as a smart lady.”

  “Okay.” He reached out and flipped the book closed. “Enjoy some solitude, then.”

  The flickering fluorescent light in the corner burned out with a . Several of the toy trains on the table clattered to the ground. A pencil hit him in the chest.

  The door rattled, but that might have just been the wind. When he engaged his Gift and examined the situation, nothing she was doing actually felt threatening. She’d mentioned being unable to help Simon on her own, too.

  “You can’t do much without my Power, can you?”

  The icy wind that curled around his ankles wasn’t just the storm. His hair went up on the back of his neck in instinctive reaction to something supernatural. However, he wasn’t afraid of a cold draft. She might have been throwing a tantrum, but it wasn’t a very effective one.

  “Is that the best that you can do?”

  One of the mall ninja swords on the shelf rattled in place for a fraction of a second.

  “Yeah, thought so. We’ll talk . I warn you, though — If you pull shitty again, the Rim Country gets a haunted forest fifty miles from the nearest town.”

  Only after he’d climbed up the stairs to the first floor and shut the basement door did he start to shake in reaction to not fear but fury. He’d every word. That book, and the ghost within it, was a menace. If his Gift wasn’t screaming at him that she important and he need her, he’d already be ordering the Tannerite.

  After a moment and several deep breaths to control his temper, he started up the stairs to check on Simon. That book wasn’t going anywhere, and he was worried about the man.

  He’d deal with the rest of everything later.