“He helped me with a lot of my research for my books,” Baird said, leading Blink down a narrow alley. “Studying the ancients and their magic is his life’s work.”
“How can studying something you’ve never seen help anything?” Blink asked stubbornly, weary from long hours without sleep. She looked back over her shoulder at the busy street behind her, still unnerved by this new world’s strange technology.
“He collects books and artifacts, anything with a record of how things were when the second moon was still in the sky,” Baird said, his face animated with excitement and imagination. “He’s traveled all over the country, exploring ruins and ancient battlefields.”
Blink’s jaw tightened, unconvinced. “And you really think that this… professor can help me figure out how to get home?”
Baird nodded. “If anyone can help us, it is him.” He stopped at a door set in a recessed alcove and banged the heavy knocker.
Blink’s keen ears caught the sound of banging inside, even over the not so distant noise of iron horses on the streets beyond the alley. Her reaver’s sight, she knew no other way to describe it, began to pierce the thick wooden door, revealing a dark, obscured shape hurrying down what might have been a hallway. She shook her head and blinked, forcing the vision to return to normal. At least as normal as looking through solid steel could ever be. A slot opened just above the knocker and a pair of bright eyes peered out, overshadowed by wild, slate grey brows. The eyes peered from Baird to Blink and back again.
“Baird?” quavered the man, his voice high and tremulous. Locks rattled and the door creaked open. “What are you doing here so late?”
“Late? It’s almost dawn, professor.”
The aging man looked up at the sky and then back into his workshop, a look of surprise and bewilderment on his wrinkled face. “Really? I must have been working all night!” He put his hand on the writer’s shoulder and ushered him inside. “Come in, come in and introduce me to your friend.”
“You have a strange way about you lass,” he said perceptively as he lead them into a cluttered workshop. “Your eyes are covered, but you walk as easily as I do. Are you from the west? I’ve heard of priests that train for years to move with blindfolds as if they were wearing thin silk.”
“No,” Blink said, throwing Baird a quick look before she realized he couldn’t see it. “No… I, ah, just have a talent I guess.”
The professor stopped and stared at the girl with his shining eyes, a knowing expression on his face. “A talent? You always bring me the most interesting guests Baird.”
“She’s the real thing,” Baird said, urgency mixing with his excitement. “Blink isn’t from our world! She came here from somewhere else, like our world but with two moons!”
Blink’s jaw dropped at the writer’s unexpected outburst. She had thought the man to be simply remarkably open minded, for a man that had seen a woman appear out of thin air. Now, judging from the old man’s reaction, she wondered if he hadn’t been searching for someone like her already.
The old man seemed to sense her unease. “Don’t worry my friend, I’m sure you mean well. My young friend here can be a bit impetuous. Will you tell us your technique?”
“You think I’m lying?” Blink asked incredulously. She looked at the shamefaced writer, who shifted uncomfortably.
“I’ve been helping search for signs of magic for the last couple of years,” he said, glaring at the old man. “He thinks it’s funny when I accidentally find illusionists.” The man shook himself and tightened his jaw, waving his hands in annoyance. “No, but this time it’s real professor and we need your help.”
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