The professor looked from Baird’s animated face to Blink’s grim expression. He sighed. “Fine. Baird believes you lass. Show me what you can do.”
The girl scowled and then vanished, without a sound, without a flash, without any sign whatsoever. Before the professor could even react, she was in the center of the workshop behind him, her arms crossed and her jaw set. The old man’s eyes widened as she held out her hand, an invisible force lifting him gently up off the floor. His aged throat worked nervously and Blink released him, allowing him to drift back to the floor.
“By the gods…” breathed the old man, stumbling back to lean on Baird’s brawny shoulder. “It’s true! You’ve found magic!”
“I need to get home,” Blink said, growing impatient. “Baird said that you could help us?”
The old man passed a shaky hand over his face and wobbled over to a second door. “Come with me.”
*
“Magic hasn’t been seen here for hundreds of years,” said the old professor, laying out stack after stack of books on the simple table. “Four hundred years ago, the second moon, called Luna, vanished taking the world’s magic with it.” He reached up and touched his ears. Blink noticed their gentle points for the first time, the marking of elven blood. “The elves suffered the most, loosing their long lives and their great cities. Entire cities crumbled to dust, the great magics that held them together suddenly gone.”
Blink sat quietly, struggling to pay attention to the old man’s story as she looked around his home. The living space was nearly as cluttered as the workshop outside and she wondered if he ever did anything that wasn’t related to his research. She glanced at Baird who was listening to his friend with a rapt expression, enthralled by the familiar tale.
“My people spent decades trying to bring magic back,” the professor continued. “But nothing worked. Eventually, they turned to invention.” He gestured around at the strange contraptions scattered around him. “Many of them were wondrous true, but nothing quite replaced what we had. I always thought that the moon itself was the source of magic, but somehow, here you are. The stories say that the magic vanished in the same instant as the moon, but here you are, many hours after your arrival, and your powers are still intact.”
The girl shifted uncomfortably. “The reaper’s did something to me. My only powers were the teleportations. I only ever used enchanted items before.”
“Enchantments?” asked the old man, leaning forward with interest. “I thought you said that people used pure magic in your world.”
Blink shook her head. “No, only the celestials can use magic without enchanted items. Until the reaper’s showed up, I thought I was the only one with any real abilities.”
“Simply fascinating…” mumbled the old man, shuffling through the stacks of books. “If what you are saying is true, then our worlds are almost identical….” He stopped for a few moments and held out a book with a dazzling pattern inscribed amid the scattered paragraphs. “You said that the reapers were talking about something called the Dreaming?”
Blink nodded mutely.
The old man pointed to the page. “Our legends say that the Dreaming linked our world with the Otherworld. I always thought that this was just an analogy, a symbol for the second moon and the people that were supposed to live there. But what if it really meant and alternate world? Your world?”
“It’s said that the celestials can move from Luna to the earth at will,” Blink said slowly. “Maybe they used to visit this world too. What happened to your Luna?”
“No one knows,” Baird answered, moments ahead of the professor. “One night it just vanished like it never existed.”
“What does any of this have to do with helping me find my way home?” asked the woman, perplexed and weary. She rubbed her tired eyes, struggling to keep them open. “I don’t understand any of this.”
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