The Many-Angled World

Book III of III

Book One: The Stranded
Book Two: The Land of Always Summer
Book Three: The Many-Angled World

Christopher G. Nuttall

http://www.chrishanger.net
http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ChristopherGNuttall
https://mewe.com/page/5cd32005dc9f631c9973f058

Cover by Brad Fraunfelter

www.BFillustration.com

All Comments and Reviews Welcome!

Contents
Cover Blurb
Prologue I: England, 1536
Prologue II: York, England, Now
Chapter One: London, England, Now.
Chapter Two: Gatehouse, York, Now
Chapter Three: Gatehouse, York, Now
Chapter Four: Gatehouse, York, Now
Chapter Five: London, Now
Chapter Six: Gatehouse, York, Now
Chapter Seven: York, Now
Chapter Eight: Gatehouse, York, Now
Chapter Nine: Gatehouse, York, Now
Chapter Ten: London, Now
Chapter Eleven: London, Now
Chapter Twelve: London, Now
Chapter Thirteen: York, Now
Chapter Fourteen: Glasgow, Now
Chapter Fifteen: Lake District, Now
Chapter Sixteen: Gatehouse, York, Now
Chapter Seventeen: Cromwell High School, York, Now
Chapter Eighteen: Glasgow, Now
Chapter Nineteen: York, England, Now
Chapter Twenty: York, Now
Chapter Twenty-One: Gatehouse, York, Now.
Chapter Twenty-Two: South Queensferry, Now
Chapter Twenty-Three: London, Now
Chapter Twenty-Four: Stafford High School, York, Now
Chapter Twenty-Five: Stafford High School, York, Now
Chapter Twenty-Six: York, England, Now
Chapter Twenty-Seven: York, England, Now
Chapter Twenty-Eight: York, England, Now
Chapter Twenty-Nine: York, England, Now
Chapter Thirty: Lake District, Now
Chapter Thirty-One: Lake District, Now
Chapter Thirty-Two: York, England, Now
Chapter Thirty-Three: Lake District, Now
Chapter Thirty-Four: York, England, Now
Chapter Thirty-Five: York, England, Now
Chapter Thirty-Six: York, England, Now
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Gatehouse/St. Champions, York, Now
Chapter Thirty-Eight: St. Champions, Interdimensional Void
Chapter Thirty-Nine: St. Champions, Interdimensional Void
Chapter Forty: Ten Downing Street, London/Gatehouse, York
Afterword
How To Follow

Cover Blurb

The magic has returned …

In a night of terror, the barriers between the magical and mundane worlds were torn down – and the two merged into one, unleashing wonders and terrors beyond human imagination. Jet fighters fly past dragons and kids on broomsticks, creatures of magic and myth returns to their old haunts and start wrecking havoc, and the outcast and dispossessed suddenly discover they have power beyond their wildest dreams.

As the country reels under the sudden shift in reality, and the government, police and military has to accept the world will never be the same again, shadowy factions move to take advantage of the chaos …

And, hidden in the darkness, a very old threat is about to come into the light.

Prologue I: England, 1536

Anne Boleyn knelt on the cushion, hands bound behind her back, and waited.

There was nothing else to do. She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her fate was sealed. She had made a bargain with an entity and the price, she had been told, was that she would not live to see the promised land. She had thought she would die, perhaps in childbirth, and barely live long enough to see the newborn before she passed on to the great unknown. It seemed a sick joke, as she waited for her execution, to die in such a manner, to be accused of unnatural crimes and be sentenced to death by the king she had once loved, but …

She felt calm, abnormally so, as she waited. She had kept her side of the bargain. She had drawn the king’s eyes, then played her role to perfection. She would not be a mistress, like her own sister, but a wife and a queen. Her child would be legitimate, the result of a tryst between a married man and woman; her child would be in line to inherit the throne. It had been difficult to play the game, to make it clear that the king’s desire would only be sated if he married her; she had teased and flirted, without ever quite crossing the line until the die had been firmly cast. She felt no guilt, for all the former queen’s partisans – and the king’s other daughter – considered her little more than a whore. And yet …

Anne closed her eyes, thinking of her child. Their child. Elizabeth would be Queen – Anne knew it, with a certainty that could not be denied – and yet, she would have a long and difficult life, even after she sat on her father’s throne. Anne knew, all too well, that the king had wanted a boy, that he had broken with his first wife and parted from Rome out of a desperate need for a male heir, but she took comfort from the prophecy. Her daughter would be queen, her reign would be blessed, and the Folk – the few remaining magicians – would have their gates to the other world. They would live forever in a land of magic, parted from the Burners; they would live their lives as they should be lived, rather than hiding in the shadows as the hunters closed in, searching for the last traces of magic. Anne felt cold – the last of her magic was long gone – and yet, she knew her name would be remembered for thousands of years to come. She would go down in history as the mother of salvation, as the witch who had sacrificed her life for her people. She would be known long after the king’s memory passed into dust.

Her lips twitched bitterly. She had been charged with adultery and incest and witchcraft, the latter charge the only one that had ever held any truth. She doubted there was a single man or woman in London who believed the charges, even in an age where the last traces of magic were still visible if one cared to look. The idea that a decent god-fearing woman would commit adultery was bad enough, but incest? It was outrageous, born of ignorance and malice and a king’s desperate need to pretend he wasn’t to blame for his lack of a male heir. No queen was ever alone, not even in her most private moments. Anne could have proved her innocence, if her husband had been interested in listening. But he’d steeled himself to the task of ridding himself of her, and her family, and that meant …

The clock ticked, once. Anne tensed. Time was running out. She would be taken to the block and beheaded … she wanted to think escape was possible, but she knew better. There was no one in London who would put his life at risk for her, even the learned men and religious thinkers she’d patronised when she had thought that reformation would save the Folk from extinction. The king was the only one who could spare her, and she knew better than to think that he would. She had to die, to secure her legacy and her daughter’s future … she wished, not for the first time, that she could take the child in her arms one final time, yet even that had been denied her. She would have cried, if she hadn’t known her daughter would survive. Her legacy would live on …

The clock ticked, again.

Anne tensed, feeling something behind her. Her skin prickled, her blood turning to ice. She hadn’t seen anything supernatural since the night she’d made the bargain, not a single dancing fairy or even a ghost. She had wondered if she’d lost her sight, although she was painfully aware that the magic was leaching away and the creatures that depended on it were going away too. And yet …

She took a breath as the presence grew stronger. Time itself seemed to slow, the interval between clock ticks growing longer and longer. Her heart raced as she forced herself to keep her eyes closed, even though she wanted to turn and look at the entity. She knew better – to lay eyes on such a creature was to court death – and yet, she felt the urge to let everything go. She didn’t have to let herself be marched to the block, to rest her head on the wood and wait for the executioner to end her life. She didn’t have to… but she did. The farce had to be played out, right to the very end. Her blood would stain the soil, her life sealing the bargain she’d made so long ago. Perhaps that was why the entity was here, after so long. It had come to claim her personally.

Her breath caught in her throat. “Why?”

There was no answer. She hadn’t expected one. She had been taught, time and time again, of the danger of bargaining with supernatural creatures. Some were unpredictable, some were inhuman, some were outrightly malicious. They would keep their bargains, she had been assured, and they wouldn’t break their word, but they were very good at keeping the letter of the agreement while overlooking or ignoring the spirit. Be careful what you wish for, she had been told years ago, for fear you might get it. She wondered, suddenly, if their desperation to save what remained of their people had blinded them to the risks. If they had made a mistake …

A cold breath brushed against the back of her neck. Anne shivered, helplessly.

“Why?”

She barely had a second to realise the entity had spoken before her mind was assaulted, an endless stream of images bombarding her thoughts. She was trained in mental defence – the small subtle charms to twist a person’s mind were about the only form of magic that still worked reliably, and if she had lacked those defences she would have been hopelessly vulnerable to the hidden witches at Court – and yet, there was nothing she could do to keep the barrage from flooding her mind. The images were strange, some so incomprehensible it hurt to even look at them; she saw a red-haired woman sitting on the throne, she saw the gates opening, she saw her people striding into a brave new world …

Tears prickled in her eyes. She would die, but her people would live. It would be worth her sacrifice.

The stream of images kept coming, the world shifting in ways she could barely understand. A dying queen. A young fool of a king. A commoner who would reign like a monarch … an endless series of images that twisted in front of her mind, something that bothered her at a very primal level. Anne knew she was far from stupid, but she was also all too aware of her own ignorance. Far too much magical knowledge – dangerous, hard-won knowledge – had been lost over the centuries, or hidden away for fear of the Burners. She didn’t understand what she was seeing and yet, the world was folding …

… twisting into something new. Something apocalyptic. 

“No!”

The images stopped, abruptly. Anne opened her eyes and threw caution to the winds, looking behind her. The chamber was empty. The entity was gone … her blood ran cold as she realised what it had been trying to tell her, in the last few moments before she was marched to the block. She had been given what she wanted, and yet the price was far more than her life. She saw it all now, far too clearly. The Folk would survive, but so would their enemies …

Keys rattled in the lock. It was time.

Anne closed her eyes, as the door opened to reveal the guards, and wept for the end of the world.

Prologue II: York, England, Now

Polly stared at the laptop, trying to understand what was happening – and what, if anything, had gone wrong.

Lord Burghley had told her and the rest of the staff to remain behind, in the manor, and wait to hear from the invasion force. Polly had been glad to do as she was told, all too aware that she was a novice in magic and because of that fact, there was no point in her going to St. Champions and putting her life at risk. The gates would be opened one final time, she’d been told, and the Brotherhood would take possession of a whole new world. Polly couldn’t wait. She’d felt enough magic, since she had been recruited, to want more. The promise of power – real power – drew her, like a moth to the flame.

But something had gone wrong.

The reports were confused, chaotic. Large swathes of the internet appeared to have dropped out completely, servers and relay stations vanishing without a trace. The country’s hardened electronic infrastructure wasn’t in any better state. She had high-level access to everything from government communications nodes to CCTV cameras, yet even they appeared to be worse than useless. What remained was contradictory, babbling reports that made no sense at all. She knew the plan, knew the gates should have opened by now … it couldn’t be a coincidence, she thought, that the crash of the internet had happened just after zero hour. The odds against that were staggering …

The ground shook, sharply.

Polly tensed. An earthquake? They were rare, almost unknown, in Britain. Polly had heard they were more common than most thought, but she’d never felt one. She checked the live feed from the manor’s security cameras, out of habit, and saw nothing … nothing, apart from a handful of security guards checking the perimeter. It hadn’t been that long since the flash mob had appeared out of nowhere, pressing against the walls and shouting and screaming about nothing in particular … she wondered, suddenly, if the manor was about to be attacked again. It wasn’t impossible. Her boss had been looking for the refugees from the other world for the last few months, and it was quite possible they were looking for him too. And they’d sent Norris – both Norris and his subsidiary, evil personality Norris2 – into the other world from the manor.

And that makes us a target, she thought. If the other worlders are fighting back, we might be targeted first.

Another message popped up in front of her, someone babbling nonsense about dragons, of all things, and ranting about Game of Thrones coming to life. Polly tried not to snort in disgust as the idiot went on and on about fire-breathing dragons burning the Houses of Parliament to the ground, never mind that his location was in York and there was no way in hell he could see what – if anything – was happening in London. She checked, just to be sure, and noted that the Houses of Parliament were still intact. She tried not to feel disappointed. She’d seen too much, in her career, to have any faith in politicians, but Westminster was still the Mother of Parliaments.  And yet … she knew her boss, and his peers, were the true rulers of the land. Perhaps it would be better if they came out of the shadows …

Light flared, a wave of magic that pressed against her senses in a manner that was almost painful. Polly was halfway across the room and hiding behind a wooden cabinet before her mind quite caught up with what was happening, her training taking control before she could freeze … the light burned through the cabinet, as if it was more real than anything else. It felt as if she were under the sun, the sunlight burning her skin, her muscles, her bones … she felt, just for a second, as if the entire world had been burned away, leaving only the soul behind …

And then the light just ... went away.

Polly shook. She would have collapsed if she hadn’t already been on the floor. The world was dark, so dark she was afraid she’d been struck blind before her eyes started to grow accustomed to the gloom. She stumbled to her feet, the world spinning around her like a dreamscape … she pinched herself, hard, and winced. It was no dream. She forced herself to walk to the desk and look down at the laptop. It was dead, the keyboard smoking slightly … she cursed under her breath as she looked up, realising that half the lights were dead too. Someone shouted outside … a guard, she guessed. The entire manor had been hit by … by whatever the light had been, and that meant … she reached for her smartphone and discovered it no longer worked. Her mind raced. An EMP? No, she’d seen – felt – the magic. Her skin was still prickling. She had the weirdest sense she was standing in the open, the sun concealed behind a cloud and yet feeling its presence. The feeling was coming from her master’s office. It felt … wrong.

She hesitated, then forced herself to go to the door. She’d been told, in no uncertain terms, that she was not to enter the inner office unless she was invited, yet … she swallowed hard as she rested her hand against the wood, checking for fire and wards, telling herself that it was vitally important she knew what was happening inside. The wards – the little charms that made it hard for anyone to even see the door, unless their attention was drawn to it by someone who already knew it was there – were gone. She pushed the door open and peered inside, feeling an alien warmth brushing against her bare skin. The office was dark and yet she could see something – someone – standing by the desk, the form alight and yet wrapped in darkness and shadow. Polly’s eyes hurt as she tried to make out the shape, a sudden stab of pain forcing her to close her eyes …

When she opened them after what seemed like forever, Cecil Burghley stood in front of her.

Polly sucked in her breath. Her master had always been striking, in a way that could not be described as handsome and yet drew the eye in a manner that could not be denied, but now … he looked strange, almost alien. His face had always been sharp, as if his jaw and cheekbones had been cut from rock, yet now he had a strange glamour that caught her attention and held it firmly. His eyes were dark, pools of darkness staring at her … she had the strangest sense, just for a second, that there was something hidden behind him, around him, a faint shimmer of something moving … she blinked and it was gone. Her master seemed almost human again.

But he was human. Wasn’t he?

“Polly,” Cecil Burghley said. His voice dripped honey and battery acid. He sounded as if he were learning to talk again. “Why …?”

Polly found her voice. “What happened …?”

She wanted to ask so much more, to demand to know what had happened to the invasion force or the other world, or … but she couldn’t think of the words. Her legs felt wobbly, as if she were caught in a nightmare … she told herself, for the second time, that she wasn’t dreaming. And yet, everything had an air of unreality about it that made it hard – almost impossible – to think clearly. Her eyes met his and … she stumbled, suddenly convinced the man in front of her wasn’t her master, but something else wearing his face. She blinked …

And the thought was gone.

“We have much work to do,” Cecil Burghley said. He sounded more human now, more his normal self. Polly blinked, again. “Contact the Prime Minister. I must speak with him immediately.”

Polly nodded, even though she knew it would be difficult – if not impossible – to arrange an immediate meeting. She had been an administrative assistant – a secretary, by any other name – at the very highest levels long enough to know the Prime Minister would have been whisked into a government bunker by now, hiding away due to fear of nuclear attack. His staff would know even less about what had happened than she did, but there were contingency plans for EMP strikes and those plans would be put into action … good thinking on their part, she was sure. Whatever had happened, it had enough in common with an EMP for the plans to be workable.

“Yes, My Lord,” she said, finally. She forced herself to ask a single question. “What happened to the invasion?”

Cecil Burghley seemed oddly nonplussed, as if he didn’t quite know what she was talking about. That was bizarre. He had been the one who had recruited Norris and sent him into the other world, priming him to open the gates to allow the invasion to begin. Polly had no idea what had happened afterwards, but it was clear something had gone dreadfully wrong. The world felt as if it had been tipped on its axis, perhaps taken apart and put back together again in a manner that wasn’t quite right. Her head hurt, the more she tried to think about it. The world no longer made sense.

“We have a new priority now,” he said, finally. He smiled, revealing too many teeth. Polly blinked, again. She’d been seeing things. Hadn’t she? “Destiny awaits.”

Chapter One: London, England, Now.

“Where are you, you little monster?”

Alec kept his head low as he fled into the garden, all too aware his stepmother was right behind him. The woman had never liked her stepson, to the point she’d openly suggested that Alec’s father should send him to boarding school or even give him up for adoption. Alec didn’t pretend to understand why his father didn’t send the woman away instead, but he knew there was no point in arguing. The woman had been drinking and grim experience had taught him that it was better to be well out of her way when she opened his father’s drinks cabinet and started pouring wine down her throat. She was unpleasant at the best of times, but when she’d been drinking she was unbearable.

“Come here, now!”

He ignored the woman’s demands as he ran into the darkness. The garden seemed larger than ever before, giving him plenty of room to hide. His father would be back soon, he told himself, and … even his stepmother wouldn’t dare touch him in front of his father’s very eyes. He wondered, not for the first time, if the woman had cast a spell on his father, something to make him fall in love with her. Alec had read enough stories about evil stepmothers – and stepfathers – to convince him that all stepparents were unpleasant, nothing more than hermit crabs crawling into the space left by an absent parent and turning what had once been a pleasant home into a nightmare. He wished, desperately, that his mother hadn’t died, that his parents had stayed together … he shuddered, helplessly, as he heard heavy footsteps coming after him. He’d hoped the darkness would protect him, but … for a moment, the garden seemed both immense and very small. Tears prickled at the corner of his eyes. His stepmother was coming closer and …

“Why so afraid, child?”

Alec stopped, dead. There was a … a something sitting on a leaf, clearly visible even in the darkness. His eyes hurt to look at it, a stabbing pain that felt as if invisible hands were twisting his eyeballs, forcing them to roll in directions he knew to be impossible. He blinked, the pain vanishing in an instant, and opened his eyes again. A little man was sitting on the leaf, no larger than his hand and yet perfect in every detail. He stared, feeling a touch of awe that washed away his fear. He’d been told there were fairies at the bottom of the garden, years ago, but he’d never actually seen one. And yet, he’d believed …

The fairy was tiny, clearly visible and yet the details were hard to pin down. Alec found it hard to see anything, save for the shimmer behind the tiny entity’s back. Wings, Alec supposed, beating so rapidly they could barely be seen. The face was ageless, young and old; the eyes were dark, more like a bird’s than a man’s. His imagination filled in the details, suggesting clothes and a stance that was both friendly and wary. It was impossible to believe the fairy posed any threat and yet, he couldn’t force himself to look away. The fairy gazed back at him, calm and composed. Alec wished, just for a second, he could sprout wings and fly away, to Neverland or Fairyland or somewhere – anywhere – else, as long as his stepmother wasn’t allowed to follow. He’d thought about running away before, when the old woman had shouted and screamed at him, but now … he could do it.

“I hate her,” he said, feeling all the buried anger bubbling to the surface. It wasn’t fair! Why had his mother died? Why had his father married again, to a monster in human form? Why, why, why …? “She hates me.”

“You’re safe now,” the fairy said. The words appeared in his head, without passing through Alec’s ears. Alec couldn’t even see the entity’s mouth move, as it spoke. It seemed perfectly normal for such a tiny creature. “You can stay with me.”

Alec didn’t hesitate. He trusted the entity … it crossed his mind, a moment too late, that perhaps he shouldn’t, that perhaps talking to a fairy was no better than taking candy from a stranger, but the fairy couldn’t be worse than his stepmother. It just couldn’t. Alec was seven years old and he couldn’t stand the thought of spending another eleven years with his stepmother, not when there was another possibility. The woman hated him. She didn’t even try to hide it.

“I will,” he said. He had no idea what would happen next – if he’d grow wings, if he’d be shrunk until he was as small as the fairy – but he didn’t care. “I …”

Something crashed through the garden, behind him. Alec froze. His stepmother burst into the tiny clearing, a giant smashing through the bushes and trees as if they were made of paper and cardboard. She was a towering woman, large enough to scare him; her eyes, harsh and cold, fixed on him. He cowered back, trying not to inhale, as the stench of her breath washed over him. She stank of alcohol and cigarettes, of adult things he knew better than to try until he was a great deal older. She reached for him and her stumbled back, trying to escape as the real world crashed with the fantasy. The fairy …

The fairy was hovering between them.

His stepmother stopped, dead. She had yelled at him, time and time again, for making things up; she had never listened, when he’d told her about his day at school or the stories he’d told with his stuffed toys or building blocks. She wouldn’t have believed him if he’d told her about the fairy … no, she was staring at the tiny creature, her eyes going wide with horror and astonishment. Alec felt a surge of pure glee as she started to step backwards, fear clearly visible on her face. He’d never seen anything actually scare her before. And now …

The fairy spoke a single word. “Mine.”

It changed, so rapidly it made Alec’s eyes hurt. It grew larger, teeth and claws shimmering around its growing form, lunging forward. Alec’s stepmother had no time to run before it was on her, her body seeming to explode into a fountain of blood and gore. Alec saw her eyes explode, followed rapidly by the rest of her head; he fell backwards, his head pounding as pieces of flesh and bone fell everywhere. He hit the ground hard enough to hurt badly, smacking his head against a stone. The fairy seemed to flicker, the tiny form he’d seen earlier somehow transposed with something far darker, and nastier. It was …

Alec opened his mouth to scream, but it was far too late.

***

Sergeant Kenneth Oswald cursed under his breath as he drove through the estate.

The call had been a prank, probably. A dangerous animal, loose on the streets … he had no idea why the dispatcher had ordered him to investigate, not when all hell was breaking loose elsewhere. The police radio net had partly crashed, messages from the nearest station contrasting oddly with bursts of talking and laughter that sounded distinctly inhuman. Kenneth suspected someone had hacked the net, probably intending to distract the police while they did something … or perhaps it was just another prank. The days in which prank callers, kids wasting police time, actually faced any sort of consequences for their crimes were long gone. A few years in jail, or even a month or two picking up litter, would teach them a lesson, but it was politically impossible to do anything of the sort. Kenneth cursed the uniformed politicians in police uniforms under his breath as he parked the car, reminding himself he only had a few years to go until retirement. He’d leave the force, move to a small town miles from anywhere, and forget the nightmare enveloping the cities. It wouldn’t be his problem any longer.

He clambered out of the car, gripping his flashlight in one hand as he looked up and down the street. It was surprisingly dark, the only source of light the stars overhead. The streetlights had been vandalised long ago and were never replaced, leaving the estate trapped in shadows. Kenneth winced as he locked the door and started to walk, pacing himself as he made his way down the street. The hopelessness was almost a physical force, a grim reminder that anyone born on the estate would be lucky if they made it out. There were too many pitfalls for young men and women – drugs, prostitution, radical politics – and too few chances to leave the estate behind. It was almost a black hole, sucking its inhabitants into the gravity well and keeping them trapped. The wind shifted, blowing a hint of burning embers towards him. Kenneth tensed, eyes flickering further down the street. There was nothing there …

And yet, his instincts were sounding the alarm.

He kept moving, keeping one hand on his truncheon. The proposals to arm every policeman in London had gone nowhere, and perhaps that was for the best, but his instincts were screaming at him to turn and run. He hadn’t felt so nervous since the first day he’d stepped onto the streets as a uniformed officer, empowered to enforce the law and charged to protect the population, even from themselves. It wasn’t easy to be the iron fist in the velvet glove, to be calm and reasonable and yet firm; he knew, deep inside, that it was just a matter of time before he made a career-ending mistake. There were too many provocations, too many radicals intent on embarrassing the police or … he shook his head as he reached the end of the street. It was quiet. Too quiet.

His lips twitched at the thought, although it wasn’t funny. London never slept. The ordinary law-abiding folks might be indoors, the doors and windows firmly bolted, but the streets were never empty. Here, so far from Westminster, the darkness belonged to the druggies or the radicals. His eyes lingered on a boarded-up home, soon to become a drug den if it wasn’t already. The walls were covered with obscene graffiti, making it hard – impossible – for whoever owned it to sell or rent, at least to anyone remotely desirable. And that meant …

Something shifted, a gust of warm air brushing against him. He looked up and down the street, his head spinning – suddenly – as he realised something was there. It was hard, almost impossible, to force himself to see it. A giant hulking shadow, with immense wings and huge red eyes, perched in the middle of the road … his brain stopped, just for a second, as he felt his legs buckle. The creature – the dragon – was simply impossible. It was … a wash of panic ran through him. There might be something in the air, something hallucinogenic … it wasn’t impossible. He’d seen fellow officers get poisoned, when they raided drug lairs, and it was quite possible he’d breathed in something dangerous. His hand dropped to his radio, his mouth suddenly dry as he tried to think what to say. The dispatcher wouldn’t believe him … he found the emergency beacon, concealed in his belt, and pushed it. Every policeman in the area would be on the way within moments, converging on his position. An officer in trouble took priority over nearly everything else.

The dragon moved, rising on its hind legs until it towered over him. Kenneth found himself stepping backwards, unable to take his eyes off the beast. It was impossible – it had to be impossible – and yet, he found himself believing what he saw. The dragon was real in a way he found impossible to deny, a presence that was simply too big … he saw it open its mouth, revealing too many teeth, and stumbled backwards again as it breathed fire, illuminating the entire street. A wave of heat brushed against him, an instant before the dragon took flight. Kenneth found himself on his knees as he saw it vanish into the sky, tears prickling in his eyes …

It was impossible. He had to be seeing things. But he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

***

Syeda Ali rubbed her eyes as the plane turned again, cursing under her breath. It should have been a simple flight from Glasgow to London, an hour in the air followed by five hours in the airport before they boarded the flight to Bangladesh. Her aunt had been proud of the bargain she’d secured, booking a very late flight from Glasgow and then a very early one from London. She hadn’t known that their landing would be delayed for hours … Syeda hid her amusement with an effort, even though there was nothing amusing about it. They were already dangerously late for the second flight, if it hadn’t been cancelled. She had no idea what was going on below, but what should have been an hour’s flight had somehow morphed into four hours over London.

She told herself to be glad of the delay, even though she knew it wouldn’t last forever. Her aunt had been tight-lipped about quite why they were going to Bangladesh, suggesting – to a young girl of marriageable age – that she intended to introduce Syeda to a young man and ensure they married before she returned to Britain. Syeda had seen it happen before, time and time again. A youngster would be taken abroad and told they had to marry someone they didn’t know, for the good of the family, and if they said no … Syeda shuddered inwardly, trying to brace herself for the tidal wave of emotional blackmail she knew was in her future. If she said no … she didn’t want to think about what would happen. She would be lucky if she wasn’t disowned.

Tears prickled in the corner of her eye. It wasn’t fair. She wanted to get a job and marry someone she chose, but one was impossible and the other … she knew girls who had been forced to leave their jobs, after they married someone who was unable to cope with a wife who earned more than they did, or only held their jobs with their husband’s permission. She had dreamed of rising high, of reaching the top of her profession, but it would be impossible if she married the wrong person. She would be reduced, very quickly, to a wife and mother and little else … she shuddered, trying not to think about how her in-laws would treat her. Her mother had treated her sister-in-law like a servant, and now …

She swallowed, inwardly, as the sun rose. The plane was descending, finally. They’d land and see if they could get another flight, and then … she wanted to run, to leave, but it would mean cutting ties with her entire family. She would never see her parents or siblings again. She wasn’t even sure where she’d go. There was little hope of escape.

Something moved in the brightening sky. Syeda leaned forward, wondering if it was another plane. The pilot hadn’t been very informative, but he had told his passengers that they weren’t the only aircraft that had been delayed. Perhaps … she frowned, realising the moving object – objects – were getting closer. Too close … they were coming right at the aircraft. She felt too tired to be afraid, even though she was starting to wonder if they were missiles. Perhaps there had been a terrorist attack, perhaps …

And then the objects came into view.

Syeda stared in disbelief. Three youngsters, no older than herself, were flying on broomsticks … it was impossible. She was seeing things. A ripple of shock ran through the aircraft as the passengers stared, some standing upright to peer out the windows as the flying people came closer. Syeda swallowed, hard. Two young woman and a young man, wearing robes … their faces were alight with sheer delight, in their own freedom, their hair blowing in the wind as they closed with the aircraft. She felt an odd little lump in her throat as she saw their joyful faces. They were free, able to go wherever they liked, while she …

“It has to be a stunt,” an older man said. There was no conviction in his voice. He was trying to convince himself he wasn’t seeing what he saw. “A publicity stunt.”

The flying teenagers flew next to the plane for a long moment – a girl looked at the aircraft, her eyes meeting Syeda’s for a long moment – and then they were gone, vanishing so fast they were gone before she knew what was happening. Her cheeks felt damp … it took her a moment to realise she was crying, sobbing silently as the real world reasserted itself. She was crying for her own freedom, the freedom she’d lost well before she’d known what freedom was. The girl had grown up with a power and freedom Syeda had never known existed … she knew it to be true, even though she couldn’t have put the feeling into words. She wasn’t the only one, she realised numbly, as the plane flew lower, the airport slowly coming into view. They’d seen a glimpse of a better world, a land of freedom and wonder, a land denied to them … she swallowed hard, forcing herself to sit down again. The older man was still babbling, insisting they hadn’t seen anything, but he was a fool. He couldn’t even convince himself. And …

Syeda knew, deep inside, that it had been real …

… And the world had changed overnight.

Chapter Two: Gatehouse, York, Now

Helen could have kissed Richard.

They weren’t friends, not in any real sense, but they’d been forced to work together before Richard and Brains had returned to Mystic Albion with Janet while Helen had stayed behind to hunt down the rogue magicians. She could recall a time when she’d resented his closeness to Brains, a time when she’d had no qualms about turning him into an animal – or an object – whenever he’d gotten on her nerves, and yet … that all seemed so foolish, in this brave new world. She wondered, suddenly, if Richard felt the same way. There were some things, she’d been told, that bound people together forever, and being trapped on another world was very definitely one of them.

She took a long breath as her eyes surveyed the remnants of the damaged chamber. The air felt funny, almost wrong. The magic of Mystic Albion felt … different, as if she was in a third world rather than her homeworld or the magicless OldeWorld. She reached for her power and felt it crackling around her, a relief after being almost powerless only a few hours ago, but it still felt different. She forced herself to take another breath, centring herself. She didn’t have time to rest, not now. Steve was right beside her and …

“Janet!”

Steve darted forward, running to embrace his sister. Helen blinked in surprise. Janet looked different, so different she almost wondered if Steve had mistaken someone else for her, and yet … she hadn’t changed physically, not really, but she carried herself with confidence now. Helen had thought Janet was weak, back when they’d been stranded on OldeWorld, yet now … Helen looked away, allowing Steve and Janet to hug in peace. Richard met her eyes, just for a second, and nodded coolly. Helen nodded back.

The Merlin cleared his throat. “My office,” he said. “All of you.”

Helen nodded, feeling a flicker of the old envy as Richard took Brains’s arm and steered him out the door. Brains looked as if he was in his own world, his lips moving silently as he contemplated magical concepts so far beyond her they wouldn’t serve any practical use for months or years to come. She felt the school vibrate beneath her feet and shuddered, inwardly, as they made their way up the staff staircases, into an office she’d been told she would never visit unless she wound up in very real trouble. The door closed behind them with an audible thud.

She sucked in her breath as she saw the windows. They normally showed the endless forest surrounding Gatehouse, the domain of creatures so inhuman it was difficult to lay eyes on them, but now they showed a city that was disturbingly grey – and familiar. York had been a drab nightmare, when she’d found herself and her friends in OldeWorld, and her opinion hadn’t changed over the last few months. It was hard to believe that a society so rich, in so many ways, could have so much poverty, both material and spiritual. And yet … she shuddered, helplessly. She’d complained about her lot, growing up in Mystic Albion with a family that both loved her and expected her to serve their interests first and foremost, but she’d been far luckier than Janet and Steve. And even they were lucky, compared to the poorest on OldeWorld. Those poor souls’ lives weren’t worth living.

Richard stepped up beside her. “The two worlds have really merged.”

Helen bit down – hard – on the urge to demand to know if he hadn’t believed it, when Brains had told him what had happened. She supposed it made a certain kind of sense. Everyone had thought, only a year ago, that there would be no further contact between OldeWorld and Mystic Albion, that the magical and technological worlds would never meet again. Now … she knew better. They all did. But none had expected the two worlds would merge into one. No wonder the magic felt strange. The rules had changed. Again.

“Is it everywhere,” Richard asked, “or just Gatehouse?”

“If my calculations are correct, everywhere,” Brains said. He sounded shaken. It was so unlike him that Helen felt a flicker of alarm. Brains rarely seemed to care about anything, in her experience, something she’d found maddening a year ago. They’d been betrothed back then, and … he’d felt nothing. “The entire world has changed.”

Steve joined them, his face grim. “Where are the lights?”

Helen gave him an odd look. “What do you mean?”

“There should be streetlights,” Steve pointed out. The first glimmers of dawn were starting to appear in the distance. “Where are they?”

“Our arrival last time did damage the school,” Richard said. “If our entire world has arrived …”

Helen didn’t want to think about it. York had a strange, almost hazy air, as if the city was wrapped in an ethereal mist. She wanted to believe Brains was wrong, that the two worlds hadn’t merged, but … she shook her head as a sudden tiredness fell over her. Brains was right, and that meant … she shuddered, inwardly, as the Merlin summoned tea and biscuits, then motioned for everyone to sit at the table. Helen felt too tired to be either pleased or fearful. Once, she would have given her back teeth for a seat at the table, for recognition as a person of consequence. Now, all she wanted was sleep. Her lips quirked, wryly. Did she even have a bed in Gatehouse? Had her room been preserved or had it been cleared and cleaned, then given to another student? She didn’t know.

There’ll be a bed here somewhere, she told herself, as she sipped her tea. Gatehouse was used to students appearing randomly. It wouldn’t turn anyone away, if they wanted to learn and were willing to work. All I have to do is ask for one.

The Merlin cleared his throat. Helen forced herself to look at him. He was the most respected sorcerer in the world, the sole male in high office … Helen knew, without having to ask, that he had both the power and intelligence to make use of his post. And yet, he seemed tired and worn, ground down by the sheer scale of the disaster that had enveloped the entire world. It was hard to imagine what might be happening elsewhere, in Londinium or her family estate but … Helen wished, suddenly, that Brains had found something – anything – else to research as his senior year project. She would never have met Steve, or done something important with her life, but she would never have known what she’d missed. She could have come to terms with Brains. He wasn’t stupid, far from it. It wouldn’t be the first marriage that existed in name only.

“I will have to contact the Princesses shortly,” the Merlin said. His voice was calm and composed, betraying none of his inner turmoil. “Before then, I need to know what happened – and why.”

He looked at Brains, who was scribbling on a piece of endless notepaper. “Hiram?”

Brains didn’t look up. “We believed Mystic Albion was an alternate dimension, separate from OldeWorld,” he said. “We were wrong. Mystic Albion is actually a folded aspect of OldeWorld, a piece of dimensionally transcendent engineering on a colossal and unimaginable scale. Our world was literally bigger on the inside” – his eyes narrowed for a moment – “and the fact we couldn’t see the folds explains, I think, why teleportation and transportation spells were so dangerously unreliable at times. They were affected by twists in the fabric of time and space, like folded paper …”

He took a sheet of paper and folded it up, then rested the folded piece on top of another sheet. “This is our world,” he said, pointing to the first piece. “The unfolded piece is OldeWorld. Now” – he unfolded the first piece and rested it on top of the second – “the two worlds are merged.”

Richard leaned forward. “Can they see us?”

“Yes.” There was no doubt in Brains's voice. “More than just see us. They can get to us.”

Janet made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob. Helen felt a stab of sympathy. Janet had helped them, when they’d first met, in exchange for a promise they’d take her with them when they returned home. Richard had kept that promise – from the way they behaved toward each other, it was clear they’d grown very close indeed – but now there was a very real risk she’d be sent home. Helen could understand Janet’s feelings, no matter how much she would have preferred to deny it. She would have to go home too. She wondered, numbly, if her mother would let her leave again.

And she wouldn’t approve of Steve, either, she thought. She hadn’t admitted, even to herself, that she was starting to like him. What’ll she make of him?

Brains was still talking. “Everything that was bound up in folded space will have been dumped into OldeWorld. Magical creatures, magical entities … the old places of power will be coming to life, the old agreements taking force again. It will change everything.”

Helen felt cold. She had been raised in a world where the most powerful humans were still no match for supernatural entities. Her family was known for arrogance and yet even they trod carefully in high-magic areas, honouring the old ways to keep misfortune from following their every move. Janet and Steve had been raised in a world where magic was nothing more than a myth, save for the handful of magicians who had maintained some of their power after the gates had closed. They didn’t know the dangers; they didn’t know how easy it was to give offense to creatures that could destroy – or worse – a human on a whim. And if they said the wrong thing …

She swallowed, hard. It was going to be a nightmare.

The Merlin tapped the table, impatiently, as Brains descended into magical terms only a handful of sorcerers could hope to follow. Helen didn’t blame the Merlin. Dimensional engineering – making a building larger on the inside – was a very rare discipline, one so difficult to master that there were very few sorcerers who could. It was hard to turn a small house into a giant mansion and the cost would be prohibitive … the idea of doing it to an entire world just incomprehensible. She had no idea which entity had answered Anne Boleyn’s call, when the last of the magic was flowing out of the mundane world, but its power was clearly unimaginable.

Her blood ran cold. It felt, just for a moment, as if someone had walked over her grave.

“Helen,” the Merlin said. He spoke politely, but it was a very powerful politeness. “What happened since the gate was briefly reopened, then closed again?”

Helen took a moment to compose herself. “Steve and I” – she nodded to Janet’s brother, who smiled back – “went looking for the rogue magicians. We discovered, eventually, that they’d worked out a way to use human sacrifices to reopen the gate themselves, then invade our world. Their magic” – she hesitated, wishing she had Brains’s insight into the tiny spells her relatives had developed since the two worlds diverged – “was different from ours, but very effective. We …”

She hesitated, unsure what to say. They’d found other potential magicians … they’d taken them back to York and left them in the vehicle, hours ago. Guilt washed through her. The boys and girls they’d recruited were innocents, children playing with magics that could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Helen knew she hadn’t even begun to teach them the basics, let alone how to keep themselves safe when they started experimenting with more complex and dangerous spells. Magic was practically a living thing, responsive more to unspoken desires than stated intentions. It was very easy to hurt yourself – or worse – by casting a spell without proper precautions.

Her blood ran cold. OldeWorld’s magic was designed to make best use of what little raw power was available to local spellcasters. It was hard, almost impossible, to believe so deeply in magic that spellcasting became possible, and it was never easy. That had changed now, she suspected. The local magicians suddenly had more power than they knew how to handle and that meant … she cursed under her breath. There would be a disaster. There might already have been a disaster.

There has, she thought, numbly. We’re here.

She forced herself to continue. “We moved to stop them,” she said. “We were unable to keep them from reopening the gate, which gave me access to my magic. I thought I could best my opponent. Instead …”

Her memories were jumbled. It was hard to sort out what had happened. It was ... she closed her eyes for a long moment, promising herself she’d use memory spells later to track down the fragments and put them in their proper order. Perhaps if she slept, allowed her brain to rest … she yawned, then blushed helplessly. It was rude, to say the least, to yawn at the table. Her mother would not be amused. Oddly, Helen found it hard to care.

“The next thing I remember clearly is being in their old bedroom,” Helen said, nodding to Richard. The last time she’d been in that room, they’d fallen into OldeWorld. It was funny how glad she’d been to see it again, even though it was clear proof something had gone horribly wrong. “And the magic feels … different.”

“The magic field in the dimensional fold will have flowed out into OldeWorld,” Brains said. “I suspect the field will balance itself out, eventually.”

Helen shivered. “They were using human sacrifice to open the gates,” she said. “What’ll happen if they try that again?”

The Merlin looked grim. There was power in human sacrifice, so much power that few Sinisters – dark sorcerers – would take the risk of sacrificing a single life. The power surge might well obliterate the sorcerer who’d cast the spell, then break whatever containment wards and channelling runes he’d devised and devastate the entire area. No one in their right mind would try it … but on OldeWorld, with magic levels so low it was hard to cast even a simple spell, human sacrifice was relatively safe. Had been safe. Now …

“We’ll have to warn them,” the Merlin said. “And quickly.”

Helen nodded. It was just a matter of time until her relatives tried to sacrifice more lives … and if they didn’t realise the danger, they were likely to destroy themselves and much of the surrounding countryside. She pressed her fingertips against her forehead, uneasily aware it wouldn’t be long before they tried. She knew her family too well to think her relatives would hesitate. They had a long history of experimenting with risky magics …

… And her relatives on the other side of the gate didn’t even begin to understand the dangers.

Not on the other side, she reminded herself, sharply. The two worlds are one now.

She yawned, again. “I don’t have much else to contribute, now,” she said. She’d have to sit down and write a full account of everything that had happened, since she’d chosen to stay behind, but that could wait a day or two. “Is my bedroom still mine or …?”

The Merlin nodded, shortly. “It hasn’t changed,” he said. If he was irked at her rudeness, he didn’t show it. He’d always had a reputation for being a practical man. “Classes will be cancelled, tomorrow. I suggest you eat in your chambers and report back to me, when you wake.”

Helen nodded. “You’ll find something for Steve?”

“Of course,” the Merlin said.

Janet leaned forward. “What’ll happen to Norris?”

Norris? Helen didn’t recall a Norris. Who’s he?

“That rather depends on what he has to tell us, when he wakes,” the Merlin said. “We’ll see.”

He looked at Richard. “The room next to yours is empty. Steve can have it, at least for the night. Again, have your breakfast in your chambers and report back to me afterwards. I don’t know what we’ll be telling the rest of the students, after …”

Helen wondered, wryly, what they’d told the students the first time. Gatehouse had always encouraged its student body to experiment – quite a few magical discoveries had been made by students who hadn’t finished their education – but there were limits. She doubted the students had been encouraged to duplicate Brains’s experiment, let alone risk reopening the gates to OldeWorld. Not that it mattered now, she thought. The two worlds were one … she hoped, prayed, that the next meeting would be peaceful, even though she feared otherwise. The two societies were just too different. It had been hard enough for her to cope, when they’d been forced to attend St. Champions …

The thought worried her. “If Gatehouse and St. Champions are in the same place,” she said slowly, “what happened to St. Champions?”

“Unknown,” Brains said. “The math suggests they’ll co-exist ...”

The Merlin looked pale. “And Londinium? Both cities?”

“Unknown,” Brains repeated. “We’ll have to find out. And quickly.”

“Yes,” the Merlin agreed. “We will.”

He cleared his throat. “Go to bed,” he added. “I’ll see you all tomorrow … later today.”

Helen nodded and stood, feeling tired and grimy. The scale of the disaster was beyond imagination. She didn’t even want to think about how everything had changed, at least not until she had a good night’s sleep, a bath, and breakfast. It might be early in the morning, but it felt very late.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told Steve. “And …”

She swallowed, hard. There was so much she wanted to say. But she didn’t have time.

“Get some sleep,” Steve advised. “I’ll see you shortly.”

Chapter Three: Gatehouse, York, Now

Janet couldn’t sleep.

Her life felt like a joke, her world a game played by a mad god. She had grown up on Earth – OldeWorld – knowing she would never climb out of poverty, never leave the estate … the chance to jump to a whole other world had been irresistible. She would have done anything, from selling her body to selling her soul, to go to a magic school and learn magic … and she had. She had learnt some spells, discovered she had a promising future after all, and … she’d even made the decision, when her relationship with Richard had started to bloom …

And now, the two worlds had merged into one.

She climbed to the top of the school, to the observation chamber she’d been shown the very first day she’d stepped into Gatehouse, and stared out over the land before her. The endless forest – too bright to be quite real – was gone, replaced by a very familiar city. Janet had never seen York from the air – she had never left the city until after she’d met Richard and his friends – but she had no trouble picking out the landmarks, from the cathedral to the railway museum on the far side of the train station. The streets were surprisingly empty – it was still early morning – yet she knew it was just a matter of time before the world realised what had happened. Perhaps they’d refuse to believe the evidence of their own eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Her heart sank. She regretted leaving her mother – she wondered, suddenly, just what Steve had told their mother about her disappearance – and yet, she knew she would have made the same choice even if her friends had demanded a far higher price. The chance to study magic, to make something of herself, was simply too great to pass up, and yet … she had no idea what would happen now. It seemed like a sick joke. The entire world would be studying magic … her thoughts ran in circles, wondering if she’d be forced to return to St. Champions or worse. The school had been a nightmare, little more than a glorified day care, and yet … she had seen enough of the system to understand its fundamental illogic. The people who caused trouble were feted and rewarded, bribed to keep them from upsetting the system any further, while those who tried to be good students were punished simply for existing. It just wasn’t fair. She had no doubt she’d be ordered to return to the old school …

… If it still existed.

She peered down, trying to pick out the streets she’d known – and loathed – from the moment she realised her life had been ruined before she’d even been born. It was hard to work out which streets were which, but … her eyes narrowed as she spotted the barricades, drawn up around the estate. It looked as if the entire area had been sealed off by the police. The ruined tennis court was clearly visible … her head spun as the pieces fell into place, letting her put names to the remaining streets. Gatehouse really was on top of St. Champions. Janet hoped the school had been destroyed, the pieces blasted into another dimension. There shouldn’t have been anyone there so late at night, certainly not anyone innocent, and she hated the place too much to think it could be saved. The teachers had been useless and the students … she told herself, sharply, that things were going to be different. She was magic now. A young man who touched her without permission would be spending the rest of his life as a frog.

Her heart twisted, painfully, as she picked out her former home. It was as dark and silent as the rest of the estate. There was no sign of her mother, no sign of anyone she’d known … it was jarring to stare at the tiny apartment, as if she’d been reading Harry Potter and turned the page to discover the Starship Enterprise. It felt as if two worlds had collided … they had, in a sense. Her mood darkened as she stared at her fingers, feeling the magic sparking through them. She had come to love Gatehouse, over the last few months. The teachers knew what they were doing, the intelligent students were encouraged to follow their interests, there were decent career paths for all … and bullies and gropers, the puerile assholes who ruined education for everyone, simply didn’t exist.  Gatehouse wasn’t perfect, but it was so far ahead of St. Champions that there was no comparison. But would it be ruined by contact with OldeWorld?

Janet shuddered. She didn’t want to think about it. But it was possible. Too possible.

She clenched her fists. The estate could have been cleaned up overnight, if the government had been prepared to admit what had gone wrong and spent time and effort fixing the problem. St. Champions could have been turned around, if the useless teachers had been purged, the bullies expelled and the gropers castrated. Her skin crawled, remembering little touches that had been far from innocent; she knew, as much as she hated to admit it, that she’d been one of the lucky ones. She hadn’t been that attractive, not compared to … she felt sick, unwilling to think about it. The pretty girls had had to seek out male protectors or pay the price of being alone. It was funny, she reflected bitterly, for all the blather about feminism and girl power that feminists did nothing to improve the lot of lower-class girls. But then, it was harder to fight someone capable of fighting back.

“It will change,” she promised herself. “It will!”

She heard the door open and looked back, smiling tiredly as Richard stepped into the chamber. He looked as tired and restless as she felt … she scowled inwardly, remembering how they’d been interrupted before they could consummate their relationship. She wasn’t sure if she should be mad at Brains for barging in or relieved. It had been her decision and yet … she couldn’t have taken it back, if they’d gone all the way. She’d heard the horror stories back home, from girls who had lost their virginities to the wrong man. It could end very badly …

Richard isn’t like that, she told herself. He isn’t!

His voice was soft, affectionate. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” Janet confessed. She found herself chewing a strand of her hair and turned away, trying to hide her nerves. “I just feel …”

She waved a hand at the city below. York couldn’t have been shut down completely. It just couldn’t. The sun was rising now … people would be leaving their homes and heading to work, or the shops, or school, and they’d see the towering building looming over the city. Janet had no idea if Gatehouse was bigger than the tallest building on Earth – she had no idea which building was actually the tallest – but the school was bigger than St. Champions, bigger than the druggie-infested apartment blocks that dominated countless lower-class estates. There was no way the people below could miss it. The castle was just too large.

“What’ll happen,” she asked, “when they realise what’s happened?”

Richard stepped up and stood next to her, companionably close without being too close. Janet felt a rush of affection and reached out to take his arm, drawing him closer. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her lightly, tight enough to let her feel his heartbeat but loose enough so she’d not feel constrained. She learned against him, unable to put her feelings into words. Richard was comfortable and secure in himself. He felt no need – she knew – to boost himself by putting someone else down. He made her feel comfortable too …

“I don’t know,” Richard said, quietly. “How many new magicians are going come into their powers in the next few days?”

Janet shivered. She had wanted magic powers, but she hadn’t known she had magic – or at least that she could use magic – until she’d met Richard and started studying under him. There was too little background magic in OldeWorld for spells to be cast easily, even the simplest of cantrips. Helen had been rendered practically powerless when she’d fallen into OldeWorld and even Richard and Brains had had trouble casting spells. It had taken Brains days of research to figure out ways to reduce the amount of magic needed to cast a spell, and the rogue magicians were way ahead of them. She felt a hot flash of bitter envy and resentment. If they’d recruited her, she would have done anything they wanted in exchange for power.

And that might be how they got their hooks into Norris, she thought. It was difficult to wrap her head around what he’d done, how he’d somehow managed to get into Gatehouse and spy on the school for his shadowy masters. Norris had been an intelligent young man, yet … also a bitter nerd, an incel, a dog kicked so often that he could no longer tell the difference between a helping hand and another blow. Did they offer him power in exchange for his service?

She shuddered. She knew girls who had given themselves to boys who would protect them from other boys. It was a terrible way to live – she also knew young mothers who had been abandoned by their boyfriends, after they’d become pregnant – but it was better than the alternative. Janet liked to think she wouldn’t have submitted to a thug in exchange for protection, yet … she shook her head. Norris hadn’t even had that. It wouldn’t take much to win his loyalty. A simple offer of protection, or even friendship, would have been enough.

You could have reached out to him, she told herself, but you thought he was creepy.

It isn’t your job to reach out to someone else, no matter how much they need it, her thoughts answered. You just need to refrain from making it worse.

Richard cleared his throat. “I think we’ll be doing outreach,” he said. “Will you help us?”

Janet hesitated, torn. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say no. She wanted to reach out and help all the girls like her – and the boys like Norris – and change the world for the better. She wanted to stay in Gatehouse and study magic, leaving the world to someone – anyone – else. She wanted to go with Richard, to do whatever he did, and also to put herself first … she sighed, inwardly. In truth, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She had been taught to share …

… But she’d also been taught that sharing was a mug’s game.

Not here, she told herself. The rules are different here.

“If I can,” she said, finally.

“You can,” Richard said. “If you hadn’t helped us, we would never have made it home.”

Janet felt a lump in her throat. If she hadn’t sneaked into St. Champions – if she hadn’t listened to a poisonous friend – she would never have met Richard, Brains and Helen. If she hadn’t … she recalled how ignorant they’d been of the modern world and shuddered. They might not have survived the first day, let alone found their footing before the rogue magicians caught them … she didn’t want to think about what would have happened, if she’d never met them. Her life, at best, would remain bland and boring. At worst …

She supposed that was the answer. She wasn’t the only young girl who had been living a life of quiet desperation. Even the more popular girls at St. Champions were trapped, unable to escape … she owed it to herself to offer them a chance at a better life, even if they refused to take it. And boys like Norris … she knew how quick Steve had been to learn magic and Norris, she supposed, had been very much the same. If they set out to take revenge on their tormentors … she didn’t feel any sympathy for bullying bastards, but it would be very unpleasant for anyone caught in the crossfire. Norris had already killed one of his tormentors … she wondered, suddenly, if he’d killed anyone else.

“I’ll do my best to help,” she promised. It wasn’t going to be easy. “You know …”

She changed the subject, hastily. “Did you see the way Steve was looking at Helen?”

Richard raised his eyebrows. “Did he tell you they’re together?”

“I don’t think they are, not yet,” Janet said. She didn’t think Steve had had a girlfriend before. He’d been too determined to turn his online business into a way of getting out of the estate – for good – to have a girlfriend. And yet, Janet had to admit Helen was smart as well as beautiful. Just looking at her made Janet feel dowdy. “But I think he likes her.”

“Charming,” Richard said. “I hope he doesn’t get his heart broken.”

Janet met his eyes. Steve hadn’t always gotten along with her – like most brothers and sisters, they’d had their ups and downs – but they loved each other. Janet had seen enough really screwed up families, on the estate, to know she was lucky to have a brother who treated her as a person in her own right. She would tease him about Helen, just as he would tease her about Richard, yet she didn’t want him hurt. But there was something about Helen she didn’t like.

“Is that likely to happen?”

“It’s hard to say,” Richard admitted. “Helen grew up a lot, before she chose to stay, but … she’s still a Burghley, with all the obligations to her family …”

He shook his head, his voice trailing off. “You know she was betrothed to Brains?”

Janet felt sick. The idea of having her marriage arranged for her was horrific, all the more so if the arrangements had been made when she was a child. She knew girls who had been through arranged marriages and none had been really happy, yet there had been no way to escape without losing their entire families once and for all. The families might not force the two to wed – perish the thought – but they’d bring enormous pressure on the couple to marry and disown anyone who refused. And the thought of it happening here …

“What’ll happen if she says no?”

“I don’t know,” Richard said. His face darkened. “Her family will not be pleased. She might be blamed even if it is Brains who says no …”

He shook his head. “Most such matches involve mature couples, who find ways to come to terms with each other,” he added. “But Helen and Brains are too young for it.”

Janet winced. Steve deserved better. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

“I doubt it,” Richard said. “They’re old enough to refuse to honour the betrothal … the smart thing, I suspect, would be Brains putting an end to it. No one will risk disowning him. But who knows?”

“He’s your friend,” Janet said, quietly.

“He is,” Richard agreed. “But he’s also old enough to make his own decisions.”

Janet understood, better than she cared to admit. She had been free – on paper – back home, but she had never been allowed to make any real decisions. It had been partly because of her youth, yet also … because of when and where she’d been born and raised. There would have been consequences for stepping too far out of line, consequences that wouldn’t have been her fault and yet would have been blamed on her anyway. There was always someone willing to tut and say he got what he deserved for showing off, or she could expect no better when she wore revealing clothes … here, at least, she had a freedom she loved and yet wasn’t quite sure how to handle. And Brains …

Richard squeezed her shoulder. “Your brother is a mature young man,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

His lips twitched. “And you can teach him magic.”

Janet doubted Steve would need anything she could teach him. He had always been smarter than her, and far more technically inclined. “He already knows a great deal of magic.”

“Not like you,” Richard said. There was something in the way he said it that made her believe him, even though it was hard. “You have a very real talent for magic.”

Janet felt herself flush. She had never been good at anything, before she’d found herself in another world. It had been hard to study at St. Champions – the classes were too disruptive for her to learn anything – and pointless, besides. For all the chatter about students going to university, Janet didn’t know anyone who had. It was costly and anyone who did would have had to go into debt, a debt that might never be repaid. Even Steve …

She shook her head. “Will you …?”

It was hard to say the next words. “Will you come to bed with me? I mean” – she flushed, helplessly; she hadn’t meant it to sound like that – “not do anything, just sleep together?”

Richard nodded in understanding. “Yeah,” he said. “Mornings always come too soon.”

Janet looked at the windows. The sky was brightening steadily … it was morning. And yet she felt tired, her world having turned upside down again and again. She wondered if they shouldn’t bother with sleep, then reminded herself she needed it. They’d be going outside soon and who knew what would happen then?

“Let’s go,” she said. The idea of sharing a bed with someone, even Richard, was both attractive and terrifying. She told herself she needed to get used to it. “We’ll be woken far too soon.”

Chapter Four: Gatehouse, York, Now

Norris was dreaming.

He knew himself to be dreaming, even though there was a reality about the nightmare that was impossible to deny. He had gone to a school where his intelligence and genuine talent had finally won the respect and admiration of his peers, the respect and admiration he would have killed to get once – just once. There had been a girl who’d been interested in him as a person, not mocking him with her body or picking on him because he was harmless in a way the real monsters were not. He had had a bright future ahead of him, one he could shape as he pleased …

… And then he’d thrown it all away.

The howling void in the heart of his mind was tinged with hurt and regret. He moaned as a flash of pain shot through him, a dagger driven deep into the core of his very being. He’d fucked it up, like he always did; he’d trusted the wrong person, again, even though he had known it was dangerous to trust. He’d had his trust abused before, time and time again; why had he thought, despite all the evidence, that this time would be different? He shifted uncomfortably, the ghost of Norris2 screaming as he tried – again and again – to banish his other self from his thoughts. He’d played with fire and gotten burnt and the simple fact he had known he was playing with fire should have warned him, but he hadn’t listened to himself until it had been too late. Far too late. The shadow at the back of his mind grew teeth and claws, digging into his very core. He had fucked up and now … he was fucked. And not in a good way.

He retched, reality itself seeming to spin around him. He was drifting in a formless void, trapped in his own mind alone with his thoughts. He was lying on a bed … he groaned, again, as the terrible nameless feeling of wishing that something had really – really – never happened washed over him. Everything else in his life could be blamed on someone else, and rightly too, but not this. He had screwed himself, so thoroughly there was no going back. He had messed up his own life, thrown away the greatest opportunity he’d ever been offered … his life was over and it would never end. He knew he didn’t have the nerve to kill himself. He had thought about it before, time and time again, and yet he hadn’t been able to take that final step.

It wasn’t because he was brave enough to live. It was because he was too frightened to die.

Shame boiled through him, shame and resentment and self-hatred – driven by his own cowardice – that he knew he’d never leave behind. He’d been a fool to think he could be anything other than a tool, something to be used and then discarded when he’d outlived his usefulness. His existence was worthless. It was just a matter of time before he died, as unnoticed as he lived. Perhaps he should have been content to remain unnoticed … but then, he had never been unnoticed. He’d just been noticed as someone who could be picked on with impunity.

Don’t try to blame this on anyone else, his thoughts pointed out. They sounded like the one good teacher he’d known, the one who’d had to take early retirement after some parent had bitched and moaned about the man’s attempt to impose actual discipline on her sweet little angel. Never mind the angel had been a devil in disguise … it hadn’t even been a very good disguise. You did this to yourself.

“Wake up.”

Reality skewed to the right, then to the left, then finally snapped into place. Norris felt as if he had fallen from a great height, back into his body … a body that ached painfully as he opened his eyes. He wanted to believe – really he did – that it had just been a dream, or a nightmare, but the chamber looked too mystical to be a local hospital. Perhaps someone had slipped him a mickey … no, that wasn’t likely. There were no shortage of teenage druggies at St. Champions – who boasted of connections they probably didn’t have – but none would waste a street drug on him. It wasn’t as if he were a beautiful girl, who could be drugged and then fucked and then left unsure what had really happened …

He retched, again. It was disgusting.

“I need to ask you some questions,” a calm voice said. It spoke with authority, the absolute conviction the speaker could issue orders and expect them to be obeyed. Norris hadn’t heard anyone speak like that until he’d met Cecil Burghley and then … “I would prefer not to force you to talk, but I will if there is no other choice.”

Norris forced himself to look up. The light was too bright, and it sent more daggers of pain stabbing into his mind, but he could still see the Merlin standing beside his bed. The air was heavy, like an approaching thunderstorm … magic. It was real. It had all been real. He’d had the chance to make something of himself and he’d thrown it away … tears prickled in his eyes, the urge to cry almost overpowering. He was going to be kicked out … it struck him, suddenly, that being kicked out might be the best possible outcome. He’d seen magic … he might face a fate worse than death. Or …

The Merlin leaned over him. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Norris said. The gaping hole at the heart of his mind was howling. “I …”

He swallowed, hard, as a memory surfaced. “It wasn’t Marian’s fault,” he said. “Please. Don’t blame her for anything …”

Norris was surprised at himself. It was hard to fall on his own sword – he was too much of a coward to sacrifice himself for someone else, normally – and yet, he was appalled at himself. At Norris2. The other personality might have grown into a separate entity, but he had still grown out of Norris himself. Norris didn’t want to think about what Norris2 had done, or concede he might do the same if he were unfettered by cowardice and any sense of human decency, yet … he had to admit he might have crossed the line. If he could … his throat was suddenly very dry. Norris2 had been him, shorn of everything that had held him back. How far would he go, if he thought he could get away with it.

Most men would commit rape, if they thought they could escape punishment, his thoughts pointed out. You are no better.

He gritted his teeth. He liked to think he had a sense of morality, but in truth his morality was more flexible than he cared to admit, even to himself. He called himself a pacifist … yet he was weak, unable to defend himself. He was harmless … he looked away, unable to even look at the older man for a second longer. It was the final bitter joke, in the nightmare his life had become … that he’d made it. He’d always assumed the bullies would eventually piss off someone with actual power, someone who would finally hold them to account for their shit, yet instead it had been him who was facing accountability …

And you deserve it, his thoughts pointed out. Don’t you.

“You cast enslavement spells on Marian,” the Merlin said. “We would not hold her accountable for her actions, while under the spell.”

His voice hardened. “But what are we to do with you?”

Norris had no answer. He knew what he deserved.

“You were sent into our school to spy on us,” the Merlin continued. “You signed up, like any other student, and joined classes … and did very well. You had very real promise; you could have gone far, if you had been one of us. And then you betrayed us. Why?”

Be honest, Norris’s thoughts said. You won’t get a second chance.

Norris took a long breath, and started to talk. He wasn’t sure if he was under a spell to make him talkative, or if he was hoping that telling the truth would get him off the hook, or if he just wanted to unburden himself before facing his end with dignity. Or as much dignity as he could muster. He went through everything, from his first magical lessons to the trap he’d set for Colin, and how he’d edited his own mind to overcome the fear that had kept him from striking down the wretched bully. The Merlin showed no visible reaction as Norris told him how he’d fled St. Champions – it seemed a lifetime ago, back when the world had made sense – and how he’d been caught by Cecil Burghley, who had offered him a job. And …

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said. “It … it was the chance of a lifetime.”

“A fairly common delusion,” the Merlin said.

Norris flushed as he went through the rest of the story. His meeting with Marian – and their growing friendship. His first lessons. His discovery that he was actually good at it. His refusal to help Cecil Burghley any further … and his horror at discovering, too late, that Norris2 was a real person in his own right, ready and able to take over Norris’s mind and turn him into a puppet. And how he’d enchanted Marian and carried out the ritual in Gatehouse, opening the portal for invasion … his memories were fragmented at that point, images of reality – and unreality – so badly jumbled he couldn’t have sworn what had actually happened, or in what order. Richard had been there, Richard and Janet and Brains and a blonde girl … he thought. He wasn’t sure of anything now …

… And the next thing he recalled was being trapped in his own mind.

“I see,” the Merlin said, when he’d finished. “And why did you follow Lord Burghley so willingly?”

Norris felt a hot flash of anger. The Merlin didn’t understand. How could he? The Merlin was a man of great power; Norris was a youth of no power. The Merlin enjoyed the respect and admiration of his entire society; Norris was everyone’s punching bag. He would have done anything for protection, even signed up with the Death Eaters … or the Nazis. If they’d offered him safety, in exchange for committing himself to the shitty cause … 

“It was the only chance I had,” he mumbled, finally. Cecil Burghley hadn’t just impressed him. He’d had the sort of power and authority Norris wanted for himself. “Where else could I go?”

“You could have stayed with us,” the Merlin pointed out.

His words made Norris’s heart clench. “I was a spy,” he said. “Would you have been forgiving, if I had come to you? Would you have …?”

He swallowed, hard. “I thought I could hide within your society, but he had other ideas …”

His heart sank. The deception would have been discovered, eventually. There would have been questions, questions he couldn’t answer … he didn’t even know enough to tell convincing lies. He allowed himself to entertain the fantasy, just for a moment, of marrying Marian and joining her family, but surely her parents would have asked a few questions about his family before agreeing to the match. The locals put more importance on family than the folks back home, parents actually interested in supporting their children and their children looking after them when they grew old and frail. He wondered, numbly, how he would have solved that problem, then shook his head in dismay. It was never going to happen. Marian would never want to see him again. And who could blame her?

Norris2 didn’t do everything, his thoughts mocked. You can’t blame it all on him.

“So it would seem,” the Merlin said. “Do you know what happened?”

Norris shook his head. “They were planning to invade. If you are here … I take it that didn’t happen?”

“No,” the Merlin said. “The two worlds merged.”

“What?” Norris thought, for a second, that he’d misheard. “They merged?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but … close enough,” the Merlin said. “I would have preferred to leave you sleeping a bit longer, to be honest, so you’d have more time to recover, yet … we needed to know what you knew. Right now, both worlds are waking up to discover they’re not alone. It won’t be long before the chaos starts.”

Norris swallowed. “Was it my fault?”

“You certainly played a role in making it happen,” the Merlin said, coolly.

Norris shivered, feeling as if someone had walked over his grave. The world had changed … he had wanted to make a name for himself, he reflected sourly, but not like this. If he …

He swallowed, hard. “What now? What’s going to happen to me?”

The Merlin met his eyes, evenly. “What do you think should happen to you?”

Norris looked away. The bitterness of old insisted that nothing should happen to him. He hadn’t been responsible for anything. But the new awareness pointed out, again and again, that he’d let himself be used, that he really had played a role in the whole disaster. He didn’t want to say it, yet … he knew he should be in jail. Or worse.

“I don’t know,” he said, finally. “It’s a mess.”

“Yes, it is.”

Norris flushed. His voice rose. “What do you expect me to say? I fucked up. I ruined my life – again – and I ruined everyone else’s life and …”

It was hard not to scream in frustration. It had been easier back home. He might have been everyone’s favourite whipping boy, but at least he’d known it wasn’t his fault. Here … it had been his fault. And the fact he’d been too cowardly to admit what he’d been doing …

“I have an offer for you,” the Merlin said. “You can help us to understand the magic developments in OldeWorld. I assume you were taught the basics?”

“Yes,” Norris said.

“You can help us do that, and assist us in making peaceful contact with OldeWorld,” the Merlin said. “In exchange, we will allow you to remain here as one of our citizens, on a more honest basis.”

Norris blinked. “You would do that for me?”

“You’re not the first person to mess up their life to the point they think they can’t go on,” the Merlin told him. “And if you work hard, you won’t be the first to repair the damage and build a new life for yourself.”

He met Norris’s eyes, again. “Understand, it won’t be easy. Our society is based on trust and you, through your actions, have damaged the trust that holds us together. We extended that trust to you, as we did to all new students, and you abused it. You will have to work long and hard to earn our trust, and some will never trust you again.”

Norris nodded. “Like Marian.”

“Quite,” the Merlin agreed. “And when she wakes, you need to talk to her.”

“I can’t,” Norris said. The thought was terrifying. She would hate him. How could she not? “What can I tell her?”

“The truth?” The Merlin leaned forward. “You owe her an explanation, and more.”

He sighed. “You will also attend therapy sessions, where you will talk to our mind-healers and hopefully come to terms with your issues. You were manipulated so easily, at least in part, because you didn’t know yourself as well as you should. This appears to be a common problem in OldeWorld, as Janet appears to have the same issue. You will attempt to deal with it.”

“I can’t,” Norris said. He’d made the mistake of being too open to a school counsellor once. Never again. The asshole hadn’t kept the Hippocratic Oath. There was no point in opening up to someone if his words would simply wind up being used against him. “It would be …”

“You have to come to terms with yourself, before you can improve,” the Merlin said. There was no give in his tone, no hint there was any way to avoid the session. “The mind-healers are sworn to secrecy, and they will not share anything you tell them, but they will force you to talk through your issues and overcome them.”

Norris groaned. The idea of opening himself to someone else was just … terrifying. But he wasn’t being given a choice. He knew he was lucky he wasn’t being kicked out on his ass, or turned into a frog and dumped in the nearest pond, or simply being put in front of a wall and shot. Spies could be legally shot, if he recalled correctly, and it was unlikely anyone back home would show mercy to a spy. Here … he wasn’t sure if he was being given a chance because they needed to know what he knew, or compassion, but it didn’t matter. There wouldn’t be a third chance.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised.

“Good.” The Merlin stepped back. “The healers will tend to you, then you’ll be escorted to Richard and Brains. I suggest you take full advantage of this opportunity. If you do anything to suggest we were unwise to give you a chance to redeem yourself, you will be released into your own world. Or what’s left of it.”

Norris winced. It didn’t sound like a terrible threat. But it was.

“I understand,” he said. It was hard not to bow and scrape. The Merlin was … Norris hated himself for his envy, for the urge to do everything the man of authority wanted. “I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t,” the Merlin said. “Our pity and compassion has its limits.”

Chapter Five: London, Now

Polly tried to relax as the private jet landed at RAF Northholt.

It wasn’t easy. It was early morning and her smartphone was already pinging constantly as she – and her subordinates – tried to keep up with the rapidly-changing situation. They’d been lucky that something had clearly been happening, after the gate had reopened for the first time in centuries, and they’d deployed more monitors to keep an eye on the supernatural websites – as well as the places of ancient power, which still showed flickers of wild magic from time to time – but the system was collapsing under the sheer weight of reports from right across the country. They’d been lucky, she supposed, that the event had happened at night, and that the government had put post-COVID EMP protocols into place, yet … she shook her head. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t long before it dawned on the world that it was more than just an EMP.

The aircraft landed neatly, the pilot steering his craft towards the hangar gates. A black car was already waiting, positioned neatly by the hangar itself. Northholt handed dozens of VIPs, from government ministers flying in and out of London to wealthy and powerful individuals who didn’t want to pass through Heathrow or Gatwick, and the security precautions that made commercial flying such a nightmare were nowhere in evidence. Polly wasn’t sure if she should be relieved about the lack of security officers pawing through her case or deeply worried, all too aware that the lack of precautions would be disastrous if a single terrorist slipped through the net. She knew everyone who used the airfield was vetted – at least in theory – but she’d worked for Lord Burghley long enough to know no vetting system was perfect. The stewardess nodded politely to them as the aircraft came to a halt, her eyes flickering oddly over Lord Burghley. She didn’t know what was wrong with him – he seemed perfectly normal, to the naked eye – but her instincts were telling her something wasn’t quite right. Polly stood, collected her case, and followed her boss down the steps to the car. The driver hopped out, opened the door, then closed it after they took their seats. A handful of police outriders fell in around them as they drive out of the gate and onto the motorway, heading into London. Polly felt oddly self-conscious. A police escort was rarely good news.

She leaned back in her chair as her smartphone pinged again, another report popping into her inbox. A sighting of something in the waters of Loch Ness … the Brotherhood had always known there was something in the loch, the remnants of creatures generally considered to be extinct, but most reports were little better than misidentifications, if not outright lies. Now … she swallowed hard, noting that an entire hotel of tourists had seen the beast. There was no point in trying to cover it up … she shook her head. The reports of supernatural encounters were coming in from everywhere, from strange lights to buildings that really shouldn’t have been there. The cover up was dead before it had even gotten off the ground.

The streets were weirdly quiet, as they drove towards Ten Downing Street. London rarely slept, but now there were only a handful of civilians on the streets … the majority, thankfully, following government advice to remain indoors, leaving the streets clear for emergency personnel, at least for the moment. That would change, Polly was sure, once the first shock was over, but … she swallowed, hard, as she saw the London skyline come into view. There were buildings there that hadn’t been, only a few short hours ago. It was one thing to see a dragon or a woman flying on a broomstick, and assume that one had simply drunk too much, but quite another to see a building that had come out of nowhere. The sense of unreality grew stronger as they neared the centre of the city, spotting a handful of alleyways that appeared to go in directions her mind couldn’t follow and buildings that looked ethereal, almost ghostly. Something moved overhead … she looked up, hoping it was a bird or a plane … whatever it was, it was gone before she could get a clear look at it. And yet …

There were more guards – armed policemen and soldiers – surrounding Downing Street. It felt wrong to see them on the streets of Britain, even as the gates opened to allow the car to drive onto the street and park in front of the Prime Minister’s residence. Polly had spent most of her working life in the company of the great and the good, including some people who were so rich and powerful they were never featured on the lists of the insanely wealthy, but she still felt uneasy on Downing Street. Perhaps it was the magic in the air, rooted in the country’s ancient past; wards cast, she’d been told, to protect the Mother of Parliaments from Nazi occultists. Or perhaps it was the simple awareness that the world had changed overnight. She couldn’t help thinking the soldiers looked jumpy, their weapons swinging from side to side as they watched for trouble. It felt as if they were going to be attacked at any moment.

A young man in a suit met them at the door and escorted them down a corridor and up a flight of stairs. Polly had known Ten Downing Street was an office – and that all the buildings on the street had been merged together long ago – but it was still weirdly disconcerting to see it in person. Lord Burghley had once commented that the British State was an iceberg – ninety percent of government was always below the surface, pretending it didn’t exist – and Polly was starting to see what he meant. It was more than just the secret history, truths that had been erased from public awareness long ago. It was a government that tried to pretend it was still a civilian enterprise, even though the civilians had been replaced by the elite long ago.

If the civilians had ever been there in the first place, she thought. Very few of Britain’s leaders had ever been truly civilian, truly common, and they’d lost the habit of thinking of themselves as anything other than elite shortly after being elected into power. The government is more beholden to special interests than it is to its own people.

She kept her face carefully blank as they were shown into the Prime Minister’s office. It was simple and elegant, the only real decoration being a large portrait of the king. The Prime Minister himself looked as if he hadn’t slept a wink. Polly knew enough about emergency procedures to guess he’d been yanked out of bed and whisked to a government bunker, the moment all hell had broken loose, then forced to confront the horrific prospect of the country being under nuclear attack. She knew it wasn’t that bad, but …

“Lord Burghley,” the Prime Minister said, tiredly. “Thank you for coming.”

Cecil Burghley bowed politely, as if he’d been summoned rather than asking for the meeting himself. Polly knew it hadn’t just been her who had been putting pressure on the PM to accede to the meeting. The Brotherhood – and the rest of the government elite – had been putting the pressure on too, calling on protocols that  hadn’t been used since the Falklands War and yet remained on the books. She wondered, numbly, just how harried the PM had to be feeling, after so many people had called him. And what they might have told him …

Churchill was the last PM to be aware of magic, and only because the Nazis were experimenting with magic themselves, she reminded herself. After that, the knowledge was kept from the elected politicians. They couldn’t be trusted with it.

“Prime Minister,” Lord Burghley said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

He sat, in a comfortable chair. Polly stood behind him – she knew her place – and studied the PM thoughtfully. He really did look tired, a middle-aged man who was clearly going prematurely grey. His eyes barely lingered on her, dismissing her as nothing more than a secretary … he didn’t even look at how her outfit had been carefully tailored to show off her curves without revealing any bare skin below the collar. Polly wasn’t too put out. She had worked with enough powerful men to know too many of them thought every young woman should be honoured, when they made sexual advances. Lord Burghley hadn’t made any attempt to get her into bed – it was one of the reasons she respected him – and the PM seemed to be cut from the same cloth. Or perhaps he simply didn’t have time. She had no idea how John Major had managed to have an affair while in office. There was simply too much to do.

“I do not have time to beat around the bush,” the PM said, bluntly. “Why did you request this meeting?”

Lord Burghley spoke with calm authority. “To summarise a long story, Prime Minister, I represent a government department that studies supernatural phenomena. It has been …”

The PM cut him off. He was too tired to be polite. “A Ministry of Magic? Why are you wasting my time?”

Polly winced at his tone, although she didn’t really blame him. Magic was – had been – astonishingly rare, and rarer still because few had both the gift and the inclination to spend years studying and practicing, shaping their minds to use what little magic remained in the mundane world. The Brotherhood had it easier, she supposed, because they’d seen proof magic existed – rather than fairy tales and movies with unconvincing special effects – but even they had problems recruiting newcomers. The PM knew nothing about it. Why would he believe them without proof?

“I understand your scepticism,” Lord Burghley said. He held out a hand, palm upright. A spark of magic flared into life, a flame blossoming on his bare skin. “As you can see, magic is very real.”

The PM stared at him for a long moment. He’d heard the reports – as many as Polly, if not more – and he clearly knew something was happening, but what? The magic could have been a trick, the flame a product of advanced technology rather than magic, yet there was something about it that felt real in a manner that could not be denied. Polly recalled the first time she’d seen magic, years ago … 

“Explain,” the PM ordered, finally.

“Centuries ago, the magic started to leach out of this world,” Lord Burghley said. “Some magicians went with it, into a whole new world of magic. Others stayed behind, including my ancestors. They adapted to the new state of magic, refining their techniques as the power faded away. It was thought that the magic would eventually vanish completely. Instead, the power level remained low … but stable.”

He paused. “We did what we could to keep occult knowledge out of the mainstream. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. Many parties sought ways to boost what little magic they had remaining, throwing human decency aside in their quest for power. The Nazis, for example, performed a series of mass human sacrifices, brute-forcing their way to immense magical power. We were unable to perform such sacrifices ourselves, so we developed techniques that were more subtle, able to deflect their raw power and eventually redirect it onto their heads instead. That was the last time anyone engaged in open magical war.”

The PM said nothing for a long moment. “And all of this was covered up?”

“Yes, Prime Minister,” Lord Burghley said. “It helped that very few believed it.”

“I see.” The PM steepled his fingers. “And what does that have to do with what is happening now?”

Lord Burghley leaned forward. “A comedy of errors, Prime Minister. We believed the gates between our world and the magical haven were closed, and would remain so permanently. We kept an eye on their locations, from a safe distance, but as the years turned into decades and the decades turned into centuries we grew complacent. There was no reason to think there would be any further contact, until there was. A trio of magicians from the other world appeared in our world, in York, and vanished before we could mobilise and catch them. It rapidly became clear that they were teaching magic to locals, without any sense of responsibility. They were putting loaded guns in the hands of children.

“We tried to stop them. We were unsuccessful, but we were able to find a way to send an agent back into their world. Their culture has developed in ways that are inherently threatening to ours – they have certainly proven they are willing to meddle – and there was a clash that resulted in the two worlds merging back together. The reports of supernatural creatures, Prime Minister, is just the tip of the iceberg. Their entire world has been merged with ours.”

Polly kept her face blank as the PM glanced at her. Lord Burghley’s story was mostly true – she had to admire how he’d woven a handful of careful lies into the tale – and neatly covered up the details he didn’t want to share, including the uncomfortable fact that it was the Brotherhood that had been planning to invade Mystic Albion. She had no idea what orders her boss had been issuing, while she’d been arranging the meeting, but she was fairly certain he’d been covering up the truth and burying the evidence so deeply it would never be found.

“It is vitally important we take stern measures to stem the flow of magic before it is too late,” Lord Burghley said. The insistence in his voice was almost hypnotic. “This is a very real threat to the entire country.”

The PM looked back at him. “In what way?”

Lord Burghley twitched. “First, magic is not a tool. In many ways, giving a child a loaded gun would be safer. Magic responds to the caster’s innermost thoughts and feelings, making things happen … seemingly at random, but in reality in response to their emotions. How many people wish things they would never really want to happen, yet … magic can make them happen before they realise they don’t want it to happen at all. How many people out there” – he waved a hand at the wall – “think the country would be better off if all the politicians died horribly? It could happen, if enough people wish it.

“Second, the influx of magical creatures means an influx of entities that don’t follow human laws and can and will trap, or kill, humans if they get too close. Don’t think about Disney’s Tinkerbell, but … fairies that can kidnap or transform or kill humans, entities that have more in common with Maleficent – the cartoon Maleficent – than the sweet and harmless Tinkerbell.”

He paused. “And third, there will be an influx of magical humans, people from a very different society to ours. Some will regard them as angels, others as devils; they’ll regard us, I am sure, in the same way. We didn’t have a proper chance to interrogate the newcomers, but it is clear they had no regard for our society and no hesitation in trying to change it to suit themselves. It is just a matter of time until they start doing it on a larger scale, with the enthusiastic compliance of many of our own people, who think magic is the answer to all their problems and don’t realise – until it is far too late – that it will only make their problems worse. This is like” – he made a show of looking for an analogy – “the French Government leaving France for Britain, then trying to rule in Britain. We cannot tolerate an alternate government on our soil, Prime Minister, and that is exactly what we will be facing.”

“So you say,” the PM said. He stared at his hands, clearly looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and praying it wasn’t an oncoming train. “You don’t know it’ll go that way.”

“Remember all those school shootings in America?” Lord Burghley leaned forward, his voice grim. “Someone gets bullied, so they get a gun and come to the school and open fire … it’s going to be like that, again and again, as magical knowledge spreads. We have to get ahead of it now, Prime Minister, or all hell will break lose. We have to act fast.”

The Prime Minister said nothing for a long moment. Polly eyed him, wondering what he was thinking. Anyone with a background in politics would know to be wary of someone pushing them into taking immediate action – it was rarely a good sign – but the crisis wasn’t something that could be left to fester. The country was no longer in bed, unaware of the disaster unfolding around them. They might not know what was going on – not everywhere in the mundane world coincided with somewhere in the magical world – but they knew something was wrong. Lord Burghley was right. They had to get ahead of it now, before it was too late.

“It’s magic,” the PM said. He sounded like a man who wanted to deny everything he’d heard, including the evidence of his own eyes. Polly understood, better than she cared to admit. It hadn’t been easy to admit magic existed, back when the world had made sense. And she didn’t have to worry about governing a whole country. “What can we do about it?”

“We have magic too, Prime Minister,” Lord Burghley said. “We beat the Nazis. We can beat our long-lost cousins too.”

“We’ll try a diplomatic solution first,” the PM said. “These people are not Nazis.”

“No,” Lord Burghley agreed. “With their knowledge of magic, including techniques lost for centuries, and their willingness to meddle, they could easily be worse.”

Chapter Six: Gatehouse, York, Now

“I hope you had a good nap,” Steve said, as Helen joined him in the entrance hall. “Are you ready?”

Helen nodded, curtly. She had slept, using a spell to cram ten hours of sleep into a single hour, and then eaten a good breakfast before making her way down to the hall. It wasn’t quite following the Merlin’s orders, but she – they – had something they needed to attend to before it was too late. She felt guilty about not remembering earlier, even though she had been rather occupied. It was the sort of oversight she’d hated in her mother, back when the world had made sense. The thought of making the same mistake herself was embarrassing.

The entrance hall was empty, the doors sealed against intruders who had no link to the school’s protective charms. Helen pushed the smaller door opened and stopped in shock, staring at the drab grey mundane estate … she had known it was there, from the moment she had stood in the Merlin’s office, but seeing it here brought her face to face with a reality she could no longer deny. It had been bad enough to be stranded in the mundane world, but …

She took a step forward, feeling as if she were teetering on the brink of madness. Gatehouse towered over York, a building so immense the heights were lost within the clouds, juxtaposed oddly with what remained of St. Champions. The mundane school was effectively gone, along with the ruined sports field and outer buildings that did not, as far as she’d been able to tell, serve any useful purpose. A strange flicker of discontentment ran through her as she raised her eyes and peered into the mundane world, seeing homes and shops that had been evacuated by the rogue magicians after Richard and Brains had escaped OldeWorld, taking Janet with them. It struck her, suddenly, that all the evidence of the rogue magician’s plans had been destroyed, crushed to a pulp under the sheer weight of Gatehouse. She hoped that wouldn’t come back to bite them, sooner or later.

Steve swayed on his feet, as if he were on the verge of falling over. Helen understood, better than she cared to admit. It had been hard to wrap her head around the cold reality of OldeWorld and she, at least, had had the advantage of not seeing aspects of her world mingled with the other. Steve had seen magic – of course – but he hadn’t seen the reality of Mystic Albion until now, let alone seen the two worlds blended together. She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently. The touch seemed to calm him. Her mother would have been irked at the display of affection, but she found it hard to care.

“This way,” Steve said. His voice was rough, unsteady. “Perhaps if we walk far enough …”

His voice trailed off as they started to walk. Helen gritted her teeth, her magic twisting around her. The mundane world felt like a nightmare, the shadows growing and lengthening and things flickering at the corner of her eyes, things that refused to come into the light when she looked at them. The air felt cold and hard, yet tainted with magic and a sensation that something was biding its time, waiting to happen. It felt more like a walk through a high-magic zone, than the magicless OldeWorld. She tested a simple spell carefully, just to make sure she still had her power. She wouldn’t be defenceless this time.

“We can track down your mother,” she said, softly. The bloodlink should have worked even without access to her full power, and with it tracking her down would be a doddle. “If she’s fine …”

And alive, her thoughts added. Steve and Janet’s mother had given birth to two magicians. Helen wasn’t sure the rogue magicians would have left her alone, after it became clear that Janet had gone into Mystic Albion and Steve had joined Helen on the run. If they left her in peace, it might be because they intended to use her as bait.

She put the thought aside as they walked through the deserted estate and neared the barricades they’d slipped through, only a few short hours ago. There was no sign of the policeman she’d seen before, or any night watchmen; the doors were hanging open, allowing her to pass through without impediment. She felt her eyes narrow as she cast a simple concealment spell, making it hard – almost impossible – for anyone to see her with their naked eyes. She wasn’t sure what would happen if someone watched them through a CCTV camera. The spell might conceal them … she shook her head. The sooner they found out, the better.

“They must have fled,” Steve said. He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. “If they looked up and saw Gatehouse …”

Helen looked back. Gatehouse was still looming over the city, dwarfing the drab grey buildings of OldeWorld. The locals would have to be blind to miss it. Perhaps the rogues had all fled, or perhaps they’d been killed in the crossfire as the two worlds merged into one. She tried not to think about what might have happened, if they’d continued their human sacrifice as the magic spread from one world into the other. The only proof they hadn’t, she supposed, was that everyone was still alive. A lone human sacrifice would release a vast amount of energy and the rogues had been sacrificing dozens, perhaps hundreds, of innocent victims. If they tried that again, not realising the danger … they might accidentally crack the planet in half.

Perhaps they’re all dead, she thought, with a flicker of vindictiveness. Her relative – her very distant relative – had vanished … she wanted to believe he was dead, although her instincts insisted he was very much alive. Her family had a reputation for being stubborn, and for being willing to do whatever it took to accomplish their aims, and she had to admit Cecil Burghley was just as much as Burghley as herself. Or her mother. They’re still out there, somewhere.

The sense of unreality grew stronger as they passed through the barricade and walked down the road to where they’d parked the handful of camper vans. The streets were deserted, the only signs of life – human life – a handful of eyes peeking from behind curtains. There were no visible threats, as far as she could tell, but she was sure – at a very primal level – that she was being watched, by creatures that were very far from human. There were things in Mystic Albion, supernatural creatures that were deeply enmeshed in magic, that had never been properly catalogued. Others were known all too well, and avoided where possible. If they were free now, it was only a matter of time until they started to hunt.

And no one in OldeWorld knows how to protect themselves, she thought, numbly. They’ll be easy prey.

Steve tapped on the nearest camper van. There was a long chilling pause, just long enough for Helen to wonder if something had gone horrifically wrong, then the curtain was drawn back to reveal Leesa’s nervous face. Helen felt another pang of guilt, kicking herself for leaving the new – and unpractised – magicians in horrific danger, even though she hadn’t known just how dangerous it was going to be. She’d expected to stop a ritual or die trying, not watch helplessly as two worlds became one. Leesa and the rest might have become the first victims, as the supernatural spread into the mundane world. She hoped to hell they hadn’t tried any magic. They’d trained for casting spells in a low-magic environment, not a high-magic zone.

“Helen,” Leesa said. “What happened?”

“The radio is spouting nonsense,” Rudolf added. He looked relieved to see her, if not Steve. “They’re saying the world is being invaded by dragons?”

“And ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night,” Steve said, grimly. “The two worlds have merged into one.”

Leesa looked uneasy. “What does that mean?”

“It means that everyone will be using magic,” Rudolf predicted. “Right?”

“Perhaps,” Helen said. “They certainly should be able to use magic.”

She frowned, wondering if that was actually true. She hadn’t known anyone who had no ability to use magic, but the entire population of Mystic Albion was descended from magic users. There were some kinds of magic you couldn’t use unless you had a talent for it, and others that were open to anyone who was willing to pay the price. Or was that actually true? Perhaps you needed a certain level of magic to make even those kind of magics work … she didn’t know. She had been cautioned, more than once, that experimenting with such magics rarely led to a long life. 

“And what,” Leesa said, “is that?”

She pointed her finger at a cluster of overflowing bins, resting by the kerbside. Helen’s lips wrinkled in disgust. The garbagemen hadn’t come calling for weeks, perhaps months, and the debris was piled high, the stench drifting through the air to strike her notices. Something was shifting, something moving through the pile of rubbish and days-old food, something her eyes refused to see properly. She had flashes – inhuman eyes, inhuman teeth – that refused to coalesce into something she could comprehend. She had no idea what it was, but her instincts were telling her to run.

“Get the engine started,” she ordered, curtly. If there was one good thing about the abandoned barricade, it was that she could drive the convoy up to Gatehouse and no one would be able to bar their way. She wasn’t sure if the Merlin would be pleased to see the new students or not, but they needed to be given proper instruction as quickly as possible, before they tried to cast a spell. “And hurry!”

Leesa hurried to obey, climbing into the front seat while Helen and Steve scrambled into the back of the camper van. Rudolf, Leesa, and three of their friends had been crammed together  - Helen winced inwardly, all too aware they had to have been too close for comfort. She’d never liked sharing a dorm, or even a bedroom, as a younger girl and those rooms had been far larger than the camper van. She kept a wary eye on the rubbish bins as Leesa started the engine, while Steve booted up his laptop and Rudolf closed the door behind them. The … thing … whatever it was, was getting closer. She hoped it would respect the closed door. Most supernatural entities couldn’t enter a confined space unless they were invited – and leaving a door open constituted an invite – but there were exceptions. She wished Richard was with them, or Brains. They could set up wards to keep supernatural vermin at a safe distance. Her magic didn’t lend itself to such charms.

You really should have studied harder, her thoughts pointed out. The tone was very much like her mother’s. If you hadn’t relied so much on your inherent power, you wouldn’t have been rendered powerless when you fell through the gate.

She winced, inwardly, as the van started to move. It was never easy to come to terms with your own failings, all the more so when they wouldn’t have been failings if something completely unexpected hadn’t happened. There had been no way to render her powerless in Mystic Albion, certainly not completely powerless … she cursed herself under her breath, all too aware of how badly she’d treated Richard. She’d been luckier than she deserved, when they’d fallen through the gate. Richard’s magic had been far inferior to hers in Mystic Albion, but in OldeWorld he could have laid her out with a single punch. Or worse. If he hadn’t been such a decent person …

You owe him an apology, her thoughts reminded her. And you need to tell your mother to mind her own business.

Rudolf caught her arm. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Helen said. The rubbish bins were shifting now, as if the entity was using them for cover. She had the uneasy impression of a hermit crab moving into an abandoned shell and wondered, suddenly, how many other supernatural creatures were going to find niches in the mundane world. Too many, she thought. “It could be anything.”

The van kept moving, turning the corner and leaving the unknown entity behind. Helen hoped – prayed – it would be content with rubbish, rather than praying on unsuspecting humans. She doubted it … the sense of being watched was only growing stronger, even as they passed through the barricade and drove towards Gatehouse. Her head hurt as she looked at the towering school, her perspective shifting painfully. Gatehouse was both expansive and yet confined to a relatively small patch of land. It didn’t quite make sense.

“Park outside,” Helen directed. “We’ll go in through the side door.”

Leesa stared at her. “What is this place?”

Steve laughed. “Hogwarts.”

“It’s a school for magicians,” Helen said, giving Steve a sharp look. She’d read the Harry Potter books and noted everything the writer had gotten wrong, from the grossly incapable headmaster to the willingness to tolerate bullying – a form of dark magic in its own right – and a magic system that bore little resemblance to reality. “Don’t let yourself believe everything you read. Gatehouse has nothing in common with Hogwarts.”

“Apart from being a school for magicians, and kids flying broomsticks, and a few hundred other things,” Steve teased. “Right?”

Helen flushed. “It isn’t Hogwarts.”

Leesa looked back. “Will they treat us as muggleborns?”

“It isn’t Hogwarts,” Helen repeated. The question bothered her. She had no idea how Janet had been treated, although she’d had Richard and Brains to look after her. Janet would have been ignorant of life in Mystic Albion, lacking the knowledge every normal student took for granted; worse, she would have been misled by Harry Potter and The Worst Witch and Schooled in Magic and every other magic school book she’d read. “And they’ll give you a fair chance to prove yourself.”

She paused. “But you will have a great deal to unlearn.”

The air felt odd as they stepped out of the van, the two realities brushing together in a manner that disconcerted her. There was no sign of the endless forest that should have surrounded Gatehouse … she wondered, numbly, what had happened to it. The high-magic zone should have been unfolded onto OldeWorld too, right? Had it unfolded somewhere else or … or what? She didn’t know. It occurred to her, too late, to wonder if Gatehouse was the only patch of land that had been unfolded onto OldeWorld. But then, there was at least one supernatural creature loose on Earth.

She led the way through the side door and stopped, dead. The Merlin was standing there, looking thoroughly displeased. She heard Leesa gasp behind her and scowled inwardly, wishing she’d thought to tell the older man where she was going. To her, he wasn’t that threatening; to them, he was a potential threat, all the more so because they had no way to know just how dangerous he could be. For all they knew, naughty students were transformed into toads and dissected in biology class.

Which they’re not, Helen thought, tiredly. The Merlin had more power than any OldeWorld headmaster – he didn’t have to answer to a horde of educational bureaucrats who had never taught a class, nor had any real understanding of the difficulties faced by modern educators – but there were limits. The worst he can do is expel me.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” the Merlin said, “but didn’t I say something about reporting to me when you woke?”

“Yes, sir,” Helen said. “However, I needed to collect my friends and allies before something happened.”

The Merlin eyed her for a long moment, then let his gaze drift over the newcomers. He wasn’t an unreasonable man, and he knew the dangers of letting inexperienced students practice magic without proper supervision, but she didn’t blame him for being annoyed. She had forgotten to mention Leesa and the rest of the gang earlier … she supposed she had a reasonable excuse, now that the two worlds had merged into one, yet – for him – it was just another complication. She wasn’t even sure if he was in touch with the princesses. Helen certainly hadn’t received any messages from her mother, demanding her immediate return …

“I see,” the Merlin said, finally. “Show them to the dorms … Dorm Nine, I think. We’ll arrange basic education shortly, once we work out how to make contact with the other government. And the rest of our world.”

Helen nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said. She’d have to run through a basic safety outline, and caution them not to use magic outside a properly warded chamber. It would be all too easy for them to seriously hurt themselves, or someone else. “There’s another issue …”

The Merlin met her eyes. “And that is?”

“We should try to look for Janet and Steve’s mother,” Helen said. “If she’s in enemy hands …”

“We’ll see,” the Merlin said, vaguely. Helen suspected that meant he’d arrange for someone else to handle the matter, although she was probably the best qualified. “For the moment, you need to tend to your friends.”

Helen nodded, although she knew she hadn’t heard the end of it. She had disobeyed instructions, even though she had had good cause. She’d probably wind up being scolded or … she hoped, deep inside, that her mother never heard what she’d done. Showing loyalty to one’s clients was highly commendable, but putting one’s own position at risk was not. It could end very badly, if her mother decided she’d done the wrong thing.

“I will,” she promised. She owed Leesa and the others that much and more. “And afterwards …”

“Stay here,” the Merlin said, firmly. “We have much to discuss.”

Chapter Seven: York, Now

Janet felt … uneasy … as she stepped out of Gatehouse.

It was hard, almost impossible, to put her feelings into words. She had known she was doomed to a life on the estate, unless one of Steve’s money-making schemes actually made a great deal of money, and she had retreated into fantasy at least partly because the real world was unbearable. Coming face to face with a genuine fantasy world, and an opportunity to study magic for herself, had been a dream come true. She would have been quite happy – almost completely happy – to vanish into Mystic Albion and never think about the mundane world again. She would miss her mother and brother, she knew, but the opportunity was too great to forego. If she’d said no, would she ever get a second chance?

The estate felt … wrong, on so many levels. She’d had a handful of nightmares, during the first month in Mystic Albion, where she’d found herself back home and now … she was back home. But it felt … weird. The streets were deserted, the homes and shops evacuated and boarded up … it felt as if she were standing on a movie set, surrounded by cardboard buildings that looked real until she tried to open the doors or take an apple from the boxes outside the shop. She held up a hand, testing her magic gingerly, and breathed a sigh of relief as the spell took shape and form. She had magic. She could handle anything.

Richard shot her a glance. “Are you alright?”

“It just feels strange,” Janet confessed. She wanted to turn and run into the school, to pretend the two worlds hadn’t merged. She wanted to curse the rogue magicians for trying to invade Mystic Albion and somehow – accidentally – bringing the two worlds together. She felt like a man who had two separate lives – two families, each unaware of the other’s existence – who had suddenly found himself faced with the truth coming out, and the two families colliding. “I think …”

She sucked in her breath. There had been men on the estate who’d had two wives, or a wife and a mistress, and it had never been pleasant when the truth had finally come out. It was funny how something could seem so reasonable and harmless in darkness and yet so incredibly stupid in broad daylight. She wondered, numbly, what her mother would say, when she realised that Janet had left her without a backward glance … not, she supposed, that there had been time to do more than write a letter, a letter she wasn’t even sure her mother had received. Steve had posted it, he’d assured her, but the estate had been evacuated so quickly that there was no way to know if it had reached its intended recipient.

“Let’s get on with it,” she said. “Shall we?”

She held up her hand, then cast the spell she’d been taught. A pair of flickering lines appeared in front of her, visible only to her eyes, one pointing directly to Steve and the other heading into the distance. Proof, if she needed it, that she had no other close blood relations. Her father was dead and her mother … she breathed a sigh of relief as she mounted the broomstick, torn between a childish belief it would actually work and a grim sense she was making a fool of herself. She’d seen people playing Quidditch in real life, but without actual broomsticks and magic it was little more than make-believe. Now …

Steve looked uneasy. “Are you sure you know how to fly that thing?”

“You can fly with me, if you like,” Richard said. He swung his leg over his broomstick and grinned. “Take your pick.”

Steve hesitated visibility, then clambered onto the broomstick behind Janet. She smiled, then launched herself into the air. Steve yelped and wrapped his arms tightly around her as she levelled out, Richard flying right beside her. Janet laughed, despite herself. She had never liked the idea of roller coasters, and she knew she wouldn’t have had the nerve to ride on one even if she’d had the chance, but flying a broomstick … the mere sense of flying gave her a freedom she hadn’t experienced in her entire life, until now. She flew higher, feeling the wind flowing through her hair. She was free …

She looked down. York was spread out beneath her, a handful of people clearly visible on the streets … the better streets. It was hard not to feel a twinge of envy, something she didn’t care to look at too closely, when her eyes lingered on the better schools, homes, public services and everything else, less than a mile from a poverty-stricken estate. She shook her head and told herself not to worry, as the line led her to the far side of York. She had magic now, and a freedom the rich girls below would never know. She was sure the people below were staring at them. They might not believe the evidence of their own eyes, not at first, but … they would come to believe. And who knew what would happen then?

The line led them to a small house, on the outskirts of the city. Janet frowned inwardly as she steered the broomstick down, coming into land just outside the garden. Her mother made – on paper – a reasonable salary, but the demands of raising two children and paying interests on her debts meant she had almost no savings worthy of the name. There was no way in hell she could have rented the house – it was finer than anything back on the escape – and the idea of her putting down a deposit and taking out a loan so she could buy it was just insane. Janet cast a handful of spells as Steve stumbled off the broomstick, looking green, but sensed nothing dangerous. And yet, her mother being here was bizarre.

Richard landed neatly beside her. “Shall we go inside?” 

Janet hesitated, then nodded. There was no way she could turn and leave, even though she had no idea what was going on. The spell was clear. Her mother was somewhere inside the house … it bothered her, at a very primal level. She tested her protection spells, then kept a hand on the broomstick as she opened the gate and walked up the garden path. If it was a trap, they could fly out of the garden and find help …

She rang the doorbell, then took a step back as she heard footsteps approaching the door. A dark shadow moved on the far side, then the door opened to reveal her mother … Janet let go of the broom and darted forward, without thinking, wrapping her arms around her mother and holding her tightly. She had her flaws, everyone did, but compared to some mothers on the estate she was an angel. Tears pricked in her eyes as her mother hugged her back, then drew Steve into the embrace. Guilt and shame threatened to overcome her, a grim reminder that she had abandoned her mother without a backwards glance … she was lucky, very lucky, she had found her again. And yet, she didn’t quite understand what her mother was doing here.

“You’d better come in,” her mother said, curtly. Her eyes lingered on Richard … Janet winced, inwardly. They had been groping their way towards a relationship and … her mother would be less than human if she hadn’t wondered if Janet had run away with Richard, which in a sense she had. “I … what happened to you?”

Janet felt her heart skip a beat. “You didn’t get my letter?”

“No,” her mother said. “What happened?”

Steve cleared his throat. “And what are you doing here?”

“We were told to leave the estate,” her mother said, shortly. “This place was arranged by the evacuation agency. I get to stay here, as long as I take good care of the house and garden. It’s been …”

She shook her head. “What happened to you?”

Janet forced herself to organise her thought as their mother led them into a sitting room. It wasn’t as chintzy as she’d expected, from the outside of the house, but it was still head and shoulders above their old house. Whoever owned the house had had a real eye for detail, carefully arranging furniture to complement the room’s appearance and making it appear comfortable rather than shabby. Steve sat at the table and unfolded his laptop, asking their mother for the Wi-Fi password as she boiled water for tea. Janet felt a lump in her throat as she sat down. It was possible – just possible – to pretend that nothing had changed …

But I don’t want to pretend nothing changed, she thought, bitterly. The world has turned upside down.

“Magic,” she said, as her mother carried the mugs of tea into the room and placed them on the table. “I saw magic.”

She cast a lightspell, summoning a globe of light to hover above her fingertips. Her mother stayed, swaying on her feet … Janet feared, too late, that she might faint. She steadied herself with an effort, then sat down and listened carefully as Janet ran through the whole story, wincing inwardly as she confessed to being in the school at midnight … that detail, at least, she’d tried to keep from her mother, back when the world had made sense. She should never have listened to Annabelle, her bitch of a false friend, but if she hadn’t she might never have met Richard and the others. Her mother looked thoroughly displeased, yet said nothing as Janet finished the story. It was hard to tell what she was thinking.

“And you decided to leave,” she said, finally. “You didn’t even …”

“There wasn’t time,” Richard said, quickly. “It was stay or go.”

Janet’s mother, as far as Janet knew, didn’t have any magic. But the look she gave Richard silenced him as effectively as a silencing spell.

“You chose to leave,” her mother said. She sounded angry, but it was an anger born of worry for her daughter. Janet had heard it before, when her mother had cautioned her of the dangers of growing up on the estate. The risk of trusting the wrong person and winding up a single mother in her own right, or worse, was too great. “Why …?”

“I’m sorry,” Janet said. A hundred arguments ran through her head, none offering the promise of making her mother feel any better. How could she? She would have missed Janet if she’d gone to a normal boarding school – or Hogwarts, the treacherous part of her mind whispered – but at least she would have known what had happened to her. Girls had gone missing on the estate before, their bodies never found; the police, damn them, had never given much of a damn. “I just …”

Her mother shook her head, slowly. “I wish … if you’d told me …”

“She did try,” Steve said. “I posted the letter. It just didn’t reach you in time.”

He paused. “You know how much crap there is on the internet right now?”

“And in other news, water is wet,” their mother snapped. “Why didn’t you …?”

She looked from Janet to Steve and back again. “What were you thinking?”

“That I would never have such an opportunity again,” Janet said. “I couldn’t let it go.”

“That if we didn’t go on the run, we might vanish into a secret prison,” Steve said. “And Helen needed help.”

Janet swallowed, hard, and reminded herself she had a place to stay. “Mum, I … I understand that you’re angry, and … I do understand. And I’m sorry … and … “

Her voice became a wail. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I was terrified when you didn’t come home,” her mother said, sharply. “I thought … I thought something had happened to you. I called the police and asked them to look for you and they promised they would, but … then we were evacuated and your name appeared nowhere on the lists of evacuated people and … I was scared I’d lost you both and …”

Janet felt as if she was the worst person on the planet, shame and guilt threatening to tear her apart. She had no idea how to fix the problem, or even if she could. Her mother wasn’t abusive, or a druggie, or even an uncaring stepmother who had been forced by law and custom to raise an unwanted niece. She was a loving mother who had done the best she could, raising two children … and she’d lost them both, without even having the comfort of knowing what had happened to them. Janet knew her mother would have been horrified if her kids had been raped and murdered, their bodies left in the gutter, but at least she would have had closure. Instead …

“Come with me,” she said, softly. “You could see the new world …”

“It’s here,” Steve said, looking up. “There are supernatural sightings everywhere. Lots of crap too … I really should try to get the old gang organised, explain what’s really going on.”

Janet’s mother ignored him. “Do you really expect me to drop everything and jump into Never-Never Land?”

“It is a real place,” Janet said, quietly. “If I could show you …”

She sighed, inwardly. She wasn’t sure she could invite her mother, although – from what Richard said – Helen had already brought a gaggle of new magicians into Gatehouse. It wasn’t as if anyone would object – she hoped – to her at least showing her mother around the school. Richard and her could arrange the visit, perhaps with help from Helen … she wondered, suddenly, if Norris had left anyone behind. She didn’t know anything about his family, even though he’d been a classmate for the last ten years or so. For all she knew, he was an orphan or a foster child or …

Steve looked up, again. “Mum, what are you doing here?”

“I have a leave of absence,” their mother said. “I have no idea when I am expected back at work …”

“So come with us now,” Janet said. “It’ll let you see the other world and …”

There was a sharp knock at the door. Richard tensed, one hand snapping into a casting pose. Janet swore under her breath, as Steve folded his laptop and their mother headed for the door. There could be anyone out there, anyone at all … she wished she’d thought to bring the brooms into the sitting room, so they could fly out the window, but she’d left them in the hall. The door opened before she could say no and … she heard a voice, a man trying a little too hard to be charming.

“I need to talk to the magicians,” he said. “Please.”

Janet and Richard exchanged glances as the man was shown into the sitting room. She’d expected a suited aristocrat, one of Helen’s relatives, but the man was nothing of the sort. He was … there was something oddly familiar about his appearance, although she had never seen him before. He looked unhealthy, his hair thinning and his face pallid … somehow giving the impression of being overweight even though he wasn’t visibly fat. His body was wrapped in a long brown trenchcoat, belted at the waist.

“I saw you land,” he said. His voice was charming, but there was a pleading undertone that undermined the effect. “I … can I get an interview?”

Steve made a choking sound. “You’re a reporter?”

“For the Yorkshire Digest,” the man said. “Andrew Darlington, reporter and blogger-at-large.”

He spoke as if Janet should know his name, but she didn’t. She didn’t recall reading the Yorkshire Digest either. She’d never been that interested in newspapers, even when her teachers had assigned her projects on modern living. The internet had swept most of the old newspapers away, replacing the major publications with social media and the tabloids with porn and crazy stories. It was hard to imagine the newspapers having any real relevance any longer …

“Sure,” Steve said. Janet shot him a sharp look. Her brother pretended not to notice. “Can you meet us at Gatehouse? We can hold an interview outside the school.”

Darlington eyed him thoughtfully. “What is actually going on?”

Steve grinned. “Imagine we all work up to discover Harry Potter’s Wizarding World was actually real, except it is just a country on the far side of the looking glass … but now that country has merged with ours, to the point we know magic exists and they know technology exists and everyone is going utterly crazy, because no one is even remotely prepared for such things.”

“I …” Darlington stared. “Is that actually true?”

“No.” Richard said. He looked as if he was trying to think of a proper explanation, a way to explain the unexplainable to a professional sceptic. “You know Sleeping Beauty?”

Darlington looked as if he wasn’t sure if he was being messed with or not. “The cartoon?”

“The cartoon was based on a very old story,” Richard said. The original version actually predated the sundering between the magical and mundane worlds. “Point is, the cartoon version is heavily sanitized. Even the Brothers Grimm version is more … tolerable than the original. The magical world you imagine is far kinder than the reality, if you don’t know the rules. Janet” – he visibly started to say something, then changed his mind and rephrased it – “ran into trouble because she didn’t know the rules.”

“I see,” Darlington said.

“And now that world is merged with yours,” Steve said. Janet was surprised he’d accepted it so easily. The scale of the disaster was beyond her. “Everything has changed. Everything.”

He stood. “Meet us at Gatehouse. St. Champions. And you will see.”

Chapter Eight: Gatehouse, York, Now

Helen had never been quite sure what to make of the mundane world’s reporters.

There was no such profession in Mystic Albion. The population was not large enough to support anything bigger than a handful of broadsheet writers, collecting the news and distributing it to the world, and the few who made a career out of it were savvy enough to realise that harassing people, and openly lying about them, was a good way to get into serious trouble. Helen didn’t know for sure her mother had quietly disposed of one particularly unpleasant society reporter, but she’d heard the rumours and in truth she believed them. A person who violated the privacy of a great family, with both magic and political connections, deserved everything he got.

She crossed her arms under her breasts and watched the chaos. The grubby concrete yard outside Gatehouse – all that remained of St. Champions – was starting to look like a fairground, with magical students mingling with mundane reporters, curious onlookers and passersby. The estate was still walled off, but the gates had been torn open and the local police were nowhere in evidence … Helen had no idea if they were keeping their distance, or if they were dealing with a crisis somewhere else, or if they were working up the nerve to go in and challenge the magical students. Or … she shook her head and forced herself to keep an eye on the younger students, who were demonstrating magic spells for the crowd, and a couple of older ones who were trying to outline basic rules for dealing with magical creatures that Helen had been taught as soon as she’d started to walk. It wasn’t an easy task. The students were trying to explain cooking to people who had not only never cooked in their lives, but also didn’t know how to light a stove, choose the right tools and pick the correct ingredients. It didn’t help, she noted, that half the audience seemed to think vampires were sparkly and romantic and the other half seemed to believe they were vulnerable to sunlight … which was, she supposed, partly true.

But it isn’t quite that simple, she thought, grimly. You need to do more than just toss the vampire into the bright daylight.

She scowled at a pair of young men who were pointing smartphones at her. The other students hadn’t noticed, but then smartphones were unknown in their world. She grimaced in disgust. The pictures would be halfway around the world in a matter of seconds, if they weren’t already on their way, and there would be no way to take them back. She told herself that Steve, Leesa and the others would have to give lessons on the dangers of OldeWorld too, all the little things that could easily get an ignorant student killed. She’d nearly been knocked down by a car – there was no such thing as cars in Mystic Albion – and there were plenty of other dangers, from the simple to the unimaginable. 

Janet stepped up beside her, her face pale. Helen felt a pang of … something … she didn’t care to look at too closely. Janet’s mother might not have been pleased, to know her daughter had stepped into a magical world without a backwards glance, but at least she’d been told her daughter had had only a few seconds to make up her mind. It had been an opportunity that everyone had thought would never come again, and Helen couldn’t blame Janet for seizing it with both hands. And yet, it was a grim reminder she had made the same decision and her mother would not be pleased. Hadn’t been pleased. Helen suspected it was just a matter of time before she received the summons back to the estate, to explain herself …

“The Merlin said they’ve been able to get in touch with the rest of the settlements,” Janet said, tiredly. Helen wondered, sourly, why she had been chosen to deliver the message. “They haven’t been able to set up the teleport gates yet.”

“Everything’s changed,” Helen said. Brains had gone on about it in considerable detail, something about the local texture of the background magic, but she hadn’t been paying close attention. She kicked herself, mentally, for assuming the issue was only important to experienced magical engineers. Her family had always been able to hire experienced magicians, when it didn’t have someone with the right skills in the family, but she’d been cut off from their resources the moment she fell into OldeWorld. “I imagine it will be some time before they can make the crystals sing in harmony again.”

She couldn’t bring herself to feel upset. It had been easy to work out where Gatehouse had been, relative to St. Champions, but she had no idea where her family estate had appeared, if indeed it had appeared at all. Londinium corresponded to London … she supposed … yet where was the family estate? The longer it took to get everyone back in touch, the longer it would be before she received the family summons … and before she had to explain herself to her mother. She glanced at Steve, who was discussing the principles of magic with a reporter who looked as if he didn’t believe a word of it, and reminded herself to compose a good argument for the match. Her mother would approve, if the match seemed good for the family …

“It feels weird,” Janet mused, looking back at Gatehouse. “The world feels … broken.”

Helen couldn’t disagree. The two realities had merged together and the repercussions would last for a very long time, perhaps forever. She looked up as a shadow flew overhead and sucked in her breath as she saw a trio of broomstick riders, followed by a small buzzing thing … it took her a second to realise it was a drone. She’d heard of drones, but she’d never actually seen one in person. Steve had told her they were effectively portable cameras, beaming video images across the world … there was nothing like them, either, in Mystic Albion. She wondered, suddenly, if they’d pose a danger to broomstick riders. If someone accidentally crashed into a flying drone …

“It’ll sort itself out,” she said, although she wasn’t sure that was true. The two worlds were just too different. The mundane would be scared of the magical and vice versa. And the rogue magicians were still out there somewhere. Whatever they were doing, she doubted it would be pleasant. “How long did it take you to get used to Gatehouse?”

Janet looked down. “If the two worlds are merged … will I have to go back St. Champions?”

Helen blinked in surprise, more at herself than at Janet. A few months ago, she would have sarcastically pointed out that St. Champions no longer existed or reminded the other girl that she could be expelled from Gatehouse if she proved herself unworthy of the school. Now … she felt a sudden burst of affection, mingled with guilt and shame. She hadn’t been very kind to Richard, had she? And …

Janet grew up in a whole other world, she reminded herself. The rules are so different she finds it hard to comprehend that everything has changed.

She scowled, inwardly. Janet was old enough, by the standards of Mystic Albion, to choose her own path. If she could get a place at Gatehouse, or an apprenticeship with a powerful sorcerer, her parents couldn’t forbid her from going. Nor could the government override her parents, if she’d been too young to make the choice for herself. Parents were trusted to use their best judgement, and the few that proved they couldn’t be relied upon to do so were treated individually, but that wasn’t true in OldeWorld. She shuddered, unsure why the local population bent the knee to gross incompetents. How could a person who had never met the child, let alone all the country’s children, be trusted to determine what was in their interests? It was insane. Madness! Why did they even put up with it?

It’s an assembly line form of education, she thought, numbly. And it treats children as products rather than people …

“No,” she said, flatly. She had no idea how the diplomats would sort things out, when the two governments finally made contact and started talking, but she knew Mystic Albion would never accept the governmental oversight that so blighted OldeWorld. Janet would have the chance to make her own way in the world, not return to a school that had been so bad for her and her peers. “You’ll be allowed to stay.”

Janet looked as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to put it into words. Helen waited patiently, her gaze running over the edge of the barricade. The evacuated people were returning to some of the homes, now they knew there was no real danger, to recover their possessions and perhaps move back in. A handful of entrepreneurs had arrived and started selling food and drink … Helen winced inwardly as she saw a student she vaguely recognised trying to purchase a hot dog with a gold coin, rather than a credit card. Mystic Albion had stuck with the old monetary system, and she had no idea what the exchange rate was … the gold coin might be worth hundreds of pounds or it might be worth nothing. If there was one thing she’d learnt, in her first week on OldeWorld, it was that the society was thoroughly screwed up.

But there are rather a lot of them, she thought. Mystic Albion’s population was barely five million, if the estimates were accurate. OldeWorld had around sixty million people, perhaps more. They can’t afford to give everyone the individual attention they need.

She looked up, sharply, as a man crashed into view, followed by two men carrying a large camera and a woman carrying a clipboard. He looked as if he were a jumped-up commoner, wearing the clothes of his betters without even trying to ape their manners … Helen winced, inwardly, as she realised her mother might think the same of Steve. The camera crew pointed their camera at Janet and her, without even bothering to ask permission first.

“And we are here now with a girl from the supposed magical realm,” the man said, shoving a microphone at Janet. “And a groupie from our world.”

Helen blinked in honest surprise. She had been born and bred in Mystic Albion … and yet they thought Janet was a magician. Her mind caught up with her a second later. She hadn’t changed out of her local clothes, while Janet was still wearing robes that looked faintly silly, at least to mundane eyes. 

“The people believe this is utter madness, a lie told by a stage school,” the man continued. “What do you say to that?”

Janet shrank back. Helen moved to stand between them, trying to wrap her head around the man’s words. She couldn’t really blame Janet and Steve for doubting the existence of magic,  back when they’d first met, but the man could see Gatehouse with his naked eyes … and the broomstick riders, and the spells Steve was demonstrating …

The man shoved the microphone at her, poking her just above her breasts. Helen tensed, her magic boiling within her. No one touched her without permission, no one. She’d nearly killed a young man at St. Champions who had tried to rape her … she felt a surge of pure disgust, a wave of naked anger that threatened to overwhelm her. Rape was almost unknown in Mystic Albion. Even the girls who never went to school knew how to protect themselves, and make sure anyone who tried would never hurt anyone else ever again.

“The groupie has no answer,” the man proclaimed, as if he had won a great victory. Helen knew aristocratic young men who were more humble … and had a great deal more to be humble about. “She knows it is a fake …”

“Look up,” Helen said, tersely. The man was either a moron or in denial. She could understand the latter, she supposed, but there were limits. If she’d allowed herself to believe OldeWorld was just a nightmare, rather than reality, she would have been killed – or worse – before she realised it was no dream. “The magic is real.”

“Tricks,” the man said. “Holographic illusions, stage magic … this is just a promotion, isn’t it? The castle is a cardboard mock-up, to promote Harry Potter and the Something of Something … isn’t it?”

Helen felt her patience snap. She could understand someone being reluctant to believe what had happened, and she didn’t really want to believe it herself, but the evidence was undeniable. The world had changed and … the man jabbed the microphone at her again, poking her in the chest. Her anger threatened to boil over. No one – no one – touched her like that, ever. She shouldn’t have let him get away with it the first time.

“I’ll prove it to you,” she said. Her power boiled around her, the spell taking shape and form. The man paled and stepped back … too late. “Deny this!”

She cast the spell. The man’s form wavered, then melted into a pig. The lead cameraman collapsed, dropping the oversized camera on the ground; the other cameraman took one look at the pig, then at Helen, and then turned and ran. The other woman looked as if she wanted to run or faint too. Helen felt a flash of grim pleasure, feeling her power billowing around her once again. She had missed it.

Janet giggled. “Now do you believe?”

The woman swallowed, hard, and reached out to touch the pig. The beast – it had disconcertingly human eyes – shuffled backwards, making noises that suggested it was trying to talk. Helen was torn between amusement and guilt. The idiot hadn’t believed in magic and the prospect of being transfigured would never have occurred to him … he certainly didn’t have any experience in having his body forcibly transformed, or in coping with the sensation and finding ways to counter or undo the spell. There were several ways for a transfigured human to turn himself back, tricks taught to every child in Mystic Albion, but the idiot didn’t know any of them. How could he? Magic hadn’t been part of his world, until now.

The pig shuddered, then made a pleading sound. Helen scowled. It wasn’t that hard to cope if you were transformed into an animal … it was object transformation that was the real killer, even if the spell wasn’t designed to be permanent. And he wanted her to turn him back …?

The woman cleared her throat, her voice terrified. Helen felt a flicker of disgust. The lowest maid on the estate, the young woman who cleaned the scullery, would not cringe or cower before her, or even her mother. Richard had never been a match for her, when it came to raw power, but he’d never been so openly terrified of her … Richard, she supposed, had known about magic. It wasn’t strange or alien to him …

“I …” The woman stopped and started again. “Will … will it wear off?”

“Eventually,” Helen said. She wondered just how much of the transformation had been beamed out, before the cameramen dropped the camera. “I suggest you take him out of here –and don’t leave him alone.”

The woman grabbed the pig by the ear and practically dragged him away, snapping at the cameraman to get up and come with her. Helen shook her head, wondering if she’d accidentally condemned the man to death. Anyone back home would know to check the eyes, before they slaughtered the pig, but here …? She sighed. The spell wouldn’t last very long, just long enough to teach the man a painful and unpleasant lesson. She hoped it wouldn’t be lost on the rest of the world.

“We’d better go back inside,” Janet said. Eyes were following them, not in a good way. “I …”

Helen nodded, and turned to walk back to the school. “Why didn’t he believe?”

Janet shrugged. “Who knows?”

The Merlin met them in the entrance hall, looking grim. Helen tried not to wince too openly. The law was on her side and yet … she wasn’t sure how the chips would fall, if the Merlin tried to discipline her. It would be an interesting legal case … on one hand, the reporter had touched her without permission and she had every right to push back, but on the other he hadn’t known about magic and it would be easy to argue that she’d overreacted. The Merlin might have expanded the wards, to keep track of which spells were being cast outside the school, but those wards wouldn’t note the context …

“Helen,” the Merlin said. “Did you have to do that?”

Helen braced herself for a fight. “He touched me, without my permission,” she said, flatly. The law was on her side. “It was important to show him that it would not go unpunished.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes,” Helen said, flatly. “OldeWorld is not very kind to women. Far too many men think they can get away with touching – or worse – without permission. If we let them think they can do it to us, they will.”

The Merlin cocked an eyebrow. “I see,” he said. There was a long cold pause. “And you are prepared to take the consequences?”

“Yes, sir,” Helen said. The magical consequences would only materialise if she cast the spell in deliberate error. The mundane consequences … well, the law really would be on her side. “And I am sure the world will agree with me.”

“We’ll see,” the Merlin said. He made a visible attempt to change the subject. “Meet me in the coachhouse in two hours. We’re going to Londinium.”

He paused. “No,” he added. “London.”

Chapter Nine: Gatehouse, York, Now

“This is a very neat solution to the low-magic environment,” Brains said, studying the diagram Norris had drawn out for him. “Given time, we would have duplicated these spells ourselves.”

Norris gritted his teeth, feeling a surge of anger that – he was willing to admit, at least to himself – had more to do with envy than dislike or hatred. Brains was a nerdy nerd, a young man with an intellectual bent – a genius, in many ways – who was socially awkward, perhaps even autistic, and spent most of his life in his own little world … and was rewarded for it, feted for it, while Norris was beaten up so often he hated himself as much as he hated his tormentors. If he’d been raised in Mystic Albion, would he have had as satisfactory a life as Brains? Would he have been rewarded for his intelligence, given opportunities that would lead to a good life … he knew, deep inside, that the answer was yes. The chance he’d been given, as a newcomer, was so much better than anything he’d been offered back home that there was simply no contest. It was hard not to scream in frustration and bitterness. Brains was what he might have been, if he’d been treated properly instead of being used as everyone’s punching bag.

We didn’t hate Wesley Crusher because he was a poorly conceived, poorly written and poorly acted character, he thought, morbidly. We hated him because he was a lie, a nerd rewarded for being a nerd rather than being punished just for existing.

He forced himself to look around the chamber, even though it made him feel no better. It was his room, five desks and tables piled high with parchments and books that looked to have been tossed around randomly, but had actually been carefully positioned in a manner that made sense to Brains. Norris had done the same, when he’d been at home, before his mother had insisted on sweeping everything away, forcing him to clean his room even though it was perfectly neat and tidy, at least by his standards. Brains had everything he needed, from access to libraries and research papers to good friends who respected his quirks and gave him both companionship and space. Norris tried to tell himself it wasn’t Brains’s fault, but … he scowled, helplessly. It wasn’t the fault of the rich kids that they were rich, yet it was easy to fall into the trap of envying them anyway.

Brains didn’t even notice. Of course not. He was lost in his own world, his pencil running down a long sheet of parchment as he charted out spellware and spellwork that was light-years ahead of anything Norris had ever seen. Norris knew he wasn’t an idiot, and he’d studied magic obsessively from the moment he’d seen it for the first time, but Brains made him feel slow and stupid. It made him wonder, despite everything, if that was how the bullying bastards had felt, when they’d seen him answer math questions that had been so simple to him, and yet so hard for them. The thought made him grind his teeth in bitter fury. The idea of having anything in common with them was …

His head ached. The dull pain had never quite gone away, not since he’d opened his eyes after everything changed. Norris2 was gone, leaving a hole in his soul … he wondered, numbly, if he’d damaged his own mind when he tore the other personality apart, committing murder for the second time. The first … he groaned in pain, wondering if he should feel guilt, or if he should tell himself it hadn’t really been his fault, or if he should just reassure himself that his victims had deserved it. Perhaps they had. Perhaps … but Norris2 had been part of him.

“It shouldn’t be that hard to unravel the rest of it,” Brains said. “The real question is just how they’ll react, in a high-magic environment.”

Norris nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt. “I didn’t have any trouble using them,” he said. “They slipped into the local spells effortlessly.”

Brains nodded, showing no hint of irritation as he studied his handiwork. He was probably the only person who wouldn’t, who didn’t care that Norris had entered Mystic Albion as a spy rather than a new student. Norris knew he should be grateful – it was unlikely anyone else would trust him again, and he could hardly blame them – and yet, it rankled that it came from Brains. Richard was a decent young man and Helen, from what little he’d seen of her, had been an aristocratic bitch with an entitlement complex to match, but Brains was too much like him for Norris not to feel resentment. If only he’d had a fraction of the opportunities offered to Brains, his life would have been so much better …

“Interesting,” Brains said. “Your spells worked rather like a computer virus … they slipped into the network and hollowed it out from the inside, creating room for the infection to spread.”

Norris nodded, stiffly. “I believe they used computers to help chart out the spells,” he said. “A number were too small for humans to cast alone.”

“An interesting development,” Brains agreed. “There will be a great deal of progress, once we work out how to combine the two ourselves …”

There was a sharp knock on the door. Norris looked up, wincing inwardly as the door opened to reveal Lucy. The young girl – she wasn’t even a teenager – was far more powerful than him, powerful and dangerous … another lucky youngster who had been given opportunities rather than being slapped down every time she tried to make something of herself. He tried not to cringe at the look she gave him, hard enough to make him feel like a worm beneath her feet. She could turn him into a worm, if she wished … he shuddered. How many school bullies, back home, now had magic as well as their fists?

“Marian is awake,” Lucy said, coldly. “You’re to go to her.”

Norris almost wished she had changed him into a worm. Or a toad. Or something – anything – else, preferably something that couldn’t think or feel. Marian was the last person he wanted to see, out of guilt rather than envy or fear. He had no doubt she hated him now, with reason. He had abused her … and the fact the worst had been committed by Norris2, rather than Norris himself, was no excuse. Even if he chose to believe they were two separate people, the fact remained he had shaped Norris2. And Lord Burghley had made it worse.

“Go,” Lucy said.

“I’ll see you later,” Norris said to Brains. “Have fun.”

Brains didn’t answer. He was back in his own word, studying magic. Norris could feel Lucy’s eyes boring into his back as he turned and walked out the door, trying to move fast without actually hurrying. If looks could kill, which was quite possible, her gaze might atomise him … he tried not to think, deep inside, that being vaporised would be something of a relief. He wanted to pretend otherwise, but in truth he had only himself to blame for the mess his life had become …

The corridors were surprisingly quiet, as he made his way to the infirmary. He’d heard that a number of students had crossed into OldeWorld – Earth – and others were hiding in their dorms, hoping the world would start making sense again before they had to leave and come to terms with the sudden change in reality itself. He told himself to be grateful. He wasn’t sure how many people knew what he’d done, but … he shook his head. It was just a matter of time before the entire world knew, before they demanded his head – or worse. And then his life would not be worth living.

You were a fool, he told himself. If you’d gone to the Merlin, the moment you realised you were on the wrong side …

He shook his head, again. There was no point in dwelling on what might have been. All he could do was pick up the pieces as best as he could, and hope he could resume his life and … no. It wasn’t going to happen. The best he could do was to survive.

The infirmary had always struck him as odd, compared to the nurse’s office – dirty, and underequipped – at school or the GP surgery he’d had to visit years ago. There was an air of calm detachment around it, the furniture comfortable rather than mindlessly practical; the healers, he’d leant, genuinely cared for their patients and did what they could for them, rather than ticking off boxes and passing the buck as much as possible. There were private rooms for injured students, surrounded by protective wards … the healer sitting at the desk took one look at him, then pointed at an open door. Norris hesitated, cursing himself for a coward, then stepped into the room. The door closed behind him.

Marian was sitting up in bed, her blonde hair falling around her shoulders and spilling over her arms. Norris felt his heart skip a beat. There was no makeup on her face, nothing to enhance her natural beauty, and yet she was beautiful, glowing with a life so many girls back home lacked, no matter how much money they wasted on cosmetics. There had been an innocence about her that had been … he staggered, under the weight of a blow far more mental than physical. Marian had been an innocent and he’d hurt her and … he’d shattered her innocence. She had liked him. Liked him. And he’d betrayed her.

God help us, he recalled someone saying, for we knew the worst too young.

He couldn’t remember who had said it, or where he’d heard it, but he supposed it was the difference between children born on Earth and their peers from Mystic Albion. He’d grown up in a world where there were dangers everywhere, from abusive parents to rapists and paedophiles to terrorists and climate change, while she’d grown up in a world where such dangers simply didn’t exist. Norris hadn’t been allowed to be innocent – he hadn’t been allowed to grow up in ignorance of the dangers – while Marian had enjoyed a certain safety Norris’s life had lacked. And that safety had blinded her to the threat he represented …

“Norris,” Marian said. “What happened?”

Norris hesitated. How much did she remember? How much had she been told? How much did she know … he wanted to pretend that everything was normal, that everything was fantastic, but it would be a lie. And a stupid lie. And … he wondered if she was going to blast him with magic, the moment he told her the truth, or simply snap his neck. She’d grown up on a farm. She was stronger than any of the girls he’d known on Earth, and most of the boys, and she could hurt him if she wished …

“I fucked up,” he said. He hadn’t wanted to talk, but the whole story spilled out anyway. His life on Earth, his semi-accidental murder, his recruitment by Lord Burghley, his career as a spy … and how he hadn’t realised, until it was too late, that the split-personality he’d created had become a personality in its own right. “I … I’m sorry.”

The words were so inadequate. He had lied to her, he had frozen her … did she even realise, he wondered numbly, just how vulnerable she’d been? He could have peered down her shirt or raised her dress or … the temptation had been there, powered by the certain knowledge that pretty girls loved taunting him with their bodies while denying him any chance to touch their bare flesh and satisfy himself. He knew it was wrong to think in such a way and yet … the bitterness was so intense it was hard, so hard, to think otherwise. He wasn’t a great person for not taking advantage of her, and yet it felt that way …

He gritted his teeth. If she wanted to hurt him, even kill him, she had every right. And he deserved it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, again. There was no point in grovelling for her forgiveness, and yet he wanted to beg and plead … it wasn’t fair. He knew boys who had done far worse and they’d gotten away with it … but just because they’d gotten away with it didn’t mean that he should. “If you never want to see me again …”

“I liked you,” Marian said, echoing his earlier thoughts. “And you …”

Norris felt his heart clench in pain. He’d never quite believed Marian could actually like him. It was a joke … he’d known she wasn’t a bitch who would toy with his heart and yet … guilt and self-reproach blazed through his mind, a grim reminder he’d brought it all on himself. And yet … if he’d been raised here, would he have had a better life? Would he have been a better person?

“I liked you,” Marian repeated. Her voice shook. “And what did you do to me?”

Norris had no answer. It was rape, rape in every real sense of the word … the fact he had never touched her physically, let alone stolen her maidenhead in the process of divesting himself of his unwanted virginity, was no excuse. He had taken advantage of her innocence, he had abused her, he had … in the end, he thought numbly, he was no better than Colin. Colin, who had pulled down his trousers and exposed his penis to the world; Colin, who had never failed to miss a chance to put him down; Colin, who had lifted a girl’s skirt and exposed her underwear and somehow gotten away with it; Colin, who had died in screaming agony, after Norris had created a split personality ready and able to use magic to kill. He deserved no better. He wanted to die …

… And yet, he didn’t dare.

“Get out,” Marian said. She sounded as if she were going to cry. Norris couldn’t bear to hear her. “If I want to see you again, I’ll let you know.”

Norris flinched. He’d seen countless movies where the woman took the man back after he apologised for being an asshole … movies, he reflected ruefully, where the man had the scriptwriter on his side. God knew, he’d wondered why Rebecca had stayed with Colin after he’d shown her ass to the world … he shook his head, turning away in dismay and guilt. He deserved worse than a simple dismissal. Rebecca had put up with Colin because she’d had no choice – he could do far worse, if she didn’t treat it as a joke rather than sexual assault – and Marian was sending him away because she did have a choice. And …

“I’m sorry,” he said, as he opened the door. There was nothing else he could say. “Goodbye.”

He crumpled, the moment he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. His head was hurting, the sense she was treating him unfairly warring with the awareness she had every right – and that she was in the right – tell him to go. It was hard to have any illusions about himself, any sense he might still be in the right … he wondered, not for the first time, how Colin had been able to live with himself. If Norris had done half the things Colin had done, the guilt would have overwhelmed him.

“You’ll report back here tomorrow,” the healer said. “Your first session with the mind-healer has been booked.”

Norris made a face. “There’s no point in talking about it,” he said. The less said about the guidance counsellor at St. Champions, the better. The man had been worse than useless, a blabbermouth as well as a fool. Telling him the truth had been a mistake, one he’d learnt the hard way. “It can’t be changed.”

“Talking about your feelings and motivations can’t change the world,” the healer agreed, mildly. “However, talking can help you to come to terms with yourself and face the world as a better person.”

“It’s not possible,” Norris said. He thought he understood now. Colin hadn’t had any sense of basic decency, let alone a concept of right and wrong more complex than anything he wanted being right and anything he didn’t want being wrong. The idea there might be something wrong with using his brute strength to get what he wanted was alien to him. Norris almost envied him. Colin had been a barbarian, free of the guilt a civilised man would feel. Who would have thought that being a mindless brute would be so liberating? “There’s no point.”

The healer’s voice hardened. “Regardless, you will report back here after lunch tomorrow,” he said. “If we have to fetch you, it will not be pleasant.”

Norris winced. People were pushing him around, again. The fact he deserved it – this time – only made it worse. He wished, again, that he’d been born and raised in this world. It would have been far better for him and everyone else, even Colin. His lack of smarts wouldn’t have condemned him to a life of thuggish criminality. He could have worked on a farm instead, and perhaps been quite happy there. Instead, he’d been a thug until he’d been killed … murdered. No, it hadn’t been murder. It had been self-defence.

“I understand,” he said. He swallowed, hard. “Is there any magic that can change the past?”

“No,” the healer said. “But there is always hope you can learn from the past and walk into a brighter future.”

“Yeah,” Norris said. 

But in truth, he wasn’t convinced he had a future.

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