I. Prologue

Errantry comes with risk.

We know that just as well as the next wizard. We've had more than enough reminders, more than enough warnings. But the Powers and Fortune herself always seemed to favor us.

We'd been pushed near the edge so often that I started . . . to get used to it. What's worse, I even became reckless. Just a bit. And this tiny bit turned out to be enough.

Who knew?

And then came the day when our luck ended. The day our lives were turned upside down—literally.

It was entirely my fault.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

the saddest are these: it might have been.

—John Greenleaf Whittier

What if I replaced "it might have been" with "took you long enough"?

Juanita Callahan made an exaggerated face at the book, sticking a makeshift bookmark between the pages and shutting it. Silently she asked the Powers what she'd done to deserve this.

"That's not funny, Bobo."

The distant amusement of the peridexis told her that whatever dwelt in her mind thought otherwise.

Nita closed her eyes and withdrew beneath her covers with a silent groan. The embodiment of wizardry in my head is mocking me. About my . . . And then, not for the first time that week, she found that she had neither the words nor the energy to find a smart retort to what everyone seemed to be mocking her about.

As of right now, the first week of summer, Juanita Callahan had decided that her stance on the issue was officially I'll deal with this later, when I've slept some more.

As if to annoy her even further, muffled thumping echoed somewhere near in the house, building up to a door slam. Nita tried to ignore it, but the racket that was Dairine Callahan became rather impossible to ignore when the next door slam announced her entrance.

"Oh good Powers, you're not asleep, are you?"

Nita kept her eyes closed. Why, Dairine, why . . . With every atom of her being, she willed for the voice's owner to leave.

Ahem. Rude.

Not you, Bobo, don't be—

"Oh stop pretending, I heard you talking to Bobo earlier. Seriously, get up."

Something shook Nita's shoulder painfully in a too-tight grip: Dairine's hand. Nita winced, but refused to open her eyes and burrowed deeper into her covers.

"I am not giving up my precious nap time at your beck and call."

Dairine's scoff sounded more like a cat spitting. "Right. 'My beck and call.' Let me know what universe that's taking place in so I can move in."

"Daaaairiiiiiine . . ."

"What, are you hibernating under there?"

Whatever witty retort Nita had been formulating in her mind was cut short by an abrupt shock of cold as Dairine yanked off her covers. "Come on, dear sister, rise and shine!"

Nita groaned and pulled her knees closer to her forehead with her back to Dairine, refusing to be ordered around so easily. "What for?"

The stillness that followed was highly uncharacteristic. Nita opened her eyes and rolled over to face her sister. "Dairine. What for?"

Dairine opened her mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was a deep breath. Nita stared. Dairine crossed her arms tightly and glanced towards a wall.

Spot—loyal to Dairine as ever—trundled his way onto Nita's desk and said, very evenly, "Dairine requests your assistance with an occurrence on Wellakh."

Nita sat up.

She eyed Dairine wearily, trying to match up Spot's words with what she saw. Dairine, for one, was not seething at Nita or Spot. Was not royally annoyed with Nita or Spot. And she refused to meet Nita's gaze, which only meant her fury was directed at one person only: Dairine herself.

This better be good . . .

"What is it, runt?"

There was a tenseness to Dairine, even as she stood there in her usual garb of snarkiness and folded arms. The tenseness flickered in her voice as she replied, "It's not huge. Just that their kernel needs a bit of fixing."

Nita blinked. "Um. Okay. What kind of—"

"You should probably call Kit, too." Dairine began to take her leave with as much dignity as she had left.

"Why?"

Dairine paused, halfway in and halfway out, her back to Nita. She turned around, her lips thin. "Ponch's leash spell. I have . . . a feeling that we might need it."

Nita blinked again.

"I know the leash is gone, don't look at me like that. I just need the spell, okay?"

Nita reached into the air and pulled out her manual. "On it." She flipped it open and began paging to the messaging section, expecting to hear Dairine's trademark ruckus as she left. When page turning was the only sound in the house, Nita looked up, surprised to see Dairine still standing there, staring at an invisible point on the floor.

"You okay there?" Nita asked, slightly concerned.

Dairine's head jerked up sharply, instantly defensive. Nita held up a hand, bowing her head over her manual.

"Save it. Now please, go get me some tea or something."

Dairine rolled her eyes and pounded down the stairs.

"I mean . . . I'm okay with it, but do you know why?"

"That's why I'm asking you in the first place. Can you come over? We'll go over the runt's plan. Then both you and I can find out why Dair's being so sensitive about all this stuff."

"Well, it could just be the Callahan trait of being physically unable to ask for favors—"

"You coming or not?"

A laugh. "You're on."

Dairine didn't question Nita's choice of manual voice-call over mind link, but Nita personally felt that she would be less conflicted if Dairine did question her like she normally would.

She's too good at this for her own good, Nita griped silently.

Good at what?

Reading people.

Bobo seemed more bemused than anything. And why does that matter this particular time?

Because . . . And to her faint horror, Nita found she could hardly explain herself to Bobo. Because it's about Kit, this time. And Dairine knows. Of all the seven-something-billion kinds of people I could have gotten for a sister, I have to get the one who's too smart for her own good—

"Hey, Ni-taaa!"

She sighed. Of all the seven-something-billion kinds of people . . .

"What?"

"Check your manual!" Dairine yelled from somewhere distant. Probably the fridge.

"Why?"

"Because!"

"Is that code for 'I'm too lazy to explain what's going on so I sent you a precis via manual'?"

"Duh!" There was a slam downstairs. "And who the heck even says via anymore?"

Nita sighed and dragged her manual closer to her, paging through to the messaging portion. Bobo, is there another universe where Dairine isn't a wizard with the annoyance level she's got? And also, what happened to the notification spell I set?

No comment on the other universe. But your notification's fine; should be going off about now. And sure enough, the blue notification spell-light blinked into existence. Nita pinched it out with one hand, the other still rifling through her manual.

It was purely by chance that Nita had to flip through the local listing to get to the messaging. It was purely by chance that she caught sight of her listing, purely by chance that her eyes happened to read the two words that declared her wizardly status.

But then again, there were probably no chances. Not with these Powers.

Nita double-checked the name. Triple-checked.

She took a deep breath that did nothing and marked the page with her fingers before launching herself out of her room.

"Dairine!"

"What!"

Nita flung herself around the final step of the stairs and flapped her manual in front of her sister's face. Dairine's bemused eyebrows over her Star Wars mug only served to infuriate Nita more. Of all the seven-something-billion kinds of people—!

There was a pause as Nita tried to gather the right words to express her maddening confusion, which rather took the edge off her moment of blazing fury.

(Dairine, hidden from Nita's view, raised her eyebrows even higher as she read Nita's status listing on the page before smirking. It was such a laughable situation, really. Only, Dairine had lived with Nita long enough to know that if she uttered a single sound that even slightly resembled a laugh she would be the one thrown onto Pluto instead of her bed.)

"Did you— Is this—" Nita scowled and snapped her manual shut under her arm, once more revealing Dairine's coolly baffled expression. She's taking after Roshaun more and more every day.

She pointed an accusing finger at Dairine. "Am I on active because of you or—because . . . because there are no coincidences?"

Dairine finished the last of whatever was in her mug and crossed her arms. "If you think that my asking for your help is what put you on active, then you've got another think coming. And besides, it's not like I went up to the Powers and specifically asked Them to put you on active, so calm yourself." A rather curious expression crossed her face. "Is that even possible?"

Nita made a huffing noise. "It's practically impossible to calm myself when that mug of yours is literally one joint away from smashing on the floor." Dairine glanced down at her crossed arms to the aforementioned mug, having not even realized she'd been dangling the thing by its handle on one finger.

Dairine threw Nita a royal eyeroll and slipped it onto the counter. "Have you even read the precis yet, or have you been too busy fuming?"

Nita countered with a glare of daggers. "Well, excuse me for not reading the precis when—"

"Nita, Dairine, I can hear you guys from out here. Could one of you, y'know, open the door please?"

That's Kit—

And again the words flew through her mind, quick and light:

Took you long enough

Nita threw Dairine a look that clearly said she was done with the conversation for today, but she'd hear about it later. "Sorry—coming!"

Dairine scooped up her mug and left for the fridge. Out of the range of Nita's fury, she muttered quietly to herself, "Since when did Kit knock anyway?"

Does he remember? Or was it all a hallucination from being wiped on Mars?

I remember he was influencing the dream for sure—but what if that wasn't an influence? Was it from my dream? After all there are those things you think you know in dreams . . .

Or was it all just part of backlash from everything that happened on Mars?

Did he mean what he said?

Or—

"Nita, did you hear any of what I just said?"

Nita blinked. Dairine had good Powers what is going on in that madhouse brain of hers written all over her face, plus a glare that reminded Nita of a bird of prey that was perched by their kitchen counter. "You weren't even listening, were you?"

"Sure I was. Uhh— Something about—" Crap. Bobo?

Yes I kept track. But don't make this a habit. . . . Never-before-seen flash floods seen all over the planet—

"—lots of flash floods—"

—spontaneous earthquakes even though tectonic plates should be dormant—

"—random earthquakes, even though the tectonic plates should be dormant—"

—because of the Lone One's interference with the kernel.

"—all thanks to That One's messing around with the kernel." Nita leaned back in the couch and raised her eyebrows at Dairine. "Am I right?"

Dairine rolled her eyes in response, which Nita interpreted to be a yes. "Just making sure."

"Wait. So you're thinking of just"—here Kit gestured vaguely with his hands—"taking them all out for a quick interplanetary vacation while the kernel gets fixed?"

"That's one way of putting it," Dairine muttered. "But yeah. 'Rafting,' right?"

"That's . . . a lot of energy, runt," Nita said, biting her lip.

Dairine sighed, and not for the first time that day Nita noticed the darkness under her eyes. And the weariness—it pulled at her stature, dragged her down, made her fragile and ready to blow away in a million little pieces at a moment's notice. Which is very un-Dairine. "I know. That's why we're going to channel it from their sun . . . So that won't be a problem, because I can handle that."

Nita frowned at her. "Dair. Are you sure? You look . . . really, really tired." Better put that out there before she gets the energy to blast me to bits for saying so.

Dairine shrugged, rolling her eyes in classic Dairine style. "Doesn't matter. What does matter is that the Lone One's messing with Wellakh, and I'm not going to just let it sit. Powers apparently aren't either, if They've put you on active." She glanced at Kit, raising an eyebrow. "Are you?"

Kit blinked. "Am I what?"

"On active, duh." Dairine narrowed her eyes slightly. "What's up with you two today?"

Kit looked away, shifting his feet slightly. Nita fought to maintain a blank stare as the temperature seemed to suddenly rise by a few hundred degrees. "Uhh. The usual? Being dragged onto yet another errantry even though we'd just wrapped up one about a day ago?"

Dairine sighed and leaned back against the counter. "Yeah. . . . Sorry about that."

Kit straightened to look at Dairine, his eyes wide. "Did the great esteemed almighty Dairine Callahan just say sorry?"

"Don't push it, Your Kitness," Dairine retorted. "Anyway, yeah. It isn't as huge an intervention compared to that one, though—next to the Mars incident, this should be a piece of cake. I'm not even sure it's life-threatening, to be honest, but since it's Wellakh I'd rather be safe than sorry." She straightened, stretched, then gathered up Spot from the floor and began heading towards the stairs. "I'm gonna start getting ready, then . . . Can we meet at Mela's closet in half an hour? The quicker we get started, the quicker we can get this over with."

Kit made a face. "This'll take the whole day, won't it?"

"I'm hoping not, but it might. Bring lunch." With that, Dairine disappeared up the stairway.

Nita rolled her eyes and began heading after her when the ghost of a voice flitted across her mind.

Took you long enough . . .

She froze and turned on the stairs to face Kit, who was still standing in the living room with his arms crossed, frowning thoughtfully at the floor.

"Uh, Kit . . ."

He met her gaze, looking slightly startled. "Yeah?"

"After the Mars thing, did you . . ." Her voice faltered, and she cleared her throat. "Did you have a weird dream?"

Kit blinked before tipping his head slightly to the side. "A weird dream?" He grinned at her then, and to Nita's annoyance she felt herself coloring slightly. "No . . . At least, I didn't think it was weird necessarily."

She laughed at that, a little too nervously for her own liking. "I just wasn't sure if it was all just a product of my messed-up imagination or if it was Aurilelde still influencing things between us or— Actually, I don't know what I thought . . ." Oh good Powers That Be in a bucket what am I saying—

To her surprise, Kit laughed just as nervously as she had and looked down. "Well, you're not the only one."

Nita breathed in.

Might as well get this over with . . .

She steeled herself, and then:

"Do you mean what you said, in the dream?"

Kit looked up at that, and Nita realized with a shock that he was blushing slightly. "Yeah, I did." He paused, then said, "Did you?"

Relief crashed over Nita in one enormous wave, sweeping away all the feeling in her legs.

Took you long enough took you long enough took you long enough

Dimly she realized that Dairine probably had heard all this drama unfold below her. (Dimly she realized that, quite frankly, she didn't care.) Dimly she realized that she'd walked back down the steps so that she was standing directly in front of Kit, matching his stance of folded arms and mild expression.

"Would I be asking if I didn't?" Nita said, raising an eyebrow.

Kit raised an eyebrow back at her. "I dunno, Neets . . . You sounded like you were worried I was gonna blast you or something—" He was cut off by his own laughter and Nita's punch to his shoulder.

"I was just embarrassed!" she said defensively.

About what? Kit asked silently, trying to force down his laughter.

I wasn't sure if you, y'know, agreed, Nita replied, rolling her eyes. Obviously.

Kit grinned at her, his laughing fit finally beginning to taper off. Well, now you know.

At what cost though, she shot back halfheartedly, grinning as well despite herself.

Oh, the usual, Kit said. Just the wrath of one Martian princess and the rescue of two whole planets. No biggie.

Nita punched him again, lighter this time. "So now what?" she asked quietly.

"Now what what?"

"You know," she said, shifting awkwardly. "What are we?"

"Partners in wizardry," Kit replied without missing a beat. "Who happen to be, uh . . ."

Friends—and more than friends? Nita asked, meeting his gaze.

. . . That works.

She grinned up at him, and he grinned back.

It was entirely my fault.

A/N: Hope it was to your liking, ObeliskX! ^~^

Thank you for reading! And remember: reviews give the author life!