Peripheral Vision

[Mercy Strike]

I thought you didn't believe in this stuff.

"I don't." Aura glared at the three cards on the desk, sunbathing in a pool of light from the swing lamp. She fiddled with the middle one, incrementally realigning the bottom edge to match the others. She scowled again at the spread she'd re-created from memory.

Then just what do you think you're doing, keeping us awake? It's late in case you hadn't noticed and I don't want us to be ugly tomorrow.

"You go to sleep," she muttered, uncharitably tacking on if I'm bugging you so much in the quasi-privacy of her own thoughts. If Mercy caught it, she said nothing which made Aura feel kind of guilty. It wasn't Mercy's problem if something was still prickling under her skin from earlier, a feeling she couldn't shake. And it's not like she did believe in this stuff. It was just for fun for the most part. She fidgeted and eventually opened her mouth to reply, maybe apologise.

Okay, fine. You give us a headache staring at those things though, and I'll be mad at you. Remember you promised we'd go hang out with ShimmerFall tomorrow.

"You just want him to like you so he'll be your boyfriend."

There was a feeling of hesitation and a weird sense of evasion. It's more complicated than that, but sure. So don't mess us up by staying awake too late, alright? The mind voice gentled. If you don't believe in this stuff, why is it bothering you so bad?

Aura stayed silent but the swirling mess of her feelings was enough of an answer for her other half. She felt Mercy quiet then after a few minutes, tactfully withdrawing to a corner where, if it wasn't sleep, it was close enough to suit both of them. Aura waited for a bit to be sure before going back to her studying. She hesitantly touched each of the cards in turn, trying to get that same shiver from before when she'd laid them out the first time. They remained mute and obstinate.

The first picture was an ethereal hand emerging from a cloud, grasping an upright staff. The stick was solid, almost a cudgel but it was oddly in flower with leaves falling gently along its length. In the background pale mountains marched along the horizon with a small white castle perched at one summit.

"Eight is the number of balance, I remember that much. Inside and out, spirit and body in harmony. Wands are for growth and creativity, an inheritance, a new beginning. That's a good card at the start. Lots of direction here." Aura counted the leaves again. Yes, still eight. "Castles are for the promise of the future, and being on the horizon, this is a movement towards that future." Aura mouthed the words, listening to her mother's voice in her mind.

She looked at the next one where it started to go wrong. This one was of a man in a cloak, hair banded by a silver circlet of authority, standing with his back towards Aura so she couldn't see his face. One hand firmly grasped an upright staff with two more planted near him. Far below his vantage point, ships sailed towards him on a calm sea, again with a line of mountains on the horizon. This one was upside down though which was almost never good.

"Water is for things you don't know," she whispered, "emotions and the secrets you try to hide from yourself. He's not paying attention to what's coming back on the ships, even though he's the one that sent them out." She racked her brains for the rest of it. "A master without control, a warning against arrogance or making a careless mistake out of pride. But at least the water is calm. That's something, right?"

She turned her attention to the last card, feeling unaccountably uneasy. It wasn't that bad. This picture was of a smiling man sneaking away from a number of tents, carrying five swords. Two more swords stood at attention behind him, planted as a barrier to those that might follow or maybe they were supposed to have kept him out in the first place. The land rolled in the background which wasn't good and she could see shadows of fighting men near the horizon. Action, but not close enough to matter. The sneaking man wasn't going to get caught.

"Taking what's not yours, or a betrayal of a confidence." Without realising it, her voice took on a dreamlike quality. "Or running away from the results of a dishonorable act." Aura fisted her hands on top of each other and put her chin on them, staring at the layout until the pictures blurred. "This doesn't make sense. Diego is awfully nice, he wouldn't betray a friend. And why would he need to steal something?" She found herself staring crosseyed at the middle card, sandwiched between the promise at the start and the twisted result.

"Everybody makes mistakes," she whispered, trying to convince herself. "And what are you going to do about it anyways? Just walk up and stay something awfully dumb about watching for what he's sent out to come back wrong? You don't believe in this stuff anyways, remember? It's just for pretend."

It didn't seem to help.

[Mercy Strike]

This time the firepit was empty.

Aura breathed a sigh of relief, even though her insides were crawling with prickles. She had to get this done; she did. If she didn't, she'd just never forgive herself if something bad happened. Although what did she think she could really do? Nothing.

No, that wasn't true. It wasn't. She could do something, even if it wasn't... wasn't bright or flashy. Just because something was small and quiet didn't mean it wouldn't help. Right?

Instead of starting though, she went to the pile of cordwood, carrying back a small armload. She wouldn't be that long and it's not like she wanted a bonfire. That would be greedy. She just wanted somewhere warm to sit and concentrate, that's all. She arranged some of the smaller sticks on the smoldering ashes, blowing carefully. Quickly enough the dry kindling caught and she added the larger pieces one at a time. Pretty soon she had a small, pretty blaze. She settled back on one of the flat sitting stones, folding her legs into a loose lotus.

"You are such a fraidy-cat, Aura King."

The sound of her own voice didn't help. Of course she was afraid. She didn't want to actually see anything, that was the problem and she was almost positive that if she looked, something was going to look back. What if it wasn't good? What if it said that it wasn't going to work, that somebody would be hurt, that maybe something terrible would happen?

"You have to do this, you just have to. You don't have any more time." She tried to put some backbone into it but it just sounded thin. "No more excuses."

She looked around, knowing that some part of her was hoping for interruption but the area remained empty. She took out the cards then with determination and started to shuffle. Were they warmer to the touch than usual? No, she was just being silly. They'd been sitting on the pouch on her hip all morning so of course they were warm. She'd do the reading and make sure everything was going to be all right because everything was definitely going to be fine, she just knew it.

When Carla sat down next to her ten minutes later, she was still stalling. She was surprised but at the same time, she wasn't. Aura smiled as her tall friend settled.

"Hi."

"Hello, Aura." Carla brought one knee up, her dark face neutral as she watched the flames. "I was wondering if I would find you here."

"Were you looking for me?" Maybe she should have left the comm button on. Carla started to shake her head, then nodded and then finally just smiled a little.

"Maybe? I do not know. What are you doing?"

Aura looked down at her fingers as they moved through the cards, sorting, separating, shuffling all the possibilities. "Trying to tell myself not to be afraid. It's not working very well."

"I know the feeling." Carla reached out and tapped Aura's nearest hand. "I meant, why do you have these out?"

"I want to do a reading." She corrected herself softly. "I need to do a reading. I've been putting it off all week and tomorrow... tomorrow you're going to go, and I don't know what's going to happen. I have to look. Then if I see anything, anything at all, I'll tell Ms. Whisper because she understands. And she can tell everybody else and nobody... nobody will yell at me."

Carla's mouth twisted at the unhappy confession. "You mean David."

Aura nodded jerkily. "He made fun of me, made fun of my name. I'm Aura, not 'Luna Lovegood' and I'm not stupid."

"David did not mean it. He does not trust anything he can not touch or explain, I think." Carla picked up a chip of wood and flicked it into the fire. "He will not yell at you again."

Aura sighed. "I know, I do. He's just scared too." She struggled for a moment, trying to cleanse herself of the negative emotions of shame and fear. "It's okay."

She had to think positive. She had to charge the air with sympathetic resonance. Unconsciously her breathing deepened as practice turned into actuality, fingers settling into a steady, shifting rhythm. "I will look and I will tell and everything will be okay. Nothing bad is going to happen." She felt better with Carla there. It was as if she couldn't have started without her.

Carla who'd done something terrible after the first reading. Something that Aura could feel almost brushing against the hairs on her arm like a dark animal that she couldn't see, breathing down the back of her neck. She hadn't asked. She didn't want to know because then the weight of it would fasten onto her karma and never let go.

Aura shook her head. Breathe. In. Out. Think of clarity. She couldn't do a reading at all if she couldn't concentrate.

"Carla, help me. Think of Dara. Think of Dara and how much you want her home."

"I am. I have thought of nothing but for months." But the South American girl nodded her head and closed her eyes.

Aura licked her lips and spoke to the cards, so they'd know what to do. "Dara is lost. We want Dara to come home." She tried to picture Dara as perfectly as she could, charging the image with a need for return. "What is the way we have to go?"

As easily as that then, she dealt because fear couldn't have a place here. Two flashed down, crossing each other. One below, one left, top, right. True sight, true reading for a true answer.

"Oh... wow."

She just sat there, stunned. Let the cards flash under her sight, not assigning anything, glancing from one to the next, struggling to understand in gestalt.

At her side, Carla shifted, leaning closer. "That... does not look good. Aura, that really doesn't look good." Her friend's voice started to raise. Aura reached out and grabbed Carla's hand, wanting her to be quiet, needing her to be quiet.

In the last position, Death stared back at both of them.

"Wait. Wait, Carla. I have to.... " Aura bit her lower lip hard enough to hurt. "It's not... "

"Someone is going to die." Carla's voice was grim. "You must tell me. Who is going to die? Is it me? Is it Dara? Lisa?"

"No!" Aura looked over, shocked. She shook their linked hands, hard. "Nobody is going to die. Stop it, that doesn't help."

"Then what does it mean?"

Aura took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully. She couldn't do anything if she freaked out now. No freaking out, it was a rule.

"Death doesn't mean dying, it means renewal, things swept away. Look." She pointed to the king falling under the hooves of the pale horse Death rode. "All things fall before him. It's inevitable that things change." She looked again at the spread. Breathe. No freaking out. "Three major cards, all of them in the now and the later. We don't have much control, not once things start."

Carla's fingers tightened but Aura barely noticed as she continued, her voice falling into the pattern of explanation. "At the center, Justice and the Queen of Cups. Judgement, a need for balance. A woman of intuition and dreams. This is what is happening right now, this moment."

Carla nodded even as she spoke. "Justice. I want justice." The tone was grim. "It is not fair. This whole thing has not been fair. I thought she was just.. still lost.. but she's not. She is supposed to be here with us! We're not the same without her." There was something fractured in that the admission. Aura stared at her friend uncertainly before turning back, feeling the prickles in her middle start to sink teeth in.

"I think the woman is Ms. Whisper." Aura tapped the card. "She will help us get the balance back again. We have to listen to her."

"Trust me, I am."

Aura moved with more assurance to the card at the bottom. "The past is based in greed and impatience. Somebody wanted something they couldn't get." She touched the next card in sequence. "Struggle and indecision. This has just passed by."

"Greed? What does that have to do with anything?" Carla leaned forward to look closer. "It was an accident. That makes no sense."

She nodded unhappily. "I know. But the other... I think that's you, Carla." She ran a finger over the picture. "You didn't know what to do. You weren't sure... but you made a decision, didn't you? Turned and fought?"

The other girl hissed out through her teeth, nodding sharply. "You know I did. Dara needs me. You told me I needed to be stronger so... I got stronger." White teeth bared in Carla's dark face. That was the thing she didn't want to know. Whatever Carla had done had been necessary. But that didn't mean that it was good. Aura moved on quickly.

"So this has passed, the decision has been made." Aura looked then at the card at the top of the reading, stifling an inward tremble. "This is what could happen, may happen, might come to be." She hovered her hand over the card, the upside down picture of the naked woman dancing inside the ring of leaves. "The Wheel of Fortune."

"That is good, yes? We could use good fortune tomorrow."

Aura shook her head. "This is the last card in the deck."

"So?"

"So, the weight of all the other cards is in this one. The wheel... you can't control it, Carla. It just is. Its the wrong way around so this is a card of fear, being afraid to change as things change. Being unable to see what you need to do or being afraid to do it."

"And this one?" The dark haired girl nodded at the pale rider. "What does he mean?"

"This is the answer. No matter what, this will happen; things will change. Something old will die and something new will be born in it's place." Aura stared at the card unhappily. "Things will be swept away."

Carla ran a hand over her mouth, frowning. "So nobody is going to actually die?"

"I don't know," she had to admit. "The cards never predict death. They can't. I don't think they're allowed to."

"Great. Just great."

Aura unhooked her hand then from Carla's and spread her fingers over the entire layout. Her blue eyes narrowed, as she looked from past to future, from answer to reason. Her voice dreamed. "The struggle to decide what's right will lead to change. Justice between, and a guide. Fear alone stops what will come." Aura blinked, feeling the warm presence of Sight settle over her. She turned to look at her friend, barely aware of anything else.

"That's it. Carla, when it happens, don't hesitate. Don't stop. When things start to change, they have to so don't be afraid. Don't let it stop what you need to do." It was already leaving and she sucked in a breath, reaching. A small frustrated cry broke from her lips. "Don't let fear stop you."

The look on her friend's face would have frightened her at another time. "I have put aside fear. I am not afraid, not anymore. And nothing... nothing is going to stop me." There was a flicker of light deep in her gaze like an ember. ""Not anything, you hear me?""

She stared then as pure fire rose in Carla's eyes like tears, beginning to eclipse the black pupils. Bright motes started to dance in the twists of her hair. It was almost as if her friend was being pushed aside, turning to flame, to something else.

Aura shuddered, pulling back. Her hands hovered over the cards as if to protect them. "Carla, you're scaring me," she whispered.

"Am I? I am sorry." Slowly the fire died and the prophetess breathed a sigh of relief. She really didn't want to know. Maybe if she never found out, her karma wouldn't sink like a really big rock. She clung to that rationalization with everything she had.

"Did... did that help?" Aura looked down and shuddered again. Death and the Wheel. She'd said something about fear but it was already fading. She bit her lip and reached, sliding the cards back in the deck. She didn't want to see any more potentials.

"Yes. I think I know what to do now." Carla smiled at her and when she looked, there was only darkness and friendship. "Thank you, Aura."

She smiled back uncertainly but already feeling better somehow. "You're welcome."

She'd go right away and tell Ms. Whisper and then she would have done everything she could. It wasn't very much. It wasn't bright or flashy or brave. Maybe it wouldn't help at all.

But at least she'd tried.

[Mercy Strike]

Aura, this isn't helping.

She ohmmmed a little louder.

Aura....

The body remained loosely relaxed, tucked into a full lotus on the bed with the palms upturned on her knees, the attitude of capture. The clean light of the autumn afternoon streamed in over her shoulder so her hair sparked with a false halo. The soft curve of her cheekbone pressed against the inside of her skin, making her face remote.

Aura!

"Ow, Mercy! How am I supposed to concentrate on my fourth chakra if you keep yelling at me?" The girl resettled herself, lifting her chin and closing her eyes. "Ohmmmm...."

This isn't helping. Would you please stop and talk to me?

"There's nothing to talk about. I have to cleanse myself, recenter..."

.. your vibrational harmonies, I know. You're utterly out of balance and both Anja and Anahata are muddy. You can work on them later." Mercy's mind voice was both firm and impatient. You're just trying to avoid me.

"I am not."

You are too. There was hesitation, question. Then the delicate question floated across her mind. What are you so afraid of?

"I'm not..."

You are. Stop pretending to meditate because we both know you're just humming to make noise.

For an instant longer the posture held. Then Aura slumped, opening her blue eyes. Her fingers strayed to the hem of her jeans to tease at the loose threads.

"I'm not afraid." But she was and Mercy knew it and she knew it. Aura smoothed her fingers over the pale wash of denim, her favorite pair because they were so old and soft. There was something comforting about the way they hugged her like a second skin.

What's wrong? You've spaced out before and never freaked like this.

Aura smiled as Mercy used her own phrase back at her, but then the expression slipped away. She half shrugged.

Talk to me.

"It's just.. I've never..."

What do you mean, you never? You do this all the time. You even do it deliberately with the cards. You weren't even this upset over Carla and you saw some pretty scary stuff then. Mercy's voice softened. And I don't blame you for not wanting to look any more.

"It's not that."

Then what is it? So you said something embarrassing. Nobody died of embarrassment you know, not even you.

"Mercy."

What? Look, talk to me already, would you? Your fourth chakra isn't the only thing that muddy right now. I can't figure out why you're so upset over this.

Aura looked down at her fingers, the almost perfect half moons of her fingernails. "Vesper wouldn't lie to me. I said those things. I Saw those things." She laced her fingers together suddenly, rocking. "I don't remember it but Vesper wouldn't lie."

So? Last I looked, you liked Diego. Ever since you stuck that note in his locker, you've been doing grade school stuff to get his attention. Mind you, I think it's working so you might be onto something.

Aura squirmed a little. "Everybody likes Diego. And he deserved the warning."

So what's wrong? Look, he's just going to think you're weird but that's nothing new. He'll get over it. There was a moment's pause. Tell him you ate something strange for dinner and you were hallucinating. See? Problem solved.

"No, it's not that!"

Then what is it already?

"Mercy, I never See for myself." There. She'd said it. Her fingers were knotted so hard, the knuckles were white. "Not ever. You can't."

What, is it against the rules?

"Seeing for yourself, changes yourself," she recited helplessly. "You can't ever See your own future so I shouldn't have Seen anything at all. But I did. And I don't know why." Aura shifted, running the tip of her tongue over her lower lip. It tasted faintly of salt. "That's why I'm scared."

Oh. They both sat in the sunlight, thinking about it. Finally Mercy replied. You told me that the farther away something is, the more likely it is to never happen. That futures weren't... weren't fixed. Solid or whatever.

"That's true. That's what my mom says, anyways."

So maybe this is just one of those things that never happens.

"Maybe." The lack of conviction was palpable.

Look, just tell Diego you ate a bad mushroom and you didn't know what you were saying. He'll avoid you for a week and then he'll go back to calling you little sister and everything will be okay again. I'll even help you with your French to take your mind off how silly you feel.

Aura looked sightlessly at her fingers.

"...Okay. Thanks, Mercy."

Don't mention it.

[Mercy Strike]

Aura fidgeted nervously, unable to keep still.

It was cool under the Wingra Tree as an autumn breeze skirled around the open central quad. She had her favorite sweater on, an old heavy knit from some bygone seafaring era with the cuffs all but gone to ragged threads. It had been at least third-hand before it had made it's way into her closet but she loved it anyways for the color, a pale rusty rose that had probably once been a vibrant red. It fell to midway down her thighs, or would have if she'd been standing. As it was she wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging them to her chest to keep warm.

Stop worrying. She'll be here.

"Are you sure? Maybe she forgot."

That's kind of unlikely. With the number of exclamation points you stuck on the note, she probably thinks you're dying.

"That is so not true." Aura toyed with an unravelling strand. "I only wish I was. Dead sounds good right about now."

Mercy pulled their joint vision to the right, a sensation that never failed to make Aura a little queasy. There she is. A figure with flyaway brown hair was jogging in their direction. Told you so.

Aura smiled as Kirsten came up a little out of breath, plopping herself down on the slightly damp ground with a groan. "Hi, Aura," she said. "I got your message but I ended up under the wrong tree for awhile. You'd think I'd have figured this school out by now." Behind her glasses, her eyes looked rueful as if inviting the younger girl to share in the joke. "So what's the problem anyways? Oh, before I forget, I brought you a sandwich from the cafeteria just in case."

"Oh!" Aura took the slightly squashed food and stared at it. She couldn't tell what kind it was through the plastic. "Thank you? Just in case of what?"

"In case of hunger!" Kristen smiled, unwrapping her own. Aura giggled.

I like her. If that's a bologna sandwich, I'll continue to like her all the way through until tomorrow. Aura frowned but Mercy was already tactfully withdrawing her awareness, leaving Aura with a flat echo to her thoughts.

"So, have you seen Brianna lately?" Aura was distracted, turning her attention back to Kristen. "She can't stop talking about that Jacob kid. She's all Jacob this, Jacob that, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. I mean, first it was all Jem but now it's like her brain fell over and had a seizure!"

"What, Jacob? Really?" Aura didn't bother trying to keep the dubious note out of her voice. "Are you sure?"

Kristen shrugged, taking a huge bite out of her sandwich. "I dunno either, but it's all she's been talking about all morning."

"But Brianna doesn't even like Jacob. She said some really not nice things about him once." Aura pulled her eyebrows together in confusion but then shrugged. "I really don't know anything about him except that somebody told me once he was a really bad kisser and besides, he's a whole grade ahead of me so it's not like it matters or anything since he won't want to kiss me. Anyways, couldgointothefutureformebecauseitsreallyimportantandineedyoutohelpme?" She ended the sentence on a hopeful, uprising note.

Kristen actually stopped chewing. "Whoa! Slow down, even I don't usually talk that fast! What about the future?"

Aura realised she was actually denting the plastic form in her hands, mangling the soft bread inside and she placed it guiltily on the grass. She twisted her fingers together instead. "Well, you can, can't you? You can actually go there and see things that are happening and I could really use some help, you know, if you could? I would really appreciate it! You have no idea."

Kristen blinked a few times, mouth open. Aura could see mashed up crumbs, which was kind of gross. She leaned forward, anxious that she not be misunderstood but she kept her eyes averted so she wouldn't have to look at the green piece stuck to Kris' front tooth. "I'm not going to ask for the lottery ticket numbers, gosh! That would be really dishonest and I wouldn't do that, not even if I really needed the money. My karma would probably turn me into a frog for years if I tried." Which Aura thought was also sort of unfair but she didn't think now was the time to mention it.

Her friend opened her mouth a few times. That helped with the crumb situation thankfully. "Well, I mean, yeah? I can, like, totally go into the future, it's my thing, you know? It takes some concentration and it doesn't always work... but yeah, I can go ahead a little. But what about your karma? I didn't know you wanted to be a frog."

Aura clapped with relief, hearing the cheerful agreement in Kris' voice. "Oh, would you? Please? Go into the future okay, and see what I'm doing. I promise, I won't use it to hurt anybody or cause any trouble or those.. paradox things that I read about in a story once or any of that other time travel stuff. I'll be awfully grateful because I'm really in just a huge amount of trouble."

"What you're doing? Well... ummm...." Kristen rubbed the back of her neck. "It doesn't exactly work that way and it's totally not all that easy, you know."

"It's not?"

"Aura, just what did you do anyways?" Kristen was just staring at her and it was kind of disconcerting. "Jaywalked? Broke curfew?" Her voice lowered. "Got busted for drugs?"

Aura shook her head hard enough to cause hair to get in her mouth. She spat out a few strands. "Oh, gosh no! I would never do that. Well, maybe jaywalk because sometimes you're in a hurry. No, I just opened my big fat mouth and now Diego is never going to talk to me again and it's just not fair, he was just starting to be nice. Kris, you have to go and look for me! I can't, I've tried and tried..."

But now Kristen was staring at her like she'd just grown a third head, the half eaten sandwich forgotten in her hand. "Zorro? This is about Zorro?! Like, what did you say exactly? Tell me everything." But she didn't wait for an answer. "How far forward am I supposed to go? I could get to next week maybe and see if he's being a jerk. Want me to tie his shoes together if he is? I could manage that, I'm sure."

"Oh, no. Next week won't help. It's not like I know exactly but I'm sure not going to get married while I'm still in school and I still have to get to Paris and get famous first. So... maybe ten years? Could you just hop into the future and see what I'm doing in ten years? And... um, who I'm doing it with?"

"Ten... years?" Kristen's voice rose up into an operatic register and she whistled softly. "I've... I've never even gone ten months, let alone years."

Aura could almost see agreement being snuffed out before it grew up into real help and she grasped after the desperate essentials. "It's awfully important, you have no idea. I promise I'll help you with your homework and guard your stuff and... and I'll even be your best friend if you want."

"Um, yeah. Years? Totally a bit of a problem with that."

Aura slumped on the grass. "You won't do it?" Maybe the best friend card had been the wrong thing to try.

"It's not that! It's just.. I don't have that much control. Short jumps are okay, I'm fine for those." The other girl waved a hand and seemed surprised to find a sandwich in it. She took another bite out of reflex. "Next week I could manage, I'm pretty sure."

"Kris, please! I don't know what else to do. I don't even know who else to ask! Simon can't look ahead more than a half hour so he's totally hopeless for this. Can't you just focus really hard, just this once?"

"Aura, it's not that I don't want to! I can't just make myself jump years ahead - that's like, totally impossible."

"What? But you said you could see the future! And I really need you to, just this once. Please."

Kristen rubbed the back of her neck again. "Come on, you know how I sort of space out sometimes?"

Aura nodded. "You look really weird. Josh wanted to draw on your glasses that one time during class but I didn't let him." She threw that in there, hoping it might help. She tried to look really friend-worthy, although honestly Josh hadn't actually done more than just say he wanted to draw squinty eyeballs. Still, Kristen didn't have to know that.

"Well, I don't just see things in the future... I actually go there. I'd be sleeping for months."

"Months? I don't want you to go for months! I just want you to sneak a quick look, just see for a minute or two and let me know what's going on." Aura was pretty sure Kristen wasn't grasping the specifics here. "You don't have to spend a lot of time there, honest."

Kris crammed the last of the sandwich in her mouth, chewing furiously. "I don't see things Aura, I go forward." The words were garbled but understandable. "Physically, I'm like, in both places. At the same time." She swallowed. "It's kind of hard to explain."

Aura was pretty sure that was a true statement. "But you're right here! And I really did save your glasses, you know."

"Yeah, but I zonk out. Just like that." Kristen snapped her fingers. "I'm in both places but I can only live in one. Least that's what they tell me."

"Oh. Oh!" Aura blinked a few times as Kristen nodded.

"I know, it's way crazy. The longest I ever jumped was like, three months and I ended up sleeping for a couple of weeks. I scared the living daylights out of my parents." The tone might have been casual but Aura wasn't fooled. She pictured her own mom waiting for her to wake up and she gulped. "That's why I'm here, so that if I just stop moving, somebody knows to get me someplace safe until I, you know, come back." Kristen peered at her through the glasses, looking worried. "Aura, I want to help, I do... but I can't. Even if I could go that far ahead, I can only go where I am. Not where anybody else is. I mean, I could go there and if you weren't anywhere around me, I wouldn't have any idea. And I'd have to take Socials again when I got back."

The blonde girl nodded, not really catching the rest of the confession for the sudden, sinking disappointment. She'd hoped so much to get an answer but not like this; not by making Kristen sleep the entire school year away. It had sounded so easy! How come things weren't ever easy? Just one tiny, little, harmless shortcut. Just a peek at a future and she'd know if somebody else could See what she'd apparently Seen. It was possible that she was wrong. She'd been wrong before.

Aura found herself staring at the food she'd put down and she sighed. Mechanically she picked it up and started peeling off the wrapping. Kristen was still talking, still trying to be nice about the whole thing. She really was a good friend. Aura took a bite out of the sandwich.

if she couldn't get an answer, at least she could get lunch.

[Mercy Strike]

There is a moment when she is lost and doesn't know it.

It is the nature of her gift that she will never know. The moment of her greatest clarity will be forever hidden to memory, overwhelmed as it is perhaps. Stare at a candle and it will burn the shape of itself into your eyes. No matter where you look, the shadow follows until you can finally, gratefully forget. But stare into the sun and you will never see anything again.

It is said that what God gives with one hand, he takes away with the other. Which the gift, which the punishment? Perhaps even God doesn't know anymore.

"I am afraid," she says, and she is. The cards are answers, framed in pictures she understands. The understanding calls the pictures even, her knowledge bringing hidden things up to the light. She tells the truths that are already known, the intricate borders of the laminated cards a necessary maze between the sleeping and waking minds of those around her. They are not frightening; she is used to the startled reactions, the wary nods. She is only telling the story she sees, laid out in a cross that was old when the deserts were born.

Tea leaves in the bottom of a cup, bones made from the fingers of a wise man, the pattern of blood spattered on a scraped hide. Stories, only.

"I am afraid of what I might see," she repeats helplessly, not knowing how to say it any other way. "I don't want to be wrong." The others nod, but already they murmur their objections. She can only do the best she can, they say. She can only try, that the effort in itself is important. The rightness of it, the wrongness, that is not for her to decide. It is not as if this is something she cannot do. They are strong, all of them are growing into it and they will protect her, each other. There is no reason to be afraid.

They cannot know, with their gifts blazoned on their skin, in their eyes, in the crushing strength of a hand that can still hold a cylinder of tin without a dent. Their gifts are on the surface. When control is lost, it can be corrected, contained, captured again. Once more made to serve.

She will never know what she sees. She will never know, not like looking at the picture of the man with ten swords buried in his back, just one of the truths waiting in the deck to be told in someone else's story.

"You don't understand!" she says, as if words alone will describe what she fears. And for a heartbeat, two, her eyes become dark, blue eclipsed by raven wing black. She is lost. She has lost.

She will never know what she says; whether truth or lies or the terrible mix of both that leads good men to forgotten graves. Her name is not Cassandra but in another time and place, it might have been.

"When I See for Diego, everyone will be afraid."

What God gives, he cannot exactly take back. But He does not have to explain Himself.

[Mercy Strike]

She punched the pillow. It caved instantly with a mute look of reproach. She hit it again.

Behind her, the door to the quad clicked open. Aura didn't look, just lined up for another shot. Of all the brainless, stupid, moronic...! She whacked the pillow again, imagining she'd come up with the absolutely, most perfect thing to say right at the very end and he'd been left standing there feeling stunned and ashamed and then of course he'd come find her and he'd tell her how sorry he was for how he'd treated her and what he'd said, even if she couldn't remember everything exactly, and then she'd just forgive him because it was the right thing to do and then she'd just explain....

"Aura, you okay?"

She whirled on the bed and just glared at Alex.

"That's a really dumb thing to say." Some part of her couldn't believe she'd just said that but the voice was small and rote.

"Probably, but I couldn't think of anything else." Behind the brown haired girl, Joni edged into the room as if using Alex as a shield. Her ears were flattened down but she spoke anyway, her soft voice accented with nervousness.

"Um... can Alex and I.... talk to you?"

"Why?" As soon as it left her lips she opened her mouth to apologise. That was mean. Joni didn't deserve that.

"You know we wouldn't bring this up if it weren't important..." Problem was, everything was important to Joni. Everything was earthshaking to Joni. Crossing the quad without Alex to hold her hand was probably a red letter day in Joni's books. Aura felt herself scowling. They were just going to sit there and tell her not to be mad when none of it was her fault.

"I don't want... he's the one being stupid! Yelling at me in Spanish so I won't understand." Aura grabbed the abused pillow, hugging it to her chest. "I don't want to talk about Diego."

The two girls seemed to take the outburst as permission to move farther into the room. Joni sat down gingerly on the edge of her bed as Alex moved in to hover by her shoulder. Together they made a tableau of anxious butterflies, their expressions nearly identical. Under any other circumstance, the similarity might have made Aura giggle. " ...It's not about him. Um, it's... about Spyros."

"Spyros? What about Spyros?" Aura scowled again. "I thought he was great. He was beautiful and wonderful and did you see how he noticed me? Out of everybody!"

Joni glanced at Alex, maybe asking permission. "....I'm just...you have to know...." Joni took a breath. "He was... I mean... he is a bad influence on Mieri. I mean, really bad. He tried to get her to move to the Isles, you know." The pale girl was acting like it was a fate worse than death, her eyes entreating Aura to understand just how terrible it was. Aura rolled her eyes.

"What's wrong with that? They're good friends, remember?" The emphasis was unmistakeable.

Joni fired back immediately. "And quit school?"

Aura wasn't even close to phased. "So what? School is not that exciting. In case you haven't noticed." She set her jaw and stared at her roommate and Alex. "I'd quit school too to be with a guy like that."

"Aura!"

"Okay, fine, I wouldn't." Aura struggled for a second, then burst out. "How could he talk to me like that? I am not walking off a cliff, just because somebody handsome wants to flirt with me. Gosh, boys do it all the time! Just who does he think he is, anyways?"

Joni just stared at her. "I thought we weren't talking about Diego."

"We're not." Aura dropped the pillow into her lap and thumped it. Joni sighed.

"Alex?" The plea for rescue was obvious.

The overhead light flickered off Alex' glasses as the other girl took a deep breath. "Spyros... I'm ... I mean, we're pretty sure that Spyros isn't as nice as he... seems."

Okay, this was like something right out of a bad novel. She just stared at the other two. They didn't look like their brains had been sucked out their ears in the last hour, even if it had obviously happened. "Most everybody isn't as nice as they seem, I'm not that much of a dumb bunny. Gosh, I'm not trying to marry the guy." That was entirely the wrong thing to say. She hurried on. "I just want to get into a corner and practice some stuff. Just as long as Mieri isn't around to get in the way."

"Aura, you can't!" That was Joni but it was Alex who kept talking.

"You have to listen to us. I'm telling you, Mieri seemed perfectly happy dating Will and she kept saying she was going to break it off with Spyros but every time she got anywhere close to him, she just went to mush." Joni nodded like her head was on strings. Aura just about lost it.

"What, just because a girl liked him better than her so-called boyfriend, he's like what? Some sort of alien? With icky creepy alien telepathy?" Aura wiggled her fingers at them. "Well, I'm not buying it. And even if he is an alien, he's still cute and I like him way more than I like you guys right now." The truth of the matter was, she had no idea if she liked him or not and she'd seen plenty cuter. But Joni and Alex were staring at her like she'd just grown a third head and it just made Aura madder.

Alex leaned forward, her voice lowering to a near whisper. "He might... he really could be. You know. Using mind control. As an edge. We've talked about it and it's the only thing that makes sense." Joni looked worried as if she actually believed what Alex was saying.

"Do I look mind controlled?"

Alex shook her head. "Nope. But neither does Mieri." The logic was apparently inescapable going by the identical expressions. Did they practice it in the mirror? Aura groaned and threw herself back on the bed for a second. Gosh, this was like arguing with a brick wall. A brick wall with good, if dumb, intentions. She sat back up again and pointed a finger at them.

"You ever think for a minute that maybe it doesn't look like we're mind controlled, because we're not mind controlled?" She waved both hands. "Gosh, you guys! He's handsome. He's romantic." Aura floundered for a moment.

"He's everything you hope for in a guy?"

Aura just stared at Alex, jolted out of herself for a second. Joni managed to look awkward without moving a muscle. If she didn't know Joni as well as she did, she'd have thought the other girl hadn't even taken a breath since she walked into the room. Aura fumbled for an answer.

"Well, he was best looking one there, definitely." Something had to add spitefully; "Being that all Diego did was stand there looking like a thundercloud."

"... And act like a jealous boyfriend." Alex took another shot but this one Aura was ready for, dismissing it instantly.

"He can't act like a jealous anything because he isn't anything. Except medieval and... and draconic." She spat out the twenty five cent word with triumph. "What, does he think I'm twelve and never kissed anything but my puppy? Gosh."

"...then if he's not jealous, why, um.... do you not trust him then?" Joni's soft question floated across the room but by the uncomfortable expression on her face, she already wanted to take it back. Aura yelped with frustration.

"Trust him? With what!" She whacked the almost forgotten pillow that had fallen to the side with the flat of one hand. "He just wants me to See stuff, like it's a switch I turn off and on. 'Quick Ora, See around the next corner so I do not esstrip over something'."

Alex' "I doubt that!" was overriden by Joni's, "I thought you spent time together because you were friends."

The voice trailed away. Aura just stared after it in confusion. She picked up the pillow and hugged it, feeling the unaccountable prickle of tears before scowling them away.

"We are not friends. Not anymore, not if he's going to be like that. And if I see Spyros again, I am going to march right up and talk to him and get to know him an awful lot better than I do right now and absolutely nobody is going to stop me." She narrowed her eyes. "You guys are just being... being freaked out, with this ickyity micky mind control, right out of the late night movies stuff. You're just jealous he didn't notice you."

Alex made a face but Joni started to giggle. She stifled it almost as soon as Alex looked down, her ears flattening from the half mast they'd risen to. Aura wasn't finished though.

"And if that's all you have, that obviously he's got alien telepathy because otherwise why else would anybody like him, when he's rich and handsome and charming.... I'm going to go to the quad and try talking to St. Joseph who at least doesn't say dumb things like that."

"Aura, please. There's something really wrong about him. Mieri... "

Her temper rose again. "What about Mieri?! Girls. Like. Boys." She glared at the pair of them like she'd never seen them before. "Especially dark panther boys! You two really need to get out of the dark ages, yourself."

Joni spluttered, "I don't..."

Alex was the one who cinched it. "I don't date." Her expression was closed, her voice final. As if it was the worst thing in the world to happen to somebody. Aura threw the pillow at the wall. She hopped down from the bed, near vibrating with something hard to name.

"Well, you should try it. It would probably help."

And she stormed out the door.

[Mercy Strike]

You're not being fair.

The mind voice was quiet and very carefully non-judgemental. Mercy had had a lot of time learning how to deal with her bond-mate.

Aura threw another rock into the black water below, listening morosely for the splash. She swung her sneakers out over the drop. She'd just spent the last forty five minutes going over just how much everybody was going to be sorry when they fished her cold, dead body out of the turgid river. She'd pretty much finished imagining how all her friends would react and exactly what they'd all say, paying particular attention to the scene where Spyros showed up at her funeral with his arms full of black roses, wearing this really spiffy black coat with silver buttons. Mercy had waited until she'd milked that, with a few variations, before interrupting the fantasy.

"I don't want to be fair." It was petulant and she knew it. Still, if she couldn't say it to Mercy, who could she say it to? "He had no right to say that stuff to me."

Didn't you listen to a single thing Diego said? I did.

"I listened just fine. He's... "

A real moronic jerk, I know. For actually daring to point out that you don't know this guy Spyros from a hole in the ground, among other things. She could feel Mercy musing in the back of her mind. He was slick, I'll give him that. He was pretty damned nice to all the girls but he made sure to pay an amazing amount of attention to you. After you managed to throw yourself at his feet like a panting bitch, that is.

Aura squirmed. Mercy had a way of cutting through things that wasn't always pleasant. "I did not and I am not. Besides, he likes me for me. He said so."

In case you failed to notice, I'm pretty sure he's the kind of guy that would like any girl without brains. Which you did a remarkable impression of.

Aura hissed under her breath, her eyes smouldering as she stared down into nothing. "Are you calling me stupid, too?"

No. But I've never known you to get so mad at somebody over absolutely nothing before. Which means you're actually mad about something else.

She fumbled around for another rock. Her fingers closed over something and she hurled it in a wide arc.

"I. Am. Not. Mad."

No, I'm pretty sure you're furious. But you're just driving yourself into a frenzy with it and I can't tell what it's really about since you're holding it in so tight, you've got us both vibrating. You keep trying to grab power, you know.

Aura looked down with astonishment. She wasn't actually glowing but her fingernails did have that suspiciously clear look. "I am?"

Would I lie to you? The girl was surprised by that into a traitor giggle, old joke, first joke ever. Aura curled her fingers into the edge of the rough concrete support and found herself rocking, resentment fighting against the tacit offer of support from her best friend, her only real friend in the whole world. You weren't listening to a thing Diego said, but that's besides the point. Neither of you are going to die from being idiots to each other. Aura clenched her teeth as resentment won. You've been having nightmares you can't remember ever since you had the bad taste to See something where somebody could hear you, and I can't help you when you won't even think about it. Not to mention we may have more important problems. Shimmerfall's worried.

"Worried about what? I thought you Kheldians just floated through everything."

There was the sense of evasion again, so common whenever the subject of Mercy's warshade boyfriend came up. There's... never mind. You won't be listening to a single thing I say either. Head's up, look left.

Aura glanced over. The double vision settled in like a pair of goggles and the nausea made her gag unexpectedly. The figure just starting to climb the spanning curve of the bridge wavered in and out of vision. She squinted, trying to bring the figure into focus. When it did, she blanched.

"Mercy! How could you!"

Easily. You didn't even notice me making the call, did you?

Diego strode purposefully towards her position, his bare arms brown in the sun. There was no faltering or surprise in his posture to see her sitting there, which meant Mercy really had done what she'd just said; taken over the body during her distraction and told him where they... she was. Aura felt the betrayal like a cold, indignant fist in her gut.

"I'm never going to forgive you for this," she hissed between her teeth.

There are more important things than your forgiveness, Aura. There was remote anger coupled with crisp authority in the words. I can't have you distracted by all this. Get it sorted out. There was a pause, then; You do not want me to sort it out for you.

"Mercy!" she hissed again, frantic. Diego was almost in earshot.

Try apologising. And listening. If you need me, I'll be close enough to hear but otherwise, you're on your own, Luna. With that parting shot, Aura felt Mercy withdrawing, pulling their awareness of each other farther and farther apart until it was only a tenuous, frightening thread. She gulped and hastily looked down. It wasn't a moment too soon either as a shadow fell over her shoulder. Her skin prickled with the memory of anger and the less appealing realisation of just how rude she'd been. He sat down and she could feel the warmth of his skin radiating between them.

The silence dragged on. And on. He didn't say anything, didn't move, didn't do anything but just sit there, taking up space and air. Eventually she couldn't take it anymore.

"I really don't like you right now, you know. You had no reason to say any of that." The argument ran through her head like a movie on fast forward and the biggest injustice stuck out. "Especially the stuff I didn't understand."

She saw his chest rise and fall out of the corner of her eye. "I have reasons," he replied finally. "And es many can no understand me. Why should you be different?" In another mood she might have heard the self-deprecation. She bristled instead.

"Somebody decides they like me, and somehow it's my fault that nobody understands you?" She clamped her jaw down on the fact that he'd never bothered to pay attention to what she'd been doing before or who she'd been doing it with. Just dumb, silly Aura, doing dumb, silly Aura things and he'd never even so much as blinked in her direction before a few weeks ago. She could have been kissing chickens and he wouldn't have noticed.

"I can't let you walk into danger and say nothing. I can't let you risk yourself and do nothing." He was being calm, reasonable, his profile clean against the backdrop of distant buildings. He was looking down at the water instead of at her and that infuriated her all over again.

"Danger? Risk? On a dance floor? Did you think I was going to twist my ankle?" She snorted, trying to remember exactly how Bethany did it. "I'm a way better dancer than that."

Diego's voice was flat. "He es hiding something. Something ugly."

It sounded so much like what Alex had said that she could have screamed. "So? What if he is? I'm not going to marry him, Diego." Her teeth snapped shut with an audible click, a heartbeat too late.

Out of the corner of her eye he swallowed, tension curving like sudden bronze over his shoulder. It skirled through the air between them, something that she desperately tried to ignore, not wanting anything to do with it. No. Oh, no, she wasn't, she wasn't ever. Erase, start again. "I just ... wanted to have a good time. What's wrong with that?"

"Es nothing wrong with that. But I..." Diego paused, and never finished whatever he was going to say. He stared down into the blackness below instead, the line of his jaw tight. "Anyway. I can no esstop you do what you want. But know what you es getting into. No have to walk blind."

Aura tried laughing but it came out a little too strangled to serve. "He's handsome and romantic and just like somebody in a novel, and I happen to like that." She felt the rough pour of the concrete digging into the pads of her fingers. "So does Mieri, I bet - and for the record, he probably does kiss like a panther." She threw it out there like a barbed hook.

He winced as it scored. It made her feel petty and mean and vindicated somehow. But his voice stayed reasonable, if rough. "He es like candy-coated poison. You es better than him."

"That's awfully melodramatic. And I am not better than anything. I'm just Aura, remember? I'm not anything special."

"Just because es melodrama no mean es untrue." He turned his head then and she was caught unexpectedly in his brown eyes. "And Aura? You es very especial."

Aura wrenched her gaze away and stared down at the water, fuming. Special, sure. Special in the one way that he wanted, special only because of the one thing she could do, like she was some sort of walking party trick. Special because of something she was going to be, not something she was. She blinked away tears she couldn't explain to herself.

"It's my ch... choice if I want to take candy-poison, then. You're not my big brother, you know." Or anything else, but she couldn't get the words out.

She felt him sigh, his body balanced lightly beside her. Always graceful, even when he wasn't moving. She felt small and grubby. "No. Not really. I no even know what that es like; I was youngest brother, and I never have sister. But I esstill no want see something bad happen to you."

She ground her teeth together, like it was going to help. It didn't last. "Like what? You are so stuck in the 16th century sometimes! You're acting like Spyros is going to kidnap me or tie me up or.. or something horrible. And that stuff only happens in the movies, really. Nothing bad is going to happen to me in the middle of a dance floor. I am not under some sort of spooky alien telepathy, like Joni thinks." He blinked at her and she ducked her head. "Wow, that is so dumb, just saying it."

"Something bad could happen," he said quietly. She felt him lean closer as if proximity would make the argument more convincing. Stray sunlight glinted off the mesh of his shirt as he shifted. "That es what I es trying tell you. I no know what, or if es even going to happen. But something bad can happen, because es something bad y ugly he es hiding." She could feel him staring down at the top of her head and she hunched her shoulders. "I no want anything bad happen to you, Aura." She opened her mouth. "And, if something did? Then you would see me get like century 16." His voice was grim with undercurrents of something older and scarier. "Noble of España in that day no took such things lightly."

Aura closed her mouth as the tiny, platinum bleached hairs on her arm rose up. It was not a comfortable feeling. She cast around for something to say, anything at all.

"I can handle myself." It came out weak but she kept going. "And I will kiss whoever I want, whenever I want, for any reason I want, including just because I want to." She asserted what she knew, desperately pushing the words out like thorns to drive him back. "You don't have a say in it. You are not my big brother and you aren't anything else." The words not yet hung in the air.

If he heard them, he didn't acknowledge them either. "Esta bien. I hope you es right, y nothing happen. I es be there either way." He shrugged. "I may no be a Mercy, but I es can come in handy now and again."

Mercy. Shimmerfall. Aura blinked, feeling a shiver of something strange crawl down her bones. For a moment her vision wavered but she shook her head and it went away. She clutched at the support under her hands, wanting the reassurance of solidity. What had he said? "You don't... you don't have to be here for anything at all and I sure don't need your help. And if I did... I'd ask." She wrinkled her nose. "Maybe I'll get lucky and get kidnapped like in one of those books Sister Salvation likes to read and you can rescue me and feel good about everything. I bet you'd like that just fine."

His face twisted. "That es no funny. And I....I es no interest en be esslave to some esscript. No choose anything ever. I just can no ignore duty."

"That's not true." The response was automatic, rapid-fire. "You choose every moment." She believed in it. Didn't she?

"Do I? Or I just think I do?" His reply was equally fast, just as practiced.

"Every day, Diego, you choose. You can ignore anything, every .. every mind you have, everything is yours to .. to not care about. People do, you know. Stop caring." She glared at him finally, feeling suddenly sure of herself. "You always act like destiny is locked into your bones and it's not. You're not some sort of slave, gosh. Fall off the bridge and drown yourself. You can if you want to." She bit her lip on the rest of it, which offered to push him off herself. Some of her was horrified for even thinking it, but there was another part giggling at the mental image. Diego, windmilling all the way down to the water. Spyros turning up at the funeral with... white roses?

He had no idea, his voice turning remote even as his expression hardened. "I es afraid, Aura. I say, I have to do duty. I say, I can no fail. I say I must do this. I say it, because I es terrify of what happen if I do not."

"Nothing would happen." She felt smug for a second. "That's what scares you, isn't it? That nothing would happen and it would mean nothing mattered and that's a really horrible, frightening thing."

"Oh, oh no, niña. Something will happen." He looked down at her, his expression disapproving. The sun cast a halo of gold around his hair. "Es too late now. I have wear mask. To get mask off, I es become Knight. So when I die...my soul es join those of other Diestros. I fail, es no just, I will have fail family. Lose legacy. Be deny heritage. In death, I will be with other Diestros, and they will know I have fail them, when they all succeed." He smiled, but it was no smile at all. "I will be failure, with my soul trap with those who depended on me to succeed."

She must have made some startled sound. Diego turned away, almost as if he couldn't bear to look at her face.

"I have never tell anyone that."

Listen.

Was this what Mercy had been trying to say? She felt the confession of it sinking down and through and into her. Her breath caught in her throat and she swallowed and swallowed again the horrible silence behind it.

How could you live like that, that fate over your head? How could Diego....

Duty.

Aura knotted her fingers in her lap. She felt very small and very, very petty. Her entire argument, based on frightened anger, crumbled like ash and fell into the water below. She didn't want to help Diego, but for what reason? She didn't believe? She didn't want to be wrong? She wanted to be valued for who she was, not what? When what she was, was what he needed?

It hurt. It hurt so much. She stared at her hands.

He shifted beside her. "Essorry, Aura," he mumured. "I no want make you feel bad for me. Es not so terrible a thing."

"My mom," she started softly, not daring to look up in case he realised she was close to tears with unexpected, bell-struck empathy, "always tells me that what you do, what you give, comes back to you three times. That's why I always try to be happy because I want that to come back to me. I don't have duty. I'm just Aura, nobody has ever..." She stopped and started again, trying to feel her way through the maze of words. "I don't want to be your duty, Diego. I just don't." She took a deep breath. She was not afraid. She was not afraid. "But I don't want this to come back to me three times, threefold, not for something I can.. I can give. Something I can do."

Could she? She sat there paralyzed, thinking of how many ways she couldn't help. She wasn't strong like Sam, or fast like Vesper, or determined like Carla. She didn't even know how she did what she did. If she did anything at all. But she forced the rest of it out through stiff lips.

"I didn't really mean it when I said I wouldn't See for you, and you don't have to see me first. You don't even have to like me if you don't want to." It felt like any moment she was going to fall off the bridge and she leaned back, frightened of the vertigo. "I'll help you," she whispered finally. "I'll try my best."

"No." His voice had an odd timbre, although what he was negating she wasn't sure of. "I do like seeing you, Aura. Just because I no.....es no like I don't think....you es very...." Diego stumbled. "Ay, I no es very good with word."

She looked up. His expression was so strange, impossible to define. Hope, maybe? Triumph? Uncertainty, for sure. Fear? She wasn't about to vanish although some part of her felt like she was about to do just that. Her heart was beating against its cage of bone like a trapped bird. She had no idea what she'd just promised.

"It's okay," she said, struggling for dignity. "You don't have to try and explain."

"I no want you misunderstand. I do like when you es around. Es....brighter." He ran a hand through his hair. "Y no just literally."

She smiled, felt it curve around her mouth like something she'd half-forgotten. "My mom says good energy comes back three times too."

"Bueno," he said, his hand moving out, half raised towards her. To touch? "Then I es one of them, and I would no like you esstay away. Aura..." She heard breath being sucked in, felt his resolve crystallising like a cage around them both. "Adivina, I es have be able to trust you en total. You can no tell anyone else things I tell you. Like...like just now...what I say...."

"Not even Mercy?" So what if she said it softly? It went up into the air like a shout.

His hand lowered and a grimace crossed his face. For the first time she noticed a scar next to his eye, shaped like a tiny star. Some part of her wanted to reach out and touch it. She clenched her fist in her lap. "I esstill know nothing of Mercy, really....if es impossible keep from her, and she will no keep secret?"

"I trust her," she said simply. Honesty gave her the rest. "But I don't expect you to."

"I want be able tell you things I no can share with anyone else, Aura; I trust you." The emphasis was unmistakable. "But I can no do that if es others going to hear."

She nodded jerkily. A car rumbled by on the deck above, shaking the beams and she was suddenly aware again of the sound of the waves and the cry of distant seagulls. She shuddered and didn't know why.

"It's not easy," she replied finally. Her mouth was dry. "But Mercy doesn't have to know anything. We can.. not be together, when I'm with you." She felt naked then, inexplicable fear tangling under her tongue. It was possible, sure. Mercy had done it once, angry beyond reason, leaving her stranded at the top of a building for hours. She could do the same back, she was sure she could do the same.

And while she was with Diego, she would be only Aura in truth. Even now, Mercy could still hear her if something terrible were to happen; hear and swarm back full of light and protection.

She smiled though, and nodded. "It's not easy," she repeated helplessly. "But I'll explain it." Somehow. "I can do that - for you."

"Gracias," he said. He did reach out then and took her hand from her lap. Surprised, she let him. His thumb rested dark over her wrist. She could feel the callus at the tip.

"I pledge esswords, I pledge service, kind unto kind, donec mors tuus sum."

"Wh... what?"

"This es no essmall thing you do. I can do no less. Pledge es way Diestro dedicates to cause. That es pledge of service for service; I es you sword en any task you need."

Aura flushed. "Oh. Wow." She stared down at her white hand in the loose clasp of his like it belonged to somebody else. "If I accept, does this mean I can make you scale a mountain to slay something?"

"Diestro es serve Aura la Adivina en equal measure she aid Diestro. You cause es my cause, beside you en adversity, in front of trouble. Call, y I es ready to esslay." He grinned then, small and white. "I es probably use magic boots to jump up mountain, though."

She couldn't have helped herself if she'd tried. She giggled and the frisson of the moment cracked, if not broke.

"Okay. Alright. I accept .. your pledge. As I help you, you help me. And I won't tell anybody. But you have to promise, you can't be a real dragon about things."

"Esta bien," he said, still with the grin on his face. Then he did the next surprising thing. He leaned down and she watched with ghost fascination as her fingers rose in his. His lips brushed the back of her hand. "Trato hecho, Doña."

What do you say to something like that? She told herself her hand wasn't tingling. She told herself it didn't mean anything, at least, not anything like she wanted it to mean. What did she want it to mean?

She snatched her hand back and stared at him. Gold and brown and bronze and a faint scent of sweat, Diego without a mask. No. She had no idea what she was seeing, but suddenly she couldn't breathe for it. She scrambled in confusion to her feet. He rose uncertainly beside her and he was just too close, too warm, too tall... too everything.

Aura stammered something out and bolted. It was the only thing she could think of to do.

[Mercy Strike]

Her fingers curled half possessively into the deep silk of his shirt. It was like touching water, it was so smooth beneath her hands with the warmth of his skin beating through.

It might not have been exactly forbidden. She might have said she was free to do as she pleased. There might even have been no one else there to care what she did or did not do.

Still, even as his dark head bent down, she squirmed with the scared excitement of it all. Her lips parted with expectation a heartbeat before his mouth descended and cut off all thought of anything else.

Oh.

[Mercy Strike]

The sun hadn't quite cleared the trees yet in her little kingdom, so the grass was uncomfortably damp as she settled to the ground. Aura made a face as the cold immediately soaked into her jeans. The ghosts of all the Christmas' ever past had really, really better appreciate this.

She didn't even know why she'd agreed to it. Well, actually, she did. She'd been browbeaten. Coerced. Shanghaied. Press ganged. A bunch of other words that meant that this wasn't something she did for just anybody, you know. Especially not dead anybodies with more questions than brains. She liked that image so much that she sat there for a few minutes, soaking up both dew and self-righteousness. It would serve them right if she had gone to Rasa's Ricksaw & Rockets Emporium and picked up wards for three dollars a half dozen. Those ones even came inscribed with arcane symbols on the sides done in cheap silver gilt which scratched off if you used your fingernail.

Except as annoying as they were, they hadn't asked for protection for themselves because she'd have given them plastic snap-together jewelry if they'd so much as dared. No, they had to insist on behalf of Diego. And as unsettled as they'd made her with their cadences from other centuries, she wouldn't let Diego down. Not for all the tea in China.

So here she was, a pebble digging into her tailbone, nobly and virtuously ignoring the fact that he'd already managed to ask her three times this week when the wards might be ready. As if protection rings just magically appeared out of nowhere like genie's wish, poof, just like that. Just what sort of baby beginner did they think she was? Or worse, what kind of half-baked wards had they been used to?

She rummaged through the battered Hello Kitty backpack, pulling out the ingredients for the ritual. First, the tupperware container of water. She'd gotten that from the font in the empty church since she didn't really think Father Montoya or any watching angels would mind. Besides, wasn't water from churches technically supposed to be holy just by proximity? She carefully popped the lid so she didn't spill anything and, with a glance at the sky, settled it to the west.

Second to come out was the small brown paper bag of dirt. That had been a little trickier to get since technically nobody was allowed onto the grounds of the cloister upon pain of detention until you died, but still, she'd managed by being awfully fast and sneaky. She probably could have just visited a graveyard but something had told her that wasn't what she wanted. She always trusted her feelings when it came to setting these things up. The energies had to be right for everything to work to its full potential and if getting the ground walked on by creepy nuns was what the ritual wanted, well... she hadn't gotten caught, that was the main thing.

She put the double handful of sanctified earth to the north, tearing the paper bag down the seams to expose the small mound. She chewed her lip and checked the sun again. She moved the bag a few inches over until she was satisfied.

The next thing was the stubby red candle. Actually, it was a stick of mostly melted sealing wax but for this it was perfect because the color would stay true, no matter how much more she burned. She'd definitely learned her lesson with the black jiffy marker experiment. She poked a finger at the ground at the south corner of her imaginary compass, scraping a little indentation to settle the misshapen blob in. She packed the earth around the edges so it wouldn't list too much, scrubbing the dirt off on her thigh afterwards.

The second to last thing she carefully removed from the plastic baggie since she didn't want to crush it any more than she already had. Standing in Montgomery's Cupboard yesterday, she hadn't been able to decide on the desert sage or white sage sprigs, sniffing first one, then the other so much that she'd gotten woozy. Finally she'd just taken a couple of each, since if she'd stayed there much longer trying to figure out which was stronger, the guy behind the counter would have probably thought she was trying to get high.

She balanced the dried plants on her knee, leaning forward at the waist to tease a corner of the brown paper bag away from the north element. That went on the ground to the east and she broke the sage into careful pieces on top, ready to burn.

Aura checked everything again, her fingers dancing quickly over the elements as if counting. Water, fire, earth, air and the cardinal points to direct the energy. She could feel it building under her hands already, the slight upward pressure that said this was right, this was correct, this was what needed to happen. She pulled the lighter from her pocket and put it front where she could reach it easily when the time was right.

Then she pulled the second paper bag from the pack, taking a deep breath.

This had taken most of the money she'd saved up to go to the movies with. She could have gotten them cheaper from her mom's store because she had an amazing staff discount there, but that would have required a really big explanation of why she'd needed so many. She certainly didn't want to mess up by starting off with a really big lie either. So even if the guy at Montgomery's thought she was some sort of sage addict, he'd still wrapped up the eclectic mix without demanding to know why she needed so many protection stones.

She awkwardly juggled the bag, pouring the handful into her left hand. She'd handled them last night so they'd get used to her but hadn't spent a lot of time since most of the work was going to happen today. There was no point infusing energy when it was just going to be wiped clean again. She checked the filtered light again, trying to figure out how long before the sun would clear the trees. Maybe an hour.

Aura settled more firmly then, grounding herself automatically to the center of the world. The rush of connection was soft this time, a brush of a feather along her spine. She wasn't cold, she wasn't annoyed at having to be up this early on a Saturday, she wasn't missing the movie she wouldn't have a chance to see now. Her eyes fluttered closed, lashes brushing her cheeks. She wasn't proud of her skills, she wasn't out to make the ghosts eat their words, she was... just the conduit.

Breathe.

Protection. Strength. Intuition against the unseen. Warning against the unknown. All of these things, she needed. She contemplated each of the things she wanted here at the beginning, considering balance above all. After awhile her left hand twitched as the stones grew heavier than they had, which was good. She moved past it and meditated, her face uptilted and quiet.

When she opened her eyes, they were blank and dreamy. With her right hand she picked up the lighter and sparked the candle to life. She moved her hand and set the paper under the sage alight. She watched the tiny flame lick out to consume the easy tinder until finally the small dried leaves caught. She blew it out then, careful not to scatter the pieces. It smouldered fragrantly and she breathed it in, hyperconscious of the smell.

Unhurriedly Aura picked up the first stone between forefinger and thumb and buried it in the tiny bit of earth, thinking of the immense strength beneath her. She waited a moment, then picked it up and passed it through the candleflame three times, thinking hard of purification. She held it then over the wisping smoke, letting the air curl over and around, concentrating of clarity, the ability to see beyond. And then she dropped it into the little bowl of water.

One by one she cleansed each bead of any influence not her own; black, red, silver, gold, plinking them into the plastic container until all the colors glimmered at the bottom. When she finished the sun had cleared the top of the trees so she'd timed it pretty well. Her left hand was a little cramped so she wiggled her fingers as she blew out the candle, dousing the sage by dumping the earth on it and patting it down. The leftover wax went back into her pack. Finally she stood, stomping her feet and stretching. Her butt felt numb and she sucked on her slightly scorched fingertips.

Stage one, complete. She'd come back in the afternoon after the stones had absorbed the purity of the water and more strength from the sun. By that point, she should be able to charge them until they quivered.

Aura bounced on her heels, suddenly very pleased with herself. She wasn't a baby, not with this. These wards would be the tightest she'd ever made, she could feel it already. If anything fooled with Diego, she was pretty sure she'd be able to tell just by being close to them. If not, she'd definitely know by touching them.

And she knew just how to make sure he never forgot and left them behind.

[Mercy Strike]

I love this.

The back of my neck is sticky with sweat now, hair plastered in thin white ropes to my shoulders. The music is a monster heartbeat. It pounds through everything without remorse or pity and I'm moving to it with everyone else, that's the best part, all of us convulsing together like we're one animal slaved to the heart attack sound. My mouth is full of the smell of leather and salt, too many people, too close together for too long and I swallow it down over and over, panting.

I don't know the words or the band and it doesn't matter, raise my hands with everyone else and beat out the rhythm with my fists. I love this so much; the beads of perspiration sliding down my bare spine to soak into my jeans, the fact that I can't breathe, the tremble of exhaustion in my legs that tells me I'm having a good time, the best time, the only time in the whole world when there's no space for questions, doubt, fear. Just motion. Just joy.

The guy behind me locks an arm around my waist and maybe it's for support or maybe for something else, it never matters. His legs mold to mine and it's like.. like being held in a cradle. We move then, suddenly I becomes us and we dance, a tiny circle in the middle of all these larger ones, just like a gear interlocking. Yes. All of us not an animal but a machine, pushing towards some terrible, unknown purpose. I push back, wanting more contact. His fingers dig into my skin, his chest moving wet against my back.

I've gone curiously blind with the overhead lights that flare in my eyes, dazzle and dark and dazzle again. I'm dancing for boy behind me, the girl next to me who's punk haircut looks like frosted icing, enough silver piercings in her face to actually be frightening. I'm not giving up until she does and she knows it and she's grinning wide enough to be a Cheshire tiger, gulping air, the ripped black tshirt showing caramel flesh in flashes. I shake my hair and she rakes her hands through hers, posing.

Yes, oh yes, please, yes. More.

The chorus howls up, higher and higher and we scream then as one, hands like a graveyard reaching as if it's something we can all touch. I jump up, reaching too, wanting it too. The finale is like nothing else, the growl of guitars like mountains moving, the raw vocals like a broken angel somewhere way up where I can't see. The spotlights nova and everything is freeze framed in black and white, stuttering and then it's over and I can't see, can barely think, and I'm so hot suddenly it feels like I'm going to die.

Maybe I am. I can't tell, blinking in the darkness, lost in the center of abandoned purpose. I can't find the girl in the tshirt which is too bad but I really need to get out of here before I pass out. Start pushing my way through, suddenly needing out so much more than I wanted in. I twist through the surging waves of people, one little piece trying to escape.

I don't know. I felt it and I don't even know what it was and at the last it was like I was so close, so full of something trembling sweet and hot in the lightning-shot darkness. Like I swallowed a snake to sink fangs into my spine. I hit the bathroom, half falling through the doors.

I splash water on my face, on my hair, run wet hands over my neck. Oh, that feels so good. My eyes in the mirror are black as anything, excited. My mouth looks bruised and I reach up to touch with my fingers. The nails are suspiciously clear and I stare at them in my reflection, fascinated.

What happens if I find the thing I can feel? Will I nova too? Just like the lights; incandescent, helpless reaction.

And outside, it starts again, thin through the walls but building anyways. There will be darkness and heat and being a part of something too big to comprehend, just one piece of a whirling, changing, spinning whole. I'm already turning away from the mirror to listen, shaking the water away from my fingertips.

Yes. Oh, yes.

More.

[Mercy Strike]

The heat of the fire was a caress on her face. It felt amazingly good after the cold bite of the downhill air outside, the snap of motion followed inevitably by the unintended stops. She'd landed so many times in a snowbank off to the side of the baby bunny ski run that she should probably change her name to the Abominable Aura. Still, it had been a whole lot of fun and she certainly hadn't been the only one wobbling off course. There'd been a lot of laughter and good natured jeering as others, also lured by the temptations of ice-slicked gravity, had pulled themselves out of the drifts with her. Eventually though the cold had driven her inside to find comfort and a third wind in a mug of chocolate.

The smell of resin rose around her as she sat on the corded wood, the babble of conversation yet another kind of warmth. She sipped cautiously; she'd already burned her tongue once.

People she knew started to arrive - Sarah, Billi, Malcolm. The arm around her shoulders had felt nice, a little circle inside the bigger one made by her friends. Thorn had swaggered in, then Tamesis and then Diego and it started to get noisy, people bragging and counter-bragging, the shuffling of warm mugs between cold hands and the uniform red noses that made everyone look like Rudolph's younger cousin. Even Diego had unbent enough to be smiling, raising his voice to refute a particularly impossible claim that had carried across the room.

Who started the snowball fight, she didn't know. But when the wet, slushy pack had hit the side of her neck she'd lost both chocolate and self composure in the time it took to shriek her surprise. She even caught a glimpse of Bethany's sharp features, for once open with astonishment, as she walked unknowingly up the stairs and right into a facewash. That was a point of smug pleasure.

At one point she launched herself at Thorn, half throttling him from behind and trying to get her hands over his eyes so he couldn't throw. How she managed not to get stabbed with something was a question for another day; eventually she was dislodged, bruising her tailbone. Retaliation for the ambush was swift; she ran for Diego to escape.

Her arms around his waist, trying to duck away from the pelting snow, it felt wonderful. He hadn't even questioned whether she'd deserved it either, just launched into the counter-offensive against what felt like the rest of the school, yelling something unintelligible. Under her hands, muscles jumped and moved as she cowered behind his back. Encouragement and laughter rose to the wide wooden beams.

Then when she shoved a handful of softly wet snow down the back of his jacket, a temptation of a target she just couldn't resist, he'd yelped but his eyes had sparkled. It had been wonderful.

Until exhaustion and sore muscles had called a halt to the play and Bethany had crooked her finger. And he left without even a murmur, pulling his wet collar away from his throat, unbuttoning the damp jacket. Malcolm was talking to Jessiy now, Billi was gone and Sarah.

She sat back down on the precarious stack of wood and folded her arms over her knees, trying not to shiver. Trying desperately not to care.

The fire, at least, was still warm.

[Mercy Strike]

Aura, don't.

The disapproval didn't stop her or the rigidly controlled fear either. She had to learn.

She took a deep breath and sprang into the air before she could change her mind or before Mercy could change it for her.

Power burst under her skin like a small sun, flashing through blood and bone. Her hands moved in not quite random patterns, painting the shield around her body as energy not exactly her own obeyed without complaint. For a moment she hovered above the embankment, a small feather of a girl. She swallowed and clenched her fists, scared out of her mind.

This, she knew how to do.

Then what couldn't be converted into motion flared into light. Gazelle swift, comet bright, she arrowed across the river for the nearest gun.

Automatic weapons turned on gimbals to track her approach, wide aperture bores staring like dark eyes. No audible alarms sounded, unnecessary probably as internal screens lit up deep in the control center. She didn't even know what installation this was other than the fact that it had to be important, built in one piece on an island in the center of the river. Barbed wire and forbidding concrete barriers meters thick, the ant-men on the walls with their dark uniforms and tiny guns - the thousand and one turrets.

This, she didn't know how to do.

One gun, she'd practiced with. One gun she could dodge now eight times out of ten. Against one gun she could win against or at least not lose.

Faster, low enough across the water that she could have reached down to touch the gray surface. The roiling energy she'd called furrowed her passage into hard white froth as the walls grew in her vision like a mountain.

No warning. No call to desist. The guns swiveled and fired.

In the first desperate seconds, she spun skyward, the water following in a plume as if to catch her in a fist. The tracers lit the trajectory, trying to pin her like a crucifix to the sky. Seventy years of technology meant for exactly, precisely this.

At the top of the apex she pivoted on one foot in a delicate mimicry of hesitation. Alignment below from three corners began to converge.

She fell, racing it down.

Mercy howled in fear and elation and Aura shed light like water, dancing in the air. For ten seconds, twenty, she lived, burning energy as if it could never run out. Coherent light twisted into streamers of destruction, vaporising the whining metal shards. Shields created, created again, thrown up in a furious wish to survive.

She was screaming too, archived memory of a thousand flights through a hundred skies translating into this one pale body not meant to move the way she did. Adrenalin terror made it all possible. Corona bright, she struggled to learn.

But on the twenty first, she died.

-------------------------------------

She blinked in the weak light of the afternoon, the clouds blocking out most of the sun. Her med badge winked mutely orange, upset no doubt at having to function at all.

Aura sighed and squared her shoulders. She turned back towards the river, feeling hollow.

Aura, don't. Don't do this.

She hesitated and decided to walk. It would take a little while and delayed the inevitable.

There was no choice. She had to learn to do this.

She couldn't count on anybody.