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.:Entry - In Which Chikara Discovers Paper Rain:.

The girl unlocked the door to the small bookshop in Durem with some difficulty: she had a rectangular package in her hand and was trying to wrestle with the door and package at the same time. Needless to say, the package was winning, and the goddamn stubborn door just would not give. The girl gave a sigh and rammed against the door with her hip. Nothing. The rain had indeed departed, leaving the residents of the community to curse at their now wet laundry. With a well aimed kick, the orange haired girl entered the shop and shut the door behind her, not bothering to change the sign from 'Closed' to 'Open', as the bar and book shop were both closed on Sundays.

Chikara meandered through her book shop, pushing books more firmly onto their dark wood shelves, or flicking a piece of dust from a piece of art, or adjusting the brightness of one of the many electric lights that dotted the walls. She crossed the room towards a door that read, "PRIVATE - DO NOT ENTER", in bright red letters and pushed it open. Behind the door was a dark, slightly ominous staircase that led up into the dark depths of Chikara-land. The girl smiled happily and slipped through the doorway towards the steps.

She walked up the stairs to her room, bouncing up and down with every step, and down the dingy hallway to the door. The floorboards would creak every so often with her weight, but other than that, the only sound that a normal person could hear would be the drumming of the rain on the roof above. She pressed against the door with the palm of her hand until she felt the doorknob click out of place and the lock give. She entered the worn out bedroom with a sense of contentment. Finally, she was out of the rain! Still wet, but she could dry later. She had more important things to think about right now.

Chikara crossed the room towards a wooden table. She examined it with a careful eye, and obviously dubbed it worthy. The girl then pulled out two packages from her jacket pocket. One, rectangular and cardboard, was placed on the right of the table. One, lumpy and slightly wet, was placed on the left. Chikara looked around the room nervously for a moment, then dashed towards the door, her bare feet sticking slightly on the wooden surface of the room, and shut it firmly behind her. She returned to the table and unwrapped the lumpy package. The glass shard inside slipped onto the shine of the wood finish with a slight tinkling sound. Chikara then opened the rectangular package to reveal a deck of cards.

She heaved a sigh of relief. They weren't wreaked from the rain, after all. That was good to know. She had paid a pretty penny for these cards, and was expecting a few good years of service from them. Chikara was planning to use the cards in order to check up on her other self in Catalyst, because something was telling her that she was having some trouble. If anything, Chikara hoped that she would be able to get an inkling of whether or not the fire-cat was alive, or had been killed by something. The plan was pretty good, she suspected, because Gabriel had told her that some forms of petty magic in her realm could be used to see into theirs, and tarot cards seemed to be the best choice.

Not only that, but they were really pretty, too.

She picked up the first card off the top of the deck. The Fool, she thought, setting the card down between the shard and the deck. She picked up the next card and looked at the illustration on the front. The Magician, she mouthed, trying out all the names in the cryptic languages at the top of the border. She placed this card next to the first, arranging them in a row. The next card read The High Priestess and the next, The Empress. These were both placed next to the first two cards, but the next card was placed below The Fool. The remaining trump cards were placed in rows of four on the table, their names all read silently by the girl. Chikara momentarily paused after Wheel of Fortune and The Devil, but only for a short while, studying the intricacies of the cards.

When the twenty-two cards were lined out in their rows (with the last two cards centered) between the shard and the remainder of the deck, the girl stopped the procession of reading and sorting to take a break. She was sensitive to things of this nature, of magic's ilk, and needed to breathe. She gazed around the room with tired eyes. There was the rug she had bought a few months back because the floor was cold, and there was the china cabinet that still didn't hold any china, and there the book case filled with old magazines, and there her bed which was the only bright thing in the room, covered in downy blankets and vibrant throw-pillows.

She walked towards a large rectangular window that was stationed to the left of the table and gazed out onto the streets of Durem. They were still being assaulted by rain, which was now accompanied by ferocious winds. As she watched, a woman ran after an umbrella that had flown off into the torrent. Chikara hissed her sympathy and cast her gaze elsewhere. Everywhere she looked, people seemed to be getting out of the rain with vigor. She was glad she had already thrown out that kettle of fish, because it looked like the storm was worsening. The girl opened the lock of the window with a click, if only for a moment, during a lull in the wind. She felt the cold rain splay over her face with some relief - it was hot in here! - and then shut the window.

The water seemed to help her lungs to stop clenching in on themselves, so Chikara turned back towards the table of cards and examined the trump cards more thoroughly. Each involved some sort of floral motif in the background, though there was a lot more underlying darkness than there was of the obvious light. She stared at the snake that was biting The Fool's leg for a few seconds, before tearing her gaze away to a small piece of paper that was stuck in the center of the unsorted deck. Chikara picked up the paper, being careful not to spill over the cards and wreck the pretty picture she had crafted, and looked it over.



The signature was smudged, but Chikara didn't seem to mind, or notice, for that matter. She placed the note parallel to the arrangement of trump cards and reached over to pick up the shard of glass. She figured that if she was going to practice with the cards, she might as well ask a simple question first, like, "Where did this come from?" Obviously, the piece of glass came from a cup or something, so maybe she'd get a card with a cup on it. It seemed simple enough. Cool. Awesome. Party. She lifted the shard up to eye level, expecting to see her reflection, but to her surprise, nothing. The girl stared incredulously and reached towards her deck to draw a card - not one of the major arcana, of course, because this was a trivial question. Her hand settled over the air above the deck -

Boom.

The window crashed open, allowing streams of rain and wind to flood the room. Chikara let out a shrill yell as the electricity went, and once again the girl was surrounded in colorless, soundless oblivion. She felt the wind blowing things about in her room, and the rain washing over her in waves. The sound of flying paper filled her ears - flying paper? Oh God, the deck! She took a few steadying breaths and attempted to see something...anything. Her efforts were not rewarded, however, until lightning struck outside and filled the room with yellow light.

Chikara still held the shard in front of her face, but at an angle. From this point, she could see the china cabinet over on the other wall, but it seemed to be much closer than across the room. She could see the grain of the wood, and the imperfections of the glass. And she could see the card stuck between the glass pane and the wooden frame of the window. It was The Devil, staring back at her with his one open eye, his pasty skin eerily glowing in the lighting-induced flash. His blue hair seemed almost to be flying about with the wind, and Chikara noticed that there were no flowers on this card, but a cave drawingish picture of a man being torn apart by two wild beasts. The card flickered slightly, and then was blown out of place by the wind again. She cried out, suddenly afraid that the card would be whipped out of her reach by the wind, and then the lighting ran out.

Once again bathed in darkness, Chikara found that she had been holding her breath. She let it out in a slow, restrained action and brought in another long breath, savoring the oxygen that was supplied to her worn out brain. Electric lights flickered on, and she gazed around the room for her cards. They were strewn about in various locations. Surprisingly, the window had shut itself. She picked up the cards that had flown off of the table (The Fool, The High Priestess, Wheel of Fortune, and The Devil) and placed them back in their appropriate places on the table. She glanced at the shard, which she still kept cradled in her hand, and noticed it was not reflecting anything, again. Too exhausted to think about it, the girl let the shard slide onto the wooden table without much thought, and wandered listlessly over to her bed, which was promptly smushed underneath a hundred-plus pounds of Chikara.

The first thing Chikara did after she fed Gilles a reasonable breakfast was to pick out the room in the far end of the hallway to serve as his bedroom, providing that they would buy furniture and other such necessities as a child's room needs, and that Gilles would like it. He didn't have any protests, however. In fact, he took one look around the room and sat down in the middle of it, clearly fascinated. She dragged him out of it once he had a chance to explore, and brought him downstairs to the bookshop and bar. She needed to open it before she left, and tell the bartender where she was going, and how he could reach her in case something happened.

When that was all over and done, she took Gilles' hand and brought him outside of the bookshop, into the sun. She did a terrible double take when the child screamed and turned, obviously trying to get back into the shop. However, he undoubtedly did not yet understand glass doors, and crashed full into the bookshop's CLOSED sign. Chikara stared for a few moments, completely unaware of what she should do, until Gilles started giving strangled sobs. She reached over and opened the door, and the boy scrambled in. He curled up next to the desk and looked at her. She approached slowly, because she didn't know what to do. Chikara was surprised when the child raised up his hands, obviously asking to be picked up.

"You want up?" Chikara asked, going through the gestures of one picking up a small child. Gilles nodded furiously. She bent down near the boy and wrapped uncertain hands around his waist. Gilles grabbed onto her shoulders and slung his legs around Chikara's hips, wiping away a running nose, and he stayed like that until he got tired of being held.

Chikara could tell that he was tired of being held when he started shouting.

"Down! Down! Down! Down!" He cried, pounding on Chikara's back with all the strength his little arms could muster. Chikara immediately placed him on the floor, with a cry of, "Good God!" She stared down at the boy, who was now a shade of crimson, which was quite a feat, because his skin was normally bluish. She sighed and asked, "So, you don't like the sun?" Gilles didn't seem to understand this, so Chikara brought out a piece of paper and a yellow crayon. She drew a large yellow ball in one corner and a stick figure Gilles with a sad face in the other.

This seemed to work in his head, and he nodded. "Yes. Sun...makes hurt." He gestured at his skin, so that she could know that it hurt his skin, and not anything else. It was quite obvious, actually, because his skin was so pale, and the sun burned Chikara when she went out, and she wasn't particularly pale.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Chikara, and she prodded him with her forefinger. "Hey, where did you learn how to talk?" Since he had seemingly appeared out of nowhere (all thoughts of her shiny shard had disappeared by now) and had not known what a mother was, it was obvious that...well, Chikara didn't know what was obvious, but she did want to know how he learned how to talk. She waited for the answer, but Gilles seemed to have trouble finding the right words to tell her. She let him puzzle for a moment while she poked through some objects behind the desk for something that would help with their sun problem.

"Color box." Gilles said, finally, after reviewing some of the words that he knew, and some of the words he didn't know, as well as those words that he thought he knew. Chikara looked up, surprised. He had learned to speak from the TV? Where did he find -- oh! The TV in the lowest level of the china cabinet. It was small, and didn't have much volume to its speakers, so he could have watched it all night and Chikara would never have known. That meant Gilles was smart. Chikara doubted that she could learn how to speak from watching TV all night. In fact, it didn't do much for her except scar her for life and make her need lots of coffee in the morning.

Chikara found what she was looking for with a triumphant shout. From behind the counter, she pulled a yellow-and-orange umbrella. "Here, this will keep the sun off of you. It's an umbrella. A super awesome umbrella, as a matter of fact. C'mon." She led a very skeptical Gilles to the door, and opened the umbrella to reveal that it was, in fact, shaped like a giant duck's head, complete with erect beak. Gilles blinked for a few seconds, staring at the ominous waterfowl, before stepping into the pool of shade that formed underneath it. Chikara handed him the umbrella, and noted with amusement that he clung onto it with both hands. She would have to get him some sunscreen so he wouldn't keep hurting himself going out under the sun, or else get him some sheer material to wear so the sun wouldn't hit his skin.

She waited until Gilles understood that the sun would not hit him, even if he moved, and then offered him her hand. He took it, his hand still underneath the umbrella, and walked after her down the streets of Durem. Luckily, Chikara wasn't very tall, so she didn't have to stoop down to keep Gilles' hand in her own, but rather, they could both walk hand-in-hand without straining themselves. It was very convenient, especially when escorting a small child down the streets of such a bustling city that Durem was. Chikara didn't have to worry about losing him.

They arrived at a small furniture store within a few minutes. Chikara had chosen this one, instead of the larger Faktori in Aekea, because she knew the owner personally through her own business. Occasionally, the man would need to take a few swigs of hard liquor on his way to work, and the bar was right in between his apartment and the furniture store. Thus, Chikara not only had friendship, but she could offer some free liquor instead of money, which she was low on right about now. She ushered Gilles inside and took his umbrella back, folded it up, and stuck it beneath her arm. The store was quiet, though a pleasant sound filtered in from the desktop radio near the cashier's desk.

Gilles quickly lost Chikara between different beds, chairs, desks, and sofas. She was busy looking at bookshelves, and he couldn't see her. That was upsetting, especially because she had his umbrella and he couldn't go out in the sun without giving himself owwies. He frowned and looked for orange hair -- he quickly found her bouncing up and down on one of the beds. Gilles blinked, baffled, and sat down on the opposite bed to watch. After a few moments of bouncing, Chikara threw her feet to be level with her waist and collapsed down on the bed, grinning. "I think this one's good. And that bookshelf. Ya~" Needless to say, she was pretty proud of herself.

At that moment, the bed snapped in half.

"Uh-oh..." Chikara murmured as the cashier peered over curiously. She did not know the cashier, which meant that she could not charm her way out of this one. Slowly, she inched towards the door, opened it, dropping the duck umbrella in the process -- and ran out of the store. Gilles blinked, took one look at the cashier who was starting to walk towards him with an expression of curiosity on his face, and bolted out of the door, not bothering to scoop up the umbrella. Gilles found himself almost completely lost in a sea of people, and he couldn't see Crazy Lady Momma anywhere. Oh dear.

Gilles' room was relatively quiet at night, when he would curl up in front of the TV and watch until he learned more words, or new sayings, or just corrupted his mind with late-night TV infomercials. Occasionally, Mr. Hoppo would let out a few soft chattering noises, but other than that, only silence. Because this was such a predictable norm, Gilles was more than slightly startled to hear two low thumps, and then the sounds of someone cursing. Gilles took one look at the TV, which was showing a movie entitled Home Alone, and decided to address the situation.

With stealthy awesomeness, that wasn't so stealthy, he approached the door to his room and pushed it open. He nearly gave out a scream for what he saw. A very tall figure was in the room, with a huge stomach, claws, and something that spread out behind it like a billowing cape. Gilles swallowed, hard, and picked up Mr. Hoppo. "You get to go first, Mr. Hoppo." And with that, he shoved the bunny into the hallway. The courageous Mr. Hoppo took one look at the ominous figure and bolted straight down the stairs into the bookshop, probably to gnaw on some expensive novel that Crazy Lady Momma had recently wrapped her hands around. That was surely not going to go over well in the morning.

But, Gilles reasoned, if he saved Crazy Momma from an untimely death at the hands of this shadow-monster of ARGH DEATH WAAAH FREAK OUT DOOM, certainly she wouldn't mind a few chewed-up books. Besides, it wasn't as if she didn't chew on the books once in a while. So. Sooooo. What was he going to do? How was he going to save Crazy Lady Momma? He had no idea. Actually, he had a few, but running around in his room screaming his lungs out couldn't do that much for her, except make her wake up.

And then, they'd probably both see the scary shadow-monster.

...so they would both be running around screaming.

Not a good plan.

Gilles pondered this point for a few precarious moments, before picking up a conveniently placed baseball bat and charging out of his room, giving a battle cry of, "AAAAAAAH CRAZY EVIL MONSTER DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE PEANUTS." Gilles had no idea what that last word meant, but the way Crazy Lady Momma ran around the house screaming it yesterday, he felt that it must have meant something either intimidating, scary, or...battle cry-ish. He really had no idea, but it popped out. STOP JUDGING.

"...peanuts?" The shadow asked, it turned to face Gilles, the dark cape-like mass behind it swinging around. "WHAT THE ******** IS THAT BASE--" However, the monster didn't get to finish its sentence, since Gilles brought his bat straight into its stomach, and then began smacking it in the head with such ferocity that both Mr. Hoppo, and Crazy Lady Momma, who had awoken at the mention of peanuts, stared, completely entranced. "Stop hitting - ow! - me - ow, ow, ow! - you little brat!"

Gilles didn't let up, however, he stood up, and let out another battle cry, this time, "FOR BUDDHA AND COUNTRY!" And started whacking the monster again. At this point, Chikara had recovered from awe and was trying to pull Gilles off, screaming incoherent things, of which one word was repeated over and over: Kiyrau. Gilles didn't know the meaning of this word, but he didn't care. What he couldn't understand was why Crazy Lady Momma was trying so hard to save this evil monster of darkness. Weiiiirdo. Gilles gave her a defiant look, and gave the monster another good whack, then sat down on the side of the hallway to pout.

He supposed this meant that he was, indeed, going to get in trouble for chewed books. Poo.

Chikara quickly flipped on the hall lights to reveal...that the monster was not, in fact, a monster. It was a woman. She had long, curly black hair, huge, claw-like hands, and was very, very big in the stomach. Gilles couldn't figure out why, but he didn't ask. He was too embarrassed. He had just attacked an innocent woman. Now, he wasn't just worried about getting in trouble about the chewed-up books, but also about the fact that Chikara seemed to know this woman very well, and was kneeling by her, stroking her hair, and asking if she was alright. Crazy Lady Momma ran up the stairs at the end of the hallway, then, saying something about ice. That left him alone with the scary lady he had just attacked.

He was so doomed.

The woman looked rather dazed as she dragged herself up, using the wall as a support. She gazed at Gilles curiously, and then muttered something to herself. He couldn't pick up exactly what she said, but he supposed it had something to do with him, considering that he had just attacked her with a baseball bat. He looked at her sheepishly, and she responded with an ice-cold glare that made his hair stand on end and his tail bristle up, something that it had never done. But then, this woman was scary. She studied him for a few moments, before Chikara came running back down the stairs with a bag of ice in her hand. The woman accepted it with a gracious word, and said, in a voice that would not allow itself to be ignored, " I want to talk with you, Chikara." And with that, she swept both Gilles and Crazy Lady Momma, or Chikara, as her name seemed to be, up the stairs and into a room Gilles hadn't been in yet. Mr. Hoppo followed closely at her heels, sniffing at everything.

The door closed behind them, leaving Gilles' last hope of salvation in the room behind.

Gilles clutched the little piece of paper he had found on Chikara's bed with his tail, and peering through a book entitled Learning to Read. Chikara had left him this note, and half of the words he couldn't read yet. Gilles was learning to read from the bartender, Alan, who taught him his letters and words from behind the counter of the bar, and some math from Chikara, who was surprisingly good at small sums, but less so with larger ones. He was half-way done deciphering the note, and began to read it aloud: "Tree? - no, 'try?' - Try to clen? Clan? Cleeeaaaaan? Clean! - Try to clean up - wile? - While - Try to clean up while I'm gone. From, Chikara."

Gilles sat back, pleased with himself, and read the note in its entirety. "Dear Gilles - I had to run off today and get some stuff for the bar, so I won't be around until dinner. There's pizza in the fridge for you, and some soda. Try to clean up while I'm gone. From, Chikara." Well. Chikara was gone for today, and she had asked Gilles to clean up. Clean up what, he wondered? After all, his room was perfectly clean. He didn't like messy places, too many creepy crawlies popped out of them in the night.

So...that must mean...Chikara wanted him to clean up the rest of the apartment? Gilles blinked. That couldn't be right. Or maybe it was. He could never tell with Chikara. She was too weird. Oh well, if she wanted the apartment clean, Gilles would clean the apartment! "C'mon, Mr. Hoppo, we have a purpose now!" Mr. Hoppo didn't look too thrilled with the idea of a purpose, but that was okay will Gilles. After all, Mr. Hoppo didn't really do much anyway, except wiggle his nose, eat, and make poops, so he didn't get any say in what they were going to do today! Right!

Gilles walked out of his room, his tail still holding the note from Chikara, and down the hall towards the door that led to the sitting room. He knew that Chikara kept the cleaning supplies in a closet that opened up into the sitting room. When he arrived at the closet, he stared at the array of cleaning supplies for a few minutes, and then closed the door. "We use soap. Soap is good." Gilles spun around and marched outside of the sitting room, Mr. Hoppo running along behind him. "Where does Chikara keep the soap?" Gilles asked, walking down the length of the hallway and past the bathroom, only to turn around and walk back up the hallway, then into Chikara's bedroom.

Because everyone keeps soap in their bedroom.

Gilles checked first under Chikara's bed for soap. There was none there, only a few dust bunnies and spiders, which Mr. Hoppo happily chased after. Gilles hit his horns on the mattress on the way out, which annoyed him to no end. Then he checked in the china cabinet, the bookshelf, and finally on top of a table that Chikara had covered with paper. Nothing. No soap. However. "What's this?" Gilles muttered, picking up a rectangular package. It was wrapped in paper, and had ridges underneath, when he ran his fingers along its sides.

Frowning, Gilles undid the piece of tape that was holding the package together, and pulled the paper apart slowly. There were pictures underneath the paper, lots of them, stacked on top of one another. Gilles blinked, and sat down on the floor, pulling the pictures off of the stack one by one and setting them on the floor. It was strange, but the pictures were kind of comforting, as though Gilles was looking through an old photo album. Not that Gilles knew what a photo album was, but it's a nice simile.

The strangest part of it all was, Gilles could tell what these people on the pictures were feeling. It was clear to him - like they whispered in his ear. The lady who held flowers in her hands and hair was obviously regretting something she had done. Did she lose someone? No, that wasn't exactly it - more like she had lost herself. Was she sad that she had lost herself? She didn't know - it was too early to tell. Gilles' frown deepened. As each picture flashed by, Gilles learned something about each person depicted. This one was lonely, this one strong, this one neutral, this one confused. And this one...

Gilles stared at the picture in his hand, confused. His tail bristled, his hair, which stood on end regularly, was at the point of snapping off his skull. "This is me." Gilles said, breathless. And it was. The man pictured in the painting Gilles held looked almost exactly like Gilles, except for the horns and tail. And the man in the picture looked a lot older, and he was kind of ugly, whereas Gilles privately thought of himself as rather dashing. Oh, and the man looked kind of unhappy. Was he subjected to the insanity of a crazy guardian, too? Or did he have some other reason for feeling upset?

Gilles peered at the picture closely. This man...had wanted something to happen in his life, and he wanted it badly. But things had gotten too far off track for him to do anything about it. Indeed, he would never be able to achieve his dreams. What had his dreams been? Gilles tried and tried to see what they were, but nothing came to him. Gilles put the card back into the pile and continued working his way through the deck of pictures. He finally got to the end, after many, many stops, particularly when there had been pictures of little swords on the paintings, and found a final card in the deck, however, this one had no pictures on it, but words. Gilles brought the card close to his face and read, "Ta...tarot...art...no...uve...au. Tarot Art Nouveau."

Gilles put the last card down and rewrapped the deck in the paper, and tied it with a shoelace he found behind Chikara's bed. He would keep this stack of pictures. Since he bore such close resemblance to one of the men... Gilles stopped. Was the man an uncle, or a father? He didn't remember how he came to be with Chikara, but surely he would have remembered a father. But no, no, there was no father in Gilles' memory. Only black, and then Chikara, and then happy, with Mr. Hoppo and Chikara and Alan, the bartender, and nothing else, and definitely not a father there anywhere.

They were paintings not photographs.

And there was a very distinct difference.

Gilles walked to his room and placed the deck underneath his pillow. Chikara never came into his room, and thus he didn't have to worry about her questioning him about where he came across the deck. She had never mentioned it before, so Gilles thought that she must have forgotten it. She was very forgetful, after all. So Chikara didn't know. Surely she would have told him if she thought it was important, and if she remembered. Gilles bit his lip. This was too weird. Too weird.

WEIRD.

"I am going to go clean the bathroom." Gilles said to Mr. Hoppo. "And when I'm done, maybe some of this will make sense." As it was, Gilles did indeed clean the bathroom, but the noxious fumes from the cleaning solutions he had concocted out of bleach and soap had fried so many of his brain cells that if he had tried to think about such heavy issues, he most likely would have exploded.

Boxes everywhere! Gilles moved some to the side, others on top of another, and even more had to be put on the desk. Chikara had come back from her mysterious errand with boxes upon boxes of...stuff. This box held bottles of wine, this one strange, kidney-shaped bottles with 'Cognac' written on their labels, that was margarita mix, and then there were three boxes that were filled with books. Books, books, books. And Gilles had to sort through them, catalogue them, and stick them on shelves.

Three boxes.

Gilles sighed and opened the first box. He took out the first five and set them in different piles on the floor. Two fiction books, one reference book, and two cookbooks. The next five were placed in piles as well, and the next five, until the box had been emptied of its contents. Then Gilles took a pair of scissors and cut through the tape on the bottom of the box that kept it together, and folded it up, then placed it behind the counter. The box was almost as tall as Gilles when he folded it, and he had to wrestle with it a little. "Don't eat it, Mr. Hoppo." Gilles commanded, as the rabbit eagerly sniffed the brown cardboard. Mr. Hoppo gave a bunny sigh and shuffled across the room, back towards his cage. Gilles shook his head resignedly and started emptying the next box of books.

When he had successfully emptied the three boxes and stuck their contents on the shelves in the bookshop, Gilles leaned back against the desk with a sigh. Then he let out a little yelp as a book fell onto his head. Ow. That was painful. Gilles rubbed his smarting skull with one hand, and picked up the book with the other. It was a leather journal with an ornate design along the left hand side. Gilles opened the journal curiously, expecting it to be filled with receipts or some sort of accounting having to do with the bookshop. But the journal was completely blank, save for a single line. Gilles supposed it was the dedication, or maybe someone had given this journal as a gift, but the person who they had given it to had never used it. In any event, he had never seen this handwriting before; it certainly wasn’t Chikara's.



Gilles ran his fingers over this line, frowning, as there were no creases in the paper to show that someone had written here. But there were the words, plain as day, etched into the paper in black ink. Gilles leaned back against the counter and blinked as another object fell onto his head. It was a pen. Curiously, Gilles uncapped the pen and drew a short line on one of his fingers. The ink shone a stormy blue-gray. Delighted, Gilles turned the page again, ready to write. But there was another dedication on that page, as well. Or was it a poem?



Gilles blinked. That made no sense at all. Worlds couldn't be made by words! If they were, people could make worlds whenever they felt like it. And what was that sorcerer bit? Gilles frowned again, and turned the page. This one was blank. He almost let out a sigh of relief.

His right hand stretched out towards the paper, and he wrote: