He found that to be rather convenient.
“So, we come from very different worlds, then.”
“Not so different,” Jax said in a way that sounded like it was somehow meant to be comforting.
Alex studied her placid expression. “We don’t have magic. You say your world does. How much different could our worlds be?”
“Not so different,” she repeated. “We have magic, but so do you, after a fashion. It’s just that it manifests itself in a different way. You do the very same things we do, if with different methods.”
“Like what?”
“Well, that thing in your pocket.”
“The phone?”
She nodded as she leaned back and pulled something out of a pocket near her waist. She held up a small black book.
“This is a journey book. It works much like that phone you get messages on. Like your phone, we use this to get messages from people and to convey information to others. I write in my journey book and through magic the words appear at the same time in its twin. You say words on your phone device and words come out somewhere else. I am accustomed to writing messages, not speaking them. But you can also make your phone device function as a journey book, make words appear in it, am I right?”
Bethany’s text messages sprang to mind. “Yes, but that’s all done through technology.”
She shrugged. “We do the same things you do. You do it by means of technology, we use magic. The words may be different but they do basically the same thing. They both implement intent and that’s all that really matters. They both accomplish the same tasks.”
“Technology is nothing at all like magic,” Alex insisted.
“Technology itself is not what’s important, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you really know any better than I do how a phone device works? Can you explain to me how the message gets from one place to another”—she waggled her fingers across in front of them—“how the words come invisibly through the air and end up here, in the device in your pocket, in a way that you can understand them? Do you really know what makes all that technology work? Can you explain all the unseeable things that happen, the things that you take for granted?”
“I guess not,” he admitted.
“Nor can I explain how a journey book works. What’s important is that the people here used their minds to create this technology in order to accomplish their ends, much like those where I come from think up ways to create things using magic to accomplish what we need to accomplish. It’s as simple as that. It’s second nature to both of us. We both use what has been created. For all you know, your phone really could work through magic and you would never know the difference.”
“But there are people here who understand the technology and can describe exactly how all of the parts work, how the phone works, how the words appear.”
“I know people who can describe exactly how a journey book works. I’ve even sat through long lectures on the subject, but while I get the general nature of it I still can’t tell you exactly how to align the fibers within the paper with Additive and Subtractive elements to give them the sympathetic harmony needed to make words appear. It’s not my area of expertise. What matters most to me is that someone somehow did create it and I can use it to help me accomplish the things I need to do.
“We simply say that it works by magic and leave it at that. How it works isn’t so important to me. That it does work is what matters.
“If you wish to describe what we do in our world as merely a different form of technology rather than use the word ‘magic,’ if that makes it easier for you to accept, then call it by that name. The name makes no difference.
“Magic and technology are merely tools of mankind. If you called that phone a magic talking box, would you use it any differently?”
“I concede the point.” Alex gestured. “So, do something. Show me.”
She leaned back and slipped the little black book back where she kept it. “I told you, this is a world without magic. I can’t use magic here. Magic doesn’t work here. Believe me, I wish it did, because it would make this a lot easier.”
“I hope you realize how convenient that excuse sounds.”
She leaned in again with that deadly serious look she had. “I’m not here to prove anything to you, Alex. I’m here to find out what’s going on so I can try to stop it. You just happen to be in the middle of it and I’d not like to see you get hurt.”
That reminded him of what he’d said when he had pulled her back from getting run over by pirate plumbers—that he’d not like to see her get hurt.
“A little difficult, isn’t it, if you can’t use your sorceress powers, considering that you don’t know how this world works. I mean, no offense, but you didn’t even know how to make tea.”
“I didn’t come here thinking it would be easy. I came out of desperation. There is a saying in our world that sometimes there is magic in acts of desperation. We were desperate.”
Alex scratched his temple, unable to contain his sarcasm. “Don’t tell me, the people who sent you are sorcerers. A whole coven of sorcerers.”
She stared into his eyes for a moment. Tears welled up.
“I didn’t risk eternity in the black depths of the underworld to come here for this.”
She set down her napkin, picked up the painting, and stood. “Thank you for the beautiful painting. I hope you heed my warnings, Alex. Since you don’t seem to need my help, I’ll attend to other concerns.”
She stopped and turned back. “By the way, covens have to do with witches—thirteen of them—not sorcerers. I’d not like to even contemplate thirteen witch women all together in one place at once. They’re known for their rather rash temperament. Be glad they can’t get here; they’d simply gut you and be done with it.”
She marched away without a further word.
Alex knew that he’d blown it. He’d crossed a line he hadn’t known was there. Or maybe he crossed a line that he should have known was there. She had wanted him to listen, to try to understand, to trust her. But how could he be expected to believe such a preposterous story?
The waitress had seen Jax leaving and headed for the table. Alex pulled out a hundred-dollar bill—the only kind of cash he had—threw it on the table, and told the waitress to keep the change. It was the biggest tip he’d ever left in his life. He rushed across the quiet room, weaving among the tables.
“Jax, wait. Please?”
Without slowing she glided through the door and out into the halls, her black dress flowing out behind like dark fire.
“Jax, I’m sorry. Look, I don’t know anything about it. I admit it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so flippant—it’s one of my faults—but how would you react if the situation were reversed, if before today I told you how we make tea?”
She ignored his words.
“Jax, please, don’t go.”
He broke into a trot trying to catch up with her. Without looking back she turned down a small, dimly lit hall toward a side exit. Long skeins of wavy blond hair trailed out behind her like flags of fury. An exit sign cast the hall in hazy red, otherworldly light.
Jax reached the door before he could catch up with her. She stopped abruptly and turned to him in a way that made him stop dead in his tracks. He was almost close enough to reach out and touch her. Something warned him to