"Well, look at that."

Lorelei leaned in and took the marble from Aviad's hand carefully, rolling it between her thumb and two fingers. Everyone had a mouse curled up in their paw. He grinned, pleased with himself, but Lorelei only had eyes for the pentral, her satisfied smile was all for the pentral, watching it thrash against the tiny confines of glass. A little globe, a little world, how generous Aviad was, making the pentral the center of its own existence.

She lifted the marble to the sunlight streaming in, watching as the smoky mist covered the inside of the glass, pinpricks of bright mist forming like points of a star, yearning to escape into the light.

Simple, yet effective. She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't just seen it. No blood, no mess, no pleading and screaming.

The marble warmed her palm, the mist inside still fighting even as parts of it retreated inward. She tucked her pinky finger in, and then her ring finger, and one by one her other fingers, closing on the pentral, feeling it cool in the dark prison of her hand. It wanted to disappear right now, it wanted not to be. She had done that. Aviad had given her that gift.

The pentral in her mind retreated too, slipping through the bars on the doors and into its small, dim cellar. She'd killed the witch and ripped the soul out of her and tucked her in her own head, the process painful and long and hers. Lorelei lived for the kill. She remembered each one, and it sustained her until it couldn't anymore and she had to do it again.

Lorelei smiled at Aviad, a smile like the sun streaming in. A little too bright, a little too warm, a little too light against her empty eyes.

"I would like you to tell me about the little passenger around your neck."

She settled back in her seat, her eyes on his face, but she had not forgotten about that amulet, not once.

Someone like Leander would say yes, capture another soul, and he'd ask questions about the process and he would say thank you for this gift and he would let the wizard feel special.

Aviad was useful. Aviad hadn't killed the soul but he'd trapped it a second time. It mattered not to him who it was. He gave away its life without hesitation. He understood that life was more disorderly than death, and she understood that life went on after death and that she could control how souls died and where they went.

"Does it make you feel closer to life, Aviad of the dying?"

Her voice was calm, her expression shifting to detached curiosity. Lorelei passed the marble from one hand to the other, not in any particular rhythm but whenever she felt like it, letting the pentral catch at the light and the air and then go into the dark of her palm again.

The sorceress took the marble, raising it up to the light.  Aviad watched her, pleased that his trick had worked, although he could feel his own arafel spirit shifting uncomfortably in its amulet, mournful for its cousin's fate. 

Such was the price that one must pay to win the trust of the devil.  He pushed away the twinge of guilt, just as he closed his hand around the pendant hanging against his chest.  There were greater forces in motion here, and if he had to sacrifice one or two spirits to a glass prison -- even a dozen or a hundred dozen -- then so be it.

Lorelei Hunt smiled at him, though even an expression of pleasure looked a little too wrong on her face.  Her eyes were too hollow, as if there was an emptiness between her body and the space where her spirit should have been.  Just for an instant, he thought he could see something else: the hint of another spirit, terrified and desperate, hiding away inside her.

He steeled himself and met her smile.  Such was the price.

But her next words sent a chill down his spine.

"I would like you to tell me about the little passenger around your neck."

The spirit inside the pendant let out a panicked burst of heat.  In his hand, he could feel the warmth pulsing frantically, trembling in and out so quickly that it felt like a racing heartbeat.

"Does it make you feel closer to life, Aviad of the dying?"

Despite the heat of the greenhouse, the air felt suddenly icy cold.  Aviad shivered, meeting her gaze with too-bright eyes.   

Such was the price.

Perhaps they'd pay it together, he and his spirit friend.  Aviad managed a chuckle, although his mouth felt too dry.

"Like dancing on a grave."  The mage flashed her a weak smirk, keeping his hand closed firmly around the pendant despite the heat of the glass.  He didn't trust her not to break it out of spite. 

But it wouldn't do to seem frail or hesitant here.  If she knew, then so it was.  Aviad swallowed to moisten his throat again, and then arched an eyebrow in challenge at her.

"This one is mine," he informed her firmly.  "In exchange, we will say, for bringing you the others."  He shrugged, letting his gaze follow the path of the marble as she moved it slowly, back and forth, in and out of the light.  "Surely, Lorelei Hunt, there are other spirits that you desire more in its place?"

Aviad's smile faltered. Without the bright flash of teeth and the slight crinkling at the corners of his eyes, the emotions he hid drew his face down and settled in what would someday be lines of regret. He had youth on his side, but his soul was old and growing older. He could dance, but the ground would shift beneath his feet until he fell into the earth from which he stirred up dead things.

Poor thing! Her smile twitched, a split second of sympathy mixed with amusement.

Everyone had someone they couldn't bear to let die. Everyone had a weakness, a sibling hiding in the cellar. Aviad kept his close to his heart.

She watched him as he watched her, raising her eyebrows at his show of spine. He neither lashed out nor cowered. He asked her few questions, humored her questioning. This arrangement could work.

"Relax, Aviad," she lifted her shoulders, letting her gaze drift past him to the cottage near the greenhouse. "You can stop clutching your pearl. I won't take it from you. What a hypocrite I'd be, harping on about bad manners and then acting rude to my guest? Guests?"

She let out a low laugh. Lorelei had time to discover Aviad's last name and the name of whoever he protected. She glanced once more at the marble prison he'd given her, and dropped it in her pocket where it clinked against her vial of green liquid.

Lore stood in one swift, easy movement, ignoring the wizard for a moment as she went to the counters set against the side of the greenhouse. Opening the top drawer, she rummaged around until she found a set of small, empty picture frames. One was in good condition, the other falling apart. Lore selected the better one.

She held it up to the light, glancing at Aviad out of the corner of her eye. Could he rip a soul right out of a squib's chest? Could he select his pentrals, or only lure in the dead?

If he could do what she did, she would have to be extra careful. For now, she'd test his ability to improvise.

Smiling, Lorelei set the picture frame on the table in front of him. The glass cover glinted in the sun. The backing was plain, thin wood and had no wards or markings on it yet. She might help him this time, or she might just watch.

"Catch another, explain how I can help you, and we'll go from there."

She sounded friendly, even kindly. It was the voice she'd used to fool the Reid sisters, when they'd visited her lovely house with all the lovely things and neither of them had heard the mice skittering in the walls or glimpsed the little mouse of a pentral within her until Abby was alone and it was too late.

Lorelei Hunt seemed to retreat from her inquiry about his nazar, but Aviad didn't trust it, and nor did the arafel spirit.  He could feel the heat of it still trembling anxiously inside its abode, unhappy that it had been noticed by the sorceress who had ripped it away from life.

He kept his hand cupped over the amulet for a moment longer, thinking calming thoughts in the spirit's direction, and then turned to watch the sorceress as she went to rummage through some drawers.

Ah.  He saw what she was returning with, and he could guess the intent.  Back when he'd first encountered the arafel spirit, once it had calmed down and he'd convinced it that the shadowy, ravenous Dementors couldn't find it while in his care, it had told him through twinkling bells and faintest impressions of the time it had spent as a prisoner.  Trapping a spirit inside a picture frame was much less elegant than enclosing it in a sphere made of glass, but it was far from the least sophisticated thing that he'd seen from a British witch or wizard.

Lorelei Hunt set the picture frame in front of him and smiled at him again.  "Catch another, explain how I can help you, and we'll go from there."

Aviad felt an immediate twinge from the arafel spirit in his amulet.  It hadn't liked this game to begin with, even if it had agreed to help him, and he could tell that it liked the thought of trapping one of its fellows in the same prison that they had all escaped from even less.  But this was the task that Lorelei Hunt had set for him, and however the spirit might feel, one type of prison wasn't really any preferable over another.

He reset the trap again with the mirror and the jar, pulling out another marble -- this one a light, pale blue -- and snapping his fingers to relight the candle.  Once that was done, he picked up the picture frame to examine it.

"The catching will take a few moments again," he said, glancing at Lorelei Hunt.  It was far more difficult to summon wayward spirits when he didn't know their names; but if this sorceress worked with the dead, then she likely knew that.  "If you know any of the names that the spirits went by in life, then it can go much more quickly."

The picture frame was plain, wood and glass and not much more.  He didn't notice any enchantments on it, although he hadn't cast Goleya to check.  He raised an eyebrow, glancing past it to the sorceress again.

"What sort of world would you like to create for your little smoke-spirit?" he asked her with a slight smirk.  "You must have an idea of where you'd like it to spend its days, yeh?"

Aviad did as he was told without complaint. Hermes should take note. This was why Aviad was sharing a table with her and Hermes was skulking in the back room of dress shops.

Lorelei knew the names of most of her victims, even the impulse kills. As they'd died, she'd dragged the truth out of them to record in her little book and to scrawl secretly within the symbols and traps on the backs of their picture frames. She'd enjoyed walking through the picture gallery at the lakehouse and seeing the fear in their small faces as they stared back at her. As time passed, the pentrals would imprint their most important memories onto their prisons, subconsciously painting the scenes of their own prison. Many souls picked their own homes. Others chose a place of safety and joy. And still others, the ones who may have become ghosts, picked the place of their greatest regret.

As the years passed and each pentral prison grew more detailed, their names and faces bled into one another in Lorelei's memory. Only a few truly stood out. Iona and her garden prison. Lucy and her shabby little cottage on the farm.

Leaning back in her chair with her face tilted to the sun, she weighed the two. Iona was personal. She knew where Iona hid. Could Aviad rip a soul right out of a squib's chest? An unfair test, but Lore cared little about playing fair.

Lucy was not personal, Lucy was just convenient. Lorelei wasn't sure where she'd flitted to, if she'd survived the dementors, if she too was hiding in someone.

She looked at Aviad, her gray eyes alight, reflecting the flickering flame of the candle.

"Bring me Lucy Wold."

The true owner of the cottage and the two greenhouses and the land. If Aviad was able to summon the spirit, Lucy would get to see what Lorelei had done with the place.

"I've seen her world, and it's small and dull and same old," Lorelei sighed, stretching her legs. "You pick, Aviad far from home. Pick your favorite world, and don't say the Black Chimaera."

Cin wasn't here to be offended, but she was.

She met his eyes, her mouth smiling slightly. "Pick carefully."

Lucy Wold.  What a very British-sounding name.  Aviad turned it over in his head, playing with the sounds.  He couldn't help but wonder what it was that this Lucy Wold had done, to be ranked as the first name commanded by Lorelei Hunt.

That changed things a bit, though, if he knew the spirit's name.  Aviad paused, studying the ritual set-up before him:  the mirror, the jar, the candle and the little marble.  He'd never tried to combine these two particular spells before, but he couldn't imagine why it wouldn't work.  He'd decide what world to put this new spirit in once he summoned it.

He dug into his pockets again for a nub of white chalk and a pair of small paper pouches: one smelling faintly of rosemary, the other full of a white, crystal-like powder.  Working silently but quickly, he used the chalk to draw a circle on the table, tracing around the round mirror.  When summoning something by name, it never hurt to be too careful.  Although the name 'Lucy Wold' didn't sound like it belong to some world-shaking demon, he'd heard of mages being surprised by less.

Once the circle was drawn, the mage picked up the glass jar and set it on its side.  Reaching into the first paper pouch, he pulled out a small sprig of rosemary and touched it to the candle, setting it alight.  He let it burn for a moment, waving his hand over it to make the fumes waft, and then tossed it next to the candle.  Finally, he reached into the second paper pouch and pulled out a pinch of salt, which he tossed into the small, brightly burning flame.

"Azeman l'shulhan," he began, as he re-set the jar to balance on the marble over the candle once more, "ha'ushpizata ha'ilaata Lucy Wold. B'lech miztvah ata yechol levoa lehetzeraf alai!"

There was a crack of thunder -- always the sign that a summoning spell had worked -- and the mirror underneath the jar began to glow an eye-searingly bright blue.  The light grew brighter and brighter, so blinding that he had to shield his eyes, but just as it continued to intensify to the point that he realized that something wasn't right, it blazed even brighter and then everything shattered.

Tiny shards of glass -- glass from the mirror, glass from the jar -- were flung everywhere across the room, accompanied by splatters of orange wax.  Aviad yelped as he jumped back, shielding his eyes with one arm.  Harah!  That was not what was supposed to happen!

Irritated, Aviad examined the remains of his spell-casting.  The mirror and glass jar had both shattered, and he assumed that the pale blue marble had too.  The candle looked like it had exploded, and burned up the rest of the rosemary along with it. 

The loss of the mirror was the most aggravating; he hadn't thought to bring a second.

"Do you have another mirror?" he asked, annoyance audible in his voice, as he held a hand out to Lorelei Hunt.  "Or something else reflective?  I need to see what went wrong."

Lorelei watched as Aviad drew the circle on the table. She listened to him chant in an unfamiliar language, committing a few of the sounds and words to memory. She wished Leander were here to listen and watch, too. He'd always paid better attention and picked up on languages faster than she did. The only things she recognized for certain were the chalk, the salt, and the rosemary.

A loud crack made her stir and glance up at the sky, then back at the mirror. As the mirror glowed brighter and brighter, she studied Aviad, the way the light caught on every shadow and hollow of his face, and saw the moment when concentration turned to concern. She stood from her chair just as the glass shattered. Lorelei flicked her wand, shielding herself from most of the glass explosion.

In her pocket, the little marble burned, then cooled as she clutched the folds of her cloak around it.

She surveyed the mess, feeling apart from it all, feeling nothing but a smidgen of irritation. The side of her face stung, right over her cheekbone. She reached up and flicked away a tiny shard of glass. Her fingers came away with a small smear of red. Staring at her hand, she reasoned that the cut on her face couldn't be very large, and reasoned that she was lucky it had missed her eye.

In the next few seconds, rage bubbled up inside her, just like when her own mother had fired a shot at her months ago.

She was not invincible. She was still human. Wrapped up in souls and cloak and skin, she could still feel and be made to feel.

Her face changed, dangerously stony. She stalked over to the table, hearing him ask for a mirror. A mirror!

He meant to, he meant to do it, the pentral urged her on, adding poison to her thoughts, and Lorelei stilled. She came to a stop in front of him. The edge of her boot knocked against something small and round.

Stupid little soul, her pentral. All book smarts and healing arts and no sense. It wanted Lorelei to fight, not caring who won. It had seen now that she and Aviad both captured souls.

She smiled down at the wizard, and glanced at the ground. Her face changed again, matching her smile, as cool and calm as the light blue marble at her feet.

"Mistakes do happen," she cooed, nudging the marble to knock against his shoe.

Lore stepped back, waving her wand at the cupboards and opening them one by one. When she found an extra pane of glass, about two feet long, she wafted it over to the table.

"Any last requests?"

She paused, let out a laugh. "Any other requests."

It took the sorceress a moment to find a substitute for his mirror.  Aviad took the pane of glass, barely listening to her as he inspected it.  Not as ideal as a shiny surface, but it was reflective enough that it would work.

"No, no," he said distractedly, half in answer to her question.  "This is it."

He hadn't brought his full kit of supplies along since he hadn't expected to need it.  Aviad searched his pockets, looking for even a nub of a purple-colored candle.  He couldn't find one, so he settled for a small ivory candle instead.  He set the large pane of glass flat on the table, and then placed the new candle in the center.  Pulling out the pouch of salt again, he dribbled it onto the glass to form a pair of perpendicular lines, dividing the pane into four.

He snapped his fingers to light the candle, and then leaned over the glass to study it. 

"Eifo Lucy Wold?" he intoned, and then tapped each of the quadrants once.  "Anglia, Scohtland, ma'aver, b'mekhum acher."

He paused, squinting at the glass.  After a beat, he glanced up at Lorelei Hunt, his forehead creasing slightly.

"It hasn't passed on," he commented, before looking down at the glass again.  "Eifo Lucy Wold?  Londohn, kah...ve, euh, Manchester, b'mekhum acher."  With each naming, he tapped each of the four quadrants again, one by one.

Aviad waited again, watching the glass.  There, in the same quadrant, he saw the flicker.  Interesting.  Lorelei Hunt had named a spirit, and she should have been within range of his summoning.  She hadn't crossed over, but something was not only keeping her from obeying, but was causing his summoning spell to more-or-less overheat.

He decided to try one more time.

"Eifo Lucy Wold?" he repeated again, and then tapped the glass in each quadrant.  "Ba beit, b'avodah, b'lev, b'mekhum acher."

It took a moment again this time, except now he thought he saw the ghostly flicker in more than one place.  Frowning, he glanced up at Lorelei Hunt again.

"The spirit is in London.  Both at its home and...inside someone, I think?" he ventured carefully, with a slight frown.  That was what he'd been trying to scry for, but the technique was frustratingly precise based on the language used.  "That must be why it didn't come." 

He gave the sorceress a cautious look.  "You don't know where it is, do you?"

Lorelei drew closer to Aviad again as he focused, her wand held loosely in her hand. She glanced over his shoulder at the four quadrants on the mirror, her interest in this little project waning even as he made every attempt to find Lucy and summon her. He summoned new information at least, a little tidbit that snagged her attention.

The soul hadn't passed on. Lorelei's attention caught, then drifted. She glanced at the stunted candle on the table and the mess he'd made past the table, the bits of glass and wax on the greenery. Mistakes in full view. Weaknesses. A wizard made of glass and wax.

Was he useful? Entertaining? She weighed her wand in her hand, and then he offered her something more.

London.

"Lucy didn't live in London," she informed him in a flat, dull tone.

"She's likely possessing someone," Lorelei moved to the side of the table, studying the quadrants from another angle. Not flitting about in distress, not gobbled up by a dementor, look at that, Lucy had found a new home.

"Look at that, she grew a backbone," Lore smiled very suddenly, intrigued by the challenge.

She met his eyes, giving his caution a look of indifference. Don't give up just yet, little mouse.

"One moment, Aviad. Sit tight."

Lorelei moved past the rows of flowering plants and herbs, her boots crunching against the shattered glass, until she reached the back of the greenhouse. Unlocking another drawer, she found a ceramic incense holder and a set of incense sticks smelling of dandelion, lavender, mugwort, rose, marigold, and other scents supposed to enhance scrying. She'd learned a few things from the Divination professor at Hogwarts, and his ritualistic style had been similar to Aviad's.

She returned to the table, bearing these gifts.

"Burn this," she held the incense and the holder out for him to take. He could do whatever he needed to with the glass map he'd arranged. "I'll take a look into the smoke and see if I can tell who she's inhabiting."

He waited silently as the sorceress returned to her cupboard.  Snapping his fingers, he glanced absently at the letters that had been engraved into the side of the table again. 

    W.W. & L.W.

English letters were hard to keep straight sometimes -- he always forgot one or another when he had to list them out -- but perhaps...

Lorelei Hunt returned, cutting off his thoughts.  Aviad flashed her a quick grin as he took the proffered items: what looked to be a ceramic incense burner and a stick of incense.  Without a word, he flicked a finger to put out the candle that was burning, and then waved his hand over the glass that he'd been using to scry, causing the salt to return to his hand.  He poured it carefully into the now-empty pouch, and then set it aside to throw away later; one thing about ritual magic was that one never wanted to use the same supplies twice.

He set the incense holder on the glass and inserted the stick of incense in it, and then snapped his fingers to light it.

"As you command, Lorelei Hunt," he said cheerfully, giving her an elaborate faux bow.  "You see how helpful I can be, yeh?"

Lorelei heard Aviad fishing for a compliment, but she didn't bother to give him one. She focused on the smoke rising from the incense holder, first stepping back and giving it space to waft, then waving her wand in a circle in the air. A flicker of light circled around the area above the table like a burning rope. When it completed the line, the entire circle glowed brightly for a moment, then faded. The smoke continued to rise in a wispy, thin strand, but hit the top of a curved, invisible barrier, tumbling down again.

She'd created a crystal ball, another marble to gaze into. The barrier was visual, and the scent of the incense still permeated the air. It smelled like a summer flower garden with hints of sage, and as it overlapped the winter garden growing in the greenhouse, the strong mix of scents tickled her throat and caught in her lungs. Lorelei breathed it in, letting it open her mind.

A strong soul willed things to happen, they worked with what they had, be it panes of glass or empty frames or rundown cottages. Though she didn't like being distracted in front of this wizard she barely knew, her wand was in her hand and she felt at home. She watched the smoke twirl, twist and dance, letting her eyes travel over it, not fixing on any specific point. She took a few deep breaths, feeling calm.

Lucy. Lucy Wold in London. Lucy Wold possessing someone in London. Who?

The thread of smoke changed direction, floating steadily toward the area that Aviad had seen the light flicker earlier. She took a few steps closer, peering into the globe.

"Fumus faci," she flicked her wand. The thread of smoke widened, forming the vague shape of a human head.

Lucy. She remembered a young woman with large brown eyes, light brown hair, an expressive brow, and a mouth that smiled easily but rarely grew into full smiles or laughter.

Slowly, carved and molded from smoke, Lucy's features emerged in the head of smoke floating above the table. Lorelei held the image there, feeling it tied to the power she directed in her hand.

"Pentralis geminae," she pointed at the head, and watched as the head turned to the side, trying to escape her attention.

"Pentralis geminae," she repeated harshly, lending her will and determination as she loomed over the smoke. The head stretched to the top of the globe, unaware of Lorelei staring down at it. Lucy's eyes widened into the holes of a skull, her mouth opened in a twisted, silent scream, and then all at once the smoke fell, crashing down against the pane of glass.

Still focused, Lorelei swished her wand. As the smoke dissipated layer by layer, moving aside like clouds, an image of a woman flickered in the pane of glass.

Her eyes were smaller than Lucy's, set below finely arched eyebrows. Her nose was straight, her cheekbones high, her head lifted regally. Pale colors crept over the image in a touch of yellow around her head and a hint of blue in her eyes. Lucy had been made of summer, an English rose, but this woman appeared as cool and removed as winter, carefully cultivated under glass.

Familiar. Lorelei had met her before.

Lorelei stepped to the side. She lowered her wand. The invisible globe over the table, the face reflected on the glass, and the burning incense all burnt out, fell away in a moment.

She tilted her head back and laughed, a rare sound of joy and amusement that bubbled up and faded just as quickly. What were teh chances! She grinned at Aviad, her smile very nearly reaching her eyes as his face caught and held her attention again.

"You've just made my day, Aviad of the-" she snapped her fingers once, mimicking his candle trick. Nothing happened, of course, and she'd done the last bit, of course, but the mouse had earned a crumb or two.

Lorelei brushed the glass off her seat and sat again, crossing her legs, her foot bouncing.

"Now, tell me about your problem. I'm all ears."

She kept her eyes on his face, hoping his story was interesting. Entertaining. She might help him, she might not. She enjoyed hearing stories, and spinning stories, and discarding stories when she was done with them.

The smoke rose from the incense, funereal and somber.  Lorelei Hunt used her wand to trace a circle around it, trapping it inside an invisible barrier made of air and magic just as she'd captured the pentrals inside prisons made of wood and glass.

That was something he needed to remember.  Aviad swallowed, feeling the now-quiet spirit inside his pendant pulsing faintly, nearly in time with his own heartbeat.  Lorelei Hunt was not one who merely observed the wonders of the world around her: she captured, imprisoned, locked them away.  She would do the same to him if he wasn't careful, if he let himself get drawn in too closely and didn't depart before he'd worn out his usefulness to her.

Still, he couldn't help but watch with interest as the dance of the smoke shifted, as the wispy vapors began to draw together and the sorceress leaned in to cast her spell.  The smoke swirled together and began to take the form of a woman's face.  Young.  She might have been pretty.  Aviad didn't recognize her, but this must be the unlucky Lucy Wold.

Lorelei Hunt spoke again, and the young woman's face twisted, eroding into the skull underneath.  And then the smoke went crashing down against the glass, like a sudden wave breaking against a rocky shore.  The sorceress, still focused, began to use her wand to brush away the layers and layers of it, revealing the shimmering glass underneath.

Fascinated, Aviad leaned forward slightly, watching as the image was revealed.  Another woman, although this one was blonde, with sharp, well-defined features and a cold hint to her face.  He didn't recognize her, but he held the image firmly in his mind, determined to hold on to it for when he encountered her next.

That had apparently been all that Lorelei Hunt had wanted.  The sorceress stepped back, letting the ball of smoke evaporate away,  the image vanishing with it.  She threw back her head and began to laugh.

He couldn't put his finger on what was so funny, but apparently he'd passed whatever test she'd set out for him.  Aviad flashed her a smirk.  Picking up his wand, he lifted it and began to slowly make small circles in the air.

"I want to learn," he said simply.  Around the room, the bits and shards of broken glass began to shiver, and then slowly began to take flight, drifting towards the tip of his wand and falling into rotation with the circular motion.  "I know a lot about spirits, but I have never seen someone command them as you do: create them, entrap them, direct them for your purposes."

Lorelei gave Aviad a long, disappointed look. Was he cleaning up? Good mouse. But not enough.

"Do you?" She raised her eyebrows and parted her lips slightly.

"You want to learn from me?" She touched a hand to her chest and leaned forward a bit. Her eyes remained locked on his face, challenging him to meet her stare as she slowly sat back again.

"So few are willing to learn, Aviad. What they really want are solutions to their problems. A give and take. I do what's necessary, they do what's boring, it works until they fail."

Lorelei's foot stopped tapping in the air. She glanced at her wand resting on her knee and lifted it, pointing to the side of the greenhouse to gather more bits of glass.

"But you," she flicked her wand, languidly floating the glass shards to join the cluster he'd made.

"You are different from them. I can tell. You have ambition and courage. You're not afraid to take one life to sustain another, or to snare a soul and bury the husk."

She paused, her wand pointed in his direction, still loose and easy in her hand. "That is what I do. That's how I became what I am. I cross lines that others won't." Pride crept into her voice and firmed the corners of her mouth. "Some are content to sit in stone circles and gaze into fires, but you, you hunger for more. You want to lure and command and entrap."

She emphasized the 'p' on the last word for fun. P for pentral. Lorelei noted the wary glint in his gaze, the sweat on his brow. The pentral around his neck. He'd loved and been loved once. That was a problem, but not the main problem.

"I will teach you, if that's what you really want," Lorelei softened her smile, her wand starting to dip toward the ground. "Tell me now."

The sorceress leaned towards him, as if daring him to meet her gaze.  Daring him in more ways than one: to exceed where others couldn't, to rise to the occasion, to refuse to fail.

Lorelei Hunt purred, describing the rules of her world.  He'd known them from the moment he'd found the little arafel spirit venturing into his bedroom, since he'd convinced it to share what it was and how it came to be.  Aviad had encountered plenty of necromancers before, met several who plied their trade by raising the dead and forcing them into servitude, but never one who murdered so freely, who kept so many spirits or used them in this way.  Whatever was at the core of Lorelei Hunt's soul, it had been nursed into being after decades of practice, a lifetime of sacrificing lives for the souls that drove them.

That was what he needed: to learn more about the transition from living to dead, and then dead to spirit.  And if he could gain some aid for Tawse and his plans to make chaos in the meanwhile, all the better.

The sorceress left the last challenge to him: "I will teach you, if that's what you really want."

A slow smirk crossed his face.

"This is the part where you British drop to one knee and swear allegiance on a sword, yeh?" he asked nicely, flashing her a bright smile.  "Yes, Lorelei Hunt," he said with emphasis. "I am your willing student."

Aviad should have told her he'd made a mistake.

He should have said, Lorelei, I'm a dabbler. I rely on my charm and my wit and my candle tricks.

And she would have been gracious. She would have said, Aviad, I'll do the killing if you corral the souls, I'll find a solution (she might, even) if you'll just tell me your story.

She liked stories. She liked them better than grand gestures and bent knees.

But he'd made a promise and she'd hold him to it, now. He might just surprise her. He might have it in him. She understood what it was like to be underestimated by a teacher. Looking at her, most would never think she could divine the future or summon the patience to summon souls. When she'd been a young student, she'd hated sitting alone with her thoughts. Her Divination professor would often ask her what she was feeling and thinking, as if he'd believed she was more complex than her troubles and not yet defined by her actions.

How do you feel? She'd answered honestly once. Empty. Bored. His brow had furrowed.

He'd returned later. How do you feel? Angry.

More brow-furrowing, more concern. She'd felt frustrated then, that she couldn't be who anyone wanted her to be. She'd watched her peers and studied them well enough to manipulate and intimidate them. He'd given her that. The tools to feel emptier. Angrier.

Better.

She smirked back at Aviad, amused. Lucky him.

"Wonderful. I accept. You're accepted. Goodbye," she made a shooing gesture with her hand and smiled more widely.

Lore rose from her seat and opened the door to the greenhouse, stepping out and waiting for him to follow.

"You'll knock next time, or better yet, I'll find you when I need you. Maybe I'll run into you when I next meet Cinaed Tawse," she drawled his full name like Aviad had.

She walked back to her cottage and paused on the porch step, glancing over her shoulder at him. A student! How exciting.

"One of these days, you'll tell me what your favorite world is. You have one, same as everyone else. I won't forget."

She drew the marble out of her pocket and rolled it between her fingers absently. Every soul a doorway.

"That's all. You've passed the tutorial," she flashed one last grin at him, tossed and caught the marble in the air, and went inside.