Abby nodded, giving him a sympathetic look. He had told her about his vision of Alec Carter's death that Level Two had filed away in lala land. It hadn't been fair, and someone had died, and Virgil had done everything right but still had to face that reality every day.

"So the lesson here is, don't scry for Fauna, unless you want to dream of beetles and wolves and haunted tailor shops," Abby suggested in a gently teasing tone. "Scry for you. And maybe you'll get visions full of roses and lacy blouses and all the good things."

They could pretend. They were experts at pretending.

Abby took another bite of her bagel, not too concerned yet about any connection between Fauna's box of poison and Virgil's mystery box of chocolates. Fauna's had been sent to the office, whereas Virgil had gotten one at his flat, and apparently he had the self-control to just leave it sitting around while he daydreamed about Cepheus. Of course Virgil would think to scry first and hand it over later, if at all. He liked to work out problems for himself before he trusted anyone else.

"Let's think about this - perhaps someone from one of your escapades likes you."

Abby would check with her cousin. Her eyes twinkled. Virgil the admirer, collecting admirers!

            "Scry for you."

One of his eyebrows went up with the sardonic tilt of which the likes the Morgans, his father's family, might have been proud. Scrying for himself seemed a foreign concept - he did not think Seers could quite induce visions for themselves. It was a gift, to glimpse the future, but not a selfish one. Virgil didn't say that though; it wasn't for Abby to worry about.

"My escapades!" he repeated with a laugh, and bit his bottom lip thoughtfully. "I don't think any of them are coy enough to send anonymous chocolates. Why, did Mal say something? He's frightfully perceptive."

Abby's cousin had quickly clocked that Virgil's series of 'flirtations' at The Closet were indicative of trying to escape some internal ill. In another place or time, he would have pursued the liaison.

"There was a spark, you know, with all of them." Virgil twisted sideways on the stool to face Abby, and leaned against the table on one side. "But it's more than a spark with Cepheus."

It was butterflies and longing.

His red mouth pulled into a vague smile as he eyed the squib. "You and I have a spark, too. The Seer spark. Though I bet we would have gotten along like a wild fire, even without the whole vision business."

"Mal didn't say much," Abby laughed a little. "I don't know that he would tell me, though he doesn't seem the type to be anonymous about anything. Reids like to take credit, obviously."

Not true - they tended to be much more secretive, but Abby was in a glib, happy mood, even with all the talk of tainted chocolates.

Abby nodded, understanding. She hadn't been judging him either way. Virgil looked for that spark in every area of his life, and if it wasn't there, then it wasn't worth his time.

Cepheus had better be worth his time!

"Oh, absolutely," she agreed readily, folding up the bagel wrapper now that she was done with her lunch. The girl from his vision, the her from before, so to speak, had prompted Virgil to write Aileen and for Aileen to try to save her.

That was when Virgil felt he'd first met or seen her. But what stood out in Abby's mind was the night of the party when she'd met him. He'd known that there was more going on with her besides the obvious lakehouse escape. He'd helped her build a wall in her dream.

"It was destined," Abby raised her eyebrows.

"Not in the stars, but in ourselves," she teased, counting on him to catch the Shakespeare riff.

Sometimes Abby wished that she and Virgil had met before, when Abby had been a very silly teenager and Virgil had caused as much disaster with his pointed words as Figaro did with his lack of a filter, but maybe it was better that they hadn't. Maybe they'd met at exactly the right time.

If Abby Reid were in control of the stars, well, life would look a little better.

            "Not in the stars, but in ourselves," declared the squib.

The seats around them were swarming with muggle office workers now, their hubbub of conversation filling the tiny bagel shop. Virgil could feel people eying them, waiting to grab their stools once the pair were done with their lunch.

"Julius Caesar," he said, ignoring those waiting eyes so that he could name the source of her reference. "You're quite right, Unicorn Girl."

Was she? The reference, often misquoted, was spoken by Cassius[1] to Brutus on the eve of treason. But Virgil preferred Abby's way of looking at it; in a way, they were one and the same. It simply meant that in order to effect change, they had to look within themselves and not just to Fate. Everyone had their own Caesar to stab. Metaphorically.

"I'll tell you all about the date after the weekend," he got up, pretending not to see the stuffy businessman edging closer to grab their seats. "And you'll tell me all about the extremes to which Sasha will go, in order to win you over entirely?"

A mischievous light entered his eye as he offered Abby the crook of his arm. "You can leave out all the scandalous bits," the wizard teased, "but I hope you'll spin me a story."

1.	"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings"