I raised my hand to knock but again I stopped short. I had been trying, unsuccessfully, for several minutes to go to my friends and explain everything but hadn’t been able to face them yet. Lowering my hand I resumed pacing quietly in front of the guest room they were resting in. I need to talk to them, to explain everything, but I couldn’t bring myself to knock.

The door opened and Tara found me with her gaze immediately. “Come inside and stop haunting the halls. You can figure out where to start inside.”

How was I surprised she would have known I would come to give an explanation. I followed her in a stately room of dark wood and deep reds. It was well furnished resembling a less than modern high class hotel room. Tibs lay in the middle of a massive bed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt but a good portion of his chest was wrapped in bandages. Mari sat beside him, her nose in a book. She looked up to see me before inserting a bookmark and leaving it on the bedside table. Tara went to sit on the bed alongside Tibs and Mari. I walked over to a dining area in the corner and retrieved a regal looking chair. I brought it over to the bar and sat down before I asked, “How is he?”

“I feel great” Tibs slurred. His eyes were unfocused as they slowly made a tour of the room.

“They just brought him in about an hour ago. He has more than a dozen stitches and his ribs are pretty badly bruised but not quite broken. They also have him some strong painkillers.” Mari said.

“I’m sorry.” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to look at them. “If I had been prepared he might have never gotten hurt at all.”

I rubbed my face as I considered my next words. Thankfully they knew me well enough to not say anything as I tried to find a place to start. “I am a wizard; spells, magic, potions that kind of wizard. I’m not a magician, they don’t have any internalized magic and have to fully rely on tools for magic. A mage has an internal magic supply and a wizard is a mage that has bonded his magic to an object, commonly a staff or a book.”

I dreaded the next part but I knew that I wasn’t about to leave it out. “A few years ago I chose to stop practicing magic. I hid my grimoire as well as the rest of my tools so I could forget. Years of power at my beck and call and I thought I could do anything. I was arrogant and I got a friend of mine killed. I figured if I stopped using magic and I slipped from my memory. I could live as a different person and when I eventually rediscovered magic the two lives I lived would just be one. I could see what it was like both with and without magic. If I had known I could used magic I would have told you all but if you separate yourself from magic like I did eventually you’ll not remember it at all. It’s just the ethereal nature of magic.”

Tara was the first to ask, “So not using magic makes you forget things about magical things?” I nodded. “But if magic is real, why wouldn’t we see something like the things that attacked us more often?”

It was a good question. “We used to see it often a few hundred years ago. The stories we are in the Brothers Grimm are prime examples of some of what we would see. People who utilize magic don’t make up a very large chunk of the overall population but as we grew numerous so too did the people with magic and eventually we grew large enough to fight back effectively. And as we pushed back it became easy to write off ghouls and the fae as stories. The collective idea that magic doesn’t exist pushes everything magical away like gravity in reverse. We basically live on an island of projected normalcy surrounded by anything imaginable.”

It was Mari who spoke up next, “So you made a deal with Lynda for us, what kind of deal?”

I let out a nervous chuckle at the question. “Well she hasn’t made any mention of my soul or a first born yet so that’s a good start.” My attempt at levity was met with silence. Feeling a bit awkward I did what I always do in uncomfortable positions: bulldoze my way through. “I, ah, guess the kind of deal will be more like a magically binding work contract than anything. She mentioned only having a few specialists. Wizards tend to be phenomenal generalists as well as being able to help more specialized magical works with the ‘heavy lifting’ sometimes involved.’

Tibs took that moment to look directly at me and spoke considerably clearer than a man high out of his mind on painkillers had any right to, “I just think she likes you.”

Before I could say a word in return he was out. Snores beginning to sound, I wished my conscious friends a good night despite the early hour. I knew that I would be busy with projects if I ever was going to see my grimoire ever again. It didn't surprise me in the least to find Lynda leaned against the wall opposite my friends room.

“So are you going to tell me about it or what?” Lynda said a smirk on her face.

I ignored the comment instead opting to work towards my current goal to go get my gear. I have been attacked twice already so I would need to prepare to survive the next encounter. So I asked, “Can I use your phone? I need to call Kyra.”

“Sure you can, but all this talk of other women just might just make me jealous.” Her tone was playful but her face was serious.