I took him into the broken down, old house, but I didn’t feel as self-conscious as when I had him tour my apartment back home. After all, he had created the house, and he obviously thought that it was nothing to be ashamed of. He wasn’t the snob I imagined him to be. 

I opened the trunk for him and observed him thumbing through the books. I turned my back to him for one minute and by the time I had turned back he was lying in my hammock reading one of the books. 

“Do you understand any of this?” he asked, showing me a page.

“No,” I said, glancing at the foreign writing. “Do you?”

“Your roses are wilting,” he said suddenly.

“Are you telling me to go tend them?”

“Yes. Your walking around the room is making me nervous. I can’t concentrate.”

My mouth fell open. We had only been in the house a total of two and a half minutes and already he’d made himself at home and told me—the shack… homeowner—to get lost. Not only that, but I’d walked the length of the room once. Once.

I set my mouth in an ugly line, picked up one of the books, and got into the other hammock, which was surprisingly comfortable. Then I stuck my tongue out at Kalavan and hid my head in the book. 

I tried to look just as engrossed in the volume as he did, but it was arduous. Looking at the words and the illustrations, I had no idea what the book was about. One would think that pictures would be a universal language, but the pictures didn’t look like anything. I turned the book upside down and then to either side, but I couldn’t see anything.

“That’s a good idea,” he said, copying me. 

“It didn’t do me any good.”

“No? Me neither.”

“Do you even know what your book is about?” I asked cautiously.

“It’s hard to say.”

“Like ‘nihilism?'”

“You’re funny. Nihilism is not hard to pronounce. I say it all the time,” he frowned. At that second, his face was exactly like Tremor’s. Was that Evander’s true self? Kalavan dropped the book on the floor, exasperated, and turned on his side to look at me. “This book is boring. You’re a far more fascinating piece of magic. Those bumps on your face are truly remarkable. When I first saw you, I thought they were real.”

“And you still wanted to talk to me?” I exclaimed.

“It only took me a minute to figure out their falsehood. I’m good at seeing through glamor. It’s my specialty. The substance that makes those warts is so thin it’s transparent and if the light hits one just right, you can see an almost yellow liquid oozing around inside like it’s ready to pop.”

“That can’t happen,” I snapped, covering my face with the book. “And don’t talk to me about things oozing. I’m gonna puke.” When he didn’t say anything I got up the courage to ask from behind the pages, “Am I really ugly then?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But you shouldn’t let that get you down. I can almost see through it.”

“’Almost’?” I repeated in anguish lifting the book off my face. “I don’t want to be ugly.”

He looked at me speculatively. “And what happens when everyone realizes you’re not?”

For some reason, I couldn’t think within the confines of the story. Instead, I could only think of what it would be like to be ugly, so ugly in real life you were practically deformed and that was how I answered him. What would it be like to be beautiful? “People would treat me like I was special.”

He scoffed, “’Like you were special? Wake up! You are special. And you would make everyone realize it if you had the courage to be yourself completely without relying on a pretty face.”

 “I don’t care about what the whole world thinks of me,” I groaned. “I only want the attention of the person I like.”

“And he might have thirty beauties to choose from. What would set you apart from them?”

I sighed. “So I can’t win?”

A moment passed and then another… and then another. Finally, he said, “You can only win if your heart is more beautiful than your face. That doesn’t just include qualities like kindness or sympathy. It’s more than that. You have to be courageous, fearless, with a clear compass pointing which way you’re going.”

My nasal cavities were filling up. I was going to cry in a second. My poor self-esteem was exposed. What he said made me feel hopeless, because even though he made a list of attributes, I didn’t know how to make myself beautiful on the inside.

He graciously pretended to ignore my little crying fit, and when I was finished he casually said, “I don’t think I can read any of this without my crystal ball, which I didn’t bring with me. Will you sell me a few of these?”

I bit my lip. What would happen in the story if I sold him a few books and let him leave? The introduction Evander wrote seemed to imply that someone, an unknown entity, was coming to lead me out into the world. Obviously, that was Kalavan, but it didn’t sound like he had any intention of inviting me anywhere.

“How many would you need to take me with you?” I asked quietly.

“Take you where?” he mocked.

“Wherever you’re going.”

“Wherever I’m going? Well, in that case, I should tell you that I’m going to the capital.”

“Where is that?”

He took a deep breath and sighed. “You’ve never been there? You don’t know anything about it?”

I shook my head.

“Well, it’s a kingdom that was a dukedom until about twelve years ago. Until then they were under the reign of King Author to the south. Contact broke and the Duke Pevinore crowned himself King Pevinore. Now it’s called Chellot and it’s a wild place lacking the sort of enlightenment a person like you requires.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that they kill witches and burn them at the stake—all the time.”

“Are you just saying that so you can leave me behind?” I asked skeptically.

“No,” he said, lifting another volume with the tips of his fingers. “I’m quite serious. You wouldn’t be safe there.”

“What about you? You’re a magic-user. Why haven’t you been burned?”

He didn’t answer me and instead inspected the cover with a pleasant expression like he didn’t hear me.

“I can’t do any magic.” I continued trying to convince him. “The Red Thorn tried and tried, but I can’t do anything right. I can’t do star readings, I can’t do divination, make potions or even cultivate the rose bushes. I’m useless. If I can’t actually do any magic then I should be safe from suspicion. Right?”

“One would think, but those aren’t the only forms of magic. I told you—I’m an expert in glamor. You liked me as soon as you saw me, didn’t you?”

I was hesitant to say.

“It’s all right. You can admit it. It’s because of that gold dust. It’s not made of anything special. It’s just something that sparkles in sunlight or candlelight, but it makes every woman take an instant liking to me. Something that simple may not seem like much, but it’s a kind of magic.” He paused and looked at my face. “Don’t feel like a fool because you fell for it. Everyone does.”

I straightened my back and rebelled. “I don’t feel like a fool. I would have liked you without the dust.”

“If you say so,” he said sardonically, still maintaining that unconcerned expression.

Maybe he wasn’t being unreasonable, but I didn’t care. “I won’t let you have any of the books if you don’t take me with you.”

He groaned. “Then don’t.”

 ***

The moon rose high in the sky that night and Kalavan stretched out in the hammock next to me. It was enthralling to think of Evander with all these different personality traits. Kalavan didn't feel very much like Tremor. Tremor was not cheerful, or particularly playful. Kalavan was very entertaining. Come to think of it, I had never seen Evander show himself to be entertaining either. Yet, there had to be some part of him that was.

The moon was very full. I could see it through a break in the roof—a spot intended to be used as a chimney. The bright orb shone a heady white light onto my face. Women were always supposed to look beautiful in the moonlight. I looked like the plague.

Quietly, I whispered, “Is there some other reason you don’t want me to come with you?”

I wasn’t sure if he heard me. In truth, I didn’t really care if he did. Even if I looked ugly and he was holding it against me, I still just liked being with him. 

However, he did hear me and he answered. “Do you think I want to leave you behind because you’re ugly?” he asked, revealing his insight. “Truthfully, I would feel better about taking you with me if I knew what you were under that disguise. I have no idea what kind of enchantment you are held by. The types of magic you listed before are only a few. You’re forgetting all about necromancy, elemental magic, simple trickery, summoning… The list is endless. And right now I don’t have the time to put your puzzle together. I have to leave tomorrow. I’m only allowed so many days away from the castle and even if I start back first thing tomorrow, it’ll be cutting it. Forget about coming with me.”

“Don’t you want my books?”

“More than anything and I have no doubt I’d be able to read them with my crystal ball.”

“I’d like to read them, too. But tell me, what’s so special about a crystal ball? It doesn’t change the form and shape of what you’re looking at.”

“Not normally,” he agreed, “but mine is different. It’s got three great flaws that branch out from the center, almost like a flower with three petals. Each one has its own angle and when you look at something through it; it joins lines on paper that didn’t meet before. There are different ways to hold it and different ways to drag it across the page. Figuring out the right angles would take forever, but it would be well worth it.”

“Could you teach me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not taking you or your books with me.” 

After that, he was silent again, and something inside me said he wouldn’t speak again that night. I was right.

I fell asleep listening to the sound of Kalavan breathing. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but maybe he had sprinkled some weird dust on me when it was time for annoying, talkative girls to pass out. In any case, I slept like a log—a warm, happy log.