Dara frowned as she stared at the metal ring. It wasn’t platinum, not all of it, but…

“I think I might be able to get away with using less platinum,” Dara said. “I can plate a little of it…here.” She ran her finger down the inner side of the ring. “Then I charge the needle, and it won’t…” She shook her head. “Maybe.”

She glanced over at Millie. Dara had started early in the morning, before the full heat of the California day rendered the backyard uninhabitable. She’d finished a few statuettes, and then started on the compass.

Which wasn’t cooperating.

Millie shook her head. “Want me to get the pom-poms out and do a magic dance?”

“I don’t think that would help,” Dara said. “But at least I think we’re earning more money for the rent.”

“Yeah, and thanks a lot for that.” Millie glanced over where the new glass statues were. Some of them were multi-colored, while others were nearly transparent, the sunlight shining through them. “I owe you.”

“You’re letting me stay here,” Dara said. “And you didn’t throw me out when I…” She sighed. “Blew up the parking lot.”

“And Hancock Park. But hey, what’s a little magical disaster between friends, and you need a place to stay.”

“Right.” Dara glanced over at the foci she’d made. “I’ve recharged my foci, but I have another idea to solve that problem.”

“What?”

“I think I can do a wide-area sleep working.” Dara held up one card, the enchanted writing gleaming in the sun. “So that way we can—“

“Okay, time out,” Millie said, holding her hands in a strange position. “Wide area sleep working. How wide?”

“Um…” Dara frowned. “Well, I’ve never actually used it before, so… It might vary? A little.”

“Ah-huh.” Millie shook her head. “Dara, I want you to close your eyes and imagine something.”

Dara put the focus down and folded her hands. “What is it?”

“Rush hour on the freeway. Thousands of cars going hither and yon, and then Dara, the mighty sorceress, casts a spell—“

“Working.”

“Fine, working. But you cast it, and suddenly all those people driving death machines, or the kid doing thirty on his new bike, or the old person jogging down the road, or the guy on the escalator are gonna take an unscheduled nap. Do you see where this could go horribly wrong?”

“I…” Dara blinked. “It wouldn’t be that fast. I mean, not for everyone, probably. Almost certainly. I think?”

“Right. What you’re describing, in legal terms, is a less-than-lethal weapon. Sure, it doesn’t kill people outright, but if you’re a mom with her baby in a tub and you happen to get hit with it…” Millie shook her head. “Also, the cops aren’t gonna say that’s magic. They’re gonna say that was probably some kind of chemical weapon, if you think the news is going crazy now…”

Dara swallowed. “Maybe I should think about that one a little more.”

“Good idea.”

Dara shook her head and gestured to the compass. “Even if this works, I’m not certain about its range, and I need to get all the gem shards. That’s the only way I could try and remake the gem and figure out how to open a way back home!”

“And your thief?”

“If he’s alive, I can sick the archmages of the school on him.” Dara stared at the half completed compass. “Ugh! How am I even going to evacuate the chamber?”

“Pardon?”

“The force on the gem will be very small. I have to enchant the bearings to give the least possible resistance, but that means I also have to eliminate any air resistance by creating a vacuum, but I have no idea what spell to use!”

“We have vacuum pumps here,” Millie said. “And people are doing hobby projects all the time.” She glanced at the design Dara had created. “But you don’t have any valves.”

“I wouldn’t need them,” Dara said. She looked at the compass, her expression grumpy. “Because someone would just cast a working, but even if I knew it, I couldn’t, because I’m not good enough to avoid contaminating the metal with my working!”

“Right, I’m not good with that, but Mike is.” Millie leaned back in her patio chair. “So, what is the rest of your plan?”

“What?”

“You can’t just hide here while you make your… magic compass of finding, or whatever you call it.”

“I’ll be keeping myself ready for any emergencies,” Dara said.

“Okay. What if there aren’t any?”

Dara turned to Millie and folded her arms. “I haven’t even been here two weeks and there have been three emergencies, if we count the incident in the desert.”

“What if you have a dry spell? What then? Sit and watch the idiot box? Browse the net?”

“I…” Dara bit her lip. What do I do? The house was nice, but other than Millie, there was nobody in it. Dara was actually finding herself missing the never ending noise of the dorms. She was missing Carathia, for spirit’s sake! “I’ll think of something.”

“That sounds lame, even to me. I might have an idea, though.”

“What.”

“College?”

Dara blinked. “College. Here.”

“Yeah, Fullerton’s less than a mile away, and I know some people. They actually owe me a big favor.”

“How big?” Getting into college isn’t—

“Saved their kid from making a life-ending mistake big,” Millie said. “Look, Dara, the thing is, you’re here, you can’t go back right away, so maybe… not hanging around all the time with a forty-something ex-attorney?” She gestured at the statues. “And don’t say you have to stay here and work all the time, because you need about an hour to make enough to bring in the kind of money that will let me convince John to back off. You can’t make any more, because you have to get ready—“

“Right! And what if I left and something happened?” Dara said. “Something I needed to handle, right away, only I was…”

Dealing with a bunch of strangers. Dara glanced away. Millie doesn’t need to know why I took the job at the library.

From Millie’s expression, Dara wasn’t certain if she’d fooled her.

“Okay, we’ll table that for a while.”

“Table?”

“Put something on the table and deal with it later.”

Dara nodded. “Right, I understand, now.”

“Good, I— “Millie’s phone started squawking, then turned to an ominous tune.

What is that—

“Hey, when Mike’s on a tear, he’s a bit like the Empire,” Millie said, her words doing nothing to clear things up for Dara. “Hey Mike, what’s going on? You’re on speaker so choose your words wisely.”

“The app is finished,” Mike said. “Also, choose my words wisely? I’m not the one seeking out better ways to get into trouble.”

“Cool, want us to download it?”

“And let you figure out the instructions? You can’t reprogram a VCR and the kid hadn’t even seen a lightbulb until a week ago.”

“Jokes on you, VCRs don’t exist anymore, so that’s not a problem. Gotta agree about Dara, though. Okay, we’ll be there in about an hour, God willing and the traffic cooperates—Oh, come on, Dara. You don’t need to look like you’re about to faint!”

Dara decided to remain silent. Besides, she hadn’t been thinking about fainting.

Right now, at least.

There would be time enough for that when Millie was driving to Mike’s house.