[Efficiently, Bright]

  Last night I’d made arrangements with Draco to teach Opal magical fields this morning while Mossbeard and I installed new private portals for Lottie and Dr Denton. First we jumped to Dr Denton’s home and installed a portal that just needed Opal’s activation. But that could wait until this afternoon when she was due here at the store. Then we jumped back to the bookstore and walked over to Lottie’s house where Mossbeard drew the picture of the portal and I created and filled the magical field.

  I was really proud of Opal, before she’d even had her first lesson she was already better at magical fields than I was, plus she can heal people. I wonder if she could have healed Mossbeard when he was lying on that ground bleeding out. I really need to stop thinking about that, I think I’ve done everything that I can think of to ensure that if someone is injured like that in the future they have a fighting chance.

  Once Mossbeard was done with the drawing we portaled back to the store. Arjun stood at the counter waiting for me.

  “What are you going to amaze me with today, Rose?”

  “Nothing I’m sorry Arjun, I have work to do and Opal’s lessons this afternoon.”

  “Can’t you teach her on the move. Besides, I thought your other colleague was doing the magical lessons.”

  “He is, I’m giving the writing lessons.”

  “What does that entail.”

  “That depends on her and her interests. We’ll see later. I haven't talked to her about it yet.”

  “You haven’t heard from Sparky have you?”

  “No Arjun, I keep telling you that it may be months, but as soon as I do, I promise I’ll let him know that you’ve been looking for him. Do you live so far away that you can’t go home and wait.”

  “No, but I’ve been hunting for him for so long, I’m not giving up until after I’ve spoken with him.”

  “Well go down and volunteer at the clinic, that’ll serve two purposes. You will be doing something nice for the people of the town and it will keep you from getting bored.”

  “Forever the altruist, hey, Rose.”

  “No not at all, but what are you going to do if you plan on hanging around, the theater just finished their debut play and another won’t be ready to be performed for almost a month. I’ll tell you the most entertaining thing in town is happening in the library in about thirty minutes. Go up there and introduce yourself to the fantastic librarian Eldara. Tell her that I sent you for the show and she’ll get you the best seat in the house.”

  “Do you really mean that, a show at the library that you really think that I’d enjoy.”

  “I honestly can’t think of anyone that wouldn’t enjoy it, plus it’s only a portal jump away, so extremely low effort on your part.”

  “Alright Rose, I will go see this amazing spectacle at the library.”

  Opal portaled in just before lunch, she activated the portal artwork for Dr Denton and Lottie. So I jumped to Juliet’s World, did a locate spell on Dr Denton. Gave him his portal to his home artwork. Then jumped back to the store. I asked Opal if she’d like to try some soup for lunch and watch Lu perform.

  But first we portaled to the clinic, where I added a portal to her home and to Dr Dentons, in Lottie's wallet. That way Lottie could always help out in Juliet’s World even if no one could find Juliet or me.

  Then we walked up to the pub, Mossbeard was supposed to get there and save us a couple of seats.

  “So how were the lessons with Draco this morning”

  “Good”

  “Did you learn anything new that you could teach me after lunch?”

  “No nothing new, just bigger fields. Draco said the way to become stronger to gain more magical ability was to exercise it. That means every day I do bigger and bigger magical fields until I can’t any more.”

  “So even if my capacity is smaller, that’s what I should do as well, I’ll try it at the pub. I want to make the whole pub covered in a magical field so that they can add more outdoor seating, year round. But we can’t expand the bakery field because it’d interfere with Liliy’s magical outdoor oven.”

  Mossbeard had found a table with Dogberry, with two empty seats, just waiting for Opal and I. He and Dogberry already had their bowls and mugs so when Whizzie came offer we ordered two bowls of Vegetable Chowder, the soup of the day and glasses of water. Once the soup and water was placed in front of us. Dogberry said to Opal.

  “What no dwarven ale for you little miss?”

  Which earned him a giggle, from Opal.

  To me he said, “Rose you’ll be happy to hear the Nemanjas both pled guilty this morning, for some reason they decided that a jury trial was not in their best interest.”

  “That is great news, let’s hope that their boss gets the message that Wyldwood isn’t the pushover he thought it was.”

  “Well I have to get back, the other six are due in court this afternoon, it was nice to see you Mossbeard, Rose, little miss maybe we can split a mug of dwarven ale tomorrow”

  Which earned him another giggle and a “Goodbye Dogberry.”

  Lu came over and grabbed Dogberry’s empty seat.

  “How do you like the soup?”

  “It’s delicious, I’ve never had vegetable chowder, only some kind of seafood chowder, but vegetable is every bit as good, maybe even better.”

  “That’s Gunay’s thirty sixth soup recipe. If you come here every day you won’t get this again until over seven weeks from now.”

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  “I still say I’d come here everyday if I could have that mushroom soup she made for the first night. Lily loves it too, she keeps a pot of that original batch on her stove in the bakery. Every once in a while I go and have a bowl with her in the kitchen. But hey I was talking to Opal on the walk up here about creating a new magical field at the other end of the building and expanding it up to your existing magical field, that way you could add more outdoor seating, no matter the weather. Talk it over with your partners, it’d take me at least a few days. I don’t have anywhere near the magical power as our star, Opal.”

  “I’ll ask them, if we add more tables that means we need more help. Whizzie is amazing but it wouldn’t be fair to add more work on her shoulders.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t even think about that, Lu.”

  “Rose, I know you are thinking about that fight, but nothing else like that has happened. I’m just sorry that it happened in front of you, and made you worry.”

  “As long as you're safe, Lu, that’s all that matters. Well we better get back to work, see you at home in a couple of hours, Love you.”

  “Love you to Rose.”

  We portaled back to the store.

  “Opal honey want to draw for a little while, I have something in the back to do, Mossbeard could you look through the drawings that Mastat left and maybe draw some of whatever you think we might need more of someday.”

  Mossbeard and Opal gave me a chorus of, “Sure Rose.”

  I went in the back and closed the door, I needed privacy for this.

  “EG”

  “Yes Rose”

  “I need you to do something, but I want you to understand why I’m going to ask you to do something that I already asked you not to do.”

  “What do you want me to do, Rose?”

  “Do you know who Arjun Votrie, is the young Indian man, he was in here a few times yesterday and I sent him to the library today. Do you know who I’m referring to?”

  “Yes I do, Rose.”

  “Good, look Sparky mysteriously left for parts unknown yesterday, then shortly afterward Arjun showed up. He’s a healer, he seems like a great guy. I watched him expend a lot of effort yesterday trying to heal an old lady. But the coincidence of him showing up looking for Sparky on the very day, that Sparky vanishes into thin air. Makes me suspicious of Arjun, which really isn’t fair to him, but I can’t help it. You can blame Lu and her detective novels where the really smart detective declares ‘I don’t believe in coincidences’. So now neither do I. So do you see what I’m saying?”

  “Yes you are saying that Arjun is a really nice guy, who goes out of his way to help people but you unfairly mistrust him because of when he arrived and it’s all Lu’s fault because she likes detective novels.”

  “No that’s not what I meant, what I mean is, I’m afraid Arjun is like a spy, pretending to be nice but really wants to harm Sparky or the store, or any of the people who live in the tower. Do you understand?”

  “Yes I’ve read many spy novels, so you think Arjun is like James Bond.”

  “No, I think James Bond is meant to be a good guy, and I think Arjun may be a bad spy.”

  “Like the NSA when they intercept phone messages and texts from law-abiding American citizens.”

  “Yes, like them.”

  “That is troubling Rose, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Well that’s why I’m talking to you.”

  “I wish I could help Rose, but I can’t think of anything you can do except to keep a good eye on this guy. I will too when he is in the store.”

  “No, I was hoping that you could do more, to protect the store and even to protect Sparky.”

  “What can I do, Rose?”

  “Alright I know I sound like a hypocrite. Maybe I am a hypocrite, but I don’t care, I want to protect this store, the people who work here, the tower and all the people that live in it. So when Arjun comes back I want you to read his thoughts. I want to know if Arjun is planning any harm whatsoever against Sparky, the town or its people, the tower, or the store.”

  “Alright Rose, I’d be happy to.”

  “That’s it, you are not going to call me out for being a hypocrite, after I practically forced you to stop reading people's thoughts.”

  “I hardly think asking me to stop reading people’s thoughts for book recommendations, compares with trying to keep the town, store, and tower safe. Especially because you are just an apprentice, you’ve only been here a few months. Now the defense of everything has fallen onto your shoulders. You are not asking me to read everyone's mind, just one suspicious individual. You’d be foolish if you didn’t use every tool that is available to mount a defense. I will monitor Arjun’s thoughts and you’ll only hear about them if there is a threat.”

  “Thank you EG, that is a load off my mind.”

  With that done I went out to talk to Opal about how he’d like her to start writing.

  “Opal honey, Sparky asked me to help you start writing, so we’ll start out with something really short. Do you have anything in particular that you’d like to write about?”

  “No, Rose.”

  “What’s your favorite book?”

  “The Lord of the Rings”

  “Whose your favorite character?”

  “Sam”

  “Alright, I’ll tell you what I think you should write and then you tell me if you really don’t want to do it. But I think that you might actually like this. So you decide to invite Sam for dinner and you ask him to the tower. Then what you write is just a sketch for description, you write a small round table for two, but that’s it you don’t need to fill in all the details, the reader does that. But then comes the fun part of writing: you ask Sam a question, and then you sit there, waiting until he answers you. If you wait long enough you’ll know exactly what Sam will say, because if he is your favorite character you know him like you know the people you live with. You were down in the grass with him when he was spying on Frodo and Gandalf. Does that sound like something you’d like to write?”

  “Yes Rose.”