"I brought you a present," says Lisette, gulping her coffee. "Chingaw had these great plastic transistor radios." Lisette Daigle and Jan Hoogland are in the Geomancy reading room at the Royal Academy of the Arcane Arts and Sciences in Osyth, surrounded by glass-fronted cabinets full of curios, globes marked with red stripes to show ley-lines, and maps of far-away places with "here be dragons" written on their edges. This is home to Lisette, but it doesn't feel real. She still sees other places, dusty town squares and women in black. And the square cardboard box in the pack beside her chair. She shoves it aside when she reaches in to get Jan's present and two manila envelopes full of photographs.

The two friends look much alike, blue-eyed and redheaded. Lisette's hair is darker and her jeans are covered with the sharp crinkles she packed them into back in April, because she's spent all summer in a country where women are expected to wear wool skirts. Lisette looks worn down, as well, though it's only midmorning. She's been on a plane all night, coming back to the Academy from her field site in Chingaw; she has a dark unhealthy tan, ground-in grease, and bags under her eyes.

Still, Lisette has no intention of going home to bed. Lisette is a new woman, anxious to show herself off to colleagues, supportive and otherwise. She looks back at her worries of last spring and doesn't recognize herself in the callow, nervous person who set off for Chingaw.

What didn't she worry about, back then! Would she be able to live in another culture for months, would she learn the language, would the witches of Chingaw ever see her as more than another imperialist, stealing their secrets to glorify herself? How she fretted, stewed, second-guessed every sentence… but now she strides back into the Royal Academy the equal of any field researcher. She's traveled by mule-back through mountain passes, and can still feel the air thin and clear in her lungs. She can still smell Chingaw's dark tea and spices, still see its light fall through the oiled-paper windows of mud huts onto faces more focused, more attuned to the arcane, than any in Osyth. Lisette has earned her entrée into a culture based on sisterhood rather than the approval of men, and she loves her new self – stronger, smarter, wiser. She grins and takes another big gulp of coffee.

Jan laughs, looking the radio over. She and Lisette share opinions about the morality of buying indigenous artifacts, and have a friendly competition as to who can bring home the least authentic souvenirs. One of the red knobs on this one has already fallen off its lime-green plastic casing.

"This is definitely a minus-ten," Jan says appreciatively. "Now, Tell me All." They bend together over photos, the red head and the auburn.

***

Lisette Daigle studies time. Not all of time, which is too big a subject even for a scholar as dedicated and active as Lisette; she studies Ten O'clock in the morning, a time neglected by most academies. Lisette can tell you what four different cultures do at Ten O'clock, as far as magic goes, and she can tell you why that hour doesn't appear in the Wizard's Compendium, though academics everywhere pay it coffee homage. Ten O'clock is women's hour, when witches finish the morning cleaning, cooking and washing-up and settle to their spells. A witch's power may be gained in midnight frenzies but her charms and potions are made at Ten O'clock, which is also the hour when her customers, busy housekeepers themselves, can come to buy them. Lisette's been studying witches at home in Osyth for four years. Chingaw is the first foreign country she's worked in, and the poorest she's ever visited.

"They look eighty," she says, spreading out pictures of the Chingaw witches, "but they're only my age." What depresses her is their teeth, women in their thirties with black stubs for smiles.

"I haven't got any answers," says Jan. At least, Lisette thinks, Jan can tell what the question is. Most Natural Magicians would talk about fluoride.

"Have you found out why there isn't any other magic in Chingaw?" Jan asks now. "It's so odd -- with that strong ley-line running under the river. Selanto doesn't have any better power, and look at it!" Selanto is a hotbed of magic, home to a major University and any number of free-lancers in enchantment, wizardry, sorcery, what-have-you. Chingaw, however, has remained untouched by the explosion of commercial magic that's reshaped every other city on a ley-line. Its citizens live much as they did three hundred years ago. This is why Social Magic wants to study them.

"No," says Lisette. "And I just don't know enough of the language yet to tell whether I'm not understanding the answers, or they aren't really giving me answers. Every time I asked about it, they started using words that didn't seem to fit." She scowls at the faces spread out in front of her. "Their magic isn't anything new, what I saw of it. They're a lot like our own witches. A little more cosmetic magic -- that's where they get most of their income, from hairdressing and manicures and so forth -- a little less decorating magic. About the same amount of physical healing, no counseling that I could notice." She pulls out the next set of photos, close-ups of charms and amulets. The colors are vivid, unnatural, and blur off the edges of the objects into symmetrical patterns. These are pictures taken by a camera arcana.

"You see, the auras are just the same. They're not using anything to make these except the upper levels of power from the ley-line. But there's something more going on." She pulls the words together like someone trying to remember a charm. "They're not fragmented the way the witches here are. A lot of their charms are the same as ours, but there's an underlying cohesion to them; it all fits together, though they don't articulate the theory. They have something our witches haven't been able to build, or had stamped out by the male-dominated schools of magic." Lisette frowns. "Except –"

"Except what?"

Lisette hesitates. "Well -- this," she says, reaching back into the pack and opening the square box. 'This' is a fist-sized sphere, apparently made of fern leaves and grass bound up into a ball with brightly colored woolen yarn and dark strands of hair. It sparkles with magic. It sends waves of excitement up Lisette's arms, filling her with confidence and anticipation. "I just found it in my rooms when I was packing, so I haven't had time to research it. One of the witches said it was a gift from 'the beautiful man.' "

"Oh," says Jan, dismayed. She puts one finger on the sphere, rolling it around on the table.

"I know," Lisette agrees. "There's not a single wizard or enchanter or magician in the whole city. These women have all the magic -- and then this pops up. There has to be some male figurehead, whenever women get power. "

"Well, let's figure out what it is," says Jan. She picks up the sphere, searching its surface carefully, and Lisette watches. Jan has long hands with square-tipped fingers that look more and more delicate as they handle the object.

"It wasn't made by a demon," Jan says. "It would give me the cauld grue if a demon had touched it. But I think there's something demonic about it. It could be a summoning charm, or a protective ward." She sets the sphere on the table and pulls a worn wooden case out of a locked cupboard. The case is lined with blue velvet, padded and dented. The objects inside it look like tangles of silver wire to Lisette until Jan pulls one of them out and sets it up on a wooden stand; then she sees that it's a field charm, like a loosely-woven dream catcher. Jan sets the sphere in the opening at the charm's center. It fits perfectly.

"What kind of field charm is that?"

"It's a general diagnostic frame," says Jan. "It changes type depending on what attachments you make. I have charm bags for most of the major traditions -- modern demonology, sorcery, enchantment, natural philosophy, lechery, so on. It may not help you much, though. Everything I have is for the commercially available schools of magic, and you may be dealing with something else entirely." She works methodically, clearing the frame with bittersmoke and attaching a charm bag, reciting the incantations, noting the results, then clearing the frame again. The sphere fizzles a little at the third try.

"That's demonology," says Jan. "Like I said, just a little bit."

"It's not hard-core demonology, then," says Lisette, watching over Jan's shoulder.

"Not modern. Or maybe it just hasn't been activated yet." Jan tries a new charm bag, a new incantation, and the sphere lights up. It looks like a ball of buzzing sparks, fighting the field charm's restriction. "That's it!" Jan says in triumph. "It's lechery. Probably some kind of love charm."

"What kind of love charm would involve a demon?" The buzzing runs up inside Lisette's bones. Her back feels strong and straight as she stretches. "Why would anyone be giving me love charms for demons? Is it supposed to make me love a demon, or make the demon love me?"

"I don't think anything could make someone love a real demon," says Jan, screwing her face into a knot of disgust. "Incubi are related to demons, though. The 'beautiful man' could be an incubus."

"An incubus making love charms?"

"Yeah," Jan laughs. "Talk about overkill ... here's the bad news, though. The person to ask about incubi is Patsy Hoth, in Demonology."

Lisette groans. "Demonology! They're so unholier-than-thou!"