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In the window of Kellner Books, the younger Cassie got up and hurried out of sight.

Cassie stepped out of the doorway and walked down the street. She found another doorway to shelter in and watched as the paramedics came, and then the cops, and as they left minutes later. And then, not long after, younger Cassie stepped out of the store and locked up, swallowed in her greatcoat and wrapped in her burgundy scarf and bobble hat. She walked along the street and stopped directly in front of the doorway where the older Cassie was watching. She saw her younger self take the Book of Doors from her pocket and open it to examine briefly. Then the younger Cassie shook her head, slipped the book back into her pocket, and wandered off toward her life and adventures.

Older Cassie wiped the last of the tears from her face as she watched her younger self be swallowed by the snow.

“No more tears,” she told herself.

This was the night that Cassie first traveled with the Book of Doors.

In a few days’ time she would return to her apartment with Drummond Fox to find Dr. Barbary waiting for her, to throw her back into the past.

This time she would be waiting too, ten years older and ready for him.

Part 4

A Dance in a Forgotten Place

A Meeting in the Fox Library: On the Nature and Origin of Magic (2011)

During what was to become their final meeting in the Fox Library, in the year before three of them would die in New York City, Drummond Fox and his friends discussed the origins of magic.

It was a spring day, a world full of color, and the sunlight streamed into the dining room and sparkled on the glassware and cutlery. Drummond and his friends were enjoying a sumptuous lunch he had arranged to celebrate their presence.

“So are you going to tell us what you learned?” Drummond asked, looking at Wagner.

It was why they had gathered that weekend. Wagner had come to return the books he had borrowed for his experiments, the studies the four of them had talked about during their previous meeting. Lily and Yasmin had traveled to Scotland to hear all about the experiments and the details of what Wagner had learned.

“Ja,” Wagner answered, sawing at his roast lamb with his knife. “I will tell you everything I learned,” he said. “I can tell you in one word: nothing.”

The others around the table shot glances at each other.

“Nothing?” Drummond queried. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” Wagner said.

“Nothing?” Lily demanded. “I flew over from Hong Kong for nothing? Do you know how much flights cost from Hong Kong, Wagner?”

Wagner smiled, knowing Lily was joking. “By all scientific measures, the books appear entirely normal.”

“Did you try using one?” Yasmin asked. “You know, with the light and everything.” She waggled her fingers, as if to convey magical happenings.

“Ja.” Wagner nodded. “The light was not detected. Not visible other than to human eyes, it seems. There were no particles I could capture, nothing to weigh or measure. It is as if the magic is not subject to scientific interrogation.” He lifted a finger. “This is most unusual.”

“Is that an understatement?” Yasmin wondered.

“Ja,” Wagner said. “Quite so.”

They ate in silence for a few moments, digesting that disappointing news.

“It seems to me that the colored light the books produceisthe source of the magic,” Lily said. She speared half a roast potato with her fork and held it in front of her as if assessing it. “The coloristhe magic, I think. It only appears when the magic is happening. The book is always there, but the color is only there when there’s magic.”

Wagner was nodding as Lily popped the potato into her mouth. “Ja,” he agreed. “Like some universal force that we simply have not understood.”

“And which you couldn’t detect with your experiments?” Drummond asked.

“Exactly,” Wagner said. “It may not even be that mysterious, once we understand it properly.”

“So you’re saying it is like electricity or gravity?” Yasmin asked, frowning.