Alex looked around, bewildered. She was not in the library, or even the house. She could no longer hear the animals clamouring in the forest, nor sense them. She was standing in the middle of a great, grassy field. Far in the distance she noticed a forest in what seemed to be the East, but she was not sure. Every other direction she looked in, grass stretched out past the horizon. "Where am I?" she asked the Goddess, who was still standing beside her. "It seems familiar, but I've never seen so much open land..."

The Goddess laughed. "Of course you've been here before. In your dreams, and in the books you read. But those are in the future. This is before it is settled," she said. "This is the present, before the humans came." She corrected herself. "Well, before they built their cities."

"Where are we?" Alex asked again. "And why are we here?"

"We are on Jagmas, and we are here because the portal through the library door was still active. I did not realise that. I just wanted you to look at the books. Well, we must go back. It's not time for us to be here yet." With the blink of an eye, they were in the library.

"Goddess, what happened to the people who lived here?" Alex asked as she went over to a shelf of books. She held one up. "I don't know much about them, but I do know I like their taste in books." She smiled at the familiar Tamora Pierce book- Wild Magic. Then she looked at the other books and whistled in admiration. "They have all the Tamora Pierce books." She skimmed over the other books in the row, and realised they were all fantasy magic books, most of which Alex herself had read.

"Yes, they were studiers of magic," the Goddess confirmed. "That is why I brought you here. Come over here." Alex obeyed, and found herself looking at many more, bigger books. "They are books of magic, all magic. The Gift, wild magic, desert magic, Player magic... The list is quite long, as you can guess. You must take them back to the palace."

Alex looked at one of the biggest books- The Complete Book of Wild Magic. "I think I'll keep this one with me," she said decidedly. "I know a bit about my Gift, but nothing of wild magic. Christine might find it useful as well. As for the others..." She looked around and saw the roomful of books. "How will I get all of these to the palace?"

The Great Goddess smiled. "Leave it to me, and I'll make sure they arrive safely."

"Good," Alex replied. "Um...Goddess, what happened tot he people who lived here? They didn't die, did they? Because I wouldn't feel right about taking their books if they were dead..."

"No, child, they didn't die. After my brother's urging, they built the portal in the door and left this world."

"Where did they go?" Alex asked.

"To Jagmas, of course," the Goddess answered. "That's where it led us, so it would naturally have led them there as well."

"When we go through the door again, will we go back to Jagmas?"

"No, I deconstructed it," she replied. "An unworthy person might have passed through it, and we want to keep that world as pure as possible for as long as possible."

"Oh..." Alex thought the Goddess was not making much sense, but she decided not to say anything. It was the gods' custom not to explain until they had to. "So, how will you get all of these books to the palace?" she instead asked.

"Like this." Before Alex could blink, the books had gone, with the exception of the book on wild magic Alex had been holding, and a similar book on a shelf towards the back of the room. As she went to look at it, the Goddess said to her, "Don't worry, all of the books have gone to your room in the palace, except for the ones on wild magic. I thought Christine would need those, since she has not completed her study of it yet. These two books will help you, for the moment." The other book was titled The Complete Book of the Gift. Alex noticed the two were written by the same author and looked the same. "They are the most reliable for your present studies. It is time I was gone, and you as well. It is past noon, will someone not worry for you?"

Alex nodded, but asked, "Why do I have all of these magics? Sure enough, one magic is hard enough to control, never mind three!"

The Goddess smiled. "Yes, but it is important you have all of them. Farewell, my child." She vanished, and Alex quickly left the small house, with books in hand.

"No, I don't," Alex confirmed. "I can take care of my room, and I won't get lost on your lands. Which reminds me, what is the House of Whispers?"

A middle-aged man serving them made a choking noise and almost dropped the steaming dish he was carrying, but Otis didn't pay notice to him. "That is what my servants have come to call the house on the edge of my property in the woods. They claim it's haunted. To be honest, nobody knows what happened to the family who lived there. One day, they were there, and the next, they disappeared. Strange folk, they were. Had no jobs that we know of, had inherited a lifetime's supply of money from a distant relative. When asked what they did, they said they researched and studied magic. Everyone stayed away from them, after that. It wasn't long before they disappeared."

They ate the rest of the meal in silence, with Alex deep in thought. As soon as the plates were cleared away, she retreated to her room and took out the book on wild magic. Although the book was a lot of magical theory and most people would find it confusing and uninteresting, Alex found it fascinating. One particular part caught her eye- "If two people have abundant amounts of wild magic and are able to mind-speak with animals, then it stands to reason they should be able to mind-speak with each other. Unfortunately, I am unable to conduct experiments to see if this is true, since I have not found two people with the qualifications that are needed and who are willing." Alex took out a piece of paper and wrote this down in a note to Christine. She added that they would see if this was true in the fall, and it was a pity someone wasn't here to teach her how to use her magic. Then, she rolled up the piece of paper, tied a ribbon around it, and searched the woods with her magic, looking for the fastest bird in her range. There he was- a golden eagle, noble and wise, and the fastest. He could reach Christine's house in no time. He rested in a tree a mile to the South, but awakened when Alex called to him. He listened to her with amusement and eagerly accepted. In a few minutes, he was on her windowsill and carefully taking the paper in one of his claws. Then he was off, flying South-East to Christine's house.

Satisfied, Alex changed her clothes and crawled into bed. Birds flew into her room through the open window and settled around the room, making temporary nests out of her clothes, curtains, bags, or anything else they could find. A squirrel climbed in through the window and snuggled up to Alex. The girl smiled and fell asleep, happy.

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