Kayden felt awkward as she stood over the boy. She still held his spell book, cradled to her chest like a security blanket. "Will that scuff up the floor?" she finally asked.

The boy paused from drawing a complicated chalk design on her hardwood and glanced up towards her. "No. And the rune will disappear after the spell is completed."

"Ah."

The teen returned to his drawing, a hula-hoop-sized circle filled with intricate swirls and symbols. "Couldn't you have chosen some simpler form of compromise?" he complained. "This rune diagram is a pain."

"It's not my fault that you broke into my room last night. If you hadn't come after me, we wouldn't be doing this right now."

The wizard made a face. "You weren't supposed to wake up. And if your girlfriend hadn't been there, then I—"

"Wait—what?" Kayden burst out, staring at him. "My girlfriend?"

"The blonde who was sleeping next to you."

"You mean Lexi? She's my cousin, not my girlfriend!"

"Well excuse me!" the boy said sarcastically. "What else was I supposed to think? When guys have sleepovers, we all don't sleep in the same bed!"

"She's my cousin!" Kayden stressed again, but when he didn't respond, she just shook her head.

The boy flipped the page in his own spell book. "So," he asked, "where's your cousin now?"

"The mall. My mom took her shopping, a bit of aunt-and-niece bonding time. Lexi's the one who found your book this morning and passed it off to me. I stayed home, figuring you'd come back eventually."

"She saw it too?" He closed his eyes and little wrinkles formed at the edges. "At this rate, your entire neighborhood is going to need their minds wiped."

"Calm down. Lexi's the only one who saw it and she thought it was my Latin textbook. No harm done." She looked down at him. "Speaking of done, are you finished yet?"

"Does it look like I'm done?" he retorted, carefully printing a string of symbols along the circumference.

"Sorry."

Kayden stared at him in silence, watching his arm pendulate back and forth as he wrote. When almost the entire edge of the circle was covered in symbols, he paused and looked up at her expectantly. "I need your name."

"My name?"

"Yes." He sounded impatient and more than a little tired. "You know, the thing everyone calls you. It's on your birth certificate."

"Stop it," Kayden snapped. She looked down at the runes, suddenly nervous. "How do I know you're not going to... control me or something once I give you my name?"

The boy grinned. "Read a lot of fantasy, I take it?" When Kayden just glared at him, he waggled his piece of chalk. "If I wanted to control you, I could just sketch a mark on your skin. I don't need your name."

"So what stops everyone from writing control runes on people?"

This time, he laughed. "One: common courtesy. Two: it's harder to do than you think. You have to be pretty powerful, and most people are not. You're lucky I'm just seventeen."

Kayden rolled her eyes.

"Now," he said, "will you give me your name?"

Kayden sighed. Might as well. "Kayden Lee."

"Isn't that a guy's name?"

"It's unisex," she answered wearily.

"All right." He started writing again, glancing back towards the book as he translated her name into some symbolic design. Finally, after a thorough glance over to make sure he hadn't left anything out, he said, "Done."

"Wait," Kayden interrupted, "what about your name?"

"I already put it in," the boy said, standing up and wiping the chalk off his hands and onto his jeans.

"Well what is it?" she said impatiently. "I told you mine."

He stared at her oddly, not saying anything at first. Then he picked his spell book off the ground and started thumbing through it. "My name's Blaze. Blaze Merg. Happy?"

"Very," Kayden answered, feeling a tad more reassured.

"Glad we got that settled," Blaze said, his deep brown eyes on the page in front of him. "Now step inside the circle."

Kayden raised an eyebrow, not wanting to move. "How do I know you're not just going to zap me into dust if I go in that thing?"

"Because that's called 'murder,' and even for us, that's a big no-no. If it makes you feel any better, I have to stand inside the circle too."

"Oh. Okay." Carefully, she stepped over the intricately drawn edge of the circle until she was standing in one of the two small spaces not obscured by any symbols. "Is this good?"

"Wrong circle. Move over just a bit."

Kayden did, stepping into the other space while Blaze slipped into the one she had just occupied. It was a tight squeeze.

"Cozy," Blaze murmured, carefully glancing downwards so that his chin didn't hit Kayden's head. "I probably should have made the rune circle bigger."

"You think?" Kayden mumbled. She tilted her head upwards. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Nope, same as with most of the spells I've been trying in the past few days. But I haven't killed myself yet."

Her stomach flip-flopped.

"You know," he added casually, "it probably would be safer if I used my father's book instead—"

"No way," Kayden said despite the sinking feeling in her stomach. "Bonding Oath first, then book. Not the other way around."

"All right, but it's your funeral. You sure?"

"Positive," she lied.

"Okay." He glanced down at the print in front of him. "Then let's get this over with."

He took a deep breath and looked over the page, as if he was trying to get familiar with the words before opening his mouth. But once he did, it was as if he were a completely different person. The words rolled off his tongue languidly and smoothly, gliding through the air like music notes.

And then the rune began to glow. Kayden nearly stumbled out of the circle as the chalk markings began to radiate light. First it was subtle, a glimmer of green around her feet, but then the light began to rise around them, circling the two in a rash dance.

It's real, she thought with a terrified jolt. Up until this very moment, she had held onto her doubts. It was possible that the boy had been lying to her, toying with her with a fake book purchased off eBay. But as she watched his mouth form words—his skin tinged green from the glaring lights, his forehead beading with sweat from the exertion—she knew without a doubt that he had not lied to her.

And although Kayden didn't have a single magical bone in her body, she could feel the magic tugging on her, as if urging her to join the spell. Her skin vibrated and she had a sudden urge to dance. Don't get carried away, she thought, stopping herself before she began to move. The magic is playing with your mind.

She stayed in the ebb and flow for a while, feeling the magic pull her this way and that. But after a few minutes, she could sense the spell climbing to a crescendo. White light swirled around them, tendrils of sparks reaching out to wrap around their arms, chests, and faces. It felt like static electricity, causing the hairs on the back of Kayden's neck to prickle and then sting uncomfortably.

Blaze read faster, urging the spell to completion, and Kayden could feel the spell feeding off her, drinking in her energy. But she was powerless to stop it. She wasn't a wizard; it was up to Blaze to finish off the spell—

—which he did with surprising abruptness. One second the song was reaching its height, so intense that Kayden could hardly stand it, and then there was a strong yank on her gut. Losing her balance, she fell into Blaze just as he read the last word. The light died away as together they tumbled out of the rune and onto the floor.

"Ow!" Blaze moaned, landing with a loud thud.

"Sorry," Kayden murmured into his warm chest, realizing with a hint of embarrassment that she had landed on top of him. Hastily scrambling off, she glanced back over her shoulder to see that all traces of the chalk rune on her hardwood had vanished. "Did it work?"

"It should have," he said, sitting up and rubbing his sore shoulder. "God, I didn't expect you to jump at me."

"The spell caught me off balance," she admitted as she turned to find the book that had fallen out of her grasp. She spotted a darkened corner peeking out from under her bed and reached for it... but paused.

"Blaze?"

"What?"

"I can't touch the book." She tried with all her might to touch the cover, but it was as if there was an invisible force pushing back, similar to the sensation of pressing two like poles of a magnet together. Her finger refused to get anywhere near the book.

Blaze reached out and slipped the book out from under the bed, opening it in his lap with ease. "Then I guessed it worked. You gave up the book in trade for your memory, so the spell is making sure you don't break that oath."

"What about your half of the bargain?" Kayden asked, feeling strangely exposed now that the book was out of her grasp. She used the bedpost to support herself as she stood up.

"Well, let's try it out," Blaze said, getting to his feet. "Let's try to erase your memory." He started thumbing through pages.

"What?" Kayden cried in shock, suddenly realizing how trusting she had been. "No!" she shouted, reaching to snatch the book out of his hand, but this time the force field was so strong that it sent her stumbling backwards into her dresser.

Blaze found the page with the memory spell on it and opened his mouth. Terrified, Kayden didn't know whether to lunge at him again or run. Instead, she pressed her hands to her ears and closed her eyes.

But after a moment, Kayden realized that nothing was happening. She opened her eyes and saw that Blaze was staring at the spell, an amused smile on his face.

"Hmmm... looks like it worked." He snapped the book shut. "I can't read the spell. Or rather, the words aren't coming out." He observed her cautious pose. "Did you really think I'd break our bargain?"

"I don't know what to think anymore," she said, glancing down at her fingers; they were still tingling from the force field.

Blaze shrugged. "It's magic. You get used to it after a while." He turned away from her, facing the window leaking in the morning sunlight. "I need to get home about now. I have a punishment to serve for accidentally blowing up a building."

"Have fun with that."

"And remember: no mentioning magic to anyone. I can get in a heap of trouble for this. What we just did is technically illegal."

"Got it," she promised.

Kayden watched as he climbed up onto the window ledge, looking like an overzealous boy who wanted to fly. "You know," she said as his legs dangled over the edge, "you could always use the door."

He glanced back at her, his brown eyes amused. "What's the fun in that?" And with that, he jumped.

Kayden leaned her head out the window, watching as he nimbly landed on the grass and then started away at a casual walk, like any other teenager.

But he's not, she thought, biting the inside of her cheek.

On the surface, she felt relieved. Everything was finally over. She didn't have to worry about exploding buildings or a scary boy dressed in black. But there also was an underlying sensation, a feeling of sadness. Her peek inside this other world had only been that: a peek. She wasn't part of the magical community. She was a normal girl who lived in New Jersey, and that was all she was ever going to be.

With a frown, Kayden stared out the window, her eyes locked onto Blaze as he crossed the street. And as he disappeared from sight, Kayden's peephole into the magical world vanished along with him.