Amelie leaned against the wall outside McDonalds taking deep breaths. The address Adrien had given her was just around the corner and she wanted two more minutes to collect herself before she entered.

She had no idea what to expect. That persistent tingling spread through her body as she thought of Adrien standing on her doorstep last night, with his bulging arms and rare carefree smile. She basked in the memory for a minute then shoved it to the back of her consciousness. Seeing Adrien surprisingly was not what she was worried about.

He said she had magic.

What if he was wrong? Or if he was right and she was too weak to access it, or had started training too late?

Every disappointing scenario had already run through her head on her walk here and she was again grateful that she had spent the workday immersed in a challenging problem, for without it, these thoughts would have bombarded her throughout the day as well.

She tried to calm down her nerves and steel herself against every possible disappointment. It had always been her coping mechanism: expect bad news and be surprised when it's good.

She just didn't know if she could handle such a failure, even if she went in expecting it.

Amelie stood outside the McDonalds until she had watched two families go in, eat, and then come back out. Her mood still had not improved and she realized it was not going to. She pushed off the wall and walked towards Adrien's address.

She rounded the corner to a giant warehouse with no visible entrance.

Confused, she pulled out her phone and called Adrien.

He picked up on the first ring, "Hey! Are you here?"

"I think so?" she said as more of a question. "How do I get in?"

"I'll come get you, it's a little confusing. Don't move I'll be right down."

Amelie shuffled her feet awkwardly and waited for Adrien to come. She had no idea which direction to look in for him.

"Hey!" she heard after less than five seconds of waiting. She turned around, startled and felt her long hair whip Adrien in the face.

"Ah sorry! That was faster than I thought it would take." She said, smiling. He was dressed in all black today and she had to check herself to make sure her eyes stayed glued to his and did not wander to look at the muscular arms she remembered from yesterday.

"That's because I Dove," he said and puffed his chest out in mock arrogance.

"I'm assuming saying you Dove doesn't mean you jumped from up there, right?" Amelie said.

He laughed, "No. Not at all. That would be cool though." She looked at him expectantly for an explanation. He stood next to her so their shoulders aligned, "Think of it like stepping forward here," he pointed to their feet and started a slow step forward, "and, instead of your foot landing right in front of you, it lands ten feet ahead of you." He pointed at the trashcan about ten feet away. Then he stepped forward again and as soon as his foot was about to hit the ground his body appeared instead next to the trashcan.

Amelie broke out in a grin.

"Ready to go in?" he said from across the road.

"Yes!" she nodded vigorously.

She had anticipated that she would get to "Dive" with Adrien to enter the building but he admitted that, unfortunately, you could not bring someone with you when you Dove so instead he had to show her the back entrance to the warehouse.

There was a garage door around the back that used to be used for deliveries that she and Adrien were able to open with some shoving. The room it lead to was a complete mess, filled with empty boxes, crates, and various packing material.

"Sorry about the mess," he said apologetically, "no one uses this entrance, obviously."

"It's okay," she said.

They waded through the chaos to the door at the other end.

"What exactly is this place?" Amelie asked as Adrien opened the door.

"There's still a lot I have to explain to you about my world. But, this is kind of a gym for those of us stationed in the human world. Don't worry, everyone here is trustworthy. The only Realm stationed outside of Boston with now is an ally. You're safe here."

"You said all the Elves have been breeding separately from Humans for almost a million years...How is that possible? If you've been living separately how did you not develop your own language?" She had taken enough anthropology classes in college to understand cultural evolution and the tree of languages.

"We do. Each Realm actually has a couple unique dialects of the language as well since we are mostly separated. I learned English at school."

She gasped, "What? But you have no accent!" She knew from her high school French classes how difficult it was to master the grammar of a second language, let alone speak with a flawless accent. "Do you have no accent in all of your seven other languages?"

"Eight, including my mother language. And how do you remember I speak seven languages? I told you that forever ago," he replied.

She didn't want to show her cards and tell him she had read her journals to refresh. "You realize I work at MIT, right? And have a degree in Chemistry and Math from Princeton. It's my job to remember things." She hoped he understood the significance of her education. Even though they had been friends long ago she still felt like she needed to impress him.

"Right," he smiled. "So I remember telling you I went to a specific school. What that really meant was that I went to school to train as a sort of diplomat for my Realm to the human world. Most Elves speak English and other human languages with an accent. English had become the language of commerce even among the Elves though. We like to try to match humans when we can so that diplomats like me have an easier time blending in. But even if they speak English, the natural accent is very different. It's like how the national language of India is English, but an Indian person's perfect English sounds very different from your perfect English."

"Wow. Can you show me English with an Elven accent?"

"I thought you wanted me to show you magic?" he responded cheekily.

"Yes that too. I love hearing about it all. I want you to show me everything."

He smiled and blushed.

"I think your curiosity is beautiful," he said. She would have looked away, embarrassed, but instead she burst out laughing. He had spoken with the Elven English accent.

Amelie then realized Adrien was still holding the door open for her so she grinned and walked into the next room. He flipped on the lights. It looked like an old waiting room of sorts, with a desk and some plastic folding chairs still scattered around the room. There were also worn out posters of girls and boys in 90's era hair and gymnastics leotards.

"This place was an old gymnastics gym that went out of business. We bought it out about fifteen years ago and never bothered to renovate since there's no one to impress here. We don't usually get visitors." He gestured to a huge window on one side of the room, "That's a one way mirror. From out side it's a window, I guess so parents could watch their kids, and from the other side it's a mirror.

She walked over to the grubby window and cupped her hands around her eyes to see more clearly. On the other side of the glass there were about ten other men and women doing what she assumed was "training." Some were using the space to work out physically, while others looked as if they were working out their magic.

"Who are these other people?" she asked.

"They are all from Prost, a Realm based out of a suburb of Boston. It's one of the longest placed Realms in existence. They're been here since the early 1800's, after the American Revolution. Many of the other Realms have had to move around quite a lot due to Human's political issues or Global Climate Change. Most Realms are still afraid to go back to Europe after World War II's destruction. There is one Realm still based in France but that's it for Europe.

"Prostans are a nice people, but they also don't have many rules or hierarchy in their government so they are slow to progress. Their parliament has to have 80% majority to get any decisions across so they are usually stagnant. Honestly they just got lucky when they picked the United States and it stayed relatively peaceful here. If there was ever a war on US soil they might get trapped here before they could decide where to move the Realm."

"Move the Realm? Do you move the entrance to the Realm or the entire Realm?" Amelie was getting more and more confused about Realm politics the more they talked about it.

He chuckled, "Right. You're the only Elven person who was not born in a realm. No one has ever had to explain it before, so there's not like a script. I forget what information you do and don't know.

"Each of the eight Elven realms is hidden within the folds of the human world. They were hidden fifty thousand years ago by a powerful Elf we call Eshaar. Each Elven Realm was shrunk down to be hidden among the humans. It's some really beautiful magic."

She drew in a breath, sharply, "Oh, wow."

"It would take me a week to explain Elven creation stories and our mythos to you. As well as into-Realm politics. Can we just focus on magic today?" He responded.

"Yeah, of course. Magic is most important to me." She replied.

He nodded grimly. "We're going to start in this separate room, just to get you to harness your magic. I'm assuming you don't want everyone ogling at you making yourself red with concentration."

She huffed a laugh, "Yes absolutely not," and pushed herself away from the window.

"Alright, let's get started," she said. She spread her legs, put her hands on her hips, and raised her chin up in a confident power pose. She was trying to make Adrien laugh but he just pulled his lips together.

"Are you sure you want to learn about this stuff? It's really hard to master and you might never even be able to harness it. I don't want you to get your hopes up that you'll be incredibly powerful and then have them broken."

"Yes, Adrien. I'm sure. You can't protect me from this."

"Okay," he said. "Let's get started.