Nathan got one of his assumptions about Jamie Carrera partially right: while it probably belongs to her rather than her parents, she does live in a McMansion. Nathan approaches 9519 Hillside View Drive and studies the bizarre building in front of him, experiencing an odd mixture of awe and annoyance.

The McMansion is built in at least three different architectural styles he doesn't recognize, but they absolutely don't mesh well together. There's far too much roof for comfort and the windows, all of different sizes for reasons Nathan just doesn't understand, dot the house's front so haphazardly it reminds him of slapping bumper stickers on his father's car as a child.

The place looks like its ideal occupant would be a particularly campy sorceress. And that, Nathan thinks, may be the exact reason Jamie decided to make it her natural habitat.

Her lawn looks spotless and is actually an impressive green despite the heat, he notes as he makes for the front door. He can't help but compare this home to his own modest, rundown bungalow which must fit in this giant waste of space four times over. He's convinced Jamie never has to deal with mould issues or leaky faucets or shitty insulation, and wow, it's been a long time since he felt jealous like this. He knows he shouldn't complain, because at least he has a roof over his head, but the grass always looks greener on the other side, doesn't it?

Literally.

He rings Jamie's doorbell and gazes blankly at the wooden door, expecting to be waiting for a while. The house is big and must take some time to cross. Jamie, however, surprises him and opens her door within six seconds, looking far too excited to see him.

"Hey, Nate! Can I call you Nate?"

"No."

"Nathan it is. You're fifteen minutes late and–" She pauses, only now noticing the state of ruin his face is in. "Okay, wait a second, you're hurt. What happened to you? Magic gone wrong?"

Nathan's hand travels to touch the dried blood on his lip, which he... supposes must be looking pretty busted? He wouldn't be surprised if one half of his face is bruised as well. It's not like he took a moment to find a mirror and check himself out.

"Subway pole," is all he's willing to say on the matter. He doesn't want to think about the Bookers or Derek for a few blessed minutes.

"That's... Yeah, sure," Jamie replies, frowning, and Nathan can tell she's dying to ask more and barely refraining from doing so. She doesn't ask, though. His curt tone discourages further questions and Jamie, probably unwilling to lose his cooperation, rolls with it. "You do you, I guess. Just... Follow me, okay? You have to clean that wound. And if you like coffee, I can make some."

"Coffee. Sure."

"You're a man of few words, aren't you?" Jamie points this out while Nathan steps inside. "Are you sticking to one and two-word sentences today?"

"Maybe," Nathan replies. "If I feel like it."

"Six words! Now we're getting somewhere." Jamie beckons for him to follow her. "Come on, kitchen's this way."

She keeps rambling, telling him not to mind the mess (There's no mess to speak of, Jamie, what the fuck are you talking about?), but Nathan barely listens. He's simply too fascinated by the house's interior, which manages to be both stylish and utterly confusing.

It's colourful, far tidier than he expected, but the lawyer foyer's floor—composed of chessboard-style tiles—inexplicably morphs into laminate flooring at what appears to be a randomly-chosen point. A carpeted, not-as-grand-as-it-wants-to-be staircase leads to the second floor, twisting in ways that give Nathan a headache. The staircase leaves a rather useless corner beneath it and Jamie has desperately tried to cover up just how useless it is by placing a single potted plant there. A valiant, albeit fruitless, attempt.

A radio DJ's voice resounds loudly within the walls, and Nathan gets the impression Jamie can't stand silence. Interior shenanigans aside, it all seems a pretty normal living space, nothing particularly strange jumping out at him. Perhaps that makes sense, though: People usually keep their freaky shit in their attic, their basement or their bedroom, none of which Nathan will be visiting here today. He confines himself to sneaking glances at the abundance of framed photographs gracing light green walls, showcasing lots of smiling people, undoubtedly friends and family.  Jamie, perhaps unsurprisingly, must lead a busy social life.

As if by some miracle, Nathan reaches the kitchen with his sanity still intact. The kitchen, although huge, could've been a perfectly normal kitchen if not for an odd chandelier (it's the only blood-red coloured item in the whole space, why?) and a recliner placed uncomfortably close to the dinner table.

A recliner. In a kitchen.

Jamie Carrera is a psychopath.

"Here," the resident lunatic tells Nathan, handing him a first-aid kit she dug up from a kitchen cabinet. "Take what you need. I'll prepare coffee in the meantime."

She makes coffee while Nathan cleans his wound with water and a gauze pad. So far, she hasn't said a word about her video or #WitchcraftWednesday on Twitter. Nathan recalls the mortification he experienced earlier and his mood, already quite foul, sours. If it hadn't been for that video, people wouldn't be recognising him now. If it hadn't been for that video, Derek wouldn't know of his magic book's existence.

"So," he begins in a dangerously low tone. "Six million subscribers on YouTube. Could've brought that up before you asked me to be in your video. How'd you put it again? A nice amount of subscribers?"

Jamie doesn't even take her eyes off her rather luxurious Nespresso machine. "Oh, right, yeah, I'm sorry. Did I say a nice amount? I meant an incredibly nice amount. Or would you disagree? Isn't six million subscribers an incredibly nice amount?"

"What you said was a misleading understatement."

"Misleading, misleading..." Jamie waves the comment away. "I asked if you'd let me do a video and you said you were cool with it. Could've asked about the size of my audience every step of the way. You didn't." She looks at him briefly, something dark and amused twinkling in ditchwater green eyes. "You didn't take me seriously. Underestimating me was your choice. It's not my fault you never asked."

Nathan can't argue with that. She's right. He could've asked, could've put more effort into sending her away; the video exists because he allowed Jamie to make it. Even if she did keep her popularity deliberately vague, he jumped to conclusions about her, as much as he hates to admit it.

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

The coffee's done. "I understand why you're not pleased," Jamie says. "You're overwhelmed by all the attention and the discourse and the memes. Trust me, nobody ever really gets used to that." She turns to look at him now, expression more sincere than he's seen it thus far. "If you revoke your consent and tell me to delete the video, I'll do it, no trouble. But it won't do anything to give you your anonymity back. Your grimoire's a huge discovery, the Internet's all over it, and there's already a page on Know Your Meme. I can't undo all of that."

Of course she can't, and expecting it of her would be unreasonable on Nathan's part. The video has gone on to live a life of its own, far out of anyone's reach. Nathan will have to come to terms with it. Part of him wants to tell Jamie to delete her video regardless—not to relieve him of the burden of being known, but to make sure she can't profit from it anymore. He'd be doing it solely to spite her.

But he can't get the words past his lips. Jamie doesn't deserve that treatment. Okay, she played a significant part in the sudden upheaval of his life, but unlike some people in it, she isn't out to get him. She's letting him make a mess of her first-aid kit and making him coffee and she kicked Patch Booker's ass real hard on Instagram. She didn't force him to talk about his injuries even though she still very much wants to know about them, and shit, she hasn't even given him flack for being a grouchy bastard and destroying a watch that must've cost her a fortune.

Maybe it's time for Nathan to not be a natural-born jerk for once. With his wound cleaned, he walks over to the recliner and sits himself down. It's surprisingly soft and comfortable and maybe Jamie's actually onto something here, though the stupid thing still looks damn silly in a kitchen.

"You don't have to delete the video." Nathan takes his book out of his duffle bag and places it in his lap. "There's no point. The damage is already done. Just... Don't tell anyone my name. And maybe give me some tips on how to deal with people approaching me in public."

"I can do that." Jamie hands him a steaming cup of coffee. "Careful, that's hot. But yeah, if you're helping me, the least I can do is help you in return."

"About that..." The book in Nathan's lap burns with silent power. "I don't... I don't know how I can be helpful to you. I know you want to study the book, and I'll let you, but... What you really want is to find Veronika Lockhardt and I can't point you in the right direction. I have no idea where to look for her or who she even is."

Instead of pulling out one of the six chairs surrounding her dinner table, Jamie hops up on the table itself and sits there. Nathan wants to ask her what the point of the chairs is if she won't use them, but bites his tongue. This is simply how things go in Princess Jamie's Palace of Weird.

"You don't have to tell me who Veronika Lockhardt is," Jamie announces casually. "I already know."

What? She was as clueless as he was about Lockhardt before. Nathan pulls a confused face that makes him look as dumb as Patch Booker. "What do you mean? You didn't know shit yesterday."

Jamie takes a sip of her coffee, and Nathan doesn't understand how. His own coffee's still so hot it feels like a heat wave in Hell trapped in a cup. It has to burn her mouth at least a little, but Jamie doesn't even flinch.

"It's been... Some twenty-six hours since we last spoke," the YouTuber counts, "and I didn't use all that time to sleep and edit a video. There was plenty of it left to Google Miss Lockhardt. And I went as far as checking the second page of the search results. Crazy, right?"

Sure.

"You... You found her by Googling her? It was that simple?"

"Actually, no." Another impressive sip. "You know, when you Google people, you expect to find at least something among all the useless crap, especially if they have an uncommon name. Social media accounts, pictures, results from old sports matches they played when they were kids. But I couldn't find any of that for a Veronika Lockhardt in Morales. It's like she doesn't exist at all."

"Maybe she doesn't use her real name for her accounts. I don't use my real name either."

"Great point, but that doesn't change the fact we can't find her by Googling her real name and we don't know about any pseudonyms she might be using. Which leaves us stranded as far as the Internet goes."

"But you said you found her," Nathan comments, growing more confused by the second. He's finally brave enough to take a sip of his own coffee, which tastes divine. "How'd you succeed where Google failed?"

Jamie takes a moment to look smug, legs dangling. "When I realized I wasn't getting anywhere, I called a friend. Girl who knows literally everyone and can get you in touch with whoever you need. Seriously, it's insane. When I was sixteen, I needed a place to throw a party, right, and she managed to hook me up with the leader of a group of anarcho-communist furries who rented this empty warehouse for gatherings and seances. Unusual place for a party, but it was pretty sick. That kind of person. You know the type."

That story isn't nearly as relatable as Jamie Carrera thinks.

"Yeah," Nathan says, "we all know people who know... arachno... communist... furbies. Definitely."

Now she's looking at him funny, as if he said something weird, but she doesn't comment on it, thank heavens.

"Anyway, so I called that friend and asked if the name Veronika Lockhardt meant anything to her, and she goes hang on, I'll check for you. And a few hours later, she calls me back to let me know she talked to a friend of hers who's majoring in folklore and mythology at Morales University. Guess who used to be a PhD candidate there?"

"Lockhardt."

Jamie points finger guns at him. "Bingo. Specialized in Icelandic folklore, so..." She gestures at the book. "...that checks out. Bad news is, Lockhardt left the university a month ago and pretty much went completely off the grid. I'd call that iconic if it wasn't mildly concerning and inconvenient as all hell."

"Maybe we can contact the university, though," Nathan suggests. "They might have an email address or a phone number we can call."

"Tried it, didn't work. I called pretending to be a student, but they wouldn't give me that information. Told me Lockhardt's university email address got shut down when she left and that they couldn't share phone numbers or home addresses for privacy reasons." Jamie pauses, presumably for the dramatic effect.
"So, to summarize all that, the woman whose grimoire you're holding is a folklore scholar who dropped off the radar out of the blue."

Nathan opens the book on instinct, absent-mindedly flipping through the pages, enjoying the feel of them against his fingers. He can't read Icelandic, has little but pictures to go on in deciphering the book's contents, but the work draws him in regardless, more strongly than before. It truly is a precious object. Precious and dangerous.

"I mean, it's good that we know those things," he says, "but it won't help us find the woman. The university's our only lead and she doesn't go there anymore."

"I was hoping you'd come in useful for that," Jamie admits. "Yesterday, you didn't want to tell me on camera where you found the book. I imagine you had your reasons for that and I don't want to pressure you or anything, but... Knowing how you obtained the grimoire might help us figure out where to start looking for Veronika."

Nathan hesitates. It's good thinking, but Jamie will find knowing where he found the book underwhelming and useless at best. He doubts she'll let this go before she knows, though. Involuntarily, he goes a little red.

"I fished the book out of a random dumpster in a back alley downtown."

There it is.

"Okay. Cool. So are you, like, a garbage man, or...?"

"No. No, I work in... Sales. It's just that a lot of perfectly good items get thrown away. Smartphones, old knick-knacks people didn't want anymore, stuff like that."

He doesn't tell her that his mother drowned in medical debt when he was younger, that the rent just climbed higher and higher mercilessly, that sometimes there wasn't food and sometimes there wasn't warmth and that everything was always scarce for so long. He doesn't tell her that one man's trash used to be his mother's treasure, that they'd rummage through everything discarded to find valuable objects to sell, and that it truly is astounding what people throw away, magic books taking the cake.

He doesn't tell Jamie any of that, because it's not her business and she wouldn't understand, and he doesn't really want her opinion because other people's opinions always hurt.

"Hey, whatever suits your fancy. I'm in this for the book, anyway. Do you remember where that dumpster was? If Veronika threw it away herself, she must've been in the surrounding area. Might've had business there."

Nathan racks his mind, finishing his coffee. The subject's changing again, thankfully—anything's better than discussing his personal life, even grasping at straws regarding Veronika Lockhardt's whereabouts. "It was... near a church, I guess. Not sure what it was called. Saint... something. No idea."

Within seconds, Jamie has her phone out, typing faster than Nathan's ever been able to. "Say no more. Churches downtown named after saints. Shouldn't be all that many."

Nathan waits while she types, searches, studies her phone screen. Then, her face lights up. "Saint John's," she says. "Can it have been Saint John's? Big building, red bricks, neo-Gothic vibe."

Nathan has no clue what goth subculture has to do with churches, but what Jamie describes sounds suspiciously like the church he saw. Come to think of it, the name rings a bell. He's pretty sure that was indeed the name displayed on the sign next to the edifice. "I... Yeah, I think it was Saint John's."

"Saint John's Evangelical Lutheran Church. Hold on, that's... Let me Google something for a sec. Icelandic book, Iceland..." Jamie engages in more rapid searching, smile only growing when she finally has her desired find. "You know what the National Church of Iceland is officially called, Nate– Nathan? The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland. Could be a coincidence, could be a sign. What do you think?"

A book full of old Icelandic magic, belonging to a scholar specializing in Icelandic folklore, found near an Evangelical Lutheran church. It isn't unthinkable there's a connection between Veronika Lockhardt and the religious building; she may be a member of that church, may have thrown the book away after visiting it.

"Maybe it's nothing, but the only way to find out would be going there and asking about a Veronika Lockhardt. We don't have anything else to work with."

"Exactly." Jamie hops off the table, shoving her phone back into her pocket. Nathan doesn't know when she finished her coffee, but she did. "So I'm going to visit Saint John's, hm... Right now. If you're interested and you have time, feel free to join."

Nathan has time, and though he isn't as enthusiastic about the whole ordeal as Jamie is, he can't deny his interest is piqued. On top of that, accompanying Jamie to Saint John's might save him from further injuries. The Bookers may still be on the prowl, hunting him down on Derek's behalf, extra enraged after their encounter on the subway. A church will be the last place they'll look for him.

He places his book back in his duffle bag and rises from the comfortable recliner.

"Sounds good. I'll come."