Zoë's day was absolutely stellar. She giggled at the sight of two boys that were sent to Principal Garrety's office for turning one of their mundane classmates into a poodle.
She learned through the day that only a small fraction of the school, and the populace in general, had magickal potential. Even fewer could actually harness and manipulate such energies. Zoë felt even more special after hearing this. A lot of the students were apprehensive about talking to her, and still more shied away from her. She picked out a group of students who routinely harassed the magick-using students, mostly jocks and members of the "bring true religion into Hampstead High" faction. She'd deal with them in good time.
Still, one thing struck her as odd.
Everyone was still human. No mystical beings. No fae, no dragons, no centaurs, no demons or undead. There wasn't even anyone with cool, solid-color eyes or anything!
It just didn't seem right to her.
"Nothing I can't fix," she mused, clutching the rock in her purse.
Karyn was having a slightly less entertaining day. After the first couple of hours, she'd become used to everyone ignoring her, for fear of catching her "condition."
No one really knew how she came to have the anomaly she did. Most thought her a mage, though she was not. The ever-popular "she must have pissed off some really important wizard" floated around, along with theories about spell backfire and the like.
Even in this age of magick and mystery, no one could explain how a mundane like Karyn could be in the state she was.
Except for Karyn.
She remembered the stone, and her accidental wishes. Thoughts of trying to hide it from Jon came to her mind, drenching her in guilt as she saw him approach.
"Hey," he said weakly. "I didn't have any luck finding "
"I had the stone, Jon," she confessed with a sigh. "I wished you wouldn't think it possible."
"What? C'mon, Karyn, there was no way you could've had it! You would've told me so."
Karyn sighed, realizing that Jon was still under the effects of her wish. "I lied to you, Jon. I was overeager to have the stone, and I lied to keep it from you, and now it's gone! Somebody broke into my house last night and took it, and I don't know where it is!" She was on the verge of crying. "Please forgive me."
She leaned to his shoulder for comfort, and sobbed her guilt out to her friend. Jon embraced her, patting her gently on the back as two plus two finally equaled four. She had to have had the stone; how else could she be covered in fur?
He felt a little angry, but he said nothing. It was a tempting power. He'd felt moments of weakness when he'd had the stone.
"I forgive you, Karyn," he whispered. "We'll talk more about it later. Right now, we've gotta find that stone."
Karyn nodded, pulling away from her friend's embrace as she rubbed her red eyes. "Any leads?"
Jon shrugged. "I asked Eddie"”y'know, third period Math-- to do a magickal tracing. He says it's definitely somewhere on school grounds. There was too much mana activity to get more specific than that. He tried, and got a splitting headache for it."
Karyn stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Nothing else was missing. So who would have known about the stone, what it could do, and where to go to get it?"
Jon nodded. "And have wanted magick to be in the world this badly?"
They exchanged looks of bewilderment, replaced simultaneously by realization.
"Zoë!" they shouted simultaneously.
