Penyo was the greatest duellist of his time; there was no blade more nimble. Leaving dozens of opponents dead or worse, humiliated, did have its risks, of course. Revenge did not always involve honourable methods, and even the best blade can't protect against every ambuscade.

As the hand gripping the sword slowly started cooling, Penyo wondered who would pick him up next. He hoped the human in question would look good in a cloak and a hat with feathers in it.

She had killed five of the mob, but just too many had come together against her, leaving flight as the only option. Through the ruin, barely more than foundation walls - only when on the far side another crowd waited she realised how well prepared a trap it had been.

The humans waited. A search of the area revealed nothing helpful, just a low ring wall, and a few - very few - stones scattered in the grass. All they had to do was keep her out in the open until sunrise, and the sky already grew brighter. She had a trick that would let her make use of the shadows for longer, and maybe, just maybe she'd get out of this.

By mid-morning some braves started searching the ruin, armed with flails and axes. One of them spotted the cat skulking in the shrinking shadows. She could see him thinking nothing of it for a moment, then glaring back at her with suspicion. When they tried to chase her into the sun, she hissed and spat, but eventually a kick landed. She hit the ground running, warmth on her fur, and very surprised she didn't burst into flame. The few of those still waiting outside that thought to try and stop her she dodged easily, and ran as fast and far as she could, leaving more confusion behind.

Denise never had taken to reading, much to her father's chargrin. His claims that books were magic that could take you anywhere did nit impressed her, and she only read fiction when she could not avoid it.

When she inherited her father's estate, she did not know what to do with the books, but the smell of paper and dust awoke nostalgia, accompanied by curiosity. She unlocked the one bookcase with doors and ran a finger tentatively over the spines, cracked leather with gold lettering on most. She pulled out a small volume, opened it in a patch of sunlight, and started reading.

When she suddenly stood in ankle-deep snow, wind cutting through her summer shirt, she realised the "magic" part had not been a figure of speech.

"With a good rifle, I could shoot him from here." In Nico's opinion, when you picked sides, you might as well do it properly. "Unfortunately I don't think they make any here."

On the way back from the lookout point to the camp, Daaren remarked, "I don't like guns."

"Oh? Why's that?" He had shown pragmatic attitudes to fighting and killing, so moral objections would have been a surprise.

"They are too loud."

Nico wondered if it was a good or a bad thing that an opportunity to introduce him to the concept of silencers was a long way off.

If you think he's pompous now, you should have heard him when I met him. It was during those really unpleasant "witch hunts", and he was thrown into the dark cell I had been in for a while already.

As soon as I couldn't hear the guards anymore, I made my own light and tried to cheer him up a bit.

"You'll get used to it."

"I'd have thought this place had safeguards against magic," he said, referring to the glow between my hands.

"Their idea of a joke, I guess. Whatever could an illusionist do? The guards are protected." He did that contemptous sneer you get from some mages when I said "illusionist", which annoyed me a bit, but I kept it under wraps. Mostly. "And what is your power they are not afraid of?"

He snorted. "Summoner. Can't do a thing without chalk or something else to draw my circles." The walls were poured concrete, not pebble in sight.

So I made some suggestions starting with blood and going downhill from there, until he went on a short lecture about required spiritual purity of materials if you didn't want to get something a lot more dangerous, particularly for you, than you were aiming for. He looked really dejected, in an annoyed way. I went over the obvious idea to see if it had any holes in it.

"Circles and runes, yes?"

A snort and a nod.

"Well, if you can describe them exactly..." I did a little flourish and turned the unfocused light into a bright spiderweb spanned between my fingertips, smiling at him through the gaps. "What is purer than light?" Things started looking up from there.

"All those pills... Don't you want to try something herbal instead? All that chemistry can't be good for you."

"Mum, what do you think photosynthesis is? Magic? It's really amazing chemistry."

"But mixing up stuff in a lab, that's unnatural!"

"Then so would be using a lighter to start a fire, rather than waiting for a lightning strike."

"You don't eat fire, though. Dear, herbal remedies are so much better, because they have less side effects--"

"Yes, mum, opium and cocaine are known for their lack of dangerous side effects, sure. And deadly nightshade is a tasty berry."

Pixies look cute, all right.

They're not so cute anymore when they decide to redecorate your garden, replacing tomatoes with nightshade, the plastic chairs with toadstools, and apples with dead fish - something about pretty glittering scales, my neighbour thinks. Or when they cut holes into your tyres to turn them into pixie nest boxes.

That's more than annoying, but then they ate my cat.

I'd been trying to get rid of the gluttonous fleabag for years, but it kept coming back. The pixies hadn't pissed into my briefcase, so it might turn out a good trade. Maybe even cheaper.

Martha was a child when she saw a gnome for the first time. It was punting across a pond, sitting on an empty plastic bottle, and turned to face her for a moment. His eyes were sewn shut, and it seemed like he never had a mouth, with only a very small strip of blank skin under its nose.

At first she believed other people that she had imagined it, but over the years she saw more of its kind, usually one of a kind, sometimes two together. This did not happen so often that Martha could identify individuals, but often enough to notice there were differences in their faces, or just how bent their back was. The gnomes always ignored her, not like they did not notice her, but as if they could not possibly have any business with her, nor she with them.

She learned that people did not take her seriously when she talked about the gnomes, but since she wanted to know if anybody else saw them, she reduced her efforts to talking about more-things-between-heaven-and-earth spirituality, and only if someone else brought it up first. Mostly everything was shrugged off, and even those people who said they had seen something they could not explain never described it in any way like Martha's gnomes. She did not quite know if she should feel honoured, or worry that she was only imagining things.

When, after decades, she noticed that their habits seemed to change - she saw them less frequently, but when she did, they were in groups - she grew nervous, and talked about gnomes, ghosts and fairies more. It made sure that people who had known her all her life remembered the stories she used to tell.

When a dead body with its eyes and mouth sewn shut was found, they knew who would know about it. The old spinster obviously had lost her mind completely.

When after a lengthy chat the merfolk offered Nico a mask that would let her breathe water instead of air, and invited her to visit their realm, she took that rare opportunity immediately.

She had just arrived at those shores, and none of the land dwellers had told her yet that such a mask would grow to her face. nor that humans thus trapped under water, and made even more clumsy by cutting off their hands, were in the eyes of the merfolk amusing pets.