Through the translucent window panes she caught sight of a familiar shape, just as she sat on the verge of sleep, perilously perched on a critical point. But the sight roused her and she propped herself up from the window frame, flexing her sore limbs with a yawn. The hinge of a door creaked downstairs.

Cheryl turned around and rushed down the stairs, hardly recollecting the Angel guarding over it. "I thought you said you're going to consider my request, but you went out to-" Before she could finish her sentence, she struck a transparent cul-de-sac and bounced back with a yelp.

Arnaldus stared at her in open doubt of her intellectual capacity, and walked off from her sight. "Hmm…sir?" No reply. "Aren't you going to let me out?"-'Oh. Through Omega, be dismissed!" and the barrier evaporated. Unseen though it may be, Cheryl sensed its disappearance anyway, and cautiously picked her way through the debris towards him.

"Ah, there you are!" cried the magician in surprise when he saw her, as though after a long weary effort of searching he had at last found her. "We must travel light and swift. Take only what you need. We shall depart at once."

"What! But…what about my parents?" An expression of agony lasted on his visage before responding.

"They are safe." Then continued Arnaldus hesitantly, "They wish to shed tears for you privately, not at the city gates like harlequins."

"Harlequins?" Curiosity overtook the grief of leaving her parents. Surely she could return at any time to visit them… -"Fine, clowns then."-"Oh, sorry."

A glint came into his impassive eyes. "Go and pack then."-"But my things are at home."-"Then, we leave without them."

"Wha-Yes, sir." Indeed, she realized she ought to show a bit more respect for her mentor.

Arnaldus nodded approvingly at her and threw a travelling cloak over himself, fastening it around his neck with a silver brooch. He then gave another of smaller dimensions to Cheryl, who dutifully obliged and donned it in similar fashion. It was dusk outside and scarlet beams with tints of orange fell upon them both, one exceptionally tall and lean, the other tiny and short.

The magician dropped to a kneeling pose on the floor, and began drawing upon with a white chalk. First came a rough circle, and within another circle, between four circles. In the four on the circumference of the inner one, he scrawled four symbols of the earthly elements, and lastly at the centre of the seal, the symbol of the Fifth, the Heavenly Aether.

"And now," The magician arose, covering his head with the hood, "We leave." His pupil followed suit and hurried after the hem of his cloak. The pair exited the house by a stealthy backdoor into a narrow alley reeking of decay and excrement, but again she dared not complain, and could only hold her breath trying to outlast the alley.

Whether it was a deliberate trial on her endurance or an unfortunate coincidence, they spent almost an hour walking in places to the like of it, and eventually she gave up holding her breath, and focused on keeping her feet clear of dirty water.

All in a sudden, her mentor halted, and she collided head-first with his back, yet he was wholly oblivious. "Orum, Bolectn, Ubajom (Cursed by night and by day)! Rumpere, Rumpere, Rumpere (Burst, burst, burst)."

A dull thud sounded some three hundred yards from where they were, and sent off a tremor through the city. The sky darkened under the abrupt blast of light, and turbulence broke out all across the city. Curiously the image of the seal drawn on the floor of Arnaldus' workshop flashed into her mind. That felt like a century ago, ancient and unrealistic.

"Now, we leave safely with that little diversion back home."