Ritual Magic

something Friar got from that elf before he escaped from the warehouse. An artifact.”
    “Did you see it? What does it do?”
    “I didn’t see it. I felt it. It feels, uh . . . evil, I guess you’d say.”
    Lily turned that word over in her mind. “Evil is a pretty broad category.”
    “On this side, evil means something specific. Evil affects . . .” His mouth kept moving, but she didn’t hear anything.
    “Back up. I lost some of that.”
    He scowled. “There’s stuff I can’t say. Not won’t. Can’t. Just take my word for it—what Friar got hold of is evil in a way that upsets the heavy hitters on my side of things.”
    “Heavy hitters?”
    He looked down and muttered. “Angels. Sort of. Not really, because they aren’t . . . oh, hell, call them whatever you want, or don’t call them anything at all. That might be best. The thing is, everyone on this side is real restricted in what we can do on your side. Even the heavy hitters. It’s all about choice. Choice and time. On your side, time’s like a funnel that lets only one drop of now through at a time, and choice is what you do with that drop. No one gets to take away the choices other people make—only, that object Friar got hold of does just that. I don’t know how it works, so don’t ask, but by wiping out memories, it robs people of all the choices they made.”
    Lily thought about her mother. All the choices Julia Yu had made over a lifetime, wiped out. Disintegrated. Her throat tightened. She managed to push a couple of words out through her tight throat. “Yeah. That’s evil.”
    He nodded. “It affects this side of things, too. That’s why I can be here. There’s a . . . it’s like a fissure or a crack. A break created by that artifact.”
    “But why you?” She waved vaguely. “I mean—there must be lots and lots of dead people who could—”
    “Watch who you’re calling dead. I died, sure, but I’m not dead.”
    “We’ll talk about terminology another time. Why you?”
    He shrugged. “Mostly because I can. Most folks on this side can’t interact with your world at all, but because of the way I died, that tie we used to have, I’ve got a toe in the door. All that death magic stirred things up, plus there’s the way I . . .” His mouth kept moving, but silently.
    “You went mute again.”
    “Shit. The stuff I can’t say . . . anyway, I’m not as rooted on this side as I’m supposed to be. I could’ve gotten that fixed, but I’m needed for this. I’m small enough that I can slip through that crack to work with you on your side. The heavy hitters can’t. They . . . there’s so much of them, see. They’re part of your world, but it’s just their shine you get, not all of them. They can’t be squeezed into the funnel of time without breaking it.”
    “So instead of an angel, I get you.”
    He grinned crookedly. “That’s pretty much it.”
    “You grinned.”
    That brought back the familiar scowl. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “I don’t think I ever saw you grin. Smirk, yes. Grin, no.” She tipped her head. “Did you . . . there at the last, I mean, at the warehouse, you said her name. Just before you poofed out. Sarah. You found her?”
    “Yeah.” Softness seeped into his face the way light seeps into the sky at dawn. “Yeah, I did. I don’t remember much, but I know I found her.”
    “You don’t remember? But that—that’s like my mother—”
    “No,” he said firmly. “It’s not the same at all. My memories of that other place don’t fit into this place, that’s all. They aren’t gone. They’re sort of packed up, waiting for me.”
    A cold hand gripped Lily and squeezed. “Then my mother’s memories are gone. Not damaged or lost. Gone.”
    “Not exactly. I mean, they’re gone, but . . .” He ran a hand over his hair. “I can’t explain, mainly because I don’t understand. The idea is to get her back to being herself. To get all of them back to themselves. I don’t know how we do that. I don’t know if that’s something that can even happen on your side of things. Might be the missing pieces can’t be returned to her until she’s on my side.”
    “Until she dies, you mean. Even if we do everything right, she may not get her memory back while she’s alive.”
    “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I mean. I know that’s hard to hear, but it’s one possibility. Lily, there’s a lot more affected than your mom. A lot more than