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“About to?”
He just grinned and sashayed out. I sneezed.
“Can we do our lesson in the living room?” I asked Jonas, wiping my streaming eyes.
“Oh, I think we can postpone that for today,” he said genially.
“We don’t need to postpone. I’m not going out with—with that man,” I sniffed, trying and failing to recall the guy’s name.
Jonas regarded the mage, who was standing by the kitchen door, looking about the way you’d expect. “Why? What’s wrong with him?”
The man twitched.
I sighed. “Nothing.”
“Then perhaps a late luncheon—”
“No!”
“Tea?”
“Jonas!”
He sighed and gave up. “Handsome boy . . . very good family,” he muttered, reentering the living room.
I blew my nose and followed. And almost ran into an old-fashioned blackboard that was taking up most of the space beside the new sofa. I blinked at it, because it hadn’t been there a minute ago.
“Well, in that case, perhaps you could help me with a few small matters,” Jonas said, feeling around in his coat for something. “I used to do this with Agnes, you know. We had tea every Thursday, and I would go over any affairs of interest in the magical community, in case she saw something of significance.”
“I haven’t seen anything lately,” I said, eyeing the blackboard suspiciously. I poked it. It was solid.
“Which is rather the point,” Jonas said. “Agnes sometimes had dry spells, too, and other times she had visions about all sorts of things, but most were entirely unrelated to what we needed to know. But if we’d recently discussed something . . . well, it seemed to help focus her energies. I thought it might do the same for you.”
“Okay.” I edged around to the sofa.
“Good, good.” Jonas had been turning out his pockets as he spoke, one after another, leaving him looking like he had little gray tongues all over his suit. But I guess he hadn’t found what he wanted, because he made a gesture and plucked a small package out of thin air.
I stared at it, because I’d never seen anyone do that before, except on TV. But I didn’t think Jonas had used sleight of hand. Particularly not when he had trouble getting the cellophane off whatever it was.
“Now, I realize that visions can’t be made to order, as one might wish,” he said, fiddling with it.
“What is that?” I demanded.
He looked at me from behind heavy glasses. “What is what?”
“That.” I pointed at the package.
Jonas peered down at it. “This?”
“Yes, that! What is that?”
“Chalk.”
“Chalk?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
