On the first day that I can remember, I awoke to the sight of heavy snow falling outside the window before me. I could see storefronts of all kinds lining the icy street, ranging from bakeries to gssworks to winter attire, although the weather deterred all but the most determined patrons from shopping that day. Snow-covered mountaintops sat beyond the road leading out of town—at least the ones short enough to evade the gray clouds lingering in the sky. Everything was quiet, everything was peaceful.

  A reflection in the window caught my attention: a pendant made out of some sort of mirror-like metal grasping a mysterious glowing green orb like a cw, dangling from a neckce chain in some sort of dispy case... something so elegant belonged around the neck of someone with impeccable fashion sense. On further inspection, I realized I was that pendant, which seemed like a perfectly normal thing for me to be when I didn’t know how to be anything else.

  Was I more than just a fashionable accessory, though?

  I needed to investigate my surroundings further, so I turned my focus to the interior of the shop I resided in—I could see in all directions without moving, which is a very useful skill that I highly recommend. I saw walls of bookcases packed haphazardly with ancient, worn tomes; tables covered in potion bottles filled with liquids of every conceivable color; shelves cluttered by scrolls and vials and gemstones. Behind a messy counter top littered with tools and parchment, meticulously carved wooden wands and staffs hung from the wall.

  All right, this must be a magic shop. I’m in the front window of said magic shop. Therefore, I myself must be magical in some regard?

  The price tag that hung from my neckce—which I probably should have looked at first—confirmed my suspicion. Mysterious enchanted relic, 30,000 gold. That felt like a lot of money. My neighboring enchanted objects, such as the Airstep Boots and Hands-free Wood Saw were each priced at 50 silver. Only the Shadowcast Ring even came close at 200 gold, orders of magnitude away from me.

  For that price, I must be incredibly powerful! The thought thrilled me. The finest wizards across the nd will envy whomever purchases me as they wield me to—

  Hmm. New question: to do what?

  Answers eluded me. ‘Mysterious’ wasn’t much to work with. Facing my first conundrum that cked instant resolution, I started to grow frustrated. Why did I even need to figure this out myself? Where was the artificer who was responsible for telling me everything I need to know? They could have at least awoken me when they were making their grand monologue about how at long st they’d created a neckce that does such-and-such magic. Enchanters love their monologues.

  From a door in the back, two figures emerged. A short, bearded man with bushy eyebrows walked up to the window dispy, followed by a stick-thin woman wearing round gsses with lenses the size of saucers. Each carried a box filled with more gems and potions to cram onto the shelves. Maybe one of them enchanted me!

  After the bearded man emptied his box, he turned toward me and crossed his arms. “So what do you think it does, Nadia?”

  Well, there went that theory.

  “If I knew, Tobias, I would have put it on the bel,” Nadia said, adjusting her gsses. “It doesn’t really matter as long as it attracts customers. People are going to come in for a closer look, scoff at the price, and then maybe buy a potion or two on their way out. That’s at least better than if they don’t come in at all.”

  Tobias grunted, scratching his beard. “I suppose,” he said. “Almost looks Auldilvan to me. It’s a pretty good replica if that’s what they were going for. The con artist who sold it to you should have scuffed it up to make it look older though, you know, to really wring the money out of you.”

  A replica... I panicked at the thought. I’m authentic, I swear! I just need to prove it!

  I couldn’t provide proof, because I couldn’t do anything at all. I couldn’t move, let alone demonstrate some sort of magical ability at will. Seeing and hearing the world around me, thinking and reasoning, those things came naturally to me. They did me no good without any means to demonstrate my consciousness to others, though. The shopkeepers didn’t even know about the mind inside their pretty neckce on dispy. This was the big problem: I was stuck in pce, aware of a magic deep inside me but not the means to summon it, with no guidance or even reassurance that I’d ever do more than remain paralyzed in a shop window.

  “I don’t think it’s a replica,” Nadia said. Thank you for being on my side, Nadia! “I already tried a few simple deconstruction spells on it, a replica would’ve fallen apart. It’s got serious magic holding it together, I just don’t know what.”

  Tobias shook his head, returning to his work tidying up a shelf full of gemstones. “That doesn’t fill me with much confidence about having it out in the open. I don’t know, sis, I’d feel better about having the kids around it if we knew what it was. Maybe someone at Berindal Academy can identify it?”

  Nadia scoffed as she plucked me from the dispy to admire me up close. “And let them take the credit if it turns out to be a real Auldilvan artifact? Absolutely not! We’ve got all the tools we need right here to figure it out, and when we do, every wizard from Dia to Cauldron Grove will be talking about Denholm’s Magical Outfitters. Besides, mail’s not getting out until we get a break in the weather, so a letter to Berindal will have to wait. We can do some tinkering tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” Tobias said as he picked up his box to return it to the back room, “I’m not sold on this ‘we’ business, though. You can do the investigating and take all the credit for whatever you find, while I do all the unimportant stuff like running the business that feeds our family.”

  Nadia chased after Tobias to continue bickering with her sibling, leaving the magic shop quiet once more. I felt a little relief in the thought that Nadia wanted to solve the mysteries of my magic as much as I did. As long as we worked toward an understanding about how my artificer constructed me, I had no reason to panic. I just had to be a little patient.

  Nights like those, with the snow gathering on the road below the gently flickering nterns, bnketing the rooftops of Quinn’s Peak... I treasure those memories. If the Fates left me silent and immobile forever, at least they gave me a beautiful sight to behold. I truly loved watching the buildings disappear under the accumution of the zy, drifting fkes. The weather calmed my storming mind that night, allowing me to rex. In a day’s time, I’d have my answers.