Lena was a hamadryad. A nymph. Meaning I had no doubt she could very thoroughly and effectively help me “relieve my tension.” On top of everything else, I was curious. She appeared human, but she was something more. Something magical. What would it be like to step through that door, to strip off these filthy clothes and join her?

My last relationship, if you could call it that, had ended more than a year ago. It had lasted six weeks, which was about average for me since joining the Porters. But Lena knew about magic. I wouldn’t have to hide that part of my life, to pretend to be someone I wasn’t.

I walked to the bathroom. Through the door, I could just make out the steamed glass of the mirror and the yellow shower curtain, beyond which stood . . . a fantasy. A dryad created from the pages of what sounded like a horny teenager’s sexual daydreams.

“Dammit.” I gritted my teeth and pulled the door shut. It didn’t quite muffle Lena’s chuckle.

I stomped back to the bed. Sitting down was significantly more uncomfortable than before. Jaw tight, I tugged a battered copy of Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring from one of my jacket pockets and did my best to concentrate on something other than Lena Greenwood.

This was a first edition paperback from Ballantine, with Barbara Remington’s psychedelic cover painting that showed green hills and pink mountains, along with random trees and snakes and lizards and what appeared to be emus. The spine was badly creased, with bits flaking away. The librarian in me cringed at the repairs I had made at age eleven, using what looked like half a roll of clear packing tape to try to fix the cover.

Gutenberg had locked the book to keep the ring of power from escaping. Our world had enough trouble with power-mad leaders already. I carried this book for other reasons than magic.

Every libriomancer had a first book. Etched more sharply into my memory than my first kiss, this book had been my magical awakening. I remembered sitting on my bedroom floor reading late into the night, my blue bedspread pulled over my head like a makeshift tent as I shone a Batman flashlight onto these very pages.

I hadn’t wanted the ring. Gandalf said that ring was trouble, and eleven-year-old me believed him. I had wanted Frodo’s sword, Sting: an elf blade, one light enough for someone like me to use. Frodo’s tormenters had been goblins and orcs; mine were the bullies down the street, waiting at the bus stop to play another round of Punch the Nerd.