“I had a retainer, a friend…an amazing man, actually. Someone I looked up to. Someone with many connections in the royal court, someone I thought could help me improve my professional standing. But also someone charismatic and fairly brilliant. I guess you could say I fell under his sway. I was little more than a bystander, I didn’t understand the depths he was exploring, nor the heights. I was fascinated, curious—but a dilettante. A layman. An amateur who had no place at his side. You must understand, though, this was 1580s London. I was a city barrister. And this man—his name was John Dee—opened my eyes to a speculative world of magic and mystery. Though the truth is, I blundered into his ministrations. The fact is, I’ll never know why he allowed my presence in the first place.”

Odessa continued slowly around the table of ancient instruments. “And…? What happened?”

“The world went out of balance. We—he—invited entrance into our plane of existence.”

“From…?”

“An astral plane. He was convinced he could contact an angel. But that is not what happened.”

“What did happen?”

Blackwood sighed, though with his back to her, Odessa could not tell if it was from impatience over this line of questioning…or regret for what had occurred.

He turned and stacked a few books on top of each other.

“Imagine, if you will, layers of reality—many astral planes existing on top of and beneath each other. These planes mostly stay separate, save for the occasional aberration or the dream world…”

“Dreams are an astral plane?” she asked.

“Entirely so,” answered Blackwood. “And we can live or die in them if properly trained…”

He pulled out a book from the center of the newly formed pile.

“Now,” he said, “through a complex process, these planes can be visited, or one can summon entities to visit our own. We did just that…The world, as I said, went out of balance…and I was thrown into, well, righting it. Not my choice, mind you.”

“Righting it?”

“A gateway was opened into our world. A seam exposed. A thruway that I do not know how to close.”

“And do you…?”

“I have to push back at what comes through. Every time. I have to right my original wrong.”

“So you are a…a guardian of sorts?”

“A penitent. A zookeeper. A negotiator. And, on occasion, an exterminator. DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

The sudden force of his voice, always so calm and soothing, achieving volume and depth she had not imagined possible, sent terror up her spine. She had been looking at a sphere of fine crystal, perfect but for an interior crack like gossamer thread, almost like the neural network inside a single diaphanous brain cell. Her hands were by her sides.

“I wasn’t going to!” she snapped back at him. “And you can stop treating me like a child.”