Paheli emerges at noon on the second day and tells us we are leaving New Orleans. We make preparations, but she suddenly insists on visiting Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo first. She won’t say why she needs to visit the store, but she won’t be denied. Eventually, we give in and accompany her. The place is not far from where we are, so we walk over. Taraana, as always, walks in the middle. The store is beautiful and crammed full of things we itch to touch but know better than to lay a finger on.

You see, human conjury is the antithesis to the magic we are familiar with and are immersed in. Eulalie says this is because human conjury is transient, unlike middle-world magic. Magic is a state of being, while conjury is a placement of intention into an object. Human intention, like human lives, is short. If magic were to haunt a house, it would haunt it forever, while conjury would haunt the same house with the same conditions for a week at the most. Real human conjury is very rare, and when it meets middle-world magic, explosions occur.

Paheli has a particular obsession with conjuries. We’ve accompanied her as she’s searched for it in many different stores in many different cities. This time is no different. She is about to waltz into the store when Taraana catches her hand.

“You can’t go in there,” he says.

“I totally can,” she replies with a sunny smile. “I just need to take one step, and I will be there!”

“Assi said human enchantment unravels middle worlders,” Taraana says. “She told me to stay away from it.”

“But, Taraana, you aren’t a middle worlder. Neither am I.” Paheli pulls her hand away from him. “You don’t have to come in with us if you don’t want to.”

So, he doesn’t. Talei, Valentina, and Ghufran stand on the sidewalk with him, waiting for us to come back.

We walk gingerly inside the store, trying to move without touching anything. Most of these things are fake; in our experience, conjured objects, conjuries, have a purple aura, a sheen that is a poor cousin to the glow of the magic that we are used to. Human conjuries depend largely on faith; sometimes we wonder if the reason we see so little of it is because we do not believe in it.

Paheli looks around the shop with a frown on her face before finally picking up a flask filled with water. She swirls it around and looks at the gleaming liquid inside.