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footwear on the floor, tucked under the
lowest shelf. They appeared more like pouches to put over her feet than actual
shoes. Picking them up, she found they had soft leather uppers and springy
insoles. When she turned them over she saw a material that looked like fine
scales. Snake? Dragon?
    Anyway,
they looked far too big for her, and the uppers stuck up in folds. She couldn’t
see any laces.
    Bracing
a hand against the wall—it was warm to her touch—she slipped on one of the
shoes. It felt lined with fur and she hummed with pleasure at the soft
silkiness. Then the pouch tightened, molding to foot and ankle. She tottered,
stumbled, took a few steps to regain her balance and fell onto the bed. She
stared at her foot. Not only had the slipper conformed to her body, but it had
turned the same color as her gown and now had little yellow birds all over it.
She wiggled her feet—one shod, one bare. The one with the shoe felt better.
Magical shoes.
    Her
heart jumped. What if she couldn’t take it off? “Off!” she ordered.
    Nothing
happened.
    She
hooked her thumbs inside the shoe and pushed down. The shoe slid off her foot,
tickling her sole, and plopped to the floor.
    All
right; one of them could come off. But if she put on both, would she dance to
her death? There were plenty of folklore stories about shoes and mutilation,
like Cinderella.
    For
a moment she just stared at the shoes, realizing that she was in a place far,
far different from home. That it seemed somewhat like Earth accentuated her
shock—she judged this place by Earth experiences, concepts, standards, and they
might not apply. Any move she made, thinking she knew the outcome, could be
wrong and lead her to her doom.
    She
fell back on the bed, hands over pounding heart, touching the cloth that seemed
like velvet but could be anything—fur, skin, plastic wrap for all she
knew. Even her senses could be lying to her. Perhaps nothing here was real.
    And
if she continued to think that way, to challenge everything—her senses, her
mind, her experiences—she’d go mad. To her horror, tears dribbled from her
eyes.
    This
should be such an incredible, fascinating experience for a true scholar! A
whole new world to learn, a new aspect of her own self—and magic!—to explore
and master. She should be thrilled.
    Instead,
she wanted to curl up into a fetal position and pull the covers over her head.
    Bossgond
was waiting for her. With breakfast. Even the thought of food couldn’t move
her.
    She
was flipping out over a pair of shoes.
    They
were magic shoes.
    Now
her nose was clogged. She’d need to go to the toilet closet and get some
tissue-stuff she’d found there. It was in a roll and had felt like regular
toilet paper. She’d just used it, not scrutinized it. Who knew what it was?
    Was
she going to let panic over the thought of a new world, a magical world,
paralyze her?
    Wrong
question.
    The
right question was, How long was she going to let panic paralyze her?
    Marian
had always thought of herself as willing to learn new things, explore new
ideas—perhaps she’d even been snobbish about that quality. In fact, she was a
coward.
    But
her full-moon ritual had been about discovering why she’d experienced odd
sounds and nightmares. Now she knew. Golden Raven had said she’d meet a
teacher. She had. Now she had to figure out how all this could help Andrew.
    “Marian.”
The rich, deep voice of Bossgond seemed to echo around the room. It certainly
reverberated inside her mind. She turned her head to see a tube running down
the wall next to her bed, with a flared opening like a trumpet.
    “Marian,
the oeuf is cooling.”
    She
struggled to one elbow, then the second. “I’m coming,” she replied in French—the
language she’d been speaking for hours now—except for that tiny exchange with
Alexa.
    Alexa!
While wallowing in her own fear she’d forgotten Alexa—someone who’d already
come from Colorado, had experiences she could share with Marian. She