Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"So where exactly are we going?" asked one Hakuba Saguru. Seated at the very back of the van (because he'd drawn the short straw), he was squished with all the luggage and, therefore, not in a very charitable mood. His disposition had not been improved by the fact that none of his so-called friends had bothered to enlighten him as to where exactly they were going. Worse yet, they all seemed to know.

Seated in the row of chairs in front of him, Hattori Heiji let out a huff that sounded more annoyed than Hakuba felt was warranted by his reasonable question. "We already told ya. We're going to Kuroba's parents' vacation house. Jeez. Haven't you been listening at all?"

"I have. And you have not answered my question. Where is this vacation house? As far as I am aware, if we keep driving down this road, we're going to end up by the sea, but Kuroba had us pack ski equipment."

"Can't you just wait and see like the rest of us?"

"I would prefer to have my questions answered."

"Well I already told you everything I know."

"You are lying to me."

"What? I am not! That's just—argh! Why would I ever wanna tell you anything anyway?"

Up front in the passenger seat next to the driver, Shinichi groaned, wishing he had brought earplugs.

"How much longer is this going to take?" he asked, glancing at the driver's side of the car where his boyfriend (he blushed at the thought) was gripping the steering wheel with one hand while idly petting the fur capa (a strange little creature that resembled nothing so much as a furry hat) curled up on the raised island between their chairs with the other. That was not Shinichi's idea of safe driving, but he kept that thought to himself because one, he knew Kaito wouldn't do anything that would put their lives in danger, and two, he knew that, should anything go wrong, Kaito was actually a demon (referred to as such by the fearful humans of the past and not because he or his kind were any more hellish than any other species in the world) with powerful magic and other superhuman abilities. It was still a little difficult for the ever logical detective to wrap his mind around this fact, but, after not only having flown with the magician but also visited the magical world he hailed from a few months back, it was impossible to deny the truth of it. In fact, it was that visit all those weeks ago that had landed them where they were now.

A few weeks ago, near the beginning of their first semester, Kazuha and several others had been kidnapped by denizens of Kaito's world bent on finding a powerful artifact known only as the Source. Long story short, she had been rescued by Kaito and Shinichi, and, while recuperating at the Kurobas' castle, she had met a demoness named Aoko who had invited her over for winter vacation.

One thing had led to another. And now here they were. Kaito, Shinichi, Hattori, Hakuba, and Kazuha were all on their way to one of the Kurobas' vacation homes.

In Makai.

Not that Hakuba knew this.

Shinichi had been of the opinion that they should tell the blonde the whole story before the trip, but Kaito had said no. He had claimed that the British detective, being the unimaginative stickler for facts that he was, would not believe them without a mountain of proof. And so it would make more sense just to bring him along so that the proof would inevitably surround and suffocate him until he had no choice but to cave in to the existence of other worlds and demons and magic and all that when the issue came up—if the issue came up. It wasn't, after all, strictly necessary for it to do so.

Shinichi was pretty sure Kaito just wanted to have some fun at the blonde's expense. But arguing with Kaito was pretty pointless, especially when he was scheming.

If Kaito wanted something, Kaito got it.

"I'm surprised Miss Kazuha can sleep through their racket," Kaito remarked, cruising down the highway like this was where they were supposed to be.

"She's used to it," Shinichi replied. "So are you going to take us over yet or not? I don't know how much longer I can listen to this without kicking something."

Kaito laughed. "No worries. This place will be perfect."

As those words left his mouth, the world outside the windows began to grow hazy.

"Is that fog?" Hattori wondered, breaking off from his verbal jousting with Hakuba to look out the window. "It kind of looks green."

"Yes," Hakuba muttered. "It may be poisonous. You should turn off the outside air circulation."

Kaito ignored them.

The fog grew thicker and brighter. And, incidentally, more green, although now it carried hints of blue. In no time at all, it was as though they were driving through a haze of turquoise steam. The road ahead was impossible to see, and the path behind was just as lost beneath the radiance.

"We should pull aside," Hakuba said, growing alarmed when the tires bounced, sending a sharp jolt through the car.

"We're almost there," Kaito replied, gaze fixed on the turquoise wash ahead of him. What he was looking at, none of his passengers could see.

Well, none except Shinichi.

The detective's eyes widened. There was a forest beyond the light. He could see the trees. They were flat like projections on a misty screen. He could also see a large house.

With an abruptness that had the two detectives in the back marveling, the fog cleared, and their van was trundling down a packed, dirt road. The air was now crystal clear. Not even one wisp of fog remained.

Hattori's jaw dropped. "What in the world…?"

For once, Hakuba was in perfect agreement with his friend. "What just happened?"

"We're here~," Kaito announced, guiding the van up the curving dirt road until they came to a stop in front of the house. It was a large, western style villa. It sat amidst snow-frosted trees and sweeping swaths of pure, untouched snow. "Welcome to Clover House."

He opened his door and hopped out, completely ignoring the two flabbergasted detectives in the back seats. He made to circle around the car and open Shinichi's door, but the detective had already let himself out, the fur capa cradled in one arm. Shinichi noted with interest that, though the snowdrifts to either side of the road were deep, the road itself and the circle of open ground before the villa where they had parked were bone dry.

"Hey there!" a female voice called out as the villa's front door opened. Out came a girl with messy, dark brown hair and an excited smile. "You guys got here later than we expected. Did you meet any trouble on the road?"

"Nah. We just took the scenic route," Kaito replied. "The others are still in the car. I'll leave them to you. I want to show Shinichi around before lunch."

"All right. I'll have someone take your things up to your rooms for you."

"Great. Thanks Aoko." That said, Kaito looped an arm through Shinichi's and began leading him away. The smaller boy hesitated a moment to cast a concerned glance back towards the car, but he knew Aoko was a kindhearted demon. He just hoped Hakuba and Hattori didn't give her any trouble.

Back in the van, the two detectives in question were gaping out each of the van's windows in astounded confusion. First of all, they were both sure that they had been driving down the highway towards the sea. They had not at any point driven uphill—at least not that either of them could remember. So how had they ended up here?

The white peaks against the sky all around them and the crisp coldness of the air suggested that they were in a valley of some kind high in the mountains. There were trees, so the altitude wasn't too high, but they were still considerably above sea level.

"It must have been during the fog," Hakuba muttered. "It made it difficult to see, so that must have been when we turned off the road and drove up into the mountains." Never mind that the car had never tilted enough to suggest that they were traversing a mountainside. Not to mention the fog hadn't been around that long. But what other explanation was there?

"What was that fog anyway?" Hattori wondered, echoing his friend's thoughts. "It was definitely green. That can't have been normal."

"We should count our blessings that we did not crash."

"I guess. Still, I didn't think there were any vacation houses like this by Tokyo."

"It's not by Tokyo," a new voice piped up. The boys turned to see that Kazuha had woken up. Having slept through most of the trip, she was bright-eyed and ready for the beginning of a true adventure. "Anyway, I see Aoko. I think she's coming to show us around."

As the girl predicted, the van door slid open and Aoko poked her head inside.

"Wow, so this is what these carriages look like on the inside. I always wondered," was the first thing the demon said as she looked around at the seats and the steering wheel. Then she met Kazuha's gaze and laughed. "I'm so glad to see you again! How have you been?"

"I've been great," Kazuha assured her just as enthusiastically. "It's really cool of you to invite me and my friends over. We really appreciate it. I just hope they don't cause you any trouble."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hattori grumbled. "You talk like we're little kids."

"No. But you guys do have a tendency to poke your noses into other people's business. For once in your lives, try to remember we're guests here and just, you know, have fun. That's what winter vacation is all about, right? And this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!'

The two boys looked at each other again, both wondering why the girl would describe a ski trip in the mountains as a once in a lifetime opportunity. Sure, they didn't do it every year, but it wasn't so rare or difficult a trip that they couldn't if they really wanted to.

"Hurry up, you two."

The three humans clambered out of the van. Hakuba, being the last one out, gave the door handle a tug. There was a soft clunk, then the mechanisms inside the automatic door kicked in. Turning away from the closing door, he was slightly startled to find the brunette, Aoko, staring at him with wide, interested eyes.

"Can I help you?" he asked hesitantly. Was there something on his face? But no, she seemed more interested in the vehicle behind him. Come to think of it, hadn't she called the van a carriage just now? What had she meant by that? Surely she couldn't have never seen a van before.

And was it just him or did this girl look an awful lot like Mouri Ran?

Oblivious to his confusion, the girl laughed. "Oh, no. I've just never seen one of these doors work before."

"I suppose automatic doors are still considerably less popular than the manual sort," he ventured, though he wasn't at all sure that that was true. "They're most common on vans and other large vehicles with sliding doors."

"I see." For some reason, the rather basic information elicited a beaming smile from the girl. "That's very interesting. I don't get why Kaito doesn't want one of these instead of that bike with a motor he blabbed about in his last letter to me. I mean, that one's no different from riding a fast horse. But this one keeps off the elements without any extra work on your part."

Hakuba opened his mouth then shut it again. Everything the girl had said made perfect sense, but her phrasing was most peculiar. Had she been talking about a motorcycle? And why did Kuroba need to send letters to someone who lived a mere hour's drive away from the city?

"Excuse me, Miss Aoko, but are you perhaps Kuroba's sister?"

The girl stared at him for a moment then burst out laughing. "No way! I'm from the House of the Whispering Wood. Oh, I mean, my family name is Nakamori."

"Ah, I see. So you are a friend of his then."

"Yep. Known him since I was little."

"So did Kuroba invite any other old friends on this trip?" the blonde inquired, curiosity piqued. Kuroba had never told them about his history. In fact, the only thing Hakuba knew about the man was that his father was a stage magician. Considering how close Shinichi was clearly getting to the magician, as Shinichi's friend, Hakuba felt he had a responsibility to check up on said magician's background. No, he wasn't being nosy like Kazuha had forbad them from being. He was just being a responsible friend.

Aoko shrugged. "He didn't exactly invite me, per se. I'm here because it's my job. I'll be managing the staff of the villa for the next six months or so as training."

"You mean you're working?" Hakuba couldn't hide his surprise. "For Kuroba?"

"Yep. My family's served his for centuries in one way or another—mostly in security, but I've decided I want to try a few different things before I choose where to go in the future. This is going to be my first time managing the staff for an entire estate. It's kind of making me nervous." She looked down, blushing faintly. "So, um, if there's anything you guys need, feel free to let me know. All right?"

"We will," he said even as his mind continued to process all the information she had inadvertently given him.

"Oh, wait!" Aoko exclaimed suddenly, making Hakuba jump. She ran around to the back of the van where Hattori had just set the last of their luggage down on the ground. "You don't have to do that," she said. "Just leave your stuff here. I'll have someone bring everything to your rooms."

"Nah, it's fine," Hattori assured her. "There's not much stuff, so it's easy to carry. No need to bother anyone with it. Just show us the way, and we'll carry everything ourselves."

Aoko hesitated, looking from one human's smiling face to the next. Before their arrival, she had received strict instructions from Kaito that they were to behave as human as possible while their guests were here. That included staying in their human forms in front of said guests and using only the magic that was necessary. So she had planned to invite the humans inside so they wouldn't see the luggage being sent up to their rooms magically. That would have been fast and easy for everyone.

On the other hand, she could understand not wanting to inconvenience people. Such chivalry should be encouraged, she decided.

So she smiled and directed them into the villa.

X

"And this is our room," Kaito said, spreading his arms out in a grandiose gesture that sent sparkling lights spinning around the room to alight upon the curtains and the small, decorative Christmas tree in the corner. Shinichi's gaze, however, was on the massive window that occupied the entirety of one wall. Through it, he could look down the pristine, white slopes to a lake where it lay still and deep, filled to the brim with reflected sky. It was a breathtaking view.

"You can see it even better from the roof, but we should unpack before we go up there."

Shinichi nodded, moving to let the fur capa hop from his arms to the bed, where it promptly curled up on a pillow. "So are you going to tell me where we are now?"

This mountain range is about a four hour flight north of Castle Moon. Dad found this place when he was looking for somewhere quiet to finish one of his projects undisturbed. It's a fair distance from any real settlements, and there isn't much in the way of natural magical resources around, so it doesn't attract much attention. Basically, you couldn't find a better spot for a retreat."

"So there isn't anything dangerous we need to look out for?" Shinichi asked just to be sure.

Kaito shrugged. "Not that I can think of."

"That's good then. So will your parents be joining us?"

Kaito heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Unfortunately. I told them they didn't have to, but they insisted. They'll only be here for the last few days though, so we've got plenty of time to do whatever we want before then."

A crisp, silvery chime suddenly sounded out of the air, making Shinichi jump.

Kaito only grinned. "Sounds like lunch is ready."

Chapter Text

Lunch was…interesting.

Kaito had taken Shinichi down to the kitchen before leading him to the dining room, and so Shinichi had been the only human in their party to be introduced to the manor house's head chef. The man was six feet tall and built like a pro boxer. But what really made Shinichi stare was that the man had three pairs of arms. He also had three heads. And because he had so many arms and so many heads, the kitchen in his care had a large, circular workspace so that he could stand in the middle, and all three pairs of arms could work on different tasks under the supervision of one head each at the same time.

When Kaito and Shinichi walked into the kitchen, the chef had been in the middle of mixing up a giant bowl of cake batter, chopping up a vast assortment of fruits, and setting the temperature on something that appeared to be a glass oven made to resemble a turtle. But the instant he caught sight of Shinichi behind Kaito, the chef's extra arms and heads vanished. The knives he had been using fell to the cutting board with a clatter as the mixing bowl thudded onto the counter.

"Sorry," he said hastily, taking a quick step to the side to hide the turtle oven's large, round head. "I didn't realize you would be bringing your classmates back here for a visit so soon."

"It's all right, Mex," Kaito said, tugging Shinichi forward with a grin. "This is Shinichi. He'll be joining the family, so feel free to show him everything. It's those other ones you want to keep a low profile around."

"Right you are then Sir." The big man turned to Shinichi, giving the detective a careful look over that made him feel like he was being assessed for his worth—or maybe for his flavor. But then Mex's broad face broke out into an even broader grin, and he smacked Shinichi on the shoulder hard enough to nearly flatten the detective onto the counter. "This one's got good eyes, Master Kaito. You should take good care of him."

"I plan to," Kaito retorted, sounding mildly affronted by the implication that he might need to be reminded. "Anyway, Shin-chan, this is Almexlis of the Iron Oaks—Mex for short. He's our best chef. He trained under old Ryujin. There's no one better for getting a hold of new and unusual ingredients. He was the one who discovered the screaming tree tea."

"Oh." Shinichi remembered that tea well. Not only was it bright blue, it was also the closest equivalent to coffee available in the Makai. While that was interesting and all, the reminder that this world didn't have real coffee of its own was an extremely unwelcome one. Half dreading the answer, he asked, "Um, about the food stocked here… Do you have anything from the human world?"

Kaito smirked. "Don't worry, I made sure we brought lots of coffee."

Shinichi blushed and glowered at him. "You're the one who insists on pretending we're just in some vacation house of yours back in my world. You can't really do that if you're serving bright blue coffee."

Kaito paused. "That's true. Well, we do keep this place well stocked with human world stuff on a regular basis. And a lot of the food in this world can't really be distinguished from human world food once it's been cooked."

"You got nothing to worry about," the giant chef assured them both with a grin of his own as he thumped his broad chest with a massive fist. "I got everything covered."

Suddenly, the oven turtle lifted its head and a jet of steam erupted from a hole at the top of its skull.

"Ah, grab that cake tin, would you?" the chef asked Shinichi as he turned quickly to the turtle. He peered closely at the flames flickering inside its body then grabbed two short, white logs from a pile of white and black logs. These, he fed to the turtle.

Shinichi automatically picked up the tin on the counter next to him. He couldn't help but give the pale purple batter a dubious look, but he decided it was harmless.

"Do we put the tin on top of him?" he asked.

"No. Inside." Mex reached down over Shinichi's shoulder, grabbed the oven turtle's shell by the edges and lifted the top clean off, leaving a smaller, inner shell that looked like nothing so much as a spun glass rack. Shinichi set the cake tin down on top of the rack and watched, fascinated, as the turtle's shell was replaced. The fires beneath the internal rack suddenly grew brighter and more heated.

"Is it alive?" Shinichi asked Kaito as they left Mex to his cooking.

"You mean the turtle?"

Shinichi nodded.

"Yep. It's sort of a household pet. They're like ovens that regulate their own temperature. You just have to make sure to give them access to the right amount of fuel at all times. Helpful little critters. The little ones are great area heaters. Would you like to bring one back for the dorm next year?"

"I'll…think about it."

With thoughts of turtles and warm winter nights on his mind, Shinichi only noticed after he had sat down that there were a sight more people at the table than he had expected.

There was Hakuba, Hattori and Kazuha, naturally, and Aoko too. But next to Aoko sat a girl who wore her hair in pigtails whom Aoko introduced as Keiko. This would have only been a minor surprise that made the meal more lively if not for the first words Keiko uttered after her introduction.

"I wanted to thank you for that scarf," she said to Kazuha. "And I thought you might want to know that it's doing well. It's also been a great help at my sister's salon. It keeps the floors sparkling clean."

"Oh, um, that's good," Kazuha stammered, caught off guard by the other girl's gratitude. It was embarrassing to be thanked for giving someone something that you'd basically discarded because you'd decided you didn't want it. On the other hand, since the scarf in question had been a living creature, she was truly glad to hear that it had found a good home.

Hattori and Hakuba, however, were wondering if something was wrong with their ears.

"I thought she said Kazuha gave her a scarf," the Osakan whispered to his blond friend.

"That is what I heard as well."

"So, I mean, I know some people can get sentimentally attached to their possessions and end up giving them names and treatin' them like people, but what's that got to do with salon floors?"

"And how exactly do you expect me to know?" Hakuba snapped. "You should ask your girlfriend."

"Jeez, you can't tell me you ain't curious."

"At least I know better than to expect you to have the answers."

Hattori spluttered.

If the two detectives had not been so distracted by their own conversation, they might have noticed Aoko elbowing Keiko and leaning over to whisper into the girl's ear. The latter's eyes widened for a moment before she murmured something back then suddenly started talking about the weather.

Seated to Kaito's right near the head of the table, Shinichi idly wondered how many days it would take for this charade to fall apart. He wasn't even sure it would take a day, he mused, looking through the kitchen doorway behind Hakuba, Hattori, and Kazuha's chairs at where all six of Mex's arms were hard at work. One of the man's heads had dedicated himself to watching the dining area, and so every time anyone seated with his or her back to him moved as though to turn around, his surplus limbs and heads would vanish like they had never been only to reappear again the moment the observer turned away. He was very quick about the whole thing, and there was hardly a break in his work flow, but if they thought about it at all, he was sure Hattori and Hakuba would notice soon that the goings on in the kitchen were a great deal more complex than one man should be able to handle alone.

Two tall, willowy women suddenly appeared on either side of Kaito's chair, making Shinichi jump. They were pale from head to toe like all the color had been drained right out of them. Even their eyes were all but white.

"These are today's appetizers," one willowy woman said, placing a large platter of seaweed hand rolls on the table where everyone could reach. Her counterpart silently passed out small plates before fading away again just as quickly and silently as they had appeared.

While Hakuba and Hattori craned their necks this way and that, trying to figure out where the women had come from and gone to, Shinichi picked up a hand roll and looked inside.

The hand roll looked back.

He put it down quickly and turned to Kaito. "I think something got into it."

Kaito picked up the roll and glanced down into its seaweed pocket. "Oh, salamander peppers. They only look like they're animals. They're actually fruits. You deep fry them in a spicy sauce and wrap them in dry seaweed. I know the eyes look a bit creepy, but they taste awesome. Like firecrackers."

Shinichi wasn't sure how he felt about a food described as tasting like a firecracker, but he felt slightly better knowing it wasn't actually a lizard wrapped in there.

On the other side of the table, Hattori had already taken a giant bite out of his roll. It crunched loudly as he chewed, and he made a sound of approval before swallowing.

"Hey, this is really good," he said. "What's it made of?"

"I'm afraid that's a trade secret," Kaito said smoothly. "It's one of our chef's family specials."

"Ah, right. Well, you can tell 'im it's awesome."

Shinichi saw Mex's proud smile. Picking up his own roll, he tried not to think about what he thought he had seen inside and took a bite. To his mild astonishment, Hattori was right. It was delicious: sweet and spicy with a hint of tartness.

The crunchy appetizers were followed by a salad tossed with a chef's secret dressing then a creamy chef's secret soup. When the main course arrived, Heiji speared a piece of poultry on his fork and said to no one in particular, "Let me guess. This was marinated in some kind of chef's secret sauce."

"Actually, it's just garlic and hot sauce with some pepper and a few pinches of herbs," Kaito said, grinning. "Dessert's the real secret."

"I prefer to know what I'm eating," Hakuba muttered under his breath, but he was too polite to press the issue. That didn't mean he wasn't intrigued when the desserts finally arrived.

Set down in front of each person at the table was a large, pearly flower bulb. Each bulb was cradled in a bowl of artfully arranged leaves which, in turn, were surrounded by glazed fruits. The entire lot topped a small cake coated in snow white cream.

"Isn't it a little weird for the cake decorations to be just as large as the cake? I mean, this thing on top isn't edible, is it?" Hattori prodded the bulb with his fork then nearly fell out of his chair as it shivered. Then, right there before their eyes, the bulb on Hattori's plate bloomed. Pearly pink and cream petals unfurled outward, releasing a delectable fragrance into the air along with a faint glow.

"Actually, the whole thing is edible," Kaito told the stunned Osakan. "It's another Mex special."

"It's beautiful," Kazuha exclaimed. "It's like a cake that does magic tricks!"

"Nah, it's just good timing," Keiko assured her. "It's the harvesting part you need magic for. When you first start seeing the flowers budding, you have to use this spell for—ow!"

"It's a complicated process," Aoko said brightly, ignoring the way Keiko was rubbing pointedly at the spot on her ribs where Aoko had just elbowed her. "But it's not really all that interesting to talk about. So, if you're not too tired from your trip, would any of you like to go sailing on the lake? It's very peaceful."

"That sounds lovely," Kazuha agreed.

"Is there any fishing equipment here?" asked Hattori. "Maybe we could catch something for dinner."

Aoko stared at the human girl then glanced up the table at Kaito.

"I can go get some later," he said slowly. "From the storage rooms."

Hattori grinned. "Awesome."

Even Hakuba seemed to find the idea attractive. And soon he, Kazuha, and Heiji were being led down to the docks by Aoko while Kaito went to 'fetch' the necessary gear.

Fetching the necessary gear turned out to mean walking into a back room, closing the door to keep out prying eyes, and conjuring said items from a closet back in Castle Moon.

"So, fishing poles, lines, bait, buckets, lures, what else will they need?"

"I think that's most of it," Shinichi hazarded. He'd gone fishing before, but it wasn't like he was an expert. "What do your people normally use when you fish in the lake here?"

"We don't."

"Oh." Shinichi paused in the middle of checking the lures Kaito had conjured. "Is there a reason why?"

"Well, to be honest, no one in my family's particularly big on…fishy creatures. Bug-eyed little monsters, most of them."

"Don't you eat fish?"

"I can if there's no other option available," Kaito said in tones that managed to convey that there would never be such a time. "But Dad did force me to learn about it since he sometimes got invited by people who'd seen his shows to go on cruises and retreats and such that involved fishing."

"So you won't mind if we have whatever they catch for dinner?"

"If they insist. But I doubt they'll catch anything they'd actually want to eat."

With that foreboding statement and a wicked grin, Kaito went back out to where their friends were waiting to give them their equipment. Shinichi hurried after him, suddenly rather worried about the wisdom of letting the others anywhere near the lake. Unfortunately, it was too late to stop them. Kaito had already passed out the gear and was leading their fellow college students out the door and down the snowy slopes towards the silver gleam of water. Shinichi consoled himself with the thought that Kaito wouldn't knowingly put their friends in mortal danger.

"I'm not sure there's enough room for all five of us," Heiji noted as he hopped off the small, wooden dock into the one vessel moored there. It was a fairly simple rowboat and appeared to have been meant for four—provided those four passengers intended only to take a leisurely ride across the waters. The fishing equipment took up quite a bit of space. Factor in the fish they would hopefully catch, and there wasn't much space left over at all.

"Shin-chan and I won't be going, so there'll be plenty of room," Kaito replied. "I would recommend staying away from the far shore. There are a lot of water plants over there that get tangled easily with the oars."

"So what kind of fish should we expect?" asked Hakuba.

Kaito shrugged. "You'll have to find that out for yourselves, I'm afraid. I'm not much of a fish expert. Just don't be too disappointed if you don't catch anything."

"You just watch. We'll bring back a whole bunch," Heiji bragged.

Kazuha only laughed. "I don't really mind if we don't catch anything. This lake is gorgeous! I like the idea of just sailing around a bit. It's so peaceful here."

Confident that their friends were happily occupied, Kaito slid an arm around Shinichi's shoulders and began gently herding him back up towards the manor house.

"So where exactly are we going?" Shinichi asked. He had half a mind to insist that they stay near the docks just in case their friends needed them. He didn't know much about Kaito's world yet, but he was fairly certain that three unsupervised humans could get into a lot of trouble if left to their own devices.

"Stop worrying about them," Kaito admonished. "The lake guardian will make sure nothing happens to them. Now come on, I'm sure you're going to love this."

This turned out to be the manor's small but very well stocked library.

It took Shinichi less than five minutes to realize that he was standing in a treasure trove. The books lined up all around him ranged across all genres and time periods from the classics to modern bestsellers. And almost every volume was a first edition. In the right circles, this little library would fetch a hefty fortune and then some.

"But this is—! And this! I thought all copies were lost decades ago!"

Kaito stood back and just watched as Shinichi flittered about the shelves like a humming bird on a sugar high. A fond smile tugged at the corners of his lips. His detective was adorable when he was all excited like a child about to open his birthday presents. Which was ironic, he mused, since Shinichi would never be so excited about mere birthday presents. No. The only things Shinichi ever exhibited this much enthusiasm for was literature and the occasional soccer game.

"How did you guys find all this?" Shinichi burst out, still flitting from shelf to shelf.

"Dad's been visiting the human world for quite a long time, if you'll recall. Most of these books weren't anything special at the time he got them. He picked them up because he feels literature is an important part of every culture, and so we should read human world books if we want to maintain and improve our understanding of your world. Especially since it changes so fast for you guys. This is only part of the collection though. The library at Castle Moon is at least fifty times this size, and it covers a lot more languages. We've also started adding other media to our collections. Dad's working on installing a home theater for the video and audio materials."

"Why didn't you show me the library at the castle last time we were there?" Shinichi demanded, both thrilled by the news and disappointed by the missed opportunity.

Kaito laughed. "That would be because I didn't think we'd be able to drag you back to school in time for our exams if you set foot in there. I'll make it our first stop next time we visit the castle."

Shinichi barely heard the magician's promise because he had just found the entire Sherlock Holmes collection on a corner shelf—the entire, first edition collection. He stood frozen in front of it, eyes wide in awe.

Kaito couldn't help it. He doubled over laughing. Then he closed the distance between them in two long strides, caught Shinichi's chin with one hand, and leaned down to steal a brief but thorough kiss.

The detective, now rather pink, stuttered something completely incoherent, which made Kaito laugh harder. Flustered and confused, Shinichi gave his partner a wary once over before deciding that the safest course of action would be to ignore the cackling crazy person and go back to basking in the presence of fine literature.

When Kaito finally calmed down, he was mildly surprised when he did not find Shinichi ensconced in an armchair with a book. Instead, the detective was reviewing the shelves he had just spent fifteen minutes gushing over with a small frown on his face in place of his earlier delight.

"What is it?" he asked. "If there's something you want that's not here, I can check our catalogue for you. The spells shuffle the whole inventory with the books back at the castle periodically, but I can summon a specific title if I know what to look for."

"There aren't any books in your language."

Kaito blinked. "Well, creating a story to explain a bunch of books in alien tongues didn't sound like a particularly fun way to spend our vacation, and none of you would have been able to read them anyway, so I had those parts of the selection swapped out with recent releases from your world."

"But you said it's easy to bring one back, right?"

"Very. What's this about?"

"Well, since we have time, I thought I could get started on learning your language."

Kaito blinked again. "I can get you a few books if you want, but is that really what you want to spend your vacation doing?"

"Not the whole vacation. I just figured this would be a good time since I won't have to work on any cases for the next few weeks."

"I suppose that makes sense," Kaito conceded. "I'll see about working it into the schedule. I'll call up a set of our language textbooks and a novel or two. Do you have any requests?"

"Maybe something you liked reading when you were growing up?"

"You sure? We have mystery novels too, but I wasn't really big on them until I met you."

Shinichi could feel his blush returning, but he did his valiant best to ignore it. "I'm sure. I mean, you know what my favorite books are."

Kaito chuckled. "Shin-chan, anyone who knows anything about you knows what your favorite books are—but I see your point," he added hastily when he saw Shinichi's face fall. "I never had favorite books the way you do, but there are certainly some I'm always happy to recommend. I'll get you a few to choose from."

"Thank you."

"Anytime." Kaito ruffled the detective's hair, completely ignoring Shinichi's squawk of protest. "But first, I promised you a trip to the roof. The view is spectacular, and you'll even be able to see our friends from up there. So you can stop worrying about them and focus on important stuff."

"…Their safety is important."

"True, but worrying about them when they're perfectly safe is a waste of time and energy better spent on other things. So~," he held out his hand, "shall we?"

X

Hakuba was seriously starting to wonder if there had been something psychedelic in their lunch. Or maybe it had started even earlier. Maybe he'd fallen asleep on the car and dreamed up the green fog and all the subsequent events—including this excursion onto the water. Or he could have hit his head.

This was an extremely unusual train of thought for the blond detective. He'd never been given to fanciful thinking, and he generally trusted the evidence of his own eyes and ears. After all, if you couldn't trust your own senses then life would become very complicated very fast in all sorts of unhelpful ways. But some things were just too…weird to be believed even when you saw them with your own eyes.

For example, there had been that face in the water. He and Hattori had just rowed their little boat to a spot roughly near the middle of the lake, and Kazuha was working on baiting their lines. Hattori had pulled up his oar and gone to help his girlfriend. Hakuba had been about to do the same when he happened to glance down into the water.

The movements of their boat had sent ripples racing away across the glassy surface of the lake in long, graceful loops made stark by the brilliance of reflected sky. It was a beautiful picture—serene and pristine as the snow-capped mountains rising all around the edges of the sky. And what a sky! Flawlessly blue in that luminous, translucent way that only the sky could be without a single cloud to mar its satin expanse.

And so why was it that, with no clouds over head, there appeared to be two clouds reflected in the water? Not fluffy clouds either. They were almost angular in shape. Parallelograms with rounded corners, he decided before the word 'eyes' suddenly rose in his mind unbidden. After all, the pale diamonds reflected in the water mirrored each other very much like a pair of eyes. And beneath them shimmered a thin, sharp streak of reflected white that could easily pass for a mouth.

Now, Hakuba knew that reflections on water could easily form faces and all other kinds of images when that water was disturbed or when creatures and rock formations put in their two cents. But that face floating on the lake's surface just looked so definite that, when it opened its mouth, he even heard it speak.

"Good afternoon."

The words arrived inside his head without first passing through his ears, and he stiffened, staring at the face with a growing sense of horror. He couldn't seem to think straight—or really think at all beyond the fact that the face was speaking to him. Except of course that it couldn't be.

He snatched his water bottle from where it had rolled under a bench and took three large gulps of ice cold water to clear his head. When he looked back into the lake, the face on the water was gone.

But alas, that was not where the weirdness ended.

There were little things like dragonflies that, in the brief glimpses the humans managed to catch of them flitting by, looked almost like actual, tiny dragons with thin, serpentine bodies attached to their dragonfly wings. But of course that couldn't be right. Right? It must have been a trick of the light. But then there was the fish that Hattori reeled in.

Yes, they had set out to hook a fish, but none of them had ever expected to hook one not by its mouth but by its tail. The hook had been wrapped neatly around the base of its tail fins, and the creature now dangled upside down, glaring balefully at Hattori with eyes the size of ping pong balls that glowed neon green.

Hattori was the first to break the silence. "What…is that?"

"Um, a fish?" Kazuha said uncertainly. It certainly had the general shape of a fish—rounder on one end and tapered on the other until it flared out into a glorious fan of a tail that shimmered with opalescent rainbows completely at odds with the vicious, needle-sharp teeth it was baring at them. Its dorsal and pectoral fins were ribbed with silver spines like curvy ice picks. It also had scales like a proper fish should, except that, on this creature, the scales looked rather more like armor.

"It looks like a mutant," Hattori said bluntly.

"Or perhaps a deep sea fish," Hakuba suggested, though his dubious expression didn't waver. "Perhaps it is a byproduct of pollution."

"I don't know. This lake's got the cleanest water I've ever seen," Hattori pointed out. "Maybe it's fake? It's pretty light for its size… And it ain't struggling."

It really was just hanging there, the blonde observed, disturbed. But those glowering eyes definitely felt like they were glaring at them.

"Or it could be a really rare species," Kazuha offered. "I think we should let it go."

The boys agreed readily, though they did so more because they didn't want to get any closer to that mouthful of teeth than because they thought the monstrous fish was some rare and heretofore undiscovered species. Besides, the thing couldn't have looked more unappetizing if it had tried.

The decision to release the fish was easy, but how to free it was rather less easy to decide. They ended up lowering the creature back into the water and jiggling the line. There was a flurry of whitewater and a flash of silvery fins. Then the fish was gone.

Time passed quite normally after that.

Until they fished up the sparkling glass teapot.

Filled with tea.

Hot tea.

Clearly, if he wasn't dreaming or hallucinating then it had to be a prank. He supposed that was what you got for going to a magician's vacation home. The entire place was probably riddled with hidden contraptions. Yes, that had to be it.

That might even explain the subsequent set of matching teacups and basket of picnic sandwiches.

Watching the scene play out from a roof high over the lake's snowy shores, a certain demon was having trouble containing his laughter. Seated next to him with a warm thermos of coffee in hand, Shinichi only shook his head.

"Even Hakuba's going to start wondering after that display," he said dryly. "I thought you wanted to keep the magic at a minimum?"

"Hey, that was the lake guardian, not me. He's trying to figure out what they're looking for. He probably heard them talking about fish, but they put it back. Since they kept the teapot instead, he thinks they want afternoon tea. Besides," he added. "That blond twit friend of yours wouldn't recognize real magic if it bit him on the nose."

"He's not stupid," Shinichi said, feeling obliged to defend his friend. "He's an excellent detective."

"Maybe. But you can't deny he's pigheaded about things that don't fit into his world view. Though I assume he'd call it logic."

Shinichi opened his mouth then shut it again. "So you said something about a schedule," he said instead. "What did you have planned?"

Chapter Text

Seated at the desk in the bedroom that she had converted into a temporary office, Aoko pored over the many timetables she had drawn up for the Clover House staff just one more time to make sure there were no errors. The task had, in her opinion, been made unnecessarily complicated by Kaito's insistence that they hide their true natures from their human guests. Many members of the staff were unused to maintaining human forms, so Aoko had to make sure that they could perform their duties out of sight of their guests. Those able to masquerade fulltime as humans had had to be trained in how to carry out certain tasks without the use of magic. Several of them found the whole charade to be lots of fun, which was technically a good thing except that Aoko was afraid it was leading them to take the act far less seriously than they ought. Quite a few of them seemed more intent on teasing the guests with hints of magic just to see how the humans would react. That had no doubt been why she had had to remove a gator box from one of the guest rooms that morning before Kaito had arrived.

She glanced over her shoulder at the scaly, ivory chest now situated in the corner of her room. Gator boxes were excellent for keeping safe your valuables, but they were notoriously fastidious. Woe be to anyone who forgot to keep his or her gator box clean.

She grimaced, shaking her head. Some jokes were just not funny. Setting a gator box on an unsuspecting person was just that sort of joke. Although she suspected that it was a joke one Kuroba Kaito would find very amusing. She never could understand his sense of humor. Still, she had to wonder how many of the magical mishaps she was sure would be cropping up over the next few days would be orchestrated by the Kuroba himself. Hide their true natures indeed. Ha! Like he hadn't brought them all here just to rub the magic in their faces.

But alas, whatever Kaito's true intentions were, his instructions had been clear, and so she had to make sure these timetables were reliable.

A soft knock at her door drew Aoko out of her thoughts.

"Come in," she called out, assuming it would be Keiko.

When the door opened, however, it was Shinichi who slipped into the room. He shut the door quietly behind himself before turning to meet Aoko's startled gaze.

He blushed, a hand rising to scratch at his cheek. "I'm sorry. If you're busy, I can come back later."

"What?" Aoko blinked then shook her head. "No, no, I'm not busy. Here, have a seat."

She glanced around, saw no other chairs, and cursed. Then she remembered that Shinichi knew exactly who she was and where they were. So she snapped her fingers, summoning a plushy red stool in a burst of crimson flames.

Shinichi sat down gingerly on the proffered chair and folded his hands on his lap. Aoko had to hide a smile. Sitting there, back straight and hands folded like that all proper like, the human looked the exact opposite of Kaito's wild, mischievous nature. But she supposed that was why she had liked this human when Kaito first introduced him to her.

He was calm, intelligent, and surprisingly accepting of their heritage and ways despite his own predisposition to skepticism regarding the supernatural. He didn't judge.

And he had a calming influence on Kaito—something Aoko wouldn't have thought possible if she hadn't witnessed it with her own eyes. Kaito placed a great deal of value upon what this human friend thought and said, and, in Aoko's eyes, the changes their time together had wrought upon her oldest friend were for the better.

"So," she started, remembering that Shinichi was still in the room with her and that he must have come for a reason. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Well, I just had a few things I needed to ask you," he said, glancing over at the papers strewn about her desk as though in search of inspiration.

"Go ahead," Aoko said encouragingly.

"I…was wondering if you were going to be here at Clover House the entire time we're here on our vacation."

"I will," Aoko replied, though she had been surprised by the question. "Why do you ask?"

Shinichi glanced back over his shoulder as though he expected the door behind him to open again at any moment. When it didn't, he relaxed and turned back to Aoko. "I was wondering… I mean, I was hoping that you might be able to tell me more about your world. Like the way things work. The structure of the Houses, their relationships with one another, and how the society is structured too."

Aoko blinked. "So…you want to learn about the way we are governed?"

"Yes, but not just that. I'd like to know more about your society as a whole. I've only been here twice. The first time was the party, and there was that weird lab we found and the chase through the root tunnels of the Millennial Tree. There wasn't much time then to get to know what life is like around here on normal days."

"well, that definitely wasn't normal," Aoko agreed with a snort.

Shinichi smiled a little wanly in return. "And this time we're going to be at this vacation house the whole time. Pretending to be in my world. So I probably won't see much of anything that really relates to your world."

"You could ask Kaito to take you to the town down in the foothills. They've got a lot of great restaurants and boutiques. He'd love to show you around."

Feeling a blush rising, Shinichi ducked his head. Cute, Aoko thought. "I'll ask him. But I was hoping to learn about everything in more detail. There's just so much about this world that I don't understand. But I have to start somewhere."

Aoko studied his face for a long moment then smiled. "I think I understand. I'll try to help you however I can. But you'll have to be more specific about what you want to know. I've never taught anyone before, and I honestly have no idea where to begin either."

Shinichi returned her smile with a grateful one of his own. "Well, Kaito's told me a little about the governing system you have with the Great Houses and the Middle and Lower Houses that seem to work for them, so I think that would be a good place to start."

X

Shinichi headed for Kaito's room the moment he left Aoko's study. He knew in that odd, sixth sense kind of way that he had begun to notice in himself that Kaito was already in his quarters. He also knew that Kaito was pacing and waiting for him.

He puzzled over how and why this knowledge had made its appearance in his head even as he opened the suite's door and greeted his boyfriend.

"You were with Aoko for a really long time, you know," Kaito informed him the moment Shinichi shut the door. He had seated himself at a small table by enormous window that the detective couldn't recall seeing earlier that day and was nursing a mug of hot chocolate. "You do realize that you can come to me if you need anything, right? I'm sure I'm more than capable of answering any questions you might have."

Shinichi hid a smile. "I know, and I thank you. But there are some things you can't help me with."

Kaito looked offended. "Like what?"

"Getting to know people like Aoko-san, for one," Shinichi replied, unfazed. He took the seat across from Kaito and accepted the mug of hot chocolate that the demon pulled from thin air and slid across to him. "You've spent the last few months getting to know my friends. I'm just doing the same."

"Oh." Kaito blinked then laughed. "I guess I should have thought of that. But really," he continued, expression growing serious. "If you do need anything, you know you just have to ask, right?"

Shinichi returned his earnest look with a soft smile, feeling a swell of warmth in his chest. "I know. So," he continued, changing the subject. "You said something about skiing tomorrow, right? Is there a resort near here?"

Kaito studied Shinichi's face for a moment longer. Satisfied that nothing was amiss, he conjured a bowl of marshmallows and sprinkled a handful onto his hot chocolate before offering Shinichi the bowl.

"I just figured we should make use of that ski equipment we brought while the weather is fair," he said. "There's no resort, but there are several excellent slopes on the other side of the lake. I'll send someone over to set up the ski lift in the morning so we can head out there after breakfast."

"Set up the ski lift?" Shinichi echoed, raising an eyebrow. "Is this another of those things you're having installed to trick Heiji and Saguru into thinking we're still in our world?"

Kaito shrugged. "Mostly, but not entirely. I'd fly you up, but I'm not flying anyone else. A ski lift is just the practical solution. Unless you think your friends would like to walk like most of my people do who don't have wings or steeds equipped for over-snow travel."

"And your people know how to set up lifts?" Shinichi asked, honestly curious. He had not seen a single piece of machinery in the Makai in either of his visits that hadn't come with their group like the car this time or the souvenirs Kaito had brought for his family and friends last time.

"Well, it won't have a motor," Kaito admitted. "We'll be running it on magic, but I sent home lots of pictures so everyone here would know what the outward appearance should be like. So as long as Long Nose One and Two don't poke those long noses into the operations booths, they shouldn't notice anything off."

"I see. You're certainly putting a lot of effort into this charade."

Kaito smirked. "Well, it's fun. And the staff is learning a lot."

Shinichi blinked. "Oh? How so?"

"You, Kazuha, Hattori and Hakuba are the first humans many of my staff here have ever seen. Aoko knows you and Miss Kazuha, but everyone else has been beside themselves with curiosity and questions. I've told them to try and keep things discreet, but I'm sure they'll start approaching you sooner or later. If they start to annoy you, just let me know and I'll deal with them. But I was kind of thinking that this would be a good experience for all of them—and you and your friends too. Like you said, I know your friends and your world. This won't be the last time you—or your friends—visit, I'm sure, so it's only right that my people learn more about you and you them. I'd like you all to be comfortable."

Despite his blasé attitude and penchant for mischief, Kaito could be quite thoughtful, Shinichi reflected. It was one of the things he loved about the magician. He paid attention to details, and he looked out for people, even if he didn't always do so in a way that those he looked after could appreciate.

And it was comforting in a way to learn that he and Kaito had been having similar thoughts.

The detective had spent a lot of time thinking since returning from his first venture into this strange and fantastical world. He had come home from their adventure with two realizations. The first was that, for better or worse, he really did love Kaito. The second was that he knew next to nothing about the world Kaito called home or the people the magician would one day be responsible for. He had begun to remedy this lack of knowledge during his first visit, but there had been too much to do at the time with the kidnappings and so forth to do much more than gain a basic impression.

Still, even that limited exposure had been enough to tell him that, though humans were known and acknowledged as distant relatives to demon kind, they were far from understood. Though most of the demons he had met at Kuroba Toichi's birthday party had treated him with a distant politeness, a few had been outright disdainful.

He had been prepared for that though, and it wasn't just because Kaito had warned him beforehand. No matter where you went, snobs would be snobs. In that regard, demons and humans were very much alike. There would always be those who judged others based on nothing but the way they looked, their social background or where they were from. Such people weren't worth wasting time on.

The chasm of uncertainties and misconceptions between the rest of Kaito's people and his own, on the other hand, was, he believed, not insurmountable. But he had a lot to learn before he could make any decisions on that front.

At times, the thought of the road before him felt almost overwhelmingly daunting. There were a million and one things to consider—factors he didn't even know yet and others he had no control over. But at those moments, he would take a deep breath and remind himself to take one step at a time.

The two finished their hot chocolates in a comfortable silence, neither very eager to bid this tranquil night farewell and go to bed. But eventually they reached the bottoms of their cups, and they knew that they had to turn in if they were going to get an early start on the morrow. Not that Shinichi particularly wanted to get up early on vacation, but he knew he had to make use of every hour he had. Besides, Kaito was sure to wake him up early. The magician always had plans.

It was that thought that reminded him of one important detail he should have noticed sooner.

"You never showed me my room," he said, looking across the small table and their two empty mugs at Kaito.

The demon looked so puzzled that Shinichi suffered a moment of confusion himself. "What are you talking about? I told you this was our room. The bed's plenty big enough to share."

Shinichi considered arguing, but he recognized a lost cause when he saw one. Besides, he reminded himself as the two of them tucked themselves in, it wasn't like this was the first time they had slept next to each other in one bed. They had done so last time they visited the Makai too, which, he supposed, was why Kaito hadn't bothered asking him for his opinion (well, okay, Kaito had probably deliberately chosen not to mention anything. It was Kaito after all. But Shinichi decided to pretend that it had been an honest mistake).

All around them, the world itself lay still and silent in the way only a world without traffic could be beneath a moon and stars so bright that they gilded all they touched in silver and pearl.

X

He was walking through a library. It was an enormous, labyrinthine library with endless halls of books and towering shelves whose heads were all but invisible in the reaches of the ceiling. At the center of that labyrinth of knowledge, however, was a large, circular space. A coffee shop.

It had a few round tables, each set with two or four wooden chairs. The circular counter at the heart of the shop was where the barista worked, taking orders and making coffee, filling the entire library with the delectable aromas of freshly brewed coffee.

Shinichi wasn't sure how he'd gotten here, but he was standing in front of the counter when the girl handed the last drink over to a faceless man who walked away before she turned to him.

He gasped, "Ran?"

"Oh, hey Shinichi. What can I get for you today?"

She asked him the question like it was the most natural question to ask—like he had been here every day and she had taken his order every day. But he had no idea where here was, and he knew Ran shouldn't be here. Yet…yet it seemed strangely fitting that she was.

"Here you go," she said, pushing a large mug of black coffee across the counter at him. "It's just the way you like it."

He smiled and thanked her. It wasn't until he had sat down at a table that he realized he had never actually given Ran his order.

That peculiar observation, however, was quickly replaced by curiosity as he found that the bare tabletop before him was no longer empty. There was now a spread of magazines on the table before him, though he not seen anyone bring them over. Stranger still, the covers of the magazines, though so blurred as to resemble abstract art, were moving. Colors shifted and swirled, seeming to form fleeting impressions of people and places, plants and animals, though the images always dissolved again into indecipherability an instant before they could be fully identified.

Fascinated, Shinichi reached out and picked up the magazine on the far right—

And he was sitting in a small boat drifting on the mirrored surface of a lake that stretched out in all directions as far as the eye could see.

"Shinichi?"

Starting at the sound of his name, Shinichi tore his gaze from the distant horizon and looked around to discover that he was not alone in the boat. Seated across from him was Hakuba Saguru. His friend didn't appear nearly as surprised to see Shinichi as Shinichi was to see him.

"Do you see it?" the blond asked.

Shinichi stared at him then around at the endless expanse of water and sky. "See what?"

Hakuba leaned forward, voice dropping into a whisper. "The faces," he hissed. "In the water."

Blue eyes automatically moved to peer over the sides of their boat. And indeed, there were faces in the water. They were near featureless, human faces with empty holes for eyes and slashes for mouths—more masks than faces, really. Some were laughing, others crying, some were scowling, others bored. They appeared just below the water's surface like bubbles rising up from the depths only to vanish at the surface and rise again in another spot.

More and more faces appeared, rising faster and faster and faster until they became a single, enormous, screaming face that rushed up from directly below their tiny vessel.

And with a watery roar, torrents of water erupted all about them, and out of the frothing, white spray came glass teapots the size of trucks that tipped their spouts towards the boat. From each spout came a waterfall, and Shinichi threw up his arms in a vain attempt to protect himself from the deluge—

Only he was back in the library café. Still off balance, he fell against his table and felt a slither of cold paper beneath his palm—

"All right, we got this!" Hattori Heiji declared, slapping Shinichi hard on the shoulder with a grin before he handed him a wooden stirring spoon twice as long as he was tall. "I'll start pouring in the ingredients, and you just start mixing. All right?"

"Uh, o…kay?" Shinichi looked down to find that he was standing on a giant table next to a metal mixing bowl that was every bit big enough to be a swimming pool. On the other side of the bowl, he saw Kazuha and Ran measuring out endless sheets of cookie paper on trays the size of ballroom floors.

Before Shinichi could process the oddness of this vision, Hattori was back, and he had brought with him a mound of the strangest ingredients Shinichi had ever seen. The human-sized fruits were the most normal. There were also rolls of pink cheese, blocks of dark blue chocolate the size of suitcases, huge fronds from unknown plants, and even a pair of blue eggs with scaly shells.

"And in they go!" the Osakan announced just as he whipped out a katana. In a series of silver flashes, he reduced all the ingredients into confetti and dumped them all into the waiting bowl.

"What're ya waiting for Shinichi?" Heiji demanded. "Start mixing! I'll go get the wet stuff next."

Though still confused, Shinichi picked up his oversized wooden spoon and began to do his best to stir the swimming pool of ingredients. It should have been impossible to do much more than shift the heaps about, but somehow, the mess seemed to be mixing all on its own into a colorful and sweet smelling blur. Then in went gallons of milk and honey, and the colorful mass became a smooth, aromatic batter.

"I think that's enough," the Osakan declared once the batter had thickened into dough and become an even, rosy pink with swirls of brown and gold and cream. "Time to roll 'em out!"

With a whoop and an astonishingly high leap, he landed feet first on the edge of the mixing bowl, causing it to flip impossibly up into the air. There, it performed a graceful cartwheel and dumped its load of dough back onto the counter to take its place. The bowl itself continued soaring up and up like a bird to vanish into the hazy lights overhead.

Shinichi was helping Ran roll a dough ball as tall as they were onto one of the cookie sheets when his foot landed too close to the curved edge of the counter, and he slipped—

To land again in his café chair. This time, he was more prepared, albeit just barely. In any case, he drew his arms in close to his body to avoid touching any more magazines by accident and stared at that spread of glossy covers. They were still as indistinct as ever, but he could catch fleeting impressions of glass teapots and watery curtains in the first magazine and small figures painting icing onto enormous cookies in the other.

Theories began to form in his mind.

Taking a deep breath, he braced himself and picked up a new magazine—

He was sitting on a stone bench in a small gazebo overlooking a rose garden in which a perfectly circular lake glittered like a second night sky. Stars twinkled both above and below, and, for a moment, he felt as though he was at the center of the universe with all of time and space stretched out vast and unfathomable around him. The sight of the roses brought him back to earth in a way, though their petals glimmered like pearls turned to silk.

Entranced by the sheer beauty of the landscape, it was a moment before Shinichi even noticed that he wasn't alone. There was a warm hand slightly larger than his own holding his on the bench beside him. He knew the feel of that hand, with its long, calloused fingers and firm but gentle grip. And so he wasn't at all surprised to look up and find that Kaito was seated next to him. What did surprise him was the sight of Kaito's night black wings, one of which, he now saw, was curled around him from behind to shield him from the crisp but gentle breeze. He smiled at the thoughtfulness of the gesture and allowed himself to lean into Kaito, resting his head on the demon's shoulder as they watched tiny faeries dancing over the gardens below in a comfortable silence.

It was a long moment before Kaito finally moved, turning to smile down into Shinichi's face just as Shinichi himself looked up.

Warm, indigo eyes met blue and held. Then Kaito was leaning in, and Shinichi found he couldn't move—not that he really wanted to.

The kiss was soft and sweet and far more real than the dream that Shinichi had begun thinking that this had to be. The surprise of it had him pulling away.

"What's wrong?" Kaito asked then paused in what Shinichi could only describe as confusion. Then the demon's indigo eyes sharpened. He studied Shinichi with an intensity that had Shinichi beginning to worry.

"Shinichi?" Kaito asked. Though he spoke normally, his voice was too loud in this soft world of rose gardens and clear night skies.

"What?" Shinichi asked back, just as puzzled.

"You're really here."

"Yes…?" What an odd turn this dream was taking. "What is it?"

"How did you get here?"

"What are you talking about?"

Kaito looked grim. "This is a problem. I'm going to wake you up now. Then we can talk."

"Wait, what—" Shinichi started to ask, but it was too late. Everything around him from the gazebo to the lake and the roses simply melted away like so much fog—

And he was looking up at the ceiling of the room he was sharing with Kaito with the fur capa nuzzled against his right cheek in a warm, furry and softly purring ball.

Chapter Text

The sky to the east was trimmed with gold, heralding the coming dawn. Its pale radiance flowed smoothly into the deep, satin blue of the passing night where a few last stars were winking farewell to the snow-capped mountains below. It was a breathtaking sight, but for all that the enormous window in their room provided them with a spectacular view of it, niether Kaito nor Shinichi had even noticed that the sun was rising. They only observed in the distracted corners of their minds that the room was growing brighter.

Shinichi was sitting at the small table where they had shared hot chocolate a scant few hours ago, this time with a mug of coffee steaming between his cupped hands as he watched Kaito pace around and around the room. Though Kaito's exptression spoke of nothing but a mind focused on some very intense thinking, the fact that he had been at his pacing for nearly ten minutes now without saying a word was beginning to make Shinichi nervous.

"I still don't understand," he said finally when he could stand the silence no longer. "Do you really think I somehow got into your dream?"

"I don't just think, I know," Kaito corrected him. "You should too. You were there. I spoke. You answered. And we both remember what we said, not to mention the scenery."

Shinichi opened his mouth then closed it again. They had indeed compared notes upon waking up, and Kaito was right. They both remembered that starlit rose garden and the little, stone gazebo. It was strange, to say the least, but Shinichi had seen so much strange since he'd gotten to know Kaito that he no longer felt particularly perturbed by any of it.

"I don't see why you seem so worried about it," he said. "They're just dreams. Or is it like a breech of privacy to accidentally slip into someone else's dream?"

Kaito snorted then laughed. "It figures a detective would start with the legalities of things." He made one more quick circuit of the room then threw himself into the chair across from Shinichi.

He pulled a fluted glass of something blue and frothy out of the air and took a long sip before setting the cup aside and leveling Shinichi with a serious gaze.

"There are two branches of magic that correlate with what happened last night: dream walking and dream shaping. Dream walking is pretty much what it sounds like. It's about moving through and observing others' dreams. Dream shaping is about creating and altering dreams. The experience you described sounds more like the former. Both are very rare magical talents. They are also both very dangerous, albeit in different ways. For the untrained, however, dream walking in particular is extremely dangerous for the user."

"What do you mean?"

"It's all about minds. The world of dreams is one shaped entirely by our minds and hearts. And because of that, each dream is in essence its own world, and the dreamer is the god of that world. Do you understand?"

Shinichi shrugged, looking at the blue liquid in Kaito's glass which appeared to be turning green then yellow before darkening to orange and a velvety rose red. "How does that make walking in someone else's dream dangerous though?"

Kaito caught his eyes with a steely gaze and held it. "Because there are no rules in a dream world. Anything is possible, and most of that power lies in the hands of the dreamer. Dream shapers can create and manipulate dream worlds, making someone else's dream their own to shape, so, as long as they remain calm and have a strong will, they can protect themselves. But a dream walker is a mere visitor—an observer. A skilled dream walker can view other's dreams unnoticed, and yes, gather intelligence on their private thoughts, but if noticed, they are basically at the mercy of their host's mind. On top of that, most people don't exactly have great control over their own inner thoughts. So say a dream walker is startled by something they see and react in a way that scares the dreamer, then that fright is reflected by the dreamer's dream world and it becomes a vicious cycle where the dreamer and walker feed each other's fears so that the nightmare grows worse and worse."

Shinichi considered this information as he sipped at his coffee. "I can see how that could be unpleasant," he said eventually. "But even the worst nightmares are just that. They can't actually hurt you."

"Not physically, maybe," Kaito replied. "But getting accidentally embroiled in a nightmare is only one risk. The biggest danger is that you might get trapped."

The detective stared at him. "Trapped?"

"If the owner of a dream has the mental discipline, he or she could use those dreams to trap an intruder's mind. The good news is that normally the dream walker would wake up when the dreamer does. But there are some demons with natural talents in certain mental magics that can be combined with dream shaping to create pseudo dream spaces in which they could trap a dream walker forever."

Shinichi could feel his blood running cold at that idea even as some corner of his mind wondered whether it should laugh at the odd duality of this world of magic where, for every new wonder, there was an accompanying danger.

"Well, so now that you have me thoroughly convinced that this dream walking business is dangerous," he said wryly. "What am I supposed to do about it? Hell, how did it even happen? I thought for a moment that maybe thoughts and dreams just have more power in this world because of the natural magic you told me about, but you made it sound like dream walking isn't an everyday occurrence."

"It's not. Like I said. It's a rare magical talent."

"But I'm human," Shinichi reminded him. "I don't have any magic."

Kaito hesitated, indigo eyes growing distant as he thought. His long fingers drummed a quick rhythm on the tabletop. If Shinichi didn't know better, he'd have thought Kaito was uncomfortable. That thought didn't make the detective feel any better.

Eventually, the demon sighed and met his gaze, expression grimmer than Shinichi had ever seen it. "That may not be entirely true."

Shinichi blinked. "What?"

"You said you have no magic," Kaito clarified. "I'm saying that that may not be true. You remember my doves, don't you?"

Those doves were hard to forget, Shinichi thought. He had first been introduced to the flock back when he'd only been a child. At the time, Kaito had been masquerading as the human son of a stage magician who had transferred into Shinichi's school. And so Shinichi had met those delightfully bright birds when Kaito invited him to watch the magicians train their feathery assistants. At the time, the doves had been ordinary enough if rather smart for birds.

A few months ago though, Shinichi had had the chance to see those same doves again, and boy had they changed. Even the smallest dove towered over him while standing on the ground. They would certainly never fly out of another top hat. Nowadays, the flock apparently served as a means of aerial travel for the Kurobas and their servants as well as messengers and scouts. But it wasn't just their size that had left an impression on Shinichi. It was the way they clearly understood every word of human speech. The cause for this drastic change, according to Kaito, was their extended exposure to the natural magic in the Makai. But the doves had been a special case, Kaito had claimed. Their natural affinity for magic was what spurred on such rapid and unusual development.

Kaito had also told Shinichi himself that he had always had an unusually high level of awareness. He called it an affinity for divination, and, according to him, it was why Shinichi ran into so many crimes on a regular basis. While Shinichi wasn't entirely sold on that reasoning, he had not forgotten those hours in the underground tunnels formed by the roots of the Millennial Tree. That feeling of the tree's immense life force flowing all around him was one he would never forget.

"But Kazuha has the same kind of, well, sense, I suppose, that I do," he said, thinking out loud. "Does that mean we'll both start developing magical abilities just by spending more time in this world and eating your food?"

"Maybe," said Kaito. "Though the chances of that happening are, I think, quite slim."

"Why though? She actually spent more time in the Makai than I did during our last visit since she was kidnapped. And she consumed a lot more of the local foods during those days when I was sick."

"With magic poisoning," Kaito jumped in. "You were sick because your body was having trouble handling the enormous amount of magic you were exposed to when you fell into the Source. As I told you back then, when someone gets magic poisoning, his or her body has to expel or assimilate the excess magic in order to recover. When demons survive a serious case of magic poisoning, they will often find that their magical abilities have evolved. In the bad old days when everyone was always fighting, some demons would consume mass amounts of magic-rich substances like the snow from Mizuna Peak to try and make themselves stronger. But so many demons perished in the attempt that the practice eventually died out. Nowadays, most of us know better."

"Hold on." Shinichi raised both his hands. "Are you about to say that, because I survived the magic poisoning, I might be developing magical abilities?"

"More like had the channels of potential you already had opened up, but yes. Like I said, my people were human too before the magic made its way into our makeup."

"But I thought you told me real changes don't tend to happen unless an organism that is already prone to change is exposed to magic over an extended period of time. I was only sick once. And I've been back in my world since then where there wouldn't have been any exposure to magic."

Kaito hesitated. "Well… That's not technically entirely true."

"What do you mean?"

"This." The magician reached over and lightly touched a spot at the junction between Shinichi's neck and shoulder. Shinichi felt a spark of unexpected warmth at the point of contact, and he shivered. "We have a bond now. For my people, this connection would include a certain sharing of magic. It is possible that that is also true for us. If that is the case then you could say that you are, in fact, being exposed to magic even when we are in your world."

Withdrawing his hand, Kaito caught Shinichi's gaze and held it. For once, his indigo eyes were utterly and completely serious.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Shinichi felt suddenly cold. "Kai," he began slowly, hesitated, then sighed. "Kai, does this… I mean, are you trying to tell me that… That I'm starting to not be a human anymore?"

The guilty look that flashed through Kaito's eyes before the magician's Poker Face slammed down was all the answer Shinichi needed.

Chapter Text

"What's the matter with you two?" Heiji asked the following morning when Kaito and Shinichi joined him and the others at the breakfast table, both with frowns on their faces. "Did ya have a fight or something?"

"What? No, of course not," Shinichi snapped then sighed and pinched his nose. "Sorry. I just…had some really strange dreams."

It wasn't a lie in the literal sense, but he felt slightly guilty anyway because he knew it was just an excuse. The truth was that, after getting up way too early and having that strange, strange discussion, he hadn't gotten a wink of rest even after lying down again with Kaito's promise of a spell to ward off any dreams. He just couldn't decide how he should be feeling.

Part of him was still having difficulty grasping the idea that he might be turning into something that was not entirely human. After all, he didn't feel any different, and, other than the odd dreams, he hadn't done anything unusual either. All in all, he simply felt like himself.

Another part of him, however, was terrified. He had seen the doves and how much their contact with magic had changed them. But, more than that, he had seen numerous peoples from Kaito's world and thus knew firsthand that magic could change what had been human in crazy and unpredictable ways. Developing the ability to dream walk was one thing, but what if he started sprouting wings or a tail? What if his skin turned blue or he suddenly developed hooves or claws or fur in strange places? Would he turn into some kind of, for lack of a better word, monster that could no longer live normally among human beings?

The thought of it terrified him even though he told himself it shouldn't. After all, Kaito's people all seemed able to revert to a human or mostly human appearance at will.

But the doves couldn't return to their old forms—or at least he didn't think they could. Perhaps things were different for organisms that hadn't begun life with magic of their own. It would make sense since Kaito's people had descended from humans. They'd never been human themselves. Really, he was in completely unknown territory here.

He wished he knew more or that there was some way for him to research the issue, but he wouldn't even know where to start. According to Kaito, actual records from the time when humans had first started developing magic were basically nonexistent. The closest would probably be the murals that Kaito and he himself had found during their last visit to the Makai, but those hadn't been big on details.

On the other hand, they hadn't spent all that much time exploring those ruins. Would they find more information if they went back? Even if they did go and even if they found something, would it be relevant to his situation? All considered, his situation was unique in two ways. The first was that he had fallen right into the heart of the Source. The second was that he was apparently magically connected to an already extremely powerful demon—something no human from the ancient days would have been as such magic and demons had yet to develop back then.

So where did that leave him? Was there anyone else he could ask about all this who might actually have a chance of having answers when even Kaito couldn't come up with anything?

As Shinichi's thoughts ran in circles, Kaito sat locked in a fearsome struggle with himself.

His initial reaction to discovering Shinichi's new talent had been fear for his detective's safety. As he'd made very clear (he hoped) to Shinichi, dream walking was not to be taken lightly (even if it was a talent coveted by those interested in prying into others' secrets. A stealthy soul could slip in and out of another's dreams without alerting the dreamer, and it was incredibly difficult to control all of your own thoughts inside your own head, especially in a dream. Dream walkers might not be able to manipulate someone's dreamscape the way dream shapers could, but they could still interact with the dream world when they so chose, and actions taken in a dream inevitably led to reactions from the dreamer, mostly involuntarily, and thus dreamers ended up revealing things about the inner workings of their minds without meaning to. Granted, that knife cut both ways. But it wasn't just the dream walking. It was the realization that Shinichi might not have come through his encounter with the Source as okay as they had thought. He could be having some sort of delayed reaction to the whole traumatic experience.

On the other hand, said experience had concluded several weeks ago. So chances were good that, at least in terms of Shinichi's health, there was nothing to be worried about.

As for developing some magic of his own… If Kaito was being perfectly honest with himself, some part of him had been, maybe, just a little, sort of hoping for… Well, not for Shinichi to develop magical talents so much as that he and Shinichi might be able to share through their bond a little of what his people typically would through such a connection.

It was all about time.

He didn't care that Shinichi was human. Indeed, it was perhaps precisely because Shinichi was human that he had been able to teach Kaito some of the things that he had. Kaito wouldn't change anything about their history or prior circumstances even if he could because every piece of it had had to come together just so to bring them to where they were today.

But the fact of the matter was that human life spans simply weren't very long. There. He'd admitted it. He'd always known it, but he'd told himself it was a concern they wouldn't have to face for decades yet to come.

That didn't mean it didn't haunt him sometimes when he lay awake in their dorm, watching Shinichi sleep on the bed opposite, face still and tranquil.

He loved Shinichi. HE was certain of that. And if a century was all they could have then he had told himself 'so be it'. He would cherish every moment that the heavens gave them because he refused to let either of them regret all that they would lose otherwise.

Demon life spans varied a great deal as well. Some lived for thousands of years—others for mere centuries. True, all lived longer than the average human unless they got into a fight they couldn't win or offended a more powerful demon who wasn't big on forgiveness. But to put the matter simply, even among demonkind, the disparity between life spans was a common problem everyone faced when making friends, finding lovers, or even applying for certain positions. When you worked with another, you always needed to be prepared that they might leave you far earlier than you wanted or vice versa. Such was the way the world worked.

Demons learned to live their lives in stages—like the chapters of a book. They enjoyed and loved every chapter as best they could, but when one chapter closed, they had to move on to the next. It was the way the oldest of them all had taught the rest to live and to maintain their sanity because how else could any mortal being withstand the wear and tear of eons?

Understanding the theory, however, didn't make the practice any easier, especially when it came to saying goodbye.

Did such things get easier with time? Kaito didn't know. Indeed, he had little experience with partings yet himself, having not yet even reached his first century. He had not yet had to say goodbye to anyone he was truly close to.

He didn't want the first of those people to be Shinichi, but he had accepted the possibility because there was really no other choice.

It was, however, common knowledge that magical power factored strongly into the prolonged life spans of all the living entities in his world. It was well-established fact that magic was the driving force behind the evolution of all life in the Makai. Some even believed that it was the energy of life itself for its mere presence had a tendency to both preserve and engender vitality. After all, what else could explain the sheer array of life forms that existed in their world? Not all of it had evolved from what would typically be considered plants and animals. In the Makai, even objects could gain a little sentience under the right conditions.

And so with the worry had come a fierce and terrible spark of hope.

Shinichi was still human just as the doves were still doves, but, if he was compatible with its energies, perhaps magic could do for him what it had done for them and give him the chance to become something more.

It was, Kaito was forced to admit, perhaps something he had, deep down, been hoping for when he had used his magic to link Shinichi to him. That spell had, after all, been expressly developed to enable a high level demon to safely share some of his or her magic with one of lesser power. There were many dimensions to and a whole lot of history behind the spell, but the long and short of it was that it had been created by souls who'd shared his very same predicament—his very same wish.

But he hadn't asked Shinichi. It hadn't really been Kaito's choice to make. He reasoned that his initial thoughts had simply been that he could use some of his magic to help keep Shinichi safe and healthy (which was certainly necessary considering his detective's penchant for running head first into trouble and forgetting to look after himself), but still… The moment it became clear that the spell might do more, he should have sat Shinichi down and talked about it. Asked him if it was something he wanted…

They would still have to have that conversation, he knew, and probably sooner rather than later. If his parents were here, he suspected that they would tell him that there should be no delay. He should take Shinichi aside after breakfast and go over it all right away, but something in Kaito balked because he wasn't sure what he would do if Shinichi said that he didn't want this after all.

If he said he wanted the spell undone then Kaito would have to undo it because he loved Shinichi too much to force him to take this risk if he didn't want to. It wouldn't be fair to Shinichi, and it wouldn't be fair to their future because true, lasting relationships had to be built on bonds stronger than magic. Kaito would break the spell if that was what Shinichi asked of him, but it would pain him for the scar he was afraid it might leave between them.

Was Shinichi mad at him? The detective hadn't seemed angry after their brief talk that morning, but Shinichi probably had too much to digest to decide yet whether or not he was angry.

And Kaito was more than happy to let him finish digesting and organizing his thoughts before they had what he suspected would be the toughest discussion of their still developing relationship.

Oblivious to the two's inner turmoil, however, their friends chattered blissfully on.

"I had a pretty weird dream too," Heiji was saying. "But I still slept well."

"I slept like a baby," Kazuha put in. "I think it's the lack of noise. It's never this quiet back home with all the traffic and machinery and all that. It's nice."

"It has its merits," Hakuba conceded, frowning. "Though I personally find it a little unsettling. It's…eerie."

Heiji gave his friend a funny look. "Eerie, huh? You feeling all right? It's not like you to say things like that."

The blond looked as though he couldn't decide whether to be affronted. In the end, he simply shook his head. "Sorry. I fear I did not sleep well either."

Nonplussed, Heiji cleaned the rest of the pancakes off his plate as he wondered why the atmosphere this morning was so bizarre. They were on vacation after all. Everyone should just be happy. So why did it feel like he and Kazuha were the only ones behaving correctly?

"So are we still going skiing?" he asked the table at large once he'd finished.

"Sounds good to me," Kazuha said, hopping out of her chair and stretching. "I'll go bring our equipment down. You guys just take your time. Heiji, could you help me?"

"Right." The Osakan detective rose to follow his girlfriend, but he paused before he left to cast an eye over the table. He noted with growing concern that, as per his earlier observations, he and Kazuha were the only ones who had finished their breakfasts. The other three had barely touched their food. For Shinichi, that wasn't surprising. He was the sort of person who thought coffee qualified as breakfast, but prim and proper Hakuba had always been one of those 'everyone should eat three square meals a day' sorts. And in the short time he had known Kuroba, the magician had proven to be a big eater with a major sweet tooth. So the fact that he'd only eaten one pancake and hadn't touched the syrup at all was just weird.

Were they all sick or something?

"Ya know," he said to the three poking at their plates. "If you guys need more rest, we could always save the skiing for tomorrow and just do some indoors stuff today. Play some board games, maybe watch a movie? How about it?"

Now, finally, Kaito looked up, indigo eyes clear and sharp. "No," he said. "We'll ski. Everything's already set up, and Aoko's looking forward to trying it. She's never been skiing before."

Declaration made, he devoured his remaining pancakes in a few quick bites, washed it down with a glass of orange juice, and rose from the table. "I'll go get Shinichi's and my coats. Meet out on the patio in ten minutes."

That said, he was gone, leaving Shinichi alone with Hakuba in the dining room.

"Shinichi?"

Still lost in his own worries, it took several seconds for Shinichi to realize that Hakuba was calling his name. When he did realize, he blushed and turned to face the British detective.

"What is it?" he asked. "Are you not feeling well?"

Hakuba frowned. "I was about to ask the same of you. You have been awfully quiet all morning, and you've been avoiding looking at Kuroba. Did something happen?"

Shinichi opened his mouth to respond then hesitated because he had no idea what to say. There was the whole thing with the magic, there was his involuntary intrusion into his friends' dreams last night, there was the fear of what might be happening to his body, and so much more he had yet to put into words—and none of it would make any sense to Hakuba because he didn't believe magic was real, and still thought Kaito was just a human magician.

This secrecy thing could be a real drag, Shinichi thought. Although it was also kind of a relief that he had a legitimate reason to not talk about any of it right now.

Sighing, he forked up another wedge of pancake (because he knew that Kaito would be annoyed if he didn't at least make an effort to eat a real breakfast) and chewed it slowly. When Hakuba was still watching him when he swallowed, he relented. "Kaito and I just…realized some things… About our relationship, I mean…"

"Ah." And now Hakuba looked uncomfortable. But being the responsible friend he was, he soldiered on. "If you would like someone to talk to, I cannot guarantee that I can provide any useful advice, but another perspective could be of service."

That was just like him, Shinichi thought, and he had to smile. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. But what about you? Was there something you wanted to talk about?"

Hakuba hesitated for a long moment then shook his head. "I…think perhaps I have been overworking. Tired minds play tricks. You should remember that as well."

Shinichi blinked, taken aback. "Um, okay… I'll do that."

Heiji chose that moment to pop his head back into the dining room. "Oi, you two coming or what?"

Chapter Text

There was definitely something odd about the ski lift, all three detectives thought later that morning when they laid eyes on said contraption. Exactly what was odd, however, was more difficult to pinpoint—perhaps because it was already strange that it existed at all, and large swaths of it were hidden by trees when viewed from their direction of approach.

"Is this, like, a private lift yer family got built or something?" Hattori asked Kaito when the shed that anchored the bottom of the lift came into view around a lightly wooded hill. They had walked partway around the lake before veering away from the water and into the woods. Some part of the Osakan had been expecting a small ski resort or something, but clearly this place, wherever it was, was very literally out in the middle of nowhere. Of course that realization raised a whole host of other questions, but he recalled Kazuha's pointed warning about leaving well enough alone so that they could enjoy their vacation and decided to stick only to those questions that seemed the most immediately pertinent.

"Pretty much," Kaito agreed cheerfully. What he did not mention was that the lift had been built less than a few hours ago specifically for their visit (though the 'construction crew' had practiced a few times prior to that). "Everyone in my family enjoys skiing."

Walking on Kaito's other side, Shinichi cast his boyfriend a surprised and curious look. "Really? I didn't know that."

"Yep. We spent a winter in the States a few years back and tried out several of their ski resorts. It was fun, but it was also really crowded. So we thought hey, the area around here has some pretty good slopes. We might as well have our own lift. Then there's no waiting around in long lines and no crashing into newbies."

"I might sort of be a newbie though," Kazuha admitted. "I like to ice skate, but I've never skied. Heiji promised to teach me."

"Well I don't know how to ski either," Keiko piped up, appearing beside Kazuha so suddenly that it made the human girl jump. "Do you think Heiji-san would teach me how to ski to?"

"Oh. Uh…probably. You should ask him."

"I'll do that." Bubbling over with excitement, the pigtailed girl bounded over to Heiji and asked him if he would teach her how to ski.

With a careful eye to detail and an ear to odd sounds, Hakuba had walked all the way around the shed at the bottom of the lift and found it acceptable. It moved smoothly, the benches went up then returned smoothly, and the operations were easy. Too easy. And too quiet. That was it. The thing that had been nagging at the corners of his thoughts. This contraption might look like a ski lift, but it was utterly silent when it moved as though it was the ghost of a ski lift—a mere mirage without substance. Except, of course, that it was very obviously solid and present. A knock on the shed wall proved that.

Standing beside the place marked out for those planning to board the rising lifts, Shinichi had a good view up the length of said lift, and so he was the one who noticed the other very odd thing about the Kuroba family lift.

It was anchored at only two spots. There was the shed at the bottom of the lift and the one at the very top of the highest slope. There was not a single other support beam holding up the cables anywhere along that very long route. And if that wasn't peculiar enough, there was the way some stretches of cabling swerved here and there to avoid pesky tree branches. This gave the overall impression that the lift wasn't comprised of cables so much as very long strips of some hard, inflexible material that still seemed like it should bed or snap if someone tried hanging from its middle.

Shinichi had no doubt that it would function perfectly regardless.

It was, however, going to take an excessively and possibly actively unobservant person not to notice the unnatural arrangement.

He sighed and shook his head, not sure whether to be amused or exasperated. Beginning to feel the cold more acutely now that he wasn't moving, he blew into his gloved hands then rubbed them together.

Something trilled a questioning note from seemingly right beside him, and he nearly jumped before he realized it was the fur capa currently ensconced on his head.

"My ears are getting a bit cold," he admitted.

In answer, the fur capa carefully tucked its soft, furry edges down over the tips of Shinichi's ears. Then it chirped again, and he smiled.

"Thanks."

The crunching of footsteps on the snow alerted Shinichi to Hakuba's approach and imminent discovery of the lift's unnatural nature. He debated with himself for a moment on whether he should just go ahead and point out the idiosyncrasies. But he found that he really wasn't feeling up to introducing Hakuba to the existence of magic. He had too much on his mind already. And while he thought it rather unfair to leave his friend in the dark when even Heiji had already been told at least that much, Shinichi just didn't want to deal with the inevitable debate that the revelation would start.

So to hopefully save his own peace and quiet for just a little longer, he turned to intercept Hakuba with as cheerful a smile as he could muster.

"It's going to be interesting, having an entire lift and all these hills to ourselves," he said.

"It is," the blonde agreed. "I must admit, I am very surprised."

"By what?" Shinichi asked, wondering if maybe Hakuba had already noticed the weirdness going on overhead. If he had though, the reaction was surprisingly nonchalant.

"All this," the blonde replied, gesturing at the landscape at large. "I knew Kuroba's family was well to do, but this… To put it bluntly, it goes well beyond what I expected."

"Oh." Shinichi blinked, not sure what to say to that. He was saved from having to come up with something, however, by the arrival of the rest of their friends.

"If everyone's ready, we should start heading up," Kaito declared. "We'll need to take the lift in twos."

"Oi Hakuba, I'll race ya," Hattori said immediately.

"Hey!" Kazuha protested. "You said you were going to teach Keiko and me."

Hattori flinched then laughed sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Er, I could do that right after?"

Kazuha's eye twitched.

Sensing the impending argument and the distraction it would provide, Shinichi tugged on Kaito's arm. The demon immediately left off his observation of the brewing storm in favor of smiling at his blue-eyed love.

"Yes?"

Shinichi made sure that everyone else was too engrossed in Kazuha and Heiji's bickering to overhear them then directed Kaito's attention to the odd jinks in the lift cables. He explained in a hasty whisper that some adjustments would have to be made if Kaito wanted the lift to pass as believable. Kaito listened then frowned, and suddenly there were new support structures spaced out along the length of the lift—just enough of them to compensate for both its length and the places where it changed directions.

Shinichi did a double take. "That was…fast."

"They're only illusions," Kaito admitted. "Purely cosmetic. But they should suffice."

Shinichi supposed they would. It wasn't like anyone was going to go see whether they could swing their arm through one of those supports after all.

He glanced back towards the argument to find it still ongoing. With their friends distracted and the lift cosmetically improved, he and Kaito were abruptly left with a moment alone and between activities, and suddenly their conversation from the morning resurfaced in Shinichi's mind. His mouth opened of its own accord, but then it stopped because, though he felt as though there was something they needed to talk about, he wasn't sure what it was. Or rather he had some ideas, but those ideas were too jumbled in confusing, and he had the horrible feeling that if he didn't sort them out inside his own head first then anything that came out of his mouth would end up being something that he would regret later.

And he didn't want that.

So what he ended up saying instead was, "Should we go ahead? The others might take a while."

Kaito, who, unbeknownst to Shinichi, had been working through a similar trail of thoughts, grinned a grin that was only slightly less genuine that it usually would be and agreed.

It wasn't until they were seated side by side on the lift and being ferried up towards the waiting hills that they both realized that they now had not only time but privacy. What had started out as a comfortable silence grew rapidly less so, and Shinichi found himself fighting back the urge to fidget.

"I'm not upset," he blurted out, breaking the silence. "I…just wanted you to know that."

Kaito blinked then smiled a little ruefully. He reached over with his right hand to take Shinichi's left, twining their fingers together. The gesture was hampered slightly by the fact that they were both wearing gloves, but Shinichi found it reassuring nonetheless. He'd been a little worried about what Kaito might be feeling too. He'd seen the flash of guilt in the demon's eyes, and he thought he could kind of guess at the reasons behind it. In his opinion though, Kaito had no reason to feel guilty, and he needed the magician to know that.

What had happened—was happening—was an accident. It was frightening because there were so many unanswered and potentially unanswerable questions, but there was no point panicking before they had even begun to truly look for answers.

"It does bother you though," Kaito said some long, contemplative seconds later, though he never once released Shinichi's hand. "You're not really okay with it."

Shinichi's initial instinct was to deny the observation, but he held back and gave it some more thorough consideration. Eventually, he sighed and bowed his head.

"I'm…afraid," he admitted, gaze trained on the snowy slopes flowing past beneath their dangling feet. "I…don't know what to expect. I don't know what might change. What if...what if I do change, and it's so much that I can't go back to my world anymore? Or what if I just change enough so that I'm not me anymore? Will these changes be purely biological? Am I going to start turning into someone else? I've been telling myself all morning that it's unlikely. I mean, I still feel perfectly normal. And I don't think I've changed mentally either. But…"

His breath left him in a frustrated huff, and he shook his head. "I don't know. I wish there was someone who could explain how this whole process works, but there really isn't, is there?"

It was Kaito's turn to sigh. He scooted closer to the smaller boy and wrapped his arm around his waist.

"I'm sorry I don't know more about this," he said softly. "I can make some educated guesses about some things, but I don't know if that would help."

"It might," Shinichi said after some thought. He leaned unconsciously into Kaito's embrace, letting his head rest on the demon's shoulder. "At this point, any information at all would be appreciated."

Kaito nodded slowly. "I can see that. Well, first off, you don't have to worry about turning into another person. Personalities are part of a person's soul—the essence of who they are, and magic doesn't change that."

Shinichi nodded, relieved. "Go on."

"Secondly, I'd say it's unlikely for you to see too many physical changes. Looking at what records we have, early demons rarely deviated much from the standard human shape. It was several generations before any really major deviations appeared."

"What would you consider a small deviation?" Shinichi asked.

"Well, variations in hair and eye colors were common from the beginning, if the old artwork we still have is to be believed. As were changes in eye and ear types. Things like wings, horns and tails started appearing pretty early on as well, but they didn't become common until later. Mid-level variations would include beings like those that human myths refer to as merfolk, centaurs and that sort. The first of those were probably around tenth generation or later."

"What about for individuals?" the detective asked.

"It depends. Variations between individuals of the same species tend to be biggest in plant-based life forms. Then insects and reptiles. For mammals, the bigger differences tend to come through generations, though there are always individuals who are more prone to changing than others. There are also certain more major changes that can be triggered by certain types of magical exposure. Sorry, I'm not sure I'm putting this very clearly."

"An example might help," Shinichi suggested.

Kaito took a deep breath. He seemed to be bracing himself. When he spoke, Shinichi realized why.

"The bonding is one type of magical exposure that often results in changes," the demon said. He felt Shinichi tense, but he forged on regardless. "My mother was born into the House of the Phantom Wind. They're a Middle House under the Phantom Moon—one of the first to ally with us actually. Their true forms are generally very human-like but with a lot of silver and white in the coloration as well as a tendency towards in-corporeality. They're often skilled with wind magic, music and illusions. Every now and then, one of them is born with what we refer to as ghost wings. They're basically incorporeal wings that can be used to manipulate wind magic but not to actually fly with. The Phantom Moon, on the other hand, has always had wings. Black feathered wings, mostly, hence the kanji we chose for our family name when we go over to your world. But when my parents bonded, Mom's ghost wings became real wings like ours. Though they stayed silver."

"So…you're saying that this type of magic exposure tends to result in changes that are influenced by the more powerful demon."

Kaito nodded. "And the effects extend beyond the cosmetic. Powers and specialties can also be influenced. Sometimes, entirely new branches of magic are even discovered this way. Mostly though, it bolsters a demon's existing talents and encourages them to evolve along paths determined by their innate affinities and the magical domains of the demon who established the bond."

"I'm not sure I understood all of that. Almost none of it actually."

"That's all right. It was really just a longwinded way to say that everything depends on the individuals involved."

"Are there, I don't know, case studies on this spell?"

"Er, no…? It's an old spell, but it only gets used a handful of times every century."

Shinichi shot the demon a sidelong look. "I thought it was something your people did when they got together."

Kaito coughed lightly. "It's something only couples do, but not all couples do it."

"Why? Is there something wrong with it?"

Kaito let out a snort of laughter. "According to some, everything. Think about it, it's a spell for sharing power. Demons never share power lightly. It is simply not in our nature. Frankly, we tend to the opposite."

"Then why do it at all?"

Kaito was quiet for a long moment before he eventually sighed. "Well, do you remember when we had that discussion about how my people age?"

Shinichi nodded slowly. "You said the outward signs of aging varied a lot from House to House. So some demons look really old when they're technically still young even by human standards while others look like college students even when they're hundreds of years old. And there are even some demons like you who can decide when they age."

Kaito nodded. "Well, this spell is sort of about that and sort of not."

The demon took a deep breath to brace himself before launching into what turned out to be a history lesson on the development of union magic and the bonding spell that it gave birth to.

Quite a lot of it went over Shinichi's head, but he understood the parts that mattered, and, once again, he found himself at a loss as to what to think, let alone say.

Kaito seemed to sense that though, so he kept talking, sharing some of the more famous stories of what Shinichi suspected were epic demon romances of the past. He took care to describe all the characters involved though and how their respective bonds had evolved both heir forms and their magic.

Demons might not have official case studies on the spell, Shinichi mused as he listened, but these tales were just as useful for someone like him who wished to learn.

It was only when Kaito started on his third tale when Shinichi realized that they were still sitting on the lift, and it was still rising smoothly uphill—except that he could no longer see either the hills or the mountains or even the lake. In fact, when he looked around, all he saw was fluffy white clouds. The cables to which their lift seat was attached stretched away into a milky whiteness both ahead and behind, and it was as though they were the only two beings in their own private universe.

"Um, I have to ask," he said, turning to try and see if he could catch a glimpse of whichever friends should have been on the lift behind theirs. All he saw was fog. "Where are we?"

Kaito coughed lightly. "Well, I figured we needed this talk. There's still a lot to go over and… Well, I didn't think you'd want to do it with the others around. So I just let our lift, uh, keep going into this pseudo space. Space magic is one of my specialties after all. I'm good at bending it and making it. It's why I can portal anywhere at any time. But anyway, this way, we can talk in private. And the others can continue enjoying the hills. When we're finished, I'll unfold the space, and we'll land at the top of the lift like we were supposed to."

"…Oh, uh, okay then. I guess that's convenient."

Outside of Kaito's dimensional shift, Hakuba, who was seated with Hattori—to both their chagrin, frowned. "Weren't Shinichi and Kuroba-kun on the lift in front of ours?"

"Yeah," Heiji agreed. "Why?"

"I don't see them anymore."

"What?" Confused, Hattori squinted ahead into the hazy morning light and realized that no, there did not appear to be a lift in front of theirs.

"Huh. Maybe they already got off."

"I…yeah. That must be it," Hakuba agreed.

But when they disembarked at the top of the lift, they found themselves the only two people there.

Chapter Text

"Does anything strike you as being…off?" Hakuba asked his fellow detective.

"Does anything strike you as being not?" Heiji asked back (only half sarcastically).

The two of them had arrived at the foot of the slopes to find that they were the only people there. The girls, they knew, were waiting back at the top as per the agreement they had come to wherein Heiji would get his race before having to fulfill his promise to teach Kazuha and Keiko how to ski. Aoko was keeping them company while they waited (although in truth, she was also keeping them company because she didn't want to be the only beginner on the hills. Unlike Keiko, she knew how to ski in theory, but she too had never actually done it. She'd assumed Kaito would give her a hand when she made her first attempt, but he had suddenly up and abandoned them. She was so going to have words with him about that later. Noble or not, friends weren't supposed to do that). The two detectives had, however, expected to find Kaito and Shinichi at the bottom of the series of hills. After all, the only logical reason for them to have been gone when the detectives had disembarked from the lift after them was that they had already skied back down. Yet there was no sign of either college student.

Furthermore, neither Hakuba nor Hattori had seen any sign of them as they were descending the slopes either.

"Do you think they could have taken a wrong turn?" the blond asked, glancing back up the snowy hills. "It was a long run."

"But with only one path," his friend pointed out, following his gaze. "Besides, according to Kuroba, this is his family's private lift. He's gotta know this place inside out."

"Then how do you explain why we haven't seen either of them?"

"Well," Hattori drawled after some consideration. "They are dating. Maybe they went off somewhere to, ya know, be alone."

Hakuba looked at him strangely before his meaning clicked, at which point the blond flushed bright red.

"I highly doubt Shinichi would find that appropriate," he managed to splutter once he wrestled his mortification under control.

"Shinichi might not. But I'll bet Kuroba wouldn't see a problem."

Hakuba opened his mouth then shut it again, grimacing. When Heiji put it that way, it certainly sounded like a logical reason for their friends' sudden absence. That didn't mean Hakuba wanted to accept it. Or even think about it.

There were some things you just didn't want to think about in relation to one of your best friends. His love life with an almost certainly slightly crazy magician you didn't entirely trust was one of those things.

Heiji's comments, had, however, reminded the blonde of his conversation with Shinichi over breakfast that morning. His embarrassment gave way then to a more somber concern.

"Do you," he started then stopped as he tried to find the words for what he wanted to say. "Have you noticed anything about the two of them today?"

Hattori frowned, turning to begin the slow trudge back to the foot of the ski lift. "What do ya mean? Anything about what?"

"They both seemed…distracted."

"They did seem a bit out of it," Heiji admitted. He stepped out of his skis and picked them up in preparation for the trip back up the slopes. "I thought maybe they'd caught colds or something. When you're sharing a room, if one person gets a nasty cold, the other's bound to catch it too. But I figured they'd insist we just go on with what we'd planned because they didn't want us to miss out because they were feeling ill or something."

"Well, maybe," Hakuba conceded. "It just seemed to me like perhaps they'd argued."

"All couples do that sometimes," Heiji reasoned. "Though it didn't look like they were fighting to me."

"I suppose you would know."

Heiji glowered. "Oi, can't you go ten minutes without insulting me?"

"It was merely an observation. It is not my fault if you choose to take it as an insult."

"Yeah right. Whatever."

X

Elsewhere, the young couple in question sat side by side on a slowly rising lift traveling from nowhere to nowhere in a world of endless skies and clouds.

"So do you feel up to going back yet?" Kaito asked. "Or is there something else you'd like to talk about first?"

"I don't know," Shinichi admitted after some thought as he let his head rest against Kaito's shoulder. "I feel like we've barely scratched the surface, but there's already so much to think about. I still have so many questions that I don't know where to start, and more just keep popping up."

Kaito chuckled. "Well, I never expected to cover everything in one sitting. It's going to take time, but I promise, we'll find your answers together. We just need to take this puzzle on one piece at a time. That is how mysteries are solved, yes?"

It was Shinichi's turn to laugh despite his worries. "True."

"Are there any other more immediate worries I can help you with before we go back to the others?"

Shinichi's breath left him in a soft, slightly weary sigh. "I'm not sure. But I…don't think I want to go back just yet."

"That's perfectly fine," Kaito said, smiling softly down at the top of Shinichi's head. "We could just sit here a little longer while you think. Or, if anything from our discussion earlier struck your interest, I can elaborate on it for you."

"It was all really interesting," Shinichi replied earnestly. "But I guess, well, could you tell me a bit more about the development of magic?"

"Do you mean historically or in relation to the bond?" asked Kaito.

"More like with us," Shinichi replied a bit hesitantly. "You talked about how personal affinities and things like that affect the way an individual's magic might evolve. You also mentioned that your magic would influence the way mine changes. So, well, if I am indeed developing magic, how do you think it's going to go?"

Kaito sighed. "You know I can only guess, right?"

"I know. But one reason this is hard to think about for me is because I really have no idea what is or isn't possible. I think hearing you speculate a bit will at least give me a better picture of the field, so to speak."

The demon nodded slowly, indigo eyes thoughtful. "I can see that. Well, we already know that you have an affinity for divination, including the ability to sense and see things that others cannot. In that regard, it's no surprise really that you've started dream walking. It is a related skill. It may or may not have mattered that I know some dream shaping, although it's not what I'd call a specialty."

"So what are your specialties?" Shinichi asked curiously. "You said something about space before."

"Yep. Dad and I are both naturals at anything relating to space and dimensions. Transformation magic also comes easily to us."

"Would that be like shape shifting?"

"That's one brand of transformation magic, yes. But it's only one. Pretty much anything that involves turning one thing into something else is related. Changing a material's physical properties or composition, for example."

"That sounds really broad," Shinichi observed.

Kaito chuckled. "It is. And it's very useful. Beyond that, I'm also quite good with wind and fire."

"You certainly seem to have a lot of specialties."

Kaito shrugged. "Great House, remember? Most of us are at least proficient in most branches of magic. It's expected of us. A standard demon education takes roughly half a century. Then you get to the advanced stuff that's actually optional. Magic alone qualifies as more than a dozen different subjects."

Shinichi blinked. He could just imagine the horror most kids in his world would feel at the thought of fifty plus years of school. He doubted even the thought of learning real magic would make that sound appealing to many.

"I take it that means you study more than just your specialties," Shinichi said thoughtfully.

"Yep. There are basics that everyone learns, and most demons will try a bit of everything after that. The smart ones will go on to learn as much as they can in each field then expand on those that they find easiest. From there, you develop your skills into a true specialty."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

"It can be," Kaito admitted. "But if there's anything we have, it's time."

Shinichi nodded slowly. He supposed that time-consuming hobbies were a must when you lived as long as Kaito's people did.

"Do all the Great Houses specialize in different things?" he asked.

"It's sort of worked out that way," Kaito replied. "Though there's always overlap. And we do occasionally collaborate. The Eternal Tide, for instance, tends to be good with medicine, poisons, plants and magical tools. Elementally, they tend towards wind and water. Historically, both the Phantom Moon and the Burning Ash have worked with them quite a bit. They've made themselves the go-to people for anyone looking to craft a magical tool."

"Do your people share your specialties?"

Kaito laughed. "Heavens, no. Well, not except by coincidence anyway. Our allegiances were forged long ago, and, if they were based on anything, it would have been philosophies."

Shinichi considered that then nodded. "That's good."

Kaito's eyebrows rose at the unexpected response. "How so?"

Shinichi cast him a sidelong look then turned his gaze out to the endless sea of sky and cloud around them as though he could find the horizon if he just looked hard enough. "I guess it's just a relief."

"I don't follow."

Shinichi gave a slightly uncomfortable half shrug. "I…guess I've been worried about what to expect about, well, everything. You're always telling me how things are different between demons and humans. It makes it difficult to think about what it would be like to live here. But I know you, and I know your parents, and you've told me quite a bit about your Dad's perspective on things and the ideas he promotes. And, well, if your people are like you and follow you because of who you are and because they believe in your vision then I think I'll be able to understand them—if not right away then eventually."

Since Shinichi wasn't looking at him, he missed the way Kaito went still as he reeled silently at the sudden revelation that Shinichi might actually be considering what it would be like to live with him. In his world.

It was what he wanted, but it wasn't something he'd planned to bring up for at least another few years. A giddy excitement bubbled up in the demon's chest, but he forced it down with an effort because he didn't want to overreact and end up putting pressure on Shinichi when the detective was obviously working hard to think through the paths ahead of them.

Shinichi was in the middle of making a choice, Kaito realized. One for which the detective was gathering information.

True to his thoughts, Shinichi spent the next few minutes asking more questions about magic: its branches of study, common uses, training, role in society, and so on and so forth until they both realized their throats were getting dry from talking.

"I think I'm ready to go back now," Shinichi said, turning fully to smile up into Kaito's face. The expression, the demon noted, was genuine now and much more relaxed, the earlier tension long eased. "I'll have more questions later, but I think I'll need a little time first to assimilate everything you've told me."

"I'll be here whenever you're ready to talk," Kaito promised. Then, because the relief of seeing Shinichi's smile again was nearly overwhelming, Kaito caught the detective's chin and pulled him into a soft, lingering kiss.

He knew Shinichi was still scared about what might be happening to him, but the boy wasn't running. He was doing his best to learn all he could in an endeavor to make sense of the situation and how they could deal with it, and that meant he intended to stay.

Kaito couldn't put into words just how much that meant to him.

He hugged Shinichi again, tucking the smaller boy's head under his chin and holding him close.

"We'll make this work," he declared, voice quiet but fierce. "I promise."

X

Aoko, Keiko and Kazuha all enjoyed their first trip down the slopes, though Keiko had difficulty stopping and ended up zooming straight down the many hills, building up speed, until she'd been launched straight out and over the lake—into which she promptly fell in a great fountain of freezing water. After that, she had excused herself to go get dry, and Kazuha had gone with her to help, leaving Aoko alone with Hakuba and Heiji.

She listened to the two bicker about whose lousy teaching had caused Keiko to have her accident. When they were finished with that, they moved on to arguing about which of them had the more masterful skills, which naturally led to another challenge to see who could race to the bottom of the slopes fastest while performing an actual trick jump.

Aoko found herself musing at just how different the three human males she now knew all were from one another despite all being detectives.

Then again, she supposed that that should have been self evident. No two demons were the same even when they were from the same House and occupied similar roles. The same would naturally be true for humans too. It was just that she'd never really spent much time thinking about what humans might be like on an individual level. She'd always just sort of had an image in her head of what humans were like and arbitrarily decided that most of them must fit into that mold.

It was a silly way to think and an even sillier, shallow way to decide what someone you'd never met must be like. Realizing she'd been thinking in just that way was making her feel embarrassed on multiple levels. But then again, she supposed, it was never too late to start doing better.

Just behind the bickering detectives, a lift bench arrived, and Kaito and Shinichi disembarked.

"Oh, you weren't waiting for us, were you?" Shinichi asked then looked around. "Where are Kazuha and Miss Keiko?"

"Keiko ski jumped right into the lake, so Kazuha-san took her back to the villa," Aoko explained.

Kaito glanced down the frosted slopes, measuring the distance between the apex of the last rise and the lake with his eyes. Then he whistled. "That must have been some jump. Sorry we missed it."

Heiji broke off from his bickering with Hakuba to level the two newcomers with a look. "Where were you two anyway? We've been up and down a few times already, and we never passed you. Now here you are behind us. What gives? "

Shinichi sighed. "We needed to talk."

Heiji's lips twitched in what might have been thinly veiled amusement. "Talk."

"…Yes?" he replied uncertainly.

"About?"

Shinichi's confused frown deepened. "It's private. Why are you looking at me like that?"

His fellow detectives shared a distinctly loaded look that he didn't understand at all. Was that a smirk on Heiji's face? What was he missing?

Hakuba coughed lightly, abruptly looking very uncomfortable. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

Right. Like that wasn't suspicious at all.

Shinichi narrowed his eyes at his friends, who both developed sudden, intense interests in the landscape. He glanced over at Kaito to see if the demon had any idea what was going on, but Aoko and dragged Kaito away and was whispering at him furiously. She seemed to be telling him off. It didn't look like something Shinichi wanted to interrupt.

"How about a race?" Heiji asked. "Last one down owes the others a round of coffee when we get back home."

Hakuba rolled his eyes. "What is it with you and competition?"

"What's with you and being a stick in the mud?" the Osakan shot back.

The blond detective bristled.

Shinichi bit back a sigh as the two once again fell to bickering. He couldn't decide if his friends were trying to distract him from asking further questions or just being their usual, squabbling selves. Whichever the case though, it was clear he wasn't going to be getting an explanation.

But maybe, just this once, he didn't need to add yet more problems to his plate. At least not before they actually proved to be problems.

Kaito strode up beside him and slung an arm over his shoulders. "Did I hear something about a race?"

Chapter Text

Kazuha and Keiko returned from their sojourn to the house carrying two large picnic hampers. The arrival of the food was greeted with great enthusiasm by pretty much everyone.

None of the humans had ever actually had a picnic on a snow field before. They were used to picnic tables and warm, enclosed dining commons. As such, the experience was quite novel.

Of course, as Heiji cheerfully proclaimed, with food like this, any location would be great.

"Keep talking like that, and you'll be our chef's new favorite person by the time this vacation is over," Aoko told him with no little amusement.

Heiji laughed. "What can I say? It's great food."

"He's right," Kazuha agreed, biting into a Mex special rice ball and marveling at the perfect balance of flavors that exploded across her tongue.

"What amazes me is this container," Hakuba put in. "They're clearly very good at keeping the contents hot, but these crispy things haven't gone soggy at all. It is quite remarkable."

The rest of the afternoon was spent back on the slopes. Despite everyone taking trips up and down at their own pace, Kaito somehow managed to arrange for them all to be at the very top of the hills when the sun began to set. Its honeyed light stained the snow-coated landscape a soft, pristine gold that spilled out across the mirrored surface of the lake. It was a breathtaking sight, and all seven of them spent a minute just standing there in silence, basking in its tranquil glory.

Hattori broke the silence first by challenging the entire party to one last race.

They returned to the villa tired but content.

With an hour to spend before dinner would be ready, Shinichi decided to take a shower. He felt he needed some space to himself so that he could think. And yet, standing beneath the warm spray and feeling his tired muscles beginning to unwind, he found he wasn't entirely sure where to start sorting out his thoughts.

His conversation with Kaito played through his head as though on a loop, spawning new questions at every turn.

Shinichi just wished he knew which questions were the important ones.

He had felt calmer after talking to Kaito. But now, alone with himself, he couldn't deny that the fear and uncertainty were still there.

He found himself standing in front of the bathroom mirror, staring hard into his own face and wondering.

He still didn't feel any different. He didn't look any different either. His eyes were the same shade of blue and his hair the same raven black. His ears hadn't developed points, and, when he ran his tongue carefully over his teeth, they hadn't either.

Maybe Kaito was wrong and he wasn't changing at all, except…

Except then he remembered the dreams, and he knew that that was wishful thinking.

When Shinichi emerged from the bathroom, he found a book waiting next to a cup of coffee on the small table by the room's enormous windows. It had a deep blue cover of soft leather, and the words "Dreams and Pathways" were stenciled in curling, silver letters across the front.

There was no one in the room, but Shinichi knew exactly who had put the book there and why, and a smile rose unbidden to his lips.

Seeing that he had some time, he sat and picked up the book.

Honestly, Shinichi had no idea what he was expecting, but it definitely hadn't been for the book to begin with an introduction to the various professions that were open to demons—er, people?—who had mastered the arts of dream shaping and walking. It was so practical. But perhaps that was his own bias, he mused. In Kaito's world, magic wasn't some strange, mystical phenomenon that could elicit awe merely by existing (or seeming to exist, as the case may be). In the Makai, it was an art, yes, but it was also an everyday tool. Naturally, if you wished to learn a form of magic, you would want to know what benefits it might have.

Dream shaping, as Kaito had told him, was based largely around the creation and manipulation of dreams. Several masters of the art apparently made their living by crafting and selling dreams, both general and customized. They were popular both as a kind of recreation and to help those who often suffered from nightmares.

Shinichi imagined walking into a shop and ordering a week's worth of dreams about touring Venice or flying over endless expanses of natural landscapes and shook his head. It was an amazing idea, although he couldn't quite picture the interior of the shop. What would the wares look like? He wondered if Kaito would take him to see a dream shop. It sounded like quite the experience.

Dream shapers and walkers also both worked quite a lot in the medical field, helping people work through issues via dream therapy. Shapers were better at using their magic to guide patients through therapy exercises, but dream walkers were better able to dive into the subconscious of troubled patients to help them identify the root cause of their ills. That, and they were simply better at actually getting into patients' dreams, especially when they were troubled. As such, dream therapists tended to work in pairs, one walker with one shaper.

Walkers who did not wish to work in the medical fields, however, often ended up recruited for espionage work.

Shinichi grimaced at that. Not surprised but not terribly enthused either.

Out of curiosity, he skipped over the descriptions of each job and the relevant skills that one would have to develop to enter those professions until he reached a section of the book that actually talked about how dream walking and shaping skills were developed.

Apparently, both were considered relatively rare magical talents, with shaping being slightly more common than walking.

He learned quickly that Kaito had recognized him as a walker the instant they'd realized they were both in Kaito's dream because Shinichi's consciousness had slipped in to assume the space occupied by the Shinichi already in Kaito's dream. Like donning a second skin, Shinichi had slipped into that role because it was his—him as Kaito perceived him.

Untrained dream walkers generally discovered their ability because they accidentally wound up in the dream of someone dreaming about them. In the same token, however, they couldn't accidentally enter the dreams of someone who wasn't dreaming about them—which, Shinichi thought, was a relief. That was a skill that had to be attained through training.

If he had been a dream shaper, on the other hand, he would have arrived in Kaito's dream as a separate entity and seen himself sitting with Kaito. And that Shinichi would have been purely Kaito's creation. It was one reason a shaper's presence was more disruptive to the dreamscape.

When Kaito popped his head into their bedroom half an hour later (fresh from his own shower which he'd taken elsewhere because he knew Shinichi needed some space), it was to find that Shinichi was still buried in the pages of his gift, sapphire eyes bright in that look of intense concentration that Kaito had always loved.

He took several long seconds to just enjoy the moment. Seeing Shinichi here in his world, looking so at home, made him feel happier than he could ever put into words. At the same time, it made something in his chest twinge with an almost painful hope for what could be.

But there was no point dwelling on such things. Not yet anyway. What mattered most right now was the present.

Lifting a hand, Kaito rapped lightly on the doorframe with his knuckles.

Shinichi looked up at the sound, blinking like someone coming back from some far away vision.

Kaito smiled, fondness and amusement glimmering in indigo eyes. "Hey there, it'll be time for dinner soon."

Shinichi blinked again. "Already?"

"Yep."

The detective turned automatically towards the room's enormous windows and gazed in apparent surprise at the stars beginning to sparkle in a sky rapidly deepening from purple to black. Once again, he found himself momentarily captivated by the breathtaking view. By the time he managed to pull his attention back to the room, Kaito had crossed to his side and was slipping a slim, wooden bookmark carved with roses between the pages of his book. Shinichi could have sworn he caught the faintest whiff of a mellow, sweet aroma just before the pages closed, and his eyebrows rose.

"Is that a scented bookmark?" he asked.

Kaito grinned. "Yeah. The fragrance is an enchantment on the roses. Try running your fingertips over the petals later. They'll feel like real petals if you touch them lightly. Handle it normally, and it'll just feel like carved wood."

"That's pretty cool."

"I thought you might like it, especially since I tweaked the fragrance enchantment to repel silverfish and other bugs."

Shinichi definitely perked up at that. Anything that kept bugs out of his books was okay by him. "The scent of roses doesn't have that property in my world though. Is it a species from around here?"

"Er, well, no. I don't believe we have insect repelling roses either. In this case, the actual scent isn't what's doing the bug repelling. It's the magic. The scent part is just for us so we know it's there, and it makes the paper smell nice."

"I tend to like the way paper and ink smells in general," Shinichi admitted. "But thanks for letting me borrow it."

"Borrow?" Kaito laughed. "Shin-chan, I'm giving it to you. Now come along. If we're late, Mex might decide we don't deserve dessert, and that would be a tragic way to end our first official day of vacation."

Despite the rather long and active day that they had all had on the slopes, spirits were still high when everyone reconvened in the dining room. It was, after all, the start of their holiday. All the unease and uncertainty that had haunted the breakfast table that morning had been wiped away by the day's festivities, and everyone was overflowing with enthusiasm.

"It's too bad there's no ice on the lake," Kazuha said when all the dishes had been cleared away. "If there had been, we could have gone skating."

"It's actually a little surprising," Heiji mused. "Considering all the snow and stuff, I'd have expected at least a little ice on the lake even if it didn't freeze over."

"This lake never freezes," Aoko told them. "It's the, er…" She hesitated as she realized that saying the lake guardian kept it that way would invite questions she wasn't supposed to be answering. "I mean, I don't really know why, but it's nice because it means you can go boating or swimming at any time of year."

"Isn't it too cold for swimming?" Hakuba asked, puzzled.

"Oh." Aoko blushed. "Um, I just meant it's an option. I brought it up because there are some really beautiful underwater sites in this lake, and…er… Some visitors like to dive…?"

"Ah, of course," the blond murmured, nodding. "Scuba diving equipment would compensate for the cold."

Aoko blinked. "It would? I mean, that's right." Seeing the way the human's brows furrowed ever so slightly, she pushed on with a hasty, "Do you enjoy diving?"

"I have no idea," Hakuba admitted. "It is not an activity I have had reason to try. Although I am not averse to the idea."

Hattori leaned forward slightly, interest piqued. "Is that something we could try here? I mean, I understand if you don't have equipment that fits us, but, if you do, it sounds like it'd be pretty cool."

"O—oh, well…" Trying not to panic, Aoko turned questioning eyes to Kaito. "Hey Kaito, do we have diving equipment your friends could borrow?"

Kaito, who had never gone diving in the human world and had absolutely no idea what kind of equipment human diving entailed, smiled and waved a hand dismissively. "I'll see if I can rustle any up."

The prospect of going scuba diving in the lake had apparently caught everyone's fancy, and Aoko soon found herself being bombarded by questions about the gorgeous sites she'd said were hidden beneath those tranquil waters. The more she explained, the more interested her audience grew, and it was clear to Kaito that this was probably going to happen. So he nudged Shinichi with his elbow and leaned over to whisper into his ear.

"So what kind of equipment do we need exactly?"

Shinichi gave him a look, glanced at his friends, then snorted, but he was smiling. "You could've just said you don't have the equipment."

"I could," Kaito conceded. "But everyone's so excited. I'd hate to burst their bubble. It's not like I can't get the equipment if I know what it's supposed to be. If we can't rustle up something similar then we can just hop over to your world, find a suitable store, and pick up what we need tomorrow morning. We can have everything set by noon."

"Scuba diving equipment isn't exactly cheap," Shinichi warned him. "You really don't have to do this just for us."

Kaito smiled and took Shinichi's hand under the table, giving it a firm but gentle squeeze. "This really isn't any kind of trouble for me. You know that. And if it makes you all want to keep coming back, I'll consider it a good investment."

Any further protests Shinichi might have had died on his tongue at the demon's final comment. He was left at a loss for words. He couldn't help but be touched by yet another piece of evidence of just how much Kaito wanted to make this relationship work. But it was frustrating too in its own strange way.

Shinichi wanted this relationship to work out too, but he just couldn't bring himself to be so open about his feelings. At the same time, he couldn't help but worry whether his intentions were getting across. He wished he was better at expressing himself.

"It's settled then," Kaito announced, drawing everyone's attention. "I'll check, and, if we have all the necessary equipment, we'll go diving tomorrow afternoon. So I'd recommend getting some rest. If you're not tired yet, you're welcome to visit the library or use the entertainment center. Aoko can show you where they are."

Aoko shot him a frown. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Oh, Shin-chan and I will be having a date," Kaito replied cheerfully, privately enjoying the way Shinichi immediately blushed a becoming shade of pink. "So don't call us unless there's a dire emergency." That said, Kaito slid his arm through Shinichi's and tugged the embarrassed detective out of the dining room and up the stairs towards their bedroom.

Shinichi could only imagine what their friends were thinking as they watched them go. He just knew they were getting all sorts of wrong ideas. It was written in Heiji's raised eyebrows and Kazuha's reddening cheeks. Tomorrow was going to be awkward.

If he tried to explain, however, he'd only add fuel to the fire. So he just let Kaito drag him away and prayed that his friends found other more interesting things to occupy their time with than speculating about his and Kaito's, er, date.

Chapter Text

"We should start by making ourselves comfortable," Kaito told him as he shut and locked the door to their enormous bedroom with its panoramic view of the lake. We want to be relaxed physically and mentally. It's much easier to enter the right kind of mind space for working with dream magic that way."

Shinichi could only guess what that meant, but he trusted that the demon knew what he was talking about. So he did as Kaito directed and went about completing his usual pre-bedtime ablutions: brushing his teeth, washing his face, so on and so forth. Eventually, dressed in light, loose pajamas, Shinichi sat down on the edge of the bed, frowned, then stood up again and wandered around the room, listening to the sounds of Kaito taking his turn at the sink.

He wondered idly if all demons used toothbrushes and toothpaste for their dental hygiene needs or if it was a habit Kaito had picked up from spending so much time in the human world. He imagined there had to be spells for dental care. There seemed to be spells for everything and then some in the Makai.

Shinichi was still standing at the window when Kaito emerged from the bathroom wearing his own dark blue pajamas with feathers embroidered along the hems. Shinichi turned and tried not to goggle at the way the embroidered feathers actually drifted about on Kaito's shirt like they were being tossed about by a gentle but playful wind.

"You look nervous," Kaito observed, indigo eyes somber and searching as he stepped up beside Shinichi. He immediately slid one arm around Shinichi's waist and was gratified when the young detective leaned instinctively into his side and let his head rest on Kaito's shoulder.

He could sense Shinichi's trust in him, and feeling it, he found that he was nothing but calm.

His Shin-chan trusted him, and Kaito would do everything in his power to live up to that trust.

"I know you said I should learn some of the basics as soon as possible for safety and privacy's sake, but…I have no idea where to start," Shinichi admitted. "Or how you're supposed to teach me. Do I just go to sleep and hope that I stumble into your dream so you can start showing me things or what? And how are you going to be sure you will be dreaming about me anyway? If you're not, I won't be able to visit. Or maybe I'll dream that you're there and helping me but actually be dreaming, like, normally, and I'll end up learning things that aren't real."

Kaito raised a hand before Shinichi could say more, lips quirked into a fondly amused smile. "You're rambling. How much of the book did you manage to read?"

"Not a lot." Restless, Shinichi drew away from Kaito and wandered to the table where the book in question still lay. He ran a gentle hand over its elegant cover. "But I think I got the basic ideas. The book seems to think that anything more has to be learned through practice."

"It's the most effective method, certainly," Kaito agreed. "But, if you think it might help, I'll talk you through what we're going to do first before we go for the practical approach."

"Would you?" Shinichi asked, looking both hopeful and relieved.

Smiling softly, Kaito gestured the detective to one of the chairs at the little table by the window that was rapidly becoming their go-to spot for everything from earnest conversations to simple, lighthearted enjoyment of one another's company.

"Hot chocolate?" he asked.

Shinichi thought about it then shook his head. "Some warm water might be nice though."

"Right." Kaito snapped his fingers, and a pair of ceramic mugs appeared on the table, each filled two thirds of the way with warm, clear water. "There you go."

"I'm surprised you didn't go for the chocolate," Shinichi observed.

Kaito chuckled. "I decided I didn't really need the sugar right now. Besides, we don't need any distractions."

Shinichi made a noncommittal noise at that and turned to gaze out at the lake again. The moon's reflection in the water was so clear and crisp that it looked as though there were two actual moons outside, one above and one below, and no ground at all. Just sky.

It was a surreal sight. A fitting backdrop for the topic at hand, Shinichi mused.

Kaito cleared his throat, drawing Shinichi's attention back to him. "To answer your questions from earlier, the basics we will work on tonight will be focused on how you travel through the dream world—namely, how you travel between dreams and how you get out of a dream if you're in trouble."

"Does that mean waking up?" asked Shinichi.

"It does. It's the fastest and most effective way of breaking out of any bad situation you might encounter inside a dreamscape."

"Okay," the detective said slowly, nodding. "I understand that. But I still don't get how we're going to get started."

"That's actually the easy part," Kaito told him, lips curving into a wry grin. "I did tell you that I know some dream shaping."

"Oh right. You did, didn't you?"

"Yep. So I'm going to craft myself a dream with you in it. I was thinking I'd just go for the gazebo in the rose garden from my dream last night. You remember what it looked like, yes?"

"I do." Shinichi blushed. He remembered what the garden looked like all right. He also remembered the feel of Kaito's calloused hands holding his and the demon's large, feathered wing wrapped around him to shield him from the cold. Not to mention the feel of Kaito's lips on his own as the demon claimed his mouth in a lingering kiss—

Shinichi quickly cut that thought off before it could go any further and prayed that his face wasn't as red as it felt.

If he noticed, Kaito chose not to comment.

"I'll shape my dream like that," he said decisively. "As for you, you mentioned a coffee shop in a library, yes?"

"It was where my dream started."

"Right. And you saw the paths to other dreams there?"

"Er, maybe? It's what I ended up thinking they were anyway. They looked like magazines or books, but the covers were moving images—generally too blurred to actually make out. But when I touched one, I'd end up in another dream like the one where I found you…"

Kaito nodded. "Dream walkers need a center—a starting base, if you will. How it looks is up to you, and it can be changed, but there will usually be something that feels right to you. I'm guessing that coffee shop library would be your center. So I'm going to create a dream for you that puts you in a similar space. Once you're there, you should be able to feel your way to the real thing."

"But how?"

"You just will," Kaito assured him (not very reassuringly). "You'll feel it. Follow that feeling, and you'll get there before you know it."

"That…doesn't really explain much. Nothing at all, actually."

"Just trust me," Kaito said, eyes soft but serious. "The dream world is really all about intuition. Intuition, instinct, imagination and willpower. And you really can only get to know it through experience."

Shinichi sighed, resigned but not altogether surprised. "I suppose it'll have to do."

Kaito chuckled. "I know I put a lot of emphasis on the risks, but it's really not something to dread. There are a lot of cool things you can do with dream magic. And, as long as you don't go poking around other people's dreams uninvited, you shouldn't have too much to worry about. Maybe some embarrassing situations and the occasional nightmare."

"I'm not actually sure that helps," Shinichi mused, imagining just how embarrassing things could get in a dream. He shuddered. Facing murderers sounded far less worrying.

"The key is to stay calm," Kaito advised. "As long as you can do that, there's only so bad it can get."

"If I was superstitious, I'd be worried that you'd just tempted fate."

Kaito laughed. "Ah well, no help for it now. So are you feeling ready to sleep?"

"I…suppose. My mind is buzzing but my body is tired," Shinichi admitted, covering a yawn. All that skiing had been quite a lot of exercise.

"Right then. We should move this to the bed."

The words made Shinichi blush pink, but he let Kaito scoop him up out of his chair. The demon lifted him with barely any effort at all, and it was kind of thrilling in ways Shinichi didn't want to think about.

The covers folded themselves back, and Kaito gently set his detective down on the edge of the bed then moved to sit beside him.

"So, like I said before, I'm going to start by crafting you a coffee shop dream. Do you want me to tweak the magic so that it also puts you to sleep?"

"I think that would be best," Shinichi decided. "I'm not sure I could sleep otherwise, with all this on my mind."

"Right. So shall we?"

Shinichi drew in a deep breath, counted to ten, then exhaled. Then he moved to lie down and closed his eyes. He opened them again almost right away.

"Do I need to do anything?"

Kaito smiled at him. "Nope. Just relax."

"All right. I'll try." Shinichi closed his eyes again. He had no idea what to expect, especially since he was so tense that he couldn't imagine actually falling asleep. But halfway through the thought, he had.

X

He was seated at a small table in his favorite on-campus coffee shop. Soft strains of classical music floated on the lightly coffee-scented air, mingling with an equally soft murmur of voices.

Shinichi lifted the cup he was holding to sip at its contents then frowned. There was something not quite right with the taste of his drink. Yes, it was his favorite blend from this shop, but it seemed…diluted somehow. Cloudy. It was more like the memory of coffee than the real thing, if it was possible for a drink to taste of such things.

It wasn't just the coffee either though.

Now that he was paying more attention, he realized that there was something odd about the shop around him too. He could hear people and see them scattered about the other tables, but, if asked, he couldn't have actually described any of those people in detail. They were just…there. Their conversations too were blurred and incomprehensible even when he bent his ears to listening.

Even the coffee shop felt softer somehow—blurred around the edges yet not. He could see the walls and windows and furniture just fine. He could even make out the petals of the sunflower in the painting under the clock. But the presence that each object and entity should have was just a little less than it should be.

Like none of this was quite real.

Or like he was dreaming.

With that thought, everything came rushing back, and he realized that he really was dreaming.

"Huh," he said aloud and was a little surprised by just how clear his own voice was.

He set his cup down and stood.

"So…what now?" he asked no one in particular. Not expecting an answer, he didn't bother waiting for one. Instead, he stood and looked around the shop again.

Kaito had said he would be able to sense what to do. Shinichi didn't really understand how that was supposed to work, but, now that he was here, he realized that he could indeed feel things about the world (dream?) around him.

He could sense that this shop was its own space and that whatever lay beyond its walls was both separate and less. But there was the potential for more.

He felt like he was standing in a room of shadows and looking out through an open doorway into a room of light and color. It wasn't a physical door though but the sense of it.

Fixing that sensation in his mind, he focused his gaze on the counter and walked forward, trying to imagine that he was walking through that door of potential.

He reached the counter, and the blurry, unremarkable barista had changed. Now it was Ran smiling at him.

"Your usual?" she asked, and it felt right and normal, and Shinichi was saying yes before he knew it.

When he turned away from the counter with his coffee in hand, he wasn't even surprised to see that the campus coffee shop had been completely transformed. It was still a coffee shop, but it was one ensconced in the middle of a library, and every patron sitting at a table had a pile of books before them.

"Your table's open," Ran told him, gesturing him towards a table for two situated right on the border between the coffee shop space and the library's domain.

"Thank you," he said and carried his drink to the table. Once again, he felt no surprise when he saw that there were several books and magazines already waiting for him on that table.

Was every piece a representation of a dream being dreamt by someone near to him in the waking world?

How would he ever know? Well, he supposed he could probably find out, but that wasn't really what was important right now.

He was supposed to be meeting Kaito.

Kaito had said he would make sure that Shinichi was in his dream, which would place his dream within easy reach of Shinichi's wanderings.

Considering how Shinichi was coming to think of the reading materials in this place, he thought he should be able to tell which was Kaito's dream if he thought about it without having to dive right in first.

Sitting, he spread the books and magazines on his table out before him carefully, touching them as little as possible and only by the very corners of their pages lest he accidentally got drawn in.

Two of the items were books with nothing on their heavy covers. He knew instinctively the instant he touched them that they were closed to him.

Next, he looked over the several magazines, all with covers of undulating color, light and shadow. These, he knew intuitively, he could enter, but he wasn't sure about anything more than that.

Still, he was considering trying one with soft blues and purples and silvers in the tone because the colors evoked similar feelings to that garden Kaito had shown in the other night, but he stopped with his hand just over the cover.

Instead, he found himself drawn to a small but much more compact volume with a single, blue rose stenciled on black leather.

It…felt like Kaito, he thought. It had his presence, his sense of mystery, his confidence and his warmth.

Before he knew what he was doing, Shinichi had picked up the black book with its blue rose and opened it, and the library around him once again fell away.

"It looks like you're here," a warm voice murmured into his ear, breaths hot and a little ticklish against his cheek.

A shudder of pleasure ran up Shinichi's spine, and it took him a moment to recollect his wits and begin processing this latest dreamscape and, incidentally, his position in it on Kaito's lap.

Shinichi leapt up with a squeak—or rather he tried to. The arms around his waist kept him rather firmly in place.

"Calm down," Kaito said, laughing. "We weren't doing anything indecent. Promise."

"You could've warned me," Shinichi grumbled, but he settled down (being held like this by Kaito was rather nice, and it wasn't like anyone was going to see them). "So…what now?"

"Tell me what you see," said Kaito.

"What I see?" Shinichi echoed, puzzled. "Well, we're in a gazebo, which seems to be in the middle of a rose garden. We're by a lake. It's obviously nigh time, but I have no problem seeing. That moon is far too big and far too bright to be natural. Am I supposed to be looking for something in particular?"

"And what do you feel?" the demon asked instead of answering.

Shinichi twitched but figured that Kaito had to have a point. "There's a light breeze. It's cool but not cold."

"And?" Kaito pressed. "What else?"

Shinichi frowned. What else was there?

Well, there was Kaito's very solid, very warm presence holding onto him. And no, he wasn't going to say that. It was obvious anyway, and he didn't think it was what Kaito was getting at.

Although, speaking of Kaito's presence…

Shinichi closed his eyes, focusing on Kaito then on their surroundings. Without his vision getting in the way, it became much more obvious. Kaito was the only thing around him with any real presence. In the real world, even with his eyes closed, he would have expected his other senses to give him a kind of feel for the space they were in—from the faint scent of water and flowers to the weight of a roof over their heads and the openness of the great outdoors beyond.

Here, when he wasn't looking at it or in direct contact with it, the only thing with an actual, solid presence was Kaito. There was also a kind of simplicity to what he could pick up. He could detect a trace of those aforementioned scents of the garden, but they were far less complex and layered than they would have been in the waking world. The same went for the sounds.

It all reminded him of that cup of coffee he had sipped back in the coffee shop that Kaito had fabricated for him. The coffee that had tasted like the memory of coffee given form and substance…

"I'm not sure how to describe it," he said finally, opening his eyes again and finding himself momentarily struck again by the unearthly beauty of the night before him with its too luminous moon. "But I think it's the presence. Those people in the coffee shop didn't have any, but you… You're solid. I had to look at those people to know they were there. But I know you're behind me even with my eyes closed. It's like you have weight and most everything else doesn't. And that aura of realness is spread through this place. It's in this gazebo, which is why it looks and feels solid and how I know you created it. It feels like you, just less, er…there than you personally…?"

Kaito listened as Shinichi babbled, trying to get his sudden rush of thoughts out of his head so that he might start making sense of them. When the detective was done, Kaito smiled.

"And there you have it." He said. "Creating a dream is like crafting a little world, a simple one—a room, a moment, a wish, a second chance… It's all possible. It's all there. But it's also more than that because the world you create doesn't have to match the one that exists in the waking world.

"In a dream, you can be anything. Watch this."

Kaito stood. He let Shinichi slide off his lap, but he kept an arm looped around Shinichi's waist as he tugged the curious detective to the gazebo rails.

"Stay here and watch," he told Shinichi before he hopped up onto the railing, balanced perfectly on his booted feet with his great, black wings arched high over his head. He cut quite the striking and intimidating figure, Shinichi thought with some amusement. But then Kaito had leapt again, and suddenly his entire form rippled.

Shinichi never could see what happened in that ripple. But one moment it was Kaito leaping off the rails, the next there was a black wolf with great, black feather wings landing lightly on silent paws right on the surface of the lake.

Delicate rings of silver light rippled out from where his paws touched that tranquil surface.

"In a dream," Kaito said with the wolf's mouth. "Rules are flexible. As are shapes. It is a world shaped entirely by our thoughts and feelings."

With an abruptness that made Shinichi jump, the winged wolf vanished, and Kaito was standing beside him again. The magician grinned at the detective's startled expression.

"In your own dream, you can do pretty much anything just by willing it. Without conscious direction though, a lot of natural laws like gravity will operate normally because that's how we subconsciously understand reality to work. Basically, the more unlikely you know something to be, the harder it is to make it happen even in a dream. Of course, that's under normal conditions. Strong emotions have more power in dream worlds than logic. Fear in particular can and will warp things way out of control, but we'll worry about how to deal with that some other time."

Shinichi nodded, absorbing the information.

"For now, I want to show you just what we can do here."

As Kaito spoke, the gazebo and the rose garden beyond melted away like smoke—almost exactly like smoke, in fact. The colors faded. Edges softened and fluffed out. Only the ground directly beneath their feet remained. In moments, both the magician and his detective were standing on a solitary spire of rock in the middle of a sea of fluffy clouds.

The sky overhead too had shifted, becoming a wash of pale, sunrise gold and pink with the faintest brushes of blue.

"Huh. The temperature feels the same," Shinichi observed.

"Temperature is one of those things that doesn't vary much in dreams," Kaito explained. "It's not static, but the range of change is pretty limited. When you do feel extreme temperatures, it's usually spill over from the real world."

"That's interesting."

Kaito chuckled. "I'm glad you think so, but that's not what I brought you here to show you. Look over your shoulder."

Shinichi did so and gasped.

Two great, white feathered wings were now attached to his back (what happened to the back of his shirt?). Even half folded, they arched high over his head. Were they actually his?

In answer to his thoughts, the wings shifted. He unfolded one experimentally then folded it again.

"They move," he marveled.

"Indeed they do."

"I assume you made them?"

"That's right."

"So it's not just your own form that you can change," Shinichi realized. "You can alter mine too."

"Yes. And you need to remember that." Kaito's expression grew serious. "Since this is my dream, I can manipulate your appearance just as easily as I can mine. But your actions are your own. You can also influence your own appearance in someone else's dream through a combination of those actions and your own will. The fact that you can move those wings is one example."

Kaito stepped to the edge of their little plateau of stone then cast a grin over his shoulder, eyes bright. "So tell me, have you ever dreamed of flying?"

That said, he jumped, dark wings unfolding.

"Come on!" he called back over his shoulder.

Shinichi hesitated for only a moment. He had no idea how to actually fly, but that was the point, wasn't it? Here in this world, it wasn't about skill. It was about imagination and desire. And haven't most people dreamt at least once of flying?

Shinichi took two running steps and leapt. White wings opened, and suddenly he wasn't falling anymore.

He let out a laugh of pure delight.

"This is amazing!"

Chapter Text

"You've definitely got the hang of traveling back to your own dream space," Kaito said approvingly as the two of them stepped once more into the now familiar library with its coffee shop heart, this time leaving behind a wild jungle ropes course.

"I think I'd like a sit down," Shinichi admitted. "It's strange. I'm not exactly tired, but I feel like I need a break."

Kaito chuckled. "That's understandable. Your body is resting, but your mind is not. That's one of the drawbacks of dream magic. It's best not to practice it for more than a handful of hours a night or to alternate nights. You also need to give your mind time for deeper, more restful sleep."

"Is that something you can actually control?" Shinichi asked, intrigued. The idea of being able to control the quality of his own sleep sounded like a godsend, especially for someone who often felt like he didn't have nearly enough hours in a day to do everything he needed to get done. If he could combine efficient sleeping with the ability to do some of his work in-dream, it could be just what he needed to finally get a move on with the various goals he'd set for himself (like learning about demon society and studying their languages).

Kaito seemed to read some of his thoughts on his face—or possibly he noticed that the books on the shelf behind Shinichi's chair had all turned into dictionaries and historical Makai texts, because he smiled.

"You're right. Getting work done more efficiently is one of the more common, personal uses for dream magic. But it only really works if you have a disciplined mind, and, naturally, you can't examine new material or anything like that. What you can do is go over things you remember, make plans and review your thoughts at your leisure with your own personal visual aids. Time is a little different inside dreams, as you've probably noticed. A night of dreaming could feel, in the dreams, like only an hour or an entire week. That's just how malleable the dream world is."

"So then how do you know what time it is outside in the real world?" asked Shinichi. "To know when to wake up, I mean."

"Ah, that's another sense that you have to develop."

"Are you about to tell me that I'll just know again?"

Kaito grinned. "You got it. There's a clock on the coffee shop wall behind the counter. Just look at it without thinking of a time."

Shinichi frowned but did so. Both arms of the clock were a staggered step away from pointing skyward, indicating that it was just past eleven.

"It's not yet midnight?" he asked, surprised. "I thought we were here for a lot longer."

As he said that, the clock on the wall suddenly whipped its hands around to point to half past three then five then half past four. The way the hands kept swinging this way and that made Shinichi's eyes spin, and he looked away quickly.

"What was that about?" he grumbled.

"That was the clock reacting to your thoughts," Kaito replied, unperturbed. "You got the right answer when you weren't thinking about it. That's part of the magic. But this is the dream world, so when you started thinking about it, the clock began to be influenced by you and responded in kind."

Shinichi thought about that then grimaced. "Sounds unreliable."

Kaito laughed. "It just takes practice."

"You've said that about everything we've done so far," Shinichi observed. "I'm starting to understand why your world's standard education takes so long."

"But it's fun, right?" the demon asked. His tone was light, but Shinichi caught the faint glimmer of real concern in those indigo eyes.

"It is," he said firmly, trying to pour all his sincerity into the two little words and was gratified when Kaito's lips curved into a soft, achingly genuine smile.

"Good."

Feeling abruptly flustered, Shinichi cast about hastily for a change in topic. "So what do you think the others are doing?"

Kaito shrugged. "I told them they could make use of the entertainment center. Maybe they're watching movies."

X

"Wow, now this is a home theater!" Heiji exclaimed as he gazed in awe at the enormous, flat screen television on the wall surrounded by a state of the art sound system and shelves upon shelves of neatly organized DVDs and even classic videotapes of every remotely famous movie you could think of.

Better still, the seats in the room were almost all huge, brilliantly colorful beanbag chairs and puff couches. And in a cabinet in the corner, he found a dozen different types of gaming consoles with affiliated games.

"Hey, why don't we marathon the Lord of the Rings movies?" Heiji suggested. "Kuroba has the entire series right here!"

"I don't know about you, but I'd kind of like to get some sleep tonight," Hakuba said dryly. "Perhaps you should save the marathon for if it starts snowing, and we have to stay in."

"I…guess that might be a good point," Heiji acceded grudgingly. "Let's pick something funny then."

While Heiji and Kazuha leafed through movie after movie, looking for something funny they both wanted to watch, Hakuba tried his phone again. Still no reception or Wi-Fi signal available.

He'd tried turning on his hot spot, but that hadn't worked either.

His frown deepened. He wanted to check his email and messages just in case anything important had come up back home.

Honestly, this wasn't a problem he had expected to run into. Sure, he knew there were still places where internet access was poor to nonexistent, but he was sitting in a mansion owned by an internationally renowned magician. There was absolutely no way the man's family didn't know about or use the internet. If that fancy entertainment system right in front of Hakuba right now was anything to go by, the Kurobas didn't stint on technology. Compared to that, installing the necessary equipment for internet access should be a no brainer.

Maybe it just wasn't wireless?

Hakuba considered that possibility for a moment then decided it was worth asking at least.

Seeing that his friends were still trying to pick a movie, he rose and announced, "I'm going to ask Nakamori-san about their internet."

Heiji waved a and at him without looking up. "Go ahead."

The blond pocketed his phone and set out.

Though Aoko had shown them around the mansion when they'd first arrived, the building's size and mildly labyrinthine layout meant that it took Hakuba several minutes to find his way to the room that Aoko had said was her office. Once there, he knocked politely then waited.

And waited.

When five minutes had gone by without a response, he tested the door and found it unlocked. There, he hesitated. He knew neither of his fellow detectives would have any qualms at this point about taking a peek inside the room, but Hakuba had always felt that his colleagues could do with a little more caution (and better manners, especially in Heiji's case). Still, Aoko had said they should go to her if they had any questions, and he had questions.

Hakuba opened the door.

The office was empty.

There was, however, something that looked a little bit like a tablet lying on Aoko's desk.

Curious, Hakuba stepped over to try and see if there was any kind of internet router anywhere, but he stopped halfway across the room because he heard a growl.

He stopped and stood perfectly still, listening.

The growl came again, low and menacing.

Horror movie slow, he turned towards the sound—and saw a pearly white trunk covered in white scales.

"Huh." Confused and still uneasy, he left the office a little faster than he'd gone in and was heading back down the stairs towards the recreation room when he spotted Aoko headed for the front door.

"Nakamori-san!" he called after her, but she didn't seem to have heard him. Indeed, the girl appeared to be in quite a hurry.

She was carrying an extremely large hamper and dressed for the outdoors.

The detective's curiosity stirred. What was the girl up to? And did she need help? Deciding that, as a gentleman, he should offer his assistance just in case, Hakuba started after her.

She was out the front door before he reached it, and he hastened to pull on his boots. Knowing he'd lose her if he went back to his room for a coat, he braced himself and stepped out into the snowy night with just the sweater he was already wearing.

The air was crisp and shockingly cold in comparison to the warmth inside the house, but fortunately there was no wind. That made the temperature bearable if not comfortable. A brief trek should be no trouble.

Now where was Aoko?

Though there was no light but that of the stars and the moon overhead and the glow of the mansion's many windows, the night was far from dark. It was the snow, he supposed. It almost seemed to glow as it stretched away from the building.

Because of that, Hakuba spotted his quarry almost immediately.

Aoko was a stark, black silhouette against the snow's pristine whiteness as she tramped down the gentle slope towards the shore of the lake.

Hakuba considered calling out to her again, but his curiosity kept him silent. What was Aoko doing out here? What was in that hamper she was carrying, and where was she taking it? Even more importantly, why was she running this errand after dark?

The questions buzzed in the blonde's head, and he found himself following after the girl.

He wasn't exactly sneaking, he told himself. If Aoko turned, she'd most definitely spot him as he'd stand out against the snow just as clearly as she did. He just wasn't choosing to announce his presence. He would though if it seemed like she needed help. That was, after all, only polite.

Ahead of him, Aoko trudged straight down to the lake in the manner of one who knew exactly where she was going. She never bothered to look around, nor did she move like someone trying to be stealthy.

Eventually, she stepped out onto the tiny dock where the boat Hakuba and his friends had borrowed was now moored. Hakuba half expected to see her step down into said boat, but she didn't. Instead, she walked all the way to the end of the dock and set her hamper down.

Then she opened it, reached inside, and lifted out a very familiar glass teapot.

It was, Hakuba realized instantly, the very same teapot that he, Kazuha and Heiji had fished out of the lake the previous day. It no longer contained any tea, and had clearly been washed and polished until it sported a mirror bright shine.

Had Aoko brought the teapot down here to get water from the lake? It seemed plausible, but Hakuba couldn't imagine what the point would be when there was already fresh (probably cleaner) water in the house. Perhaps the water here had special minerals for brewing good tea with or something.

Whatever the case, Aoko obviously wasn't doing anything criminal or particularly secret. So Hakuba decided he may as well go over and ask her about her business.

Naturally, it was as he'd just made up his mind and started forward that he saw the brunette heave the glass teapot out over the water. It plunged into the clear depths of the lake with an almighty splash.

One foot on the dock and the other still on the snow, Hakuba could only gape, speechless.

Still oblivious to her audience, Aoko reached down into the hamper again and came up with the set of glass teacups that had been fished up with the pot the previous day. These cups too, she pitched out into the lake as far as she could throw them. Each delicate cup landed with a flower of crystal spray to follow the teapot into the fathomless depths.

Once every piece of the tea set had been thus hurled into the water, Aoko closed her much lightened hamper and pulled it back over her arm, satisfied. Her job was done, and it was time to get back to the office and go over those staff requests.

With work on her mind, Aoko was taken completely by surprise when she turned away from the lake to find the human Hakuba Saguru standing right behind her, staring at her like she was a crazy person.

"O—oh, Hakuba-san," she stammered, suddenly feeling very self conscious. She didn't know what humans might think of throwing tea sets into lakes, but she doubted it would make a good impression. "Can I help you with anything?"

The blond opened his mouth then shut it again as his gaze jumped from her now empty hamper to the lake where the tea set had vanished and back again. He wanted very badly to know what…all that had been about, but the situation was so strange that he didn't know where to start.

"Isn't that littering?" was the question that eventually found its way out of his mouth. Even Hakuba had to admit it sounded ridiculous, but it felt less rude than simply demanding to know what she'd been doing.

Aoko could feel herself beginning to panic, but she struggled to keep it hidden. "It's, uh… a tradition!" she invented hastily. "A tribute to the guardian of the lake. We give him a beautiful glass tea set, and he makes sure the lake water is pure and the occupants behave and…and all that."

"So…throwing the tea set in is a sort of religious ceremony."

"Yes, yes, a ceremony," Aoko agreed quickly.

"So there are a lot of tea sets down in the lake?"

"Er, yeah. And it's, uh, tradition that, if you accidentally fish one up, you have to put one back," she invented wildly. "Ideally, it'd be the same set, but if you broke it or something, you can replace it with a new one."

"I…see…" Hakuba said eventually, though he didn't see at all.

Frankly, he found her explanation to be absolutely ridiculous. But it was so ridiculous that he hesitated to call it a lie. Making up such an outlandish story simply had no benefits. Besides, what other explanation could there be for Aoko's behavior?

Either Aoko was telling the truth or she was mentally unstable, and Hakuba couldn't quite bring himself to believe that. The girl had been nothing but kind to them since they'd arrived. She was open, enthusiastic and helpful and obviously took her job seriously despite her young age. Far from seeming unstable, she gave off the impression of being rather down to earth and responsible if a little quick-tempered.

In truth, Hakuba quite liked Aoko. He just couldn't make himself believe that she was either up to something or nuts.

Perhaps the whole tea set thing really was just part of some obscure ceremony.

Stranger things had been done in the name of tradition.

Preoccupied with his musings, Hakuba forgot why he'd come looking for Aoko in the first place.

Chapter Text

The question of internet access reared its head again early the following morning when Hakuba woke and remembered that he'd forgotten to ask about it the night before.

As though summoned by his thoughts, Heiji chose that moment to knock on his door.

"Hey, did ya get that internet info from Aoko last night?" the Osakan detective asked when Hakuba answered the door. "I was going to check my email, but I don't have any kind of signal."

Because he just knew the response he was going to get, it was with great reluctance that Hakuba admitted that, "I forgot to ask."

Heiji stared at him. "Seriously? You, Mister I Track Milliseconds, forgot. Just like that."

The blond twitched. It hadn't been just like anything, but Hakuba wanted to explain the whole strange event even less than he wanted to admit this failing to Hattori Heiji of all people. So he merely nodded.

Heiji grinned in that way that Hakuba had learned years ago meant he was about to say something supremely irritating, but, before he could, the blond spotted Kaito passing the end of the hall. He leapt on the chance to cut Heiji off before he could speak by calling out to the magician.

"Oh hey there," Kaito greeted them. "I was just on my way to see about that diving equipment. I take it you're both still interested?"

Both detectives blinked at him, having almost forgotten about the diving. It did still sound interesting though, and they said as much.

Hakuba secretly planned to look around and see if there really was a pile of glass tea sets down there.

"Right. Well, breakfast is about to come off the stove, so you two had better hurry down."

Kaito turned to leave, but Heiji caught his arm. "Hold on a moment. We were hoping you could help us with something."

"Oh?" Kaito turned back, interest piqued. "And what might that be?"

"It's nothing complicated. We were just wondering how to connect to your internet," the Osakan explained. "We'd both like to check our emails."

The magician looked amused. "I see. Unfortunately, we don't have internet here, so I'm afraid you'll just have to relax for once and be on vacation. I'm sure Kazuha-san would appreciate that."

Heiji spluttered. "What's Kazuha got ta do with this?"

Ignoring his friend's sudden distraction, Hakuba stepped forward. "Excuse me, but I have to ask. I understand vacation homes may be designed without internet access and out of cell range on purpose to ensure that guests can truly relax, unhampered by the constant need to be online. But surely you must have some way to contact people who aren't here. How do you call for cars or delivery? I haven't seen a single phone in this establishment, and you say there is no internet. So how do you get things done? And how will we know if something comes up back home and they need us back?"

"I arranged for a messenger to come inform us if anything major actually crops up," Kaito lied smoothly, making a mental note to make it true later. Much as he disliked the idea of having this vacation with Shinichi interrupted, he knew that his beloved would be upset if they got home and discovered that they had missed some sort of emergency.

The two detectives exchanged astonished looks.

"Are you seriously telling us that you are still using a courier system out here?" the blond asked incredulously. Traditions involving tributing glass teapots to lake spirits was one thing. Relying in this day and age on such outdated modes of communication when you had the resources for better was just ridiculous.

"And messenger birds," Kaito said with a grin, enjoying the humans' dumbstruck expressions. He could guess what they were thinking, and he definitely didn't mind playing to the misconception. "My family has quite the history in the field of bird training. You'd be amazed the things we can teach them to do."

He could actually see the two detectives trying to work out if he was joking. It probably didn't help their confusion that they had both seen him perform some pretty spectacular feats with his doves. They'd also been told that his father was a professional magician. It was not outside the realm of possibility that dove training was a family trade.

The plausibility didn't make the idea that this villa might actually be handling its outside communications via couriers and postal birds any less preposterous.

"If that's all, I'll be going," Kaito concluded. "If you have more questions, just take them to Aoko."

That said, he left with a bounce in his step and a grin tugging at his lips.

"Do you think he was serious?" Hattori asked when the magician had disappeared from view.

Hakuba pursed his lips. "Who knows?"

His friend snorted then visibly put the entire issue behind him. "Let's go get breakfast."

The walk down to the dining room was quiet. For such a large house, Hakuba thought, the staff here was surprisingly small—or so he assumed based on how little of said staff he had seen. Every now and then, he caught a glimpse of a figure down the hall or disappearing through a door. Aoko and the chef aside, he had yet to be able to get a good look at any of them.

"Do you get the impression that the staff is avoiding us?" he asked suddenly.

Heiji's eyebrows shot up, but he took a moment to consider the question before replying. "I…have to admit that I've been wondering why this place seems so empty. But I can't imagine why the staff would wanna avoid us. I mean, we're friendly—or at least the rest of us are," he amended, shooting Hakuba a snide grin. "You, on the other hand, I can totally imagine wanting ta avoid."

Hakuba scowled. "I'm being serious."

Heiji sobered. "Right, yeah. Sorry. I know what you mean, but I meant what I said. These people have no reason to avoid us."

"Unless they're hiding something," the blond muttered.

"Like what?"

Hakuba hesitated then shook his head. "I don't know."

A somewhat unsettled Hakuba and Hattori found Shinichi already in the dining room and engaged in deep conversation with Aoko over a rather hefty tome filled with writings neither detective could read. It didn't even appear to be a language either of them recognized. Which was odd since, between the two of them, they knew a lot of languages—if not well then well enough to at least identify them.

The sight of the unknown language was almost as peculiar as the sight of Shinichi voluntarily up and perky before seven in the morning.

"What's that you're reading?" Heiji asked, pulling out a chair and dropping unceremoniously into it.

Shinichi and Aoko looked up in unison. Hakuba couldn't help but notice the latter's hands jerk on the table as though the girl had reflexively moved to sweep up the book then aborted the action.

"It's a local history," Shinichi said, picking up the mug by his elbow. He inhaled the aromatic steam wafting up from the dark liquid within and sighed contentedly before taking a sip. Seeing that both his fellow detectives were still watching him, he blushed and elaborated. "I was just curious because I've heard that there are a lot of unique customs in this area."

Hakuba's thoughts immediately jumped to the glass tea set. Had Shinichi heard about it too? He'd said customs though, as in the plural. And this area?

The blond frowned. "That reminds me, you never did say where exactly we are."

"You wouldn't recognize the name," Aoko said a little too quickly. "It's mostly small villages around here. I don't think we're even on the map."

"Even if I would not recognize it, I would still like to know what to call the place where I am staying."

"He's got a point," Heiji said, earning a startled look from the blond who was far more accustomed to the Kansai detective disagreeing with him on anything and everything just on principle. "I mean, it's gonna be weird when we get back to school if all we can say when our classmates ask us where we've been is some house in the mountains in the middle of nowhere."

"Actually, that's pretty descriptive," Shinichi commented, hiding a smile in his mug.

Hakuba's eyes narrowed. He had known Shinichi since he'd transferred from London to Teitan High, and they'd become good friends in that time. So he could tell that Shinichi was keeping some kind of secret here. But what? And why?

Shinichi was a private person, but he'd never been secretive. If anything, he tended to be too honest. What was going on?

He exchanged glances with Heiji, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines but whose attention had shifted to the book still sitting on the table between Shinichi and Aoko.

"That doesn't look like Japanese," he commented. "Or any other language I recognize either. Is it some kind of local dialect?"

"Something like that," Aoko said. She seemed to think on the matter a moment longer then nodded. "It's a local recording system we developed to help us make our record keeping more efficient. It developed alongside of a local dialect you wouldn't have heard before since our people are the only ones who speak it."

Hakuba listened and nodded, but he wasn't sure if he believed even half of it.

Sensing the suspicion thickening in the atmosphere over the table, Shinichi coughed lightly. "Well, anyway, Kaito taught me the basics of their grammar and some simple vocabulary a while ago, and we went over some slightly more advanced sentence structures and terms last night, so I thought I'd give reading a try. Aoko found me this children's history textbook."

"Wait, wait." Hattori held up a hand to forestall further commentary and turned to level Shinichi with an incredulous stare. "You two spent your date studying grammar?"

Shinichi blushed and hastened to distract his nosy friends the best way he knew how.

"Wow, Mex, that food smells really good. Here, let me help you carry it to the table. You have way too many plates to juggle."

The currently two-armed man grinned and winked at Shinichi, handing him a heaping platter of fruit and cream-stuffed French toast. Heiji brightened at the sight of the food and leapt up to offer his help as well. Hakuba took it upon himself to refill everyone's coffee. It was only as he finished that he realized that both Aoko and the book of 'local history' had vanished.

She didn't reappear until they were finishing their meal. By that time, Kazuha had joined them, and the two girls immediately struck up a conversation, giving Hakuba no chance to broach any of the many questions he was rapidly accumulating.

"So it turns out it's going to take a bit of time to dig the diving gear out of storage," Kaito announced to the table at large after polishing off his fifth fruit-stuffed toast of the morning. "So we're going to have to postpone exploring the lake until tomorrow. Hope you guys don't mind."

"No, no, it's perfectly all right," Kazuha assured him. "We're the ones who should be apologizing, suddenly asking you to go look for all that equipment. We didn't mean to be so much of a bother."

Kaito waved away the apology with a laugh. "Nah. Equipment ought to be used. It's a waste otherwise. Though next time, I'll have you all write up a list of activities you're interested in beforehand so the staff can make the necessary arrangements before you actually get here."

"We can still go boating again," the Osakan girl mused. "I mean, the weather's lovely. We'll just leave the fishing rods behind and focus on enjoying the serenity of the lake."

"I have a better idea," Heiji said. "I propose a snowball fight!"

His girlfriend wrinkled her nose. "You're the only one who'd enjoy that."

"I think it sounds fun," Kaito said, adding his two cents. "So that's one for boating and two for the snowball fight. Anyone else have ideas on what we should do today?"

"I was considering going for a walk," Hakuba said. "I'd like to see more of the forests and the surrounding land. Maybe follow a hiking trail or two."

"If you do, try to keep the lake within sight at all times," Kaito advised. "Then you won't get lost."

Shinichi frowned. He knew Kaito believed there was nothing dangerous in the woods, but Kaito's definition of dangerous might not be very reliable when applied to other people—especially other people who didn't even know they were in a magical world. As such, Shinichi wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of his friends wandering off alone.

"Maybe we should all go hiking together," he suggested.

"I'd still prefer something less strenuous," said Kazuha. "Yesterday was pretty tiring."

"What about building snowmen then?" asked Shinichi. "There's plenty of fresh snow available."

"We can make it a contest," Kaito added with a grin. "Coolest snowman wins."

"A contest, eh?" Heiji perked up. "Any prizes for the winners?"

"How about I let the winner choose tonight's dessert?" the demon chef offered as he emerged from the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee.

Hakuba murmured his ascent to this latest plan, though he, for one, had no interest at all in who got to choose the night's dessert menu. The contest would, however, keep the others occupied. If he made his own snowman quickly, he should have plenty of time to do some covert investigating.

Maybe he was being paranoid, but he stood by what he'd told Heiji. These people were hiding something.

X

Strictly speaking, Shinichi would have really preferred to be reading a book—if not one of the novels from the treasure trove that was the Kuroba library then that children's history book Aoko had been going over with him. Makai Common, as Kaito called it, had turned out to have distinctly Latin roots, making it somewhat easier to learn than he'd feared it might be (though it helped that he'd inherited his mother's knack for languages). Even so, he knew he still had a lot of hard work ahead of him before he would be even remotely proficient in the language.

He knew too though that he needed to give his thoughts time to settle. He had learned a lot in a very short time. A break would give him time to sort through it all and assimilate it.

With that in mind, he tried to relax and just focus on his snowman for the time being. The activity required more effort than thought, so it should serve as a decent change of pace. And yet he was having trouble concentrating on it.

He was inclined to chalk it up to his mind being tired, but he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that that wasn't it. Rather, it was an unease stirring somewhere deep inside him. It was a sense of foreboding, but of what, he couldn't say for the life of him. It would have been easy to attribute it to his recent discussions with Kaito, but he knew that wasn't it either.

Instead, he felt like someone who had just seen dark clouds gathering on the horizon, heralding an oncoming storm.

That image in his mind meshed so well with the oppressive feeling in his gut that Shinichi caught himself looking up and around at the skyline with its frame of white, jagged peaks, searching for storm clouds.

All he saw was a flawless, breathtakingly blue sky.

The beauty of it captivated him for a moment, and he just stood there, drinking it in until a hand landed on his shoulder.

He jumped and spun around with a yelp. His bulky winter gear threw off his balance, and he nearly fell backwards into his snow sculpture.

"Whoa there." Kaito caught his arm and pulled him back upright before Shinichi could crush the side of his snowman. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

"That's a likely story," the detective muttered, unimpressed, but he let Kaito straighten out his coat and brush off the snow.

"Your snowman's pretty cute," the demon told him, grinning over Shinichi's shoulder at the large, rounded shape with its four, round feet and equally round head. "It's a turtle, right? I like how you're sculpting the pattern on the shell. It's going to be pretty cool when you're done. Though you should have made it a bit bigger."

"That would have taken too much time," Shinichi replied, though Kaito's appreciation of his work made him smile. "I wasn't planning on spending the whole day working on it."

"Eager to get back to your studies?"

"So what if I am?" the detective said a touch defensively.

Kaito just shook his head, smiling. "Nothing wrong. I just hope you remember that we're here to have fun. And while I do enjoy the company of our illustrious friends, I'd much prefer to have my fun with you."

Feeling his cheeks warming, Shinichi ducked his head and turned away. "I do wish you'd choose your words more carefully. You're going to give people weird ideas."

"Whatever do you mean?" the magician asked with faux innocence.

Shinichi's blush darkened, and he hastened to change the subject. "So where's your snowman?"

Kaito grinned and pointed. "It's right over there."

Shinichi followed his pointing finger to what looked at first glance like a very traditional snowman with a large, base body sphere, a smaller mid body sphere, and a smallest head sphere. The snowman was complete with tree branch arms, a carrot nose, lakeshore rock buttons and eyes, and a long, billowing red scarf to match its bright red knitted cap.

Basically, it was a very snowman kind of snowman. Unremarkable in every way except…

Except that it was standing beside the manor house, and its head was above the level of the roof.

Shinichi's jaw dropped. "That's…!"

"Awesome, right?" Kaito asked.

Shinichi opened his mouth then shut it again, shaking his head. "I was going to say ridiculous."

"Don't you mean insane?" Heiji asked, wandering over to stand with them and join the gawking. "How the hell did you put something that huge together so fast?"

"I am a magician," Kaito reminded him. "It's what I do."

"But that scarf's gotta be hundreds of feet long! And are those arms branches or actual trees?"

"You haven't even seen the coolest part yet," Kaito boasted.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Shinichi muttered, but he followed the demon regardless when Kaito led him and Heiji towards his giant snowman. They picked up Kazuha along the way.

Up close, the snowman looked even larger. It positively loomed. Shinichi was honestly surprised that there was any snow left in the area because Kaito's snowman should have used it all up. Then again, he suspected that Kaito had used more than snow to realize his creation.

"This way," Kaito said, gesturing for them to circle around to the back of his snowman. "Tada!"

The three humans did a collective double take.

There in the base of Kaito's snowman was an arched opening.

Shinichi exchanged wide-eyed looks with Heiji and Kazuha before hesitantly stepping forward and through the sculpted doorway.

So it turned out he'd been wrong about the amount of snow Kaito had used. While considerable, the amount was only a fraction of what he had thought because Kaito's snowman was hollow inside. A staircase, also crafted of packed snow, spiraled up around and around the curving walls of the snowman's interior. At Kaito's insistence, the three humans climbed all the way to the platform at the very top, which turned out to be situated just above the snowman's cardboard carrot nose.

A round portal had been opened just above said nose so that they could gaze down its orange length to the glimmering waters of the lake.

"This is incredible," Kazuha breathed, awed.

Kaito beamed. "It is, isn't it?"

Shinichi couldn't decide whether to roll his eyes or smile. In the end, he did neither because he spotted a dark smudge on the horizon.

He frowned, leaning out the 'window' and squinting. "Is that a storm cloud?"

"What? Where?" Kaito stepped up beside him, following the line of his gaze to the growing shadow on the edge of the sky. "Strange. The forecast said it would be clear."

Shinichi blinked. For an instant, he could have sworn that the dark cloud sparkled as though rainbow sparks were dancing along its ragged edges. But when he closed his eyes and opened them again, the sparkles were gone.

The cloud had also tripled in size.

"It's coming in fast," Kaito said, tone and expression switching abruptly from laid back to serious. "Come on. We should get inside."

It wasn't until the villa's front door had shut behind them that they all realized they were two short.

Chapter Text

Hakuba finished sticking a small, compact snowball to the head of his medium-sized, two-sphere snowman to complete its face then checked his watch. Working as fast as he could, he'd finished his snowman in a little over half an hour. A glance around told him that his companions were all merely starting on their own projects.

Perfect.

Doing his best to act casual, he started walking around the house. Once he'd rounded the corner and was out of sight of the others, he picked up his pace, making a beeline for the driveway.

"Wait!" a girl's voice cried out. A moment later, Aoko came hurrying up to him. "Where are you going?"

"I am merely going to stretch my legs," Hakuba told the girl as he kept on striding along the packed dirt trail. "You don't have to accompany me. I'll stick to the road, so I won't get lost."

Despite his assurances, Aoko made no move to leave. Instead, she lengthened her stride to catch up to him.

The British detective hesitated, wondering if he should ask her to go back, but, in the end, he decided it wouldn't hurt to let her tag along. Perhaps with only the two of them present, he could find a way to get her to share just what she was hiding.

But first, the road.

Hakuba really wanted to get a better look at the road they'd driven up to reach this secluded villa in the heart of what was starting to feel uncannily like the literal middle of nowhere that Heiji had joked about. He had been going back over their drive, and the more he thought about it, the more the discrepancies were beginning to bother him.

It was all the little details that hadn't made sense. The lack of any sensation of driving uphill during their trip, the sudden shift from paved to dirt roads, that hazy, luminescent green fog that had blotted out all sight beyond their vehicle windows for an alarming few minutes that had felt much longer…

All of it just screamed out of place, but Hakuba couldn't even begin to guess what the end game was.

But there had to be one. Of that, he had no doubt.

Something to do with him and his friends.

He had to find out what it was before things started getting dangerous.

And okay, yes, he knew that danger was not an inevitability, but, being around one Kudo Shinichi meant that it was a high probability.

He just wished he could discuss his concerns with Shinichi himself. The other detective was someone Hakuba would admit was brilliant, and solving cases with him was always an experience—sometimes thrilling, sometimes humbling, but always educational.

Shinichi had the kind of logical mind that nevertheless excelled at thinking outside of the box—something Hakuba knew he himself wasn't nearly so good at.

But since Kuroba was intimately tied into whatever scheme was underfoot, Hakuba didn't want to discuss his suspicions with Shinichi while the magician was nearby. Unfortunately, said magician had thus far stayed glued to Shinichi's side.

"Is something wrong?"

Having almost forgotten that he wasn't alone, Hakuba started violently. If Aoko noticed, she was polite enough not to comment, but her silence didn't stop the blond from berating himself for being so distracted.

"It's nothing," he said once he was certain he had his voice under control. "As I said, I merely wish to take a walk and spend some time enjoying the tranquility of these mountains. It is rare that I have the chance."

"I could use a break too," Aoko said. "It's been hectic, learning to manage the staff and prepare for guests—not that I haven't enjoyed meeting you all," she added hastily, not wishing said guest to get the wrong idea. "I'm glad you came. It's been fun getting to know you guys, and I've learned a lot. But it's nice to have some peace and quiet sometimes."

"That is true," Hakuba agreed, wondering whether now would be an appropriate time to bring up the peculiar emptiness of the villa.

Well, it was probably now or never. He didn't want to be rude to a girl who had thus far been nothing but hospitable though. So how to approach this tactfully?

"If you don't mind my saying, you seem rather young to be managing a staff," he began. "Has it been difficult?"

"It hasn't been easy," Aoko admitted. "But it's been interesting. I feel like I'm learning a lot, especially about how to settle disputes."

"Have there been many disputes?"

"I wouldn't say 'many' exactly. But there's always something. But I think that's pretty normal when you're working with a team."

"Indeed," Hakuba agreed. "Even class projects can spark conflict, and our groups rarely have more than a handful of members. It must be exponentially more complicated with a large staff."

"It helps that most of the staff members already know what they're supposed to be doing," Aoko told him. "Most of them are old hands around here. When I first got here, they were the ones teaching me how everything worked."

"So how many members of the staff are new then?"

"A couple of the housekeeping team," Aoko replied after some thought. "And one member of the grounds keeping team."

So the staff probably wasn't enormous, Hakuba decided, but it wasn't tiny either. It certainly should have enough members that he'd have expected to see more of them around if they weren't intentionally avoiding crossing his path.

He thought with some chagrin that, if he didn't know better, he might suspect that the Kurobas were actually the head of some kind of criminal syndicate. It would explain the strangely secretive servants, the private everything, the insistence on not sharing simple details like location names and communication lines…

Hakuba's unease returned with a vengeance. Did he know better? It really would explain a lot, but… Surely it couldn't really be that…

Growing increasingly disturbed, Hakuba forced himself to focus back on his immediate surroundings. There were, after all, plenty of other peculiarities to explore, and it would be unwise to draw conclusions before he had all the facts.

He had been right. There was something off with the road. Like with everything else around here, it was subtle, and Hakuba might have missed it altogether if he hadn't already been on edge and actively hunting for hints.

As he remembered, the driveway and the preceding road were all packed dirt. That was nothing unusual in remote locations. Here in this winter wonderland, however, one would expect such dirt roads to be a little damp, possibly even muddy from snowmelt and churned up by passing tires.

Instead, this road was utterly dry and almost unmarked. The only tire tracks Hakuba had seen were those belonging to their van, and those tracks didn't start until halfway up the driveway, making it look like their car had materialized in the middle of the road rather than traversing the length of it.

But of course that was impossible. Perhaps the first half of the driveway had simply been too hard to take tire tracks. That, or someone had gone out of their way to brush away the evidence. Except that didn't make any sense either.

Shaking away the thought, Hakuba turned to the next oddity of this road, which he decided after some study was the surrounding snow banks.

They were very deep snow banks, all well compacted so that they seemed to form smooth, alabaster walls on either side of the road. Unnaturally smooth walls, or so Hakuba was inclined to feel.

"Miss Aoko?"

"Yes?" the brunette asked.

"You mentioned a grounds keeping team. Are they the ones who cleared the road?"

Considering it was a yes-no sort of question, Hakuba expected a quick answer. Instead, Aoko hesitated before giving an affirmative.

"They've done an excellent job," he commented. "How often do they have to clear it to keep it so well maintained?"

"I, uh, don't really know," Aoko replied, putting on a slightly strained smile. "To be honest, I just trust them to know what they're doing. They're all old hands at the work."

"I see. Do you think they would object to showing me their vehicles? I've seen a few snowplows in the past, but none of those models were able to achieve quite this level of work." Hakuba gestured at the oddly dry road and eerily perfect snow banks he'd been studying. "I'd be very interested to see how your teams' tools manage it."

Aoko was beginning to look distinctly uncomfortable. "I…could probably ask. If we turn here, there's a trail that'll take us up to the hills we were skiing on yesterday," she added, hoping to direct them onto safer grounds both in their conversation and in the more literal sense. "Kaito did say it'd be best not to stray too far from the lake. It's easy to get lost in the woods."

"We can't get lost following the road," Hakuba reminded her (quite reasonably, Aoko had to admit). They turned another sweeping bend in said road and soon found themselves descending a not inconsiderable slope.

Hakuba did not remember this slope.

His steps slowed as his eyes narrowed. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen a single vehicle yet this morning. Nor, now that he thought about it, had he seen any vehicles aside from their van since they'd arrived at this remote retreat.

"How much of this area is actually within the villa's grounds?" he asked.

A little thrown by the unexpected turn in the questioning, Aoko could only shrug. "Most of it, I guess. The lake and all the land around it, definitely."

"Do you entertain tourists?"

"Not really. Just guests of the House, er, I mean the family."

"Like us."

She smiled. "Yeah. Like you."

"So then do you have a garage somewhere in the forest then?" he asked. "I noticed I haven't seen any of your staff's vehicles since we got here."

"That's it exactly," Aoko said quickly, deciding it was easier to agree then to try and come up with a logical explanation for why she and her staff had no vehicles at all. "We keep all our vehicles there," she added for good measure. "It's a bit out of the way though, and the path to it isn't easy to find if you don't know exactly where it is."

Hakuba supposed that that wasn't entirely unbelievable—but only just.

"So how far is it to the closest town?" he asked.

Aoko looked worried. "It's too far to walk to. I really think we should be heading back. Mex should be serving lunch soon."

Hakuba checked his watch. "There's still plenty of time. How about we follow this path for another half hour, see what turns up. Then we can go back."

Aoko didn't look happy with the suggestion, but she agreed because she strongly suspected that this human would go on without her if she said she wanted to go back to the house. He hadn't picked up on or was purposefully ignoring her attempts to indicate that returning would be the better course of action.

It made her wonder what he was out here looking for. She could understand his confusion about the lack of vehicles and human communication lines, but what did he think he could learn by going out hiking? She just didn't get it.

But more importantly, she needed to get him turned around soon and headed back to the villa. While she and her staff had helped make sure that there were no dangerous wild monsters in these parts, it didn't mean none could have wandered in since their sweep. That, and if they kept following this road, they would eventually reach the nearest village, and then there'd be absolutely no keeping the cat in the bag any longer.

Fortunately, they still had quite a long walk before that would happen, so Aoko was optimistic that she could let Hakuba walk it out of his system then steer him back the way they should be going.

Both lost in thought, the two proceeded in silence.

It was a change in the quality of the light that alerted them to the sudden shift in the weather.

Almost in unison, they turned their eyes heavenward to be greeted by the sight of dark clouds roiling in across the formerly flawless blue canvas of the sky.

"But there wasn't supposed to be a storm," Aoko protested to no one in particular.

Hakuba frowned, squinting at the leading edge of the clouds and trying to judge their approach. "It's coming fast."

Aoko grabbed his arm. "We have to go back."

"We won't make it in time," the blond detective said grimly. An icy wind had kicked up with an alarming suddenness, and he could already feel the occasional flash of frost where snowflakes were finding their way past his protective clothing to melt upon contact with his skin. "We need to find shelter."

"But there aren't any near here," Aoko protested. "I know this area. The villa's still the closest building, and there aren't any caves or anything that we could reach. We should run. If we start now—"

"It's too late, and these clothes won't be enough to keep us from losing heat too quickly if we stay out in the wind," Hakuba insisted, pulling his arm from Aoko's grasp and hurrying to the side of the road to a stretch largely shielded from the wind by a particularly dense grove of trees. "Our best option is to build a shelter so we can keep warm until the storm lulls."

Aoko blinked, momentarily taken aback. "Wait. You want to build a shelter? Like, now?"

"Yes. Now please, this will go much faster if we work on it together."

"I…okay, but I don't know what to do."

"I'll show you."

X

"We need to go look for them," Shinichi said, pacing up and down the length of the main sitting room as they all listened to the rising howl of the wind outside. "Hakuba must have gone off on one of the trails. He did say he wanted to hike. If we can figure out which one, we might be able to catch up to them before the storm gets much worse and bring them back."

"I think it's already too late for that," Heiji said grimly, staring out the window. "I can't see anything but snow out there."

"Were they both wearing their coats?" Kazuha asked, trying to remember how her friends had been dressed during the snowman competition. She was pretty sure Hakuba had been wearing a good, thick winter coat, but…

Aoko's clothes had been considerably lighter: a knitted sweater and scarf, if Kazuha's memories weren't tricking her, and water resistant pants that may have been sufficient while the day had been sunny and devoid of wind but which most certainly weren't going to mount much of a defense against the raging storm now sweeping down across the valley.

"Coats aren't gonna do much against that," Hattori told her, nodding towards the window.

Kazuha bit her lip. "But then…"

"They'll be all right as long as they stick together," Kaito interjected, lounging on the couch and sounding serenely unconcerned in a way that put Heiji's teeth on edge. "Aoko knows the land around here really well. And she has ways to deal with the cold. They just need to find a good place to stay put and wait out the storm."

Shinichi frowned. "Can we be sure that they're together?"

"Definitely," Kaito assured him. "It's the only reason Aoko would have left. She must have seen Hakuba leaving and gone to keep him company."

"That's something at least."

Reaching out, Kaito snagged Shinichi's wrist as the boy passed the couch and yanked. Shinichi let out a yelp as he fell onto Kaito's lap. The magician immediately wrapped his arms around the smaller boy.

"Just trust Aoko," he murmured into the detective's ear. "She's more than capable of keeping the twit safe. And I assume he's got enough sense to know what not to risk in the middle of a snowstorm."

Shinichi's breath left him in a rush. "Right. You're right. I just—wish there was something we could actually do."

"There is," the magician said confidently. "We can have lunch."

Shinichi twisted about to level the demon with an incredulous look. "Seriously?"

Kaito laughed. "Seriously. We won't do them any good if we're too hungry and tired to look for them when the storm lets up."

"That's…actually a good point," Shinichi conceded, lips quirking into an amused smile despite his concerns.

Kaito smiled and leaned in to steal a kiss. "Of course it is."

There was a choking sound from Heiji's direction. "Oi, get a room if you're gonna start doin' stuff like that!"

X

A hole in the snow, Aoko thought, should not be warm. It went against everything she knew about snow. And yet here they were, sitting in a small space that she and Hakuba had managed to hollow out of the snow bank before the bulk of the storm rolled over them, and they were not freezing.

Or at least not yet.

Of course, they wouldn't have frozen anyway. Aoko had always had an affinity for fire magic, and she'd been fully prepared to use that magic to protect them, but she hadn't yet had to.

It was really quite amazing and perhaps a little bit humbling. She knew dozens of ways to use magic to overcome the challenges posed by the snowstorm, but, sitting here, she found herself thinking for the first time about how, if she had been faced with this situation without that magic, she would have had no idea what to do other than to try and find a cave or other existing shelter from the wind.

She wasn't sure what to make of the realization.

Both Kaito and his father had always been huge fans of human technology. They'd worked tirelessly to find ways to adapt some of that technology for the Makai. And yes, some of those devices had struck Aoko as pretty cool. But she'd always subconsciously categorized them as sort of like toys—fun, possibly even exciting, but not really necessary or even particularly useful in a day to day sort of way when placed next to the conveniences of magic. Technology had been what humans had to make do with because they didn't have access to magic.

Similarly, she had considered humans themselves to be people to learn about but not from. It hadn't been because she thought them unintelligent. She'd always known better than that at least. She'd even been sure that many of them had to be quite nice people. But now she had to admit that maybe she'd also considered them to be a bit backward (through no fault of their own, but still).

Shame twisted in her stomach. She'd always considered herself to be open-minded. It was an unpleasant shock to discover just how many biases she'd been harboring without even realizing it.

"Are you all right?"

Hakuba's voice sounded extremely close and loud in their little hideaway. Surprised by both the interruption of her contemplations and the nature of the question, Aoko had to take a moment to formulate a response.

"I am. Thank you. What about you?"

"I am as well as can be expected under the circumstances," the blond replied with a sardonic smile. "I was going to offer you my coat if you need it."

"Oh, no, no, really. I'm fine," Aoko hastened to assure him. "I'm more worried about you."

"Then it seems we have both been worrying needlessly," Hakuba concluded.

Aoko giggled then clapped a hand over her mouth, embarrassed. She hadn't meant to laugh at him.

Hakuba, however merely smiled at her, and she wondered if maybe he had meant to make her laugh.

She found herself smiling back.

"I know some word games," she said. "Would you like to play?"

Hakuba glanced down the short, sloping passage leading to the outside then nodded. "We may as well."

Chapter Text

With Aoko and Hakuba's absence weighing down the atmosphere, lunch was a stilted affair filled with faltering conversations and long, pensive silences. They ended up talking mostly about the food because it was a nice, safe thing to talk about. It was also delicious, and it only seemed right to acknowledge that.

Every so often, they would hear—or think they heard—a bump or thud from outside or the windows would rattle, and all conversation would cease as they stretched their ears towards the sound, hoping that it was a prelude to a knock at the door or possibly the window. But each time, they would return to their meal disappointed.

By the end of the meal, even Kaito had given up on trying to fill the silence with lighthearted banter. Instead, he took Shinichi's hand under the table and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"They'll be fine," he said softly, indigo eyes warm and sincere and unwavering in their confidence that his words would be made truth.

He had spoken by chance into a lull in the sounds of cutlery being laid aside, and both Heiji and Kazuha turn towards him like moths sensing flame.

"Hey, it just occurred to me," Heiji started to say then stopped. He glanced around the large, mostly deserted dining room with just the four of them gathered at one end of the great table and no one else in sight. They were, for all intents and purposes, alone, but he dropped his voice anyway and leaned forward, catching Kaito's gaze with a searching one of his own.

"Is there anything you can, ya know… Do? About the storm?"

Shinichi wondered why Heiji was whispering like that then realized that the Osakan didn't know that Kaito's magic was not some great secret the four of them were keeping from a house full of normal people. He was honestly a bit surprised.

"I thought you'd have figured out that we're no longer in Japan," he commented.

"Of course I know that," Hattori huffed. "I just haven't decided where we actually are yet. I was thinking somewhere in the Himalayans or something like that."

Kaito snickered, eliciting a scowl from the Osakan.

"You're not even close," the magician said smugly.

"Yeah? Then where are we?"

"Not telling~."

"We're not in our world anymore," Shinichi interjected. "This place is in the Makai."

"Shin-chan," Kaito complained. "You're ruining my fun."

"This isn't the time," the younger boy countered. "Keeping secrets now just complicates things unnecessarily. And it isn't fair to make people worry needlessly—especially over the holidays."

Kaito thought about that and had to concede the point. "I suppose. Well then." He turned back to Hattori (who had yet to pick his jaw up off the table). "Shinichi is correct. This villa is in my world, not yours. That's why there's no internet and no phone reception and the like. And you don't have to worry about Hakuba because Aoko's quite good with fire magic. A little snow won't be a problem for her."

Heiji's face contorted into a mix of shock, incredulity and dawning understanding.

"But, like, it's all…!" He gesticulated wildly as though he could somehow physically seize hold of the words he needed. "The trees are all just like our trees, and the snow is just snow and—and—it's all just the same. Shouldn't, I don't know, the leaves be purple or something?"

"That's what you have questions about?" Shinichi asked with more than a little incredulity of his own.

"Hey, it's a valid question," his friend defended himself. "I'd expect a magical world to be more, well, magical. Or at least different from normal. But this valley could've been transplanted from some mountain range back home. Not to mention this house. It's super modern and everything. Magical worlds are supposed to be, I dunno, medieval—like with castles. I definitely remember you saying something about castles."

"I suppose human media does tend to equate magic with medieval landscapes and architecture," Kaito mused, looking thoughtful. "Funny that."

"It's probably because magic and technology are often seen as opposites in the human world. And since believing in magic is considered to be something people did in the past before they knew better, magic naturally became associated with old-fashioned settings and lifestyles."

"You know, a lot of my people consider magic and technology to be opposites as well," the demon magician added. "Although mostly it's that they think that humans had to develop technology to compensate for not having magic."

Heiji coughed. "Aren't you two getting a bit off topic there?"

"Ah, right." Kaito turned his attention back to the Osakan detective. "There are certainly places in my world that resemble places you'd see in your fantasy films, but we've also developed architecture styles more similar to your modern ones in addition to several that are completely separate from those of your world. It's what happens when people travel back and forth. As for why this villa is so modern, as you put it, that's because of my dad. One of his pet projects is adapting human inventions for use in our world."

Hattori made a disgruntled face. "I wasn't talking about the housing. I meant we were supposed ta be talking about this storm."

"I already told you that there's nothing to worry about," the magician said a touch impatiently. "What more is there to say?"

"We don't mean to doubt you," Kazuha said with a placating smile. "It's just a little hard to take it on faith, especially around these two." She gestured at Shinichi and Heiji. "Every time we're out somewhere together, something always inevitably goes wrong."

"Oi, it doesn't happen every time," Heiji protested but quieted quickly under his girlfriend's incredulous stare.

"Name one time we all took a road trip together where we didn't run into a case," she challenged.

Heiji opened his mouth then stopped as he realized that no examples were coming to mind.

"It's only every time when Kudo's around," he grumbled instead.

This made Kaito laugh. "That's my Shin-chan. Really though, if something does crop up, we'll deal with it. In the meantime, just try to relax."

The humans were all of the opinion that that was a bit of a tall order, but they could at least make an effort (especially since they really didn't have much choice. Short of running blindly out into the storm, which would be dumb, there was nothing they could do).

X

Kazuha hesitated outside the kitchen. The door was closed, but she could hear quite a lot of activity on the other side of it. As a guest, she didn't want to get in the chef's way if he was busy. But on the other hand, it might help with her request if he was indeed in the middle of working.

She hadn't traded more than a few words with him since arriving at the villa, but he did seem nice despite his frankly intimidating physique.

Well, it was now or never, she decided. The boys had headed off for the recreation room when Heiji had suggested a video game tournament and the howling winds of snow outside meant that no one would be setting foot beyond the villa walls in the foreseeable future.

Not interested in the gaming tournament, Kazuha had made her way to the domain of Almexlis of the Iron Oaks, whose food Hattori Heiji had been praising every day that they had been here so far.

That recollection had Kazuha squaring her shoulders and rapping sharply on the wood of the doorframe.

There was a clatter then the abrupt cessation of sound inside the kitchen. A few minutes later, Mex opened the door.

A small corner of Kazuha's mind was surprised that she didn't see anyone else in the kitchen behind the man. The amount of noise she'd heard had led her to expect at least two or three helpers.

"Well, hello there," he said, clearly surprised to see her. "How may I help you?"

Kazuha took a deep breath, trying not to let the man's size and pro wrestler physique intimidate her. She was on a mission, and she would see it through.

"I was hoping you might let me help you in the kitchen," she said quickly, trying to get her entire pitch out before the man could say no. "I do some basic cooking back at home, but nothing fancy. And since we got here, Heiji's been over the moon about every dish you've served us. I'd really like to learn how to make a few of them. I know some of the recipes are trade secrets, and I'm not asking you for those. I'd appreciate any you're willing to share."

Mex nodded thoughtfully as he returned to the cutting board and resumed swiftly reducing a large, purple carrot into slices so thin they were practically translucent. "I take it you want to learn a few dishes to impress your mate?"

Kazuha's mouth fell open as her face flamed red. "Heiji's not—I mean, we're not—! We're not married. We're not even engaged. I just, uh…"

"You wish to be able to prepare foods he likes so that he might consider becoming your mate?"

"Er…okay, I…wouldn't have put it that way myself, but I guess that's not entirely wrong…" she mumbled. Though she really wished he hadn't phrased it like that. It made the whole thing feel ten times more awkward than it had any right to.

"Well, what do you think about helping me dice those nuts? You can tell me about the kind of cooking you've done in the past while you do. Then we can figure out what you might like to learn."

Kazuha brightened. "That would be great. Thank you."

Elsewhere in the house, Heiji was rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he surveyed the array of gaming consoles that Kaito was in the process of pulling out of the cabinets.

"Ya know, maybe we should wait for Kazuha to get back. A three-player tournament feels a bit lame."

"I don't think she was interested in playing," said Shinichi, thinking back on Kazuha's furtive exit. Whatever errand she had gone to run, he doubted it would be fast. "Though I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask again."

"There's no need," Kaito interjected. "We can see if any of the staff want to play. Now that the cat's out of the bag, there's no reason not to ask. I'll send out a notice. You two pick some games."

The two detectives spent the next few minutes sorting through Clover House's impressive collection of games, looking for good tournament options. They ended up choosing a mix of racing and fighting games. By the time they had finished making their selections, the room had become considerably more crowded.

Having attended Kuroba Toichi's birthday party, Shinichi had been prepared for the immense variety of shapes that demons came in, so he barely batted an eye when he saw the new arrivals. Heiji, on the other hand, had not had the same experience. Nor had he ever been good at keeping his emotions under wraps. As such, he took in the room in frozen, open-mouthed shock.

The most ordinary-looking members of the villa's staff interested in joining the tournament were the two ghost pale girls who had been serving them their dinners. At first glance, they appeared entirely human if abnormally pale. But then you realized that even their eyes were nearly white, and their long, moonbeam-colored hair drifted about them when they moved as though the silken strands had almost no weight. And the longer you looked upon them, the more you couldn't ignore the fact that you could, if you tried, actually see right through them.

And they were the normal ones.

With them came a tall, burly man with the head of a husky—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call him a husky walking upright wearing a man's suit. Looking at him, Shinichi felt the rather strong urge he often felt when seeing a dog to reach over and pet it between the ears, but he thought he had better not. It would probably be rude.

There were two small cat-like creatures with dexterous tails twice as long as they were tall and a dark, stick-thin man with impossibly, creepily round eyes and a mane of feathers instead of hair.

It was a veritable parade of strange creature after strange creature, but what really struck Heiji was the way those strange creatures looked back at him and Shinichi. Because in their eyes, he could see that, to them, he and Shinichi were the strange ones.

It was extremely disconcerting.

If Heiji had had doubts before that they were currently in another world, those doubts had been well and truly quashed.

There was a bit of an awkward silence once everyone had settled down. Before it could get too bad, Kaito stepped in, drawing tournament brackets in the air with glowing lines of light and announcing the start of round one of the competition. He selected a melee combat game where four people could compete at once with which to start the festivities.

"Top two in each match will move on," he declared. "Top two in the last four-way battle will compete for first place. Winner chooses the next game from this set over here." He indicated the dozen or so titles that Heiji and Shinichi had picked out earlier. "Now, first four contestants, take your controllers."

The contestants in question duly did so.

Shinichi could take video games or leave them. Given a choice, he was generally more interested in a good book, but he had to admit that there was a certain kind of energy to the atmosphere when playing games with others.

Heiji and the demons started out stealing glances at one another whenever they thought they weren't being watched. But then the players began to get into the game. Eliminated contestants started picking sides, and soon the air was filled with chatter.

Shinichi smiled when one of the feline demons whooped and pounded Heiji on the shoulder, congratulating him for knocking said feline's brother out of the competition.

Having already been knocked out of the competition himself, Shinichi joined Kaito by the recreation room window.

"How come you aren't participating?" he asked, curious.

"I may later," the demon said, sounding distracted.

"There's something off about this storm, isn't there?" Shinichi stated more than asked.

The certainty in his voice had Kaito turning to him with some surprise.

"So you feel it too," he noted, confirming Shinichi's suspicions. "It's carrying a lot of magic. And it's building as the storm grows. That's why I can't just stop it. Weather magic is fickle at the best of times. Fiddling with a storm this size that's saturated with this much power of its own can easily lead to it blowing up in your face—literally."

Shinichi grimaced. "That sounds like something we should avoid."

Kaito laughed. "Very much so."

An answering smile flitted across Shinichi's lips, but it fell away again as he turned his gaze back to the window. "What does this mean for anyone who's out there? I mean, is a magical snowstorm really different from a normal one?"

The long pause before Kaito answered immediately sent Shinichi's worries skyrocketing.

"Magical storms can be a bit unpredictable," said the magician. "But they should be fine."

"What do you mean by unpredictable?" Shinichi asked suspiciously.

Kaito shrugged. "I meant just that. All that uncontrolled magic can do funny things. Mostly, it's that it can react with existing magic in an area to produce unexpected effects. This area doesn't have much natural magic though, so I don't think we have much to worry about."

"Right…" Shinichi was not particularly reassured. Unfortunately, he was also very much aware that this was another one of those problems that couldn't be dealt with in advance. And maybe Kaito was right and there wouldn't be a problem at all. They could always hope.

Still…

"If you don't think anything's going to happen, why are you standing guard over here?"

Kaito looked a little rueful. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"Noticing things is kind of my job," Shinichi pointed out.

Smiling, Kaito wrapped an arm around Shinichi's waist to pull the detective to his side. "Then look out there and tell me what you notice."

Though it felt very nice, Shinichi subtly tried to extract himself from Kaito's embrace. When he couldn't, he snuck a glance back over his shoulder and was relieved to find the rest of the room's occupants focused on the tournament. It was only after he'd assured himself that they weren't being watched that he did as Kaito had instructed.

It took him a moment to see it because half his mind was still preoccupied with how warm and safe it felt to be held like this by Kaito, but then it clicked.

"The snow's not reaching the house," he exclaimed, surprised.

"Bingo!" The demon laughed, giving him a squeeze. "I'm putting up a shield around the house. Remember what I said about magical storms reacting to other spells? Well, most of the active spells around here are on this house. I'm making sure the two stay separated."

"I guess that makes sense."

The two fell silent then, simply enjoying one another's company as they watched the snow fall to a background of music, explosions, shouts, jeers, chatter and laughter. With the noise, it shouldn't have been peaceful, but, somehow, it was.

Shinichi tilted his head, brows furrowing. "Did you hear that?"

"Hmmm?" Kaito hummed, only half listening. He was rather more preoccupied with his adorable armful of detective (and the way Shinichi had relaxed and started leaning into the embrace). "Hear what?"

"I don't know. It sounded a bit like a roar."

Kaito closed his eyes and listened. "I don't hear anything unusual. Was it the game?"

"I…guess that's probably it."