Corinne stared, silent and still, up at the building. It hadn’t been there, and now it was. Right there. Out of nowhere. 

It didn’t even have the decency to be a normal building, after popping up like that. It was a…tower, pointed and winding, like each floor had been twisted, and all this twisting had unbalanced and tipped it, so someone had had to push it back the other way to keep it from falling over entirely. Windows, grand and small, flashed in the mild sunlight, all the way up. It was hard to tell how many floors it housed, but two of them had wide balconies.

“Inkling Investigations!” Alice said brightly. More flowers were blooming up in the grass in the area surrounding the tower, and the grass itself was growing at hyperspeed, interspersed with spiky cacti and some twirly plants that Corinne had never seen. Some of the trees were even straightening up and reaching out, lighting up with flowers and draping their vines over the grass. Like the plants were expanding, a path of multicolored pebbles was blossoming up from the ground, winding its way from the tower’s door to Corinne’s feet.

“Once the sign finishes growing, we’ll be all set.” Alice peeked over at Corinne. Her eyes were wide and her hands limp at her sides. And here Alice had thought she had finished with all her chances to amaze. Although perhaps this was a bit much, for Corinne’s first glimpse of magic at work. Alice maybe should have prepared her with some little sparkly charm…but what a waste, and Corinne seemed on the sturdy side, anyway.

“Okay. Alright.” Corinne wiped her hands down her clothes and straightened herself up. “So…so it was – not a joke, then.”

“If it were, it would have to be quite a good one.” For Earth standards, anyhow.

“Okay. Alright.” Corinne set her shoulders back and peered narrowly at the tower, like a good glare would make it behave according to the rules she knew. “So…” She turned her squint on Alice. “So you’re a witch.” Alice nodded. “And – so I’m helping you, with…what, exactly?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. The Knower – your Mr. Slatts – only told me that the rule here is that I must have an adult with me. I don’t think you really have to do anything. Oh!” Alice leaned up onto her toes. “If you’re an adult, you must know how to cook!”

Corinne winced. “Uh, no, not really. I can throw together easy stuff. But if you can make towers appear…”

Alice shook her head as she sank back onto her heels. “That’s not how it works. I don’t know the oven’s magic. So in that case, I don’t think you have to do anything. Would you like to see Tower?” Alice hopped off down the trail to the door.

“But – I can’t just do nothing,” Corinne clicked crossly at Alice’s heels. “I’m an intern. I need to be doing something – learning a new skill, or something.”

“Learning? Well, I can’t teach you magic – that has to start in the blood. An intern is like an apprentice, isn’t it? What are you apprenticing for?” Alice opened the door to Tower. Sometimes it had huge double doors, but Alice agreed with its choice of a small single today – Corinne was probably already overwhelmed enough. The entrance hall was friendly today, too, with little lanterns and off-white curtains in the windows, and a nice round table. Today, the floor was checked tiles of yellow and green, and the staircase slunk up the far side of the room.

“Why is it round in here?” Corinne asked.

“It wanted to be round today.” Round was friendly, too. “The rest of the Tower will probably be square, if that makes you feel better. This room is a bit moody, though, so you might want to expect it to change its mind. Not while we’re inside, though, if you were worried about that.”

“Oh. Well, good.” Corinne did that thing again, flattening out the rumples in her clothes and pushing her spine straight. “Well, so, Mr. Slatts told me to just spend the rest of my internship with you, so…what exactly are you doing?”

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Alice gestured to the larger chair, an armchair with fluffy green cushions. Probably Corinne liked green, if that’s what Tower had supplied. “As part of schooling as a witch, I must complete something known as The Serve. Simply, I go to an Earther town or city in need of some kind of assistance, and I fill that need with my special skills. Now, there’s funny business happening in Coral Meadows, and I’m going to investigate it. But I’ll be undercover – as an investigator.” Alice winked. “I feel like The Knower should have told you more about this.”

“I’m gonna agree with you there.”

Alice lifted up onto her toes, hands folded behind her back. Corinne was leaning her forehead on one palm, but she had come in, at least. “Are you going to stay, then?”

Corinne stared at Alice until her features melted down into a frown. “I can’t just quit my internship. If this is what I’ve been assigned to do, then yeah, I guess I’m staying. Fo the next ten weeks, anyway.”

“Excellent! It’ll be great to have an expert on the city. Have you always lived here?”

“Er, more like a few years here and there. I mean, I know Coral Meadows okay. But I don’t know anything about ‘investigating’.”

“Oh, I’ll take care of that part.”

“Alright. Alright!” Corinne clapped her hands together and stood. Unbeknownst to Alice, the incredible opportunity of the situation had finally made itself clear to Corinne. After all, running a business would be much better experience than just finishing Mr. Slatts’ boring internship, where she mostly had to run around talking to people for him. “We’ve got to get you ready for business, then!”

“You’ve gotten so enthusiastic,” Alice laughed. “Would you like to see more of Tower?”

“Lead the way.”

Alice thought ‘the way’ was fairly obvious this time, but she led it anyway, and Corinne and she landed in Alice’s primary area of operations. It was another single room, but much larger than the one they had just left, and brighter. The curtains here were the massive, luminous yellow petals of the plants growing down from the corners of the ceilings. The area they had spilled into had airy carpeting and any wall space not laced with plants was instead lined with books. There were more tables here, four little round ones, also piled with books. In the far corner, a counter blocked off what seemed to be a kitchen, and over to the left was a small area with a desk and the same green armchair from downstairs.

“That spot is for you,” Alice said, pointing to the chair. “Tower likes you, if it kept your chair.”

“Oh…good?”

“Very good, since you plan to keep coming here.”

Corinne wandered to her new corner, taking inventory. Everything was tidily organized, the drawers fully equipped with notebooks and files. Several cups on the desk were brimming with various writing implements.

“How often will I have your help?”

“Oh – Monday through Thursday, 10 until 3, for sure. Otherwise I might be at my other jobs.”

“Ooh, what else do you do?”

“Afternoons and free mornings I usually work at the bookstore,” she said in the thoughtless cadence of something said many times before, “and evenings – all of ‘em – I take babysitting jobs.”

“You’re a busy lady.”

“That’s right.” Corinne beamed, smugly. “Hard work makes for good fortune. And speaking of, let’s get you in business!”

‘Business,’ as it turned out, included quite a bit of boring lectures and lists of numbers, and some less boring disapproval from Corinne. “You need to get paid,” she sighed, after Alice had explained witch currency to her.

“And I will be paid,” Alice said. “Just in things that are more valuable and more flexible than Earther money.”

Corinne was having trouble with this point. “But you need to eat, at least…promises and favors won’t get you food.”

“Promises of food will get me food.”

“It isn’t reliable! Words are just air. People will rip you off if they get the chance – they’re not gonna care what they promised you.”

Alice glanced up from her book with a wide grin. “Oh, no. Earther promises don’t work the same way as promises among witches do. Witch promises are binding, through and through – there’s a magical imperative to keep them.”

“People are going to think you’re nuts if you accept promises in exchange for work.”

“Not if I explain what I explained to you.”

“Oh, that you’re a witch? Yeah, then they’ll think you’re nuts for a different reason, or just messing with them.”

“Then I’ll prove it, like I proved it to you.”

“You can’t just go around announcing that you’re a witch! Isn’t there some kind of rule against that? And if not, why haven’t I ever heard of you before?”

 “You have heard of us. There’s plenty of lore about witches, even if it’s a bit skewed sometimes. Or most of the time. There are a few rules, sure – we used to need permission to talk about it, for example, and things like magical items aren’t allowed here without supervision from one of us – but it’s not as if I said ‘magic’ and you had no idea what I meant. Besides, we aren’t here all the time, you know. We come and go just enough to stay myths is all.”

Corinne treated Alice to one of her squints. “Come and go…from where? What, Witchland?”

“Close! Wonderland, it’s called, usually.”

“That sounds…completely made up.”

“Doesn’t it?” Alice laughed. “Earth always sounded imaginary to me too, until I got here. It still seems almost like a dream.”

“So…’Wonderland’ is like a whole other…planet?”

“Something like that. I wouldn’t worry about it much if I were you. You’ll never need to go there. Anyway, as long as I get someone to swear something to me, magic will make sure they keep their word. But – you’re the expert. I’m open to accepting money, if that’s what people need, but I want them to be able to give me other things, too.”

Corinne slapped a fist into her palm. “That’s the spirit! Okay, anything else I need to know?” The light outside was creeping towards the orange and violet of early evening.

“Oh, probably. You’ll want to keep from touching anything that doesn’t look familiar, and probably even the familiar things, if you haven’t touched them before and I’m not here.” Alice felt an old velvety tingle along her spine, and smiled. “I have magical artifacts everywhere on the upper floors, you see. In fact, it might just be best for you to stay on this floor unless I take you up there. After all, if you go alone, you’ll probably meet…” Alice held out her hand, and felt the rub of fur against a knuckle, then a glint of white on the chair of her arm, and with a ripple, the inky coat of a cat appeared, and Corinne jumped. “…something unexpected.”

Corinne stared at the cat. Even if it hadn’t been invisible, it would have been a strange cat – its eyes were a yellow so pale they were nearly white, and it was somehow…wrong and disproportional. It was sleek and entirely black, except when she looked at it straight on, when it seemed to have a golden shine to its coat, and when she looked away, when its coat seemed to undulate in every other color.

“This is Corinne Quincely,” Alice told the cat, scratching under its chin. “Corinne, this is Cheshire. He’s a very good kitty.” As if to emphasize the point, he squirmed over onto his back and very obligingly allowed Alice to rub his belly. Even from here, Corinne could hear the hum of him purring, somehow ripplier than other cats, like he was half made of water. 

“…do all witches have cats that turn invisible?”

“Oh, no. Cheshire is my familiar, and he has special powers. Don’t you, boy?” He lazily set his paws on her hand and peered at Corinne with those light eyes. “All witches and wizards have a familiar. It’s important for feeling at home, even on our Serve, and a familiar can carry wisdom and power that a single witch or wizard never could alone.”

“Do I have to worry about him sneaking up on me?”

“I wouldn’t say you have to worry about it. It will definitely happen, but I don’t see how worrying about it would change that. Besides, he’ll be nice to you as long as you’re nice to him, and also to me. Tower already likes you; I bet Cheshire will warm up to you just fine. Double besides, he’s not that dangerous, really.” Not compared to Alice herself, anyway. “Mostly he just turns invisible.”

“That’s already pretty dangerous, for a cat.”

“That’s true! But for a familiar, it’s not very dangerous at all.” Alice hefted him up and curled him into her arms. “And this is Jabber.”

Corinne jumped and stared at the lizard unfurling from beneath Alice’s chair. “Does he turn invisible too?”

Alice laughed. “No, you were just distracted.” Jabber was silver-green-blue and nearly as large as Cheshire, with a long slender tail that whipped lightly through the air and a narrow, pointed face. His eyes were entirely black and very beady.

“So what does ‘Jabber’ do?” Corinne leaned back and kept her gaze firmly on Jabber. “Is he poisonous?”

“You don’t like reptiles,” Alice observed, and Jabber obediently slunk back further from Corinne. “Jabber isn’t poisonous. Well, not most of the time, anyway. He’s a shape-changer – mostly he just gets bigger or smaller, but he can do one or two other things.” Jabber’s black tongue flickered through the air and he scuttled up the arm of Alice’s chair. He curled himself into a tight spiral there. Alice’s eyes brightened as she looked up at Corinne again. “Do you like bunnies better?”

“Do I like bunnies better than sometimes-poisonous lizards? Yeah, I really do. Unless the bunny’s actually the most dangerous one, secretly - then I don’t like bunnies.”

“He’s not.” Alice stood. “Besides, you’ll have to see the other floors at some point. Follow me!” She didn’t turn to see if she was being followed, but she heard the brisk pat of Corinne’s feet chasing her own up the staircase to the third floor.

They were deposited this time into a room with very tall ceilings and low light, overgrown with patches of white hay and blue carrots. “You’ll want to be quiet,” Alice suggested. “This is the familiars’ room, technically, but they roam wherever they want to. Blank just likes it in here the best.”

“Blank is the rabbit?” Corinne stared up at the ceilings, stretching into darkness above. “How big is Blank?”

Alice followed her gaze. “Oh, very good, but Blank is quite small. The ceilings aren’t for him.”

Corinne stared. “But…so…how big does Jabber get?”

“Another good guess! But it’s mostly for letting Cheshire climb as high as he wants. See?” Alice pointed to the tree winding up into the shadows. “He likes to explore. And! This room always looks like this, like an Earther room, so you won’t be surprised.”

“Oh, uh, neat?”

“It is! Tower works hard not to shift this room, so Blank won’t be nervous. It’s not normal for rooms from Wonderland to stay in the same place all the time.”

“How could it be more effort to keep a thing the same all the time instead of moving it around?”

“How would you like to stand still all the time? You would cramp up for certain.” 

Corinne was saved from forming a response by the soft patter of feet. Alice put a finger to her lips, in case Corinne couldn’t hear it, and in a minute, a flash of brilliant white appeared among some of the vines.

“Hello, Blank,” Alice murmured, and crouched. “I’m sorry about having to move Tower out here. I hope it was a smooth ride.”

Blank hopped once towards them. His eyes were silver, his ears enormous and perky, his tufty tail chrome-black against his snowy body.

“He’ll be comfortable faster if you make yourself small,” Alice advised, since Corinne didn’t seem to have realized that’s what she was up to, and Corinne stooped low. Blank was capable of moving more than one hop at a time, Alice knew, but he wasn’t demonstrating that ability to Corinne.  To be fair, Blank was from Little, like Alice, and Corinne was pretty big, and very strange. He had never seen an Earther before.

Corinne was doing a good job of practicing her patience. Finally, he made it to them, watching Corinne the whole time. Alice gently touched his downy fur and watched with a suppressed smile as he bounded away into the darkness of the plants again. “He’s tiny!” Corinne cooed. “This room must be kinda terrifying for him, don’t you think? And isn’t it dangerous?”

“Oh, no. Blank is very safe in here. He’s just kind of an anxious thing. Come on, let’s let him recover from all that excitement.”

The fourth floor looked like someone had taken a chunk of a perfectly regular house and shoved it into the rest of Tower. The hardwood floors gleamed. “This is my room,” Alice said, pointing to an open door. Corinne peeked inside, and Alice was pleased to see that Tower had made her room close to one that might be found in Coral Meadows – a bed, a desk, four yellow walls, a closet filled with her frilly dresses. “And the bathroom is over here.” This one was grander, tiled and expansive. “Not very exciting,” Alice said, and they moved on.

The fifth floor seemed to be a small library, lit with lamps and glowing mushrooms and flowers sprouted straight from the walls. “Okay, c’mon,” Corinne said flatly as she looked in on the rows and rows of shelves. “First off, how can you possibly read in that kind of lighting? Second, how would you ever find anything in here if ‘Tower’ was moving it around all the time?”

“Oh, Tower would never let me lose something as important as a book! And the lighting could be brighter. I just feel this way is cozier.”

“Cozy, and good for slowly going blind.”

“I’m glad you approve. And that’s all there is to Tower! Well, there are the Gardens out back, but those will probably take a little bit to get nice and settled.”

“Where does that go, then?” Corinne asked, nodding at the staircase winding on up. “Roof?”

“Right after it passes through the attic, yes, it goes to the roof. The attic’s not a good place for Earthers, though.” Alice winked again. “Also, it’s very disorganized. I don’t think you would like it.”

“I should probably head home soon anyway, unless we have to work other things out,” Corinne said as they started spiraling back down. “I think it’s getting late, isn’t it? What time is it?”

“I have no idea,” Alice said cheerfully. “I suppose I should keep a clock in the main room, then.”

Given this generous warning, Corinne should not have been surprised, really, when they returned to the second floor to find that the wall had blossomed not just one or two clocks, but eight, in various fashions and styles, along with one digital model on Corinne’s desk. “Well then,” Corinne said weakly. “It’s apparently past four – yeah, I should get home. Lucky me, I don’t have any babysitting jobs tonight, but I’m betting I’ll need to preserve my strength for whatever we’ll be doing tomorrow.”

“Oh, will you be back so soon? What day is today?”

“It’s Wednesday,” Corinne sighed. Alice remembered at this point that Earther days of the week were not the same as Wonderland days, and silently asked Tower for a calendar. “So yeah, I’ll be back tomorrow. Ten am.”

“Excellent! Do you need me to walk you to your car?”

Corinne snorted. “I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be escorting you places, not the other way…” The smile slid from her face and a dazed look clouded her eye. “My car is far away.”

“It could be much closer, yes. Here, let’s go together. I need to get to know the city anyway.”

On the way, Alice got Corinne to talk about spending time with the Knower, which sounded very much as though even Corinne did not like it, and her favorite color, which was (unsurprisingly) green, and her favorite food, which was ‘burritos.’ “We’ll have to try them sometime,” Alice told her. “Can you cook those, if they’re your favorite?”

“Well, I mean, I could, but I couldn’t do them justice. How’s this – we’ll get them as a reward for cracking our first proper case, okay? I know a great place down the street from my house.”

“That sounds nice!”

“Do you want me to drive you back to Tower…?”

“Oh, no.” Alice refrained from giggling. “It’s not too far. Car safely!”

Alice was pleased to see laughter brighten Corinne’s face as she piloted her car away. Alice began her way back to Tower, head held high, though she didn’t skip. There was nobody around to notice it, anyway, except for the odd passerby, who eyed her hat. They were probably jealous. It was a very fine hat, and the inhabitants of Coral Meadows didn’t seem to have many hats at all, regardless of quality.

The lamps of the city flickered on when she was about a block from Tower to rebuff the falling darkness. They were a very unpleasant shade of orange. “I’d be more inclined to like you – if you glowed instead a soothing blue.” The lamps on this block all fluttered and ruffled through the rainbow, ending on a warm violet. “Well, it’s better, anyway.” Although even a spell she had thought up in ten seconds should have better results than that.

Tower greeted Alice without Corinne with a warm hum, emanating from all its walls, and the entrance hall was instead a splatter of galaxy, the staircase a constellation she bounced up. Jabber joined her from the second floor, slithering and thick as three of her fists now, and passing the third floor, she heard the softly ticking bound of Blank behind her. Cheshire had already claimed her bed for his own.

Since Corinne wasn’t here, Alice’s room was freer, the left wall clusters and clusters of tight crystals, blue and purple and grey, the right wall only flowers, the floor a bed of dark springy moss. In the corner was a stone basin full of water – a reminder of how close Wonderland was. The ceiling was like a little piece of home, night-deep green and slung heavily with the stars of Wonderland, great gold things swirling above and casting down soft light, not the frozen pinpricks of Earth’s sky. 

“Thanks, Tower.” Alice grinned widely as she slipped her cloak and hat up on an obliging piece of rock. She took a moment to find her flask in the pockets of her cloak, fill it with water from the basin, and sip it as she kicked her boots off. It was sweet and bright, almost as good as water fresh from Wonderland, though it had lost a touch of its clarity in the journey.

“She wasn’t so bad, was she?” Alice sat down next to Cheshire, scratching his ears again as Blank hopped onto her lap and quivered there. Jabber slung himself over a bedpost and regrew his legs to hold onto it with. “Thanks for being so friendly, everyone.” She beamed around at her friends and kicked her boots off. Tower hummed again. “Now, let’s just hope all this investigating goes just as smoothly.”