Julia dropped the bright green ball she was holding, startled by the loud scream. She thought at first that it must have been some sort of practice exercise that was louder than the others, but it only took a few seconds for her to realize that the scream was not an act. There was a very angry, very red-faced wizard running across the room. It took her a few more seconds to realize that the scream was directed at her.

“What are you doing, you idiot!” the wizard yelled. “Drop that ball! Drop all of them. Who are you and why are you touching my artifacts? Everyone here knows better than to touch my things! Magicae devoco.”

As the wizard spoke the magic spell, the balls lifted into the air and zoomed into the thick sack he was holding. Julia recognized it immediately as a magic safety sack. The Wizard Advocates used these sacks, which eliminated or dimmed magical energy, to safely transport many magical objects. Julia was still confused as to why he was so angry, though.

“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t realize they were yours. I just thought they were practice objects that no one was using.”

“You didn’t think! That’s the problem,” the wizard yelled. “Noah, is this girl with you? She’s not even an Advocate, judging by the way she’s dressed. Who authorized you to let her in?”

“The High Council,” Noah said, standing up to his full height. “And I’ll thank you not to yell at our guests.”

Julia felt her cheeks turning red with embarrassment as the room fell silent. All of the Advocates had stopped their training sessions to gape at the scene being made near the front of the room. In her peripheral vision, she saw Jasper walk up beside her. He put a protective hand on the small of her back, and she felt grateful for his support.

She also felt humiliated. She had no idea what she’d done wrong, but getting yelled at for it in front of so many senior Advocates was the worst punishment she could imagine. These were the people she wanted to impress most—the people she hoped to one day protect as an Advocate Defender. And right now they were all staring at her like she had two heads.

“I’ll yell if I want. Everyone in here knows this table holds my stuff, and that no one is allowed to touch it.”

“Oh, god, are you still on that whole spiel?” Noah said, not backing down an inch. “You’ve been told by the High Council numerous times that you can’t claim any of the objects or tables in magical artifacts handling. They’re community training tools.”

The wizard’s face turned so red it almost looked purple. “I can claim them if I want, now get out of my face.”

Julia thought Noah was going to say something else, but at that moment Noah looked around and seemed to notice that the whole room was watching him with bated breath. Noah turned back to look at Jasper and Julia, and must have decided that it was better, given the circumstances, not to cause any more of a scene than had already been made.

“Fine, Kai, we’re leaving. But don’t think you’ve heard the last of this. I’ll be informing the High Council of your behavior today.”

In response, the wizard screamed again. But Noah turned on his heel and started walking toward the entrance. Julia scurried after him, keeping her head down meekly, still not sure what she’d done so wrong.

“Back to work, everyone. Nothing else to see here,” Noah called over his shoulder as he left. The other Advocates in the room quickly scurried back to their practice stations. Noah was one of the more senior Advocates, and no one dared question his authority. Well, no one except this Kai character apparently. He must have been someone fairly high up, but Julia had never seen him before, which was strange. She had made it her business to easily recognize all of the top level senior Advocates, but his was an unfamiliar face.

“Who was that?” Julia asked as soon as they were safely down the hallway from the magical handling room. Jasper’s hand was still on the small of her back, for which she was grateful. He hadn’t said anything, but knowing he felt protective over her meant the world right now. Noah was in front of them, so Julia couldn’t see his face. But she was pretty sure by the way his shoulders stiffened when she asked her question that he was loathe to talk about Kai.

“Kai Radfar. He’s a top level senior Advocate, but I don’t think he’s been around much since well before you became an Advocacy Support Specialist. He’s the oldest Advocate here, and the most ornery. He used to be our best trainer in the magical artifact handling room but he went kind of crazy a few years ago. Started talking to himself, hoarding the practice objects, and going off for no damn reason all the damn time. There are rumors that he may have mishandled a magical object and been cursed by it, causing him to go a little crazy. But he’s been examined by the best wizard doctors in Torch Lake and no one can find anything wrong with him.”

Julia frowned. “What did I do to make him so angry?”

“Touched his balls,” Noah said.

Jasper couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter at the unintended innuendo in that statement, but Julia quickly silenced him with a furious glare. This was no laughing matter.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to touch them.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Noah said as he punched an exit code into the main door of the training facility. They’d made it back to the main entrance at this point. “You didn’t actually do anything wrong. He just flies off the handle when someone touches something he perceives as his. I haven’t been back in that room for a while and forgot that the table we were next to is where he likes to store his little hoard of practice objects.”

Noah looked at them and rolled his eyes before pushing the door open so they could exit. Julia didn’t feel a whole lot better, though. Even if she hadn’t technically done something wrong, she’d still caused a huge ruckus in the training room. It had been horribly embarrassing, and it definitely wasn’t how she wanted to be remembered by the senior Advocates. But Noah was already waving his hand in the air, as if waving away the annoying nuisance of Kai Radfar.

“Seriously, Julia. Don’t worry about it. And Jasper, I’m sorry your tour ended on such a sour note. If you have any questions feel free to get in touch with me anytime. And if there’s anything in there you want to see again, let me know. I’m sure the High Council would authorize me to take you again.”

“Thanks,” Jasper said, shaking Noah’s hand. “And don’t worry about what happened. Added a little excitement to the tour, eh?”

But Julia didn’t like that the situation was being turned into a joke. The whole thing had really bothered her, and no matter what Noah said, she felt responsible for the disruption. She frowned and crossed her arms across her chest.

“If Kai is so obnoxious and potentially compromised, why keep him around?”

Noah shrugged. “Because despite how crazy he can be, he’s still the best damn trainer on how to handle magical artifacts. In fact, a lot of people think there’s no way that he’s actually compromised, because they can’t imagine him incorrectly handling a magical artifact.”

“What do you think?” Jasper asked.

Noah grimaced. “I’m not the best person to ask. Kai and I were never the best of friends, even before he started going a little cuckoo.”

“But surely you have an opinion?” Julia pressed. She found it interesting that Noah didn’t seem to even want to answer the question. He looked back and forth between her and Jasper for a moment, as though trying to decide whether to say anything. When he finally chose his words, he did so slowly and carefully.

“I think he shows many signs that are typical of someone who has been infected by a cursed ancient magical artifact. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

“But—” Julia began, but Noah put up a hand to stop her.

“Nope. That’s all I’m going to say. Now, if you two will excuse me, I have some meetings soon and I’d like to grab a quick lunch first.”

Julia sighed, but thanked Noah for his time and let him go. She was silent during the entire walk back to her office, as was Jasper. The more she thought about what had happened, the more agitated she became. Between the incident in the magical artifacts room, and the fact that she and Jasper hadn’t had a chance to talk about what was going on between them, Julia felt like an absolute mess right now. She felt a little queasy, too, almost like she was getting sick, but she suspected that was largely due to the fact that it was now past one o’clock and she still hadn’t eaten anything for lunch. All she knew was that she was ready for this work day to be over. She just wanted to go home.

She didn’t even want to talk to Jasper right now, even though she knew he wanted to talk about their relationship. Earlier today, she’d been excited to talk about it, too. She’d had a whole speech planned out, to tell him how she’d been wrong to not want to date him, and she hoped they could continue to get to know each other better. The truth was, ever since she slept with him out on that boat, she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head.

But now, the only thought filling her head was that she’d embarrassed herself in front of so many senior Advocates. She’d made a mistake, and hadn’t been on top of her game. She didn’t care what Noah said. She knew protocol in rooms with magical artifacts. She should have asked permission before touching anything, and she hadn’t. She’d been so enthralled by Noah’s description of ancient magic balls that she’d just reached out and picked up one of the replicas. Never mind the fact that Noah would have given her permission if she’d asked, so she still would have picked up the ball and angered Kai. Julia was hard on herself, and had already worked out all the ways that everything that had happened today was her fault.

They had reached her office, and Jasper stepped around her to hold the door open for her. He stepped inside after her and shut the door, then turned to look at her with a smile.

“Finally, we’re alone and we can talk,” he said. He seemed relaxed, and completely clueless about the fact that Julia was still upset. Completely clueless, that is, until he saw the look on her face and froze.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, rushing over to her as his voice filled with concern.

Julia shook her head and took a step back. “It’s nothing. I’m just…tired.”

Jasper narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re still upset about what happened back there, aren’t you?”

Julia sighed. “It’s a big deal to me, Jasper. I’ve worked so hard to impress all of the senior Advocates, and one crazy old wizard made me look like a fool in front of everyone. I’m so humiliated.”

“No one thinks you were a fool. It sounds like everyone knows that this Kai guy is a bit on the looney side.”

Julia went to sit at her desk, purposefully putting some space and furniture between her and Jasper. She felt overwhelmed. She knew what Jasper was saying was logical, but she still felt off. She felt crushed somehow, like, if nothing else, Kai had proven that she was easily rattled. Advocate Defenders could not be easily rattled. Advocate Support Specialists should not be easily rattled, either. And yet, she was sitting here feeling like her world was ending just because she’d been yelled at about picking up a ball.

Jasper was looking at her with worry etched deep into his face. “Maybe we should go get some lunch. You’ll probably feel better after you have a little time to process everything and get some food in your stomach.”

But Julia shook her head. She couldn’t imagine eating right now. She suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired, and all she wanted to do was lie down. “I…I think I need to go home for a bit,” she said. “Do you think you could try to meet up with Elliot to shadow him for the rest of the day or something? This morning has just been…exhausting.”

Jasper looked hurt. “You don’t want me around?”

Julia shook her head no. Shit, he was going to think that this had something to do with their time on the boat this past weekend. It didn’t have anything to do with that. She just felt so embarrassed and overwhelmed right now by her unfortunate meeting with Kai. “It’s not anything to do with you, I promise. I just need to go home and have some peace and quiet to recover. I know you think I’m overreacting, but Kai really rattled me.”

Jasper still looked doubtful, so Julia decided to distract him with an offer of drinks later.

“What if we meet up at the Winking Wizard tonight? It’s a Monday so it should be pretty quiet and we can talk. Hopefully by then I’ll be feeling more like myself again.”

Jasper still didn’t look happy, but he slowly nodded. “Okay. If you’re sure you don’t want to try having some lunch with me first? I really think some food would do you good.”

Julia shook her head no. “I appreciate the offer, truly. But I think I just need to rest.” She forced herself to put a wide smile on her face. “I’ll see you tonight though, and we can talk about everything?”

Jasper sighed. “Alright. Winking Wizard tonight. I guess that’s my cue to leave.”

He leaned over the desk and planted a soft kiss on her forehead, then turned to leave. Julia didn’t say anything else, but as soon as the door closed behind him she put her head in her hands. She’d postponed having a conversation with him for the moment, but she wasn’t sure she was going to be any happier or any less exhausted tonight. Wearily, she took a deep breath and then forced herself to stand. She should try to get some rest. At the very least, she was going to go home so she didn’t have to be at the Advocacy Bureau anymore today.

She felt crazy for thinking this, but something in the air here felt suddenly strange to her. Julia shook her head as she reached for her jacket and car keys. Yup, time to go home and lie down for a bit, before she started acting as crazy as Kai.