The Fox and The Wolf: A Tale of Modern Magic

Epilogue

A chime tinkled as the door to the gift shop opened and Aubrey walked in. It tinkled again as the door shut behind her.

Jackie smiled as soon as she saw her old friend. It was a genuine smile but there was sadness in it. She stood from her chair. Neither woman knew exactly how to acknowledge the other.

"Hi Jackie," said Aubrey, smiling weakly herself.

"Long time no see," Jackie quipped. "How are things?"

"Good," said Aubrey. "Better. A lot better, actually." 

"What about the city?" asked Jackie. "Still a mess?"

"That's kind of what I meant by 'better'. I'm very optimistic about the prospects for the future. The magical underground has returned to some semblance of equilibrium in the past few months, now that the Tower is no longer a factor. I can't believe how blind I was to the negative influence having a centralized place of power like that was having. Maybe I didn't want to see it."

Aubrey shook her head at herself.

"Without the Tower, without the temptation of all that power available for the taking, there are so many fewer opportunities for conflict. Even with the power vacuum left over after the dissolution of the Tower Council things are still more stable. The Tower cast that long a shadow. They're going to build something new from the wreckage of this loss. Something better." 

"They?" said Jackie. "Not you though?"

"It's probably for the best that they do it without me. My time is over."

"Hey, I would go that far," Jackie laughed. "I think you might have a few good years left in you."

"You know what I mean," said Aubrey. "It's time to give the next group of arrogant kids the chance to screw things up themselves."

Aubrey looked at her feet.

"So, I can't help but notice..." began Jackie.

"Cicero?" Aubrey guessed.

"Where is he?" asked Jackie.

"I don't know," said Aubrey, sighing. "He left. I have no idea where to. He wanted to leave and it really wasn't my place to try and stop him. It was obvious that I was never going to be able to remove those mental blocks, not without the power of the Tower. I had to let him be his own person, whoever that is now."

"Simon's memories came back on their own," said Jackie, "Cicero's might too, given time."

Aubrey's smile told her friend that she appreciated the effort but wasn't buying it.

"They might," she conceded.

"So if you're not going to be part of the reconstruction, what's next for you? Were you hoping to buy into the gift shop? Because I don't know if you're cut out for this kind of fast paced business lifestyle."

She waved her arms dramatically to indicate the empty gift shop.

"I'm going to travel for a while, try to do some good, see where I end up. I hate to sound like a bad self help book but I guess I'm looking to find myself. I can't stay in Toronto and I don't have any place else where I feel like I belong."

"Get yourself a motorcycle and I think you have a decent enough pitch for a TV show."

Aubrey surprised herself by laughing.

"What about you, Jackie?" she asked.

"I'm happily back to keeping out of it," said Jackie. "I left the city in the first place to get away from all the politics. I'm just going to relax in my gift shop until the next time some long forgotten darkness from my past gets dredged up and dumped on my doorstep. I give it maybe ten years."

"I'm sorry I let it get that far," said Aubrey, suddenly very serious.

"It wasn't your fault," said Jackie.

"I think it was. I started this whole thing," said Aubrey.

"The two of us did," agreed Jackie. "That doesn't make us responsible for Simon's choices."

"Was it all worth it, in the end?" asked Aubrey. "Breaking Roger's hold on the Tower? All our friends are dead or broken but the city is out from under that shadow. We really bought Toronto a second chance."

She looked about to cry.

"It was a Pyrrhic victory," said Jackie, "but we won. It is what it is. We can't change that."

"What if we had just done nothing?" asked Aubrey.

"When good people do nothing, evil wins," said Jackie.

Both women stood for an awkward length of silence, neither willing to look the other in the eye. Finally Aubrey broke the silence.

"Once you're finished with all these customers," she said, indicating the empty shop with a sweep of one hand, "do you want to go down to the Casino get get some lunch? My treat."

"Well, if you're buying, I don't just want to get some lunch," said Jackie "I want all the lunch."

The two old friends laughed. It was all they could do.