[So, speaking of retaining you, you now have a magic door in your building that leads to my dorm,] Bella says. [Provided I can either become comfortable spilling the beans to Kolya or you're pretty sure he will not attempt to follow you - he can't get through the door, but he could see you disappear - you wanna job?]

[Where the fuck did you go,] Bella says. Her spy sense isn't tingling, nothing happened except him disappearing.

[I don't know!] he says helplessly. [Far enough away that I can't see you. I can't see anyone with powers, actually, but—oh, dear.]

[What? What is it? Should I try yoinking you back?]

[You can try,] he says. [Whoever put me here left some magic on me. I can't leave this building—I'm in an empty warehouse, I think. There's some more, too, I'm figuring it out as we speak.]

[You can email him to tell him I've been magically kidnapped if you're prepared to answer all his questions about why and how and general fussing. Also, apparently I've been rendered imperceptible and un-wish-on-able except to... one or a few people, I'm not sure, I can just tell there's an exception. I guess brainphone doesn't count.]

[I do not think I am prepared to answer such questions till I know more about what's going on. Un-wish-on-able to even you? You had triangles and a square with you; can you use them?]

[Not on myself,] he says after a moment. [Haven't tried anything else.]

[I don't want to ask you to use them all up, since they might come in handy if you find an opening somewhere, but is it possible to use one to change the color of the others?]

[No,] he says after a moment, and then after another moment, [but I can make them look like they're a different colour. My pile of triangles is now to all appearances transparent and non-glowy.]

[Thank you. The warehouse is just empty?]

[There's... stuff,] he says. [Empty crates, abandoned forklifts, inexplicable marks on the floor, that sort of thing. It's deserted as far as I can tell, but who knows who might be hiding behind a crate somewhere.]

[You don't sense any coins? I would be very surprised if you encountered a person who didn't have coins on them, under the circumstances.

[I'm not sure I could sense coins that far away, unless they were big ones,] he says. [I would love to experiment on that sometime when I am less kidnapped.]

[Can you walk around and see? And - more detail on that ward, if you can get it. I might be able to think of a way around it.]

[Sure,] he says. [Commencing aimless wandering.]

[Yes, but the spot check would have detected magical spying... But if they were only spot checking you I could have easily missed them. And then they wouldn't have been able to see you when I was in the room with you and they panicked and yoinked. Ack, I'm sorry.]

[Mainly what I'm worried about right now is who exactly 'they' are,] says Lazarus. [I must say, the world of secret magical conspiracies is turning out to be less pleasant than I'd hoped.]

[Sorry,] Bella says again. [I don't know very much about them. I'm working on inferences from very limited clues. But this so confirms that there's a "they", so I'm not crazy or anything.]

[I definitely agree with you there,] he says dryly.

[Any more detail on the ward? Would it, for example, interfere with me turning your shoes into seven-league boots that could let you walk out of the building, or anything?]