The first time she sees the store, she stomps onward, determined not to be lured in by advertising when she has a destination in mind.

The second time, on the way back, light rain and a cup of hot chocolate have put her in a more adventurous mood. She ducks inside to get out of the drizzle and looks around.

"Welcome to Wake's Curios! Can I help-" Gwen does a subtle double-take. "Oh, nice, I definitely can. Today is your lucky day."

"...Go on," she says skeptically.

Gwen is (as always when at work) wearing a scarf and a loose drapey thing which cover the feathers on her neck and shoulders. In a practiced motion, she sweeps them both off, and leans back to show off the ways sirens don't look quite human.

"Magic exists!", she says with a grin.

After a pause (a siren isn't going to skip a chance to take someone's breath away), she continues, "And you get some of your own. If you want it, that is."

That's uh. That. What.

"...my own feathers??" she blurts, bewildered.

"No, that's just for my... race. I Awoke into a witch, and so can you. Lemme see..."

She summons a very precise breeze, and suddenly April's hood is being blown up and back, and the sleeves are billowing out and flapping around her arms like she's standing on a subway's exhaust vents at full blast. Just for a second or two.

"—hey!" She grabs her hood and yanks it down, scowling.

"Fine, say I believe you, what then?"

"Then I temporarily lock the door and close the shutter, you take my hands and meet my eyes, and then I guide you through the process of Awakening and making the choices that come with it. And fill you in to the basics of the world behind the curtain. You can get that part even if you don't want to Awaken today, though I do recommend it."

"How about explanations before mystic rituals."

"Fair enough. So, there's a masquerade. Important safety tip: do not put strain on the masquerade. It is metaphysically important that most people think the world follows straightforward physical laws. If that breaks down, we either get Heaven and Hell fighting a war with all of Earth as the battlefield, or Earth and most of its interplanar neighbors stop existing. Telling your immediate family and significant others is fine, telling your fifty third cousins and your Intro Philosophy seminar not fine."

"...okay, so, first of all, yikes?"

"It's easier than it sounds. First, it supposedly takes a lot of strain and hasn't happened for sixty-five million years. Second, there's something called The Veil, which makes most people just fail to notice magic things. Most of the time, I can take the bus in a t-shirt and no one will notice the feathers, except people who have witch potential or are particularly credulous about cryptids and magic. And, like, I'm pretty sure Bigfoot exists, but even people who believe in him will only get the grainy bad photos unless they're magical themselves."

"...and the grainy bad photos have not yet destroyed the universe, okay, sure. Go on."

"Yeah, we're pretty safe. There are two major witch schools, four other major witch factions, and two mortal-focused groups in on the secret - I'm not in any of them. And then there's the Outsiders, who everyone else agrees are Kill On Sight. You know Lovecraft? That's the Outsiders. The less you know about them the better, and I mean that very literally."

"Ooookay. What, uh, is a 'mortal-focused group'?"

"The big six are all majority-witch, but Alphazon Industries and The ORC are about 80% ordinary mortal humans, 10% non-witch magical species, and 10% witches. Alphazon is a bona fide international megacorporation straight out of a cyberpunk novel, and they have a monopoly on designing and producing most magical technology. They're pretty amoral, but they pay very well, and pay their witches extremely well. The ORC are like Interpol with bigger guns; mostly they keep the Masquerade intact from people on both sides of the Veil, but they also do ordinary law enforcement behind the Veil and more than their share of Outsider hunting. They're very militarized, which would be more concerning if it wasn't obvious that they totally, totally need it."

"Wow, okay. Are there any... non-terrifying crowds to hang out with."

Gwen's smile turns a little wry. "Well, how do you feel about religion? But yes, the College of Arcadia is completely nonthreatening. Liberal arts-and-magics school in a cluster of pocket dimensions, free registration and room and board to any witch whatsoever, classes in everything and low requirements for students, and has a very cute little town nested around it. I went there for a couple years. They're polite rivals with Hawthorne Academy, who are more 'strict boarding school'. They have corporal punishment - no lasting scars, but witches are tough - and if you go way over the line it can escalate from there. But most people who enroll stick with it and say it was worth it. The best of the best in any field are usually four thousand years old, but the ones who are less than a millennium almost all went through Hawthorne. Also, Hawthorne's rules keep them well clear of Outsider contamination, and Hawthorne's admin claim Arcadia has at least a minor infection somewhere on campus at least once a term. It's not proven but it's plausible."

"...I should mention that as an Awakener, I'm specifically required to give every faction except the Outsiders as fair a shake as I can. And if you want to get involved with Outsiders, I'm going to push you into the process on your own and shove you out the door but I'll let you do it. There's a treaty."

"...there are people who want to... of course there are," she snorts. "Okay. Is there... a good reason to want to be the best of the best, like, is this a rat-race situation or an ultimate cosmic power situation or...?" Probably it's somewhere in between, most things are, but you never know.

"There are some Powers of the Cosmos or whatever you want to call them who claim to be former mortals, but they're all old as heck, nobody knows if they're lying except each other. Power tends to get you wealth and safety. And if you have grudges against Alphazon, or ORC, or the Hespatians or the Watchers or some subfaction, or some other political goal, maybe you decide that Hawthorne is a necessary step. Or, like, any reason for normal people to go to Harvard, you know?"

"But an unambitious life is going to be a calm, comfortable, and long one, for basically any witch. We don't call humans 'mortals' for their fragility; even Neutrals live twice as long and just about every other race has a way to cheat death, usually repeatedly and robustly."

"...well, colour me intrigued," she says, only a little grudgingly.

"Yeah, nice fringe benefits, you know? Like, if I die, if someone recovers my body and gives it mouth-to-mouth a couple times a day, I'll revive in a week. If all that's left is a skull, I'll probably be back in a month. Sirens like me gain mana from breath - startling someone into skipping a breath, or just directly inhaling the air from someone exhaling. It's a little weird and intimate, most race's way of charging is."

Blink blink "what?"

(More confused than appalled, but not not appalled.)

"About the method of revival, or the mana charging in general?"