A different lady also peers at the button when Vivian draws attention to it. She looks, not quite lost, but not like she knows where she's going, either.

"...Maybe," says the stranger, in accented but clear English. "I'm looking for healing magic."

"I - my brother has cancer."

The lady sits. "I'm Gianna," she mentions. "Gianna Trafeli. My brother is in Italy but I could try to have him moved here, if it would be easier."

On the one hand, that would make this all much easier. On the other, if Isabella can't do anything- "Even if all I can do is make his life easier?" Vivian asks cautiously. That she can manage that much, she is comfortable with.

"If it's just more painkillers - ordinary painkillers are very nearly good enough, the trip would be very hard on him - but if you can buy me time to look harder -"

Gianna's mouth forms a thin line and she nods. "When I go home I'll - make another try at the Avalon nearest there, and if I find nothing, I will check again with you and have him moved. I can pay you."

"I - I - all right," blushes Gianna.

Vivian smiles. The blush is adorable. "How long are you in town?"

"A week, this time. My new job will have me in and out regularly."

"Not Thursday - Friday though."

"Dinner at eight, I can pick you up at seven thirty?"

"Yes, all right -" Gianna writes down the address of her hotel.

She puts it carefully in her purse. "I'll see you then." She inspects her tea: all gone. "Would you like a drink? Or am I keeping you, I'm sorry, were there other places here you wanted to try? I can show you where the magic shop is, at least."

"That would be very helpful - I don't really know where to start, it was lucky that I found you, isn't it?"

"A little," Vivian admits with a laugh. "But if you spent enough time in the magic shop I'm sure someone would have introduced us eventually."

"I'm not sure I'd know a magic shop if I saw one," Gianna admits.

"It makes itself pretty obvious. Also, he named the place Ye Olde Magic Shoppe. Subtlety was not the goal."

"Oh. I suppose that would help. I've seen a number of stores with names that are puns and I'm not sure I'd reliably get one of those."

"I'm an interpreter," explains Gianna. "But puns are tricky even if you know all the words; context helps less."

She can talk while she walks, if she doesn't get too distracted admiring Gianna; she starts them towards the magic shop. "That makes sense," she allows. "I'm fluent in Mandarin and I still struggle with the jokes sometimes. There's so many homophones."

"Mandarin is - a Chinese dialect?"

"I started in school and everyone thought I was good at it, so I just - carried on with it, and went to England and America a few times, and then it turned out to be my most marketable skill. The work is good but I didn't dream about it when I was small."

"Well, you are good at it, they were right. Though now I'm curious what you dreamed about when you were small."

"Oh, the same things everyone else does. Being a princess or a painter or a rock star."

"All right," nods Gianna, and she pushes past the door.

Vivian watches her go with a rather goofy smile, then shakes herself and goes in search of Isabella. Knowing Isabella, this will be a search of, at most, ten feet.

There's Isabella, in the library with three books and a notebook.

"Ready to go, love? There's something I want to discuss with you on the way home."

"Uuuum okay." Isabella puts bookmarks in the books and then goes and checks them out. "What is it?"

"Yeah! I want to learn healing magic and then heal everybody."

"We will learn all the magic and fix all the things," Vivian agrees. "And we can heal people and help fix the environment and solve world hunger and be superheroes."

Isabella giggles.

Once they're safely in the car on their way home, Vivian circles back to the subject. "One more thing, sphinxette. I didn't want to say anything in the Avalon in case anyone heard, but I've read a couple books that said that sphinxes were often healers. I can't find anything saying what exactly they did, so I know I'm not being very much help, but I think you might be able to do more than just the spells I've shown you."

"I don't know how though. I read that too and I tried to fix my knee when I tripped once and I tried to fix my shoulder when I had that really big bruise and nothing happened."

"It could only be for certain things. Maybe they can only make illnesses go away instead of fixing injuries, or maybe they could only reattach things you lost, or something. 'Healing' is pretty broad."

Nod, nod. "I'll try to fix the lady's brother. And it's okay to do that? They know things?"

"She knows about magic and critter things, yes."

"What about being a sphinx?"

"...not that part," Vivian admits. "But I don't think we need to tell her, as long as we don't let her watch."

"What about her brother, though? He kind of has to watch."

"We can do it when he's asleep." Or if any of his drugs knock him out, that works too.

"What if it wakes him up? Maybe it makes a noise or a light or it's just very obvious if you're the one being healed."

"Then we'll deal with it when it happens. But I'd rather risk him waking up than not heal him."

"Me too. But we should be careful if he shouldn't know I'm not a winged lion."

"We will be. He doesn't live nearby, so we have all the time while he gets here to plan, okay?"

Nod nod.

Gianna calls her when she's managed to get her brother transferred to a San Francisco hospital.

Vivian arrives the next morning with Isabella in tow. This time the flowers are for her brother, and have a cute Get Well Soon card tied to the vase. "How is he?" she asks Gianna.

"Isabella? Oh my god, Isabella!" Vivian rushes to her daughter's side. When she sees Isabella's still breathing she begins breathing herself, but what just happened? She crouches over her daughter, feeling her neck. Her pulse seems perfectly normal, but it's not like she can call for a doctor when Isabella's like this. "Gianna, could you- the door- Isabella, love? Isabella, love, please wake up..."

"I don't know," Vivian says helplessly, "I mean, I knew she was a critter, but she's never done this before, she didn't even do anything! Isabella, sph- love, love please."

Vivian's eyes are a bit red, but she's managed to stop crying by now. "Isabella!"

"Mommy? What happened?"

"I didn't do anything really -" Isabella puts her claws away and hugs her mommy. "I was thinking about how to try and then I woke up here."

"And he's better? All better?"

"He's better. I don't know about all better. I think so, but I got you home before they checked." She reluctantly lets go of the hug. "I told Gianna I'd call her when you woke up anyway, I can ask."

"If he's all better and all that happens is I sleep a while I should do it more."

Vivian chokes on nothing at all. Once she's done spluttering, she says, "What if you sleep too long? Or I can't wake you up? You went into midform when you collapsed, I couldn't get you a doctor."

"Well, I feel fine now. And he was dying. Wasn't he."

"Awww, sphinxette." Vivian cuddles her. "You didn't get sick while we were walking through the hospital, remember? You don't have to stay hidden in the house or anything. And don't forget, we always have spells and nice, boring human medicines. Both of which are, if not as good as you, still extremely competent."

"But people die, and I don't think they had better do that."

"I think everyone would like it better if they didn't. But if you're going to help them, you should do it safely."

"Yeah. If I have to sleep for a while every time I fix a person I can't even get everybody that way." Pause. "But if you were sick I'd still fix you."

"Thank you love, that's very sweet." Hug. "But let's try medicine first, okay?"

Isabella looks skeptical. "If that seems like it will work," she allows.

"No magic for the sniffles!"

"Okay, you can have colds if you want."

"I don't want, but that is why I have pseudoephedrine in the medicine drawer."

"But if you get really, really sick, I will fix you, and maybe if anybody else we know gets really bad too, but I won't like sneak into hospitals or anything while you're researching. Okay?"

"I can read the books too, right?"

Gianna and her brother are back in Italy telling everyone vague things about experimental US treatments and crystal healing, and he is pretending to be tired and not want visitors for extra cover, but they're both doing great, and are ever so grateful, and so glad that Isabella is all right.