Anora held her breath when Darsby began speaking. Her heart pounded in anticipation in the suspenseful silence that followed. Though he did not meet her gaze, she kept hers on him. 
	For a moment, as one second spanned into another, she feared he wouldn’t answer. That he had changed his mind. Then, with a shiver despite the summer’s warmth, he dissolved those fears by answering.
	Her eyes narrowed at the prospect of Darsby working for someone, but that thought was pushed to the side.
	“[i]Olympus?[/i]” she repeated, but Darsby continued despite her shocked interruption.
	By the time another pause fell, Anora’s brain was still stuck on Olympus, trying to figure out if that was a code name, or if he meant Zeus’ Olympus, let alone even beginning to wrap around the rest. She inhaled at his last sentence, about not traveling just to hear ‘no.’ It sounded vaguely like a threat to her ears, though his tone gave nothing of his intent away.
	She glanced from him, trying to make her mind stop spinning, his answers only spawning more questions. She groaned inwardly before his voice again regained her attention.
	She blinked in surprise at his new tone, at the sudden switch from cold and uncaring to saturated with inexplicable emotions. She stared at him in the silence that followed his words, but still, he refused to meet her eyes, even hiding them from her. But his final offer made her heart flutter.
	She exhaled heavily, glad, nonetheless, for the moment to try untangling her thoughts.
	He was willing to ‘show her the ropes’ so she could be more than his guide. Which meant it was unlikely she would end up in a ditch in the side of the road with one of his bullets in her head if he decided she was no longer useful to him. No one put effort into something they planned on discarding.
	But then, if he was working for someone, who were they, and what did they want with this Pan guy? And how the freak did she even have a ‘contract’ with the guy when she had never even met him? 
	It was nigh impossible to narrow down her questions to just the one that remained.
	“Limiting me to two questions is borderline barbaric!” she grumbled irritably. She ran a hand through her hair, her fingers smudged with graphite.
	A gentle breeze blew about the rooftop, bringing with it the sweet scent of trees and earth. She stared ahead of her at the expanse of roof spanning in front of her, her gaze at where the rooftop dropped away.
	She took a deep breath, hating having to think so hard on what to ask. She had many questions, and a choice. It took great restraint to keep from immediately agreeing; if it meant learning more about her magic, about [i]others’[/i] magic, she was in. But a small, dusty voice at the back of her skull reminded her she needed to think first, act later. At least just this once.
	At last, she took a breath and looked back to Darsby. “What would I have to do? To find this Pan and be ‘more than just your compass,’” she elaborated, hoping he wouldn’t count the double information request as two separate questions.