The desk had been cleared of everything except a black cloth, upon which sat the purple crystal. All of the crystals wore different shapes. The white ones Jason had made, for instance, were slender rods about the length of a hand from palm to the tip of the middle finger. The green one was more akin to an elongated pyramid. The purple crystal was circular, no larger than two inches in diameter. It was also curved slightly, the convex side facing up on the desk.

Having studied the first few pages of notes from the box, Julia had a pretty good idea what the crystal’s purpose was. There was nothing dangerous about it, as far as she could tell. Still, she hesitated to try to use it. It represented a boundary, past which lay other unknowns. That gave her pause.

Finally, she decided she had wasted enough time and picked it up. All she had learned about the nature of this particular crystal suggested she just had to hold it for it to work. But she knew Jason, and had an idea how his mind worked, so she held it to her left eye like a monocle.

The moment she looked through it, the world changed. Some objects glowed while others seemed to lose color. On a page of notes she had nearby for this very test, nonsense markings became easily readable script. This was the primary purpose of the crystal, deciphering text. Yet it also seemed to be revealing hints about the magical nature of everything around her. That suggested there was more to this than Jason’s notes had contained.

Hoping for some insight, she looked at the other crystals from the box. The yellow shone brightly, while the orange dimmed. The blue crystal . . . had vanished. It had resisted her attempts to grasp its function, and now it was gone?

She pulled the lens away from her eye in order to look for the missing crystal. Immediately, she saw it sitting in its proper place, right next to the others. She looked through the lens again, and once more it vanished from her sight.

Putting the purple crystal back in its place, she picked up the blue. It had been the wrong one to start with, but now she had some ideas about how to uncover its secrets. With the purple crystal’s help reading Jason’s notes, she felt confident she would succeed this time.