Gideon followed Pazeon through the dark hallways of the Tent of Telepathy. He thought it was ridiculous to call this place a tent when it was clearly a brick building; he'd said so to Pazeon, and she'd just scoffed at his 'lack of style'.

"Gidica, over here!" she hissed. Gideon scowled at the name. Pazeon's idea had better work. He was absolutely sick of this.

He followed the sound of her voice until he could make out the outline of a door in front of him. "You ready?" Pazeon asked.

"How is this different from a normal summoning?" he replied.

Pazeon shrugged. "I'm not sure. Don't worry; I'll walk you through it. In here."

They went through the door into a small, circular room. Pazeon moved to the far side of the circular table and gestured for Gideon to sit across from her. "Cross-legged," she instructed.

Once they were seated, Gideon asked in a hushed voice, "Now what?" Talking in normal tones seemed inappropriate in here.

"Activate the amulet," Pazeon instructed. Her voice was also quiet. "As if you were trying to look into my mind. When you see purple shapes start to form in your periphery, increase the power and look at them. When you can look directly at the spirits without them disappearing, you're ready to summon a specific one."

"How do I know which one I'm summoning?"

"Just get to that point."

Gideon nearly rolled his eyes but decided against it. It was time to be serious. These were life or someone else's life stakes here. He activated Pacifica's amulet with its unfamiliar purple glow. No purple smoke appeared around Pazeon's head, like it would have for other people; but, before long, Gideon could see wisps of purple popping up in the corners of his vision, like afterimage spots. His eyes flicked over involuntarily; but when he looked directly at the wisps, they disappeared. "Don't look directly at them," Pazeon reminded him softly. "I'm going to try it with yours."

The amulet around her neck started to glow; the blue mixed with the purple to make an ambient light. "Is it working?" Gideon asked after a moment of silence. He stared at a spot behind Pazeon's head as more and more purple shapes appeared.

"Yeah. . . yeah, it is!" Pazeon exclaimed in a whisper. "It's definitely not as easy as with mine, though."

A minute more of silence, and Gideon's eyes slid over to the purple shapes again. This time, they didn't disappear. "Got it!"

Pazeon didn't reply for a few seconds. "Me too. All right, now, focus on the curse as hard as you can. Not what it did to us, but the physical curse, written on the cave wall. Think about what it said, or what it looked like. If you focus hard enough, a shape or two should get bigger and take on a more human form. Those are the spirits we need to talk to. Once they're big enough to start struggling, pull them into the crystal ball. It'll trap them in there."

Gideon thought he was getting the hang of this. It was kind of like an exorcism in reverse. With his eyes on the purple shapes, he drew up the image of the curse in his mind's eye: the ancient markings, overlaid with the English translation. He remembered the words: "Let anyone who touches these words be placed under any curse that will lead them to improve. That means whatever curse you got, you deserved it. Figure out why you're cursed the way you are, admit that you were stupid, and you'll switch back."

A white-hot anger swept over Gideon before he knew what was happening. They did this. Whoever wrote that curse, they were going to ruin his life.

"Gideon, your anger is scaring them away!" Pazeon hissed. "Stay calm until we have the spirits captured!" It took quite an effort, but Gideon did as she said, curbing his rage and instead focusing on the purple shapes around the room and the image in his head.

Over the center of the table, a wisp appeared, larger than the others. It was half purple and half blue, though that was probably due to the two amulets that shone their light in the room. "We've got him," Pazeon whispered. "Push him into the ball."

It only took a moment for Gideon to understand why she said push. The spirit struggled against Gideon's mind, trying to escape his hold. Determined, he focused harder and mentally pushed the spirit towards the crystal ball. As Gideon pushed on his side, Pacifica pushed on hers; and, after a few exhausting moments, the spirit filled up the crystal ball in a swirling mass of purple and blue.

"Is he trapped?" Gideon asked softly.

"He is! We did it!"

Gideon and Pazeon grinned at each other for a second before looking away, embarrassed. We're just doing this to undo the curse, Gideon reminded himself. Not because we work well together.

Suddenly, a strong impression of annoyance passed through Gideon's mind. He frowned. That wasn't his, was it?

Pazeon laughed. "You've never communicated with a spirit, have you?"

Gideon glared at her. "Of course I have. Just never through a crystal ball. Do they not talk here?"

"Not really. They communicate through feelings and ideas rather than actual words." Pazeon gestured to the crystal ball. "The spirit is annoyed at us for trapping him, understandably. Ask if he's the one who wrote the curse. Not with words, with feelings."

Interesting form of communication. Gideon decided to try it, and he sent a desire to know the identity of the writer to the spirit.

The spirit responded with amusement and pride, sending a clear sense of: Yep, that's mine! He then added that Gideon was a newbie at this.

Hey! Gideon didn't want any lip from a spirit.

Unfortunately, the spirit picked up on this and replied with the mental equivalent of: Too bad. A vague face appeared in the swirling mass of the spirit and even stuck its tongue out.

Gideon glared at the crystal ball, but Pacifica intervened, sending an explanation to the spirit of what had happened that day. Feelings were accentuated by smoky blue images that popped up around the crystal ball and showed the events. Gideon's expression softened as he felt the day all over again through Pacifica's interpretation. At least she was having as miserable a time as he was.

The face in the crystal ball started laughing soundlessly as Pacifica ended her message with a question on how to fix it. After half a minute or so of laughing while Gideon and Pazeon glared at him, the spirit shook his head. The curse said to figure it out, he reminded them.

Gideon shot Pazeon a look. I told you so.

The spirit started telling his story. As the impressions rolled through Gideon's mind, the circles of blue smoke showed new images: a man from an ancient society living in the area, surrounded by squabbling friends and family; the ancient being shown how to write prophecies and curses as part of a birthright; the ancient writing the curse, hoping to stop some of the rivalries around him, then leading people to it pair by pair.

And did it work? Pacifica wanted to know.

The spirit nodded emphatically. He grinned as he added how great it was that the curse still worked after thousands of years. So, he asked, what were Gideon and Pacifica going to do about it?

The anger that Gideon had been holding back broke through. How dare the spirit do this! They were going to be stuck like this forever because of him! He had no right to—

The spirit raised a smoky eyebrow. They wouldn't be stuck like this forever, he pointed out, if they could figure out what they needed to fix. The curse ran itself; he didn't have anything to do with it except bringing it into creation.

Pacifica tried to send a calm feeling over the situation, but Gideon would not be calmed. He sent his anger to the spirit. He wanted to unleash his fury — needed to unleash it.

"Gideon!" hissed Pazeon. "Your anger is going to let him escape!"

The spirit pitched in unhelpfully, sending that there was nothing more they could get from him anyway. That just made Gideon more angry.

A final wave of rage crashed over the spirit, setting him free. The purple and blue smoke flew from the crystal ball; the face disappeared as the connection broke. The spirit streaked away into nothingness, leaving a single gust of wind in its wake.

Gideon watched it go. His anger subsided, and a chilling numbness washed over him. His amulet — or, Pacifica's — stopped glowing. The purple wisps of spirits disappeared with its light. Pazeon's blue amulet faded as well, until the only light came from the dim lightbulb overhead.

Silence.

"I'm sorry," Pazeon finally said. "I thought that would work."

"Me too, for a minute there," said Gideon, his voice emotionless.

"I thought. . ." She trailed off. When she didn't finish, Gideon glanced up. With a start, he realized she was crying. Pazeon, crying! Pacifica, with Gideon's face, crying. "I don't want to be like this forever," she finally said, her voice steady but strained.

"Me neither." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Pacifica. I shouldn't be getting in the way of your plans. I just thought—"

"No," she interrupted. "We both know I'm insane, and. . . and you're less insane." She gave a little smile through her tears. "I need you to make sure I don't do anything too terrible."

Gideon snorted quietly. "I don't think I have that much influence over you."

"Maybe not, but. . . I should've included you. I shouldn't have just expected you to help without something in it for you. I'm getting revenge, and proving that Mabel is evil, but what are you getting?"

Even though she was being open, the matter-of-fact way that Pazeon talked about her delusions made Gideon shiver a bit. He took a deep breath. "I'll get information," he said simply. "Hopefully."

"So, we can be partners?" Pazeon asked. "Not just. . . reluctant allies?"

"Yeah," Gideon said. He found himself almost able to smile. "Partners."

They sat in a satisfied silence for a minute.

Gideon stood up. "Here, let's get out of here." He walked around the table and held out a hand for Pazeon to take. She looked at the hand, then up at Gideon's — well, her — face, then back at the hand. Then a faint smile appeared on her face; she took the offered hand and stood up.

"Now what?" she asked. "I don't know about you, but I don't really want to go back to the lake."

"Me neither," Gideon replied.

"So, what should we—?" Pacifica stopped. "Gideon."

"What?"

"Look." She nodded down at their fingers.

They were glowing white.

Gideon's eyes widened, then snapped up to Pazeon's face. She grinned back, but it was quickly lost in the white light as it enveloped them.

~~~~~

Pacifica didn't want to open her eyes, not yet. What if they hadn't actually switched back? She didn't want to risk looking, in case she saw her own body inhabited by Gideon.

So she cast her mind out to her body and started feeling. It came slowly, but it came. Her legs, wrapped comfortably in tight cloth. A familiar weight on her head, secured by a headband that sat behind her ears. Make-up, cracked in places, that formed a mask over her face.

She felt like herself again.

She opened her eyes and found herself staring at Gideon. Gideon! He was in his own body again! Pacifica looked herself up and down and let out a laugh. It was her! She was her!

Gideon laughed too, jumping to his feet (as the two had fallen when they'd vacated the other's body). "We did it!"

"I'm me!" shrieked Pacifica, patting herself down to be sure. "I'm really me! We did it!" She hugged herself tightly. "I'm me again."

Gideon wasn't as outwardly enthusiastic, but his happiness was spelled all over his face. "Oh," he said, rubbing at his cheeks, "it feels so good to have my own face again. And my amulet." He fingered it fondly.

"My amulet!" Pacifica echoed, activating hers. Purple tinged her vision, and Pacifica heaved a sigh of relief. "My amulet," she repeated. Oh, but she had missed it. Gideon's was a poor replacement for the one she knew so well.

"You rely on that thing a lot, don't you?" Gideon asked.

Pacifica put her hand over it defensively. "What's that supposed to mean?" she shot back.

Gideon stared at her for a moment, then laughed shortly. "Well, you're definitely yourself again."

Pacifica rolled her eyes, but the happiness from being in her own body hadn't quite dissipated yet. "I've had my amulet since I was eight," she reminded Gideon. "I guess it's become a part of me."

"I've had mine that long too, but it just feels like a tool."

Pacifica shook her head. "Not mine. It's an extension of me. Especially after that year without it: Even in Portland, I could still feel its connection, just waiting for me to come home." She glanced at Gideon's amulet. "But yours definitely did feel like a tool. It was so unwieldy!"

"Yours was too eager," Gideon replied with a huff.

Pacifica knew the banter was just that: banter. "Well, Mr. Northwest, should we return to our families?"

Gideon considered that. "In a bit," he said slowly. "First, I want to show you something."