It’s two in the morning, on New Year’s Day, in a dusty old brick building in San Francisco. Madeleine and Theo have not slept for forty-eight hours, and that they are conscious at all is a testament to the ungodly amounts of caffeine and they have consumed, since both their teachers had the good sense to forbid drinking until the end of their apprenticeships. Those teachers are somewhere in Italy, drinking to excess; this is okay because, they said, they are mature and responsible magic-users who know better than to work magic while impaired. However, this means that two sugar-high apprentices have been left unsupervised in a very nice experimental workspace.

They have moved from the large main room into a long hallway with a fairly smooth and clean concrete floor. Theo is sitting on that floor with a piece of chalk in each hand, working on an equation that runs up and down the hall four and a half times. Madeleine is bouncing back and forth down the hall with a ball of yarn in her hand, knotting spells from three different weaving- and knot-langages into a humming web of light. Both are chattering excitedly, half-formed strings of magical technobabble that perhaps nine or ten other people in the world would understand.

“Alright alright alright I got it, there’s like one to go!” says Theo, and Madeleine pulls two ends of yarn tight. “Okay okay do it!” she says, jittery with excitement. He waves the chalk in the air mock-solemnly, but can’t keep a straight face. They both dissolve into giggles for a few minutes. “Okay,” says Theo, “okay, hold onto your hair, I’m gonna do it—” and he sets chalk to concrete, fills in the final variable, and closes the parentheses.

The world spins around them, and Madeleine trips over her own left foot but does not fall as the hallway shivers and quivers and squirms in space; suddenly she has only a few inches to fall, and she finds herself leaning on her elbows on the floor as the walls go solid again. They both lift their heads, suddenly breathless with anticipation, and look down the hallway, first one way, then the other.

“Ohmygosh, it actually worked,” says Madeleine.

“Ye gods and little fishes,” says Theo, pushing himself to his knees to get a better look at the Moebius strip they have made. The floor seems curved, but not curved at all, at the same time.

The look at each other. Someone’s lips twitch, and then they both lose it again. Hours later, when their teachers return, they will still be sprawled on the floor, loose-limbed and sugar-giddy, laughing helplessly at their absurd creation.

And if it takes a while to realize they didn’t build in a way to get out—well. Everyone does stupid stuff in college, and it’ll make a great story someday.