Bullshit, probably. Romance — well, it appears to be in love with big words.

It has an extensive table of contents starting with Precautions and Preparations and going on to an odd assortment of chapter titles including Teleportation: It's Like Riding a Bike But You Still Have to Learn How, We're Not All Human, Adjacent Universes and Yous, and Directory of Wizards, along with some that aren't even English.

Huh. Alli normally skips the table of contents, but this one was apparently long enough that trying to skip to the first story page only brought her partway through the table of contents. She blinks at the other languages, backtracks, and reads the English names in increasing bemusement. Is this some sort of weird science fiction romance thing?

She flips to the first chapter, skimming for an explanation.

The first precaution and the first preparation is: if magic is real, would you want in?

If wizardry is real, would you dedicate yourself to it?

If you could shape in some small (or not-so-small) part the fate of the Universes, would you choose to burden yourself with the choice?

---

Alli does not roll her eyes in the middle of the grocery store... mostly. Anyone would want magic. Magic would be awesome. And anyone who says no is probably either lying or touched in the head. She'd "burden herself" (really?) any day for that.

She flips a few more pages. Don't romance novels usually have, like, characters?

The Wizard's Oath

In Life’s name, and for Life’s sake, I say that I will use the Art which arises from it in Life's service alone. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will ever put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so — till the end and the heart of Time.

Well, this looks like a terrible romance novel, but it's still cool. Alli reads the Wizard's Oath (man, this book takes itself seriously) once, then again. Magic would be so awesome if it existed.

She flips between pages again. It certainly doesn't read like fiction. Or one of those pretend-manuals-that-mocks-the-genre things she's seen once or twice. It looks- very straightforwardly, like it's a manual on magic.

Huh.

Well, she wouldn't pass up magic if it was offered to her, so might as well play along, right? She's in a Safeway at 11pm on a Tuesday, no one's around to hear her.

What's she got to lose?

So she reads the Oath out loud, just in case.

When she finishes, she is startled by a roar of noise.

— wait, that's just the freezer cases and people pushing carts around.

Alli jumps, then huffs. Ugh, Safeway. Muttering to herself under her breath about ridiculous startling noises, she adds the book to her snack pile and heads to the cashier. Might as well see what else is in this book, even if it's not really magic. She can keep reading when she gets home.

The cashier does not overtly judge her on her taste in romance novels.

Honestly, her pile of comfort donuts (and comfort cookies and comfort ice cream, because screw it, she's grumpy, she'll just go for a run in the morning) is way more judgment-worthy than her reading choices anyway.

Alli heads home and curls up with her new book and a pile of sweets and attempts not to get powered sugar on the pages while she reads. She starts with the directory of wizards, hoping there will be some entertaining names. If the book's aiming for mock-realistic, there probably aren't, but she can hope for The Fabutastic Everseeing Marveloso of Great Wisdom.

1. Alli Kowalski
   (novice, pre-rating)
   1532 …

...

What.

How...

That's her name. And her address.

"Ohhhh shit," she breathes, looking at the book.

She flips back to the table of contents. She's going over all of this again. Twice.

Table of Contents

1. The Wizard's Oath
   
2. What You've Gotten Yourself Into
   
3. The Speech: Useful Also for Listening
   
4. …
   

So first of all, that is not the table of contents that was there when she started, it's been like a minute, what the hell.

Second of all. She glares at the book mock-threateningly. "Excuse you very much. I listened just fine to the fictional book I was reading. You are a deceptive, tricksy little magic book, and I totally blame you." She pauses, then snorts reluctantly. "I guess magic books are allowed to be tricky. I guess. But I am watching you."

And then she flips to What You've Gotten Yourself Into, just to be contrary.

Unfortunately for her contrariness, chapter 1 is only one page long and she already read that part. Out loud, even.

Chapter 2 would like to inform her that being a wizard is about going on adventures, saving the worlds, and being a nice person.

Alli is like, an acceptably nice person, it'll be fine. Adventures sound exciting! Worlds? Want to tell her about that?

She's going over all of this twice like she said, right? Not going to skip anything because she thinks she knows what it is?

Yep, worlds. We've got both kinds of worlds, country and western, ahem, the kind that are far away in space and the kind that are far away in what-could-have-been. And all of them need saving some of the time, though usually it's more efficient and straightforward for a local wizard to handle it, y'know?

That makes sense, for a value of sense that includes "the table of contents updated all by itself" and "the wizard phone book somehow knows her name."

She knows how space works. What's a could-have-been?

Like, the laws of physics could be different. Or the dinosaurs could have not died. Some other creature than humans could have decided they ran the place. Earth could have been colonized by aliens. Regular people could know about magic. And, yes, a small fraction of the geopolitical ideas the alternate history buffs write about actually exist.