“Get that knife out of my face,” Jenny said.

“When you write, Miss Everywhere.”

“Ms.”

“Get writing, Ms Everywhere.”

“What is this?” she asked. “A feather boa draped over a stick?”

“It’s the quill the town scribe lent to us, ma’am.”

“It’s ridiculous. Get me a ballpoint.”

“This is the third century BCE, Ms Everywhere. They don’t have ballpoint pens.”

“You get a pistol!”

“I brought this from home, ma’am. I didn’t loot it from a gladiator.”

“You’d make a cute gladiator, waving your little knife around like that.”

“Write, Shifter, or I will … "

“Will what?” She tickled his chin with the quill. “Looks like the pen is mightier than the sword!”

“Listen up, Shifter. You have left paradoxes and tangles through half-a-dozen dimensions, and now you mock – you dare to mock – those of us who are cleaning up after you. We need to know what you’ve done, when you’ve done it, in every time and every place. So if you don’t want half the universe to collapse into nothing, I suggest you get serious. Write.”