Did I ask what tomorrow would bring? I have to remember not to do that again. It brought 48 naked teenage girls. But I should start from the beginning. 

Since having a sibling is a new and different experience for me, I thought I’d sit down and talk to Merlin. I’d also see about picking his brain abit on family matters and courts of chaos. Hard to sniff out spies when you have no clue about the politics, personalities, and abilities of either side. Merlin was amenable, so we went to some Italian place for lunch. (Now there is something that’s changed. Used to be the phrase ‘some Italian place’ meant Guido’s pizzeria down the block. No, this was a shadow that strongly resembled 17th century Italy. But the food was good.) We spent a couple hours chatting and eating. He said that Corwin would probably be interested in meeting me and that I would probably be safe from any mental takeover attempts. He is staying away from Argent and his sword – both of which have something to do with the insanity thing. He gave me a spare trump of Corwin to facilitate this, as well a trump of himself. With the ones that Flora gave me (Random, Castle Amber, and herself) that brings my trump total to 5. After lunch, when the subject had turned to ‘so what can you do with pattern besides wander shadow?’, Merlin showed me some tricks on probability manipulation and shielding. Selene, (did I mention she came along? She is easy to overlook.) decided to quiz us on woodcraft. Unsurprisingly, my technique for finding someone hiding in the woods is to wander aimlessly about until I trip over them. Merlin did better, but he cheated. He changed form into something with tracking ability. I’d never seen a shape change before and tried not to gawk. After that we headed to somewhere urban where I was able to show off some. We found some muggers and Merlin, Selene and I compared techniques. They are both in the take them down fast school. I can do that, but prefer to act like the whole thing is an accident. Selene was initially abit insulted by it and I had to explain that it is usually preferable for them not to know what you’re true capabilities are. Merlin was amused. That pleased me greatly, both because I had inadvertently dragged him into my training, so was glad I could make it alittle enjoyable, and because it means he has a good sense of humor.

	Next we headed over to talk to Fiona, as it seems we were to be instructed at taking down magical wards. What I’ve heard about Fiona made her sound abit scary, but she seemed to be a reasonably nice person. Businesslike, but reasonably nice. She was taking time away from whatever projects she was working on to train a couple novices but didn’t seem to resent it and didn’t talk down to us. I’ve met a number of mages (some even powerful) who would look down their nose (or worse) at novices.
	We went to a shadow where a lot of that type of mage resided. On the way to wherever we were going, a fat guy being pulled along in a cart by naked teenage girls passed us. Merlin wanted to do something about it then and there (He’s got abit of a white knight complex), but Fiona said wait till we are done, then, if there is time, you can. So we continued on.
	We went to a house and Fiona told the guy that lived there that she was going to her rooms and shouldn’t be disturbed. The guy was pretty scared of her. When we got there she posted some guards and had Selene use some sort of rod to watch the house owner magically. Then she and Merlin matched hands and sat there for an hour or so. There was noise in the distance. Then it was my turn. She showed me what magical wards look like to a magician, and how to find their weak spots and take them down. She had both amazing power and finesse. I was smashing magic windows with a brick. It was magical vandalism and I enjoyed every minute. When we came back out of the trance, there was combat going on. Seems that having someone break their carefully constructed wards irked these guys! 

Fiona was about ready to take us all back when Merlin reminded her of her earlier promise. She said ‘very well’ and took us back to the garden we had trumped in to, leaving us her guards, but taking Selene with her. We snuck down the street to the house of the guy who had past us earlier. Merlin turned off all the currently running spells and we went in. Our guards took his guards easily. I stood around and threw anything sized for throwing, or valuable looking. There were a couple ghosts that came out, but they could be turned aside by bad thoughts. The house had a central tower, whose central stair the fat guy came floating down. I have no tolerance for pomposity and spoke the word I know that distracts mages. Unfortunately, Merlin was casting too and I distracted him too. Oops, not used to working with a mage. I’ll have to make it up to him sometime. Anyway, the mage lost his concentration and fell the last 15-20 feet. Not a good thing for an obese person to do. I think he broke something (other than the railing). It didn’t mater much as Merlin just went over and killed him. Some of the servants were grabbing stuff and running, but many were not. Merlin was trying to get them all together to take them out of this shadow, and I’m trying to shoo them away. Taking someone to Amber is frequently not the best thing to do for them. I’ve found it stressful, and I’ve had the advantage of support. Anyway, we open a trump door to Amber and send the remaining slaves through. We have a total of 48 naked teenage girls (with about 2X normal human strength) and 14 misc. other servants. All in the trump-in room in castle Amber, in the middle of the night. Because it’s not chaotic enough, Random comes by to see what is going on. I tell him Merlin and I will take care of it and he should go back to bed. We will tell him everything in the morning. (Only had a brother for 36 hours and already we get in trouble! I think I’m going to like this a lot.) He lets us know that these 62 people are our responsibility and leaves. (Note to self: Don’t wake up Random – it makes him grumpy.) I figure first thing we need to do is to get them out of the trump room and public eye, so I ask about barracks or some such. Seems there are no empty barracks available. Guess they don’t get much in the way of visiting royalty with their retinues. Merlin trumps Martin. Martin is at an estate, once owned by Benedict. He says he has room to store them till we figure out what to do with them. Guess the white knight isn’t big on forethought. Martin has his people give the girls all something to wear and beds them down. Merlin and I also grab some rooms for some shut-eye. With all the magic I’ve done today I’m mentally foggy, and I’ll need to be focused to figure out what to do with the girls.