It was exhilerating. Every afternoon I walk in the front door. My badge lets me through security and I walk down the hall to the second elevator where I press the button for the ninth floor three times. Then I slide my badge into the opening next to the panel and the elevator goes down to the hidden floor. The part of me that has always wanted to be a spy thinks it is all great fun.

There are several patients on the first floor. All of them are people like jessica. Witches that talesin somehow identified and caught to try and study. I at first a wondered that they don’t have more patients escape. Security is tight but these patients can work magic.

I stopped wondering the first time I tried to peform any magicinside.there is a section of the floor I don’t have access to. Only a pair of people ever went through the door at the end of the main hallway. Neither of them was an orderly. Whatever was behind that door was not more ‘patients.’ I watched the tall man head down the hallway towards the door and sent small burst of energy at him. It was my intent to tag him with enough resonance to get some impressions of where he went beyond that door, and what the place looked like.

I say intent because I never got the small spell off. Before I had done more than focused my will I fell over. It felt like I was inside a great dull bell that has just been struck by a mallet. Every time I tried any magic I got the same results with more or less severity. I couldn’t figure out what it was until I saw one of the patients lighting a candle through the small window of an exam room. She did nothing but light it and sbuff it with her thoughts, over and over again as they observed her with all manner of apparatus.

That night I went into one of the small rooms and conjured a flame of fire in my palm. Somehow they had protected the majority of the building from magic, except for these rooms. It took me another month to figure out what they’d done.

One of the witches was more than a little bit ill. One afternoon she was screaming at the peson on duty before me. “Get me to a place that’s not iron bound! I can heal myself please! It’s getting worse by the day.” The other orderly shook his head and walked away.

We were not supposed to talk to any of the patients, just make sure everything was neat and orderly. I entered the womans room and she looked up at me. “Help me!” She was hysterical.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

I’m in pain. I’ve got cancer, something. I need to get some place where I can work big magic. I won’t run I promise.”

Whether she actually had cancer or was only trying to get sympathy I don’t know. “Sorry,” I told her, “there’s nothing I can do for you.” I didn’t believe her. Healing even the most minor injuriees and illnesses had proven beyond me time and time again. I’d begun to believe that it wasn’t really possible to heal magically. I made a note to try and talk to her about it after I busted her out. She was one of three I thought would be worth taking when I eventually left.

I was a few weeks away from giving up on fining a way into the back area when I ran into one of the men I’d seen entering the room walking down the street. I followed him home and stole his Id card the next week. Thirty minutes later I had an exact copy of it and returned the card silently while he slept.

A few nights later I pulled the card out of my pocket and opened the last door. The next room was lit by a small light in the ceiling. Just walking into it made my skin crawl. A closer look at the wall revealed what appeared to be chunks of metal, presumably iron, covered the walls and ceiling. If the presence of iron in the walls kept the patients from doing magic, this much iron must be even worse, so bad that even I could feel it pressing on me. I hurried across the room to an unlocked door and stepped through.

The feeling of pressue immediatelt lessened, but I could feel the room behind me in part of my mind. I found that when I thought about it I could sense the iron deposits stretching inside the walls to either side of me for several yards, then the perception seemed to fade away.