Kiss and Spell

“But if the elves don’t know you have powers, how would they know to put the whammy on you?”

“How else would you explain the fact that I went from being a natural to being remedial?”

“You really think it’s elves?” Rod asked Owen.

“I don’t know about that, but I think measuring the flow of magic would be a good idea. The change has been pretty drastic, and I’d like to know why.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m fully charged,” Rod said. “You don’t think the building has dead spots, do you?”

“That’s a good theory,” Owen said vaguely, which unsettled me. I got the feeling he’d been humoring me about the elves affecting me, but it really did seem like he thought something was wrong. He took a couple of things that looked like small antique brooches out of his box and pinned them to my sweater. He stuck another small metal thing to the middle of my forehead, and I crossed my eyes trying to look up at it. Then he took a crystal object in a metal frame out of his box and set it up on the table, waving his hand at it a few times as colored bars of light went up and down.

“What does that do?” I asked.

“It measures the flow of magic in and out of you.” He stuck similar metal things on himself. “Since we got our powers in the same incident, I think it’s best to test both of us,” he explained as he waved his hand and more colored lights appeared. “And Rod, you’ll be our control, since nothing’s happened to your powers lately.” He rigged up Rod, then said, “Now, all three of us will do the same spells.”

Rod ran us through some basics that had become anything but basic for me. Using Granny’s version of the spells did help a little. Rod couldn’t even argue about me using unorthodox methods, since the results were so obviously better. That didn’t mean my results were good. I just didn’t fail entirely. I was still tiring easily from magic that shouldn’t have required a second thought. A glance at Owen didn’t reassure me. He was frowning at his device, not in concentration but in concern.

I caught my breath while Rod wrote the next assignment on the whiteboard, but before I could psych myself up enough to do it, Owen cried out, “Stop! Don’t do any more magic.”

“I knew it! I am going to turn into a frog,” I said.

“No, you’re not,” Owen said absently as he focused on his device. “But if I’m right, you’re running out of magic.”

“Running out of magic?” Rod asked. “How? There’s magic all around. We have enhanced circuits in this building.”

“But she’s not drawing on them.”

“So I am doing something wrong,” I said, heaving a sigh.

“No, I don’t think so. I think you’re doing the best you can do with what you’ve got, but you don’t have much.”

“In other words, I’m a lousy wizard.”

“You’re not a wizard. That’s the problem. I don’t think the exploding magical brooch really gave you magical powers. It just activated the latent magic in you.”

“But I didn’t have magic in me. I’m utterly devoid of magic. That’s what being immune is.”

“Not exactly. Remember how I can channel power from you?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling my face grow warm at the memory. It was really sexy being linked to him that way.

“Well, in you, that magic is inert. I have to activate it to use it. That’s a lot of what being a wizard means—having the ability to draw upon the magic inherent in the environment or in people and turn it into power I can use. Nonmagical people just have that power flow through them, so magic can work on them even if they can’t use it. With magical immunes, it remains inert and unused, so it doesn’t work for anyone unless it’s removed from you. What that explosion must have done was activate the power you had in you at the time. When you’re using magic, it’s flowing out of you, but any new magic flowing in is as inert as it would normally be for you. You’ll only have magical abilities as long as you don’t use up the activated power. When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

“Is it the same for you?” I couldn’t process what this meant for me, but I knew he’d been greatly relieved to get his powers back. Losing them again might be more than he could take.

He shook his head. “No, I’m activating new power, the same as Rod. It really did reboot me by giving me the power I needed to draw upon more power. Granny would say it primed the pump. But since your natural state is immunity and you’ve never had the ability to activate power, all it did was activate whatever was in you at that time, but it’s finite.” His eyes softened, and the look he gave me was full of love and compassion, like he’d just given me a terminal diagnosis. “I’m so sorry, Katie.”