modern magic, episode 5: trust

Modern MagicModern Magic

Episode 5: TrustEpisode 5: Trust

by Anne Cordwainer

[email protected]

http://www.annecordwainer.com

My Facebook Page

The entire series, in print

Copyright © 2008 by Anne Cordwainer

Permission is hereby granted to redistribute this file, as long as the entire file (including copyright

notice and contact information) is preserved.

If this is your first encounter with the series, I suggest starting with “Modern Magic, Episode 1:

Graduation Day.” You can probably find it wherever you found this one, or on my web site.

“Trust” is the last episode which is freely available. It wraps up some early threads, so the free first

five should give you a reasonably satisfying reading experience, but you’ll have to buy the book if you

want to find out what happens next.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy.

Modern Magic: Trust p1

Fall, 2004

Liz

Working in a New York City hospital showed me a lot of unusual people, but most of

them weren’t magical. Well, at least I assumed they weren’t. I couldn’t really know, being

unmagical myself, but it had been a long time since I’d seen anything I recognized as magic.

Something about the girl leaving the lobby caught my notice, though. It wasn’t the way

she was dressed—a blouse and floor-length skirt were unusual, but not really freakish—and it

wasn’t her odd unidentifiable accent either, although I had a good ear and could place most

accents. It was something she muttered, as she walked past me with a sad expression. I didn’t

understand it at first, but it stirred an old memory.

I’d been born into a sorcerer family and gone to magical elementary school. We’d had a

dash of many different ancient languages. That phrase was . . . yes, it was Sumerian. A

Sumerian expression, something about a pot smashed beyond repair. It matched her demeanor of

hopelessness.

She was too young to be a mundane student of ancient languages. She looked like she

should still be in high school. Was she a sorcerer? Even if she was, or if she’d made a private

study of the dead language for some reason, who actually spoke Sumerian?

I looked after her. She’d sat down on a bench outside the front doors, and was holding

her head in her hands. An oddly dressed young girl with a slight accent, who spoke fluent

modern English but also spoke Sumerian—what did that mean?

Isolationists. I’d heard of them, but never seen one. They were sorcerers who lived apart

in hidden communities, clinging to old ways, refusing to interact with us mundanes. I’d heard of

such communities in the older countries. I’d never heard of one in America, but if there was one,

then New York City was probably the place it would be. They had some of everything else here;

why not isolationists?

But if she was an isolationist, what was she doing wandering around the mundane world?

My guess could be wrong, of course, but I was intuitively certain. There just weren’t that many

explanations for someone walking around muttering in Sumerian.

What had her looking so sad? What did she need out here? Could I help? I couldn’t just

walk up and tell her that I’d guessed she was an isolationist sorcerer; she’d probably panic and

wipe my memory of the entire encounter. Since I wasn’t magical myself, what could I do to

show her that I already knew about real magic and wanted to help?

Sumerian. The girl spoke Sumerian, and I’d learned a smidgen in elementary school. I

couldn’t remember how to pronounce it very well, but writing was easier than speaking. I didn’t

happen to have a stylus and clay tablet handy, but I could draw a reasonable approximation on

the back of a business card with a pen. I’d always been good with languages, so I managed to

dredge up the Sumerian for “I know about magic” and drew a facsimile of cuneiform.


I walked outside and said, “Hi, my name’s Liz,” and offered her the card. She took it and

read it, then looked up at me warily.

“I can see something’s wrong,” I said. “Can I help?”

“You . . . you know about real magic? But you’re not magic.”

“No. But my family is.”

“You’re plain? From a magic family? And they kept you?”

I couldn’t feel insulted by a slip of a girl who was obviously distraught, so I just said yes.

She looked at me weakly, and made some internal decision to trust me. “My name’s Lilith. I’m

looking for my nephew.”

“Your nephew? Is he lost out here somewhere? You’re an isolationist, right?”

“Is that what the magic people on the outside call us? Yes, we keep to ourselves. We

don’t associate with plain people. At least, we’re not supposed to. I’ve always wondered what’s

outside, but we’re not supposed to go outside until we’re at least forty years old.”

In other words, old enough to be thoroughly conditioned and leery of learning anything

new. “But you’re outside now. You said you’re looking for your nephew?”

I could see tears in the corners of her eyes. “My sister. . . she was pregnant, carrying a

plain child. Everyone thought it was dead inside her, but then he started kicking. It was too late

for her to have an abortion, so when her time came, they took the baby outside. They just left the

baby somewhere.”

Yee-ouch. “That’s terrible. No wonder you’re upset. What can I do to help?”

“Can you help me find him? I just want to make sure he’s all right. I’ve been wandering

around for two days now, and I don’t know what to do.”

Two days? “The first thing you need is something to eat. Then you can tell me more

about it, and we’ll figure out what you can do.”

I bought her a sandwich at a nearby deli. She told me that she was seventeen years old,

that she’d long had private doubts about isolationist ways, and seeing her sister abandon her own

child was too much for her. But she didn’t have any idea how to function in the outside world.

She’d been wandering the city, without any danger because of her magical abilities, but also

without any idea of what to do.

She’d asked strangers what would happen to abandoned babies, and someone had told her

that the boy would probably end up at a baby drop. She’d set out to learn what that was,

questioned more strangers, and learned that a hospital was the most likely place. Then, of

course, she’d had to learn what a hospital was.


I admired her guts. This was one determined young girl.

She’d found several hospitals and asked after abandoned babies, and they’d kept telling

her to call foster care or protective services. She didn’t know how to do that or even what they’d

meant, and when she’d asked, a receptionist had threatened to call security. She hadn’t known

what that meant either, but it didn’t sound good, so she’d left quickly.

I could believe that. Someone who claimed not to know how to make a telephone call

would be judged either joking or insane.

“I can help you with the phone call, at least,” I told her. “Come back to my apartment

with me, and we’ll call to see what we can find out.” I had a date planned with my boyfriend,

Jason, but I could cancel. This was more important.

I got off of work earlier than Jason did, which was fortunate in two ways. The first was

that I could leave a message on his machine canceling our date because “something came up”

and worry about inventing a real story later, and the second was that I could still reach Child

Protective Services.

Before calling, I suggested to Lilith that she might want to use a slightly different name.

“There’s nothing wrong with Lilith, but it’s unusual. How about Lily? If anyone does know you

as Lilith, you can just say it’s a nickname.”

“Lily.” She smiled. “I like it. It sounds modern.”

“Lily it is, then.” I didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble by telling her it was actually

a rather old-fashioned name. Besides, Elizabeth wasn’t the height of pop nomenclature either.

Armed with a more ordinary name, I called CPS to inquire about abandoned babies. The

woman on the phone was not helpful, which in retrospect I should have predicted. She would

release information about alleged abandoned babies to a concerned aunt, but the amount of proof

required was rather daunting. CPS would not release any information to an unidentifiable young

woman claiming to be an aunt of a baby who might or might not have been dropped at some

hospital, and of course we couldn’t tell the truth.

“We probably should have guessed that,” I told Lily. “Unless you want to hire a

detective, I think it’s time for magic.”

Her little patina of happiness vanished. “If I could find him magically, don’t you think I

would have? I can’t scry all of New York City. I can’t pull out impressions from the entire city

from several days ago.” She started crying. “It’s hopeless. I’ll never find him. I’ll never know

if he’s all right.”

“Don’t give up,” I replied. “Maybe you can’t find him, but I think I know someone who

can. My brother’s an expert scrier.”

“Nobody can scry the whole city!”


“Don’t bet on it. Let me check with him, at least.”

So I called my brother, John, who happened to be finishing up a doctorate in a new

experimental scrying method. “Hey, John. How’s your super-duper scrying screen? Is it

reliable yet?”

A pause. Then he asked, “What are you mixed up in now?”

That wasn’t entirely unreasonable, but I managed to be a little offended anyway. “Why

do you assume I’m mixed up in something?”

“First of all, you’re always mixed up in something. Second, I don’t believe you called

just to ask how my dissertation project is going. What’s up?”

Fair enough, really. I told him the story of the abandoned baby and the young aunt’s

desperate search.

“Urg. Sorcerer mother abandons her mundane child? Yeah, I can see why that would hit

you where you live.”

Was that remark sensitive or insensitive? I wasn’t quite sure. “So, can you find one

particular baby in New York City?” I asked.

“I think so. If I can’t, it’s not working well enough yet. Tell me everything you know.”

“I already did.”

He sighed. “Okay, I’ll come to New York when I can get away. Can’t ask for more than

that. In the meantime, what are you two doing for protection?”

“Protection?”

“You don’t think the isolationists will be looking for her, so she won’t blab?”

No, I hadn’t thought of that. I wondered if Lily had.

My silence must have said it all, because John continued with “Christ, and people say

I’m careless. Now that she’s staying in one place, they’ll be able to find her easily. Mom and

Dad already left for Louisville, right?”

“Yeah. Yesterday.”

“That leaves me, then. Naturally. I’ll be up as soon as I can pack a few things.”

“How long a drive is it?”

“Who’s driving? They have a portal in New York City, remember? I use it whenever I

visit Magdala’s family in Albany.”


Ah, Magdala. The girlfriend he’d gotten an apartment with last year, to the hearty

approval of Dad and ill-concealed dismay of Mom. Not that Mom didn’t like Magdala, but for

some reason Mom thought there was a critical difference between dating a housemate and

officially living with her. Magdala was a sorcerer too, and I envied John that. He didn’t have to

keep his sweetie at arm’s length because of an official big family secret.

“Okay then, I’ll get a map of the subway system and portal up. See you soon. And, Liz?

Can you make a list of all the hospitals in the city, with addresses? That’d speed things up.

Maybe police stations, too. Wherever they drop babies in New York.”

That gave me something to do while we waited, so I fired up my computer in addition to

chatting with Lily. She was a bit awestruck by the idea of someone being able to scry the entire

city, but gave me a case of the willies by confirming that her community would almost certainly

be searching for her.

“I’ve been hiding,” she said, “but I have to sleep. I can’t live on short naps forever.

They can find me then.”

“Well, tonight you’re sleeping here. Maybe you and John can sleep in shifts or

something. Don’t worry. We’ll keep you safe and find the baby.” She was so grateful it was

almost pathetic.

John turned up in less than an hour, which for him was pretty impressive organization.

Our Chinese food hadn’t even arrived yet. I introduced him to Lily, and he greeted her with an

odd expression. Then I heard an illusion of his voice, very quiet, right in my ear. “You could

have told me she was a kid. I would have brought adult backup.”

Although I hadn’t actually used the word “teenager,” I’d said she was young. I was only

twenty-three, so what had he thought I meant? But lacking telepathic or illusion capability, I had

no way to respond.

He started setting up his unique scrying screen. “So, you guys know how when you pull

old impressions out of things it’s really a kind of scrying? With this you can look farther away

—”

“Less explaining; more baby-finding,” I said. “I’d love to know how your thing works,

but is this really the right time? If there are potentially hostile people looking for us?”

“Hey, whatever you say. All I did was drop everything to come charging up here to help

you out, so it’s not like you owe me or anything.”

I handed him my printout of baby drops. “Consider me contrite. Baby? Helpless

newborn, alone in New York City?”

Our food arrived. I answered the door and paid, while John quizzed Lily.


“More information would help,” he said. “Your sister gave birth when?”

“Two or three days ago. I’m not sure any more.”

“And what part of the city did they leave him in?”

Lily shrugged. “The people old enough to go outside know how to get around the city. It

could have been anywhere. Probably not near the group.”

John grunted. “Wonderful. Is there anything else we don’t know? Like what planet

they were on, maybe?”

Sheesh. “Can you do it or not?” I said.

“Of course I can do it. Lily, can you hide us both so I can concentrate on scrying?”

Lily nodded, obviously eager to impress. Meanwhile, the phone rang. It was Jason.

“Hey, hon,” he said. “I just wanted to check in with you. What’s up?”

“Some stuff came up,” I said.

“I figured that from your message. What stuff? I can hear other people there; something

about that?”

“That’s my brother and a friend. It’s kind of complicated. I’ll explain tomorrow, okay?”

I told him I loved him and hung up. God, I hated this. The whole thing was starting over

again, with the mysterious weirdness and the stuff I couldn’t ever explain. I stared at the phone

for a few minutes.

John eventually interrupted my thoughts. “Hey, I found it. They weren’t hiding; that

helped a lot. This has to be it. Sorcerers dumping a mundane baby, then vanishing. I have the

baby’s signature. Now I just have to search the city in the present, to find where that baby is

now.”

“Magic people are coming,” said Lily.

John looked away from his scrying screen to survey the situation. “Four of them,” he

said. “They’re coming closer. Yeah, I think we’ve been spotted.”

“I’m sorry!” said Lily tearfully. “I tried to hide us, but I was just so interested in what

you were doing . . . .”

“It’s all right,” I told her. “We’ll manage.”

John said, “They feel pretty strong. What are they packing?”


“Packing?” Lily looked confused again.

“What tools are they likely to have with them?”

“They’ll probably have their wands. Is that what you mean?”

John stared. “Wands. Right. They’re isolationists. Of course they have wands.”

“They might have brought staves, but nothing showy. They wouldn’t want to be

noticed.”

“Don’t panic. Let me dig into my bag of tricks here. . . .” He pulled out something that

looked like a egg, about six inches high, on a little stand. “I don’t suppose you know how to use

an ovath?” he asked Lily. She shook her head. “Okay, then, I am now in charge of shielding.”

“Who’s in charge of getting us out of this?” I asked.

“They’ll give up and go away eventually,” said John.

“No,” said Lily. “They’ll just call for reinforcements.”

“Then so will we. Liz, do you know where to reach our parents? Or can you call some of

our cousins? Have them on standby, just in case?”

Glad to be of use, I got out my address book to start dialing.

“And there’s Magdala’s family in Albany,” added John. “They’d probably help if we

needed it.”

“Who’s Magdala?” asked Lily.

“My girlfriend,” said John absently, tuning his egg-shaped thing. “She’s on a research

junket in Africa, or I probably would have brought her along.”

With the shield set up, John turned back to the scrying screen. He explained how totally

cool it was that he could use his own invention to do something as intense as scrying, while still

maintaining a shield. I briefly agreed that it was totally cool and started dialing cousins, since

Lily was providing enough wide-eyed admiration for both of us. Apparently the scrying screen

was even niftier than the telephone.

I’d tracked down three cousins, two of whom were available if necessary, when John

announced that he’d found the baby. The little tyke had already been placed with foster parents

who were hoping to adopt him one day. He mentally shared pictures with Lily.

Lily nodded. “Then it’s for the best. A loving couple can take better care of him than I

could. I don’t even know how to take care of myself out here.” John kept scrying, scribbling a

few notes, presumably thinking they might be of interest to Lily some day. “I may as well go

outside now,” she added.


I dropped the phone, and John looked up. “Say what?” I asked.

“I’ll have to go back home eventually,” she said. “They’ll probably mind-wipe me so I

don’t remember being here. I hate it there, but I don’t know how to function out here without

magic.”

“Forget it,” said John. “Nobody’s taking you anywhere you don’t want to go. That’s

called kidnapping.”

“And hey,” I said, “What do you mean about functioning without magic? It’s not like

you have to choose. It’s the isolationists who are unusual. Most sorcerers live in the regular

world. They use either magic or mundane tech, whatever’s appropriate for a situation. And

magic has moved on, for Heaven’s sake. Did you see how easily John did things that sounded

impossible to you, by using modern magic instead of the old stuff?”

“It’s all very impressive,” said Lily, “but I don’t understand any of it. Your telephone is

just as big a mystery to me as his scrying screen. I don’t understand the basics of modern magic

or modern life. I don’t know how to use a telephone or, or, that thing” —she gestured at my

computer— “any more than you know how to talk directly to someone else’s mind. They’ll take

me back eventually, so I might as well give up and go. At least I know the baby’s all right.”

“There’s an important difference,” I said. “I can never talk mind-to-mind, but you can

learn to use a telephone or anything else. It’s not as hard as it might look. I was a year younger

than you when I moved out on my own.”

“But you had someone to teach you the basics.”

“And that’s all you need.” Inspiration struck me. “You know who would be perfect?

Our Grandma Agatha. She loves taking people under her wing. I bet she’d like nothing better

than to have a protegee.”

“If I could learn . . . .” Lily said slowly.

“Liz, that’s brilliant,” said John. “We don’t have to sit here under siege; we just have to

get Lily out of the city. Lily, if you just leave New York, they’ll never find you. And if

mainstream New York is strange to you, Boston won’t be any worse.”

Hope dawned on Lily’s face again. “Boston? Is that where you learn these things?”

Her naiveté was kind of cute, although a little time-consuming. “Boston is a different

city. It’s too far away for them to find you, with their level of magic.”

John said, “We should take the subway to the portal. I don’t want to double-portal three

people three times, after I already double-portaled to get here. If I’m drained, we’re hosed.” He

glanced at Lily. “A portal is like a magic door, that can take you to or from anywhere instantly.

I can protect you long enough to get you there.”


“Are you sure?” I asked. “There are four of them, and you said they were pretty

powerful.”

He contrived to look hurt. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust your intentions and your abilities. I’m not always sure about your judgment.”

He surprised me by laughing. “I guess I deserve that. Yeah, I’ve pulled a few screwups.

But waiting isn’t going to help; that just means there’ll be more than four when we do go. They

can pick up reinforcements faster than we can.”

“Can I come too, or would that be more dangerous? I’d like to say goodbye properly.”

“Yes, you should definitely come. They won’t really care about you, since you don’t

know where the community is hidden, but you’d make a great hostage. Meanwhile, I’m thinking

maybe someone should tell Grandma about this plan, before Lily and I turn up on her doorstep.

You want to call her, Liz? I have a little prep work to do.”

Lily looked like someone had just opened the door to heaven. Even though we weren’t

out of the woods yet, I smiled to see her so happy. I picked up the phone and called Grandma,

and explained the situation briefly. As John and I had guessed, she was eager to help an official

poor young thing. She promised to make up a guest bed and have some cocoa waiting. I told her

thanks, that I loved her, that I’d call her more often from now on, and hung up.

John had tucked his egg thing into one pocket, and had selected something else from his

bag and fiddled with it for a few minutes. It was a small metal ball attached to a metal rod with a

short chain. He put it in his other pocket and said, “Ready to move out, team?”

John seemed as confident as ever, and I didn’t want to scare Lily, but I knew this had to

be dangerous. I wondered how Jason would react if he heard I’d been killed on the street, after

canceling our date for a vague non-reason I’d promised to explain later.

I pushed that aside. We walked out into the deserted street.

They were standing near the subway entrance. Four men, one holding a staff and the rest

holding wands. Four against two, not counting me. I didn’t like those odds. John was gifted,

but he wasn’t omnipotent, and Lily had already dropped the ball once.

John lowered his voice. “Lily, which one’s your father?”

Her tone matched his. “The one with the staff. His name’s Dagan.”

John nodded. “You focus on protecting yourself and Liz. I’ll handle whatever else

comes up.”

Dagan stepped forward. “Lilith, it’s time to come home.”

“No, Father.” Her voice was shaking, but she didn’t move from my side.


Dagan turned his iron gaze to John. “She’s just a girl. You have no right to take her

from her father.”

“She’s old enough to decide she doesn’t want to live with a man who’d abandon his own

grandson for being unsatisfactory.” John glanced at Lily. “Lily? What do you want to do? It’s

your choice.”

Lily moved closer to John.

Dagan’s face darkened. “You are unarmed, and there are four of us. Return my

daughter, or I’ll blast you and the plain woman and take her back myself.” He aimed his staff

directly at John.

“Don’t you point that thing at me.” John pulled out his ball-and-chain device. There was

a loud crack, accompanied by a flash of blue light, as Dagan’s staff snapped in two.

I heard some muffled gasps and murmurs from the other isolationists. Dagan just looked

shocked. Lily whispered, “He broke a staff!”

“How about it?” said John. “Any of the rest of you throwbacks want a piece of modern

magic?” He still sounded confident, but I could see some beads of sweat on his forehead. Either

that hadn’t been as easy as he’d let on, or he was hiding fear under bravado. Or both.

John didn’t take his eyes off the isolationists as he said, “Ladies, you go on into the

subway station. I’ll meet you after I finish here.”

That made sense to me. I hustled Lily down the stairs in spite of her protests. I was

worried about John, too, but it wouldn’t help him to have us standing around.

John

They weren’t well-equipped, but it was still four against one. My best hope was that the

train would come to carry Liz and Lily away, so I could escape instead of taking them all on.

But I had to do something until then, and I couldn’t let them see any fear.

They wouldn’t know what the shont was, so I brandished it as if it were Excalibur. If

there were ever a time for a cocky attitude, this had to be it. “Who’s next?”

Three of them made a shield for the group, while the fourth prepared an attack. I knew

that one. It was ancient and simple, but it didn’t need complexity. A minor bit of pathomancy,

leveraging human frailty, to rip my heart from its arteries.

I panicked. I didn’t do the math; I threw fire at him with everything I had, then watched

in horror as their shield disintegrated like tissue paper and he burst into a pillar of flame eight

feet high. Dagan and the other two ran, leaving me looking at a charred skeleton.


I stared in shock, my breath coming in quick shudders. Had I done that? Did I turn a

human being into blackened bones?

I had to keep it together. What should I do with the skeleton? Hide it, place a keepaway

and let the isolationists retrieve it, leave it for someone to declare an urban mystery? I forced

myself to take a few deep breaths, and decided to powder the bones with my telever. The wind

scattered the ash that had once been a man.

I couldn’t take a breather. I still had to deliver Lily to the portal. Had she felt that?

Probably not, not with the shields. I couldn’t let her learn that I’d killed someone she knew, or

Liz would be tainted by association and she’d have no one left to trust.

After a few more deep breaths, I forced myself into an appearance of calm and headed for

the subway. They were waiting for me, alone on the platform. As I went downstairs, I heard

Liz. “There is one major drawback to living in the modern world—the secrecy.”

Yeah, secrecy. I had to act normal.

“It’s vital,” Liz continued. “But it’s really hard sometimes. You can’t open up to people

until you’ve gotten close to them, but you can’t get really close to them until you’ve opened up.

You know there must be people you can trust, but you don’t know whether or not you can trust

them until you’ve already trusted them. I mean, look at me and my boyfriend. I’ve been dating

him for almost a year, and tomorrow I’ll have to think of some goofy excuse to explain how I

spent tonight.”

As I joined them, Lily cocked her head. “I trusted a strange woman who wrote four

symbols on a card. Why can’t you trust a man you’ve known for almost a year?”

Excellent. They’d found another topic. Maybe they wouldn’t notice anything odd about

me.

Liz smiled at me in relief, then promptly switched to a concerned look. “You all right?”

she asked.

“Sure. I have a headache, but it’ll wear off. They gave up and went home.”

She looked suspicious, but glanced at Lily and didn’t press me. “Here comes the train.”

There were a few other people on board, so we couldn’t talk about magic. Liz told Lily

about Boston, while I sat quietly. At the other end of the journey, I led them numbly to the

portal station.

Would Liz expect a boost? No, she was insanely independent, and she’d pushed through

keepaway spells before. She lagged only a little. No magic needed.

But using the portal would require magic. We’d borrow most of the power we needed

from its battery, but we still needed some personal power to activate it and choose our


destination. I’d do it for both of us, since I didn’t want to teach Lily right now. I just wanted

this over. “Lily, take my hand, and we’ll go through to Boston.”

She and Liz said happy goodbyes, while I reminded myself that I’d used portals many

times. It barely even counted as magic. It was more like riding a bus than like casting a spell.

Yeah, right. As the shock wore off, the full implications of what I’d done resounded

more loudly. Magic was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was committed. Lily and I stepped

through into Grandma Agatha’s back yard.

Grandma wanted me to visit, but I told her I had to get back quickly. After a nerve-

wracking half-hour of trying to act normal, I insisted that I had to leave. I almost lost it when

Lily thanked me, but kept it together and stepped back through the portal extension to New York.

Just one more trip, home to Richmond, and then I could collapse in bed.

Liz was still in the portal station, waiting for me. Why hadn’t she gone home? “What’s

up? I thought I’d head straight back to Richmond. It’s awfully late.”

“I wanted to thank you.”

“No problem.” Except for the dead man. “Want me to see you home?”

“Uh, actually . . . any chance you could sleep over tonight? I was hoping you could do

me another favor in the morning.”

Act normal. She’d expect a snarky response. “Now what? Rescuing all the sick puppies

of the world?”

“I was thinking of having a talk with Jason. My boyfriend.”

“And this affects me how?”

“I might need you to do a few demos. So he doesn’t think I’m nuts.”

“Oh. Oh, that talk.” She couldn’t wait out the traditional year. She couldn’t even wait a

few more days. I had to do magic on cue, right now.

“Yeah.” She smiled shyly, nervously. “I think it might be time.”

A vision of my empty apartment struck me. With Magdala overseas, it would seem

haunted. Sleeping over with Liz suddenly sounded better. “Sure, I’ll stay. Friday’s already

gone; what’s Saturday morning? But just out of curiosity, are you ever going to get a decent

couch?”

“No. I enjoy all your complaining about this one.” She smiled again. “But for being

such a good sport, you can have the bed just this once. Thanks again.”


It wouldn’t have mattered. I couldn’t possibly have slept anyway, so I took the lumpy

old futon she’d been lugging around ever since her college days. Nightmares punctuated the

insomnia, but it was better than being alone.

Magic was the last thing I wanted to do, but I’d agreed, so I had to do it. I needed

something that would impress a mundane quickly, but had zero possibility of harm. Illusions.

Kiddie parlor tricks. A purely visual illusion couldn’t possibly hurt anyone. I wouldn’t even do

anything that might look frightening, just in case he panicked.

I’d have to keep it together a little longer.

Liz

It seemed like I lay awake for hours, yet morning came with unbelievable speed. As soon

as the hour was decent, I called Jason to make sure he was home. Then John and I went over.

When Jason answered the door, I introduced the two guys and said, “You two can get acquainted

later. Right now I need to tell you something. It’s kind of important, and kind of strange.”

He listened attentively, and I launched into the unknown. It was scary, but in a good

way. I had no idea how he’d react, but it was exhilarating to take the plunge. “Magic is real.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “You believe in magic.”

“No, I mean really real. I can’t do it, but the rest of my family can. That’s why I brought

John to meet you.”

Jason glanced over at John, who shrugged and held out his hands. A few translucent

rabbits appeared on the carpet.

Jason watched with more interest than shock. “That’s neat. You’re a magician?”

“We say ‘sorcerer,’” I told him. “‘Magician’ usually means fake stage magic.”

“Exactly. Very cute, Liz, but I’m not quite that gullible. How’s it done?”

I glanced at John. “I think we need a more impressive demo than an obvious illusion.”

John closed his eyes for a moment, looking pained. Why couldn’t he act like a civil

human being once in a while? Finally he said, “Lost anything lately?”

“Yes, actually,” said Jason. “I left a library book in a restaurant. Are you going to pull it

out of your sleeve?”

“How about something that’s probably still in your apartment?”


I wondered about that for a moment. Couldn’t John find the book, with his new scrying

screen? Then I realized he was probably thinking about speed of retrieval.

Jason thought. “I don’t know what I did with my favorite T-shirt. Red, with a

Wodehouse quotation on the front. It’s around here somewhere.”

John looked around, eyes unfocused. “It fell behind your dresser. Towards the middle.”

Now looking a little weirded out, Jason went into his bedroom. He emerged a moment

later, holding the shirt. “All right, that’s a little strange. Liz, did you notice that the last time

you were over?”

“Of course not,” I said. “How would I know what question you were going to ask?”

John did a few more demos, looking more and more upset. He was doing me a favor, so I

had no right to complain, but I started to wish I’d waited until Mom could come. This was too

important to interrupt, though. “My family can do magic” was big enough news. “My brother

has the manners of an ill-bred chimpanzee” could wait until later.

Jason acknowledged that at the very least he was seeing something he’d never seen

before. Then, while Jason sat silently absorbing, I told him an abbreviated version of everything

—my father’s magical tool shop and my mother’s perfectly ordinary career as a librarian, my

early childhood in magical elementary school, switching to mundane school, choosing a mostly-

mundane adult life, keeping my family’s secret, and finally knowing that I should share it with

him.

John left, mumbling about some vague but vital thing he had to do. By that point, his

departure was a relief. He’d done the demos I needed, and I owed him for that, but enough was

enough. Jason and I needed to talk privately, anyway. “So, what do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fair enough. But you believe me now, right?”

“Yes,” he said heavily. “You couldn’t have faked all that. At least, I don’t see how. But

if you did, tell me now. Joke’s over, all right?”

“No joke. Magic is real.”

Jason sat silently, thinking. He would need time, I knew. His paradigm of the world had

just been turned upside-down. He wasn’t denying reality or freaking out or running away,

though. I’d give him all the time he needed, and trust him to accept it when he was ready.

That was the thing about trust. You couldn’t know before you trusted. That was why it

was called trust.


John

Feeling sick, I excused myself and said goodbye. Liz barely even noticed. I barely

noticed myself; I was just glad it was over. She was done with secrets, but I’d picked up a

doozy. She must have been too excited to notice that I was acting weird, and thought I was just

being moody again. Who knew that a reputation for insufferability could be handy?

And none of that mattered at all. Not in the face of what I’d done last night. Now what?

Since the law didn’t handle magic, I couldn’t turn myself in to the police. I had to tell

Dad. Only the head of my family could decide if my actions had been justified. But he and

Mom were in Louisville, with a friend. He hadn’t said what they were doing, but I’d gathered it

was more than a social visit. If he’d been called, I couldn’t bother him now. I’d have to wait.

What would I do until then?

I envied the isolationists. They might be a bunch of backwards bigots who kept their

children captive in the past, but at least they were organized. I didn't doubt for a moment that

they had some internal justice system. None of them would ever be in this position, guilty of

wrongdoing but having no one to whom they could confess.

I wandered the streets, unseeing. Home didn’t hold much appeal. Why did this have to

be the semester Magdala spent in Zimbabwe? If she’d been home in Richmond, she probably

would have come with me to New York and maybe this wouldn’t have happened. With another

adult sorcerer on my side, I could have been more restrained. I could have planned better.

I was guilty of murder. Maybe the law would call it accidental manslaughter or

something, but it felt like murder to me.

I wanted Magdala, badly. I hadn’t brought my comm crystal to New York, since I’d

thought I’d just be using my sister’s phone, but I didn’t know how to reach Magdala by phone in

Africa. I didn’t know the number to reach her normally, or the exact location to reach the phone

magically.

There was another way, though. The portal. I could go to Harare, and talk with her in

person. Magdala was the other half of me. If anyone could make me feel whole again, it would

be her.

The portal attendant checked my pass. “You’ve racked up quite a power debt recently.

Now you want to go to Zimbabwe?”

“You want me to pay some power back now?”

“I’m sure you’re good for it. But maybe a little, as a show of faith?”

I walked over to the battery chamber and poured everything I had into it. I sent every

ounce of power I could dredge up out of myself and into the battery. When my vision started


getting blurry, I felt limp with relief. Now I was no danger to anyone. I kept going, vision

blurring, knees shaking . . . .

Then I was sitting in a chair in the portal staff’s office. The same attendant watched me

nervously. “I only meant you should put in a little power. What was that for?”

“Am I good to go to Zimbabwe now?”

“You’re fine in terms of power debt, but are you sure you’re all right?”

“Am I good to go or not?”

A few minutes later I was at the University of Zimbabwe, in Harare. It was early evening

here. I felt Magdala off in the distance somewhere, and I knew she’d feel me too. I met her

halfway.

She greeted me with surprise, but I just held her wordlessly and buried my face in her

auburn hair. What could I say? I couldn’t very well tell her that I’d killed a man yesterday and

then decided to pop over to Africa for a visit. Murder made me think of you, darling.

“I just had to see you,” I blurted. I didn’t even mean to speak.

“I’ve missed you, too.” She smiled up at me. “I wasn’t expecting to see you, though.

What’s up?”

I’d decided early in our relationship that I would never lie to her, but I couldn’t think how

to tell her the truth. Maybe a partial truth would be good enough for now. “The last time we

talked, you said the chief holdup on your project was predicting the weather. I thought maybe I

could help with the scrying, and get you back home faster.”

“Yes, that would be a tremendous help.” She paused, probably knowing there was more

to the story. “Do you want to see my work?”

She led me to her dorm room. She had a single, of course, since it was filled with the

plants she was trying to make self-watering, and her mundane classmates would have asked

questions. The plants would pull tiny bits of moisture from those rare areas where it wasn’t

immediately needed, and thereby survive drought. Finding those bits of water was an important

and tricky step, though, and that was what I’d just volunteered myself to help with.

Scrying was safe. Scrying couldn’t possibly hurt anyone. My new scrying screen used

rolling affective pyromancy for part of its increased power, but it had so many safeties on it that

it couldn’t possibly set anything aflame. Could it? My written dissertation defense said it

couldn’t, but was I right? Should I do it the ordinary way, with Magdala’s conventional scrying

screen?

“I’ll need to borrow your scrying screen, of course.” Did I sound casual?


Either way, she wasn’t buying it. “You didn’t bring yours? You’re so proud of that thing

that you’ve been telling cats and dogs and squirrels about it.” She looked me in the eye. “John,

what’s going on? Why are you really here?”

I had to tell her. What was our relationship really worth, if I couldn’t trust her to know

the worst thing I’d ever done?

I tried to look back at her, but my gaze was shaking a little. “I had to see you. I did

something terrible. I killed a man.”

She nodded levelly. “What happened?”

“He was . . . I just . . . I can’t talk about it. Here, borrow the memory.” I put my hand to

her temple. I gave her the sight and sound, but not the emotion. I didn’t want her to go through

that.

The whole thing replayed, with Magdala watching through my eyes. Dagan threatening

me. Breaking his staff and challenging the rest of them. Sending Liz and Lily down the subway

stairs. The four men regrouping, one of them attacking. Me, not doing the math, throwing fire at

him. Him bursting into flames. Dagan and the other two running, leaving me staring at bones.

Magdala looked at me impassively. I couldn’t look at her any more, so I stood up and

walked to her door. She must hate me now. How could she feel anything but contempt for me?

As my hand touched the knob, she took mine in hers. “Honey, you did the right thing,”

she said.

I didn’t turn around. “I killed him. That’s not right.”

“Dagan said they’d kill you. A group of people attacked you while you were guarding a

young girl’s escape. That wasn’t murder; it was combat. Sometimes people die in combat. It’s

horrible, but that’s how it is.”

I started shuddering. She put her arms around me and pulled my head down to her

shoulder. Suddenly I couldn’t stop talking. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I miscalculated. I only

meant to burn him. I overestimated their shield strength. I forgot how weak wands are. I only

meant to burn him. If I’d burned him, he could have healed. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

“I know. They were attacking you, and you didn’t have time to think everything through

and calculate everything precisely. You had to estimate. You did what you had to do to protect

yourself and the others.”

“I could have done something else. I could have broken his legs. Why did I use fire?”

“Because it’s one of your greatest strengths, and it’s only natural that you’d use it when

you were fighting for your life and the lives of two other people.”


“Liz and Lily weren’t in danger. They wanted Lily back alive, and Liz is furniture to

them.”

“So you protected a young girl from being kidnapped and mind-wiped, and kept a very

important piece of furniture from being broken. That’s what you went there to do in the first

place, isn’t it? I know exactly what happened, because I just saw the whole thing in your mind. I

would have tried to do the same.”

I let her hold me for a few minutes. Then she led me back into her room and we sat down

on her bed. I relaxed in her soothing acceptance. Then I said, “I’ve threatened to set people on

fire before. Never done it.”

She softly asked, “When?”

“The first time was when someone attacked my sister. I threatened to set him on fire to

scare him. I was angry, but I don’t know if I really would have done it or not. I already had him.

But I might have, if he hadn’t caved. I was very young and furious and scared.”

“And the other time?”

“You know about that one. When a renegade kidnapped the woman who was my

girlfriend then. I threatened to set his hair on fire. I didn’t really mean it; I just wanted to scare

him. I ended up just giving him a migraine.”

She nodded. “Those both sound reasonable to me. Two dangerous people, and you

settled the situations with credible threats so that nobody got hurt.”

“I’ll never make that threat again.”

We sat in her dorm room until night fell, talking a little, mostly just cuddling, until we

wanted to sleep. My internal clock said it was mid-afternoon, but after my self-flagellation with

the portal battery earlier, I was tired enough to sleep anyway. I just stayed with Magdala. It was

probably against the university’s rules, but I didn’t care. A twin bed was a tight fit for two

people, but it didn’t bring her any closer than I wanted her. Feeling her body next to mine kept

some of the bad dreams away.

The next morning, after she smuggled me some breakfast from the cafeteria, she had one

more question for me. “You said you took Lily to your grandmother’s house. What happened to

Liz? Did she go home to your parents?”

“No, she’s at her own place. Our parents are in Kentucky. She’s all right. The

isolationists don’t care about her.”

“They might not care about her, but they may care quite a bit about you. Liz could be a

target if they want revenge on you, or if they’re still looking for Lily. They may see her as

worthless, but they know you don’t. Couldn’t she still be in danger?”


Of course she could. That was obvious enough that I knew I couldn’t be thinking clearly.

Should I be wandering around loose? I wondered if I should turn myself in.

“To the police? Don’t be ridiculous,” said Magdala. Had I said that out loud? “If you

turn yourself in for manslaughter because you looked at a guy funny and he burst into flame,

you’re just going to end up in a mundane mental hospital.”

“Maybe a mental hospital is where I belong. Maybe I’m losing it.”

“I think you’re just upset, and understandably. If you want a psych checkup, I’ll support

you all the way, but shouldn’t we make sure your sister’s safe first?”

“Yes. No. Not me. Mom and Dad. I’ll call them and tell them to portal to New York.

God, what am I going to tell them? I killed a man, and now a couple hundred people are

probably stalking Liz?”

“Well . . . that is pretty much the gist of it. I’ll call them if you can’t. I’ll think of some

calmer way to say it. What phone number can we reach them at?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t bring it.”

“I have a comm crystal.”

“They don’t. They never carry one any more, now that everybody has cell phones.”

“Then right now it’s you and me. Let’s portal back to New York and check on your

sister, and we’ll seek more help from there.”

I was glad that Magdala still trusted me to keep it together. The problem was that I didn’t

trust myself any more.

Liz

It was after midnight. Would I ever get to sleep? Jason had been silent on the subject of

magic all morning, parted ways with me at noon, and turned up on my doorstep at 9:00 PM with

a list of questions that seemed endless.

What did magic feel like? I didn’t know, since I didn’t have the sixth sense either. How

can you tell if someone is a sorcerer? We can’t; they can detect each other, but we can’t tell.

Why “sorcerer”? Because all the other common words have other meanings. Why is magic

secret? Torches and pitchforks. Are any psychics or stage magicians for real? Probably not, but

one or two might be clowning around. Why haven’t sorcerers saved the world? Because saving

the world isn’t simple, but many are trying to improve the world. Could sorcerers kill people,

heal people, see the future, see the past, read minds, control minds, talk to the dead, control luck?

Yes, sometimes, no, sort of, yes, yes, no, and it depended. And on and on.


Finally he fell silent. I was just starting to hope for sleep when he asked, “Who’s in

charge?”

“Nobody.”

“I mean, who are the magical authorities?”

“There aren’t any.”

“What happens when someone—um, uses his powers for evil?”

“Everyone else comes down on him like a ton of bricks. I’ve never heard of a renegade

getting away with it for more than a few years, and those are the clever and low-key ones.”

Things had been getting worse lately, but he had to know the basics before current events.

“But . . . okay, I see that they can’t solve all the world’s problems, but it sounds like they

have the power to do pretty much anything they want when they’re dealing with us regular

people. What’s to keep one of them from just killing me? They could do that, right?”

“I suppose. So could a kung fu black belt, but nobody worries about that or thinks we

need some kind of world martial arts police. Really, Jason, it just doesn’t come up often.”

He looked uncertain. “So you don’t even want an enforcement system?”

“Look,” I said, “You just met my brother this morning. Didn’t he seem normal? He

wasn’t wearing robes decorated with stars and moons, or talking like a character from Le Morte

d’Arthur. He was just a guy, right? And he’d never hurt anyone. I did hear him threaten

somebody once, but that was a special case. That was someone who had just attacked me.

Anyone would have done the same, regardless of what abilities that person had.”

He nodded, evidently thinking.

“You want me to get you some books from Mom and Dad’s house? Kids’ books about

the basics? They probably still have some of the things we read when we were little. From

elementary school. Dad’s sentimental that way.”

“You said you went to magic elementary school.” He looked a bit wistful, probably

imagining kids brewing potions and flying broomsticks. “What was that like?”

“Boring. Really. It’s just a private school which doesn’t accept any children from

nonmagical families. Mostly just reading and math and social studies, all that stuff. The only

magic they teach little kids is basic shielding and simple illusions. Oh, and dead languages.

They have this naïve idea that people will use dead languages when they need to write or speak

about magic, even though nobody’s done that in ages. I took extra languages, since I was

excused from the magic classes.”

“You’ve mentioned you can read Latin. I wondered why you picked that.”


“Yeah, I read it. And speak it. I also know some Anglo-Saxon, and some Sumerian.

Now that’s a really dead language. I may be the only mundane person in the world who knows

how to pronounce it.”

“Mundane?”

“Yeah. That’s us. The people who aren’t sorcerers.”

“Did the magical kids make fun of you?”

I grinned. “Not twice. I told you, sorcerers don’t put up with bad behavior from each

other.” That wasn't strictly true. The zero-tolerance policy for unethical behavior started at

birth, but kids were kids, and some had picked on me. That was one reason why I’d demanded a

switch to mundane school after fifth grade, the other being my discovery that mundane schools

usually released the kids at 3:00 instead of 5:00.

This wasn’t about my childhood as such, though. The important thing now was to ease

him into magic gently. “It’s really not as big a deal as it might sound right now. They’re just

people. Sometimes things get a little strange, like last night, but most of the time it’s just

ordinary life.”

He gazed into space. “Ordinary. Magic.”

“Yes. Ordinary, but with magic. Hey, I just trusted you with my biggest secret. You can

trust me when I say it won’t affect us that much or that often. My life is usually just as boring as

yours.”

The phone rang. Normally I would have let the machine get it at such an ungodly hour,

but I answered it to give Jason a chance to think.

The voice was urgent. “Liz? It’s Magdala. Thank God you’re awake. Stay that way, all

right? Is there anywhere in your apartment you don’t want to go? If there is, leave the apartment

and meet us at the subway. Unless you really want to leave. Then stay put.”

Good grief. Again with the magical self-defense for mundanes. Now what? “Magdala?

What’s going on? Where’s John?”

“He’s with me. We’re both coming over. The isolationists may still be after you. John’s

scrying your place now. Then we’re getting on the subway.”

“Right. Tell him my boyfriend’s with me, so he knows having two people here is okay.”

“Does your boyfriend know about magic?”

“Yes. I just told him today.”

“He may get more of a demonstration than he wants. Stay put; call your parents and any

other family members you can think of. We’ll be there in a few minutes.” She hung up.


Jason watched me. I told him, “Hon, there’s kind of a situation. Hostile sorcerers may be

stalking this apartment.”

“This is your idea of boring and ordinary?”

“This is more of the same from yesterday. This doesn’t count.” I hesitated. “I’m not

sure if it would be safer for you to stay or leave.”

He shook his head slowly, but came over and put his arm around me. “I don’t know

anything about any of this, but I do know you. And you should know me better than that. I’m

not going anywhere.”

John

Magdala’s conventional scrying screen wasn’t as efficient as my new one, but I knew the

apartment was clear. I also knew there were six sorcerers and some unknown enchanted object

moving towards it. They were moving slowly, walking, so we’d beat them there by several

minutes at least. Maybe it would be enough time.

We had to work fast when we arrived. The plan was for me to handle defense while

Magdala concentrated on getting rid of them, so I set up a shield with my ovath.

Magdala checked Liz and Jason for magical influence. Jason looked a little freaked. I

heard Liz tell him, “You get used to it.”

“They’re close,” said Magdala.

“I know,” I replied. “About three blocks away.”

“Is it all right to look out the window?” asked Jason.

“Go ahead,” Magdala said. “It won’t make any difference once way or the other.”

“I see them,” he said. “Six people. What’s that big wooden thing they’re lugging with

them?”

The rest of us looked. It had to be the enchanted object I hadn’t been able to identify

earlier, but seeing it didn’t help. It was just a big carved wooden thing.

“I think it’s a fetish,” said Magdala. When we all looked puzzled, she added, “From

history class? You remember the pictures? They were an early method of power storage, like a

primitive battery. That’s a big one. I bet it’s the main power storage unit of their community.”

And they’d hauled it out to come after me and my loved ones. Great. We still had the

better tools, but one man with a gun couldn’t stop an entire army with swords.


Magdala lashed at them with her shont, but nothing happened. “I can’t get through their

shield. I’ll try something else.” She dug through her tool bag, muttering, considering and

discarding various options.

The fetish might have been primitive, but they weren’t weak sorcerers to begin with, and

it gave them some real oomph. I could feel them beating on the shield, one blow after another

hammering on my brain. Maybe I should go outside and surrender, to keep the others safe.

Magdala must have read my face, because she said, “Don’t even think about it. Besides,

they’d still want Lily and still use the rest of us as leverage. It wouldn’t even do any good.” She

tried one of her weather tools, sending a violent wind down the street and knocking some of their

wands from their hands, but the shield stayed intact while they recovered the wands. She hadn’t

gotten the opening she needed.

Magdala asked Liz if she’d reached our parents or anyone else. I didn’t listen to her

response. I was concentrating on our own shield, and it was too late for anyone else to reach us

in time anyway.

“They’re going to beat a hole in the shield soon,” I said. “I’ll try to get it back up before

they can hurt us.”

“We have to destroy the fetish,” said Magdala. “If we get rid of that, people with nothing

but wands and staves can’t hurt us.”

“You got any ideas on that? They have a shield, too.”

“I do, actually. Pyromancy. It’s enchanted, but it’s still made of wood. I’ll take the

shielding; you burn the thing up. You can get fire through their shield.”

Her words shocked me out of my concentration. The isolationists pounced on the

opening; the front window shattered in a shower of glass. The shards cut Magdala and Jason,

and I felt something warm running down my own cheek. I barely noticed. I couldn’t believe

what she’d just said.

Magdala wrenched the ovath from me and put the shield back in place, while I gaped at

her. “Are you serious?”

“What’s the problem with that?” asked Liz.

I ignored her. Later. Maybe. “Magdala, there are six people standing right next to it.”

“I know. Do you have a better idea? If you do, make it fast.”

I didn’t. Part of my mind screamed.

I couldn’t estimate. I had to be precise. “Does anybody have a calculator?”

“A what?” That was Jason. I wished he’d shut up.


I should be able to do the math. Self-control. Just enough power. Make it a little less,

for safety. I could do this.

Nothing happened. I’d allowed way too much safety. It had bounced off their shield.

Magdala was shaking with the effort of maintaining ours. “John, sweetheart, I know how

you feel, but this is not the time for half-measures. Throw everything you have at it.”

“There are six people there.” She didn’t answer, just looked at me imploringly.

I didn’t trust myself any more, but I trusted her. She knew me. She sensed their shield

strength. She knew my power level. If she said it would be all right, it would be.

I closed my eyes and threw every ounce of power I had left at the fetish. I held my

breath. I heard Magdala sigh with relief, and felt her shield go down.

I opened my eyes, and looked and sensed outside. The fetish was a pile of ash. The

sorcerers—all six of them, all alive and well, thank God—were running.

The inner screaming quieted. The tight band inside my chest eased. I took a few deep

breaths, then took Magdala’s hand and smiled at her. Lord, I loved this woman.

We all sat silently for a few minutes. Then I said, “Liz, you might want to think about

moving.”

Liz got up and got her first aid kit. “Mmm. I like New York.”

“At least to a different apartment. Somewhere that has people around all the time, so

you’re not so vulnerable at night.”

“I’ll try, but apartments aren’t easy to find here.” She gave Magdala and Jason antiseptic

wipes and bandages for their cuts. I felt my face, and discovered I wasn’t actually bleeding.

Liz and Jason decided to go to his apartment for the rest of the night. Magdala and I

didn’t want to sleep, though. We’d both been working hard and were tired, but we were also full

of adrenaline, and it was mid-morning to us. Together we went outside into the empty darkness,

strolling back towards the subway entrance.

“I guess I should get back before anyone notices I’m gone,” she said. “I’m supposed to

do some field work in the afternoon.”

I’d realized over the past few hours that I had one more thing to talk about with her. One

more leap of faith. “There is one other thing we could do before you go. If you want.”

“What’s that?”

“Visit a jewelry store.” She remained silent. “So you can pick out something you like.

Or I could surprise you. Except I don’t know your ring size.”


She narrowed her eyes. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m asking. I’m not going to get down on one knee or

something. That stuff’s goofy. So, what do you say?” For the second time in half an hour, I

held my breath.

She laughed. “I say this is the worst proposal I’ve ever heard of. I hope the ring’s better.

But since it’s you, the answer’s yes anyway. I love you. Let’s go to a jewelry store.”

We hugged and kissed, and set out to find a jewelry store that was open during the wee

hours. My heart sang. Everything would be all right as long as Magdala was with me. I needed

her, and where else would I ever find such a great woman who was willing to put up with me?

Besides, if Liz wasn’t willing to leave New York, she could use some in-laws in Albany.

For more free stories, in this series and others, check out my web site:

http://www.annecordwainer.com

For the entire series, visit your local bookstore or Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615255639/

modern magic, episode 5: trust

Documents

entire file

entire encounter

wasnt magical

isolationist sorcerer

ofthem werent magical

young girl

sorcerer family

magical elementary school