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Merlin and Jake joined us. "Boss?" Jake asked, his voice shaking even worse than it had when he'd done the spell. "You okay?"

"Just give me a minute." Owen's voice was muffled, coming from down around his knees. Jake shot a worried look at Merlin, who took one of Owen's wrists to check his pulse.Advertisement

"Maybe I should go get some tea," I said. "Strong, sweet tea is just the thing in this kind of situation." But before I could start to look for the nearest coffee room, Jake had a steaming mug of tea in his hand. Oh yeah, I kept forgetting about that.

Merlin rubbed Owen's back. "Deep breaths, that's a boy," he soothed. He looked so worried that I had to fight back panic. I wondered if this was a typical reaction to a spell, or if this was just a particularly nasty one. Either way, I was very glad I was immune. Any remaining disappointment in my absolute lack of magic dissipated.

After a few minutes Owen pulled himself into an upright position, with a visible effort. Even though he'd spent a while with his head upside down, his face was still ashen. "Wow," he said. "That was unpleasant. I don't think he's tested that." In spite of his apparent attempt to sound flippant, his voice quavered.

"Something tells me he doesn't really care," I said.

Jake handed Owen the tea, but Owen's hands shook so badly he couldn't get the mug to his mouth. I reached to help him steady the mug. He took a few sips, then took a few more deep breaths. The next time he spoke, he sounded more like himself. "What did you make me do? I feel like I've just run a marathon."

"You don't remember at all?" Jake asked.

Owen shook his head. "Nothing. I remember you starting the spell, and then the next thing I knew, I felt like I was about to faint."

Jake pointed toward the whiteboard. "See that?"

Owen looked at the board, then one corner of his mouth crooked upward. "I wrote that? Well, I know I wouldn't have written that of my own accord." Then he frowned. "That's not even my handwriting." He turned to Jake. "It's yours."

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"You wrote it," I assured him. "I watched you."

"You did write it," Merlin agreed. "Most interesting."

Owen took a long swallow of tea. Some color was coming back into his face. If he blushed now, he'd almost look human. "Interesting, but possibly a flaw in the spell."

He looked up at Jake. "You didn't do that on purpose, did you?"

Jake shook his head. "No. I didn't specify what handwriting I wanted, just what I wanted you to write."

"Then he really didn't test this thoroughly. If you were going to do such a thing, that's not the way you'd want it to work."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It would make this entirely useless for forgery. If you wanted someone to purchase something for you, their signature would be wrong for a check or credit card. You couldn't make someone sign a legal document, because it would be your handwriting if you were the one dictating what to write. If the authorities got a handwriting sample, it would be your handwriting they'd be able to trace, even if you didn't leave your own fingerprints."

All three of us stared at him. Who would have thought sweet little Owen had a mind devious enough to think so fully about the implications of something like this?

"Boss, sometimes you scare me," Jake said after a long moment of silence. I was glad he'd said it before I did.

"Just thinking logically," Owen said with a shrug, but his color returned to normal quite suddenly, which made me think he was probably blushing furiously. "Anyway, that's not the only weakness in the spell. Your victim would certainly know something was wrong, whether or not he remembered what he'd done. It doesn't work as advertised."

"Can you fight it?" Merlin asked.

"That, I don't know. We have to do more tests in a controlled environment. I can't think of anything offhand that I know would work. I didn't try to fight it this time, and I'd prefer to wait a while before going through that again." He shuddered, and Merlin patted him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry about it, son," Merlin said. "This is enough, for now."

"But it's not." The blush had faded, so Owen looked pale once more, and there was a worried crease between his eyes. "Whether or not it works properly, this spell is very, very dangerous. Used by the wrong person who didn't have a tight control on the amount of power he was applying, this could kill its victim. It's not enough for our people to learn a way of fighting back. We have to stop it. He can't put dangerous, untested things like this out on the market." pqdm.com