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Dean didn’t look too happy about his companion, but he went without further protest. When they were gone, Owen ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “How did we miss this? Idris is teaching magic by correspondence course to maybe thousands of unidentified wizards across the country—

people who’ll have no idea of the difference between light and dark magic, who’ll have no restrictions on how they use the magic. If this is any indication, we could have our hands full very, very soon.”Advertisement

“I thought most people with magical powers were identified at birth. You said it runs in families.”

“Yeah, well, look at you and your family, never having the slightest idea what any of you were until you went to a place where magic was strong and there was something for you to see. Who knows how many magical families we’ve lost over the years as everyone spread out to places where there is no real magical culture or where the power sources are weaker.”

“At least it doesn’t look like Idris is specifically targeting me if he’s going national,” I said, trying to inject a dose of hope. “It’s just pure dumb luck that my brother happened to see his ad so that we could figure out what’s going on. I guess the big question is, how do we deal with something like this?”

He heaved a deep sigh. “I have no idea.”

“Maybe we could do our own ads, offer better training and guidance. If we don’t steal his customers, at least we might attract a different class of people so we’d have our own army.”

“That could work, I suppose.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, honestly. I already had enough to deal with. This is too much to think about.”

“No one said you had to do it all yourself,” I reminded him. “Not everything is your responsibility.

There are other people who can handle this now that you’ve uncovered it.”

We sat like that for a while, Daisy watching us steadily. I thought I should pat his back or put an arm around him, or something. A friend would have done that kind of thing, right? But I got the feeling that he wouldn’t find the contact soothing. Being next to him was the best I could do, and I tried to enjoy the rare moment of quiet togetherness while I could, even if he was distracted. Now that our mystery was solved, I had a feeling Owen would be going back to New York soon, before we had a chance to figure out whether me staying here was worthwhile.

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My breath caught in my throat when Owen put his hand on top of mine where it rested between us on the hay bale. Coming from him, it was an unexpected gesture. He wasn’t a very touchy person. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Okay? Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Because your brother turned out to be our magical would-be master criminal.”

Oh yeah, that. I’d been rather sidetracked by thinking about Owen leaving town without me and wondering if clinging to him when he tried to leave would make me look desperate. “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “It’s a lot to take in. I’m still finding it hard to believe. He always was a bit of a con artist, but a criminal? And then magical on top of it? This was supposed to be my normal place, you know? Where I went to get away from magical mayhem.” I shook my head, at a loss to put what I was really feeling into words. He gave my hand a squeeze and I tried not to sigh wistfully. I was in really bad shape if he could nearly make me swoon just by touching my hand.

Dean and Sam returned way too soon for me. Sam flew to a rafter and perched there as Dean dumped a pile of booklets, papers, and a magazine in Owen’s lap. While Owen flipped through the booklets, Web printouts, and brochures, I picked up the magazine and turned past all the pictures of scantily clad young starlets and ads for body spray to the back where the less splashy ads were. Sure enough, there was an ad like the one I’d seen in the regional magazine.

“These materials are actually quite comprehensive,” Owen said. “You should learn some of the basics if you follow them properly. The problem is that there’s no context, no guidance for how to use the power, and certainly no mention that there’s any kind of magical code of conduct. It would be like teaching someone the basic skills of how to do surgery without teaching about when and why surgery might be necessary. You’d have people who knew how to remove or cut apart organs with no idea of the proper reasons or situations for doing so. A bright person with a good moral compass might figure it out, but imagine a real sadist with that kind of training.”

“Yeah, it would be awful if someone found out he had magical powers and then used them to rip off other people,” I said with a dark glare at my brother. “And it seems like not even years of Sunday school prevented that behavior.” pqdm.com