Page 21

“No, you don’t. The last time a dragon was spotted near a city it was a huge catastrophe.

People went missing. Horses were—” I shake my head in dismay.

The London incident from five years ago was violent and awful.

Mage technicians were working on the Underground when they uncovered a blue river dragon and disturbed its hoard; there were many casualties.

“Trust me, you don’t want to meet a dragon.

Wyverns are bad enough, but a dragon? Yeah. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“So does that kind of thing happen often? The wyvern attacks?”

“My uncle Derek is a wrangler out in Minnesota, and he says it used to be really manageable, like every so often they’d be called to relocate them to the nature preserves.

It was just a nuisance, like one might show up in your backyard if you live in the foothills or something, but it’s really bad now.

” I can’t think of a time when sirens and wyvern attacks weren’t a weekly thing.

The last time I saw Derek, he was sporting a new set of scars.

“They can feed off raw mana, among other things, and they breed at a ridiculous rate.”

“Oh.” Brenda’s eyes widen. “I mean, I always thought if magic was real it’d be, like, the coolest thing in the world.

I always dreamed of getting an invitation to a secret magical boarding school or finding a whole new world through a wardrobe.

I guess all the bad things in those worlds would come along with the good. ”

She smiles at me, and I catch her gaze. Her eyes are a soft, luminous brown, and I find myself starting to relax. A lock of hair has fallen into her face, and I want to reach out and brush it out of her eyes.

“I really did want to see you yesterday,” Brenda says, soft and sincere.

“Me too. I’m sorry if I was rude earlier. I thought you stood me up, and I was… I really thought you liked me.”

“I do like you,” Brenda says shyly.

“Good, because I like you, too.” I shoulder her playfully, and she laughs.

“So now we’re here. I guess we get to have that date after all.”

“Do you want more hot chocolate?” I’m nervous again, but it’s a happy, exciting kind now that the rush of danger is gone. At Brenda’s nod, I gesture at Jordan and point to Brenda’s empty cup and mouth Please?

Jordan winks at me in response and I turn back to Brenda.

“I want to know more about your world…” I trail off, trying to find a nice way to ask how does anything even work?

I gesture at the kitchens, where I know at least a dozen spells are always active, keeping the ovens going and managing the temperature of the pantry and everything.

“Without magic, I bet it’s very different. ”

Brenda laughs. “I mean, Target was so similar I didn’t even notice until I was actually reading the fine print on those runebook things.

But yeah, pretty different.” She nods to where Jordan is flicking gestures at the espresso machines and various drink mixtures are stirring themselves.

“So you don’t have electricity to do everything, I guess? But magic is way cooler—”

“Electricity is mostly used to power lights and some basic emergency stuff in case of mana surges,” I say. “It’s not really capable of anything else.”

Brenda’s eyes light up in interest as we chat about the technology in her world, where people have invented devices powered by electricity to do, well, just about anything. I listen intently, even if I don’t understand all of it.

Brenda leans in close. “So, I know you said the mana surge was why I was able to cast Lightning Bolt, but how does it work?”

“What, like magic in general?”

She nods, her chin bobbing frantically in excitement. “Like, I don’t know how to do magic. How was that even possible?”

“Magic is about intention. All spells, everything starts with intention. You have to truly want something, to believe it with the core of your soul for it to happen.”

“Like the universe is listening, and it can’t provide what you want unless you ask for it?”

“Something like that.” I show Brenda my runebook and pull up all the spell matrices I have saved. “Intention, direction, and power,” I recite, like a training mage just learning how to focus for the first time.

“Okay, so if magic is about intention, can you make stuff happen without realizing it?” Brenda asks eagerly.

I grin. Diving into magical theory is one of my favorite things to do, and no one ever cares about this boring stuff.

It’s easy to forget about the nervousness of this being a date, because suddenly it’s easy; Brenda is a talker, and genuinely interested in everything.

She asks me endless questions about magic, how it works, if there are any special magical schools, which leads me into a tirade against Covenstar and school in general.

“That makes it seem so… mundane,” she says, after I talk about the mage programs at the local university and the career tracks. “Most mages bottle spells for other people to use? How come people don’t just learn magic themselves?”

I blink at her. “Learn magic? No one wants to learn magic.” I think how everyone complains about Basic Spelling and how they would never need to know how to set up a spell in day-to-day life. Advanced, from what I’ve seen so far, isn’t much better; it’s just more history.

Brenda gives me the most incredulous look. “Are you serious? I don’t believe this. I mean, all my life I’ve been reading all these fantasy books and, like, everyone I know would jump at the chance to do real magic.”

I shrug. All my research and work I’ve done on my own technically is college level, even if it’s mostly for pranks.

I nearly gave up multiple times, but the possibility of doing more complicated spellwork was what kept me going, and I found that I love learning how to problem-solve and create unique solutions.

There’s a part of me that says, well, you could do that at a university program, but that would be putting myself right under the nose of the Mages’ Council and people obsessed with the prophecy.

Ugh. I don’t want to think about that. I wrap up my thoughts quickly. “I mean, anyone can, theoretically, but it takes so long to learn and magic takes a lot out of you. That’s why it’s easier just to cast a spell that someone’s already prepared and paid the energy cost for.”

“Like, literal energy cost?”

“Yeah, like the teleportation spell I used to get us here. I already paid for the mana cost, so it didn’t tire me out at all.

If I cast the same spell using my own power, I’d have to rest afterward.

The big workings can put people in bed for weeks or even months.

That’s why people hire other people to do it.

” I shrug. “It’s not a bad job, if you want to just perform the same spell over and over for the rest of your life. ”

I glance out the window. “I think magic used to be about creativity and learning to solve problems in a new and different way. I don’t know when that changed.”

“Yeah, the world seems to get more ridiculous every day.” Brenda looks a bit sad, then that sharp focus comes back.

“That’s why I’m going to be a climate scientist, you know.

I want to figure out a way to stop the destruction of our planet.

Your mana surge thing sounds a lot like that—like it’s amplifying the effects of what’s already there, wreaking unpredictable effects on the environment—”

“Okay, but what do you do for fun?”

Brenda blushes again, and I nudge a bit closer, hooking my foot behind hers under the table.

“I don’t really have a lot of time for that, other than my weekly D her smile is so sweet I want to kiss it off her lips. I want to kiss her .

Her eyes widen a little as I move closer, the corner of my lips quirking up in a question, and she doesn’t move away; her lips part, and she doesn’t break my charged gaze.

Two steaming cups are set down in front of us.

“Hot chocolate with Revive and extra cinnamon and nutmeg and extra whip. And a black coffee for Kat,” Jordan says, grinning. “I don’t know how she can work here and only want the plainest drink ever.”

Brenda scoots away from me on the couch, her face almost as red as the mugs on the table. “Oh, um—thanks!”

I narrow my eyes at Jordan and glance meaningfully at Brenda and back to them.

Jordan’s mouth falls open in an embarrassed oh and then they mouth, Sorry! They back away, grinning at me.

Brenda holds the huge cup in awe. Jordan outdid themself; it’s topped with frothy whipped cream and two chocolate-covered strawberries, and it even has two cookie straws sticking out of it.

It’s definitely way more elaborate than the cup I poured out of the carafe when we got here.

Then again, I wanted her to have carbs and sugar fast.

“Wow,” Brenda says. She smiles, bringing the cup to her lips, and her expression is one of pure delight. I have to catch my breath as she looks up at me—she’s beautiful.

Wow is right.

She does this excited little fluttery motion with her hands and hands me a spoon, leaning over to take a sip of the hot chocolate through one of the two straws. “Have some, please! This is massive.”

I take a sip through the other straw, reminding myself to thank Jordan later. I barely taste the sweet chocolate because Brenda’s nose brushes against mine. I catch my breath as her hair falls forward, brushing against my cheek in a soft whisper.

Brenda blushes and leans back. “Oh, that’s so good.”