Page 121 of Cold Curses

“He’s used his power to hide his parentage—the fact that he’s both elf and sorcerer. But until last night, I hadn’t seen him actively use magic, much less magic of that magnitude. Could the fact that he had only one sorcerer parent have limited his skills? Or made them—I don’t know—latent?”

“I don’t know,” Lulu said. “Possibly, depending how the elf and sorcerer magic mixed. But I don’t know anyone else with that parentage to ask.”

But we knew someone who knew Black.

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Call Ariel. Ask her if she saw him use magic.”

Connor, who was reviewing the other half of the demon incident reports, looked up. “What would that tell you?”

“I’m trying to find his motivation, because that might help us predict what’s next. Two supernatural parents and limited usable magic were the motivation for, maybe, some rage.”

“And a desire to get magic out of you,” Connor said.

“Wait—what?” Lulu stopped, screen in hand, and looked at me. “What does that mean—that he’s trying to get magic out of you?”

Connor’s wince was nearly instantaneous, but I caught it.

And I lied. “I think it’s related to his magic not working. He thinks he can take magic out of other people.”

“Has he tried it on anyone else?”

“He didn’t try it on me,” I said. “He just keeps saying it.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, but that was it. “Weird,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m also confused.”

Lulu watched me for another second before pulling out her screen, swiping. “Ariel,” she said a moment later, putting the screen down with the speaker engaged. “I’m with Elisa and the wolves. We need to talk to you about Jonathan Black.”

There was a pause. “What about him?” Ariel asked.

“Did he use magic?”

“What?”

“We’re wondering if his magic is fully functional,” Lulu explained. “Did you see him use it?”

“I mean, we didn’t date for very long. But it was very…I guess you’d say human. We had dinner or went to a show or the Art Institute. He liked fancy.”

I nodded. That checked out.

“I could feel that he was supernatural, although he didn’t do magic. He didn’t say it was broken or anything. Really, we didn’t talk about magic much. He didn’t want me to hang out with the coven. I didn’t like that, but looking back…”

Ariel trailed off. Her discomfort was understandable, as her witchy friends thought killing supernaturals was the only way to stave off the upcoming apocalypse. Their leader was apparently correct about the end, if not the means.

“Although there was one weird thing,” Ariel said.

“What weird thing?” Connor asked, stretching his arms over his head and giving us all a beautiful view of his prime biceps. It wasn’t a purposeful tease; he didn’t really need to try to be seductive. It was in every movement of his body.

Ariel paused. “He wanted to know if I could transmit magic from the deceased.”

“Transmit magic?” I asked.

“Instead of communicating messages. He wanted to know if I could bring a dead person’s magic into this world and give it to someone else.”

“Did he say whose magic he wanted you to take?” I asked.

“We didn’t get that far. I told him I couldn’t do it. I don’t thinkanyonecould do it.”