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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."
"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."
"There should be negative word of mouth from anyone who tried it and didn't get the results they hoped for," I said, even though it didn't sound very encouraging.
"We'll distribute this to our forces and have them be on the lookout," Merlin said.
That caught my attention. Forces? What forces? Every time I thought I knew what was going on, I learned one more detail that threw the balance off again. But before I could question that, Merlin gave me a tight smile. "I mean, our sales forces, as well as our monitoring team. We should have an idea if anyone is using this in great numbers." Somehow, I doubted that was what he meant, but I didn't press the point.
"I should get back to my office," Merlin said. "I'll send down a cordial that should help you recover."
"Thanks," Owen said. He looked and sounded better every minute, but I still thought he should be at home, in bed, bundled up in blankets and with someone bringing him chicken soup. I wasn't volunteering, no matter how tempting a picture it made.
I knew I ought to be getting back to my office, too, but I didn't want to. I wanted to know more about what was going on, and I wanted to make sure Owen would be okay. "What you need right now is some chocolate," I said once Merlin had gone. I dug around in my purse and found a square of Dove dark. "Here you go."
"I don't think this is one of those spells that chocolate is a counter to," he said.
"Chocolate makes everything better. And you could use the sugar."
"Then thank you." He unfolded the foil, then popped the chocolate in his mouth.
"You carry chocolate in your purse?" Jake asked.
"Hey, not everyone can snap their fingers or wave their hand or do whatever it is you people do when you want a snack. I never go out without an emergency supply of chocolate."
"That's a very wise policy," Owen said, giving me a smile that made my knees grow weak, no matter how hard I tried to resist him.
"Are you going to be okay?" I asked him.
