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I wasn’t going to get a better opening than that. If I was going to tell him, it was now or never. “Um, actually, that’s something I kind of need to talk to you about.”
“What, your immunity?” He fed a bite of toast to Loony.
“Yeah. It’s gone.”
His attention snapped back to me. “It’s what? Gone? Really?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Once I started the ball rolling, the story came pouring out of me. “I see illusions now—Rod looks totally different, and when we’re away from work, Ari and Trix look like ordinary humans. The other night I didn’t see you talking to that gargoyle. I didn’t see any of the people who attacked me last weekend, and I only felt like magic was being used near me last night. The shoes did affect me. They did all the things you said they would, and I’m pretty sure I was as much under a spell last night as Rod was.”
Behind his glasses, his eyes were full of concern. I noticed that they were as beautiful a dark blue as they ever were, so if he wore contact lenses most of the time, they weren’t colored. “When did this happen?” he asked.
“I’m not sure exactly when it started, but I first noticed it Thanksgiving weekend. We ran into Rod and I didn’t recognize him. It may have started sooner, though. Now that I think about it, it was like things were fading in and out sometimes. Mom saw a few things I didn’t see. And then it was totally gone, and it hasn’t come back at all.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
I traced a pattern in my uneaten eggs with my fork. “I kept hoping it was just a glitch, that it would come back on its own. And then I got scared that it wouldn’t, and then the company wouldn’t want me anymore. I didn’t want to have to face that until it was a last resort.”
“If you’d told me, I could have helped you, and I would have kept your secret until we had a better sense of what was happening. Why did you tell me now?”
“Because I realized I was only going to get myself into more trouble if I didn’t do something. So can we reverse it, or am I stuck this way?”
“It depends on the cause, but I have an idea. I’ll get someone to look into it Monday morning, but in the meantime, don’t drink the water at your home. Your water supply may have been tainted.”
“That’s how they were drugging me.”
“You knew about that?”
“I did a little research, not that it did me much good. All I know is that there’s a list of chemicals that supposedly dampen immunity. But I didn’t know what they were or how I might have been affected.”
He nodded. “You’re right. The more recent versions of antipsychotic and anti-depressant medications have a dampening effect on magical immunity. That’s why it’s so hard to find immunes these days. Someone says they’re seeing things, they’re given drugs, and then they’re no longer seeing things.”
“So you think someone put Prozac in the water supply, and presto, I’m no longer immune?” He nodded. “Come to think of it, my grouchy downstairs neighbor has been surprisingly nice lately. And Gemma and Marcia have been in a running fight about whose turn it is to buy bottled water, so I’ve been staying out of it by drinking out of the tap.” I felt like someone had given me a jolt of Prozac with the weight that lifted from my shoulders.
“I’ll have the water tested, and in the meantime, don’t even brush your teeth with tap water at home, and then be very careful about who you accept food or drinks from, including at work.” He winced. “That probably means you’d better not eat anything your secret Santa leaves you, not until you know more.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I don’t mean to scare you, but I do want you taking precautions.” He put his fork down and shoved his plate aside. “I have to confess that I haven’t been entirely honest with you, either.”
“Well, aren’t we a secretive bunch,” I said, even as I hoped his secret was that he would have wanted to kiss me even without a spell. “What have you been hiding from me?”
“You know those notes the spy apparently looked at?”
“Yet another counterspell to fight the enemy?”
He grinned and shook his head. “The secret is that there isn’t any big project. It was a trap to see if Idris did have an inside spy. We made it as tempting as possible, too tempting for him to resist. If he had someone on the inside, he’d get them to look into it.”
“So those papers that were in your desk, they were fake?”
“Oh, they were real, but they had nothing to do with anything, just an old spell that’s all but irrelevant today.”
“You really are the master spy, aren’t you?”
I expected him to blush, but he looked somber instead. “I had no idea you’d end up caught in our scheme. I don’t know if they came after you because you were onto something, or because they thought you were a good way of getting to me.”
“It may be even more personal than that,” I said, deciding that now was a good time to go whole hog and let him in on everything I knew or suspected.
“What do you mean?”
