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“Then where have they been all this time? They should have stepped in long before now instead of leaving it up to us.”

“It’s not quite the same as the mundane justice system. It’s hard to explain—it’s more like the United Nations and their enforcement of international law.”

“So they pass resolutions, but don’t do anything serious until it’s a crisis that leads to an international outcry?”

He gave a wry smile. “That’s pretty much it. MSI has always been the de facto ruling body of magic, in a practical sense, backed by the Council, and that mostly means they leave us alone until things are really bad, and then they get in the way.”

I groaned as we resumed walking down the stairs. “Maybe I should go back to Texas.”

“Only if I can come with you.”

“You wouldn’t be able to use much magic there.”

He held the stairwell door open for me. “Right now, I don’t care. I’d find something else to do. I’ve got money, and I’m good with the stock market.” His voice took on a dreamy quality, as though this was something he was seriously contemplating.

“But could you really leave everyone here to deal with all this? And that’s if you could even get away without it following you. Remember, I tried that, and it didn’t work.”

He sighed. “Of course not. It was just a thought. So I guess I’d better get back to work. We need to develop our own protective charms so it at least looks like we’re addressing the situation.”

“And we’ll need something to demonstrate or announce at the conference.”

He came to a dead stop in the middle of the hallway. “What?”

“The centerpiece of an event like that is usually a big announcement of something the company is launching, so there’s at least one thing everyone will be talking about. Do you have anything up your sleeve?”

His forehead creased as he thought. “Well, there’s a stain remover spell. I guess you could have some fun demonstrating that.”

“Only if you want to look like a magical laundry commercial. That’s it?”

“Some recipes using conjured ingredients, a few upgrades of earlier spells, adjusted to use less power or to last longer.”

“How about your dragon-taming spell?”

“Most people don’t have much use for that.”

“There are dragons living under the city, so you never know when it might be necessary,” I reminded him. “You could announce the threat—you know those legends about alligators in the sewer system? They’re not alligators! And then you announce the solution to it.”

“Those dragons aren’t really a threat.”

“Yeah, because you tamed them. You’re still checking on them and playing with them, aren’t you?”

He turned red enough that I was sure I could feel the heat radiating from his face. “I feel responsible for them. I’ve been researching dragon refuges to find a good home for them. I’d feel bad about using them for something like this.”

“Well, if you can’t give me something splashy, I might make you give a speech.”

All the color drained from his face. “I’ll see what I can come up with,” he said a moment later, his voice faint. “And that means I really have work to do.”

*

I had plenty of my own work, which would have been easier if I worked in a department that believed in work. Even when there weren’t official departmental parties, everyone went up and down the halls, visiting with each other. I knew you had to be somewhat outgoing to be good at sales, but this was ridiculous. I resorted to having Perdita veil me and tell people I was out when they wandered by to chat.

Life gradually settled down into something that passed for normal, relatively speaking. Though, the way things were going lately, it wasn’t that much weirder inside the walls of the magical corporation than it was outside. City officials were having press conferences and talking about task forces to look into the unusual crime wave. Those of us in on the secret didn’t feel like we had much of an advantage.

I was used to being targeted by the bad guys, but now I was in less danger than the average person because those awful influence spells didn’t work on me. While I had the occasional scary moment, I was never forced to commit a crime. All I had to do was get out of the way the moment I felt magic at work and hope that someone with a Spellworks protection charm was nearby. Even some of the MSI employees had started carrying those charms.

Owen’s workload and obsessive tendencies meant he was working crazy hours, and I didn’t even see him going to and from work anymore. The times I ran into him at work, he looked tired, distracted, and more rumpled than he usually let himself be in a business setting. Given the current crisis, I was afraid I’d sound petty and selfish if I insisted on him paying attention to me. When your boyfriend’s trying to save the world, it’s no time to whine, “But what about us? What about me?” no matter how much you miss him.

A week after I’d come back to work, I got a phone call at the office from him. “So, you’re still alive,” I quipped, trying to keep my voice from sounding too bitterly sarcastic. Supportive, not snarky, I reminded myself.

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