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“It’s probably just bad technique that you were taught,” Granny said. “Try it my way.”
Using Granny’s techniques did have slightly better results than my office training session that afternoon, but the simplest spells still left me feeling like I’d singlehandedly fought a great magical battle. In spite of their assurances, I knew something was wrong.
“You tell Rod that you’re doing things Granny’s way from now on,” she told me when I called a halt to the exercises and got ready to go home. “How you city wizards get anything done at all is beyond me.”
“We do get lazy and complacent with all the magical energy in the environment around here,” Owen said, which I thought disappointed her. She’d been gearing up for a big argument. I suppressed a smile. Owen might have found the best way of encouraging her to return home in not rising to her challenges.
*
The next morning, I was still haunted by the thought that the elves might have done something to me. My ability to use magic had totally changed after that attack, and I doubted it was a coincidence. I thought I might ask Perdita some general, innocuous questions about elven magic when I got to work, but she wasn’t yet at her desk when I arrived. I took that as a good sign because it meant she was getting back to normal. Showing me that anti-wizard flyer had probably cleared her conscience.
When she still hadn’t shown up by noon and hadn’t called in sick, I started to worry. There were times when I wouldn’t have been surprised if she forgot what day it was and thought it was the weekend, but with a spate of elf disappearances and resignations, I wasn’t ready to dismiss it so easily. I called her cell phone, but the call went straight to voice mail, so I left a message for her to check in with me.
I hadn’t heard anything by the time of my afternoon training session, so when I arrived at the classroom, I asked Rod, “Did Perdita resign? You would tell me, right?”
“She didn’t show up today?”
“Nope, and no call from her, either, which is odd. She’s good about letting me know if she’s going to be out or unusually late. I left her a message, but she hasn’t called back.”
“I didn’t get any paperwork on her. I can’t start investigating job abandonment until she misses two more business days without notice.”
Had she put herself at risk by showing me that flyer? And how would anyone know she’d done that? I hadn’t told where I got it, and no one had been around when she showed it to me.
Owen showed up a moment later carrying a box full of gadgets. “Sorry I’m late. I was pulling some things together.”
“Is that the testing stuff?” I asked.
“Testing?” Rod asked.
“To make sure the elves didn’t somehow put the whammy on me,” I explained.
“But if the elves don’t know you have powers, how would they know to put the whammy on you?”
“How else would you explain the fact that I went from being a natural to being remedial?”
“You really think it’s elves?” Rod asked Owen.
“I don’t know about that, but I think measuring the flow of magic would be a good idea. The change has been pretty drastic, and I’d like to know why.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m fully charged,” Rod said. “You don’t think the building has dead spots, do you?”
“That’s a good theory,” Owen said vaguely, which unsettled me. I got the feeling he’d been humoring me about the elves affecting me, but it really did seem like he thought something was wrong. He took a couple of things that looked like small antique brooches out of his box and pinned them to my sweater. He stuck another small metal thing to the middle of my forehead, and I crossed my eyes trying to look up at it. Then he took a crystal object in a metal frame out of his box and set it up on the table, waving his hand at it a few times as colored bars of light went up and down.
“What does that do?” I asked.
“It measures the flow of magic in and out of you.” He stuck similar metal things on himself. “Since we got our powers in the same incident, I think it’s best to test both of us,” he explained as he waved his hand and more colored lights appeared. “And Rod, you’ll be our control, since nothing’s happened to your powers lately.” He rigged up Rod, then said, “Now, all three of us will do the same spells.”
Rod ran us through some basics that had become anything but basic for me. Using Granny’s version of the spells did help a little. Rod couldn’t even argue about me using unorthodox methods, since the results were so obviously better. That didn’t mean my results were good. I just didn’t fail entirely. I was still tiring easily from magic that shouldn’t have required a second thought. A glance at Owen didn’t reassure me. He was frowning at his device, not in concentration but in concern.
I caught my breath while Rod wrote the next assignment on the whiteboard, but before I could psych myself up enough to do it, Owen cried out, “Stop! Don’t do any more magic.”
“I knew it! I am going to turn into a frog,” I said.
“No, you’re not,” Owen said absently as he focused on his device. “But if I’m right, you’re running out of magic.”
“Running out of magic?” Rod asked. “How? There’s magic all around. We have enhanced circuits in this building.”
“But she’s not drawing on them.”
