Page 5 of Sigils & Spells

“What other kind of containers are there?” Cambridge asks.

“Liquid is pretty good. It moves around a lot, and the molecules are better suited to holding magic.”

“Like a magic potion?”

“Something like that. I suppose that’s why the termmagic potionexists in the first place. If you get the right ingredients mixed with the right magic spell, you end up with a comparatively stable solution that holds the magic almost indefinitely.”

“Perfect. That’s exactly what I need.”

* * *

Of course,I take the job in the end. After all, Ivan Cambridge is right—there’s no way I’ll ever make as much money working in a coffee shop as I can working in his lab. Because that’s what the job turns out to be. Ivan has a formula that he’s been trying to perfect—a way for humans who want to become shifters to be able to do so without having to be attacked.

But so far, his scientists haven’t been able to stabilize it. Almost everyone who’s taken the formula has ended up going mad and eventually dying.

“I suspect the missing key to the formula might actually be magic,” Ivan tells me. “I think we’ve done everything we can through science, so I’m hoping you can use your magic to help us modify the formula to make it a viable means of transformation.”

My first day on the job is...well,interestingis the only word I can think of to describe it.

Ivan tells me that the work he’s doing is top-secret—apparently, there are other shifter groups throughout the country attempting to create similar formulas and they’re all in competition with each other.

I don’t know much about shifters, so I take him at his word.

That, it turns out, is simply my first mistake.

He meets me at the warehouse where he and his scientists are working on the formula.

This warehouse is only one of several properties he owns—I’ve seen them scattered around the city, huge buildings with his name on them, and I suspect he owns even more.

He shows me to the lab, and the first thing that catches my eye is a huge cage with silver bars built into the far corner of the room.

Ivan catches my glance. “Some of our volunteers have needed to be restrained,” he tells me. “Shifter strength means that we need to hold them in cages with silver in the bars. Even silver-infused wrist and ankle restraints don’t work. They break through them almost instantly.”

I nod my understanding but am nonetheless horrified by the need for a cage.

He introduces me to his lead scientist, Dr. Doug Fitton, who talks me through what he’s done so far.

Most of it is gibberish to me—I’m not a scientist, after all—but when he hands me a vial of the current shifter formulation, it starts to make more sense.

“Give me a minute,” I say.

Fitton nods.

I close my eyes for a moment and center myself, gathering my magic and funneling it through my fingertips in a simple reading spell.

In my mind’s eye, I can see the molecules of the formula, the atoms, all the individual components. For the most part, they’re stable. But there’s a flaw—a darkness that swirls within each molecule of the formula, tainting it.

I send a tiny frisson of magic shivering into the vial, focusing it on just one single molecule.

My magic swirls around the darkness in a shimmer of pink sparkles, finding problematic elements, encasing the darkness and rendering it inert.

I open my eyes and blink, unsure of how much time has passed.

I realize that Ivan Cambridge has returned while I worked, and is standing next to me, his expression expectant.

“What did you figure out? What did you come up with?”

I nod slowly. “Yeah, I think it can be done. There is a flaw in the formula, but with the application of the right spell, I think I can counteract it. We’ll have to see if I can create a component that can do on a large scale what I just did with one molecule.”

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