Page 93 of Sigils & Spells

“Whoever owns the building didn’t want to press charges,” I assured him. For which I was eternally grateful.

From his expression, my assurance meant nothing. If I were a teenager he’d happily ground me. Despite the shadow of my interrogation hanging over me, I bit back a grin remembering the times he’d doled out a month-long sentence to me or my sister—which generally meant a weekend at most for me and usually a week for my devil-may-care sister.

“I seriously doubt word is going to leak out, Dad. Do you think they want the community to know they had me open a magically sealed door neither of their Master-level spell breakers could?”

I’d been astonished when Detective Kelley came upstairs and asked for my assistance. I’d jumped at the chance to help (and possibly redeem myself). Unfortunately, my opening the door hadn’t earned me any brownie points.

Dad set his coffee down. All traces of exasperation vanished from his face. “They couldn’t open yourlock-tightspell?”

“It wasn’t just my magic. Someone messed with my base spell. The power was like nothing I’ve experienced before. Breaking it wiped me out. That magic felt … weird. Almost like a second skin over my spell. No. That’s not quite right.” I stared down at my coffee, struggling to explain the odd sensation. “Bonded, maybe?”

Interest sparked in his brown eyes. “So a different magic than what was on yourhide-itcharm?”

“No. I think it was the same caster. I wouldn’t swear to it, but it felt familiar.”

“Really?” Dad leaned forward, forearms braced on the table. Every vestige of fatherly concern evaporated. He’d gone into full-on professor mode. “Do you think they’d let me examine the door?”

“I don’t know. They hustled me out the moment I cracked the spell.”

Detective Harding’s vise-like grip hadn’t left bruises but I could still feel the imprint where his large fingers had clamped onto my arm. He’d handed me off to an officer, barking out an order to escort me to his vehicle. Exhausted from breaking through the altered spell, I didn’t even mind when she put me in the back seat. I watched for an ambulance. If someone had been inside the hidden room, they’d call one. With each passing minute my eyelids grew heavier. I took the absence of an ambulance as a good sign. I hoped they’d find a clue about Jonah’s whereabouts.

Two seconds after closing my eyes, Livie called. The answer to her theoretical magic question occupied me for a solid ten minutes. By that point, it felt good to talk about something unrelated to the apartment building and my actions. Any curiosity I had about the insides of the hidden room was held at bay by her relentless follow-up questions.

When the officer returned, she nimbly avoided my inquiries as she walked me to my car. She sent me off with instructions to go straight home and a reminder that someone would contact me to sign my statement.

Thinking about going into PED to sign it, and run into the Detectives, practically gave me hives. I consoled myself with the hope whatever had been in that room would lead to Jonah’s return.

After a fortifying sip of caffeine, I said, “They might let you study it after they’ve finished processing everything. You probably would have better luck asking Officer Kelley rather than Harding though.”

He waved off my suggestion. “Harding will let me look. We have an excellent rapport. The charm he brought me was quite interesting.”

That perked me up. “What type of magic was on it?”

Dad’s grin was as broad as the horizon. “Amplification.”

Color me intrigued. I’d never heard of that subset.

“Yesterday was one surprise after another,” he continued. “First, I had a meeting with a visiting scholar. A vampire.” He waggled his dark brows at me. “His request to visit our achieves was quite controversial, you know. He’s very reserved. Not much of a talker, which is a disappointment. Then Harding showed up with your charm. I recognized your magic immediately, of course. It had a fascinating overlayer on it.”

His mouth twisted as if he’d bitten into a lemon when he saidfascinating. My concerned-daughter senses prickled. He unconsciously did the same thing when talking to friends about my mother. Danielle Girard was an ambitious woman with flexible morals. She didn’t practice black magic but her flirtation with the shifting shadows of gray magic was the driving force behind their marriage’s demise.

He continued, “I’ve encountered amplification magic before in my studies. Never met anyone with that specialization though. They are as rare as white tigers.”

I was afraid to ask, but I had to know. “Did you detect any gray or black magic in the spell?”

He toyed with his coffee cup before answering. “No. But there was something odd about it. Frustratingly elusive. Like a shadowy imprint.” His lips twisted again. “I had Kayla examine it as well.”

His archivist, a lynx-shifter, had the uncanny ability to detect objects infused with magic and could discern gray magic from black. My father lived in fear another University or some museum would lure her away.

“I’d love to know more about the practitioner’s background,” he said.

So would I.

“I want to learn more about their lineage. I’m not surprised they’ve kept their ability under wraps. Many would love to get their hands on an amplification witch.”

“Do they just magnify magic?”

“Oh no. Genghis Khan enslaved a witch who could increase his troops' stamina. In the fourteenth century, there was a Parisian family of perfumers who amplified the scent of aromatic oils. In the seventeenth century, the Smith twins amplified storms, and perished in a hurricane of their making.”

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