Page 21 of Captivating Magic

“Spencer,” she said condescendingly, making it sound like he should’ve figured it out long before that moment.

“You don’t think that was a bit of crucial information you might’ve told me before now?”

“I didn’t know. But now that I do, it’s obvious. What other spirit was I around recently? The timing was right for it to be him.” She shrugged. “And based on the fucking eye-blinding light he’s trying hard to hide, I’d say he’s one of you.”

“Wait,what?”

“Lo?” Liz appeared anxious as she waited for his conversation to play out with Spirit Ebba. “What’s going on?”

He glared at his sister. “Did you know she was dating a witch?”

“No! How could I?”

“You never met the man?”

“She said they weren’t serious. As far as I knew, they’d only gone out a few times, and she said was planning to end it. There wasn’t time to meet him.”

Somewhat pacified, he nodded. Still, the idea of Ebba dating another witch felt, well, for lack of a better word, icky. “It’s possible this will be trickier than expected if he has magic on his side.”

“I agree. You call Clutch, and I’ll seek out Nash. I remember an item from our inventory that could work to capture?—”

“No more saying anything aloud,” he warned. “I have the feeling he has a way of hearing us.” Addressing Rafe, he said, “I’ll need you to guard her, man. Can you do that while we’re gone?”

“With my life,” his brother-in-law assured him, hand over heart and head bowed.

Liz snorted. “Don’t get extreme, babe. You need to be around for many years to come, if only to keep me happy.”

“I live for your happiness,qalbi.”

The twinkle in Rafe’s eye added to Lo’s building uncomfortableness.

“Yeah, okay. I’m out, but I’ll be back soon.”

“Why can’t you just call Clutch?” Liz asked belatedly.

“He shorts out electronics. Something to do with energy frequency and his ability to attract spirits.” Fascination flared to life in her eyes, and when she opened her mouth to speak, Lo shook his head. “No time, sis, but you can annoy him with questions when you see him again.”

Picturing Clutch’s apartment, Laszlo drew his power around him like a cloak and sent a thread across the distance as a feeler. When he detected no movement, he began the teleport into his friend’s living room above the antiques-and-oddities shop he owned and operated.

Ebba gripped Laszlo’s arm,meaning to ask him a question prior to his leaving, but in the next second, she was out of her apartment and squarely in another.

“Ebba!”

A sense of vertigo swept through her consciousness, causing her to sway, and she once again latched onto Lo, if only to prevent the room from spinning.

“What were you thinking?” Anger caused his voice to deepen, and the rough quality sent a chill through her. Or it would’ve had she been corporeal. Still, she had a sense of self. As if shedidpossess a physical form but her body didn’t seem to fit, and the skin of that non-real body felt thin, as if it would take nothing to peel off her muscle and bone.

“I don’t feel well,” she admitted right before her knees buckled.

Lo dove to help before they both remembered she didn’t have a physical self in her current state.

“It’s dangerous for you to be away from your body, Ebba.”

“I didn’t intend to leave. Hell, I didn’t think Icouldleave.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “I’ve been stuck in that fucking apartment for months.”

“Stuck?” His frown was dangerous and dark, similar to when he first burst through her door. “What do you mean stuck? You should be able to go anywhere your body goes.”

“No. If I touch the knob to the outside or even a window, it burns me.”

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