Enchanted Ever After

by Shanna Swendson

  Bringing Owen pictures of alleged spells became part of my daily routine. “What about this batch?” I asked one afternoon about a week later as I dropped a stack of printouts on his desk, on top of the ancient tome he was studying. “Any real magic here?”

  He bent over, squinting, then shook his head. “It’s hard to tell from a still photo. It could have caught a transitional moment, but I don’t think any of these gestures are actually part of any spell I’m aware of.” Looking up at me, he added, “That’s good, right? If they’re having to make stuff up, that means they aren’t really on to anything, and it’s bound to hurt their credibility.”

  “I’m not sure the truth is likely to slow any of these true believers down much,” I said, “especially since they’re actually right.”

  “Not about us ruling the world. We aren’t allowed to go into politics.”

  “What about economics? You use your prescience to play the stock market.”

  “Only a little,” he said. “Probably no more than most people who have solid instincts, and I back it up with research. I’m also not using magic to manipulate the market.”

  “I’m not sure these people would see the difference. To them, it’s enough that you have advantages other people don’t have and can never have.”

  “They haven’t started posting pictures of known magic users, have they?”

  “Not other than these pictures of magic allegedly in use. You’re sure you don’t recognize any of them?”

  “I don’t know every wizard.”

  “But surely if we pooled the knowledge of everyone in this company, that’s bound to cover the majority of magical people in the city, whether as friends, family, or customers.” I picked up the photos. “I think I’ll see if Rod can distribute them and learn anything.”

  “He’s probably a better bet than I am. He’s much more social.”

  Rod put together an internal site and sent out another memo. By the end of the day, only one person had been identified. I got one of the computer wizards—in this case, the term was meant literally—to try to trace back the sources of the reports. Trish was in my office when I got the call that the computer wizards had made no headway on identifying the sources of reports or comments.

  I ran my hands through my hair and groaned. “I don’t get it,” I said. “I can’t tell whether we’re dealing with people who hate magic and want it exposed or who use magic and want it exposed.”

  “Doesn’t it kind of work out the same way?” Trish asked.

  “Yeah, but we need to fight it in different ways. You deal with people afraid of magic in a totally different way than you deal with people who want to be able to use magic openly, so they’re forcing the issue.”

  She frowned. “You’re really taking this personally, aren’t you?”

  “Huh?”

  “The magical people are getting a bit paranoid, but you’re acting like you’re on a one-woman crusade, and it doesn’t even affect you directly.”

  “Well, the Council did go after Owen about being near the public magic use. And what happens to him and so many of my other friends if this gets out?”

  “I think it’s going to take a lot more than a floating Audi to make the general public and the government believe in magic. Hey, do you think there’s an X-files section in the FBI, only about magic instead of aliens?”

  “Apparently, there is a secret division in the government that deals with magical matters.”

  “So the government already knows about it. Don’t you think they’ll try to squash this little crusade?”

  “I think the thing is, I relate to these magic watchdog people,” I said. “I remember how I felt when I was seeing strange things around town that no one else seemed to notice. There were times when I thought I was going crazy. At other times, I felt like a hick who wasn’t cut out for living in New York because I was all agog over things New Yorkers just ignored. It made such a huge difference to me when I learned that magic was real, and I was immune to it. It explained everything. The universe made sense again. Some of these people may be dealing with the same thing in their own way, and I feel bad if someone is taking advantage of them.”

  “That could be what’s going on here,” she said, nodding. “What do you bet that one of the people behind the magic watchdog group is a magical immune who got tired of feeling crazy or being treated like he or she was crazy when no one else saw what he or she saw? I definitely recognize the impulse. You want to grab everyone around you and say, ‘Hey, did you see that?’ It didn’t cross my mind to start a blog, but it’s not an irrational response to reach out to other people who might see things so you can validate each other. And then maybe there’s someone else out there using them. They may not know they’re being used, or they could be in on it.”

  “I think there’s something to finding out who’s behind this and what their motive is,” I said. “I know the person I talked to at the bridal sale wasn’t an immune, but maybe she wasn’t the boss. She may have just been passing out cards. If it is an immune trying to validate her experiences, we may be able to deal with it all a different way, and that would stop any magical activist from using them.”

  “And we might get a new recruit in the process. Are you thinking undercover mission?”

  “We are pretty ideally suited for this work, being immune and able to validate what this person is seeing. It wouldn’t be too hard for us to find magic to report on to earn trust, since we work for a magical company.”

  “Do you think the boss will go for it?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  There were some situations in which it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission, but I was new to this department, and I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot—or wing—with Sam by going rogue. We went outside and found him on the awning, where he kept an eye on the street outside. Trish and I outlined our idea and our proposed plan.

  “I doubt it’s too risky,” I concluded. “After all, they’re after magic users, and we’re not magical. They don’t seem to be into physical violence, and there have been no signs that they’ve made anyone disappear.”

  “And how do you propose to go about infiltrating this organization?” he asked.

  “There was an e-mail address on the card. I can try that.”

  He flapped and refolded his wings. “Lemme run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.”

  “Seriously, Sam? What’s the risk?” I asked.

  “That you could be traced to this company. Which, so far, no one seems to know about. You’d think if they knew there was a massive magical corporation, that would have shown up in their writings. If you get caught and exposed, your employer may be, too.”

  “Surely it’s not that easy,” I argued. “I have that fake employer name to put on things like credit applications. I hope our front is strong enough to survive a check.”

  “As I said, I’ll see what the boss has to say.”

  “And by boss, you mean Merlin, not Owen, right?”

  “Palmer’s not in the chain of command on this one.”

  “Good.” Owen had a lot of faith in my abilities, but after my last undercover assignment, I suspected he’d be perfectly happy for me to never leave my office. He was one to talk, considering the danger he’d been in so many times since I’d known him. I was more likely to be rescuing him than the other way around.

  “What do you think the boss will say?” Trish asked as we returned to the security office.

  “I have no idea. I don’t get the impression that Sam is going to be much of an advocate.”

  Much to my surprise, I got the green light. Now I just had to think of a way to meet up with these people in person. I sent an e-mail—under a fake identity—to the address on the business card the woman at the bridal sale had given me. I used that same identity to post a few comments on the blog, along the lines of, “Hey, I’ve seen something like that happening. Didn’t realize it was magic. That expla
ins so much!”

  Owen and I went out to dinner that night. I hadn’t yet told him about my assignment, and it was the sort of thing that was difficult to discuss in public. Still, he knew something was up. “You’re awfully excited.”

  “Let’s just say I got an interesting new task at work.”

  “It’s not what I think it is, is it?”

  “No, I’m not redecorating the ladies’ restrooms,” I teased with a grin.

  “You’re dealing with those people?”

  “Not yet, but I may try to. Trish, too. We have a theory that the person behind all this might be like us, just needing some validation, or to feel sane again, and if we can deal with that, if there is someone out there taking advantage of that for their own agenda, that may foil their plan. And don’t tell me to be careful. That makes it sound like you don’t have any faith in me.”

  “I’ll have to remember that the next time you tell me to be careful.”

  “With me, it’s more about talking to strangers. With you, it tends to be possibly blowing up the city.”

  “Speaking of which, did you have any thoughts on wedding party favors?”

  “I don’t really see what that has to do with blowing up the city. And, wow, a groom who’s actually interested in wedding plans. You really are a unicorn, aren’t you?”

  He turned slightly pink, but shrugged and said, “More like I don’t want to be nagged mercilessly by your roommate who has appointed herself our wedding planner.”

  Talking about party favors was far safer public discourse than magic was, and although I’d teased Owen, I was apparently interested enough that I didn’t even think about my new assignment until I neared the subway station the next morning and ran into someone handing out fliers.

  While most New Yorkers had developed techniques for avoiding those things, I generally liked taking them. Most of them were for bargain shoe sales or comedy shows, but you never knew what you’d get. In my first year or so in the city, I’d managed to have something resembling a social life outside my apartment just through discounts and coupons from fliers. Besides, I felt kind of sorry for the people trying to hand them out. They needed a moment or two of success every so often.

  This flier wasn’t a coupon for a free drink at a comedy club or an announcement of a designer shoe sale. It was from one of the anti-magic groups, not just giving a blog address, but announcing a public meeting.

  I folded it carefully and put it in my purse, grinning to myself. This looked like my chance.

  7

  When I got to work, I stopped by Trish’s office and handed her the flier. “Are you free this evening?” I asked.

  As she read the flier, her eyebrows rose. “Wow, meeting about this sort of thing in public. Even if we didn’t have an assignment to try to infiltrate them, I’d have to go to this, just to see what kind of people showed up.”

  “Yeah, I’m guessing it’ll be an interesting crowd. Or not a crowd, judging by the number of these fliers that were littering the ground around the station.”

  “Watch—it’ll be maybe five people, and all of them are magical people curious to know what dirt the organizers have. We should plan a strategy. Do we go together or go separately and pretend we don’t know each other?”

  I pondered that. “On the one hand, if we go separately, we can let them think their fliers got a wider reach than they did. On the other hand, if we go together, we could play it like friends doing it on a lark or dare. Do we want them to think we’re serious about this magic stuff, or do we want them to have to convince us?”

  “And do we let on about the magic immunity—not knowing what it is, of course, just having seen more than your average person?”

  “Or we could split the difference—be friends, one of us dragging the other because one of us sees stuff and wants to convince her friend that it’s real.”

  “Okay, that’s good,” she said, nodding. “So, who’s the skeptic and who’s the believer?”

  “Flip a coin?”

  We ended up deciding that since I’d received the flier, I would be the one who thought she saw things and had dragged her friend to the meeting. Trish would be the one going out of curiosity and fairly certain her own worldview would be validated by this meeting.

  We clued Sam in on our plan so he could have backup ready in case we needed it, but I warned him not to have gargoyles nearby, in case we were right about the involvement of magical immunes. They wouldn’t be able to get a photo of a magically veiled gargoyle that anyone else could see, but we didn’t want a meeting full of magical immunes to be confronted with something obviously magical.

  The meeting was in the basement of an old church that seemed to be dealing with declining membership by renting out its meeting rooms to all comers. The board outside the room mentioned meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, a genealogy society, a Parents without Partners group, and a folk dancing club. This meeting was listed as “Raising Community Awareness of Unusual and Unlikely Events.”

  I didn’t have to fake being eager and a bit nervous to get into character. I really had no idea what I was getting into. We were several minutes early, and the room was just about empty, aside from the people at the front of the room who were apparently running the meeting. I didn’t recognize any of them. I’d thought maybe I’d see the woman from the bridal brawl or the puppy from the bus, but they weren’t there.

  “Oh, hey, they have cookies,” Trish remarked as we entered. “So it’s not a total loss.”

  One of the people at the front must have heard her, for his head snapped around when she spoke, and he came down the aisle between the rows of chairs to greet us. I’d have pegged his age at maybe somewhere in the midforties, but it was hard to tell. He seemed like one of those people who was born middle-aged. He probably didn’t look much younger than this in high school, and he’d still look about this age when he was in his seventies. He wore a sweater vest over a dress shirt, but avoided being a total cliché by wearing no tie at all rather than a bow tie. I couldn’t tell whether his hair was thinning or just thin, and it was parted very carefully and slicked down. “Hi, welcome,” he said. “Are you here for the meeting?”

  “Um, yeah,” I said, not having to fake my voice shaking slightly. “I got a flier at the subway station this morning.” I took it out of my purse and showed it to him. “This is the right place, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, this is the place. Have you seen things?”

  I gave a shaky little laugh. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on,” Trish said around a mouthful of cookie. “You’re always telling me about things you’ve seen.”

  “I just, well, I hoped if I talked to other people, I might know whether or not I was crazy,” I said with a shrug.

  “We don’t think you’re crazy,” the man said. “Help yourself to some refreshments, and we’ll get started soon.”

  He returned to the front of the room, and Trish and I went to the refreshment table. As we selected from an assortment of store-bought cookies, Trish whispered, “Is this what you thought it would be?”

  “Yes and no.” It was exactly what I thought might happen if people who thought they saw things tried to start a support group, but not at all what I expected of a serious anti-magic organization. I put a few cookies on a paper napkin, took a paper cup of punch, and we found seats near the middle of the room, on the side nearest the door, in case we needed to make a quick exit or slip out.

  While I nibbled on a cookie, I tried to get a good read on the people at the front of the room. The man we’d spoken to didn’t really fit in with the others. There was a tall, stern-looking woman in a no-nonsense business suit that made me think of the magical puritans we’d encountered the previous year and a scholarly looking man wearing black-rimmed glasses. I couldn’t tell if it was his eyesight or his personality that made him seem to be glaring at the world. If these were the people behind the movement, then I was fairly certain my theory about magical immunes tryin
g to make some sense out of the world was correct. They didn’t strike me as people with a serious crusade.

  A few more people entered the room. I had a feeling at least two of them were homeless people looking for an indoor place to sit down and get free refreshments. On the other hand, there was a high correlation between homelessness and mental illness, and people who are immune to magic often think they’re crazy because of all the strange things they see that no one else sees, so there was a good chance that there were a number of perfectly sane magical immunes among the homeless population. I made a mental note to follow up on that. Maybe these guys weren’t just here for the refreshments. They might be seeking knowledge. They filled their pockets with cookies, grabbed more cookies, and sat in the back row. Only one new arrival sat near the front.

  It was past time for the meeting to have started, but the people in front were still talking among themselves, apparently going over a presentation. I suspected they were hoping more people would show up, but were running late or stuck in traffic. “I’m going for more cookies and a punch refill,” Trish said as she stood. “Want anything?”

  “No thanks,” I said, shaking my head. I wasn’t sure why I was so nervous, but the thought of putting anything else into my stomach made me queasy. There was something that seemed off about this whole situation, but I couldn’t put my finger on anything in particular. Of course, having a meeting to discuss the fact that there was magic in the world was kind of odd. Part of my unease was due to the fact that I knew they were right, but I was hoping to prove them wrong or discourage them.

  After about five more minutes with no one else entering the room, the man who’d spoken to us stepped forward, cleared his throat, and said, “Good evening. Thank you all for joining us.”

  Just as he began speaking, a woman darted into the room and took the seat on the other end of our row. She looked about thirty and wore jeans and a really baggy sweatshirt that she hunched into like she was a turtle trying to retreat into her shell. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and she wore no makeup at all, but with her light brown skin she had the coloring to pull that off without disappearing into the wallpaper. Her eyes were hidden behind thick glasses with heavy tortoiseshell frames.