Enchanted Ever After

by Shanna Swendson

  “True Love’s Kiss is fairly traditional,” Rod said.

  “Oh, like in Sleeping Beauty?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the sofa next to Owen. “I guess I could try it.” I took his hand in mine and leaned forward.

  “Sorry, I was just joking,” Rod said. “As far as I know, True Love’s Kiss doesn’t do anything magical. ‘True Love’ is hard to quantify well enough to use it as a factor in magic. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.”

  I straightened and turned to glare at him. “It worked when we were stuck in the elven realm. That was what broke the spell that made us forget who we were. But Owen said something about that having to do with cognitive dissonance and the brain not being able to hold contradictory truths simultaneously, or something like that.”

  “Well, it doesn’t counteract a potion, so we might as well get some dinner. He’ll wake up hungry.”

  Sam hopped up onto the table in front of the window. “I’d better go report to the boss. He may have something to say about our next steps.”

  When Sam was gone, Rod said, “Normally, I’d be tempted to just zap us some dinner, but I don’t have the magic left in me. We’ll have to order takeout. I think I could inhale an entire pizza by myself. You?”

  “Sounds good,” I said. I was hungry, but I didn’t really have much appetite. While Rod called the neighborhood pizza place, I picked up Owen’s limp hand and held it. I still felt some magical residue around him, but I suspected that had something to do with the magic used to remove the magic. It wasn’t at all like what I’d felt before. I couldn’t hold back a smile at the thought that Abigail had actually taught me something useful. While I’d known for a while how to detect the use of magic around me, I’d never thought to try to sense magic that had been used on a person. Little did Abigail know, but that talent wasn’t restricted to magical immunes. Anyone could feel magic if they knew what they were looking for. Most people dismissed that feeling as merely a shiver up the spine or a funny vibe. Anyone in that group could have learned to tell whether or not magic was being used on them.

  I brushed a strand of dark hair off Owen’s forehead. His skin was a little clammy, probably because of all the sweating he’d done when they were working on him. I imagined that knocking him out had been a good call, or we might have had something that looked like The Exorcist.

  His eyelids fluttered, and he stirred. His hand tightened around mine, and I said, “Owen?”

  He opened his eyes and looked up at me blearily. “I guess I came out okay, huh?”

  “It was a close one,” Rod said, coming back over to us. “And you’re just in time for dinner. The pizza will be here soon. You’d better drink some water. I’ll go get you a glass.”

  While Rod headed to the kitchen, Owen struggled to sit up, then lay back wearily. “Yeah, that can wait. How bad was it?”

  “I don’t know how many spells were on you, but it was a lot.”

  He winced. “And I said some awful things to you. I’m so sorry. You know I didn’t mean them.”

  “Actually, that was one of the clues that something was wrong. I didn’t think you’d suddenly gone Mr. Hyde on me. I mean, we’ve disagreed about things before, but you’re never nasty or personal about it.”

  “I just don’t know how I didn’t notice she was enchanting me.”

  “Don’t feel too bad,” Rod said, returning with a glass of water. “She did at least some of it right under my nose.” He helped Owen sit up so he could drink, and after downing half the glass, Owen was strong enough to sit up on his own. I got up so he could swing his legs around and sit normally on the sofa.

  “I suspect the first spell had something to do with making me not notice the rest,” he said, frowning. “I got to the restaurant late, and there was already a water glass on the table. She might have put a potion in it to make me less aware. It wouldn’t have taken much.”

  “Now that I think about it, it was weird how much you let her touch you,” Rod said, nodding in thought. “You don’t normally go in for someone who keeps tapping on your hand while they talk.”

  “I hate that,” Owen said. “She did that to me?”

  “Yeah, like she wanted to make sure she kept your attention. And I can’t believe I didn’t notice it at all. We should have checked you for enchantments after that meeting. Katie, maybe you’d better talk to Sam about making that a policy. If you meet with an informant or anyone we don’t entirely trust, you get scanned for spells. Heck, maybe we should just scan employees on the regular.”

  “We have a lot of employees who use spells on themselves on an ongoing basis,” I reminded him. He was one of them.

  “Well, we could scan people for spells done by other people.”

  “I don’t think it’ll come up very often,” Owen said after taking another sip of water. “Doing magic like that violates a number of codes.”

  “Yeah, and so does doing magic in public, which is what their whole scheme is about,” I said. I gasped. “But that gives us something we’ve got on her, doesn’t it? Her doing those spells on Owen means she broke the rules, and we can get her for that, like using tax evasion to get Al Capone. We do have some kind of evidence, don’t we?”

  “We could get her for that, I guess,” Rod said. “But I don’t think it’ll stop the big-picture plans. It’ll just warn them that we know.” Turning to Owen, he said, “Speaking of which, we were going to leave this up to you. How do you want to deal with Matilda? If you go near her, she’ll know the spells have been undone, which means she’ll know we’re on to her. But if you avoid her, she may also realize we figured it out.”

  “I think I could create an aura that mimics the sense of the spells,” Owen said.

  “Or you could just stay away from her,” I chimed in. “You’ve got good excuses. She knows your bachelor party is this weekend, so she’ll know you’re busy, and she has to know that if she used magic to compel you to skip something like that to meet with her, we’d know something was up.”

  “Good point,” Owen said. “We can worry about that later.”

  “And since we know you’re not under any spells, you have zero excuses for anything that happens at your bachelor party,” I teased.

  “We’re going to a baseball game. What kind of trouble can I get into?” Owen asked.

  “You’re going to a baseball game with me,” Rod said with a wicked grin.

  The way I figured, this meant I had maybe four days to bust Matilda before I had to worry about Owen walking into the lion’s den. I was afraid I’d exhausted most of my options, and I still didn’t have enough proof to go on. There was one last thing I could try, and I knew no one magical would like it, but I figured they wouldn’t know until I’d already done it and either succeeded or failed.

  The next morning, I called the TV station, crossing my fingers in hopes that Carmen would be there. I thought it was a good omen when she was. “Hi, it’s Kathleen, from all those crazy events,” I said. Fortunately, she didn’t hang up immediately.

  “Yeah?” she said, her voice sounding guarded.

  “There’s something I need to show you that I think you’ll find interesting. It’s not a story, just something that might make everything make more sense.”

  “Like what?”

  “I really can’t tell you. I have to show you. In person.”

  “Where?”

  “Central Park. Let’s say the Alice statue.”

  I could sense her relief that I wasn’t asking her to meet me in some hidden alley. That was a public, busy spot, so it wasn’t likely that I was going to conk her over the head and haul her off to my secret lair. “Okay, how about six this evening? I’ll have to have today’s story done by then.”

  “Six it is. I’ll see you then. And don’t worry, it’s not bad. You may even like it.”

  I had to leave work a little early to be sure of making it there before she arrived. I was worried that Owen would suggest we get dinner after work, but he didn’t say anything,
and if he thought it was weird that I didn’t suggest it, that also went without comment. Things were okay between us after the spells were undone. At least, I thought so. I hoped so, considering we were getting married in a little more than a week. Of course, whether we were okay after today would depend on how he took what I was about to do.

  It was a pleasant spring evening, and the park was full when I arrived, lots of other people apparently sneaking out of work early to enjoy some time outdoors. I worried that might work against me, since the magical beings tended to be shy about crowds.

  Carmen was already there when I reached the statue. She wasn’t quite in full incognito mode, but she had her hair in a ponytail and wore glasses, so she didn’t look like her on-air self. “I’m glad you came,” I said as I approached her.

  “You had me intrigued,” she said with a shrug. “So, what did you want to show me?”

  “Come with me,” I said and began walking, heading toward the boathouse and the path that skirted the lake. All the while, I kept an eye out for any signs of magic. Wouldn’t you know, it was a quiet night for magical creatures. If I’d been hoping to keep the secret from Carmen, the place would have been swarming with gnomes and sprites, but now that I wanted her to see them, they’d become strangely shy. Did they know what I’d planned, somehow? I hadn’t told a soul, so unless they could read my mind, they couldn’t possibly have known.

  “Are we going anywhere in particular?” Carmen asked as we walked across Bethesda Terrace.

  “I’m looking for something,” I said. “We’re bound to run across it sooner or later.”

  As we followed the path around the lake, I spotted a park ranger ahead of us, and it was one of the sprites—as the male fairies preferred to be called. In fact, I thought it might have been one of Trix’s exes. I touched her arm and indicated the ranger. “Notice anything unusual about him?” I asked. “Anything at all? And don’t hesitate to tell me something because you think it’s too weird.”

  She frowned, took a breath as though to speak, then shook her head. “Nope.”

  “So you don’t see that he has wings, like he’s an overgrown fairy?”

  Her head snapped around toward me so quickly that I suspected she’d need to see a chiropractor soon. “What? You see them, too?”

  “Yeah, I see them.”

  “And they look real. Not like a costume. Why would he be wearing a costume at work in the park at this time of year?” Her voice had gone a little shrill. I took her arm and guided her down the path, passing the ranger, who nodded politely, and around a bend where he was no longer in sight. Ahead of me, I saw a gnome digging at the base of a tree. I waited to see Carmen’s reaction. She definitely reacted. I could tell she saw him. Her eyes focused on him, and she turned her head to keep her eyes on him as we passed, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t see the gnome back there,” I said.

  She came to a dead stop and dug in, refusing to budge. “Okay, just what the hell is going on here?”

  “I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” I said. “All those weird things that have happened? They’re magic. Magic’s real. And you’re apparently immune to it. That means it doesn’t work on you, and the magic used to hide magic from normal people doesn’t work on you. That’s why you see wings that no one else sees, why you see a garden gnome at work. It’s why you didn’t have the urge to dance when everyone else at that festival broke out into a dance routine.”

  “Have you been doing all this to me?” she asked, her eyes going wide.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not behind it. I’m a magical immune, too, and I work for a magical company. There is someone out there trying to expose magic. They’re the ones who’ve been doing these things, and I’m pretty sure they’re the ones who’ve been sending you news releases. I bet they saw you reacting to something you shouldn’t have seen, so they’re targeting you.”

  “And that brawl at the bridal sale?”

  “A real magical fight, though I don’t know if that one was staged or just strong feelings about discount designer gowns.”

  “Why shouldn’t magic be exposed? If it’s real. I’m not saying I’m convinced yet.”

  “I can’t do magic to show you because, as I said, I’m immune—so nonmagical that magic doesn’t work on me. Magic’s a big secret because it would probably seriously mess up the world if everyone knew about it. There are a lot of rules about keeping it secret, and that generally keeps magical people from going overboard. If there are harsh penalties for being seen using magic, it’s harder for them to take over the world. Without the rules, it’s no-holds-barred. And that keeps ordinary people from being able to get magic users to do things for them.”

  “So you’re saying this is for our own good?”

  “Yeah, and from what I can tell, it makes sense. Can you imagine how it would reshape society if everyone knew about magic?”

  “If it’s such a secret, why are you telling me?”

  “I’m telling you in part because I’ve been where you are, seeing things that don’t make sense and questioning my grasp on reality. I know how it feels to learn the truth. And in part because there are people in the magical world who are tired of hiding—for the reasons that we need to keep magic a secret. They want to use it to profit, maybe to control people. Who knows, maybe to take over the world. Since they’re trying to work through you, our best chance of stopping it is to work with you. Really, I shouldn’t be telling you anything. I could get into serious trouble if anyone I work with found out that I’d clued you in. But I think you could really help me.”

  “Help how?”

  “They’re planning something big, the ultimate revelation about magic in a place and situation where it can’t be denied. I suspect they’ll make sure you’re there, so I need you to let me know when you get a tip or a news release that seems at all fishy. And I need you not to do that story.”

  “Do you know what being the one to break the news that magic is real could do for my career?”

  “If you just happen to be there when something happens? Probably not much. It wouldn’t reflect on you, and I suspect there would be a lot of people doubting you. Even if you investigated it and found evidence, you might not be believed. You’d be accused of faking it. You’d also have a hard time being sure you were proving it because, as I said, the magic used to hide magic doesn’t work on you. Most people don’t see what you see. What you might think you’re exposing could be invisible to the rest of the world.”

  She shook her head. “This is nuts.”

  “Is it? Or does it make things make so much more sense now?”

  “So, the gargoyles that seem to move, that’s magic?”

  “A lot of them are my friends. They tend to work as security guards. Nice guys, though not all of them are very bright.”

  “What’s your role in all this?”

  “I work for a magical company. I guess you could call it the producer of software for the magical world. They come out with all the spells magical people need to use their power. And since they’re the major player in the magical world, they have a lot to do with policing the use of magic. There is a magical government, of sorts, that runs things otherwise, but we handle a lot of it. What you and I are is very rare, and magical people need our help. If you’ve got magical powers, magic works on you, so other magical people can use illusion to hide things from you. We see what’s really there, no matter what. We can’t be fooled.”

  “This is a lot to think about.”

  “I know. But once you come to terms with it, it feels pretty good. You can’t tell anyone—not that they’ll believe you. I put a lot on the line to clue you in.”

  “I’m not promising anything. What are you gonna do if I tell?”

  “There’s not much I can do to you, not directly. But we do have ways of undermining your credibility. I wouldn’t suggest trying to go public with this. It’s not a threat. It’s just what we have to do.
They’ve been covering magic up for more than a thousand years. They’re pretty good at it by now.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding. “What do you need from me?”

  “Like I said, let me know what’s going on if you hear anything, and don’t do the story. I don’t suppose you’ve had any news releases about this weekend from the usual anonymous source?”

  “Actually, I’d just got one before I left today.”

  “And?”

  “It was even more vague than normal, something about how the big demonstration would be Saturday, and the world would see what’s going on.”

  My pulse quickened, and I had to resist the urge to grab her arm in my excitement. “Did it say when or where on Saturday?”

  “No, just that details would be coming later. I don’t work this Saturday, though.”

  “Is there a way you could still get any information that comes in on Saturday?”

  “I can check with the assignment editor.”

  “Please do that.” I wrote my cell number on the back of my business card—one of the ones for general use that doesn’t mention magic. “This is very important. And when it’s all over, maybe I can get you a little more clued in about magic.”

  Only when we’d parted ways did I realize she hadn’t actually promised anything about not doing the story. I just had to trust her and hope that I could stop whatever public demonstration of magic there was going to be before it became news.

  18

  I hurried back to my place and miraculously caught all my roommates at home. “It looks like the big ‘magic is real’ demonstration is set for Saturday,” I told them as soon as I was through the front door. They all looked up at me, baffled. “The thing the bad guys are up to, the ones who want to expose magic,” I explained.

  “Where? What are they doing?” Nita asked, sitting up straighter from her spot on the sofa, her eyes flashing with excitement.

  “I don’t know,” I had to admit. “We need to figure out what they might hit so we’ll know where and exactly when. Any ideas?” I dragged a dining chair into the living room so I could join the others. Our living room wasn’t really equipped for all of us to be in there at once.