His cheeks went pink, and he slowly shook his head. “You’re getting to know me far too well.” Then he gave me an appraising look. “And how are you holding up?”
“I’m a basket case,” I admitted. “It’s terrifying knowing that the best-case scenario involves the bad guys making a move that will disrupt the conference.”
“If they do, it’s not a reflection on you and your work.”
“I know. But even if I hadn’t planned this event, I’d be going crazy waiting for the other shoe to drop—and to find out what kind of shoe it will be.”
“I’m not just in here to play with dragons,” he said, gesturing toward a table set against the far wall, where his set of Spellworks charms lay under glass covers. “I’m monitoring these things, so I’ll know if they use the conduits.”
“And what happens if they do?”
“Then I’ll have to act fast,” he said with a grin that bordered on cocky. More seriously, he added, “Don’t worry, I won’t let them mess things up. I’ll put a stop to whatever it is. Does that make you feel better?”
I nodded, then sighed. “I guess so.” I attempted a brave grin and said, “Look at us—you with stage fright and me being a nervous Nellie. Is it too late to run away?”
“Probably. But ask me again in a few hours. I might change my mind.”
One of the dragons came over to him and rubbed its face against his shoulder, like an overgrown, fire-breathing cat. He scratched it behind the knee, and I felt a surge of affection for him. That image summed up Owen Palmer pretty well, I thought—powerful enough to tame dragons, but still sweet and even a bit vulnerable. If it hadn’t been for all the soot and the fact that he had a dragon looming over him, I would have hugged him.
Before I gave in to the temptation, I promised to check on him before his presentation and went back to the front of the main tent, where the customers had begun arriving. The sales staff were circulating and greeting their customers. Food and drink magically replenished themselves, and the nymphs collected empty plates and glasses.
Everything seemed to be going perfectly, but I couldn’t help noticing how many of the customers wore those colorful rubber bracelets or the anti-flu amulets. There was no telling how many of them were also carrying the smaller charms. If the Spellworks crowd did want to disrupt the conference, they had the people in place to do so. The question was, what would they do?
I saw a commotion near the entrance, and soon most of the attendees abandoned the food to head in that direction. It was like someone had sent up the Bat Signal—or was it all those charms kicking into action? I followed the crowd to see what was going on and found Ramsay, trailed by an entourage, glad-handing his way through the assembly area. You’d have thought he was a movie star from the way everyone acted. Several took photos with their cell phone cameras, and one guy even asked for an autograph.
It was enough to make my stomach churn. Why didn’t they see him the way I did?
On the other hand, why didn’t I see him the way they did? I had no actual evidence against him, just suspicion. I studied Ramsay and his fan club, looking for any sign of an influence spell. None of the worshippers had the tell-tale glassy eyes of a serious influence spell, but then the more subtle attraction spell Rod used to use hadn’t had that effect. How had I known Rod was using a spell? I tried to remember my early experiences in the magical world. I’d mostly noticed a discrepancy between the way I reacted to Rod and the way all other women did, as well as the discrepancy between their reaction and Rod’s appearance.
Based on that, I still couldn’t tell if Ramsay’s appeal was magical or ordinary. I certainly wasn’t under his spell, but I also hadn’t grown up in the magical world so that he’d been a lifelong hero to me. I hadn’t heard stories about him, didn’t know until recently that he’d once saved the magical world from evil rogue wizards.
Still, he just bugged me.
Someone suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me into the green room, where the speakers went to get ready for their presentations. “He’s here,” Kim hissed at me.
“Yeah, I noticed,” I replied, guessing who she meant. “That’s not a surprise.”
“Do you think he’s up to something here? This would be a good place for him to get his followers to help him take over. I’ll tail him throughout the conference, watch his every move, just in case.”
Why did everyone around me have delusions of being a secret agent? Before I could respond to Kim, a deep voice behind me said, “Ladies, is there a problem?” It was Merlin.
I was tongue-tied for a moment. I didn’t think I yet had enough evidence to tell Merlin about my suspicions, so I brought up something that might be a problem worth discussing in the green room. “A lot of the guests have those charms and amulets that Owen thinks could be used as conduits,” I said. “That has me worried.”
“I’m sure you have the matter well in hand,” he said.
There was a commotion at the doorway and Ramsay swept in. “This looks like an outstanding event,” he boomed.
“Ivor, good of you to make it,” Merlin said tightly.
“I wouldn’t have missed it. We need to present a united front. I’ve been out there mingling, and the customers have very nice things to say. My compliments to Katie for all her hard work.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth, “And speaking of hard work, I’d better get back to it.”
As I hurried back to the assembly area, the attendees were moving into the auditorium tent, where swirling lights and eerie music created a magical wonderland. It looked to me like a prom on steroids, but the guests were eating it up, so I figured it was working. “Great job, Rina,” I said as she scurried by me, barking orders into a headset. She flashed me a smile and kept going, and I gave myself a moment to take a deep breath.
As the opening session began, I went back to the dragon enclosure to check on Owen.
“How’s it going out there?” he asked.
“Okay, I guess. I had no idea what a celebrity Ramsay is, though.”
“Did someone ask him for an autograph?”
“Oh yeah. I thought a couple of those guys might faint.”
He grinned, then he frowned and tilted his head as he stared at the charms he was monitoring. “What is it?” I asked.
Instead of answering me, he called, “Jake!” His assistant ran over to join us, and the two of them placed their hands on the glass cases. After a moment, Owen said, “There’s a surge coming through,” and then his eyes went unfocused, like he was looking within. “Okay, got it, got it, got it,” he muttered to himself, then abruptly he said, “Damn!”
“I lost it, too, boss,” Jake said, panting. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. Owen looked equally beat.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They sent a signal, but I don’t think it was a spell or a directive. It was more like a test, like the magical equivalent of ‘testing, one, two, three’ with a microphone. I thought for a moment I’d tracked it back to the source, but they stopped the signal before I could disrupt it. I might be able to counteract anything else they send, though.”
“What about when you’re doing the demonstration?”
Owen and Jake looked at each other. “I’d leave it to Jake, but I need him with me to help handle the dragons.”
“Then get someone else to keep an eye out. If I were the bad guys—who seem to know all about who you are—that’s when I’d choose to strike.”
“I’ve got more charms set up back at the office,” Owen said with a weary sigh. “I’ll give them a call and see if they caught anything.”
“Delegation won’t kill you,” I reminded him. “I’ll go see if anything happened when that surge hit.”
I ran back into the main hall, where a member of the sales team was giving highlights of the year. It didn’t look like anything major had happened. The place was still standing and I didn’t see any blood. The audience hadn’t turned into an a
rmy of magical zombies. So far, so good. I went out to the assembly area and poured myself a glass of juice from one of the buffets. I’d eaten breakfast before leaving home, but that was hours ago, and I was already starving again. Before I could drink it, Rina came running over to ask me a question. It went like that all day. The conference was going smoothly, but there seemed to be a conspiracy against me getting anything to eat. By the time for Owen’s presentation late in the day, the most I’d managed to eat was a cube of cheese during the afternoon breakout session, and I was becoming light-headed.
I went to the green room to check on Owen and found him pacing nervously. He’d cleaned up and changed clothes, so now he looked like the professional he was, but he also looked like he might bolt given the first opportunity. “Do I really have to do this?” he asked me, his voice sounding strained and not too steady.
“Well, considering that you have to represent Research and Development because your boss is a giant frog and refuses to go out in public, and considering that you’re the one who tamed the dragons, yeah, you really have to do this. Now, take a deep breath and settle down.”
He closed his eyes and took a few long, shuddering breaths, then shook his head. “No, that didn’t work. I can’t talk.”
“You do it in meetings all the time. This is just a really big meeting.”
His eyes went wide and panicky. “But there are a lot of people in there, and they’ll all be staring at me. A lot of them may even think I’m the big magical criminal.”
“Only the ones dumb enough to listen to rumors. Once the dragons come on, they’ll all forget you’re even there.” That didn’t seem to make him feel much better. It was time for tough love. “Look, Owen, this isn’t the time for a shy attack. The way the lights are, you won’t be able to see most of the audience.”
I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him close to me so I could look him directly in the eye. “I’m going out there to sit in the front row, where you should be able to see me, and I want you to give this presentation to me. I’m the only person in the audience, and I will like you no matter how it goes. Can you do that?”
He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“I know you can. I’ve seen you take on things a lot scarier than that crowd.” We stood there for a while, our eyes locked, and I wasn’t sure if I was picking up on his stage fright or if something else was going on, but my heart pounded and my mouth went dry. As I looked into his eyes, I decided it wasn’t stage fright on my end. It was the dizzying realization that I was in love with this guy. I was about to tell him, with the hope that would distract him from his fear, when Hartwell’s voice came from the stage, introducing Owen. I stood on tiptoes and gave him a quick, hard kiss. “Now go knock ’em dead.”
I went into the auditorium and found an empty seat, front and center, just as Owen came on stage. He froze at first, and his voice was soft when he started talking, but once he found me in the front row, he gained confidence and sounded more normal. Then he really got going as he forgot about the crowd and focused on his favorite thing to do: geek out about the science of magic.
Soon, he had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand, and there was little wonder. Take an incredibly good-looking guy with next to no ego and a passion for his subject matter, and you’ve got a captivating speaker. “But enough talk. Now I’d like to show you something,” he said. “I don’t know how many of you have pets, but those of you who do probably know that making them behave can be a challenge. We’ve developed a way to make pet misbehavior a thing of the past. I know this works because it works on my cat—and if you have cats, you know exactly what that means.” That got him a laugh, and he grinned as he continued, “But it’s hard to do a proper demonstration on something as small as a cat, so I thought I’d show you just how effective this is.” The audience gasped audibly when he brought the dragons on stage.
The dragons went through their paces, playing fetch, rolling over, and even toasting a marshmallow on a stick. There was only one minor mishap involving a curtain that got accidentally set on fire, but Jake doused it immediately. I held my breath the whole time, nervous for Owen, but also worried that the Spellworks people would strike at any moment. I got a sense of tension from the audience, but it was hard to tell if it had anything to do with magic or was just because they were in the presence of real, live fire-breathing dragons. When Owen sent the dragons away and ended his presentation, the audience gave him a standing ovation.
Hartwell introduced Ramsay, who got an extended standing ovation and a roar from the crowd. Ramsay basked in the admiration until the applause died down long enough for him to give Merlin a long-winded introduction. The response to Merlin was more subdued, but more from awe than lack of enthusiasm. He talked about the founding of the company and the changes he’d noticed in magic since his return.
I glanced to the side and saw Owen come in one of the doors near the back of the auditorium. Although I had an empty seat next to me, he stayed near the exit, watching the crowd.
Merlin spoke fervently about the importance of using magic for good, and the crowd was totally with him. I felt like I was at an old-fashioned tent revival. I barely kept myself from shouting, “Amen!”
Then Merlin said, “You’re probably aware of our competition by now, and there are some things you should know about that company. The man who has served as the face of Spellworks has rejoined MSI, and he can tell you more about what their magical methods really mean. I am pleased to welcome Mr. Phelan Idris.”
That brought murmurs of surprise and some tentative applause. Someone had really managed to clean Idris up. He almost looked respectable in a nice suit. It may have been the first time I’d ever seen him in clothes that actually fit him. I held my breath as he started talking. “I’m a big one for fun and, let’s face it, mischief,” he began, and I relaxed as I recognized the opening line of the speech I’d written for him. “That was the reason I left MSI. I was creating spells that caused trouble, and those spells were the foundation for Spellworks.”
He was no orator. He sounded stiff and like he was reciting from memory, which he was, but at least he was more or less on script. “It does seem like every generation has someone rise up to challenge the status quo,” he went on, and that wasn’t in the script. I held my breath again. “I guess I was this generation’s one.” His smirk indicated that he was proud of that, and that worried me. “I’m not old enough to remember it, but some of you probably remember the last time we went through this, only it was a lot worse when the Morgans tried to take over the magical world. They used magic—raw power—to stop anyone who got in their way, and it took a lot of raw power to bring them down.”
Merlin, who’d taken a seat on stage during Idris’s speech, rose slowly to his feet when Idris went off-script, but he hesitated. Anything that looked like censorship at this point was bound to backfire. I had no idea what was coming, but my heart pounded in anticipation.
“What were their names? I think it was something like Kane and Mina. Yeah, that’s it, Kane and Mina. They were pretty young, even younger than I am now. Maybe that’s a phase particularly powerful wizards go through.” He smirked again and shrugged, like he was including himself in that group. “But the good guys destroyed the bad guys, and all was right with the world. There was just one loose end. One very tiny loose end. Like, a baby they left behind. Just think about the power that kid might have, with those parents, and with the amount of power Mina was channeling while she was pregnant. Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to that kid?”
The audience was spellbound. I wondered how Idris could possibly have all these details that weren’t in the histories, but given his interest in the darker side of magic, I supposed he was likely to dig up that kind of dirt.
“Believe it or not, he’s been among us all along, right in the heart of things, hidden by the so-called good guys, and totally trusted, in spite of who and what he is. You’d think as
paranoid as these people are, they’d be more careful.” Merlin moved closer and closer to Idris, but Idris kept talking. “In fact, you saw him here tonight. Let’s see, what was that baby’s name? Why, I do believe it was Owen. Only, he doesn’t go by Owen Morgan these days.”
I felt like the floor fell out from under me. Instinctively, I turned to where I’d seen Owen last. He was standing with his back flattened against the door, his eyes wide, all the color drained out of his face.
“Yeah, that’s right, our Owen Palmer is the last remnant of the darkest magical days in recent memory.”
And from the look on Owen’s face, I knew it was news to him.
Chapter Fourteen
I jumped out of my seat and sprinted toward Owen. While I ran, Idris kept talking. “And it sounds like he’s up to his parents’ old tricks, since it seems like he’s always around whenever dark spells are used to commit a crime.” Then there was a yelp and a commotion from the stage. I turned to see Merlin stepping forward to grab the microphone while security guards went after Idris. The crowd muttered and mumbled, but so far they didn’t seem to be turning into a mob.
Owen was gone by the time I reached the doorway where he’d been standing, and I could hardly blame him for getting out of there. I ran through the outer assembly area, looking for him. Even if he’d gone invisible by veiling himself, I should have been able to see him, but he was nowhere in sight.
I tried the dragon enclosure, but Owen wasn’t there. I ran back to the assembly area, where people were pouring out of the auditorium. They entirely ignored Rina’s carefully arranged dinner buffets as they hashed over the announcement. From the bits and pieces I picked up, I got the impression that some had decided that MSI wasn’t to be trusted and that they’d known all along that Owen Palmer was up to no good. There were a few who scoffed at the accusations, and the MSI sales force was attempting damage control.
Much Ado About Magic Page 15
