It’s a gray area.
Margaret cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should focus on the matter at hand. Mr. Chen has been pulled into Diane’s magical situation, which means the connection between them is significant.”
“Significant how?” I asked.
“That’s what we need to determine.” Margaret rose from her chair with the grace of someone who had been explaining magical complications for decades. “Bring him back in here. We need to understand why your magic reached out to him specifically.”
I went to the kitchen doorway. Marcus and Liam were leaning against opposite counters, cups of tea in hand, engaged in what looked like a deeply serious conversation.
“—and then she set the curtains on fire,” Liam was saying. “Not on purpose. Just… emotional flare-up. Literally.”
“The radio played ‘Mandy’ for forty-five minutes,” Marcus countered. “Forty-five. I timed it.”
“At least ‘Mandy’ has a melody. Cassie’s house played nothing but static for a week. Aggressive static. Static with opinions.”
“The radio has opinions about jazz. It’s never played anything but jazz. And now suddenly it’s Barry Manilow and I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“The house changed colors based on her mood. I learned to read her emotional state by the color of the hallway.”
“That’s…” Marcus paused. “Actually useful, potentially.”
“It was blue a lot. Blue means anxious. I made a chart.”
They both took long sips of tea, united in their suffering.
“Sorry to interrupt the support group,” I said, “but Margaret wants to examine the connection.”
Marcus looked at me. Then at Liam. Then back at me.
“She’s going to tell me something I don’t want to hear, isn’t she?”
“Probably. That seems to be how this works.”
He sighed, set down his tea, and followed me back to the living room, where Margaret was waiting with an expression that suggested she was about to deliver exactly the news he was dreading.
“The magic chose you,”Margaret said, after examining Marcus’s phone, my phone, and the space between us with a series of gestures that looked mystical but might have just been her being dramatic. “Not randomly. Specifically.”
“I didn’t ask to be chosen,” Marcus said. “I was very clear about not wanting to be chosen. For anything. By anyone.”
“The magic doesn’t care what you asked for.” Margaret handed back his phone, which had stopped buzzing the moment he’d entered my apartment. “It cares about resonance. Compatibility. The potential for connection.”
“I don’t HAVE potential for connection. I had a connection. For twenty-eight years. It was wonderful and then it ended because she died, and I’ve spent two years making very clear to the universe that I’m not interested in a sequel.”
The room went quiet.
I watched something flicker across his face—grief, still raw beneath all that grumpiness. The kind of grief that doesn’t go away, just learns to wear a better disguise.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said, and meant it. “Truly. But the magic isn’t asking you to replace her. It’s responding to something else. A different kind of connection.”
“What kind?”
“That’s what you two need to figure out.” She turned to me. “Diane’s magic is wild right now—pulling in every romantic possibility because she won’t narrow down her options. But when she’s near you, it stops. Completely. Do you understand what that means?”
“That I’m boring enough to cancel out magical chaos?”
“That you’re grounding her. Your presence—whatever it is about you—stabilizes her magic. It’s not romantic, necessarily. It might not be romantic at all. But it’s significant.”
Marcus looked at me. I looked at him.
