He glanced at her, one corner of his mouth wavering as if he couldn’t decide whether to smile or frown. She prepared for an inspired insult. But all he said was, “Never.”
“Then how could you know beyond a shadow of a doubt?”
“Hard experience,” he muttered. An odd thing to say.
“But—”
“Daggett, I’m afraid you’ve no choice but to live an entirely non-magical life.”
She looked down to hide her stricken expression. A few seconds passed in heavy silence.
“However,” he said.
Her “yes?” was breathless.
He sat up, eyeing her. “With practice, you might be able to exert some control over your magic disruption.”
“Oh!”
“Might. And it wouldn’t change your inability to do magic.”
It would still be an improvement. She leaned in. “What did you have in mind?”
“I think your body is pumping out magic-disrupting molecules just as mine produces magic. There seems to be no ‘off’ switch—trust me, I’ve tried—”
“On me?” She wondered what he’d done.
“On myself.” He’d slipped into the glassy-eyed expression she’d often noticed on researchers deep in a knotty problem. “So your best chance is learning to dispel what you produce. Magic in the atmosphere doesn’t hurt you, correct?”
“Right. Only when it’s—well, clinging to you, if that’s the word.”
“Because it’s not inert then. Let’s assume anti-magic works the same way. Knock your disagreeable particles out of your orbit, and they’ll float about harmlessly. I regularly push my magic off me and into the general atmosphere.”
She squinted at him. “Wait—didn’t you say you need to pull it in to cast spells? Why would you push magicawayfrom you?”
He stopped gazing into the middle distance and snapped back to attention. “Health reasons.”
“What—”
“Do you want to learn how or not?”
“Yes!” She dashed to the table to sit at the chair she hadn’t scooted within a yard of him, snatching up a pen and spare piece of paper.
He made a sound that was probably a swallowed laugh. “This isn’t a lecture, Professor, it’s an experiment. Put those away and close your eyes. Right. Now, focus all your attention on sensing the aura around you.”
“How?”
“Just focus.”
She didn’t think much of his teaching technique. Entire minutes slogged by as she tried, with increasing frustration, to identify something that seemed indiscernible.
He finally cleared his throat. “Well?”
“I can’t feel it at all,” she admitted.
The couch creaked. His boot heels clacked against the stone floor. “How about now?”
Her breath caught in her throat. This time shecouldfeel something, the barest hint of pressure on the back of her right hand, like hair or a feather.
