Magic and the Modern Girl Read Online Free Page B

resisted the urge to sweep the cheese plate onto the floor. Instead, I pointed at the silk bag. “That doesn’t look like nothing to me!”
    “Relax, Jane,” he said.
    I’d heard that tone from him before. It was the Superior Warden tone. The I-Know-More-Than-You-Do tone. The You-Just-Don’t-Know-Very-Much-About-Being-A-Witch-Do-You tone.
    And it drove me crazy every time he used it. It drove me to practice my spells a dozen more times before making them public, to work on feeling the vibrations in my crystals until I could sense them in the middle of a moonless night, to concentrate on my runes until I truly did understand the meaning of the marks incised in them, felt the designs with an inner chord, infinitely deeper, infinitely more detailed than strict memorization of their supposed symbolism would have created.
    Er, not that I’d engaged in any actual witchcraft study for ages.
    But that was how he’d always made me feel, when he’d used that tone in the past.
    At least Melissa understood the tension that David’s patronizing words raised in me. Silently, she set the plate of Lemon Pillows on the kitchen table, centering them like a peace offering. Neko’s hand snaked out to grab four, but he caught my glare and returned two to the edge of the plate.
    I forced myself to sit down next to David, making my body relax into the unyielding chair. If my warder wasn’t concerned, if the man charged with maintaining my physical and astral well-being wasn’t worried, then I wouldn’t be either. At least that’s what I told myself.
    I sipped from my glass, but I couldn’t taste the lime or the rum, couldn’t remember the sharp bite of mint, even a moment later. I spread my fingers on the table in front of me, willing my tension to flow away. One steadying breath. Another. A third.
    I met my warder, eye to eye and asked, “What is going on here?”
    Despite my desperate question, he took his time to finish chewing. He swallowed. He cleared his throat with a sip of mojito. And then he said, in a deceptively mild tone, “Your runes crumbled because you stopped using them.”
    “What?” His words didn’t make any sense.
    “Your crystals clouded because there wasn’t any magic to keep them clear. The text in your books faded because you don’t need them any longer, because the magic is unnecessary. Dead.”
    “Dead?” I swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”
    All of a sudden, I thought about how I’d used my powers in the past. I’d wasted them. What had I been thinking, working a love spell or two? Worrying about the sorority sisters of the Coven? I’d turned away from making a real difference in the world; I hadn’t even tried to use my powers for good instead of for evil. Why hadn’t I worked on changing the world in permanent ways, in ways that would last long after I slipped this mortal coil?
    “To be or not to be,” I almost said out loud. Hamlet’s soliloquy went on, “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.”
    Melissa would certainly get the allusion, and David might, as well. But melodrama wasn’t going to solve the problem of the day. Instead, I needed to get to the heart of the matter. Why had I given up the chance to use some really cool magical tools, just because a laptop crash had cost me a catalog of my collection? What had I been doing for the past six months?
    When David didn’t immediately answer my question, I looked at the silk bag of dust and repeated, “Dead?”
    He shook his head. “Maybe that’s too strong. I should have said ‘Dying.’”
    Great. Like that made it all better.
    “But I love my powers!” I found myself saying. Melissa had the good grace not to contradict me, although Neko managed a delicate snort into yet another Lemon Pillow. When had he stolen that from the serving plate? “I do!” I nearly shrieked.
    “Not enough to have kept them in proper form,” David said, ignoring the