10

I SIT IN A COLD ROOM AT THE END OF A LONG, WOODEN table. After I was rushed
offstage by Chief Crowe, she instructed two ladies in gray suits to bring me
to a door marked Conference Room.
What happened back there? How could my talent be magic? I couldn’t
even pull off the simplest stuff in the “Magic Tricks for Beginners” playset
I got for Christmas that one time.
I didn’t even know that real magic existed until just recently.
I cover my face with my hands. If having magic makes me a magician
and magicians are the enemies of the supernatural world like Elsie
suggested . . . then what’s going to happen to me now?
Raised voices and hurried steps echo in the hallway. Heart pounding, I sit
up straighter in my chair. The door to the conference room swings open and
half a dozen adults rush in.
I only recognize Chief Crowe, who dashes over and grabs me by both
shoulders. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
I nod. “What happened back there?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” says Chief Crowe. “But to do
so, we’ll need to conduct a very important test. Do we have your
permission?”
I swallow and nod again. From the worried looks on everyone’s faces,
it’s probably the only answer they’d accept.
Chief Crowe backs away. “Dr. Khan, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Certainly,” replies a jittery South Asian man in a long white lab coat. He
steps forward to place a square piece of metal on the floor in front of my
chair. The little screen near the top makes it look like a scale. Why would
they need to check my weight?

“Remove your shoes and socks, please. You’ll need to stand on it with
your bare feet for the MagicMeter to work properly.”
MagicMeter? Maybe there really was a glitch with the Crystal Ball, and
this will prove that whatever happened back there was a mistake. It had to
be.
The grownups all stare expectantly, especially a tall, sternfaced white guy
who keeps pacing back and forth near the door. I pull off my shoes and
socks and get to my feet. Then I take a slow, deep breath and step onto the
MagicMeter.
Numbers rise and fall on the little screen, until finally it settles on 97
percent. A second later it creeps up to 98 percent, then 99 percent, and
finally 100 percent.
Dr. Khan gasps. “Every drop of this girl’s blood is magical.”
The adults rush to huddle near the door.
Dr. Khan just stares at me, eyes wide. So I ask, “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re perhaps the most magical being that’s ever existed.” Dr.
Khan lowers his eyes and frowns. “It also means your very existence is a
crime.”
A crime? But I haven’t done anything. “The Bureau uses magical objects,
don’t they? So magic can’t be all that bad.”
“The Bureau isn’t against objects being too magical,” Dr. Khan replies.
“It’s against people being too magical. There’s a big difference, I’m afraid.”
Chief Crowe is back in front of me. “Amari, we’re going to ask you some
questions. It’s important that you be completely honest with us,
understand?”
But I’ve got my own questions. “How did I get magic?”
“It was my hope that you might tell us,” says the sternfaced man. He
crosses his arms, turning up his nose like he can’t stand the sight of me. His
golden name tag reads: Director Van Helsing, Department of Supernatural
Investigations. He must be Maria’s and the Van Helsing twins’ dad. My
heart thumps faster.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I touched the Crystal Ball like everyone else—”
Director Van Helsing bangs his fist on the table so hard it makes
everyone in the room jump. “The fourth law created by the first
Supernatural World Congress states quite clearly that humans may receive
magic from only one source—the Crystal Ball. A single 10 percent dose
that gives us our supernatural abilities. Yet you have come to the Bureau with an overabundance of magic from an unknown source. Where did you
get it?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s got to be a mistake.”
“Tell the truth!” he says.
“I am!” I shout back, trembling.
Director Van Helsing won’t let up. “You expect us to believe that you
possess the highest magicality we’ve ever tested by mere chance?”
“No . . . I mean yes . . . I mean . . .” I’m shaking so much I don’t even
know what I’m saying.
“And I suppose we’re also to believe it’s a coincidence,” Director Van
Helsing continues, “that you showed up here at the same time hybrids are
terrorizing our outposts around the country. It is common knowledge that
only magicians can create hybrids. Tell me, girl, are these attacks your
doing?”
“I don’t know anything about that.” I shrink back in my chair. “I swear
—”
“Then perhaps,” Director Van Helsing interrupts, “you could simply tell
us which other magician is responsible?”
The door swings open again and Agent Magnus steps through. “I’m here
to speak on the kid’s behalf.” A tall lady with fiery red hair in a long
ponytail hovers in the doorway behind him.
Director Van Helsing frowns. “This is a directorlevel meeting.”
Magnus rolls his eyes. “Like I care a lick about that!”
“For the last time, you are not above the rules, Agent Magnus!” He looks
to the chief, but she just waves him off.
“This is no time for you to quarrel,” snaps Chief Crowe. “Let Magnus in.
He was close to the girl’s brother and might know something that could
shed some light on how on earth Quinton’s little sister is—of all the things
in the world—a magician.” She nods to the lady in the doorway. “Agent
Fiona, I think we’d all feel a lot better if you could put that ability of yours
to use and reveal the girl’s intentions.”
The redhaired lady nods and steps forward. She may not be a director
like the other adults, but they all move aside for her. “No need to be
frightened, lass,” she says softly. “If you’ll allow it, I’m going to check out
your intentions for being here. You’ll feel yourself go still for a bit but that’s
the worst of it.” “If you’ve truly got nothing to hide,” says Director Van Helsing, crossing
his arms, “then you’ll have no objections to our proving it.”
Again, I don’t have much of a choice. If I refuse, then they’ll just assume
the worst. I meet Agent Fiona’s eyes. “Okay.”
The room goes quiet as Agent Fiona puts herself right in front of me. Her
fierce blue eyes widen and my whole body goes stiff. I try to look away, but
my neck refuses to turn. My eyes are stuck on hers—I can’t even close
them. I’m totally helpless. I fight down my fear as best I can.
It’s not until she finally blinks that I can move again. She cracks a smile.
“Her intentions might as well be in big neon letters across her forehead
they’re so easy to read. She’s an honest little thing. On the surface, the lass
means to bolt for the door if she’s not treated fairly in this meeting. Second,
and most importantly, she’s come to the Bureau to discover what happened
to her brother and bring him home if she can. There’s nothing dangerous in
her intentions as far as I can tell.”
I blink in surprise as the adults in the room exchange glances. Did that
lady just read my mind?
“Normally I’d put complete faith in your ability, Fiona,” says Director
Van Helsing, “but magicians are known for their deception.”
“It’s true!” I say. “I just want to find Quinton.”
“Do you imagine there’s something you could be doing better?” Director
Van Helsing scoffs. “My best agents were on that search—Magnus led the
investigation himself.”
Agent Magnus looks at me with sad eyes. “With the investigation being
classified, the most I can say is we’re currently out of leads.”
Chief Crowe’s tense expression relaxes a little. “We’re all sorry about
Quinton, and I’m quite relieved to hear that Amari means us no harm. I’ve
got the utmost faith in Agent Fiona’s ability. But there’s still the troubling
matter of how the girl became a magician. It’s been more than two centuries
since the last rogue magician emerged, and he quite famously blew himself
up.”
“Does the how even matter?” drones a pale, thin man. His name tag reads
Director Kript, Department of the Dead. “The Bureau has had one policy
for dealing with magicians for over seven centuries. Lock them up and
throw away the key.”
A few of the other directors nod in agreement. A serious lady in thick
black glasses even suggests I be taken to her lab and studied. Director Fokus, Department of Magical Science is sewn onto her lab coat.
“Over my dead body!” Magnus replies. And mine too, I think. The
redhaired lady moves to Magnus’s side, leveling a withering stare at the
directors who want me locked up. She and Magnus must be partners.
“Please, everyone just calm down,” says Chief Crowe. “What we need
right now is a thoughtful discussion about how best to proceed.”
“Can I start by acknowledgin’ that the kid’s supernatural ability didn’t
pop up as evilness or spite,” says Magnus. “So let’s stop treatin’ her like she
did somethin’ wrong.”
“And yet we’ve all heard the terrible stories, haven’t we?” says Director
Cobblepot of the Department of Supernatural Licenses and Records.
“There’s no such thing as a good magician. Let’s not forget how close we
came to canceling the training sessions this summer on account of those
hybrid attacks.”
More shouting follows. Chief Crowe closes her eyes and shakes her head.
Someone clears their throat loudly, quieting the room. “If I might have a
word on the matter,” says a gentlemanly voice.
I look around to see who’s talking but no one’s lips are moving. That’s
when Director Kript opens his suit jacket and places the head of an elderly
brown man with a gray handlebar mustache gently onto the table. It takes
my brain a few seconds to catch up to what my eyes are seeing, and when it
does I jump in my seat.
“Where’s the rest of you?” The words come out before I can stop myself.
But the man isn’t offended. “Back in my office taking a most restful nap.
What began as flexibility became detachability once I touched the Crystal
Ball those many years ago.” He winks at me. “Now then, as Director of the
Unexplained, I believe the great many unanswerable questions surrounding
young Amari here mean that she falls squarely under my jurisdiction.”
I glance over at Magnus. He doesn’t seem to like my being considered
“unexplained” any more than I do.
“And what would you have us do?” asks Chief Crowe.
“When faced with a mystery, one must first determine if said mystery
presents a danger. We’ve established that the girl means us no immediate
harm. The next step, then, is not to project our own prejudices onto the
mystery, but rather to allow the mystery to reveal itself to us in its own
time. Which is to say that I believe we should allow the girl to stay, if she
wants to. She’d be monitored, of course, but discreetly. Also, it may be prudent to explain to her exactly why being a magician has caused such a
commotion.”
All eyes turn to me.
“That really would be helpful,” I say.
“Allow me,” says Chief Crowe. “In ancient times, long before the Bureau
existed, there wasn’t the separation between the known world and the
supernatural world that exists now. Humans lived right alongside
supernaturals and those supernaturals performed magic right out in the
open. The thing was, with all the freeflowing magic that existed in the
world, humanity had none of it. Not a single drop. Until the Night Brothers
—Sergei Vladimir and Raoul Moreau.
“No one knows how the two of them obtained magic, just that they
weren’t satisfied with the 35 percent magicality of a common elf or even
the 50 percent magicality of a woodland hag. They gave themselves more
power than any single being has a right to possess. It’s said that they could
perform seemingly impossible feats. We know for a fact that they
conquered old age and death, with a spell called Vampir, which requires
consuming the blood of innocents. . . .”
I shudder. Vampires?
Chief Crowe pauses, visibly upset, so Agent Fiona picks up where she
left off. “Ye can imagine that supernatural folk didn’t take too kindly to
humans terrorizing the land and upsetting the peace. And humans and
supernaturals banded together to bring down the Night Brothers. But they
were no match for the magicians. It seemed hopeless, that the Night
Brothers would take control of the whole bloody world—”
“Until my ancestor,” Director Van Helsing cuts in, “Abraham Van
Helsing drove a stake through Vladimir’s heart—a blow that sent Moreau
into hiding and scattered their forces. On the strength of my ancestor’s
courage, certain humans were privileged to remain in contact with the
supernatural world and enforce laws meant to keep its existence secret.
These trusted men and women became the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs.
“For the nearly seven hundred years that the Bureau has existed, Moreau
has continued to create new magician apprentices—until he was finally
captured by my daughter and your brother. These newer magicians have
been the cause of great tragedies and terrible disasters these many years.
Humanity was never meant for such power. It corrupts the soul.”
“That’s quite enough,” grumbles Magnus. “Leave your beliefs out of it.” I sit very still, trying to wrap my head around everything they’ve said.
“You’re saying the magic I have is bad?”
“At best we’re saying we don’t know,” says the talking head. “The
amount of magic we receive from the Crystal Ball is but a fraction of what
even the weakest magician possesses. At such high concentrations, we
simply don’t know what effects the magic, now that it’s active, may have on
you.”
“I don’t feel any different,” I say.
“It does raise an interesting question. How can we be sure her talent was
even enhanced?” asks Agent Fiona. “The ball didn’t glow.”
“In fact, it very nearly shattered,” says Director Kript. “Let’s not pretend
that means nothing. Can you imagine how difficult it’s going to be to
explain to Merlin how we let a trainee destroy a priceless artifact of
unending power?”
“No explanation will be necessary,” says Director Fokus. “I rushed over
right after with a couple of my best researchers to have a look at the damage
. . . and there just wasn’t any. The ball was in pristine condition, its magic
functioning normally.”
“What happened then?” asks Chief Crowe.
“In my professional opinion, the incident with the Crystal Ball revealed
just what kind of magician Amari is.” Director Fokus swallows. “She’s an
illusionist. If she possesses any other kind of magic in addition to this, such
as what’s necessary to create hybrids, it remains to be seen.”
The directors look at one another with nervous glances. Even Magnus
looks concerned.
So what happened onstage with the Crystal Ball was just an illusion? I’m
not sure what to think about that.
“I just wish we had more information.” Chief Crowe frowns. “If Horus
were here he could peek into the girl’s history, maybe discover how the
magic was passed to her.” She turns to Director Van Helsing. “I trust he’s
still away on sabbatical in the Wandering Isles?”
“Afraid so,” says Director Van Helsing. “The isles were last seen just off
the coast of Africa, but that was days ago. They could be anywhere in the
world by now.”
“Can we summon one of his underlings from the Department of Good
Fortunes and Bad Omens to give us some advice on the matter?” asks
Director Fokus. The chief shakes her head. “I’d rather have Horus himself on something
this important.”
“Is this really a risk we’re willing to take?” asks Director Van Helsing,
throwing up his arms. “That she might not be so bad because her brother is
a hero? Is it not the height of recklessness to allow a magician to roam
freely inside the Bureau while there are still so many unanswered
questions?”
“And just what do you suggest?” growls Magnus. “Lock her up for
something she can’t help? Fiona’s already proven the girl isn’t up to
anything nefarious.”
“Or perhaps she’s been prepped to fool Fiona’s supernatural ability,”
answers Director Van Helsing. “At the very least, we ought to erase the
girl’s memories of the supernatural world, erase her memories of being a
magician, and then send her home to be carefully watched. She’d go back to
being just an ordinary girl and no danger to the Bureau or the supernatural
world.”
“No!” I say, jumping to my feet. “You can’t erase my memories. If you
do, I’ll never be able to find my brother. Let me stay. I’ll prove that I’m just
like any other trainee. Please.”
Director Van Helsing starts to say something more, but Chief Crowe asks
for quiet. We all watch her pace back and forth a few times. Finally, she
comes to a stop right next to me. “I can see benefits to both requests. But
let’s not forget it was Quinton himself who nominated her. There is not a
person in this room who would question his judgment were he standing
here. And so we shall give you the benefit of the doubt, Miss Peters. But
understand that you’ll be on the shortest possible leash. I won’t compromise
the safety of the Bureau, understand?”
A wave of relief and then nervousness rushes through me. “I
understand.”
“Good,” she replies. “Prove that we’re right to trust you. Prove you
belong here.”