I've been magical all my life.

Arguably more so in the past week than the previous twenty-seven years. But still, I grew up with this. And after all that— almost three decades of hiding my powers, thinking my family were the only freaks in an otherwise normal world, and I the biggest freak among them, only to discover a vast world of magic that I'd been willfully shut out of— these are the conclusions I've come to:

1. Anything you can do with natural magic or general wizardry can be done better and more skillfully with an enchanted object.

2. Magic isn't fair.

That second one felt all too painfully relevant at the moment. I sat jammed in a booth seat between Cole, transient fellow necromancer, and Ethan, my sort-of boyfriend and victim of a werewolf curse currently eating him alive. Julius's bar, the Silver Ring, pan-dimensional speakeasy to the magical community, provided a low susurrus of activity around us. We were seated in the front of the building, which endeavored to look like a normal, old-world pub, popular with eccentrics and, for some reason, large bearded men in lots of leather. Julius himself sat across from us, himself a large, attractive older man in a lot of leather. I had a feeling the aforementioned were there primarily for him. Gwydion Greenwood sat near him, who'd been introduced to me as a young and attractive (in a Mr. Darcy sort of way) but otherwise average human lawyer. In actuality, it turned out, he was a Fae. Noble representative of one of the courts of the Other Lands, as far from human as I was from an unusually intelligent squirrel, connoisseur and collector of dangerous and powerful magical artifacts. We'd approached him looking for help dealing with Ethan's curse, which he'd provided.

Sandwiched between Julius and Gwydion, scuffed and rumpled and bitter as a jilted lemon, sat Gwydion's twin, the son of a bitch responsible for Ethan's curse.

"But it's his fault," Ethan said, looking utterly devastated in a way that sent my heart crawling down into my knees. "There's got to be something he can do!"

Nominally responsible anyway. That's what I was saying about magic not being fair.

"I'm very sorry," Julius said, and the older man really did look almost as miserable about this as Ethan did. "But that's what I'm trying to explain. He isn't responsible. Not really. The curse was already present. He just temporarily endowed you with the power to manifest it."

"But that doesn't make any sense." Ethan squeezed the edge of the table for stability, and I put a hand on his thigh to try and steady him. "Everyone I've talked to, even him—" he gestured dismissively at Gwydion. "Everyone has said that it isn't a self-curse. That it isn't even possible!"

"It wouldn't be, normally," Gwydion answered instead of Julius. "Self-inflicted curses normally never acquire the power to manifest physically. It's completely unheard of for even the strongest of self-curses to cause anything more than a statistically unverifiable warp in probability. But this is not a normal situation. Gilfaethwy is a master of cursework. It's his specialty. He knew just how much power to use and how to apply it in order to push your curse over the top into something only a handful of witches on this plane could have managed."

"Thank you for finally acknowledging my expertise anyway," Gilfaethwy said archly.

"It's a despicable art, and you are sevenfold despicable for mastering it," Gwydion replied without even looking at his brother.

"As if you're so much better." Gil sulked, sinking lower in the booth. "Tinkering with your treasure trove of stolen toys. Most of your collection doesn't even belong on this plane."

"We are not having this conversation right now," Gwydion snapped. "We can have it later, when I decide which of those toys I am going to use to remove all your fingernails."

I reminded myself that they weren't actually brothers. Not in the traditional sense anyway, despite the fact that they were nearly identical. The only difference between them was coloration. Where Gilfaethwy's long hair was the color of honey in sunlight, his eyes a bright summer green, Gwydion's hair was silver-pale, his eyes evergreen dark. Gil might have been slightly tanner as well. They were otherwise perfectly matched, from the sharp angles of their aristocratic faces right down to a small scar on the back of each of their right hands. To make things more confusing, Gwydion had previously shared Gil's coloring as well, and had only shed it less than an hour ago on the roof as we captured his thoroughly unpleasant twin.

"So, what does this mean?" I asked, trying to put us back on course. "We know who cursed Ethan now. How do we fix it?"

Gwydion bit the inside of his cheek and looked away. Julius sighed, sitting back in the booth, laying his hands on the table. He wore many silver rings, which glittered subtly in the warm light of the bar.

"That's where things become difficult," he explained. "Self-inflicted curses are almost always made unconsciously. The victim does something for which they believe they deserve to be punished, and believe in it so totally and for so long that it affects ambient magical fields. Only Ethan knows what he might have done, and even he likely won't know what conditions his subconscious set for breaking the curse. It's possible, probable in fact, that it will continue until his guilt for whatever he did fades or he otherwise feels that he's suffered sufficient punishment."

"But Gil did this," I said, my heart squeezing. "He can undo it, right? He powered it up. He can de-power it."

Julius and Gwydion shook their heads while Gil scoffed.

"It doesn't work that way," Julius said regretfully. "Once a curse has matured and physically manifested, it can't just be de-powered. It's self-sustaining at this point."

I licked my lips, growing frustrated. Ethan had fallen silent, looking down at the scarred surface of the wooden table with an empty expression.

"He must be able to do something," I insisted. "You said he's a curse expert!"

"I may be able to force him to examine the curse for us," Gwydion said, glaring at his brother. "Perhaps he can give us an idea of its parameters. But nothing more."

I sat back, fuming, working my brain for some kind of answer. Ethan had claimed before that he was resigned to eventually losing himself to the curse, that it didn't bother him. But I could see that hadn't been completely true, looking at his slack face now, the emptiness in his eyes. As a mortician's assistant, I spent a lot of time around the dead and dying. He looked like someone who'd recently received a terminal diagnosis. I'd given him hope that we could fix this, and it had just been thoroughly smashed, with the additional salt in the wound being that he had somehow done this to himself.

I took a deep breath and sat up. "So, we'll figure something out. The parameters are somewhere to start. Therapy also probably sounds like a good bet, if getting him to work through the guilt is a possible solution. This isn't unbeatable."

"I have a few contacts," Cole said, frowning into the free beer he'd conned out of Julius. "Things that are good at breaking curses and contracts. They might be able to help."

"Not for a price you'd be willing to pay," Gwydion and Gilfaethwy said simultaneously, then glared at each other.

"You'd be surprised what I would pay," Cole replied evenly.

"I have a good idea," Julius said, giving Cole a solemn look that made the younger man glance away, frown deepening into a hard line between his brows. "But it wouldn't be you paying. For something like this, the price would have to come from Ethan. It might break the curse, but it would change him ways that might be worse."

"Worse than losing my mind and becoming a monster single-mindedly intent on killing everyone I love?" Ethan spoke up at last.

"Worse," Julius confirmed. "Believe me when I tell you there is always, always worse."

I mentally added that to my list of conclusions about magic. It had the ring of definite truth.

Ethan shook his head.

"Forget it," he said. "It's not important. We have bigger fish to fry right now anyway. I won't die for a while yet, and Aethon is still out there with the candle."

I saw Gilfaethwy twitch at the sound of my immortal ancestor's name.

"Stop that," Julius said suddenly and slapped Gilfaethwy's hand. "That's not going to work in here anyway, and these tables are almost as old as you are!"

I blinked and looked down, realizing Gil had been stealthily carving runes into the top of the table with his nail. Julius rubbed them out with a frown, and to my surprise, they actually disappeared, a rune on one of Julius's rings glowing at the delicate application of power. "You know teleportation magic doesn't work inside the building unless I allow it."

"Can you blame me for trying?" Gil said with a shrug.

"Yes," Julius said frankly. "You know better than this, old friend. I don't think I need to tell you that your welcome here will be quite firmly rescinded once you leave."

Gil recoiled with an expression of shock, which metamorphosed through a stunning range of emotions, including amused disbelief, anger, and growing horror as he realized Julius was serious.

"Julius!" he said, shocked. "I've been a patron since you opened this place! I've fought beside you! Who held the door during the Mongol invasion? Who engaged Loki himself when the Norse gods tried to materialize Valhalla? Who provided bottomless cups when the thirst demons tricked their way in?"

"You stole those from me," Gwydion muttered, borrowing Cole's beer.

Julius smiled, nostalgia in his eyes. "They were good times, Gil. Especially the Norse. Odin never did call me back."

"Are you really surprised?" Gil asked. "Gods are the worst kind of heart breakers, especially the married ones."

Julius shook his head, dismissing the memories. "But, though the rules here may not be as unbreakable as the laws of fairy, they are still rules. No one is above them, not even you, or this place couldn't survive. You have caused direct, potentially fatal harm to a human. It is only out of regard for our history that you are still sitting here right now."

"Interpretation!" Gil stammered. "I didn't curse him! The harm was not mine!"

"These are human laws. It's the spirit of the thing that matters, not the letter." Julius discreetly waved a hand, and two new beers appeared on the table, one for Cole and one for himself. I imitated the gesture curiously, but nothing happened, my powers doing the mental equivalent of a confused shrug. "You used magic on a human with intention and foreknowledge of the harm it would cause him. There's no ambiguity for you to exploit, Gil. I've forgiven you a lot over the years. I had faith in you. But this is too severe for me to turn a blind eye. I have to ban you."

Gil looked almost as crushed as Ethan.

"This is the only place on this miserable joyless plane I have," Gil said in a thin, shaky voice, looking at Julius like he'd forgotten the rest of us were here. "There's nowhere else I can be as I am. Would you deny me that for simply obeying my nature?"

"Finally," Gwydion said sourly. "Some consequences that actually matter to you. Clearly I should have involved Julius much earlier."

Julius and Gil both ignored him.

"You promised you could control that nature when you first entered this place," Julius replied, eyes heavy with regret but his back straight and resolute. "I am sorry, old friend. But I am responsible for the safety of everyone who enters this place. And you have proven yourself to be a direct danger to them."

"Not to your patrons!" Gilfaethwy tried. "Never to anyone here! You have allowed worse things than me— things that hunt—"

"On the vow that they do not hunt here," Julius countered. "And that they hunt only as they need to survive. You hunted, Gilfaethwy. And you did not do it to survive. And furthermore, these people are my patrons. Vexa's family have been regulars here since before the fall of Rome."

"We have?" I asked, a little stunned.

"Your great uncle was in here just last month," Julius replied with a sad smile. "I heard about his passing. You have my sympathies. He was a good man, and complicated, as most good people are."

"She is not part of this," Gil argued. "They are not wed. Her family's protection does not extend to him. He was free game!"

Julius gave Gilfaethwy a look so solemn and disappointed that Gil fell silent and sank back into his seat.

"The names of all those under my protection are engraved on my soul," Julius said, and his voice rang like a bell with the truth of it. "And Ethan has eaten at my table before."

All eyes turned to Ethan, who was staring at his lap, lost in his thoughts. At the attention, he blinked, coming back to himself for a moment.

"Oh, right," he said, looking around. "I kind of forgot. I used to live near the Houston location. I didn't know it was magic then. I, uh, I just knew it was, um, that it had a reputation."

He glanced surreptitiously at the other patrons, many of whom had a distinctive, well-groomed biker aesthetic. A vaguely Tom of Finland look. An extraordinarily muscular man in leather chaps at a nearby table winked at Julius, who waved.

"You thought it was a gay bar?" I summarized.

"I just wanted to see it," Ethan blurted out, clearly uncomfortable. "You know, just once. It was back before I left home. Before the curse."

"Right before it, if what I can see of your curse's development is any indication," Julius said, looking at Ethan's chest like he could stare right through it to the knot of guilt and self-loathing that sat beside Ethan's heart. Maybe he really could. "The same night, by my reckoning. I do not remember every visit by every patron I've ever had, but I always remember the first. Even those I was not present for, as in your case, Ethan. But I don't often go digging in such memories. As I'm sure you knew, Gil."

Gil pressed his lips into a thin line and refused to answer or to look at Julius.

"I might have been more lenient if it was just a foolish impulse, Gil," Julius said. "I know you've never had the greatest self-control. But this was not a slip up or a mistake. You came into my bar, a place of safety, you found him, you followed him, and you put that thing inside him knowing it would kill him slowly and painfully. I believed better of you, Gil."

"You don't know," Gilfaethwy said, voice muffled by the tense set of his jaw as he refused to look at Julius. "You can't understand. To be cut off not just your home but your reality— the isolation of it— how desperately you search for any tiny piece of who you were—"

"No, I don't," Julius agreed. "But he can."

He gestured to Gwydion, who was finishing his beer and looking deeply bored of the entire conversation.

"You are not half as alone as you pretend to be."

Gil didn't answer, but his crossed arms and bitter scowl made it clear he didn't accept Julius's wisdom. Quiet lingered for a long moment. Ethan had gone back to staring at the table top.

"So, you've met my family?" I asked Julius to fill the silence.

"Indeed," Julius confirmed. "Right back to the beginning. The bar looked pretty different back then, obviously, but I had a door in Constantinople. I'm not one of those who pretends the past was better than the present, but the clothing was infinitely superior to anything you can get in a department store, and the beer was incredible."

I'd glossed over without really noticing the fact that Julius was clearly much, much older than he looked. But I realized the implication of his words now.

"Have you met Aethon?" I asked.

Julius gave me a long, measuring look, then stood up.

"May I borrow her for a moment?" he asked Ethan and Cole. They exchanged a look, then Cole nodded and Ethan stood to let me slide out of the booth.

"Now, how many curses have you 'encouraged' this way, exactly?" Gwydion asked Gilfaethwy as I followed Julius away from the table.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Gil replied, sounding even more bitter than before.