I stepped away with a groan as Emery accepted Reagan’s passive challenge. Passive, because Reagan didn’t just run at him and kick him in the face. She was clearly tired.

As I sagged into the chair in the corner, I smiled to myself. I’d made her winded a few times in the past, but this was maybe the first time I’d seen her this tired after a training session. She usually bounced back almost immediately.

It meant I was getting better.

“How does this work?” Emery asked, squaring up with Reagan, completely at ease.

The worst thing you could do was underestimate that woman. She’d shove it in your face and make you eat it. I nearly warned him, too, but didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

“You try to down me, and I try to down you,” Reagan said, holding her sword at her side with one hand and digging around in her fanny pack with the other.

“How intense do we get?”

“You can see the spells as they’re formed, right? Because you’re a natural?” She pulled out an intact casing and frowned at it. “Huh. I didn’t realize I had another one of these left. That might be fun.”

“I can, yes.”

She slipped the casing into her pocket before going back to the digging expedition. “And did you see what Penny was throwing at me?”

Emery shifted from one side to the other, something he did when he was unsure. “I work differently than Penny. I’ve had a lot more experience. We should probably establish some ground rules.”

A smile worked up her face and her eyes sparkled. “You think you’re going to be too much for me, huh?” She pulled out another intact casing. Her eyes went vague for a moment before she gave Emery an assessing look.

“No.” I shook my head. “Nope. Not on your first time fighting him.”

Her look held all kinds of false innocence. “What?”

“No.” I shook my head again, ignoring Emery’s raised eyebrows. “I know that look. You can try it out next time. Or if we’re working together.”

“Fine.” She sighed and dropped the casing into her fanny pack. “He could’ve probably handled it, though.”

“You can feel the magic?” Emery’s eyes narrowed. “Like Penny can?”

A wary look crossed Reagan’s face. “No.” She pointed at her fanny pack. “It was color-coded. Darius is good about organizing.”

She was lying, and if Emery’s face said anything, it was that he expected as much.

“What about close combat—am I allowed to hit a girl?” he asked.

Reagan’s smile was feral. “If you think you’re fast enough, sure.” She dug out another casing from her fanny pack, holding it in her palm. Her knees bent slightly. She was ready to go.

Emery watched her for a moment before looking around the spacious warehouse. His gaze hit the doorway and then my belt. “Penny, can you empty those compartments on the ground? Preferably closer?”

I jumped up and did as he asked. “How about the power stones? Do they need to be moved?”

“You tell me. They’re your friends, not mine.” He grinned.

“Leave ’em, Penny.” All of the humor and lightness dripped off Reagan’s face. “He needs to fight his own battles.”

Emery barely cocked his head, but I could tell he heard the challenge. It was meant to rile him up. I couldn’t tell if he was rising to the bait.

Reagan worked the casing from her palm to her fingertips before pinching it and smashing it against the base of her sword. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to squish too easily, as if this one had already been opened. Her lips moved and I heard soft muttering, but no magic climbed the metal of her sword.

“Latin?” Emery asked.

Reagan finished whatever she was saying before tossing the empty casing behind her. “I’m fancy.”

“We’ve already established that I’m a natural who can see magic.”

“Thanks for the summary.”

“So is what you just did supposed to fool me?” Emery’s face was perfectly straight. “Or Penny?” He didn’t seem to be joking.

“Yeah,” Reagan responded. “Did it?”

A whirl of magic exploded from the items I’d littered around the room, rushing toward Emery furiously. He lifted his hands in front of him, his fingers moving.

Reagan launched forward, sprinting at him.

Not four steps in and his first spell was already jetting through the air, rough and wild, glowing blue.

“Holy shit stains, Batman. That was fast.” Reagan cleaved through the spell, leaving a line of charred magical ends in the sword’s wake. The spell dissipated into the air. She barely lost speed.

Another spell was zipping at her a moment later, reddish, tightly woven, and throbbing with power. Its intent was to blister her skin, but it was volatile and off-kilter. She sliced through it without effort.

Emery’s eyebrows pinched, and I knew he was problem-solving. It had taken her a while to get through mine. His, though equally powerful, were not keeping her at bay. I knew him—he would adjust accordingly.

He shot off another spell, wove a fourth, and shot that off right after it. Back in the Mages’ Guild, I’d had to use casings between my created spells to match his pace.

“Quick Draw McGraw over here,” Reagan said with a grunt, slicing through the latest of his spells. She was twenty feet from him now, jogging forward before stopping to deal with a spell. She was working for it, but she was making progress. “These won’t get the job done. They’re well executed, even though you rushed, and packing power, but they’re…meh.”

“Meh?” Emery ripped off another, the intent to distract her. As soon as her sword hit the magic, it spiraled out into three whorls of color and light before zinging back at her, crackling the air.

“What the…” She batted the air with her hand and hacked with her sword, like swatting flies. A wisp from the spell strafed across her upper arm, searing it. She didn’t flinch. “Even that one. You’re on the right track, but it’s missing something. Countering those spells is easy. Any gobshite with a lick of sense will have no problem tearing you down.”

“It seems I haven’t met a gobshite with a lick of sense yet, then.”

“I mean…hello? Who am I?” Reagan jogged a few more steps before the next spell zipped through the air, similar to the distracting one, though this one was meant to scald. It broke apart as the other had done, but she was ready for it. She sliced it down quickly, turning her back on Emery at one point to do so.

“Tackle her,” I shouted, unable to help it. “Tackle her from behind. She’s—” I cut off as she turned around. “Missed it, Emery.” I shook my head.

His chest shook, and I knew he was chuckling at me.

“I wasn’t kidding,” I muttered.

“That’s what makes it so funny, Turdswallop,” he said, creating a nastier spell between his two palms. More complex, with a weave twice as large, this one should take her back a pace.

“Should’ve listened to her. Here’s Johnny!” She sprinted at him in the lull between spells.

He took two quick steps back, not worried about losing ground in order to buy time. Five feet away from him, Reagan bent her knees, preparing to launch.

He thrust his hands forward and the spell rushed at her, a cloud of magic rolling and tumbling through the air.

Unexpectedly, she went down into a slide, like trying to steal second base. The spell drifted over her and she popped up, jumping into the air a moment later. She kicked out. Her foot smacked against Emery’s forearm, which hadn’t come up to block her in time. He punched his own face.

Reagan punched him in the stomach and the upper leg, then bent and swept her leg behind his, knocking his legs out from under him. He landed hard on his butt and rolled away. In that time, a blast of fire took out the drifting spell, lazily headed back in her direction. It was a homing spell like the one I’d used, but he’d missed a few components in his haste.

By the time he was up, the fire was gone, and she was squaring off again.

He blinked half a dozen times, like he’d been completely blindsided, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ms. Gobshite, to you,” Reagan said, fisting and straightening her hand. “You’ve got muscle tone, though. I’ll give you that. Giving you a charley horse isn’t as fun as it should be.”

This time, Emery did brace himself. “Fuck it. Again.”

A smile took up Reagan’s face. “Don’t mind if I do.”

She ran forward as he was readying a nastier spell, but the sound of plastic clattering against the floor dragged away my focus. My phone was jumping against the back wall where I’d left it earlier.

Skirting along the side of the warehouse so as not to get hit with a rogue foot or spell—you just never knew with Reagan—I grabbed the phone and checked the screen. A number I didn’t recognize.

“Hello?” I asked as Reagan punched Emery’s face, faster than should have been humanly possible. He jerked out of the way at the last moment and then landed a solid punch into her stomach. His other hand came around for a left hook, but she ducked in time and powered a fist into his ribs.

He tackled her, smashing his large shoulder into her middle and taking her down. His bigger, heavier body fell on top of her, but she didn’t lose her breath like any normal person would’ve. She rolled with impossible strength, curled up to get her feet lined up with his middle, and kicked out. He went tumbling across the floor.

They both scrambled to their feet. Emery already had a spell at the ready. With one hand, he started weaving and rapidly firing lesser spells at her, cringeworthy confections intent on keeping her busy. With the other hand, he constructed something he’d obviously gotten from me, but with embellishments stemming from his frustration and desire to win.

“Are you creating multiple spells at one time right now?” Reagan asked as she muscled her sword through one lowball spell after another. “How the hell are you creating multiple spells? That can’t be done.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t feel magic. I think you were lying.” His tone said he was teasing, but his face was screwed up in intense concentration.

It occurred to me that Emery had been trained similarly to Callie and Dizzy. Though he was more flexible, Reagan was likely one of the first people who’d made him rethink his usual fighting strategies.

Welcome to Reagan Land, where every day was a new nightmare.

“Hello?” a man said on the other end of the phone.

I’d completely forgotten I’d pushed talk. “Oh sorry, hello?”

“Penny?”

“Yes, who is speaking?”

“This is Red. The shifter from down—”

“Reagan’s friend, yeah. Hi.”

“I don’t know about Reagan’s friend…” he muttered. “Hey, you got a minute?”

“Uh…yeah. Wait, how did you get my number?”

“I deal in intel.”

I waited for more. Silence stretched between us, getting awkward, until he finally said, “Reagan gave it to me in case I needed to talk to you and couldn’t get a hold of her. In case there was danger, or something.”

“Ah, right. She’s right here, if you—”

“No, no. No, that’s fine. She’s probably busy.” I didn’t miss the wariness in his voice. “Listen, I thought you should know. There’s been a lot of activity in the bars lately. In this whole area, actually. Mostly in the daytime and early evening. People drift away when the sun starts going down, and then it’s just the regulars. Now, I don’t know what all of them do, you understand. I do my job discreetly. I listen, I don’t ask questions.”

“Okay…”

Emery loosed the secondary spell he’d been working on, then quickly brought up his hands to weave a more complex spell between his two palms. Reagan chopped and hacked her way through his newest spell, struggling more with this one.

Without warning, weaving all the while, Emery ran forward and kicked her between the legs.

“Oh!” Reagan’s knees buckled and she sank to the ground. “You kick much harder than Penny.” The spell dove at her. She waved her palm through the air in what I knew was her last-ditch effort. Fire crackled above her, a thin line over her body, catching the spell. Flame dug into his spell and fractured it, like stress cracks. The next moment she was up, walking a little bowlegged, using her sword again and cutting away the rest of the spell.

Erasing one of her most perplexing pieces of magic from the air.

“What the… You have a big secret, Ms. Gobshite,” Emery said with wide eyes.

“I should never have agreed to fight you,” she said, launching at him.

“Penny?” Red said.

“Oh, sorry—Reagan is practice-fighting someone right now. I’m a little distracted.”

“Good. She’ll have less energy to torment me.” Red cleared his throat. “About these people—I mean, you know our neck of the woods is heavily populated with tourists. So I see a lot of faces every day—”

“Who is it?” Reagan said, making me jump. Sweat ran down her face and slicked back her hair. Her breath came in deep pants. Emery had finished off what I had started.

“Red.”

“What does he want?” she asked, reaching for the phone.

I handed it over without thinking. My magic might’ve been getting worlds better and stronger, but my ability to resist orders, even silent ones, from headstrong, competent people hadn’t gained any ground.

“What’s up?” she said into the phone.

“Who’s Red?” Emery asked, pulling up the base of his shirt to wipe his sweaty face.

On impulse, I grazed my fingers across his defined stomach before laying my hand flat against his skin. It felt good to touch him again. To feel his heat and solidity.

I still couldn’t believe that he’d actually come back. A large part of me had feared he wouldn’t. That he’d forget me a little more with each passing month, that he’d decide the connection between us had only stemmed from the heat of the moment. But he was here, now, and it felt like we were picking up exactly where we’d left off, except I was less naïve, less new to this world.

A hum buzzed deep in my core, and I looked up and caught his Milky Way eyes. The sound of Reagan telling Red to get to the point drifted into my consciousness. “Huh?”

A smile flickered across Emery’s lips and he knelt, now eye level with me. “I was too far away to see the weaves you did. I couldn’t duplicate them.”

“Your magic didn’t seem totally balanced.”

“It wasn’t. You weren’t close enough.” His thumb drifted over my chin, trailing heat in its wake.

“I was. I used you from the distance. You can use me. It’s just a matter of reaching out.”

He shook his head slowly and his eyes dipped to my lips. “That kind of sharing still isn’t second nature to me. Maybe this special ability of yours is like my foresight. A special gift, in additional to being a natural. You can feel and siphon magical ability from those around you. Borrow their abilities and make them your own.”

“Or maybe I just like sharing,” I said with a small smile, “and willingly opening myself up to experiences.”

“Maybe we’ll have to practice opening up to experiences.”

His voice, deep and low, spoke of a different sort of practice. A more intimate kind of practice that I was desperate to explore with him.

“We gotta go.” Reagan snapped the phone shut, making me jump. “Red is mostly talking gibberish, but he knows something. I can tell when he’s trying to be invasive.”

“Invasive?” Emery’s brow furrowed and he glanced at her, equally taken out of the moment.

“Evasive. Whatever.” She stalked toward the door, waving her finger at the ground as she did so. “Get these rocks picked up. You might need them.”