Kiss and Spell (Enchanted, Inc.) by Shanna Swendson Read Free Book Online

There’s magic all around. We have enhanced circuits in this building.”
    “But she’s not drawing on them.”
    “So I am doing something wrong,” I said, heaving a sigh.
    “No, I don’t think so. I think you’re doing the best you can do with what you’ve got, but you don’t have much.”
    “In other words, I’m a lousy wizard.”
    “You’re not a wizard. That’s the problem. I don’t think the exploding magical brooch really gave you magical powers. It just activated the latent magic in you.”
    “But I didn’t have magic in me. I’m utterly devoid of magic. That’s what being immune is.”
    “Not exactly. Remember how I can channel power from you?”
    “Yes,” I said, feeling my face grow warm at the memory. It was really sexy being linked to him that way.
    “Well, in you, that magic is inert. I have to activate it to use it. That’s a lot of what being a wizard means—having the ability to draw upon the magic inherent in the environment or in people and turn it into power I can use. Nonmagical people just have that power flow through them, so magic can work on them even if they can’t use it. With magical immunes, it remains inert and unused, so it doesn’t work for anyone unless it’s removed from you. What that explosion must have done was activate the power you had in you at the time. When you’re using magic, it’s flowing out of you, but any new magic flowing in is as inert as it would normally be for you. You’ll only have magical abilities as long as you don’t use up the activated power. When it’s gone, it’s gone.”
    “Is it the same for you?” I couldn’t process what this meant for me, but I knew he’d been greatly relieved to get his powers back. Losing them again might be more than he could take.
    He shook his head. “No, I’m activating new power, the same as Rod. It really did reboot me by giving me the power I needed to draw upon more power. Granny would say it primed the pump. But since your natural state is immunity and you’ve never had the ability to activate power, all it did was activate whatever was in you at that time, but it’s finite.” His eyes softened, and the look he gave me was full of love and compassion, like he’d just given me a terminal diagnosis. “I’m so sorry, Katie.”
    “You can’t teach me to activate power?”
    “The technique is part of every spell. You’re doing all the right things. You just lack that ability.”
    “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I had to keep the power secret, or I’d have used it up by now,” I said, fighting to keep a brave face. It had been bad enough to learn that magic existed but that I had no part of it. Having it and being good at it, then losing it, was worse. I felt like the heroine of a tearjerker TV movie—one of those about a blind woman who gets the miracle operation to restore her sight and sees her husband and kids for the first time, only to learn that the results aren’t permanent. My case was less tragic, but it still wasn’t happy.
    “So, I guess we save it for emergencies?” Rod asked. “We should keep training on a theoretical basis.”
    Owen nodded. “It’ll be more difficult to memorize spells without being able to practice them, but the more you know, the more effective use you’ll make of your power when you need to use it.”
    “What happens after it’s gone?” I asked. “Will I be immune again, or just normal?”
    “I don’t know,” Owen said. “This whole thing has been unprecedented. I should get a good paper out of it.”
    “Owen!” I snapped. He was a real sweetheart of a guy, but when he was in intellectual mode he could be totally oblivious to human emotion.
    He had the good grace to blush, and he was fair-skinned enough, in spite of his dark hair, to be a world-champion blusher. “Sorry. I know this is difficult for you, but it is interesting. What I suspect will happen is that when your power gets to a certain level, you’ll go through a phase