Thirty minutes later, I looked up and caught Mike’s dazed expression. “Did I lose you, Mike?”
He blew out a puff of air. “Yes.”
“Where?”
“The part right after you told me that everything you could tell me would be a lie.”
“Maybe I didn’t explain it clearly enough. Sorry, let’s start over.”
Mike held up a palm. “Luna, I want to know what time it is, not how to build a clock.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Obviously, and neither do I. I need to know a lot more just to be able to ask the most basic questions. What I need to know is, what can you do with magic?”
I sat back and regretfully smoothed out my sand blackboard.
“Okay,” I said. “Practical effects only.” I thought of all the things he had seen me do. “I can move energy: heat energy, lunar energy, kinetic energy, electrical energy, other kinds of energy. That’s how I made this air-conditioning spell.”
“But you can’t carry the A/C with you?”
I shook my head. “Magic depends on drawing energy from outside. Many things can affect the energy we draw on for our effects. Ley lines, magnetic lines, local entities—things like that.”
“That’s why you say magic is fickle and you can’t depend on it?”
“For most magicians, that’s true. Someone like Mason can ‘juggle’ his sources better, so his magic works almost everywhere.”
Mike pointedly looked at his watch. I took the hint. “Practical. I can move gasses around, like for our oxygen mask spells. I can put gasses around another person’s head to make them pass out. But not over a long distance or too many at once.”
“You made a portal to jump outside that big fishbowl. And we jumped from that military base to a spot a hundred kilometers away.”
“The long jumps require a lot of energy, math and preparation. Short jumps are easier.”
“Can we hopscotch across the desert and get to Riyadh a lot faster?”
“No. Multiple jumps take a lot of energy. That many jumps would kill me.”
“Okay, so portals are a last resort. What else?”
“Transmutation,” I said quietly. This was a big secret, but Mike needed to know what I could do.
“Can you turn my water into wine?”
“Hell if I know. I’ve never tried that. I’m no prophet or saint from the Bible. Where did you get that idea?”
Mike opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap. “Just throwing out ideas. It’s how we brainstorm our plans.”
“Anyway, I can only work on an elemental level, one element at a time. Turning water into wine would be almost impossible.”
“So what do you use it for?”
“Given enough time and material, I can turn lead into gold.”
“That’s why you and Mason don’t care about money!”
“That’s not true. I care very much about money. I’m not spoiled. I use my gold to support the pack.”
“So why didn’t you transmute a rock into water?” He nodded at the basin. The apple tree was now about a foot tall.
“This way was easier. Transmutation is hard. The best use I’ve found for it is to disarm opponents. I can transmute the explosive in the primer in cartridges and keep them from firing.”
“That’s very handy. What’s your range?”
“Range?”
“Could you disarm the entire Middle East?”
“No! It’s very local. Maybe a hundred feet in the clear.”
“Not much use against snipers.” He gave me a calculating look, then scanned the empty horizon.
“Snipers aren’t a problem. I have a kind of premonition when someone aims a weapon at me.”
“Magic lets you know when someone aims at you? That’s something I’d love to learn.”
“It’s not just magic. I tried teaching Mason, but it didn’t work. It’s more a mixture of werewolf senses and magic. Mason calls it my ‘Spidey-sense.’ We don’t know any other magicians who can do what I do.”
Again, with the calculating look. Was Mike working out how to take down the strongest magician in the world?
“I almost feel sorry for the sniper who takes a shot at Mason,” I said. “He has a lot of magical surprises set up that trigger automatically if he’s attacked.”
Mike frowned. “Too bad.”
At my look, he added, “I’m not planning on shooting Mason. We call this ‘war-gaming.’ Thinking up different ways to take out enemies. There might come a time I have to take out a magician from a long distance.“
I nodded shortly. He had a point.
Then he brightened. “But as long as you’re around, we’ll know if there are snipers.”
We spent an hour or two going over various scenarios—mostly Mike asking how I would use magic in different situations.
“It must be nice to be able to walk through walls,” Mike said.
“I can’t walk through walls,” I said. “Becoming intangible is way beyond what I can do. I wouldn’t even know how to set up a spell to do that.”
“Sure you can. Just like when we stepped outside of that topsy-turvy globe of yours. A portal jump of ten feet got us outside.”
“I never thought of it like that. I’ve always concentrated on long-distance jumps, either to Fae or between two places on Earth.”
“Yeah, but with this you could step up to a bank vault, pop open a portal, and waltz inside.”
“I have other ways to get into vaults,” I said. “Wait—you said ‘bank vault.’ Did you get that idea from Logan?”
“It does sound like one of his ideas, right? No, I came up with that example on my own.”
I took a long drink of water. The sun was getting low in the sky and we would be able to travel in a couple of hours.
“I need to rest, Mike.”
“Okay, I’ll stand watch.”
I dithered a moment. I could rest sitting up, and my inner wolf was the best sentry in the world. There was really no need for Mike to stay awake. On the other hand, he probably wouldn’t be able to trust my instincts to safeguard us.
“Let’s do an hour each,” I said. “That way, we’ll both get a bit of rest.”
“Okay.”
I wiggled my butt a bit to settle into the sand, assumed the lotus position, and started my
