Chapter 7

Tom had pushed for reform bills. He’d argued for equality. He’d won a few concessions about standards for establishing legitimate agreements versus coerced bindings. He’d lost other arguments to traditionalists and unscrupulous bastard warlocks who depended on magical creatures as living batteries. He’d gotten very tired of losing.

A stray thought kicked his head. “How’re you running Ian’s shop? You can’t—”

“Do spells? No.” Nicholas made an annoyed expression, scrunched-up nose and rumpled hair, that shouldn’t’ve been as attractive as it was. As a creature of innate natural magic, he couldn’t touch and manipulate power-lines the way human witches and wizards could; it’d be like constantly manipulating his own soul. “I ama power-source, though, and I have all his recipes for amulets and herb-packets and so on. I can’t pull it out of the air the way you can. But I can put myself into whatever people need. My own magic. Little bits.”