Stolen Magic. Esri Rose

refresh their land bond and grab some energy, but after two hundred years underground, a girl likes to get out and see things.

      I snacked on creek energy as I strolled on the grass, watching bicycle commuters whiz past on their way to work.

      “Hey! Adlia!”

      I looked around. Mark Speranzi was walking toward me, camera in hand and magnificent arms on display in a short-sleeved black shirt that draped like water.

      My mind searched frantically for something witty to say and came up with, “Hi.”

      He glanced at his watch, a silver model that looked great against his olive skin. “Are you on your way to work at six thirty in the morning?”

      “Actually, I’m coming back from a wild party,” I said. His expression cooled slightly, so I wiped my last statement right out of his head and replaced it with something about staying up with a sick friend. We always have the last word, remember?

      “That was nice of you,” he said, all smiles again.

      “I can be nice.” If I waited for something better to say, we’d be here all day. “What about you?”

      “On my way to get coffee, and taking pictures as I go. Can I buy you a cup?”

      “Um, sure.”

      We fell into step. I was giddy with a sense of possibilities. Here I was, going for coffee with a friend. Of course, I wouldn’t drink the coffee, and I’d be hypnotizing him not to notice that. My happy balloon deflated a little. Was someone still your friend if you controlled his thoughts a tiny bit? Was Mark my friend if I couldn’t answer any of his questions truthfully? I decided to keep him talking about himself, to avoid the whole problem. “What are you taking pictures of?”

      “Anything that says Boulder. One of my easiest moneymakers is a calendar of local-color shots. You don’t have to be a famous photographer to sell pictures of a pretty town when it’s filled with tourists and college students looking for gifts.”

      “Do you use digital or film for that kind of work?” Look at me! I was having a conversation!

      “I do a lot of digital, but I’m using film today, just to keep my hand in.”

      I nodded. “So are you from Boulder?”

      He laughed. “Is anyone from Boulder?”

      I opened my mouth but shut it just as quickly. Boulder hadn’t existed when I was born, so I probably didn’t count.

      “I guess I’ve lost most of my accent,” Mark went on, “but the rest of my family lives in Boston. My parents have a wedding-cake business. I started out taking pictures of cakes, graduated to the weddings themselves, then moved out here to get a little space from my family.”

      “You wanted to get away from your family?”

      The concept seemed bizarre to someone who’d never had a family.

      He held up both hands. “It’s not that we don’t get along. It’s just that I have two sisters and a brother, plus about a million cousins. It’s a little hard to hear yourself think.” He smiled wryly. “Speaking of being attention-deprived, I will continue to talk about myself unless you stop me. How ’bout you? Are you close to your family?”

      “I don’t have any family. My parents are dead, and I don’t have any siblings.”

      “Oh, Adlia.” He touched my back lightly. “I’m sorry.”

      Any pleasure I felt at the contact was lost in a jolt of surprise. There were strong traces of elf glamour on Mark, and they weren’t mine.

      “Stop,” I commanded, and he halted in his tracks. I kept him still and blank while I ran my hands over his head, his chest, his hands. Only a skilled tracker could specifically identify a glamour that wasn’t his own, and even then, he’d need to personally know the elf that had done it. But even I could tell that someone had glamoured Mark pretty heavily.

      My first response was visceral and shocking. This was my human. I picked up his unresisting hand and stroked his arm down to his fingertips. Warm skin, silky hair, the complicated bones of his knuckles. Humans didn’t dissolve into Ma’Nah until they died. This was Mark in his entirety, beneath my fingertips. Humans were so vulnerable singly, but together they changed the world.

      A heavy glamour could be the innocent result of an elf trapped by unusual circumstances, or it might be a dark elf setting up shop. Kutara would expect me to find out more.

      I started him walking again and released him from the glamour. “You were telling me about coming to Colorado. How long have you been here?”

      “About five years. I was visiting someone and never got around to leaving. What about you?”

      Lying was second nature to me, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed it. “What about me? I like to listen, and you said you enjoy talking. Do you really want to mess with a winning formula?”

      He didn’t laugh. “I’d like to know more about you. For instance, where does the name Adlia come from?”

      It’s elven. “It’s Czech.”

      He smiled. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

      “Most men appreciate a bit of mystery in a woman.”

      He shrugged, then hiked up the strap of his camera bag. “As long as the mystery doesn’t include stuff like alcoholism or cutting yourself.”

      I stopped, and a bicyclist who had been waiting to pass narrowly missed running into me. “Is that why you asked me to have coffee? You think I’m broken and you feel sorry for me?”

      “No. I asked because I’m curious about you. Also, I like the color of your hair.”

      “Oh.” I stared at him, resisting the urge to glamour him and see if he was telling the truth. He looked like he might feel a little sorry for me, but that didn’t prevent me from feeling a glow about the hair comment. All this time I’d thought Mark just found me amusing. Could there be more to his attentions? We slowly resumed walking. “I don’t cut myself or drink. I do keep a journal, with the obligatory bad poetry.”

      “If you know it’s bad, why don’t you write something better?” He had the nerve to grin at me.

      “Because recognizing goodness is not the same as having it. Sometimes all you can achieve is crap.”

      He nodded. “You know what I first noticed about you? Your inherent cheerfulness.”

      Chapter Four

      We went to the Trident for coffee. When it was my turn to order, I stepped aside and said, “Actually, I don’t want anything.”

      “Eating disorder?” Mark asked.

      “Stop trying to find things that are wrong with me! I’m perfectly normal.” I started to laugh. “Oh, that was funny.”

      Mark paid for his drink. “No artist is normal.”

      “I’m not an artist.”

      “Sure you are. Your photography shows a lot of promise, you keep a journal, and you write poetry. What part of artist do you not understand?”

      “The part where I’m good at any of them.”

      He pointed his finger at me. “Low self-esteem.”

      “Okay, you got me on that one, although I prefer to think of low self-esteem as just another term for modesty.”

      Mark grated nutmeg onto his cappuccino at the condiment bar. “Did I mention that modesty is one of my many outstanding traits?”

      I followed him to a table and sat. “Maybe not everyone is comfortable being as happy as you are. Have you ever thought of that?”

      He raised his eyebrows. “I can