“What ya working on?”
“Math.” He didn’t look up.
I placed my hands on the back of the chair in front of me and leaned into it. “Let me ask you something.”
He sighed and looked up. “What?”
“Now that you’re in DUDE are you totally antimagic?”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Kate,” he snapped. “DUDE is about spreading awareness of dirty magic. Clean magic is fine.”
“Relax, I’m not trying to start an argument here. I’m just curious.” I pulled the seat out and joined him at the table. I took my time getting settled, allowing my thoughts to solidify.
“You know, I never learned how to cook clean magic.” I fidgeted with a pencil. “Uncle Abe always said clean magic was too expensive and time consuming to learn.” I looked up. “He didn’t explain that it’s also generally safer and more stable. That sometimes it can help people.”
Danny’s posture opened a little, and I knew I had him. “That’s sad, Katie.”
“I agree,” I said. “But when you asked me to teach you magic, I thought you wanted to learn the kind of magic I knew. The dirty kind.”
His voice rose. “I tried to tell you that’s not—”
I held up a hand. “I know, Danny. I get that now. But the thing is, I couldn’t have taught you clean magic.”
He nodded impatiently. “I know, I know. You hate magic in all its forms.” He mimicked my voice in a not-so-flattering tone.
“That’s not what I meant.” I tilted my head and looked him in the eye. “Because I don’t know how to cook clean.”
His eyes lit up like he finally got it. “Oh. I never thought—”
I patted his arm. “Don’t worry about.” I reached down to the bag on my lap and placed it on the table in front of him.
“What’s this?” He looked at it with a wary smile.
“Open it.” Suddenly nervous, I chewed on my bottom lip.
The brown paper crinkled open. He gazed down into the bag with a frown. He reached in slowly, almost as if he expected it to be a trick. But then he lifted the box and stared down at it for a long time.
The picture on the cover depicted a kid in a wizard outfit, complete with pointy hat and magic wand. The Little Wizard Cooking Kit was most Adepts’ introduction to basic magic.
“I’m sorry it’s for kids, but it’s all they—”
He looked up, blinking rapidly. “Are you serious?”
I licked my lips and nodded. “I know I promised I’d teach you, but I figured maybe we’d learn together instead.”
He simply stared at me like he’d never met me before.
“When I was a kid,” I said to fill the silence, “I watched the commercials for that kit with envy roiling in my gut like a green snake. Every year I asked Mom for it for Christmas, and every year I got a stupid doll in a pink dress.”
A sad smile spread across my brother’s not-quite-a-man face. “Why didn’t you buy it when you were older?”
I shook my head, my eyes glued to the image of the happy Adept children dancing across the box. “By the time I was old enough to buy one for myself, I was so jaded about magic. I thought dirty potions were superior because they required a craftier mind.” I laughed bitterly. “Anyway… what do you think?”
“I think it’s pretty cool.” He smiled at me with a smile I’d used on him more times than I could count. It wasn’t patronizing exactly, but maybe… sympathetic and encouraging. Either way, I’d take it.
“Obviously we’ll zoom through the stuff in here pretty quick. That’s why I was thinking about talking to Mez about giving us some lessons.”
“Seriously?” His mouth dropped open. “Mez?”
“Do you think you’d like that?”
“Are you kidding? He’s a total magical badass.”
I smiled. “Yeah, he is.”
He quieted for a moment and then looked me in the eyes. “You’re pretty badass, too, Kate.”
I smiled. “Ditto, kid.”
I toyed with the box on the table for a moment. I was screwing up my courage, but Danny didn’t seem to notice because he was too busy looking at his present. Clearing my throat, I said, “There’s something else.”
He looked up. The smile on his face froze. “Uh-oh.”
I sighed and leaned forward. “You know how I was at the old brewery the night Volos came up with the antipotion and Bane tried to kill both of us?”
A shadow passed behind his eyes. I didn’t want to reopen these old wounds, but sometimes you had to rebreak an injury for it to heal correctly. “The truth is, Danny, I helped John cook the antipotion.”
He fell back in his seat. “What?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “John did most of the work. When I went to meet him it was almost there, but he was missing an important ingredient. I helped him by reading Gray Wolf to understand the hidden ingredients in the potion. What I saw revealed the missing ingredient.”
Danny’s mouth fell open, but I wasn’t done.
“The thing is, before John could finish it, Bane busted in and shot Volos full of Gray Wolf. He was… incapacitated,” I said in the understatement of the year. The real truth was that the potion had turned John into a slavering beast that tried to kill me. “So I had to complete the antipotion on my own to save him—and you.”
“Wait,” Danny said, his eyes wide, “you cooked?”
I nodded.
“But, I don’t understand. Why did you lie about it?” His voice rose. “Why did you let me believe it was John who saved me?”
“It’s complicated,” I began. He made a disgusted sound, as if he expected me to brush him off. “Let me finish.”
He relaxed a fraction, nodding.
“I’d spent weeks telling you I didn’t want you to cook. And I’ve spent years preaching the dangers of magic. I was worried that if I admitted I’d worked with magic, you’d think I was a hypocrite.”
“You’re an idiot.”
I pulled back. “What?”
“Jeez, Katie. You’re a freakin’ hero!”
I bit my lip, ready to deny it. But he wasn’t done.
“I was angry because I thought you’d done nothing to try to save me thanks to your high and mighty principles. I thought—I thought you cared more about proving you could resist your desire to do magic than you cared about saving me.”