“Did someone ask him for an autograph?”
“Oh yeah. I thought a couple of those guys might faint.”
He grinned, then he frowned and tilted his head as he stared at the charms he was monitoring. “What is it?” I asked.
Instead of answering me, he called, “Jake!” His assistant ran over to join us, and the two of them placed their hands on the glass cases. After a moment, Owen said, “There’s a surge coming through,” and then his eyes went unfocused, like he was looking within. “Okay, got it, got it, got it,” he muttered to himself, then abruptly he said, “Damn!”
“I lost it, too, boss,” Jake said, panting. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. Owen looked equally beat.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They sent a signal, but I don’t think it was a spell or a directive. It was more like a test, like the magical equivalent of ‘testing, one, two, three’ with a microphone. I thought for a moment I’d tracked it back to the source, but they stopped the signal before I could disrupt it. I might be able to counteract anything else they send, though.”
“What about when you’re doing the demonstration?”
Owen and Jake looked at each other. “I’d leave it to Jake, but I need him with me to help handle the dragons.”
“Then get someone else to keep an eye out. If I were the bad guys—who seem to know all about who you are—that’s when I’d choose to strike.”
“I’ve got more charms set up back at the office,” Owen said with a weary sigh. “I’ll give them a call and see if they caught anything.”
“Delegation won’t kill you,” I reminded him. “I’ll go see if anything happened when that surge hit.”
I ran back into the main hall, where a member of the sales team was giving highlights of the year. It didn’t look like anything major had happened. The place was still standing and I didn’t see any blood. The audience hadn’t turned into an army of magical zombies. So far, so good. I went out to the assembly area and poured myself a glass of juice from one of the buffets. I’d eaten breakfast before leaving home, but that was hours ago, and I was already starving again. Before I could drink it, Rina came running over to ask me a question. It went like that all day. The conference was going smoothly, but there seemed to be a conspiracy against me getting anything to eat. By the time for Owen’s presentation late in the day, the most I’d managed to eat was a cube of cheese during the afternoon breakout session, and I was becoming light-headed.
I went to the green room to check on Owen and found him pacing nervously. He’d cleaned up and changed clothes, so now he looked like the professional he was, but he also looked like he might bolt given the first opportunity. “Do I really have to do this?” he asked me, his voice sounding strained and not too steady.
“Well, considering that you have to represent Research and Development because your boss is a giant frog and refuses to go out in public, and considering that you’re the one who tamed the dragons, yeah, you really have to do this. Now, take a deep breath and settle down.”
He closed his eyes and took a few long, shuddering breaths, then shook his head. “No, that didn’t work. I can’t talk.”
“You do it in meetings all the time. This is just a really big meeting.”
His eyes went wide and panicky. “But there are a lot of people in there, and they’ll all be staring at me. A lot of them may even think I’m the big magical criminal.”
“Only the ones dumb enough to listen to rumors. Once the dragons come on, they’ll all forget you’re even there.” That didn’t seem to make him feel much better. It was time for tough love. “Look, Owen, this isn’t the time for a shy attack. The way the lights are, you won’t be able to see most of the audience.”
I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him close to me so I could look him directly in the eye. “I’m going out there to sit in the front row, where you should be able to see me, and I want you to give this presentation to
me
. I’m the only person in the audience, and I will like you no matter how it goes. Can you do that?”
He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“I know you can. I’ve seen you take on things a lot scarier than that crowd.” We stood there for a while, our eyes locked, and I wasn’t sure if I was picking up on his stage fright or if something else was going on, but my heart pounded and my mouth went dry. As I looked into his eyes, I decided it wasn’t stage fright on my end. It was the dizzying realization that I was in love with this guy. I was about to tell him, with the hope that would distract him from his fear, when Hartwell’s voice came from the stage, introducing Owen. I stood on tiptoes and gave him a quick, hard kiss. “Now go knock ’em dead.”
I went into the auditorium and found an empty seat, front and center, just as Owen came on stage. He froze at first, and his voice was soft when he started talking, but once he found me in the front row, he gained confidence and sounded more normal. Then he really got going as he forgot about the crowd and focused on his favorite thing to do: geek out about the science of magic.
Soon, he had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand, and there was little wonder. Take an incredibly good-looking guy with next to no ego and a passion for his subject matter, and you’ve got a captivating speaker. “But enough talk. Now I’d like to show you something,” he said. “I don’t know how many of you have pets, but those of you who do probably know that making them behave can be a challenge. We’ve developed a way to make pet misbehavior a thing of the past. I know this works because it works on my cat—and if you have cats, you know exactly what that means.” That got him a laugh, and he grinned as he continued, “But it’s hard to do a proper demonstration on something as small as a cat, so I thought I’d show you just how effective this is.” The audience gasped audibly when he brought the dragons on stage.
The dragons went through their paces, playing fetch, rolling over, and even toasting a marshmallow on a stick. There was only one minor mishap involving a curtain that got accidentally set on fire, but Jake doused it immediately. I held my breath the whole time, nervous for Owen, but also worried that the Spellworks people would strike at any moment. I got a sense of tension from the audience, but it was hard to tell if it had anything to do with magic or was just because they were in the presence of real, live fire-breathing dragons. When Owen sent the dragons away and ended his presentation, the audience gave him a standing ovation.
Hartwell introduced Ramsay, who got an extended standing ovation and a roar from the crowd. Ramsay basked in the admiration until the applause died down long enough for him to give Merlin a long-winded introduction. The response to Merlin was more subdued, but more from awe than lack of enthusiasm. He talked about the founding of the company and the changes he’d noticed in magic since his return.
I glanced to the side and saw Owen come in one of the doors near the back of the auditorium. Although I had an empty seat next to me, he stayed near the exit, watching the crowd.
Merlin spoke fervently about the importance of using magic for good, and the crowd was totally with him. I felt like I was at an old-fashioned tent revival. I barely kept myself from shouting, “Amen!”
Then Merlin said, “You’re probably aware of our competition by now, and there are some things you should know about that company. The man who has served as the face of Spellworks has rejoined MSI, and he can tell you more about what their magical methods really mean. I am pleased to welcome Mr. Phelan Idris.”
That brought murmurs of surprise and some tentative applause. Someone had really managed to clean Idris up. He almost looked respectable in a nice suit. It may have been the first time I’d ever seen him in clothes that actually fit him. I held my breath as he started talking. “I’m a big one for fun and, let’s face it, mischief,” he began, and I relaxed as I recognized the opening line of the speech I’d written for him. “That was the reason I left MSI. I was creating spells that caused trouble, and those spells were the foundation for Spellworks.”
He was no orator. He sounded stiff and like he was reciting from memory, which he was, but at least he was more or less on script. “It does seem like every generation has someone rise up to challenge the status quo,” he went on, and that wasn’t in the script. I held my breath again. “I guess I was this generation’s one.” His smirk indicated that he was proud of that, and that worried me. “I’m not old enough to remember it, but some of you probably remember the last time we went through this, only it was a lot worse when the Morgans tried to take over the magical world. They used magic—raw power—to stop anyone who got in their way, and it took a lot of raw power to bring them down.”
Merlin, who’d taken a seat on stage during Idris’s speech, rose slowly to his feet when Idris went off-script, but he hesitated. Anything that looked like censorship at this point was bound to backfire. I had no idea what was coming, but my heart pounded in anticipation.
“What were their names? I think it was something like Kane and Mina. Yeah, that’s it, Kane and Mina. They were pretty young, even younger than I am now. Maybe that’s a phase particularly powerful wizards go through.” He smirked again and shrugged, like he was including himself in that group. “But the good guys destroyed the bad guys, and all was right with the world. There was just one loose end. One very tiny loose end. Like, a baby they left behind. Just think about the power that kid might have, with those parents, and with the amount of power Mina was channeling while she was pregnant. Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to that kid?”
The audience was spellbound. I wondered how Idris could possibly have all these details that weren’t in the histories, but given his interest in the darker side of magic, I supposed he was likely to dig up that kind of dirt.
“Believe it or not, he’s been among us all along, right in the heart of things, hidden by the so-called good guys, and totally trusted, in spite of who and what he is. You’d think as paranoid as these people are, they’d be more careful.” Merlin moved closer and closer to Idris, but Idris kept talking. “In fact, you saw him here tonight. Let’s see, what was that baby’s name? Why, I do believe it was Owen. Only, he doesn’t go by Owen Morgan these days.”
I felt like the floor fell out from under me. Instinctively, I turned to where I’d seen Owen last. He was standing with his back flattened against the door, his eyes wide, all the color drained out of his face.
“Yeah, that’s right, our Owen Palmer is the last remnant of the darkest magical days in recent memory.”
And from the look on Owen’s face, I knew it was news to him.
Chapter Fourteen
I jumped out of my seat and sprinted toward Owen. While I ran, Idris kept talking. “And it sounds like he’s up to his parents’ old tricks, since it seems like he’s always around whenever dark spells are used to commit a crime.” Then there was a yelp and a commotion from the stage. I turned to see Merlin stepping forward to grab the microphone while security guards went after Idris. The crowd muttered and mumbled, but so far they didn’t seem to be turning into a mob.
Owen was gone by the time I reached the doorway where he’d been standing, and I could hardly blame him for getting out of there. I ran through the outer assembly area, looking for him. Even if he’d gone invisible by veiling himself, I should have been able to see him, but he was nowhere in sight.
I tried the dragon enclosure, but Owen wasn’t there. I ran back to the assembly area, where people were pouring out of the auditorium. They entirely ignored Rina’s carefully arranged dinner buffets as they hashed over the announcement. From the bits and pieces I picked up, I got the impression that some had decided that MSI wasn’t to be trusted and that they’d known all along that Owen Palmer was up to no good. There were a few who scoffed at the accusations, and the MSI sales force was attempting damage control.
Before I could give in to the urge to deliver a few bloody noses for the things people were saying about Owen, I headed for the green room to talk to Merlin and get to the bottom of this. With any luck, I might also be able to get to Idris. His neck was skinny enough for me to wrap my hands around it.
I ran into Rod on the way there. “He’s not—?”
I shook my head.
He sighed heavily. “I’ve already tried his cell phone, but there’s no answer.”
“Rod, is it true?”
Groaning, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I never heard anyone say anything. I do know that when he started school, James and Gloria asked me to keep an eye on him, and they wanted me to tell them if anything happened. I always thought it was because he needed someone to look out for him. He was so small when he was young, and you know how shy he is. But I guess it could have been because they had to keep tabs on him.”
“So he had jailers instead of parents? And a magical marshal instead of a best friend?” I said, my voice verging on an outraged screech. “No wonder he’s so screwed up.”
“Our friendship was always real,” Rod insisted, his voice strong and firm. “I never faked that. He’s my best friend and might as well be my little brother, and since he’s in trouble, I think we have better things to do than argue.”
I shook my head wearily. “Sorry. I think priority one is finding Owen. I already checked with the dragons. Do you think he might go talk to James and Gloria?”
“I doubt it. When he’s upset, he withdraws. He doesn’t go talk to anyone.”
“Imagine what he must be feeling,” I whispered, tears of sympathy welling in my eyes.
“Okay, you give this place a once-over in case he’s lurking, and I’ll make a few phone calls, then we’ll meet back here and figure out where to go next,” Rod said, sounding crisp and businesslike.
I nodded and ran off, though I didn’t expect to find Owen anywhere in the vicinity of the tents. While I checked the perimeter of the conference area, Sam flew up to me and landed nearby. “I guess you’re lookin’ for Palmer,” he said.
“Yeah, have you seen him?”
“Sorry, no. And not a sign of Idris, either. He vanished in all the commotion—which was probably his plan all along. You think the kid’s okay?”