“Yes, thank you.” She looked around at the botanical chaos she'd created, her expression stricken. “Oh, I'm so sorry. Your bookstore?—”
“Is fine,” he assured her. “It’s seen worse, trust me.”
“What if Corvus is right, and I lose control?”
“You won't,” Brandon said with quiet certainty. “We’ll figure this out.”
“We?” Muriel's voice was barely a whisper.
Brandon met her gaze. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you might be in over your head. That man who showed up at your place? I think he might have been a Collector.”
“A... what?”
“An acquisitional operative.” At her blank look, he continued, “They’re a division of the Magisterial Consilium who hunt natural witches—those born with inherent elemental power rather than trained into it. They believe natural magic is too dangerous to be left uncontrolled. That it belongs in the hands of those who've been properly educated in its use.” His jaw tightened. “What they really want is to possess that power for themselves. To study it, harvest it, control it.”
“Harvest,” she repeated. “Like in those visions.”
He nodded. “There are ways to bind a witch's power, to siphon it, or to suppress it entirely. The Collectors have been perfecting those techniques for centuries. My guess is, your mother knew this. That's why she hid the book.”
Muriel's hands clenched around her teacup. “She knew they were coming?”
“More like she prepared in case they did. I believe this book is extraordinarily rare, Muriel. One of a kind, in fact. The kind of artifact the Consilium would kill for.” He kept his voice gentle despite the harsh truth. “Corvus showing up the day after you opened it isn't coincidence.”
“He knows I have it.”
“Hesuspects. But suspicion isn't certainty. Right now, he's fishing, trying to confirm what he sensed.” Brandon leaned forward slightly. “The bigger problem is your surges. Every time your magic flares, it broadcasts your location and your power level. The stronger the surge, the wider the broadcast. It's like sending up a flare that says 'powerful natural witch, right here.'”
“So every time I lose control?—”
“You're essentially lighting a beacon for every Collector within range,” he finished quietly.
“Oh.” She pressed her hands to her face. “What do I do? I can't just stop having emotions.”
“No, you can't. And you shouldn't.” Brandon waited until she lowered her hands and met his eyes again. Thiswas where things got tricky, and he had to tread lightly. “But there is something we can do. We can dampen that signal, to help stabilize your magic so the surges are less frequent and less detectable.”
Hope flickered across her face, quickly followed by wariness. “How?”
“Resonance binding. We’d allow our magic to work together. Mine would act as an anchor and provide an outlet for yours instead of it broadcasting wildly.”
Her lips turned downward at the corners. “You'd control my magic?”
“No. It’s more like putting up guardrails. You’d still be the one driving. I’d just keep you on the road.”
“This would hide me from the Collectors?”
“It would make you harder to track. By now, they’ve identified your unique magical signature but blending it with mine will create something new—not yours, not mine—ours. It can buy time until you learn to control your magic on your own.
She studied him for a long moment, and he could see her mind working through the implications. “Is this something that’s done often?”
“Mentors sometimes use resonance to guide their apprentices, particularly when one experiences the kind of erratic power surges you are.” There were other, rarer circumstances in which resonance was used, but there was no point in scaring her.
“Okay. I get thewhatand thewhy. What about thehow? Do we recite a spell together or something?”
And there was the real reason practitioners shied away from resonance.
“It’s not quite that easy. Sharing magic requires a modicum of trust, and trust doesn’t come easily to us.”
Muriel was quiet for a long moment, her fingers twisting together in her lap. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible. “My mother fell in love with a mage. A powerful one, with pretty words and promises. He left her broken and alone.”