Ritual Magic

simply stood there looking at each other. Suddenly his face crumpled, and he whispered something in Chinese that Lily didn’t catch.
    Grandmother reached up and patted his face, leaving her hand on his cheek as she answered in that language. “You will do what you have to, my son, until you can’t. And then you will rest while others do what needs doing.”
    Edward Yu reached up and placed his hand over his mother’s. A stiff little smile curved his lips as both their hands fell away at the same time. He responded in English. “I will. And as I
am
fit to drive, I will begin by driving you to the hospital.”
    Grandmother’s smile sparked briefly. “Ha! Everyone contradicts me.” With that blithe disregard for truth, she went on to dispose of her troops—which in this case meant everyone within earshot and many who weren’t. Lily was to pursue her work here. The rest of the family would remain here and obey the officers of the law. “We will leave now,” she informed her son. “Sam will meet us there. It will take him two hours.”
    “Sam?” Lily said, startled. “I thought he was leaving for one of his sing-alongs.”
    Grandmother snorted. “Hardly that. In any event, he has postponed his departure.”
    Edward had opened the passenger door for his mother and stopped with his hand on it, staring at his mother in consternation. “Surely you aren’t talking about—”
    “Of course I am. Doctors are all very well.” Grandmother slid into the car. “I do not object to doctors. But in matters of magic and mind, I think the black dragon will be more useful.”
    The car door shut.
    “I hope she’s right,” Lily said too softly for human ears.
    Cullen, of course, wasn’t human, and he stood only a few feet away. He heard and moved closer to say softly, “You felt what I saw, didn’t you?”
    She wanted to tell him she had no idea. She didn’t know what he’d seen, did she? Only she was pretty sure she did. “It’s not exactly magic that was used, is it?”
    “No. I’d hoped to see an intact spell in place, suppressing Julia’s memories. That was the best-case scenario. Remove the spell and she’s back to normal. Next-best case would be a potion that—”
    “A potion could do that?”
    “It’s not likely, but there are some that cause forgetfulness. They don’t make you lose most of a lifetime, though—more like a couple hours. I’ve heard of one that could make you lose up to a month, but . . . well, I’ll skip the technical stuff, but theory doesn’t support any potion causing the loss of more than a month because of the tie to the moon’s cycles. But potions aren’t my thing, so I wasn’t going to discount the possibility. A potion wouldn’t have been too bad. Sometimes their effects wear off spontaneously, but if not, there’s the potential for an antidote.”
    “You’re dragging this out.”
    “Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stand up in spikes. “Worst case, I thought, would be a spell that had actually destroyed her memories rather than suppressing them. Just because I’ve never heard of such a spell doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And at first that’s what I thought had happened, because the lingering trace of magic was so small I could barely see it. When I looked with my magnifying spell, though . . . whatever it is, it doesn’t look like mind magic.”
    “Arguai,”
she said flatly. “That’s what it felt like.” She ran her thumb over the
toltoi
in her ring . . . which held
arguai
. Or so she’d been told. Her mouth twisted. “Not that I know what that means, but that’s what the elves call it. Some kind of power that isn’t magic. Magic can tell me it’s present, but can’t identify it.”
    “Arguai,”
he breathed. “Shit.”
    “You know what it is?”
    “Oh, yeah. I can tell you that much, at least. We have another word for it. Spirit.”
    “That’s just a word to me. What does it mean?”
    “It means,” he said grimly, “that you might need to find a holy man or woman, because I’m not going to be much help. Not any old monk or shaman or priest will do, either. If
arguai
was used on your mother, you need a truly holy person. A saint.”
    Lily wanted to grab her hair with both hands and yank. Or throw something. Or punch something. Her eyes welled up, and that infuriated her even more. “Any idea where I find a saint? They aren’t exactly listed in the Yellow Pages! Unless Miriam . . . she’ll