Ritual Magic

neat little quanta like ohms or volts or whatever. In the second place, the real question is how much power someone can safely handle. There are casters with minor Gifts who can cast quite powerful spells because they’ve mastered the use of external power. Abel Karonski, for one. Then there are people with powerful Gifts who can’t channel external power worth a damn. Like you.”
    “But—”
    “And then,” Cullen said as they reached the door to the stairs, “there are a few rare souls like me.” His grin flashed. He swung the door open with a flourish. “Strong as hell and masterful, too.”
    “Not to mention pretty,” Cynna said, patting him on the cheek as she passed. “But not modest. Somehow he missed the modesty gene altogether.”
    “I thought about adding modesty to all my other wonderful qualities, but decided it would be too much.”
    “Couldn’t squeeze it in past your ego, you mean.”
    Lily smiled, but she couldn’t help noting that, between the minilecture and the banter, Cullen and Cynna had done a fine job of changing the subject. Rhejes did get to have secrets, she reminded herself as she started down the stairs. But Cullen didn’t. “Why did you say I can’t channel? I can’t, of course, but doesn’t that go without saying with a Gift like mine? I can’t use magic, period.”
    “You can’t use spells. You use magic all the freaking time. You soak it up, mostly unconsciously, but you’ve done it on purpose, too, though that nearly killed you precisely because you couldn’t dump it fast enough. I don’t understand why Sam hasn’t taught you how to avoid that.”
    “Oh, gee, maybe it’s because I can’t do it.”
    “You probably can’t learn to channel, but you can learn to get rid of excess magic. You already do, just not consciously.”
    “No, I don’t.” Her Gift soaked up magic and made it hers, which was how she was able to read magic with a touch and why she couldn’t be affected by it. Throw a spell at her, and her Gift ate the power. And yes, like he said, she could use it to suck up magic on purpose, although doing so bothered her. But . . . “That’s why I can’t cast spells. You told me that yourself. To cast a spell you have to be able to use whatever magic you’ve got, you said, and mine isn’t available for that. My Gift hangs on to all the magic it absorbs.”
    Cullen snorted. “Why is it that your brain works fine on other subjects, but not about your Gift? I said one of those things. The other is your unconsidered assumption. Think about it. Your capacity to absorb magic is not unlimited. Your experience with the Chimea proved that. So why didn’t you exceed your capacity years ago?”
    Lily’s mouth opened . . . and closed again.
    “You must be shedding excess magic somehow. I don’t know what the mechanism is, so I can’t teach you how to use it consciously. But Sam ought to be able to.”
    Thoroughly uncomfortable and not sure why, Lily didn’t respond.
    They’d reached the bottom of the stairs, which opened onto a short hall with locked doors on either side—one to the parking lot, the other to the rest of the building. Both doors required key cards; Lily moved to the front to use hers.
    “Weird weather,” Lily said as she stepped outside. The air was heavy with moisture and smog. Humidity was always a surprise, and usually the wind off the ocean was a tidy and tireless housekeeper, sweeping the city’s air clean of man-made murk. The air was utterly still today.
    A few steps out, Lily stopped and shook her head. “Cullen.”
    The parking lot was deep but narrow, with a single central lane and parking slots arrayed along the federal building on one side and an insurance company on the other. The spaces were reserved for Bureau and ATF employees, and there weren’t enough of them. And smack-dab in ATF territory, occupying not one but two spaces, sat a black behemoth of a car. A glossy Lincoln Town Car, to be precise, with armored sides and bulletproof glass. Three less-than-glossy men lounged nearby.
    “What?” Cullen said. “You don’t think Cynna should have bulletproof glass between her and possible snipers?”
    “Using the tankmobile is a great idea. Parking it illegally, not so much. Isen would be pissed if it got towed.”
    “You wouldn’t let them do that.”
    “ATF is hugely unimpressed by me. If one of them sees it, they’ll have it towed before I can blink. Hi, José,” she said to one of the men