Mama Ami pulled her chair back and to the side—she was here mostly to observe. Trick sat in a chair directly across from me, our knees almost touching.

Once everyone was settled, I closed my eyes and did my deep-breathing techniques. The antiseptic smell of the clinic filled my nose. I hoped it would overpower Declan’s scent and knock it out of my nose for good. But his scent stubbornly stayed, hovering over everything else, making it hard for me to clear my head.

Which was bad. I couldn’t do my job with a jumbled brain, so I needed to problem solve. If trying to ignore or replace it wasn’t working, I had to change tactics.

What if, instead of fighting it, I settled into it instead? I took another deep breath, this time not fighting Declan’s scent at all, but wrapping it around me, like a hug. No, a cocoon. I was safe and cared for. I didn’t need to worry about anything else except the task at hand.

Suddenly, my mind was clearer than it had been in days. It felt almost like magic, even though there wasn’t a lick of magic in it.

I took Trick’s hand in mine, settling the other on Dammit’s back. We’d already had a few sessions, so we’d progressed past the simpler bit and into the more complicated phases. If you’ve ever looked at a detailed tapestry, you will understand what I was talking about. I wasn’t singling out the threads of their magic and making simple braids anymore, but doing a complex weaving, wefting the strands together in an intricate pattern invisible to the naked eye.

That didn’t mean I could do whatever I wanted. The magic had a pattern, and when you trained to do this kind of binding, you learned to see it.

The already blended strands between Trick and Dammit were blinding in their brightness. I’d always thought fire magic was particularly pretty. A handful of cozy warm reds and oranges alongside blues and vibrant purples. I shifted through them, grasping strands and weaving them together. I’m not sure how long I worked, I was so focused on the pattern. This was why animal mages that were new to this didn’t do it alone—it was easy to lose track of how long you worked, how much energy you expended.

Most patients couldn’t stop you. Both Trick and Dammit were deep in my magic, mesmerized by the flow and hum of it. Even if they were paying attention, they wouldn’t know where the line was—the subtle demarcation between “using a lot of power” and “too much.”

Everyone had a different limit, and a newbie could easily blow past it, overdo it, and drain themselves until they lost consciousness if they weren’t careful. If you somehow made it past that point and stayed conscious, you could overextend to the point where your heart failed.

I found a good stopping point for Trick and Dammit and let their magic go. It took me a second to open my eyes, which felt gritty, my mouth thick. Mama Ami had a glass of orange juice in front of me and some hangover cure—mostly a collection of B vitamins and willow bark. When you went overboard on magic, it was a bit like waking up from a three-day bender on fruity cocktails—a slight sugar crash, headache, and the shakes.