“What’s it like? The blessings and the curses?” he asked quietly, toying with her hair. “What’s it like to have that kind of power?”

“I don’t really think about it much. The blessings are a bit like weaving. I have all of these threads of magic that I can feel in the air, and I chose the ones I want to bind together, to attach to people. The curse? Well, the one curse I cast? It was much more intentional. I wanted an outcome, not just a quality in a child that would be helpful to them in life. And afterwards…well, I won’t lie and say it didn’t make me feel better.

“Can you tell me about it?”

“It might change the way you feel about me,” she said softly, toying with his shirt buttons.

“I can’t promise it won’t, but isn’t it better to get everything out in the open?” he asked.

He stroked his hands down her back as she spilled her tale. “It was before I worked for the League. I did a short stint in a birthing center in the Midwest. It was a nice enough place to work but there was this office manager there, Dan. He was always a little too ‘friendly’ with my coworker, Zoe. It escalated really quickly, from a comment here and there about her appearance, to using her employee records to get her phone number and send her a proposition at 2 a.m.”

“I feel like I should apologize on behalf of my gender,” Leonard tucked her head under his chin. She felt so safe there. How could she feel so safe and settled when they’d been yelling at each other just moments before?

“So, did she report him?” he asked.

“She did everything she was supposed to. She kept a record of everything, took all of it to HR. She was willing to go to meetings where every single word she said and wrote was scrutinized while Dan stared her down from across the table. You would think that a medical center focused on women would have had comprehensive sexual harassment policy, but we didn’t. And Dan knew just how to skirt that line of plausible deniability,” Charlotte said.

“I was furious, but Zoe? She just sort of shrank into herself. She couldn’t move or get another job. Her parents were older and they needed her close. So either she put up with his bullshit or she gave up the job she loved and all the time and training it took to get it. And the harassment wasn’t stopping, because Dan knew he could get away with it.”

“And you did something about it?” Leonard asked.