He put the charm on, but I didn’t wait to see the result, already back among the amulets and the more familiar earth charms. “Longer, longer…,” I muttered. “Don’t they have these in any order? Ah. Here it is.” Pleased, I turned, almost smacking into him. Trent backed up, and I extended the charm. “This will add a few inches to your hair. Hold on.” I shuffled through the clutter, found a finger stick, pricked my finger, and while Trent watched, invoked the amulet with three drops of my blood.

“Now try it,” I said.

Trent took it, his silver-enhanced hair growing the instant his fingers encircled the redwood disk. Unlike ley magic charms, earth magic needed to be touching the skin, not just within a person’s aura.

“Okay…you don’t want a bulk-up amulet,” I directed. “You don’t need muscles, you need mass.” I turned with the proper ley line charm. “Try this,” I said, and he silently took it, his weight seeming to grow to match his new height. I smiled as I eyed my efforts. It was a delicate balancing act, one I’d practiced with my mom for the better part of two decades before I’d moved out. And having this much variety at my fingertips made it a real pleasure.

“Rynn Cormel’s facial structure is kind of spare,” I murmured, fingers dancing through the ley line charms. “We don’t want to mess with your weight-to-height ratio, so if we add a few years with an age amulet, and then add a complexion charm to remove the wrinkles…” I quickly chose the age ley line charm, then hesitated. If it were me, I’d spring for the earth magic complexion amulet rather than a ley line spell of illusion in case someone touched my face. Then I shrugged. Like anyone would be touching Trent’s face at a party? And a second ley line charm joined the pile.

“Your chin needs to be longer…,” I murmured, rifling through the labeled ley line charms. “Get rid of the tan. A wider brow, thicker eyebrows. Shorter eyelashes. And ears…” I hesitated, my focus blurring as I brought the undead vampire’s face to mind. “His ears don’t have much of a lobe and are round.” I glanced at Trent. “Yours are kind of pointy at the top.”

He cleared his throat in warning.

“Here,” I said, invoking the charms I had selected as I dropped them one by one into his hand. “Now let’s see what you look like.”

Trent slipped them into a pocket, and I turned to the mirror. Slowly I smiled. Trent said nothing, but Quen swore softly, his steps unheard on the carpet as he came forward.