“No problem,” he replied, clapping his hands and uttering the single word, “Retrievo.” All the papers flew into his open hand and shuffled themselves into a neat stack.

“Cool. I could use that for collecting homework assignments.”

“If you tried it right now you’d probably break half your students’ necks.” He tapped the face of his “pocket watch.” “See this arrow?” He pointed to an arrow that was spinning clockwise within a circle inscribed with a five-pointed star. “It measures terrestrial magic. That’s the magic human witches practice using spells, incantations, wards and hexes. When you used your spell it spun out of control, indicating that your ability for natural magic is through the roof. Usually we only get readings like that for wizards of the Ninth order.”

“Like yourself.”

“Yes,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching. He was flattered but trying not to show it, which was kind of cute. He cleared his throat and went on with his lecture. “But then look at this dial.” He pointed to the other one spinning counter-clockwise. It was inside a circle crowned by a pair of outspread wings.

“So the wings stand for fairies?” I asked.

“Yes. A rather crude symbology considering most of the fey don’t have wings, but then this Thaumascope is rather old. This dial measures fey magic, or what’s sometimes referred to as otherworldly magic. It’s what the fey practiced before they encountered human beings. No one knows how it works – or at least no human knows and none of the otherworlders I’ve spoken to are able to explain it, probably because words don’t lend themselves to describing something that exists without words …” A look of annoyance flashed across his face and he pushed away a lock of hair that had fallen in front of his face – as if that and not the fey’s inability to describe their own magic was bothering him.

“Dory Browne once tried to explain it to me,” I said. “She said that when the fey first started teaching magic to humans they just thought a thing and it happened. They had no words for spells. But to communicate with humans they needed to put things into words and then they found that the words added an unexpected power to their magic. She said that the fey loved the little extra zing that language gave magic and that they taught humans magic in exchange for … language.” I blushed, recalling that Dory had admitted that the fey had also traded their magic for sexual favors from humans. Fortunately, Duncan was busy looking at the dials on his “Thaumascope.”

“We may not fully understand what it is, but we can measure it. This dial indicates that your ability to perform fey magic is also off the charts. I’ve never seen both dials spinning at the same time.”

“But then why don’t my spells work?” I asked.