“Because of this.” He pointed to the third dial, the one whose arrow had stuttered to a trembling stop in one position. I looked at the circle it was in and saw that inside was a drawing of a naked woman, arms and legs extended to touch the rim of the circle, like a female version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian man. “This dial measures an individual’s innate ability to process magic. It’s indicating that you don’t have any, which is strange coupled with your ability shown by the other two dials. It’s why your spells misfire. Two types of magic are meeting inside you, like two clashing weather systems creating turbulence.”

“Great. You make me sound like a bad day on the Weather Channel. My grandmother always believed that my magical abilities had been canceled out by my fey blood.”

“That’s an old superstition among witches,” Duncan said with a rueful expression. “I think it’s likely that the superstition arose to discourage sexual relations with the fey. Around the time of the witch hunts, a sect of witches believed that if they could separate themselves from the influence of the fey – or demons, as the Church called them – they could escape persecution.”

“The Great Division,” I said recalling the expression from the reading I’d done in LaFleur earlier.

“Followed by the War of Fluges,” Duncan said darkly.

“I read about Fluges in LaFleur. Witches and fey lived in harmony in the French village until the anti-fey witches closed the door to Faerie and …” I closed my eyes trying to recall the exact words from LaFleur. They appeared in my head in glowing type. “They erased the town entirely.” I opened my eyes. An afterimage of the glowing type hung in the air between me and Duncan. “But LaFleur doesn’t say exactly what erasing it entirely means.”

“No one knows. But think about it, had you ever heard of Fluges before reading about it in LaFleur?”

“No.”

“Neither has any other human. Not only was it wiped off the map, it was also erased from human memory. That’s how violently the anti-fey witches felt about the fey. Is it any wonder that they started a rumor that contact with the fey would destroy a witch’s power?”

“Do you think my magical abilities have been cancelled out by my fey ancestry?” I asked.

“Quite the opposite. You have tons of magical ability, but there’s a blockage.”

“A blockage of what kind?”

Duncan shook his head. I felt a sinking sensation. If Duncan Laird with his Oxford DMA, 9th order of Wizardry, and clever gadgets couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, who could?

He must have seen the disappointment on my face. He leaned forward and took my hand. I felt a spark as our skin touched, a little electrical zing that must have been a leftover effect of my internal magical storm.