Her magick sat in the center of her chest, just as it had since the first time Jack had triggered it with his kiss. It felt warm and comforting, a tiny ball of light residing in the heart of her.

It was there, so why couldn't she access it?

She reached into herself, parsing out a thread of it—just a thread—to pull out and form... and it slipped right through her mental fingers.

She tried again and again. Every time something dark and indefinable made her balk at the last moment and cause the tendril to slip from her grasp.

Mira sensed a presence nearby at the same time her magick flared a little stronger in the center of her chest. Maybe this time she could take it. Again she tried to pull a thread, again she failed. The flutter of stronger magick within her receded.

"Damn," she muttered, opening her eyes.

Jack stood near her, foliage brushing the leg of his black trousers. He wore a gray cable-knit sweater that complimented his ice blue eyes. Her heart skipped a beat.

"Hey, Mira," he said in his low, whiskey-rasp of a voice. It sent a shiver through her.

"Hi, Jack. I haven't seen you around here in a while." She hoped she sounded unaffected by his presence. Cool. Uninvolved. In reality she had her hands fisted so tight inside her too-long sleeves her nails practically drew blood from her palms.

He glanced away, into the tree towering above her. "Had to go away for a little while, but I'm back now. Are you doing well?”

He sounded so detached. It was like they'd never spent a twenty-four-hour period making love to each other over and over again, like he'd never covered her body with his, murmured sweet-dirty things in her ear, made her nearly scream as he brought her to climax.

She tried to smile, but didn't quite manage it. "I'm better than I've been in a long time." In some ways that was true, but not so much in others. Mira was happy to have found this lost component of herself, yet she missed Jack. Damn him, anyway. He'd gone and caused her to break the promise she'd made to herself, had gone and made her care for him. "Except my magick's broken.”

"I doubt that.”

She shrugged and forced herself to relax her hands. She really was going to draw blood soon, and Jack was doing that well enough merely by his presence and flippancy. "I can feel it there in my chest, but I can't seem to access it. I can pull the thread, like you taught me, but I can't hold it. Serena thinks maybe it's burnout or stress causing the block. I don't know.”

"It could be that, but I have a suspicion I know what's causing it." Jack glanced around at the conservatory. "Have you tried to pull magick anywhere but here?”