James snorted. “Wasn’t planning on it, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll go with the flow.” The items tumbled onto his desk and he righted them. A small, stone bowl wobbled on its base. “Don’t ask what’s in this,” he said, rubbing at the contact lens behind his eyelid, then scrutinizing his small writing on the side of the cold bottle. If she kept at magic, she’d figure it out, sooner rather than later based on her personality. Whatever he saw was to his satisfaction. “Okay.” He opened a couple of lids and set a long, thin brush in the bowl. He let himself look her way, hoping to reassure her with some eye contact. He ended up looking at where her necklaces hung. The tattoo. Decided looking was a mistake.
“Give me a minute.”
With palms on the desk, he closed his eyes and took a couple of breaths. It was better to do magic like this in a clean space, outside, with no distractions, but his office would do. The air came in and out of him. James tried to gather his thoughts about what he wanted to happen so that when he started, nothing else poked its head into the work. There might be lines of subtle markings just outside the door frame, near the windows, and around the air returns, but if a thing wanted to come in badly enough, there was always the plumbing. A muscle twitched in his jaw. He kept breathing. “Alright.”