“You don’t need magic to hurt people,” he said. “But it’s a hell of a way to do it.”
James’s eyes flicked from her eyes to her mouth, then down to that book. She had a death-grip on it. He couldn’t pin down the thing he felt after hearing her question and intuiting that Celeste wasn’t being hypothetical when she asked it. It wasn’t suspicion or judgement. Very few people asked that kind of thing in public or aloud. It was the kind of thing you asked yourself in solitude, with your hands on the lip of the bathroom sink while you watched a vortex of pink water swirling down the drain. But that wasn’t could he. It was wouldhe .
A pair of fingers snapped in his head. Recognition. That was the thing.
“Making things float, that’s usually psychokinesis. Using your mind to manipulate the physical world.” James lifted his shoulder. “A spellcaster could do it, but it’s not sustainable. Magic is doing spells and rituals, it’s-- it’s channeling energy from one thing to another. It’s calling on spirits,” he swirled his finger in an unseen ether, “or powerful entities to bring something to pass. But there’s always a price. I’ve never met black magic that didn’t take its time getting to know me before it took off.”
He picked up a book and put it back into its place. “Who’s the lucky person?”