Free Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers) by Rachel Aaron Page A

“And before you ask, it’s from a licensed humane farm in Canada. I don’t buy from factory mills. It taints the magic.”
    Julius hadn’t been about to ask, mostly because it had never even occurred to him there would be chimera farms in Canada. He was, however, suddenly feeling very uneasy about this spell. “Why do you need a chimera tusk?”
    “Well, I don’t need it,” Marci said, placing the tusk squarely in the center of her palm. “But it takes a lot of magic to do two illusions thick enough to trick a room full of mages, and since I’m pretty sure you don’t want to stand around here all night waiting while I pull down that much power manually, I thought I’d employ an outside source. Think of it as using a battery.” She looked down critically at the tusk in her hand. “Besides, this one’s getting kind of old. Better to use it up now than wait and risk losing potency, you know?”
    “I’ll take your word for it,” Julius said. “But why are you doing two illusions?”
    “Because I’m coming with you.” Marci gave him a sideways look. “What? You didn’t think I’d let you go alone, did you?”
    “Well,” Julius began. “I—”
    “You’re my client,” she said, clearly appalled. “I can’t let you just go in without backup. What if you get dispelled? Also, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but you talk like a total null. It doesn’t matter how good a cover I slap on you, you’ll be outed in a second if you don’t have someone standing by to feed you lines.”
    Julius couldn’t argue there. “I’d be happy to have you along, but I still don’t understand why you need a disguise. You’re already a mage.”
    Marci’s eyes widened like he’d just called her a dirty name. “Weren’t you listening? I’m a Socratic Thaumaturge. You know, logical thinking, repeatable results, known best practices, all the tenets of real sorcery? We’re sneaking you into a shaman party. Shamans consider themselves artists at best, spiritual gurus at worst. Most of them just throw magic around and hope it works out. There probably won’t be a single person in that place who could write out a spell in proper notation if their life depended on it. They’ll take one look at my personal magic and know what I am for sure. The real challenge will be masking my well-maintained aura in enough random nonsense that they don’t see the good stuff underneath.”
    “I didn’t mean to insult you,” Julius said quickly. “I’m sure your way is better, but theirs can’t be all bad. I mean, they might not do magic the way you do, but there are a lot of shamans around.” Including a guy he’d been in a gaming guild with last year who’d been really decent, if a little odd. “They must be doing something right, or they wouldn’t keep getting work.”
    Marci made a face. “I guess you could say that shamans are better at casting on the fly. Thaumaturgy does require some set-up time since we’re not just, you know, making things up as we go along . For the sort of illusion you need, though, Thaumaturgy is waaaaaay better.”
    Julius had the feeling Marci would claim Thaumaturgy was better for everything, but he was perfectly ready to let it lie. “I’m lucky you found me, then.”
    She rewarded him with a beaming smile as she placed the bit of chimera tusk into the middle of the meticulously marked chalk circle. “Ready?”
    Julius nodded and stepped into the circle where she indicated. He felt the hum of her magic as soon as his body crossed the chalk, an intense vibration that sang like a tuning fork against his bones before fading to a pleasant buzz.
    Marci put her hands on his shoulders and moved him around until he was standing directly over the bit of tusk in the center. “I’m going to start pulling magic through,” she warned him, stepping out of the circle. “You might feel a little pressure.”
    He took a deep breath. “Go for it.”
    The words were barely out of his mouth