Free A Criminal Magic by Lee Kelly Page A

still some discerning folks in the Unit, Alex. Ones that don’t miss a trick.” The loaded way he says this makes my insides twist and fold. He finally opens his folder. “My records indicate that you joined us in early summer, a couple months after your father’s trial ended, is that correct?”
    A familiar chill crops up at the top of my spine at the mention of my father, but I manage to answer, “That’s correct, sir.”
    â€œMy understanding is that your father’s judge, Judge Hoehling, personally recommended you to the Unit, after you met with him before your father’s jury deliberation. He said you asked for his advice. He said that he’d never met a, quote, ‘more sorrowful son for the sins of his father,’” Frain says. “And Hoehling thought the Prohibition Unit would be the perfect answer for you. A career that allowed you to fight men like your father and atone on behalf of your family.”
    â€œJudge Hoehling was invaluable, sir,” I say. “He helped me gain perspective and clarity.” But my father’s three-week trial for running his remedial spells scheme is nothing short of a nightmarish blur. For over a year—since my father had found out I’d gotten the magic touch—I had been his right-hand man. He took me out of the boarding program at St. Albans, and I spent most nights conjuring protective force fields for clandestine meetings and brewing my sorcerer’s shine for his gangster guests. And of course, helping build the Danfreys’ legacy: creating elaborate manipulations that allowed my father to break into his own Danfrey Pharma Corporation storage facilities, then flip the legal spells to D Street so the gang could move them into the black market. Our remedial magic scheme wasn’t unusual, but given the access to cures my father had because of his company, it was wildly successful.
    During the Spanish flu epidemic, even the most adamant of anti-sorcery activists realized there was a need for a medicinal exception to a blanket prohibition on magic, so sorcerers willing to work for the common good were eventually offered government gigs, or jobs with pharmaceutical companies to work toward breakthrough magic cures.
    Of course, the underworld figured out a way to exploit this medicinal exception. Gangs get ahold of magic remedies, then cart them off to mom-and-pop operations that redistill a portion of the natural elements out of the spells in order to get themcloser to pure-magic sorcerer’s shine. But it’s a true racket. The redistilled spells might last longer on the shelves than shine because of the residue of natural elements—a few weeks, long enough to be transportable—but the high is weak and muddled. Besides, some of the redistillers have been known to add crap like red paint to their product in an attempt to make it look closer to real-deal shine, which has led to poisonings across the city.
    Not that I ever thought about what I was doing, what it meant, or hell, what I’d have to give up if my father was ever caught. I just did what he required, let my magic flow through me, reveled in being needed, powerful. No, invincible .
    And then it all came crashing down back in March—two D Street thugs ratted to the Feds, my father was indicted, my home was sold for legal fees, and my senior year at St. Albans cut short. My father on the stand, lying about my involvement in order to save me and my mother—and in a last-ditch effort to partially redeem himself. Before I could blink, I became Poster Child Alex Danfrey, Remorseful Alex Danfrey, Just-Want-to-Make-Daddy’s-Wrongs-Right Alex Danfrey.
    Needless to say, I didn’t know who this Alex Danfrey was—I still don’t.
    But convincing Judge Hoehling of who he was had been a piece of cake.
    â€œJudge Hoehling told me that I could direct all the anger and frustration I had for my father toward the criminals of