Free The Inquisitor's Apprentice by Chris Moriarty

York. Once we have those on file, we'll be able to identify the author of any magical crime—or, for that matter, any unauthorized use of magic whatsoever. What's more, we'll have a registry of every potential magical criminal in the city. We can make it illegal to employ them. Or rent an apartment to them. Or let their children go to school. We can wash the streets clean of conjure men and soothsayers and fortunetellers. We can clean up this city once and for all and make it safe for respectable nonmagical people." He grinned. "And, naturally, we can make sure that people do it all with
our
patented etherographs, sold through
our
dealerships, serviced by
our
repairmen, and rendered obsolete by
our
new models."
    "Brilliant," Wolf said listlessly.
    "No, Wolf. The brilliant part is what happens later, after we've made it impossible for any law-abiding citizen to employ witches or use magic. There'll be no magic left to do all the vital things ordinary Americans depend on witches to do. No magic to wash their dishes. No magic to cook the food in their restaurants. No magic to make their clothes and books and toys and candy"—here his gaze slid toward Sacha and Lily. "In a little while your average American will go from one year to the next without witnessing a single act of real magic. A little longer, and they'll forget whatever magic they used to know. A little longer still, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as magic."
    "And then they'll depend on your machines for everything."
    "Precisely."
    "And you?" Wolf asked in the dull tones of an accountant trying to make sure he'd gotten his numbers right. "Will people like you and the Astrals and the Vanderbilks stop using magic too?"
    "Why should we?" Morgaunt asked boldly. "Magic is only dangerous in the hands of little people. It's perfectly safe in the hands of men with the strength and foresight to guide America into the future."
    "That's not what the law says," Wolf pointed out, still in the same dogged monotone.
    "Law!" Morgaunt scoffed. "Law is for drunks and weaklings. The only law that applies to superior men is the law of power. You should know that, Wolf. You're no ordinary plodder."
    "Oh, I'm quite ordinary," Wolf protested.
    "You just pretend to be," Morgaunt snapped, "because of some half-baked romantic notion of democracy and equality. But how deep would I have to scratch before you showed your true colors?"
    And then Morgaunt began to work magic.
    It was so subtle that at first Sacha didn't even see it. Morgaunt still had that coldly mocking smile on his face. He lounged in his wing chair swirling his Scotch lazily in one hand. But somehow it
felt
like he had reached out and grasped Wolf by the throat and was slowly strangling him.
    Before Sacha knew what was happening, the entire room was thick with magic. And this was nothing like the ordinary everyday magic Sacha knew from Hester Street. This magic was larger than mere human beings. It gave him the same unnerving feeling he always got when he looked into the open pits that workmen were digging all over town for the new subway lines. You walked around the city all your life thinking that you were standing on solid ground. But then they brought in the steam shovels and ripped up the cobblestones, and you realized that the earth—the real, living, breathing earth—was still alive down there in the dark beneath the city. And if it ever woke up, it would shake off New York and all its teeming millions like a dog shaking off a flea.
    Wolf and Morgaunt stared at each other. The room seemed about to catch fire. The very air crackled with magic. It felt as if all the magic in the world were being sucked in around them like a great whirlpool, spiraling down into the glowing golden liquid in Morgaunt's hand.
    Morgaunt raised his glass in an ironic toast. "Here's to you and me, Wolf. The last two honest men in New York."
    Wolf didn't answer. A dark flush had spread across his usually pale features.