Free Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) by Lucy Leiderman

line. All around us, people chatted and looked annoyed at standing out in the heat.
    “Why not?” Kian asked, putting away his phone.
    “You’re not curious to know whose orders you’re following or why?” I lowered my voice, realizing tourists surrounded us. “You’ve never seen or spoken to any of the magicians you said are on our side?”
    He looked out onto the ocean for a long while before speaking. “Facing this direction,” Kian said, “I could almost imagine seeing home.” He sounded so wistful it nearly broke my heart. He turned around to face me, his back to the sea.
    “I came here by a magic that has kept my body and soul intact, and I have been given a magic and strength that is not mine. My responsibility is to collect those that can challenge the magicians. I told you that.”
    The statement sounded well-rehearsed, like he had assured himself of this many times. When I was about to open my mouth, pointing out I had still not gotten any answers, he continued.
    “So I know why I am doing what I do, and I know why I am going to the places I go,” Kian said. “No magic goes unnoticed. That’s how the others, stronger magicians than I, know of you. I don’t have that strength. I could not help you without them. So I do not ask any more.” He smiled, but when I clearly didn’t understand, he went on.
    “At home, I had no magic. Anything I have is to do this one task. Your life, Gwen, uses your magic. The person you are, how you live and feel, all of those things use your magic whether you notice it or not. And powerful magicians can locate this magic in the world. The existence of our power is rare enough that when it is used, magicians feel it and where it comes from.”
    “And then you go and track the person down,” I supplied. Kian nodded. “But …” I stammered. I’d been using magic my entire life? “I’m so boring!”
    “Perhaps you wanted to be,” Kian suggested. I opened my mouth to argue, but then a thought struck me. It was the old Gwen, still sitting in my mind, fighting and kicking for things to go back to normal. Grudgingly, I had to admit that Kian was right. It was old Gwen’s nature. I did just want to be left alone.
    “Four months ago,” Kian said. His words brought me back to the present, waiting in a hot line to sit on a hot boat.
    “What?”
    “Four months ago, there was an earthquake in San Francisco after the magicians had disturbed the earth with their magic. The houses around yours crumbled. You watched from the window and willed it to stop.”
    I remembered that day. I had been so scared, home on the weekend while Mom and Dad were at their clinic downtown. Everything shook while I watched TV, and the plasma crashed down onto the living room floor. I had run to the window to see the entire bay not shaking, but rolling. And then the houses to the left were collapsing into their foundations. My heart had pounded, I had held my breath, and the rolling had stopped. We were safe, and I had never thought anything more of it than luck or coincidence.
    “But I …” I began.
    “You have a natural magic, which makes it pure and strong. You did will it to end.”
    “That’s when you were sent to find me?” I asked. Kian nodded again.
    We shuffled forward as we had been doing for the last hour. We reached a portion of the line where we were near to the front, underneath a canopy and in front of some TVs playing various news channels. Apparently, meteorologists were warning of an extremely brutal winter for the Northeast. But I would be home by then. A thought struck me.
    “Kian!” How could I not think to ask? “How many are there? How many people are you going to find?” My actual burning question was how long I would be away from home.
    He shrugged dismissively. “I don’t know,” he said quietly.
    “What do you mean you don’t know? I thought you knew all of us.” I was annoyed, hot, and probably sunburnt. When I turned and saw his face, however, I