Once Upon Stilettos - Page 82/125

Instead, I left the cookies on a table in the lab, with the card with his name on it clearly visible. Now that I thought about it, that was probably a better option, anyway. If cookies appeared in his office, they would have had to come from an immune. I suspected the wards would have kept out even a magical spell to conjure up something in there.

My mission completed, I started to head out of the department, but I paused before I left the lab. If there was anyplace in this company that held the answer to what had happened with my magical immunity, it was Owen’s lab. I couldn’t get into his office where the really good books were, but there were plenty of books in the lab outside his office.

Unfortunately, as neat and precise as Owen could be, he was also wildly disorganized. I suspected he had a system that made total sense to him and he could find anything he needed within seconds, but to me it all looked like a random jumble. Acutely conscious that I had a limited amount of time, I hurried to skim the spines on the lab bookcase. I could rule out any book that didn’t appear to be in English; even if it contained the information I needed, it wouldn’t do me a lot of good if I couldn’t read it.

There was a fairly modern-looking volume that seemed to be about magical maladies. I pulled it off the shelf and opened it to the table of contents. Much to my surprise, it contained a chapter on magical immunity. Even more to my surprise, there was a Post-it note stuck on the first page of that chapter, not quite sticking out like a bookmark, but still there. Was Owen researching me—or was someone else?

Feeling more and more rushed, as I knew Merlin’s meeting was likely winding to a close, I glanced through the section headings in the chapter. Most of it was information I already knew, only written using much larger words. Finally, there was a section on the disruption of magical immunity. It was long—pages and pages’ worth—and full of even bigger words, with magical terms I didn’t know. I’d need a reference book to be able to read this book. I glanced at my watch. Merlin’s meeting with Owen would be ending at any minute. I pondered “borrowing” the book, but as paranoid as Owen was lately, he’d probably know as soon as he walked in the room that something was gone. Reluctantly, I put it back on the shelf. I’d know where it was in the future, and the relevant chapter was already marked. Maybe I could even come up with an excuse for borrowing it later.

Before I could safely sneak out of the department, Ari caught me in the hallway outside her lab. “Did you leave anything, or what?” she asked, eyeing my shopping bag and bakery box.

“Nope. I was just down here spying,” I quipped. “Thanks for letting me into the secured area.”

“Nice try, Katie, but I know you aren’t our spy.”

“And how would you know that?”

“You’re too nice. And I doubt you could keep the secret for too long. The strain would show.”

I edged past her and kept walking. “Maybe that’s part of my cover,” I shot over my shoulder as I left. It remained to be seen how right she was about my ability to keep a secret. So far, I wasn’t doing too badly at keeping everyone in the dark about my loss of magical immunity. In fact, it came as something of a surprise to me how seldom my abilities were really called upon. That made it that much easier to keep the secret, and it made me a little less afraid that I’d lose my job if anyone knew.

Then again, one more day meant it was one day closer to being permanent. A temporary effect should have passed, or so I would have hoped. Had I transferred my lack of powers to my mother instead of inheriting them from her? I needed to get back into Owen’s lab and get another look at that book.

Inspired by the decorating job done on my office, I took advantage of the fact that Owen wasn’t on the train with me on the way home to pick up some Christmas décor. Hauling shoes and clothes to change into for the girls’ night out on Friday would give me the perfect cover for bringing in the decorations right under his nose. I just had to find a good time to sneak in and put them up in his lab. The ones I’d bought were cheesy enough that it might possibly look like a magical person had gone mundane on purpose.

Ari invited me down to her lab for lunch on Friday, which gave me the perfect opportunity to sneak in with the Christmas decorations. “Let me guess,” she said when she saw my bag. “More secret Santa stuff.”

“It was my idea, so I have to do a good job.”

“You know, if you’d tell me who your secret pal is, I could help you.”

“Then it wouldn’t be so secret anymore, would it?”