Page 30 of Fool Me Twice

“Don’t flatter yourself, Gutierrez.”

“Well, likeyousaid,” Roma says smugly, “I’m the best the Redwater Sanctum has. By definition, that makes me their expert.”

Ez rolls her eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, lackey.”

Roma smirks back, clearly pleased. Ez is surprised to find that their banter feels almost comfortable. The words are roughly the same as usual, the tone is roughly the same as usual‍?—

But Roma’s shoulders are relaxed and her eyes are almostteasing,not overtly hostile. And, for once, Ez doesn’t feel the need to be antagonistic straight back at her.

Maybe it’s because Roma reallyisthe only useful hunter out of the bunch. Maybe it’s because having an ally in the middle of this mystery is oddly comforting.

Or maybe it’s because Ez actually sort of missed her this past week. Deliberately, she shoves that last thought down. “All right,” she says briskly, pushing herself to her feet. “I’m out of here. I’ll touch base with my G. Ricci when he’s back in his office on Monday. In the meantime, try to show up for your rift-closing job for once, will you?”

Roma arches an eyebrow. “Aw, did you miss me?”

“You’re a nightmare,” Ez says breezily, and she gives Roma a halfhearted wave as she snaps open a rift and turns away, trying to breathe past the sudden, unfamiliar tension in her bones.

Maybe a jailbreak will be enough to distract her. Fighting back a strange pang of guilt, she waves the rift closed behind her, flops onto her couch, and pulls out her phone to text Obie.

ESMERALDA:Hey, remember when you were ready to help me break into the Sanctum last week?

14

I’m confused,” Chester says, swiping his key card to unlock the prison’s door and ushering Roma inside. “I thought you said the spells down here wouldn’t work for the mission?”

Roma skirts through the entrance and sticks closely to Chester’s side as he strides down the hallway, keeping her eyes focused straight ahead and not on the endless line of cells to her right. “It’s more that I didn’twantus to use them than that wecan’tuse them. Do you remember the WMSA from spellcasting class?”

He squints at her. “The what?”

“The Written Magic Standardization Act.” She and Chester round the corner, and she determinedly ignores the cell where the neophyte demon from midtown is being held. “It was a global magic agreement from 1446, shortly after the printing press was invented. Once spellcasters realized that spell books could be mass-produced and potentially fall into novice hands, they decided to create a piece of legislation to prevent any avoidable catastrophes.”

Chester nods slowly, swiping his key card at the spellcasting library and motioning for Roma to walk in ahead of him. “Ithink I remember a little bit. It required all written spells to have counterspells in the same book, right?”

“Within five printed pages,” Roma confirms. “And there were other stipulations, too‍—to clarify whether a spell was specific to human or demon magic, to warn if it shouldn’t be performed near a magic reservoir…” She walks over to the shelves, grabbing a few familiar titles. “Basically, they wanted to make sure no one would do anythingtoostupid and lead to the persecution of spellcasters. It was one of the few pieces of legislation that both humans‍—including hunters‍—and demons signed without a fuss.”

Chester eyes Roma’s stack of spell books as she walks back to the table. “Let me guess. All of these were written before 1446?”

“Yep,” Roma says, easing herself into a chair. “That doesn’t mean their spells are particularly complicated or dangerous, though‍—it just means that they don’t have the default WMSA warnings.”

Eyebrows furrowing, Chester pulls out the chair opposite her. “But you think they’re safe enough to use?”

Roma winces. “‘Safe’ is a strong word to use withanyspellcasting, but‍—but I think they should be passable with proper precautions, yes.” She opens the top book to a page she remembers and swivels it around to face him. “For example, this is a pre-WMSA rift-opening spell. No counterspell, no other warnings.”

“But you should never attempt a spell without knowing its counterspell,” Chester says. “I might have slept through most of spellcasting class, but I remember that much.”

“That’s the trick,” Roma says. “Counterspells don’t always have to be perfectly specific to the spells they’re reversing‍—like, under normal circumstances, the Sanctum’s blocking spell can reverse the vast majority of rift-opening spells. Point-by-point counterspells are the gold standard, but they’re not always necessary.”

Chester’s expression clears. “So you and Laguerre can still use the blocking spell and the disconnecting spell to close a pre-WMSA rift?”

“Theoretically, yes. Like we’ve seen, the blocking spell doesn’t closeallrifts‍—just most of them. But every spell contains the seeds of its own reversal, so if I can match enough nuances between our current rift-opening spell and a hypothetical pre-WMSA one, then we’ll be almost certain that our rift-closingspells will still work. Basically, I can check the counterspell without even casting the spell.”

Chester grins. “Brilliant, as always.”

Roma chokes on a laugh.“Locke.”

“What? It’s true! You’re one of the Redwater Sanctum’s best spellcasters, bloodlines be damned. If anyone can pull this off, it’ll be you,” he says, and suddenly, he frowns. “But what about the rest of the WMSA? Especially the warnings about magic reservoirs? I could see the Deep getting angry if you crossed it.”

“Trust me, messing with the Deep is the last thing I want to do,” Roma says. “And, frankly, it probablywouldbe the last thing I ever did‍—Sanctum hunters have a particularly bad track record with trying to access the Deep. But I can check for that by matching nuances between our current spell and a new one, too. That science is less exact‍—there can be false negatives‍—but, statistically speaking, only two percent of all spells shouldn’t be performed near magic reservoirs. That gives me enough confidence to use these.”

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