Innate Magic (The Marrowbone Spells, #1)

by Shannon Fay

She didn’t seem like the type to suffer fools gladly. God knows why she liked me then, but I wasn’t going to question it too closely.

At one point I started talking to an elderly woman in a dress with a pattern that mirrored the night sky. I had had a bit to drink by then and rambled on about my dreams, how I wished to become a famous mage and how in my darkest moments I feared it would never happen. She listened intently and, when I was done, told me that if I worked very hard, I might be able to lose my accent. That exchange was depressingly the closest thing I had to a conversation of substance.

“Walk on water, huh?” I said. “You know, a lot of people abuse that parable, talk like it’s about puffing yourself up too much. In the story Jesus walks out onto the water and calls for the storm raging around ’em to stop, and the storm does. Then he calls for his disciples to join him on the water, and only Peter is brave enough to give it a go. Peter’s feeling good at first, feet firm on the water, but when he lets go of the boat he gets scared and sinks. Luckily his best mate Jesus grabs him out before he can drown. The point of the story isn’t that Jesus could walk on water. It’s that we all could if we had just a little more faith.

“He knows it’s the right thing to do, but he lacks a backbone. We will see if his heart is strong enough to do the work of the spine.”

The captain struck me as the kind of man who would make love the same way someone might go about their morning commute: the same stops and turns every day to the same destination, minor irritation over delays and obstructions, perhaps taking an inconvenient long way around if there was nothing to be done for it.

Paul isn’t doing this willingly. He’s doing it because you’re making him do it.” Hollister had a hearty chuckle at that. “You’re not a Christian man, are you, Mr Dawes?” Thomas scowled. “What’s that got to do with anything?” “It means there’s always a choice,” I said tiredly. “There’s no such thing as extenuating circumstances in God’s book.” Thomas scowled. “Then your God is a prick.”