The Brownstone Effect: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (Alison Brownstone Book 5) by Judith Berens & Martha Carr & Michael Anderle

Author:Judith Berens & Martha Carr & Michael Anderle [Berens, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2019-02-24T22:00:00+00:00

Alison smiled warmly at Sonya, who sat across from her. The girl constantly rubbed her hands together and refused to make eye contact. Tahir and Hana sat on either side of Alison.

“Sonya,” she said quietly. “I’ll cast a truth spell. It’s nothing fancy, and it’ll simply change colors if you lie.”

The teenager swallowed. “Do you think I’m lying?”

“In my business, we run into a lot of dangerous people, so it doesn’t hurt to check.”

She didn’t want to explain that she was not all that good at truth spells, and an experienced witch could probably still get away with lying to her, despite her strong basic power level. She’d spent most of the last ten years able to tell when people lied simply by looking at them. The truth was that she’d never needed to develop the technique, but she doubted this girl was some hyper-sophisticated dark family spy.

Sonya nodded. “Fine. Do it.”

Alison summoned a small white orb which hovered in front of her.

“Let’s test this out. As long as it stays white, it means you’re telling the truth, understand?”

The girl nodded again.

“Is your name Sonya?”

“Yes.”

The orb remained white.

“Answer the next question with a lie,” she instructed.

Sonya frowned but nodded.

“Are you an elf?”

“Yes, I’m a Light Elf.”

The orb turned black for several seconds before it reverted to white.

The girl’s eyes widened. “Wow. Cool.”

Alison continued with a series of question to verify everything the girl had told Hana and Tahir about her life. She uncovered no lies.

“Thank you for answering all those questions,” she stated finally.

“No problem.” Sonya looked at all the adults at the table. “Now what?”

“A good question,” Tahir commented. He looked at his boss. “You could easily gain guardianship.”

“I could.” She flicked her wrist and dispelled the truth orb. “But we need to make sure Sonya understands her options. Whatever happens, I don’t want her to go back to some apartment alongside a dump by herself. That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not so bad, you know. As long as I keep the door locked, I’m good. I can hide with the spell, but I’ve only had to do that once when someone broke in. He stole some crap and left. I have stuff delivered, mostly drones. The only thing that sucks is that is some companies won’t send their drones into the place because too many people take them out.”

The infomancer frowned. “Where did you get rocket drones, by the way?”

“I…uh, took those from the Mafia guys, too.” She smiled but it was a little uncomfortable.

Alison looked directly at the girl and her heart went out to her. She knew all too well what it was like to feel alone and not know what to do. She’d been lucky to have James Brownstone interested in her after her mother’s death. Without him, she could have ended up in the system as her power manifested, and she could only imagine how badly that would have gone for her. Not every manifestation of rogue power gained a young magical a trip to the School of Necessary Magic.

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