You swore you’d never. Yet here you are.

It can’t be too hard. You’ve seen it done dozens of times. Hundreds.

But you swore you’d never.

You’ve seen them raise their hands. You’ve seen them wave lit­tle sticks around. You’ve seen them play. You’ve seen them hunt.

You’ve seen them kill.

You swore you’d never.

Of course, they never use a real stick. Never a wand made of actual wood. Wood made on the spot? That’s fine, of course. It’s not really wood. Or, it is, but it’s not merely wood.

Its their thoughts, made solid.

For a spell is but a thought, and you can­not cast a thought with a piece of wood.

You can only cast a thought with a thought.

You swore you’d never.

You raise your hand. The air chills. Con­denses. The water vapor solidifies.

There. Your thought, with which you shall cast more thoughts, now solid­i­fied. Your wand. Your ice wand.

Your Magic.

You swore you’d never.

Yet here you are.

The build­ing plans sprawl across your desk. You scan over them once more, just for com­fort. You already know them by heart.

You’ve never infil­trated a build­ing before, but with magic, you think, it ought not be so hard.

Time to break the law.

You swore you’d never.

Yet here you are, and some­times you must, for your son is gone and The Detec­tive won’t give you naught but the most cryp­tic of comments.

You encounter your first prob­lem: how to get there. You’re sure you could just appear there, but you don’t know how – and what if you screwed up? Would you leave pieces behind? Or worse yet, would you dis­ap­pear, and never return?

You drive. You walk in. You duck into a closet. You become invisible.

It’s just a scrunch of the face, and you slowly fade away. You won­der how it works: does the light pass through you? Or does your skin’s very color change? If the lat­ter, how does it work from other angles?

You grow wor­ried – you’re already out in the hall. What if you’re the only one who can’t see your­self? What if the only angle you are invis­i­ble from is the angle directed at your own eyes?

You needn’t have wor­ried: there’s a mir­ror right across the way, and you can see as clear as day the cof­fee cup held by the per­son walk­ing behind–

You dart out of the way. That was close. Images of spilled cof­fee and burnt skin flut­ter through your mind.

There’s all sorts of trou­ble you can get into while invis­i­ble. All sorts of places you can sneak.

You swore you’d never.

---

You don’t know how she knew you were there.

You also don’t know what was so spe­cial about the num­ber “thir­teen.” She kept yelling it as if she was mad.

You swear to be more obser­vant: if only you had noticed that tro­phy in her dis­play case ear­lier – before she kicked you.

Ouch.

You swear to stop remem­ber­ing it: min­utes old, you can feel it eas­ily. You don’t need the mem­ory, too.

She tells you to try your lit­tle escapade again, later, when she’s not around.

You swear you won’t.

As you walk out, she gives you the last thing you want: another cryp­tic comment.

“Logic is not your friend. Logic is a Phoenix.”

You have no idea what that means.

Now your brain hurts.

You cer­tainly don’t need that. Your nuts still hurt.

Again, you remem­ber the kick. You remem­ber the stab. You remem­ber the scream­ing. You remem­ber the pain.

You swore you’d never.

Yet now you remember.

So much for swearing.

A priest once told your father: “Don’t swear.”

You swear you never will again.