Page 124 (1/2)

Chapter One

They were expecting ed myself in the doorway and waited for the if there was a sexy way to clear et their attention when Owen Palmer looked up from his notebook and said, “I’m sorry, but you’re not supposed to be here I’ll call for someone to escort you out”

On the one hand, it was nice to know that my boyfriend’s head wasn’t easily turned by every curvy blonde who ca On the other, his lack of reaction made me wonder if I’d missed the mark Rod Gwaltney’s reaction was more like it When he noticedout on springs and his tongue unrolling to the ground Yeah, I’d done it right, I thought, ever so sly

I dropped my voice down an octave or so and tried to create a hoarse, breathy tone that fitme” I didn’t think that sounded like my usual voice, but Owen frowned in suspicion Rod was still oglingThis was too much fun Then it becaht face one les

“Katie?” Rod blurted

“I think she gets an ‘A’ for illusions,” Owen said with a smile as I let my va-va-voom illusion drop “Nice work You had us fooled Where did you get the ie?”

“Fro,” I said as I crossed the roouys were I conjured myself a cup of coffee, not so much because I needed it but because I could, and that was a trick I never got tired of doing “And, you know, that illusion stuff is harder than it looks—not so oes with it to ”

Rod made an “ew, I just mentally undressedan illusion work is to create the whole character: the voice, the walk, the body language, the attitude Once you’ve got all that down, thetouch” And he should know, since he regularly relied on an illusion to make himself more handsome Until very recently, it hadn’t worked on ical iic noorked on—and for—me

Which hy I was there in an iic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc, headquarters building Rod was teachingic worked Apparently, my situation was rather unprecedented

Rod continued lecturing uises, like a different hair color or clothing, but fora few regular characters Work on those characters before you even add the e, and then it’ll be easier to pull off the illusions”

“Not that she’s likely to need to create any alter egos,” Owen said

“In our line of work?” Rod countered “You never knohen you’ll need a good disguise Just reical part—is what’s most important”

“I would think, then, that if you got good at the attitude you ful look at Rod He wasimprovements and had dropped the attraction spell he used to use along with the handsoed to convince hih the illusion was better-looking, Ihis real face

He ignoredon defensive spells Without your ical immunity, you’re vulnerable to attack spells, so you’ll need to be able to defend yourself”

“But only in extreme circumstances,” Owen put in