Adam makes a coffee for me, using magic to heat the water, to open the fridge, to levitate milk and coffee grinds to the counter. He's never been a big coffee drinker, so he makes himself a hot chocolate. He stands in the middle of the kitchen, concentrating hard, while milk splashes into mugs and spoons stir of their own accord. I watch from where I'm sitting at the counter. I'm always impressed when I see him working his magic. He's limited by nothing more than the power of his concentration, and because he was never forced to learn how to suppress the connection between emotion and magic as a method of control, it reacts to his will with so little effort that he can create spells that aren't possible for any other magician. That made him dangerous once, but now, watching him is like watching a one-man symphony performing. No words, no wand; just him and his magic, so entwined you can't tell where one ends and the other begins.

After about ten minutes, he passes me the cup of coffee, and we head over to the couch. I sit, take a long drink of my drink, and then put the mug on a coaster on the coffee table. Adam sits next to me, holding his cocoa in both hands up to his face, almost like he's trying to hide behind it.

“Feeling better?” I ask.

He shrugs. “A little. I wasn't overflowing that badly. I didn't even notice it was getting out of control until I... lost control.”

“We'll probably use up a good chunk of the rest of the excess with this tracking spell. Do you feel ready to attempt it?”

Adam takes a sip of his cocoa, and then another one. By the third, he's practically chugging it even though I know it's hot enough to burn in order to avoid answering me.

But the drink runs out eventually, and he can't put it off any longer. He puts the cup on the coffee table. I grab another coaster, pick up his mug, and put the coaster underneath.

“Okay. Yeah, sure. I'm ready.”

He was so eager about this idea just twenty minutes ago, but now he's pale and looks like he might be feeling a little nauseous. I certainly wish we were back in bed right now. I hope to God this works, even though I know it won't, because I'm afraid of how Adam will react to the failure.

“Let's just go back to bed," I want to tell him. I'll hold him, I'll kiss him, I'll tell him everything will be okay, and he'll forget about the lamp, his crisis of self-identity, his fear of the future.

But that would just be sweeping the problems under the rug. They would still be there, under the surface. Waiting.

“Okay,” I say instead, taking his hands. “Let's do this thing.”

Adam nods, looking a touch terrified, and he closes his eyes.

Long gone are the days when I needed to walk Adam through spells, describing step by step the actions to take. I mostly offer moral support now, sometimes advice on particularly tricky aspects of complex spells. So I just watch him, and feel the magic gathering up inside of him. His hands, already warm in mine, grow even hotter; and I realize how cold I am. I'm still in only my boxers, and the apartment is always kept at a crisp 62 degrees, because of Adam's tendency to run hot. I sleep in my boxers since sharing a bed with a human furnace keeps me plenty warm, but now, in the chilly living room, I have to suppress a shiver.

Adam's lips start to move as he mouths silently to himself. He's describing what he wants out of the spell, what shape he wants it to take, nailing down the perimeters before setting it free. I try to read his lips for a moment, but then I think that maybe it's not my place to know, so I look away, focusing instead on the small, pale scar on his upper lip.

The magic builds in him. My hands tingle as it starts to spill out from his palms, just a little. I can taste electricity in the air.

“Inveniet,” he says, and the spell rushes out of him in all directions like a gust of wind that can only be felt in your soul.

He doesn't open his eyes immediately. His brow furrows as he waits for the spell to find something to anchor to. I hold my breath, and have to keep myself from squeezing his hands tighter. I don't want to interrupt his concentration. He'll need every ounce of it if he's going to make this work.

“Nothing,” he mutters, barely audible. “It wasn't strong enough.”

“It was plenty strong—” I start to say, but he's already gathering up more magic to shove into the spell. There's definite static in the air now, and the scent of smoke rolls off Adam's bare skin. My palms itch.

Adam cocks his head to the side, eyes still closed, his expression contorted. “No... maybe? No—but it feels like it's trying... Like there might be something it can't quite...”

He tenses, and another wave of magic rolls off him. There's a buzzing in my teeth, and it's getting hard to focus on him clearly. I have to pull my hands away because it feels like I'm holding onto a live electric wire.

“Adam,” I gasp, “It's too much, if it's not already working—”

“Just a little more,” he mumbles.

It hits me full in the face, and I barely have time to jump off the couch and run to the kitchen sink before I vomit.

That breaks Adam's concentration, and the tracking spell is abruptly cut off. The magic that had been digging its way down into my cells, searching for traces of Adam's DNA, begins to fade, leaving me feeling just a little more clear headed as I pant over the sink.

“Felix!” he cries, leaping to his feet and rushing over.

“I'm okay,” I croak, turning on the tap to wash my sick down the drain.

He comes up behind me and hovers there awkwardly, reaching out for me, and then pulling his hands back. “What happened? I wasn't aiming it at you—If I'd realized what I was doing—”

“There was so much power in the spell, it was filling the room. It was just... too much all at once.” I rinse my mouth out and spit into the sink, then turn to face him. “It wasn't being directed at anything, so it was just going everywhere. I'm sorry; I broke your concentration and made you lose the spell.”

His expression becomes horrified. “No—no, I'm sorry. I should have been paying more attention, I would have stopped right away if I'd realized... I didn't think the spell would have that effect, I'm so sorry, Felix.”

I shake my head. “No, really, I'm fine now. This isn't the first time I've been gut punched by your magic.” I give him a weak grin, but he doesn't smile back. “You said you thought you might have been getting something. Did it feel like the spell was anchoring? Do you want to try again?”

“No,” Adam says quickly, and he takes a step forward to grab me by the shoulder. “No, I'm not doing that again while you're anywhere near me.”

“I could leave the apartment, wait in the lobby—”

“No,” he insists. “I thought I felt... I don't know. Maybe, something out there, maybe more than one something; but it was too faint. I don't think I have enough magic to have got a clear fix on it. At least not without burning the building down in the attempt.”

I had been expecting him to take it worse; but his concern about me seems to have dulled the sting of the failure.

“But...” I say, tentatively. “You felt something. Something, someone, is out there, then.”

Adam goes very quiet. “...I think so. Yeah,” he finally says.

“Did you get any sense of how far?”

He shrugs. “I'm not sure. Far, but not... not really far. I don't know. I don't even know if I really felt anything. If I did, it wasn't close exactly, but it's not like it was on the other side of the world either.”

“Thank Solomon for that, I'm pretty sure we're still banned from the EU.”

That almost makes him crack a smile.

“Ugh, I need to brush my teeth,” I say with a grimace.

“I'll take care of the cups,” he says. “Unless you want to finish your coffee?”

My grimace deepens. “Not now that I've just had half of it come back up. I'm good, thanks.”

I head into the bathroom while Adam rinses out the cups. I notice as I go that he uses magic to do it; which I know is just out of laziness rather than any desire to use up excess power.

Honestly, I'm amazed once again that he has anything left after that tracking spell he just pumped out. I wonder, not for the first time, what the upper limits of his power really are.

I'm halfway through brushing, all foamed up like a rabid dog, when Adam comes into the bathroom, coming up behind me and resting his chin on my shoulder, his arms wrapping around my waist.

“Wha?” I say through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“You're cold, right? You've got goosebumps. I'm just trying to warm you up.”

On another day—another month, really, I'd have thought he had ulterior motives. But he doesn't. And he's right, I am cold, and the heat from his chest against my back feels good.

“I have to spit,” I say (though it comes out more like “Ah ha tuh spiiih”), and he loosens his grip enough for me to lean over and rinse my mouth. I rinse my toothbrush next, and drop it in the cup, next to Adam's. Then I turn, so I can put my arms around his shoulders.

“How do you feel?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I'm not dwelling on it. No point. Might as well keep moving forward. We've still got our other plans.”

We do. And if those don't pan out either...

I pull Adam in for a tight embrace. “Okay. Okay, good. Let's go back to bed, then. I'm exhausted.”