You'd
get to know some of the other women who work here. Let's face it, there are times when this place is positively medieval when it comes to women in the workplace. It helps for us to all pull together."
"It sounds like fun," I said. The more people I knew inside the company, the better I could do my job. There was a nagging thought in my head that there was something I was supposed to remember about that night, but I flipped through my day planner and found nothing written in. "Sure, I'll come along. The others won't mind me being there, will they?"
"They'd love to have you along." She winked at me. "You can tell us if any guys we spot are really cute or just using a cute illusion."
As if on cue, Rod walked through the door. I hoped he hadn't heard Isabel's last comment. Then I wondered if Isabel even knew about his illusion. I tried to imagine how other people saw him. "Katie!" he greeted me, sounding surprised.
"Can I have a word with you?"
"Of course. Come in." I gathered my jacket, briefcase, and purse and followed him into his office. "How's your head?" he asked as I settled into a chair.
I touched my temple, just then remembering what had happened the day before. Had it only been one day? It was hard to believe. So much had happened to me in such a short span of time. "It's fine. I'd even forgotten about it. It's not all black and blue, is it?"
"It looks pretty nasty. Want me to mask it for you?"
"I thought magic didn't work on me."
"An illusion doesn't have to work on the person who wears it. It's a spell that follows you around and works on other people."
"My roommates have already seen it, so it would raise questions if I came home with no lump on my head at all, but thanks for the offer."
"Oh. Good point." He sounded truly disappointed. He probably wanted to show off for me, and here I'd gone and dashed his hopes. "I could just make it look not so bad, so they won't worry too much."
I couldn't see much harm in that, so I shrugged and said, "Sure, why not?"
He grinned, a truly delighted smile breaking out across his face in such a way that he looked truly attractive, even with his flaws and lack of grooming. Now I was glad I'd agreed. He rubbed his hands together, then placed one hand just above the knot on my forehead, closed his eyes, and muttered something under his breath. I felt the same charge and sense of pressure in the air that I'd noticed in Owen's lab, but on a much smaller scale. A second later he opened his eyes and backed away, a satisfied smile on his face. "There you go," he said. "I set it so it would wear off as the bruise fades away."
"Thank you," I said, even though I felt like a character in the fable of the emperor's new clothes. I wouldn't be able to tell whether he'd really done anything, so I just had to go along with it and act like he'd done me a favor.
He went around his desk, opened a drawer, and brought out a small hand mirror.
"Here, take a look."
"Remember, immune. I can't see it."
He shook his head as he handed the mirror to me. "You can with this. It's an image checker, so you can see how well your illusion works. Even you should be able to see with this."
I brought the mirror up to my face, and sure enough, the ugly lump on my head had faded to just a bit of blue and yellow, like a bruise that's about to go away. Catching a glimpse of Rod peering over my shoulder, I finally had a chance to see him as others did.
Johnny Depp wasn't a bad comparison. He wasn't quite as classically handsome as Owen, but he had a slightly dangerous bad-boy allure to him, like he should be wearing a leather jacket and hanging out at a disreputable nightclub, where he'd have to fend off the women throwing themselves at him. He still wasn't someone who would draw my attention for more than a passing, appreciative glance, but I could see where some women might find him intensely attractive, especially when he threw in a love spell.
Then I turned around, and he was just the Rod I knew, who wouldn't be half bad if he put the same effort into taking care of himself as he put into his illusions.
"Thanks, it does look better. I bet that comes in really handy for covering zits," I said. Then I couldn't resist asking, "Does this mean you don't see your own illusion when you look in an ordinary mirror?"
He shook his head, and there was a dejected look in his eyes. "Unfortunately not.
You can see other people's illusions in a mirror, but not your own. It has something to do with the reflection or refraction of the spell, or something like that. I was never very good with the physics of magic." Now I had to wonder at his self-esteem. How could he go around acting like he knew he was God's gift to women when he saw something else entirely in the mirror? Or did he ever look in the mirror at all? I didn't see how anyone could bear to go through life wearing an entirely different face. It would be weird to me. I'd rather just get my hair done and have plastic surgery, or else find a way to learn to live with myself the way I was. That would be a lot less confusing. Magic might come in handy, but I was starting to see that there were places where it caused more problems than it solved.
