“I said that already,” Nix said. “Someone has insulated the house for magic—made it impermeable.”

“That’s not possible.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “I would not have dropped the shadow if it wasn’t.”

“Someone would have had to perform magic on the building,” Liam said, joining us again.

“Like I said, that’s not possible. This store has been in my family for more than a century.”

“Are any members of your family Sensitives?” Nix asked.

“No.”

“Then they must have had a friend who was.”

She said that as if it was the simplest thing—that my father had had friends who were Sensitives. But that wasn’t likely. My dad didn’t involve himself in magic, although there had been times when it was unavoidable.

“The building took a hit from a flaming sword during the Second Battle,” I said. There was still a dark streak of soot across the brick wall that faced the alley. Soapy water and elbow grease hadn’t made a dent. “Maybe that’s why.”

“Maybe,” Nix said.

“So, what does this mean?” I asked. “I can do magic in here and Containment won’t know it?”

“Theoretically,” Liam said. “But that doesn’t make it a good idea. You don’t want to make the problem worse.”

“No,” Nix said. “She does not. The house is insulated. Your body is not.” She pointed to the box. “Try.”

I wiggled on the floor, adjusting my seat, and leaned forward again.

To put the bystanders out of my mind, I closed my eyes, imagined everything in the world was dark—except for the glimmering magic that had situated itself in my body, an irritating cancer that would eventually destroy who I was.

I reached in, grabbed a handful of those stars, and yanked.

Dizziness racked me, and cold sweat trickled down my back, while everything inside my body felt cold, heavy, and completely disorganized—as if every organ were in the wrong place.

“Oh, crap,” I said, bearing down hard against a wave of nausea that almost had me tossing my lunch in front of Liam Quinn. Which I didn’t think I’d ever live down.

I tried to ignore it. I opened my eyes, squeezed my palms tight against the magic I’d metaphysically grabbed, and imagined pushing the magic into the box.

It worked as well as stuffing my previous tightrope-walking elephant into a water bottle. Neither one of them would be superpsyched about the idea.

The magic flashed back, sparks arcing through the air—and this time, they were real. Liam stamped a few out, looked back at me with obvious concern in his eyes. But I couldn’t worry about him. Not right now.

I tried again, winced as magic flashed back again, stinging me like a shock of static.

“Damn it,” I said, shaking my hand, bracing against another wave of nausea. “This isn’t working.”

“Maybe she needs a break?” Liam said.

“She doesn’t need a break. She needs to focus. If she can gather magic to move things, she can gather magic to do this. She just needs to concentrate.”

“I don’t know how to concentrate,” I growled. I could feel irritation growing. I was hungry, tired, and running on fumes.

“Come on, Claire.” This time, Liam’s voice was harder. “You can do this. I know you can. Get it together and get it done.”

I nodded. Tried to center myself. Thought about the box, how I wished the box was bigger. Big enough to encompass the entire building, so I could shove a lifetime’s worth of magic in there . . .

That was when I realized I was going about this completely wrong. If magic didn’t have mass, the size of the box didn’t really matter. It didn’t matter.