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asked.
    I didn’t know, but I could find out.
    * * *
    The surface of Table Rock Lake gleamed in the late morning sunlight, giving it a mirrored look, at least from a distance. The Blairs owned a speedboat, which Matthew and I took turns driving at high speeds. We steered in tight circles, riding our own wake as well as the wakes of the other boats passing us by. The wind whipped through my hair, which I left unbound, tying it into tiny knots that would take time to untangle. But my troubles seemed to fly away into the breeze.
    Matthew brought a picnic lunch for us to share. He took control of the wheel, steering us into a secluded cove that no one else seemed to notice. In fact, one boat approached, its driver looking directly at the cove, but it suddenly turned away at the last minute.
    “Just a little suggestion,” Matthew said by way of explanation. “You don’t want to come this way. There’s nothing very nice here.”
    He could call it little if he wanted, but it seemed like powerful magic to me, and it made me feel uneasy. Not that I thought Matthew was controlling me in any way. I mean, if he was, my parents would never have allowed him to spend time with me. But he was powerful, potentially dangerous to others, and I didn’t know him all that well.
    “I’m enjoying the bird song coming from the tree just behind us,” Matthew said, “while you’re thinking about magical ethics.”
    My face heated. “That’s not fair.”
    “Probably not, but at least with you I don’t have to use subtle tricks to bring the conversation around to what you clearly want to talk about. You knowing the truth about me is as fair as I can make it.”
    I looked into his eyes, which implored me to trust him, and to like him. Give me a chance , they said. “All right, so tell me. When and how do you use your spells?”
    Matthew took a bite of ham sandwich and chewed, thoughtfully. “Well, it depends upon the situation. Magic isn’t black or white, you know.”
    My father said so all the time, but he had an addendum that I spoke out loud. “No, but mind magic is already tinted a deep, dark gray.”
    “Your father doesn’t trust what he doesn’t understand. I don’t blame him, but to throw his saying back in his own face, any kind of power is already tinted a deep, dark gray. Haven’t you ever heard that power corrupts?”
    “Of course.”
    Matthew gave me a slight shrug. “Well, your father could burn my house down around me while I slept. It doesn’t mean he will. I could make him feel so depressed that he wants to kill himself. It doesn’t mean I will.”
    I shuddered. Both scenarios may have amounted to murder, but Matthew’s attack plan seemed more sinister.
    “How is it worse?” Matthew asked.
    Words failed me. Dead is dead, but in Matthew’s suicide scenario, he didn’t attack straight on. He sapped will and even self. He removed free choice from the equation, and turned a person into something they were not.
    “The trouble most people have with mind control,” Matthew said, “is they think their thought processes are a part of their soul. So if I alter those thoughts, I’m changing something that is fundamentally theirs, that they can never get back. Trust me, I’ve sifted through enough minds to know the soul isn’t in there.”
    “Oh?” I arched an eyebrow at him. “So where is it?”
“In your right big toe. Unless you’re left handed. Then it’s in the left.”
    It took me a minute to realize he was joking.
    “Are you left handed?” He grinned at me.
    “No.” I grinned back. I couldn’t help it. It didn’t make me trust mind magic, or even him, but it gave me something to think about. And, after all, he was being very open with me. That was more than I could say for anyone else, including Evan.
    “Last week I was at a fundraiser,” Matthew said. “I kept hearing these dark thoughts, kind of in the periphery. They disturbed me, so I made my way through the crowd, trying to find the