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few words and phrases that Aethelstan had taught her for emergencies.
    She clenched one fist as she had seen Aethelstan do. “Change back,” she whispered to Darnell. “Be my house kitty again. Change back.”
    His hind paw kicked the air in rhythm to her scratching. She had hit a good spot. But he was still huge, he still had a mane, and his tail had a tuft at the end of it that hadn’t been there when they both went to sleep the night before.
    â€œChange,” she whispered. “Reverse. Go back.”
    Nothing happened. No light, no sound, not even a different feeling.
    Her breathing was coming hard now. She couldn’t leave him alone, not oversized like this. He would be able to break out of the house—heck, he would break the house and everything in it, and he wouldn’t even realize he was doing anything wrong.
    Then the authorities would come for him and do whatever they did to loose lions. Loose black lions. Loose black lions of a type that didn’t occur in nature. He would be a freak and he would get all sorts of media attention and she would have trouble busting him out of wherever they held him and—
    Oh, she had to clamp a hold on her vivid imagination. She had to focus.
    And then she remembered a single word, one of the emergency words, that Aethelstan had given her. In the old language. He had said it meant “reverse.”
    She sat up and waved her arm as she had seen him do, and uttered the word at the top of her lungs.
    There was a bright white light, a crackle and sizzle, and then a small explosion. It felt as if something had left her and danced in the air before dissipating.
    She sat for a moment, not wanting to look at the floor.
    What if she had turned him into something else? What if he hadn’t changed at all?
    What if she had killed him?
    A small black house cat with lovely gold eyes jumped onto the bed, and butted his head against her arm.
    â€œDarnell,” she said and scooped him close. “Oh, Darnell. I think we have a problem.”
    Darnell whined, then squirmed. His interpretation of the problem was obviously different from hers. His was that he wanted breakfast, and wanted it now.
    If only she could recover that quickly.
    She let him go and he ran to the bedroom door, then looked over his shoulder as if asking her what she was waiting for. She brought her knees up to her chest. It had been so long since she had had any real instruction in magic. She could barely remember what she knew about the arrival of powers.
    Full blown. Out of control. Those were the phrases she had always heard. But she wasn’t sure if getting magic was like going through puberty—did the changes happen in spurts? Or was she one day magic-less and the next day magical?
    She didn’t know.
    Darnell yowled. She looked at the clock. It was too early to call Aethelstan in Oregon. Neither he nor Nora would appreciate a call at 5:00 a.m.
    She wiped her hands on her nightgown. She had to handle this on her own, at least for a few hours.
    And during those few hours, she had to meet with the new chairman of her department.
    She hoped he would let her cancel.
    ***
    Of course, no one answered the phone in his office, and Helen said he would arrive just a few minutes before nine. Helen had told her that Professor Found was a stickler for detail, and missing this first meeting wouldn’t sit well with him. So Emma decided to go through with the meeting. After all, it would only take a few minutes, and she would use the rest of the time to call Aethelstan and see if she could find a short-term solution to the problem.
    Besides, she had gotten through the rest of her morning routine without a hitch. Darnell seemed no worse for the wear. Her breakfast tasted fine. She had to put on a dress because all of her jeans and sweaters were dirty—and when she cursed her lack of housekeeping skills, the clothes didn’t automatically get clean on their own.
    Even when