"If you mean a spell always does something, sure! It's getting it to do what you originally had in mind that's the problem."

"Well, this one did. It certainly discharged itself properly. If it hadn't, the structure of it would still be hanging here, complaining," S'reee said.

"But I think we've done a nice clean intervention." She chuckled, a long scratchy whistle, and finned her way over to Kit, turning a couple of times in

a leisurely victory roll.

Kit high-fived one of her ventral fins as it waved past him, but the gesture brought him around briefly to where he saw Nita's name, detached from the

spell, still hanging there, waving like a weed in the water and glowing faintly. Kit sighed and grabbed the string of symbols, wound them a few times

around one hand, and stuffed them into his "pocket," then grabbed hold of that ventral fin again and let S'reee tow him back to the surface.

They floated there for a few minutes in the twilight, getting their breath again as the reaction to the wizardry began to kick in. "How long was that "

Kit said, looking at the shore, where all the streetlights down the parkway had come on and the floodlights shone on the brick red of the Jones Beach

water tower and picked out its bronze-green pyramidal top.

"Two hours, I'd guess," S'reee said. "As usual it seems like less when you're in the middle of it. Maybe you should get yourself back onto land, though,

Kit. I'm starting to feel a little wobbly already."

Kit nodded. "I'll go in a few minutes," he said, and looked around them. They were about three miles off Jones Beach. He looked eastward, to where a

practiced eye could just make out the takeoff lights of planes angling up and away from Kennedy Airport. "I wonder, how soon could we expand the range