The first day I saw Michael he looked at me  across the cubicles, green eyes sparking heat, black hair curling at the tips framing sharp cut glass cheekbones and soft full lips. I think my eyes lingered a bit too long and he walked over, invitation given but not consciously intended.

He spoke in a soft rasp, bedroom voice thrust full into the daylight, all the more attractive for it being out of place. “Do you always stare at the new hires?”
I froze, temporarily unable to speak.  My mind consumed  with the flash of his lips on mine.

I stammered “Sor..Sorry?”

He replied wryly, “Are you not sure you should apologize or not sure what you’re apologizing for?”

“Uh…”

“How about this, I’ll come back when you’re less flustered and we’ll start over.”

He turned and walked away, smooth like silk on skin. Strutting out causing the muscles in his ass to clench and pulse.

I muttered under my breath, “Small chance of that.”

Magic is a mutable changeable thing. It evolves as the world evolves. Changing what works and the ways in which it works as time passes. When humanity lost faith in magic, magic laws shift to take this into account.

If you have tried magic and it failed, to most people that means it is not real. What it really demonstrates is a lack. Whether of ability, Knowledge or belief. You can know the ritual but lack the power to carry it off. You can have no idea what to do but through chance, if you are very powerful and believe, manifest an ability.

But if you fail, then barring outside influence you will continue to do so. Without utter faith in magic and your ability to work your will, magic will only be the illusion the modern world makes it out to be.

– Preamble: Treastise on Magic by Simon Crow

In my younger days,  I had power.  Power I wielded like a hammer.  With it I shaped myself and my world.  I helped build a dream.  A shining example brought low by a tide of petty evils.  By the end my friends were dead and our allies scattered to the winds.  So much power,  power enough to shape a world but not enough to keep it.  I was so tired but the fires of creation singing through me would not let me die.  People say that I was tricked into the tree.  In reality it was the only oblivion I could craft for myself.  I slept fitfully, the passing years playing out as a dream.  Something wrent the tree from its mooring and I stumbled out.  Kept strong by its roots deep into the Well.  I blinked and saw sunlight for the first time in more than a thousand years, just as a bright sword stabbed out of the sky with a keaning wail.  The roar was deafening, the howl of metal tearing.  I didn’t think.  I lashed out with my will.  Anything to make the noise stop.  Now they laud me a hero.  When what I am is just a frightened old man.

USA: 60 minutes
How odd to regard an ex mental patient as a Savior.  Even stranger to be that patient.  All my life I heard whispers, glimpses of the world beneath this one.  The whispers told me what I always knew, I was something more.  It’s what we all want to hear,  and I made my first mistake. I told someone.  First my parents, then my shrink.  The drugs helped.  I stopped hearing the voices so loudly.  But a steady whisper, different from the others remained.  It spoke to me of how to convince them that I was normal.  How to conform in six easy steps . It worked for awhile, just another happy kid in suburban hell. 

England
Swamped by reporters

I wish you people would just leave me alone.  The squirrels in my tree chattered less than you. 
If you’re not going to let me get back to my nap,  then at least point me to the nearest pub.

New Jerusalem:

“I’m Rebecca Gomez,  reporting live from Wall that encircles New Jerusalem.  Since the invasion of the Unknown ships  was defeated this wall has cut off all of contact between the so-called Knights of the Temple and the outside world. 
Leaving us to wonder what these, perhaps misnamed, heroes are hiding. 
Back to you Jeff. “