Merlin called the meeting to order. He seemed to fit in this place and time better than the last time I'd seen him. He was losing a little of his lost quality. "Given that it's been a month since we started more specifically addressing the possible threat from our new competition, I felt it was an opportune time to regroup and see where we stand. Mr. Hartwell?"

"Sales are doing well, better than before we started Miss Chandler's marketing campaign. I don't know how it's affecting our competition's sales, but our bottom line is only being affected in a good way. We've seen a few of the competing products in stores where we have accounts, but none in any of our key accounts.

They're mostly in out-of-the-way places that most proper magic folk wouldn't frequent."

"We're getting positive feedback from the store owners," I added. "Whether or not it directly addresses the threat, it might be good to keep the marketing campaign going.

It certainly seems to have helped keep those spells out of the mainstream."

Owen massaged his temples with his thumbs. He looked so tired he didn't even blush before speaking. "What helps us there is that it isn't a very good spell. It's a big energy drain, and it doesn't work as well as you'd expect from a commercially produced spell. He was in a rush to get something into the market. But I know him well enough to know he won't stop there. He'll get it worked out, and then we'll have problems."

"How are you doing on the counterspell?" Merlin asked.

"I've got a counterspell for this one, as of about five this morning. I'll just have to get it to Practical Magic for distribution. But it's only good until he gets the problems corrected. Then I'll have to start all over again." He didn't sound like he looked forward to that.

"Is there any insight from Prophets and Lost?"

Minerva shook her head. "Sorry, but this one's a big blur. There aren't any signs at all, let alone clear ones. Anything could happen. Now, we're not picking up on any major disasters, and civilization does seem to be more or less intact for the foreseeable future, so I doubt we've got a major apocalypse on our hands that will change life as we know it. But I can't tell if the good guys or the bad guys are going to win this one." She shrugged. "That makes us about as useless as a screen door on a submarine, but there you go."

Merlin laced his fingers together on top of the table. "There we have it. We seem to have stood our ground well enough to avert an immediate crisis, but the danger certainly hasn't passed. Mr. Palmer, could you anticipate what might be done to correct the spell?"

"I could try to correct it myself. I doubt he'd take a vastly different approach than I would. We were trained by the same people, after all. I'm just not sure I'm comfortable doing so. It gets into an area of magic I'd rather not delve into very deeply." If I wasn't mistaken, there was fear in his eyes, but he quickly cast his gaze down to the table, so I couldn't see for sure.

Merlin's eyes grew gentle. "Perhaps you can set this task for your staff, then supervise them closely."

Owen nodded without saying anything or even looking up. I remembered Rod mentioning that they were sometimes concerned about what Owen was capable of. It looked like Owen was concerned as well. Did that mean he was afraid he'd become evil if he played with darker magic? I couldn't imagine him being capable of harming anyone, but there was a lot I didn't know about magic or about Owen. I reminded myself that I'd known him for more than a month now, and all I knew about him as a person was that he liked baseball.

"What can Sales do to anticipate a future crisis?" Merlin asked.

Mr. Hartwell looked grim. "We're continuing to put pressure on store owners, make them aware of the quality differences, but we can't keep singing that tune if he fixes the spell. Meanwhile, there's the risk they'll call our bluff if we threaten to pull out of their stores. As long as we have spells in those stores, we have an excuse to investigate them. Once we pull out, we won't be able to track what he's selling. At least now we know where to go to get our hands on anything the moment it hits the market."

Merlin turned to Dortmund, the accounting gnome. "This may require additional budget. How are we set for funding?"

"We've got plenty of gold reserves. Our stocks hadn't been doing so well, but thanks to a hot tip from Minerva's folks, we're on an upswing. Bottom line is, we've got the money to do what we need to do. If we don't spend it now, it may not matter much in the future. Like Hartwell said, sales are good. We're not hurting."