I was in for it now. Mama G’s "magic" could take hours—days, even, when she really got wound up—and was totally bogus. Not one of her "spells" ever worked. At one point, in an effort to persuade her to stop wasting the money Rafael gave her on thaumaturgical supplies, I’d had a mage friend give her the Dumas Test. She hadn’t registered any magical talent whatsoever. But that didn’t stop her from trying to cure every ailment known to metahumanity with a host of bewildering incantations and homemade charms.