He thought about his first meeting with Dog, but immediately realized that as potent and outlandish as that experience had been, the magic had touched him even before that. According to Professor Laverty, Sam had used magic to protect himself from an attacker’s spell long before meeting his totem. Sam remembered the glade and the fireball that had blasted him, burning his clothes and nearly killing him. He hadn’t even known what he was doing at the time, but he had deflected the mana force of the spell. Would that have been the first time magic had affected his life? It was the first personal, tangible effect he could remember. His earlier contacts had been simply as an observer when someone else had used a spell. Surely that had to be it.