A ways away, a young woman sits in the attic of her mother's home, wincing as she slits the throat of a large rat with a razor blade. She feels a twinge of guilt, but reminds herself that the poor little things only live a couple years anyway. She quickly sets the rat's head over a small bowl and dips a paintbrush in the blood, doing her best to hold her hand steady as she paints a sigil onto a piece of printer paper. She's had to awkwardly dodge any questions about how things have been at "college" since arriving for her visit earlier today, lest talking about it without the aid of magic break the spell early. But as soon as she's got this thing in her pocket, her family will be happy to accept that she somehow got accepted to MIT despite not even having a high school diploma or having ever taken the SAT, and that to prevent fraud they have to accept the tuition directly from the student themself so they have to send the money to her bank account first, and that they don't have summer vacation and she can only visit them every three months. Magic is awesome. Say what you will about her dad, but he gave her all the good genes. It may suck for the rats, but if they were sapient and knew what Katie's family were like, they'd gladly sacrifice their lives to help her avoid it. She wished the damn thing lasted longer, though. Having to buy all the ingredients in secret, do it when no one's home, and then hide all the leftovers is such a hassle, especially in this car dependent shithole. She had to spend like 40 bucks on successive rideshares from here to the art supply store, and then from the art supply store to the pet store, and then from the pet store back home. She guesses the pet store is close enough that in theory she could've taken the bus, but while killing it is one thing, making a poor innocent rat spend its last hours on this earth waiting for the bus in this heat is just cruel. If she did that, she'd be no better than her family.

Damn, she actually has to do work. Mara drives like the wind to the spot marked on her map, hoping to get there in time for some evidence of black magic use to be remaining so she can report back on the spell's effectiveness. Fortunately, speed enforcement is minimal most of the way into town.

Mara peers intently in the front windows of Katie's house, and opens her wizard's Sight. She can see some traces of a mind control ritual having been used, though it must be one that operates at a distance or on a time delay; the victims aren't immediately evident. From her current angle, she can't see the practitioner who cast the spell, either, but they might still be around.

Before Katie's family are scheduled to get back, she hears a knock at the door.

Her heart stops. She's about to frantically try to hide the evidence, but then she realizes. Whoever it is is knocking. Mom wouldn't need to knock, she'd just walk right in. If any of her other family members were gonna come over to see her, presumably they would've let her know in advance. It's probably just a door-to-door salesman, or maybe a Mormon missionary. She's a little tempted to open the door just because she's never actually had a Mormon missionary come to her house before and she's curious what it's like, but she resists the temptation. Aside from the obvious, talking to someone other than her family might use up the magic. She's still not totally sure how this shit works.

No answer. She could just report her sighting of the traces of a likely mind control ritual, that's already more than Alyssa was probably expecting to learn out of this particular test. Still, she's already gone all this way, she might as well take one more shot to learn more. She blasts the door open and waits outside, trying to look authoritative.

Oh god. The Mormons don't do that. Katie doesn't know who would. Are there... magic cops? Aurors? She's pretty sure Harry Potter is entirely fictional, but the consequences if it's not are dire, at least assuming Magical America has a similar justice system to Britain. She picks up the razor and holds it inches from her neck, but she can't bring herself to do it. She's too clumsy and stupid and the magic cops will probably be able to forcefeed her a healing potion or something, and even if they don't, she's seen some stuff online that indicates Christianity might be real, so she might go to actual fucking Hell if she kills herself. In most cultures dying in battle gets you to a good afterlife, so that's probably the best way to hedge her bets. She grabs a glass bottle for throwing and hides in the bathroom. It's not gonna do much against someone who can blast down doors but hopefully it's enough to qualify as 'not a suicide'.

The caster isn't coming to the door. Mara could go inside to search, but the threshold would sap her power. She takes a few seconds for risk assessment.

"Looks like the raw power of Council material, but cast with bumbling incompetence. Amateur work. Do you agree?"

"Agreed. Bet you $500 it's a kid. You could take them in a contest of magic, even weakened by the threshold," chirps the spirit of intellect contained within Mara's butterfly hair clip.

(A skull or mask is a more traditional vessel for her kind, but Tiffany is rather more active in the field than most such assistants.)

"Nice."

A good chance of winning a magical duel doesn't rule out more mundane methods of conflict, however, and with Mara's life expectancy being measured in centuries she doesn't intend to waste it. With a few turns of a bracelet on her wrist, Mara pumps enough energy into her magical shield to withstand a bullet.

("Kevlar is the more efficient option," Mara imagines hearing in Alyssa's voice, but she finds it never goes with her outfit. Mara is of the opinion that activities that can't be done in a dress are for other people.)

She reaches into her purse—which has rather more capacity than its external appearance would imply—and pulls out pepper spray to hold in one hand, leaving the other plunged into the purse in case other options are needed.

With a wince as her power is weakened, she crosses the threshold and begins to explore the house. Without her full power, she can't simply force a door open without physical contact, but if any are locked she can bring them down with a magically assisted kick.

A... A hot woman??? An insanely hot woman in a dress with a purse... brandishing pepper spray? She's not sure what she expected the person or entity who broke down her door to look like, but she didn't expect them to be female. The shock causes her to drop the bottle and it shatters on the floor. The floor being covered in glass shards while she's barefoot ratchets her stress level up to 11. She starts crying. "Please don't send me to Azkaban, please, just kill me quickly and painlessly and say I was about to escape and you had to."

Damn, she almost wants to pat the kid's head and tell her everything is going to be all right. It wouldn't necessarily be true, though, and in any case she shouldn't squander the intimidation advantage. She reaches into her purse and swaps the pepper spray out for a pair of handcuffs.

"I'm hoping I won't have to do either. Hold your hands out and let me put these on, come with me, and get in the car."

"Following those instructions provides you with your best chance of continued survival and freedom!" chirps a voice from the back of Mara's head.

She holds out her hands. "Wait, hoping? Is Azkaban actually real? Also, uh, how am I supposed to follow you when as you can see, there's broken glass on the floor and I'm barefoot?"

Mara mutters something under her breath and waves her hand; the glass sweeps itself aside and reassembles itself into a bottle. She slaps the handcuffs on Katie.

"Azkaban isn't real. Your death is, unfortunately, on the table. I can explain while I drive."

"Whoa, sick. Man, I wish I had the executive function to teach myself to do that. Relief about the Azkaban thing though. How painful of a death are we talking?" The presence of sexy woman renders her remarkably calm in the face of imminent demise.

"Thank you! I think it is well within your capabilities, actually, and many other things besides."

"...and, um, by the sword. They're as efficient as they can be. I'll explain more in the car."

She starts walking, tugging on the chain of Katie's handcuffs to encourage her to follow.

"Well that's a relief. Kind of. So is the cop that arrested me also my defense attorney in whatever weird ass-backwards legal system magic people have? Because you're talking about me like you're on my side, despite, y'know, being the one to apprehend and restrain me." She follows.

"I'm not a cop. I'm...trying to figure out whether this should be brought to the legal system at all, or whether I should bend the rules and handle it my way. It's going to depend on what sort of person you are and what things you've done."

Reaching the car, she opens the passenger seat door and guides Katie into the seat with a hand on her shoulder, then hops in the driver's seat herself and punches the gas.

"How much do you know about the White Council and the Laws of Magic?"

"'I want to make a tasteless joke about that sounding like a white supremacist group, but thinking about it you (they?) have probably heard that one a million times before and are sick of it by now. Anyways, so you guys are like, magic cops? Or, well, you claim not to be a cop, but are arresting me anyway. Also, you should call whatever legal code you're enforcing something else. 'Laws of Magic' sounds like it denotes things you physically cannot do with magic, not things you'll get arrested if you do, and it does no one any favors for the two to be easily confused."

"I'm kidnapping you, actually. Isn't that what it's called when you arrest someone while not being a cop? And I'll let Tiffany handle the infodump."

"Hi! I'm Tiffany, spirit of intellect and wizard's assistant. I can answer your questions about the Council and the Laws and what kind of danger you're in. The pink haired one who so rudely refused to introduce herself is Mara, by the way. And you are?"

"Katie. So like, why are you talking about the law and the death penalty and all that if you're not a cop and you're just straight up kidnapping me rather than arresting me?"

"Because, unfortunately, the laws exist for good reasons. If I can't handle you myself, I will have to get the law involved; it wouldn't be safe for me to have a full-fledged warlock in my back yard."

"It was very insightful of you to observe that 'the Laws of Magic' sounds like it refers to physical limitations! They are based on a physical distinction—certain types of magic damage the brain and soul, compromising your judgment and impulse control while warping you to be better at doing more of that kind of magic, and worse at everything else. Such a person is called a warlock. The most commonly violated laws are those against killing another human with magic and mind control, but the category also includes transforming another's body, mind-reading, necromancy on humans, time travel, and messing with the Outsiders—uh, Lovecraft kinda things. It's not a moral distinction; you can use magic to coerce others as long as you don't do so using those specific methods."

She pauses for a moment and considers this. "Okay, fuck, that sounds scary and now I'm worried about myself, but how do I know this is actually real and I haven't just been kidnapped by the magic equivalent of fundamentalist Christians who think jerking off turns you into an axe murderer?"