Unexpected Magic What if you could cast a spell to help you do your everyday job? But . . . there’s more to living than work, and you’ve lost your soul mates to death? What if an ancient force brings you together with another? And throws both of you up against the worst, most evil magic item around? Magic practitioners always find their soul mates and live happily ever after. Always. What if the unthinkable happens, however, and a mate dies young? Is the living mate doomed to a life alone? After a perfect love, does the mate even want another life partner? Defenders and Swords form teams to destroy evil magic items by sharing their energy. Sword Johanna Mahler and her team have developed a revolutionary method for combining magic energy--now they need to know if others can use it. Johanna has also vowed never to let a student Sword destroy himself by taking on a powerful item the way her young mate did--and died for his recklessness when they were teenagers. The Defender Council sends widower Sword Saxton Falkner to demonstrate a new apparatus for measuring magic energy output. Equally important is determining how to best use those independents not affiliated with a team. Neither expects to find a new soul mate in the midst of political practitioner arguments, bullies among the young--and older--Swords, a totally new method for generating magic energy, and battles with a disgruntled Sword determined to prove his superiority, especially to Johanna. Before Johanna and Saxt can live happily ever after, they must survive not only all these problems, and come to terms with their losses and gains, but face a return of the Cataclysm Stone, a tremendously powerful evil crystal that wants the Swords’ blood.