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    The Books of Magic #41

    The Books of Magic » The Books of Magic #41 - Nothing Up My Sleeve released by DC Comics on October 1997.

    Short summary describing this issue.

    Nothing Up My Sleeve last edited by gravenraven on 05/27/23 10:41PM View full history

    Molly and Tim have now been staying with Zatanna in San Francisco for a month. Zatanna is supposed to be teaching Tim about magic, although their lessons haven't really started.

    Instead, Molly has become quite unhappy. She gets up in the morning to call her father and says that she wants to go home.

    This issue is narrated by Jack Hammer, a gargoyle. He is part of a gargoyle society which surveils people and learns their secrets. They can hide in plain sight by pretending to be normal architectural gargoyles. Jack speaks in a classic film noir style.

    Zatanna wakes Tim up. She stuns him with a magic trick where she seems able to make the sun rise when she raises a crystal in the air. He desperately wants to learn magic like her.

    They all have breakfast. Molly doesn't eat anything, but Tim doesn't notice. Tim keeps asking about how Zatanna did it. Molly can't believe he's so oblivious--she just knew what time the sun was going to rise, and was wearing a watch to know when to raise the crystal. Zatanna explains that magic is a lot about observation and misdirection. Molly is clearly unhappy about Tim, but he doesn't notice.

    Another gargoyle comes up and sees that Jack is still watching. This is a break in their ways, they are not supposed to get involved in the people they watch. However, Jack knows that Tim is an Opener, and Molly is his Other (as was mentioned once a while ago), so if Molly leaves, the notably unbalanced and self-obsessed Tim may sink all of California in his anger.

    The other gargoyle reports back to his group. They all become very frightened at the news, and all fly off to learn what they can from the human pair.

    Zatanna explains more about misdirection, then gives Molly a packet, without explaining why. She asks if the kids would go up and give the rabbits some exercise on the roof, clearly wanting them to talk.

    Jack continues to notice how Tim is not really paying attention to Molly any more. He finally decides to act, completely breaking the gargoyle code. He tells the two kids that he is a guardian of secrets. He tells Molly about how Tim and Leah went camping out west, and how Leah tried to seduce Tim by making herself look like Molly. He says that Tim and Leah made out for a while, then Tim pushed her away--but then he ended up kissing her again, even after he knew who she was. Tim admits that it's true.

    He counters that Molly was similarly somewhat smitten by Taik in the realm of Faerie, but Molly and Jack point out that Molly told Tim about that.

    As fair play, he then tells Tim about Molly's secret--that she's leaving, because he only cares about magic now, and ignores her. He didn't originally notice that she had to float now, and still didn't realize that she couldn't eat any more, because of her fairy curse.

    Tim is desperate, he feels like she didn't tell him that she was this angry, and didn't realize she was hurt, and is willing to listen now. But Molly is done with it. She takes Zatanna's packet and uses it to teleport home.

    Tim is angry at Molly and at Zatanna. Jack tells him that he should be happy--that people become gargoyles like him when they keep too many secrets.

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