I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; th… - Charles de Lint

The trouble with magic is that there's too much it just can't fix. When things go wrong, glimpsing junkyard faerie and crows that can turn into girls and back again doesn't help much. The useful magic's never at hand. The three wishes and the genies in bottles, seven-league boots, invisible cloaks and all. They stay in stories, while out here in the wide world we have to muddle through as best we can on our own.

[She] had felt straight away that she wasn’t meeting a new friend, but recognizing an old one.

That's the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.