This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it.

She turns her head, Bailey catches her eye, and she smiles at him. Not in the way that one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing circus tricks with unusually talented kittens but in the way that one smiles when one recognizes someone they have not seen in some time.

That's the beauty of it. Have you seen the contraptions these magicians build to accomplish the most mundane feats? They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can fly, I am simply a bird in their midst.

Trapped in silence, Marco traces apologies and adorations across Celia's body with his tongue. Mutely expressing all the things he cannot speak aloud. He finds other ways to tell her, his fingers leaving faint trails of ink in their wake. He savors every sound he elicits from her. The entire room trembles as they come together. And though there are a great many fragile objects contained within it, nothing breaks.

...He is sure that the Bailey he is now is closer to the Bailey he is supposed to be than the Bailey he had been before

I draft quickly and then revise, a lot.

You don't have to be a chef or even a particularly good cook to experience proper kitchen alchemy: the moment when ingredients combine to form something more delectable than the sum of their parts.