sensing spellcasting

Madge tilted her head back and lifted her right hand, palm out and fingers spread, and said, "Orbius."
There was a surge of power that grated against my wizard's senses, and something wet and stinking that looked like a fusion of a fresh cow patty and a dew speckled cobweb came into being, slapping across Trixie's face. She fell back, clawing at it with her painted fingernails and screaming. Whatever the stuff was, it stuck like superglue, and it rendered her screams all but inaudible.
I shot a hard glance at Madge. She had power. Not necessarily a lot of it, but she had it. No wonder she'd made sure her hands were full when she first met me. The touch of one practitioner's hand against another's was electric and unmistakable. She'd dodged me neatly, which meant…

Blood Rites Chapter 40, Page 335


"Bite my ass, Cowl."
Kumori's hood twitched back and forth between Cowl and me. She took three steps back.
"Just as well," Cowl murmured. "I have wanted to see for myself what has the Wardens so nervous about you."
The cold wind rose again, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose up stiffly. A flash of sensation flickered over me as Cowl drew in power. A lot of power.
“Don’t,” I said. I lifted my shield bracelet, weaving defensive energy before me with my thoughts. I solidified my hold on my own power, wrapping my fingers tight around my staff, and then slammed it down hard on the concrete. The cracking sound of it echoed back and forth from darkened buildings and the empty street. “Walk away. I’m not kidding.”
“Dorosh,” he snarled in reply, and extended his right hand.
He hit me with raw, invisible force—pure will, focused into a violent burst of kinetic energy. I knew it was coming, my shield was ready, and I braced myself against it in precisely the correct way. My defense was perfect.
It was all that saved my life.
I’ve traded practice blows with my old master Justin DuMorne, himself at one time a Warden. I fought him in earnest, too, and won. I’ve tested my strength in practice duels against the mentor who succeeded him, Ebenezar McCoy. My faerie godmother, the Leanansidhe, has a seriously nasty right hook, metaphysically speaking, and I’ve even gone up against the least of the Queens of Faerie. Throw in a couple of demons, various magical constructs, a thirteen-story fall in a runaway elevator, half a dozen spellslingers of one amount of nasty or another, and I’ve seen more sheer mystic violence than most wizards in the business. I’ve beaten them all, or at least survived them, and I’ve got the scars to show for it.
Cowl hit me harder than any of them.
My shield lit up like a floodlight, and despite all that I could do to divert the energy he threw at me, it hit me like a professional linebacker on an adrenaline frenzy. If I hadn’t been able to smooth it out and take the blow evenly across the whole front of my body, it might have broken my nose or ribs or collarbone, depending on where the energy bled through. Instead it felt like the Jolly Green Giant had slugged me with a family-sized beanbag. If there had been any upward force on it, it would have thrown me far enough to make me worry about the fall. But the blow came head-on, driving me straight back.
I flew several yards in the air, hit on my back, scraped along the sidewalk, and managed to turn the momentum into a roll. I staggered to my feet, leaning hard against a parked car. I must have clipped my head at some point, because stars were swirling around in my vision.
By the time I got myself upright again, the panic had set in. No one had ever thrown power like that at me. Stars and stones, if I hadn’t been absolutely prepared for that blow…
I swallowed. I’d be dead. Or at best broken, bleeding, and utterly at the mercy of an unknown wizard. One who was still nearby, and probably getting ready to hit me again. I forced thoughts and doubts from my mind and readied my shield, my bracelet already grown so warm that I could feel it through the ugly scars on the skin of my wrist. I couldn’t even think about hitting back, because if my shield wasn’t back up and ready for another blow, I wouldn’t live long enough to get the chance.

Dead Beat Chapter 8, Page 80-81


We started out at a quick pace - and then an almost-human voice cried out, there was a surge of magic that flashed against my wizard's senses, and the lights went out.
The cavern's lighting had been of excellent quality. It had remained functional all through the duel, despite the magic Ramirez and I had been hurling around, and through the opening of not one, but two gates to the Nevernever. That implied that Raith had invested in lighting with a long track record of high performance and reliability, to continue functioning through so much - but there's never been an electrical system a wizard couldn't put down with a little direct effort, and this one was no exception.

White Night Chapter 40, Page 425


“He’s one of mine!” I shouted, slamming my own staff down, and fire sizzled out where it struck the ground, a flashing circle of flame that left a black ring scorched on the concrete.
The old man glowered at me and thrust out his jaw. “Boy, tell me you ain’t dumb enough to try this.”
The Winter mantle immediately bayed for blood, for defiance, for violence.
I started drawing in power.
The old man sensed it and did the same.
The universe yawed slightly in his direction as he did, a subtle bending of light, a minor wobble of gravity, a shudder in the very ground as Ebenezar drank power from the earth itself. That’s how much more juice the old man was taking in than me.
In my head, all I could hear was Maggie screaming. She had a lot of nightmares, of when the Red Court had come for her foster family. And he wanted to put the interests of the Council ahead of that? Of her?
“Oh, I’m more than dumb enough,” I said through clenched teeth.

Peace Talks Chapter 11, Page 88