More often than you might expect, the twist in the tale in a magical story is the final prize which is to reverse the magic, or negate it and live without it. Arwen renounced immortality (LOTR). So did Connor MacLeod (Highlander).
I can think of at least two different ways for an alien to be invisible without actual magic, and they don't involve mirrors or tiny cameras.
The downside and limitation for that Aston Martin was that it only works in deserts or snowy wastelands. Had it been a spacecraft, the technology would have worked, and I used that thought for Virtual Invisibiity in Forced Mate.
In Knight's Fork, the king of the Volnoth was able to be invisible because his skin was like that of an octopus or squid and could change color at will. The downside for him, and anyone else who saw him when he wasn't trying to hide, was that he had to be naked.
My rogue royal secret agent twins, Devoron and Demerrill, have another way of being invisible which is yet to be explained but which might fill in a possible plot hole in Insufficient Mating Material.
While writing this, my browser crashed to install an update. It's a kind of magic, too. The internet and computers. One of my services has been out for a week. My landline is still out... that's not magic!
Even if one understands about miniaturization, and writing code, the internet is a wonder and a marvel but some of its downsides include bad actors, scams, identity theft, surveillance, 1984 stuff, addition, dependence, and the chaos that will ensue if the grid goes down... because how many people could not get out of their cars or into their homes, or access their money, or fuel their cars, or navigate from one place to another if we were on the receiving end of an EMP attack.
Without my landline, two-factor authentication has become a personal mini-nightmare for me. What would you do when the magic dies?
PS. I'm publishing this a day early because... Murphy's Law. It "got" me last weekend.
All the best,
Rowena Cherry
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