Memories of Sand

On page 40 of 302 and this book earned a permanent place on my bookshelf (if I ever find funds to buy it, or get a copy from Paperbackswap):

But by opening my mind to call the fairy, I drew her attention. Maybe that made someone give her my address, or maybe she came to know of it directly. That doesn't matter. You can almost always find chains of coincidence to disprove magic. That's because it doesn't happen the way it does in books. It makes those chains of coincidence. That's what it is. It's like if you snapped your fingers and produced a rose but it was because someone on an aeroplane had dropped a rose at just the right time for it to land in your hand. There was a real person and a real aeroplane and a real rose, but that doesn't mean the reason you have the rose in your hand isn't because you did the magic.

...

And it's much easier to dismiss, you can dismiss all of it if you have a sceptical turn of mind because there is always a sensible explanation. It always works through things in the real world, and it's always deniable.

From Among Others by Jo Walton. shanaqui, thank you so so much for talking about this book and getting me interested.