Our protagonist has a problem. To solve it, we need to know something about the way curses work, and especially something about what sorcerous types can do about it.
For starters, let's break down what a curse is. A curse is harming someone somewhere with magic. In our case, it's harming someone very far away (probably) with magic. What does that require? Is magic normally limited by line of sight? What would it take to make something which cannot be counter-spelled?
And obviously there's the cosmetic aspect to think about. What does it sound like? Does it leave tracer-effects in the air, so you can see its passage? Can it be sensed, or do even wizards have to rely on mortal senses?
Tough stuff, all of these questions, but let's tackle that last one first.
Magic isn't something wizards, even high wizards, really have. They merely sense it, and can sense the way their mind is manipulating it. Even non-wizards can curse someone -- they just won't know about it, and couldn't repeat it. That's why such curses never gain any particular power -- they're clumsy and accidentally formed.
Think of a blind man who walks into a room filled with various buckets of paint, who opens them up and starts splashing around. He may, by chance, make something that looks aesthetically pleasing -- but he's unlikely to know how, exactly, he did it, or what colors which parts of it are. Contrast him to someone with sight, who has all the same abilities, but can see which colors are which.
Mortal spellcasters exist. They're clumsy, and comparatively weak, and they have to study incredibly hard for what little magic they have. They grope around in the dark until they find something that works, record that, and move on. They never understand why it worked in the first place, and are thus limited.
That being said -- yes, a wizard can sense magic. That means that for curses to be effective, they must take place exceedingly quickly. So they probably do.
What all does this imply? Well, Graham must have exceedingly good reflexes -- I may not have sufficiently explained that one yet. You'll see eventually.
But because it's sensory-based, it's most likely either line-of-sight or local area-limited.
As to the other question: It would need to be something so complicated, or so powerfully charged, that it cannot be safely undone. I had an idea about magic flowing through runes like a sort of selectively-frictionless liquid. Does that make sense? No. Am I going to explain it? Nope. We'll not need to know why it works, I don't think.
It probably only makes physically observable effects when the spell is made to do so -- this implies, by the way, that mortal spellcasters would probably have quite a bit of visual components built into their spells to give them feedback on whether the spell is being cast correctly.
All this is very well and good, but what about those characters? What about that story?
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