Does magic have to have rules?

This is a whine, not a rant. I rant when I'm angry; right now I'm just frustrated and annoyed. It's hard out here for a fantasy writer, after all; there's all these rules I'm supposed to follow, or the Fantasy Police might come and make me do hard labor in the Cold Iron Mines. For example: I keep hearing that magic has to have rules. It has to be logical. It has to have limitations, consequences, energy exchange, internal consistency, clear cause and effect, thoroughly-tested laws with repeatable results and -

Waitaminnit.

This is magic we're talking about here, right? Force of nature, kinda woo-woo and froo-froo, things beyond our ken, and all that? And most of all, not science? Because sometimes I wonder. Sometimes, whenever I see fantasy readers laud a work for the rigor of its magic system - we'll come back to this word "system" later - I wonder: why are these people reading fantasy? I mean, if they're going to judge magic by its similarity to science, why not just go ahead and read science fiction?

N K Jemisin, author of nine fanasy novels and the first author to win three Hugo Awards in a row for her The Broken Earth novels. http://nkjemisin.com/2012/06/but-but-but-why-does-magic-have-to-make-sense/