Chapter 9
THE TERRIBLE ANTI-LOVE CURSE
CADENCE
Carrying a stack of books down the stairs was not a task for the faint of heart, especially not when a pixie dragon was curious what you were carrying.
I walked sideways down the steps from the archive’s mezzanine level, towards the study floor, and when the shimmering pink pixie dragon landed on top of the stack of books and started nibbling at the corner, sending the tower leaning to one side, I lunged trying to grab at it without losing everything and promptly lost everything, one book sliding off the next one and pitching as the pixie dragon took off with a mischievous little laugh, and trying to grab at the falling books made me lose my balance, my heart dropping as the ground opened up below me.
I thumped into something solid from behind, catching me as Knot snaked off my arm to catch the falling books.
One book fell to the floor anyway, and I stooped to pick it up, turning with an awkward laugh back to my savior.
“Sorry—oh,” I said, stopping at the sight of Lumi, giving me what I think was supposed to be her haughty look again.
“You don’t want any of those.”
“Huh—don’t I?” I looked over the stack of books.
“I had a vision you’d be happy with what you found in chapter 34 of the book Contemporary Principles of Drift Dissolution for Enchanters, in section 31A. Something about bridge stabilization.”
“Oh.” I let my shoulders slump. “Yeah, that, um, that sounds right. Thanks. I got a little tired of scanning through books…”
She was right, as it turned out—I set the books down on an automatic collections cart, a spectral wisp of magic energy flicking out and picking them up, teleporting them away with soft pop-pop noises, and I found the book right where she said it’d be, going back to the corner of the study area by the tall window with a view almost blocked by tall cypresses, where I flicked it open to chapter 34 and found exactly what I’d been looking for.
I gave Lumi a sheepish smile when she came up to the table with a cup of tea and another one of her coffee drinks that was barely coffee in any sense.
“Thanks,” I said. “Um… do I owe you materials or something? I thought you didn’t like me.”
She pouted, sucking on her milkshake… er, coffee, through a straw. “Summer’s been really happy lately,” she said. “So if Summer’s happy, I guess you’re not the worst person to ever attend Starfall.”
I blushed a little. I hoped I managed to keep it under wraps.
It had been just shy of two weeks now since Summer and I first…
well, since that first dance. We’d kept it quiet, acting casual when we met around the Citadel and in rooms when anybody might have been watching, but after it was just the two of us and I put up anti-divination wards, we’d fall back into each other’s arms.
And do other things with each other’s bodies. I hadn’t realized I was such a big fan of sex, but it was just fun exploring the different ways to feel good, to make Summer feel good. It had never really felt like fun before.
Of course, we’d kept going on long trips looking for more magic materials, and watched plenty of different alchemical brews explode, burn out, and bubble away to nothing.
Some of them seemed like they were working, but then Summer would clink the potion vial to my teacup with a cheers and drink it and spend the next half an hour talking in a chipmunk voice, turning purple, or compulsively casting Light spells like a human flashlight.
But I got why Summer wasn’t too stressed about any of it going wrong. It had only ever been a flimsy excuse for us to spend time together anyway, and I was happy to get every minute I could together with her.
Of course, Rosie found out in no time—mostly because I hadn’t realized Rosie was already back at the galeria when I took Summer back to my room one day—but she kept her wand oath.
Viv found out probably from some channeling some ancient extraplanar entity of true love, so I assumed Kali knew about it too, but both of them kept secrets.
Rosie teased me mercilessly—much more than Viv just casually giving me a heads-up to have a Scry Shield set up before Summer and I had sex, and then never mentioning it again—but mostly, I could tell Rosie was just radiantly happy about it.
She joined me and Summer for plenty of outings around the Citadel, Summer instantly making friends with my whole galeria.
But the important thing was that I was pretty sure Lumi hadn’t figured it out. We always played it cool when she was around, and I knew to just be cordial around Summer in the mornings because you never knew when Lumi would show up.
But if Lumi was picking up on Summer being happy, I mean… maybe I should have been concerned she was picking up on too much, but mostly I was just glowing about the fact that Summer was so happy being with me that Lumi had to comment to me about it.
“She’s a really good friend,” I said. “I’m really grateful we met.”
“I guess I’m glad for it too, as long as you’re not getting too grateful. She has a true love coming up in her life!”
I held my teacup lightly, breathing in the scent.
White tea with the crisp, lightly fruity flavor of ghostflower, one of my favorite teas and one I’d sort of been craving.
You really never knew what Lumi was going to be impossibly aware of and what she was going to be clueless about.
“Are you…” I started, venturing carefully.
“Are you sure you’re not into her? You seem very intent on this. ”
“Oh, saints, gross. I’d rather kiss a basilisk. Like, sloppy style, on the lips!”
“Ew.”
She looked down at her drink, stirring it slowly with her straw. “Jeez… I guess it’s just that I see myself in her a little bit.”
I paused. “You also like climbing into weird trees for ingredients?”
“Icky. No. They’re full of bugs.” She sighed, slumping over the table. “You can keep a secret and also pretend like this conversation never happened, right?”
“I don’t even notice it’s happening right now. I’m suddenly deaf and blind.”
“Okay, good.” She took a long sip of her drink before she said, “I told you she hasn’t been lucky in love.”
I relaxed back in my chair. “Oh, you want a girlfriend and you feel like it’ll go better for you if your vision for her comes true.”
“Oh my god, that’s literally so rude and completely unfounded.” She huffed and puffed and folded her arms, looking away, and she said quietly and awkwardly, “You don’t think it would go better for me if my vision for her came true, do you?”
I laughed. “You seem like a lovely person… I’m sure you’d be able to find someone regardless of how it goes with her.”
She pouted into her coffee. “I think I’m cursed. Every time I have a date that seems like it’s going to go okay, something terrible happens.”
“I mean, dating is just hard…”
“The last girl I went out with had someone put a stealth enchantment on her jacket so she blew up the table mid-conversation. She didn’t want to talk to me after that.”
“Oh, um… that’s not a normal part of dating being hard, yeah, no.”
“The last one before that had some secret demonic contracts that activated weirdly in the middle of a game of darts and her arm was possessed beyond her control and she started throwing demonic-magic darts at people. I still have a scar from that one!”
“Saints. Do they progressively get worse as you go back?”
She pouted. “The last one before that was fine, she just chewed really loudly with her mouth open.”
“Okay, I mean, yeah, I think I’d take the demonic explosions over that.”
“I just think I’m, like, destined never to find love,” she groaned, slumping over the table.
“People with a lot of natural divination power usually have weird fate around them! I’m worried I have some terrible anti-love curse.
So I feel like maybe if I’ve foreseen true love for Summer, then I’ve finally overcome the curse of dying love, you know?
Whereas if she goes and falls for somebody else and her true love doesn’t happen after my vision, it’s like, oh, no, I really am an evil black hole of evil black magic where love goes to die, and I’ll die alone and unloved. ”
“I feel like maybe you just, um… got unlucky.” That said, her specific experiences didn’t sound like everyday bad luck.
And she was right that heirs to strong magic power were usually surrounded by weird magic effects.
“I’m sure you’ll find someone. It just usually takes a while to find the right person. ”
Usually. Sometimes you asked a flower for one and they dropped out of the sky and onto your table.
But I wasn’t saying that part, and not just because that was when the door opened and my heart jumped at the sight of Summer coming into the room with a bouquet of magic flowers, stopping with an awkward, anxious smile at Lumi’s back.
Lumi didn’t seem to notice, not even as Rosie came into the archive behind Summer, also making a face at me sitting together with Lumi.
“I’m sure it’ll work,” Lumi said. “I’m sure she’s going to find her true love, and then I’ll find my true love, and then we’ll all be happy together with our true loves.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Um… what do you think your true love would be like?” I asked, trying to buy time and keep her from looking at Summer bringing a bouquet into the room, and I failed instantly. Lumi lit up.
“Okay, I can tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anybody. And only if nobody’s listening.
” She checked back over her shoulder, and she choked on her coffee at the sight of Summer and Rosie, standing up and stamping her foot.
“What—Summer! What do you think you’re doing creeping around with a bouquet? Who are you giving that to?”
“Hi, Lumi,” Summer said, beaming brilliantly. She didn’t seem too concerned. Lumi flushed.