Chapter Fifteen Taissa #5
Next to her, Kion is glaring at the síceach in a way that makes her wonder if they’ll be leaving a crime scene behind. “Listen—”
Now in the groove of things, Alun doesn’t seem at all frightened. “Then, Taissa, you have scarlet, orange, and green—stubbornness, high energy, and high intellect.”
She preens. Kion rolls his eyes at her.
“Kion has an interesting display of scarlet, blue, and golden—the two latter being resilience and courage. Finally, there’s one more similarity you both have.
” He taps the swatch of black. “Have you ever tried to mix balsamic vinegar and oil together? That’s what your auras look like right now. There are dark spots all over them.”
“A curse,” Kion says slowly.
“Ding, ding, ding!” Alun grins. “Yeah, you’re cursed, all right. But it’s interesting. There’s something else happening to your auras. It’s like…I’ve never seen it before.”
Well, that can’t be good. Taissa jitters her leg. “What is it?” she demands.
“I don’t…know.” His eyes shine white again, and he peers more closely at them. (At this point, he’s inches away from them. His breath smells like the Cruel Cinnamon flavor of Jumping Jellies.) “The curse-spots, they’re flickering. Every few moments.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Taissa asks slowly. “That the curse is fading?”
“But they’re not fading.” Alun’s eyes go back to green. “They flicker, but they come back. They’re showing no signs of going anywhere. It’s strange. Really, really strange. Usually, curse-spots are steady. Unblinking.”
“What kind of curse is it? Did it somehow bleed onto the Cockatrices?”
Alun flips through the book again, this time keeping the pages to himself.
“Curses don’t usually ‘bleed’ onto other recipients.
Unless the Cockatrices are also cursed, what happened yesterday is something else entirely.
Your curse, though, you can think of it as the opposite of a Luck glyph,” he says. Taissa winces at his pointed look.
“It makes us unlucky,” says Kion slowly.
He gives him an unimpressed look. “Well, yeah. Obviously. But as for the type of caster, it’s hard to make out.
” Alun frowns down at the book. “Not a demon or a dark god. This type of curse is too minor for them to perform. They deal in pestilence and death and all those nice, fun things. Destruction on massive scales. This, I mean, this is literally just petty.”
“So a Summoning glyph wasn’t used?” prods Taissa. The forbidden glyphs are used to draw those nasty, wicked things out of the dark to do dirty work on behalf of witches and warlocks.
“Mm, no. I don’t think so.”
Kion grimaces.
If a Summoning glyph wasn’t used, the likelihood of it being a witch or a warlock has plummeted. They could still be involved somehow, but it’s less likely. More likely is it that it’s another curse-capable creature. One who’s not a fan of the NCL Stymphs.
You’d think cursing one’s least favorite carriwitchet team would be more common, but it’s not.
After the Second World Witching War of 1939, where dark magic had been used in such excessive quantities by the Hidden Cities of the Axis, the Well’s reserves of dark magic became…depleted.
There’s not enough left to waste it on frivolous curses (like on your least favorite sports team)—and usage of the Well’s dark magic is rumored to be highly regulated by Queen Pike and King Puck, who want to conserve as much of it as possible for whatever nefarious purposes they might be holding close to their chests.
To pilfer from the Well means an unpleasant visit from the dullahan—Unseelie bounty hunters. With the caster’s death comes the trickling of magic back into the Well.
And even before the Great Depletion, curses—no matter the species of the caster—have always been dangerous. Tricky. Very, very few people could actually manage them with accuracy. Plus, nowadays, there’s the matter of the DMR and the CCB.
When something like this happens, no matter how rarely, they should be on it right away, apprehending the curser and forcing them to undo the spell. Somehow, this slipped through their cracks. But how?
Taissa’s head swims. “Is there anything else you can tell us? Was it a sluagh? A nuckelavee? Did the Dust Bite happen because of the curse? Is there any way you can get the hex off us?”
Alun looks faintly amused. He checks her questions off on his fingers.
“No, I can’t tell you what creature cast the curse—that’s far above my humble abilities.
” Kion rolls his eyes. “As for the Dust Bite, there’s no way to know.
I would lean toward no, since that entire incident handed you lot a victory.
And if you want to get the curse off, your best bet is either to track down who did it and have them reverse it, or kill them.
And now I’d like my money, please. Took a toll on me, this did. ” Liar.
Taissa’s stomach twists as Kion grudgingly taps away on his FaeFund. By the sound of it, they’re dealing with a curse—and whatever’s happening with the cockatrices. If it really is an illness, she can only hope it’s not contagious.
But knowing their luck (or their unluck), all signs point to disaster.