Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
D o I add two drops of patchouli, or sandalwood?”
Gus held the black stone pendant and ring in his hand, studying the magician’s handbook.
He didn’t always consult the book, but he was thankful to find an extra copy in the special collection. He now stood at his desk in his study, trying to figure out how to charm a few pieces of jewelry. Gus studied the table of contents. “Wood Types for Making Wands.” “Instructions for a Safe-Travels Talisman.” “What to Do When You Bend Time.” He flipped to the page and ran his hands over it, studying the book’s marginalia and added notes.
As he reread the entry, his gut twisted.
Time bending is a rare event where a magician slips out of their current time and moves through the time and space continuum. This bending occurs whenever a magician reaches a high level of emotion or interacts with a powerful source of magic. Should this bend occur, eating a meal of root vegetables or wearing obsidian, tourmaline, quartz, or black agate will keep you grounded. To aid with grounding, add two drops of sandalwood to the stones mentioned and rub it in counterclockwise. In addition, repeated interactions with the magic source and balancing your emotions might halt the time bends.
Well at least he had an answer. Gus quickly carried out the instructions and slipped on the necklace. The floor felt sturdy under his shoes. He held on to the ring. Please let this work.
Now he had to see if the items worked for Sirena.
Maybe he could swing by Sirena’s house this afternoon and talk to her. He could explain to her what happened and how he could hopefully keep it from happening again. Gus had spent the last week catching up on all the work he neglected when he was in his… How should he term it?… Time sex bubble.
It was mid-October, and everything in his life seemed so messy. He had missed the grant application deadline, he had nearly a dozen unanswered emails, and Ma had left him six voicemails. His applicant accepted another job in the Midwest because Gus hadn’t responded in time. His brain demanded, How could you lose three days? Falling off the face of the earth, ignoring calls, and being thoughtless was something Good-Time Gus would do, but he wasn’t that man anymore. Gus wasn’t going to be that guy.
However, this time Gus had been completely caught up in the pull of Sirena and all her magic. No, it was the magic they made together. Most of those three days were a blur, but there would be a moment when he’d be drinking his coffee and suddenly he’d get a flash of Sirena trailing a path of kisses on his stomach. Or he’d check his email and feel the ghost of her hands caressing his skin and squeezing his thighs. His knees would weaken, and he would have to pause whatever he was doing. They had talked in the dark, trading secrets and giggling about private jokes.
His body and brain were a mess over the time bend, but his heart felt complete.
As if it found its missing piece and could function again.
Gus had last seen Sirena on Tuesday, braids tousled in his hands and her face bare and beautiful. She was a lovely sight even as she rushed from his house. It was now Saturday, and they had only exchanged texts and updates about her consultancy work with the historical society. She’d sign in, immediately go to the library, and stay there until it was closing time. They hadn’t had any fun lessons or even a conversation about what happened. They’d gone backward in their friendship and might as well have been strangers.
He couldn’t allow himself to bend time, but he wanted to see Sirena again. Wanted to be with Sirena. He missed talking to her about cooking and historical ephemera. There was a chance that they could slip out of time again should they fall into bed again. So, he made enchanted jewelry to keep them rooted.
Diane walked into the study, waving her phone in the air. “Good morning! When are you seeing Sirena Caraway again?”
Gus snapped his head up from the book.
“You’re dating her, right?” Diane put the phone in his face, showing him an image of Sirena reaching over and kissing him right before him in living color. The photo was blurry, and thankfully they were draped in bedsheets, surrounded by plates of food, but they were kissing. Confusion darted on his skin. When did they take that picture?
She lowered the phone. “You’re not denying it. I need details.”
Gus schooled his face into a chill mask. Be cool. Be cool. “We’re not dating. We’re just… figuring things out. It’s not serious.”
Diane leveled a stare at him. “You don’t bend time for anyone.”
There was a note of triumph in her voice that reminded him of their ma. Gus went silent. He just stared at Diane. His sister knew. His brain was in tumult trying to understand how he was able to bend time with Sirena. It had never happened with Jess or any of his other dates.
“You didn’t answer my texts,” Diane said. “The only way you wouldn’t answer me for days was if you couldn’t text. Cell service is terrible when you fall into time.”
He forced himself to speak. “You’ve bent before.”
Diane dipped her head. “My first performance. I was so terrified. I ended up slipping back into a previous performance from last year. Once I worked out my feelings, I snapped back into the right place and crushed the role.”
Gus let her words sink in.
“But I have never bent with another person,” she said cautiously.
“I… I just got a little worked up,” he said firmly.
She narrowed her eyes with a doubtful squint. “You can’t bend forward into time; you can only bend back. You can find lost time and forgotten memories when you bend.”
Something clicked once he heard the word “memories.” His brain repeated his motto: Everything in its right place. There had been instances in the bubble when not only had their bodies sparked, but also their souls. It felt kismet. Gus looked down at the handbook. A thought came to him, and he searched the book until he found the page he wanted. “Signs You’ve Found Your Kindred.”
Gus swallowed. He read the entry. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be true. This entire page could have been written about their friendship. The signs were clear and adding up: the feeling that he had known Sirena a long time, the feeling that he could talk to her about anything, the way they moved in sync when they worked together at the society. How they moved in tandem in bed. The words stuck in his mouth like a big bite of pizza. No, she couldn’t be his kindred. It was too soon.
“I think this might be it, Gus,” Diane said.
“I’ve only known her three weeks,” he countered.
Even as Gus said those words, his heart sped up as if it was trying to talk to him. As if it knew a secret it wanted to yell. He couldn’t listen. A kindred, a magician’s soul match, didn’t always lead to love. You could match with a person’s soul and not be with them romantically. He sat down at his desk.
Diane glanced at the page over his shoulder. “What are you thinking?”
He shrugged at her question, unable to come up with a timely answer.
Gus, for the first time in a while, wasn’t thinking; he was feeling first. He knew something was familiar about Sirena. He felt like he’d known her for longer than he had. The time bend revealed memories of lifetimes and moments from yesteryear. He mistook the memories he had as dreams, but now he knew that he’d known. Meeting your kindred was different from loving your kindred. He was already halfway in love with Sirena before he knew that she matched his soul. Did she feel the same way, and could he trust his heart? He’d been painfully wrong before, and he didn’t want to be wrong about Sirena.
Diane reached out and patted Gus’s arm. “I hope Sirena can be a person you can call on, no matter what happens. You can never have too much magic in your life.”
He gave her a half smile. Once again, Diane was one of his favorite people on the planet.
Her phone rang, so she retrieved it from her pocket and answered it. “Hey, what’s up?” she said cheerfully. There was a long pause and the friendliness in her voice instantly morphed into concern. “Oh no. That’s not good. I don’t know much about mazes, but Gus might be able to help. Yeah, he’s here. I’ll ask him.”
Diane covered the phone with her hand. “It’s Zeke. He’s at the Grove Gardens. Apparently, a few people got lost in the Harvest Maze, and they need volunteers to guide them out.”
Gus eyed Diane, as thoughts turned in his mind about the Harvest Maze. The fire department could break through the hay bales and get the people out. It’s not like the walls were made of stone. What type of maze was it that you could enter but not leave?
A sickening feeling went through him, and his stomach turned uneasy.
“It’s a Merlin maze, isn’t it,” he said.
Diane asked Zeke, then nodded in confirmation. Gus scrubbed a hand over his face and flipped through the book. He let out an unsteady sigh as he found the entry he was looking for.
“How to Escape from a Merlin Maze.” Gus read over the page as Diane spoke to Zeke over the phone about the situation. Merlin mazes were extremely difficult to escape, since every person who walked through it influenced the pathway with their emotions. No two people walked the same maze. People who were in a positive mood solved the maze within fifteen minutes, but those who might feel conflicted about their feelings would have a tougher time with the maze. The more frustrated a person became on the path, the more it shifted and changed. Due to the magic imbued into the maze by the builders, the path changed from minute to minute.
The walls could change from hay to garden hedges to stone.
Getting into the maze would be easy, but getting out of it could be difficult.
Gus had been stuck in a Merlin maze only once before, when he was a teenager, and he’d hated every second of it. He’d forgo bringing his wand, due to the unpredictable nature of the maze builder’s magic. Hopefully his performance cloak still held enough protection that he could step in and help those who needed it without his emotions infusing the maze. He could only imagine how panicked those people were and how their emotions were feeding the maze’s energy. Gus took off the necklace, got the ring, and slipped them into his pocket. He hoped to see Sirena after he helped get those innocent people out of the maze. Time was not on his side.
“‘Go to a harvest maze,’ they said. ‘It will be fun,’ they said,” Sirena murmured.
It was getting dark, and she still hadn’t gotten out of the maze despite walking around what she was sure was the perimeter of the maze at least twenty-seven times. She had hay stuck in her hair and dirt all over her cute wrap dress, and she hadn’t eaten anything since she’d had breakfast at Mimi’s. If she got out of this maze before the moon came out, she’d eat all the pumpkin pancakes in the state of New Jersey.
A low, gurgling croak went through the air, causing Sirena to look around.
She spotted the large black bird—a raven—sitting on top of the wall.
“Oh no,” Sirena said. She wagged her head in disbelief.
Why was the universe throwing her signs? Of course, she just had to see a raven. She recalled what Nana used to tell her and her sisters when they went on evening strolls: When you see a raven, take care. You’re going to reach a crossroads, and you’ll have to make a choice. Sirena reeled away from the cawing raven and went in the opposite direction. Nope. No thank you. Do not want to deal with that magic.
How did she get into this mess?
Lucy, Callie, and Ursula had walked out of the maze just a few steps ahead of her. Those precious steps gave the maze just enough time to shift and change, blocking off the exit and forcing Sirena to find another way out. The last time she saw her family, they were reaching their hands out to her, but the wall closed and cut her off from them. Sirena had banged and kicked at the hay, but nothing changed. Panic nipped at her legs like a kitten trying to get a ball of yarn. Sirena tried to push her way out, but the hay pushed back like a rubbery wall.
She walked around for a while, but then she heard her phone ring. Sirena answered.
Lucy came on the line and kept trying to give her directions to escape the maze.
She yelled out from the phone’s speaker. “Walk toward my voice!”
Sirena quieted, trying to hear Lucy’s voice, but all she heard were the ambient sounds of fall playing overhead. She’d been listening to the crunching of fall leaves and birdsong for three hours. There was another caw from behind her, but Sirena didn’t turn around.
That raven needed to go somewhere else and leave her alone. Whoever created this terraforming maze must have tapped into the unpredictable magic of autumn, or they just loved making terrible mazes. Sirena fought against tossing her phone into the hay.
“I can’t hear you. The maze won’t let me get any help.”
She had to figure out her path on her own.
Diane’s voice came on the line. “Hey, Si. Describe what you see around you.”
She jolted at the sound of her voice. Why was Diane here? Were things so bad that they had to call a magician to help?
“I see hay! Lots of hay!” Sirena grumbled. She leaned against the wall, then glanced down at the ground. Her heart jumped once she saw a symbol etched on the ground.
“Wait! I can see a compass rose. I’m standing near the ruby rose.”
Once she gave those details, there was a clamoring of voices over the line.
“Help’s coming. Hold on, lady,” Diane said.
Sirena went over to the compass rose, which was etched with the eight principal winds. Her phone beeped a warning. She glanced at the screen, noticing the battery life was down to 5 percent. Why hadn’t she charged her phone before she left the house? Oh, that’s right. She didn’t want to be tempted to call Gus, so she left her phone in her purse.
“I’m almost out of power,” she said.
Lucy’s voice came back on the line. “Save your battery. Help’s on the way. Love you.”
“Love you too.” Sirena ended the phone call.
She turned on battery-save mode and tucked the phone into her crossbody purse. Okay, so she was lost. Okay, she was super lost. She woke up this morning, got dressed, and had been determined to have a great time. Sirena was going to fix her spark, nail her Lighthouse interview, and get her life together. She changed her clothes twice in anticipation of taking cute pictures with a scarecrow. It was all planned out. Everything was working out fine, but then the Harvest Maze interrupted her life.
She was supposed to change her fate and land her dream job.
But she couldn’t get that job if she couldn’t get out of this freaking place!
Sirena flopped down next to the compass rose with her whole body. She was torn between wanting to leave and wanting to stay where she was. That tiny voice of intuition she’d been ignoring for a long time spoke from her soul. You don’t know what will happen. You don’t know if landing the job will get you out of this loop. You don’t know if you can stay in the Grove. Sirena let out a cry of frustration and tossed her hands up to the darkening sky, reminding her of yet another day she wasted.
“Forget it. I live here now. This maze is my home!”
The air above her head sparkled with orange and red bubbles as she heard his voice.
“You can do better than this,” he drawled.
Sirena sat up. Gus stood off to the side, dressed in his usual dapper sweater-vest but with a performing cape draped over his shoulders.
“What about a bungalow on Ocean Ave?” he quipped.
A relieved cry tore from her throat. She jumped up and launched herself into his arms, gripping him tightly. His hands rubbed her back as she held on to him and nestled in closer.
His familiar scent of books and heat eased her frayed nerves. Sirena didn’t know how cold she was until she was in his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he said tenderly. They lingered in the embrace before she pulled away.
Sirena studied his face. His bright eyes were rimmed with fatigue. How long had he been out here? Distress filled her.
“When was the last time you ate?” she demanded.
Gus grinned at her. “I’m fine.”
“Is everyone else out?” she asked.
Sirena had overheard other guests in the maze and tried to find them. The magic kept them separated and divided. Over time, she stopped hearing other people and assumed she was the only one left.
He cupped her cheek. “We managed to get everyone else, but you’ve been the trickiest to find.” His touch was careful, as if he was afraid to scare her with his next words. “It’s been shifting every few minutes, so it’s been difficult to track your exact location. You’re the last one.”
“Every time I think about leaving, the wall shifts,” she said.
He wrinkled his nose. “I figured. Merlin mazes tend to tap into hidden feelings.”
She stepped away from Gus, suddenly becoming aware of their closeness and his heat. This was not a sweet encounter between them; this was Magic Gone Wild.
Sirena rolled her eyes at the wall. “I thought the town got rid of them after what happened to those high schoolers after junior prom.”
He bit out his words: “Apparently, someone didn’t get the message.”
She took a deep breath. Gus was here. He was a whole magician and could do cool stuff.
“So, let’s snap your fingers and leave. Presto, chango, let’s go.”
Unease filled her when she noticed the caution in his face. “It’s not that easy. You only get out of the maze when you balance out your emotions.” Gus paused. “It helps to talk.”
Sirena blinked. He wanted to talk . Why would anything be easy for her?
I’m the reason I’m trapped here. The walls transformed from hay bales into lush green hedges and grew a full extra foot, almost blocking out the fading sun. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, letting out a tense laugh. Talk about what she was feeling? Talk to him, the magician she was falling for? Sirena yanked that thought out of her head and threw it out like an old receipt.
“Do you have, like, fourteen hours?” she asked.
“I have all the time you need.”
“It’s not your problem.” I’m not your problem , she added quietly.
Gus took a protective step toward Sirena. “Well, I’m making it my problem.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I’ve never spent a night in a Merlin maze.”
Sirena stepped back. “I’m not asking you to stay. I’ll get out on my own.”
Gus raised a brow. “How’s that working out for you?” he said, his tone joking yet firm.
Frustration splintered over her skin. She’d done the whole damsel-in-distress act before, but it hadn’t worked out. She fed herself. She saved herself.
“Thanks for checking in on me,” Sirena said with as much confidence as she could muster. “Leave me a bottle of water and snacks. I’ll be out of this maze by sunset—or midnight.”
Gus’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “You’d rather stay here than talk to me.”
“Stubbornness runs in my family,” she said.
“I promised Lucy I’d take care of you,” Gus said.
Sirena froze. It wasn’t that easy. She wasn’t used to relying on anyone—even her family.
Sirena didn’t want to rely on him and get used to him being there, because when they ended—everything good ended in her life—she’d miss him. She’d miss his humor and his light. Her heart couldn’t get used to his light, because she had to learn how to live without it if he left.
She had her spark to reignite and to protect.
“Ask me.” Gus took a step forward. “Ask me anything.”
He was close enough that she could see all the exquisite shades of brown that made up his eyes. She saw sheer vulnerability and trust in his face. Her heart leapt so high, she felt as if it could clear the high walls. Goddess, why did you have to bring him into my life now? Why couldn’t you have saved him for the right time?
She licked her lips. “Why don’t you perform anymore?”
Gus peered at Sirena. “I gave it everything I had. The well was dry. There’s nothing left for me onstage. If I go back now, then my audience won’t be getting the best of me.”
He paused, then stared at Sirena. “Why don’t you cook professionally anymore?”
She shrugged. “Pick a reason. My ideas were stolen by an investor. I lost my spark. I don’t have the energy to boil an egg. I can’t stand to cook for myself anymore.”
“You cooked for me,” he said. A swift shadow of desire crossed over his face.
A realization entered her brain. That night was the first time in months that she hadn’t second-guessed or rethought her additions. It just came naturally to her. She was acting out of affection for Gus. Out of a desire to feed someone she cared about. Sirena studied the maze. The walls of the maze seemed to shrink a little. Her eyes darted to Gus. He must have noticed it, too, because his shoulders lifted in hope.
“Why didn’t you go back to New York?”
Sirena peered at him. “My family needed me to stay. Why are you still here in the Grove?”
“I’m here until I can find my replacement. I might be leaving in the new year.”
Her heart pinwheeled. He was leaving the Grove. Why hadn’t he mentioned it before now?
“Come on, Sirena. Ask me what you really want to know.”
Sirena played with the strap of her purse. Why do you call to my soul?
“I can’t think of anything else,” she said.
“Don’t be shy. I won’t bite unless you ask me. Again.”
Her breath hitched in her lungs. She asked the question that haunted her days.
“What really happened between us?”
A quiet laugh rippled out of his mouth. Sirena eyed him. Well, that reaction was unexpected. A magician like Gus could manipulate the elements effortlessly, like a child played with glitter and glue sticks, so his answer would probably be something magnificent. But instead, he laughed. She watched as Gus laughed for a long moment, then let it fade out until he was silent. A tense smile played on his lips. Even though he said nothing else, she knew the answer. Somehow, she just knew what he wanted to say but couldn’t bring himself to speak out loud.
I forgot about time when I held you in my arms.
Gus leaned in close enough that she could smell the base notes of his cologne: fresh ink on parchment paper and pressed oil. He smelled of old grimoires and… something appealing. Peeled apples covered in sprinkled cinnamon. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from sighing.
Her heart ached. Oh. The walls of the maze grew fuller, blocking out the light.
“Sirena.” There was a soft plea in his voice. He anchored her gaze to his, willing her to talk. The walls seemed to close in on them, growing thicker. Hopefully, he’d accept her response, and they could figure out another way to get out of the maze.
She shrank back from his gaze. “I can’t.”
Sirena wasn’t going to let herself get caught up in his magic, his swashbuckler smiles, or his affection. She’d already lost three days—she didn’t have to lose her heart. If she lost him in the maze, then maybe he’d give up and leave her alone. He deserved more than to waste time with her. Sirena took a step away from him, moving toward the bend behind her. Gus looked her over, and a predatory glint entered his eyes, as if he were a hungry lion who’d spied a lost zebra by a water hole. She slipped off her shoes, knowing that she could run faster if she was barefoot.
His eyes flicked down, noticing the action.
“If you run, I’ll catch you.” His words weren’t an empty threat. It was a promise.
An odd feeling of anticipation went through her. She’d never played a game of tag as an adult, but there was a first time for everything. Let’s go.