4. Chapter Four Charm and Disarm
Chapter Four: Charm and Disarm
Tess
In the morning, I felt mostly refreshed. I’d learned long ago to put my traumas into the past and move on. Comforted by the familiar piles of grimoires sorted into read, studied, and to-be-studied, I tapped the read pile on my way to the closet. I snagged a pink T-shirt with “Magically Delicious” in a messy handwriting font and pulled it on with some jeans before heading out to the kitchen for coffee with my own grimoire from the bedside table.
As I stirred the milk and sugar into my coffee, I thought about the charm enchantments I needed to address. Tapping my fingers rhythmically to the table, I considered the plan.
First, my calm charm needed recharging. I’d recently recharged the confidence charm, but since the calm charm was waning, it had thrown my balance off, which was why I’d almost gotten myself killed while fighting with Ivan.
While I was at it, I’d recharge the anti-spy ward, keeping Ivan uninterested in watching the apartment I shared with Addie. I didn’t want her to get mixed up with him, so she wore a necklace I gave her that made her effectively invisible to him. Not literally invisible but completely uninteresting. Ivan wouldn’t even notice her if he passed her on the street. He’d ignore her if she asked him a question. It was the riskiest one I’d dared to do. I had to collect Ivan’s own blood from one of our other rituals and bring it home to use on the crystal in the necklace I gave her and the ward for the apartment. If he ever figured out I’d enchanted something from him, he would go ballistic.
Magic required a sacrifice. Your blood or someone else’s, the magic didn’t care. If you offered up all the blood from a body, the power you gained would be enormous, but that was the blackest of magics. Something I would never touch.
“So what happened?”
Addie’s voice broke me out of my head, making me jump. “Shit.” I threw my hand to my chest. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.” She came to sit down at the table across from me. Once settled, she didn’t say anything. Just left quiet space for me to speak. But I had nothing to say. “Are you gonna tell me?”
I shook my head. “Nothing happened.”
She raised an eyebrow with a smirk and rested her chin on her palm with her elbow on the table. “Liar.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway.” I opened the lid of my magic kit, about the size of a large jewelry box, carved with protection runes. I’d gotten it from Seraphina at her grimoire shop. She’d figured out I was in a bad situation all on her own somehow and gifted it to me. It was carved from a single piece of wood, and the runes indicated ancient deity sacrifices, making the contents extremely blessed and safe from harm. I unpacked the dagger, mortar and pestle, the incense and the spelled crystals.
“So whatcha doing now?”
“Recharging my calm charm because I freaked out over nothing last night.” I unclasped the bracelet around my wrist and laid it on the table.
She stood up. “Was it over nothing?” Stepping to the counter, she poured herself a coffee, the clinking of the spoon against her cup making my head throb.
“Yes.” I removed the calm charm from my bracelet and placed it in the mortar in front of me. The rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted under my nose reassuringly.
Addie sat down again, her chair creaking slightly. She took a slow sip of her coffee, the steam curling up around her face. “What happened?” she asked, her voice a mix of concern and curiosity.
I lit the incense, the fragrant smoke spiraling upward as I placed it in the holder. Carefully, I arranged three small crystals in an arc on the other side of the charm, their smooth surfaces catching the morning sunlight from the window, creating a subtle, shimmering halo. They formed a protective boundary, closing in the charm against me. “He took me to Sapphire.” I shrugged, my voice barely above a whisper. She knew that already, but what more could I say? I just wanted to forget it, and she always wanted me to talk about it.
Addie’s forehead creased, as did her chin as she frowned in concern. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not much.” I shushed her, and placed the cold, sharp blade of the ritual dagger against my palm, slicing a quick, shallow line in the fleshiest part. The sting was brief but intense, a hint of the ritual’s demand for blood and pain. I whispered the calm incantation, the ancient words flowing from my lips almost tangibly. In seconds, my shoulders dropped, and my heart rate slowed as the spell permeated the room. I could sense the same effect enveloping Addie, her posture relaxing visibly.
Dripping blood onto the charm, I whispered the transference spell, so the calming energy would be absorbed into it, which would slowly release over the next few weeks, helping to keep me from panicking whenever Ivan terrorized me. The air became infused with the tranquil aura I always wished I could use in the shop, but that was the opposite effect of what Ivan wanted.
We sat in the stillness for a few long minutes, with only the soft crackling of the incense and the occasional sip of coffee breaking the silence. The magic’s presence saturated the air around us, and a serene clarity washed over me. Deep down, though, I knew it wasn’t real. This was a temporary balm, soothing but not erasing the underlying truth.
As the spell progressed to completion, the expected duality of mind seeped in—everything felt fine, yet I knew that beneath this magical calm lay the unresolved echoes of my ordeal. The charm was absorbing the calming energy of the room, creating a dissonance. It was an uncomfortable feeling I wouldn’t subject anyone to, and I used to try to warn Addie off when I performed this ritual, but she wouldn’t listen. I would still feel guilty, knowing she’d sat through it with me, but for now, I allowed myself to embrace the peace, savoring the moment of respite in the bright, friendly kitchen with my best friend.
When it finally finished, all that was left was a slight feeling of refreshment rather than peace. I began to clean the dagger to put it away.
Addie let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. I think you put too much into that calm charm. It makes you reckless. ”
I fished the charm out of the mortar and wiped it clean with an enchanted cloth before returning it to the bracelet. “Fighting him is reckless, which is what I did last night.”
She cringed. “You did?” I nodded, and she stood up to get another cup of coffee. “Yikes.”
“Yeah.” I cleaned up the bowl and packed it away.
She leaned against the counter, sipping her coffee. “Are you sure you can’t come up with some kind of ‘nice guy’ charm for him?”
I laughed. “That would definitely backfire. I can’t risk hexing him. He’d kill me if he ever found out.”
“You warded us against him here. You warded me against him with my necklace.”
As I put everything away and closed the lid of my box, I pushed it away and sat back in my seat, looking up at her. “Yeah, and he’ll kill me if he ever finds out about that.”
She fingered the edge of her cup with an uneasy expression I didn’t like. “Maybe I shouldn’t wear it then.”
I stood up to pour myself some more coffee, gently elbowing her out of the way. “No, you have to wear it. I promise he won’t find out. He doesn’t come here because of the ward. You don’t come to the shop. You know that if we run into him when we’re out, you keep walking when I stop to talk to him. There’s no reason for him to find out. But I can’t risk doing anything else against him. The more I do, the more likely he is to catch me.” She chewed on her lip, and the silence ate away at me. I hated the risk our friendship put her in. “Pancakes?”
She beamed and left her cup on the counter, the delicate clink resonating through the quiet kitchen. She opened the fridge, its cool air wafting out as she rummaged for eggs, butter, and milk, the containers clattering softly as she moved them around .
Meanwhile, I reached into the cupboards, pulling out flour, salt, and sugar. The familiar, comforting sounds of kitchen activity filled the room, a stark contrast to the earlier tension.
“I wish we could find a way to get you free of that binding.” She pulled out a pan and threw a knob of butter into it, placing it on top of the stove.
“Same. But there isn’t one.” I flicked the burner on, the blue flame springing to life with a soft whoosh and the butter sizzled, its rich aroma filling the room.
“Are we still going to Verve on Halloween?” She cracked an egg and measured out the milk.
“Of course we are. Do you have a costume?” I measured the dry ingredients into a large bowl, the fine particles creating a soft, white cloud.
She tossed some butter into the microwave to melt it and set the timer, pressing go. “Wait till you see it. H-O-T hot!”
I smiled. “I bet.”
She poured the wet ingredients into my dry ingredients and took the bowl from me to whisk them up, the rhythmic motion transforming the mixture into a smooth, perfect batter. By then, the butter in the pan had melted completely, spreading in a golden pool. She poured four small, perfect circles of batter into the pan, the sizzle and hiss a promise of delicious pancakes to come.
Taking a sip of her coffee, she closed her eyes, savoring the warmth and flavor. “What about you?”
“I think I have something.” I pulled some plates and silverware out of the cabinets, the clatter adding to the symphony of domestic sounds, and placed them on the table, ready for our meal.
“Not the same one as last year? ”
I grimaced, because, yes, it was the same dress I’d worn three years in a row. She raised an eyebrow at me, and with a subtle shake of her head, I knew it wasn’t going to fly this year.
The rich aroma of brewing coffee soon mingled with the smell of pancakes, filling the air with a heady blend. My stomach gurgled, and my mouth watered the more I thought about our breakfast.
When the first round was done, the pancakes golden and fluffy, she flipped two onto each of our plates and sat down. I poured four more pancakes into the pan, the batter spreading and sizzling anew. Sitting down, I prepared my pancakes with butter and syrup, the sweet and savory scents enveloping me in a warm, comforting embrace.
She stabbed a section of her cut-up pancakes and lifted them to her mouth. “Let me find you something?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, let me think.” She popped her forkful into her mouth.
As we ate, the kitchen filled with the soft hum of the coffee maker, the clinking of cutlery, and the occasional contented sigh. It was a small, perfect moment, something I wished wasn’t marred by the turmoil of living a life bound to Ivan.