Chapter 12 A Change in Charm
A Change in Charm
Whenever Sage and Casimir were weighed down by the looming prospect of an impending deadline or a huge mountain of work that seemed impossible to manage, they ended up sitting on the floor.
It was what they’d always done, starting in the nooks of the university library or stuffy seminar rooms, and it was a habit that had stuck.
Sage found that it freed up her mind, to feel small and unseen and unimportant down there.
Casimir, as a generally rather long and lanky human, simply liked being able to languish at odd angles.
That night, they leaned against opposite bookshelves in the archive room, legs outstretched on the carpet.
A pot of long-empty coffee was next to Casimir’s hip, alongside two mugs that had been drained, refilled and drained again.
Lilara’s book lay open against Sage’s side, each page still infuriatingly blank, despite her best efforts to reignite the incantation words that had shoved her into this mess.
“Even in the face of chaos, we must remain logical,” Sage said with determination.
“Right. So, what do we know to be fact? What do we trust to be certain?” Casimir asked, fingers tented in front of him. “That we are in possession of Lilara Mournfell’s own grimoire.”
“And that I seem to have…inadvertently triggered some kind of spell as a result of opening it.”
“We’re still sticking with ‘spell,’ then, are we?” Casimir asked with innocently raised brows.
Sage’s patience was straining under the lack of progress the long evening had yielded. “Do you have a preferred term, Casimir?”
“No, no, not at all…I was just wondering whether something like ‘hex’ might be more appropriate. You know, seeing as this isn’t exactly brilliant news so far. A jinx?” he suggested lightly. “Malediction? Curse, perhaps, just for accuracy’s sake.”
“Is this really helping our—”
“No, you’re right,” he said quickly. “Absolutely not. Let’s keep it broad.
Spell it is. And although we can’t prove it with absolute certainty, we have your first-hand account that some form of magic appears to have been activated.
Responded to you specifically and your surroundings.
” He gestured with his head towards the exhibition.
“Hence the fairy-tale inclinations. Further evidence being the small fact that you are, in fact, of a ‘magical disposition.’ ” He cleared his throat after noting the thunderous look that Sage was sending his way.
“Therefore, by our good friend Occam’s razor, we propose that the spell has, in fact, for one reason or another, attracted the town’s dormant magic towards you.
Rather a lot of it, I dare say, in some kind of… chain reaction.”
Sage gasped at his choice of words. “The chain.”
She leapt to her feet and tripped over her own shoes as she rushed back into the exhibition space.
She had completely forgotten about it, left it unprotected and unattended.
It could have tarnished; it could have been damaged.
Worse still, she thought with a shudder, it could have been pocketed by a child.
“How could I have been so stupid? So forgetful…Blundering imbecile…It must be here somewhere. I had it and then I…”
“Had what?”
“The chain! The clasp! From her cloak…Lilara’s chain. It all fits together,” she called back to Casimir dismissively. She must have dropped it when the book flew open; it had to be here somewhere.
“Ah, so you did know it was hers from the start! I knew it. You really are so bloody obtuse sometimes.”
“Casimir! Now is not the time!” Sage yelled back as she dropped to all fours behind the desk and began checking every inch of the carpet.
“So you’re telling me that, actually, I didn’t solve anything tonight that you didn’t already know? Just for a change. Honestly, do remind me why I bother. And why would it be on the carpet exactly? Why isn’t it in the cabinet with the cloak?”
“I…borrowed it,” Sage said. “It was what I used to open the book. The first star charm slotted into the lock.”
Casimir paused. “You don’t say.” He pondered, finally an air of real intrigue audible in his voice. Sage knew the exact, unmistakable tone when his interest was piqued. Smart little tricks or details of satisfying discovery were always what caught his interest. “That’s rather neat.”
Beneath the chair, her fingers grazed cold metal. She exhaled with relief and slumped back against the desk. She held up the chain to him as she puffed away a rogue curl, and Casimir reached out to take it from her. He held it up to the light.
“So it’s all sort of a matching set? Cloak, jewels and grimoire. Maybe she was a chicer witch than we ever gave her credit for,” Casimir said.
He reached out to pull Sage to her feet, and, even in her fluster, she noticed that he held on to her hand a moment longer than necessarily required.
She was surprised by the affectionate gesture, his thumb stroking against the inside of her wrist in such an intimate way that it made something in her throat catch.
“Is it me or has this…changed?” His gaze was firmly fixed on the chain. That made a lot more sense than…whatever she had thought was happening for a moment.
He was right. The chain of stars and moons was no longer the same artefact that they were so familiar with.
The first star was as it had been, the perfect shape to slot inside the lock.
But the second, previously a mottled crescent moon on a small disc, was now a tiny silver house.
And the third, once a simple five-pointed star, had become like a butterfly.
“Curious…”
Casimir bent to fasten the two ends together around Sage’s wrist, sliding one end through the loop on the other. It slotted together firmly into something like a charm bracelet.
“There. No more losing this thing. I suspect we may need it.”
The pair returned to their den in the archive, the room warm from their body heat.
They had been cooped up together for hours since the schoolchildren had departed, very well-behaved and quiet, onto a bus, all demanding a story for the journey.
At her desk, Sage clicked on the tape recorder, the play, pause and stop buttons worn smooth from so many years of their touches.
“Friday, October twentieth. Approximately ten p.m. Sage Hemlock and Casimir Everald both present in the archive at Port Sylvan’s heritage museum, continuing their exploration of a donated spell book, notably once belonging to Lilara Mournfell.
Connection to her cloak chain confirmed, acting as some sort of key.
Evidence of something wild and unpredictable within said book.
Perhaps a spirit, a supernatural presence.
An undefined phantasm, for generality’s sake. ”
“Which one Sage Hemlock seems to have set free into the town because she’s full of good ideas like that.”
“Oh, shut up, Cas. This is an official record.”
“Then let the record show that, for once, none of this is my fault.”
Two more hours passed of theorizing, the pair reaching for some of their favourite, most reliable texts, looking for anything that made reference to escaped magic or presences.
Hauntings emitting from books, accidental activations…
The Vessel and the Veil: Studies in Contained Power seemed to suggest that at least such a concept was possible.
Bottled Moonlight and Other Convenient Mysteries included a folktale of an old woman who trapped her lost husband’s soul within a self-help book—not entirely out of the ballpark.
Of course, with Port Sylvan’s reputation the way it was, there were several more local examples that could be argued to show similarity.
And it had long been rumoured, passed down through generations of believers, that Lilara’s presence had remained in some form after she fled, latent for years between the town’s ley lines.
Sage and Casimir dutifully noted down each point of interest until they had pages and pages of chaotic, scrawled notes, covered in arrows, clouds and crosshatches.
But it all led back to the same seemingly impossible, dreaded conclusion that the undefined magic had awoken to Sage specifically.
She refused to let that be the case. There had to be another explanation.
Sage was now fully lying down on her front, legs swaying mindlessly as she lost herself to reams of records.
Her hair grew wilder and wilder with the late hour, all formality of work abandoned.
Casimir was lying on his back with his collar unbuttoned and tie loosened.
He held a book above his head and angled it around, trying and failing to get comfortable.
“This is useless.” He dropped the book onto his face. “Ow. I think I’m even more confused now than I was to begin with. Perhaps we’re overcomplicating things.”
“Is that possible? I can’t imagine there is anything much more complicated than highly unusual magical activity.”
“Is it all that unusual, though? Your magic has been increasingly haywire for weeks, although granted, far worse than any other time. But what if it wasn’t just October’s thinning veil to blame?
What if it was answering the presence of the book all along?
It certainly stepped up its antics once the book was close by, didn’t it?
We must assume that the escaped magic”—he tapped his pen against his chin—“ ‘escaped’? Is that the right word? That implies that it was…trapped in the book in the first place.”
Sage paused. “Trapped…like someone put it there on purpose. Caught between the pages.”
Casimir mirrored her frozen stance. “Someone who wanted to be rid of their magic.”
They both scrambled upright. “Is it possible,” Sage breathed, “that this is all Lilara’s own pure essence of magic, escaped from where it was banished to? Her grimoire?”
“It stands to reason. What else can you remember about the spell?”