Chapter 12 A Change in Charm #2
Sage blinked hard at the question. She hadn’t realized until now that they had been creeping closer and closer to each other without thinking.
Somewhere in the moment, the space between them had vanished.
Now they were almost nose to nose. Casimir’s lips parted a fraction, as though he couldn’t remember quite what they were in the midst of.
Sage shifted back, desperately trying to recall anything herself, namely the rhythm of the words that had spilled from her mouth of their own accord.
They had checked the CCTV to see if they could watch the moment back, but whatever force had spilled from the book had also cut the connection, the picture zapping to black the moment the pages flew open.
“The general gist was that rejecting magic isn’t possible, and doing as much only makes it grow…”
“Oh, Laurel is going to be absolutely unbearable when she hears about this.”
“Something about a witch’s power…”
“Well, that’s obvious; I could have told you that much.”
“Something, something…grow anon…cannot be outrun…”
“No real loss there—you’re worse than useless at running anyway. Sort of like a terrapin, very slow with flailing arms.”
Even in deep concentration, Sage managed to shoot him a withering look.
“Allow a witch to use her magic and the town will come to learn? I’m not sure of that bit…” But the final lines were all too clear in her mind: “Magic in heart, magic in air. Magic forever, everywhere.”
Casimir grimaced. “Forever and everywhere? That sounds…rather bad. And also, rather personal.”
Sage agreed; it was a painful coincidence.
A witch who had spent her entire life doing her level best to outrun magic at all costs, working until she was exhausted to make sure that she was always three steps ahead in her understanding and knowledge to guarantee that she never hurt anyone again, and was apparently still doomed to be plagued by it forever and everywhere.
A tense silence hung over the archive. Casimir was the one to break it.
“I’m just going to say it. Not to sound all mushy or anything, Specs, but do you think this was…
meant for you to find? That perhaps Lilara could have left her magic lying in wait in the hopes that someone might love it better than she did?
” He removed his glasses and slotted them over the top of his undone shirt.
“It all feels rather fateful, don’t you think? ”
Sage bit down on her lower lip painfully. She absolutely would not cry. She never, ever cried. “Do not try to turn this into some kind of evidence for your endless argument about my magic being ‘meant for me.’ ” She threw in some air quotes to drive home the ridiculousness.
“But, Specs…”
Sage flicked the tape recorder back on. “Eleven forty-eight p.m. It stands to reason that since her departure from the town, the magic of Lilara Mournfell has been…contained. On opening the book, said essence of magic has been released and now resides freely about Port Sylvan once more.”
“Using Hemlock as some kind of…channelling object or conductor,” Casimir added.
“And given the fairy-tale theme that seems to be unfolding, as frivolous and silly as it may appear, we propose that the quaint nature of the town, the surroundings of the exhibition and my own history of supernatural academia have contributed to the results.”
“Fairy tales are at play. Hence the gingerbread house, winged children and so on,” Casimir said.
“Quite.”
Another reeling pause. But Sage saw it: the familiar expression that appeared on his face with the arrival of an exciting new thought.
The two deep lines that furrowed between his brows, the way his eyes pinched the slightest fraction as the dots began to connect and ignite his motivation.
Casimir lurched over the tape recorder between them and snatched keenly at her wrist.
“Hey! Casimir, what on earth…?”
“Give it here, Specs.”
He shoved back her sleeve and held up the bracelet under the desk lamp.
“The star. The house. The wings…Sage, this is the storyline!”
He was right. The pattern of the spell. The first tiny star had been the start of it all, cracking open the lock and unleashing Lilara’s magic.
The miniature house, with its chipped silver chimney, could represent her home, Sage supposed.
Then the little wings that she had assumed were a butterfly…
They might indeed be those of a fairy. But as the hours had unfolded in the archive, they had completely missed the moment that the fourth charm along had transformed too.
“Next is…a leaf?” She held it carefully between her thumb and forefinger, turning the charm this way and that for a better look. It was a very small silver leaf, with impressive detail in its shape, veins and stalk.
They shared identical puzzled expressions.
“Mutant caterpillars, do you suppose?”
“What sort of fairy tale contains mutant caterpillars, Casimir? Strike that,” she told the tape recorder. “If this becomes our academic legacy one day, I want no mention of mutant caterpillars.”
“Well, I don’t know!” He gestured dramatically. “Some kind of tree, perhaps. Or the woods? There’re always woods in fairy tales, so that’s not a bad guess. Forest dwellers or tree bogs?”
“What on earth is a tree bog? I’m going to need you to stop hypothesizing immediately,” Sage said. She switched off the tape recorder and sighed. “Does this mean we have”—she counted along the bracelet—“nine more incidents to somehow keep under control? Nine!”
A total of twelve, like a clock. A countdown to midnight, so to speak. Suitably fairy tale. The thought made her stomach plummet.
Casimir nodded uncertainly. He rested a hand on her shoulder, and she leaned into his forearm for comfort. He didn’t say a word, but his fingers squeezed gently.
“This is everything I absolutely and categorically cannot allow, Cas. That’s nine huge risks. Nine highly likely chances that my magic and Lilara’s magic might hurt someone or that the coven will be alerted to my existence.”
“I know.”
“October was supposed to be calm and quiet and as unmagical as I could possibly make it.”
“I know that too.”
“It was always going to be a challenge to keep it contained, but this is…I can’t…” Her mind was racing away from her again.
“We’ll manage. We always do.”
“If it hurts Laurel or Robin or you…or anyone else, I’ll—”
“It’s not going to hurt anyone, Specs.” Casimir took hold of her hand and stroked the top of it slowly with his thumb over and over.
The small movement stole her focus and slowed her thoughts.
“You’re getting carried away. So far, all we’ve had is a house made of biscuits and a couple of kids who will suddenly be very supportive of their local library.
Both rather positive outcomes, actually.
It’s just fairy tales. It’s nothing we can’t handle, okay? ”
Casimir had always been able to talk her down, make everything seem so much more black and white and manageable than her helter-skelter brain liked to calculate.
But this time, she was the one who could feel something that he could not.
She could sense how the magic was bubbling at the back of her throat, hissing and fizzing and popping like fireworks behind her ribs.
Normally, it was only her own she had to contend with, a skill she had all but mastered, but now there was more of it in the air than she’d ever felt before.
The new magic—Lilara’s magic—was frenzied at being held back so long and now elated to be free, to have found a force that matched its own in Sage.
She could sense them dancing around each other like mischievous twins, holding hands and giggling and spinning at speed.
This new combined magic felt troublesome, conspiratory, emboldened.
Sage glanced up at her best friend. “We know better than most. Fairy tales are never what they seem.”