Chapter 15 Plot Twist
Plot Twist
Of course, the place was always pretty. The towers that stretched over the town’s beloved architecture were already pointed spires.
Red brick was always draped in ivy. Stained-glass windows often scattered small rainbows on the pavement when the weather caught them in the right mood.
But perhaps Sage was just noticing it all properly for the first time.
It was as though someone had dusted icing sugar over the place, pale and pearly reflects gleaming wherever she looked, and it was most unlike her to notice those sorts of things.
Normally, Sage kept her head firmly down, a scowl of determination across her face as she rushed from one task to the next, battling to keep her head above water.
But something had shifted under the spell.
Colours seemed richer, the sky bluer and the autumn leaves a dazzling array of bronze to chestnut.
The scents were more fragrant, the stream aglimmer in cold sunlight, a strangely hypnotizing quality lingering at every turn.
Although, it had to be said, the soft lute music constantly lingering in the background, seeming to follow Sage around like her own personal soundtrack, was less pleasant—more just plain annoying.
All the changes were slight enough and just about in keeping with the general air of Port Sylvan for a sceptic like Sage to wonder whether it was the result of Lilara’s spell at all.
If she tried, she could probably convince herself that the town committee had simply upped the décor budget this autumn, but there was no question that at least some parts of this whimsy—well, they had to be the result of magic.
The most interesting part was that, on the whole, no other residents seemed concerned about the subtle but definite changes to their small town.
Sage had done horrified double takes at various strange sights that morning.
For starters, a couple of tarmac roads had changed to cobblestone overnight.
She’d choked on her coffee at the smattering of houses that had developed thatched roofs and panicked at the colour-changing, blatantly enchanted ribbon streamers tied in billowing bows around every old-fashioned lamppost. But no one else had so much as batted an eyelid, even at what seemed to be a very well-organized and perfectly harmonized frog choir, which had set up camp in the Founders’ Fountain.
In fact, she’d spotted a few people singing along and popping coins into a tiny frog hat as they passed.
She could only hope that her concealment enchantment was having the desired effect in sealing all of this chaos from the coven’s gaze. The last thing she needed was further uninvited magical intervention.
For the first time in years, she excused herself from her afternoon tour, encouraging any interested visitors to book in for Casimir’s offering instead so that she could spend a precious few hours with nothing but concentration and caffeine for company.
Lilara’s rogue magic combining with her own and weaving itself through an entire town seemed the more urgent matter over teaching local history.
But the book remained stubbornly blank. It didn’t react to anything—her words, her touch, any other artefacts.
Nothing worked to bring it back to life, and Sage found turning to further spellwork ever more tempting.
One non-wicche method that Sage had not yet tried was spraying the pages with a splutter of lukewarm coffee, but Casimir soon saw to that thorough research when he returned from his tour and earned an immediate snort from her.
He stepped into the dark archive, directly in front of Sage, and crossed his arms furiously.
“Watch it, Hemlock. That was dangerously close to a cackle.”
“What on earth?” Sage laughed loudly, mopping up the mess. “Sorry, sorry, I just…What are you wearing? Why have you changed your costume?”
“I didn’t change anything. You did!”
“Me?”
“It’s the work of this bloody wayward spell! I didn’t realize there was some kind of incantation clause included to make me look like a complete and utter twerp. Trust you to somehow include that into even accidental magic.”
Between hysterical laughs, Sage threw her hands up in innocence. “I swear, I swear…I didn’t…You look insane.”
A far cry from his usual debonair costume that made everyone who laid eyes on him physically swoon—or at least mildly fan themselves—Casimir’s new look was quite something to behold.
Sage glanced down at the chain around her wrist, catching a glimmer from the newest charm change. An intricate crown studded with the tiniest specks of richly coloured gemstones had appeared. They had not even considered the idea of a direct human transformation. “Are you…are you a prince?”
“I believe the most accurate title would be ‘handsome prince,’ given the circumstances.” Casimir gestured downwards to his new look.
“Big head,” Sage scoffed.
For reasons that required much further investigation, Casimir had found himself at the centre of the spell’s attention and was now wearing a full doublet.
It was richly textured in an embroidered swirling print, gold baroque at the collar and tailored in emerald satin.
The high neck revealed the very top of a soft linen shirt, with trumpet sleeves peeking out just below, and it was paired with some alarmingly slim-fit beige trousers.
Sage categorically ignored the swoop in her stomach at the sight of him and decided it was a sympathy pang for how stupid he looked.
“At least the accessories are nice and understated. You wouldn’t want to look silly,” she said, just about managing to compose herself.
So far, she had noted the velvet cloak that tumbled down his back, gold medallions across his chest to secure it in place and a very finely worked leather belt that held an honest-to-stars sword at his hip.
“Faraway Kingdom–ready, I suppose…” Sage recalled from the signpost at the centre of town. “At least lose the headgear, will you?”
Casimir faltered. “You don’t like it?” A broad-brimmed velvet hat sat on top of his golden curls, one dramatic ostrich feather as a plume. He puffed it out of his view.
“Well, let’s just say that you can’t wear that whenever I wear my work hat.
We’ll look like idiots.” Sage shook her head fondly and returned to her notes.
It could never be said that this man wasn’t comfortable in his masculinity, at least. “You’d better change before you have to leave the building, or people will wonder why you aren’t travelling on a noble steed. ”
Casimir shuffled awkwardly. “That’s just it. I can’t.”
Sage gave a sharp glance back up from her papers. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
He crossed the archive and leaned over her desk, looking a little frantic. “Don’t you think I tried? I stepped out of the bathroom wearing my usual costume, glanced in the mirror to check everything before I left and it had…changed. And now I can’t get it off.” His eyes widened. “Like it’s stuck.”
Sage tapped her fingers on the desk, impatient with his dramatics. “You mean you jammed the zipper?”
“There is no bloody zipper, Specs! It’s like it’s…formed on me. Like it’s become part of me.”
She gave an emphatic sigh and her hands flew to her hips. “You really are the most dramatic person I’ve ever met. If it’s too tight, then—”
“Sage. I’m being serious.”
Her brows narrowed. There was a look on Casimir’s face that she definitely wasn’t used to seeing—one of genuine worry.
A mirrored rattle of it struck in her own chest. She could excuse the spell when it was simply doing silly things, even giving a voice to her familiar.
But this was the first example of Lilara’s spell actually affecting a person directly.
Touching the orbit of someone she loved and changing them—even if it was just his wardrobe.
Something was off about it. It was seemingly fun and innocent like everything else, and yet…
Sage prickled. What did this mean for the others?
For Maggie, for Laurel, for Robin, let alone the other residents of Port Sylvan?
“Thank god I’m not ugly,” Casimir said, extremely sincere. “I think I’m just about making it work.” He glanced down, giving a half spin as he admired the front and then the back.
She tried to quell the early gasps of panic, but they fluttered at her chest like moths trapped in a jar.
“This changes things. We need to get to the bottom of this. Let’s start with photographing every detail of you on the digital camera,” Sage reasoned. “Measurements, construction, seams, stitching…Try to date the clothes as accurately as we can, compare them to portraits across fairy-tale books.”
“I am not your guinea pig, Hemlock.”
She ignored him. “A microscopic study of the fibres would be useful too, don’t you think? Then we’ll need to stabilize it for preservation as best we…Where do you think you’re going?”
Casimir strode decisively to the hatstand and tossed her jacket towards her.
“You expect me to stay cooped up in here? I’m a ball of nervous energy.
You need to inhale fresh air for at least five minutes, and we have these strange goings-on to get up close and personal with. We won’t learn much shut up in here.”
“I suppose you’re right. If we’re going to let this spell run riot, we should at least immerse ourselves in it properly.
” She shrugged on her blazer and tugged her hair out from her turtleneck as she looked Casimir up and down again.
“You know, the most worrying thing is that, given your average wardrobe choices, people won’t even bat an eyelid. Grab a town map, will you?”
The afternoon was spent translating their newest findings around the town into something more formal, replotting the town cartography to confirm which of the familiar corners of Port Sylvan had been given a distinctly magical makeover.