Chapter 19 A Familiar Spell
A Familiar Spell
With the mirror refusing to give anything away, Sage eventually bowed to peer pressure, as well as literal tugging on her sleeves to drag her away.
They all returned to the bonfire celebrations, she and Casimir heading for a seat in the gazebo.
It was his idea—the white structure with ornate railings sat at the back corner of the green and looked perfectly, peacefully inviting.
Although he did like to push her out of her comfort zone, he was always first to notice when Sage needed a quiet moment away from other human beings.
He insisted that they take two cups of warm cider to go and observe the organized fun at a safe, separate distance, just as she liked.
“Come on, Rob. I long for adventure!” Laurel said excitedly in a strange tone that sounded too dreamy, even for her. “How I wish, upon a star, to see a world beyond these walls!”
Before Sage could tell her to lay off the sugar, Laurel had dragged Robin back to the stall selling homemade rag dolls that his daughters would love.
He too looked a little baffled at her ramblings as she hung off his arm and babbled on about how her nieces were “the prettiest girls in all the land, with hearts true and fair.”
“It is doing you good, you know,” Casimir said, his voice calling her attention back to the moment.
He threw an arm around Sage as they sat side by side, perched on the bench that wrapped around the inside of the gazebo.
She leaned her head on his broad shoulder as they looked out.
She was mostly using him for warmth, the cold night creeping in now that they were away from the bonfire, but being held by him always brought a welcome sense of safety too. “I can see it in your face. It’s nice.”
She grumbled. “I’m not so sure. I certainly feel considerably madder than I did a week ago.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. It’s been almost a week of magic unfolding everywhere around us, and you haven’t lost the plot just yet. You’ve spent the past fifteen years keeping this a secret from almost everyone you’ve ever met, and now it’s just…out there. For all to see.”
“Fortunately, they can’t see the witch for the trees,” Sage said.
“Even if they do remain completely oblivious, it’s still turned our existence upside down, and you’re managing. In fact, you’re more than managing. You were thriving today.”
Sage gave a quiet “hmm” in response.
“Dare I say, maybe even abandoning ship? Considering hanging on to your magic after all?” Casimir said, one eyebrow raised.
She sat up and away from his shoulder.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Sage said, the prospect jarring.
She shook back her hair, digging for the unbending determination that she hated this.
That resolve felt more comfortable than this new, softer sense of chance.
“I mean, just look at your face, for one thing. That could have been so much worse. We were fortunate you weren’t seriously injured.
” She reached out a hand to examine his face again and carefully turned it towards the light to take a better look at the cut that lined his left cheekbone.
The wound was healing nicely already, but still.
She caught herself looking at his face for a moment too long and flushed.
She dropped her hand quickly and huffed.
“It’s all incredibly stressful; we’re making absolutely no progress towards a theory, Lilara is revealing absolutely nothing of use to me… ”
“And yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite as many secret smiles from you as I have done over the past few days,” Casimir said with a smug upward tick of his mouth, still looking out at the bonfire.
Sage was determined not to agree with him. She clenched her jaw but then couldn’t hold in a relenting sigh.
“Fine. Maybe I am quite enjoying myself. Maybe this is a little…fun.” She bit down on her bottom lip to stop an annoying, insistent grin. “More importantly, everybody else seems to be okay.”
“Of course, that’s always what comes first,” Casimir said with a slightly mocking tone as he leaned back against the white railing of the gazebo and opened his arms out to sprawl on top of it.
“It is pretty, watching from afar like this. Although I’d be having a much nicer time if it weren’t freezing over here. ”
Sage’s shoulders gave a shiver in agreement; it was much colder away from the bonfire.
Her mind flooded with a vivid memory. The night of her fifteenth birthday.
It wasn’t normally a time that she permitted herself to think about, too tender even now.
She had been unable to sleep, which was understandable given the sudden arrival of magical powers, so she had crept downstairs in the middle of the night, reasoning that a bonus piece of birthday cake would probably help matters.
Candles still pressed into the thick sheet of half-eaten white icing, she’d dared to try something.
The prospect was impossibly magical, too inviting to resist.
Glancing over her shoulder to check for any incoming parents or siblings and finding only the family dog watching with a wagging tail, Sage took a deep breath. Raising her left pointer finger, she whispered quietly to herself in the kitchen. Something she’d read in a story. Was this how it worked?
“Ignis Parvus.”
A tiny heart-shaped flame bloomed above one birthday candle. She’d watched that little glowing orb dance above her cake until only a puddle of pink wax was left leaking over the icing. This, the tiniest of spells, made her heart soar with awe.
She had kept that natural curiosity, she supposed, in some form, but it had turned into something protective, even aggressive in its desperation to control.
Once, it had been pure wonder. The past few days had shown her that perhaps there was still room for at least a small sprinkle of such joyful magic in her life.
While she could never forgive herself entirely for what had happened to her parents at the hands of her powers, Lilara’s enchantment hinted that maybe it was finally time to relinquish at least some of the immeasurable guilt that had anchored her ever since.
Perhaps she could finally begin to float again, at least once in a while.
Sage held out the palm of her right hand and glanced across to Casimir. He leaned in, an amused glint in his eyes. She hesitated for just a moment more before she pointed at the night air above her palm. Between a burst of burgundy sparks, a small heart-shaped flame appeared in mid-air.
The feeling was like the embrace of a loved one long missed.
As though she had picked up the scent of a lost grandparent enveloped in the knit of an old cardigan.
Or seen a forgotten photograph that had fallen behind a dresser decades ago, wiped a trail in the dust to reveal the face of an old friend when they were younger.
It almost choked her, the nostalgia so sweet and so painful all at once.
Suddenly she was fifteen again, delighted curiosity sweeping her up and carrying her forwards, without stumbling over uncertainty or fear or doubt, allowing her magic to take the lead.
“I’m afraid my spellwork is highly limited,” Sage said, apologizing for the pitiful, small-scale magic. “A witch can only perform spells without an incantation that she has—”
“Successfully knitted before,” Casimir finished. He rubbed his hands together and held them up to Sage’s flame to feel its warmth. “I’d say that’s a perfectly perfect spell, Specs.”
Despite herself, she beamed with pride.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while as they simply watched the impossible flame hovering in front of them and occasionally shared a knowing glance side by side.
It felt so good to share it with him, a little glimpse into a side of herself that she had kept locked away her whole life, only dragged out by the collar and shoved into the light when absolutely necessary.
For once, she had welcomed it gently, coaxed it out into the open.
The waves of chatter and laughter of the bonfire crowds in the distance combined with the whisper of leaves that blew around the gazebo and scattered across its wooden floor at their feet.
Their hands rested side by side on the wooden bench.
The slightest touch of Casimir’s little finger brushed against her own.
“It’s always my pleasure to see you shine, Specs. You’re brilliant, you know that. But this is something else,” Casimir said finally. “Seeing your magic, it’s…” He swallowed hard. “You’ve only ever let me see it once or twice before, and—”
Sage bristled, a little embarrassed. “With good reason. It’s the whole point of this mess, isn’t it? I’m trying to be, you know, fun.”
“Will you let me finish?” Casimir said patiently. She caught a knowing glimmer of a smile. “I wanted to make sure I told you while it’s just the two of us. Watching that—watching you—is an honour.”
Sage scoffed.
“Seriously, Sage. You have absolutely no idea how remarkable you are.” For once, there was no trace of laughter or jibes in his voice.
It was strangely thick, reckless even, unsteady as he turned to face her.
“I mean, you’re remarkable at the best of times, whether you’re proving some form of supernatural theorem that nobody else on this plane would have considered possible.
Or whether you’re somehow fixing the practicality of everybody else’s lives, as well as your own.
Or whether you’re just peeling an apple all in one strip without even glancing up from your papers,” he said, sincerity giving way to a light laugh.
“I always think you’re remarkable,” he finished, the last part a little quieter.
It was framed by a particularly loud crackle from the bonfire as more wood was thrown on.