Chapter 19 A Familiar Spell #2
Sage was blushing so furiously that she had to break their blazing eye contact. She shrugged to hide her confusion. “This handsome Prince Charming lark is turning you into a sap.”
Casimir laughed and shook his head. “It’s only the uniform.
The words are mine. Entirely. I don’t tell you often enough how brilliant you are, how I’ve come to expect the impossible from you, because you always prove me right.
I think I take it for granted after all of these years, watching you do one extraordinary, defiant thing after the next. ”
“Hardly,” Sage said, lowering her eyes again. “Look at the mess I’ve landed us in.”
“A curious, wonderful, beautiful mess of magic. Sounds like you, all right.”
With a gentle hand, Casimir turned her chin back to him, taking her gaze that was so determinedly fixed on the bonfire for himself.
She forced herself to meet his eyes, reminding herself that this was Casimir.
Just Cas. Why was he behaving like this—his confidence softened, voice strangely husky, eyes reverent?
And why was she behaving so oddly to match, as though she’d forgotten how her own respiratory system worked?
Her melted brain seemed to have fallen somewhere into her feet.
Casimir’s unguarded gaze dropped to her lips, then snapped back to her eyes, like he’d just caught himself doing something he shouldn’t. A shiver ran through her. It was a cold night, she told herself. Very cold.
Her glasses may have a strong prescription, but she was by no means blind.
The first time Casimir had ever spoken properly to Sage, hurrying to catch up with her in the university courtyard, she had point-blank ignored him, had assumed that this painfully attractive, tall, floppy-haired academic / future catalogue model, with his perfectly soft sweatshirts and reading glasses hanging over his pocket, must have been talking to somebody else.
When he’d persisted, she’d looked over her shoulder to see who it was he was trying to speak to because it couldn’t possibly have been her.
Only on the third try, as she noticed for the first time how his incessant grin did that outrageous lopsided sort of thing, did she manage to close her mouth and shake a string of coherent thoughts into a row to answer.
It had been far, far too easy to get lost in the way he looked at her over the years—embarrassingly so.
She had long since trained herself out of it, in an effort to protect herself from the inevitable, toe-curling humiliation if she ever did something foolish about it.
Since then, his had become a face that she had learned by heart—every faint line and freckle, not to mention the frankly obscene dimple of his chin.
But this time, really looking at him as he was lit by the bonfire and framed by the moon, she noticed a slight crease in his brow.
And the sort of glint that she’d seen before over the years—his usual charming, daring arrogance, but coupled with a rare spark of hope and vulnerability.
Any time she’d seen this look on his face before—late nights in the library, quiet dinners at the museum—she would always remind herself severely that it couldn’t possibly be real.
She was exhausted or maybe delusional or maybe entirely insane, and actually, her infuriating friend gave that same look to every female he ever encountered.
There had been something…once. Before they’d become anything even like friends.
In the second year of university, before their “academic rivals” thing had combusted on itself and turned to friendship instead.
They had been the last two souls in the department, the whole university practically deserted over the Christmas break, and there’d been a power outage—possibly caused by her fractured magic, although she couldn’t be certain.
Only a couple of candles burned against the quiet darkness.
She’d felt his eyes on her from across the common room, as she often did back then, before he’d quite figured her out.
Hate was still disguising something else, masking intrigue.
She’d stretched up onto her tiptoes, reached to grab a book from the top shelf and sensed him step in close behind her. His fingers had slipped over hers as he pulled the volume down for her.
“You’re very distracting.”
She felt his warm breath against the back of her neck, knee grazing the back of her thigh. Her breath stuttered. She determinedly did not turn around. Neither of them shifted for an excruciating moment.
“Your move,” he added eventually in a low voice.
His hand slipped down her side, leaving a delicious sort of electricity in its wake. Then she’d watched as he left the room without looking back, hands shoved deeply in his pockets, whistling as though nothing had happened.
Sage had, naturally, made no move whatsoever, then or ever since.
They had never spoken of the moment again. Sometimes she wondered whether she’d made the whole thing up, but then, she was never much one for imagination.
Tonight was like that: a brave shift. There was something about the electrical charge in the air—maybe her bolstered confidence, maybe her newfound bravery or maybe a current of magic that permeated the cold October night and nestled itself between them—that made things feel different this time.
Sage leaned closer, felt a tiny hitch in her breath. Casimir noticed it too, jaw tightening as though bracing himself.
Laurel’s loud balloon pop of a laugh burst in the distance and snatched Sage’s attention. The bonfire beamed like a beacon, and she could see both Laurel and Robin silhouetted in front, gradually stumbling back towards them, waving with arms full of toys, prizes and brown bottles of apple cider.
Sage shook her head, mind fuzzy with hazy memories. All part of the spell, she supposed ruefully.
“This nonsense is doing awful things to you,” she said with a shaky laugh, leaning back against the railing. “Do you use these lines on all the fair maidens, Prince Charming?”
Casimir cleared his throat. “Only the ones who could put me in a jar.” He looked away, out from the gazebo and across the celebrations.
She found herself studying his profile. “Classically handsome,” someone at university had called him once, which she’d forced herself to scoff at when she told him.
The sloped nose, the clear-cut jaw, the unfairly long dark lashes.
So familiar that she could have drawn his exactness with a sparkler in the night sky.
How had she, an archive-dwelling gremlin, ended up with a best friend who not only looked like that but who loved to let her know that he thought she was rather brilliant?
It was obscene. An unexpected giggle burst out of her. He turned back.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Sage spluttered a laugh again, her whole body slumping with relief now that the strange moment had passed. “I’m glad you’re here, I suppose. Even if the handsome prince thing is turning you into a cheeseball.”
Casimir faltered, evidently questioning the possibility himself. He always trusted Sage’s conclusions above his own. “You think it’s affecting me that deeply?”
“Of course! You’re not calling me ‘beautiful’ off your own bat, are you?” Sage said, drumming her fingers on the white railing. “It’s the character talking.”
“I’ve always called you beautiful,” he said, frowning at that.
It was true; he had. Even when she looked like a hideous crone emerging from the depths of her cave after centuries of a cursed existence—otherwise known as when she finally completed a paper or even just a good book.
He noticed when she changed things about her appearance and complimented her for it.
He noted when she wore his favourite green blouse and spotted when she did anything different with her hair, which was not often, but still. He always called her beautiful.
She looked back out towards her brother and sister, who were still making their way across the crowded green. He often called Laurel pretty too, Sage reasoned with herself.
“Don’t worry,” Sage said, determined to strangle the strange conversation. She patted his hand on the railing in an awkward sort of way. “We’ll have this solved soon and get you back to your normal, marginally less alluring self.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw his expression falter slightly, a little twinge of something flashing across his face.
His princely charm soon returned with a smirk.
“You know, I’m very disappointed that my personal favourite fairy tale doesn’t seem to have been on Lilara’s radar.
It would have been a lot more fun than this one. ”
“And what’s that?”
“The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
The little flame extinguished in a flash as Sage smacked him on the shoulder. As he laughed his smooth, deep laugh full of mischief, he threw a relaxed arm around her to drag her back into his warmth. Sage bit down firmly on her lower lip to control her own grin.
The honey-gold harvest moon was the brightest, widest lantern she’d ever seen.
It was a reluctant thought, but a giddy one that kept returning. This sort of magic was welcome here.