Chapter 21
The smell hit her first—woody incense that clung like a bad idea.
Of course, she didn’t expect much from Underwood Books. But it was the last place on her list. If she didn’t find anything
here . . . she didn’t know what she’d do next.
The interior was a cramped maze of uneven wooden shelves bowing under the weight of secondhand books, their spines jutting
out at awkward angles. Homemade candles flickered from jars adorned with dried flowers and twine. Tarot decks, crystals, charms—a
patchwork of superstitious nonsense.
“This place is incredible,” Mel gushed, spinning in place. “I want to live here! It’s just so warm and cozy and—safe, somehow.”
Riya, however, did not feel safe. If anything, she felt cornered.
Kian reappeared from behind a shelf, his beanie tugged low, eyes swollen. He’d met up with them at the entrance to the bookstore,
after he’d finished detention.
“There’s a whole board for community events,” he said, gesturing to a wall of flyers. “They do park cleanups. Blood drives.
Animal adoptions. Can you believe it’s already the fourteenth?”
Mel clutched a decorative gourd from a fall display. “Halloween’s coming up, too! Riya, can we finally coordinate our costumes?”
“No,” Riya said, flipping through a pamphlet titled Potions, Lotions, and Magick Methods. “I’m not dressing up unless Student Council forces me.”
“I could see you dress as Bayonetta,” Kian said a little too eagerly. “Or maybe a sexy librarian.”
“Please cease with your sick imaginings.”
While Mel fawned over a cat in the windowsill and Kian dutifully scratched behind its ears, Riya drifted toward the register.
Empty. And beside it, a display of brass incense burners, hand-etched bowls, crystal pendulums.
Peri magic doesn’t rely on tools, Sirah khala used to say. It relies on you.
Still, Riya felt a strange pang. Not for all the witchy objects, but the certainty behind them. For a life arranged around
belief in magic.
If she’d never cast that spell in eighth grade, would she feel the same?
“So what’s the plan, Professor?” Kian asked softly behind her.
She turned. His shirt was flecked with cat fur, his eyes rimmed red.
“I think the book club’s downstairs,” she said. Then, hesitating: “How are you feeling? You look . . . tired. More tired.”
Kian blinked, like the question surprised him. “I’m fine,” he said, then added, “Sleep’s been rough. It’s the dreams mostly.”
“Dreams?”
“Yeah, it’s weird. I keep dreaming about . . . threads. Red ones. Wrapping around me until I can’t think or breathe. I’d be
into it if it wasn’t . . . scary.”
A chill swept through her. Threads. The same ones she’d glimpsed when the spell first backfired. The fact that Kian was seeing them too couldn’t have been a
good sign.
“You’ll tell me if anything else happens?” she asked, her voice low.
Kian nodded too quickly. “Will do.”
Mel suddenly jumped between them, beaming. “Your sisters would love this place, RiRi.”
“Sisters?” Kian’s brow furrowed. “Wait, Riya, you have sisters?”
“Two.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice went rough. “You know I want to know everything about you.”
Riya blinked. “I didn’t think it was that important.”
“It is to me.”
His stare didn’t budge; his knuckles had gone white on the counter. The shift was abrupt. Frightening, almost.
“Kian—”
“Need help finding anything?”
They turned to find a woman in overalls, cropped salt-and-pepper hair, silver rings stacked on every finger. Her accent was soft-edged, hard to place. Welsh, maybe?
Riya stepped forward. “I was curious if you had anything on . . . peris.”
“Peris,” the woman repeated, as if weighing the word. “Now there’s a topic I haven’t heard in a while. Hard to find much in
any books I know.”
Riya kept her expression neutral. “I see. That’s unfortunate.”
“I’m Julia, by the way,” the woman said, glancing at all three of them. “I’m the owner. You actually came at a good time;
the book club’s about to start. You’re welcome to sit in. Maybe you’ll hear something useful.”
Riya didn’t want maybes. She didn’t want more suggestions to drink Kian’s tears. She wanted answers.
“Okay,” she said, her voice tight.
Julia led them to a narrow, creaking staircase in the back. They descended into what looked more like a candlelit cavern than
a basement. Shadows pooled between old bookshelves and exposed pipes. A Persian rug stretched across the center of the floor,
ringed by mismatched chairs and beanbags that had definitely seen better decades.
A dozen people had already taken their seats. Some wore flowing scarves or vintage band tees, while others looked like retired
college professors. One woman’s rings sparkled on nearly every finger, and Riya was momentarily blinded. Julia gestured toward
the three empty chairs at the edge of the circle.
The book of the month was a pseudo-memoir about a woman who traveled to Tibet after her husband died, searching for a necromancer.
“Frankly, I found it exploitative,” said a man in a sweater vest. “She turned real cultural rituals into a selfish catharsis.”
“But still, she believed in those rituals,” countered a woman in a paisley shawl. “And her intent was good. Doesn’t that matter?”
Julia lifted a hand before the debate could spiral. “Let’s not miss the larger thread,” she said. “The rituals in this book
aren’t just literary devices. They’re a symbol of how people reach out when they’re desperate. A way to make meaning from
the mess. What is magic, if not a metaphor for wanting something badly enough to change the world around you?”
Riya’s jaw clenched. If she wanted a list of all the things magic was supposedly a surrogate for, she’d call a therapist.
This was already proving a waste of precious time.
She turned to Kian, who was jotting something in his green lyric notebook. “Forget it,” she whispered. “We never should’ve
come here. Let’s just go—”
“You know,” said a man on a beanbag, “my uncle saw real magic, once.” His bracelets rattled. “Real fae magic. He made a deal with a fae and was never the same again. Kept sleepwalking until the day he died. Dangerous, but
fascinating stuff.”
Riya stiffened.
Fae.
Not a word her family used—peris were technically under the umbrella—but still. It was close enough to strike a nerve. And yet, he’d said it so casually, like it was just another story. Something you could gawk at safely from a distance.
Julia’s gaze flicked toward him, unreadable. “Let’s stay focused on the book,” she said smoothly. “Though I suppose the line
between folklore and reality is often . . . blurred. That’s what makes stories like this resonate so deeply.”
Riya stared at a nearby candle. The flame wobbled in its jar.
While Kian’s hands trembled beside her, his eyes hollow, these strangers spoke about magic like it was an interesting hypothetical.
Riya leaned forward.
“If magic is real,” she said sharply, “and powerful enough to change people—or hurt them—then shouldn’t we treat it like the
real risk it is?”
The sound dampened at once. All eyes turned to her.
Julia studied her. “A fair question,” she said. “In stories like this, magic is usually shown as something beautiful. Transformative.
But power always carries risk.” She let that sit. “What interests me most, personally, is that risk. How magic doesn’t always respond to what we ask. Like our words and emotions, it can create unexpected ripples.”
Her gaze flicked, almost imperceptibly, between Riya and Kian.
“That’s why I believe magic gives not what we want but what we need. Whether we realize it or not.”
Kian shifted beside her. That tremor again. His skin, paling.
Riya’s throat squeezed.
“And if it gets it wrong?” she heard herself say. Her voice cracked, smaller now. “What if it responds to something we never
meant?”
Julia smiled. “Magic is never wrong. It’s honest.”
That did it.
Kian jerked, like something had suddenly pinched deep in his chest. He sniffed once. Touched his upper lip.
Blood. A thin red streak glinted in the candlelight like spilled ink.
Riya shot to her feet. “You’re bleeding.”
Kian blinked at his fingers. “Oh. It’s fine. Just a nosebleed. I—I get them sometimes.”
A lie. The way he wouldn’t meet her eyes, when he always, always did.
“It’s not fine,” she said firmly. Her hand found his arm. “We need to get you upstairs.”
Mel fumbled for her bag. “Should we call someone?”
“No,” Kian said quickly. His eyes found Riya’s. “Seriously, I’ll be fine.”
Riya didn’t argue. She hauled him up.
They were halfway to the stairs when Julia’s voice followed: “Wait.”
Riya turned. Julia stood at the edge of the rug, gaze steady.
“The threads that connect us,” she said, voice low. “They don’t always ask permission. But they still mean something.” Her gaze flicked again between Riya and Kian. “Whatever happens—don’t let go.”
Riya’s temper flared. Julia, with all her candles and metaphors, had some nerve doling out riddles while blood gushed from
Kian’s nose.
And then—for an instant—something glared in Julia’s gaze.
Warm and metallic. Like gold catching flame.
Candlelight, she told herself. Just candlelight.
But as she helped Kian up the stairs, something knotted tight inside her. Because whatever Julia was—or wasn’t—wrong about,
one thing was becoming harder to deny: The curse was consuming Kian.
And if they didn’t find a cure soon, there wouldn’t be anything left to hold on to.