Chapter 10
Valerie
One year later…
Three Weeks Until Christmas
The bustling market smelled like melted wax and pine needles, as if someone had burned an entire shipment of holiday candles down to the wicks. I burrowed deeper into my thick, quilted coat and yanked my ski cap lower as giant snowflakes the size of feathers landed in my lashes.
I shivered, hard. My first Christmas since moving east to join the new team, and I already missed the December heat and flirty sundresses from back home.
The cheesy Christmas sweaters were fun, sure, and I was about to dig into my first miracle cold case, but they couldn’t replace what I’d really lost. I was alone in a strange city, and more than anything, I missed my magic.
It was gone. Totally, irrevocably gone since the day I accidentally married Grant “the devil in a Santa hat” Delaney.
I’d thought last year’s retreat would fix my glitching magic.
Instead, I’d flown home without it. If faith in love had fueled my power, then a fake marriage built on a foundation of spite and indifference had drained it dry.
For months, I’d been stewing in secrets and phony smiles, pretending everything was fine. From the outside, it looked like it was. Grant got his promotion, and I got the chance of a lifetime. I packed my bags and moved to a new city, settling into an office two doors down from my so-called husband.
Now here I was, wandering through the city’s hidden magic district, spending the last of my savings to buy a few charms to fool my coworkers into thinking I still had my meet-cute mojo.
A brass bell chimed overhead as I stepped into the entryway of the magic shop. The scent of cinnamon and melted sugar hit me like a wave. Warmth wrapped around me, along with the chatter of customers browsing the wares.
I smiled absently at a woman running her fingers along a shelf of large pillar candles while speaking into her phone about the incredible date she’d had the night before.
“Do you think he’ll call? I’m going to burn one of those candles you told me about just in case. But I’m not sure which one.”
I slowed, pointing toward a purple candle wrapped in gold foil. “Go with that one. It works its magic and burns the cleanest.”
The woman lowered her phone and mouthed ‘thank you’ before pulling it from the shelf.
The shop owner appeared from behind a velvet curtain, her wiry white hair pinned with sprigs of holly.
I tugged off my hat and mittens, stuffing them in my coat pockets as I approached the counter.
Along the walls, glass jars shimmered with powder, silver trinkets hummed faintly, and bundles of dried mistletoe were tied in red bows.
“What’s your poison?” she asked with a cheeky grin.
I flushed at the question, shaking my head to dispel the deep, rich sound of Grant’s voice asking me the same thing at the luau a year ago. Cyanide, then, Tequila Sunrise, and extra cherries.
I drew in a deep breath of incense, hoping it would fog my mind as easily as it did my lungs. Lately, every little thing reminded me of him, like when you notice one lime-green car and suddenly the universe is full of them.
It was a nuisance.
“I was told you carry heartstones,” I said, fumbling for my wallet and mentally counting the dollar bills inside. Hopefully, it was enough. My bank account was emptier than a punch bowl of spiked eggnog after a party, and miracle agents didn’t receive their holiday bonuses until after New Year’s.
“Ah.” She drifted toward a glass cabinet, her gauzy green skirt whispering around her ankles. “I have a few. How many do you need?”
A whole year’s worth, but I couldn’t afford that. The small ruby-red stones, shaped like hearts, acted like batteries, recharging dormant magic. But like batteries, they eventually ran out of juice. Each heartstone gave me back my magic for a week. Three would carry me through Christmas.
I forced a smile. “You’re not running a holiday discount, are you? Buy two and get the third free?”
She eyed me, gnarled fingers tapping the glass. “I’m afraid not.”
I swallowed my disappointment, knowing how pathetic I sounded. “Then just two, please.”
The old woman selected two stones from a crystal dish and dropped them into a velvet pouch. She handed them over, but her fingers clamped around my wrist before I could slip the pouch into my pocket.
She studied me with unnerving calm. “Your aura is dim. Flickering.”
Yeah, that tracked. I was a broken bulb on a string of holiday lights, blinking on and off whenever someone jostled me. Eventually, they’d toss out the whole strand.
I let out a shaky laugh. “It’s the holidays. They’re always a little rough. All the shopping, the crowded stores, the gift wrapping.” I leaned in, feeling like a marshmallow stuffed in my puffy coat. “I’m more of a gift bag girl myself. Just toss and go.”
Her fingers dug into my skin almost painfully. “You’ve lost more than your magic, haven’t you?”
My throat thickened. “How did you know?”
Her gaze softened, though her grip didn’t. “It’s not gone, child, it’s misplaced.”
“I don’t understand.”
The witch smiled thinly. “You will. Borrowed magic won’t last. Those stones can’t replace what’s buried in your heart.” Her voice dropped lower. “You’ve bound yourself to something hollow. End what’s empty, and the heart will bloom again.”
I tried not to scoff. End what’s empty? I had another whole year before I could do that.
It turned out our marriage contract took the word binding a bit too seriously.
Not only were the clauses ironclad, and I hadn’t made it past that never-ending customer service loop, but I was legally bound to a man who liked me about as much as anyone likes stale fruitcake.
Yeah, my marriage—the institution I’d once valued deep in my soul—was basically a burnt brick of the most hated holiday dessert, and no amount of icing could make it more appealing.
I know. I’d tried. On that beach, we’d agreed to live and date separately, and I really thought I could go back to my normal life.
The one perk of my missing magic was that the universe had stopped trying to blow up every one of my meet-cutes.
I was dying to find the perfect boyfriend to flaunt in Grant’s face.
I even dreamed about it—showing up at the company ice skating outing, twirling hand in hand with some guy while Grant watched from the sidelines. Letting the mystery man warm my frozen fingers during the public tree lighting, with stars twinkling overhead.
But the truth was, I could barely sit through a coffee date. The last time a man asked me out, I spilled the latte on myself, on purpose, just to end it early. I couldn’t shake the twisting ache inside my chest. The whole thing felt wrong.
I always knew I’d take my wedding vows seriously, and I guess that meant even the ridiculous ones I’d recited as a joke.
Which pissed me off, because the last guy was a firefighter who’d rescued a box of kittens from a burning building. I couldn’t even flirt with a hero over scones.
Grant Delaney ruins everything.
And while I spent my evenings with a bowl of peppermint ice cream, watching every version of Pride and Prejudice, Grant was probably working his way through the city’s most eligible women. He definitely wasn’t Darcy, pining over the woman who’d argued with him at every turn.
At least we used to argue. Now there was only this strange distance, like the live wire that once sparked between us had become the wire we couldn’t touch.
I blew out a breath and paid the old woman for the heartstones. The line behind me was getting restless, snow boots tapping against the floorboards as if I were personally holding up their happily-ever-after purchases.
Outside, the snow was falling heavily, and I had a long walk back to the agency. The heartstones had used up all the money I had budgeted for a cab. Still, I lingered, squinting through the flakes while bracing for the groans piling up behind me.
“You don’t happen to sell sun crystals that ward off winter weather, do you?”
The old woman shook her head, almost affronted that I’d dared to ask for anything besides a white Christmas.
I wrinkled my nose. “No groundhogs hiding in the back who won’t see their shadow?”
Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I sighed, tugging on my mittens and hat. “It was worth a shot. Merry Christmas, then. Enjoy being cold.”
I stepped onto the quaint cobblestone sidewalk, ordered a steaming coffee from a street vendor, and started the walk back to the agency.
The city was beautiful this time of year, even though I would’ve preferred crawling under a mountain of blankets to facing the chilly wind sneaking down the back of my neck.
There was energy in the air, an organic magic born from children’s laughter, the scent of roasted nuts and vanilla drifting from storefronts, and glittering garlands strung from every street lamp.
A giant Christmas tree towered in the city center, softening the hard lines of stone and steel the way holidays always seemed to do. Music floated from street corners, familiar carols threading through the crisp air as I hummed along.
By the time I pushed through the glass doors of the agency and swiped my badge through the turnstile, my toes were frozen solid and my coffee had cooled to lukewarm.
But I had a stack of cases to sort through, and countless more waiting in storage on the basement level.
There were enough second-chance miracle cases to keep our small team busy until all the reindeer retired to some tropical hotspot, though I’d be retired long before that.
The trick was finding the perfect one to start with.
I had until this afternoon to select my choice, and I wanted a challenge.
Something to take my mind off my problems. Since I couldn't keep funding my secondhand magic forever, this might be my first and last case in my new position. I wanted it to be special.
I tossed my half-empty coffee into the bin and slipped into the elevator before the doors closed. A woman wrapped in a thick scarf pressed a button for one of the lower floors, but I was headed to the top.
“Twelve, please,” I said. She nodded and hit the button until it glowed.
The doors had almost sealed shut when a shadow slipped through the crack.
They glided open again, and in stepped Grant Delaney—shoes polished, khakis perfectly creased, and a charcoal cashmere coat fitted across his shoulders like a tailor’s love letter.
The classic power look that turned heads, or, apparently, opened elevator doors.
Meanwhile, I was bundled in the puffiest coat I could find.
I looked like a Thanksgiving Day parade float that had escaped onto city streets, and I was still freezing.
But while I took up physical space in the elevator, he filled the rest with his presence.
It was a miracle there was any room left for the poor woman getting off on level three.
“Good morning, Mr. Delaney,” I said, keeping my chin notched high and wishing I hadn’t thrown out my coffee; at least then I’d have something to do with my hands.
“Ms. Spellman.” His voice wasn’t cold… or warm. It was completely neutral—gray, like the clouds outside my apartment window this morning.
I chewed on the inside of my lip. Grant hadn’t called me Spells in… wow, it had been a long time. Months. I was Ms. Spellman now. He was Mr. Delaney. And we were so distant.
“Looks like more snow is in the forecast.” I squeezed the cotton in my sleeves like they doubled as stress balls.
“Yes. It’s been unusually stormy this winter.” He smoothed a hand down the front of his coat, fingers sliding over expensive wool.
The doors swooshed open, then closed after the woman left, sealing us inside the claustrophobic box as it glided upward. You could hear every vinyl crinkle of my jacket. The scrape of Grant’s hand as he raked his palm over his stubble. Every breath.
Didn’t they have elevator music anymore? I was trapped in a soundproof closet of broken dreams, where awkward conversation went to die.
In other words, I was standing next to my husband.
The doors slid open on twelve, and Grant waited, playing the gentleman, until I stepped off first. I gulped in air as if there had been none in the thirty seconds it took to climb to our floor.
The hallway opened into the agency’s gleaming open-concept office, decked out for the holidays with twinkle lights draped over cubicle walls and a tree glittering by the expanse of windows.
Snowflakes were suspended from the ceiling, creating a winter wonderland that smelled like pine air freshener and brewing coffee.
Grant walked a few paces behind me, his polished shoes clicking against the marble as I hugged the perimeter wall. When I turned left into my office, he continued straight ahead, disappearing into his own. His door clicked shut.
A few coworkers glanced up from their computers or from the cluster around the coffee pot, and my cheeks warmed like someone had finally listened to me and turned up the thermostat. I shut my door too, the muffled buzz of conversation fading behind the glass.
Well, that was awful.