Page 25 of Hexed & Hazy

And I don’t have work to do for her today, so there’s no reason for me to be here. No reason for me to push my entire calendar back, rescheduling my afternoon calls, just to gather information for…

For Seth.

“My client rescheduled.” The lie comes out smoothly. In fact, my client seemed quite annoyed when I requested to reschedule, even though it was my first time doing so. Something tells me I’ll regret it later. “And I’ve been meaning to speak to you in private about a sensitive matter.”

“Oh?” She sets her phone, covered in a baby pink case, face down on the counter. “How sensitive? Should we go to my office?”

“Not that sensitive.”

Laurel already knows. Juniper and Maple know. Sensitive may not be the right word, but the more people realize how much I’m helping Seth, the stranger I feel about it all. Perhaps the strangeness is that I couldn’t help him on my own. I’ve already enlisted the assistance of so many others. It’s unlike me to be so needy.

Aspen leans forward, her bright eyes sparkling. “Way to build up the anticipation. It’d better be good.”

“I’m unsure if good is the word to use in this case, but you’ll enjoy the gossip.” I frown. “What do you know about love hexes?”

Of the five of us, Aspen hasn’t always seemed the most interested in magic. She’s quite talented with love and glamour magic—hence my enlisting her for help—but her magic has been more… mundane.

The shock at my arrival only seems to grow when I reveal why I’m here.

“Are you trying to cast one?” Her eyes narrow. “Because I can help.”

That’s not quite the reaction I was expecting. Aspen Hawthorne casting love hexes? I’ve always known her to be more interested in creating love and beauty than destroying it.

My lips part, and for several moments, the only thing that passes through is air. “What do you know about casting a hex?”

She lifts a shoulder. “It’s within the realm of my abilities. Don’t look so shocked.”

“I didn’t know you practiced malevolent magic.”

She’s the last person I assumed would. My mother warned us against all kinds of baneful magic, but it appears Aspen didn’t take her words all that seriously. I did. That’s why I’m more interested in curing the hexes than casting them.

“Only when it’s deserved.” She sniffs. “And love hexes are usually deserved, in my experience. They’re not as powerful as a curse, of course⁠—”

“I already know that much, yes.”

“But people tend to use them on cheating exes, things like that. They’re an emotional form of magic. And temporary. Why wouldn’t I help my friend process their emotions?”

Because it isn’t the healthiest way one can process their feelings, is it? Aspen may know better than I do, though. Sometimes, it’s like everything I’ve felt or experienced is stuck in a locked box right in my solar plexus. Now and then, it comes out, a sucker punch to the gut.

“I see…”

“Don’t judge me.” She waggles a finger. “If your friend shows up at three in the morning with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks, telling you that her boyfriend spent her paycheck on an anniversary gift for his secret girlfriend, you’d help them.”

It’s a specific enough story that I believe it may be based on fact.

A smile tugs up the corners of my lips. “You’re right. I would.”

Of course, I would help my friend. Perhaps I wouldn’t do so with baneful magic, but I would give them an astrology reading so they could see what they have to look forward to. Aspen and I both help in different ways, and I don’t mean to judge her approach.

But I have trouble imagining Seth doing something like that. He may not be the type to commit, but cheating… or doing something worse? I’d hope he isn’t capable of those things. I wouldn’t put it past most men, and I want to believe the best in every witch—that they wouldn’t cast an undeserved hex.

Doing so can result in the spell backfiring, which is rarely worth it.

There has to be some kind of misunderstanding, or something I’ve yet to see about the situation.

“What is it?” Aspen whispers, walking around the counter. She presses her hands into my shoulders. “You know you can talk to me about anything. You haven’t been hexed, right?”

“Me? No. Goddess, no.” I purse my lips. “It’s. Well, it’s Seth. He appears to believe he’s cursed, and the spell we cast affirmed it, but he doesn’t know why.”