Page 27 of The Hocus Pocus Handbook

“Why are you telling me this?”

She smiles slightly, though there’s a bitterness in the twist of her lips. “So you won’t feel exposed. A secret for a secret.”

“I appreciate what you did. Intervening. I was trapped in a memory. The dungeon. My mother, before her execution.” I swallow hard. “She called me Ori.”

Thea repeats, “Ori. It’s cute, I like it.”

Cute. No one has ever applied that word to me.

While I appreciated her fierceness before, the way she brooks no tethers to her freedom, her sweetness speaks to my soul. I’m as afraid now as I was trapped in the cell. Because I’m starting to care for Thea as a person, not an avatar of freedom, so much that I ache when she pulls back at last.

And that gives me something to lose.

13

A Spell for Softness and Sleep

Sometimes, my gem, the world gets the better of us. It becomes difficult to focus, let alone rest. But to carry on, we need to get a good night’s sleep so we can rise and shine and find that things look brighter on the morrow. No matter what challenges you face, you’ll need to bolster your spirits by putting your heart at ease. I’m prone to worrying, as are most beings with sensible heads on their shoulders. But there’s no need to borrow trouble when it comes to the door uninvited, all on its own.

To set aside your cares, you’ll need to cultivate the proper frame of mind. Or perhaps it’s not you who’s got the troubled spirit. You could use this charm to help someone who’s important to you. At any rate, it’s effective for soothing hearts and minds and making those exposed to the soothing energies more inclined to rest at their ease. It doesn’t cloud the mind or aught like that; it simply makes daily concerns feel a little less pressing for a time. A gentle working, this one is, perfect to let people take a deep and healing breath, cast off their cares, and get a good night’s sleep.

This one is best cast right before you rest your head, whenever that may be, and go soft with your spell work. You’ll need:

Topaz and malachite

Dried marshmallow, meadowsweet, and motherwort

A copper censer

The steps to this working are simple. Place the topaz and malachite at the bottom of the censer. Use your magic to heat the whole container. That will be the most difficult part of this charm for you, my dear daughter. But I believe in you. Not just for this working, but for your entire life. I know you’ll do great things. But more importantly, I also know you’ll do kind things. Now then, you have a hot censer and some dried herbs. Place those on top of the hot stones. They’ll create a soft little puff of smoke, and the gentle aroma will allow you to rest easy. As the censer cools, the scent will lessen, but you should be well asleep before then.

If the smoke troubles you, place the censer some distance away. It should still be in the same room where you’re sleeping, though. This spell serves a dual purpose. It eases your nerves and keeps nightmares at bay. Or it’s supposed to. Whenever I use this working, I enjoy the most delightfully dreamless sleep. I wish for you that blessing as well, my jewel. Sometimes the blessing of silence is all we need to set us to rights, and we don’t realize how much clamor there is, even in our own heads, until it ceases, just for a night. Sweet dreams, and know that I’m lighting a candle so you never lack a glimmer to guide you home.

Thea

“Are you feeling better?” I ask.

I try not to show how shocked I am. Before I touched the bottle, Kerboros had curled into a ball and stopped responding. Knowing that we’re on a deadline—and failure has fatal consequences—I never would have chosen to join him inside if I hadn’t been so scared for him. The exterior world is muffled, and I don’t think he’s noticed that he isn’t out yet.

That I’ve come in instead.

The attention to detail is impressive, frankly. I couldn’t admire some of the intricacy of the model until I shifted in scale. Now I marvel at the perfectly veined leaves on the trees dotting the distant hill, while in the foreground, a small ship dominates my view. There is a pier with crates stacked on it and a coil of rope, but we are the only beings in the tableaux.

“I’ll be fine,” he says softly.

On some level, I can’t believe that we’re hugging. But I’m too conscious of his heat and his scent for this to be an illusion. I wouldn’t put it past Macha to mess with our minds, but each of my senses confirms that this is real. I can’t say how long he stays curved around me like a vine, but I register the moment he realizes that the environment is the same.

He lets go of me and eases to his feet, gazing at me with a complicated expression. By which I mean, there is a pleat between his brows but his eyes are soft and his mouth seems almost to be curled up on the sides. Nobody has ever looked at me this way before—with this entanglement of gentleness and exasperation.

“Why did you do this?” Kerboros asks.

“We couldn’t communicate.” I pause, unsure how to describe his behavior.

“Because I panicked.”

That’s accurate. I swallow my own anxiety, trying to ignore the ticking clock in my head. Morally, this was the right choice, but it may not have been a good decision. I’m so scared of being sent to the mortal realm to die. Will it be painful? I don’t know what they eat or how to act. I won’t understand the local customs, and I don’t have anywhere to stay. I wheeze, forcing the fear away with brute mental force.

I let out a shaky breath. “Let’s hurry. I spent a week as a lizard in Macha’s domain, and we don’t have much time.”