Page 84 of Rewitched

For a second, she faltered. But it didn’t last. “I’m sorry, but I don’t need your support. I choose to protect everyone. It’s obvious. I’ll go to Artorius in the morning and tell him, and then I guess I’ll have to inform Hecate House to surrender my powers formally. This isn’t meant for me.”

Jinx peeped a head around the door-frame. Sensing that the coast was clear of all threatening shadow forms, she curled back up on the duvet, satisfied yet looking distinctly unimpressed that a large man seemed to be taking up her usual spot at the foot of the bed.

“What a fat lot of good you were, oh brave guard cat,” Belle said.

A thought occurred to her. “My sooth stone. It seems to like letting me know whether my decisions are good ones or not. It always glows whenever it’s trying to encourage me one way or the other. It can make the call for me. Maybe it was trying to protect me from…”

She reached into her bedside drawer and fumbled around the contents, sliding aside painkiller packets, bookmarks, a biscuit wrapper. Her brow furrowed. She summoned a light cast from her finger, guiding the torchlight around in the darkness, checking behind the table and underneath.

She glanced back at Rune. “It’s gone.”

28

Scrying Not Crying

BREAKING THE NEWS to Artorius that she intended to end her endarkenment was, categorically, one of the worst moments of Belle’s life. The look on his face was one that would never leave her.

She and Rune had debated back and forth intently on the matter for the majority of the morning. With Belle unable to sleep again, Rune had insisted that he accompany her to Quill Lane. He made coffee the non-wicche way while she showered and dressed in an attempt to reset her mind, and she was slightly alarmed to discover that the calmness of his quiet, companionable presence was, in fact, extremely comforting. He had, however, refused to take the bus as she normally did, absolutely mortified by the idea. Instead, he reached for her hand for an instant transference to the doorstep of Quill Lane, only dropping it, Belle noticed, when Artorius opened the door.

“Belle, I implore you to reconsider. So far in our time together, your magic has shone in more ways than I care to remember,” the old warlock lamented. “It is with the greatest regret that I think of your magic being relinquished to Selcouth—particularly when you have been unjustly backed into a corner by fear.”

It was unfair. Belle agreed on that much, as did Rune. The mood quickly soured further with the news that her sooth stone had vanished, taking away the level of protection that it had guaranteed until then.

Artorius clasped Belle’s hands between his own, pressing them together. “I beseech you, do not give up on yourself.” She noticed that tears were springing in his brown eyes, and the sight made her own fill almost instantly. This man, whom she had grown so fond of in their time together, had an unwavering kind of faith in her that she’d known once before, from her grandmother. The feeling tugged at her, the closest she’d come to changing her mind.

“Artorius, I…I just can’t. You saw what happened to my mum. I’m putting everyone I love in danger. And now that my stone is gone, there really is nothing standing between me and whatever force is at play.”

“Your affinities, your incantations, your intuitions, your readings…more so, your nature. Belle, you are destined for magic,” the old man insisted.

She wasn’t, though. Not anymore. She was no longer all of the brilliant things they had once viewed her as. Remarkable was not for her. “I can’t do it, Arty. I’m all burnt out. The magic isn’t there anymore.”

Artorius was silent. He patted her hands with the gentlest of touches, his thin, papery skin around hers. “The decision is yours, my dear. But allow me this. One more lesson, just one more.” He continued before Belle could protest. “I was up all night deciphering the grimoire Clairvoyancy challenge, and I suspect I may have cracked it. Allow me this one final chance to teach you one more lesson before your magic leaves you.”

“I don’t—”

“Trust me,” Artorius urged. “I think you will find an honest kind of magic in it.”

After much persuasion from the old warlock and also from Rune, who partially encouraged and partially made things worse by reminding her that she had nothing left to lose, Belle agreed to one final lesson. She insisted that it was pointless, that it would be her worst yet. Artorius reassured her that it was always worth a try and simply to trust him. Of course, by now, she did.

He guided her to a small spare room, one that she’d only poked her head into for a curious glance, holding a single bed with an iron frame, a flowery cover and a handful of crocheted cushions. The only other furniture was a small dressing table, surprisingly ornate with carved drawers and small glass handles. Atop it sat a dusty tabletop mirror, framed in tarnished gold details that twisted into small roses.

Belle took a seat in front of the mirror as instructed. Artorius lay the grimoire down next to it and reopened the heavy book to the page revealing her Clairvoyancy challenge. The paper had a ghostly feel to it, unearthly illustrations of clocks and faces that seemed to blend into one another with their own haunting accord.

That which lies behind must stay

Forgotten, buried, earth decay.

Though time be oft a fickle thing,

The past a lighthouse for to cling.

Refine thy senses for the task,

Speak words of peace in thine contact.

Sooth a babe with placid milk,

For what’s to come unfurls like silk.