Page 24 of Disenchanted

“No.”

Could it be her magic up to mischief again? Surely not. It was bigger. Much bigger. Worryingly bigger than her regular, relatively small-scale mishaps. A light sheen of sweat beaded across the back of her neck at the thought of what she might have accidentally conjured the previous night.

But no, Sage would never, ever allow it. Absolutely not. There was no magic here. Last night had been a simple accident, and she looked forward to the moment that it could be explained away. Earthquakes were uncommon in Northern England, but they certainly weren’t impossible…

Casimir leaned against the gingerbread wall with his arms folded and one eyebrow cocked. He knew full well that she had more to say, but Sage only returned his gaze with an extra defiant one. A sensation in her chest tapped disapprovingly at her; it was rare that they ever kept anything from each other. She should really tell him precisely what had happened.

But while she wrestled with the reasoning, he gave a bracing exhale and relaxed. Casimir dusted the crumbs from his hands after one final mouthful of gingerbread snapped from the doorframe. “Come on, we’re appallingly late. And it’s official opening day! Can’t imagine there’s a rabid queue, all foaming at the mouth to get inside the place, but still. Tell you what, I’ll even treat you to a healing coffee on the way.” He threw an arm over her shoulder to start guiding her towards the centre of town.

Sage glanced back over her shoulder for one last look at the disconcerting sight of her altered home and spotted Mal sitting in the window of the living room, paused mid-grooming his right ear with his white boots.

She gave a double take. Sage could have sworn the cat had just shot a wink in her direction.

11

All Aflutter

With hot Hedgehog House coffees and celebratory croissants in hand, following a daring return of the ceramic hedgehog to his shelf, the pair walked on towards the museum. Casimir eventually managed to crack Sage’s bad mood and earn a laugh, saying something horrifying about her eating a pair of children and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

Sage tried to reason that it was a day like any other, that last night had been a simple, strange fluke. An annoyingly messy mixture of her own magic behaving badly, as it always did in the run-up to Halloween, and clattering weather against the old building. Nothing had even happened, if she really overthought it enough. Magic had flown unpredictably (nothing new), a few meaningless words had appeared on a page, the stormy night had rattled the shelves. Nothing more.

“So, what’s our plan of action today, boss?” Casimir asked. He was still trying to distract her from her grump.

“Mercifully, we have until this afternoon before the school trip arrives,” Sage said. “That might give us enough time to take another look at the book.” Now that she was caffeine-fuelled, she had no choice in the matter.

Casimir tutted. “I know it’s tempting, but I was under the impression we agreed to leave it alone until we sent it away for verification. I’d rather look more closely at that haunted wedding dress, if we have to do some work. We were supposed to be celebrating.”

Sage tucked her hair behind her ear in an offhandish sort of way. “Call it a hunch. We can decide whether the book is a worthy late addition to the exhibition or whether we should keep it to ourselves.”

“You make it sound like some kind of sinister secret. If it really is Lilara’s, it’s bound to be a diary or something, rather than her actual spell book, don’t you think?”

“Yes, yes, absolutely…” Sage trailed off with a swallow. “More of her letters or plain writing paper, I’d guess. But that’s still an important discovery, don’t you think? That at least warrants a closer look.”

“And if, by some miracle, we do prove that it’s Lilara’s grimoire…” Casimir glanced sideways at her, finishing his drink.

Sage gripped her coffee cup a little tighter, and her latte sloshed out of the lid. “Then we will have found something very special, won’t we?”

Casimir nodded, his mouth pressed to one side to form a dimple beneath his stubble. “Is that what you want?”

Sage shrugged and pushed up her glasses. “Why wouldn’t I want something that would be such a vital discovery in our work?”

“Because that would mean we are face-to-face with the real deal, not just notes on a page or outdated theories in textbooks. We have no idea the effect that it could have on the already unpredictable magic levels in Port Sylvan, how the ley lines might react to its presence, let alone how the”—he checked over his shoulder—“how the c-o-v-e-n might respond to it being opened for the first time in well over a century. You messing with another witch’s grimoire feels like questionable karma, Specs.”

Sage cleared her throat guiltily. “We shan’t be taking any silly risks, that’s for certain.”

“Sage Hemlock? No risks? I’m staggered, truly. If only you weren’t famously such a thrill-seeking daredevil rule-breaker who loves nothing more than dicing with danger.” Casimir halted abruptly in his tracks. “Did you see that?”

He pointed down at their feet. Their shadows stretched out side by side in the blinding morning sun, long and narrow in front of them. Sage watched the shadow of his arm move naturally in unison, the dark shape copying his body’s motion on the pavement.

Until it didn’t.

Casimir’s arm pointed at the ground, while the arm of his shadow waved up at them.

It did. Sage saw it, entirely separate from Casimir himself.

The dappled light of the morning shifted again through the leaves of the trees above like a golden kaleidoscope, and the shadow returned to the boundary that science insisted it should lie within.

It couldn’t be. She would not have it.