Page 28 of Disenchanted

Casimir’s face was painted with the smug look that only ever made an appearance at the rare times that he made a discovery or conclusion before Sage did. It was not something that happened often; she almost always beat him to the finish line in all of their research. Over folded arms, one of his hands pointed to the very bottom of the first page.

“A tea stain, as far as I can see,” she said petulantly.

He simply raised his brows at her, mildly amused, and gestured for Sage to look again. She rolled her eyes, then bent her head a fraction closer to examine the area in better light. Her stomach plummeted.

Although she had known it, really. The chain had confirmed her suspicions already.

But there was an even more intimate connection between book and cloak, something small but so definitive that she could no longer deny it with any ounce of plausibility. A fingerprint, smeared in a jot of dark red. A smudge of berry lipstick identical to the blot of colour on Lilara’s cloak.

“Would you look at that,” Casimir said, with a slow, infuriatingly satisfied smile. “It’s hers, Specs. This is Lilara’s grimoire. We both know it, and whatever happened last night, whatever you did by opening that page, a spell is here. You’ve unleashed it.”

12

A Change in Charm

Whenever Sage and Casimir were weighed down by the looming prospect of an impending deadline or a huge mountain of work that seemed impossible to manage, they ended up sitting on the floor. It was what they’d always done, starting in the nooks of the university library or stuffy seminar rooms, and it was a habit that had stuck. Sage found that it freed up her mind, to feel small and unseen and unimportant down there. Casimir, as a generally rather long and lanky human, simply liked being able to languish at odd angles.

That night, they leaned against opposite bookshelves in the archive room, legs outstretched on the carpet. A pot of long-empty coffee was next to Casimir’s hip, alongside two mugs that had been drained, refilled and drained again. Lilara’s book lay open against Sage’s side, each page still infuriatingly blank, despite her best efforts to reignite the incantation words that had shoved her into this mess.

“Even in the face of chaos, we must remain logical,” Sage said with determination.

“Right. So, what do we know to be fact? What do we trust to be certain?” Casimir asked, fingers tented in front of him. “That we are in possession of Lilara Mournfell’s own grimoire.”

“And that I seem to have…inadvertently triggered some kind of spell as a result of opening it.”

“We’re still sticking with ‘spell,’ then, are we?” Casimir asked with innocently raised brows.

Sage’s patience was straining under the lack of progress the long evening had yielded. “Do you have a preferred term, Casimir?”

“No, no, not at all…I was just wondering whether something like ‘hex’ might be more appropriate. You know, seeing as this isn’t exactly brilliant news so far. A jinx?” he suggested lightly. “Malediction? Curse, perhaps, just for accuracy’s sake.”

“Is this really helping our—”

“No, you’re right,” he said quickly. “Absolutely not. Let’s keep it broad. Spell it is. And although we can’t prove it with absolute certainty, we have your first-hand account that some form of magic appears to have been activated. Responded to you specifically and your surroundings.” He gestured with his head towards the exhibition. “Hence the fairy-tale inclinations. Further evidence being the small fact that you are, in fact, of a ‘magical disposition.’ ” He cleared his throat after noting the thunderous look that Sage was sending his way. “Therefore, by our good friend Occam’s razor, we propose that the spell has, in fact, for one reason or another, attracted the town’s dormant magic towards you. Rather a lot of it, I dare say, in some kind of…chain reaction.”

Sage gasped at his choice of words. “The chain.”

She leapt to her feet and tripped over her own shoes as she rushed back into the exhibition space. She had completely forgotten about it, left it unprotected and unattended. It could have tarnished; it could have been damaged. Worse still, she thought with a shudder, it could have been pocketed by a child. “How could I have been so stupid? So forgetful…Blundering imbecile…It must be here somewhere. I had it and then I…”

“Had what?”

“The chain! The clasp! From her cloak…Lilara’s chain. It all fits together,” she called back to Casimir dismissively. She must have dropped it when the book flew open; it had to be here somewhere.

“Ah, so you did know it was hers from the start! I knew it. You really are so bloody obtuse sometimes.”

“Casimir! Now is not the time!” Sage yelled back as she dropped to all fours behind the desk and began checking every inch of the carpet.

“So you’re telling me that, actually, I didn’t solve anything tonight that you didn’t already know? Just for a change. Honestly, do remind me why I bother. And why would it be on the carpet exactly? Why isn’t it in the cabinet with the cloak?”

“I…borrowed it,” Sage said. “It was what I used to open the book. The first star charm slotted into the lock.”

Casimir paused. “You don’t say.” He pondered, finally an air of real intrigue audible in his voice. Sage knew the exact, unmistakable tone when his interest was piqued. Smart little tricks or details of satisfying discovery were always what caught his interest. “That’s rather neat.”

Beneath the chair, her fingers grazed cold metal. She exhaled with relief and slumped back against the desk. She held up the chain to him as she puffed away a rogue curl, and Casimir reached out to take it from her. He held it up to the light.

“So it’s all sort of a matching set? Cloak, jewels and grimoire. Maybe she was a chicer witch than we ever gave her credit for,” Casimir said.

He reached out to pull Sage to her feet, and, even in her fluster, she noticed that he held on to her hand a moment longer than necessarily required. She was surprised by the affectionate gesture, his thumb stroking against the inside of her wrist in such an intimate way that it made something in her throat catch.