Page 38 of Disenchanted

For reasons that required much further investigation, Casimir had found himself at the centre of the spell’s attention and was now wearing a full doublet. It was richly textured in an embroidered swirling print, gold baroque at the collar and tailored in emerald satin. The high neck revealed the very top of a soft linen shirt, with trumpet sleeves peeking out just below, and it was paired with some alarmingly slim-fit beige trousers.

Sage categorically ignored the swoop in her stomach at the sight of him and decided it was a sympathy pang for how stupid he looked.

“At least the accessories are nice and understated. You wouldn’t want to look silly,” she said, just about managing to compose herself. So far, she had noted the velvet cloak that tumbled down his back, gold medallions across his chest to secure it in place and a very finely worked leather belt that held an honest-to-stars sword at his hip. “Faraway Kingdom–ready, I suppose…” Sage recalled from the signpost at the centre of town. “At least lose the headgear, will you?”

Casimir faltered. “You don’t like it?” A broad-brimmed velvet hat sat on top of his golden curls, one dramatic ostrich feather as a plume. He puffed it out of his view.

“Well, let’s just say that you can’t wear that whenever I wear my work hat. We’ll look like idiots.” Sage shook her head fondly and returned to her notes. It could never be said that this man wasn’t comfortable in his masculinity, at least. “You’d better change before you have to leave the building, or people will wonder why you aren’t travelling on a noble steed.”

Casimir shuffled awkwardly. “That’s just it. I can’t.”

Sage gave a sharp glance back up from her papers. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

He crossed the archive and leaned over her desk, looking a little frantic. “Don’t you think I tried? I stepped out of the bathroom wearing my usual costume, glanced in the mirror to check everything before I left and it had…changed. And now I can’t get it off.” His eyes widened. “Like it’s stuck.”

Sage tapped her fingers on the desk, impatient with his dramatics. “You mean you jammed the zipper?”

“There is no bloody zipper, Specs! It’s like it’s…formed on me. Like it’s become part of me.”

She gave an emphatic sigh and her hands flew to her hips. “You really are the most dramatic person I’ve ever met. If it’s too tight, then—”

“Sage. I’m being serious.”

Her brows narrowed. There was a look on Casimir’s face that she definitely wasn’t used to seeing—one of genuine worry. A mirrored rattle of it struck in her own chest. She could excuse the spell when it was simply doing silly things, even giving a voice to her familiar. But this was the first example of Lilara’s spell actually affecting a person directly. Touching the orbit of someone she loved and changing them—even if it was just his wardrobe. Something was off about it. It was seemingly fun and innocent like everything else, and yet…Sage prickled. What did this mean for the others? For Maggie, for Laurel, for Robin, let alone the other residents of Port Sylvan?

“Thank god I’m not ugly,” Casimir said, extremely sincere. “I think I’m just about making it work.” He glanced down, giving a half spin as he admired the front and then the back.

She tried to quell the early gasps of panic, but they fluttered at her chest like moths trapped in a jar.

“This changes things. We need to get to the bottom of this. Let’s start with photographing every detail of you on the digital camera,” Sage reasoned. “Measurements, construction, seams, stitching…Try to date the clothes as accurately as we can, compare them to portraits across fairy-tale books.”

“I am not your guinea pig, Hemlock.”

She ignored him. “A microscopic study of the fibres would be useful too, don’t you think? Then we’ll need to stabilize it for preservation as best we…Where do you think you’re going?”

Casimir strode decisively to the hatstand and tossed her jacket towards her. “You expect me to stay cooped up in here? I’m a ball of nervous energy. You need to inhale fresh air for at least five minutes, and we have these strange goings-on to get up close and personal with. We won’t learn much shut up in here.”

“I suppose you’re right. If we’re going to let this spell run riot, we should at least immerse ourselves in it properly.” She shrugged on her blazer and tugged her hair out from her turtleneck as she looked Casimir up and down again. “You know, the most worrying thing is that, given your average wardrobe choices, people won’t even bat an eyelid. Grab a town map, will you?”

The afternoon was spent translating their newest findings around the town into something more formal, replotting the town cartography to confirm which of the familiar corners of Port Sylvan had been given a distinctly magical makeover.

“I suppose everyone’s used to it to some extent,” she theorized to Casimir as they strolled through the dell.

They shared two halves of a sandwich, prepared by Maggie, as they walked. The air was chilly, but the sun was warm, a scent of wood smoke still lingering from recent fireworks alongside the faint aroma of pastry and pie crust from Shirley’s delicious offerings at Wheat and Walnut.

“But you’re really telling me you can’t see it?” Sage glanced across at Casimir and found he was already staring rather fixedly at her from the corner of his eye. He immediately dropped his gaze to focus on his sandwich and took a large bite with a slight frown.

“I’m not sure how best to describe it,” she went on, ignoring that strange awkwardness from him. She probably just looked even more tired than usual. “There’s a glimmer. A sheen. Like everything around here has been dipped and glazed. It’s clinging everywhere. Look—the bridge. That hedge. Over there, even the postbox. You haven’t noticed?”

Casimir shrugged. “Must be a witch thing.”

Sage was bewildered. Not by the glimmer, but by the idea of being the only one able to really see the magic—the way it caught the sunshine, the way it seemed to waver like heat and ripple like water. She had found herself judging that streak in her sister’s personality before—her insistence on seeing the bright side at all times, her easy distraction at something unusual, the silly little details that Laurel alone noticed and found so much joy in. Sage had long since trained herself out of that kind of pointless behaviour.

But now, being the only one to notice the sparkle that had been scattered over Port Sylvan…it felt oddly good and gave her cheeks an unexpected flush of pride. How could something so indisputably beautiful be dangerous? Sage shook away the doubt and returned to being purposefully logical. She scolded herself for getting carried away by the fluffiness of it all. Ridiculous.

“Well, that’s obviously concerning,” she said, returning to the matter at hand. “Very bad news indeed. You know…regarding the coven. Probably.”

“Are you convincing yourself? Because you’re not doing a very good job at convincing me,” Casimir said, grinning. “If anything, Specs, it sounds alarmingly like you’re enjoying this.”