Page 60 of Disenchanted

“I don’t remember all of it,” Sage lied yet again through gritted teeth. She could have recited every ugly word of Lilara’s warning to him, so burned was it into her brain. “But, yes, she brought me another message. The key part was along the lines of…something, something…‘flee the town in dark spellbind.’ They were her exact words.”

Casimir scoffed. “Or what, she’ll turn us all into NPCs like poor Bridgey? Who does she think she is, demanding that you get up and leave?”

“Casimir, stop it. You’re not taking this seriously.”

“Of course I am! But please, allow me the privilege of protecting you, and this villain will trouble you no longer.” There it was again. He wasn’t fully in control of his own words anymore. He was unknowingly slipping into the enchantment, hour by hour.

“Look, look at her!” Sage hissed her words, trying to keep her temper contained. They glanced back at the counter, where Bridgey was throwing a rag over her shoulder for the hundredth time. “Everything we do is following evidence and learning lessons. We can’t ignore that just because this time it doesn’t suit us. Then what…what happens to you? To everyone else?”

For once, Casimir didn’t have a retort to fire back. He trudged his spoon through his gloopy bowl of porridge, brows knotted while he followed his trail of thought.

“I have to listen to Lilara’s warning,” Sage said quietly, a little calmer as she reeled herself back in. “She knows what I am and what will happen if I pretend otherwise. She understands the danger. No one else can understand it, but Lilara does.”

“But I’m trying my best to under—”

“I know you are,” Sage said heatedly. Her heart gave a grateful kick at the pained look on his face. “I know,” she softened.

“Do you think everybody in Port Sylvan is facing the same fate? That they’re going to fall deeper and deeper into this fairy tale?” His usual confidence was fading.

Sage sniffed. “Yes.”

His brows shot up. “Even me?”

Sage couldn’t bring herself to reply. There was no doubt: It was already happening. The truth hung unspoken between them, but he always said that she was terrible at keeping her feelings from her face.

Casimir leaned back and blew out a long breath, hands slotted behind his head as he processed her conclusion. After a moment, he rocked onto the front legs of his chair and leaned in close. “Specs, I am far, far too good-looking for a fate like this.” He said it with an emphatic finger on the table and such sincerity that she couldn’t help but laugh, despite everything. He had always had a somewhat wonderful talent for making her do that. “How do we fix this?”

“We do not fix anything, Casimir. I fix this. I keep working to prove to Lilara that I understand her warning and I await her next instructions. I thought I’d done enough already, but…At least she’s thorough; I appreciate that better than anyone,” Sage said uncertainly. “It’s a task that I have to complete alone. I refuse to involve you—or Robin and Laurel, for that matter—in any more of this.”

She gestured to the unnerving chaos around them. The tables, filled with familiar faces and people who they walked by and interacted with every day, had existed in the same loop of simple conversations and repetitive motions since they’d sat down.

Casimir was desperately trying to read her face for the finer details that she wasn’t willing to hand over. It almost made her buckle and admit her fate to him. But then she saw the shift in his demeanour. The shoulders broadening, the chin raising, the glazed look.

“Be at peace. As the laws of academia dictate, you may bar the gate, but curiosity slips still through the keyhole. You cannot shut me out, fair Specs. I won’t let you.” He threw down his napkin and shot to his feet. “I have trained for this all my life. Destiny wrote our names side by side long ago, and who am I to fight it? I remain your champion.”

Through the ridiculous princisms, Sage thundered, “Cas, don’t you d—”

“I’ll be back, Specs. I must see what I can uncover. Go straight home, stay with Maggie, lose yourself in the safety of research. Do not go into that forest alone. Don’t do anything…I shan’t say ‘stupid,’ because you’re too brainy for that to ever be the case, but don’t do anything reckless. Don’t do anything hasty. And most likely, knowing you, don’t do anything self-sacrificing. All right?” He dragged her up to her feet too and held her by the upper arms, shaking her slightly for emphasis. He had no idea that she had already done all of the above. “Promise me, my lady?”

For one insane second, Sage was fairly certain that he was going to kiss her. Instead, he pulled her in for a painfully tight hug, left a dramatic kiss on top of her wild curls and shot out of the Hedgehog House, sword swinging behind him, leaving her to fall back against the table.

She took a moment to catch her breath and plan her next move. She couldn’t be certain how much of that display was the real Casimir and how much was the prince—the lines between the two were blurring—but he was right about one thing: She should go home. She should ask Maggie for advice, calculate a new plan before acting on any further hasty inclinations. She just had to stop by Laurel’s house first, then Robin’s, to make sure they were still holding on.

Without Casimir to distract her from her thoughts, the cloying warmth of the café intensified. The looped chatter seemed endless, a sharp shriek of laughter playing on repeat. The clatter of spoons in starchy bowls, the scent from tankards of burnt coffee. A damp, salty sheen of sweat began to cling to her skin; panic pulsed everywhere. She grabbed for her coat and scarf and lurched through the front door. For once, Bridgey did not follow to check on her or wave goodbye, and the small loss only made things feel worse. These people, whom she had come to care deeply for in such passive, quotidian ways, were lost. She hoped with every fibre of her being that Lilara knew what she was doing.

Sage felt the chilly air hit her face as she leaned against the outside wall. She swallowed it in greedy gulps as she clung to a handful of ivy, now interspersed with the wild overgrown red roses, to steady herself. When she felt secure on her feet, she buttoned her coat to the top and took a few steps in the direction of the theatre, where Laurel lived nearby.

Until she heard it.

It was soft, but there was no mistaking it. Caught on a chilly breeze that threw her hair back in knots, Sage heard the voice of her baby sister. Laurel’s voice, trapped in a trailing tangle of rustling leaves and groaning, pained, bowing trees.

It was coming from the forest.

25

Hollow

Laurel had always called on Sage whenever she needed help with anything. Sometimes it was outfit advice, where Sage was surprisingly useful, in that Laurel would then wear the exact opposite of whatever her older sister deemed suitable. For a while, it had been relationship problems, but Sage had had to caveat her suggestions by reminding Laurel that she would generally prefer to be stuck in a conversation with a houseplant rather than most men. Of course, there was sometimes career advice too, but that one always hit the same stalemate, whenever Laurel’s reply was “Well, that doesn’t sound very fun.” Whatever the topic, the help and advice would inevitably be followed by bickering about Sage’s dreary lack of whimsy versus Laurel’s unwise lack of reality. The next time they spoke, it would be as though nothing had ever happened; such was the circle of sisterly life.