Page 81 of Vengefully Matched

Shadow-craft witches could carve tokens and use them to harness shadows, a brand of magic mercurial and mysterious, bound by the act of creating art. Priscilla, like her father before her, carved her own tokens in wood, though Agatha hadn’t missed that she didn’t do it much.

“I don’t take it lightly,” said Priscilla softly. “My dad taught me shadow craft takes decades to master. We had a rule. Only when absolutely necessary, and only when already prepared. No crafting things that we didn’t already have. No summoning shadows we hadn’t already studied and observed.”

“Thank you for doing this,” said Agatha. “I hope it works.”

“We’ve got this, honey.” Priscilla winked at her.

It was the first time Priscilla had called her that since… and it did something to her. A funny, twisting something, born in part from desire and in part from gratitude. She’d beaten Priscilla Hart for this job, and for some time, she’d been so certain the beautiful witch would never forgive her for it, and so certain that she could never forgive Priscilla for catalyzing the dramatic fall of Jonathan.

But she was beginning to believe in second chances. In starting over, and in the beautiful possibilities that in a wide world full of wonder and beauty, a person you liked, or even loved, might find it in their heart to forgive you. To move forward.

Hope burrowed in Agatha Vanderbilt Voisin’s heart, and it had been so long since that hope had been romantic and real. There had never been any real hope for Jonathan, she knew that, but the loneliness caused her to keep going, just in case. Even if it wasn’t ever real.

She had known people to have a real thing, a beautiful, breathtaking kind of love, the kind to grow old with, and to lose it. She had known people to let it slip through their fingers, to fumble and drop it when times got rough. To make mistakes so consequential they couldn’t be undone.

But Agatha was not going to be like that. She was not going to die with regrets one day. She was going to go wholeheartedly into this, to tell Priscilla how she felt, and to know that even if it crashed and burned, or never took off to begin with, she had given it her all. People said that it was better to love and lose than to never love at all, and Agatha felt that with her entire foolish, delusional heart.

Because what if the person she loved was willing to love her back? To take a chance? To run toward the sunset and never look back? She had to know.

But first she was going to solve the problem of this fucking Loculus, because after the forced entrapment in it, she was certain that it had gone too long operating on its own strange impulses and needed the oversight of the magical committee of the ICoW.

Otho was grumpy about it, but of course agreed to help her. Together they wove the careful web of magic that held the Loculus precariously in the air, swaddled by invisible, stabilizing ropes, as they moved it carefully from her office to the conference room table.

Priscilla was already there setting up.

“I need about thirty more minutes, and then I need both of you. Agatha, I’ll need you to administer the spell after I brew it; Otho, to stabilize it during the process. I will rewrite its directions.”

“Fine,” sighed Otho. “I’ll tell Nancy to cancel my one o’clock with the head of the ski lodge; I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed to hear that his Yeti problem is going to have to wait.”

“The Yeti will still be there in the morning,” said Priscilla.

“If he’s not caused any major damage yet, he probably won’t.” Agatha winked.

Otho clutched at his ascot. “My goddess, was that a pun?”

“Indeed.”

“Terrible, absolutely terrible! But also quite funny. I might have Nancy use that when she talks to dear old Pete. He’s the sort to get a kick out of it, and it’s not as though I could solve a Yeti overnight. The relocation search alone will probably take weeks, at best.”

He bustled out.

“I love this new side of you,” Priscilla said, smirking.

“So do I. Just wait until you see the rest.” She could do this, not just fake dating, but real flirting, real chemistry, and goddess, did it feel good. Priscilla’s eyebrows lifted, and Agatha winked and headed back to her office. She was going to fix this blasted Loculus; that would be the last time it imprisoned someone unfairly without waiting for more deliberations than an initial suspicion.

By the time she’d caught up on some of her email—not all of it, of course; that would be a gargantuan task—it was already time to meet Prissy and Otho in the conference room.

It smelled nice in the conference room, and not just Prissy’s typical lemon-mint scent; whatever Priscilla had brewed was bubbling softly.

“What is that?” Agatha inhaled, letting it calm her mind from the stress of both the giant glass coffin and the declaration of feelings she had planned.

“Rosemary, for clarity. Rue, for protection. An assortment of base spell-work blends from my mother’s recipes, and iodine for contrast.”

“Brilliant,” said Otho, puffing up. “Absolutely brilliant, Priscilla. A Hart through and through.”

Priscilla’s pleased expression was enough to melt Agatha’s heart, and Otho was right. It was a clever potion.

This had to be the turning point. It had to be downhill from here. She was solving one of her greatest magical problems with a beautiful, smart woman.