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Darwin rests his chin on my shoulder. “You did turn his Veyron into a slug.”
“So everyone keeps saying.”
“Teddy, we all know it was you. Even Hud, who needs jokes explained to him three times before he laughs, knows it was you.”
“Prove it.”
Darwin chuckles. “Phoebe is also not your biggest fan.”
“I got that after her fiftieth unsuccessful attempt to insult me. I’m guessing she wants to be your girlfriend.”
Darwin pushes my hair out of the way with his nose and kisses my neck. “She wants to be a princess. Her family’s been angling for a way into the royal line for generations. She’d be just as happy with Cathal or one of my other brothers, if they were available. I don’t think she even likes me very much.”
“Who does?” Gabe quips as he continues to work.
Darwin kicks the leg of Gabe’s chair, shoving it over a few centimeters. Gabe chuckles but pulls his chair back in front of my laptop and keeps tapping. “Found it,” he says. “Professor Dantel gave me his password over the summer before my student account was set up. He’s never changed it. The professors have access to the Hidden Collection. That’s where it is. But this location is weird. See this? Spellcase One. I’ve never seen a stack labeled Spellcase. Not even when I’ve been pulling Arcana for Professor Dantel.”
Darwin and I lean over to look at my laptop screen. The Hidden Collection isn’t organized like Special Collections, by subject, then author and title. It’s organized by Spellcase, then title, no author or subject. Maybe the Hidden Collection Arcana don’t have authors, or they’re so old the authors have been lost, like the poet or poets who wrote Beowulf.
I lean back into Darwin while I think. He rubs his silky-smooth cheek against mine. “Maybe a Spellcase is like a bookcase made of spells,” I ruminate. “Maybe to find it we have to know the right spell. Is there an index of spells?”
“Mmm, good question,” Gabe says, tapping again. It takes him a few minutes, but an index of twelve spells finally pops up.
“Capricornis. Saturn’s stone sigil. Aquarius. Uranus’s whispered incantation. Piscis. Neptune’s pearl divination,” I read. “Do you lads know any of these spells?”
“Cancer. Luna’s gossamer projection,” Gabe says. “I’ve seen that in my Oneiromancy and Astral Projection textbook. One of the girls in my class was complaining about the cost of pearls as a spell component. We won’t get to it until next semester, though.”
“Still, at least we know these are spells we could learn. We just need to find them. Can you search Special Collections for that first one, Saturn’s stone sigil?”
After some searching, we finally locate an Arcana so old it’s written on a scroll instead of a bound volume. I read the horrible copperplate print aloud and Gabe types it into my laptop while Darwin makes a list of the spell components. There are twelve, which isn’t surprising since this magic seems zodiac based.
“We can get most of these from Two Shakes of a Unicorn’s Tail.” Thank goodness the hedge witch forgave my two-week absence and let me have my job—and hearth room—back. “A Mars-exalted horn is going to be tough, though. I’m not even sure what that means.”
“I am,” Gabe says. “And I know where to find one. The unicorns break off and regrow their horns when they get too long. Just like fingernails. They have a favorite thicket for rubbing the old horn off and I know how to get there. It’s not far from the pool. We just need to collect the horns on the right night.”
He works on my laptop for another minute before showing Darwin and me the screen.
“There. Mars is in Gemini right now, but it transits to Taurus next week. Taurus is another Earth sign like Capricorn. That’s when we should collect the horn.”
“Good thinking, mate.” I chuck him under the chin.
He grins. “I want a date. Just you and me.”
I twist around until I can look at Darwin. “Is that okay with you?”
He nods. “If I get a date tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“And you’d better leave tomorrow night open for Charlie,” Gabe tells me. “It’s the only night this week he doesn’t have practice.”
I look from one of them to the other. “If you two go out on a date tomorrow.”
The boys glance at each other and then away. Darwin rubs his fingers through his hair, ruffling his perfect quiff.
“We, uh, never,” Gabe begins.
“I never asked Gabe out on a date,” Darwin admits.
