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"We send him home and take comfort in the fact he won't remember a thing."
The taxi driver didn't comment as he helped Mara carry the unconscious sorcerer out of the shop and place him in the car's back seat.
"Where am I taking him?" the driver asked. She pressed a hundred dollars into his hand.
"Albert Street, across from Saint Patrick's Cathedral. He should be awake by then," Mara replied and shut the door.
There was only one sorcerer she knew of in Melbourne who crackled with that much magic, and she had been warned to stay away from his neighborhood since she arrived in Australia in 1933.
Mara watched the taxi until it disappeared out of the lane, then she locked the shop door, and for the first time in her life, she thanked the saint for her curse that meant he wouldn't remember her at all.
Two
"A sorcerer must bein control of himself if he is to control magic." — Sorcery in the Age of Reason.
Augustus Valentine Vance knew one true thing: a good sorcerer needed a collection of magnificent scarves. His scarf, hand dyed black silk with gold patterns, was currently serving the noble purpose of keeping the overcast sun out of his stinging eyes.
He'd woken on a leather chaise in his lounge room, his mouth tasting vaguely of smoky herbs, and had the alluring musk and flower scent of a woman in his nose. It took him a few moments to realize he had no idea how he got there.
"William! I need some water," he called loudly before he remembered that Will had died seventy years beforehand.
Augustus cursed and got to his feet. His boots were wet, so he kicked them off and made his way to the kitchen.
He had three tall glasses of water and stared at the roses outside of the window. He remembered needing a drink the day before (or had it been the day before that?), and he'd gone out, determined to find one. He should still be passed out or nursing the mother of all hangovers.
Instead, he felt disturbingly clear, like a blank slate. He never felt that way, even when he was sober.
Had he been drugged? There were some members of Melbourne's supernatural community who wished him harm, the fucking Druids for a start, but he'd been on peaceful terms with even them lately.
Augustus went to the bathroom upstairs, stripped, and examined himself for bruises or curses, and found none. The only thing that felt amiss was that he wanted to eat.
"Something is definitely wrong," he said to the reflection in his mirror.
It wasn't until he was under a hot shower, imagining the pile of pancakes he was going to devour, that he remembered a red door, a talking cat, and a saint with eyes big enough to swallow him whole.
If Augustus had been an ordinary man, only two thoughts would have gone through his head at that moment. Being a sorcerer, who are known for overanalyzing everything, Augustus was suddenly faced with several:
1. The family of saints living in Melbourne wasn't a rumor.
2. Just how drunk had he been to want to tangle with them?
3. Did a cat really talk to him?
4. Christ, he hoped he had been polite.
5. Would the saint's shining silver hair feel as soft as it looked?
6. What had been in the tea he had drunk?
7. How did he walk away from such an encounter not only in one piece but feeling better than he had in the last decade?
Augustus dwelt on those seven thoughts and did his best to ignore the looming presence of an eighth. How did he find a saint that didn't want to be found?
* * *
"Woah, slow down. Are you talking about the mother or the daughter saint?" Flynn asked a week later. Flynn was Augustus's gardener when he wasn't being a forest sprite.
He was on friendly terms with all the trees in Melbourne's inner city and was the best person to ask about gossip because the trees were nosey and loved to talk. They also rememberedeverything, whether curses were involved or not.
