Page 37 of Disenchanted

“You weren’t to know that those flowers were dangerous, Sage.”

“There was a gap in my knowledge,” she said with a bitter laugh. “The last time I’ll ever let that happen.”

“How could you have known?” Mal’s voice remained soft. “You’ve told me time after time that the bouquet smelled lovely, that the colourful flowers looked harmless, that you thought your mother would love them. You were just a baby witch trying to do something nice for her parents, trying to celebrate her newfound magic.”

“I let myself run away with the excitement and the wonder and the joy, like a fool. Carried away by magic. I didn’t bother to consider the consequences, and they paid the price for it.” She furiously swiped at her eyes with the back of her right hand, annoyed that it came back wet. “I knew it then, the moment I found them that morning. Magic was not mine to enjoy and it never would be. I’ve never been deserving of it.”

“Then how do you explain the arrival of this spell, hmm?” Mal said. “Clearly, Lilara thinks otherwise. And I haven’t seen you this exhilarated in a long time. I saw out the window the way your eyes sparked when you noticed the house had changed. And again, your whole face lit up when you were taking samples from that beanstalk. Plus, you seem rather pleased that we’re even having this conversation. You’re excited.”

Sage looked affronted. “I am not!”

“Are too. You’re enjoying this. As you should. It’s about time you forgave yourself, before it turns you entirely bitter and cold. It’s about time you let in joy and fun and, yes, magic too.” Mal gave her a knowing, wise sort of slow blink. “Don’t be a scaredy cat.”

Sage had no comeback to that.

Rising with an unbothered long stretch and a dramatic arched back, Mal padded across the sofa to find Sage’s lap. He placed the white socks of his front paws on her chest. “The Shoemaker…” She remembered Casimir saying the sign had changed. “Puss in boots, I take it.”

The cat proceeded to give her a short, sharp but distinctly affectionate headbutt to the chin. He dropped back down to all fours and promptly curled up on her lap. “You’re not the wicked witch you think you are,” Mal said quietly.

Her head fell back against the sofa cushions. With her hand resting on his small body, rising and falling with his quiet breaths of contentment, it was the first time in years that Sage slept truly peacefully.

15

Plot Twist

There was no longer any feasible room for denial. It was October 24, one week to Halloween, and magic had exploded across Port Sylvan. Everything in sight had been swept up in honeyed sunshine, and the scenes that greeted Sage on every corner were even more impossibly wholesome than usual.

Of course, the place was always pretty. The towers that stretched over the town’s beloved architecture were already pointed spires. Red brick was always draped in ivy. Stained-glass windows often scattered small rainbows on the pavement when the weather caught them in the right mood. But perhaps Sage was just noticing it all properly for the first time. It was as though someone had dusted icing sugar over the place, pale and pearly reflects gleaming wherever she looked, and it was most unlike her to notice those sorts of things. Normally, Sage kept her head firmly down, a scowl of determination across her face as she rushed from one task to the next, battling to keep her head above water. But something had shifted under the spell. Colours seemed richer, the sky bluer and the autumn leaves a dazzling array of bronze to chestnut. The scents were more fragrant, the stream aglimmer in cold sunlight, a strangely hypnotizing quality lingering at every turn. Although, it had to be said, the soft lute music constantly lingering in the background, seeming to follow Sage around like her own personal soundtrack, was less pleasant—more just plain annoying.

All the changes were slight enough and just about in keeping with the general air of Port Sylvan for a sceptic like Sage to wonder whether it was the result of Lilara’s spell at all. If she tried, she could probably convince herself that the town committee had simply upped the décor budget this autumn, but there was no question that at least some parts of this whimsy—well, they had to be the result of magic.

The most interesting part was that, on the whole, no other residents seemed concerned about the subtle but definite changes to their small town. Sage had done horrified double takes at various strange sights that morning. For starters, a couple of tarmac roads had changed to cobblestone overnight. She’d choked on her coffee at the smattering of houses that had developed thatched roofs and panicked at the colour-changing, blatantly enchanted ribbon streamers tied in billowing bows around every old-fashioned lamppost. But no one else had so much as batted an eyelid, even at what seemed to be a very well-organized and perfectly harmonized frog choir, which had set up camp in the Founders’ Fountain. In fact, she’d spotted a few people singing along and popping coins into a tiny frog hat as they passed.

She could only hope that her concealment enchantment was having the desired effect in sealing all of this chaos from the coven’s gaze. The last thing she needed was further uninvited magical intervention.

For the first time in years, she excused herself from her afternoon tour, encouraging any interested visitors to book in for Casimir’s offering instead so that she could spend a precious few hours with nothing but concentration and caffeine for company. Lilara’s rogue magic combining with her own and weaving itself through an entire town seemed the more urgent matter over teaching local history. But the book remained stubbornly blank. It didn’t react to anything—her words, her touch, any other artefacts. Nothing worked to bring it back to life, and Sage found turning to further spellwork ever more tempting.

One non-wicche method that Sage had not yet tried was spraying the pages with a splutter of lukewarm coffee, but Casimir soon saw to that thorough research when he returned from his tour and earned an immediate snort from her. He stepped into the dark archive, directly in front of Sage, and crossed his arms furiously.

“Watch it, Hemlock. That was dangerously close to a cackle.”

“What on earth?” Sage laughed loudly, mopping up the mess. “Sorry, sorry, I just…What are you wearing? Why have you changed your costume?”

“I didn’t change anything. You did!”

“Me?”

“It’s the work of this bloody wayward spell! I didn’t realize there was some kind of incantation clause included to make me look like a complete and utter twerp. Trust you to somehow include that into even accidental magic.”

Between hysterical laughs, Sage threw her hands up in innocence. “I swear, I swear…I didn’t…You look insane.”

A far cry from his usual debonair costume that made everyone who laid eyes on him physically swoon—or at least mildly fan themselves—Casimir’s new look was quite something to behold.

Sage glanced down at the chain around her wrist, catching a glimmer from the newest charm change. An intricate crown studded with the tiniest specks of richly coloured gemstones had appeared. They had not even considered the idea of a direct human transformation. “Are you…are you a prince?”

“I believe the most accurate title would be ‘handsome prince,’ given the circumstances.” Casimir gestured downwards to his new look.

“Big head,” Sage scoffed.