by Lucy March
I glanced out at the dance floor: Liv and Tobias were drinking champagne and talking quietly at the edge of the crowd, and no one else existed in their world besides each other.
But … no. Liv wouldn’t have done that. Not without my consent, and not without having a damn good reason.
“Stacy?” Leo’s voice was calm, but low and serious.
I looked at Leo. “Give me a minute. I’m not sure what’s happening, and I’m super not sure how to explain it to you.”
The smoldering clutch started to vibrate at my feet. I bent to reach for it, then looked at my hands; the thin ropes of red smoke were fading away, but they weren’t entirely gone yet. Without me saying a word, Leo picked up the clutch, pulled out my phone, swiped at the screen to answer, and held the phone to my ear.
“Um … hello?” I said.
“What the fuck is going on, Easter?” Deidre Troudt hollered from the other end. “I’ve been calling you all day!”
“Brother’s wedding,” I said, my voice weak. Leo was standing next to me, so close, and I just thought, Screw it, and leaned into him, letting him hold me up. He put his other arm around me, and this time, maybe because I wasn’t fighting it anymore, his touch was comforting, so I allowed it.
“I don’t know what the hell you gave me,” she said into the phone, her voice low, “but there is some weird-ass shit going on here and I’m freaking out!”
What I gave her? The One True Love potion? My mind raced; it had just been simple perception magic. An easy, rookie potion. The same thing I’d tested on Liv earlier in the year with no ill effects.
Then again, Liv was already magic.
But I was so careful, so careful, with my potions. I triple-checked them before bottling, and in eight months of active practice, not one of them had gone south. There were agency-trained conjurers who couldn’t make that claim.
But still … something wasn’t right.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, my voice eerily calm to my own ears. I flicked my hands a couple of times, and the last bits of glowing, smoky magic disappeared. I took the phone from Leo and stared up at him as I listened to Ms. Troudt.
“I got this weird blue light all over my hands earlier today,” she said, her voice low but sharp. “I look like friggin’ Electro-Girl!”
“And what happened when the light came?”
Her voice went flat. “Really? Weird blue light doesn’t come as a surprise to you?”
“I’m good at rolling with things. What happened?”
There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line, followed by an embarrassed whisper. “Bluebirds.”
What the…? “Bluebirds? How?”
She hesitated, then said, “They popped out of the thin air and started … flying around my head. Like…” She huffed again, and I could feel her frustration through the line as her voice went into a sharp whisper. “Like I’m a fucking Disney princess. Now, what the hell is going on here?” Before I could answer, she said, “Hold on. I gotta pee,” and then there was a gentle clunking of the phone being placed on a counter.
Out on the dance floor, there was the sound of the crowd gasping and then the music cut out, but I didn’t look over. It was probably just Nick taking off Peach’s garter with his teeth, and no way did I want to see that. I had to focus.
Something was wrong with my potions. They were sparking independent magic.
But that was impossible. The only people who could create independent magic were magicals.
Or conduits of magicals.
I swallowed hard, remembering what had happened last year. Millie had made herself a conduit of Davina, allowing Davina to use her life force to fuel darker magic. That one stupid choice had unloaded a lot of hell on us all, and had ended with Millie in an urn. Fear slid cold over my skin, and I took a deep breath.
Calm down.
Even if there was some conduit stuff going on, that was a temporary thing, and a real, genuine magical had to start that process. As far as I knew, all the magicals we had in town—Liv, Tobias, and Betty—knew better. And besides all that, there was no way for the potions I made to spontaneously give someone magical powers. If that were even possible, and I wasn’t at all convinced that it was, it was way beyond my pay grade. I was still working first-level potions, simple mixtures that did only what they were made to do, and then wore off, and that was it. There was no way I could accidentally give someone real magic.
It wasn’t possible.
Except it was happening.
“All right, I’m back,” Ms. Troudt said on a sigh. “Don’t take your bladder for granted, Easter. In twenty years, you’re gonna have to go every ten minutes and it’s gonna suck.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
“You’re welcome. Now let’s talk about the fucking bluebirds.”
“Ms. Troudt, I don’t—”
“You just made me into a cartoon character, Easter,” she hissed. “Call me Deidre.”
“Whatever. Look, I don’t know what happened, but I’m going to figure it out and I’m going to fix it. I’m going to—”
“Hey. Um … Stacy?”
I looked up at Leo, who was looking out at the dance floor. I followed his gaze to see what he was seeing, but I couldn’t see much of anything except that something was glowing in the middle of the floor, and the party was unnaturally quiet.
Through the phone, Deidre Troudt went on. “Whatever you’re going to do, Easter, you’d better do it fast! I was at my therapist’s and—”
“Yeah, I’m gonna have to call you back, Ms. Troudt.”
I hung up, then turned to Leo and said truthfully, “I don’t know what’s happening.”
“That makes two of us,” he said.
He took my hand and led me to the reception dance floor. The guests were standing stock-still in a circle around the dance floor. Leo nudged people aside, pulling me behind him, leading me to my mother, who was in the middle of the dance floor, her hands spread out, ropes of green smoke snaking around her hands and lower arms.
And she was glowing. A gentle, soft rainbow of light flowed around her entire body, making her look like she was sitting in an invisible tank of water lit by shifting, multicolored light.
“Stacy!” she called out when she saw me, her eyes wide. “I’m so beautiful! I’m glowing!”
My ankles wobbled in my heels as I stepped forward. “Yeah, Widow. I can see that.”
“I’m the most beautiful woman here,” she said, her face beaming.
And then, she fainted.
* * *
Everything after that happened so fast, and I just followed the wave of motion. Within moments, Tobias had my mother in his arms, lifting her as easily as he would a baby bird. He headed straight for Liv’s house, which was about two blocks down from the town square on Zipser Lane. Peach and Nick took over with the guests, distracting them and convincing them that they’d just seen an amazing light show that had overwhelmed my mother, who, Nick hinted, had probably had too little to eat and too much to drink. In short order, the music was playing again. Liv, Leo, Desmond, and I followed Tobias back to Liv’s place, and before I knew what was happening, Desmond was attending to my mother, who was laid out on the couch in Liv’s huge Victorian house.
“Anyone have a torch?” Desmond asked. We all stared at him, and he stared back for a moment, then said, “I apologize. A flashlight, I mean. The smaller the better.”
Liv disappeared into the hallway and returned a moment later with a Mini Maglite. Desmond pulled open my mother’s eyelids one at a time and flashed the light over them.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m a doctor,” Desmond said simply.
“No you’re not,” I said, although he was attending to the Widow with such automated deftness that I knew as soon as I said the words that I was wrong.
“I am, actually. Not currently working in that capacity, but…” He pushed back from the Widow and stood up. “I don’t think
she’s in any danger. She’s rather slight, and I noticed she had a fair bit to drink tonight. Possibly the shock was a little much. Is there a proper bed I can remove her to?”
Liv motioned toward the stairs. “Top of the stairs, first door on the right. And the second door on the right, and the first door on the left…” Liv smiled at Desmond, although there was tension in her eyes. “We’re lousy with guest rooms here. Would you like me to show you?”
“No, no, it’s quite all right.” And with that, he delicately lifted the Widow and carried her upstairs, leaving me and Tobias and Liv and Leo to stare at one another in silence for a while.
Liv spoke first. “So … anyone know what happened here?”
“I think it’s my potions,” I said numbly, looking at Tobias who, out of all of us, had the most knowledge of and experience with magic. “They seem to be making normal people magical.”
Tobias crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you mean?”
I held up my clutch. Tobias took it, examined it, and handed it to Liv. Liv turned it over in her hands and then stared at me.
“I did that tonight,” I said. “I gave Deidre Troudt a potion a few days ago, and she’s manifesting bluebirds. And now the Widow is…”
Wait, I thought, and the jumbled mess in my head started to sort. Wait …
“You self-medicated?” Liv asked. “I thought you weren’t supposed to do that. Maybe that’s what—”
“I didn’t.” Wait. “No. Desmond made that potion for me.”
“Made what?” Leo asked.
I opened my mouth to explain, got exhausted at the thought of it, and gave a dismissive wave of my hand. “Long story.” I focused back on Liv. “All I gave the Widow was green tea. I told her it was a beauty potion, but I was lying through my teeth. It was just strongly brewed green tea, I swear my life on it. You know how paranoid I am about that stuff.”
Liv looked at Tobias, as if working my defense. “She really is super-careful.”
“Tobias,” I said, “have you ever heard of anything like this?”
“A potion that makes non-magicals magical?” He gave Liv a careful look. “Well … yeah. There was that stuff Davina gave you last year.” Liv looked tense, and he put his arm around her. “But Davina’s dead. She didn’t do this.”
Liv let out a sharp huff. “Yeah, but if she could do it, maybe someone else could, too. Maybe someone slipped me something. I’ve had contact with both you and your mom today…”
I shook my head. “But the Widow and I have night magic … and you’re…”
Liv shook her head. When her powers had first come in, she’d had day magic, which meant her power could only manifest while the sun was up. But in the final battle with Davina, she’d gotten night magic, too. She rarely used her magic now that she had it under control, so it was easy to forget everything she could do, and how unusual and special she was. And around unusual and special people, strange things tended to happen.
“Crap,” I said. “Have you had any contact with Deidre Troudt?”
Liv closed her eyes and cursed under her breath. “She came in for dinner last night.”
Liv and Tobias and I exchanged worried glances, and then I shook my head. “No. That’s not it.”
“How do you know?” Liv asked, nibbling one corner of her lip, and I tried to think of a good solid reason why. I couldn’t. The last time I’d seen something like this, it had been Liv under the influence. Still, something about that wasn’t right …
“I’m sorry,” Leo said, putting his hand out in the middle of the huddle to get our attention. “Did you guys say magic?”
“Yes,” I said, and met his eyes. “Magic, real magic, like the kind you heard stories about when you were a kid. Liv can make living creatures out of household objects. Tobias can stop a man’s heart with a look.”
Liv stiffened at that and gave me a look. Tobias’s power was scary-dangerous, he tried never to use it, and it was the source of a lot of tension for both him and Liv.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m trying to be succinct.”
Leo looked back and forth from one of us to the other. “Yeah, I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I glanced at Liv, and she pulled the polished mahogany Chinese stick that was spiked through her chignon out of her hair and closed her hand around it. As her hair fell around her shoulders, hazy yellow smoke curled around her hand. When she opened her palm for us to see, the stick was a snake, writhing up her wrist.
“Wow,” Leo said, and looked closer. Liv closed her hand around the snake and a second later, opened her hand again to reveal the stick. He looked at me, amazement in his eyes, and laughed. For a moment, I wanted to revel in that discovery with him, but there was no time, space, or reason to indulge anything with Leo. I had to stay focused.
I looked at Liv. “My spidey-sense is tingling. Something’s weird.”
“Ms. Troudt is manifesting bluebirds,” Liv said. “We passed ‘weird’ two exits back.”
At that moment, Desmond returned to the living room and moved to my side, inserting himself easily between me and Leo.
“Your mother is going to be okay,” he said. “She should wake up just fine in the morning, but it’s probably a good idea to keep an eye on her for the night.” He looked up at Liv. “With the surfeit of guest rooms, I was wondering if I might impose upon you for the evening? I can check in on her, make sure she’s all right.”
“Of course,” Liv said, then started for the stairs. “I’ll go put fresh bedding in the other rooms.”
Tobias stood there for a moment, his eyes going from Leo to me to Desmond, then back to me.
“Yeah, I’m going with her,” he said, then disappeared after her, leaving the three of us alone together in awkwardness.
“So, wow, you’re really a doctor, huh?” I said to break the silence, turning to Desmond.
“Neurologist, by trade. I worked mostly in research, but I did a full residency in a real hospital, and I assure you, your mother is going to be fine.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I would think you could do better as a doctor than you are as a…” I trailed off, glancing at Leo, who was watching me carefully.
“I could do better as a doctor, perhaps,” Desmond said, “but I couldn’t do more.”
Cryptic, I thought, but then just said, “Thank you.”
Desmond smiled at me. “Of course.”
“Well,” I said, “if you’re staying to keep an eye on her, I guess I’d better stay here tonight, too.”
There was another long, awkward silence, and then Leo said, “It looks like you guys have everything under control here. I’m gonna…” He motioned toward the door, then, as if on an afterthought, reached his hand out to Desmond. “I’m sorry. We haven’t been introduced. I’m Leo North.”
Desmond’s eyebrows rose a bit, and he glanced at me before accepting Leo’s handshake.
“Desmond Lamb.”
“Desmond,” Leo said, taking Des’s hand firmly and meeting his eyes with a respectful if sad smile, like a man who’d just lost a game, fair and square, and had no one to blame but himself. Then he released Desmond’s hand, turned to me, and said, “Good-bye, Stacy.”
I hesitated a moment. My mind was in a whirl, and I knew I should just let him leave and be grateful he was gone, but instead I said, “I’ll walk you out.”
I touched Desmond’s arm to tell him to wait, and he sat down on the couch. I walked with Leo through the foyer in silence, and shut the door behind us when we stepped out onto Liv’s porch. We both froze there, him not moving down the steps, me not going back inside, but neither of us really doing anything else.
“Do you … need me to explain … all that back there?” I said in a broken, uncertain tempo.
“Yes,” he said. “But it seems like an involved thing, and … my plane…” He seemed to be having trouble getting words out, too.<
br />
“Right. Your plane.”
He moved toward the stairs, and I followed him.
“Where are you going?” I asked, not so much wanting an answer as wanting to keep him there, just for a little while longer. The Anwei Xing had worn off entirely, and I was back to the uncomfortable push–pull of both loving him and never wanting to see him again.
He stopped on the top step and turned to face me. “Home.”
“And where is that? I knew you were somewhere in South Dakota, but I didn’t know where.”
“Aberdeen.”
“Do you like it there?”
He met my eyes. “Does it matter?”
We went quiet for a little while, and then I said, “We’re never going to see each other again, are we?”
He lowered his head, and his voice was thick. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” I asked. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
We stared at each other in silence for a long time, and then Leo looked away.
“I have to go,” he said. “Nick’s truck is at the reception. I have to get it. I’m driving them in to the airport. Our planes leave at about the same time.”
I looked at him in the moonlight, and felt like I was losing a part of myself. Again. The blessed shelter of the Anwei Xing was gone, and here I was, stuck with Leo on the last chair when the music stopped, feeling exactly what I hadn’t wanted to feel.
Stay, I thought.
“Fly safe,” I said.
He reached out tentatively, his hand seeming to move almost against his will. I closed my eyes as his fingers glided into the hair at the back of my head, and was hit with a rush of disappointment when his kiss landed on my forehead instead of my lips.
“Be happy,” he whispered, and by the time I opened my eyes again, he was turning the corner at the end of the street, heading back to the town square and my brother and wherever the rest of his life would be.
Good-bye, Leo.
I stood there, staring into the night, both relieved and sunken with a sadness I was pretty sure would be with me every day for the rest of my life. Maybe I hadn’t done the right thing by sending him away, but I’d done the only thing; I was sure of that. I was even uglier and angrier now than I’d been back then, and it was only a matter of time before he saw that and realized I wasn’t worth it. Leo leaving now was survivable; if we’d spent any more time together, if I’d indulged in even the tiniest bit of hope for us, I was pretty sure survivable would no longer be on the table.