Zander appeared beside her as she continued to grind the salt and herbs together. Her energy was cautious. “Hey.”
Wren glanced her way, measuring her vibe as much as her appearance—worried, unsure. “Hey. What’s eating you?”
“Question. If someone were, let’s say, pregnant. Would all of this magic be okay? For that person, I mean. And the baby.”
Wren’s hands had stilled the moment Zander said the word “pregnant.” She slowly put down the mortar and pestle and turned her body to face her best friend while her heart tried to kickstart back into a normal rhythm. “Are you...?”
Zander’s eyes flew wide. “No! I’m not asking for me.”
Huh? Wait. Wren’s lips popped open and she dropped her voice to a hush after glancing out into the living room. “Cecily?”
Zander’s nod was tiny and quick. “She just found out.”
Now it was Wren’s eyes who were wide. Cecily and Scott were going to be parents? This was huge!
“You can’t tell anybody,” Zander hissed. “She doesn’t even know I’m asking.”
Ah. Okay. “Understood. And the magic we’re going to do should be completely safe. We aren’t going to pull magic through Cecily or anything like that. No risk to her—” Wren grinned. “Or the baby.”
Wow it was going to be really hard not telling Abby the next time Scott came up in conversation.
Zander looked relieved. “Okay. Thanks.” She started to turn away, but turned back again. “And not a word. You don’t know anything.”
Wren pressed her lips together. “This conversation never happened.”
When she brought the bowl back out into the living room, Abby took it from her hands and held a piece of chalk out, her deep red painted fingernails a striking contrast against the white. “Draw the circle while I come behind you with the salt?”
Their fingers brushed as Wren took the chalk. The circle had to be large enough for all six of them to sit within—hence moving the furniture out of the way—so Zander had rigged up a DIY compass by hammering a nail into the floor and tying a piece of string loosely to it.
Wren tied the chalk to the loose end of the string, pulled until it was more-or-less taut, bent at the waist and began to draw. “I call the Guardian of north and the element of earth to watch over this sacred circle,” she said as she went along. Abby repeated it as she laid down salt behind her. Back and forth they said the words until they reached the top of the circle and met the lines.
As Wren stepped into the center, her skin tingled, the magic in the air tangible, like the soft buzz of static electricity waiting to be discharged. Abby motioned Zander, Callum, Cecily, and Scott into the circle, arranging them at the four cardinal points with Zander at the Northern position. Then she stepped into the center of the circle herself, facing Wren, and offering her hands.
Wren almost expected a static shock as she took Abby’s hands in her own—what she got was more like a tidal wave.
Magic rushed from her toes, up her legs, through her chest. From her hands, it rushed up her arms, through her shoulders where it ran up the back of her neck and filled her head, pushing at the backs of her closed eyes.
It felt good. Really, really good.
She forced her eyes open, and Abby was staring at her. Her lips had fallen open and the breath that passed through them was lopsided and shallow.
If they hadn’t been surrounded by the others, she was certain Abby would have kissed her. And she was certain she’d have kissed her back—and not stopped.
Abby blinked, squeezing her eyes shut and pulled a long, deep breath into her lungs. When she exhaled, magic tickled Wren’s cheeks with the smell of cherry lip balm and wintergreen toothpaste. When Abby opened her eyes, they were glowing like they’d been backlit.
“Your turn.”
Wren wasn’t sure if Abby had spoken or if she’d heard her voice in her head. But as she closed her eyes, she could feel her everywhere. She was the air Wren pulled into her lungs; the gravity that kept her bare feet on the floor. And when she opened her eyes again, it wasn’t just Abby’s eyes that glowed—it was all of her. Red tendrils of light rose from her skin like electric smoke; they drifted toward Wren as though pushed by the breeze where they entangled with blue wisps.
“Your magic is blue.” Abby smiled like she was seeing something beautiful.
Huh? Wren glanced down at her own arm—and stared. Blue tendrils were rising from her skin, drifting to Abby. It was her blue entwining with Abby’s red—turning the most vibrant hue of violet purple between them.
Without thought, without consideration or worry, Wren lifted Abby’s hand and brought the back of it to her lips. Abby’s eyes flared. Wren watched her swallow, jaw flexing like there were things she wanted to say—or things she wanted to do—but knew now wasn’t the time nor the place.
Or maybe Wren was projecting, because that’s certainly how she felt right then. She forced her mind back onto the task as she lowered her and Abby’s clasped, glowing-purple hands. They had a spell to cast—a spell to keep everyone Wren cared for most safe from some seriously dark and dangerous shit. “Let’s do this.”
Abby gave a nod, closed her eyes, and began to hum.
When the spell caught, the tendrils of magic were no longer a cycle passing from Wren’s body to Abby’s and back again, but a rushing river that reached out from them in all directions.
“Everyone, repeat what I say.” Abby’s voice was low and monotone. “Guardian of north,”
“Guardian of north,” Wren and the others said together. She’d almost forgotten the rest of them were there, sitting spectacle to the magic happening between her and Abby.
“We call on your protection.”
“We call on your protection.” Wren glanced over Abby’s shoulder once, to where Zander was sitting cross legged on the floor. Her gaze was traveling the room like she was looking for something as she repeated the phrase.
“Shield all those in this circle,”
They repeated Abby’s words.
“From the sight of those who watch without purity of intention.”
As soon as the words were said by the group, Abby began a new request.
“We call to any spirits tied to those within this circle.”
The rhythm of Abby’s voice and the group’s response was calming, like a metronome, steady and hypnotic.
“We ask for your protection.”
“We ask for your protection.”
“From any who seek to harm those to which you are tied.”
“From any who seek to harm those to which you are tied.”
“Guardian of the afterlife...”
And they went on like that, asking the guardian of the afterlife for assistance, much as they’d ask the guardian of north. By the time Abby fell silent, Wren’s fingers were trembling with the power running through her. Colors were dancing behind her closed eyelids and her mouth was dry.
But still, the spell did not feel finished.
“We ask this with humble gratitude.” Abby paused. “We ask this with hope, and intentions for only the highest good.” Another pause.
Normally, when a spell reached a conclusion, Wren could feel it. It felt like a comfortable weight landing on her consciousness. Like a heavy blanket when you crawl into bed. It felt like clarity and alignment. And she could feel that now, but only the edge of it. Like the hem of a gossamer fabric, her fingers could brush but not grip.
And Abby must have been feeling something similar because she drew a breath and released it slow, as though calling calmness.
A moment later, “I can sense that if I push, we’re going to lose what we’ve conjured,” Abby said, voice low and mellow.
“I feel it, too,” Wren replied. The gossamer fabric of the spell’s protection was not going to come nearer. It was present and functional, but it would not be held. It would stretch no further. Which was fine—it was doing the job they’d asked of it—but it was an odd sensation, to leave
a spell technically complete, but with a feeling of being unfinished.
“On three?” came Abby’s soft voice.
“On three,” Wren agreed.
Then they counted together. “One. Two. Three.”
When Wren opened her eyes, Abby no longer glowed blue. The magic still hummed under her skin, but it was slower now, easy to ignore.
“Wow, that was so quick,” Cecily remarked quietly, behind her.
Had it been quick? Wren wondered. It felt like she’d been holding Abby’s hands for a beautiful eternity.
⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
“Do you want me to take you home?”
Abby looked across the roof of Wren’s blue hatchback. They’d spent the rest of the day with Zander, Callum, Cecily, and Scott, just bullshitting and hanging out after casting the spell (that Abby really wished had settled more thoroughly.) The protection spell was in place and working—she could feel it—but it wasn’t as firmly seated as she’d have liked.
And she had a feeling she knew why. Or at least she had an idea.
“Not really.” She wanted to talk to Wren about...well, everything. And she wanted to do it now while they were both still buzzing from the power of the magic they’d shared and created.
Wren’s smile was a relief. “Good. I didn’t want to take you home yet.”
It had been so hard to sit in the same room as Wren after they’d cast the spell, and not touch her. Not kiss her the way partners kiss throughout the day, a simple, easy meeting of lips. Not to reach and squeeze her knee when she sat down beside her.
Wren felt like her girlfriend. Like more than her girlfriend—because she was more than that.
She was her magical complement. Abby had suspected it after they’d kissed, but now she knew.
That’s why the magic had felt like a tidal wave of pleasure when they touched.
She just had to figure out how to tell Wren all of that—preferably without sounding like a total whack-job.
Fifteen minutes and a quick on-off the freeway, Wren pulled into the driveway and parked behind her RV. They hadn’t said much to each other, but the silence had been comfortable, not stressed.
Abby unbuckled her seatbelt and when she looked up, the name Bridgette was staring her in the face. It was painted across the back of Wren’s RV. She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed it before.
“Who’s Bridgette?” she asked, ticking a nod at the cursive script as she closed the passenger door of Wren’s car.
Wren stilled, then glanced at the word before turning to go round the back of her car. “That’s my ex-girlfriend’s name.”
Whoa. Her last girlfriend had been serious enough to name her RV after? “Wow. How long ago did you break-up?” Couldn’t have been long if Wren hadn’t painted out the name yet. Maybe that explained Wren’s reaction at Games & Grog, come to think of it...
“Uh...” Wren paused while she unlocked her door, then spoke as she pushed it open. “She passed about a year and a half ago. I named the RV after her.”
Abby stood, frozen to the spot. Wren’s girlfriend had died? Sweet Mother Earth, that was why she’d turned into a mess when they kissed.
“You good?”
She looked up to see Wren eyeing her with a smirk on her perfect mouth, standing at the top of the steps into her place. “Yeah, yeah. I’m good, sorry.” Abby took the few steps and found herself face-to-face with Wren’s brown eyes and caramel corkscrew halo of hair, her light sepia-toned skin. “I’m sorry about your girlfriend.”
Wren’s lips parted but she drew a breath when Abby expected her to speak. Finally, she smiled and turned away, cracking the moment between them. “Thanks. Bridge was great.”
“Was she the love of your life?” Abby wanted to shove her boot into her own mouth.
“I thought she was.” Wren pulled a couple of mugs down from the cabinet in her tiny kitchen. “You want tea or coffee, or anything?”
“You got wine?” She was kidding, but when Wren turned around with a smile, she was glad the joke was half serious.
“I do, actually!” Wren crossed to a skinny cabinet door next to the refrigerator where she pulled out a tall black bottle. “A client gave me this. It’s supposed to be good.”
Abby felt her eyes flare when Wren turned the bottle her way. “You sure you want to waste that on me? That’s a $50 bottle of wine.” $100 if they were at the restaurant Abby had worked at between her tattoo apprenticeships.
“I can’t think of a better day for it,” Wren said with a shrug. “You good with a corkscrew?”
“I’ve uncorked my fair share of wines,” Abby replied, smiling as Wren handed her the bottle.
The merlot was deep in color and dark in scent as Abby poured it into two glasses that were more goblet than wine stem.
“Thanks.” Wren took the glass Abby offered her and smirked. “These are the closest things I have to wine glasses.”
“The wine will taste the same either way.” Abby lifted her glass and Wren met the edge with her own. “To protecting what’s important to us.”
Wren’s smile was soft and warm. “To protecting what’s important to us.”
The lull of silence in the conversation felt charged as Wren took a seat at the tiny table and Abby followed suit, sipping her wine to keep herself from saying something awkward. She had a way of saying the wrong thing all the time—wrong, and usually spot on, like when she’d asked about Bridgette. It had always been that way.
“So, why do you think the spell felt unfinished, even after we finished it?” Wren asked, lowering her glass onto the light wood tabletop.
Abby felt her eyes go wide once again. “It totally felt unfinished!” She was glad it wasn’t just her who’d felt that. “And I don’t know. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure it out.” She’d been racking her brain about plenty of other things, too. Like how beautiful Wren had looked surrounded by Abby’s magic.
“Was it us?”
Abby shook her head. “Definitely not us. But...” She thought for a second on an idea that had occurred to her briefly as they’d been closing the spell. She hadn’t given it much attention, distracted as she was, but now that she looked at it with a clear head, it made sense. “It’s almost like whoever cast the spell isn’t using their own magic.”
Wren’s brows furrowed in a very what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about kind of way.
“Okay, hear me out,” Abby said. “If this Marcus guy—that was his name, right?” They’d only talked about him briefly.
Wren nodded and Abby went on.
“What if he’s a Moon Seeker?”
“A what?” Wren had clearly never heard the term before.
“The Moon Seekers,” Abby repeated. “They’re basically a magical cult. They don’t have magic of their own; they steal it from The Underneath,” and cause a lot of headaches for those of us with innate magic who use it properly, but she didn’t say that out loud because it wasn’t important right then. “So what if this Marcus guy is siphoning Underneath magic to cast the surveillance spell?”
Comprehension bloomed across Wren’s face, her lips falling open and her brows rising above her brown eyes. “If he’s using the other realms to cast the spell, and we asked for protection from the other realms—”
“Then it’s circular,” Abby finished. “The spell can’t resolve completely because it’s getting in its own way.”
“But we didn’t call to the guardians of The Underneath.”
Abby shook her head. “We don’t have to. I called to the guardians of the afterlife realm. With my magic the way it is, I call to both unless I call to neither.” She hadn’t specifically called to The Underneath, so the protection from that realm would be minor—just enough to keep the spell from fully settling.
“That makes so much sense, it has to be the explanation,” Wren said. “So what do we do? Are Zander and the others safe?”
Abby reached across the table and laid her hand on Wren’s wrist. “They’re s
afe. The spell worked, I can feel it.”
“I can, too,” Wren added, relief clear in her voice and the way she nodded.
“We’ll need to re-do it in a week or so anyway,” Abby went on. “We’ll just do it differently next time, that’s all. Can you ask Zander if she or Cecily own anything of Marcus’s? That will strengthen the spell so we don’t need to rely on any guardians but north in the Living Realm.” And she’d need Wren to speak the words, so they called only on living magic.
“Yeah, okay.” Wren sent a quick text, then brought her glass to her lips with another nod. When her eyes landed on Abby’s, she smirked. “Damn, I’m glad Scott bailed on our appointment that day. Where would we be without you?”
Abby felt her own smile spread. That might have been the best compliment she’d ever received. Before she could get too sappy about it, though, she had another topic to address—the topic of Cecily’s energy the minute she’d stepped into the circle. “Okay, so can we also talk about how I’m pretty sure Cecily is pregnant?”
Wren choked on her wine.
An hour later, Abby pushed herself up from the table only to find her legs deliciously loose and her head pleasantly light. The two glasses of wine were doing their job by loosening her up so she wasn’t hanging on every word that fell from Wren’s incredible lips like a sixteen-year-old with a crush—no, instead she was staring at Wren’s incredible lips like a twenty-six-year-old who couldn’t stop thinking about what those lips felt like against her own. What they’d feel like in other places...
“I just realized you haven’t given me the grand tour.”
Wren’s smirk was enticing. “Of the RV?”
“Of your palace on wheels, clearly.” Keep it light and stop staring at her, Abby...
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