Page 156 of Castings & Curses

Enthralled, not one person moved nor objected. Perfect fodder to end the festival. One reason they did a warlock lottery, for fun and entertainment.Where’s the hot-buttered popcorn when you needed it?Sage felt far from entertained.

“Time for talk is over. Make your bid and be done,” Zelda announced. Her beaming smile could have charmed the most venomous of snakes. Sage noticed a nervousness in Zelda as she rolled and unrolled the cuffs of her long sleeves, distracting her hands or her magic. Who knew?

“As regional High Priestess, it’s my right to talk to any warlock during the lottery. Check the bylaws,” Sage said. “Meanwhile, Rafael and I will talk on the rear patio. I’ll be done when I’m done.”

“That’s bullshit,” Zelda screeched, springing out of her seat. Her witches and warlocks closed ranks around her. “There’s no such bylaw granting the regional High Priestess extra rights.”

“Au contraire. Read the fucking bylaws,” Sage shouted, confident in her memory of witchworld rules. Witches across the room scrambled to engage their tablets and phones. Even if it wasn’t an obscure rule, Zelda could suck it up and die for all she cared.

She clenched Rafael’s hand, and a strangely familiar herbal scent wafted off the wooden beads on his charm bracelet. Their touch incited a dance of opposing magic, not the magic of their connection, but Helwig magic meeting Sage’s magic. Zelda’s witch-air, untapped and unknown to Rafael, but ready for commands.

Zelda had already bonded him. The bonding explained the new void inside her.Holy shit on a broken broomstick.

Aether sand coated her eyeballs, and she felt her irises change to a deeper emerald on their way to obsidian. His untapped magic, whether Zelda’s or whatever else he possessed deep in his core, whipped her aether inside her, like the branches on the evergreens dancing to gusts of wind.

Sweat dampened Rafael’s warm fingers, but he didn’t withdraw his hand as she led him out the back. Shouts and commotion accompanied the slam of the door as Sage shut out the chaos.

Not caring whether her demon eyes frightened him, she dropped his hand and spun on him. “Did she bond you?”

His face was a mix of fear and dread, but he didn’t move away. He slipped his fists in his front pockets as if to stop them from touching her. “Guess so. She did a ritual and I accepted. She said I’m her warlock now. I feel her magic inside me. Don’t know how to work it yet.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Sage stamped her foot on the pavers, trying to tamp down her rising aether as well.

“What do you mean? She discovered me. I made promises to her.” Unease flitted across his face. He planted a foot of distance between them. “I mean one of her warlocks, Sammy, discovered me.”

A breeze blew the scent of the wooden beads up to her nostrils again. Sage crinkled her nose. She wracked her brain to place the herb. Zelda had spelled Rafael, but she didn’t want to touch the bracelet until she recognized the scent. Didn’t want to cause potential further damage by removing it. The spell affected his memory, made him lethargic with a skewed sense of reality. She tested her theory.

“Don’t you rememberus?” She burned with a desire to touch him, but curled her fists at her sides, her fingernails biting into her skin. “The night we spent talking, planning. Kissing, touching, and wanting so much more.” Urgency caused her pitch to escalate as her eyes began to normalize.

Rafael squinted and his lips pinched in a grim line. “I remember seeing you a couple days ago from afar. We’ve never talked. I think I’d remember kissing you.” No grin, only somberness as if resolved to his fate.

Thuds hit the door from inside the witch-house. Sage heard Ricky shouting, barring the door. Probably the Helwigs trying to reach Sage and blast her a new ass. She tuned out the ruckus.

Rafael spun on his heels toward the door. Another whiff from the beads hit her and crashed through the doors of her memories. Datura or maybe henbane carrying a belladonna—deadly nightshade—kick. Enough to suppress his memory by slowing down his metabolism and brain function, with a sleepy, hallucinogenic affect.

Sage lunged forward and ripped the leather band off Rafael’s wrist. She flung the bracelet in an empty plant pot, needing to preserve it for evidence.

“Hey!” Rafael yelped, rubbing his wrist.

“Sorry, it’s spelled. Come closer.” She gestured him closer, but he backstepped. “Please. I can fix this.”

“Fix what?” He scratched his head. “Sage, right?”

“Yes, I’m Sage.” Relief skated across her shoulders. But he would not return to normal fast enough without magical intervention. “I can heal your confusion.”

“Okay,” he said haltingly. “What—”

As she touched her fingertips to his forehead, something banged the door again. Quickly, she whispered a counter-spell to dispel the effects of the charmed beads. Might not be fast enough, but it would break the spell Zelda had plonked on the beads. She uttered, “So mote it be,” aloud and smoothed her fingertips over the lines etched on his brow.

Pain arced across Rafael’s pale face. “What did you do?” He rubbed his forehead, pressed his palm over his heart, then over his abdomen. “I don’t feel so hot.”

Sage waved her open hands and pushed fresh witch-air at his nose, trying to rid his senses of the stench from Zelda’s charm bracelet. “Inhale deeply, then exhale,” she said. “Again and again!”

“Sage?” Puppet strings seemed to jerk his head up, and he glanced around the patio, at the door holding back the chaos unfurling on the other side. “What’s going on?”

“Do you remember me? When did we meet?”

“Yeah. We met yesterday.”

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