Page 52 of Handcuffs and Hexes

“So what’s on your mind?” Sybil asked as we sat at the cafeteria scarfing down the world’s largest bowls of spaghetti Bolognese.

“What do you mean?” I focused on my food and refused to meet her gaze.

“I mean, you’re not your usual witty, annoying self. The Seth I know would have been running circles around that Palivius guy and making him look like an idiot.”

I shrugged. “He was doing a damned good job of that himself.”

I wasn’t sure if Sybil was trying to ask about my relationship problems or about the voice in my head, but I didn’t want to talk about either of them.

“You’re right about that, but seriously. You’re not you. Having trouble with the missus?” She made a face. “Er, mister?” she corrected.

Ah, it was the relationship problems. Did it really show that much? I didn’t reply.

“Ha! I knew it. Well, I know you’re not going to tell me anything. So I’m just going to give some general advice. You can take it or leave it.” She held her fork in her food, pasta half-swirled. “Sometimes if you want to fix things, you just have to apologize and really mean it, regardless of who was at fault.” She finished swirling her pasta. “One time, Zayn’s serpent form decided to make a den inside the house. And I don’t mean a blanket fort thing, an actual one with leaves and twigs and mud. In my kitchen! I freaked out because, hello! There was shit all over mykitchen! I demolished it, sweeping everything outside. And he got all offended because I rejected his den.”

Zayn was a naga who could become fully human, fully serpent, or stay in his natural form as a man on top and a snake at the bottom. When Sybil first met him, he’d been under a curse that prevented his serpent and man side from working together, losing his natural form. It seemed that serpent Zayn still let his serpent side take over completely because that was the only way he could possibly believe that building a leaf and mud den inside the house was a good idea since human Zayn would have to clean it up.

“I was angry for days,” Sybil continued. “My kitchen! But eventually, I sucked it up, even though it was technically his fault, and told him I was sorry for yelling instead of explaining why I was upset and that I accepted his den, just not the location. And since I said sorry, he also apologized for messing up my kitchen and that it was perhaps not the best place for a den. Now, we both laugh about it. It was still his fault, though. But at least he never made a den in the house again.”

I’d already planned on apologizing. The problem was finding them and actually doing it. Liam hadn’t been in the spare room when I looked for him this morning, and Hazel was already at the precinct. Knowing how she felt, I didn’t think a big, public apology with flowers and romantic displays was a good idea.

We weren’t even finished with our meal when grim-looking Nina stuck her head into the cafeteria, and everyone who was eating lunch immediately sat a little straighter and ate a little faster. She waved us over.

“That was fast,” I muttered under my breath.

“My pasta,” Sybil sniffed.

But wasted food or not, we ditched our plates and joined the director out in the hallway.

“What was his professional verdict?” I asked. “It mustn’t be good because you look like you just swallowed a box of thumbtacks.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Nina said, tight-lipped. “The Breach ate him.”

Sybil and I exchanged a look. I hadn’t felt much overwhelming magic coming from the guy, but he could be shielding his powers the way Sybil and I were. But it explained why The Breach had been silent; it had been busy.

“Don’t worry,” Nina said. “It barely grew. Either head office got so sick of him they sent him over hoping something like this would happen, or he got his job through nepotism, and now I’ll have an angry father breathing down my neck.”

“His buddy recorded it all, though, right?” Sybil asked.

“That he did. And both officers had their body cams on. Even recorded him saying no one better touch him while he was ‘channeling.’”

That was convenient.

Eugene and Tommy were waiting for us back in the meeting room. Tommy looked almost smug, and I had a feeling we wereon the same page for once. The nerdy shifter was back in his seat too, wiping the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief.

Nina took her seat at the front, then squared him a look and asked, “Any more ideas from head office?”

He shook his head.

“We might have one,” Sybil said, nodding to me. “We know the EA has a group of witches on their backup roster, and Desmon has working agreements with several small covens. We can get everyone involved.”

We explained the idea we’d been working on over at Desmon’s estate. The plan was to use a mass spell, one cast by dozens of witches, all combining their powers. While wizards sometimes worked together to achieve a goal, shared spells like these were rare, and trying to get different wizards’ magic to mesh was challenging. But it was quite common in witchcraft, and even strangers could add their strength to the spell. We’d only allow male practitioners who had already displayed resistance to help out. With everyone involved, we should be able to close the portal together.

Some of the men, like myself, would still be in danger of being pulled in since we had both forms of magic.

“But we can help with that,” Eugene said. “We’ll stop anyone from jumping in. And the police have existing agreements with the local wolf pack; we can bring them in to help.”

“And the Redrock brothers,” Nina agreed. “The non-magic users can keep you all safe.”

---