Page 15 of Strings Attached
Of course I knew she was a professional performer—I noted her credentials in that council application I shouldn’t have approved—but watching her was something else entirely. I couldn’t tear myself away from seeing how she immersed herself in the music, swaying like a flame in the wind, drawing out notes that hummed until they vibrated into my bones.
The magnetic pull between us grew stronger with each shared glance. I shouldn’t have let it happen. Shouldn’t have stepped so close in that whisper-quiet room, shouldn’t have imagined closing the distance between us or brushing her hair away from the soft line of her neck.
But when she’s all graceful curves and teasing smiles, when she’s someone willing to look me in the eye, who seems to hold no secrets in her gaze and isn’t afraid of what she might find in mine—it makes me forget every carefully constructed wall. It makes me long for things I gave up the day I chose the greater good over personal happiness, the magical community over my sister’s love.
Main Street stretches before me, picture perfect with its cobblestone charm and meticulously maintained storefronts. Marcus’ bookstore cat, Anne-With-An-E twines around books in A Novel Idea’s window display. An old oak drips Spanish moss before it.
It’s all small-town charm and carefully curated whimsy, the kind of place tourists photograph without ever truly seeing. They miss how magic pulses beneath every pristine awning and around each weathered brick.
Just like The Cove’s residents miss the weight that comes with protecting it all. With being the one who stands between two worlds.
I trace the existing ward lines with practiced efficiency, reinforcing weak points where they’ve grown thin. Autumn always brings with it a treacherous dance between what humans call weather patterns and what we know as magical convergence. The wards, like everything else in Magnolia Cove, are tied to nature’s rhythms—to lunar cycles, tide patterns, and the very breath of seasons changing.
And hurricane season tests every magical defense we have.
The ward pulses beneath my touch, responding to my magic and warning of instability. They’re stretched thinner than usual, pulled taut between astronomical forces that even the council’s oldest texts struggle to fully explain. One strong storm with our wards not reinforced could shred our protective veils like Spanish moss in a gale.
Another reason I can’t afford distractions. Can’t let honey-warm eyes and musical laughter make me forget the weight of my responsibilities.
That’s when I hear it. Music drifting across the morning stillness, rich and mournful. I know that sound. Already recognize the player.
I follow it to the festival grounds, where Missy sits in the exact center of the ward nexus, completely oblivious to the magic currents swirling around her. Her eyes are closed, head tilted as she draws her bow across Giuseppe’s strings. The rising sun gilds her hair gold, and for a moment, she looks like she belongs here—part of the magic rather than separate from it.
The wards respond to her playing, rippling like water disturbed by stones. It’s subtle, but I can feel their resonance shifting, adapting her music’s rhythm. My own magic stirs in response, reaching toward her like a flower seeking light.
I shouldn’t find it beautiful. Shouldn’t want to watch how she sways with the music or find it irresistible to look away from the curves of her fingers.
Yesterday comes back to me without my consent. The way her lips looked in the gold-colored room. How she looked up at me, her long lashes framing her amber eyes. The energy that sizzled between us and everything that went unspoken.
But the magic within me isn’t focused on Missy’s playing or the way her hair slides down her shoulder and drapes across the bare skin of her collarbone.
It’s fixed on the wards and whatever the hell they’re doing. She’s not breaking them, but she’s making them behave strangely.
“The acoustics are better by the gazebo,” I say, making her jump.
Her startled expression melts into that dangerous smile—the one that makes me forget all the reasons this is a terrible idea.The wards beneath my feet pulse a warning I’m choosing to ignore.
“Do you always lurk around watching people practice?” Morning mist curls around her ankles, drawn to her presence like magic seems to be. Like I’m determined to be, apparently, despite every hard-learned lesson screaming in protest.
“Only when they’re trespassing in restricted areas.” I slide my hands into my pockets. I shouldn’t engage in this conversation, shouldn’t let myself be pulled into her orbit. And yet here I stand, like a moth convinced this particular flame might not burn.
“Restricted?” She glances around the empty field. “It’s just grass.”
“Grass that’s off limits. Besides,”—I speak over whatever she had parted her ruby lips to interject with—“areyoualways sitting around playing… Saint-Saëns?”
The composer’s name emerges half-guess, half-memory. A fragment of my past when music and magic danced freely together, before duty drew sharp lines between what I wanted and what I had to become.
Her laugh spills across the morning air like sunlight through stained glass, warm and rich and somehow sacred. “Chopin, actually.Nocturne in C-sharp Minor.” She tilts her head, her eyes sparkling. “I have to say, I didn’t expect the grumpy head of the council to know his classical composers.”
The warmth in her voice beckons me like a siren’s song, tempting me to share about my childhood music lessons. How my parents wanted me to play viola, but all I wanted to learn was rock music. How we compromised on the classical guitar. About Nell and I arguing over practice times, sheet music scattered across our family room while magic sparked between our fingers and glided down her flute’s silvery body.
But those memories are better left buried. “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Miss Sinclair.”
“Missy,” she corrects, rising from her makeshift seat with a grace that draws my eyes despite my best intentions. She gently wipes Giuseppe down and places him back in his case before looking back over her shoulder at me, her eyes filled with the clouds’ reflections. “And me not knowing you is something we could change, you know?”
My heart hammers. There’s a part of me that wants to cross the grass between us, to let duty and distance dissolve like morning mist. To discover if her skin carries the same warmth as her music, if her laugh tastes as sweet as it sounds.
I long to forget my role here, and Alex’s disapproval, and Missy’s magicless state, and a wedding invitation sitting in my office reminding me of similar bad choices in the past. And their cost.
