Page 20
Later that afternoon, while consulting one of the few magical textbooks that she’d managed to keep hold of after her exile, Sera discovered that the glass teapot had been out of use for so long that it needed to be rinsed with salt water five times before it could be enchanted.
That took half an hour, after which she had to borrow some of Jasmine’s hand cream for her overdried fingers, but then the teapot was finally ready to be infused with the magic it needed to identify and piece together the restoration spell.
Years ago, enchanting a glass teapot would have been the work of a few seconds for her, but now it took almost ten minutes, her magic trickling out of her in dribs and drabs.
She ached everywhere, the phantom pain of missing something that had once been there, of closing her eyes and seeing only glimmers of starlight where before there had been galaxies.
At last, the teapot glowed gently. The enchantment was done.
Jasmine, who had immediately provided Sera with a cup of heavily sugared tea to speed up her recovery from the effort of the enchantment, now looked at the glowing teapot with interest. “Why a glass teapot, of all things?”
“Well, you need something transparent so you can see how each ingredient behaves when it’s added in,” Sera explained.
“Glass is also made from sand, and sand’s one of the best conductors of magic.
And it’s a teapot because it’s comforting.
I mean, that’s probably not the actual reason witches have used teapots for centuries, but I’d like to think it is. Who doesn’t enjoy looking at a teapot?”
“And you’re really going to set a feather alight and put it in there?”
“Yep.”
Sera was trying really, really hard not to get too excited, because she was nothing if not well-versed in what it felt like to get your hopes up only to have them dashed shortly thereafter.
After making sure Clemmie was nowhere to be found and there was no chance of an audience, she took the teapot outside, collected one of a handful of stray crow feathers that were dotted around the garden at any given time, and held a lit match to it.
As soon as the feather caught alight, she dropped it into the teapot.
She counted the seconds, holding her breath. One, two, three—
The teapot spat the feather back out.
Sera stamped on the feather to put the flames out and scowled at the teapot. “No? That doesn’t work for you?”
The disappointment was crushing, but she reminded herself that it had been her first try and the odds had been exceedingly slim that she’d find the right ingredient on her first go.
She’d come up with something else. Maybe a feather from a different bird would work.
Maybe the feather had to be the colour of fire rather than set on fire. She’d figure it out.
Back inside, she found Luke at the front door, signing for a delivery of two boxes packed with old books, manuscripts, and papers.
“What in the…”
Luke sighed. “Sorry. They’re from Verity. Apparently, when she told me I needed a break, what she actually wanted was for me to start work on a new project immediately.”
Professor Walter, frankly, seemed to be both positively terrifying and positively everything Sera wanted to be.
Leaving Luke to his tomes, she spent the rest of the afternoon with a leaf of blank paper torn out of one of Jasmine’s old sketchbooks, writing down as many possibilities as she could think of.
These ranged from the plausible ( 2. leaf at sunset ) to the significantly less plausible ( 14.
anagrams of the word “phoenix” ) and were liberally annotated by Clemmie’s frequent contributions.
By dinnertime, half the ideas on the list had been scratched out for one reason or another, including rejection by teapot (the teapot, it seemed, agreed with Luke that the poetry of a leaf bathed by the glow of a sunset was not what it was looking for), and the rest, like the feather the colour of fire, would have to wait until Sera could actually find them.
With no alternative but to put a pin in it for the moment, she tucked the list safely into a book and went to join the others.
She hadn’t been sure if Luke and Posy would eat with them that evening, but there they were.
Posy was perched on the edge of her chair, legs swinging, watching everyone else settle into their seats with interest. Jasmine, an expert in making other people feel comfortable, had already started up a conversation with Matilda and was gently including Luke and Posy without putting them on the spot with questions.
It was difficult to tell what Luke was thinking, but from the tension in his shoulders, Sera had a feeling he was braced for something to go wrong.
“So it really doesn’t hurt?” Theo was asking, coming into the room with Nicholas in his wake. “At all?”
“Well, it does feel a bit tender when I poke it,” Nicholas admitted.
“Nicholas,” Sera said, despairing, “I can’t believe I have to say this, but please do not poke the part of your head that got hit when you fell off your horse.”
“How else will I know when it’s better?”
“That looks fun,” Theo said to Posy in a friendly voice, pointing to something on the table beside her. “Is it a fidget spinner?”
“Spinny thing,” Posy said cheerfully.
Theo accepted this readily. “Can I have a go with your spinny thing?” She handed it to him and watched delightedly as he spun it on one finger.
“Thank you for dinner,” Nicholas said to Jasmine and Matilda with a shy smile. “You didn’t have to make mac and cheese just because that’s my favourite.”
“I think we all deserve our favourite dinner when we’ve had a bit of a low day.” Jasmine smiled.
Judging by the speed with which she emptied her plate, Posy seemed to be as much of a fan of Jasmine’s mac and cheese as Nicholas was. As soon as she was done, she rocked restlessly on her chair, smiled across the table at Luke, and said, “Dragon?”
Luke froze. “No, Posy.”
She frowned. “Dragon,” she said more insistently. Jumping to her feet, she ran to the door, waiting expectantly for Luke. She giggled. “ Dragon , Luke.”
Everyone looked at Luke. Acute, anguished agony flashed across his face, there and gone in a blink, and he stood up. Looking at Posy, almost choking out the word, he said, “Dragon.”
Posy ran. Luke chased her.
Jasmine beamed after them. Sera bit her fist to keep herself from laughing.
“That was adorable ,” Matilda declared.
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Sera managed to say.
Two pairs of footsteps raced up the stairs, followed by the sound of Posy’s unfettered, squealing laughter, and then, moments later, Posy raced back in, out of breath from the running and the laughing.
As soon as Luke reappeared, a few steps behind her, she ran past him, back to the door, and said, “Dragon.”
“No, once was enough,” Luke said immediately.
Theo leapt up with enthusiasm. “I’ll go.”
Luke seemed taken aback. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s fine, I want to. I just have to pretend to be a dragon and chase her, right? Posy? Can I play?”
“Dragon?” Posy asked, looking at Theo in startled delight.
“Yep, I’m a dragon,” said Theo.
Posy let out a shriek of glee and ran. Theo bolted after her.
“She’ll let you catch her sooner or later,” Luke yelled after them. Turning slowly back to the table, his ears tinged with pink, he said, “Sorry. She shouldn’t have run off while everyone else was still eating, but she doesn’t always understand—”
“There’s no need to be sorry,” Jasmine said at once.
“If you’re worried about her manners, don’t be,” Matilda added merrily. “No one here has any. It’s grand.”
After the kids had come back, out of breath and laughing, and after the last of the cinnamon buns had been polished off, Sera wrangled Theo upstairs to tidy his room, which was both necessary and futile because no matter how tidy his room became under her determined eye, it always looked like someone had vomited up about a hundred socks a mere hour later.
This was normally the time in the evening when, somehow or other, everybody ended up in the living room.
The TV would be on and some of them would watch it, Matilda would get a snack, Jasmine would sew at her worktable, Nicholas would polish his armour, Theo would eat half of Matilda’s snack and finish his homework while keeping one eye on the TV, Clemmie would slink in and curl up out of sight on top of a bookshelf, someone might suggest doing a crossword, someone else might get a pack of cards out, and Sera would read or doomscroll on her phone or get in on one of the games.
Tonight, she whipped her list back out and set her mind to the restoration spell.
Luke came in after Posy had got to sleep, took one look around the room at everybody doing their own thing, looked unspeakably relieved, and came back a moment later with a big dusty book that must have come from one of the boxes Professor Walter had sent him earlier.
At eightish, as usual, Jasmine gave Theo a gentle reminder to shower, brush his teeth, and go to bed.
(“And try not to stay up too late reading again,” Sera added, also as usual.) After that, the room gradually emptied, bit by bit, until it was past ten o’clock and Jasmine, yawning, gave Sera a kiss and retired for the night.
Expecting to be the last one up, Sera was slightly taken aback to see that Luke was still on the opposite end of the sofa. He’d barely looked up from his book since he’d come in. She tilted her head to read the title on the spine. Magic, Ethics, and Law by H. A. Wincombe.
“Did you know H. A. Wincombe also wrote a book about magical folklore?” she asked.
“ The Extraordinary Handbook of Magical Tales ,” Luke said.
After everything, most of Sera’s memories of her time with the Guild hid sharp, painful thorns, but even now, thinking about The Extraordinary Handbook of Magical Tales filled her with fondness rather than hurt.
“I used to have to go to Bradford Bertram-Mogg’s winter masquerade every year,” she explained, drifting back into her past. “I imagine they’d be quite fun for an adult, but for Francesca and me, it was just a long, tedious night in uncomfortable shoes, so we’d sneak away.
She’d go to the kitchens to get extra snacks.
I’d go to the family library. The first year, I spotted The Extraordinary Handbook . The original bound manuscript.”
Luke had looked up. She was struck all over again by how obnoxiously gorgeous he was. His brow furrowed like she’d given him a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. “ That’s how you spent your night?”
“Every year,” said Sera. “Bertram-Mogg would never have allowed a book from his precious collection out of his library, so once a year, when I was there, I read The Extraordinary Handbook .” She fidgeted with her pen, considering him curiously.
“You didn’t study at the Guild, did you?
Before you worked in the library, I mean? ”
“No, I stayed home. Studied the books they sent me, sent back my assignments and progress letters, et cetera. More or less what Theo’s doing now.”
“You didn’t miss much,” Sera said. “The library’s probably the only thing. Of course, my experience wasn’t exactly the same as everybody else’s, so maybe don’t take my word for it. I was there, but I didn’t study with the other kids.”
“Not ever? What about when you practiced your spellwork?”
She could feel the thorns now. “Albert was the only one I was allowed to practice with. Duels, mostly.”
“Duels?” Luke repeated incredulously.
“Not real ones, obviously. We’d follow all the rules, ignite the circle of fire, choose recovery times, and cast our spells, but there were no stakes. No one ever got hurt.”
There was no conviction in her voice. Why would there be?
Someone had got hurt. Looking back, what Sera remembered most about those practice duels, even more than the rules and the rituals and the adrenaline rush of spellcasting, was the relentless, crushing weight of her humiliation when she lost. And she always lost. Albert would smile, pat her on the shoulder, and tell her not to worry.
You never had a chance, Sera. He was older, faster, more practiced, more powerful.
You’re good, Sera, but you’re not that good.
“I see,” Luke said evenly, and she had a feeling he did.
Clearing her throat, she sought refuge in her list. “So, um, about the restoration spell,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas?”
“I do not” came the immediate, uncompromising reply. “You know, I seem to remember that when I told you I wanted to have nothing to do with any of this, you told me the only thing you were asking of me was a translation.”
“And I meant it, I really did, but you’ve turned out to be an invaluable repository of magical knowledge!”
“You have no idea how much I’m wishing I weren’t right now,” Luke informed her. “Fine. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know. Can I get back to work now, or do you need something else first? A kidney, maybe? My firstborn?”
“I mean, if you’re offering…”
He sighed.
Table of Contents
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- Page 20 (Reading here)
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