Page 2 of Extraordinary Quests for Amateur Witches
“Of course your replacement for fruit is chocolate,” Delilah said with a laugh.
She bent down and kissed Briar on the mouth, all tenderness.
The tension that had been in Briar’s shoulders melted away, and she made a faint, contented sound as she wrapped her arms around Delilah.
Delilah lifted Briar off the ground, setting her on the counter and deepening their kiss.
This continued for a long, painful second before Kieran interrupted: “So, did you need me to put those groceries away, or…?”
The girls broke apart, Briar blushing while Delilah giggled and tucked a loose curl that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear.
“Sorry, Kier,” Delilah said.
“Consider it payback for the last time I caught you and Ash on the couch.” Briar snickered. She hopped off the counter and went back to the groceries, pulling things out of the brown paper bag and passing them to Delilah. “How is he, anyway? Haven’t seen him around in a few weeks.”
If there had been anything left of Kieran’s good mood, it vanished. The last thing he wanted to talk about after Sylvia’s confrontation this morning was Ash. Sure, he knew their relationship wasn’t exactly…perfect, per se, but what relationship was?
Theirs, muttered a deeply unhelpful voice in Kieran’s head as his eyes went from his sister to Delilah.
Kieran sighed through his nose. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for them—of all the people he knew, Briar and Delilah may well be the most deserving of an easy, loving partnership after what they’d been through.
Both had seen themselves as doomed by their respective family curses—Briar cursed to siphon Kieran’s magic away until it killed him and turned her into a monster, Delilah to never find true love.
The fact that they’d found each other and broken each other’s curses was something of a miracle.
Plus, seeing his sister and his best friend so happy together was genuinely wonderful.
It was the kind of love people wrote poetry about and used to decorate the pages of storybooks. Warm, patient, and understanding.
And despite himself, for all that he loved the two of them, it made Kieran wildly, painfully jealous.
Not that he’d ever admit it out loud. Those feelings were reserved for the poetry he penned late at night in his poorly insulated, too-cold bedroom, wrapped in layers upon layers of blankets like a fabric cocoon.
He’d found it was a good way to distract himself from the sound of the girls’ giggling make-out sessions, which the paper-thin walls did little to dampen.
The kind of sessions he rarely had with Ash anymore. But that, again, wasn’t something he’d say out loud. Some feelings, he thought, worked better as poetry.
“Ash has been a bit, ah, busy—but we’re actually meeting up for dinner tonight downtown,” Kieran explained, doing his best to keep the smile on his face. “He wants to talk to me about something.”
Delilah gasped. “He does? What do you think it is? Moving in together?”
“Oh—um—it’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”
Briar scoffed, jabbing a thumb in Delilah’s direction. “Are you forgetting we rented this place after being together for, oh, a month and a half?”
“Your love broke two ancient curses within a few weeks of each other,” Kieran argued. “Your timeline is a little different from that of most relationships.”
Briar and Delilah exchanged a look. Delilah said, “That’s…a fair point. Regardless, I’m sure it’ll be something exciting. I’ll buy us champagne to celebrate when you get home.”
“Tell him we say hi,” Briar agreed.
“Will do.” Kieran stood up from the couch, shaking out his blond curls where they hung around his shoulders. “I’ll be in my room getting ready if you need me.”
With that, he left, doing his best to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut.
Later that evening, Kieran pulled his royal-blue scarf tighter around his face as he hustled down the street in the direction of the restaurant Ash had invited him to.
The golden skyscrapers of Gellingham framed him on either side, creating something of a wind tunnel.
The snow had gone from a light dusting to a flurry of fat flakes that stuck to Kieran’s eyelashes as he hunched to avoid the wind.
He was used to snow, generally speaking—the Pelumbra family’s estate was located high in the Slicetooth Mountains, which meant he’d seen a lot of snow in his childhood—but that didn’t mean he liked it.
The yellow glow of the streetlights guided him to a little hole-in-the-wall shop promising Piping-Hot Ramen and Cheap Meat Skewers , according to the wooden signs hanging outside. Kieran shouldered the door open, stepping inside along with a gust of snowy wind.
A few people crowded around small tables glanced up at him, including Ash, who sat at a table in the far back of the restaurant.
He stood from his chair and waved Kieran over.
Kieran shrugged off his coat as he crossed the slightly sticky floor past the chef, who was in the midst of laying out bowls of steaming ramen on the counter for the waitstaff to grab.
The walls were decorated with colorful graffiti, some seemingly done professionally while other bits had clearly been drawn by patrons.
The whole place smelled of grilling meat and spices, and it made Kieran’s mouth water.
Ash offered Kieran a shaky smile as he came to the table and draped his peacoat over the back of his chair.
Ash Bartelle was nineteen, a slim boy with warm brown skin and eyes like wildflower honey.
His tight curls had been shaved short since the last time they’d seen each other, exposing his high cheekbones.
He’d elected to wear his glasses that evening and was still dressed in his classic witch’s robes from his job at the Library of Curses.
“I was worried you got lost in the storm,” Ash said, squeezing Kieran’s arm. Kieran instinctively began to lean in to give him a peck on the cheek, but Ash pulled away at the last moment, playing it off by adding, “I was about to send a search party.”
Kieran’s throat tightened. It’s probably nothing. He just wants a little more space today, I’m sure. Or he’s worried he smells bad or something—I’m overthinking it.
Kieran unwound his scarf from his neck while he shrugged. “I’m still getting the hang of navigating around here. But the snow didn’t help, in my defense.”
Ash laughed at that, but as Kieran sat down, he couldn’t help but notice how Ash’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Kieran’s grin drooped. When Ash had mentioned meeting up to chat about something important, Kieran had done his best not to overthink.
Which, of course, had led to a night of tossing and turning in bed and having to put his head between his knees to keep from hyperventilating.
Suddenly, that anxious energy that had stuck to his ribs the night before solidified into a noticeable weight in his chest.
A few minutes later, a waiter stopped by and took their order, barely giving Kieran time to pick a random item off the menu.
Once he’d left, Ash ran a hand back over his buzzed hair, as if trying to steady himself.
“So, um,” he began, “it’s been a little while since I saw you last. Anything…
exciting going on?” Kieran stared down into the tiny clay cup of jasmine tea that Ash had poured for him, watching a few loose leaves float around inside.
“She’s been working on creating a version of ledrith for defensive magic instead of offensive, and the Council was really impressed.
She passed, obviously. Not that anyone’s surprised. ”
“That’s— Wow. Really incredible.” Ash blinked, seemingly a little taken aback. “It’s not often you hear about witches creating entirely new forms of spellcasting, especially when it comes to something like combat dance.”
Kieran shrugged, forcing a smile. “Well, you know my sister. She’s, ah…better at magic than most.”
Better than me, certainly, he stopped himself from saying.
“And what about your Calling?” Ash asked. “Have you decided what you’re doing?”
Kieran tensed. Ash had been asking about that since Kieran moved to Gellingham.
Because both Kieran’s and Briar’s existence had been a secret up until recently, the Witches’ Council had granted them an extension on their Callings, the magical test they needed to pass to legally wield magic in Celdwyn.
Naturally, Briar’s Calling only took a week to complete instead of the usual six months, as she’d planned it out for months beforehand.
Since then, she’d been planning to join a ledrith gym in hopes of teaching her techniques to other witches.
Which was all fine and good, of course. But it didn’t make Kieran feel any better about the fact that his extension was about to run out and he still had no idea how to prove that he was worthy of being a witch.
Kieran rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Uh. Well—you know my poetry? I—I was thinking maybe I could write a book of poems and they’d all be different spells. So people could pick a different poem and get a little enchantment for whatever they need that day.”
“Oh!” Ash smiled, but his mouth seemed a bit lopsided and there was a wrinkle in his forehead. “That sounds…nice.”
Kieran nearly winced. He’d shown Ash a few of his poems in the past, and the reception had been…
tepid. There’d been a lot of polite nodding and suggestions for other poets to check out to help “hone the craft” in a way that was, perhaps, a bit less “melodramatic”—all Ash’s words, of course.
Kieran didn’t know what he was talking about.
His writing was raw. It was evocative. He’d just figured Ash’s taste was different from his.
Kieran crossed his arms and sank a little lower in his seat. “I’m still brainstorming.”