Page 5 of Extraordinary Quests for Amateur Witches

He flipped through the pages desperately, his hands starting to shake.

He found the page he’d written last night, eyes darting over the words as dread clamped its teeth around his heart.

He willed the words not to be there as he remembered them.

There’s no way, he thought. I’m not that inept at magic that I’d…

The thought halted as he read the second stanza.

Imperceptible, barely a memory—/ To you, the only man I’ve ever loved.

Kieran’s heart plummeted. He hadn’t written a poem last night.

He’d written a curse.

After hopping off the trolley from downtown, Kieran sprinted the entire way back to the apartment.

Delilah’s a cursebreaker—she’ll know what to do, he reminded himself, narrowly avoiding an icy patch on the sidewalk as he rounded the corner to their apartment.

He tried not to think about last night as he passed the spot where he’d been attacked—yet another reminder of the fact that he was an absolutely horrid excuse for a witch.

And, apparently, an unintentional cursewriter. The thought cut like a spike directly through his ribs.

He ran even faster.

When he reached the front entrance to the building, he took the stairs two at a time. As their door came into view, he didn’t pause to notice the neat line of shoes outside. He hopped around as he pulled off his boots, throwing them down before he shoved his way inside.

“Delilah!” he cried as he burst into the living area, nearly slipping as his socks slid on the hardwood. He caught himself and added, “I fucked up so bad —”

He closed his mouth, though, as three strangers turned to facehim.

They were all sitting at the table in the dining room, steaming mugs of tea in front of them.

There were two men and a woman, and all three appeared to be around his parents’ age.

Kieran immediately recognized the golden sun-and-moon clasps that held each of their cloaks in place around their necks.

His voice died in his throat.

Why are three members of the Witches’ Council in my house?

Delilah and Briar sat side by side across the table from them, Delilah with her hand on Briar’s thigh under the table. At the sight of Kieran, Delilah perked up. Considering the sheer number of baked goods laid out on the table, she had clearly panicked.

“Oh, good, you’re home,” Delilah said. She forced a smile and gestured to the people seated at the table. “We have guests.”

“They wanna talk to you about your Calling,” Briar said, cutting to the chase.

“Right now?” Kieran blurted out before he could stop himself. He glanced at the older witches. “N-now isn’t a great time.”

“We’ll be quick,” the woman said. She stood, revealing a purple cloak with silver-threaded star details across it.

She had brown hair streaked with gray, and a pair of round glasses on her nose.

Her skin was papery pale—so much so that Kieran could see the veins in her wrists as she gestured at the other two witches.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kieran. My name is Tilda, and these are my associates, Franklin and Gerard.

We’ve come to officially give you your Calling. ”

“Apparently in big cities there isn’t a whole Calling ceremony as there is in my hometown,” Delilah explained with a shrug. “They just need two witnesses.”

“B-but I thought I still had time on my extension!” Kieran said. “You said that we had six months before…”

He trailed off, the math suddenly clicking in his head. Six months.

Exactly how long it had been since he and Briar had received their extension.

“…Oh,” he concluded. “Right. Never mind.”

Tilda nodded. “Anyway, I’m sure you’re aware of how this all works.

Despite your extension, this will function like any other Calling appointment.

We members of the Witches’ Council are here to ask you if you’d like to be assigned a task by the Council or if you’d like to pose your own.

Obviously, your case is unique in the sense that your circumstances prevented a traditional Calling up until this point, but today we’d like to change that. ”

“So, Kieran Pelumbra,” one of the men said, his voice pinching a bit on the name Pelumbra. Kieran couldn’t exactly blame him, considering the family’s recent fall from grace in the magical community. “Do you have your own task? Or would you like one assigned?”

Kieran was reeling. What was he supposed to do?

His first thought, naturally, was to propose breaking Ash’s curse.

But if he mentioned that, how would he keep it a secret that he was the one who placed it on him?

They’d take away his magic in a heartbeat if they knew—so that option was out.

But then again, if he did anything else, how would he have time to figure out how to break the curse on top of his Calling?

Unless…

Unless there was a way to end the curse without breaking it in the traditional sense.

Before he could give it more than ten seconds’ thought, Kieran met Tilda’s eyes and announced:

“I propose my own Calling task,” he said, trying and failing to keep the edge of desperation out of his voice.

“I want to create a panacea.”