Page 108 of Magical Mischief

Nova leaned closer, still holding my hands. “I’m going to pull it forward. Just enough to see it.”

I swallowed. My throat felt dry as old parchment. “Is that safe?”

She didn’t answer. Just pressed her thumbs to my palms and exhaled.

Then the velvet beneath us pulsed. Just once.

The stones glowed faintly. The candle sputtered, then steadied.

And suddenly I wasn’t looking at Nova anymore.

Something else looked through her eyes.

It wasn’t a possession, not exactly. She was still there. But layered like someone had slipped on her skin for a moment to say something without speaking.

And what I felt from that presence wasn’t evil.

It waswild.

Untethered.

Cold in places, hot in others. Curious, like she’d said. And watching me not from across the room, butwithinthe folds of the magic surrounding us.

Nova’s fingers twitched.

“Show me,” she whispered.

Not to me. Toit.

The smoke from the dish curled again, then stretched, rising higher. It formed a shape…narrow, indistinct, but not human. A long neck, thin shoulders. A suggestion of limbs.

No eyes.

Just awareness.

It hovered between us, then leaned toward Nova.

And that’s when she gasped.

It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t dread.

It wasdelight.

Pure, sharp, startled delight.

Nova’s head tipped back slightly, eyes wide, a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth like a secret she’d never dared to hope might be true.

“I can’t believe it,” she breathed.

When Nova’s breath left her lips, the velvet beneath us went cold.

Not cold like winter air or a breeze from the window, this was older, deeper. Like the air remembered something it hadn’t felt in a long time. I could feel it through the soles of my boots, then my knees, then up into my ribs. It hummed there, low and strange. Not painful. Just… foreign.

The smoke from the little copper bowl began to twist tighter, spinning inward like it was winding around an invisible thread. The glow from the crystals dimmed slightly.

I blinked, but the shadows stayed. The shop walls bowed around us the way a dream shrinks the edges of a room. The space grew smaller, not claustrophobic, but concentrated. Thick with something unseen.

Nova’s grip on my hands shifted. Her fingers locked tighter around mine. Her mouth moved again, whispering words brushing against the air like threads tugging loose.