Page 82 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding

“And?”

“And she’s got this nightmare of a cousin who is trying to glamour the truth out of her fiancé. So, we decided to come here to see if maybe there’s a way to prevent him from being glamoured.”

“There is nothing to prevent some glamour but allow for other glamour,” the woman said, eyeing Pandora.

“Oh, no. No, I don’t glamour him. That’s just … wrong.I just want to protect him from it in the future. It’s really gross that it can happen to him in general. But especially from my family.”

To that, the proprietor nodded.

She turned in a swoosh of coloured velvet then quickly disappeared in the maze of bookshelves, leaving Lucy and Pandora to rush to catch up, lest they lose track of her completely.

They found her standing in an L-shaped formation of glass cabinets, the contents looking slightly less ominous than the ones in the back that were glowing and pulsing and shrieking.

As Pandora drew closer, in fact, she discovered that within these glass cases there were only types of jewelry.

“He can just wear a nice little accessory and it’s all good?” Lucy asked, looking down at the jewelry but not getting too close. Because of that pesky werewolf/silver thing.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” the shopkeeper said as she unlocked one of the glass cases. “Here we go.” She produced a gold chain with a pendant hanging from it. The pendant was also gold, and bullet-shaped, with a small window in the front revealing the glass vial hidden within.

“Let me guess,” Lucy said, eyeing it. “Blood goes in there.”

“Indeed, it does.”

“Whose blood?” Pandora asked, knowing there was no way she could get any of Victor’s without him knowing. And with his studies in vampires, she really didn’t think she could risk being any more suspicious than she already was.

“Yours,” the woman said. “Given willingly. While saying a specific enchantment.”

“That’s it?” Lucy asked, almost sounding disappointed. While Pandora was thankful. Though a bit worried about how much that kind of jewelry might cost. Because she was relatively sure it wasn’t just a normal glass-vial pendant. There had to be some sort of magic forged in it.

“Most of the work is already done,” the woman said, flexing her fingers as if she was the one to imbue it with magic. She probably had been.

“Will it work immediately?” Pandora asked. “Or is it something that has to be done on a full moon or otherwise primed?”

“The original spell was cast correctly,” the woman said. “You are simply activating it with your blood and words.”

Pandora nodded at that. “What reason could I possibly give Victor for why I’m giving him a vial of my blood?” she asked, looking at Lucy.

“Hmm,” Lucy said, squinting at the pendant. “I think if you fill it enough, you might not even be able to tell it’s blood. Will he be able to open it?” she asked the shopkeeper.

“Once it is sealed, it is sealed forever.”

“If he asks, you can just say it’s a family heirloom. I mean, the contents in it have certainly been … handed down.”

More lies.

The guilt had started to become a gnawing sensation in Pandora’s stomach that no amount of blood could satiate.

But this was for his own good.

To protect them both.

“OK,” Pandora said. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”

After shelling out a painful amount of sterling for the pendant, the shopkeeper jotted down the spell and told Pandora she should go outside under the moonlight and, with her bare feet in the earth, fill the vial and say the incantation.

“How will we know it worked?” Lucy asked.

“You will know,” the woman said.