Page 23 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

23

Sondre

“This was the plan?” Sondre thundered at Maggie as soon as they were alone. “Court trouble in the middle of the damn castle?”

She stepped back. “I warned you.”

“At least practice a little subterfuge, woman. The junkie—”

“Who?” Maggie interjected.

“The leech trying to ruin Monahan’s life here.” Sondre scowled.

“Oh. Axell and Dan said you dislike him,” Maggie said quietly.

“Monahan could be someone. He’s powerful in ways you don’t even—”

“He amplifies magic,” Maggie said levelly. “If memory serves, he amplified some healing magic and then Axell and Dr. Jemison and I all got off at once?”

“You remember that?” Sondre stared at her for a moment. Then he frowned before he realized what she’d done.

“No. I don’t. Why is that, dear?” She crossed her arms and eyed him like he was a monster.

He had the sense to look away and mutter, “He’s an attractive man. I’m older, and you… he…”

Maggie slapped his arm harder than a tap but not enough to actually hurt. “You idiot. I’m with you.”

“I had an insecure moment when Prospero was—” He gestured at her head. “—meddling around in there. I want you to only want me.”

She stared at him like he was a slug. “Don’t ever do something like that again. I’ll make you regret meeting me if you try to control me, Sondre.”

He nodded once.

Then he felt a tug, a certainty that he knew was magic in the other world summoning him. “I need to go. I’m going to drop Craig off for fresh air while I’m away.”

“What?”

“Craig, let’s go,” he called. “We were on our way over so Hestia and Craig could bond. Remember? Then you… a hob told me you were being reckless… and now the escapees.” He pulled her in and kissed her soundly. “Sorry I was a fool, Maggie. You can yell at me in a bit.” He glanced around the room. “Craig! Now!”

Then he grabbed the boy’s arm and teleported, landing in an open-air shopping center where Prospero and Hestia Brandeau were waiting. Around them were fountains, seating areas, and plants. That told Sondre that they were in California or the Southwest.

“Slower than usual,” Prospero said, surveying him. “Hestia is already inside for the car.”

“Five minutes later isn’t slow.” Sondre watched as Craig looked around with a wide grin.

“Where are we?”

“Los Angeles,” Sondre said mildly.

“Amazing,” Craig whispered. “I’ve never been.”

Although he was never entirely at ease with her, Sondre paced through a shopping center with Prospero and Craig.

He’d be safer if he were a witch. Sondre had qualms about sending the boy to school, to live with Hestia Brandeau, but it was safer and more sustainable long term.

And I can’t shove him into traffic and hope he has latent magic! That thought had actually occurred to Sondre when Maggie had started crying the morning prior.

“You know she’ll rent some old-lady car,” Craig muttered as Hestia waved over her shoulder from inside the rental office.

“Hestia?” Prospero scoffed. “We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t rent a motorbike.”

Craig looked back at her with renewed interest as they waited for Hestia—who was still inside the car-rental center—to finish the paperwork at the desk. Part of Craig’s excitement seemed to be from the game currently on the television. Obviously, Sondre had seen televisions from time to time when he was fetching a newly awakened witch, but he hadn’t watched one. When he’d become a witch in the 1950s, half the homes had televisions. His was one of them. Most were still black-and-white, but color sets were starting to filter out to the public. Now? They were in vibrant color, and major sporting events were broadcast live even in the lobbies of shops. It was easy to see why people missed these when they came to Crenshaw.

Before he could ask any questions, Hestia came outside, holding a set of car keys. “Convertible. Want a driving lesson?”

“No!” Sondre looked at her. “He’s just a child.”

“Asshole,” Craig muttered.

“Oh, the horrors.” Hestia patted her purse, where she currently had three thousand dollars, donated by Sondre’s wife. “Should we spend it all on booze and horse races since Mr. Cranky Pants won’t let me teach you to drive? What do you think, Craggy?”

“Aunt Hestia,” Craig groaned, but he nudged her gently with his shoulder. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

Hestia cackled. “Should’ve brought the girls instead. Mags and Ellie would be more fun than any of you.”

Sondre glanced at them. Honestly, Craig rarely smiled this much. For a moment, Sondre actually liked Prospero, because she looked at Craig and asked, “Maybe, but would they enjoy a Major League Baseball game?”

“No way!”

“You know your mom can’t come, and I need to handle this problem, so I thought it might be a good idea and…” Sondre shrugged as Hestia pulled the tickets out of her purse. Honestly, Sondre wished he could go—both to see the game and to try to bond with his stepson.

“Stay out of trouble,” Prospero said. “Both of you.”

“Spoilsport,” Hestia muttered.

“I will,” Craig promised. “Thank you, Auntie P.”

“Don’t thank me,” she countered. “It wasn’t my idea.” Prospero nodded toward Sondre.

“Oh… err, sorry about the asshole remark, Sondre.” Craig gave him a sheepish look.

“If the worst thing you do this week is call me a name, we’ll be fine,” Sondre said, thinking about finding the boy in a bar drinking with a pair of badgers two days ago.

Prospero added, “And I was talking mostly to you, Hestia. Stay out of trouble.”

“I’ll look after her,” Craig said, sounding far more mature than usual.

For a moment, Sondre wondered if he ought to hug the boy or something. What was normal dad behavior here? But then Hestia pointed at the lot and the two went off in search of their rental car.

“They’ll be fine. If she’s going to raise him, this will be a good test,” Prospero said quietly. She motioned for Sondre to follow her. “And we have a target.”

As soon as Prospero and Sondre turned the corner of the car-rental building, Prospero’s lighthearted demeanor shifted to more serious. The Victorian witch took his hand, and in the next moment, they were standing in an alcove near a busy area with what looked like several dozen shop fronts. There was a store selling only sunglasses, another looked like a penny-candy store, a third was a two-story bookstore. A fountain and benches and… fake grass lined the space in front of the stores, and across from them was yet another series of shops. One seemed to have mannequins wearing all manners of undergarments.

“Those have certainly changed, haven’t they?” Sondre gestured. “I have seen some of the newer ones when—” He stopped himself. Discussing undergarments with Prospero wasn’t normal, even as their lives had grown entangled.

We aren’t friends. She was the woman he’d thought of as evil for several decades. He could admit that he was wrong about her on several points, but that was as far as he could adapt. Not friends.

“We may have to stop in there.” Prospero’s pale face was tinged red, even though her expression was blank. “For research.”

Sondre broke out in a loud laugh and said, “We’re still not friends, but maybe you aren’t entirely evil.”

“The jury is still out on that,” Prospero murmured.

Before he could reply, a badger darted out of the underwear store behind a woman who was carrying a bright-pink bag. As the woman scurried away from the store, the badger ran in the opposite direction, a pair of stockings trailing behind the furry mustelid like a plume of smoke. A scream came from the same store.

“Found one,” Prospero muttered, before taking off into the panty store.

At the doorway, she dropped something tiny on the floor, but Sondre didn’t pause to see what it was. The floor was a veritable field of silk and lace and whatever else these things were made out of. Reds, blacks, whites, pinks, and a surprising number of blues littered the floor like a frippery truck had exploded.

Prospero was wading through the stuff. A pair of polka-dotted trans lucent knickers had snagged on the buckle of her boot. It waved like a woman’s fluttering hankie as she marched into the lacy morass.

Inside, people were popping into badgers all over the store. Other badgers rolled around in the bright and pastel clouds of fabric. Several badgers were panicking.

A witch called Jenn was standing in the middle of the store with her eyes wide. She looked over at him in shock. “Sondre? What are you doing here?” Jenn paused and glanced from Sondre to Prospero. “With her ?”

“Bringing you home.” Sondre stared at the dozen or so badgers running around inside the store. No one was able to open the door, so they were captives here. One badger was a baby, still wearing the tiny cap it had on as a human child. “Look what you’re doing, Jenn.”

“I didn’t mean to badger anyone!” Jenn folded her hands together. She looked around, as if expecting to find a way past them. It was foolishness. Prospero was not a witch to underestimate, and everyone in Crenshaw knew that.

Not that I’m a pushover, Sondre thought, but I guess she sees me that way because I put up with Aggie’s ego.

“Don’t make this hard.” Sondre stared at Jenn, knowing the futility of his request even as he spoke the words. Jenn was one of those overly officious people who carried her self-righteousness with her like a cloak. She decided that she wanted to keep her magic and be in the world she’d left behind for Crenshaw.

“I don’t see why this has to be a big deal.…” Jenn smiled her plastic smile.

“Magic in this world has consequences.” Prospero sighed loudly. “It’s like you’ve ignored everything I’ve said about this for the last decade… or you’re stupid. Is that it, Jenn? Stupidity? Or arrogance?”

“You just wanted to keep us under your control.” Jenn glared across the sea of badgers and lacy clothes. “I had a career over here. Now? I’m nothing.”

“Sure, perpetual health, long life, and magic are such a burden.” Prospero couldn’t have sounded less sympathetic.

Jenn made a crude gesture in reply. Then she smiled an ugly smile. “Well, you can’t use magic over here without breaking your own rules, so what are you going to do? Those rules don’t apply to me now. I’m free of—”

“I can erase your memory,” Prospero interrupted. “Slip inside your head and fix—”

“Fuck you.” Jenn closed her eyes, scrunching her face up as if she had to fold everything tightly together. “You cannot. Not if I don’t cooperate. Aggie warned all of us. I’ll keep my eyes sh—”

“And where is dear Agnes?” Prospero said in a low, calm voice, as she stepped closer to Jenn, not quite touching her.

Sondre looked at the two women, and then he scanned the store. The only other people in the store were badgers. A veritable crowd of badgers ran amuck in the piles of panties. They were obviously panicked and afraid. Sondre wasn’t sure how to unbadger the people, but they couldn’t be left here in this state. “Are all of the badgers nonwitches?”

“Yes.” Jenn turned her back to them and presumably opened her eyes, because she was weaving between racks of clothes as she tried to escape. The only way to not slip on the silken mess or run into a rack was to have her eyes open.

For a moment, Prospero stayed still, as if she couldn’t quite believe Jenn’s audacity. Sondre watched them briefly, but then he saw two badgers start to roll around in some sort of tussle.

“Do you honestly think I was unprepared?” Prospero asked quietly. She was striding through the silk and lace piles on the floor fast enough to set the frilly things to flight a few times.

Without missing a step, Prospero flung a tiny stone at Jenn, hitting her in the calf. At impact, the stone released a spell, and Jenn crumpled to the floor with a scream.

Sondre looked at Prospero with a measure of surprise. “Spell stones?”

She glanced back at him and gave a solitary nod. “I will not commit the same crimes I’m here to stop, Sondre. I packed supplies.”

“Do you want me to grab her?” He watched as the witch on the floor continued to flee slowly. Jenn was now crawling toward the door, dragging her injured leg but still moving with impressive speed. She was almost to the door.

“She’s not going anywhere but back to Crenshaw,” Prospero announced coolly. She was always so damned calm about everything. It made him want to ruffle her feathers.

“Should’ve hit the knee,” Sondre muttered.

Although Prospero shot him a scathing look, she didn’t reply. Instead, she turned back to Jenn and marched after the crawling woman.

“Can’t teleport, huh?” Prospero taunted, nudging the fractured leg. “Maybe you could stop trying to get away…? It’s pointless.”

“Bitch.” Jenn was almost at the door. She pulled herself upright on a rack of nightgowns that were more decorative than functional.

Prospero pulled out another stone and rolled it in her fingers. “I don’t feel like chasing you, Jenn. Stop, or else I’ll—”

Sondre tackled Jenn. His patience had expired, so he wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her to his chest. She squirmed and kicked at him with her unbroken leg, but Sondre held her tightly. “Stop it. Do you really want to give her an excuse to keep tossing spells at you? I’m trying to keep you uninjured.”

Jenn opened her mouth to reply.

Prospero slapped her palm—the one holding the stone in it—against Jenn’s mouth.

“Wait!” Sondre started, but it was too late. The spell in the stone was instant. Jenn went limp like she had no pulse. The sudden drop made him feel like he was holding an unwieldy sack of beans.

He lowered the escapee to the ground and looked up at Prospero. “What was that?”

“Sleep stone.” She shot Sondre a glare. “I wasn’t going to let her get away. Just chase her for a minute. I had plenty of stones for if she fought back.”

He glared back at Prospero as he straightened. “Sadist.”

“They shot Scylla.” Prospero jabbed a finger into his shoulder. “They risked our whole world. I’m not a sadist, Sondre. I’m angry. ”

Sondre had no retort for that. It wasn’t like he was opposed to justice. Hell, he was in Aggie’s house. Jenn was in his house, too. It hit him then that his reactions were altered by that very reality.

“She’s part of my house,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “I want to protect her because… I’m assuming the head-of-house responsibility.”

“I know.” Prospero looked weary. “I wondered if that would make you less likely to do anything to stop her. Allan’s not in yours, though, and Aggie’s no longer in any house. That ought to help, right?”

Sondre nodded, feeling self-conscious. House loyalty was likely a factor in why Agnes’ arguments made so much sense over the years, but that detail wasn’t one he could be sure of… until Agnes had left Crenshaw. A lot had changed now that she’d abandoned House Grendel. He felt like he’d been swayed by the fact that she was, in essence, his supervisor. Agnes had been his veritable captain, his superior officer—to borrow the terms from a lifetime ago when he was in the army. And while Sondre might be adept at rabble-rousing, he was also the sort of man who gave respect where it was due.

How am I going to fight Agnes after years of obeying her?

He didn’t want to. He’d always found the churlish old witch fascinating.

Focus on the issue at hand.

One task at a time, one disaster in a moment: that was how he managed everything. Well, that, and the occasional bar fight or tumble into bed with a willing woman. Just Maggie these days. He’d thought that having a wife would be limiting, but he had to admit that he felt centered by marrying Maggie rather than resentful. Deal with this. Go home to Maggie.

Sondre motioned at the now-napping badgers. They’d undoubtedly gone into shock at the fact that they were all tiny, furred mammals. The mind could be tricky when magic was involved and a person didn’t believe in magic. “The badgers should revert to human form after we take Jenn out of here. I think… I’ve never seen accidental badgering, though.”

Prospero ignored the clan of badgers and the comment. She stood looking down at Jenn with a deep scowl. “I wish I was surprised that the escapees didn’t all stay together. This makes it harder. I hoped we could just scoop them all up at once, but… this complicates everything.”

“You think?” Sondre couldn’t dwell on it long without worrying. As of the last four days, they’d discovered that there were at least seven witches—six now that they’d recovered Jenn—who had left Crenshaw. Three were heads of house. One, Agnes, had been his head of house.

“I’ll need to look around in Jenn’s head when we get her home. I’ll take her to the Congress building for that, so you can skip seeing it.” Prospero folded her arms over her chest. They’d argued for years about what her magic did to people’s minds, and Sondre had his share of worries there since he’d learned how often she’d messed with his own head.

“So the magic of their house leaks out when they’re here.” Sondre swallowed, thinking through the ramifications. “Aside from massive fields of badgers, what does that mean? Aggie is violent. And Allan is… a drunkard?”

“So fights because of Aggie and intoxication because of Allan? Maybe.”

Sondre didn’t think that was the worst possible scenario, by far, but he hoped it was no more than that.

“With the barrier down, I don’t know if the area near home is at risk, either. Will our collective magic harm those nonmagical people nearest Crenshaw, too?” Prospero stared upward as if praying or seeking clarity.

At the same time, Sondre took in the disaster around them. How had we been so wrong? The effect of magic on regular people was a messy, dangerous thing. Maybe over time it would normalize, but right now, it looked like the admonishments were true. Witches needed to stay home.

“Jenn’s done, though. That’s two of four contained,” Prospero said in what felt like a forced cheer.

“What will happen to them?” Sondre asked. “Did Walt say anything to you?”

“Likely siphoned in Jenn’s case. She’s not happy in Crenshaw, so…” Prospero shrugged, looking away at the wrecked store. “We’ll siphon her and return her to this world somewhere. She’s been over in ours… I don’t know how long.”

“About five years?” Sondre guessed. “She could probably go back to her original life.”

“Aggie can’t. Allan, either.” Prospero looked exhausted for a moment. “I wish I’d been wrong, Sondre. We can’t keep the magic and come back here to live, though.”

“So maybe we ought to ask everyone about their desire to stay or go.” Sondre followed her toward the counter. If he had been so very wrong about the ability to return to this world, he was going to find ways to mitigate the problems in Crenshaw.

“Suggest it to Congress. I won’t oppose that idea.” Prospero had pulled out a stack of cash. She smacked the cash register a few times and jabbed buttons until she managed to get the drawer open. Once she did, she dropped the pile of money in it.

“For damages and… a few purchases.” Then she grabbed a couple bags and started collecting underwear and robes and whatnot. Without looking at him, she said, “You should grab a few things. I bought these for everyone back home.”

“Maggie’s about your size,” Sondre said awkwardly. “Do you know what size that is in… these things?”

Prospero’s cheeks were as red as the sheer thing she picked up. “This one.”

After a few moments, he said, “This is a little weird. Shopping with you when there’s badgers everywhere and… Jenn’s like that.”

Prospero took an audible breath before saying, “If we’re sharing feelings… Ellie’s remembering things. I’m concerned.”

The hurried way that Prospero said it was the biggest clue that this was, in truth, another crisis to contend with. The magic that Elleanor Brandeau had was both impressive and deadly, and when she’d escaped, she’d had to have her memory erased.

“I thought once you did that to someone’s head, it stayed changed,” Sondre said awkwardly.

“Correct.”

“Well, you’re fucked, aren’t you?” Sondre glanced over at Prospero. The woman who had casually broken Jenn’s leg was currently looking at a drawer of underwear with open crotches.

“Not the only one she’ll be angry with,” Prospero said. “I thought you deserved a warning.”

“That’s incredibly… nice of you,” Sondre said awkwardly.

She snorted. Then she tossed a pair of panties at him. Sondre caught the slip of sheer material reflexively.

“Still not friends?” she asked as she looked back at him.

Sondre shook his head. “Damned if I know anymore.”