Enchanted Ever After

by Shanna Swendson

  There were times when I thought it wasn’t worth the effort and I should go a more normal route, but the magic wasn’t costing anything, and if you’re marrying a wizard, you need to get into the spirit of things. Besides, I had enough real-world stuff to deal with for the blessing ceremony we were having back home, and we were too close to the New York wedding to have time to arrange it without magic.

  It helped somewhat that Owen’s detail-oriented, and he actually cared about this stuff, so for the most part, I was able to get away with saying, “Oh, I don’t know, something like that,” and he would narrow it down to the specifics, then ask my approval. But even without having to make all the decisions, I still had to look at flowers, centerpieces, cakes, and catering menus. We also had to audition bands.

  I’ve never really been a “going out” person. Even as a college student, I didn’t hit the bar or club scene. Owen’s more of a homebody than I am, so most of our hot dates involve takeout and a movie on TV. But listening to bands meant going to bars, and since the bands who could play at a magical wedding had to be magical bands, I was about to get a good look at the magical bar scene. I’d been to a couple of magical parties, so I’d been putting off this task as long as possible, to the point where we’d be lucky to find someone decent who wasn’t already booked. If you think normal people can be obnoxious when they get drunk and lower their inhibitions, just imagine what magical people are like. Things can get pretty hairy.

  I secretly hoped something might happen to keep me from having to deal with finding a band, like maybe a meteor strike or someone handing us a demo CD from the perfect band that was looking for gigs. But a couple of weeks after the bridal brawl, Owen said on the way to work, “Do you have plans tonight?”

  “You mean other than sweatpants, pizza, a movie, and Gemma’s binder?”

  “This is an item from Gemma’s binder.”

  I groaned. “No, not picking a band.”

  “It’s one of the few things we haven’t done yet, and we can’t just poof one into existence. Though I did research whether that might be possible.”

  “What about those self-playing magical instruments, like we had at that customer event last summer?”

  “That’s probably what we’ll do for the ceremony, and maybe for the dinner part of the reception, but we’ll need something people can dance to later.”

  “There has to be dancing?”

  “People do expect it.”

  “They can’t just send us CDs to listen to?”

  “Do you really want someone you’ve only heard on a recording playing at your wedding? You won’t know how they look or act. Or what kind of magic they use.”

  That made me worry about something else. “Jake didn’t give you the list of groups to consider, did he?”

  “No! Rod did. In fact, he and Marcia are going to join us.” Rod was Owen’s best friend going all the way back to childhood, and he’d started dating Marcia not too long after I got into the magical world. He was a notorious Lothario, though he’d reformed somewhat after more than a year with Marcia. Still, such a ladies’ man could be expected to have a decent list of musicians likely to impress people, even if it was about a year out of date.

  “What time? And how much will I have to dress up?” I asked, grudgingly.

  “The set starts at nine, and Rod said nice, but not formal.”

  “So I’ll have time for a short nap.” And I’d need a wardrobe consultation with Gemma because “nice but not formal” was the kind of fashion gray area that made me break out in a cold sweat of indecision. For a split second, I started to think that having a fairy godmother around to provide me with the perfect outfit would be nice, but then I remembered the mayhem she’d caused when I’d had one and shut that thought down before it ran the risk of summoning her.

  It turned out that Gemma and her boyfriend, Philip, who’d spent about a century as a frog (long story) and was therefore rather old-fashioned, were also joining us. I felt bad about leaving Nita out, but she was working, and I had no idea what a magical nightclub would be like and whether it would be safe to bring her along. She didn’t even know I was having a wedding in New York, though she was the maid of honor for the one back home.

  This wedding was turning out to be so complicated.

  With six of us, we couldn’t fit into one cab, but Rod had arranged for a limo. “We might as well impress them by arriving in style,” he said as he poured a glass of champagne once we were all in the limo. He looked quite suave, even to me. Rod isn’t naturally the most attractive guy, and he habitually uses an illusion to make himself handsome. That was one of the first things that proved my magical immunity. Every woman on the subway had drooled over him, while I found him extremely unattractive. Since then, he’s done better about taking care of himself, so while he’ll never be as stunningly handsome as Owen is, his charming personality combined with his unique features to make him really quite appealing.

  I haven’t always had great experiences in limousines. There was the time that fairy godmother more or less kidnapped Owen and me and sent us off on a terrible fancy date in a limo, and then there was the way I had to be driven to and from work during my latest undercover assignment. It sounds like a perk, but it was all about controlling me and keeping me from knowing where the office actually was. As a result, instead of enjoying the luxury, I tensed up.

  Rod handed me the glass of champagne he’d just poured. “Here, you look like you need this more than I do.”

  Owen put his arm around me. “You can see out the windows in this one,” he said softly, revealing that he knew exactly what I’d been thinking. I leaned against him, and between the champagne and the warmth of his proximity, I felt almost relaxed by the time we reached the club.

  The place just looked like a nightclub to me, but Gemma said, “Do they play concerts after hours at stationery stores?” as we approached the entrance.

  “Trust me,” Rod said. He nodded to the man standing just inside the door as we entered.

  “Oh, it’s a nightclub in disguise,” Gemma said once we were inside the club itself.

  I didn’t know what to expect of a magical nightclub—maybe something like the cantina in Star Wars, with a band made up of alien creatures playing to a crowd of strange people drinking oddly colored drinks. I wasn’t too far off the mark, only instead of aliens, they were magical races—human wizards, along with fairies, elves, gnomes, and a few things I couldn’t identify. I leaned over to Gemma and whispered, “Does all this look weird to you?”

  “Yeah. It’s like Halloween, except it’s not October.”

  That meant the magical people weren’t veiling their appearance. I supposed that was the point of a magical nightclub. They could go there and be themselves without having to fit into the human world. I wondered what it must be like, having to change your appearance in public. They could do veiling spells that only worked on ordinary people, so they looked like themselves to magical folk or to people like me, but still, I wondered if it ever rankled. If anyone had a good reason to want magic to be more open, it might be those like elves and fairies. On the other hand, as Trix had said, there was also the chance that people would want to study them or treat them as something less than human. I made a mental note to talk to some of my fairy and elf friends about this.

  But I wasn’t here to work. I was here to find a band to play at my wedding. Drinks magically appeared on our table, and there was a light show just below the ceiling to accompany the recorded music playing while we waited for the band.

  When the music stopped and the lights dimmed, an expectant hush filled the bar. At first glance, the band that took the stage didn’t look any different from what you might see at your typical Greenwich Village jazz club. But then I noticed the ears. They were elves, which meant things could get very interesting.

  Instead of guitars, they had harps of various sizes and shapes. There was a drum kit made out of different kinds of gourds, and the guy at the edge of th
e stage had a rack of several flutes, from the typical one like what I’d played in high-school band to something that looked like it had been swiped from Peter Pan.

  The flautist played a note, and the others tuned their harps to it—that is, they plucked strings that were already perfectly in tune. They were just showing off. Elves made humans with perfect pitch look tone deaf. They could probably look at those harps and know whether or not they were in tune.

  And then they started playing. I’m not sure what I’d call their music. It defied genre classification. The harps and flutes gave it a Celtic air, but at the same time, there was a definite groove going on. One of the harps was essentially a string bass with a more haunting sound, and the “drummer” kept a driving beat going on those gourds. Then there were the vocals. An elf singing could make people cry. The sound was crystal clear, and you felt as much as heard it. When they sang together in tight, complex harmonies, it was breathtaking.

  After the first song, Marcia turned to me, tears in her eyes. “You have got to have them play for your wedding,” she said.

  Gemma gripped my arm and whispered, “Please stop me before I throw my underwear on the stage.”

  “It’s elfsong. It’s magic,” I explained. “I mean, it’s really, really good music, but the music does something to you.”

  “They must not sell a lot of drinks here when these guys play, because who needs alcohol? This is like a drug.”

  That made me wonder whether this was what we wanted for our wedding. I leaned over and whispered to Owen, “Aren’t there some risks involved with having an elf band?”

  But the music was starting again, and he gestured for me to be quiet. It seemed that I was the only one in the bar who was immune to their music. I did like the sound, but the effect on me was like any other good music. It made me sigh a little, and I could imagine listening to a CD of this on repeat, but I wasn’t as blissed-out as everyone else here. The entire club seemed to be mesmerized.

  As I looked around the room to see how the other patrons were acting, I did a double take when I thought I recognized the “puppy” from the bus. If he was with an anti-magic watchdog group, what was he doing in a magic club, grooving to elfsong? He was sitting next to another clean-cut young white guy. I’d never seen a good image of the bus wizard’s face, but this could have been him. Maybe. Then again, both of them were nondescript enough that I couldn’t be sure. Definitely not sure enough to confront them. I tried to memorize their features without staring for so long that they’d notice me. Then again, as wrapped up as they were in the music, I could probably have crawled into their laps without them paying any attention to me.

  When I turned back to the stage, I found myself looking right at the lead singer. Apparently, he’d noticed that I wasn’t enraptured, and he was the kind of artist who’ll ignore hundreds of favorable reviews to fixate on the one “meh.” He began singing directly to me, making intense eye contact as he sang. Next to me, Gemma moaned and sank lower in her seat. I smiled at him and nodded as I sipped my drink and wondered how I’d ordered another. I hadn’t even thought about needing a fresh drink, and here one was.

  By the end of the set, I was afraid I’d have to drag my friends and fiancé out of there. It would be like getting sailors past sirens. These elves could probably have made anyone in that room—other than me—do anything they wanted. I imagined they had more than the usual number of groupies. When they left the stage, sobs broke out among the audience.

  “Yeah, no,” I said to Owen. “If they’ve got CDs for sale, I want one, but I’d rather not have my wedding guests turned into blissed-out zombies by the band. That music probably counts as a controlled substance. If you’ll notice, no one is dancing. We’re hiring a dance band, aren’t we?”

  He shook his head like he was trying to clear it and picked up and drained the drink he’d forgotten about. “Maybe there’s a way to shield the audience a bit, let some of the effect slip through, but without anyone losing it completely.”

  “Or we could listen to some more bands.”

  Marcia leaned across the table and grabbed my hand. “No, you have to hire them. Please?”

  “And I think we need to get out of here so the rest of you can sober up,” I said.

  Gemma made a little whimpering noise in the back of her throat and I turned to see the lead singer approaching our table, a drink in his hand. “Are you enjoying the show?” he asked in a softly accented voice. His close-cropped hair made his pointed ears stand out even more.

  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard,” Gemma said. “Can I go home with you?” Philip elbowed her.

  “I never want to hear any other music, ever,” Marcia sobbed.

  “It’s really good,” I said. He flinched, and I decided to take pity on him. “Sorry, magical immune. The whammy doesn’t work on me. But I do like the music, even without it.”

  He gave a big, relieved grin. “Oh, that explains it. It was so weird looking out into the audience and seeing someone who wasn’t as into it as everyone else was. I thought something was wrong.”

  He came across as awkward and a little shy, wincing when people came up to him just to touch him and bask in his presence. I decided he wasn’t doing it to be manipulative. It was just part of performing as an elf.

  Once Owen seemed to have come completely out of the music’s spell, I whispered, “I think the bus guy was here, and he was with the guy who was investigating the bus incident.”

  “Where?”

  I turned to point them out, but they weren’t still at that table. “Damn. They moved, or they left.”

  “Are you sure it was them? And together?”

  “I’m pretty certain about the guy riding the bus. Maybe ninety percent? Less sure about the bus wizard, since we didn’t get a good look at him. But it could have been him. Maybe.”

  “Someone investigating magic is at a magic club?”

  “Yeah, I thought that was fishy, too.” The lights dimmed for the next set and we had to stop talking, lest we earn the wrath of the other patrons.

  It took some effort, but Owen and I managed to get the others out of the club after that set. By this time, it was close to midnight, way later than I was used to staying up, and that half-hour nap I’d taken after work had long since worn off. I had to fight not to yawn. It was early April, so it was still rather chilly in the middle of the night. The night air after we left the heady atmosphere of the club snapped all of us out of our stupors.

  “Wow, so that’s magical music,” Marcia said, shaking her head.

  “That’s elf music,” Rod corrected. “I forgot about that part. Sorry.”

  “As much as I loved it, I have to say they’re probably not your best bet for a reception band,” Gemma said.

  “I think we’re all agreed on that,” I said.

  “Where to next?” Rod asked.

  “Home!” I voted. “You don’t have another band in mind for us to hear tonight, do you?”

  “We might catch the next set for another one I think you’ll like, but it’s probably best that you not listen to them after hearing elfsong. Everything’s probably going to sound a bit lame tonight. I’ll call the car.” He got out his phone and began pushing buttons.

  “Are there any late-night dessert places?” I asked. “I could do with some chocolate.”

  Gemma put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a gentle shake. “You’re in New York. There’s a late-night just about anything you could want. And, yeah, I could do with some chocolate, too.”

  “It’s the endorphins,” Owen said. “There’s something about the elfsong that hits you there, and chocolate helps restore you. I’m surprised that it hit Katie that way. Maybe there’s a physiological effect even without the magical impact.”

  “Nah, I always want chocolate when I stay up too late,” I said.

  Rod closed his phone and returned it to his pocket. “The car will be here in about five minutes,” he reported. “It’ll be easier if we
meet them on the corner. This is a one-way street going the wrong way from where the car is now.”

  We began walking down the street. Sets must have ended at some of the other clubs nearby, as people were streaming out of doorways. So, this was the infamous New York nightlife, or at least one slice of it. I had to admit it wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t want this every weekend, but it didn’t hurt to leave the house every so often.

  When we reached the corner where we were supposed to meet our limo, quite the crowd had already gathered, and I realized they were in line to get into a club rather than coming out of one. I couldn’t begin to imagine a nightlife that started at midnight. Suddenly, someone just appeared in the line, near the head.

  “Hey, where did you come from?” the person in line behind him shouted.

  The line jumper turned, waved a hand, and the man’s shouts went silent. His date ran at the line jumper, but he repelled her with a wave of his hand. The onlookers gasped. It looked like we had another incident of public magic, right in front of us. This wouldn’t look good for Owen.

  5

  Several more people in line shouted protests about the line jumping and whatever had been done to the first person to complain, and soon we had the beginnings of a brawl. Owen instinctively moved to intervene in the scuffle, but I grabbed his arm and held him back. “No, don’t do anything that hints that you might be even thinking about using magic,” I told him.

  He started to protest, but a bright flash of light interrupted him. It was followed by several more, from various angles—camera flashes. I wasn’t sure there was anything happening at the moment that would look truly magical when photographed, but I was glad that any pictures would show Owen standing well away, not doing anything that even remotely looked like performing a spell.