by Ruby Loren
January blinked a little at that information. She was intrigued that Simon had been the sort to keep a diary, and could only imagine what it might contain by way of devious magic, but he’d just let slip something far more important. “It’s your spell? You were the one who hexed those biscuits?”
Simon's eyes widened for a moment. “I’m sure anyone could do a spell like that.”
“But ‘anyone’ didn’t, did they? I can’t believe you let me think it was the witches doing it! That coven wanted to kill me. You got me kicked out of the baking competition!”
“We’ve been through this and it all worked out in the end, didn’t it? I thought you were probably going to win, so I took action,” he said with a shrug.
“I could kill you,” January said.
She was interrupted from making any more death threats by a strange growling sound.
They both turned to see the small, black rabbit, sitting in the entrance to the kitchen.
“He did that when we met. Does he always do that to you?” January whispered. Whispering suddenly felt necessary. This rabbit may be small, but there was evil practically emanating from his fur-filled pores.
“That and worse. He once tried to chew my ankle off, and that was before…” Simon trailed off.
“…before he somehow ended up a magic rabbit?” January finished for him.
“Yep. Tor liked having him as a pet - probably because the rabbit shared his disdain for me. He thought he could make his time last a little longer. There were a few side effects,” he said with another shrug. “He’s only ever liked Tor, and Tor was the only one who could stop him from doing… this,” he gestured around at the kaleidoscope of spells that were scattered around the kitchen.
January kept one eye on the bunny while she took in the hexed tea, jinxed biscuits, and a whole plethora of other nasties. She didn’t think there was anything edible left. Her attention left the rabbit and she focused a little more closely. The spells were somehow all woven into one another. She didn’t know if the rabbit had done it intentionally, but it meant that…
“What did you just do?” Simon asked.
January opened her eyes and looked around to see… nothing. All of the spells were gone. “I pulled on the threads and it all came apart,” she tried to explain.
They both looked back at the rabbit in time to see him fling himself down on the floor and kick his hind-legs in the air, growling and snarling,
“Did I do something? Is he okay?” she asked, alarmed.
Simon rolled his eyes. “He’s having a tantrum. It makes it easier to do this…” He swung out with a net of blue magic, that tightened around the kicking rabbit. The rabbit stopped kicking and glared, caught in a web of blue strands.
“Are you going to kill him?” January asked, not sure if she would step in, or just let it happen. Jinx was hardly the most loveable creature she’d ever met.
“I can’t. If I try, then whatever I do to him will happen to me. It’s in the stupid will.” He shook his head. “I hate magic.”
January flicked her gaze heavenwards behind his back. He meant he hated magic that he couldn’t weasel out of.
“All I can do is contain him and keep him alive.” He shook his head once more. “It’s ridiculous. What if he one day decides to kill himself just to spite me? It’s so unfair!”
Simon pulled on the string attached to his hand and carried the rabbit in the net to a cupboard at the end of the hallway.
“Maybe he’ll cause less damage in here,” he said, unceremoniously flinging him into the cupboard beneath the stairs and shutting the door. He pulled a large padlock and chain from his pocket and wrapped it through the latch. Then he muttered, until at least ten different binding spells were in place. “I’m not taking any chances,” he explained.
“Don’t be surprised if little Harry Potter bunny rises up against The Dark Lord,” she said, with a smirk.
“Will you stop with the pop culture references?” Simon said, before stalking off.
He stopped walking two steps later. “Damn, I forgot about the…” He made a noise of panic and dived forwards, just as the walls on either side spat slivers of sharpened metal across the corridor.
“Were those once forks?” January queried, touching one of the bits of metal, now embedded in the wall.
“He’s very inventive,” Simon said, pushing himself to his feet and attempting to brush himself down. He stared at his dusty, carpet-burned suit trousers and shirt. “Ruined. It’s not like I’m making cash to cover it, either,” he complained.
“They don’t pay you, either?”
“No, there’s no salary. If you find out information on one of the desirable topics, you get a big fat reward. It’s supposed to motivate you to work hard, or something.”
January could tell exactly what he thought of that. “Have you seen anyone get a reward?”
Simon nodded. “There’s this one guy, Bruce Delimon. He is the biggest…” He cleared his throat. “He and I don’t really see eye to eye,” he amended. “He’s found a couple of things. One was on approved topic, ‘life extension’ and the other was approved topic ‘inter-dimensional travel’.” He raised an eyebrow at January. “The list of approved topics is interesting, but personally, I think they’re missing out. Most of what’s in the books to be catalogued is utter drivel. From what I can tell, the Old Ones have been collecting them since… well - forever. They’re always getting more, too. I’ve never heard of anyone having such an extensive collection of occult reading. They must possess every single one of the world’s known magical secrets. They just haven’t got around to reading them all yet. That’s why they employ minions to glean the good bits.” He tilted his head from side to side. “‘Employ’ probably isn't the right word. Anyway, I think they’re missing out. If it’s not an approved topic, it’s not considered important, but there’s loads of good bits in some of the books. Of course, you’re not supposed to get any benefit from the reading you do. There’s a charm on the reading zone, which is supposed to make you forget the contents of a book, the moment you close its cover,” he shook his head, regretfully, but January wasn’t fooled.
“Let me guess… there’s a way around it.”
Simon raised a hand to his face, as if in shock. “The thought never occurred to me!” He smirked. “Just in case those vamps really are able to listen in… let’s just say that there may be a few more secrets available on the open market than there were before they employed me. It’s completely untraceable, of course,” he said, as vaguely as possible.
“So, you aren’t really hurting for cash,” she deduced, remembering that he’d been complaining about his suit.
Simon looked down again at the ruined outfit. “No, I could buy a whole shop full of these without batting an eyelid. You won’t believe what people will pay.” He grinned. “I just wanted you to ask me about the money. How’s your side hustle going?”
“Unlike you, I haven’t found a way to play the system. I get shipped off to fancy parties and have to pretend to be nice to people I don’t like. I don’t even get to kill anyone. There is absolutely no upside to it.”
Simon rolled his eyes. “You’re just not trying hard enough. If it were me, I’d pocket the family jewels and throw up some magical replicas to cover my tracks. All the riches in the world would be mine,” he said with a happy sigh. “Hey… do you think we could…”
January raised a hand to head him off. She was not going to start stealing on the side.
He shrugged. “Oh well, selling secrets is fun for the moment. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get bored. Although, I’m already figuring out a way to mess with Bruce.” He grinned. “It’s going to be epic. If I can figure out a way to magically film it…”
“Should we start sorting out the house?” January prompted, eager to begin what they were supposed to be there to do.
Simon nodded and looked around the interior. “I wonder how many more traps there are?”
January thought about it. “Jinx has been here on his own for a while, right?”
She left the truth hanging. They were basically walking through a horror film house. She closed her eyes and felt around for any magical spells.
There were lots.
With a pang, she recognised the feel of Tor’s green magic, still in place even after his death. It was with great care that she moved around his spells, unwinding the kaleidoscopic mess of Jinx’s magical mayhem that he’d left strewn around the house.
Inside the cupboard, they both heard the sounds of the rabbit raging.
“You’re staying in there until you can be trusted!” Simon shouted through the door.
January tried not to laugh. It was ridiculous seeing Simon, of all people, having to behave like the responsible adult.
Unfortunately, he spotted her smile. “If you even think about laughing, you’ll be the one who ends up looking after him. I’ve never bothered to make a will, but perhaps I’ll do what my father did to me to you. Of course, I don’t plan on ever dying. My father may have found the secret of extending our lives, but I think there’s a better way.” He examined January for a moment. “There’ll be something, and I’m in the right place to find it and steal it.” He grinned at her.
January wondered what Tor would say if he were here to witness just how unchanged Simon was. The old witch had turned Simon into a cat in the hopes that it would teach him to stop his gambling habit - a habit that resulted in too many wins, rather than losses. Instead, Simon had just moved on to bigger and better things. The only consolation was the rabbit. Tor had known what he was doing when he’d made sure Simon couldn't get rid of Jinx. Even if Simon couldn’t be changed, at least he’d been given a strong dose of his own medicine to swallow.
“The magic’s gone. Now there’s just the traps to worry about,” she told him.
“Brilliant,” he replied, not meaning it. “I’ll just go put on my suit of armour, shall I?”
In the end, it wasn’t that bad. The worst trap was the bath of acid that had been setup to fall on anyone who walked up the stairs to the first floor. It was so strong, it burnt through the carpet, the floorboards, and the ceiling below. That hadn’t been a problem. The house was still wrapped in Tor’s spells, put there to limit the damage caused by his magical students. Unfortunately, his spell books were in the room below, and one of the books was already mostly vaporised by the time January managed to disassemble the acid’s atoms.
Simon picked up what remained of the smoking volume. “I think it was Beastly Botany. That’s probably no great loss to the world.”
January thought back to the lesson where she’d fought Tor’s giant orchid with her grossly inflated cactus. The spells had probably come from that book. She felt a stab of sorrow and was reminded, once more, that she missed her magical tutor. Guilt still hung over her regarding his death. He’d died to give her a chance to run, and she hadn’t taken it. She hadn't even made a stand. She knew she owed it to Tor to change the way things were right now.
It would just take time. And time was something she apparently had quite a lot of.
“Did you ever hear what happened in the woods with King Bob?” she asked, in-between stacking Tor’s rather large book collection in the small room with the magically repaired ceiling.
“My unicorn gossip has run dry. I don’t have time to keep up, these days.”
January nearly swatted him with the dusty tome she was about to stack. “You probably wouldn’t have heard what really happened, anyway.” She described the way Bob had turned up and challenged her. He’d put together an incredibly destructive spell that had dissolved her defences, as though they were nothing.
Simon frowned. “I know what he did. It’s like the creme da la creme of high magick. If you mess it up, it can kill you, and everyone in a one mile radius. How come you’re still alive?”
“There was someone else. I saw them fold his magic back into him. It was as if all his power was drawn back into a single point and King Bob was kind of…unmade… in the process. I saw her afterwards. She was a teenager with amber eyes, but she disappeared before I could get close,” she explained.
“You were saved by a teenager who was able to magically kick your butt and King Bob’s. That’s not weird at all.”
“I was hoping you might know something,” January said, annoyed that Simon was - as ever - not taking this seriously.
He shrugged. “What would I know? King Bob wasn’t lying when he said he was the most powerful witch around. If I were a betting man - which I’m not by the way, unless I can fix the odds - I’d say that the only people in the world who could have bested him in a fight where he had the control, would be an enchanter, and maybe one of the Old Ones.” He sniffed. “Who am I kidding? They could probably wipe him off the map. Maybe even Leah could have done. I don’t know about you, but I always felt like she was just toying with you when she launched all of those magical traps.”
January coughed. It hadn't felt like being toyed with at the time.
“This girl wasn’t an Old One. When the death curse on my door was broken, I felt the magic that had done it, and it felt… familiar,” she said.
“Familiar?” Simon sought clarification.
January’s eye caught on the flask of Elaris’ liquid that had been moved into the storage room. It had been within that flask that she’d seen her fate written. Her blood had changed to a black cloud, and Tor had informed her that she was an enchanter - a magical improbability. The only one to ever exist.
Or so she’d thought.
She turned to face Simon. “It felt like my magic - it was an enchanter’s magic.”
5
One week after helping Simon sort out Tor’s house, her phone rang and ‘private number’ flashed up on the screen.
She silently watched her weekend plans go up in smoke before answering the phone.
“You are needed in Bruges, tonight. Formal-wear.”
Max hung up before January could ask how long she was expected to remain at this event. He also hadn’t asked how she was. It was all so hurtful.
She rolled her eyes and texted Danny, letting him know she needed him to cover again for an undisclosed length of time. So far, their arrangement had been going well. It dented her pride a little, but the customers hadn’t even noticed her absences. Danny was doing so well, she was considering asking him to add a few of his own favourites to the bakery, too. Just as long as he ran them by her first. She knew for a fact that maple syrup and bacon cake did not go down well in South East England.
As she walked to her wardrobe to figure out which dresses to bring with her, her mind drifted back to the conversation she’d had with Simon the previous Saturday. She’d finally admitted, both to herself and to Simon, that the fading piece of magic she’d picked up from the broken hazel wands had been an enchanter’s magic.
Simon had not been incredibly helpful. His first suggestion was that the magic she’d felt was her own, and that the girl who’d ‘saved her’ was a mental projection of herself. He thought she was using the apparition to project the magic she was capable of, but didn’t know how to wield herself.
She'd accused him of calling her crazy. Things had gone downhill from there.
The bottom line was, January knew the teenager had been real - just as she knew that the magic on the door hadn’t been her own, but very similar. January was willing to entertain the thought that if the improbable had happened and made her an enchanter, there was every chance it had happened before. But why was there nothing written about it? Was there really no record of a previous enchanter? And most importantly… who was the girl with the amber eyes she’d seen in the woods?
Simon hadn’t been able to give her a better answer. All she’d been able to do was ask him to keep an eye out for anything to do with enchanters, living or dead, in the books he read.
He’d sucked air through his teeth and explained that the approved topic of enchanters was the n
umber two approved topic. If you found anything out about that, you would get a big fat reward.
“It would be enough to retire on… that is, if you were ever permitted to retire,” he’d said.
January had deduced that he wasn’t willing to smuggle those secrets out. He’d be handing anything he learned over for a big fat pay cheque.
She’d asked him nicely to reconsider, she’d even said please. In the end, he’d agreed on a compromise. He would hand over any enchanter information he came across for a big fat pay cheque, but before he did that, he’d send an image of whatever he found to January. It would be down to her to read it at that time and remember what he could not.
She’d then asked him what the number one approved topic was, and he’d tried to make her guess. After she’d threatened to disassemble his atoms, he’d relented and told her. With hindsight, she should have guessed. The topic The Clan were most interested in was themselves. Any writing about them landed a big reward. January then presumed it was destroyed forever. The Clan had kept their secret for millennia, and it clearly took a lot of work to keep it that way.
She hadn’t been able to help but wonder what they would do if information about them hit the internet. Anyone could burn a few books, but the internet was a tricky beast. Once something was online, it had a tendency to stick around - no matter how hard you to tried to erase it.
Perhaps one day, she’d have to find out.
Today, her time was taken up with picking out dresses, making sure her white blonde hair was sufficiently primped, and that her makeup wasn’t a complete disaster. January was wondering if there were magic spells to put on makeup and do your hair for you. She assumed there probably were. After all, Simon had automated washing up and cake baking spells. Vanity spells were probably even higher up on the desirable list than chore-doing spells. Unfortunately, unlike Simon, she didn’t have access to all the occult books in the world. She could have tried to use her enchanter’s magic to think her makeup and hair right, but she didn’t want to risk that. Something she’d noticed along her magical journey was that her magic was far more suited to destruction than creation. Her latest trick of pulling apart objects and returning them to individual atoms, floating around through space, was a prime example of that. She didn't want to wreak that kind of destruction on her face.
