“Yeah. I’ll put a sign in the window too.”
“OK, good. We obviously can’t sell anything else until we get this taken care of. I’ll ask Brooks to come in. He can greet people and organise some sort of queue while we switch between removing the spell from everything in the shop and whatever people bring back.”
The perks of having a mate who’s a self-employed bookkeeper—he can come running when there’s an emergency. “Sounds like a plan.” I hesitate, then ask, “And Eve?”
Gwyn drops her head into her hands, letting out a pained groan. “I’ll text her telling her to come straight here after school. I’ll talk to her then. Stars, I hate having to be the bad guy.”
“I know. If it’ll help, I can talk to her with you. After all, I’m the one who trusted her alone with the shop last night—I’m pissed off enough for both of us.”
She looks up at me hopefully. “Would you?”
“Yeah. Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”
The bell over the shop’s doorway tinkles, and I look over to see a sheepish-looking Eve slinking in. Brooks tells her to wait in the office, his disappointment evident on his face. She looks to me for help, but she won’t find any sympathy from me, not today. Gwyn finishes removing the spell from a fire fae’s superhero costume, then we go after her.
Eve’s sitting on the chair in front of her mum’s desk, fiddling anxiously with the sleeves of her school blazer when we walk in. She opens her mouth to speak, but I hold up a hand, silencing her. I perch on the edge of the desk, waiting for Gwyn to take her seat. Only then do I speak.
“I’m really disappointed, Eve. Not only did you endanger everyone in this town, you also broke my trust.” She hangs her head in shame, and I feel like shit, but this is necessary. “Why?”
“I just wanted the festival to be special this year. I thought enchanting the costumes would be cool.”
“Does this have anything to do with Michael?”
“No.” My sceptical look makes her shift in her seat uncomfortably. “I mean, not really.”
“Explain,” Gwyn demands sternly.
“We were talking at lunch yesterday, and Michael said how boring all the normal costumes are compared to how everyone dresses for other big town events.” She bites her lip, then carries on, “So I thought enchanting the costumes would be fun.”
“And that it would impress him,” Gwyn says flatly.
“Well, yeah.” Eve shrugs one shoulder.
“Do you not understand how serious this is? You’re lucky you weren’t arrested.”
“What?” Eve asks, shocked.
“Your mum’s right.”
“But it was just a little spell. It was harmless,” she argues.
“Harmless?” I scoff. “Do you know what your harmless spell did to Raine?” Eve’s eyes double in size as I recount this morning’s events. “She could have been seriously injured. It’s a miracle she was happy for me to deal with you and didn’t want Neith to escalate matters further.”
“I didn’t think?—”
“No, you didn’t.” I interrupt harshly. While I am hurt and angry, most of all I’m scared for her. She needs to understand how serious the consequences could have been. “There’s a reason you’re not supposed to practice magic unsupervised until you’ve completed your Academy training.”
“But I’ve seen you and Mum do the spell hundreds of times.”
“That’s not the point. Your magic is different, Eve, youknowthis. The card you drew at your Naming means your magic will take any opportunity to cause chaos. It is vital you get it under control or you could end up with your powers bound or worse.”
“But I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. It was just supposed to be a bit of fun.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Gwyn asks, astounded. “Even if Raine hadn’t been hurt, what about the humans visiting for the festival? If we hadn’t found out about this before Friday, they would have all been exposed to magic. What would you have done then?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be so obvious. I thought they’d just think everyone was using really cool special effects and stuff.”
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. “You’re already extremely powerful, Eve. That will only grow the older you get. That combined with your type of magic being prone to chaos is a dangerous combination that you must learn to control.”
