“How is she?” he finally asked.
“She’s getting by, but she’s lost that light.” His friend didn’t sugarcoat the truth for him.
“Tell her—” He stopped himself from saying something he’d only regret. “Never mind. Is Persephone okay?”
“She seems to be,” Jasper said. “She’s taken to hiding a lot when Calli is around. I think she’s upset. Speaking of familiars… Where’s Hades?”
“Gone. I lost my temper and he just left. I was hoping since he and Persephone were so close, he’d gone back to Moonstone Falls…”
“Can a familiar do that? Just leave you?” his friend asked.
“They can… or at least mine can. God forbid anything in my life is normal.” He’d bit out the words.
Jasper couldn’t fully understand the loneliness one felt without their familiar, but Jasper knew enough of Malcolm’s life with Hades to know the loss was devastating.
“How’s the Council? Is it as dreadful as you’d feared?” Jasper went over to the fridge and pulled out a beer and held it out to Malcolm who, with a wave of his hand, popped the bottle cap off with magic. It was a trick the two of them had done since college.
“Drink it,” Jasper encouraged.
Malcolm took the offered beer and drank it, but it tasted bitter. Everything tasted bitter these days.
“So… the Council?” his friend reminded gently.
Malcolm took another swig of beer and stared out the windows.
“It’s… not at all what I’d expected. I made them to be some bogeyman when I was a kid. And now… now I just see them as people trying to do good for our kind.”
“That’s good then, isn’t it?” Jasper said.
“Yes… I suppose it is.” But Malcolm didn’t have the heart to tell his friend nothing would ever feel good again.
“Well, I’d better get back. Sage has me running the shop when she’s casting protective spells around the town or helping with the festival preparations,” Jasper finally said. He placed a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder. “You know you only have to call me if you need me.”
“Thanks.” Malcolm had watched him walk away too.
Everything his friend had left behind for him had been void of any memory of her. His clothes were clean, no lingering smell of pumpkins, spice, or sugar—the things that he’d come to associate with Calli. No old books. No muffin crumbs on any of his clothes. No cat hair from Persephone. Nothing to reflect the place that she held in his heart, or the depth of his loss. The absence of her in those boxes and in his life was such a vast feeling that it spread over the entire sky of his world. Every storm cloud and cold autumn day held her name.
For every minute he felt the burning agony of losing her, he couldn’t let himself forget that he was the one responsible for all of it. He’d destroyed her life twice. It seemed only fair that he felt what she was enduring.
After two hours of setting things up, he sat down on the single loveseat he’d brought from his old apartment. He let out a sigh and tilted his head back with a groan.
Something tapped the window, making his head jerk up. He turned around and closed the door, facing the boxes that contained his life, knowing he would find nothing of Calli in them.
A large black raven was staring right at him with its head slightly cocked. He recognized Poe, Lady Batsford’s familiar. He had a feeling he knew why it was here.
“Already?” He got up and opened the window. The raven flew in and perched on the back of the sofa. The raven wore a blue collar with a ruby stone around his neck. As the bird faced him, the gemstone cast a light into the room, forming what Malcolm had always called a witch hologram. The spell had a far more arcane and formal sounding name, but witch hologram was more direct.
The ruby light coalesced into the form of Serafina’s face.
“Malcolm, your presence is required in the Council Chambers. Use the traveling mirror.”
Malcolm looked around the room. “What traveling?—?”
There was a heavy thud in his bedroom. The raven took flight, soaring out of the window and vanishing from sight. Malcolm closed the window and went to check on the sound he heard in the other room.
A tall gilded framed mirror, at least seven feet in height, gleamed in the fading evening light.
He placed his hand on the surface and tried to push it, wondering if that was how to travel. Suddenly he was hurtling through a murky lake, swimming, struggling to hold his breath. And then he was flung through onto the other side landing face down his stomach. Choking for air yet somehow miraculously not wet, he glanced around.
