"Yeah, dating that guy like twenty years younger than her. I think. Kind of hard to tell how old she is. I mean, she looks likeshe stopped aging in her early fifties I guess but still with this odd youthfulness."
"Wait, you know about Crystal's magic being bound?"
"Well, yeah. You don't peek into the dark underbelly of magic without doing your homework about any witches within a certain mile radius." She said it like it was a known fact.
"Right," they said in unison again, both drawing out the word and nodding with narrowed eyes.
"Because you leave behind an imprint with dark magic. That other witches, depending on their strength and status, could pick up on."
They stared at her.
She stared back.
"Wow, you really know nothing. I should have gone for two magazines."
"What other magazine would you choose?" Eloise asked.
"Probably Poetry Magazine."
"Really?" Tilly asked disbelieving.
"I like poetry."
"Surprising," Eloise replied.
"See? This relationship is good," Cassidy's hand pointed between them. "We still surprise each other."
Tilly's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, your idea of surprise is framing us for murder and actually murdering some of us."
"No one died," she reminded them.
"You left a legacy of stealing women's husbands in Salem, pretending you were the great great granddaughter of The Lost Souls House, hexing that poor couple after seducing the husband."
Cassidy's face became thoughtful. "The Youngs? Okay, I might have been a witchy tramp and hexed some people, but I did not hex the Youngs because of some sordid affair. I hexed thembecause they wouldn't do anything about their car alarm going off at two in the morning every day for a month."
"Yeah, that is annoying. I'd probably hex them too," Eloise conceded.
"Alright, before we start empathizing with you," Tilly interrupted. "You get poetry magazine and we get our end of the bargain."
"And vampire sex diaries," she pointed to Tilly who sighed as she nodded. "But seriously. You guys need a course in this before you go drinking your fruity tooty drinks and chanting weird shit in what I imagine are lowered your voices to make you seem serious.""Actually pretty accurate," Eloise nodded. "So what kinds of things are left behind in this dark magic imprint? I'm imagining animal bones with snakes and the stars turning blood red and stormy weather."
"Okay, no. I'm way better at this than you," Cassidy said with derision and Eloise dead-panned her as she crossed her arms. "But well the weather thing, yeah. Mine was black plants."
"Oh, the black willow," Tilly said snapping her finger.
Eloise leaned forward, a serious expression on her face. "What do you mean the weather thing? Storms specifically or like seasons changing?"
Cassidy moved her head in a thinking movement and replied, "Yeah, any weird weather thing. Changing seasons, seasons mashing up together, lots of wind, raindrops the size of dinner plates. Snow that isn't cold. I've heard of some weird shit."
A look of dawning covered both of their faces before they looked at each other and then back to Cassidy.
Then a look of dawning covered Cassidy's face. "Oh shit, you guys got dinner rain?"
"That could be poetic," Eloise pointed out. "But no. It's unseasonably cold. Came out of nowhere. Like late fall."
"Which started when Astra and her friends showed up in Salem," Tilly finished, her mind putting those puzzle pieces together.
"That explains the sweaters," she indicated Eloise's black and brown herringbone sweater and Tilly's navy sweater with a large green heart on it. "Oh shit! That means your goody-two-shoes are whoring around with dark magic!" Her excitement was palpable.
