Her sisters were bickering about cupcake aesthetics.
And she—she was drowning.
Avoidance wasn’t working. Kian’s behavior today made that abundantly clear. And Sirah khala—her only real source of answers—was still halfway across the world. Not that distance was even the main problem. Asking for help meant admitting everything. Owning it.
Riya wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
Still, she needed a compass. Something safer.
That left her sisters.
They loved magic the way they admired a storm from indoors. From a safe distance. They couldn’t wield it, so it had never turned on them. Maybe that was the tragedy—because they’d have handled it far better than she had.
Still, maybe they could point her somewhere.
Riya took a breath, willing herself steady.
“Hypothetically...”
Her sisters swiveled to face her, eyes shining with eagerness.
“Hypotheticallyyyy?” her sisters chorused.
Riya adjusted her glasses, forcing her voice even. “Hypothetically, is there a way to undo a love spell? Ideally,beforethe next full moon?”
There was a beat of silence. A split second where their expressions flickered, their playful energy faltering.
“Why would someone want to undo their own love spell?” Amara asked finally, her voice a little too light.
Riya’s gaze fell to the floor. “Because maybe it worked... unexpectedly. Not in a cute,meant-to-beway. More in a”—she cleared her throat—“miscalculationway.”
“Miscalculation?” Nyra’s brows furrowed. “Magic makes no miscalculations. Like me and my cupcake icing”—she glared at Amara—“Which is actually perfect.”
“It’s neon green,youclassless baboon,” said Amara.
“That’s quantifiably untrue,” Riya muttered, cutting in. She cleared her throat again. “I mean—maybe magic itself doesn’t miscalculate. But people do. Ergo, if people can mess up, there must be... contingencies. Some way to undo a spell early, if they needed to.”
Desperate for an answer, she’d already scrolled through her phone on the bus home, reading half-baked articles until her fingers left sweaty streak marks on her screen. Though deep down, she knew she wouldn’t find anything concrete.
For once, she almost wished she’d kept up her lessons with Sirah khala.
“The problem is,” Amara said, now serious, “that most of what we know about peri magic is passed down orally.And Sirah khala never taught us how to undo love spells prematurely.”
Riya struggled to keep her voice even. “So you’re telling me there arenosafeguards? Nothing built in, in case the person under the spell starts acting unstable or obsessive?”
“Unstable or obsessive?” Nyra echoed, blinking. “That... doesn’t sound right.”
Riya stomach iced over. “What do you mean?”
Nyra leaned against the counter, thinking. “Well, love spells aren’t supposed to change someone’s personality so drastically. They’re subtle. It’s just a nudge. And usually, the effects are mutual, right? If only one person is affected—and acting way out of character—”
“It sounds more like a love curse,” Amara finished.
A love... curse?
“But I—that can’t—” Riya forced a breath into her lungs. “What does that entail exactly?
“Curses don’t gently nudge,” said Amara. “They completely take over. They twist someone’s emotions until there’s nothing left but the obsession.”
