Magic by any other name, p.14
Magic by Any Other Name, page 14
She watched as he waved one hand at the stock behind him and said, “What can I get you?”
“I’ve made a list,” Georgette told him as she fished a strip of paper out of her purse. “I’m beefing up my personal concealment spells.”
“Okay,” he said as he scanned the list. “I’ll get these.” He set the list on the counter and pulled out a paper bag. “Have you been doing those breathing exercises we talked about?”
“A few times,” she said. “It’s helpful when I work at Nocturne. I’m still on the roof, working on the outside of the building. Now that I’ve finished the preliminary work, I have to do spellcraft on a massive scale. It’s stressful.”
The pair continued talking as Nico gathered up Georgette’s order. Mei-Xing’s eyes swept all around the shop, taking in shelf after shelf of trinkets, a long glass display case topped with canisters, and a wall of boxes stacked floor-to-ceiling, each one labeled with the name of an herb. She ran her fingers over the display case, glancing inside at the beads, amulets, and figurines of holy men for sale. At the end of the case, she came to a small table covered by a colorful cloth, above which loomed a gold-framed painting of the Virgin Mary.
Hanging over every nook and cranny of the shop was an ethereal mist, invisible but tangible, made of a strange magic. Mei-Xing was from a world where magic permeated every aspect of life, as encompassing and natural as the air she breathed. Her people were made of magic, conceived and grown in it like seeds in soil. Witches like Georgette were grown from similar magic, but unlike the Fae, they were not constructed of it. They were humans who had brought magic into their lives and used it for so many generations that it eventually integrated into their blood, like a skin graft blending into flesh. The magic here in the Botanica—this was something else entirely. It was human-made, with no roots in the world of the Fae. The two types of magic were as like and unlike each other as a rose and a dandelion. This curandero magic would never be capable of the things Mei-Xing’s or Georgette’s magic could do, and yet it had a power all its own.
“Hey.”
With a gasp, Mei-Xing whirled around to find herself face-to-face with Nico. He smiled kindly, but his eyes were intense.
“Hey,” he repeated, holding out a hand. “I’m Nico García.”
She took his hand and squeezed. His palms were sweaty. “Mei-Xing Ma.”
“Georgette talks about you a lot.”
“She a good person.” Mei-Xing forced the choppy English from her lips. She hated the feel of it in her mouth. Stupid English. I sound like an idiot. “We good friends.”
The level of concentration on his face made her fidget. She looked for Georgette, only to see that she was grinning at her phone screen. Another text from Neil, she thought as she squirmed.
“Sorry.” Nico lowered his gaze, looking a bit abashed. “I shouldn’t stare. Just, um …” He leaned a little closer to her. “What are you?” he whispered.
“What?”
“What are you?” he repeated. “Georgette never mentioned that you … aren’t human.”
A wave of panic rose up from her core and she backed away from him. “I-I don’t …”
“Did she put this glamour on you?” His head tilted. “It’s impressive. I mean, I can only see a little of what’s underneath, and I’m really having to push myself to see it.”
Frozen in Nico’s inquisitive gaze, she couldn’t move. Knowing he saw beneath her disguise made her feel exposed, a fish in a glass bowl. With every fiber of her mind, she instinctively reached for Georgette. She felt a pinch in the brand on her wrist—an elastic band snapping against her skin—and suddenly Georgette was at her side.
“Mei-Xing’s a Wood Nymph,” Georgette said to Nico as she gently inserted herself between the two. The two women looked at each other, silently exchanging a slew of emotions in an instant. “She understands English, but she doesn’t speak it much.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Nico. He took a couple of steps back, embarrassment on his face. “That was pretty forward of me. I just, uh …” He smiled sheepishly. “I’ve seen non-humans before, but not up close.”
With his eyes no longer pinned to her face, Mei-Xing relaxed a bit. She looked down at her body to assure herself that the glamour was intact. Georgette took her by the hand and gave it a squeeze.
“You’re okay,” Georgette said. “He can see you because he’s wu.”
Wu. A shaman. Mei-Xing thought of the Chinese pharmacy she had stumbled into as a child. The old man who worked there had, like Nico, recognized her for what she was. Before any other human could lay eyes on her, the old healer had walked her to the edge of the forest and pointed her toward her grove. Young and ignorant then, it would be years before she would understand the compassion he’d shown that day. He could have made quite a lot of money from selling her.
“You’re sure about him?” Mei-Xing asked in Fae. “If you’re connected to the magic community, your mother could find out.”
“His and my family’s communities have very little overlap,” Georgette said. “People like Nico and his aunt have well-developed insights but aren’t hereditary witches. They’ve put one foot in magic and can adapt some of it to their lives, but it’s not the same.” A humorless smirk crossed her face. “My mother wouldn’t condescend to look a shaman in the eye.”
Mei-Xing nodded. Yes, that did sound like Hazel. A queen never mingled with peasants.
Georgette’s phone buzzed. Turning away from her friend, she scooped it out of her bag with a silly grin. A mixture of impatience and irritation welled up in Mei-Xing as she wandered off.
“Is she as annoying as Neil?” Nico asked.
Mei-Xing glanced at him over her shoulder. She was irked enough by Georgette’s distraction that it no longer occurred to her to fear him.
“She on that phone all damn time,” she said.
“Yeah, Neil too.”
Mei-Xing narrowed her eyes at Nico. “He bad?”
“What’s that?”
“Neil. He bad?” She inclined her head toward the oblivious Georgette. “He bad to her?”
“Oh, no way,” Nico said with a definitive hand motion. “Neil would never hurt any woman. And he’s crazy about Georgette.”
“Crazy,” Mei-Xing said, staring at her friend. “She crazy, too.”
“Guess they’re good for each other, then.”
Maybe, she thought. “And you?”
“Me?” asked Nico, pointing to himself. “What about me?”
“You good for her?” Mei-Xing asked him. “You help Georgette?”
“With the counseling, you mean?”
“Talking, yes. You help?”
Heaving a breath, he crossed his arms over his chest and squinted in Georgette’s direction. “I hope so,” he said. “It only takes a few minutes of hearing about her family before I feel like I’m in over my head.”
Mei-Xing understood. She and Georgette had bonded while helping each other shoulder their traumas over the span of the last three years. She knew exactly how heavy her friend’s burden was.
“I see her family,” she said, “and she tell me everything.”
“Yeah, Georgette has said how huge you’ve been in her life,” Nico said. “She said she never would have gotten out if not for you.” He smiled warmly, surprising her. “Thank God she has you.”
Mei-Xing stared at him, silently weighing all she knew. Usually, when people who mistreated Georgette saw how she and Mei-Xing supported each other, they tried to drive a wedge between them. Zach had tried to convince Georgette to sell her. Hazel had blatantly looked down her nose at her, dismissing her as subhuman. But this man praised their friendship.
Pushing aside her lingering discomfort, Mei-Xing made a conscious decision to focus on the positive. “She doing better,” she said.
“Glad to hear that. But, uh”—he leaned closer to Mei-Xing while simultaneously casting a nervous glance at the distracted witch—“why is she increasing her concealment spells?”
“I tell her to.”
Nico’s eyebrows jumped up his brow. “Why?”
“She supposed to hide after she run away,” Mei-Xing told him. “She supposed to not live anywhere long until she safe. But she get job to help Ishak and she date Neil. Now she not hide so much. I tell her she need more spells.”
Shaping her inhuman mouth to form alien words was less irritating to Mei-Xing than hearing how poorly they conveyed her thoughts. She was not the fool that English made of her. She might be foreign-born and non-human, but she was not an idiot, and she hated like hell that—to her ears, at least—she sounded like one.
To her relief and to his credit, Nico never gave her that look of annoyed superiority that she often saw when trying to communicate with English speakers.
“More spells,” he repeated. “You didn’t tell her to dump Neil?”
“No,” Mei-Xing said, surprised. “Why?”
“Well, that would be easier, wouldn’t it? Dump Neil and stay hidden?”
“Easy,” she agreed, “but she happy like this.” She looked at Georgette’s goofy smile and blushing cheeks as she listened to Neil on her phone. “If she unhappy here like in Boston, we run for no reason.” Mei-Xing suddenly thrust one finger at Nico’s nose. “Neil make her cry, I make him cry!”
“Fair,” he said, chuckling.
“Sorry!” Georgette’s voice rang out, startling both of them. She tucked her phone away and grabbed the bag of spell ingredients from the countertop. “I’m just gonna double-check, make sure I’ve got everything.” She started digging through the bag while casting apologetic glances at Mei-Xing. “I won’t get on the phone again, I swear.”
Though she knew Georgette meant what she said, Mei-Xing doubted it would turn out to be true. However, she wasn’t as bothered by it now. Georgette was happier, and that was the whole point of this new life they were living. It was important for Mei-Xing to remember that.
As Georgette compared the contents of the bag to her shopping list, the Nymph gently tapped the curandero’s arm. “I go outside,” she said, “take in light before sunset. You talk with her some.”
Not waiting for a reply, she walked away. Behind her, she heard Nico approach Georgette and ask her how she was doing. Without waiting to hear the answer, she opened the door and slipped out into the fading sunlight.
29
Georgette
TWO WEEKS INTO HER EMPLOYMENT AT NOCTURNE, Georgette concluded that she could do no more for the exterior of the building. She called Kazimiera on the phone and asked her to come outside to inspect her work.
When initially handed the task, she’d panicked. That’s much too complex for her, her mother’s voice had asserted from deep in her mind. She can’t do magic on that big a scale. She’ll mess it up. Though she still heard that voice constantly even now—it was a steadily whispered narration of her life—Nico had helped her recognize it for what it was: a learned response. Georgette had been taught that if she tried, she might make a mistake, which meant her mother would mock her. The only way to avoid her mother’s scorn was to never push her limits. Nico had helped her establish a new response to the voice: Focus in. Don’t look at the full scope of the job, just focus in on the first step. Smaller steps were less likely to set off her anxiety, to summon the voice.
Breaking down the job at Nocturne in this way, Georgette had gradually worked her way through without sliding into emotional overload.
She’d discovered that the foundational magic around the building was of sound structure, so she’d left that alone; she’d stripped everything else away and re-layered magic on top of it, building a comprehensive cross-hatching of concealment charms and containment spells designed to keep the building impenetrable to outside magic. What had before been an inefficient fountain of enchantment was now a tight system of electrical circuits that enclosed the entire building. The task had strained Georgette physically and mentally, but she smiled as she brought her employer to the sidewalk to see the results.
“ Hmm,” Kazimiera said. She shifted her parasol and raised the wide brim of her hat to squint up at her property. “It looks the same.”
“It’s using a fraction of the energy it used to,” Georgette told her with pride. “And it’s less conspicuous than before. The first time I came here, I could sense the magic from a block away. Now I have to almost touch it to know it’s there.”
Kazimiera scanned the building over the top of her sunglasses, her amber eyes sizzling with cool light. Georgette held her breath, awaiting judgment. Finally, Kazimiera nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m satisfied.”
“Great!” Georgette said, exhaling. “What should I do next?”
Kazimiera turned to her and, through the tinted glasses, looked her up and down with an expression that made her spine tingle. As the last light of the evening died and the streetlights flared to life, Kazimiera folded her parasol, removed her sunglasses, and let the artificial streetlight paint her chestnut skin. She gestured to the front doors.
“I’ll take you through the club,” she said, “show you everything I need done. You can pitch some ideas, then I’ll decide what takes priority.”
“Okay.” Georgette smiled. Finally, a chance to get a closer look inside.
“Don’t wander off, and pay close attention,” Kazimiera warned. “I don’t like to repeat myself, and my club isn’t a place you’d like to be lost in.” Her glare sliced through Georgette’s soul. “You go nowhere without me. Understand?”
“Yes ma’am,” Georgette said quietly. “Perfectly.”
The ground floor of Nocturne was a wide-open area with a stage, a dance floor, sitting areas, and a huge bar. The whole room was draped in royal purple and midnight blue, accented with gold and silver details.
As the pair walked across the room, a voice called out for a light check and the club suddenly plunged into darkness. Georgette’s eyes widened with wonder as pinpoints of artificial starlight lit up the ceiling, walls, and floor. There were no spells involved, but the effect was magical, nevertheless. It was like walking through the night sky.
The lights came back on and Georgette scanned the employees, human in appearance only. One bartender was an Incubus, the other two were Succubae—all of them emanating magnetic sexual energy. The performer warming up on stage was a Siren, her animal features hidden by a glamour. Two waitresses—a Selkie without her sealskin and a Huldra without a tail—chatted near the bar. Georgette caught glimpses of Hathiya brands on several of these workers, but noticed that none of them matched.
Strange, she thought.
On the second floor was a dining room with a small stage for intimate performances and a corner bar with exclusive drink selections. Like the club below, this floor adhered to the blue-purple color scheme and starlight vibe. Unlike the club area, there was magic here. The windows, which should have looked out over the busy downtown streets, displayed images of moonlit lagoons, beaches, forests, and fields.
“Glamours,” Kazimiera said. “They’re … functional but haven’t been changed in years.”
“I’m good with glamours,” Georgette said, taking notes on her phone. “I can make the image crisper and create a loop of action that’s at least an hour long.”
“For each one?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Kazimiera nodded, a glimmer of approval in her eyes. Georgette felt a rush of confidence.
The kitchen, though cloaked in magic, was ordinary enough, except for the workers. It was here that Georgette saw the true diversity of Kazimiera’s staff. A pair of Brownies—short, hairy little men—chopped up vegetables on either side of a large-footed, squat quasi-man Georgette knew to be a Pombero. At the stove, a Pooka—composed of various parts from a goat, a rabbit, a horse, and a man—sautéd something fragrant. Gathering up plates and silverware were a Banshee with long red hair and an Encantado, his aquatic form well hidden beneath the visage of a handsome young man. Both were dressed in black-and-white formalwear and both avoided eye contact with Georgette.
The magic was stronger on the third floor. Georgette had initially assumed these would be the employee bedrooms, but the hallway was too fancy for living quarters: plush blue carpet, purple wallpaper with hair-thin gold swirls, and heavy, ornate doorknobs. They passed the first door—the office where she had interviewed—and continued toward the second. The door was open and Georgette, curious, glanced into the room, her witch’s vision piercing the glamour draped across the door frame. Inside, she saw a wall covered with screens displaying images of the club and restaurant. Beside them, she saw what looked like a large, floating gyroscope with rotating wheels-within-wheels, each of which was covered with dozens of spots. As she gawked, the golden wheels suddenly stopped turning and every spot on them shifted in unison. Startled, she jumped back. The nested wheels were covered in big, lidless eyes, all of which were looking at her.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Excuse me.”
The creature’s attention immediately returned to the wall of screens.
Impressive security, Georgette thought as she scurried to catch up with Kazimiera. With that many eyes, I bet nothing gets past him.
Kazimiera led her through the next door. As Georgette stepped inside, the spells within the apartment engulfed her like a fog of incense.
“What’s this?” Georgette asked, glancing around through squinted eyes.
“VIP,” Kazimiera said. “Private members only.”
The dimly lit room was set up like an executive lounge: black leather couches, crystal ashtrays, and mahogany tables. Georgette’s eye was drawn by the heavy curtains—thundercloud gray—blocking the outside light.
“There’s a spell coating the windows,” she said. “Why use curtains?”
“It makes the clients feel secure,” Kazimiera said. “They can’t see the magic, but they can see the curtains.”
“The concealment spells are sturdy,” Georgette said, looking around, “but there are also a lot of memory-obscuring spells. Why would—”
