Page 102 of Jingle Spells

“I have no idea. I’ve been all over the world and I’ve literally never heard of anything like this.”

“Well, what do you say, little sis?” Scarlett nudged Luna playfully. “You wanna meet a clone?”

Chapter 29

Father Christmas (Give Us Some Magic)

Delilah stood at the bottom of the attic stairs, clenching the parchment and staring up into the dark attic. The stairwell felt impossibly narrow and somehow like it was getting narrower still, like a nightmare where the walls kept closing in. Or that garbage compactor scene in Star Wars. That’s about right, she thought. The garbage monster is coming for us all.

Behind her, Scarlett was doing her patented stress-pacing: three steps left, pivot, three steps right. She’d worn through the carpet in her bedroom doing that all through high school. Annoyed the hell out of Mama.

Ugh. Del instantly wished she hadn’t thought about her mother. Would this absurd plan even work? Was Mama okay? Was she hurt? Would they ever see her again?

This was a spectacularly bad line of inquiry.

At the back of their little witch delegation, Luna and Jerusha huddled together whispering ideas back and forth. Beside them, Aphra leaned against the wall, methodically cracking her knuckles, an anxiety tell Delilah hadn’t seen since childhood.

The stress is getting to us. We’re all devolving.

“We need to get our story straight before we go up there,” Delilah told them. “And quietly. The last thing we need is Eps overhearing us debate his sacrifice like we’re discussing a dim sum order.”

“Wait.” Aphra gazed at Delilah, utter bafflement written all over her. “Who is Eps? I don’t know anyone named Eps.”

Luna leaned over and whispered in Aphra’s ear. “Eps is the clone we’re hoping to use as a source of magic.”

“Oh right. Sorry, I . . . I don’t know why I just forgot that. How could I have forgotten that?”

Luna gave Aphra’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Don’t feel bad. It’s happening to everyone.”

“Anyway, as I was saying . . .” Delilah was desperate to keep the conversation on track. Who knows how long they had before the forgetting had washed them all away. “We can’t just waltz in and tell him we need to use him as a magical battery and, oh by the way, erase his entire existence.”

“He has no ‘existence,’” Scarlett replied sharply. “He’s not a person. He’s magic that’s been put into a particular shape, that’s all. And hey, I’m glad my magic enjoyed playing human for a while. But sorry, fun’s over.”

“We need to decide on the best approach,” Luna interjected. “Do we use Eps to attack the wards around the grove or do we cut to the chase and use him to power the portal spell and move the casino?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Scarlett threw up her hands. “We go after the casino. Once the magicians are gone, their wards aren’t an issue.”

“Now hang on.” Delilah was already envisioning all the ways this could go catastrophically wrong. Scarlett’s plans had a tendency to be as solid as a chocolate teapot. “All we have to go on is the promise of a three-hundred-plus-year-old spell. What if it doesn’t work? We’ll have wasted Eps and have nothing to show for it.”

“It will work,” Jerusha cut in. Her arthritic fingers traced the symbols on the parchment with a reverence that bordered on creepy. “The spell requires tremendous power, but between Luna’s magic and what’s contained in the clone, we probably have enough to move the entire structure.”

“See?” Scarlett’s smug expression made Delilah’s palm itch with the phantom sensation of a slap spell she couldn’t currently cast. “Go big or go home—that’s what they say.”

Delilah pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the beginnings of a tension headache. “She said probably, Scar. We could expend all that magic and still fail.”

Which would leave them where, exactly? Eps gone, no backup plan, Mama still trapped in dimensional limbo, and Delilah haunted by the memory of Jasper looking at her like she was a complete stranger. The thought of him created a queasy sensation in her chest.

“Respectfully, Jerusha,” Aphra offered carefully, “it’s not only a question of power. Eps has to participate willingly, or the magic might not work at all.”

“Willingly?!” Scarlett’s voice ricocheted off the walls. “Eps has no will. My gods, how many times do I have to explain it? He’s a magical construct in the shape of Zahir.”

Delilah rolled her eyes. “He had enough will to get himself up to the attic.”

“He’s a battery with feet,” Scarlett insisted.

“He’s been hiding up here for months and you had no idea. So maybe Eps is nothing but a battery. He still outsmarted the hell out of you.”

Luna stepped between them, hands raised like she was directing traffic. “This isn’t helping. We need to⁠—”