Page 38 of No Charm Done

“Exactly,” Jerusha said. “I say we continue with volume two of the Trans Wizard Harriet Porber series. I want to know what happens in her relationship with Snabe.”

“Or we could finally tackle Proust,” Polly said wistfully.

“I am 124 years old,” Jerusha replied. “I will not waste whatever moments I have left on À la recherche du temps perdu.”

“Ladies,” offered Belinda, “I wonder if we might we consider Bombproof Your Horse? It has excellent reviews⁠—”

“Belinda,” Kelly interrupted. “You don’t have a horse. Much less a bombproof one.”

“You don’t know my life!”

The bickering intensified, so Elias cleared his throat. “Ladies, forgive the interruption. Your intellectual curiosity is truly refreshing. In my day, most ladies’ clubs limited themselves to gossip about the neighbors. Though I suspect you have far more interesting neighbors than most.”

Five heads turned toward him, and Luna watched in fascination and growing annoyance as five faces transformed into expressions of delight.

“Elias!” Kelly leaped up to embrace him. “My stars, look at you! How do you feel? Are you all right? When Luna said she was going to fetch you from that dreadful place . . .”

“Mrs. Melrose,” he said warmly. “Radiant as ever. The fresh air of the real world agrees with you.”

Belinda was on her feet now too, beaming at their visitor. “And how’s our bridge champion? Have you been practicing that defensive play I taught you?”

“Every day, Mrs. Chatterjee, if only in my mind.”

The women clustered around him like a long-lost relative at a family reunion. Luna found herself forgotten at the edge of the garden, watching as Elias regaled them with stories about the Void. He somehow made a century of imprisonment sound like an amusing adventure rather than a nightmare.

Good for him, I guess, she thought. She should be happy that he was fitting in so well. But watching him effortlessly charm the room while she stood invisible on the sidelines made her jaw clench. So much for Luna the heroic rescuer.

“And naturally,” Kelly was saying to the group, “he escaped that terrible place, as I was certain he would.”

“He what?!” Luna didn’t hide her outrage. “Mama, he didn’t escape. I rescued him. He’d been there a hundred years and he’d be there a hundred more if not for me.”

“Your daughter has a point.” Elias shrugged.

“Oh, I’m sure she helped,” Kelly said dismissively. “Now, Elias, you simply must let me show you around Oak Haven.”

“Hang on now,” Luna interrupted. “We need to talk. All of us. There’s a crisis coming, something serious . . .” But even as she spoke, she could see she’d already lost them. The book club members were beginning to gather their things, clearly planning to follow Kelly and Elias rather than listen to whatever boring “crisis” Luna wanted to discuss.

She turned to her sister for backup. “Scar, you take me seriously at least. Something’s happening with magic—something bad.”

Scarlett nodded, pulling her sister slightly aside. “Yeah, I noticed. This morning I tried to clean the bathroom in the honeymoon suite . . . just a simple spell, right? Instead I got an error message. Like, literally floating text that said ‘try again later.’”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. Have you ever scrubbed a toilet by hand? I have never been so disgusted in my life.” Her indignation was mostly in jest, but underneath it, Luna could see real worry. “It’s been getting worse while you were gone.”

She filled Scarlett in: Ashton Vex, the magical app, the Silicon Valley takeover of their entire way of life. “CastR is interfering with natural magic. And it’s our fault he even had the idea in the first place.”

With each detail, Scarlett’s expression grew more alarmed. “Let me get this straight: Some tech bro in California has figured out how to sell magic through an app, and this is somehow making real magic stop working?”

“Louise says we need to stop him before he completely takes over.”

“Sign me up. When do we start?”

They stood in tense whisper-conversation while, just a few feet away, Kelly linked her arm through Elias’s. “Come!” Her voice carried the excitement of a hostess with a prize guest. “Let me show you around our humble village.”

“It would be my absolute pleasure, Mrs. Melrose,” Elias replied, his attention focused on her as if she were the most fascinating, and perhaps only, person in the world.

The other book club members fell into step behind them, chattering excitedly about showing off the town to their distinguished visitor. Luna watched as her mother swept out of the garden with the man she’d risked everything to save, leading him away like a trophy.