Page 39 of Disenchanted

Her smile stayed firmly locked in a twitching line.

“I can see that dimple,” Casimir said, pressing a finger into her cheek. Dusting the last of the sandwich crumbs off his doublet, he threw an arm over her shoulders as they strolled side by side and rested his chin on the top of her head. “We owe Lilara for this. Maybe some kind of offering, a little permanent shrine at the museum. A full cloak dry-clean, at the very least.”

Sage smirked. “I always knew she’d be the answer to everything. It’s been the thing I’ve been surest of my whole life. Ever since I spotted her name for the very first time in The Almanac of Day and Night. Something about it, I just knew…But I’ll admit, this is not what I had in mind.”

“You thought you’d just eventually discover how she rid herself of magic and follow suit. ‘Hey, presto.’ ”

Sage nodded.

They paused as a mother duck and a trail of perfect yellow ducklings crossed the pathway ahead, followed by one very flappy, distinctly tufty-looking grey one, who was stumbling his way along at the rear. Ugly, she supposed, although that seemed a bit mean. She gave a tut at the tweeness of it all as she bent down to shimmy him along to catch up with his siblings. “Let it be known, I was right this whole time…”

“Naturally,” Casimir said.

“…that she would be significant. But instead of my initial hypothesis, she’s made me feel for the first time as though…as though maybe there could be an alternative choice.”

“Now, hang on a second. I don’t think I’ve ever known you to so much as change your mind about a menu choice, let alone a lifelong ambition.” They came to a stop, and Casimir’s eyes pinched as he tried to gauge her expression. “Are we changing course, Specs?”

Sage shook her head hurriedly. “I’m not saying that. I’m not. I’ll still be rid of everything as soon as I find out how. But perhaps there’s no need to…rush. Perhaps it is in our best interest after all to—in the name of research, of course—let the spell unfold and let it work its absolutely ridiculous magic. I owe her that much. At least for a few more days.”

For once, Casimir seemed lost for words. He just gave her a simple nod, making the feather in his hat dance endearingly. “A few more days.”

Sage sheepishly nodded in return.

“There’s a little curl right there, sticking out in the shape of a cloud,” Casimir said, the lopsided grin lighting up his face. He tucked it behind her ear. “Cute,” he added, more to himself than to Sage. A slight flush crept up his neck, and his jaw tightened a fraction. He cleared his throat and they continued walking.

For once, Sage allowed herself to test the waters of being proven wrong and discovered a spring-like lightness for it.

16

The Royal Court

After completing one more loop of the town, Sage was satisfied that they had correctly adjusted their lay of the land and made satisfactory notes and measurements to develop a new town map. The basic logistics of the streets and buildings remained the same, thankfully, but the changed ambience of the place was certainly in keeping with the fairy-tale theme that was unravelling.

Her own cottage remained biscuity, and she tried not to take it personally that hers was the house to have been given the “witch in the woods” treatment. The rest of the residential roads were all simply a fraction quainter and cuter, impossibly charming and picturesque, with a patchwork kind of appeal that felt as though they had been captured in watercolours for a picture book. Their half-timbered fronts were in shades of cream and honey, rather than red brick. Thatched roofs had been laid and crooked chimneys popped from underneath, while a ludicrous number of geraniums spilled everywhere on either side of brightly coloured front doors.

There were some bolder, braver changes from Lilara’s magic too, which left Sage and Casimir a little dazed, to say the least. The train station had become a steam railway, and tourism from outside of the town seemed to have been halted as a result. The Dap had lost all modern conveniences (although there weren’t many to begin with) to transform into a fully-fledged tavern. Raucous laughter and a strong whiff of ale spilled out of the higgledy-piggledy windows. Sage’s favourite town haunt, Peregrin Books, with its narrow, leaning facade and swinging sign, had swapped its contemporary “Halloween and Horror” display for what seemed to be mostly just…aged rolls of parchment and rough handmade chronicles. Other stops along the way—the garden centre, the doctor’s surgery, even Wheat and Walnut—had all been swapped for bustling market stalls, bursting with handcrafted goods. They didn’t even bother to plot the bus stop outside Apricot Cottage B&B on their new map. That had always been unpredictable at best, even in modern life, but had now changed to Cliff simply waiting around with a mule and a cart to see if anyone needed a ride.

Sage was highly relieved to note in her work that Cliff and the rest of the locals, although oblivious, did seem to be entirely unaffected so far. Her constant state of high alert was permitted to ease off, if only by an inch or two.

“I can’t understand why I’m the only idiot who seems to have been given a wardrobe change and why nobody else is commenting on the fact,” Casimir said, tugging down the golden hem of his doublet. “Why don’t they make these things in a longer length? My whole arse is on display.”

“And the rest,” Sage scoffed. “Have some dignity, man.”

His eyes glinted. “Looking, are you?”

“Absolutely not,” she said crossly, feeling a burn in her cheeks that only made her crosser. She had been wondering the same, though. Everyone aside from Casimir was still in their usual bootleg jeans, plaid shirts, baseball caps, styled hair…

“They don’t seem to be commenting on any of it. Not to sound self-important, but it’s interesting that we’re the only ones aware that anything has changed.”

Sage elbowed him gently. “I suppose you’re closest to me, and you weren’t far away when the spell came to life. It makes sense that you’d be the first enchanted, that you experienced the spell before anyone else did…”

Suddenly, there was a loud crash. Their heads shot around, craning to see what on earth had rattled its way through the cobbles beneath their feet from several streets away.

“Pumpkin collision?” Casimir guessed doubtfully.

The source of the commotion was somewhere near the Equinox Gallery, which, although always beautiful, had been polished up to a new level of luxury at the hands of Lilara’s spell. The sandstone structure and grand pillars had developed a pretty pink hue, the domed roof had brightened to a pearly pale blue and grand golden swags caught the sunlight perfectly. It didn’t look entirely dissimilar to some sort of castle, but they hadn’t had time to assess it properly yet.

They both picked up the pace but came to a halt before reaching the rose gardens. “Oh, well, I was making a joke, but…”