- Jessa Lucas
- Jul 5, 2021
- 12 min read
Updated: Aug 14, 2021
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Passage des Charmes
“Sabbath, I think Soren and I just... bonded. I saw him shirtless.”
She lifts a hand. “Hold on. Those are two different thoughts, right? Or is this a weird way of telling me that you are no longer pure enough for a unicorn?”
“No.”
Her eyes shrink to half their size as she wipes away fake sweat. “So what are you telling me? You like him?”
“Absolutely not. He—” I frown, catching myself. It’s so natural to think of Sabbath like an extension of myself, to pass every thought back and forth like a secret note. But I can’t tell her what Soren said. I’m trying to be a good witch—even if that means not telling my best friend everything. “Maybe there’s just hope that one day we won’t hate each other quite so much. I think Soren and I are officially in an ongoing… possibly sexual… tension-ship.”
“I know that you’re grappling with this revelation, but that’s not news,” she says, giving me a pointed look.
“But hey,” I shrug, taking out the vial and shaking it, “lookie what I got! I’ve already taken it and can happily report that I feel like a real live witch again!”
“Mika, that’s wonderful!” Sab says, jumping up and down a bit. She reaches out to hug me.
* * *
Soren's potion sticks.
As the next few weeks pass without event, the gang begins to frequent the Comet for study sessions and more discreet meetings that won’t lead extra sets of ears straight into the threshold of danger with us.
We still have to plan our outing to Paris to take a peek at the Grimoire du Mage, but after the unexpected excitement of the unicorn, we all agree that the best thing to do is have more of a plan.
Or just a plan. In general. At all.
“The Grimoire du Mage is in the Passage des Charmes, underneath the bookstore,” Tuesday says one bright December afternoon as we study for our midwinter exams in the Comet.
We’re lucky that today not many people have found its location yet—fifth floor in the east wing—and we practically have the place to ourselves.
“Most people don’t know the grimoire’s in the Catacombs, but we saw it when our mother brought us to Paris as children, didn’t we Morrow?”
The Passage des Charmes is one of Paris’ many ancient covered shopping arcades, and one of three that is specifically hidden and magical. It houses Bracco & Briggs, the oldest magical book shop in the city. Apparently, the shop has an entrance to the Catacombs, which I never knew.
“Yes, we’ve seen the grimoire,” Tomorrow agrees, taking a long drink of her black coffee as she sketches out rune ideas in a notebook. Soren sits beside her, eyeing her work suspiciously. True to his word, he’s been helping her with her craft. “They don’t show everyone where it is, but there’s an entrance down there from Bracco & Briggs. Because Mother was a Banks, I think they made an exception for us.”
“Oh, it was so beautiful,” Tuesday claps her hands together. “It’s covered in this lovely fading purple leather—though—well, honestly, it was a bit difficult to see on account of the bones, but—”
“Bones?” Nik looks up from his transfiguration homework.
“Bones,” Tomorrow nods. “It’s bound to the body of the writer. One of the most powerful warlocks of all time. Hence why it would be nearly impossible to steal.”
“We don’t have to steal it,” Soren reminds us with a sigh.
“Just like we didn’t have to kill the unicorn, just take three of its hairs.”
“Yeah, Sab.” I flash her a conspiratorial smile. “So, it’ll be easy.”
Leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest, Soren shakes his head at us. “We just need to know what the full spell says.”
“Well, that’s the other thing,” Tuesday admits. Despite the cheeriness of her voice, I hear the problem coming from a million miles away. “Grimoires can only be opened by very powerful spellwriters. That’s why they’re traditionally left open.”
“And is the Grimoire du Mage going to be open?” Soren asks, keeping his voice very even.
“Of course not,” Tomorrow scoffs. “Because then underage witches could waltz in and steal dangerous spells for unknown reasons.”
Bending forward slightly to peer at her drawing, Soren points at the notepad. “Amend that line. You do that to a guy, and it’ll cut off—”
“I know.” Tomorrow stares up at him unblinkingly, and Soren sits back slowly, deciding his feedback was safer left unsaid.
“Is there any spell we could do to predict when a powerful enough spellwriter will return to open the book?” Sabbath asks. “Like scrying, but scrying for two variables at once?”
Soren’s jaw tenses as he considers. “Scry for the intersection of power level and location?”
“A mimicry spell,” Nik suggests. We all look to him, shocked by this contribution. He smacks his hand down on his book enthusiastically. “I’m moving through a lot of concepts with Thorncaster quickly. Fast learner.”
Soren frowns. “Mimicry spells are often faulty.”
“Not if you’re mimicking two points of intersection, like you’re suggesting. More data points.” Eyes alight, Nik’s energy changes. He’s transfiguring into a geek right in front of me. “We do a mimicry spell for the book and one for the power. And the book is a stagnant element—we already know its location.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” Soren says, leaning forward.
Nik shoves his textbook to the center of the table. “This is the Grimoire du Mage. And we need a source of power.” He gestures to Tuesday with a frenetic, excitable energy. “You’re our spellwriter and if only a spellwriter can open it—”
“Blood,” she nods, understanding.
Sabbath looks across the table to Soren. “Do you have a knife?”
“He always has a knife,” I roll my eyes, noticing that both Tomorrow and Soren have withdrawn knives.
Tuesday takes Soren’s, and Tomorrow reluctantly returns hers to her bag. Tu then hovers her palms over the book.
It bulks up, spreading, until it’s a hefty looking leather tome. Mimicry. Tomorrow flips it open to its now blank pages.
Tu leans in closer. “Magic of the deep, we have traded the truth of what we see.” Her eyes flutter to a close and the candle on the table flickers with the whisper of magic. “In lieu of this book, with the Grimoire du Mage shall our magic agree.”
“Now same thing, with the blood,” Soren guides.
The tip of his blade pricks the finger Tuesday presents him with. Drops of bright red fall onto the tome. “Magic of the deep, we trade the truth of what we know; this lifeblood of mine for the blood that will next move to and fro the pages of the Grimoire du Mage, revealing the might of its power. The blood of the next witch or warlock to come to it at the soonest hour.”
“Beautiful,” Sabbath smiles at Tuesday, and she smiles back.
“You have to keep rhyming until it makes sense.”
The blood shimmers against the surface of the leather, marbling across it as though the cover were made of water.
“Good.” Nik nods. “So this is what we want to track: the union between the grimoire and the magic. Don’t move the book, since it remains in place in the physical world.”
“So now for the scrying.” Tomorrow’s black coffee sloshes as Soren takes it, setting it atop the book. She opens her mouth to object, but then decides against it. “Do you know the next part, Tuesday?” he asks.
Tu gives an assured bow of her head and dips her finger into the coffee, voice an enthralling whisper. “Scry, scry, we wonder why, we ask the magic to lend an eye. Scry, scry, show us when, lend me the vision of other men.” Closing her eyes, she stirs her finger around in the coffee in slow, deliberate circles.
Sabbath’s eyes are wide with wonder. “I’ve never seen this before.”
“Tuesday, as the mimic of the blood we’re seeking,” Soren explains, “is moving her finger the way you might scry with a pendulum, tracking a location on a map. But we, of course, do not need a map since our location is the solid variable—the grimoire when it is triggered by the blood of the next spellwriter powerful enough to open it. Tuesday should start to—”
“Oh! I see!” Tuesday interrupts. She blinks her eyes open, but she stares ahead, unseeing, head bobbing back and forth as she looks around. “I’m walking toward the passage.” Her chin tilts up as if she’s caught sight of something above us. “It’s a clear night, the moon is at its zenith. It’s a waxing gibbous, it must be around nine. Ah, yes,” she looks around. “There is a clock that says it’s nearly half-past nine. I’ve just entered the passage with some others who I can’t make out. The streets seem a bit wet—"
Tu blinks out, pulling her finger from the coffee.
“It’s a night early to mid-December, if I’m remembering the upcoming moon phases correctly. It seemed as if it had just rained. Nik, can wyndwitches sense the weather?”
“Yes, actually,” he says, frowning as if in thought. “If I concentrate. I don’t try a lot, but...”
His body goes rigid, words falling away as he finds an inner stillness. The frown deepens on his face. I wonder what Nik does inside there, if his mind is flipping through pictures of the sky until one seems right, or if his magic can reach out and touch the atmosphere somehow.
Finally, he purses his lips, a little under-confident. “I think I sense a storm. Mid-afternoon on Sunday of next week.”
“If we would be so lucky.” Soren releases a quick breath. The relief is etched in his face, where his frown lines have smoothed ever so slightly.
“Great,” I say, looking between us. “We stalk a witch, Soren does the little freeze rune he did with the unicorn to keep the book open, and we get the spell.”
Soren nods his confirmation, passing Tomorrow her mug of coffee and she looks up at him in disgust.
“I don’t know where her fingers have been,” Tomorrow says pointedly to Tu.
* * *
“You need to do something about that hair, unless we want to stick out like a sore thumb.” My long hair drops back into its natural auburn when Tomorrow touches it. “Like I remember it.”
“Thanks. Will it last?”
“Long enough. Changing colors is a pretty basic illusion.”
The large blue scarf snakes around my neck as I tuck it into the top fold of my black trench coat. None of us can really afford to be all too remarkable during our excursion into Paris, considering we’re trailing someone with the hope of breaking in somewhere. Even Tomorrow has toned down her appearance, opting for ripped black jeans and a nicely tucked sweater, instead of some daringly patterned tights and jewelry poking out of her face.
“Okay, are we ready?” Tu asks brightly. “I love going into the city!”
“Me, too!” I exclaim. “And Sabbath’s really looking forward to getting into trouble, too. It’s all over her face.”
Tomorrow actually smirks with a newfound fondness at the same time as Sab grimaces.
We meet the guys at the back entrance, Soren drawing a quick rune on each of our backs. The magic shimmers over us. It’ll last long enough to scurry down to the front lawn, without any roaming gazes peering out in our direction.
The only way to leave Spellfall’s grounds is by way of a massive fountain sitting right outside the front gardens. Instead of liquid, the fountain is filled with essence, and it looks and feels like water (aside from the being-wet bit).
“I hate this part,” Sabbath groans as we step up onto the stone ledge. I take her hand, and we ignore gravity’s urgency, tilting forward, falling face-first into the fountain.
Essence portals are definitely not my favorite way to travel. My stomach turns over itself as my mind fights against the sensation of falling. We’re spit back out into a vertical position, like we’ve just stepped through a door. Soren glides out elegantly as if he’s spent his whole life walking in and out of essence portals. My exits, however, are usually more of a desperate stumble and immediate attempt to save face.
Tonight is no exception.
The other five of us spill out into the neglected garden in a disorderly fashion. To the human world, it looks as though we’ve all just exited the backdoor of the boy’s school that serves as the real-world address for Spellfall. Dead rose bushes, a tangle of untended vines—the property is beginning to look nearly as abandoned as it actually is. I guess this is one way to prevent tourists from snapping pictures.
Curling around to the front of the school, I push the big iron gates forward. We peel out onto Boulevarde Auguste-Blanqui, and quickly fall into stride with the passerby hurrying home, sending irregular glances toward the sky.
“We need to enchantless right now,” Nik says.
I frown. “Enchantless? Like, as a verb?”
“Yes. You know, ‘enchantlessing: to give oneself the appearance of a non-magical thing, in order to conceal one’s identity as a magical thing.’”
Tuesday nods. “You mean blend in.”
“How’s this?”
“Why are you walking... like a zombie, Mika?”
“Enchantless Mika has back trouble from sitting hunched over at a desk for all of her life, playing video games and writing poorly-worded emails.”
“It’s true,” Nik says. “That does happen. I’m just waiting for all of our eyes to rot out of our heads.”
I cluck my tongue. “Now, now, Nikolai. That’s what Sabbath here is for. She can raise dead people, but she can also theoretically restore eyesight, regrow bones, et cetera, et cetera. Would God have a problem with that, Sab?” I ask curiously.
“I haven’t asked him yet,” she grumbles, and I give her a playful shove.
We tromp east toward Place d’Italie, heads ducked low against the light sprinkle of rain. It coats the streets as we move through the square—which is technically a circle—and veer left on Avenue des Gobelins. In the west, the faint beacon of the Eiffel circles the sky. When we take another left onto Villa des Gobelins, my skin begins to tingle.
It’s the familiar feeling of magic working itself on a body.
“Where are we going?” Nik complains, blinking up at the rain. He doesn’t seem to have much patience for magic at the moment.
“Just wait,” Tuesday cautions. “It’s right here.”
“Right where?”
We face a small ivy-covered garden wall at the end of the street. It would seem like a dead-end, if not for the magic coursing through our veins. The closer our approach, the more translucent the wall on the other end of the street becomes. We peer into two realities at the same time; where the human world meets its physical boundaries, the magical world extends forward, opening out into a long, covered passage. By the time we’re where the wall should be, it no longer exists for us.
“What is happening?” Nik breathes. His voice is unsteady, almost concerned. “Won’t people see?” He pops a look behind his shoulder, but of course, it’s a rainy day and there is no one out and about tonight.
“When we turn the corner onto this street, we become invisible,” I explain. “It’s like an optical illusion for anyone walking down the avenue. Right now, we’re invisible to all enchantless.”
“And this?” Nik gestures with a slackened hand toward the bustle of the passage as we step into the fold.
“This is the Passage des Charmes,” Tomorrow grins.
It’s like stepping back in time. Vaulted panels of glass overhead glitter as the rain hits them. The wide mosaic-tiled alley glows with lanterns hanging off storefronts, and the latticework gives a distinct art nouveau vibe to the passage. Home to all your basic witching needs, the street also boasts a haunted hotel, several nightclubs, and a witching museum. There’s a small crowd hanging outside of the speakeasy farther down, where the clock Tuesday saw in her vision tolls the half-hour.
A black cat slinks out of the tea shop next to us as fumes billow out onto the street. He makes a beeline for Tomorrow, weaving between her legs. “Hey Hobgoblin,” she greets. He chirps when she scratches his ears.
“Let’s go.” Soren waves us forward, and Tuesday takes the lead.
We brush past the crowd at the speakeasy, witches and warlocks spilling out onto the streets with a high level of raucous laughter, the cigarette smoke pluming darkly in the air.
French witches. Such chain smokers.
The letters BRACCO & BRIGGS hang at slanted angles in different fonts atop the green storefront. Bracco & Briggs is a series of tight crooked chambers, with bookshelves as high as the ceiling, and books stuffed in every crevice between. It smells of leather and coffee.
As we hang our scarves on the coat rack, a flash of blunt-edged copper hair streaks by. Tu’s eyes grow wide. “There she is,” she whispers. “The spellwriter!”
We creep after the woman and her companions, never getting a good glimpse of them as they move quickly through the winding corridors and strangely configured rooms. The shopkeeper leads them to a room with a plaque engraved over the door frame: Labyrinthe de Sorcellerie.
A series of deep clicks echo as the sharp turn of a key clashes inside a lock.
“Voilà,” the shopkeeper announces, and I creep closer, not wanting to miss our opportunity to get behind that heavily secured door.
Tomorrow tugs at my sweater, yanking me back. “Give it a minute. I know how to get us into the Catacombs.”
“But that room is—”
It’s too late. I hear the door down to the Catacombs thud shut, all three locks clicking in chorus.
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