Chapter Seven

"You're obsessed," Maggie told Della over the phone.

"I know," Della said miserably. "But I can't help it. I can't stop thinking about him."

"You're a grown woman," Mags said. "You should have better control than this. You're not a vamp who's found their One. You're a witch, and as far as I know, witches don't have predestined mates they can't stay away from. So, him sending you food again and the two of you spending your lunch break talking on the phone shouldn't turn you into this kind of simpering mess!"

The reprimand was warranted. Della had completely zoned out while Mags was telling her about the interaction she'd had with a patient and it took her friend snapping at her to bring her back from daydreaming about the sound of Leo's voice, imagining what he looked like and what he was doing as they spoke. She was sitting out in her townhouse's little garden, crammed with potted plants she used in spells that required more than just raw magic, and just the touch of the warm evening sun on her skin had made her think of him.

"I know, Mags," she told her friend. "I'm sorry. That was shitty of me. I'll make it up to you."

"It's not about making it up to me," Maggie said, her voice softening. "I'm just worried about you. Is there any chance this is at least partly because you're burning yourself out working so hard? I just don't want to see you throw your heart into a relationship that's meant to be casual and then be crushed when he doesn't do the same."

"Or when it ends," Della sighed. "I know, and I'm trying to be good about it. It's just… it's like someone's cast a spell on me. I just think about him all the time."

There was a brief pause. "Is it possible someone has?" Maggie asked, not unreasonably. "There's got to be a way you can find that out, right?"

Della stopped stock still for a moment, amazed that she hadn't thought of that. "Mags. You're a genius. I have to try this. It could explain everything."

"I don't want to downgrade the genius of my own idea," Maggie said, a touch hesitantly, "But can you think of any reason someone would want to spell you to fall in love with the Beta of the Blue Crescent pack? I mean, who would stand to benefit from that?"

"I have no idea," Della said, "But feeling like this can't just be natural, Mags. Even when I was falling in love with… with Dane," she swallowed at the foul taste it left in her mouth when she said his name, "it wasn't like this. Not so intense, and definitely not so fast. I mean, we've been on one real date. We haven't even slept together yet. It's absurd for me to be this obsessed with him." She swallowed. "Or maybe, it's not real."

"How does the spell work?" Mags asked. "To check if there's magic being used?"

"It's not a particularly complex one, actually. You just need an open flame and a sample from whatever you're testing to see if it's been spelled. I can probably just use a few strands of my hair."

"Oh, not a raw magic spell then?" Mags asked. "I don't like the ones with ingredients so much. They feel too much like cooking, but, like, dangerous."

"Hey, cooking can be dangerous." Della laughed. "Remember that warlock you dated who almost burned down your apartment trying to make ravioli?"

Mags groaned. "Okay, but a different type of dangerous."

"This one's hardly 'eye of newt and toe of frog'," Della protested lightly. "You only need the flame because it turns green if the object or person you're focusing on is the subject of a spell."

"You have to burn your own hair, though," Maggie hedged.

"That's just a focus for the spell. It's just easier than cutting up a piece of clothing I've worn recently. Would you want to sacrifice clothes you like? And your scrubs don't count," she added quickly.

"All right, all right, you've convinced me." Mags laughed. "How about we keep discussion of the real 'eye of newt and toe of frog' stuff to a minimum, though, all right? I got my lunch break an hour late today because we were so busy, and I have no wish to see that food again so soon."

"How is it that you can handle people with their bones sticking out through their skin, but the idea of me casting a spell with 'ingredients' as you call them is enough to ick you out?" Della asked.

"I don't know, I can't explain it." Mags laughed again. "Part of my brain just finds it… unsettling, I guess."

"Well. I'll keep the discussion of it to a minimum, as requested," Della promised.

"So do you want to put me on speaker while you do this one?" Maggie asked. "I mean, you're only going to ring me right back with the results, I assume. Might as well cut out the middleman."

"Sure," Della said. "It might take me a minute to find the right kind of candle, though."

"I just got home," Mags assured her. "I'll start making dinner."

"Which reminds me," Della said as she stood to go inside and dig through her candle collection, "I have to redo your protection spells when we can organize to have the same night off."

"I would have thought all your nights off were going to your Big Bad Wolf," Maggie said cheekily. "You know I don't really need those spells, Della. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, even without a werewolf obsessed with me to protect me from threats."

"It makes me feel better when you have them, if you're going to be riding the train at all hours," Della said. "The Big Bad Wolf can take a backseat to more important things, like keeping my friends safe."

"Oh, all right," Mags gave in. "I'll have a look at my schedule and see what night we can both carve out to have dinner and get it over with."

They chatted about unrelated topics until Della was able to find a proper spellcasting candle—and add buying some more to her list of jobs for the weekend—and set herself up in the small open space in her garden between all the potted plants.

"Okay, I'm about to start," Della said when they reached a break in the conversation.

"Give me a minute, I'll turn off the stove," Mags said. "All right, I'm completely focused. Ready to listen."

"You won't hear much," Della laughed.

"You think I don't know how spell casting works?" Maggie asked. "Like, a third of our doctors are witches. This is not my first rodeo."

"Okay, well, I'll tell you when we have some results," Della said.

Calling up her magic from the deep well within herself, she flicked her fingers at the candle to light it, then drew her circle of protection and added the first strand of her hair to the flame.

Not all witches bothered with a circle of protection, but the extent of Della's power meant that without it, if she lost focus on a spell, there was a risk that a wave of raw magic could burst out of her, causing damage. The more powerful of the young witches and warlocks were usually instructed at an early age not to perform magic without them, and she tried to keep to the rule even when she was doing minor spells. Most of her spell casting these days was just encouraging her plants to grow, an easy way to siphon off excess magic when her stores of it were full to the point that it was starting to push her to expend some. Perhaps if she'd been brought up using it for minor things like lighting candles or boiling water without feeling like it was a waste of power, she'd find it easier to find ways to expend that excess magic, but as it was, she just had the most lush garden on the street—and her neighbors' plants did pretty well out of the deal too, on the days when she couldn't get rid of enough power to get her stores of it under control again just by encouraging her own plants.

She focused her magic and her intention on the few strands of hair she fed to the flame and breathed in deeply, pushing her power into the fire.

The flame changed color.

"It's… it's blue," she said out loud in complete shock. She knew Mags would hear the stunned disbelief in her voice.

"What does blue mean again?" the human asked. "I thought it was just green if there's a spell on the thing you're focusing on."

"You're right," Della said in shock. "I've never even heard of someone getting a result of blue for this spell." She paused. "Maybe I did it wrong. Lost focus or something. Hang on, I'm going to start over."

She broke the protection circle and even collected a different candle, just in case that had affected the spell, then redrew the circle and started over, focusing as hard as she could on the pieces of her hair that she slowly pushed into the candle's flame.

Blue.

Again.

What the hell?

"It's gone blue again," Della said out loud for Maggie's benefit. "I've never seen this before. I've never even heard of this before."

"So, you have no idea what it means?" Mags asked. "It couldn't just be a trick of the light and it's actually green?"

"Here, you look." She snapped a photo of the candle flame, still bright blue, and sent it through to Mags.

"Yep," her friend's reply came after a moment. "That's definitely blue."

"I'm positive I did the spell right, at the very least the second time," Della said. "I mean, what the hell could this mean? It's supposed to be a simple yes/no spell. If your focus is being cast upon, you get green. If they're not, it stays red. If you do the spell wrong, you singe off your eyebrows. It's not exactly complex stuff."

"Well, I'm glad your eyebrows survived intact," Mags said, a laugh in her voice. She sobered. "What do you do with a result like this?"

"There's only one thing I can do, really," Della said. "I'm going to have to speak to my grandmother."

"Ouch," Mags said with feeling. "Well, I'm here if you need moral support for that, I guess."

"If I ring you in tears afterwards, at least it won't be any great mystery why," Della said, trying to keep herself positive despite the dread now coiling deep in her belly. "It's the best course of action, though. The old woman has more magical knowledge than all the city's witching libraries combined. She'll be able to explain what this means."

"Good luck," Mags said, sounding dubious—and with good reason. She was well aware of the relationship Della had with her grandmother. "Well, my soup prep has now gone cold, so I'm going to farewell you on this questionable note and finish making my dinner if you're okay?"

"Of course," Della said. "I have to get back to work anyway. There's a Council meeting the day after tomorrow, and I've barely started my prep."

"Well, make sure you get some sleep at some point," Maggie instructed her. "You're worse than me, and I do shifts in Emergency."

"I will. Good night, lovely. I'll talk to you later."

"Night, hon," Mags said, and then she was gone, leaving Della to ponder the mystery of the bright blue flame. She was so distracted by that—as well as the threat of having to visit her grandmother—that she barely got through any of her Council meeting prep. Eventually, she gave up and went to bed, and her dreams were full of shadowy versions of Leo and bright blue candle flames.

***

Della's grandmother had been one of the coven Elders for fifteen years before Della was even born. After Della's mother passed away, the visits to Grandmother Elise that had been infrequent turned into waiting for her father to finish work at that big, spooky old house every afternoon after school. Even as a ten-year-old, Della had apparently had plenty of flaws for Grandmother Elise to point out, which she had done with gusto. Della tried to focus on the positive part of her time at her grandmother's place. She'd paid close attention to the old woman's activities and learnt magic far beyond the education usually given to someone of her age. It was part of why, as an advanced witch with a significant level of power, she'd been elected to the Council of Witches at such a young age. When she'd told her grandmother about her appointment, it had been one of the few times in her life that Grandmother Elise had had nothing negative to say.

Her grandmother was highly skeptical of telephones, so Della sent her a message through a spell casting candle flame that she'd like to visit the following afternoon—knowing it would put her behind the 8-ball at work but deciding that clearing up the mystery of the blue flame was more important—and quickly received a reluctant acceptance in response. Memories of years of afternoons spent fumbling through her homework as Grandmother Elise either ignored or criticized her ran through her mind as she drove up the tree-lined driveway.

Grandmother Elise's house was exactly the kind of spooky-looking old mansion that witches of legend might have chosen to inhabit. It was ancient, with multi-paned windows looking down from the second story like staring eyes, and a red door that had always reminded Della of a gaping mouth. It was in excellent repair, maintained as it was almost exclusively by magic, but Della imagined that when Grandmother Elise died and the spells eventually faded, it would crumble into a heap of tiles and brickwork.

The door swung open as Della approached it, and she suppressed a shiver. "Grandmother?" she called as she stepped through. "I'm here!" There was no response, which usually meant Grandmother Elise was in her workroom, so Della headed that way.

The hallways leading to Grandmother Elise's workroom were as crammed with pots of plants as Della's garden, but where she used mostly natural methods to encourage their growth, her grandmother's plants were all spelled to thrive in a dim indoor environment. It turned the corridors into a kind of indoor jungle, the air heavy with moisture and the smell of thriving greenery.

Della could hear Grandmother Elise chanting before she even got to the workroom, a spell for fertility that had fallen out of use in recent years in favor of a newer, simpler, but somewhat less powerful version. Someone must have come to her seeking the older, more potent one. Della knew better than to disturb her while she was working, so she stood in the doorway and watched her cast the spell. It involved far more ingredients than the newer version, a complex chant, and dedication to no fewer than three fertility goddesses. Once Grandmother Elise was finished, the room was left full of a sweet-smelling smoke that made Della slightly light-headed when she breathed it in.

Finally, Grandmother Elise broke her protection circle and snapped her fingers, immediately causing the smoke to disappear. "Good to see you finally decided to drop in," she said without looking at Della. "Are you going to stand there staring all day, or might you deign to help an old woman clean this up?"

"What would you like me to do, Grandmother?" Della asked. And hello to you too.

"Pick up a broom and get to work on the floor. You young things think everything needs to be done with magic. A little physical work will be good for you." She turned and surveyed Della from top to toe where she was still hovering in the doorway. Instantly, she was transported back to childhood, when she'd receive the same searching look almost every time she walked through the red front door. "And it looks like you could use it too," Grandmother Elise added in what may have been disguised as an undertone, but which Della was clearly meant to hear. She tried to tamp down on the deep sigh that threatened to break out of her and went to find the broom.

It was at the back of one of the cupboards, and heavily cobwebbed, proving that Grandmother Elise was not practicing what she preached when it came to cleaning without magic. Della swept up the rose petals and bits of eggshell without comment, though, collecting them into the corner of the room while Grandmother Elise returned her supply jars to the overflowing shelves that lined every wall of the room. Elise snapped her fingers, and the pile of detritus disappeared.

"Come, then," she ordered Della. "It's time for tea."

Della suppressed a shudder.

Grandmother Elise's teas were the stuff of legend in their coven. She rarely sold them, and when she did, they went like hotcakes. She had teas for pain relief, for patience, for efficiency, for contraception; all the ingredients spelled just enough to enhance their natural properties without impacting the user beyond their intended effect. Witches both from their own coven and from others visited her to beg for them, and Della had been gobsmacked to see the kindly old woman her grandmother became when she had one of those visitors. Then they'd leave, and she'd revert to the overly critical witch Della knew so well.

The teas Grandmother Elise gave her were always for things like achievement, or success, or increased magical power—after that one, Della had almost caused a hurricane trying to summon a light breeze one summer afternoon; she had flatly refused to drink it again. And they always tasted terrible, no matter how appetizing the ingredients list sounded on paper. Perhaps Grandmother Elise took pleasure in it and purposely only gave her the ones she'd fight not to spit right out. Whatever the motive, tea with her grandmother, for Della, was more of a threat.

"Hmm," Elise intoned, surveying the unlabeled plethora of jars that lined one of the walls of the large, sunlit kitchen. She stretched to collect one that was almost beyond her reach and nearly set those around it tumbling to the ground.

"What are you doing just loafing around, Delphinia?" she demanded without turning. "Boil some water."

Della wasn't sure whether she'd be scolded for using magic or for doing it manually—probably either—so she filled the kettle and flicked her fingers at it, setting it boiling. Grandmother Elise sniffed at the use of magic but, shockingly, said nothing. She measured out the tea into the pot and poured water over it, then was silent for a long moment as it steeped, surveying Della once more where she sat in her accustomed seat at the scarred wooden table.

"Clear-sightedness, today," she said eventually. "You need it if you thought that haircut was a good idea."

Della glanced down at the braid that hung over her shoulder. "Thanks, Grandmother."

"Now what question did you have for me today? I know you only come to see me when you want something, not just to sit and drink my tea, though many others would pay through the nose for that privilege." She sniffed pointedly.

"I cast for spell detection yesterday," Della said, ignoring the jibe as she was long accustomed to doing. "And the flame went blue, not green. I was wondering if you knew what that meant."

Grandmother Elise picked up the teapot and poured for both of them, almost as though she was buying herself time. That was impossible, though. There was no way her grandmother would do something so… hesitant.

"It means there is magic being used on the subject, Delphinia, but not in the form of a spell."

Della blinked. "How is that possible? To have magic used on me, it surely must be a spell. Even raw magic spells make the flame turn green in a detection spell."

"You were the subject, then?" Grandmother Elise asked, raising a single eyebrow.

Della nodded.

Her grandmother fixed her with a beady stare. "There are different kinds of magic," she began, and to her shock, Della saw a hint of the kindly face she showed her customers coming through. "There's the kind we witches can access, the kind that changes a vampire when they are bitten, the kind that calls werewolves to change at the full moon."

Della stiffened at the mention of werewolves and took a sip of her tea to try to hide it. It was… surprisingly not particularly awful, at least on the scale of teas her grandmother usually made her drink.

"The term used in most literature is 'natural magic', which is accessible to witches, and 'supernatural magic', which exists on a plane to which we have no access, and only rarely affects individuals in our world, rather than the world itself. Supernatural magic controls the sun and the moon, the creation of creatures, human and inhuman, the evolution of life itself. All those things that are beyond our control as witches—permanent change to the laws of physics, creating and destroying matter, true emotion—are governed by supernatural magic."

"So, you're saying the universe is using magic on me?" Della asked in disbelief.

"That's one way to look at it if you need things simple," Grandmother Elise said, a hint of her usual acerbic nature shining through once more. "Why exactly did you think you might be under a spell?"

Della heaved in a breath and decided she might as well lay it out. It seemed the best way she was going to find answers. "I've been having… feelings, for someone. And it seemed to me that they were coming on unnaturally fast and unnaturally strong. So, I thought perhaps there might be magic involved." She looked down at her tea. "I guess I was right, in a way." She could feel how lost and confused her own expression must appear.

Grandmother Elise considered her own tea for a long moment. "Yes," she said eventually. "Yes, there is magic involved. The universe's most complex magic. But no one is spelling you if that's what you're worried about."

"What do I do about it, then?" Della asked in desperation.

"Foolish girl, do you think I have answers to every question in the world?" Grandmother Elise snapped. "Supernatural magic is not to be tampered with. It controls the force of gravity, the power of a vampire finding their One or a werewolf their mate. Perhaps it is working on you now in a similar way. It's dangerous to interfere with this sort of thing."

"But I don't know what to do!" Della burst out. "Am I just supposed to… to feel this, to let myself be overwhelmed by it? How come the flame doesn't go blue any time anyone starts having emotions? Why is it just me?"

"There's magic at work, Delphinia," Elise said quietly. "Magic we cannot control. You're right—what you're feeling is beyond normal emotions. It's supernaturally controlled. You can't interfere with this."

"I don't know how to live with this kind of… this kind of intensity," Della said in desperation.

"Well, you're going to have to learn," Grandmother Elise said, rising from the table. "Now finish your tea and get going, girl. Some of us actually have work to do."

For a long moment, Della sat at the table in a state of something like shock. Her grandmother returned the jar of tea to her wall of similar containers and stood in the doorway surveying Della for a long moment.

"It may not get easier," she said, for once a trace of sympathy in her voice. "But you'll get used to it. You have my blood running through you. You are a Greenbranch, Delphinia, and we endure." With that, she left the room, leaving Della to clean up the detritus of their tea as usual, confusion making her head spin as she did so.