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“A-Googler what?” The gnome looked at me like I was an idiot. “Witches. Always been nonsensical idiots.”
Then the gnome marched away, scooping up his top hat as he went and squashing it back onto his head. He whistled his way out of the gates of Le Jardín, leaving me to stare at Belinda in amazement.
“So?” Belinda prompted with a clear of her throat. “How did that feel?”
I looked down at my hands. “Actually, it felt nice. Good. Natural.”
“You just saved that gnome from who-knows-how-much-longer he’d have been cursed. Hexed under a Bulbous Leaf—they smell like rotten eggs when it rains. What a miserable existence, the poor thing.”
I could only stare after him. “I can’t process what just happened.”
Belinda reached over, squeezed my shoulder. “Go have a glass of wine and take the day off, sweet cheeks. Most people don’t free others from curses until Lesson 13 at the very least. You’ve done good today.”
Then Belinda blinked, like she was snapping back to attention, and popped the lid off her vial.
“My work here is done.” She puckered up her lips and blew me a kiss. “Toodles, honey. You’re gonna do great things.”
Then she was gone, and I was left alone in the garden of my dreams, watching a bad-tempered gnome march away from me, free for the first time in over 150 years because I’d decided to embrace my magical powers.
Chapter 20
Dominic
Trixie barreled through my door without bothering to knock. Just the way I liked it. We’d mostly started coming and going from each other’s apartments as desired the last couple of days. I knocked on her door, but mostly for Emmy’s sake. I liked that she felt comfortable enough to forego the formality on mine.
Tonight, Trixie’s cheeks were rosy, and she held two mostly-empty glasses of red wine in her hands. The half-empty bottle was tucked under her arm.
“Sorry,” she said, not really sounding sorry. “Emmy and I got started already. She was saying how I’ve been spending so much time with you that we haven’t had girl talk, so after my morning with Belinda, we spent some time together.”
Trixie didn’t stop moving. I suspected she might be a little drunk already. She turned on the TV, settled into the sofa, and kicked her feet up on the coffee table. As she poured more wine, she nodded at the screen. “Doesn’t Lucas Paul the Third look great tonight?”
“He definitely consulted a stylist,” I murmured, thinking I hadn’t actually glanced at the TV once. The debate was of no interest to me. It was just another tool in my toolbelt to spend time with Trixie.
Even so, we both put on a good show of pretending to be interested in what Lucas and Levian were saying. But as the debates wore on slowly, the distance between us disappeared. As did the wine in Trixie’s glass.
Soon enough, we were sitting arm to arm, our skin touching as if we’d been hot glued together. Neither of us moved, even to refill our glasses of wine. There was a thickness in the air tonight, a bit of magic, a surreal sort of pressure that seemed to be hovering around us.
It was like the last couple of weeks were coming to one big finale. The wildcard election would be ending. The building would go up for sale. We would go our separate ways...or would we? The only reason I had to keep my distance from Trixie was because my brother would know that she was important to me. And I’d been failing at keeping my distance anyway, so why start now?
On screen, both Lucas and Levian were fielding questions from Merci, who was moderating the event. So far, Merci had been lobbing softballs, and both candidates had been playing nicely.
There had been two more podiums sat out at the beginning of the debate presumably for me and Trixie, but a suited security guard had tried to inconspicuously roll the podiums away about ten minutes into the debate. Once they were really sure that neither Trixie nor I intended to show up at the last minute.
“I met with Belinda.” Trixie’s eyes were fixed on the television. “It was really helpful. Thank you.”
“I’m glad.”
“I cured a bad-tempered gnome from a curse that’d turned him to stone for 150 years.”
I blinked, glanced over at Trixie to see if this was some sort of joke, but her heart rate stayed constant, and the look in her eyes told me she was serious.
I cleared my throat. “You did what?”
“Long story,” she muttered, taking a sip of wine. “Suffice to say that I used my magic.”
“And?”
“It was nice. I did a good thing. I think. I mean, the gnome was sort of nasty tempered, but really, who wouldn’t be after they’ve been cursed for that long? Can you imagine the crick in his neck? I sleep wrong on my pillow and it’s like I need to call hospice.”
