Page 85 of Charmed

I pressed my hand to my chest but I couldn’t escape each of my heart’s frantic beats imparting a message I still didn’t feel ready to receive, not with our diverging paths preventing my acting upon my growing feelings.

I used to futilely deny my apprentice’s effect on me…until my brush with the Relic of Clarity had illuminated the truth of my deepening feelings that felt as impossible to decipher as the trickiest enchanted lock. Since then I’d striven to better understand the emotions stirring my heart, but no amount of research into charms or potions dealing with love could prepare me for how to navigate this unknown magic.

I thought I could spend my entire life hiding from romance behind my books, training, and position…but love had found me anyway, a magic I still didn’t understand but which I desperately wanted to explore. For Maeve gave meaning not just to my powers, but made me a better wizard, prince…and especially man.

On the eve of my final day of training, I sat midst midnight’s presence surrounded by my usual wall of tomes, staring unseeing at the page as I restlessly twirled my quill between my fingers. I was so lost in thought that I didn’t hear Enchantress Ivy’s soft knock, causing me to startle when she inched the door open wide enough to peer inside.

“I came to check whether you were ready for your first official day tomorrow.”

Despite feeling entirely unprepared, I managed a nod and tried to return to my reading, certain an extended conversation would force me to confront the confusion I felt unequipped to encounter. Rather than my silence encouraging her departure, she lingered in the doorway a moment before stepping fully into the room and conjuring a chair in order to settle beside me.

“Casting aside my position as the Head Enchantress and speaking as a mentor: just because you’ve earned this position doesn’t mean you’re under any obligation to accept it.”

My gaze snapped to hers. “How could I ever give up all I’ve ever wanted?” But rather than these words illuminating my path forward as they’d previously done, instead they became entangled in my self-inflicted lies that no amount of magic could unravel.

“Dreams can shift or even change as one grows and develops.” She rested a motherly touch on my arm, conjuring the memory of the times Mae had touched me and the almost electrifying sensation each had left upon my skin. “As qualified as you are for this position, I can’t help but wonder if this is what you truly desire.”

Her question acted as its own spell of clarity, illuminating the doubts lurking in the dark corners of my heart that I’d do anything to keep hidden. “How can it no longer be enough?”

“Perhaps because securing the position granted you what you truly sought—not a seat on the council, but to prove yourself, while in truth there is something that will bring you greater fulfillment beyond what you thought you wanted. Journeys have a way of changing us, leaving me to wonder if what you now strive for has shifted to something else…or rathersomeone.”

Unbidden, Mae’s face bombarded my mind, as if my heart had been waiting for permission to summon the thoughts and memories of her I’d been striving to suppress. An ache filled my chest that I doubted even the most powerful healing charm would be able to cure…save for her.

Which left only one course, one that terrified me.

I toyed with one of the enchanted instruments on my desk. “What would happen if I rejected the position?”

She smiled. “Then the one who next qualified would take your place: your friend, Kai. Even without an official role on the Enchanters’ Council, you need not step away completely—we would offer you a less taxing role as Head of the Magical Theory Department, which will leave you enough free time to pursue not only your responsibilities as a prince that I’ve come to understand you’ve grown in these past several months, but have time for more personal pursuits...such as your affinity for a particular frog.”

Mischief infused her grin, causing heat to engulf me and stoke my yearning…yet I’d clung to the Council position for too long for my hesitation to dispel completely. “What should I do?”

“Only you can determine that. However you decide to use your unique gifts, I will support you.” Enchantress Ivy rose from her seat but paused at the threshold to glance back. “Perhaps the greatest magic is what is found on the journey to achieving our dreams, where we come to realize that what we thought we wanted and what we truly desire are different than we initially imagined.”

With an encouraging smile she departed, leaving me staring after her with a wish to summon her back to help me work through the confusing muddle of my thoughts.

Unable to sort out the puzzle on my own, I turned to the source that had guided me for so long:magic. With a murmured spell I lit a candle to study its dancing flame. I had little experience in divination magic considering I’d never felt the need to search for any other path other than the one currently steering my course, but now I felt stuck at a crossroads that led to two very different destinations, one containing a future far different than I initially expected.

No matter how much I concentrated, I couldn’t interpret the flame’s dancing movements, each sway only reminding me of the time I’d taught Mae about divination magic; every thought I conjured always connected back to her. I struggled to wrangle my thoughts into submission as the smoke curled upwards to waltz into indiscernible patterns.

I sighed. Deep down I knew I didn’t need divination or any other spell to confirm the message my heart had been trying to impart from the moment of Mae’s departure. Clearly the love potion she and I had created in the challenge was not to blame for the spell that had captured my heart, going far deeper than a mere charm ever could. However my future unfolded, the one certainty that emerged from my tangle of conflicting desires was that I wanted to experience it with her by my side—not to train her as my apprentice, but to continue the journey we’d already started in our discoveries not just in magic but also ourselves, all while making new ones together.

There was only one position suited for this role I wanted for her, one that caused me to blush and my heart leap at the realization of had been my true dream this entire time.

* * *

Maeve

I feltI’d left behind all the magic that had once filled my life when I departed from Alden. I hadn’t realized how accustomed I’d grown to his presence until he was no longer beside me. Everything reminded me of him—whether it was the lessons he’d taught me or one of his endearing quirks that I fiercely missed.

I tried to lock these emotions away so nothing would distract me from the needs of my family that had returned to the forefront of my focus the moment I arrived home. Part of me expected to return to find my family struggling, but to my surprise and confusion they had functioned without me. While this brought me joy, it also forced me to wrestle with the realization that despite having put so much of myself into serving them all of these years I wasn’t indispensable, leaving me uncertain of my true purpose.

Despite my efforts to suppress it, magic seemed determined to distract me. Shortly after I returned home, enchanted letters began to arrive, soaring into my waiting hands to transform into offers for me to enter an apprenticeship with various witches and wizards.

Each offer acted as a seductive spell that preyed on my secret desires, but I couldn’t make myself accept any. As much as I wanted to continue exploring my magical pursuits, I repeatedly found myself unconsciously habitually shelving them in favor of my old responsibilities that used to occupy my attention prior to meeting Alden.

I knew that he wanted me to continue my studies so I had something that was mine alone outside the needs of my family, but I wasn’t ready to move forward in my training with the absence of the man who’d first ignited my passion.

Instead I immersed myself in my familiar duties, taking on much of Corbin’s care and helping my mother around the house, but even my frantic cleaning spree until every surface was spotless wasn’t enough to curb my restlessness. I even grew desperate enough to wrangle the broom Alden had enchanted to glide across the floor in order to sweep it myself…only for it to wriggle free, leaving me nothing to distract me from all the memories Alden and I shared, ones I cherished more deeply now that our paths had diverged despite the tender feelings I’d so recently discovered.

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