Page 16 of Fixing the Grumpy Pumpkin King
“You scared them.”
“They deserved it.”
“We’re going to get bad Yelp reviews.”
“I don’t know what that means and I don’t care.”
Locke came around the counter, kneeling to pick up the mess Jack watched him, then snapped his fingers. Bramble, Russet, and Pip materialized from wherever they’d been lurking, their tiny forms shimmering into visibility as they set to work gathering the scattered glass.
“Thank you,” Locke said quietly.
Locke still had trouble processing the small impish beings who bounced about here and there. It was Jack conjuring them into existence that made him faint and the little fey were the first creatures he saw once he woke up again as they yelled for their Lord thathiswarlock had finally come to.
“You’re a warlock,” Jack explained while Locke nursed his headache.
“I’m a what?”
“A warlock. Magic user. Witch, if you prefer, though that’s technically what one would call a woman. You have power.”
Locke stared at him. “I have power…?”
“Significant power. Raw, untrained, completely unconscious, but present.”
“Magic isn’t real.”
“I’m sitting in your home having summoned three fae familiars while my head is a literal jack-o’-lantern.”
Locke opened his mouth to rebut but what the hell could he rebut with? “Okay. Fair point.”
He spent the rest of the day walking around the apartment touching things, trying to “feel the magic.” Jack watched with fond exasperation as Locke pressed his hands against the vines, the leaves, the transformed walls.
“Am I doing it?”
“No.”
“What about now?”
“Still no.”
“How do I know if I’m doing magic stuff?”
“You’ll know.”
Locke gave him a frustrated look but kept trying. By day four, he managed to make a candle flare brighter just by looking at it. By day six, the herbs in the kitchen were growing at double speed whenever he was nearby.
Progress. Slow, but present.
Now, Locke straightened as the familiars finished gathering the glass, shooting Jack a look that was half fond exasperation, half something else. Something that made Jack’s carved expression soften before he could stop it.
He was getting sloppy about that.
A hippie-looking woman entered the shop, long skirt swishing, canvas bag covered in patches. She approached Locke with a dreamy smile.
“Excuse me, do you have any sage bundles?”
Jack straightened in his throne. “If you bothered to look around for five seconds you would have seen them on display behind you.”
Locke’s head whipped around. “Jack!”
