Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(31)
He stared at me, comprehension dawning on his face. “So you’re saying . . . you and I . . . ?”
I nodded, taking a deep breath. “Yes. I deeply regret to inform you that we are, apparently, witch married to each other now.”
11
A Crashing and Spectacular Chaos
Ten minutes later, Morty and I were still wallowing in a silence so deeply and excruciatingly awkward it was probably breaking some kind of world record on pregnant pauses.
“Sorry,” Morty said, flicking a glance up at me. “I’m really—I’m just trying to process all this. Take it in, if that’s even possible.”
“Believe me, I get it,” I said, fiddling with my martini stem. “It’s uncanny to me, as well. And this is my world we’re talking about.”
“But . . . how?” he said, spreading his hands. “I mean, we haven’t even—we didn’t even kiss the other night. Exactly how are you my witch wife now?”
I vented a sigh through my lips, wondering how deep I needed to go here. But, in for a penny, in for a pound; given the enduring nature of witch bonds, Morty and I were going to be in this together for quite some time, stuck with each other. He had a right to the information that I had at my disposal, anything that might help both of us understand how we could’ve wound up here.
“Something major happened to me the other night,” I told him, catching his gaze with an effort. It really was difficult to maintain eye contact with someone whose eyes were that brilliant of a color, and so unflinching to boot. Everyone in my family was blue-eyed, besides me; none of them had eyes remotely as magnetic as his. “And I think it must have triggered this as well, somehow.”
As simply as I could, I explained my dream descent to the bottom of the lake, the goddess who lived down there, the ramifications for the rest of the town.
“There’s a statue of a goddess in the lake?” he said, slack-jawed. “A statue that moves, that can call you down to it, that can somehow transport you to the bottom? That is—Nina, that’s insane. That is absolutely nutbag bonkers, even compared to everything else.”
“Trust me, I know. But she’s there, alright; and whatever she did, it seems to have affected me,” I finished, spreading my hands. “Dialed up all my natural talent to colossal levels. And I think you got caught up in the undertow, somehow. The magic mistook you for my partner—that’s why you’re no longer subject to the oblivion glamour. It appears to have triggered the creation of a witch bond without any of the, uh, consensual requirements that typically need to be met. Or the lakeside rituals.”
“The magical version of getting blackout drunk and eloping in Vegas, basically,” he quipped, twisting the cleaning cloth in his hands, winding it around his knuckles like a boxer. “So, how do we . . . I don’t know, get a witch divorce? A witch annulment? I’m assuming that’s what you want, too.”
“Oh, yes,” I assured him hastily, giving a frantic nod. “Definitely on the same page there. The thing is, I’ve never actually heard of that happening. Even if a witchbound couple does choose to separate, the bond remains in place, forever. You only get the one, and you get it for life. Those are the lake’s rules for it. There are no ways to reverse or break it that I know of.”
“But what if the couple breaks up? That must happen sometimes.”
“It does, but it’s very rare. I personally don’t know of any witchbound couple that’s split up. The bond . . .” I frowned, trying to articulate it properly. “It doesn’t only instill magic in the other partner, in the event that they’re not already a witch. It also comes with other qualities. You’ve already noticed one of them—the fact that you can feel wherever I am, if you’re looking for me.”
“And can you do the same for me?” he asked, his face tightening. “Just locate me anywhere I happen to be? Drop a pin on me?”
“Yes, if I tried,” I said, tucking in my lips behind my teeth. “You have to specifically think about your partner, focus on where they are. But I assumed you wouldn’t want me invading your privacy that way. So I haven’t done it.”
“Thanks for that,” he said shortly. “So, what’s the rest of it? What else does it do?”
“It, um, boosts empathy,” I said, licking my lips. This was where things were about to get extremely up close and personal. “That’s partly why witchbound couples rarely leave each other. Sinking into the bond allows you to experience the other person’s emotions. And their physical sensations, even, if you want. Their pain. Their, uh, their pleasure.”
“I don’t get it,” he said, though the complex flurry of emotions—fear, discomfort, and something curiously like intrigue—drifting across his face suggested that he did, in fact, have an inkling of how this might work. “You’re telling me I could feel you? Literally feel something you were experiencing? A Pacific Rim–style neural handshake?”
“You’re lucky I happen to love that glorious trashfire of a film, and therefore get such an obscure analogue, but yes,” I said, as a flush that was two parts mortification, one part something else altogether, traveled up my throat like paint spiraling through water. “You and I could officially pilot a mech together, congratulations to us. And from what I know, partners can also create a positive feedback loop, if they want. If they’re the ones touching each other.”