A Magical Bond | 17

It was far too bright and early on a rare Friday morning off when Sione was roused from slumber by the inescapably irritating jingle of the cat teaser Cassie had recently purchased for Inkblot to chase after to no end, his paws hitting the hardwood floor with a gentle but frustratingly repetitive thump every time he failed to grasp the elusive feathery bait. As Sione groaned under his breath and pulled the covers over his head, he heard Cassie's muffled voice instruct the always obedient Inkblot to pounce.

Before he knew it, the cat's crafty little paws were pummeling him through the covers, stubbornly set on drawing their newfound target out from his hiding place, no matter how long it took. Finally, he relented, emerging from his cocoon of pillows and sheets. "Fine!" he shouted in exasperation. "I surrender! I surrender!"

"You'd better get in the shower, mister," Cassie told him, sweeping the fluffy end of the cat teaser coyly across his bare chest. "We'll be lucky to make it to Windenburg by sundown at this rate. I told you we needed to be out of here by the crack of dawn, but somebody decided it was more important to catch up on his beauty sleep instead!"

Sione rolled his eyes in mock annoyance but quickly leapt out of bed. He knew how important this trip was to Cassie. They'd planned it weeks ago, shortly after their big talk about the future, a weekend getaway to a countryside B&B where they could spend a couple days unwinding in the fresh, open air and where he might finally get a chance to meet some of Cassie's magical friends. She'd been meticulously hammering out the details ever since, and he would never live it down if he screwed their entire itinerary up. Everything had to be perfect.

Of course, she had crafted the schedule with just enough wiggle room to accommodate a few small distractions. Despite her strict demands for punctuality, it was easy enough to coax her out of her clothes and into the steamy shower with him for a brief stolen moment of intimacy. After all, once they got to Windenburg, their schedule would be so packed full of sight-seeing and socializing that they might end up left with hardly any real alone time at all. Besides, it was important to start their long weekend off on a suitably invigorating foot. By the time they staggered out from beneath the piping hot water, Sione felt wide awake.

Of course, most of that energy was sapped by the seemingly eternal flight to Windenburg, and when the plane finally touched down at its destination, he hardly had the stamina to drag himself to the luggage terminal let alone think about enduring the late night bonfire party a handful of Cassie's friends had organized. Cassie, on the other hand, was practically bouncing off the walls of their room at the B&B with giddy anticipation. As hard as it was for Sione to abandon the sight of the freshly-made king-sized bed, he couldn't deny that dragging himself away had been worth it when he laid eyes on the chosen venue: a ramshackle display of crumbling yet stately stone pillars plopped incongruously down in the middle of town. But they were far from a tacky tourist trap; the entire city had been built around them, not the other way around. It was impossible for him to wrap his head around the fact that they were about to spend the night casually drinking and dancing amongst the last standing ruins of an ancient civilization.

Noticing how his amazement had stunned him into silence, Cassie remarked quietly, "Not exactly the sort of thing you can just stumble across in the big city, is it?"

"No," Sione replied slowly, still taking it all in. "Definitely not."

Eventually, they moved deeper into the Ruins, where a pile of scrap wood had already been gathered, patiently awaiting the spark of life. He hadn't even been introduced to any of Cassie's friends before she whipped out a wand, seemingly from thin air, and aimed it squarely at the heap of timber, muttering a handful of unintelligible syllables. At first, Sione was shocked she would be so brazen, but then he remembered that everyone else at the party was likely already so entrenched in the world of magic that the use of it barely registered to them anymore. On the other hand, the sight of someone taking the time to fumble a lighter or book of matches out of their pocket would probably leave them all gaping in disbelief.

There was no slow and steady build-up; the bonfire immediately leapt to a crackling roar, the flames licking up as high as their heads within seconds. Cassie proudly admired her handiwork. "See, sometimes I can set things on fire that are actually supposed to burn," she told Sione with a cheeky smile, as they both recalled the night she had narrowly avoided setting his parents, not to mention his entire apartment, ablaze. Soon enough, one of her friends produced (magically, of course) a platter piled with hot dogs for them to roast. Sione's stomach immediately started growling like he hadn't eaten in years.

For a while, they happily chatted and ate, and as the conversation turned to subjects other than magic, Sione soon forgot his nerves at being the only "normie" in attendance. But Cassie, not having encountered many opportunities to hone her spellcraft in San Myshuno, was eager to put herself to the test and see how her skills had held up after so many relatively magic-free months. Sione, clueless to whatever spell she was attempting to cast, smiled vaguely at her in a way he hoped looked supportive but not overly stupefied. At the last minute, her friend, Katy, who stood out for her electric blue hair, seemed to catch onto what she was doing and exclaimed abruptly, "Oh, girl, you'd better not," before she was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of thick gray smoke.

When the smoke finally dispersed, Katy had been transformed into a human ice cube. For several terrible seconds, Sione stood staring at the ice-encased woman with his jaw dropped, appalled at the sight. What had Cassie done? She couldn't possibly mean to let Katy freeze to death, could she? Was everything he thought he knew about the kind of person she was all a terrible lie? But then he realized no one else seemed upset, which must mean Katy's life wasn't in danger after all, and felt foolish for immediately jumping to the most extreme conclusion. He did his best to brush off his initial reaction, returning to his hot dog with an exaggerated sense of calm he hoped mirrored everyone else's.

Sheepishly, Cassie cozied up next to him, leaning in close to give him an indulgent kiss on the cheek. "I know that must have looked crazy to you," she said with a small laugh. "But it's really just our way of playing jokes on each other. Don't worry. It's totally harmless! The heat of the bonfire will have her thawed out in no time, and she'll immediately start plotting her revenge, I'm sure."

As Cassie predicted, water was soon sheeting off of Katy's body in a heavy, rushing downpour, leaving her skin tinged slightly blue with cold but her clothes curiously dry. Sione had a million questions about the logistics of magic and its effects running through his head, but he didn't even know how to begin asking them.

Katy walked around for the rest of the party shivering and pouting in a melodramatic way that seemed partly genuine but mostly exaggerated for effect. She kept muttering to Cassie that she would get her back as soon as she regained feeling in her fingertips. "You want war, Bautista?" she shrieked, getting drunker and drunker as the night progressed. "Bring it on, baby. Bring it the fuck on." Cassie only responded with a bemused half-smirk, which was clearly not the response Katy was hoping for. But her theatrical proclamations were old hat to Cassie by now. She no longer found them threatening at all.

Cassie tracked down Sione, who was stealing a moment of relative quiet away from the loud voices and even louder music that seemed to fill up every corner of the Ruins. "What do you say we sneak out of here a little early?" she asked him, her eyes sparkling mischievously in the light of the nearly full moon. "I don't want to just hand Katy the opportunity to turn me into a frog or something on a silver platter, you know?"

"You're kidding, right?" he exclaimed, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. "That's not something she'd actually do... is it?"

Cassie laughed. "Oh, you have no idea what that girl is capable of. Anyway, I have so much more I want to show you, and there's hardly enough time to get through it all."

"Oh, yeah?" He smirked at her suggestively. "Like what?"

"You'll just have to wait and see," she said in a mysterious sing-song and began wandering slowly away from the sliver of city that was visible on the opposite side of the Ruins, heading deeper and deeper into the overgrown grass. He had no choice but to follow her.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, they stumbled into an abrupt clearing, the formless stretch of weeds and brambles and crumbling stone structures opening up into a natural hot spring, waves of steam rolling lazily across its completely still surface. Too many thousands of years ago for either of them to fully comprehend, humans had preserved this spring, carefully bordering its edges with precisely-cut hunks of granite that would stand the test of time. It was one of the most beautiful places Sione had ever been and so dead silent that the party became only a faint memory.

The silence was so complete that it also begged to be broken. So, after a few minutes of awed contemplation, they did exactly that, laughing as they stripped off their clothes and tossed them carelessly into the bushes. Sione was the first to scramble onto the smooth surface of the tall stone ledge that jutted over the pool's edge, hoping to impress Cassie with a sleek and effortless dive. But he'd underestimated how long it'd been since he'd been in the water (not to mention how soft working in an office all day had made his muscles) and instead managed only a flailing belly flop.

Of course, Cassie looked like no less than an angel in the air, her arms extended gracefully as she descended in an effortless, serene swoop, her body creating only the slightest disturbance in the water as she plunged through the surface in what seemed like slow motion.

"That's so not fair!" Sione exclaimed as soon as her head bobbed back into sight, only half-jokingly. "You must've used magic to do that. There's no other way you could make such a flawless dive. I demand a rematch!"

Cassie threw her head back in a teasing peal of laughter and swam closer to him, her strokes agonizingly slow. Even now, after they'd been reunited for so long, the thought of his fingers trailing against her bare skin thrilled him, his heartbeat accelerating each time she drew nearer.

"Does knowing I can do magic whenever I want turn you on?" she asked in a low voice once she finally reached him.

Although he had never actually thought about it in those terms before, he knew the answer immediately. "Of course," he admitted. "Although it kind of scares me at the same time."

She laughed again. "And here I thought I'd been taking it easy on you. I haven't even shown you the half of it yet."

"So show me," he insisted, feeling suddenly emboldened.

"Really?" she asked. "It's not exactly on the itinerary..."

"Who cares about the itinerary? I want to see what you've really been up to. I want to see everything you've learned."

Despite Sione's bold proclamations, there was no playing down how taken aback he felt when Cassie whipped out a broomstick (from the same invisible cache as her wand, apparently) and nudged him onto the end of it before he could fully process what was happening. He'd always thought broomsticks were an especially contrived piece of magical lore, a silly and unnecessary affectation even in the fanciful fictional realm of Henry Puffer. Surely, if spellcasters actually existed, they'd be more subtle than all that. But, apparently, the books were more rooted in reality than he'd ever imagined. And, now, suddenly, here he was, zooming through pitch black skies, clinging on for dear life to the knobby wooden handle as the clouds split open into a sudden downpour, soaking him to the bone in an instant.

After what felt like a century spent perilously aloft, they finally touched down on a large granite platform carved out at the edge of a turbulent river. Yet again, Sione was faced with a wondrous sight he could barely fathom, even as it stood plainly before his own eyes: something that could only be described as a portal to another universe. "Don't tell me you expect me to walk through this thing," he exclaimed, his body having barely adjusted to being back on solid ground. "How do I know that it won't, like, rip me apart at a molecular level?"

Cassie giggled, still darting around on her broomstick like an overexcited toddler. "Well, I've never actually tried to bring anyone else along before," she replied, far too cavalierly for his comfort. "Supposedly, it only lets you through if you share a bloodline with its original owner, but I think that's probably just elitist gatekeeping bullshit."

Sione swallowed the nervous lump in his throat. "Probably?"

"Definitely. Besides, we both come from the same tiny backwards island in the middle of the goddamn ocean. If you trace our lineages back far enough, I'm sure we're technically related."

"Are you seriously trying to comfort me with the thought of our theoretically incestuous relationship right now?"

She grinned widely. "Don't worry. Our common ancestor must be at least a thousand years removed." She bounced up and down on her broomstick impatiently. "Or you can jump back on here, if you'd rather."

Sione's stomach flipped a nauseated somersault. "No, thank you." Faced with two equally terrifying choices, he shuffled tentatively closer to the shimmering entryway before him. "See you on the other side, I guess." But when he turned back to wave goodbye, she was already gone. He sucked in a deep breath and barreled forward.

The transition was nearly seamless. He simply took a step forward and was suddenly in a completely different landscape. Cassie, on the other hand, had a rough landing, crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust shortly after his arrival. He raised a dubious eyebrow. "I'm glad I didn't take you up on that offer of another ride," he said.

"I'm usually much more coordinated," she mumbled defensively from somewhere in the vicinity of his feet.

It wasn't until they began walking that the oddness of his surroundings truly sank in. Everything in this place was bathed in an eerie, blue-tinged light, and the ground was covered in mysterious markings. As they reached the large mansion looming in the distance, he observed the spellcasters scattered in groups of two and three across its grounds, concocting strange brews in massive iron cauldrons or challenging each other to intense magical duels. "This is where I learned everything I know," Cassie said, gesturing toward the ancient brick walls. "Well, almost everything. Of course, they're too afraid to teach you the really interesting stuff."

His eyes went even wider as they crossed into Casters Alley. It looked like an illustration lifted directly from the pages of Henry Puffer brought to vivid, three-dimensional life. He said as much to Cassie, and she immediately scolded him for his innocent observation. "Trust me, they hate it when you mention those books around here. Turns out the lady who wrote them was a truly terrible spellcaster. They kicked her out of the Academy, and she's been bitter ever since. Incidentally, she's also, like, a massive bigot these days. Have you seen her Social Bunny feed lately? It's a garbage dump of truly abysmal takes."

"Another childhood hero bites the dust," Sione muttered in response. He was trying to play it cool but couldn't stop staring at the spooky holographic vendors manning every storefront.

Next, seemingly sensing that he was feeling a touch overstimulated, Cassie took him to what she said was one of her favorite places in the Magic Realm to simply be alone and think, a gorgeously constructed greenhouse that had obviously been abandoned to the elements some years ago, smothered in creeping ivy and with many of its glass panes shattered. Even in its dilapidated state, he could see its charm. The overgrown landscape surrounding it was just as still and isolated. He understood why it was such fertile ground for self-reflection. They spent some time at the eerily illuminated pond beside it, but there wasn't a single fish in sight. Sione was relieved not to see anything down there. After all, who knew what kind of strange, mythical creatures might occupy a world like this?

Finally, Cassie seized hold of the opportunity to show off the full breadth of her magical prowess. Upon their arrival at the Dueling Grounds, she challenged the first spellcaster she saw to a friendly competition, immediately brandishing her wand like a deadly weapon, which, to Sione, seemed like the opposite of friendly, but her sparring partner took it in stride, clearly as eager to battle as she was.

It wasn't until halfway through the duel when Sione noticed with a sudden flash of recognition that he knew the other spellcaster. Although they hadn't seen each other in years, he was certain they'd both been Robotics Club members back in high school. Sione had been too cool to betray his childhood love of magic by that point. If only he'd been more secure in his interests, they might have formed a stronger bond. How different might his life be now if he'd known about the existence of actual magic way back then? "Franklin?!?" he exclaimed in disbelief, but his former friend was too caught up in battle to hear him.

After several intense minutes in which, as far as Sione could tell with his limited understanding of the intricacies of spellcasting, it seemed like both competitors were equally matched, Cassie finally managed to get the upper hand, knocking Franklin off his feet with a massive blast of energy. To Sione, she had never been more attractive than in that moment, as she effortlessly threw a grown man to the ground without ever laying hands on him. He couldn't help himself from whooping excitedly and shouting at the top of his lungs, "That's my girl!"

After Franklin had dusted himself off, he greeted Sione with a handshake. "Hey, I remember you! Robotics Club, right? What are you up to now, man?"

Sione rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, suddenly fearing his achievements paled in comparison to what he had just witnessed Franklin do. "Oh, I'm just a lowly entry-level computer engineer trying to slowly make my way up the ladder. But I'd rather talk about you. I had no idea you were into this sort of stuff!"

Franklin laughed. "Yeah, it's sort of a family tradition, but I always thought it was kind of hokey and lame when I was younger. Turns out it's a lot more interesting than I gave it credit for."

"I know exactly what you mean," Sione replied, his face turning red at the thought of his own teenage insecurities.

"Wait, are you a spellcaster, too?" Franklin asked.

"Nah," Sione told him, waving a dismissive hand in the air. "I used to wish I was, back before I realized it was even a real possibility, but I think that time has passed me by." He grinned and gestured toward Cassie. "I'll just have to live vicariously through watching my girlfriend kick your ass, I guess." He wrapped an arm around Cassie's shoulders, and she beamed up at him proudly.

"I'll admit she won this round fair and square," Franklin said, "but we'll see whose ass is getting kicked  next time."

Cassie scoffed and rolled her eyes at his false bravado. "Mark my words, dude. It'll still be you."

When they touched back down in Windenburg (Sione having grudgingly agreed to give Cassie's broomstick another chance), it was near dawn, the sky going gray but still dark enough to see the stars. They both collapsed, exhausted by their impromptu journey, in the grass amongst the still and empty Ruins, the party having long ago dissolved. For a while, they gazed up at the sky in contemplative silence. "Well, what's the verdict?" Cassie finally ventured. "Was it all too much? Are you having second thoughts about spending the rest of your life with someone like me? Would you rather have someone more normal and mundane?"

Sione sat up on one elbow, wounded by her assumptions. "Of course not," he responded immediately. "That's exactly why I love you - because you're the complete opposite of normal and mundane. Because you're you."

Cassie locked eyes with him meaningfully. "You love me?" she asked.

Was this the first time he'd said it? The words had slipped out of him so easily that he didn't even pause to consider their impact. He just knew that they felt truer than anything else he could say. "Yes, I love you, you wild, mysterious, magical woman, more than anyone else in the world."

"I love you, too," she whispered back, and they kissed beneath the fading constellations.