Page 103 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

My stupid assignment?

The answer comes quickly.

Primavera1959

Affectionate stupid. Not derogatory.

I would never.

Someone asked me what I wanted today and I actually told them

Which doesn’t sound particularly impressive now that I’m typing this out, but apparently I’ve spent most of my adult life believing that wants require supporting documentation

I lean back in my chair.

What she is identifying is not magic.

I’ve never believed a stone can make someone brave or a candle can bring love through someone’s front door. The moon doesn’t care whether you take a walk beneath it, and the universe has better things to do than rearrange itself because someone wrote a name on a piece of paper and burned it at midnight.

But people care. People pay attention when you give them a reason to.

Tell someone to take a walk beneath a full moon and suddenly they’re looking at things they pass every day. Tell them to write down five things they want without explaining any of them, and eventually they have to confront how difficult it is to want something without defending it. Tell someone to ask clearly and they start noticing all the ways they’ve spent their life avoiding exactly that.

The ritual isn’t the magic.

It’s the attention.

That’s what I’ve always believed, even if I don’t phrase it quite so bluntly on Whisp.

And Primavera has been paying attention.

The Third Fairy

How did it feel?

Primavera1959

Horrifying

Then good.

Now maybe horrifying again because I have to live with the consequences of having opinions

I laugh softly.

The Third Fairy

Tragic

Primavera1959

Thank you for your compassion during this difficult time.

I should leave it there. Instead, I find myself asking another question.

The Third Fairy

What did you ask for?