The pact

Epilogue

"I have everything!"

Lucy holds up her bag and the backpack. Jenna closes the door to the shop, checks that it's locked, and takes the bag from Lucy. Lucy takes her hand, and they walk down the dark street. The nights have been quiet for years now. Even the stories the street kids tell have lessened, or so they've heard.

"I need to go to the shop early tomorrow, it's a big flower arrangement I need to finish before the afternoon."

"Then I'll come in later."

She squeezes Jenna's hand in hers. She's happy they are friends. Now, when they are older, they even sleep in the same bed. Lucy likes falling asleep next to her, and wake up and hold her hand.

"I called the other premises today too. It's free, we can move there."

"So we can hire someone once we've moved!"

"Yes, it will be good with some help."

They cross the street. Lucy is happy their flower shop is growing. She is good with delivering flowers, and organizing the paper. Jenna is hopeless keeping anything in order. So she arranges the flowers, and Lucy takes care of the rest.

They never went back to the wizard, but Lucy hopes he's fine. After they closed the portal, Jenna packed her books and cleaned out her room. Now, she's only doing magic if she needs to. But never her old magic, only nice magic. Gullvi, too, stopped. It was time to retire, she said, and now she's saving to travel the world. Lucy hopes she will send her postcards when she does.

They arrive at the door to the block of flats and Jenna dials the code and the door swings open. Lucy convinced her to move out of her basement, so now they have warm water and a stove that doesn't give you electric shocks. They carry the bags up the stairs. An envelope is stuck in the letterbox and Jenna takes it. It's empty, just some scratches on it, as if someone has tried to write on it with a pen without ink.

"That's strange, Jenna says."

She tosses it to the side and steps inside.

"I'll heat the tinned beans."

"Okay..."

Jenna still doesn't know how to cook, and most of the time she will simply heat a ready meal. Lucy stopped trying some time ago. At least they get real meals when she cooks for them.

She puts the backpack down and has just closed the door when someone knocks. Jenna looks at her and shrugs, and Lucy opens. Two girls stand outside, glancing nervously around. They jump in fright as the door swings open, and the shorter of the two nudges her friend with her elbow. She glances behind her before leaning in and stammering,

"Are... are you the famous adepts?"

"Yes, who's asking?"

"We fucked up...."