Utterly Enchanting [MxM] (Complete)

Part Three (End)

Leander wasn't sure how long he'd been sleeping, or when exactly he'd drifted off in the first place. He awoke to a cold hand gently stroking his hair back from his brow, and to Vespertine's eerie blue eyes staring down at him. The room was dark, but the necromancer held a small lantern in one hand that cast a flickering glow across his face.

"Gods, Vespertine! No!" Leander pushed him away and crawled out of bed. "How long were you there?"

"Five minutes, maybe? You were so peaceful..."

"That's the creepiest thing you've ever done, and I'm including the unicorn." Leander straightened his clothes and combed his fingers through the curls the necromancer had been smoothing. "No more of that until you're fixed, and probably not after."

"It's not as if you don't stare at me when I'm napping. I've caught you a few times."

Leander felt his face warm with a guilty blush. "I don't loom over you like the grim reaper!"

"Fair. Shall we? Midnight draws close."

He drew his dark hood over his head and began descending the stairs. Leander followed after him, trying not to smile at the necromancer's dramatics. His amusement began to fade as they went down into the dark, descending the tower steps as one might go down into a dark tomb. Only their echoing footsteps could be heard in the still night air, and a chill passed through Leander as they went into what he would have normally considered his sitting room.

It had become unrecognizable in the hours Vespertine spent preparing the space. The fire was dead, and the candles that flickered on the mantle and nearby tables provided little light and even less warmth. The chairs had been moved elsewhere, as had the soft rugs that covered most of the floor, leaving only cold stone beneath his bare feet. A white ritual circle made up of three ornate rings had been drawn in the middle of the room with a piece of broad chalk, and the runes between each layer were unrecognizable to him. In its center was a bowl of candles that had long since burned low, filling its basin with wax from which tiny wicks poked out like sprouts from the earth. It was balanced atop the gathered pages of the ruined grimoire.

"Sit in by the bowl and think of your grandmother," Vespertine told him. "I'll take care of the rest."

Leander did as he was told. He focused on the flickering lights in the bowl as the flames glinted off the melted wax and tried to clear his mind of everything but memories of her grandmother. His mind's eye was filled with the warm kitchen that had acted as her own place of work, amidst hanging bundles of dried herbs that were plucked and sprinkled into a massive iron put that hung always above the hearth. It was within that little house on the forest's edge that he had learned a love of magic, thought it only barely resembled what was taught in the Academy. There was something wild about it as she called on the spirits of the land, burning the resins of local plants and speaking old chants passed down only through spoken word to work her charms. Much had been put into her grimoire, but far more of his grandmother's craft had likely gone with her to her grave without a proper descendant to pass those secrets on to. How he wished his mother had taken more of an interest, or that he himself had been of age to learn them.

The room was filling with incense smoke as Vespertine paced around the circle, fanning a bowl filled with crushed, smoldering herbs with his hand. As he walked, the plumes of smoke drifted and swirled, but more and more of it came to gather int he air above Leander's head. Within the glow of the candles, a figure was beginning to take shape.

"Leander?"

His gaze jerked up to the smiling face of his grandmother, formed from the pale smoke.

"Speak quickly," Vespertine murmured to him as he passed by, still treading the circle. "Without my tools, I had to make do with what little you had on hand. We have until the incense burns out."

Leander's grandmother nodded, seeming to accept the necromancer's words. "Why have you called me, child?"

"I tried your love spell, and something went wrong," Leander hastily explained. "There was this burst of flame, and Vespertine... that's the necromancer over there... he was hit by it. How do I fix him?"

"Oh, my darling," his grandmother laughed. "It will fade on its own soon enough."

"What?" Leander blinked. "But it was to call love to someone..."

"Yes. It would find where love was already growing and help overcome what stood in its way. Distance, words left unspoken... you did read my notes, didn't you dear?"

"I skimmed them?" Leander said weakly. "I... no. Not really."

His grandmother laughed again. "Has your necromancer friend spoken his mind?"

"Yes," Vespertine told her. "More than ever intended, though it was freeing."

"Then he should already be feeling more like himself. Once you've overcome the between you barriers, its work is done."

"That's all?" Leander asked, still shocked by the spell's simplicity.

"I would never craft a spell that demanded more. Love should be allowed to take its course. I simply wished to help it on its way when the heart was weighed down by the fears of the mind."

"So we've already broken the spell," Leander mused. "How do you feel, Vespertine? What do you think?"

The necromancer knelt to gather him into his arms, and he answered with a kiss. As the incense smoke dispersed, Leander's grandmother bid them farewell, and the two lovers were left alone in an eager embrace.