Chaos Magic (The Forbidden Kingdom)

Carmell flittered around the shop, dropping different-coloured candles, incense, and herbs. Tenet crossed them off on the slate and calculated the price. She was surprised at how cheap everything was. Even the giant cauldron, plant pots, and seeds she ordered to be sent to her room in the next few days only cost a hundred coins. It was an extra-large cauldron and at least ten plant pots. She also got a shelving unit for growing plants in her room, which was on sale for half price.

"Why don't you sell tarot cards or scrying pendants?" Carmell asked Darrius with a furrow of her brows.

"It's illegal," Darrius replied, moving a piece of her behind her ear.

Carmell's eyes went as wide as saucers, and her entire body went rigid.

"What else is illegal?" she whispered.

"Anything that can be used to tell the future," his eyes narrowed a little as he wondered where this was going.

"I see," she mumbled, moving her eyes to Tenet as she remembered that she had a game that essentially told the future or a possible future.

Carmell shook her head and smiled brightly, turning around to grab an athame, chalice, boline, and mortar and pestle. She examined the boline's handle and crescent-curved blade with a strong interest. She couldn't find a real one from the witch trials, and her PhD would have been complete with many of these tools.

She couldn't wait to start classes. The three years of working on her thesis proposal made understanding spells and rituals much easier. At least, this world was based on some historical accuracy. When she reached the specialised grimoires for the two routes of magic, light and dark, her automatic choice was to pick up one of each level for both sides. Why should she limit herself?

For the first year, she could study both sides and choose the side the academy could teach her; for the rest, she could self-learn. Carmell wondered why Merrida didn't have any of these and instead had her book, which looked like a mix of both sides, entirely self-taught. She found it strange that she was so limited when she belonged to a Duke's family and found it more than likely that the relationship wasn't great.

The tarot cards in her bag made it feel heavier. She tapped her slate at the counter and walked over to Zyn and Darrius.

"We thought we would take you to the best dessert shop in town. We have a spot on the top floor," Zyn winked at her and grabbed his little brother from trying to choose between what looked to be the same gems.

"Zion, it's the same rocks you have at home. Come on," he sighed, rubbing his brother's curly hair and dragging him from the shop.

"Zyn, I need to pay," he shouted, attempting to escape from his brother and failing.

"Cassie's got it," Zyn replied, dragging him down the path with Carmell laughing a few feet behind them.

"He owes me four hundred coins," Cassie hissed, tapping the slate and following them out while adding it to the other two hundred he owed her because she wasn't evil enough to put it on Zion.

When Carmell stepped into the sweet-smelling dessert shop, a woman with pitch-black hair dressed in a black and dark red corset dress appeared out of nowhere and pushed her out of the way.

"What the fuck?" Carmell seethed, the bone in the corset catching her off guard as she fixed her hair, "this bitch," she hissed, stomping off to the counter to buy a lot of sugary treats to calm herself and avoid snapping some random woman's neck.

"Huh? I expected her to be jealous, but she just walked off," Zyn laughed, clapping Darrius on the shoulder and heading to the end of the line to Carmell.

Darrius blinked and wanted to follow Carmell and apologise for his friend's rudeness, but she got in his way.

"Darrius! I never see you now that you're back at Infini; you don't even write to me anymore," The woman spoke with an icy edge, but her eyes sparkled like diamonds.

"It's been two days, Renai," Darrius sighed, moving around her and heading towards the counter.

His regret grew when she grabbed onto his arm and tried to pull him over to her group of noble vampires. Darrius rolled his eyes and couldn't think of anything worse than being stuck with her for five more minutes.

Carmell whistled as she paid for her fancy treats and got an extra plate from the woman at the counter to put Darrius' cakes, which suspiciously resembled French fancies and Belgian buns, on. She got to the first step of the stairs and turned her head toward the group of vampires that had engaged Darrius in a conversation he did not want.

"Darrius, I got your favourites," she purposefully shouted to be louder than everyone in the shop.

The atmosphere shifted and became dead silent, and Carmell smirked at her ability to change rooms because she was around the Crown Prince. It was going to be very unfortunate for these women when she shared his bed. The thought bolted through her brain, and she held the plate to him as he escaped and approached her.

His smirk as he took his plate and wrapped his other arm around her back to go up the stairs together matched the glint in her eye. She smiled as she stared at the vampires he was with, winking at them from the last step before they disappeared.

"That degenerate," the woman hissed, dropping on her seat with her arms crossed.

"Why are you worried? He won't do anything with her. His father is adamant that he will have to wait until marriage," said a man in a black suit, his red socks showing as he crossed one leg over the other and bit into his pastry.

"How do you know that?" Renai asked suspiciously.

"My father told me that they are dead set on the idea that they will find their fated mates," the group let out a round of laughs and snickers.

"That's a myth," a red-haired boy snickered.

"How can it be a myth when they are fated themselves?"

Carmell's smirk never left her face as they made their way to the top floor, and Darrius could feel the satisfaction radiating from her. It made him daydream of taking her into his room tonight to see if she would feel that way after his tongue had finished exploring her mouth. He tightened his hold around her waist, his hand wandering towards the side of her breast and causing her to blink in surprise and turn her smirk on him as the electric shocks left his hands and hit her in her core.

'Does he know what that is doing?' she pondered, licking her lips and placing her hand over his to move it away as they got to their area.

She smiled at Darrius' scowl and moved her hand from his to place it on the other side of his face.

"We are in public, Prince Darrius," she whispered low enough for only him to hear.

She dropped onto the two-seater sofa they had left for them, the soft lilac pillows lined against the back, and she sighed and ate in immense pleasure. Zyn looked at Darrius with a slight nod of appreciation.

"Oh, how do you know what I like?" Darrius murmured, catching Cassie and Zion's attention.

"Zyn told me," she replied, throwing him under the bus.

His eyebrow raised in surprise, but he didn't say otherwise, and she knew she had him. Zion would have likely snitched on her. Darrius smiled and ate one of the French fancies in one bite.

Carmell smirked and bit into her swirled apple turnover-type dessert. The food in games and books always looked amazing and tasted just as good as it looked.

"Tomorrow's Moon Day will be Carmell's first," Cassie blurted out, clapping her hands together and leaning over the table, "We need to show her a good time."

"We can do our ritual in the clearing," Zion added, his eyes blazing with excitement.

"A ritual? To a god? Or the God?" Carmell asked, her body jerking back in her seat as they stared at her with questioning gazes.

"God? No, we celebrate the Moon for creating us," Zion replied, sipping a cup of tea and leaning back in the single chair on the right side of Carmell with satisfaction.

"Umm, so, no god at all? A deity that you worship. That created the universe, and you?" Carmell pressed, a little shocked at the answers she was getting.

"Merrida, the moon created us when the rocks that left her landed on our planet, and we grew from the water and evolved into different beings," Darrius explained patiently, a small smile gracing his lips at her shocked, calculating face.

'That is scary close to Darwin's Theory of Evolution,' she thought in awe.

Carmell nodded and ate the rest of her turnover while Cassie spoke about picking her Moon Day dress and swimwear and ensuring she brought the special moon water her mother made for bathing.

Carmell laughed at the thought of carrying jars of Moon water to pour into a lake to swim in. She began to wonder if they had music to play while they swam and whether the ritual would resemble the scene from Outlander.