Free covencraft 02.5 - carnival moon by Margarita Gakis Page B

even wearing the wrong thing could be ‘inappropriate’ there was no counting the ways in which she could mess up. She’d only been part of a coven for a few months. Jade barely knew the ins and outs of coven life, let alone other magical creatures.
    “I have been invited as your escort, yes.”
    The way he worded that made her pause and stare at him. “As my escort,” she repeated. “Are you my ‘plus one’?”
    “It would appear so.”
    Jade felt weird and maybe somewhat apologetic about that, even though she hadn’t done anything. “So when is this shindig?”
    “On the eve of the full moon. This Thursday. What size should I tell the weres to send to you?”
    Jade made a face and slunk backward against the chair. Ugh. Moment of truth. She exhaled hard through her nose, scrunching it up a bit in thought. “Well, it kind of depends on what they want me to wear. I wear around an 8 or a 10 but if it’s cut slim, I would need a 12. Same if the fabric has no give - a 12. But if it’s kind of stretchy or only cut a little slim, then I could do a 10. Unless it's an A-line. Then an 8 should fine. If it’s two pieces, I’m usually an 8 up top and a 10 on the bottom might be the safest and I can belt it or staple it if necessary.”
    Paris just stared at her, fingers hovered his notepad with a pen. “I don’t understand.” He looked thoroughly confused.
    Jade shrugged. “Women's clothing sizes are fucked. It's easier figuring out magic.” She gestured to the books in front of her.
    Paris looked down at her jeans and pointed with his pen. “But what size are the pants you’re wearing right now? Can’t I just tell them that size?”
    Jade just stared at him and tipped her head to one side. “It’s cute you think women’s clothing works that way.”
    He seemed confused, as though he thought she was joking and was waiting for a punch line. She shrugged. “Give them those numbers and if they send me something I can’t wear, it’s on them.”
    Paris made a few notes in his book and then looked back at the grimoire Jade was flipping through. “Very well. Have you chosen a spell to work on today?”
    Jade glanced up at him from underneath her eyelashes. She had. She didn’t think he was going to like it, but it was one that interested her and he had said she could pick any one from the book. She was pretty sure Paris hadn’t known what all the spells in the grimoire were when he’d said that. She turned to the page in question and then held it up for him to see.
    “This one.”
    Paris leaned closer and she saw the moment he read the title, his lips coming together firmly and his eyes narrowing slightly.
    “You said any spell in the book!” she protested before he even had a chance to speak.
    “I did, and I’m sure you read through them all just so you could find the most difficult and dangerous one.”
    “Yep.” Jade didn’t bother to deny it. Why should she? She tapped the page with her finger, not able to stop herself from doing an excited little shimmy.
    “Illusion magic is not to be toyed with.”
    “Can we pretend like I already know how this lecture starts and ends and jump to the spell work?”
    Paris exhaled sharply through his nose. “Have you been doing your magic exercises?”
    “Yes.” She sat up a bit straighter, getting ready to defend her choice in spell if necessary.
    “Even the meditation and control ones?”
    Jade rolled her eyes a bit. “Yes,” she said, able to hear a note of sulking in her tone.
    “Let’s do those first and if I can see you’ve been practicing, we’ll move onto illusion magic.”
    ***
    By Thursday, Jade had nearly forgotten she was supposed to be going to a werewolf shindig. She was too wrapped up in her illusion spell failing every time she tried it. Paris had insisted they start with something small and relatively harmless so they worked on trying to change Jade’s hair color.
    It turned out that the biggest part of the illusion spell was