I had devoured my steak, and even though Illy gave me puzzled looks as my table manners were not quite up to par with what was normal, she had not commented on it. She and Marie were talking about the witch’s past. I only listened, and Henry had intervened once or twice to say something nice about his wife.

Rose had been sent away after ten minutes, as she was mocking every word her mother said.

It seemed to please the teenager, who had left the table with dinner in hand, to eat alone in her room.

I didn’t care, as I had been eating. Now that I was done, I was eying Marie’s still half-full plate.

“Gray. Stop it.”

I whined and gave her puppy eyes.

“Here! Damn mutt…” She gave me a part of her dinner.

“Yes!” I exclaimed, overjoyed.

“You’ve got quite the appetite.” Henry noted.

“My mom said the same thing, he…she’s unbearable when it comes to food.” Marie sighed.

“I love steak.” I stated simply.

“It makes me really happy, so don’t mind what they say.” Illy was on my side. She then picked up her glass of water.

They had stopped talking about her past apparently. I felt it had been really interesting, something to do with Natasha and her being orphans, but well…steak.

“So, is death magic and nature magic the same thing?” I asked out of the blue.

Marie facepalmed, and whispered: “And I’m the one with no tact”, at the same time

Henry grimaced and Illy’s water went the wrong way, as she began coughing violently.

“How?” Illy asked with a terrified look.

“Your daughter gave us a demo in the living room. I’m afraid the Ungodly One is in bad shape.”

“She told you it was death magic?” Henry questioned.

“No, but seeing the effect on the plant, as well as the usage of the same rune we had, is enough to extrapolate.”

“I’m going to kill her.” Illy said a bit too seriously.

“Love, no, you’re not. We have to have a talk with her.” Said Henry quietly, not sure of himself.

“It doesn’t work!” Illy contained herself, then sighed very loudly. “Sorry about that…”

“We all have our problems, don’t feel bad about it. Look, me and Gray have both daddy issues.” Marie reassured her.

“Don’t call it that.” I pinched my nose. “And compared to you…I just can’t stand my father, that’s all.”

“That’s sad…” Illy said. “Why is that?”

The question took me a bit by surprise, even more so was that I was currently in Igris’s guise, and her/my father, was long dead. Would it pose a problem to talk about Ray’s dad in this form? I decided to trust them. They were not the kind of people to go and dig deeper without asking first.

“He acts completely unemotional. Always rationality first. Money, success, happiness. All numbers to him. My choices should always just take this into account.”

“Oh.” Illy couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“That’s why she chose painter. Completely ridiculous decision. Pissed hi…her father quite a lot.” Marie added.

“Hey, it is working out in the end.” I countered.

“And now your father sends you congratulation messages and it makes you furious. Daddy issues.”

She was right, annoyingly so. I gave her a grumpy look, then changed the subject.

“So, death magic?”

“Yes…” Illy began. “Sorry, I didn’t want to scare you away. If you use the rune I gave you, but instead of focusing on the growing aspect of the plant, you concentrate on the life part, you’ll take a lot more energy and quickly kill it.”

“Could this be used on something other than plants?” I pushed further.

There was a long silence, both Henry and Illy feeling quite bothered by my question.

It was Henry who decided to talk first. “Yes, if you changed the rune slightly, and used blood instead of ink, you could use it to take away energy from animals.”

“…any kind of animal?” Marie wasn’t as excited as she usually was when magic was involved.

Illy closed her eyes. “Yes. Even humans. You would need human blood and a lot of witches to survive the amount of energy a murder creates, but it is possible. And has happened. You understand I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“You probably shouldn’t have told us, we only met today.” I agreed with her decision to hide it.

“No. I trust you. You won’t use nature magic that way.” Illy looked certain of herself.

“Thank you.” My girlfriend said, appreciative of the faith she had just been given.

“Is there any way to counter the effect?” I questioned.

“No.” Was Illy’s immediate answer.

“In a way.” Henry responded at the same time.

“That’s not an option!” Illy blurted.

“No, but it is possible.” Henry countered. He then looked at me. “You could kill all the witches involved in the ceremony, grab the stolen energy back, and forcibly put it in the sacrifice’s corpse. It would take some luck, but it should theoretically work if done fast enough.”

“How is that not an option? The people doing the sacrifice would be responsible, no?” Marie was clearly doing devil’s advocate here.

Illy sighed. “Except it takes many witches for such an act, and some of them would probably be forced into it. It is the most condemned act in the whole U.”

“You could force…?” Marie gasped.

“They would just need to be linked with the rune. An immobilization spell is enough.” Illy continued, her tone of voice quite sad.

We stopped talking about it and changed subjects.

Mostly on me coming to paint Henry and Illy the next weekend, and on Marie’s next lessons.

The dinner ended on a positive note, they agreed to be painted.

They called a taxi for us, and we were now waiting for it at the entrance.

“Thank you for everything.” Marie said to the couple.

“Oh no, the pleasure was all mine.” Illy said wholeheartedly.

“Yes, you are smart kids, it was fun having you, and I can’t wait to get painted.” Henry continued.

I laughed, embarrassed. “My paintings can have…strange effects on people sometimes, so don’t talk too soon.”

“Oh?”

“It’s related to me being a Conscient, I think.” I confessed.

“Oh, yes, I heard about that, it didn’t even come up! I’d like to know more about it next time.” Henry was an eclectic, that was certain, as he had the same sparkles in the eyes as Marie.

“I don’t understand much about my condition, but I’ll try my best.”

I heard the taxi coming up in the driveway.

“Oh, Marie, let me fix up the Ungodly One before you go.” Illy suddenly exclaimed, putting her hand over the plant Marie held.

Suddenly, it perked up.

“Why the hand gesture?” I finally realized she had always followed a spell with a specific hand movement.

It wasn’t Illy who answered, but her husband.

“When you know lots of spells, you have to make sure you visualize the correct one. Linking a spell with a specific movement makes it certain you’ll use the right one.”

“Oh cool. I’ll link my water spell with water-bending moves!” Marie said excitedly.

“A bit slow, no?” I countered, imagining the convoluted dance needed for a large water balloon floating around.

“Don’t be a kill-joy.”

“The taxi is here; you shouldn’t make it wait for you. I’m excited to see you on Sunday, the both of you.”

“Thank you, Illy, Henry, a good evening to you.” Marie and I repeated.

The days before our next meeting were atrocious.

Because Marie couldn’t wait, and she was being insufferable.

“I’m not insufferable!”

“Oops, did I say that out loud?”

She hit me with the couch’s pillow.

We were currently watching Astarte’s favorite movie, the Thing, Carpenter’s version, and I was fighting off my unease at the paranoia-driven story by saying silly things.

Fortunately, Astarte was not listening to me, standing on the ground, slightly too close to the television screen. She was being very silent, only repeating some of the important dialogues out loud.

“You did transform your room into plant-land.” I continued the teasing, careful not to speak too loudly.

“There is a bouquet of flowers you gave me, the Ungodly One, and two others. It is not plant-land.”

“Couldn’t get satisfied with only one magic source?”

“That is not why. I have done it not to hurt the plants too much, and I don’t want to take anything from the Ungodly One after what it suffered.”

The creepy, inverted roots plant that defied the laws of nature was apparently our new pet; Marie was weirdly attached to it.

“I know. I know.”

“Shut up now, if you’re scared, you can just take my hand.”

“Me scared, pfuh!” I said as I took her hand.

I forgot to be a bother for the rest of the movie, enthralled by the story unraveling in front of me.

At the end of it, I whistled in admiration. “Wow, that was…”

Astarte finally turned around, looking at us. “Good eh? A witch helped with the special effects, no-one realized.”

“That explains why it’s so…disturbing.” Marie added.

“Oh, the original design has not been tinkered with, it's really as the director intended. Just, with a little more gut than possible.” Astarte corrected. “The witch who did that had lots of problems with the U law afterward. I had to bail him out. We’ve been friends since then.”

“Him?” Marie asked.

“Well yes, witches can be men as well as women.”

“Wouldn’t that make them mages, or warlocks?” She countered.

“Nope. Every living thing can use magic if they are taught how to. Those are called demons or witches.”

The statement made me realize something. Wouldn’t Henry be able to use magic, then? I kept the question in a corner of my mind, as I would soon be able to ask him myself.

“Arte, can you use magic?” Marie inquired.

The old god gave us a sincere smile…a rather unsettling one because of the teeth.

“Yes, of course. I’m a rather good witch. I just can’t be bothered with the rituals and everything, so my magic is almost always depleted.”

“What kind of magic do you use?” Of course, Marie had to push for more, it was magic talk after all.

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“Insufferable.” I exhaled.

She pinched my sides, and I couldn’t stop squeaking.

Astarte had a very childlike giggle, and answered the question: “Pretty much everything, over the years. My favorite is succubus magic, or terror magic.”

“Terror magic?” She wouldn’t ask about succubus magic; we had that one well understood already.

“It’s the gathering of magic through the creation of the emotion of fear in others” Arte explained.

“That sounds…logical.” I admitted.

“A rather effective way. You’d need some training though Marie, you’re not exactly threatening enough.”

“I’m good, I’ll stay with nature magic for now.”

Astarte smirked, not saying anything else. “I can’t teach spells, though.”

“Oh?” We both said.

“My brain is too different from a human’s, it’s easy for me to understand it, but the opposite is not true.” She said that with such a grin on her face, I had to retort: “You’re serious or you’re just showing off?”

“Would you like to know!” She jumped on her feet, bowed down, and concluded with; “Lovebirds, I say goodnight. I hoped you enjoyed the evening.”

“Very much. It was a great movie, Arte.” Marie answered honestly.

“Yup, thanks.”

She gave us a meaningful look where the meaning was only understood by herself, then she vanished.

“ARTE!” Marie yelled.

“Sorry! Forgot!” We heard coming from Arte’s corridor.

“Sleep?” Marie poked my sides.

I growled.

As I got out of the shower and went to enter Marie’s room, I realized it had changed slightly.

The plants were still packed next to the window, to get the maximum amount of sun, but on the wall over her desk, stood my painting of her.

I had given it to her and hadn’t seen it since.

Marie was looking at it from her very ostentatious gaming chair, while drying her hair.

“Let me help.” I approached as she gave me her hairdryer with no words.

I saw her close her eyes as I gently massaged her hair with my fingers and warm air.

“You hanged it?” I asked.

She didn’t answer my question. “You’ve gotten better at this.”

“What? Hair drying?”

“Hm Hm.” She acquiesced.

“I am half woman.”

“You’re in Ray’s body, right now.”

I gave a quick look at myself.

“Yup.”

“You didn’t even realize.”

“Nope. You want me to change?”

I saw her shoulder tense up, so I stopped moving my hands.

“No.”

“Sorry.” I continued moving.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant I’d like you to stay as Ray.” She opened her eyes and looked at the painting.

“Gray?”

“Mh mh?”

“It doesn’t matter what I call myself, I’ll always only be Marie?” She barely whispered.

“To me, that is the undeniable truth.”

“What if…”

“Marie, you don’t have to decide now.”

“I don’t. I want to.”

“Marie! Gray! How happy I am to see you again!” Illy came to our meeting, as I was still unpacking my stuff from the taxi.

When it left, Marie had been hugged, and as Illy came towards me, it seemed I was next.

“Henry is inside. I hope you won’t need us for too long though, I need to teach Marie, and Henry has some work to do.”

“No, no. You can begin your lesson with ease, I need to prepare. Find the right spot where to put the two of you and so on. For the time, I won’t do a full portrait, so if one hour is not too long…”

“One hour?” Illy shouted back.

“Erm, yes?”

“Oh. Henry is…well, no worries, having a painting of the two of us has been a dream of mine for quite some time, so I’ll make him agree.” She had a decided look. “By the way, if you stay for dinner, one of the senior coven members will be joining us tonight, so It’ll be the occasion to see the ins and outs of the witch world.”

“Cool!” Marie exclaimed.

I wasn’t as enjoyed by the idea of a powerful witch at the table, hunting frenzies and all that.

“I hope she won’t turn us into frogs.” I said jokingly.

“Oh, it’s a he. And he can’t do that. I think.”

“Very reassuring.” I grimaced.

Marie didn’t seem to care one bit; she was already heading towards the greenhouse.

“I’ll see you soon.” I said to her.

“Kissy kissy bye bye!” She said without looking at me.

“Insufferable…”

“I heard that!”

“You’re a cute couple.” Illy told me before joining my girlfriend.

I entered the house, with some effort, as I had my hands full. Sounds and smells inside informed me the place was empty except for Morpheus and Henry. No demon child in view. Nice.

I found Henry quite easily, as he was working on his computer in the living room.

“Hello Henry.”

“Oh? Gray? Hi! Sorry I can’t stop right now…”

“No worries, no worries, stay there, I’m just finding the right spot for my equipment.”

“Do what you need to do.”

He reminded me of myself when I was in a trance.

As I explored the house, my feet came back naturally to the veranda. With a full view of the greenery outside, lots of sunlight, I needed to squeeze myself a bit in the kitchen to have a good angle and I was blocking the passageway. Nonetheless, this was where I was supposed to sit.

Preparing took an hour, and I went to the greenhouse to inform Illy I was ready.

“Ah Gray!” She said as I entered the place.

Marie was looking extremely concentrated on the bubbling water sphere floating in front of her.

“Continue training like that Marie. Remember, the more precise you can be, the less energy you waste.”

“Yup.” My girlfriend said, strained.

“Is she going to be okay?” I asked as Illy got closer to me.

“No problem. Well, actually, yes there is a problem.” She began whispering. “She has way too much energy. She definitely overdid the ritual. She could have been hurt pretty badly.”

I sighed. “I know, she assured me she felt perfectly fine, and that she knew when to stop.” It hadn’t been a lie, so I had not delved deeper, but now, I was worried.

“Oh, she knows when to stop, she’s very talented, or lucky depending on how you call it. But continue checking up on her so that she doesn’t get overconfident. If she had the same magic conduit my husband has, she would be deadly sick right now.”

She left the greenhouse and I followed her outside.

“Does that mean Henry can use magic?”

“He’s a witch, of course. I taught him myself. Unfortunately, he’s one of the unlucky ones. Not as bad as you, but close. He can’t draw much magic from rituals at all.”

“Oh…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He is content with what he can do…he’d be a bit scary if he had lots of magic, to be honest.” She smiled proudly.

“Really?”

“With his understanding of physics? He discovered some spells no one else can use.”

“I thought you could teach spells to anyone once you knew them, did he not…?”

“Oh, he taught me, I’ve just got no idea how to visualize them, so I can’t use them!” She smiled widely.

So, there were some limitations to spellcasting.

I wanted to see the spells Henry could use now, but if it was going to rob him of the very limited energy he had, maybe I needed to abstain.

“Where do I need to go?” Illy asked me as she entered the veranda.

“Well, here, actually.”

“Oh? It’s my favorite room in the house. After the bedroom of course.”

… I would not raise questions about that particular subject, nor the disturbing wink she had given me…

“Henry! Come here!” She shouted.

“Wait a second…”

“HENRY!”

“Yes…yes.” He arrived hurriedly, a smile on his face. “Sorry, I was taken by…”

“Sit here.” His wife ordered authoritatively.

If only she acted like that with her daughter, I thought rudely.

The tone didn’t seem to bother Henry at all. He sat in the veranda after having circled around my blank canvas.

I took the opposite route and sat on a borrowed stool in front of the white rectangle.

I concentrated on the scene before me.

There was a little metal table, slightly rusted, covered with gardening equipment and what I recognized as mint sprouts. The couple had taken a position on metallic chairs of the same style as the table and were looking at me very stiffly.

This wouldn’t do, my brows furrowed.

“You look like penguins with sticks up their bum, you don’t need to stand still.”

My rather sudden change of speech pattern surprised the both of them, but they tried their best to look more relaxed.

It still wasn’t the scene I wanted.

“How did you two meet?” I asked.

Illy gave me a large smile, then looked at her husband lovingly.

“Oh, well, he was my physics teacher at university. I hated him at first.”

“You did not hate me.”

“No one understood a thing you said! I needed good grades to keep my scholarship and you failed my first test!”

“Which forced you to come to the extra lessons and get better.”

“I had no time for that!”

“Still, you improved.”

“I almost failed my other courses because of it. I hated you.”

“Not true. I was the youngest PhD of the faculty, and with no baldness. You fell for me immediately.”

“I did not! I fell in love with you when you tried to fight the Magmalin with a fire extinguisher!”

“I admit, it was pretty heroic.”

The story was getting rather interesting, but I stopped listening. Both of them had forgotten I existed. They only smiled, held hands, laughed together. The whole beautiful world of green behind them was almost sad in comparison.

I began drawing.

Once again, the color would be essential here. The centerpiece was dual, as it was a couple. I began with their flaws, weirdly enough. I didn’t know them enough to be able to recognize all of them, but I didn’t need to know. I was only painting.

Then came their expression. I think I switched bodies once or twice, but they were so taken by their story, they had not noticed it. The colors were vibrant. The style I had chosen was closer to impressionism, with only part of their face being realistic.

As I finished their faces, I didn’t need them anymore. Fortunately, I was under Igris’s guise when I addressed them: “You can go.”

“But we haven’t finished our story!” Illy complained.

She stopped when she saw some of my clothes on the ground.

“Oh. Poor Marie.” She addressed her husband. “You can be such a pain when you’re concentrated on your work, but this one looks even worse.”

“Mhhh.” Henry answered.

“What are you looking at?”

“Me? Nothing. Oh, I forgot I needed to fix the car.” Henry fled the scene.

“Men…” She then spoke to me. “I’m going to see how Marie fares, see you soon! Try to dress up before five O’Clock, Rose will be back then, supposedly.” As I did not answer she sighed and left the room.

I was alone with my piece. But the piece was not about me, it was about the presence of this house. The love it had stored inside the walls.

As usual, I didn’t know when I finished. I just slowly emerged from my daze. My first observation was that I was not naked, and apparently still a woman.

Good.

Only underwear though.

Bad.

I tried to dress up, but I smelled my favorite scent in the world and knew it would be too late.

“Gray! Really?” Marie came from the veranda towards me. “I want no comments on my magic craze for a least one month. Look at you!”

I growled, and instead of putting my T-shirt, decided to remove my bra.

Marie gave me a big stare, her mouth wide open.

I grinned, then put my clothes back on.

“How…someone could have seen you!”

“Wolfy ears.”

“You…”

The reddish color of her face wasn’t all anger, and I liked it a lot.

She realized it, and just mumbled: “No fair…”

My nose informed me we were no longer alone.

“Gray? Have you finished?” I heard the housewife call from the house entrance.

“Yes!” I looked at my canvas. I was surprised it was… just beautiful. No bad feelings inside it, the piece felt like a good representation of what I had felt and seen.

I could interpret some of the parts I had considered as the “flaws”, but they were so heavily overtaken by the rest, it made them almost proof of the happiness flowing around.

“Here.” Marie gave me a glass of water. As I drank it, she examined the piece of art. “Nice.”

Illy, followed by Henry, arrived from the front of the house.

“You’ve finished already? Can we see?” Asked Illy.

“Of course.” I moved away to let them have a clear view.

Both of them stopped on the spot.

“This is extraordinary.” Commented Henry with a shaking voice.

“Oh! Oh!” The nature witch broke into tears. “Oh, Thank you Gray!”

I felt a little warm inside, and Marie snuggled my left arm. “Seems like they like it, isn’t it great?”

I looked at her, she was giving me a proud smile.

Henry and Illy, stuck in her husband’s arms, got closer to my painting.

“I’ve never seen something so nice done for the both of us.” Said the nature witch through happy sobs.

“It’s not so…”

“Please! It’s precious to us, you have no idea.” Henry stopped me.

“Oh…well. I’m happy for you.”

“You didn’t say you were that good.” Henry continued.

“It’s not that good. It’s just a gift. The base material was just really…”

Henry scuffed at me. “Nonsense. People would pay fortunes for something like that. I would like to say I can’t accept it, as it is too much. But I honestly can’t.”

Marie squeezed my hand.

We stood there for a few minutes, before some noise broke the moment.

“I’m baAack!”

“Welcome home honey.” Illy said.

“Why is everyone here?” She gave me and Marie a mean look as she arrived closer.

“Look at what Gray painted for us!” Illy moved away to show her child.

Rose was taken aback at first and couldn’t hide her initial shock. Then, her face took a somber turn and she just said. “Lame.”

There was an icy silence.

“What did you just say?” Illy asked, her tears drying up instantly.

“It’s lame. Just wow, you’re so in love. Lame.”

Henry, with no words, let go of his wife and came towards us.

“We should move away.” He warned.

“What?” Me and my girlfriend asked.

The freezing atmosphere suddenly became boiling as Illy snapped.

“THIS IS ENOUGH FROM YOU YOUNG LADY. YOU WILL BE RESPECTFUL”

“Pfuh, and what are yo…”

We never heard the end of Rose’s sentence, as she was catapulted through the air, a flash of black and pink fusing in front of us then promptly defenestrated. Two of the kitchen windows exploded from the impact, and Rose’s body flew out in the garden outside.

“…” Me and Marie said.

A furious Illy went stomping towards the veranda, very delicately picked up my painting to put it out of the way, then continued outside.

“What…?” I exclaimed.

“Don’t worry.” Henry reassured us. “It was long overdue.” He very much didn’t reassure us.