Bewitched by the Wicked Witch- deleted scene

The problem with heartbreak, I reflected as I rifled through my grimoire with murderous intent, is that it makes one prone to poor decision-making. Particularly when said poor decisions involve experimental revenge magic and a familiar who thinks he's a comedy critic.

I wiped the last tear away and picked up my phone, staring down at the last text Callum had sent me. "I know this is hard. It's killing me too, but it's best if we stop all contact, Sage. I will always love you, but I can't be with you."

I growled and threw the phone. Yes, he'd broken up with me hours ago, and yes, I'd refused to accept that the warlock I'd loved for years would just suddenly break up with me.

I'd walked home in shock, then disbelief, texting him constantly:
You were joking, right?
Nothing.
You didn't mean it. We should talk.
Nothing.
This isn't funny.
Three dots showed up. Disappeared, then showed up again.
Then the minutes stretched by and nothing.

I sent fifty more texts each hour, becoming angrier and angrier. Things were good. Really good. Weren't they? I chewed on my lip, confused, heartbroken, and sad all rolled into one witchy package.

Cosmo trotted over and stared at me for a long moment with his star-flecked gaze. "Pull it together. You're a powerful witch. Do what witches do best."

I wiped my eyes once again and sniffled. "And what is that?"

Cosmo smirked, or at least I assumed he was smirking; either that or he was about to cough up a hairball. "Get revenge."

"And how should I do that, Cosmo?" I sighed, flopping back on my dorm bed. "You know I have to be careful with everything I do. Everyone assumes I'm naturally just bad. So I try harder to be good so I don't continue to get labeled as something I'm not."

"What's wrong with being a little bad?" Cosmo licked his paw as he talked, as if it was common sense.

"Being bad gets me in trouble." I swallowed thinking back to all the mishaps over the years, like unintentionally turning my class and teacher into frogs. and losing my only friends because of it.

Cosmo sighed. "It's a stupid thing to worry about. I think you should hex him. Give him a little... shrinkage in an area. Micro penis for a big dick... for balance." Cosmo stood from his perch on my bookshelf, his star-flecked eyes gleaming with what I could only describe as professional interest. "Very poetic justice."

"You know what? You're right. I've tried so hard not to be seen as a wicked witch, and it's gotten me nowhere. He hurt me, so I'll do it." I paused, my shoulders sagging. "But I'll make it temporary. Just enough to teach him a lesson."

"That doesn't seem like a good enough hex," Cosmo protested. "It should be proportionally opposite of his soon-to-be micro crotch. So why not permanent?"

"No," I warned Cosmo. My heart was broken, but I didn't want that level of bad karma on my soul. I couldn't control what others viewed and called me, but I could control my actions and reactions. "A little hex is enough punishment."

"You're right though. Proportional is exactly what I'm going for," I snarled, grabbing my grimoire off the shelf and opening it to a page of particularly vindictive curses. "He wants to make me feel small? Let's see how he enjoys the experience."

Three hours. It had been three hours since Callum Renshaw had stood in my dorm room and calmly explained that our relationship was "no longer viable" due to his "career obligations." No emotion, no apology, just bureaucratic efficiency that made my heart feel like it had been put through a magical blender. But I'd seen the shadows in his eyes and the way he still looked at me like I was his world. Yet he still didn't text or call to say "just kidding," so it had to be real.

I'd thought he was going to propose now that graduation had happened. How wrong I'd been.

I glared at the boxes I'd packed yesterday and remembered our conversation about going to that bed and breakfast we loved on the coast. I was going to take him home to meet Paige and Gran. It made no sense. I needed to be fully packed by tomorrow to catch the train home. The realization that I'd just been a placeholder girlfriend until graduation hit me like a ton of bricks, and my magic exploded in shadows and stars around me.

"There she is," Cosmo purred.

"This is a grey spell, almost dark. Not sure it's a good idea," I admitted before the irrational part of my brain and broken heart screamed, Don't care! We want blood!

"You can tweak it," Cosmo tilted his head. "Ah yes, the 'Withering Wilt of Romantic Regret,'" he read aloud from over my shoulder with too much delight in his usual snarky tone. "Guaranteed to reduce the offending appendage to the size of a tiny earthworm... though I think you should change it to rice. Imagine how long it would take him to pee."

I rolled my eyes. "No, earthworm will be fine."

"I must say," Cosmo paused as he read the spell, "this seems a little too complex for someone in your current emotional state."

"I can handle complex magic," I snapped, already gathering the necessary components. "I'm a Blackstone. We excel at creative revenge."

"Of course you do, darling. Though perhaps we should discuss the fact that you're crying into the spell components, which traditionally affects magical outcomes in unpredictable ways."

I paused, wiping my traitorous eyes with the back of my hand. "Tears add emotional resonance to the magic."

"Tears add chaos to the magic," Cosmo corrected with the patience of someone explaining basic concepts to a particularly dense student. "But please, don't let me stop you from hexing your ex-boyfriend's manhood. This should be entertaining."

I began working the spell, making tweaks and weaving my magic into it subtly. Just enough so he wouldn't know it was me definitively enough to get me in trouble.

Cosmo rolled his eyes and growled. "We want him to know."

"The last thing I need is to be turned into the High Council for an illegal spell," I warned him.

Twenty minutes later, I stood outside Callum's dorm window, my magic crackling around me like angry fireflies. The spell felt perfect, charged with all my hurt and fury and the particular vindictiveness that came from being dumped by someone you'd trusted with your heart.

"Callum Renshaw," I whispered, my voice carrying on the night wind, "you want to make me small? Let's see how you enjoy the experience."

The magic surged from my fingertips, dark and glittering and absolutely saturated with my broken heart's desire for revenge. I watched it spiral through his window, seeking its target with the precision of a heat-seeking missile.

And then I waited.

The scream that erupted from his room thirty seconds later was so high-pitched I briefly wondered if I'd accidentally changed his vocal cords instead of his anatomy.

A crash echoed from Callum's room, followed by what sounded distinctly like furniture being violently rearranged. Then another scream, this one carrying a note of genuine panic.

I peeked into the window and swallowed hard. Callum's crotch was engorged—not earthworm-sized, but the size of an elephant's trunk. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he passed out.

I frowned, replaying the incantation in my mind. The spell had been perfect, the components properly aligned, the emotional resonance absolutely optimal for revenge magic. So why did he have a far-too-big-to-be-healthy-sized cock?

"That's one way to punish him... I mean, it gets the job done," Cosmo snickered as I turned wide eyes to him.

"We... we need to go," I stammered. I pulled out my phone and called the authorities, reporting that I'd heard a scream from Callum's dorm room. As Cosmo and I fled home, packed up, and headed to catch the earliest train out of town, I tried not to think about what I'd done.

It would break soon anyway. He didn't love me anymore—that much was obvious from his cold, clinical breakup. The curse would probably be over before I even reached the train station.

But as we approached the train platform, something shifted inside me. I looked back at the town where I'd spent four years trying to be the good witch, the perfect student, the girl who didn't live up to everyone's worst expectations. And what had it gotten me? Heartbreak and loneliness.

"You know what, Cosmo?" I said, my voice growing stronger as we reached the platform. "Maybe it's time I stopped fighting what everyone already thinks I am."

"About time," Cosmo purred approvingly.

As the train pulled away from the station, I settled into my seat with a satisfied smile. Sage Blackstone, the good witch who tried so hard to please everyone, was staying behind. The woman heading home to Old Hollows? She was someone entirely different.

Someone who wasn't afraid to be called wicked.

Some lessons are worth learning the hard way, and some people are worth the reputation that comes with teaching them.