John made it through the rest of the day without any sales. There were a few curious window shoppers who he knew would be back, but no one else was biting just yet. The only magic he did for the rest of the day was figuring out how to make the break room not smell like kitty litter.
Still, he was properly freaked out. He immediately slipped out of his robe and put his wand away when he got back from work. He even glanced down at a spell book to make sure there wasn’t any lingering influence.
O-kay. He had turned his coworker into a cat. That was screwed up, right? But- But it was only until the end of the month! It wasn’t…
Oh jeez, no, the transformation was definitely permanent. He could undo it if he wanted, but absent any action from him the zipper wasn’t just going to reappear on its own.
What had compelled him to be so mischievous? He had permanently turned someone into their costume! That was… that was…
That was it!
John’s entire train of thought jumped tracks. Oh man, how had he not thought of this before? He could turn people permanently into their costumes! That’s how he could get magic!
John rushed into his bedroom and grabbed his wand and robe. He flung them on and started consulting his spell books. This… this could work!
He still wasn’t sure what spell was on this robe. Granting actual magic was usually outside of the purview of these particular costume enchantments. It had something to do with memories… The robe wasn’t granting him magic, it was making him remember magic he (or the robe?) already knew.
But that wasn’t the important part. He didn’t need to know how the robe’s enchantment worked. He just needed to know how to shift them to him. When he made Shane’s zipper vanish, reality righted itself. He wasn’t a guy in a cat costume. He was just a cat. Maybe he could do something similar with the robe?
John pulled out his wand. All he needed to do was remove the enchantment that kept the magic tied to the robe. Once the mechanism that granted and took away the robe’s magic was gone… it should just be tied to him!
He was beyond excited! He was going to have magic for real! He raised his wand and conjoined up the right spell. A permanent costume shift… he could do this. He had just done it earlier today. The tip of his wand started to glow as he pointed the staff at himself.
The tip of his wand grew brighter as he finally pressed it against the robe. John could immediately feel himself hit with a surge of magic…! His entire bedroom started to glow as the magic radiated out.
Then he saw his reflection in the mirror. John realized he had already fucked up. He was making this costume permanent, and sitting there on his chest was an old plastic name tag:
Jack Smith, Owner
The light grew brighter still. It became blinding as the rush of magic finally overwhelmed him. He dropped his wand and collapsed on the floor.