A Countercurse Bracer

You felt something cold clamp down on your wrist. Cold and metal, and quite snug... you turned to look at Mike, thinking he'd done something horrible like handcuff you to him, but when Mike let go of your hoodie sleeve and arm, you saw what looked like some sort of ancient brass bracelet, covering half your right forearm! It was covered in intersecting dials and strange rune-like symbols from a language you didn't recognize. There must have been a dozen dials, each with maybe thirty symbols along each edge. You turned back to Mike, clenching your fists. "What did you do?!"

"Babe, you should be thanking me right now," Mike said, with that smug smile. "I solved your problem. No more curse."

You blinked, as both you and Tori were taken aback by Mike's claim. "...What? What do you mean, no curse?"

"I mean what I say, pay attention." Mike sighed with this disappointed sound to him, like he couldn't believe you weren't suddenly grateful to him. "Talk about timing though, right? I worked my ass off to find this for you. I talked to so many weirdos with creepy eyebrows. I struck paydirt when I wrote an email to Emilia King, the billionaire antique collector, but the package with the Countercurse Bracer didn't arrive in the mail until the day you drove off with Peter. I didn't even know she sent it until it arrived."

"...You contacted the King estate about the channeling?" You sat back down on the chair, looking at the band. You rotated one of the dials, and then another, and it seemed like any intersecting runes from one dial would transfer to the other. It would do the same for all the dozen dials of different sizes on the band.

"I just mentioned that you had a curse that threatened our relationship and put you in constant danger, so if she had something that could help then I'd make a deal with her. All she wants in return was confirmation that it worked. So, do you feel any different?"

You felt a swell of panic building up inside you, from both halves of you. You tried to reassure Tori that maybe it wasn't so bad. You said it's normal magic mixed with a curse, right? Maybe if this is real, it just inhibits the curse part and you can have exactly what you wanted. Try to end our channeling, I have some words I need to say to Mike anyway.

You felt your hand rise, as Tori tried to **** you out, to summon the blue-hued magic and let you exit her body. No luck, it seemed. Tori grit her teeth and tried to **** the magic, but nothing came. The panic reached a crescendo as the realization set in.

You were stuck in Tori's body as long as the band was on.

"This isn't what I wanted, Mike!" Tori tried to tear or yank the bracer off, trying to make her hand small enough that the accessory would just slide off, but there wasn't much that could be done. You turned some of the dials, and tried to pry it off, but nothing. "How do I get it off?"

"Oh, there's a solution to those dials, but I just jumbled them up and didn't memorize it. Emilia said it was important to remember the code since it's something like seven quintillion combinations to get it off. According to her research, it was made so a wizard guild couldn't exploit some other magician's powers while this thing sealed it away, and they couldn't just remove the bracer if they captured him, it's got plenty of means to prevent removal. It inhibits magic in both directions, so if you think about it, not only is your curse inhibited, but you're protected from other dangerous magic or whatever. So." Mike smiled once again, absolutely confident that his initiative would be rewarded by Tori taking him back into her life and pursuing a normal relationship. "Where's my thank you?"

With a shared fury between you and Tori both, you swung the arm with the bracer right at Mike's face, knocking him out of his chair and briefly leaving an indentation of the strange runes on his cheek. Mike looked entirely stunned by this show of ****!

"That's what you deserve. Don't follow me, jerk!"

Leaving your coffee, you decided to not take any more chances with this guy. Even if Tori hadn't had magic in the beginning, it seemed like getting as far away from him was the right choice!

"This isn't over! You'll come back to me!" Mike yelled back, touching the mark left on his cheek.