Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The kitchen was full when Ramona and Zara walked in, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the way everyone stopped talking the moment they appeared.
Felix was at the stove, making what looked like an ambitious breakfast involving too many pans.
Kashvi sat at the table with her laptop, Gerald perched on the chair beside her.
Posey was pouring coffee with that dreamy, distant expression she always had when she was thinking about plant things, and Cammie had apparently come home early from her opening shift at the café, still in her apron, looking tired but alert.
They all turned to stare.
“Good morning,” Zara said calmly, heading straight for the coffee pot.
Ramona felt her face heat. They knew. Of course they knew. Between the bed-breaking and the glowing tether that had thankfully turned invisible sometime in the night and the fox currently walking into the kitchen beside her, there was a lot to know.
The fox’s entrance caused an immediate reaction.
Gerald, perched on Kashvi’s chair, puffed up to twice his normal size and let out a warning coo that sounded distinctly aggressive.
Felix dropped his spatula. “Is that — is that a fox?”
“Yes,” Ramona said carefully.
“A fox is in our kitchen.” Felix’s eyes were wide, tracking the fox’s movement across the linoleum. “Near Gerald.”
“It’s not going to hurt Gerald,” Ramona said.
“You don’t know that.” Felix moved to position himself between Gerald and the fox, arms spread protectively. “Look at it. Look at the hungry look in its eyes.”
The fox, who had settled near Ramona’s feet and was currently licking one paw with complete disinterest in the pigeon, paused to glance up at Felix with what could only be described as mild disdain.
“It just looks bored,” Zara observed.
“That’s what it wants you to think,” Felix said. “That’s how predators work. They lull you into a false sense of security and then—” He made a violent grabbing motion. “If it touches one feather on my poor little baby’s head, I swear—”
“Felix,” Kashvi interrupted gently. “Gerald is literally twice the fox’s size when he puffs up like that. I think he can handle himself.”
Gerald cooed again, this time with what sounded like smug agreement.
The fox yawned, showing all its teeth, then settled its head on his paws and closed its eyes. Completely unthreatening. Possibly even bored by the entire conversation.
“See?” Ramona said. “The fox is fine. Gerald’s fine. Everyone’s fine.”
Felix looked unconvinced but slowly lowered his arms. “I’m watching you,” he told the fox.
The fox’s ear flicked. It did not open its eyes.
“Oh, we should definitely talk about this,” Posey said softly, appearing with two mugs — one for Ramona, one for Zara.
She set them down with gentle care. “You two finally got together — I could feel it in the energy shift, actually. And then there was all that light in the woods. My succulents all turned to face east four nights ago at exactly 11:47 p.m.” She said this like it was the most natural observation in the world.
“That only happens during major magical events. And now there’s a fox.
” She smiled at the fox, who was still ignoring Gerald. “Hello, fox friend.”
The fox opened one eye briefly, regarding Posey with what might have been respect, then closed it again.
“How did you know about the convergence points?” Zara asked, genuinely curious.
“The plants told me.” Posey said it simply, like this was obvious. “Well, not in words, exactly. But they know things. Energy things. They’re very sensitive.” She touched one of the potted herbs on the windowsill fondly. “This basil was practically vibrating that night.”
Ramona exchanged a glance with Zara. Through the tether, she felt Zara’s amusement — and underneath it, a genuine question. How much do we tell them?
“The ritual failed at that convergence point,” Ramona said finally. She wrapped her hands around the warm mug. “The severance ritual. We tried it at the new moon and it… didn’t work.”
The kitchen went quiet. Even Felix stopped watching the fox long enough to turn around.
“Are you okay?” Cammie asked. She’d been silent until now, but her voice was steady. Concerned. “Both of you?”
“We’re fine,” Zara said. “Ramona was hit by some kind of magical backlash, but she’s recovered.”
“Magical backlash?” Kashvi’s eyes widened, a spark flying from her pointer finger. “That sounds—”
“It’s fine,” Ramona interrupted. “I’m fine. We’re both fine. We just—” She took a breath. “We have to try again. Next new moon. We have a little over three weeks to figure out what went wrong.”
Another beat of silence.
Then Felix set down his spatula and turned to face them fully.
“Okay,” he said. “So let me get this straight. You two had been planning this huge magical ritual — a ritual that apparently requires medieval grimoires and convergence points and specific lunar timing — and you didn’t think to mention it to any of us?”
“It wasn’t—” Ramona started.
“We’ve been living together for two years,” Felix continued. His voice was calm, but there was an edge to it. “Two years, Ramona. And you’re doing major magic — dangerous magic, based on the ‘magical backlash’ situation — and you didn’t think to ask your three witch roommates for help?”
“I didn’t want to—” Ramona stopped. “I didn’t think you’d want to be involved with something so dangerous.”
“But we do want to be involved,” Posey said, and she looked genuinely confused rather than hurt. Like the concept of not wanting to help simply didn’t compute. “You’re ours. That means we help. That’s how it works.” She said it so simply, so obviously, like she was explaining that water was wet.
“I thought—” Ramona’s throat was tight. “I thought it was my problem. Mine and Zara’s. I didn’t want to drag anyone else into it.”
“Into what?” Cammie leaned forward. “Into helping you? Into being there for you? That’s literally what friends do, Ramona. Even friends who don’t have magical powers but would fight a bear for you.”
The fox, who had been sitting quietly near Ramona’s feet, made a small sound — something between a chirp and a whine. Agreement, maybe.
Felix jumped. “Did it just—”
“The fox is agreeing with you,” Ramona said.
“How do you know that?”
“I just… know.” And she did. She could feel it — not through words, but through something else. A sense of the fox’s emotions, its opinions… No, not its opinions, his opinions, filtered through whatever nascent connection had formed when she’d invited him inside. “He thinks I’m being an idiot.”
“Smart fox,” Kashvi murmured.
“Very wise,” Posey added, nodding at the fox with a soft smile. “His energy is very old. Very patient. He’s been waiting for you for a long time, I think.”
“We all want to help,” Kashvi said. “If you’ll let us.”
Ramona looked around the kitchen. At Zara, standing beside her, close enough to feel her warmth.
At Felix, fidgeting with his short brown curls.
At Kashvi, closing her laptop. At Posey, smiling with her expression open and sweet and completely without judgment.
At Cammie, looking exhausted from her shift but still here, still present.
At Gerald, cooing once, meaningfully. At the fox, watching her with golden eyes.
These people, who had taken her in two years ago when she had nothing. Who had never asked her to explain the incident, never pushed her to talk about Simone, never treated her like she was broken or dangerous or too much. Who had just… been there. Consistently. Quietly. Without conditions.
And she’d been so focused on not being a burden that she’d never let them actually help.
“Okay,” Ramona said. Her voice came out rough. “Okay. We need help.”
Felix’s expression softened immediately. “Good. What do you need?”
Zara pulled out her phone. “I’ve made a list. Okay, now, Kashvi, first…”
The help started small, growing over the next week and a half.
Kashvi took one look at the grimoires spread across the living room and immediately started cross-referencing them with digital archives, building a database of every severance ritual variation she could find.
“There are patterns,” she said three days into her research, laptop balanced on her knees, Gerald asleep on the armrest beside her. “Look. Every failed severance ritual in the historical record has one thing in common — the magical bond was created under duress or deception.”
“Well, I had both,” Ramona said. She was on the floor, surrounded by handwritten notes. “Accidental summoning definitely counts as duress.”
“Exactly.” Kashvi pulled up another document.
“But here’s the thing. Most of these bonds were eventually broken.
Not through the standard severance ritual, but through…
” She squinted at the screen. “Something called a ‘willing dissolution.’ Both parties had to actively want the severance while also acknowledging what the bond had given them.”
Zara, who had been reading silently in the corner, looked up. “Acknowledging what it had given them?”
“Gratitude, I think?” Ramona tilted the screen to study the wording. “The translation is rough.”
Kashvi nodded. “It seems like denying the bond’s value made it impossible to break. You had to… honor it? Before letting it go?”
Ramona and Zara exchanged a look. Through the tether, Ramona felt something complicated, like Zara’s uncertainty mixing with her own.
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Zara said carefully.
Felix, who had been listening from the kitchen while doing dishes, called out: “Wait, what about an unbinding ritual instead?”
“An unbinding?” Kashvi’s head snapped up. “Felix, no—”
“What’s the difference?” Ramona asked.