Chapter 4 Dean
Dean
Alex Sinclair’s sharp heels announce her arrival before she bursts through my door, all pressed angles and indignation.
Her sister turns toward her and offers a wave.
They resemble each other in some ways—the gold-streaked hair and high cheekbones.
But Margaret stands out with her warm curves, soft curls, and golden eyes that sparkle with humor.
It’s a striking contrast to Alex’s sharp, no-nonsense journalistic demeanor.
While Alex is all edges and focus, Margaret seems to invite the world in with a tilt of her head.
The woman who sneezed in my face not twenty minutes ago.
Who felt like possibilities when I caught her. Who named her cello Giuseppe.
I’m no stranger to desire; the occasional trysts at The National Council of Witches and Warlocks biennial meetings serve their purpose. Discreet encounters with people who understand the value of distance. But this… this feels different.
I shift my fingers, brushing the edge of the medallion in my pocket. The envelope presses against it, a silent weight reminding me exactly why I don’t do this. Don’t let myself feel this electric awareness of another person. Especially when that other person is a non-magical human.
“Did you detain my sister at the ferry?” Alex slams her fists against her hips and glares. She doesn’t even realize she has the ability to do this—to remind everyone that she once worked in Manhattan boardrooms and fears nothing.
I’m still tasting mint and regret from the memory magic I had to perform on the tourist crowd. My sinuses burn, my head pounds, and now this complication walks into my office.
I rest my elbows on my desk and press my fingers together. “I’m just following the procedure for extended-stay visitors, Ms. Sinclair. You know this.”
“Then why didn’t you inform me first and—”
“Actually, the ferry arrived early.” Her sister’s voice is soft, musical even in speech. “I thought I’d walk down and meet you. Mr. Markham was kind enough to escort me here.”
“Dean,” I correct automatically, then immediately regret giving her that familiarity. The smile that curves her lip suggests she plans to use it against me—like I just handed her a secret and she can’t wait to see how far she can push it.
“Dean, I mean.” Her gaze stays locked on mine for two heartbeats too long. It’s electric, so powerful it overrides the magic-induced headache. She turns back to her sister and grasps her hands. “Everything’s fine. I’ll meet you at your restaurant when I’m done?”
“Well…” Alex’s sharp glance fixes back on me before returning to Margaret. “I can stay for the interview if you’d like.”
“I’m fine.” She shrugs. “What do I have to hide?”
Alex tenses, her fingers tightening around Margaret’s. At least she’s aware of the issue. She may have nothing to hide, but we do. Decades of careful magical concealment wrapped in small town charm and council regulations.
I tap my fingers together, the motion reflecting in my desk’s polished mahogany. “I believe, Ms. Sinclair, I’ve given you reason for faith in the past.”
Alex’s lips thin. She holds my stare like her sister did, but it feels completely different. Like a challenge. Magic rises unbidden beneath my skin, an instinctive response to confrontation—one I’ve spent years learning to control.
Emma’s defiant jut of her jaw from this morning comes to mind—how she clutched her violin case like a shield even as raw power hummed over her skin.
I recognize that brand of magic. The kind that doesn’t ask for permission or wait for convenient moments.
The kind that builds like a storm until it breaks through every barrier you try to construct.
Of course, I never longed to leave the magical community as she does. Never wanted to leave home.
I swear the envelope is stabbing me in the ribs.
Some lessons carve themselves into bone. You learn to contain magic, or it contains you. You master control, or you lose everything that matters.
And that’s why, despite the power, it’s easy to swallow the magic down and give Alex a terse smile.
“Fine,” she mutters, then turns to her sister and embraces her before kissing her cheek.
When the door clicks shut, Margaret doesn’t take a seat like a normal person.
Instead, she flashes that dangerous grin at me once more before casually strolling around the office.
She lifts her face at the expanse of the bookshelf, grazes a finger over one book’s spine, then pauses at The Codex Arcanum, disguised as a mundane legal text.
My magic prickles beneath my skin as her fingers drift closer to its spelled binding. Every protective instinct I possess wants to stop her, to preserve the careful order I’ve built here, but something about her deliberate exploration holds me silent.
Watching her, I can imagine her playing the cello that currently leans in its case against a corner alongside her suitcase.
I can imagine her grip tightening around the bow, her body swaying with the music, those graceful fingers drawing out notes like she’s pulling magic from the strings.
I shift in my seat because I don’t understand this magnetic attraction I feel toward her and I don’t like things I can’t explain.
Margaret’s hand drops. She looks back over her shoulder like she can feel my discomfort. With a shift of her hips that twirls her dress around her legs, she walks over to the desk. Those graceful fingers reach out again, pausing before touching the silver-framed photo I keep faced away.
“Oh, you have a sister too.”
The mint taste of memory magic strengthens again and turns bitter. I open a drawer to find a cinnamon-flavored mint to pop into my mouth. Anything to rid myself of this lingering taste of the past.
“I’m not the one being interviewed.”
She grins and settles into the chair across from me, all graceful movements but her eyes promise mischief.
I pull out the form and lift my pen. “So what exactly brings you to Magnolia Cove?”
I need to get through these questions as efficiently as possible and get this woman out of my office and preferably my life—quickly.
She tilts her head, studying me like I’m something worth looking at. No one has looked at me like that in years—like I’m someone they want to understand rather than avoid. The back of my neck prickles as she speaks.
“Besides my sister’s upcoming wedding?” A pause occurs while she whirls a ring on her pinky finger.
“Well, there’s this grumpy bureaucrat who seemed like he could use someone to practice his scowling on and that feels like a noble use of my sabbatical time.
” She smirks. “You’re doing great, by the way.
Very intimidating. Do you rehearse your expression in the mirror? ”
“Miss Sinclair—”
“Missy,” she interrupts smoothly, her grin widening. “Since we’re on a first-name basis now, Dean.”
She says my name like she’s tasting it, like it’s a piece of music she’s considering how to play. The electric feeling increases. I’m certain if I reach out to touch the paper now, a static shock would leap up and shock me.
She twirls a strand of golden hair around her finger. “Besides, you’re deflecting. You’ve avoided my question about if you practice in the mirror.” She leans forward and whispers. “You can tell me. I’m great at keeping secrets.”
“You also seem to excel at sneezing in strangers’ faces.”
A whisper of red washes over her nose but she falls back into a chair with a laugh. “I’m a woman of many talents, Dean.”
And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. The way she notices too much, asks too many questions, and already seems to draw toward anything radiating with magic. Like me.
The magic under my skin pulses. It’s becoming so untethered it should throb in my temples and ache into my bones, but it’s not.
It’s simply rushing through me, like it’s responding to her presence, even though she’s a regular human.
Or maybe because she is one. The dangerous ones always are—the ones who can peer through our carefully constructed illusions, who find the cracks in our magical concealment.
After all, her sister had done the same.
“And,” she says, “you still haven’t answered.”
I think of Emma’s raw power this morning, of Nell’s broken heart a decade ago, and clear my throat. “Anything done with excellence requires practice.” I deadpan the response but she smiles, anyway. Without taking a breath I continue, “You’re planning to stay for how long?”
Her eyes are warm honey when they meet mine. She looks at me straight in the face—the way even most witches and warlocks won’t. “That depends. How long does it usually take to make you crack a smile? Because now it’s become a personal challenge.”
Her fingers dance against her armrest. I track the motion, their rhythm and sway. A shiver slips down my spine and I force my gaze back down to the blank page.
“Your touring partner, Jules Bouchard…” Her smile drops and her eyebrows rise and I’m pleased to have surprised her. “Will he visit during your stay?”
A shadow settles over her expression and she finally shifts those intense eyes away. “Not likely. Jules isn’t exactly the small-town type.”
“And you are?”
A dangerous question. An unnecessary question. Yet, I can’t regret asking it.
She meets my gaze again. “I could be.”
The air thickens with unspoken meaning. In another life, with different choices, this might have led somewhere else.
I’ve seen that expression before—dim corners, whispered invitations—but this is different.
There’s something genuine in how she holds my gaze, how she says my name like a gift instead of a conquest.
If I were someone else—someone without regrets, without past mistakes—I might lean closer. I might learn if her laugh feels as musical up close as it does across the room.
But I am who I am. Head Warlock of Magnolia Cove. Keeper of secrets. Already destroyer of one sister’s happiness. And she is who she is—human, perceptive, dangerous.
Some doors are better left unopened. Some songs better left unplayed.
I clear my throat and straighten the still-blank forms that don’t need straightening.
“Six months,” she whispers, breaking the quiet. “My sabbatical is for six months.”
I scribble the number down. Ask a few more to-the-point questions. Then I rise. “Your application will need council review. I’ll contact you with their decision.”
She stands as well and smooths her dress. “Thank you, Dean.” The smirk slides back onto her lips. “I look forward to giving you more opportunities to practice that scowl.”
I offer her a curt nod and she gathers her bags and leaves, clicking the door shut behind her.
I’m certain she’s going to give me plenty of opportunities, because every moment in her presence is an exercise in restraint.
It’s taking all my energy not to lean closer when she speaks, not track the graceful arch of her neck when her hair spills away from it, not let my power reach for her like a flower turning toward the sun.
I wait until her footsteps fade before moving to the window. Outside she reunites with Alex who waited for her. They embrace then head toward town. Something within me wants to ask her to return, wants to keep hearing her voice, move my chair to sit beside hers, hope we might touch.
“No.” I’m not in a habit of speaking aloud to myself, but this moment feels like it requires the weight of sound. “Absolutely not.”
I pull the blinds shut and return to my desk. I’m not giving in to attraction for a non-magical human—or anyone, for that matter. Love leads to heartbreak. To the bitter taste of necessary cruelty. To a sister who never forgives you for doing what had to be done.
I fish the wedding invitation out. The cream color is dull in the room’s dim light. Nell’s name gleams up at me. Accusing me.
I reach for another mint. Pop it in my mouth. Roll it between my teeth.
Missy’s honey-warm eyes linger in my memory, refusing dismissal. The way magic has an aftertaste so that you have to keep remembering it long after the moment has passed.
The form sits before me, waiting for decisions that shouldn’t be this difficult. Everyone on the council likes and trusts Alex and Ethan. This interview was a formality. But the final decision rests on me.
Six months.
Six months of having her in Magnolia Cove, of crossing paths with her in the streets, of being the one called if things go wrong and she realizes too much. Six months of fighting this pull like gravity, like magic, like fate.
I reach for my pen and let it dangle above the paper. I already know how the council will vote. But they still need my signature.
A moment passes. Nell’s name stares at me. I close my eyes and remember Missy’s laugh, the electricity between us.
With a sigh, I open my eyes again, and let my signature glide across the page.