Chapter Seven
“It’s not that type of place,” Katherine said.
Lily ignored her, not stopping her quest to smooth the wrinkles in the shirt Katherine had lent her for their trip to Sunspot.
“My mom says it’s important to look like you take care of yourself.”
“Well,” Katherine said, pulling the door open and gesturing for Lily to head inside, “given the night you had, I think everyone will forgive you. Plus, the state of that shirt reflects more on me, and everyone in there knows I can’t fold properly.”
“Damn right she can’t.” The stunning Black woman with unicorn-colored braids put down the rag she’d been using to clean a nearby table and walked over to Lily and Katherine.
“I’ve been trying to get her on board with the KonMari fold for years, but she’s too damn lazy.
Hell, there’s even a spell for it, but she says it’s a waste of magic. ”
“It is,” Katherine insisted. “Just because we’re witches doesn’t mean we need to use magic to do every little thing.”
“And you can have fun dying on that shitty hill. I, for one, would rather use a quick rune than ruin my manicure doing dishes.”
“I’m too lazy to get my nails done in the first place, so I don’t have that issue.”
The woman rolled her eyes before turning to Lily. “I’m Fiona, by the way. Are you hungry? Katherine probably tried to feed you canned soup for breakfast, right?”
“Frozen waffles,” Lily replied.
Fiona laughed. “Oh, big step up to actual meal-appropriate food.”
“Let me guess, she tried to serve them to you plain,” said another female voice. “And still frozen.”
Lily turned to see a tall Black woman leaning against the doorway of the kitchen, rubbing her hands on a stained apron.
“Fiona already got you on board the ‘Katherine needs to eat real food’ train, huh, Tess?” Katherine said, chuckling.
“She mentioned that you once spent a week subsisting on gas station burritos and I nearly threw up.”
Despite herself, Lily laughed. It was strange but nice to hear people talking so normally, so close to her life being upended.
“Wait a second,” Katherine said. “Fi, why are you wearing that?”
Lily looked at Fiona, who was wearing a flowy skirt and a bustier with puffy white sleeves.
“Fuck,” Katherine said. She cursed a lot. Lily wasn’t scandalized by it—she was a city kid, baptized in the fires of public school and the LA Metro. Still, it was strange to her that this woman who promised to take care of her might not be all that put together herself.
“It’s not Halloween already, is it?” Katherine asked.
“Yes, it is,” Fiona said. “And if you don’t get yourself in the Halloween spirit ASAP, I’ll have to make you walk the plank.” Fiona grabbed her purse, rustling around for a second before pulling out a fake hook hand. “Argh.”
“Wait, witches celebrate Halloween?” Lily asked.
“Everyone celebrates Halloween,” Fiona said. “Well, not everyone.” She gave Katherine’s decidedly not-a-costume outfit—baggy jeans, a cropped tee, and sneakers—a judgmental look.
Katherine crossed her arms defensively. “Tess isn’t wearing a costume either.”
“Au contraire.” Tess gestured to her all-black ensemble. “I am the night.”
“That’s cheating.”
“You’re just saying that because you wish you’d thought of it.”
“Touché.” Katherine turned to Lily. “Halloween isn’t a special night for witches or anything. We just happen to have a coven meeting tonight because we do one on the last Friday of every month.”
Lily nodded, adding this to the list of facts she was collecting about this new world. She was out of her depth. This time yesterday, her biggest question had been if she should start doing a ten-step skincare routine. Now, she was wondering whether witches actually had warts.
She couldn’t handle warts on top of everything else.
Lily’s stomach growled, the frozen waffles from that morning refusing to tide her over.
“Okay, okay,” Katherine said. “Can we get Lily some real food from someone who can actually cook, then?”
“Absolutely,” Tess said. “What do you want, Lily? Anything in the world. Give me your dream meal and I can make it.”
“Um … filet mignon. And mashed potatoes.”
Tess sighed. “Okay, obviously I can do that, but think bigger. This is a magic restaurant. Sky’s the limit. Gimme a challenge.”
Lily thought for a moment. When she pictured magic food, her mind went straight to apples with worms in them, mysterious drinks that turned you into a frog.
But here was this nice woman, telling her she could make her anything in the world, using this power that Lily now had. She might as well put it to the test.
“Okay,” she said. “I want, uh, Gordon Ramsay’s beef Wellington. And curly fries. And a red velvet cupcake filled with a red wine reduction—I don’t know what that is, but that—topped with caramel cream cheese frosting. Oh, and also a root beer float in a Wendy’s Frosty cup.”
Tess grinned. “Give me five minutes.”
Lily watched in awe as Tess disappeared into the kitchen. A burst of light filtered through the window, followed by the banging of pots and pans.
“She can’t seriously do all that, right?” she asked.
“Of course she can,” Fiona said. Katherine settled at the bar, patting a stool for Lily to sit next to her.
“So you’re all witches?” Lily asked. She was still getting used to the word, to the different way it fell off her tongue when she was treating witch as something real.
“Yep,” Fiona said. “Just about everyone who comes into Sunspot is. Ordinaries—that’s what we call non-witches—are allowed in, but the place is warded so they get bad vibes from it and stay away.”
“Are there other magic things? Am I going to meet a Cullen?”
Katherine chuckled. “Nope. Just witches. All the other ones are the products of overactive human imaginations.”
Lily nodded, absorbing. “Were you guys all … What was the word again?”
“Unsettled,” Katherine said. “And no, they weren’t. Only witches from non-magical families are unsettled. I was, and the head of our coven, Sylvia, who you’ll meet later, was too. Fi comes from a magical family—”
“A magical family of total hippies,” Fiona chimed in. “They’re still confused why I’m out here in LA ‘working for the man’ instead of living in a trailer doing magical LSD.”
“Please don’t talk about drugs in front of the teenager,” Katherine said.
“Sorry. Eating magical candy.”
Lily smiled as Fiona winked at her.
“And Tess was born to a magical mother and an ordinary father,” Katherine explained.
“When that happens, you can be born either with settled magic or with no magic at all,” Fiona added. “She’s one of the lucky ones.”
“Lucky,” Lily murmured. “I don’t see myself as lucky for having magic.”
Lily pulled the string of beads out of her pocket and started to spin it around her fingers again.
She couldn’t stop wondering why this had happened to her.
If unsettled magic was random, couldn’t it have chosen someone else?
Why was she the one being thrust through this door into a new world, a door that she’d never be able to close again?
“Come on.” Katherine pulled Lily up, then gestured for Fiona to come with them. Katherine walked them to the empty space by the door, then took Lily’s hands in hers.
“I want to let a little bit of your magic out,” Katherine said.
Lily shook her head so hard her neck hurt. “No, I can’t do that! I’ll snap. I won’t be able to control it, and then I’ll hurt you just like I hurt Noah.”
“You won’t,” Katherine promised. “Letting out your magic in a controlled way will help relieve some of the pressure. Make you feel a little bit lighter. Do you trust me?”
No, Lily thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. She had no choice but to trust Katherine. There was no one else. No other way out but through.
“Okay.”
Katherine smiled at her, then nodded to Fiona, who pulled out her caster and cut into her palm. Lily flinched. Katherine had told her that doing magic their way involved cutting yourself, but this was her first time seeing it in action. Fiona barely reacted as blood welled up from her hand.
Lily looked away from the red, but was immediately drawn back by a flash of blue.
It was a bright symbol, like a projection on Fiona’s skin, there and then gone.
It was replaced by a glimmering bubble, rising from her hand and growing bigger and bigger, until it encased all three of them.
Unlike her magic, this magic looked and felt calm—like a wave flowing through the air, rather than the violent sparks that Lily’s exploded in.
Lily reached for the bubble, running her hand lightly along its inner surface. It felt warm and dewy, like fresh grass. The thing inside her responded to it, but not with the rage she was used to. It seemed almost … happy.
Katherine pulled her knife out of her pocket as well, and then the scent of blood was filling the air again, followed by a bitter scent like burnt popcorn. The same blue flash on her palm, and then another bubble grew around the three of them, a second layer to the protection spell.
“You’re covered now,” Katherine said. “Your magic is not gonna get out. It’ll only last a minute, but it’ll be enough for you to try a little something.”
Lily looked at the shell that had formed around her.
Her power was practically dancing inside her, begging to be set free.
She was terrified of lifting the cap she’d put on it, but the bubble seemed solid, and she was desperate for any relief from the pounding of magic in her skull.
She lifted the lid on the well inside her just slightly, but instead of a trickle, it came out in a flood. She slammed it shut, her body shaking.
“It’s too much,” she said. “I don’t know how to not bring up all of it at once.”
“Pretend that you’re a tree, that your roots are going into the earth,” Katherine said. “Your roots are your magic, and you’re going to dig up a piece of it, just a little bit, and let it out. You’re giving back your power to the earth from where you came.”
Lily did as Katherine said, closing her eyes.
It felt silly to pretend to be a tree. Hell, she grew up in Los Angeles—the most she knew about trees was that the city’s famous palms were definitely not native.
Her mind instead landed on the image of the new apartment complex that was being built on her street.
They’d torn a massive hole in the ground before sinking down the foundation, the concrete and wood that would keep the building tied to its spot.
The building materials didn’t choose where they would end up—they simply appeared there, and then they did what they had to do.
Lily had to do the same.
She looked into her mind, and she dug her hands into the foundation of her power, and she let it flow through her fingers.
And when she opened her eyes, there was a small spark in front of her.
Lily’s breath caught in her chest. It was so beautiful, that little red dot hanging in the air. A piece of her, outside her body, doing nothing except enriching the environment around her. Leaving a place better than she found it.
Katherine smiled at her, and then her bubble faded. Fiona’s followed, until they were standing totally in the open.
“Holy shit,” Lily breathed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t curse.”
“No one cares if you curse,” Fiona said.
“See?” Katherine said. “Magic can be beautiful, once you learn to control it. That’s what we’re here to help you do.”
Lily stared at the spark for a moment, and then felt her face split into a wide, open smile. Magic. She had actual magic. All she had to do was learn to control it and then—
All of a sudden, there was a creak. The noise startled Lily, breaking her focus, and the spark shattered, a blast of heat exploding from Lily as her unsettled magic surged through the air.
She ducked, covering her head as a table flipped nearby.
She felt another protection bubble go up around her, containing the rest of her snap, but it didn’t matter. The damage was done.
“I didn’t mean to,” Lily murmured, repeating it again and again, except it didn’t help, because who cared if she meant to or not. The power had been in control, not her, and it could do that whenever it wanted.
Lily dug her head into her knees, the roar of the blood pounding in her skull making it hard to hear anything else. She stayed like that until she felt a soft hand on her knee. When she looked up, she found a blond woman kneeling in front of her, her green eyes shining with concern.
“It’s okay,” the woman said. Katherine stood behind her, blood dripping from her hand onto the floor from the cut she’d made to save these people from Lily.
“Small snaps like that are going to happen,” the woman continued. “I’m Sylvia, the head of Aestas. I’m going to help you figure this all out.”
“I can’t.” Lily’s voice shook. “I’m going to do that again.”
Sylvia shook her head. “No one got hurt, and that’s all that matters. You’re safe, we’re safe. We’re going to help you. You’re going to be a great witch, Lily.”
A great witch. Lily didn’t want to be a great witch. She wanted to be a great daughter, a great friend, a great sister. She wanted things that she could no longer have.
“I don’t want to be a witch.” She sniffled. “I want to go back to my life.”
“I wish you could,” Sylvia said. “I really do.”
Sylvia stood up, holding a hand out to Lily.
Lily looked at it for a moment. A choice: to take it or stay here on the floor.
But like every choice she’d had since this power found her, it was a false one.
Because even if she didn’t take it, even if she stayed here, her situation wouldn’t go back to normal.
She could stand on her own, but it wouldn’t change anything.
She’d still be tied here, still forced to accept these people’s help if she wanted any hope of making it through this.
She took Sylvia’s hand and stood.
Tess bustled out of the kitchen, holding the plates of food Lily had requested. “All to your exact specifications.” She stopped. “Oops. Sorry. Bad time?”
“No.” Sylvia led Lily over to a table. “Let’s get some food in you before the coven meeting. You’re going to see a whole community of witches come together. It’ll be a wonderful thing to witness before you go to Oak Grove.”
Tess set the plates down on the table. Sylvia sat, gesturing for Lily to come sit next to her. Another false choice. She could turn and walk out the door instead, but she’d still be hungry. The key to her survival was in this room. She sat.
Sylvia picked up a fry and popped it into her mouth. “Good choice.” She picked up the cupcake. “Red wine reduction, huh? You ever tried that before?”
Lily shook her head. Sylvia split the cupcake in two, then held out half toward Lily.
“Cheers,” Sylvia said, nudging her half of the cupcake against Lily’s. Lily bit into the cupcake, then let out a small cough.
“I don’t think I like alcohol.”