Chapter 52 The Witching Hour
The Witching Hour
Six weeks later
Ronan
Ididn’t need to touch the cold sheets on the other side of the bed to know that Sage wasn’t there. I could feel her absence like a cloak removed from my shoulders.
I found my phone and tapped the screen. Three a.m., the witching hour.
Grabbing a pair of sweatpants for me and a throw blanket for her, I found her where I usually did when she disappeared in the middle of the night—outside on the front porch, drinking coffee, and watching shitty reality shows on her phone.
She didn’t even look up as the door opened, just scooted over on the swinging bench to make room for me.
“What season are you on?” I asked.
“Seven. And can you believe they made three more seasons after this? It’s so bad.”
I tucked the blanket around her lap, then put my arm over her shoulders, bringing her into my side and resting my cheek on her head. She was watching an episode of The Arcane House that had come out a year or two ago.
A show she claimed to hate but couldn’t stop watching.
The chains on the swinging bench squeaked as we rocked slowly back and forth, the elf on the small screen having a meltdown because someone drank her oat milk. Security cams showed it was the werewolf, a day before the full moon when he’d been feeling a little manic.
Sage still hadn’t told me everything about what had happened between her and Victor. But out here, she was peaceful. Her muscles were relaxed, her expression neutral and unguarded. Small sounds didn’t cause her to flinch.
“I’m going to make some tea. Can I freshen your cup?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. But can you grab me some of those cookies I made today?”
I kissed her on her temple. “Will do.”
The new oven had been installed yesterday. State-of-the-art, gourmet type equipment. And we’d broken it in with Sage’s sugar cookies; a family recipe. Her mom, still shaken herself from living in supposed “witness protection” for the past five years, even came over to help.
She and her familiar agreed that I was very handsome, so naturally they’d become some of my favorite people in Lundaria.
Her dad seemed less convinced. Mostly because I’d, you know, delivered her back to Victor after she’d escaped. Not that I could blame him on that.
I’d win him and the iguana over eventually, though.
The electric kettle hummed when I clicked it on, and I put a few cookies on a plate while I waited for the water to boil, reflecting on everything that had happened since Maia had taken over as the official head of the Oniguro family and instructed me and Sage to “scram.”
We were on the road less than an hour after my dad’s death, neither of us fully breathing until the venomous glow of Ignareth had disappeared in the rear-view mirror.
It had simultaneously been the worst and best dinner of my life, a recurring nightmare that left me jolting out of bed sometimes, my wrists burning from the adamantine, searching for Sage to make sure she was safe.
She was.
We both were.
But even after getting back to Cindralis, we still found it difficult to relax.
The first thing we did was bring her parents back from their fake witness protection program.
Then, I threw myself into the house renovations, starting with the kitchen, while Sage had enrolled in online classes at Umbris U. She finished her degree, but declined the invite to go back to Noctis and walk the stage.
Managing Kaldrin took up a big chunk of her time, too, but she still tried to fill her days to near unmanageable levels with projects.
Being bored was triggering.
The kettle clicked again to tell me it was done, and I poured the hot water into the waiting mug, dipping in the bag of herbal tea and heading back outside.
“So, have the demon and witch hooked up yet?” I asked with a smirk, handing her the plate as I sat down.
She laughed. “The familiar keeps cock-blocking them. I don’t think he likes the demon.”
“Ouch,” I replied, taking one of the cookies for myself. “I hope when you find your familiar, they won’t mind me too much.”
Sage’s birthday had been two weeks ago, and tomorrow was the new moon. Five years late, but the priestess at the Temple of Hecara assured Sage that she hadn’t missed her chance.
“A witch and their familiar have a sacred, Hecara-blessed bond that cannot be soured by time. They are waiting for you.”
Morgana’s familiar, Vesper, had apparently assured Sage that her familiar was still out there, too.
And yet, she still doubted. Still worried that maybe, because she was late, and because of what she’d gone through, she was too broken, too scarred, to ever have that type of bond.
“If I find a familiar,” she mumbled.
I’d tried reassuring her before when she’d spiral into these negative thoughts, but it turned out, humor worked better.
“Well, if you come out of the Covenant Woods alone, we can stop by the pet store and get a collar, and I’ll pretend to be your familiar.”
“Ew,” she chuckled. “You know witches and familiars don’t sleep together. It’s practically incestuous.”
I pretended to scoff. “Excuse me, are you saying that your desire for me is so great that even if I were your familiar, you’d struggle with your lust for my hot body?”
With a snort, she skipped over the opening credits for the next episode, diving right in. “Feeling humble tonight, aren’t we?”
“I’m always humble. The most humble person you’ll ever meet. Seriously, there was a ‘Humility Contest’ in Ignareth and I won first place.”
She rolled her eyes, giving me her “are you done yet” look.
“But then I gave the trophy to the runner up. Because I’m so humble.”
She barked a laugh, covering her mouth quickly to keep from waking the neighbors. “Oh Hecara, you’re such an idiot.”
I shoved another cookie in my mouth and winked. “Only for you.”
We curled up next to each other, the summer night air humid with a hint of a chill, and finished the season just as the sun peeked over the horizon.
* * *
Sage
When it came to meeting your familiar, there were several approaches for deciding what to wear.
The oldest tradition called for nothing but a cloak, given to the familiar as their first garment, while the witch remained bare to symbolize their rebirth into the third cycle of their life.
The idea to bring something for your familiar remained, but many witches had opted out of the nudity as time passed. Young witches wore unisex dress robes when they received their cauldron, so that was one option to express continuity between the sacraments.
Others, however, went full, witchy glam, with gossamer gowns or tailored suits, woven with delicate spiderweb designs and crowns made of flowers and bones.
Growing up, I’d wanted something elegant, but after the date for the ceremony was set, I’d thought about wearing something that covered me head to toe, worried my scars would be too difficult for my familiar to look at.
Thankfully, Ronan had convinced otherwise, encouraging me to embrace them, to show my familiar exactly who I was and what I’d survived.
If they rejected me, then they weren’t worthy to begin with.
Oh Hecara, I hoped they wouldn’t reject me.
I spent the whole day at the witch spa, undergoing a series of special preparations for the ceremony.
They used to be done at home with your parents or other witch elders, rituals passed down like family heirlooms.
Now, you scheduled an appointment online and made sure to leave a tip.
First was the herb smoke cleansing. I tossed the bundle of mugwort, bay leaf, juniper, and rosemary into the fire of a small room.
Sparks flew, and the air became thick with the medicinal smoke as I sat on the tiered wooden bench in my towel, the magic coaxing toxins and negative energy from my pores with my sweat.
I wasn’t too sure about the toxins, but I was definitely a sweaty mess by the end of it.
Next was a bath, which after the smoke cleanse would sound perfect, only it was filled with goat’s milk and rose petals.
It smelled even worse than I’d imagined, but following the salt and ash rinse that took place immediately afterwards, my skin looked better than it had in years, scars and all.
The last step involved the priestess. I stood naked in a small sanctum, arms out and legs spread, while she chanted in old Lundarian, drawing runes on my bare skin in moonwater symbolizing joining, bonding, and reclamation.
For that was what a witch-familiar bond really culminated in—a reunion of souls, separated at birth.
It was different from the mate bond I had with Ronan. Ronan was my best friend and my lover. My biggest supporter and my protector.
But a familiar bond was like finding your missing half. A long-lost twin—still their own being, but so much like you, you both might as well have been the same person.
A mate made me better. A familiar made me me.
And as much as Ronan was doing his best to fill the void, even as my mate, he never could. And I loved him for knowing that and still trying anyway.
I donned my floor-length green mulberry silk cloak. I’d heard it could be jarring for a familiar to wear fabric for the first time, and silk was the softest transition for their new skin.
Once I was ready, I joined the other witches going to the woods tonight. I knew I didn’t necessarily look any older than the rest of them, but I felt more than five years apart from the giddy, excited twenty-six-year-olds completing the rite with me.
A few recognized me from the news, whispering to their friends who turned their heads to stare, but between the statements from Ronan, Accalia, the Premier of Ignareth, and our move to Cindralis, my public image was thankfully not one of a heartless homewrecker, but of an unfortunate pawn caught up in a game way above my magic grade.
Someone coughed from behind me, and I turned around, bracing for a rude question.