Chapter Two
Augustine fumbled with her keys, her fingers stiff with both the cold and overwork. She had a bag of shopping weighing down one hand and a box of cat food under the other, and she really, really didn’t have the patience for her rickety old door today.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered, wriggling her key this way and that.
The half-rusted, stubborn old lock was one of the many drawbacks of her current home.
Ever since she’d moved in, she’d had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the place.
The flat sat tucked into the attic of a narrow townhouse on the other side of Greenwich park, all slanted ceilings, worn walls, and questionable insulation.
On colder days, the ice crept in like it paid rent, while in summer the place turned into an oven.
It once got so hot that a random pot plant her sister, Clem, gifted her — apparently a pineapple plant, though Augustine hadn’t known that until the bloody thing fruited — managed to grow an actual pineapple.
More than that, it felt very much like the whole place was held together by nothing more than sticky tape and glue, with a large degree of hope, faith and prayers thrown into the mix.
She hated the way the walls flaked if you looked at them too hard. The way the stairs complained every time you stood on them.
Still. Cheap rent had a magic all of its own.
It had come fully furnished, too, even if it was an odd early 90’s aesthetic set against Victorian walls.
A brightly coloured sofa here, neon prints there.
Mostly black wooden furniture, battered over time.
Glass cabinet doors. Even an old stereo unit, complete with CD player and an enviable collection of Madonna CDs.
None of it matched, none of it worked, but to Augustine, none of it mattered, because here, she was allowed to keep her cat.
Augustine could put up with a lot for that — the draughts, the creaking floorboards, the way the building groaned like an old man clearing his throat when the wind picked up.
Sometimes it felt like her cat was the only consistent thing in her life these days, though she never thought too hard about why that felt true.
Bird was a solid black presence threaded through her life like a constant spell — sleek, clever and opinionated, with bright eyes that missed nothing.
Some witches kept rabbits. Some kept rats.
A few particularly forward-thinking souls had embraced the digital age and gone in for virtual pets.
Augustine was old school though; a black cat was the only familiar she needed, and Bird was the quiet joy of her otherwise lonely life.
He was living proof that some magic — a swishing tail, a vibrating purr, the occasional judgemental stare — was simple and pure.
“Finally.” The lock to her door gave out with a familiar click, and Augustine nudged it open with her shoulder, adjusting the cat food once more.
She was home. Thank God.
She shut the door behind her, leaned her forehead against it for a heartbeat, then dumped her shopping and shrugged out of her coat, hanging it on the hook by the radiator.
She slipped off her shoes and headed through to the living room; Bird mewed at her from his usual windowsill.
She ran a hand over his head gratefully before collapsing onto the nearest sofa and closing her eyes briefly.
“Good day?”
When she opened her eyes again, Roy was exactly where he always was, curled into the battered wingback chair by the fire, legs crossed, book propped open in one hand.
The flames threw soft light over his face, catching the silver at his temples.
He didn’t look up right away — just turned a page, entirely unbothered by the world at large.
Then he glanced at her, taking her in with his beautiful emerald green eyes. He lowered his glasses at her thoughtfully, running his gaze over her face.
“Or should I rephrase that?” he drawled. “Bad day?”
Augustine curled her feet up under herself. “Yep.”
Roy hummed thoughtfully. “Care to elaborate, or are we doing that brooding-in-companionable-silence thing we often indulge in?”
She chewed on her lip, staring into the fire. The logs popped softly while a minute passed, then another. Finally, she said, very carefully, “Have you ever told anyone about me?”
That got his full attention, and Roy closed his book with deliberate calm, setting it aside. “And what about you would I tell?” he asked. Augustine gave him a look.
“You know. About who I am. Who my family are. The whole, uh, witch thing.”
“Witch thing?” he repeated bluntly. “You don’t even pick up a broom to sweep this place, let alone go flying on one at night.”
“Roy.”
He shrugged. “Look, so far as I’m concerned, you’re simply my roommate who makes questionable choices regarding both fashion and career.” He paused. “Besides, when do I ever go out?”
She blew out a breath and scrubbed a hand over her face. “I don’t know. I just—” Augustine shook her head, already annoyed with herself. “Ignore me. I’m being ridiculous.”
“Yeah. You are.” Roy cleared his throat. “What happened today?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, right. I don’t believe you.”
Augustine huffed, sinking further into the sofa and glaring into the fire. Roy had that effect on people, being as persistently present and annoyingly perceptive as he was.
Royston Laurent Harold (the third, but only when he was feeling fancy) had been born into old money, and proper old money at that.
He was the kind of rich that came with portraits of unsmiling ancestors and the confidence of someone who had never, ever had to worry about rent payments.
It was a constant mystery to Augustine why he was here, wedged into the attic of a slowly collapsing townhouse in Greenwich, instead of some draughty manor with a library, AGA, inherited gun collection and velvet curtains so heavy they probably needed a butler who could bench press 220 to open them.
Roy spent his days working on what he referred to — without a single hint of irony — as the great British novel, while his evenings were spent firmly putting his nose in her life and business.
Roy was always reading or typing, always watching, and always noticing far more than he let on.
His eyes missed nothing, least of all her.
She wasn’t sure whether he was a perk or a drawback of the flat. Maybe both.
On the plus side, he and Bird tolerated each other without too much complaint, and Roy never brought home any of his toffee-nosed, old-money friends to clutter up her space with their over-emphasized vowels and opinions.
On the minus side, he was impossible to lie to and far too comfortable asking questions he had no right to ask.
“Nothing has happened,” she repeated stubbornly. “I’m just out of sorts.”
Roy snorted softly. “Augustine, please. I know you now. When you say nothing like that, it means something has gone catastrophically sideways.”
She grimaced. Damn him.
Bird chose that moment to hop onto the arm of her chair, tail flicking imperiously, and Augustine reached out to scratch behind his ears, more for her own grounding than his enjoyment. Roy watched the small gesture with a knowing look.
“So?”
She took a deep breath. “A customer came in this afternoon.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Normally. But this one . . . he was . . .” Augustine thought for a moment. “Odd.”
“Odd? What do you mean? Odd like he had one leg significantly shorter than the other? Or a lopsided beard? Or maybe—” Roy shuddered — “mismatched eyebrows?”
“No, nothing like that. I don’t mean his looks were odd. He was, I don’t know, conventionally attractive, and—”
“Oh, really?” Roy cut in with a delighted raise of an eyebrow. “Conventionally attractive, you say?”
“Stop it.” Augustine tried not to think of the customer’s grey-blue eyes and thick brown hair. “It wasn’t like that. I told you. He was . . . odd.”
“Odd how?”
Augustine stopped scratching Bird’s head, meeting Roy’s gaze and holding it. “He asked me to read the cards.” She swallowed. “He asked me to speak to the dead.”
Roy’s eyes widened. “Can you do that?”
She shrugged. “I can read the cards. But then anyone can, with the right training.”
“Okay. And the other thing?” Roy swallowed. “Speaking to the dead?”
Augustine gave another small, non-committal shrug in reply. “My grandmother could do it.” Abruptly she stood, and Bird gave a hiss of disapproval. “This customer, though . . . He said he’d been told I did it. That I could do it.”
Roy took his glasses off, cleaning the lenses thoughtfully.
“He was misinformed then? I mean, your shop gives every impression of that sort of thing. If I walked in off the street, I’d assume you read tarot and communed with the beyond between serving customers and going on coffee runs to Starbucks. ”
Augustine shot him a look. “I know it gives that impression. But I’ve never offered it.
Not once. I sell candles. Overpriced incense kits handmade in China.
Herbal teas that may or may not contain herbs.
” She threw her hands up. “I do not and never have, offered tarot readings or clairvoyance. I don’t even stock Ouija boards. ”
Roy nodded thoughtfully, his gaze drifting back towards the fire. Augustine didn’t like that look. It usually preceded a suggestion she’d hate.
“Well,” he said slowly, “have you considered that maybe you should?”
She blinked. And there it was. “Should what? Stock Ouija boards?”
“No.” Roy scowled. “Offer readings. Clairvoyance. The whole mystical experience.” He shrugged lightly. “It’d be a whole new income stream. People would pay obscene amounts for that sort of thing from a real-life witch.”
Augustine rolled her eyes, sinking back into the sofa. Bird hopped indignantly into her lap a second later, and she rubbed behind his ears again. “Absolutely not. Never.”
Roy smiled thinly. “Shame. You’d be very good at it.”
“You and I both know that’s a lie.” She sighed, glancing back into the hallway where her shopping still sat abandoned on the floor. “Fuck it. I’m ordering Chinese,” she announced, already reaching for her phone. “Do you want anything?”
Roy shook his head, then slid his glasses back on, expression suddenly serious. “For the record,” he said quietly, “I never talk about you. Not to anyone.”
Her fingers stilled, and she looked over at him with a half-smile, something tight in her chest easing just a fraction. “Thanks.”
Roy smiled back at her, before he seemed to realize what he was doing and straightened his back. “Well,” he said quickly, “when you get to our age, telling other people that you still live with a roommate is a little embarrassing.”
Augustine scowled at him. “You don’t have to stay here, you know.”
“I was here first, remember?”
“All the same.”
He shrugged. “I can’t leave.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Roy.”
He shrugged again. “I can’t. I like the aesthetic too much.”
“You mean you like the Madonna collection.”
“Hey. Each and every one of her songs is a banger, and you know it.”
Augustine made no reply to that, tapping out an Uber Eats order on her phone. She paid, ignoring the hit it would make on her already diminished bank account, before crossing her arms over her chest and staring into the fire.
“He’s going to come back, you know,” she said, more to herself than Roy, though she felt his eyes fall upon her anyway.
“Who will?”
“You know who.”
“Voldemort?”
She looked up again, rolling her eyes. “No. The customer. From today. He’ll come back.”
“Why would he do that? You already told him you don’t do that kind of thing.”
The fire crackled softly, and for a heartbeat, Augustine could’ve sworn the shadows leaned in a little closer, listening to her every word.
“I can just . . . feel it.”
She wasn’t lying. That odd atmosphere from earlier — that light pressure, that slight hum under her skin — had crept back in, subtle but insistent. Like the world clearing its throat again, waiting for her to pay attention. She shifted in her seat, suddenly restless, and Bird moved away, offended.
Roy watched her for a long moment, then said, “You just . . . feel it? Are you sure you don’t want to start offering clairvoyance at your shop?”
Her smile was wry and entirely too self-aware. The kind of smile that knew exactly where all the bones were buried, as well as who’d put them there.
“I can’t,” she said simply.
“You can,” Roy insisted. “You print off some leaflets, throw a poster up—”
“No.” Augustine’s smile didn’t fade. If anything, it sharpened just a touch. “I can’t. Because as a witch I am, and have always been, one hundred per cent a fraud.”