Chapter Sixteen #2
The broom did one last little bounce like a child unable to resist jumping just once more on the bed, and then let me drop the final three feet.
I hit the safety pile in a graceless tangle of limbs and smoking straw. The broom’s bristles flared one last time, then died with a sad little fizzle as the shrub smacked it with a branch.
For a second, I just lay there, staring at the Ward’s sky, lungs heaving, heart galloping. My hair smelled sharply of singed ends. My fingers were cramped into claws around the broom handle. I could taste ash and adrenaline and, faintly, garlic from last night’s dinner.
Then the world resolved into faces leaning over me.
Twobble, eyes huge, ears drooped, expression torn between awe and horror.
Skonk, peering at me as if checking my vital signs against a checklist. Stella, fanning herself with a handkerchief as if she’d just watched an opera.
Nova, serene and faintly smug. The Silver Wolf, approving with reservations.
Keegan, every line of his face saying I want to yell at you and also kiss you and also wrap you in bubble wrap.
Twobble cleared his throat.
“So,” he said, grimacing a little. “It appears our emerging thesis is confirmed.”
“Which is?” I croaked.
He lifted one finger. “That your kitchen spells and broomsticks,” he said gravely, “are both things you should think twice about before inviting fire to the party.”
Skonk nodded. “Strong correlation between ‘Maeve uses magic on household objects’ and ‘unexpected combustion.’”
“Thank you,” I said. “Very helpful. I’ll add it to the chart I keep in my soul.”
“Oh, I have a chart,” Skonk said cheerfully, flipping the clipboard around. There, in horrifying detail, was a list:
Soup Attempt #1: spontaneous dancing potatoes.
Bread Attempt #3: dough became sentient.
Kettle Incident: minor steam tornado.
Broom Attempt #1: flaming comet.
“You forgot the cinnamon roll avalanche,” Twobble added.
“I thought we agreed never to speak of that again,” I muttered.
“You were very brave,” Stella said.
The Silver Wolf’s mouth twitched. “In fairness,” she said, “you stayed up. And you landed where you intended, more or less. It was… impressive.”
“Chaotic,” Keegan amended. “Terrifying. And impressive.”
He extended a hand. I let him haul me up out of the pillow-shrub death nest. My legs wobbled as his arm steadied me. Smoke curled lazily from the broom’s singed end, but no new flames blossomed.
I realized I was grinning.
Keegan noticed. His own smile answered, warming the Ward light around us.
“You liked it,” he said.
“I did not,” I said automatically.
His eyebrow went up.
“…Okay,” I admitted. “I did. A little. Once the screaming turned into hysterical laughter.”
Twobble slapped my shoulder. “That’s the spirit! Terror, then giggles. Classic arc.”
Nova tapped her staff once, drawing the Ward’s attention.
“You did well,” she said. “You over-asked, the Ward over-delivered, fire got excited, and you still managed to negotiate your way back down without breaking anything important.”
“My dignity is questionable,” I said.
“Dignity is optional,” Stella said. “Landing is not.”
The broom gave a little rattling cough. The charred ends of the bristles crumbled to ash and then, under the Ward’s gentle hum, began to regrow with tiny green shoots, like grass, sprouting from the ruined straw.
“Oh,” I breathed. “Look at that.”
Nova’s eyes glinted. “See? Even the broom thinks it was worth the trouble.”
Skonk made a note. “Resilience factor: high.”
Twobble bounced on the balls of his feet. “So! Ready for round two?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. Every muscle in my body disagreed with the idea of more.
Keegan squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to,” he said quietly. “We can stop here. I’ll spend the rest of my life factoring in ‘in case Maeve cannot leave ground’ contingencies. It’s good practice.”
“That’s weirdly romantic,” I said.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
I looked back at the broom, at the little green shoots. At the safety net that had done its job. At the Ward, which felt less like it was judging me now and more like it was curious: Again?
Once upon a time, I’d stood in a kitchen and cast a simple warming spell on soup and ended up with a pot that tried to sing show tunes.
The first experiments had been disasters.
I hadn’t stopped cooking. I’d learned where my magic tugged too hard and where it needed a firmer hand.
The same kitchen that had once threatened to eat me now produced edible meals.
Sometimes.
Maybe flying was like that.
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “One more. A little one. No fire.”
Twobble gasped. “She’s addicted.”
“Boundaries,” Skonk reminded me. “We’ll adjust the spell.”
Nova nodded. “I’ll damp the Ward’s impulse. Skonk, no amplification sigils. Twobble, absolutely no glitter.”
Twobble looked wounded. “What if I promise it will be tasteful glitter?”
“No,” three voices said at once.
Stella leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “If you do well, I’ll commission an artist to paint it.”
“If you paint me as a flaming hotdog, I will hex your lipstick to always smear,” I teased.
She shuddered. “Monstrous. Motivating. All right, no hotdogs.”
Keegan brushed a lock of singed hair back from my face, fingers lingering just a fraction too long. “Little hover,” he said. “I’ll be right here.”
“Fine,” I sighed, feeling the familiar, ridiculous stubbornness rise. “But if I catch fire again, I’m switching to teleportation.”
“Absolutely not,” Nova and Keegan said in unison.
We reassembled.
The broom, newly sprouted at the end, felt… restrained. Or maybe that was me projecting. Twobble sat on his hands. Skonk set the clipboard down like a sacrifice.
I swung a leg over the broom again. The dread was still there. So was the pride. So was the memory of being held in the air by something that, despite its dramatics, wanted me alive.
“Okay,” I whispered to the Ward. “Half an inch. Maybe a whole inch if we’re both feeling responsible.”
I nudged my magic.
The broom lifted.
No fire. No lurching. Just a soft, incredulous rise with a breath between me and the ground.
I hovered there, maybe a foot off the grass, the Ward cradling me, the broom humming, Keegan’s hand just under my knee, not touching, ready.
Twobble sniffled. “She’s so beautiful,” he whispered.
“Don’t jinx it,” Skonk hissed.
I looked down at my friends, at my wolf, at my slightly singed future, and laughed.
Maybe I would never love being off the ground. Maybe I’d always prefer hedges to heights. But in that moment, in that sunlight, with my broom not on fire and my heart doing its best impression of bravery, I thought—
If my grandmother wanted to meet me above it all?
Fine.
I’d see her up there.