Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LIORA
Another week flew by, and when I saw the text message from my sister—an invite for tea after my shift on Sunday—guilt assuaged me.
I’d been neglecting her, caught up with Torin and my new chartweaving powers, and hadn’t responded to many of her messages.
I was being a bad sister, and I knew it, but for some reason I just wanted to keep what Torin and I had to myself.
I knew that as soon as I put it under Zara’s microscope, she’d show me all the cracks.
By the time I reached Zara’s flat, my stomach was doing somersaults that had nothing to do with the half-eaten bacon roll I’d inhaled on the walk over.
“This is fine,” I muttered to myself as I juggled a bakery box and my handbag. “Just a wee sister chat. Tea. Cake. Maybe a light scolding.”
I knocked and the door swung open.
“You’re late,” Zara said.
That was the first bad sign.
Normally she opened with “Hi,” or “Mitch, who’s here?” Today, her brown eyes were narrowed, her dark hair scraped back into a tight plait and her mouth was a tight line.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” I said. “But I brought sweets.”
“Then, of course, you may enter.”
I shouldered past her into the flat and dropped the box on the counter. Warmth and the familiar scent of her spicy perfume wrapped around me. Mitch’s claws skittered on the floor as he bounded in from the lounge, tail going like a metronome set to rave.
“Hi, handsome boy,” I crooned, crouching to greet him. “Free for cuddles or on duty?”
“He’s off,” Zara said shortly. “I asked him to stand down.”
Mitch licked my hands, and I took my time petting him, while Zara just let the silence draw out as she walked to the kitchen counter.
I stood and shrugged off my coat, hanging it on the peg in exactly the place Zara preferred. Everything in her flat had a place. It made it easier for her to move around and also made it much easier for her to notice when something was off.
Like, say, her little sister’s entire vibe.
“Tea?” she asked, already reaching for the kettle.
“Please.” I sat at one of the chairs at the wee dining table, suddenly feeling twelve again, waiting for a telling-off about forgetting to put my shoes away.
Silence stretched thin between us as she filled the kettle, measured water with her usual precise efficiency, took down the sage-green mugs, put the teabags in. The normal sounds—running water, clink of a spoon against the mug, Mitch snuffling at my knee—should have been comforting.
They weren’t.
“So.” Zara’s voice cut through the quiet while the kettle hummed. “How’s life?”
The tone said everything that I needed to know.
“Grand,” I said, too brightly. How was I even going to get started downloading her on everything when she was in a mood like this? “Busy. You know. Work. Life, all that. You?”
Her head tipped slightly, her brows drawing together. “Do you think I’m an idiot, Liora?”
I winced. “Why do you sound like you’re about to fire me from being your sister?”
“I’m considering it,” she said flatly.
“Is this about me not popping by last week?” I asked. “I’m sorry I’ve just—”
“Been sleeping with Torin and afraid to tell me about it?”
I choked on absolutely nothing. “Wow. Straight to it, then.”
Mitch whined and walked across the room to lean against her leg. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” I muttered.
Zara turned off the kettle with a decisive click. “How long, Liora?”
“How long what?”
“How long have you and Torin been … involved?” She said the last word like it tasted bad.
“Not that long,” I hedged. “Just a couple of … weeks?”
“So basically you moved in and jumped him.”
Anger flared hot under my ribs, surprising me. “Why are you mad about this? Because it’s Torin? Because of what happened with Avery? Because you think I’m incapable of separating my libido from my poor life choices?”
Zara set the mugs down with a soft thud and leaned her hands on the counter, facing me fully.
“Because you usually tell me everything,” she said quietly. “And this time, you didn’t.”
The words landed like a stone in my stomach.
I looked away, suddenly fascinated by a pigeon on a branch outside her window. “I was going to. It’s just … complicated.”
“Och, is it?” She let out a humorless laugh. “You, living in the house of the man your ex-friend accused you of trying to steal, while half the town still thinks you’re a homewrecker, and now you’re actually sleeping with him? Can’t imagine why that would be complicated.”
I flinched. “That’s unfair.”
“Is it?” she pressed. “Or is it me saying out loud the things you’re desperately trying not to think?”
Mitch returned to me and put his head on my knee.
His warm brown eyes looked lovingly up at me and I stroked his soft ears automatically, my throat tight.
“It’s not like that, Z. It’s not some … revenge fling or proof the gossip was right.
We’ve been talking. A lot. We’re actually …
connecting. And honestly?” I swallowed. “I like him. Like, this actually feels good. It’s … real.”
Her mouth trembled almost imperceptibly. “And you didn’t think that maybe your sister might want to know before she finds out when someone mentions they saw you snogging him in a pub alley?”
Heat flooded my face. “Who saw?”
“Quite a few people, apparently,” she said tersely. “Lachlan mentioned it to Sophie, Sophie mentioned it to Faelan, Faelan mentioned it to me because she thought surely I knew. Imagine my surprise when I didn’t.”
I winced. “It wasn’t— We were just—”
“Liora.” Her voice cut through my flailing. “This isn’t about you kissing someone. You’re allowed to have a love life. I am not the celibacy police.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I muttered.
“It’s about the secrets,” she said bluntly.
“You moved back here because things were spiraling. You lost your flat, your reputation was in tatters, you were ready to give up astrology altogether. You cried on the phone to me in that grim hotel room and said you needed help. I found you a place to live. I even paid your first month’s rent.
” Her fingers curled against the counter, knuckles white.
“And then you promptly got yourself entangled in a situation that could blow up in your face in a dozen different ways, and you didn’t think to tell me? ”
“Because I knew you’d react like this,” I shot back. “Like I’m some daft child who needs to come ask your permission before I kiss someone.”
This time, she recoiled like I’d slapped her.
“That’s not fair,” she said, low. “You don’t need my permission. I’ve only asked you for honesty. There’s a difference.”
For a moment, I wanted to cave. To apologize and promise to do better, to fold myself back into the familiar shape of the sister who was always screwing up. It would be so easy. We’d done this dance a hundred times.
But something stiffened inside me. Maybe it was the way Sophie and the others had looked at me around that dinner table, like I was someone capable.
Maybe it was the threads I’d seen glowing above Matthew’s chart, trusting my hands.
Maybe it was Torin’s voice in my ear, telling me I wasn’t na?ve, I was hopeful, and that I deserved people who protected that softness instead of shaming it.
“I’m allowed to have things that are mine,” I said, surprising myself with the steadiness of my tone. “That aren’t run through the Zara Filter first.”
Zara’s nostrils flared. “The Zara Filter?”
“Aye,” I said. “Where every choice I make gets assessed for risk and stupidity, and then you let me know how much I’ve disappointed you.”
“That’s not—” She broke off, visibly reining herself in. “I worry. Of course I worry. Because you leap. You always have. Headfirst, no looking. And I’ve … spent a lot of years digging you out of messes.”
“I’ve never asked you to,” I said quietly.
The second the words left my mouth, regret punched me in the chest. That wasn’t true and we both knew it. I’d asked for her help more times than I could count. I’d cried on her sofa, raided her tea cupboard, let her pay deposits I couldn’t afford.
But I was so tired of feeling like a walking cautionary tale in her eyes.
Her jaw clenched. “You have. But I don’t care, Liora. Don’t you see? That’s what being a big sister means. I’m the one who sees the cliff before you cheerfully walk off it.”
“Oh, come on,” I snapped, frustration spiking. “I’m not that bad.”
Zara lifted a hand and began counting off on her fingers.
“The time you moved in with a man after three weeks because your synastry was off the charts and he turned out to be a kleptomaniac. The time you started that MLM candle business because Mercury was in your second house and thought it meant start a company rather than don’t sign contracts with pyramid schemes.
The viral WitchTok reading that got you booted from your flat.
The Avery incident. Do I need to keep going? ”
I flinched with each example, even the ones I could laugh about on a good day. But why was she so insistent to remember every failure? Is she also aware of the times I’ve succeeded?
“Okay,” I said tightly. “I get it. I’m the common denominator in my disasters.”
“That’s not what I said,” she protested.
“It’s what you meant,” I fired back.
Silence crackled between us, as sharp as broken glass.
Mitch whined again and returned to Zara to put his paw on her foot. She reached down to stroke his head, her fingers trembling.
“Fine,” she said after a moment, voice brittle. “You’re seeing Torin. You’re an adult. You can sleep with whomever you want. I may think it’s a catastrophically bad idea, but I can’t stop you.” She inhaled slowly. “What I do need to talk to you about is the magick.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. “What about it?”
“Don’t do that,” she said sharply. “Don’t play dumb. I can feel you humming, Liora. Your aura is a mess of new colors. There’s something different about you and it is not just post-sex glow. Something happened.”