Chapter 18 #2
I stared at the knotted grain of the wood table in front of me, wishing I could sink into it.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Fine. Two things. Maybe three.”
“Start with the worst one,” she said without missing a beat.
I let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “That’s subjective.”
“Liora.”
“Right, right.” I chewed my lip. “I … may have accidentally hit Torin with a truth spell.”
She went very, very still.
“Explain,” she said, voice dangerously calm.
“Och, don’t use that tone, it makes me feel like a naughty ten-year-old,” I muttered.
“It was the first night, when I got to the house. I found spells in Gran’s book and just thought I’d test one out.
I thought I was alone. And Torin walked in.
” I fluttered my hands. “Boom. Truth spell right to the face.”
Zara slapped a hand over her mouth like she was physically holding in a scream.
“It was an accident,” I rushed on. “I didn’t mean to. And we’ve been managing it. Mostly. He has to answer truthfully if I ask him something direct, but he can sort of … work around it if I don’t phrase things too pointedly, and he’s getting better at pausing before he speaks, and—”
“Liora.” Her voice shook. “You took away a man’s ability to choose what he shares. You say it like you spilled tea on his shirt.”
Guilt washed over me, hot and sour. “I know. I know. I felt awful. But what was I meant to do? There’s no easy reversal, not until we figure out exactly what I did.
And I’ve spoken to Sophie and Agnes and they’re helping me look into it.
It’s not like I’ve just shrugged and gone, well, that’s his problem now. ”
“Oh God,” Zara whispered, pressing her thumb and forefinger to her eyes. “This is why you didn’t tell me. Because you knew I would lose my mind.”
“I knew you’d make that face,” I said weakly.
“This isn’t about my face, Liora.” She dropped her hand. “Consent matters. In magick and everything else. How can he trust you? How can you trust that what he says is fully his, and not coerced?”
“It’s not like that,” I protested, sickness churning. “I’m not interrogating him. I’m not using it to … to catch him out or anything. Half the time it’s just him blurting some grumpy compliment and then glaring at me because he didn’t expect to say it out loud.”
“That’s not the point,” she said. “The point is that his free will was compromised and you’re living in his house and sleeping with him.”
The way she said it made my skin prickle with shame.
“I told him,” I said, my voice small. “He knows. I explained. He chose to keep me there. If he wanted me gone, trust me, I’d be gone.”
“He might also be lonely and terrible at boundaries,” she shot back. “Doesn’t mean this is healthy.”
I bristled. “You don’t even know him. You knew him years ago through Avery’s lens.”
“And you’re seeing him clearly through the lens of a spell you cast on him,” she said ruthlessly. “You don’t see why that might concern me?”
“Of course, it’s a concern,” I snapped. “I’m not a sociopath. That’s why I’m working to undo it. And in the meantime, we’re trying to be careful with each other. Honest.”
Zara let out a harsh breath. “And the other thing?”
“The … other thing,” I repeated.
“The thing that has your aura looking like a Jackson Pollock painting,” she said. “The thing that has every plant I pass whispering that you’re different. Don’t insult my intelligence. What happened?”
I swallowed hard.
“Liora,” Zara said quietly. “Please. I know I give you a hard time. I know I can be overbearing. But I’m scared. I can feel something big shifting around you and I’m stumbling in the dark. Literally and figuratively. Just … let me in.”
The plea in her voice undid me. My eyes burned.
“I’m a chartweaver,” I blurted.
The word seemed to hang in the little kitchen, heavy and strange.
I couldn’t handle the silence, so I rushed on.
“I—” I licked dry lips. “I’m a chartweaver.
It started with Greta’s reading. Her chart sort of …
lifted. Threads everywhere. And I could see paths, Z.
Actual paths. What would happen if she stayed at the supermarket, what would happen if she started this quilting business from home.
And when I touched the threads, they changed.
Just a bit. Got stronger. Then with Matthew, it happened again.
His paths, California and Loren Brae. I …
nudged the Loren Brae one. With his permission, of course.
” I shrugged helplessly. “And then I found Gran’s notes.
She’d written about chartweavers. There was a wee heart next to a line that might have been about me. It was like she’d known.”
The words spilled out of me in a rush, tumbling into the space between us.
Zara just stared, breathing hard.
“I was going to tell you,” I added quickly. “I wanted to have more information first. To not come running to you with half-formed panic. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. That I could figure it out on my own, maybe. Just for once.”
Her laugh was wet and disbelieving. “You thought you could keep something this big from me?”
Heat rushed to my face. “It’s not about you, Z. Not everything is about you.”
“It’s not about me,” she retorted. “It’s about the fact that my little sister can now literally put her hands on fate.
That she’s weaving people’s futures without training.
Without safeguards. Without telling the one person who has spent years trying to help her not accidentally set her life on fire every six months. ”
“I’m not weaving willy-nilly,” I protested. “I’m careful. I’ve got Bracken to help too. I only touch threads when the person clearly wants that path. When their chart backs it up. When my gut says it’s aligned.”
“You’re trusting a squirrel’s risk assessment?” Zara crossed her arms over her chest.
She had a point.
“I am being careful,” I insisted, my own temper flaring now that the initial shame had subsided.
“And, actually, it’s been good. Greta finally has the courage to start the business she’s dreamed of.
Matthew’s going to stay here and build a life that actually fits him.
I’m not forcing anything. I’m supporting what’s already there. ”
Zara’s hands clenched into fists on the counter. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?” I demanded.
“How powerful this is,” she said hoarsely. “How dangerous. Not just to them. To you.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she barreled on.
“You give big readings, Liora. Big pronouncements. You always have. ‘This relationship is doomed.’ ‘You’re destined for more than one great love.’ ‘This is the year you should leave your job.’ And sometimes, aye, there’s truth in it.
But words have weight. People hear you and they change their lives.
Now, those words are tethered to actual threads.
You nudge a strand and someone moves across the world.
Ends a marriage. Starts a business that might bankrupt them or make them thrive.
” Her voice broke. “And when it all goes wrong, because sometimes it will—you know it will—you’ll blame yourself.
You’ll drown in it. I will be the one picking you up again. ”
Tears stung my eyes. “So your solution is what? That I never use it? That I shut it down and pretend I’m just a normal witch with a dodgy WitchTok history?”
Her jaw set. “My solution is that you slow down. That you stop reading for random people until we understand what this is. That you tell everyone in the Order about it so they can help. That you bring me in instead of treating me like the enemy.”
“I already told the Order,” I said, stung. “At dinner. They know. They’re thrilled, actually. Agnes thinks Gran must have been waiting for someone like me for generations.”
Zara flinched like I’d stabbed her.
“You told them,” she repeated, voice flat. “Before you told me.”
Guilt twisted in my gut. “It just came out,” I said weakly. “We were talking about the brooch and the new stone and—”
She covered her mouth with her hand, shoulders shaking.
“Z…” I stood and walked over to her, putting my hand on her shoulder.
She flinched away as if my touch burned.
“Don’t,” she said, voice raw. “Just … don’t.”
The ache in my chest sharpened into anger.
“I’m allowed to have my own relationships,” I said. “My own support system. It doesn’t have to be you and only you.”
“That’s not what this is about,” she said, chin coming up.
Her cheeks were wet. “You can have as many friends as you like. Hell, I’m glad you do.
But you shut me out of two of the biggest things that have ever happened to you.
One, the man you’re falling in love with.
Two, the power that could make or break you.
And you only told me because you got cornered in my kitchen. ”
“I was going to tell you,” I repeated, the words feeling feeble even to my own ears.
“When?” she demanded. “After you rewove half the village? After Torin’s spell backfires in some horrific way?”
“That’s not how any of this works,” I snapped. “You’re catastrophizing.”
“And you’re minimizing,” she shot back. “As usual.”
I stopped, caught, fury working its way through me.
“You know what? I didn’t come here to be told, again, that I’m the problem in every scenario.
That if something goes wrong, it’s because I leapt without thinking.
I know that’s how you see me. The common denominator.
The screwup. The one you have to rescue. ”
“That’s not—”
“It is,” I insisted, tears spilling over now. “You might wrap it in concern but underneath, there’s always this … this tone. Like you’re just waiting for me to botch it again so you get to be the sensible one.”
“Someone has to be,” she said quietly. “It was never Mum. I’ve always had to be. Not being able to see doesn’t lend itself toward a lot of frivolity.”
The silence that followed was thick and painful.
Mitch whined again, shifting between us, tail drooping as if he’d absorb the tension if he could.
“Maybe,” I said, my voice shaking, “I don’t want to be the one you have to manage anymore. Maybe I want to figure out who I am without your commentary.”
Her chin lifted, the muscle in her jaw ticking. “And maybe I’m tired of feeling like the only thing standing between you and your next disaster.”
We stared at each other—me seeing my sister, rigid and wounded, her eyes shining with tears, her seeing me in whatever way she saw auras and energy and only a big sister could.
“I thought you’d be happy for me,” I whispered. “About the chartweaving. About Torin. About … anything.”
“I’m worried for you,” she shot back. “There’s a difference.”
“I think I should go,” I said, heart pounding.
“Maybe you should,” she replied, voice like ice.
The words slashed across my chest.
I grabbed my bag and coat with shaking hands. Mitch moved toward me, uncertain, and I bent to press a kiss to the top of his head.
“Love you, Mitch,” I whispered.
His tail thumped weakly.
“Liora,” Zara said.
For a hopeful second, I thought she might soften. That we’d hug it out, promise to talk later, do what we always did.
But she only tilted her head, her expression closed.
“Until you’re ready to be honest with me,” she said quietly, “I don’t know what to do with you.”
The words hit harder than any shouted accusation.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, pulled my coat on, and opened the door.
“Fine,” I said, without looking back. “Then maybe we take a break from each other. Since I’m so much work.”
“Don’t twist my words,” she said sharply.
“I don’t have to,” I replied. “They’re already tangled.”
I stepped outside.
“Liora.” Her voice followed me, thin and strained.
I hesitated, hand on the knob.
But whatever she was going to say, she didn’t.
The silence between us yawned wide.
“Be well, Z,” I said, and closed the door gently behind me.
The cold air outside slapped my cheeks as I stepped onto the street. Automatically, my eyes were drawn to the loch where icy wind kicked up waves, and the circle of trees on the island shifted in the wind.
For the first time since I’d come back to Loren Brae, I didn’t feel like I had a home base. No sofa to collapse on with tea and Zara’s dry commentary.
Unsettled, and questioning myself all over again, I headed home.
Not home.
To Torin’s house.
Because I didn’t really have a home I could call my own. And right now, when I felt so untethered, so … alone, I feared I’d just lost my safest place. My person. My sister who I’d always relied on.
“And maybe I’m tired of feeling like the only thing standing between you and your next disaster.”
My sister who was tired of me … of seeing me fail.
And the scary thing was I wasn’t sure her intuition wouldn’t be proven right.