Page 7 of The Witch & the Tiger

At this, the messaging grew frantic, and Willow had a hard time keeping track of it all. The general opinion was that Tiran’s run-in with the Unseelie Court and whatever was happening with it was also what the Dryad had warned about and what also might be causing some havoc with the ghosts that the necromancer/medium duo was investigating.

Willow: What is the Unseelie Court? It means nothing to me.

Chloe: Okay, so we have our world and the fae world, right?

Willow: Yeah…

Chloe: In the fae world, the fae courts rule.

Chloe: You have six major courts: Seelie, Unseelie, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn. There can be some overlap between the fae courts and our world.

Chloe: But we think the Unseelie are overstepping and meddling far more than they should be. We don’t have all the info yet, but we think they’re up to no good.

Willow: Wait, wait. And you think this has something to do with this guy Martin?

Chloe: Maybe. Maybe not, but we can’t discount it, either. But it’s kind of a coincidence that this stuff is happening around Dreadmor at the moment.

Harrow: I guess we’re due for another apocalypse.

Willow: A WHAT now?

The chat devolved into some more discussion about the fae courts and whether or not they were actually responsible for a lot of things.

All of it left Willow even more confused than before and wondering if she’d somehow ended up biting off more than she could chew.

Perhaps it was best not to try to make sense of it now and just deal with Martin face-to-face. People could tell her about Martin and spam the chat all day about their theories, but in the end, she wanted to hear everything from Martin himself and come to her own conclusions.

One thing for sure – she wanted to see Martin again. Sure, it helped that he was… attractive, but that had nothing to do with her interest.

Of course.

In the meanwhile, she practiced her magic, trying to extend the limits of it. The simplest way was to move around bodies of water that were already there. While this was tiring, it was nothing compared to the more advanced techniques like extracting water from a living thing or attempting to draw it from great distances. In fact, science might one day use water witches to extract water from distant planets and space. Right now, though, the best a water witch like Willow could do with some difficulty was to draw a body of water from about fifty feet away.

The other thing she could do was separate the salt from saltwater or search for hidden water sources, as water witches were more sensitive to the essence of water than most.

It was boring but necessary magic. When you had classmates who could see the future, shapeshift into fantastical creatures, and curse others with twisted, dark magic, it was easy to feel not good enough and like, somehow, she didn’t belong there with all the cool people, learning and interacting with so many different types of magic and supernatural phenomena.

Later that day, she spotted a ferocious puff of orange hair as she walked through the school grounds, and sure enough, it was Martin Gallagher himself, steadily heading toward the Triscor Gardens.

Her heart raced a little. Should she head over there? Would it seem weird? If Eva had passed along her number, surely he would’ve messaged by now, but he hadn’t. Perhaps he wanted to take his time or wasn’t that interested. She dithered as if hovering on the edge of a rash decision, not knowing if it would be the correct one or a soon-to-be-regretted one.

There was only one way to find out. Acting as if she was there by chance, she took the long way around, half listening to scraps of conversation around the gardens, admiring the scenery. Apparently, she wasn’t as inconspicuous as she hoped to be since he spotted her at once and waved.

It’d be impolite to pretend not to notice, so she waved back as she approached. Today, he dressed in warm clothing, compensating for the gloomy weather, the almost rain, and the low, dark gray clouds. Willow wore a hoodie and jeans.

Willow started. “I’m hoping your sister passed along my number to you since I didn’t get a chance to ask you for yours last time we met.”

He looked momentarily blank before fishing out his phone. “Oh! She did send it!” A slight hint of red illuminated his cheeks. “Sorry, I haven’t checked it.”

In over a day? She figured it best not to push it. “Yeah, I was hoping to get in touch with you at some point. I had a few more questions I wanted to ask you.”

He frowned, glancing between her and the message on his phone. “My sister says she talked to you. Did she… share anything?”

Ah. “Yes. Enough, I think, for me to know something about the situation. Though, I wanted to get your perspective on it. She said you might need someone with water magic.”

His eyes flickered, and he seemed to withdraw. “Yeah… but I didn’t want to be that obvious.”

“I… well, I don’t really know everything. But I did get the impression that your sister cares a lot about you. I also told her, and now I’ll tell you, I’m okay with helping you out if you need it, just as long as it doesn’t involve anything dangerous or illegal.”

---