Page 31 of Witch You Weren't Here

‘Hallo, Kay,’ Ilina answered, her voice croaky with sleep. ‘I know I said keep me up to date, but it is extremely early in the morning on a Saturday, so I am sure this is vitally important.’

‘Well, I’m not back in London. I’m in Dusseldorf.’

‘Ah. What happened?’

‘Diversion because of the weather. And I have no clue if I can get any further. I was wondering if you could give me some advice? Tell me what the German news is saying? The queues here to speak to anyone are ridiculous.’

‘Say no more. I’m very happy to do favours for you which mean I can stay in my pyjamas and scroll on my phone.’

‘Thank you. That would be brilliant. Oh, just one more thing.’ She caught Ilina before she hung up. ‘This might seem like a crazy question – but do you have any other gifts?’

‘Magical ones?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’ Ilina laughed like it was a silly notion, and Kay was just starting to feel reassured that Harry had been bullshitting her, when her friend carried on: ‘I’m not from a very strong witching line. I did all those designation tests that were being circulated when that research paper came out, but, alas, no. I’m just stuck with magical hair dyeing. Why? Is this something to do with your visit to Madam Hedvika? Did she say you have an affinity you weren’t aware of?’

‘No. She didn’t. I’ll tell you more about that when I can speak privately,’ she promised before saying goodbye.

How had that revelation about multiple affinities gone unmentioned between her and her family? She spoke to both her mum and her brother regularly – her dad sporadically – and she knew they all kept up to date with news from the witching community. Why didn’t they say anything? Had she made magic a complete no-go zone around them?

How long ago had the news about this come out? If it was within the last year, it made more sense because most of their discussions tended to revolve around the wedding. And she’d probably been steering the conversations away from magic because of the problems she was having with it.

Stop, she instructed herself. She didn’t need to be worrying about this on top of everything else. She had priorities. Getting out of Germany and back to England being the first. Keeping a firm hand on her magic being the second.

She’d barely had a moment to really think about why her magic might be blocked as Madam Hedvika had instructed her to. All she’d done was stop herself from using magic and that had mainly been trying to calm herself so she didn’t have an unscheduled outburst. How many times had she actually been tempted to use her magic intentionally? Two or three?

This was getting her nowhere. She needed to find somewhere to set up and start figuring out how to get home, while she waited for Ilina to get back to her. Since the toast she’d eaten at silly-o-clock in the morning had evaporated from all the adrenaline, she headed to a coffee shop to grab something to eat, a very large latte and a seat.

She managed to find a small table near the counter and as she was getting organised, her mum started calling her. She’d probably expected to hear from her by now and Kay hesitated before answering. She liked to be calm whenever she spoke to her mother, even on the phone; though she knew her mum couldn’t pick up on her emotions that way, it was an ingrained habit. And Kay was not feeling calm.

In the end, she still accepted the call, aware she’d given Joe the unspoken reassurance that she would do her best to keep a lid on their mother’s anxiety. She spent ten minutes humming along while her mother worried out loud, trying not to let her own mind spiral out into hypothetical disasters, sipping her too-hot coffee and attempting to make sense of some of the web links Ilina was sending her.

The only useful thing her mother had to tell her was that the winds were still raging across Britain, with the added bonus of hail on occasion too, and Aunt Lucille said it wasn’t going to be easing off anytime soon.

Just peachy.

Kay hung up and commenced chewing on her thumbnail again before the taste of nail polish had her grimacing.

Somehow, last night, it hadn’t seemed quite so daunting to be alone in another country. Experiencing the wind and rain buffeting the plane made everything feel a bit more real this morning. The airport was hectic. The place where she was stranded entirely unknown. In Prague at least she’d had a passing knowledge of the city from staying there for the conference for a few days.

Almost like she’d been wanting to see a familiar face again and her magic had answered the call, she looked up and spotted Harry.

Be careful what you wished for, indeed.

He was on the other side of the barrier of the coffee shop tables, on the phone himself, his bag at his feet as he paced a perimeter around it, glancing up at the boards, his other hand pushing through his hair, knuckles white, and making a thorough mess of it. He looked even more stressed than her, which was saying a lot. And just to confirm it further, when he finished on the phone, he marched into the coffee shop, with his holdall hooked over his shoulder and purchased half a dozen pastries.

When he turned from the counter with his box, she found herself raising her hand to wave to him. It was a split-second decision. He might have marched straight out and never even noticed her, such seemed to be his focus on his travel issues and imminent pastry consumption.

And she should have let him go. Instead, here she was, half standing, waving her hand. It shocked him as much as it shocked her.

He blinked, before he manoeuvred his way through the tables.

‘Hey, how are you doing after that flight? Bit nerve-wracking, wasn’t it?’ He gave her a brief smile which didn’t even crinkle the corners of his eyes, let alone light them up.

‘I’d say I’m happy to be on terra firma again, but we’re a couple of countries too far to the east.’

He made a pained noise and put his holdall on the spare chair, freeing his hands so he could open up his box of pastries, staring at them intently. He was really, really stressed. Surely it wasn’t that big of a deal for him to get home for Samhain? Why hadn’t she noticed this yesterday?

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