Page 82 of Witch You Weren't Here

She turned her eyes to Becca, shaking her head. ‘This was a stupid idea,’ she whispered.

Becca’s eyebrows pulled up in the middle, her brown eyes rounding plaintively. She touched Kay’s elbow as though she thought to prevent an escape attempt.

‘Mum thinks it should be fine as long as it’s only for a couple of minutes,’ Harry said in a hushed voice as he picked up another chair and moved it closer to the bed. ‘Come in.’

Well, she couldn’t run now, could she?

‘I’ll see you downstairs,’ Becca said.

‘What?’ How was she supposed to get a sneaky peek without Harry noticing she wasn’t wearing her glasses, if Becca wasn’t even coming into the room with her? She thought she’d at least be coming in to help distract him.

Becca reached up with her two index fingers, whispered a spell and tapped the lenses in Kay’s glasses. They promptly fell out into Becca’s hands as Kay gasped.

‘I’ll catch you downstairs,’ Becca said and then she was making a swift exit with half of Kay’s glasses in her hands.

‘Kay?’

Fuck. She blinked and stepped into the room, as shimmering ropes of colour unfurled before her. What kind of idiot was she to forget that she’d see her own emotional bonds too. She only had one stretching out before her, leading to where Harry waited for her. The golden glow she’d seen a touch of when she’d removed her glasses in the bathroom of the apartment in Prague.

Her hands clenched as she resisted the impulse to press her hands over the point on her stomach it emanated from, as though she could tuck it back inside, like a soldier who’d been disembowelled on the battlefield. It wouldn’t work, she knew that. It would just shine straight through her fingers anyway.

Love.

She’d fallen in love with Harry Ashworth over a decade ago and despite the other feelings that were there, it still glimmered like long-lost treasure.

It wasn’t the only thread of colour, though. There was a lot of red there – desire – no big surprise about that, and a vivid dark purple like a bruise, which also, sadly, made a lot of sense. Hurt. Pain. Some grey of guilt winding through. She remembered that from her dad’s bond with her mother, and the memory snagged like a hangnail on a jumper. She’d always interpreted that as her dad feeling bad for using her mum, because that was how her mother had felt. Used. But the emotions didn’t tell you their origins. Maybe her dad felt bad for hurting her mother. Or for not being able to love her back.

Maybe Kay should have stopped to ask him at some point.

She blinked and lifted her gaze up, trying to evade her bond and the storm of painful associations it brought with it. It wasn’t what she was there for and her feelings for Harry were only what she’d already known, even if she hadn’t been able to admit it to herself. It would get easier not to look at it when she was closer to Harry.

She hurried over to him and he indicated to the chair for her to sit in.

As she took a seat, Harry’s mum, Elenor, smiled at her. She was a tall, thin woman, her white hair pulled over one shoulder, somehow looking elegant despite the obvious strain and the simple lounge wear she had on. ‘It’s lovely to see you again, Kay. It’s been a very long time.’

‘It has.’ Kay’s throat was trying to close up and suffocate her, she was sure. Maybe it was her magic, finally fully turning against her. She immediately caught that idea in its fledgling state – her magic was doing what it was supposed to. And she was scared. That was what was happening. ‘My family is so grateful to you for opening your home to us and saving the wedding.’

Elenor nodded at her but her attention was drawn to Harry as he moved around to the other side of his dad. Adrian Ashworth was propped up by pillows, a plastic mask attached to his face as oxygen rattled in and out of his labouring chest. It hurt Kay to look at. She had no particular feelings for him – and the innate respect she’d been raised with had certainly been dented by the way he’d heaped pressure onto Harry – but seeing anyone struggling that hard just to draw breath was harrowing. How Harry and his mother felt with it being a man they loved, she couldn’t fathom.

And they did love him. She could see it. Bonds that were strong, golden vines rooted deep between their bodies. There was more there. Other feelings interwove, and she had a woozy moment, surrounded by so many bonds, all intersecting. It was a criss-crossing pattern, like the back of one of those elaborate rugs in the hallways leading up here, the hidden tangle which created the intentional picture on the other side.

‘Dad, did you hear that? Joe’s sister Kay is here.’

Dark eyes, rimmed in red, blinked and looked up. Adrian Ashworth tilted his head to the side.

Kay leaned forward. ‘I wanted to come and say thank you on behalf of my family. I think them being able to have the wedding here was even better than what they’d had planned. Ashworth Hall is such a haven for us.’

His fingers moved, a slight lift and drum, before he dropped them back down, like even that was too much effort, but his eyes crinkled at the edges, similar to the way his son’s did when he started to smile. He turned his head on the pillow to look at Harry.

Kay took the moment to examine how he truly felt for his son. She blinked, but the colours were swimming in front of her eyes. She couldn’t do it. It was too much, all the overlapping twists, she didn’t have the ability to separate it all out. So many bonds, it was a blur—

No.

No, she wasn’t going to fail at this. She wasn’t going to fail Harry.

She focused on his dad’s chest and instructed her magic to listen, rather than project. Her stomach fluttered as her own bond faded away, until she could just see the ones between Harry and his parents. That was a start. It was more than she’d ever managed before.

The ties between the Ashworth family were equally thick and strong, just as much love from his dad as there was from his mum, and the relief made Kay’s throat tight. But there was more to unpick – she pushed the bond with his mother into the background to concentrate on his dad and make sense of the hurt and regret, a feeling of … difference in some way, like they’d always been on different wavelengths – but still love, so much love. And trust, a pure light blue, unwavering and quietly radiant.

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