Page 72 of Big Little Spells

I decide there’s really only one way to handle this goodbye I don’t really want. I give him a smile that should feel like a caress, and I see it does. Then I whisper a brief but effective spell for a twirling, sparkling exit that lifts me out of his house and into the night air, like a Disney flourish.

I swear I hear Nicholas laugh somewhere deep inside me, as Coronis caws through the night air. I fly back down into town, but I don’t fly far. Once at the bottom of the hill, I decide to walk. I need the cool air to settle all the heat still inside me. I need to put together my thoughts.

Because there will be questions, and I’m not prepared to answer them. Girl talk is one thing. I’m not sure my cousin and my soon-to-be brother-in-law need to hear about my sexcapades with an ancient.

I smile to myself as I head down the dark street, the bricks beneath my feet still humming with the night’s wild, fertile magic. I still can’t quite get over the intensity of what happened with Nicholas. Walking through fires is one thing. But his bed was a different kind of pyre altogether, and I’m...not okay.

In the best possible way.

There’s a difference between human and witch sex that I’ve been kidding myself about for a long time. When you add magic, things change, but this was more than that.

I see Ellowyn’s owl, Ruth, perched on a store sign. Her spooky eyes glow, then she unfolds her unfathomably large wings and rises off into the night. I see Wilde House in my head, like a vision, and I know she’s telling me that’s where her witch is. And I know she’s still guarding over me as I head there instead of to Ellowyn’s apartment. I can’t see her, but I know she’ll quietly watch over me the whole way, protecting me until I’m safe again.

When I let myself into Wilde House, I can sense at once that my parents are not there. This is not unexpected on a festival night. And as it’s Beltane, I very deliberately don’t dwell on where they might be or what they might be getting up to. No child should ever entertain such images.

Smudge figure eights around my legs as I come in. I expect scathing commentary in my head, because she always has something to say about who I choose to share my body with.

Tonight she only purrs. I don’t know what to do with her approval, since it’s so rare, and so I move toward the voices I hear coming from the kitchen.

Ellowyn is sipping tea at the kitchen table when I walk in, and it looks like Emerson and Georgie are doing the same. Zander has a beer bottle. Jacob has a glass of water.

All eyes turn to me, and I...do not know how to arrange my face. I don’t necessarily want to give off just had amazing sex with an immortal vibes, but that is in fact what I’ve just done.

“Well?” Emerson prompts.

I take some time ambling over to the empty seat next to Ellowyn. “It was a clarifying ritual,” I say, very self-importantly, like what else could I possibly have been doing with a man who has literally defined male beauty as long as anyone currently alive can recall. I sneak a little glance at Ellowyn to assess her state. She’s a little pale, but she looks like herself again. And when she smirks, I feel a rush of relief, because that means she’s definitely back up to speed.

What happened to you tonight? I ask her privately.

I should be asking you that, she replies, sounding healthy—and snarky—in my head. I slide her some side-eye and she relents. I assume a gift from the Joywood?

Bastards. They would pick on the half human among us.

“What the hell does a clarifying ritual mean?” Zander is demanding from my other side.

“It means I walked through fire.” I shrug as if that’s as fraught with peril as the average trip to the drugstore. “It clarified my power. My Diviner visions are clearer now. The static is gone, and I feel...” There’s a certain personal nature to everything I feel, and not all of it is wrapped up in Nicholas and sex. “I’m more in control of myself.”

“That’s good. Right?” Zander asks.

“Very.” I think, You have no idea how good and it would kill you if you did. But I grin at my sister. “And Em’s got her special designation, so I suppose it only makes sense that I got one too.”

Georgie makes a little noise of satisfaction. “First of the year, last of the year. Of course!” She claps in excitement. “You two have to balance. I knew it. Well, what is it? What are you?”

“I can think of a few things,” my cousin mutters, but he’s grinning at me.

I grab his beer and take a sip. I suddenly realize I’m starving, so I magic myself a snack and a glass of sparkling water. I don’t need alcohol right now. I need... Well, I can’t have what I need at the moment. I need to let him brood himself out.

I take my sweet time eating the small plate of nachos I magicked myself. I drain my glass. I let it stretch out, because Emerson’s growing more and more fidgety while she waits.

When I can tell she’s about to burst, I grin at her. “I’m a Chaos Diviner. Apparently.”

“Chaos? That sounds...” Emerson trails off like she doesn’t know how to make it palatable. My poor, orderly, organized sister.

“Sounds like the ancient books have met you,” Zander says, and laughs when I make a face at him.

Georgie is frowning. “The amount of knowledge that’s been lost offends me, it really does. I’ve never heard of that one either.”

I think about what Nicholas said about steps and asking my Historian. It was offhanded, or so I thought, but maybe I’m actually supposed to ask her. Maybe that was him telling me what I need to do without actually telling me.

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