Page 2 of Truly Madly Magically

I throw the covers off and get myself ready with a glamour. Not for Zander. But for myself. I consider it battle armor.

I look at Ruth, perched on my windowsill. “You can stay here.”

But the drama, my familiar says wryly in my head, her eyes gleaming as she performatively ruffles her feathers. How could I miss that?

I wrinkle my nose at her, but I also know she’s not going to let me out of her sight. It’s got very little to do with the drama and much more to do with war.

The war that the Joywood, witchkind’s ruling coven, promised us was coming on the night they intended to kill us in full view of the whole town and claim it was justice.

Absolutely nothing noteworthy or overtly terrifying has happened since that June night. We stood up to the Joywood and somehow lived—but the dread gets worse by the day.

None of us are safe.

I shake off the sense of impending doom and picture Zander’s place, his little house on stilts across the river. He can look out over the water and see our hometown, a gathering place since not long after the Salem Witch Trials for witches, spirits, and more than one enchanted statue that might once have been a magical creature.

I want to cry, but I never cry. Instead, I push it away, and focus on what needs doing. Call me whatever you like—I can promise you, I’ve heard worse—but I will always suck it up and do the thing. Eventually.

Tonight the glamour takes a lot more muttered spells than usual to hide my little bump from the outside world, and when I’m done, I don’t look as bright and energetic as I wish I did.

I guess that’s fair enough in the middle of the night.

Though I’m seeing an ex, so obviously I’d rather gleam.

Instead, I strap my trusty athame to my hip. I tell myself, piously, that vanity has no place here on this night of great virtue and overdue truth-telling.

It’s not that I lied. I can’t tell a lie to save my life. I literally, physically, can’t form the words to lie. It’s a curse.

An actual, very real curse, courtesy of my well-meaning mother.

But omission hides a host of sins, and magic helps.

I step out the little door onto the second-story balcony that runs along outside my apartment. Half of why I picked this building for my tea shop when I inherited my grandfather’s little nest egg was this balcony. I can look down St. Cyprian’s pretty Main Street in the middle of the night and lose myself in the way the quiet streetlamps glow, the graceful trees stand like sentries down by the river, and the Missouri starlight dapples over the bricks. Magical bricks. Protective bricks.

Because this is the one place all witches and magical beings are supposed to be safe—even half witches keeping all-too-unmagical secrets.

I breathe in the night air. Summer is hanging on even though we’re in September, but autumn is there too. The soft scent of gently letting go underneath that stubborn Midwest humidity that doesn’t want to lift. I close my eyes and let the magic take over.

Then I fly.

Up above the buildings and into the stars. The night pulses around me, bright with starshine magic. I hover for a moment, high above the river, and follow the gleaming line of it with my gaze to the place where three separate rivers—only two to human eyes—merge and mingle and meld. The reasons the witches chose this place to settle after the ravages of Salem.

Power. Magic.

Wild as the stars, thick as the night, and almost lost to the dark.

I helped save that confluence. Me, a piddling half witch with a questionable ability to control her magic, the past, the spirits, or any of the things a Summoner is supposed to do with ease. Still, I fought. I always fight and I always will. To help my friends. To save my family.

But that word hits harder tonight.

Because as soon as I share my secret, family means more than my mother, the slightly notorious Tanith Good of the more-than-slightly-notorious old Good family of witches going back centuries. Currently tucked away in her historic house with her partner, Mina Rodriguez.

Does she suspect the little secret I’ve been carrying around since Beltane? I’m not sure. Tanith is not the kind of woman to keep quiet, especially if that’s the wiser course of action.

But it’s hard for me to believe that the mother who knows me so well doesn’t have some inclination that there’s something different going on.

I run my hands over my little bump. Then I fly away from my view of the confluence. Ruth soars lazily beside me, down along the Mississippi toward Zander’s place. The stilts it sits up on are a nod to the capricious nature of the rivers and the determination of river town residents. Floods are in our bones, even when we’re fighting against them. Maybe especially then.

The lights in his windows are on, and I see him moving around inside. He’s probably exhausted, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a little drunk. God knows he hasn’t been eating right or taking care of himself since Zelda died.

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