Page 61 of Truly Madly Magically

The way Zelda isn’t, I can’t help but think. That makes me realize Great-Grandma Good has to have been born in the mid-1800s.

“Elizabeth Good,” I say with no preamble. “She married Zachariah Rivers. You must have known her.” As if saying her name summons her, Elizabeth is suddenly at my elbow.

Great-Grandma raises a scraggly eyebrow over a sunken purple eye. “Aunt Elizabeth? I suppose I did. Mean old biddy.”

Elizabeth makes an affronted sound and glares at her niece. “I was nothing but kind to Esmerelda and the rest of her kin. Is it my fault my sister raised a bunch of ruffians?”

Before I can respond to Elizabeth, assuming there’s a response to be made, Zander shuffles in. He looks rumpled and gorgeous as he comes to stand beside me just inside the kitchen doorway.

He smiles lazily. “Morning, ladies.”

I imagine entering any kitchen full of women might make a wise man pause, but Good women are next-level. There are a lot of violet glares and muttering that sounds a lot like spells.

Or curses.

“Better put the armor on,” I say cheerfully to Zander, who pretends not to hear me.

The only one who returns his smile and greeting is Mina, who is not a Good and is better for it.

Granny Good launches into an anecdote about my grandfather, long-lost and unlamented by her reckoning, and the way he seemed to believe he could win over any group in every room by the power of his smile alone.

I’m sure it’s a randomly chosen story, not pointed at all.

I find myself smirking. “It must be hard, not being able to win us over.”

Zander turns his gray gaze on me. “I know how to win you over.”

I shiver, very much against my will.

Mina starts carrying platters of pancakes and eggs over from the stove. Then we all sit down with the grandma convention, and it’s not exactly awkward. Not that Mom doesn’t give it her best shot, just to be ornery, but Zander manages to make even Great-Grandma laugh before I make my excuses to get to the store.

I stand up, but freeze when Zander stands with me.

“Pairs,” he reminds me, with an innocent look on his face and a thunderstorm glint that’s just for me. “Like Emerson said.”

“That’s good thinking,” Granny Good says with a sage sort of nod as she takes the last of the sausages. “You never know what might happen when you back the Joywood into a corner. Known for their harsh retaliations, that lot.”

“Granny. Do you remember the last ascension?”

She frowns a little, clearly thinking back. Eventually she shakes her head. “It’s all fuzzy. Must have happened when I was too young to care.”

It’s more than that though. It’s as Frost told us.

There’s no one who remembers because the Joywood want it that way. Which means we’ll have to rely on ourselves as we charter these unknown waters that only the Joywood know.

Zander and I walk down Main to Tea & No Sympathy in what feels a lot like the contentment I saw back at the stove in Mina and Mom’s kitchen. I could let that settle in me like panic, like anger, but maybe I’ll just have to accept that next to Zander is where I feel safest.

“I suppose Emerson will want to have a meeting tonight,” Zander says conversationally as I unlock the front door of my shop.

I snort at that. “Please. She would have sent a ten-page agenda by now if she was going to call a meeting. She’s probably too busy drowning in Wildes.”

“Then come to the bar with me tonight.”

He says this casually. Like he might have before our first Beltane prom. Like we just hang out. As friends. Or more.

I know there isn’t anything casual in the offer. Or how badly I want to take him up on it. I move around my usual opening routine, giving myself that time to breathe, to think. To push myself beyond feeling.

Beyond panic.

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