Page 9 of Truly Madly Magically

I’ve never liked owls, I tell her in my head. The only place I can lie at will, and do.

She hoots from her perch on Zander’s roof. While Jacob works on his arm, Zander’s gaze finds mine. We clash there in the moonlight, intense and obvious.

Revealing in its own way, at least to me.

I look around at my other friends then, though I feel off balance. They all look a little bruised and bloody, but we’re all on our own two feet. Zander took the brunt of the attack. Because he brought it on himself, I remind myself. If he let me help, he wouldn’t be so beat up.

Jacob looks at Emerson, our Confluence Warrior, coven leader, chamber of commerce president, and soon-to-be most powerful witch in the world, if we can convince witchdom to choose her—and us—in the coming ascension at Samhain. Jacob gives her a nod, making it clear Zander’s okay, though I’m sure he talks to her privately too. That’s their fiancé stuff.

Emerson nods back, like the general she is.

Her nose is bleeding, and her hair is in a crazy tangle. There’s that gleam in her eye. The Confluence Warrior gleam that might terrify a person if they found themselves lacking the confidence Emerson Wilde has in herself and her friends.

“We’ll go discuss this while we recover at Wilde House,” Emerson says in her decisive way. “On the bricks, where it’s safer.”

Not safe like we were raised to believe, not anymore. The lore tells us that the bricks that make St. Cyprian’s historic cobblestoned streets were enchanted as they were put in place, a standing vow to all magical beings that no harm could come to them here. But we’re not dealing with magic that follows the rules these days. So far, this year, there’s been black magic and blood barters and all sorts of twisted histories hidden underneath the surface of the rules we thought we knew—and the long-trusted people who govern us.

The bricks are safer, anyway. They offer more protection than a rickety river porch. My worry over what that vile thing did to Zander is for a different time. When I’m alone and haven’t just accidentally announced my pregnancy to all of our best friends.

When I can let myself feel the things I prefer to pretend I have no access to in the light of day. Or even by the light of the moon, if there are other people around.

Jacob and Frost help Zander, and Emerson links arms with me. I would tell anyone who asks that I’m not tactile, but my friends get a pass. And her gaze doesn’t linger on my stomach, thankfully. She’s focused on action. On getting us all to her family’s grand old house on one end of Main Street where generations of Wildes have fought off all kinds of threats in their day. I feel almost teary—again—because it feels like a reprieve. And I need it.

I’m sure she knows. She always does.

“I imagine your mother felt the fight too,” she says quietly, so only I can hear her. “I can hold her off at the pass if you want to...” she flicks a glance down at my now-healed stomach “...wait.”

I shake my head. No more secrets. “No, she should know.”

We all fly back to Wilde House, where Emerson and Rebekah grew up, though lately they both spend more time with their significant others than in the big Victorian that commands its part of town. It has stood here for almost the entire sweep of St. Cyprian history, as elegant and elaborate as houses out this way get. Its turret, where Georgie currently resides, sparkles bright beneath the September moon.

We all land together in the living room that has become Ascension Central, but has always been a meeting space since long before we needed to be a coven and officially fight the Joywood. Even back when Emerson didn’t remember all we are or even who she really is.

We met here. We ate. We planned. We helped Em run her festivals and plot her course through the local politics that were thorny and difficult even for someone who didn’t know there were witches involved.

Zander and I went whole meetings, now and again, without sniping at each other—much too busy supporting Emerson in her role as the youngest chamber of commerce president in St. Cyprian history.

Because sometimes love is as complicated and as simple as just showing up.

Georgie hands Emerson a flowy bandanna to blot at her nose. Rebekah is holding an ice pack on Frost’s cheek, and it’s clearly not because he can’t do it himself. No one announces that Jacob’s pushed his Healer magic to the limit, but there’s a communal agreement that there’s no point in him healing such tiny injuries that will mend before morning.

Not when there could be a whole war before then that he’ll need to be ready for.

“Should she rest?” Rebekah asks Jacob, referring to me.

“She’s up for a quick...recap,” Jacob says, looking over at Emerson. Again, not at me. “Nothing too involved.”

“She is right here.” But Emerson is looking at Zander when she stands up for me. “So. What happened?”

She doesn’t get out a notebook, but we all know that somewhere nearby or out at Jacob’s farm, a pen is floating above a notebook and fully prepared to take down every detail in written form. She’ll pore over it later. Obsess over every detail. Try to figure out everything so we aren’t caught unaware again.

It isn’t only the Warrior in Emerson that won’t ever give up. It’s just who she is.

I love her ferocious optimism, even if I can’t share it.

Zander looks across the room at me. He’s pale—and clearly sober. He’s holding his right arm gingerly, and some of the cuts on his face are still visible as faint pink streaks, but he’s healing more by the moment. I can see that he is.

There’s no reason for me to think I need to go and touch him to make sure.

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