Page 328 of Sigils & Spells

“All right look,” I said, lifting my head to look at three pairs of concerned eyes.

It touched me deeply, knowing I had the support of these three witches. Enid was new to our group, but no less important. I exhaled slowly as they waited, their faces expectant.

“My Da’s been arrested—”

“What?”

“No way!”

“Why?”

“I can’t go into details here, but I didn’t come to Westwood with the same intentions as you.”

“What do you mean?” Maia asked.

“Well, duh. I mean, I’m an earth witch, she’s water,” Jade said pointing to Rio. “We don’t know what Enid is, but we will. Maia is air, and you’re a fire witch. None of us have the same end goals.”

“No, I don’t mean that,” I said, taking a deep breath before I began to even think of an explanation for my being there.

The men came back, taking seats around the table. Enok and Magnus sat beside their mates. Brandon sat next to me, and I was so damn grateful for that even though we were only—well, I didn’t have a name for what we were, but I was happy he was near me.

“I came to Westwood because I needed to learn how to use my magic. Well, that’s not exactly true,” I mumbled, pausing to take a sip of the ginger ale Brandon had brought me.

I bit my lip, but everyone was still behaving normally, taking bites of food and sips from their drinks.

Shit.

I never thought about how they would look at me if they knew the truth. I never thought I would care. But I did. A lot, actually. This was one of the side effects of having friends, I supposed. I never had any before, and the experience was both new and a tad overwhelming.

Were they going to hate me?

It shouldn’t bother me. Really, it shouldn’t. Still, it did, and as I gathered my nerve, I noticed Brandon sliding his chair closer, his big, muscular thigh brushed against mine and my whole body seemed to sizzle at the contact.

“Hang on,” Enok said, and closed his eyes.

He whispered a few words, and I recognized them from a privacy cast I’d read about once upon a time.

Smart.

“We should be good now. No one but those at our table will hear what we say.”

“Thanks,” Maia told him and nuzzled his nose. “Come on, Tana. We can’t help if you don’t tell us.”

One look at the air witch, and a very familiar looking rose colored sweater, and I found the courage to tell my story for the first time.

“You all know the Second Witch Wars ended about forty years ago, and I may have even mentioned my grandmother died in battle. Florence Newton. My mother’s mother.”

“Oh no,” Jade said, patting my hand.

“I’m so sorry,” Rio murmured.

I nodded, pushing through my explanation. It was going to be long and sad, and well, I had to keep my emotions under control if I was going to get through it.

“I suppose every one of us grew up with fun tales of our family, but that was never entirely my story. You see, my mother died when I was little. It looked like an accident, but Da found proof of magical residue at the scene. He’d been a police officer for years, passing as a normal but actually working on a task force for the Council to keep magical crimes a secret from the human world.”

“Wow, I had no idea that was even a thing!” Jade gasped.

“Makes sense, though,” Rio remarked. “I mean, someone has to clean up magical messes, right?”

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