“Yes.”
“But that’s different from the witches I thought we were?”
Leigh’s face crumpled in thought. “Not really.”
“Meaning?”
Leigh took her time to work out exactly how to explain it, and when she spoke it was slow and deliberate. “Our magic requires intention and focus, but when properly channeled the results are often immediate and tangible. Sometimes untrained witches touch on it without realizing it. It is not better or worse than the magic you already practice, but it is stronger and consequently more dangerous.”
“So it’s the same, just…more?”
“If magic was a spice you used in cooking, what you were raised in is sort of like only using salt and pepper. Simple. Effective. Hard to mess up.36 Our family and people like us have access to the entire spice cabinet. Flavors you’d never even dreamed of.”
“Can anyone be a witch?”
“Magic is just a tool,” Leigh confirmed, which drew a smile to Saga’s lips.“Witches are conduits for the flow of magic, but for people like your uncle Reza—the magic lives in their blood.”
“I don’t understand,” Saga admitted.
“If someone was never taught how to fully tap into their potential and channel that energy, it’s unlikely they’d ever be a danger to themselves.”
“Unlikely?”
“Things happen, and maybe someone accidentally summons something from the other side without proper training,” said Leigh. “I don’t rule out possibilities, and I don’t care for blanket statements, they’re never accurate—including that one.”
Saga picked up her knitting project to set it in her lap, not to start it again but to self-soothe by tangling her fingers along the cashmere yarn. “Did Mamó think I might hurt myself?”
“No, not necessarily. It’s just…with Audrey beinghow she isand the Winter Council being how they are about the Mundane—and how witches tread between. She wanted to wait. Then time just kept going, and you grew farther away. You met Hugh, and you stopped practicing. You became a rather different person—and it seemed more and more the right thing to not tell you.” Leigh smiled gently. “I know these past three months haven’t been easy on you, but it’s the first time I feel like I’veseenyou since before you left for Oxford.”
It hurt, but Saga knew she couldn’t deny it. She’d seen that change in herself—far later than she would have liked, but she’d seen it. Staring at her own reflection in the bridal suite, tears streaming down her face, and unable to recognize the bride looking back at her. “But, now that I know… Does that change things? Am I allowed to learn more? Or did Mamó forbid me from that world entirely?”
“She never forbade anything, Saga, she just didn’t want to lose you like we lost Audrey.”
Saga considered the cold and calculating demeanor of her mother.
The mere idea of the supernatural would make her lip curl—she was the sort of person to look down on you if you responded to a sneeze with “Godbless you.” That Audrey and Leigh Hudson were sisters yet so diametrically opposed in nature was like some sort of cosmic joke.
“You’re not going to lose me,” she assured. “Yes, I let the judgment of my peers and a cute boy shake my belief, and I lost myself for a bit, but I’ve been practicing witchcraft since before I could remember. If anything, learning that magic has an entirely new facet that I never knew about strengthens my belief. I mean, I’ve only seen a little so far, but Avery did this sort of divination spell with a bay leaf and it was amazing!” She fumbled for her phone to bring up the photos she had taken. “We could see these shadowy outlines of the spell that had been cast in the room days prior and—” She caught Leigh’s expression. “What’s wrong?”
Leigh’s focus was not on the upheld device, but rather on Saga. There was a sadness and worry nestled there, but instead of addressing it, Leigh reached out to take the phone. She scrolled carefully through the photos. “Someone clearly cast a circle around the bed—but why?”
“Avery thinks someone might have used it to summon something, maybe?”
Leigh’s lips pursed. “She took you to a crime scene?”
Ah, so that was the source of the trepidation she’d seen—spending time with Avery and the case. “Well, she thought I was already in the know and she needed a second pair of eyes, and my medical training was an added bonus.”
Leigh considered her. A gentle smile that didn’t fully reach her eyes, which were on the brink of tears. “There’s a spark in you,” she observed.
“How do you mean?”
“Something I haven’t seen in you for ages.” She tapped the phone screen. “You like this. You like the investigation. You’re like your uncle with his puzzles.”
Saga felt a little guilty as she took the phone back. Was she so obvious? She thought about lying, trying to cover up her excitement. After all, did she have any right to feel that way? Instead, what came out was, “I confess, I do.” She untangled her fingers from the skein of marigold yarn in her lap. “I know it’s only been two days, but something feels different in me.”
“It looks different too,” Leigh assured. “You’ve got a glow.”
“It feels like I’m doing something right,” Saga continued, her heart beating a little faster. “It’s exciting, Leigh, it’s like what Dad would always talk about…gruglede.”37 She laughed sheepishly. “I don’t know, maybe that’s dumb.”
