“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Lunaria said instead, turning away from the question in her cousin’s gaze. “The ceremony.”
“Try?”
“I’m making no promises.”
Junie snorted but climbed back into her convertible. “You’re going to love it here. I know you don’t believe me, but you will. This place has a way of getting under your skin.” She paused, conflict crossing her face—hope and worry tangled up in the set of her mouth. “Don’t bolt, Luna. Please? Just... give it a chance.”
“When have I ever bolted?”
Junie gave her a look that said she wasn’t fooled for a second. Then the convertible was disappearing down the gravel drive, taillights swallowed by the encroaching dark, leaving Lunaria alone with a cottage she wouldn’t unpack in and gardens that were trying to tell her truths she wasn’t ready to hear.
TWO
LUNARIA
The cottage was exactly what she’d expected—functional, small, clearly maintained at bare minimum for decades by people who didn’t care about it. Dust coated every surface in a thick gray film. The furniture was basic and impersonal, chosen for durability rather than comfort. The kitchen looked like it hadn’t seen a proper meal in ages, the cabinets bare except for a few cracked plates and a mug with a faded Haven Shores logo.
Perfect.
She left her bags by the door. Didn’t bother unpacking—she never did, not fully. The suitcases stayed zipped. The boxes stayed sealed. She kept her belongings ready to move because she stayed ready to move.
The main room was open-plan, combining a sparse living area with the sad excuse for a kitchen. Hardwood floors worn smooth by decades of footsteps creaked under her boots. A stone fireplace dominated one wall, the hearth cold but structurally sound. She could imagine fires crackling here once, warmth spreading through the cottage while someone read celestial charts by the light.
Deia Tullio, probably. The witch who’d lived here. The witch who’d died here.
The skylight in the bedroom caught her attention. A ladder led up to a small platform positioned directly beneath it—a stargazing loft, clearly designed for celestial observation. Through the clouded glass, she could see the first stars emerging, pinpricks of light punching through the deepening purple of twilight.
Don’t. Don’t start reading charts. You’ll just see the blank space again.
She climbed the ladder anyway.
The platform was small, dusty, and perfect. She lay on her back and stared through the skylight at the darkening sky. The stars here were different than anywhere else she’d been—brighter, more present. Moreaware. The ley lines beneath the town must amplify celestial visibility, bending the light in ways that defied normal optics.
Her magic stirred without permission, reaching automatically for the familiar patterns the way a pianist’s fingers might find keys.
There. Her constellation—the arrangement of stars that corresponded to her birth, her life, her fate. She traced it with practiced precision, reading the positions, calculating the trajectory?—
She let her magic fall away, exhausted, bone-deep.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Junie:Leo’s getting your truck. Don’t eat the leftovers in the fridge, they’re from 2019. Also, there might be a ghost, but she’s friendly.
Lunaria almost smiled. Left that last part out of the tour, did you?
She climbed down from the loft, paced the cottage’s cramped rooms, and tried to convince herself that the prickling sensation at the base of her skull was just exhaustion. Just the stress ofanother move, another town, another set of strangers who would become familiar right about the time she left.
Not the gardens calling her. Not the magic in the soil reaching for her, coaxing her the way roots seek water.
By midnight, she gave up pretending.
The gardensat night were a different creature entirely.
Moonlight filtered through the tangled canopy of dead branches and overgrown vines, casting shadows that moved wrong—too fluid, too intentional, the darkness itself seeming to breathe. The pathways were cracked, broken, swallowed by decades of invasive growth. What had once been carefully manicured beds had become wild tangles of thorns and weeds, nature reclaiming the space that human—or witch—hands had shaped.
But beneath the chaos, the bones of beauty remained.
Lunaria walked slowly, her boots finding purchase on stone that should have been invisible under the debris. The gates had closed behind her when she passed through—swinging shut on their own, silent as they’d been when they opened—but she didn’t let herself think about what that meant. Didn’t let herself think about anything except the path in front of her and the thrum of power beneath her feet.
The ley lines pulsed with every step. Seven currents, interwoven, forming a network of power unlike anything she’d felt. The magic here was old. Patient. Hungry in a way that wasn’t quite malevolent but wasn’t entirely benign either.
