Page 65 of With All My Haunted Heart

You’re not wrong but still!

I chuckle, Colton’s boisterousness easing some of the tension in my shoulders. This is my home turf. I won’t let Sloane’s assistant intimidate me. Especially since he’s not trying to make me feel like an impostor. That’s my own baggage.

“That’s Colton. He died while he was in college.”

“Sebastian.” Sloane’s voice cuts through the short distance to where he and I have wandered away from the rest of the group. “How many spirits are in residence here?”

A flash of worry crosses Sebastian’s face, and seeing his confident armor slip makes me like him more. He tips his head to the left and breathes deep. Though I can’t feel anything specific, I get the distinct impression he’s stretching the bounds of his…intuition? Spiritual attunement?…to see who else is here.

“I sense four, including the one writing on the board,” he says at last.

Damn. He’s good. “Close, we actually—”

“There are five,” Sloane cuts in. “One is farther away, outside the manor.”

“That’s Laney,” I add, trying and failing to keep the impressed tone out of my voice. “They wander the property most days. They don’t like being cooped up.”

I offered to go with them, Colton writes on the board. But Laney said they wanted time to think.

“He’s disappointed,” Sebastian says, and his intuitive connection to the ghosts is so much stronger than mine. Without the magical interventions I’ve invented, I can’t tell for sure if one of the ghosts is in the room. And Sebastian is just the assistant. No wonder Sloane is highly respected for this work. I looked up their retreat a couple of weeks ago. People spend a lot of money to train with them.

Which, I realize with a sinking feeling, makes it obvious that Sloane would check in. Their standards are astronomical. They wouldn’t leave something this big to chance and trust alone. Especially not a new investment.

“Would you like to meet Colton more officially?” I pull open the drawer beneath the spirit board to reveal the rows of ghost goggles. While Xander and Elle talk in hushed tones with Sloane, no doubt going over all the other preparations for the retreat, I focus on impressing the assistant.

I explain how the glasses work, and when I get to the bit about the selenite charging station, Sebastian raises his eyebrows in challenge. “Why do you need a separate charging apparatus? Do you plan to neglect your work here?”

“Oh, I…I’m not a permanent fixture at the B&B. My goal is for everything to function independent of ongoing magical intervention.” Saying it out loud to a stranger punctures deep into the core of the loneliness I’ve been trying to ignore for days. I love my business, love serving my clients and figuring out solutions to unusual problems, but nothing has been as challenging as this. The creativity spell I’ve been tinkering with forever has only taken this long because it hasn’t gotten my full attention.

And the manor itself, living with Xander and Elle…this place feels more like home than the empty apartment waiting for me. God, the town, too. It’s so full of memories from college. Quiet and quaint and cozy. Even C3’s expansion, while a thorn on the rose of this place, can’t detract in any real way, not with the original store holding strong in Windsfell.

When Dea sent me photos yesterday—proof of life for the plants she’s been watering for me—the images of my space didn’t bring up any feelings of homesickness or comfort.

Instead, they were a painful reminder of how little time I have left here.

The deep rumble of Sebastian’s voice draws me back to the moment. He’s wearing the glasses now, and I hear one side of his conversation with Colton. Sebastian’s questions are polite at first, solemn, before something Colton says makes him laugh.

He slips the glasses from his face and passes them back to me. “This is incredible. Truly. I’m surprised NACOW approved them so quickly.”

Cold dread washes over me. “Sorry?”

“You did register them with NACOW, correct?” Sebastian studies me, and the look of blank confusion on my face causes his brow to furrow. “NACOW passed an initiative nearly a year ago that requires the formal registration of all new magic. They created an entire department to handle the paperwork. Surely, you’ve heard of it.”

I shake my head as dread sours my stomach. Fucking Nanette. This shit has my mother’s name written all over it, stifling innovation in the name of safety and tradition. Never mind that, given the chance to properly experiment, we might find magical applications that mundanes appreciate as much as healing. Not that we should have to cater our entire community to them anyway. “I try to keep out of NACOW’s way,” I admit.

Sebastian hums his discontent. “We can apply for an extension on your behalf, but each of your inventions here will need to be submitted for approval within thirty days of commercial use.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls his fingers over the screen. “This you?” he asks, flashing my own website’s contact form at me. I nod. “Florentia Erikson is the head of the Registration Department. I’ll email you her contact info.”

Flora. My little sister’s full name washes over me like a cold wave, leaving me numb. I remember her as a child, her expression gentle as she healed the cuts on my knees. Even though, as the older sister, I should have been helping her.

“It must be nice to be the president’s daughter,” Sebastian says, slipping his phone back into his pocket as my sister’s contact info lands in my inbox. “Florentia is the youngest director by at least a decade. Nepotism at its finest.”

“Flora is an incredibly talented witch,” I cut in, defensive of her despite our estrangement. “She’ll excel in that role.” Whether she wanted it is another matter entirely, but it’s not like I’d know. It’s been so long…

Bitterness elbows its way to the forefront of my mind. I shouldn’t care. She obviously doesn’t care about what happened to me. She never reached out. Never called. Never messaged me online. For all I know, Flora gave up her dream of being a healer before our mother shoved her into my old spot at NACOW, and now following in Nanette’s footsteps is all she wants.

Sebastian cocks his head to the side. “I thought you didn’t know about the ordinance.”

Shit. “I don’t. I mean, I didn’t. I…” I scramble for an explanation. I don’t want these witches to know I’m the disgraced daughter of NACOW’s leader. Not before Sloane’s investment is finalized and I secure the bonus that could save my business. “She was a few years behind me, but Flora and I went to the same high school.”