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“See you soon!” Anna waved and headed out. She was buzzing with excitement, and Lucy felt it, too.

She smiled to herself, watching Anna go. She had left the front door open to let in fresh air, but it was getting a little chilly. A gust of cold air swirled around her, and she shivered.

“What were you doing?” a voice asked.

Lucy jumped, knocking over her typewriter-shaped penholder. Pens, pencils, highlighters, and two pairs of scissors scattered across the counter or rolled onto the floor. Lucy turned to glare at Grayson.

“What do you mean?” she asked. Since no one else was around, she waved her hand, magic setting the penholder’s contents back in place. Grayson stepped around the counter to stand in front of her, leaning his hands on the counter’s edge. The muscles of his arms shifted beneath his navy-blue sweater.

“With that girl’s book—your hands were lingering on it,” he continued, looking at her closely from behind those glasses. He had been watching her.

“Stalking me, are you?”

“Observing, actually.” Her pulse quickened, and he furrowed his brows. “You’re avoiding the question.” He thought about it for a second, then said, “You were doing some sort of spell, weren’t you?”

“If you must know, yes,” she replied tartly. She didn’t know why she was answering. She didn’t owe him anything. The only person who knew about her using book-magic was Charles, but of course, Charles had never looked down on her.

She waited for Grayson’s scathing response, sure he would note how frivolous and silly she was being, using spellwork for such an inane thing.

But he was looking at her curiously.

“Why?” he asked, voice gentle, blue eyes keen.

She blinked, surprised.

“Well …” How could she explain it? When she had started working at Crawley Books at age sixteen, she’d been sad and disheartened to see so many customers enter and leave without buying something. Surely it wasn’t possible there wasn’t a book out there for them; there was a book for everyone, it was just a matter of finding it.

But most people didn’t want her recommendations—everyone’s taste was so different, and she had only read so much—so she’d done the only reasonable thing she could think of.

She’d used her magic. She was a witch, after all.

Lucy began experimenting with her magic, trying to see if she could guide people to find their own favorite books, to get the books to call to the readers like sirens in the sea. She wanted to make sure they found their book—the one that would pull at their heartstrings, that would make them feel. The best types of books were the ones that lingered, and it was magic that accomplished this, nothing else.

It took some practice, but she became skilled at pairing people and books, like a sommelier pairing the perfect wine with dinner.

“You know how sometimes you find a book that you think is perfect for you, but when you pick it up to read, you end up hating it?” Lucy asked Grayson. “Or a book you don’t think will interest you at all ends up being your favorite? Or a book you read once and didn’t care for, maybe you reread it years later and absolutely adore it?”

“Yes,” he said, following along. He cocked his head to the side, regarding her with … she couldn’t tell what. Interest? Amusement? God, she was probably making a fool of herself. Best to get it over with since she had already begun.

“Well, it’s all because books have their own magic,” she said quickly. “But they can be a bit fussy. Their magic reaches out to the reader but sometimes doesn’t immediately hold, so the book will give up, which is why the reader won’t like it. Or the book won’t open up, so the reader won’t finish it, or it won’t even be picked up at all.”

She paused, swallowing. “I use my magic to make the books less fussy, I guess. I make it possible for the books’ own magic to hold, and then they can build a … connection. Like a real relationship. That’s it, really.”

He nodded, and she braced herself for him to tell her how stupid and strange she was, speaking of books as if they were real, sentient beings that could be mercurial and withholding and impetuous.

It was all her own theory, anyway; it wasn’t like anyone had written about this sort of thing. Witches were generally too busy being important and using their magic for “real things, real problems”—like her parents, who had met during their neurology residency. Both her parents were witches, but they didn’t think magic was … well, magical.

They saw it as a tool, like technology, that could be used to enhance one’s life. As very important neuroscientists, they believed magic should only be used for practical things, like keeping the house clean so they had more time to work. (She’d once seen her father skip five nights of sleep with the help of spells so he could continue following a particular line of research he was working on.)

Or even Charles, before he got the store, when he used his magic to make a truly monumental amount of money for a hedge fund in Manhattan.

“Interesting,” Grayson finally said. Lucy looked up at him, analyzing his face. His eyes were alight, his mouth a set line, a little crease between his brows. He was … patronizing. He thought she was crazy.

He was going to laugh at her. Sudden terror gnawed at her.

“Whatever,” she said, drawing back. “What would you know about magic, anyway? You’re not even a witch.”

She could tell. Witches picked up energy from one another; it was how she was drawn to Crawley Books originally, because of Charles.