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"Sort of. Partly. It's a long story," Mara said, keeping her distance on the opposite side of the counter.
"Sounds like a good one. You'll have to tell me about it sometime," he said with a small smile.
"I don't think so. You probably won't find this place again after you leave. I don't even know how you found it again today."
Mara sipped her tea, trying to remember if she'd somehow botched the cup she'd given him the first time, which could be the reason he returned.
"I felt like I had a hook in my guts, and the shop dragged me in. I thought you might've put a curse on me," Augustus admitted.
"I wouldn't know how even if I wanted to. It's not how this place works at all!" Mara replied, trying to push down the panic in her voice.
What in the Saint's name was going on?
"Tell me how it does work, and maybe I can help figure out why I came back. You've managed to keep hidden from me for years. I don't think me being a sorcerer means anything." Augustus sounded annoyed by that, and Mara felt a little better.
It was true that she had known about the sorcerer of Albert Street. He had a reputation in the supernatural undercurrents of Melbourne as being some kind of authority figure. Hating both sorcerers and authority figures, Mara and Sophia had avoided him at all costs.
"The teashop attracts heartache," she explained slowly. "My customers come in and tell me what their grief is while I make them tea. They drink it and are healed, and once they leave, they forget me and that this place ever existed."
"God, that must be lonely," Augustus said softly.
It surprised her so much, she took an extra step back from him.
"It was better for my family that they were forgotten when they left a place. No one can track you and try and burn you at a stake if they don't know who you are," Mara replied with a little more venom than what she intended.
"My kind were persecuted, same as yours," Augustus pointed out. "That's why you were so surprised just now? You thought I'd forgotten you?"
"It's how it's always worked. I don't know why it hasn't now."
Augustus studied her carefully over the steaming rim of his cup. "What part of the process is the miracle?"
"People can move on without their heartache crippling them."
"So your gift is hearts?"
Mara laughed, and it was small and bitter. "No, sorcerer. My gift is grief."
"A saint of grief? How did that happen?" Augustus asked curiously.
"All the Corvo women are saints. It's something we are, not what we choose to become," Mara said. Something moved inside of her, and it was as if she was having the same reaction to the sorcerer that her customers had to her tea. She opened her mouth, and the words came out.
* * *
The Corvo family knew that Mara would be a good saint when three miracles occurred on the night of her birth.
The night itself had been wracked by a terrible storm, with lightning cracking the sky and the camp fearful it would hit one of the caravans and set it on fire.
Her mother was determined that her baby not be born during such an ominous event. Mara was determined to be born.
It was the first argument mother and daughter had. Mara won. She had struggled free from her mother and was greeted by the angry thunder.
For her first miracle, Mara rebuked the thunder for scaring her, and the storm had begun to cry soft rain in apology.
The second miracle happened when the entire camp came to look at the newest saint, only to start weeping as they told the sleeping infant the deepest pains they carried in their hearts.
The third miracle happened when her mother and the Corvo family had been about to throw her over a cliff and into the sea for being the most cursed Corvo ever born. As they reached the cliff's edge, Mara had laughed, and all the open wounds in the hearts of her family were suddenly healed.
They didn't toss her into the sea after that, but they'd always viewed their latest saint as a mixed blessing.
