Telltale guilt lines creased his face. “Look, you’re going to have to talk to her in the morning.”
“Or, you could remind her I don’t do magic—save us the fight.”
Joe stood, smoothing down his robe, and passed her by on his way to bed, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Your mom’s had a hard year. Just hear her out, okay?”
“I can’t see how it’ll make a difference.” Her chest tightened. “You’d think she’d be happy I wasn’t casting anymore.”
“She never wanted that.”
“Funny way of showing it,” said Rowan, yawning.
“Just think about it. Please?” He gave her shoulder a squeeze and, noticing the drooping of her eyes, pulled her glasses off her face and set them on the end table for safekeeping.
By the time he’d hit the stairs and glanced back, she was snoring softly. As he closed the door to his bedroom, every candle in the room extinguished, as if snuffed out by a single puff of breath, leaving the room lit only by the warm, winking flames of the fireplace.
5
December 21
The First Day of Yule
Rowan awoke to the sound of glass clinking against wood. Her back protested, stiff, as she sat up from the futon, disentangling herself from the afghan and an additional bedspread someone had laid over her in the night.
The fire had long since extinguished, the morning air was cool and crisp, and she fell into the disorienting sensation of being lost in time—as though waking here were the norm, and everything else had only been a fit of fantasy. But with every blink of sleep cleared away, the feeling receded. She groped about for her glasses and when she slid them onto her face, reality came back into focus.
Across the room, a jar full of dried black and lavender tea leaves floated into its place on the shelves that lined the kitchen walls from floor to ceiling. An array of colorful glass caught the morning light—a kaleidoscope containing everything from cumin to brown rice to chunks of crystals and charcoal. Bundles of drying herbs wound with twine dangled like curtains from ceiling racks up among the exposed beams of the ceiling.
Despite the clutter, there was a sense of organization to it all.Everything had a place. Unlike Rowan’s studio apartment, which contained considerably less stuff and yet somehow was always a disaster.
She rolled off the couch to unzip her roller bag, excavating a chunky cream-colored sweater. Her mother was warm-blooded and hadn’t bothered to light a fire yet, though the effort would have taken only a few familiar words and a wave of the hand.
Rubbing hard against her arms, Rowan called out, “Couldn’t do me a solid and get the fire going?”
“Didn’t know when you’d be up,” came an amused reply from the kitchen. “Or if you might sleep all day.”
With a sound like a sharp inhale of air, the fireplace burst into activity. Flames licked their way over the half-burned logs while two more fresh-split pieces floated from a heavy metal basket to join the others.
“Good morning,” said her mother, “or should I say afternoon?”
“It’s not even ten!”
“I’ve been up for four hours. Your dad’s been up for three.” Lili Midwinter straightened and smiled through a graying mass of red-brown curls. She and Rowan were the exact, decidedly average height, but her mother’s habit of remaining in perpetual motion had rendered Liliana the thin version of their shared frame. The similarities continued into their eyes—hazel with a constellation of gold flecks.
“And yet,” said Rowan, crossing her arms, “none of that changes the fact that the literal definition of afternoon is ‘after’ noon.”
“Mmm.” Lili poured a steady stream of water from the kettle into a matted nest of tea leaves in an owl-shaped strainer on a pine green earthen mug. From the many cooling pans, the mess on the counter, and the wafting of butter in heat, it was clear she was already hard at work preparing for the Solstice dinner.
Rowan hooked an ankle around the base of a barstool and slid it across the hardwood floor with a loud scrape before floppingdown in front of a basket of many-colored eggs. Light blue, creamy olive, everything but the bleached white Rowan had to settle on at the grocery store.
“Is Stephan coming over for breakfast?” asked Rowan, looking at the spot her older brother had once claimed at the bar.
“Nope, but he’ll be here tonight. If you want to see him sooner, head over to the festival. He’s working the Guardians’ booth.”
“Still slinging a chain saw?” Her brother had apprenticed to a local chain saw artist and now carved statues at a roadside stand—or apparently at Winter Fest during the holidays.
“Still at it, surprisingly,” said her mother with a snort. Given his prior employment record, no one had expected it to stick, but he’d been at it for at least three years now. Which was two years longer than Rowan had ever stayed at a job.
I’d almost beaten my record.The thought was sharp.
