“Will do.” Zaide started pulling out shirts with pithy sayings likeKeep the Yule in YuletideandWitches Are the Reason for the Season,sorting them by size. Rowan slid up beside her to help.
“So you’re a part of the coven now?” asked Rowan, her voice coming out small.
Zaide joining them had been something she’d always wished would happen, but the Zaide of her time hadn’t been ready. That her friend had finally come to it now, when Rowan was no longer practicing, left an aching sense of missed possibility.
“Yep. Started dabbling last year, then a spot opened up, and it was like…” Zaide seemed to consider how to describe it. “Like the big old cosmic plan winked at me from across the bar.”
“Wow,” said Rowan, overcome with a feeling that was equal parts awe and jealousy at the certainty in her old friend’s voice.
I wish I’d ever felt that.
Zaide moved on to the register, fingers flying across the keys, and Rowan put away the last of the shirts. Her eyes came to rest on a stack of heavy stock paper covered in inky drawings. The topmost image was a reimagining of the occult shop’s logo, with a bolder, more modern flair.
“Are these yours?” asked Rowan.
Zaide glanced over and nodded with a smile. “I’ve done some design for a couple of other places, trying to update their branding. Been prepping those pitches for your mom, though she doesn’t know it yet.”
“Smart. Sneak-attack her with something mind-blowing before she can tell you not to bother.”
“Exactly,” said Zaide with finger guns. There was little that Liliana Midwinter enjoyed less than change, but Zaide’s designs were good, and the store’s logo could use modernization.
“So,” said Rowan, shuffling the papers, “I ended up driving from Seattle with Gavin McCreery, of all people.”
Zaide’s eyebrows jumped to the top of her head. “How didthatgo?”
“Fine, for a while, then very, very awkward.”
“You made it weird,” said Zaide with a nod.
“No! He made it weird.” Zaide stared at her with undisguised skepticism that forced Rowan to retreat. “Okay, so it might have been more on me. He said something…pretty harmless, and I overreacted. And I kind of overreacted again when I ran into him like fifteen minutes ago.”
Zaide nodded. “Uh-huh. You’ve always reserved a unique way under your skin only for him.”
“That’s not true!” said Rowan with a sputter.
“Um, yeah it is.”
Her brows bunched together. What was Zaide on about? Gavin McCreery had gotten under her skin because he had poked his way there, by acting like a McCreery.
At least, that was the first defense that leaped to mind. But as for examples of such behavior, she came up short. Gavin might have been her academic rival, but he’d never been a bully. In fact, the more she thought about it, it was hard to even find much evidence of rivalry. More often, they collaborated, complementing each other’s strengths and weaknesses so they could both excel.
“Okay,” said Rowan. “So, that might have been a thing.”
“It was definitely a thing. I mean, you cast a revenge spell on him! You didn’t even do that to Lane Smith when she tripped you on the bus, and you ended up with the nosebleed from hell that ruined your vintageCharmedhoodie we found in that thrift shop in Winthrop.”
Zaide was the only person who Rowan had told about the hair spell, confessing one night after they had gotten into her mother’s ritual wine. Unfortunately, the Zaide of the time was still many years away from her own magical awakening. The Zaide of today would have been useful in helping her undo it, but too much time had passed. Gavin waking up with his hair back to black would do more harm than good at this point.
Besides, it really did suit him.
We’re mad at him, remember?
Whether or not she’d been rude, he was still helping the enemy. He didn’t deserve total absolution.
At that moment, a gaggle of four older women in colorful pashminas wandered in, flipping Zaide into seller mode. Her tattoo sleeve shifted, a dramatically altered design featuring a tumbling trio of cats taking its place. One customer spied it and squealed in delight.
“Well, I better…” began Zaide, nodding to the customers.
“Of course,” said Rowan
