Nova raised an eyebrow. “Glowing?”
“She saw someone again,” Stella said, with her usual casual drama. “Shadowy figure in the Butterfly Ward. Might be a ghost. Might be a long-lost relative. Might be a suitor.”
I nearly choked on my tea. “Stella.”
Nova turned to me, her eyes sharp now. “Wait—you saw something again?”
I nodded, setting my mug down with more force than I meant to.
“More than once, but tonight,I was heading out. Took the path through the Butterfly Ward. It was there. It felt like it didn’t know whether it wanted to be seen.”
Nova was already setting her untouched cup on the nearest table. “Come on.”
“What?”
“Now. I want to do a seeing while it’s still fresh.” She waved toward the window. “The shop’s just there. You’re coming with me.”
I glanced at my mom, who gave me a little nod, not surprised at all.
Stella just called out, “Tell the crystals I said hi.”
Nova opened the tea shop door and stepped into the cool air with me scrambling after her, heart thudding again, not from fear but something else. Anticipation, maybe. Or relief that someone else might help me make sense of the clues I couldn’t quite hook together.
We crossed the cobbled street, and Nova unlocked her front door with a murmured word and a twist of her fingers. The crystals in the window jingled softly, the sound low andwelcoming. Inside, the air smelled of lavender and lemon balm and a hint of something metallic, like starlight and memory.
She flicked the lock behind us, then drew the shade over the glass. It was quiet. Still. The way it always was before something important.
Nova turned to me with an unreadable expression. “Let me see your hands.”
I held them out without thinking.
Her fingers were warm when they wrapped around mine, firm but gentle. She looked down at my palms like she was reading them, but this wasn’t palmistry. This was something else. Something older.
“You’ve been close to something,” she murmured.
“I know,” I whispered. “I just don’t know what.”
She closed her eyes, still holding my hands. Her breath slowed, and the stones on the shelves around us began to hum.
Soft. Low. Like they were waiting too.
And then she said, just above a whisper, “Let’s see what the shadow has to say.”
Nova’s fingers tightened just slightly around mine. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady. I could feel its rhythm in my palms, which was slow and deep, like the pull of tidewater. The shop had gone even quieter. Even the street sounds beyond the shuttered window seemed to hush, like they knew something was starting.
The crystals on the shelves began to glow—not bright, not showy. Just enough to make the shadows dance. The ones near the ceiling pulsed in soft color, like candlelight filtered through sea glass. Green. Then blue.
She didn’t speak at first. Just let the magic settle.
A soft rose crystal lit softly, and Nova brought her eyes to mine. “That one signals when something ancient is listening.”
A breeze, not air exactly, but something like it, brushed past my cheek. I caught the scent of sage, sharp and dry, then underneath it something older. Wet moss, stone warmed by time, a trace of old leaves.
Nova opened her eyes. They weren’t her usual clear green. They’d gone cloudy, like storm clouds had rolled in behind her pupils.
“You’ve been marked,” she said.
The words weren’t a surprise. But hearing them aloud settled something cold into the pit of my stomach.
