Once upon a time, I’d stood in a kitchen and cast a simple warming spell on soup and ended up with a pot that tried to sing show tunes. The first experiments had been disasters. I hadn’t stopped cooking. I’d learned where my magic tugged too hard and where it needed a firmer hand. The same kitchen that had once threatened to eat me now produced edible meals.
Sometimes.
Maybe flying was like that.
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “One more. A little one. No fire.”
Twobble gasped. “She’s addicted.”
“Boundaries,” Skonk reminded me. “We’ll adjust the spell.”
Nova nodded. “I’ll damp the Ward’s impulse. Skonk, no amplification sigils. Twobble, absolutely no glitter.”
Twobble looked wounded. “What if I promise it will betastefulglitter?”
“No,” three voices said at once.
Stella leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “If you do well, I’ll commission an artist to paint it.”
“If you paint me as a flaming hotdog, I will hex your lipstick to always smear,” I teased.
She shuddered. “Monstrous. Motivating. All right, no hotdogs.”
Keegan brushed a lock of singed hair back from my face, fingers lingering just a fraction too long. “Little hover,” he said. “I’ll be right here.”
“Fine,” I sighed, feeling the familiar, ridiculous stubbornness rise. “But if I catch fire again, I’m switching to teleportation.”
“Absolutely not,” Nova and Keegan said in unison.
We reassembled.
The broom, newly sprouted at the end, felt… restrained. Or maybe that was me projecting. Twobble sat on his hands. Skonk set the clipboard down like a sacrifice.
I swung a leg over the broom again. The dread was still there. So was the pride. So was the memory of being held in the air by something that, despite its dramatics, wanted me alive.
“Okay,” I whispered to the Ward. “Half an inch. Maybe a whole inch if we’re both feeling responsible.”
I nudged my magic.
The broom lifted.
No fire. No lurching. Just a soft, incredulous rise with a breath between me and the ground.
I hovered there, maybe a foot off the grass, the Ward cradling me, the broom humming, Keegan’s hand just under my knee, not touching, ready.
Twobble sniffled. “She’s so beautiful,” he whispered.
“Don’t jinx it,” Skonk hissed.
I looked down at my friends, at my wolf, at my slightly singed future, and laughed.
Maybe I would never love being off the ground. Maybe I’d always prefer hedges to heights. But in that moment, in that sunlight, with my broom not on fire and my heart doing its best impression of bravery, I thought—
If my grandmother wanted to meet me above it all?
Fine.
I’d see her up there.
