“Right,” Maverick answered, giving my shoulder another awkward pat. “You’re... erm... welcome, I guess.”
Maverick’s reply was almost cute, paired with the expression on his face. He looked like he was left floundering when anyone was anything close to kind to him. It was nice to think he thought of me as kind. Especially now that my magic had turned traitor and hurt someone I loved.
Maverick was saved from further emotional outbursts by the arrival of his wife. Taliyah’s power preceded her, a draft of chill air subtle enough that no mundane would catch it. But I wasn’t a mundane anymore. Not really. I’d undergone some kind of metamorphosis when I’d joined Wanda’s coven. I wasn’t sure what I was now, buthumandidn’t feel like it applied any longer.
Taliyah managed not to storm into the room trailing her bad mood like a storm. I knew the pinched, concerned expressionshe wore. I’d worn it a lot around Finn lately, because I was worried about him. Worried that somehow I’d hurt him with my power next. If I could have sworn off the alchemy entirely, I would have, just on principle. Because now it was a real thing. Now it was dangerous. More so than before. It had gotten Andre hurt.
Some of Taliyah’s bad mood leached away when she took stock of me. Her rigid posture relaxed into her usual ready stance. She somehow managed to make the move look fluid and artful, despite her somewhat angular proportions.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“So I’ve been told,” I said with a bitter laugh. “More than once. I don’t really care, though. I just want to know how Andre is.”
“A little faerie on the cleaning service might have let slip that he’s headed to a room for observation. I can’t give you a number, but we both know they wouldn’t assign him a room if he was still in trouble.”
Something in my guts unclenched, and I could breathe a little easier. I gave her a grateful nod. Tears followed not long after. I had to sink into a chair to get a grip on myself.
“Well, shit,” Tally said, dropping into the chair next to mine.
The arm she slung around me felt as improbable as Maverick hugging me back or, rather, awkwardly patting my shoulder repeatedly. Neither one of them were what you’d call the emotional sort. Most of the time they wouldn’t even be considered friendly. It was part of the reason it had taken the two of them to act on the tension between them that everyone else had spied from a mile away.
“I’m okay,” I sniffled, voice thick with the effort it took not to sob. “I’m... I’m happy he’s okay. Just give me a second.”
I felt ridiculous, going to pieces in front of Taliyah and Maverick. I couldn’t think of a pair less equipped for anemotional emergency than these two. But maybe that was exactly what they needed.
“Shh,” Tally said. “It’s okay, Poppy. I promise. If I thought things were worse, I’d storm in there myself and put him in an animated sleep. I can do those sorts of things now. But he’s going to be fine. Concussions suck, but on the whole they aren’t usually life-threatening.”
I knew she was right. Knew in the logical part of my brain that I’d gotten the best possible outcome. But it still wasn’t enough. I’d hurt Andre.
“It’s my fault,” I said quietly, shaking my head. “It was my magic that knocked the bat off course. If I hadn’t...”
If I hadn’t thrown the potion. If I hadn’t let Andre fight the thing in the first place. If I’d been stronger, smarter, faster, or hell morenormalI might have stopped what had happened.
Maverick rolled his eyes. “Why do I find that hard to buy? You need bad attitude to perform a malicious spell, Poppy. I doubt you have even two ounces of ill-will in your pretty blonde head. Enough to cast an itching hex, maybe, but anything hard core? No. I’d believe Astrid capable of it before you.”
“But I did it,” I argued, shaking my head as I looked up at him. “I threw a potion at the thing and it just... it kind of went AWOL and I couldn’t control it. The only other time I’ve seen something like that was when Wanda was still a Blood Witch.” I whispered that last bit. “The point is that whatever I’m doing or becoming… it isn’t natural. It’s screwing with fate. I shouldn’t have these powers at all.”
If I hadn’t joined the coven. If I hadn’t become an honorary witch. If I hadn’t become best friends with the head witch in charge. Would it have stopped me from becoming an alchemist? Or would I just have been left to flounder when the power came online in a few decades?
Maverick gave me a hard look. “But you have them, and there’s no changing that. You had an accident. It happens to the best of us. You don’t want to know how badly Wanda bungled spells in the beginning. She wasn’t just bad at potions back then.”
“Really?” I couldn’t imagine Wanda being bad at spells. Even if yes, she was horrifyingly bad at potion making.
Maverick nodded. “It just takes time and practice. Now stop wallowing in your useless altruism and talk to us. We want to know what’s really to blame for Andre’s condition? Because it’s sure as spell not you.”
I frowned because I wasn’t sure what he was asking me. “But I—”
“—no buts,” he interrupted, brows pushing together to frame the steely gray of his eyes. The look pinned me to the chair, daring me to argue with him. “Your spell wasn’t on target. Big deal, Poppy. Congratulations, you’re officially a baby witch. Get used to screwing up. It’s going to keep happening until you learn control. Now stop beating yourself up and tell us what the hell is going on.”
I wanted to argue with him, but couldn’t. I sank a little lower in my chair, mulling the question over. Baby witch. It sounded so demeaning to be a baby at anything in my late-forties, but this qualified, didn’t it? A baby witch. A baby alchemist. Couldn’t blame the baby for spilling the milk. Or whacking someone upside the head. It felt wrong, but I knew that disagreeing with him would only lead to a bigger argument. And I just didn’t have the wherewithal to face that. So, I accepted the label with a sigh and racked my brains, trying to come up with anything useful.
“It was dark,” I began. “Andre and I had settled in for the night after...” I paused, felt heat prickle up the back of my neck, and hurried to explain myself before either of them could notice the embarrassment playing out across my face. I didn’t needanyone teasing me over the things I got up to with Andre in the privacy of my bedroom. That was our business, not Haven Hollow PD’s.
I cleared my throat. A blush spread over Tally’s face, which told me she’d picked up on the reason for my sudden quiet. If it was possible to look even more sheepish than I did, she managed it. “I, uh, I didn’t see much. All the lights were off. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until Finn started screaming.”
Taliyah whipped a notebook out of the inner pocket of her coat at speed. It was like a magic trick. One second her hand was empty, the next she had a pen poised.
“Do you know around what time that occurred?”
