A moment later, Calli came downstairs, wearing a fluffy bathrobe and pajamas. Her hair was mussed and she looked cozy, inviting, and warm. Everything Malcolm desperately wanted to hold on to at that moment.
“Mr. Wellesley?” She joined Malcolm at the door, but kept his body between them. “Would you like to come in?” she asked, trying to tame the mess of her hair.
“He can’t.” Malcolm almost growled. The last thing he needed right now was his father and Calli talking, because he knew how his father felt about hedge magic.
“He can.” Calli gently pushed Malcolm aside to open her front door wide. “Stop treating him like a vampire.”
Malcolm snorted darkly. “He might as well be.”
Calli elbowed him in the ribs and smiled warmly at his father. “Please come in, Mr. Wellesley.”
His father arched a brow at Malcolm but said nothing as he stepped into the house. His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed.
“So, you’re a hedge witch?” he asked, although his tone implied less of a question and more of an unamused statement.
Her features tightened. “Yes, I am. My name is Calli Wynters. Come into the kitchen and I’ll brew some coffee.”
“Wynters?” Reginald repeated the name, and something strange flashed across his face. Malcolm didn’t dare ask what that was about. An old family grudge, perhaps? Great, on top of a prophecy to deal with, he might be living out Romeo & Juliet.
“How do you take your coffee?” Calli said as she headed toward the kitchen.
“You needn’t trouble yourself, my dear,” Reginald said with shocking politeness. “I just need to speak to my son alone, if you don’t mind.”
“I mind,” Malcolm replied.
“Are you quite sure you want her to hear everything?”
A gloomy sense of defeat tightened Malcolm’s shoulders. This probably wasn’t going to be pretty. He looked at Calli. “Just give us a few minutes.”
She nodded. He wanted her to be there, he truly did, but he didn’t trust his father to behave. He wasn’t ashamed of Calli, he was ashamed of his father.
The moment he and his father were alone in the living room, his father’s face darkened.
“What were you thinking? Opening up a portal on the street like that? What if someone had seen you? Or worse… followed you through? You could’ve killed someone. And you endangered yourself and all of the magic users here by threatening exposure to the non-magics.”
“Dad, I didn’t—” Malcolm started.
“But you could have.” Reginald closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “And here you are playing house with some hedge witch when you have the pick of women with bloodlines that go back hundreds of years.”
“Calli isn’t just some hedge witch. She’s—” he stopped. His father would lose it if he learned Malcolm was close to witch-locking with a hedge witch.
“She’s what?” Reginald asked.
“She’s important to me.”
“Malcolm, she’s no different from the other dozens of women you’ve courted. This one just happens to be a witch.”
“Don’t you see her spells? Look around you. Really look.” He urged his father.
All around them, Calli’s spells drifted through the air. Faint shimmering webs and streams of magic that looked like muted starlight and seemed to have a life of their own, protecting the house, encouraging the plants to grow. Simple spells cast with such intense power. For a brief moment, his father’s expression changed slightly. Curiosity? Interest? Then he seemed to recover himself.
Unlike the stately looking, stoic spells of a blood magic like those of his father’s, Calli’s magic was ever moving, ever evolving…as though it was alive. Tendrils of spells reached out to stroke the leaves of plants, and test the moisture in the soil and the air. Everything had a sense of being constantly tended to and taken care of.
“She’s powerful. That doesn’t change the fact she’s a hedge which. You can do better, boy. Much better.”
“Like you did? Marrying a non-magic?” He hadn’t meant to draw his mother into it, but the hypocrisy was too much for him.
“Your mother is different,” Reginald snapped.
