‘He deleted his account. The romantasy subreddit is no place for amateurs. Hey, did you finish the book I loaned you?’
‘I’m kind of avoiding romantasy right now,’ I admitted, studying the don’t walk sign, every second stretching out into an eternity. ‘Feels a little too much like homework.’
‘Does that mean fae are real?’ she asked, her eyes bugging out of her head. ‘And dragons and direwolves and selkies and—’
‘I hope not,’ I cut her off before she could really get going. ‘But who knows?’
When the light changed, Lyds strolled easily on as I bounced along on pins and needles. What would Alex be like? Would she think I looked more like my mom or my dad? What if she didn’t like me? What if she thought I would be a disappointment to my parents?
‘Em?’
‘Lyds.’
‘Does Wyn have a knot?’
‘Oh my God,’ I howled, wrenched out of my panic spiral by my best friend’s wild laughter. ‘Please never ask me that again.’
‘Gotta admit it’s a maybe,’ she said with a note of caution. ‘Like you said, who knows?’
Forsyth Park was packed, teeming with Savannahians and visitors of all ages. Lydia danced around a pair of bubble wand-toting toddlers while I smiled politely at an older couple, watching the world go by from one of the benches that lined the main footpath leading from Gaston Street to the fountain. The trees were happy here, surrounded by life and love. The live oaks, the sycamores, the cedars and the gingkos, they all grew tall and proud, and I heard whispers on the Spanish moss as I passed by, my skin tingling all over.
‘I know we can’t talk about this in front of my mom but I’ve been doing some more digging into the family tree,’ Lydia said, pushing her curls away from her face and holding themback with a stretchy hairband she’d had wrapped around her wrist. ‘There’s definitely a bunch of weird stuff going on.’
‘Such as?’ I asked, one eye on the sky above us.
The forecast was for sun all day but the way my panic kept rising and falling, I couldn’t be certain we weren’t in for an unexpected shower or two.
‘You know how old southern families are.’ Lydia examined her silver-painted nails as we walked. ‘We love to chart that ancestral line. Virginia must have three hundred years of photographs and paperwork, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licences, graduation diplomas, everything for everyone. Or at least everyone except my great-aunt Juliet.’
‘Great-aunt on Virginia’s side?’
‘Uh-uh. She died when she was sixteen. Virginia was still a baby so she never knew her. There are photographs from when she was born, a few school pictures, some early birthday portraits, but as soon as she hits fifteen, boom, she disappears. It’s like she just ceased to exist two years before she actually died.’
‘Maybe she was sick and didn’t feel like having her photo taken,’ I suggested.
‘Nope. I asked Virginia and she said Juliet died suddenly, right before her seventeenth birthday. But that could make sense, couldn’t it? If Juliet was the last witch and she died before she could go through the rituals, our magic would’ve been lost.’
‘It’s possible,’ I admitted, tugging on my locket. ‘Catherine told me, if a witch misses her Becoming, all the magic in her family dies.’
‘And if my great-aunt was supposed to be a witch, her granddaughter would’ve been the next one. Not me.’
All the sounds of the park were deafening, but all I could hear, all I could feel, was Lydia’s disappointment.
‘Even if everything lined up and you were supposed to be a witch, I still don’t know whether or not I could help bring your magic back,’ I said softly, seeking out her hand and holding it tightly. ‘The prophecy says I will awaken my sisters’ dormant magic. It doesn’t say how or when. Could be old magic families, could be new ones. Either way, I know you don’t want to hear it now but, Lyds, you’re safer without magic.’
She stopped in front of the fountain and the lightest mist hit my hot skin.
‘And are you safer without a sister witch?’
Deep down, the darkest, most selfish part of me was just as disappointed as my friend. Ever since discovering the Powells had once been connected to the blessing, with magic of their own, I’d nursed the tiniest hope that Lydia might be the one to share my burden. Now that light was extinguished for good, I could admit it to myself.
‘Anyway, it wasn’t only the magic,’ Lydia said, drawing me on around the curved footpath. ‘I’d kinda been hoping, maybe, this would be the thing that made me special. Something that was just mine and not Jackson’s. Twins always have to share everything, you know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and meant it. ‘But you are special. Please don’t ever doubt that.’
‘And you’re a simp,’ she said, throwing an arm around my shoulders and tossing off her moment of melancholy. ‘Don’t matter none anyway. When it’s apocalypse o’clock, I’ll be right by your side, woman or witch. Come on, I told my mom we’d be there by now and I am dying for an Aussie iced latte.’
Collins Quarter was beyond busy, just like always. White tables and teal umbrellas filled the outside patio but when I searched all the customers for the face my mother had kept in a locket close to her heart, I couldn’t see her.
